One of the most infamous deliveries in the history of the game came at a time of significant upheaval in Australian cricket

01-Feb-2021 Bradman & Packer: The Deal That Changed Cricket, Greg Chappell has a simple way of summing up the change in the game over the Australian summers that followed – a recitation of how much cricket he found himself playing before, during and after WSC [World Series Cricket]. In 1976-77, pre-WSC, he walked onto the field for 42 days of cricket, including two one-day matches. Wearing the WSC cap, he turned out for 44 and 43 days, with a far higher proportion of one-dayers (14 and 28). It was for this sort of summer’s work that the players had been seeking a better deal in the first place.”We weren’t looking to become professional cricketers in the sense of playing cricket full-time,” he says. “We still fully expected and probably wanted to have a career outside of cricket, but we just wanted a better return. When you’re committing anywhere between six and nine months of the year to cricket, for a lot of the guys that was their sole income, so it was pretty tough. That’s why blokes were finishing up in their mid- to late-20s, particularly if they had a family they just couldn’t afford to keep doing it.”But when peace arrived, Chappell found himself confronted with a schedule that felt rather a lot like serving two masters. In 1979-80, his calendar featured 46 days of long-form cricket and 10 of one-day matches, a figure reduced by Australia’s failure to qualify for the World Series Cup finals. Even so, back-to-back Tests was a concept learned the hard way: twice in 1979-80, two full Test matches were separated by the bare minimum of one day to travel from city to city. The following summer, Chappell found himself playing 62 days of Test and first-class cricket, plus no fewer than 18 one-day games; in the space of five seasons, his playing demands had effectively doubled, though the length of season itself had not.”The first season after WSC we were playing alternate Test matches against West Indies and England,” Chappell says. “Bruce Laird had his hand broken against the West Indies and couldn’t play against England. We couldn’t understand why England would get the benefit of what West Indies had done. We were playing Test matches intertwined with one-day games, there was no flow to the season, adjusting from one format to another. We played all the double-headers in the one-day matches– Saturday and Sunday we were playing two days in a row. It was hard enough from the playing point of view but exceedingly demanding from a captaincy point of view. Two one-day games in a row were physically and mentally more demanding than a Test match. The workload on key players was immense, and towards the end of a season they were pretty much exhausted.”

“By the time Chappell had regained some small measure of public esteem by making 87 to guide his team home in the decisive fourth final on the Tuesday night, the prospect of any further underarms had been written out of existence in the World Series Cup playing conditions.”

