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Jurgen Klopp has begun the summer transfer window quite well, as Liverpool have signed Fabio Carvalho from Fulham and also landed Darwin Nunez from Benfica in a club-record £85m deal.

With the club also very close to announcing Aberdeen defender Calvin Ramsay as their third summer signing, it’s clear that the Reds manager is adding some much-needed youth into the squad at Anfield.

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Given these incoming transfers, it looks likely that there will be a few players leaving Merseyside over the next few weeks, with one midfielder already being linked with a departure from Liverpool.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has been linked with a surprise move to Premier League rivals Manchester United, and with the player earning £125k-p/w, Klopp may be be keen to get him off the wage bill.

With a WhoScored rating of 6.56, the player ranks a lowly joint-23rd in the Liverpool squad following a poor season which has seen him fall down the pecking order at Anfield.

Klopp could replace the 28-year-old with a deal for Porto midfielder Vitinha, who impressed for the Portuguese champions last term.

News outlet O Jogo (via Sport Witness) reported in April that Liverpool were linked with a move for the player, whose release clause of €40m (£34m) would be well within Klopp’s budget.

Vitinha has some Premier League experience under his belt following a stint at Wolves in 2020/21, featuring in 19 top-flight matches.

Porto manager Sergio Conceição has lauded him as “fabulous” following a victory last season which propelled Porto to yet another league title, with the 22-year-old contributing two goals and three assists.

Vitinha displayed his attacking attributes throughout the campaign, registering 2.48 shots per match, higher than Oxlade-Chamberlain’s 2.41. He also proved his defensive worth by winning 31 tackles, 17 more than the Liverpool midfielder, and making 4.5 times as many interceptions (36 to eight).

These figures clearly show that signing the Porto midfielder would be a shrewd move from the Reds, especially for the price quoted, as he could well be a major upgrade on Oxlade-Chamberlain.

It appears that Klopp has a few more big decisions to make during this summer’s transfer window.

AND in other news, “To be completed…”, Romano drops major LFC transfer development, its great news

Former Premier League goalkeeper Paddy Kenny has suggested that Tottenham Hotspur could challenge Liverpool and Manchester City for the title next season if they were to spend upwards of £300m during the upcoming transfer window.

The Lowdown: £310m

Earlier this week, Spurs insider John Wenham told Football Insider that the Lilywhites could spend up to £310m this summer, a figure that was attributed to the £150m that was recently invested into the club, alongside £100m in player sales, and finally, £60m Champions League prize money.

In total, this accumulates to a huge £310m, a hefty sum that could really allow Antonio Conte to go out and spend big on his main targets in the coming weeks ahead of the start of the new campaign at the beginning of August.

The Latest: Kenny reacts

Speaking during an interview with Football Insider, Kenny, 44, claimed that if Tottenham were to spend anywhere near that massive pot of money, they have the potential to reach the levels of fellow top-flight rivals City and Liverpool next term:

“I’m sure if they spend that kind of money they will be looking to go even higher than third.

“That’s ridiculous, it’s a ridiculous amount of money. With the players they have, Son and Kane, they have some quality players.

“Then you spend money like that, you have to be looking even higher.

“You have to be trying to finish in the top two. We had a feeling that Conte would have money if he stayed, it’s one to keep an eye on.”

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The Verdict: Conte’s transfer funds

Conte has already brought in his first signing of the summer in Inter Milan’s Ivan Perisic, who is set to be followed by Southampton goalkeeper Fraser Forster.

But with these extra transfer funds now available to him, plenty more fresh faces will likely be walking through the doors in north London, and perhaps much more costly ones than the free agent duo.

After a spell playing in the Europa Conference League, the Whites will now return to next season’s Champions League for the first time since reaching the last 16 back in 2019/20, and as Wenham suggests, that cash injection could go a huge way to helping match Conte’s ambitions for the club.

In other news… Alasdair Gold has been shocked by the ‘horrible’ news he’s now heard regarding Emerson Royal.

Ahead of their Premier League clash against title-chasing Liverpool on Sunday, Wolves manager Bruno Lage sat in front of the media for his last pre-game press conference this season to issue a fitness update on his squad.

What’s the latest?

Asked to give an update on injuries within the camp, Lage said (as per wolves.co.uk): “Just Saiss at the moment. He doesn’t recover from his injury, so Saiss, Semedo has a big injury, Max also out. Daniel is coming. Nothing new, just those things.”

Saiss ruled out

With Saiss still not fit to face Liverpool in Wolves’ final game of the season, it will come as a concern for Lage and the Molineux faithful.

