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A pair of wickets from Andrew Fekete late in the day gave Tasmania hope of victory in Perth, where Western Australia finished the third day at 2 for 27 in their chase of 256

ESPNcricinfo staff14-Feb-2014
ScorecardMitchell Marsh took 4 for 35 (file photo)•Getty ImagesA pair of wickets from Andrew Fekete late in the day gave Tasmania hope of victory in Perth, where Western Australia finished the third day at 2 for 27 in their chase of 256. The Tasmania captain George Bailey made 83 to help steer the Tigers to 286 in their second innings and give their bowlers something to defend, and with a day to play both sides had a good chance of taking the points.Tasmania resumed on 2 for 78 and it took some time for Western Australia to make another breakthrough as Bailey and Ed Cowan put on 136 for the third wicket. Cowan eventually fell to the part-time offspin of Marcus North for 59 and in the next over Bailey followed, caught behind off Mitchell Marsh to spark a mini-collapse as Tasmania lost 6 for 36.However, Ben Hilfenhaus (29) and Sam Rainbird (32) provided invaluable tail-end runs that helped Tasmania up to the best total of the match so far before Rainbird was the last man out, giving Marsh figures of 4 for 35. Chasing 256, the Warriors lost Cameron Bancroft lbw to Fekete for 10 and nightwatchman Michael Beer for 4, leaving them relying on North on 12 and Marcus Harris on 1.

Anil Kumble has said India must choose their best bowling combination in away Tests even if that means including two spinners in the line-up

ESPNcricinfo staff14-Mar-2014Anil Kumble has said India must choose their best bowling combination in away Tests even if that means including two spinners in the line-up. In the four Tests India played in South Africa and New Zealand, India went with only one spinner in each Test, with Ravindra Jadeja being preferred over R Ashwin in three of them.”If your two spinners are among your best bowlers they should play, irrespective of the conditions,” Kumble told the . “Do you change your batting line-up just because you are playing abroad? You expect your batsmen to adapt. It’s the same with bowlers.”You cannot go in with a pre-conceived notion that the spinners will only play a defensive role away from the sub-continent,” he said. “For instance, you cannot expect Virender Sehwag to play differently whatever be the country. It depends on the kind of bowler you are.”Kumble also took a dig at India’s tactics in the recent away Tests saying the players were not proactive on the field. “You cannot sit and wait for things to happen,” he said. “In India, the two spinners will attack and pick wickets from either end. It doesn’t happen that way abroad. You have to strategise.”The batsmen play a lot of shots these days, even in Tests. Even a mid-on, a midwicket or a cover becomes a catching position. But you need to have a plan.”VVS Laxman, however, spoke out in support of the seamers, who he thought bowled well in the Tests, but said that as a unit, the bowlers needed to develop skills with the Kookaburra ball.”We need bowlers who can swing the ball at a telling pace to strike when the pitch flattens,” Laxman said. “The Kookaburra ball does not swing after the first 30 overs or so and we need to maintain the ball.”Often when we see big partnerships develop, we forget small things like maintaining the ball and retaining its shine for a longer period. It’s not about reverse swing alone. It’s also about conventional swing with the older ball.”Terming Ishant Sharma as the “most hard-working pacemen I have seen,” Laxman said the bowler’s wrist position, which has been frequently pointed as the reason for his lack of movement, was good in the Wellington Test.”He was brilliant in New Zealand,” Laxman said. “A lot has been said about his wrist position. But I thought his wrist position was upright and exemplary in the Wellington Test.Laxman added that India’s seamers also needed to work harder to improve their ability to bowl at the death in the limited-overs matches. “Yorker is all about practice,” he said. “Mohammed Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar have useful yorkers but they should work more on their control. It’s not an easy delivery to bowl and execution is important.”He [Ishant] never had a good yorker. His strengths as a bowler are his bounce and seam movement.”

Darren Lehmann, the Australia coach, has said his team needed to develop better situation awareness in the shortest format, an aspect that was missing from their first two games against Pakistan and West Indies

