England batter talks Ashes heroes, his upcoming IPL debut… and whether he could hit a home run in baseball

Matt Roller15-Mar-2023Harry Brook’s memories of watching Ashes series growing up are hazy. He did not watch much cricket on TV, because he was “always out trying to get in the nets, to play with my mates or my dad,” he explains.He used to watch the DVD highlights of the iconic 2005 series, but was six years old when it actually took place. “I have memories of Shane Warne, all the big fast bowlers, and obviously Kevin Pietersen… but it was a bit early.”It is no surprise that Pietersen stuck in Brook’s mind. He is an idol for a generation of English cricketers, and the similarities between the two are abundantly clear: tall, aggressive batters, who looked at home in international cricket right from the start of their England careers.Pietersen was an early advocate for Brook’s elevation to international cricket, having first watched him play for Northern Superchargers in the first season of the Hundred. They briefly crossed paths in January, when Pietersen was invited to an England training session in Bloemfontein.Related

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“I used to love watching him bat when I was younger,” Brook says. “He always looked to take the attack to bowlers and put them under pressure. In that aspect, I’m quite similar.” Brook believes there are some technical differences – “he was very wide-stanced… I’m fairly wide, but he’s a lot taller than me” – but the shades of Pietersen in his presence at the crease are unmistakable.Brook only turned 24 last month, but has achieved more than most England players do in their careers. He already has a T20 World Cup winners’ medal and four Test hundreds to his name, and will fly to India later this month to fulfil his INR 13.25 crore (£1.3m approx) contract with Sunrisers Hyderabad.He has made international cricket look straightforward over the last six months, lofting in-to-out sixes over extra cover and pulling good-length balls over midwicket. But he bristles at that very suggestion: “I never like saying any cricket’s easy – nothing’s easy. It can soon bite you in the arse if you say something like that.”He has only played six Tests, but Brook has already come to embody England’s focus on positivity since Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes took charge. He has scored at a fraction slower than a run a ball, the fastest strike rate of any England batter in the last nine months; his four centuries have taken 80, 137, 133 and 107 balls.”In cricket, I’ve got quite high hands when I’m batting but in baseball, they wanted me to get them above my head, nearly”•MLB”I’m very lucky to have come into this Test side,” Brook says. “The way we’re trying to play, the positive brand of cricket we’re trying to play to entertain the crowd – it suits my game more than any, really.”But he rejects the idea that he has set the standard for England’s more senior batters, instead highlighting his captain’s role. “I don’t feel like I’m leading at all: I’m just following orders,” he says, grinning. “Stokesy is leading at the minute: the way he’s going out and playing his cricket is so good to watch.”It’s not like we’re just going out and slogging. There is method behind the madness. Obviously we’re scoring at a quick rate, but I don’t feel like I’m going to get out. I feel like I’ve been pumped up with so much confidence going out, I feel like I can do anything.”And when we’re out there, we feel like we’re superhuman. Stokesy’s definitely leading from the front. There’s been a few dodgy dismissals, but if the captain’s getting out in funky ways as well, then it doesn’t really matter [if others are], does it?”We’re trying to play this positive brand of cricket, and entertain the world. We’re trying to put as much pressure on the bowler as we can, and be as positive as we can. The more positive you are, most of the time, you put them bad balls away, even if they’re [only] slightly off line or length.”Brook has been the busiest man in English cricket this winter, playing 41 days of international cricket spread across five different tours. He is one of five men to have appeared in all three formats for them in the last six months (Rehan Ahmed, Ben Duckett, Will Jacks and Mark Wood are the others) and time at home has become increasingly rare.Bizarrely, and despite Yorkshire’s protestations, Brook only holds an incremental contract with the ECB; his international breakthrough came just too late to force his way onto the central contracts list for 2022-23, and there is no scope for players to be promoted to one mid-cycle.”The technology was ridiculous. The ball’s thrown outside your body and I’m used to hitting it through point, but they had all the TVs and iPads up where I’d usually hit the ball. It was hitting it quite close to where all the expensive stuff was, so they were getting a little bit scared. The amount of training, technology and analysis they go into is remarkable.”And did he pick anything up that might prove useful to his cricket? “A few things. Having a strong base is one of them… it’s similar to a golf swing at the end, your rotation of your hips and trying to use them for power. The lads there were stacked, they were massive, and they were saying all the power comes from the legs.”In his new role as an MLB Europe ambassador, Brook’s bats will feature a sticker of the league’s logo over the coming months – including in the Ashes this summer. His only experience of playing Test cricket at home to date was in his debut at The Oval, a “weird week” which saw the first two days lost to national mourning after the Queen’s death.”I’ve said so many times that Test cricket is the pinnacle of cricket. There’s no better format at the minute, and the way that we’re playing the game, we’re bringing more crowds and people wanting to watch us more. It’s definitely going to be a great summer of cricket; winning or losing side, it’s going to be really good to watch.”St. Louis Cardinals will play Chicago Cubs in the MLB World Tour: London Series 2023 on June 24-25 at London Stadium. Tickets are available now

