The opener hit 64 off 42 balls while the offspinner claimed three wickets to sink Sydney Sixers

The Report by Alex Malcolm04-Jan-2019
Not even out-of-control bushfires in Hobart could stop the Hurricanes from claiming a fifth straight win after another perfectly executed chase, this time over the Sydney Sixers at Bellerive Oval. D’Arcy Short made an outstanding 64 off 42 balls and George Bailey a stunning 30 from 17 balls to get the Hurricanes to the line, before Simon Milenko and James Faulkner finished the job with one ball to spare.Short become the second-fastest player to 1000 BBL runs, reaching the milestone in 24 innings, just two shy of Shaun Marsh’s record of 22. He looked set to finish the chase himself but was undone by superb yorker from Sean Abbott, who tried his best to keep his side in the game with two key wickets. But Bailey and Milenko struck three sixes between them in the last five overs to see the Hurricanes home.Earlier, Daniel Hughes had made a superb 61 to underpin the Sixers’ underwhelming total of 8 for 161. The Sixers were undone by an excellent spell from Johan Botha, who took 3 for 22 from four overs, including two wickets in the Powerplay. Hughes and Moises Henriques reclaimed momentum before Henriques was brilliantly run out by Short and Hughes fell to Botha.Matthew Wade and D’Arcy Short walk out to bat•Getty Images

Botha’s back-to-back strikesThe Hurricanes’ captain Matthew Wade has been very flexible with his bowling changes in the Powerplays throughout the tournament. Through four games no bowler had bowled a two-over spell in the Powerplay, although a couple had bowled two one-over spells. After the first two overs of the innings cost 17, Wade turned to Botha. Joe Denly was clean bowled by a ball that didn’t turn and Botha conceded just a single from the over, so Wade left him on. Botha then had Justin Avendano caught behind with the first ball of his next over. He took 2 for 8 in the Powerplay as the Sixers’ momentum stalled at 2 for 45.Henriques caught ShortHughes and Henriques put together an excellent 67-run stand for the third wicket. Overs seven to 11 are normally among the lowest scoring of any T20 innings. But the pair took 37 from those four overs with some outstanding striking. They threatened to build a huge total before Henriques was undone by some brilliant fielding. When he missed a slog-sweep off Short, Wade fumbled behind the stumps and the ball bounced away from him. Hughes called Henriques through for a bye. Wade quickly zipped out to gather and throw at the non-striker’s end but the throw was well wide of the stumps. Short moved to his right, gathered the awkward throw and backhanded it onto the stumps to beat Henriques. The Sixers innings struggled from there. Wade brought back Botha to get Hughes while Jordan Silk had a rare failure miscuing a James Faulkner slower ball to cover. Faulkner took two wickets in the final over of the innings to finish with 3 for 36 but did concede a six and a four as the Sixers posted 161.The catch that wasn’tAfter Wade fell for just 15 early in the chase, all eyes turned to Short. He was restrained in the Powerplay reaching 23 off 18 balls as the Hurricanes made 1 for 43 from the first six overs. Short opened up his shoulders in the seventh over off Steve O’Keefe and hit him to deep midwicket. The Sixers’ best fielder Jordan Silk was stationed in the hot spot. Silk took the catch cleanly while tight walking the rope. His momentum took his third step over the rope and he threw the ball to team-mate Sean Abbott close by, but didn’t get the throw away before his foot hit the ground outside the rope.Short survived and added six to his total. He went onto hit two more sixes on his way to 64 from 42 balls to take control of the chase. Alex Doolan was also dropped on 9 in the next over by Josh Philippe, grassing a straight-forward skier, and he went on to make an important 26. Sean Abbott pulled the game back knocking over both Doolan and Short, the latter clean bowled by a sensational yorker. But the equation was a manageable 51 from 35 balls with seven wickets in hand.Bailey brillianceAbbott conceded just four runs from the 15thover as Bailey faced two dots in his first three balls. Henriques then gambled with the part-time legspin of Joe Denly in the 16th, figuring the ball spinning away from the right-handers was a better match-up than Ben Manenti’s offspin. However, the plan backfired. Bailey and Ben McDermott took 16 from the over.McDermott fell in the next over but Bailey found the rope again off O’Keefe. With 19 runs needed from the last two overs, Henriques turned to Abbott. He missed with two attempted yorkers and Bailey and Simon Milenko dispatched both length balls for six and the game was effectively over. Bailey fell to a great catch by Henriques in the last over but Milenko and Faulkner managed to find the remaining five runs.

