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Allrounder R Sathish sealed a thrilling one-wicket win for Tamil Nadu to take them to their first Vijay Hazare semi-final in five years

The Report by Sidharth Monga in Bangalore24-Dec-2015
Scorecard
File photo: R Sathish played a vital knock under pressure to take Tamil Nadu home•Sivaraman Kitta

Allrounder R Sathish sealed a thrilling one-wicket win for Tamil Nadu to take them to their first Vijay Hazare semi-final in five years. At the start of the 41st over, Tamil Nadu needed seven runs with three wickets in hand, but Piyush Chawla struck twice to bring the last man in. Rahil Shah kept his head and handed the strike over to Sathish, who had shepherded the chase from an earlier crisis of 81 for 5.When Chawla began that eventful over, Sathish and captain R Ashwin looked set for the win with their partnership having added 35 assured runs. It seemed a questionable move to hand Chawla the ball when the wreckers of the top order – Kumars Praveen and Bhuvneshwar – had overs left. Chawla, though, produced two special deliveries. With a slider he trapped Ashwin lbw, and with a big legbreak he took the edge of Aswin Crist. In between the two dismissals, Crist had eased the nerves somewhat with a cover drive for four. Rahil had to come in with three runs required.On the fifth ball of the over, UP spread the field. They were prepared to concede the single, and have a go at the No. 11 in the next over, but Rahil got a full toss fifth ball, which he played to long leg to bring Tamil Nadu closer by one run. Now with one ball left, UP had two choices: invite the big hit and thus the risk by bringing the field up or keep the fielders back to keep the game alive for another over. They went for the latter, Chawla bowled short, and Sathish gladly accepted the single and retained strike.Praveen bowled the 42nd over. He had started the defence of 168 with Dinesh Karthik’s wicket in the first over. He had bowled seven unchanged overs in the company of Bhuvneshwar, who took three wickets, to reduce Tamil Nadu to 17 for 4. The Kumars had then seen the pressure they created slip away as M Vijay and B Indrajith, who added 64 for the fifth wicket against the back-up bowlers.Now was the chance for Praveen to try to produce that one final bit of magic to tie the match, and have the winner decided by a coin toss. He nearly did so first ball with an accurate yorker. Sathish kept it out. He tried another yorker, which turned out to be a low full toss. Sathish hit it straight to mid-off. It was tense stuff. Sathish had battled hard before he had hit left-arm spinner Saurabh Kumar for three straight fours in the 40th over to all but end the match. Now he was against a canny bowler with international experience. He was prepared to wait.In the back of his mind was the past. “In many games in the past, I have got out during such scenarios and we have ended up losing,” Sathish said later. “So this time I wanted to stay in the middle and make it count for my team.”The wait produced the right ball; a slower one that Praveen dragged too far down. Sathish pulled it over midwicket to end the match. It was his unbroken spell of 10-2-14-1 in the morning that had helped restrict UP, who had chosen to bat first on a pitch adjacent to the one used for the quarter-final a day ago. Sathish was introduced in the fourth over amid a manic early exchange: Ashwin used five bowlers in the first nine overs, Praveen was opening the batting and Crist surprised him by bowling round the wicket. Funky fields were employed, and three wickets fell in those nine overs. Those unorthodox measures were on view in the second innings as well when L Balaji was pushed up to No. 5.In the absence of Suresh Raina, and with some unremarkable batting at the top, young Sarfaraz Khan was UP’s big hope, coming in at 30 for 3. In the 11th over, though, he went for an ambitious single and was run out to make it 38 for 4. Had he dived he would have made it to the striker’s end, something experience should teach him as he heads to Bangladesh for the Under-19 World Cup. Umang Sharma then swept Ashwin straight to square leg in his first over, and Akshdeep Nath fell lbw to Balaji to make it 79 for 6 in the 26th over.Not for the first time Chawla rescued the UP batting with a dour 66-run partnership with Rinku Singh, the left-hand batsman who produced his fourth fifty in just his seventh List A game. The two took UP’s innings deep, but couldn’t provide the finishing kick. They failed to face the quota of 50 overs, and that final finishing kick went missing even when they bowled later.For Tamil Nadu it is sweet success after the early ouster in Ranji Trophy and the devastation caused by the floods in their state. “The presence of Ashwin and Vijay has helped a lot,” Sathish said. “They are coming straight from the South Africa series, and they have given their full effort and that’s a motivation for the players.”We were charged up right from the league game. Close games like these do happen. We lost a game against Punjab despite being in a good situation and Ashwin was there with us even in that match, backing the players.”