At one point, she wanted to be a fast bowler. Now she is troubling the best batters in the world with her legspin

S Sudarshanan23-Mar-2023Young Parshavi Chopra was told a few things about legspin. That she will have to risk getting hit and only then the chances of picking up wickets will rise. That it is wickets that will earn her laurels and not the low economy rate.In UP Warriorz’s game against Gujarat Giants earlier this week, Ashleigh Gardner and D Hemalatha had added 93 to keep Giants on track for a tall score. Both had displayed their range of strokes against seam and spin, but Warriorz captain Alyssa Healy trusted Chopra to bowl at the death.Chopra was part of India’s squad that won the Under-19 T20 World Cup in January this year. There she had bowled Sri Lanka’s Vishmi Gunaratne with a googly. The batter had danced down towards the off side but the ball spun past her pads to hit the stumps. But a majority of her 11 wickets in the tournament came off legbreaks.Between that World Cup and the WPL, Chopra worked on the googly and grew confident to use it more frequently.Now, bowling the 17th over of the innings against Giants, Chopra went for wickets instead of trying to stop runs. She tossed the first ball up to Hemalatha outside off. It was the wrong’un and Hemalatha didn’t pick it, holing out to long-on. On the first ball of the 19th over, her last, she once again flighted the googly to entice Gardner out of her crease and got her stumped.It was just the second appearance for Chopra in the WPL and she already left a mark on those who hadn’t watched her at the World Cup.Vishal Bhatia, her coach at Yuvraj Singh Centre of Excellence (YSCE) in Greater Noida, just outside Delhi, credits Chopra’s increased use of the googly to the target bowling sessions they had ahead of the WPL.”Before the WPL, we were working on target bowling, bowling in [various] situations, and when to use the googly,” Bhatia tells ESPNcricinfo. “She didn’t bowl the googly much in the Under-19 Women’s T20 World Cup. But now she is confident in bowling the googly and reading the batter well.Parshavi Chopra was the second-highest wicket-taker at the U-19 T20 World Cup•ICC/Getty Images”You can be needed in the powerplay or the death overs. We worked on what ball to use when and how to read the batter by looking at her stance. I told her that you shouldn’t play the name, but play the batter – it so happens you bowl to someone looking at their reputation – and the situation.”Chopra pursued skating in her younger days, just like Yuvraj, but was drawn to cricket listening to her father, uncle and grandfather talk. She watched the 2017 Women’s ODI World Cup on TV and wanted to don the national colours after seeing India’s narrow, heart-breaking loss to England in the final. Her father, Gaurav, identified her interest and got her enrolled in the coaching centre where Bhatia and later JP Nautiyal coached her.”I never let her compromise with her cricket but I compromised on her studies,” Gaurav says. “She was very good in her studies. But to achieve a goal or target in life, you have to focus on just that one thing. If you try and do multiple things, you won’t get as much success.”At a YSCE summer camp in 2017-18, Bhatia came across Chopra who then wanted to be a fast bowler. But given her slight build, she was encouraged to bowl legspin. Her run-up and action had to be tweaked accordingly but once that was done, and she was able to generate spin, there was no looking back.In the 2019-20 season, she picked up 20 wickets in the Women’s Under-19 One Day Tournament playing for Uttar Pradesh. During the Covid-19 lockdown, her father left no stone unturned and prepared a pitch at home for single-wicket practice with assistance from Nautiyal and inputs over video calls from Bhatia.”Her body was very flexible because of the stretching, which is part of skating,” Nautiyal says. “Her wrist position comes naturally to her. We had to work on her lines and lengths. But she grasps things quickly and works really hard for hours together.”Chopra picked up eight wickets in the Under-19 T20 Trophy in October 2022, and was then selected for the T20 Challengers and the Quadrangular Under-19 series featuring West Indies and Sri Lanka. A good show at the Under-19 T20 World Cup in South Africa led her to be picked by Warriorz at her base price of INR 10 lakh.The only girl child in the family, Chopra was fascinated after watching videos of Australia legspinner Shane Warne’s bowling. She took an immediate liking to his action and was upset for a few days after he died last year. But through her steady rise and eye-catching outings in the WPL, she is keeping the flag of legspin flying high.

