An ego-free, hard-working opening batter will be playing his 100th Test match this week. And he might be one of the very last of his kind

Andrew Fidel Fernando04-Feb-2025Since the start of 2015, no Test opener has scored as many runs as Dimuth Karunaratne. He has 15 hundreds, which is the equal highest among openers. He has struck 34 fifties, easily the best – that tally in some senses making him the most consistent opener to be continuously active through the last ten years. Over the course of this, he has also made the ICC Test XI three times, which no other opener has managed.This week, as he plays his 100th Test, there is reason to give the man his flowers, because when else was cricket going to find the time? His is a career that has floated on the fringes of the sport’s consciousness. You can still make a serious name for yourself as a Test opener in this age, but you have to crash a lot of boundaries to get that kind of attention, and ideally your country belongs to one of cricket’s bigger economies. Grinding out half-centuries on dustbowls, hunkering down for the new-ball spells, manipulating spin so you’re tracking at roughly three runs an over without risks – these are all nice things to be good at. But as far as the modern cricket ecosystem goes, this is like saying you’re the world’s top air-conditioner repair mechanic. Other people are doing way more glamorous things.For much of Karunaratne’s career, opening has been especially difficult. Since the start of 2015, men’s openers around the world have averaged 33.71 – significantly lower than they did in the aughts (37.17), and less than in the nineties (35.50), and eighties (34.76). You were always at the greatest risk of falling to the swinging and seaming ball as an opening batter, but in the last 10 years of Test batting, fresh terrors have snuck into nightmares, with the wisdom that spinners gain more bite out of a hard new seam taking hold stronger than it ever has before. In the 2020s, a 140+kph quick and an experienced finger spinner sharing the new ball is a pretty standard challenge for an opener, especially in Sri Lanka, where new balls can swing through humid air almost as well as they can explode off dry surfaces. Take away Karunaratne’s runs, and openers have averaged 33.6 on the island since 2015.

Karunaratne was ever the jobbing opener, and rarely believed to be deserving of the care that batters marked out for stardom tend to receive from coaches and staff, though he has outlasted virtually all of them

There are also few who have lit so steady a fire for Sri Lanka’s place in the Test world. This is, after all, a country that has let its Test-match win-loss ratio slip from 1.31 between 2005 and end of 2014, to 0.81 since the start of 2015. Much of this has been about Sri Lanka’s failure to replace great players. There are no spinners to rival Muthiah Muralidaran and Rangana Herath, no seamers to match Chaminda Vaas or Lasith Malinga, no top-order batters that are on the level of Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene and Aravinda de Silva. But when it comes to openers, there is a case to be heard. Sanath Jayasuriya and Tillakaratne Dilshan did it with more verve, and Marvan Atapattu was more technically correct. But none of them did it as prolifically as Karunaratne, or scored anywhere near his 7079 runs at the top of the order.Related

Karunaratne: 'Series win in SA 2019 one of the most favourite chapters of my career'

