A rare come-from-behind series win, as well as a shutout for Pakistan pace bowling

Sampath Bandarupalli26-Oct-20242 Test series won by Pakistan after losing the first match. Their previous win was the three-match series against Zimbabwe in 1995, which they won 2-1 after an innings defeat in the first Test.823 for 7 England’s first innings total in Multan, the highest by any team in a Test series they lost. The previous highest was 760 for 7 by Sri Lanka against India in 2009, in the first Test of the three-match series, which they lost 2-0.4 Consecutive Test series at home for Pakistan without a win before this one. Their previous series win at home came against South Africa at the start of 2021. They lost series against Australia, England and Bangladesh in between, while a series against New Zealand ended in a 0-0 draw.4 Number of six-plus wicket hauls for Pakistan in the series against England – two by Sajid Khan and Noman Ali apiece. These are the most six-plus wicket hauls for Pakistan bowlers in a Test series.Pakistan is also the first team to have four or more six-plus wicket hauls in a Test series since India at home against Australia in 2017.1999 The last instance of two ten-wicket match hauls for Pakistan in a Test series was against India in India. Saqlain Mushtaq took ten wickets in both matches of that series – in Chennai and Delhi.2015 The previous instance of Pakistan winning a Test series against England was by a 2-0 margin in the UAE. England won two of the previous four series against Pakistan, while the other two ended in draws.50.28 Percentage of runs scored by England in this series came in just one innings – 823 for 7 in Multan. It is the highest percentage of a team’s series aggregate scored in a single innings (Min: 5 team innings in series).The previous highest was 44.26 by Australia in the three-match series against South Africa in 1997, where almost half of their series aggregate of 1419 runs came in their first innings of the first Test – 628 for 8.0 Number of balls bowled by the pace bowlers for Pakistan in Rawalpindi. It is only the second instance in men’s Tests where all balls bowled by a team’s bowlers were by spinners. The other such instance was by Bangladesh in 2018 in Mirpur against West Indies, where all 96 overs they bowled were by the spinners.India did not field a pace bowler in their line-up against West Indies at Brabourne in 1966, where they bowled 226 overs, but the mixture bowlers – Motganhalli Jaisimha and Ajit Wadekar took the new ball before spinners stepped in.

Bosch, promoted to No. 3, struggled with her strike-rate in challenging batting conditions while the spinners couldn’t exert control

Firdose Moonda07-Oct-20243:01

Takeaways: Kapp too low, Wyatt-Hodge in full glow

The Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 still needs a proper fire-starter but it got a slow-burner in the first almost-nail-biter, which asked more questions of the last edition’s losing finalists South Africa, than it did of the team they beat then, England.That says as much about the development of South Africa as it does about the expectation on them. They have lost 20 of the 25 T20Is they’ve played against England. But as a team that have progressed steadily since professionalisation in 2014, South Africa are now supposed to push the big three – England, Australia and India. Their falling short will be a cause for careful critique, especially as their search for a semi-final spot continues.The first question will come over the batting because despite setting the best first innings score in five games in Sharjah, South Africa still did not do enough. Their 124 looked around “10 to 20 runs short,” Laura Wolvaardt said at the post-match presser, especially after they started strongly with 31 runs from the first five overs. Tazmin Brits was dismissed on the first ball of the sixth over, trying to create a boundary opportunity by advancing against Linsey Smith. South Africa then stalled. Wolvaardt and Anneke Bosch played out seven boundary-less overs after the powerplay, which raises concerns about South Africa’s approach.Related

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Senior pros put on a Sharjah show to extend England's unbeaten start

