Stuart Broad has joined their ranks. Who are the others in the bracket?

Ian Chappell02-Aug-2020Broadly speaking Freddie Trueman was right when, on claiming the record for most Test wickets, he volunteered, “Any booger who passes that mark will be bluddy tired.”West Indies offspinner Lance Gibbs eventually broke Trueman’s record of 307 Test wickets. It took him about 27,000 deliveries and his reward was a huge carbuncle on his spinning finger, so presumably he was sore as well as tired.Since then the record has been stretched to 800 wickets, which would have been thought of as unattainable in Trueman’s day, by Sri Lankan offspinner Muttiah Muralitharan. Murali deserved to be tired – it took him a mammoth 44,000-plus deliveries.An indication of how unlikely that record might sound is provided by the story of the former Australia fast bowler Rodney Hogg, who wrote when Shane Warne was only just beginning his first-class career that Warne would claim 500 Test wickets. He was writing for the , a Melbourne newspaper, and the editor sacked him for such a reckless prediction. “That’s ridiculous,” he claimed, “no one will take 500 Test wickets.” Warne finished his career with 708 victims.ALSO READ: Stuart Broad, England’s spring-heeled superstarWith Stuart Broad’s recent ascent there are now seven members of the 500-wicket club: three spinners followed by four faster bowlers. To achieve that landmark Broad has delivered in excess of 28,000 balls, but in defiance of Trueman’s prediction, he seems to be going from strength to strength.In an era of stringent media training Broad was refreshingly honest in an interview following his omission from England’s side for the first Test against West Indies. He didn’t lambast the selectors he just expressed his disappointment and then proceeded in the next two Tests to display why they were wrong. Any selector worth the title should be delighted at such a positive player reaction to an omission.Capturing his 500th Test wicket was a particularly satisfying part of Broad proving his point. Incredibly, the victim was Kraigg Brathwaite, the same player that Broad’s partner in bowling excellence, Jimmy Anderson, dismissed to reach his milestone. In contrast to Anderson’s fulfilling achievement – a bowled dismissal at Lord’s in front of an appreciative crowd – Broad reached his milestone in muted circumstances, in a ground devoid of fans, with only his grateful team-mates at hand to applaud his laudable achievement.However, there was one mitigating factor. Thanks to the vagaries of cricket in the Covid-19 era, his father, former Test batsman Chris, was the match referee and he was able to enjoy the moment with his son. Isn’t that the game of cricket? Isn’t that sport in general? It takes on the one hand and gives on the other.The seven members of the 500-Test-wicket club are an eclectic group of bowlers; two leggies, an offspinner, a swing bowler and three seamers. The one missing ingredient is an out-and-out speed merchant, which is probably an indication of how tough on the body that is as an occupation.ALSO READ: Stuart Broad: ‘I want to be the person who changes the game’Of the group, Broad has the best average for his best performance in Test cricket: a minuscule 1.88 for his 8 for 15 against Australia. However Indian legspinner Anil Kumble has the honour of a record that won’t be broken: he was the first member of the group – and currently the only one – to have taken all ten wickets in an innings.Muralitharan has two records that will likely never be beaten. He has an incredible 67 five-wicket hauls and an almost equally amazing 22 ten-wicket matches. Warne is next on the list with a far distant 37 and 10 respectively.The four seamers in the club have all only taken three ten-wicket match hauls, which is probably an indication of the extreme physical exertion required for a fast bowler to achieve such a feat. Even Trueman, never one to hide his light under a bushel, only achieved three ten-wicket hauls.It’d be interesting to hear the response if “Fiery” Fred Trueman was around today.”Eh Fred, young Broad equalled one of your records.””Oh aye, but it took him 13,000 more deliveries to bluddy do it,” might well be the expurgated version.