Professionalism had hit Australia’s cricketers hard. Where they once imagined themselves playing and practising more like golfers, they found the new deal to resemble that of a sweatshop, which just so happens to be a useful way of describing the MCG on Sunday, 1 February, 1981. Chappell’s decision to direct his brother Trevor to bowl an underarm delivery to spoil any chance of a New Zealand victory has been dissected at length since, but it cannot be divorced from the explosion in the demands on Australia’s cricketers. Chappell, a tired professional, and frustrated by the poor state of the MCG square, made a call designed to earn an extra day or two off for him and his team.Those at the ground have recalled the selector Sam Loxton’s tears at what had taken place, but it was Richie Benaud’s excoriation of Chappell’s captaincy that, via the Nine broadcast, has been seared into many more memories: “I think it was a disgraceful performance from a captain who got his sums wrong today, and I think it should never be permitted to happen again. We keep reading and hearing that the players are under a lot of pressure, and that they’re tired and jaded and perhaps their judgment and skill is blunted. Perhaps they might advance that as an excuse for what happened out there today. Not with me they don’t. I think it was a very poor performance, one of the worst things I have ever seen done on a cricket field. Goodnight.”It was to be Bradman, ears still ringing from those sentiments, who retired to his study at 2 Holden Street to hurriedly amend the World Series Cup playing conditions for the Board ahead of the next match of the finals series, to be played in Sydney – a favour, perhaps, for his fellow SACA committeeman and by then ACB chairman Phil Ridings. By the time Chappell had regained some small measure of public esteem by making 87 to guide his team home in the decisive fourth final on the Tuesday night, the prospect of any further underarms had been written out of existence in the World Series Cup playing conditions.What had not, however, were PBL’s [Publishing and Broadcasting Limited] scheduling demands, which came with the stinging knowledge for the ACB that every match under the minimum “15 preliminaries and five finals” World Series Cup model required the Board to pay a fee in recognition of the shortfall. After England had baulked at PBL’s 15/5 outline for the previous season, the one-day tournament had been reduced to 12 qualifying matches and a best-of- three finals. The underarm incident came at the end of the first summer in which the 12/3 tournament was played.Chappell’s frustration with the program was clear. “As I tried to explain to them at the time, your business depends on us having a reasonable amount of success, and everything in the programming is working against us being successful over the long term,” Chappell says. “We need to sit down and talk about how we can make it more equitable. The opposition teams were playing three Test matches and we were playing six. We were having problems with the MCG pitch – 1977 was the last decent pitch I played on in my career at the MCG. It was just a mess for the next seven years.Forty years on, the incident is still talked about•Associated Press”We were told, ‘Oh well it’s the same for all teams’. Well it’s not because we play there twice as much as everyone else. ‘Well you’re making the same scores at the MCG as you’re making elsewhere’. But you’re missing the point: on a big ground like that, if we had a decent pitch we’d be making 50 per cent more runs on that ground than we would be elsewhere. You want to have something that’s entertaining, and you’re making us play on something that is very difficult to entertain on.”Chappell’s meetings with [David] Richards, [Lynton] Taylor, Ridings and others, whether as part of the cricket committee or solo as the national captain, seemed, to him, to go around in circles. What he interpreted to be a lack of interest in helping the players with their many complaints could now be seen as an inability on the Board’s side to change many of the stipulations inked into the PBL peace treaty. And Chappell would reason that even if the players had taken a greater consulting role in the terms that were ultimately struck, they would have been doing so without genuine awareness of what lay ahead.”I was meeting with David Richards on what almost seemed like a daily basis–very regularly. Every time I saw him we had discussions around those sorts of issues, and I got the distinct impression – not from David, who I thought genuinely tried to help us – there was an overhang of the old attitude that they’re players, they should just get on with playing and we’ll do the administering. They just didn’t understand either before or after World Series Cricket that what they did had a huge impact on us. We certainly had more input, we had a players’ committee, but I don’t know how much influence we had on the big decisions. I think the smaller stuff, sure, but the deal had been done behind closed doors.”Rather than pushing himself further, Chappell chose to partially withdraw. He resigned the post of selector handed to him as one of the terms of the peace treaty, and did not venture to England for the 1981 Ashes tour, heralding an unhappy period of shared captaincy with Kim Hughes, the establishment’s choice as leader over the eminently capable but outspoken Rod Marsh. is published by the Slattery Media Group

The inside story of a champion team’s phoenix-like rise to win their fourth domestic 50-over title

