The Guardians nearly managed to pull of what would've been a signature comeback against the Tigers in Game 1 of the American League wild card series. In the bottom of the ninth inning, down 2–1, José Ramírez managed to reach third base with nobody out due to a throwing error, but Cleveland wasn't able to capitalize.
That's in part due to a costly mistake Ramirez made at third, which resulted in him getting caught between bases after Kyle Manzardo hit a ground ball to the pitcher's mound. Ramirez, for whatever reason, had an unusually large lead off third base. As such, when the ball was hit weakly in the infield, he was stranded in between third base and home plate, and was easy prey for Tigers pitcher Will Vest.
Ramírez was already halfway down the line by the time Vest fielded the ball, but rather than continue heading for the plate, he stopped short and tried to retreat. Vest noticed he was in No Man's Land, and reacted accordingly to secure the critical second out of the inning.
The baserunning gaffe from Ramírez moved the potential game-tying run from third base to first base, and the Guardians weren't able to even up the score after that, and the Tigers finished off the 2–1 win.
Game 2 is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at 1:08 p.m. ET from Progressive Field in Cleveland.
O meia Rômulo jogou apenas poucos minutos com a camisa do Palmeiras, na derrota por 1 a 0 para o Internacional, na Arena Barueri. Desde que chegou ao Verdão, após a disputa do Paulistão, o novo camisa 20 pouco ganhou chances de Abel Ferreira e parece estar longe de começar a ser utilizado.
continua após a publicidadeRelacionadasPalmeirasJornal espanhol mostra em números ‘pior versão’ de Endrick em São Paulo x PalmeirasPalmeiras30/04/2024PalmeirasApós início de tabela difícil, Palmeiras faz campanha que já rendeu título brasileiroPalmeiras30/04/2024PalmeirasDiretor da base confirma que joia do futsal do Palmeiras vai ganhar chance no campoPalmeiras30/04/2024
➡️ Tudo sobre o Verdão agora no WhatsApp. Siga o nosso novo canal Lance! Palmeiras
Na coletiva após o empate por 0 a 0 com o São Paulo pelo Brasileirão 2024, o técnico do Palmeiras respondeu os motivos que estão fazendo o meia Rômulo estar demorando para receber chances no Verdão.
– Ele está no Palmeiras por mérito dele, mas tem que subir a montanha. Muito bom jogador, muito bom finalizador. Na altura certa, vai jogar. As minhas decisões não são pensando no Endrick, no López, no Rony, no Veiga. Quando tenho dúvidas, tenho uma frase na minha sala: “O que é melhor para o time?”. O melhor para o time é ele ter a oportunidade para trabalhar em uma das melhores equipes brasileiras. Calma! Só isso que peço. – disse Abel Ferreira na sala de coletiva do Morumbis.
continua após a publicidade
Rômulo chegou ao Palmeiras com uma grande expectativa da torcida após uma ótima passagem pelo Novorizontino, figurando até na seleção do último Campeonato Paulista pela campanha que fez com o time do Interior.
➡️ A boa do Lance! Betting: vamos dobrar seu primeiro depósito, até R$200! Basta abrir sua conta e tá na mão!
O meia de 22 anos assinou um contrato de cinco anos com o Palmeiras e agora trabalha a parte física e tática para começar a ganhar mais minutos por parte da comissão técnica de Abel Ferreira.
Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh shook his head at the improbability. He was talking about the absurd truth that his 61st home run of the year was caught in a crowd of 41,525 people by a Mariners fan wearing a homemade “Dump 61 Here” shirt. A fan who grew up in Washington rooting for the Mariners and now works at—wait for it—a Las Vegas casino. A fan sitting 391 feet away in the opposite field, a distance the other way Raleigh had reached only three times all year.
“That,” Raleigh said, “is crazy.”
Raleigh might well have wondered “What are the odds” that Seattle, the only franchise never to make the World Series, is one win away from playing for a spot in the Fall Classic. (To be specific, at the start of the year the odds of such a thing happening were +1,100, worse than at +900 in 2024 and 2023, when they failed to make the playoffs.)
