Category: India Cricket

If the two captains fail to shake hands at the Women’s Cricket World Cup it will deliver another blow to ping-pong diplomacy

It is mere years that women in the subcontinent have been taken seriously as cricketers. For generations, they faced scorn, disapproval, ostracism – even the threat of violence – to pursue their passion. Now India is hosting a World Cup in which the prize fund is $13.8m (£10.3m) and the home nation’s players will become national treasures if they secure their first tournament victory.

It would, then, be a travesty if this weekend’s talk focused on their male counterparts. And yet, when India face Pakistan on Sunday, comparison is unavoidable. And not because the home side are highly favoured to triumph, but because they are not expected to shake hands with their opposition. Handshakegate, if we must call it that, will have a fourth instalment.

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• India skipper snubs Salman Ali Agha in preliminaries

• India beat Pakistan by six wickets in Dubai

India’s captain, Suryakumar Yadav, once again chose not to shake hands with Pakistan’s Salman Ali Agha at the toss for their Asia Cup match on Sunday, as animosity between the bitter rivals rumbled on at the eight-team tournament.

The Asia Cup has been dominated by headlines about India and Pakistan’s first meetings on the pitch since the military conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours in May this year. India have won both matches, winning the second by six wickets on Sunday.

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England’s batting lineup looks settled for the trip to Australia, but their fast-bowling stocks were stretched against India and the captain can help ease the burden

The England-India epic that ended up like two weary prizefighters trading blows will live long in the memory – a 2‑2 classic for which the players on both sides deserve immense credit. Not that Mohammed Siraj, still hitting 90mph on the speed gun on the 25th day, showed weariness. If anything, he could well hold the key to solving the world’s energy problems.

Plaudits in particular go to three men who stepped up bravely when other sports would have simply subbed them off: Shoaib Bashir bowled with a broken left hand at Lord’s; Rishabh Pant batted with a broken foot at Old Trafford; and then Chris Woakes, Horatio Nelson armed with a Gray-Nicolls, followed him in folklore at the Oval. Don’t be fooled by the white flannels and the stoppages for tea – Test cricket is a brutal sport.

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Ben Stokes, Joe Root, Shubman Gill, Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammed Siraj were the stars in an exceptional series

By the 99.94 Cricket Blog

Ben Stokes: 304 runs at 43.4; 17 wickets at 25.2
It is no exaggeration to say that a magnificent series like this is the product of how Baz McCullum and Ben Stokes have reinvented English Test cricket, a change comparable to Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque’s revolution of European art a century ago.

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Chris Woakes was sent out in a sling as England lost to India by six runs at the Oval in a wild finale to the series

• England and injured Woakes denied as India win thriller

Siraj is signing autographs. Intensely.

“Bought my son a day five ticket several weeks back,” you clever man David Adam, “and he’s been watching the whole match hoping for wickets to stop and rain to start. As much as yesterday’s crowd were rightly gutted not to see the conclusion, I’m selfishly delighted that my son will get his first taste of Test cricket this morning, even if it’s only half an hour. Surely the series deserves to end with a third ever tied test? Siraj sending an spectactularly unsporting bouncer down at Woakes?”

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With England looking to win the series and India still able to share the spoils, the loss of three headliners at the Oval is suboptimal

Much like the Dude in the Big Lebowski during his various moments of confusion, it was impossible not to repeatedly blink upon seeing England’s XI for the fifth and final Test against India that starts on Thursday. Four changes, including the loss of Ben Stokes and Ollie Pope’s return to the captaincy, took a few moments to process.

“I don’t want to eat my words but the likelihood I won’t play is very unlikely,” said Stokes after the stalemate at Old Trafford. While that quote needed scanning a few times, so did the gnarly right shoulder he was seen prodding and poking during what was a chastening failure to claim an unassailable 3-1 series lead. A grade-three tear to “a muscle I can’t pronounce” was the upshot, Stokes confirmed on Wednesday, and his summer is now frustratingly over.

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• England condemned in India and Australia

• Jamie Overton added to squad for final Test

Kevin Pietersen has come to the defence of Ben Stokes after the England captain became the subject of savage criticism in India and Australia for the behaviour seen from him and some of his teammates in the closing stages of the drawn fourth Test at Old Trafford.

England reacted angrily to India’s refusal to accept the draw when it was first offered on Sunday, with Washington Sundar and Ravindra Jadeja instead choosing to stay on the field until they completed their centuries – which prompted England to stand down their frontline bowlers and let batsman Harry Brook bowl until they both did so, amid significant on-field chuntering.

