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Decision to scrap meaningless final day of warm-up a further sign of England’s new mindset

Vithushan Ehantharajah25-Nov-2022Friday in Abu Dhabi was meant to be day three of England’s warm-up against the Lions. That was until Ben Stokes put it to the Test squad that something more productive could be achieved, rather than simply completing the match.The result was irrelevant – a day’s batting for 501 for seven on Wednesday had given way to chasing 77 overs’ worth of leather for 411 for 9 on Thursday – so the skipper floated to his team-mates that perhaps a two-hour session of middle practice and nets would see them right, ahead of their flight to Pakistan on Saturday morning. The reaction was unanimous.”We went around our group and we asked where everyone was at, and what they felt like they needed,” Stokes said, when explaining the change of plans.”Sometimes with the warm-up games, you can get into the last day of that and it becomes a thankless task, and you don’t get out of it what you really wanted to. I thought the first two days were really good. The lads got a real good opportunity to bat out in the middle and obviously spent all day in the field yesterday.”I feel as a group, we’re in a position now where we can go and ask the individuals exactly what we need without forcing them into doing something. We’ve all played a lot of cricket now, and everyone came back with the feedback that they would probably feel more benefit out of getting more volume in the nets and working on skills.”What we know of Stokes as captain, and the ethos instilled by him and head coach Brendon McCullum, could never have been more distilled. Convention bordering on politeness would have meant bringing the game to a conclusion. But why not do what you need to do, instead of what others think you should? There was even talk that the management might ask the ground-staff to scuff up the pitch in the morning for a day’s worth of training against spin, to prepare for the possibility of encountering a similar surface deep into one of the upcoming Tests in Rawalpindi, Multan or Karachi.Stokes’ first visit on the middle came during Friday’s ad-hoc practice, where he bowled a few overs alongside Jofra Archer – who gave Ben Duckett a torrid time ahead of returning home to the UK – before batting. Stokes himself had played no part in the match, instead watching on from the sidelines between net sessions, massages and a few long, gruelling sessions on a stationary bike in 30-degree heat. He was suitably impressed by what he saw.England’s Test squad look on during their final day of practice in Abu Dhabi•ECB Images”That first day, obviously the scorecard looks ridiculous,” he said. “But I think looking at it finer than that, you look at the way Zak and Ducky applied themselves early on with the new ball, when it was actually doing a bit, but still looked to put the pressure back on them whenever they could. Then we got into a position of about 300, 350 – the way Livi and Will Jacks went out and played is exactly what we’re on about when we get into those positions, especially out here in the subcontinent, rather than simply letting the game flow and not taking anything on really.”With the ball, it’s an incredibly flat wicket, so it was a good opportunity for the lads to be out of their comfort zone when you’ve got lads coming hard at you. I think two spells into the bowlers, a day in the dirt, that’s exactly what we want when we’ve got a big tour coming up.”Stokes also made special mention of Haseeb Hameed, who scored 145 for the Lions against a strong attack featuring James Anderson, Ollie Robinson, Jamie Overton and Jack Leach. He produced 20 fours, two sixes and plenty of intent that pleased Stokes – including the fact that Hameed had sought out conversations with director of men’s cricket Rob Key and McCullum.”He [Hameed] played incredibly well yesterday,” Stokes said. “He’s someone you wouldn’t necessarily have down for that type of innings, but me and Baz were watching him play.”He has had conversations with Rob and Baz about what he needs to do to get back in the team, and he’s obviously listened. It’s amazing to see a player like Hass, who has done what he’s done over five or six years, has realised the potential that he can play that way, against our front-line attack. I think it’s amazing to see what messaging, when it’s clear and precise, can do for a player. it’s great to see that filtering down to the Lions group here.”They were told when they came to the camp, the way in which we operate. Hass can take a lot of credit, he’s listened to the conversation about how to get into the team, and is actually implementing it. It wasn’t just yesterday, he did it throughout the summer.”This hasn’t been your usual training week. It began with a visit to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix for qualifying and race day last weekend, an excursion set up by Stokes via his Red Bull connections. Golf has featured regularly – of course – and the vibe throughout training has been kept constant by McCullum’s wireless speakers. The Kiwi even called in contacts at Kolkata Knight Riders to secure the luxurious Ritz Carlton Hotel.Ahead of restricted movements in Pakistan due to the level of security, this week has been about enjoyment and, by proxy, reinforcing the freedom England cracked so well in the summer to win six out of seven Tests. Over that period, there has been a lot of outward talk about messaging and buy-in from players. Internally, however, there has not been as much direct supplementation, as there was at Lord’s ahead of the South Africa series when Stokes felt compelled to pull out a whiteboard to reaffirm the team’s principles. This time, no such aids were required.Related

