All posts by csb10.top

The BCCI or the captain Virat Kohli might not have communicated it in Cape Town, but Ishant Sharma has said he missed the first Test because he had not recovered from an illness. Finally in the XI, Ishant did his job to cover up for the profligate strike bowlers and the big wickets of AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis even as India’s fielding faltered to allow South Africa to reach 335 on a pitch that might not be great for a fourth-innings chase.Ishant has now gathered a reputation for being India’s difficult-pitch bowler, somebody who will do the dirty work over after over. Ishant was asked if he prided in the fact that he is not used on green pitches but when long spells of hard work is required, he is called up.”Actually I cannot blame anyone for this,” Ishant said. “I was supposed to play the first Test but I fell ill as soon as we reached here [South Africa]. So I wasn’t fully recovered from the fever so I didn’t play the first game.”Obviously, I am the senior fast bowler of this team so I have to take responsibility [of bowling in difficult conditions]. If I am able to take responsibility and take those important wickets for the team, I am always up for it.”One of the big differences in Ishant’s bowling has been his assessment of the lengths to bowl. In his previous “unlucky” days, Ishant was guilty of bowling a little too short, failing to get the edges or hitting the stumps. He said keeping it simple has helped him. “I always believe in my strength and my strength is bounce, so I always try to bowl where I can finish my ball on the top of off stump,” Ishant said. “So I think that’s the best chance you give yourself to take more wickets, so that’s what I was doing.”Ishant’s first call of duty was to pull things back after an ordinary start from Mohammed Shami, but Ishant defended his bowing mates. “Bowlers are human beings after all,” Ishant said. “Not a bowling machine that we can get wickets straightaway. I was not thinking much, the game was opening up a bit because of runs, so my effort was to keep bowling in good areas, and bowl in the batsman’s weak areas, set your fields and bowl according to plans. Don’t give away too many runs, and that is what I was thinking.”Ishant also defended his fielders, who have been putting down catches at slips. Their success rate against pace since December 2013 has been 41%, but on Sunday, it was against spin that Kohli faltered. The reprieved eighth-wicket partnership added 35 more runs since Kagiso Rabada was dropped, and that could yet prove to be the deciding factor in the Test.”We have coaches for that and everybody is pointing it out,” Ishant said when asked if the bowling group discussed their frustrations overs missed chances. “We don’t have to react on all these things because it is part and parcel of the game. You know they are the fielders, and they will take brilliant catches for us, and they have taken brilliant catches for us, and I am sure they will in the future as well. So there is no need to panic in these things. All these situations, it’s okay, it’s part and parcel of the game. You just have to run hard, keep bowling and give your best to get them out.”

Ben Duckett will miss the start of the English domestic season after it was decided he would undergo surgery on a finger injury sustained at the end of the 2017 summer.Duckett will have the operation on the ring finger of his left hand next Monday, with the recovery time estimated to be 12 weeks, after he carried the injury over the last few months.The surgery means that Duckett has also been ruled out of the North v South one-day series in Barbados in late March.It has been a difficult few months for Duckett, who played four Tests for England in late 2016 against Bangladesh and India, after he was caught up in controversy in Australia for throwing a drink over James Anderson in a Perth nightclub when the England Lions squad was alongside the main Ashes party.Duckett was not sent home at the time of the incident – which came just a few weeks after the Jonny Bairstow headbutt affair at the same club – but was suspended and given a written warning at the time then omitted from the Lions squad which is currently touring West Indies.Duckett’s absence will stretch the Northamptonshire squad at the start of their County Championship campaign. A 12-week timescale takes Duckett’s likely absence into May but his return could coincide with the start of the Royal London Cup.He will be replaced in the North’s squad by Adam Hose, the Warwickshire batsman, who impressed during Birmingham Bears’ run to the NatWest T20 Blast final.A change has also been required for the South after England allrounder Liam Dawson signed for the Pakistan Super League as a replacement for Shakib Al Hasan, with Ollie Pope, the Surrey batsman, taking his place.Dawson, who is currently with England’s T20 squad for the tri-series in Australia and New Zealand, had also been set to play in the one-day leg of the Lions series against West Indies A. The selectors have yet to decide whether to replace him for that portion of the tour.

