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Opener Sam Robson’s stunning career best 169 not out off 139 balls helped Middlesex chase 388 – the highest ever successful List A run chase in England – to beat Durham by five wickets in a thrilling Metro Bank One Day Cup clash at the Banks Homes Riverside.Durham pair Alex Lees and David Bedingham hit contrasting centuries in their imposing 387 for 4. Having been inserted, it was the county’s highest ever home total in this format.Captain and opener Lees batted through for 138 not out off 132 balls and South African Bedingham blazed 107 off 67 with eight sixes. But it wasn’t enough to prevent a second defeat in four Group B matches.Robson, like Lees, batted with controlled aggression and was the cornerstone of a remarkable chase in perfect batting conditions, achieved in 48 overs. Middlesex won their second game in three to boost hopes of a top-three finish.A handful of counties have posted higher second-innings totals in List A matches, but no one had bettered Worcestershire’s successful pursuit of 377 to beat Leicestershire at New Road in 2018. Until today.Both teams lost a wicket in their first over.New-ball seamer Toby Roland-Jones bowled Emilio Gay for a golden duck with a beauty two balls into a sun-soaked contest. He was the day’s standout bowler with 1 for 43 from 10 overs.Much to the bemusement of representatives from both counties, India opener Yashasvi Jaiswal sat in Durham’s fan zone prior to the game.Leg-side dominant, Lees hit his two sixes over midwicket and wide long-on and shared 141 for the second wicket with in-form Will Rhodes from 1 for 1 in the opening over. Rhodes contributed a well-paced 63.While Lees became the first Durham player to score centuries in the County Championship, T20 Blast and One Day Cup in the same season, Bedingham was much more aggressive – vicious on the pull and down the ground.Lees was on 71 when Bedingham came to the crease, and there was a brief moment when the South African could have reached his hundred first. However, Lees got there off 106 balls, followed by Bedingham’s off 65.Luke Hollman took a superb catch at long-on to help teenaged seamer Jamie Feldman remove Bedingham at 289 for 3 in the 42nd over, though both sides were loose in the field.Colin Ackermann crashed 53 off 27 balls to give Durham the advantage at halfway.However, Middlesex responded in kind en-route to their highest List A total.Joe Cracknell was caught behind down leg pulling at Ben Raine.But, from 2 for 1, Robson and Josh De Caires advanced in dynamic fashion by sharing 120 inside 16 overs. The latter had contributed 63 off 48 balls when he was caught behind reverse sweeping against George Drissell’s off-spin.Middlesex reached 200 for 3 after 28 overs, by which time Durham’s new fast-bowling signing Archie Bailey had uprooted the middle stump of captain Ben Geddes for 24.Former England Test opener Robson, aged 36, was strong on both sides of the wicket without hitting a six until his side neared 300.The right-hander reached his fourth career century off 89 balls, by which time Middlesex were 237 for 3 in the 33rd over. Robson was in the midst of a 114 partnership with Jack Davies. Bailey bowled Davies for 61 off 42, at 280 for 4 in the 37th over, but Robson ploughed on.With 10 overs left, Middlesex needed 78, with Hollman now a helping hand. He contributed 47 to a near match-sealing partnership of 103 with Robson, who hit 19 fours and two sixes to record his county’s second-highest List A individual score.

