Shoaib Malik gives Lanka Premier League his seal of approval

“Definitely from next year, more big names will also be the participants in the league”

Andrew Fidel Fernando03-Dec-2020Shoaib Malik has given the Lanka Premier League his seal of approval, a week into the tournament. Malik is the most experienced T20 player in the league, having now played 405 T20s, and is among the high-profile overseas players in the tournament. He has played in various T20 leagues around the world, including the Big Bash League, Bangladesh Premier League and Pakistan Super League.”Overall the tournament is going very nicely and I’m really enjoying it,” Malik said. “I was talking to some other overseas players as well and they were praising the whole league. In these tough times the way the people who are involved in the league must be given credit. The first year is tough for any league. But if we support the league, I’m sure, the second year will be better and the third year will be the same. I think I was expecting more big names, but with their personal commitments, they are not there. Definitely from next year, they will also be the participants in the league.”The tournament is being played at Sooriyawewa stadium in its entirety, largely because that arrangement allowed the tournament organisers to more efficiently maintain a playing bubble. Players also had to undergo seven days of quarantine before the tournament, and many foreign players – including Malik – did not arrive in Sri Lanka early enough to train substantially with their teams ahead of the event.”It wasn’t easy to stay in the room on the quarantine days, but there are rules and regulations to follow – we have to respect them,” Malik said. “Of course I wanted to practice before getting into the tournament, but I had no time to go through practice sessions and everything. It’s not anybody’s fault. We are all going through these tough times.”But the quality of cricket in LPL is very good. From next year, I’m sure there will be more big names. We’re also very limited in the sense of having to use one stadium and facility. Next year, , we will come out of this Covid-19 thing and there will be more venues and a crowd at the ground, and the crowd will make things bigger.”Malik has been part of the Jaffna Stallions franchise – the only as-yet unbeaten side in the tournament. Captain Thisara Perera’s batting has contributed significantly to their success so far, but Malik had praise for legspinning allrounder Wanindu Hasaranga, as well. Hasaranga has five wickets from three outings with the ball and has only gone at 4.41 runs an over from his 12 overs.”We know Wanindu is a quality bowler. He’s improving day by day. The best part is that it’s not just about his bowling. If you ask him to go field in the hot spots, he would love to do that. He’s a proper team man. It’s not just about your own bowling – he’s fielding as well as batting. I would say he’s the complete allrounder.”It’s a lot easier when you know your management and the captain. We’ve found nice combinations for our team. The first wins are always important. The team is going in the right direction. Everyone is backing each other up.”

Melbourne Renegades start strong after bowlers, Shaun Marsh fire

Josh Lalor and Peter Hatzoglou shine on debut for Renegades as Scorchers slump to seven-wicket defeat

Alan Gardner12-Dec-2020The Melbourne Renegades, BBL champions two seasons ago, made an assured start to their campaign with a comfortable victory over the Perth Scorchers in Hobart. Set a middling target of 131, the Renegades were led home by a well-paced half-century from Perth old boy Shaun Marsh, after a fine all-round bowling performance in which Kane Richardson, Josh Lalor and fidgety freshman Peter Hatzoglou shared eight wickets between them.The Scorchers innings was hobbled from the start, as they slipped to 3 for 19 inside three overs, losing both of their overseas batsmen – Colin Munro and Joe Clarke – and last season’s top-scorer Josh Inglis. The highest partnership of the innings came between Mitchell Marsh and Ashton Turner, club captain and on-field leader respectively, but sharp work from the Renegades’ keeper, Sam Harper, saw Turner run-out attempting a quick single and they struggled to cut loose at any stage.With a much-changed Renegades bowling attack featuring as many as four debutants clicking in their first outing, the Scorchers were grateful for Aaron Hardie’s 36-ball 33 helping to keep them at bay. But with Shaun Marsh and Aaron Finch piling on a 70-run opening stand in good time, Turner’s side was unable to put any pressure on the chase.Renegades bowlers bounce back
Success in 2018-19 was based around the best bowling attack in the BBL – a stat that was turned on its head as they limped home in eighth place last year. After being put into the field at Bellerive Oval, the Renegades’ resurgence was immediate. Over the off-season, they recruited Lalor from Brisbane Heat and the experienced left-armer struck with his fifth ball to remove Munro. New-ball partner Kane Richardson was also successful in his opening over and when Lalor had Clarke caught behind off a top-edge in the next the tone was set. Last season, the Renegades only managed 17 powerplay wickets in 14 games; here they had bagged three in 18 balls.Shaun Marsh anchored Renegades’ run-chase with a fine fifty•Getty Images

