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England women orchestrated two mini-collapses – one at the start and one in the middle-overs – to secure victory over Australia women in the second ODI at Hove and draw level

ESPNcricinfo staff23-Aug-2013
ScorecardKatherine Brunt picked up two wickets, including that of top-scorer Jess Cameron•Getty ImagesEngland’s bowlers orchestrated two mini-collapses – one at the start and one in the middle-overs – to secure victory over Australia in the second ODI at Hove and draw level in the Ashes. Jess Cameron tried her best to keep Australia in the lead, but her lone stand of 81 was in vain.England’s defence of a 257-run target was near perfect as they dismissed Meg Lanning and Rachel Haynes for nought each. Cameron, coming in at No. 3, held one end steady and her 63-run partnership with Jodie Fields looked to put Australia back on the right track, but a spell of three wickets in five overs, beginning in the 29th with Jenny Gunn’s sharp return catch to remove Alex Blackwell, brought England back into the ascendancy.Jess Jonassen herded the tail during a run-a-ball 34 but she ran out of partners and Australia were bundled out in the 49th over. Seamer Kathrine Brunt and left-arm spinner Holly Colvin picked up two wickets each for England.Having won the toss, England put in a solid batting performance led by Charlotte Edwards, who scored her second fifty of the series, this time a match-winning effort.A 70-run stand between Edwards and Sarah Taylor was followed by a 77-run fourth-wicket partnership between Lydia Greenway and Arran Brindle that laid the foundation for the charge at the death as England made 41 runs off the last five overs. Left-arm spinner Jonassen continued her form with the ball, picking up 2 for 29 to go with the four wickets she took in the first game.Both teams have four points each heading into the third ODI on Sunday.

Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming has said he was “perfectly happy” with where MS Dhoni batted in the IPL final against Mumbai Indians and stated that the captain batted at No. 7 because he was there to win the game for the team

ESPNcricinfo staff27-May-2013Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming has said he was “perfectly happy” with where MS Dhoni batted in the IPL final against Mumbai Indians and stated that the captain batted at No. 7 because he was there to win the game for the team.Chasing 149 at the Eden Gardens, Super Kings were reeling at 3 for 3 within the first 10 balls, as they lost Michael Hussey, Suresh Raina and S Badrinath. But captain Dhoni came out to the middle only in the seventh over when they had lost two more wickets, of Dwayne Bravo and Ravindra Jadeja, with the score on 36, with Mumbai in control of the game.”He has a role to play,” Fleming said. “He was left not out at the end after recovering a pretty poor innings but the strength of the side is that we have key players that come in at key times and if you’ve watched most of the season you would have seen that.”Despite being unbeaten, Dhoni ran out of partners as wickets kept falling and the asking rate kept rising. His 45-ball 63, including five sixes, wasn’t enough as Super Kings fell short by 23 runs.”He is there to win the game for us,” Fleming said. “We have other players that should have put us in a position to win. They didn’t do that so he had to recover the situation. And hence he went in when he did. But I’m perfectly happy with where he batted.”Super Kings won 11 out of 16 league matches this season and won more matches than any other team away from home. But their franchise was affected by off-field issues after their top official, Gurunath Meiyappan, was arrested by Mumbai Police.”We actually had a pretty good IPL,” Fleming said. “It was…trouble-free up to the last week, [but] we as a team played very well. We’re usually inconsistent but we were probably the most consistent we’ve ever been and even in that semi-final we played well and deserved to be at the top.”I guess as a coach it’s very satisfying that we were able to maintain an element of consistency in a long and topsy-turvy tournament. But we just got through a lot in the last week and we didn’t respond that well and we would have loved to have responded well on the field but we were outplayed so hats off to Mumbai.”Super Kings played their fourth consecutive IPL final, and their fifth overall, but failed to get their hands on the trophy, like last year. Admitting to a lacklustre display in this year’s final, Fleming was keen to set the record straight next time.”Last year we lost when we played well, this year we lost playing poorly, well the batting side of it was poor. We’re still proud of making five out of six finals but we’d like to have won four out of five or three out of five, for sure. The fact that we won two is great but this certainly hurts and the goal now is to get into this situation again and try and rectify it.”Fleming was lavish in his praise for Mumbai’s bowling which routed Chennai to 39 for 6 in the eighth over. “I thought [Lasith] Malinga bowled an outstanding spell,” he said. “He took the new ball for them, which he hasn’t done for a while and they looked desperate. It was almost like they knew they were short of runs, that it was only a par score.”We just had to get through that first spell and it was something in the short break that we talked about and look with Mike Hussey, he got probably one of the best balls of the IPL and that certainly gives any side a lift and he has the same effect on us.”

