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Kohli, du Plessis, Maxwell and Siraj were all near perfect but the rest of the team let them down

Shashank Kishore22-May-20233:02

‘Virat, Faf, Maxwell, full stop’ – Deep Dasgupta on RCB’s problem this IPL

Where they finishedPosition on table: Sixth with 14 points, slipping below Rajasthan Royals
Wins: Seven
Losses: SevenA misfiring middle order and lack of bowling support for Mohammed Siraj meant Royal Challengers Bangalore missed the playoffs for the first time in four seasons. They won more away (four games) than at home, where they conceded 200-plus thrice. Two of those came in losses – to Lucknow Super Giants and Chennai Super Kings – where they let it slip after being in control. That proved to be the difference.The Good – KGF Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli finished No. 1 and No. 2 on the run charts for them. Du Plessis was supreme in the powerplay, while Kohli brought out shades of his 2016 vintage – when he made a record 973 runs – in the second half of the season and finished it with back-to-back centuries. Glenn Maxwell played a typically robust game; sometimes he was the momentum injector, and on other occasions, he sustained the top-order tempo. In all, the trio contributed 70.70% of the runs RCB scored this season.Dinesh Karthik had a season to forget•BCCIThe Bad – Non-existent middle orderIt was a merry-go-round in Rajat Patidar’s absence. Anuj Rawat, Shahbaz Ahmed, Suyash Prabhudessai, Mahipal Lomror, and later, Kedar Jadhav were all tried. Rawat finally found his form towards the back end, by which time it was too late. Dinesh Karthik had a season to forget.It wasn’t just the misfiring batting that cost them. Barring Siraj, whose ten wickets in the powerplay were the joint second-most in the league, none of the bowlers posed consistent threat. There was only sporadic brilliance, like Wayne Parnell’s 3 for 10 in a game where RCB beat Royals by a massive margin to elevate their net run rate.Harshal Patel’s diminishing returns – he conceded runs at 11.50 an over in the death – left RCB skating on thin ice in terms of their bowling resources, especially with Josh Hazlewood and Wanindu Hasaranga down with injuries and form issues. Injuries to Reece Topley and David Willey also didn’t help.PollTop Performer – Faf du PlessisHe was a standout performer for RCB all through, even eliciting talk of a potential South Africa comeback in this year’s 50-over World Cup in India. Du Plessis’ powerplay strike rate of 168.54 was the second best among batters who faced a minimum of 100 balls this season. Seven hundred and thirty runs in 14 innings with eight half-centuries told you how he married consistency with fierce ball striking.The HighlightsThe 939 runs Kohli and du Plessis scored together as openers are the joint most by a pair in an IPL, equalling Kohli’s 939 runs with AB de Villiers in 2016. Kohli’s back-to-back tons helped him surpass Chris Gayle’s record (six) for most IPL centuries. Kohli’s eight T20 hundreds are the joint-third-most in the format.* Gayle has 22, Babar Azam has nine, while Aaron Finch, David Warner and Michael Klinger have eight each too.

At one point it looked like the England seamer may never stop running

Vithushan Ehantharajah17-Jun-2023There was a moment when it looked like Stuart Broad may never stop running.His follow-through had taken him away to point and around the back of the slip cordon, which had dispersed to chase Broad like the tail of a fireball. And though you knew he wouldn’t, you couldn’t rule out him continuing into the Hollies and draining a celebratory pint with all of the Baywatch lifeguards, Fred Flintstones and cast of Mario Kart. Had he done so, he was only getting back onto the field by bringing all of them with him. He was theirs, they were his. In that moment – all Stuart Broad, aren’t we?The great Ashes conductor, Enemy of the Strayans, One Meme Army himself, had just turned Edgbaston and this Test match inside out with two wickets in two deliveries. The Australia first innings cracked open from 29 for none to 29 for 2. A day of huge importance – aren’t they all when you care too much? – skewed England’s way in an instant.To go by the reaction of Broad, his team-mates and everyone in the ground on Saturday – including crestfallen Australians – you’d think this was the first time anyone had taken two-in-two. Broad himself has done that 13 times, but what tipped this one-two into legendary status beyond the state of the match – and perhaps ahead of his two Test hat-tricks – was the status of the two victims.Related