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“It is important to keep making those points, but not by sitting down for 45 minutes and having those types of talk,” he said. “It’s just real quick and repetitive, but the conversations haven’t changed at all. It’s very clear in the way me and Brendon talk to the team, and especially the first day here, it was pretty obvious that the lads are still very much on that path. It makes the new lads feel at ease when the conversations are still as clear as they were six months ago. Especially Will Jacks and Liam Livingstone, that’s the way they want to play their cricket. It’s great having guys like that in the squad. It’s great to watch.”There is a palpable sense of excitement about the visit to Pakistan, even if they’d prefer a little more freedom. Some players are looking to take cues from Australia’s successful tour to the country earlier this year, among them opener Zak Crawley who spoke in the week about watching the series back and noting how well openers on both sides performed. Others, like Stokes, are wary of putting too much stock in thinking conditions will be identical.”We are not reading too much into the Australia-Pakistan series, because we don’t know it’ll be like that,” he said. “If we get there and it looks dry, it might spin. We have heard some comms that it might be green, nippy wickets. We need all bases covered, and to wait and see.”Whatever is laid out in front of them, he believes his England squad has shown over the summer just how malleable they can be.”As the summer went on, we learnt to adapt to different situations,” he added. “First and foremost, we have in the front of our mind the conversations we have had and the way we want to play our cricket. What we will go to Pakistan with is that mindset of knowing we will need to absorb pressure but if, at any given time, we feel the time is right to pounce and put pressure on the opposition, we will still do that. It’s obviously going to be different conditions and situations, but first and foremost the way we play, the team ethos, how we play with the bat and attack with the ball won’t change. As time progresses we will see adaptation of that.”Best of all, this trip, along with the seven-match T20I tour in September and October, will go some way to earning back trust after England’s no-show of 2021. There were fears of a similar about-turn at the start of the month when Imran Khan was wounded in the leg after being shot during a protest march in Wazirabad. But minds are at ease thanks to feedback since the incident, and the scale of what England are about to embark on – a first Test tour of Pakistan since 2005 – is not lost on the team or its captain.”It’s been a long time since England have played Test cricket in Pakistan,” Stokes said. “With what happened with Imran Khan recently, there was a little bit of concern, but we have Reg Dickason, who has been the security man for many years with England, and we left it in his capable hands. He went out and said everything could continue as planned. Having that man feed you that information back puts everyone’s mind at ease – players and support staff.”In terms of the tour itself, I’m really looking forward to it,” Stokes added. “I’ve never been there, and I’m quite interested to see what the security lark is like. I’ve heard it’s pretty intense. With the cricket, I’m really looking forward to it. We know what the subcontinent feels about the cricket, it’s a huge part of their life, and we’re looking forward to going out there.”

Mendis, Karunaratne, Mathews, Chandimal and de Silva refused to buckle, and that’s not happened often

Andrew Fidel Fernando09-Mar-2023Sometimes you need only describe the scene at a cricket ground to know what is about to happen.The skies monochrome and heavy like a wet blanket that is about to be applied to the series at the first opportunity. The pitch so flush with vegetation, woodland creatures have taken residence. The outfield damp, as a cold drizzle descends occasionally on biting winds. And while the local bowlers – all tall and strapping – are lithe and powerful in their warm-up overs on the practice pitches, Sri Lanka batters swaddled in woollen sweaters face throwdowns, bearing the air of soon-to-be human sacrifices on an altar of seam bowling.Win the toss. Put Sri Lanka in. Watch the ball leap gleefully off bat edges into a pair of hands in the slip cordon, batter after batter clunking off like marionettes, the scoreboard showing 45 for 3, then 67 for 5, tail-end swipes pushing the total just beyond 100. Here are the familiar beats of a day one story for Sri Lanka at a ground such as Hagley Oval.Related

