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South Africa’s young captain says he is richer for the experience gained in this series, and thinks the lopsided result will spur his team on and make future victories that much sweeter

Sidharth Monga in Centurion17-Feb-2018Over the last two weeks, South Africa’s young ODI captain Aiden Markram has wished that he had a normal introduction to ODI cricket, as opposed to sitting in the spotlight, trying to arrest a seemingly never-ending slide after being thrust into the captaincy role only two matches into his career. However, he is also glad that he has had this experience, learning important lessons.”, that sort of thought will always come, especially seeing how the last two weeks have gone,” Markram said, when asked if there were periods during the last two weeks when he had wished he had had time to fly under the radar and learn from some of the senior members of the side. “But, to be brutally honest with you, I’m happy it’s happened this way; not just for me, but for us as a squad.”It really gives us some points to learn on, and it’s going to make victories in the future much much sweeter. It’s going to make us work a lot harder. There’s a reason it’s worked out the way it has. We’re learning, and we’re growing. It’s going to get to a stage where we really know our games and who needs to do what for the side. It’s going to be an exciting 18 months coming up. The guys will be very hungry.”Asked about the biggest lesson he had personally learnt, Markram spoke of the importance of not letting captaincy affect his batting. “As a player, you still need to look after your performance,” Markram, who has experience of leading South Africa Under-19s, South Africa A and domestic franchise Titans, said. “As a captain, you can only control so much. At the end of the day, I’m still a batsman and I need to score runs. When I get into the middle, I need to be in that comfort zone and not let thoughts of captaincy get into my mind at that time.”Markram has seemed like a batsman going out of his way to impose himself on the game, possibly to tell himself that he deserves the mantle he has been given. After the defeat in Port Elizabeth, coach Ottis Gibson had said Markram wasn’t batting the way he had seen him bat before the captaincy.”I wasn’t playing the usual game I do play, and whether that be due to various pressures… or not being in the zone or in the moment is probably the reason,” Markram said. “He [Gibson] is spot on with what he says. We did chat about it, and today, when I was batting, I felt in a more comfortable space. I felt I was structuring my innings how I would if I was batting in a franchise game. It’s very late in the series, but it’s a positive that I was able to overcome that obstacle.”Markram admitted to there being extra pressure. “There’s a lot of pressure,” he said. “As an individual, I set high standards for myself, and not having done well this series, there was that form of pressure as well. So there are various forms of pressure; captaincy is just one of them. But, like I mentioned, it is pressure I enjoy, and I’d like to enjoy it more in the future.”When Markram was handed the captaincy, there were obvious comparisons with Graeme Smith, who became captain at a similarly young age. Smith had a wealth of experience to fall back on when he became captain, whereas it will be fair to say that Markram has been let down by the performance of the seniors he was left with. However, Markram said they had been helpful to him with their experience.”Plenty help to be fair,” Markram said. “I’m constantly checking in with them. They also understand the space I’m in as a young captain. It’s very nice to fall on them when I need to. Off the field as well. I know it might not reflect in our performances on the field, but in terms of getting me in a calmer space, a lot of credit must go to them.”Markram didn’t expect it to be all rosy, especially given the circumstances under which the captaincy came to him in. He can’t be sure that he will be in the next ODI side; if that doesn’t happen, it will be unfair on the youngster, who said that despite all the challenges and adverse results, he was richer for the experience. “It was always going to be tough,” Markram said. “It was something I was looking forward to, and a challenge that I enjoy. I can still say that sitting here having lost a series 5-1. It was a responsibility that I enjoy. I learned a lot, and at this stage of my career that’s not a bad thing. Going forward, I’m going to take the lessons I did learn. The experience of dealing with other pressures grows me as a player.”

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.

Justice AP Shah, who was appointed as the BCCI’s ombudsman to deal with conflict of interest, will also handle all investigations involving charges of misconduct against BCCI administrators