Bumrah, Chahal and Jadeja have struggled to adapt to the challenges the surfaces have offered so far

Aakash Chopra04-Dec-2020Australia is a tough country to conquer, for batsmen and bowlers alike. On the face of it, the pitches there are more conducive to faster bowlers with the extra pace and bounce they provide, but in reality it’s not that simple. We saw how the Indian bowlers struggled in the first couple of ODIs, in Sydney, and the extra bounce that was supposedly their ally was actually adding to their problems. The new batch of white Kookaburra balls don’t swing at all in the air, and if there’s no sideways movement off the surface, which there wasn’t in Sydney, the bounce makes the ball sit up quite nicely to get hit.The same is true for the spinners – the grass on the surface makes it tougher for the older white ball to grip and turn. If the ball neither turns nor stops on the surface, there’s precious little a bowler can do to rein in the batsman. More so if you’re still figuring out the right pace to bowl at and searching for the appropriate length for that particular surface.Fast bowlers are always advised to bowl the length that ensures the ball hits the top of off stump. When you bowl that line and length, you create difficulties for the batsman. But the fact is, that length varies from one surface to the other. While in India you have to bowl a certain length to hit the top of the stumps, in Australia that length is a lot fuller because of the bounce. In theory, the difference of a couple of feet isn’t much; every bowler bowls shorter and fuller every now and then intentionally anyway. But in practice, the difference is a lot more difficult to conquer: changing the length for a couple of deliveries is not challenging, but changing the length of the stock ball requires extensive training – you’re developing new muscle memory.ALSO READ: Powerless in the powerplay – India have too many holes in their bowling unitJasprit Bumrah is India’s lead white-ball bowler, and his discomfort in getting used to the demands of a new pitch was visible in the first two games. He started by bowling the stock ball but found no venom in it, for the bounce was comfortably taking the ball over the stumps.Australian batsmen have grown up playing on these surfaces, so their response was very different from whatever the Indian batsmen were doing in the practice sessions leading up to the game. Of course, the pitches provided in the camp are vastly different from those for international cricket. Bumrah tried bowling a little fuller, but the lack of swing and seam allowed the Australian batsmen to play on the up and through the line, which is something you can do on pitches with true bounce and pace.

Chahal’s dilemma about the right speed and length to bowl at was evident, and the fact that the Australian batsmen were on top didn’t help his cause. It didn’t give him any time to settle into a rhythm

Also, the response mechanism of a bowler every time a batsman reacts to a ball is inbuilt by the time he reaches the international arena. Bumrah dug in short, it went over the batsman’s head; a little fuller than that allowed the batsmen to swivel and play the pull. Now, learning on the job is fine, but there’s the matter of controlling the spillage of runs, and finding that balance isn’t easy. It’s like fixing a mechanical error in a car’s engine while the vehicle is on the move.Things were equally challenging for Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravindra Jadeja. While Jadeja’s style of bowling doesn’t change much from surface to surface (which is why he struggled less), Chahal’s response varies quite a bit from one surface to the other. His craft is based on creating enough confusion in the batsman’s mind by varying the pace and using whatever little purchase is available off the surface.The thumb rule for spin bowling is to increase speed while bowling on spin-friendly pitches and to bowl slower on flatter surfaces. Chahal needed to find the right pace to bowl on the Sydney pitch. He went a few miles slower a lot of times but the lack of assistance offered by the surface made it easier for the batsman to manoeuvre. The problem with going too slow is that it allows the batsman to go deep inside the crease, even to the deliveries that aren’t very short. When that starts happening, you as a bowler try to push the ball fuller without quite realising that you are going to be landing the ball virtually at the batsman’s feet.ALSO READ: India’s one-dimensional batsmen hurting their five-bowler strategy Chahal’s dilemma about the right speed and length to bowl at was evident, and the fact that the Australian batsmen were on top didn’t help his cause. It didn’t give him any time to settle into a rhythm. The pitch in Sydney was so true that you could play even the spinner on the rise – something that you avoid attempting if there’s the slightest bit of help in the surface for spinners.Playing on Australian pitches can be extremely intimidating, especially for batsmen from the subcontinent, but still the consensus is that they can be the most batsman-friendly surfaces in the world too. Once the initial challenge of adjustment is taken care of, the true nature of the pitches makes for consistent strokeplay.Picture it from a bowler’s point of view: it’s only a small window of opportunity for them to make inroads and, if they fail to do so, their challenges increase manifold.