Abhishek Purohit29-Mar-2014Darren Lehmann, the Australia coach, has said his team had to develop better situation awareness in the shortest format, an aspect that was missing from their first two games in the World T20, against Pakistan and West Indies. Australia have two losses in as many games and must win their last two matches, including one against India on Sunday, and hope Bangladesh beat Pakistan to have a chance of qualifying for the semi-finals.”I think we under-clubbed with the bat in both games to be perfectly honest,” Lehmann said. “I think we needed 75 off ten [overs] in the first game with eight wickets in hand. And our match awareness has got to improve in this format. Again we got 178 [against West Indies] and we didn’t bat very well. Our top six have got to take the shoulder of that, especially the times they got out, more so than anything else. The last couple of balls off [Sunil] Narine’s over, those sort of things they’ve got to get better at. That’s about learning, but in this tournament, this format you can’t afford to learn, you’ve got to win.”Lehmann was also disappointed with the way Australia had let themselves slip from strong positions against both Pakistan and West Indies, which had all but put them out of the World T20.”We beat ourselves in these games. It’s as simple as that. Obviously credit to West Indies and Pakistan but we should’ve won both of those games. We’ve got only ourselves to blame.”We had played pretty good T20 cricket at home and then in South Africa just before we came here. We were probably 70% in all three formats and it’s a good learning curve. But, as I said, you’ve got to win those games. We have got to be on the mark each and every time, especially in this knock-out format. You find out about some players in pressure situations, which is good and bad for a coach and a captain. At least we learned.”Lehmann also said that allrounder James Faulkner would need to be wiser about the words he chose while bantering with the opposition. Before the match against West Indies, Faulkner’s comment that he did not particularly like the team brought out an aggressive, in-your-face celebration from Darren Sammy’s men after their tense victory on Friday. Lehmann also did not approve of West Indies’ wild celebrations, saying it was not something Australia would have done.”From my point of view, James has probably got to choose his words a little bit better but that’s just part and parcel of the banter of the game, isn’t it? We’re in the entertainment business and if I could dance like Chris Gayle I’d be dancing every night of the week,” Lehmann said. “We play our cricket hard and verbally that’s what is going to happen. But we play it fair. That’s just part and parcel. You live and die by the sword, don’t you? You win, you lose, you’ve just got to cop it and move on.”At the end of the day, you’re going to get emotional with winning. We’ve certainly been through those stages but we’re really respectful of that as well. When you win, you’ve got to win in the right way and act appropriately. If that’s the way they do that, that’s fine. That’s not our choice. That’s certainly not what we do. They certainly dance very well though, I’ll give them that.”Australia have lost wickets to spin in both games so far, but Lehmann did not think this was a weakness. When asked about the challenge the Indian spinners would present in their next group game, he said the experience of an ODI series in India last year would help.”[It’s] not a weakness, because certainly spinners didn’t get us out, we got ourselves out. So we’ve got some work to do in that area, but that’s like every area: fast bowling, playing short-pitched bowling. It’s no different. The wickets certainly haven’t spun as much as we thought, so that’s no excuse for our batters.”We’re lucky enough that we’ve played some decent one-day cricket against India, in India, not too long ago in October. So we know them very well, and they know us very well. It’s going to be a great challenge for our batters and bowlers to put a complete performance together. If we do that, we can compete with anyone in the world.”

Former cricketers and BCCI administrators had a mixed day as the results of India’s 2014 general elections were announced

ESPNcricinfo staff16-May-2014Narendra Modi, the president of the Gujarat Cricket Association, is set to become India’s prime minister after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the 2014 general elections by a single-party majority. Modi, who contested from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and Vadodara in Gujarat, won both seats by big margins, even as other BCCI administrators and former cricketers had mixed results.Former India captain Mohammad Azharuddin and former batsman, Mohammad Kaif, both representing the Congress party, ended up on the losing side.Kaif, who is an active domestic cricketer for Uttar Pradesh, had contested the election from the Phulpur constituency in the state. He polled less than a lakh votes and finished a distant fourth as the seat was eventually won by the BJP candidate Keshav Prasad Maurya.Azharuddin, meanwhile, was contesting his second Lok Sabha election. The former India captain had been elected from the parliamentary constituency of Moradabad, UP in 2009, but chose to contest from the Tonk-Sawai Madhopur seat in Rajasthan. Azharuddin got over four lakh votes but was beaten by the BJP candidate Sukhbir Singh Jaunapuria.Former allrounder Kirti Azad, who was a member of the 1983 World Cup-winning squad, representing the BJP, won the election from the Darbhanga constituency in Bihar for the third time.The politician-administrators in the BCCI had a mixed day. BJP’s Arun Jaitley, who had stepped down as BCCI vice-president last year to focus on the general elections, lost in Amritsar to former Punjab chief minister Captain Amrinder Singh. Incidentally, the BJP had nominated Jaitley as its candidate for the seat over former batsman Navjot Singh Sidhu.Anurag Thakur, Jaitley’s party colleague and joint secretary of the BCCI, was elected from the Hamirpur constituency in Himachal Pradesh for his third term in the lower house of parliament.Presidents of two state associations were also in the fray during the elections. Jammu & Kashmir Cricket Association president Farooq Abdullah lost the Srinagar parliamentary constituency, but Jyotiraditya Scindia, who heads the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association and also served on various committees in the BCCI, won by a big margin in Guna, Madhya Pradesh.

