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Wolves fans vented their anger on social media as unpopular chairman Jeff Shi made an honest admission that he's "not an expert" with the club tumbling towards Premier League relegation. However, his honesty has further poured fuel on a mounting fire at Molineux, where supporters have already been protesting against the club's direction under Fosun's ownership.

Wolves get off to worst start in decades

Rob Edwards’ side sit rock bottom of the Premier League with just two points from 15 matches. Their eight-game losing streak has matched an unwanted club record dating back to the 1981-82 season, and they have not tasted victory in the top flight since April. With Wolves already 13 points adrift of safety and travelling to league leaders Arsenal next, the mood on terraces and social media has reached breaking point. Much of the frustration stems from a summer that saw the spine of the side dismantled. Matheus Cunha and Rayan Ait-Nouri were sold to Manchester United and Manchester City for a combined £92.5 million ($123.8m), while captain Nelson Semedo walked away on a free transfer.

In return, Wolves signed six players, Fer Lopez, Jhon Arias, Tolu Arokodare, David Moller Wolfe, Jackson Tchatchoua and Ladislav Krejci, none of whom had kicked a ball in the Premier League before. The only arrival with prior experience at the club was Jorgen Strand Larsen, whose loan move was made permanent for £23m ($30.8m). The Norwegian forward, however, has scored just once in the league this season after netting 14 times last term.

AdvertisementShi admits his mistakes

Shi acknowledged the scale of the upheaval, admitting to the : "I am not an expert. Maybe we sold too many players in one window. You can see the squad and compare it to last season, maybe we changed 40 or 50% of the key players. It's a task to rebuild a team but the Premier League is very tough. If you can't control the tempo and need a longer time to rebuild the team the games will punish you."

Protests gathered momentum on Monday night as several supporters’ groups organised a boycott of the opening 15 minutes of the 4-1 home defeat to Manchester United. Their message was clear: that Fosun’s stewardship has steered Wolves into a state of "managed decline". The dismantling of the team that achieved continental highs continues to haunt supporters. Raul Jimenez, Diogo Jota, Joao Moutinho, Adama Traore and Pedro Neto have all departed without adequate replacements. 

Shi, who has long been targeted by fan frustration, said: "It's a very natural feeling from the fans. Five or six years ago we were at some heights, the semi-final of the FA Cup and quarter-final in Europe. When you have reached those heights fans don't want to let it go. I feel it myself. When you lose something like that it's a tough blow – for this I have empathy. I'm not only a fan, I'm the CEO and chairman in the club. I have to think about how to judge the last decade in a more factual way and think about the next 10 years."

What did the fans say?

Shi's comments did little to appease fans, many of whom responded online with disbelief that the club’s top executive would admit to lacking expertise while Wolves spiral toward the Championship.

@kylecoyle_ asked: "If he’s not an expert, WHY IS HE IN CHARGE?!"

@LTCwolf wrote: "Genuinely unbelievable that this man is in charge of a Premier League football club. Completely disconnected with the reality around him. #wwfc"

@adamgj03 lashed out: "He loves playing the “I don’t know football” card but he’s been doing the job for the best part of a decade and getting paid handsomely for it, that excuse just doesn’t wash now."

@phibel69 wrote: "Jeff shi and Jackson have just confirmed why wolves are rock bottom. It's a bloody car crash every time they're interviewed."

And like many fans, @BennettDar89036 too wants Shi to be thrown out: "Get this delusional guy and Fosun out of our club. That interview was simply bizarre."

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Getty ImagesEdwards backed despite dire results

Edwards, appointed in November as Wolves’ fifth permanent manager in four years, has lost all four of his matches in charge since joining from Middlesbrough. Yet Shi insists the club remains committed to a long-term project under the former defender, who played 111 times for Wolves and later coached their youth sides.

When asked if Edwards will keep his job, Shi insisted: "No-one can guarantee 100%, but I can say 95% [for] at least two or three years. It's a long-term project with Rob."

Wolves face league leaders Arsenal next at the Emirates, and barring a miraculous turnaround in form, the bottom-placed side should prepare themselves for a rough evening in north London. 

The Dodgers are now one loss away from losing the World Series after falling to the Blue Jays, 6-1, in Game 5 on Wednesday night. The series now shifts back to Toronto for Game 6 on Friday night where the Blue Jays will have a great chance to win their first title since 1993.

The Dodgers' bats have gone cold at the worst possible time as they were only able to score a combined three runs in Games 4 and 5. While Shohei Ohtani has carried this team on his back, Mookie Betts, an eight-time All-Star and former AL MVP, has been lost at the plate against the Blue Jays as he has just three hits in 23 at-bats with no RBIs.

After Game 5, in which he went 0-for-4, Betts had a brutally honest take on his struggles thus far.

