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The former Australia captain Ian Chappell has called on Ricky Ponting to resign from the Test captaincy in the wake of England’s Ashes-sealing victory in the fourth Test at Melbourne

ESPNcricinfo staff29-Dec-2010The former Australia captain Ian Chappell has called on Ricky Ponting to resign from the Test captaincy in the wake of England’s Ashes-sealing victory in the fourth Test at Melbourne, and has warned that if he does not take the decision himself, he could run the risk of being pushed out of the door by the selectors. Australia’s next Test campaign after the Ashes is the tour of Sri Lanka in August.Ponting admitted in the wake of England’s innings-and-157-run victory at the MCG that he “does not have much of a case” to present to the selectors, having presided over his third unsuccessful Ashes campaign, the most by any Australian captain since Billy Murdoch in the late-1800s. In the course of the series his batting form has collapsed, with a tally of 113 runs in eight innings, leading Chappell to suggest that he has passed his “use-by date”.”I’ve said all along that this should be the end of his Test captaincy reign,” Chappell told ESPNcricinfo. “I think he should be given the opportunity to defend the World Cup as a captain, but I just hope he makes the decision himself. I’d hate to see Ricky Ponting get pushed, I’d rather see him jump than be pushed. So, I hope he makes the decision and preferably he makes it himself, but if he doesn’t I hope that Cricket Australia suggest to him that it might be better if you went of your own volition, rather than us having to push you.”Ponting remains the most successful Australian captain of all time, with 48 victories in 77 Tests since 2004, while as a player he has taken part in 99 victories, the most by anyone in history. However, since the lost of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne at the end of the 2006-07 Ashes, closely followed by other key team-mates such as Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist, his record has faltered, with the Melbourne defeat being Australia’s fifth in their last seven Tests.”I think he has been terrific, and he has probably delayed this day,” said Chappell. “This day was almost inevitable when you lose the standard of player that they lost three and four years ago. If you’re being realistic, there was going to be a lot of doom and gloom around the corner.”I think that has been delayed because of the form of Ricky Ponting, and the strength of Ricky Ponting as a captain,” Chappell added. “But there comes a time for all captains, there’s a use-by date, and when it’s time to move on, it’s about new players and a new captain. Sadly it’s come on the end of a loss, but that’s the way things work in sport.”

A day after Mickey Arthur quit as national coach, South Africa’s selection panel has also been sacked by the board

Cricinfo staff27-Jan-2010A day after Mickey Arthur’s resignation as national coach, South Africa’s selection panel has also been sacked by the board. Mike Procter, the chairman of selectors, confirmed the development to a local radio station in Johannesburg.Procter told that Cricket South Africa had fired the entire selection panel, which included Craig Matthews, Winky Ximiya and Mustapha Khan, and an interim one would be appointed to serve until February 19. “It came as a huge shock to us all,” Procter said. He added that only CSA would be able to confirm if the developments were linked to the transformation issue.”I had a phone call early yesterday evening, Gerald Majola informing me that this selection panel would not be required in future,” Procter told eNews, a South African news channel. “Everyone was told that this was going to be a talk after the series. We were just going to make some presentations. They weren’t going to come after anyone. It wasn’t going to be a witch hunt.”I think we had too short a time in the business, as selectors we always gave our own thoughts, we never ended up voting on issues, we talked around issues, we enjoyed each others company and I think we were doing pretty well. The time we had was too short but we did introduce some new players.”Matthews, a member of the selection panel, said he understood that Majola would head the interim panel until a new one was put in place. “The way I understand it, there will be an interim selection panel and Gerald will be the convenor of selectors until a new panel has been picked,” he told Cricinfo. “We weren’t given any reason for the decision [sacking]. All that was said was that the board felt the selection process was flawed and that they want to restructure it.”It might be a transformation issue, but they didn’t give us any reasons, all they said was that the process needs to be reworked. I have been part of South African cricket for many years, nothing really surprises me anymore.”The sacked panel took over as selectors in December 2008, just before the historic series victory in Australia which put South Africa on top of both the Test and the ODI rankings. Results went downhill after that, losing the return Test series against Australia and only managing to draw the home series against England which ended earlier this month. Between those two assignments were the loss in the World Twenty20 semi-finals and the embarrassingly early exit in the ICC Champions Trophy they hosted. The panel’s tenure was supposed to be till the 2011 World Cup, the same as Arthur’s.