Shashank Kishore16-Mar-2021Even as Mumbai sank to four defeats in five matches at the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, things were going from bad to worse at the Mumbai Cricket Association, whose scrap with the Cricket Improvement Committee was out in the open. Who the coach would be was a big bone of contention.It wouldn’t be Amit Pagnis. He was done after the T20 tournament. So, Ramesh Powar, after a convoluted and messy process, took charge 48 hours after the team was to depart for the Vijay Hazare Trophy. He has now helmed Mumbai to their fourth domestic 50-overs title.Powar’s appointment meant Mumbai had a fourth coach in the last three years. Pagnis, his predecessor, had been a late replacement for former wicketkeeper Vinayak Samant, under whom they won the Vijay Hazare Trophy in 2018-19 but had a poor Ranji Trophy. Samant had been brought in after Sameer Dighe was let go after one season. The churn threatened to take the focus completely away from the cricket.Even as the MCA and the CIC squabbled in full public view, Aditya Tare, one of their senior players, found to his shock that he had been given no explanation for his omission from the Vijay Hazare Trophy longlist. It wasn’t until Powar’s intervention that Tare was picked again. On Sunday, Tare scored his maiden List-A century in a tall chase as Mumbai beat Uttar Pradesh in the final to break a streak of six tournaments without a trophy. It capped a remarkable turnaround for a team that appeared to have been in the doldrums only six weeks earlier.”There was a lot of stuff happening,” Tare tells ESPNcricinfo of the state of flux Mumbai were in. “There was no camp, then the results in the Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Senior players had an axe on them, they were called a lot of things. It was like we were humiliated. A lot of remarks were passed, questions raised about the future of certain individuals. It was tough.”On his very first day on the job, Powar knew cricket was far off, and there was a crisis to be resolved first. “Total chaos, crisis, and I like such a situation,” Powar says of his first thoughts as he linked up with the team. “In a way, when things are so bad, the only way is up. Everyone’s character shines through in a crisis. It’s easier to take over a team in chaos because everyone has that fire of wanting to fight back and answer the critics, even if they may not admit to it openly. I could see that with this group too.”Related