And what were the odds Raleigh would join Yankee sluggers Aaron Judge, Roger Maris and Babe Ruth as the only players to homer in the postseason after hitting 60 homers in the regular season?
And what were the odds the Mariners would win three games in one year against All-Planet pitcher Tarik Skubal, including a pivotal American League division series Game 2 on Sunday?
Mariners’ secret sauce is the oldest formula for success
It turns out, all the good karma around the Mariners these days has little to do with long odds and everything to do with one of the oldest, surest tenets of winning baseball: pitching. In a game gone crazy over spin and pitch shapes, Mariners pitchers throw more strikes (65.3%), more fastballs (55.5%) and more pitches when ahead in the count (31.2%) than any staff in the American League.
They are flat-out dominating a Detroit Tigers team that doesn’t have nearly the lineup depth or bat-to-ball skills to take on the fury of Seattle’s here-it-is-try-to-hit-it pitchers.
Seattle Game 3 starter Logan Gilbert took the baton from Luis Castillo, who took the baton from George Kirby. In an 8-4 win made close only in garbage time, Gilbert struck out seven batters over six solid innings, tying a Mariners postseason record for most strikeouts without a walk, joining Castillo and Randy Johnson.
In three games the Mariners have held the Tigers to a .165 batting average while striking out 35 batters in 29 innings. Ever since Kerry Carpenter homered in the fifth inning of Game 1, the Tigers have gone homerless in 95 consecutive plate appearances, getting outhomered 5–0. All that with the Mariners’ best starter this year, Bryan Woo, not even on the roster because of injury.
“The most impressive thing about this staff is how crazy-a– tight they are,” said Seattle center fielder Julio Rodriguez. “I mean, they share information together, they eat together, they train together, they do everything together. Listen, they’ve got good [stuff]. Start there. But the way they compete every day and push each other is what helps them to be great.”
Said Raleigh, “I know every team talks about being aggressive and controlling counts. But these guys take it to another level. It makes my job a lot easier.”
Luis Castillo, right, was one of five Mariners pitchers who held the Tigers to just three hits and two runs in Game 2. / Stephen Brashear-Imagn Images
Gilbert threw only 22 fastballs, his third fewest of the year, but bamboozled Detroit hitters with a magic show of sliders and splitters so impressive you thought at any moment he would pull a quarter out of the ear of some wide-eyed Tigers hitter. He threw 20 splitters. The Tigers put none of them in play. They swung six times at his menacing butterfly and missed it five times, managing one measly foul ball.
This is a staff with the best pure stuff this side of the Dodgers. Gilbert’s splitter is the hardest single pitch to hit in baseball among starters (.115 opponents’ batting average) and has the lowest spin rate among all splitters (727 rpm). He has the longest extension in baseball (7.5 feet in front of the rubber, matching Tyler Glasnow and Jake Misiorowski).
Castillo throws the second highest percentage of fastballs in MLB (68.2%) while living up to his nickname, (The Rock), given to him years ago by an impressed Reds teammate who watched him throw one bullpen and said, “Man, you are throwing rocks!”
Woo is number one at chucking fastballs (72.8%). Kirby has the greatest strikeout-to-walk rate in history for any starter four years into their career (6.88). Closer Andres Muñoz has the single toughest pitch to hit in the sport, his slider (.103 opponents’ BA). Matt Brash throws more sliders than all but two pitchers (60.6%).
On and on it goes. The Mariners are a pure stuff factory, a staff of outliers. But everything works from a country hardball, old school perspective. No team in baseball throws more first-pitch fastballs than Seattle.
What are the odds? The Mariners are true believers in the 94% Theory: when a pitcher throws an 0–0 pitch in the strike zone, 94% of the time the batter gets out or the pitch is a strike. Get ahead, then go after chase swings. It’s a formula that the Tigers are poorly equipped to defeat with all their swing-and-miss. It’s a team that pinch-hits for its No. 3 hitter.