Last season, Quetta Gladiators made it to the PSL final in Lahore without their first-choice overseas players, and the depleted side was bowled out for 90 by Peshawar Zalmi, eventually losing by a massive 58 runs. This season, Quetta made it to the first eliminator with the help of their two best overseas players – Shane Watson and Kevin Pietersen – but those two pulled out from the Lahore trip and Quetta were knocked out. What would have added to Quetta’s pains was how they came close to winning on Tuesday night, when they needed three to win off the final ball, but fell short by only one run.A team that had the potential to win the title crashed out mainly because they were deprived of their best possible combination. Feeling “hurt” because of the situation, their head coach Moin Khan has urged the PCB to avoid picking players in the PSL draft who refuse to tour Pakistan. He also dismissed the importance of individual players and said the brand of PSL was taking a hit because of players pulling out at the most important stage of the tournament.”We, in the coming season, should only pick players who have the consent to visit Pakistan,” Moin said after the match. “We do not need to push for individuality as our league has now become a bigger brand and now we need to go on and think about the teams. So going into the future, we don’t need to get these players who don’t want to come to Pakistan. In fact, this is hurting Pakistan as it is sending a negative signal and affects our country’s image as well.”Their refusal on visiting Pakistan sends a false impression that we are an unsafe country, but I am pretty sure we are a safe country and they should come here and play. I personally feel we eventually shouldn’t be dependent on these players. If somebody respects Pakistan and the image of the country, he should come and play this league.”Watson and Pietersen, who had scored 319 and 155 runs respectively along with Watson’s 11 wickets, had led Quetta’s top order in the group stage while Rilee Rossouw held their middle order as they won five games out of the 10 played in the UAE. But their entire combination for the eliminator in Lahore was disturbed after Watson and Pietersen pulled out due to safety concerns. Quetta had to then pick players from outside their roster who landed in Lahore hours before the game.Thisara Perera, for example, had to take three flights to reach Lahore. Peshawar, on the contrary, had their full-strength side to play, led by West Indies’ Darren Sammy.Quetta were the most aggrieved team, led by Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed, who had to come up with a new combination for the eliminator. Moin Khan said he pushed his local players to step up despite the limitation, and dispelled the importance of overseas players but stated that he was let down by a few local players and that a few unnecessary shots cost them the game.”[I am] feeling hurt as a head coach,” Moin said after the match. “It was a good match in terms of entertainment but we made mistakes and a few unnecessary shots were played. But overall your combination is broken…it happens because Shane Watson didn’t come despite committing and about KP we always knew he wouldn’t be coming to Pakistan. So the problem is very obvious and otherwise we are not really choking because we were without our right combination and our strength was broken so we were nowhere.”Even today, our one overseas player – Thisara Perera – he joined us at a time when we were making our way to the ground and he landed in Lahore after three connections from Colombo to Dubai to Karachi to Lahore. Tom [Kohler-Cadmore] and Mahmudullah landed earlier this morning. No matter how big a player you are, your body needs rest. We had discussed in our team meeting that we don’t need to depend on our overseas players, and have to show our commitment and take responsibility as a team. Winning and losing is a part of the game but I am happy that we still managed to stretch the game in the end and we had a close finish.”

