Category Uncategorized

Youthful partnership captivates Southport crowd on perfect summer’s day

Paul Edwards11-Jul-2022
You could argue the pandemic has taught us to treasure occasions like this; you may blithely insist a four-year absence was always likely to sharpen appetites; or you might simply maintain it was love of the game, a concept both vague and easily identified, that caused people to stream into Trafalgar Road in the hour before play, as Lancashire versus Somerset prepared to get underway this morning.What you could not doubt, though, was the appreciation shown for every good thing by the spectators that packed even the corners of this proud ground, sitting or standing six deep on the mound below the scoreboard. And let it be noted that never was the applause louder than three overs before the close, when Lewis Goldsworthy cover-drove George Balderson to the railway boundary and thus reached his maiden first-class century with his fifteenth four.There are places where the achievements of opposing players are greeted with grim expressions and perfunctory applause, if that. Southport is not amongst them. This may have been a parochial crowd – nothing wrong there, of course – but it was never rudely provincial. That would have disfigured the day and people wanted to remember it for better reasons. And not the least of them was the sustained applause that paid tribute to John Gwynne, who reported on darts, football and cricket in a long journalistic career and was lately Lancashire’s public address announcer.Gwynney, whose death was announced on Saturday, would have loved this day, and for all his marrow-deep Lancastrian loyalty, he would have enjoyed interviewing Goldsworthy and sharing the young cricketer’s joy. The latter emotion was very evident when the 21-year-old answered the questions of other journalists and it became clear this was a day he will remember for as long as he plays cricket, and then for decades after he retires. “It’s a lovely place to play – I’ve never been here before,” he said. “The crowd were brilliant and the sun was out – it was a beautiful day and I’m really proud.”Goldsworthy’s pleasure is justified in spades. For all that he stroked some fine boundaries in front of the wicket, his innings was notable for a sound defensive technique and for some skilful deflections behind the wicket off all Lancashire’s seamers. And what made his pleasure all the deeper was that he had shared most of his day with James Rew, an England Under-19 batter almost three years his junior with whom he put on 145, thus establishing a new fifth-wicket record for Somerset against Lancashire, thereby eclipsing the mark set by Sammy Woods and Henry Martyn at Taunton in 1905. Rew was making his County Championship debut and we were wondering whether he, too, was set for a century when he clipped a half-volley from Will Williams straight to Tom Bailey and departed for 70.”It was a great knock from James on his debut – the calmness he showed was brilliant,” Goldsworthy said. “I’m in the infancy of my career too so we were both talking to each other and it was a pleasure to be out there with him.”At the same time, Goldsworthy and Rew had to do a lot of hard work before they could enjoy the reward of that labour. For two and a half hours Lancashire’s bowlers made light of losing the toss and dominated the game. Twice in his first five overs, Tom Bailey slanted the new ball skilfully across Steve Davies and Matt Renshaw but neither left-hander covered the bounce and Rob Jones pocketed the chances at slip, Renshaw’s at the second grab. Tom Lammonby and George Bartlett then put on 60 and Lammonby’s straight driving was one of the relatively few joys of the morning for the Somerset supporters who draped a flag with a wyvern rampant on a garden fence at the Harrod Drive End. Six hours later, of course, it captured the mood of the day.The morning, though, was Lancashire’s. Twenty minutes before lunch Dane Vilas, who is keeping wicket in the absence of Phil Salt, called on the left-arm spin of Jack Morley from the Harrod Drive End. Morley’s second ball was well-flighted, its loop almost disgracefully seductive. Bartlett played over the top of it and was yorked for 27 by a ball travelling at something like 45mph. Half an hour after lunch Lammonby played defensively across the line to a delivery from Williams but his stroke was as lazy as the afternoon heat. The ball thudded into the heart of the pad and James Middlebrook sent the left-hander on his way for 47.The cricket and those watching it drifted into the heart of the day. Improbable stories were told of couples spending their honeymoon in Roland Butcher’s holiday flat. We waited for wickets to fall, for Somerset’s youngsters to be bamboozled by the skill of Bailey and Luke Wood. When he had made 18, Rew was dropped at slip by Luke Wells, a sharp chance off Morley. Some thought it didn’t matter. They were wrong. Somerset’s young batters grew in authority and now this warm day in Birkdale will be memorable for the innings of Goldsworthy and Rew and for the life of John Gwynne. And since Goldsworthy is the most courteous of fellows, he will not mind if this report ends with a recollection of a fine sports reporter and a lovely bloke.Ever a man of the people, Gwynne loved outground cricket and covered several matches at Trafalgar Road in the era when Lancashire’s visit was an undisputed annual ritual. One year he was asked to report on a match for BBC radio through the day, before doing a piece to camera on the regional evening news programme . Gwynne decided to change into a suit for his TV appearance but it was the 1970s and he had gone in for one of the colourful, wide-lapelled numbers that were sadly fashionable at the time. Just prior to going on air, the gaudily dressed Gwynne entered the press tent. “Bloody hell, Gwynney,” exclaimed Neil Hallam of “I didn’t realise you were on .

