All posts by h716a5.icu

Afghanistan crumbled under the weight of Pakistan A’s big total of 189, to lose by 49 runs in the Twenty20 in Lahore

ESPNcricinfo staff13-Feb-2013
ScorecardFile photo: Shahid Afridi hit four fours and two sixes in his 25-ball 45•AFPAfghanistan crumbled under the weight of Pakistan A’s big total of 189, to lose by 49 runs in the Twenty20 in Lahore. Opener Ahmed Shehzad and Shahid Afridi took the contest away from Afghanistan with their attacking knocks of 68 and 45 respectively. In reply, regular wickets and slow scoring hurt them, and they limped to 140 for 9.Afghanistan started the chase brightly, the openers scoring 32 in three overs, but they slipped to 89 for 6 in the 11th over. Asghar Stanikzai was the only batsman to remain unbeaten eventually, scoring 47. The last seven batsmen scored 27 runs in all.Pakistan’s innings was based on partnerships of 66, between openers Shehzad and Sharjeel Khan, and 65, between Shehzad and Afridi, after which they were 131 for 2 in 13 overs. Although Afghanistan bounced back to keep them to below 200, the target ultimately proved too daunting for them.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) will take a call on Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal’s participation in the Indian Premier League after discussion with the team management as the tournament clashes with Bangladesh’s tour to Zimbabwe

Mohammad Isam05-Mar-2013Franchises not seeking replacements

By Nagraj Gollapudi
Kolkata Knight Riders, the franchise that Shakib represents in the IPL, remain hopeful that the player will be available for the sixth season.
“It is slightly unclear at the moment. We will have to wait and see,” Venky Mysore, the Knight Riders’ chief executive said.
However, he pointed out that franchises were always prepared for such scenarios. When the player signs the contract, the NOC clearly mentions that the player’s availability is subject to the ICC’s Future Tours Programme or any last-minute tours arranged by their country’s board.
Mysore also ruled out the option of KKR seeking a replacement for Shakib in case he missed out due to the Zimbabwe tour or if he failed to recover from his shin injury.
Pune Warriors, Tamim’s franchise, have also decided to monitor the situation before they make a final decision. “We are aware that he might miss a good part of the tournament. But, at the moment, we will have to just wait,” a Warriors official said. The official did not rule out the team seeking a replacement for Tamim.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) will take a call on Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal’s participation in the Indian Premier League after discussion with the team management as the tournament clashes with Bangladesh’s tour to Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe tour commences on April 13 and ends on May 12, while the IPL is scheduled between April 3 and May 26.Shakib and Tamim, who play for Kolkata Knight Riders and Pune Warriors respectively, will have two windows before and after the Zimbabwe tour during which they can play four matches for their franchise. However, the players need a No Objection Certificate from the board to participate in the IPL.”We are yet to take a decision on it (issuing the NOC),” BCB’s acting CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury told ESPNcricinfo. “The board will take a call after speaking to the team management.”The duo were among the Bangladesh players who signed a central contract with the BCB before the Sri Lanka tour after the board president approved of changes to the contract.Bangladesh will play two Twenty20s on April 13 and April 14 before a three-match ODI series between April 17 and 21. The teams will then play two Test matches in Harare from April 30. The tour was originally scheduled for mid-2012 but was postponed after Zimbabwe Cricket decided to re-lay the pitches in Harare and Bulawayo.

New Zealand are set to make at least one change to their team as they seek to level the series against Pakistan

