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Hindustan Times
24-04-2025
- Sport
- Hindustan Times
RCB's Virat-Padikkal emerge as most prolific batting pair of IPL 2025
Bengaluru [India], : With another high-scoring, calculated partnership against Rajasthan Royals , the Royal Challengers Bengaluru pair of Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal outshone some of the most prolific pairs of the ongoing Indian Premier League to become the duo with most runs as partners this season. During the clash against the Rajasthan Royals , Virat and Paddikal added 95 runs in 51 balls for the second wicket, reaching a total of 426 runs as a pair. Their partnership played a crucial role in RCB posting 205/5 in their 20 overs. They have outdone the Gujarat Titans pair of England wicketkeeper-batter Jos Buttler and Sai Sudharsan and the Lucknow Super Giants pair of Mitchell Marsh and Nicholas Pooran as the most prolific pair of IPL 2025, as per CricViz. Before this match against RR, Virat-Paddikal had partnerships of 20 runs , 31 runs , 91 runs , three runs , 83 runs , 103 runs against Punjab Kings . It is quite stunning given how up-and-down of a start Padikkal had to his season, which he later picked up with some valuable, counter-attacking knocks. In eight matches so far, Padikkal has scored 230 runs at an average of 32.85 and a strike rate of 156.46, with two half-centuries and the best score of 61. The veteran Virat has climbed to the second spot in the Orange Cap race with his half-century against RR at home, with 392 runs in nine matches at an average of 65.33, a strike rate of 144.11, with five half-centuries. His best score is 73*. Coming to the match, RR opted to bowl first after winning the toss. A 61-run stand between Phil Salt and Virat kickstarted things off for RCB. Later, a 95-run stand followed between Virat, who made 70 in 42 balls, with eight fours and two sixes and Devdutt Padikkal . Despite some quick wickets later, cameos from Tim David and Jitesh Sharma powered RCB to 205/5 in 20 overs. Sandeep Sharma was the top bowler for RR, while Jofra Archer also delivered an impressive four-over spell of 1/33.
Time Business News
23-04-2025
- Sport
- Time Business News
Smart Cricket: The Future of Cricket Training and Performance
Cricket has evolved significantly over the years, not just in terms of gameplay but also in training methodologies and technology. One of the most exciting advancements in recent times is Smart Cricket—a fusion of cutting-edge technology and traditional cricket training to enhance player performance, strategy, and fan engagement. In this article, we'll explore how Smart Cricket is revolutionizing the sport, from AI-powered analytics to smart equipment, and why every cricket enthusiast should embrace this innovation. Smart Cricket refers to the integration of technology into cricket training, coaching, and gameplay to improve efficiency, accuracy, and overall performance. It includes: Smart Bats & Sensors – Embedded sensors track bat speed, angle, and impact to analyze batting techniques. – Embedded sensors track bat speed, angle, and impact to analyze batting techniques. Wearable Tech – Smart wearables monitor player fitness, heart rate, and movement to prevent injuries. – Smart wearables monitor player fitness, heart rate, and movement to prevent injuries. AI & Data Analytics – Machine learning algorithms analyze player performance and suggest improvements. – Machine learning algorithms analyze player performance and suggest improvements. Virtual Reality (VR) Training – Players can simulate match scenarios for better decision-making. – Players can simulate match scenarios for better decision-making. Smart Stadiums – IoT-enabled stadiums enhance fan experience with real-time stats and interactive features. Gone are the days when players relied solely on coaches' observations. With smart cricket bats and balls, players receive instant feedback on their: Batting stroke efficiency Bowling speed and spin rate Footwork and body positioning Brands like StanceBeam & Pitchero offer sensor-based tools that help cricketers refine their techniques with data-driven insights. Wearable devices like WHOOP bands and Catapult vests track: Player workload Recovery rate Muscle fatigue levels This helps in managing player fitness and reducing injuries—a game-changer for professional teams. AI tools like Hawk-Eye and CricViz provide: Pitch analysis Bowling trajectory predictions Batsman weakness detection Coaches use this data to devise winning strategies, making cricket more