ESPNcricinfo staff23-Oct-2016Blackwood fell to Rahat Ali’s reverse swing in the seventh over of the day•Getty ImagesDevendra Bishoo took 20 balls to get off the mark, and made 20 off 66 balls before falling to Sohail Khan•Getty ImagesRoston Chase and Shai Hope avoided further damage, and West Indies scored just 45 runs in 27 overs in the first session•Getty ImagesChase fell to Yasir Shah after the break, chasing a wide one and edging it to second slip•AFPYasir cleaned up Hope in his next over with one that kept low; West Indies were reduced to 178 for 8•AFPJason Holder farmed the strike and scored 31 quick runs•AFPBut Yasir struck again to dismiss last man Shannon Gabriel. He finished with 4 for 86 as West Indies were bowled out for 224, conceding a lead of 228•Getty ImagesSami Aslam scored a half-century and put on 93 for the opening wicket with Azhar Ali as Pakistan tightened their grip•Getty ImagesShannon Gabriel ended the association, but Azhar raised a fifty too and took Pakistan to 114 for 1 at stumps for a lead of 342•Getty Images

The tiring Vizag pitch threw up wild variations in bounce and confounded other batsmen, but not the Indian captain

Alagappan Muthu in Visakhapatnam20-Nov-20162:32

Compton: Kohli’s confidence stands out

The ball had solemnly sworn it was up to no good. Then it was given to a redhead.It is the 16th over of India’s second innings. Ben Stokes came charging in and hit the deck with considerable force. The batsman picks the length up early. He prepares to get on top of the bounce by shifting his weight back and standing up taller at the crease. He has no idea he is in the worst possible position for what was about to happen. The back- of-a-length delivery turned into a grubber. Mischief most definitely managed.Virat Kohli should have been in trouble. He could even have been bowled off the inside edge. His best case scenario was if he was beaten – the line was quite wide – or if he could somehow keep the ball out. Those watching the third day’s play in the Visakhapatnam Test were introduced instead to the bizarre case scenario. Kohli smeared a four behind point.There were a few things that helped him pull that off. The original shot he was trying to play was with a vertical bat. So adjusting to the lack of bounce was easier than if he had attempted to play a cut, where the backlift gets bigger and therefore has a longer distance to travel. He provided himself with the same advantage in the 34th over, when the legspinner Adil Rashid produced a grubber. Kohli eased onto his backfoot and it came to rest slightly across onto off stump so that his head would be right in line with the ball. The inherent risk here is the possibility of lbw. But by playing the flick with a straight bat, and waiting to roll his wrists until he made the connection, not only did the Indian captain negate the chance of his being dismissed, he found another boundary.Free-flowing batsmen find difficulty keeping up on slow and low pitches. The lack of pace means hitting through the line is difficult and even maneuvering the ball into gaps requires a great deal of effort. Kohli seems to be setting the template to prove that obsolete although if you want to follow it, you’d best hope you have hands as quick and a work ethic as strong as his. The thousands of balls he hits in the nets, the visualisation he does, the tweaks to his technique, all of it is in an effort to make sure he is equipped to make tough runs; to make sure he has a game he can trust when the pressure is high; to make sure he can not only tackle high-class bowling but dominate.Kohli faced more than 100 deliveries on a third and fourth day surface with wild variations in bounce and finished with a strike-rate of 74. No one that had lasted as long in this match has even come close to scoring that quickly. You have to want to be there, he often says, and watching him be there is a lot of fun. There are the bat twirls. The fiddling with the grille. The re-strapping of the gloves. The tapping of the pitch. He just doesn’t want to be idle. He doesn’t want his concentration levels to drop because that’s when he knows he may not read the play as quickly. He barely spends any time away from the stumps. No trips to square leg to slow the game down. He’s ready in his stance, looking at the bowler with the impatience of a child waiting for their parent to take them to the park.It must be draining to be so switched on. But that’s why both his physical and mental strength are high. At stumps yesterday, he had made more than half of India’s total – 56 out of 98. He finished with 81, only because of a spectacular catch at slip, stabilising India from an early wobble and giving them the chance to set a target never before achieved in the fourth innings of a Test in India. Kohli is a fantastic beast and everyone knows where to find him. At the heart of of a fight.

Rajasthan captain Pankaj Singh, the ongoing season’s highest wicket-taker after round seven, reflects on his journey to 400 first-class wickets

Nagraj Gollapudi24-Nov-2016The most memorable domestic wicketMy 200th wicket, when I got Piyush Chawla against Uttar Pradesh in the 2011-12 Ranji Trophy. I value this wicket because I had to work really hard to get to that milestone. I had to bowl nearly 60-plus overs to get there. In the previous match, against Railways, I went wicketless having bowled 38 overs. Against UP I was frustrated as catches were dropped off my bowling. Eventually when Piyush was nearing the 90s, I got him caught and bowled. But I had to bowl almost 30 overs to break the barren spell.The toughest domestic batsmanRohit Sharma. I have played at least four to five matches in domestic cricket against Rohit and have got him a couple of times. He plays all the shots. You don’t have the room to just bowl at a certain pace and restrict him. You just have to keep bowling outswing, outswing and then hope to surprise him by pitching an in-cutter. But once he settles he is very difficult to get out and he scores very quickly.The best spellIn the quarter-finals, against Mumbai, in Jaipur in the 2010-11 Ranji season when we won the title for the first time. Mumbai elected to bat. I got three top-order batsmen in my first spell: Sahil Kukreja, Omkar Gurav and Rohit. We had never even taken first-innings lead against Mumbai, at least in my career till then. Mumbai were firm favourites and had fielded their best eleven which also included Ajit Agarkar, Wasim Jaffer, Jinks (Ajinkya Rahane) and Ramesh Powar. So I took the challenge upon me that we had to win somehow.The favourite mode of dismissal?Pitching on middle and hitting the top of the off stump. It does not happen too many times, but I love to do that.The toughest spell in domestic cricket Against Maharashtra last year in Pune. I rate this toughest because I did not succeed. We made 250-odd (270) after being asked to bat. I bowled 27 overs on the second day. That was the maximum I had bowled in any Ranji match in a day. We had Maharashtra in trouble at 124 for 6, but [Shrikant] Mundhe and [Chirag] Khurana rescued them. Usually I back myself in such situations to take a wicket. It was the first time I was unable to do anything. Khurana even hit me for a six in the last over of the day. I was exhausted in the end. Maharashtra won with a bonus point.The best domestic fast bowler in your timeVinay Kumar. I like the way he bowls aggressively, how he uses all his skills and works out his wickets. I bowl quite similar to him. You can feel his presence at all time. I also like his attitude and he is the best in the present era in domestic cricket.The most favourite pitch in IndiaSMS [Sawai Madhopur Stadium, Jaipur] and MohaliThe best compliment you’ve received in domestic cricketRecently after I got him out in Duleep Trophy, Yuvraj Singh told me I was the best bowler in domestic cricket.The one skill needed for a fast bowler to survive in domestic cricketAccuracy.The goal you are after nowTo play once again for India.

