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The ECB have confirmed that the England tour of Bangladesh will go ahead as planned.

Andrew McGlashan at Lord's26-Aug-2016Jos Buttler has admitted England’s players have been forced to think about issues they have not previously considered, after the tour to Bangladesh was given the go-ahead but with the option remaining open for individuals to decide if they would travel.Late on Thursday evening, the ECB confirmed that the tour – scheduled to start on September 30 – would proceed, following the security assessment undertaken earlier this month. The one-day squad, plus Alastair Cook, were briefed at the team hotel in London with the players making use of the time to ask a significant number of questions.The squads for the tour will only be named after the current series against Pakistan is completed, so the question of whether any players will pull out may remain unclear for a couple of weeks. Buttler would be a certain selection for the one-day leg of the trip, but would not comment on whether he would tour despite describing the meeting as “positive”.”There are things that people have probably never even considered before about cricket, and things people probably didn’t realise went on for every single tour we go on,” he said. “They are normally never privy to these conversations behind the scenes.”It’s probably new ground for a lot of people, some guys in the meeting – Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook – were part of the team that went back to India in 2008 so have been in this situation before and probably know how to deal with it. But it’s new ground for people and it’s important we try to deal with it the best we can.”It was a positive meeting with lots of information to digest. All you can say is it’s something you have to digest. It’s tricky for us at the moment, we’ve got a game tomorrow and international cricket needs your full focus to perform well.”Buttler would not divulge details of what was discussed at the team hotel but indicated there had been a reassuring level of information from Reg Dickason, the ECB’s head of security, PCA chief executive David Leatherdale, head of operations John Carr and team director Strauss.However, Buttler was keen not to take his focus off the second one-day international against Pakistan at Lord’s on Saturday.”It was a private meeting, there was a lot of information. As a player you felt there was a great duty of care from the board and a lot has been considered which was put across to the players,” Buttler said. “There was lot to digest which is tough to do mid-series – there’s no good time for these things to happen – but they have to be discussed. It’s paramount we are as professional as we can be and think about it when we can, but 11am tomorrow is not the time.”

A three-wicket burst from Pragyan Ojha pegged Australia A back on day two before Peter Handscomb and Marcus Stoinis restored parity with an unbroken fifth-wicket partnership of 110 runs

Karthik Krishnaswamy in Chennai23-Jul-2015
ScorecardSteve O’Keefe ran through the lower order to finish with figures of 6 for 82•K Sivaraman

A three-wicket burst from Pragyan Ojha pegged Australia A back on day two of their first four-day match against India A before Peter Handscomb and Marcus Stoinis restored parity with an unbroken partnership of 110 for the fifth wicket. At stumps, Australia A were 185 for four, 116 behind India A’s first-innings total of 301.Abhimanyu Mithun struck early for India A, getting one to shape away from a full length outside off to find Cameron Bancroft’s outside edge as he pushed hard at the ball without moving his feet. At the other end, Travis Head nicked Umesh Yadav when he slanted one across with a bit of extra bounce; the ball flew between the wicketkeeper and the diving Karun Nair at first slip.That ball apart, Umesh struggled with his direction, too often offering width or straying on to the legs of Head and Usman Khawaja, the two left-handers at the crease. The pair put on 50 in 83 balls before Head holed out to mid-off while going after Ojha. Six overs later, Khawaja was gone too, finding deep midwicket with an uppish pull off the same bowler in the last over before tea.Three balls into the final session, Ojha dismissed another left-handed batsman, getting Nic Maddinson caught at leg slip – Nair diving low to his right – when he stretched out and jabbed at him. Australia A were 75 for 4 at that point, with two new batsmen at the crease.The excited buzz of the close fielders around Handscomb and Stoinis died down gradually as the ball grew older and softer. The slowness of the surface allowed both batsmen to sit back against the spinners and watch the ball onto their bats. Mishra in particular struggled to bring the batsmen forward. He may or may not have overcome the lack of zip that has hindered him at various points through his career; on this pitch, there was no way to tell. He will hope the pitches in Sri Lanka will have a little more life in them.Handscomb was eager to use his feet when he got the opportunity, skipping nimbly down the track when he sensed some flight, and wasn’t afraid to work the spinners against the turn. A brace of late-cut doubles off Mishra in the 50th over of the innings took him to his half-century, and he celebrated the landmark by jumping down the track and clouting his next ball to the midwicket boundary. In the next two overs, Stoinis lofted Ojha for a straight six and Handscomb pulled Mishra to the midwicket boundary.It prompted the legspinner to go around the wicket and try to hit the rough outside the right-handers’ leg stump. Neither batsman looked particularly troubled and the day wound down to a quiet close.In the morning session, India A went past 300 thanks to a seventh-wicket partnership of 62 between Vijay Shankar and Amit Mishra. Australia A’s bowlers came in with the same plans that brought them success on day one – stump-to-stump line to a 5-4 leg-side field – without quite maintaining the same level of discipline. There were no rank bad balls, but the seamers occasionally bowled too straight or too full, allowing Shankar and Mishra to inch the score upwards through a steady trickle of singles square on the leg side.As lunch approached, Shankar grew more expansive, lofting the offspinner Travis Head for a six over mid-off and punching Sean Abbott to the cover boundary. He went from 42 to 46 with another back-foot punch off Abbott at the start of the second session, and in the same over drove him fiercely to the right of mid-off to bring up his half-century.He ran out of partners, though, as Steve O’Keefe broke the partnership and ran through the tail. He had Mishra lbw prodding forward and playing for the turn, while Mithun, Yadav and Ojha perished going for aggressive shots.