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History weighed heavy on the first. Ben Stokes admitted ahead of the match Broad’s selection had a lot to do with David Warner’s presence at the top of the order. It is why even Australia saw day one’s late declaration coming. England’s mantra of giving the fans what they want had provided 393 runs. But Stokes was all too aware of the main attraction this summer and pulled the warm-up act after 78 overs.Warner played the evening out soundly. Two crisp shots to the cover boundary in both Broad’s Friday night overs punctured the mood. With a new crowd in situ this morning, the anticipation ramped up again.A couple of maidens between the two went by with little of note. Then, at the start of the 11th over, Warner decided to have a go. Out came another drive, squarer than he’d have liked, but the width was there for it. But with balance all off – front foot tentative, back leg buckling – all he could do was bottom edge onto his own stumps.He stumbled into the off side, gathering his feet as Broad set off with a celebration that spoke of expectation rather than excitement, like someone who had finally called “tails” correctly on a series of coin tosses.David Warner walks off after being dismissed by Stuart Broad again•Getty ImagesBroad’s success over the left-hander feels a lot like probability. This was dismissal number 15, a ninth in 11 innings, third at this ground in three, and certainly not the last to come.Things had not always been one-sided. Warner averaged 64.80 against Broad prior to a recalculation from the Englishman before 2019. “Ultimately, the biggest praise I can give Davey is the fact I had to completely study him and change my style of bowling because of the success he had against me,” said Broad a few weeks ago.A month earlier, the 36-year-old was in a similarly analytical mood. Perched on the member’s benches on the second tier of the Lord’s Pavilion, as day three of Nottinghamshire’s County Championship match with Middlesex was coming to an end, he revealed a couple of technical tweaks.With the help of Notts bowling coach Kevin Shine, his action was starting to smooth out, losing the jerkiness that had developed after years of subsisting on the wobble seam delivery. By holding his hands higher, he was creating greater fluidity from gather to delivery, which in turn allowed him to workshop this new delivery called an “outswinger”. Its purpose? To rattle Australia’s brightest and best, specifically Steve Smith and the No. 1-ranked Test batter in the world, Marnus Labuschagne.”I think dragging them across with away swing is important,” explained Broad, like a TikToker claiming getting to McDonald’s for 10:29am so you can order hashbrowns with your Big Mac is some kind of life hack.We laughed, and rightly so. Even in his sincerity, there was a whiff of proto-Warne in talking up a new variation even better than the last. But an outswinger? That thing people have been bowling since they started doing it overarm? Come on, now, Stuart. But hey – who are we to tell you? Broad is the best talker in the game. So talk on.You wonder how many in the stands remembered those words when Labuschagne walked out. So many have been spoken in the lead-up to this series that it felt like Ashes content was folding in on itself like a dying star. This, though – Warner gone, Broad at it, crowd wild, Labuschagne facing – is what really matters.Labuschagne went through his usual routines, adding the removal of a police officer from his eyeline before facing up.Did Labuschagne know what was coming? Almost certainly. The 28-year-old is a voracious consumer of the game, to the extent he has had lost the habit of sending articles and stats to team-mates who are not. If you didn’t know that before, you certainly did when he triggered across to off stump to get a better gauge on what to play and what to leave.Then there was the leg gully and leg slip for the delivery coming into him, which given who was bowling puts the odds in favour of a bluff. Cover was free, too, which for a 38-cap No. 4 who averages 56.73, means don’t drive the balls they want you to drive. Like, ummmm, an early outswinger.Yet, the compulsion to feel forward, the desire to get bat on ball, the subconscious pull to contribute to the narrative, the gravitational chicanery of Broad was too great to resist. Down came the outswinger, just as prophesied. Out went Labuschagne – via a stunning one-handed catch from Jonny Bairstow – just as prophesied, for a first golden duck in Test cricket.And off went Broad – away past point, around the back of the slip cordon, right through the Hollies beyond the Baywatch lifeguards, Fred Flintstones and cast of Mario Kart, and even deeper into Ashes folklore.

