On international debut at Commonwealth Games, Barbados draw on West Indies experience to beat Pakistan

Paul Muchmore29-Jul-2022Barbados may have been making their debut on the international stage tonight at the Commonwealth Games, but throughout their encounter with Pakistan, they showed they aren’t just in Birmingham to make up the numbers.With seven players capped previously by West Indies, six of them part of the squad that lifted the T20 World Cup trophy in 2016, perhaps it should be no surprise that they’ve beaten a full-member nation at their first attempt.The island nation leant heavily on that experience – all five players who batted have represented West Indies, and five of the six bowlers used were already international players. The other, Shanika Bruce, who bowled a solitary over, was the leading wicket-taker in the latest season of the T20 Blaze.Leading from the front in all departments was captain Hayley Matthews, the 24-year-old allrounder who anchored the Barbados innings with a 50-ball 51, bowled four tight overs, claiming 1 for 13, and effected two run-outs as Pakistan’s top order stumbled, with only Nida Dar threatening to take Pakistan close to Barbados’ total of 144 for 4.Related

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Matthews will take over the West Indies captaincy from Stafanie Taylor in their next series later this year, but the Commonwealth Games has given her an opportunity to make her international debut as skipper with a group of players she has led at domestic level since 2019. While she admitted there were nerves, she was delighted to put them behind her and get a first win under her belt.”It was electric, man,” she said, “I’m always really well supported by the Barbados team. We have a special bond within the group but I really can’t say much more, it was special, that’s for sure.”You could forgive Matthews for feeling the pressure a bit more when Deandra Dottin fell to Diana Baig on the fifth ball of the match, caught trying to clear the infield after flying out of the blocks in true Dottin style.While Matthews’ half-century – her first in T20 internationals since May 2019 – may have been the slowest of her career, she explained it was a conscious decision to try and bat deep with Kycia Knight, with whom she built a 107-run partnership off 98 balls. The pair drew on their time at the crease together in the West Indies domestic season in June, where they were the top two run-scorers in the Super50 Cup.”I think when we were out playing our domestic season, what we tried to focus on really hard as the top four core batting group was batting really deep in the innings and that showed today,” Matthews said.”Obviously, we wouldn’t necessarily have as much depth as we usually would and experience as we usually would within a West Indies team. So backing all the other players 100%, we know that our top four or five batters are our main ones that are looking to score most of the runs, and it was really good that we were able to spend some time at the crease and bat really deep today.”Hayley Matthews en route to fifty•Getty ImagesWhile Barbados’ less-experienced players may not have made their marks on the scorecard on this occasion, they displayed an energy in the field that made it hard for Pakistan to push for twos, building pressure leading to mistakes. Matthews was keen to big up their impact and importance to the team.”I think what’s really good as well is our young players, they really take in as much information as they can, try to learn as much as possible and that’s exactly what you want in a group,” she said. “I keep saying we have a really tight group with a lot of experience and a lot of a youth mix.”A key theme that has emerged throughout the lead-up to the Games has been the pride players are taking in being part of a wider multi-sport team and Matthews echoed that sentiment: “It’s really good to know that we’re represent something so much bigger now”.Barbados only have 65 athletes across all disciplines at Birmingham 2022, so the cricket team represents a large share of the nation’s interest in the event. They were cheered on at Edgbaston by the netball team and “so many people” from the Barbados Olympic Association. And Matthews is well aware that the support for her team will extend far beyond the borders of her own island.”It definitely is really special going out there representing Barbados with that badge on our shirt. But at the same time, we know the entire Caribbean is supporting us 100% and we’re playing for everyone out there.”One big backer for Matthews as she embarks on her journey as an international captain is Taylor.”She messaged me this morning actually to tell me, ‘all the best, take it stride by stride’, and she has been a fantastic captain for me and the West Indies team for the last couple of years and I know she’s always supporting me 100 percent,” Matthews said.Next up for Barbados is a much tougher proposition – T20 world champions Australia. Matthews was realistic about their chances – the only time in 13 attempts West Indies have beaten them was in the 2016 World Cup final – but she encouraged her side to go out there and play their natural game and give everything they’ve got.”Looking at Australia, we know the kind of class players and athletes that they have in their team,” she said. “But at the same time, I think it’s really good that we can go there with no pressure on us. No one’s looking for us to win the match and I think it’s going to give us a really good opportunity to be able to head out there and free up and play some natural cricket.”We have some very special players within our team mixed with some youth players that are really full of heart and full of pride and ready to just give everything so I think that combination could hopefully help us to pull off something special against Australia as well.”With one win already on the board, one surprise victory against Australia or India could take them into the semi-finals, giving them a shot at a spot on the medal podium. If their blend of experience and underdog spirit can carry them onwards, Barbados could become one of the feelgood stories of the Games.