Hatzo-haven’t-a-glou
What exactly was Hatzoglou, another Renegades new boy, bowling? Were they medium-pace cutters, quick googlies or skiddy non-turning legbreaks? An accurate definition probably lies somewhere in the middle of that mixed bag, but these were far-from-ordinary all-sorts from the tall Hatzoglou, who had most recently been playing “3rd XI district cricket” before being spotted by the Renegades. Thrown in during the Scorchers’ powerplay, his first over went for 12, but he returned with the field out to strike immediately, Cameron Bancroft baffled by one that skidded back at him – although it might well have been missing leg stump. Hatzoglou’s brand of fast leggies and googlies, almost all above 100kph, kept the Scorchers guessing through the middle overs, in tandem with English wobble-merchant Benny Howell, and after pinning Mitchell Marsh with another wrong-un he finished with impressive figures of 2 for 29. Michael Klinger, the Renegades head coach, later admitted that Hatzoglou would have been unlikely to play had Cameron Boyce been available – but after a debut that will have opposition analysts scrambling, he might be hard to dislodge.Melbourne surge up top
If the bowling was about new faces, the Renegades relied on old gold at the top of their batting order. They had tried four different opening combinations in 2019-20, but surprisingly none of them was Finch-Marsh, two of the leading run-scorers in BBL history. A vaunted Scorchers attack featuring Australia internationals Jason Behrendorff, Jhye Richardson, AJ Tye and Fawad Ahmed needed to pick up early wickets, but Finch and Shaun Marsh were quickly into their stride, taking the four-over Powerplay for 29 and cruising at well above the required rate. Turner was forced to stick with his frontline bowlers through the first half of the innings but could even steal a Bash Boost point despite Jhye Richardson foxing Finch with a slower ball.

Jamie Overton, Kohler-Cadmore serve reminders for England selectors with cameos

“I’d like to think more opportunities will come from this and we’ll see what happens,” Overton says

Barny Read31-Jan-2021England hopefuls Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Joe Clarke, Ben Duckett and Jamie Overton all performed with the bat at the T10 League on Sunday, serving up some timely reminders of their talent in a year of great opportunity for English players.The England think tank is committed to rotation throughout a stacked calendar in 2021, which includes the T20 World Cup in India at the back end of the year.It means there are plenty of chances for players to force themselves into the reckoning across all three formats, with a busy home summer consisting of seven Tests, six ODIs and a further six T20Is. This follows the upcoming four-Test, three-ODI and five-T20I tour of India and that bookends the coming months with October’s pair of T20Is in Pakistan that are scheduled just days out from the World Cup’s opening matches.Related

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After a 2020 in which cricket was ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic, tournaments such as the T10 take on extra significance by offering up much needed time at the crease to find form and impress selectors.”Hopefully [the England set-up are watching], you never know,” Overton said following his unbeaten 38 from just 11 balls that secured a first victory of the campaign for a British-heavy Team Abu Dhabi, against the Pune Devils.”I’ve come over not expecting to do that much, get a few runs here and there and then who knows what can happen. I’d like to think more opportunities will come from this and we’ll see what happens.”If you put in good performances then you can’t be that far away. I’m just focusing on my cricket and then if it happens, it happens.”Overton is certainly on England’s radar and was selected for their behind-closed-doors training in July last year, so this cameo may have registered with the selectors. His devastating knock followed on from important nine-ball contributions by team-mates Clarke (29) and Duckett (20) that set up Overton’s late dramatics, in a game where Kohler-Cadmore top-scored with an unbeaten 61 from 25 balls for the opposition.While Overton says he feels “fresh” having not picked up a cricket bat for some time, Kohler-Cadmore has been working over the winter with his Yorkshire coaches, and says those efforts are why he has shot to third on the leader board for most runs in this year’s T10 League.”I’ve done a lot of work in Yorkshire and the coaches back home have been outstanding, especially with everything that’s going on with Covid. Those guys have really helped me and allowed me to hit the ground running here,” he said. “It is great fun. It’s nice having the freedom and obviously it’s nice when you hit some clean balls and they come off.”Kohler-Cadmore now has back-to-back half-centuries for the Devils and 127 runs from his three innings, coming at a strike rate of 215.25. Only Sohail Akhtar (131) and Nicholas Pooran (162) – who hit 89 from only 26 balls as the Northern Warriors romped to victory against the Bangla Tigers in the day’s second match – have scored more than 26-year-old Kohler-Cadmore.It’s a superb return from a man who was on tour with the England Lions this time last year and was also named in last summer’s back-to-work training squads with the England team. For now, he hopes to continue performing with the bat.”I just want to win games with Pune and that’s all I’m focusing on at the minute, just trying to get as many runs as I possibly can,” Kohler-Cadmore said. “All the other stuff takes care of itself so it’s just focusing on the next game now.”One man who may have hoped Ed Smith & Co weren’t tuning in on day four was Sussex’s George Garton. The 23-year-old’s two overs against the Warriors went for 48 runs, as Pooran walloped the England Lions seamer for 32 in the eighth over.