Andre Russell and Shakib Al Hasan kept Dhaka Dynamites in the game before losing steam at the close

The Report by Shamya Dasgupta30-Jan-2019Cameron Delport contributed with bat and ball, and on the field, to lead Chittagong Vikings to an important 11-run win over Dhaka Dynamites in Chattogram. He was ably aided by captain Mushfiqur Rahim with the bat and pacer Abu Jayed, who made inroads with the new ball and calmed any nerves with an excellent final over, conceding just six with 17 to defend.Batting first after winning the toss, Vikings started well with Mohammad Shahzad and Delport till Sunil Narine came in and had Shahzad stumped off his second ball. The scoring rate dipped after that, Vikings reaching the halfway stage with just 68 on the board. But they did have wickets in hand – nine of them – and Delport had hit his stride.An excellent third-wicket partnership between Delport and Mushfiqur turned the tide away from Dynamites. The two of them added 79 in just seven-and-a-half overs before Andre Russell turned the game around in the final over of the innings.Not any of his first three deliveries of the final over were particularly threatening, but each of them got him a wicket for a hat-trick. Mushfiqur first miscued a full toss down Shuvagata Hom’s throat at long-on, and Delport, next ball, sent Russell to the same fielder after not failing to get hold of one in the slot. It became three in three as Dasun Shanaka attempted a scoop but only sent it as far as Mizanur Rahman at short fine-leg.At various points of their chase, Dynamites looked likely to pull it off.When Shakib Al Hasan and Nurul Hasan were together for the fourth wicket, for example, and had added 50 runs before Delport sent Nurul back lbw. To make matters worse for Dynamites, Kieron Pollard ran himself out next ball, leaving Dhaka 73 for 5.But Russell joined Shakib for a quick 66-run stand after that, with Russell hitting 39 in just 23 balls. He was caught by Delport off Shanaka, but Shakib carried on, and brought the equation down to 21 from ten balls before holing out off a Shanaka slower delivery after scoring 53 in 42 balls.That left the remaining Dhaka batsmen with too much to do, and they fell short in the end.Andre Russell put in a strong all-round performance•Raton Gomes/BCB

Turning points

• Mushfiqur was the man Delport needed at the other end when the game was nicely balanced – Vikings 107 for 2 after 14 overs. Mushfiqur took off with a six over fine leg to a Rubel Hossain bouncer, and the scoring picked up in a big way after that, despite a quiet over from Narine and Russell’s hat-trick towards the end.
• With Nurul striking the ball well and Shakib settling down nicely, Dynamites were on track for the big chase, but Delport was in the thick of the action again, trapping Nurul plumb in front to break the flow. Next ball, Pollard was run-out.
• Shakib had been dropped earlier in his innings, but had got his teeth into the chase, speeding up after losing Russell and keeping Dynamites on target despite a steep asking rate. He had to be stopped if the Vikings wanted to have a shot, and Shanaka did the trick with a slower offcutter, which Shakib could only send high as opposed to long, and Nayeem Hasan held on gleefully.

Star of the day
He scored at a strike rate of 124.56, but Delport’s innings was outstanding in the context of the game, as he batted from the start till the second ball of the final over, scoring 71 off 57 balls and never quite letting the Dynamites bowlers gain the upper hand. He was clinical with his slower variations too, getting rid of the dangerous-looking Nurul and conceding just 31 runs in his four overs, the second-most economical among the Vikings bowlers.The big miss
Pollard, first ball, tapped Delport to cover and went for the run. Shakib, from the other end, hollered “no, no, no”, but Pollard paid no heed, completed his half of the run, and continued his jog to the dugout. At that stage, Pollard might have been able to make a difference.Where they stand
Vikings stayed at third place on the table, now level on points with Comilla Victorians, though after playing one extra match and with an inferior net run rate. The loss wasn’t ideal for Dynamites, who are in fourth place, with ten points from ten games.

England thrash University of West Indies Vice-Chancellor’s XI in one-day tour match