Karunaratne to retire from Test cricket after making his 100th appearance

How Dimuth Karunaratne uses other players to get ahead

With most other positions in the XI, you can look back to the Lankan men’s team of the late aughts and early 2010s – the golden generation – and mostly conclude that Sri Lanka do not produce cricketers of the same quality. Karunaratne gives you reason to pause.And at no point, by the way, was he ever Sri Lanka’s golden boy. Where it had been suggested of others that they were the next great Sri Lanka batter, Karunaratne was ever the jobbing opener, and rarely believed to be deserving of the care that batters marked out for stardom tend to receive from coaches and staff, though he has outlasted virtually all of them. Karunaratne’s has been a short leash, and he’s got the struggling thirties, and the dirty half-centuries to prove it. No one will call it a pretty career. But fifties didn’t need to be pretty – they just needed to be fifties. And Karunaratne was adept at providing them. Those prods outside off stump, those strong lbw shouts, and inside edges into pad were all in strong supply. But so were Karunaratne’s runs.There is an obvious skew to his record. He is exceptionally good against spin, which explains why 81% of his hundreds have come in Asia, though he’s also got hundreds in South Africa and New Zealand.ESPNcricinfo LtdIf Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin presented the greatest spin-challenging of this last era, then few batters have denied them as effectively, with Karunaratne hitting hundreds at the SSC in 2017, and Bengaluru in 2022. These were classic Karunaratne innings, in that he obviously scratched his way through portions of them, rarely struck the kinds of authoritative boundaries that suggested he was dominating the bowling, and yet he found ways to avoid getting out, while pinching another 10 runs. He has added a few new shots, and refined his defence, but this, essentially, has been his mode of operation for 12 years. There is also a strikingly ego-free quality here. For bowlers, beating a batter’s edge is a small victory; for Karunaratne, it is an opportunity to face the next ball.It is a career worth celebrating all the more, for it being in its last days. Karunaratne has just said he will retire after his 100th, but the signs were there. He averaged 29.66 across 2024, and was terrorised by Kagiso Rabada in South Africa, just as he is again being hounded by Mitchell Starc – a bowler who has now dismissed him nine times in Tests. But his own performance is almost irrelevant. Even if Karunaratne throws off a career’s worth of precedent and clubs 100-ball double-centuries in his next Test encounters, Sri Lanka will only still be playing four Tests in 2025. Their next World Test Championship schedule will still feel sparse.If a little navel-gazing is permitted, you do have to wonder how many more Sri Lanka cricketers will get to 100 Tests. Another Sri Lanka opening batter? This could be a last chance to see.Karunaratne is the seventh Sri Lanka cricketer to this milestone, to follow Jayasuriya, Muralidaran, Vaas, Sangakkara, Jayawardene, and Angelo Mathews. He is probably the least-celebrated of that crowd. But no one could say he does not deserve his place among them. Others have had the benefit of hype, legend, and aura. Karunaratne’s only medium has always been hard, pragmatic runs.

The 2-1 win is the sort of result that they’ve rarely achieved in this country

Danyal Rasool10-Nov-2024If someone told you Australia would bat 99.5 overs in this three-match ODI series, one that produced both a nine- and an eight-wicket win, you would have let out a resigned sigh. Pakistan had lost 26 of their last 28 games across formats in this country, had seen a captain and coach resign within the last month, and played no 50-over cricket for a year. Australia fielded a near-full strength side for each of the first two games, and were, as they often tend to be, reigning world champions in this format. Of course these games were going to be one sided; Australia needed to do little more than turn up wearing yellow.Nobody gave Pakistan a chance. This was the land down under, not the land upside down. They don’t do that kind of thing round here.It is remarkable how simple it was after all. Babar Azam had often tried to hide his side’s weaknesses as leader; Mohammad Rizwan wore them like a war wound. Yes, Pakistan had no answer to Adam Zampa. So they didn’t play a spinner at all. Yes, they didn’t have an allrounder they felt they could trust. So they just played four bowlers. Yes, four express seamers would be an issue for the over-rate. So they made sure they bowled Australia out in 40 overs. Yes, they didn’t have much batting depth either. So they made sure to bowl Australia out modestly enough they didn’t have to chase much.Related

• Babar and Naseem return for South Africa Tests, but there's no place for Afridi

