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Having struck the joint-fastest T20I hundred, Rohit Sharma was pleased that despite a high percentage of boundaries, his innings centred on conventional cricketing shots

ESPNcricinfo staff23-Dec-2017Rohit Sharma’s record 118 against Sri Lanka in Indore on Friday – the joint-fastest T20I hundred – included 10 sixes, the most by an India batsman in a T20I game. That took his tally of sixes across formats in 2017 to 64, the highest by a batsman in any calendar year. While a look at the numbers alone may suggest Rohit is a six-clobbering automaton, the reality is that the big hits aren’t so much a product of brute force as they are of stunning timing, one example being the six that he clipped over midwicket off Dushmantha Chameera in the 13th over.Rohit admitted after the match that his game wasn’t a power-dominated one, and he instead relied on timing and picking gaps. In Indore, he was also focused on relentlessly targeting the short square boundaries.”I definitely don’t have so much power. I rely a lot on timing the ball more than anything else,” he said. “I know my strengths and my weakness. I try and play with the field a lot. When the field is spread after six overs, I try and see where I can find my boundary options. I want to score all around the park and not just one area. It’s important that I try and explore the fielding the opposition keeps for me.”In all formats, I try and do that. You can’t just hit in one area. You become predictable then. It’s always important to score runs all over the field and that’s my strength.”Rohit’s second T20I hundred was largely made up of conventional strokes. His 43-ball 118 had 108 runs come off boundaries, giving him a boundary-percentage of 91.52, the highest for any T20I innings of 30 balls or more.”I didn’t play any of those flamboyant shots. I was just trying to hit the balls in the areas that I was looking to hit,” he said. “All the shots which I played pleased me because it takes a lot of effort to pull it off. Even when you defend it, you should like it as well. It’s not only about hitting boundaries and sixes. The ball that you hit in the gap should also make you happy.”I was thinking of scoring runs, not any particular target. In all the formats, I don’t look to get to a particular milestone. My job is to go out there and score as many as possible. Not just 100s or 200s or 300s. I go out there to make sure I get my team into a good position. My job is to do that. There are times when you don’t get runs. There are times when you get runs. Never do I ever walk out thinking that I want to score a century or a double-century. I just want to give my best and get the team a victory.”BCCI

In his first full series as stand-in captain, Rohit led from the front with a double-hundred in Mohali as India went on to win the ODI series 2-1. With the T20I series, too, already in the bag, he was asked if his batting had remained immune to the pressures of captaincy. He disagreed, and said the defeat in the first ODI in Dharamsala, where India collapsed to 112 batting first, had put him under a lot of pressure.”In Dharamsala, we were in a position where the team could have folded for the lowest score possible,” he said. “After that game, I was thinking quite a bit about my captaincy and my team. I was thinking that I was leading for the first time and I had been put in such a difficult situation.”There’s a lot of pressure on you always. Wherever you play, or any opposition you play, there’s always pressure. We’ve won the series but each and every match is important. It’s crucial to use each and every opportunity. When you captain for the first time, there is obviously pressure. I don’t know when I’ll lead India again so, for me, every match, every series and every moment on the field is important.”Rohit felt India’s successful showing against Sri Lanka would help the team’s momentum ahead of the South Africa tour.”When you travel overseas, the last series does have an impact,” he said. “The momentum you create, the winning rhythm of the team does give a lot of confidence. But once you go there, how you adapt yourself – technically and to their conditions – remains important. Even their fast bowlers will be much different than Sri Lanka’s.”When you travel overseas, the skills and mindset need to be changed, nothing else. You can carry the confidence you have generated from the recent success in the Test, ODI and T20 series, so as a team we are on a high and the confidence will help us in South
Africa.”

