He will link up with the squad ahead of the Boxing Day Test in Christchurch, having signed a contract that will expire at the end of 2019 World Cup

Madushka Balasuriya08-Dec-2018Steve Rixon has been appointed Sri Lanka’s fielding coach in their lead-up to the 2019 World Cup, Sri Lanka Cricket has confirmed. He will link up with the Sri Lanka squad on December 24, ahead of their second Test against New Zealand in Christchurch.The move for a new fielding coach has long been mooted, with Sri Lanka head coach Chandika Hathurusingha having grown visibly frustrated at his team’s propensity to squander potentially match-winning opportunities on a nearly game-by-game basis.These frustrations were brought to a head during the recent home series against England, when the visiting side’s consistent game-changing excellence in the field only served to exacerbate Sri Lanka’s deficiencies.In Rixon, Sri Lanka have hired one of world cricket’s pre-eminent fielding specialists. He was most recently credited for Pakistan’s stark fielding improvements during his stint as fielding coach there, while prior to that he had worked as Australia’s assistant coach and also coached New Zealand – both stints coincided with the sides becoming among the best fielding outfits in the world.He has also coached domestic teams in Australia and sides in the now-defunct Indian Cricket League and the Indian Premier League.Rixon will officially take over duties ahead of the Boxing Day Test, having signed a contract that will expire at the end of 2019 World Cup in England.Outgoing fielding coach Manoj Abeywickrama will remain with national side for the duration of the first two Tests in New Zealand to oversee the transition, after which he will return home to take up a position in the Sri Lanka A set-up.

He didn’t return to bat after tea on the fourth day with Sri Lanka facing a fight to save the Test and the series

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Christchurch29-Dec-2018Sri Lanka’s chances of saving the Christchurch Test was dealt a major blow after Angelo Mathews pulled up lame late in the second session on day four, with apparent hamstring trouble.Although not out, he did not take the field after tea, and will undergo scans at some point in the day before it is decided whether he can bat again in the match. At first glance, however, the injury appeared fairly serious.Mathews was batting on 14 off 38 balls when he drove Trent Boult through mid-off and called partner Dinesh Chandimal through for two runs. Halfway through jogging the second run however, Mathews pulled up and began to hobble on his right leg, then clutched the back of his left thigh as soon as he had crossed the popping crease.He was treated on the field and continued to bat, but was seemingly unable to put much weight on his left leg through final overs of the second session. He literally hopped a single – using his right leg exclusively – before hobbling off the field at tea.Sri Lanka manager Jeryl Woutersz confirmed that a “hammy” was suspected, and that he would be “sent for scans” before a further prognosis was made.Mathews has had recurring injuries in his hamstrings and calves over the past two years, and had missed entire tours because of them. He had only just returned to the bowling crease for the first time since January 2017, delivering four overs in the first Test in Wellington, as well as in the ongoing Test.A hamstring tear now, would not only keep him out of the forthcoming limited-overs series against New Zealand, they could also put him in doubt for the Tests against Australia, which begin in late January.Sri Lanka’s World Cup plans could be affected as well, after team management had hoped he could start bowling a few overs in one-day cricket before ramping up the workload in the months approaching next year’s global tournament, in June.Mathews has been Sri Lanka’s best batsman in New Zealand, and had made 120 not out off 323 balls in Wellington to help save that first Test. For now, it seems unlikely that he will have the chance to repeat those heroics in Christchurch.

Wickets with the new ball and a squeeze in the middle overs helped Comilla Victorians restrict Chittagong Vikings to 116 and go top of the table with seven-wicket win

The Report by Varun Shetty29-Jan-2019
How the game played outComilla Victorians exploited the conditions to great effect and then chased down a meager total with little trouble as they climbed to the top of the table. On a day of rain delays and collapses, Victorians didn’t even need the batting services of Evin Lewis, who had made an unbeaten ton on Monday, as they chased 117 with 2.2 overs to spare. Tamim Iqbal’s unbeaten 54 steered them.After rain had delayed the toss, Mushfiqur Rahim elected to bat in overcast conditions. Mohammad Saifuddin struck straightaway with two balls swinging the same way – one into the left-handed Shadman Islam, who was lbw on review, and one away from right-hander Yasir Ali who was caught at cover – to reduce the Vikings to 3 for 2. Rahim found himself out there in the third over, and was out nicking Wahab Riaz to the wicketkeeper in the fifth. With their most slid player gone, and only 17 on the board despite the presence of Mohammad Shahzad, Vikings had plenty to do after another spell of rain had cut the game down to 19-overs-a-side.But partnerships were hard to come by as Victorians imposed their bowling might to restrict Shahzad’s strokemaking before running him out, and kept any middle-order partnerships from developing. Shahid Afridi’s 2 for 10, following from his 3 for 27 on Monday, squeezed them in the middle overs and only Mosaddek Hossain’s unbeaten 25-ball 43 could keep them from holding. Mosaddek’s innings was full of improvisations on a surface where hitting through the line was difficult. Vikings took 24 off the last two overs, through Mosaddek’s two fours and two sixes, but 116 was not a sufficient total.Turning points

