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Rocchiccioli and Gannon claim three wickets each as the two-time defending champions won by an innings without their frontline pace attack

Tristan Lavalette07-Oct-2023Western Australia’s second-string attack overwhelmed Victoria on a sluggish WACA pitch in an ominous start to their bid for a hat-trick of Sheffield Shield titles.In a re-match of the last two Shield finals, WA once again had Victoria’s number as they showed off their enviable depth of talent. Without frontline quicks Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson, Matt Kelly and Joel Paris, WA’s new-look pace attack produced a disciplined performance on the final day to bowl Victoria for a second time out shortly after tea.Fringe quick Cameron Gannon was relentless, while left-arm debutant Liam Haskett shone with fast and aggressive bowling. With Morris and Richardson engaged in centre-wicket practice after the match, selection headaches loom for WA’s hierarchy.Tall offspinner Corey Rocchiccioli conjured sharp spin and found inconsistent bounce on a wearing pitch that finally started to play some tricks having been sedate throughout the match. Rocchiccioli finished with the remarkable figures of 3 for 14 from 26.2 overs, including 20 maidens.Having taken three wickets on day one, Rocchiccioli outbowled Test offspinner Todd Murphy, who took just 1 for 141 off 32 overs in WA’s first innings.”He’s going to keep getting better,” WA captain Sam Whiteman said of Rocchiccioli. “The impressive thing is he’s taking wickets at the WACA which is notorious for [a lack of] spin.”I’m particularly proud of the bowling group, which is a completely different attack than what we finished with last season.”Allrounder Aaron Hardie capped a strong match by taking the early wicket of former Victoria captain Peter Handscomb. Hardie, who recently made his international limited overs debut, claimed five wickets for the match and made 48 at number five in WA’s first innings.WA’s attack set up the victory after bowling out Victoria for 256 on day one before opener Cameron Bancroft scored a century to power them into a big lead.With national selector Tony Dodemaide in the terraces, Bancroft made an early season statement to replace David Warner who is set to retire from Test cricket during the summer.But it was a particularly lacklustre performance from Victoria, who were left to rue gifting wickets on day one and they never recovered. The return of Will Pucovski, who made 39 in Victoria’s first innings, from an extended absence was encouraging, and so too was the final-day grit from nightwatchman Mitch Perry.”Getting sick of losing to them [WA], so was enough motivation to stay out there as long as I could,” said Perry, who made 43 from 173 balls.Resuming at 64 for 3, still trailing by 161 runs, Victoria’s hopes of avoiding defeat largely rested with Handscomb but he fell for 2 after being caught behind off a superb Hardie delivery. It ended a disappointing match for Handscomb, who has been keen to shake being pigeonholed as a subcontinent specialist. He lacked rhythm in a first innings of 31 from 85 balls and fell badly after miscuing a whip to point off a leading edge.Hardie, who had opened the bowling, was in a fiery mood with a searing bouncer smashing into Perry’s body and leaving him shaken. But Perry, something of a nightwatchman specialist, gamely fought on and found a willing partner in Jonathan Merlo, who was intent solely on defence.Pinned back to the crease, Merlo excruciatingly faced 36 balls without a run. He finally opened his account with a push through covers for two runs before being clean bowled next ball by a cracking Gannon delivery.Victoria shut up shop after lunch with captain Will Sutherland, normally such a belligerent batter, continuously blocking alongside Perry. They weren’t particularly looking for runs, essentially taking turns holding up an end. Sutherland’s 75-ball grind of 6 ended when Bancroft snared a sensational catch at short-leg off Haskett. Perry’s rearguard finally ended shortly before tea as Victoria inevitably slumped to a hefty first-up defeat.

Bhuvneshwar’s Player-of-the-Series performance in the England T20Is has taken him back into the top ten for bowlers

ESPNcricinfo staff13-Jul-2022Jasprit Bumrah has climbed up five spots to become the No. 1-ranked ODI bowler, following his career-best 6 for 19 against England at The Oval on Tuesday. Trent Boult is now second, with Shaheen Shah Afridi, Josh Hazlewood and Mujeeb Ur Rahman rounding off the top five.Bumrah ran through the England line-up in the first ODI, dismissing Jason Roy, Joe Root, Liam Livingstone and Jos Buttler along the way. After picking up 4 for 6 in his first four overs, he returned to pick up two for none in seven balls at the death, finishing with India’s third-best figures in men’s ODIs.

