“The skill level exists in our team too, but we lack experience and the ability to execute our plans consistently,” UAE captain says

Danyal Rasool09-Sep-2025What are your big picture goals for UAE in the foreseeable future?
My goal as captain is to make UAE a Full Member. The more we play against Test nations and beat them, that will help all our numbers as well as the team ranking. I believe we have a shot at this and I want to make this happen while I’m still around. We’ve got Afghanistan’s example to follow. I want the same for us, and that’s my goal.Related

• Will UAE punch above their weight in Group A?

• Asia Cup: Politics, passion and a stage for new rivalries

At 31 and in your current form, do you believe you’re in the prime of your career?
You could say that. I’ve been performing for my team for the past three years. If I hang around the team for the next five to seven years, then I hope to achieve the goals I mentioned earlier while I’m with the team.How did the captaincy come to you?
I did very well in domestic cricket here, such that I was offered a national contract before I had even made my debut for UAE. My career started well; I scored a hundred in my first series in a T20I. I continued to perform well, and that was a time the UAE side was in transition. We didn’t have many senior players and the team was quite new.Perhaps the selectors thought I had what it took to be captain, because I was also captain for my domestic side for the previous four to five years. In that time, my team won the D10 and D20 tournaments [ECB domestic tournaments] a number of times. Maybe that record of mine made them think I could do this, and they decided to give me the captaincy.Alishan Sharafu is one of the other big-hitters in the UAE line-up•Getty ImagesYou’ve opened in all but one match in your T20I career, but you attack a lot more in the powerplay than your team-mate at the other end. Is that strategic or just your natural game?
It is a bit of a strategic move for me to attack in the powerplay. For example, when Muhammad Zohaib opens with me, I take the bowler on while the other opener tries to preserve their wicket. In modern cricket, when one of the top four plays most of the innings, the team tends to score 170 or more. When I attack, Zohaib is more circumspect and waits for loose deliveries to put away.UAE got themselves into some really good positions in the tri-nation series, but couldn’t see them through to the finish. Why was that?
It comes down to lack of experience. If we had experience, then in the two games against Afghanistan, and if I hadn’t lost my wicket and Asif [Khan] hadn’t fallen the next over in the first game against them, the story might have been different. Even if we needed 50-55 in the last five overs, we could have chased it down.

“We see each other all the time, and the boys get along very well. So it isn’t much of an issue managing this group. I know now how to use our bowlers, because I know this team so well given the time I’ve spent with them and captained them”

The side relies quite heavily on two or three power-hitters. Do you need more firepower with the bat?
The combination we have now is the best combination. Alishan Sharafu, Asif Khan and myself are among the bigger hitters. We’ve spaced our team’s batting order such that one person who’s at the crease attacks while the other holds up an end or rotates the strike. So I open, Alishan is in the middle and Asif lower down the order. The idea is that we’ve always got someone who can charge a bowler.What would success look like at the Asia Cup for the UAE?
We’ve been working very hard for the past two to three months and can beat anyone in this format. It comes down to what kind of cricket we play on the day, and whether we apply ourselves the way we’ve planned it. We can absolutely inflict an upset on one of India or Pakistan. We could beat Oman and we’ll target one of these two and eye a run to the Super Four.UAE won a series against Bangladesh but then finished second to Uganda in a multi-team tournament in Entebbe. How large is the gap between the more established sides and yourselves?
The skill level exists in our team too, but we lack experience and the ability to execute our plans consistently. When it all clicks, we can give anyone a tough time. In Uganda, I have to be honest, we couldn’t perform to the best of our abilities. We appeared a bit too casual there, and I would like us to forget about that one and not repeat our mistakes from then.

“Five years ago, only your mates and your parents came to watch you here. Now, we see crowds coming to watch and support us. In the matches coming up, we can expect some support, and I’d like to call on cricket fans here to come out and support us during the Asia Cup”

