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Assam coach Lalchand Rajput blames Delhi’s second-innings over-rate for missing opportunity to secure an outright win in fading light

Akshay Gopalakrishnan09-Oct-2017The drawn match between Delhi and Assam in the first Ranji Trophy round in New Delhi on Monday ended in controversy over a slow last hour. Delhi fell 30 runs short of securing an outright win, and their coach KP Bhaskar pointed to bad light and Assam’s alleged slow tactics as factors in the eventual result.Delhi needed 79 in 14 overs, but were stranded on 49 for 2 with Assam bowling only eight overs in the last hour. Bhaskar has ruled out lodging a formal complaint, but admitted the opposition were astute in tackling the situation while remaining within the laws.The official time for close of play on the fourth day was 4.15pm, with teams being given the half hour extension. The umpires allowed the game to continue till 5.30pm, until they felt the light had deteriorated. “Within the laws of the game, they were using delaying tactics. Where they should have bowled 14 overs, they ended up bowling seven (Assam bowled eight),” Bhaskar told ESPNcricinfo.”They packed the off-side field and started bowling wide of the off stump. Even then, we managed 49 runs. We needed 30 more, which could have been easily scored. Unfortunately, bad light messed things up. But as I keep saying, what Assam did was within the laws and fair enough.”Under the BCCI’s playing guidelines, fines can be levied on a team for an over-rate breach only if they bowl a minimum of 50 overs. Bhaskar said the decision to go off the field when they eventually did was correct, but felt Assam crossed a line by creating delays.”There were still six overs to go and 30 runs to score,” Bhaskar said of the moment when umpires decided to call off play. “Given the light, at the most the umpires would have allowed another two overs or so. But for bowling those six overs, the way they were doing it, they would have taken about half an hour. There were reasons like the bowler fell down, so he took about five-seven minutes there and then he limped outside the ground. Then after two overs, he came back again to bowl.”Lalchand Rajput, the Assam coach, deflected the blame on Delhi, suggesting they paid the price for failing to complete their overs on time in the second innings. “They were seven or eight overs short,” Rajput said. “That automatically got carried over to us. Had they been quicker, we would have bowled earlier.”In hindsight, Bhaskar rued one critical error committed by Delhi in Assam’s second innings. Wasiqur Rahman was reprieved on 0, courtesy a no-ball from Navdeep Saini. Wasiqur went on to face 168 balls to make 63, thereby spending close to three hours at the crease, which Bhaskar felt may have also cost them.”My grudge is that we could have got them out earlier. Keeping all these factors in mind, we should have got the 10 wickets much before the last hour,” he said. “Had we done that, we would probably have been in a better position and light wouldn’t have been a factor. The no-ball wasn’t very clear, so the benefit of the doubt went to the batsman. That was a blemish from our part.”But I’m very happy with the way our bowlers bowled. They were excellent on such a good wicket; they really bowled their hearts out. We could have taken six points here, or maybe even seven, but tough luck.”

Rajneesh Gurbani’s 5 for 38 gave Vidarbha a 70-run first-innings lead, and Faiz Fazal built on it with an unbeaten 51 against Kerala in Surat

ESPNcricinfo staff09-Dec-2017
ScorecardPTI

Medium-pacer Rajneesh Gurbani’s second five-wicket haul in two matches bowled out Kerala for 176 and handed Vidarbha a 70-run first-innings lead. Captain Faiz Fazal then made an unbeaten 51 – his fifth fifty-plus score of the season – to extend the lead to 147 at stumps on the third day in Surat.In reply to Vidarbha’s first-innings 246, Kerala kept losing wickets as allrounder Jalaj Saxena top-scored with 40. Resuming on 32 for 2, Jalaj and Rohan Prem stretched their overnight stand to 47 before legspinner Karn Sharma dismissed Prem for 29 in the 20th over. Jalaj and Sanju Samson then put on 44 for the fourth wicket to push the score beyond 100. Samson’s wicket, however, triggered a collapse as Kerala went from 115 for 3 to 176 all out. Gurbani cut through the middle and lower order to finish with 5 for 38 in 14 overs.Vidarbha began their second innings on a positive note with Fazal and Sanjay Ramaswamy adding a 53-run opening stand. The partnership ended when Jalaj had Ramaswamy caught behind in the 17th over. Akshay Wakhare, the nightwatchman, hung around with his captain to see Vidarbha through to stumps.