In a blow for England, Nat Sciver-Brunt has been ruled out of the remainder of the ongoing five-match T20I series against India, where England are 2-1 down with two games to go. Maia Bouchier has replaced Sciver-Brunt in the squad, while Tammy Beaumont will continue to lead the side.Sciver-Brunt had initially been ruled out of only the third T20I – which England won under Beaumont’s captaincy on Friday to claw back in the series after defeats in the first two games – but scans have since confirmed that her left-groin injury wouldn’t mend in time for her to take part in the series at all. Making the announcement, the ECB said Sciver-Brunt “is expected to be available for selection” for the three-match ODI series that will follow the T20Is.Sciver-Brunt had led in the first two games, which India won by 97 runs courtesy a Smriti Mandhana century and by 24 runs after 63 each from Jemimah Rodrigues and Amanjot Kaur, and Sciver-Brunt didn’t bowl at all in those two games. That she wouldn’t bowl was decided prior to the series by the team management in a bid to manage her workload, and she contributed with the bat in the first game, where her 42-ball 66 was the only effort of note in England’s 113 all out. She picked up the injury during the second game, where she scored 13.When Beaumont was asked before the third T20I about Sciver-Brunt’s possible availability for the last two games, she had said, “That’s something we don’t know just yet, our medical team are doing all they can. She’s got a scan today, so we’ll know more, but I think it’s in the balance for Manchester. But, whether it’s one game or a couple, I’m just hoping to put my hand up for the team and do the best I can, and will welcome Nat back with open arms whenever she’s fit.”In Sciver-Brunt’s absence, Beaumont led England to victory in what was her first match as captain in her 247th international match. She was chosen to lead England despite Sophia Dunkley being the designated vice-captain because of her greater experience at the highest level.The fourth and fifth T20Is will be played on Wednesday (Manchester) and on Saturday (Birmingham).

Bangladesh’s fast-bowling coach Shaun Tait feels that his seamers could not make the best use of the first new ball against Sri Lanka on the third day of the Galle Test.After Bangladesh finished their first innings on 495, Hasan Mahmud and Nahid Rana opened the bowling but couldn’t make a breakthrough. Mahmud bowled six overs with the new ball and Rana seven in two short spells as Bangladesh had a fast bowler operating from one end till the 20th over. But it was Taijul Islam who got the first wicket, in the 13th. By stumps, Sri Lanka had sped to 368 for 4, reducing the deficit to 127.”It is a good batting wicket, and it was difficult conditions for fast bowlers today,” Tait said. “They toiled hard. They gave effort. We could have started better with the first new ball. We probably missed out. They know that. That’s all you can ask for. You bowl on a different day on a different wicket, you get a different result. We batted for two days. It is one of those good batting wickets.Related

• Nissanka 187 leads SL's strong reply to Bangladesh's 495

“I think they batted really well. Sri Lanka are no pushovers. This is the team that was competing for the WTC final. They are a good side with good batters. The pacers missed a trick with the new ball. It would have been nice if they had taken a couple of wickets with the new ball but I am not going to be negative.”Sri Lanka forced the issue, particularly Pathum Nissanka with a career-best 187. He struck 23 fours and a six in his 256-ball stay. The Galle pitch typically starts helping spinners from the third day but that was not the case in this Test.”I think the wicket is pretty good,” he said. “It hasn’t changed a great deal. Today was a good batting day, we saw that. It probably hasn’t spun as much as maybe people thought it would on the third day.Pathum Nissanka’s century was his third in Test cricket•Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP/Getty Images

“Normally, Galle starts to turn a bit more. It turned a little but nothing significant. There are still a couple of days left. Test cricket can change pretty quickly. There’s hard work to be done.”With Mehidy Hasan Miraz out with illness, Bangladesh played just four frontline bowlers, which has made their task difficult. Rana, who is playing only his eighth Test, was particularly expensive as he tried to bowl attacking lines and lengths. He went for 80 from his 16 wicketless overs, but Tait said it was up to him to work with the youngster.”Anyone who bowls that pace should get the new ball from time to time,” he said. “I don’t know, going forward, who is going to take the new ball. This is my first Test [as fast-bowling coach]. We have two fast bowlers. He has to take the new ball. He is absolutely fine [taking the new ball].”It is early in his career. He burst onto the scene. There’s a lot of attention and expectation on him. I don’t know if Bangladesh have ever had a fast bowler as exciting as him. There’s a little bit of pressure on him from the media and public. It is up to me to work through that with him as the bowling coach. It is not just about the bowling all the time. It is also how you deal with the extra pressure of being a young superstar.”Towards the end of the day, Mahmud made some amends by dismissing Nissanka with the second new ball. He set up Nissanka with the one that went away before bowling him through the gate with a big inswinger.”He struck the middle stump – it was a good ball,” Tait said. “You have to take little wins to the shed on this wicket. At the end of the day, it is a positive.”

