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The years of bowling for England’s leading Test wicket-taker are reflected in a new landmark

ESPNcricinfo staff03-Apr-2018Few would blame James Anderson if he was feeling a little weary. With the last delivery of his 17th over in New Zealand’s second innings in Christchurch he had bowled more deliveries in Test cricket than any another pace bowler: 30,020.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

The previous record belonged to another fast bowler of great longevity, Courtney Walsh, and now ahead of Anderson are three of the greatest ever spinners: Shane Warne, Anil Kumble and Muttiah Muralitharan.Anderson became England’s leading Test wicket-taker in 2015 and last year, against West Indies, he took his 500th Test wicket. With 531 to his name at the time of this latest record, he now has Glenn McGrath’s tally of 563 wickets firmly in his sights as the most by a pace bowler in Tests.Anderson carried England’s attack during the Ashes defeat with 17 wickets at 27.82, and has continued to bowl well in New Zealand.

Karun Nair became only the second Indian batsman to score a triple-hundred as India declared with a lead of 282 on day four of the Chennai Test

The Report by Karthik Krishnaswamy19-Dec-2016
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details2:55

Chopra: Nair’s work against spin impressive

Back in March 2008, the MA Chidambaram Stadium witnessed the first triple-hundred on Indian soil, as Virender Sehwag plundered 319 against South Africa. Eight-and-a-half years later, the stadium’s revamped stands became the backdrop to the first triple-hundred by any Indian batsman apart from Sehwag. That batsman, Karun Nair, was playing his third Test match, and was only playing because India’s middle order had lost two of its regular occupants to injury.When India next play a Test match, they will need to choose who to leave out – and perhaps even which two – among Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma and Nair, a man with an unbeaten 303 in his last innings. Three hundred and three, not out. A square-cut brought up the landmark; Alastair Cook had brought all his men into single-saving positions with Nair on 299. Adil Rashid dropped short, Nair slapped it away, and Cook just happened to be the fielder diving uselessly to his left from cover point.The declaration came right then, with India 759 for 7. It was their highest-ever total, against anyone. It was the highest total against England, by anyone. It left England, starting their second innings with a deficit of 282, 16 minutes to get through to stumps.By the time Virat Kohli called his batsmen off the field, they had inflicted as much mental disintegration upon England as they have faced anywhere in the time since Carl Rackemann coined the term during the 1989 Ashes. At lunch, India still trailed by 14 runs. At tea, they led by 105. So far, so Mumbai, on a pitch that was rather flatter than Mumbai, and England didn’t seem in any immediate danger of defeat. By the time India declared, an innings defeat wasn’t out of the question. Alastair Cook and Keaton Jennings got through to stumps unscathed, but their task has barely begun.England have it all to do on the last day of a sapping tour of the subcontinent. This is still a flat pitch, by the standard of Indian pitches, but R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja bowling on it with raucous voices clustered around the bat is an entirely different prospect to England’s spinners bowling with five fielders on the rope.Ashwin and Jadeja did their bit with the bat as well, scoring 67 and 51 as the sixth- and seventh-wicket partnerships added 319 to India’s total. Post-tea, India clattered 177 runs in 25.4 overs. That’s 6.9 runs per over. Nair, on 195 at tea, scored his last 108 runs in 78 balls. If his triple-hundred wasn’t uniformly Sehwagian in tone, it certainly was now.Karun Nair executed the flat-batted pulls and the ramps superbly•Associated Press

