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The full text of Angelo Mathews’ letter to SLC CEO Ashley de Silva, following his removal as captain

ESPNcricinfo staff24-Sep-2018Dear CEO,I write to you pursuant to the meeting held on Friday the 21st of September 2018 at SLC premises, which was attended by all the selectors along with the National Cricket Coach Mr. Chandika Hathurusinghe. At this meeting the selection committee and the coach informed me to step down as Sri Lanka’s captain of the ODI and T20 team. Though I was initially surprised, it was immediately felt that I have been made the scapegoat in this entire saga of Sri Lanka’s dismal performances against Bangladesh and Afghanistan in the Asia Cup. I’m willing to take part of the blame but at the same time, feel betrayed and let down if the blame is solely put on me. As you know all decisions are taken through a mutual understanding with the Selectors and the Head Coach. And though I do not agree with the reasoning that the losses should be accrued single handed to the Captaincy, I however eagerly and wholeheartedly respect the request of the selection committee and the head coach in asking me to step down and do so with immediate effect.You would recall that I relinquished my captaincy in all formats in July 2017, pursuant to captaining Sri Lanka continuously for a period of 5 years in all formats. During this tenure under my captaincy series wins were recorded against England, we whitewashed Australia 3-0 and winning the Asia Cup in 2014 were some memorable occasions. However in the team’s best interest having felt that the time had come for new leadership I voluntarily resigned as Captain from all formats of the game in July 2017.Thereafter, pursuant to Sri Lanka suffering heavy defeats in all formats and having several appointed Captains, namely Upul Tharanga, Thisara Perera, Chamara Kapugedara, Lasith Malinga and Dinesh Chandimal during the tenure between July 2017 and December 2017 in the ODI and T20 formats, Mr Chandika Hathurusinghe immediately having been appointed as Head coach met with me in person, requested me to reconsider taking up the Captaincy until the World Cup in 2019. Though myself, my family and close friends discouraged me in taking up the mantle, being confident in Hathurusinghe and his plans to elevate the performances of the Sri Lankan team and in the best interest of my country I agreed to do so until the World Cup.I wish to put it on record that though Sri Lanka suffered these heavy defeats in the Asia Cup, which is shocking to say the least, especially in the backdrop where we had a reasonable series against South Africa, I had no intention to quitting and running way from the issues at hand especially owing to the World Cup being only a dozen games away. Furthermore as an obligation of a player I will keep working hard in all aspects of the game and will be available to represent Sri Lanka at any given time with my fullest. I also believe that if the selectors and coach are of the view that I am unfit to play ODI and T20 cricket and thus not entitled for my place in the team, I would also consider retiring from the ODI and T20 formats as I never want to be a burden to the team. I have played the game true to my conscience and have given my best at all times and have felt that I am fit enough to play the formats and also have performed adequately over a period of time to hold my place in the team. You will know that I was also the overall highest run scorer in the South Africa series from both teams.In the given circumstances I thus resign as the Captain of the Sri Lankan ODI and T20 team with immediate effect in considering the request of the selection committee and the coach to resign. I thank the selectors and the National Coach for speaking to me in person and conveying your thoughts in respect of the Asia Cup and giving me the opportunity to step down in this manner.I wish all the successes to our National Cricket team and all of you.Best wishes,Angelo Mathews

Sanjay Manjrekar joins the ESPNcricinfo crew to look back at the first week of the 2023 IPL

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Apr-2023The IPL feels as loud as it’s ever been! In the latest episode of Stump Mic, Sanjay Manjrekar, Matt Roller, Vishal Dikshit and Kaustubh Kumar look back at the first week of the 2023 season, with focus on the new rules, numerous injuries, and more.