Kohli and RCB captain Faf du Plessis credit “honest conversations” in the dressing room for their turnaround after six successive losses

ESPNcricinfo staff09-May-20241:22

‘Impressive how often Kohli used the sweep against spinners’

The sweep has been a key scoring option for him to counter spin, especially in the middle overs this IPL, Virat Kohli has said.After disrupting Gujarat Titans’ spin trio of Rashid Khan, Noor Ahmad, and R Sai Kishore with the sweep in Ahmedabad earlier this season, Kohli relied on that shot once again to pick off runs against wristspinner Rahul Chahar and all-sorts spinner Liam Livingstone.On Thursday in Dharamsala, the slog-sweep and the slog, according to ESPNcricinfo’s logs, was responsible for 26 of the 92 runs he had scored off 47 balls at a strike rate of 195.74 against Punjab Kings. That shot and its variant opened up other scoring options too for him. He had been dropped on 0 and 10, but Kohli kept batting with high intent to lead Royal Challengers Bengaluru to 241 for 7, which proved 60 too many for PBKS.Related

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“I’ve brought out the slog-sweep to the spinners (laughs). I just mentally put myself in that situation and I didn’t practice it at all,” Kohli said after winning the Player-of-the-Match award. “I know I can hit it because I’ve hit it a lot in the past. So, I just felt like I need to take a bit more risk and for me that shot was something that I used to hit regularly back in the day. And that’s allowing me to hit off the back foot as well because I’m always looking to expose that side of the field against the spin.”For me that has been a massive factor in this IPL. So, I think it just takes a bit more conviction and take out that thought that props up: ‘what if you get out’. I’ve been managing to stay ahead of that thought in this IPL and that’s really helped me in the middle overs in this IPL, keeping my strike rate up and keeping the scoring rate going for the team as well.”Kohli’s knock set RCB for their fourth successive win, which kept them in the race for the playoffs. RCB had been stuck in a rut when they lost six games in a row after having beaten PBKS in their second match of the season and first at home.They’ve changed their personnel and found a winning formula for both home and away games. Kohli said that the one-run defeat to Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens, where Lockie Ferguson was run-out off the last ball, was the turning point of their campaign. RCB had almost chased down 223 against one of the form teams of the tournament.2:40

How Kohli and Faf have raised their tempo

“The only way to go through a long tournament is to be absolutely honest with yourself,” Kohli said. “We were just not good enough in the first half of the tournament. [It’s] precisely why we are in a situation again where so many factors have to go our way. We won the second game of the season and then we had those losses on the trot. A couple of close games but still we were outplayed in most of them.””We just had an honest chat in the change room. That’s not good enough. Playing at this level, we need to pull up our socks and be a bit more brave with the ball and bat. The starting point was Kolkata, where we came out and bowled like that in the powerplay and kept hunting for wickets in that game. It went down to the wire and that gave us a belief that this is the cricket we want to play and it came to a point where we said ‘you know what don’t look at the [points] table and play for the self-respect we have as cricketers’. We have gone through so many hardships and such a long journey to be at this level. So, we can’t just go out and play in a way that doesn’t make yourself proud and the fans well. They turn out in huge numbers and we just can’t keep disappointing them like that.”RCB captain Faf du Plessis echoed Kohli’s comments and credited his batters and bowlers for finding a way to keep up with the pace of cricket in this IPL.”I think we’ve scored 200-plus in the last five-six games,” du Plessis said. “Really the method and aggression has been good to see. We had some really good conversations halfway through the season where we felt like we were making the same mistakes over and over again. We changed a bit of the method in the way we approach the game and aggression with the bat was certainly one of them.”You can see the game has changed and the method has changed. You can’t just play normal T20 cricket anymore. Then, with the ball we didn’t get much wickets in the powerplay. So we just spoke about how do we get more wickets in the powerplay, so we changed a few members. So, if you look at our attack, we have six-seven options. So, that has worked really well.”