• The toss. Imrul Kayes said he was happy at the toss, because he had wanted to bowl. The damp pitch, dim light, and overhead conditions suited Kayes’ pace trio well and they didn’t allow Vikings a strong base
• Shahzad’s run-out. The opener had laboured to 33 off 35 and had his eye in when Mosaddek sold him down the river by calling for a second run and leaving him stranded with a change in mind. This was in the 13th over

Star of the dayBatting conditions eased out after the first innings, but Tamim Iqbal’s second fifty of the season still needed some work. The opener, who began the tournament with four single-digit scores in six innings, was patient as he got in. As he built a stable base for Victorians, he also got Shamsur Rahman to open up and up the rate as the pair put up 65 for the second wicket.The big missThisara Perera came on to bowl after most damage had been done, but the end-overs specialist couldn’t close the innings off, going for 22 in his two overs.Where they standThe win vaults Comilla Victorians into first place with 14 points in ten games. Chittagong Vikings had the chance to do this as well, but for now they remain tied in second with Rangpur Riders, on 12 points in ten games. Their net-run-rate, however, is negative.

Western Australia roll over for 147 in their second innings to go down by an innings and 51 runs

Alex Malcolm26-Feb-2019A five-wicket haul from Steve O’Keefe helped New South Wales to an innings victory over Western Australia despite another defiant innings from Cameron Bancroft.O’Keefe took 5 for 52 in 33.2 overs on a crumbling Bankstown Oval surface to bowl WA out for 147 in their second innings with more than hour left on the final day.

Bancroft’s feat

He faced a total of 621 deliveries across two innings
Fourth instance of a batsman facing 600-plus deliveries in a Shield game
Steve Waugh holds the record – 649 balls for NSW v Queensland in 1996
Bancroft held the previous WA record too, having faced 567 balls v NSW in 2015
He is the only one to face 550-plus balls in a Shield game twice
He scored 52.58% of WA’s runs in the game; the highest ever when they have batted twice

But Bancroft did cause the Blues a headache. The WA opener faced 263 balls for 86 runs as he stonewalled the New South Wales charge to victory while his teammates collapsed at the other end.The Warriors had slumped to six for 98 before Bancroft finally found an ally he could bank on in Joel Paris. The pair put on 47 in 22 overs and weathered a difficult period against the second new ball.Bancroft reached 620 balls for the match without being dismissed, having faced 358 of them in the first innings for his 138 not out. He did have a fair amount of luck to stay alive before O’Keefe finally found the kryptonite on the 621st. He spun one sharply past Bancroft’s outside edge in the 90th over of the innings and the opener was stumped by Peter Nevill as he overbalanced.WA only lasted ten more balls after that. Trent Copeland dismissed Paris in the next over before O’Keefe took the last two wickets with the first two balls of the 92nd over to complete his five-for.Earlier, WA’s top order found some unusual ways to get out in their efforts to save the game. Josh Inglis and Hilton Cartwright both fell to the part-time leg spin of Jason Sangha. Inglis was caught at cover driving on the up, while Cartwright fell in bizarre fashion when he pulled a long-hop into Nick Larkin at short leg and the ball ricocheted off the fielder’s body and popped straight up in the air for Sangha to complete the catch.New South Wales are on second spot on the Sheffield Shield table with their third win of the season.

Chennai Super Kings cruised to their second victory in as many games – even if it did go down to the final over