• Stats – Pakistan's first series win in Australia since 2002

• Pakistan quicks set up famous series win in Australia

There Pakistan stood, their glaring weaknesses in full view, their soft underbelly exposed for Australia to slice through. But Pakistan have spent much too long on the defensive against Australia, and have the scarring to show how that ends. The recent Test series against England had demonstrated the value of bespoke conditions as a route to victory, and so, on these bouncier, seaming surfaces, they burnt their bridges and unleashed their four-pronged pace attack.There was Shaheen Shah Afridi, a man denuded – of both his captaincy and his pace – looking for arrows to add to his quiver. Experimenting with his wrist position and finding sideways movement both ways, he was arguably the bowler of the series. Australia opened with Matthew Short and Jake Fraser-McGurk, two men with T20 strike rates north of 150. Up against them with the field in, Shaheen’s economy of 3.76 was the lowest of any bowler all series, and he would account for three of the six times they fell, combining for 78 runs in 84 balls across the series.Saim Ayub lived up to his potential•Cricket Australia/Getty ImagesThere was Naseem Shah, the most proficient at making the ball talk at pace, perfecting the art of bowling beautiful deliveries that don’t get wickets. Arguably Pakistan’s best bowler in the third game, he made up for his relative expense with menace across all phases of play, especially puncturing Australia early on with new-ball wickets in the final two games.Mohammad Hasnain, whose painfully shy exterior belies the fire that burns underneath, didn’t quite get the number of wickets his team-mates did, but snared the one he really wanted. He would toy with Marcus Stoinis, who once accused him of chucking in the Hundred, before bringing his tortured stay at the crease to a close. There was a brief moment when he considered giving the batter an invective-laden send-off before quickly realising it didn’t come naturally to him, and turned his innocent smile back towards the team-mates who rushed to mob him.Polar opposite, of course, is Haris Rauf, the man this series truly belonged to. Perhaps it is his unapologetic extroversion that has seen him do so well in Australia. His record here is well known, but he hadn’t actually played a one-day game in this country until last week. And yet, his main character energy blazed through every pore as he bent Australia to his will. It was exemplified by his takedown of Australia’s flashiest star in this line-up, Glenn Maxwell dismissed three times in nine balls, a microcosm of a mismatch that told the story of this series.There are glimpses of optimism elsewhere, too. Rizwan’s proactive captaincy may signal a tonal shift for a side that has trudged directionless in the shorter formats for several years now. As Fakhar Zaman approaches the home stretch of his career, there is perhaps also the rustle of large shoes beginning to be filled. Saim Ayub’s nerveless displays in two chases that have historical banana-skin potential for Pakistan justify his gradual induction into ODIs; he is already the second-highest Pakistani run-scorer in successful winning chases against Australia in Australia, six runs behind Javed Miandad.The Pakistan players and support staff celebrate after the series win•AFP/Getty ImagesIt is a mark of how dominant Pakistan have been this series that the middle order hasn’t really been tested but there is possibly a sign Babar hasn’t lost his touch in his favourite format. A respectable 37 in the first game was followed by two brief unbeaten cameos replete with that sumptuous shotmaking repertoire that still sees him ranked the best ODI batter in the world.There will be the usual nitpicking from the type of people one tends to weed out of party invitations that this was just one series. That Australia rested a few players in the first two games, and many more in the third. That their eyes are firmly on the Border-Gavaskar prize over the next couple of months, or that Pakistan still have ODI weaknesses they haven’t really demonstrated an ability to address.They’re often the same people who tend to complain about bilateral series having lost their lustre. But bilateral series, like any other competition, only gain their value through teams caring about them, and Pakistan care about wins in Australia perhaps more than anything else in cricket. It is where their brand was birthed in 1992, where scraps of success make up for tidal waves of heartbreak.Maybe Pakistan are building something here, but maybe they’re not. In 2002, when they last beat Australia in an ODI series, they would go on to have disastrous Champions Trophy and World Cup campaigns. For this side, a series win in Australia is a prize that does not need extraneous context. It is a breath of cool air atop a mountain only few get to scale; when you’re at the top you’re not thinking about the next ascent.Within moments of the winning runs being hit, they took laps of honour around the Optus Stadium, their fans thronging the sidelines to sneak a glimpse or snatch an autograph. The players and coaching staff embraced, emotion writ large on their faces. Rizwan threw himself into the arms of the fitness trainer, Shaheen buried his head in Rauf’s shoulders. There was a warm embrace between Rizwan and Babar, the strains of a friendship that has been tested so severely cast off momentarily.Pakistan will always find time to worry about the future, but living in the present is never easier than days like this.

It’s a mismatch India are primed to exploit, and Australia will need to find ways to stop that happening

Andrew Fidel Fernando03-Mar-20252:26

Manjrekar: Australia always India’s toughest opponent

Australia’s second string has for many decades been the best second string in cricket. But on Tuesday that second string will be up against one of cricket’s modern-day ODI powerhouses: India’s top order.Between them, seamers Nathan Ellis Spencer Johnson and Ben Dwarshuis, who all played in Australia’s most recent match against Afghanistan, have 20 ODI appearances. Between India’s top three, they have… uhh… 91 ODI centuries.Yes, Australia tend to roll through oppositions in big tournaments. Yes, they get to semi-finals, and somehow find the knack of winning big games. But you look at these three guys in yellow, and those three guys in blue, and it is difficult to come to any other conclusion: this is a mismatch. The biggest one there is in this semi-final.Related