competitive than ever. Smart technology isn't just for players—fans benefit too! Features like: Augmented Reality (AR) replays Live player stats on mobile apps Interactive stadium experiences …are making cricket more immersive for spectators worldwide. The future holds even more exciting possibilities, such as: Robot Bowlers & Bowling Machines with AI Adaptability Biometric Smart Jerseys for Health Tracking Blockchain-Based Fan Tokens for Exclusive Engagement As technology advances, Smart Cricket will become the norm, helping players reach new heights and fans enjoy the game like never before. Smart Cricket is not just a trend—it's the future of the sport. Whether you're a player looking to improve, a coach seeking data-driven strategies, or a fan wanting a richer experience, embracing these innovations will redefine how cricket is played and enjoyed. Are you ready for the Smart Cricket revolution? Let us know your thoughts in the comments! TIME BUSINESS NEWS
The Guardian
09-04-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
In praise of cricket's dibbly-dobbler
They've been charging towards the wicket ever since overarm bowling was standardised in 1864. Well, not exactly charging. They amble. They shuffle. They waddle. They gather at the crease and unfurl dibbly-dobblers. The peaches they send down are not quite ripe. The jaffas they deliver are gluten free. These are the unblessed athletes, bereft of twitching fibres and whiplash limbs. Still, they never shy away from the requisite hard graft, leaning once more into the breeze and up the hill with devoted zeal. They're as rare as pangolins in Test cricket and are all but extinct in white-ball formats on the international circuit. They are the medium-paced seamers. They used to be everywhere in the 1990s and 2000s, bowling heavy balls on probing lengths with ring fields. Their most fertile breeding ground was in New Zealand where Chris Harris, Nathan Astle, Stephen Fleming and Scott Styris led the way, but there were others. Hansie Cronje, Steve Waugh, Saurav Ganguly, Phil Simmons, Paul Collingwood, Andrew Symonds, Adam Hollioake; you could select a side comprising only those who wouldn't get the new ball for your local club's first XI and still have a decent shot at winning a World Cup. Now they feel like an anachronism. According to CricViz no seamer who bowls below an average speed of 125km/h has taken more than 50 Test wickets over the past 10 years. The closest are Pakistan's Mohammed Abbas, who clocks in at 126km/h, and Jason Holder and Vernon Philander, who each average 127km/h. But they don't count. All three are among the top four wicket-taking seamers in Tests for their countries over the past 20 years. Holder's 6ft 7in is a weapon on its own and means he just has to land the ball on a spot to cause trouble at the other end of the pitch. Philander and Abbas are human metronomes, experts of the wobble ball with averages around 23 in Test cricket. These are the exceptions that prove the rule. So, where did they all go, those sidling seamers? The short answer is that they were hunted out of existence. In their heyday, medium pacers had the luxury of bowling wicket-to-wicket lines, often with the wicketkeeper standing up, with a slew of fielders protecting the boundary. Batters were content to nudge and nurdle them around the park as they meandered through the middle overs of ODIs or the hour before a break in Tests. Everything changed in 2005. The 50-over game saw the introduction of three powerplays which increased the number of overs with fielding restrictions. That same year the first T20 international was staged and a new generation of batters began to rethink the limitations of their forebears. They started to hit through the line and over the top with greater frequency. Thicker bats, harder decks and the use of two new balls made it easier to play lofted drives and pick-ups off the pads. Batters, once stationary, moved around their crease making it impossible to settle on line and length. The margin for error was atomised for any bowler who couldn't crank up their speed or bewitch with an arsenal of spin options. Then there were the cultural shifts. By this stage speed guns were regular fixtures at grounds and the shortcomings of some bowlers were laid bare. It was almost embarrassing to see your hero give it his all but barely nudge the dial past 110km/h. Batters, selectors, captains and the rest of us woke up to the realisation that these anthropomorphised bowling machines could simply be thwacked into orbit. As they say in