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Pep Guardiola has unveiled a striking new look ahead of Manchester City's pre-season return, swapping his clean-shaven face for a bold moustache. The 54-year-old Spaniard, who once complimented a reporter’s facial hair as “sexy,” is now turning heads with his own transformation. Fans have been quick to react and compare the Spaniard with television's favourite coach, Ted Lasso.

Guardiola debuts moustache ahead of new seasonNew look compared to Ted LassoCity boss once praised reporter’s facial hair in 2021Follow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱WHAT HAPPENED?

Guardiola was spotted sporting a moustache in public, just days before City's pre-season camp begins on July 28. It marks a notable style shift for the usually clean-shaven City boss. Fans have quickly likened the Spaniard's new look to that of Jason Sudekis' Ted Lasso from the hit Apple TV show, on which Guardiola has previously appeared.

AdvertisementWHAT THE FANS ARE SAYING

On X, @tedlassobrasil joked: "Pep Guardiola saw the announcement of the start of production for the fourth season of Ted Lasso and decided to pay tribute to his idol."

@JBTFooty wrote: "Pep Guardiola now has a moustache inspired by Ted Lasso as he aims to turn things around after Manchester City’s disastrous last season."

@Bira_Rodrigo86 added: "Guardiola has adopted a new look! Now he's sporting a moustache in the style of Ted Lasso! What do you all think of Pep's look?"

@Immortapheonix joked: "Guardiola in a sitcom would be generational, has the facial everything."

@Utdboby added: "It's not about having a moustache, Joseph Guardiola, it's about having a beautiful season that puts smiles on your fans' faces. No shades."

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Guardiola’s facial hair quickly gained attention from fans online, with many praising the moustache as a bold and stylish choice. The timing of the switch has drawn comparisons to his past praise of reporter Fred Caldeira’s moustache. In 2021, Guardiola told TNT Sports' Caldeira: "I really like your moustache, Fred. You are so attractive and sexy."

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GettyWHAT NEXT FOR GUARDIOLA?

Guardiola is expected to lead Manchester City’s training camp from July 28 as they prepare for the new season. With a refreshed look and renewed focus, he’ll aim to restore City’s dominance both domestically and in Europe. All eyes will be on both his tactics — and his tache — come kick-off.

The wristspinner recently played for MI Emirates in the ILT20 and has also played one T20I

ESPNcricinfo staff09-Apr-20242:36

Will SRH miss Hasaranga as the pitches dry out?

Sunrisers Hyderabad have signed 22-year-old Sri Lanka legspinner Vijayakanth Viyaskanth as a replacement for the injured Wanindu Hasaranga at his reserve price of INR 50 lakh. Hasaranga was officially ruled out of IPL 2024 on Saturday owing to chronic pain in his heel that initially delayed his arrival for the tournament.Viyaskanth first rose to prominence in December 2020, when he became the youngest player at 18 years and 364 days to feature in the Lanka Premier League for Jaffna Stallions. In that tournament, he also became the first born-and-bred player from Jaffna, in Sri Lanka’s northern tip and once the epicentre of a three-decade-long civil war, to appear in an internationally televised game.He represented Sri Lanka at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou in one T20I. He also impressed with eight wickets in four outings at an economy of 5.43 for title winners MI Emirates – where Mahela Jayawardene is the global head of performance – at the ILT20.Vijayakanth Viyaskanth picked up three top-order wickets•SLCRajasthan Royals’ director of cricket and head coach Kumar Sangakkara had brought him in as a net bowler for the team in the IPL last season. He will now be working with another former Sri Lanka player, Muthiah Muralidaran, the bowling coach of Sunrisers.He has also represented Chattogram Challengers in the Bangladesh Premier League. In 33 T20s, Viyaskanth has 42 wickets at an average of 18.78, an economy of 6.76 and a strike rate of 16.6.Until early last week, the Sunrisers were hopeful of Hasaranga’s participation at some stage and were awaiting details of his consultation with a specialist in Dubai. On Sunday, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) communicated to the BCCI that Hasaranga had to be withdrawn from the IPL with an eye on the upcoming T20 World Cup in June-July.Hasaranga was bought by Sunrisers at his base price of INR 1.5 crore (approx USD 181,000) at the 2024 IPL auction in December, after Royal Challengers Bengaluru, who paid INR 10.75 crore for him in 2022, released him.

As Yuvraj Singh geared up for his first ever one-dayer at his home ground, he spoke to Anand Vasu about the challenges ahead

Anand Vasu in Mohali28-Oct-2005

Yuvraj Singh: all set to thrill his home crowd © Getty Images
“Do anything you have to, even tread on the damn thing but don’t let it get past,” Greg Chappell’s booming baritone bore down the pitch at Yuvraj Singh as he gave him throw-downs in the last net. Chappell had drawn Yuvraj aside, and was dealing with him one-on-one even as the rest of the team were put through their paces in the nets at the practice facility adjoining the main ground at the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium in Mohali.”It’s amazing what you can achieve if you get your energy moving forward. As long as you keep coming towards the ball you can always back yourself to get into a position to keep the ball down. It’s when you stop that you might hit it in the air,” exhorted Chappell, as Yuvraj crunched one brutal drive after another back towards his coach.On Friday, Yuvraj plays his first ever one-dayer at his home ground. He grew up playing on this ground, made his Test debut here, but has never once had the pleasure of wearing his India blue in front of a home crowd that adores him. “You’re right, it is quite surprising that I have beenplaying one-day cricket for so many years, have played all over the world, and yet never played here,” Yuvraj told Cricinfo. “It will be a good feeling – my mother, father, friends, they’ll all be there watching.”And you can bet there will be support, for Yuvraj has been under such pressure to hand out passes and tickets till late on the eve of the match, that the extra expectation of fans could play a factor. “Pressure is always there when you are playing international cricket,” he said, laughing off the suggestion that it might actually be harder to play at home than away. “I know Chandigarh is my home town and I love the place, but when you are playing for India you don’t think about that. It’s not about home town, it about country.”But Yuvraj has been able to play a role, offering suggestions and local expertise to the captain and coach, something which could play a crucial part in the second one-dayer. “Greg was here for the Challenger Trophy, so he has a fair idea of the conditions. I don’t need to tell him what it is like here. But I did have a chat with the captain, the coach, and some of the guys in the team and gave my inputs.”Chappell has believed for some time now that Yuvraj has it in him to become one of the batting mainstays of this team. In a few years, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly will all have moved along, leaving a gaping hole in the batting line-up. Yuvraj willthen have to move to the next level, and shoulder more responsibility. “I have been working on a lot of things, and I don’t really want to go into that in detail,” he added. “But I can tell you that one thing we have been paying special attention to is footwork.”When you suggest to him that he should perhaps refrain from sweeping against the spinners, as it is a shot that he does not play especially well, and that the percentages may be against him, he gets a touch irritated. “There’s no point saying I should not play the sweep just because I get out a few times playing that shot. Don’t forget I also score a lot of runs playing the sweep.” The way he plays in the V, with a long stride forward or a deep step back, you wonder why he needs to resort to the sweep. “You can’t just play the same shot each time,” he said. “If you do, the bowlers sort you out and start bowling a different line. You have to mix things up.”