Grant Flower says Pakistan’s lack of footwork has been the main reason for their struggles in the New Zealand tour, but it’s still not too late to turn it around

Danyal Rasool14-Jan-2018Grant Flower would be well within his rights to be worried. He’s the batting coach of a side that came dangerously close to posting ODI cricket’s lowest score ever. Against the fire and intensity of New Zealand’s fast bowlers, Pakistan’s top order has crumbled in each of the three games they’ve played. However, the manner of defeat on Saturday, culminating with the side being skittled out for 74 – they were 32 for 8 at their nadir – has sparked criticism from around the world. For many, it is evidence that lingering issues around batting in fast, bouncy conditions are nowhere close to being resolved.Flower accepted that playing in New Zealand was a big challenge for Pakistan, and one they hadn’t risen to till now. “The conditions might have helped New Zealand, but that’s no excuse for some of the shots we played,” he told ESPNcricinfo. “They’re world-class bowlers playing in their home conditions, so they’ll obviously have an advantage on that front. We have players more used to playing on slow, low wickets, and that obviously tells in the way some of the wickets fell.”New Zealand’s conditions are a world away – in more ways than one – from the kind Pakistan are used to playing in, but the University Oval in Dunedin has one of the slower pitches among international grounds in the country, and it had showed in the first innings, with New Zealand’s batsmen struggling to time the ball.When Pakistan batted, however, the pitch looked altogether different, the ball whizzing through to the wicketkeeper around shoulder height, and rising sharply off the surface. It might have been to do with the drizzle that was a constant for much of the Pakistan innings, but with the ball coming on to the bat, that could easily have worked in the batsmen’s favour.”Yeah, well, the ball gets a bit wetter and there’s a bit more zip in the wicket,” Flower said. “But it’s still no excuse, like I said. The guys are good enough to adapt, but at this stage we haven’t been good enough, or smart enough. Against world-class bowlers, you have to be ready from ball one, but in the first ten overs so far, we’ve been blown away.”Grant Flower addresses the media in Lahore•Getty Images/AFP

It isn’t just the wickets that have been the problem for Pakistan in the first Powerplay. The top order has consistently looked uncomfortable against the lethal opening pair of Tim Southee and Trent Boult, too often sitting on the back foot, looking to survive. It has stood in stark contrast to the way Martin Guptill and Colin Munro have approached the first 10 overs, looking to attack the bowlers and getting ahead of par scoring- rates.”To be honest, it’s apprehension and getting caught on the crease with guys’ lack of foot movement,” Flower said. “The better way is trying to be more positive and try and take on the bowling a bit more. We’ve probably been just a bit apprehensive. I think if you get a few shots away and take the challenge to the bowlers, then all of a sudden they have to think of their lengths a bit, so hopefully we’re going to see a more positive display on our batting side.”With a result like this, particularly in a game that had the series on the line, things can often fall apart very quickly. And it did when Pakistan toured England in 2016. There, too, the low point was a thrashing in the third ODI, where England amassed a record 444 in the first innings, and ended up winning 4-1.”I hope not [that this doesn’t become like the England tour],” Flower said with a laugh. “Mickey [Arthur] was quite measured after the match. He had a few words, but it was more just trying to let the guys know that the tour’s not over and we can turn it around very quickly. It sounds like a cliché, but that’s the thing. One good match or two good matches and it’s 3-2 and then you’re going into the T20s so hopefully the guys are thinking that way, and I suppose time will tell.”There’s always a few things we can work on technically. I spoke to the guys, we had a travelling day today, so I spoke to one or two. Then we’ll take that to the nets tomorrow, we have practice in the morning. But sometimes you don’t want to get too technical, you want to keep trying to be positive. Sometimes too much advice is not the right way to go, you just want the guys to go out and hit the ball. But like I said, it’s a balance that the guys have to find, and hopefully over the next few days we will find that.”But just going out and hitting the ball hasn’t been easy. That isn’t just because of the conditions, but also a New Zealand bowling line-up every bit as dominant in their home conditions as more celebrated attacks like South Africa’s and Australia’s. When pressed about how he reckoned Pakistan could reconcile playing attacking shots without playing the sort of poor shots they have so far, Flower was blunt.”That’s what you get paid for. That’s what you do all the practice for and the hours in the nets. The guys have to find that balance. If they can’t, they’re not worth their place in the team.”