George Dobell 17-Feb-2019If England required any extra inspiration ahead of what could be a momentous summer, the sight of three true greats of West Indies cricket being honoured between innings of this game showed, perhaps, what might be achieved.While it may be stretching a point to suggest England’s players could finish their careers with reputations quite as high as these three – Sir Everton Weekes, Sir Wes Hall and Sir Garfield Sobers really do represent the best of the best – it is probably fair to suggest that winning the World Cup would ensure this team’s place in their nation’s cricketing folklore. Like Weekes and co. it may prove a success that sustains even 50 years after their careers have finished. Whatever they achieve in the rest of their lives, it would probably be mentioned in the first sentence of their obituaries.This match – against the not especially catchily named University of West Indies’ Vice-Chancellor’s XI – represented England’s first List A game in a run of white-ball cricket that now lasts until mid-July.It’s hard to know what to read into such games. A few weeks ago, England annihilated a strong-looking side in two warm-up games ahead of the Test series; it didn’t prove an especially accurate indicator of their readiness.But the fact that Jason Roy and Joe Root both made centuries – the former from 78-balls; the latter from 74 – the fact that the spinners took wickets, that Mark Wood bowled with pace and Chris Woakes returned to action with a well-controlled spell, all boded well. The crushing margin of victory – 171 runs – underlined the chasm between the sides.There was some modest bowling and there were some dropped catches. Roy was missed on 45 and Root on 77, but the manner in which both of them managed to score freely on a sluggish wicket was encouraging. Jonny Bairstow, while not quite as fluent, took advantage of being dropped on nine to make 46 and later completed two neat stumpings.Alex Hales missed out, however. Only playing as Jos Buttler had been rested, Hales was unable to apply pressure on any of the incumbents as he clipped one to square leg without scoring. Eoin Morgan, meanwhile, was run out responding to Root’s call, Ben Stokes pulled a long-hop to long-on and Moeen Ali was bamboozled by Obed McCoy’s excellent slower ball.There might be just a little concern over Liam Plunkett, though. He did not, by any means, bowl poorly and came back pretty well after an expensive start. But he appears to be struggling to generate the pace that once seemed to come fairly easily and, without it, those back of the length cutters do not offer quite such sharp variation. He will be 34 by the time the World Cup starts and, with the likes of Tom Curran and, indeed, Jofra Archer – pushing for selection, his position as an automatic selection may be in some jeopardy. He goes into this series with just a bit to prove.Wood’s selection is not certain, either. But here he showed the value his pace can offer by first hitting Kjorn Ottley with a short ball and then dismissing him flapping at another one. Later Wood also had his brother, Yannick Ottley, caught hooking a short-ball to deep square leg.Woakes’ return was also encouraging. He has endured a frustrating tour, missing all three of the Tests due to a long-standing knee problem, but showed his value here by bowling a tight new-ball spell and then returning to nail yorker after yorker. He might be the most irreplaceable bowler in this England side.Meanwhile, an England supporter who was hit in the face by a six hit by Moeen – they had tried to catch it, only for the ball to burst through their hands – was said to be no more than uncomfortable by the end of the game. The England team doctor was among those to offer assistance at the time, with the amount of blood causing some alarm. While the spectator will have quite a bruise, they are not understood to have sustained a serious injury.

Former county opener holds up Surrey’s victory push with impressive hundred

ESPNcricinfo staff26-Mar-2019MCC 265 and 221 for 1 (Sibley 102*) trail Surrey 520 (Pope 251) by 34 runsOllie Pope laid down a timely reminder of the credentials that earned him a Test debut against India last summer, as he converted his overnight century into a career-best 251 to cement Surrey’s control of the Champion County fixture at Dubai.By the close of the third day, however, their march to an apparently comfortable victory had been held up by a doughty response from MCC’s openers.Faced with a deficit of 255, the Warwickshire duo of Will Rhodes and Dom Sibley added 190 for MCC’s first wicket to help reduce their side’s arrears to just 34 runs with nine wickets standing.Though Rhodes eventually fell for 88 – bowled by the legspin of Scott Borthwick – Sibley was unbeaten on 102 at the close, a telling display from a player who left Surrey under a cloud last season, having felt his opportunities for first-team cricket had been limited since becoming, in 2013, the second-youngest player after WG Grace to score a first-class double-century.He went to his hundred with 11 fours, and had faced 194 balls by the close, in compiling his fourth first-class century in five innings, after finishing the 2018 county season with a flurry of 106, 44, 144 not out and 119 for Warwickshire against Leicestershire, Sussex and Kent.Earlier, Surrey had tightened their grip on the contest by adding a further 131 runs to their overnight 389 for 4, to finish on an imposing 520. They lost one of their overnight centurions, Jamie Smith, for the addition of just four runs, but Pope – who resumed on 183 not out – did not miss out on the chance to convert to a mighty innings.In the midst of a sandstorm, Pope soon went past 200 for the first time in his career, then launched the spin of Dom Bess for consecutive sixes to reach his 250 in style.MCC did battle back with the ball, however. Pope holed out to mid-off against Rhodes’ medium pace to open up an end, whereupon Stephen Parry, the former England left-arm spinner, picked through the tail with three quick wickets.

India batsman’s rare twitter outburst adds to public criticism of the decision to omit him