Bangladesh Under-19s batsman Nazmul Hossain Shanto said his unbeaten 113 against Scotland Under-19s was special and stated that he had planned to rely more on singles than boundaries on a slow track in Cox’s Bazar

Mohammad Isam in Cox's Bazar31-Jan-2016Bangladesh Under-19s batsman Nazmul Hossain Shanto said his unbeaten 113 against Scotland Under-19s was special and stated that he had planned to rely more on singles than boundaries on a slow track in Cox’s Bazar. Shanto’s hundred took Bangladesh to 256 for 6 and they dismissed Scotland for 142 to make it to the quarter-final stage.”This is a special day,” Shanto said. “We have made it through to the second round. I got a century and the team won. There was a bit of pressure because we lost two early wickets. The pitch wasn’t great, the ball not coming on to the bat. I just wanted to rotate the strike.”Coming in to bat in the eighth over with the score at 17 for 2, Shanto scored a boundary through cover in his first ten deliveries but then held back his shots. His next boundary came after seven overs and he hit three more fours on his way to 50 off 71 ballsHis next fifty, however, came off only as 40 balls as he reached his second Youth ODI century off 111 balls, with a whipped four of Scotland’s best bowler Mohammad Ghaffar, in the 48th over. Shanto was pleased that he could finish the innings, something he said he has struggled with previously. The knock also helped him surpass Pakistan’s Sami Aslam as the batsman with most runs in Youth ODIs. Shanto’s tally in Youth ODIs is at 1747, with two centuries in the format.”It is fun to bat in these situations which don’t come every day,” he said. “I tried to take my team to a better position. I haven’t been able to finish the innings in the past. But today I could, and that was a good sign. It will help me in the future.”Bangladesh will play their last league game against Namibia Under-19s on February 2.

Stuart Broad has been recalled to the England ODI squad in South Africa in place of the injured Liam Plunkett

George Dobell22-Jan-2016
Stuart Broad has been recalled to the England ODI squad in South Africa in place of the injured Liam Plunkett. It is the first time Broad has been named in an ODI squad since England’s poor showing in the World Cup a year ago.Plunkett, who was himself an injury replacement for Steven Finn, was called into the squad earlier this week but then sustained a thigh strain while training with England Lions in the UAE. As a consequence, he will remain with the Lions for the remainder of their series against Pakistan A before joining the England squad for the T20 section of their tour of South Africa.That means there is no place for Broad in the T20 squad, which would suggest his chances of playing in the World T20, in India in March and April, remain low. England are hopeful that Finn, who has a side strain, will have recovered in time for that tournament.Broad, who rose to No. 1 in the Test rankings following his impressive performance in Johannesburg last week, has made no secret of his desire to return to the limited-overs squads.”I’m desperate to play white-ball cricket again for England,” he said a couple of days after that Test. “You have a short career and I’m not going to play until I’m 37 or 38, so I want to play as much cricket as I possibly can.”There is a lot of important white-ball cricket coming England’s way with the World T20, the Champions Trophy and then the 2019 World Cup. I want to be involved.”The dream of mine is to play in that World Cup and win it at home. That would be epic. “

Brendon McCullum will achieve something unique when he steps on to the Basin Reserve on Friday: reaching 100 Tests without missing a single match

Brydon Coverdale11-Feb-20162:43

‘Dirty whites, sweaty black caps and a beer in hand’

From Colin* Cowdrey back in 1968 to AB de Villiers in November last year, 63 men have reached the milestone of 100 Test appearances. None of those 63 has achieved what Brendon McCullum will achieve when he steps on to the Basin Reserve on Friday morning to take on the Australians: reaching 100 without missing a single Test. McCullum debuted against South Africa in March 2004, and has played every New Zealand Test since.It should be noted that de Villiers would have been the first but for paternity leave last year, which prevented him from going on South Africa’s two-Test tour of Bangladesh and ended his run of consecutive Tests since debut at 98. That means McCullum’s accomplishment will be unique in all of Test cricket, and it will be a remarkable achievement of form, fitness and general cricketing longevity.He has had to overcome back injuries, form slumps, the switch from keeping wicket to playing as a specialist batsman. He has taken on the responsibility of captaincy, and has with the help of coach Mike Hesson steered the team through one of its most successful periods: New Zealand have not lost a home Test series since early 2012, before McCullum and Hesson joined forces.”The last 15 or 20 Tests have been an incredible part of my life, the changes that we’ve been able to make, the evolution of the environment and the performances we have started to put up,” McCullum said on the eve of his milestone. “You look back with a sense of pride in what you’ve been able to achieve with a group of guys.