Sciver-Brunt and Ecclestone lead England to classy victory

The obvious one is why they chose to send in Bosch ahead of Marizanne Kapp, the player they have used at No. 3 for most of the build-up to the tournament. Wolvaardt suggested it was a management decision.”She’s traditionally batted three for us in the past but Annneke was striking it really well leading up to this and Marizanne obviously has quite a hectic workload as a seam-bowling all-rounder,” Wolvaardt said. “I think that’s something that our batting coach Baakier Abrahams here has been thinking about it for many hours in his room and I’m sure he has a reason behind the line-up as it is.” But Wolvaardt said she would, “definitely open to any changes.”If the coaching staff feel the same way, it is simply a change back to what seemed to be their pre-tournament plans, when Kapp herself embraced the prospect of batting higher up the order. If they don’t, that might be in keeping with some unusual tournament trends, which has seen other batters also coming in out of position, seemingly for workload reasons.Pakistan captain Fatima Sana, who had been promoted to No.5 in the pre-tournament series against South Africa, has returned to No.7. Asked on two occasions for the reasons behind that, she maintained it was a team decision but Sana’s ability for Pakistan (her 30 against Sri Lanka won them their opening game) is as clear as Kapp’s for South Africa and both should be batting higher up.Marizanne Kapp looked comfortable on a tough batting surface•ICC/Getty ImagesIn South Africa’s case that would also offer some cushioning to Bosch, who struggled with her strike-rate in challenging batting conditions. She had 14 scoring shots for her 18 runs and faced 12 dot balls which built pressure on the middle order when she was dismissed. Everyone from Bosch down had not batted in the opening game, and on surfaces like these, time in the middle is the best way to craft an approach. Chloe Tryon, Sune Luus and Nadine de Klerk will all want to be able to offer more in future fixtures.The other reason South Africa struggled to score was the efficacy of England’s spinners, who had the advantage of experience in Sharjah, on a slow pitch. Sophie Ecclestone was particularly difficult to get away and her stump-to-stump line produced 10 dot balls and had the best economy rate of the match: 3.75. Contrastingly, South Africa’s two left-arm spinners Nonkululeko Mlaba and Tryon conceded 47 runs in seven overs between them, the latter conceding 25 in three overs.”Our spinners just lacked a little bit of control in the middle,” Wolvaardt said. “I felt like their spinners didn’t leave the stumps at all and it was really difficult to get away. But in saying that, it is quite hard to bowl to batters where it seems like all of them have a lap and a reverse sweep and it’s hard to set fields for that.”That leaves South Africa with something of a conundrum because they went from a raft of resources against West Indies three days ago to looking as though they lacked a little something in Sharjah. Their options were to include an extra seamer in Tumi Sekhukhune, although an extra pacer did not seem like an immediately sensible option in Sharjah, or to take a punt on the 18-year old legspinner Seshnie Naidu, which may have felt like throwing her to the wolves. Either way, that would have come at the expense of a batter, likely Annerie Dercksen, whose 20 not out off 11 balls showed why South Africa could not afford to do that.Getting the team combination right in Sharjah is tricky, especially as South Africa had not even seen the venue before the game. Training sessions are held at the ICC Academy in Dubai so they came into this game blind on actual experience, even though they kept an eye on proceedings on the television. They may look back and think they did not get it quite right and can use this match to consider how to approach things if they find themselves back here.South Africa do not play any more group games in Sharjah and next face Scotland in a day game and Bangladesh in a night game in Dubai. They could, however, find themselves playing a semi-final in Sharjah and if they get there, will want to show they have learnt their lesson.

Over a transformative year, India’s chosen one has learned to find joy in the struggle

Alagappan Muthu02-Nov-20240:47

Manjrekar: Gill’s innings showed he cares for Test cricket

He walked off with the bat trailing in his wake, scraping the turf. A slow climb up the Wankhede Stadium stairs took him into the dressing room. It was the last place he wanted to be in.Shubman Gill was playing the kind of innings that makes a top-order batter. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t scratchy. It wasn’t a hundred. It wasn’t easy. But it was so very necessary.Related