Dowrich and Holder’s unbroken 79-run stand repairs West Indies after fast bowlers scythe through top order on a lively Kensington Oval deck

Shashank Kishore and Sreshth Shah23-Jun-2018Shane Dowrich swivels into a hook•CWI Media

For the second time this series, Sri Lanka’s fast bowlers had West Indies on the mat, only to concede the advantage as the day progressed. The thorn on both occasions was Shane Dowrich, the spunky wicketkeeper-batsman who stayed unbeaten on 60, at the end of the first day at the Kensington Oval that saw only 46.3 overs being bowled because of rain interruptions.In Port-of-Spain, he put on 90 for the sixth wicket with Jason Holder to set up a tall first-innings score in a match-winning effort. In Bridgetown, in the Caribbean’s first ever pink-ball Test, the pair’s unbroken 79-run stand revived West Indies from a hopeless 53 for 5 to 132 for 5 at stumps. This after Holder elected to bat on what wicketkeeper-turned-broadcaster Jeff Dujon described as “the greenest Barbados surface” he had seen.Green as it was, there were patches of brown on either ends that made life difficult for batsmen, with certain deliveries rearing up and adding to the unpredictability of the pink ball. This made the sixth-wicket association all the more compelling, as they provided a batting lesson for their floundering top order, who kept an agile slip cordon busy all afternoon.Dowrich’s seventh Test fifty was his second 50-plus score of the series, after his maiden Test century in the first Test. He was particularly severe on the short ball, unafraid to pull in front of square, particularly off Lahiru Kumara – whose fastest delivery was clocked at 148.1kph. Holder, meanwhile, was solid and composed to make a steady 33. The pair’s calculated approach, particularly under lights, stood out, even though Sri Lanka could claim the day as their own.Leading in Dinesh Chandimal’s absence was Suranga Lakmal, Sri Lanka’s 16th Test captain, and he couldn’t have asked for a better bargain. A surface prepared largely keeping in mind the longevity of the pink ball played right into his hands as he struck in the very first over – Devon Smith’s feeble poke at an away-going delivery lapped up at third slip by Dhananjaya de Silva.This was just the start of a procession, as Lakmal would strike again in his third over when Kraigg Brathwaite received an unplayable delivery that reared up and had him arching back to try and get out of the way. The ball lobbed off the glove even as an athletic Danushka Gunathilaka, replacing Chandimal, ran in a couple of paces from point and then extended a full-stretch dive to pluck an outstanding catch. Five balls later, Lahiru Kumara was in the thick of things as Kieran Powell’s jab resulted in an excellent grab by Kusal Mendis at second slip. Once again, the ball was dying on Mendis but a swift movement to his right made it look much easier. West Indies were now reeling at 8 for 3.Roston Chase walked out to a packed cordon of three slips and two gullies, the ball buzzing across the surface at lively speeds. His previous Test at this venue produced a match-winning 131 against Pakistan last year, against an attack consisting of Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Abbas and Yasir Shah. Now, he had to contend with an attack that isn’t as skilled yet, but potent nonetheless on a surface with enough assistance.After driving on the up through covers, Chase fell into his own trap: a repeat to a delivery that nipped in sharply resulting in Kasun Rajitha flattening his middle stump in his very first over, to leave West Indies gasping.Shai Hope, who swept the Cricket West Indies annual awards couple of nights ago, came out looking to survive, and in doing so was sometimes even diffident in his 49-ball stay that produced 11. He would fall in the third over of the second session, the 24th of the innings, when Rajitha drew him into the drive with one that left him as Dhananjaya dived in front of the first slip to complete the catch.The wickets falling around him briefly forced Dowrich to adopt an all-attack approach. The first misjudgment was to a Lakmal delivery, which was slightly full, as an attempted pull lobbed off a leading edge to elude point. Then, an ugly hoick off spinner Dilruwan Perera looped over backward point. With two half-chances going his way, he tightened up to play copy-book cricket in his captain’s company, the pair’s 33-run graft interrupted by a 107-minute rain delay.After play resumed, the Sri Lankan attack seemed to have lost some steam. Dowrich and Holder imposed themselves to pick up quick and easy runs to seemingly put West Indies on the road to recovery, even though plenty of work lay ahead.

The tournament will be called Zim Afro T10, with Zimbabwe hopeful of attracting the top players from around the world