Mark Boucher praises 'bravery' as second-string squad falls short in Pakistan T20Is

Lessons learnt in unfamiliar conditions please coach despite return to South Africa without trophy

Danyal Rasool14-Feb-2021There was an air of apology to the naming of South Africa’s T20I squad last month, with head coach Mark Boucher almost forced to justify the inexperience of the men named. He explained that the visitors were prioritising the upcoming visit of Australia to their shores, and were keen to provide their senior players as much rest as possible following the two-match Test series in Pakistan.Double jeopardy would soon strike the luckless visitors though, with Australia calling off the South African tour altogether, meaning South Africa were stuck with a T20I side very different to the one they’d likely have named had that information been known a few weeks earlier. Aside from David Miller, no one in the squad had played over 30 T20Is, and only Tabraiz Shamsi, Reeza Hendricks and Andile Phelukwayo had lined up in more than 20. The captain, Heinrich Klaasen, had been a part of just 13.At that time, South Africa might have been quite content to have known they’d partake in a T20I series that went to the final few overs of the deciding contest, indeed one in which they had serious opportunities to wrap up all three games. It was a point head coach Mark Boucher made just after the third game ended, with Pakistan having edged out the visitors 2-1.”I think you can pretty much analyse any moment in T20 cricket but, in the first T20, overs 6-10 when we were batting, we only got 15 runs,” Boucher told a video press conference. “That was a big issue and we probably did lose the game there. So yes, we probably could have done better there. The second game went to plan and losing three or four wickets so quickly did mean we were chasing the game. The key moments really cost us here, and for me, as a coach, we have spoken about that and we’ll continue to try and get through to guys so they don’t make the same mistakes again. If they can do that, then I think we’ll be going in the right direction, and the series shows where we’re headed with this T20 side.”The guys showed a bit of bravery with the way they played, though I wish we had been a bit smarter in the way we played the game at certain stages. What I’ve seen is encouraging. Even though we ran ourselves into a bit of trouble, we put up a good total. Maybe 15, 20 runs shy, but we were still in the game till the last couple of overs. A lot of positives, some youngsters coming through and Shamsi bowled really well throughout the series. Reeza [Hendricks] played nicely, and David [Miller]’s knock towards the end was great; good to see him back in the runs. The bowling I thought we did really well, there were times with the bat when we perhaps didn’t do that well but enough encouragement overall.”For Boucher, the biggest positive appears to be the opportunities the bench have been given, and the manner they accounted for them. There were calls when Australia pulled out of the tour to retain senior players for the T20I series, but South Africa stuck to their original plans, determined to give players with less experience a chance at the highest level. He pointed out that few outside the camp had given his charges a chance, but was hopeful this group of players would continue to breathe down the necks of the first-choice squad.David Miller revived South Africa in the decider with an outstanding counterattack•AP Photo

