All posts by n8rngtd.top

Allrounder will follow World Cup call-up with stint at Ageas Bowl

ESPNcricinfo staff08-May-2019South Africa allrounder Chris Morris will join Hampshire for this year’s Vitality Blast.The 32-year-old Morris was this week called into South Africa’s World Cup squad as a replacement for fast bowler Anrich Nortje, who was ruled out of the tournament because of a fractured thumb.Morris will join Hampshire at the end of his World Cup commitments and will be available for the entire Blast season.A fierce right-arm seamer and destructive middle-order hitter, Morris has made 63 appearances so far for his national side since his debut in a T20I against New Zealand in 2012. He averages 20.50 with the ball in T20Is with a strike rate of 130.39 with the bat.Playing domestically for the Titans, Morris has also featured in several franchise competitions around the world, including the IPL and CPL, and he played for Surrey in the 2016 Blast.”I’m really looking forward to joining Hampshire for the Vitality Blast,” Morris said. “It’s an exciting tournament and it’s an exciting summer coming up – I can’t wait to get there and play at the Ageas Bowl and express what I can do.”Hampshire director of cricket, Giles White said: “We were delighted when Chris agreed early on to join us for the season. He’s a dynamic batsman in the middle-order and a handful with the ball both up front and at the death, so he’s a great fit for us and hopefully he’ll make a big difference this summer.”Hampshire begin their quest to reach an eighth T20 finals day in 10 years on July 19 when they host Sussex.

In an error-strewn game, Sri Lanka did just about enough right to secure their first points and hand Afghanistan their second successive defeat

The Report by Shamya Dasgupta04-Jun-2019
As it happened: Afghanistan v Sri LankaTwo teams, both doing a lot of things wrong. In the end, Sri Lanka did just about enough right and got on the points table with a 34-run (DLS method) win, preventing Afghanistan from recording their first World Cup win over a full-member nation. In the process, they also ensured that Lasith Malinga finally figured in an ODI win after July 6, 2017 – he had been part of 21 losses and one no-result in between.For Afghanistan, the day started well with the right call on the coin, but Hamid Hassan missed his lines and lengths completely upfront to concede 31 runs in his first two overs. Dawlat Zadran was better only in comparison and the ground fielding even worse than what Hassan dished out. If Afghanistan were in the contest despite all that, it was only due to one man: Mohammad Nabi. Nabi’s four wickets – including three in a chaotic over – put Sri Lanka in a hole they never quite got out of but rain and a revised target later, a batting effort even poorer than the Sri Lankans’ meant Afghanistan finished second best.WATCH on Hotstar – Kusal Perera’s punchy half-century (India only)Lasith Malinga savours the winning moment•Getty Images

But, chasing 187 in 41 overs after Sri Lanka were bowled out for 201 in 32.4, Afghanistan met with their old frailties: lack of patience, an obsession with big shots, and a failure to bat in phases. Hazratullah Zazai looked good – in his smash-everything way – early on, but despite a let-off when he skied Malinga only for Kusal Mendis to drop a sitter at deep square leg, he only managed 30 off 25 before Nuwan Pradeep had his number. Though it really was Thisara Perera’s wicket, as he followed Zazai’s mistimed hook and threw in the dive to grab the dipping ball at fine leg.That made it 44 for 3 – Mohammad Shahzad and Rahmat Shah had been dismissed earlier – and 57 for 5 was only around the corner, but amid a drizzle that didn’t really go away but never really threatened to push the players off the field either, Gulbadin Naib and Najibullah Zadran scripted a remarkable recovery.The pair, up against a bowling attack with more experience and nous than them, fought hard, played their shots but without much risk, and added 64 runs for the sixth wicket. A straight drive from Naib off Malinga was especially pleasing to the eye, though when they threw their bats, they mostly went aerial.But once Thisara got a gentle cutter to nip in big time to hit Naib’s off stump, the wheels came off the chase. Najibullah tried, farming the strike in the company of the tail-enders, and kept Afghanistan in the fight. who knows what might have been had he a partner he could depend on. As it turned out, he went for a run that wasn’t and could only trot off once Dimuth Karunaratne knocked the stumps down at the non-striker’s end. That, really, was the end of it. Malinga applied the finishing touches with two yorkers that took out the stumps, but Pradeep was the star of the bowling effort, his pace and the steep bounce he generated netting him 4 for 31, his career-best figures, and the Man-of-the-Match award.In the first innings, it was all about Nabi. Four times in five balls he looked like he had a wicket. Three of those times, he actually did. Sri Lanka, who started their 22nd over on 144 for 1, were suddenly 146 for 4 at the end of it. Nabi’s ploy was to go slow, slower, and slowest, and it worked like a charm on a grippy surface.Lahiru Thirimanne was the first of those three, waiting for Nabi’s flighted delivery on off stump to arrive, then pushing at the ball and under-edging on to the stumps. Next ball, Nabi had new man Kusal Mendis edging, but just past Rahmat at slip; the very next ball, it went to hand. A ball later, this time Angelo Mathews, nicked off to Rahmat off Shahzad’s pads. Just like that, Sri Lanka’s projected score on ESPNcricinfo’s forecaster dipped from 333 to 217.Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan and Hamid Hassan celebrate a wicket•Getty Images