Yuvraj does some fielding drills with Chappell watching closely © Getty Images
Yuvraj has begun to show the consistency people have been asking of him over the last few years. Yet his game and attitude are constantly questioned by the media and public who mistake his confident swagger for arrogance and a lack of hard work. In the last match, when he was dodgily adjudged lbw for 14, a television channel dubbed him [Culprit of the match] in a show that can only be described as disgusting.On the eve of the second one-dayer, one journalist asked Dravid about Yuvraj’s “failure” and his “lack of consistency.” Dravid, slightly taken aback by the question, retorted: “He’s a very good player, and he’s won matches for India with bat, ball and on the field. He’s just got one low score in a match where we’ve played after a month. He came out to bat when we needed to score quickly. In just the last series we played he got a hundred. It’s unfair, very unfair, to talk abouthis record,” ended Dravid, visibly ticked off, glaring at the journalist who asked the question.Yuvraj himself smiles off such criticism. His captain, coach and team know how good he is. And most importantly, Yuvraj himself knows, and this shows in the way he expresses himself with a bat in hand.

Fourteen years into a singular career, Muttiah Muralitharan remains cricket’s most extraordinary performer. Just how great is he?

Mukul Kesavan10-Jul-2006

Muralitharan has led Sri Lanka almost single-handedly to two memorable Test victories in England, the latest at Trent Bridge in 2006 © Getty Images
Normal people don’t think about sportsmen, they watch them. The thinking comes later, it’s a second-order pleasure. There are those of us who add Virender Sehwag’s latest score to his aggregate and divide by the number of innings played (minus the not-outs) to work out how many decimal points his career average has risen, but we do this in secret because we know that it is, like picking one’s nose, a furtive pleasure that not everyone is likely to understand. To understand Muttiah Muralitharan, to appreciate what he means to cricket, we should begin, not with his statistics, but his Presence.The difference between the great and the very good is that the great ones have an aura. Sometimes, first-rate players are undervalued because they lack that je ne sais quoi. Among batsmen, Ken Barrington, Dilip Vengsarkar, Andy Flower, Jacques Kallis, even Rahul Dravid, come to mind as extraordinary players who aren’t given their due because of a certain anonymity, whereas Viv Richards, Sunil Gavaskar, Javed Miandad, Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar, Sehwag, even Mahendra Singh Dhoni, walk the field swaddled in an aura that magnifies them and their doings. Among contemporary bowlers, Anil Kumble suffers most in this area, forever typed as a dogged striver, a wonderful senior pro, but not a Master of the Universe, whereas Imran Khan’s cricketing record is lacquered into immortality by his charisma. Glenn McGrath, without question the most dangerous bowler of the modern era, doesn’t get his due because his sour glower – either natural or cultivated – and the mean parsimony of his manner make him hard to like or even admire.Murali lucked out in the business of Presence. He is naturally theatrical, a television camera’s delight. That bobbing run-up, the whiplash speed of his arm action, the helicopter wrist, the eyes huge with effort at the point of release, the conspiratorial smile at his team-mates as he returns to his bowling mark, the radiant joy in playing and competing, reach out to the spectator and draw him in. Murali lacks Shane Warne’s confidence that every ball bowled might have taken a wicket but for the obtuseness of umpires, or the fiendish luck of batsmen; nor does his body language assert, as Warne’s does, that he has an answer to every problem. Sri Lanka have lost too many matches, and Murali lived through too many ambushes, for that kind of swagger. To the spectator, Warne’s minimalist, impassive walk-up implies magic; Murali’s animation suggests electricity.Cricket’s history manAs a bowler, Murali’s standing in world cricket is unique for several reasons. One, not only is he the greatest offspinner the game has seen, he is an original. He’s the first wrist-spinning offbreak bowler in the history of cricket. Before Murali, offbreaks were finger-spun; Murali’s huge offbreaks are spun from the wrist. Setting aside the controversy about the legality of his action, he has pioneered a new tradition of spin bowling, and his most outstanding disciple is Harbhajan Singh.Two, while he didn’t invent the doosra, the offspinner’s googly (the credit for that belongs to Saqlain Mushtaq), he certainly perfected it. A delivery that might have gone down in cricket history as a freak ball that died with its inventor, is now an established part of the offspinner’s armoury. Along with reverse swing, the doosra is the most radical extension of the bowler’s art in modern cricket, and Murali is its maestro.Three, Murali is the most important cricketer in the game today, because his career and its attendant controversies have changed the laws of cricket and subverted a century and more of cricketing common sense.When Murali was called for throwing by Darrell Hair, he was already a Test-playing veteran. At the time it seemed as if the career of a potentially great spin bowler was on the line. To be fair to the umpire, it was a reasonable call to make. To most cricketers and spectators there was something strange and spasmodic about Murali’s action. Yes, Murali hadn’t been called in all the Tests he had played till then, and yes, Brett Lee’s action had an obvious kink and he wasn’t called, but being inconsistent is not the same as being wrong. Arjuna Ranatunga’s magnificent brinkmanship, Australian insensitivity, and the ICC’s subsequent fumbling with the definition of a fair delivery made sure that the issue became politicised, with Murali cast as villain or martyr, depending on affiliation. Looking back, though, given the laws of cricket as they then stood, Hair was within his rights to call Murali for chucking because to the naked eye Murali’s arm did appear to bend and straighten.The sports scientists called in to adjudicate the matter determined that the bending and straightening was an optical illusion caused by the rotation of Murali’s congenitally crooked arm. This failed to satisfy the doubters and Murali was reported several times afterwards. On each occasion the scientists found in his favour till finally, a comprehensive survey of contemporary bowling actions established a paradoxical and ironical fact: not only was the manifest illegality of Murali’s action an optical illusion, the taken-for-granted legality of the actions of the world’s bowlers was an optical illusion too! Put simply, the scientists found that nearly every bowler in the world bent and straightened his arm, including never suspected paragons of bowling virtue like McGrath and Jason Gillespie. Hostile critics of Murali, like Michael Holding and Ian Botham, turned on a dime and accepted without a murmur the new definition of a legal delivery, which allowed all bowlers to flex their arms up to 15 degrees. There the matter rests. As things stand, what started as a controversy about an individual’s bowling action has ended by calling into question the traditional wisdom about every bowler in cricket’s