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.

No recall for Moeen Ali, whose international break has been extended with a view to returning for Sri Lanka tour

George Dobell07-Dec-2019James Anderson, Jonny Bairstow and Mark Wood have all been included in a 17-man squad for England’s Test tour of South Africa.Anderson and Wood missed the New Zealand tour due to injury, while Bairstow was dropped to allow him time to work on his red-ball game. All three are already in South Africa as part of a training squad.While Wood is not currently deemed fit for selection, the England management hope he will recover sufficiently to play some part in the series. He was player of the match in the only Test he played in 2019, England’s victory in St Lucia.Also read: England keep ‘watching brief’ as chaos mounts in South AfricaBut there is no recall for Moeen Ali. Moeen, who requested an extended break from the Test team after struggling during the English summer, has held discussions with the England management in recent days with the conclusion that he should be given a little longer away from the international game. He is expected to return to the Test squad for the tour of Sri Lanka, where England may well field three spinners.Moeen’s absence allows Matt Parkinson, who went on the New Zealand tour but did not break into the Test team, another opportunity. Zak Crawley, who made his Test debut in the Hamilton Test, also retains his place as a reserve batsman. That means there is no place for Dawid Malan.The return of Anderson and Wood means no place for Lancashire seamer Saqib Mahmood. He is the one man from the Test squad in New Zealand to
miss out. “With James Anderson and Mark Wood returning to the squad, Saqib Mahmood is the unfortunate player to miss out,” said National Selector Ed
Smith.”It is not predicted that Mark Wood will be available for selection for the earliest matches. However, he will travel with the team and continue his rehab work with the medical staff on tour. There is no exact date given for his return, but the medical team is working towards him becoming fully available for selection during the tour.”With that in mind, and given the extended period that James and Mark have had on the sidelines due to injury, it was sensible to have a 17-man squad.”Moeen Ali, who asked to take a break from Test cricket last summer, remains unavailable for Test selection.”Jonny Bairstow returns to the England squad after missing out on the New Zealand tour. Jonny, Mark and James are already in South Africa on
a training camp ahead of the Test tour.”The four-match Test series forms part of the ICC World Test Championship and will be the first time in the competition that England have played away from home. The first Test begins on Boxing Day at Centurion.

A new book has revealed team performance chief Pat Howard’s disparaging comments about the Bangladesh side Australia had lost to in Dhaka last year

