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Despite the defeat to Sri Lanka in the tri-series final, Graeme Cremer was positive about Zimbabwe’s overall performance through the series

Liam Brickhill in Bulawayo27-Nov-2016There was a kind of symmetry to this tri-series, which started and ended with a capitulation by Zimbabwe’s batsmen. The difference, for captain Graeme Cremer, was that this time around his team made Sri Lanka work much harder for their win. Defending 160, Zimbabwe took a wicket with the first legitimate delivery bowled and Sri Lanka toiled for 38 overs for their six-wicket victory.”When we went out there, we said even if they get our score one wicket down, we’ll make it as hard as we can for them,” Cremer said. “We weren’t going to go searching for the wickets, but we wanted to put them under pressure and make it the hardest 160 they’ve scored. That was our goal.”Cremer had Kusal Mendis caught in the deep for 57, while left-arm quick Brian Vitori – who was not originally part of Zimbabwe’s squad for this series – nipped out three wickets at the top of the order. Vitori’s was one of three surprising changes Zimbabwe made to their XI for this match. Malcolm Waller was brought back, without making much impact, but Tarisai Musakanda, the 21-year-old Mid-West Rhinos batsman, sprinted to an eye-catching 36 on debut.”We hadn’t really put on a big total [previously], so we felt that maybe just changing it up a little bit, and putting up something different to all the innings that Sri Lanka have had might work,” coach Heath Streak explained. “Musakanda is someone we’ve been holding back, but we just felt it was the right time. They didn’t know much about him, and he showed exactly what he’s got.”I think he’s got a bright future. I’m very happy with him. And then Vitori, we picked him for exactly what he showed today. We felt we needed him. (Dhananjaya) De Silva and (Kusal) Perera have been really damaging up front, and we got them both early, so that paid off.”Vitori had played for the Zimbabwe A side against Pakistan last month, before heading to Cape Town to fulfill a club contract. Because of this, he was not originally included in Zimbabwe’s tri-series squad, but had been training with the group since his return from South Africa. “He had a contract in Cape Town, and we’d wanted him to stay but he had to go down and fulfill that,” Streak explained. “But he managed to get back here, despite missing out on the Test series. And he’s been practising and bowling with us here in the nets with the boys, and giving all our batters a hard time, so we felt that maybe he could do that to the opposition.”Cremer admitted to have made a mistake by choosing to bat first•AFP

Cremer conceded that, in hindsight, bowling first might have been Zimbabwe’s best choice upon winning the toss. The weather forecast for the match hinted at rain, with the afternoon looking particularly iffy. As it turned out, Zimbabwe batted through gloomy low cloud and rain, while Sri Lanka’s batsmen had the benefit of bright sunshine that dried the pitch and eased batting conditions.”In hindsight, we probably could have bowled first,” Cremer said. “But the way it looked this morning, we thought it would only get worse or stay how it was. The wicket was a bit sticky this morning, so it took a lot of turn. But it looked really good to bat out there this afternoon. It’s just one of those things. We couldn’t predict that.”Unpredictable weather aside, Streak suggested that 240 would have been a defendable total on this pitch. “It was a wicket that over 600 runs had been scored on recently,” Streak said. “It was still quite dry, although obviously with a bit of rain, it got a little bit tacky. Despite that, no-one really got out, other than Masakadza, to an unplayable delivery.”It wasn’t a 300 wicket by any stretch of the imagination. We could have got to 240 or 250 if we’d batted a bit more sensibly, and if we’d done that it could have been a different story today. We’ve got to move on and take the good part of the series with us, and learn from the things that we didn’t do so well, and make sure we don’t repeat them in the future.”Despite Sunday’s defeat, Cremer was positive about Zimbabwe’s overall performance through this series. The hosts were able to knock West Indies out of the competition, while batsmen Sikandar Raza and Craig Ervine have found some form, averaging 54.33 and 36.75, respectively, across five innings.”We’re still trying to find the right combinations,” Cremer said. “Streaky has just come in [as coach]. I haven’t been captain for that long. So we’re trying to find the right XI for the conditions we play in, whether we go away or we play here. A lot of positives. We’ve got a lot of young guys coming through. Carl Mumba is a bright prospect. Musakanda of course. PJ Moor is still really young in international cricket, and we know he can play at this level. Raza played really well in a few innings. It’s good to see him back in a bit of form. Sean Williams showed signs today that he’s starting to get back into it. So we’re quite excited for the couple of months ahead.”Zimbabwe will – hopefully – be starting their domestic season at the beginning of December. Their next scheduled assignment is away, to Sri Lanka, in June, but coach Heath Streak insisted that other fixtures would be added to the calendar in the new year.”We’ve got some tours that we’re working on, between now and [Sri Lanka],” Streak said. “We’ll definitely have some cricket between now and the time we got to Sri Lanka next year. Guys have got provincial cricket, and we’ll get together as a national squad where opportunity arises. There is a lot of specific stuff that we want to work on and keep improving. I’ve spoken about fielding, but there are all sorts of things that we need to put in place. There will be a lot of cricket early next year.”