England tried to bounce him with a fine third-man – almost a long stop – in place for the ramp over the keeper. Nair tennis-forehanded Jake Ball through the vacant mid-on region. Then he played the ramp anyway, against Stuart Broad, and it carried all the way for six. When the spinners returned he reverse-swept Moeen Ali, and tonked four fours and a brutally clubbed six off successive overs from Adil Rashid. This when Rashid had five men on the boundary.Nair’s innings wasn’t chanceless, of course. Cook had put him down at slip on day three, a hard chance flying to his right when Nair edged Ball on 34. Then, on 154, he had tried to reverse-sweep Rashid and sent the ball into Jonny Bairstow’s gloves. Replays and Ultra Edge suggested it had deflected off the face of his bat. The umpire said not out, and England had no reviews left.On 217, he edged Ball again, the third new ball going low to Joe Root’s right at slip. He only got his fingertips to the ball. And finally, on 246, he stepped out, heaved at Moeen, missed, and turned around to see the unsighted Bairstow fluff the stumping chance. Destiny was clearly on Nair’s side, and he chased it in a hurry, scoring 57 off 39 balls after the missed stumping.All this merrymaking, of course, would not have been possible without the restraint he displayed on day three – he walked in with India 211 for 3 and still trailing by 266 – and in the morning session of day four. India went at less than three runs an over in the session before lunch, but lost only one wicket, M Vijay lbw to a Liam Dawson arm ball.Resuming on 71, Nair took 49 balls to reach his maiden Test hundred. M Vijay saw him through a nervy period in the nineties, exhorting him from the other end to stay calm and wait for the scoring opportunity. Having played out five dots from Ben Stokes on 99, he reached the landmark by defying a packed off-side field, which included two short covers for the uppish drive, stretching out to a full, wide ball and letting it come to him to steer it past the diving backward point fielder.That was only the third boundary Nair hit in those first 49 balls – and one of them had been unintentional, off an edge when he tried to leave the ball. It reflected the hard-nosed approach India had had to take in a session where England set defensive fields, bowled with discipline, and got a bit of help from the surface, largely through inconsistent bounce. Dawson nearly bowled Vijay with one that crept low, and Ben Stokes, hitting the pitch hard, got the ball to lift disconcertingly as lunch approached, taking a chunk off the shoulder of Nair’s bat and hitting Ashwin’s right glove.Cook’s use of his spinners also contributed to India’s caution in the first session: he bowled the accurate Dawson unchanged from one end – he sent down 13 overs for 31 runs – and his seamers from the other, only using Rashid for one over – the last one before lunch – and not using Moeen at all.Rashid’s introduction brought a little spike of aggression from Nair, who made himself a bit of room and drove him inside-out to the cover boundary. It was just a teaser of what was to come after lunch.

Tim Anderson, the ICC global development manager, believes there needs to be a drastic change in mindset from administrators in the USA if cricket is to ever become professionally run in the country