Firdose Moonda07-Dec-2022Zimbabwe Cricket has announced their first privately-owned franchise league, a T10 tournament, which has been established with Mulk International – the founding company of the Abu Dhabi T10. The six-team tournament is slated to take place in March 2023 and will be called the . The Abu Dhabi T10 has been played since 2017 and has just completed its sixth season.”We are pleased to announce the introduction of Zimbabwe’s own franchise-based T10 league, a powerful format that we believe is exactly what our changing, fast-paced world needs right now,” Tavengwa Mukuhlani, ZC Chairman, said.ZC is hopeful that the tournament will attract top players from around the world, more than a decade after they last dipped their toes into attracting big names with the Stanbic T20. The competition boasted 20 foreign names, including Chris Gayle and Shaun Tait, across Zimbabwe’s five domestic teams and had a headline sponsor but was owned and run by ZC. It was played for three seasons before Stanbic pulled out and since then Zimbabwe’s domestic competitions have been played without much fanfare, and sometimes not at all.In a country wracked by economic woes, Zimbabwean Cricket has not been exempt and the game has lurched through a massive debt crisis, a temporary ban on its administration at the ICC and some of its biggest name players (Heath Streak and Brendan Taylor) banned for their involvement in corruption. But, the sport seems to be finding its feet after Zimbabwe’s men’s team made it to the Super 12s of the most recent T20 World Cup and their women’s team only narrowly missed out on qualifying for the T20 World Cup in South Africa in 2023.With more international fixtures on the horizon, Zimbabwe are also looking to dabble into the lucrative league structure and with neighbours South Africa launching an all-owned IPL T20 league, the SA20, they have entered the T10 market. The participating franchises, player auction dates, fixtures and other details will be announced at a later date, with the tournament scheduled to begin on March 29, 2023.

The board members met on June 22 and contemplated changes to the 2018-19 season, namely the addition of a Plate Group comprising the new teams that are now eligible to take part

ESPNcricinfo staff26-Jun-2018The Committee of Administrators that oversees the running of the BCCI has asked all its officials to disregard the resolutions made at the Special General Meeting on June 22.The BCCI’s acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary had called for the meeting without prior approval from the CoA. This led to the two-member panel comprising Vinod Rai and Diana Edulji barring the board from holding the SGM.Nevertheless, the BCCI members met in Delhi and contemplated changes to the 2018-19 Ranji Trophy, namely the addition of a Plate Group to the tournament, comprising the new teams that are now eligible to take part – Bihar and the North Eastern States. The existing 28 teams, meanwhile, will make up the Elite Group.However, these decisions will not be put into practice just yet with the CoA sending out an email saying, “it is directed that no office bearer/ committee member/ employee/ consultant/ retainer/ service provider shall in any way implement, act further to or in aid of any resolutions that may have been passed during the aforesaid meeting [SGM].”The board also discussed a promotion and relegation system, where the bottom two teams in the Elite Group and the top two teams in the Plate Group would take part in a qualifying super-league. At the end of the super league, the top two teams would play in the Elite Group the next season while the bottom two would play in the Plate Group.The operational aspects of how such a tournament will run were not specificed, but it was decided at the SGM that this format would apply to all-age group tournaments as well in both men’s and women’s cricket.With the addition of Chhattisgarh, there have been 28 teams in the Ranji Trophy for the past two seasons. Till 2016-17, the Elite-Plate structure was on the lines of teams being divided in three groups, with Group A and Group B being the Elite groups and Group C being the Plate group. With 28 teams in 2016-17, it meant Group C had 10 teams, and with the BCCI also trying the concept of neutral venues that season, it made for hectic travel schedules, with teams typically having just a day’s rest between travel and matches. In 2017-18, the neutral venues experiment and the Elite-Plate system was done away with, and four groups of seven teams were made.Apart from the change in structure to the Ranji Trophy, the SGM also passed a resolution to “consider and to take decisions on the T20 tournaments hosted and organised by State Associations”. This will involve determining whether outstation players, who don’t have IPL contracts, can play in local leagues such as the Tamil Nadu Premier League, the Mumbai Cricket League or the Karnataka Premier League. A committee comprising BCCI office bearers and Sourav Ganguly, the chairman of BCCI’s technical committee, will decide on this. The resolution said they will also consider whether those players who have “briefly” played in the IPL can take part in these leagues, without specifying how many matches, or seasons, in the IPL would count as “briefly” having played the league.