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Series victory would offer chance to experiment in fifth Test but Stokes and McCullum are trying to be here now at Old Trafford

The last time India were in Manchester for a Test match was back in 2021 and it was a pretty bleak affair. An outbreak of Covid-19 among their backroom staff saw the series finale called off just 90 minutes before the toss, even if many suspected the proximity of the rescheduled Indian Premier League also had a role to play here.

“I saw Lanky the Giraffe walking into the ground with his head slumped,” said Tom Harrison, then chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board, after crossing paths with Lancashire’s club mascot that morning. “It summed up my feelings too.”

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• India captain doesn’t back down over Lord’s spat

• Ben Stokes says England did not ‘go over the line’

The India captain, Shubman Gill, has strongly criticised some of England’s behaviour during their current Test series, describing it as not “what I would think comes in the spirit of the game”.

On the eve of the fourth Test at Old Trafford Gill was asked if he regretted confronting the England batter Zak Crawley during the last match at Lord’s, a moment that prompted England to decide, as Harry Brook put it on Monday, “to give them something back and not be the nice guys we have been in the last three or four years”.

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A walking wicket on the 2018 tour of England, stats suggest Rahul’s average of 35 is more impressive than it seems

The Guardian’s over-by-over coverage is built on reader interaction. We probably receive more than 1,000 emails during an average Test, hundreds of which are published. As an epic Lord’s Test unfolded, the same question kept dropping into our inboxes. “This is the second innings of the series that has left me baffled as to how KL Rahul averages only 35 in Tests,” began one such email from Ned Blackburn. “He seems to have the temperament, technique and discipline to be absolutely elite. What am I missing?”

Rahul’s Test average has become the unsolved mystery of the English summer. But after a day in the statistical dirt – and Ben Stokes thought he went to some dark places on Monday – we can offer some potential explanations. The simplest reason is that after a fine start to his career he became a superstar of Indian cricket, a status that is Kryptonite for an overthinker. “I just couldn’t get out of my own head,” he said in late 2023. “I couldn’t leave cricket or my professional life on the field. It was such a heaviness on me.”

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Fast bowler displayed all the attributes which set him apart from others to deliver optimism for rest of series and Ashes tour

The electric return of Jofra Archer in England’s tight victory against India at Lord’s set straight a couple of narratives that arose during his four-year absence from Test cricket. It is often said that a player’s stock can rise when they are sat on the sidelines – yet sometimes, in some quarters, the reverse can also be true.

Chief among them was a reminder that England possess a special fast bowling talent here, Archer displaying the attributes that set him apart from others. As the man himself confidently put it regarding the 89.6mph beauty to Rishabh Pant that angled in, nipped away and gave the snappers the stumplosion they craved: “I guess it was just a matter of when, if I kept bowling like that. I can’t imagine many left-handers getting away with it.”

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• Hampshire bowler last played Test cricket in 2017

• Rest of the squad unchanged for Old Trafford clash

Liam Dawson has been added to England’s squad for the fourth Test against India, ending an eight-year exile from the longest format in international cricket.

Last month the Hampshire all-rounder made a successful return to England’s T20 side after a three-year absence and, with Shoaib Bashir forced to pull out of the India series with a broken finger, he has finally been rewarded for his excellent red-ball form in recent seasons: 49 first-class wickets in 2023 followed by 54 in 2024, by a considerable margin his two most successful campaigns.

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• Archer only change for third Test as Tongue drops out

• Fellow pace bowler Wood targeting final Test at The Oval

Jofra Archer will start his first Test match in more than four years after being named as the only change in the England team to face India in the third Test at Lord’s on Thursday.

Chris Woakes and Brydon Carse are both retained after the defeat to India at Edgbaston which squared the series 1-1, with Josh Tongue making way for Archer.

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The fast bowler may be underdone but the national side can’t afford to ignore him – the question is who makes way

Tradition usually dictates that after a batting lineup fails in the manner that England’s largely did on a flat one at Edgbaston – four ducks among the top six, just two men passing 50, 157.4 overs batted to India’s 234 – a bowler or two must pay the price.

Given the short turnaround, and with admittedly some merit after shipping over 1,000 runs in a home Test for just the second time in history, this will come to pass at Lord’s on Thursday. All signs point to Jofra Archer’s return. A risk? Undoubtedly. After four years of injury struggles and a slow burn of a comeback in the white-ball formats, a mere 18 overs of priming in county cricket feels instinctively skinny.

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