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.

As a marathon Game 3 of the World Series between the Dodgers and Blue Jays stretched into the sixth hour, the pitching options for both clubs were dwindling. So much so that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told Fox's and 's Tom Verducci that if the game went beyond 17 innings, he would have opted to let a position player pitch.

Not on Yoshinobu Yamamoto's watch

If Roberts was serious, Dodgers ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto wasn't about to let it happen. Yamamoto, just two days removed from throwing 105 pitches in a complete game gem in the Game 2 victory, "volunteered" to pitch in the marathon game on Monday night, according to Verducci.

As Verducci chronicled, Yamamoto approached Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior and offered his services in relief, even though he was coming off back-to-back complete games in his last two outings.

And so there was Yamamoto, to the shock of baseball fans, warming up in the bullpen in the top half of the 18th inning, mere minutes before first baseman Freddie Freeman belted a walk-off home run to lift Los Angeles to victory.

Dave Roberts lauds Yamamoto for his willingness to pitch

Even though, he ultimately didn't need to turn to Yamamoto, Roberts praised the hurler for his willingness to enter the game after just expending so much energy on the mound two days ago.

"…And Yamamoto with a day off potentially taking the baseball—he was in the next inning," Roberts said after the Dodgers' 6-5 win. "And so it just speaks to, guys will do anything to win a championship. And they're laying it out there."

But that begs the question.

How long would Yamamoto have pitched had he entered the game?

"He would have gone as long as we needed," Roberts said. "He would have been the last guy."

The legend of Yamamoto continues to grow.

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.

A look at which players from each team will probably make it to their XIs for the first matches

