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On a must-win night, Afghanistan’s flair caught the eye, but it almost cost them the match

Alagappan Muthu in Fatullah20-Feb-2016Mohammad Nabi is whir of arms and legs. Then he hangs almost stock still in mid-air. The left arm, his wrong arm, stretches above his head and plucks a ball that was in the air space beyond the long-on boundary back into the field of play. For a moment, it looks as if he had taken the catch of the tournament to dismiss Oman opener and half-centurion Zeeshan Maqsood. He didn’t but in that moment, he was everything the Afghanistan cricket team has been portrayed as. Eye-catching, flamboyant and box office.A tall, strapping fast bowler walks out at No. 9. The scoreboard asks him to hit 10 runs in five balls. He takes guard deep in his crease. Dawlat Zadran, with his almost Waqar Younis-like action and almost Waqar Younis-like yorkers, knows what to expect even if it is a spinner bowling the 20th over. In comes the fuller ball on off stump, out comes the slash over extra cover, up jumps the fielder in the deep but he is beaten. Ajay Lalcheta dials the blockhole again and gets the wrong number. Six again and game over.It has been easy to paint Nabi, Dawlat and Afghanistan as larger than life. But today, in Fatullah, it wouldn’t have hurt them to be a bit more down to earth.A Gulbadin Naib delivery in the 17th over whooshed past the batsman on the full and touched down in front of the wicketkeeper. Mohammad Shahzad was late in trying to put some of his body behind the ball because instinct had taken over by then and he was trying to avoid injury. A flail of the arms at the bowler suggested he was not at all impressed. Five no-balls gifted away.Naib was trying too hard and the ball had slipped. It was the 17th over, so the yorker had been on his mind. Understandable tactics, but he didn’t need the magic delivery. His gentle pace gave the batsman nothing and nagging lines around the off stump fetched him 2 for 24 off his four overs. It could have been 2 for 24, minus five no-balls.When a match is decided in the final over, by margin of three wickets, those are the mistakes that sting the most; the kind that could have been easily avoided.Afghanistan have certainly grown, but their peers are adamant about not lagging behind too far.•Peter Della PennaAamir Kaleem dug a yorker into the covers and set off for a risky single because his partner Adnan Illyas was doing a spectacular impression of a revolving door – any ball directed straight at him was being whacked away. The fielder at cover had the chance to punish Kaleem for his greed but the throw wasn’t great, the bowler Dawlat couldn’t collect it and everyone was fuming over another silly mistake. From almost turning sixes into catches, they had now fluffed a ready-made run-out.Afghanistan captain Asghar Stanikzai might feel aggrieved at a personal level too. He had come in at 5 for 1 and lit the fuse for the chase of 166 with a hat-trick of fours against Lalcheta: two resounding sweeps sandwiching a bludgeon over midwicket. Then both Stanikzai and Noor Ali Zadran carved Munis Ansari for four fours in the fifth over: a cut to the point boundary even when the ball wasn’t that wide, a straight drive with considerable sting, and a couple of on-drives with controlled whips of the wrists to beat mid-on to his right, and deep midwicket to his left. Afghanistan were 57 for 1 now, their run-rate was 11.40, the required rate was only 7.26.Stanikzai didn’t need to go for another big hit after such risk-free carnage. But he did, and the ugly slog was loaded with risk for he had tried to drag a slower ball from outside off. The top-edge resulted and he was caught quite coolly by Bilal Khan on the edge of the deep square leg fence. Two balls later, a Karim Sadiq chip was brilliantly taken by Adnan Illyas sprinting to his left from mid-on. Mehran Khan, the successful bowler, nabbed Nabi too to finish with 4-0-18-3 simply by inviting the batsmen to make their own mistakes. Afghanistan obliged and became 85 for 4 in the 10th over, needing another 81 to win.”We have problem in the middle order. Batsmen are not taking the chances,” Afghanistan coach Inzamam-ul-Haq said. “First six overs we held the Oman team, but we lost our grip.”Noor Ali, a classical player, decided enough was enough and took over. His partnership with Najibullah Zadran lasted seven overs. There were only eight dot balls. The good ones became singles, and quite often they were turned into twos, like a spinner’s yorker in the 15th over was so gently turned to the vacant midwicket region to evade the man in the deep. Next ball was short and wide and Noor Ali laid into it with a cut for four.”Everybody thinks T20 is all about fours and sixes. I think Noor Ali and Najib put pressure on the bowlers not with sixes and fours but with singles and twos,” Inzamam said. “In our team meetings, we talk about going for singles and twos off every ball. When it’s a loose ball, you’re international players, ball will easily go for fours and six. But strike rotation is the main thing.”Noor Ali batted till the 17th over, made 63 off 44 balls with 25 singles and three twos. That was the match-winning innings. It wasn’t flashy, but it was substantial, clever, well-planned and wonderfully executed.Only for Dawlat to steal the thunder, Afghanistan style.At a time when the ICC have shrunk the World Cup to only 10 teams, four Associates have provided a feast of compelling cricket in the Asia Cup qualifiers.All three games so far have been tight contests. Batsmen have flourished on fine T20 pitches with healthy pace and true bounce. The fourth highest T20I score was made on Friday by Hong Kong’s Babar Hayat – 122 off 60 balls. But he ended on the losing side because the bowlers have also shown bottle under pressure.Like today, Bilal, who has a little bit of Ashish Nehra to his action, speared a couple of yorkers to topple two wickets and give away only two runs in the 17th over of the chase. Twenty-seven off 24 balls had become a slightly pesky 25 off 18. Ansari, the seamer who bowls with a slingy arm like Lasith Malinga, kept his 18th over down to four runs and the equation became 21 off 12 suddenly.Afghanistan have certainly grown as a cricket team. They were given Associate status only in 2013. Three short years later, they have beaten Bangladesh, a Full Member, in the previous Asia Cup, claimed a maiden World Cup victory, celebrated series wins over Zimbabwe, another Full Member, away from home and then home-adjacent in the UAE.They are in the top 10 teams in ODIs, and have a representative each – Mohammad Shahzad and Dawlat – in the top 10 batsmen and bowlers rankings in T20Is. Shapoor Zadran has played for a Rest of the World XI alongside Brian Lara, Brendon McCullum, Mahela Jayawardene and Graeme Smith in a charity match at the Oval and Nabi has even given the old T20 leagues a spin. Would it be that improbable that in another three years, Afghanistan may have Test status?However, they shouldn’t forget their peers are adamant about not lagging behind too far. So much that a defeat to Oman today would have knocked Afghanistan out of the Asia Cup. And that possibility didn’t look all that left-field.