Cricket South Africa is using the series against India to explore the possibility of playing music in between each delivery of a T20 match

Sidharth Monga in Centurion21-Feb-2018Manish Pandey works Tabraiz Shamsi to deep fine leg for a single. “I’ve Got The Power” plays on the stadium’s PA system. Suresh Raina pushes the next ball straight to cover for a dot. “Here Comes The Hotstepper” blares out. Welcome to the new world of music after every ball in T20 cricket, assuming the paying public cares for it.Yes, songs have been played on a cricket ground in between overs and after boundaries for a while now. But Cricket South Africa is using the T20Is against India to trial the idea of playing music between deliveries. At the end of the series, the ticketholders will be asked to participate in an online survey and the decision to stop or keep going will be made based on the feedback.”Twenty20 is played in festive environment,” a CSA official said. “It is followed by families and kids. We wanted to see if our public wants more of the music and dance. We will of course listen to the people and see what the survey says. If they like it, we might even get a professional DJ at our grounds for T20.”
The official said CSA was not taking the lead from what happened in the Trans-Tasman tri-series. Music between deliveries was tried during a game at Eden Park in Auckland last week and it received harsh criticism from the fans, including those on Twitter.
As in South Africa, the cricket board in New Zealand is in charge of the music on game day. The negative response to the experiment brought immediate results: the music was reduced in the subsequent matches of the tri-series.”NZC is in charge of game day enhancements such as music, and they turned it down as soon as they were informed,” Eden Park tweeted in response to the complaints against the too-frequent music.

According to the board, Tahir was “verbally and racially abused by an unknown man” in the crowd during the fourth ODI against India in Johannesburg

Firdose Moonda12-Feb-20180:47

Tahir was ‘racially abused’ – SA manager

Cricket South Africa and the security team at the Wanderers are investigating an incident of racial abuse directed towards Imran Tahir during the pink ODI on Saturday.According to CSA, Tahir was “verbally and racially abused by an unknown man” in the crowd. He reported the incident to stadium security, who then escorted Tahir to identify the man and eject him from the stadium.A grainy video has emerged on Facebook, taken from the stands, which shows Tahir talking to fans. The only words that could be made out from Tahir was him saying “I have family too”. Several spectators could be heard accusing him of being a bad sportsman.CSA said they are “aware of the circulation of video footage,” and that Tahir “made no physical contact with the offender or any of the children in the vicinity.”Racism goes against the ICC’s code of conduct and spectators can face further sanctions and criminal prosecution if found guilty.

The Titans completed their double this season, having previously won the RamSlam T20 Challenge. During a closely contested final round of fixtures over the weekend, they beat the Knights by four wickets

ESPNcricinfo staff26-Mar-2018The Titans completed their double this season with a Sunfoil Series four-day competition title, having previously won the RamSlam T20 Challenge. During a closely contested final round of fixtures over the weekend, they beat the Knights by four wickets in Centurion.Chasing 110, the Titans were rocked by Marchant de Lange’s three-for Heino Kuhn’s 43 and a 22-ball 29 from Farhaan Behardien steadied the innings. That they were 107 for 6 in 19.3 overs was abetted by Duanne Olivier’s two wickets. Chris Morris and Shaun von Berg subsequently warded off any further wobble and took the side home on the final day.Morris was adjudged Player of the Match for his seven-wicket game haul, including figures of 6 for 55 in the second innings. He ran through the Knights line-up with intermittent strikes, spanning the fourth ball to the penultimate over of the innings.Even though a 72-run fourth-wicket between David Miller and Rudi Second took Knights close to 90, the duo fell for 52 and 76 respectively, both off Morris. Second’s 136-ball innings, found support in Ryan McLaren’s 36 and Shadley van Shalwyk’s 29 could only take them to 209 in 62.4 overs.That the first two innings were limited to 40 overs a side was down to the loss of the first two days to rain. Impeding the fluency of Knight’s innings, despite Luthando Mnyanda’s 53 that steered the Knights to 169 for 7, Alfred Mothoa and Malusi Siboto shared five wickets between them while Morris took the solitary wicket of Miller, who fell for a 54-ball 34.In reply, Kuhn’s 86 and Klaasen’s unbeaten 84 handed Titans a 100-run lead, finishing on 269 for three wickets. Opening batsman Kuhn struck 13 fours and six during his 82-ball innings and was the third wicket to fall, having shepherded Knights close to the 200-run mark.The 16 match points earned via the victory at SuperSport Park helped Titans pip Warriors to the title by 1.52 points.

