A player who’s always up for a cricketing fight, as he’s proven repeatedly, Sri Lanka have never had an allrounder – or a captain – quite like him before

Madushka Balasuriya18-Feb-2024It’s October 2021, and there’s been a top-order collapse. Sri Lanka have lost three wickets inside two overs and things are looking bleak. There’s Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Dasun Shanaka and Chamika Karunaratne all left to come, but Sri Lanka have instead opted to promote Wanindu Hasaranga ahead of them.And Hasaranga is about to pretty much single-handedly rip away a historic chance of a World Cup upset from Ireland. He takes a little time settling in, seven balls to be precise, and then he punches one through extra cover. Ah yes, extra cover, you’ll be seeing a lot of that watching Hasaranga bat.Nine boundaries and a six later, he departs for a 47-ball 71, the platform laid for a winning total and a crisis deftly averted.

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It’s August 2023, Hasaranga’s Kandy side is floundering. He’d been signed and handed the captaincy in 2022 but the season proved underwhelming both for the team and him personally. Now, a season later, they’ve started off the LPL once more with a whimper – two losses in the opening three games. Something needs to change.Related

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In a chase of 118, against reigning champions Jaffna Kings, that change manifests in the form of experimentation – promoting Hasaranga up the order. Coming in at one down just after the end of a fairly conservative 31-run powerplay, he proceeds to dismantle the bowling with a belligerent 22-ball 52 to make light work of the target on a tricky surface.In their next game, Hasaranga floats down to No. 5, this time providing the finishing flourish as his 27-ball 64 takes his side to a dominant 203. And then two matches later, his counter-attacking 21-ball 40 takes Kandy from 27 for 2 at the end of the powerplay to 70 for 3 by the end of the 10th. They would fall short in that chase, but Hasaranga had given them a fighting chance.Finally, in a must-win second Qualifier, playing on virtually one leg with a torn hamstring, he strikes a 30-ball 48 to take his side to a fighting 157, before grabbing two wickets on the way to a 34-run win.

This in a nutshell is Hasaranga, all action, all the time. Sri Lanka to be clear have had allrounders before, but none quite like him.

In all, Hasaranga ends the tournament with 279 runs and 19 wickets, topping both the runs and wickets charts. Oh, and those runs come at an astounding strike rate of 189.79. To put that in context, of the next 10 highest run scorers not one scored at a rate better than 140.That injury, though, is unfortunate. It ends up requiring surgery and rules Hasaranga out for several months, including last year’s World Cup.

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It’s February 2024, Sri Lanka have started well against Afghanistan but they’ve stumbled to 55 for 4 inside the first eight overs. Enter Hasaranga, now national captain. This time he takes just one ball to settle in before carving the next through point. The one after that, floated up outside off, is lofted over extra cover – his front foot well out of the way, facing long-on.Hasaranga sends his front leg out of the way and the ball out of the ground•ILT20Yeah, that’s a common Hasaranga trait too, frequently clearing that front leg and looking to access the offside; in fact, of his seven boundaries against Afghanistan, six were either in front of or behind square on the offside.His 32-ball 67 eventually proves to be the difference, with only three other Lankan batters getting into double digits – the next highest being 25. His four overs with ball also cost just 20 runs as Afghanistan fall narrowly short.