Kevin Pietersen has fuelled the fire over a potential international comeback for South Africa. If the extraordinary did happen, he would join a select group of players to have appeared for two countries. ESPNcricinfo picks out a few names

Andrew McGlashan10-Apr-2016Albert TrottBorn in Melbourne, Trott played three Tests for Australia in 1895 with considerable success, but was ignored for the 1896 tour of England, ironically captained by his brother Harry, and was not picked again. Instead, he joined Middlesex, and in the winter of 1899, played two Tests for England on the tour of South Africa, claiming 17 wickets in Johannesburg and Cape Town. The following summer, he crossed 1000 runs, alongside taking 239 wickets – it was also the season when he famously hit a six over the Lord’s pavilion – but there were no further Tests despite, at the turn of the century, being considered “just about the finest all-round cricketer on earth,” as David Frith wrote in a 1973 edition of .Nawab of Pataudi snrThe only man to have played for India and England, he made a century on Test debut against Australia at the SCG in the Bodyline tour of 1932-33, but returned home before the end of the series after a disagreement over the tactics employed by Douglas Jardine. One more England Test followed before, in 1936, he was named India captain for the tour of England, although he was later not fit for the trip. Due to the Second World War, it was not until 1946 that he appeared in a Test again. By then, his best years were behind him and he made just 55 runs in five innings.John TraicosAn offspinner, Traicos holds the record for the longest gap between Test appearances of (the very neat) 22 years and 222 days. Born in Egypt – another good quiz question – he grew up in South Africa and made his debut in 1970 against Australia, but three Tests were the sum total of his chance. Having then gone to play in Zimbabwe, or Rhodesia, as it was known then, he made his ODI debut for them in 1983, and when they were granted Test status in 1992, was still bowling well enough to earn a place. On his second debut, at the age of 45, he took 5 for 86 in 50 overs against India in Harare – including the scalp of Sachin Tendulkar for a third-ball duck.Kepler WesselsThe most recent dual-nation Test player, Wessels returned to captain South Africa – including at the 1992 World Cup – following their readmission to international cricket post-apartheid. This came after a long career in Australia that included three years at Test level and stints in World Series Cricket. Two of his six Test centuries came for South Africa: the first against India in Durban then a historic innings at Lord’s in 1994 in what would become his final series. While playing for Australia, he fronted up outstandingly against the West Indies pace attack of the mid-80s with scores of 61, 98, 70, 90 and 173 during the 1984-85 series.Luke RonchiThe most recent player to switch between Full Member nations, Ronchi made his New Zealand ODI and T20 debuts in 2013 having previously played four ODIs and three T20s for Australia between 2008 and 2009 – which included a 22-ball fifty against West Indies. He was born in New Zealand, but raised in Australia, which created his first route into international cricket but after his Australia career faded he looked back across the Tasman. He made his New Zealand debut at Lord’s in May 2013, marking the occasion with a duck, and it took him 20 ODIs to pass fifty again when he made 99 against South Africa. His returns have been inconsistent, but the highlight was an unbeaten 170 against Sri Lanka, in Dunedin, when he shared a world-record sixth-wicket stand of 267 with Grant ElliottEd Joyce and Boyd RankinNever mind switching once, these two have done it twice. Joyce and Rankin both started their careers with Ireland before opting to pursue international honours with England. Joyce played ODIs and T20s – including at the 2007 World Cup where he faced Ireland – while Rankin reached Test level with what became a difficult outing against Australia at the SCG in early 2014. Joyce was granted an exemption to return for Ireland at the 2011 World Cup shortly before his four-year re-qualification period had elapsed but, after the ICC tweaked the regulations, Rankin only had to wait two years from his last England appearance and returned to Ireland’s T20I side shortly before the recent World T20 in India.

Ross Taylor recalls his turbulent stint in charge of New Zealand, and talks of how he has changed as a player and person since

Jack Wilson15-Jun-2016″I enjoyed captaincy, it brought the best out of my game, but it’s an unrewarding job,” Ross Taylor says. “Heath Mills, from the New Zealand Players Association, always said it was unrewarding. He was right.”Taylor stops to gather his thoughts when I ask if leading New Zealand was a childhood dream. The few seconds of silence say it all.He has never been one to hang about. His 81-ball century against Australia in 2010 was New Zealand’s fastest ever in Tests. Just last year, he broke a 111-year record by scoring 290 against the Australians, the highest score by an overseas batsman in Tests in Australia. The innings was full of positivity and aggression, never shying away from a battle.Talking about the captaincy, by contrast, Taylor is careful, tentative and hesitant. He is everything he is not on the cricket field – slow to pick his words on what is a difficult subject, but it’s easy to see why.In June 2011, he was handed the captaincy in all forms. It should have been a fairy tale, given his good batting form at the time, but 18 months later it was over. Coach Mike Hesson, following disappointing results in the limited-overs formats, wanted Taylor to relinquish the one-day captaincy. Ahead of a Test series against Sri Lanka, Hesson tried to tell Taylor exactly that.He informed Taylor he would recommend leadership changes to the board after the tour. He meant in white-ball cricket, but he failed to convey that to Taylor. It ended in disaster. Taylor led New Zealand to their first away Test victory over Sri Lanka in over a dozen years, making 142 and 74 in the process.”I guess yes and no, on it [captaincy] being a childhood dream,” he says. “I always thought I could do it but it came a couple of years before I was ready. I was just getting into a bit of form and then had the added responsibility of being captain.Ross Taylor’s 290 against Australia at the WACA was full of positivity and aggression•Getty Images”Until you do the job, you don’t realise how much there is involved in it. Your brain is ticking the whole time. The only time you aren’t thinking cricket is when you aren’t playing. And with the amount of cricket being played now, that’s not very often.”Taylor had had enough. He took a break from the game while New Zealand Cricket – then hit by a barrage of criticism from ex-players – apologised. Weeks later, he returned, but trust needed rebuilding and the relationship with Hesson needed repairing. Taylor admits that the turmoil affected him. Anyone would have been.One particular Kevin Pietersen remark really struck a chord. “It has made me who I am today,” Taylor says. “I don’t think I’d be human if it didn’t affect me in some sort of way.”I watched KP do a documentary on ITV one time. They asked him if he regretted taking the captaincy, and he said you can never turn down the job. He’s right.”In truth, the signals were there from the start. Taylor beat Brendon McCullum to the job after being interviewed by a three-man panel consisting of the coach then, John Wright, the director of cricket, John Buchanan, and the acting national selection manager Mark Greatbatch. It was like going back to school.”I don’t know many people who would have to interview to become the national team captain, so that was a strange thing to deal with. It was bizarre, very bizarre,” Taylor recalls.”It was an honour and a privilege to get the job but I really don’t know how to describe it. I guess when I write my book I’ll go into depth a bit more, but it was different. At least when I finish my cricket career I can say I’ve had one job interview!”McCullum replaced Taylor in December 2012. The move worked. He revolutionised New Zealand cricket and left. Hesson was there every step of the way – and so was Taylor. Against the odds, both remain an integral part of the new era, still working together.Taylor’s 290 against Australia came just three Tests ago. He has hit three one-day international centuries in his last nine innings. He may be 32 but Taylor is seeing the ball as well as ever, and has rarely played better.Taylor and Mike Hesson have put the past behind them and both remain an integral part of the new era•AFPHe knows it won’t go on forever and laughs at the suggestion of playing into his forties: “Absolutely not! If I get to 37 or 38, I’ll be happy. Forty-two or 44? No way.” But for now he is relishing playing a key part in what could be one of the greatest New Zealand teams ever, under Kane Williamson.”It has the potential to be the best New Zealand side.” he says. “We’ve got quite a lot of young talent coming through and there are a couple of big Test series in the next couple of years. We’re sixth in the Test rankings, so there’s still a long way to go, but it’s exciting. It’s nice to be a part of it.”Kane and Brendon are totally different people. Being vice-captain, like Kane was, is hard, as vice-captaincy is one of the toughest jobs in cricket. Now he’s captain full time, he is not coming in and treading on any toes. I’m sure he will do very well as captain, and in the future Kane will be one of the best ever batsmen. Scoring runs, as he’s doing, and having him as captain bodes well for the future of New Zealand.”When New Zealand travel to South Africa for a Test series in August, Taylor – the country’s most experienced batsman – will be key. It is a testament to his temperament and professionalism that he’s still going strong, often against the odds.Until then he is enjoying life on the south coast of England with Sussex. There are no captaincy worries, no off-field politics, no childhood dreams turning into nightmares.”Sussex is great, the club has been great and it’s a lovely part of the world – except my two children have worked out that every time they go to the beach they get an ice cream!” he says.”It’s nice to have my family here, though. I bought my son a Sussex cricket ball the other day and he’s got good hands for a two-year-old. If it means he gets an IPL deal in 20 years’ time I wouldn’t begrudge that.”