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A tough talker, Powar gave no illusions to the team in his first chat with them at the Wankhede Stadium before departure. “They were low, disappointed with themselves that they’d let the Mumbai brand of cricket down. It was difficult to pick them up initially,” Powar says.Tare remembers having a sense of focus as they regrouped. “Ramsy (Powar) openly declared confidence into players. He said: ‘once I back a player, I will back long-term.’ That told the players he’s not someone who will throw you out after two games. That feeling affects the mentality of a player and the squad. He addressed that in the first meeting itself, after which he did a lot of one-on-one work during our quarantine since we couldn’t go out to train.”Once the talking was done, it was time to make the most of their two training sessions before the tournament. The focused vibe appeared to trickle down to the entire group. It began with the side being punctual for the nets, meetings and team events. Training sessions intense and structured.”We told them, we will give them whatever they needed, infrastructure-wise and support-wise, but [we] expect the best, in terms of attitude and performance,” Powar says. “They understood it wasn’t just fun and games anymore.”Not initially in Mumbai’s longlist of players, Aditya Tare went on to score a match-winning hundred in the final•Aditya TareIyer, Suryakumar, Tare, Thakur play mentorsThe one-on-ones were about setting expectations, prioritizing the first XI, clarifying every player’s role and asking the senior group of five players – Tare, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Dhawal Kulkarni and Shardul Thakur – to play a mentorship role. They warmed up to it so seriously that even on the day of the final, hours before Iyer, Suryakumar and Shardul took the field for India in a T20I, they sent motivating messages to the entire team.”We told each of them where they stand and if they fit into our scheme of things presently, [and] if not, what we’ve got planned for them,” Powar says of the planning. “Some players were insecure, so you had to give them that confidence. Like for Tare, I told him you will play the entire tournament. I wanted Dhawal to be the bowling leader. The message for the batsmen was, you have freedom but there is responsibility too.”If you hit fifty, I don’t want you to be satisfied with it. Also, youngsters came with a fearless attitude. Mohit Avasthi, for example, wasn’t in the first 15 but we gave him a chance because we saw a good attitude in the nets and rewarded him for it. That motivated a lot of guys.”Powar’s brand of cricket is one of aggression. “On a seaming track, 10 overs, none for 30 is not useful,” he says. “You may as well go for 50 runs and get us three wickets. On turning tracks, you can’t get away bowling under-cutters, you need to go for wickets. I made it clear that winning doesn’t matter, the brand of cricket matters, and you must be a match-winner, you must make a difference. Even when we won, we were critical in our assessment of the players in private. Everything was straightforward. It changed the entire outlook of the team.”‘Show players what they can be, not what they are’In a way, Powar’s challenge was multifold because he was appointed for just one tournament in a pandemic year. With all of two sessions to find a winning blueprint, it could have been intimidating. Would Powar’s methods have been different if he’d been given a three-year vision instead?”One month or three years, my approach would’ve been the same,” he says. “I have learnt a lot of things under Rahul Dravid during my stint at the NCA as one of the assistant coaches. One of the things is, you don’t show a player what he is, but show him what he can be. It’s not about timeframe but how you manage people, right from the support staff to curators to administrators to junior players.”Outside of the cricket, I learnt plenty on the human behavioural aspect. See, you can have an easy way out and say ‘I can’t do anything in one month’ or just say, ‘give me 10 days and I’ll do this.’ For me, Mumbai’s reputation was at stake and our brand of cricket was going down, that is why I jumped in. I thought there was a possibility of me being able can turn this around. So yes, three years or one month, no worries. This change in mindset has changed my thought process of head coach.”The human behavioural aspect that Powar refers to is quite revealing. Player management, he admits, has become an important part of his coaching blueprint. In 2019, his short tenure as head coach of India Women ended after he was embroiled in a controversy over not picking Mithali Raj, the women’s ODI captain, for the T20 World Cup semi-final in the Caribbean. Raj had accused Powar of trying to “destroy” her career, and Powar responded by saying Raj had threatened to retire if she was not allowed to open.Powar reflects on that episode and believes the experience has made him handle situations better. “There’s no right or wrong,” he says. “My heart was clear, and I’ve learnt many ways to handle situations. One of the things is you don’t have to be proactive all the time, you can be subtle at times. There are different ways to convey certain things, it’s a learning process.”With time and knowledge, you gain from experienced people around you, you think ‘I may have done this little differently,’ but now I know, I have to have 20 methods to handle players, you can’t have just one method or two methods. That’s what I’ve learnt.”Shaw smashed 827 runs, the most in a single edition of the Vijay Hazare Trophy•PTI Project Prithvi