ScorecardGloucestershire duly wrapped up a deserved five-wicket Specsavers County Championship win over Kent with two sessions to spare in sunny Canterbury.Resuming on their overnight score of 61 for 1 and in pursuit of a modest victory target of 108 for their first opening round away victory in the championship since 1996, Gloucestershire wobbled somewhat in losing four more wickets before eventually crossing the win line shortly before noon.Having bowled by far the best and after batting marginally better in both innings on a lively, early-season surface, Gloucestershire deservedly travelled west with the lions’ share, banking 19 points to Kent’s paltry three.In the brightest conditions of the game visiting second-wicket partners Benny Howell and Gareth Roderick extended their stand to 75 – the highest of the match – before Kent enjoyed their first breakthrough of day four.Roderick, on 26, played back to a full off-cutter from Matt Henry to go leg before then, three balls later, Henry struck again by having left-hander James Bracey caught one-handed at third slip by Will Gidman.Two runs later Jack Taylor became the 17th player of the match to fall to an lbw appeal when he shouldered arms to a Darren Stevens off-cutter that would have demolished middle stump.With six runs required Graeme van Buuren’s attempted back foot force against Stevens pegged back off stump via a thin inside edge leaving Howell – a frequent nemesis to Kent – to finish the job off with a straight driven boundary that raised his 90-ball 50 with nine fours. His was the third half-century of a low-scoring but highly entertaining game.Graham Cowdrey, the former Kent batsman and ECB cricket liaison officer appointed for this match, intimated that the pitch would be marked above average even though the match was effectively completed inside six-action packed sessions.He said: “There was good pace and carry out there. Sure, it seamed about a little, but you expect that in an early season pitch. If you look back at the dismissals, quite a few of the wickets went to late swing, added to which, there were two or three shots played over the three days.”Gloucestershire’s head coach Richard Dawson was delighted by his side’s overall performance. He said: “Gareth Roderick’s 51 in our first innings was easily worth a hundred in the context of this game. He was exceptional and the way he and Benny Howell batted in our second innings was vital too, because they kept a high tempo and batted with intent even though the occasional ball beat the outside edge.”Gareth is a stubborn individual who puts a high price on his wicket and he’s worked hard with the coaching staff over the winter months.”We only had two days of cricket in pre-season coming into this match and we talked about embracing the challenge here because because we knew conditions were always going to be tough.”

ScorecardScott Borthwick’s unbeaten 82 guided Surrey to a comfortable Specsavers County Championship draw against Worcestershire at the Kia Oval, with the home side reaching 173 for 3 in their second innings to finish the match 81 runs in front.For Worcestershire, who began the game at the bottom of Division One table with three defeats from their first three fixtures, an 11-point haul – and seeing their batsmen pile up 526, the county’s highest first-class total at the Oval – will do much for morale. In truth, however, a flat pitch with little pace in it always made the draw the likeliest result after Surrey had themselves totalled 434 in the first innings of the match on Friday and Saturday.The final day’s play, from a Surrey perspective, was notable not just for Borthwick’s runs – which underlined his excellent start to the new season after the misery of a poor summer in 2017 – but also for Amar Virdi’s 6 for 105.The impressive 19-year-old offspinner now has 14 Championship wickets from his three appearances this season, at an average of 18.85. His latest wicket-haul followed up the 4 for 79 he took against Hampshire and then 4 for 80 against Lancashire, and was the best return of his six-match-old first-class career.Amar Virdi has had a prolific start to his County Championship season•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Virdi took all four wickets to fall in the morning session after Worcestershire had resumed on 469 for 6, having Ben Twohig caught at mid-on for 9 and Joe Leach at extra cover for 18, before catching both Josh Tongue (9) and Ed Barnard, who converted his overnight 42 into a 135-ball 66, off his own bowling. He also saw Leach dropped at short leg from the first ball he faced.Surrey openers Mark Stoneman and Rory Burns got through to lunch at 35 for no wicket, but both fell early in the afternoon session – Stoneman leg-before to Charlie Morris for 20 and Burns held low at deep square leg for 30 as he swept at Twohig’s left arm spin.Stoneman’s six Championship innings this season have now brought him only 105 runs at an average of 17.50 and a top score of just 29. The England Test opener needs to show some form in Surrey’s next match, at home to Yorkshire, ahead of the two-match series against Pakistan which starts on May 24.From 74 for 2, Borthwick was then joined by Ryan Patel in a stand of 62 to ensure no further alarms and all but ensure the draw. Patel, however, was caught at midwicket for 25, pulling at Morris, in the last over before the tea interval.Ben Foakes kept Borthwick company until hands were shaken at 4.50pm, with Surrey’s in-form wicketkeeper-batsman ending up on 11 not out. Borthwick, who played some lovely strokes through extra cover and has now scored 250 runs at an average of 50 in this embryonic four-day campaign, faced 154 balls and hit seven fours.