The ECB has announced that the supermarket chain Waitrose will become the England team’s primary sponsor from 2014

ESPNcricinfo staff09-May-2013The ECB has announced that the supermarket chain Waitrose will become the England team’s primary sponsor from 2014. The three-year deal, reported to be worth around £20m, will see Waitrose’s logo replace that of Brit Insurance on all England kit.Brit had confirmed its intention not to renew its sponsorship arrangement last year and there had been a possibility that a new commercial backer could take over before the contract expired. However, Brit will remain associated with the England team throughout back-to-back Ashes series in 2013 and 2014, with Waitrose featuring on shirts for the visit of Sri Lanka next year.The move to a high street sponsor, rather than from the financial services industry, is aimed at increasing exposure among the general public. Waitrose, which is part of the John Lewis Partnership, has 291 branches throughout England, Wales and Scotland and the ECB chief executive, David Collier, said the deal would help English cricket to “engage further with a mass, family audience”.”We are delighted to welcome Waitrose as the new sole sponsor of our England teams,” Collier, said. “The organisation begins their relationship with the sport with one of our marquee partnerships, and as a brand with a rich history synonymous with quality, they are a perfect fit for the ECB and our values.The ECB’s commercial director John Perera added: “This partnership is especially pleasing for us as we welcome another high profile, high-street brand into our ever-expanding commercial partner family. I would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to Brit who has been an excellent and valued partner of the ECB since 2010, and will remain as Team Sponsor until April 2014.”Waitrose have invested in sports marketing previously and currently sponsor the Premier League football club Reading. They will be the fourth commercial name to appear on England shirts, after Tetley Bitter, Vodafone and Brit. “We currently export our products to a quarter of the world’s countries and associating Waitrose with this great national and international sport will enable us to build our brand globally,” Mark Price, managing director of Waitrose, said.

Jahurul Islam’s unbeaten 49 guided Duronto Rajshahi to their fifth win in the competition, against Sylhet Royals, who lost their second game this season by five wickets in Mirpur

The Report by Mohammad Isam05-Feb-2013
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsJahurul Islam, with his third significant knock in a row, took Rajshahi to a final-over win•AFPJahurul Islam’s unbeaten 49 guided Duronto Rajshahi to their fifth win in the competition, beating Sylhet Royals, who remain top of the table despite the defeat.Tamim Iqbal’s absence, after he hurt his left hand while fielding, made the chase of 148 appear more impressive. After Charles Coventry and Dilshan Munaweera gave Rajshahi a positive start, they lost four wickets quickly, and Jahurul faced a familiar task of steadying the innings.After Jahurul and Ziaur Rahman were separated in the 15th over, Jahurul added 46 off 29 balls with Mukhtar Ali to reach the target in the final over. Mukhtar was given more of the strike and the aggressive allrounder made the most of his opportunities as he struck two sixes and a four in his 17-ball 29.This was Jahurul’s third match-winning knock in a row: he scored 57 and 38 not out against Barisal Burners and Rangpur Riders before this match.The Rajshahi bowlers had also contributed to the win, with left-arm spinner Monir Hossain and Munaweera taking two wickets each. After a strong second-wicket partnership between Paul Stirling and Mushfiqur Rahim, who added added 51 runs, the Royals lost their way as they went for too many attacking strokes.Ben Edmondson, Naeem Islam jnr and Mukhtar took a wicket each, and helped Rajshahi restrict their opponents to 147. The seamers had made scoring difficult by changing the pace of their deliveries on a slow wicket.Mushfiqur and Stirling, who scored 34 and 24 respectively, were the highest scorers for the Royals as none of their big-hitters down the order contributed much.