Sharjah saw the ball favour spin quite a bit in the tri-series. What do you expect from the conditions in Dubai and Abu Dhabi?
In Dubai, there will be assistance for spinners, especially in the middle overs. Not so much in Abu Dhabi. The conditions remain the same in both innings. Maybe in the afternoon game, there is a difference, because you get some swing early on under natural light. It also tends to stick in the wicket. But under lights, the ball comes onto the bat beautifully.In the UAE squad, there are plenty of expats who come to watch games, but they’re usually there to support the visiting team, be it India, Pakistan, or Afghanistan? If UAE cricket gets to a higher level, do you think you’ll also find home support?
It’ll take time. Five years ago, only your mates and your parents came to watch you here. Now, we see crowds coming to watch and support us. In the matches coming up, we can expect some support, and I’d like to call on cricket fans here to come out and support us during the Asia Cup.Haider Ali is UAE’s major strike bowler•Emirates Cricket BoardBat first or chase?
Outside the UAE, we can bat first and defend totals because we bowl well. But in the UAE, you get dew in the second innings, and the high humidity makes it difficult to grip the ball. In my opinion, chasing in the UAE is a little bit easier than batting first. That’s why we aim to chase. In that first game against Afghanistan, if we’d applied ourselves just a little bit more and used our experience, we could have won that game easily.Is Haider Ali your prime wicket-taking bowler? Who else should we be aware of?
Haider’s played first-class cricket in Pakistan and has been bowling well here for the past four or five years. Dhruv Parashar, too, bowls very well here. We suffered a real blow when one of our spinners, Zuhaib Zubair, got injured; he was our second-highest wicket-taker behind Haider in Entebbe. He’s out of the Asia Cup with a shoulder injury unfortunately, and that puts the onus even more on Haider to continue to step up.What’s your experience of captaining a side with different cultures, like is the case with the UAE team?
It’s not much of a challenge because we play together every other day. We see each other all the time, and the boys get along very well. So it isn’t much of an issue managing this group. I know now how to use our bowlers, because I know this team so well given the time I’ve spent with them and captained them.15:43

Can Afghanistan make the final of the Asia Cup?

To take you back a bit, you were born in Central Punjab in Pakistan. How did you end up in the UAE?
I began playing cricket in Pakistan. I used to play for Multan Region. I didn’t get much of a chance, though, and I moved here in 2016-17. I had a friend who played for a team here. They used to play local cricket, not quite at the level of formal domestic cricket, more like club cricket.Ramadan is cricket season, and he invited me here at that time. I started then, and I did well. From there, I got involved with the equivalent of the first-class cricket structure in the UAE. I started playing that, and after a few years of success, I made my debut for UAE in 2021.What is the pathway to international cricket in the UAE? How do you make your way into the system?
The way to get in, first of all, is to have a visa, job or a first-class-level team that is willing to give you an employment contract. They sort out a job for you as well as accommodation. But the ICC rule is you have to maintain residency in the country for three years. The Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) follows your performances and how you’ve been doing, and you get called up a few months ahead of the time you become eligible if they have a mind to select you for the national team. That’s what happened to me.In the four years since you’ve started playing international cricket, how has UAE cricket evolved?
We were struggling at the start, but in the last two or three years, we’ve been playing very good cricket. The last three years, the ILT20 has been a huge help to the players. Because there are a lot of big-name players in there. It places you in a different kind of pressurised learning environment that help you learn things which prove useful in international cricket.

There’s no denying that Chelsea employed a scattergun spending approach in the early days of BlueCo’s ownership, but that has since been streamlined over the past few years, with Enzo Maresca proving the perfect man for the job.

Sunday’s Premier League clash is a big one, with Stamford Bridge playing host to a top-of-the-table clash between Chelsea and Arsenal. The second-place Blues will narrow the deficit to just three points with a win.

This is a team building toward a period of sustained success, and the tactical readings suggest that Chelsea are already one of the most exciting attacking outfits in the division, even if there is a sense that there are several levels still to be scaled.

Chelsea

2nd

22.1

Man City

3rd

21.8

Arsenal

1st

20.7

Crystal Palace

5th

20.2

Man Utd

10th

19.9

However, a question mark lingers over number nine, with Liam Delap yet to prove he is the answer. Could Chelsea be looking to sign an upgrade?

Why Chelsea are searching for a striker

In fairness, Delap has spent a sizeable portion of his first months in west London in the infirmary. Still, since returning from a hamstring injury that has kept him out for much of the autumn, the English striker has started twice in the Premier League and failed to break his duck on both counts.

That said, he did net his first goal of the campaign for the Blues against Barcelona in midweek, coming off the bench and coolly converting to seal the 3-0 win after neat interplay between Pedro Neto and Enzo Fernandez.

However, the £30m summer signing from Ipswich Town has yet to prove he has what it takes to nail down a berth at the front of Maresca’s system, and co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart are searching for a potential upgrade.

They may have found one. According to Sky Germany, Chelsea are among the outfits to have been informed that Borussia Dortmund striker Serhou Guirassy is worth about €50m (£44m), applicable for a number of top European outfits.

Chelsea are in the mix, and though Delap and Joao Pedro make up a dynamic central strike force in west London, Guirassy’s clinical record suggests he could add an interesting dimension to a title-challenging side.

What Guirassy would bring to Chelsea

Guirassy, 29, might not fit the age profile Chelsea have focused on targeting in recent years, but his experience and maturity in the final third would serve as a neat counterpoint to the younger generation.

Delap caught the eye for Ipswich last season, a shining light as he scored 12 goals across 37 Premier League outings. Kieran McKenna’s side were relegated, but so many teams swarmed for Delap’s signature, and Chelsea won the race.