The Moroccan’s contract is set to expire in the summer, so this setback could mean that he will not turn out in an Old Gold shirt again.

As Lage looks to implement a rebuild at Molineux, amidst a host of expiring contracts, there is a cloud of uncertainty hovering over the club, with Saiss’ future also still up in the air.

As a left-footed centre-back operating in Lage’s back-three, the 32-year-old has shown his worth again this season, having made 31 appearances and starting 81% of his team’s matches in the Premier League.

Since the defender’s absence, Lage has opted to use Jonny as a right centre-back, whilst right-footed Willy Boly has come in place of Saiss, with Toti Gomes also getting a run out in the last game against Norwich. During that time, the Old Gold have conceded six goals in what has been a dreadful end to a season which saw them within touching distance of European football.

Saiss is a big miss in the Wolves squad, posting the fourth-highest WhoScored performance rating this term among players to start more than 10 league games, so it will come as a big blow that he is still not in any condition to feature against a Liverpool side who still have hope of lifting the Premier League trophy at Anfield on Sunday evening.

With the Moroccan’s future at Molineux uncertain, it remains to be see whether we will ever again see him plying his trade in a Wolves shirt. For now, Lage may just be worried over the damage that the free-scoring Reds could cause against a defence deprived of one of its most assured operators.

In other news: Wolves can save millions by unearthing 22-year-old “diamond”, Lage will be ecstatic 

Their top order has shouldered the bulk of the batting workload in recent times, but do India have themselves to blame for their middle-order muddle?

Sidharth Monga and Srinath Sripath24-Jul-2018India are one of the best ODI sides in the world. That is clear from the results: they reached the semi-final of the last World Cup, final of the Champions Trophy, and only recently had their nine-series winning streak in bilateral ODI cricket ended. However, they still don’t know what their best middle order is, which, after the introduction of wristspinners post last year’s Champions Trophy, seems to be the only glaring weakness in the ODI set-up.Since 2015, India have used 11 different batsmen at No. 4 in 62 games. By extension, the whole middle-order combination and dynamic is bound to keep changing. Fair to say India are struggling to identify the ideal middle order.

One of the possible reasons for short ropes is that India seem to be looking for some bowling insurance should one of the five go for a plenty. That is perhaps why Suresh Raina kept getting selected ahead of Dinesh Karthik in England. India just don’t have a real part-timer in the top six except Kedar Jadhav. Even Rohit Sharma doesn’t bowl nowadays. Whether this fascination with a part-timer is justified or not is up for debate.Graphic: Apart from Kedar Jadhav, India’s top six have hardly bowled in ODIs since World Cup 2015•ESPNcricinfo LtdSome of those on the musical chairs in this middle order come into the side based on their IPL performances. However, in the IPL they mostly bat at the top of the order. They rarely get to play the domestic one-dayers, but not all of them bat in the middle order for their state side either. Only one of the top-five middle-order run-getters in Vijay Hazare over the last two years has had some kind of a chance: Dinesh Karthik. That puts more premium on IPL performances, which is how Ambati Rayudu and Suresh Raina came back this year. Even from the IPL, the middle-order performers haven’t got get a decent run: Rishabh Pant, Karthik, MS Dhoni, Manish Pandey and Krunal Pandya are the five highest run-getters in the middle order in the last two IPLs.Graphic: A number of India’s middle order batsmen bat in the top order in domestic cricket•Ishita Mazumder/ESPNcricinfo LtdAnother reason why top-order performers in domestic cricket get shifted to middle order in international cricket is that the top order in the India team is packed. And they are also doing most of the heavy lifting too. They are scoring more than any other top order in the world.Graphic: India’s top three in ODIs have shouldered the bulk of their run-scoring workload in recent times•Girish TS/ESPNcricinfo LtdHere’s how every India ODI batsman has fared since World Cup 2015, not counting matches against Zimbabwe.Graphic: The gulf between India’s top and middle orders since World Cup 2015•Girish TS/ESPNcricinfo LtdThere is only one Indian in the top-25 run-getters in the middle order since World Cup. The problem is, it is Dhoni, who has tried batting at 4 and 5 a fair bit and is now back to No. 6. India have not been able to pin his role: dasher in the lower middle order or accumulator at 4. He is nowhere near top-10 strike rates for Nos 6 and 7 nor is he in the top-10 averages for Nos 4 and 5.India might have finally been tempted to give a settled line-up a fair run but then Jadhav, who manages the rare double of high average and strike rate – 41 and 109 since World Cup 2015, began to drop out with hamstring injuries.Graphic: MS Dhoni is the only Indian representative among the world’s top 25 middle-order batsmen since World Cup 2015•Girish TS/ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Average fall of second wicket (since World Cup 2015)