“I think the media were writing these guys off a bit, but we’ve got a T20 competition back home and I hope some of these guys stand up and put some pressure on the squad. The nice thing for me is that throughout the next couple of years we’ve got a good group of players together and we’re getting where we’d like to be. For Covid reasons we’ve had quite a large group of players travelling. They are learning some tough lessons, but you’ve got to be winning and unfortunately we didn’t. That doesn’t mean I’m not happy with their efforts though.”Boucher also praised Pakistan as “a fantastic place to play cricket”. This is the first tour South Africa have undertaken a tour of the country since 2007, with the head coach part of the playing squad at the time. With the pitches in Lahore worlds removed from what his side might generally be used to in the Highveld or the Western Cape, Boucher singled out his bowlers for special praise.”I think what we can learn is this is a fantastic place to play cricket. You see the history around the grounds and some of the fantastic talents that have come out of Pakistan. The spin isn’t as bad as it is in India and Sri Lanka, there’s not as much turn, but there’s a special technique that you still have to apply, especially when you’re batting. I’m really proud of the way the guys bowled; the bowling was a standout for me. I think the guys have done well in this particular situation and it can only help them going back to South Africa.”The tough part of being here was losing a series. We don’t go anywhere to lose series so I think that’s tough. The way we played a couple of the big moments was kind of disappointing. We got ourselves into the game and found stupid ways to get ourselves out of the game again.Related

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“But I think we played some good cricket throughout the series. We had a very good meeting after the first game that we lost; we got ourselves into strong positions in that game. The second game showed the brand of cricket that we want to play where we showed intent, especially in the batting. We needed to show the right intent especially when we play against spin. We needed to be more proactive rather than react to it, and I think the guys really showed that today.”Boucher and his men might not have to request extra baggage for the rather voluminous trophy they just ended up missing out on, but there certainly need be no apology for the cricket the visitors offered out in Lahore. With Pakistan set to visit South Africa for a limited-overs series in just a few weeks, the departing South Africans may feel confident they’ll end up having the last laugh.

South Australia recover from Mitchell Starc burst to set up final-day calculations

Starc and Sean Abbott had earlier added an important partnership before NSW declared behind

ESPNcricinfo staff08-Mar-2021Mitchell Starc briefly threatened to burst the game open in Adelaide after New South Wales had declared behind in a game dominated by batsmen, but South Australia recovered to extend their advantage to 209.The Redbacks are in a similar position to the previous round where they will need to judge a target to set on the final day – last week they were one wicket short of victory at the WACA – although the late loss of Travis Head, edging Nathan Lyon to slip, kept New South Wales in with a chance of bowling them out.After starting their second innings with a lead of 116 they lost two early wickets as Starc, who earlier scored an unbeaten half-century, recaptured the late swing that he has struggled to find consistently this season in the first-class game. He shaped deliveries into the pads of Henry Hunt and Liam Scott to win lbw appeals which left South Australia 2 for 1 in the fourth over.The in-form Head responded aggressively, getting off the mark with a cut over point for six off Starc, and added 77 for the third wicket with Jake Weatherald before a lovely delivery from Lyon found the edge late in the day and was neatly held by David Warner.South Australia had visions of bowling New South Wales out to gain a significant lead when they had them 6 for 259. Kurtis Patterson reached his century before becoming the first first-class wicket for left-arm wristspinner Joe Medew-Ewen when he drove a catch to short cover.Peter Nevill’s half-century was ended when he edged the new ball to second slip straight after lunch before any hope the home side had of rattling through the lower order was halted by Starc and Sean Abbott as the pair added 80 for the seventh wicket following their partnership of 189 against Tasmania earlier in the season. South Australia have still to bowl a side out in this year’s competition.

IPL 2021: BCCI monitoring fresh Covid-19 spike in Mumbai, keeps Hyderabad in contingency plans

Board confident of sticking to schedule despite possibility of lockdown in Maharashtra

ESPNcricinfo staff03-Apr-2021The BCCI is keeping a close eye on the growing number of Covid-19 cases in India, especially in Mumbai, but remains confident that it will be able to conduct the IPL as scheduled, starting in less than a week’s time. At the same time, Hyderabad has emerged as a back-up venue option, should one or more of the six designated host cities not be able to hold their matches.The month of March has brought a rapid resurgence of Covid-19 in India, which the Maharashtra chief minister has acknowledged as a “second wave” that is “more severe than the previous one”. The state of Maharashtra – of which Mumbai is a part – is on the verge of a lockdown.”Today, I am giving an indication for a complete lockdown, but not announcing it formally,” the Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray said. “If things do not improve visibly in a couple of days and if no other solution is found, we will have to announce another lockdown like it is being done globally.”However, the BCCI has the state’s assurance that the development shouldn’t affect the IPL bubbles. The matches are meant to be held in a bubble without any crowds. All of the four teams who will start their IPL 2021 campaigns in Mumbai – Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Capitals, Punjab Kings and Rajasthan Royals – are staying at exclusive accommodations, and don’t come in contact with anyone outside the bubble.Related