Nidamanuru scores Netherlands’ fastest 100, van Beek cracks Super Over code

Sampath Bandarupalli26-Jun-20231 – The 374 by West Indies and Netherlands at the Takashinga Sports Club is the highest total for a tied ODI. The previous highest was 340 runs by New Zealand and England in Napier in 2008. This is also the highest total in List A cricket for a tied game, bettering the 343 by England Lions and India A in 2010.3 – Number of ODI totals while chasing that is higher than Netherlands’ 374 for 9 in Harare. Had Netherlands secured the win on the last ball of the chase, their effort would have led to the second-highest successful target chase in ODIs, only behind South Africa’s 435-run chase against Australia in 2006.Related

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374 for 9 – Netherlands’ total against West Indies is their highest in ODI cricket and the second highest by an Associate nation, behind Namibia’s 381 for 8 against Papua New Guinea in March this year. Scotland’s 371 for 5 against England in 2018 was the highest ODI total by an Associate against a Full Member before Netherlands’ effort on Monday.748 – Total runs scored by West Indies and Netherlands in Harare. It is the sixth-highest match aggregate in ODI cricket and by far the highest for an ODI hosted by Zimbabwe, surpassing the 659 runs between Sri Lanka and West Indies in Bulawayo in 2016.Teja Nidamanuru registered the fastest ton by a Netherlands batter•ICC via Getty Images30 – Runs scored by Logan van Beek in the Super Over. It is the most runs scored by a team in a Super Over in international cricket by a distance. The previous highest was 25 runs by West Indies against New Zealand in a men’s T20I in 2008, while West Indies women also scored 25 runs in the Super Over in an ODI against South Africa last year.2 – ODI hundreds for Netherlands since 2015, both by Teja Nidamanuru in 2023. His maiden ODI hundred came against Zimbabwe at the Harare Sports Club earlier this March. He is only the second batter with multiple ODI hundreds for Netherlands, after Ryan ten Doeschate (5). Nidamanuru’s 67-ball hundred against West Indies is the fastest of the 12 ODI hundreds for Netherlands.63 – Number of balls Nicholas Pooran needed to complete his century. It is the third-fastest century for West Indies in men’s ODIs, behind Brian Lara’s 45-ball ton against Bangladesh in 1999 and Chris Gayle’s hundred off 55 balls against England in 2019.

He has changed his domestic side, he topped the charts in Karnataka’s T20 competition and is now scoring for Northants in county cricket

Shashank Kishore19-Sep-2023Five years ago, Karun Nair found himself in the cold at the end of a long England tour. Having been named in the Test squad as a middle-order reserve, he watched on helplessly as Hanuma Vihari made his debut straight off a flight, for the fifth Test at The Oval.The condensed nature of that tour meant Nair, India’s second Test triple-centurion no less, didn’t have any side games between the series to strengthen his case. Vihari impressed with a fighting half-century, and Nair, all of six Tests old, soon found himself in the cold.On Wednesday, Nair will return to The Oval for the first time since that forgettable September morning in 2018. This time, though, he’ll sit in the away dressing room knowing he is a key middle-order batter for his side, Northamptonshire, who have signed him for three County Championship games.Related