ShawSo how did Powar handle Prithvi Shaw? Dropped after one poor Test in Australia, Shaw admitted to having felt some loneliness on tour, even as the rest of the world dissected his batting technique. Back to the Mumbai set-up as captain after Iyer left midway through the tournament on national duty, Shaw turned a corner and responded by smashing 827 runs, the most in a single edition of the Vijay Hazare Trophy. He became the first player in List A history to make three 150-plus scores in a single series or tournament when he made 227*, 185* and 165 in his first three matches as captain.”In Jaipur, we [support staff] and Shaw had a one-to-one. I asked him what he wants from us,” Powar says. “We told him what’s expected of him. I said ‘look, you’re a senior player in this squad, I want you to inspire young players’ and in the end, I asked him what he wanted us to give him. He just wanted to keep the dressing room light and have good vibes. You could sense how he wanted to be around people, mingle with them. Maybe the loneliness did get to him, so having people around him who resonate with his ideas, really was a big plus.”The way we structured practice you could see the change from the first session. He was happy with the atmosphere around, he batted for 15-20 minutes and then bowled at young batsmen like Yashasvi Jaiswal. Yes, technique-wise he was agitated, even disturbed. He said, ‘my hands are going away [from my body], I have to get it closer, it won’t come easy, but I will keep working on it in the room, trying to shadow practice my downswing.’ But as much as it was about the technique, it was also about getting his mind right and getting him to understand why he needed to do certain things. Once that was sorted, he was clear.”Before the final when we trained, he didn’t bat at all. He bowled two hours to everyone with the sidearm. He likes to create an atmosphere where everyone is relaxed, everyone gets something out. He went through patches where he was alone, so he wanted to be there for everyone. I didn’t know about him sobbing [after getting dropped in Australia] initially even though I got the feeling, talking to him later. You could see he didn’t want to be alone, he wanted to mix with everyone. He was throwing at the batters not playing, not even in contention. Even the guys in the last seven.”‘It’s okay if I don’t bat, give Jaiswal enough practice’ – SarfarazOne of the things Powar wanted to inculcate was to get players talking more, and taking the onus on themselves. Team meetings, he says, were driven by the senior players to begin with. Youngsters would often be asked for their ideas, given situations, and asked how they’d approach it. One of the particularly engaging group sessions involved a debate with the team splitting themselves into Team Lionel Messi v Team Cristiano Ronaldo, depending on who they liked.Aditya Tare is chaired off the field by his team-mates after scoring a match-winning century in the final•Aditya Tare”That was fun,” Powar says. “You could see them become lively and intense; it was as if you had unlocked something. They were fiercely debating, backed it with data, trophies they’ve won, what they did in which championship. It mirrored the on-field intensity. They were close, and even if everyone can’t be friends all the time, you could say it got them closer.”Powar uses Jaiswal’s example to underline this. “Yashasvi is a kind of player who plays thousands of balls at the nets, but because of quarantine restrictions and severe time crunch, he couldn’t have the same level of build-up,” Powar says. “You could see he was struggling for timing, struggling for runs. Before the quarter-final against Saurashtra, Sarfaraz Khan knocked on my room and said: ‘Sir, I think Yashasvi is struggling, I think you should give him more batting. Even if it means my batting time is slightly reduced.'”Now, I was surprised at his maturity of knowing what’s best for the team at a given moment, even though Sarfaraz himself hadn’t got too many opportunities to bat. It was particularly refreshing because Jaiswal and Sarfaraz are completely different individuals. Because of that, they’re not the best of friends. But for the team’s sake, here, they were ready to do anything. The was heartening. The next day he scored a 75, but yes, it told us he’s someone who needs a lot of training. Maybe once the bubble is over, he will be a different player, type of guy who needs to bat more and more.” is a thing of the past While they’ve got their first trophy in the bag, for Powar, winning wasn’t the only thing. It has started as a journey in trying to transform the “brand of cricket” – something he alludes to often – he wants to see Mumbai play. For starters, he wants to see the term (a word that roughly means “stubborn”, in the sense of batsmen putting a price on their wicket) being shelved, for he believes it isn’t reflective of how the current generation of players approach the game. It’s a common refrain to hear past players talk of how no season is successful until Mumbai have won it. Powar thinks it’s time to redefine what a successful season is.”A lot of people still say show attitude. That’s fine, it’s in the past and we lived up to it,” Powar explains. “But it’s about time the current generation is motivated differently. Can’t keep bringing that up again and again.”We all know Mumbai’s legacy has been built in red-ball cricket. Right now, there’s a lot of white-ball cricket happening. This current group has 12 players featuring in the IPL. Going forward, the white-ball legacy can’t be understated either. You can’t be and dominate in white-ball cricket.”