She leaves as the leading run scorer, but she should also be remembered for all the work she did to bring the women’s game into the mainstream in India

Shashank Kishore10-Jun-2022″I’m done with seeing women’s cricket occupy a corner of sports pages,” Mithali Raj once told me. “It’s upon us to make it to the front page.” It was the first time I saw her emotions bubble over for in over three weeks of following the team at the 2012 Women’s T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka.India had exited the tournament in the group stage, and a crestfallen Raj was embarrassed further when she was instructed to look left and right at the press conference, as if to suggest she was answering questions from all sides of the room. In truth, she was looking at empty seats but for a lone journalist, this writer, and a cameraperson.”Hopefully, women’s press conferences will also be packed in a few years,” she said, while leaving that empty press-conference room in Galle. “Hope I will still be playing.”Three weeks before that, in Bangalore, she had waited alone at a pre-World Cup press conference for ten minutes before the team manager told her the event had been cancelled because no journalist had turned up. A little while later, India men’s captain MS Dhoni’s pre-World Cup media conference was crammed. The general mood from Raj’s cancelled media interaction highlighted neglect and indifference – the qualities that marked the popular response in India to women’s cricket for much of her career.Related

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Raj went on to play three more 50-over and T20 World Cups (12 overall), a testimony to her commitment and hunger to make women’s cricket mainstream. And five years on from that 2012 tournament, her dream came true when India finished runners-up at the 2017 World Cup in England.On arriving in India after that 2017 tournament, the squad had to be whisked out of the Mumbai airport because of the unmanageable number of fans and media persons who had turned up to see them. Raj finally had recognition without having to ask for it. She was firmly on the front pages, having, with her team, moved from lives of relative anonymity to ones in the public glare.The team got a grand welcome, and endorsements, TV campaigns, celebrity meet-and-greets, and public appearances followed, which brought with them financial windfalls. Raj had to remind people a few times that this wasn’t India’s first appearance in a World Cup final. They had done so in 2005, too, but with hardly any fanfare.Even if her career had ended there in 2017, she would have walked away as a pathbreaker. She had already played for 18 years then. She was the youngest century-maker in women’s ODIs at the time, the most-capped player in the format, and a recipient of the prestigious Arjuna award. She had led India to four Asia Cup titles (three in ODIs and one in T20Is), a landmark Test win in England, and a first series win in Australia – the list is long. Yet the much-awaited attention in 2017 was as satisfying as any other win. To see the fans clamour for the players, who had turned into stars overnight, told you how things had changed.Mithali’s 214 in Taunton in 2002 is the second-highest individual score in women’s Tests. She’s also the youngest double-centurion in the format•Getty ImagesIn 2016, when I visited her at her home in Hyderabad to write a profile of her, we spoke about social media among other things,. She had a few hundred Twitter followers then. “Why don’t you like the limelight?” I joked. “People aren’t queuing up to find out what Mithali Raj is up to or what she is eating,” she laughed.On Wednesday, when Raj announced her retirement on social media she had a following of over 2.5 million across Twitter and Instagram and she was the toast of the nation, among the trending topics on Twitter, back on the sports pages again. I couldn’t help but remember that Galle afternoon ten years ago.Many of Raj’s contributions to the game have come away from the spotlight. As a teenager, she said she trained like a racehorse, because cricket was her only career path – at a time when there was no money in the game and the BCCI was nearly a decade away from taking over women’s cricket.From Silchar to Surat, Faridabad to Mangalagiri – she batted on all sorts of pitches and grounds, travelling in trains, sometimes without a seat reservation, on measly allowances that barely covered one meal, and lived in barely acceptable accommodations.She was the link between a generation that played for the love for the game and the one that plays for contracts – both domestic and international. In the days before there were adequate numbers of support staff, she was the one young players turned to for adviceRaj has organised nets and travel to and from venues, played manager, negotiated better pay, waited in the BCCI’s corridors in Mumbai, even as captain, to lobby for central contracts, which were eventually granted in 2016.For players like Harmanpreet Kaur (extreme left), Raj (centre) was the gateway to a career in cricket•Pal Pillai/ICC/Getty ImagesThe absence of a World Cup winner’s medal in her CV can’t define her legacy. The runs, the hours of toil, the way she has inspired a generation of girls to take up cricket as a career path, should.You may wonder if Raj delayed her eventual exit by a few years, but that doesn’t take anything away from her intangible contributions to the game in India. Beyond the runs and wickets, trophies and contracts, she gave women’s cricket dignity and respect, and was a role model in every sense for the Mandhanas, Rodrigueses and Shafalis who followed.Harmanpreet Kaur, who succeeded her as India’s captain, put it succinctly when she said, “Cricket was a dream and when I started off my career, I had no idea that women’s cricket existed. But the only name ever told or heard was yours, Mithali . You sowed the seed for all the young girls to take up this sport and dream big.”At 39, a glorious second innings beckons for Raj. She will have options to choose from – a career behind the mic, or in coaching or administration. Whatever she picks, it will only add to her legacy as a trailblazer who paved the way for a better future.

