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Aaron Judge could return to the New York Yankees' lineup as early as Tuesday vs. the Texas Rangers, manager Aaron Boone shared with reporters on Monday. Nothing is set in stone, though, as Boone wants to speak with Judge once he arrives in Texas.

Judge last played on July 25 and was then placed on the 10-day injured list due to a flexor strain in his right elbow. Tuesday will mark the end of Judge's stint on the 10-day IL, so it's the earliest he can return to the lineup as the Yankees' designated hitter.

"I don't want to say definitely because I haven't seen him yet, but I think that's the plan," Boone said, via the Associated Press. "I think he's expected in here tonight, and we'll make that call."

In preparation, Judge has been hitting balls of of minor league pitchers for the past two days. He would return as the team's DH if he plays in Texas, otherwise he could return to the outfield once the Rangers series is over. Judge hasn't begun playing catch since his IL stint.

"I'm hoping that Judge's clean and is playing catch either [Tuesday] or the next day and we'll start to get an idea about a timeline for that and then we'll see when we get back home what happens there," Boone said.

Judge would replace Giancarlo Stanton in the lineup as the DH. Stanton hit a home run and tallied 2 RBIs on Monday night in Texas.

The Yankees could be getting Judge back at the perfect time, as they've hit a slump. New York was just swept by the Miami Marlins for the first time ever over the weekend.

A lot can happen over the course of a long Major League Baseball season. A small-market team can emerge as a juggernaut. Big-market teams can be humbled. The deepest division in baseball a year ago can be turned directly on its head.

Just under a month and half remains in the 2025 regular season, and baseball's pecking order looks very different now from how it looked early on. Can the Brewers keep up their blazing second half? Can the Yankees and Mets rediscover their old mojo? What's going on in the American League Central? These issues and more will be explored in this edition of Fact or Fiction.

The Brewers will end the season with MLB's best record

Verdict: Fact

At 79–47, Milwaukee is perched atop both leagues and on pace for the best record in franchise history. The squad leads the Cubs by seven games in the National League Central and the Phillies by six games in the race for the No. 1 seed in the NL, and is five games better than the AL-best Tigers.

The question is whether those leads can hold up for the rest of the season. Milwaukee's remaining opponents have a winning percentage of .510 (11th strongest). Contrast that with .468 for Chicago (29th), .502 for Philadelphia (15th), .471 for the Dodgers (28th), and .493 for the Tigers (19th). Those numbers don’t post the prettiest picture, but the Brewers do play 22 of their 36 remaining games against teams under .500—more than the Cubs (21), Phillies (19) and Tigers (12), and just two fewer than the Dodgers. That’ll be present more opportunities to stack up wins against inferior competition. They also possess perhaps the best pitching depth in the league.

MORE:SI:AM | The Brewers’ Streak by the Numbers

Who can gain ground on the Brewers by beating them directly? The Cubs have two more chances to this week, but that’s the last time the two division rivals play. Back-to-back series against the Blue Jays and Phillies loom. A protracted dip seems unlikely, though, so Milwaukee can dream of a third straight division title—and a good shot at a first playoff series win since 2018.

The Yankees and Mets will both miss the playoffs

Verdict: Fiction

The Yankees were in danger of falling out of the playoff picture as recently as Friday, thanks to a lengthy slump and a month-long tear by the Guardians. The weekend, however, broke perfectly New York's way: the Yankees swept the Cardinals and watched Cleveland drop three in a row to the Braves. The Guardians scraped together a win over the Diamondbacks Monday, but lost again Tuesday. The Red Sox, meanwhile, are on a four-game losing streak.

What about the Mets? Ice cold of late as well, they also received a pair of morale boosts over the weekend. Pitcher Nolan McLean was sterling in his MLB debut against the Mariners Saturday, and they hammered Seattle in the Little League Classic Monday. The Reds still are just one game back for the final NL wild-card spot, but manager Carlos Mendoza’s crew has to be in a better mood amid a series against the last-place Nationals.

All that is to say: a postseason without both New York teams seems unlikely. There've been just four such playoffs this century—2008, '13, '14 and '23. While these Yankees may lack the single-minded, top-down seriousness of manager Joe Torre's squads of yore, they are better on paper than Cleveland and Kansas City—the Royals have won five in a row and trail Boston by 2 1/2 games for the final AL wild-card spot. Likewise, the Mets' potent offense should shake pesky Cincinnati.

