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England batter scores valiant 44, but Oliver Hannon-Dalby keeps Essex in check

ECB Reporters Network23-Apr-2022England batter Dan Lawrence defied Warwickshire despite a hamstring injury as Essex battled to avoid defeat in a gripping LV=Insurance County Championship match at Edgbaston.Trailing by 217 on first innings, Essex closed the third day on 290 for 8 – 73 ahead – with Lawrence, who batted at No. 7 and with a runner, having bolstered their resistance with a valiant 44 from 105 balls.The 24-year-old’s movement was clearly restricted by the injury he sustained while chasing a ball in the field on the first day. But his resolve, in alliance with Simon Harmer – who ended the third day 60 not out – in a seventh-wicket stand of 81 in 29 overs, kept their team alive.On a good batting pitch, Warwickshire’s bowling was superbly led Oliver Hannon-Dalby (22-13-36-3) but they missed pace spearhead Liam Norwell, ruled out of the rest of this match by concussion after being hit on the head while batting. A scan has revealed no serious damage for Norwell who will now rest for a few days.Essex resumed on nought for one, under serious pressure, but applied themselves diligently to the rearguard action. Several of their batters were guilty of reckless shots in the first innings, but this time they ensured that wickets had to be winkled out.Two were in the first session and three in the second. In the morning, Tom Westley, having eked 10 runs from 62 minutes, fell to Will Rhodes and Alastair Cook, on 36, to Hannon-Dalby, both caught by wicketkeeper Michael Burgess.Matt Critchley batted attractively after lunch until his middle-stump was uprooted by Hannon-Dalby whose figures, at that point, were 13.1-11-9-3. Adam Wheater was bowled by a Henry Brookes no ball on six, but soon skied a good length delivery from the same bowler to mid off.Lawrence’s entry with a runner showed Essex’s determination to fight every inch of the way. He soon lost Adam Rossington, who made a compact half-century before nicking an attempted cut at Danny Briggs.That was 172 for 6 and Essex were still in deep trouble, but Harmer, perhaps motivated in part by his sloppy dismissal in the first innings, knuckled down assiduously alongside Lawrence. The pair batted with patience and composure until Lawrence edged concussion substitute Craig Miles to Burgess.Harmer and Shane Snater then added 46 in ten overs but the latter’s punchy contribution of 21 from 33 balls concluded in the day’s penultimate over when he chipped Miles to mid-wicket.

They continue to be fifth on the table, just behind Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bangalore

Sidharth Monga11-May-20223:29

Were Rajasthan Royals right to send Ashwin at No. 3?

Delhi Capitals stayed in the mid-table muddle with an important win over Rajasthan Royals that took them to 12 points, two behind the third- and fourth-placed Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bangalore. On a sticky pitch they managed to keep Royals down to a par score of 160. Mitchell Marsh, who also took two wickets, led the chase with 89 off 62, letting David Warner play the anchor role on a night he spent most of his innings around a run a ball.In the innings break, Marsh said it was a difficult pitch to hit boundaries on if the bowlers bowled into the pitch and used the longer boundary. He said it would need a lot of running ones and twos, but still managed to score 62 of his runs in boundaries, seven of them sixes.If Capitals could set up for a traditional base for the chase, Royals had to be more funky: they used R Ashwin as pinch anchor, who did score his maiden fifty, but their big hitters Sanju Samson and Riyan Parag couldn’t follow it up with a finishing kick.For the third game in a row, Capitals were without opener Prithvi Shaw, of whom captain Rishabh Pant said at the post-match presentation: “We miss him, but at the same time that is something we can’t control because he got typhoid or something like that because doctor told me that. Hopefully he will be back. We don’t know it yet.”Buttler’s rare failure
Jos Buttler has carried the batting for Royals, a side with a short batting line-up and only one toss won in 12 matches, but he was stifled and then taken out for his lowest score this season and his earliest dismissal. Chetan Sakariya, coming in for the injured Khaleel Ahmed, didn’t give him anything to hit away, and when he saw a full ball finally – the fifth of the third over – all he managed was a hit straight to mid-on. Gone for 7 off 11.The pinch anchor
Seeing there was something in the pitch, Royals promoted Ashwin to No. 3 presumably in a bid to use the powerplay overs without necessarily risking a more indispensable – and limited – batting resource, especially with Shimron Hetmyer missing. Ashwin might have got stuck twice, but on both occasions he came out of the situation. First he responded to a run-a-ball start by hitting Axar Patel for a six and a four in the sixth over. Then he went after Kuldeep Yadav and Sakaria later in the innings to get to a fifty.David Warner remained unbeaten on 52 as Capitals coasted to an eight-wicket win•BCCI