history. If all contemporary bowlers flex their arms, then it follows that nearly all bowlers in the past did so too, except that we lacked the technology to capture the flexion. If McGrath chucks according to the old definition, then so did Harold Larwood and Ray Lindwall and Fred Trueman and Wes Hall. In which case, why was poor Ian Meckiff’s career cut short when Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee are given the benefit of the doubt? Why did Tony Lock have to change his jerky bowling action and geld his fast left-arm spinners when Harbhajan is allowed the cover of 15 degrees? Having appealed to science, the ICC is now bound to accept its verdict, but even those of us who support Murali’s vindication should acknowledge that cricket has at one stroke repudiated a large part of its common sense and rewritten its past. This is a huge step for a game that otherwise sets store by tradition. Worse, it has done this without solving the problem: players like Harbhajan are reported and cleared over and over again and on-field umpires are forbidden from calling bowlers for chucking. Murali’s vindication has, unavoidably, been achieved by fudging the Laws of cricket in a way that makes them unenforceable.The other oneBut this is the ICC’s problem, not Murali’s. As far as he is concerned, the charge of chucking has been conclusively laid to rest, which makes it possible to discuss Murali’s place in the history of spin bowling without being haunted by the spectre of illegality. This essentially means comparing Murali with Warne, because otherwise it would be a very brief discussion. Warne apart, there is no one who approaches the weight of Murali’s achievement. A quick glance at Murali’s five-wicket- and 10-wicket hauls, his strike-rate, his average runs per wicket and wickets per Test, will make it evident that, with the antique exception of Syd Barnes, there’s no other slow bowler who can sustain the comparison.The other reason to make the comparison is that the two of them are intensely aware of each other and posterity. Warne, in particular, is not above implying that Murali’s figures are bulked out by wickets taken cheaply against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. Murali doesn’t reply in kind but he has his champions. Ranatunga rose to the defence of his great bowler, calling Warne overrated, deriding him as a bowler who had built his reputation against sides like England who are notoriously inept at playing spin bowling. Against the best players of spin, the Indians, said Ranatunga, twisting the knife, Warne’s figures were embarrassing.So who is the greater bowler? There are those who will point to the fact that Murali has taken more top-order wickets than Warne. There are others who will argue that the only reason this is true is that Murali is a one-man band and gets more opportunities against the top order whereas Warne comes on after McGrath and company have decapitated the opposition. Murali has had home advantage more often than Warne – is that to count against him? On the other hand Warne has the advantage of McGrath as a kind of siege engine, making the breech for him to surge through – so does that make Murali’s achievement more considerable?The truth is that this race between Murali and Warne is the closest thing to a dead heat that you’re likely to get in cricket. There’s nothing in it statistically. As for the other arguments, Warne can’t be praised or blamed for being part of a great Australian team any more than Murali can be awarded brownie points or black marks for playing a lone hand.Symbol, mascot, lightning rodIf we step back and view the two in the round, not just as cricketers but as representative types, Muralitharan is much the more interesting figure. Warne belongs to the space where Australian laddishness meets modern celebrity. In his adventures with drugs, women and bookmakers, Warne lives the tabloid life. He represents himself, or the amalgam that makes up the modern individual: ability and appetite. He is justly celebrated for both.Muralitharan, famous as he is, carries a weight Warne has been spared – the burden of representation. Murali represents a divided, polarised nation. As a Tamil in Sri Lanka, he is a symbol, whether he likes it or not, of a minority community. Descended from Indian Tamils who migrated to Sri Lanka’s plantations a few generations ago, he has been personally touched by Sri Lanka’s sectarian violence: his family was attacked by gangs of Sinhalas in the anti-Tamil pogroms of the early 1980s. Given that there is a civil war in progress between Tamil separatists in northern Sri Lanka and the government of that country, Murali’s presence in the Sri Lankan cricket team is automatically charged with symbolic meaning.For his articulate team-mate Kumar Sangakkara, Murali is a symbol of reconciliation and peace:”For Murali, caste, class, ethnicity or faith is irrelevant – we are all equals. His life – the exploits on the field, his resilience in the face of intense provocation, his natural kindness and generosity, his remarkable charity work with The Foundation of Goodness – evokes a powerful spirit of reconciliation for a polarised nation.”He has taken much from the game of cricket, but he has given back so much to our society. More than any other public figure in Sri Lanka, he stands apart, a source of joy on the cricket field, an example to us all and an answer to the ethnic conundrum we face in Sri Lanka.”But as anyone familiar with the history of sectarian conflict in South Asia knows, Murali could just as easily have been stigmatised as a Tamil mascot used by the Sri Lankan state to disguise its Sinhala chauvinism. That he isn’t so regarded is a tribute both to Murali and to the solidarity and affection shown him by his team-mates.Murali has lived most of his cricketing life dealing with the consequences of being both a symbol and a lightning rod for forces larger than him. He has symbolised the Tamil in Sri Lanka, he has been Sri Lanka’s champion in the lists of world cricket, he has even been the unwilling focus of lazy attempts to explain the rifts in world cricket in terms of race and colour. He has transcended these attempts to co-opt him by being true to his genius and by playing the game year after year with undiminished pleasure.As an Indian fan who believes that Indian batsmen define the gold standard when it comes to playing spinners, I’ll get off the fence if pushed and declare myself for Murali. Warne is a wonderful bowler but I’ve never seen him reduce an Indian batting line-up. Murali’s record against India, like Warne’s, is markedly less impressive than his overall figures. But the last time Sri Lanka toured India, his bowling at the Feroz Shah Kotla was a revelation. He went round the wicket to the Indians and in one virtuoso spell had them groping, reduced to reading him off the pitch because they couldn’t tell the doosra from the hand, beating the outside edge over and over again, his wrong ‘un spitting and turning like a legbreak. It was breath-taking. He took 5 for 23 in one inspired spell, destroying the Indian top order. Sri Lanka lost that game, but given the quality of the opposition, his 7 for 100 bettered his 8 for 70 against England when he spun Sri Lanka to victory at Trent Bridge in June this year. At Trent Bridge, Murali conquered the clueless – even Warne’s done that. At Kotla, he bamboozled the best.