Glen Chapple, Lancashire’s captain and veteran attack leader, will take charge of the first team for the rest of the season, stepping up to fill the gap left by Peter Moores’ appointment as England coach

ESPNcricinfo staff25-Apr-2014Glen Chapple, Lancashire’s captain and veteran attack leader, will take charge of the first team for the rest of the season, stepping up to fill the gap left by Peter Moores’ appointment as England coach. Chapple has been tipped as Moores’ permanent successor and he will have an opportunity to press his case as Lancashire attempt to cement their place back in Division One of the Championship.Lancashire’s director of cricket, Mike Watkinson, has previously suggested someone from outside the club could be brought in but they have opted for stability in the short term. Lancashire will look to appoint a coach to look after the 2nd XI, with Gary Yates continuing to assist Chapple and John Stanworth, the academy director, overseeing the seconds in the interim.”It is crucial that we minimise the disruption to the cricket department while we are in the middle of an important run of matches and therefore we need to ensure that we have continuity and provide support, leadership and resources to help us achieve our aims and objectives,” Watkinson said.”In his position as club captain, Glen Chapple will have responsibility for the first team squad. Gary Yates will support Glen and spend the vast majority of his time around the first team squad.”The club are actively looking to have an additional coaching resource in place as soon as possible, whose primary role will be working with the second eleven along with other coaching duties. John Stanworth will support the second eleven for the forthcoming fixtures but fundamentally his role will remain unchanged.”After being promoted as Division Two champions last year, Lancashire have lost and drawn their opening two matches of the current season to lie bottom of Division One. Chapple, who needs 61 wickets for 1000 in first-class cricket, is into his 22nd season with Lancashire and has passed his coaching certificates, spending time over the winter working as an assistant at the Potential England Performance Programme (PEPP) fast bowling camp in South Africa.Lancashire’s first match under Chapple will come at the weekend, when they travel to face Northamptonshire, the other promoted side who are also winless, at Wantage Road.Moores’ time at Lancashire finished with a draw against Warwickshire at Old Trafford on Wednesday. He has already begun work at the ECB’s National Performance Centre in Loughborough and his attention will quickly switch to the county across the Pennines after Joe Root was named in Yorkshire’s 13-man squad to play Middlesex.Root, who will be in contention for a top-order batting spot in all three formats for England, made a half-century for Yorkshire seconds on Thursday and the Championship match at Lord’s is expected to be his first competitive appearance since breaking a thumb on the tour of the Caribbean in March.

Chris Adams, consultant to the Sri Lanka team, has said the key to Sri Lanka winning a Test series in England for the first time will be for their experienced batsmen to come out on top against England’s seamers

Sa'adi Thawfeeq08-Jun-2014Chris Adams, the consultant to the Sri Lanka team, has said the key to Sri Lanka winning a Test series in England for the first time will be for their experienced batsmen to come out on top against England’s seamers. Sri Lanka have won Tests in England but the closest they have come to winning a series was a 1-1 draw during the the three-match series in 2006.”One of the big challenges would be the conditions particularly at Lord’s,” Adams said. “If as expected England get what they request which should be a grassy pitch, the ball would no doubt move around a little bit especially if there are overhead conditions.”With Graeme Swann having retired, Adams knows what would give Sri Lanka a big advantage. “If the pitch takes spin at any stage, then clearly Sri Lanka will be favourites, particularly with Rangana [Herath] his confidence is very high and he could well be the difference between the two sides.”England are rebuilding from a hiding in the Ashes in Australia, and Adams identified another weak link for Sri Lanka to target. “[Stuart] Broad and [James] Anderson are proven performers,but the other seamers will be inexperienced at this level. There are areas on which we can capitalise on. If we can bat well, hopefully win the toss and get runs on the board, that would certainly set up the Test series and they could play into our hands.”It won’t be easy for Sri Lanka. From the two sides, without a doubt the batting is more settled for Sri Lanka who are more talented and proven at this level. It’s possibly fair to say that England have the edge on their seam attack and Sri Lanka with their batting. That’s the main contest. Whoever wins that contest will come out victors in the series. The confidence will be certainly high on the Sri Lankan camp going into the Test matches.”Sri Lanka had begun their tour with matches in Ireland in early May, which Adams said was a great way to tune-up for English conditions. “The preparation for this tour has been exceptional. I had a concern about the Ireland leg. Ireland are a good team and, in their conditions, difficult to play. On hindsight it was a brilliant thing for the team to do to get out there and experience probably the most extreme conditions – colder, windy and very unpleasant. To get through that,for a lot of the younger players especially, and then to come to England and go through the run of county games to the first ODI was terrific.”Adams was hired soon after Sri Lanka’s then head coach Paul Farbrace had taken up the post of England assistant coach in April. Adams had worked with England coach Peter Moores at Sussex as he captained the side coached by Moores. As a result, Adams has gained first-hand knowledge of exactly how Moores thinks and works, something which could prove to be useful for Sri Lanka.”Where I come into the equation is that with Paul Farbrace, Sri Lanka had an excellent insight into England, English conditions, wickets, the Duke ball etc,” Adams said. “Every country will have their existing plans and how they look to win games of cricket against every opposition. But to have direct knowledge of the English players, be it how to get them out or how to deal with the deliveries they are going to bowl and also the mentality and approach, that’s where I come in.”The players will always play a major part in any competition but I feel confident and comfortable that I have played my part in the ODI series. A lot of what I was able to assist and support Marvan [Atapattu, the head coach] with was implemented and we had some success. I am very good at reading the game and that’s benefited Marvan and the team. I have been able to talk of my vision of what to play, when to play and how to play and what’s the next step.”Sanath [Jayasuriya, Sri Lanka’s chief selector] was very forthright that I get involved and speak when I thought it was right which I did. Marvan has given me an open floor at any stage to talk to the team collectively or individually. I am really pleased the way it has worked as the balance has been excellent. The next two and a half weeks will define the tour.”