He wouldn’t ideally have wanted to bat on for this long as he had begun to go after everything in the eighth over, but Yashasvi Jaiswal fell to Marsh in the ninth over, which delayed Ashwin’s hit-out-or-get-out charge because you don’t want two new batters at the wicket. When Ashwin fell for 50 off 38, he left Samson and Parag 35 balls in which to do damage.Capitals keep striking
Anrich Nortje and Sakariya, though, bowled two excellent overs at the death to take out Samson and Parag. Samson got too far under the hard length from Nortje, and Parag fell to the back-of-the-hand slower ball from Sakariya. It was in fact Devdutt Padikkal, batting in the unusual No. 4 position, who kept Royals in the game with his 48 off 30, but when Nortje got him out at the start of the 19th, all of Royals’ measures to prolong their batting were defeated. Rassie van der dussen and Trent Boult faced the last two overs, and managed just 14. Royals’ fiery start
Royals needed a good start if they were to entertain defending, and they nearly had the perfect one. Boult removed KS Bharat second ball, Prasidh Krishna followed it up with his third maiden of this IPL, and then Boult had a close lbw shout against Marsh turned down. Samson and Boult felt Marsh might have hit it, but replays showed he hadn’t.The Marsh show
Having been reprieved there, Marsh went on to his reprise knock in the T20 World Cup final last year. He backed himself and didn’t make much of a four-off-12 start – some of the most difficult bowling Marsh said he has faced in T20 cricket – before he launched into his first six, over extra cover off an Ashwin carrom ball. He picked on Kuldeep Sen with two straight sixes in the seventh over. Warner was still only 12 off 12, but Marsh had raced away to 39 off 28.Some good fortune came Warner’s way too as he sliced one to long-off off Yuzvendra Chahal but Buttler couldn’t quite get there and then the bail refused to fall when Chahal hit his leg stump. If it was stutters for Warner, it was smooth acceleration for Marsh.The highest the asking rate was allowed to reach was 9.4 with five overs to go, but then Marsh ended Ashwin’s night with a six and a four to give him figures of 4-0-32-2, exactly what they were left needing in the last four overs. Marsh fell 11 short of a hundred, but Pant brought about a swift end with two sixes in four balls. Warner ended with 49 off 40.

Michael Di Venuto will take charge of the first week of the trip

ESPNcricinfo staff01-Jun-2022Australia head coach Andrew McDonald has tested positive for Covid-19 and will miss the opening week of the Sri Lanka tour.McDonald was unable to fly out as scheduled and will isolate for seven days before joining up with the squad. He is expected to be with the side before the second T20I on June 8.Assistant coach Michael Di Venuto will take charge of the squad for the early days of the trip. Spin coach S Sriram and former Australia quick Clint McKay are also part of the backroom staff for the T20I and ODI series.Related

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This will be McDonald’s first tour since being appointed full-time into the head coach role after he took over from Justin Langer in an interim capacity earlier in the year which included the tour of Pakistan.Newly appointed assistant coaches Daniel Vettori and Andre Borovec will then work alongside McDonald during the two-Test series. Borovec will also coach the Australia A portion of the tour which includes two one-day games and two four-day matches.Ben Sawyer, the assistant coach with the Australia women’s team, had been due to be part of the A-team coaching staff but he is expected to be confirmed as the new head coach of the New Zealand women’s set-up in the coming days.The latter stages of Australia’s tour of Pakistan were hit by Covid-19 when Ashton Agar, Josh Inglis and physio Brendan Wilson tested positive during the white-ball leg.The first T20I against Sri Lanka takes place on June 7 with the opening two games back-to-back in Colombo before the tour moves to Pallekele.The Australia T20I squad, which is missing Pat Cummins (rested) and Adam Zampa (paternity leave) from its first-choice players, will gather in Colombo on Thursday.

Uncapped allrounder Agha Salman is also included in the squad; Zahid Mahmood and Sajid Khan omitted

