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This, in addition to his role as Pakistan’s batting consultant

ESPNcricinfo staff06-Nov-2020The PCB is keen to rope in former captain Younis Khan in a full-time role as the head of the High Performance Centre (HPC) in Karachi in addition to his role as Pakistan’s batting consultant. Earlier this year, Khan signed up as the national team’s batting coach for the tour of England, where they lost the Test series 1-0 and levelled the T20I series 1-1.This is the third time the PCB has reached out to Khan to coax him into the coaching mix. They had initially wanted him to work at the National Cricket Academy – the predecessor to the HPC – in a development capacity though that didn’t ultimately pan out. However, after that, Khan toured the UK as part of the star-studded support staff that also included Waqar Younis (bowling coach) and Mushtaq Ahmed (spin-bowling coach). That short-term stint ended in September.In May last year, Khan was close to taking up a role as the country’s Under-19 coach, but the plan eventually didn’t come to pass. One of the sticking points, ESPNcricinfo reported, had to do with finances, while the other was with the job profile, as the PCB had proposed Khan only be a mentor and a coach, but he wanted a broader scope and a say in selection as well.Khan brings with him vast experience as Pakistan’s highest scorer in Test cricket, though he has had a frayed relationship with the PCB over the years. It is understood that various senior PCB officials have expressed reservations about working with him. However, a pep talk that he gave to the players on video during lockdown and his first stint as batting coach in England seems to have changed some of those opinions. Khan received positive feedback from the other backroom staff and the players for his role on the tour of England, where he had to deal with a large pool of players.

Rabada and Pretorius are carrying injuries, and were not considered for selection

Firdose Moonda11-Dec-2020Opening batsman Sarel Erwee, wicketkeeper-batsman Kyle Verreynne and medium-pacer Glenton Stuurman have received maiden call-ups to South Africa’s Test squad for the two-Test series against Sri Lanka. South Africa will be captained by Quinton de Kock, who has been appointed in temporary capacity of the 2021-21 summer. However, they will be without frontline seamer Kagiso Rabada or allrounder Dwaine Pretorius, who are both injured.Pretorius was ruled out of the recent white-ball series against England with a hamstring concern while Rabada picked up a groin strain during the T20Is. Though a CSA statement said the pair would both be assessed in the coming days to determine if they could be added to the squad, selection convener Victor Mpitsang was less hopeful.”The concern is around workloads. For now, they (Rabada and Pretorius) are not available for the Sri Lanka tour but hopefully they will be ready for the Pakistan series,” Victor Mptisang, convenor of selectors, told ESPNcricinfo.Importantly, Mpitsang would like to see both players feature in domestic red-ball cricket before they join the Test squad. Pretorius is expected to play in a four-day match for the Lions starting on Monday, December 13, while Rabada should be fit for the fixture the week after, which starts on December 20. The South African squad will go into their bios-ecure bubble at the Irene Country Club on December 19, which means Rabada, especially, could be too late to join them for the festive Tests.However, they will not look to add any reinforcements to their spin department, where Keshav Maharaj remains the first-choice. George Linde, who was the second-highest wicket-taker in last season’s four-day competition, and Tabraiz Shamsi, who led the list before he was needed for international duty this summer, will have to wait for January’s tour of Pakistan to get their chance. “Both of them are there and thereabouts but if you look at where we are playing this series, we will struggle to get two spinners into our team in Johannesburg and Centurion,” Mpitsang said. “In our conditions, Keshav will do the job.”On the batting front, Mpitsang confirmed that Aiden Markram will return to the top of the order after missing most of last summer with a hand injury. Markram leads the domestic run-scorers’ list, with three hundreds from his last three innings, and displaces Pieter Malan, who has not been included in the squad at all. Instead, Dolphins’ opener Erwee, who is 47 runs behind Markram, has been included. “Pieter Malan is unlucky to have missed out because of what he had done against England but Aiden Markram missed out against England and we’ve seen the remarkable form he has been in. He just comes back in,” Mpitsang said. “The replacement will be Sarel Erwee who has been very good in the past. It shows that when you do well in the domestic structure you will be rewarded.”Markram will also be closely watched as a potential permanent Test captain, a position that will be filled ahead of the 2021-22 season. “Aiden has always been a guy earmarked as a captain but we will reassess after the season,” Mpitsang said. “There’s a nice leadership group for now, with Rassie and Temba, and it’s about getting them to be stable in the team.”Bavuma only played one Test last season after he was dropped and will need consistent performances to cement his spot. He will bat in the top five, which is bolstered by the experience of Faf du Plessis, who remains available for selection, despite stepping down as captain, and Rassie van der Dussen, with Keegan Petersen likely to be the reserve. Petersen, who is fourth on the domestic run-charts this season, has been preferred over Zubayr Hamza and Theunis de Bruyn. Verreyne, who is also a wicketkeeper is the other batting option, and could find himself making a debut either as a specialist batsman or to relieve de Kock of the gloves.The series will be South Africa’s first since the coronavirus pandemic hit and their third in the World Test Championship. They are placed eighth on the WTC table, with one win and 24 points and though their chances of qualifying for the final are slim, they have seven Tests this summer to work their way to a more respectable position. They will be wary though, knowing that the last time Sri Lanka were on their shores, in the 2018-19 season, they became the first team from the subcontinent to win a series in South Africa.Squad for Sri Lanka Tests: Quinton de Kock (capt & wk), Temba Bavuma, Aiden Markram, Faf du Plessis, Beuran Hendricks, Dean Elgar, Keshav Maharaj, Lungi Ngidi, Rassie van der Dussen, Sarel Erwee, Anrich Nortje, Glenton Stuurman, Wiaan Mulder, Keegan Petersen, Kyle Verreynne