The 22-year-old has a future at Stamford Bridge, but Maresca’s side need someone in the now who can maintain a fight against Arsenal, while pushing deep into the Champions League too.

Guirassy is “one of the best strikers in Europe”, according to German legend Lothar Matthaus, and he ranks among the top 11% of strikers across Europe’s top five leagues over the past year for goals scored per 90, as per FBref.

25/26

10

5 + 1

24/25

30

21 + 2

23/24

28

28 + 2

22/23

22

11 + 0

He’s hardly just a mindless poacher, with silky footwork and intelligent positioning that allows him to roam around the attacking half and link up with teammates.

But, at his core, Guirassy is indeed a goalscorer, and Chelsea may find that Delap earns fewer minutes with the Guinean striker in the mix.

It’s a tough one, but given the promising position Maresca’s side have placed themselves into, it might just be the move to make.

Maresca must finally sell Chelsea "passenger" who was like Estevao at 18

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1 ByJack Salveson Holmes Nov 28, 2025

Kagiso Rabada will remain with the team for the Guwahati Test but return home immediately after and miss the white-ball series

ESPNcricinfo staff21-Nov-2025Kagiso Rabada has been ruled out of the second India vs South Africa Test match, in Guwahati from Saturday, after not recovering sufficiently from the rib bone stress injury that had kept him out of the opening Test of the series in Kolkata.”The injury has been closely monitored by the Proteas medical team, and due to ongoing discomfort in the affected area, Rabada has been withdrawn from the remainder of the tour,” Cricket South Africa said in a statement on Friday morning, a day off from the start of the game. “He will continue the initial phase of his four-week rehabilitation program with the Proteas medical team before returning to South Africa at the conclusion of the second Test.”This will put him out of the white-ball series in India that will follow the Tests.As reported by ESPNcricinfo, Rabada had not bowled since sustaining the injury in training last Tuesday in Kolkata and did not train on Wednesday in Guwahati.Simon Harmer, with an eight-wicket match haul, was South Africa’s bowling star in Kolkata, and they had Keshav Maharaj as the second spinner there with Marco Jansen the fast-bowling frontman and Wiaan Mulder and Corbin Bosch chipping in. Mulder, though, bowled just five overs in the Test, and while Bosch bowled more, he had just the one wicket – of Rishabh Pant in the first innings – to show for his efforts. Bosch made a valuable contribution of 25 runs from No. 9 in South Africa’s second innings, though.Lungi Ngidi is the other fast bowler in South Africa’s line-up.

The Australia allrounder is recovering from a shoulder complaint she has been managing for some time

Nagraj Gollapudi27-Nov-20254:35

Chatter: What type of players could attract most attention at this WPL auction?

Australian bowling allrounder Jess Jonassen is understood to have pulled out of the WPL auction due to injury. Jonassen’s exit was disclosed to franchises by the WPL at the pre-auction briefing on Wednesday.The WPL has also told franchises that batter Pratika Rawal, wicketkeeper-batter Yastika Bhatia and seamer VJ Joshitha are all injured though their names are part of the auction pool. However, these three players cannot be part of the mandatory 15-person squad. In case any franchise picks these players, they will not be allowed a replacement.Rawal listed her base price at INR 50 lakh while Bhatia at INR 30 lakh. Meanwhile, Joshitha will invite bids from INR 10 lakh.The WPL has also told franchises that India fast bowler Pooja Vastrakar is not fully fit but will be part of the auction. Kashvee Gautam, meanwhile, has been declared fit. Vastrakar has listed her base price at INR 50 lakh while Gautam at INR 30 lakh.Related

WPL 2026 auction – what teams need, what they can do about it

Wolvaardt, Healy, Ecclestone – Which WPL team needs which superstar

Deepti, Wolvaardt, Ecclestone, Healy in marquee set

Jonassen, 33, has made a big impact in the WPL, winning five Player-of-the-Match awards. Only Harmanpreet Kaur has won more Player-of-the-Match awards (7) in the WPL. It is understood that Jonassen is recovering from a shoulder complaint she has been managing for some time.Alyssa Healy, Meg Lanning, Amelia Kerr and Laura Wolvaardt are listed in the marquee set that will open the bidding at the WPL 2026 auction. Allrounder Deepti Sharma and fast bowler Renuka Singh are the two Indian players in the marquee set.

MatériaMais Notícias

O Botafogo anunciou, na manhã desta terça-feira (29), o pagamento integral e à vista de uma dívida de R$130 milhões. A pendência era referente a credores que aderiram ao Plano de Recuperação Extrajudicial do clube, firmado em 20 de dezembro de 2023. As propostas, divulgadas em fevereiro, foram pagas em menos de 60 dias.

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Toda a negociação foi conduzida pelo CEO Thairo Arruda, com o apoio do Especialista e Assessor Especial Eduardo Iglesias, do VP Executivo Jonas Marmello e do Advogado e Assessor Executivo da Vice-Presidência Raphael Sá.