George Dobell11-May-2018The founder of the Professional Cricketers’ Association has urged the organisation to “remember what they are there to do”.Fred Rumsey, who set up the PCA (the players’ union) in 1967, has reminded the current management that their only concern should be “representing the interests of players”.He is particularly disappointed at the prospect of an eight-team competition, which will exclude the involvement of more than half of current PCA members, and is concerned the association may be powerless to prevent the new, 100-ball-a-side competition, which he dismisses as such a “ludicrous” idea it “should be played in clowns’ clothing”.”They’ll probably dismiss my views as those of an old fogey,” Rumsey, the former England seamer, told ESPNcricinfo. “But the PCA was founded to represent players. Not to devise new formats or even to look at the overall health of the game. Other bodies do those things. The PCA was founded to represent players.”Yet now we’re going to have an eight-team competition that will mean most current PCA members won’t have any involvement. How can that be in their interests?”And then we learn there is to be a ludicrous new competition – this 100-ball nonsense that sounds as if was the idea of Fred Karno [credited as the inventor of slapstick comedy] – and the PCA were hardly even consulted before it was unveiled. Well, that doesn’t sound to me as if they are taken very seriously by the ECB. It doesn’t sound as if they have much of a voice. There is no reason at all the players couldn’t have been consulted months ago.”Rumsey, now aged 82 but as sharp as ever mentally (he is currently putting the finishing touches to an autobiography), concedes he is not party to the what happens behind the scenes at the PCA these days and says he was “encouraged” by Daryl Mitchell’s veiled warning to the ECB that they had “no competition without players”.But he urged the PCA management to stick to their guns and ensure they continue to “look after the interests of players”.”Mitchell was quite right to remind the ECB that they don’t have a competition without players,” Rumsey said. “But I wonder if a split has emerged in the PCA? Are the players, represented by Daryl, supported as much as they should be by the commercial side of the organisation? I’m not at all convinced they are.”I know the PCA still do much good work but my concern, on this issue, is whether they are doing enough to look after the interests of players. I wonder if former players – who are not under contract and do not fear the consequences of their words – should now get together and form an association to ensure the players have a powerful voice once more?”The PCA declined to comment but pointed out they continue to work hard, sometimes in private, in the best interests of their members.

Vince scored 171 from 126 balls to set up a match-winning total as Hampshire eased past Yorkshire

Paul Edwards at the Ageas Bowl18-Jun-2018
ScorecardThe fourth ball James Vince received in this match was pitched slightly short and would have passed a foot outside off stump had he not hit it between mid-off and extra cover for four. Most batsmen would probably have let the thing go and acquired a little more knowledge about the pace of the Ageas Bowl wicket. But Vince is not to be numbered among that majority, a point made plain when he rocked back and put his bat to the ball with a minimum of force. Perhaps at that moment Yorkshire’s new captain Steve Patterson knew his team might be in for some trouble; for their part, Hampshire supporters knew they might be in for a treat. Both parties were correct. The bowler, Matthew Fisher, trudged back to his mark.Five other Yorkshire cricketers had similarly reflective walks ahead of them this memorable afternoon. By the time he was dismissed, caught at long-on off Adam Lyth in the 46th over of the innings, Vince had hit 19 further fours and three sixes in 171 runs scored off 126 balls. Hampshire’s total of 348 proved far too many for their opponents, who lost their first three wickets for 47 and were eventually bowled out for 241. Yorkshire’s only consolation was provided by Jonathan Tattersall, whose career-best 89 gave matters a patina of respectability. The truth, however, was that much of Yorkshire’s innings seemed weirdly unrelated to the one it had followed.The talk will now be of consequences and contexts. It is Hampshire who will face Kent in the penultimate Lord’s final a week on Saturday. That will be something of an occasion for Sam Northeast, who will play against the side he used to captain. Yorkshire folk may argue that they would be in St John’s Wood had they been able to select the five players currently on England duty. Yet nothing, including the easy-paced pitch on which this game was played, should detract from Vince’s artistry or the ease with which he and Northeast dissected Yorkshire’s attack during their 142-run stand for the third wicket. Some of the Hampshire’s captain’s shots were so perfect in their execution that it barely mattered that this was a match of some importance. “Do not choose a coward’s explanation that hides behind the cause and the effect,” sang Leonard Cohen in “Alexandra Leaving”.Vince is an alchemist. When he bats as he did against Yorkshire it is difficult to believe even Tom Graveney’s timing possessed greater caressive power. His pulls through midwicket are Laxmanesque in their effrontery. On afternoons like this he takes his place at cricket’s top table. Curiously there were none of the signature front-foot cover drives after which the ball accelerates to the rope as if late for something. But there was a whip through the leg side off Fisher, a drive through point off Ben Coad and a sweep off Kyle Carver. Vince’s eloquence at the wicket makes post-match interviews unnecessary. What can he say that he has not already shown?Yorkshire’s bowlers took two early wickets but their others could be viewed by Hampshire as acceptable collateral damage in the headlong pursuit of runs. Ben Coad removed Jimmy Adams and Joe Weatherly but Kyle Carver’s slow left-arm was savaged. When the pundits stopped talking about Vince, they agreed Yorkshire’s batsmen would need to mount one of their great run-chases if they were to chase down 349.As it turned out, though, the second half of this non-contest was the sort of anti-climax typical of one-sided limited-overs games. Chris Wood had Lyth leg before in the fourth over of the innings, although there were suggestions the ball was going over the top; Dale Steyn, who immediately bowled with more pace and purpose than anyone else, had Cheteshwar Pujara caught at slip off the shoulder of the bat for nought. Four of Yorkshire’s middle-order made twenties while Tattersall learned something about first-team cricket. Liam Dawson picked up two early wickets and two more in his final over to finish with 4 for 47. Wood took the last wicket when he had Coad caught at mid-off by Vince.Now a November evening, rain scudding against the windows. A night for the hearth. One thinks of the cricket season which ended a couple of months ago. It takes a moment to recall who won the major honours. But one image is stored safely and summoned without effort. It captures a batsman playing a square drive, the ball passing a few yards to the right of a motionless backward point. Just for that moment, one believes the gentle lie that art is simple ease.