Brendon McCullum on…

What makes a successful captaincy approach…
“It’s got to be authentic to your nation… That’s one thing we’ve tried to instil in this team, make it authentic to what our country is about: that real humbleness and ability to take on stronger opposition, and a collectiveness in a group of men.”
His well-worn black cap…
“It stinks. I got it out of the bag before. It was rancid.”
His 302 to avoid defeat against India in 2014…
“It meant a lot to us to go on and show the fortitude and the strength of character to get out of [trouble in] that Test match. Since then, everyone pretty much has shown at key times that they have that strength of character and the ability to push themselves a little bit further than we thought possible.”

“And to be able to play 100 straight Tests as well, I’m pretty proud about the longevity and being able to overcome not only injuries and but also the toughness of touring and the ups and downs of performance, and still being able to get back up off the canvas and still warrant place in team. That’s something I can look back on with a bit of pride.”That it has taken 12 years for McCullum to reach his century, despite not missing a match, is testament to how little Test cricket New Zealand play compared to some other countries – of the top eight Test countries, only Pakistan have played fewer Tests in that period than New Zealand; England have played the most, at 153.”Andrew Strauss started after me and he has been finished for a few years, and he played 100 Tests,” McCullum said. “We don’t play a huge amount of cricket, which will hopefully change in the next little while for the team.”Asked to choose the highlights from his long Test career, McCullum picked out the team high of winning an away series against West Indies in 2014 – “a defining moment for us as a team” – and the personal achievement of scoring a triple-century against India at the Basin Reserve – “probably because of what it meant to those who follow this team”, as well as for the way it helped define the team’s fighting character going forward.Typically self-deprecating, McCullum said he would not “go down as a great player”, but rather one who made some important contributions and stayed true to his own style as a batsman. It is that laid-back style that has made him such an effective captain, instilling in his men a sense of fun that remained evident as they trained in Wellington on the eve of his final series.”It’s more the mental game which is the hardest thing – where you’re doubting yourself, you’re not sure whether it’s going to be your last Test from a performance or selection point of view,” he said. “It almost takes the pressure off you when you remind yourself that it’s meant to be fun, the game. Just go out there and play it for the right reasons. Funnily enough, it’s when you let go a little bit is when your performances start to improve a little bit.”The game has always been about [what happens] in the change-room afterwards, after you’ve been able to earn a Test win in tough circumstances and you’ve been able to overcome a very good opposition. To be able to sit around and see that a group of guys have achieved something over five days, and to sit around with smiles on their faces, a bit of music going, you’ve got dirty whites and sweaty black caps and a beer in hand, and you’re able to look back on the hard work achieved. That’s what I got into the game for and that’s going to be the last memory of the game as well.”At least, he hopes it will be precisely that scenario: having overcome a very good opposition.”It would be nice tick off a series win against Australia,” McCullum said. “We weren’t able to do it away from home, but it would be pretty special to do it at home.”* Feb 16: 8.20am The player’s first name has been corrected

West Indies Women captain Stafanie Taylor has said her team cannot quite believe it that they are the new World T20 winners, after they beat three-time champions Australia by eight wickets in the final in Kolkata

