Our team features four world champions, four South Africans, and one player from Bangladesh – find out who they are

Vishal Dikshit06-Apr-20221 Alyssa Healy (wk),
Most runs in a Women’s World Cup ever, best score in a World Cup final (men’s or women’s), back-to-back-centuries in the semi-final and final… records, and more records. Healy, one of the most devastating batters in the game, had crossed 50 earlier in the tournament too, against India and Pakistan, but she took her game to the next level in the knockouts to stamp Australia’s authority in a World Cup yet again, to make her an automatic choice in this XI.2 Laura Wolvaardt,
South Africa’s most consistent batter in this World Cup, Wolvaardt also carried their top order on her shoulders in the absence of runs from her opening partner Lizelle Lee. Wolvaardt kicked off the tournament with five 40-plus scores in a row, including four half-centuries, that helped South Africa chase 225-plus totals against England and New Zealand to qualify for the semi-finals, although her 90 wasn’t enough against the Australians. Her trademark cover drives were in full display all along, and she ended up being South Africa’s leading scorer for two ODI World Cups in a row.3 Rachael Haynes,
If Healy was Australia’s aggressor, Haynes was the consistent anchor who played her role to such perfection that she was dismissed before Healy just once in the league games, and then once more in the final. She started the tournament with a 130, where she accelerated after negotiating a stifling bowling effort from England, and she laid the platform with Healy for Australia’s middle order in nearly every match.ESPNcricinfo Ltd4 Meg Lanning (capt),
The obvious choice for captain and middle-order mainstay. It’s almost as if Lanning’s arrival at the crease is a signal for an Australian win, and her dominance was on display against some of the best teams in the World Cup: an unbeaten 135 to chase down 272 against South Africa, 97 to slice through India in another stiff chase, and an 86 against England early on.5 Beth Mooney,
An average of over 100, a strike rate of almost 101, flexible up and down the order, and also a gun fielder, which make Mooney a must-have in the XI. She opened for Australia when she was the Player of the Tournament in the 2020 T20 World Cup but moved down to the finisher’s role and did the job with aplomb in the 50-over format to add another dimension to their already explosive line-up. She took some of the best catches in the tournament, and also made sure she was there to seal the chases after the top order had done the hard work.6 Sune Luus,
A legspinning-allrounder, Luus shone mainly with the bat with her three half-centuries, giving South Africa the much-needed solidity at No. 4 given the lack of runs from Lee, some instability at No. 3, and the absence of Dane van Niekerk. Luus’ calming presence also meant her best knocks came against some of the top sides – England, New Zealand and Australia – in the tournament, which included two close chases.Marizanne Kapp picked up her first five-for in ODIs during the World Cup•Getty Images7 Marizanne Kapp,
Need early wickets? Throw the ball to Kapp. Want a partnership broken? Just look at her and she’ll come running and do the job. Death overs? She’s at her mark already. Tight chases? She’ll smash those runs. One of the sharpest bowlers around, Kapp’s consistent contributions with the bat down the order helped South Africa win five matches in a row. Her best performances, too, came against the top sides: a five-for and 32 against England followed by two wickets and an unbeaten 34 versus New Zealand, and 30 not out off 21 balls against Australia.8Pooja Vastrakar,
One of the brightest young stars for India this tournament, along with Yastika Bhatia, Vastrakar was in the thick of things straightaway in India’s opening game when they slumped to 114 for 6 against Pakistan. A career-best 67 off 59 in a formidable stand with Sneh Rana meant India got a deep batting line-up, which she proved again with quick cameos down the order opposite Australia and Bangladesh. She was India’s second-highest wicket-taker, too – bowling is her primary skill – coming on mostly as second change to successfully break partnerships. Her back-to-back yorkers against Lea Tahuhu and Jess Kerr count as among the highlights of the tournament.9 Shabnim Ismail,
The best and one of the fastest bowlers in this World Cup, Ismail, fearsome and experienced, was consistent with her wicket-taking skills right from the first game, going wicketless in just one game out of the seven she bowled in. Ismail showed her knack of removing the big batters up front with her pace, short deliveries, movement off the pitch, and then with her slower variations in the death overs.Salma Khatun’s bowling was a big reason for Bangladesh’s impressive show in their maiden World Cup appearance•Getty Images10 Salma Khatun,
The ball she bowled to dismiss Lanning alone would have helped Khatun make this list. Her three-for had Australia in trouble, before they escaped, thanks to Mooney. Against West Indies earlier, she scored 23 to keep Bangladesh in the hunt in a 141 chase, and that was after she had picked up a couple of wickets. The 31-year-old offspinner’s ten wickets, the most for Bangladesh, in the tournament played a major part in the team’s good showing in their maiden appearance.11 Sophie Ecclestone,
Ecclestone was the best bowler of the tournament with a tally one-and-a-half times that of the next best, Ismail’s 14. Only 22, Ecclestone has already played over 100 games for England and her artistry in flight, drift and turn are testament to her ability and numbers. The left-arm spinner was England’s main weapon in the middle overs, and sometimes in the death too. Barring her inability to pick more than one wicket in 20 overs against Australia, over two games, she had an unforgettable World Cup, highlighted by her six-for against South Africa in the semi-final.