Peter Della Penna19-Jun-2015Tim Anderson, the ICC head of global development, believes there needs to be a drastic change in mindset from administrators in the USA if cricket is to ever become professionally run in the country. Anderson recently toured the USA as part of an ICC task force headed by the chief executive Dave Richardson to produce a comprehensive report on the state of cricket in the country.The report will be presented next week at the ICC annual conference in Barbados, and Anderson felt it will be hard for the sport to move forward as long as a battle for control continues between the USA Cricket Association (USACA) and the American Cricket Federation (ACF).”For us it’s not about one or the other,” Anderson told ESPNcricinfo. “That’s not what this process is. But we just don’t think in principle it’s a healthy situation for the development of the sport for a relatively large proportion of people to be aligned to one group, a relatively large proportion to be aligned to another group, and a relatively large proportion not giving much care or thought to either of them and then just going on playing.”It doesn’t provide an environment where leadership can come in and take the game to the next level. You’re not going to do that in this environment. Philosophically, that needs to be changed if cricket is going to take a step in this country.”USACA was put on administrative notice at the 2014 ICC annual conference in Melbourne for being in violation of Associate governance statute 3.1, which at the time said that the respective ICC member must be the sole governing body in the country. The statute was amended in January to state that a member no longer had to be the sole governing body, but had to prove it was the one “responsible for the administration, management and development of cricket in the country.”USACA has also fallen in conflict with the ICC for its failure to hold elections on time, and for not having a full-time paid chief executive since the resignation of Darren Beazley in March 2014. However, Anderson kept mum when asked whether the report was being organised in preparation of a third possible administrative suspension for USACA since 2005.”What we want to find out is what is happening in the USA in cricket,” Anderson said. “That’s the general sentiment. If as part of that process, the ICC board then takes the report and says, ‘This guy is good and this guy is not so good,’ that’ll be a decision they have to come to.”The bottom line for us is that USACA is our member, there is another association that has a large number of leagues in the country that is also doing things and we want to speak to everybody. So our thought process is not about get rid of one and bring in the other one. That’s not really what it’s about at all.”As part of the information gathering process, Anderson said the ICC has facilitated face-to-face and phone interviews with more than 100 stakeholders, including various league administrators from both USACA and ACF. The ICC has also sought the opinions of leagues which are not aligned with either group, as well as of players and coaches, as part of an all-encompassing survey.Anderson denied the ICC’s task force initiative was spurred by USACA’s failure to ratify sweeping governance reforms at the November 2014 AGM which had been championed by himself and Beazley. As part of the proposed reforms, term limits would have been introduced for USACA’s executive board while the board’s voting power would have been cut in half and redistributed to independent directors based on recommendations from a review conducted by TSE consulting.”Governance reform is difficult,” Anderson said. “The ICC is a good example in terms of the process of the Woolf Report. Ultimately it was decided that some of those things were good and should be changed and some of those things wouldn’t be changed.”Obviously you still have to go through a process of consulting your stakeholders in whatever organization you’re with and those stakeholders and members have to determine whether they want those changes or not. I think the same thing has happened here.”One of USACA’s main governance problems has been their failure to hold elections on time according to the USACA constitution, both in 2011 and in 2014. The most recent delays have meant the ICC has levied financial penalties against USACA in the form of withholding their quarterly Associate funding grants.Anderson said the ICC’s interest in commissioning the task force report now, as opposed to three years ago in the wake of the delayed controversial elections which saw 32 out of 47 voting members disenfranchised, was that the ICC’s Full Member representatives have recently developed greater interest in Associate development.”The chairman of the ICC is now the chairman of the development committee and there are three Full Member directors on the development committee,” he said. “Previously, nearly all members of the development committee were Associate and Affiliate member representatives or other stakeholders but not full members of the ICC.”The bottom line for us is that USACA is our member, there is another association that has a large number of leagues in the country that is also doing things and we want to speak to everybody”•Peter Della Penna

“That’s really positive that that’s happening. I think what has manifested itself out of that process is even though a lot of the Full Members on the board have been aware of the importance of US cricket, I don’t think it has really hit their radar that cricket could be doing more here and therefore I think that was the spark to answer your question about ‘why now’, that our board has greater interest than it had in the past which I think is really positive.”In a letter from ICC chairman N Srinivasan to the USACA board of directors dated January 28, Srinivasan outlines several areas in which the ICC claims USACA has failed to meet its membership obligations and is in danger of being suspended. Aside from delayed elections and a failure to pay back a $200,000 loan to the ICC, Srinivasan blasted USACA for its “failure to produce an internationally competitive and properly prepared men’s team.”In the time since, USACA canceled a pre-tournament preparation camp in Jamaica ahead of the ICC Americas Division One Twenty20 in Indianapolis in May. A subsequent camp scheduled for June 19-21 in Jamaica to prepare USA for the World T20 Qualifier has also been ditched. As a result, five players have taken it upon themselves to fund their own way to Barbados and train with Barbados Tridents in a personal effort to get prepared for the qualifier. Anderson said the task force review will include a more in-depth look into why USA has not delivered consistently positive results on the field.”With all the opportunities that are available to ICC members to play international cricket, it would be our hope that a country that we think has a huge amount of potential like the USA would be going up as opposed to going down,” Anderson said.”I don’t think there’s any doubt that we’d all like to see the USA cricket team playing better. At the same time, we don’t necessarily have a great understanding of what happens within the high performance programs or preparation and selection and these types of things that might impact on the team not going so well.”