Australia lost at the Gabba for the first time since 1988 and it was their second consecutive series defeat at home to India

ESPNcricinfo staff19-Jan-2021Tim Paine conceded that Australia had been outplayed at key moments throughout the series against India as he was left presiding over a second consecutive series defeat against them and became the first Australia captain to lose at the Gabba since 1988.Having set India 328 for victory, nearly 100 more than had even been successfully chased at the ground before, Australia were favourites heading into the final day but never took wickets in groups as India built the perfect run chase.Pat Cummins gave them hope when he struck with the new ball, but Rishabh Pant brilliantly marshaled the closing stages against a forlorn home side.”Absolutely disappointed, no doubt about that,” Paine said. “[It was] probably a bit of a trend the whole series, in the key moments, whether with bat or in the field we were found wanting and completely outplayed by a disciplined really tough India side who really deserved this series win.””I thought India turned up today, their batting group put their bodies on the line. Wore balls in the hand, arm, chest and just kept soldiering on so full credit to them.”After the final day in Sydney when Paine was left under the spotlight for his on-field behavior – for which he later apologised – this result will add further pressure on him. For the second time in two Tests Australia could not bowl India out on the last day and Nathan Lyon was left on 399 Test wickets.Their next Test cricket is due to be in a few weeks time with a tour to South Africa although details of the trip are still to be confirmed. They now need at least a 2-0 victory in that to earn a spot in the World Test Championship final.”There’s a lot of things we can look back on over the whole series and do better, there’s no doubt,” Paine said. “What’s done is done. We’ll go through it. We’ve got to look forward now, got a big series coming up in South Africa. We’ve been outplayed by a better side in this series. They’ll be some areas we need to improve, no doubt about that.”

England made their lowest Test score in India on the way to a ten-wicket defeat

Andrew Miller25-Feb-2021Manic, manic, manic. The speed of the final act of the third Test was, on the one hand, a gross misrepresentation of the extraordinary mayhem that had preceded it. As Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill flogged a dispirited and under-resourced England spin attack to all corners, picking off a paltry target of 49 in 7.4 overs and with ten wickets in hand, it might have appeared to any latecomers that India’s dominance in home-spun conditions had been entirely, and predictably, unchallenged.But on the other hand, that final flurry was a perfectly crazy denouement to a match that had been accelerating all the way through like a pair of brawlers tumbling down a flight of stairs – a contest wrapped up, with a vast six over wide long-on from Rohit, only minutes after tea on the second day of action, making the shortest completed Test match since 1935, after 17 wickets had tumbled in the first two sessions of the day, and 30 in the first five all told.In any ordinary contest, any one of the day’s top lines would have sufficed to hold the attention, and lure in the plaudits. There was Joe Root, England’s most likely source of a revival but in his most unlikely guise, claiming the astonishing figures of 5 for 8 in 6.2 overs, the second-most economical five-for by a spinner in Test history, and the first by an England captain since Bob Willis in 1983.There was R Ashwin, who rumbled through to 400 Test wickets in the course of England’s second-innings subsidence to 81 all out – the fourth Indian to reach the landmark, and the second-quickest of any nationality after Muttiah Muralitharan. And bowling in tandem with him for all but four balls of the innings was Axar Patel – at the opposite end of his career – who was denied a hat-trick by DRS but could still console himself with match figures of 11 for 80, including his third five-for in a row.Related