• 'We guessed right in the end' – Smith relieved fixture tangle worked in Australia's favour

• Connolly replaces Short as India's spinners loom for Australia

• Rohit: 'Dubai not our home, it's new for us as well'

• Unfamiliar Varun a 'tempting' option against Australia in semi-final, says Rohit

• Favourites India enter Australia's territory in semi-final

Some caveats, before we get ahead of ourselves. Ellis has been unlucky to play as few as 11 ODIs, given his exploits in Australia’s T20 circuit, of which the Big Bash League is the main component. His style of bowling – bustling medium-pace with an array of variations – is likely to be suited to the dry Dubai surface on which the match will be played. Expect fingers to be rolled over the ball when Ellis is bowling on Tuesday.Johnson is tall, left-armed, and quick, but no one is yet making serious comparisons to that other Johnson, this new one having only played 13 internationals. Expect sharp Johnson spells to come through the middle overs, which in the latest iteration of the ODI game have become a glorious canvas for strategy, after having been derided as boring for decades.Where batting teams still want to see those overs through without much damage, bowling sides send their wicket-taking bowlers to the frontlines, and frequently these prompt either collapses or counter-attacks. Can Johnson be one of those big middle-overs’ bowlers? Right now, he averages 59 after five ODIs.Dwarshuis, meanwhile, is the least likely to play. He has only four ODIs on his record, and even fewer T20Is. On a Dubai surface which is likely to favour spin, Australia may pick legspinner Tanveer Sangha, who has played three ODIs. There is perhaps caution in the India team against Australia, a longtime nemesis, and a perennial ruiner of everybody else’s big-tournament plans. But if there is a softness to this Australia side that opponents can exploit, it’s their bowling.Will Australia bring in Tanveer Sangha to shore up their spin resources?•AFP/Getty ImagesOn top of this, India can hardly be better-placed to bear down on Australia. Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill already have hundreds in this tournament. Shreyas Iyer has more cumulative runs – 150 – than any other India batter. In the match against New Zealand, even Hardik Pandya and Axar Patel contributed encouraging innings.”The last match was brilliant for us in terms of the middle order getting an opportunity to try and set up the target,” captain Rohit Sharma said ahead of the semi-final. India had been 30 for 3, before Iyer struck up partnerships with Axar and then KL Rahul to revive the innings. Hardik then contributed a run-a-ball 45. “The middle order is very experienced in terms of the number of games they’ve played, but just to get some time in the middle, and to get those runs, and get that fighting total, was very important from our standpoint. In all, I think it was the perfect game we wanted.”Australia now have decisions in front of them. They had played Dwarshuis perhaps on the theory that England are suspect against left-arm pace. Dwarshuis took 3 for 66 in that high-scoring game, and also took three wickets against Afghanistan to complicate things for the selectors. If they play only two seamers on Tuesday, whom do they drop? Ellis is the proven domestic performer, and Johnson brings the left-arm pace. Do they risk playing a third seamer? Dwarshuis has slower balls and variations too.Tall, left-armed and quick, but no one is as yet comparing this Johnson to the other one•ICC via Getty ImagesWhoever plays, India are primed to be effective. Perhaps primed to maul them into oblivion, even. Adam Zampa is around, but he can only control a fifth of Australia’s overs. Where are the other 20 overs of spin going to come from (you probably need about 30 all up)? Glenn Maxwell is good for seven or eight. Travis Head could bowl a few. Steven Smith no longer fancies rolling his arm over. If Sangha plays, or left-arm spin bowling allrounder Cooper Connolly plays, it does not solve the issue of inexperience.If there is an Australia vs India match that India should dominate, this is the one.That other teams believe India have notable advantages in this tournament is no secret. And so far, India have crushed all three oppositions, to such an extent that they have created selection dilemmas for themselves: if only three spinners can play against Australia, will they really leave out Varun Chakravarthy?But it is through their batting that India are best-placed to knock Australia out of this tournament. Kohli, Rohit, Gill and Co coming up against Ellis, Johnson and Dwarshuis. There are clear imbalances here for India to exploit, whatever the history.