An international debut in South Africa will be a big step up for Daniel Worrall, who has played only 12 List A matches, but he is used to big, unexpected jumps

Brydon Coverdale06-Sep-2016Pathways might deliver cricketers ready for the big time, but players can still emerge from off the beaten one. Daniel Worrall is the latest proof. Watch 25-year-old Worrall bowl a single delivery from his unusual angled run-up, reminiscent of Malcolm Marshall jogging in from near mid-off, and you will quickly realise that he does not fit the typical modern template.But to borrow a line from a popular baseball book of this year, the only rule is it has to work. And Worrall’s method works. It worked to such an extent that last summer he was the Sheffield Shield’s second-leading wicket-taker with 44 at 26.18, and has now earned himself a call-up to Australia’s squad for the upcoming ODI series in South Africa.”There was a little tree at the end of the garden when I was a kid,” Worrall told ESPNcricinfo on Tuesday. “If you wanted to get that bit of extra pace you had to go around the tree. That’s how it started, and I never really had any significant bowling coaching done until I was probably 19, so I haven’t really changed it much.”A likely international debut will be a big step up for Worrall, who has played only 12 List A matches in his career, but he is used to big jumps. Four years ago, he was a commerce student at Melbourne University, living on a typically unhealthy student diet, when an offer came from South Australia to sign a rookie contract for the 2012-13 summer.”I’d finished two years there and I’d just live on $40 a week and have a pack of mee goreng noodles for dinner every night,” Worrall said. “It was a bit of a change when I had to start taking my diet a bit seriously.”For the first couple of years I probably wasn’t as fit as I could or should have been, the penny hadn’t quite dropped. But over the past couple of years working with [SA coach] Jamie Siddons and Stephen Schwerdt, the new fitness coordinator at the SACA, I just had to flick a switch and really commit to goals I had set for myself and things I wanted to achieve in the future.”In Worrall’s own words, he wanted to “have a red-hot crack”. And South Australia, the state that had taken a punt on Worrall in the first place, were the benefit of his increased output last summer. Worrall and Joe Mennie were the Shield’s two leading wicket-takers and, along with Chadd Sayers, played key roles in the Redbacks reaching their first Shield final for 20 years.All three of those men have now received Australia call-ups: Sayers was part of the Test squad that toured New Zealand earlier this year, and Mennie will join Worrall in the ODI touring party in South Africa. At least Mennie will provide another familiar face for Worrall, whose only interaction with captain Steven Smith came in a pair of games in October when Smith smashed 84 not out, 67 and 152 not out for New South Wales.”I don’t think I’ve ever met him properly,” Worrall said. “I’ve shaken his hand after he’s belted us around the park in a Shield game. But that’s about it. It will be great to be on the same side as him. It will be all brand new, apart from a couple of guys with the SACA like Travis Head and Adam Zampa, and a couple of guys from the Melbourne Stars.”Regardless of what happens in South Africa, the call-up has certainly justified Worrall’s decision to shift from Victoria to South Australia in 2012. It may not all have been smooth sailing along the way – he was suspended by South Australia in 2014 for a bizarre incident in which he etched a lewd image into a pitch – but the end result has been better than he could ever have imagined.”In hindsight I think it was a great move because it allowed me the chance to play first-class cricket,” Worrall said, “whereas I don’t think I’d have had that opportunity as early at Victoria, with guys like Boland, Hastings, McKay, Siddle, Pattinson.”

An analytical look at a few highlights from the fourth day’s play between India and New Zealand in Kolkata