Surrey once again departed Lord’s glum-faced after another defeat. Their record is miserable over the Thames – one win in their last 18 visits

Alex Winter at Lord's15-Apr-2012
ScorecardToby Roland-Jones took four wickets in the second innings•Getty Images

Surrey once again departed Lord’s glum-faced after another defeat. Their record is miserable over the Thames – one win in their last 18 visits. They turned on the wicket as the primary cause of this loss: a soft pitch, perhaps underprepared after poor weather in the days before the match, which created havoc for the 76 overs the final two innings lasted.Chris Adams, Surrey’s team director, described it as the worst pitch he had ever seen at Lord’s. Surrey, in pursuit of 141, lost 6 for 36 to fail by three runs – Surrey’s narrowest margin of defeat to their neighbours.Victory here was envisaged as part of their early-season run to confirm them as many people’s outside tip for the title. Sussex, Middlesex and Worcestershire – with two of those games at The Oval – are the three opponents many would pick out for early-season points. But they were left stunned by their final morning collapse.”It was one of the worst wickets I’ve played on,” Surrey’s captain Rory Hamilton-Brown said. “It went up and down, the seam movement was so exaggerated, people were getting hit and two first-class sides scored not many more than a hundred. It made for a battle out there.”Hamilton-Brown is grateful for a quick return to The Oval next week where Surrey should bounce back against Worcestershire. But his victorious Middlesex counterpart did not see the surface as a hindrance to playing good cricket.”It was one of those wickets you knew there was something in it all game,” Neil Dexter said. “The pitch lasted almost the four days so to be playing on that wicket early season I don’t think was too bad. The way they got out this morning had nothing to do with the wicket, it was the shots and some good bowling.”The victory song in the home dressing room wasn’t quite by Dexy’s Midnight Runners but Middlesex’s “Dexy” – of no pop music fame – was certainly declaring: “I’m in heaven, I’m in heaven” after a miraculous victory.The celebrations probably sent the MCC secretary straight to his inkwell. Tim Murtagh has a history of wild abandon after sealing big wins – once whipping off his shirt to acclaim his success in a T20 quarter-final bowlout for Surrey against Warwickshire at The Oval. Here his fourth wicket sparked a 50-yard sprint towards the Tavern, creating a heap of elated Middlesex bodies on the Lord’s turf.”I think I’ve been watching too much football recently, but that’s one of the best feelings I’ve ever had on a cricket field,” said Murtagh, a Liverpool supporter, of what he described as his best win for Middlesex. “It would have been a great shame to lose two games having played decent cricket in both. We have had two collapses in both games but we’ve showed unbelievable fighting spirit.”Middlesex would have begun to move a little uneasily with consecutive defeats and a powerful Durham side arriving next week. This victory is an early fillip for their survival hopes. And they have Andrew Strauss and Steven Finn against Durham, causing a selection headache. Dexter said he will feel bad leaving out players who have done little wrong.None of the bowlers deserved to be dropped. On the final morning, Gareth Berg took two wickets; Tim Murtagh bowled Chris Jordan and took the final wicket; Toby Roland-Jones removed Tim Linley caught at slip and had Hamilton-Brown caught behind.Hamilton-Brown sought to blast his way through the dangers of a seaming ball and varying bounce. His 49-ball half-century was the most aggressive innings of the match. But he watched Tom Maynard, for the addition of three, and Gareth Batty, for a duck, depart as the task of 46 more runs lurched from the formality it was proving the previous evening to a stern examination of technique and guts. Had bad light not intervened on Saturday evening, Surrey may well have claimed the extra half hour that would have allowed Hamilton-Brown and Maynard, both free scoring, to knock off the runs.The small chase was created by Jon Lewis’ five wickets the previous afternoon – the spell of the match. His 17-ball 21 looked to be the late-order innings Surrey needed but he could only look to the heavens as Hamilton-Brown edged Roland-Jones, who was excellent from the Pavilion End, to the wicketkeeper John Simpson. Lewis was then too trusting of Nos. 10 and 11; leaving Linley the entire 38th over to face from Roland-Jones. He nicked the fifth ball to slip. Lewis then offered Jade Dernbach the chance of five balls from Tim Murtagh. A straight-drive gone wrong skied the winning catch to Sam Robson at cover.