ESPNcricinfo previews the match between Mumbai Indians and Delhi Daredevils at the Wankhede Stadium

The Preview by Abhishek Purohit08-Apr-2013Match factsTuesday, April 9, 2013
Start time 2000 (1430 GMT)Not a familiar sight for Mumbai fans•BCCIBig PictureThe last time Ricky Ponting played at Wankhede Stadium, he was leading Australia in a one-dayer against India. There was no IPL yet. Ponting made a half-century, and one can imagine the kind of reception he must have got from the Mumbai crowd, which has a ready ability to heckle visiting teams and captains. More than five years later, when Ponting walks out to the toss on Tuesday night, you can be sure there’ll be nothing hostile about the crowd’s behaviour towards the Mumbai Indians captain. It’ll be the franchise’s first home game of the season, and Wankhede will know, and respect, what it is witnessing when Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar walk out together.Not only will Mumbai be backed by the screaming hordes, they will also be lifted by the presence of their key bowler, Lasith Malinga, who is likely to be fit for his first match this season. Malinga should come in for one of Mitchell Johnson or Dwayne Smith.Mumbai had a batting failure against Chennai Super Kings, and were hauled back from the edge of defeat by an acrobatic catch from Kieron Pollard, who had bailed them out with an unbeaten fifty earlier in the game.Till the penultimate over against Rajasthan Royals, Delhi Daredevils were winning the game easily, David Warner having guided the chase sensibly. Then Warner was run out, and the rest choked. Daredevils have lost both matches so far, and will be hoping Virender Sehwag has recovered enough from his back troubles to play. Daredevils will also welcome back last season’s highest wicket-taker, Morne Morkel, and the feisty Roelof van der Merwe, who will join the squad after playing in South Africa’s domestic T20 final.Players to watchSachin Tendulkar has received many shocking lbw decisions over his career. The one he got against Chennai Super Kings wasn’t one of them, still, his reaction was about as livid as you’ll ever see Tendulkar on the field. It is surprising the match referee did not have anything to say. That is a different matter, but Tendulkar’s disgust showed his desperation to make runs. Has the presence of another legend at the other end made him even more determined?Morne Morkel had 25 wickets last IPL season at just over seven runs an over. Indications are he will play, and if he does, the tall fast bowler should enjoy the bounce the Wankhede generally offers. Mumbai have had batting stutters in both matches so far, and facing Morkel will be a testing prospect.Stats and trivia Last year at Wankhede, Mumbai Indians were shot out for 92, with the Daredevils quick bowlers picking up seven wickets. Kieron Pollard is eight short of 3500 T20 runsQuotes”T20 is a game of improvisation but you have to strike a balance between improvising and sticking to your own style. I want to balance it out even more so that it does not get too much one-sided.”