• England: 103 in 17th over

• Sri Lanka: 81 in 15th over

• Australia 93 in 17th over

• India 122 in 22nd over

• South Africa 104 in 19th over

• New Zealand 86 in 16th over

• Pakistan 89 in 17th over

• Bangladesh 81 in 16th over

In big tournaments or series India’s middle order rarely get to do much, and then one fine day, in a crucial game, the top order collapses or they come in in the 35th over with eight an over required and they don’t seem to know how to handle those situations. Is it because England’s middle order inspires more confidence that their top order can score more freely or is it because India’s top order is a tad conservative that they go slow?Is the middle order putting extra pressure on the top order or is the time taken by them giving the middle order less time? There was a time when India were paying the price for the top order not going absolutely ballistic when batting first on flat tracks – like in Australia in early 2016 – but their wristspinners have sort of made up for it. The middle-order breakdown still keeps cropping up every now and then.

Ian Botham has been unveiled as the new chairman of Durham, a beleaguered county that can only benefit from his roistering attitude to public life

David Hopps03-Nov-2016Sir Ian Botham’s inspirational qualities on and off the cricket field have been well chronicled. The great deeds that won him the reputation as one of the greatest England cricketers in history have been followed in retirement by indefatigable charitable commitments approached with the same gusto. Now those energies will be committed to a new challenge: the chairmanship of Durham, a county that needs leading to a secure and lasting future.Durham’s tired old board was sacked in its entirety last month as part of the punitive measures imposed by the ECB after the game’s governing body reluctantly provided the financial assistance, and expertise, they needed to stop them falling into bankruptcy.Botham, an English cricketing icon, not least in the north-east, has now accepted a largely figurehead role for a restructured county which will operate as a community interest company; the man expected to bang the drum, rouse the spirits and help bring in the money, while the rest of the new board, as yet not divulged, work on the small print of recovery.Not that there is much money to be had. Unemployment in the north-east is among the highest in the country and figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest the region has been worst hit since the credit crunch of 2008. But Durham have a knack of uncovering cricketing talent which must be preserved whatever challenges present themselves.Ben Stokes – an allrounder in Botham’s mould who has welcomed his involvement as “brilliant” – Mark Wood, Paul Collingwood and Steve Harmison have all made the grade at England level. And, unlike some other counties, they draw their talent from all social classes.Harmison’s past comments help keep the response to Botham’s return in proportion. “I would love to help out in any shape or form but it’s easy for ex-players like me to say that,” he said recently. “What we need are financial experts.”Daily involvement will not be Botham’s remit, rather more the need whenever he can to inspire, bully and cajole businesses and individuals in the north-east to prove their affection for England’s newest and most northerly first-class county. As someone who has raised more than £12m for charity, largely for leukaemia research, and predominantly by the method of yomping into the sunset down hills and dale until he could yomp no more, Botham’s emotional right to request a little largesse from others cannot be questioned.His love for the region, especially its big-heartedness and open spaces, is unquestionable. He lives a few miles over the border, in North Yorkshire, in a 17th Century farmhouse which has led him to be fondly dubbed the Squire of Ravensworth, but his affinity is with Durham. He spends much of his leisure time in country pursuits such as fishing on the nearby River Tees which rushes across untamed Pennines valleys and forms the historic border.His association with the north-east stretches back to the time he joined Durham for their inaugural county season in 1992 – a host of injuries finally silenced him as he retired the following season. He will hope that his second coming is more triumphant because then his body hurt, his career was almost spent and his reputation could not be matched by performance. He described his last hurrah as one of the worst decisions he had made and, as various studies of his cricketing career have made plain, he made one or two bad ones.These were bleak times for Durham as they struggled to adjust to life as a fully-professional county and, mistakenly in hindsight, committed to building an international-sized stadium in the relatively small market town of Chester-le-Street. From there, their financial problems have grown.Chairman Botham: the very thought will bring smirks around the cricket circuit, although not in his line of sight. After all, he is the least governable of men. At the height of his fame, during one of his many wars with officialdom, he once stood up before a cricket dinner to condemn cricket administrators the world over as “gin-soaked old dodderers”.Approaching his 61st birthday, English cricket’s greatest roisterer has now joined them, even if his preferred tipple is likely to be a decent swig of good red wine.It is tempting to remark on this fine example of poacher turned gamekeeper, except that any image concerning Botham and country sports is dangerous. Chris Packham, the mild-mannered presenter of BBC Springwatch, attracted his ire earlier this year, for condemning the deliberate killing of birds of prey on grouse moors to protect the stock of grouse for the shooting season. Botham took to the airwaves to condemn him as an “extremist”.That he will be an absentee chairman for large chunks of the year is inevitable, certainly as long as his commitments persist – and, as if to illustrate that, he will not take up the role until he returns from England’s Test tour of India. Having attracted a chairman of world repute, Durham’s next task is to find a vice chairman of complementary qualities – someone more taken with the minutiae of life. There have even been suggestions that Botham will hand-pick his own Board.Botham, as his cricket commentary reveals, is a man of unyielding opinion and not overly obsessed by facts. He has never coached, not held an administrative or business post. But he is perfectly placed to attract star names to fund-raisers, to shame the business community into supporting the county once more, or to lobby support for Durham in the NatWest Blast and turn around some of the most disappointing T20 crowds in the country. And his rebellious air, in a county that feels mistreated by the ECB, will also not go amiss. He described himself as “privileged” but warned of “challenging times ahead”.If you care about Durham cricket – or even if you don’t, but Sir Ian Botham thinks you should – you may be hearing from him soon. For the good of English cricket, it is to be hoped that this second coming is a good deal more successful than the first. There is a valuable job waiting to be done. And the red wine will be very palatable.