The Report by Liam Brickhill26-Mar-20193:16

Why Lamichhane would have been a threat in Delhi

This encounter was billed as one between the youthful exuberance of Delhi Capitals and the vast experience of Chennai Super Kings, and the result added substance to the suggestion that T20 is not necessarily a young man’s game. Shikhar Dhawan’s fifty kept Delhi ticking after they opted to bat in their first home match of the season, but they unraveled to Dwayne Bravo at the death and their 147 for 6 never looked like it was enough despite the slowness of the track at the Feroz Shah Kotla. Shane Watson’s rapid 44 put Super Kings well ahead of the asking rate, and by the time the paterfamilias himself, MS Dhoni, walked in, they needed under five an over. Dhoni took it deep – at one point calmly patting away five dots in a row – and let the game go into the final over before Bravo sealed Super Kings’ second win in two, and sixth victory out of eight matches at this venue. Chahar reins them in On a pitch that historically favours spinners even more strongly than even the MA Chidambaram Stadium, the scene of the season opener, Delhi might have been looking to get after Deepak Chahar and Shardul Thakur as the potential weak links in an otherwise impregnable attack. A spring-loaded Prithvi Shaw spanked three fours in a row in Thakur’s first over, but by the end of his opening spell, Chahar had more than repaired the damage.As he had done on Saturday night, Chahar bowled all four up front and maintained control throughout, sending down 12 dot balls and striking the vital blow when he cramped Shaw for room and a spliced pull was caught at midwicket. By the time Chahar was done at the end of the seventh over, Delhi’s run-rate was a modest 6.85, and with Harbhajan Singh, Imran Tahir, Ravindra Jadeja and Bravo to come, any attempt to up the rate would not be an easy one. Dhawan anchors On a slow, slightly variegated pitch that made fluent strokeplay difficult, Delhi needed someone in the top three to dig in and bat through if they were to set a defendable total. Dhawan got the job two-thirds done with a 47-ball 51 – his 33rd IPL fifty – that set up the innings before Delhi were reined in by Bravo and co. at the death. Sensing the need to bat deep after Shaw fell early, Dhawan used the crease well, going deep or making room to change the angles and open up scoring options in the field. He also picked his moments to attack, swiping back-to-back boundaries off Tahir and then repeating the treatment in Bravo’s first over.But Dhawan’s dismissal was the fourth in eight balls as Delhi misfired at the death. He then missed a tough chance at slip off Ambati Rayudu’s edge in the very first over of the chase, bowled by Ishant Sharma, and then let a pull from Kedar Jadhav burst through his hands as Super Kings marched inexorably to victory later in the evening.Shane Watson pulls with power•BCCI

Bravo’s comeback While Chahar had bowled his four on the trot up front, Dhoni chose to use Bravo’s overs all in one go at the other end of the innings. No one has taken more T20 wickets than Bravo’s 483, and 84 of these dismissals have now come during the last five overs in the IPL – second only to Lasith Malinga’s 96. He is a master tactician during this period, and his 3 for 33 held Delhi back after they had ended the 15th over with a platform set at 118 for 2.On a pitch Bravo called “two-paced” during the mid-match interview, his changes of pace and variations in line and length brought the dismissals of Rishabh Pant, Colin Ingram and a set Dhawan in the midst of Delhi’s collapse to 127 for 5 in the space of one-and-a-half overs. Bravo’s eventual returns were all the more impressive given the way he had started his spell, having leaked 17 runs in his first over. Watto wins the war With the first innings having demonstrated the need for top-order solidity, Watson v Rabada was set up as a key battle as Delhi desperately hunted an inroad into an experienced line-up. The spark between the two was lit in Rabada’s first over, when Watson backed away into a bouncer as the South African quick focused on two lengths: at the boot or at the head. Watson glanced a 150km/h yorker for four and top-edged a bouncer to further rile Rabada up, and at one point the two engaged in what looked like a heated exchange. As much as he tried to force the issue, Rabada’s pace was defanged by the slow track and he just couldn’t break through.It’s the middle overs that Watson dominated last season, striking the ball at over 200 after the Powerplay in overs 7 to 15, but this time around he did the damage in the Powerplay. By the time he fell, stumped off an Amit Mishra ripper, the required rate was well under a run a ball and with the resources at Super Kings’ disposal, it looked like the rest of the chase would be a doddle. Dhoni time The questions about Dhoni’s starting against spin might have grown a little louder had he edged his first ball to slip, rather than over him and away for four. Super Kings needed 50 from 58 when Dhoni entered, numbers which seemed almost too easy for a player of Dhoni’s legendary vintage in white-ball chases. When no further boundaries had been hit seven overs later, Dhoni might have been the only person at the Kotla who wasn’t starting to get a little edgy, but just as things were starting to get tight again, Dhoni did as Dhoni does, slashing Keemo Paul through cover and shellacking Mishra over wide long on as though he’d had planned it all this way. Graciously, he left it to Bravo to hit the winning runs, but remained not out at the end for the 39th time in a successful IPL chase.