He’s not the hero the tournament was expected to uncover but 6ft 7in allrounder has been quietly integral for Manchester Originals

Matt Roller02-Sep-2022He bats, bowls and fields. He’s big, strong and powerful. He’s taken a wicket every nine-and-a-half balls, and hit a six every eight. He even has a two-syllable nickname, but forget “Dre Russ”: the Hundred in 2022 has been all about “Tall Paul”.It was the signing of the season – one that you almost certainly missed. Manchester Originals in 2022 were meant to be the team of Jos Buttler, Andre Russell and Wanindu Hasaranga, but when Jamie Overton went down injured in a County Championship game on the eve of the season, they scoured the list of possible replacements and landed on Paul Walter.Walter’s defining quality is the fact he is tall: two metres tall, 6ft 7in tall, tall enough that it has never taken any processing time to work out why everyone who knows him calls him Tall Paul. When he bats, he looks like an overly-competitive dad wielding a size-three on the beach, or the only member of his Under-14s team who has already been through his growth spurt.Related

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Originals picked him up as a middle-order batter on the back of a strong T20 season for Essex comprising 404 runs, 144 of them in sixes. They might even have hoped to squeeze a few sets out of him: he had 29 wickets to his name in T20 cricket with his medium pace, though had only bowled one over in this year’s Blast.Late on Friday night, he will head up the M3 to London as the leading wicket-taker for one of the Hundred’s two finalists, his dozen wickets unrivalled across the Originals squad. Like a left-arm version of Jason Holder, he has bowled deceptively slowly, varying his pace from a high release point; in a four-week short-form competition, there is a huge value in novelty.Walter’s first ball in the Hundred was a 67mph, around-the-wicket, slower-ball bouncer that looped up apologetically off the Lord’s pitch. On a Saturday, club cricketers across the country would call it a filthy long-hop; Glenn Maxwell, playing for London Spirit, tried to swipe it over the Tavern Stand but was through his shot early.Somehow, he finished that night with 2 for 18 from his 20 balls. “I’ve not been injured,” he told Sky, when asked why he’d hardly bowled all season. “I’m just trying to regain a bit of form and get some confidence back.” It went largely unnoticed: Originals slid to the second of three consecutive defeats, and all the Hundred’s social channels wanted you to worry about was the fact Harry Kane had tossed the coin.Three-and-a-half weeks later, against the same opposition, it was Walter who restricted Spirit to 150 for 7 in Originals’ five-wicket win in the eliminator at the Ageas Bowl. The left-arm-around angle was back in action: he cranked it up to 79mph to knock Zak Crawley’s middle stump out of the ground with a reluctant thud, had Ben McDermott caught in the deep with a tantalisingly slow short ball, then had Eoin Morgan caught when he charged down looking to slap a half-volley over mid-off.Walter has been one of the unlikely stars of Manchester Originals’ run to the final•ECB/Getty ImagesOn Wednesday night, in Originals’ effective quarter-final, he had his most hectic evening of all: he took a blinder catch at deep backward square leg, then came on to bowl feeling dazed after jarring his right shoulder while diving at long-on; he twice dislocated his shoulder during his only set of the night, which featured a 56mph offcutter, then shook himself off, hit the crucial six in the chase and scrambled through for the winning single.After their first three defeats, Walter nominated himself as Originals’ social secretary. It was a moment that Laurie Evans, their stand-in captain, pinpointed as the turning point in their season: he bought a few beers, lightened the mood in a tense dressing room, and has personified a six-game winning streak since.”He’s a socialite,” Tom Lammonby said. “He’s one of those blokes that’s so good for a team: he’s performing on the pitch but also helping us gel off it.” Evans was unequivocal: “He’s been the life and soul of this group.”Walter was not the hero – Cazoo Match or otherwise – that the ECB had expected to emerge from the Hundred: a 28-year-old allrounder from Basildon, picked up as a late-bloomer by Essex through his performances for Billericay and Hornchurch in league cricket. But as the world’s best have left the competition in a constant stream towards Heathrow’s departure lounge, he has become this season’s most unlikely superstar.The Hundred’s incessant culture war has raged on through its second season: on one side, it is “action-packed, unmissable” best vs best action that “will put you on the edge of your seat”; on the other, it is Everything Wrong With Modern Cricket™, mercenaries dressed as crisp packets providing something between light entertainment, teleshopping and background noise.Somewhere through this online battlefield, Walter has emerged and stripped the game back to its most basic principles. He has met a new group of team-mates, eased into their company over a few drinks, swung hard and bowled to a plan. He is the Hundred’s everyman, thrust onto the big stage and making himself feel at home.On Saturday night, he will play in a Lord’s final on free-to-air TV. And if he can smoke a few sixes into the stands with those long, long levers, or land that slow, slow offcutter just right, it will be Tall Paul dancing around north London with a trophy for company.