ESPNcricinfo staff16-Apr-20190:19

Rayudu reacts to his omission from India’s World Cup squad

A not-so-cryptic tweet from Ambati Rayudu has added to the public criticism of the decision to drop him for the World Cup.Rayudu was left out in favour of Vijay Shankar, who, in the words of the chief selector, brings “three dimensions” to the side. A day after the said selection, Rayudu tweeted: “Just ordered a new set of 3d glasses to watch the World Cup.” It was followed by a winking and a smiling emoji.It is rare for an India-contracted player to openly question selections – Karun Nair was reportedly disciplined the last time he spoke about them – let alone take to Twitter to make a sharp comment that can be seen as mocking a selector’s comments.India’s chairman of selectors MSK Prasad had said the final spot had eventually come down to Rayudu and Vijay. “After the Champions Trophy [in 2017], we have tried quite a few middle-order batsmen, which also includes Dinesh Karthik at that order, and we also tried Shreyas Iyer and Manish Pandey,” he said. “We did give a few more chances to Rayudu but what Vijay Shankar offers is three dimensions: apart from his batting, he can bowl; if the conditions are suitable, overcast, which we might encounter in England, he might bowl a bit and he’s a fantastic fielder.”Not long ago, in October 2018, captain Virat Kohli had all but anointed Rayudu India’s No.4 for the World Cup. “With Rayudu coming in and playing well in the Asia Cup, it’s about giving him enough game time till the World Cup so that the particular slot [No. 4] will be sorted for us,” Kohli had said. “The team felt there — and I also watched him — that he is designed to play that middle-order batsman’s role.”We feel that our middle order is more or less balanced now. We believe he is the right person to capitalise on that spot. He is experienced, and has won many games for his state and also in the IPL. He has a great ODI record already for India. I think the batting order is sorted.”Associated Press

Since that comment, India have played 18 matches, out of which Rayudu has been involved in 15. He is India’s fourth-highest run-getter over that period, averaging 42.18, striking at 85.6 runs per 100 balls, and ending the New Zealand tour as the highest run-getter. Among players that have played a minimum of 50 ODIs over their careers, Rayudu holds the fourth-highest average for India. Narrow it down to eight big oppositions, and he still is seventh-highest.Rayudu is not the only one frustrated with this decision. Many cricket experts have questioned his exclusion. “I think there should be no debate about Rishabh Pant’s exclusion but more about Ambati Rayudu,” Gautam Gambhir told PTI. “It is very, very unfortunate that someone averaging 48 in white-ball cricket, and is only 33, has been left out. That for me is more heart-breaking than any other selection decision.”I feel sorry for him as I was in a similar position in 2007, when they didn’t pick me, and I know how difficult it is not being picked for the World Cup. Ultimately, for any young kid, it is a childhood dream to be a part of the big event. So, I feel more sorry for Rayudu than any other cricketer who hasn’t been picked.”Former India spinner Murali Kartik pointed to a recency and aesthetics bias. “We always look at performances very close to the selection, and as I am very happy for Vijay Shankar, I feel for Ambati Rayudu, because for a while he has been your No. 4, he has got runs for you,” Kartik told ESPNcricinfo. “Yes, he has missed out on a few occasions as have other batsmen. But when you look at his record, and – you guys might dissect it a lot more – just to the naked eye, for me, I’ll look at him purely as a cricketer, in my team he has done everything right as a No. 4.”In the sense that there will be swords against him about him playing genuine fast bowling – I don’t think that’s a big issue, there are lots of people who will struggle against genuine fast bowling. It’s not Ambati Rayudu alone. He’s a very good player of spin as well in the middle order.””Somebody like an Ambati Rayudu, it’s not a question of looking convincing, it’s a matter of getting runs, and that’s exactly what it is,” Kartik went on to add. “And KL Rahul, he looks pleasing, he looks a million dollars – don’t get me wrong there, I’m a huge, huge fan of KL Rahul – but if he was so crucial, why wasn’t he playing in the last few months?”Why wasn’t he given a chance in the last few months? So, for me, six months ago this team should have been ready, saying, ‘Okay, these are the guys who are going, you don’t have to watch over your shoulder, just go and play the way you want to play, your spot is secure.’ For somebody to endorse that ‘this guy’s is my No. 4’ and he plays there, he gets runs, yes he’s going to miss out as do others, and then suddenly he gets dropped.”On the same ESPNCricinfo show, Deep Dasgupta said he wouldn’t have picked Rayudu, but he was not happy with the process followed. “It’s difficult to understand it completely, the whole process, where the team management comes out and says ‘he is our No. 4’ and now he isn’t there,” Dasgupta said. “This is over a span of a month-and-a-half, two months. But I also understand why Vijay Shankar is there.”It is unfortunate that Rayudu is not there. But in my team, Rayudu wasn’t there, because as Kartik touched upon that point, that at times he doesn’t look too convincing. Again, if you look at the numbers, then Rayudu is far, far ahead of the other No. 4 players that have been tried out. No questions about that as far as numbers are concerned. But the convincing part of it, I’m not completely convinced when I see him bat.”