Jimmy Adams and Michael Carberry set a new Hampshire record with a
second-wicket stand of 373 on the second day of the Championship
match with Somerset at Taunton

01-Sep-2011
ScorecardJimmy Adams and Michael Carberry set a new Hampshire record with a
second-wicket stand of 373 on the second day of the Championship
match with Somerset at Taunton.The partnership was already worth 123 at the start of the day and the pair
batted through the morning and afternoon sessions before Carberry fell to the
fourth ball after tea for 182. Adams went on to be undefeated on 204 at the close – the second double century of his career – and at 480 for 4 Hampshire had established a commanding
first-innings lead of 276.It was a day of toil for the Somerset bowlers in hot sunshine as their hopes of
a first ever championship title were ground remorselessly into the dust. Adams and Carberry needed luck on their side in the morning session as the ball beat the bat on numerous occasions, Steve Kirby and Alfonso Thomas being particularly unfortunate.But both batsmen reached their centuries before lunch, Carberry off 189 balls,
with 20 fours, and Adams in the final over before the interval off 212
deliveries, with 16 boundaries. They needed no good fortune in an afternoon session, which saw Somerset take the second new ball with no positive effect. The frustrated home side wilted as
Carberry and Adams scored at will and by tea the stand was worth 372.That meant it had already comfortably passed Hampshire’s previous best
second-wicket partnership, the 321 put together by George Brown and Edward
Barrett against Gloucestershire at Southampton in 1920.Carberry finally fell to Kirby in the first over after tea, for 182, caught
behind by Jos Buttler, back in Somerset’s team after missing the opening day
through England Twenty20 duty. The batsman had faced 313 balls and hit 33 fours
and a six. Buttler’s superb diving catch to dismiss Neil McKenzie soon afterwards was all
the more praiseworthy for the fact that the young Somerset keeper had only
arrived back from Old Trafford in the early hours of the morning.James Vince soon followed and Hampshire missed out on a fifth batting point,
reaching 395 for 4 at the end of the 110th over. Adams reached his double hundred with a top-edged six off Craig Meschede, having faced 388 balls and hit 29 fours.Hampshire’s acting-captain had good cause to feel weary after batting right
through the day with immense application. Sean Ervine’s rapid half-century off 60 balls rubbed salt into Somerset wounds.

A round-up of the second day of the sixth round of the Regional Four-Day Competition

ESPNcricinfo staff19-Mar-2011England Lions took a first-innings lead of 65 over Windward Islands, thanks to an allround performance from their bowlers, all of whom picked up at least one wicket. Windward wrapped up the England Lions innings for the addition of just 22 runs in the morning to restrict them to 302 at Windsor Park in Roseau, but they lost a clutch of early wickets and were struggling at 82 for 4. Kevin James and Dalton Polius then added 79 to steady the innings, before Adil Rashid and Danny Briggs combined to extract the rest of the side for 237. Briggs was the best of the bowlers, with 3 for 51, while Rashid and Andy Carter picked up two wickets each. At close of play, England Lions had extended their lead to 85 for the loss of Craig Kieswetter for 9.Kyle Corbin narrowly missed out on a hundred but Combined Campuses and Colleges were dismissed for 251 by Guyana at Three Ws Oval in Bridgetown. CC&C lost both openers without scoring but Corbin, who has one hundred and four half-centuries to his credit this season, came to the rescue. He made 96, from 134 balls, studded with 10 fours and four sixes. He now has 495 runs in the tournament, trailing only Marlon Samuels in the run-scoring charts. Kevin McClean chipped in with an unbeaten 52 down the order, but the rest of the batting failed to fire. Assad Fudadin took 4 for 42 and Veerasammy Permaul 3 for 58 for Guyana, who were 11 for 1 at stumps.Wavell Hinds and West Indies Test vice-captain Brendan Nash enabled Jamaica to recover after a top-order collapse against Trinidad & Tobago at Sabina Park in Kingston. Hinds came in with his team tottering at 60 for 4 – Marlon Samuels (25) made a rare low score this season – and proceeded to stroke an unbeaten 131, sharing in a 116-run stand for the fifth wicket with Nash, who made 66, and then an unbroken sixth-wicket stand of 121 with allrounder Dave Bernard, who was unbeaten on 55 at the close. Hinds was particularly aggressive, smashing 11 fours and seven sixes, to take his team to a position of relative strength at 297 for 5.Fidel Edwards picked up his second five-for of the season as Barbados bowled Leeward Islands out for 277 at Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in North Sound. Edwards took two early wickets as Leeward slipped to 17 for 3 but the two twenty-year olds, Sherwin Peters and Jahmar Hamilton, kept their composure to add 138 runs together. Hamilton, who made 83, hammered 14 fours, while Peters struck seven fours in his four-hour 57. Gavin Stoute, who took 4 for 41, caught Peters off his own bowling, and triggered a slide that saw six wickets tumble for 40 runs to leave Leeward gasping at 195 for 9. However, Anthony Martin (42) and Kelbert Walters (28) combined in an 82-run last wicket partnership to frustrate Barbados until Edwards had Walters caught behind to wrap up the innings and finish with 5 for 57.