Aakash Chopra03-Oct-2016Guptill in Kanpur, Guptill in KolkataUmesh Yadav trapped Martin Guptill in front in the first innings of the first Test. His head fell over, which resulted in the front leg falling across and therefore the bat coming down at an angle. Guptill’s feet movement against pace at Eden Gardens is a good example of how batsmen work hard on addressing their areas of concern. In this innings, he kept the head a little straighter, which in turn meant that the front foot fell a lot straighter. It isn’t easy to make technical adjustments in the middle of a series but you must keep striving for improvement.Modern-day batting v modern-day leadershipIn the second innings of the first Test, Guptill got out to R Ashwin playing a slog-sweep without even opening the account. In this Test, Ashwin placed a long-on, a deep midwicket and a long leg from the very first ball to Guptill. The field stays the same for a few overs before lunch despite the batsman not attempting a single attacking shot in that direction. In the years gone by, Guptill’s form and runs in the bank would have dictated a more attacking field but modern-day leadership is, perhaps, tuned to the mindset of a modern batsman. The idea is to cut off the boundary shots, for that apparently is likely to make the modern-day batsman more uneasy than more fielders closer to the bat in catching positions.Bat in front v bat on the sideIn Kanpur, Ashwin accounted for Tom Latham in both the innings. On both occasions, he was adjudged leg before to balls that went straight after pitching. While Latham should not be blamed for playing for spin (it was a turning pitch in Kanpur), he was guilty of putting the bat besides the pad and not in front. The basics of playing spin is to keep the bat ahead of the front pad to ensure that not only you prevent the ball from hitting the pads but also makes sure that bat-pad doesn’t go to the close-in fielders.Ravindra Jadeja’s change of angles limited Henry Nicholls’ array of shots•BCCIA game of anglesRavindra Jadeja operated over the stumps to both left-handed batsmen – Latham and Henry Nicholls for a long time. Both batsmen settled into a nice rhythm of defending-sweeping the balls pitching outside off. The moment Jadeja went round the stumps, he got a wicket. The angle forced Nicholls to open up the stance a little and also abandon the sweep somewhat, for the balls were pitching and finishing within the stumps a lot more. The change of angle forced the change in tactics and produced a wicket.Breaks break partnershipsThe fifth ball after lunch and the ninth ball after tea produced wickets. While Guptill was trapped lbw by Ashwin after the first break, it was the well-set Latham who edged one behind after the tea break, again off Ashwin. The best part about Test cricket is the breaks at various stages of the game. These breaks not only give players a break from the heat but also a chance for the teams to change momentum. On pitches like the one we saw at Eden Gardens, the importance of breaks can never be overstated. It’s fairly tough to get set on a pitch where you can’t trust the bounce and once set, you don’t want the momentum to break but these compulsory breaks can’t be avoided.

With a defeat-strewn year coming to an end, and seven months of red-ball inactivity approaching, England need to take a long, hard look at the future of their Test captaincy