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Mohammed Shami, Bumrah’s new-ball partner, also moved up three places to joint-23rd – with Bhuvneshwar Kumar – on the back of his three-wicket haul against England.As for Shikhar Dhawan, who scored an unbeaten 31 in that ten-wicket win over England, he moved up one spot to equal 12th on the batters’ rankings. His captain Rohit Sharma top-scored for India in the chase with an unbeaten 76, but remained at No. 4.From the ODI series between Ireland and New Zealand, Harry Tector, who scored his maiden ODI century in the opening game, rose ten places to No. 34 among batters.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Suryakumar Yadav, meanwhile, jumped a whopping 44 spots to achieve his career-best No. 5 ranking in T20Is following his century against England in the third T20I. Suryakumar, who also achieved a career-high rating of 732, is now India’s highest-ranked T20I batter. Having made his T20I debut only last year, Suryakumar has quickly become an important part of India’s T20I set-up, scoring four fifties and a century in 17 innings with a strike rate of 177.22.Bhuvneshwar’s Player-of-the-Series performance in the T20Is against England has taken him back into the top ten among T20I bowlers. He is the only Indian in the top ten in a list led by Hazlewood.Over in the Test rankings, Dimuth Karunaratne and Dinesh Chandimal climbed after their match-winning performances against Australia in the second Test in Galle.Karunaratne’s first-innings 86 took him to 782 rating points [his personal best] and the No. 7 spot among Test batters, while Chandimal’s unbeaten 206 took him 19 positions up to No. 29.

“We want to be a side that plays free cricket, not have any baggage of lack of [batting] depth”

Saurabh Somani11-Mar-20211:34

Kohli promises India’s batsmen will play more freely

India are set to embrace a more dynamic approach to their T20I batting, which has tended in the past to blend caution with aggression. The main ingredient that prevented India from being more aggressive in the past, according to captain Virat Kohli, was a lack of batting depth. The squad picked for their five-match T20I series against England has addressed that issue, in Kohli’s view, while also adding several “X-factor” players.”The kind of players we have added into the squad is precisely to give our batting line-up more depth and not play in a similar kind of pattern that we have played with in the past,” Kohli said on Thursday, the eve of the first T20I. “We want to be a side that plays free cricket, not have any baggage of lack of depth and one guy having to bat long enough to make sure we get to a big total.”We have explosive batsmen in the team now, who can change the game at any stage even if you are two or three wickets down. That’s exactly what we’ve tried to address in picking this squad. So this time around, you will see guys a bit more expressive in terms of approaching the innings, and playing more freely. Not worried about whether we have enough batsmen to take care of things if we lose a couple of wickets early, which was the case before to be honest. We didn’t have enough depth in the batting to be able to play freely throughout the first 10 or 12 overs. But I see us being much more positive and free from this period onwards.”Related

• Ishan Kishan adds the impetus that new-age India have been looking for

• Kohli: We weren't aware of what we had to do on that pitch

• Suryakumar Yadav: distracted hothead to calm run machine

• Rohit advises Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan: 'Enjoy the moment'

• Spin questions for England as India try on new big-hitting avatar

In the past India leaned towards the conservative approach of keeping wickets in hand for a final-overs charge, as against the strategy favoured by teams like England and West Indies (when at full strength), who bat deep and consequently go hard from the start. The presence of players like Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya, alongside allrounders such as Washington Sundar and Axar Patel and newcomers like Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan, is likely to free up the top order and allow them to be more expansive.That also means that of the three openers in the squad – Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan – only two can be fitted into the XI, and Kohli said Rohit and Rahul are India’s first-choice options.In the past, India have leaned on their top order to bat deep into T20 innings•BCCI