After the slower conditions in Dominica, Sabina Park’s early life was a decided shock for Australia’s batsmen. The situation required calmness, versatility and sharpness of reaction. In other words, Steven Smith.

Daniel Brettig in Kingston12-Jun-2015They are fewer and further between these days, more prevalent in cricket hotbeds like Antigua and Trinidad than elsewhere. Even so, an observant traveller to the Caribbean can still glimpse the numerous informal versions of the game that for years helped sustain the region’s talent growth where system and infrastructure were lacking.While beach cricket is the most famous of these, tape ball cricket and tennis ball cricket are two of the more distinctive sub-genres, requiring different sets of skills and testing different elements of a young player’s technique and mental application. The separation of these two competitions is a feature of many islands, some played at night and some during the day.A similar sense of duality was evident on day one at Sabina Park, where Australia’s batsmen faced an entirely different set of questions from those presented to them in Dominica. For one, they were batting first, and duty-bound to set the agenda for the Test. For two they were confronted with a pitch offering far more initial life than Windsor Park’s slower, dustier strip. And for three, Jerome Taylor summoned an opening spell of the rarest quality.For batsmen who had become used to playing for lower bounce and slower pace over the past three weeks, Sabina Park’s early life was a decided shock. David Warner barely had time to prod the pitch before he had fended the sharpest of lifters into the slips, and Shaun Marsh’s defence against steep bounce was to be so far back in his crease that Richard Kettleborough could give him out lbw to a ball swinging and seaming in from around the wicket.What the situation required was calmness, versatility and sharpness of reaction. In other words, Steven Smith. This, at the 28th time of asking, was the first time Smith had found himself batting in the opening over of a Test match. Some No. 3 batsmen like Ricky Ponting were not obliged to do this terribly often. Others like Ian Chappell have had to cope with it an awful lot. Smith responded in the unflappable manner of a quality “first drop”.That first three balls, Smith played a flick to midwicket, a watchful push back down the pitch and was beaten by Taylor as he played down the line. The last delivery was significant, for the younger, jerkier Smith would have pushed out further, following the movement. By covering his stumps but venturing no further he diminished the chances of an edge as the best top-order batsmen have often tried to do.”Batting at number three now that’s going to happen here and there,” Smith said of his early entry. “I guess my game’s got to be up to it, to the challenge of a new ball. Sometimes guys are going to miss out and I could be in on the first ball. I’ve got my head around that. I know what I need to do if I get out there, and I guess that’s do what I did today. Give myself a chance, be patient, watch the ball closely and try to build an innings.”Smith’s collected, concentrating mien was to be demonstrated across the rest of the morning. There was a hint of how he handled Pakistan’s menacing Wahab Riaz in a tense World Cup quarter-final in Adelaide, all straight bat and risk aversion. He had no concern about taking his time, allowing the bowlers to tire themselves out by being brought back for multiple spells.One man brought back for those spells was the only member of the West Indies attack who looked capable of defeating Smith. After Taylor’s outstanding first spell of 5-5-0-2, he did not bowl again until the penultimate over of the morning session. Later on, he was not allowed to take the second new ball late in the day, and bowled only 15 of the 90 overs required. Smith wondered why.”I actually thought he might have bowled a few more to start with,” Smith said of Taylor, owner of an enviable bowling record at his home ground. “He only bowled five overs in his spell and he had two for nought. I was a little bit surprised with that and I was very surprised they didn’t take the new ball at the end tonight. Worked out well for us, I guess.”The rest of the day contrasted enormously with the first hour, as much as tape and tennis balls. From a start where the ball was flying around, swinging and seaming, Smith ended the day having faced as many balls twirled down from the spinners as he did from the pacemen. The ability to pull back against a softer ball and slower bowling, to not be lured into searching too hard for the ball, was critical.Neither Michael Clarke nor Adam Voges were able to master it, as both batsmen perished when going out searching hard for runs. They were left, alongside Warner and Marsh, to watch Smith calmly accumulate with a combination of deft leg side flicks, strong off side forcing strokes and cuts, and the occasional sally forth to loft down the ground. A rare stumping from a Devendra Bishoo leg break in Dominica did not dissuade him from this brand of adventure.”I think last week that sort of thing happens,” Smith said. “He bowled me a ball out the front and it spun quite sharply. I felt last week that I wasn’t going to get beaten on the outside of my bat and today it was a little bit the same. It doesn’t really matter if you get stumped by an inch or a metre. It’s about covering that as much as I can and just trying to get the bowler off their lengths.”All told, it was another significant step forward for Smith during a phase in which he has made them virtually every innings. There will be greater challenges than that of West Indies, of course, but by starting calmly against the new ball, establishing partnerships and then surviving to bat another day, Smith showed he had the stuff of the best No. 3 batsmen. And that includes against tape ball or tennis ball.