Pakistan – unsurprisingly the only Test nation without a standout trundler – 'pace is pace'. It's easy to understand how the potent mix of fear and awe has warped the discourse. Between now and England's away Ashes at the end of the year we'll hear how Ben Stokes's attack lacks speed. We'll wonder if Mark Wood and Jofra Archer can hold their bodies together for one final salvo. We'll question if Ollie Robinson has the oomph to lead the assault, forgetting that Jimmy Anderson was England's leading wicket taker the last time the side won in Australia. Thankfully there's a haven where the endangered medium-man can find joy. Acting as the Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuary of the cricket world is the County Championship. Here a crimson Dukes, nibbling surfaces and fluffy cloud cover have helped preserve a dying art. Darren Stevens is the alpha of these betas, a legend who sent down 31,595 dobblers across 326 first-class matches over a 25-year career. And every time he did he weaved a thread connecting the elite game and the village green. Of course Stevens and his ilk performed their craft to an impeccable standard, and it's only wild fantasy that makes him remotely relatable. But apart from a tailender's swipe across the line, all of us can cosplay at being a professional cricketer. We might not be able to cover drive like Joe Root, take flying catches like Glenn Phillips or bowl thunderbolts like Jasprit Bumrah. But we can all amble and shuffle and waddle towards the crease, gather our limbs and send down a dibbly-dobbler. Do you remember when you made the leap into adulthood? I do. It hit me in the chest like a bouncer from Shoaib Akhtar. It was April 7 2000. I was 12 years old, still coming to terms with South Africa's exit from the World Cup the year before when my world fell apart. In testimony that still leaves me cold it was revealed that Hansie Cronje, the captain of the Proteas, a man hand-picked by Nelson Mandela to be a beacon of hope for a new democracy, my hero, had taken money from Indian bookmakers in exchange for fixing matches. Not only had he sold his country out for a few thousand dollars, he tried to rope in impressionable young teammates as well. Cronje said that it was an 'unfortunate love of money' that compelled his actions. He wept on the stand as he faced the full force of the King Commission, copping a life ban from any involvement in the sport. I remember watching with my mother in disbelief as I came to terms with some harsh truths all at once. This was the real world; ugly, broken, remorselessness. This showed me that good men were capable of terrible acts. That greed had the capacity to strangle patriotism. That even the selfless and the gifted could betray their values. It took me a while to get over it. Maybe, in some small way, I'm not quite there. Cronje died a year later, on my birthday, June 1 2002, when the light cargo plane he was on crashed into a mountainside near his home in South Africa's Western Cape province. I mourned his death but still felt angry. Now I just feel sadness when I think of him. He never lived long enough to win back the love of his people. I have no doubt that he would have. And though his legacy is forever tainted, time has helped heal some of the wounds he inflicted. If for nothing else besides teaching me some valuable lessons, I still hold him in high regard. The threat of a privately owned franchise league threatening cricket's ecosystem is nothing new. And while the encroachment of the Indian Premier League and all its subsidiary competitions feels existential, it is not unprecedented. Between 1977 and 1979, Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket upended the status quo and helped usher in a new age of professionalism. And crimes against fashion. 'This is the best day I've had in cricket and will probably be the best day I'll ever have' – Tom Banton gushes after hammering 371 for Somerset against Worcestershire, the fifth-highest individual score in the 135-year history of the County Championship. Spring is in the air and the Championship returns in style – Gary Naylor looks back at the opening round of games. Northamptonshire chair Gary Hoffman gets his chat on with Matt Hughes. And Carl Hooper's life in sport: from West Indies to Australia via county cricket – Jo Harmon talks to the 1990s great. … by writing to To subscribe to The Spin, just visit this page and follow the instructions.
BBC News
08-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Has West Indies' Pooran perfected T20 batting?