Aakash Chopra15-Sep-2020The former India, KKR and Rajasthan Royals batsman runs his eye over the IPL squads, picking ideal starting XIs for each teamDefending champions the Mumbai Indians were perhaps the only team who had all the bases covered before the auction earlier this year. Still, in addition to the strong squad they already had, they took Trent Boult and Sherfane Rutherford from Delhi, and also acquired Chris Lynn and Nathan Coulter-Nile. Mumbai have always had depth in all departments and this season isn’t going to be any different, save perhaps for the inexperience in spin bowling, given the conditions in the UAE. Lasith Malinga pulling out late presented an opportunity to add a spinner to their ranks but they chose to further bolster their fast bowling with the addition of James Pattinson.ESPNcricinfo LtdIf it takes experience to do well in a tournament like the IPL, the Chennai Super Kings have plenty. When the CSK 2.0 squad was announced a couple of years ago, the critics had a field day. The common perception was that such an old squad wasn’t likely to last more than a season, and besides, injuries and form could be a major concern throughout. There was also the fact that a lot of the CSK players weren’t playing competitive cricket through the year, which seemed like a potential weakness, at least in the initial stages of a tournament. But two successful seasons in a row proved everyone wrong. The same concerns are being voiced again, but in hushed tones now. The absence of Suresh Raina and Harbhajan Singh has limited MS Dhoni’s options, which means CSK can’t really afford both a major loss of form or injury to any of their remaining key players.ESPNcricinfo LtdThough death bowling and finishing with the bat are still concerns for the Royal Challengers Bangalore, they might be slightly less grave than in previous years. That the grounds are going to be a lot bigger and pitches less batsman-friendly should work in their favour. Also, the likes of Shivam Dubey, Washington Sundar and Navdeep Saini are no longer new kids on the block – all of them have started appearing for India in T20Is regularly, so it’s fair to expect bigger contributions from them. While Moeen Ali, Chris Morris, Dubey and Sundar don’t make the best lower order in T20 cricket, it’s not as bad as some RCB lower orders of previous years.ESPNcricinfo LtdKolkata Knight Riders have the distinct advantage of their front-line overseas players coming into the IPL with some competitive cricket under their belts. And the fitness concerns around some of their young Indian fast bowlers seem to be a thing of the past. This IPL also presents an opportunity for Shubman Gill to not just cement a place at the top of the order but to take significant strides in using this platform to further his India dreams. With Piyush Chawla no longer around, the burden of spin bowling will rest on Sunil Narine and Kuldeep Yadav. I have a strong feeling that Yadav will do well in the UAE.ESPNcricinfo LtdThe Sunrisers Hyderabad were top-heavy last year, and they are top-heavy this year too. Though they have tried to address the problem somewhat, things might not really change unless one of their young Indian batsmen simply explodes lower down the order this year. The pitches in the UAE and the lack of batting depth tempt you to play Kane Williamson, who is too good a player to be warming the bench, but that’s not really feasible if Jonny Bairstow partners David Warner at the top, since Rashid Khan is a shoo-in. It’ll be interesting to see if they manage to give Mitchell Marsh a lot of games, for that would mean not playing Mohammad Nabi, who has been very impressive with both bat and ball in the recently concluded CPL.ESPNcricinfo LtdOne team that can happily play only three overseas players if they wished is the Delhi Capitals. The depth in Indian batting options might mean their latest acquisition, Ajinkya Rahane, sits out. Their spin department, comprising R Ashwin, Axar Patel, Sandeep Lamichhane and Amit Mishra is at par with CSK’s; any three of those four could play every single game. Last year they had a slight problem with an inexperienced lower-middle order, but with the addition of Alex Carey, Shimron Hetmeyer and Marcus Stoinis, that has been taken care of. If this team plays to its full potential, they have a real chance of winning their first ever IPL title.ESPNcricinfo LtdThe Kings XI Punjab have a history of changing captains and coaches, and this season is no different. KL Rahul is in his first assignment as an IPL captain, and Anil Kumble is the new head coach. They do have a few runaway match-winners in Rahul, Nicholas Pooran and Glenn Maxwell, but they also have gaps to fill. The way Mayank Agarwal has progressed as a batsman in the last 12 months, this should be a breakthrough year for him as an opener alongside his friend and state-mate Rahul. But that would mean no place for Chris Gayle in the starting XI. Punjab’s bowling seems a little thin in both spin and pace departments, and that could cost them a place in the final four this season.ESPNcricinfo LtdThe Rajasthan Royals will ink four of their overseas players – Jos Buttler, Steven Smith, Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer – in for every game. If they are fit and available, even a slight dip in form for any of those four doesn’t warrant them being replaced. But that also means that the Royals’ combination can’t change too much, and the lesser-fancied Indian players must fit into the other slots. Their bowling is heavy on quantity but a little low on quality, barring Archer and Shreyas Gopal. For RR to have a good season, their big four must win the majority of games on their own.ESPNcricinfo Ltd06:48:31 GMT, September 15, 2020: The Chennai Super Kings XI was modified to include Faf du Plessis in place of M Vijay

The tournament has given so many young Indian cricketers the opportunity to go to the next level with their skills