Dia histórico para o Botafogo

-Hoje é um dia histórico para o Botafogo e que reafirma o compromisso assumido pelo John Textor com os alvinegros quando escolheu fazer parte da Família Botafogo. Realizamos o pagamento de acordos com antigos credores que totalizam cerca de 130 milhões de reais do passivo do Clube Social. Um processo realizado de forma ágil e assertiva, que representa um alívio financeiro considerável e que, aos poucos, vai sanando os débitos históricos que nos prejudicaram durante décadas. Vamos continuar trabalhando arduamente para liquidar essas dívidas de uma vez por todas e assim construir um Botafogo cada vez mais forte-, comemorou o CEO do Botafogo, Thairo Arruda.

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BotafogoFutebol Nacional

تحدث ريفالدو، أسطورة برشلونة ومنتخب البرازيل السابق عن رحيل تشابي ألونسو المحتمل عن ريال مدريد بعد الهزيمة أمام مانشستر سيتي ضمن منافسات دوري أبطال أوروبا.

وخسر ريال مدريد أمام مانشستر سيتي بثنائية مقابل هدف في المباراة التي جمعتهما أمس الأربعاء، ضمن منافسات الجولة السادسة من مرحلة الدوري لبطولة دوري أبطال أوروبا.

وقال ريفالدو عن تراجع مستوى ريال مدريد والشكوك المحيطة بـ تشابي ألونسو: “من الواضح أن الأجواء في ريال مدريد ليست على ما يرام، هناك توتر بين اللاعبين والمدرب، يحتاج المدرب إلى سلطة لكن عليه أيضًا أن يكون ودودًا مع اللاعبين، وخاصة النجوم فينيسيوس جونيور، مبابي، عليه أن يُقربهم من بعضهم، عندما يحاول أن يكون متسلطًا للغاية ينزعج اللاعبون”.

وعن أن جوارديولا قدوة لـ ألونسو، أضاف في تصريحات نقلتها صحيفة “سبورت”: “لطالما برع جوارديولا في هذا الأمر وهذا ما يفتقده تشابي ألونسو، الاقتراب بين أهم اللاعبين، عدم النزاع على أمور تافهة وعدم دفع اللاعبين للرحيل باستمرار”.

وأكمل: “الأجواء سيئة ولهذا السبب تنتشر شائعات عن رغبة لاعبين في الرحيل، مثل فينيسيوس، ليس بسبب ريال مدريد، بل بسبب الأجواء، أعتقد أن هناك نقصًا في التواصل”.

واستطرد: “أود أن يستمر ألونسو ويُظهر جودته لكن لكي يحدث ذلك عليه أن يكسب ثقة الفريق”.

اقرأ أيضًا | هنري مدافعًا عن تشابي ألونسو: لاعبو ريال مدريد لا يستمعون إليه.. ورحيله خطأ

وأردف: “إذا رحل، فالانتقال إلى ليفربول خيار ممتاز، إنه يعرف النادي جيدًا فقد لعب فيه وهذا يُسهل المهمة إضافةً إلى ذلك، سيكون انتقالا من نادٍ كبير إلى نادي كبير آخر”.

وتابع حول ذلك: “لا أعتقد أن مكانته الأسطورية في ليفربول ستؤثر عليه سلبًا، لقد أثبت تشابي بالفعل أنه قادر على أن يكون مدربًا عظيمًا، سيظل تحت الضغط لكنه عانى منه كلاعب، هناك هيكل تنظيمي قائم وفي ليفربول سيحظى بلاعبين مميزين لذلك إذا سنحت له هذه الفرصة، فلا داعي للقلق، عليه فقط أن يُظهر شخصيته القيادية”.

وقدم ريفالدو نصيحة إلى مواطنه إندريك: “وضع ريال مدريد معقد أيضًا وهو يدفع الثمن لكنه يمتلك إمكانيات كبيرة، نصيحتي له هي أن يخرج على سبيل الإعارة ليلعب ويصبح لاعبًا أساسيًا ويسجل الأهداف ثم يعود إلى ريال مدريد، لا يزال لديه الوقت الكافي لمحاولة الانضمام إلى تشكيلة كأس العالم، قبل عام كان الجميع يتوقع رحيله والآن بات خارج حساباته عمليًا”.

وأتم: “من المحزن رؤيته على هذه الحال لكن بإمكان إندريك تغيير الأمور، إنه شاب ويملك كل الموهبة لتغيير هذا الوضع، حاليًا يوجد لاعبون أكثر خبرة في ريال مدريد ولن يُخرج المدرب نجمًا ليُشركه، إندريك لديه مستقبل لكنه انضم إلى نادٍ جميع مراكز الهجوم فيه مكتملة ثم جاء مبابي، لهذا السبب لا يلعب، وضعه حساس”.

