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BBC News
6 hours ago
- Sport
- BBC News
Warwicks on top against Worcs despite Brookes knock
Rothesay County Championship Division One, Edgbaston (day one)Worcestershire 262-8: Brookes 80*, D'Oliveira 57; Bamber 2-47, Barnard 2-47Warwickshire: Yet to batWorcs (1 pt), Warks (2 pts)Match scorecard Ethan Brookes led the resistance against his old club as Worcestershire toiled after choosing to bat against Warwickshire in the County Championship derby at closed the first day on 262-8 with Brookes unbeaten on 80 having taken responsibility after the fall of captain Brett D'Oliveira (57) left his side on an unconvincing 175-5.D'Oliveira had won the toss and chosen to bat on a good pitch but in perfect seam-bowling conditions with moisture in the air, grey cloud overhead and moderate light. Run-scoring was never easy against an attack led by former Worcestershire all-rounder Ed Barnard and Ethan Bamber who both ended the day with with the Kookaburra ball, the conditions were testing for batters and openers Gareth Roderick and Jake Libby added an uneasy 32 but then fell in successive overs. Both nicked nicely shaped outswingers to wicketkeeper Kai Smith; Roderick off Barnard and Libby off Ali struck his first two balls to the off-side boundary but added just three more runs from the next 29 balls before going back to Barnard and falling lbw to one that kept a little Hose (40) and D'Oliveira dug in to steady the innings, at one stage two runs coming from six overs before Hose pulled a rare loose ball from Bamber into the Hollies Stand. Three weeks ago, Hose smashed a dazzling, stroke-strewn 266 from 253 balls against Hampshire in Southampton. Care and caution were key this time in a partnership of 59 from 23 overs which ended when Hose hesitated when called for a single by D'Oliveira and was beaten by Barnard's throw.D'Oliveira, on the ground where he made his first-class debut 13 years earlier, batted with good judgment and determination to try to vindicate his toss decision. He reached his 24th first-class half-century (from 137 balls) but then edged Beau Webster, back with the Bears after Australia duty, to Taylor played across a straight one from Taz Ali and was lbw. Brookes and Ben Allison added 46 but were parted by the new ball when the latter edged Bamber to slip. That brought in debutant Bertie Foreman, signed on a two-week loan deal from Sussex, but he made little headway with the bat before edging Olly Hannon-Dalby to second saw the day through before the light - never good - closed in. The all-rounder will have his sights set on his second first-class century tomorrow if the tail can stick in there with supplied by ECB Reporters' Network, supported by Rothesay
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Sport
- 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.
Time of India
2 days ago
- Climate
- Time of India
IND vs ENG 4th Test: Manchester weather update – Will rain disrupt play at Old Trafford?
Heavy rains hit manchester Persistent heavy rain threw India's preparations for the crucial fourth Test against England into disarray as their first training session in Manchester was forced entirely indoors. The Old Trafford nets, which started as optional, saw several key players—including captain Shubman Gill , KL Rahul , and Jasprit Bumrah—skip practice altogether. The rest of the squad reported to the ground amid downpours and gloomy skies, leaving the press and onlookers with no view of the team's indoor activities. Manchester's famously unpredictable weather is proving a real challenge. Over the past three days, the city has swung from brief sunshine to steady rain. The forecast for the Test's opening day, July 23, predicts a 60% chance of morning showers and temperatures dropping to 17°C, raising concerns about start-time delays and tricky playing conditions. Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW! The uncooperative weather is just one of several headaches for the Indian camp. Fresh injury concerns have emerged in the fast-bowling ranks. Arshdeep Singh has a hand injury, and Akash Deep, who starred at Edgbaston, is now a doubtful starter with an ongoing back problem. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Struggling With Belly Fat? Try This at Home Home Fitness Hack Shop Now Undo India camp hit by more injuries, Playing XI TENSION before Manchester Test vs England In response, Haryana pacer Anshul Kamboj has been called up and could be on the cusp of a Test debut. Jasprit Bumrah , however, is expected to be fit and ready despite skipping the optional nets, providing a much-needed silver lining. Heavy rain in Manchester With the rain narrowing preparation windows, tough calls loom. The management is considering dynamic changes and a possible reshuffle at number three in the batting order, assessing Karun Nair's place, and debating whether to bring back Sai Sudarshan. Rishabh Pant 's fitness is a topic of discussion, with the team weighing the option of deploying him solely as a batsman, perhaps handing wicketkeeping gloves to KL Rahul or giving Dhruv Jurel his chance. Selection dilemmas and weather uncertainty now dominate the narrative. As both teams chase the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, all eyes remain on the Old Trafford skies, knowing they could play as decisive a part in the Test outcome as any player on the field. Catch Rani Rampal's inspiring story on Game On, Episode 4. Watch Here!