Worcestershire had recovered from 36 for 4 through debut List A hundred from Kashif Ali

ECB Reporters Network02-Aug-2022Double century-maker Ollie Robinson hit Kent’s highest individual score in List A cricket as they chased down a 352 target with 5.1 overs to spare in their opening Royal London Cup encounter with Worcestershire at New Road.Robinson seized upon the opportunity presented by Kent captain Sam Billings and Jordan Cox’s inclusion for the Hundred after spending the 2022 Vitality Blast on loan to Durham, surpassing the previous best Kent performance in 50 over cricket of 150 not out by Joe Denly against Glamorgan at Canterbury four years ago.A lofted cover drive for four against Josh Baker took Robinson to his double ton from 130 balls and was the cue for a standing ovation all around the ground and he ended on 206 not out.Former Kent Academy player Kashif Ali had scored an impressive 114 on his List A debut for Worcestershire who recovered from 36 for 4 to post what looked like a formidable total. But Robinson received superb support from Ben Compton during a stand of 204, Kent’s highest second wicket partnership against any County in this format of the game.It was a reversal of what happened in last summer’s corresponding fixture when Worcestershire chased down a 323 target.Former Worcestershire pace bowler Matt Henry, in his only match in the competition before linking up with New Zealand, struck a treble blow as the home side slumped to 36 for 4 after opting to bat.Ed Pollock edged the first ball of the innings to second slip, captain Brett D’Oliveira picked out square leg and Jake Libby was taken at short extra cover in an opening spell by Henry of 6-20-3.With Azhar Ali lbw working to leg off Grant Stewart, Kent were very much in the ascendancy before Kashif and Barnard began their rescue act. Runs flowed at a rapid rate once Henry had been removed from the attack and it is testament to Kashif’s rapid elevation that he looks completely at home at this level.He completed a 49-ball half-century and then a regal back foot drive square of the wicket off Hamid Qadri took Barnard to that milestone from 56 deliveries.No one was able to stem the stream of boundaries and the fifth wicket pair had plundered 175 from 28 overs when Barnard, on 79, fell to a head high catch at mid-off against Matt Quinn. It surpassed Worcestershire’s previous best fifth wicket List A partnership of 169 by Ben Cox and George Rhodes against Yorkshire at New Road in 2019.Kashif went onto complete his century with a clip through midwicket in the same over and had moved onto 114 from 99 balls when he drilled Qadri to mid-off where Quinn took a fine low catch.But there was no let-up for Kent with Ben Cox, on his return to action after taking a break for mental health reasons, and Joe Leach adding 74 in just 7.5 overs. Leach had made 48 off just 28 deliveries when he lofted Quinn to deep midwicket but Cox went onto a 43-ball half-century with two sixes and three fours in a vintage knock.When Kent batted, left arm seamer, Ben Gibbon, struck an early blow when Joey Evison turned the ball off his hips straight to fine leg. But then the dominance of bat over ball then resumed after Robinson and Compton came together.Robinson was in particularly destructive form against seam or spin and he reached three figures when lofting D’Oliveira for his 13th four in addition to striking three sixes.The partnership of 204 in 28 overs ended when Compton, on 75, pulled D’Oliveira down Barnard’s throat at deep midwicket.Alex Blake was strangled down the leg side off Dillon Pennington but there was no let-up from Robinson. He reached his double-hundred with a lofted off drive against Baker from just 130 balls with six sixes and 26 fours.

He also used his spinners effectively to squeeze Comilla during the chase

Mohammad Isam07-Feb-2022How the match played out
Fortune Barishal used spin to squeeze out Comilla Victorians from the BPL’s first contest in Sylhet this year, winning the match by 32 runs. To rub further salt into the wound, Barishal also replaced Comilla on top of the points table with 11 points from eight games.Shakib Al Hasan continued to star with both bat and ball, hitting his second fifty in the competition before picking up 2 for 20 from his four overs. But it was his use of Barishal’s offspinners that kept Comilla quiet. Nayeem Hasan and the part-timers Najmul Hossain Shanto and Chris Gayle combined to pick up four wickets in their eight overs while conceding 44 runs. Nayeem finished with 3 for 29 while Dwayne Bravo also chipped in with two.Earlier, Barishal had a productive batting powerplay and a handy middle-order stand to post 155 for 5, which proved to be a winning total.Big hit
Shakib’s half-century, his seventh in the BPL overall, contained four fours and two sixes – most of them coming down the ground. He added 67 runs for the fourth wicket with Tohwid Hridoy, who scored an unbeaten 31 off 37 balls.Munim Shahriar had earlier given Barishal some impetus with his 25-ball 45. He also targeted the straight boundary, hitting three sixes in the long-on to wide long-on range.Shakib’s form though is a complete turnaround after having scored 46 runs in his first four innings. Since then, he has had scores of 41, 50 and 50, leading Barishal’s batting when it has mostly struggled for big totals.Big miss
Comilla dropped Faf du Plessis to make room for pace-bowling allrounder Karim Janat, but the top and middle-order batters couldn’t make a fist of the 156-run chase. Imrul Kayes and Litton Das couldn’t give Comilla the required start. Mominul Haque top-scored with 30 but neither he nor any of his partners pushed for the run rate.Although Shanto and Gayle were effective with the ball, they haven’t really delivered with the bat for Barishal. Shanto’s runs graph in the BPL is flattening after failing to reach a fifty in the seven matches. Tanvir Islam removed him for 1 in this game as he miscued a slog inside the powerplay. Barishal hasn’t got enough out of Gayle either, who made just 10 today.