"I don’t want to speak on anybody else but for me personally I’ve just been terrible," Betts said. "I’ve been terrible and I wish it was from lack of effort, I really do, but it’s not so I don’t have any answers."

David Ortiz, who was teammates with Betts for a few years in Boston, spoke about those comments on Fox's post-game show.

"He hurts. He hurts," Ortiz said. "I know Mookie very well. It hurts to see him answering the question that way because to me he still is one of the best players in the game but it seems like his confidence level is pretty low right now. And of course, I don’t blame him—when you don’t see results, Kevin, you start questioning yourself. When you have already shown superstar status everybody starts questioning you when things are not going well."

Ortiz then offered some simple advice for Betts.

"Now if I’m Mookie, I would put that all behind," he said. "You remember when we used to prepare for to go to play a Little League game? You wasn’t thinking about a scouting report, you wasn’t thinking about what people say, you wasn’t thinking about what I did yesterday. When you played in Little League all you wanted to do was see the ball and try to hit it and have fun. At the end of the day that’s what the game is all about, having fun."

Derek Jeter also weighed in Betts' comments.

"I appreciate what he said because it’s the truth," Jeter said. "We’ve all been there. We’ve all sat there in front of our locker and said that we’ve been terrible. The best thing about the postseason is who cares what has happened up to a particular point? He’s going to be up In Game 6 with an opportunity to do something special and if he does something special no one will talk about his postseason prior too, that’s the way you have to look at it."

Here's that complete conversation:

Betts has a day off before Game 6. It will be interesting to see how he responds because the Dodgers will need him to step up if they want to keep their championship hopes alive.

The man wearing No. 50 for the Los Angeles Dodgers looks decidedly different this season.

Mookie Betts is in the midst of the most baffling season of his career, one that, to this point, defies explanation. The star shortstop is recording career lows across the board on offense despite playing in all but nine of L.A.'s games and is rating as a below-average hitter for the first time in his career. His struggles at the plate have led to some serious questions for the defending World Series champions.

With Betts looking like a shell of himself, the Dodgers have a big hole at the top of their lineup just as the season heads for the stretch. L.A. has a 4 1/2 game lead in the National League West, but their recent struggles have made a repeat championship look less likely. They need their star to hit like he's capable of doing.

Given what we’re used to seeing from the eight-time All-Star, his Statcast page is downright depressing. While his plate discipline rates have remained elite, his batted-ball metrics have sharply declined.

What follows is a look inside the numbers of Betts’s most challenging season to capture the wide-ranging nature of his travails.

3 — Home runs in the last 49 games for Betts. In that time he is slugging .307 with an OPS of .578.

91— Betts's wRC+ this season, the lowest of his career, meaning he’s been 9% worse than the average MLB hitter. It’s 49 points lower than his 2024 number (140), 74 lower than in 2023 (165), and 94 lower than his career-best of 185 in 2019.

.238 — Betts's batting average, the lowest of his career by 26 points, and 51 points lower than in 2024.

.146 — Betts’s batting average against breaking balls, down from .250 last season and .309 in 2023.

.309 — His on-base percentage, the lowest of Betts's career by 31 points, and 63 points lower than in 2024.

.370 — Slugging percentage, the lowest of Betts's career by 74 points. The previous low came during his rookie season in 2014. It's also 121 points lower than in 2024.

.679 — OPS, the lowest of his career, 184 points lower than in 2024 (.863) and 308 points lower than in 2023.

.317 — Expected weighted on base percentage, the lowest of Betts's career and 114 points lower than his career-best of .431 in 2018. It is also 39 points lower than in 2024.

.404 — Expected slugging percentage, the lowest of his career, 43 points lower than in 2024 and 202 points lower than his career-best in 2018.

5.5 — Betts's barrel percentage, which is 0.5 points lower than in 2024, but 6.9 points lower than in 2023, and 8.6 lower than his career-best (14.1) in 2018.

34.1 — His hard hit percentage, a career-low, 5.4 points worse than last season and 14.4 percent worse than 2023.

83.8 — His contact percentage, which measures the percentage of time he makes contact when swinging at pitches. This will shock you but it's the lowest of his career.

88.3 — Betts's average exit velocity, down 4.1 mph from his career-high of 92.4 in 2023. And, yes, a career-low.

68.8 — Betts’s bat speed, which ranks in only the 11th percentile of MLB. It’s also down 2.5 mph from 2023, when he ranked in the 38th percentile.

66.7% — The percentage of games the Dodgers won through April 14, when Betts’s OPS was .954.

56.5% — The percentage of games the Dodgers have won since April 15, during which Betts is slashing .226/.292/.338 for an OPS of .630. Los Angeles is still a good team without Betts at his best, but his performance could be the difference between a good and great Dodgers team.