Indian Express
15-07-2025
- Sport
- Indian Express
‘It is wise to stick to the attitude that works for you': Mohammad Kaif says Shubman Gill's fight with Zak Crawley charged up England at Lord's
Former India player Mohammad Kaif said that the confrontation between Shubman Gill and Zak Crawley at the end of Day 3's play at Lord's charged up an England team which had copped a lot of flak after the Edgbaston defeat. He said that England used that bust-up as fuel to motivate themselves and defeat India to go 2-1 up in the 5-match series on Monday. 'Shubman Gill's fight with Zak Crawley charged England. After Edgbaston, there were questions about their batting, bowling and captaincy. But that incident fired up Stokes and he bowled an inspiring spells. It is wise to stick to the attitude that works for you. Gill will learn this the hard way,' Kaif posted on X. On Saturday, the fiery exchange in the final over had a lot of dramatic visuals, with India's captain Gill in the thick of it. Annoyed by Crawley's time-wasting tactics that ensured India just got in one over as opposed to two that they would have hoped, Gill ran from the slips, hurled verbal abuses at Crawley and Ben Duckett, pointed fingers, and mock-clapped at Crawley. The England openers also stood their ground, and gave it all back. Shubman Gill's fight with Zak Crawley charged England. After Edgbaston, there were questions about their batting, bowling and captaincy. But that incident fired up Stokes and he bowled an inspiring spells. It is wise to stick to the attitude that works for you. Gill will learn… — Mohammad Kaif (@MohammadKaif) July 15, 2025 The tensions would also boil over to the next day as Mohammed Siraj sent back Duckett on Day 4. Siraj proceeded to roar right in Duckett's face, his eyes bulging out of their sockets and veins popping. There was even a light shoulder contact. Duckett didn't seem to really look at the bowler at any point while Siraj did the opposite for him. The Indian pacer even got a little talking-to from the umpires after the whole exercise. The tensions continued into the start of the fifth day with most of the animosity concentrated in the early exchanges, in which Jofra Archer dismissed Rishabh Pant and Washington Sundar in a devastating early spell. Archer had donned the role of the pantomime villain in that period. He made sure to give send-offs to both the players that he dismissed. Even after he was taken off the attack, Archer remained in the batsmen's faces, having some words with Nitish Kumar Reddy, notably. Brook could also be heard telling Reddy from the slips that he is no longer playing in the IPL. Reddy also had a few words with Stokes but arguably the biggest flare-up was between Brydon Carse and Ravindra Jadeja about four overs before Lunch. Jadeja ran right into Carse while running the first of the two runs the batters ran off the last ball of that over. Stokes came in between to break the two players up. Both players seemed to be telling each other that they didn't do it on purpose and to be fair to them, they did look like they were blissfully unaware of each other before colliding in the replay of the incident. England won the Test by 22 runs but that was only after they dealt with 50 overs and one delivery of resistance from India's last three wickets, anchored by Jadeja who stayed unbeaten on 61 off 181 balls.