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Wankhede was a beautiful setting for it, with its capacity to be many things at once. It can be loud. Akash Deep flattening Tom Latham’s stumps just before tea on Saturday infused drama and intrigue into an atmosphere that is only supposed to contain nitrogen, oxygen, and trace amounts of other gases. It can be dead. Virat Kohli running himself out on Friday evening rendered the vocal cords of 18,724 people obsolete. It can be hostile. Earlier this year, it made Hardik Pandya want to cry.Mumbai woke up to a post-Diwali haze so thick that whole buildings were lost in it. Rishabh Pant decided he would do the same to the memories of India’s mini-collapse from the evening of day one, belting Ajaz Patel all around the park and preventing him from getting into any sort of rhythm. The runs were a bonus. The quickest fifty by an India batter against New Zealand in Test cricket was a bonus. The objective was to prevent the spinner from hitting the good-length area of a turning pitch.Step out, make room, go inside-out: just one example of Shubman Gill’s range against spin•BCCIGill wasn’t really at his best doing this. A habit of going at the ball with hard hands made him especially vulnerable on the front foot. If New Zealand could get him forward but deny him the half-volley, there was enough help on offer to expect a favourable outcome. Ajaz managed that in India’s 22nd over, the third of the morning session, but the bat-pad went to silly point and there was nobody there. Gill used to find himself in this situation a lot and his average against spin reflected it. Until the start of 2024, it was 33.33. After the first Test against England earlier this year, his place in the XI even came under threat.The ball after he had nearly landed in trouble against Ajaz, Gill showcased some of the gains he has made since that low point. He went down the track – he’s spoken about doing that to counter spin ever since he was a little boy – but there was a little bit more at play too. Something clever. Something that good batters try to do to put the pressure back on the bowler. He had shifted himself inside the line of the ball and made full use of the opportunity to free his arms. He did this and went inside-out over extra-cover for four.There were other examples of his evolution as well. A forward-press trigger movement. Softer hands while defending. A focus on strike rotation. Because boundaries are often just a reprieve, a second’s joy amid hours of struggle, in conditions offering at least four degrees of turn on average. That is Test cricket, and Gill is showing the capacity for it. He had to be woken up to these things after a dropped catch on 45, but when he was, he did everything he could to shut the bowler out. Sometimes he was successful. Sometimes he was not. He rolled with that. And in the end, he was pretty happy with where he ended up.”Yes, definitely it’s one of my better knocks that I have played in Test cricket,” Gill said at the press conference on Saturday, and explained how he has been trying to get better at playing spin.”I was injured in the first Test. Even leading up to that Test I didn’t really practice that much because of the injury. So, I didn’t get that much time in the nets. And before the Pune Test match, I got two net sessions, and I am the kind of person, I like to have long practice sessions so that I feel confident about it. So, just the conversation with the coach [Gautam Gambhir] was just having more repetitions on what I think is the best idea for me to be able to play spin.1:23

Manjrekar: The way Pant started against Ajaz was incredible

“Leading up to this Test match, [my training] was all about me working on the areas that I have worked before,” he said. “The England series that we played, I think when I was batting in that series, I was batting at my best against spinners and just to be able to go back into that mindset and what my positions were while playing spinners and that’s what I was trying to replicate before this match.”Since the start of this year, Gill has averaged 61.55 against spin.Having been anointed the chosen one, the future of India’s batting, the future captain, there had been a sense that things were coming easy to Gill; that the narrative being built around him was disproportionate to what was on his CV. He obviously has no control over that. He also can’t really avoid that. The best he can do is be ready for games like these where his team was behind and they went through a series of brain fades and then had to fight back. Because such times hit different.”I was just having fun,” Gill said. “Even if it was difficult, I was just enjoying the difficult moments because you don’t get to play that many Test matches and I just feel when I am batting there, if I would put too much pressure on myself then I am losing out on the fun of the art of batting and that’s what I was trying to do.”It was fun for Gill, and fun too, judging by its response, for the Wankhede.