No AL Central team will qualify for a wild-card spot

Verdict: Fact

As much of a boon as this past weekend was for the Yankees, it was a cataclysm for Cleveland—a team that had looked so good since a 10-game losing streak around the Fourth of July. It's clear the Guardians—a .516 team that should be a .468 one, per Pythagorean winning percentage—are punching above their weight, and the Atlanta series may have let the air out of Cleveland's balloon.

The Guardians actually now trail the Royals, fellow Pythagorean overachievers, by a half game. Like Cleveland, Kansas City has had an up-and-down 2025 after a very good '24. The Royals have dealt with a rash of pitching injuries and were briefly seven games under .500 in early July, but have played themselves back into the wild-card race.

Neither squad seems to have the offensive firepower to overtake the Yankees, Red Sox or Mariners, though—the Royals possess the AL’s worst offense (3.81 runs per game), and the Guardians (3.97) are barely better, outpacing just the Royals and White Sox among AL teams.

Pete Crow-Armstrong will enter the 40–40 club

The Mariners provided Seattle with a night the city won't forget any time soon Friday as they took down the Tigers in their marathon of a winner-take-all Game 5 that lasted 15 innings. If the incredible 3-2 win at home wasn't enough, the team provided their fans with an electric celebration to send them home on an even higher note.

The franchise's social team caught an incredible video that captured the moment the Mariners advanced to their first American League Championship Series since 2001 and ensuing celebration, which is certain to raise the hair on your arms.

Luis Castillo came on in relief due to how long the game lasted after he started in their Game 2 win. He recorded the win Friday and was back in the clubhouse presumably preparing to pitch the 16th inning if it was necessary. The M's finally finished the job, though, and their social team recorded "La Piedra" jumping for joy with some staffers before he quickly ran out of the dugout onto the field to join the rest of his team.

What a great moment, incredibly captured from Castillo's point of view before joining the joyous squad:

Jorge Polanco was the hero for Seattle, sending a base hit through the infield that brought in J.P. Crawford for the thrilling walk-off win that ended the Tigers' season. Now, the Mariners and their plethora of tired arms prepare to meet the Blue Jays in the ALCS with Game 1 slated for Sunday evening. Hopefully they can get some rest on their day off after a well deserved celebration Friday night.

His slog off Yasir Shah has been called the worst shot in the history of Test cricket, but there was logic behind it

Sidharth Monga10-Jun-2020Come to Think of itThe words are by now iconic. There is restrained anger in the voice of West Indies cricket on radio, Fazeer Mohammed. Excellent commentator that he is, Fazeer doesn’t labour the point and quickly moves on to describing the scenes of jubilation among the Pakistan team. West Indies coach Stuart Law is seen with his head in his hand. The rest of the support staff throw bemused looks at each other. A common description elsewhere for Shannon Gabriel’s shot that brought to an end the the Dominica Test of 2017 is “inexplicable”.An opinion piece in the likened it to absentmindedly jumping a red light at high speed, “a moment of utter, unadulterated madness… a brain fade”. A few months later, wisden.com labelled it the worst shot ever played in the history of Test cricket.The outrage is still mild compared to the meltdown that would have ensued had this Test involved any of the big three nations. Match-fixing allegations might have flown all over had this shot been played by someone from another team. In that regard, Gabriel seems to have got off lightly, but he still deserves a defence counsel.ALSO READ: Andrew Miller: Did England waste the talents of Devon Malcolm?When he played the shot, West Indies’ last wicket needed to hang in for seven more balls to draw the Test, and with that, the series. Gabriel had toughed it out for over half an hour, playing only one remotely aggressive shot. At the other end was Roston Chase, who had fought for over six hours and was batting on 101. Gabriel had one ball to keep out, and then he had to hand it over to his senior batting partner to play out the last over for a draw that hadn’t looked possible half a day before. Now it was within their grasp. And Gabriel played a big shot, a slog really, trying to hit the legspinner Yasir Shah to the leg side and inside-edging into his off stump.”The perfection of Fazeer Mohammed’s commentary,” says, “is in direct opposition to the terrifying brainlessness of the shot, which, now executed, has seen the ball trickle off the whirling toe of his offending bat and onto his stumps. ‘WHY DID HE DO THAT?!’ cried Fazeer. We’re still no nearer to finding our answer.”Why Gabriel did that is the easiest bit to answer. Percentages. Look at the field . Slip, gully, two silly points, short cover, silly mid-off, silly mid-on, forward short leg, leg gully. Eight fielders within five or six yards of the bat and one about 16 yards away. Any small error on a defensive shot and there are vultures around the bat to catch you. Whereas if you play the big shot, even a half-decent hit is certain to clear the fielders.Unlike Shannon Gabriel, Hardik Pandya, at Edgbaston in 2018, got out to a defensive shot when India had a chance to go for the win – but no one blames him for it•Philip Brown/Getty ImagesTwo balls previously, Gabriel had been given out caught at silly point only for the DRS to save him. He had looked to defend then. It is understandable that he didn’t want to repeat that risk, especially with Shah’s variations. And if the direction he went to is any indication, Gabriel knew the delivery was not a legbreak. You just instinctively know that a bowler as skilful as Shah is not going to bowl a wide legbreak to end his series. And that’s when you think, “Hell, I can’t leave this one.” And if you play at it, not knowing whether it is a slider or a wrong’un – Younis Khan, in his final act as a Test cricketer, had suggested to Shah that he bowl the slider – those nine men around the bat can make you panic.