In a move away from hundreds of years of cricket tradition, there will be no mandatory toss in either division of the English County Championship in the 2016 season

ESPNcricinfo staff26-Nov-2015In a departure from hundreds of years of cricket tradition, there will be no mandatory toss in either division of the English County Championship in the 2016 season, after the ECB confirmed they were implementing an experiment to try to encourage the development of spin bowling.Instead of the toss, something that was recorded as taking place as far back as the 1700s, the visiting team will first have the choice of whether they want to field first. If they don’t wish to take up that option the toss will take place as it always has.There has been growing concern that the standard of pitches in county cricket – particularly in Division Two – is compromising the development of players. Specifically, the role of spinners has become marginalised on surfaces that sometimes provide extravagant help to medium-pace seamers while batsmen, fearful that they will receive an unplayable delivery sooner rather than later, have responded by playing more aggressively. As a result, some of the skills required to succeed in Test cricket – patience, discipline and consistency – have been lost.Initial reports about the move had centred on the trial being used only in Division Two of the Championship but, after a meeting of the ECB cricket committee at Lord’s on Thursday, it was decided to implement it across the board in four-day cricket.”By giving the away team the option of bowling first, we hope the home side will be encouraged to produce the best possible four-day pitch,” Peter Wright, the chairman of the cricket committee, said. “That will be good for cricket in general, and not only for spinners: batsmen should also benefit, from better pitches which will lead to them facing more spin bowling; and if pitches start drier, the ball may scuff up a bit more and produce more reverse swing.

Who is the ECB cricket committee?

Peter Wright (Chairman)
Alan Fordham (ECB Head of Cricket Operations)
Tom Harrison (ECB Chief Executive Officer)
Andrew Strauss (Director, England Cricket)
Angus Porter (Chief Executive – Professional Cricketers’ Association)
Rob Key (Kent captain)
David Leatherdale (Chief Executive – Worcestershire)
Mark Robinson (formerly Sussex’s Cricket Manager – recently appointed head coach of England Women)
Steve Garrett (First-Class umpire)
Andy Flower (ECB’s Technical Director of Elite Coaching) also attended at the committee’s invitation.

“It isn’t all about spin. There has been concern for some years about some Championship pitches. But it is fair to say that the plight of spin bowling in this country brought things into focus.”Of course counties want to win matches, and that generally means taking 20 wickets. That has to be a reason we have seen a lot of pitches that start a bit green and damp, and get better as the game goes on, rather than deteriorating to help the spinners. But another main function of the County Championship is to develop players for England. We don’t think it has been serving that purpose for spinners.”We did originally consider introducing this as a trial in one division only but, after further discussion and debate today, we have decided to extend this to both divisions of the County Championship. We believe this is an innovation which will be watched closely well beyond the County Championship. We will then need to assess how successful the trial has been at the end of the 2016 season before deciding whether to continue with this.”Peter Such, the ECB’s lead spin bowling coach, recently told ESPNcricinfo: “In overseas Test cricket somewhere between 46-48% of overs are bowled by spinners, but in county cricket that figure is around 20%.” At a couple of division two counties, that figure drops below 10% at home games.”The pitches tend to start damp, which makes them seam-bowler dominated and makes it very hard for spin bowlers to break through. We need to do more to encourage spin bowling.”

Tim Bresnan has Alastair Cook in his sights over the next two days at Lord’s as he attempts to secure a recall for the opening Test against New Zealand.

