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A look at how teams successfully get to targets in the tournament and what they do at each stage of a game

Himanish Ganjoo31-Aug-2020Limited-overs cricket divides the game into two halves: batting first and chasing are markedly different from each other. With a target in sight, batting sides approach their innings considering what they need to achieve. Compared to the uncertainty involved in setting a good target, this largely makes chasing a better strategy, which is why teams winning the toss have chosen to field first in 77.6% of completed matches in the IPL since 2015. When they opt to chase, teams win 57.5% of matches. On the other hand, even when they lose the toss and are asked to chase, they win 52.5% of the time. Teams have identified that chasing presents a clear advantage. But what does the average chasing side do right? How is the standard chasing win constructed in the IPL?In this article, we will analyse chases of 140 or more in the last five IPL seasons, to restrict our data to reasonably challenging targets in the recent past.Looking at the chances of winning a chase, a total of between 140 and 160, which would be considered slightly under par on an average T20 wicket, presents a 61.1% chance of being chased down; 177 is the average target for teams in this dataset, and that falls at the end of the 160-180 bracket, which is a traditional “par” score and corresponds to a roughly 57% and 44% success rate.

He’s shown the class of Pooran, timing of de Villiers and finishing of Dhoni. All he needs is more time in the middle

Saurabh Somani30-Oct-20203:15

Ian Bishop on Jadeja: ‘He must get more than eight balls to bat’

“I’m not sure he’s missed training since we’ve been here.” – Stephen Fleming, the Chennai Super Kings coach, on Ravindra Jadeja.”I was hitting well in the nets also so I just kept thinking of that, that how I’m hitting in the nets and I was hoping to do it in the match.” – Jadeja after his innings of 31* off 11 balls to win a last-ball thriller against the Kolkata Knight Riders.Hitting the ball well while training while not having missed a single training session in the two months that the Super Kings have been in the UAE is a of balls hit well. IPL 2020 hasn’t gone the way the Super Kings had planned, but it has heralded the arrival of Jadeja the batsman in the shortest format.In the past three years, he had already lifted his Test batting to have numbers specialist batsmen would be happy with, averaging 48.61 over 24 matches. But, in the shortest format, Jadeja’s batting had never reached those heights on any consistent basis. Before this tournament, his IPL batting average (24.08) and strike rate (122.66) were fairly ordinary.This year, those numbers are out of sight. His batting average of 46.40 and strike rate of 171.85 are the best for his team. Better than Ambati Rayudu and Faf du Plessis, faster than Sam Curran and MS Dhoni. Looking at his Smart Stats, the value of his quick scoring is starkly apparent: Jadeja’s Smart Strike is 195.27, the fourth best in the entire league. He’s ahead of Hardik Pandya, and behind only Kieron Pollard, Nicholas Pooran and AB de Villiers. Or put another way, his batting has been as effective as those gents.Jadeja, the batsman, has been among the best finishers in IPL 2020 by almost any measure. In a team beset by batting worries, he’s been an unheralded superstar.”This season he has been fantastic,” Dhoni said after the win against the Knight Riders. “He has been the only person in our team who has taken that job of scoring runs in the last few overs. The good thing is, he’s very balanced at the end. He knows, and believes in the kind of talent that he has, and he has looked to score everywhere. He’s not just using his power, at times he has scored through the point region if the field is up.”I feel he needed somebody else with him throughout the season, then we could have been good. Most of the sides have at least one or two hard-hitters down the order who can capitalise in the last three or four overs.”Jadeja connects with one on the pads•BCCIJadeja has done this despite batting mostly at No. 6 this season. Unlike Pollard, he hasn’t had the luxury of a top order that’s also firing. Unlike Pooran and de Villiers – when not shielded against leg-spin – he hasn’t had the luxury of time in the middle before exploding. Despite that, he’s been in their league.That he’s not had enough time could be one for the Super Kings post-mortem of the season when they sit back to dissect what went wrong. Jadeja has batted 135 balls so far in 11 innings, but been dismissed only five times. He gets to face just over 12 balls per innings on average, while being dismissed once every 27 balls. Scoring at that rate, and getting out as infrequently, should lead to a promotion in the batting order so that the team can maximise his utility, but that hasn’t happened.The Super Kings did act on the inherent logic of this, which is why Curran earned promotions. But perhaps they missed a trick by not promoting Jadeja too. Dhoni, for example, has been batting ahead of Jadeja in almost every game, and there is a vast gulf in their numbers.Jadeja came in at No.7 in the Super Kings’ first defeat against the Knight Riders, with 39 to get in 2.5 overs. He ended up hitting 21* off eight balls.In the Super Kings’ second match against the Delhi Capitals, he was at No.6, and walked in 3.3 overs remaining in the first innings. He hit 33* off 13 in a match the Capitals won off the penultimate ball.Even on Thursday, by the time Jadeja walked in, only 2.4 overs remained and the Super Kings needed 33 to win. “I think it was game where the climax went in our favour,” Dhoni would smile and say after the match. But could more than one have gone in their favour by utilising their resources – in this case a batsman in prime form – better?There is something to be said for keeping a player back and sending him in when there is limited time left in the game because of how individuals work. You can bat with a free mind, and be at your most effective perhaps when you know there is only one way to play. That certainly has been true of Dinesh Karthik, for example, who has averaged 50.5 at 183.6 when coming in after the 15th over against 18.88 at 127.8 when coming in before the 15th over since IPL 2019.”The last 12 balls you don’t have to think too much, just see the ball and hit the ball,” Jadeja would say after his latest innings. “I knew that if they bowl in my arc I would definitely look to hit a six. That was the simple planning behind it.”Fleming seemed to echo a similar sentiment, almost hinting that too much time in the middle might be counter-productive. “He’s very free,” Fleming said. “At times he’s almost tried to play too smart but now he’s just playing free and seeing the ball and just hitting it beautifully.”On the other hand, in IPL 2020 itself Jadeja has shown he can bat long too. He got the opportunity to do so after top-order collapses. He had 50 off 35 against the Sunrisers Hyderabad and 35* off 30 against the Rajasthan Royals. In a format where batsmen are far more likely to fail than succeed, an effect that is magnified when you bat at No.6, Jadeja’s successes have been remarkable.The Super Kings have only one match left, but even if it won’t affect qualification, it’s worth investing a little more in Jadeja, the batsman.