Replacing leg-spinner Adil Rashid for third ODI, Denly has a chance to prove his worth as a back-up option

George Dobell13-May-2019Why is Joe Denly playing on Tuesday?England are keen to test the bench strength of their World Cup squad. He was named in the 15-man provisional squad but, with him having played only one ODI this decade (though he was named in the side for the rained-off match at The Oval), there is still some doubt as to whether his leg-spin bowling is up to the level required. So England have rested Adil Rashid – who is certain to play in the World Cup – and given Denly this opportunity to see what he can do.So he’s on trial?That’s one interpretation, certainly. Though England might stress that he is simply being given some game time with a view to providing Eoin Morgan more information about how to use him. But, yes, this probably is a big game for him. It’s not as if he’s the first England player to go on trial in Bristol.Wasn’t he a batsman when he first played for England?Yes, he was. He played nine ODIs and five T20Is as an opening batsman in 2009. He did OK, too, with two half-centuries in those ODIs. He made his Test debut as a batsman over the winter, too, making 69 in the final Test against West Indies. It’s still the stronger part of his game and he could well come in at No. 3 in the Ashes. He’s scored more than 11,000 first-class runs and taken just 62 wickets. He does have an unwanted record as a batsman, though: he was out first ball on his first-class debut, T20I debut and IPL debut. He was actually out first ball in both his first two T20I games.So when did he start bowling?He has always bowled a bit. But it was only really in the summer of 2018 – by which time he was 32 – that he bowled the volume of overs to be taken seriously. He claimed 23 first-class wickets that season – his best tally before that was eight – with another 14 in List A cricket. He started to establish himself in T20 leagues, too, and now has valuable experience in the BPL, PSL, BBL and IPL to draw from. He claimed 20 wickets in England’s domestic T20 tournament last summer and claimed 4-19 – the best figures of his career in any form of cricket – when recalled to the England T20I side in Sri Lanka at the end of 2018.Sounds great.Maybe. The concern is that, in his entire career, he has taken just 22 List A wickets in England and Wales. The rest of them have come overseas in conditions which may suit his bowling more and against opposition some way below that anticipated in the World Cup. Denly is, without doubt, a good batsman and fine utility cricketer. There’s just some doubt as to whether is bowling is up to going into an ODI with his captain requiring a minimum of six or so overs from it.So his is a bold selection?Yes. Ed Smith, the head selector, played with him at Kent at the start of Denly’s career and has always rated him. He is clearly the driving force behind the selection, but James Taylor and Trevor Bayliss are full of praise for his all-round virtues, too. And with Smith encouraged by his recall of Jos Buttler to England’s Test team a year ago – it is hard to remember now, but it was a somewhat contentious decision at the time – he may be confident in trusting his instincts more than ever.
How has Denly looked so far?He batted quite nicely in the T20I in Cardiff. He hasn’t bowled that much. But he started his spell in Cardiff with two long-hops that were thrashed for six and was taken off after one over. He did claim a maiden ODI wicket in Dublin, but it came when Ben Foakes completed a stumping off a leg-side wide. But that’s the point, really: he’s in the squad as a spin-bowling all-rounder having delivered just 30 balls in his entire ODI career. England really need to find out far more about his bowling at this level.Who could replace him?The most like-for-like option would probably be Liam Dawson. He’s enjoying a great season in the Royal London One Day Cup – he’s seventh in the wickets tally table and has the best economy rate of bowlers to have delivered a minimum of 40 overs – and, until he suffered a side injury in Sri Lanka was in the squad anyway. Bayliss suggested a few days ago he could yet be called into this series for the last couple of games.Do England need three spinners in their World Cup squad?Good question. The current thinking of the team management is that they don’t require seven seamers (including Ben Stokes) in their squad, so they might as well try and cover a few other bases with the inclusion of a spin-bowling all-rounder. Denly, they argue, doesn’t just offer spin-bowling cover: he offers cover for a variety of batting positions and is a fine fielder almost anywhere. They are also aware that, while sides can call-up replacements in the event of injury, the players released cannot be recalled. So they don’t want to be in the position where they have to release Moeen Ali or Adil Rashid for the entire tournament just because they can’t bowl in a couple of games. For that reason, they seem pretty keen on having that spin-bowling back-up.What about Joe Root?Yes, he does offer another spin-bowling option. Last year he delivered 10 overs for 44 runs in an ODI against Australia and his career economy-rate – 5.80 – is respectable. But he has bowled two overs in England’s 13 most-recent completed ODIs. It doesn’t appear they rate his bowling especially highly.So one of the seamers will have to miss out?That remains the likely scenario, but it’s not absolutely certain. The fact that Jofra Archer has been given time off to spend at home is revealing: you don’t give a man fighting for his place time off. He looks certain to be included in that 15-man squad now. Tom Curran might be the most vulnerable of the seamers now, but he will have a chance to impress on Tuesday and did well with bat and ball in Dublin.
If Dawson is still a selection possibility, shouldn’t he be playing now?Maybe, yes. But that’s why this game is so important. Denly is going to be asked to bowl on a good wicket with short boundaries. If he does well, his place in the squad is probably guaranteed. If he has an absolute shocker, Dawson could be called up before the weekend.That sounds a bit tough on Denly.It does. But the World Cup is going to be played, on the whole, in such demanding, high-pressure circumstances. Bowlers are going to have to find a way to contain batsmen on these fine batting pitches and Denly will have to be able to cope with such pressure. David Willey was put under similar pressure at the Ageas Bowl on Saturday and came through well. International sport is a tough, competitive business.