Andrew McGlashan13-May-2013Tim Bresnan has Alastair Cook in his sights over the next two days at Lord’s as he attempts to secure a recall for the opening Test against New Zealand. The England captain could be in for an uncomfortable time.Cook briefly netted against James Anderson and Stuart Broad on Monday but practice will go up in intensity on Tuesday with Bresnan keen to show that he is worth a starting place after recovering from the elbow problem that hampered him for much of the previous year.”I would not be surprised if the net rota goes up and I’m bowling at him,” Bresnan said. “I think that is one of the things Andy Flower likes to do.”He has taken 13 County Championship wickets at 27.07 for Yorkshire this season and believes he is back “as good as ever” after having a piece of bone removed from his right elbow. But he is still expected to be the 12th man when the coin goes up and that is something he is desperate to change over the next few days.”I am not here to carry the drinks,” he said. “I am here to play the game and throw my hat in the ring for selection. I think the next two days will tell the management and Cooky a lot about where I am at and what I can do.”I probably lost three or four yards of pace to be honest. I feel I have got that back. I can sit here and say whatever but it is just as easy to show everyone. I can spin a yarn and say it is all brilliant or I can just get on the park and show you what my pace is like. I have not been in front of a speed gun but it feels alright.”Bresnan has actually only missed England’s most recent three Tests having previously played in Nagpur. But at the conclusion of that match, where he went wicketless for the second time in the India series, he had taken two wickets at 210 in his last four outings dating back to the start of the South Africa series.Tim Bresnan is hoping his early-season form for Yorkshire counts in his favour ahead of the first Test•Getty Images

His last telling contribution with the red ball – his one-day form had not quite suffered in the same way, with 10 overs proving more manageable – had been against West Indies, at Trent Bridge, where he took the Man-of-the-Match award for eight wickets. At that point in his career he had 52 wickets at 25.46 and his 13 Tests had all been England victories.But for him to plot a route back into the Test team for the first match of the season he will need to get past Steven Finn, who took six wickets in his last outing in Auckland, although those figures flattered him. Finn has not been at his best for Middlesex this season with seven wickets at 39.57 in three matches, which is one more appearance than either Broad or Anderson after the ECB made Finn available against Warwickshire.Just as these next few days are important for Bresnan, they are equally so for Finn. His Test record – 80 wickets at 29.60 – is far from poor, but he has yet to completely convince that he has found his stride. The work on his run-up has played a part and he was back to the longer version at Edgbaston last week, suggesting the switch has not gone entirely to plan.In Finn’s favour, when it comes to a head-to-head with Bresnan, is an impressive record at Lord’s (his home ground) where he has taken 25 wickets at 21.44 in four Tests. That included his maiden five-wicket haul against Bangladesh in 2010 and eight wickets in the match against South Africa last year in what was his most consistent Test appearance. Bresnan, by contrast, has five wickets at 66.00 from his three appearances at Lord’s.Yet, the fact that Bresnan is already back in the Test reckoning is a credit to his hard work which included a spell at the National Sports Centre at Bisham Abbey. Bresnan admitted he was not “deep thinker” about life, but conceded to a few uneasy thoughts before he had the operation after the one-day series in India.”A couple of hours before the operation you think this could go one or two ways,” he said. “I might never play for England or cricket again or I might be back better than ever. You have to weigh up that risk and then decide yes, put in the effort and get on with it again.”So far, that effort has been worth every hour of rehab and painful gym sessions. Now he aims to make life tough for a few of his team-mates.

Andrew Strauss retains the belief he can return to being a force in Test cricket despite again failing to convert two starts in Galle