Mark Nicholas09-Nov-2020T20 cricket at IPL level is the sport’s abstract expressionism, manifesting itself in the many bursts of invention and energy that drive each game.On one side of the white line, batsmen explore “360”, while bowlers revert to any one of a myriad options, and fielders take the role of ball-playing acrobats. On the other, celebrity ownership and endorsement, sponsorship, product placement, advertising sales, and above all, jaw-dropping sums of money for television rights, give full licence to the business of cricket in the age of populism.To those who praise the immediacy of creation and the overwhelming attack on the senses that comes with it, it is the only game in town. To others, it is the very devil itself: the end of the classics and of romanticism.As in art, there is room for both. It is part of cricket’s attraction that the many formats appeal to its many people. Only the narrow-minded fail to see that.ALSO READ: Balls of IPL 2020: Seven stunning deliveries that left a markCricket is without limitation but various disciplines are required to ensure its success: to pitch a knuckleball, the bowler must have learnt the fundamentals. Test cricket will live on. Michelangelo spent a long time at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; Jackson Pollock less so over the fibreboard for “No. 5, 1948”. T20 may no longer be cricket’s abstract incarnation, but powerful elements of expression remain in a game that continues to thrill on the field and provide a force for good off it. Never has this been more so than in the UAE these past two months. Cricket is out here on its own in the desert, not a spectator in sight, and it is alive.Were I pushed to pick one cricketer who best illustrates both the sporting and artistic appeal, who inspires the young, intrigues the old, and transcends the formats, it would be the young Afghan, Rashid Khan.Last night his team, the Sunrisers Hyderabad, were knocked out of the competition. Next stop was the final, but it proved beyond them. Their talisman has been a legspinner from a country that got ODI status only about a decade ago.Yuzvendra Chahal and Rashid Khan – the scourge of batsmen in the IPL and elsewhere•BCCIKhan is just 22, fascinated by the intricacies and possibilities of spin bowling, and fiercely competitive. Around the tournament people watch and talk: statisticians tell stories through the medium of cold numbers, coaches plan their application. There is spin everywhere at the IPL. On Friday, the Royal Challengers Bangalore picked four of the blighters.Wristspin leads the way but the best of the finger merchants – R Ashwin, Shahbaz Nadeem, Washington Sundar, Axar Patel – have had good days. All the twirlymen look to Khan now, the boy who emerged from hard-working parents and many siblings as the best spinner in the family. Together, they fled the Afghan war, taking refuge in Pakistan before returning to Nangarhar and the schooling that taught him to rest easy in the global reaches of modern-day professional cricket. He captained his country at 19 and took ten wickets against Bangladesh in their first Test victory. He is a man for all seasons.You would be surprised at how fast Khan bowls the cricket ball. Or perhaps I should say how hard. His pace is good club-standard medium. If the ball were to hit an unprotected inside thigh, and it often does, the recipient will know about it. The overspin gives it the impression of a threat, hurrying the opponent and bouncing high to hit the splice of his bat. It is as if the ball has an energy of its own, imparted by Khan, but seemingly increased by interaction with the pitch. Of course, this is not possible, but as Shane Warne famously said, “The art of wristspin is the creation of something that isn’t there.”ALSO READ: Rashid Khan: ‘I never think about wicket tally, my focus is always on bowling economically’If you are lucky enough to stand close to Khan at release, the good ones fizz out of his hand, just loud enough to be heard. Warne did that too. Warne was more sidespinner to Rashid’s overspinner, though the Australian could be either and tended to let the pitch decide. He had the legspinner that Khan would like to have. Khan has the googly