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This in a nutshell is Hasaranga, all action, all the time. Sri Lanka to be clear have had allrounders before, but none quite like him. Perhaps an early-years Angelo Mathews comes to mind, but he was never quite as explosive with the bat nor as game-changing with the ball. Sanath Jayasuriya and Tillakaratne Dilshan are strong shouts, but their bowling exploits were more supporting cast than main character.Hasaranga though exudes main-character energy. With the ball, while many modern-day legspinners like to keep trajectories flat and fast, Hasaranga frequently tosses it up – almost looking to buy a wicket. It’s a high-risk strategy for sure, but it’s what makes him so effective. He is a competitor in every sense, he wants to make something happen. It’s Hasaranga.With the bat, that almost comical intent to target the offside is allied with equally adept wrist-work. And if his most recent LPL outing is any barometer, it’s an option that comes off more often than not. But more than that, it’s the look in the eyes when he has to prop up the order, that sense of undiluted purpose and determination. Make no mistake, Hasaranga was certain he was going to take Afghanistan apart well before he’d set foot on the field.Wanindu Hasaranga showed remarkable form•AFP/Getty ImagesIt’s also no coincidence that both his LPL performances and the recent rollicking show against Afghanistan came as captain. Leadership comes in different forms, and in Sri Lanka they’ve seen quite a few of these. From the brash, get-under-your-skin, master-of-mind-games style of Arjuna Ranatunga, to the more tactically astute methods of Mahela Jayawardene. But they’ve not quite had someone like Hasaranga. Almost Kapil Dev-lite. Someone who let’s his work on the field do most of the talking.Indeed, when you listen to Hasaranga in interviews, or ask him for post-game analysis, there’s not much by way of lengthy answers. Why’d you lose? Well, the batters needed to do better. Was there anything that could have been done differently? Yeah, we shouldn’t have given away so much at the death. What do you want improve on? We need the players to take more responsibility. Safe to say, it’s not much for the headline writers to work with.But for all his brevity off the field, on it Hasaranga is a well of emotions. His wicket-taking celebrations are never boring – in fact any wicket is cause for an animated fist pump and a shout to the heavens – and boy does he love a good celebrappeal.Hasaranga is your quintessential lead-from-the-front cricketer. He is the man for a crisis, whether it’s coming in to bowl inside the powerplay or counterpunch out of an early collapse. He’s the first pick in your schoolyard match. No, scratch that, he’s the one doing the picking. Watch him play and you can see the foundations are there, the levels are rising. Has he self-actualised? Maybe not just yet. But watching him get there might be just as fun.

England offspinner recognises chances might be limited in early season despite India success

Matt Roller28-Mar-2024After two heady months on tour with England in India, Shoaib Bashir’s first day back at Somerset quickly brought him back down to earth. He shares a club-owned flat in Taunton with team-mates Alfie Ogborne, Sonny Baker and Andy Umeed – “absolute carnage” – and hardly returned to domestic bliss: “I think they need to take the bins out. That bin is .”Bashir is speaking to ESPNcricinfo at Somerset’s annual media day, where he is fielding a fair few more requests than he did last year. Then, he was a 19-year-old on a rookie contract and still dreaming of a first-team debut; now, he is a fully-fledged England international with a regular Test spot in his sights. “It’s been really, really special,” he says.A brief recap: Bashir’s England call-up owed more to attributes – and algorithms – than averages, after only 10 wickets in the County Championship last season. But after his arrival was delayed due to a visa hold-up – “an interesting start, I must say” – he demonstrated impressive control to take 17 wickets in three Tests, even as England slipped to a 4-1 defeat.”To be out in India, playing for your country is something in itself,” he says. “Looking back now, I’ve had time to reflect and it’s just been so, so memorable – something that I’ll cherish for a long time. Getting your Test cap is something you dream of as a kid. That’s why I started playing: I wanted to play for my country and now that’s happened, it means so much.”I’m grateful for the opportunity. I learned a lot about my character, and a lot about the way I bowl. I think that’s a massive eye-opener for myself, moving into the next few years of my career. Looking back on it, I obviously would’ve liked to have affected the games a bit more. But yeah – I can’t really complain.”Back home, the Somerset hierarchy were watching on with pride. “He was incredibly impressive,” Jason Kerr, their head coach, says. “He was nervous, and certainly hadn’t experienced that before… it looked like he was incredibly confident by the end of the trip, like he had that sense of belonging. And from a skill point of view, he showed how he can influence games. For someone so young, at the start of his journey, it was incredibly exciting to watch.”Perhaps the most remarkable day of Bashir’s tour came in Ranchi, where he bowled a 31-over spell – the longest by an England bowler in more than a decade. “It was quite a spell,” he says, laughing. “Weirdly enough, the body was feeling quite good after that, and that’s the longest one I’ve ever bowled. Experiences like that, I think will make you a better cricketer. I’m glad I got exposed to that.”Related