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Stitch all of those landmarks and stand-out moments together, and the upshot was a contest of blink-and-you-miss-it entertainment. A more manic sequence of events than the most fluctuating IPL clash could ever serve up, and if there will be some inevitable grumblings about the surface on which it all played out, there’s still something captivating about watching your lottery numbers roll in.What England would have given for another 50 runs in their abject first innings – or for an extra frontline spinner to apply the knowhow required to turn the screw in that harum-scarum fourth innings, when Root’s status as a part-timer was finally exposed by circumstance. Instead, they’ll have to settle for the pyrrhic victory that comes with putting up a fight when most of the world had given them up for dead already. There’s still a series to be squared on this same ground next week, after all.The day had dawned as it would finish, with England pinned to the ropes – an impression hardly improved when Rohit, as dominant then as he would be at the end, slammed the habitually un-cuttable James Anderson through the covers twice in an over to bring up India’s 100, and reduce what remained of England’s paltry lead to single figures.But that would prove to be the death of certainty as far as batting would go for the rest of the day – for the rest of the match – as the contest was cranked open like a can of wriggly red-earth-burrowing worms.Not for the first time in this series, it was the unassuming Jack Leach who scotched all preconceptions. By matching the methods that had already served Patel so well, he scalped both of India’s overnight batsman with balls that skidded on through – Ajinkya Rahane nailed on the back pad attempting to cut, and Rohit down on one knee for a yawning slog-sweep one over later.The die was cast as far as England were concerned, and into the attack came an even less assuming weapon. Root had claimed 32 wickets in his previous 101 Tests, although his preferred method, of undercutting the ball from round the wicket, with his slightly round-arm action, has rarely failed to be a challenge in the right conditions.Axar Patel took 11 wickets in the match•BCCI

His first delivery, to Rishabh Pant, could not have been more perfectly targeted had it been a T20 match-up. A vicious spitting spinner to the left-hander, luring his ever-aggressive hands into action before cuffing the edge for Ben Foakes to cling onto another effortlessly tough take.And before he’d even conceded a run, Root had two more – Washington Sundar bowled for a duck by a snorter that gripped and straightened to nail the top of off, and Patel, flinging the bat through the line second-ball, and picking out Dom Sibley at short cover.India, all of a sudden, had lost five wickets for 11 runs, and now it was a race to the bottom, as Ashwin reprised the loose-limbed bat-flinging that had set up his superb century in the second Test. He died as he had lived, caught off a top-edge at deep square to give Root his fourth, but not before he’d picked off 17 runs that would prove exponentially precious the longer the day wore on.Ishant Sharma took the same cue, lumping the first six of the match over long-off before Root trapped Jasprit Bumrah in front of leg. Just as England had stumbled from 74 for 2 to 112 all out in their first innings, so India’s own innings had gone the same way – 145 all out, their last eight scalped for 47. A lead of 33 was not neither here nor there … was it?And yet, if that was a crazy passage of action, we had seen absolutely nothing yet – like an over-hyped hen party at a comedy club, thinking the MC’s warm-up wisecracks were the most side-splitting jokes they’d ever heard. They hadn’t reckoned for Zak Crawley and Jonny Bairstow against Patel and the new ball. Nobody had, to be frank.Crawley, England’s one shining light in that abject first innings, faced up to the first ball with confidence seemingly brimming. But the shot he produced was paralysed by uncertainty, as he slid back to another wicket-to-wicket dart, and neither played for the spin nor the one that sped straight on. His middle stump quickly discovered that it had been the latter.Out came Bairstow, on a pair, and out of practice after his less-than-ideally-timed spell of R&R following a decent Sri Lanka series. His opening gambit was a horrific mow of a sweep shot – the right intent maybe, but clearly the wrong choice on a pitch where even Root has shelved his go-to stroke. Up went the finger as the ball slapped his right hip, and Patel was celebrating a hat-trick, having cleaned up Foakes at the end of the first innings.However, Bairstow reviewed and somehow, the ball was shown to skidding over middle stump. No matter. Patel simply returned to the top of his mark, and speared another skidder through the widest gate south of Mumbai. England were unequivocally 0 for 2 this time, and even the most masochistic sports fans were pleading for the action to slow down so that they could taste the drama before it was swallowed whole.For a time therefore, Sibley played within himself – assuming that’s not a tautology. But then, suddenly and without warning, he too planted that front dog for a massive wipe across the line at Ashwin. The shot was arguably the correct one – the ball was outside the line of off so lbw wasn’t on. Unfortunately, this was not one that skidded, it bit violently for Pant to cling onto a blinder behind the stumps.Sibley thought he hadn’t hit it, but UltraEdge implied otherwise and he had to go. And as Ben Stokes marched out to join Root, England were still 14 runs shy of parity, with no guarantees that an innings defeat wasn’t still on the cards.Stokes, to his credit, adjusted his approach from the meek surrender that had ended his first-innings effort. With Root watching the ball like a hawk – and surviving a very tight lbw review on 16, after he was deemed to have grazed an inside-edge – Stokes set about disrupting the spinners with his range of aggressive sweeps – conventional and reverse alike. But his nemesis Ashwin wasn’t going to be held back for long, and on 25, another non-spinner skipped into his planted front foot – it was the 11th time Stokes had been dismissed by Ashwin, and it was a body blow for England’s hopes of a 100-plus lead.One over later, and England’s goose was as good as cooked, as Patel sealed his ten-for with another slider into Root’s knee-roll. As mighty as Ollie Pope may one day prove to be at this level, he completed a Test to forget as Ashwin outfoxed him for the second time in the match, pushing another non-spinner across his bows to pluck the off stump. When Archer lined up a sweep that was too full for the stroke, Ashwin was into the 400-club and India were deep into the tail.Leach did not stand on ceremony, with a startling six over long-on off Patel, as he and Foakes tried to chisel something defendable. But after each had fallen in quick succession to the main men, Virat Kohli tossed the ball to the hitherto invisible Sundar, who rewarded his skipper’s faith by luring Anderson into a muffed reverse sweep. England were 81 all out, and 193 for the match – their lowest aggregate in a completed Test in India. There could be no coming back from that.And so it proved. A two-over foray before the dinner break might, with a bit of luck, have ratcheted up the tension, but instead it dissipated before our eyes as Anderson at point fumbled to get Rohit off the mark, before Root speared four wayward byes past even Foakes’ trusty gloves. And with the jeopardy gone, Rohit and Gill were able to finish the match with an insouciant flourish. Next to none of it had made any sense at all.