It had started beautifully for Sri Lanka after they were put in. In overcast conditions, Hassan conceded 15 and 16 runs in his first two overs, and Sri Lanka were on their way till Nabi and Naib got together to stem the flow of runs.By the end of the tenth over, though, Sri Lanka were cruising, the 136-run rollover against New Zealand forgotten.True, Karunaratne was crawling, after carrying his bat through the collapse the other day, but Kusal Perera, opening instead of Thirimanne, was in fine fettle, chugging along in style. They put on 92 for the first wicket – the highest partnership in the game. Afghanistan’s fielding, average at the best of times, was fraying at the edges at that stage, and it was all Sri Lanka.
The tide had to turn, and it did, and it was courtesy Nabi, who struck first ball of the 14th over. Karunaratne stepped out, swung, but never got any sort of connection to a ‘slower’, going only as far as Najibullah at long leg.Then came the three-wicket burst, and the meltdown was on. Hassan, after that awful two-over spell, came back and hit a beautiful length and aimed fourth stump. Dhananjaya de Silva succumbed, hanging his bat out and bringing Shahzad into business.Udana’s straight six off Nabi was really just an aberration as the wickets continued to fall. When Kusal nicked a reverse-sweep off Rashid Khan for 78, Sri Lanka were 180 for 8.That’s when the rain came down, kept everyone out for almost three hours, and when the game restarted, lasted four more overs and, courtesy Suranga Lakmal’s biggies off Dawlat, Sri Lanka got past 200. It was enough in the end.

“It is a sad day, and maybe some of the players are going to move on.”

Danyal Rasool20-Jul-2019Former Zimbabwe batsman Grant Flower believes Zimbabwe Cricket’s perpetually crisis-ridden state might have contributed to the ICC’s decision to suspend them. The drastic decision, which immediately froze all payment to Zimbabwe Cricket and barred the nation from participating in ICC events, took many by surprise, particularly since this was the first time a Full Member had been sanctioned in this manner.Flower, however, believes their lamentable track record, as well as the glacial rate of progress despite the ICC ploughing bail-out cash into the board over the years, had counted against them.”I can understand the player’s frustrations, but unfortunately with Zimbabwe cricket, it sounds like the ICC have just had enough,” Flower told ESPNcricinfo. “Regarding money owed and money lent, and money the ICC gave Zimbabwe that they’re probably never going to see again, it sounds like maybe they’ve run out of patience.”I think over time, the ICC have just been worn down by all the corruption, the fraud, and the problems with Zimbabwe cricket not being able to get its house in order. Maybe they thought a jolt to their system would make some people realise what was expected of them. They would have reasoned Zimbabwe needed to understand that at some stage, you’ve got to put your house in order, and we can’t keep propping you up like we have been doing over the years.”We can go back so many years to when things were very badly run. It’s pretty obvious what was happening at the time and the people responsible who were involved. And I think the current crop of players and the interim board, who are really good people, are being punished because the ICC felt they needed to take a stand.”ALSO READ: ‘Do we just burn our kits and apply for jobs?’ – Sikandar RazaThe most ironic, and from a Zimbabwean point of view, frustrating, point in this state of affairs is the timing of the suspension. In September 2018, former Olympic swimmer and Zimbabwe’s most famous sportsperson Kirsty Coventry was appointed minister of Sports and Recreation Committee (SRC). Under her stewardship, there was a belief that a corner had been turned, and that Zimbabwe Cricket would benefit from the increased accountability the revamped SRC was expected to deliver. It was a point Flower accepted and said both the timing of the decision, as well as the consistency with which it was applied across the cricketing world, didn’t quite add up for him.”My understanding is the SRC is a public body and not exactly government,” he said. “I think there’s quite a big difference there and I’m surprised the media hasn’t picked up on that. The SRC now is slightly more transparent. I don’t know all the members, but I do know Kirsty Coventry and she’s a good lady, a good person. And a few other people that are involved in it you could say the same of. So if you got someone at the top like Kirsty there, her hands might be tied in a lot of places, but there should be more good things happening than bad.”Regarding government intervention, it’s curious how the ICC have decided to interpret that. There are other countries where it’s publicly stated that some of the times that certain things will be discussed and decided at government level. So I think there’s quite a big contradiction there from the ICC.”Zimbabwe cricket isn’t a stranger to deep crises. Flower played a part in arguably the gravest one of all, when in 2004, he, along with 14 other white cricketers, walked out on Zimbabwe cricket after captain Heath Streak was dismissed following a disagreement over the squad’s re-selection based on what Streak interpreted as unofficial racial quotas. It saw 21-year old Tatenda Taibu become captain, and an inexperienced side suffer a drastic downturn in results. One year later, they would withdraw from Test cricket for over half a decade.Flower believed this particular bind was even graver, especially because it effectively prevented Zimbabwe from playing cricket altogether. “Even when we were leaving, there were a good bunch of youngsters coming through that could get the country’s cricket going. But that’s not the case anymore, with even the domestic competitions unable to take place. For it to be stopped until October at the very least, the guys are probably going to go and play in the leagues, seek a future elsewhere to try and look after their families, So yeah, I certainly think this is far worse.”An impending exodus threatens to plunge Zimbabwe cricket into further turmoil. Solomon Mire has already announced his retirement, while Sikandar Raza hinted at it in a post on Twitter and interview with ESPNcricinfo. Kyle Jarvis wryly noted that “we are not far behind you” in response to Mire’s decision to quit, while, with no money to pay players, administrators and groundstaff, a secure future with the international side looks next to impossible. Flower said it was a harsh lesson Zimbabwe were learning, and hoped there could be a favourable resolution to the dispute in October.
“Unfortunately in Zimbabwe corruption is rife. When you live there, you get used to it. It’s quite an unhealthy state of life and affairs which has become the norm. It’s quite frightening, but until you live there, you don’t quite actually realise that.”The scapegoats are the players and some of the good administrators. I saw this thing on Twitter about Harare Sports club, it’s a beautiful ground and at the moment it’s just going to waste because no one is being paid and the staff have left. It’s publicly owned by Harare Sports Club and the upkeep is paid for by Zimbabwe Cricket so unfortunately those sorts of things may just go to ruin.”It is a sad day, and maybe some of the players are going to move on. Most of the players are still quite young, like Brendan Taylor and Kyle Jarvis, who left their county to return to Zimbabwe. They could still ply their trade elsewhere; it’d be a pity it won’t be for their country of birth.”But life goes on eh?”For those players with no offers abroad and the hundreds of non-cricketing staff that ZC employ, even that’s barely a guarantee.