Stats highlights of the first day’s play between South Africa and India at the Wanderers

Shiva Jayaraman18-Dec-2013 Virat Kohli’s 119 is his fifth hundred in Tests and his highest score. Two of these tons have come in away matches. He hit a hundred in his last away Test too – against Australia at the Adelaide Oval in 2012. Kohli has hit six centuries in international cricket this year, equalling AB de Villiers and Shikhar Dhawan for the most by any batsman in 2013. Indian batsmen don’t often score centuries in the first innings of a tough tour outside the subcontinent. Kohli is the first batsman since Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag – both hit centuries in Bloemfontein in 2001- to make a hundred in the first game of a tour outside the subcontinent excluding Zimbabwe, when India have batted first. There have been only three such hundreds – Dilip Sardesai’s 212 against West Indies in 1971, Polly Umrigar’s 130 against West Indies in 1953, and Vijay Manjrekar’s 133 against England at Headingley in 1952. Tendulkar, Sehwag and Sanjay Manjrekar are the other three Indian batsmen – before Kohli – to have made their centuries by the end of the first day’s play. Kohli is also the eighth India batsman to hit a Test ton in South Africa. There have been 12 hundreds by Indian batsmen in South Africa, including five from Tendulkar. Kohli is the first player from the subcontinent to hit a hundred at the Wanderers since Azhar Mahmood struck 136 in 1998. In fact, of the 22 overseas batsmen who have scored centuries at this venue, only four are from the subcontinent. Kohli’s century was the first by an Indian batting at No.4 in 49 innings since Tendulkar’s 146 in Cape Town in 2011. The last batsman other than Tendulkar to score a Test hundred at No. 4 for India was Sourav Ganguly, who hit 239 against Pakistan in Bangalore in 2007. India’s opening pair managed to add just 17 runs in the innings, keeping in tune with their ordinary record in recent away matches. In 25 innings away from home since 2011, India’s openers have added only 399 runs for the first wicket at an average of 15.96. The only fifty-plus opening partnership for India during this period came at Lord’s in July 2011 when Gautam Gambhir and Abhinav Mukund added 63 runs in the first innings. At home, India’s openers have done better during this period – adding 1403 at 58.45 from 24 innings, with three century partnerships and eight fifty stands. The 89-run partnership between Cheteshwar Pujara and Kohli is India’s second highest for the third wicket in South Africa. Gautam Gambhir and Tendulkar added 176 for the third wicket in Cape Town in 2011. The first Test is MS Dhoni’s 50th as captain. He has now captained India in the most Tests, passing Sourav Ganguly’s 49. Dhoni is the 14th captain to lead his country in 50 or more Tests, drawing level with Viv Richards, Andrew Strauss and Mark Taylor.