Martin Guptill returned to form with 97 while Jimmy Neesham had a key impact with bat and ball

Daniel Brettig25-Feb-2021New Zealand effectively won this game twice. For most of the day they dominated Australia with the bat and then the ball, to a point when the game looked to be heading for an early finish. Left in a hopeless position, Marcus Stoinis and Daniel Sams chanced their arms to close things up to a realistic scenario, only to lose their poise when the way to victory had re-opened, allowing Kane Williamson’s men to hold their nerve in the tight finish that eventuated.New Zealand’s momentum began with an overdue return to runs for Martin Guptill, swinging sweetly through the full ball as though on the golf course, with a pair of terrific supporting innings from Williamson and Jimmy Neesham – he and Guptill coshed no fewer than 14 sixes in Dunedin’s first game between Australia and New Zealand since 2000.The Australia chase began fairly, stuttered and collapsed at the hands of Mitchell Santner, before getting the latest of revivals from Stoinis and Sams. Spectacular as their hitting was – tallying nine sixes between them in a brief space of overs – it could not be sustained when the finish line loomed. Australia got closer than they might have expected at 113 for 6, but the 2-0 series margin after two games is undoubtedly a fair one.Guptill finds his driving rangeNot since October had Guptill passed 50 in any format at first-class level; not since November 2019 had he done so in a T20I. What he needed after such a lengthy dry spell was some favourable conditions and friendly bowling, and by sending New Zealand in at University Oval and then serving up a steady diet of full balls well within his hitting zone, Australian obliged. Guptill’s first ball, from Sams, was a half volley that skated to the cover boundary. His first from Jhye Richardson was another half volley that sailed back over the bowler’s head.With that, Guptill was more or less away. He was to clear the boundary no fewer than eight times, six of them in the arc between mid-off and wide mid-on, with another two hooked powerfully behind square leg. At his most destructive, Guptill crashed 34 runs from eight balls to move from 58 to 92. In the same period, New Zealand hammered 65 runs between overs 10 and 13 and set themselves up for a tally well and truly beyond 200. The aforementioned dry spell was well and truly over, replaced by a Dunedin deluge.Williamson, Neesham maintain the rageAs Guptill was detonating in such spectacular fashion, Williamson played with his typical combination of intelligence, calm and just enough invention. At 13 from 16 balls while operating in Guptill’s slipstream, Williamson had got himself set, and was duly able to “catch-up” by clouting 37 runs from his next 16 for a 32-ball half century. Among Williamson’s more impressive moments was when he read a Jhye Richardson slower ball out of the hand and then set himself up perfectly to slog sweep it, as if delivered by a spinner, into the crowd at midwicket.At the other end, Neesham walked out as though he was already well and truly set, dispatching his first two balls for towering sixes and then seldom letting up thereafter. New Zealand’s momentum was briefly held up when Jhye Richardson won a generous interpretation of the “tramlines” for wides to contribute to Glenn Phillips’ exit, but Neesham and Tim Southee combined to ransack 20 from Sams’ closing over of the innings and ensure the hosts made the highest T20I total in matches between these countries at venues other than Eden Park.Marcus Stoinis brought Australia back in the contest in thrilling style•Getty Images