Tony Opatha led a rebel side to South Africa in 1982 – a tour on which a certain ill-suppressed madness lurked around the edges

Luke Alfred01-Feb-2017Late one weeknight in September 1982, a South African lawyer called Colin Rushmere flew into Colombo. He had flown from his home town of Port Elizabeth up to Johannesburg, then on to Hong Kong and Sri Lanka. The timing of his arrival in Colombo was no accident: the hour was sleepy, and as expected, customs officials were bleary-eyed.His most important item of luggage was a briefcase, a constant companion. In the bottom of it, disguised by other things, were stacked 14 contracts. He was in Sri Lanka to have them signed. Rushmere was not only armed with his trusty briefcase – he had a story primed, just in case. If asked, he was to mumble his way through a passable Dutch accent and busk for all he was worth. “Tony [Opatha], who picked me up and arranged the [‘rebel’ Sri Lankan] tour from their side, told me that he was so well known that he’d have to drop me a couple of streets away from my hotel,” remembers Rushmere. “He didn’t want to be seen because at that stage the tour was very hush-hush. If anyone asked or we got into any difficulties, I was a ‘Dutch businessman’.”Flying home a couple of days later I had my bags thoroughly searched, including my briefcase. As the official was digging deeper and deeper and I was getting more and more concerned, I had a brainwave. I noticed an exchange bureau close by and asked if I could change my remaining money. As I did, she seemed to lose interest. She never got to the signed contracts.”All the clandestine manoeuvring started a couple of months before Rushmere’s Colombo nip and tuck. In July, Ali Bacher and Geoff Dakin, the chief executive and president respectively of the South African Cricket Union (SACU) made the hop from London, where they were schmoozing around the edges of the ICC’s annual meeting at Lord’s, to Rotterdam. They spent the night and were back in Birmingham the following morning to watch Allan Lamb score his debut ODI century for England against Pakistan, in their eyes a timely reminder of what South Africans could do if allowed to strut on the international stage.”I remember Bacher spotting Opatha in the airport waiting area,” says Dakin. ‘There he is,’ says Ali, to which I replied, ‘Very good Ali, well spotted, he’s the only black man in this sea of white faces.’ We got negotiating and Opatha asks for $30,000 per player. Ali says, ‘You think we have that sort of cash, you must be in cuckoo land.’ So Opatha comes back, quick as anything: ‘So tell me, Ali, how many cuckoos are there to the dollar?'”Bacher and Dakin’s detour to Rotterdam was to gauge the seriousness of Opatha’s scheme to bring an unofficial Sri Lankan team to South Africa later that year. They left satisfied, and returning home, sold the idea to their board. Sponsored by South African Breweries (SAB), an English rebel side had toured South Africa the previous season, and while there was political fallout both at home and abroad, the tour was successful enough for something similar to be attempted again.Although Sri Lanka had only played their first official Test (losing by seven wickets to England in Colombo) that February, that debut didn’t appear to be overly significant to either Opatha or the South Africans. Carrying more heft, by far, was the fact that the Sri Lankans were a non-white team. This would help convince a largely unimpressed world of SACU’s reform credentials, a sort of cricketing equivalent of both having your game and playing in it. A token handful of black and “coloured” players, like Edward Habane, Omar Henry and Joe Rubidge played in the provincial games, but essentially Opatha’s men were playing against apartheid-era white opposition. “By their standards they were going to be handsomely paid,” recalled Dakin, “and we needed regular foreign opposition to keep the game healthy. National Panasonic [the electronics manufacturer] were an enthusiastic sponsor. We went ahead and kept it as quiet as we could.”

“The lepers who are surreptitiously worming their way to South Africa must understand that they are not playing fair by the coloured world”Sri Lankan minister Gamini Dissanayake on the rebels

Opatha hadn’t played cricket in or for Sri Lanka since the 1979 World Cup, and at the time of the negotiations was playing club cricket in the Netherlands. With his customary larger-than-life flair, he set about assembling a side, the financial temptations of the tour proving too generous to ignore.Rushmere flew back from Colombo with 14 signed contracts in his briefcase, but literally on the eve of the Sri Lankans’ arrival in South Africa he needed to dash up to Harare, where they were in the closing stages of a tour against Zimbabwe. “It was very important for us that we get confirmation from [Roy] Dias and [Duleep] Mendis that they were prepared to make it, because we’d heard that they were vacillating,” said Rushmere. “Joe [Pamensky, then the treasurer of SACU] promised that if we could get the signatures of those two, they could come back for another tour the following year.”In the event, the parties got bogged down in financial negotiations. Despite not being available for the entire South African tour, Dias and Mendis demanded the full fee. Rushmere was unable to reach agreement with them, and after a heady few weeks in which there were press rumours of the Sri Lankans’ passports being withdrawn, a group of sundry tourists from Colombo arrived at Jan Smuts airport in late October.Unlike the fanfare that preceded the arrival of the SAB England side the previous summer, there was no media fandango. “They were expressly told to pack a small suitcase with a change of clothes and a toothbrush,” says Dakin. “They were ‘tourists’, dressed in civvies. Kitting out took place here in South Africa. We wanted to draw as little attention as possible to their arrival.”If there were any quibbles from the hosts about the quality of the tourists without Dias and Mendis, who had batted at three and four respectively in Sri Lanka’s official debut Test in February, Opatha did his best to keep them in check. With characteristic swagger he dubbed the team the AROSA Sri Lankan XI – the “ARO” in AROSA standing for the Antony Ralph in Antony Ralph Marinon Opatha – the “SA” being a self-explanatory doffing of the cap at his hosts.The tourists were in all likelihood kitted out by Adidas (the photos are indistinct) and they were shadowed at all times by Piet Kellermann, a South African government representative, who saw to it that there were no official incidents. The tourists were described as “charming ambassadors” but were required to toe the petty apartheid line. There was to be little venturing outside of their hotels, or “see-for-themselves” furloughs into the townships for a little . The unusual use of the verb “worming” tells us all we need to know.As worms in cuckoo land, history has judged neither SACU nor the Sri Lankan rebels well. The verdict is unlikely to change anytime soon.