Looking at the Padres' records the past two seasons wouldn't seem to reveal anything amiss organization-wide—San Diego, after all, won 93 games in 2024 and 90 in '25.

However, according to reports from Kevin Acee of the and Jon Heyman of the , discontent flowed under the surface of ex-Padres manager Mike Shildt's club.

Heyman's report, published Tuesday, revealed that the relationship between Shildt and one of his coaches deteriorated so completely that a fight nearly broke out between them.

On Wednesday, Acee published a more expansive piece in which a slew of team sources "characterized Shildt as unyieldingly demanding of his coaching staff and the team’s support staff and as having a tendency to micromanage and possessing a quick temper that is easily triggered by questioning or feedback."

Notably, Acee's report described Shildt similarly wearing out his welcome with the Cardinals before his surprise firing after a 90-win season in 2021. This time, Shildt walked away of his own accord.

"A half dozen sources, including current and former members of the Cardinals organization and two people who were part of front offices that considered interviewing Shildt in the month after he was fired, said some Cardinals coaches and others threatened to quit if Shildt remained," Acee wrote.

San Diego lost the National League West to the Dodgers by just three games, the closest they have come to winning that division since 2010. After shaking off a Game 1 loss to beat the Cubs in Game 2 of the wild-card series, Chicago put the Padres away in Game 3.

Since its 1969 founding, San Diego has yet to win a World Series. Shildt—aware of staff discord but broadly unapologetic in his conversation with Acee—will not be around to try and change that.

“One of the reasons I am going to leave is a frustration with the stress and the inability to please everybody,” the 2019 NL Manager of the Year with St. Louis said. "I made a decision to go home because of this. I’m tired of dealing with it.”

The World Series between the Blue Jays and Dodgers will conclude in dramatic fashion with a winner-take-all Game 7 Friday night.

Los Angeles had their backs against the wall as they traveled to Toronto facing elimination, but pulled off an epic win in Game 6 after a dramatic ninth inning to force the decider. Rogers Centre will play host to the final game of Major League Baseball’s season, giving the Jays home-field advantage as the franchise tries to secure its first title since 1993.

MLB.com’s Sarah Langs dove into postseason history to find how teams in the Blue Jays and Dodgers’ positions have fared based on prior results. According to her research, teams playing any winner-take-all game in their home park are 69–67, including 31–29 in a best-of-seven series. That gives an ever so slight edge to Toronto, but L.A. certainly secured the momentum in the series by taking Game 6 on the road.

In best-of-seven series that follow the current 2-3-2 format, teams that have won Game 6 to force a Game 7 ended up winning the series 35 of 56 times (62.5%), also according to Langs. When the Game 6 winner has forced a Game 7 on the road, that road team has won the series 14 of 22 times (63.6%).

Langs’s always useful findings indicate the Blue Jays get a small bump for playing at their home park, but the Dodgers get a slightly bigger bump for taking Game 6, especially doing so on the road. If this year’s Fall Classic has taught us anything, it’s that Game 7 could go either way. Baseball fans are certainly in for a treat with the last game of the season as Shohei Ohtani and Max Scherzer toe the rubber for their respective sides.

On track to become Australia’s first fast-bowling debutant for four years in wake of Hazlewood injury

Alex Malcolm17-Nov-20252:17

How important is the first Ashes Test for England?

Last Wednesday, Brendan Doggett was shivering in a freezing cold Bellerive dressing room in Hobart with his pads on when Travis Head leaned in and said something that sent his mind racing.Doggett was nervously waiting to bat. South Australia were 40 runs from victory against Tasmania with only three wickets in hand, one of which was Doggett.Head decided that was the perfect moment to inform Doggett that Josh Hazlewood had injured his hamstring in Sydney and that he’d “better get ready for the first Test in Perth”.”He was winding me up a bit,” Doggett told reporters in Perth on Monday. “It’s not really what I needed at the time.”Related

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Ollie Pope puts selection talk to bed with warm-up century

Hazlewood out of Ashes opener with hamstring injury

“When Heady told me, of course your brain’s going a million miles an hour, and you’re sort of thinking what might happen.”It hasn’t been confirmed to Doggett yet, but what is likely to happen on Friday is he will become Australia’s 472nd Test cricketer. He will have that Test number for life, regardless of whether Jake Weatherald also debuts.It will be a significant moment for several reasons, both cricketing and cultural. On the cricket front, he will be the first fast bowler to make his Test debut for Australia since Scott Boland in December 2021.Such has been the durability of Australia’s big three in Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Hazlewood, Boland has been the only replacement needed since December 2022, which was the last time Cummins and Hazlewood missed a Test together in a SENA country. Remarkably, Boland has never played a Test in Perth, with Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood playing all five Tests together at Perth’s Optus Stadium between 2018 and 2024.The last time two of the big three did not play in Australia, it was Michael Neser who played alongside Boland, having debuted one Test before Boland did in the 2021-22 Ashes. But Neser was not initially named in Australia’s squad for Perth and has only been added since both Hazlewood and Sean Abbott were ruled out. He was not even in Perth when Australia trained for the first time on Monday. Doggett is all but certain to play barring injury.Brendan Doggett looks set for a debut in Perth•Getty Images