He dispensed with the canny variations, the subtle sleights of hand that are so instrumental to modern T20 bowling

Danyal Rasool26-Sep-2022Mohammad Hasnain has the raw pace and ability to be a quintessentially Pakistani fast bowler, but somewhere along the closely guarded state secret that is the Pakistan pace-bowling production line, they forgot to add exuberant confidence and replaced it instead with a tender vulnerability.Having dominated the day for his side, effectively keeping them in the hunt to defend a total they had no business defending, Hasnain had crumpled under the pressure at the death. Every boundary Liam Dawson hit seemed to further feed into Hasnain’s insecurities, the young quick’s confidence taking one body blow after another as Dawson hammered furiously away. Hasnain, who somehow looks like the happiest kid in the world, yet also someone on the verge of being overwhelmed at the same time, was punch-drunk by the time the over ended, and Pakistan were on the ropes.The 22-year old has the most infectious, sweetest smile in Pakistan cricket, and yet, as he staggered towards the midwicket boundary, he didn’t lift his head up once. Earlier that evening, Karachi was lit up by Hasnain as he forced England’s backs to the wall in the powerplay. In the 16th over, he had the confidence to go for six straight yorkers, four of them to the same batter who had just taken him apart, and come out on top. He took his place on the boundary rope, eyes firmly on the ground, as another man marked his run-up.Related

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There were no hiccups at the production line the day they were manufacturing Haris Rauf; if anything, they might have handed over Hasnain’s share of confidence and extroverted charisma to him, too. Out of nowhere, England are on course to steal a game they have no business being a part of. Pakistan have just gone from ecstasy to anguish in the space of one over. But Rauf represents Lahore Qalandars, so he’s well acquainted with that feeling.Babar Azam has his head in his hands, incredulous. Many in Lahore had wanted him, as a native-born Lahori, to represent the Qalandars in the Pakistan Super League. That seems unlikely to happen in the near future, particularly in light of recent events. But he’s just been given a taster of what he can expect should he decide to make the switch from Karachi.

Rauf has boiled it down to the most rudimentary equation of all. There’s a batter, and there’s a bowler, and if you bowl it fast enough, you’ll beat the batter for pace and knock back his stumps