Mason Crane has already prompted much excited chatter, but the young Hampshire legspinner is putting in the hard yards to take the next step up

Will Macpherson17-Feb-2017Mason Crane is only just 20, yet it is 18 months since he was first touted for a Test call. Ten wickets in his first two Championship games for Hampshire left usually sage pundits weak-kneed and predicting an autumn with England. Crane found it funny, knowing that this was the lot of the legspinner, that rare cricketing fetish item.”It was peculiar,” he laughs. “Legspin is weird like that. A young bloke comes on to the scene and you just instantly get people shouting their name about. It’s nice to hear, but you know stuff like that is a fair way down the line.”Well, it is happening again. “At this rate we will be seeing Mason Crane on the next Ashes tour,” chirped Gordon CC, Crane’s Sydney grade club, on Twitter at the start of February. This followed his third consecutive seven-wicket haul – putting him top of the Sydney first-grade wicket-taking charts in what is proving a very productive first winter down under.The county cricket stripling’s stint in the grades is, of course, a well-worn path. Crane is making the most of it, but he arguably needed it more than most, too. He still lives with his parents in Worthing (although he is quick to say he’s trying to move out) and this is the first time he has spent more than a tour’s length away. “I’ve been doing stuff for myself for the first time,” he says. “You go on tour and it’s great, but that’s with 15 other guys you know and a load of coaches. This has been five times that length, and I didn’t know anyone. It’s been great socially and it’s proved a really good match.”It was Will Smith, his Hampshire team-mate, who set the move up, having played for Gordon himself. Peter Such, the ECB’s lead spin coach (in regular contact via email), put him in touch with Stuart MacGill, with whom Crane has worked plenty. While there have been minor technical tweaks, their work has largely been tactical. MacGill knows Crane – a wicket-taker who gives it a rip, with a very fine googly and solid topspinner – can bowl legspin; what he needs is to understand to bowl legspin. “There can’t be many better blokes to talk about that with,” Crane says.

“Legspin is weird like that. A young bloke comes on to the scene and you just instantly get people shouting their name about”

Crane has enjoyed the bounce in the pitches and the time afforded to work on his game, bowling and batting. He sounds utterly thrilled that, having started the season batting at No. 9 or 10, Gordon now trust him to bat at No. 7. “That’s a big thing for me and I’m pleased my hard work has paid off,” he says. Having been an allrounder growing up, he feels he has not pulled his weight with the bat at professional level.Two summers ago Ollie Rayner memorably wrote for ESPNcricinfo that if he had tips for a young spinner, the first would be “learn to bat”, and while Crane would like to end up as a No. 8, he will not allow that to happen at the expense of his bowling. “Bowling is my main thing, I have to remember that,” he says. “I don’t want to become a bits-and-pieces player. What’s important is that with the bat I can serve the team the way it needs – the kind of guy who can score quickly from the lower order to set up a declaration or dig in to save a draw.” As a result he has worked on his batting with Trevor Chappell, Gordon’s head coach, and the first-grade batsmen at the club. Two fifties in eight two-day games, and an average over 30 suggests it is working.There have been eight hauls of seven wickets or better in first-grade cricket in Sydney this season, and three are Crane’s. No bowler has more than his 37 wickets in two-day games. What he has relished most, though, is the opportunity to plough through overs. “I’ve bowled nearly 500 match overs out here, and there’s really no substitute for that,” he says. “I’ll leave here very cricket-fit, and in great rhythm.”In the second of his seven-fors, he bowled 43 overs straight: “The skipper tried to take me off a few times, but I just kept wanting another. I had all the wickets after 25 overs, but their last pair blocked out as it got slower and flatter, and it was a great challenge in stinking heat.”Crane’s name has been doing the rounds in Hampshire and Sydney cricket circles•Getty ImagesLast July, after Smith bowled Crane for 51 overs as Surrey racked up 637, England veteran Gareth Batty said the young spinner had been “thrown under the car”. But this, it seems, is just how Crane likes it. “I now know I can get through 30 overs, still getting loads on the ball, with ease. I always want the ball in my hand.”Crane was brought over to Southampton by his coach at Lancing College (which he captained for almost three seasons), former Hampshire spinner Raj Maru, after his native Sussex turned him down at Under-14 level, and he was soon a name on the lips of members. His ascent was inevitable, but as that innings against Surrey showed (he ended up with 3 for 210), first-class cricket hasn’t come entirely easily to Crane since he took the first five Warwickshire wickets in his second game. “It’s a seriously tough competition,” Crane says. “Four-day cricket is brutal, especially if you have one long stint in the field. A couple of days’ rest, a bit of travel, and you’re doing it all again.”With 31 wickets at 45 in 12 games in 2016 (only three Hampshire players played more and only Ryan McLaren, with 32, took more wickets), Crane does not immediately look to have been a beneficiary of the adjusted toss regulations that saw the rejuvenation of Rayner and emergence of Jack Leach in a minor spin revival. “I definitely played more games because of the changes,” he says. “But I’m not sure it was actually easier to bowl spin. Apart from at Taunton, where it spun and bounced beautifully, pitches were generally slow and pretty flat.”An interesting season looms for Crane. In the wake of their survival-by-default after the demotion of Durham (the team that had originally relegated them in the final round) and subsequent exploitation of the Kolpak market, it will be easy to cast Hampshire as the Championship’s villains this summer. Despite some brash comments from chairman, Rod Bransgrove, in the wake of the Durham brouhaha, Hampshire are under no illusions as to how fortunate they are. “For a guy my age, it’s enormous, and we are very lucky,” Crane says. “It means I carry on bowling against the best in the country.”

“Bowling is my main thing, I have to remember that. I don’t want to become a bits-and-pieces player”

For all their notable imports, Crane is one of a number of talented homegrown youngsters at Hampshire. They include Tom Alsop (21), a favourite of England Lions, who scored a superb hundred at The Oval in September; Joe Weatherley (20), who has been pulling up trees in Adelaide this off season; and Brad Taylor (19) – looking to follow Liam Dawson and James Vince into the national set-up. The arrivals of Rilee Rossouw and Kyle Abbott will undoubtedly have a knock-on effect but neither is a spin-bowling alternative to Crane, and he will hope pitches continue to be helpful, so that he and Dawson – who bats in the top five and serviceably holds up an end with the ball – can play together.”It’s a difficult one,” he says. “You can look at it two ways. There might be guys around the country who don’t get a game. But on the other hand, guys like Kyle and Rilee will improve the standard massively, so when you do play, facing and playing with guys like that is huge. We will learn loads from them. Mainly it’s just a massive shame they can’t play for South Africa. I don’t fully understand the politics there, but they are here and it’ll be great to play with them.”That can wait, though. From Australia, Crane heads to the UAE, where he has been selected to play in the North v South and Champion County pre-season curtain raisers. There will be opportunities to firm up his county spot but also, perhaps, join Sam Curran, Joe Clarke and Tom Helm as candidates for England’s Ashes bolter, just as Gordon’s Twitter account predicted. Either way, he’s a leggie with nerve and verve – and definitely a name to remember.

