✍️ Aadya Sharma has a deep profile of Auqib Nabi, and how the formerly one-dimensional bowler has turned himself into a force of nature.
“These last two seasons [have] made Nabi headline material. Suddenly, J&K were a major talking point. Nabi secured a Duleep Trophy call-up and made waves there as well: his four wickets in four balls for North Zone against East Zone added a sensational page to a developing tale. Months later, he was snapped up by Delhi Capitals for a hefty paycheck of INR 8.4 crore, ticking off another box: a maiden IPL contract.
But before the world could really know Nabi, he had to get to know himself first.”
✍️ Saurabh Somani reports on how Nepal is the Associate outlier that could improve during the wilderness of non-World Cup times.
“Nepal achieved ODI status in 2018 so, as Khadka points out, “we only started getting money from 2018.” And that money is not massive: Nepal gets $1.8 to 2 million per year. For perspective, one IPL game earns $14.5 million from just broadcast revenue. Add in extra revenue like ticketing and sponsorship value, and it is safe to assume a single IPL game earns 10 times the annual budget of an Associate nation.”
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“Beyond the Boom-Bust”
✍️ Edward Fitzgibbon has a detailed, realistic take on how the Associate cricket system can be built in the next decade.
✍️ Tanish Taneja takes a stab at reverse-engineering the nonsensical ‘Skill Scale’ stats we’ve been seeing every time a batter comes out to the middle.
“To reverse-engineer the process, I used data from T20Is, but also the major limited overs franchise leagues in India, Australia, UAE, Pakistan, South Africa, England & the Caribbean. Only games from post 2020 were considered, leading to a data set of 1,195 games and 107,387 deliveries faced by our 46 chosen batters.
…We had to guess a series of metrics that could potentially be related to each Skill Scale metric. Variations of strike rate for Acceleration, variations of dismissal rate for Control, variations of shot unorthodoxy for Innovation, & variations of boundary-hitting for Power.”
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“ICC’s (failed) attempt at gamifying cricket”
🔒 Jarrod Kimber writes about the potential consequences of this Skill Scale promotion, from dumbing the game down to affecting players’ livelihoods. -
“The ICC’s Ridiculous Rebrand”
✍️ Dom Murray laughs/rants at the insanity of the ICC’s new “phases.”
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“World Cup resurgence”
✍️ Henry Moeran on Zimbabwe’s return from the abyss -
“Another day of empty promises”
✍️ Madushka Balasuriya on Sri Lankan fans’ dying faith after another listless World Cup. -
“The chain reaction”
📊 Ben Brettell & Tanish Taneja analyse Australia’s lineup problems that led to their early elimination. -
“How have Zimbabwe overtaken Ireland?”
✍️ Nathan Johns on how Ireland have fallen behind after their giant-killing brought them Full Member status.
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“Why David Miller 2.0 is so hard to crack”
📊 Arnav Jain decodes David Miller’s improvements since 2023 that have made him unbeatable (he’s lost just one wicket all World Cup!). -
“The captain’s knock”
📊 Tarutr Malhotra on Harry Brook’s brilliant century v PAK, & how he varied his game to adapt to both his opponent’s bowling and his teammate’s wickets. -
“Markram turns pace to his advantage”
📊 Dom Murray on how Aidan Markram has turned a weakness into a strength, thereby becoming an irresistible powerplay batter. -
“The West Indian Analytics Revolution”
📊 Tarutr Malhotra on the data-backed batting approach WI have adopted; nearly half their balls are dots, but the other half go at 275 SR! -
“The official Super 8 Almanac”
📊 Our writers analysed and predicted every Super 8 team’s strengths & weaknesses before the phase – and they’ve pretty much all come true!
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“Becoming the World’s Best Bowler”
📽️ Overlap Cricket host Steve Harmison to discuss his ENG peak, and his mental health struggles. [YouTube] -
“Selling the Summer”
📽️ Ian Higgins & Sam Perry with Greg Chappell on Imran Khan, India’s administrative dominance of cricket, & selling the AUS summer. [YouTube] -
“The Hardest Call of His Career”
📽️ WICUA talk to Steve Bucknor about his career, about advice for aspiring umpires, & about that Sachin Tendulkar wicket. [YouTube] -
“The Story Behind Best Of Cricket”
🚨 Neha Shetty interviews Tarutr Malhotra (i.e. me!) about the past, present and future of BoC. If you’ve ever wondered who this nut job is that wakes up in the morning and starts creating bullet point lists of cricket articles, this is the podcast for you! [Apple/Spotify]