Watch: The moments of play that made the Kingston ODI

ESPNcricinfo staff06-Jul-2017Jadhav’s tricks claim Mohammed
How difficult is it to hit Kedar Jadhav? Ask Jason Mohammed. He bowls offbreaks, but they don’t turn; they slide away a touch, if at all. He bowls them slow, so there is no pace to work. In this match he bowled with an arm lower than Lasith Malinga’s, with the knee bending further to make his release even lower. Mohammed realised he couldn’t expose the stumps, he had to impart all the power himself, and there was the dilemma of “will it turn or not”. In the 31st over, Mohammed was beaten first by one slid away, then had to keep out one that kept low. Then his partner Shai Hope had a chat with him. Next ball he tried to force it away, but all he managed was a return catch. Jadhav even went for a double-play, removing the bails at the non-striker’s end to let Hope know he was out of his crease.India’s misses
Though India restricted West Indies to 205 for 9, their fielding was not at its best. There were misfields in the outfield, a few fumbles, and some chances – some really difficult ones, some not quite so – missed.Dhawan’s downward slide
After his two fifties in Trinidad, Shikhar Dhawan has struggled to adjust to the slowness of the pitches. In the third ODI, he ramped, but because of the lack of pace, the ball settled with third man. In the fourth, he drove on the up and found mid-on. He repeated the mistake in Jamaica, driving on the up, ending up playing in front of his body, and giving cover a catch.Kohli handles the short ball
In the previous matches, Virat Kohli’s eagerness to score off the bouncer – a dominating-batsman’s ego if you will – had got the better of him, but here he was prepared to wait it out. He kept ducking, weaving and leaving bouncers before he finally hooked in the ninth over, at least the eighth bouncer bowled at him. This was smoked clean in front of square for four with the wrists managing to keep it down.

This means South African cricket is without sponsors – for now – for the franchise first-class and 20-over competitions for the 2018-19 season

Firdose Moonda27-Aug-2018Only one of Cricket South Africa’s three domestic sponsors remain in place ahead of the 2018-19 season, in which there could be no corporate backing for either the franchise first-class competition or the 20-over tournament. Only the 50-over format continues to be sponsored, by the financial services company Momentum.Sunfoil, the sponsors of Test cricket and both the franchise four-day and provincial three-day competitions, opted not to renew its deal with CSA at the end of the 2017-18 summer, ending a relationship which lasted seven years. ESPNcricinfo understands that the company would prefer to use its marketing budget differently. A CSA spokesperson said the organisation is at “at a more advanced stage in negotiations with a replacement and are confident we will be able to conclude the arrangement soon”.In the shortest, and most troubled format, for CSA, courier company RAM have decided not to back the T20 Challenge. RAM re-signed for the 2017-18 season, when the tournament replaced the postponed Global League T20 (GLT20), after also pulling out of a deal with CSA in 2016. For the 2018-19 summer, the competition has no sponsor and, given its timing and the uncertainty over whether another 20-over competition will also take place in South Africa, it is difficult to see how it could attract a backer.The franchise T20 tournament will be played from the April 5 to May 5, 2019, which is particularly late in the South African season. It will also clash with the IPL, meaning big-name South African players who are contracted to the Indian competition are unlikely to be able to play for their domestic franchises. Moreover, if a replacement for the GLT20 takes place, this competition will be an afterthought that could become defunct in years to come.The rest of the domestic season takes its usual form, and starts with the first-class competition in the last week in September. All six franchises will play each other, home and away. The one-day cup will be played between February 8 and April 1, with the semi-finals and final set to feature international caps. The knockouts will be played after the white-ball leg of Sri Lanka’s tour to South Africa, so the national players should be free to participate in the franchise fixtures and thereby have further preparation for the 2019 World Cup.