With a 48-point deficit against their name, Durham have their work cut out in Division Two this year. Their captain knows it’s going to be a slog

Jon Culley11-Apr-2017It was the smell of the grass that made up his mind, Paul Collingwood said, looking out over the expanse of it that he knows best.We are taking in the lush spring green of Emirates Riverside, as Durham prepare for the start of their season and reflect on the price they have been forced to pay for overstretching themselves in their lofty ambitions to become a major international centre.It is the same expanse that Collingwood contemplated six years ago, in the wake of being told that his own international status had effectively been terminated, and wondered if he had the will to carry on. He had already retired from Test cricket, but having led England to their first global silverware in the World T20 title the year before, the decision by the selectors to hand the T20 captaincy to Stuart Broad hit him “like a juggernaut.”He thought seriously about quitting altogether. “But then I thought about things and realised there was so much I would miss massively, even the negative things like having to pick yourself up mentally when you are making low scores,” he said.”I played my first competitive cricket match when I was seven. It’s in my blood. And I know it sounds ridiculous but I thought about the smell of the grass and how much I’d miss that and I realised that I didn’t want to stop.” He still hasn’t, even on the eve, virtually, of his 41st birthday, as he prepares for his sixth season as Durham captain.”I think I’ve probably surprised a few people that I’m still here, but I still believe I have something to give. I’m still learning new things, and honestly, I’ve worked hard in the gym and I don’t think I’ve ever felt fitter.”There is the matter of motivation, too, which, despite the high probability of being marooned in Division Two of the Championship for at least two seasons, thanks to the draconian penalties imposed by the ECB in return for keeping the club alive, is still strong, if not stronger. If anything, he says, the pain of forced relegation and the challenge of starting 48 points behind everyone else, has fuelled it.

“I know it sounds ridiculous but I thought about the smell of the grass and how much I’d miss that and I realised that I didn’t want to stop”

“You can sense a real determination among everyone to get the most out of the season,” he said. “There is a real motivation. You know what it’s like when you have adversity, it brings everyone together. The response from the players has been fantastic.”Like the chairman and chief executive and everybody else grateful that the club still has a future, Collingwood has been obliged to take the punishment on the chin. He admits that the dressing room has not found it easy.”There was a lot of anger when we learned what was happening,” he said. “The thing that hurts more than anything is that we go out there year in year out and perform as well as we can and we have carried on doing that despite all the cutbacks.”From the players’ point of view, we felt like we are the ones being penalised when we didn’t really have anything to do with it. That doesn’t seem fair.”Is it too harsh? It depends which way you look at it.”From the club’s point of view, they have done everything they were asked to do [in terms of developing an international venue]. From the ECB’s point of view, they might say that a county should never get into such a financial position where they are unable to pay the players for two months, and that’s got to stop.”But it has happened. It is not the end of the world, we are still playing first-class cricket. At some point you have got to put it on the back-burner and get on with the job.”That job begins with the visit of Nottinghamshire to Chester-le-Street on Good Friday, bringing an immediate chance to measure Durham against a side expected to be among the front runners in Division Two, and already with a win under their belt.”A good start would be very useful, especially against a good team like Notts,” Collingwood said. “On paper you are looking at pretty much an international side, so to get off to a good start against them would give us some momentum and be great for confidence.”But if we are being honest we are going to need everything to go our way if we are to overcome the 48 points.”I heard what the chairman [Ian Botham] said about us being the best side and I love Beefy’s optimism, but I know county cricket and we’re not going to roll teams over. There is a lot of talent in Division Two and we have to respect that.Graham Onions and Chris Rushworth spearhead Durham’s attack•PA Photos”And losing Mark Stoneman and Scott Borthwick – that’s pretty much 3000 runs out of the dressing room.”We’ve got the addition of an overseas player this year, which we haven’t had too many times in the past. Hopefully he will bring a lot of runs at the top of the order.”I am confident that we will take 20 wickets. Our bowling attack is very strong. We have a great blend, seasoned professionals such as Graham Onions and Chris Rushworth and some fantastic up-and-coming bowlers as well. In addition, we will have Woody [Mark Wood] at the start.”Although 48 points is a lot of points you can’t write us off completely. It will need two or three players to have the season of their lives but something special could happen.”It could be an 18-year-old having that exceptional season, it could be a 40-year-old like me.”Which brings the conversation back to Collingwood’s future. The body remains willing, the appetite sharp. But for how much longer? Will the grass still smell sweet this time next year?”I’m just taking it year by year, and at the end of each season we review where we are. I’ve got things to consider. I don’t want to be a player who outstays his welcome. I have to look at the fact that I’m on a decent wage and as the wages bill comes under pressure I will have to look at whether I’m blocking the way for a couple of younger players joining the squad.”I’d like to think I have something to give in international cricket in terms of coaching, and I’m ridiculously lucky in that I have been able to spend 55 days last year and 60 days this winter with England, while still playing county cricket in the summer.”I think I’ll know when it’s time to go and I’ll be honest about it.”But if I still feel I am pushing this team forward, still contributing in the dressing room, still scoring runs, taking wickets and taking catches – if I’m doing all those things, I want to continue.”

This week’s round-up of the most interesting social media posts about the IPL centres on a couple of early finishes

ESPNcricinfo staff09-May-2017Dan Christian was lucky to spend his birthday in someone else’s shirt. The face, unfortunately, was all his.

One of the pitfalls of your birthday falling during the IPL… Another great win tonight, Tripathi is a superstar in the making!! Also, put my shirt out to dry with @stokesy after the bowling innings, and grabbed the wrong one before I went out to bat, much to the ire of the match referee

A post shared by Dan Christian (@danchristian54) on May 3, 2017 at 12:44pm PDT

Rohit Sharma had his birthday recently too and was surprised Ravi Shastri wished him over Twitter.