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Franchises that ESPNcricinfo contacted said they haven’t yet been spoken to about a move to Hyderabad, and remained confident that the matches would go on as scheduled. Chennai, Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata and Ahmedabad are the other five venues.Despite the assurances, though, there is a sense of uncertainty. It is understood that a few members of the groundstaff at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium have tested positive for Covid-19. Everyone at the stadium is being tested every two days now – fresh tests were conducted today, the results of which are expected on Monday – but such developments could potentially test the sanctity of bubbles.The Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA), though, is confident that the matches will not be moved out because they are being played in a bio-secure environment. A senior MCA official told ESPNcricinfo that they understand the alarm among the people, but that is also partly because the state government has been aggressive with the testing. The MCA has not received any intimation from the government that the lockdown, if it is put in place, will have any impact on the matches in Mumbai.The staff on-site, meanwhile, is being tested every two days. Two of those who tested positive have already returned negative results. The entire staff is staying in the Garware Pavilion clubhouse, which is part of the stadium. Those who tested positive have been sent into isolation, and will return into the bubble only after testing negative.The southern Indian state of Karnataka, and its capital city of Bengaluru, have also experienced a surge in Covid-19 cases in the past few days, and responding to the changed scenario, the Karnataka State Cricket Association has decided to “suspend” the ongoing Under-16 boys’ zonal tournament.In a statement, the association said that even though the state government’s latest Covid-19 directives don’t call for any restrictions in playing cricket, the tournament has been stopped temporarily “as precautionary measure”. The two-day matches that are currently on would be allowed to finish, “and after tomorrow all the matches of the ongoing tournament stands suspended”. The remaining matches will be rescheduled “after reviewing the Covid situation”.India recorded 89,129 new cases of Covid-19 on April 2. With 658,909 active cases, India is the fifth-worst-hit country in the world at the moment. And Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, three of the six host states, are three of the five worst-hit states in India.

Brydon Carse keeps Durham's victory push on track as Essex show the fight of champions

Jack Burnham and Scott Borthwick overcome new-ball scare to take chase into final day

Andrew Miller17-Apr-2021Nobody expected the champions to roll over without a fight. And sure enough, after an indomitable lower-order display featuring three career-best performances, and a raucous burst with the new ball in which Durham came within a fingertip of being three-down with no runs on the board, Essex were still brawling as the shadows lengthened at Chelmsford. They’ve carried this fight into the fourth and final day of a contest that, at one stage, seemed unlikely to extend beyond two.But, with Brydon Carse rising above another unresponsive Chelmsford deck with a back-bending (and ankle-buckling) five-wicket haul, Durham had regained their nerve by the close, thanks to a pair of contrasting innings from Jack Burnham and Scott Borthwick, whose over-my-dead-body display eked out nine unbeaten runs from 88 balls – a stark contrast to his thrilling first-day hundred. His team will need 108 more runs with seven wickets standing when play resumes, and with the ever-menacing Simon Harmer yet to have his say, anything less than drama would be an anti-climax.With a lead of 45 overnight, and four wickets still in hand, the smart money might have been on Harmer himself, 6 not out at the start of play, to seize the scenario, and coax a lead that he would back himself to defend in the fourth innings. So when he shuffled across the crease to Ben Raine’s third ball of the morning to be pinned lbw without adding to his score, Durham celebrations were unfettered. It felt like a decisive step towards victory.But as Essex and Worcestershire discovered to their mutual cost last week, a well-organised tailender with a solid defence has little to fear at Chelmsford this season. With Paul Walter setting the example for the lower-order with a series of lanky strides onto the front foot, en route to his own career-best of 77, Ben Allison emerged at No. 9 to produce an extraordinarily disciplined knock – 52 from 163 balls all told, with scarcely a sniff of a chance.It was his maiden first-class fifty, and as Matt Salisbury had shown in similar circumstances on the second morning, his obduracy ensured that Durham were distracted by the mounting lead even as they tried to focus on the breakthrough that would bring the end of their toil that much closer.Allison’s most forceful stroke was a crunching drive as Chris Rushworth overpitched with a second new ball that offered less than Durham had anticipated, and he also benefited from four overthrows as a wild shy disappeared through cover. For the most part he dealt in arrow-straight pushes, finding the gaps rather than seeking them, as Essex’s eighth and ninth wickets both contributed priceless fifty stands to the cause.Walter, almost in solidarity, barely veered from the appointed method either. His first scoring of the morning was a scything cut through point to reach his fifty from 74 balls, but beyond that he needed nothing more than a big stride and a broad bat to blunt Durham’s intentions. Their stand had extended to 58 in 23 fruitless overs when Carse was recalled for his second spell of the morning. His first ball to Walter was right in the corridor, angling across the left-hander, and grazing the edge with just a hint of extra bounce. It was a priceless incision that his team-mates hadn’t looked like forcing.Alex Lees falls for a duck to Jamie Porter as Essex surge with the new ball•Andrew Miller