It’s been 32 years since Australia have been pinned down so expertly by tourists, and their captain wants clearer plans from his batsmen

Daniel Brettig29-Dec-2020Last time Australia stumbled through an entire home Test match without a single batsman passing 50, against the mighty West Indies at the MCG in 1988, the aftermath went down as a seminal moment in the minds of many members of what was then a developing team.Allan Border had led his men to the 1987 World Cup and a Test series win over New Zealand at home the following summer, but a defeat in Pakistan followed by three consecutive thumpings from Viv Richards’ Caribbean side caused plenty of hurt and no little frustration in the home dressing room.None of Australia’s batsmen could build on their starts•Getty ImagesNot unlike the top six harried repeatedly into error by India’s seamers in Adelaide and Melbourne 32 years later, Australia’s batsmen were playing without confidence or system, allowing the visitors to dictate terms. To see this pattern reach such a point at the MCG where no one was able to hang around long enough to pass 50, the then team manager Ian MacDonald chose his time to let Border’s team know exactly what he thought, something recounted some years ago by the late Dean Jones.”Macca came from an AFL background and he was filthy at our insipid, gutless performance. He then gave us a coach’s address of which the great Ron Dale Barassi would have been proud,” Jones wrote in in 2016. “Macca yelled out: ‘Enough is enough. We need to start to throw some punches against these blokes as they are killing you. They are making you look like a bunch of weak pricks. Listen to them next door, just bloody listen.Related