It's not a hill I'd die on, but have always felt there is a certain logic to the shot. All fielders around bat, doesn't trust his defence, thinks a ball on that line must be the googly, so can't leave. It's poorly executed, but not necessarily poorly thought out. https://t.co/lgC5cZNErc

— Jon Hotten (@theoldbatsman) May 14, 2020

Jon Hotten, who writes the delightful blog and has written for this site, thinks similarly. The discussion below that tweet is instructive. People and coaches would really be okay if a tailender had been caught bat-pad when defending because that is proper Test-match cricket but not this.If anything, it was a brave and selfless shot from Gabriel. He didn’t think of the pundits and fans ripping into him the next day but about what was best for the team. Of course the execution was nowhere near ideal, but it’s not too different to a No. 11 playing a defensive shot to a legspinner with nine fielders and a wicketkeeper ready for the catch. It had almost happened two balls earlier.Unfortunately, with Test cricket, optics can sometimes override logic. This clip, after all, is played on loop with angry comments flying all over. Five days of sweat and tears – sometimes blood too – is condensed into one bit of action, usually in the final exchanges, and the wrath of Test cricket’s purity is unleashed on one criminal.ALSO READ: Osman Samiuddin: Don’t forget Graeme Smith, the batsmanNobody wants to be that guy. This fear can sometimes cripple the clearest of thinkers. I suspect this fear was at play when Hardik Pandya didn’t try to scare England in the final moments of the Edgbaston Test in 2018. India still needed 40 runs when he was joined by the No. 11, Umesh Yadav. There was no way India were going to win playing “proper Test-match cricket”. Pandya was well set, batting on 23. He had hit hat-tricks of sixes four times in international cricket, including once in Tests. The occasion called for him to not worry about the optics and put some fear back into the England bowlers to push them off their Plan A. I was writing ESPNcricinfo’s Live Report, and I predicted Pandya would try to halve the target in one over when Joe Root took the risk of bowling Adil Rashid with Pandya on strike and 35 to get.I expected this for four reasons. That Pandya’s was an unencumbered brain, that he had done this before, that there was practically nothing to lose now, and that Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri had many times said they didn’t care about what was said or written about them. Then again, it is easier to type it out than be the man who has to risk becoming the face of the party that “let the skipper down”. Possibly Rashid didn’t give Pandya a ball he could feel confident trying a six off, but more likely it was the optics of Test cricket at play.In the 4.2 overs of that last partnership, India added just eight runs, and Pandya was out caught at slip playing a defensive shot. Nobody looks back at that match and thinks of Pandya’s innings. Everybody recalls Dominica for Gabriel. That’s just how things are remembered.Come to Think of it

He had a clean kaput of an exit, the completeness of a career with no lingering sense of unfulfillment