We assess the chances of the teams in Group Three in our County Championship preview

ESPNcricinfo staff06-Apr-2021

Glamorgan

Timm van der Gugten gets a congratulatory elbow•Getty ImagesLast season: 6th in Central Group
Director of cricket: Mark Wallace
Coach: Matt Maynard
Captain: Chris Cooke
Overseas players: Andy Balbirnie, Marnus Labuschagne, Michael Neser
Ins: James Weighell (Durham)
Outs: Marchant de Lange (Somerset), Craig Meschede (retired), Connor Brown, Kieran Bull, Charlie Hemphrey, Owen Morgan, Graham Wagg (all released)
After narrowly missing out on promotion in 2019, Glamorgan struggled in the Bob Willis Trophy, finishing bottom of the pile without a win. Their chances of success this season will rely heavily on their two Queensland imports, Marnus Labuschagne and Michael Neser, who will arrive three or four games into the season following the conclusion of the Sheffield Shield: Labuschagne’s 1114-run season in 2019 was the start of his rise to stardom, while the bustling Neser should be a perfect fit for early season conditions.
Andy Balbirnie will fill in for Labuschagne in the early rounds and looked in good touch against Somerset in pre-season, but Billy Root, captain Chris Cooke and the fit-again David Lloyd will have to do heavy lifting with the bat if they are to compete. Marchant de Lange’s departure to Somerset is a significant blow, while Graham Wagg has also left the club: Timm van der Gugten and Michael Hogan remain potent forces, but Lukas Carey and Dan Douthwaite will have important roles with the ball. The promising left-arm spinner Prem Sisodiya should have a chance to impress at some stage.
One to watch: Callum Taylor, 22, is the son of a former Pontypool rugby union player – who gave him the middle name “Zinzan” – and made quite an impression in the BWT. In his first-ever first-class innings, he was on 27 off 46 balls when Glamorgan slipped to 135 for 9 against Northants, and proceeded to hammer 79 from his next 48 in a rollicking stand. He bowls serviceable offspin on top of his punchy middle-order batting, and should play a major role. Matt Roller
Bet365: 66-1

Kent

Jack Leaning and Jordan Cox pose in front of the scoreboard after their record stand in 2020•Getty ImagesLast season: 2nd in South Group
Director of cricket: Paul Downton
Coach: Matt Walker
Captain: Sam Billings
Overseas players: Miguel Cummins (April-June), Heino Kuhn
Ins: Nathan Gilchrist (Somerset), Tawanda Muyeye
Outs: Sean Dickson (Durham), Calum Hagget, Ivan Thomas (both released), Adam Rouse (retired)
There’s a feeling among the Kent hierarchy that they have built good depth in their squad and now is the time to start seeing the knock-on effects of competition from within for places. “It’s exciting,” says Matt Walker. “Of course it’s what happens over the next six months that will really tell the whole story. It’s very important that we have that challenge amongst the group. In my experienced that always produces the best cricket.”
The additions of Harry Podmore and Matt Milnes in 2018 and 2019 respectively have bolstered the club’s seam stocks alongside an evergreen and ever-reliable Darren Stevens, who is about to turn 45. But it is the recruitment of West Indies fast bowler Miguel Cummins that could prove a masterstroke and Kent will be keen to make best use of the man who took a five-for against them for Middlesex in the Bob Willis Trophy last year for the first eight Championship games they have him for.
Zak Crawley and Sam Billings will surely miss chunks of the season on England and IPL duty. Their absence should, in theory, be covered by the likes of new vice-captain Daniel Bell Drummond, who enjoyed a strong pre-season and will be captain when Billings is at the IPL, and Joe Denly, whose time with England last summer proved fruitless. Jack Leaning, who joined from Yorkshire last year, and youngster Jordan Cox have also proven themselves more than handy with the bat.
One to watch: Jordan Cox’s 238 not out in an unbroken stand worth 423 with Leaning handed Kent an innings victory over Sussex last August and announced the then 19-year-old Cox as an exciting prospect. If he can kick on this season, it can only mean good things for Kent’s quest for silverware. Valkerie Baynes
Bet365: 10-1

Lancashire

George Balderson was one of a number of young players to come through at Lancashire in 2020•Getty ImagesRelated