Thanks Ravi Bhai! You didn't need to tweet me Ravi Bhai if you screamed I'd hear you from wherever you are @RaviShastriOfc https://t.co/zRhy6YOgwN

— Rohit Sharma (@ImRo45) April 30, 2017

Mumbai Indians finished their match against Delhi Daredevils six overs early, possibly because they wanted to get away from the Delhi smog as soon as possible. If anyone is preparing a presentation on signs that the earth is in danger, this photo of Harbhajan Singh’s bright Mumbai Indians jersey shining amid a haze may make a good opening slide.

Top win @mumbaiindians last night..Delhi Pollution,smog it was almost impossible to breath last night in the ground…all players were suffering with bad throat after the game #almost choked

A post shared by Harbhajan Turbanator Singh (@harbhajan3) on May 6, 2017 at 10:11pm PDT

Another game that finished inside 36 overs was Kolkata Knight Riders’ match in Bengaluru, in which, with Knight Riders chasing 159, Chris Lynn and Sunil Narine smashed 105 in the Powerplay. David Warner was keen to let everyone know he has been studying to be a travel agent in India.

I think @KKRiders want the 22:45pm flight out of Bangalore tonight

— David Warner (@davidwarner31) May 7, 2017

The last commercial flight from Bengaluru to Kolkata is indeed at 22:45 every day. And Kolkata, who finished the game before 19:30 despite a rain delay, may well have made it. Team owner Shah Rukh Khan was chuffed. Lynn and Narine’s partnership reminded him of a film he was in that had characters named Chris and Sunil who fall out because they are both in love with the same girl but then reconcile.

After Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa in '94, Sunil n Chris come together to make 105… well played boys! Ami KKR… pic.twitter.com/30JSbFaqVE

— Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) May 7, 2017

Speaking of early departures, we were under the impression Eoin Morgan had left Kings XI Punjab to play an England-Ireland series, but apparently he was training to become a pirate.

@Eoin16 Look who's on board… #CaptainCaptain pic.twitter.com/YU4GcUA2g1

— Captain Morgan (@CaptainMorganEU) May 8, 2017

Finally, we have some disappointing news. That Sourav Ganguly fantasy team we’ve all been beating comfortably is not actually his.

Hi all ..just saw an ipl fantasy team on my name ..it's not my twitter account nor my team ..it's fake ..I dnt participate in fantsy leagues

— Sourav Ganguly (@SGanguly99) April 27, 2017

Dinesh Karthik on his productive domestic season, and how he has improved his batting and keeping

Interview by Deivarayan Muthu06-Apr-2017You had a bumper List A season – 854 runs in 12 innings.
I am definitely happy with the season. I am in a good space mentally and when I am on the field. I just ride with the wave. I am just as positive as I can be and do the best as I can.Your confidence as a batsman stood out during the Vijay Hazare games, particularly in the final. You were driving fluently on the off side, despite fielders being placed at point, backward point, cover point and extra cover.
I am hitting the ball well and getting into good positions. When you are doing that, you tend to look at the gaps a lot more and play your shots. The difference between batting well and not that well is that you generally find gaps. I have been lucky that way this season.What’s the difference between the in-form Dinesh Karthik and the Dinesh Karthik of old?
This Karthik prepares well off the field. That has been the difference. Training helps you get physically stronger and a lot of times it helps you push the bar mentally as well. The way we trained at the Vijay Hazare and before the Ranji Trophy, it helped us. You might have spoken to [Hrishikesh] Kanitkar [the Tamil Nadu coach]. The practice situations were like match situations. It was definitely hard – the body is pushed far more than it used to be, and the result showed in the way we played in the last couple of tournaments.From a small sample size, it seems like your bat comes down a lot straighter now. Have you worked on your technique recently?
In the last year I have been working on the technical aspects with Apurva Desai [a former Gujarat first-class batsman who is now an NCA Level C coach]. I can relate to what he says. Before that I had been working with Pravin Amre. I got my backlift corrected. Such things are helping me in playing in different conditions and different wickets. The backlift used to be rounded, it used to come from almost gully in an arc. It is much straighter now and helps me play the ball a lot better.”The difference between batting well and not that well is that you generally find gaps. I have been lucky that way this season”•PTI What is your assessment of your shot selection this season? Kanitkar was critical of a scoop you played in a low-scoring Ranji Trophy match against Mumbai, and you reached the Vijay Hazare hundred with a reverse sweep. You play your shots, but the execution looks better these days.
I have been pretty free-flowing in my batting. I have not let situations change my batting around too much. I have just changed a bit, depending on the situation here and there. I don’t go harder than necessary at the ball. I try to maintain an even tempo in all the games. Sometimes you play well and sometimes you get out. When you get out, you feel it is a wrong shot. Most players in tough situations play shots that could be out, but over time you refine that and give yourself the best chance of performing, the more you play in such situations.Are you consciously looking to build on your starts now?
Yes, after playing so many games it is important to absorb pressure in the middle overs and play at a certain tempo without disrupting the run rate. You will have to find the safest manner to keep going consistently over a period of time before you can launch. I think you need to have a lot of instinctive shots to play that kind of a game. I can understand situations better at this point of time.Your 854 runs – the fourth highest in a List A season in India – will be hard for the selectors to ignore when they pick the squad for the Champions Trophy.
I am not thinking that far ahead to the Champions Trophy. The key for me is to play the IPL as well as I can.With MS Dhoni as India’s one-day keeper, do you see yourself as a specialist batsman if you are picked?
Yes, I believe I can contribute to the middle order as a specialist batsman, like I did in 2013. I have always believed in my batting abilities. I have always put my hand up as a pure batsman and have enjoyed fielding as well. My ultimate aim is to play all formats as a batsman. I have done it before. When Dhoni was there as keeper, I played as a specialist batsman. I keep telling myself there is no reason why I can’t repeat it.Keeping is an accessory. It is always there with me. If somebody is injured, I can always keep. But I am looking at myself primarily as a batsman who can play all formats.”[As a keeper] I am comfortable against fast bowlers, I am athletic. Against spinners you will have to anticipate [the turn] and make sure the hands are not stiff”•BCCIHow have you improved as a batsman and as a keeper?
As a batsman, I respond to situations much better. Experience has helped me be in a lot of different situations, and a lot of that experience and knowledge is coming into play now.Coming to keeping, I need to give a lot of credit to Sameer Dighe [the former India keeper Karthik trained with]. I could not keep for four or five Ranji Trophy games and it was hard on me mentally. The doors opened [when India’s current Test keeper Wriddhiman Saha was injured and Parthiv Patel was picked as his replacement] but I could not keep then [due to injury]. That did not help. Then I started keeping and I am enjoying it.Keeping is like a work in progress. The more hours you spend, the better you get. A keeper sometimes takes five or six catches. It is not about taking the straightforward ones, but it is about the best keeper you can be to spinners and fast bowlers overall. Whenever I find a break, I go and work with Dighe on my keeping. I have got into the groove after the injury. I am naturally comfortable against fast bowlers, I am athletic. Against spinners you will have to anticipate [the turn and bounce] and make sure the hands are not stiff. I am working on it. Keeping, like batting, is a subconscious process.Where do you see yourself in the wicketkeeping pecking order – there’s Saha, Rishabh Pant, Naman Ojha and Parthiv.
I don’t look at the pecking order. Competition is always there. There are 27 states and 27 different keepers. They are all vying for the national spot. What I can do is focus as much as I can and believe in my abilities.What’s your role going to be with the Gujarat Lions in the IPL?
Hodgy [Lions’ coach Brad Hodge] has given me straightforward plans of what I should be doing with the bat in the middle order. I would like to stick to that and do the best that I can for the team.