Osman Samiuddin20-Oct-2020Umar Gul has retired. This is not the precursor to an eventual u-turn. It is not a tantrum. It is not some power play to manoeuvre himself into captaincy. Umar Gul has retired and, with a degree of confidence, full-stop this sentence.This was always one of Gul’s most endearing traits: he is an uncomplicated figure. What you see is what you get is what he is, is what he said.One of the more illuminating stories about Gul comes from that turbulent period in 2009, when players were forever angling to remove whoever was the captain. Gul, not hitherto part of any faction, was pushed by a senior player to complain about the captain in one team meeting in front of everyone. He did, but when the captain countered and asked why he was complaining, Gul said that he wasn’t but that the senior player – present of course – had told him to and so he did. Rulers don’t come this straight.There was once an on-field squabble with Mohammad Amir over a dropped catch, and he recently – but gently – questioned the new domestic structure. But the PCB’s very vast archives of player disciplinary breaches don’t record an entry under ‘Gul, Umar’. Somehow he even came out untarnished from the Tours from Hell, Down Under in 2009-10, after which the PCB punished anything with a pulse.Putting all this front and centre may come across as a sideways dig at his bowling: his primary task, after all, wasn’t to be a nice guy but to take wickets. It isn’t intended to be. It’s just that we know Pakistani fast bowling is a fraught beat. It comes with aches and traumas, joys and bedlam, buts and if-onlys; some days it is only marginally about the bowling, and the rest of the time, it isn’t about the bowling at all. Almost none of it is good for the heart.With Gul, his bowling came with zero baggage. The rules were simple. He could be exceptional, good, ordinary, poor or awful and that was it. Pack your bags, day’s done, get on with your life, come back tomorrow. It may not always have been clear at the time, but with hindsight, that taste was sweet relief.

Underpinning it was the yorker which, if it didn’t carry quite the spectacle of Lasith Malinga’s, was arguably more effective. There was an unreal force around it, not least in how readily and accurately it was summoned.

Hindsight veers unevenly towards Gul with white ball in hand, with the canvas of the shortest format out in front at his mercy. Which is justified, but it’s worth lingering for a bit on his red-ball career, which now falls some way between forgotten or misremembered.No one can ever know what impact those stress fractures of the back had so early in his career. He’d taken 25 wickets in his first five Tests before the diagnosis, and he didn’t play another Test for two years. In fact, his last act in that sequence – the five-for against India – was the definitive modern Pakistani spell against India, until Mohammad Asif came along. Pakistan bluster was all pace but here was the bluff, a kid who wasn’t defined by pace, a kid with a natural length just back of good, who seamed the ball rather than swung it.It wasn’t so straightforward as that he wasn’t the same bowler after it (and actually his Test numbers, right until the end of 2007, were solid). But other bowlers arrived, a new format emerged, and the occasions on which he looked that potent again changed, both in manner and frequency. Often, as against a competitive West Indies side, he looked as good as he has ever done: movement with the new ball, reverse with the old, big-name wickets with big-time deliveries, and match-shaping spells. Against stronger opposition, with comedy support, he was manful, as in England in 2006.It says everything about Pakistan’s pace resources in that era that he only played three Tests with Shoaib Akhtar and none after April 2004. And he only played 17 Tests with Asif and/or Amir, the pair for whom he seemed the perfect condiment.Except it turns out he was better for their absence, even if Pakistan weren’t. Partnering either or both, Gul took less than three wickets a Test, at 40; on his own, he took nearly four wickets per Test, averaged ten runs lower, with a strike rate 14 balls lower. The numbers would suggest lead man rather than support, but even after Asif and Amir were gone, Pakistan turned to spin with such relish that Gul’s 11 wickets in the 2011-12 clean sweep of England come across as a clerical error.It all built into a tendency to dismiss him as a Test bowler, dimmed by comparison to those he bowled with, not shiny enough otherwise. And yet, to counter this, it feels necessary to point out that he is Pakistan’s highest Test wicket-taker in the post-Ws era by some distance. Given how this modern history has played out, an equally key stat would be that no Pakistani fast bowler has played more Tests than him, although, having himself played only 47 of 80 Tests, that makes him a poster-boy for the fragility of the era.To many, Umar Gul’s 3-0-6-5 remains the best T20 spell ever•PA Images via Getty ImagesNo such caveats or qualms with a white ball. Gul at the 2007 World T20 was one of the first movers in the format that spoke of a different sport, with different specialisations, with players not bound by their functions elsewhere. Credit Shoaib Malik, Pakistan’s captain then – and Pakistani history – for the tactic of Gul coming on from the 11th over and strangling the life out of the back-end of an innings.But it needed Gul to execute and there was nobody better anywhere on the planet those first years. Just look at the table below, of bowlers in the last five overs of T20Is, until the end of 2012: highest dot-ball percentage, second-lowest economy, lowest average, most wickets. It’s not even a contest.