A sprint to victory or a draw for the win. Pick between two opposite games as we begin to identify The Greatest Test of the 21st century

ESPNcricinfo staff04-May-2025Update: This poll has ended. The IND-ENG 2008 Chennai Test moves to the round of 16.India’s triumph of belief vs England – Chennai, 2008It was not a match India were supposed to win. For three days and two sessions at the Chepauk, England were on top. India were staring at a target close to 400, when nothing above 300 had ever been chased before in the country (and the highest target chased at the venue was 155).But then the English bowlers were met with a belligerent Virender Sehwag, who laid down the platform for India to push for the win on the fifth day. Gautam Gambhir put in the grind at the top. And then Yuvraj Singh, with his Test credentials under the scanner, joined Sachin Tendulkar at the crease to take India over the line on a pitch with awkward bounce.Tendulkar applied the icing on the cake, hitting the winning runs – which also brought up a fine fourth-innings century. Only six higher totals have been chased in Test history than the 387 by India in Chennai, only two of which have come in Asia, and none in India. It was a win, as ESPNcricinfo’s Editor-in-Chief Sambit Bal noted at the time, forged by unwavering belief to go for the jugular and not just settle for a draw.
South Africa’s blockathon vs Australia – Adelaide, 2012If this Test was part of a video game, you’d autoplay the final innings once South Africa were 45 for 4. There were 110 overs to go, Nathan Lyon – who had been the curator at the Adelaide Oval, had a two-for. Ben Hilfenhaus and Peter Siddle almost hypnotically kept hitting a good length.Faf du Plessis, on Test debut, joined AB de Villiers with a South Africa win out of the window. So, they abandoned the search for runs and committed to the blockathon for 408 balls despite nervy moments.Du Plessis was given out lbw twice but overturned the decision using DRS; he also survived a sharp caught-behind chance with Matthew Wade standing up to the stumps. De Villiers faced 220 balls but when he was bowled by a nip-backer from Siddle, 60 overs still remained in the day.The partnership between Jacques Kallis and du Plessis – 99 runs in 235 balls – wasn’t as stoic but took up nearly 40 overs. Lyon got turn and bounce to dismiss Kallis and Siddle got a couple of tailenders. High resilience and hyper-aggressive fields led to 71 maidens in 149 overs, but couldn’t stop du Plessis from getting a maiden ton and staying unbeaten as Morne Morkel played out Siddle.For nearly four days, only one result seemed possible. Australia had done everything right. They made 550 at a run rate of 5.12 in their first innings on the back of Michael Clarke’s 257-ball 230 and Michael Hussey’s 137-ball 103. They had taken a 162-run lead and set a 430-run target which should have ensured a win.There were no caveats or rain, just a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition of defensive batting that denied Australia a series lead. South Africa went on to win the next game and became the first team in the 21st century to win back-to-back Test series in Australia.

In the absence of Broad and Anderson, the challenge for Stokes and McCullum is to manage their bowling strategy

Sidharth Monga30-Jun-20251:53

Did we see a refined version of Bazball at Headingley?

Since Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum took over as captain and coach, England have won 16 out of 21 home Tests, winning series against New Zealand, South Africa, West Indies and Sri Lanka, and drawing the Ashes 2-2. The essence of the way they play lies in scoring quickly rather than batting longer. In the Ashes, England’s batters scored 2920 runs in 3938 balls; their bowlers conceded a similar number of runs – 2851 – in 5389 balls. They lost 85 wickets and took 93.England have looked to upset the way Test cricket has viewed risk. It seems they have felt good balls are over-rated and have looked to score off them. Not all boundaries, but boundaries and, as a result of that approach, singles and twos into the spread-out field.In that Ashes, for example, Australia’s fast bowlers bowled 40.1% of their deliveries on a good length of 6-8m; England 41.7%. However, England batters averaged 39.35 and scored at 3.69 an over against this good length as against Australia’s average of 14.97 and scoring rate of just 1.82 per over. England took 37 wickets from a good length; Australia 20.Related

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Let’s restrict this to good-length balls on and just outside off stump to qualify good balls better. England lost no wicket to such deliveries, scoring at 4.05 an over, but took seven wickets and conceded at 2.13 per over.The trend continued in every series, though averaging 40 against good balls in the Ashes was truly a one-off. The New Zealand series is more representative of Bazball because both sides bowled a similar number of good-length balls – 1140 and 1097 – but England scored 517 runs for 18 wickets to New Zealand’s 288 runs for 16 wickets. More shots played but similar number of wickets lost.Against South Africa, England’s batters averaged 14.23 and scored at 2.79 per over to the visitors’ 7.17 and 1.55. Against West Indies, these numbers were 30.66 and 3.33 as against the visitors’ 9.3 and 2.1.2:38

Is Stokes’ bowling workload a worry?