Dirk Nannes has always felt comfortable in India and is a definite starter in the IPL tournament beginning on Friday

Cricinfo staff07-Mar-2010Dirk Nannes has always felt comfortable in India and is a definite starter in the IPL tournament beginning on Friday. Nannes left Melbourne on Saturday to join Delhi Daredevils and was confident the security and safety problems would not be an issue during the event.”I have always felt pretty good in India,” Nannes said in the Sunday Herald Sun. “Security can be a bit of perception. If you feel safe, then you probably are safe. But the reality may be completely different.”I wasn’t comfortable in coming to a decision myself, but, luckily, the Australian Cricketers’ Association has done a lot of investigating and has been pushing to make it a lot safer for us. They think if things keep progressing the way they are, then things will be fine from next week and the start of the tournament.”Nannes has retired from first-class action to prolong his career in the shorter formats, which includes representing Australia in Twenty20s. He has played five T20s for Australia and his left-arm fast, which can top 155kph, is a daunting prospect for batsmen as they chase boundaries.”My body simply cannot handle playing first-class cricket,” he said. “Even if I made myself available, there was no chance of me playing the last few [Sheffield Shield] games.”I have a back issue. It’s fine for playing the shorter forms, but if I was asked to bowl 17 overs one day I couldn’t back up and bowl again the next day.” After the IPL Nannes is hoping to be part of Australia’s World Twenty20 campaign, having played in last year’s tournament for the Netherlands.

A round-up of the RBS Twenty20 Cup matches that took place on March 1

Cricinfo staff01-Mar-2010

Group C

One of the tournament heavies Faisalabad Wolves began their campaign by crushing Abbottabad Rhinos by 90 runs at the National Stadium. Mohammad Hafeez and Asif Hussain set up the win with an opening stand of 89 before Asid Afridi, the left-arm seamer on debut, dismissed Hussain. Afridi later made a big impact in the final over, taking four wickets in five balls to leave Faisalabad at 165 for 7. The astute Misbah-ul-Haq, with 40 off 26 balls including four sixes, ensured it didn’t derail his side from an impressive total.Abbottabad’s chase was never on, throttled early by Samiullah Khan Niazi. It turned out to be an evening for left-arm seamers as Samiullah dented the top order with three wickets. Abbottabad then lost three wickets with no addition to the score, including two to the excellent Shahid Nazir and at 57 for 7, the contest was long gone. Saeed Ajmal cleaned up the tail to finish with 3 for 4. Abbottabad are a traditionally weak side but were strengthened this year by the inclusion of a number of Peshawar players such as Yasir Hameed, Yasir Shah and Riffatullah Mohmand and will look to improve results.

Group D

Karachi Dolphins got off to a winning start making light work of Hyderabad Hawks at the National Stadium. They had much to thank the visitors for pressing the self-destruct button before crawling to 119, a target that was always going to be easy.Opener Shahzaib Hasan, a World Twenty20 winner, provided the fireworks during the chase, smashing 46 off 21 balls, including six fours and two sixes. Once Karachi had reached the halfway mark in just the fourth over, Khalid Latif continued the momentum, blitzing 32 off 15 balls. The openers’ charge was enough as the hosts sealed the win in the 10th over. Hyderabad had made a watchful start with opener Sharjeel Khan managing a near-run-a-ball 39, but three run-outs in the space of three overs meant they ended on a well below-par score. Fawad Alam was Karachi’s most successful bowler with 2 for 20.