270 million — Amount of dollars left on Betts's contract after this season, with seven years remaining. That total includes $115 million in deferred money he'll receive from 2033 through '44. His luxury tax hit will be $30.4 million annually.

Betts is an eight-time All-Star, a seven-time Silver Slugger, a three-time World Series champion and the 2018 American League MVP. He deserves more time to work out of this months-long slump. The Dodgers haven't suffered terribly even with him struggling and their typical wave of pitching injuries, as they still have a decent lead atop the NL West.

It's possible the move to shortstop has had an impact on Betts. He's 32 with a slight built at 5'10" and 180 pounds if you buy his measurements. The physical toll of playing short every day could be contributing to his struggles at the plate.

The Dodgers could move Betts back to the outfield—where he's a six-time Gold Glove winner—and take some of the daily wear off of him, but their lack of infield talent is an issue. Miguel Rojas, Hyeseong Kim and Tommy Edman aren't top-level replacements, and it's far easier to find a corner outfielder than an everyday shortstop.

It’s also possible one of baseball’s most consistent performers of the last decade is entering the next, less productive stage of his career. The decline in bat speed coinciding with reduced exit velocity especially backs up that concerning notion. Perhaps a change in approach is needed before the playoffs begin and the games really start to matter for the Dodgers.

The Blue Jays were defeated Wednesday by the Red Sox in an AL East rivalry clash, and the last out was certainly one the team will be hoping to forget.

Catcher Alejandro Kirk hit a line drive into right field and began making his way to first base. He certainly didn't run with too much urgency, as despite the ball reaching the outfield, he was thrown out by Wilyer Abreu at first base.

Addison Barger, who was the runner on first base, looked on in disbelief after his teammate was thrown out at first base to end the game, clearly displeased with what had transpired.

Toronto had been held off the scoresheet until the ninth inning when Isiah Kiner-Falefa hit a solo shot to get them on the board. A win was unlikely given the six-run deficit, but Kirk getting thrown at first base was certainly an unceremonious way to end the game.

With the Blue Jays losing and the Yankees beating the White Sox, the teams are now tied atop the AL East at 90-68. Boston meanwhile, is three games back in the division with four to play, but is inching closer to clinching a wild card spot.

This and other vital issues are tackled in this month’s Briefing

Andrew Fidel Fernando01-Jun-2020The Briefing Do you remember what cricket was like? The smell of fresh-mown leather, the sound of willow hitting stumps, fast bowlers delivering devastating googlies, batsmen shining their bats vigorously on their groins. That was the basic gist, right? It’s been a while.The route forward
As cricket plots its short-term future, several proposals for how the game can be made viable in the time of coronavirus have been put forward. Many, including the ICC’s cricket committee, have recommended not using saliva to shine balls, with some suggesting an artificial substance should be allowed for that purpose. The West Indies tour of England could go ahead in some form, though there will not be any spectators in attendance, though it is possible Dominic Cummings is due another eye test by then.What else could change? Socially distant bum pats? Close fielders unnerving batsmen with fake coughs, instead of sledges? Spraying hand sanitiser instead of champagne at trophy presentations?And if there are no fans in the stands for the foreseeable future, can it really be a legitimate India v Australia Test series without thousands yelling “Kohli is a w***er” at the SCG? Plus, just who will be around for Ben Stokes to call a “f**king four-eyed t**t”? What kind of future is that?Shane Warne has no problems with Steve Waugh
As there has been very little cricket actually played in the past month, we’ve been trawling social media for theatrics, but one place you will absolutely not find any drama is Warne’s Twitter feed. Just read this tweet about Steve Waugh, in which Warne insists he’s “said 1000 times I do not hate S Waugh at all” before two sentences later going on to say “Steve was easily the most selfish cricketer that I ever played with.” Obviously, there can be no resentment in this relationship. Even though Warne tweeted twice more last month throwing shade at Waugh – specifically about his lopsided run-out record – the man has just spoken out in the clearest terms. Some of his best friends are Steve Waugh. Let it go. It’s nothing. Guys!Rising to the challenge
Wimpy cricketers may all be holed up at home, but the game’s true heroes picked up their briefcases, sucked in their paunches, buttoned up their suits, and got stuck in to the vitally important task of governing the game. A big ICC directors’ meeting was held last week, and with the game in such peril, what better time for cricket’s thought leaders to show real leadership? What exactly does a road map for international cricket starting up again look like? Can biosecure environments actually make tours possible? And what can we do about this hugely anticipated T20 World Cup, which is supposed to start in less than five months? These are all major challenges requiring urgent address. But instead of discussing any of this in depth, the directors just talked at length about an information breach, presumably to the press, and deferred the real meeting to June 10.Further adventures in administrative boldness
Sri Lanka Cricket, meanwhile, insisted forcefully that Colombo needed a huge new 40,000-capacity stadium in order to host future ICC tournaments, for which Sri Lanka had not yet won hosting rights, making a show of inaugurating the project alongside a government minister. Less than a week later, when it was clear public opinion was against the project, the government rowed back on their commitment to providing land for the stadium, and SLC immediately switched to pretending it found the whole idea ludicrous to begin with. “What fifth stadium? What’s wrong with the four we have? And in the middle of a pandemic? Whose dumb idea was this?”Cricket Australia fam
As one of the wealthiest cricket boards on the planet, Cricket Australia is better placed than most to weather the financial storm that the pandemic has wrought. Which is why, in these harrowing times, the board has committed to stick fearlessly by its executives, making an inspiring commitment to pay them 80% of their salaries while the board weathers this challenge. Almost everyone else at the board, meanwhile, gets knocked down to 20% of their previous pay, and now possibly faces redundancy.Next month on The Briefing:- “This is what I’ve been saying the entire bloody time!” Cameron Bancroft reacts to proposals that foreign substances should be used for ball management.- Sri Lanka Cricket revisits the new stadium project. Unless the government doesn’t want to. They don’t? Oh… okay… I mean… yeah, it’s a waste of money. Obviously. Always said that.- Warne’s non-hate for Waugh continues: “Look, I absolutely do not hold a grudge. I just think it’s funny that for that Barbados Test in 1999…”Briefings