Need to keep ‘making good decisions at crunch moments’, says the wicketkeeper-batsman as Sri Lanka chase series sweep against New Zealand

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Colombo21-Aug-2019Dimuth Karunaratne, Sri Lanka’s relatively new captain, doesn’t ride players hard, doesn’t tear them down for taking aggressive options, and when criticism is required, he ensures it’s constructive. Perhaps this is all a bit sappy, but it the feedback from several members of this Sri Lanka dressing room.Thisara Perera spoke of Karunaratne being “like a brother” during the World Cup campaign. Acting coach Rumesh Ratnayake spoke of the calmness Karunaratne spreads through the dressing room. And now, ahead of the second Test against New Zealand, Niroshan Dickwella has given Sri Lanka’s fifth Test captain in three years an endorsement of his own.Dickwella had been Karunaratne’s deputy during the Test series victory in South Africa. And although no vice-captain has been officially named for this series, with Dickwella’s own place in the XI not assured ahead of the first Test, he spoke about the unique qualities Karunaratne has brought to the role.ALSO READ: Fernando – Sri Lanka are winning, but it’s in spite of the system“Dimuth is a very different kind of captain,” he said. “His way of managing players is different, and every captain has their own style. I’ve played a lot with Dimuth and what he does is give the player the freedom to go and express themselves 100% in the match.”What Dimuth says is go and do what you want to do, and what you feel you can do. If we make a mistake, he’ll pull us aside and say this happened, why don’t we fix that mistake for next time? He talks a lot about being confident about your abilities. And he gives you that confidence.”Sri Lanka have so far won each of the three Tests they have played under Karunaratne, but they arrive now at a venue at which they have struggled. Sri Lanka have lost five of their seven most recent Tests at the P Sara Oval, including their last match to New Zealand here, in 2012. The pitch, Dickwella said, should favour fast bowlers and batsmen more than the Galle surface, on which neither team crossed 300. Sri Lanka’s victory in Galle was ultimately comfortable, but the team remains wary of a New Zealand resurgence, particularly at a venue that often provides good bounce for seam bowlers.”It’s a big challenge. Having won one game, we have a big responsibility to win the series. We have the confidence, but we need to keep making good decisions at crunch moments,” Dickwella said. “Close-in fielders, including me, have missed some chances in Galle, but those were difficult chances – you don’t have even seconds to react. But still, we spoke about that. We’re happy to improve on those areas.”In the batting, we were 142 for 2 and then collapsed to 168 for 7 in the first-innings, so we have to improve on that as well. When it comes to bowling, when one bowler is bowling well, from one end, we need to build a partnership from the other end as well.”