ESPNcricinfo staff22-Jun-2022Yasir Shah is in line to play his first Test in nearly a year after he was included in Pakistan’s 18-member squad to tour Sri Lanka for a two Test series in July. The squad is largely unchanged from the one that took on Australia at home for a three-match Test series in March, with Zahid Mahmood and Sajid Khan omitted, while uncapped allrounder Agha Salman, Sarfaraz Ahmed and Naseem Shah come into the fray.Yasir’s inclusion is by some distance the most notable development. The legspinner has endured a troubled last 12 months, which included struggles with injury and fitness, as well as his naming in a rape case, though the charges against him were later dropped. He was instrumental in Pakistan’s 2-1 series victory last time the two sides met in Sri Lanka in 2015, taking 24 wickets at 19.33. He went on to be named the Player of the Series.Hasan Ali retains his place in the side after an indifferent recent spell of form, though most of that dip has come in the white-ball format; he was named Pakistan’s Test player of the year in 2021. In the recent series against Australia, he played two matches, taking two wickets at 96 apiece. Shan Masood, too, keeps his place as reserve opener; the allrounder memorably scored his first Test hundred in a historic fourth innings chase that won Pakistan the series-deciding rubber on Pakistan’s last tour to Sri Lanka.”We have selected this squad considering the conditions in Sri Lanka and have equipped the team with the best possible resources,” chief selector Muhammad Wasim said. “Our spin department is boosted with the return of Yasir Shah, who proved himself as a match-winner in Sri Lanka on our last tour and Sajid Khan has made the way for him. The spin department also includes two spin all-rounders in Mohammad Nawaz and Salman Ali Agha and left-arm orthodox Nauman Ali.”Salman Ali Agha has shown consistent performances with the bat in the past three seasons and he is a handy off-spin option. Our team has recently put strong performances in Bangladesh and although results against Australia were not ideal, we displayed solid cricket. For that reason we have retained the core to instil consistency and continuity and have trimmed the squad size following the relaxation in Covid-19-induced travel restrictions.”Pakistan will begin the series with a three-day warm-up match starting July 11. The series will begin in Galle on July 16, with the second Test to start on July 24 in Colombo.

Kent opener makes two centuries in a match for first time

Paul Edwards29-Jun-2022
When two of the possible results of a first-class match have been virtually ruled out after little more than four of the game’s 12 sessions, the course of the contest is correspondingly limited. Barring unlikely declarations, Surrey’s rapid amassment of 673 by two o’clock on Monday ensured they would neither lose nor tie this game and attention rapidly shifted to the question of whether Kent could save it. It took over 48 hours to answer that question but few of those at The Oval over the past three days were made tired by waiting. The patience of Peter May Boys is rather greater than that of their eponymous inspiration when he was asked damn-fool questions by hacks.Daniel Bell-Drummond’s forbearance cannot be doubted either, especially so after a match in which he scored two centuries for the first time in his career and took his total of first-class runs this season to 700 at an average of 77.77. Kent’s No3 was at the wicket for all but six minutes of this day’s play and batted for eight hours 40 minutes in the whole contest. That is 14 minutes longer than it took Surrey to pile up their colossal first-innings score but Bell-Drummond’s brief was different and he fulfilled it outstandingly well. It was only fitting at 5.50 this evening that the first hand Rory Burns shook was that of the cricketer who had been principally responsible for denying his side their victory.The draw will not satisfy Surrey, of course, but after a round of matches in which Hampshire lost and Lancashire drew, their lead at the top of Division One has been extended from three to 16 points. It is a decent return from a game in which they were deprived of the services of Jamie Overton and Reece Topley by international calls and Jordan Clark by a side injury. That trio have taken 52 wickets this season, yet their absence has only stressed the deep resources – and pockets – of a county that can call on Sam Curran and Dan Worrall, a pair who took three of the four wickets to fall on this final day.Kent will point to the injury problems that have bedevilled them since the start of the season and their gritstone achievement in drawing this game was admirable, especially when one considers the brutalities visited upon their attack by Curran and Will Jacks. Even on a true pitch where Surrey’s lack of a slow left-armer was noticeable, it takes mental strength to face down an enormous score and that quality was shown once again by Bell-Drummond who strolled out to bat after only 11 balls of the morning.By then there had already been an entertaining overture to our day’s cricket when a late start at 11.50 was delayed for a few minutes by a further squallette of rain. The Kent openers considered the umpires’ removal of the bails licenced them to skedaddle up the dressing-room steps whereas Surrey’s players stayed on the field and waited with the umpires for the monsoon to abate. After less time than it takes to play “Teenage Kicks” (that’s a song, not a video game) the officials waved the batsmen back out but we still lost another over from our initial ration of 83, so Joe Denly and Ben Compton probably considered their departure worth it.The pair were, though, considerably less chuffed twenty minutes later when they had both been given out leg before wicket and the match had been plunged neck-deep in the hazard. Compton was the first to go when he played around his front dog to Curran, and three overs later, Denly’s pleasing 69 was ended when he was beaten for pace and smacked on the back pad by Dan Worrall.That was the first of perhaps three passages of play in which Kent’s batting might have dissolved on this final day but Bell-Drummond and Jack Leaning put on 107 either side of lunch before the Kent skipper had his off stump knocked out by a fine ball from Curran which swung in late. Jordan Cox then played the flimsiest innings of the day, his 40-minute 27 being ended after tea when he pulled Gus Atkinson straight to Curran at deep square leg. At that point Kent were 266 for 4 and the last hour had not yet started. However, any talk of late drama was hushed by Bell-Drummond and Ollie Robinson, who had added 95 when Burns called off his mastiffs. In truth, the draw had seemed certain for perhaps 20 minutes and the Surrey skipper confirmed that impression by bowling the last over. A game that had been marked by mountainous achievement and great skill ended on a note of slight farce but we are rarely the worse for a little silliness.