ESPNcricinfo staff27-Nov-2015Justice AP Shah, who was appointed as the BCCI’s ombudsman to deal with conflict of interest, will also handle all investigations involving charges of misconduct against BCCI administrators said its president Shashank Manohar. He added that any punishment thereafter would be determined by the board.The 67-year old Shah is a former Chief Justice of Delhi and Madras High courts. He was appointed as the first-ever BCCI ombudsman last month as Manohar, in his second term as board president took a stance against the issue of conflict of interest and said Shah would “enjoy the complete freedom and authority like the judicial body.”However, since Shah is an ombudsman he would not have the power to oust a BCCI official. “Even with regard to the administrator, the enquiry (should there be complaints of indiscipline, misconduct against him) would be conducted by the ombudsman,” Manohar told the . “He will submit his report. Because the administrator is a board member, he cannot be removed by the ombudsman. So the Board has to take a call and I don’t think when the ombudsman gives a report holding a person guilty, the board would say that ‘No, no, he’s not guilty.’ He will have the last word in conflict of interest issues, but with regard to the administrator, he will submit a report.”Manohar said having an independent authority conduct a probe against an administrator, a disciplinary panel comprised of BCCI officials, would remove the perception of bias. He even presented the case of former IPL chairman Lalit Modi, who was banned by the BCCI in 2010.Incidentally Manohar was the BCCI president at the time and part of the three-man disciplinary panel that handed Modi the ban. “There should not be even an allegation of bias. In the earlier system three people used to sit on the disciplinary committee; the president was a must with two other members of the board. In Lalit Modi’s case, he raised an objection against me that I have a bias against him. Then he raised an objection against Arun Jaitley also and then he raised an argument of bias against Chirayu Amin also. I am not going to give an opportunity to any administrator to say this is a biased enquiry. So now the enquiry will be conducted by an independent person who has nothing to do with the Board.”

Shakib Al Hasan has been fined 75% of his match fee after pleading guilty to showing serious dissent at the umpire’s decision

ESPNcricinfo staff06-May-2013Shakib Al Hasan, the Bangladesh allrounder, has been fined 75% of his match fee after pleading guilty to showing serious dissent at the umpire’s decision in the second ODI against Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe team was also fined, for maintaining a slow over rate.Shakib had been adjudged lbw for 34 though the ball seemed heading down the leg side, and there was a hint of an inside-edge as well. Shakib reacted by violently slamming the bat on his pads, accidentally brushing the Zimbabwe wicketkeeper Brendan Taylor’s pad as he ran in to celebrate the wicket. Shakib immediately apologised to Taylor. He later agreed that he had shown dissent at the umpire’s decision.The match referee Chris Broad deemed it to be a Level 2 breach of the ICC Code of Conduct. “This type of a reaction from a senior player and a former captain is unacceptable,” Broad said. “When the umpire’s finger goes up, the batsman must leave the crease without showing his emotions regardless of what he thinks of the decision.”The other fine levied in the match was for Zimbabwe’s slow over rate, deemed to have been one over short in their allotted time. Taylor, the captain, was fined 20% of his match fee, and the rest of the side was penalised 10%.The one-day series is tied 1-1, and will be decided by the final match on May 8.

The fifth edition of the IPL, which began in tepid fashion, finally had a nail-biter as Rohit Sharma hit the last ball of the match for six to seal a thrilling finish for Mumbai Indians

The Report by Kanishkaa Balachandran09-Apr-2012
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Rohit Sharma’s two sixes in the final over, including one off the last ball, sealed it for Mumbai Indians•AFP