Sune Luus struck a brisk 35 before being run-out•ICC

Half-centuries from allrounders Sune Luus and Dane van Niekerk helped South Africa take an unassailable 2-0 lead over Bangladesh in the three-match T20I series. The 32-run win in Bloemfontein put the hosts one victory shy of another clean-sweep, having claimed the ODI series 5-0.Bangladesh had started positively in this game with the wicket of the in-form opener Lizelle Lee off the second ball of the match. Left-arm spinner Nahida Akter removed Lee for 4 – her lowest and only sub-30 score since the start of the ODI series – before medium-pacer Panna Ghosh dismissed Lee’s opening partner, debutant Tamzin Brits, for 10.Bangladesh’s early strikes, which reduced South Africa to 35 for 2 inside the Powerplay, were negated by a 96-run stand between Luus and Van Niekerk for the third wicket. The duo struck 20 fours and a six and helped propel South Africa to 169 for 4. Van Niekerk finished on 66 off 42 balls while Luus fell off the penultimate ball of the innings for a 57-ball 71 – her highest T20I score.Bangladesh were teetering on 21 for 2 after 3.5 overs of the chase. Marizanne Kapp struck with her fourth ball to dismiss opener Sanjida Islam for a duck; Shabnim Ismail, meanwhile, accounted for Rumana Ahmed. But halfway through the chase, Bangladesh were 74 for 2 and had reduced the equation to 96 needed from 60 balls.A 77-run stand between Shamima Sultana and Fargana Hoque for the third wicket anchored the innings, before Ismail dismissed Hoque. Sultana motored on to notch up Bangladesh’s maiden individual T20I fifty off only 39 balls, but she faced three more deliveries without scoring a run before being bowled. Of the 57 runs required off the last 18 balls, the visitors managed only 24. Bangladesh finished on 137 for 5 – their highest total in T20Is.

Nottinghamshire are closing in on the signing of Derbyshire’s Ben Slater.Slater, the 26-year-old opening batsman, is in the middle of a productive season for Derbyshire – he is averaging 43 in the Championship – and was understood to have attracted the interest of several counties. Only three men in Division Two of the County Championship have scored more runs this season.Nottinghamshire have lost several top-order batsmen – the likes of Greg Smith, Michael Lumb, James Taylor and, from red-ball cricket, at least, Alex Hales – over the last year or two. While Slater is solid in the red-ball game, he also has a fine record in List A cricket where he averages in excess of 50 and recently made a century against a strong Yorkshire attack.Meanwhile, Kent are understood to have shown strong interest in Nottinghamshire’s Matt Milnes and Leicestershire’s Neil Dexter.

Ashley Allen – CPL T20 / Getty

Guyana Amazon Warriors preserved their unbeaten start to CPL 2018 in improbable circumstances in a three-run win over St Lucia Stars at Providence Stadium. The visitors found new ways to maintain their incredible streak of futility since ditching the Zouks moniker at the start of 2017, frittering away an almost-certain victory from a position of 113 for 2, chasing 142.The Walton-Ronchi surge
Amazon Warriors’ openers sped their way to a half-century stand in just 5.4 overs to give the hosts a superb platform. Chadwick Walton, in particular, was creative with his punishment, following up his first three boundaries with a scooped six over fine leg off Mohammad Sami to start the fifth over. The pair eventually added 54 in seven overs before Stars turned to spin to shift the momentum.Qais of death