Jaydev Unadkat returns as Saurashtra target their second title in three seasons

Shashank Kishore15-Feb-2023

Big picture

Bengal won their first Ranji Trophy title nearly a decade before independence, in 1938-39. It then took them over 50 years to get their hands on the trophy again, in 1989-90, a game remembered for 17-year-old Sourav Ganguly making his Ranji debut replacing older brother Snehasish in the final.The team has reached three more finals since, without being able to finish the job. On Thursday, they will play the final again, hoping to avoid the mistakes they made in 2019-20, against the same opponents, Saurashtra, in their last appearance in the title round.The big difference is that, like in that 1989-90 final, they will be playing the final at their beloved Eden Gardens, where they are usually a formidable team.Related

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• Jaydev Unadkat available to lead Saurashtra in Ranji Trophy final

This young but experienced Bengal side, with the likes of Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shahbaz Ahmed, Mukesh Kumar, Sudip Kumar Gharami and Akash Deep, have a similar opportunity now. The man leading them, Manoj Tiwary, knows what it is like to come out second-best, having played each of the last three finals Bengal lost. Having already announced this could be his last season, should they win, Tiwary has an opportunity to firmly establish a lasting legacy in Bengal cricket.Saurashtra have a rich cricketing history, too, but entering the Ranji Trophy final is something they have only been able to consistently achieve over the past decade. This will be their fifth final since 2012-13.In 2019-20, they beat Bengal on a flat Rajkot pitch after taking the first-innings lead. It was fitting that Jaydev Unadkat, their captain who toiled on surfaces many described as roads, lifted the trophy after ending the season with a record-topping 67 wickets.Saurashtra don’t have the talent pool of Mumbai or the club structures of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. It’s a team that has often had to make use of limited resources in the best possible way. It also explains why they are a close-knit unit and why everyone takes great pride in playing for the team. A title win here will seal their status as the best first-class team in the country currently.

Current form

Saurashtra: WWLLW
Bengal: WWLWWSaurashtra celebrated a hard-fought win against Karnataka in the semi-finals•PTI

Players to watch: Anustup Majumdar and Chetan Sakariya

Anustup Majumdar began playing first-class cricket in 2004, but it took him nearly 15 years to establish himself in the Bengal XI. At 38, he may be on his last lap, but he continues to be the team’s crisis man with the bat. Three years ago, his back-to-the-wall century in the semi-final against Karnataka took Bengal into their first final since 2006-07. Here, he is again on the cusp of something special, having contributed all season with the bat.When Unadkat has been away on national duty, Chetan Sakariya has taken on the role of leading the Saurashtra attack. He troubled Karnataka’s top-order on a surface with a hint of moisture in Bengaluru in the semi-final, but it was his contribution with the bat in the second innings – a cameo of 24 – that helped them overcome big jitters and seal a tense victory. Sakariya’s improved fitness and pace has lent a new dimension to a solid attack.

Team news and Possible XIs

Bengal have already announced their XI for the final. There is no place for Karan Lal, with Sumanta Gupta set to make his first-class debut as Abhimanyu’s partner at the top, and Akash Ghatak, the quick bowler who made his debut this season, replacing left-arm spinner Pradipta Pramanik, who has 18 wickets from four games this season, including a five-for in the semi-final against Madhya Pradesh. Ghatak’s entry makes it a four-man pace attack for Bengal.Bengal 1 Abhimanyu Easwaran, 2 Sumanta Gupta, 3 Sudip Kumar Gharami, 4 Anustup Majumdar, 5 Manoj Tiwary (capt), 6 Shahbaz Ahmed, 7 Abishek Porel (wk), 8 Akash Ghatak, 9 Akash Deep, 10 Mukesh Kumar, 11 Ishan PorelSaurashtra will welcome back Unadkat, who missed the quarter-finals and the semi-finals because he was part of India’s Test squad, but has now been released for the final. Unadkat’s return means that left-arm spinner Parth Bhut, who led Saurashtra’s sensational turnaround against Punjab, could miss out.Saurashtra: 1 Harvik Desai, 2 Snell Patel, 3 Vishwaraj Jadeja/Jay Gohil, 4 Sheldon Jackson, 5 Arpit Vasavada, 6 Chirag Jani, 7 Prerak Mankad, 8 Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, 9 Jaydev Unadkat, 10 Chetan Sakariya, 11 Yuvrajsinh Dodiya