Rauf has an expression that suggests either he has total confidence in the impossible assignment he’s been handed, or absolutely no clue what he needs to do. It’s an emotional ambivalence that’s often seen with Rauf in tight situations. Early on in his career, when things didn’t go his way, he was perceived to have “bottled it”, accused of lacking situational awareness in these scenarios. In truth, he’d been handed a hospital pass, tasked with staging a heist for the ages.That avenue seems to have been closed off completely when Dawson steers what appears to be a slower, short ball over midwicket for four, bringing the equation down to five off ten. Mark Butcher on commentary remarks that Dawson was “always the bridesmaid, never the bride”, perhaps certain that this time, even he had worked himself into the role of main character. This might be Pakistan’s 200th T20I, more games than any other international side has played. But on days like this, it seems they understand this format less than just about any other side.Having just seen that ball dispatched, Rauf steams in once more, and delivers the exact same delivery. This time, however, he has dispensed with the canny variations, the subtle sleights of hand that are so instrumental to modern T20 bowling. He ran in as he presumably would if he were playing gully cricket on the streets of Rawalpindi, or perhaps when he was trying out for the Lahore Qalandars’ Pace Development Programme that saw him burst into the limelight. That was the kind of cricket Rauf was most comfortable playing, what he was best at. He was Pakistani, and what Pakistanis did was bowl fast.Olly Stone barely had time to react•Getty ImagesThe pace is much too hot for Dawson to handle, and it’s a little wider; Dawson is late on it, pulling tamely into the onside, where the substitute Mohammad Haris pouches it at midwicket. It gives Pakistan the sliver of an opening, but Rauf seems to have liberated himself from the occasion, and instead suddenly appears to be pulling the strings from beyond. The situation doesn’t seem to factor into any of his considerations as he lurks menacingly at the base of his run-up while the debutant Olly Stone takes guard. This isn’t Stone’s forte, but it very much is Rauf’s.Rauf has boiled it down to the most rudimentary equation of all. There’s a batter, and there’s a bowler, and if you bowl it fast enough, you’ll beat the batter for pace and knock back his stumps. It’s the first dismissal any bowler envisages in their mind’s eye, and the most primitively exhilarating of all. Rauf in this mood has stirred the primal instincts of all of Karachi.It’s fast, so fast Stone is barely through his backlift before the ball whooshes past the outside edge and cannons into off stump. It ricochets away to deep third as Haris swaggers to his captain at short cover, his gait indicative of a man who expected no other outcome. He’s already thinking of the next delivery, and of poor Reece Topley.It feels ages ago that Dawson hit that boundary, and England are still five away. That might as well be irrelevant in this intoxicating moment as Rauf eyes up a hat-trick: in his mind – and Karachi’s – the only way this contest should end. The ball is sent down at 156kph, tailing in on Topley’s ankles. He can do nothing about it, and while it’s obviously going down, no one can stop Rauf reviewing.Hawk-Eye confirms it’s missing, and that it actually pitched outside leg, leaving Adil Rashid one ball, which he tries to use to shield the strike. But, sent down at 155kph, the very idea of getting bat to it seems unrealistic, and England are still four runs away.They will never get there. Two balls later, they set off for a desperate single, and Pakistan knock them out of the contest. Rauf’s over has frazzled them, playing havoc with their composure.Hasnain rushes in from the boundary, making a beeline for the huddle that’s forming in the circle. This time, the head is up, and that beaming, infectious smile is on full display. Without his burst up top, there would be no Houdini act for Rauf to pull off. But he’s happy to let Rauf take the limelight. And Haris Rauf, of course, is happy to bask in it.

In his new book, one of England’s fastest of all time gives us a sense of what it’s like to be in his shoes

Mark Wood12-Dec-2022Let’s start by taking a deep breath. Breathe in… and out. And once more, in… and out… You are now standing at the top of your mark. The ball is in your hand. Feel its seam in your fingers. You are relaxed. You are calm. The Barmy Army are singing your song. Your body is fresh, shoulders loose, spirit high. You are playing for England at home, and you have never felt more in your element. This is where you’ve always wanted to be.You look up and survey the field. Slips, a gully, point. Someone in short because, hey, you’re a fast bowler. You’re the one they all came to see. All the expectation is on you to do what you do. A bit of pressure? Sure. That’s to be expected. After all, you do something not many others in the world do. Quite a lot of pressure when you put it like that. But don’t worry. It’s fine. You’ve got this.Related