There are sexier spin bowlers at this World Cup but few wilier than the Afghanistan stalwart

Osman Samiuddin03-Nov-20232:16

How impressive has Shahidi been as captain?

Pretend you’re an Afghanistan selector. You’re licking your lips at the fantabulous array of spinners you can call upon for a World Cup in the subcontinent.There’s the GOAT white-ball leggie who’s become so good now that teams consider it a win if they go at four an over against him and only cede the odd wicket; so good that eight years after his international debut, thousands of hours of video dissection later, we’re still only guessing which one’s the googly.There’s the right-arm all-sorts who has become possibly the world’s first specialist new-ball spinner, opening the bowling in 62 of the 72 ODIs he’s played, bowling in the powerplay in 69 of those. Who has taken more than three times as many wickets in the powerplay as the next most prolific spinner in that phase since his debut six years ago; whose 47 wickets are equal to the combined total number of wickets taken by that list’s top six.Related

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There’s an 18-year-old left-arm legspinner and that’s it. Those words the sell. And for the first time since the mid-2010s, they’ve also got a solid fast-bowling pair, one left-arm, one right-arm. All of which means they didn’t even need to pick another couple of young leggie sensations for this World Cup.All bases covered right? Yep. All good.Now pretend you’re the opposition to an Afghanistan side. Got to plan this with care. See out Rashid Khan, don’t give him so much as a sniff (say a little prayer just in case because you’ll likely need it). Mujeeb ur Rehman, be very wary because though you want to go hard in that powerplay, here’s the data dump: he’s not going to let you. He goes at four an over he takes wickets. Sure, later on you might target him but don’t be rash when you start.And Noor Ahmad is no Kuldeep Yadav or Brad Hogg but he doesn’t need to be. Remember, his kind are still rare enough so that, every now and again, they spark all kinds of malfunctioning in perfectly functioning batting orders. And Fazalhaq Farooqi and Naveen-ul-Haq are both considerably better than you might think.Missing anything? Nope. All systems go.Except, hang on. Incoming.Mohammad Nabi sends his regards.Remember him? How could you forget? Part of the furniture so long he’s not the first name on the teamsheet, he is basically the letterhead. Precisely the guy oppositions might look past because, hello, right-arm zero frills. Nobody bothers doing video dissections of Mohammad Nabi because what are you trying to decipher? Whether he’s a handsome young-looking old man, or a handsome old-looking young man?

The stumping of Logan van Beek was obviously exceptional, a flighty, floaty gimme that dipped late and turned into an absolute gotcha, the kind of ball that cuts across all preferences and demographics: young, old, casual, hardcore, Bedi, Ashwin, red-ball purist, white-ball hedonist