Captain describes final selection meeting as “toughest decision” but stands by the 15-man squad that will launch campaign on May 30

Andrew Miller21-May-2019Eoin Morgan says that the process of whittling England’s World Cup squad down to the final 15-man party was “the toughest decision I’ve ever been a part of”, but believes that he personally, and his team as a whole, have never been better equipped to make the big calls, having grown together in the four years since the 2015 campaign.Speaking at the launch of England’s World Cup kit in East London, Morgan admitted that his team’s final approach to the tournament had not been entirely smooth – with Alex Hales’ expulsion from the squad for a second failed drugs test providing a particularly unwelcome distraction in recent weeks.However, with England making a seamless readjustment in Hales’ absence to beat Pakistan 4-0 in another record-breaking run of batting form, Morgan feels that the team has come through a significant stress test of its culture. Looking ahead, he backed his players to find further ways to keep winning in the event of any more disruption during the course of the tournament.”I wouldn’t say it’s been smooth, I’d say we’ve been better equipped at dealing with anything that’s cropped up, certainly as a group,” said Morgan. “For me as a captain, being more experienced, and having been through four years of being captain, our prep and planning has been excellent and the guys have responded to that by performing on a consistent basis, probably more so for last two years than first two.”Asked if the Hales situation was the sort of crisis that would have derailed past England World Cup campaigns, Morgan admitted: “Yeah, it probably would have. It’s something I’ve never come up against before.”However, he also explained that the team management had put in place contingency plans for similar incidents, meaning that they had not been caught entirely on the hop when the news of Hales’ indiscretions were made public.”We hadn’t planned exactly for that, we’d planned for instances when the [team] culture had been tested or individually we’d been tested,” Morgan said. “There’s still loads of things that we’ve planned for that might continue to crop up throughout the World Cup.”Our values as a team include the words ‘courage’, ‘respect’, and ‘unity’, symbolising the three lions on our cap, and taking that cap forward across all three formats and all squads.”ALSO READ: Dobell: Focus on fringe players shows how far England have come“Over a period of time, everyone can relate to it on and off the field. For some people it may only be words, but for us as international cricketers, travelling around all the time, the one thing that’s constant right from the beginning of your journey is your cap. It’s a gentle reminder of how much responsibility you have, and the privileged position you are constantly in to make the most of that.”That shared journey made this week’s decision to cut Joe Denly and, especially, David Willey from England’s final 15 particularly tough, but having been given the casting vote in the selectors’ deliberations, Morgan was able to defend the “logic of the decision and the balance of the squad” that resulted in Jofra Archer and Liam Dawson being called up in their places.”It was the toughest decision I’ve ever been a part of, certainly with this group,” said Morgan. “To leave two guys out, one who has been around for the last four years and been a big part of everything we’ve done on and off the field, and the other is an exceptionally talented cricketer. It’s unfortunate for those who missed out but it was the right call.”Morgan added that he wasn’t able to feel any great sense of relief at having made the cut, given that the contributions of both players had required “the time and dedication” to do them justice. However, he was able to reiterate to both the point he made at the presentation ceremony in Headingley last week, that the nature of a six-week tournament would almost certainly throw up the possibility of a replacement being called upon.”We had a conversation last night,” Morgan said, “explaining the fact that there are nine group-stage games and the fact that we have four fast bowlers, and one of them is likely to get injured. It happens.”And I had the same conversation with Joe. We haven’t had many injuries in the batting department for a long time, so we need to plan for everything, given that they might come into play straightaway, so they need to be prepared for that.”Asked if England were playing “fearless” cricket in the wake of their 4-0 series win over Pakistan, Morgan actually felt that his team had reined in some of the more overt aggression that had led to a few rare but notable mishaps in recent years.”I wouldn’t say that we feel fearless, probably two years ago we felt more fearless, because we were quite young in our growth as a team,” he said. “We’ve had two more years’ experience on top of that, and we are better at coping and adapting to scenarios and recognising different situations throughout a game. I wouldn’t say that’s fearless.”The team’s single biggest disappointment of the past four years, the Champions Trophy semi-final defeat against Pakistan in 2017, was an example of where England had been derailed in the recent past.”One of the biggest learning things that came out of that was that it probably came a little bit early for us,” he said. “We probably didn’t realise how good we were and how poor we were on slow wickets. Since then, we’ve improved our play at both home and away, and on wickets that don’t necessarily suit our planning.”Overall, however, Morgan said that he was simply itching to get started. “We are pretty close to our starting XI, barring a couple of pitch minor adjustments,” he said. “If the game was tomorrow, it would be better for us than seven or eight days’ time. Our preparation against Pakistan was as good as anything we could have hoped for. To perform like we did is extremely encouraging.”