Andrew McGlashan29-Mar-2012Andrew Strauss retains the belief he can return to being a force in Test cricket despite again failing to convert two starts in Galle as England slumped to a fourth straight defeat.Strauss contributed 26 and 27 in England’s two innings during their 75-run loss but insisted he feels in good form. He hasn’t scored a Test hundred since Brisbane at the start of the 2010-11 Ashes – now 16 Tests ago – and the pressure has been increased by the manner of his dismissals. In the first innings he tried to sweep a delivery that was too full and in the second whipped Rangana Herath to short midwicket when trying to go over the top.”At the moment it is frustrating me as much as anyone,” he said. “I’m hitting the ball nicely and feel in good form but you’re judged on your performances and I’ve not performed well enough. Hopefully I will put it right next week.”Sometimes it goes with the territory and you go through periods where you can’t kick on for whatever reason and then you get through it, release a barrier and you get some big scores in a row.”Strauss is now 35 but strongly resisted suggestions that time was catching up with his batting. “If you keep getting to 30 then I don’t think it is a terminal decline, unless you’re very unfit, which I don’t think is the case with me,” he said. “My job in the side is to score runs and I haven’t done that as much as I would have liked over the last 12 months or so, but I want to put it right next week.”He has only been dropped once during his Test career and that was when he missed the previous tour of Sri Lanka in 2007, having failed to recover from a difficult 2006-07 Ashes series. This time his position comes with the added weight of the captaincy but, understandably midway through a series, talk of his future was off the agenda.”Questions about my position are just not something I’m going to answer in the middle of the series. My focus is very much on winning the next game and it would be wrong to think of anything else.”Collectively, too, England continue to struggle and have posted 300 just once in four Tests this year. Again it was the first innings that proved really costly, slumping to 192 and conceding a 125-run lead to Sri Lanka. Strauss wanted to offer up something positive after Jonathan Trott’s second-innings hundred gave the team hope, but it wasn’t an easy task.”It is hard to say we’re making progress having lost four in a row,” he said. “I think individually people’s gameplans against spin have come on but we haven’t showed it out in the middle. If you want to win Test matches you need to get runs on the board and we haven’t done that. In the fourth innings you can understand the odd dismissal but we had less of an excuse in our first innings.”Another potential headache is an injury to Stuart Broad who was suffering from a tight right calf on the fourth day. He was clearly limping during his brief second innings but England are waiting to do a further assessment.Broad entered the Test having picked up an injury to his left ankle slipping on the boundary rope before the first warm-up match. He was passed as fully fit for the match but was slightly below his best, bowling eight no-balls – one of which cost England the wicket of Prasanna Jayawardene on the third day when Sri Lanka’s lead was a slightly more manageable 292.Edited by Alan Gardner

Kyle Mills, the New Zealand seamer, has been ruled out of the remainder of the World Cup with an injury and will be replaced by left-arm fast bowler Andy McKay

ESPNcricinfo staff26-Mar-2011Kyle Mills, the New Zealand seamer, has been ruled out of the remainder of the World Cup with an injury and will be replaced by left-arm fast bowler Andy McKay.Mills was not one of New Zealand’s first-choice seamers in the early stages of the tournament, but Hamish Bennett’s injury gave him his opportunity. Mills played in three matches, but suffered a quadricep strain in the last of those games, against Canada, on March 13. He missed the quarter-final victory against South Africa, and although his injury had improved, he would not be fully fit in time to play the semifinal on March 29.Despite not being in the XI, Mills was involved in a mid-pitch confrontation when he carried the drinks during South Africa’s chase in Mirpur. Mills exchanged words with South Africa batsman Faf du Plessis following the run-out of AB de Villiers, and has been fined for breaching the ICC code of conduct.McKay, 30, was a part of New Zealand’s disastrous tour of the subcontinent late last year. He will join the squad in Colombo on March 27, two days ahead of the semi-final, where New Zealand will play the winner of the Sri Lanka v England quarter-final clash. McKay is the second replacement player in the New Zealand side, after Daryl Tuffey, who came in for Bennett.

Raymond van Schoor and Ewaid Steenkamp Intercontinental Shield record opening stand of 374 helped Namibia complete a crushing innings victory over Bermuda in the Intercontinental Shield match in Windhoek

Cricinfo staff05-Apr-2010Namibia 583 for 8 dec (Steenkamp 206, van Schoor 157) beat Bermuda 214 (Hemp 52, Verwey 5-46) and 184 (Hemp 65, Klazinga 5-45) by an innings and 185 runs.

