1:05 Kings XI Punjab’s Nicholas Pooran saved a boundary in the IPL with an unbelievable piece of fielding in the deep, much to the amazement of Kevin Pietersen!
English fast bowlers
England will be looking to win the Ashes in Australia for just the second time in 25 years when they head down under and if they are to achieve that goal, then they need to be equipped with pace. Australia’s quicks outgunned England’s as the tourists tumbled to 5-0 and 4-0 defeats in 2013-14 and 2017-18 respectively but the visitors will be boosted in that department this time around by Jofra Archer and, provided he can stay fit, Mark Wood.
England will want a battery of blistering bowlers, though, with Warwickshire’s Olly Stone and Surrey’s former Somerset seamer Jamie Overton name-checked by England coach Chris Silverwood as Ashes contenders. Like Wood, Stone and Overton have been best by injuries through their career so England will hope they can stay fit and find form this summer as they plot an assault on the urn. Warwickshire’s Henry Brookes is another who could add an injection of pace on those flat Australian wickets.
Ollie Pope and Zak Crawley (England)
Pope and Crawley are set to be part of England’s Test team for many, many years after impressive starts to their international careers – Pope looking like the next Joe Root, and Crawley cementing his spot with a superb double century against Pakistan in August 2020, with his 267 the 10th-highest score ever recorded by an Englishman in Tests. The only debate about them in the five-day arena is where they will end up batting.
Will Pope – currently on the way back from a shoulder injury – stick at six or move to No 3? Will Crawley stick at No 3 or move up to open? The duo will also have healthy white-ball ambitions, though, and could force their way into the 50-over set-up in 2021 with England likely to rest and rotate in that format as they focus on T20 cricket in the lead-up to the T20 World Cup in India in October and November.
Mohammad Hafeez (Pakistan)
It may seem odd to select a man aged 40 as one to watch but the Pakistan veteran seems to be getting better in his later years, having been stellar in T20 cricket recently. No batsman managed more runs than his 415 in T20 internationals in 2020, a tally which included three fifties in as many innings – two of them against England – and a top-score of 99 against New Zealand.
The veteran’s strike rate of 152.57 was also a shade higher than the likes of England powerhouses Jonny Bairstow and Jos Buttler. Hafeez passed 1,000 runs across all T20 cricket in 2020, including scoring 312 runs in the Pakistan Super League. The right-hander will turn 41 during the T20 World Cup and if he can maintain his current form, he could ride off into the international sunset having helped his country to their second short-form World Cup title, 12 years after they won their first.
Sky Sports’ live cricket coverage continues on Sunday with day one of the second Test between South Africa and Sri Lanka in Johannesburg. Watch from 7.55am on Sky Sports Cricket.
England return to Test action in Sri Lanka from Thursday, January 14. Watch the first Test from Galle live on Sky Sports Cricket from 4am.
Sourse: skysports.com