A preview of the second India-Pakistan ODI in Kolkata

The Preview by Siddhartha Talya02-Jan-2013Match facts January 3, 2012
Start time 1200 (0630 GMT)Big Picture India are again left needing to come from behind, third time in their last four series. A superb display of swing bowling by Junaid Khan crippled India’s batting line-up on an overcast Chennai morning before MS Dhoni rescued his team with a fighting century. Such a procession of batsmen to the pavilion appears unlikely in Kolkata, where overhead conditions haven’t been as bowler-friendly and the curator Prabir Mukherjee has promised a “typical one-day wicket with lots of runs” with the side batting first having an early advantage. But the visitors have been practicing hard to seal their team’s first bilateral ODI series win over India since 2005.Pakistan’s seamers bowled extended spells at the nets on Tuesday, with Umar Gul, Junaid and Mohammad Irfan aiming at one stump. India, on the other hand, missed a session on Tuesday and have an optional one on the eve of the game. They may be short of adequate preparation for a game they cannot afford to lose.Form guide (Completed games, most recent first) India: LWWWL
Pakistan: WLWLL
Players to watch Shoaib Malik was initially picked only for the T20s but has been retained for the ODIs and played a good supporting hand in Chennai. He’s had a good tour so far, guiding Pakistan to victory in the first T20 before giving Nasir Jamshed company in his team’s successful chase on Sunday. A former Pakistan captain, Malik has struggled to keep his place in the side for a while but his experience has come in handy in this limited-overs series.After his century in the first Test against England in Ahmedabad, Virender Sehwag has failed to fire. He was not picked in March last year for the Asia Cup, and could be under pressure to perform, given he’s had just one half-century in his last 10 innings in ODI cricket.Team newsRohit Sharma’s poor run of scores in ODIs continued in Chennai and India could consider replacing him with Ajinkya Rahane. However, there is uncertainty over Virat Kohli’s availability, as he limped off the field after slipping while bowling in Chennai. MRI scans revealed no serious damage, but his condition continues to be monitored.India (possible): 1 Gautam Gambhir, 2 Virender Sehwag, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 Rohit Sharma/Ajinkya Rahane, 6 Suresh Raina, 7 MS Dhoni (capt and wk), 8 R Ashwin, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Ishant Sharma, 11 Ashok Dinda.It seems unlikely Pakistan will make changes, even though Mohammad Irfan proved expensive in Chennai.Pakistan (possible): 1 Mohammad Hafeez, 2 Nasir Jamshed, 3 Azhar Ali, 4 Younis Khan, 5 Misbah-ul-Haq (capt), 6 Shoaib Malik, 7 Kamran Akmal (wk), 8 Junaid Khan, 9 Umar Gul, 10 Saeed Ajmal, 11 Mohammad Irfan.Stats and Trivia Rohit Sharma is 22 short of reaching 2000 runs in ODIs. Kamran Akmal is 70 short of scoring 3000 in ODIs. Quotes “If he keeps on doing that then we will find another great left arm fast-bowler of Wasim Akram’s type.”

“We are used to playing with part-timers. Now it’s difficult for them to bowl 10 overs with five players inside the circle. So you’ve to assess whether six batsmen are enough or seven [are needed].”

The Bangladesh Cricket Board is in talks with the Pakistan Cricket Board about a short tour to the country next month

Mohammad Isam14-Dec-2012The Bangladesh Cricket Board is in talks with the Pakistan Cricket Board about a short tour to the country next month. BCB president Nazmul Hassan said that the talks are now all about a suitable timeframe for the tour.”We can’t go in December so we will speak to the PCB today, about whether we can fit in a small tour before the BPL,” Hassan told ESPNcricinfo.Bangladesh’s proposed tour to Pakistan hit a snag earlier this year when, on April 19, a Dhaka court order embargoed a series between the two scheduled for the end of April.In November, Hassan said that the BCB had made a “written commitment” to the PCB to go ahead with the tour.On Friday Hassan explained that they are now in the second phase of talks with the PCB because the first phase, which dealt with security issues, was satisfactory. “I have spoken to those who went for the security assessment and they are quite satisfied,” he said. “If we can agree on a time, we will go next month.”He also said that the players and the support staff will be spoken to about the tour, but no one will be forced to go on the tour. “The last time when we discussed [touring Pakistan], we wanted to talk to the players and find out their opinion. We will also speak to foreign staff but it is highly likely that they won’t go. That we can understand. We don’t want to force them.”Back in March, the ICC had introduced a “special dispensation” to be made only in “exceptional circumstances” that allowed bilateral series to take place even if the ruling body determined it “unsafe” to appoint its officials for these series. This would allow such series to be manned by “non-neutral match officials”, a departure from the ICC’s Standard Playing Conditions.Hassan said the dispensation will take effect if the ICC doesn’t send its officials to conduct the matches. “They [ICC] are quite clear about it. They want us to decide if we want to go or not. We will submit a security plan to them, after which they will decide whether they will send their match officials or not. If they don’t, we will have to appoint match officials.”