“If Rohit plays, then it’s quite simple, KL and Rohit have been consistently performing at the top of the order for us and those two would start,” he said. “In a situation where Rohit takes rest or KL has a niggle or something like that, then Shikhi obviously comes in as the third opener. But the starting composition, Rohit and Rahul will be the ones who start.”Earlier, one of the openers or Kohli at No. 3 have tended to take on the anchor’s role, and India haven’t done too badly with that approach. But the evolution of the T20 game has meant it’s time to take the next step. Since 2018, while batting first, India’s run rate while batting first in T20Is is 8.79, behind only England (9.05) and New Zealand (8.87). However, their run-rate during powerplay overs, a key indicator of the strategy adopted by the top order, is 7.99 in this same time-frame, fifth best among the top ten sides.On the other hand, in that same period, India’s batting average of 35.24 is the only one above 30 among the top ten sides. And their powerplay average of 45.95 is the second best overall, behind Australia’s 48.38. Now, with more batting depth, they can trade-off average for run rate – batsmen going harder would typically mean more wickets falling, but also give them a better chance of putting on extra runs.With the firepower of Pant and Pandya available in the middle order, and the added freedom for them of having bowlers who can bat in the lower order – especially when Ravindra Jadeja returns – India have recognised that keeping wickets in hand could be counter-productive.”I think we have played with a certain kind of pattern in the past. We didn’t probably have a big tournament to work towards, but if you look at the squad and the additions we’ve made, we’ve tried to address a few things that we needed in specific: guys who can be X-factors with the bat, do things which are the need of the hour in T20 cricket,” Kohli said. “These guys have done so in the IPL on a regular basis. We have tried to cover all those bases.”Now it’ll be interesting to see how they go about things in these five games because these are the only games we have as a team before the World Cup and we want to see how these guys fare out there in the middle. I feel like the squad right now with what we have, barring Jaddu [Jadeja] who will come back whenever fit, is the squad that I feel is the most balanced in terms of all the options readily available for us to take on the field as and when we want.”

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.

Returning to red-ball cricket after almost two years, Yuzvendra Chahal puts his lack of game-time in the longer format down to a time crunch rather than a disinterest in days’ cricket

Sreshth Shah in Alur13-Aug-2018Returning to the red-ball format ‘isn’t easy’ after a two-year absence, according to legspinner Yuzvendra Chahal, who is currently representing India A against the touring South Africa A side.Chahal has taken only four wickets in the two games, and he admits that adjusting to a newer format takes time because the batsmen’s approach differs across formats. “It does take a bit of time to adjust because the batsmen don’t have a lot of pressure [in red-ball cricket],” Chahal said on the third day of the second unofficial Test in Alur.”In ODIs and T20s, if the run-rate is high, then the batsman tries to go after you and get out. But in the longer form you need to get them out with your skills. You need to use your brain more. So it’s quite different because you need to bowl 30-35 overs here, but only four overs in T20s.”Chahal, however, puts his lack of red-ball cricket down to the paucity of time and not because of any disinterest in the format. He firmly believes that playing red-ball cricket vastly improves one’s skills, primarily because the format requires much more planning. Chahal is confident of using the lessons from the A series in white-ball cricket too, and feels his addition into India A’s four-day squad is a move towards the goal of Test cricket.”After 2016 [his last first-class appearance for Haryana in the Ranji Trophy], I have continuously played white-ball cricket, so I didn’t get time,” Chahal says. “But if you bowl with the red ball, your bowling will improve and your mind will get sharper. You need to adjust on these kinds of surfaces where spinners don’t have much help, so you use your idea – whether bowling outside off stump or changing the field – so in this format you need more planning. We can implement these learnings in ODIs and T20s too.”Because there’s a difference between red and white, so the selectors sent me here. A two-year gap is a long time, and I need to stay fit for longer periods, because you need to bowl 30-35 overs a day. It’s difficult to bowl a good ball but to take a wicket off it, that’s even more difficult. The more I play this format, the more I’ll mature.”Chahal, though, is not looking at the Indian squad that’s due to be announced for the last two Tests against England. Instead, he wants to focus on what he learnt during the ODI and T20I legs of the tour of England and Ireland, where he took nine wickets in eight games. Chahal’s next international assignment is likely to be the Asia Cup in the UAE with India’s 50-over squad.”Not even thinking about the squads for the last two Tests in England,” Chahal says. “My experience of England was very good because it was my first tour, but my focus is on this game. If my name doesn’t come, then my mind will be on the Asia Cup. So I’ll shift my focus on that series after this game.”When asked about India’s current form in England, where their batsmen crumbled at Lord’s inside four days to concede a 2-0 series deficit, Chahal praised England’s pace attack, but also remained positive about India’s chances in the last three games.”The conditions are great for pacers in England, swing is there too. You saw James Anderson reached 550 wickets,” Chahal said. “Batting is always tough there, but, it’s a five-game series. Even if you lose early matches, you have the opportunity to come back in the final three games.”