Chris Rogers anchored Victoria’s innings before a Chadd Sayers burst with the second new ball pulled South Australia back into the contest

ESPNcricinfo staff24-Jan-2013
Scorecard
Chris Rogers anchored Victoria’s innings with his 57th first-class century before a Chadd Sayers burst with the second new ball pulled South Australia back into the contest on day one of the Sheffield Shield match at Adelaide Oval.Rogers’ innings provided another reminder of the technique and poise available to the national selectors should they wish to add an experienced batsman to their party for the Ashes later this year. But it was a less auspicious day for the potential India tourists David Hussey, bowled for one after flying to Adelaide on match morning from ODI duty in Hobart the night before.The Bushrangers lost Rob Quiney cheaply upon winning the toss and batting, but Rogers formed fruitful stands with Michael Hill and Peter Handscomb to seemingly blunt SA’s bowlers. The Test spinner Nathan Lyon had a barren day, as did the former Victorian club swing bowler Daniel Worrell.However Sayers pinned Rogers LBW with his first delivery after taking the new ball, and added the wickets of Hussey and Handscomb. Joe Mennie chimed in to dismiss John Hastings shortly before the close.

While Mumbai’s depleted attack might not seem threatening, they have the pedigree of Dhawal Kulkarni and Ramesh Powar to test MP, who are banking on TP Sudhindra and Ishwar Pandey to make inroads

Abhishek Purohit in Indore01-Jan-2012There was a time when your Ranji Trophy season used to be as good as over
the moment you drew Mumbai in the knockouts. There was a time when teams
were in awe of the 39-time champions. That awe has now been replaced by
respect for their past deeds but teams today know that Mumbai are
fallible, as Rajasthan showed last season. That the depleted Mumbai side
facing Madhya Pradesh is almost unrecognisable from the formidable sides
of the past is not lost on the hosts. Devendra Bundela, the MP captain, even
said that they were “not taking Mumbai lightly.”Such confidence might seem misplaced in a side in its first season in the
Elite League in seven years but TP Sudhindra, MP’s leading wicket-taker
this season, had a more practical take on the issue. “Several of us have
played with a lot of the Mumbai players in tournaments like the Times
Shield. It is not like they are unknown to us.”Familiarity with the Mumbai players has certainly helped but not as much
as the self-belief that comes when you defeat established sides like Delhi
and Gujarat. Both those wins came at the pace-friendly Emerald High School
Ground on the outskirts of Indore. The pitch at the Holkar Stadium, the
venue for the quarter-final, is known to be much better for batting. With
a pace-dominated attack, there is no doubt over where the MP team would
have preferred to play. But this is a knockout game and the Holkar Stadium
had to be chosen as it has much better facilities.The change in venue might just suit MP’s batsmen though. The outstanding
performance of their new-ball pair of Sudhindra and Ishwar Pandey – with
57 wickets between them – and the form of Naman Ojha have allowed them to
carry an underperforming batting unit. Only Bundela, apart from Ojha, has
managed more than 300 runs this season. More than half of Mohnish Mishra’s
263 runs came in his crucial hundred against Bengal.Mukesh Sahni, the coach, admitted that his batsmen have not clicked
together. “It’s not that they have not made runs,” Sahni said. “But when
one of them has scored, the others haven’t and so on. All of them have
been hitting the ball well in the nets. But scoring runs in the middle is
different. I have been telling them, ‘this is the moment. All of you have
to come good in this game.'”While Mumbai’s depleted attack might not seem threatening, they have the
pedigree of Dhawal Kulkarni and Ramesh Powar to test MP, who are banking
on Sudhindra and Pandey to make inroads. “Medium-pace bowling is our
strength,” Bundela said. “Our bowlers have taken wickets both at home and
away.”Sudhindra said that while making the semi-finals by getting past a side
like Mumbai would be very satisfying, it would pale in comparison if MP
actually manage to win the Ranji Trophy for the first time.