The five-wicket win was set up by some excellent bowling from Shreyas Gopal and Jofra Archer

The Report by Vishal Dikshit20-Apr-20198:16

Post-match show – Royals v Mumbai

Rajasthan Royals announced a change of captain just over an hour before the game against Mumbai Indians and, three-and-a-half hours later, saw new captain Steven Smith lead the team home in a tricky chase with an unbeaten half-century.The five-wicket win was set up mainly by some strangling bowling from Shreyas Gopal and Jofra Archer, after Mumbai Indians had looked set for a much bigger total than 161 for 5, having reached 81 for 1 at the halfway mark.Archer and Jaydev Unadkat bowled five of the last six overs that saw Mumbai score only 52 runs. Legspinner Rahul Chahar gave Royals a scare early on in the chase, again bagging three wickets, but Smith’s unbeaten 59 off 48 balls took them home after he had brought the equation down to 25 required from 24 balls along with Riyan Parag.
Royals now have six points from nine matches, still placed seventh, while Mumbai are at No. 2 with 12 points from ten games.Steven Smith cracks one to the off side•BCCI

Aggressive openers and contrasting No. 3s
On a strange Jaipur pitch that had scattered patches of grass, both Powerplays were driven by the more attacking openers – Quinton de Kock for Mumbai and Sanju Samson for Royals. Put in to bat, de Kock used the middle- and leg-stump lines of the Royals pace bowlers and the ball turning into him from Shreyas to pepper the leg-side boundary, scoring 42 of his first 50 runs there. Jofra Archer put him down at long-on when he was on 4 in the third over, and that helped, as de Kock cashed in to hammer three fours and a six on the trot off Dhawal Kulkarni in the next over.Mumbai, however, lost steam after de Kock’s 34-ball half-century. Their No. 3 Suryakumar Yadav scratched his way to 34 off 33, with only one boundary (a six) in his first 30 balls. His slow scoring added pressure on de Kock, and both fell within a space of five balls, and Hardik Pandya and Kieron Pollard were left with too much to do at the end.Royals’ chase started with Samson hitting two consecutive fours off Hardik in the first over, followed by three off Krunal Pandya in the next to race to 21 off his first seven deliveries. Ajinkya Rahane handed a catch to cover in the fourth over before Royals’ No. 3, Smith, played the role Suryakumar could not earlier in the day, to help the hosts race to 60 for 1 in the Powerplay.After Chahar had Samson hole out to long-on for 35 off 19 and Ben Stokes chop on a legbreak for a duck, Smith changed gears to anchor the chase as Royals unveiled a new No. 5.Jofra Archer spilled three catches in the deep•BCCI

The 17-year-old Royals enforcer
Mumbai have been known to unleash unknown youngsters in the past, but were on the receiving end this time when 17-year-old Parag walked out at 77 for 3 after eight overs. With a healthy run rate going, Parag used audacious strokes to attack whichever the Mumbai bowlers erred with their lines or lengths, sometimes even when there was nothing wrong with the delivery. He first scooped Hardik to fine leg, then scythed him to third man, and later smashed Chahar for six down the ground. He even took on Malinga when he sent down an inaccurate yorker by drilling a drive over the covers.Parag’s 43 off 29 made sure Smith could afford to slow down and chaperone the chase as the senior batsman. From 29 off 18, Smith went without a boundary for 18 deliveries to avoid a stutter despite late wickets that included Parag’s run-out and another first-ball duck for Ashton Turner.Archer’s mixed day
Apart from dropping de Kock early on, Archer put down two more chances – both of Hardik, both off Unadkat – but he made up for them with his bowling. Smith saved three of his overs for the death and Archer was accurate with a variety of deliveries: yorkers, bouncers, tight lines. That strangled Mumbai in the end despite having Hardik and Pollard in the middle when the 16th over started.Before that, Shreyas used his wrong’uns to good effect yet again to get the big wickets. He took a return catch off Rohit Sharma with his third delivery and returned seven overs later to concede only singles and doubles in his remaining three overs. He nearly had de Kock stumped with a googly in the 13th over but got him in his next over with another wrong’un, a top-edge going to long-on.The result means that Mumbai are now winless against Royals in Jaipur since 2012.

Batting coach Graham Thorpe admits Mark Wood could be deployed alongside Jofra Archer to target opposition batting