Mark Taylor, the Cricket Australia board director, has admitted that compromise must be found between the game’s governing body and the Australian Cricketers Association before the game suffers further damage

Daniel Brettig11-Jul-20173:46

What exactly is the Cricket Australia-ACA pay dispute?

Mark Taylor, the Cricket Australia (CA) board director, has admitted that compromise must be found between the game’s governing body and the Australian Cricketers Association (ACA) before the game suffers further damage, in an ugly pay war that has put the national team’s upcoming series at risk of abandonment.In speaking at an Ashes event organised by the Nine Network in Melbourne on Tuesday, Taylor became the first senior CA figure connected to the MoU debate to offer a public opinion on the dispute in more than six weeks, since the chief executive James Sutherland was interviewed by the ABC on May 25. Taylor also remains the only board director to have spoken publicly about it at all.Prior to that, Taylor had spoken firmly about CA’s desire to breakup the revenue sharing model on Nine’s programme on May 14. But he took on a more conciliatory tone this time, 11 days after the expiry of the most recent MoU between the players and the board left more than 230 of the country’s cricketers unemployed and a mounting mess of commercial problems for the board. Not least of these is reassuring its chief broadcaster Nine – for whom Taylor commentates – that the Ashes will go ahead as planned.”I think there’s got to be compromise on both sides, I really believe that,” Taylor said on Tuesday. “I think at any negotiation you give and you take. I think when you get to that situation, which I hope we are getting very close to now, then you get close to a resolution. I’m confident there will be a resolution soon. I don’t know when but I just hope both sides keep working hard at it.”I think everyone has probably read and heard enough about things that don’t involve people scoring runs and taking wickets, me included, and I think that [the cricket] is what we all want to see. That includes sponsors, TV networks, past players, commentators, and I think the quicker we get to that situation the better for the game.”I’m still very confident there will be an Ashes series and I’m very confident there will be some Test-match cricket played by Australia before them. That’s certainly what I’m working towards and I’m assuming both parties are working towards that. It’s far from ideal and it’s cost an Australia A tour of South Africa which is disappointing, no doubt about it. But at this stage we haven’t lost a Bangladesh tour and we certainly don’t want to lose an Ashes tour here in Australia.”While Taylor has only recently returned home from holidays, he said all board directors had been kept informed of progress in talks by CA’s lead negotiator Kevin Roberts, including conference calls every three days that he had dialled in to from overseas. ESPNcricinfo understands that some progress appeared to have been made by the middle of last week before regressing and forcing the cancellation of the Australia A tour. While talks go on, little if any movement from entrenched positions has been discernible since.Mark Taylor said it was necessary for everyone involved to “be adult” about the pay dispute; Ian Chappell said while his sympathies lie on the side of the players, give how protracted this dispute is, there has to be fault on both sides•Getty Images