Despite being careful not to make any assumptions, Doggett is well aware of the large shoes he is likely to have to try and fill on Friday, providing some dry humour when asked what he does differently to them.”I probably don’t take as many wickets as them,” Doggett joked. “They’re tall quicks. They get a lot of bounce. I’m obviously just a little bit skiddier, but try and move the ball off the wicket both ways and try to swing the ball away from a right-hander.”I try and emulate them as much as I can. Hopefully a little bit of a point of difference for me might help. But we’ll wait and see.”This is the doomsday scenario Australia’s hierarchy had hoped to hold off until after the Ashes. The age of their big four has been well documented. Item one on the agenda of the annual planning meetings back in May between the coaching, medical and sports science staff was how to keep those four fit through to the end of the Ashes.Two have fallen over at the start and the unknowns around Australia’s pace bowling depth will be unveiled in Perth. But it may only be a one-off.The sight of Pat Cummins steaming in and bowling a sublime spell in blistering 34 degree heat on the juicy Perth Stadium nets raised eyebrows among all who saw it.He got through eight overs with ease, backing up the eight overs he bowled in Sydney last week, making every Australian batter he bowled to look uncomfortable with hostile pace, nip and bounce. It fulfilled the prophecy of coach Andrew McDonald, who had said weeks ago on record to journalists that they will see Cummins bowl in Perth and wonder why he’s not playing.Brisbane is a distinct possibility for the skipper. Hazlewood will likely need longer to recover from his hamstring strain. But Doggett has earned his chance.Doggett took 5 for 66 in last week’s contest in Hobart•Getty Images

At 31, with 50 first-class games to his name, he’s in the form of his life. In his last 13 matches dating back to October last year he has 63 wickets at 20.12, striking at 38.6, for South Australia, Australia A and Durham. In those 13 matches he has claimed seven five-wicket hauls, four of which have been six-fors, including two bags in his only two Shield games this summer since returning from a minor hamstring injury.”I don’t know how ready you can be for Test cricket, I guess,” Doggett said. “But the last 18 months to two years for me has easily been the most successful I’ve been in terms of numbers, but also just confidence in my body, confidence in my game.”Boland is a nice blueprint for Doggett to follow. Boland had toiled in first-class cricket for a decade before stepping seamlessly into Test cricket.”Obviously you don’t want to be missing two great players like Josh and Pat,” Boland said on Monday. “But I think our bowling stocks have been really strong for quite a while, but no one’s been able to break in with the resilience, with Starcy, Pat, Josh and myself.”It’s going to be exciting time, because a new guy or two will get a look in.”But they’re not inexperienced guys. Like Brendan’s coming in. He’s 31 years old. He’s played a lot of first-class cricket.”I think he brings real skill. He’s a fast outswing bowler, and he’s someone who can bowl really long spells. Bowls a lot of overs when he’s playing for South Australia. He’s someone who’s tremendously fit, and if he gets the nod it’ll be exciting to see him play.”It will be a significant cultural moment too in Australian cricket. In 2018, Boland and Doggett opened the bowling together for an Aboriginal XI that celebrated the 150th anniversary of an Australian indigenous tour to England in 1868.Australia has only had two men with indigenous heritage play Test cricket, in Boland and Jason Gillespie. On Friday, indigenous Australians will have two representatives in the same men’s XI.”It’ll obviously be really special for him and his family and the Australian Indigenous community,” Boland said.”I think this gives a real pathway. They can see that there’s two guys playing, and hopefully they want to take that step into playing cricket.”

Two batters who have had their fair share of squaring up against the Indian fast bowler talk about what it takes to survive the test

Interviews by Nagraj Gollapudi20-Nov-2025A top batter facing Jasprit Bumrah is among the most absorbing contests there is in cricket these days. As Osman Samiuddin wrote on this site a while ago, Bumrah is a one-person species. Everything about his bowling is unique and no amount of high-end tech has helped batters solve the Bumrah riddle so far. In an attempt to dissect the powers of one of the greatest bowlers of the modern era, we asked Kane Williamson and Dean Elgar, two accomplished batters, among the rare breed to average over 40 against Bumrah across all international cricket, to help us understand the challenge.What is the unique challenge Bumrah presents?Kane Williamson: Whenever you face Bumrah it feels like Test cricket. Because he is that good even in white-ball cricket. I recall that semi-final in Mumbai in the 2023 World Cup where he had it swinging late both ways. Gosh, it was about survival for about 40 minutes.He obviously has the ability to move the ball both ways with incredible accuracy, and deception of pace – because he sort of quite gently arrives at the crease and then shoots these balls out with good pace. He is such a level-headed competitor as well, so you know you are always in a real fight. He’s quite composed and he’s going to be disciplined as well. He very rarely misses. And as a batter, that presents a huge challenge.Related