• Bell-Drummond has much left to achieve after decade at Kent

• Parnell to miss Northants opener after quarantine extended

• Head, Handscomb turn thoughts to England

Last season (BWT): 3rd in South Group
Director of cricket: Paul Allott
Coach: Glen Chapple
Captain: Dane Vilas
Overseas: Dane Vilas, Jackson Bird
Ins: Luke Wells (Sussex), Jack Blatherwick (Nottinghamshire)
Outs: Brooke Guest (Derbyshire), Toby Lester, Stephen Parry (both released), Graham Onions (retired)
A decade has passed since Lancashire enjoyed Championship catharsis under the captain-coach combination of Glen Chapple and Peter Moores. Since that much-feted title, the club has arguably been better run off the field than on it: three times they have had to bounce back from Division One relegation – most recently, in 2019, when Dane Vilas led the team through an unbeaten promotion campaign in his first season in charge.
Chapple is now head coach, and in 2020 the BWT was all about blooding local talent. Teenage allrounder George Balderson played all five games, while five other players between 19 and 22 made promising debuts; Josh Bohannon and Danny Lamb, in the side for a few years, continued to make strides. And although Jos Buttler and Liam Livingstone will miss the first chunk of the season at the IPL, there is core group of established pedigree at Old Trafford – including Vilas, sometime England opener Keaton Jennings, wicketkeeper Alex Davies, former captain Steven Croft, workhorse seamer Tom Bailey and Australia international Jackson Bird (from round three) – to propel a strong Championship challenge. Not to mention Matt Parkinson and Saqib Mahmood, young men champing at the bit after winters spent mulling non-selection by England.
James Anderson is set to miss the opening two rounds as England manage his workload and his availability could make the difference when it comes to pushing for top two – Anderson took 30 wickets at 9.36 in 2019, setting the club up for runaway success. Group Three contains four teams who competed in Division Two two years ago, and Lancashire play six of their first eight games against such opposition.
One to watch: After the departure of the long-serving Stephen Parry, Lancashire have not one but two greenhorn slow left-arm spinners coming through to replace him in Tom Hartley and Jack Morley. Hartley, 22, is the senior man, tall and slender and a feature of both the BWT and Blast sides last year; the pair memorably bowled Lancashire to victory on the final day against Derbyshire at Aigburth.Alan Gardner
Bet365: 9-1

Northamptonshire

Charlie Thurston was the find of the season for Northants last summer•Getty ImagesLast season (BWT): 4th in Central Group
Coach: David Ripley
Captain: Adam Rossington
Overseas: Wayne Parnell
Ins: Tom Taylor (Leicestershire)
Outs: Brett Hutton (Nottinghamshire), Rob Newton, Blessing Muzarabani, Tom Sole (all released)
Whether Northants, likes Gloucestershire, will ever get to enjoy the fruits of their promotion to Division One in 2019, after long years stuck in the second tier, remains up for debate. But in what looks a relatively open group, they will once again be aiming to perform above expectations. The departure of Brett Hutton, who re-joined Nottinghamshire after three impressive seasons at Wantage Road, could weaken the attack at Adam Rossington’s disposal, but Ben Sanderson remains a formidable force with the red ball in hand and Wayne Parnell may prove a shrewd overseas recruit – albeit he will miss the start of the season while in quarantine.
The Bob Willis Trophy allowed the introduction of some younger faces, with Charlie Thurston taking his chance to finish as Northants’ leading run-scorer – 357 at 44.62 – and 20-year-old Emilio Gay emerging as a promising top-order option. Ben Curran and Ricardo Vasconcelos look set to start as the opening pair, with Alex Wakely, in his first full campaign since stepping down as captain during 2019, the senior man in a young batting line-up. Tom Taylor, an allrounder with England Lions potential, looks a good signing from Leicestershire, and Gareth Berg is still going strong at 40. The BWT also saw Simon Kerrigan make his comeback after a three-year career hiatus, and the one-cap England spinner could be another feel-good Northants story in the offing.
One to watch: Jack White, a 29-year-old seamer from Cumbria, made his first-class debut last summer and claimed an impressive 13 wickets at 20.00 from four games. Plucked from the club scene in the North West, he is looking to follow in the footsteps of Sanderson and Richard Gleeson as late-blooming talents who proved their worth at first-class level with Northamptonshire. AG
Bet365: 33-1

