Longevity will determine where he sits vis a vis Gilchrist and the rest, but there’s no doubt he’s already in the debate

Sidharth Monga23-Dec-2022Rishabh Pant, MS Dhoni’s true successor as wicketkeeper-batter for India, went past a Dhoni record in Mirpur. Dhoni was out five times in the 90s, the most by a wicketkeeper in Tests until Pant went past him on Friday.Some might call it unfortunate, but add his five hundreds, and Pant has now made 11 scores of 90 or more in just 55 Test innings, an astonishing rate of once every five attempts.Related

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Pant is already India’s best wicketkeeper-batter by a distance, having scored Test hundreds in England, Australia and South Africa. On form he is the best batter in the current Indian side. By extension, leaving romanticism and the virtues of pure wicketkeeping skills aside, he is already India’s greatest wicketkeeper. And he isn’t a shabby keeper either.But the Pant comparisons can no longer be restricted to just India players.Not before long, Pant will be discussed among the greatest wicketkeepers ever, and will likely surpass them, but it is not too early to try and place him in the pantheon. In terms of sheer runs, Pant is now the 30th-highest run-getter among wicketkeepers with 2262 at an average of 44.35. His longevity will be tested, but among those who have kept long enough to score 2000 runs, Pant’s average is behind only AB de Villiers, Andy Flower and Adam Gilchrist.Pant is not like a lot of other keepers, though. This is not to suggest Gilchrist would have done any less batting higher in the order, but he mostly batted at No. 7 and didn’t perform a specialist batter’s duties. Among keepers who have batted in the top six, Pant is already the ninth-highest run-getter, averaging 49.67 for his 1540 runs there. De Villiers, Dhoni, Flower, Gilchrist and Les Ames average higher than him in these positions, but this is elite company.Pant hardly gets to score declaration runs. He is playing in a bowling era where you hardly get flat pitches outside Pakistan, and the attacks are fitter and deeper than ever before. He is also part of a batting line-up in transition, and has batted alongside veterans going through their worst patches. He often finds himself in crisis situations where there are no tired bowlers to take advantage of. Because he bats in the top six, these aren’t usually nothing-to-lose situations either.People talk lightly about certain batters’ presence. For proper presence, look no further than the field settings when Pant comes out to bat even when India are struggling. At 48 for 3 and 72 for 3 in the two Tests in this series, Pant has walked out with long-on and deep midwicket in place. On both occasions, Taijul Islam had been bowling beautifully, getting the ball to dip, not letting batters go on the back foot, but not letting them play attacking drives either. This had allowed him to be in a position to benefit if the pitch did something.Pant, though, completely changes the game. To be fair, the in-out fields were an attacking ploy for him when he came into the side back in 2018. It worked for a while with Moeen Ali getting him caught in the deep. Now Pant just picks up the singles and manipulates the field in other areas. Once he is on, those fielders cease to matter. His power-hitting has come a long way too: even if he gets too close to the ball, he can impart enough power to hit flat sixes. Among wicketkeepers, only Dhoni and Gilchrist have hit more sixes than Pant.With Pant, you can sometimes get a loose waft if the right kind of seamer angles, seams or swings the ball across him, but that is hardly unusual. Every batter will have some weakness, but batting is all about what you do around that weakness. The fields set for Pant tell you that the pitching zone for what qualifies as a good ball is smaller for him. And when you have to aim at a smaller target, you miss more often. He can cut and drive just as well as he can slog and reverse-ramp James Anderson. Okay that reverse-ramp might not be as high-percentage as the other shots, but you get the drift.Any wicketkeeper will tell you what a physically taxing job it is; how far Pant moves up among the handful of all-time greats will come down to his longevity, but it is sure he is already one of them.

Despite being blitzed for the most part of the Test, hosts ended day three in a position to make England worry

Vithushan Ehantharajah26-Feb-2023There’s an argument to say Sunday was New Zealand’s best day of the series.Tom Latham and Devon Conway scored fine half-centuries, registering New Zealand’s highest partnership of the series, beating the previous best set a few hours earlier. They frustrated England no end, almost mockingly chipping away at a bumper lead steadily, at odds with the manner it was accrued. Context, though, is important.Latham and Conway’s stand of 149 in 320 balls was coming in a follow-on innings, the first England had imposed on their opponents since August 2020. New Zealand trailed initially by 226, and it was that much because of skipper Tim Southee’s blitz of 73 from 49 deliveries. He forged a partnership of 98 with Tom Blundell, which at the time was the team’s highest of the series.Related