Daniel Brettig04-Oct-2018Bangladesh’s inaugural Test victory over Australia in Dhaka last year was belittled by Cricket Australia’s team performance chief Pat Howard as being achieved by players who were not up to Sheffield Shield standard, a new book has revealed.In Australia’s first Test after the fractious 2017 pay dispute, an underprepared team lost narrowly to Bangladesh on a sharply turning pitch and were immediately leapt upon by sections of the media as overpaid prima donnas. In Gideon Haigh’s , an account of the build-up to this year’s ball-tampering scandal, Howard is shown to have harangued senior figures across Australian cricket in an emailed reaction to the defeat.”I am sitting in a cafe in Dhaka hotel at the conclusion of the first Test loss ever to Bangladesh. I am personally embarrassed and take accountability and happy to accept any criticism that comes our way,” Howard wrote. “For some of you sitting here in Dhaka you are fully aware of how poor a result this is and you have a material opportunity to address in the next few days.”Rightly the system is often judged on the outcomes of the national team. As you can imagine there are many questions being asked of us, and I think they are fair. I am reasonably confident that many of the players that have just beaten us would not get a run in any of the state teams.”To the CA Team Performance – When you go home at the end of the day, does what you do actually make a difference? CA spends over $100m on players’ wages and teams, all in the effort of producing great national teams. We have failed, you have failed and I have failed and it is not good enough.”Howard’s unflattering depiction of the Bangladesh side Australia had just lost to was followed by an improved performance and a victory by the tourists in the second Test, but also by the cancellation of Bangladesh’s scheduled visit to Australia for Tests this year. It is part of a wider picture painted by Haigh of arrogance and disconnection in Australian cricket, a sobering tale for the new chief executive, Kevin Roberts.Elsewhere, Haigh depicts the growing problems confronted by Australia’s ODI team, which one player described as being nothing like a team, while another criticised the former coach Darren Lehmann’s lack of detailed information about how to improve performances. “A player summed up the one-day side in a word: ‘Individuals’. There were no basics, no planning. You got together in the morning, went your separate ways at night. It never felt like an Australian ‘team’ in any sense of the word.””Another player felt that Lehmann had fallen into this coaching fashion simply through running short of things to say: ‘I love Boof. He’s got a great heart and he loves the players. But, really, he hardly coached technique at all. ‘You’re struggling? Just whack it.’ ‘You’re going for runs? Just bowl yorkers.’ ‘We’ll smash them.’ He really just had no other answers but to try and build up this arrogance.'”Haigh, one of the world’s foremost cricket writers, authored with David Frith the official history of Cricket Australia in 2007. The picture painted by is of much that has happened since, focusing on the fact that, as an unaccountable monopoly, the governing body has become arrogant, secretive and inconsistent.”Cricket Australia operates as monopoly and monopsony, unregulated, unrestricted and untaxed,” Haigh writes. “If one wishes to work in the sport, there is every incentive to stay the right side of the country’s sole promoter of cricket attractions and employer of cricket talent. Over the last decade, the organisation has also grown increasingly secretive and sensitive – paradoxically, with each year that it has grown richer and more powerful.”Some who’ve raised questions these last few years have been penalised for their trouble. Asked to sum up the culture of Australian cricket, one of my interviewees put it more succinctly than I ever could: ‘Bullies and sycophants.’ Said another, by way of contrast: ‘[Australian rules] Football gives you one in the belly. Cricket gives you one in the back. It is full of good haters.’ Quoting them directly would hardly improve their employment prospects. But these voices do need a hearing.”Crossing The Line

The Sri Lanka captain said his team expected the pitch to be good for batting from before the game began, and wanted it to be so, but failed to execute their plans

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Galle29-Jul-20173:15

Maharoof: SL selectors need to make serious decisions

Sri Lanka had specifically ordered the unusual batting-friendly Galle deck, on which India achieved their biggest ever victory in terms of runs. Rangana Herath did not reveal why such a request should be made when facing a team who have an outstanding top order. Instead, he laid the blame on his team’s execution of what he felt was a good strategy.Where India made 840 runs at a run rate better than 4.5 an over across the match, losing only 13 wickets in the process, Sri Lanka mustered just 536. They were without Asela Gunaratne in both innings, however.”I think we made this pitch because we had a plan,” Herath said. “I said before the match that it will be a track that’s good for batting. We should take the main responsibility for the nature of the pitch. We didn’t bat or bowl well on it. We shouldn’t blame anyone else. We have to resolve our own issues.”Chief among those issues, Herath felt, was the batting. Three India batsmen made hundreds in the match, including two – Shikhar Dhawan and Cheteshwar Pujara – who passed 150. Sri Lanka’s top score, meanwhile, was Dimuth Karunaratne’s 97. Dilruwan Perera also hit 92 not out in the first innings.”A few of our batsmen got close to three figures and got out, but the Indian batsmen not only got their hundreds, they went further. That was a big difference too in the game, and an area that we have to work on.”Herath also felt Sri Lanka gave a poor account of themselves with the ball. This was the first time since March 2013 that Sri Lanka conceded 600 runs or more in an innings – the last occasion having been against Bangladesh in a high-scoring draw in 2013. They have since given away 524 for 5 in New Zealand and 575 for 9 in England, but have generally been more penetrative at home.”We are a better team than this,” Herath said. “We really are. I felt that it was after a long time that a team scored 600 runs against us. We should have bowled better.”Sri Lanka’s worst bowling in the match perhaps came on the first day, when Shikhar Dhawan hit 190 off 168 balls. Only Herath maintained an economy rate of below four in the first innings.”At that point, we had a few plans for Shikhar Dhawan, but we failed to execute them,” Herath said. “For example, we allowed him too much width. In the first session of the match itself the game started slipping away from us. We bounced back well but he had by then got off to a terrific start.”Unusually for a Galle track, the quicks outperformed the spinners on what is traditionally one of the most spin-friendly tracks in the world. Of the 31 wickets to fall in this match 16 fell to seam bowlers – 10 of those breakthroughs shared between the two Sri Lanka quicks. This was the first occasion since 2014 in which fast bowlers were more successful at the venue. And where the track typically begins to offer drastic turn on days four and five, this pitch had remained relatively good for batting throughout.”I thought that on the fourth or fifth day there would be something for the spinners,” Herath said. “But there wasn’t as much help for the spinners as I expected at those late stages.”The seamer-friendly conditions allowed Nuwan Pradeep to become the first Sri Lanka bowler to claim a six-wicket haul at home since Chaminda Vaas, in 2005. His 6 for 132 in the first innings was also a personal best for Pradeep, who had never previously taken five wickets in an innings.”I think it was after a long time a fast bowler has taken a five-wicket haul in Galle,” Herath said. “There’s so much pressure on spinners when we play in Sri Lanka, and Pradeep bowling so well and taking so many wickets will be a huge plus point for us moving forward. He was outstanding in this game and his effort was fantastic. That was one of the positives.”