ESPNcricinfo staff24-Nov-2014New Zealand are set to make at least one change to their batting line-up as they seek to level the Test series against Pakistan, but know that it will be a major challenge for whichever XI they send out to overcome the hosts in Sharjah.The draw in Dubai, where on the final day New Zealand had Pakistan nervous before tea, lifted confidence after the comprehensive reversal in the opening Test. However, breaking down the performance there were at least a couple of moments when more ruthlessness could have brought even greater rewards.They had been 226 for 2 in the first innings, but ended up needing their lower-order’s help to scrape past 400. Then they had Pakistan 312 for 9 in their first innings before a last-wicket stand of 81 between Sarfraz Ahmed and Rahat Ali brought the scores almost level.Both in terms of runs and time used up, that was a vital period and the difference between New Zealand having an even stronger chance to force a result on the final day – and it needed Ross Taylor’s impressive hundred to prevent a likely Pakistan victory.In the middle order, Jimmy Neesham, despite being the first New Zealander to score hundreds in his first two Tests, has emerged as the most vulnerable after a lean two Tests where he has struggled against spin. So too, has Corey Anderson but he was more robust in the first Test and his bowling is a notch more threatening than Neesham’s, whose one wicket in the series was a long hop smashed to cover by Younis Khan.”We’ll definitely consider changes,” Mike Hesson, the New Zealand coach, said. “We considered it before this [second] Test and we had some good discussions over the make-up of the side and we’ll continue those.”Luke Ronchi is shaping as the man to push for inclusion, partly due to his recent strong form in ODIs, with scores of 99 and 79 against South Africa, but also as he is a right-hander and that is viewed as a way of being able to counter threat posed by Zulfiqar Babar and Yasir Shah, who have targeted the pads and stumps of the left-handers with deliveries spinning into them.However, one change in batting personnel is unlikely to quell the threat posed by the Pakistan spinners, especially on a surface that is already shorn of any semblance of grass two days out from the match.”In the other two pitches we could see grass, but not here. This looks a bit different. Sharjah traditionally is lower and skiddier and slows up as the game goes on. So I don’t expect this wicket to be any different,” Hesson said. “The warm-up game we had played here had lot more grass on it. We have to play very well to be able to compete in these conditions.”Their bowling attack is likely to be bolstered with the surprise inclusion of Daniel Vettori, who was already with the New Zealand A team in the UAE, taking the spinners’ count to three in the team. Ish Sodhi, the legspinner, has impressed in patches but the Pakistan batsmen have made a conscious effort to attack offspinner Mark Craig whose Test economy rate is over four an over.”Our spinners aren’t used to bowling on conditions where footholes play such a part. Pakistan spinners beat us off the wicket and at home traditionally we try and beat guys in the air,” Hesson said. “When you have footholes to hit, it’s very hard to change the method that you’ve trained your whole life. I thought the way Ish and Mark have adapted over the last couple of Tests is pleasing but they are still striving for consistency of pace as well.”

Albie Morkel, the South Africa all-rounder, will be out of action for up to 10 days due to an ankle and South Africa have called in Faf du Plessis

Firdose Moonda at Headingley31-Jul-2012Albie Morkel, the South Africa all-rounder, will be out of action for up to 10 days due to an ankle and South Africa have called in Faf du Plessis as cover. Morkel will remain with the squad as he awaits results of his scans and the expectation is he will be available for the third Test if required.Morkel, who was unlikely to come into contention for the Headingley Test, was one of the reserves who impressed in the tour match against Worcestershire last week. He scored a half-century while batsmen in the Test XI, Alviro Petersen, Jacques Rudolph and JP Duminy failed.Morkel has only played one Test, against Australia in 2009, and was initially called up as a replacement when he took the place of fast bowler Marchant de Lange who had to leave the tour in the first week. De Lange sustained a back injury in last month’s unofficial Twenty20 tri-series in June and could not recover in time for the series. Morkel was easily accessible for the visitors as he had been playing in the Friends Life t20 for SomersetDu Plessis has recently been captaining South Africa A in a fifty-over tri-series in Zimbabwe, which also included Sri Lanka A. His much improved first-class record in the previous season, in which he batted at No.4 or 5 instead of lower down as was the case previously for his franchise Titans, has put him in contention for a Test spot recently. During the 2011-12 season he scored 599 runs from four matches including three hundreds.He is also due to lead South Africa A in a series against Ireland which starts next Monday. If he is not required for a Test debut at Headingley, which would only come about due to injury, he will leave the squad on Thursday and join up with the A team in Wicklow.