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Bashir is a practising Muslim, and the holy month of Ramadan – which began the day after England’s heavy defeat in Dharamsala – has been an opportunity to reflect. “The timing has been pretty spot-on… it’s been perfect,” he says. “I got to have about two weeks at home with family and I think that time is quite important.”I fast quite a lot. It’s something that I’m quite natural to, I think. We’ve only got the last two weeks left of Ramadan before it finishes, so I just want to make the most out of this special month… We’ve got the first County Championship game coming up [against Kent next Friday] but I believe when God’s with you, it makes things easy for you.”Bashir has not been given any guarantees that he will play and is realistic about the limited role for an offspinner in the early months of the English summer. “I’m not sure, around the country, how many spinners will be playing,” he says. “Early season, the ball doesn’t rag. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens.”Somerset have made clear that they see Jack Leach as their first-choice spinner, though are awaiting clarity on his availability after recent knee surgery. “We haven’t got a timeframe for him yet but he’s doing really well,” Kerr says. “He trained with us yesterday and he’s got some meetings coming up with the ECB’s medical team. It’s good to see him back with a great big smile on his face.”Jack Leach presented his Somerset team-mate Shoaib Bashir with his first Test cap•Getty ImagesAnd Kerr is open to the idea that Bashir might leave on loan if he needs game-time once Leach is back fit. “Our first two games are away and it’s unlikely that there are going to be wickets that are going to assist the spinners,” he says. “If it does spin, it tends to be a very slow spin at this time of year, so it’s unlikely that we’ll play two… I’ll be completely transparent with both of them.”Rob Key, England’s director of men’s cricket, has revealed plans to bring England’s young spinners together for training days throughout the summer, and the team’s management are determined that their progress should not stall after their exposure in India. The long-term target, as ever, is the next Ashes series in Australia in 2025-26.”I have played grade cricket in Australia, and I did get a lot of bounce out of the wickets,” Bashir says. “Being a 6ft 4in lad is quite helpful at times. But I don’t like to look too far ahead… I’m not an over-thinker. I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing really. Whatever happens will happen for the best.”For now, he is still getting accustomed to being recognised on the streets of Taunton. “I have a lot of support behind me at Somerset. It’s just business as usual: being humble and down-to-earth is something that I like to live by. There have been a few changes [to my life], but I’ll take things with small steps at a time.”

The RCB batter speaks about his methods against spin, his outlook towards failure, and why he does not fear getting out

S Sudarshanan17-May-20243:43

Aaron: ‘Patidar has a free-flowing bat swing’

Rajat Patidar has been superb against spin in IPL 2024. Nobody has hit more sixes against spinners (20, level with Abhishek Sharma) than him this season. Only Abhishek has a better strike rate (239.18) than Patidar (224.69) among batters with at least 100 runs against spin this season. He has only been dismissed twide by spin in 11 outings.Patidar breaks into a smile when you bring up his prowess against spin. “I am a top-order batter,” he says. “More than spin, if you ask me, I honestly love playing fast bowlers.”How good do you have to be at what you do if you dominate a less preferred match-up?Related