Bowler Inns Balls Econ Wkt Ave Dot%Umar Gul 45 472 7.34 46 12.56 38.61SL Malinga 34 348 8.39 24 20.29 37.29SCJ Broad 32 244 8.69 19 18.63 37.25TG Southee 24 252 9.47 19 20.94 34.67DW Steyn 22 204 7.29 16 15.50 34.21SR Watson 21 170 7.48 14 15.14 33.20RJ Sidebottom 15 152 7.89 13 15.38 32.58M Morkel 22 189 8.38 12 22.00 31.76DJ Bravo 16 122 10.08 12 17.07 31.20B Lee 16 125 7.77 11 14.72 30.65AR Cusack 12 120 9.25 11 16.80 30.17JW Dernbach 14 150 8.96 10 22.40 30.00JDP Oram 18 132 9.44 10 20.80 27.87TT Bresnan 16 124 9.38 8 24.25 25.79KD Mills 22 160 9.93 8 33.11 21.68KMDN Kulasekara 18 143 11.28 7 38.42 20.63Underpinning it was the yorker, which, if it didn’t carry quite the spectacle of Lasith Malinga’s, was arguably more effective. There was an unreal force around it, not least in how readily and accurately it was summoned. No moment in Pakistan’s recent history should have felt as frayed as the 19th over of South Africa’s chase in the 2009 World T20 semi-final. The entire country was under siege at the time, mostly from itself, and absolutely nothing about life in Pakistan felt secure. Neither would this moment have, except that it was Gul bowling it and at that precise point in time, the success of it was the one thing you could hang the fortunes of an entire country off. No way would Gul not pull this off and so he produced not only one of the format’s most nerveless overs, but also one of the most inevitable.ALSO READ: Top five – yorkerman Gul’s greatest T20 hitsPenultimate overs were not – at least publicly – acknowledged as the thing they are now but Pakistan’s use of Gul in that time suggests they knew it was. Until the end of 2012, Gul bowled that penultimate over nine times out of the 14 occasions that sides chased against him (and the final over, by comparison, four times).That kind of excellence, it is good to hear, might be put to use in a coaching capacity. He has gained qualifications, is keen for more and though you can never be certain about such things, instinct says he will make a good, empathetic coach. And if he doesn’t, then we’ll still have this clean kaput of an exit, the completeness of a career with no lingering sense of unfulfillment. It’s worth more than it sounds.

And which player has had the longest wait for a second ODI appearance?

