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The participation of Pakistan’s players in the Bangladesh Premier League and the inaugural edition of the Global T20 in South Africa is in doubt, as Pakistan’s national T20 competition is scheduled to clash with those dates. With the PCB strongly indicating that the National T20 Cup would “take precedence over global leagues” around the world, the possibility of around a dozen Pakistan players being unable to fulfil global T20 commitments looks very real.This is the second time in as many months that the scheduling of the National T20 Cup has created uncertainty. Last month, the PCB revoked the NOCs of 13 Pakistan players participating in the CPL and the English domestic circuit to participate in the National T20 Cup, then slotted to begin on August 25. The move especially frustrated the counties concerned and even led a senior member of the Pakistan team management to describe it as “a bit of a mess”. However, just days later, PCB chairman Najam Sethi announced the postponement of the National T20 Cup to November, saying the recalled players had to undergo fitness tests, after which they were free to resume their engagements abroad.The National T20 Cup is now scheduled to run from November 4-19, the entirety of which clashes with significant chunks of both the BPL and the Global T20. The BPL lasts from November 2 to December 10, while the Global T20 begins on November 3, with the final taking place on December 16. Further complicating the situation is the fact that the PCB has already gone ahead with a selection process last month with a draft ceremony. All sponsorship rights were sold, which means the PCB eventually has to hold the tournament sometime this year.When ESPNcricinfo approached a PCB spokesperson to enquire about the potential clash, he said that players would “naturally” have to fulfil their domestic commitments. “I can say that the National T20 Cup will take precedence over other league,” Amjad Hussain, director media and coordination, said.At least seven Pakistani players were expected to take part in the Global T20, with Wahab Riaz, Umar Akmal, Mohammad Nawaz, Fakhar Zaman, Mohammad Hafeez, Anwar Ali and Imad Wasim signed by various franchises. While the player list for the BPL is not yet out, Junaid Khan and Shahid Afridi had confirmed that they would take part in Bangladesh’s premier T20 competition.”We haven’t heard about anything from the Pakistan players as yet, officially or unofficially,” Ismail-Haider Mallick, secretary of the BCB governing council, told ESPNcricinfo. “But if it happens then it will be a big loss for the players as BPL is one of the most competitive leagues in the world. But we are not too worried about the situation as we have a lot of foreign players who can replace missing Pakistan players.”

Jack Taylor, the Gloucestershire allrounder, has been banned from bowling for a third time after being reported for a suspect action. As per the ECB’s regulations, he will not to be able to bowl his offspin for 12 months from September 26, 2017.Taylor, 25, was suspended from bowling last season but was allowed to resume a couple of months later after remodelling his action.Having been called again, he underwent testing at Loughborough on September 26 and his arm was found to exceed the permitted 15-degree limit for flexion and extension. As this was his second suspension within a two-year period, he receives an automatic 12-month ban, after which he can request to have his action retested.In recent seasons, Taylor has become a valuable lower-order batsman for Gloucestershire. This year, he scored two Championship hundreds and averaged nearly 40, while contributing 302 runs at 43.14 in the Royal London Cup; with the ball, he took 19 wickets in all competitions.His first-class batting average has risen to 32.44, with six hundreds, to go with 75 first-class wickets at 43.86. Taylor’s value as an allrounder was more apparent in white-ball cricket and he was Man of the Match in the final of the 2015 Royal London Cup as Gloucestershire won their first trophy in a decade.Taylor was previously banned in 2013 for an illegal action before being passed to bowl again after remedial work in February 2014.

Saad Altaf, the 33-year old Rawalpindi fast bowler, has broken the record for the best bowling figures in first-class cricket in Pakistan. He took eight wickets in each innings against Federally Administered Tribal Areas in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy to finish with 16 for 141, bettering Sohail Khan’s 16 for 189 against Water and Power Development Authority in December 2007.Altaf, playing his 98th first-class match, made his debut in the 2001-02 season. He has now upped his wickets tally to 393, which includes 27 five-fors in an innings and five ten-fors in a match. Facing him, however, was not the toughest proposition for batsmen in this round of the QeA.The Pakistan Television side was bowled out for 37, which is the fifth-lowest total in the tournament’s history. Only one batsman made it to double-digits in an innings that lasted 17.3 overs and featured four ducks. Khan Research Labs’ left-arm seamer Sadaf Hussain picked up 4 for 23 while Ali Shafiq, the 20-year old medium-pacer playing only his fifth first-class game, bagged four wickets in 21 deliveries.