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What frustration England had was relative. An entire day in the field was taxing work, particularly for a three-prong seam attack who were sore after the intensity of last week’s victory in the first Test in Mount Maunganui. For a team that likes to win in a hurry, the 94.2 overs in the dirt on the third day would have grated. Nevertheless, the spinners showed up – Jack Leach with two, Joe Root with one – to do their bit. Leach’s dismissal of Will Young, pitching around middle stump, taking the top of off, showed signs the pitch is taking turn more than it usually does at the Basin Reserve in Wellington.Ultimately, the only reason the game is at this stage going into day four is because of the weather. A scheduled 50 overs have been lost, split evenly across days one and two. The latter might have seen New Zealand’s first innings end earlier and cheaper, the follow-on still instigated to expose cracks in a frail batting line-up from Saturday evening into Sunday morning.Ben Stokes arrived at the ground on Sunday morning with a view to enforcing no matter what, which is what he relayed to his charges before heading out there. Across the corridor of the player’s pavilion, things were far less certain.Tom Latham and Devon Conway put a 149-run stand for the opening wicket•AFP/Getty ImagesFast forward to the end of the day and things are a little clearer. A little more hopeful. England have a second go to come – but the arrears are just 24, Kane Williamson and Henry Nicholls set and there is a quiet sense New Zealand could be onto something here.Learning from mistakes has been key. As much as batting coach Luke Ronchi rallied against the idea England’s attacking mantra seeping into the subconscious of their opponents was not the issue with the batting missteps on day two, it was hard not to think otherwise. Latham and Nicholls’ reverse sweeps, Williamson’s uncharacteristic looseness out wide. Issues were trying to be forced when that’s not really the Kiwi way.It was under Brendon McCullum’s leadership, of course, and there’s something neat about him being here for this. You wonder if he is secretly relishing the prospect of a slobberknocker of a finish, as much for another test of the mettle of those now under his care as simply putting on a show.That McCullum is sat in the “other” balcony in “their” stash is something of a sore point for locals. They get it, no doubt, but the transformation of the England team has made them yearn for more excitement from theirs.

“Absolutely. Whether it’s 200, 250 – you just never know. We’ve seen the wicket, it’s still doing enough with the old ball and the new ball, and there’s plenty of turn there.”Latham on whether New Zealand had a chance to force a win

They might still get it in the next couple of days, but it’s worth noting the path to that point began with the kind of grind that led to the 2019 World Test Championship win.”The character of this group, we stand up when things aren’t going so well,” said Latham, who was a surprise runner-up in the leadership race after Williamson stepped down. His role is still as a big personality in the dressing room, not least on ability alone. He became the seventh New Zealand batter to pass 5,000 Test runs, and primarily did that by packing away most of his shots.”We probably didn’t quite do that quick enough the other day,” he said of a lack of leaving in the first innings. In turn, England’s bowlers “came to” the New Zealand batters, trying to target the stumps which allowed enough deliveries to drive or pop into gaps to keep the scoreboard ticking over steadily. Scoring more or less stopped for the second noteworthy partnership between Williamson and Nicholls which was more about the 128 balls than the runs (35) for the fourth wicket.They made it to the new ball, then survived three overs of it. They will rest knowing they have to go again from scratch in the morning, but also aware the overs taken out of James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Ollie Robinson today will count against them tomorrow. And having seen Stokes bowl two poor overs in which he was warned twice and then no-balled for overdoing bouncers, there is reason to believe they can begin to dictate a little more once the AM movement has subsided.Tom Latham scored 83 off 172 balls his second innings•Getty ImagesEven Latham, a pragmatist at heart, admitted to a degree of excitement heading into Monday. The prospect of a series-squaring result and first win under Southee is not something New Zealand are shying away from.”Absolutely,” was Latham’s immediate response to the prospect becoming only the fourth side to win after following on. “You’ve always got to look at [different] ways to win a Test match. We certainly know there is a lot of work to do before that point.”Whether it’s 200, 250 – you just never know. We’ve seen the wicket, it’s still doing enough with the old ball and the new ball, and there’s plenty of turn there.”Just as the weather delayed the progress of this game, it may also curtail the end, to a point. England fell victim to the unpredictable Wellington rains in 2013, similarly asking New Zealand to bat again in the third innings. But respective desire and need for a result other than a draw could win out.After getting pasted in the first Test and blitzed for the best part of three days here, New Zealand are somehow still in a position to make England worry. Granted there is still a lot to be done, and even then Stokes and McCullum run a worry-free dressing room that will back themselves to knock off any total, no matter how big.But that New Zealand are an outside shot is in its own way something to savour. This two-match series could be set for a thrilling finale and, moreover, a smash-and-grab that could give a much-needed push to a transitional era for the hosts.

Of those with 200 Test wickets, only Marshall, Garner and Ambrose have a better average than the Australia captain

Alex Malcolm02-Dec-2022Pat Cummins could hardly have delivered a better ball to reach 200 Test wickets. Wide of the crease, angling in with a wobbling seam towards the obdurate, indefatigable front-foot defence of West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite.That defence hadn’t been breached in 165 balls and Australia’s fab four of Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon, with help from the emerging Cameron Green, had taken just one wicket in 54.1 overs.But Cummins did what Cummins has done so often. What he did to Joe Root in the 2019 Ashes. What he has done to the world’s best batters for 11 years. He landed the wobbling seam on the perfect length, and the ball nipped away a fraction, past the outside edge of Brathwaite’s bat and crashed into the top of off.”I’ll take that,” Cummins said at the end of the third day. “Top of off. I was happy.”It’s almost sorcery. An illusion from a handsome magician. You can’t see Brathwaite’s off stump behind the full face of his bat, yet the ball found a way around it. That’s why Cummins is so good. It’s why of all the Test greats with 200 wickets or more, only Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, and Curtly Ambrose have a better average.Related

