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Pakistan Under-19s registered a four-wicket win againt South Africa Under-19s in a low-scoring one-dayer in Cape Town, to level the three-match series at 1-1

ESPNcricinfo staff27-Jan-2012
ScorecardPakistan Under-19s registered a four-wicket win againt South Africa Under-19s in a low-scoring one-dayer in Cape Town, to level the three-match series at 1-1. Pakistan chose to bowl and Zia-ul-Haq justified their decision by quickly getting rid of South Africa’s openers, leaving them 2 for 7 in the fifth over. South Africa never really recovered. While the middle order batsmen got starts, none of them were able to convert and the hosts were bowled out for 126 in the 39th over. Mohammad Nawaz did most of the damage with the lower half of the order, taking 5 for 19 in five overs.In the chase, Pakistan’s top order could not make any contributions of note, and at one stage they were tottering at 68 for 6. However, Nos. 7 and 8, Saifullah Bangash and Usman Qadir strung together a fluent, unbroken 60-run stand to take Pakistan home in the 34th over. Nawaz was named the Man of the Match.The teams will play the final match of the series on January 29 in Stellenbosch.

A fighting innings by Ben Cutting gave Queensland a lead of 165 over Tasmania with one wicket remaining after day three of the Sheffield Shield match in Hobart

ESPNcricinfo staff19-Feb-2012
ScorecardA fighting innings by Ben Cutting gave Queensland a lead of 165 over Tasmania with one wicket remaining after day three of the Sheffield Shield match in Hobart.The Bulls must win outright to stay on top of the Shield table following Western Australia’s obliteration of New South Wales in Perth, and Cutting’s innings gave them some chance of doing so.Tasmania had looked likely to claim outright points when the visitors slipped to 8 for 118 after bowling the Tigers out for 260. Jackson Bird and Luke Butterworth shared six wickets between them, but Cutting found allies in Steve Magoffin and Alister McDermott to keep the Bulls in with a chance.

Nicola Browne, the New Zealand bowler, has decided to return to international cricket. The decision is a remarkable U-turn after retiring seven months ago

ESPNcricinfo staff30-Mar-2012Nicola Browne, the New Zealand bowler, has decided to return to international cricket despite announcing her retirement seven months ago. She discovered she was suffering with celiac disease, changed her diet and is now hungry to play for New Zealand once more.Browne, 28 from Waikato, felt “the flame inside her had been extinguished” when retiring in August 2011. The news came as something of a shock after rising to sixth on the world bowling rankings and being named Player of the Tournament at the 2010 Women’s World Twenty20.”I wasn’t tracking where I should have been,” Browne said. “I was plagued with health problems and just couldn’t get my energy levels right.” She thought her health problems stemmed from Temporomandibular joint disorder and reached a low point after the Christchurch earthquake of February 2011, prompting her departure from the game.But a joint disorder proved not to be the problem. Browne changed doctors and was found to be suffering with celiac disease – where gluten in the body damaged the lining of the small intestine causing fatigue.A simple change of diet did the trick. “I had more energy that I could ever remember having,” Browne said. “It was like I had been living my life at only 70%.” Pasta and pizza went off the menu as part of her new gluten-free regime that provided new-found energy and a reignited passion for cricket.Browne returned to action with seven wickets at 16.85 for Northern Districts and now has her sights on an international recall and becoming a professional. “I’ve found myself,” she said. “And I’ve found the energy to go and achieve beyond where I reached before, and bring others along for the journey.”

Ireland Women begin their new season in a new division this weekend. They were promoted to Division three of the ECB County Championship last season.