They lit up their country’s first match at the home of cricket, against MCC, with blaring music, echoing chants and vibrant outfits

Peter Della Penna at Lord's12-Jul-2017When Afghanistan joined Ireland as the 11th and 12th teams to receive Full Member status last month at the ICC annual conference in London, the most commonly used phrase to characterise proceedings was that a glass ceiling had been broken. The old, traditional corridors of ICC boardrooms had welcomed new blood; the motion approved on the backdrop of one of cricket’s great symbols of tradition, Lord’s.For the Afghanistan administrators, breaking that glass ceiling on June 22 had been a very delicate process. Tuesday, though, was for the Afghanistan fans, and they left no doubt about the state of that glass ceiling, stampeding their way through the Lord’s turnstiles to make sure it was reduced to itty bitty granules.”We don’t ever get this for other games,” one of the Lord’s stewards said through a cacophony of Afghan fan excitement building at 9am, two hours before the start of play, on Wellington Place outside the North Gate. “This is brilliant, though I doubt the neighbours living in NW8 will be too thrilled with all the noise.”Noise. The theme of the day. Fans singing, music blasting, chants echoing. Every bit of it pure and loud. And so were the outfits. The richest, most vibrant shades of red and green: printed on shirts, painted on faces, rippling on flags in the wind. It was a sensory assault.”This means everything to Afghanistan,” Massom Shirzad, a father of two, now living in Birmingham, said. Shirzad has been living in the UK for more than 15 years and today was the first time his two Birmingham-born daughters, Nabeela and Saima, 11 and eight, were getting the chance to see the heroes of their ancestral home for the first time. They had left at 6am for the drive down and along with two cousins were five of the first group of fans that began gathering from 8:30am outside the entrance gates.The story was repeated throughout the day. Members of the Afghan diaspora living in Coventry, Manchester, Wales, Germany, France, Norway and beyond. Almost every single one interviewed had never seen Afghanistan play in person, and had never been to Lord’s. In a pocket of the Compton Stand sat a hoard of 100 men clad in blue polo shirts with “BIRMINGHAM” printed in white block letters on the back and “AFG” in black, red and green on the front.”We support Afghans, we support cricket,” Jan Shinwari, originally from Kabul but now based in Birmingham, said. He helped organise the two coaches chartered to drive everyone in this particular fan group down from the West Midlands, beginning 7:45am. “This is a new game in Afghanistan after only 13 or 14 years because of the war in Afghanistan. We want to show peace to the world and that we can do anything.”Peace. A recurring theme throughout the last decade of Afghanistan’s cricket journey. During the early years of Afghanistan’s pathway to Test status and a day at Lord’s, Hamid Hassan used to cross the rope onto the battlefield, his face painted like Rambo. He was Afghanistan’s most photogenic warrior, a warrior of peace. Each stump uprooted, every bail dislodged with one of his heat-seeking yorkers was another strategic victory to thwart the stereotype of Taliban terror.”They are our peace ambassadors,” Qudratullah Ibrahimkhil, another member of Shinwari’s traveling band, who grew up in Maidan Wardak province before migrating to Birmingham, said. “Recently they got the Full Membership and every Afghan is very proud because in Afghanistan for the last four decades there has been war, conflicts and everything. The Afghan national cricket team brings happiness, optimism to people in Afghanistan and around the world.”They unite Afghans in Afghanistan and around the world. In here, the atmosphere is amazing. There are people who have come from all over the world. They have come here to support their team. We are very proud of our national heroes for their remarkable achievements and accomplishments in a very short period of time. With very limited resources, they have achieved so much and made history.”History. Today was not just for Afghan fans, but for the genuine cricket lover who has seen his fair share of cricket over the years and has an appreciation for what Afghanistan has acquired in status and skill.”Listen to that, this is what it’s all about isn’t it?” shouted 69-year-old Bob Blake over the roar of the crowd from his seat in the Mound Stand after the fall of the fourth MCC wicket. A Trinidad native, Blake came to London in his teens before settling in Luton. He has been coming to Lord’s for nearly 50 years, ever since his beloved West Indies, led by Clive Lloyd, claimed their first World Cup at Lord’s in 1975.They might not be on par with Lloyd’s feared pace quartet, but Afghanistan’s pace attack has been the envy of the Associate world and left-armer Shapoor Zadran bared his teeth with the new ball for Brendon McCullum and Misbah-ul-Haq to see.”I’m very impressed with the opening bowler, Shapoor,” Blake said. “It’s great to see Afghanistan today. They’re a Full Test Member. I’ve never seen them live but they look pretty useful. I was aware they were a decent team over the years especially in one-day cricket. You can’t take them lightly. If Ireland got Test status and Ireland’s a good team, they’re a better team than Ireland.”It was only last month that Afghanistan had drawn an ODI series in their maiden tour of the Caribbean thanks to Rashid Khan’s destructive seven-wicket haul in the first game. It was a match that further dented the West Indies dwindling reputation and Blake said he hasn’t decided if he wants to buy tickets to see the West Indies when they tour the UK later in the summer. The old calypso magic may have faded but remnants of it were evident in the Afghanistan side that was on the park in front of him.”There are definitely similarities because the West Indian supporters really were noisy as well,” Blake said. “We would back our boys to the hilt. We loved it when something went right so it’s very very similar really. The enthusiasm is virtually the same.”They’re noisy, they’re enthusiastic. They obviously love their players. They’re behind them all the way and they’re showing it. The atmosphere is pretty terrific really, especially at Lord’s you’re not accustomed to this atmosphere. It’s more of an Edgbaston atmosphere here today. This is not a Lord’s atmosphere, which is great. Lord’s is too quiet.”Atmosphere. It was