The Covid-enforced break gave Raut the chance to work on her batting and the results are there for everyone to see

Annesha Ghosh14-Mar-20214:11

Punam Raut: Not strike rate, batting deep is the key

Punam Raut has been around for a long time. Long enough to have played three ODI World Cups and four T20 World Cups. Long enough to have opened 54 times for India and batted first-drop on 15 occasions in 71 ODIs. And long enough to have been outperformed by the younger, quick-hitting frontline India batters and acquiring the status of being too slow for T20Is and, not until the second match of the ongoing ODI series against South Africa, perhaps for the ODI format, too.In an international career now spanning nearly 12 years, Raut, 31, has often found herself needing to prove her style of play is in sync with the evolving nature of the women’s game.Heading into the series against South Africa, Raut’s career strike rate was 56.96. Her 29-ball 10 in the series opener, which India lost by eight wickets, didn’t do her reputation of a slow accumulator any good. In the second ODI, too, her scoring was found wanting for pace: Raut crawled to just seven runs in the first 31 balls of her innings, without any boundaries. By then, her batting partner, opener Smriti Mandhana, had waltzed to 32 off 33, with three sixes and two fours.The scratchy start notwithstanding, Raut turned a corner in that game. Finishing on an unbeaten 89-ball 62, her unbroken second-wicket 138-run stand with Mandhana paved the way for India’s series-levelling nine-wicket victory. Her strike rate, 69.66 in the second ODI, improved to 71.30 and 84.55 in the next two matches as she compiled three straight 50-plus scores, the third of those, on Sunday, an unbeaten 104 off 123. In doing so, Raut became the first Indian batter to make an ODI hundred at home since 2014.

“Under my coach in Mumbai, I worked on my back-foot shots and strike rotation. It was about getting used to things by batting a lot. I worked on the technical flaws in my game. The runs are coming now and it’s due to the hard work I put in during the lockdown”– Punam Raut