Steven Taylor has a chance to become America’s first home-grown star in more than a century

Peter Della Penna21-Oct-2012When it was announced that international exhibition matches would be played in Pakistan this weekend, the presence of a former Test veteran like Sanath Jayasuriya in a World XI squad would not have raised too many eyebrows. The presence of an American teenager just might do the trick though.Mixing and mingling with the likes of Jermaine Lawson, Andre Nel and Jayasuriya will be Steven Taylor, an 18-year-old left-hand opening batsman from Miramar, Florida, located 20 miles north of Miami. USA has produced youngsters in recent years that looked like glittering gems at the junior level only to lose their luster before falling short of reaching the senior team. Taylor on the other hand has continued to sparkle and has a chance to become America’s first home-grown star since Bart King led the first-class bowling averages in England in 1908.Taylor played the first of two games for the International World XI against Pakistan All Star XI in Karachi, scoring a run-a-ball 15 while batting at No.3.”If you look at the rest of the Under-19 players in America, Steven is way ahead. He has a tremendous amount of talent,” fellow USA team-mate Orlando Baker said. Taylor first toured with the men at the age of 15 in November 2008 when Baker captained a USA squad at the WICB Cup in Guyana. Taylor earned the nickname “Bob” on the trip after showing up wearing a SpongeBob SquarePants backpack. In the four years since, he has grown into a punishing opener and his intimidating batting style has forced Baker to stop calling him Bob, instead labeling him “the American Chris Gayle.” Baker should know since he grew up with Gayle as the two played for the Jamaica U-19 team together in 1996 and 1997 before Baker moved to America.”Playing with a guy like Chris Gayle, Steven gives me so much resemblance of him in terms of his power, his timing and I just hope he keeps working hard because he has a lot of talent,” Baker said. “When you look and you can find a player like this in America with so much cricketing talent, so much natural talent, you want to nurture this talent.”One of Taylor’s biggest learning experiences was at the 2010 ICC U-19 World Cup in New Zealand when USA entered the lion’s den in their first match against eventual tournament champions Australia. At 16, Taylor had to take strike for the first ball of the chase against Josh Hazlewood, five months away from making his international debut for the Australia senior side with pace hovering around 140 kph.”That experience was very good for me because I never faced pace at that level,” Taylor said. “When those guys were bowling to me, the ball was hitting my bat. The ball was hitting me, I wasn’t hitting the ball. Hazlewood had bowled me a bouncer and the ball didn’t touch me at all but the umpire called four leg-byes. I knew if that had touched me, I would have died. That’s when I knew that the bowling in south Florida was weak. As soon as I came back, I made a 70. The following week I made a hundred.”Taylor has always been physically mature for his age, but his temperament has become more refined during the last 18 months. A turning point for him was when he scored two centuries and finished tied for second in runs with 455 in nine innings at the 2011 ICC U-19 World Cup Qualifier in Ireland. Taylor had a reputation for bullying attacks at home in sunny Florida, but struggled to score runs in unfamiliar conditions. That changed on the green pitches and cool weather in Dublin. Taylor stood head and shoulders above his USA U-19 teammates, drawing the attention of then Papua New Guinea coach and current Australia national selector Andy Bichel when Taylor notched a scintillating 140 off 120 balls with 19 fours and three sixes against PNG. The next highest score for USA was 23 in a six-run loss.”Let’s not forget Steven Taylor’s innings, amazing innings really. He hit the ball with power,” Bichel said after the match. “He’s got a bright future if he can keep everything together, but he’s got the right things about his game at the moment and who knows down the track where he could end up if he does so.”Even though Taylor had a handful of opportunities for the USA senior team in 2010, it wasn’t until 2012 that he fully cemented a place in the starting XI through his performances at the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier. After a timid showing in the first three matches, Taylor came out of his shell on day four of the tournament against Ireland. He says it was a sequence against Trent Johnston that gave him the confidence that he belonged at the senior level.”Those first few games it was mostly nerves and not being accustomed to the wickets,” Taylor said. “What made me click was when I hit Trent Johnston for six and the next ball he came up and bowled a bouncer and I got a single and he cursed me. He was mad that I hit him for six and then got off strike. For me, that was smart cricket. To think that I hit Trent Johnston, a guy who played in the last two World Cups, that was my turning point.”Taylor went on to finish second on USA’s run-list at the tournament behind captain Sushil Nadkarni and played a key role in USA’s upset of ODI nation Scotland. At ICC WCL Division Four last month in Malaysia, Taylor marked himself out early on as USA’s most prized wicket and finished second overall in the tournament with 216 runs.USA’s cricket teams are frequently derided internationally for being chock full of expats, with one writer calling them the “Guyana Rejects XI” in 2010. But as 2012 winds down, an American-born and raised talent is emerging as USA’s most visible cricket ambassador on a global stage, taking part in a pair of exhibition matches in Karachi alongside Jayasuriya while going up against Shahid Afridi and Umar Gul. Taylor might have retired the SpongeBob SquarePants backpack, but this weekend he’ll be sure to soak up the experience.