Bella James has been ruled out of New Zealand’s ODI series at home against Sri Lanka with a grade-two quadricep strain on her right leg. She is expected to require between three and six weeks of rehabilitation and has been replaced by Lauren Down. A decision on James’ availability for the T20I series that follows will be taken based on her rehabilitation.James sustained the injury during Otago’s game against Central Districts in the Hallyburton Johnstone Shield, New Zealand’s women’s one-day competition. James made her ODI debut against Australia in Wellington last year and scored 51 runs in two games.Head coach Ben Sawyer was disappointed that she won’t be able to build on that “strong start” against Sri Lanka.Related

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“We’re all gutted for Bella,” Sawyer said. “She had a strong start to her international cricket career in December so it’s a shame she doesn’t get the opportunity to back that up this series. But we’re hopeful she’ll be tracking to return for the T20s.”The three-match ODI series will begin on March 4 in Nelson before moving to Napier for the next two games, and will be followed by three T20Is from March 14 to March 18.Down is currently Auckland’s third-highest scorer in the Hallyburton Johnstone Shield, with 280 runs in ten games at an average of 31.11. The 29-year-old was part of the Australia series and has played 35 ODIs, which Sawyer said made her a “strong replacement”.”Lauren brings plenty of experience to the group,” Sawyer said. “She’s been a key contributor for the [Auckland] Hearts this season and we’re pleased she’ll get the opportunity to take that form into this series.”

Sean Williams just wants “to show the kids that bravery is okay, and you can”, after hitting a career-best 154 in the Boxing Day Test against Afghanistan in Bulawayo.Williams’ hundred and his 163-run fifth-wicket stand with captain Craig Ervine propelled Zimbabwe to their highest Test score in 30 years, and he hopes it will instil a sense of belief in a team that has not won a Test since March 2021.”If I can lead by action, and not with my mouth, I think the kids will grow from that very fast,” Williams said after the first day’s play. “They’ll start to do the similar things and start to do the same things off the field as well as on the field. And that for me is probably the best I can do as a senior player, and also keep that discipline and professionalism in place.”Related

• Stats – Zimbabwe (586), Afghanistan (699) reach record highs in Bulawayo run-fest

• Williams praises Curran's 'intent' as Zimbabwe find scoring touch

• Williams' 145* leads Zimbabwe's domination against Afghanistan

Zimbabwe’s current XI has three debutants – Ben Curran, who scored a half-century, Newman Nyamhuri and Trevor Gwandu – and three other players – Joylord Gumbie, Takudzwanashe Kaitano and Brian Bennett – in just their second Tests. That makes Williams, with 19 years of international experience to his name, their most experienced player (in terms of time, as Ervine has more Test caps) who is keen to lead proactively.Not only did Williams score big, but he scored quick. His hundred came off 115 balls and his next 54 runs off 59 deliveries as he took on the Afghanistan bowling to dominate on his home ground in what he described as a “historic day”.This is only the second time Zimbabwe are hosting a Boxing Day Test after 1996, when it was hosted in Harare. It is only the fourth time they are playing in one and it’s Williams’ first. All that has only made his achievement more special.”Being able to get a hundred on a day like this is a very big thing,” he said. “We used to wake up early in the morning to watch Boxing Day Test matches and it’s finally here at home.”The “we” refers to his father Colin, who passed away in April 2022 and to whom Williams dedicated his achievement, and his brothers Michael and Matthew. But it might also be about other aspiring Zimbabwe cricketers, who grew up turning on television sets to watch Boxing Days Tests being played in neighbouring South Africa and at the MCG and wondering if they would ever get the opportunity to enjoy an occasion like that first-hand. The irony is not lost in the fact that matches in those two places were taking place at the same time, and have attracted much more attention than the goings-on at Queens Park, where there has also been a fair amount of drama.Williams was on 124 when he was given out caught after a Zahir Khan delivery carried off his pad to a slip fielder. He started walking before the square-leg umpire opted to check for a bump ball and he was called back to continue batting.”I was actually a little bit angry with myself because as a batter, you stand your ground. Even though you’ve been given out, I feel you have the right to stand your ground for them to go and check. I didn’t do that,” Williams said. “I started walking off, trusting the umpire’s call, even though I knew I wasn’t out. But, luckily, the square-leg umpire went across and said, ‘you know, I think we should check this one’. It was a big emotional turnaround from that point, because I had worked so hard.”Sean Williams only added nine runs on the second morning before falling to Naveed Zadran•Zimbabwe Cricket