And what is the record for the most extras in an ODI?

Steven Lynch08-Apr-2025Who has collected the most ducks in the IPL? asked Anjum Chopra from India
This record changed hands recently: when Glenn Maxwell was out first ball during Punjab Kings’ match against Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad last month, it was his 19th duck in the IPL. That put him (at the time of writing) one ahead of Dinesh Karthik and Rohit Sharma (18), and two clear of Sunil Narine.Is Neil Wagner’s 64 Tests the most by anyone who never played an ODI or T20 international? asked Nitin Patel from the United States
The recently retired New Zealand seamer Neil Wagner took 260 wickets in his 64 Tests – but never played a white-ball international. That’s the most by anyone who made their debut since the first T20 international, in Auckland in 2005. Next on that list at the moment is England’s Ollie Pope, who has so far played 55 Tests but no white-ball internationals.Of those who made their debuts after the first official one-day international, in Melbourne in 1971, Wagner is behind another Surrey and England batter, Mark Butcher, who won 71 Test caps without ever appearing in the one-day side.Overall, the England wicketkeeper Godfrey Evans played 91 Tests but, since the last of them was in 1959, never had the chance to play in ODIs or T20s.In the first ODI between New Zealand and Pakistan the other day, there were an astonishing 70 extras. Was this a record for a one-day international? asked Taimur Mirza from Australia
You’re right that there were 70 extras in the first one-day international between Pakistan (who conceded 43) and New Zealand (27) in Napier at the end of last month. This puts it joint sixth on the list of men’s ODIs with the most extras.Clear at the top is a 1999 World Cup match between Pakistan and Scotland at Chester-le-Street, which contained 96 extras, 50 of them wides. There were 90 extras in the match between Pakistan and West Indies in Brisbane in 1989 (again 50 in wides) and in another match in the 1999 World Cup, Zimbabwe’s upset win over India in Leicester.There are some higher numbers in women’s ODIs: a match between Netherlands and Japan in Schiedam in 2003 contained no fewer than 133 extras, 87 of which came from wides. In all there have been five women’s ODIs with 100 or more, including West Indies vs Sri Lanka in Port-of-Spain in March 2003, which had exactly 100 extras (82 wides).Scotland conceded 59 extras and Pakistan 37, during their clash in the 1999 World Cup•Matthew Ashton/Getty ImagesWho scored the first century of the new English season? And how about the first five-for? asked Roy Harrison from England
The first County Championship hundred of this year’s English season was scored by Durham’s Colin Ackermann, against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge on April 4. Ackermann reached three figures shortly before tea on the first day of the season: the other first-day centuries were all completed after the tea interval.The first five-wicket haul of the new season was completed by the Somerset seamer Kasey Aldridge, not long after lunch – in the 36th over – against Worcestershire in Taunton.Tom Banton hit 344 not out for Somerset on April 5. Was this the earliest triple-century in an English season? asked Ryan McLeod from England
Somerset’s Tom Banton started April 5 – the second day of the County Championship match against Worcestershire in Taunton – with 84, and had hurtled to 344 not out by the close (he was out next day for 371).This was the earliest triple-century ever in an English first-class season, beating a record set on April 6 in… 2024, when Glamorgan’s Sam Northeast took his overnight 186 to 335 against Middlesex at Lord’s (the highest score ever made at cricket’s most famous ground).Fellow statistician Andrew Samson tells me that there have been only two other triple-centuries in England in April, both of them coming in Taunton: 303 not out on April 18 by James Hildreth for Somerset vs Warwickshire in 2009, and 315 on April 20 by Justin Langer in Somerset’s 850 for 7 against Middlesex in 2007.Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of the above answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

And does Heather Knight hold the record for captaining the most women’s internationals?

