“We’ll certainly miss her, but we have a number of fast bowling options,” says Australia captain

Andrew McGlashan18-Aug-2021Australia will look to make use of their burgeoning group of pace bowlers over the upcoming matches against India with the possibility of putting their fastest ever collective of quicks together for the Test at the WACA.The experienced Megan Schutt, who has been locked in with the new ball over the last four years, won’t be part of the series for personal seasons but Australia still have formidable resources at their disposal including the potential of young quicks Tayla Vlaeminck and Darcie Brown being teamed up for the first time.Related

• Lanning bats for multi-day matches at domestic level

• Perry set for 'bigger role' in ODI series

• Brown hungry to learn as Australia's young quicks push each other

• Schutt and injured Jonassen to miss India series

The pace bowling, which captain Meg Lanning has previously pinpointed as a point of difference in the Australia side, has been reinforced with the inclusion of uncapped pair of Stella Campbell and Maitlan Brown, the latter who was previously in the squad against New Zealand last year before being injured in the WBBL. Allrounder Annabel Sutherland, who can also bowl in excess of 120kph, is available again and there will also be interest in whether Ellyse Perry’s bowling can return to its previous effectiveness.”There’s no doubt that Megan not being there does leave a bit of a hole. We’ve got used to having her around so much and she’s such a consistent player,” Lanning said. “We’ll certainly miss her, but we have a number of fast bowling options and we have been working on building that depth for a while now.”Bringing Stella into the mix is really exciting, she brings some genuine pace and bounce, and we have Darcie Brown. Put that with Tayla, Ellyse and Annabel Sutherland and we feel like we have some really good options.”However, while there may be a temptation to take on India with a barrage of pace if the Test remains in Perth – Covid-19 is threatening to play havoc with schedules – Lanning still sees a key role for the spinners with Sophie Molineux and Georgia Wareham likely to get the chance to fill the shoes of the injured Jess Jonassen.”[Playing a lot of pace is] certainly something we can look at,” Lanning said. “We have good depth in both spin and pace now which is really important and that is an advantage of the bigger squad. Generally, at the WACA, pace is the preferred option but I still think spin can play a really important role, so we’ll have to get the balance right. Certainly, [the quicks] are some great options and all of them bring something slightly different which is crucial. You need that variety.”On the prospect of 19-year-old Campbell making a Test debut at the WACA, national selector Shawn Flegler said: “Her height and bounce and now her pace is something that’s really exciting. Think if we get to play the Test at the WACA, it is an exciting prospect with Darcie and Tayla as well, that’s three pretty genuinely quick fast bowlers.”Vlaeminck played Australia’s previous Test, against England in the 2019 Ashes, but an injury-interrupted career has so far limited her to 20 appearances across formats in three years. Lanning cautioned that it was about being able to have her available for the biggest matches which include next year’s ODI World Cup.”She has been very unlucky with injuries so far and you just want her to have a really good run at it,” Lanning said. “She is certainly in our plans to become a really important bowler for us, she has some attributes which are really unique and challenge batters from different perspectives.”The important thing for Tayla is, she has the potential to play for many years and it’s getting the balance right in making sure she is ready for key games and getting that experience into her. She doesn’t need to peak too early, it’s about getting her ready for the right time and getting a good base into her. I’ve been really impressed with the work ethic she’s put in.”A quick future: Maitlan Brown, Tayla Vlaeminck, Stella Campbell and Darcie Brown•Getty Images

Managing all players, but especially the fast bowlers, over what is scheduled to be the busiest ever season, and in what could yet require extensive bubbles, is front and centre of the planning.”We’ve communicated to the players that this winter has been about preparing themselves to be right for the next 12-18 months,” Flegler said. “We’ll certainly look at that pace-bowling group, they are on the younger side a few of them, and we’ve been really conscious of that and have been trying to bring those players into the squad to give them a little bit of experience.”We are looking at how we manage those bowlers, it’s a multi-format series so plenty of overs to be bowled and we need to make sure we have our best bowlers available for the World Cup final in April.”