He ended the day on 145 not out and was hopeful of going on to his first double-hundred but only added nine runs on the second morning before falling to a short-ball plan. Still, it does not detract from the immense form he has held for almost five years. Since January 2020, Williams has played six Tests, scored four hundreds and averages 88.75. That’s a result of what he continuously references as “intent” but actually sounds more like the work he has done to stimulate deep concentration such as cold-water plunging and turning domestic matches into pressure situations to test himself.”Having intent doesn’t start at Test level,” he said. “It actually starts at the franchise level, where I try to create my own pressure, to be able to play the way I’m going to play at an international level. So I will do something at franchise level, where I’m putting myself under pressure, so that I’m constantly training hard. And in a match situation, it’s even better, because you have the pressures, you’ve created them for yourself, and then you grow from that.”Already, Williams and Zimbabwe have shown they can deal with the pressure of a varied Afghanistan attack. Their next challenge is to see if they can drive their advantage home, to make even more history.

Mitchell Santner, never more than three wickets in an innings or six in a match, bowled New Zealand to a historic win in Pune with match figures of 13 for 157, the third-best by any visiting bowler in India. He bowled 29 overs on the trot for six wickets in the second innings to go with his unbroken spell of 19.3 overs in the first innings for 7 for 53 to give New Zealand their first series win in India and India their first home series defeat since 2012.Despite a sore side, Santner missed just one over from his end since he started bowling in the first innings. He was instrumental in intercepting India’s audacious bid for a chase of 359, which was fuelled by Yashasvi Jaiswal’s 77 off 65 that took India to 96 for 1 at better than a run a ball. Santner had little support from the other end as Ajaz Patel’s ordinary series continued and Glenn Phillips mixed easy deliveries with good ones.Santner kept beating the batters in the air with his dip and changes in pace and angle, and registered his first ten-wicket haul in first-class cricket in the process. It was an absolutely necessary intervention because India were on an almighty roll after triggering a 5 for 24 collapse with the ball and then a sensational start to the chase by Jaiswal. Things became so desperate that New Zealand burnt two reviews on Jaiswal.In the morning, needing a perfect session to prevent the door from being slammed in their face, India started with the experienced duo of Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin instead of the form bowler Washington Sundar, who had taken 11 of the 15 New Zealand wickets up to that point.It didn’t start well for India. The first ball from Ashwin produced an edge that Rohit Sharma didn’t go for. Tom Blundell and Phillips added a quick 33 to the overnight score. That Jadeja turned the ball big at a pace in the mid-90s was only a promising sign for New Zealand. Even full balls were difficult to hit out as Santner and Ajaz discovered with catches in the deep.Yashasvi Jaiswal pulled the second ball of the innings for six on his way to a 65-ball 77•AFP/Getty Images

Before that, though, India needed a breakthrough, which arrived with a natural variation that went past Blundell’s inside edge. That it was Jadeja’s first wicket of the match emphasised where India lost the match: a rare outbowling of two of their greatest match-winners, who had brought them 18 consecutive series wins at home.It was no surprise that India came out swinging with the bat after they had been pinned to the crease in the first innings. Jaiswal drove at a wide length ball first up, but the edge fell just short of gully. It didn’t stop him from flicking the second ball for a six, the first of his three, which took him level on the record for most sixes in a calendar year. He employed both the sweep and the charge at the spinners to mess with the bowlers’ lengths. The margin for error was almost non-existent as he hit out at Tim Southee, Ajaz and Phillips. His extra-cover drive for a six off Phillips on this pitch was a jaw-dropping shot.It is not often that New Zealand spinners bowl them to a Test win on their own. Here Santner was being asked to do it on own having never taken more than three wickets in a Test innings before this Test. He was the only one who maintained some control during the Jaiswal onslaught.Santner got the better of Rohit first as he got the ball to dip on him and the extra bounce got the bat-pad dismissal. Shubman Gill, who had got stuck on the crease with Jaiswal in the first innings, came out attacking, and the two added 62 in under ten overs to leave New Zealand nervous.It’s not that the pitch had eased out. The intent of the batters left the bowlers under intense pressure, and every small error was being punished. In essence, though, all the spinners had to do was draw consistent forward-defensive prods from the batters without getting driven. The moment Santner started doing that, he started creating chances. Then he bowled flatter while still being full, pushing Gill back and taking the edge with the turn for the first of two sharp catches for Daryl Mitchell at slip.Rishabh Pant, attempting a non-existent single, was run out as India’s collapse gathered steam•BCCI