Allison and Sam Cook negotiated the rest of his spell – not without a few alarms – but Essex’s determination was not to be undone. More of the same was all that the dressing room ordered after the pair had reached lunch with a lead of 114 in the bank, and it duly arrived, with Allison reaching his fifty from 144 balls with a chop through point off Borthwick, and Cook rising to a familiar theme with nothing more ambitious than a series of deflections to visibly deflate the visiting attack.Arguably it was only the taking of an early tea at 2.50pm, ahead of an 80-minute interval for the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral, that prevented even greater riches for Essex’s tail. Upon the resumption, Allison lasted just three more balls, as that man Carse capitalised on the break in his concentration to thump his pads before his feet could get moving again.Two overs later, Carse had ended Cook’s resistance too, though not before a scare as he went over his ankle in his followthrough and needed lengthy on-field treatment. But Essex had done the needful. A lead of 168 was very much in the ball-park they had been eyeing up after shipping a near-identical first-innings deficit, and the manner in which they set about defending it was awesome to behold.As Sam Cook showed with a similarly thrilling burst against Worcestershire last week, this Chelmsford wicket is currently all about the new ball, and he didn’t waste a drop of it as Durham were rattled to their core from the outset. His very first ball, to Will Young, jagged in on the angle just enough to thump the outside of his off stump as he raised his bat for a leave, and at 0 for 1, it was a different game already.One over later, Jamie Porter joined the fun. He’d been denied a first-over lbw by the width of a seam after being deemed to have pitched outside leg to Alex Lees, but now a near-identical delivery got the verdict to trigger ecstasy among his team-mates. That turned to agony two balls later, as David Bedingham fenced to slip and the ball died on Alastair Cook as he stooped forward to gather, but the tone of the innings had been set.Related

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It wasn’t until the 35th ball that Durham opened their account with Borthwick’s tickle into space on the leg-side, by which stage the skipper was so deeply entrenched in his safety-first mindset that nothing and no-one was about to shift him up a gear. It was Bedingham who made the first tentative strides towards proactivity, with a brace of deflected fours through third man to get his innings underway, before Durham’s first real shot in anger, a firm on-drive for four off Porter.But Essex weren’t done yet. Harmer had entered the attack in the ninth over, with Durham still stuck on a sickly 6 for 2 – now Cook changed ends to keep the hammer down, and quickly ended Bedingham’s progress via a flimsy cut to point, a soft dismissal in the hardest of circumstances.Burnham, however, had seen enough to know that Borthwick needed someone to stay busy while he focused on endurance, and in the closing half-hour of the day, he just began to give the sense that he had got the measure of the chase. With bold use of the feet to Harmer, in attack and defence alike, he chipped a cathartic four up and over mid-on before nailing a brace of fierce sweeps to prevent Essex’s senior spinner from settling into a rhythm, despite a permanent encampment of four close catchers. And when Lawrence entered the attack for a sighter late in the day, Burnham had sufficient confidence to launch a half-tracker out of the ground at square leg. Similar bottle will be required to see this contest through. Three-year winning streaks don’t get undone without an almighty struggle.