Gujarat opener Priyank Panchal has been added to India’s squad as his replacement

Nagraj Gollapudi and Shashank Kishore13-Dec-2021Rohit Sharma has been ruled out of the Test leg of India’s tour of South Africa with an injury to his left hamstring. The Gujarat opener Priyank Panchal has been drafted into the squad as his replacement.ESPNcricinfo has learned that Rohit suffered the injury during a net session before the India squad entered quarantine in Mumbai, from where they are scheduled to travel to South Africa this week.For Rohit, this is the second major tour affected by injury in the last 12 months. He only featured in the third and fourth Tests of India’s 2020-21 tour of Australia, missing the first two Tests due to a hamstring injury picked up during IPL 2020.Related

• Ganguly on Kohli's captaincy comments: 'Leave it to BCCI'

• Kohli: Was told I wouldn't be ODI captain hour-and-a-half before SA Test squad was announced

• Rohit replaces Kohli as ODI captain, takes over from Rahane as Test vice-captain

• Rohit Sharma's ascent to ODI captaincy predictable and sensible

• Quinton de Kock set to miss part of India Test series on paternity leave

Rohit’s absence will be a blow to India’s preparations given he has been their highest Test run-getter in 2021, and one of only two batters – Rishabh Pant being the other – with a 40-plus average from 10 or more innings. Since moving to the top of the order during the home series against South Africa in 2019, Rohit has scored 1462 runs in 16 Tests at an average of 58.48, with five centuries including, most recently, a Player-of-the-Match-winning 127 in India’s win at The Oval in September.KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal are the other openers in India’s Test squad apart from the uncapped Panchal.Rohit had also been named vice-captain of the Test squad, apart from taking over as full-time captain in the white-ball formats.It remains to be seen if India will hand the vice-captaincy back to the out-of-form Ajinkya Rahane, or name a new deputy to Virat Kohli. It is learned that the selectors are deliberating over Rohit’s availability for the three ODIs that follow the Test series. A decision is likely to be taken this week.Priyank Panchal captained India A in two of their three recent four-day games in South Africa•Cricket South Africa

This isn’t Panchal’s maiden call-up to the Test squad. Earlier this year he was part of an extended India squad that took on England in four Tests at home. Panchal, who is 31 and leads Gujarat in domestic cricket, was among the reserve openers for that series alongside Abhimanyu Easwaran.While Panchal is a relative unknown to the wider public, he has been one of the regulars for India A over the last few years. A veteran of 100 first-class matches, Panchal was most-recently part of India A’s shadow tour of South Africa, where he captained the team in two of the three four-day games in Bloemfontein. He made scores of 96, 24 and 0 in his three innings on tour.Panchal’s stocks rose significantly since his breakout Ranji Trophy season in 2016-17, where he topped the run charts with 1310 runs in 17 innings at an average of 87.33. His first-class highest, an unbeaten 314, came against Punjab that season. Those runs were part of a historic run for Gujarat, who clinched their maiden Ranji Trophy title. Following Parthiv Patel’s retirement last year, Panchal took over the Gujarat captaincy.

Half-centuries from both batters ensured they had enough on the board for Rashid Khan to work his magic

ESPNcricinfo staff21-Jan-2022Hashmatullah Shahidi produced a match-winning half-century on debut as Afghanistan ODI captain. His knock, worth 73 runs in 94 balls, rescued a faltering innings, and once there was a total of 222 for 8 on the board, their stellar bowling attack, led by Rashid Khan, put the squeeze on Netherlands and beat them by 36 runs.In conditions where hardly any batter from either side scored at more than run a ball, Afghanistan needed the expertise of their newly-appointed leader. Shahidi, batting at No. 4, struck four fours and two sixes as he shepherded the innings all the way through to the 50th over. He had the experienced Rahmat Shah for support, the right-hand batter scoring 70 off 102 balls. Only one of the other Afghanistan batters was able to push their score past 20, as Brandon Glover (9-0-43-3) and Fred Klaassen (10-1-39-2) kept things in check.Netherlands’ hopes of chasing the total down rested mostly on opener Scott Edwards. He scored 68 off 82 balls, with eight fours, but his dismissal – bowled by Mujeeb Ur Rahman – created the opening that Afghanistan needed to take control. Netherlands fell from 121 for 3 to 186 all out as Rashid (3-31), the fifth bowler into the attack, took care of business.