Steven Lynch01-Apr-2025There were three innings of 97 in the space of two days last week, two in the IPL and one in a T20 international. Was this a first for T20s? asked Swaminathan Ramachandran from India
This was indeed a first. A score of 97 is fairly rare in T20 matches anyway – there had been only 53 such innings before last week’s rush. That started when Shreyas Iyer’s 97 not out helped Punjab Kings to victory over Gujarat Titans in the IPL in Ahmedabad on March 25. The following day, Tim Seifert matched that score as New Zealand beat Pakistan in Wellington, then Quinton de Kock also hit 97 not out as, back in the IPL, Kolkata Knight Riders beat Rajasthan Royals in Guwahati.As this list shows, there had never previously been a day with two 97s in T20 matches worldwide, and just two instances of two in the space of three days – February 22-24 in 2023, and October 12-14, 2022, when both 97s were by Saurashtra’s Samarth Vyas.Jofra Archer conceded 76 runs in his four overs the other day, which I read was a record for the IPL. Who held it before him? asked Avikesh Krishna from India
Those painful figures for Rajasthan Royals’ Jofra Archer – 4-0-76-0 – came in just the second match of this IPL, against Sunrisers in Hyderabad. His first over went for 23 (including four fours and a six from Travis Head), his second cost 12 (there were two fours from Nitish Kumar), the third 22 (three sixes from Ishan Kishan) and his last went for 19, plus four byes – it included three fours from Heinrich Klaasen, and another from Kishan.The man who’s probably relieved he no longer holds the IPL record for the costliest analysis is the Indian seamer Mohit Sharma, who leaked 73 runs in his four overs for Gujarat Titans against Delhi Capitals in Delhi in 2024. The only other bowler to concede 70 in an IPL match is Basil Thampi, against Royal Challengers Bangalore in Bengaluru in 2018.There have been seven costlier analyses than Archer’s in all T20 matches. Right at the top is the unfortunate Musa Jobarteh, whose four overs cost 93 as Zimbabwe piled up a T20I record total of 344 for 4 against Gambia in a T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier in Nairobi in 2024.Hasan Nawaz started with 0, 0, 105*, 1, 0 in his debut series for Pakistan•AFP/Getty ImagesHasan Nawaz made a century against New Zealand in the T20I series, but also picked up three ducks. Was this a record? asked Nick Peterson from New Zealand
The new Pakistan opener Hasan Nawaz had a strange start to his international career in the recent T20 series in New Zealand: he started with two ducks, hit an undefeated 105 in the third match in Auckland, and rounded the series off by being out for 1 and 0.Only two men have made fewer than 106 runs in a T20 series in which they batted at least three times and also scored a century. South Africa’s Rilee Rossouw made 0 (out first ball), 0 (second) and 100 not out (from 48) against India in 2022. And the New Zealander Colin Munro made 0, 101 and 0 in a home series against Bangladesh in 2017. Chris Gayle’s 113 runs in five matches (four innings) in the 2016 T20 World Cup in India included 100 not out against England in West Indies’ first match, in Mumbai.Heather Knight has just been stood down as England’s captain after about ten years. Did she captain in more international matches than anyone else? asked Alan Varney from England
Heather Knight captained England for the first time in June 2016, and in all skippered in 199 matches – nine Tests, 94 ODIs and 96 T20Is. It turns out that the only person to captain in more women’s internationals is the lady she replaced: Charlotte Edwards skippered in 220 – ten Tests, 117 ODIs and 93 T20Is.Five other women have captained in more than 150 international matches: Mithali Raj 195 (eight Tests, a record 155 ODIs and 32 T20Is), Meg Lanning 182 (4/78/100), Harmanpreet Kaur 154 (3/28/123), Chamari Athapaththu 153 (0/53/100) and Suzie Bates 151 (0/79/72).The men’s record is held by MS Dhoni, who captained in 332 international matches (60 Tests, 200 ODIs and 72 T20Is). Ricky Ponting skippered in 324 (77/230/17) and Stephen Fleming in 303 (80/218/5).I was gobsmacked to discover that Len Hutton batted for 292 overs during the course of his 364, the Test record at the time. Was this the most in a Test? asked Richard Lyle from England
When Len Hutton made 364 against Australia at The Oval in August 1938, both his score and England’s 903 for 7 were Test records (since broken). Hutton was out not long after lunch on the third day: in all he batted for 797 minutes and faced 847 balls.The painstaking researches of the Australian statistician Charles Davis reveal that Hutton was out to the third ball of the 292nd over of the innings, bowled by the great legspinner Bill O’Reilly, who was sending down the 82nd of his eventual 85 overs. This was also a record at the time, but was surpassed nearly 20 years later when Hanif Mohammad batted for more than 16 hours in scoring 337 for Pakistan against West Indies in Bridgetown in January 1958. Ball-by-ball information for this match can no longer be found, but the best guess is that Hanif survived until the 312th over of the innings.Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of the above answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma began SRH’s 2025 season with another rocket-propelled opening partnership

ESPNcricinfo staff23-Mar-20253:14

Cricinformed – SRH’s six-hitters set for a new IPL high?