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Patidar became adept against spin early in his career. Playing on underprepared surfaces in club games when he was in his early 20s helped him become better at picking up and adjusting to unpredictable deviation off the pitch. He got into the habit of picking spin from the hand rather than off the surface. An early glimpse of his quality against spin came in a Ranji Trophy match against Railways in November 2015, when he scored a century on a raging turner on which his Madhya Pradesh team-mate Jalaj Saxena picked up 16 wickets.”I try to read spinners early from their hand and judge lengths early,” Patidar says. “I try and understand what the bowler wants to do or what shot he wants me to play to dismiss me, and I look to avoid that.”You have more time in the top order, where you can rotate strike at the start before targeting someone. But in the middle order, there is a little less cushion, so you have to prepare from the outside, when you are padded up. You have to gauge what the surface is doing, what the bowler is doing, where you can play your shots etc. You don’t have the time to take your time and then hit at the end.”Patidar has hit the joint-most sixes against spin (20) of any batter in IPL 2024•Associated PressOne of Patidar’s best knocks this season came against Sunrisers Hyderabad, in a game that kickstarted Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s run of five successive wins. He walked out at the start of the eighth over on what he terms a “two-paced surface, where the slower balls were gripping a bit.” He raced to a 19-ball half-century – his third in four matches – going 6, 6, 6, 6 against Mayank Markande in a spin-hitting masterclass.”After playing a couple of balls, you get to know how much spin there is on the surface – how much revs a bowler generates, how much turn there will be. It then gives me a clarity of the areas to hit,” he says. “I know Mayank Markande because we [MP] have played Punjab [in the domestic circuit], and he is a very good bowler. He is an attacking bowler, and not one to give away easy singles. He tries to take wickets and that is his strength. I read him from his hand and managed to take him down.”Watching Patidar take spin down, you can’t help but wonder how uncluttered his mind must be. No half-measures, no what-ifs, just unfussy footwork and a pure, unhindered swing of the bat. Does he not have the fear getting out?”I don’t think I have that,” Patidar says, “because if I did, I would not have batted so freely or couldn’t have attacked from the get go. There should be no fear of getting out in T20s because there is less time. If you want to dominate, you have to go in with a free mind. If you want to execute something but are not confident and worried about getting out, then things won’t go right.”As for my free mind, I try to keep ambiguity away when I am batting. If you are confident, and feel, ‘I should go on this ball or take this bowler down’, you should go for it. You cannot think, ‘whether I should go for it or take a single.’ So clarity is important. I also know my areas and what my strengths are, so I stick to that and execute that instead of trying something else.”This clarity is particularly remarkable given that Patidar wasn’t going through his best phase when he came into this IPL. Called up to the Test team for the first time for the home series against England, he only scored 63 runs in six innings at an average of 10.50, and missed the last Test in Dharamsala with an ankle injury. It could have been a disheartening start, particularly for someone coming off a tremendous run in domestic cricket – he had averaged 59.04 in the Ranji Trophy since the post-Covid resumption of domestic first-class cricket at the start of 2022 – but Patidar is not one to fret.’If I am changing my processes just because of a few failures, the down phase will only extend’•Getty Images”[I had] no doubts at all [in my game coming into the IPL]. Both are different formats – the red ball and white ball behave differently, and the way I play them is different,” he says. “I never doubted my abilities even when things were not going my way. I know my game and I also know that things will not always go the way you want them to. A lot of times you may not score runs, you will have to face failures. Not just me, even the legends of this game have faced failures. What you do at that time, what thoughts you have then are important.”I never judge myself based on results. If I focus more on outcomes, I will move away from what has brought me to this stage. But I also know that following a particular set process does not insulate me from failures. If I am changing my processes just because of a few failures, the down phase will only extend. This is what I have learnt from my [MP] coach Chandrakant Pandit – you must know about yourself. Keeping the right frame of mind in failures is important. You should focus on things you are doing right, the rest will take care of itself.”Patidar was the first Indian to hit a century in the IPL playoffs when he smacked an unbeaten 54-ball 112 in the Eliminator of IPL 2022. He is clearly not one to get overawed by the big stage.”I have never, since my first IPL game, been overawed by who’s bowling, who’s not bowling, what the bowler does. I have full faith in my abilities. Even if I am facing a top bowler, he is human after all, and will only bowl the ball. So the more I keep myself normal, the more things go right. I have never seen a bowler and been caught off-guard.”If you want to dominate a bowler, you can never look at the bowler’s face and play. I am the best. (Mentally I should know that I am the best. Nothing else should matter).”RCB’s match against Chennai Super Kings at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium is a must-win, a virtual quarter-final. Rain is forecast in Bengaluru, and a loss or a washout will knock RCB out. Some of the players in their camp might be dwelling on these uncertainties, but you can be assured Patidar won’t be.

After a strong showing at the T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier last year and now with a professional academy system in place, they are eyeing the big lights