Both sides contrived to set Worcestershire a target of 283 but Middlesex ran through the visitors to seal their second victory of the season

Alan Gardner at Lord's06-May-2012
Scorecard
Toby Roland-Jones took three wickets as Worcestershire were dismissed for 150 in their second innings•Getty ImagesIn his book , the stand-up comedian Stewart Lee recounts how one of the producers of Jerry Springer: The Opera (which Lee directed) used to ask during script meetings: “Where’s the jeopardy?” The question was intended to keep the focus on retaining the audience’s interest and it is probably accurate to say that county cricket, from a viewer’s perspective, could sometimes benefit from introducing an element of risk.At Lord’s on Sunday, however, Worcestershire embraced the jeopardy rather too readily, enabling Middlesex to pull off a 132-run victory that had not been mapped, let alone signposted, the previous evening. The decision for the visitors to declare overnight and for Middlesex to forfeit their second innings was a positive move that averted a deadening fourth day with little to play for. Both sides should be applauded for their adventure, with the target of 283 from 96 overs offering a chance of all three results; though it soon became apparent that, in overcast conditions, Worcestershire’s was the more difficult task. Even so, it was their captain, Daryl Mitchell, who proposed the idea.”The way the points systems works out I think it’s very important to try and win games of cricket,” Mitchell said. “We set our stall out in our pre-season meetings that we want to try and win games and we felt that this was an opportunity. I think it was a little bit stacked in their favour, maybe 60-40, but you have to draw five games to get the same amount of points as you do for one win.”After three days interrupted by rain and bad light, it was a good result for the Championship, if not Worcestershire, who know a thing or two about flirting with danger. Last season they lost their opening six games but survived thanks to four wins and a draw. This year, they’ve already drawn twice and decided the gamble was worth taking.Worcestershire remains winless after four games but their strategy is clear, even if their batting wasn’t up to the challenge of dealing with the Middlesex attack. Chris Rogers, currently standing in as Middlesex’s four-day captain, acknowledged that Mitchell’s pro-active proposal “was a good one for us”.”We had a think about it,” Rogers said. “We still thought maybe we needed another twenty or thirty but in the end we thought if they’re getting 280 they’re getting 300. We were quite happy with how it came about but we knew it wasn’t going to be a pushover.”With England’s Steven Finn, mean and menacing from the Pavilion End, and Tim Murtagh ably supported by Gareth Berg and Toby Roland-Jones, Rogers was able to rotate his bowlers without releasing the pressure on a fragile Worcestershire line-up that has only passed 250 in the Championship once this season. Rogers singled out Roland-Jones, who now has 19 wickets at 15, as Middlesex’s “best bowler this year” – high praise, given the competition.Finn and Murtagh bowled unchanged for the first 15 overs of the morning, during which Worcestershire’s batsmen played and missed with a regularity the London transport system could well take note of. Air cricket is a staple pastime for most followers of the game but it is less becoming of professionals. Still, Daryl Mitchell and Michael Klinger had made it to the ninth over before Murtagh made the breakthrough, pinning the Australian on the crease.The previous evening, Worcestershire’s Alan Richardson had suggested there was still something in the pitch and Middlesex’s bowling proved the old boy right. Line and length were adhered to with dogmatic precision, as Mitchell, Vikram Solanki and Moeen Ali all departed to catches behind the wicket to leave Worcestershire on 35 for 4 after 20 overs and any hopes of a daring run chase in tatters.There were brief flurries of resistance. James Cameron and Matthew Pardoe swished and cut to add 35 for the fifth wicket at a run a ball, while Richard Jones twice bunted Dawid Malan’s legspin into the stands as Middlesex sought to get through a few quick overs to prevent a points deduction. As it was, they lost almost as much time fetching the ball from the boundary, as No. 10 Jones combined with Aneesh Kapil for the biggest partnership of the innings, 54 from 71 balls.It took Neil Dexter’s Superman impression in the gully to dismiss Jones, Worcestershire’s top-scorer, for 32 as Finn returned to clean up the tail. Victory lifts Middlesex to third in Division One while Worcestershire lie a point off the bottom, but Mitchell will not be curbing his gambling instinct. “Given my time again I’d probably do exactly the same,” he said.

The ECB has secured a major new sponsorship deal with the news that Royal London will become the chief sponsor of one-day cricket at international, county and recreational levels from 2014.