In an interview to ESPNcricinfo, the 37-year-old wicketkeeper describes the communication and reasons given for dropping him from the India Test side

Sidharth Monga20-Feb-2022You seem angry, going by your recent public comments.
I never get angry. Nor am I now. I was told about this selection decision in South Africa, but I didn’t tell anyone that till now. Now that the team is out, I have only answered questions that people have asked me.How was this communicated to you?
After the South Africa series, Rahul [Dravid, the head coach] called me to the room and said, “Wriddhi, I don’t know how to say this, but for some time now the selectors and the team management have been wanting to look at a new face (as wicketkeeper). Because you are not our first-choice wicketkeeper, because you haven’t been playing for a while, we want to use this time to groom a younger wicketkeeper.” I said “okay, no issues”.Related

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And he said, “Don’t be shocked if you are not selected for the Sri Lanka Tests. In the meantime, if you want to take some other decision, you can do that.” So I told him I was not thinking about retirement; not even close to doing so. I told him, “I started playing cricket because I liked playing it, and will continue till I like doing so. If you are not looking at me for the Indian team, that is your decision.”And the selectors?
Ten-twelve days later, I got a call from Chetan Sharma [chairman of selectors]. He asked me if I was playing Ranji Trophy. I said I hadn’t decided yet. Then he went on to tell me what Rahul had said. So I asked him if this decision was for just this series or for the upcoming series against Australia and England too. Then he paused for a couple of seconds and said, “From now on, you will not be considered.”Then I asked him why, is it because of my performance and fitness or is it because of my age? He said fitness and performance were not an issue. “We want to look at new faces and if we bring in a new face, we can’t drop him without playing him.” That’s why he said “from now on”.I said, “Okay, this is your decision.”And he said, “You can play Ranji Trophy if you want to. It’s your call.”

“If they were going to consider me after this series, then why would Rahul say, you can take ‘some other’ decision if you want?”Wriddhiman Saha