Gaffe at select committee hearing is proof of cricket’s “endemic problem”, says Azeem Rafiq

Andrew Miller25-Jan-2022The chairman of Middlesex County Cricket Club has been accused of reinforcing racial stereotypes, after telling MPs at a Parliamentary hearing in Westminster that the club’s lack of diversity is partly attributable to Black people preferring football, and Asians putting more focus on education.Addressing the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee, Mike O’Farrell attracted widespread condemnation for his attempt to defend Middlesex’s poor record in bringing ethnic minority players through to its senior ranks – including from Azeem Rafiq, whose allegations of institutional racism at Yorkshire had triggered the parliamentary inquest, and who stated that O’Farrell’s remarks were further proof of the sport’s “endemic problem”.”The football and rugby world becomes much more attractive to the Afro-Caribbean community,” O’Farrell said, in a bid to explain why – despite claiming that 57 percent of Middlesex’s youth-team participants come from diverse backgrounds – the current first-team squad has just two British Asian representatives out of 25, and no Black players.Despite strong diversity at age-group level, Middlesex has a poor record in bringing Black and Asian players through to the senior squad•Getty Images

“And in terms of the South Asian community, there is a moment where we’re finding that they do not want necessarily to commit the same time that is necessary to go the next step because they prefer, not always saying they do it, they sometimes prefer to go into other educational fields,” O’Farrell added. “Then cricket becomes secondary, and part of that is because it’s a rather more time-consuming sport than some others.”Responding on Twitter, Rafiq wrote: “Painful listen and just shows how far removed from reality these people are. This has just confirmed what an endemic problem the game has. I actually can’t believe what I am listening to.”Ebony Rainford-Brent, the former England player-turned-commentator – who founded the ACE (African Caribbean Engagement) Programme in 2020 to help reinvigorate cricket in the Black British community – was similarly critical of O’Farrell’s comments.”Honestly these outdated views in the game are exactly why we are in this position,” Rainford-Brent wrote. “Unfortunately the decision-makers hold onto these myths. ‘The Black community only like football, and Asian community only interested in education’ Seriously the game deserves better.”Related

• PCA to appear before Parliament in wake of Azeem Rafiq's 'inept' claims

• Remembering Haringey Cricket College, the charity behind a generation of Black cricketers

• Azeem Rafiq: 'Time is right' for Yorkshire to get back right to host international cricket

• English cricket must 'clean up its act' on racism, concludes DCMS report

• Colin Graves told by MP: 'Put up or shut up', amid row over influence at Yorkshire

The remarks came on the same day that the ECB announced a partnership with Kick It Out, football’s anti-discrimination organisation, alongside a full review of dressing-room culture in all men’s and women’s professional teams, at both domestic and international level. This will be led by Clare Connor, the ECB’s director of women’s cricket, with a report due in September.O’Farrell later issued an apology for his comments, insisting that the “misunderstanding” was down to a “lack of clarity and context in the answers I provided”.”For the purposes of clarification, I was aiming to make the point that as a game, cricket has failed a generation of young cricketers, in systematically failing to provide them with the same opportunities that other sports and sectors so successfully provide,” O’Farrell said.”Cricket has to take responsibility for these failings and must learn that until we make the game an attractive proposition for youngsters of all backgrounds to continue through the pathway into the professional game, much like other sports and sectors are doing, the game won’t make the progress it needs to.”A commitment to “remove barriers in talent pathways”, such as those that seem to exist at Middlesex, was one of the five key points in the ECB Action Plan that emerged in the wake of their last appearance before the DCMS committee in November.A number of factors have contributed to the lack of minority representation in the professional game, including a tendency among youth-team coaches towards conformity; a lack of feedback to talented youngsters from marginalised backgrounds, and the prohibitive cost of equipment – including bats and helmets – that impedes the game’s reach in poorer communities.Addressing such issues in November, Tom Harrison, the ECB chief executive, said: “That decision-making point between talented youngsters and becoming professionals around the country is a worrying statistic for us. There may be structural and cultural barriers in place that we need to remove. We just need to accelerate the work that’s going on here, but I don’t think we have all the answers yet.”