Legspinners have made a habit of striking on the first ball of their spells during this CPL, from Australia’s Fawad Ahmed to Nepal’s Sandeep Lamichhane. Afghanistan teenager Qais Ahmad followed in their footsteps at Providence on Saturday afternoon, beating Walton in flight after coming on in the eighth over to have the Jamaican stumped for 31.Shimron Hetmyer, who produced a sparkling half-century a few nights earlier in Warriors’ win over St Kitts & Nevis Patriots, was the next to fall to Qais. A thick edge on an attempted cut was held after a juggle by Andre Fletcher in the 12th over. The Afghan’s third and best of the night came in his next over when he beat Shoaib Malik through the gate with a googly as the Warriors had been cooled down by the end of Qais’ haul from 54 for 0 to 98 for 3.Duguid, the bad and the ugly
Umpire Nigel Duguid had a night to forget, standing out in the wrong way for a pair of lbw decisions. The first came late in the Warriors’ innings. Ronchi was holding firm on a sluggish wicket in spite of the damage done by Qais and was on 42 off 40 balls before the last delivery of the 16th over. Mark Chapman, who had been brought on to bowl for the first time of the night with his left-arm spin as Stars’ eighth bowler of the night, speared a skiddy delivery into Ronchi’s legs on a good length. The ball went straight on past Ronchi’s pull and looked to be clearly going down leg stump but Chapman’s appeal was upheld. With the anchor lifted, Warriors only scored two boundaries off the final four overs to claw to 141.A far more egregious error was made early in the Stars’ chase. A conservative start by Fletcher and David Warner saw them crawl to 28 for 0 at the end of the Powerplay. Imran Tahir came on for the seventh over and after a single by Fletcher, Warner got a full toss that he attempted to reverse sweep behind point. He edged the ball onto his glove as the ball trickled toward point with Ronchi more concerned about chasing after the ball to deny a single than supporting Tahir’s appeal.A stunned Warner then saw Tahir sprinting away toward the boundary as Duguid upheld the appeal. Not only had the ball never come close to striking Warner’s pad, but the impact with his gloves appeared to be outside off stump as well with the ball’s trajectory projected to carry well past off stump. The decision was compounded later in the over, when Tahir struck to trap Fletcher lbw, a straightforward decision, with a googly to leave Stars at 30 for 2.Unlucky 13
Lendl Simmons bashed five sixes after coming in at first drop to give the Stars a much-needed boost in the middle order. The Stars’ winless streak looked certain to end at 12 when Sherfane Rutherford spilled Simmons off a regulation chance on the cover boundary in the 16th off Sohail Tanvir and two balls later Simmons ended the over with a six to bring the equation down to 34 off four overs with eight wickets in hand.Yet The Curse of the Zouks is looking very very real for the Stars, having given away the match from that position. Rayad Emrit’s spell in the death snuffed out the Stars, beginning with the wicket of Simmons three balls into the 17th over. Chapman’s charge down the pitch to Chris Green’s offspin failed on the first ball of the 18th as Pollard and Rahkeem Cornwall could manage just three singles off the rest of the over to leave 23 off the final two overs.Emrit found himself on a hat-trick four balls into the 19th over when Pollard sliced to Jason Mohammed at extra cover and Cornwall was cleaned up by a yorker. Qais denied Emrit the hat-trick before slugging the final ball for a six over midwicket to leave 16 off the last over to win. Keemo Paul then yorked Kavem Hodge off the first ball to put Stars seven down before Mitchell McClenaghan scooped a six off his first ball over fine leg to make it ten off four. Two, one, two off the next three balls left Qais with a four to tie or six to win off the last ball. Paul fed him a thigh-high full toss on a middle-stump on silver platter, but Qais flubbed it to long-off for a single, taking Stars’ winless streak to a baker’s dozen.