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‘They are treating you guys like club cricketers. Now we better get together, stick tough and sort out our own issues or this team will be remembered as the worst and most gutless Australian team of all time! Now let’s stick together and start talking how bloody good we are and not how bloody good they are! Let’s draw a line in the sand here as enough is enough!'”Undoubtedly, the dressing room now occupied by Tim Paine’s XI will be feeling similarly low, having failed completely to counter the plans and spells of the Indians, marshalled so expertly by Ajinkya Rahane. They will now be looking eagerly towards the fitness of David Warner, and the recovery from concussion of Will Pucovski, who looms as a potential option either at the top of the order alongside Warner or in the middle.Either way, the opener Joe Burns looks to be on incredibly shaky ground, while the experiment with Matthew Wade has failed to produce the sorts of tempo-building innings that Australia have come to rely upon from Warner. Paine was clear that the hosts needed to find a better balance between attack and defence after India managed to cut down their scoring avenues for the second consecutive Test series.”That’s the game isn’t it, it’s risk/reward, it’s being clear – I think everyone’s going to do it differently,” Paine said. “Matthew Wade looks like he’s going to sweep, some other guys are going to use their feet. Cameron Green didn’t attack overly today but played really nicely.”Everyone’s got to have their own plan, be clear on it and then have the confidence to go out and execute it. We have if anything been slightly tentative in committing to exactly how we want to play the spin or the fast bowling when they’re attacking our stumps and setting really strong leg-side fields.”Paine denied that either Steven Smith or Marnus Labuschagne have been caught out by India’s planning over many long, Covid-19 affected months leading up to this series, even if few can remember seeing Smith’s rotation of the strike so cut back by the posting of two square legs when the pacemen attack the stumps. Instead, he argued that Smith simply needed to get himself established at the crease in one innings to find the metronomic rhythm that has served him so well in the past.

“We have been slightly tentative in committing to exactly how we want to play the spin or the fast bowling when they’re attacking our stumps and setting really strong leg-side fields”Australia captain Tim Paine

“India are bowling well, they’ve been extremely disciplined, we haven’t been able to get partnerships together, but from what I’ve seen watching say Marnus and Steve Smith in their Test career, this is not the first time teams have targeted their stumps. That happens every single Test match,” Paine said.”These guys are executing it better and someone like Steve in particular hasn’t been able to get in yet. Once he does he’ll find a way, as he always has, and the rest of us will follow suit and need to improve, there’s no doubt about that. But these aren’t plans that we’re encountering for the first time.”For Smith, the key is that he has not been able to play a single long innings for all of 2020, leading him to the worst two Test matches of his career in terms of runs scored, usurping Edgbaston and Trent Bridge in 2015 where his rapid dismissals set England on the course to regaining the Ashes. “At the moment I’m searching for time in the middle; that’s the most important thing for me,” Smith told SEN Radio before play.”When I look at this year, 64 balls [66, during the first ODI] is the longest I’ve spent in the middle during those one-day games. For me, that’s important. I find a lot of rhythm out in the middle. You can bat as much as you want in the nets, but there’s nothing that can replicate what a game can do, so that for me is what I’m searching for at the moment. That can be tough to do, particularly in a Test match when you’ve got some quality bowlers.”This of course will also be a challenge for Warner if he is deemed fit to return from a groin strain, while Pucovski will know that his recent concussion history is likely to see him facing plenty of short balls should he be included for a Test match debut in either of the two remaining matches.”David looks really good from what I’ve seen,” Paine said. “He’s been training this week in the nets and started running a bit between the wickets, so I think the early signs with him are very good for the third Test, which is awesome for us, and Will Pucovski a similar boat, I think he’s not far away.”There’s some return-to-play protocol that he has or needs to tick off, I’m not across it all, but my conversations with Will are that he’s pretty close to a return. My conversations with him are that he does feel okay and he’s excited to come back inside the bubble and prepare.”Either way, the Australians have the chance to redeem themselves over two more matches within this series. Border’s men 32 years ago had already lost the series, but went on to win the fourth Test and draw the fifth, an outcome that Paine undoubtedly would take right now.