that Warne only briefly had.Having seen a lot from afar of Afghanistan’s favourite son these past two months, and on occasion, sneaked up close in the hour before play when the bowlers work out on the practice pitches, I have found myself in awe. Even Muttiah Muralitharan, a coach to the Sunrisers, is impressed; so too the batsmen who are wary and lack the courage to take him on. By no means is Khan done yet, for he works ever harder on mastery of the legspinner and has bowled more of them in this IPL than any previous. He was bothered, he said, by the slog-sweep, so he thought he’d get the batsmen guessing. The googly – or wrong’un, as Warne would call it – is his default position and a pretty solid one at that.Young Indians are in his wake, tugged along by the developing legend. Ravi Bishnoi is 20, super-smart and quick with his go-to, which, like for Khan, is the googly; Rahul Chahar is 21, with a strong action and an inclination to give the legbreak a rip. Both bound to the wicket, all energy and enterprise, unburdened by failure. Mention must also be made of Yuzvendra Chahal, 30 now, but such a skilful bowler, a craftsman indeed, whose happy knack is to have the last laugh.The hero shot: KKR’s Varun Chakravarthy takes a photo with Ricky Ponting, the Delhi Capitals coach and the former Australian captain•Pankaj Nangia/BCCII like the story of Varun Chakravarthy, the Kolkata Knight Riders spinner who began a cricket life as an unsuccessful wicketkeeper-batsman and ditched it to pursue a degree in architecture. After five years studying, qualifying and briefly working freelance, he pined for the life of bat and ball and took upon seam bowling. Then he messed up his knee and took up spin. Somewhere during this period, he acted in a movie.Dinesh Karthik liked the look of him in the Knight Riders nets, where he exchanged ideas with Sunil Narine and resolved to become fitter and stronger. Now he has an IPL contract with them and is to tour Australia with India’s T20I team. He claims he has all the seven variations – offie, leggie, googly, topspinner, carrom ball, flipper and slider – and says so without a hint of conceit.After KKR’s game against the Chennai Super Kings, he asked for a selfie with MS Dhoni; the same with Ricky Ponting after the Delhi clash; and with Harsha Bhogle. But this is not the age of innocence! Next time he played the Super Kings, he knocked over Dhoni, who said Chakravarthy was hard to read and quick off the pitch. These spinners are such characters. Warne would tell you they have to be, or else the next stop is whipping boy.ALSO READ: Varun Chakravarthy, the architect drawing up Knight Riders’ blueprint for successWhether by design or the law of unintended consequences, the IPL is a pathway. The young talent on show, under the spotlight, with a price on its head and many miles from the womb that made it, has the platform to go big. If a player turns it on here, he can cope. In the end, given the talent, it is only whether talent can cope that matters.Devdutt Padikkal is 20 and has scored more runs than anyone else in their first season. He is an upright left-hander who brings calm to the frenetic and style to the base. He has left some balls alone, an act of minimalism that takes courage and suggests judgement is at the core of his performance. He drives the ball over extra cover – a shot to warm the heart of a purist – with grace and to good effect, while he works the back-of-length stuff off his hip with the look of Bill Lawry, a man of whom he may never have heard. Lawry scored a lot of runs for Australia before the television days of “Got ‘im!” took hold. Padikkal looks to have a few runs in him too.Shubman Gill is 21 and made his one-day debut for India, against New Zealand last year. This is no surprise. The selectors would be blind otherwise.He is from Punjab, where his family owned and farmed the lands. His father dreamt of playing top-class cricket but the reality failed him, whereupon he made the ascent of his son the dream, encouraging first the child, then the youth, to sleep with bat and ball – he is neither the first nor will he be the last to do so. Gill’s match-winning hundred in the semi-final of the 2018 Under-19 World Cup brought praise from the gods – Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar among them. Like his team, the Kolkata Knight Riders, his form this IPL has been fitful, but when good, it is better than those around him. Sunil Gavaskar thinks Gill the real deal – tall, strong and with that most essential of gifts, to play the ball late. If he sticks with straight lines and simple thoughts, his father may yet sleep more happily than he could ever have imagined.Ruturaj Gaikwad made three fifties in six innings for the Chennai Super Kings this season•BCCIThere are others, all with their wings at full span. Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan are wonderful timers but of a very different type. They are atop the six-hitting tree – Samson with a right-hander’s easy straight-hitting power; Kishen with the left-hander’s punchy strong forearms and hyper-rotating wrists.A word on Ruturaj Gaikwad, whose name alone prompts interest (albeit spelt one letter differently from the great defender of years long past). Barely able to lay bat on ball for three innings, he was dropped from the Chennai Super King’s middle order but successfully returned late in the tournament when their race was run.In build and stance, there is something of Ajinkya Rahane to him – slim, slight and orthodox. The similarities do not end there. His batting has an efficiency to it, as if the frills are for others less down to earth. His driving of the ball is at once clinical and crisp, with energy conserved for the six inches either side of contact with the ball, during which time his hands are – well, big call, I know – Dhoni-fast. From the commentary box behind the bowling arm, we see a lot of the face of the bat in his defence. The second Mr Gaikwad is another to watch.Amongst the young quicks are Navdeep Saini and Kartik Tyagi, the first a little longer in the tooth than the second, each lively and spirited. Then Shivam Mavi and Kamlesh Nagarkoti, hustlers both. But none has a story like T Natarajan, who came penniless but eager to Chennai from a rural area and got a break in the Tamil Nadu Premier League. From there, the IPL scouts circle like vultures.ALSO READ: Who is T Natarajan, and what made his performance so special?After doing bench time with the Kings XI Punjab in 2017, he was picked up at auction by the Sunrisers Hyderabad. Again, he had a season on the sidelines and itched for more. He sent most of his money home to his parents and used the rest to set up a cricket academy in the village, at which all coaching is free. He built a house and refused to let his parents work anymore. Lockdown helped him. With no cricket to play, he worked on his fitness. For the best part of six months, he lifted 20kg water jars and pulled and pushed the roller. Last night, he was a key figure in the Sunrisers’ push for a place in the final. Next week he flies to Australia with the India squad. He has been included to pick up experience on the tour, but don’t back against him getting a game.Natarajan is a feisty competitor, street-smart, and a master of the yorker. Ask him to bowl six of them at a handkerchief, he will suggest there is no chance. Replace the hanky with a batsman and he reckons he will nail six from six. T Natarajan is everything the IPL pathway stands for.Has the tournament surprised me? Yes. The standard is high, the drama ongoing, and the spirit as it should be. I’ve had my favourites, as any onlooker should, because over seven weeks and across 60 matches, you cannot help but warm to the stage and its players. There are days when you think “Enough now!” and days when you thank your lucky stars.I have talked mainly about the young cricketers setting out on their journey in a limited-overs game that has changed beyond recognition since the time I first marvelled at it. That time, incidentally, was the 1967 Gillette Cup final at Lord’s. I sat on the outfield behind the boundary rope, a little boy, too shy to ask for an autograph. Kent – 193 all out in 59.4 overs – beat Somerset – 161 in 54.5. That is a total of 354 runs in 114.3 overs. Last night, the Delhi Capitals reached their first IPL final in a match that yielded 361 runs in 40 overs. That’s entertainment.