Before going away to work on the latest phase of his rehabilitation, Sachin Tendulkar spoke about the realities of aging, combating injury and coming back with desire for the game undimmed

Dileep Premachandran01-Jun-2006

Despite his best efforts, Tendulkar couldn’t be ready for a Caribbean swansong © Getty Images
Despite his best efforts, Sachin Tendulkar couldn’t make the tour of the Caribbean. The recovery from shoulder surgery has taken slightly longer than expected and Tendulkar now hopes to be in fighting trim for the start of the new season in August. Before going away to work on the latest phase of his rehabilitation, he spoke to Cricinfo Magazine about the realities of aging, combating injury and coming back with desire for the game undimmed.The last two seasons have seen gremlins creep into the machine. A tennis elbow problem and the shoulder tear haven’t helped – “It’s not like a fracture where you know it’ll heal in four weeks,” he says – and doubt, the performer’s greatest enemy, has crept in. “It’s not easy to forget the injuries,” he says. “There are times when you spend some time in the middle and the body complains. That’s when you need to hold back a bit and take it easy for a couple of practice sessions.”A rigorous training regime wasn’t enough to convince the physicians, or himself, that he was ready for the West Indies. Such disappointments have recently become commonplace, and Tendulkar is the first to admit so: “Your thought process changes. When you have a fit body, you think differently, but when you’re not 100% fit, or you’ve just overcome an injury, then your mind works differently. Thinking is everything in this game. It’s hard to express what it’s like, but there have been sleepless nights, there have been days full of frustration where you just want to get back in action but the body doesn’t cooperate even if your mind is ready to go out there and do it. You have to be sharp enough to pick up those signals.”On the matter of thinking, he has the right man by his side. “Greg Chappell was a top cricketer, one of the best to have played this game,” he says, when asked whether the coach has helped him through the lean times. “He understands the game very well. It’s important to have someone around who’s played a lot of cricket at the highest level. Technically, to a certain extent, one can progress, but mentally you can get better each time you go out into the middle. That’s where Greg chips in. It’s the thinking of someone who’s played and seen this game for over 40 years now. He understands the highs and the lows and he himself has experienced it.”Tendulkar smiles when asked how the ravages of time have changed both the man and his game. “I’ve never understood that aspect of the criticism,” he says quietly. “Change is part of our lives, and as you get older, you try to reach your destination in safer ways. “Let me give you a small example. Earlier when I used to hit the ball in the air and get out, people used to say, `Why can’t you play all along the ground? It’s simple. You don’t need to hit the ball in the air.’ Now, when I play all along the ground, people say: `Why don’t you hit the ball in the air nowadays?’ Basically, people are not satisfied with what one does.”He insists, however, that when body and mind are in perfect sync, he’s still capable of innings like the 114 in Perth [January 1992] that evoked so much awe all those years ago. “See the innings I played against Pakistan at the [2003] World Cup, and also Lahore [third one-day international, February 2006]. At Lahore, the first few overs, when the ball was doing a lot, I had to occasionally hold myself back – wait for an opportunity, or sometimes create chances. You’re obviously working on the bowler’s mind when you counter-attack. I have played a few innings like that.”It’s hard to express what it’s like, but there have been sleepless nights, there have been days full of frustration where you just want to get back in action but the body doesn’t cooperate even if your mind is ready to go out there and do itBefore injury ruled him out of the one-day series against England, he had played his part in India’s remarkable revival in the one-day game, and he has nothing but praise for the new faces, and the established ones that have taken their game to another level. “It’s a good blend,” he says. “It has worked wonderfully and the balance is just about right.”The newer crop is talented, and they’re match-winners. Even the bowlers – Munaf [Patel] has done well; Sreesanth has been quite consistent; and Irfan’s been around now for three years. He’s been delivering quite consistently with both bat and ball. When the batting hasn’t been up to expectations, the bowlers have made it a point to bowl some wonderful spells, and vice versa. We’ve got players who are fit and raring to go, with brilliant attitudes. With Chappell around, it’s a perfect combination.”And though he refuses to look too far ahead, nothing would please him more than World-Cup redemption after the disasters that were the 2003 final and the 1996 semi-final. “In retrospect, you feel that we could have done things differently,” he says. “But at that moment, you go out there to do what you feel is the right thing to do then.”I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself thinking about the next World Cup. It would be a dream come true if we can pull it off, but there are plenty of steps on the ladder and we can’t get carried away by emotion.”