ESPNcricinfo staff03-Apr-2016West Indies Women captain Stafanie Taylor has said her team cannot quite believe it that they are the new World T20 winners, after they beat three-time champions Australia Women by eight wickets in the final in Kolkata. West Indies chased down a stiff target of 149 in the last over, but the pursuit was made easier by an opening stand of 120 between Taylor and Hayley Matthews.”I don’t think it has sunk in yet,” Taylor said. “When we wake up in the morning it’s going to be like ‘is it real trophy?’ I will ask myself, ‘is this real?’ When we touch down at the Caribbean that’s when it’s going to hit you. [There will be] a lot of people with cameras you will realise that you have won the World Cup.”Taylor did not just revel in the celebrations of West Indies’ maiden World T20 title, but also expressed that the victory could act as a stepping stone for women’s cricket in the Caribbean islands. She called for the authorities to develop infrastructure so that the women’s game would develop there.”We have to move on from here, not just enjoy, look at it [as a] stepping stone,” Taylor said. “We don’t want to [be] stuck here. We definitely need some infrastructure like in Australia and England. We need young guys coming up.”When these core players go, it will deteriorate. We need to start building. We need consistency to compete [against] teams like England and Australia.”Taylor scored 59 off 57, her 18th T20I fifty, in West Indies’ chase and ended the tournament as the highest run-scorer with a tally of 246 and an average of 41. She is also the second-highest run-scorer in women’s T20Is with 2208 runs, behind Charlotte Edwards’ total of 2605 runs. Taylor said her team did not think much about the total they were after, and instead focused on batting through the innings.”It’s funny, we never discussed the total,” she said. “We just wanted to bat through, it was good to keep wickets in hand. We could do that, stay there and bat through.”The chase was set up aggressively by 18-year-old Matthews, who had gone past the score of 20 only once in the tournament, but shone in the final by hammering 66 off 45 balls with six fours and three sixes, to be named the Player of the Match. It was her maiden T20I fifty in her 19th match. She had recently played for the Hobart Hurricanes in the inaugural Women’s Big Bash League to score 195 runs, and her captain, Taylor, had featured for the Sydney Thunder, who won the tournament. Taylor credited Matthews’ stint in the Women’s BBL for their side’s dominating show.”It actually helped us,” Taylor said. “It was good for her exposure and build on her. She’s matured the way she played.”The West Indies players were joined in their celebrations by the men’s team who were going to play against England soon at the same ground. Taylor said the men’s team were backing them and were giving them full support.”We have the full support,” she said. “When we won the semis, Darren Sammy said we need to celebrate and have a drink. We are quite far far away [from home]. We can’t interact face to face and rely on text messages with people back home. We just need to go there and do your best.”With one dream fulfilled, Taylor said another one on the list was to play Test cricket. “That’s one of my dreams – to play Test cricket. It will suit my style and build my game. [I’d] definitely like to play Test. Some of the girls playing here will like the longer format and build their game. It will help us in ODI games.”Taylor had taken over the captaincy only last September from Merissa Aguilleira, and led West Indies to ODI and T20I series wins against Pakistan at home. She was the highest run-scorer in the ODIs with an average of 130.50.

Virat Kohli soothed the hurt of Hyderabad with his second T20 hundred and an RCB victory they badly needed

Nikhil Kalro in Bangalore07-May-2016Virat Kohli did not have a T20 hundred for 192 games. Anticipation that it was within his grasp built over 13 T20s in 2016, leading into the IPL, when he scored 625 runs at an average of 125. It came in the fifth game of the season, a last-ball sliced boundary off Dwayne Bravo providing his breakthrough innings against Gujarat Lions.Yet, there wasn’t much reason for joy. Royal Challengers Bangalore were languishing one off the bottom with two wins in seven games. They remain in penultimate spot, but on a balmy Saturday evening, as Kohli notched up his second T20 century in a match-winning knock, he had again lifted his team.Kohli played down how much a T20 hundred meant to him. “Not that I was desperate to get one, but last time I felt like it was something I hadn’t achieved,” he said. “But I didn’t have control over my game because we were batting first there.”This 100, I didn’t plan to get a 100, as I said in the last game. I never looked at my score in the scoreboard, all I looked at was how many runs and balls are there… how many runs we need to score, in which over. In that process, if you get a milestone like that it feels sweet. But in an hour, or a couple of hours, when I realise what happened, then it’ll feel far sweeter.”Defeat in the last game to Kolkata Knight Riders had sharpened Kohli’s sense that a victory was especially necessary to provide a lift.”The ultimate target was the victory because of how hurt we were after the last game,” he said. “We needed a victory like this to pull ourselves up again, especially the kind of day we had in the field. It’s very easy to lose your cool, get carry away and get frustrated. You rather take that frustration and be determined to put in that 20 per cent extra.”In this season, 27 out of 36 matches have been won by the chasing side. M. Chinnaswamy Stadium’s small dimensions make it a particularly favourable chasing ground, but Kohli had lost three tosses at home this season, which resulted in two losses.”We had the chance to chase one down, and I backed myself to go for the target and make sure I’m there in the end and win the game for the team. In Hyderabad, I couldn’t do that, I was very disappointed,” Kohli said.”If you want your team to do a certain thing, you have to go out there first and do it in front of them to convince them that this is the direction you need to go in. I failed to do that In Hyderabad and that hurt me a lot.Virat Kohli now has two T20 hundreds•BCCI