You haven’t been playing the Ranji Trophy.
It has got nothing to do with the selection. Some time ago my wife fell sick with dengue, and she hasn’t recovered fully. We have two young kids too. So I have to give my family some time too. I told the Cricket Association of Bengal clearly that I was not playing for personal reasons.Do you feel you are being nudged to retire?
When the selectors and the coach say they have been thinking about this for a while, it is not an isolated call. It means other officials – president, vice-president, etc – are in the loop too.The biggest shock was that when I scored 61 against New Zealand in Kanpur despite being injured, Dadi [Sourav Ganguly, the BCCI president] texted to congratulate me and said I didn’t need to worry about anything till he is there. Naturally, I was shocked at what I was told immediately one series after.But the board president doesn’t get involved in selections.
I don’t know all that. I don’t complain about selection. If I am selected, I try to deliver. If I am dropped, I don’t say why I have not been picked. If I am not picked now, the team must not be needing me, which is why they have decided. I am not going to say anything against it.Are you satisfied by the reasons and communication?
They said performance or fitness is not an issue. “We just want to look at a new face. You are with the squad, not getting to play, so we will not consider you ‘from now on’.” So if I play Ranji or not, if I score double-centuries or triple-centuries, “from now on” means out. That means we will not consider you from now on.If you score a thousand runs in a Ranji season, your fitness will be obvious, then how can they not consider you?
If they are saying fitness and performance are not an issue, what is the issue? Age.One person indirectly asked me to consider retirement. One said, “From now on you won’t be considered.” It is clear they won’t take me whatever I do. I have been told that Chetan Sharma yesterday said you are not being considered only for these two Tests. That version is different. I have been told “from now on”. If they were going to consider me after this series, then why would Rahul say, “You can take some other decision if you want”?Have you spoken to Ganguly after that?
No. Not after that text.

A new team and a new captain went all the way in IPL 2022

ESPNcricinfo stats, Mathew Varghese, Illustration by Kshiraja K03-Jun-2022ESPNcricinfo Ltd

All the stats highlights from the first ODI in Harare

Sampath Bandarupalli05-Aug-2022304 Target chased by Zimbabwe in the first ODI. It is their highest successful target against Bangladesh in ODIs and their joint-third highest chase. Their previous highest successful chase against Bangladesh was 258, way back in 1999 in Dhaka.3 Zimbabwe became only the third team to successfully chase down a target of 300-plus runs against Bangladesh in ODIs. Pakistan chased 327 during the 2014 Asia Cup in Mirpur, while England chased down 306 during the 2017 Champions Trophy.19 Consecutive wins for Bangladesh against Zimbabwe in ODIs, before the five-wicket defeat in Harare. Zimbabwe’s last ODI win against Bangladesh came in May 2013, when they won by seven wickets in Bulawayo.4 Instances of a team losing a men’s ODI despite batting full 50 overs at the cost of two or fewer wickets. All the previous three instances were also while batting first, with the last of them by South Africa, when they scored 266 for 2 against Pakistan in 2019.ESPNcricinfo Ltd301 Runs scored by Zimbabwe after the fall of the second wicket in the chase. It is only the fifth instance of a team scoring 300-plus runs for the third and lower wicket in a successful ODI chase. The highest is 347 runs by Australia against India in 2019, after losing two wickets for 12 runs during a 359-run target chase.2 Innocent Kaia and Sikandar Raza are only the second pair to score hundreds in the same ODI innings for Zimbabwe. Stuart Carlisle and Sean Ervine became the first such pair when they scored against India during the 2004 VB Series at the Adelaide Oval.192 Partnership runs between Kaia and Raza, the third highest stand for Zimbabwe in ODI cricket. The highest is the 224-run opening stand by Raza with Hamilton Masakadza against Afghanistan in 2014, while Carlisle and Ervine added 202 for the fourth wicket against India in 2004.135* Raza’s score against Bangladesh in Harare is the highest individual score during a successful ODI chase while batting at No.5 and lower. Michael Bracewell’s 127* against Ireland last month in Dublin while batting at No.7 was the previous highest.Raza’s 135 is also the second highest for Zimbabwe in a successful ODI chase, behind his own 141 against Afghanistan in 2014. Raza is also only the second Zimbabwe batter with multiple hundreds in successful ODI chases, after Craig Ervine.81 Balls needed for Raza to complete his century, the third fastest for Zimbabwe in ODI cricket. The fastest hundred is by Sean Williams off 77 balls against the UAE in 2019, while Brendan Taylor scored a 79-ball century against Ireland in the 2015 World Cup.

Tom Moody, Anil Kumble and Stephen Fleming have their say following another trophy-less World Cup campaign for India

ESPNcricinfo staff11-Nov-20223:56

Should India allow players to participate in overseas leagues?

The next T20 World Cup is in two years. What should be the first plan to address the top-order issue?