And yet here he is at this most joyous of World Cups for Afghanistan, a better strike rate and economy than Rashid and Mujeeb and only a wicket fewer than both. Fact: other than R Ashwin, who’s only played one game, Nabi has the best economy rate for all fingerspinners at this World Cup.This latest, a Player-of-the-Match display in Afghanistan’s fourth win, was classic Nabi. Everyone was watching out for the others, the big turn, the carrom balls, the wrong ‘un, the leftie’s wrong ‘un, and in slipped Nabi behind them. Right-arm offspin? Sure, if you really want to call it that, but actual turn seems to be the least of it sometimes with Nabi.More like right-arm unsexy. Right-arm sorry-not-sorry. Right-arm scrooge. Right-arm gotcha. Right-arm hustle. Right-arm bustle. Right-arm squeeze. Right-arm tease. Right-arm raised-eyebrow. Right-arm lowbrow. Right-arm wise. Right-arm does-not-miss-a-damn-trick.Afghanistan had conceded six, nine, six, nine, six, eight and 11 in each of the seven overs before Nabi came on for the 12th. At least a boundary in each of them too, swiftly squandering the advantage Mujeeb’s first-over wicket had got them. Farooqi was not settling, Mujeeb was not settling, Netherlands were bossing it. Afghanistan got into a long on-field huddle. All eyes on Rashid, having just returned to the field, taking control of this impromptu timeout and… Nabi sent his regards.Mohammad Nabi celebrates Bas de Leede’s wicket•Associated PressTight on off, tighter on length, four dot balls in his first over, seven in his first two overs, 12 in his first three, three singles conceded, one boundary, not a single ball worth remembering, barely a single ball deserving to be hit. Nothing to see here folks, except the life being squeezed right out of the Netherlands start.By the time he got his first wicket, he’d already caused the fall of three others. Now you might think the using “caused” for run-outs here is generous and perhaps you’re right. But I prefer to think the three run-outs in his overs were his new magic trick, like a new variation. Right-arm run-outs. And if ever there was a case to be made for a run-out being the work of the bowler, then it was in Scott Edwards’ dismissal which, spiritually, was surely a stumping.In his next over, the innings’ 21st, he got Bas de Leede with what looked like an exceptionally unexceptional delivery, except that it did hang back a little longer, a little more outside off and made a point of not turning. Netherlands were 72 for 1 when Nabi came on. They were now 97 for 5.The real stumping later of Logan van Beek, by contrast, was obviously exceptional, a flighty, floaty gimme that dipped late and turned into an absolute gotcha, the kind of ball that cuts across all preferences and demographics: young, old, casual, hardcore, Bedi, Ashwin, red-ball purist, white-ball hedonist. Everybody loves The One Where The Batter Danced Out And Looked a Little Bit Silly. Un-obviously it was also exceptional, coming at the end of an over in which his speeds went up and down like an arrhythmic heartbeat, never letting either van Beek or Sybrand Engelbrecht settle.”Focusing on dot balls,” he explained later, as if it needed pointing out. “I always try to concentrate on my lines and lengths, and variations. I try to stick to my plans and use the angles. In some pitches, the variation is more, that is sometimes why I get more wickets.”Translation: look over there, at all those bright, flashy toys. That’s where the action is. Nothing to see here. Just me, quietly minding my own business and with it, Afghanistan’s too.

The New Zealand captain brings up a century of appearances in each format in Christchurch. Will another pace bowler ever do it?

Alex Malcolm06-Mar-2024There is a tree native to the Northland region in New Zealand called the kauri. It grows fast and naturally, before maturing to become tall, stable and ever-present. They are one of the longest-living tree species in the world and among the largest.If Kane Williamson is New Zealand’s bedrock, Tim Southee, a Northland native, is their kauri.Just three men have played 100 Tests, 100 ODIs, and 100 T20Is for their country: Ross Taylor, Virat Kohli and David Warner. Southee will join them on Friday in Christchurch. But he will stand alone as the first bowler when he leads New Zealand in his 100th Test match.Related