His variety of slower balls and ability to give a good whack with the bat make him a valuable T20 World Cup candidate

Deivarayan Muthu19-Mar-2021In the lead-up to IPL 2018, Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming was impressed with Shardul Thakur in match-simulation slog overs at Chepauk, although the seamer was bit of a hit-and-miss. Fleming believed that Thakur could become a death-bowling option for the franchise along with the first-choice Dwayne Bravo – if he could work on his lines and lengths. Three years later, Thakur showcased his T20 evolution in a must-win match for India against a power-packed England line-up with an assortment of slower deliveries that might have done Bravo proud.The conditions at Motera on Thursday night were as tough as they could get for any bowler. When Thakur aimed for a yorker at the death with a dew-slicked ball, he lost grip of it so much that it flew behind him. Thakur hadn’t started well either, dropping Dawid Malan on 3 at short third man and then leaking 21 runs from his first two overs. The catch was a tough one, and two boundaries came off edges, but the figures didn’t tell these tales.Related

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When Thakur was recalled into the attack, England were in front, needing 46 from 24 balls, in their chase of 186, with six wickets in hand. Ben Stokes had just taken down both Indian spinners Rahul Chahar and Washington Sundar, peeling off 41 from a combined 19 balls off them.ESPNcricinfo’s forecaster pegged England’s chances of winning at 50.62% at the start of the 17th over, but in a space of two balls it nosedived sharply to 15.94%. Thakur rolled out a pair of offcutters and had both Stokes and Eoin Morgan holing out of successive balls. He banged those cutters into the pitch and hid it away from the swinging arcs of both the left-handers. Both batsmen took the wiser option of attempting to hit Thakur straighter as opposed to squarer, but they ended up slicing the ball to the outfielders. With Thakur’s double-strike, India were onto something…Hardik Pandya and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, too, kept taking pace off the ball, bowling legcutters to right-handers and offcutters to left-handers, leaving Thakur with 22 to defend off the last over against Jofra Archer and Chris Jordan. Thakur floated a legcutter away from Jordan’s reach first ball and kept him to an under-edged single. However, against Archer, Thakur veered away from his slower variations wide of off, and served up an on-pace length ball on the stumps that was pumped down the ground for four. The next ball was short and wide with Archer mowing it over midwicket for six. The equation was narrowed to 12 from three balls, and the pressure was back on Thakur. The seamer tossed the ball into his trouser pocket and wiped it furiously.The pressure mounted further on Thakur after he sent down two wides – one for height and the other for width. After a seemingly intense discussion with Rohit Sharma, the stand-in captain, and Pandya, Thakur revisited Plan A: dig slower balls into the pitch and take it away from the batsman. He splintered the toe of Archer’s bat with the fourth legal ball of the over and then had Jordan holing out next delivery with what looked like a knuckle ball to close out the game for India.Shardul Thakur’s double-strike at the death derailed England’s chase•BCCI”The last over [is] never easy and with dew coming in so much…there was not much dew in the last three games, but this game yes there was dew,” Thakur outlined the challenge for him, speaking to . “Definitely a tough over and they [England] were swinging hard. So, they were going for a few runs and it was important to bowl those dot balls – one or two dot balls – and the game was sealed.”Yes definitely because like I mentioned earlier there was dew coming in, so had we bowled the slower ones in the stumps or little bit up then it would have been easy to hit. The idea was to hit into the stumps and keep [the ball] away from their power zone.”Thakur also said that he relished the pressure of bowling the tough overs in the death and powerplay, having also done it recently for CSK in IPL and Mumbai in domestic cricket.”I’m enjoying it a lot,” he said. “Even when I’m playing in the IPL or domestic cricket, I bowl a lot of overs in the death or fourth, fifth or sixth over in the powerplay. So, I bowl a lot of overs where batsmen come hard at bowlers. Kind of getting used to it now.”The Thakur of the old, however, wasn’t used to white-ball cricket. He had fairly limited exposure with the white ball, having played a bulk of his age-group cricket in Mumbai with the red ball. Then, in senior cricket, he first broke into India’s Test squad in 2016 with his strong Ranji Trophy performances. He has since learnt on the job, adding more tricks to his repertoire and knowing when to use them.When Thakur made his T20I debut in 2018, he only seemed to have the knuckle ball as his change-up option. He can now bowl a split-finger variation, cutters into the middle of the pitch, and a cross-seamer that he gets to swerve by imparting backspin. In the ongoing T20I series against England on the grippy Ahmedabad tracks, he has taken all his five wickets with the offcutter, according to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data, giving up 65 runs off 43 balls. And he bowled 21 of those offcutters on Thursday alone.India’s attack, much like their batting line-up, is packed with options in the approach to T20 World Cup, but not too many have the adaptability and variety of Thakur. Plus, he can give it a good whack with the bat in the lower order.