Raut’s century in the fourth ODI in Lucknow proved far from adequate for the hosts to save the five-match series – South Africa mowed down the 267 target, pulling off their highest chase. Her new-found consistency at the top, though, is likely to bode well for India as their think-tank draws up combinations potent enough to challenge the best leading up to the 2022 World Cup.”I don’t think too much about strike rate. I focus on my contribution to the team,” Raut said after the fourth ODI when asked if she heeds any talk around her strike rate. “As for making comebacks [as I have in the past], it is important to stay mentally strong. There are people who tell me that my strike rate is low, but I don’t let it worry me. I keep working on my game.”Returns on the field, and off it, since the 2017 World Cup have been a mixed bag for Raut. On the back of her impressive run in that global tournament, where India finished runners-up, she inked a three-year bat sponsorship deal with a leading automobile brand that currently has Mandhana and R Ashwin on their roster among India cricketers. She made it to the new central contracts’ list in 2018, getting a Grade-C retainer. Accolades from her domestic team, Railways, and private organisations, too, followed, with a cricket-coaching centre – the Punam Raut Cricket Academy – at the Poinsur Gymkhana in Mumbai’s Kandivali West also taking on her name.Fortunes on the field, though, were hardly as favourable. In her 14 innings since the 2017 World Cup and before the start of the ongoing series against South Africa, Raut made 40 or more only three times. Owing to a 47-ball 19 and 37-ball 20 in the first two ODIs in South Africa in February 2018, in what was India’s first assignment since the World Cup, she lost her place to Mona Meshram. When India turned out for their next assignment, a home series against Australia in Vadodara, Raut was dropped from the XI after the first two matches, her 50-ball 37 and 61-ball 27 as an opener not proving good enough.Punam Raut: “This is a special hundred as it has come after a long time”•BCCI/UPCAThat same year, Raut was overlooked for a place in the ODI squad for the home series against England as India began trying out a teenaged Jemimah Rodrigues as an opener, with a view to up India’s scoring rate at the top. In the next set of opportunities that came Raut’s way to make a top-order spot in the ODI side her own, during the 2018 tour of Sri Lanka, a 41-ball 24 and a 15-ball 3 is all she could collect. Rodrigues replaced her again and, by dint of her fearless style of play, emerged the favoured opening partner to Mandhana during the 2019 tour of New Zealand under new coach WV Raman.Over the next ten months, India played another three bilateral ODI series, including two at home. The first of those, against England, saw Raut return to the XI in the second ODI. Raut made 32 from No. 3 in that game, stitching together a vital fifty stand with captain Mithali Raj in a small chase. A first fifty, 56 off 97 balls, since the 2017 World Cup final followed in the third ODI. India lost the game, but Raut’s half-century won her some breathing room.Since then, India have used her at one-down, with Raj largely slotting herself in at No. 4. Leading up to the ongoing South Africa series, Raut’s noteworthy contributions since the home assignment against England had been a 92-ball 65 and a 128-ball 77 against South Africa at home and West Indies away respectively. So the two straight fifties against South Africa ahead of Sunday had already been a marked improvement for Raut.”The Covid-19-enforced lockdown helped me a lot to work on my game,” she said after Sunday’s game. “Under my [personal] coach in Mumbai, I worked on my back-foot shots and strike rotation. It was about getting used to things by batting a lot. I worked on the technical flaws in my game. The runs are coming now and it’s due to the hard work I put in during the lockdown.”The hundred on Sunday and the celebratory kiss of the Ekana turf that followed may not have been much about having to prove a point to the world. For Raut, who doesn’t have a bat sponsor at the moment, it might have just been relief that she is making the most of the precious, elusive form she has found in this series.”The hundred was very valuable,” she said, having steered India to their highest total at home since the 2013 World Cup. “A century is special for every batter. I wanted to convert my good form into three figures. I like this ground and this pitch. This is a special hundred as it has come after a long time.”And if her newly acquired consistency is anything to go by, the sight of a sponsor-less bat might also be a thing of the past soon.

After a famous win in Chennai, we take a look at some of England’s best recent Test performances in Asia

Alan Gardner10-Feb-2021vs Pakistan, Karachi, 2000 – won by six wickets
England only won 12 Tests in Asia between 1933 (India’s first on home soil) and 2000 – and none at all in the preceding 15 years – but a memorable winter in Pakistan and Sri Lanka was to prove the turning point. Nasser Hussain’s side set off in good spirits and a clear game plan to take the Tests in Pakistan as deep as possible, securing high-scoring draws in Lahore (the last time before Chennai that England had batted into day three of a Test unaffected by rain) and Faisalabad. Then came the series-sealing victory in the dark in Karachi. First, England ground their way towards parity on the back of Mike Atherton’s ten-hour 125; then, when Pakistan slipped to 158 all out on the final afternoon, they stole off with the game thanks to Graham Thorpe’s cool head – plus a little help from Steve Bucknor. Cue “Who Let the Dogs Out” in the away dressing room.vs Sri Lanka, Colombo, 2001 – won by four wickets
Hussain’s England carried lessons of victory in Pakistan to Sri Lanka a few months later, though this was a very different series. Hammered in the first Test in Galle, they bounced back in Kandy, amid umpiring controversy and complaints about behaviour on both sides. For the decider at the SSC, England were again reliant on the understated genius of Thorpe as they prevailed in a low-scoring scrap. Hussain lost the toss, but England’s bowlers fought back on day one to limit Sri Lanka to 241 after they had been 205 for 3, and Thorpe marshalled the response with a masterful, unbeaten 113 (none of his team-mates scored more than 26). Sitting on a slim lead, England then blitzed the home side for 81, with Darren Gough and Ashley Giles coming to the fore. Chasing 74 on a Bunsen was never going to be straightforward, though, and it needed Thorpe to get them home again – his 32 not out “like getting a hundred in each innings”.Shaun Udal removed Sachin Tendulkar on the way to a match-winning 4 for 11 in Mumbai•Getty Imagesvs India, Mumbai, 2006 – won by 212 runs
One of the great one-off victories, as an England side shorn of Marcus Trescothick, Michael Vaughan, Alastair Cook (who was taken ill two games after his debut in Nagpur) and Steve Harmison, and being led by a stand-up captain in Andrew Flintoff, bounced back to level the series in dramatic fashion on the final afternoon at the Wankhede. They benefited from some generosity, after Rahul Dravid’s decision to insert them allowed England to stack up 400, underpinned by a century from Andrew Strauss; James Anderson (yes, the same one) then took four wickets as India posted 279 in reply. However, after Flintoff’s second fifty of the match saw the hosts set 313 in just over three sessions, the game seemed to be heading for a draw, India 75 for 3 at lunch. Then Flintoff stuck “Ring of Fire” on the CD player, and England ran through Sachin Tendulkar and Co in 15.2 overs – 37-year-old Shaun Udal the hero with 4 for 11.Related