Najam Sethi has been removed as PCB chairman by the government of Pakistan and an interim setup will take charge of the board, under the chairmanship of the retired judge Jamshed Ali Shah, for one month

Umar Farooq10-Jul-2014Najam Sethi has been removed as PCB chairman by the government of Pakistan and an interim setup will take charge of the board, under the chairmanship of the retired judge Jamshed Ali Shah, for one month. Shah is the third person in last seven months to take over the chairmanship.”The government has notified a new PCB constitution and removed Najam Sethi from the PCB management committee,” Irfana Ullah Khan, a government legal advisor, told ESPNcricinfo. “Jamshed Ali Shah will now be the acting chairman of the PCB and he will also serve as an election commissioner.”The management committee, which had been working under Najam Sethi, will remain in the board to work with the acting chairman. They are given 30 days to implement the constitution and make the cricket board functional in the given time.”Shah, a Lahore-based retired judge of the Supreme Court, took office just hours after the government removed Sethi. He had earlier worked with the PCB as the head of its integrity committee and also drafted the board’s new constitution.”I was informed by the government, verbally, to take charge today,” Shah told reporters at the PCB headquarters in Lahore. “I will wait for the notification from the Supreme Court and then decide my responsibilities. Meanwhile, I will carry on the day-to-day affairs, but my basic responsibility is to conduct the elections and implement the new constitution within 30 days.”There was a twist in the ongoing hearing in the Supreme Court in which the government was contesting against Zaka Ashraf’s reinstatement by the Islamabad High Court. Informing the two-member bench consisting of Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Saqib Nisar, the attorney general of Pakistan, Salman Aslam Butt, said that the government had decided to create a new constitution and hence form an interim setup to implement it. Until yesterday, though, the case was between Sethi and Ashraf but the latest developments superseded it.This is the PCB’s fourth constitution since 1995 and the latest one was developed under the supervision of Sethi. He was running the PCB in a provisional capacity with the help of the PCB’s five-man management committee, directly appointed by the chief Patron who is the Prime Minister of Pakistan. His major task was to make a new and democratic constitution, which prescribes that the chairman be elected democratically, rather than a direct dictatorial appointment.

Ben Cutting and Kane Richardson stifled South Africa A and shared seven wickets to skittle the visiting team out for 160 in Darwin before Australia A’s batsmen, led by a solid half-century by Cameron White, comfortably overhauled the target

ESPNcricinfo staff24-Jul-2014
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsBen Cutting and Kane Richardson stifled South Africa A and shared seven wickets to skittle the visiting team out for 160 in their quadrangular A-team one-day series match, before the Australia A batsmen, led by a solid half-century by Cameron White, comfortably overhauled the target.South Africa A made a solid start to their innings, adding 46 without loss in the first 10 overs after being put in to bat. They passed the 50-mark with consecutive boundaries in Cutting’s first over but the bowler hit back immediately with the wickets of opener Heino Kuhn and Rilee Rossouw off the next two deliveries. What followed was a period of intense scrutiny from Cutting, and Richardson from the other end, as South Africa A’s innings stalled. Only 11 runs came in the nine overs after the 11th and, in between, Richardson’s dual strike in the 17th over put even more pressure on South Africa A.South Africa A briefly recovered as Cutting and Richardson took a breather after their first spells, but with only five wickets remaining, lacked the resources to push at a faster rate. The two bowlers returned for their second spells from the 37th over onwards, putting the brakes on the scoring again. The last-wicket stand added 32 runs to lift South Africa A to 160, but it was not enough.Australia A made a slow start to the chase and were briefly troubled when they lost Peter Nevill and Cutting in the space of five balls, but White remained solid at one end. Australia A reached the target in the 46th over. They are placed two points behind India A on the table.