A director since 2004, apart from a brief absence in 2012-13 when the CA board was changed from a body of 14 state representatives to an independent group of nine, Taylor agreed that it was vital to find a way for the two parties to coexist in whatever new landscape was drawn up as a result of the next MoU.”Day to day it’s management’s job, I’ve been away for the last couple of weeks, only got back on Sunday night myself, but I’ve been kept abreast of the situation,” he said. “Calls every three days, sometimes a bit more often if need be, and now I’m back in Australia I’m well aware of the situation. And I’ll be doing everything I can to try and find a resolution to this.”I think we all have to be adult about it. It’s a big game these days. Players are fully professional. Cricket boards are trying to do what they think is right for the game in general, so there’s going to be times when you disagree and that’s where we are at the moment. But I think both sides have to work towards finding a resolution which is in the best interests of the game and the players.”From a game point of view, it’s far from ideal. We are in July, the Ashes are still four months away, but the Bangladesh tour is only a month away. The quicker we can get it resolved the better, the quicker we can move on and rebuild the relationship [that] I think is important between CA and the ACA. The quicker we can start rebuilding that, I think that’ll be good for the game.”The former captain Ian Chappell, meanwhile, termed the standoff as “the biggest bust up since World Series Cricket between players and administrators” and reckoned both sides of the argument, whatever their merits, had begun to be damaged from the moment the previous MoU expired on July 1.”I think once it went past the June 30 deadline I think it started to hurt the game from both points of view,” Chappell said. “I think the public were probably sick to death of it by then it was a plague on both their houses as far as the public are concerned. I think the quicker it gets resolved the better and if it’s going to be a partnership, which I think it needs to be, it’s not a boss-employee situation.”If it’s going to be a partnership there’s got to be give and take on both sides, and probably most importantly there has to be a bit more respect, that’s the first thing that needs to happen to help rebuild the relationship. My sympathies are always going to be on the side of the players, but when a dispute goes on this long there has to be fault on both sides.”The job of the players association is to work with the administrators. Your job as a cricketer is just to play the game and having come from an era where the players had to fight the fight, that’s not an ideal situation at all. To me it’s up to the players association to get the thing sorted out with the board, and for the players to just play their game.”

Essex strolled to a seven-wicket victory with 22 balls to spare in their T20 Blast encounter with Glamorgan in Cardiff

ECB Reporters Network01-Jun-2016
ScorecardJesse Ryder thrashed 42 to get Essex’s chase off to a flying start (file photo)•Getty Images

Essex strolled to a seven-wicket victory with 22 balls to spare in their T20 Blast encounter with Glamorgan in Cardiff.Chasing a modest 140 for 6, the visitors made light of their task, reaching 143 for 3 after opener Jesse Ryder set them on their way with a pulsating innings. The New Zealander struck 42 from 23 balls that included one six and eight fours. He found an admirable ally in Tom Westley as the pair added 55 runs in five overs following the departure of Ravi Bopara for 4.When Ryder departed with the score on 64 for 2, Westley continued the fine start, easing the visitors to the halfway point of their reply at 87 for 2.He finally departed for a 29-ball 41 when bowled by Colin Ingram but 19 year-old Dan Lawrence and experienced allrounder Ryan ten Doeschate saw their side to their first win of the season in the competition with an unbroken partnership of 49 runs in a little over five overs.It all overshadowed the Glamorgan debut of South Africa paceman Dale Steyn, who is with the county for six matches in the competition. He might have had a wicket with his first ball but Bopara was dropped by Aneurin Donald at second slip. Although he beat the bat on a couple of occasions, he was punished by Ryder in particular and his three overs went for 32 runs.Donald had provided rich entertainment for the passionate home crowd with a superb innings of 51 from 38 balls that included two sixes and five other boundaries. The 19-year-old was playing in only his fourth Twenty20 match but drove and carved with authority.He featured in the substantial partnership of the innings as he and Ingram added 56 in 7.1 overs for the third wicket. Ingram contributed 26 before he became one of two wickets for Bopara.The departure of Donald in the 14th over, when he was bowled by left-arm spinner Ashar Zaidi, left Glamorgan 105 for 4 but they lost their way thereafter.The Essex attack restricted them to 20 runs from the next five overs before Pakistan international Wahab Riaz sent down a final over costing 15 runs including a towering straight driven 6 by Chris Cooke. However it all proved too little too late in the face of the Essex batting onslaught.