“It’s about understanding what line the bowlers are trying to bowl at you. You need to get into the bowler’s head. You have to back yourself to know if a ball is full enough, you can pierce long-off and covers. Doesn’t matter how much the gap is between them, even if its 20 metres, you need to hit it well enough. All about being absolutely convinced that you can get the result you want. If you are half-hearted, then the ball actually never goes for a boundary.”Kohli was quick to give credit to cameos from KL Rahul and Shane Watson which helped Royal Challengers set the platform they required to achieve the target of 192.”You can’t do it all by yourself. Contributions from KL, Watto gave us the right kind of momentum to us through the middle, even after AB got out. Those things matter a lot. Sometimes we neglect those because one gets a milestone.”

An inability to agree on the time frame was the chief reason Cricket South Africa provided for the postponement of the independent review of the performance of its national teams

Firdose Moonda03-Jun-2016An inability to agree on the time frame was the chief reason Cricket South Africa provided for the postponement of the independent review of the performance of its national teams. That, however, was not the only bone of contention the review panel had with South Africa’s cricket-governing body. ESPNcricinfo understands there were also disagreements over the scope, process and costs of the review.The four-person panel was led by CSA’s HR committee head Dawn Mokhobo, and included rugby World Cup-winning captain Francois Pienaar, former Test batsman Adam Bacher and sports physiologist Ross Tucker. The panel was appointed in April following first-round exits of the men’s and women’s teams from the World T20 in March. The group was also due to look into the failure of the Under-19s side to defend their World Cup title earlier this year.”It is most unfortunate that this review needed to be placed on hold but I would rather not proceed in circumstances where the panel members and CSA are not comfortable,” Haroon Lorgat, CSA’s CEO, said.”After speaking with Dawn Mokhobo, it became clear to me that we should not continue with this review if members of the panel were not confident that they could meet my expectations and those of the CSA Board. We need to be completely aligned on what we expect to achieve from such a review and in what time frame. I respect the fact that certain members of the review panel were not comfortable and would prefer to step down.”While announcing the formation of the panel in April, Lorgat had stressed that there was no specific time frame for the panel to abide by.”While we plan to do this as soon as practically possible, we do not intend to place a deadline on this important piece of work as we presently have capable people and contracts in place,” Lorgat said at the time.The panel held preliminary meetings at the end of April to formulate a plan for the review. In an interview with journalists before their first meeting, Pienaar explained they would initially decide “where the key focus areas will be and how we divvy up the roles”.Later, Tucker confirmed that the panel had begun work but also encountered problems. “Ultimately we couldn’t agree with CSA on issues related to scope, process, time and resources. We had an idea for what we should do and how,” Tucker said. “But we then had to make a decision about whether to continue or not, and that decision was to step down from the process.”Tucker also expressed his disappointment at not being able to complete the review because he expected the outcomes to serve as “an example to other sports of high performance review and strategy”, which could be applied to various sports.The panel informed Lorgat of its decision to step down on May 25, the same day that the South Africa squad departed for the triangular ODI series in the Caribbean. CSA’s Board was not informed of the news until it broke in the media, despite a teleconference held three days after the decision was made on May 28.The breakdown of the review process was only made public on June 1, when Tucker, in conversation with a Twitter user, posted: “We never completed the review. Never even started. Couldn’t agree terms, times and scope/process so it didn’t begin. Pity.”In explaining CSA’s reasons for postponing the review, Lorgat said he was “also concerned by the behaviour of certain panel members who were not respectful of the clear protocols that we had agreed upfront. Using media platforms to shape an exercise of this importance is not the way to work.”Apart from Tucker’s tweets, Pienaar had also done some media interviews in which he spoke generally about the importance of understanding how high-performance structures obtain success. An insider in the panel contradicted CSA’s statement and told ESPNcricinfo that all members of the panel had wanted to step down. Statements to the media from panel members were reportedly issued with the aim of maintaining transparency.Despite the postponement of this review, Lorgat stressed that CSA will still look for a way to analyse last season’s performances and may even engage with some of the panel members who did not want to be part of the initial review. “The board is still keen to conduct an independent review of the performances of our national teams with those panel members who are keen to continue,” Lorgat said. “I remain impressed by what the review panel has started to consider in this regard as it could be a wonderful blueprint for South African sport.”