Firdose Moonda16-Jul-2024Of all the places where the progress of women in society, and by extension in sport, is seen to be worthy of celebrating, the Middle East does not necessarily rank very highly. Except, perhaps, when it comes to cricket in the UAE.Their women’s team was neither the best-performing Associate over the last year nor did they qualify for the T20 World Cup, but they were given the Associate Women’s Performance of the Year award in the ICC’s Development Awards for 2023 for their stellar run through the T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier. They also show immense potential for the future.Theirs is a system that is now made up of largely local-born players who are being introduced to the game through a highly professionalised academy system and encouraged to play sport by a generation of parents who understand the importance of physical activity for both genders.”It’s become the norm growing up. Parents usually take their kids to all different kinds of sports and then they allow themto pick one over the other,” Ahmed Raza, the former UAE men’s captain and now women’s coach, told the ESPNcricinfo Powerplay podcast.One of those children was Esha Oza, the current UAE women’s team captain. She was eight months old when her family moved to the Emirates from Mumbai in 1998 and she calls the UAE home. She played football at school and discovered cricket during her summer holidays in India, where her cousins played the popular gully version of the sport. “I used to go play with them and I realised I actually enjoy doing this,” she said. “When I returned to Dubai [after the holidays] in 2013, that was when I thought maybe I should start learning the sport as well, go to an academy and play the sport.”Oza was 15 years old at the time, but she already had a good understanding of team sport and the requisite fitness to play competitive games. She joined the Desert Cubs Academy, where she played mostly with boys but stood out as a strong opening batter and handy offspinner.A year later she found herself in the national side for a Gulf Cricket Cup (GCC) tournament in “a team made up of schoolgirls”, and had football to thank for some of her successful rise.Earlier this year, Oza scored an unbeaten 66 in a ten-wicket win over Netherlands at the T20 World Cup Qualifiers, in which UAE made the semi-finals•Getty Images”Football is also a team sport, so just being around a team, being around that environment, that’s really important,” she said. “You learn a lot through sports. It teaches you how to deal with a lot of things, be it wins, losses, sharing stuff, talking to different people. That’s something that’s common across all sports. And you’re already active if you’re playing another sport, so it’s easy to transition from one sport to another.”When UAE played their first official T20I in 2018, Oza was part of the XI and by that stage was also part of an ICC Development Squad that played in England. Within six months she had scored her first half-century – against China – and her career was on the rise.By then she was 20 and close to the end of her tertiary studies, which is the age at which Raza says most young women are lost to sport. “The challenge comes when they cross the school and university age, where they have to step into the real world and get a job or get married. The challenge for me, or the board, is to keep them in the system,” he said.Fortunately for Oza, she had both a plan and the right combination of circumstances to help her. In the summer of 2019, she decided to spend an extended period in Mumbai to try to make the domestic Under-23 side there.The experience itself was more challenging than anything she’d known before. “For the trials, there were more than 5000 girls. Then, it was about getting to the later stages, the top 100 and the last 30 for the camp. That was the first part of the challenge, getting there and making it through these stages,” she said.She succeeded in earning a place at the Mumbai Cricket Association’s indoor summer camp, which ran for a month, and then the Mumbai senior squad for T20s. “It was a great challenge,” she said. “We had Jemimah Rodrigues playing for Mumbai and she led us in a game. I played against many of the current Indian players as well, and just watching their game, how different it is compared to ours, you can learn a lot from that.”Ahmed Raza (extreme left), the UAE head coach, believes that the groundwork is now being laid for the next generation of cricketers to really take the women’s game forward in the country•ICC/Getty ImagesAll the while she was studying towards a bachelor of commerce and management degree from the University of Wollongong. It could all have become too much, but then came Covid-19 and things moved online. “So even though I was in India, I was able to catch up with my classes,” Oza said. “I didn’t miss out on much. I was just trying to balance both things.”Though the UAE did not play any matches between February 2019 and November 2021, she was able to keep her skills sharp, and within four months of returning to international cricket, she notched up the third-highest individual score in the format by any female cricketer. Her 158 not out against Bahrain was also her first century and the magnitude of the achievement took her by surprise. “That was the first time I scored a hundred, and I crossed the 150 mark as well, so I was a bit confused. How do you celebrate when you get 150?”So how did she? “I just put my bat up. I didn’t know what else to do!”She has since added two more centuries to her record, is the second fastest woman to 1000 T20I runs, has played in all but four of the UAE’s matches, and now also captains the national side.As captain, her T20I average has gone up to 40.84 (compared with 30.95 overall) and she spearheaded the team’s unbeaten campaign at the Asia Qualifiers, which saw them advance to the T20 World Cup Qualifier, where they were in the running to make the line-up for the tournament, until they lost to Sri Lanka. The defeat only made Oza want to get to the event even more.”I really badly wanted to make it to this year’s World Cup,” she said. “But every team wants it. Every team playing the qualifiers has the same goal. The World Cup is the biggest event in the globe for cricketers and I just want to take the team to one, hopefully the 2026 World Cup.”Vaishnave Mahesh was UAE’s top wicket-taker last year with 36 wickets in 23 games, 15 of which came in the six matches of the T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier•Getty ImagesThe 2026 tournament is a slightly expanded version of the competition, with 12 teams instead of ten, and UAE believe they can get there. But along the way, they have other goals. “Becoming one of the best Associate countries in the world is a goal that we are working towards,” Raza said. “And getting ODI status. Those are the things that are on our radar.”Currently, all the Full Member women’s teams have ODI status and five Associates – Netherlands, Scotland, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and USA – were awarded ODI recognition in 2022. There does not appear to be any set criteria for awarding ODI status to women’s teams, apart from an upward trajectory in results, and on that front UAE tick the box. This year, they have won eight out of 11 matches, the best in any year where they have played more than five games, and they can improve on that record at the Asia Cup. They are grouped with giants India and Pakistan but also with Nepal, who are ranked five places below them. “When you play the Asian giants like India, you know there are a lot of eyeballs on you,” Raza said.Oza knows that first-hand from the valiant 66 she scored in the T20 World Cup Qualifier against Sri Lanka, which saw her finish as the tournament’s second-highest run-scorer behind Chamari Athapaththu. “It was talked about around the globe,” Raza said, and though Oza is obviously the team’s superstar, he believes there can be others. “Any of our players can have a knock like that or a bowler can have a good spell. And it’s T20 cricket. You never know. You roll one of those big teams over and the whole world will be talking about you.”Another example is the UAE’s Chennai-born legspinner, Vaishnave Mahesh. She took 15 wickets at the Asia Qualifier and, at 16 years and 262 days at the time, became the youngest player to get 50 T20I wickets, taking the mantle from Rashid Khan, who was 19 when he reached the milestone. Mahesh was only 12 when she debuted for UAE, and though players of that age can no longer play international cricket after the ICC imposed a minimum age of 15 in 2020, it’s in that mid-teens age group that the UAE will find their next generation. “Our development programme has hundreds of girls who are under the age of 15 who will be coming through our system,” Raza said.His next task is figuring out ways to keep them in the system and there’s no better person to serve as a role model than Oza. “We’re seeing a lot more girls taking part in cricket in the UAE as well,” she said. “We see ten-year-olds coming and saying that they’ve watched us play. They’re watching the UAE women’s team play. That means even they’re keeping their eyes on what’s happening.”Girls growing up now can have a goal: I want to play for the UAE team in the future. That’s how they can start their journey. They can go to academies and say, ‘In a few years’ time, I want to be a player for the UAE women’s team.'”