Steven Lynch22-Dec-2020Is it true that India’s 36 all out at Adelaide is the first Test innings not to include a double-figure score? asked Richard Carpenter from England
The highest score in India’s stunning collapse for 36 in Adelaide the other day was Mayank Agarwal’s 9. There has been one other completed (all-out) Test innings in which no batsman reached double figures – South Africa’s 30 against England at Edgbaston in 1924, but that did include 11 extras (there were none in Adelaide).There have been four lower innings totals in Tests – and two others of 36 – but India undercut their own previous-lowest total, 42 against England at Lord’s in 1974. Both that and the Adelaide collapse included one batsman retired or absent hurt. The lowest Indian total in which all ten wickets went down remains 58, against Australia in Brisbane in 1947-48, which was equalled against England at Old Trafford in 1952, when the young Fred Trueman took 8 for 31.Pat Cummins took his 150th wicket in Adelaide, in his 31st Test – is he the quickest Australian to get there? asked Kieran Murray from Australia
Pat Cummins is the fourth Australian bowler to take his 150th wicket in his 31st Test, emulating Dennis Lillee, Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill. But there was someone quicker: legspinner Clarrie Grimmett didn’t play his first Test until he was 33, but made up for lost time by scooting to 150 wickets in his 28th match. Only three bowlers from anywhere have got there quicker than that: the Pakistan pair of Waqar Younis and Yasir Shah both reached 150 in their 27th Test, but the great England bowler Sydney Barnes needed only 24 matches.Sean Abbott played his second one-day international recently, more than six years after his first. Is this the longest wait for a second appearance? asked Naresh Partani from the United States
The Australian fast bowler Sean Abbott waited six years 56 days for his second one-day international cap. He made his debut against Pakistan in Sharjah in October 2014, and returned to the side for the match against India in Canberra in December 2020.Abbott’s gap is the longest between a first and second ODI cap for Australia, but the overall record stands at nine years 140 days, by Zimbabwe’s Cephas Zhuwao. He made his ODI debut against Ireland in Nairobi in October 2008, but didn’t play another one until March 2018, when he was recalled to face Afghanistan in Bulawayo.The England offspinner Graeme Swann waited more than seven years for his second ODI, but eventually played 79 of them. The Sri Lankan wicketkeeper Ashley de Silva waited just over seven years for his second ODI, while another keeper, England’s Paul Downton, waited just under seven for his second, between December 1977 and December 1984.The Test record is held by the New Zealand seamer Don Cleverley, who played his first Test, against South Africa in Christchurch, in 1931-32, and didn’t appear until 1945-46, when he won his second (and last) cap against Australia in Wellington.All of Mominul Haque’s nine Test hundreds have come at home, the last of them against Zimbabwe earlier this year•Associated PressMominul Haque has scored nine Test centuries – all at home in Bangladesh. Is this the most without one away from home? asked Sheikh Nadir from Bangladesh
The short answer is yes: no one has scored as many as Mominul Haque’s nine Test centuries without one away from home. Mominul currently averages 57.41 at home and 22.30 away. Rohit Sharma has so far made six Test centuries at home, but none away; an older Indian, Chandu Borde, made five at home but none overseas. England’s Chris Broad made six Test centuries, all of them away from home.John Campbell scored 179 in his last ODI. Does he have the highest score for a player in their last ODI? How about Test and T20I as well? asked David Weston from England
The West Indian opener John Campbell did indeed score 179 in his most recent one-day international – against Ireland in Malahide in May 2019, when he shared an opening stand of 365 with Shai Hope. It’s possible he will play again, as should the next man on the list, Liton Das of Bangladesh, who made 176 against Zimbabwe in Sylhet in March 2020.The highest farewell score by someone who won’t play again is 161, by New Zealand’s James Marshall, against Ireland in Aberdeen in July 2008. The list of players who have scored a century in their last ODI is surprisingly long, although it does include about a dozen current players, most of whom will presumably play again soon.The highest score in a player’s last Test is 325, by Andy Sandham for England against West Indies in Kingston in 1929-30. He did have another innings in that game: the highest in a player’s final Test innings is 258, by Seymour Nurse for West Indies against New Zealand in Christchurch in 1968-69.Among players whose international careers appear to be over, South Africa’s Colin Ingram made the highest score in his final T20I, with 78 against India in Johannesburg in March 2012.Use our feedback form or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

Five reasons why their wins in India – and the ones in the lead-up – were only to be expected

Firdose Moonda24-Mar-2021In the mess that is South African cricket at the moment, there is at least one thing going right: the national women’s team. In the absence of some of their most prominent mainstays, they wrapped up their tour of India with a 4-1 win in the ODI series and a 2-1 victory in the T20I leg.The administration continues to lurch through crises that could see ministerial intervention in the near future, the domestic men’s game is on the verge of a restructure that will cost 75 jobs, and the national men’s team doesn’t have a confirmed Test fixture in sight. Amid all this, the women have reached their highest ever ODI ranking – No. 2 – while also recording a first T20I series win over India, and have players climbing up the international charts. If you are wondering how that happened, coach Hilton Moreeng has an answer: “It’s exceptional planning from players and management, controlling what we can and making sure we focus on what we can do.”That’s only part of the story. The women’s team has benefitted from consistency, in coaching, playing personnel and funding, which has allowed them to flourish while other parts of the game in the country flounder.Moreeng, who took the team to the semi-finals of the 2017 ODI World Cup and the 2020 T20 World Cup, was reappointed on a three-year deal in July last year, extending a tenure that started in 2012. In this period, the team has gone from amateur to professional, thanks to a sponsorship from financial services company Momentum, which has been in place since 2013 and will last at least a decade.Last September, when Momentum announced it would no longer sponsor men’s ODIs, the domestic one-day cup, and age-group weeks because of its dissatisfaction with CSA’s governance, it committed to backing the women’s team until at least 2023, the year the country is due to host the rescheduled Women’s T20 World Cup. In a media engagement on Wednesday morning, Carel Bosman, head of sponsorships and events at the organisation, indicated that that may continue beyond the present end date.All that has meant that the South African women’s team has a stable base from which to operate and the benefits of that are visible in their results. Despite a Covid-19-enforced layoff from March 2020 to January 2021, they adjusted to bubble life well and have won all four series – two in ODIs and as many in T20Is against Pakistan and India each – they have played since. Their aim of lifting the 2022 ODI World Cup trophy does not seem far-fetched, even though they will have to keep up the form they are in for another 12 months.Here’s a look at what they might want to keep doing right.Laura Wolvaardt and Lizelle Lee – two of the best in the business•BCCI/UPCAMental Strength
South African teams are not known for their ability to deal with pressure, but this team has shown that they can hold their nerve in crunch situations. They kept up with the DLS required run rate in the third ODI in India to claim victory, won both the fourth and fifth with less than two overs remaining, and took the second T20I on the final ball.Both Moreeng and stand-in captain Suné Luus put that down to a change in mindset which came from beating New Zealand 3-0 away from home early last year. “Everything as far as a mental shift is concerned happened in New Zealand,” Moreeng said. “We had to have hard chats with our batters and address the inconsistency that had been happening in the batting unit.”In New Zealand, South Africa chased successfully three times to automatically qualify for the 50-over World Cup and proved to themselves that they could beat top teams, away from home. Although they were out of action for a long stretch after that, the self-assurance didn’t go away and was only enhanced when they beat Pakistan at home before traveling to India. “There was a silent confidence going around the camp,” Luus said. “We hit the ground running in the Pakistan series. And here, nobody ever doubted that we wanted to win. There was never any fear of failure.”Lee’s dominance and du Preez’s return to form
South Africa’s senior players embodied that bold attitude to set the tone for the India series. Lizelle Lee was the top-scorer in the ODIs with 288 runs including one hundred (a career-best 132*) and two fifties at an average of 144, and the third-highest run-scorer in the T20Is, where she scored one fifty. She rose to the top of the ODI rankings before being overtaken by Tammy Beaumont and her opening partnership with Laura Wolvaardt is among the most formidable in world cricket, so much so that South Africa were thought to be over-reliant on the pair.Related