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Last week, straight off a flight, Nair impressed on county debut, hitting 78 in his team’s first-innings score of 250. He now comes to The Oval with renewed hunger and fire that seemed to have gone missing for much of the 2022-23 domestic season, when he was dropped from Karnataka’s squads across formats.Only a year prior to being dropped, Nair was their captain. He had been a central figure during their domination of the domestic scene between 2013 and 2016. But when there was a growing chorus that he was being given a longer rope than he deserved, Nair found himself on a sticky wicket.The numbers in that period pale in comparison to his overall first-class stats that read a very credible 6000 first-class runs in 137 innings at an average of 49.18. However, it’s the lack of hundreds; he didn’t score one in the Ranji Trophy across 25 innings in 2018-19 and 2019-20, that seemed to have attracted much scrutiny.Nair calls that time around when he was first dropped as a “really dark phase.” Personally, he was on cloud nine, having just become a father. Professionally, however, he found his career at the crossroads.Before the 2022-23 Ranji season, in an uncharacteristic show of vulnerability in a cut-throat world, Nair wrote on X: “Dear cricket, give me one more chance.” Only six years prior, the world was at his feet. He had just become India’s second Test triple-centurion. But Nair knows a thing or two about hard landings. In the next Test India played, he couldn’t make the XI because Ajinkya Rahane, whom Nair had replaced, was fit again.Here he was now, released by his IPL franchise (Rajasthan Royals) too. From training and playing at some of the best grounds, he was consigned to playing at nondescript venues in search of game time.Karun Nair last played an IPL game in 2022•BCCI/IPLIn March 2023, after having nearly spent seven months at home, Nair reached out to a few state seniors – Bharat Chipli, Mansur Ali Khan and Srinivasa Murthy – for opportunities to play in the DY Patil Invitational T20s in Navi Mumbai. That tournament, where he played for Canara Bank, was a turning point. A 60-ball 95 in one of his first outings helped him get noticed again, but that hardly meant much as he had gone unsold at the IPL auction.In May, when KL Rahul was out with a hamstring injury, Nair received a pleasant surprise when he was called in by Lucknow Super Giants as a replacement. The cricket drought was set to end, except it didn’t. Nair didn’t get a chance given his call-up had come at the business end of the competition. But by then, he had already been carefully considering his options.”I’d decided to move as soon as I didn’t get the opportunity [with Karnataka], but I couldn’t since it was too late in the season,” Nair tells ESPNcricinfo from England. “From my side, I knew I had to find a different team if I had to keep playing. I’m grateful to Canara Bank for giving me a chance despite having not played for them earlier.”I just wanted to play because you never know when a new door can open. During the tournament, I met Abey Kuruvilla [former India fast bowler], who was the India Under-19 selector around the time I played age-groups.”I told him openly that I was looking out for an opportunity and if he could help me. He was extremely nice in facilitating a discussion with Vidarbha, which has worked out well. It sets me up nicely for this domestic season, but before that, I want to contribute and score runs in my remaining games here in England.”Nair’s shot at a maiden county stint materialised by chance, when a friend and former manager reached out asking if he would be keen. “I jumped at the opportunity,” Nair says. “Honestly, I was quite surprised. It just came out of the blue. I was asked if I was ready and in a week’s time, I was in England playing.”That he managed to jump on the next available flight was because he already had an existing UK visa through his stint in June in the minor counties for Burbage & ER Cricket Club in East Wiltshire, for whom he made two hundreds and a half-century in eight innings. While it was a climbdown from the level he had been playing at for over a decade, it was an outlet for Nair to rediscover his hunger.”For me, honestly, it was to get away from everything that was happening in Bangalore,” Nair says. “I needed a change of scene, I wanted to do something different. I wanted to work on my own and just be away from everyday life. I’d been at home for seven months and I just wanted to go. It didn’t matter what level I was playing; I just wanted to go and work on myself. That was my thought process which when I look back now, I think it has helped me, even though at the time, I was playing at a level below.Karun Nair was the leading scorer in the Maharaja T20 Trophy•Maharaja T20″I didn’t let that affect me. I was still practising the way I would, doing the things I needed to do, clearing my mind, and seeing what works and what doesn’t work for me. I had a lot of downtime to sit and think about what I should be doing. Maybe those couple of months helped me. The time that I was not playing kind of ignited a spark in me that may have been missing earlier.”Those two-month stints also taught me a lot. When you’re on tour with a Test team, it’s a hotel life. Everything’s sorted. Whereas here, I had to run a small apartment by myself. Do all the errands you do while also training and playing – washing clothes, cooking, cleaning, laundry, everything. We have so much help back in India, but this helped me learn a lot about myself. There are things I can do now which I couldn’t do earlier. I’m willing to do more now than I used to do before.”Nair’s steady climb up the charts again began with an outstanding run for Mysuru Warriors, the team he led to the final at the Maharaja Trophy, Karnataka’s T20 competition. Nair topped the run charts with 532 runs in 12 innings at a strike rate of 162.69, with one hundred and three half-centuries. It’s this form he is carried into his Northants stint and one that he hopes will last the entire season with Vidarbha, too.”It will be light at the end of a very dark tunnel,” Nair says. “I was just joking with a few guys, how from playing no games for seven months, I had to play 12 games in 16 days at the Maharaja, it became a bit of an overload I guess, but in a good way. Now I just want to keep playing games and make the most of every opportunity that comes my way. Even here, when I went out to bat at Edgbaston last week, I realised how much ever you train and practice and do your fitness, batting in a match is totally different. I’m looking at using this stint as a kickstart to the season coming up.”No conversation is ever possible with Nair without a mention of his historic 303*, a number very dear to him, so dear that the number is found on the plate of his Ford Mustang. Nair wishes his luck turns as swiftly as his fortunes did in the aftermath of that knock, but also knows deep down it’s a slow climb back up.”Any new person I meet talks about it, probably that’s how they know me,” Nair says with a chuckle. “It’s good to be remembered that way. No one can take that achievement away from me. It’s there but I also realise it’s in the past. I’m looking forward now and hopefully, I can get another one.”You mean in Tests?”Yep, I still believe I can come back if I keep doing well.”It’s that belief that kept Nair’s hopes burning bright during those “dark times”. Now when things are looking up, it’s the same belief he hopes can help him fly high, like he did on that humid Chennai evening six Decembers ago.