Test line-ups with 100 or more years of experience, the boundary that denied Bradman an average of 100, and bowling centurions

Steven Lynch04-Dec-2007The regular Tuesday column in which Steven Lynch answers your questions about (almost) any aspect of cricket:

Without the pressure of wicketkeeping, Kumar Sangakkara averages a staggering 94.57 with the bat © Getty Images
In the first Test between India and Pakistan last month, the Indian team’s overall Test experience amounted to nearly 100 years (Sachin Tendulkar 18 years, Anil Kumble 17 years, etc). Which team has had the most experienced line-up so far? asked Ganesh from India
That’s an unusual question, and it produced an unexpected answer. The most experienced Test team, in terms of the length of the players’ Test careers, was fielded by South Africa against England at OldTrafford in 1924. Their side included eight players who had made their debuts before the First World War, and the combined experience added up to more than 110 years. There were more surprises in second and third places: Pakistan’s side against West Indies at Multan in 1980-81 had combined Test experience of more than 107 years, while Sri Lanka’s team for the first match of their recent series against Australia, at Brisbane, had more than 105 years of Test cricket under their belts. India’s line-up in the first Test at Delhi comes in 16th (this includes repeat appearances by some of the teams above them, notably four matches by that 1924 South African side) with just over 100 years’ Test experience.Twelve players made nought in a Test between Sri Lanka and England in 2000-01 – is that a record? asked Prabhakar Singh from the United States
There were only 11 scores of 0 in that match in Colombo – the other one was 0 not out, which shouldn’t count – but that still equalled the Test record. It was the ninth such instance – the first was in the Ashes Test at Old Trafford in 1888 – and there has been one more case of 11 ducks in a Test since, in the match between Sri Lanka and West Indies at Kandy in 2001-02. For a full list, click here.Someone told me that without the pressure of wicketkeeping, Kumar Sangakkara’s batting average is over 90. Is this true? asked Shyam from Singapore
It is indeed: in the 21 Tests in which he was not the designated wicketkeeper, Kumar Sangakkara has scored 2648 runs at the amazing average of 94.57. That includes five of his six Test double-centuries, and three more single hundreds. In the 47 matches in which he did keep wicket, he has scored 3093 runs at 41.24, with seven centuries. That gives an overall average (before the series against England) of 55.73 from 68 matches. (These figures do not take account of any games in which the gloves were swapped mid-match.)Who reached 100 ODI wickets quickest? My money’s on Shane Bond! asked Brett Stevens from Dunedin
I’m afraid you’ve lost your money – Shane Bond took his 100th wicket in his 54th ODI for New Zealand – but Pakistan’s Saqlain Mushtaq beat him by one, taking his 100th wicket in his 53rd match, in 1997. Saqlain is also the winner if you calculate it by time – he took only one year and 225 days to reach 100 ODI wickets. Of other bowlers, only the Indian trio of Irfan Pathan (two years 100 days), Zaheer Khan (two years 162 days) and Ajit Agarkar (two years 251 days) have managed it in less than three years. For a full list, click here.

Although Albert Trott’s overall Test average was 38, his average while playing for Australia, 102. 50, beat The Don’s 99.94 © Cricinfo Ltd
Can you confirm that Neil Harvey hit a boundary in the fourth Test of 1948, as his first scoring stroke, to win the match? If he had just defended this ball, then Don Bradman at the other end might have been able to score the four which would have made his average 100, even with his duck in the final Test … asked Geoff Barnes from Australia
Wisden confirms that Neil Harvey did indeed round off Australia’s successful run-chase (of 404, a record at the time) at Headingley in 1948 with a four, off Ken Cranston. And Don Bradman was indeed batting at the other end, with 173 not out. But it was quite close to the end of thegame – there were only around 15 minutes left – and it was the first ball of an over, so it probably never occurred to Harvey to let The Don hit the winning runs. Stats weren’t as easily accessible as they are now: if they had been, I suppose Harvey might just have known that Bradman needed four runs for 7000 in Tests. But the average of 100 would probably not have crossed anyone’s mind. Bradman’s average at that point was 101.39 – the famous duck at The Oval pushed it down to the legendary 99.94 – and no one knew that he was only going to bat once in that final Test.Who has conceded the most bowling centuries in Tests? asked Blair Suenick from Australia
The leader here is not unexpected – it’s Muttiah Muralitharan, who has conceded 100 or more runs in an innings on 51 occasions on his way to the brink of the Test wicket-taking record. In second place is India’s Anil Kumble (46, before the Kolkata Test), and then Shane Warne with 40, quite a way clear of the next man (and first non-spinner), Ian Botham (31). Danish Kaneria, who has played fewer than half the Tests of the others mentioned here, had gone for 30 bowling centuries before the Kolkata Test.And there’s an afterthought to last week’s question about people with a higher Test batting average than Don Bradman: from David Ralphs, among others:
He pointed out that Albert Trott had a better average for Australia than The Don. Trott averaged 102.50 in three Tests for Australia – but also played for England, and did much less well, which dropped his overall Test average to 38.00. And Chris McQuaid of New Zealand was one of a few people who observed that there are also four women who average more than 100 in Tests (and the question did say “everyone”): Chamani Seneviratna of Sri Lanka (148.00), the New Zealand pair of Emily Drumm (144.33) and Haidee Tiffen (124.00), and Joanne Broadbent of Australia (109.25).

The long and short of Middlesex’s John Murray was elegance in all he didwith gloves or bat – and he could have done more for England