India’s aggressive approach paid off in the first T20I as they scored a huge total on a tough pitch

Deivarayan Muthu30-Jul-2022India are ready to embrace the “odd failure” in their quest to ramp up the run rate across phases of a match, in the lead-up to the T20 World Cup, their captain Rohit Sharma has said after winning the first T20I against West Indies.Despite a steady fall of wickets, Dinesh Karthik and Rohit embodied India’s aggressive approach, hitting 41 not out off 19 balls and 64 off 44 balls respectively on a challenging pitch in Tarouba.Related

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“We want to try certain things when we bat in the first six overs, when we bat in the middle overs, and how we finish off the games,” Rohit said after India’s 68-run victory. “So, there are three facets of the game we want to try to improve, and how we can get the best out of each player. We’ve given specific roles to specific players to come and do the job for the team. Today, we did it. There’s no guarantee that it will happen every game, but we got to try and back those ideas of going out there and trying to execute certain skills with the bat.”And while doing that we will have some odd failures here and there, but we are pretty much okay with that. We want to try to do certain things when we bat, and I think we’re able to achieve certain things. So, all in all, I thought it was a great effort and we want to continue to do that.”Rohit Sharma made a brisk half-century in India’s 190 for 6•AFP/Getty Images

Speaking to , Karthik said Rohit and India coach Rahul Dravid had built a team environment that gave players security, despite failures. “I’m really enjoying this set-up – the kind of calmness that seems to be around this set-up in terms of the coach and the captain, I think a lot of credit must go to the both of them. I think they have set up an atmosphere where they are dealing with failure in the most rational way possible. They are also bringing on board people who can help players [alluding to Paddy Upton’s appointment as mental-conditioning coach] and try and be themselves. I think that was something that could have been missing before. At times when I didn’t do well, I felt treated the same way and the dressing-room atmosphere is very calm and good.”In T20Is in 2022, India have scored at a rate of 9.46 per over, their best in a year where they have played more than one match. Only New Zealand (10.21) have scored at a faster clip than India.Rohit, though, cautioned his batters against going too hard on pitches that aren’t conducive to such an approach and urged them to be smarter with their decisions.”But, again, we need to understand what sort of pitch we play on,” he said. “Certain pitches will not allow you to do that, so you got to take a backward step and see how you can play in those overs because the guys have a lot of skill and they’ve played on all sorts of pitches back home. So, they just need to back those skillsets with the bat in the middle overs.”That India eventually scored 190 for 6 after being 138 for 6 in 16 overs was down to Karthik’s blows in the last two overs. Such a total, Rohit said, seemed beyond India’s reach at the halfway mark of their innings.”The nature of the pitch… we knew it was going to be slightly tough,” Rohit said. “The shot-making wasn’t that easy at the start and at the same time, we do understand that guys who are set need to carry on as long as possible because there was some grip for the spinners. The odd variation wasn’t easy to pick.”But the way we finished off the first innings getting to 190 was a great effort because I really thought this wasn’t a pitch where you can get 170-180 when we were batting in the first half of the game and when we finished the first ten overs.”Akeal Hosein celebrates dismissing Suryakumar Yadav•AFP/Getty Images

‘Difficult to read pitches in the Caribbean’ – Pooran
West Indies captain Nicholas Pooran admitted that his side’s indiscipline played a part in India posting a total that was above par.Kyle Mayers dropped Suryakumar Yadav on 10 at short cover, Alzarri Joseph kept offering pace and bowling short to Rohit, Jason Holder missed his yorkers at the death, and then their batting unravelled in the chase. To add to West Indies’ woes, they could have just four fielders outside the 30-yard circle during the end of India’s innings due to an in-match penalty for slow over rate.”I did feel like they got 20 runs more,” Pooran said after the game. “And that was basically with our indiscipline. Obviously, with the over rate there in our last two overs and an extra guy in the circle, it was a big challenge for our bowlers. But we need to be a bit more disciplined.”West Indies picked just one spinner for the game – Akeal Hosein, who took 1 for 14 from his fours overs – while India went with three – Ravi Bishnoi, R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, who shared five wickets among them. Did West Indies misread the conditions in what was the first international match at the Brian Lara Stadium?”In hindsight, it is difficult to read the pitches in the Caribbean, to be honest,” Pooran said. ” We can go back and say maybe we missed a trick, but in hindsight, anything could happen. The last two overs went for 40-odd [36] runs. Maybe 160 would’ve played differently for us, but we will definitely reflect on the decision that we made and will definitely try to get better in the days to come.”The teams travel to Basseterre in St. Kitts for the second and third T20 internationals on August 1 and 2.