Afghanistan also set to tour; South Africa T20Is to be played in England at Bristol

Matt Roller01-Mar-2022Ireland will play white-ball series against India, New Zealand, South Africa and Afghanistan in their 2022 home summer but their wait for a Test match will stretch past three years after the postponement of their tour to Zimbabwe.Cricket Ireland (CI) announced a near-complete fixture list for the men’s international season on Tuesday, with the dates and venues for the Afghanistan series still unconfirmed. Warren Deutrom, CI’s chief executive, said that the schedule represented “a record amount of men’s cricket” for Ireland in a single summer, with three ODIs and 12 T20Is confirmed.Ireland’s tour of Zimbabwe, which was due to take place in April and include a Test match, has been postponed, while Bangladesh’s multi-format series in Ireland has also been pushed back by a year to 2023 in order to help CI deal with their “facility constraints”.Ireland’s most recent men’s Test took place in July 2019 and their prolonged hiatus from five-day cricket prompted their captain Andy Balbirnie to say at the end of last year that their Full-Member status “only really feels like a name”.Ireland will also stage home fixtures in England for the first time when they play South Africa in Bristol on August 3 and 5 in a two-match T20I series. CI had previously planned to stage fixtures against Bangladesh on English soil in the 2020 season to ensure that fresh pitches could be used at their main international venues, though the fixtures were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.India are the first tourists of the summer, playing two T20Is at Malahide on June 26 and 28 ahead of their tour to England, which starts with last summer’s rescheduled fifth Test at Edgbaston on July 1. India last played in Ireland in 2018, winning a two-match T20I series 2-0.New Zealand will then play three ODIs and three T20Is between July 10 and 22, with the ODIs held at Malahide and the T20I leg of the tour at Stormont. New Zealand are also due to play Scotland and Netherlands in 2022, though fixtures are yet to be confirmed.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Following the series against South Africa in early August, the men’s international summer will conclude with five T20Is against Afghanistan, with details yet to be confirmed. Afghanistan’s tour was initially scheduled to include a Test match and three ODIs but CI said those fixtures would be “rescheduled to a future date”. Deutrom said that the volume of T20I fixtures would be important ahead of October’s T20 World Cup in Australia, for which Ireland qualified last week after finishing as runners-up in Qualifier A in Oman.”Arranging and allocating fixtures is always a complicated process given our facility constraints,” Deutrom said in a press release. “These challenges require a juggling act around loading on our international pitches, hosting and touring costs, the needs of hosting clubs, reciprocity with opponents, scheduling our elite domestic competitions, profitability of fixtures and taking our men’s and women’s teams around the island. Of course, Covid has also played its part in shifting the sands of the FTP [Future Tours Programme].”Taking all these into consideration, we decided to postpone both this year’s planned tour to Zimbabwe in April and the home Bangladesh series into 2023. This will help alleviate some of these factors, spread the cost of men’s cricket over two years, and also spread the fixture load across 2022 and 2023, in particular given that the World Cup’s delay to the end of the year has left us to fill the 2023 home season.”Even with these changes, we’re still hosting a record amount of men’s cricket against some of the world’s top teams this year – with more exciting announcements to come around our women’s fixtures. Just as importantly, with full crowds permitted to return, we look forward to seeing fans flock back to the grounds.”CI announced earlier this week that a new budget featuring a €317,000 (USD 353,000) investment in facilities – including in hybrid pitch technology – and an increase in funding for provincial unions, grassroots and women’s cricket.The report into the team’s early exit from last year’s T20 World Cup in the UAE has also been reviewed and discussed by CI’s board. The report highlighted a dearth of “high-quality international fixtures” in the medium-term build-up to the tournament; recommended a restructure of the men’s coaching set-up; and stressed the need for improved facilities, which Deutrom described as “one of the most urgent needs for Irish cricket” and “the number one priority on my desk”.

Ireland men’s home fixtures, 2022

June 26 – 1st T20I vs India, Malahide
June 28 – 2nd T20I vs India, Malahide
July 10 – 1st ODI vs New Zealand, Malahide
July 12 – 2nd ODI vs New Zealand, Malahide
July 15 – 3rd ODI vs New Zealand, Malahide
July 18 – 1st T20I vs New Zealand, Stormont
July 20 – 2nd T20I vs New Zealand, Stormont
July 22 – 3rd T20I vs New Zealand, Stormont
August 3 – 1st T20I vs South Africa, Bristol
August 5 – 2nd T20I vs South Africa, Bristol

Almost nothing went right for Sunrisers in their first game, as their bowlers took a hammering and batters collapsed in a steep chase

Karthik Krishnaswamy03-Apr-2022

Big picture

IPL 2021 featured a highly competitive league stage in which seven of the eight teams nursed realistic hopes of making the playoffs deep into the season. The eighth team, Sunrisers Hyderabad, won just three of their 14 games.It’s still early days in IPL 2022, but Sunrisers are looking a little like the odd team out once again, though it’s mostly because they have played just the one game so far while everyone else has played at least two. And that one game, against Rajasthan Royals, was a heavy defeat in which little went right, their bowlers taking a hammering while creating chances off no-balls, and their top order collapsing in a steep chase.It was the kind of game that can make a team look worse than it actually is. If you treat slumping to 9 for 3 as the kind of thing that can happen to any team on a bad day, there were actually positives that emerged for Sunrisers with the bat, chiefly the displays of Aiden Markram and Washington Sundar in the middle and lower order. If those two can perform those roles consistently through the season, and if the rest of their line-up performs close to expectations, Sunrisers potentially have a stronger and deeper batting unit than they have had over their last three or four seasons.