Andrew Miller14-Dec-2016You don’t need to have been in the same room as Trevor Bayliss to pick up his exasperated tones as he addressed – not for the last time, you suspect – the status of Alastair Cook as England’s Test captain.”I suppose if you guys keep talking about it enough, he’ll start believing it at some stage,” Bayliss told reporters in Mumbai, in response to speculation that England’s most-capped Test captain is on the brink of calling it a day.It wasn’t, in fairness, the ideal time for such an issue to bubble to the surface. England’s surrender in the fourth Test was as bruising as any of the sizeable beatings they’ve endured in recent months – only two teams in history had previously managed to lose by an innings after posting 400 first time out – and they’ve still got a gruelling finale in Chennai to come.But equally, it was disingenuous for Bayliss to dress the furore up as some sort of an end-of-a-losing-series scapegoat-seeking frenzy (as can, admittedly, be the case on some occasions).After all, it was Cook himself who invited the line of enquiry with his pre-series admission that the end of his reign could be nigh, while Bayliss ramped up the inquisition, after England’s defeat in the third Test, by revealing that he had ‘stepped up’ his presence in the dressing-room – an intervention that he must have known would be interpreted as a comment on Cook’s passive leadership, particularly in Visakhapatnam and Mohali.You can dress up the details in whatever finery you like (and nothing looks like being decided until Cook has sat down with his old captain and opening partner, Andrew Strauss, for a debrief in January) but there is no escaping the conclusion that a fork in England’s path has been reached.That much is as clear from England’s itinerary as their statistics. Never mind the seven Test defeats that they have suffered in 2016 (one more in Chennai will equal their record for a calendar year), it is the seven long months of Test inactivity that are of greater significance to Cook and England. The team’s attentions are about to turn to white-ball cricket on a scale never witnessed in their history – and who knows where that will leave the skipper, should he seek a return to his role against South Africa in July.England have endured longer breaks between Test matches in the past – most recently the eight-month hiatus around the 2015 World Cup – but Cook, of course, was the ODI captain as well going into that spell, only to be jettisoned, with a cruel but overdue lack of ceremony, in the final run-up to the tournament. As a consequence, he is about to spend longer out of an England shirt than at any previous point in his career.There’s no point in conflating the events of that sorry winter with the circumstances of this one, except to point out that Cook’s appointment as England’s one-day captain – recalled from outside the squad after Strauss’s resignation in 2011 – had been the ultimate symptom of the format’s second-class status in the eyes of the ECB. And, by extension, his removal was the catalyst to the white-ball revolution that followed.That upheaval came too late to salvage any dignity at the World Cup, but this coming period – culminating in a home Champions Trophy and a plausible shot at a first ICC global 50-overs trophy – is the first real test of the ECB’s new resolve, ahead of the 2019 World Cup, to treat one-day cricket as an equal priority.And with that in mind, if Bayliss is getting twitchy about the team’s lack of “positivity” under Cook’s leadership, albeit in a different format, then you’ll just have to trust his judgment on that one, at least until there’s sufficient reason to doubt it. After all, nine months ago, many of the same players who have been cowed into submission on this trip had so enjoyed their last visit to India that they came within four fateful deliveries of winning the World T20.It may well be true that Australia’s recent Test struggles expose the long-term folly of focussing too much attention on the white-ball game. But England have spent too many years swimming against the tide not to go with the flow while they can, and given that one of their most consistent performers in the last two Tests was Jos Buttler, a man who says that a lack of first-class cricket was the secret to his success, there seems already to be circumstantial evidence to back up Bayliss’s attention to mindset.Where all of that leaves Cook is both crystal-clear … and clear as mud. What cannot be in any doubt is his enduring importance as England’s totem of Test batsmanship. Talking of mindset, when Cook sets his mind to bat all day, it becomes one of the most unbreakable substances known to man. He has not missed a Test match since his first visit to Mumbai in March 2006, and he is not scheduled to miss another until the date that he so chooses.Cook will be 32 years young on Christmas Day, and it’s still debatable whether he has yet broken sweat, let alone a bone, in the course of an extraordinary career. With 10,998 Test runs to his name already, he has the chance to set records that may never be challenged.None of those remarkable facts, however, have any bearing whatsoever on Cook’s aptitude as a leader, or indeed his suitability to be Bayliss’s right-hand man in England’s long-form planning, and those are the only aspects of his game that are up for debate as the India tour draws to its conclusion.It is not that Cook even looks weary after four years as England’s full-time Test captain – certainly not to the extent that his predecessors have tended to be after this length of time in charge. Only during his annus horriblis in 2014 did his seemingly limitless reserves of mental strength come flickering to the brink of exhaustion.But nevertheless, he has carried himself with an air of … well, resignation, throughout this winter’s tour of the subcontinent. Who knows what toll his personal life has taken on this trip – he met his newborn daughter for a matter of hours before jetting off to rejoin the squad in Bangladesh two months ago, and that is a sacrifice that would cut any family man to the quick. But Cook will know that his own returns haven’t come close to the standards he sets himself, particularly in Asia, where his record as an overseas batsman is unrivalled.Form-wise, Cook has drifted into what is, for him, an unusual limbo – neither drastically lacking in touch, nor capable of grinding his good starts into towering finishes; as a captain, he’s clearly struggled to make the best of the men at his disposal, and there’s no disgrace in that.And yet, if you look at Cook’s opposite number, Virat Kohli – in the form of his life with the bat, but living every moment in the field as India’s most fired-up leader since Sourav Ganguly – or if you look back at the methods and mien of other recent England captains – the passion of Nasser Hussain, the tactical wit of Michael Vaughan, even the officer-class detachment of Strauss – you’d be entitled to wonder whether a squad with this much talent should be looking quite this defeated after a series in which they had moments of genuine opportunity in three of the four matches. As the People’s Front of Judea might have asked of the Romans, “apart from a mountain of runs, a record-breaking run of appearances, two Ashes victories and famous series wins in India and South Africa, what exactly has Alastair Cook ever brought to the England captaincy?”Well, his time as leader has spanned 58 Tests to date, the most by an England captain, and in winning 24 of those, he has already matched Strauss’s mark and is two shy of Vaughan’s all-time record of 26. However, he’s also on the brink of a far less coveted record. Should England succumb to another defeat in Chennai, Cook would also overhaul Michael Atherton as the most defeated England captain in history.Somewhere between those two figures lies a verdict on Cook’s time as England captain. It’s not that he has been a poor leader – far from it. If you were to take only his first full series in charge, his stunning assault on India’s citadels in 2012-13, he would go down in history as the warrior-leader of one of England’s greatest series wins of all time.But for much of the rest of his reign, Cook has led with an imperceptible listlessness that has, at times, drawn brutal criticism – most notably from Shane Warne, though he’s hardly been alone in his frustrations. Though cut from the same conservative cloth as his friend and predecessor Strauss, he has somehow never forged the same captaincy credentials. The ECB let him down terribly in their (mis-)management of the Pietersen affair, but even before that debacle, Cook had been struggling to forge an identity independent of his Essex mentors, Andy Flower and Graham Gooch. For a man of such singular resolve, it has remained a curious dichotomy.The Lord’s Test against New Zealand in 2015 gave a fleeting glimpse of what Alastair Cook’s old-pro leadership could look like when surrounded by young guns•Getty ImagesOverall, Cook’s batting hasn’t suffered in the manner of his predecessors (in fact his average is a few decimal points higher when captain than not) which is one tenuous reason not to do anything so rash as to hand the reins to Joe Root before the Ashes. More tellingly, however, his runs haven’t really contributed to any grander narrative. England haven’t won three Tests in a row – even on home soil – since battling back from 0-1 down to beat India 3-1 in 2014, while Cook’s overall record since 2015, the year in which he was left to focus on Test cricket, has been a decidedly limp: W12, L13.That final statistic is perhaps the most galling, for it speaks of a failure to shore up England’s standards in the form of the game that they still profess to hold most dear. Even last summer’s Ashes redemption was punctuated by two of the most towelling defeats you could ever wish to experience in a winning cause.There have been fleeting glimpses of what Cook’s old-pro leadership could look like when surrounded by his team of young guns – most tantalisingly during his epic hundred against New Zealand at Lord’s in 2015 – but for the most part, he’s seemed either to try to lead where others cannot follow (take his Vizag rearguard, for instance), or, perhaps more worryingly, he’s felt the need to adapt his own style to meet the new dressing-room imperatives. That way madness lies – the Cook of 2012-13 would never have danced out of his crease to be stumped for 46 from 60 balls, as he did on the first morning in Mumbai.And for all his protestations about wanting to carry on working with Cook for the foreseeable future, these are issues that Bayliss (whose own Test record is a must-do-better W10 L11) knows he needs to address with less than a year to go until the next Ashes curtain-raiser in Brisbane.”We have a chat before every day’s play about what the message will be to the boys and the way we want to play,” said Bayliss of his relationship with Cook. “Nothing is ever 100%, it’s like selection, you don’t want the same philosophy from every selector, you want different thoughts and ideas. So at different times we’ve come from a little bit of a different angle but, in the end, we go into the team singing from the same hymn-sheet.”Differences in style where captains and coaches are concerned are often a very good thing – Vaughan and Duncan Fletcher hardly seemed like natural bedfellows, after all. And nobody is seriously suggesting that England’s Test brains trust are at each other’s throats. But could it be that seeking consensus is precisely the wrong way to get the best out of a man as famously bloody-minded as Cook?Or could it be that his ideal role in the final years of his career will come as a gnarled senior pro, clanking under the weight of his campaign medals and with the likes of Haseeb Hameed under his wing, who is given licence to grind out a ten-hour century on the second and third days in Adelaide and call bullshit at crucial moments when the coach’s flights of attacking fancy get the better of him? Cook’s defining series, the 2010-11 Ashes, came when he had nothing on his mind but the need to score mountains of runs. Why shouldn’t he long for a return to such carefree days?

The Bengaluru Test was such that you never knew what could happen, and even when you did, everything changed the very next moment