one-of-a-kind for Lord’s on Tuesday, in part because, as Blake said, it was the antithesis of a typical Lord’s crowd. Compared to the measured responses emoted by England fans during the Test match over the weekend, Tuesday was symbolised by the raw spontaneity from the Afghanistan fans.”I think it’s exciting because we’re getting to see the Afghan team play,” British-Afghan Sadaf Nader, 31, from Richmond, said. “I mean it’s a pretty standard answer, but is exciting.”Nader’s husband Jawed, 34, was taken aback not just by the size of the crowd, which hovered near 8000, but by the off-the-wall antics of fans from their vantage point in the Edrich Stand.”It’s also overwhelming to see so many Afghan youths here,” Jawed said. “I’ve seen Afghans at our own gatherings, but not in this number. It is such a big number and they’re really enjoying themselves… and breaking all the MCC rules!””Breaking every rule!” chimed in Sadaf.The slippery slope began well before the start of play at the entrance gates. Afghan fans are renowned for their flag-waving enthusiasm and perhaps uninitiated to the Lord’s protocol, scores showed up with flags in tow, fashionably draped around their necks. The Lord’s stewards who greeted them at the North Gate repeatedly asked: “Is this a scarf or a flag? Because flags are not allowed inside Lord’s.” Every streetwise Afghan duly assured: “Scarf! Scarf!” in reply. Initially they were shy about stretching out their “scarves” but they couldn’t help themselves once Shapoor starting taking wickets, unabashedly heaving the tri-colour flag with merry abandon.The ubiquitous flag infringements were relatively minor compared with what was to come in the 25th over of MCC’s innings. When Dawlat Zadran pinged Shiv Chanderpaul on the left arm off the first ball of the over, a lengthy delay ensued as the batsman pondered whether to retire hurt. The fans were beginning to grow somewhat restless after having sat through a 105-minute rain delay following the 18th over.In an attempt to placate his growing legion of worshippers, Rashid walked over to the railing of the Mound Stand to sign autographs and pose for selfies. Within 30 seconds an overly exuberant supporter leapt over the fence to hug Rashid. A dozen more imitators followed as the under-manned stewards were overwhelmed. Afghanistan’s fans have a long-held reputation for storming the field after a landmark win, but charging the pitch for this mid-match show of affection may have been a first for them.”It’s just a good thing they had their clothes on,” quipped Sadaf Nader.When one fire was put out, another started as a couple of fans jumped the Tavern Stand railing. One headed for fine leg where Gulbadin Naib was casually standing, while the other made haste with a flag-turned superman cape towards a crowd of seven players gathered near Dawlat Zadran’s run-up mark. When one steward finally caught up, the fan hid behind statuesque captain Asghar Stanikzai, shuffling back and forth in an absurdly impromptu game of hide and seek that had the fans – then Asghar and Dawlat – cackling with uncontrollable laughter.By the time Chanderpaul walked off five minutes later to be replaced by Samit Patel, order had been restored. As has been the case at other events where there is a large Afghanistan turnout at odds with established etiquette, Afghanistan team manager Hamkar Shiraha got a hold of a microphone and diplomatically gave an announcement in Pashto over the Lord’s tannoy. The gist of it, according to the Naders, was that the fans need to show they are good and respectful cricket fans by obeying the MCC rules, which drew thunderous applause. As ever, Hamkar ended his speech on a positive note, rallying the fans by shouting, “Afghanistan Zindabad!”The rain could hardly dampen the mood of the day, but if there was one blemish it had to be those who were absent from the squad to take part in the day’s festivities. Nawroz Mangal got the red-carpet treatment in January at the Desert T20 Final. Mangal received a fitting send-off for his services to Afghanistan cricket, but the real star of that day was Mohammad Shahzad, who became the first player to score two T20I fifties in a day. Countless fans at Lord’s were pining for Shahzad, disappointed he could not entertain them with some holding signs pleading with the ICC to “forgive” him for testing positive earlier this year for performance-enhancing drugs.Jan Shinwari (front) helped organise more 100 fans to come down together from Birmingham•Peter Della PennaThe other forgotten soul was Hamid Hassan. Rashid may be the box-office drawcard of the moment but for those who were around to see Afghanistan first surface on the ICC’s major tournament stage, Hamid was the original Afghanistan rock star. Hamid floated through the team hotel, training sessions, warm-ups and fiery 145kph reverse-swing bowling spells like a Greek god. But now it’s as if those spells held a Prometheus trait. Injuries continue to ravage his body.Chants of “Shah-POOR! “Rah-SHEED!” and “Nah-BEE!” were heard ringing around the Lord’s stands early and often throughout Afghanistan’s time in the field, but there were no such shouts for “Hah-MEED!” It’s a cruel fate that someone who played such an instrumental role in Afghanistan’s early fortunes has not been able to reap the adulation and rewards of his peers on days like this. Not only was Hamid not in uniform at Lord’s, but it’s unknown when or if the 30-year-old will ever suit up again.Still, there was far too much to be joyous about. Who would have predicted after decades of war and devastation at home that there would come a day when peace and salvation would be ever-present in the happy and carefree smiles of the thousands of Afghanistan faithful who made their way to northwest London. Following a lengthy nomadic existence, they have worked to establish their roots once again. The seeds planted through a bat-and-ball sport over the last decade had sprouted up and were on full view on Tuesday at the Home of Cricket.”It’s a proud moment,” Jawed said. “Afghanistan is often associated with all the bad superlatives, like the poorest, worst corruption, worst in opium production, but to see Afghanistan being one of the best in sports, that is unique and good.”It’s an extraordinary positive story about Afghanistan. When we have victories it unites the nation as a whole and that’s very good. I hope that we have more sportsmen like Rashid Khan, like Mohammad Nabi at international level so that they also are inspirations for youngsters back in the country.”