Moody: I think the top order needs to be more dynamic. So I’d be looking at players that fit that profile. So, identifying who are the players who play the sort of fearless game that we see, for example, Suryakumar Yadav. But he plays in the middle order. Who is the version of him that I can have at the top of the order?Ideally, in my top three, I’d want two of them and then I have my anchor player that plays around circumstances, conditions, lot of early wickets, whatever it is, just to set the ship back on the right course if things go wrong.Related

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So who are those dynamic players? Rishabh Pant is one of them. Ishan Kishan is another one that I see who is an extraordinary talent. At the end of the day, it’s not the people you are picking but the brand of cricket you want to play. The people then follow the brand.

Do you feel that as a player grows in stature in Indian cricket, he almost loses the ability to play that brand?

Kumble: I think what is crucial in a situation like this is the communication that you have with your group of players, not necessarily what we think about as experts or what the media thinks. So, yes, the communication around the players is what brand of cricket that you are going to play and how you are going to support the kind of players who come in to play that kind of cricket. Because when you are playing that kind of cricket, it involves a lot of risk. Which means that you may not have performances consistently going your way.3:43

Moody’s advice to India – Set a brand of cricket, then pick players accordingly

There may be situations where you may get blown away for 80. Because if that’s the kind of cricket you want to play, where right from ball one, you’re going to go hard, then you need proper communication around the team. And it just doesn’t require the captain and the coach to do that, it requires everyone to get a buy-in. More importantly, what I see as something that certainly needs to be done is, how we keep talking about bowlers need to bat. But I think in Indian cricket, you need batters to bowl too for the balance of the team.That’s exactly what England have. They had too many choices today. They used Liam Livingstone. Moeen Ali has hardly bowled in this tournament. So those are the choices that you need. Unfortunately even in the India A team that gets picked, it’s mostly batters who don’t bowl. It’s important to create that brand of cricket and say that this is how the Indian team is going to do it and it should follow right through the system. I think the more and more you play T20s, it’s going to be like this, where you just come and show your power. So that’s exactly how I think T20 is going to go forward.Moody: I think the important thing we need to recognise is that today’s result for England is the legacy that Eoin Morgan has left in English cricket. He was the one who was very firm in the brand that he wanted his white-ball teams to play both in T20 and 50-over cricket, and he backed them. When you play that brand, you’re going to have highs and you’re going to have lows, but you have to stick with people.So you identify who those people are that can bring that style of cricket that you feel is the future, that’s going to give you the success, and that sort of breeds another generation of people. So you breed that success and that’s the turning point for India. There’s no shortage of talent, but it’s about accepting that this is the brand and that we’ve got your back. We know there’s going to be failure playing that way but we feel that you’ve got the skillset and we are going to surround you with the support to make sure you technically, physically and mentally can survive playing that type of cricket.1:06

Kumble: Brand of cricket India want to play will determine who plays in 2024 T20 World Cup

This is perhaps easier to instill on the newer bunch of cricketers?

Moody: Not necessarily. Look at Jonny Bairstow’s story. I know he is not in this World Cup because of his injury. But Bairstow did not play that brand of cricket 10 years ago. He’s evolved and turned into a beast. You look at him in the Test arena now. He’s even taking that approach to Test cricket. He’s always been a steady impact player but now he is like a different beast, isn’t he?

So you need four or five players to bat with Suryakumar’s intent, if not execution?

Moody: Yeah and he does it as a freelancer. He does it because that’s who he is. That is his own authenticity as a cricketer. And it’s breaking away the shackles of the others and saying this is what I want you to do, we’ve got your back.Fleming: I like to concentrate on the responsibility of the player, whether it’s the current or the up and coming, that this is the way the game’s going. It’s fine for Tom or Anil or me to say you have to go and play and be free, but you have to learn how to do it. And there’s a certain skill-set, courage, resilience and confidence that is needed to do it. So you can’t just go ahead and change your game straight away.But assuming I’m a young player, I’d be thinking, ‘hey I can see the game going this way. I’m going to learn some of these skills. I haven’t got them now, but I’m going to learn and I’m going to become a member of this next side whether it’s two years or four years down the track because I’m going to play a certain way’.