After his success at the top of the order in the West Indies, Mahela Jayawardene talks of the prospect of playing in that position in the 2011 World Cup

Sa'adi Thawfeeq09-May-2010Mahela Jayawardene’s outstanding form at the top of the order, in the World Twenty20 and on a few occasions in ODIs, gives Sri Lanka the option to play him as an opener in the 2011 World Cup. He has got his runs at a fast pace and given his side strong chances to win.The indifferent form of the rest of the line-up has forced Jayawardene to take charge of Sri Lanka’s run-scoring in the West Indies. He hit 81 off 51 balls in Sri Lanka’s 135 against New Zealand which they lost narrowly by two wickets. Then, against Zimbabwe, he laid the foundation for a total of 173 with his first hundred in Twenty20s. Sri Lanka won that rain-affected contest to qualify for the Super Eights, where they took on West Indies last week. Once again Jayawardene caressed his way to a substantial score, hitting an undefeated 98 to edge Sri Lanka towards a semi-final berth.The shift to the top of the order began during the Sri Lankan Inter-Provincial Twenty20 tournament, where he opened the batting for Wayamba in their third consecutive title-holding season, Jayawardene revealed.”The provincial tournament in Colombo is where I got the confidence, and I got into a groove and took control of things,” he said. “That’s when I realised that in Twenty20s it would be a good cushion, as well as the few times I opened in one-day cricket. I felt really comfortable in getting those big scores and winning matches.”In the IPL we didn’t have any middle-order batsmen in our [Kings XI Punjab’s] set-up. A couple of the guys were injured and three of the overseas players we had were all openers. The last two seasons of the IPL I’ve batted in the middle order and done the job for them. But when the opportunity came I said ‘Let me have a go at it.’ I had the confidence and I was backing myself to go out and do it. I was left out of the Kolkata Knight Riders game because they were playing a different combination. Then Marshy [Shaun Marsh] got injured in the warm-up. I said ‘Let me open’, since Ravi Bopara was going to bat at No. 5 anyway. It worked for me.”When somebody has to step in, in these kinds of opportunities, I always put my hand up because I like that kind of challenge. Rather than wait for things to happen, you try and create your own destiny. You go with a very free mind and take that challenge and enjoy it.”Jayawardene didn’t open the batting back when he was playing for Nalanda College, where he learnt the rudiments of the game.”I batted at No. 3 at school, but you have to fit into the team wherever possible. When I came into the national team I was quite happy to bat anywhere as long as I was playing for Sri Lanka. Then I got cemented in one position.”I was probably one of the lucky ones where you get a slot and you get to keep it, whereas other players in their careers have been shifted around most of the places. I’ve been shifted around for a little while but I got a permanent place and that is always a good thing. I settled to it probably but I didn’t fulfill what I wanted to do until now.”The two times he scored a century as an opener in ODI cricket were when Sanath Jayasuriya was indisposed in Dambulla against Pakistan, and when Tillakaratne Dilshan suffered an injury in Bangladesh.”Opening the batting, I can control and express myself a little better. You can’t harp on what you’ve done – you just need to keep challenging yourself and be as consistent as possible. The ultimate challenge for any cricketer is to be consistent. If I can do that, it will be great.”Jayawardene said he would sit with Kumar Sangakkara and the team management after the tournament to discuss opening options in next year’s World Cup.”There are guys who have done well as openers in the ODIs and it’s not fair to take them out if they cannot bat in the middle order,” Jayawardene said. “While thinking about that you’ve also got to make sure that the middle order is settled and we have the right guys batting in the right positions. We need to think of all that rather than be selfish and think of wanting to open.”I am hitting the ball well and it’s a different role. I probably have got into a zone where I know how to go about it, but nothing is guaranteed. As long as I am batting well and doing well, I just want to continue and keep challenging myself to try and get better and better in that position. It’s a good challenge for me at this time of my career.