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It is an extraordinary feat. But extraordinary is not a word that you would associate with Southee. Unassuming might be a better description. Unicorn might be even better. He might be the first and last New Zealand seamer to play 100 Tests.Very few players have played in an Under-19 World Cup semi-final and a Test match within a month. But that was Southee’s entrance to Test cricket in 2008. His first wicket was Michael Vaughan. His next two were Andrew Strauss and Kevin Pietersen on the way to a debut five-wicket haul.He played in a Test match alongside Stephen Fleming, who debuted in 1994. He has played in a Test match with Will O’Rourke, who was born in 2002.In that first foray into Tests, his batting was on display too. He smashed 77 not out off 40 balls including nine sixes. Test cricket appeared to come very easily.But there were some harsh lessons in those early days coming straight out of U-19s. His third and fourth Tests were in Australia in 2008. Although he had success in swinging conditions in Brisbane, bagging Matthew Hayden, Simon Katich and Ricky Ponting, he got a heavy dose of reality on a flat track in Adelaide when he bowled 27 wicketless overs, with just one maiden, and gave up 100 runs in an innings for the first time in his fledgling first-class career.What has made Southee so impressive is his ability to adapt and survive. The cheeky kid from a farming family in Whangarei had cruised through under-age cricket thanks to his physical size, self-belief and ability to swing the ball around corners. Kane Williamson joked that he hadn’t seen the inside of a gym before playing Test cricket. But he had to learn to thrive in all conditions. He did so like any son of a farming family would, through hard work and determination.Southee has endured through an era where fast bowlers appear to have gone through some kind of genetic mutation. Dale Steyn was a swing bowler at warp speed. Australia produced three monsters, each with differing skill sets. Kagiso Rabada looks like he was built in a laboratory. Jasprit Bumrah is from another planet.He has been true to himself. Those who have faced him say the swing can be prodigious. He’s always at the batter, asking questions. But no one fears the pace or even the bounce like they do the swing.Those who have kept to him say it is a heavier ball than most would think. They love the carry he gets even though the pace is not at the level of others.Tim Southee burst onto the scene with five wickets and an unbeaten 77 on debut•Getty ImagesBut with skills that seem suitable only in certain conditions, he found a method to be successful for in all conditions. It’s no shock that he has two six-wicket hauls at Lord’s. But he took his best Test figures of 7 for 64 in Bengaluru on a surface where India’s two spinners bagged 13 wickets between them.Later that year, he took eight wickets in a Test win in Colombo. He averages 15.47 in Sri Lanka, 28.70 in India, and 23.71 in the West Indies where his 3 for 28 in the fourth innings in Bridgetown helped New Zealand seal a famous series victory.Part of adapting that method was developing a three-quarter seam ball. It made his stock outswinger more effective, whilst giving him a weapon when the swing wasn’t there.It’s hard not to think of Southee as part of a double act with Trent Boult. The mention of one was ubiquitous with the other. The two of them formed the backbone of the New Zealand attack through a golden era. While Kyle Jamieson took the plaudits in the first innings of the 2021 World Test Championship final, it was Southee and Boult who shared seven wickets in the second to set up the winning chase.But while Boult chased greener pastures, Southee stayed where his roots were and ascended to the Test captaincy. It hasn’t gone entirely smoothly, but Southee endures. No matter the scenario, win, lose or draw, he remains phlegmatic. His temperament is a lauded feature of his leadership internally.Southee’s achievements should not be undersold, particularly the endurance they require, but there are questions being asked as he heads into his landmark game. He’s taken eight Test wickets in his last 10 bowling innings at a cost of 52.75 apiece, while striking at 101.7.Even with his batting, the promise of his first Test has never flowered into something more. His innings against England remains his highest score. His six-hitting prowess has never abated. His name stands out on the list of most sixes hit in Test cricket. He’s struck more than Viv Richards in 22 fewer matches yet averages under 16 overall. While he cheekily niggles Brendon McCullum privately, suggesting his New Zealand record isn’t safe, one wonders whether his talent with the bat hasn’t quite been fulfilled.But his commitment to his main craft remains strong. Two days out from his 100th Test, with 33,178 international deliveries in his legs, he cut a lone figure on the outfield at Hagley Oval doing some old-school shuttle runs. Much younger international cricketers would have needed a strength and conditioning staffer to oversee it. To count every metre and monitor every second.But like the kauri trees in Northland, Southee can adapt and survive on his own. On Friday, he will stand tall as the first New Zealand fast bowler to play 100 Test matches and the first bowler worldwide to play 100 games in each format. It is a mighty achievement.

“It just puts things into perspective. You go to the ground and you’re completely focused, but you know that it’s not everything”

Valkerie Baynes05-Jul-2024Leaving home to go to work just became even harder for Lea Tahuhu with her newborn son and young daughter back in New Zealand as she joins her team-mates in England for their upcoming T20I series.But she has already embraced the perspective and positivity left by fellow mum, Lauren Down, who is about to head home with her six-month-old daughter after a 3-0 ODI series defeat.Tahuhu and her wife, former White Fern Amy Satterthwaite, welcomed son Louie to the world on June 23, a baby brother to four-year-old Grace, with Tahuhu missing the ODI series to be at his birth. Down, meanwhile, departs after scores of 0 and 14 in the last two games of the ODI series, which concluded in Bristol on Wednesday night and marked her return to international cricket after giving birth to daughter Ruby in January.Related