“Sheer numbers has often been the way you get recognised in India, but now it’s the way you get the numbers. It might not be as high, but the strike-rates have to be higher”Stephen Fleming on the way forward for India’s top order

So the responsibility will still lie with the player to pick up that skill, and that’s the exciting part. You’ve got one of the greatest stages you can have in the IPL to show your talent, so from now until then, get going. Where it gets interesting is he [Moody] talked about buy-ins, Morgan getting buy-ins from players and a number of coaches. In India it’s a bit harder, because you have to get buy-ins all the way down to the high-end domestic level. And there’s a lot of coaches and a lot of people you have to convince that this is the right way to go. Because sheer numbers has often been the way you get recognised in India, but now it’s the way you get the numbers. It might not be as high, but the strike-rates have to be higher. It has to be higher risk, it has to have an element of confidence to get down on the knee and start sweeping and doing these shots that are now becoming commonplace among the best of the world.The onus goes on the cricket landscape to pick these players up and teach them what’s the next way to play in the top order. It’s not a massive change, but you’re going to have to shift the mentality of a number of batters. Some of these top batters, they’re beautiful players to watch, but they might have to add a little bit of the unorthodox and just take the game on a little bit more, if India are to compete with England going forward in the next few years.Kumble: One is of course having that brand of cricket and then choosing the players to do that but I think it’s also important that these players play their specific roles wherever they play. Because it’s not about just playing that role for India and then going back to your domestic cricket and franchise cricket and then changing the way you’re going to go about it. Because, for example, Pant today batted for India at No. 6, he walked in in the 19th over. He never does that in domestic cricket. So you need some kind of role definition as well there and that’s something I think is very critical if you’re going to build a potent team where you need a back-up for those roles and not necessarily your six best players whatever role they can. It’s very difficult to do that in a World Cup.Moody: Just to build on that a little bit, the example you have there of Pant coming in the 19th over. That’s everything that went wrong with India’s pursuit of a total. Because how could you have a resource like that left and have the total they’ve got? If he’s coming in the 19th over, you’d expect the score to be 180 or 190. But having that as a wasted resource is purely because of the brand that was demonstrated for 70% of the innings. In my opinion, 60 or 70% of that innings was not the modern brand that is going to be good enough to win the T20 World Cup.2:00

Fleming on Rohit’s struggle: There’s pressure in being out of comfort zone

So Kohli and Rohit got it wrong today?

Kumble: I’m not saying they got it wrong. They are players that are capable of playing at a higher strike-rate. But obviously, Rohit has not been in the best of form. He was trying hard. It was not for a lack of trying, it was just that it didn’t work out. Maybe recognising on the surface, that since KL Rahul got out early, he should have known that in the first six overs, someone had to take the initiative. Virat hit that six over extra cover, but I think in the next few overs, the momentum was again taken away from India and given back to England. Especially after the sixth over, when the two spinners came on, I don’t think there was any intent to put the pressure back on England. Like Tom had mentioned, there was no identifying which bowler to take down today. Irrespective, he may end up getting three wickets, but you need to decide that okay, he’s the person I’m going to take down.Moody: In the powerplay, there was a simple difference with the approach and intent that we’ve been talking about. Five boundaries by India, 10 by England. Anil makes a really good point, he’s bowled enough overs to understand this. You can only bowl as well as you’re allowed to. And at times, you can bowl an over or two and you get away with it thinking, oh they haven’t really taken me down yet. Because suddenly the margin of your error when someone is taking you on shrinks dramatically. So that’s what happened today with India’s bowlers. The way that Jos Buttler and Alex Hales batted, they didn’t have a margin of error purely because they put so much pressure on them.