We find out by using a model that looks at how much the top batsmen and bowlers outperform the average player by

Himanish Ganjoo23-Oct-2020Virat Kohli averages 38.6 over 186 matches in the IPL (as of October 20, 2020), striking at 131, to go with a mountainous 50.8 average in T20 internationals. This frequently earns him a mention among the best T20 batsmen, according to many watchers of the game. It is no surprise, then, that a recent article examining Kohli’s anchor role, and questioning whether an anchor is needed at all in modern T20, was met with widespread uproar across the internet.Kohli does have almost unparalleled conventional stats, resulting from his strategy of knocking singles and doubles around before a final phase of risky hitting. This gets him high scores in some instances, but what of the times he cannot transition to that big-hitting stage of the knock? His slow approach leaves his team behind the ideal run rate. Kohli spends the first half of his innings minimising risk. If he gets out early, he has consumed deliveries and scored slowly, but he has not survived often enough to make up for it adequately. His net worth is a tug of war between how frequently he crosses the barrier, beyond which he starts scoring faster, and the slowness of his early innings.How can we gauge such a player’s gross impact over a whole season? Do his half-centuries and centuries cancel out the detriment he causes an innings when he gets out in his early phase? We can answer this using a contextual measure of runs, called the Runs Above Average (RAA). This quantifies how much the output of a batsman is better or worse compared to the average score in a given “situation”, which is defined by the innings phase, wickets lost before the ball is bowled, and ground.ALSO READ: Which current player is No. 2 among Test batsmen of all time when measured against the performances of the average player?Considering all IPL matches played since 2015, an average runs-per-ball score is calculated for each situation. For instance, the average runs scored per ball at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi in the powerplay with one wicket down in this period is 1.25. If a batsman hits a four in this situation, his RAA for that ball is 4 – 1.25 = 2.75. We can compute RAA for one innings, or a whole season, and it tells us the player’s contribution in comparison to an average player, had he played in the same situations.Looking at data from the IPL from 2015 onwards (until the KXIP vs DC match on the 20th of October), Kohli’s average RAA per innings by phase puts him in the “average” category before the death overs: -0.14 RAA in the powerplay, -0.41 in the middle overs, and 2.85 in the final four overs. He scores below the average batsman’s output in two out of three phases. He has a positive RAA at the death; how often that nullifies his below-par scoring early on can be quantified by his innings RAA. If this number is positive, he has made up for whatever he does early on, by making a net-positive contribution to the innings.Kohli’s mean innings RAA is 0.42, and he has a positive RAA in 44% of his innings. So despite scoring faster than most in the death overs, he does not enter that phase often enough to have a very high net-positive effect compared to the average batsman. In comparison, AB de Villiers has a positive contribution in 60% of his innings, and his mean RAA per innings is 5.8. The following plot shows Kohli’s runs against his RAA for all innings in the IPL since 2015. Many long innings have a negative RAA, which means that he wastes a large number of balls staying under the “average” expected scoring rate.Himanish GanjooHis season-wise RAA totals show his contributions over a whole season. Even in 2016, his bumper year, he scored only 40 runs over the average player in total. In the last two seasons, 2020 included, he has been a shade under average. His long innings do not make up for his sedate beginnings.ESPNcricinfo LtdIn comparison, here is the plot of runs vs RAA for Rishabh Pant. He too is slow at the start, but only two 20-plus run innings of his have a negative RAA. He does not cost his team runs if he gets a start, and most of his innings yield positive returns, accounting for context.Himanish GanjooThe average innings RAA (IRAA) tells us the typical innings-wise contribution of a batsman, and the average accumulated RAA value after facing ten balls in the innings (10RAA) tells us how quickly the batsman starts at the crease. Here is a plot of the two values for the 50 highest scorers in the IPL since 2015. Players with a 10RAA value of less than zero start slow: Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey, Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill are the “anchors” who make up this category. Shane Watson and Chris Gayle are notorious for starting slow (even if by powerplay standards), and MS Dhoni’s weakness against spin when he walks in is on display in his very low 10RAA score.Players who have a higher IRAA than 10RAA make up for their slow starts, but even among those, Dhoni, Gill and Pandey have a negative IRAA. Andre Russell, Pant, David Warner, de Villiers and Jos Buttler make up an elite cluster: they start in the positive and improve upon their contribution as the innings progresses. Interestingly, Sunil Narine loses relative value if he stays at the crease for longer: his 10RAA is very high, but his IRAA is lower.Himanish GanjooThe same metric can be used to tell how many runs a bowler concedes relative to the average bowler in a given situation. In a bowler’s case, a negative RAA is better, because it means he has saved runs compared to the expected rate. The following table lists the 15 players with the best average RAA values for bowlers, among those