Touring top order find the fieldersAustralia’s chase got off to a reasonable start. The ball did not swing much for Southee and Trent Boult, Matthew Wade found the boundary and Aaron Finch was given the chance to start steadily: 33 for 0 after three overs compared very favourably to New Zealand’s 20 for 0 at the same stage. But from there the hosts were able to tighten things steadily with the help of scoreboard pressure, while at the same time the Australians felt the net closing in on them.Wade, trying a back foot punch, failed to clear Williamson at mid-off; Finch, having spent 13 balls over 12, picked out midwicket when trying to clear the boundary off the bowling of Ish Sodhi; last and perhaps most pivotally given his abilities, Glenn Maxwell tried to reverse slog sweep his first ball from Santner and found Sodhi, leaping at short third man. At 87 for 3 in the 11th over, the innings was losing momentum in spite of a nice start from Josh Philippe in his second international, and the lower middle order was being left with an enormous task.Stoinis and Sams rearguard falls shortBack in 2017, Stoinis announced himself as an international cricketer of note by cracking 146 from 117 balls in an ODI at Eden Park that had appeared a lost cause before he took his team within a handful of runs. There were undoubted parallels four years later in Dunedin, as Stoinis sized up a chase that had reached the realms of the decidedly implausible. With six overs remaining, the visitors required 98 runs and had just four wickets in hand, as Stoinis and Sams conferred.Their response was to swing for the fences with a clarity that had been missing up to that point, as 62 runs piled up in the space of three overs: courtesy of sixes sixes and four fours in that time to take the equation back to 36 from three overs. A superbly tight 18th over from Boult, and a fortuitous deflection of a Sams drive from the umpire Chris Gaffaney, gave New Zealand 30 runs to play with from the final two overs, then 15 off the last, bowled by Neesham.Sams and Stoinis struggled a little to hit full tosses in these closing overs, and it was one such ball that Neesham coaxed Sams to miscue to deep midwicket. Two more dots – including a declined single – made it 15 off three. Stoinis middled the fourth ball to leave nine from two, but when he shanked the fifth to be out for 78, the day belonged to New Zealand.

Leigh Kasperek’s nine wickets in two games helps her get to No. 17 on the bowlers’ chart

ESPNcricinfo staff13-Apr-2021Leigh Kasperek’s career-best returns of 6 for 46, followed by 3 for 24, in the recently concluded ODI series against Australia has pushed her seven spots up to No. 17 among bowlers in the ICC rankings in the 50-over format, even as Meg Lanning’s contributions with the bat in Australia’s 3-0 wipeout of New Zealand in that series helped her move back into the top five among batters.Lanning scored a useful 51-ball 49 in the second ODI against New Zealand, in what was a 71-run win, and then hit 15 in the rain-curtailed third match, which also went Australia’s way, by 21 runs. That helped them stretch their winning streak to 24 matches – when they won the first match of the series to make it 22 wins in a row, Lanning’s team created a new world record by beating the mark of 21 set by Ricky Ponting’s Australia in 2003. Lanning had last been No. 1 in ODIs last October.Related

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England batter Tammy Beaumont remained in top spot, followed by South Africa’s Lizelle Lee, Australia’s Alyssa Healy, and West Indies’ Stafanie Taylor. Healy hit 44 and 46 in the second and third ODIs, to follow a 65 in the first, to move to 756 rating points, just two behind Lee and nine behind Beaumont. Somewhat below them, Beth Mooney’s 26 and 28 took her up two spots to No. 17.In the bowlers’ chart, Australia quick Megan Schutt remained in second place, behind compatriot Jess Jonassen, despite picking up seven wickets in the series – she was named the Player of the Series, though – while the big mover was Kasperek, the 29-year-old offspinner, who moved to within two spots of her career-best 15th position. Georgia Wareham, meanwhile, moved up two places to 22nd after returns of 2 for 39 and 2 for 25.Australia also earned two points to consolidate their position at the top of the team table, where New Zealand are fifth, with South Africa, England and India between them.