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Joe Root paints latest Lord's masterpiece to give old-school England edge against India
Perhaps the first sign of the classical day of Test cricket that lay ahead was the sight of Sachin Tendulkar, immaculately wrapped in a double-breasted jacket, ringing the five-minute bell before play. This was an old-school day that the Little Master would surely have luxuriated in during his playing days, a good – if slightly slow – surface providing enough to encourage batter and bowler and England eschewing some of their extravagant electronica to harmonise with India on a gentler, more melodic tune. To what extent was England's abandonment of their ultra-attacking dogma a reaction to their defeat at Edgbaston? It is a tricky question to answer given how well India's attack operated and far from benign conditions, seam and spin on offer to quench the bowlers' thirst at last in a series in which batters had thus far guzzled. Advertisement Still supping his favourite libation, though, is Joe Root, who ended the day 99 not out to underpin England's total of 251 for 4, a solid start - even if an injury for Ben Stokes looks a major concern. It was an innings that Tendulkar surely would have enjoyed even as it edged his potential conqueror closer to the throne he currently occupies; Root beginning the day 2806 runs behind Test cricket's leading scorer and ending it slightly closer. In doing so, England's No 4 closed in on a couple more modern masters – Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis and third place on the all-time list might be within reach tomorrow once a 37th Test ton has been completed. England's Joe Root ended the day 99 not out (PA Wire) If Tendulkar's tally once seemed out of sight, Root's insatiable appetite for runs was evidenced again. The last few months have seen the so-called Fab Four begin to curl at the corners: Virat Kohli has bowed out of Test cricket, while Kane Williamson is picking and choosing his trips as he enters his international dotage. Even Steve Smith seems to spend as much time in New York as the nets, though a second-innings 71 in Grenada last week for Australia was perhaps worth double. Root, though, remains right at the peak of his powers, and England needed him to be here on an day plucked from their past, starts squandered around their middle order linchpin. A portrait of Tendulkar had been hung in the pavilion gallery on Thursday morning and Root's image will surely join him, the Yorkshireman having painted many a masterpiece on this patch of north London pasture himself. Advertisement The old adage at Lord's is to look up not down and the steepling sunshine of high summer overhead perhaps made Ben Stokes's call to bat straightforward. So established, however, is England's chasing modus operandi that the decision to bat drew coos of excitation from the galleries, even the birds in the trees over the road in Regent's Park seeming to warble a tune of pleasant surprise as Jofra Archer's return to Test action was delayed by a day, at least. Sachin Tendulkar had rung the five-minute bell before the start of play (Getty Images) India skipper Shubman Gill, intriguingly, would have bowled. He, and the gathered patrons, might have anticipated the cacophony that usually accompanies England with bat in hand to soon sound but Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley kept the volume low in testing conditions. India poked and probed with the ball doing plenty, a returning Jasprit Bumrah drawing an edge from the left-hander in his opening over, only to find the ball falling short of Rishabh Pant's gloves. Crawley was dancing to his own tune, moving around the crease with the skittish energy of a deer at a discotheque, but he and Duckett stuck in there, putting away some of their more daring deeds. Indeed, the tall Crawley's only real misstep before drinks was when he fell flat on his face turning for a second at the striker's end; yet more ammunition, perhaps, for critics of his uncertain footwork. Advertisement Surviving the first hour without a wicket did feel like a real achievement, though, but the sense of success was shattered immediately after the break by Nitish Kumar Reddy. India's fourth seamer, a batting all-rounder, would probably not take the new ball for a strong club side yet proved all but unplayable: Duckett was strangled down the legside for 23 before one nipped down the slope into the gloves of Rishabh Pant via the outside edge of Crawley's poking Gray-Nicolls. Nitish Kumar Reddy struck twice in his first over for India (Bradley Collyer/PA Wire) With Ollie Pope put down in the gully in between the dismissals, fears of a frenzy grew after a sedate start by England's standards, but affairs were soon steadied again. Root exuded calm from the moment he sashayed down the pavilion steps and he and Pope combined well, the No 3 clearly backing himself against Bumrah as he negotiated 28 balls of a five-over spell after lunch. It was certainly slow going – a 100 brought up in 35.4 overs was England's most pedestrian progress at home since the dawn of this avant-garde new movement – but the roundheads calling for less cavalier cricket from England in the wake of defeat last week had perhaps been heard. Joe Root largely played sensibly to ease towards a 37th Test ton (AP) Root pootled to 50 from 102 balls just prior to tea and Pope (44) seemed certain to follow him soon after until Ravindra Jadeja drew a thin edge with the first ball after the interval. A sharp catch was taken by wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel - deputising for a stricken Pant, whose finger injury is not thought to be serious. A returning Bumrah then burst one through the defences of Harry Brook. Joe Root and Ben Stokes were together at the close (Action Images via Reuters) That brought Stokes to the crease, the skipper under scrutiny almost two years after his last Test hundred, made here in a flurry of fury after Jonny Bairstow's stumping by Alex Carey. In the image of his team, his attacking instincts were tempered, though - Stokes surviving his injury, a probing spell from India's tweakers, Jadeja and Washington Sundar, a three-over new-ball burst and – most bizarrely – flying insects to remain with his captaincy predecessor to the close, the late swarm of ladybugs denying Root his ton. Will the current captain be able to bowl on Friday if required? It could be a key question but the immediate instruction will be for he his side to bat on and bat big.