who have bowled 600 or more legal balls in the IPL since 2015. In Jofra Archer’s case, it effectively means that he concedes 5.39 runs fewer per innings than the “average” bowler would, bowling in the same situations.ESPNcricinfo LtdThe RAA does not consider the effects of preserving or losing wickets, because it seeks to quantify the player’s individual output in the context of the average player, and the ultimate currency of wins and losses is runs. Wickets affect team scoring in highly complex, non-linear ways that are beyond the scope of simple models.The RAA is useful to analyse a player’s career, or season, or a single innings. Can it be used to gauge a player’s contribution to a team’s winnings over a season? Can we calculate how much a player is worth in a team, relative to the average player? The Wins Above Average (WAA) metric does this, by effectively translating a team’s aggregate runs scored and conceded into win probability.ALSO READ: What is the template for a successful chase in the IPL?Using data of team performances over a season, a relationship can be formulated between the runs scored and conceded by a team and its win percentage. It must be noted that teams that chase and win score limited runs: they don’t need to score more than the target. To rectify this, the runs conceded and scored are adjusted in the case of chasing wins, where a margin of wickets and balls remaining is converted into the extra expected runs the winning team would have scored had they completed their innings. This ensures that all win margins are homogenised into units of runs scored, and a run tally that rewards teams for chasing wins can be calculated for every teamThe win percentage of a team in a season follows a “logistic” relationship with the ratio of the total runs scored to the total runs conceded*, which is represented by a curve shown in the following graph. Each dot represents one team in one year of the IPL since 2015. (As a sanity check, the curve shows us the logical result that a team that concedes as much as it scores should win 50% of the time, on average.)Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfo LtdHow is this useful in judging a player’s worth in terms of wins? We can replace a chosen player by an “average” player, by subtracting the chosen player’s RAA from his team’s run tally for bowling or batting. This replacement changes the team’s win percentage, in accordance with the relationship above. This difference in win percentage over a typical 14-match season is defined as the player’s WAA. Positive RAA values for batsmen, and negative ones for bowlers, correspond to positive WAA – these contributions are beneficial for their team results. This way, a player’s output in each season can be expressed in terms of their WAA, while accounting for the situations they have batted or bowled in. How many wins has a player contributed to in a 14-match season, over and above the average player’s contribution? The WAA depends not only on the player’s individual output, but also the quality of his team. A player in a weaker side has a higher WAA compared to another in a stronger team with the same RAA, because the former relatively contributes more to each win.Excluding the 2020 season, the best individual season for a batsman in the IPL is Pant’s 2018. He scored 684 runs, but his RAA was 168, which corresponded to 1.4 wins for his team. Pant, Warner and de Villiers feature repeatedly on the list of top batting seasons, all having at least one season with a WAA of 1 or more.ESPNcricinfo LtdAmong bowlers, Jasprit Bumrah has two campaigns at the top, with a WAA of 0.92 in his best season. He is followed by his Mumbai Indians team-mate Lasith Malinga, which shows why Mumbai have been generally successful over the past few editions of the league. Mustafizur Rahman comes fourth with his 2016 season, and it is no surprise that the Sunrisers Hyderabad emerged champions that year, with Warner’s season ranking fourth in the batting RAA table and Bhuvneshwar Kumar also featuring among the best efforts by bowling RAA. Narine, Archer and Rashid Khan make up the rest of the top ten.ESPNcricinfo LtdHere is the leader board for the current season, until October 20. Nicholas Pooran has been the most valuable batsman in a mostly lacklustre Kings XI campaign, his contribution being worth 1.37 games over the average player. Shikhar Dhawan’s rich vein of attacking form puts him in second place. KL Rahul, despite being the top run scorer, has a season RAA of just 5.8 because of his largely sedate approach, while Virat Kohli is at -2.9. Aaron Finch (-0.37), Dhoni (-0.26) and Kedar Jadhav (-0.25) have the worst season WAAs.ESPNcricinfo LtdAmong the bowlers, Rashid Khan and Archer are on top. Delhi’s Axar Patel, along with pace duo Anrich Nortje and Rabada are vital instruments in their roaring campaign, which is reflected in their places on the table. Chris Morris, the go-to death bowler for RCB this season has saved 40 runs over the season compared to an average bowler, given that he bowls in the toughest phase. Bumrah, after a cold start, has come back to his dependable ways. Surprisingly, Russell finds a place in the top ten with his crucial death bowling for KKR.ESPNcricinfo LtdMore complex methods that incorporate wicket-taking and wicket-saving ability are natural extensions to this model, but this serves as a first stepping stone to comparing player performances with the typical player in the league, contextualising their run outputs, and reading them in the language of wins for their team.* The log odds of victory taking all non-tied matches with results were fit to the ratio of the adjusted runs scored and conceded. The model parameters were significant at the 99% significance level, with an R2 of 0.59