To revive their season, the Sunrisers will need more than just their overseas personnel to perform

Annesha Ghosh27-Apr-2021

Big picture

The IPL caravan moves to Delhi, one of the worst-hit regions in the throes of a resurgent Covid-19 wave raging through India. The teams kicking off the eight-match leg in the city – the Chennai Super Kings and the Sunrisers Hyderabad – have set up camp for four games apiece and, like the other six sides, will be subject to tighter biosecurity restrictions, the onus, as per the BCCI, as much on winning as on catering to “something much more important…humanity.”Conditions at the Arun Jaitley Stadium have historically favoured both the Super Kings and the Sunrisers, each winning six out of their eight outings at the venue. On recent evidence, though, the Super Kings, on a four-match winning run, hold the edge as the Sunrisers suffered their fourth defeat in five games in a one-over shootout against the Delhi Capitals two nights ago.Pivotal to their turnaround since a seven-wicket loss in their season opener, vital contributions have come in fairly evenly from across disciplines in the Super Kings set-up. Ravindra Jadeja’s all-round tour de force at the Wankhede on Sunday that snapped the Royal Challengers Bangalore’s undefeated streak lent them a derring-do reminiscent of their title-winning campaigns of old.Related

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To stall a team high on confidence and revive their own season, the Sunrisers will need more than just their in-form overseas personnel in Jonny Bairstow, Kane Williamson and Rashid Khan to muster a fight. That their Indian bowling personnel have blown hot and cold remains as much a concern as their captain David Warner’s want of form and fluency at the top.

Team news

Manish Pandey could slot back into the line-up as the Sunrisers’ middle-order troubles continue, after Warner described his omission in the fixture against the Capitals as a “harsh” call by the team’s “selectors”. Pandey’s replacement, 23-year-old Virat Singh, who labored to a 14-ball 4, could be on his way out.The Super Kings had opted to “err on the side of safety,” according to Robin Uthappa, by resting Moeen Ali in the last game because of a tight hamstring. The England allrounder is expected to recover in time for the face-off against the Sunrisers, who missed the services of Bhuvneshwar Kumar in their last match owing to a thigh strain he suffered on April 21.

Likely XIs

Chennai Super Kings: 1 Faf du Plessis, 2 Ruturaj Gaikwad, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 Ambati Rayudu/K Gowtham, 5 Ravindra Jadeja, 6 MS Dhoni (capt, wk), 7 Sam Curran, 8 Moeen Ali/Dwayne Bravo, 9 Shardul Thakur, 10 Imran Tahir, 11 Deepak ChaharSunrisers Hyderabad: 1 David Warner (capt), 2 Jonny Bairstow (wk), 3 Kane Williamson, 4 Virat Singh/Manish Pandey, 5 Vijay Shankar, 6 Kedar Jadhav, 7 Rashid Khan, 8 J Suchith, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Sandeep Sharma/Khaleel Ahmed, 11 Siddarth Kaul

Strategy punt

• Warner strikes at over 150 against both Jadeja and Tahir in T20s and at 150 against Ali but struggles to put away the likes of Sam Curran, Deepak Chahar and Dwayne Bravo, against whom his strike rate hovers between 76 and 112. He scored only 6 in the last match and has just one fifty in five innings in this edition, so the Super Kings may be tempted to feed him pace early on. If he is able to counter that ploy, though, his sixth straight 50-plus score against the Super Kings in India and the distinction of the first batter to 50 IPL half-centuries could be there for the taking.
• Since the start of IPL 2020, the Super Kings have scored 43 runs on an average in the powerplay. In instances where they scored better in that phase, they ended close to 180, with a success rate of 80% in those matches. In contrast, a score of under 43 in the first six overs have translated to scores of 150 runs or fewer, the success rate dropping to a mere 25%. Powerplay specialist Sandeep Sharma, who has the most wickets in the first six overs in IPL history, with an economy rate of 6.7 since last season to boot, may be the Sunrisers’ best bet to keep a check on the Super Kings’ run flow in that phase.

Stats that matter

• If Pandey returns to the XI, Wednesday’s match will mark his 150th appearance in the IPL.
• Teams winning the toss have opted to chase 42 times in 74 outings at the Arun Jaitley Stadium.
• Jadeja is two hits shy of a ton of sixes in T20s.
• Bairstow needs 71 to become the fifth player with 1000 runs in the tournament as a wicketkeeper.