Akshay Wakhare’s five-for that took his match tally to 9 for 104 helped Vidarbha beat Goa with a bonus point in Porvorim. The innings and 37-run win was their fourth outright result in five matches, enough to not only propel them to the top of the group but also secure a knockout berth.Resuming on 39 for 2, Goa, who still needed 189 to make Vidarbha bat, were bowled out for 151 in an extended morning session. Wakhare picked up four of his five wickets on Monday as Goa lasted just 53.3 overs in the second innings. Snehal Kauthankar’s 101-ball 56 at No. 8 was Goa’s lone source of resistance.Earlier in the game, Wasim Jaffer and Ganesh Satish notched up centuries to help open up a 188-run first-innings lead for Vidarbha, before they declared in search of full points. Jaffer’s 158 not out was only his second fifty-plus score this season.

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Tabraiz Shamsi produced his best performance of the tournament so far to bowl Titans’ into the Ram Slam final, which they will host at SuperSport Park. Titans beat Warriors comprehensively by eight wickets to re-affirm their dominance in the tournament, which began with six victories in their first eight matches (with two wash-outs) but started to wane when they emptied their bench in the final week of the league stage before coming full circle on Wednesday night.Titans held the upper hand despite going into the knockout without Dale Steyn or Morne Morkel and lost senior batsman Henry Davids to injury four minutes before toss. Their attack dismissed Warriors for a below-par score of 143 before AB de Villiers and Aiden Markram helped themselves to a half-century apiece to wipe out the target inside 16 overs.Warriors were not able to give coach Malibongwe Maketa, who will now join the national team as Ottis Gibson’s assistant, a festive farewell, and could not repeat their heroics of last season, when they reached the final. They were on the back foot early, at 17 for 2 after two overs, but then rallied through Colin Ingram and Colin Ackermann, before Shamsi dismantled them, and de Villiers and Markram finished off the chase.Wayne Parnell, on loan from Cobras, returned to Warriors’ top two but was bowled by Albie Morkel for 4. Jon-Jon Smuts followed in the next over, caught by Morkel at cover point off Lungi Ngidi. Ingram and Ackermann shared a third-wicket stand of 63 but were separated in the 10th over when Markram had Ingram caught at point, again by Morkel.Enter Shamsi, who took two wickets each in his third and fourth overs. Though he was the one holding an imaginary phone to his ear, it was Warriors who should have called for help. Shamsi later explained his signature celebration as a “bit of fun because sometimes they phone the third umpire to check.”The only thing Shamsi needs to check is how far he is ahead of the chasing pack in the wicket-takers’ list. He has 16 scalps at 13.68, four more than his nearest challenger, Dane Paterson.Warriors did not last their full 20 overs and were dismissed with 11 balls remaining in their innings. They would have known the total was far from enough but had some early hope when Quinton de Kock’s lean run continued and Davids’ replacement, Heinrich Klaasen, managed 24. Titans were 44 for 2 after five overs but there was no stopping them after that. De Villiers and Markram put on an unbeaten 101-run stand and treated the sizeable crowd to some sensational shots to win with 4.4 overs to spare.The final, on December 16, will be played between Titans and the winner of the Dolphins versus Cape Cobras semi-final, to be held on Thursday.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details (Viewers in the Indian subcontinent can watch highlights of the Test here)The entire third day of the Newlands Test was lost to rain, although there might not have been too many people complaining as a result considering Cape Town is in the middle of a severe drought. The showers began on Saturday night and returned in full force in the morning. There were a brief few moments after lunch when it seemed like play could have been possible, but even as the groundsmen were preparing to peel the covers off, the weather turned.Days four and five will now feature 98 overs each, but play will begin at the usual time of 1030 local. At present, South Africa are 65 for 2 – leading India by 142 runs – with Hashim Amla on 4 and nightwatchman Kagiso Rabada on 2 at the crease.