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Last time they were here, they didn’t have to bat first, but were nevertheless 104 all out. The previous time, they had the likes of Kumar Sangakkara in the XI, and were blitzed for 138. Barring second-innings near-miracles, which Sri Lanka do occasionally produce, these are match-defining mires. (And then New Zealand will go out to bat and put on half a million for six, wearing polite smiles that serve only to underscore the incompetence that had preceded.)And then, this. Four years after they had last played a Test in New Zealand (megaspanked by 423 runs, at this very venue), here was a day of astoundingly non-trash batting. Of gloriously semi-decent defensive play, of gobsmackingly okayish technique. Had Sri Lanka’s batters done the work to figure out the whereabouts of their off stump they started a Test on foreign soil? The mere thought should bring a tear of pure pride to the eyes of any Sri Lanka fan.Kusal Mendis, perhaps the form man in the XI, led the way. Key to his 87 off 83 was his judgment of length on a somewhat bouncy surface. When it was on a good length, he defended close to his body, almost always with soft hands, so that on the occasions the ball seamed and took the edge, the ball bounced short of the slips. Mostly, though, he defended inside the line, using his bat largely as an obstacle to deliveries that might pin him in front of the stumps, or sneak through to the wickets.When New Zealand’s bowlers bowled fuller, pressing hard for that catchable edge, Mendis committed fully to his front-foot strokes, sometimes driving imperiously, other times sending it squirting off the face of the bat through backward point, otherwise flicking deliciously off his pads.Angelo Mathews scored 38 of his 47 runs through the leg side, but looked gorgeous when driving down the ground•Getty ImagesHe hit 50 off 40 balls, as New Zealand’s bowlers had a modest morning themselves – 44 of those runs coming in boundaries. He and Dimuth Karunaratne, who was equally compact, but less aggressive against the hittable deliveries, put on a 137-run second-wicket partnership that formed the bedrock of Sri Lanka’s day-one progress. They would get out in successive overs, but their departure was unusually followed by further batting competence.Angelo Mathews waited for the shorter deliveries, scoring 38 of his 47 runs through the leg side, having also clipped a couple of boundaries off his pads. Dinesh Chandimal preferred the off side, hitting each of his six boundaries in that direction. Dhananjaya de Silva manufactured boundaries wherever he could, as he batted in the company of Kasun Rajitha towards the end of the day.Their scoring areas were diverse, but almost all of Sri Lanka’s top-seven batters covered the stumps, declined to lunge at balls until they were set, were unperturbed by the deliveries that beat their bats, and did not follow seaming balls outside their stumps. Collectively, they refused to collapse even in the face of probing bowling (mostly from Tim Southee and Matt Henry), as they often have in seaming conditions.Given the long tail, and the lack of experience in Sri Lanka’s attack (which New Zealand are very capable of exploiting), 305 for 6 is not an outstanding first-day score. New Zealand may well go on to dominate the match. But under the circumstances, Sri Lanka were passable. And you do not often say that of a Sri Lanka side on day one in New Zealand.

And has anyone scored as many runs at a higher strike rate than Heinrich Klaasen in ODI?

Steven Lynch19-Sep-2023Was Sri Lanka’s total of 50 the other day the lowest in an international final? asked Vivek Naik from India

Sri Lanka’s collapse to 50 all out in the Asia Cup final in Colombo last weekend was indeed the lowest all-out total in any major international final, undercutting India’s 54 in the Champions Trophy final against Sri Lanka in Sharjah in October 2000. There have been only nine lower all-out totals in all one-day internationals.The lowest in the 50-over World Cup final is 132, by Pakistan against Australia at Lord’s in 1999. West Indies managed only 140 when they famously lost the 1983 final to India, also at Lord’s.The lowest in the final of a T20I tournament is Ireland’s 71 against Afghanistan in the Desert Challenge tournament in Dubai in January 2017. The lowest in the T20 World Cup final is Sri Lanka’s 101 against West Indies in Colombo in October 2012.Heinrich Klaasen blitzed 174 at a strike rate of 209 last week. Has anyone made more runs in an ODI more quickly? asked Nick van Vuuren from South Africa