The fast bowler did not think the early exit was the lowest point of his career, but admitted that he had slipped up with his execution during the tournament

Sharda Ugra at Lord's24-Jun-2019Having taken just six wickets in seven games at an average of 50.83, Kagiso Rabada has been far from the spearhead South Africa had expected him to be at the World Cup. The fast bowler has admitted that his performances at the tournament have only been “okay”.”These [World Cups] are the tournaments you really want to stand out in… In this tournament I would have like to have done better,” Rabada told reporters on Sunday, after South Africa’s exit-confirming loss to Pakistan at Lord’s. “I have just done okay. I think there have been times where we have been really unlucky, and some times where we have kind of let ourselves down.”Rabada, who is playing in his first World Cup, said he would not call the early exit the lowest point in his career, which began in the aftermath of South Africa’s heart-breaking semi-final defeat in the 2015 World Cup. “I wouldn’t say it was the lowest point in my career – this is what comes with the game. All of us, we don’t go to a game looking to lose. We go to a game prepared. We try to prepare, we do our analysis, and we come in with a good mindset.”He however cited his own case in failing to bridge the gap between planning and on-field performance.”Execution is just one thing that you know that has been a question mark for us, and especially for myself at times,” he said. “And you can’t just do okay.”Rabada said he had at times tried to “take it it upon myself to really stand up. I thought I played just okay. I don’t think it’s the lowest point. The next time this happens, it’s a challenge really to come out on top.”In comparison to his captain Faf du Plessis, whose media briefing was marked by the heaviness of his team’s failure, Rabada’s response to the defeat against Pakiatan reflected his relatively baggage-free World Cup experience and the fact that he was not the man carrying the load of the team’s leader.Of the match against Pakistan he said, “I think Pakistan turned up and we didn’t.” South Africa’s bowlers, he added, had slipped up at key moments in the match. “I think we knew we had them in the field and we let it slip and then they outbowled us. They got our batsmen out.”According to Rabada, the fourth-wicket partnership between Babar Azam and Man of the Match Haris Sohail – 81 in 11.2 overs – was “where they really got momentum with their batting, and I think their bowlers really bowled well to restrict our batters, so I think we were just outplayed, simple as that.”The defeat was to give to Rabada “plenty of learnings and that’s how we play this game. It’s not easy.”He then spoke not as a philosophical young man dealing with defeat but a young cricketer grappling with the lessons he had been given by the game. “As much as you want to be at the top. you’ll never find it smooth sailing. It’s extremely tough. When you are playing out there you experience all of this. And all these feelings, highs and lows, and that’s what comes with it.”South Africa’s last two World Cup group matches, dead rubbers as far as they are concerned, are spread over the next ten days, the first against Sri Lanka in Chester-le-Street on Friday, June 28, and then Australia in Manchester on July 6.So while Rabada did say that “the key is to bounce back and plan forward and stay positive”, he will find the empty time on his hands far tougher to deal with than he realised today. Just ask du Plessis.