Christian Wolmar17-Jun-2008
Control meets panache: John Murray was one of only six wicketkeepers to achieve 100 dismissals in a season © Getty Images
John Murray’s most amazing characteristic is that he could look both tall and smallsimultaneously. As a wicketkeeper he needed to be squat and compact but suchwas his emphasis on style and stance that he managed this despite being 5ftl0in – rather tall for one of his craft.I was attracted to him because my annual told me that he was bornin Kensington, where I lived, and I also had aspirations to be a wicketkeeper. There could not have been a better model.Style was JT’s watchword. I first watched Middlesex in the early 1960s and he was already there, ensconced as that underperforming side’s wicketkeeper, a position hefirst gained in 1956 and would retain for two decades. I used to cycle toLord’s from South Kensington after school and the kindly gatekeepers wouldusually let me in for free, as well as keeping an eye on my bicycle for me.I particularly liked catching up on the post-tea proceedings on the first day, when I would normally get the fag end of the innings of the side batting first, who would, in those days, traditionally declare at around 300, and then watch the Middlesex quicks, Alan Moss and JJ Warr, steaming in for half an hour hoping tocapture a couple of cheap early wickets. Murray would stand far back tothem, going through his little routine before every ball, lifting his hands,touching the cap he always wore and crouching down, ready to snaffle an edge. He would move effortlessly, rarely tumbling to take the ball, but occasionally he would dive full length, making extraordinary catches look simple. While he was naturally stylish, onesuspects that some deliberate effort went into staying so controlled and soneat as even the way he passed the ball through to the slips after he hadtaken it was done with panache.His batting was the same. His drives, in particular, were perfection,straight out of the textbook, and Tony Lewis once wrote that he was the onlybatsman who could make hooking the West Indies fast bowlers, something thattook courage in those pre-helmet days, look elegant, “with the balance of askater”.His Test batting average of around 20 could, indeed should, have been muchhigher. His most famous innings, after all, was a century scored againstWest Indies in their pomp with Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith spearheadingthe attack and Garry Sobers and Lance Gibbs as the other two main bowlers. Iwas at The Oval for that match in 1966, when England had nothing to play forexcept pride as they were 0-3 down in the series. Murray came in at No. 9,when England were still 102 behind West Indies’ first-innings total of 268.Another defeat seemed on the cards but there was still Tom Graveney, whomatched Murray in elegance. They put on 217, with both scoring centuries,and the combined perfection of their batting must have so inspired the tail that both Ken Higgs and John Snow, at Nos. 10 and 11, went on to score fifties, an unprecedented feat in Test cricket. England won by an innings, some consolation for a painful summer.While he was naturally stylish, onesuspects that some deliberate effort went into staying so controlled and soneat as even the way he passed the ball through to the slips after he hadtaken it was done with panache. I remember, too, the other side of Murray’s batting, coming in late down theorder for a county game when Middlesex had needed just over 100 to beatGlamorgan and had unaccountably collapsed on an easy pitch. A couple ofboundaries would have done it and that was too tempting. He was out for oneor two, lbw, aiming to drive when perhaps he should have just tried to grub out a few singles,and Middlesex lost by a couple of runs.At the time Middlesex’s trademark dismissal was c Murray b Titmus, thoughthere was quite a smattering of st Murray b Titmus too. It was theball that drifted away from the batsman which so often ended up in Murray’sgloves off an edge, and the stumpings were invariably brilliant leg-sideefforts to balls fired in deliberately – presumably on a prearranged signal- outside the batsman’s legs at yorker length.Murray professed little interest in statistics, but those of his career are truly remarkable. He was one of only six wicketkeepers to achieve 100 dismissals in a season, and even more amazing, in 1957 when he scored 1025 runs and obtained 104 dismissals he became onlythe second player to achieve the wicketkeepers’ double. His career total of 1527 has been beaten only, later, by Bob Taylor’s 1649 from four more matches.Murray was, though, a nearly man. The fashion for choosing keepers who could batrather than the best stumper had already been established and he lost out toJim Parks, who like Alec Stewart had got into the Test side on his battingalone before taking up the gloves. Despite that brilliant century againstWest Indies, Murray in his long career played only 21 Tests.He deserved better. His batting could undoubtedly haveimproved sufficiently to make a useful contribution at No. 7 in Tests but inthose days selectors tended to look at already developed skills rather thanpotential. He was a better wicketkeeper than Parks, and though there wasKeith Andrew to consider, the Northamptonshire man was a genuine tailenderwith very little batting ability. Murray never complained, though. It wouldhave been inelegant to do so.

In one of the most remarkable innings in Twenty20s, he was measured and seemingly unhurried though the strike-rate was pushing 170

Sambit Bal at The Oval20-Jun-2009Chris Gayle won one battle with Tillakaratne Dilshan on Friday evening. By a whisker, he became the batsman to have scored the highest percentage of his team’s total in a Twenty20 match. But that’s also a damning statistic for West Indies: Gayle stood utterly and hopelessly alone while Dilshan had just enough company to be able to make the difference.Truly, it was the evening of solos. Between them, Dilshan and Gayle accounted for 159 of 259 runs scored, but that collectively the West Indian batsmen scored only five more than Dilshan was reflected in the margin. Sanath Jayasuriya was the third-highest scorer in the match with 24; Gayle aside, the rest of the West Indian batsmen managed three more.In the first ten overs of the match, Jayasuriya’s effort had seemed a monumental struggle but by the end it seemed like heroic resistance. While he was eating away balls at the top of the innings, it looked probable that Jayasuriya, the hero of many a glorious Sri Lankan win, might cost his team a place in the final. It turned out that the opening partnership of 73 made the biggest difference.It was an utterly bizarre match. It was as if Dilshan and Gayle were playing in a different game. Every other batsman struggled with timing. Many were dismissed playing early. Some miscued their strokes and some merely dragged the ball on to their stumps. Dilshan and Gayle, though, not only found timing but invariably the placement too. No else had hit a four till the West Indies score reached 78, by which time Gayle had eight fours and a six. By then, the match had been lost.The pitch was not hazardous but it was perhaps not as easy-paced as it had been earlier in the tournament, and the sluggish nature demanded a slightly more watchful approach at the start. The truth is that very few managed to get in.Eleven batsmen faced fewer than 10 balls and 14 of them were dismissed in single digits. There were five ducks, and four of them belonged to West Indies, three of which came in the first over of their innings. After that, only one result was possible.Even before the match started, Dilshan had been Sri Lanka’s batsman of the tournament. He has been inventive and audacious. Today, though, he played one of the most remarkable innings in the short history of Twenty20 cricket. It was measured and seemingly unhurried, yet he scored more than one-and-a-half runs per ball. The first three overs of the Sri Lankan innings fetched only 12 runs, and a mere ten came between the 11th and 13th, but on both occasions Dilshan managed to drag Sri Lanka forward by finding a way to hit risk-free boundaries.Compared to his earlier innings in the tournament, this was largely an orthodox piece. Twice he shaped to play the scoop that has become his signature stroke, but the stroke didn’t come off as intended. In the first instance, the ball from Darren Sammy was shorter than anticipated, forcing him to abort the shot and hurriedly squirt the ball behind square leg. In the second, the ball from Jerome Taylor was fuller and down leg and Dilshan adjusted in a flash to guide the ball over the fine-leg boundary. Part-sweep and part-scoop, it was the shot of a batsman in prime form.