That brutal knock by South Africa’s Heinrich Klaasen against Australia in Centurion the other day brought him 174 from 83 balls, at a strike rate of 209.63.No one has scored more runs at a faster rate in one-day internationals: Shane Watson clattered 185 not out from 96 balls – a strike rate of 192.70 – for Australia against Bangladesh in Mirpur in April 2011.The only innings over 150 in ODIs that came at a faster rate than Klaasen managed were two cases of 162 not out – by AB de Villiers from 66 balls (strike rate 245.45) for South Africa against West Indies during the 2015 World Cup in Sydney, and by Jos Buttler in 70 balls – a strike rate of 231.42 – for England against Netherlands in Amstelveen in June 2022.If we look at all ODI innings of 100 or more , de Villiers leads the way with the astonishing strike rate of 338.63 during his 149 from just 44 balls against West Indies in Johannesburg in January 2015. He came in during the 39th over, and was out in the 50th, after smashing 16 sixes and nine fours.Adam Zampa conceded 113 runs in the high-scoring ODI at Centurion. Was this a record? asked Billy McAlpine from Australia

The Australian legspinner Adam Zampa’s forgettable day against South Africa in Centurion last week – rounded off by a tenth over that cost 26 – left him sharing top spot in the list of most runs conceded in a one-day international innings. Zampa matched another Australian, seamer Mick Lewis, who also went for 113 in the famous 872-run match in Johannesburg in March 2006.In all, there have now been 16 instances of a bowler conceding 100 or more runs in a men’s ODI: the only other Australian is Andrew Tye, with 0 for 100 (from only nine overs) against England at Trent Bridge in 2018.Only Viv Richards, with 189, has a higher score from No. 4 or lower in an ODI than Ben Stokes’ 182•PA PhotosWas Ben Stokes’ 182 against New Zealand the highest score from No. 4 or lower in a one-day international? asked Jeremy Newman from England

In a high-scoring few days for international cricket, Ben Stokes clattered 182 against New Zealand at The Oval on September 13. The only higher score from No. 4 in any ODI is Viv Richards’ 189 not out for West Indies against England at Old Trafford in 1984, in an innings that lasted 55 overs.Ross Taylor made 181 not out for New Zealand vs England in Dunedin in 2017-18, and Richards also battered 181 against Sri Lanka in Karachi during the 1987 World Cup. For the list of the highest ODI scores from No. 4 and below, click here.Stokes’ 182 was the highest for England in an ODI, beating Jason Roy’s 180 against Australia in Melbourne in 2017-18.A recent column here mentioned a Sussex player with seven forenames, but my county Northamptonshire also had a multi-initialled man a few years ago. Sadly I’ve forgotten his name! What was it? asked Ted Richardson from Northampton

You’re probably allowed to have forgotten him, because George Arthur Adam Septimus Carter Trenchard Sale Pennington played for Northamptonshire nearly a century ago, in 1927. He played 12 matches that season as a batter, with his highest score of 47 coming on debut, against Glamorgan in Northampton.The son of a vicar, Pennington was also a talented rugby player. He served in the Royal Naval Air Service (the forerunner of the Royal Air Force) during the First World War, and is said to have sunk a German submarine in the Mediterranean Sea. He continued flying after the war, but was only 34 when he died in September 1933, after the aircraft he was piloting crashed on take-off near Doncaster in Yorkshire. His six passengers, who included the famous jockey Gordon Richards, escaped with minor injuries.Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of the above answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

With Sri Lanka inching towards victory, he bowled a searing spell where every ball seemed to have the batter’s name

Shashank Kishore12-Sep-20231:57

Maharoof: ‘Hardik’s fitness very crucial for India going into the World Cup’

It was one of those games where the scorecard may not entirely reveal the impact Hardik Pandya had with the ball on the overall result. His figures read 5-0-14-1, which while being very impressive were not quite the blockbuster of the kind you saw from 20-year-old left-arm spinner Dunith Wellalage (5-40) or Kuldeep Yadav (4-43).Yet, they left an indelible mark on India’s spirited defence of 214 on a surface where the ball was gripping, turning square, keeping a tad low at times, and, in general, playing up and down enough to have batters between the devil and the deep blue sea. One moment they were thinking patience was the order of the day, and that you needed to tread with caution like KL Rahul and Ishan Kishan did in a superb exhibition of batting against spin during their 63-run stand that led India’s revival after three quick strikes.Next, when they were seeing spinners come on and challenge both edges of the bat, as Wellalage did by simply sticking to a wicket-to-wicket line and varying his flight and angles, you couldn’t help but think it’s best to try to play your shots before a ball has your name on it. How batters from both sides tackled this dilemma made for compelling viewing. And it’s amid this that Hardik truly stood out with his fire and intensity, a compliment that has largely been reserved for his batting, and captaincy to a large extent, in the past.Related