125 for 0, Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Delhi Capitals, IPL 2024
Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma had one thing in mind – like they did when they rocketed Sunrisers Hyderabad to 277 for 3 and 287 for 3 earlier in the season – to maximise the powerplay. Head faced 26 of the 36 balls and smashed 84, which would make a good team score. Hard to wrap your head around that, yeah? Well, Abhishek Sharma struck at 400 at the other end. Yep, ten balls, 40 runs, five sixes and two fours. The first over was the least expensive, and that went for 19. Sunrisers finished their innings at 266 for 7.107 for 0, Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Lucknow Super Giants, IPL 2024
Travishek? Again? Yeah, and it won’t be the last time either. For a change, this didn’t come while batting first. Lucknow Super Giants had set them 166 to win, a par score in general, not if Head and Abhishek could help it, not even if K Gowtham gave away just eight runs in the first over. Of course not, 99 runs came off the next five overs, Gowtham’s following over went for 22. Five bowlers were tried, all of them were taken down for 13 fours and eight sixes in the first six. The target was chased down with 62 balls to spare with ten wickets in hand.105 for 0, Kolkata Knight Riders vs Royal Challengers Bangalore, IPL 2017
Chasing 159, KKR sprung a surprise by opening with pinch-hitter Sunil Narine, who many thought would drop back down the order with Chris Lynn returning from injury and Gautam Gambhir still around. It led to RCB being under attack from both ends. Lynn scored 14 runs in the first over and another 14 in the third, and then Narine smashed the fourth over for 26. By the end of the Powerplay, Narine had reached his fifty, the joint-fastest in IPL, while Lynn was on 49.100 for 2, Chennai Super Kings vs Kings XI Punjab, 2nd qualifying play-off, IPL 2014
The first 36 balls of Super Kings’ chase of 227 in a knock-out game featured the following – 87 runs off Suresh Raina’s bat alone, including 12 fours and six sixes, apart from two wickets in between. It was the first three-figure Powerplay score in IPL history, but it wasn’t enough as CSK lost by 24 runs.94 for 1, Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Rajasthan Royals, IPL 2025
New season, same old Travishek. It didn’t matter that they weren’t batting deep as they did the previous year. Coach Daniel Vettori had said SRH would be aggressive and that promise was delivered on day one. This was coming, and Rajasthan Royals, who had won the toss and chose to field, helped SRH’s cause. Head hit six fours to six different directions, and the sixes came over cow corner, long on, and backward point. Abhishek hit Fazalhaq Farooqi for five fours, Ishan Kishan hit five fours off Mahesh Theekshana.

Shades of Gilchrist’s indomitability, as England’s No.7 fulfils role that Buttler was once picked to produce

Matt Roller04-Jul-2025

Jamie Smith brought up a century inside a session•Getty Images

Jamie Smith is the Test wicketkeeper that England always hoped Jos Buttler would become but never did. As Smith muscled a slog-sweep away for four to reach an 80-ball century on Friday at Edgbaston, he equalled Buttler’s tally of two Test hundreds in 81 fewer innings; when Smith knocked Washington Sundar down to long-off, he went past Buttler’s highest score of 152.Smith has successfully harnessed the “f*** it” mindset that Buttler could never quite coax himself into during his 57-Test career, despite the prompt scrawled on his bat handle. Where Buttler seemed paralysed by indecision when faced with Test cricket’s blank canvas, Smith appears only to see the upside: he walked in on Friday to face a fired-up Mohammed Siraj, and crunched a hat-trick ball through mid-off for four.Buttler is England’s greatest-ever hitter of a white ball but his Test average of 31.94 – and, more pertinently, his strike rate of 54.18 – reflects an unfulfilled talent against the red one. But a week before his 25th birthday, Smith is the future of England’s batting across formats: a destructive white-ball opener and counter-attacking Test No. 7, while keeping wicket to boot.Related