No else had hit a four till the West Indian score had reached 78, by which time Gayle had eight fours and a six

There was not a hint of premeditation about the rest of his boundaries. Mostly they came through timing and the deft use of wrists that helped him find open spaces. His wagon wheel will show runs all around the wicket; as Gayle conceded after the match, West Indies couldn’t set a field for him.Twice he hit Dwayne Bravo for three fours in an over but perhaps his best shot of the match came against Gayle in the ninth over. Gayle fired it flat and quick on the off stump, and Dilshan nearly took the ball out of the wicketkeeper’s gloves to nudge it past short third man. Perhaps to prove that he could power them too, he heaved the next one over midwicket.Dilshan came within a stroke of becoming only the second batsman to score a hundred in Twenty20 internationals. With ball in hand, Gayle had the satisfaction of denying him, and thus retaining his own status the as the sole centurion in this format. He fought a valiant battle with the bat and kept his dignity and humour intact at the post-match press conference, but how readily would he have swapped the little victories for the one that mattered.Quite fittingly, the final is now a match-up between the two best bowling teams in the tournament. Players of both teams know how it is to lose a World Cup final. By Sunday evening one set will know how it is to win one. It’ll come down to who bats better.

On today’s evidence, it’s going to be nigh on impossible to resist affording Steve Harmison one final, final shot at redemption if England are to claim anything from this series. It really is looking that desperate right now

Andrew Miller at Cardiff11-Jul-2009Psychologically, England have been left with nowhere to hide after a fourth day in Cardiff that, aside from a timely downpour on the stroke of tea, could hardly have been more horrendous for their series prospects. It wasn’t merely that Australia took control of the match – that in itself is hardly a new development in Ashes series – it was the point-scoring dedication with which they bossed each and every microcosmic aspect of the contest.Two particular contrasts stand above and beyond all others. The first and most obvious was the dedication of their batsmen, not least Brad Haddin and Marcus North, two men making their Ashes debuts. Not content with ridiculing England’s inability to turn any one of ten double-figured scores into centuries, Australia responded with four of their own, the first time they had ever achieved such a feat in Ashes history.”You lot think about it a lot more than me,” was the gist of Kevin Pietersen’s response to the media after his own contemptible dismissal on the first day, but on the evidence of Australia’s scorching first innings, nobody thought about Pietersen’s performance more than his opponents. Doubtless he was reminded of this during each and every one of the nine deliveries he faced in the gloaming this evening.”Regardless of where you play and whatever the conditions, if you get in, make sure you go on and get a hundred, and if you get a hundred, try to get a big hundred,” said North, with the sagacity of an instant veteran. “We saw Ricky [Ponting] do that and we saw how determined he was to do that. I guess looking back at England’s innings, that’s something they might have looked at and thought, ‘Gee, we might have let ourselves down a bit.'”Of arguably greater significance, however, was the performance of Australia’s bowlers in their seven-over onslaught before the rains closed in. In prising out two vital wickets, Mitchell Johnson and Ben Hilfenhaus were everything that England’s own attack had failed to be for three long days in the field. If they were caught stealing a glance at the heavens as the light began to fade, it was only as an incentive to make the most of that 30-minute window. England, on the other hand, were content to trundle with their heads, quite literally, in the clouds.”It’s difficult to pick up wickets when the ball does literally nothing for the seamers,” said Paul Collingwood, who was not proud to be the pick of a toiling attack. “You can say you’ve got to use other methods, cutters and things, but when the pitch is so slow it’s very difficult. Batsmen these days have got good techniques and combat the straight ball, no matter how fast it is. It’s all about hopefully getting that ball reversing, or swinging conventionally.”Except it is not, as Johnson and Hilfenhaus proved with their tenacity late in the day. Their bustle at the crease was totally at odds with the flaccid impact that England’s own new-ball pairing of James Anderson and Stuart Broad had made during their eight-over burst before tea on the second day, a critical passage of play that has since been buried beneath the sheer weight of Australia’s runs.England, remember, had enjoyed a morning of rare levity with the bat, smiting 99 runs in 16.5 overs to post a total that, at the time, seemed competitive. By lunch, however, Australia had hurtled to 60 for 0, with Phillip Hughes – a man on the rack after his travails at Worcester – allowed to spring onto the offensive with the initiative-seizing élan of a latter-day Michael Slater.Already the selectors are steeling themselves for an uncomfortable squad announcement on Monday afternoon. The gamble of playing two spinners has failed spectacularly, with Graeme Swann’s cocky confidence fading with every over, while the three frontline seamers who looked such a neat fit on paper have discovered that their roles are so confused that they are like keeper and slip cordon who each look to the other as the chance sails clean between the gap.Quite simply, there is no leader to the attack. Andrew Flintoff is England’s go-to man, because he’s the most imposing presence and has the acknowledged respect of the Australians. But he does not take the new ball – partly out of fears for his fitness, but also out of respect to Anderson, who often says he wants to be seen as the frontman, but then fronts up as pitifully as he did in the end-of-day press conference on Wednesday, when his promise that England would “keep fighting” was delivered with the ferocity of a moist sponge.And then there’s Stuart Broad, whose role in the side is perhaps the least clear of all. There’s hardly a pundit in the game who does not believe he is destined for great things, but right at this moment he is neither one thing nor the other. He has the capacity to bowl with spite and aggression, as Ramnaresh Sarwan discovered at Durham in May, and he’s also capable of holding up an end. But in this match, he’s fallen badly between two mindsets, never more so than when he came over the wicket to present Hughes with three deliciously wide long-hops to resuscitate Australia’s momentum.’There’s hardly a pundit in the game who does not believe Stuart Broad is destined for great things, but right at this moment he is neither one thing nor the other’•AFPFor a man credited by Michael Vaughan as one of the most intelligent bowlers he has captained, it was a peculiarly vacant way for Broad to start his biggest campaign yet, especially given the success that Steve Harmison – and later Flintoff – had against Hughes from round the wicket.”Broady’s got some great skills,” was Collingwood’s damningly faint praise at the close of the fourth day, though he didn’t seem willing or able to pinpoint exactly what they are. He has now taken 47 wickets at 39.89 in 18 Tests, which are unflattering, no matter how much promise he may hold. In the opinion of Ian Chappell, Broad needs to focus on being the straight man in the attack, but with Anderson swingless and Flintoff incapable of finding the edge with his back-of-a-length approach, another holding bowler is the last thing England need.And so, yes, all eyes turn to that man. No matter how many final straws he may have loaded onto the backs of the England management, it’s becoming increasingly hard to ignore Harmison’s claims for a recall. England need a spearhead worthy of the name, and another five wickets for Durham today are indisputable proof of his form.”Of course he’s going to be in the mix, but this attack has done well for us in the past few months and I’m sure we’ll be sticking with it,” said Collingwood, but on this evidence nobody else seems so convinced. For some perverse reason, Harmison still has a hold on Australia that no other England bowler can match, not even Flintoff, whose method of bettering them in the past has been more of the arm-wrestle variety.At Lord’s in 2005, Harmison left a duelling scar on Ponting’s cheek that is still visible to this day. He alone has the shock factor that commands the respect from Australia that has been so patently lacking in this match. On this evidence, it’s going to be nigh on impossible to resist affording him one final, final shot at redemption. It really is looking that desperate right now.