A prerequisite to score against what the world regards as good balls is flatter pitches. Not pancake flat, but surfaces on which you can hit through the line of the ball and ones that don’t deteriorate much. That’s why Bazball didn’t work in India. The surfaces in England, though, have complied. The Dukes balls getting softer sooner hasn’t hurt them either. In fact, the conditions have tended to improve for batting as the match has progressed to the extent that bowling first is now the preferred choice in England. The batting averages for each innings in England since 2022 have been 32.28, 34.98, 26.91 and 44.7. Stokes knew what he was doing when he chose to bowl against India in Leeds.Batting, though, is the easier part. To win Tests on these flat pitches, you need to take 20 wickets. The real heroes of England’s home run are the bowlers, who have found ways to take wickets by consistently swinging the ball more than their opponents and also bowling a higher number of high-seam deliveries.Take the Ashes. When bowling on a good length, England’s bowlers extracted 1.008 degrees of swing on average as against Australia’s 0.637. Their average seam movement was only negligibly higher, but this is where we need to look at high-seam deliveries. Ones that nip more than 0.5 degrees, which could point to the use of wobble-seam deliveries. England bowled 489 deliveries that seamed big left to right as against Australia’s 238. They nipped 414 deliveries big from right to left as against Australia’s 272.England will need to bowl better lengths against India•PA Photos/Getty ImagesHigher average swing and more big-seam deliveries for England’s bowlers, to go with their batters playing more scoring shots to good lengths, has been the trend during the Bazball years. They seem to understand better than the visitors that you try and swing the ball more between overs 11 and 30, and wobble the seam at other times.England have had three constants to facilitate that: flatter pitches, skilful and experienced bowlers in these conditions, and attacking batters. In Jimmy Anderson, Broad and Ollie Robinson, England had a lot of class in the bowling department.Now, against India, they have an attack comprising Chris Woakes and Stokes as the only two experienced fast bowlers. Brydon Carse was playing his first first-class match at Headingley. They struggled to, in the words of Broad, hold length, although they did swing it more than India. They bowled only 37.95% of their deliveries in the good-length zone as against India’s 47.33%. Their average swing of 1.119 was higher than India’s 0.917. India outbowled England on high-seam deliveries on a good length by 133 to 69.The flat pitches and attacking batters are there, but the third ingredient is missing for England. They don’t have the class in the bowling, and this is where India’s chance of countering Bazball lies. Bear in mind England still managed to average 45 and score at 3.46 an over against the good length, but India were 33.75 and 2.23.If the pitches remain flat, we could see England using short-pitched bowling and creative fields more often. How they manage their strategy in the absence of world-class bowling will be interesting to see. As will India’s plans to counter them.

Could he be more productive? Should he be more selfish? Beauty of Test cricket is there’s always room for more of both

Vithushan Ehantharajah24-Jun-20253:26

Harmison: Not sure India believed they could get Duckett out

As a batter, the beauty of Test cricket is that it is a code of the sport where individual success has a greater onus on the team’s success.Such traits do exist in white-ball cricket. But the way line-ups are pieced together, with precise skillsets required for clearly defined roles, batters can bat too long, too short, and face strike too little or too much to knock whole plans out of joint. In the red-ball game, however, when you are, let’s say, faced with a chase of 371, greediness is welcome. Where Test history is concerned, the one with themselves in mind can be king.And so there was Ben Duckett, about half-an-hour after the 6.29pm finish, metaphorical crown on his head, very real magnum of bubbly in his hands. A sixth Test hundred – 149, his third-highest score – had him as Player of the Match after England’s second-highest successful chase. Greed had served him well, siphoning off almost 40% of the runs for himself, and standing out in a Test with five other centurions, one of whom had two.Related