“We tried to hurry up Jasprit Bumrah, and see what has happened,” chief selector Chetan Sharma said

Shashank Kishore31-Oct-2022Did India try to rush Jasprit Bumrah back from injury during their build-up to the T20 World Cup?Chief selector Chetan Sharma seemed to suggest so at a virtual press conference on Monday to announce four squads across two tours – New Zealand and Bangladesh – in November-December 2022.Related

• Bumrah set to miss IPL 2023

• Bumrah to miss Sri Lanka ODIs, doubtful for Test series against Australia

• Rohit Sharma: Saving Bumrah's career more important than this T20 World Cup

• Hardik Pandya, Shikhar Dhawan to lead India in New Zealand

• Ravindra Jadeja returns for Bangladesh tour in December

Not surprisingly, Bumrah missed the cut for those matches as he continues to recover from the back injury that forced his absence from the ongoing T20 World Cup in Australia.”I always say that we have to manage players,” Sharma said. “And when we do that, the media sometimes writes about why some players are not playing, different players are playing, different captains are coming.”The selection committee has to deal with workload management which we follow very closely. Now, we tried to hurry up Jasprit Bumrah, we tried to get him with the World Cup coming. And see what has happened? We are without Jasprit Bumrah in the World Cup.”Bumrah was first diagnosed with a stress reaction in his back in August and was ruled out of India’s Asia Cup campaign later that month. However, in September, Bumrah was declared fit and was picked in India’s T20 World Cup squad. The same squad also featured in India’s build-up to the tournament with home games against Australia and South Africa. Bumrah featured in two of the three T20s against Australia, but was pulled out on the eve of the South Africa series, India’s last before the World Cup, after he complained of back pain.Since then, Bumrah has been undergoing a rigorous rehab programme at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru. Even as he exuded hope of Bumrah being available soon, Sharma was non-committal about timelines.India play six white-ball games in New Zealand before flying to Bangladesh in early December for three ODIs and two Tests. They then host New Zealand and Sri Lanka for a white-ball tour to kick off the 50-over World Cup year, before finishing their World Test Championship assignment with the Border-Gavaskar series at home against Australia (four Tests).”The NCA team and the medical team are looking after him very well. And he will definitely be part and parcel of the team very soon, in the sense definitely against Australia (series in 2023). But for Bangladesh we are a little cautious with Jasprit Bumrah as opposed to like we tried to bring him back early (post the Asia Cup). So we don’t want to do that this time.”That is why I always request the media that when we rest a player there is a reason behind that. No selector fancies that we keep changing the team or the captains – it is only that there is so much cricket, and there is so much workload management to look after that we have to keep looking after the player’s body. End of the day they are humans. He will be back soon. The NCA team is working on him properly and I hope he will return soon to play for India.”

“I encourage all spectators to participate in this initiative by purchasing tickets for the first T20I and turning up in big numbers,” says Ramiz Raja

ESPNcricinfo staff30-Aug-2022The PCB will donate gate receipts from Pakistan’s first T20I against England, in Karachi on September 20, to flood-relief efforts to help the country deal with the catastrophic situation that has caused over 1000 deaths.The floods were caused by the highest rainfall in the country in more than three decades, an occurrence described by Sherry Rehman, the minister for climate change, as a “climate catastrophe”. Over 33 million people in the country have been affected and, according to some estimates, the flooding has caused over $10 billion worth of damage.Ramiz Raja, the PCB chairman, said in a statement, “As cricket unites our proud nation, we stand firmly with the victims and all those involved in​ the flood relief and rescue operations. As a responsible and caring organisation, the PCB has always stood with its fans and public in tough, challenging and testing times. In this regard, we have decided to donate gate proceeds from the first T20I against England ​next month to the Prime Minister’s Flood Relief Fund.”I encourage all spectators to participate in this initiative by purchasing tickets for the first T20I and turning up in big numbers so that we as a cricket family can donate ​a substantial amount to the fund and show solidarity with those affected by the catastrophe.”The Pakistan players had worn black armbands during their Asia Cup opener against India in Dubai on Sunday to show their solidarity with those affected by the floods.”We have already sent trucks full of food, medicines and other commodities to the affected areas and will continue to support our ​nation and rescue operational teams in any way we can,” Ramiz said. “Our thoughts and prayers remain with the people of Pakistan.”After the Asia Cup, Pakistan will host England upon their return home for a series of seven T20Is. It will be England’s first tour of Pakistan in 17 years and the matches will be held in Karachi (the first four) and Lahore (the remaining three). After the series, the teams will travel to Australia for the T20 World Cup, and England will then return to Pakistan for a three-Test series, to be played in Rawalpindi, Multan and Karachi in December.