It might not always make sense but special players deserve more chances than others get

Aakash Chopra29-Oct-20201:52

Will Rahul’s IPL form help him in Tests?

KL Rahul being picked for India’s Test team for the tour to Australia has produced mixed reactions. Some are of the opinion that picking him devalues the first-class structure because the selection seems to be a reward for his white-ball performances. A few, like me, believe it was only a matter of time before he got a call up for the longer format again. In fact, the absence of Rohit Sharma on the tour to New Zealand early in the year could have been an ideal comeback series for Rahul.Rahul’s Test career stats read: 36 Tests, 2006 runs at 34.5, with five centuries. While these aren’t great numbers, they aren’t abysmal either. The fact that four of those Test centuries have come when he batted as an opener away from home perhaps adds a little more weight to the numbers.The other side of the story is equally compelling: the fact that he lost his place in Tests after a series of low scores; that there were clear patterns developing in his modes of dismissal that only accentuated his problems.Initially he nicked a lot of deliveries outside off – a common problem when the head isn’t on top of off stump, and one that is highlighted more when it happens to an opener. When Rahul tried to correct that, he started going far too across in an attempt to play outside the line of the ball, and ended up getting trapped in front of the stumps. It was obvious that he was trying extremely hard to address the issues, but sometimes the harder you try to get out of a quagmire, the deeper you sink.ALSO READ: Is KL Rahul’s problem technical or mental? (2018)Sachin Tendulkar wrote in his book that a batsman is at his best when his mind is at the opposite end – for that’s where what you have to counter comes from. There’s truth in that: when you focus on your head, feet and hands while standing in your stance, you are guaranteed to be late on the ball. Rahul, like a lot of batsmen going through poor form, was mentally stuck at his end. Lack of runs meant that he was dropped from the Test side, and what started as a very promising Test career, with a hundred in only his second Test, in Australia, threatened to be over well before time.When he wasn’t appearing for India in white flannels, Rahul kept scoring runs elsewhere. He started out as middle-order batsman in T20 cricket but found his real mojo in the format as an opener. He has become the first Indian to score 500-plus runs in three consecutive IPL seasons. He took over keeping duties in limited-overs internationals to fill in for Rishabh Pant, and adapted to the new role of finishing the innings. In fact, he has been India’s standout batsman in white-ball cricket over the last couple of years – both for consistency and impact. But is that enough for a call-up to the Test team?Let me share a story from my life here. The Indian selectors picked 24 probables for India’s tour to Australia in 2007. Wasim Jaffer, Gautam Gambhir and I were on that list. Virender Sehwag had had a very ordinary 2006 as a Test player, and two poor years as an ODI player, and he had been dropped for both formats. He went back to playing for Delhi in the Ranji Trophy to regain form and stake a claim again. Unfortunately, the runs didn’t come in first-class cricket too – his scores in the games running up to selection for the Australia series were 16, 0, 9, 32 and 9. He was so woefully out of form that he told the national selector who had come to watch one of our games to pick Gambhir and me, and to not pick him because he was out of form. That’s what you expect from Sehwag – honesty.Then Gambhir got injured and was ruled out of the tour. There were only two openers left on the list, Jaffer and I. My selection was almost guaranteed, but in the end the selectors in consultation with the captain, Anil Kumble, went for Sehwag.The selection didn’t make cricketing sense because Sehwag hadn’t earned his place back. I was the guy who paid the price for the gamble that the team took. As often happens with players of Sehwag’s calibre, he went on to score a hundred, in Adelaide, and did not look back since. He scored his second 300 in Tests a couple of months after.KL Rahul is the kind of player whose Test match technique is intact even when he is scoring at top speed in T20•Getty ImagesI can be forgiven for holding a grudge over something that didn’t seem fair at that point in time. But was there merit in the selectors picking Sehwag without domestic runs or form behind him? History would suggest that the gamble was worth taking, for Sehwag went on to achieve things that I probably would not have done despite my best efforts. Sehwag was a special player and perhaps deserved special treatment.Before going back to Rahul, let’s look at the other possible contenders for the opening spot in Tests now. Also, please bear in mind that these are extraordinary times and a lot of cricketers haven’t played any competitive cricket for eight months or more. The series against South Africa at home last year seemed like a good time for both Priyank Panchal and Abhimanyu Easwaran to be given an opportunity to open in Tests, but the selectors chose Rohit Sharma instead. And as they say, the rest is history. Sharma piled up the runs and closed the window of opportunity for the domestic performers. Since then, Panchal’s numbers have declined. Abhinav Mukund was the most prolific opener in the last domestic season, with Easwaran second on the list. Considering that both haven’t played a first-class game for a while, what were the realistic chances either would be picked for the tour to Australia? In the ideal world, Sharma, Mayank Agarwal and Prithvi Shaw would be the first-choice openers and Shubman Gill would have been in the squad as back-up. With Sharma’s injury and the lack of clarity about how well or not he is recovering, the selectors had to pick another opener in the side. If it was only about IPL numbers, they would have toyed with the idea of reinstating Shikhar Dhawan too.I must say here that the comparison with Sehwag was just to draw a parallel, but Rahul too is the kind of player who demands a bit more investment. His technical game is intact even when he is scoring at a rate of knots in the shortest format. His game has no obvious flaws that might make him susceptible to the trials of Test match cricket. Whether he will make it big in Test cricket or not, we will find out in good time, but there is merit in getting him back in whites. Players with his quality of skills and talent will get more opportunities than the rest, and while it might seem unfair at the time, like it felt to me in 2007, it might be the right decision for Indian cricket.What if the team management dropped Sharma after he had middling returns in the middle order, ending his Test career without allowing him a shot as an opener? What if Sehwag’s return had been delayed till he got runs on the first-class circuit back in 2007? What if Virat Kohli had been asked to go back to play first-class cricket to regain form after the tour to England in 2014?While I completely feel for the guys, like me back then, who are at the wrong end of these selections, I can now also understand why some players deserve and get an extra chance or two. Rahul has been given another shot at the longest format. Let’s hope he seizes it with both hands.