Restrict the opposition to a reasonable total and chase it down with a solid top order. Rajasthan Royals’ favoured template has been working superbly, with five wins in five games, while Kings XI Punjab are yet to show consistency, with three losses in fo

The Preview by Abhishek Purohit20-Apr-2015

Match facts

Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Start time 2000 local (1430 GMT)

Big picture

Five wins in five games, the latest being a hammering of the mighty Chennai Super Kings. Rajasthan Royals are unstoppable at the moment. Their favoured template – restrict the opposition to a reasonable total and chase it down with a solid top order – has been working superbly for them. The only time they have batted first this season, they have defended quite comfortably, against their next opponents: Kings XI Punjab.Shane Watson’s availability has strengthened them further. While the likes of Watson and Steven Smith will always be assets, the performances of their Indian players have also helped Royals achieve this run. In addition to Ajinkya Rahane’s solidity, Pravin Tambe, Dhawal Kulkarni and Stuart Binny have been frugal with the ball while young Deepak Hooda has won a game with the bat.Kings XI Punjab’s overseas as well as domestic players are yet to show consistency, which reflects in three losses from four matches. Apart from George Bailey’s batting and Sandeep Sharma’s bowling, the rest have not stood out. The bowling has been competitive, but it is the big names in that middle order that need to fire.

Watch out for…

When these sides met in Pune ten days ago, James Faulkner turned 75 for 5 into 162 for 7 with 46 off 33. He then took out Glenn Maxwell, Bailey and Mitchell Johnson in four overs for only 26 runs. Faulkner has not really been needed with the bat after that but has been expensive with the ball overall. He has the knack of picking the big wicket, as he did when he bowled a rampaging Dwayne Smith against Super Kings.M Vijay has been in superb touch for a while now, and that has showed in some of the shots he has played. Some of his cover drives have been effortless and gorgeous, but all he has to show are 91 runs from four innings. With the hit-or-miss nature of Virender Sehwag’s batting at the other end, Vijay will have to carry on from his starts.

Stats and trivia

• Ajinkya Rahane is one hit away from reaching 200 fours in the IPL. Shane Watson is one short of 100 sixes
• Sandeep Sharma’s economy-rate of 5.37 is the best so far this season. Stuart Binny is next with 5.71
• Royals have won seven out of ten games in Ahmedabad

Quotes

“It is great to be able to come and take over with the team in such a good place. Steven Smith does an incredible job as a leader. He is tactically incredibly good. He did a fantastic job in the first four games and I am very lucky to be able to have him in and around the squad.”
“Our batting has been a letdown so far in the tournament. The top batsmen are just not getting enough runs. That has been putting the team in a tight spot.”

Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited (DCHL), the owner of the IPL team Deccan Chargers, is in advance talks to sell the franchise, its chairman TV Reddy has said

Tariq Engineer31-Aug-2012Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited (DCHL), the owner of the IPL team Deccan Chargers, is in advanced talks to sell the franchise, its chairman T Venkatram Reddy has said. The group has been forced to consider selling the team to raise funds to help it tide over a liquidity crisis brought on by a poor expansion strategy.”We will sell our cricket team Deccan Chargers, which will sort out most of the immediate requirements,” Reddy told the in an interview. “We are at an advanced stage of negotiations to sell Deccan Chargers. And then the company will be back in action. The newspaper business will not be sold.” The group reportedly needs an infusion of about Rs 500 crore (US$90 million approx.) to get through the current crisis.DCHL had appointed Religare Capital to handle the deal to sell the team back in June. Chargers have not paid all its players in full following the 2012 IPL season and the BCCI had set August 31 as the deadline for all player payments to be made.One potential complication for the sale is the board’s contention that it holds the ownership rights and that no franchise can mortgage the rights without its consent. At an emergency meeting on August 14, the IPL governing council confronted the owners and asked them why the company had mortgaged the team ownership rights to two leading Indian banks.According to Reddy, the company tried to expand its newspaper business too quickly and are now paying the price for that approach.The Deccan Chargers franchise was bought by DCHL for $107 million in the first IPL team auction in 2008. At the time, it was the third-most expensive franchise, after Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore. During the second team auction in 2010, the Pune franchise was sold to the Sahara group for $370 million while the now dissolved Kochi franchise was bought by a consortium for $333 million.If the owners succeed in selling the team, they would be the second in the IPL to sell at least a part of the franchise. In 2009, Rajasthan Royals, then the reigning IPL champions, sold an 11.7% stake in the franchise for approximately $15.4 million to Shilpa Shetty, the Bollywood actress, and her partner Raj Kundra, a UK-based businessman. That put the valuation of the franchise at around $140 million, more than double the $67 million the owners, Emerging Media, paid for it in 2008.Chargers won the IPL in 2009 but have largely struggled since then. They finished eighth out of nine teams in 2012, winning just four games under the leadership of Kumar Sangakkara, the former Sri Lanka captain, and Cameron White, the Australia batsman.