India Women to play their first day-night Test during Australia tour

The tour will feature three ODIs and three T20Is as well

Nagraj Gollapudi18-May-2021India Women will play their first-ever day-night Test when they tour Australia in September. The Test will be played at the WACA Ground in Perth and will be sandwiched between three ODIs and as many T20Is.*A Cricket Australia release stated that the ODIs will be played at North Sydney Oval (September 19) and the Junction Oval (September 22 and 24) before the caravan moves to Perth for the standalone Test, scheduled from September 30 to October 3.The tour will conclude with three T20Is at North Sydney Oval (October 7, 9 and 11), with the Australia team then set to break for the WBBL before the Ashes.BCCI secretary Jay Shah had also tweeted confirming the day-night Test.

This will be only the second Test in women’s cricket to be played under lights with a pink ball. The only other women’s day-night Test also featured Australia, in which they drew with England in Sydney in 2017.Later, Australia will host England too for a Test at the Manuka Oval in Canberra as part of the Ashes series.Australia are the current T20 World Cup champions, having beaten India in the final of the 2020 edition. In ODIs, they are on a 24-match winning streak.”There is no doubt that T20 cricket has been, and will continue to be, a key driver of growth for women’s cricket globally,” Nick Hockley, Cricket Australia’s interim CEO, said. “That said, it is testament to how far the game has come that we are in a position to host two women’s Test matches against the might of India and England, which we know will prove popular with cricket-lovers right around the world.”This will be India’s first Test in Australia since the Adelaide Test in 2006. In all, Australia and India have played nine Tests, with Australia winning four of them and the other five being drawn. The teams first met in a Test match in Perth in 1977, then played four Tests in India in 1984, followed by a three-Test series in Australia in 1990-91 and then the Adelaide match in 2006.

India are set to play two Tests in the same year for the first time since 2014. The Bristol Test against England from June 16, in which they will be led by Mithali Raj, will be India’s first Test match since they beat South Africa in Mysore in November 2014.That India are scheduled to tour Australia in September was first mentioned on record by Australia fast bowler Megan Schutt on a recent podcast. Schutt told that Australia’s next assignment will be at home mid-September against India, with a preparatory camp in Darwin.The tour originally consisted of three ODIs and was scheduled for January this year, but in December 2020 a report on the CA website said the assignment would be rescheduled for the 2021-22 season and would be expanded to include three T20Is as well.

Simmons dissects West Indies' batting failure after South Africa loss

Head coach says enough high-quality preparation is lacking away from international cricket

Firdose Moonda23-Jun-2021West Indies coach Phil Simmons has acknowledged that his batters have work to do on their techniques after their 2-nil series defeat against South Africa. Not only did West Indies lose both Tests by significant margins inside four days, they also failed to cross 200 in any of their four innings. They were also bowled out for 97 in their first innings of the first Test, their lowest against South Africa, which Simmons indicated was an illustration of a wider problem.”In that first Test match, we got caught playing away from our bodies a lot and when a wicket is doing as much as it did in that Test match, then that is to your detriment and we saw that in being bowled out for 97,” Simmons said.Related

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The conditions were bowler-friendly, with plenty of movement through the air and off the seam and good bounce on offer, and though Simmons mentioned that West Indies actually wanted to host South Africa on the slower surfaces in Trinidad, he did not bemoan conditions in St Lucia and said the groundskeeper has been “very helpful,” in providing what West Indies asked for. “Maybe the pitch for the first Test match had a little more moisture than we expected. The pitch for the second Test match, we got what we wanted.”And the performance in the second Test was marginally better. “A few of the guys came back from that and in the second Test match we saw a few of the guys getting 40s and 50s but at the same time, we needed to assess the whole situation of the game and know we need to be tight for a while to put pressure on them. When they got two wickets, they just ran through us.”Between them, West Indies only scored two fifties in the series – Roston Chase’s 62 in the second innings of the first Test and Kieran Powell’s 51 in the second innings of the second Test – and though Simmons was concerned about that, he did not think the line-up was incapable of big scores “For the last two series that we played, we’ve gotten totals above 200. It’s a case of us assessing what it is we did differently and trying to make sure that in the coming Tests we get back to where we were,” he said.West Indies scored two hundreds and six fifties against Sri Lanka, and one hundred and six fifties against Bangladesh, so Simmons knows the ability is there, but the players need to find form. He said the amount of cricket and the training set-ups on different islands have hindered the consistency of the upskilling the players can do.”When we leave a tour we always have to go and work on things. Tours come up quickly these days so little things we have to correct come up again and again. We had done some work on facing spin, and now we need to do some work on fast bowling,” he said. “I don’t think high quality preparation is happening enough in the territories. A lot of players come to us and we step up the intensity. More needs to be done in the territories. But that is something we have been saying for a long time.”