George Dobell in Nottingham01-Jun-2019Bowlers from both sides could be forgiven for letting out a little groan, or perhaps even clasping an imaginary hamstring strain, after news that Monday’s match between England and Pakistan is to be played on a surface renowned for vast scores.Yes, England’s second World Cup game will be played on the same pitch on which they have twice broken the record for highest ODI score, amassing 481 for 6 against Australia last year and 444 for 3 against Pakistan in 2016. It is two away from the strip used on Friday, when Pakistan were bounced out for 105, and, in short, probably the best batting surface in the world for ODI cricket at present.This tournament may prove just a little different, though. Early indications suggest the early starts – most matches begin at 10.30am to maximise the peak hours for an Asian TV audience – may have shifted the balance in such encounters just a little bit back towards the bowlers. Vast scores are still likely, but talk of reaching 500 may prove premature if the sides batting first have to adopt a slightly more circumspect start to their innings.Perhaps the hostility of the bowlers may be a factor, too. Certainly, in the opening few games we have seen the short ball used a little more than was expected, and with some success. Not only were Pakistan blown away by West Indies, but Jofra Archer troubled several South Africa batsmen with his short ball. While bowling short is hardly revolutionary, it could a tactic that increases in prevalence again during this World Cup just as delivering wide yorkers or slower balls became features of previous tournaments. It is remarkable to think that some of the best seamers in the first three World Cups – Joel Garner, for example – rarely bowled a slower ball.Given how Pakistan played – or didn’t play – the short ball on Friday, there is sure to be some temptation for England to add Mark Wood to the attack that fared so well the previous day. Wood, who at his best is every bit as quick as Archer, bowled at full pace in training in Nottingham on Saturday and is said to be fit and available for selection. But Liam Plunkett, who would be the most likely candidate to make way for him, enjoyed a fine all-round game on Thursday and would be unfortunate to miss out. Neither Chris Woakes (five overs) nor Archer (seven) bowled their full allocation, so are expected to be fit and fresh to play again.”I think playing Wood will be discussed,” Graham Thorpe, the England batting coach, said. “We’re aware of what went on here on Friday. We saw West Indies go pretty hard at Pakistan. The captain will make a call on it.”There is every chance England will be on the receiving end of some hostile fast bowling at some stage, too. While West Indies and Australia look especially capable of adopting such a tactic, there is plenty of pace in the Pakistan, squad. To that end, the England batsmen have faced a fair bit of Archer and Wood in the nets and appreciate that it is a tactic – like opponents opening the bowling with spin – for which they must be prepared.”Wood and Archer let it go at our guys, too,” Thorpe said. “It’s good preparation for them. We talk about what you have to be good at and, generally, playing pace and spin is high on the agenda. We had spoken about the possibility of teams starting with spin. So sometimes in training, our players will start against spin and sometimes they’ll start against pace. They have to be prepared for everything.”Despite the pre-tournament talk about huge totals, Thorpe was actually most impressed by the manner in which England adapted to a slightly more demanding surface in their first match. It is not a skill they have they have always shown, so to have managed it under pressure in such a high-profile game has given the side confidence.”We’ve come a cropper a couple of times in the last year or two,” Thorpe said. “And we’ve spoken about it. But you can talk about it all the time, you’ve got to put it into action as well. So it was pleasing we managed to adapt and the guys are really proud of that.”We didn’t quite unlock the door in terms of our batting at The Oval. We couldn’t really let go, because we kept losing wickets at crucial times. We had to keep trying to put on those mini-partnerships and that was really good of us to do that.”But this [Trent Bridge] has generally been a good ground to play at over the years. It has generally always been a good pitch. So the guys are excited. They are looking forward to it.”Well, the batsmen anyway. Despite the early starts and prevalence of the short ball, it still promises to be a tough game for bowlers.

The selectors added the opener to the squad after he was given a medical clearance to play following post-viral fatigue issues

Alex Malcolm03-Jul-2019Joe Burns will get a chance to press his case for the Ashes after being added to Australia A’s squad for the four-day leg of the England tour.Burns was not initially part of the squad that was named in April, with Australia’s selectors content for him to remain on a scheduled 10-game stint with Lancashire in Division Two of the County Championship.But Burns’ stint with Lancashire ended after just one match in May when he was forced home to recover from post-viral fatigue issues and he was replaced as Lancashire’s overseas player by Jake Lehmann.After an enforced rest period, he resumed training on June 17 and was cleared to play again on Monday. The selectors decided to add Burns to the squad for the three four-day games that begin from Sunday against Sussex at Arundel.”I’m looking forward to it,” Burns said. “The last few weeks there was probably a little bit of uncertainty. It’s nice now to have a medical clearance and have some cricket laid out in front of me and all systems go. Just looking forward to getting back to the UK and getting stuck in.”The hardest thing is the uncertainty. When I got diagnosed, I knew I had symptoms for a long time, so I knew that something wasn’t right, but to get the diagnosis and then work with some specialists and get the support from Cricket Australia to get myself right, get back into training, as soon as you have certainty it makes it a lot easier.”Marcus Harris was originally the only specialist opener picked in the four-day squad but Australia’s chairman of selectors Trevor Hohns said they needed to give Burns the opportunity to press his case for the Ashes.”It’s good news that Joe is back to full fitness, and given that he’s had the okay to resume playing and has been training at full tilt with Queensland, we’ve decided to add him to the squad for the upcoming four-day games to give him the opportunity to press for selection in the Ashes squad,” Hohns said.Burns flew out of Brisbane on Wednesday morning and will join the squad in Brighton on Thursday. He did have a training session with former Australia coach and current Brisbane Heat coach Darren Lehmann before flying out.”I always keep in contact with him and I’ve got a really good relationship with him,” Burns said. “Obviously he was my first Queensland coach and first Australia coach. We did some really simple stuff to try and prepare for England. I’m really thankful for his time.”Australia A play two four-day games against Sussex and the England Lions before at least 22 players will be involved in an Australia versus Australia A fixture in Hampshire on July 23. That game will feature members of the World Cup squad and will be the final hit out before the Ashes squad is picked on July 27.Australia A have remained undefeated in the five-match, 50-over portion of the tour after beating Gloucestershire at Bristol on Tuesday.Will Pucovski and Travis Head both scored centuries as Australia A piled up 3 for 353. Pucovski made 137 from 135 balls in his maiden List A century while Head smashed 11 fours and four sixes in his 138 from 120 balls.Gloucestershire gave Australia A a scare in the chase, falling just seven runs short. Sean Abbott starred with the ball taking 4 for 52 from his 10 overs. He took 2 for 8 in his last two overs at the death to seal the game.