A former Cricket Australia (CA) employee, sacked over a series of social media posts criticising the Tasmanian government over the availability of abortions in the state, has taken the matter to the Fair Work Commission.Angela Williamson, who had worked as CA’s government relations manager in Tasmania since 2016, was informed via formal letter on June 29 that her employment had been terminated after the Cricket Tasmania Board lost confidence in her ability to do the job due to a succession of tweets about the inaccessibility of abortions, most recently on June 18.In that message, Williamson criticised the state’s health minister Michael Ferguson, describing him as “most irresponsible … gutless and reckless” for helping the government reject a parliamentary motion to return access to abortions in public hospital. In a report published by Fairfax Media, Williamson revealed she had been compelled to fly from Hobart to Melbourne on the mainland to have a surgical abortion in February this year.”We can confirm that Cricket Australia ended its employment arrangement with Ms Williamson in late June,” a CA spokesman said. “The circumstances surrounding that decision are now the subject of legal proceedings and it would be inappropriate for Cricket Australia to publicly comment on Ms. Williamson’s specific circumstances any further.”We will continue to follow and respect the current process. Cricket Australia respects an individua’s right to their opinion. However, it expects that employees will refrain from making offensive comments that contravene the organisation’s social media policy.”Williamson’s lawyer, Kamal Faroque, outlined their concerns about events. “Our client raised an important and personal view about the need to ensure that women in Tasmania have access to appropriate reproductive health services, and that she was disappointed in how the relevant government [official] had dealt with the issue in Parliament,” he told Fairfax Media.”Those views, and her raising them, have nothing to do with Cricket Australia or Cricket Tasmania, they have nothing to do with the work that she was performing and the question needs to be asked about why she has lost her job for this. In our view the actions of Cricket Australia and Cricket Tasmania have gone too far. Political opinion is a protected attribute under the Fair Work Act, but in this instance an employer is seeking to constrain that opinion, with a person losing their job as a result.”

Ricky Ponting will miss the Twenty20 leg of Australia’s UAE tour against Pakistan and his medium-term future in the head coach Justin Langer’s plans has been placed under a cloud after he suffered a serious Achilles injury while shooting a commercial.Considered one of Langer’s closest confidantes, Ponting and his management team have had a long-term dialogue with Cricket Australia about how he is to best serve the national team while also juggling a host of other corporate and broadcasting commitments post retirement.While he had previously worked with Australia’s T20 team with some success and was also involved with the team on their ODI tour to the UK earlier this year, discussions about whether Ponting would be going to the UAE were still taking place when he suffered an Achilles tear kicking a football during a shoot for one of his sponsors.Having undergone surgery to repair the tear last week, Ponting’s mobility will be restricted for three to six months, making it difficult for him to fulfil the sort of assistant coaching roles Langer had envisaged for him whenever available. Nevertheless, CA and Ponting will continue to discuss ways of involving him in the Australian team set-up.The injury is not expected to interfere with Ponting’s new role as Channel Seven’s biggest commentary signing for their free-to-air coverage of Australian cricket this summer, which commences with the first Test against India in Adelaide in early December.The unavailability of Ponting is a blow to the developing coaching tenure of Langer, though, given the pair’s closeness. Langer spoke recently of how the magnitude of the job – rehabilitating Australian cricket after the Newlands ball-tampering scandal and amid two concurrent reviews into the culture of the team and CA – was keeping him awake at night, and that he needed to know who he trusted.”It’s the first time in my adult life I’ve woken up in the middle of the night,” he told . “I did it a few times in England. I’ve done it a few times since I’ve been home. It’s bizarre but hopefully as I start getting my feet under the table and I start knowing who I trust around my new team of people at Cricket Australia, hopefully I start sleeping better.”Certainly I’m gaining greater clarity in the foundations of what we are trying to achieve in the team for the next few years. I’m getting clarity about leadership. My huge focus is organic leadership and it can’t just be about the title C or VC, it’s got to be about developing these young blokes.”If I leave this role and there’s probably six or seven guys who you could make captain tomorrow then I reckon I’ve done a pretty good job because if we do that … then not only will we be playing good cricket and I reckon the Australian public will be proud of us again, we’ll have earned respect and there will be plenty of heroes out there for Australian kids, and that’s the way it’s always been in Australian cricket.”The support staff Langer takes with him to the UAE will be largely unchanged from the group that his predecessor Darren Lehmann took on the fateful trip to South Africa, with David Saker as assistant and bowling coach, Graeme Hick as batting coach and Brad Haddin as fielding coach. All are under contract until the end of the 2019 Ashes in England.Cricket Australia declined to comment.