Jarrod Kimber in Bengaluru07-Mar-2017Crack. That was the sound of what used to be Karun Nair’s leg stump. It had just snapped; one part was stuck in the ground, the other catapulted towards leg gully. Nair looked back at the crime scene his stumps had become and Mitchell Starc screamed “come on” as he stared at the batsman like he wanted to dismiss him entirely from the planet. The stare continued as the rest of the Australians converged around Starc and another yell brimmed out of him. “F*** off.”It was only a couple of minutes earlier that Starc couldn’t even land it on the pitch. The new ball, which Steven Smith had gambled with, kept clattering around the slip fielders’ noses without going anywhere near the batsman.Nathan Lyon and Steve O’Keefe drew edges that fell short and triggered lbw appeals that were turned down. For half an hour it looked like India were about to lose their wickets to spin again but then the instant the new ball was available, Smith took it. He took it despite the fact his quicks hadn’t bowled well at the start of the innings and despite the fact the new ball hadn’t been as unpredictable as the old one. The first over with it was a mess of Mitchell Starcness – unplayable brilliance and horrendous garbage. The ball that barely hit the pitch wasn’t on its own – an equally ugly companion would come by an over later. Deliveries down leg, full tosses, half-volleys… Starc was bowling as poorly as he had ever done in India.Then there was another half-volley, one that pitched in line, made impact with the pad in line and was projected to crash into the stumps. Just like that Ajinkya Rahane’s innings was over, and so was Australia’s misery. The annihilation of Test cricket’s most recent triple-centurion happened next ball.Smith had gambled. Starc had snapped. Game on.*****David Warner fell sweeping to R Ashwin•AFPDavid Warner came down the wicket out like a pissed off ’80s action hero, his game face tattooed on.This wasn’t the shot of a master technician, this was the bull. He had lost his opening partner, seen the ball pop over his head after hitting a crack and then rip past him like a wayward shiv in a prison riot. That was it. It was time to go full Davey.The target was only 188 runs and this was David Warner, king of the second innings, Australia’s only Test match finisher, the goddamn bull. Ain’t nobody gonna keep him down. So the foot marks didn’t matter, where the ball pitched wasn’t important and that puff of dust could go do one.This was about muscle and power.The ball cleared the rope, the advertising hoarding and an umbrella. It was out of here. It knows it was hit by David bloody Warner.R Ashwin suddenly looked worried. He’d been bowling over the wicket for days, ever since that pixie-dust-sprinkled dream of a ball to shatter Warner off stump in the first innings, and he had only taken one wicket since.India’s ace offspinner looked flat. He looked a bit out of ideas. So after 16 balls of aiming for the rough outside the left-hander’s leg stump, he went around the wicket. And first ball – the very first ball – Warner tried a big sweep, didn’t get his foot work quite right, lost his balance and missed the ball.Warner seemed to want to walk off, Smith convinced him otherwise, and Warner reviewed with a shrug. The umpire Richard Kettleborough said, “There’s no bat involved, pitching outside off, impact umpire’s call, wicket umpire’s call.” And so Warner walked off. That umpire’s call would be questioned later, because this is Bengaluru, and not even the words “umpire’s call” could be trusted.*****Shaun Marsh said no to a review•AFPShaun Marsh’s leave seemed so right but it ended up wrong. Then again, it was a match of mistakes.It was Virat Kohli’s mistake to let the ball go on day one – that let Australia in. It was Marsh’s mistake late on day two that let India back in. It was Cheteshwar Pujara’s mistake on day four that compounded the Starc double blow. In a game as tight as this, even the umpire’s calls that DRS generated seemed wrong, let alone the umpires themselves.Take the Kohli lbw from the second innings. You know, the one we lost several years of our lives watching. Did he hit the ball before it hit his pad? Maybe, maybe not, back and forth, over and over, again and again. He has hit the ball. No he hasn’t. What was I seeing? Was there a small spike first? Were my ears working? What did I hear? Can I trust what I saw? Did the pad move before the bat or because of the bat? What is bat? What is pad? I want a lie down.This whole Test was an entertaining version of those three minutes. You kind of thought you knew what you were seeing, but then you didn’t believe it, then you knew who was on top, then they weren’t.It was tough for the batsmen – the pitch was bouncing high on day one, keeping low on day two, and cracking up by day three. It was tough for the umpires – every ball was a muted or full-blooded appeal. It was tough on the third umpire – at one point the umpire’s call seemed to be vying for Man of the Match.It was tough even to watch. Every session was like being forced to sit through an interrogation and you weren’t sure who was guilty, who would survive, and ultimately how it would all end.The Marsh wicket brought all that out too. Umesh Yadav was reversing the ball and looking for cracks. He had flown one past Marsh’s edge then followed it up with one that came back and Marsh just left it. It was quality bowling, and with some help from the surface, it created a small batting error. Marsh was given out lbw, despite the ball clearly seeming like it would miss off stump. Umpire Nigel Llong made a mistake. Smith told Marsh to go for a review. Marsh just heard “go” and left the field.This was Bengaluru 2017, where words meant everything, words meant nothing, and go didn’t always mean go.*****Steven Smith might just have had the most infamous brain fade ever•AFPSmith had seen enough of the pitch when his first two balls from Ishant Sharma had almost taken him out. When he faced Ashwin, he was on the attack from the get-go: a big sweep, a ropey one-handed cover drive and later a cut to the point boundary.At the other end, he was batting on pins and needles, on a tightrope, above a tank of underfed sharks as India’s quicks made a few balls burrow underground let alone keep low. Nicking one to the rope right through Kohli at slip was as much a victory as Smith looked likely to achieve.The run rate was healthier than at any time in the match but the batting had never looked more sickly.To counter the pitch, Smith was moving all the way across to off stump, using no backlift, and the way he reacted to the ball made it seem like Ashwin and Umesh were bowling at twice their speeds. Peter Handscomb too followed his captain’s lead and nearly lost his head walking across to a delivery. Here were two of the world’s most unconventional batsmen, having torn up their normal freaky techniques to try and invent something even crazier just to play on this surface.After half shouts, full appeals, endless oohs and aahs, Smith got a ball that travelled like a mole. “This looks dead,” Sanjay Manjrekar said on commentary. The whole thing was dramatic enough – the most important batsman, the scud missile under his bat and Kohli screaming what seemed to be something similar to the words Starc used against Nair earlier. But then Handscomb pointed to the changeroom, and Smith appeared to ask them what they thought.Suddenly umpire Llong was running down the track saying, “No, no, no, no.” Pujara and Kohli were involved in the chatting as well. Later, in the post-match press conference, Smith would call it a brain fade. Kohli would all but call it cheating.The new batsman arrived. Kohli ran past him and said, “Have fun here, .” Everyone knew there was no fun to be had here.*****This catch from Wriddhiman Saha hastened India towards victory•Associated PressThe crowd was chanting “RCB”. They were doing the Mexican wave. They were doing what looked like the Icelandic Viking football war chant “huh”. They were having fun.And in the last over before tea, all of this became an orchestra of destruction for Australia.Matthew Wade, who was selected partly because he has gravel in his gut, had to make it to the break. It may only be a small refuge, a portaloo in a tsunami, but Australia need to get there with only five wickets down.Wade prodded at the first ball uncomfortably and, from 22 yards away, Ashwin smiled evilly. Ashwin hit the footmarks with the next ball and Wade tried a nervous drive that could never have worked. The Indians close to the bat made all the appropriate squeals at a shot that poor.The third ball was kept out, nervously, and as the fourth was about to be delivered, Kohli asked the ground to rise for him and it did. Wade was just hanging in there.By the start of the fifth ball, tens of thousands of people were in Wade’s head, a billion with them in spirit. It was hard enough when he just had this pitch and this Ashwin, now he had all this too.The ball came down and all Wade could do was lunge and hope. It took the edge, hit the pad and flew up high enough for Saha to run and dive to short leg to take the catch.Ashwin raced to fine leg like a football striker who had won the World Cup. Half the team followed him. Saha got up and was embraced by the men around the bat. Kohli didn’t go to either of them. He sprinted out to deep cover, stood in front of the crowd, and howled along with his bellowing blue army.It had been a whole match of words, but you couldn’t hear what was Kohli saying. You couldn’t hear what anyone was saying. The only sound was the Indian victory roar.