Jofra Archer and Jack Leach’s selections rely on the hope, rather than conviction, that England can turn this Ashes series around

Andrew Miller13-Aug-2019It’s a been a fair few years now since Australia’s formidable Test record at Lord’s has been factored into the Ashes build-up – consecutive thumpings in 2009 and 2013 rather punctured their proud boast of not having lost at the ground since 1934. But on their last visit here in 2015, they atoned for those setbacks with a brutal 405-run victory – with a certain Steven Smith leading the line with 215 from 346 balls.And now they are back at their favourite home from home, with Smith exuding an invincibility on English soil not seen since Graeme Smith’s extraordinary awakening in the summer of 2003, and England – for all the hype and expectation surrounding Jofra Archer – looking as vulnerable in a home Ashes campaign as they have been in a generation.It’s not simply that England are 1-0 down in the series – that’s nothing new for this set of players, as Root was happy to point out on the eve of the contest. They’ve been behind on home soil three times in the last six years, and recovered on each occasion, to beat India in 2014, and draw with Pakistan twice in 2016 and 2018.But this time, the concern is the gulf between hope and expectation that appears to be opening up between the two teams, for all that Root was setting out to be bullish on the eve of the contest.”We’re in English conditions, we really back ourselves to come back strong after last week,” Root said, after it had been pointed out that England have now lost six of their last seven Tests against Australia dating back to 2015, with only a bore-draw in Melbourne for respite.
“I’m expecting a big response from the boys. We’ve proven that we do that, time and time again, when we’ve been defeated, especially at home. Last week will have hurt everyone and everyone will be absolutely desperate to go and win this week. And I expect nothing less.”That’s a lot of expectation to shoehorn into one answer. But does Root really expect England to perform better than they did in the crunch moments at Edgbaston, or he is merely hoping that they will? Does he expect their misfiring middle-order to find renewed resolve with the series in the balance, or is he simply hoping that that is the case?Or, to flip the sentiment on its head: Do England really expect Archer – and to a lesser extent, Jack Leach – to add a sting to their attack that Smith in particular so expertly drew in the first Test? Of course they don’t … though they fervently hope that they might. “He’s got a good bouncer and bowls at a good pace consistently, so I’m sure he’ll cause problems on most surfaces,” said Root of Archer. “Hopefully, he can exploit this one.”ALSO READ: ‘More ready than I’ve ever been’ – Archer primed for Test debutInstead, it is Australia who really expects … and that has tended to be a deadly mindset when these two sides have clashed in the past. Whereas England tend to be a danger to themselves whenever they try to be frontrunners in a series, getting on top and staying on top is far more in tune with the Australian psyche, especially one that has been rebooted by a brains trust including both Justin Langer and Steve Waugh.In fact, Australia’s plans are falling so serenely into place that, in resting James Pattinson while tantalising both Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood with the carrot of a Lord’s comeback, the management have been able to cast one eye towards next week’s third Test at Headingley, even while ensuring their chosen 12 keep their thoughts firmly fixed in the present.”It’s always nice from a captaincy and a leadership point of view when you’ve got two senior players who are world-class left out and they cop it on the chin, run drinks, and train their backsides off in the lunch hours and tea breaks,” said Australia’s captain, Tim Paine. “It sets a really good example for the rest of our team.”ALSO READ: Pattinson rested, Hazlewood likely to play Lord’s TestIt’s certainly not a policy that guarantees success, but as a mitigation against failure, it seems light-years removed from England’s current suck-it-and-see approach – one which, in the penultimate month of this most exhausting of summers, seems now to be relying more on a Pakistani-style quest for Haal than any actual long-term planning.Jofra Archer is expected to play an impact role based on short spells•Getty Images