A century partnership between Travis Head and Glenn Maxwell – the latter smashing an explosive 56 – helped Australia complete the 152-run chase off the penultimate ball of the game with five wickets in hand

The Report by Danyal Rasool06-Jul-2018Call this a dead rubber all you want; this game had more life in it than perhaps all the others in this tri-series put together. Zimbabwe, backed vocally by the small crowd that turned up in freezing conditions in Harare, put up their best performance of the tournament, falling agonisingly short in the end. In a series desperately lacking close contests, the last game before the final provided a memorable finish to warm the hearts of those that sat shivering in the stands. They might not have got the result they came for though, with Marcus Stoinis smashing Donald Tiripano over midwicket for four with one ball remaining to ensure Zimbabwe finished the series winless.Cricket – even T20 cricket – isn’t nearly like football, where it can be quite impossible to miss when a game turned on its head. Not least because in football, those moments coincide with bulging nets and raucous celebrations. Without a shot played in anger, slowly, almost imperceptibly, Australia turned around a game that, for a good half hour, looked like it was Zimbabwe’s to lose. If you hadn’t been paying much attention, there would have been a startling moment when you realised you weren’t going to get the upset you’d popped in front of the TV for, but what looked a routine Australian stroll to victory. It wasn’t quite as simple as that in the end, but the win did come thanks to a century partnership between Travis Head and Glenn Maxwell – the latter making 56 off 38 – as Australia chased down the 152-run target.Having put up a below par score, Zimbabwe began spectacularly with the ball, Wellington Masakadza and the precocious Blessing Muzarabani keeping Australia on a leash in the Powerplay. An ill-timed hoick by Aaron Finch to cow corner deprived the visitors of their captain and trump card. A couple of overs later, Muzarabani drew an outside edge from the other opener Alex Carey for a simple catch behind the wicket. Australia’s middle order, which had looked so thoroughly second-string against Pakistan on Thursday, looked like it might get another severe examination, with the asking rate climbing slowly and Zimbabwe looking a different side to the one Australia had steamrolled earlier in the week.But as the Powerplay ended, Zimbabwe moved the fielders back out, and the pressure on Maxwell and Head eased. The ones and twos began to come easier, and Maxwell, having got his eye in, was threatening to return to the sort of form that turns asking rates to laughing stocks. An exquisite six over extra cover in the tenth over was a harbinger of the carnage to follow, and the partnership began to develop as Australia expertly took control of the chase. Zimbabwe’s bowling, which had looked so potent with the field in, again assumed the distinctly ordinary appearance that has been the downfall of their side in so many games over recent years. That over was the start of a period that saw Australia score 51 runs in five overs, and even as Masakadza switched his bowlers around, it didn’t seem like anything would dissuade the pair from applying the finishing touches to what was turning into a decisive win.But when the young Muzarabani – who was fabulous at both top and tail of the innings – returned, Zimbabwe perked up again. He coaxed a false shot to extra cover from Maxwell off just his second ball back, and suddenly the Australia of the first few overs seemed to have returned. Two more wickets fell quickly and the game became a tough scrap that went to the final over, but Australia were slightly better at holding their nerve, and that, really, was the difference in the end.Earlier on, Solomon Mire put on another superb showing at the top of the order with 63 off 52 balls, anchoring a stuttering Zimbabwean innings, which could never assume the fluency required to post a good enough total. They lost three early wickets, which forced Mire and Peter Moor into consolidation mode at a time when they would have preferred to kick on. At times the partnership almost seemed to be breaking up any momentum Zimbabwe built, rather than setting them up for the final flourish.When Moor, who was 14 off 20 at one point, finally did get going, carting Stoinis for 15 runs in the 14th over, he lost his wicket soon after. It was left to Mire again to be the sole torchbearer for the hosts, and while he did so admirably, the final total they put up wasn’t quite enough to place any real pressure on the Australians. Zimbabwe have real positives to build on for the upcoming five-match ODI series against Pakistan which begins on July 13, particularly the form of Mire and Muzarabani. The table might show them to be pointless, but the performances on the field strongly suggest otherwise.

