While all the focus is on England’s phenomenal white ball batting, a couple of interesting performances from spinners on both sides could slide under the radar. That’s where I come in.
While England were bludgeoning their way to nearly 500, Ashton Agar took 1 for 70 to be one of the main reasons they didn’t make it all the way there. The rest of the Australia bowlers went for 403 from their 40 overs.
Then when England bowled Rashid and Moeen found the spin that Agar largely couldn’t and used their guile and experience in ODI cricket – plus 481 runs of pressure on the board – to harvest seven wickets between them. Good to see Moeen especially adding a few more wickets to his economy in ODIs.
In other matches today, Scotland’s Mark Watt recorded a very tidy 1 for 18 from his four overs against the Netherlands in their T20 tri-series. Rahkeem Cornwall has reached England, and taken 2 for 52 against Worcestershire. That isn’t especially notable, but I love talking about Rahkeem Cornwall and his off-break bowling with as little effort as humanly possible.
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Ollie Rayner has gone on loan to Hampshire, as Ravi Patel has taken his place in Middlesex’s County Championship, and Hampshire have injuries to several spinners.
Two county previews of note for the next round of County Championship games starting tomorrow, including left-arm finger-spinner Prem Sisodiya making his debut in Glamorgan’s squad, and Jack Leach making his comeback from injury for Somerset.
A leg-spinner whose Cricinfo profile I can’t find has been called up to Bangladesh A’s squad for their series against Sri Lanka A. He’s called Rishad Ahmed, do comment if you know who he is. He was supposed to have been a regular in the Under-19s, so he may be Mohammad Rakib, the only specialist leg-spinner in the World Cup squad.
A bonus couple, Sandeep Lamichhane on spreading the game throughout Nepal, and Rashid Khan talking to Harsha Bhogle about why he’s more of a finger spinner than a wrist-spinner. Funny, I just wrote about the same thing (kind of).