ESPNcricinfo staff01-May-2012Ireland Women begin their new season in a new division this weekend. They were promoted to Division Three of the ECB County Championship last season.The new campaign begins against Leicestershire at Bardon Hill and on Monday they play Huntingdon & Cambridgeshire on Monday at Sawston.Head coach Jeremy Bray is hopeful of another successful season: “The squad has got a great blend of youth and experience and I’m sure will be rewarded for all their efforts during the close season.”It’s an exciting time for Irish cricket in general and you can feel there’s a real buzz about the game at the minute. I’m sure it won’t be too long before the women are emulating the men’s team in terms of results.”2012 Squad
Isobel Joyce (capt), Clodagh Conway, Laura Delany, Emma Flanagan, Cecelia Joyce, Shauna Kavanagh, Louise McCarthy, Rebecca Rolfe, Melissa Scott Hayward, Clare Shillington, Alison Smith, Elena Tice, Mary Waldron

Tino Best, the Barbados fast bowler, has been called up to the West Indies

ESPNcricinfo staff22-May-2012Tino Best, the Barbados fast bowler, has been recalled to the West Indies squad in England after Shannon Gabriel, who made his Test debut at Lord’s, was ruled out of the remainder of the tour with a stress reaction in his back. Best is due to arrive in England on Wednesday.Gabriel only bowled five overs in England’s chase, during which he removed Kevin Pietersen, and subsequent investigation showed he would not be available for the second Test at Trent Bridge which starts on May 25. The management have decided to send him back to the Caribbean to recover. Kemar Roach (ankle) also struggled towards the end of the first Test while Ravi Rampaul missed the match with a neck problem.”Shannon made the complaint late in the first Test against England and scans conducted following the match showed a stress reaction in the lower spine,” CJ Clark, the West Indies physiotherapist, said.”He was subsequently ruled out of the second Test and, after further consultation, we feel that to prevent this injury developing any further, it is in Shannon’s best interest for him to return to Trinidad & Tobago for rest and rehabilitation to ensure he is fully fit when selected for West Indies in the future.”Best, 30, played the last of his 14 Tests in 2009 against Bangladesh in Grenada when West Indies were hit with a mass player walkout. However, he was recently named in the one-day squad for the series against Australia although, he did not make the XI for any of the five matches.He has taken 28 Test wickets at 48.67 with a best of 4 for 46, although his record against England is better with 13 wickets at 32.37 from five matches. One of those games came in 2004 at Lord’s which is where the well-known sledge “Mind the windows, Tino” came from Andrew Flintoff when Best was trying to slog Ashley Giles in the stands towards the end of the match.Best has forced his way back into contention with consistent performances in the regional four-day competition in the Caribbean where he picked up 17 wickets at 20.64 during the 2011-12 season.

The Goa state government has ordered an investigation into the finances of the Goa Cricket Association (GCA) after two local clubs affiliated to the GCA lodged a complaint alleging incidents of fraud

Tariq Engineer13-May-2012The Goa state government has ordered an investigation into the finances of the Goa Cricket Association (GCA) after two local clubs affiliated to the GCA lodged a complaint alleging incidents of fraud.On May 1, the State Registration Department set up a committee comprising Chetan Desai, a former GCA secretary, and retired bureaucrat Anil Lavandis to probe the allegations and gave them 15 days to complete the task. The government has also asked the GCA not to take any financial decisions until the investigation is over.Desai, who is leading the investigation, told ESPNcricinfo that the GCA is not co-operating and that he might be forced to involve the police to obtain the information he needs. “They are not acting in a very co-operative manner,” he said. “They have kept the association closed for four days. They cited security reasons but we have held so many camps, including women’s camps, and there has never been a security problem.”Desai said he wrote to the association secretary on May 7 requesting all the financial documents for the last year but has received no response. Given that the government has asked him to submit a report on the association’s finances by May 15, he said he might be forced to resort to using the police to gain access to the offices of the association if GCA officials continued to prevent him from doing his job.In addition to the allegations of fraud, the GCA has also been accused of illegally constructing a new building. Earlier this week Porvorim MLA Rohan Khaunte asked the government to set up a second investigation team to examine “irregularities” relating to the construction of the new building. Khaunte claimed he had documents to prove the involvement of association secretary Prasad Phaterpekar, as well as other members, and that he would file a first information report (FIR) against them.Calls to the GCA were not returned. The association is headed by Dayanand Narvekar, a former BCCI vice-president and a former state minister.

Sussex booked their place in the quarter-finals of the Friends Life t20 and ended Surrey’s hopes in the process following an emphatic six-wicket win at The Oval.