The next one was Jaiswal, a classic turning-pitch dismissal. The first part of it was to find a spot that Jaiswal could neither go back to nor drive from. Then the first ball turned big to beat his inside edge, and the next one went straight on to take the edge for Mitchell. Not a mean wicket to bring up your first ten-wicket haul.Rishabh Pant then paid the price for not saying no. Virat Kohli played one behind square and started running. The ball had gone to Santner’s left. Pant had every right to send Kohli back, but he ran through. Not even a dive was enough to get him in.It was like Santner didn’t have a side strain to nurse. Between overs, he would keep stretching, but swooped in on balls in his vicinity and you couldn’t take the ball away from him. He made Kohli play back to a fullish ball, which trapped him lbw. Sarfaraz Khan fell to a slow teasing ball that turned and hit off stump.Phillips finally got on the board when Will Young pulled off a stunning catch at short leg to send back India’s hero of the match, Washington. Ashwin and Jadeja looked the most comfortable batting pair as they added 39 for the eighth wicket, teasing India with the question of what if they hadn’t lost so many wickets by the time the older softer ball stopped behaving wildly.It was Santner who broke the partnership by luring Ashwin into a drive and taking the edge to Mitchell. The wait for the final wickets was frustrating but it came through outfield catches off Ajaz, who ended up protecting his record for the best match figures for a visiting bowler in India.

An inspired Mohammad Hasnain led Panthers to a rout of Markhors in the Champions One-Day Cup final in Faisalabad. Hasnain took three wickets to extend his lead at the top of the wickets charts to 17 – no one else has more than ten – while Arafat Minhas registered remarkable figures of 2.4-1-1-3 to skittle Iftikhar Ahmed’s Markhors for 122.It took Shadab Khan’s men just 18 overs to knock off the runs, as a tournament that had seen all but one game end in victory for the side batting first reversed the script dramatically in the final.Markhors won the toss and batted, but ran into early trouble when Zain Abbas nicked off in the third over, with Kamran Ghulam following cheaply soon after. Fakhar Zaman and Haseebullah Khan appeared to be steering the ship back on course with a 56-run partnership that had the Markhors respectably placed at 82 for 2.Once that stand was broken, though, Markhors imploded. Offspinner Sajid Khan cleaned Haseebullah up with an arm ball before drawing a miscue from Fakhar.Hasnain returned to remove captain Iftikhar and Abdul Samad in quick succession, and the Panthers were into the tail. Minhas and Shadab made short work of them, with the Markhors losing their last eight wickets for 40 runs in 91 deliveries to finish with the smallest first-innings total in the entire competition.Umar Siddiq and Abdul Bangalzai broke the back of the chase early, bringing up the 50-partnership in seven overs. Bangalzai’s 43-ball 41 took the pressure off before Markhors began to chip away with wickets. Shahnawaz Dahani cleaned up Siddiq before Akif Javed and Mohammad Imran split four wickets amongst them, but by that time, the result was little more than a formality.Unbeaten cameos from Shadab and Rizwan Mehmood put together an undefeated 29-run partnership in three overs to finish the game and seal the inaugural Champions One-Day Cup title for Panthers.