The ghosts of the legendary ARG are everywhere, 15 years after its final match

Cameron Ponsonby04-Dec-2023The Rude Boy stand has been taken down at the ARG. The once-famous double-decker terrace that housed Antigua’s greatest music entertainers is gone. Replaced instead with two shipping containers and a lorry trailer. The prison watchtower that stands over the road, where the legend goes that Viv Richards’s dad would stand and watch his son bat in the middle whilst keeping one eye on the prisoners under his guard, has had its view improved immeasurably. Nothing now in its way, but nothing now to see either.”You had music from morning to night,” says James Stevens, Head of the Antiguan Umpire’s Association for the last 24 years and chance interviewee after he saw two English lads stumbling around the famous and dilapidated Antigua Recreation Ground”We had Gravy and Mayfield and the music,” Stevens recalls, reflecting on the famous names of those who performed outside the boundary rope of the ARG, as much as he does those that performed within it. “As a matter of fact, DJ Chickie the music master got man of the match in an India v West Indies game. You had three days rained out and he kept the crowd lively throughout the days.”For someone who doesn’t believe in ghosts, a trip to The Rec is to have a go on a Ouija board for a laugh, only to feel your stomach jolt when the thing moves. The place is dense with history and with signs of life everywhere you look aside from the one place it matters. A shop within the grounds has three men sitting drinking a beer and eating some lunch, while the pavilion itself still operates in an administrative capacity. In fact, as England and West Indies were playing their first ODI on Sunday, the latest set of aspiring Level 3 umpires in the region were taking their final exams there. Something that Stevens himself would be overseeing, adding that that’s why he wouldn’t be in attendance at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium himself.The watchtower of the prison in St John’s, Antigua, from where Viv Richards’ father is said to have watched him bat at the ARG•Cameron PonsonbyEven Stevens, a measured man who grew up in the countryside of Antigua, fails to avoid hyperbole when talking about the ground.”ARG as a cricket venue in the universe, probably has the most history.”And he’s not wrong, in spite of the fact that that history lasted for just 22 Tests and 11 ODIs, spanning 31 years. Brian Lara’s 375. Brian Lara’s 400. Viv’s fastest ever Test ton and the highest successful run-chase in Test cricket all happened on the same patch of grass of one tiny Caribbean island that boasts a population of just 90,000 people.The reason for the stadium’s demise is well-known. The 2007 World Cup was hosted in the West Indies, and Chinese money was used to build new stadiums across the Caribbean. The Sir Viv Richards stadium went up four-and-a-half miles down the road, and as a result, the ARG became second-choice. A few miles in the other direction and you also have the Coolidge Cricket Ground, where the Stanford T20s took place and which is now the headquarters of Cricket West Indies. Meanwhile, the ARG sits decaying. A once-iconic cricketing institution that is now a shadow of its former self. As an analogy for the state of West Indies cricket, it is almost too on the nose.You still see cricket whilst travelling around the island. Kids playing at lunchtime, club players playing in the evening. The difference, Stevens explains, is that there was a time when you didn’t even have to look.The consensus is that there are fewer people playing, but the exact reason why is less tangible. The myth that the Caribbean has fallen into the grip of basketball is exactly that. The two main sports listed by taxi drivers are football and cricket, and whilst basketball does, occasionally, get a mention, so do Playstations.Brian Lara drives during his 375, the first of his two world records against England at the ARG•PA PhotosTo an Englishman visiting, the activity on the island contradicts the narrative that the game here is dying. Cricket in the Caribbean is said to be in a worse state than it is back at home, but if you saw as much cricket in London as you did when wandering around Antigua, you’d consider the game to be in rude health. Perhaps it is merely the difference between something that was once a national pastime instead now being a national hobby. And when you only have 90,000 people to play with rather than 70 million, that makes a difference. The game is here. But as Stevens says, you just have to look.It’s been 15 years since ARG last hosted a match, when the Windies held on to a thrilling draw nine-down against England. And beer bottles (presumably not from that same day, but you can’t be sure) are still scattered around the stands, which gape where randomly selected blocks of seating have been ripped out.The history of the ground is more tangible than you could ever expect. And the gap that The Rude Boy Stand leaves provides a tangible reminder of what once was, in a ground that otherwise has an intangible aura.”It was always a pleasure to come to ARG and watch the cricket,” concluded Stevens. And you wouldn’t doubt him for a second.