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It’s no secret India have longed for Hardik to bowl in this manner for a while and have done everything possible, even having him wrapped in cotton wool, precisely for this kind of impact. For starters, this certainly allows India dynamism in the selection, as you saw on Tuesday with them fielding a third specialist spinner in Axar Patel to support Kuldeep and Ravindra Jadeja. Sure, the conditions did help spin but even if they don’t to the extent they did here, India are in a position to think flexibility and batting depth and have Hardik play the role of a third seamer, and not a bits-and-parts bowler who can merely hold an end up.Hardik’s intensity really helped India, especially when for a while it looked as if they were just running out of gas when Dhananjaya de Silva and Wellalage threatened a jailbreak. It’s no rocket science, but on raging turners of the kind, invariably the ones that don’t turn are more dangerous more often than not. But such pitches can over-excite spinners to some extent, and it seemed to be the case for a while with Jadeja and Axar.Hardik Pandya bowled quite impressively on the day•AFP/Getty ImagesIt was at this point that Hardik stepped in and bowled a searing spell where every ball seemed to have the batter’s name. Hard lengths, nip off the pitch, bounce, landing it with an upright seam to have the batter nicking – he did it all, and with a disarming smile that told you he knew he was in top gear. All of these variations were married with deadly accuracy. He was consistently touching 140kph, hitting high on the bat and having the lower order dancing to his tunes.At mid-on, Rohit Sharma, who was just beginning to lose his patience, was finally able to afford a smile that turned into full-blown laughter when Hardik finally picked up his first wicket, the eighth of the innings, with Maheesh Theekshana splicing one to a diving Suryakumar Yadav at mid-on. Suddenly Sri Lanka needed 43 off 55 with two wickets in hand.Only a while earlier, Hardik had begun that spell with Sri Lanka needing 62 from 16 overs with two set batters in Dhananjaya and Wellalage at the crease. So it wasn’t like he was gifted it on a platter. But in sussing out conditions quickly and delivering a telling spell in which he slowly gnawed at the batters, not necessarily bombing them with thunderbolts, he gave them a good work over that eventually got them thinking a reasonable risk against the spinners was worth punting on. This proved to be Dhananjaya’s undoing when he tried to hit Jadeja against the turn but was caught at mid-on. Four overs later, the game was nearly sealed.Hardik’s was one of those efforts where the supporting actor earned as many plaudits as the hero who everyone expects to deliver a blockbuster. For India, those heroes were Jasprit Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav, who were at the forefront of yet another stunning show to go with their impact against Pakistan 24 hours earlier. Hardik, though, wasn’t to be denied. He had swiftly moved from being a tortoise to the hare, which he quite wasn’t even until as late as July.With the World Cup less than a month away, it couldn’t have been shaping up any better for him, and India.

It was a day for Indian batting royalty at the Wankhede, with the captain leading the charge

Osman Samiuddin15-Nov-20232:22

Rohit’s start reminds Hayden of Gilchrist in 2003 World Cup final

Admit it. This is not the article you came to read. The one you came to read is here. That’s where you can celebrate the current king of Indian batting breaking the record of the last king of Indian batting, in front of the old king, in the old king’s home city no less, in the spiritual home of Indian cricket no less. It’s not so much a baton being passed, or even a coronation, as much as the Platinum Jubilee Celebration of Indian Batting Royalty (and here you were thinking this was a World Cup semi-final lol).This is the moment to ask yourself why you clicked here and chose to spend this bit of your life not in that celebration?Well, I’ll tell you why. Because Rohit Sharma, Shreyas Iyer and the Mumbai School of Batting. For those readers too young to know (or care) about the Mumbai School of Batting, brief Cliffs Notes: solid defensive technique, meditative levels of concentration, preservation of wicket more important than scoring runs (). Also Cliffs Note: that school’s dead.Related