A vastly expanded season will be in direct competition with a Test for the first time in a sign of how tightly CA has been forced to squeeze in the season to fit in a home and away schedule

Daniel Brettig17-Jul-2018A vastly expanded Big Bash League will be in direct competition with a Test for the first time in a sign of how tightly Cricket Australia has been forced to squeeze in the season in order to fit in a full home and away schedule.The 2018 season will be 13 days longer than the previous edition. While the governing body is to officially launch the tournament on Wednesday, the full schedule was published on Tuesday evening by News Corp, owner of the new rights holders Fox Sports, which will show every match of the competition on its pay television service. The free-to-air network Channel Seven will air 43 of the 59 games stretching from December 19 to February 17. There will be pressure on all sides to get the tournament’s audiences growing again.As CA has moved towards expanding the BBL, there has been a small but notable downward trend in television viewership over the past three seasons on the Ten network. From a peak of audience interest in the 2015-16 summer, viewing audiences shrank by 6% in 2016-17, and by a further 10% in 2017-18. All this is according to OzTam’s five-city metro average audience figures – the recognised television industry standard in Australia.With the Perth Scorchers and the Adelaide Strikers proving to be dominant forces over the past two seasons and the Hobart Hurricanes also performing strongly, there will be some eagerness for the major-market Melbourne and Sydney teams to perform at a higher level and thus drive audiences in Australia’s two largest cities.Whether the audience will grow or be further diluted by its simulcast across both Seven and Fox Sports is one of many questions to be posed this summer. Either way, the BBL will remain CA’s primary vehicle to attract new audiences to the game, with the new AUD 1.18 billion broadcast rights deal providing fresh money to sell it with. The flurry of new matches has created a fresh set of scheduling headaches.According to the schedule, the Melbourne Stars versus Brisbane Heat fixture at the MCG will begin at 7.40pm on January 27, day four of the day-night Test between Australia and Sri Lanka at the Gabba. The final session is scheduled to run from 7pm to 9pm Eastern Time, with a possible finish as late as 9.30pm to make up for lost time. Seven and Fox Sports are listed to be broadcasting both matches.Never before in the seven-year history of the BBL has a match been set to clash directly with a scheduled session of a Test. In previous years, Melbourne and Sydney Tests played during the day have commonly been followed by BBL matches at night, occasionally in the same city. However, CA had always managed to avoid forcing fans to choose between matches.Though the second and third days of the Gabba Test do not have BBL matches taking place, day one of the match, January 24, will be immediately followed by a match starting at 9.40pm Eastern Time, between the Perth Scorchers and the Sydney Thunder at the Perth Stadium. Another is scheduled for 9.15pm Eastern Time, also in Perth, between the Scorchers and Melbourne Renegades on January 28, the final day of the Test.These matches count among those described by the Seven chief executive Tim Worner as part of “mega days” on the network, which has taken over free-to-air rights for the first time after Nine held them for the previous 40 years, dating back to Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket breakaway in 1977.”There are going to be 13 mega-days starting with cricket in the morning, going to Seven News, and continuing cricket into the night,” Worner, who hired the former Ten executive Dave Barham to helm the network’s cricket coverage, told the . “That 30 seconds between overs, in a T20, no one is going anywhere, it’s a very high-engagement commercial break we can offer our customers and there’s a lot of that.”We’re a storytelling organisation. The most valuable 30 seconds in Australian marketing is part of our cricket coverage. We don’t go into these things without a plan, and we have a plan to monetise the sport. Cricket is a big part of the Australian psyche, and so’s AFL. Now Seven has cricket and AFL, those two things are going to help define our brand.”Other notable tournament fixtures include a tournament opener between Brisbane Heat and the 2018 winners Adelaide Strikers at the Gabba on December 19, three games on the Gold Coast, including a neutral fixture between the Melbourne Stars and Sydney Thunder on January 5. Further to hopes of better tidings from Melbourne and Sydney, the Stars and Renegades will play a New Year’s Day match at the MCG, while the Thunder and Sydney Sixers will meet on Christmas Eve.To accommodate the extra matches, there will be six double-header days and one triple-header on January 13. The semi-finals will be played on February 14 and 15, with the final to be played in mid-Sunday afternoon on February 17, amounting to a total of 12 games in February, following the conclusion of school holidays.