Alastair Cook believes Kevin Pietersen can be part of England’s 2015 World Cup side

Andrew McGlashan03-Oct-2011Alastair Cook believes Kevin Pietersen can be part of England’s 2015 World Cup side and sees it as one of his key roles as captain on the tour of India to help guide a one-day revival for the batsman. Pietersen has returned to the squad for the upcoming series, but doubts remain over his long-term future in the 50-over side after a lean two years in the format and the emergence of talented young batsmen pushing their claims.Pietersen was rested, officially at least, for the one-day series recent ODIs against India in England, and the two Twenty20 internationals against West Indies that concluded the home season. His place in the Twenty20 team isn’t in doubt – he played the game against India at the end of August and was Man of the Series when England won the world title in West Indies in 2010 – but that security doesn’t extend to the longer limited-overs format.”I see Kevin as a huge part of this one-day side, especially in the 2015 World Cup,” Cook said at Heathrow airport shortly before the squad departed for India. “He’s had huge success in Australia, but we need to manage him well so he can get there.”After he controversially flew home injured from the World Cup, reports emerged that he was planning to retire from ODIs although he subsequently denied those and remains available for all three formats. However, if there was a change of heart from Pietersen it is more likely to have been because he wouldn’t have been eligible for a central contract if he quit one-dayers.His availability, though, doesn’t come with a guarantee of selection, as Andy Flower has been at pains to point out, and Pietersen’s one-day form of the last two years raises questions as to whether he warrants a place in the side. Since March 2009 against West Indies, his first one-day series since losing the captaincy, he has averaged 22.86 from 32 matches with two half-centuries. His last hundred came against India, in Cuttack, in October 2008 and three of his seven tons came in his first 11 matches. However, he does average 51 in ODIs on Indian soil, which shows he enjoys conditions.”He’s had a tough 12-18 months with his form, this happens when you spend a huge amount of time at the top of the game. It’s tough to keep your standards high,” Cook said. “I think he still averages very high 40s in Test cricket, so it’s amazing to think we are talking about a drop. His last couple of years in one-day cricket haven’t been as good as they were in the first part of his career and part of our job as England management is to try and get him back there.”A KP averaging 50 and striking over 100 is a huge element of an England side and we can’t ignore talent like that. He loves proving people wrong.”England have tried various roles to reinvigorate Pietersen’s one-day career including using him as an opener during the World Cup. That tactic was short-lived due to the hernia he picked up, but it did provide some momentum to England’s innings alongside Andrew Strauss. A return to opening is unlikely with Cook and Craig Kieswetter establishing their partnership, but Pietersen’s exact position in the order hasn’t been nailed down with Cook hinting at flexibility.”At No. 3 or 4 is where he’s had most of his success,” Cook said. “Towards the end of the Sri Lanka series [in June] we talked about being more flexible in our batting line up and we’ve got the right to do that.”The pressure on Pietersen to retain his place is coming mainly from his own form, but also the emergence of a group of new batsmen pushing for international honours. Jonny Bairstow, who impressed on his debut against India, is part of this tour, while Jos Buttler will join in for the Twenty20 at the end of trip along with Alex Hales. Eoin Morgan, who has taken the mantle of England’s key one-day batsman from Pietersen, is out if action until January but will slot straight back in when he’s fit and Cook is thrilled with the competition for places.”You have to perform to stay in an England shirt; like Kevin has to, like I have to, the whole team has to,” he said. “You can see from the players who aren’t coming on this tour, the competition there is for places and that’s a very encouraging sign.”England have two warm-up matches, the first on Saturday, before the opening one-day international, in Hyderabad, on October 14.