Pitch and conditions

Fast bowling is Bengal’s strength and their key quicks – Mukesh, Akash Deep and Porel – are all in good form. Not surprisingly, the Eden Gardens curators have prepared a greenish-looking surface. It’s extremely different to the pitch Saurashtra prepared in Rajkot when the two sides met in the final of the 2019-20 season.Laxmi Ratan Shukla and Manoj Tiwary have a chat during a Bengal training session•Cricket Association of Bengal

Stats that matter

• Only twice in the Ranji Trophy have teams had three batters scoring 800-plus runs in a season: Hyderabad (1999-00) and Mumbai (2012-13). Bengal could be the third as Majumdar (790), Gharami (789) and Abhimanyu (782) are all within touching distance.
• Arpit Vasavada’s 826 runs this season is the third-most for Saurashtra in a Ranji season, behind Cheteshwar Pujara’s 906 in 2008-09 and Sheldon Jackson’s 853 in 2018-19. He has an opportunity to surpass them both in the final.
• Bengal have conceded 300-plus just once this season, against Himachal while defending 472.

Quotes

“The Ranji Trophy is a marathon. To make it for two finals in three seasons is a measure of our self-belief and winning mindset. We dream of winning titles regularly across formats. And we’ve backed it up with solid plans and work over half-a-decade.”
“I want my boys to stay grounded as we haven’t yet won the big prize.”

Craig Overton will bolster Southern Brave in Eliminator against Trent Rockets as Allen and de Grandhomme depart

Valkerie Baynes18-Aug-2021Moeen Ali and Craig Overton are available to play in the closing stages of The Hundred after both were released from their England duties.Ali, who played his first Test on home soil for two years in England’s second-Test defeat against India at Lord’s, is set to return as captain of a Birmingham Phoenix squad seeking to win the inaugural title in Saturday’s final at Lord’s. Overton, who was called into the England squad when Ben Stokes announced his withdrawal for personal reasons, will link up with Southern Brave ahead of their Eliminator against Trent Rockets at The Kia Oval on Friday.Ali, who scored 189 runs and took four wickets for Birmingham Phoenix in the opening six games of The Hundred before he was recalled for England, praised the efforts of Liam Livingstone leading Phoenix in his absence.”I’ve loved every minute of The Hundred and captaining Birmingham Phoenix, as my home team in the tournament, has been an honour,” Ali said. “Livi has done a fantastic job in leading from the front in the last two games and in getting us over the line to secure our place at Lord’s. I can’t wait to join back up with the squad and pushing us forward, hopefully to a first title.”Related

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• Liam Livingstone ransacks 92* as Birmingham Phoenix soar into Hundred final

As stand-in captain, Livingstone struck the fastest fifty of the Hundred to date, off 20 balls, as Phoenix defeated Northern Superchargers on Tuesday. His 92 not out was the joint-highest score of the competition, alongside Jemimah Rodrigues in Superchargers Women’s opening game, and his 10 sixes were the most in an individual innings. Livingstone also hit a 31-ball fifty as he led his side to victory over Trent Rockets last Friday.Meanwhile, Finn Allen and Colin de Grandhomme are heading to Bangladesh for international duty with New Zealand. As a result, Phoenix have called up David Bedingham from Durham as their replacement for Allen while Southern Brave will bring in Tim David. Bedingham will play for Durham in Thursday’s Royal London Cup Final before joining up with the squad the next day. David scored a match-winning century for Surrey last weekend, which put them into the Royal London Cup semi-finals, where they lost to Durham.