Australia need to rejig their middle order if Head isn’t available for the Galle Test

Andrew McGlashan23-Jun-2022Glenn Maxwell has been added to Australia’s Test squad ahead of the opening match against Sri Lanka in Galle after Travis Head joined a lengthy injury list with a hamstring strain which has ruled him out of the final ODI.It means the prospect of Maxwell playing his first Test since 2017, against Bangladesh in Chattogram, and his first first-class match since 2019 if he is included for the game next Wednesday. All seven of his Tests have come on the subcontinent with a top score of 104 against India in Ranchi.Before the tour, national George Bailey kept the door open for Maxwell’s return. He has been in good touch during the ODIs with a match-winning unbeaten 80 in the opening game followed by 30 and 33.”We know Glenn has had some red-ball success in these types of conditions and we’re looking forward to him getting back and playing a good block of cricket through the T20s and one-day cricket,” Bailey said. “If he shoots the lights out or anyone else does particularly well, there’s always going to be opportunities.”Earlier in the trip, Maxwell said he understood why he was not part of the Test squad but had not given up hope of getting another chance”A guy that hasn’t played any first-class cricket would be a random pick,” he told . “I know it’s specific to my skillset and the way I play slow bowling, especially in these conditions, that might have been something to sway them.”But I think the way they’ve shown faith in their current squad is brilliant. It’s nice that the door’s not closed but I also thought it was nice that they showed faith in that squad.”Head sustained his injury late in the fourth match and has just six days to recover before the first Test in Galle. GPS data showed that Head had run 26km in the field across the third and fourth matches of the series. The strain is said to be on the minor side, but if he is not available for the opening game next Wednesday, it would require Australia to rejig their middle order.Related

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Maxwell has been called up ahead of any of the Australia A batters who have been taking part in the four-day matches against Sri Lanka which includes Marcus Harris, Matt Renshaw and Nic Maddinson.However, three spinners from the A squad – Jon Holland, Matthew Kuhnemann and Todd Murphy – will remain in Sri Lanka with the Test squad to assist with preparations and to further their development. Kuhnemann has already been part of the ODI squad following Ashton Agar’s side injury and if Australia opt for three spinners during the Tests there could be further chance for promotion.Holland, 35, who has played four Tests, was a late addition to the Australia A squad after Kuhuemann was brought across to the one-day set-up.Travis Head has just six days to recover before the first Test in Galle•Getty Images

Meanwhile, Mitchell Starc also continues to be unavailable due to the stitching in his finger which he cut on the spike of his boot in the first T20I while Steven Smith, who has been nursing a quad strain, is unlikely to be risked ahead of the Tests.”[It’s a] bit more of a precaution,” Aaron Finch said of Head. “Especially, where he fields in the outfield, he does quite a lot of kilometres and the ground is quite heavy. Not sure what he’s looking like for the Test matches. Just one more to add to the list at the moment. Starcy is still not right with his finger. Where it is, the stitching is still not quite 100% healed. Without being able to bowl without tape on, he’ll be out as well.”Australia have endured a lengthy casualty list during the white-ball leg of the tour. Sean Abbott (broken finger) was ruled out before the matches began to be followed by Marsh who has since recovered from a calf strain, Kane Richardson (hamstring), Marcus Stoinis (side), and Agar (side) along with Starc and Smith.Reflecting on the ODI series, which Sri Lanka secured with their four-run victory two days ago, Finch picked out the fact Australia had not been able to build a big partnership to take them deep into the innings with plenty of wickets in hand as a deciding factor. They have fielded a long batting order in the last two matches with Cameron Green at No. 8.”Anytime we’ve started to get any momentum in the game, we lose a wicket and in these conditions, once you lose one, they go back-to-back pretty quick,” he said. “Think, just maximising that main partnership where you can get to the 40th over maybe three down, has hindered us a bit.”After Friday’s final ODI, Australia’s next 50-over cricket will be the series against Zimbabwe and New Zealand starting at home in late August. Unlike these matches against Sri Lanka, those contests will carry World Cup Super League points. There remains uncertainty whether their other home series, against South Africa in January, will go ahead after CSA requested for it to be moved, so they can launch their new T20 league.

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.