Australian Steve Magoffin made an instant impact for Sussex with a debut seven-for to seal a notable ten-wicket win over the defending champions, Lancashire, inside three days.

Graham Hardcastle at Aigburth14-Apr-2012Steve Magoffin, the tall fast bowler who last month played a crucial all-round role in Queensland’s Sheffield Shield Final win over Tasmania at the Gabba, made an instant impact for Sussex with a debut seven-for to seal a notable ten-wicket win over the defending champions, Lancashire, inside three days.Here, in chilly Liverpool conditions far removed from the heat of Brisbane, Magoffin bounded up the hill from the Pavilion End to add the wickets of Ashwell Prince, Glen Chapple, Kyle Hogg and Simon Kerrigan to the three he took during Thursday’s evening session, so clinching 22 points for his new county.”That’s pretty much the coldest I have ever played in,” said Magoffin, whose match figures of 9 for 55 were the second best of his career. “It was 40 degrees and humid the last time I played at the Gabba. It’s not so much when you’re bowling as when you aren’t that the temperature is a problem.”Magoffin’s Shield final was no easy ride either. He suffered back spasms on the opening day and the following morning had to make an emergency call to Martin Love, the Queensland physiotherapist and former Test batsman, to help him get out of bed. He returned to take one second innings wicket and then score an unbeaten 26 as they just about crept over the line in a nervy pursuit of 133.”I had various tablets to get myself out there,” he said at the time. “I probably sounded like a Tic-Tac packet running in there.”Lancashire, 85 for four at the start of the third day, still trailing by 91 runs, began positively thanks to Prince and Luke Procter, their young all-rounder whose style of play was not so long ago described as a cross between Neil Fairbrother and Darren Lehmann by the club’s assistant coach, Gary Yates. Procter drove and pulled Monty Panesar’s left-arm spin for successive boundaries during the day’s ninth over, but fell to the England spinner when he skewed a lofted on-drive to Luke Wells at point.Magoffin bowled the majority of his overs from the River End during the match but switched ends before lunch with great effect, getting Prince caught behind for 58 and Chapple caught at first slip by Michael Yardy, whose first-innings hundred had put Sussex in such a dominant position.Rain delayed the start of the afternoon session by 25 minutes, though it was only a brief stay of execution for the hosts because Magoffin bowled Hogg and had Kerrigan caught behind to make the perfect start to his third spell in English cricket following brief stays at Surrey and Worcestershire, where his wife, Becky, worked in the club’s offices.”I didn’t learn I was coming here until late March when I got the call to say that the qualification scenario had changed with my wife being British and that they could get me in to play here on a spouse visa as an overseas player,” he said. “I haven’t played here in four years, and I’ve been restricted because of not playing international cricket. I’m here for a few months and looking forward to contributing. Mark Robinson [Sussex’s coach] has got me over to do that role, to bowl maidens and build pressure.”Lancashire’s fate was sealed when Ed Joyce swept the solitary run required off the third ball of the Sussex chase, leaving them with a lot to ponder ahead of Thursday’s meeting with Warwickshire on this ground. Chapple, their captain, said: “We got into the game on the second day and played some decent stuff, but it was a little bit ‘too little, too late’. It was a poor toss to lose but they definitely outplayed us.”

The Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) has formally launched its academy in Bangalore, the first of a series of centres it plans to set up across the state