03-Jul-2012
ScorecardSussex booked their place in the quarter-finals of the Friends Life t20 and ended Surrey’s hopes in the process following an emphatic six-wicket win at The Oval.Surrey struggled to 106 for 6 before rain brought their innings to a premature end after 16.2 overs with Zander de Bruyn top scoring on 30 not out and Mike Yardy taking 2 for 15.Sussex made light work of reaching a revised target of 109 off 15 overs with Luke Wright (32), Matt Prior (25) and Chris Nash (22) steering them home with 20 balls to spare despite the efforts of stand-in skipper Gareth Batty (3 for 11).After making a positive start a flurry of wickets put the skids under Surrey’s hopes of setting a big target.Jason Roy was first to go for just four as he picked out Chris Liddle at mid-off to give Yardy his first wicket.Three balls later Steven Davies’ promising innings came to an end when he carved a wide ball from Liddle straight to Murray Goodwin at third man having hit 21 off 11 balls.Zafar Ansari lasted just three balls before he lobbed a catch to Wright off the bowling of Yardy to leave Surrey reeling on 32 for 3.Kevin Pietersen followed his duck against Hampshire the previous night by being caught on the boundary for eight trying to hit Will Beer over long on.Michael Rippon then bowled Matt Spriegel for nine and when the first stoppage for rain came Surrey were 86 for 5 after 14 overs.Rory Burns made 23 off 20 balls, including a six off Chris Nash, but then miscued a hook off Amjad Khan and was caught at deep fine leg by Scott Styris.When the rain returned Surrey were 106 for 6 after 16.2 overs and Sussex were set a revised target of 109 off 15 overs.Nash set the tone for Sussex’s reply as he blasted 22 off the first two overs before top edging a catch to Davies off the bowling of Stuart Meaker.Matt Prior plundered 25 off just 10 balls, including a big six off Dirk Nannes, only to be caught on the boundary while Wright made 32 off 21 balls when he offered a return catch to Batty.

New Zealand fast bowler Tim Southee, who took 3 for 53 on Saturday, has said the loss of wickets “at the wrong time” cost his side the match in St Kitts

ESPNcricinfo staff15-Jul-2012New Zealand fast bowler Tim Southee, who took 3 for 53 on Saturday, has said the loss of wickets “at the wrong time” cost his side the match in St Kitts, and that they needed to learn how to win the key moments in games. New Zealand fell 24 runs short of West Indies’ 264, despite a century by their captain Ross Taylor, and conceded the one-day series 3-1 with a match in hand.New Zealand’s chase, shaken by the loss of four wickets for 75 runs, was held together by Taylor’s 110. Taylor added 71 runs for the fifth wicket with middle-order batsman Tom Latham before Latham was dismissed by offspinner Marlon Samuels in the 34th over. New Zealand faltered in the final stages, the last four wickets falling for 21 runs as Taylor ran out of support.”We lost a couple of wickets early and then had to rebuild, and Tom Latham and Ross did a great job,” Southee said. “It was a shame to lose Tom [but] we did and it would have been nice to have that extra wicket going into those latter overs. Wickets at the wrong time hurt us, [so] we have to think of ways [of not losing] those key moments in games. [We lost] wickets in the middle there and towards the end. [The] back-end of five-six overs didn’t come out so well in the end.”Southee said Taylor’s performance was impressive because of the manner in which he structured his innings. He was slow at the start to settle in, and took 80 deliveries to get to his fifty, but later accelerated his scoring, getting his next fifty runs off 28 deliveries.”Ross paced his innings and ended run-a-ball; he’s one of those batsmen that can do that. No matter how slow a start, he has the ability to catch up, and he played extremely well. It’s just a shame that there wasn’t someone else who could stick with him and make it a lot easier in the end.”New Zealand could have been chasing less than 264 had their bowlers capitalised on their incisive start, having reduced West Indies to 105 for 5 in the 27th over. They faced resistance from Kieron Pollard, who made a half-century, and Devon Thomas. They scored 53 runs in five overs during the batting Powerplay between overs 36 and 40, and the following batsmen picked up from there.”We did well at the start to get them four-five down early but the Powerplay hurt us and [at] the death we bowled hit-and-miss,” Southee said.Southee had contributed to West Indies’ top order collapse by dismissing Gayle and Dwayne Smith. Gayle had led West Indies to one-sided wins in the two Twenty20s and the first two ODIs, with scores of 85 not out, 53, 63 not out and 125, but he hasn’t fired in his last two innings, making only 27 runs in total.”The first few games we didn’t bowl very well to him [Gayle] at the start and he got in and played some great innings,” Southee said. “So it’s important how we bowl to him in the first few overs.”The final ODI on July 16, also in St Kitts, will be a dead rubber because West Indies secured the series with this win. Southee, however, said winning that fixture would lift New Zealand ahead of the three-Test series, which begins on August 2.”It’s still a big game for us, obviously. It’s better losing 3-2 than 4-1 and hopefully we can gain some momentum going into the Tests for the Test side. [The loss] hurts but we’ll dust ourselves off and come again on Monday.”