Up to half of the state’s staff have been made redundant

Daniel Brettig01-May-2020Up to half of Cricket Victoria’s staff have been sacrificed, with community cricket particularly hard hit, in a restructuring of the state association that has been explained away as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic but has origins stretching back nearly a decade.Two weeks after Cricket Australia staff were informed that the vast majority would be stood down, CV has gone alarmingly further, making a huge chunk of the organisation redundant while asking others to reapply for their jobs – the former AFL coach and now CV talent specialist Guy McKenna among them.Cuts to community cricket, believed to number up to 45 staff, are set to leave as few as 12 employees remaining to be the links to grassroots programs and competitions in Australia’s second most populous state, and leave a gaping hole in CA’s wider strategic plans to grow the game’s participation in every part of the country. Of those 45 positions, three are female participation officers.CA, which made a portion of its recent funding to the states conditional on its use to specifically service community cricket, is understood to be furious at the cuts and the way they have been administered, with multi-million dollar distributions to Victoria’s powerful premier clubs untouched by the changes while a host of staff have been asked to pack up their desks.Other states are also believed to be aghast at the cut backs, even as the associations and the Australian Cricketers Association (ACA) haggle with CA over adjustments to their annual grants under a financial model signed up to in 2012 alongside the move to an independent board for the central governing body. There are suspicions that CA’s alarms over the game’s finances helped smooth the ground for CV’s own, more drastic culling.Following discussions between CA, the states and the ACA on Thursday, when the CA chairman Earl Eddings and fellow director Paul Green presented their interpretations of the organisation’s finances and forecasts, there is an increasing likelihood of in-principle agreement on reduced annual grants with in-built flexibility for revenue fluctuations depending on how next summer unfolds. However, it is likely that some states at least will wait until the winter football codes get back under way before formally committing themselves.These latest cuts to CV have arrived less than a year after its board chose to disband the boards of the two Big Bash League clubs, the Stars and the Renegades, and also make their chief executives Clint Cooper and Stuart Coventry redundant. That decision also saw the removal of a selection of highly influential business and media figures, Collingwood president Eddie McGuire, Hawthorn great Jason Dunstall and Sport Australia chairman John Wylie among them, from their positions on the boards.In the wake of these changes the BBL clubs and CV as a whole faced a raft of sponsorship exits, from the likes of Mars and Optus among others, contributing to an overall weakening of the association’s financial position and the recording of an operating loss of around A$2 million for 2018-19.While that trend is believed to have continued over the 2019-20 summer, there is widespread shock at the way that CV has responded to events, outstripping the actions of the South Australian Cricket Association, which cut some 23 staff and contractors earlier this month, and then CA itself, though further cuts to the central governing body are expected in the new financial year.”We are not immune to the impacts of Coronavirus,” chief executive Andrew Ingleton said. “It has already disrupted the conclusion of the 2019-20 cricket season and is likely to continue to impact our ability to deliver cricket at community level. In addition, there are a range of potential future commercial and financial risks to Victorian cricket that we need to have contingencies for.”Faced with a projected funding cut from Cricket Australia and the need to source principal sponsors for our BBL teams in what is a challenging economic environment, it is clear we need to take appropriate action to mitigate these risks.”
Problems around the strategic direction of CV have deep roots, stretching back to moves post-2012 to make its board independent of a system of premier, sub-district and regional club delegates that has historically held sway over the game in Victoria.The former chief executive Tony Dodemaide and chairman Russell Thomas fell out with numerous clubland figures, including the Footscray chairman Geoff Collinson and Essendon chairman Simon Tobin, over governance moves and their funding implications, ultimately being replaced by Paul Barker as chairman and Ingleton as chief executive. Peter Williams, Jane Nathan and Phil Hyde, all part of a ticket that had attempted to unseat Thomas and five other directors en masse in 2017, have subsequently worked their way onto the board.Barker, a consensus choice as chairman, is facing a likely further erosion of his support on the CV board itself later this year, with longtime directors Paul Jackson and Claudia Fatone facing re-election in the face of mounting opposition from delegates. The CV board is composed of six delegate-elected directors and three independently appointed directors. At the same time the construction of the A$40 million Junction Oval training and administration hub offered Victoria some of the best facilities in the country but also added significantly to the association’s cost base.