It was not always easy, but a worthy role model and the belated discovery of a cricket club helped keep a childhood passion alive and kicking

Amod Sugiyama01-Jul-2017I never thought a day would come when I would shed a tear while reading a cricket book. Especially when the book was a gloriously funny memoir, Emma John’s .Was it because the protagonist of the memoir was Mike Atherton, her idol growing up, and my favourite person in the cricket world? But while I admire Atherton and eagerly wait for his column every Thursday, I don’t love him the way many Indian fans love Sachin Tendulkar or Virat Kohli.I cried because the book reminded me of my childhood.I was ten years old in August 2005, visiting my relatives in India, when I caught a glimpse of the most memorable Test series ever played. I don’t know if it was Andrew Flintoff’s heroic performances or Kevin Pietersen’s ridiculous hairstyle that made me fall in love with the game, but I became interested right away. Disney villains like Jafar and Maleficent were quickly replaced by Ricky Ponting and Matthew Hayden in my head. It took almost ten more years for me to learn to respect these two modern cricketing greats.I do not remember much about my previous visits to India before 2005 but my dad tells me now that during a train journey, I was struck by the sight of kids playing cricket everywhere – even on the railway tracks. All I remember from that journey is seeing people throw used paper cups from the train windows. Had I joined them, I might have been a better ball thrower now.My friends say cricket is in my blood. Sure, having an Indian father made it easier to get into the game, but the same didn’t happen to my younger brother. I wanted to know why a blond, slightly overweight Australian man who was apparently bowling much slower than his team-mates was troubling the English batsmen. My brother did not. No, cricket didn’t choose me, I chose cricket.The author learning the game in India as a kid•Sarang UrdhwaresheMy dad bought me a DVD boxset of the 2005 Ashes for my birthday that year and I watched it again and again. Browsing through old cricket scorecards on Cricinfo became a daily activity. I learnt that Test cricket could be both wonderfully exciting (Edgbaston 2005) and incredibly boring (Colombo 1997). I loved listening to my dad’s old cricket anecdotes too, stories of the West Indian greats and Sunil Gavaskar, who was his idol.The epic series of 2005 had made me an England fan and I spent many Saturday afternoons revisiting their previous tours in the last two decades on Cricinfo. It turned out they were not exactly world-beaters in the ’90s. Going through all the scorecards, one man caught my attention. He was the captain of the team for five years in that period and it seemed like he was anchoring many innings, only to find out he lacked partners who could stick it out with him. “Dad, why did Atherton only average 38? Tendulkar averages 57, right?” I asked him one day. “Well, he was an opener. And it was a bloody tough job in the ’90s,” was his answer.I came across the scorecard of the 1995 Johannesburg Test, which Atherton saved by batting for more than ten hours. “How can a man bat for that long knowing his team cannot win,” I wondered. Atherton had been part of the commentary team for the Ashes that year. I could not believe the man with a kind, gentle voice was capable of such a heroic performance. I was also obsessed with Tolkien and at that time and my favourite character was Faramir. Thinking back now, maybe I found some similarities between the young captain of Gondor and Atherton: both were students of history and loved literature. And both could be incredibly brave when they needed to be.Next gen: Kosuke (left) and Naoki Okamoto•Alan MargerisonBut even though I was growing up a cricket fan, my engagement with the game was limited to following professional games on the internet and playing the occasional game in the park while visiting relatives in India until I turned 18. Born and raised in the small town of Takamatsu in Kagawa, Japan, I had no access to playing the game. (This is the excuse I use when I have to explain why I am such a bad cricketer!)Luckily my college prefecture had a club, so I was finally able to play the sport. Shiga Cricket Club (we rebranded the club as Shiga Kyoto Cricket Club this year) was a beacon for cricket-loving expats living in Japan for work or education. When I joined the club five years ago, I was the only Japanese in the team, and all we did was get together on Sundays and have a hit among ourselves in various parks in the area.Now we are playing matches regularly with other teams in this area. There are four university cricket teams and one high school team in our area, though we are still the only adult team around here. Despite all the difficulties – there is no cricket ground in Kyoto, so we play most of the games on a rock-hard baseball ground with matting wicket – cricket is growing here.Our club boasts the best wicketkeeper in the region in Ashley Canning. I owe him for all the stumpings he has got me with my rubbish left-arm spin. But it’s best to leave him alone when he gets out since he will be looking for ways to smash his bat or gloves on something. He’ll be okay five minutes later.Alan Margerison, a Yorkshireman who pretends to be an Aussie, has a good defensive technique, so it’s a shame that we only play 20-over games. He bowls handy offspin too.Indranil Mukherjee (Indi) is not only a good batsman and a true team player but also our team’s fashion guru. Unfortunately, he is pretty busy with his postdoc these days and cannot join us every time. We need you more, Indi!A Shiga match on a baseball pitch•Ashley CanningRemesh Palakkad joined us at the end of the last season and is quickly becoming a central figure in the team. He is a genuine allrounder and our quickest bowler at the moment. I ask him every time whether he wants to take the new ball and he always says no and bowls the second over. We cricketers are superstitious people, aren’t we?Our newest Japanese player, Ikuo Ogita, watched a little cricket footage on CNN years ago and that was how he got interested in the game. He finally started playing this year after finding us on Facebook.However, the two biggest shining lights of our club are a pair of Japanese brothers, Naoki (11) and Kosuke (14) Okamoto, Alan’s family friends. The first time they watched cricket was a Big Bash game on TV during a holiday in Australia. The game looked familiar to them. What form of baseball was this? After a few games in the park while on holiday, they started to practise with a rubber ball. Soon, the temptation of hitting the hard ball became too strong for them and they started to come with Alan to our games. A Japanese version of the Chappell brothers in the making!Emma’s book is a coming-of-age story of a slightly awkward teenager. In chapters three and four, she writes how she tried to be an “evangelist” and introduce cricket to her friends only to find out they “tolerated [her love for cricket] and gently ignored” it. I know how you felt, Emma! I tried too, here in the land ruled by baseball. Some friends and teachers were nice enough to ask me the latest India scores. “How did India go last night, Amod?” “Not good. Lost to Australia again,” was my usual reply while I thought, “Bloody hell, I don’t even support India.”It was tough being the only cricket fan in school. I tried to explain cricket to my school friends many times but to no avail. I now think that the only similarity between cricket and baseball is that you use a bat to hit the ball. They are completely different sports. My friends all thought cricket is a much easier sport to play because there is no foul ball and you can hit the ball to 360 degrees. That is probably true but in cricket, you are judged by your whole innings rather than “one hit”.I sometimes wonder if I’ll get the chance to meet Atherton. “Hi, Athers! Pleasure meeting you. I know you have no idea but you had a big influence on one Japanese teenager growing up. By the way, why on earth did you declare when Graeme Hick was 98 not out in Sydney?”Want to be featured on Inbox? Send your articles to us here, with “Inbox” in the subject line.