On a day that many rhythms of Test cricket in India were meddled with, one incontrovertible truth of India’s recent dominant era remained steadfast: teams can compete with the India batters but don’t have the depth to outdo their lower-middle order. Who knows if Chennai boy R Ashwin, who turned 38 two days before the Test, will play another Test in Chennai? Or indeed the Chennai Super King Ravindra Jadeja? If it is their last, they started the first day in style, rescuing India from 144 for 6 with an unbroken 195-run partnership.Among the two nearly inseparable spin twins, Ashwin was the better batter on the day as he scored his sixth Test hundred, leaving his fellow Chennai people in awe at the rasping shots whose sound reverberated in the stands. Jadeja wasn’t much behind, though, ending the day unbeaten on 86.The pain of watching an Indian seventh wicket breaking their hearts might not be something new for Bangladesh but the way they got to the seventh wicket was unlike any other Test day in recent memory. For the first time in seven years, a side chose to bowl in a Test in India involving India. Even India said they would have done the same. And not because the preparation of the pitch had been hampered by rain: this slightly green, damp pitch was created by design during a week in which temperature records have been broken in Chennai.The overcast sky only reassured the sides it was worth risking batting last in India. Then a Vernon Philander-like, wobble-seam line-and-length bowler, Hasan Mahmud, wrecked the top order with gentle seam movement. India recovered briefly from 34 for 3, thanks to some ordinary bowling around Mahmud, but Bangladesh came back in the second session to take three more quick wickets.Then Ashwin started driving, and punching and pulling and slogging. Jadeja joined. And a whole new game unfolded. Until then Mahmud controlled India. Even when Taskin Ahmed and tearaway Nahid Rana wasted the new ball by bowling too short or too full, Mahmud was unerring. Rohit Sharma was tested thoroughly with seam movement either way before he edged one to second slip. Shubman Gill feathered one down the leg side, but he never looked at ease in his eight-ball stay. Virat Kohli came out full of intent, but that carries a big risk, which ended in an edge away from the body.2:12

What’s special Mahmud’s opening spell in Chennai?

Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rishabh Pant, playing his first Test in nearly 700 days, then added 62 for the fourth wicket against some indifferent bowling. Jaiswal made this his sixth straight home Test in which he has gone past 50. Pant began to look dangerous and by lunch India had wrested the initiative. After lunch, though, Pant fell to an afterthought of a cut shot, a stroke of luck for the persistent Mahmud.Taskin and Rana then chipped in with a much better session. The ball still seamed around, although not as much as the first session, and they presented a sterner test by bowling the good length. Rana eventually did Jaiswal in with extra pace, nicking him off, and the serene-looking KL Rahul fell to a stunning catch by Zakir Hasan at short leg.While Mehidy Hasan Miraz might have got that big wicket of Rahul, the spinners generally failed to provide any control to the Bangladesh captain Najmul Hasan. In effect, he never had a complete attack to operate with. Mahmud kept them in single-handedly in the first session, and when the other quicks got their act together, they didn’t have spinners keeping them fresh.Related

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It is easy to say all that, but at 144 for 6, it takes some doing to expose this lack of depth. Ashwin began that as soon as he walked to huge cheers; in fact the cheers started as soon as Rahul fell, a treatment reserved only for batters preceding Tendulkar and Kohli. He got a single first ball, and then punched the pace of Rana for a four second ball.There have been many rescue acts carried out by Ashwin and Jadeja, but none so emphatic. There was some flair to how Ashwin batted, staying on the back foot, meeting balls at the top of the bounce, and crashing them through covers and square leg. Jadeja played more of an old-fashioned knock, opening up only after getting himself in, but never missing out on a scoring opportunity. Ashwin, though, batted like he had never been out of Chepauk.As the ball got softer, as the runs began to flow, the field had to spread, and the spinners kept providing easy boundaries. At various points, the two had looking at each other in awe. When Ashwin ramped the pace of Rana over slips for four, Jadeja looked like he was fortunate to have the best seat in the house. Ashwin returned the compliment at one flat slog-sweep from Jadeja. If the edge did arrive, Bangladesh had lost any rights to have enough catchers in place.Six minutes before stumps, Ashwin got to his hundred in just 108 balls to send the home crowd into raptures. Jadeja celebrated it with a drilled boundary back over the bowler in the same over to enter the 80s. Just a gentle reminder that it wasn’t all over, and Bangladesh will have to face them again on day two.