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Your eyes then fix on the batter. This is the battle – between you and them. The wicketkeeper, the fielders, the umpire, the crowd, your family and friends who have travelled all that way to see you, everyone else in the ground, the millions watching on television, judging you – they are all irrelevant in that moment. Don’t worry about them.So, this batter. They’ve probably been in for a bit. Maybe they’ve just come to the crease. All you know is that you hate them. Perhaps hate’s a strong word. Or it isn’t, because all they want to do is make you look bad. They’ll want to hit you for a boundary and if they do, a slow-mo of the shot will follow on the big screen to embarrass you even more. A commentator will say you bowled too full, too short or too wide and pick apart your technique. Twitter will go into overdrive and say you’re s*** or something, and at the end of the day the captain will be asked in his press conference if you should be dropped for the next game. Later that week you’ll be driving somewhere and switch on the radio and hear someone talking about how maybe you need to be rested because you can’t play two games in a row. All because this useless batter hit you for four.Sorry, no – calm. That’s it. Remember the breathing at the start. Do that again. Heck, you’ve probably done it five times already and are getting lightheaded as you eye up this scumbag before you finally set off. Quickly. None of this jog stuff. You have to charge to the crease, making sure you get there just when you reach your top speed. Don’t think about it too much. You’ve done this since forever. This is how you got to this position: all the overs in county cricket and ten thousand times more in practice. Don’t fret. Seriously – !It’s a straightforward run-up, marked along the way by the notches you painted earlier that morning when you were going through this all in your head. It seemed a lot easier then, didn’t it? The stands weren’t as full, you were having a joke with your team-mates. You might have even painted a smiley face at the top of your run-up along with your initials. This is fun, remember? Just a sport. With the wicketkeeper, the fielders, the umpire, the crowd, your family and friends who have travelled all that way to see you, everyone else in the ground, the millions watching on television, judging you. All irrelevant in that moment, of course.As the crease gets bigger, your speed increases, while your stride remains consistent. Because as soon as you get in line with the standing umpire, a few feet away from the crease, you are going to need to leap into your gather. And as soon as you land on your right foot (left foot if you’re bowling left-handed), you need to stomp your left foot down on the crease and send an incredible amount of force through it – seven times your body weight, in my case. On impact, you brace your landing knee and fling yourself over the top of it.Internally, it’s going to feel like you are the chain of an anchor that has just been dropped into the sea: all those connective links clicking into place one after the other. Each one needing to be in sync, else you don’t bowl fast enough, accurately enough – or you seriously hurt yourself. For fans of medieval weaponry, think of yourself as a human catapult. The run-up and gather are the cranks, pulleys and chains being set up. And as you land to deliver, everything from your shoulder down is rigid to fling yourself forward into a ! In the moment you deliver, everything is silent. All the external noises are blocked out. As you come over that front leg, even the batter disappears from view and, for a split second, your mind is empty.Sydney 2022: Pat Cummins takes a piece of Mark Wood’s foot without so much as a thank you•Getty ImagesBy now, ideally you’ve let go of the ball. If you haven’t, you’ve got a problem. Even if you have, there’s still the follow- through to negotiate. Refinding your feet isn’t particularly easy, especially as you need to ensure you don’t run over the “danger zone” in the middle of the pitch, which is naturally where your momentum is taking you. If in doubt, do as I do and just fall over.You pick yourself up and survey the end product. If you’re lucky, it hasn’t been hit for a boundary and your shame and career are safe. If you’ve got a wicket, why not go mental? Perhaps a section of the crowd have been giving you grief? Maybe even the batter? Feel free to rub it in their faces. If not, then get back to your mark. You’ve got five more to bowl to finish the over and five more overs to come after that. Not to mention the two other spells of all this you’ve got to get through before the day is over.Oh, and don’t forget those deep breaths.