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vs India, Mumbai, 2012 – won by ten wickets
England remain the last visiting team to win a Test series in India, and they did so in 2012-13 despite a drubbing in the opening encounter in Ahmedabad. Cook, however, had led the resistance in the first Test with 176, and he backed that up with another century in Mumbai, on a livelier surface that brought England’s spinners into the contest. But, undoubtedly, the difference between the teams on this occasion was some Kevin Pietersen magic, as he peppered the Wankhede boundaries on the way to a majestic 186 from 233 balls. Pietersen had been struggling against left-arm spin, in particular, but took on Pragyan Ojha, R Ashwin and Harbhajan Singh to blistering effect as England gained an 86-run lead. Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar then rattled out all ten India wickets in the second innings – they shared 19 in the match – as England completed a comfortable win inside four days.Kevin Pietersen was at his scintillating best in 2012•BCCIvs India, Kolkata, 2012 – won by seven wickets
England had to chase the game at Eden Gardens, too, after MS Dhoni won the toss for the third time in a row. But India could only manage 316, as Anderson and Panesar continued to harry them, and then it was over to Cook once again, as the opener compiled his third hundred in succession – and fifth in five Tests at captain. Cook was eventually run-out for 190, as England sailed past India’s score three down, with their eventual total of 523 giving them an iron grip on the Test. Anderson picked up another three-for in the second innings and only an unbeaten 91 from Ashwin prevented England from winning by an innings. The tourists sealed the series by batting their way to a draw in Nagpur a few days later – a game largely memorable for the debut of a certain JE Root at No. 6.Joe Root made consecutive 150-plus scores in Galle•SLCvs Sri Lanka, Galle, 2021 – won by six wickets
Root’s England have won five Tests in a row in Sri Lanka, but arguably none was more satisfying than their most recent victory. Root lost the toss twice in Galle, but while Sri Lanka threw the game away early in the first Test by being bowled out for 135, they put in an improved showing the second time around, as Angelo Mathews’ century took them to 381 – England again reliant on Anderson to stay competitive in alien conditions, as he became the oldest seamer to claim a Test five-for in Asia on the way to immaculate figures of 6 for 40. With Root in fabulous touch, following up his first-Test 224 with an eight-hour 186 in sapping heat, England battled their way to 344 and a deficit of 37; the spin pair of Jack Leach and Dom Bess, wicketless in the first innings, then found their range to skittle Sri Lanka for 126, before Dom Sibley’s unbeaten half-century settled the nerves in a tricky chase.