As India gears up to host its first Women’s Test since 2014, two teams prepare to plunge into a format they have little exposure to

S Sudarshanan12-Dec-20234:04

Mandhana on playing Test after two years: Lot of ‘mental preparation’

In unknown territory, you hold familiar things close. A habit. That cosy blanket. A routine. Or equipment.Smriti Mandhana walked in for her press conference with her batting pads tucked under her arms. England had loud music – chartbusters from Taylor Swift, Tiesto, Dua Lipa et al – while they trained. The unfamiliar terrain is a home Women’s Test for India. The last time it happened was in 2014. Only Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur from that match remain in India’s squad for the one-off Test against England at DY Patil Stadium.Related

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This will be the first Test for India since Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami retired last year. They started their preparation for the Test with a four-day intra-squad match – India vs India A – at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru in November. That is where Shubha Satheesh impressed the selectors with her batting. There were more red-ball training sessions before the players dispersed – for India, India A and inter-zonal duties.Even when the T20Is against England were on at the Wankhede Stadium, the Test-only players – Shubha, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Harleen Deol, Sneh Rana and Meghna Singh – in the squad trained hard with the red ball.”Bodies are not used to playing four back-to-back days of cricket because we generally play T20s and ODIs which have gaps,” Mandhana said. “More than physical part, being there [on the field] for four days mentally, trying to focus on each ball [is important].’As the number of Tests increase, we may see a new domestic tournament for long-form cricket’ – Smriti Mandhana•Getty Images”If you mentally prepare yourself, I don’t think [moving from T20Is to Tests] is a big change because it is about applying yourself. The batting is not about changing a lot of techniques; it is about the mental shift of patience more than anything. That will be crucial because I don’t see anyone changing their batting or bowling techniques. That takes a lot of time.”While players all over the world feast on white-ball cricket, be it in their respective domestic circuits or in T20 leagues, nowhere do they train for multi-day cricket. Even England and Australia, who regularly play one-off Tests as part of the Women’s Ashes, do not have two-, three- or four-day cricket at the domestic level.The BCCI discontinued multi-day cricket for women in the domestic circuit after 2018. Women’s age-group cricket as well as senior women’s tournaments have been confined to the T20 and 50-over formats since.”To be fair, we have played a lot of T20s and one-dayers in the last four-five years. And hence the structure was in place to help us get more T20s and one-day experience because we had more T20 and one-day World Cups,” Mandhana said. “We didn’t play many Tests. As the number of Tests increase, we may see a new domestic tournament for long-form cricket. Domestic structure is always according to international demands.”England head coach Jon Lewis, who previously was with the men’s team as pace-bowling coach, brought along the positivity from the men’s Test set-up where he was briefly part of the Brendon McCullum-led coaching staff. He has seen how the men prepare – first-class games galore before coming into Test cricket – and the complete opposite in the women’s system. It has held them back in certain situations, like when England went for a fourth-innings chase of 268 at Trent Bridge earlier this year and fell short. Lewis’ mantra is simple – look at Tests as an extension of the white-ball games, which the women are used to playing, and do what you do best.3:50