Allrounder Samit Dravid has been selected in India’s Under-19 squad for the first time, for the multi-format home series against Australia Under-19 in September and October.Mohamed Amaan, a middle-order batter from Uttar Pradesh, has been named captain of the 50-over squad, while Madhya Pradesh’s Soham Patwardhan will lead the team for the four-day matches.Dravid, the son of former India captain and coach Rahul Dravid, recently played his first senior men’s T20 tournament – the Maharaja T20 Trophy – in Karnataka, where he is part of the Mysuru Warriors squad.Batting in the middle-order, Dravid scored 82 runs at a strike rate of 114 in seven innings but was not called upon to bowl his medium pace. On the day the junior selectors announced India’s Under-19 squad, Mysuru Warriors were due to play the semi-final of the tournament.Earlier this year, Dravid, 18, played a significant role in Karnataka winning the Cooch Behar Trophy, a four-day format tournament for under-19 cricketers. He scored 362 runs and took 16 wickets in eight matches, including two scalps in the final against Mumbai.India Under-19 will play three 50-over games against Australia Under-19 in Puducherry on September 21, 23 and 26, followed by two four-day games in Chennai starting on September 30 and October 7.

India U-19 50-over squad

Rudra Patel (vc)(GCA), Sahil Parakh (MAHCA), Kartikeya KP (KSCA), Mohamed Amaan (capt) (UPCA), Kiran Chormale (MAHCA), Abhigyan Kundu (wk) (MCA), Harvansh Singh Pangalia (wk) (SCA), Samit Dravid (KSCA), Yudhajit Guha (CAB), Samarth N (KSCA), Nikhil Kumar (UTCA), Chetan Sharma (RCA), Hardik Raj (KSCA), Rohit Rajawat (MPCA), Mohammed Enaan (KCA)

India U-19 squad four-day squad

Vaibhav Suryavanshi (Bihar CA), Nitya Pandya (BCA), Vihan Malhotra (vc) (PCA), Soham Patwardhan (capt) (MPCA), Kartikeya KP (KSCA), Samit Dravid (KSCA), Abhigyan Kundu (wk) (MCA), Harvansh Singh Pangalia (wk) (SCA), Chetan Sharma (RCA), Samarth N (KSCA), Aditya Rawat (CAU), Nikhil Kumar (UTCA), Anmoljeet Singh (PCA), Aditya Singh (UPCA), Mohammed Enaan (KCA)

The uncertainty around the future of Pakistan white-ball captain Babar Azam as well as the fate of the selection committee lingers as head coach Gary Kirsten and selector Wahab Riaz submitted their tour reports to PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi following Pakistan’s disappointing T20 World Cup campaign. Pakistan were dumped out of the tournament after just three games, with defeats to the USA and India proving terminal to their campaign.The end of Pakistan’s World Cup was followed by a fierce – and a somewhat frenzied – backlash in the country. The selection committee of seven, widely viewed as being de facto headed by Wahab, was one of its central targets, while a perceived tactical ineptitude and culture of conservatism under the captaincy of Babar has also come under scrutiny. There remain unanswered questions about the selection of the squad itself, particularly around the continued non-selection of specialist legspinner Abrar Ahmed despite Shadab Khan’s indifferent form.Related

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However, as ESPNcricinfo reported last month, the PCB has chosen to take its time before launching into any major decisions. Pakistan do not have a white-ball engagement until November, allowing the PCB to wait till Kirsten and Wahab – who was also the senior team manager for the tournament – handed in their reports.It is understood the PCB remains open to a change of captaincy, though sticking with Babar has also not been conclusively ruled out. This partly stems from a lack of obvious candidates to replace him; when Naqvi decided to sack Shaheen Shah Afridi, he ultimately returned to Babar – who had only been replaced a few weeks earlier. That was following yet another poor showing at an ICC event – the ODI World Cup in India in 2023.Now that Kirsten and Wahab have submitted their reports, any decisions regarding the “surgery” Naqvi had reportedly been prepared to conduct do theoretically move closer. However, the PCB has consistently refused to put a timeline on any action, insisting they wish to make a considered decision rather than a quick one.