Jonny Bairstow, looking more battle-hardened by the month, completed his third Test hundred in eight innings to rouse England from a problematic opening day in the Lord’s Test

The Report by David Hopps09-Jun-2016
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsJonny Bairstow screams with delight after scoring a Test hundred at Lord’s•Getty Images

Jonny Bairstow, looking more imposing and battle-hardened by the month, completed his third Test hundred in eight innings to rouse England from a problematic opening day in the Lord’s Test. For Bairstow, it could not be a more perfect treble: Cape Town, a maiden hundred where his father ‘Bluey’ spent his winters; Headingley, his home ground, an outpouring of Yorkshire pride; and now Lord’s, where a Test century is regarded as the greatest gift of all.Bairstow’s hundred came 11 balls from the close when he tucked Rangana Herath through square leg and emitted what has now become a recognisable primeval roar, his rugged beard caked with sweat, not the sort of sight you would want to encounter on a foggy night on Baildon Moor. Not the sort of sight, if you are a Test attack looking for just rewards, that you particularly want to meet at Lord’s either.Bairstow, the ginger energiser, rode his luck at times. He should have fallen on 11 when Shaminda Eranga spilled an inviting chance at midwicket off Nuwan Pradeep, a chance which, if taken, would have left England 102 for 5. He also survived Sri Lanka’s lbw review, on 56, by the width of a single thread of seam after the umpire, Sundaram Ravi, had initially turned down the appeal. The bowler was Eranga, desperately unfortunate to be denied the chance to put right his blemish in the field.But it was Bairstow’s desire and the equilibrium of his captain, Alastair Cook, that allowed England to escape to 279 for 6 on a day when Sri Lanka’s seam attack, led by Pradeep, drew more encouragement than might initially have been expected on what had appeared to be a bountiful batting surface and the tubby left-arm impresario Herath again revealed a charming ability to kill with kindness.England have the series won, but questions about a sketchy batting order remain as pressing as ever after Sri Lanka, finally able to feel the sun on their backs, looked a more methodical bowling outfit than they had done in two nithering northern Tests as they sought to extend a good Lord’s record with a victory, in a series already conceded after heavy defeats at Headingley and Chester-le-Street.Cook, the youngest man to reach 10,000 Test match runs, five months ahead of Sachin Tendulkar, had been presented with an encased silver bat to mark the occasion before the start of the final Test at Lord’s.The bat so received, it was time to encase his mind and make inroads into the next 10,000. Not for the first time, England were fortunate for his resilience. His failure to log a 29th Test hundred when Pradeep had him lbw for 85 came as a surprise to many in the capacity crowd, but his was the steady heartbeat in an ailing England batting line-up with uncomfortable questions remaining unanswered ahead of the Test series against Pakistan.”The first session will be crucial,” Cook had said, not that he personally needed any reminding of the fact in his 129th Test. The pitch looked flat and the weather was settled. Pads were buckled, helmet donned and once again he settled into the rhythms of an English Test summer, dispatching anything on his pads with familiar authority.But others were less successful. To a batsman possessing Cook’s rational approach, to lose four for 88 must have seemed entirely illogical. And of those four wickets to fall only Joe Root can claim that his place is impregnable.Alex Hales must wish he could settle into the sort of natural Test rhythm that Cook finds so effortless. A quicker tempo perhaps but one in which he can make his own music. He settled reasonably enough against the new ball, but Angelo Mathews’ medium pace seemed to make him jittery. When Herath had his first perambulation of the innings, Hales self-destructed against the second ball he faced, attempting a mow over long-on but the ball instead looping gently to first slip where Mathews held the catch.It was the fourth time that Hales has fallen to spin in this series and the fact that England’s opening stand of 56 was their highest of the series was an indicator of the lurking issues.Nick Compton left five overs later, only a single to his name, and was treated to the slightly embarrassed Lord’s silence upon his dismissal that communicates an expectation of impending doom. In its uncomfortable disapproval, it feels more like a blackballing than the open criticism preferred elsewhere.Compton drove charily at an overpitched delivery from Suranga Lakmal wandering down the slope and edged to Dinesh Chandimal, who had been passed fit to keep wicket. Compton is unlikely to figure in the Test series against Pakistan, the selectors’ patience – and they have been patient – surely exhausted.Compton’s mind is also encased, but in his case it so encased in the grip of self-doubt that he appears inhibited at the crease. In his 16 Tests for England he has rarely played with freedom, but his unproductive form now extends to county cricket, so much so that he has not struck a half-century for 17 first-class innings. If he loses his England place, it is hard to imagine him spending golden years on the county circuit.Fifteen minutes before lunch, Sri Lanka picked up Joe Root as well, the most valued wicket of all. Root got too far across to an angled delivery from Lakmal and Sri Lanka overturned umpire Rod Tucker’s “not out” on review. England had lost 3 for 15 in 40 balls and suddenly it was Sri Lanka’s morning.England were 84 for 4 on a surface that had promised batting riches when James Vince was bowled by Pradeep, pushing emphatically down the wrong line whereupon his off bail was clipped from the stumps with the certainty of a kitchen chef slicing the vegetables. It was a fine post-lunch period by Sri Lanka as Eranga and Lakmal also passed the outside edge in a focused display.By the time Cook departed five minutes before tea, lbw to a delivery angled in from around the wicket by Pradeep, there was a sense of a recovery. Moeen Ali hung around in that, too often, fascinating, fleeting Mayfly way of his until he was beautifully unpicked by Herath, who followed up one which bounced and turned surprisingly with a little floater to have him caught at slip.But Eranga’s failure to hold Bairstow’s clip off his pads gradually ate away at Sri Lanka’s day. Two boundaries for Bairstow in the next four balls suggested that the fizz might have been let out of the bottle, and although that fizz spilled fortunately through the slips at times – Mathews shuffling his slips and gullies with the impatience of a roulette loser in a Colombo casino – his gusto carried England to the end of a difficult day which presented more questions than answers.