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Nov-2013The ECB has secured a major new sponsorship deal with the news that Royal London, the mutual life and pensions company, will become the chief sponsor of all one-day cricket at international, county and recreational levels from 2014.The announcement ends months of uncertainty about the securing of sponsorship for the 50-over game, especially at county level where it has been overshadowed by a relaunched Twenty20 tournament which will be played predominantly on Friday nights next season as a summer-long tournament.The ECB has been committed to simplifying its sponsorship structure in one-day cricket. That has now been achieved, with Royal London sponsoring England’s ODIs for men and women over the next four years; the county competition, which reverts from 40 to 50 overs next season; and a national club championship in which the top 256 clubs in the ECB’s official leagues will be invited to partake.There will also be a series of Royal London Junior County Cups, county-based, for boys and girls, from U-13 to U-17 levels.David Collier, the ECB’s chief executive, said: “Our commercial and broadcast deals provide the foundation and long-term stability for our investment in cricket from the playground to Test arena, and this deal is further proof of cricket’s popularity in England and Wales.”The public’s appetite for one-day cricket remains extremely high with international sell-outs every summer and the recent success of the ICC Champions Trophy is also testament to the format’s strength.”The deal signals the end of a relationship stretching back to 2005 with the previous county one-day sponsors, Yorkshire Bank and Clydesdale Bank.NatWest, which has been a major partner for one-day international cricket since 2000, will continue as the sponsor of all T20 cricket in England. Test cricket is backed by Investec and LV= sponsors the County Championship.

Mushfiqur Rahim, who guided Bangladesh to victory against West Indies in the one-off Twenty20 with a penultimate-ball six, has said he is pleased that his tenure as captain is off to a positive start

ESPNcricinfo staff11-Oct-2011Mushfiqur Rahim, who sealed Bangladesh’s victory over West Indies on Tuesday with a six over midwicket, said it was a calculated shot he played to finish the game.”I was targeting the smaller side of the ground, and I was confident that even a mis-hit could travel for six,” he said.During Bangladesh’s recent tour of Zimbabwe, Mushfiqur was in a similar position in the third ODI. Bangladesh needed eight to win off the last over with one wicket in hand, and Mushfiqur, batting on 99, hit a couple of the first ball and holed out off the next attempting a six. Here, he said, he was not worried about repeating the mistake.”In Harare, as we only had one wicket left, I knew that even if I took a single we would have lost the match; in other words it was all left up to me. Here, since we had three wickets left, I knew that even if I mis-hit the shot and we ran one or two there would still be a chance to win.”The match was Mushfiqur’s first as captain of Bangladesh and he was glad everything went to plan. “Everyone wants the first match [of their stint in charge] to be memorable, and I couldn’t have asked for more. We won the toss, it was the plan to bowl first because dew might have been a factor and our bowling is spin-reliant. We saved 10-12 runs in the field and made a concerted effort to restrict them as much as possible.”With Bangladesh 93 for 6 in the 16th over, chasing 133, West Indies appeared to have the edge, but Mushfiqur found an able partner in debutant Nasir Hossain. At that point, Mushfiqur said, he was looking to play out 20 overs. “I believed that if Nasir and I stayed till the last over, even if we needed 10 or 15 runs [in the 20th], we would win.”We got some runs in the second-last over [14 off Carlos Brathwaite], which was a bonus for us. In the last over, I had the confidence that if I got the ball in my zone then I could hit it for a four or six. Fortunately, that is what happened.”The Bangladesh bowlers did well to restrict West Indies, he said. “I think we bowled fantastically well to restrict West Indies to 132. It was not a difficult total [to chase]. Rubel [Hossain] got hit for two sixes, but these things can happen in the Powerplays. What I liked was how he responded to the responsibility placed on him and came back well.”Darren Sammy, West Indies’ captain, said his side had made too many errors. “We could have scored more runs, and we could have stopped more balls in the field,” Sammy said. “In the end we made more mistakes than they did.”We knew it was going to be an interesting series. They held their nerve better than we did. We never took them for granted.”