It is a clash between two professional and well-drilled outfits that contains what could potentially be one of the contests of the tournament

George Binoy in Townsville18-Aug-2012By finishing second in Group A, England have been drawn against South Africa, winners of Group D, in the quarter-finals of the Under-19 World Cup in Townsville. It is a clash between two professional and well-drilled outfits that contains what could potentially be one of the contests of the tournament: England’s new-ball attack against South Africa’s openers.The majority of England’s players had the day off on Friday, after beating Nepal by 127 runs the day before, and spent it recuperating at their service apartments on Palmer Street: playing FIFA, watching bits of the Lord’s Test, staying out of the harsh sun and keeping off their feet as much as possible. Today, they’re back to practicing with sharpened focus. Tim Boon, their coach, said: “We’re as best prepared as we can be.”England have played South Africa before, in a seven-match home series they lost 2-4 in July last year. Only eight of those South Africans, however, are part of the World Cup squad so half of their outfit is not familiar to Adam Ball’s team. Someone they do know well is the opening batsman Quinton de Kock, who top scored with 341 runs in that series. “We felt if we could get him out early and expose that middle order as early as we could, we were right in there,” said Ball, England’s captain. “That will probably one of our main goals this time around and we will see how it goes.”De Kock is a threat once again. He enters the quarter-final as the World Cup’s leading run-scorer, 226 in three innings in Brisbane. His opening partner Chad Bowes is third on the list with 179 and they have been responsible for South Africa’s substantial batting success so far. In Reece Topley and Jamie Overton, however, England have two of the tallest and quickest bowlers in the World Cup, and they’ll be gunning for those South African scalps as early as possible.”Quinton de Kock had a good series against us but we know how he plays, so there won’t be any surprises there,” said Topley. “We’ve got good plans and we’ll attack him. We’ll attack most of the order to be honest.”Since that defeat to South Africa, England’s Under-19 cricketers have had a rigorous training programme at home, and toured Bangladesh and Australia. “I’d like to think so,” said Boon, when asked whether his players were significantly improved now. “Over the last two years quite a number of our guys have been getting international experience, which is what it is all about.”A “bombshell,” was how Boon described what his players were hit with when they entered theEngland Development Programme. “It’s a really tough regime. Just the work rates and the key learnings at 16-17, it’s a very intensive program at that age.”Ball said the focus of the system he’d been through was to produce “mentally tough players”. He said they’d learned the discipline required of a professional cricketer, the sacrifices that were necessary, and how they couldn’t “just go away and do what every other person does in their daily life.””We have had some very stressful times preparing for this,” Ball said. “We have been preparing for about two years now. That involves long periods up to 10 days at Loughborough, our centre of excellence. Very long days – waking up at 6am and leaving thecentre at about 8pm in the evening. So we have been put through the hard yards and now it’s come to the business time.”The business time didn’t begin well. After winning both warm-up games comfortably, England were sent in by Australia on a difficult batting wicket at Tony Ireland Stadium and dismissed for 143 in their first group match. “We learnt a lot of lessons in the game that we lost against Australia. There were some fundamental things that we didn’t do and that was just to occupy the crease and see the tough times out,” said Boon. “The toss made it tricky early doors, and I think we could have coped with that a little better. It provided us with another learning experience. Most of our players now have played and either got runs or had a decent bowl so everyone’s in a pretty good frame of mind.”In their next two games, England did occupy the crease, chasing 113 in 36.3 overs againstIreland with seven wickets in hand, and making 274 against Nepal. Ball saw room for more improvement. “I think making sure that we post big scores on the board for our bowlers to defend and then again, to chase down big scores,” he said. “We have shown signs that we can do it but we just need to keep developing that on a consistent basis.”One of their problems has been at the top of the order. Coming into the World Cup, Daniel Bell-Drummond had been tipped to be one of the batsmen to watch, but he’s managed only 31 runs in three innings. He began with a duck against Australia and finished the group stage with a hard-earned 23 against Nepal. Boon said it was a “question of time” before Bell-Drummond came right.”DBD [Bell-Drummond] is an exceptional player, an exceptional character,” said Boon. “He’s been in a rich vein of form, he’s scored runs [for Kent] against the senior South African team and to me it’s just a question of time before he comes right.”The quarter-final against South Africa could be Bell-Drummond’s last opportunity to show the world what he can do. Topley, however, is confident that it won’t be. He believes this class of England Under-19 has been groomed to successfully deal “with pressure situations such as Sunday”.