This wasn’t a day for the spinner, but it was certainly a day for India’s greatest spinner, with the bat, on his home ground

Alagappan Muthu19-Sep-20241:08

Why was Ashwin more comfortable than the top-order batters?

It’s lunch. The crowd is quiet. Maybe even bored. A bunch of them have come wearing Virat Kohli shirts. The silence when he fell is already in talks to get a guest spot on the next Quiet Place movie. Someone steps out of the Indian dressing room and begins walking on the field. That’s it. Just putting one foot in front of the other. People have been doing that since before the stone age. But it is enough to shoo the sombre straight off this morning.R Ashwin doesn’t need to do much to make this place come alive.

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It’s nearly stumps. India’s score has been given a touch-up, from 34 for 3 to 329 for 6, and those same Kohli jerseys are up off their seats, swarming against the railings, phones out, horns blaring.Ashwin is on strike. Ninety-nine not out. He clips one of the easier balls he’s had to face for a single, in conditions that are, to put it mildly, not usual for the start of a new Test season in India. Fast bowlers have taken five of the six wickets that have fallen, and they have found sideways movement all through the 80 overs of play. This is not a day for the spinner. But it does become a day for India’s greatest spin-bowling pair. Ashwin punches Ravindra Jadeja’s gloves on his way to the other end as the applause flows uninterrupted.