Sultans smoke Qalandars on the back of Shahnawaz Dhani's 4 for 5

Qalandars’ playoff hopes now hinge on result of Quetta Gladiators v Karachi Kings

Danyal Rasool18-Jun-2021There’s been plenty of talk about when the world will get back to normal, but Lahore Qalandars look like they’re there anyway. A vintage capitulation from a side for whom qualification to the semis once looked a mere formality means their chances for progression hang in the balance. Multan Sultans swatted them aside by 80 runs, with Sohail Akhtar’s side bowled out inside 15.1 overs for 89, which – aside from the points going to the Sultans – has produced a devastating blow to the Qalandars net run rate that they could ill afford to absorb. Shahnawaz Dhani was the architect of the huge win, taking four wickets once again in the face of listless opposition from Qalandars.Having lost three on the bounce when failing to chase down targets, Qalandars’ decision to put Sultans in first was curious, but the bowlers kept them on a leash for much of the innings. Aside from a menacing 63-run partnership between Rilee Rossouw and Sohaib Maqsood – whose 40-ball 60 was redolent of his best days as a T20 power hitter – Sultans were never truly able to pull away. And once that partnership was broken, Shaheen Afridi and James Faulkner helped Qalandars run riot, ripping through the lower-middle order to leave Quetta hovering around 140. Only a destructive – in every sense of the word – final over from Haris Rauf, from which Sohail Tanvir plundered 24, helped Sultans set Qalandars 170 to win.Given their chasing struggles in this leg of the tournament, that was always going to be an uphill task. Ben Dunk was promoted, signalling a shift in approach. But the experiment failed before Dhani, sensational once again, got some extra bounce to prise out a struggling Fakhar Zaman. Blessing Muzarabani got in on the act as Mohammad Hafeez fell thanks to a loose shot. Imran Tahir joined the party too, and aside from one big over courtesy Faulkner, the chase was never really on. When he was dismissed, the fight left the Qalandars. At this rate, the Qalandars might be leaving Abu Dhabi soon enough.Dhani delight Shahnawaz Dhani’s special relationship with the PSL shows no signs of cooling, his dizzying figures of 3.1-1-5-4 the zenith of an already glittering tournament. The signs of a remarkable day presented themselves the very first time he bowled, nailing Fakhar Zaman with a bouncer off his first ball and putting Qalandars on the back foot straightaway. When he returned in the middle overs, he got rid of the last dregs of Qalandars’ hope, extra bounce putting paid to Faulkner’s enterprising little stay. All that remained was the snuffing of the tail, and in this sort of mood, he accomplished that with disdainful ease.Harif Rauf’s 20th overIt’s easy to forget what a seemingly impregnable position Lahore found themselves in 19 overs into the match. Sultans had hobbled along to 145, and Tanvir kept the strike off the final ball of the previous over, hoping to get a few big hits in. It began with a couple of streaky fours, before a hammer blow over square leg for six saw the momentum shift ominously away from the struggling Qalandars. Assisted by supremely ordinary bowling, Tanvir – who has struggled for runs this PSL – managed another ten off the last two, wrenching the momentum back to his side. While Lahore had conceded just 26 off the five overs prior, Sultans plundered 24 more in just one. Lahore would never quite recover.Where they standLahore Qalandars are joined by Multan Sultans on ten points and both teams have one match to play. Sultans have the best net run rate in the tournament and barring a historically catastrophic loss to Islamabad United, Sultans are assured of a playoff spot. Meanwhile, Qalandars’ fate rests in the hands of Quetta Gladiators. If the last place Gladiators can beat Karachi Kings, then Qalandars will take the final playoff berth. However, a win for the Kings and they’ll move to ten points but will be in the playoffs ahead of Qalandars due to a superior net run rate.

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