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Elgar: He is extremely intense. You can see he hits the wicket with a different intensity and that’s what separates him at the moment: his intensity of play. So it’s almost like every ball is an event. There’s no soft deliveries that a batter can score off.Has there been a spell in Test cricket that illustrates the challenge?Williamson: The one that certainly comes to mind is the World Test Championship final in 2021, precisely in the first session of the second day [day five; the first and fourth days were washed out and rain affected the second and third days too], where I was engaged in one of the most intense and fierce duels of my career, with Bumrah giving no respite. I scored seven runs in the whole session, including a boundary late in that period. I still find it unbelievable.He probably went at one-and-a-half runs an over or something like that. And that was through asking questions all day and getting some assistance out of the surface. I would’ve loved to have scored quicker, but it didn’t feel like that was an option! I played and missed, played and missed, sort of managed to keep a few out and then it was trusting that we’d get something somewhere at some stage (), and Bumrah and Co. didn’t give us much.You see him with the Dukes in his hand and that is an added challenge because he is going to get so much more assistance with that, versus facing him in New Zealand against the Kookaburra. And so yeah, that session in particular, and that whole game, where it did provide some assistance to fast bowlers. If there’s absolutely anything, whether it’s swing or even some sort of seam movement off the surface, someone like Jasprit’s going to exploit that.Elgar: The Johannesburg Test in 2018, which was his debut series. The pitch at Wanderers was not at all easy for batters. Jass hit me everywhere, including on the helmet after the ball kicked up suddenly from short of a good length and caused some trouble for me.The pitch was very favourable to bowlers – very quick, uneven bounce, a lot of balls were rising off lengths, which was quite unusual. The Test was very close to potentially being called off. Jass, who we had never seen before, managed to get a lot out of that pitch with his unique action and fierce pace. It was among the best spells of fast bowling I had ever faced. And I can tell you, having faced him over two more series – in 2021-22 and 2023-24 – in South Africa, the challenge only became more severe.Kane, in that WTC final, the conditions were clearly seam-bowler friendly, but how did Bumrah attack while also managing to keep you quiet, as he did?Williamson: His mode of attack is no different to any good fast bowler: attacking the top of the stumps and then trying to move the ball and either bringing in the edge or lbw or bowled. As a batter, I’m telling myself: you know you are going to get some good balls. So you are trying to limit the damage with a strong defensive position and then taking any opportunity you can to get off strike or put away a ball where he might have missed. But having said that, you are not really relying on [him missing] because it doesn’t happen all that often, but you still need to be in that frame of mind [to capitalise when the chance comes].That’s what the best [bowlers] in the world are able to do: they are so relentless in how they operate that you are always trying to hold firm with your plan as long as you can.How confident were you defending against Bumrah?Elgar: I have always had this theory about facing quality, really, really high-end seam bowlers or fast bowlers: if you defend them well and if you leave them well, that’s quite a high percentage of the battle done. And then they’ll give you some scoring options because they get frustrated [at] not penetrating your defence, and then you can maybe have a few more options of scoring. But leading up to that, you really need to have your defence on point [and] leave very well against high-quality fast bowlers – despite knowing that they don’t really leave your stumps.That was my theory of playing Jass: defend like your life depends on it, leave well, and obviously, if he bowls in your areas to potentially just get a single, do it. But [he was] accurate, so accurate at high intensity, high pace. So you need to be so locked in, you need to focus on what you need to do irrespective of what the ball does off the surface.He’s also very accurate. I can’t remember him bowling, like, a cut-shot ball. A lot of the times that would be my scoring option. If the ball’s swinging back in, that’s something that I’ll always look to play, [mixed in] with a lot of defence or even leaving it well, but you need to be really on point with that. Yeah, he caused a lot of headaches.Williamson: I certainly worked hard at trusting my defence, but in this game you know that you can get good deliveries where you might be in your best position and it’s still not quite good enough. And Bumrah probably bowls more of those balls than anybody else. So you are still trusting it [defence] but you are also accepting the fact that if you are in your best position and it’s not good enough, then you have to walk off and so be it.Elgar copped a fair few body blows from Bumrah in the latter’s debut series in 2018•BCCIWhat makes Bumrah as good as he is, and what role do his variations play there, along with his discipline and deception?Williamson: Across formats he’s hands down the best bowler in the world. Certainly in the white-ball format, with his slower ball, which is one of the best in the world, and his ability to bowl yorkers, which has proven to be such a difficult thing [to counter]. He’s amazing at that, not to mention, when he gets a new ball in his hand, which we see in Test cricket all