Scheduling and format complexities make it next to impossible for Cricket Australia to impose a set policy for player availability for the Big Bash League, the tournament’s chief Kim McConnie has admitted. McConnie’s comments came after Travis Head, D’Arcy Short and Alex Carey were released to take part in Sunday’s competition decider in Adelaide, the day after Australia’s opening Twenty20 triangular series match in Sydney against New Zealand.Numerous queries have been raised about how Head in particular could have been freed to play in Friday night’s semi-final for the Strikers, where he played a pivotal role in their one-run victory over Melbourne Renegades, when numerous others in similar circumstances have not been, whether Cameron White for the Renegades during the ODI series or Andrew Tye and Ashton Agar for Perth Scorchers and Short for the Hobart Hurricanes ahead of the first semi-final in Perth.These discrepancies have meant the national selectors have had a huge influence over the course of the tournament’s pointy end, and the Strikers assistant coach Greg Blewett told on Saturday that the decision appeared to him to be a response to criticism. “There has been a bit of backlash going the last week or so, and rightfully so,” he said. “It has been a bit of a stuff-up…I think they’re doing the right thing,”McConnie said the release of Head, Carey and Short for the tournament final was an example of the sort of flexibility that would need to remain in future, rather than CA imposing a single policy for player availability that all clubs could then work around. “It’s tough to have a set policy when you think about it, scheduling is a challenge, one of the toughest things we do,” McConnie told ESPNcricinfo.”I think the selectors have done a really good job, the way they’ve been able to try to balance the BBL final, which is fans first and give fans what they want, plus also the international commitments for the players. I think it’s tough to have a single policy we set at the beginning of the season and that’s it, I think what’s been good is the selectors have flexed and taken each moment into consideration.”White, who captained the Renegades to their loss against the Strikers on Friday night, said he remained none the wiser as to why he had not been released to play for his BBL team when a non-playing member of Australia’s ODI squad last month, but agreed it would be difficult to impose a blanket judgment amid the mess of fixtures. He also stressed that Australian cricket needed to maintain a hierarchy where national team representation sat above the BBL.”I’m not sure there were different circumstances around that, maybe in my situation they didn’t know what the team was going to be before they released it, I don’t know what the policy is or if there is one,” White said. “I don’t think there needs to be a policy or anything like that, if the Australian selectors release a player to go and play well they’re just taking every situation as they go.”I think everyone in the camp would love the Australian players playing, but it’s not that simple, a lot would have to give for that to happen. When do you play the Test matches, do you still play ODIs, do you play any international T20 games. I don’t know what the answer is. All I know is, no doubt the fans would want to see that, but from a player’s point of view, for the health of the competition, a player’s main priority has got to be that he wants to play for Australia No. 1.”Hurricanes captain George Bailey, who will welcome Short back to the top of the order but is yet to decide whether he will be accompanied by Tim Paine or Matthew Wade, was grateful for the compromise. “You just want your best players playing, so it’s great for both teams and great for the tournament in general,” he said. “As fans and as players if we’re going to be winning a tournament we want to be winning against the absolute best and you want to be playing in the best possible team, so it’s a great compromise.”The most curious role on Saturday’s final eve was played by Colin Ingram, posing with the trophy as captain of the Strikers while Head flew back to Sydney, before he returns on match day to lead them. Ingram had played a similar role ahead of the semi-final a few hours before it emerged that Head would be available. “It’d be nice if Travis could pitch up for some interviews every now and again,” Ingram quipped. “He’s led really well and it’s been great working with him and looking forward to having him.”