The limited-overs series between Australia and England will turn into one continuous flood-relief effort, as the situation worsens in parts of south-east Queensland

Brydon Coverdale12-Jan-2011The limited-overs series between Australia and England will turn into one continuous flood-relief effort, as the situation worsens in parts of south-east Queensland. Twelve people have died in the floods but that number is likely to rise, and up to 20,000 homes are expected to be inundated in the state capital, Brisbane.The Australia and England teams will be collecting donations in the crowd at the Adelaide Twenty20 international and it will be the first of many fundraising drives during the series. England’s players will donate part of their match fees for the first Twenty20 to the flood relief appeal, as will their Australian counterparts, while Kevin Pietersen is keen to auction a shirt and bat he used during the Ashes to assist the flood victims, and Cricket Australia has donated $100,000 to flood relief.Shane Warne and Darren Gough are also becoming involved, tweeting their interest in setting up a “legends” Twenty20 match to help raise funds. Cricket New South Wales will donate all gate receipts from their Big Bash match against Queensland on January 29, the day before the Brisbane ODI, which Queensland Cricket remains hopeful will go ahead.”It’s been really heartening to see how many people are so willing to stop and do something to help,” Cricket Australia’s spokesman Peter Young said. “Everyone is feeling the pain. It’s really heartening to get calls from clubs in the community who are having sausage sizzles, and they’re saying ‘where do we send the money?’ We have a program called Cricket Cares. What’s been demonstrated today is that cricket does care.”We decided a week or so ago that we, Commonwealth Bank and Channel Nine would run a fundraiser during the Brisbane ODI, on January 30. Given the deteriorating situation with the floods, we’ve decided to broaden that, so we’re starting the fundraising tonight at the international T20 in Adelaide and we’ll run fundraising through the matches culminating in the match at Brisbane.”The offices of Queensland Cricket in Brisbane have been sandbagged and the state’s staff were working from home on Wednesday, as the city was in the grip of a major natural disaster. The Brisbane River was expected to peak at 5.5 metres on Thursday, which would be the worst flooding in the city in more than a century.

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has cancelled the no-objection certificates that it had given all its players for the third season of the IPL

Cricinfo staff29-Jan-2010The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has ruled out the participation of its players in IPL 2010 and has revoked the no-objection certificates (NOCs) granted to its players.”No Pakistani player will go to the IPL this time,” Ijaz Butt, the PCB chairman, told Cricinfo. “Why should we allow them to go? They didn’t pick any of the players and it was an insult to us. Why should we let one or two players go? We will not take this lying down.”Butt’s statement seems to have shut the door on the issue, though a PCB release issued minutes earlier held out some hope.”All NOCs issued to Pakistani players for their participation in IPL 3 stand revoked,” the PCB statement said. “In the future if any player receives an invitation for participation in IPL events, PCB will decide the matter on a case-to-case basis after consulting the relevant government authorities.”The decision came after Pakistani players were ignored at the player auction for the third edition held in Mumbai. Of the 11 players in the IPL’s final auction list of 66, none were bought by any franchise.That sparked outrage in Pakistan and led to statements on both sides – including one from India’s home minister – regretting the blackout of Pakistani players at the auction. There has also been a warning issued by a regional party in Mumbai warning against Pakistanis being hired by the franchises, but recent reports indicated that Pakistani players could play a role in the next IPL season.One player, allrounder Abdul Razzaq, has also been linked to two franchises though officials of both franchises deny any specific deal has been concluded.The participation of Pakistani players in the third IPL season has been a subject of much controversy for the past three months, with some element of confusion over rules and eligibility. It was thought, when their names were included on the auction shortlist earlier this month, that the issue had been resolved but events at the January 19 auction suggest they are taking a new turn.

Chasing 181 to draw level in the Ashes, England collapsed from 120 for 5 to lose by 21 runs