ESPNcricinfo runs you through the pros and cons of each of the four frontrunners for the job

Nagraj Gollapudi and Gaurav Sundararaman25-Mar-2021To be a captain at T20 leagues like the IPL is a demanding job, and there are several variables at play. For starters, the player and his skill should fit into the first XI all the time, without affecting team balance. Overseas captains always come with risk of a dip in form – how long a run could you give an out-of-from captain if he is filling one of the key (and limited) overseas slots? The chosen leader also needs to have mass appeal to further enhance the franchise’s brand.So, it will not be an easy choice for the Delhi Capitals, picking a replacement for regular captain Shreyas Iyer, who will sit out IPL 2021 due to an injured left shoulder. Who is the best man to replace Iyer as the Capitals’ stand-in captain? Here’s ESPNcricinfo’s shortlist of frontrunners.R Ashwin

In terms of experience R Ashwin could be seen as a natural and logical choice: the premier offspinner has already performed the role at the Kings XI Punjab (now the Punjab Kings) in 2018 and 2019. In 2018, the Kings finished one win short of a playoffs spot, while in 2019 they lost out due to inferior net run rate.A self-confessed nerd, Ashwin is an animated and passionate player and leader. In the past, he has managed to outsmart oppositions with flexible strategies. Ashwin also shares a good relationship with the Capitals’ head coach Ricky Ponting, and both men are among the best readers of the game.Ashwin will enter the IPL on the back of phenomenal success as an allrounder in Test cricket during India’s tour of Australia, followed by the home series against England. In the last IPL, Ashwin took 13 wickets in 15 matches, finishing as the fifth-highest wicket-taker among spinners and the second-most among fingerspinners. Ashwin’s seven wickets in the Powerplay was the most by a spinner.Rishabh Pant