The former India captain feels that with Ravi Shastri having been around for as long as he has, the team should start winning world titles

ESPNcricinfo staff24-Aug-2019Virat Kohli often speaks about doing whatever it takes to win. He says that’s how he is able to bat on even when he is running on empty and the same philosophy had led to him fielding 38 different Test XIs at the start of his Test captaincy. It appears the clock has been reset again with India going into their first match of the World Championship without premier offspinner R Ashwin, triggering the attention of, among others, former India captain Sourav Ganguly.

Batting coach candidate Rathour ‘a fantastic guy’

Sourav Ganguly had glowing words for Vikram Rathour, who is favourite to replace Sanjay Bangar as India’s batting coach. “I have played with him, our Test match debuts were in the same series. He just made his debut one game ahead of me, and I played with him in the junior levels as well. Fantastic guy, he’s a fantastic gentleman.
“He’s worked hard at the grassroots level with Himachal Pradesh. I am the president of the Cricket Association of Bengal and I’ve dealt with him in the last four-five years in sending teams to Himachal when Himachal would come for the Ranji Trophy matches. He’s risen from absolutely the basics of Ranji Trophy and putting the hard yards with Himachal boys so hopefully he does well, hopefully all of them along with Bharat, and the fielding coach they can get this team to win bigger medals and bigger trophies because this team has got all the talent.

“I would say that this is one area where Virat needs to just be a bit more consistent,” Ganguly said at an event in Mumbai on Friday. “Pick players and give them a bit more consistent opportunities – for them to get that confidence, rhythm, I have said that before. You saw how Shreyas Iyer played in that ODI series [136 runs at 68 against West Indies] – you pick him and you give him the freedom to play those matches and I think that needs to happen with a lot of players and I am sure Virat will do that.”ALSO READ – Ashwin left out of Antigua XI in ‘astonishing’ selection callKohli’s mixing and matching of personnel coincided with several injuries to key players but there were also instances where first-choice picks like Ajinkya Rahane (Cape Town 2017) and Cheteshwar Pujara (St Lucia 2016) were placed aside for more aggressive options. And, in the ongoing Test against West Indies, the spinner that the team trusted – Ravindra Jadeja – scored a backs-to-the-wall half-century that looks set to provide India with a sizeable lead. Still he had to beat a couple of in-form players to get into the XI.”I was also surprised to see Kuldeep Yadav left out,” Ganguly said. “The last Test he played against Australia, he got five wickets, if you remember in Sydney on a good flat pitch, he picked up five wickets against Australia. But Jadeja also has been in good form, the surface yesterday at Antigua needed three fast bowlers because we saw the seam movement the fast bowlers got and it was a question of the spin.”Ashwin’s record is phenomenal to leave him out in the West Indies, so it’s a decision which Kohli has made and we will find out in the next couple of days how far Jadeja goes on to pick wickets on this surface. Because this pitch will get up and down, as the game progresses, you can see that sort of indication from the first day of the Test, we will have to wait to see but that’s the competition of Indian cricket.”Ganguly also believes that the team – and especially head coach Ravi Shastri, who has just been reappointed for a two-year term – have been together for long enough to start winning world titles.”Ravi has been around for a while – five years he’s completed so he’s got an extension for two more years – hopefully now India can now go all the way in the two upcoming tournaments that are coming up, which is the T20 World Cup and the Champions Trophy which has now become a T20 format,” Ganguly said. “So I hope they do well, they’re doing well, they get to the semi-finals. In 2015 in Australia they struggled, in 2017 in Mumbai West Indies got the better of them and even in this World Cup (2019) so hopefully they will get to the next step and create a winning combination.”

Joe Root shows leadership qualities with gritty innings that keeps England alive in chase