All the statistical highlights from the third T20I of the four-match series

Sampath Bandarupalli14-Apr-2021122 – Runs scored by Babar Azam in the third T20I in Centurion. It is now the highest individual score for Pakistan in T20Is, overhauling 111* by Ahmed Shehzad against Bangladesh in the 2014 T20 World Cup. Azam’s 122 is also the highest T20I score against South Africa, beating 117 by Chris Gayle in 2007.1 – Individual scores higher than Azam’s 122 while chasing in T20Is. Evin Lewis scored an unbeaten 125 while chasing against India in 2017. Azam also holds the record for the highest score in a T20I chase by a captain.197 – Partnership runs between Azam and Mohammad Rizwan for the opening stand. It is now the highest partnership for any wicket in a T20I chase surpassing the unbeaten 171-run opening stand between Martin Guptill and Kane Williamson against Pakistan in 2016. The 197-run partnership is also the highest in T20s while chasing, going past 194 between Aaron Finch and Jason Roy for Surrey against Middlesex in 2018.204 – Target chased by Pakistan in the third T20I against South Africa. This is now the highest target successfully chased by Pakistan in T20Is, surpassing the 189 chase in the first match.ESPNcricinfo Ltd0 – T20I partnerships for Pakistan higher than the 197-run stand between Azam and Rizwan. It is, in fact, the first ever 150-plus partnership for Pakistan in T20Is, also the fourth-highest for any wicket in this format. The 197-run stand is also the highest against South Africa in T20Is, surpassing 167* between Jos Buttler and Dawid Malan for the second wicket last year.3 – Fifties for Aiden Markram in the T20I series against Pakistan. He is now only the second player with a hat-trick of 50-plus scores for South Africa in men’s T20Is. Hashim Amla was the first player with this feat, in 2016. Markram was involved in a 108-run partnership with Janneman Malan, the first century opening stand for South Africa in T20Is since February 2016.2 – 200-plus totals conceded by Pakistan in T20Is including the 203 for 5 by South Africa on Wednesday. The highest T20I total for any team versus Pakistan is 211 for 3 by Sri Lanka in 2013.

Jasprit Bumrah suffers his most expensive spell in T20s

Sampath Bandarupalli01-May-2021138 – Runs scored by the Mumbai Indians in the last ten overs, the most by any team in a successful IPL chase. Mumbai broke their own record of 133, set against the Kings XI Punjab in 2019. The 138 runs by Mumbai are also the third-most in the final ten overs of a successful T20 chase.Trinbago Knight Riders scored 144 runs against St Lucia Stars in CPL 2018 when they needed 139 runs in the final ten, a week after being on the receiving end of a 139-run effort by Jamaica Tallawahs in Port of Spain.ESPNcricinfo Ltd219 – The target chased down by Mumbai, which is the second-highest successful chase in the history of the IPL. The highest chase is by the Rajasthan Royals against the Kings XI, when they chased down a 224-run target in Sharjah last year. Tonight’s chase against the Super Kings was the first successful chase of a 200-plus target by Mumbai in the IPL across eight attempts.ESPNcricinfo Ltd0 – Quicker IPL fifties for Mumbai than the 17-ball effort by Kieron Pollard today. Pollard himself in 2016, Ishan Kishan in 2018 and Hardik Pandya in 2019 also had fifties off 17 balls for Mumbai previously, all against the Kolkata Knight Riders.This was also the fastest fifty by any player in the IPL against the Super Kings. KL Rahul in 2019 in Mohali and Sanju Samson in 2020 in Sharjah had fifties in 19 balls against the Super Kings. The unbeaten 87 from Pollard is also his highest IPL score.ESPNcricinfo Ltd16 – Sixes hit by the Super Kings batters in this match, the most by any team in an IPL match against Mumbai. The previous most was 15, by the Knight Riders in 2019 in Kolkata. In reply tonight, Mumbai struck 14 maximums, the most by them in an IPL game against the Super Kings.0 – Instances of more than one century partnership in an IPL innings before the Super Kings’ innings tonight. Faf du Plessis and Moeen Ali added 108 runs for the second wicket, before Ambati Rayudu and Ravindra Jadeja shared an unbeaten 102-run stand for the fifth wicket.218 for 4 – The Super Kings’ total is their highest against Mumbai. Previously, 208 for 5 in Chepauk in 2008 was the only instance of the Super Kings posting 200+ against Mumbai in the IPL.62 – Runs conceded by Lungi Ngidi in this game, the most by any player in an IPL match for the Super Kings. The previous most conceded by a CSK bowler in an IPL game was 58 by Mohit Sharma vs Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2015, and Sam Curran earlier this season against KKR.56 – Runs conceded by Jasprit Bumrah, in four overs, in this match, which is the most by him in a T20. The previous most conceded by Bumrah was 55 against the Delhi Daredevils in Delhi in 2015.