A recap of some of those needing to impress the selectors over the five matches against Bangladesh

Andrew McGlashan03-Aug-2021Josh Philippe
It’s still early days for Philippe, but after passing 40 twice in his first three innings against New Zealand earlier this year, it has been more of a struggle with scores of 13, 2, 1, 13 and 0. In the West Indies, he battled to adapt to the slower surfaces compared to how the ball largely comes onto the bat in the Big Bash League. He was also used in the middle order as Australia assessed their options, but it felt like another square-peg, round-hole situation. In his favour, there will need to be another wicketkeeper in the World Cup squad and he could well travel as a utility player although it feels next year’s tournament in Australia could really be his time to shine.Ben McDermott
A stop-start international career has yet to get off the ground with his T20I strike rate still at under a run-a-ball. Like many, he is more comfortable in the top order but was used at No. 6 in the two matches he played against West Indies with scores of 2 and 7 before he picked up a quad injury. He then suffered another injury scare when he crashed through the boundary boards during the second ODI but has recovered to be available for this series and could have a chance to open in place of the absent Aaron Finch. Like Philippe, he could provide a back-up wicketkeeping option in a World Cup squad.Related

• Turner hopes return to bowling will boost T20 World Cup chances

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Moises Henriques
Henriques earned his recall against India last year on the back of strong returns for the Sydney Sixers in the BBL, but against West Indies couldn’t make the most of his starts with four scores between 16 and 33. At times he also struggled to up the tempo with that 33 taking 29 balls in the third match. His leadership qualities and experience are valued around the squad but he may need a substantial score in this series to stay in contention. It has been surprising not to see him used with the ball.Ashton Turner
Having toured New Zealand without playing before returning home early for the birth of his child, he was a late addition to these two trips after a number of players withdrew having not been part of the original enlarged squad. However, it was still odd, given the middle-order role he plays in the BBL for Perth Scorchers, not to see him selected in the T20I side from the start. When he did get included midway through he made 24 and 6. It feels as though he needs a longer run this series to make a judgement. His offspin adds a useful extra string to the bow.Josh Philippe, Moises Henriques and Andrew Tye are among those hoping for more chances in Bangladesh•AFPDan Christian
It was a feel-good story when Christian was recalled to this squad amid the mass withdrawals after becoming a globe-trotting T20 star. The jury remains out whether the tale continues all the way to the World Cup. He had the perfect chance to finish a game in the first match against West Indies but became part of Australia’s hectic collapse. However, his unbeaten 22 off 14 balls in the fourth match gave a glimpse of what he can do when the innings had threatened to come off the rails. Australia won by four runs. He was only given five overs across four matches, the last of which went for 23.Andrew Tye
Tye is Australia’s fourth-leading wicket-taker in T20Is but has not had much opportunity since returning from an elbow injury. He played two matches against India last year, toured New Zealand without getting a game and then was finally brought in for the final match against West Indies last month. He stood up pretty well to a strong batting performance that threatened to storm over 200 before Tye’s three wickets pulled them back. He is likely to be jostling for one of the back-up pace bowling positions.Jason Behrendorff
The Perth Scorchers left-armer had two outings against West Indies with mixed results. He did not take a wicket in either game, but bowled a couple of good overs in Australia’s only victory and showed a few of the slower-ball variations he has been working to add to his white-ball game. In the last match, he was taken to by Evin Lewis when he was asked to bowl three overs inside the powerplay that went for 46 and included consecutive no-balls.