India’s fourth-wicket pair added an unbeaten 121 to seal the win after Yuzvendra Chahal’s 6 for 42 had reduced Australia to 230

The Report by Andrew McGlashan18-Jan-2019Regardless of the result in Melbourne, India’s tour of Australia would have been triumph. But it was given the perfect ending as Yuzvendra Chahal’s career-best 6 for 42, the joint best ODI figures in Australia, set up a seven-wicket victory to take the series. Chahal’s haul left a modest target but a slow pitch made scoring tricky as MS Dhoni, whose role has dominated the narrative of the series, scored his third half-century in three innings – while being given three lives – and the recalled Kedar Jadhav produced an excellent hand.It’s the depth of players available that marks out the best teams and the success of Chahal and Jadhav, playing their first matches of the series in place of the rested Kuldeep Yadav and Ambati Rayudu, slotted in seamlessly. Chahal’s second ball of the match began Australia’s downfall when he had the in-form Shaun Marsh stumped, and he claimed three wickets in each of his two spells, surpassing his previous best of 5 for 22 against South Africa at Centurion.Australia had their chances as they defended 230 – plenty of them – as they pushed India to the final over. Virat Kohli was dropped on 10 by Peter Handscomb, above his head at first slip off Billy Stanlake; Dhoni was spilled first ball at point by the usually safe Glenn Maxwell; Kohli could have been run out on 32 and the Australians failed to spot an edge from Dhoni when he had 34. Though the asking rate climbed following Kohli’s eventual dismissal, and nudged nine when Dhoni patted back an over from Adam Zampa, India always had wickets in hand. Yet there could have been a twist had Aaron Finch held Dhoni at mid-off when 27 were needed off 18 balls.The match had started like the other two: with a superb opening spell from Bhuvneshwar Kumar. He got one to bounce outside off to take Alex Carey’s edge to second slip, where Kohli made good ground to claim the catch, and then there was what felt like the inevitable dismissal of Finch.In the opening over of the match, which was interrupted after two balls by a shower, Finch had already had two nervous moments, firstly padding up to one with the bounce saving him and then edging short of slip. The ball before Bhuvneshwar claimed him for the third time in the series there was a curious moment, when he attempted to deliver from behind the umpire – Michael Gough called dead ball much to Bhuvneshwar’s annoyance – but with the next delivery he pinned Finch lbw.After a stand of 73 between Marsh and Usman Khawaja, Australia were derailed by the introduction of Chahal, his second delivery – mightily close to being a no-ball – manufacturing a stumping to remove the in-form Marsh when he charged at what became a wide. Three balls later he had another when Khawaja sent a leading edge back to the bowler as he attempted to turn a leg-break to the on side.Chahal’s third was one for the highlights reel when a perfectly pitched legspinner drifted and turned to find Marcus Stoinis’ outside edge with Rohit Sharma taking a terrific catch at slip.MS Dhoni plays a pull•Getty Images