Raleigh’s first 2025 postseason homer lands with a friendly face
The Tigers also just don’t have the depth of elite arms that the Mariners possess. That was apparent in Game 3 when Seattle just kept tacking on runs, including the homer by Raleigh with a runner at second in the ninth.
“Honestly, I was just trying to get the guy over and I was able to get extended a little more through it,” he said.
The ball bounced in the Seattle bullpen and into the hands of Jameson Turner, a supervisor at the Fontainebleau Casino in Vegas who only the day before bought a ticket for Game 3 and flew here. He had the day off Tuesday and asked for Wednesday off as well.
Turner made his teal “Dump 61 Here” shirt himself, ironing on the vinyl graphics. He made the shirt for the last series of the regular season, when he bought a ticket in the right field seats in Seattle hoping to see Raleigh add to his 60 homers.
He brought the shirt with him here but could only find a seat in left field.
“I’m like, ‘Okay, well maybe he'll just knock a miracle one back there,’” Turner said. “And I guess that's what happened … When he came up, maybe he saw me and hit it right to me. It was Babe Ruth there.”
When Turner caught the homer, the Mariners relievers laughed themselves upon seeing his shirt.
“Yeah, they were loving it,” Turner said. “They were just all giving me thumbs up, like they couldn't believe it either.”
The kicker: once Turner caught No. 61, he peeled off his shirt to reveal a like one underneath, only this one read, “Dump 62 Here.” After the game, Turner got to meet his modern Babe Ruth in a hallway outside the Mariners’ clubhouse. Raleigh, clad in shorts and a T-shirt, autographed his shirt.
Major league baseball has been played in Seattle for 50 years, starting with the Pilots in 1969 and the Mariners in 1977. Never has the city seen the World Series. It is the longest drought for a city in baseball. The Mariners have not reached even the league championship series since 2001. But on nights like this, when godwinks happen like Raleigh’s 61st home run landing in the mitts of a Mariners fan wearing 61 in a sea of Tigers fans, it becomes easy for any fan of the team, not just a Vegas casino worker, to believe the odds are not so crazy.
“Well, I grew up in Washington,” Turner said. “I went to games in the Kingdome when I was a little guy and I've been following them more and more as they've been winning more and more. So, it’s been 24 years since we got to [the ALCS], so now it's pretty exciting.”
The story of No. 61 reads like a fable or a cute bedtime story. But to understand why the Mariners are one win away from playing for the pennant requires baseball boilerplate material: to borrow from Castillo, they throw rocks.
أصدر مجلس إدارة نادي الزمالك، بيانًا رسميًا، كشف فيه عن موقفه من أزمة أرض فرع السادس من أكتوبر والتي تم سحبها مؤخرًا من قبل وزارة الإسكان.
وشدد البيان أن المجلس الحالي لنادي الزمالك، بدأ في تنفيذ خطة مدروسة بشأن المشروع وتجاوز الأمور الهندسية والإدارية والتمويلية وتلقى دعمًا من كافة أجهزة الدولة.
طالع.. بعد أرض أكتوبر.. الزمالك يواجه صدمة جديدة بشأن مصيف مرسى مطروح
ووصف بيان الزمالك، أن قرار سحب أرض فرع السادس من أكتوبر كان مباغتًا للمجلس من جهاز المدينة التابع لها المشروع بسحب الأرض في مشهد صادم وغير مسبوق.
وأكد مسئولو الزمالك على رفض الحصول على قطعة أرض بديلة متمسكين بالأرض المخصصة في وقت سابق بعد تردد أنباء بشأن الأمر الفترة الأخيرة. بيان الزمالك بشأن أرض أكتوبر
“يؤكد مجلس إدارة نادي الزمالك أنه منذ نال شرف المسؤولية كان وما زال يدرك أهمية مشروع فرع النادي الجديد بمدينة حدائق أكتوبر، باعتباره الحلم الذي تاق له الملايين من أعضاء وجماهير ومحبي النادي عبر عقدين من الزمن، فضلًا عن كونه الأمل لتجاوز صعوبات تكاد تمنع النادي من استكمال دوره الرائد.