Lions seamer returns to home county after nine seasons at Lord’s

Matt Roller02-Aug-2021James Harris, the seam-bowling allrounder, will leave Middlesex at the end of the season to return to his boyhood club Glamorgan on a three-year deal.Harris, 31, is a product of Glamorgan’s youth system and made his first-class debut for the club as a 16-year-old back in 2007. He was long considered to be a future England international, having been on several Lions tours early in his career, and several counties were interested in signing him when he left the club in 2012.He eventually decided to join Middlesex, but has had two spells back at Glamorgan on loan and struggled for consistency during his early years at the club after attempting to add a yard of pace in order to put himself into England contention.His form returned in 2015, when he took 69 Division One wickets at 25.74 to take Middlesex to second, and while his average doubled the following summer, he played seven games in their Championship-winning season.He developed his batting over the next few seasons, scoring his first professional hundred in the 2019 Royal London Cup, but struggled to nail down a regular spot in the side across formats. He has also developed his career off-field, becoming the PCA’s chairman earlier this year.”I always saw myself one day returning to Glamorgan, and this this is the perfect time for me to do so, and I am excited for the next chapter in my cricket career,” Harris said. “I still believe I have a lot to offer on the pitch and I want to use my experience to assist the younger players and help us push for silverware.”Mark Wallace, Glamorgan’s director of cricket, said: “From the moment James left, we’ve wanted to re-sign him. He’s a fantastic acquisition for the club. He’s a high-class seam bowler, a strong lower-order batsmen and a great voice in the dressing room given his leadership experience.”

England Test captain beefs up his pleas to protect players’ wellbeing upon his ODI retirement

Vithushan Ehantharajah19-Jul-2022Ben Stokes has urged the authorities to stop considering players as “cars” and hopes his ODI retirement will be a wake-up call.The allrounder was speaking ahead of his 105th and final ODI after taking the decision to retire from the format. In a statement detailing his decision, he spoke of a desire to lighten his loads, citing playing all three international codes was “unsustainable for me now”.Having taken on the Test captaincy at the start of the summer, Stokes will continue to give “everything I have” to the longest format, as well as Twenty20. As it happens, the 31-year-old Stokes missed the T20 series against India to rest after Test matches against New Zealand and India, and will not play in the T20s against South Africa that follow the ODI series, or The Hundred ahead of the three Tests with the Proteas.Speaking to the media ahead of Tuesday’s match, he went firmer on his comments the previous day of an unsustainable schedule and believes the on-field product will suffer if nothing changes.”We are not cars,” he stated to Test Match Special. “You can’t just fill us up and we’ll go out there and be ready to be fuelled up again. We had a Test series and then the one-day team had a series going on at the same time – that was a bit silly.”I just feel like there is too much cricket rammed in for people to play all three formats now. It is a lot harder than it used to be. I look back to when I used to do all three and it didn’t feel like it was as jam-packed and all that. Obviously you want to play as much cricket as you possibly can but when it is making you feel tired, sore and you’ve got to look towards five or six months down the road for what you’re doing in the here and now it is probably not the best thing.”The more cricket that is played, the better for the sport, but you want a product that is of the highest quality. You want the best players to be playing as much as you possibly can, all the time, and it isn’t just me or us. You see it all around the world now where teams are having to rest some players in a certain series so they feel like they are getting a break.”Related

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Stokes also referenced the examples of James Anderson and Stuart Broad for what he hopes will be a prolonged career in the remaining two formats. Anderson and Broad last played white-ball cricket for England in 2015 and 2016, respectively, and are still vital cogs in the Test attack in 2022. Stokes even spoke to Broad about how the 36-year-old found the lighter workload and was left convinced he had made the right decision, especially if he is to replicate Anderson and Broad’s tally of over 150 appearances in Tests.”I asked Stuart if he felt that not playing white-ball cricket was a reason he is still playing now, 160 Tests. He said without a shadow of a doubt, yes. I want to play 140-150 Tests for England.”It’s come a lot earlier than I would have liked at 31 years old, giving one of the formats up. T20 bowl, 2-3 overs here and there. Longevity I have thought about. Hopefully when I’m 35, 36, still playing Test cricket, I can look back on this decision and say I’m very happy with it.”Stokes also revealed he had come upon the decision after the first ODI against India at the Oval on Tuesday, July 12. As he consulted others, one told him “if there’s any doubt, there’s no doubt” that he should step away from 50-over cricket. He then spoke to Jos Buttler, the limited-overs captain, about his thoughts, which centred initially on not being able to bowl his full complement of 10 overs. That inability to play a full, all-round part in matches was ultimately the deciding factor.”After that one-day game it hit me in the face. A quick chat with Jos after the game, I said that if the game was in a different position I’d have bowled more for him. We had five minutes together, he said you don’t owe the team anything and that I had a lot of cricket coming up. That was nice to hear.”I went away and had five minutes to myself, I told him I almost felt a bit useless that I can’t do that. It’s not a nice feeling, knowing I have to look after myself, the captain is trying to look after me, the medical team and the coach as well. It’s international cricket you can’t be doing that.”