****

So you’re probably thinking, yeah, bowling quick sounds like an awful lot of hassle. But let me tell you, when you’re in the zone, there’s nothing like it. You can’t feel the grass beneath your feet. Your legs feel light. You don’t even really feel like you’re sprinting. All you can feel is that build-up, build-up, build-up, build-up, build-up… and then WHOOSH! That release.
I felt like that on Finals Day at Edgbaston for Durham against Yorkshire in 2016. I was out of the England team and was coming back from injury on a big stage against England players. I got big wickets – Gary Ballance, Jonny Bairstow, Liam Plunkett, Tim Bresnan – and I bowled well at Rooty, all top players. It reinforces your self-belief like nothing else.Similarly at the same ground, I bowled well against Australia in the 2017 Champions Trophy, with 4 for 33 off my ten overs. I got David Warner, Steve Smith, Glenn Maxwell. That was the first international tournament I felt like I belonged, and to get them players out, in a big game, felt good. I felt like the difference-maker. Maxwell was the most satisfying. Eoin Morgan had asked us to “bomb him” – bowl a load of short balls at him – and he swatted it to deep midwicket where Jason Roy was. Jase took the catch right on the boundary, close enough that they had to review it. He was a dangerous player, it was a brilliant catch and the plan had come off. If he hits that a tiny bit more, that’s six and I’m under pressure.The first time I felt like that in Test cricket was in St Lucia, where I picked up my first five-wicket haul. It was also the first time I ever felt like the fielders were irrelevant. I was bowling where I wanted, at pace, not thinking about my run-up, where I was landing on the crease or where they could hit it. It was the first time I felt like an England cricketer, not just a player who played for England.It makes all the other bad spells worthwhile. The spells where you don’t necessarily bowl badly, but you feel it more. Those times when you’re walking back to your mark and your body is reminding you of the toll you’ve put on your bones and joints. You feel like you’re sinking into the ground, through your legs. You ache. When you set off to go again, you still have that build-up, build-up, build-up, build-up… WHOOSH! But it’s just not as fresh. It might not be as explosive when it’s your third spell of a Test match day, but that’s something I have got better at over the years.Wood watches team-mate Jofra Archer, “a Rolls Royce of a fast bowler”, in the nets•Stu Forster/Getty ImagesI think that’s the aspect of fast bowling that surprises a lot of people, including fast bowlers. The relentlessness of it. The expectation and responsibility of doing it three times a day, five days in a row, for years. It’s why the guys at the top are adored by everyone else, especially other fast bowlers. My favourite at the moment has to be Pat Cummins. I think he’s immense, and not just because he owns half my foot. Just consistently fast as well as accurate and keeps turning out performances spell after spell, day after day, match after match. It’s remarkable really.Because every time you do it, it takes that little bit out of you. Bits you don’t get back. You’re never as fresh, you’re never free from pain, never as explosive as the first time, whether in a day or even in your career.But I suppose all the things that are worthwhile in life are earned. I’d love it if fast bowling came easier to me. I can’t tell you how much I envy someone like Jofra Archer. Now that man is a Rolls Royce of a fast bowler.
Throughout the 2019 World Cup we had a great partnership that bordered on a friendly rivalry. We’d gee each other up to bowl quick and it was so much fun.He was convinced they never put his speeds up on the board, all this kind of stuff. But then mine would come up all the time and I’d get him to have a look. But whenever it was under 90, he’d shout, “Oh, you just warming up?” So I’d be like, “Right, I’ll show you next, pal!” The next one might have been short, wide and a pile of rubbish – but it was never slow!At the innings break of that World Cup final, our analyst came to me and told me I’d officially bowled the fastest ball of the World Cup at 95.7 mph. He also told me my 18 wickets were the second-highest of our team, but there was only one stat I cared about.As soon as Jofra came through the door, I couldn’t help myself.Allen and Unwin”,” I shouted, desperate to tell him the news (and leave out that his 20 wickets were the most for our team). “You’ll never guess who got 95.7?” He looked at me and he was not impressed.”Look,” I offered, “you tried, mate. Keep your head up. It happens. Live and learn, eh? Maybe you’ll get to 95.7 one day.”
He furrowed his brow and looked me up and down. I had ice packs on my ankle, knee and side. I was barely able to stand and grimacing in between smiles.”Look at me,” he said, pointing down at his whole body, sleek, comfortable, barely a drop of sweat on him. “And now look at you.”I looked at myself, like an extra out of , and thought, “Yeah, fair enough. I’ve had to rip my body in half to get anywhere near you.”Unfortunately, Jofra has endured his own tough times with injuries recently, which goes to show how tough fast bowling can be even for someone as smooth as him. I can’t wait to bowl with him again.The Wood Life, A Not so Helpful How-To Guide on Surviving Cricket, Life and Everything in Between

What Hardik, Dravid, Malinga and many others in the cricketing fraternity had to say about his stellar performance

Hemant Brar08-Jan-20233:41

Maharoof: “If the bowler has plan A, Suryakumar has plan B and C already lined up”

Hardik Pandya: Today it felt like it was Sri Lanka against Surya. I always mention that someone like Surya is so important for us in white-ball cricket because the way he plays some of the shots, it breaks the morale of the bowler, and that helps the other batsmen as well.He has been surprising everyone every innings, and he is letting everyone know that this batting is very easy. He has been playing blinders after blinders, which is now becoming a habit. If I was bowling to him, I would get disheartened because of the kind of shots he has been playing… he keeps showing his magic.

This is pure entertainment
A T20 batting masterclass from SKY
Loved watching every minute of it even though it was against SL.
World’s best by far!#INDvSL

— Lasith Malinga (@malinga_ninety9) January 7, 2023