وانطلاقًا من تلك الثوابت بدأ المجلس فور تولي المسؤولية تنفيذ خطة مدروسة لتجاوز كل الصعوبات الهندسية والإدارية والتمويلية، وتلقى النادي دعمًا حقيقيًا وجادًا من كافة أجهزة الدولة المعنية اتساقًا مع سياسة الدولة المصرية بقيادة فخامة الرئيس عبد الفتاح السيسي رئيس جمهورية مصر العربية في دعم الرياضة المصرية وتحقيق التنمية المستدامة.
ثم انطلق العمل والبناء على الأرض بإشراف تام من جهات حكومية وطنية موثوقة وفق أعلى معايير الشفافية والنزاهة، وأصبح النادي على مسافة عدة أشهر من نقل تدريبات جميع الفرق الجماعية إلى الفرع الجديد، وبات الحلم قاب قوسين أو أدنى أن يتحقق.
إلا أن الجميع فوجئ بإجراء مباغت وغير مبرر تمثل في قيام جهاز المدينة التابع لها المشروع بسحب الأرض في مشهد صادم وغير مسبوق.
ومنذ بداية الأزمة وخلال أربعة أشهر مضت لم يدخر المجلس جهدًا لوضع حل لها والتواصل مع كافة الجهات ذات الصلة لتوضيح الحقائق وشرح أبعاد الموقف وخطورته على حاضر ومستقبل النادي، وقد تلقينا تأكيدات متكررة على تفهم مطالبنا.
إلا أنه تلاحظ في الآونة الأخيرة تواتر الحديث عن فكرة حصول النادي على أرض بديلة.
وفي هذا الإطار فإن مجلس إدارة النادي، انطلاقًا من واجبه ومسؤوليته في صيانة حقوق ومصالح النادي وتحقيق طموحات وآمال أعضائه ومحبيه، فضلًا عن ثقته في عدالة وسلامة مطلبه، يؤكد الرفض التام لفكرة الأرض البديلة وتمسكه باستعادة الأرض واستكمال إنشاء فرع النادي، وسيواصل المجلس تحقيقًا لذلك الهدف اتخاذ كافة الخطوات على كافة المسارات.
وأخيرًا نناشد فخامة الرئيس عبد الفتاح السيسي رئيس جمهورية مصر العربية تدخله الكريم كعهدنا بفخامته إنصافًا للحق وتحقيقًا لحلم الملايين من أبناء هذا الشعب العظيم”.
NEW YORK — Shane Bieber looked around the other day and realized something shocking: Eight years into his career, with nearly 900 innings pitched and a Cy Young award on his mantle, he is a rookie compared to his fellow Blue Jays starting pitchers.
“He’s 30!” says his 41-year-old rotationmate Max Scherzer with a laugh. “He’s a young buck! We should make him wear a pink backpack.”
Indeed, in an era of flamethrowers who are too young to turn on the stove, Toronto’s rotation looks closer to retirement than to retiring hitters. Scherzer; Bieber; Chris Bassitt, 36; Kevin Gausman, 34; and José Berríos, 31, make up the only contingent in the majors with no one in his 20s. Their average age, 34.4, would outlast nearly five generations of blue jays.
Entering Thursday, the Blue Jays have received 103 starts from pitchers 31 or older, the most in the majors this season and on pace for the most by a division winner since at least 2019. The only current team with a similar number of gray hairs is the Rangers, who employ 37-year-old Jacob deGrom, 36-year-old Patrick Corbin and 36-year-old Merrill Kelly, with 35-year-old Nathan Eovaldi on the shelf with a strained rotator cuff—but 29-year-old Jacob Latz and 25-year-old Jack Leiter help keep them youthful. And yet the Jays’ 31-plus starters have a 4.18 ERA, right in line with league average.
Scherzer famously pitched for the 2019 Nationals, who got 65 starts from 31-plus-year-olds and called themselves . He says he does not look back at that nickname and chuckle at his naivete. “I was old in ’19!” he says. “When you're 36 in the game, that’s when you’re old. That’s when all the GMs start looking at you funny.” (Perhaps that was a senior moment: Scherzer was 34 in 2019.) That club won the World Series on the back of its horses. But most teams these days value young studs who can spin the ball for five and a third innings, then turn it over to a bullpen full of even younger studs who can spin it even harder.