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“It was certainly a tough goodbye,” Tahuhu said. “They’ve all been a little bit tough as Grace has got older, but now with two it was a hard one.”But she felt she was able to prepare well for the five-match series starting in Southampton on Saturday while in Christchurch and was raring to play again. Plus, having enjoyed having Grace around the team previously, she recognised the buzz in the squad after Ruby’s presence on tour during the ODIs.”It just puts things into perspective,” said Tahuhu, who was in Bristol during New Zealand’s five-wicket defeat in the third and final ODI but didn’t play.”I listened to Lauren Down speak the other day before the game around the same thing and I think it really grounds you. In a way you go to the ground and you’re there and you’re completely focused on that, but you know that it’s not everything, it’s not life. There’s a lot more going on outside of that and you’re able to switch between those two modes of family life and then getting to cricket and doing what you need to then get back home to your family and your support there.Lauren Down returned to international cricket with the England ODIs after giving birth to daughter Ruby in January•Getty Images”I just think it creates a really special environment when you’ve got a baby or a child in the environment and they just put everything into perspective. You might have a bad day, but it’s pretty hard to be too grumpy when you’ve got a six-month-old Ruby on the bus and everyone wants a hold and a cuddle. It’s just a really special thing within an environment.”New Zealand’s performance in Wednesday’s dead rubber was by far their best to date on this tour after they were bowled out for 156 and 141 in the first two games. Amelia Kerr scored a half-century and Sophie Devine 43 to lead an improved batting display, although Lauren Bell’s maiden five-wicket haul limited their total to 211 for 8 from 42 overs in a rain-affected match. Nat Sciver-Brunt’s unbeaten 76 and Amy Jones’s fifty, overhauled the target with 3.2 overs to spare but there was cause for New Zealand to feel buoyant, especially in light of their previous results. And, at one point, England were 33 for 3, thanks to Tahuhu’s fellow seamers Hannah Rowe and Molly Penfold.”We had a few chats on the bus,” Tahuhu said “One of the beauties of England is that you travel around on the coach a lot together and you’re able to get into small groups and have some conversations. The feeling is really positive even though the one-dayers didn’t go as we would’ve liked.”There was a lot to take out of that last game, the performance that the girls were able to put up and the resilience and the fight that they showed. We’re just looking at being able to go into that T20 competition and play a really aggressive brand and put our best foot forward and we’re going to use these games as some preparation for the World Cup, which is only a few months away.”An aggressive approach with bat and ball will be on New Zealand’s agenda for the T20Is, as will supporting a relatively inexperienced side around senior players like Kerr, Devine, Suzie Bates and Tahuhu.”There’s no other way to put it, we have got a very young group there and we are, I guess, blooding them on the international stage and that can be quite brutal at times and it has been,” Tahuhu said. “But I think the growth that those players are showing, the likes of Georgia Plimmer, she’s showing us what she can do, and Izzy Gaze had some fantastic performances back in New Zealand against England. Someone like Molly Penfold, I think, has been fantastic in this ODI series.”As a senior player, you just want to get around them as much as possible and let them know that we back them and we believe in them, they’re in these positions for a reason, it’s because we believe that they can do the job and they’re finding their footing and starting to show that they can certainly take the game on. I’ve been incredibly impressed with the way that Molly’s performed over this ODI series, so hopefully she’ll be able to continue that into the T20s as well.”