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SA Women overcome national nemesis to beat India

Enter Mignon du Preez. Before this tour, du Preez had not scored a half-century since February 2019. But making the most of her renewed approach to batting, thanks in no small part to the 2020-21 WBBL, she reeled off two in a row to secure the ODI series and showed the value of her experience in the middle order, particularly in ushering younger players through tricky periods. Having her firing for the next 12 months and at the World Cup is crucial to South Africa’s chances.Approach against spin
After being bamboozled by the turning ball on their last tour to India, in 2019, South Africa embarked on an intense programme to get better at it. And it has worked. They subjected India’s spinners to their worst home ODI series where they have bowled at least 100 overs, and used the sweep and reverse sweep to good, and occasionally daring, effect.”After the tour we had here the last time, we had to sit down and look at how we could improve because a lot of teams were throwing spin at us,” Moreeng said. “Other teams saw our batting against spin as a weakness. So, in almost every batting camp that we had, we brought in consultants that could help, and every day the players, even the bowlers, had to learn to play against spinners and how to get off strike. The biggest thing for us was that we got bogged down and it was becoming difficult to score. It became a norm for us that even when players go home from camps, playing spin was something they had to keep doing. All the hard work they have put in over the last two years – we are starting to see the results.”Shabnim Ismail has been as good as ever, and appears to have embraced the mentoring role well too•Getty ImagesLeadership
South Africa have played this year without their regular captain Dané van Niekerk and senior allrounder Chloe Tryon, who are both recovering from lower-back injuries. That gave Luus the opportunity to step in as leader, though she also missed some matches because of illness, which allowed Wolvaardt to step in. And, just like that, South Africa may have created a succession plan.”The more leaders we have in the team, the stronger the team will be because there’s enough ideas and maturity,” Moreeng said. “In terms of how we think and plan, most of them will understand what needs to happen.”That’s exactly how Luus experienced the role. “The team makes it easy. They know what they want to do. I think I’m just there to say who bowls when.”Evergreen Ismail leads the attack With the batting in the spotlight, South Africa’s attack has flown under the radar but can’t go without mention. Shabnim Ismail was their leading wicket-taker in both formats on the India tour and once again impressed with her aggression and accuracy, and also in the mentoring role she appeared to play on-field, especially in the absence of Marizanne Kapp in the T20Is.South Africa will also be pleased with the efforts of quick bowler Ayabonga Khaka, who was their most economical bowler on the tour and helped keep a star-studded Indian line-up in control. Khaka conceded 3.44 runs an over in the ODIs, the lowest in the series, and 5.62 in the T20Is, where only Rajeshwari Gayakwad, the India left-arm spinner, was more miserly than her. Tumi Sekhukhune provided good support in the ODIs with five wickets at 28.40 and an economy rate of 5.35.