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. So goes the ancient Sanskrit proverb that for Sri Lankan cricket fans has probably, during the better part of the last two decades, been exhaustively internalised when it comes to drawing allegiances in neutral contests involving India.Exactly how that became the case though is unclear. Circa 1996 there was genuine camaraderie between the two sets of fans, and while certainly the antipathy between them has grown in recent times – no doubt accelerated by India’s recent sporting superiority – there was always a sense over the years that Sri Lankan supporters took an undue amount of pleasure from India’s failures.As such, when Bangladesh eventually sit down to take notes on what went wrong in Sunday’s dramatic and heart-wrenching final defeat to India, there is one moment in particular that they might come to rue. In the aftermath of that now-notorious disagreement over a no-ball, it was not just a dressing room door that was shattered, they had also lost any potential Sri Lankan home support.As the teams took to the field, murmurs were heard of Sri Lankan fans – some 20,000 of them – turning up for the final in support of India.”We don’t expect the away crowd to support us. We were not focusing on that,” a dismissive Shakib Al Hasan said after a game in which the partisan support was bordering on the surreal.”It would have been nice if they had supported us but these things can happen. We were not worried about who was supporting whom. It was important for us to play some good cricket on the field.”While Shakib’s take may well be an honest reflection on events, it fails to account for the impact such fervent support had on a fairly inexperienced Indian outfit. Buoyed by the ‘home’ support, India put in their best fielding display of tournament. The team threw themselves at every delivery, with even Suresh Raina, who had been guilty of several errors earlier in the tournament, seen racing towards the ball like a hare at a dog race.”The crowd was brilliant, it was magnificent. We didn’t feel that we were playing outside India,” India captain Rohit Sharma said. He wasn’t wrong.As the match drew to its conclusion, the tension in the stadium was arguably at a higher plane than at any point during a game involving Sri Lanka this tournament. Every Indian piece of fielding, every wicket by an Indian bowler, every dot ball was cheered by a bouncing Khettarama stadium.With the bat, Indian boundaries were willed across the ropes, while wickets were mourned with deathly silence. Even the stadium DJ was in on it, his loyalty clear for all to see, as he repeatedly failed to play music after a Bangladesh boundary.”They came out in large numbers and their support was very crucial,” Rohit said. “It is always good when you get that support, just to get you going, it is very important. They supported us throughout the course of 40 overs. Even when we were bowling and making those stops, and when we started off batting, they were there for us.”While it would be tempting to draw a line under this sudden shift in allegiance down to the mere dislike of Bangladesh, it’s definitely something that has been rolling along unspoken in the background for a while now.The upswing in relations might have begun on India’s tour of Sri Lanka last year, where Virat Kohli’s image underwent significant rehabilitation in the eyes of Sri Lankan fans. There was already begrudging respect for Kohli the cricketer on the field, but his numerous match-winning efforts against Sri Lanka had made him an easy villain.However, with Kohli and his team-mates immersing themselves in the local culture on that tour – with a strong social media offensive to boot – that begrudging respect steadily began to evolve into a begrudging fondness. The sporting animosity was also thawing, as fans’ acceptance of the dismal run Sri Lanka Cricket was going through allowed them to appreciate the quality of Indian cricket unabashed.That journey eventually came to a head on Sunday night. When Dinesh Karthik scythed that final delivery for six, the release from the fans was one of unbridled ecstasy. Sri Lankan and Indian fans were seen in droves performing the now iconic (cobra) dance, and embracing each other in kinship. Bonds were being formed; even Sri Lanka’s most iconic supporter, Percy, was seen joining the Indian side on their lap of honour.All the while firecrackers – reserved usually for Sri Lankan wins – were set outside the stadium and in the distance. As Hindi music blared in the background, Colombo was awash with the sounds of a once great friendship being rekindled.

Several England players have moved teams ahead of the 2018 Kia Super League (KSL). Sarah Taylor has left Lancashire Lightning for Surrey Stars, with Alex Hartley going the other way, while Tammy Beaumont moves to Southern Vipers from Surrey.There has also been a straight swap between Loughborough Lightning and Yorkshire Diamonds of Jenny Gunn for Beth Langston.The changes are overseen by the ECB and aimed at keeping a balance between the six sides, ahead of the third edition of the T20 competition. Each of the teams will still be able to recruit their own overseas players.”The latest player movements are to ensure the best balance between the six sides and to maintain a fair and competitive competition with the over-arching principle of trying to ensure a best versus best competition,” KSL general manager Jo Kirk said.”We want the KSL to continue to go from strength to strength in its third year. Attendances rose by 44% last year and we’re looking forward to even more fans attending games this summer, hopefully culminating in a sold-out Finals Day down in Hove.”This year’s KSL begins on July 22 and features an expanded group stage, with the teams now playing each other twice. The top three will then go on to Finals Day at Hove on Bank Holiday Monday, August 27.

The IPL eliminator and Qualifier 2 on May 23 and 25 have been moved from Pune to Kolkata, league chairman Rajiv Shukla confirmed on Friday. There is no change to Qualifier 1 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.As per the norm, these matches are held at the home venue of the previous season’s runners-up, in this case the now disbanded Rising Pune Supergiant. However, the moving of six Chennai Super Kings home games to the MCA Stadium in Pune because of protests and threats to disrupt their matches in Chennai forced the change.”We are happy to host the play-off matches and are looking forward to it,” Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) joint-secretary Avishek Dalmiya was quoted as saying by .Mumbai will host Qualifier 1 and the final on May 22 and 27 respectively.