Alex Malcolm14-Jan-2025England captain Heather Knight believes her side needs to be braver with the bat following a calamitous collapse for 159 in the second ODI in Melbourne to hand Australia a four-point lead in the Ashes.England slumped from 68 for 2 and 120 for 5 to be bowled out 21 short of Australia’s 180. Their shot selection and execution was so woeful that Australia could afford to drop four catches and still win.There was a moment late in the match that will be scrutinised when set batter Amy Jones was 47 not out with England needing 21 off 13 with one wicket in hand.Jones had a free-hit off the final ball of the 48th over, which had to be bowled by Tahlia McGrath because Annabel Sutherland was removed from the attack for bowling two high full tosses in the over. Jones skied a ball to deep square and did not run, either forgetting it was the last ball of the over or forgetting it was a free-hit.That left No.11 Lauren Bell on strike at the start of the 49th over. Bell had survived 15 balls for one run but could not keep out her 16th as Megan Schutt rattled her off stump to seal Australia’s victory.But Knight was supportive of Jones in the aftermath, suggesting the rest of the batting needed to be braver.”It’s frustrating,” Knight told BBC TMS. “I feel like it was there for the taking. The wickets cost us. We need to be braver with the bat.”Amy was great at keeping us in the game. She was trying to face the majority of the balls and picking up boundaries when she could. Amy got us close but unfortunately just not close enough.”We’re really close. We just need to do a few things better in a few areas and need to be braver with the bat.”Alice Capsey fell lbw for 14 off 35 balls to Kim Garth•Getty Images

Knight’s assessment was slightly at odds with Alice Capsey’s in the post-match press conference. Capsey and Jones had steadied the innings after England were 84 for 5. The pair added 36 but took 77 balls to score them against some disciplined bowling. England then lost 3 for 5 in four overs and the required run-rate climbed to five for the first time in the chase.Capsey was asked whether she and Jones could have taken calculated risks to spread the field more as Australia kept extra fielders in the ring to apply pressure.”Potentially, we could have put the bowlers off their lines and lengths a little bit more,” Capesy said. “That’s something that we’ll have to reflect on. But in that situation, how we thought best to play the situation was to play the ball on merit. We knew that we were going to get balls to rotate the strike, and we knew that we were going to get some bad balls as well to punish. The difference between balls and runs required were big enough that, especially for me and Jonesy anyway, when we’re reacting to the ball instinctively and just playing the ball on merit, that’s us at our best.”So I didn’t think that we needed to over complicate things. In that situation, if we lost an extra wicket or too early, then maybe we get criticised for taking an extra shot too early. So in that situation, it’s kind of a no-win.”Capsey believes England can bounce back despite only having two days to prepare before Friday’s third ODI in Hobart.”There’ll be a lot of reflection, there’ll be a lot of disappointment tonight,” Capsey said. “But as soon as we kind of get back into our plans and reflecting and seeing what we could have done better, analysing it all … once we get to Hobart it’s a new day and we go again and we go at them, go at them just as hard as we can, and just keep trying to focus on ourselves. We can’t control what they do, but what we can do is we can control how we plan, how we prepare and what we want to do when we go on to the pitch.”

Australia captain in awe of extraordinary one-man fightback in Mumbai

Andrew Miller07-Nov-2023Pat Cummins hailed Glenn Maxwell’s unbeaten double-century against Afghanistan as “the greatest ODI innings that’s ever happened”, as Australia booked their place in the World Cup semi-finals thanks to an astonishing one-man fightback in Mumbai.Chasing 292 for victory, Australia had slumped to 91 for 7 in the 19th over, before Maxwell and Cummins came together in an unbroken eighth-wicket stand of 202 – a record partnership that was made all the more remarkable by Maxwell’s near-incapacitation with cramp midway through his innings.With Cummins holding up an end for his unbeaten 12 from 68 balls, Maxwell cracked a total of 21 fours and 10 sixes in his 128-ball stay, including a succession of extraordinary swats across the line as he trusted his eye to clear the ropes while his legs were unable to move.On several occasions, it seemed he might be forced to retire hurt, with Adam Zampa padded up on the boundary’s edge to replace him, but Maxwell regained sufficient mobility to finish the chase in glorious fashion – with a volley of six, six, four, six off Mujeeb Ur Rahman, the last of which allowed him to become the first Australian, and ninth man overall, to reach 200 in an ODI innings.Asked how he was feeling after his exertions, Maxwell said at the Player-of-the-Match presentation: “Horrific! I feel shocking! It was obviously quite hot when we’re fielding today, and I haven’t really done a whole lot of high-intensity exercise in the heat, and it certainly got a hold of me today.”We came out with a plan to stay at the same end for a little bit until I could get some movement back, and luckily enough I was able to stick it out to the end.”Having already made a World Cup-record 40-ball hundred against Netherlands, Maxwell played down his performance, partly because he required a significant slice of early fortune before he could produce his match-turning knock.He arrived at the crease in the ninth over to face a hat-trick ball from a pumped-up Azmatullah Omarzai, and duly survived a review for lbw after edging a pinpoint delivery off the line of his off stump, but required several further chances before he found his range.On 27, he successfully overturned an lbw appeal from Noor Ahmad that was shown to be slipping over the top of his stumps, but in the same over, he was badly dropped by Mujeeb at short backward square, a reprieve that would have left Australia down and out at 112 for 8.