Have the Blue Jays noticed that many of them are more suited for an old-folks’ home than home plate?
“Man, you’re so blunt,” says Gausman with a laugh. “I’ve definitely noticed we’re not young.”
Toronto GM Ross Atkins has constructed a first-place staff that eschews the modern emphasis on velocity and spin. / Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images
General manager Ross Atkins puts it more delicately. “I’m aware of our experience,” he says.
Most of them use that word. “The majority of young guys now, they have the stuff,” says Gausman. “They can make a ball move 22 inches horizontally, vertically, in whatever direction. But where they lack is the experience on the field. They’ve thrown all the bullpens imaginable. They know the metrics. They know the axis on pitches. They can throw a pitch in-game, and you’ll see guys in game literally throw a pitch and look at the metric [on the scoreboard]. ‘All right. I need to turn my wrist a little bit more.’ It’s crazy. But where they lack is: All right, I threw this pitch for a strike. Now I need to throw this for a ball. Now how does this pitch play off this next pitch? How does my miss set up this next pitch?”
Those are the discussions they say they are having in the dugout. “It’s not trying to dummy down a conversation, so you don't overwhelm somebody,” says Bassitt. “It’s a lot more intricate than a normal conversation.”
And a lot less kind. “We don’t gotta be gentle,” he adds with a grin.
“[Scherzer] will say, straight up, ‘Why did you throw that pitch? That was stupid,’” says Gausman. “‘You shouldn’t have thrown that pitch.’ And things are just so easy for him. So you talk to him after an outing and you’re like, ‘Well, I was trying to throw this pitch down and away. I missed my spot by two feet.’ And he’s like, ‘Well, why didn’t you just throw it down and away?’”
They also value the same things. In early September, Bieber gave up five runs in a 35-pitch second inning to the Reds. He then allowed one baserunner over the following four frames as the Blue Jays came back to win. A week later, they’re all still raving about the job he did.
“Almost every single pitcher in the big leagues either loses that game or doesn’t go six—or both—and now we’re really in trouble,” says Bassitt. “That was one of the most impressive outings of the year for us.”
He adds, “We’re talking pitching. We’re not talking movement. We’re not talking how hard you’re throwing. We don’t care if Bieber’s throwing 95 [mph] or 91. It’s more so when to throw a chase pitch 1–0, knowing what pitch to do that, and understanding sometimes going 2–0 is better than trying to go 1–1, things like that. Small things that the young group has never been brought up like that. This is stuff that was getting screamed at us. You weren’t allowed to advance past High A if you weren’t throwing six innings. We came up in a very different environment, and it’s five guys that have the exact same mindset.”
They also enjoy not having to worry about monitoring anyone else’s workload or shutting down a major contributor during the stretch run. They know how to take care of their bodies—even if that gets harder every year.
“I think we definitely kind of push each other,” Gausman says. “Like, And honestly, it makes it fun. You know, it’s constant bitching and moaning, not really feeling too good.”
And Atkins dismisses the idea that calling up a young starter can sometimes provide the rest of the team with energy. “I think the thing that’s the most real is outs,” he says. In fact, Gausman says he derives energy just from watching Scherzer’s bullpens. “His competitiveness is like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Gausman says. “To have that at 41 when you’ve kind of checked every box—that’s impressive to me that he still pitches like some of these young guys, with that fire. I don’t think I’ll be like that at 41. I definitely won’t be pitching at 41.”
Scherzer shrugs. Really the only downside of aging, as far as he's concerned, is his bald spot. So he'll keep going—if only for the chance to work at a job that requires him to wear a hat.
Giants pitcher Landen Roupp has had a solid season in 2025—but on Wednesday, his outing was destined to end early.