Seven-wicket debut suggests England might be ready for life after Anderson

Vithushan Ehantharajah10-Jul-2024It might have been cool if James Anderson had presented Gus Atkinson with his maiden Test cap. You know, departing great to young upstart. Cap No. 613 anointing No. 714. The passing of the torch or baton, depending on your preferred metaphor. Come on – this stuff writes itself.But in the the end, it was Ollie Pope in charge of the ceremonies in front of Atkinson’s family. And for good reason: not just as Test vice-captain and Surrey teammate, but an age-group ally since the academy U11s. They know each other so well in that Pope can vouch for Atkinson’s sense of humour, having cracked the stern disposition long before either of them made their first-class debuts.Four-and-a-half hours later, we had our narrative-laced shot, and chaser. With Anderson in the midst of a “no, after you, I insist” back-and-forth with his nine other teammates encouraging him to take the cursory first step off the field, Atkinson was already through the doors of the Lord’s Pavilion. The new kid on the block had the honour of leading the team off following a 7 for 45 on debut blitzing West Indies for 121. Anderson’s reluctant leaving do was now Atkinson’s coming-out party.Atkinson is clapped back into the pavilion•Getty ImagesThe transition came just two balls after replacing Anderson at the Pavilion End. Kraigg Brathwaite – once Anderson’s 500th Test dismissal – dragged on to become Atkinson’s first. Just 51 deliveries later, he had only his second five-wicket haul in his 20th first-class appearance – the last three coming in the space of four balls of his ninth over. The remaining two were picked up across three at the start of his 11th.Much like Atkinson, the switch of the decorations and re-frosting of the first day’s cake was rushed. He paces to the crease like a man who has lost the belt to his trousers before the right arm comes over the shoulder with the kind of vigour that suggests he has just found the person who stole it. He touched 90mph/145kph, while averaging 86.5mph/139.2kph across his 12 overs. Even set against a dire West Indies performance, Atkinson was impressive in his own right.Something about the simplicity of how he does what he does makes the appreciated complexities of pace bowling a little easier to grasp, and maybe actually a tad overblown. After 21 years of Anderson manipulating the seam into intricate positions, here was a 26-year-old just wanging it into the pitch, really damn hard.Related

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Make no mistake, there is craft to them wangs. The dismissals of left-handers Kirk McKenzie and Alick Athanaze, caught at second and first slip, respectively, were very deliberate scrambled-seam deliveries.It was this variation that impressed in training sessions during the 2023 ODI World Cup. His pace got him into the squad, but his knack for moving the ball into right-handers had Atkinson earmarked as a unique threat. An outlier in a world of away-swing bowlers, which was a factor in his selection for the India series at the start of the year, even if he did not see any action.”My stock ball is scrambled seam,” Atkinson said, armed with the second-best figures by an England bowler on Test debut. “With the slope from the Pavilion End, that was my most dangerous ball, targeting fourth stump and trying to run it down the hill. Trying to push it across the lefties, with the odd inswinger. That was the best way I could get wickets… the seam was a bit more scrambled than I’d like, but that’s something I could work on.”Factor in an action with no discernible change – drawing comparisons with Jofra Archer – and there is a lot to dislike as an opposition batter. Jason Holder was squared up on the crease expecting something fuller; Joshua da Silva late committing forward for his inside edge through to Jamie Smith. And no tailender warrants being twisted in opposite directions the way Shamar Joseph was.Atkinson enjoys his dream first day in Test cricket with Ben Stokes•Getty ImagesIt’s worth noting that for all the nerves Atkinson had this morning that he was trying suppress – “my dad kept saying, ‘this is the biggest day of your life!'” – the build-up, the occasion and even the pre-11 o’clock tributes centred around Anderson helped him slip in seamlessly. If it unsettled the soon-to-be departing, it certainly helped the new arrival.”I was still pretty nervous going into it,” Atkinson said in his press conference. “But the focus was on Jimmy, so it was quite nice to go under the radar a bit.”For all the difficulties there will be in replacing Anderson, the first cab off the rank has pulled out into the road, in between the floats and marching band. And that it is an atypical English bowler, whose 34 first-class dismissals at 24.14 from the start of 2023 leading into this fixture have come across 19 innings without taking the new ball, and primarily as a second-change bowler, will pay it forward.The route remains clear for a traditional opening bowler to fill the void Anderson leaves. Even Chris Woakes, who from next week will get first choice of ends for the first time in his 11-year career. But the void, at this juncture, may not be as great as first feared.