And who’s to say, just like Pakistan on any given day – or like Chris Woakes and Stuart Broad on the final day of the Ireland Test last month – a combination of rich talent and faint desperation won’t propel this set of players to extraordinary and series-turning heights. There’s certainly little doubt that, pound for pound and irrespective of fatigue and motivation, a team containing world-class individuals such as Root, Archer, Ben Stokes and Jason Roy ought to be a match for any opponent.But, just as Australia couldn’t be any more at home at Lord’s – moseying around the pavilion as if to the manor born, and with their kids performing cartwheels on the square as they saunter back from the nets – so it is England who most resemble a put-upon touring team.One Test down out of five, and among their fast-bowling stocks, already Mark Wood, Olly Stone and James Anderson are sidelined, with only the latter a realistic chance of being fit before the end of the series. And while Joe Root’s promotion to No. 3 has applied a band-aid to their longstanding top-order flimsiness, the recent absence of Championship cricket makes the sourcing of battle-ready replacements as problematic as it would have been had the series been taking place Down Under.”A big responsibility comes on the players, making sure that they look after themselves and keep themselves as fit as possible,” said Root. “Throughout the rest of this campaign, there are certain things which you can’t control and sometimes you get thrown a bad hand and you have to deal with it. And we’ve certainly responded well to that in the past when that’s happened. And we’ve got to make sure that we do exactly the same this time. We’ve got some very talented players and bowlers that are fully capable of taking 20 wickets this week.”And yet, to riff on a recurring theme of the past month, England have already scaled their Everest for this summer, and in such glorious fashion too, on this very ground. Australia, by contrast, over-achieved in reaching the World Cup semi-finals, but only now are they really beginning to hit their stride. They’ve not won the Ashes in England for 18 years and counting, but much like England in the white-ball campaign just gone, they know they’ll rarely get a better chance to drive home their advantage.

Third umpires will adjudicate on overstepping calls in a number of limited-overs series over the next six months

Nagraj Gollapudi06-Aug-2019TV umpires may soon become the sole adjudicators of front-foot no-balls, if planned ICC trials prove successful.The ICC will identify a number of limited-overs series over the next six months for implementing a system where the TV umpire – and not the on-field umpires – will call no-balls for overstepping. The system has been trialled before, notably in the ODI series between England and Pakistan in 2016, but it will be rolled out on a much broader scale this time.”Broadly, yes [the same technology as 2016 will be used],” Geoff Allardice, the ICC’s general manager for cricket operations, told ESPNcricinfo. “The idea is the third umpire will be presented an image of the front-foot landing within a few seconds. He would communicate to the on-field umpire that a no-ball has been delivered, so every delivery on the field would be played as a fair delivery until called otherwise.”During the previous trial, a Hawkeye operator presented a still image to the third umpire independent of the normal broadcast.”The footage is shown on a slight delay, it goes to super slo-mo as the foot approaches the point of landing, and then it freezes,” Allardice explained. “The routine works well, with the third umpire judging the no-ball off a picture that is not always shown on the broadcast.”In 2016, it ended up taking on average eight seconds between the foot landing and a call being made by the TV umpire. The ICC was happy the decision was made quickly enough, though there were a couple of instances where a tighter call took longer. The hope is that the process will become quicker, the more TV umpires get used to it.The move has come from the ICC’s cricket committee, who want as many limited-overs matches as possible to use this system. But that, as Allardice explained, is not a straightforward task.”The cricket committee recommended that we do it in all ODIs and T20Is,” he said. “In 2018, there were about 84,000 balls delivered around the world in those formats in men’s international cricket. So to monitor the no-ball on each of those deliveries at all of the different venues is a big exercise. We just need to understand all the challenges before implementing this across all matches.”Can this technology be implemented consistently across the 80 venues that hosted ODIs and T20Is last year? There are different levels of television coverage across these matches, so it will be easier to implement at some matches than at others. We now have 104 members who play T20I cricket and many of their matches are not televised, so what do we do there? Thinking through all of the implications of introducing this is the exercise for us over the next six months.”Nigel Llong and Virat Kohli have an argument over the ‘no-ball’•BCCI

In the past, electronic line-calling systems – as used in tennis – have been discussed, but there were issues: creases get blurry, there is movement across the crease from the non-striker, and there are bowlers like Ravindra Jadeja, whose heel is usually behind the line but in the air when the foot lands.The highest-profile instance this year of a no-ball being missed occurred not in international cricket but in the IPL, where umpire S Ravi missed Lasith Malinga overstepping in a game between Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore. Royal Challengers captain Virat Kohli was not happy about that call, especially since it was the last ball of the innings in a tight chase.The umpires missed a no-ball in Australia’s game against West Indies in the World Cup more recently, which accrued significance after the event as Chris Gayle was dismissed next ball: had the no-ball been called, the next ball would have been a free hit.As recently as last November, Ravi was at the centre of a more prolonged spell of missing no-balls. In England’s third Test in Sri Lanka, on the third morning in Colombo, Lakshan Sandakan bowled as many as 12 no-balls according to the broadcasters in a five-over spell; the only deliveries that were penalised by Ravi and the other umpires, however, were the ones that allowed Ben Stokes to continue his innings after being caught off them.