The fifth edition of the IPL, which began in tepid fashion, finally had a nail-biter as Rohit Sharma hit the last ball of the match for six to seal a thrilling finish for Mumbai Indians against Deccan Chargers, who fought tooth and nail while defending 139. Daniel Christian, not the wisest choice for the final over, as very recent history tells us, dished out two full tosses to Rohit. One of them was off the final ball, which was dispatched over long-on to spark wild celebrations.The Chargers were still favourites with 18 to defend off the last over. Kumar Sangakkara had bowled out his best bowler, Dale Steyn, leaving the final task with Christian. The first ball was smashed by James Franklin past long-off for four; the second down the same region; the batsmen sneaked a bye off the third; the fourth was a high full toss slammed by Rohit Sharma over deep backward point. With five needed off two, the penultimate ball was forced to long-off and Rohit Sharma timed his dive just in time to survive a run-out appeal. Christian couldn’t come up with anything special, gifting Rohit Sharma the most hittable delivery of the over, breaking the hearts of the home fans who saw their side slip to a second straight defeat.Fortunes kept oscillating in the final overs, but for most periods in the chase, the Chargers were in control. Much of the credit should go to Steyn, who ran in with the same vigour as he does for South Africa. He defeated the best hitters in the Mumbai line-up with raw pace and fizzy bounce, nipping out three wickets for just 12 runs. He took 2 for 6 in his first spell, conceded just two off his next over and only five off his final over. In hindsight, Sangakkara will feel he should have kept him for the final over.Steyn gave the Chargers the early advantage by plucking a return catch in his follow-through to get rid of T Suman. The fourth over, a wicket-maiden from Steyn, was the spectacle of the evening. He ran in high on adrenaline and had his fellow countryman Richard Levi all at sea with raw pace. He targeted the stumps, forced Levi to stab at deliveries cramping him for room, foxed him with a slower one that sneaked past the outside edge and the stumps, bounced him, but saved his best delivery for the last. Levi played all around a fiery full ball that knocked back his middle stump.For a team with big hitters at the top, Mumbai were struggling at 15 for 2 after five overs. The run-rate touched the five mark only after 11 overs, indicative of how miserly the Chargers were. The ball spun, gripped and even kept low, meaning the batsmen had to concentrate harder. Rohit fetched two boundaries and a six – over extra cover – off Christian to keep Mumbai afloat.The arrival of Kieron Pollard, in the 12th over, perked up the run-rate. The spinners were always vulnerable against Pollard, who swung two sixes and a four to leave Mumbai a gettable 56 off the last six overs. Another spiteful over from Steyn, in which he hit the deck hard, softened up Pollard. He slammed Amit Mishra over long-off the following over, but perished trying the same against Christian, skying it to Shikhar Dhawan at long-off. Mumbai’s shoulders would have dropped after Pollard walked off, but not Rohit’s, as he walloped two more sixes off Mishra to restore hope for his side.Rohit’s hitting overshadowed Munaf Patel’s four-wicket haul, which was responsible for restricting the Chargers. It also masked an ugly incident involving Sangakkara’s dismissal, where some of the Mumbai players got confrontational with the umpires. Munaf bowled a low full toss which Sangakkara shaped to drive, but got an inside edge which shaved the off stump and knocked off the bails. The wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik was standing up close and the ball deflected back to the stumps off his pads, causing confusion as to whether he was legitimately bowled in the first place. The umpires initially gave Sangakkara the benefit of the doubt, choosing not to refer it to the third umpire. The Mumbai players were peeved, particularly Munaf, who flung the ball on the turf as he ambled back to his mark.A furious Harbhajan Singh marched to the square leg umpire Johan Cloete, who was soon enveloped by Munaf and Karthik. A clueless Sangakkara went across to have a word with the umpires but by then, it was as if the umpires were coerced into referring it. In theory, Sangakkara was legitimately out and the umpires should have had the presence of mind to consult. Mumbai’s road-rage, though, left a bad taste in the mouth and it makes one wonder how different it could have been had Sachin Tendulkar, Mumbai’s original captain, been in charge. Tendulkar, unfortunately, was at the dug out, and there was nobody around to defuse the situation.Cameron White and Christian added a quick 41 for the fifth wicket, smashing four sixes in their stand to boost the Chargers before the lower order was reined in. The target proved a challenging one, but the visitors were fortunate to run into a bowler who suffered another nightmare of conceding a six off the last ball in front of a global television audience.

Round-up of the first day’s play in the fifth round of matches of the Faysal Bank Pentangular Cup

ESPNcricinfo staff09-Mar-2011Seventeen wickets fell and 418 runs were scored on an action-packed first day at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, with Federal Areas ending up 14 runs ahead of Sind with three wickets remaining. Sind were put in to bat and were in immediate trouble at 6 for 3. Faisal Iqbal, who scored 67, and Fawad Alam got them back on track with a 97-run partnership. Wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed then came in and smashed 55 off 33, but wickets kept falling at the other end, and Sarfraz was eventually left stranded as Sind were bowled out for 202. The seamers did all the damage for Federal Areas with left-armer Sohail Tanvir and allrounder Hammad Azam taking three wickets each.Sind had scored their runs at 5.36 runs an over, which meant there were still plenty of overs left in the day for Federal Areas to bat. They went about their innings in similar fashion to Sind, scoring at 5.53 runs per over, but losing wickets at regular intervals, with several of the batsmen not converting starts. Umar Amin got 42 off 39 and Adnan Mufti got 41 off 42, but Mohammad Sami kept striking at vital moments, and finished with 4 for 56. Federal Areas will be glad to have Hammad Azam still at the crease; he finished the day on 60 not out.