It is now impossible to see the West Indies recovering the spirit and confidence needed to challenge these South Africans in the remaining two ODIs and three Tests

Tony Cozier30-May-2010As West Indies head coach, the latest in the wheel from which eight have spun off in the past 14 years, Ottis Gibson is more intimately involved with the players on a day to day basis than anyone else.In the post for three months, he would have already come to appreciate the depressingly candid points made during a panel discussion in Barbados last week by West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) chief executive Ernest Hilaire on the state of our cricket and the attitude of those who represent it on the field. No doubt he had heard about them from others even before his appointment that, as Hilaire put it, “the whole notion of being a West Indian and for what they are playing has no meaning at all” to the players and that money and “instant gratification is all that matters”.Perhaps he was challenged to prove Hilaire wrong on his warning to fans to prepare for at least three more years of embarrassment, but he has certainly not been encouraged by the results so far. Prior to Friday’s third ODI against South Africa in Dominica, Gibson said that the team had not “thought through well enough”.He used as an example Dwayne Bravo’s dismissal in the defeat in the second match in Antigua. The allrounder batted superbly for 70 yet Gibson regarded his loss as the turning point in the game. “Bravo got out to the last ball of an over that had conceded 13 runs and it was the last ball of a bowler’s (Dale Steyn) spell,” he noted. “Those little things we need to get better at.”There was no improvement in Friday’s match. If anything, it was worse.It was a spirited effort to limit South Africa to 224, securing the last five wickets for 18, the last seven for 71. Against determined, mentally tough opponents strong in bowling, the target was not straight-forward but certainly within range. This is where the relevance of Gibson’s pre-match comment became clear. “Talent-wise we’re not far behind South Africa, thinking-wise, we’re showing that we’re very far behind,” he had said.Suddenly, as West Indies responded, wickets were falling to unnecessary shots, not least the two most crucial. Captain Chris Gayle launched one ball for six, slashed wildly at the next and edged to slip. Shivnarine Chanderpaul, seduced by the absence of slips, aimed to steer the energised Jacques Kallis to third man only to deflect to the keeper.When the revved-up Steyn, generating more than 90 mph every ball, despatched Bravo to a bouncer that stirred memories of the heyday of West Indies fast bowling and Kieron Pollard and Darren Sammy followed, 118 for 7 meant certain defeat.Or so Jerome Taylor, Sulieman Benn and Ravi Rampaul conceded. Another 106 were required but 20.2 overs remained. The required run-rate was still just five runs an over. Denesh Ramdin was still in. Anything can happen in this game, as Sammy had demonstrated with his stunning 20-ball 50 in Antigua in the second match and as the West Indies had shown in similar situations in the past.In the first round of the first World Cup in 1975, they were 203 for 9 against Pakistan, with wicketkeeper Deryck Murray batting and Andy Roberts, then a genuine rabbit, as the last man. With another 64 to win, Murray and Roberts never gave up, as the current tailenders did on Friday, calmly seeing them home with two balls to spare.Even if that was too far back for the modern players to remember, the final of the 2004 Champions Trophy at The Oval in London should still be fresh enough in their minds for them to appreciate that no cause is ever completely lost. At 147 for 8 with the light fast closing in, the West Indies required another 71 to beat England and claim their first trophy since the 1979 World Cup. Another 16.2 overs remained and Courtney Browne (a wicketkeeper again) and Ian Bradshaw with level-headed common sense and without a six, and even an attempt at one, gathered the runs with seven balls to spare without the mindless running of Taylor or the slogging that Benn and Rampaul indulged in at Windsor Park on Friday.Taylor should be a key component of this team, especially in the absence of Fidel Edwards but, at present, he seems either injured or uninterested or both. His bowling is well short of his best and he has been slack in the field. There was no reason for him to push the ball to mid-on and chase for the run that he didn’t make. The selectors must soon make a decision on his place.Benn might argue that he has already put in his effort. He had dismissed two key batsmen, Hashim Amla and Kallis, in his ten overs and run out another, AB deVilliers, with a direct hit from the deep. But he is in the team as a professional cricketer, expected to contribute in every department. Too often, not least with his batting and fielding, he sells himself and his team short. His wild swings on Friday spoke of his conviction that the match was already lost, not that, even in such a predicament, it would still be won.It is now impossible to see the West Indies recovering the spirit and confidence needed to challenge these South Africans in the remaining two ODIs and three Tests. Just as Sammy’s blitz temporarily lifted them and the rejoicing supporters at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in the second match, so did the defeat, and the manner of it, at Windsor Park three days later deepen the despair and give credence to Hilaire’s dire forecast. But, as with Murray and Roberts in 1975 and Browne and Bradshaw in 2004, there must always be a sliver of hope.