Under normal circumstances, Pant, who is the Capitals’ vice-captain, would automatically be the frontrunner. He was the first player retained by the franchise ahead of the 2018 auction and will once again be expected to earn that honour before the 2022 mega auction. This is the second time Pant has been in contention for the leadership position, having lost the race to Iyer, who was identified by the franchise as the replacement for Gautam Gambhir who stepped down midway into IPL 2018. At the time the franchise leadership group felt Pant would be better off focusing on his batting and keeping.Those two skillsets still remain Pant’s key responsibilities, but three years later Pant is more experienced and brings with him the confidence of having become successful in international cricket, especially Test cricket. Not only has Pant grown confident as a wicketkeeper – as was revealed in part by his constant chirping behind the stumps during the Test series against Australia and England recently – he is also reading the game better.Pant, who is 23 years old, has long been identified has a long-term prospect by the franchise. The only thing that counts against Pant taking charge here is that he has never led in the IPL. But he has led Delhi in domestic cricket, so if does take charge, Pant has some experience to fall back on.Steven Smith

Steven Smith must be pinching himself. Having been let go by the Rajasthan Royals on the eve of the 2021 auction, Smith was picked by the Capitals, and now he might just find himself captaining an IPL side again.Parth Jindal, co-owner of the Capitals, admitted that the franchise was “shocked” to have got Smith for just INR 2.2 crore (USD 301,000 approx) at the auction. Despite already having half a dozen specialist batsmen, Jindal pointed out that Smith presented the Capitals with options. Could one of them be captaincy? Smith’s record as captain in the IPL is mixed. He led Pune to the finals in 2017, but finished last with the Royals in 2020.However the Capitals needs to first answer this key question: can Smith be expected to fit into their XI across all the matches as a top-order batsman? Last season Smith’s form with the bat was under par despite him playing in various positions. As an overseas captain, if Smith struggles as a batsman, it can have a negative impact on the team. That is one reason franchises have previously replaced overseas captains during a season.Ajinkya Rahane

Ajinkya Rahane was dropped as captain by the Rajasthan Royals to correct a stuttering campaign in 2019. A few months later the Capitals procured Rahane through a trade. According to Jindal, Rahane and Ashwin were the choices of former India captain Sourav Ganguly, who, during his time as the Captials’ mentor, felt the Indian Test vice-captain could be a handy batsmen on the turning pitches at the Feroz Shah Kotla, the franchise’s home base (of course, no franchises will be playing at home this season).Rahane has the experience and the respect of the players, and is an aggressive leader. However can Rahane the batsman be relied upon? Rahane has two IPL centuries, but he has seemingly been struggling to cope with the evolving demands of batting in the top order in T20 cricket, where batsmen need to manoeuvre gears swiftly. Last IPL Rahane managed just 113 runs in eight innnings in his first season for the Capitals. That included two ducks, a highest score of 60 and a strike rate of just over 100.

Stunning scooped six announces talent of young batter on Warwickshire rookie contract

George Dobell24-Jul-2021Given Chris Benjamin’s current career trajectory, he’ll be Prime Minister by Thursday.In his media conference after the game, the 22-year-old Benjamin said he had “waited patiently” for this opportunity. “This is something I’ve waited a long time for,” he said. But it seems, from the outside, as if everything has happened in an incredible rush.Benjamin was only signed as a professional player three weeks ago. He’s only played one T20 match – last Sunday – and he only made his List A debut on Thursday. As in, 24 hours before this Hundred match at Edgbaston.But here he is, appearing in a tournament that was billed as ‘the best v the best’ and playing a match-defining hand, at that. His 24 from 15 balls might not, at first glance, look especially impressive. But it came with the match in the balance, in front of the sort of crowd he had never experienced, and he finished it undefeated after producing some strokes that had you jerking forward in your seat. If you could buy shares in cricketers…Let’s talk about those shots first. It was a scoop for six over deep third that first grabbed the attention. It was pretty much a length ball from the seamer Blake Cullen. A generation ago, a player might have tried to run it past the keeper. Or they might have tried to give themselves some room to flog it through the off-side. But it’s hard to hit sixes from either of those options. And the scoop is something of a speciality for Benjamin. He got off the mark with the stroke in a warm-up game a few days ago. Zak Crawley later said it was the one thing the London Spirit side knew about him as a batter: he could scoop.A couple of balls later, Cullen dropped short. As if to try the young pretender with the bouncer. It was a decent one, too. Head height. Sharp. It landed in the third row of the stands at square leg. Benjamin can hook and scoop.The next shot only went for four. But it might have been the best of the lot. Chris Wood is a vastly experienced T20 bowler. And his wide yorker seemed to be directed pretty much perfectly. But somehow Benjamin didn’t just connect, he did so with such power that the ball sped past mid-off. It left Birmingham needing only one more run to draw level with Spirit’s total. Benjamin can scoop and hook and drive.

This reverse-scoop that went for six! #TheHundred pic.twitter.com/UWNkyrlc0n

— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) July 24, 2021