A recap of the major talking points from the latest round of Shield matches

Andrew McGlashan03-Nov-2020Burns in the spotlightThere has been no shortage of in-form batsmen during the first three rounds of the Shield – 19 centuries have been scored – so when someone has struggled a little it stands out. Five of Australia’s incumbent top seven are in action (David Warner and Steven Smith the two at the IPL) and all have made telling contributions except for Joe Burns. His three innings have brought 7, 29 and 0. The middle of those scores is probably the most frustrating as he had got himself settled before top-edging an indecisive pull. His second-innings duck, edging the superb Trent Copeland, came at around the same time that Will Pucovski and Marcus Harris were breaking records, while Sam Whiteman has also piled on the runs. Burns’ returns last summer against Pakistan and New Zealand were solid rather than spectacular – two half-centuries in eight innings – although a substantial score in the final round of matches would probably see him retain his place. But the competition has suddenly become fierce.Swepson’s hub gainsFew players have gained as much from the tournament being forced into the single-city hub in Adelaide than legspinner Mitchell Swepson. The conditions have meant he has had a central role for Queensland and he has delivered with 15 wickets in two matches. He played a match-winning role in the opening game against Tasmania and came within a whisker of doing it again in the compelling match against New South Wales where he collected a career-best 10 for 171. Among that haul was the ripping legbreak from around the wicket to bowl Sean Abbott and another fizzing delivery to beat Daniel Hughes in the second innings. Australia will have to include a second spinner in their enlarged Test squad; it would probably have been Swepson in any case, but the last few weeks should have ended any debate.It did not take long for Cameron Green to make a mark with the ball•Getty ImagesGreen shootsIt was only 12 overs, but they were another significant step in what is starting to feel like an inevitable Test debut for Cameron Green this season after his call-up to the limited-overs squad. Given his run-scoring it may not even matter how much he can bowl, but his return to action was a reminder of the enticing package he will be providing injuries can be kept at bay. He bowled three four-over spells in the match against Tasmania, removing Jordan Silk twice, and was getting the ball to carry through at good pace. His second-innings spell with the new ball was especially lively as he found the outside and inside edge of Charlie Wakim’s bat in an over that somehow cost him 14 runs.Contrasting returns for Shield veteransShaun Marsh appears to be playing as well as ever. If it hadn’t been for the search for quick runs to bring a declaration against Tasmania he could have had twin hundreds in the match and three in five innings this season. At 37 his Test career is surely behind him, although in this of all years it’s probably wise to expect the unexpected. His first-innings 115 in the latest round, with Western Australia in trouble against a ball moving around, was a display of the highest quality. Across town, things did not go as well for another stalwart of Shield cricket: Callum Ferguson bagged a pair against Victoria, edging a wild drive against Will Sutherland in the first innings and nicking the new ball from Scott Boland in the second.ESPNcricinfo LtdSouth Australia keep their HeadIt was a sobering time for the Redbacks as Pucovski and Harris piled up the all-time Sheffield Shield partnership record of 486. On the second evening, when the score stood at 0 for 418, coach Jason Gillespie did not try to sugarcoat things and when they were 2 for 10 early in the second innings, facing a deficit of 354, defeat looked certain. However, in Travis Head they have an exceptional leader and batsman – for the second game running he led from the front to show that survival was possible with 151 off 296 balls. Still, he needed help and in 19-year-old Liam Scott he found it as the young allrounder added his name to the ‘ones to watch’ list as he took South Australia to the brink of the draw. The Redbacks have batted 288 overs across two second innings in their last two matches – to compete they must score first-innings runs, but they are a side that won’t give in.

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

The key statistical highlights from the second Zimbabwe vs Pakistan Test in Harare

Sampath Bandarupalli10-May-2021ESPNcricinfo Ltd3 – Players with five-wicket hauls for Pakistan in the Test – Hasan Ali returned 5 for 27 in the first innings, while Nauman Ali and Shaheen Shah Afridi picked up 5 for 86 and 5 for 52 in the second innings respectively. It’s the first time three players have registered five-wicket hauls for Pakistan in a Test match.It was also just the sixth instance of three players from the same team picking up five-fors in a Test match. The last such occasion was at Edgbaston in 1993, when Australia’s Paul Reiffel, Shane Warne and Tim May picked up five-fors against England.2 – Instances when two left-arm bowlers have picked up five-wicket hauls in the same Test innings. Before Nauman and Afridi achieved it in Zimbabwe’s second innings in Harare, England’s George Hirst and Colin Blythe did the same against Australia at Edgbaston in 1909. Hirst and Blythe, in fact, picked up all 20 wickets for England in that Test.ESPNcricinfo Ltd2 – Series of more than one Test won by Pakistan outside Asia in the last ten years, including this one. Their other came in the West Indies in 2017, where they won the three-match series 2-1.4 – Test matches as captain for Babar Azam, and Pakistan have won all four. No Pakistan captain before Azam had won more than two consecutive Tests after their captaincy debut. Azam is also only the eighth captain overall to win each of his first four Test matches.ESPNcricinfo LtdThe victory margin of an innings and 147 runs was their second biggest in an innings win outside Asia. The biggest came in 1973 in Dunedin, when they defeated New Zealand by an innings and 166 runs.8.92 – Hasan Ali’s Bowling average in the Test series, the best by a Pakistan bowler in a multi-match Test series (minimum ten wickets). The previous best was 10.40 by Mudassar Nazar during the three-match Test series against England in 1982, where he took ten wickets.2010 – The last time a Pakistan player recorded a 50-plus score and a five-wicket haul in the same Test before Nauman Ali did it in Harare. It was Saeed Ajmal, who had achieved the double against England in 2010 at Edgbaston.