Devon Thomas, the West Indies wicketkeeper, has been discharged from hospital after suffering an accident on Thursday

ESPNcricinfo staff06-Sep-2014Devon Thomas, the West Indies wicketkeeper, has been discharged from hospital after suffering an accident on Thursday. Thomas had lost control of his car and went off the road outside Pares Village in Antigua.”I was driving up the road, going at good speed,” he told the . I tried to overtake and think I steered away a bit too hard and I slid across the road just above Pares. They (doctors) say they are going to check first and then they can adjust but at the moment I can’t say if I am going to be out of cricket and for how long.”Zorol Barthley, the Antigua & Barbuda Cricket Association president, said the injuries weren’t life-threatening and Thomas should recover quickly.Thomas has 445 runs from six first-class matches and was the top-scorer for Leeward Islands this year. He had also turned out for Antigua Hawksbills in the Caribbean Premier League and last played for West Indies in February 2013. He has 21 ODIs and three T20s under his belt.

The final match of the tour came down to the final over, 17 to win from six balls, but MS Dhoni could only take 14 as India went down by three runs

The Report by Karthik Krishnaswamy07-Sep-2014
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsEoin Morgan’s assault helped England took 81 runs off the last five overs•Getty ImagesThe final match of the tour came down to the final over, 17 to win from six balls with MS Dhoni on strike – just the sort of equation the Edgbaston crowd, filled with India fans, might have asked for if they had been handed a questionnaire at the gates. Dhoni clubbed a six off the first ball and brought it down to five off two, before refusing a single off the penultimate ball.Taking the single would have meant Ambati Rayudu could have won it with a last-ball four. But Dhoni is the sort of batsman who backs himself to hit the last ball for six. The pressure was on Chris Woakes, and he produced a slower ball that wasn’t full enough to hit down the ground. Having to manufacture all the power himself, Dhoni heaved, didn’t connect cleanly, and it rolled down to Moeen Ali, sweeping up on the leg-side boundary.It was only appropriate that the slower ball won England the match, since it had been an essential ingredient in their death-overs fightback, which began just as India seemed to be cruising. Virat Kohli, having failed to cross 40 across 14 innings in the Tests and ODIs, finally made a half-century – his fourth in a row in T20 chases – and it looked while he was in like being a fourth successive match-winning fifty. Eoin Morgan’s 31-ball 71 had powered England to 180, and it was beginning to look inadequate.When Kohli holed out looking to hook Steven Finn, the equation still seemed to be in India’s favour: 50 to get from 34 balls. But James Tredwell bowled a tight 16th over, and Harry Gurney produced a peach of a yorker to bowl Suresh Raina, who had put on 42 with Kohli, and Ravindra Jadeja ran himself out going for a non-existent second run. India were panicking, Dhoni and Rayudu struggled to time the ball, and England won the game by winning the death-overs mini-contest.England had smashed 81 in their last five overs, with Morgan clearing his front leg and launching the ball over the ropes seven times. Karn Sharma, who had bowled three tight overs on debut, bowled too short in his last over and went for 17. Mohammed Shami, whose yorkers had been inch-perfect in the final ODI, failed to land them and went for 29 in two overs. Mohit Sharma, serving a series of full-tosses, bowled the most expensive over of the innings, conceding 21 in the 19th.Till that late onslaught, it looked as if England might not take full toll of friendly batting conditions and shortened boundaries. They began with a 17-run over – and Jason Roy got off the mark in international cricket with a reverse-swept four off R Ashwin – but they lost wickets at just the wrong moments. Roy and Moeen Ali went early, popping soft catches to cover, and Alex Hales and Joe Root holed out just when they were looking dangerous.At the end of the 15th over, England’s run-rate had come down to 6.60, with Root, Morgan and Jos Buttler having failed to find the boundary even once in the previous 25 balls. And then Morgan got into gear. He smacked the first ball of the 16th over back past the bowler, Ravindra Jadeja, for four, and swatted the next ball over wide long-on for six. The start of the last five overs seemed to have flicked a switch in Morgan’s mind.