News from around the counties in the 2019 Championship season

David Hopps27-Jun-2019Assumptions that Reece Topley’s cricketing career is over appear to be premature. There is at least a possibility that he will revive his professional career with Sussex in this summer’s Vitality Blast as he tries to pull off a remarkable recovery against the odds.Topley has suffered four stress fractures to his back in recent years (two separate breaks that then reoccurred) and has not bowled a ball in competitive cricket since last July but following brief periods training with the Melbourne Renegades and Middlesex, he has pitched up at Hove.”Reece has had some injury issues over the last 12 months and there was no guarantee that he’d ever play again,” said Sussex’s head coach, Jason Gillespie. “So we came to an arrangement whereby, with no pressure at all, he could come here, do some training and build his bowling back up.”We’ve got the gym and we’ve got medical support and we said that if he was in a position to play some cricket later in the summer then we would explore that possibility. It’s very early days, he’s just building himself up and he’s going to play a little bit of club cricket but if he’s fit and firing, we know what a fine bowler he is.”Topley is a free agent since leaving Hampshire after playing only 21 games in three years. Just to fulfil even a white-ball contract last season he had to inject a hormone in his stomach daily and once a month had an anaesthetic in his spine. But England Lions still took a look at him before he broke down and his 10 ODIs and six T20s for England are a reminder of his potential.Sussex have kept faith with another left-arm quick, Tymal Mills despite a back condition that restricts him to T20 only. Mills’ life was changed with a £1.4m IPL deal with Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2017, but he went unsold in the subsequent seasons and had a disappointing Blast campaign in 2018, taking only seven wickets in nine matches.***Another player once billed as possessing England potential has an uncertain future, at 27. Less than three months ago, Adam Riley was talking optimistically about how the retirement of James Tredwell and flatter Division One surfaces might give his offspin more of an opportunity at Kent. But after taking only two expensive wickets in two Championship matches, he has left the county by mutual consent.Riley was mentioned in despatches in the general panic about English spin-bowling resources when Graeme Swann abruptly retired during the 2012-13 Ashes series. He broke through as Kent’s first-choice spinner in four-day cricket in 2014, taking 48 wickets in 15 County Championship appearances, and made his England Lions debut against South Africa A in Bloemfontein in February 2015.But England spin specialists tried to quicken his pace through the air and he was plagued by attempts to tweak his action.***Surrey’s Tasmanian head coach Michael di Venuto was flummoxed briefly at a members’ forum this week when he was asked whether Jason Roy should open for England in the Ashes. “Do you want the answer from me as Jason’s coach or from an Australian point of view?” he replied.That answer pretty much gave away his thoughts, but di Venuto proceeded to articulate them anyway. “If I was England, and I am certainly not, I think the captain [Joe Root] should put his hand up and bat at No 3 and Jason would be a very good No 4 in Test cricket,” he said.”I get where they are coming from – he is an exceptionally talented cricketer – but opening in Test cricket is extremely different to opening in one-day cricket. People make the comparison with David Warner, when Warner has been opening all his life. Jason is a middle-order player.”Di Venuto thinks England should heed what he described as “the Aaron Finch experiment.” Finch, who will return to Surrey for the Blast this season, underlined his quality as a white-ball opener on Tuesday with his World Cup hundred against England. But he averaged a modest 27.80 in five Tests going in first against Pakistan and India last winter.”The results could be the same,” Di Venuto warned. He would certainly be surprised if both Roy and Finch, whose World Cup form has also encouraged Ashes speculation, won the opportunity to open the innings when August comes around***This should have been the summer that Joe Clarke’s transfer to a big county helped him catch England’s eye ahead of the Ashes. Instead he has three ducks in his last four games and a top score of 29 in that time and Nottinghamshire are adrift at the foot of Division One without a Championship win for a year.The fallout is still evident after a court case in which Alex Hepburn, a former Worcestershire team-mate, was found guilty of oral rape and jailed for five years in April. Clarke was not on trial, and neither was another former Worcestershire batsman, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, but they were both named at Worcester Crown Court as fellow members of a WhatsApp messaging group which boasted about sexual conquests. The judge called the sexual contest “pathetic, sexist and foul”.Now the ECB has charged both Clarke and Kohler-Cadmore with bringing the game into disrepute, and England are in no rush to forgive.There is always a question about when it is appropriate for a sport’s governing body to play the role of moral arbiter. But sports stars are role models whether they want to be or not and the ego-centric environment of professional sport clearly needs an element of intervention. Few will chide the ECB for taking this particular matter further and for the players to understand that would be a further stage towards redemption.***Warwickshire will feel they deserve a good result against Essex next month after long hours spent finding a venue for the Championship fixture between the sides. Ironically, the outcome announced this week of switching home and away meetings was their first-choice solution when a clash of scheduling with the World Cup became apparent last year.Edgbaston will host a World Cup semi-final on July 11 and it is reserve venue for the final three days later, meaning the Essex game from July 13-16 must be staged elsewhere. Warwickshire were told initially that a swap with Essex was not possible and even asked about giving up reserve status for the final on the basis that it almost certainly won’t be needed.Eventually, they chose Worcester as an alternative home, only for the latest heavy flooding of New Road to leave the ground unfit. So, with no other plausible option, what might well be viewed the best solution will prevail after all: July 13-16 at Chelmsford, September 10-13 at Edgbaston. Assuming, that is, Chelmsford avoids fire, plague or pestilence over the next three weeks.Meanwhile, Surrey have reiterated their position to the ECB that The Oval should be used for part of the county’s 50-over competition next season, even though it is a venue for The Hundred in the same calendar block. “We will make sure we are not thrown out for the entire time period,” Richard Gould, the chief executive, said.