Maxwell briefly counterattacked, slotting away five boundaries as he moved along at more than a run-a-ball, before being undone by a short delivery from Mohammed Shami which resulted in a top edge to long leg where Bhuvneshwar took a brilliant catch running in. It left Maxwell with 85 runs off 61 balls in the series and a debate far from answered.With 15 overs remaining, a lengthy stay by Maxwell could have changed the complexion of the match but instead Handscomb was left with the bowlers for company, which meant he had little choice but to ensure the innings went deep. He went to his half-century off 57 deliveries, which included just two boundaries as he tried to nurse Australia to the finish, but Chahal’s return ended any hopes of a late dash – his fifth wicket coming in fitting style as he skidded one through Handscomb.Australia managed to build pressure with the new ball and after 10 overs India were 1 for 26, Rohit falling to Peter Siddle when he tried to whip a ball to leg and edged to first slip. Shikhar Dhawan struggled for his timing on a sluggish surface but the first Kohli chance came and went to allow India to lay a platform. Three balls of the 17th over brought plenty of drama as Dhawan chipped a catch to Stoinis, Dhoni slashed to Maxwell and then survived a big appeal for lbw.After his charmed life it appeared Kohli would see another chase through, but the impressive Jhye Richardson lured him into a drive to leave India 3 for 113 after 30 overs and with work to do for a reshaped middle order. Dhoni, whose fifty came off 74 balls, and Jadhav carefully ticked along, content to allow the rate to nudge up, with just the occasional show of aggression.When Zampa’s last over was taken for just a single by Dhoni, the equation was 52 off 36 which had been reduced to 27 off 18 when he drilled Stoinis towards Finch whose miserable series had a final low point as the catch burst through his hands (Jadhav also survived being run-out by a missing frame). A boundary apiece followed, and in the end, the final over started with just a single needed. Dhoni had left it rather late. But doesn’t he always?

Soumya Sarkar said one of the senior batsmen should have held anchor at the crease in the last 10 overs to boost Bangladesh’s chances of their first win on the tour

Mohammad Isam27-Oct-2017Bangladesh needed one of their No. 3 – 6 – Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Sabbir Rahman or Mahmudullah – to bat through the last ten overs in their chase of 196 against South Africa in the 1st T20I. That, according to batsman Soumya Sarkar, would have given the side the anchor they needed in their steep pursuit. As it happened, however, the four batsmen contributed only 48 runs and South Africa won quite comfortably by 20 runs in the end, leaving Bangladesh winless on the tour so far.”If someone from No. 3 to 6 could have played a big innings in the last 10 overs, it would have helped us,” Sarkar said. “Then we would have had a set batsman at the crease in the last 10 overs, making things easier for us. They made nearly 200 runs but we also made 175. If one batsman did well in the middle overs, we could have won the game easily. But this [performance] will give us confidence that we can also score 200 runs.”Sarkar had his first good outing on the tour on Thursday, with a boundary-studded 31-ball 47 that gave Bangladesh’s chase a powerful start. He shared brief, but brisk, partnerships with Imrul Kayes, Shakib and Mushfiqur, but once Sarkar fell in the tenth over, Bangladesh’s batting gave way too quickly. They slipped to 101 for 5 from 92 for 2, before Sabbir, Mehidy Hasan and Mohammad Saifuddin provided some big hits to finish on 175 for 9.Sarkar, who had scores of 9, 3 and 8 in his previous matches on the tour, defended Bangladesh’s selection for this match. The visitors picked four pace bowlers and two frontline spinners, and went with one batsman short in the game.”If you want to talk about negative things, there are a lot of things to talk about,” he said. “If the bowlers did well and we played one less, you would have said we should have picked one extra bowler. Now that the batsmen couldn’t do the job, you are saying we needed one more batsman.”There’s no end to these things; you think that we had one batsman less, but our captain and team management thought this was the best way to go about things,” he said.Sarkar, however, admitted that Bangladesh have to overcome their weakness of playing too many dot balls, something the bowlers are unable to enforce on the opposition.”Dot balls are a big problem in T20s. We have to reduce that in the next game. Even when we bowled or fielded, we should have saved more runs or not given away the no-ball that went for four. They would have scored 20 runs fewer. Chasing 170-odd would have been a different story,” said Sarkar.

Seventeen wickets fell on the first day of first-class cricket in India with the pink ball, but it was largely because of poor shot-making rather than any demons that the pink ball bore

The Report by Arun Venugopal23-Aug-2016
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsSandeep Sharma profited from seam movement and took 4 for 62•AFP

India Red and India Green approached the country’s maiden first-class game with the pink ball with as much excitement as fear of the unknown – the fall of 17 wickets in the day might point to the latter – before coming out with the feeling that it wasn’t an entirely alien beast. It was by no means a jolt-free afternoon and night, though. India Red, having elected to bat, combusted to 161, before India Green hobbled their way to 116 for 7 when they weren’t busy fighting malfunctioning floodlights.The build-up to the game resembled a carnival rolling into town. Despite its usual thrills of stilted clowns and puppet shows, it is often the Ferris wheel that becomes the showstopper. When a sizeable crowd of flag-waving, chirpy fans made their way to the grass banks of the Shahid Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex, India’s latest domestic season had found its Ferris wheel, this one sheathed in pink.