After two full days when this series seemed to have stopped following its well-established plot lines, today was back to normal service in some ways

ESPNcricinfo staff27-Mar-2017DRS watchAfter no reviews during the first 164 overs of this Test, Monday was a return to normal service. Ravindra Jadeja was given out first ball, but the decision was overturned as he was instantly convinced that the ball didn’t graze the outside edge of his bat off Pat Cummins. A while later, there was power outage at the stadium, and play went on for more than 10 overs without the ball tracking technology available. As if to say that this series could take no more DRS-based headlines, there were no wrong calls during this period that the system could have helped sort out.Every other review was struck down, and Australia did not have a single successful one out of their four, spread across both Indian innings. It would not be an exaggeration to say that they did not ever look convinced with their “T” signals, and Glenn Maxwell’s call to go upstairs for one he did not offer a shot to, looked close to adding to another Australian “brain fade” for the series.Australia found themselves in a tangle both against pace and spin•Associated PressPitch watchA day after KL Rahul called it the best pitch of the series, the Dharamsala wicket continued to keep everyone interested. Both sets of fast bowlers extracted steep bounce. Some deliveries, as described by our ball-by-ball commentary team, “went off like they would on a trampoline”.There was purchase for the spinners, except it was a lot more due to turn and bounce, unlike frequent, surprise shooters that stayed low in the first two Tests. While batting was by no means easy, those with the temperament and patience to apply themselves got good value for their shots. That this was the first instance this series where India didn’t open with spin in Australia’s second innings was an apt testament to how the wicket played on Monday.Aggression watchAs India went about erasing their deficit during the first session, tempers frayed occasionally as Josh Hazlewood walked up to Wriddhiman Saha and Jadeja to exchange words. All was quiet until, late in the evening session, M Vijay snapped up a catch in the slip cordon to get rid of No. 11 Josh Hazlewood. After most of the players left the field, the third umpire ruled that the ball had bounced before the catch was taken, and Steve Smith could be seen giving a mouthful in the dressing room.The relief did not last long, as Australia were dismissed two balls later, after yet another failed review. There was also some bonhomie in between, as Glenn Maxwell high-fived former Kings XI Punjab teammate Cheteshwar Pujara at short leg, after lashing a full-blooded sweep on to his body.

He coughed and spluttered, but then Kevin Pietersen was riding the wave as a capacity crowd at The Oval lapped up the start of his valedictory tour of England in the NatWest Blast

Tim Wigmore20-Jul-2017Behold, the power and the glory of Kevin Pietersen. At The Oval on Wednesday night, a sell-out crowd did just that.Here was a sight most had presumed they would never see again: Pietersen captivating an English audience, and at the venue where he had played his most celebrated innings of all.The boisterous cheers that greeted Pietersen when he arrived at the crease 12 years after the innings that secured the 2005 Ashes in a sea of cricketing fervour were exactly as he would have wished.His Surrey return, which he says will be his final season of county cricket, is doubling as a valedictory tour to the English cricket public – a chance for the crowds to prove how much they still love him, even if Andrew Strauss and co do not.The early stages of Pietersen’s innings against Essex in the NatWest Blast gave off the air of a boxer who had unwisely returned to the ring for one bout too many. He took 17 balls over his first 14 runs and was reprieved twice – a regulation catch at midwicket, and a stumping. It all seemed to betray a man who had not played professional cricket for almost six months.As Living On A Prayer bellowed out at The Oval, the same could be said of Pietersen’s innings.But it is never wise to reprieve Pietersen, much less so at this ground. Like a surfer waiting to ride the perfect wave, Pietersen chose his ideal target – an offspinner, the type of bowler he scores quickest against in T20. Not just any old offspinner either, but Simon Harmer, also South African-born and the leading County Championship wicket-taker of 2017.The first ball was struck off the front foot over midwicket for six. The next, pitched short, was pulled over the same region. A single followed; then Harmer went wider outside off stump and endured another heave over midwicket. Harmer’s final ball, a rank full toss, was dispatched to the same heaving throngs in the OCS Stand,It attested to one of the enduring traits of Pietersen’s greatness: how he can intimidate fine bowlers off their game. With four sixes in five balls, each hit with more ferocity than the last, and cheered more raucously, Pietersen was back. And so was the love.The initial rust was hardly surprising. Pietersen had not batted in a T20 game in England for 1061 days, and not played a T20 at all for almost six months. He chose not even to put himself up for this year’s Indian Premier League auction, with IPL insiders suggesting that he was unlikely to have been picked up.The lack of cricket has provided ample time for other pursuits, which were not even curtailed by the start of this year’s Blast. Instead, he arrived fashionably late.

Filling time, KP style

• (i) Saving the rhinos – impassioned advocate for the campaign, persuading Melbourne Stars, and now Surrey, to stage fund-raising matches for the cause.

• (ii) Playing golf – and lots of it.

• (iii) Flirting with an international comeback – mischievously suggesting that he could play for South Africa in the 2019 World Cup.

• (iv) Hanging out with Piers Morgan – still his loyalist fan.

• (v) Developing the KP Cricket Academy in Dubai – offering “a completely unique and bespoke coaching experience”.