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“Incredible. It’s pretty crazy,” Cummins said. “There’s still plenty [of] guys I know who’ve taken 300, 400, 700, so comparing numbers doesn’t seem as significant as others. But I think [with] any milestone when I think of wickets, I kind of think of longevity and knowing I had a bit of time out of the game. It’s always a nice realisation.”It’s serendipitous that the West Indies greats are referenced in Cummins’ great achievement. Australia’s vaunted fab four have ascended to a level no other four-man Test attack in history has reached. They became the first specialist bowling quartet to play together in the same Test with 200-plus wickets each.And it was a case of getting the band back together and playing the same quality hits they have done over many years prior. Only the band hasn’t played together much in recent times. Cummins, Starc and Lyon have played in each of Australia’s last eight Tests together, but Hazlewood has only joined them in one. He missed the four matches of last summer’s Ashes series through a side injury, only to return for their first Test in Pakistan.Cummins laughed that his joints ached just watching England plunder 506 in a day on the same Rawalpindi pitch that tortured the Australians in March when they took two wickets in 172 overs between the four of them.Hazlewood was left out of the final two Tests of the series and the two Tests in Sri Lanka as Australia opted for two spinners.But here they slipped back in sync. Even though Hazlewood took only one wicket, his quality Test-match lines and lengths complemented the other three. He made the key breakthrough on the third morning, finding the outside edge of Tagenarine Chanderpaul after beating it repeatedly the previous night. It opened the door for Cummins to barge through on Brathwaite, while Starc – with the woes of the T20 World Cup behind him – showcased his tremendous red-ball skills, nipping a superb offcutter back through Kyle Mayers’ gate with a 57-over-old ball before swinging the second new ball sharply back into the right-handed duo of Jermaine Blackwood and Joshua da Silva to remove both men in quick succession.Cummins: The three other guys are three of my best mates. We all get along so well•Cricket Australia/Getty ImagesLyon played his part containing Jason Holder before removing him with a change of angle and clever field setting.”It’s great,” Cummins said, “The three other guys are three of my best mates. We all get along so well. It’s not just the time out in the middle. It’s the amount of dinners and nights in physio rooms kind of hanging out together. It’s a really special group we’ve got going. Just have so much confidence in each other even today just felt so relaxed the whole day. Just knowing once you’d finish your spell, someone’s going to step up.”The addition of Green is like adding a versatile guitarist to an already rounded four-piece band. He was hostile with the old ball pinning Nkrumah Bonner and Jason Holder on the helmet. Bonner had to be subbed out for concussion at which point Green turned his sights on the replacement Shamarh Brooks, getting rid of him with outswing at good pace.The pace trio, and their all-round addition, learnt from their mistakes on day two bowling a lot fuller and getting rewards by bringing the stumps into play. As a result, a score of 159 for 1 turned into 283 all out.”This wicket more so than others felt like that good length… it didn’t feel the slips were as [much] in play,” Cummins said. “So, it was something we spoke about trying to get a little bit fuller and get them driving.”Like all great bands, they stepped off stage before their encore. Cummins could have enforced the follow-on with West Indies 315 runs behind and six-and-a-half sessions remaining but admitted it was never an option.”Hopefully the pitch gets a little bit harder to bat on and it gives us bowlers a little bit of a break,” he said. “We’ll bat for a little bit into tomorrow and then we’ll kind of work back and hopefully leave us plenty of time to try and take the 10 wickets.”You always bowl better when you’re slightly fresher. Day five is normally harder than day three or four. Yeah, there’s really not too many instances where the follow-on is realistic.”

All the numbers that matter from the final day of the second Test that saw England take the series 2-0

Sampath Bandarupalli12-Dec-20223 The number of Test series wins for England in Pakistan. Their previous two series wins were by a margin of 1-0 – in 1961 and 2000. England are only the second team to win three bilateral Test series in Pakistan, after Australia.1.00 England’s win-loss ratio in Test cricket in Pakistan is the highest for any visiting team. They have played 26 Tests in Pakistan, have won four games, which includes the two on the current tour, and lost four.Related

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26 Margin of Pakistan’s defeat in Multan . It is the second-smallest margin of defeat while chasing a target in excess of 350 in Test cricket. England lost to Australia by 11 runs in pursuit of a 375-run target in 1925 at the Adelaide Oval.3 Consecutive defeats for Pakistan at home in Test cricket, the second instance of them losing three successive Tests at home. They had lost three home Tests on the bounce between 1956 and 1959 – one against Australia and two against West Indies. Pakistan are yet to win a home Test in 2022. Across five Tests, they have been on the losing side in three games, while two have ended in a draw.0 Wickets for Pakistan fast bowlers in the Multan Test across the 24 overs they bowled. It is only the seventh instance when not one Pakistan quick managed to pick a wicket in a Test match. The previous occasion was in the 1987 Lahore Test against England, where the fast bowlers bowled 22 overs.