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England were cruising while Duckett was at the crease. The initial contrast with his opening partner Zak Crawley was clear. A stand of 188 in which Crawley, the one with the license to thrill, provided just 65, having posted his slowest half-century from 111 deliveries while Duckett had taken just 55 for the second half of his full one.The sketchiness when he departed, however, underlined his bombast and brilliance, having left just 118 for the rest to clear. As he watched on from the balcony, it was akin to the sporting equivalent of earwigging your own funeral. The situations beyond his innings confirmed the scale of its quality.Ben Stokes’ approach to playing the reverse sweep against Ravindra Jadeja – half of his 16 shots botched, just eight runs from the shot – highlighted just how good Duckett had to be to score 31 from 12 attempts. There were six boundaries among them, including the four that took him to three figures from 121 deliveries, and a ludicrous flat six over cover point. Tuesday was the seventh time Stokes has been dismissed by Jadeja. Duckett has not only avoided such a fate but boasts the highest strike rate of anyone to have faced the left-arm spinner.The reverse sweeps might not have come through for Stokes, as he scuffed one to opposition skipper Shubman Gill at short third. But it was more effective than his neither forward nor back approach before tea, which produced the odd pop up to keep the close fielders interested. As it happens, the shift in method came after seeking inspiration from Duckett, who by now had showered, got into his training gear and was settling in to enjoy the culmination of a chase he never lost faith in. This was Stokes’ manor in 2019 and here he was six years later, asking someone else for directions.Ben Duckett rolls out a reverse-sweep•Getty Images”I actually spoke to him when we came off for that tea break,” revealed Stokes later. “He’s one of the best in the world at reverse sweeps, sweeps, a fantastic player of spin, particularly on really tricky surfaces. I had a little word with him about what he thought I could potentially look at doing a little bit better, to give myself a better chance.”Part of Stokes’ desired hurry-up was related to the eventual return of Jasprit Bumrah, with 102 still to get in the final session. Duckett was the only one to not just sit on him, though he blocked – and even left – some of the 33 dots of the 49 deliveries exchanged. But among the other 16 was a four punched down the ground – something which no one else had done. Partly it was because the Indian great thought pushing for the stumps was a tactic, because other avenues had been exhausted. So came a flick through midwicket. A retaliation bumper, pulled off the nose, all-but ended Bumrah’s threat with the first ball.The 31-year-old bowled three more overs with it after Duckett had chipped Shardul Thakur to cover. Stokes and Joe Root bunkered down, taking just two singles. Part of that was down to lacking the hold Duckett seems to have over Bumrah, which, since the start of 2024, amounts to scoring more runs against him – 110, off 170 deliveries, for three dismissals – than any other batter.But the lack of intent to Bumrah was also because England were ahead of the game, and risks were unnecessary. Duckett had taken them all for himself. His dismissal as the third wicket came midway through the 55th over with 253 on the board. It meant India needed snookers to protect as much of the remaining 118 to ensure they could make the second new ball count.3:52

Stokes: Always try and keep everyone calm in chases

In the end, it was used for just two overs, bowled by Mohammed Siraj and Jadeja. As Jamie Smith blitzed the stands to confirm the win with Bumrah left grazing on the leg-side boundary, England’s joy was enhanced. The three “Bumrah Tests” were always going to be that little bit more important. This opening victory came with a welcome sense that the next two may not be as treacherous as first feared after a wicketless 19 overs when he was needed most.There’s a strong argument that Duckett is the best multi-format batter in the world right now. The problem is such debates tend to elicit the kind of tedious back and forth that last long enough for a drop in form.But fresh from what ranks as his greatest knock, in one of England’s best wins, let’s lay a few things down. Like the fact that, since his return to the Test side for 2022’s tour of Pakistan, only Root has been more productive. And yes, while England do play a lot of Test cricket, Duckett’s average in that time – 47.37 – is higher than both Steven Smith and Usman Khawaja, who have played as many as his 30 matches.There’s also the fact that he is now averaging more as an opener (44.98) than Alastair Cook (44.86). One of Brendon McCullum’s favourite lines is that opening the batting in England is so hard that the last two to do it well – Cook and Andrew Strauss – were knighted.1:53

Did we see a refined version of Bazball?