Jurgensen reveals Southee’s unusual inswinger was developed at a camp in Lincoln just before the England tour

Karthik Krishnaswamy28-Jun-20211:41

Southee: ‘Not having express pace, I look to skin the cat differently’

There’s a lot more to it, of course, but at its deadliest, Tim Southee’s method is all about that old three-card trick: outswing, outswing, and the one that goes the other way.Except it isn’t just the “one” that goes the other way, but three different ways of delivering a ball that moves into the right-hander.Take the second-innings wickets of India’s openers in the World Test Championship final in Southampton. Both were lbw, playing for non-existent outswing, but the balls that dismissed them were entirely different.Shubman Gill, first to go, was out to Southee’s well-known three-quarter-seam ball, which is delivered with the seam scrambled, and moves into the right-hander off the pitch. Rohit Sharma, however, was bamboozled by something that hasn’t been seen all too often.Every now and again on this tour of England, Southee had delivered the traditional inswinger, with the seam canted towards fine leg, but most had come out of the hand noticeably slower than Southee’s stock ball. The ball to Rohit wasn’t the traditional inswinger; the seam was canted towards slip, like it is for an outswinger, but the ball was flipped around so its rough side – this was the 27th over of India’s innings – was facing the leg side. And unlike Southee’s attempts at bowling the genuine inswinger, this one came out at normal speed.It’s entirely possible that Rohit saw the seam position, judged the ball to be leaving him, and decided to shoulder arms. Instead, it veered in towards the stumps and struck Rohit’s front pad.3:21

Dale Steyn explains the concept of the three-quarter seam

The Dukes ball that is used in England moves significantly more – in the air and off the pitch – than the Kookaburra that’s used in New Zealand, and this allowed Southee to try and develop the inswinger on this tour.”I think all players in any sport are always looking to try and get better and looking at ways you can improve your game,” Southee said in a media interaction on Monday. “I obviously don’t have express pace, so you’re looking to skin the cat differently, and that’s using subtle variations and I obviously rely heavily on my outswing, but with the Dukes ball and the ability to move the Dukes ball a little bit more than what you can with the Kookaburra, a lot of work went in, leading into that series, about just trying to get the ball to move both ways.”Shane Jurgensen, New Zealand’s bowling coach, said Southee came up with the new variation during the camp New Zealand held in Lincoln before they left for England.”I actually think that wicket of getting Rohit out was a long time of Tim trying a few things and always trying to improve,” Jurgensen said. “I think that goes for every bowler in our group and I think that’s really stood out more in the last two years. It has always happened, but I really think it really started in our camps in May at Lincoln, when he was playing around with bit of an inswinger and it was good.”It took him a while to sort of get it and all of a sudden he learnt of possibly turning the ball around the other way and bowling it the exactly same way. [It] probably has a little more pace on it compared to the [traditional] inswinger and I think that’s been a credit to Tim.”He’s always looking to improve and he’s been such an outstanding performer for New Zealand for such a long time; 600-plus wickets for New Zealand now and that breakthrough of Sharma was at a really crucial time. In fact both of those wickets were, to give us a chance to get Virat Kohli in early.”