Half-centuries by wicketkeeper Humayun Farhat and No. 8 Saad Nasim ensured Punjab reached 340 for 9 on the first day of their match against Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province at the Lahore City Cricket Association Ground. Punjab were in tight spots twice in their innings. They lost three early wickets, but half-centuries from Mohammad Ayub and Usman Salahuddin helped them to recover to 175 for 3. Another burst of three wickets left them in trouble again at 186 for 6, but this time it was Farhat and Nasim who came to their rescue with a 100-run partnership. Nasim finished the day 84 not out. Legspinner Yasir Shah was Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s most successful bowler, picking up 4 for 118.

Tim May, the chief executive of the international players union FICA, has warned that Twenty20 cricket is ‘ripe for corruption’

Cricinfo staff16-Feb-2010Tim May, the chief executive of the international players union FICA, has warned that Twenty20 cricket is ‘ripe for corruption’.May, a former Australian offspinner, told magazine “Lord Condon, who headed up the ICC’s Anti-corruption and Security Unit, said only last year that we can never think we have this cancer beaten. Twenty20 is just ripe for corruption – the shorter the game the more influence each particular incident can have. So I think it opens up a great deal of opportunities for the bookmakers to try and corrupt players into providing various different outcomes in the game, if not the result itself. Cricket needs to be very, very careful.”Cricket only recently emerged from a nasty episode of revelations about match-fixing when in 2000 Hansie Conje, then South Africa captain, admitted to taking money from bookmakers. It spiralled into a full enquiry headed by Condon’s team at the ICC. Since then the game has stayed clean but the rise of Twenty20 has created new vulnerable areas. In July last year Dave Richardson, the ICC general manager, said the ICC was ‘concerned’ and that the IPL will “inevitably attract the interest of match-fixers and people like that.”With Lalit Modi recently announcing that the second season of the Twenty20 Champions League will clash with the climax of the English domestic season, May also criticised the ‘arrogant’ decision making of the IPL executives.”The refusal to grant players the ability to review the security arrangements and the decision of the IPL and its franchises not to recognise or deal with any players’ managers or agents, is self-defeating. Its decision-making is very arrogant. The attitude is that they’re the only game in town, they’re the biggest game in town and, as long as they pay these huge amounts of money, they can do what they like. That may not always be the case.”Seeking avenues to protect the Test game, May said a Test championship would add much-needed context to the format but fears that political wrangling of the ICC members could prevent it from developing. “At the moment it’s just a mad scramble of bilateral series that mean nothing. A Test championship over a period of one or two years would increase the value of those contests and make it possible to play significantly less cricket but maintain or increase commercial revenues,” he said.”The political nature of the ICC board and its members means it’s going to be a difficult concept to sell. There is an over-riding need for boards to be absolutely in control of their destiny, and going with a Test championship would hand over a lot of power to the ICC. A lot of boards don’t want to do this – that selfish mind-set isn’t in the best interests of the game.”Ahead of England’s departure to the UAE for two Twenty20s against Pakistan, the England offspinner Graeme Swann said the squad was fully aware of the dangers of match-fixing. “There are guys from the [ICC] Anti-Corruption Unit who travel all year round with us and everyone is fully educated about the dangers. It probably does go on in some form with some teams and some players, but you never know who it is. I certainly don’t think any of this England team could be considered match-fixers.”We haven’t been given any warnings specifically for this trip. You’d have to be an absolute idiot to do it.”

The left hander, who doesn’t hold a state contract, hit 35 sixes in a remarkable display in Sydney on Saturday

Andrew McGlashan04-Oct-2025Former Australia Under-19 batter Harjas Singh, who was part of the side that won the World Cup in South Africa last year, produced an extraordinary display in Sydney grade cricket on Saturday with 314 off 141 balls, including 35 sixes, for Western Suburbs.The phenomenal display from the left hander, who top-scored with 55 in the World Cup final against India, came against Sydney Cricket Club at Pratten Park. The next highest score in the innings was 37.For a little while there was a discrepancy with the online scoring available – perhaps Singh’s onslaught had created a meltdown – but his final tally was confirmed as placing him third on the all-time list in New South Wales Premier first grade history, behind Victor Trumper’s 335 in 1903 and Phil Jaques’ 321 in 2007.It is also comfortably the highest limited-overs score in first grade premier cricket anywhere in Australia.The match was available to follow on YouTube via a single-camera stream (it’s worth noting the current India A vs Australia A series isn’t available to watch) and there was a roar of delight from Singh when he brought up his triple century with a six off left-arm spinner Tom Mullen.