George Dobell in Leeds24-Aug-2019Joe Root wasn’t just battling to save this match. And he wasn’t just battling to save his side’s hopes in the Ashes. He was, perhaps, battling to save his captaincy.Few England captains survive two Ashes series defeats to lead their side into a third. Archie MacLaren did so, but that was more than a century ago and he had been replaced in between series. Archie didn’t have Twitter to deal with, either.But it wasn’t just defeat that threatened Root. It was the thought that captaincy may be getting the better of him. England had been a bit of a shambles at the end of day two and the start of day three. Root himself had put down a relatively straightforward catch at slip – Marnus Labuschagne was on 14 at the time; it may yet prove a crucial moment – they had conceded over-throws and started to snipe at one another in the field. Increasingly it was looking hard to sustain the belief that Root was the man to drive this side forward.ALSO READ: Labuschagne sets the example for Australia – and EnglandMore than that, Root’s primary problem was the diminishing returns from his own bat. In a side as parched for runs as England, any drop of output from their best batsman cannot be accommodated. Going into this innings, Root was averaging 18.85 in Test cricket this summer having suffered consecutive ducks in his previous two innings. Overall, he averaged 52.88 when not captain and 40.41 when captain. The evidence was starting to suggest he had been worn down by the burden of the role. The whispers were growing that, for his own good as much as the team’s, it might be necessary to make a change.That would be a nightmare for England’s team management. There are few obvious alternatives for the role – Ben Stokes, perhaps, or, maybe Stuart Broad for the rest of the summer – and it would spell defeat in England’s rebuilding efforts of the last few years. But, tough though the decision might have been, it was increasingly looking as if it might appear necessary.Moments after Root came to the crease, England subsided to 15 for 2 requiring 344 more for victory. It looked a hopeless task. No England side has ever made such a total to win a Test and there’s not much about this side – the team that have lost 10 wickets in a single session four times in the last three years – to suggest they will be the ones to change history.But, at last, they found some resistance. Not swashbuckling, counterattacking, blistering resistance. The more substantial kind. The kind that is prepared to wait and leave and take blows to the body. The kind that reminds us that batting isn’t just about eye-catching shots, but tight defence and well-judged leaves. It’s about hours of careful accumulation.Joe Root walks off with an unbeaten 75•AFP

Root was beaten at times. Josh Hazlewood, in particular, bowled beautifully and might, with a slice of luck, have won the battle. But while England pushed and prodded at deliveries in the first innings, here Root defended with bat in front of his eyes, played the line and refused to be lured into jabbing at the ball as it left him. His first three boundaries were all the result of soft hands combatting well directed deliveries and guided – sometimes with more than a hint of edge about them – to third man.As his innings progressed, there were one or two more expansive shots. When Nathan Lyon over-pitched, for example, Root leaned into a cover driven boundary that registered his half-century from 120-balls. The next delivery, Lyon dropped short and Root turned him to fine leg for four more. And when Lyon removed his slip, Root responded with a reverse-sweep for another boundary.But he had earned the right to those strokes. He had seen off the bowlers at their freshest and the ball at its hardest. He had forced them into third and fourth spells and, for perhaps the first time this series, exposed the limitations of Australia’s three-man pace attack. This is how Test batting used to look.One of the more remarkable moments in Root’s innings came when he had scored 59. It earned no applause and will probably not feature on any highlights package. But his ability to keep out one delivery from Hazlewood – a ball that jagged in and kept horribly low – was remarkable; a testament to the batsman’s hand-eye coordination and the manner in which he was keeping his eye on the ball.It was, for the most part, good old-fashioned Test batting. There was none of this nonsense about needing to be positive or putting the pressure back on the bowler by hitting them for boundaries. Instead it was about the importance of remaining compact, the importance of wearing bowlers down and the importance of selling his wicket for the highest price possible. It was, in short, the innings of a leader.He received admirable support from Joe Denly. There have been times in this series – really quite long times, not least in this game – when Denly has looked some way short of the standard required to sustain success at this level. Even in this innings, there were times when his most productive shot was the leave; so late was he on some leaves, that the ball flashed away off the face of the withdrawing bat to the boundary.But there should be no doubting his toughness or determination. The Australian bowlers gave him a wonderfully sustained examination against the short-ball and, while he rarely looked anything other than hugely uncomfortable, he never took a backward step and he never gave it away. Eventually, he too produced a cut, a clip and a drive or two that suggested this attack could, in time, be overcome. He earned this half-century through bravery, bruises and bloody-mindedness.And then there’s Stokes. Forget, for a moment, the fact that he reached stumps having batted 50 balls for 2. That’s an admirable demonstration of restraint, for sure. But it pales into insignificance beside his effort with the ball. Had it not been for Stokes’ incredible spell – his 24.2 overs, every one of them dripping with pace and hostility, were broken only by night and four balls from Jofra Archer – this Ashes campaign would have been decided already. Not for the first time, his figures – 3 for 56 and 2 not out – provide little insight into the enormity of his commitment and contribution.Australia remain overwhelming favourites for this match and this series. With the pitch exhibiting signs of uneven bounce and a new ball due after eight overs on the fourth day, Root may consider that his work has hardly begun. It would be little less than a miracle if England pulled this off.But Root has, at least, shown that he has the character and skill to perform under pressure. And he has shown the leadership qualities to coax performances out of his team. Maybe, just maybe, Root can lead his side through such hardships in the manner in which Allan Border did so when captaining Australia during the defeat of 1985 and 1986-87. Border, after all, then went on to lead his side to success in the next three Ashes series. There were moments, at least, on Saturday when Root suggested he had the skill and the fortitude to do something similar.