From another Sir dumping a drink over his head on the 2017-18 Ashes tour (James Anderson), to sword-on-the-shoulder numbers, Duckett’s journey to this point has not been straightforward. Time coming back from a chastening first go in Tests, time on the naughty step, time under the knife for a ring-finger injury in 2018, and time reworking a grip corrupted by an early return to action have been drivers towards this incredible purple patch. If ever there was someone who was not going to take any of this for granted and make up for what he might have lost, it is him.Which brings us to the drop on 97. A genuinely hair-raising moment for English observers when Siraj was hooked out to Yashasvi Jaiswal at deep square-leg, it signified that Duckett may not be greedy enough.Even with 167 on the board, the focus was on building a bigger platform and further demoralising an India attack for his team-mates’ benefit. An attack that was gradually realising the consequences of its own errors with the bat in the first and second innings.Could he be more productive? Should he be more selfish? The beauty of Test cricket is that there is always room for more of both, hand in hand. Right now, though, Duckett is not just doing more than most, he’s doing it better than some of the best, and on the path to joining them outright.

The India and RCB allrounder and self-professed rebel is the queen of comebacks

Hemant Brar16-Jun-2025When Sneh Rana dismissed Anushka Sanjeewani to seal India’s victory in the ODI tri-series final in Colombo last month, she raised her right arm, lowered her sleeve and revealed a tattoo. Inked in Devanagari, just below her wrist, it read – which translates to “rebel”.”If someone says something cannot be done, my automatic response is [to ask] why it cannot be done,” offspin-bowling allrounder Rana says. “It can be done. I rebel.”The tri-series was the latest in a long line of comebacks for her. Playing white-ball cricket after almost a year and a half, she took 15 wickets in five games and was the Player of the Series. Five of those wickets came against South Africa, a career best, for which she was named Player of the Match, becoming only the third Indian after Smriti Mandhana and Deepti Sharma with a match award in all three formats.Related

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Soon after the series ended, Rana made another comeback. When India announced their squad for the England tour, she found a place in the T20I side after more than two years out of it. is not Rana’s only tattoo. The old adage tells us to treat our bodies like temples, but Rana treats hers like a journal, chronicling significant moments of her life on it in permanent ink. She made her India debut in 2014, but about two years later, she suffered a knee injury that kept her off the field for a year. People started to say her career was over. During that time she got a tattoo of an anchor on her left forearm with “I refuse to sink” written next to it.Read my arm: Rana is something of a tattoo aficionado”That one year was very difficult,” she says of the time she was out. “It was very important to stay calm and patient. In such times, people around you are equally important. I was fortunate to have my parents with me. They never let me feel down.”Rana stayed afloat and kept making waves in domestic cricket. It took her five years to stage a comeback, but she returned stronger. The bowling action was a bit more side-on; she put more body into it and gave the ball a proper rip.In her first game on return, her Test debut, in Bristol, she took four wickets in England’s only innings. When India followed on, she scored 80 not out from No. 8 and helped save the match. She impressed in the ODIs and T20Is as well. Ramesh Powar, India women’s coach then, called her “the find of the series”.It was an emotional roller coaster for Rana. A month before she was picked for the England tour, she lost her father, whom she was very close to. The date of his death is inked in Roman numerals on her left arm. “You know how a father-daughter relation is,” she says. “My dad always supported me, encouraged me, and protected me from all the negative things. He wanted me to play for India again. But when it happened, he was not there to witness it.

So finally after 5 long years the wait is over
PAPA this one’s for you
It’s an emotional moment for me and my Fam.I can’t describe my emotions.Just wanna thank each and everyone for your guidance and support throughout this journey.
Papa,wish u were here to live this moment pic.twitter.com/kjTQXikqPW

— Sneh Rana (@SnehRana15) May 30, 2021