The session when the cult of Bazball came alive

Smith hails belief to 'do what you feel is right in the moment'

His innings at Edgbaston was devastating, and seemed to scramble Shubman Gill’s mind in spite of India’s huge run cushion. England often talk about identifying moments to absorb pressure, or to put it back on to their opponents. Smith seized his chance to do the latter, ransacking cheap runs against India’s change bowlers.At Headingley last week, Smith’s first-innings dismissal seemed like anathema to traditional cricketing logic, pulling Prasidh Krishna to deep square-leg three balls before a new ball was due. But he insisted that it was a “calculated” play with designs on “taking all the momentum into the new ball”, and a failure of execution rather than planning.Jos Buttler had his moments as a Test batter but never looked at home in the format•PA Images via Getty ImagesHe responded by doubling down on his attacking instincts, crunching Ravindra Jadeja for 18 runs in an over to get them across the line in their fifth-day run case, including the winning hit over mid-on for six. At Edgbaston, he assessed a hopeless situation – England 503 behind with five wickets in hand – and determined that there was little point in hanging around.Gill laid the bait for Smith with another short-ball ploy, setting a six-three leg-side field with three men out on the hook. Smith responded by showing off his repertoire of pull shots: a hard, flat slap behind square; a full-blooded hoist into the stands; a wrist-roll through midwicket; and a flat-bat through mid-on as he jumped leg side. Prasidh’s over cost him 23 runs.Smith was empowered to keep on attacking, threading the gap between short cover and mid-off to hit Washington Sundar’s first two balls for four. When Gill fell into the familiar trap of spreading his field – with five boundary-riders for Washington – Smith reverted to simply milking singles, rotating strike at will in his mammoth stand with Harry Brook.Jamie Smith and Harry Brook put on a huge stand to lift England•ECB via Getty ImagesBy the time he reached his hundred – England’s equal third-fastest in Tests, after a slight slowdown left Gilbert Jessop’s record safe – Smith had only faced 26 balls from India’s two most threatening bowlers: 12 from Siraj and 14 from Akash Deep. Gill ought to have brought them back sooner, but Smith showed his game awareness by targeting the weaker links in a struggling attack.His partnership with Brook, worth 303, was a glimpse at the future of England’s batting line-up – not only in Tests, but across formats. Perhaps the most impressive aspect was their ability to change gears: after racing along in sixth before lunch, they slipped down into fourth in the middle session when India’s plans changed, as though cruising along in the middle lane.Since bulking up significantly 18 months ago, Smith has become an imposing presence at the crease. When he reached 174, he surpassed his Surrey mentor Alec Stewart to register the highest score by an England Test wicketkeeper: it could be some time before anyone else has the opportunity to beat Smith’s record.1:42

Aaron: Smith a serious batter across formats

A lower-order collapse – England’s Nos. 8-11 contributed five runs between them – denied Smith the chance to accelerate towards a double-hundred. He reached 184, his final score, with two straight blows off Akash Deep: the first, a crunched straight six, suggested a lucrative IPL contract is waiting for him; the second, a rasping four through mid-off, nearly took the bowler’s head off.Smith’s missed stumping off Rishabh Pant last week was a reminder that his keeping is not yet perfect, and in time England may well be tempted to pick him as a specialist batter. But there should be no immediate urge to change his role: Smith was fit enough to bat for five hours after 151 overs behind the stumps at Edgbaston, and showed the value of having a genuine game-changer down at No. 7.England spent the decade after Matt Prior’s retirement shuffling between wicketkeepers: Buttler, Jonny Bairstow and Ben Foakes all had their advocates, but none ever quite managed to make the role their own. The same charge cannot be levelled at Smith, who has made himself an automatic selection within a dozen Tests.Smith’s favourite player was Kevin Pietersen growing up, and there were shades of his idol in Birmingham: dominance against the short ball, disdain against spinners, and the innate self-assurance required to bat with such fearlessness. Whisper it, but England believe that Smith can be even better than his predecessors: this was an innings from the Adam Gilchrist playbook.