Mark Pettini and Mark Cosgrove made Derbyshire’s target look easy meat as Leicestershire emerged victors by nine wickets

ECB Reporters Network08-Jul-2016
ScorecardMark Pettini found Derbyshire’s target appealing [file picture]•Getty Images

Leicestershire Foxes kept their T20 season alive by comprehensively dismantling East Midlands rivals Derbyshire Falcons under the floodlights at the Fischer County Ground. A century opening stand compiled by Foxes skipper Mark Pettini and Mark Cosgrove in just ten overs made Derbyshire’s score of 158 all out look what it was: hopelessly inadequate.With eight of the previous nine games involving the Falcons having been won by the chasing side, Pettini had no hesitation in choosing to bowl after winning the toss. The opening over of the Derbyshire innings was an eventful one, as Ben Raine bowled two front foot no-balls in his first three deliveries and conceded 13 runs before Wes Durston attempted to force off the back foot and got an inside edge to wicket-keeper Lewis Hill.If that was a straightforward catch for Hill, the top edge that he held off Hamish Rutherford in Raine’s next over was anything but. Rutherford’s mishit spiralled back over the wicket-keeper’s head, butbHill turned and sprinted 40 yards towards the boundary before flinging himself full length to take the ball two handed a foot above the ground.Raine then picked up a third wicket when he pinned Chesney Hawkes leg before with a well pitched up delivery which swung back in to the tall left-hander, leaving the Falcons on 42-3 in the sixth over, but Neil Broom and Wayne Madsen steadied the ship with a partnership of 54 for the fourth wicket.Broom came into the game having failed to make much impact with the bat for the Falcons this season, but the New Zealander combined judicious placement with some well timed hitting to score his first T20 half-century of the season. Madsen was less fluent but gave Broom good support before steering Kevin O’Brien to short third man, where Mark Cosgrove held the catch above his head.Broom was unfortunate when he attempted to swing Farhaan Behardien’s delivery into the leg side, only to edge the ball into his pad and on to his off-stump, and with wickets continuing to fall, it needed a hard-hitting 45 off 23 balls from Neesham to ensure the Foxes would be required to score at eight an over to win the match.Pettini and Cosgrove quickly made the target look straightforward. Pettini, who had the majority of the early strike, was first to his half-century, hitting nine fours in going to 50 off 32 balls. Cosgrove, once he started to get the strike, was simply brutal, huge maximums off Tom Milnes and Alex Hughes among the four sixes he hit in 1 26 ball 50 before giving Durston a simple caught and bowled.While Pettini continued to play sensibly, Leicestershire’s powerful South Africa international batsman Cameron Delport was able to pick up where Cosgrove left off, hitting two sixes, the last to win the match off Matt Critchley, as Leicestershire crossed the line with more than four overs to spare.