the time. So the way he can operate in all facets. He is so versatile and there’s that deception: he’s still bowling 140-plus and he basically jogs to the crease. There’s so many elements to what he does that makes it quite special, unique and world-class.Elgar: Jass is two different bowlers [depending on whether he is] bowling from over or round the wicket. I always felt it was a lot easier when he is bowling over the wicket because all you are looking to do is play the ball that’s swinging back at you, and if the ball is going away from you, you look to leave that or defend it as best as possible. And when he switches to around the wicket, he’s got that natural ability to bring the ball back in to you but also the away-swinging ball for the left-hander, so you feel like you need to play at a lot of balls that you shouldn’t be really playing at.How much do you read cues out of his hand?Elgar: Reading the seam from the bowler’s hand is a traditional way to understand what he is up to, but with Jass the difference is, he has these very, very subtle wrist positions. And also, his arm speed is so quick as well. That’s how he generates his intensity [when he delivers] the ball. So you really have to focus so much harder on his hand, but you can see the seam when it’s coming down.He has such amazing wrists. So you need to really watch the ball quite hard [in addition to him having an] unusual action. You need to really focus hard on or how the seam is coming out: if the seam’s pointing towards the slips, I know the ball’s going to swing away and I have got to really leave it well and defend well and not over-attack. If the seam is pointed towards the stumps, then I know I need to be even more compact and play that ball down the ground.Williamson: It is not easy to read Bumrah’s hand. You watch as closely as you can, but really you are trying to identify the biggest threats [deliveries] so you are playing for the ones that bring in the most modes of dismissal. But it is very, very difficult with the slower ball to read his hand, because his arm speed stays the same and he gets a lot of drop.The way he lets the ball go in front of himself, and his action as well, it kind of means it’s probably a little bit closer to the batter [than with other bowlers], therefore you have probably got a little bit less time, and he can slightly adjust his wrist and get it swinging both ways. It sort of really speeds up the process. So with less time, with the ball that’s moving sideways, that’s a really good recipe and a great asset to have in your artillery [as a bowler].Wristy business: Bumrah can introduce several variations with just subtle adjustments to his wrist position•Getty ImagesThe way he gets shape and swing from letting the ball go in front of himself, it does mean that the ball moves late. In some ways it’s like when you face a [mystery] spinner and you struggle to pick the [variations]. So you are sort of trying to create a game plan that allows for that versus seeing the big inswinger or seeing the big outswinger and being able to adjust because you pick up all those cues. So I do think that’s a massive strength of his that separates what he can do from other bowlers.Bumrah is not among the tallest bowlers, and his point of release is lower than for most others too. Do you face him as a skiddy bowler or a hit-the-deck bowler?Williamson: I always have seen him as more of a skiddy bowler. It has to skid, doesn’t it, when it’s coming from that height, at that pace? But it’s heavy. When someone bowls a heavy ball, they are getting something out of the surface and it’s bouncing on you, which is different to when they are fast through the air but it may not feel heavy. You might play a defensive shot, but if the ball is heavy and it’s bouncing in terms of coming at you off the pitch, then you can get defensive nicks where if a player has any laziness in his position – then those are the margins these top bowlers will expose.Elgar: I played Jass like a hit-the-deck-bowler. But generally a hit-the-deck bowler is not a swing bowler, he is more a nip bowler. Jass is hit-the-deck with swing. With the newer ball, I found he would be a touch fuller, allow the ball to do more in the air, and then when the ball got older, he would pull his length back and really hit the deck harder and try and see if there’s any lateral movement in the wicket.Does Bumrah get into your head in a way many other bowlers do not?Elgar: A lot of times you play the name, which is one of the battles a batter has to fight: don’t play the name, play the ball. So in that sense, you always know that he is a massive risk. He is a wicket-taker. He’s a big threat in the bowling attack. So you almost have to fight that before you go out. When you get through that and you’re able to put the player aside and just focus on what he has to deliver and you play the ball, that’s already quite a big victory. That battle was a constant first hurdle.But I’ll never deny it and say, no, he didn’t get in my head. That would be a lie. But in saying that, I would think that I also got into his head. [When] you can fight the demons that are in your mind, that’s also really another battle that can work in your favour. In that 2023-24 series we both had some good duels, and that is a period where I batted at my most fluent. I was telling myself: everything’s coming to an end [Elgar retired at the end of that series], so it’s almost like the shackles were released and I was actually able to show people that I’m actually quite a fluent player when my mind is totally, totally clear. And that’s probably the one time that I thought I had the upper hand against Jass. But yeah, he’s just a massive challenge. There’s just no release from him, let’s put it that way. There’s no easy way out.