Indian players just play the IPL, but they come up against a number of players who have a great deal of T20 experience from around the world. Are Indian players short-changed that they play only one premier T20 tournament in the year?Fleming: It may be something to consider when you listen to the commentators talk about Hales and his experience at the ground [Adelaide Oval] and Phil Salt has played at the ground. It seems like a number of these players who are playing around the world are getting really important experience from playing these domestic tournaments that they can then tap into and feel a lot more comfortable.You look at the CPL which becomes more important with the next World Cup being there in the Caribbean, and how many players can you get put into that tournament to get an idea of conditions. It is an advantage. Young players maybe more so than the guys who have been a bit longer in the tooth. Bairstow is a great example. They can still keep getting better because you keep learning from these environments. Things are done in a different way in different parts of the world. So if you keep bolting, it’s like upgrading your phone. Every time you plug it in and get an upgrade you get another new tool. And these guys are just going around adding these new tools to their repertoire. So they become quite complete and then they just sync in to a certain way of playing. Playing with a different group of people outside of the people you know and usually play with, that can also be a good challenge and good for the maturity and pressure-wise, responding to it and again just adding something to your game.3:38

India’s top order – risk-averse or simply misfits?

Would you welcome a change at least for young players, if not the centrally contracted ones, to go and play in other leagues?

Kumble: I think exposure certainly helps. It certainly helps any cricketer. We have seen that with the kind of development that it has had on Indian cricket. For example, the IPL, where overseas players come in and the kind of changes we’ve had in Indian cricket has certainly helped. And likewise, if you identify the brand of cricket that we are looking at and then identify these key young players who you believe need those exposures, then why not? I think that’s important. The other thing that I also feel that needs to come into this team is the flexible approach to batting or the batting order. Because in T20s, I certainly believe there is no fixed batting order. You have to be flexible in the way you are going to go about using your resources. And yeah, in terms of giving an opportunity to a young player to go overseas and have a crack, then why not? I think it’s important that you need to have everything that you need to do that come 2024, you are well prepared to take on a World Cup event.Moody: What we’ve seen over recent years is that more and more Indian players get that exposure in county cricket and the benefit that they get with that exposure. Zaheer Khan is one of the greatest examples of all. Ishant Sharma is also another great example. That exposure of learning about their game, learning about other professionals around them and the volume of cricket that you play there. You talked about the lack of depth of Indian batsmen that can bowl; take tournaments like the CPL for example, if you’re using that as a platform, you couldn’t get a better platform to send six or 12 and have two batting allrounders per team in that tournament. And I know that tournament would say with open arms, please bring all of your development players, it doesn’t have to be your contracted players, and use this as a platform. Because it’s a win-win. The CPL will welcome it thinking gosh, we’ve got some top notch Indian players, and it gets a little bit of interest in a country where cricket is as big as we know. I think everyone’s a winner.Kumble: Yeah, I think it will only benefit the younger players if they get more opportunities. And I think one thing that certainly needs to be addressed is batters coming on to bowl. Otherwise, you’ll end up having this conundrum whether to go with five bowlers, six bowlers. I think if you have enough ability in the top 6 to give you two options, then I think it certainly opens up… you can pick and choose who you want at No. 7.Will Kohli and Rohit be a part of the squad for the 2024 T20 World Cup?•AFP/Getty Images

Have we likely seen the last of Rohit Sharma or Virat Kohli in T20Is for India?

Moody: With two years to play out, I’d be surprised if they play a lot of T20 cricket for India between now and that World Cup. And I think that decision will be something that they’ll need to sit down with the cricket board and work out six months prior to that World Cup. Because I don’t see any point in them playing any T20 cricket for India, apart from franchise cricket of course, to that point, because it’s a great platform to look to develop the players that we’ve been talking about.Kumble: I think you’ll sort of not decide now, but it’s the decision of the player. And it’s about what brand of cricket you want to play and what is the buy-in of everyone else. I think that will determine who is a part of 2024 and who’s not.Fleming: I know there are big decisions made after big tournaments and some can be rash. I don’t like discarding players after a big tournament. I think there’s a process in which both the boys have identified there that you work through. You’re looking at talent, you are looking at the tournaments coming up and you put a bit of a plan in place that is in conjunction with the player, and with selectors and the board. You by no means shut the door, you work towards that door and see what sort of time frame you’re thinking and then come up with a plan.I’m not trying to sit on the fence but I just think it’s crude when you just put a line in the sand after a tough tournament when I think they have still something to give. Is there enough time for it? That’s a question a couple of years on. What’s the motivation level of the player? What’s the energy level? Often the decision is made before the selectors have to intervene. So it will be an interesting watch not just for India but for a number of teams when you reshuffle the deck and you see who’s still standing.