Not for the first time this year England were back in the nets trying to find a way to solve their problems against spin

ESPNcricinfo staff24-Sep-2012Not for the first time this year England were back in the nets trying to find a way to solve their problems against spin. The net session at the P Sara Oval was not a direct response to the demise for 80 against India – they had been scheduled for a likely training session in any case – but the events of the previous evening gave a clear focus to what was required.Andy Flower and Graham Gooch, two outstanding batsmen of spin in their day, gave plenty of throw downs and shared plenty of advice as they have done throughout the year. On the evidence of how the current crop played Harbhajan Singh and Piyush Chawla not all of it is being absorbed.The middle of a tournament is not the time to be trying to remodel techniques or radically change gameplans, but if England have serious ambitions of moving beyond the Super Eight stage they are going to have to adapt quickly. Their half of the draw has been termed the easier route to the knockout stage, yet each team they face will have bowlers to exploit their major weakness.Sunil Narine will be first, when they face West Indies on Thursday, followed by the more orthodox but no-less-effective Daniel Vettori then back to mystery with a four-over trial from Ajantha Mendis. Do not rule out Sri Lanka throwing in their wild-card, 18-year old Akila Dananjaya, either. It is those future challenges, rather than what happened on Sunday evening, that is now the focus of the England team.”It was a disappointing performance – we’re human enough to say that and realise that obvious fact,” Craig Kieswetter said. “We’ve played spin well; we’ve beaten Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan in the sub-continent before. It was just a bad performance.”We’re not getting too down about it. Confidence is still high; we’re still playing some great cricket and we’re pretty glad we’ve got that game out of the way at the best time possible.”Much like Stuart Broad’s assertion that England do not have a problem against spin it was not entirely convincing from Kieswetter, who top-scored in the 80 with 35 made largely before the spinners came on, but the quick-fire nature of the tournament does at least offer a chance to move on quickly. Kieswetter will also remember that England were far from convincing getting out of their group in 2010 – squeezing through without winning a game – before surging to the title.”What’s done is done. We did what we needed to do and qualified and now we’re through to the business part of the competition,” he said. “Now you’ll see the good teams put their hands up and actually put up performances that really matter.”But can England fine a way against spin? “You’ve got to be more streetwise, be prepared to score ugly runs. We’ve got to be adaptable to the wickets,” he said. “We played across the line a bit too much. We should have played a bit straighter.”We realise that; we’ve highlighted it and we’re obviously going to learn from that. It’s probably a good learning curve to have. It didn’t turn as much and we probably expected, and we played for a bit too much turn. The ball’s a bit more unpredictable here – it either spins or it doesn’t – it’s not as predictable as in England.”