“Not up to international standard” was the damning verdict of Australia’s coach Darren Lehmann after the tourists lost 11 for 77 on a frenetic day in Galle

Daniel Brettig in Galle05-Aug-2016″Not up to international standard” was the damning verdict of Australia’s coach Darren Lehmann after the tourists lost 11 for 77 on a hectic day in Galle to all but hand over the Warne-Muralitharan Trophy to Sri Lanka for the first time in its existence.Lehmann, who recently signed a contract extension to remain coach until October 2019, was frank in conceding that his side does not appear to have improved in playing spin bowling on Asian pitches since a 2-0 drubbing by Pakistan in the UAE in 2014. He also admitted that his players were being conclusively beaten between the ears as well as on the scoreboard by the hosts.”Disappointing full stop the way we played. Not up to international standard on that performance today,” Lehmann said. “Certainly haven’t played as we would like. Sri Lanka have played well and we haven’t. Can’t complain about the preparation from the lads and the work ethic, it gets down to the pressure in the middle of a Test match and being able to cope with it, and at the moment, we haven’t.”Certainly, some blokes have to look at themselves and how they want to go about it in these conditions and how to succeed. We’ve talked a good game in the media and the press, how we want to play, but we’re certainly not showing up at the moment.”I can’t put my finger on it really. It’s up to the players to get there and do that. We give them as much info as we possibly can, we’re pretty open in the way we want to play and the way we want to speak and all those sorts of things. It gets down to the players doing it on the ground, and at the moment, we’re letting ourselves down as a group. So they know what they want to do, it’s having the belief to do it and succeed. That’s the biggest thing with Test match cricket, especially here on the subcontinent.”Australia’s displays have been beset by similar problems to those witnessed in 2014, from batsmen failing to cover straight deliveries aimed at the stumps, to poor attacking shot selection and lapses in concentration that are seldom seen at home. This has been compounded by the fact that Sri Lanka are nowhere near as strong as Pakistan, or, for that matter, the Indian side that inflicted a similar hiding on the team coached by Mickey Arthur the year before.”Results will say we haven’t moved on, won’t they? It’s pretty simple,” Lehmann said. “So, from my point of view, and us as a group, we’ve got to get better, as simple as that. We’ve got to stop the rot. We’ve lost seven in a row, and tomorrow, we’ve got to play better to stop the rot. They know what they have to do, we’ve had lots of people who’ve played on the subcontinent help us out, so it’s not as though they haven’t got the knowledge or the knowhow to do it, it’s actually doing it out there on the ground under the pressure.”You get blame and that’s what happens when you’re a coach. If you play badly, you get blame, there’s nothing wrong with that, that’s part and parcel of professional sport. We’ve got to sit back and work out whether we’re doing the right thing. I believe we are, we’re just not implementing it on the ground. We’ve got to make sure we get the players doing what they’re supposed to be doing, and if they’re not, then we’ve got to find blokes that are going to.”The dire batting performances seen on this tour will add urgency to Cricket Australia’s search for a full-time batting assistant coach, following the departure of Michael Di Venuto earlier this year. While Lehmann’s former state and national teammate Greg Blewett had been appointed on an interim basis, and Stuart Law is in Sri Lanka while Blewett is on paternity leave, it appears a far greater level of Asian batting nous is required ahead of next year’s tour of India.”Still to be a full-time appointment there,” Lehmann said. “Diva’s left, Blewy’s there doing it at the moment and Greg had a baby, so that’s why he’s not on this tour, so Stuey’s come in to fit in there. That’s something we’ll have to look at after this series and all those things moving forward. No timeframe, but if we keep batting like this, it’ll be a bit quicker!”While acknowledging a superlative display from Mitchell Starc, who claimed 11 for 94 with minimal rest between innings, Lehmann said Australia’s spin bowlers, led by Nathan Lyon, also needed to improve. “Disappointing, same as the batters, no doubt about that,” he said.”Nathan Lyon’s experience has been very good for us over a period of time, but his record on the subcontinent’s not great. So he’s got to improve, there’s no doubt about that. Holland’s playing his first game and going to be a little bit nervous, so you give him a bit of leeway there, but, end of the day, their spinners have certainly out-bowled our spinners.”