Live in the USA

In the USA, you can watch the match LIVE on ESPN+ in English and in Hindi.

The faster bowlers did okay against Royals too, but the spinners struggled. Washington is a defensive bowler best used in tandem with a proper wicket-taker; he was picked as the lead spinner on his Sunrisers debut, and his three overs and sixth bowler Abhishek Sharma’s one went for a combined 62 runs.With the rest of Sunrisers’ squad containing no obvious solution, spin is likely to remain a problem area through the season.Lucknow Super Giants, whom they will face on Monday, won’t make their life any easier. They are coming off a successful chase of 211 against Chennai Super Kings, which brought them their first points as an IPL team after a close-run defeat to fellow newbies Gujarat Titans. That chase showcased a batting line-up of excellent left-right balance and depth, which is now set to be bolstered further by the arrival of Jason Holder.Faced with this line-up and their own deficiencies in the spin department, early breakthroughs could be key to Sunrisers’ fortunes.

In the news

Holder has completed his quarantine after arriving in India following the conclusion of West Indies’ Test series against England, and trained with his Super Giants team-mates on Sunday. The allrounder is likely to slot straight into the XI against his old franchise.Washington Sundar’s presence adds strength and depth to Sunrisers’ batting line-up•BCCI

Likely XIs

Lucknow Super Giants: 1 KL Rahul (capt), 2 Quinton de Kock (wk), 3 Manish Pandey, 4 Evin Lewis, 5 Deepak Hooda, 6 Ayush Badoni, 7 Krunal Pandya, 8 Jason Holder, 9 Dushmantha Chameera, 10 Ravi Bishnoi, 11 Avesh Khan
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 Kane Williamson (capt), 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Rahul Tripathi, 4 Nicholas Pooran (wk), 5 Aiden Markram, 6 Abdul Samad, 7 Romario Shepherd, 8 Washington Sundar, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Umran Malik, 11 T Natarajan

Strategy punt

Dushmantha Chameera took heavy punishment from Super Kings on Thursday, but Super Giants will likely keep faith in him, since his pace and zip are a valuable commodity in general – as he showed against Titans – but also for a more specific reason. Chameera has met Nicholas Pooran three times in T20 cricket – all in West Indies-Sri Lanka games last year – and dismissed him three times in just six balls.When Pooran, probably Sunrisers’ most dangerous batter, comes to the crease, Super Giants might want to bowl Chameera from one end and Ravi Bishnoi from the other. Bishnoi’s over-the-wicket angle, accentuated by a beyond-vertical release and a high proportion of wrong’uns, has troubled a lot of left-handers, and Pooran is one of them: he’s scored just 36 runs off 33 balls from Bishnoi across three innings, without being dismissed.

Stats that matter

• Manish Pandey is set to face Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the IPL after a four-year gap. In six T20 meetings, Bhuvneshwar has dismissed him four times while conceding just 20 runs in 19 balls.
• Evin Lewis (85) and Pooran (84) are currently the third- and fourth-most prolific six-hitters in all T20 cricket since the start of 2021. Lewis’ 85 sixes have come in just 36 innings.
• Super Giants struggled with their death overs in their first two games, but the arrival of Holder might give them some relief. He has an excellent death-overs record since IPL 2020, conceding 9.03 runs an over while taking 15 wickets in 14 innings at an average of 9.53.