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It was dying when Rohit came through, though ghosts still lingered. He was spotted by Dilip Vengsarkar, an alumnus. He had – still has – the technique purists can sleep easy with. But in those early days they used to raise eyebrows over how he’d invariably give his wicket away with some carelessly attacking shot and those things were banned in that school. Those shots, they fretted, were the final nails in the coffin of that tradition of batsmanship.In one sense since, it could be argued that Rohit’s career has actually played out in a way that makes him a fitting graduate, the last one maybe. He has blossomed into a secure Test opener, scoring his first away hundred in cloudy, swingy, seamy England. Even his white-ball career carried the basic ethos of that tradition, not shedding the impulses entirely just smoothing their edges. Get through powerplays, protect wicket, build assiduously, then take off. Bat long, bat big, be greedy, be selfish.After which, finally, is the real point of this: that this late-career transformation for Rohit has not stopped feeling remarkable since it began. Think about this. A batter from the end of a tradition in which keeping your wicket intact is a non-negotiable, chided early for not doing so, becomes a fairly ruthless and calculated run glutton, before convincing himself nearly two decades later that everything he has learnt is wrong and has to be unlearnt; that self-preservation is over-rated and sub-optimal; that attacking intent percentages are >>> than control percentages.Look at his scores in this tournament. One hundred – not a daddy – a couple of 80s and four innings between 40 and 48. That’s a rolling troll of a campaign, of all those people who harp on about conversions, of turning starts into scores, runs into landmarks and landmarks into skyscrapers. It’s fair to assume Rohit was one of those guys until recently.Rohit Sharma set the tone in the powerplay once again•Getty ImagesAnd it’s been exhilarating to watch, arguably never more than at the Wankhede, when something very real was at stake, where the cost of failure, of getting out skewering a shot on 47 high into the sky before the powerplay had ended, was about as high as it can be. This innings, this entire tournament, Rohit has batted with the carefree energy of someone quitting a crappy job, of not having to pass an exam because they already got into college, walking away from an unhealthy marriage, or becoming a committed nudist – the energy released in shedding short-term toxicity for longer-term reward.It helps to be captain, who is expected to set the tone. It helps to have a coach who has been an enabler. Not least it helps to be Rohit Sharma, to be capable of batting like this. He’s the fifth-highest run-scorer for the tournament but has the highest strike rate of the top 10; the fifth-best average in his own batting order for this tournament but easily the most impactful.It’s even starker in the first powerplay, where his record reads 354 runs (266 balls, 42×4, 21×6, strike rate 133.1) and all other India batters in that phase are 300 runs (334 balls, 46×4, 7×6, strike rate 89.8). He has hit a boundary every four balls, the others every 6.3. A record that leads even a batter such as Shubman Gill to say that he’s happy to stand at the non-striker end and watch his captain do his thing.It’s moot whether it is Rohit’s batting that has allowed others to flourish, or their presence that has encouraged him to unleash himself, because the result is the World Cup Iyer has been having. Which is to say, a spectacular one.Iyer is also a Mumbaikar, but he is definitely not of school. In fact, he is not really of any school as much as he is another gleaming product off the assembly line of modern Indian batting; a batter for whom format is incidental, who sees no colour in a ball; for whom these are merely platforms to showcase his underlying skill; a batter who broke through in the Ranji Trophy the same year he did in the IPL.2:32

‘Shreyas’ strength and magical wrists make him a handful’

He’s one of those who, in a feisty press conference the other day, can say he plays shots comfortable in the knowledge that it can cost him his wicket yet, when it comes to the long form, has shown the ability and willingness to put a price on that wicket. One of those the world might see as the very manifestation of an idea whose time has come. Of course, India has produced Shreyas Iyer. What else should the game’s richest member, with the largest talent pool and the best resources at its disposal, be producing? One of those opponents look at and wonder about the unfairness of life and an order that already has Rohit, the guy about whom you should be reading, Gill and KL Rahul. In fact, all the time you were focused on that guy you should be reading about, with all the scrutiny on that record, Iyer slipped away to simply do his own thing.When India’s scoring rate fell below seven for the first time in the day – hardly an intractable problem admittedly – soon after Gill had retired, Iyer stepped out and lofted Rachin Ravindra beyond the sight screen, before slicing him past point for a boundary.That guy went past the old guy’s single-edition record of World Cup runs with a neat single, and the next ball Iyer put Glenn Phillips into the second tier. Mitchell Santner bowled a maiden, the next over Iyer hit 11 in a 17-run over. The record was finally broken with an energetic double, and five balls later Iyer didn’t fully get to the pitch of a Ravindra ball and still hit him over long-on for six.That guy got out and next ball Iyer… I don’t, by this stage, need to tell you what he did off another Ravindra ball. And just in case you didn’t notice it amid the adulation and feels, he did it again at the end of the over.After facing four more balls he reached his own hundred, a second in consecutive World Cup games, at his home ground, the ninth-fastest of all time by an Indian and it is only second billing on the day. Probably about time, if you haven’t already, you go and read about what was the main attraction.