Mithali Raj adds “it’s nice to go in without the baggage” as India Women seek exposure in tour of England

Annesha Ghosh01-Jun-20211:43

Powar: ‘Opportunity for Mithali and I to take team to the next level’

Ten out of the 18-member Test squad haven’t played a Test before. India play two Tests away this year. Could blooding first-timers in the longest format away from home be a challenge?
Raj: It’s good to have Tests, whether it’s at home or away. If there’s continuity, it’s great because it helps the player as well. Sometimes it’s nice to go in without the baggage; you just go and play it, enjoy the atmosphere and it’s good to have girls who have played for the first time and girls who’ve played in the past share their experiences of how it was way back in 2014. But I guess having two back-to-back Test matches, I mean to say touring England and Australia, can give a lot of exposure to the current lot. And If that can be carried forward in the coming years, it will be great for the sport.Powar: I think it’s a great start. As head coach, obviously, I want more Test games all over the world. We have to look at it in a different way. It’s just a start; let’s take it step by step. Don’t push the girls into a zone where you’re demanding too many things in Test cricket. It’s a new format [for them] that has not been played consistently over the last ten years, so let’s wait and watch how they react. We might get surprises. They will perform better [if] given the opportunity.India have only played one full series – at home against South Africa in March – since the T20 World Cup last year. How will quarantines in Mumbai [before departure] and Southampton [upon arrival] affect the team’s pre-series preparations?
Powar: It’s not ideal, worldwide, right now. We are trying to look at the bright side. If you look at it, women’s cricketers are getting opportunities – Test cricket, ODIs and, T20Is. It’s a good, long tour of 45 days, and I think, we as a team are thankful to the BCCI for putting up such a tour. It’s not easy.It’s not physically possible, yes, [to prepare oneself adequately], but mental make-up will make a huge difference and I think in my last assignment we’ve tried that, and it paid dividends. I have done it with the Mumbai [men’s] team, and we had just six sessions, and we managed to react positively to the tournament we played.Ramesh Powar speaks to the India Women players•ICC via Getty

Powar on the key to adapting quickly to English conditions
Powar: There will be balls seaming around for batters as well as bowlers. I think in every part of England the conditions will be different, so we will try and adjust to that. Batsmen will, obviously, play close to the body, they will show more patience. When the sun is out, they will enjoy their batting, when the sun is down, they’ll put in hard work to get over that period.Bowlers also – if there’s a lot of help, they will have to control their swing also. There are a lot of things. We’ll go there and assess and we’ll build on it. We can’t go there with a fixed mind. The sun might be out and you may get flat tracks too. You never know.Related

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How important is workload management of 38-year-old Jhulan Goswami, the senior-most member of the Indian attack?
Raj: It’s important that she gets games because even she needs game-time in the middle but, at the same time, being the senior-most it’s also important to keep her in the thick of things. If she needs rest, it’s up to her completely. Knowing Jhulan, I know for a fact she wants to play every game. As a captain also I would like to have her on the field so that the young fast bowlers in the side will get a lot of help if they have her around.Thoughts on Shafali Verma, the 17-year-old batter, who is making heads turn
Powar: It [guidance she needs in longer formats] depends on the way she handles practice sessions because we’ve done something great with Prithvi Shaw when we played the Vijay Hazare Trophy, so you can wait and watch. You might see a different Shafali when she [takes] the field after one and a half months.

The Social Justice and Nation-Building (SJN) hearings will run till July 23, with 58 submissions to be heard

Firdose Moonda05-Jul-2021Cricket South Africa’s Social Justice and Nation-Building (SJN) hearings on racial discrimination in the game began on Monday and will run until July 23, with 58 submissions set to be heard. In his opening address, SJN ombudsman Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza confirmed he had received 11 submissions from what he termed “scene-setters,” including administrators and officials, 23 from players past and present, and 24 from cricket unions and other interested parties. Ntsebeza will submit a report to CSA before September 30 with recommendations to prevent future instances of prejudice.Related