Imran Tahir takes three wickets to help bowl out Jamaica Tallawahs cheaply

The Report by Shashank Kishore04-Oct-2019Guyana Amazon Warriors. Table toppers, unbeaten, full of confidence. What could go wrong? Well, eight balls into the game, they lost four wickets to Oshane Thomas and Derval Green. Intriguingly, both of them were on hat-tricks at that stage, with Thomas’ wickets coming off the last two balls of the first over and Green’s off the first two balls of the second.Neither of them got there, and with their backs to the wall, Shoaib Malik, the only overseas captain in CPL 2019, resurrected the innings via an 82-run stand with Sherfane Rutherford. Malik finished unbeaten on 73 to help Amazon Warriors post 156. This was 77 too many for Jamaica Tallawahs, who looked defeated at the halfway mark itself, and were bowled out in 16.3 overs. Amazon Warriors, meanwhile, remain unbeaten in CPL 2019 with one league game remaining.The four-in-four magic
This was by all means a bat-first pitch. Tallawahs knew it would get slower and stop on the batsmen as the game progressed, which is why they couldn’t have bargained for a better start. In the very first over, Thomas bowled Brandon King as he backed away to slap a length ball over cover, and then had Shimron Hetmyer caught behind, albeit in controversial circumstances with replays suggesting no conclusive evidence for the edge.Off the first two balls of the next over, Green beat Chandrapaul Hemraj for pace by pushing him back and flattening the leg stump before getting Nicholas Pooran lbw with a full inswinger that tailed in late to crash into the pads. Eight balls, eight runs, four wickets. Tallawahs were on fire.The revivalMalik and Rutherford walked in to a crisis and walked out of one very quickly. From the fourth to seventh overs, Rutherford counter-attacked to ensure they had at least one boundary every over. Off Green’s second, Rutherford carved out three fours to put the pressure right back. Malik quickly slipped into the role of second fiddle, the pair raising their half-century stand off just 39 balls; Rutherford’s contribution was 33.Tallawahs were slightly shaken by the counter and continued to slip, not even Rutherford’s wicket to break the stand coming as a respite. They had let Malik off the hook on 20 when Zahir Khan misjudged and eventually put down a sitter at short fine-leg in the 12th over off Dwayne Smith.This merely proved to be the trigger for Malik to go on the attack as he brought up a half-century off just 35 deliveries. Then he took apart Thomas at the death as the bowler erred consistently in lengths to concede 26 off the penultimate over. Malik finished on 73 not out and Amazon Warriors had momentum by their side.Tallawahs stifled in the PowerplayChris Green quietly continues to make heads turn. The Australian selectors may well have an excellent Powerplay spin option to consider for next year’s T20 World Cup, because he is accurate, economical, gets the ball to skid, bounce and varies his angles well. All this helped get rid of Chris Gayle first ball when Green went around the stumps and got one to fizz straight on and beat Gayle on the inside edge. Malik cleverly went with spin at the other end too, with Imran Tahir, who had Chadwick Walton hole out to long-on in the fourth over.Glenn Phillips and Liton Das limped to 26 for 2 in the Powerplay. Phillips looked to up the ante as he hit Qais Ahmed, the Afghanistan legspinner, for successive fours in the seventh over to signal a change in intent, but with the asking rate spiraling, he holed out at long-on. It was the start of another collapse, the second of the night.Team hat-trick, againQais impressed with his variety and his back-flip celebrations, too. He had Smith with a ripping legbreak and Imran Khan with a topspinner off the last two balls off the 14th over. Off the first ball of the next, Keemo Paul, the only fast bowler employed by Amazon Warriors, had Liton mistime a pull straight to midwicket. Steven Jacobs averted four in four by a hair’s breadth as a strong lbw appeal was turned down, with replays proving he may have been struck a tad too high. Two balls later, he too was gone and Tallawahs were 70 for 8. It summed up a sorry tale of a season where whatever could go wrong went wrong.