The ball held sway on the opening day and Mohammad Abbas helped Leicestershire hit back after being bowled out

ECB Reporters Network19-Aug-2018
ScorecardOvercast conditions and a lively pitch ensured the bowlers were very much on top as the first day of the Specsavers County Championship match between Leicestershire and Kent ended with honours approximately even.Heavy cloud over the ground at the start of play ensured Kent skipper Sam Billings exercised the away team’s right to bowl first, and opening bowlers Harry Podmore and Darren Stevens made the ball swing from the start.With the ball also nipping off a pitch previously used for a T20 game, it was hard going for the Leicestershire batsmen, and although Harry Dearden hit two fine drives through the covers, Stevens swung one back in to the young left-hander to have him leg before in the eighth over.Grant Stewart dismissed Colin Ackermann lbw with a delivery that swung late from middle and leg and would have gone on to hit off stump, and Ivan Thomas, in his first over, found extra bounce to bowl Mark Cosgrove with an inswinger that came off glove and bat handle and bounced on to the stumps.In the final over before lunch legspinner Joe Denly found the edge of Ateeq Javid’s bat and Sean Dickson held the catch at slip, but Leicestershire captain Paul Horton, who earlier in the day confirmed he had signed a two-year extension to his contract until the end of the 2020 season, battled his way through to lunch.Horton scored just two runs in the first hour, and was dropped by Kent debutant Oliver Robinson at fourth slip off Stewart when he had scored just three, but kept his head down and at the interval had reached 26, having faced 94 deliveries.After lunch saw Kent drive home their advantage. Ned Eckersley and Horton had taken the score on to 114 without too many alarms when Podmore nipped one back off the seam to beat Eckersley’s back foot defensive shot and win a leg before decision.Podmore’s next delivery knocked back Ben Raine’s off-stump, and two overs later Horton, having fought his way through to 49 off 119 deliveries, tried to guide a delivery from the former Middlesex seamer to third man only to get an inside edge on to his stumps, leaving the Foxes struggling on 119 for 7.Zak Chappell and Callum Parkinson added 29 for the eighth wicket before Parkinson edged Ivan Thomas to wicket-keeper Sam Billings, but Chappell, looking to be positive, hit four boundaries in going to 31 when he was hit on the helmet by a Thomas bouncer and retired hurt with the score on 163. It was subsequently confirmed the concussion protocol had been invoked and he would play no further part in the game, with Dieter Klein replacing him.To Kent’s frustration, Abbas and Gavin Griffiths added a further 39 runs for the ninth wicket, and with Klein also chipping in, Leicestershire’s total of 220 did not look uncompetitive.That was certainly the case after Dickson edged an expansive drive at Raine and was caught by Cosgrove at first slip. Raine was also a factor in the dismissal of Heino Kuhn, taking a fine catch falling forward at gully after the South African edged Abbas, while Daniel Bell-Drummond never looked settled before edging Abbas to wicketkeeper Eckersley.Joe Denly survived a huge leg-before shout off Raine, and he and Billings were relieved when the umpires took the players off the field for bad light, with 13 overs remaining in the day.