Padres center fielder Ramon Laureano struck Roupp directly in the knee with a line drive Wednesday night, sending the San Francisco hurler to the ground clutching his left knee. After some anxious time spent on the Petco Park grass, Roupp was removed from the premises on a cart.
In 2 1/3 innings pitched Wednesday, Roupp gave up five earned runs on five hits while walking two and striking out two. He departed with his team trailing 3–0 in the bottom of the third.
Roupp, a Rocky Mount, N.C., native and UNC Wilmington product, is in his second year with the Giants. He's 7-6 in '25 with a 3.45 ERA and 100 strikeouts in 104 1/3 innings.
Veteran pitcher Joey Lucchesi replaced Roupp against his former team, navigating San Francisco out of that third inning to forget.
The five names who could hit higher notes in the fifth season of the tournament
Deivarayan Muthu19-Feb-2020Fabian Allen (Multan Sultans)On his day, Allen can clear the boundaries from the get-go lower down the order. He is an electric fielder. He can also chip in with quick-ish left-arm fingerspin. Allen is the kind of T20 package that every franchise desperately wants and he is already a superstar in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL). He had cracked 177 off 79 balls between overs 16 and 20 in CPL 2019 at a strike rate of nearly 225. His big-hitting didn’t miss the eyes of Sunrisers Hyderabad, who snapped him up for INR 50 lakh as they look to fill the Shakib Al Hasan-sized hole in IPL 2020. Allen is currently in action for West Indies in Sri Lanka and is set to join the Multan Sultans roster after that tour ends on March 6.Ali Khan (Karachi Kings)A fast bowler who can hit speeds north of 140kph, Khan was among the breakout stars in CPL 2018. Incidentally, PSL 2020 will be a homecoming of sorts for Khan: he was born in Pakistan before he migrated to the USA and forged a career there.Khan had claimed 16 wickets in CPL 2018 at an average of 20.81 and economy rate of 7.80 in Trinbago Knight Riders’ run to an unprecedented third title. Khan’s form somewhat tailed off in CPL 2019, but his raw pace and ability to bowl yorkers have paved the way for stints in the Bangladesh Premier League, Global T20 Canada and T10 League.ALSO READ: Top-order batting key for Gladiators; Islamabad’s strength is in their solid coreSeekkuge Prasanna (Lahore Qalandars)Khan’s Knight Riders team-mate Prasanna could be the middle-overs enforcer for Lahore in an attack that is packed with quicks like Haris Rauf, Shaheen Afridi, Usman Shinwari, Dilbar Hussain and David Wiese. Prasanna doesn’t have a big-turning legbreak, but he often gets his wrong’un to skid into the batsman. He has also evolved into a power-hitter, something that was on bright display during the second CPL qualifier last year. Prasanna smote a 27-ball 51 during which he launched slower-ball specialist Harry Gurney out of the Brian Lara Stadium. The Sri Lankan allrounder has been a regular in the BPL and T20 Blast over the years, but this will be his maiden PSL stint.Phil Salt gave the Strikers an excellent start•Getty ImagesPhil Salt (Islamabad United)A bruising batsman at the top, Salt has had an eventful few months. The day before the CPL 2019 final, the Sussex batsman was holidaying in Miami, and he received a call-up from the Barbados Tridents as a replacement for the injured JP Duminy. Just about 24 hours later, Salt was a CPL champion with the Tridents although he had bagged a duck. He then went to the Big Bash League, where he led the way for the Adelaide Strikers at the top.Salt can be brutal against pace when the bounce is true but hasn’t been as effective against top-quality spin. Tackling the slower bowlers is among the challenges Salt is likely to face in his second stint with Islamabad. In 2019, he had made only 94 runs in six innings at an average of 15.66 and strike rate of 128.76.Lewis Gregory (Peshwar Zalmi)Peshawar have a surfeit of allrounders in their squad, but with Kieron Pollard on international duty for the early half of the season, they might look to trial England seam-bowling allrounder Gregory instead. The 27-year old had struggled as England’s finisher in New Zealand last year, but in a new role at No. 4 in the BPL, he scored 262 runs in 11 matches at a strike rate of 140.10 for the Rangpur Riders. He also contributed with the ball, picking up 15 wickets at an impressive economy rate of 7.64. If he follows it up with a productive PSL, he can be in with a chance to return to England’s T20 World Cup mix.