Batsman was part of Test squad for New Zealand tour in 2017-18

ESPNcricinfo staff18-Nov-2019Liam Livingstone has decided against entering the upcoming IPL auction in a bid to return to England’s Test squad by impressing in Division One of the County Championship.Livingstone, who is yet to win his Test cap but was part of the squad for the New Zealand series in 2017-18, played four games for Rajasthan Royals last season, but has left the franchise by mutual consent and will not put his name forward for the 2020 edition of the tournament.While it is two years since his only taste of international cricket – a pair of T20Is against South Africa in 2017 – Livingstone is still only 26, and hopes that a strong start to the Championship season will put him back on England’s radar.”I loved the experience of playing in the IPL,” Livingstone said, “but I have decided to put a renewed focus on first-class cricket next summer.”I am committed to improving my game in all formats and I still have hopes of playing Test cricket; the best way to achieve that is by impressing in Division One.”I hugely enjoyed being part of the County Championship side last season. The lads played some exceptional red-ball cricket and I am optimistic about what we can achieve together moving forward.”After a lean 2018, in which he scored just 336 Championship runs at 24.00 and failed to reach 50 as Lancashire were relegated from Division One, Livingstone enjoyed a better first-class season in 2019 after relinquishing the captaincy, making 599 runs at an average of 46.07.”To have Liam available for the start of the season is welcome news,” said Paul Allott, Lancashire’s director of cricket. “He is a senior member of the changing room and undoubtedly improves our side in first-class cricket.”With an enhanced focus on County Championship cricket in the early months of the 2020 season, we need to ensure we hit the ground running on our return to what will be a competitive Division One. Liam’s availability will help us to achieve this.”Livingstone will be available to play for Lancashire for the whole of the County Championship and T20 Blast seasons, though will miss the One-Day Cup due to his commitments in the Hundred. He was widely expected to be picked early in the draft for the tournament by Manchester Originals, but was instead snapped up in the first round by Birmingham Phoenix.Livingstone is currently playing in the Mzansi Super League, South Africa’s domestic T20 tournament, and has entered the draft for the Pakistan Super League. He will also appear in the Big Bash as one of Perth Scorchers’ overseas players, signalling that his hopes of making England’s squad for next year’s T20 World Cup are still alive.

England’s resolve broken during four-wicket afternoon session as they slip to an innings defeat

The Report by Alan Gardner25-Nov-2019New Zealand marked the arrival of Test cricket in Bay of Plenty with an emphatic victory over England. These are times of rich promise for Kane Williamson’s side and they made light of the suggestion that the surface at Mount Maunganui might be too flat to provide a result, Neil Wagner’s ebullient five-wicket haul seeing them home with plenty of room to spare on the final day.For England, it was a case of new coach, new approach, but largely the same result. Having won the toss and gained first use of the pitch, a first-innings total of 353 was soon shown up as inadequate by New Zealand’s more ruthless approach. The brittle nature of their batting was then exposed for a second time, with no one managing more than Joe Denly’s 35 as they crumbled to an innings defeat.ALSO READ: ‘Missed opportunity’ with bat cost England – RootNeeding to bat for most of the day in order to squeeze out of the game with a draw, England lost four wickets during the afternoon session to fatally undermine their cause. Wagner claimed three of them in a five-over burst before tea that ripped the guts out of England’s resistance, with a ninth-wicket stand of 59 between Sam Curran and Jofra Archer only serving to underline what might have been achievable.New Zealand have not lost a Test at home since 2017, and the way they wrestled control in this match – through the record-breaking feats of BJ Watling and Mitchell Santner and a concerted team effort with the ball – ably demonstrated why they sit No. 2 in the ICC’s Test rankings. Watling was named Man of the Match for his marathon double-hundred and while Santner could not add to the three vital wickets he had claimed on the fourth evening, there was a flying catch to savour as New Zealand surged towards victory.Although England did threaten to draw the game out, losing just one wicket in the first 41 overs of the day, it is a marker of New Zealand’s collective strength that someone always seems to stand up when required. Wagner, who looks like he would celebrate the successful purchase of a new hoover with a fist-pumping run towards the cashiers, charged into the fray during the afternoon session to break the tourists resolve.England’s batsmen did, however, lend the odd helping hand. Perhaps most disappointing for Joe Root, the man hoping to help build a new era for England in Test cricket under Chris Silverwood, was his own dismissal and that of his vice-captain, Ben Stokes. Both departed to ill-judged strokes against balls that were not threatening their stumps, clearing the path for Wagner to run through the rest of the line-up.

Watch cricket on ESPN+

New Zealand v England is available in the US on ESPN+. Subscribe to ESPN+ and tune in to the T20I series.

The loss of Stokes, England’s top-scorer in the first innings, dealt the gravest blow to their hopes of saving the game. He and Denly had taken the score to 121 for 4, approaching the afternoon drinks break, when Tim Southee’s perseverance outside off stump was rewarded as Stokes was bowled off his inside edge trying to force a wide delivery.New Zealand, and Wagner, sensed their moment. Denly’s 142-ball vigil was ended a few overs later, when Wagner went around the wicket and found some extra bounce from a length to flick the glove – Kumar Dharmasena declined the initial appeal but Williamson immediately, and confidently, reviewed.Ollie Pope was then suckered in Wagner’s next over, mishitting what looked like a wide full toss but was actually a knuckleball towards cover, where Santner continued a memorable Test by clinging on a full stretch. When Jos Buttler opted to leave Wagner’s first delivery with the second new ball, only to see it crash into the base of off stump, the game was effectively up. Curran and Archer stitched together a partnership to extend proceedings into the final session, thwarting Santner’s attempts to add a five-for to his hundred; but Wagner returned to claim the last two wickets with consecutive balls and seal an impressive win.The teams came back for the final day at Bay Oval with two outcomes on the table. Either New Zealand would take the seven wickets required, and possibly knock off a few runs, to claim victory and a 1-0 lead in the two-match series, or England and the pitch would conspire to deliver a draw in Mount Maunganui’s maiden Test.The initial signs were that bowling out England for a second time would be hard work, despite the pitch increasingly offering assistance to spin – and the departure of Trent Boult for treatment on a side problem after bowling just one over must have been a concern for Williamson. New Zealand only managed one breakthrough during the morning, but the fact that the departing batsman was Root would have encouraged hopes that they could get the job done.Root, fresh to the crease after Jack Leach’s dismissal from the final ball of day four, had looked reasonably assured, clipping a couple of fours off Santner but otherwise taking his time to get in. However, facing a field with three catchers in the covers, he was surprised by Colin de Grandhomme going short and steered limply to gully, departing having failed to make a significant contribution to the England innings for the second time in the match.