“Batting in the middle order, and being the senior player, I had to take on a lot of responsibility and control things. But batting up the order, there is not much pressure at one end, in the sense that you haven’t lost any wickets, so you just go out there and start fresh”

“Batting in the middle order, and being the senior player, I had to take on a lot of responsibility, and you needed to control things. But batting up the order, there is not much pressure at one end in the sense that we haven’t lost any wickets, so you just go out there and start fresh. The freedom is there, but at the same time you still have the responsibility of taking that burden and making sure you control things.”This is what I have always wanted to do in my expectations. It is probably who I am, in the sense that this is the way I batted when I was playing for school – very free, playing quite a few shots and at the same time I make mistakes. But you back yourself because you know you could win a game. It’s very difficult to do that when you are batting at four.”Situations are such you need to adjust, which was a great challenge as well, which I enjoyed. Now it’s a different challenge and I’m doing it in a bit of a different way as long as the team is benefitting.”There is a big difference batting in the middle order and opening. That doesn’t mean that I can just go and throw my wicket away. I know I have to bat and once I get a start, apply myself and get to the next stage and finish matches off. Just walking in, you need a mindset of being positive, and try and take control of things, which is different but it has suited my game.”Batting at four, maybe I was in two minds about whether to go after the bowling and be aggressive or whether to be cautious and control things. But sometimes when you go in with a bit of a negative mind-frame, saying ‘I shouldn’t get out. I have to make sure I bat to that situation’, then you tend to make mistakes and get out.”Jayawardene said he was fortunate to have got the right breaks. “I am very blessed. I’ve always appreciated the opportunities I have got to play for my team since when I was 20. That was also because a couple of guys got injured and I was given an opportunity and I grabbed hold of that. Those kinds of opportunities don’t come to everybody all the time. I am very lucky to be part of that kind of a group initially, for I learnt a lot from their experience. Every time things happen for a reason and I am sure opening the batting happened for another reason as well.”

Allen’s last six T20 scores have read 137, 74, 34, 78*, 50 and 38

Vishal Dikshit17-Jan-2024The 2022-23 season was not a great summer for Finn Allen. At the start of the season, he had a disappointing 2022 T20 World Cup by managing just 95 runs in five innings. He then lasted more than 20 balls only once in the remaining five T20Is that summer and his ODI form also lost sheen after a glittering start. A year later, he didn’t get a ticket for the ODI World Cup in India.This summer, though, has been remarkable for him in T20s. Let’s go back a few months to another summer, the one in England. Allen smashed 240 runs from nine outings in the Hundred, only behind Jos Buttler’s tally of 391, with a strike rate of nearly 145 that helped Southern Brave reach the playoffs. He stayed back for the T20Is against England and blasted 83 off 53 in the third game before returning for the home summer where his last six T20 scores (both domestic and international) have been 137, 74, 34, 78*, 50 and 38.Related

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The latest of those was 137 off 62 balls in the third T20I against Pakistan, studded with a record-breaking 16 sixes that made his score the highest by a New Zealand player in T20Is. So what’s changed for him this season?”I think I’m just evaluating risk and times that I want to take a high-risk option,” he said after the Pakistan game. “Maybe prior to this summer was a little bit all over the show and not so much control but I’m trying to have more control now and be a bit more decisive.”I’m working on just adapting to the scenario better, situations better, and I guess picking my moments to go. I’m basically trying to have a stable base and build off that and expand my game from there.”The stable base was on show in Dunedin where he let his flourishing swings and hand-eye coordination do all the work to belt all his sixes in the arc from long-off to square leg. He stood tall to either swing down the ground or put away the short balls with pulls whenever Pakistan erred with their lengths, even if they came with a change of pace.That he could score at a very high strike rate was evident even before this season, but now he is also being consistent, something he has been working on since returning to his home team Auckland before this domestic season. His scores in the ongoing T20I series – 137, 74 and 34 – are a testimony to his consistency, which bodes well for both Allen and New Zealand in the build-up to the T20 World Cup in June.Along the way, Allen has also been taking down some big names. After a 26 off 17 in the opening Super Smash game, he struck 50 off 24 against Wellington where he took down Ben Sears for 20 off just six balls. In his unbeaten 78 off 46 balls after that, he punished Ish Sodhi for a sequence of 6, 4 and 6 after the powerplay to hit him for 22 runs off seven balls. On Wednesday, it was Pakistan’s Haris Rauf who came in his way and Allen blasted him for 47 off just 14 with the help of six sixes and two fours.Allen says a lot of it comes down to his preparations before the games because the “fickle” nature of the format can turn the tide quickly.”I come back to my basics and making sure that before a game I know my basics,” he said. “And going into a game I feel like I’ve ticked everything off. It’s such a fickle game, the tide can turn real quick so knowing that I’ve ticked everything off before a game and can put it down to execution and plans.”With two more T20Is to go in the series and another home T20I series against Australia next month, Allen will hope his hot streak continues this summer.