He has the form and the record, and he’ll need to lead the attack with Rabada and Shamsi both absent
Deivarayan Muthu13-Mar-2020In his first press-conference on his return to India, South Africa captain Quinton de Kock was asked if the inexperience in the line-up on this tour was a “weak link”. De Kock countered that question, replying that they still have the likes of Faf du Plessis and David Miller, who have vast experience in these conditions, having been regulars in the IPL. On the bowling front, however, South Africa are without Kagiso Rabada, who is still recovering from injury, and Tabraiz Shamsi, who is on paternity leave.In the absence of their No.1 quick and No.1 spinner, South Africa will look to Lungi Ngidi to step up once again. The 23-year old had led the attack admirably against Australia at home, his 6 for 58 in Bloemfontein wrapping up the series for the hosts. During the process, Ngidi became the fastest South African to 50 ODI wickets, getting there in his 26th match.Ngidi is just over three years old in international cricket, and has had his fair share of injuries during this period, but has already grown into a well-rounded white-ball bowler. He’s adept at bowling in the Powerplay as well as at the death, something that was on bright display during the home summer. In the second ODI against Australia, Ngidi hit hard lengths in the early exchanges and later returned at the death to snip off the tail with his variations.South Africa’s dominance, though, did not seem as likely when David Warner was in charge. He had used the extra pace and bounce of Anrich Nortje to his advantage, cracking the tearaway for 25 off a mere 12 balls. Where Nortje offered width, Ngidi immediately cut that off and took down Warner with his third ball. Ngidi hit a length that was neither cuttable nor pullable, on off stump, and although Warner had made some room of his own by backing away, he could only spoon a catch to cover.Then, after the Powerplay, Ngidi got rid of both Steven Smith and Marnus Labuschange by steadily building up pressure. By the time Ngidi had returned for the 34th over, Australia had recovered to 181 for 4, but Ngidi rocked them with another triple-strike. His offcutters gripped in the tiring Bloemfontein surface and proved too good for Australia’s lower order.Lungi Ngidi dismisses Moeen Ali•Getty ImagesThese variations and the scrambled seam had also scrambled the minds of England’s batsmen in the T20I series opener at Buffalo Park, helping Ngidi defend seven off the final over. Overall, in the death overs in T20s, Ngidi has picked up 27 wickets at an economy rate of 8.01.He has done the job at the death in the ODIs as well, giving up just 203 runs off 194 balls while claiming 19 wickets at an economy rate of 6.27.India’s lower-middle order has been strengthened by the return of Hardik Pandya, but South Africa can count on Ngidi and his good friend Andile Phehlukwayo, who also has some canny variations in his repertoire, to deal with India.It’s also worth noting that Ngidi has a decent ODI record against India: eight wickets in four games at an economy rate of 6.18. However, he has just played a solitary international in India – the Ranchi Test last year, where he not only went wicketless in 20 overs but also leaked over four runs an over.So, the question is can Ngidi be as effective in India as he is on the juicier tracks in South Africa? Ngidi can draw confidence from IPL 2018, where he emerged as an unlikely hero for Chennai Super Kings, especially at the death. He even fronted up to the Powerplay, and in the end his smart economy rate of 3.77 was by far the best among 42 bowlers who had bowled at least 25 overs in the tournament.Ngidi wasn’t selected for the first seven games that the Super Kings played in IPL 2018, but then the franchise had their home games shifted to Pune and they adapted on the fly, understanding the value on his pace – and sometimes the lack of it. Against Kings XI Punjab on a spicy Pune pitch, Ngidi repaid Super Kings’ faith and bagged a career-best 4 for 10 to knock them out of contention.Ngidi then missed the following IPL season and suffered multiple injuries that year, but he’s now back to his best. In South Africa’s last ODI series in India, Rabada denied MS Dhoni at the death and closed out the match skilfully. There’s no Rabada on this tour, and there’s no Dhoni either for India, but Ngidi has it in him to lead South Africa’s attack and extend their resurgence.