The captain insisted all was well in the South African camp, describing the divisive rhetoric surrounding the side as ‘outside noise’

Firdose Moonda15-Jan-2020Faf du Plessis will not be drawn into a social (or any other kind of) media battle over his form or comparisons with other players, specifically Temba Bavuma, who continues to crop up in conversations despite not playing in South Africa’s ongoing series against England.Bavuma was dropped for the Newlands Test after recovering from a hip injury that kept him out of the first match, and has been sent back to play on the domestic circuit. At the time, du Plessis explained that “weight of runs,” was the only way for Bavuma to work his way back into the XI. While that made sense from a cricketing perspective – Bavuma averaged 19.84 in 2019 – it struck a nerve with Bavuma supporters. They argued on two fronts: dropping Bavuma robbed the country of its only black African batsman and so diminished representation and further disenfranchised the majority, and that du Plessis himself had been through a dip, with no scores over 30 in his last seven innings.Du Plessis knows that. He knows that his performances are not quite where he needs them to be. He also knows that as the person who most offers delivers explanations for team selection, he will bear the brunt of the public’s anger if they disagree with the playing XI. And he also knows that as a white captain, working under a white head coach and a white CEO in a country where the majority is black African, his public statements need to be nuanced and non-polarising and that more often than not, they won’t be. It comes with the territory.”You are used to it. When you have played international cricket for as long I have, it comes with media for you and media against you. And to read to much into it, for and against – it’s really important for any player not to get sucked into it too much,” du Plessis said. “I am not getting in a battle with myself and Temba over who plays and who doesn’t. My performances also need to go up in terms of scoring. Temba has been put in a position where he needs to score runs to get back into the team and if he does that, he will.”Importantly, du Plessis identified the ongoing debate as an issue that has the potential to severely impact a cricketing career. Like other controversies (think sandpapergate or an affray charge), the race debate in South Africa is serious and there are no easy answers. Du Plessis is caught in the cross-hairs at a time when the landscape of the country’s cricket is changing, so he faces as much pressure off the field as he does on it. He has worked hard on ways to deal with both in order to ensure longevity to his career. “The difference between players who play at this level for a short time and those who play for a long time is how they can cope mentally with the pressures that come with it,” he said.Du Plessis has been an international for nine years and the Test captain for three-and-a-half. He has overseen South Africa’s redemption from the back-to-back series losses in India and against England in the 2015-16 summer, their first home series win over Australia since readmission in 2017, their first home series loss against a subcontinent side (Sri Lanka 2019) and two disastrous tours to the subcontinent (Sri Lanka 2018, India 2019). He has outlasted three coaches, Russell Domingo, Ottis Gibson and Enoch Nkwe, and seen all his team-mates from his debut call time on their careers. He is the storm.And he also believes there is a rainbow that the rest of us cannot see. While divisive rhetoric surrounds the South African side, they remain unified and committed. “We are as close as we have been before. There is a real direction and purpose for this team. The outside noise will always be there. It’s almost like a good story to read that its not going well and there are a few things going wrong in the camp, which they are not. There are no issues. The team is going well,” du Plessis said.He emphasised that the team’s morale has improved since their whitewash in India but stressed that there are still things that need fixing, apart from his own form. “For a very young team to have put in performances that we have in the last two Tests, shows really good signs. From where we were in India, as a team, very low on confidence, we have shown huge steps in the right direction to become the team that we need to be,” du Plessis said. “But myself and [Mark] Boucher said that a few times, it does not happen overnight. Things like this will take time. We need to get some caps under our players, we need to get some experience and in a year or two’s time, hopefully this team would have made the increase in performances and could challenge to be in the top three in the world.”By then, du Plessis will also have retired and if you believe South Africa’s assistant coach, Enoch Nkwe, Bavuma could be in charge of the side. If that happens, South African cricket and its media wars will have reached a truce.