He has become an impassioned advocate for the Save the Rhino campaign, using stickers on his bat to draw attention to the cause and even persuading Surrey to stage a double-header at the Oval next month to raise funds.In keeping with this love of nature, he is having a lodge built on the edge of a nature reserve in South Africa; time spent there will preclude him from returning to play in county cricket again. And he spent last week on a game reserve in South Africa, breaking up his time on the safari and golf course to berate the third day of the Trent Bridge Test – marked by Hashim Amla’s disciplined plotting of a route to victory – as tedious.Only on Monday did he resume training with Surrey, two days before trying to make light of a six-month absence and invigorate his career at 37.On the day of his return, he played golf in the morning, and then went on TalkSport to declare that Gary Ballance and Keaton Jennings were not Test batsmen. He even speculated that he might play for South Africa in the 2019 World Cup: all rather bewildering, not just because the timing jarred with his return to the English game but also because he has not played a List A game for four years and seems in no hurry to change the fact. But, in another sense, the timing of his bizarre claim was perfect: for Pietersen, like John McEnroe, the only thing worse than being criticised is being ignored.Here, once again, he was impossible to ignore with the bat. A straight six off Ryan ten Doeschate was the finest shot of the evening – a fusion of quick hands and peerless timing, the sort of stroke that purist members and post-work revellers can take equal delight in. When Pietersen brought up his 50 soon after, it was, remarkably, his first ever in a T20 match for Surrey and, even more absurdly, his first half-century in the T20 Blast (or Twenty20 Cup, as it was back then) since 2004.It is a stark illustration of how Pietersen has struggled with the bitty nature of English domestic T20 – he had played 24 innings without a fifty in the tournament since. He will hope that this year’s more condensed schedule proves altogether more amenable.Pietersen’s innings was the major factor in Surrey’s 10-run win. But, for all the majesty of those five sixes, it was a curious innings, one of biff or block with nothing in between. It contained not a single two and the sense of a batsman feeling his way back into the game never entirely dissipated. Haring between the wickets, once a Pietersen trademark, was absent; instead his singles were ambled with the pace of someone double his 37 years. He pleaded a mild calf strain, another complication to surmount.Yet his achievement was a remarkable one, suggesting that, even in an age of uber-professional T20, Pietersen can still lead a remarkable double life, moving seamlessly between a life of effective retirement from the sport to being a leading player on the T20 circuit.He differs from most other T20 specialists in being much more selective about when he plays. He had a seven-month break in 2016, before this year’s six months off – making his challenge more onerous. Yet he continues to rise to it. In the last year, Pietersen has averaged 38.28 in the Big Bash League, 39.60 in the Ram Slam in South Africa, and 34.42 in the Pakistan Super League.Pietersen revels in the attention again at Kia Oval•Getty ImagesHis innings at The Oval – not quite vintage Pietersen, yet still almost twice what anyone else managed in the match – suggested that, like Roger Federer, he can pick and choose his matches as he enters sporting middle age, and that gaping gaps between games need not dilute his effectiveness.He does not train as much as he used to but he trains smarter. Across sport, a combination of science and assiduous management is helping elite athletes thrive later in their careers. Pietersen could yet maintain his double life for several more years, if he is so inclined.When he skied a ball to midwicket, he removed his helmet, walked off slowly and acknowledged the crowd’s applause. His night’s work was done; that calf strain, perhaps not inconveniently, rendered Pietersen unable to field, though he still reckons he will be able to play against Middlesex in the London derby on Friday.A little older and a little stiffer, Pietersen is back – and with his sense of theatre undimmed. Enjoy him while you can.

South Africa will have tougher tests to come, but they wanted to learn more about their support pace bowling and Duanne Olivier took his chance well

Firdose Moonda08-Oct-2017Duanne Olivier had one job: to do the same thing he did last summer.Except that he did it against an international batting line-up not a local one, with one of the most promising young bowlers on the global circuit at the other end, Kagiso Rabada, not his franchise partner Marchant de Lange, in front of a small but vociferous crowd, not an empty ground. So even though this one job was the same job as the one Olivier had always done, it had become a much harder job because it had been added to by expectation.Olivier was last season’s leading wicket-taker in first-class cricket with 52 scalps, some distance ahead of his nearest competitors, who had 34. It was widely understood that he was a wicket-taker but because the competition is not televised, very few people had actually seen what kind of a wicket-taker he was. Word around the game was that he had a decent short ball but also that he had the stamina to return for spell after spell and the ability to be effective with the older ball.But all of this was just talk. None of it had been seen at international level because Olivier had not had that much opportunity to show it.He debuted against a mentally shot Sri Lankan side that made for easy-pickings, was inconsistent in England in a series South Africa want to forget and was unspectacular in Potchefstroom last week when Morne Morkel set the tone. Here on his home turf, with all but one big name – Rabada – unavailable, he had his chance to prove what he is capable of and Faf du Plessis was particularly pleased with the outcome.”That’s what you want to see from young bowlers. You want to see improvement, that they can learn quickly at the highest level, because the guys that can learn, you can stick with them,” du Plessis said. “The way he bowled today was a fantastic effort. To bowl 10 overs on the trot of short-ball work takes incredible effort, so I have to take my hat off to him. He was our best bowler today.”Olivier’s spell started on the second evening when Bangladesh followed-on but he really got into his work on the third morning when, for the first time, he appeared to be bowling to a plan. South Africa had a short-leg in place and Olivier was told to pitch it short. His sixth ball climbed on Soumya Sarkar and carried to Aiden Markram under the helmet but he could not hold on. Later in the over, Olivier bounced Sarkar and then aimed at his ribs. In the next over, Sarkar prodded at one from Rabada and was caught at second slip.Then, Olivier turned it up. Men were sent out on the leg side waiting for the hook and Olivier ramped up the pace and the effort. Imrul Kayes almost gloved one as it sailed past his hips and Mominul Haque had one hurtle towards his face. Olivier set them up so Rabada could take them down. Mominul holed out to deep square leg off Rabada in the ninth over.Bangladesh’s captain Mushfiqur Rahim bore the brunt of Olivier’s aggression and there were many hearts in mouths when he was hit on the helmet and required treatment. Olivier, not shirking from his plan, delivered a short ball as soon as Mushfiqur was ready to go again.For all the work he put in, Olivier’s only reward was the strangling of Kayes down the leg side but in his 10-over spell he showed all the ingredients South Africans like to see in their quicks. He was fast and he was fiery and though there is still work to be done for him to challenge the currently-injured elites for a more regular place in the Test XI, du Plessis is now confident Olivier could get to that level.”You can’t compare any of our bowlers to KG’s skill, but what we needed from a bowling attack today, we needed to be ruthless and aggressive and try and make it uncomfortable for Bangladesh, and he led from that aspect. I’m very proud that he can make those improvements,” du Plessis said.”There is a difference in our top four seamers, they are world class, best-in-the-world kind of bowlers. So if you judge guys according to them, there would be a gap. For me it is important to see how we can make those guys get better for the time when they need to step up into the team. These guys that played the last two Test matches will be looked at for the future so it’s important for them to see that there is some work to do, but they have the quality.”That q-word (not quota, though there is that one too) is something of a talking point in South African cricket because there are serious concerns about their depth. To have learnt that they still have a lot of quality was an important goal in this series and du Plessis can now look forward to the rest of the summer with optimism.”We had really good targets leading into this series of what we wanted to achieve as a team and we achieved those goals hands down, so we’ll take confidence as we move into two big series,” he said. “We appreciate that India and Australia are going to be a lot tougher. Bangladesh didn’t have the firepower we thought they would have in these conditions. We won’t get too far ahead of ourselves in thinking we are the finished article.”