Our experts pick a team from the 1999-2004 period that could have challenged the unstoppable Aussies
Sreshth Shah19-Jun-202037:59
Dream Team: Picking a team to beat Steve Waugh’s Australia
In this episode of , we go back to the years when Steve Waugh’s Australia dominated world cricket, specifically between 1999 and 2004, when he was captain. The task at hand: to pick a team from that era that could beat Australia in Australia in a Test series. Taking up the challenge are Sambit Bal, ESPNcricinfo’s editor in chief, and senior editors Osman Samiuddin and Andrew Miller.8:04
A three-way race for the two opening spots
Vaughan, Sehwag, Anwar or AN Other? Which two openers of that period succeeded against Glenn McGrath, Michael Kasprowicz and Jason Gillespie? Virender Sehwag’s 195 at the MCG came against an Australia side that did not feature McGrath or Shane Warne, and Graeme Smith didn’t play in Australia before 2005. Marcus Trescothick, Gary Kirsten and Saeed Anwar make strong cases, but eventually the selectors went for the two men who always lifted their game against the Aussies.7:21
Who do you leave out from this batting-rich era?
A million-dollar middle order The early 2000s were a great time for batting. Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman were superb for India. So were Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Brian Lara, Ramnaresh Sarwan for West Indies, and Inzamam-ul-Haq, Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf for Pakistan. There are also Jacques Kallis, Mahela Jayawardene, Andy Flower and Nathan Astle to consider. Small problem: you can only pick four.1:57
Kumble, Murali or Saqlain?
Picking the lone spinner from a golden generation Six supreme spinners – Muttiah Muralitharan, Danish Kaneria, Saqlain Mushtaq, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh and Daniel Vettori – all operated in the same period, but the idea of fielding two spinners in Australia has never really worked. And the selectors also had to decide between fingerspin and wristspin.More Dream Teams
According to ESPNCricinfo’s Luck Index, at least two of the four chances the batsman enjoyed could’ve flipped the result
ESPNcricinfo stats team17-Oct-2020Chennai Super Kings needed to do well in all the three disciplines if they had to beat a strong Delhi Capitals side to retain a more-than-mathematical chance of making the playoffs in this year’s IPL. Their batsmen gave them a realistic chance by setting a target of 180 for the Capitals to chase down. On a night when there was a dew on the ground in Sharjah, their bowlers needed all the support they could get from their fielders. However, Super Kings dropped an in-form Shikhar Dhawan at least three times. Four, if you consider the chance to Shane Watson a catchable one. Dhawan capitalised on those chances by hitting his first century in the IPL and steered his team to a win.The first of the four drops happened as early as the seventh over when Dhawan was on 25 off 17 balls. According to ESPNcricinfo’s Luck Index, that drop cost Super Kings 34 runs. That means, had Deepak Chahar caught caught Dhawan off Ravindra Jadeja, the Capitals would’ve got 34 fewer runs than what they eventually got, which considering that the match was alive even after the 19th over the chase, would’ve flipped the result in Super Kings’ favour.ESPNcricinfo LtdThe value of a drop is estimated by allocating the balls faced by Dhawan after the drop to batsmen who didn’t get to bat and to those who were unbeaten at the end of the innings. So in this case, the 40 balls faced by Dhawan after the drop would be distributed among Axar Patel and the other Capitals batsmen who were yet to bat. Considering the Capitals’ had proper T20 batsmen only till No. 7 including an out-of-form Alex Carey, Luck Index reckoned that the Capitals batting order wouldn’t have been able to cover for the 41-ball 76 that Dhawan made after the drop.The second drop, by MS Dhoni, was estimated to cost Super Kings 8 runs, still enough to turn the result in favour of last year’s runner-ups. But the third clear chance, by Ambati Rayudu in the 16th over, had no bearing on the result. Because according to Luck Index, by then Capitals had enough on the scoreboard for their remaining batsmen take their team to a win.