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The hearings were initially due to be held in May but were postponed after concerns about the process were raised by, among others, David Becker, who acts as counsel for CSA’s director of cricket Graeme Smith and anti-corruption chief Louis Cole, and because Ntzebeza was otherwise engaged at the African Human Rights Court in Tanzania. The SJN Project was initiated by CSA’s former board, who resigned in October last year, but has been picked up by the new board which was appointed last month, and hope to use the SJN as a springboard for introspection and change.”CSA fully supports the SJN initiative. We regard it as one of the most important and significant projects to be undertaken in the 30 years of our existence as a unified cricket body,” Lawson Naidoo, CSA board chair, said in his address at the opening of the hearings on Tuesday morning. “The start of these hearing provides a key reset moment for CSA and cricket in general, an opportunity to address the past failures.”Ntsebeza acknowledged that his task is to guide the process of “truth and truth-telling, healing and reconciliation in cricket,” and quoted James Baldwin in explaining the pressing need for South Africa, a country governed by legalised racial segregation until 1994, to address the social issues of the past. “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it’s faced,” Ntsebeza said. “This is a quote from James Baldwin, which speaks to the purpose the SJN Project.”The hearings will include testimonies from those who have suffered racial discrimination, either by written statement on affidavit or oral statement under oath and any implicated person or party will be given notice and afforded an opportunity to respond. The terms of reference of the SJN allow for Ntsebeza to ask for cross-examination at his own discretion and do not require him to resolve any disputes of fact. “The SJN proceedings are not a criminal enquiry and as a result, I will use the civil standard of proof in making my findings. I will make findings based on a balance of probabilities, provided that where a factual dispute cannot be resolved without cross-examination, I may either allow cross-examination, limited cross-examination, or record the factual dispute without resolving it,” Ntzebeza said.CSA will not be involved at any stage of the proceedings, apart from providing administrative and technical assistance.”Our role as the board is to be good listeners, with an open mind and without preconceived ideas. We have much to learn from this, which will inform our future strategy and interventions,” Naidoo said. “It is not the intention of the board of CSA to comment publicly during the ongoing process of these hearings, on the evidence that will emerge. Instead, we will allow the process to take its course without our comment and then consider the ombudsman’s report when it is provided to the board at the end of September. This approach will protect the independence, autonomy and integrity of this project.”No former players are scheduled to appear this week but cricket historian and former Western Province CEO Andre Odendaal, former sports minister Ngconde Balfour and researcher Dr Mary Ann Dove, who completed doctoral work into socio-ecological factors in talent development, are all on the list to testify. All hearings will be available to the public, via a YouTube channel.

Dan Douthwaite and James Weighell strike maiden Blast fifties to lift visitors from 76 for 6

ECB Reporters' Network27-Jun-2021Stephen Eskinazi maintained his rich vein of form with an unbeaten 91 from 56 balls as Middlesex halted their four-match Vitality Blast losing streak with a seven-wicket victory over Glamorgan at Radlett.Eskinazi, who had scored 102 not out and 64 in his two previous innings, dominated the Glamorgan bowling to steer the Seaxes to their target of 171 with 14 balls to spare. His efforts outshone a Glamorgan record seventh-wicket stand of 88 from 47 balls between Dan Douthwaite and James Weighell, who both recorded maiden Blast half-centuries to lift their side to 170 for 8.Glamorgan were hampered by the loss of their two leading run-scorers in the tournament – Nick Selman, who tested positive for Covid-19 and Marnus Labuschagne, isolating after being in contact with the opener.Despite that, the visitors opted to bat, but spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman, back at Middlesex for the remainder of the Blast, made an immediate impact – bowling three tight Powerplay overs and removing the dangerous Colin Ingram for a duck to finish with 1 for 23.Glamorgan’s reshuffled top order floundered, with only David Lloyd, who hit 29 from 25 balls, threatening to gain momentum before he fell to Steven Finn’s sharply-taken return catch. But, having slumped to 76 for 6, the visitors were revived by the partnership between Douthwaite and Weighell – the latter in particular striking his shots cleanly but also with power and accuracy.The pair took 23 from Finn’s final over, including two sixes from Douthwaite, who was then dropped by Eskinazi off a skier and took advantage to bring up his half-century with another maximum off Daryl Mitchell. Douthwaite holed out next delivery for 53, with Eskinazi taking the catch this time, and Weighell reached 51 before following suit from the final ball of the innings as Mitchell ended with figures of 3 for 37.Eskinazi immediately settled into his groove when Middlesex began their reply, dominating an opening stand of 55 with Joe Cracknell as he struck both Weighell and Prem Sisodiya for successive boundaries. Douthwaite made the breakthrough at the end of the fifth over, having Cracknell caught behind off a thick edge, but Nick Gubbins proved to be an equally capable foil for Eskinazi as the duo added 68 from 52 balls.Gubbins eventually swept Sisodiya to deep square leg, but Mitchell bludgeoned 32 from just 13 balls before John Simpson sealed a rare Middlesex success, clipping his first delivery from Douthwaite for six.