The two are back where it started for them in ODIs, but neither man goes into the series a certain starter

Karthik Krishnaswamy14-Jul-2021The last time India toured Sri Lanka for a bilateral ODI series, they put in place what became a key component of their 50-overs strategy for the best part of the next two years. It was in Colombo, in the fifth ODI of a series that India won 5-0, that Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal first bowled together.They came together because India had struggled for middle-overs wickets during the 2017 Champions Trophy, and the wristspin partnership went a long way towards solving that issue: between that tournament and the 2019 World Cup, only Afghanistan among Full-Member teams had a better collective bowling average in the second powerplay (overs 11-40) than India’s 32.98.In that period between ICC events, Yadav (87 wickets at 21.74) and Chahal (66 at 25.68) were the top two wicket-takers in all ODI cricket. They featured in tandem in each of India’s first six matches at the 2019 World Cup, but that sixth game revealed the cracks in the strategy.The pitch at Edgbaston was flat, and one of the square boundaries was significantly shorter than the other. In those conditions, England’s marauding top order took full toll of Yadav and Chahal, who took just the one wicket between them while going for 160 in their 20 overs. India’s chase of 338 never really got going, with their lack of lower-order batting seemingly forcing the top order to minimise risk and play for net run-rate.Related

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That was the last time India picked both Yadav and Chahal in an ODI XI. Since then, they have left one on the bench and partnered the other with a spin-bowling allrounder, usually Ravindra Jadeja. In this new world order, both the wristspinners have struggled to match their earlier impact. Since the World Cup, Yadav averages 58.41 in 12 ODIs, and Chahal 37.12 in five. Both have economy rates north of six an over. Both have suffered demotions in India’s contracts hierarchy.It is at this juncture in their careers that Yadav and Chahal return to the R Premadasa Stadium, the venue where their partnership took root. They return as senior members of a side missing a number of regulars, but neither begins this three-match ODI series as a certain starter.When India last played an ODI, against England in Pune, neither was part of their attack. Chahal was benched for the entire series, and Yadav, who had been hit for eight sixes in the second ODI, was dropped for the decider, with India picking just the one spinner – allrounder Krunal Pandya – and four frontline quicks.On this Sri Lanka tour, Yadav and Chahal will compete for spin-bowling spots with legspinner Rahul Chahar, offspinner K Gowtham, left-arm spinner Pandya and mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy, who, it would seem, might only be in contention for the T20Is that follow the ODI series. Of those four, Pandya and Gowtham are allrounders to varying degrees.Whichever combination they pick in Colombo, India would hope they arrest a worrying overall slide in their middle-overs displays. Since the World Cup, the team’s collective bowling average in this phase is an unflattering 43.75…ESPNcricinfo Ltd… and their economy rate a worrying 6.05. While the sample sizes are small, given the lack of cricket that’s been played since the onset of Covid-19, no other team has done as poorly on this front.ESPNcricinfo LtdThere are mitigating factors, of course. India’s schedule has pitted them against some of the world’s best hitting sides since the World Cup, with all their ODIs in this period coming against Australia (six matches), England (three), New Zealand (three) and West Indies (six). India’s first-choice bowlers have often been unavailable or returning from injury.Most significantly, India’s new-ball bowlers have struggled, averaging an eye-watering 150.42 in the first ten overs of ODIs. This has had an obvious knock-on effect on the middle-overs bowlers, who have often had to begin their spells against set batters on extremely flat pitches. In the last ODI Yadav featured in, for instance, Ben Stokes was able to slog-sweep him with abandon even when he was hitting against the turn and dragging the ball from well outside off stump.Given all that, this series against a Sri Lanka side that’s beset by on- and off-field strife, on pitches that should offer some help to the spinners, couldn’t have come at a better time for Yadav and Chahal. But with all the other contenders breathing down their necks, they might need to serve up a reminder of all their old magic.

All the major social media reactions after the thrilling draw in Canberra

ESPNcricinfo staff30-Jan-2022England came within touching distance of chasing down the highest total in Women’s Tests. But a fightback from Australia in the final hour of the match brought it to a thrilling draw. Here’s how Twitter reacted to one of the closest games in women’s Tests.

Shame there's only one test #Ashes https://t.co/wW6VZ0tGXc

— Sarah Taylor (@Sarah_Taylor30) January 30, 2022