His comeback may have come too late for a realistic chance of selection, but his 3 for 27 showed why he remains a compelling option

Sidharth Monga18-Aug-20222:32

Chahar: ‘I’m continuing from where I left off before the injury’

India’s head coach Rahul Dravid was the India A coach before he took up the job. During his stint, he coached most of the players who play for India now. One of the players he was highly impressed with was Deepak Chahar. It wasn’t just the skills. Chahar has had to deal with more than a few injuries, but he has always bounced back. Dravid says that whenever Chahar played for India A, it was an education for the other fast bowlers in the group, in how professional, deliberate and particular he was with how he looked after his body.Chahar’s ability to come back from injury has been tested at a particularly delicate time in his career. He was building up solid momentum towards his first World Cup appearance when he tore his quadriceps during a T20I in February this year. It turned out be his last competitive game of cricket before his match-winning return against Zimbabwe on Thursday.Related

High stakes for KL Rahul and Deepak Chahar in Zimbabwe

Chahar, Dhawan, Gill lead India's rout of Zimbabwe

At the time of his injury, Chahar was a frontrunner for the new-ball role in India’s T20 side. He also brought value with the bat down the order. He had worked on his death-bowling skills too, and had proved it when playing for Chennai Super Kings. While rehabbing following the quadriceps tear, Chahar did his back in, which kept him out of the IPL and the tours of England and the West Indies.Had Chahar been ready for the five T20Is against the West Indies, he could have presented a case for a World Cup spot, but now that he is not part of the Asia Cup squad, it is perhaps believed that his body has recovered a touch too late.It pays to be professional and philosophical about these things and do the best you can when you get whatever games you get. Chahar was not happy with the landing area when he began his new-ball spell, but his attention to detail was apparent. He was not taking any chances on his comeback. By over two, he felt comfortable and was on the money with a new ball that surprisingly swung for all seven overs of his first spell.In these moments, it’s not about selection for World Cups but enjoying the rare day when the conditions are helping you.Tadiwanashe Marumani sways away from a Deepak Chahar bouncer•AFP via Getty Images”That [World Cup selection] is not in my hand,” Chahar said when asked if he felt he was back to where he was six-and-a-half months ago vis-à-vis the World Cup spot. “Skill-wise, though, I have worked really hard. There I can say I have probably started where I had left off. After the first over [when I had the run-up issue], rest whatever I bowled, I was happy. It was a seven-over spell, so the fitness is good.”However, Chahar did feel the pressure of having to reclaim his place in the side after the long break. “You have to make your space again in the team,” Chahar said. “Because when you are away for a long time, others come in and perform well and make their place in the side. To make your place in the side again, you have to give good performances. So that pressure is always there on a returning player. I had the same expectation that I will do well when I come back because that is all a player has in his hand.”Other than that, Chahal will be the first one to say his outing in Harare – late swing each way, full attacking lengths, early wickets – didn’t tell viewers anything they didn’t know about Chahar. “My plan is always simple,” Chahar said. “When the ball is swinging, try to bowl fuller length and take as many wickets as possible. When the ball is not swinging, then there is a Plan B or Plan C. Today when I bowled, it swung for six-seven overs, so I had a simple plan: bowl full, mix the swing and confuse the batsmen.”The question really is not about Chahar’s skill or his utility when it comes to World Cup selection. It’s about his fitness – which he was happy with having bowled 10 overs in the practice matches he played before returning, and then this seven-over spell – and the timing of his return. Do the selectors think it is too late to disrupt a combination that they might have settled on before Chahar’s return?As Chahar said, that is not in his hands. So let’s just enjoy the early swing and look forward to Plans B and C for the rest of this series.