Knight: Playing a Test in India is a ‘bucket list thing’

“The key thing is the mindset they take into the game and understanding that the skills that they’re using are the same skills they are using in white-ball cricket,” he said. “The anxiety that players on both sides will feel will be around understanding of the game itself because they just don’t play a lot of it. They might watch a lot of it and listen to people on TV – but from my experience people on TV don’t talk a lot of sense. Some do, some don’t, but they have to fill time.”What we’ll try and do is get the minds in the right place as best as we can. [With] the skills they have got, they are more than capable of playing the game in front of them. Having one-off Test matches is very tricky especially for a coach to prepare the team as best as I can. The time and space to do it is limited and we don’t play red-ball cricket or two-day, three-day, four-day cricket domestically. Our last game was the Ashes. We’ll try and play an entertaining brand of cricket.”All’s not new for England, who last played a Test match earlier this year. They also played a couple of Tests – one each against Australia and South Africa – last year. For them, the unknown lies more in the conditions, and adapting to them. England last played a Test match in India in 2005; there is no recent experience to draw from apart from white-ball games.”Pretty quick turnaround – we have talked about that; we have done it before,” England captain Heather Knight, for whom playing a Test match in India is one of her “bucket-list things as a cricketer” said. “We have played an Ashes Test match in Canberra in 2022, where we had two days’ preparation.”That can create a little bit of anxiety around not feeling ready. [It is] about getting the heads right around knowing exactly how to approach Test-match cricket, how you want to play and not thinking too much about conditions and pre-planning what might happen, because you don’t know what surface you will get. We won’t have the perfect prep but that is how it works in international cricket – it is about getting your head right and embracing the challenge.”Tammy Beaumont scored a double-hundred in her last Test match, but that was nearly six months ago•PA Images via Getty ImagesOpener Tammy Beaumont is coming off a double-century in Nottingham, a knock that is now a good six months old. She pays heed to what her father reminds her every time she plays a game: “You start again on nought.””It’s funny actually,” Beaumont, the first Englishwoman to score a Test double-ton, said on ESPNcricinfo’s podcast. “When Jon Lewis called me about selection news, [he said] ‘I don’t think there’s a more in-form Test player at the moment.’ I was like that was six months ago, how do you stay in form?”You try and take learnings from each Test match you play. It is not something you can jump straight into. These days we play a lot of T20s and a lot of 50 overs, that becomes [automatic]. Whereas when you are learning to do things, you have to think about it again.”The big part is not thinking a lot about the big picture all the time. At Trent Bridge when we fielded for a day-and-a-half, when the final wicket fell, we had 470 [473] to get. If you do that you are shooting yourself in the foot somewhat. Whereas the most important thing was to get through to the next drinks break. Just get through to the new ball, make sure we don’t lose a wicket before, whatever, seeing the shine off it. Next thing, change of bowler, what are they trying to do, how can I score of them, next bit. Oh, time to sit down now, tea time! Just try to constantly staying in that moment and thinking about that and not getting far ahead of yourself.”When the two teams take the field in whites on Thursday, a lot of things will be different. But they will reassure themselves with the thought that they have done their best in the limited time they have had, and let their skills and instincts take over.