Promoted at No. 5, Ashwin hit an unbeaten 40 off 23 balls to go with his bowling analysis of 4-0-28-1

Sidharth Monga20-May-20224:15

Shastri: ‘Ashwin has tremendous confidence in his own abilities’

R Ashwin the allrounder carried Rajasthan Royals to a top-two finish with a tense win over Chennai Super Kings, the team that represents his hometown, in their final league match. On a slow pitch, both sides made superb use of the powerplay before struggling once the fields went out. Knowing their target played a part in Royals being able to plan their innings better than Super Kings.Super Kings’ slowdown was drastic: they could only double their powerplay score of 75 despite the set batter Moeen Ali batting almost through the innings. But he too went from 59 off 21 to 93 off 57. Royals scored 47 off their first five overs but the next eight overs brought them just 37 runs at the loss of two wickets. In the end, Ashwin, promoted at No. 5, hit three sixes in his 23-ball 40 not out to go with his bowling analysis of 4-0-28-1 to ease Royals home from 43 required off the last four.Moeen special
It might be all gloom for Super Kings this season but it is not possible to be gloomy when Moeen is on song. That he had come in early meant Super Kings began the acceleration in the fourth and not the customary fifth over. First he went after the hard lengths of Prasidh Krishna, which is usually a good bet against Moeen. Then Ashwin’s away turn didn’t matter as he took 16 off the fifth. The last over of the powerplay was the best of the lot: he hit Trent Boult for boundaries to square leg, midwicket, long-on, third man, point and extra-cover. He brought up his half-century off the 19th ball, the second-fastest fifty for Super Kings.The slowdown
It began with Ashwin making a comeback in the eighth over. Devon Conway went to sweep him but the ball turned out to be too full, trapping him lbw. Obed McCoy then used his slower ones to use the slow surface. Add Yuzvendra Chahal and an experimental middle order to the mix, Moeen found himself taking on more responsibility than he would have liked.Not that it was easy to hit out. MS Dhoni, who had earlier announced he was going to play at least one more season for Super Kings, was dropped twice but he couldn’t find any timing either. At one point 45 balls went without a boundary, a drought Dhoni broke with a four off Chahal in the 15th over. However, the trio of Ashwin, Chahal and McCoy continued to stifle the life out of the innings with only 30 coming off the final four overs.Moeen Ali’s 93 off 57 balls went in vain•BCCI

Jaiswal’s impetus

Jos Buttler had a sensational start to the tournament but he has now scored 63 in his last five innings at a run a ball. Thankfully for Royals, Yashasvi Jaiswal has stepped into the breach after being reintroduced to the XI mid-season. He single-handedly made the powerplay count after Buttler got out in the second over and Sanju Samson kept finding fielders. Jaiswal raced away to 31 off 17 even as the other 13 balls in the first five brought them just 16 runs.The Royals slowdown

The spreading of the fielding and the introduction of spin, however, brought a similar challenge for Royals. When Samson went to force the pace, he found the tall Mitchell Santner in the way of a straight drive. Devdutt Padikkal got frustrated too and tried a big slog sweep off Moeen, only to be bowled for 3 off nine.The Ashwin endgame
This is when Royals promoted Ashwin, whom they have previously used as a pinch anchor and a pinch hitter but not in such a critical situation. As Ashwin got himself in, the ask went up to 67 off the last seven overs with Jaiswal too finding it tough to maintain the scoring rate of the powerplay.Ashwin then skipped down the track and lofted Moeen for a six. Jaiswal repeated that dose to legspinner Prashant Solanki but holed out when he attempted again. Dhoni gave Solanki an over at the death in which he got rid of Shimron Hetmyer with a slider. With 38 required off 19, though, Ashwin slogged Solanki from wide outside off and against the turn to target the short boundary. He nailed it.The slinger Matheesha Pathirana didn’t have many runs to work with but it was 24 off 14 when Ashwin ramped him over short third man to ease the pressure again. In the 19th over, Ashwin targeted the short boundary against Mukesh Choudhary’s left-arm angle before sealing it by steering Pathirana behind point in the last over.

He was dismissed on 25 off 15 balls, and showed the middle finger twice on his way back

ESPNcricinfo staff24-Jun-2022Chepauk Super Gillies’ N Jagadeesan has apologised for his obscene gesture after being run-out backing up at the non-striker’s end during the opening match of the Tamil Nadu Premier League 2022, against Nellai Royal Kings on Thursday.Chasing 185, Super Gillies were 35 for 0 in 3.3 overs when offspinner B Aparajith stopped in his bowling action and dislodged the bails to find Jagadeesan out of the crease.Jagadeesan, who was batting on 25 off 15 balls, didn’t look pleased with the mode of the dismissal and showed the middle finger twice on his way back. On Friday, though, he regretted the gesture in a Twitter post.