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India were 144 for 6 when Ashwin came in to bat. Bangladesh had let some of their good work slip in the morning session but weren’t quite so generous now. There was pressure from both ends. Hasan Mahmud’s skill at getting the red ball to nip both ways had catapulted him into rarefied space occupied only by Dale Steyn. From 2006, for almost two decades, the South African had been the only visiting seamer to pick up four or more wickets on the first day of a Test match in India. This was not a day for the spinner. Ashwin got on top of a 142kph Nahid Rana delivery and punched it hella smoothly in front of point to move from 1 to 5. This was already his day.Related

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Mahmud keeps it simple to stand out in Bangladesh's attack

Ashwin: In the last IPL, I felt like I needed to widen my game

There aren’t a lot of centuries by Indian batters from No. 8 and lower. Only 19. And of those, only two had faced worse odds. Harbhajan Singh made 115 after walking in with the score on 65 for 6 against New Zealand in 2010, and Ashwin himself made 106 after walking in with the score 106 for 6 against England in 2021. It is remarkable that he pulled off this rescue act while looking like he was having a net. He was in control of 86% of the balls he faced even while scoring over half his runs in boundaries. He just has this feel for conventional attacking shots.There were some chart-toppers here. One – an imperious, on-the-up cover drive off Mahmud – quickly erased the fact that he could’ve been dismissed the previous ball. Another – a cheeky little upper cut off Nahid Rana – had similar effect, supplanting any memory of how he couldn’t get out of the way of a previous bouncer from Taskin Ahmed. Two were shots that he had paid particular attention to in the week leading up to the game – sweeps. One went for six, the other for four. When the host broadcaster asked him about all this positivity, Ashwin said, “it helps that I’ve come off the back of a T20 tournament. Worked quite a bit on my batting and playing a few shots and of course, I’ve always been wafting my bat around outside off stump, not giving it a full monty, but on a surface like this with a bit of spice, if you’re going after the ball, might as well go after it really hard.”ESPNcricinfo LtdIndia’s lower-middle order has been the difference in several Test matches, helping them preserve an impeccable home record over the last 12 years. So the dressing room was pretty chill, none more so than the captain, Rohit Sharma who took in part of the action while lying down on the floor.It is learnt that neither the BCCI nor the team management had asked for seamer-friendly surfaces for this series, even though they are facing the prospect of five massive Tests in Australia at the end of the season. Still, the local officials were quite deliberate in preparing this pitch, hiding it from the heat which has reached levels never before seen in Chennai in the month of September. The only time it was exposed to the elements was when it was being watered. It seems they felt, really strongly, that India would be well served having recent experience of playing against a red ball that refused to stop jagging about. #KnowledgableChennaiGroundstaff.Ashwin couldn’t have been happier for the way he had been tested. “I think it’s the old Chennai surface with a bit of bounce and carry. The red-soil pitch allows you to play a few shots. If you’re willing to get in line and sort of, whenever there’s width, if you can give it a bit of a tonk, it really helps. I love playing when there is bounce and carry so yeah, really enjoyed myself today.”R Ashwin and Chepauk: a match made in heaven•BCCITwo partnerships took India to 339 for 6 and both of them stood out for how there was no thought of taking a backward step. Yashasvi Jaiswal represented that quite literally by walking at Mahmud – from a starting position well in front of his crease too – to force the bowler to shorten his length and deny him the movement he was so adept at getting. Rishabh Pant looked extraordinary for time he was out there. He was sent in ahead of KL Rahul to present Bangladesh with a new challenge, bowling at two left-handers after they had made short work of three right-handers. India were in strife but they were switched all the way on and that made a big difference.By the end, Ashwin and Jadeja were scoring at nearly a run a ball, feasting on the kind of bowling that was never going to trouble anybody on day one of this pitch – spin. India actually scored more than a third of their total (127) against Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Shakib Al Hasan even though they bowled a little more than one-fourth of the overs (29). Another example of their sharpness despite being under the pump.The Chennai crowd was ecstatic. At 38 years old, it is uncertain if Ashwin will play another Test in front of them. He had his family here. His friends were here. He saluted all of them when he reached his century – first the dressing room – and then to all corners. He averages 55.16 at this ground. His home ground. That’s not far off Sunil Gavaskar and way better than Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Dilip Vengsarkar and Mohammad Azharuddin. This was always going to be his day, two days after his birthday.