Group A

Multan Tigers recorded their second consecutive win after cruising past Quetta Bears by seven wickets. Mohammad Hafeez and the tall Mohammad Irfan – at six foot ten, one of the tallest bowlers going – set it up by sharing seven wickets between them to restrict Quetta to a poor 99. Rameez Alam then scored an unbeaten half-century to guide them home within 17 overs. Irfan and Hafeez cut through the middle order to reduce Quetta to 59 for 5 and it was a position from which they never recovered. Hafeez finished with 4 for 17 while Irfan took 3 for 14 before wrapping up the innings off the penultimate ball. Multan lost Babar Ali off the first ball of the chase but Rameez piloted the innings to help them coast home.

The left-arm spinner had a recurrence of knee soreness after the India series

AAP14-Dec-2024Australia have a fresh injury concern ahead of the Ashes with Sophie Molineux ruled out of the women’s ODI tour of New Zealand with a knee injury.Already sweating on the fitness of captain Alyssa Healy and her sore knee, Australia suffered more bad news on Saturday in the form of Molineux’s injury.Related

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The finger-spinner has battled knee issues this summer, missing some WBBL games with the Melbourne Renegades to manage pain in the joint.She played in the last two of Australia’s 3-0 series sweep over India, but pulled up sore following the last victory in Perth on Wednesday.It means she will now skip all three ODIs against New Zealand this month, with bowling-allrounder Heather Graham to take her spot four weeks out from the Ashes.The games double as the team’s last before next month’s multi-format Ashes series, where Australia will aim to retain the trophy for a fifth straight time.”Sophie Molineux has been withdrawn from the NZ Series due to knee soreness,” Cricket Australia said in a statement. “Heather Graham will join the squad in New Zealand on Tuesday, following Tasmania’s Women’s National Cricket League matches against New South Wales in Hobart.”Georgia Wareham would be the most likely player to come into Australia’s XI for the first ODI against New Zealand on Thursday, after she was left out of the final two games against India.In better news for Australia, Healy is at least a confirmed attendee on the New Zealand trip. Australia’s captain missed the three ODIs against India through her own knee injury, after also missing the end of the T20 World Cup with a foot issue.Healy’s return will create a potential headache for selectors given Georgia Voll’s impressive start to her international career against India.Voll made scores of 46 not out, 101 and 26 while deputising for Healy at the top of the order, after a breakthrough WBBL with the Sydney Thunder.But Voll is at risk of being squeezed out of the ODI side in New Zealand, with Healy expected to slot back into opening alongside Phoebe Litchfield.It means the only way Voll would remain in the first-choice XI is if selectors opt to bat her down the order and make the bold call of leaving out a more established player.

After going nearly six years without an over-rate offence, India have now earned fines in the fourth and fifth T20Is against New Zealand

ESPNcricinfo staff03-Feb-2020After picking up a first over-rate offence in nearly six years, India have got two in two games, with the team fined 20 percent of their match fees for a slow over-rate in the fifth and final T20I against New Zealand.India’s players had earlier been docked 40% of their match fees for the fourth T20I, bringing to an end a streak that had lasted 264 matches since the Oval Test in August 2014.As per Article 2.22 of the ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel, which relates to minimum over-rate offences, players are fined 20 percent of their match fee for every over their side fails to bowl in the stipulated time. India had been found two overs short in the fourth T20I, which is why they had been fined 40%. In the fifth match, they were found to be one over short after making time allowances.On-field umpires Chris Brown and Shaun Haig, along with third umpire Ashley Mehrotra, reported the matter to match referee Chris Broad, who imposed the sanction. Rohit Sharma accepted the charge so there was no need of a formal hearing.Rohit, however, didn’t lead India in the field, having hurt his calf while batting, with KL Rahul doing the captaincy duties in the second innings. Rohit’s injury was subsequently found to be serious enough for him to be ruled out of the ODIs and Test series that follow.India successfully defended their score of 163, completing an unprecedented 5-0 sweep in the T20I series. New Zealand lost a third successive close game, having come out on the wrong end of two Super Over defeats in the third and fourth matches, going down by 7 runs in the fifth T20I.