Lasith Embuldeniya struck vital blows for Sri Lanka before the wicketkeeper-batsman rallied with the lower order

The Report by Deivarayan Muthu16-Aug-2019
Lasith Embuldeniya did his best Rangana Herath impression on a wearing Galle track that raised puffs of dust, but BJ Watling combated his left-arm threat and put New Zealand right back into the game. While both Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor were out cheaply, playing a long way in front of their body or away from it, Watling was immovable. He simply did his thing: played close to his body, defended stoutly, and even read some of Akila Dananjaya’s googlies out of his hand. From 81 for 4, he rallied New Zealand to 195 for 7 and a lead of 177 at stumps on day three. Watling is now just 35 runs away from surpassing Brendon McCullum as New Zealand’s top run-getter among wicketkeepers.When Watling entered, Sri Lanka’s spin trio and the close-in catchers were circling around him like vultures around their prey. And when Mitchell Santner swatted a long-hop from Embuldeniya straight into the lap of deep midwicket, New Zealand were 124 for 6 at the stroke of tea. Sri Lanka threatened to ambush Watling and Tim Southee too with spin, but they weathered multiple bursts in a 54-run seventh-wicket partnership. Sixer Southee made way for blocker Southee as New Zealand slowly but surely built their lead. Southee was dropped twice, but Watling’s innings was chanceless.ALSO READ: Why isn’t BJ Watling a bigger deal than he is?He did have a nervy start, though, given out lbw by umpire Richard Illingworth when he was on 1. However, a review detected a thin nick and Watling bedded in. He wore down the spinners and once Suranga Lakmal and Lahiru Kumara were swapped into the attack, Watling eased into his shot-making stride. Kumara was cracked for back-to-back boundaries in the 71st over: a rasping straight drive followed by a less violent ramp over the cordon. Southee’s vigil, however, had ended in the previous over when Embuldeniya tricked him with a delightful cocktail of drift, dip, and turn.William Sommerville, too, displayed a tight defensive technique and earned Watling’s trust, helping swell New Zealand’s lead towards 200.The narrative was different when Embuldeniya had nabbed both Williamson and Taylor in successive overs in a marathon spell, leaving the visitors gasping in the face of relentless pressure from the spinners. The New Zealand captain wound up playing a long way in front of his body, yanking his bottom hand off the bat, and skewing an overhead catch to mid-on while Taylor’s panic-stricken advance down the pitch resulted in a simple catch to slip. New Zealand were 25 for 3 at this point, but Tom Latham and Henry Nicholls then put on 56 for the fourth wicket in 11.2 overs to give the innings a leg-up.Niroshan Dickwella lifts one into the leg side•AFP

Latham was the enforcer, sweeping flat and hard and even dashing down the track to launch Embuldeniya over the midwicket boundary. However, the stand was nipped in the bud when Akila found sharp turn to scratch Latham’s outside edge. Nicholls then jabbed at Dhananjaya de Silva and similarly nicked off, but Watling saved the day for New Zealand.In the morning, it was the other wicketkeeper-batsman, Niroshan Dickwella, who made a statement after being ignored for the World Cup and then the ODI series at home against Bangladesh. Dickwella, on 39 overnight, finished with 61 off 109 balls, ushering Sri Lanka to a 18-run first-innings lead.Resuming on an overnight 227 for 7, Sri Lanka added 40 to their tally in the morning session before being bowled out, with Trent Boult and Somerville taking the remaining three wickets and ending the innings about an hour before lunch.The new ball was available at the start of the day’s play, and New Zealand took it immediately. Boult pushed the batsmen back with a barrage of short balls, and while Lakmal was struck flush on his right elbow, Embuldeniya copped a glancing blow on the helmet. Two balls after being hit, Lakmal stood deep in the crease to a ball that wasn’t short enough and dragged it back onto the stumps to be dismissed for 40.At the other end, Dickwella was more competent against the short stuff, often rolling his wrists to keep the ball down. He moved to a rousing half-century with a dink to the leg side off Ajaz Patel, but Somerville dangled an offbreak wide outside off and had him slapping a catch to Williamson at short cover.Watling headlined New Zealand’s batting effort in their second innings before fading light forced early stumps.