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Raymond van Schoor and Ewaid Steenkamp’s 374-run opening partnership helped Namibia complete a crushing innings victory over Bermuda in the Intercontinental Shield match in Windhoek.Namibia take the full 20 points on offer and move second in the table, nine points behind Uganda after winning a match they dominated from the off. Bermuda were bowled out for 214 after winning the toss and opting to bat first with captain David Hemp, the former Warwickshire batsman, the only man to put up any fight. He scrapped his way to 52, but wickets kept tumbling around him as Bermuda collapsed from 173 for 3. Tobias Verwey was the pick of the bowlers, collecting 5-46, his maiden five wicket haul.What looked a below-par total turned out to be barely credible as van Schoor and Steenkamp set about building Namibia’s response. Without taking undue risk the pair marched relentlessly past the Bermuda total, with both openers making centuries on their way to a record stand in Intercontinental Shield cricket. It was Steenkamp’s first hundred at first-class level and he cashed in, converting to 206. The partnership finally ended when van Schoor fell to Foggo for 157. The pair had added 374 in 84.5 overs and had almost made the match a formality for Namibia.Craig Williams, the Namibia captain, made the most of the damaged morale, punishing all the bowlers on his way to a 74-ball 110 not out. In total he hit nine fours and three sixes, sharing a 76-run stand with Verwey to push the score to 583 before declaring 369 ahead.It was a mountain Bermuda were unlikely to climb and when they lost their openers in quick succession to leave them 25 for 2, there looked no route back. Once again Hemp provided the only resilience, making the most of his first-class experience that stretches back to 1991, to score his second battling half-century of the match, ending with 65 off 86 balls. Louis Klazinga chipped his way through the Bermuda line-up to collect 5 for 45 and deliver his side their first win of the tournament.

“We have to take responsibility,” Charith Asalanka says of Dasun Shanaka and himself after they fell off back-to-back deliveries at a crucial stage of the game

Andrew Fidel Fernando24-Sep-20251:39

What went wrong for Sri Lanka’s batters?

The back-to-back wickets in the eighth over of Sri Lanka’s innings swung this Asia Cup Super Four match towards Pakistan – this was how Sri Lanka captain Charith Asalanka, who was the first of the two batters to be dismissed in that passage, saw it.Sri Lanka had been 58 for 3 after 7.1 overs, when Asalanka was caught at deep square-leg off the bowling of Hussain Talat. Next ball, Dasun Shanaka poked at a delivery in the channel and sent a thin edge to the wicketkeeper. Sri Lanka were suddenly five down with more than 60% of the overs remaining. The limped to 133 for 8 in the end.”Although we didn’t get a great start from the openers, at the end of the powerplay we still had 53 runs. We’d lost three wickets, but we were still in a good place, because it’s not easy to score that many in the powerplay,” Asalanka said. “But then myself and Dasun got out off successive deliveries, and that was when the biggest damage was done.Related

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“Neither Dasun or I were going for big shots when we got out. I was trying to put the ball into a gap, but ended up top-edging it. Dasun also played a normal shot first up. But we have to take responsibility.”That Sri Lanka managed to have something to bowl at was down to Kamindu Mendis, who hit 50 off 44 balls, with support from Wanindu Hasaranga and Chamika Karunaratne.”We lost five wickets in the first half of our innings, and against these kinds of teams it’s really hard to come back from that,” Asalanka said. “Kamindu and the others fought hard, but Wanindu also got out at a bad time, when it had felt like we could get to 150. In the end it was not enough.”Sri Lanka are very nearly out of the tournament now, having suffered two big losses in the Super Four stage. They had strengthened their bowling for this match, dropping Kamil Mishara for Karunaratne. Asalanka identified balancing his team as perhaps the primary problem facing Sri Lanka ahead of next year’s T20 World Cup.”We’ve had lots of issues with our combinations, and that’s something we have to get right ahead of the World Cup,” he said. “We tried going with an extra bowler today, but we lost a specialist batsman because of that, and didn’t score the runs we needed. Other times we’ve played an extra batsman and couldn’t defend a score with the ball.”We need to figure out how to consistently score 180 to 200, and also how to use the part-time bowlers – myself, Dasun, Kamindu Mendis – better. Those are things we need to improve in the future.”