First met second in this top of the South Group clash in the Natwest T20 Blast in Cardiff, and it was Gloucestershire who secured victory against Glamorgan to become leaders

ECB Reporters Network10-Jul-2016
ScorecardMichael Klinger helped ensure a comfortable chase•Getty Images

First met second in this top of the South Group clash in the Natwest T20 Blast in Cardiff, and it was Gloucestershire who secured victory against Glamorgan to become leaders. Going into this game the teams were level on points with only net run-rate separating them.Wickets for Graeme van Buuren and tight bowling from Benny Howell and Tom Smith restricted Glamorgan to 119 for 6. It was never enough runs to defend and an unbeaten stand of 97 between Michael Klinger and Ian Cockbain took Gloucestershire home. Both men reached fifty as they secured victory with 23 balls to spare.A slow pitch with low bounce confronted the teams at Cardiff and it was surprising that Glamorgan chose to bat first on a pitch that was used for the match against Sussex on Thursday night. Right from the start of the home side’s innings the Gloucestershire bowlers were on top. A steady batting Powerplay took Glamorgan to 40 without loss but the introduction of spin bowling helped the visitors take control.Van Buuren took two wickets with his slow left-arm bowling in this first over, and they were the scalps of Glamorgan’s two in-form T20 batsmen. First David Lloyd looped the ball off a leading edge to Michael Klinger at mid-off and two balls later Colin Ingram was pinned lbw by a quicker delivery.From there the Glamorgan batsmen struggled to find any timing against some canny Gloucestershire bowling. It became clear very early on that pace off the ball was the way to go, and the Gloucestershire attack was perfectly suited to doing just that. Howell conceded just 13 runs from his four overs of medium pace and van Buuren finished with 3 for 19.It looked as if Glamorgan would fail to reach 100, but 32 from Graham Wagg, which included the only two sixes of the innings, helped them set a target of 120. Wagg scored 18 runs off the 20th over, bowled by Andrew Tye, to give his team a chance, albeit a slim one.A Glamorgan attack that featured the pace of Shaun Tait and Timm van der Gugten was far less equipped to cause real issues on this tired Cardiff pitch, and the extra pace allowed the Gloucestershire batsmen to time the ball with much greater ease than the opposition.The early wicket of Hamish Marshall, well caught down the leg side by Mark Wallace off van der Gugten, gave Glamorgan some hope but from there Gloucestershire cruised to victory.
With a lack of slower bowling options available to him Rudolph brought himself on to bowl his part-time legspin for the first time in the T20 Blast this season in attempt to try something different. By then the run rate was down to four an over and there was no need for Gloucestershire to take any risks.This defeat is a setback for Glamorgan but they still have four matches left in this competition and are well placed to secure a quarter-final spot. For Gloucestershire one more win from their remaining two matches and they are mathematically certain of qualification for the knockout stages.