Sussex

James Kirtley and Ian Salisbury will split head-coaching responsibilities at Sussex•Sussex County Cricket ClubLast season: 6th in South Group
Director of cricket: Keith Greenfield
Coach: Ian Salisbury
Captain: Ben Brown
Overseas players: Travis Head (Australia – end of April onwards), Stiaan van Zyl (South Africa – full season)
Ins:
Outs: Laurie Evans (Surrey), Danny Briggs (Warwickshire), Luke Wells (Lancashire), Harry Finch, Will Sheffield (both released)
Under new management with Ian Salisbury taking over from Jason Gillespie in the first-class and one-day formats (James Kirtley will be T20 coach), Sussex will be looking to overcome a disappointing couple of years, having narrowly missed out on promotion in 2018 then dropping to sixth in Division two in 2019.
There is a sense that the club is still building towards bigger things, highlighted by the hook for their membership drive: “A New Beginning”. A maiden first-class five-for to left-arm seamer George Garton against Essex last year showed off his promise and he has enjoyed a good pre-season with 3 for 35 and an unbeaten 33 in a friendly against Surrey. Jack Carson, the 20-year-old Irish offspinner and teenage paceman Henry Crocombe were also among the wickets in that drawn match.
Both pre-season friendlies – Sussex also drew at Hampshire – had to be moved after a bug infestation damaged the outfield at Hove. As a result, their opening fixture against Lancashire has also been switched, to Old Trafford. Experienced captain Ben Brown scored heavily in pre-season, as did 22-year-old Tom Haines, who notched a century at Surrey and 72 against Hampshire.
One to watch: With a Test squad place beckoning, Ollie Robinson is focused on taking that next step. With proven wicket-taking ability, amassing 137 wickets across 2018 and 2019 plus another 14 at 12.50 in the Bob Willis Trophy, he’ll also benefit from having spent months training with England’s squads over the past year. VB
Bet365: 12-1

Yorkshire

Yorkshire’s Jordan Thompson in his delivery stride•Getty ImagesLast season: 1st, North Group
Director of Cricket: Martyn Moxon
Coach:Andrew Gale
Captain:Steve Patterson
Overseas players:Duanne Olivier, Mathew Pillans
Ins:Dom Bess (Somerset)
Outs: Ed Barnes (Leicestershire), Jared Warner (Gloucestershire), James Logan (released)
Yorkshire topped their group last season, only to be the group winner that missed out to Essex and Somerset for a place in the final. Their chief executive Mark Arthur consoled members at the Zoom annual general meeting by pronouncing that Yorkshire’s squad was the strongest he had known in nearly a decade in the job.
That is tantamount to predicting a Championship win and to get that they initially have to finish in the top two of the opening group without Dawid Malan, who will miss eight matches because of an IPL deal. Joe Root’s presence in the early games will be cheering, but of longer-term significance will be whether Gary Ballance can score heavily after missing 2020 with a stress-related illness. If not, expectations will fall to a large degree on Harry Brook.
The two overseas players are post-Brexit oddities: Duanne Olivier, a one-time Kolpak, carries hostility, but Mathew Pillans’ presence as an overseas player now his ancestral visa is disqualified is a mere convenience. Dom Bess brings spin-bowling quality assuming he puts his India ups and downs behind him and he will aim to get the weight of runs once provided by Tim Bresnan. If three bowling allrounders – Jordan Thompson, Matthew Waite and Matthew Fisher – kick on then spearheads Ben Coad and David Willey should not be short of support.
One to watch: Jordan Thompson, a seam bowling allrounder, made a strong impression in the BWT, averaging 47 with the bat and 16 with the ball, and now has to try to carry such impressive figures forward as the Championship heads back towards normality. David Hopps
Bet365: 7-1

There’s nothing raw or naive about the India quick, even though he’s barely two months old in Test cricket

Karthik Krishnaswamy04-Mar-20211:15

The aim was to bowl consistently in the same spot – Siraj

You probably remember the Cameron Green dismissal. Outswinger, outswinger, outswinger, and then the coup de grâce.

Out, out, out, in.

Well bowled, Siraj

Live #AUSvIND: https://t.co/qwpaGhwHFU pic.twitter.com/uhfP8f38fM

— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) December 26, 2020