Defending champions take all 24 points with ruthless display at Canterbury

ECB Reporters Network22-Apr-2024Surrey have beaten Kent by an innings and 37 runs in the Vitality County Championship at Canterbury.The reigning champions dismissed the hosts for 262 in their second innings, with Dan Worrall taking 4 for 31 and Cameron Steel, claiming 3 for 38. Steel remains the leading wicket-taker in the country this season, with 20 after three matches.Joey Evison made 53 and Matt Parkinson hit his highest first-class score of 39. But after a dogged rearguard action that saw them through the morning session, Kent subsided midway through the afternoon.The hosts were 120 for 5 overnight, still 179 runs in arrears, and their slim hopes of batting out the day were dealt a near-fatal blow when Ben Compton was out in the fifth over of the morning. Compton, unbeaten on eight overnight, chased a Worrall delivery that veered away and was caught behind.The home crowd, however, were pleasantly surprised by the way Evison and Parkinson survived the rest of the morning. Parkinson, promoted up the order to number eight, had spent the winter working on his batting as part of a concerted effort to shore up Kent’s lower order. Although there were a few alarms, by lunch Kent had reached 203 for six at lunch and the impossible now seemed merely improbable.Evison, however, fell to Tom Lawes in the afternoon’s third over. He cut Lawes for fours off successive boundaries to reach his half-century but then edged him behind.With Evison gone, Kent crumbled. George Garrett was lbw to Steel for four and Jas Singh went for a duck when Jamie Smith took a brilliant catch at short leg off the same bowler.Number 11 Arafat Bhuiyan had some fun with the new ball, flicking three consecutive balls from Kemar Roach for a six and two fours on his way to his highest championship score of 22 not out, making him the fourth Kent tail-ender to reach that personal landmark in this match, after Garrett and Singh hit their career-best scores in the first innings.This merely delayed Surrey’s celebrations, however, and an emphatic victory was sealed when Smith took another exceptional close catch to snare Parkinson off Kemar Roach. Surrey take 24 points and Kent two.

Dhawan’s elevation was approved on Wednesday during a board meeting and was backed by Trevor Bayliss, Kings’ new head coach

Nagraj Gollapudi02-Nov-2022Shikhar Dhawan is set to replace Mayank Agarwal as captain of Punjab Kings from IPL 2023. ESPNcricinfo has learnt that Dhawan’s elevation was approved on Wednesday during a franchise board meeting and was backed by Trevor Bayliss, Kings’ newly appointed head coach.Dhawan, 36, will take over from Agarwal who was appointed captain just before IPL 2022. Agarwal was one of two players – Arshdeep Singh being the other – who had been retained by Kings ahead of the mega auction, where Dhawan was the first player they bought.Earlier this year, Kings paid INR 8.25 crore (US$1.1 million approx.) to pick Dhawan, who has been among the most consistent batters since the 2016 IPL. He had a stellar 2020 season where he scored 618 runs at a strike rate of nearly 145 for Delhi Capitals, who had traded him in from Sunrisers Hyderabad. In his first season for Kings, Dhawan scored 460 runs in 14 matches with an average of 38.33 and a strike rate of 122.66.Agarwal joined the Punjab franchise in 2018 and forged a strong opening pairing with KL Rahul, the captain till last season. His elevation up from the ranks coincided with a dip in form though. Agarwal scored just 196 runs in 13 matches at an average of 16.33. The team didn’t do very well either. Kings ended the season in sixth place. Former India head coach Ravi Shastri, during his stint on ESPNcricinfo’s T20 Time:Out programme, was the first leading voice to suggest that Agarwal needed to be relieved of captaincy.Dhawan is among the most experienced players in the IPL having been part of it since the inaugural season in 2008. He has also been leading second-string India teams in ODIs, with his next assignment a three-match series in New Zealand. Overall in IPL, Dhawan has been captain in 11 matches (ten at Sunrisers in 2014 and one for Kings last year) with four wins and seven losses.It remains to be seen whether Kings will retain or release Agarwal. Franchises have until November 15 to submit a list of the players they want to keep ahead of the next IPL. While Kings settled with Agarwal to pay him a salary of INR 12 crore, as per the IPL retention rules, 18 crore was deducted from their overall purse – 14 crore for Agarwal and 4 crore for Arshdeep, who was uncapped at the time.