A West Indies left-hander dominating T20 cricket while striking sixes at will? You'd be forgiven for thinking we have been here with another devastating innings in the Indian Premier League on Tuesday, Nicholas Pooran continued his remarkable run of form in the shortest format - a run that is threatening to rewrite the the start of last year he has scored 738 more T20 runs than anyone else, is averaging 42.31, and is doing so while batting with a strike-rate of generally have a high strike-rate or average in T20s. Pooran is managing to achieve both. Is Pooran best in the world and better than Gayle? Condense the timeframe further and Pooran's statistics are even more remarkable. In his last 10 innings he is averaging 57.7 while striking at 199, suggesting he has found the cheat has hit 211 sixes since the start of 2024. The next batter on the list is South African Heinrich Klaasen on 29, broke former West Indies team-mate Chris Gayle's record for the most sixes in a calendar year last year - he hit 139 to Gayle's 135 in 2015 - and after scores of 70, 75, 44, 12 and 87 not out in this year's IPL is averaging 4.8 sixes per match this can better that in the IPL's history with Gayle's average of 3.9 per match during his peak years in 2012 the next best record."I don't plan to hit sixes," Pooran said earlier in the season."I just try my best to get in good positions and if it's there, just time the ball nicely." What makes Pooran so good? Pooran is regarded as one of the world's best hitters of spin. Over the past two IPL seasons, playing for Lucknow Super Giants, he has scored 448 runs at an average of 89.6 and strike-rate of 184.4 against slow bowlers - again suggesting he can bat with severe aggression while not getting stands with a classical-looking, slightly-open stance, taps the ground once as the spinner enters his delivery stride and then thrashes the ball with his fast hands."I've never worked on my bat speed, I'm just blessed with incredible talent," Pooran Trinidadian is not afraid to dispatch pace either. His strike-rate is 173.5 against left-arm quicks and 163.5 against to analysts CricViz, there is not one line of pace bowling Pooran does not strike at more than 200 against at the death. He strikes at more than 200 against every length except for yorkers, against which he takes down bowlers at a still-remarkable 166."He is a hard worker. No one ever sees that," former England all-rounder Samit Patel, who has played with Pooran at Trinbago Knight Riders and MI Emirates, told the BBC."The amount of training he does to try and hit sixes is phenomenal."His mindset is absolutely second to none and he is fully committed. There are no half-hearted swings."Having seen him train, if the ball lands in a certain area, he has trained and trained so it is natural to him [to hit sixes]."Since the start of 2023, Pooran strikes at 344.7 runs per hundred balls when playing the slog sweep, 266.7 when playing a hook shot and 234.7 on the pull. What can the bowlers do? Having previously batted in the middle order, Lucknow Super Giants and West Indies now use Pooran as a number result has been him succeeding in each phase of the game - the powerplay, middle overs and the death. Analysts CricViz measure a batter's performance with their 'batting impact' model and Pooran is the only player the world to have an average impact above four in all three phases since only obvious chink in Pooran's armour is against left-arm wrist-spin, against which he averages 31.5 and strikes at does have a weakness against bouncers, but only when they are bowled in the channel just outside off too wide and he averages 55.5. Get too straight with a line above the stumps and that number jumps to 126."Because he hits 360 degrees he is very difficult to bowl at," Patel says."From a spinners point of view, we try and make him cut the ball. We try and make him hit behind the wicket. "If he hits fours it's OK. When he hits sixes we know he is dangerous."