Bowlers surprised by pink ball durability

Pragyan Ojha and Kuldeep Yadav, who claimed three wickets apiece on the opening day, said they were surprised to see the pink ball retain its sheen even after a substantial period of play. A liberal coverage of grass on the pitch and a reasonably lush outfield may have contributed to that end.
“I think for the first time we never had a problem of maintaining the ball – you just have to rub, you don’t need anything to shine the ball,” Ojha said. “It was something we were experiencing for the first time. If we play with the red ball or the white ball there will be some changes to the ball, it deteriorates. I don’t think [it will be a problem for the spinners].”
Kuldeep, the left-arm wristspinner, admitted to finding it difficult to grip the ball initially. “I had to keep it rough. I think there is a lot of difference when compared to the red ball,” he told . “You get a lot more grip on the red ball, and a lot more turn. If you get used to the pink ball, you can get it to drift and turn. If the shine is maintained, it helps in getting drift and dip.”
He also said it was difficult to spot the shiny side of the ball while batting in the afternoon. “It becomes difficult for the batsmen to pick the ball when both sides of the ball retain their shine. There is no problem sighting the ball in the night,” he said.

The first session was instructive in tempering a few popular notions about the pink ball, like its exaggerated early swing, for instance. Exhibit A was provided by India Green’s Ashok Dinda and Sandeep Sharma, who got the new ball to seam a lot more than swing. Despite a grass coverage of 4mm on the pitch, there wasn’t any excessive lateral movement. That India Red slumped to 67 for 6 at the end of the first session was more a consequence of some poor shot-making, and good field-placements from India Green captain Suresh Raina, than any demons that lay hidden inside the pink ball.Dinda said during the tea break the ball stopped swinging and seaming once it had become relatively older, and thereby the bowlers were looking to target the stumps. He said there was no turn on offer, but there was enough evidence to the contrary with spinners accounting for six wickets. There was adequate assistance for both fingerspin and wristspin, with Pragyan Ojha and Jalaj Saxena of India Red, and Kuldeep and Akshay Wakhare of India Green getting fairly appreciable turn.On a day when wickets fell in a heap, Abhinav Mukund was the most successful batsman on either side. Mukund’s 77 was instrumental firstly in India Red reaching triple figures, and then his 50-run partnership for the eighth wicket with Anureet Singh, who swished his way to 32 off 21, helped the team cross 150.Mukund admitted to having trouble with sighting the ball at practice on Monday, but said there were no such issues during the match. “I was timing the ball well personally. I couldn’t sight it quite well in the nets yesterday, but today was better and it was a good experience,” he said after the first day’s play.”To be honest, I didn’t have much of a problem [sighting] today. I thought I was timing the ball and getting into good positions. The ball was holding on to the wicket sometimes, sometimes [it was] skidding on. It’s a new experience. We don’t play with the Kookaburra in domestic cricket; it’s a new experience for a lot of cricketers.”India Green had begun in similarly shaky fashion, with Nathu Singh accounting for all the three wickets that fell inside the first eight overs. Nathu, like Sandeep earlier in the evening, profited when he held the seam upright. Robin Uthappa was dismissed by a jaffa that cut back sharply to shave the top of off stump in the seventh ball of the innings, while Jalaj Saxena slashed one that didn’t bounce as much to be caught behind. Nathu’s swerving in-ducker in his next over caught Rajat Paliwal on the shuffle to leave India Green at 31 for 3. Raina and Parthiv Patel then restored calm with a 41-run stand. But after Kuldeep ran through the middle order, Saurabh Tiwary, the last recognised batsman, remained the key to India Green securing the first-innings advantage.