He suffered a quadriceps tear during a run of five T20 games in the space of eight days

Matt Roller01-Aug-2021Ollie Pope remains a fitness doubt for England’s first Test against India at Trent Bridge, which starts on Thursday, and has suggested that Surrey’s relentless Vitality Blast schedule was to blame for his injury.Pope suffered a grade three quadriceps tear during a run of five T20 games in the space of eight days during Surrey’s T20 Blast group stage run-in, immediately after a period of self-isolation after he was a close contact of someone who tested positive for Covid-19.The injury ruled him out of their last two Blast games, two County Championship fixtures – meaning he has not played a first-class game since the second Test against New Zealand in early June – and the early stages of the Hundred, and a decision is yet to be made about his availability for the first India Test.Related

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• Ollie Pope to miss four Surrey Blast fixtures

“I’ve been hitting a lot of balls just trying to get as much running as I can done as possible and I guess in a day or two a decision will be made,” Pope said on Sunday. “I’m hopeful, but I guess it’s up to physios and management to manage the risk of it.”At the time it was a grade three tear, but I think it looked worse on the scan because I played a couple of T20s on it – after I’d done it – so the swelling was worse than a grade three. Then it’s just about how I’m sprinting – I’m feeling it a little bit but nothing major. It’s just trying to make sure if I did play this one there’s not going to be issues for the next four if selected.”Pope is used to spending long periods out injured following lengthy lay-offs with two shoulder injuries over the last two years, and admitted that it was “frustrating” to have missed so much cricket.”I think the shoulder ones are even more frustrating because there’s not a lot you can do: you give 100% in the field and suddenly you’re left with two shoulder operations,” he said. “I guess this is a more short-term one. It is frustrating, especially when you’re missing games because I just want to play the whole time.”With the schedule, I think we played five T20s in seven [eight] days after I had to do 10 days sitting on the couch isolating as a close contact. Going from 10 days on a couch to five games in seven days is always going to provide a little risk. It is frustrating but hopefully I’ll sort this quad out and that’s the end of it.”As English cricket, the county set-up plays a lot more cricket than any other. I was speaking with Kyle Jamieson, the New Zealander, and they don’t play anywhere near as many games there, especially in that little T20 period. It is a lot of cricket but if it is possible, you’ve just got to try and manage it as best you can.”Ollie Pope: ‘I’ve been hitting a lot of balls just trying to get as much running as I can done as possible’•Getty Images

Pope made a brilliant 135 not out against South Africa in January 2020 to reinforce his status as English cricket’s most promising young batter, but has struggled for runs in Test cricket since, averaging 25.17 with only two fifties since the start of last summer. His county form has remained impressive, with 555 Championship runs at 61.66 this season, but his technique – and in particular his off-stump guard – have come under scrutiny from analysts and pundits.”You’ve got to get used to it,” he said. “When I was first playing, you looked at how I got out and people would say I should stand a little further across and it would help me leave that fifth-stump ball. Then you stand a little further across and get hit on the pad once and suddenly you’re standing too far across.”It’s an interesting one. You’ve got to be pretty stubborn as a cricketer in this environment. You’ve got to work out what’s best for you against these specific bowlers in these conditions and work with your coaches and who knows you best rather than guys who have seen you bat on TV two or three times.”With that technique that I use, I think I average 60-odd for Surrey this year batting like that against international bowlers, so there’s obviously some sort of use behind it as well. Everyone has got their opinions which is absolutely fine, but you’ve got to know your game better than everyone else.”As long as your balance is good, if you can cover that off stump with your eyes level, it helps you leave that fifth-stump ball. Especially in England where the ball does swing and nip around, you need to do what you can to cover one side of the bat. Hence why a lot of the best players of the world, when they come over, that’s where they stand in Test cricket.”Pope admitted that the absence of Ben Stokes – who is spending an indefinite period of time away from the game to focus on his mental wellbeing – represented “a blow” for England, but said that the team supported his decision to miss the India series.”Stokesy is one of, if not the, best allrounder in the world so you’re always going to miss him if he’s not playing,” he said. “But we’re well behind him with that decision and I wish him to be the best he can as soon as he can.”We, as a nation, and the world, look at Stokesy as a real macho fighter character – and he is. But this is a reminder and shows how mentally straining cricket and sport at the highest level can be, and the situation of being in a bubble away from the family does make that tougher.”We all support him 100 percent and would love to get him back as soon as we can, but I think mental health is much more important than a game.”