Yahoo
17-02-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
The numbers behind Rashid's white-ball genius
When England dominated cricket's white-ball world for the best part of seven years, winning both the 50-over and T20 World Cups, one man was a constant: Adil Rashid. In fact, such was Rashid's importance to Eoin Morgan's white-ball wonders, he was probably the first name on the teamsheet. And heading into his ninth global tournament, the Champions Trophy, which starts this week, the 37-year-old remains as crucial to England as ever. So what makes Rashid so good, how does he compare to other leg-spinners, and what is his favourite dismissal of an England career spanning almost 300 caps in all formats? BBC Sport and CricViz find out. Adil Rashid is England's Mr Consistent - he's rarely injured and almost never out of form. Only Sri Lanka's Kusal Mendis has played more one-day internationals since the 2015 World Cup, while in T20 internationals Rashid is eclipsed by only Pakistan's Babar Azam and Ireland's Paul Stirling in the same time frame. Despite making his debut in both formats in 2009, it wasn't until the 2015 rebuild under Morgan that Rashid became a fixture in the side - and he has taken more than 300 wickets in the decade since. No other bowler in the world has taken more one-day wickets in that period, and the next three bowlers on the list - Rashid Khan, Adam Zampa and Kuldeep Yadav - are also leg-spinners. There are bigger turners of the ball (Jeffrey Vandersay) and some get more drift (Yuzvendra Chahal), but none have the complete control and mastery of his art that Rashid offers. He is the slowest of all the leg-spinners who have bowled 500 deliveries in ODIs in the past five years - which is a quite deliberate tactic. "Some leg-spinners look to bowl it really quick, short of a length and don't spin it as much," Rashid told BBC Sport. "Some, like myself, like to bowl it a bit slower to try and beat people in the flight and get the drift, dip and spin. "With T20 cricket, people have started to bowl a bit quicker because they don't want to get hit for sixes or fours but I've been brought up encouraged to get the ball above the eyeline, get the batsman driving, coming towards me and coming for me." Rashid, who says he "loves" the art of spin bowling and the magic it brings, has won matches for England on every continent. Since making his ODI debut in 2009, Rashid has a better average than all other leg-spinners as a combined in the Americas, Asia and Oceania. It's relatively similar to his peers in Europe and Africa. Crucially, as well as the dozens of wickets he's taken in each country, he has an economy rate of less than six an over everywhere but in the West Indies (6.32). And while logic suggests his best years were under Morgan (141 wickets at 33), he actually has a better average, strike-rate and economy rate while playing for current captain Jos Buttler (59 at 27). In England's most recent 3-0 defeat in India, Rashid was a cut above - taking seven wickets at 27, including that of Virat Kohli twice. You see, Rashid is particularly good at taking down the opposition's star man... In short, good. Of the four batters he has dismissed the most in ODIs, three can be considered among the best in their team: Steve Smith (Australia, seven wickets at 22), Mahmudullah (Bangladesh, five wickets at 18) and Kohli (India, five wickets at 22). The other one of the four is Marcus Stoinis (Australia, five wickets at 22). He's taken the scalp of Pakistan's Babar Azam three times but has struggled against New Zealand's Kane Williamson (one wicket at 178). Williamson, his compatriot Ross Taylor and Sri Lanka's Dinesh Chandimal often come out on top against him. Not only does Williamson repel Rashid, he is good at dominating him - with his strike-rate of 123 only bettered by two men to have faced him in more than three innings: Mitchell Santner (New Zealand, 134) and Hardik Pandya (India, 130). When BBC Sport asked Rashid which batters he thought played him the best, he name-checked AB de Villiers of South Africa, Kohli, Babar, Williamson and West Indies' Andre Russell, Chris Gayle, Nicholas Pooran and Kieron Pollard. Asked for his favourite dismissals playing for England, he said: "The Kohli wicket in an ODI at Headingley in 2018. It was a nice leg-spinner which pitched outside leg and hit the top of off." How can one man dominate one format of cricket (OK, two!) but not the other (Test cricket)? It's not for the want of trying on either Rashid's or England's part - in 19 Tests, he has taken 60 wickets at an average of almost 40. But while leg-spin has become a key weapon in one-day cricket in the past 20 years, its influence in Test cricket has waned. In the 2000s, when Rashid broke through at Yorkshire, more than 10% of all overs bowled in Test cricket were sent down by leggies. That has dropped to 3.7% in the current decade. When Rashid was called back into the Test team - he played 15 of his 19 Test matches between 2016 and 2018 - he wasn't the reliable bowler he is today. In all formats in that period, he sent down a full toss or half-tracker 7% of the time. Between 2022 and 2024, bad deliveries - which come with the territory of being a leg-spinner more than most other bowling styles - were restricted to just 3%. Given Test cricket allows batters time to wait for the bad delivery, Rashid could actually be a better option for the red-ball team now than when he first made his comeback. The good news for England fans is that Rashid is still performing well and flourishing under Buttler's leadership. And when he takes two wickets or more in an ODI, England win 72% of the time. Chuck him the ball, Jos. Your essential guide to the ICC Champions Trophy Get cricket news sent straight to your phone