Siddarth Ravindran18-Jun-2012The Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) has formally launched its academy in Bangalore, the first of a series of centres it plans to set up across the state. Its USP will rest on two principles: avoiding the traditional focus on age-group representation, and decentralising its coaching structure away from Bangalore and to other towns in Karnataka.Javagal Srinath, the former India fast bowler and current KSCA secretary, said around 360 teenage cricketers from around Karnataka had been picked for the first batch of the Royal Challengers KSCA academy, which is sponsored by the UB group, owners of the Bangalore IPL franchise. The academy hub will be at a 33-acre property in Alur, on the outskirts of Bangalore, where the KSCA has developed three grounds.One of the main aims of the academy was to enhance the talent pool available in the state, Srinath said. “We are trying to invest at least three years in each student we pick. What used to happen until now was that those who don’t make it after the age-group selection vanish (they are no longer in the system). The dearth of prominent cricketers from Karnataka in the past 14-16 years, for me, is because of the overemphasis on representation.”A little over a decade ago, the Indian team regularly featured three or four Karnataka players, but since then cricketers from the state, such as Robin Uthappa and fast bowlers Vinay Kumar and Abhimanyu Mithun, have struggled to become permanent members of the national team.Srinath said the academy, which will function throughout the year, will provide coaching and cricket facilities even to those who don’t make the state teams at the age-group level. “The boy has to be patient – and so must the parents, who are the biggest stakeholders. All they should worry about is whether the players’ skills are being developed.”Convincing students and their parents to stick with the game is one way to increase the available talent; providing top-quality infrastructure to the smaller cities in the state is another. Satellite academies are coming up in six other cities: Mysore, Shimoga, Mangalore, Tumkur, Hubli and Raichur. The Mysore branch will be inaugurated later this week.”I come from Mysore and I always had this grouse that the infrastructure in Mysore is not as good as it is in Bangalore,” Srinath said. “The lack of infrastructure gave me a false belief that my talent was not as good as those that are playing in Bangalore but now nobody in the smaller towns can complain about it.”The move to set up satellite academies is an addition to other attempts to spread the game in the state. The Karnataka Premier League, a Twenty20 league that featured teams from eight different zones in the state, has had two seasons in 2009 and 2010. Last year, a Ranji Trophy match was held in Shimoga for the first time in 32 years.

Steve Smith, the sometime Australia allrounder, has won his second Steve Waugh Medal as the most outstanding player for New South Wales during the 2011-12 season

Daniel Brettig23-Mar-2012Steve Smith, the sometime Australia allrounder, has won his second Steve Waugh Medal as the most outstanding player for New South Wales during the 2011-12 season. In a wretched summer for the Blues, Smith’s overall contribution outstripped an sterling Sheffield Shield season by the wicketkeeper Peter Nevill to claim the award, which he also won in 2010.Over the voting period, expanded to include last year’s Twenty20 Champions League, Smith made consistent contributions with the bat, though his legspin bowling struggled to make an impression as he slipped further from contention for a place in the national team. Like numerous NSW team-mates, Smith is expected to lose his Cricket Australia contract when the list is redrawn this year.In the Champions League, Smith made 103 runs at 34.33, his best contribution arriving in a critical win over the Mumbai Indians. Smith was a solid contributor in the Sheffield Shield, notching 492 runs at 41.00, second only to Nevill among the Blues’ run scorers. He was also useful in the domestic limited overs competition, making 189 runs in the five matches he played. Though not the competition is not included in the Waugh medal voting, Smith led the Sydney Sixers to victory in the Twenty20 Big Bash League.Nevill, absent from the awards ceremony at Doltone House in Sydney due to Australia duty, was rewarded for a break-out summer with the award for best Sheffield Shield player. Nevill’s 570 runs at 51.81 were an excellent harvest for a wicketkeeper in a struggling team, and he also claimed 22 catches. The lack of other serious contenders reflected the Blues’ season, in which they missed both domestic finals and won only one Shield match out of 10.Mitchell Starc claimed the domestic limited overs award, having scooped 15 wickets at 17.73 in a mere five matches, as he played a fringe role with the Australian team across the summer. Moises Henriques was named the most outstanding contributor to the Sixers’ T20 success, while Chirs Gayle won the equivalent award for the Sydney Thunder.The Belinda Clark Medal for best women’s cricketer was shared between Leah Poulton and Lisa Sthalekar. Poulton’s award was her third, and second in as many seasons, while Sthalekar celebrated her fourth Clarke medal.Three inductees were also welcomed into the NSW hall of fame. Fred Spofforth, the most feared fast bowler of Australian cricket’s formative years, was inducted, as was that bold batsman and folk hero of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, Doug Walters. Denise Annetts, who played 10 Tests and 43 ODIs for the Australian women’s team, was also inducted.