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Women’s selector Manjurul Islam says the decision was taken keeping in mind this year’s busy schedule

Mohammad Isam18-Apr-2023Bangladesh have left out seniors Salma Khatun and Rumana Ahmed from their consolidated white-ball squad of 16 for the tour of Sri Lanka starting later this month. This will be the first time Bangladesh will be without these two stalwarts in ODIs, although the team played a match without this pair in the Women’s T20 World Cup in February this year.Women’s selector Manjurul Islam has said that Salma and Rumana, who have combined 274 caps in international cricket, are rested keeping in mind this year’s busy schedule. The Sri Lanka tour comprises three ODIs, which are part of the Women’s Championships, and as many T20Is.”The biggest challenge on this tour will be the weather and conditions,” Manjurul said. “We have built the team thinking of these two factors. We have taken some emerging cricketers, those who did well in the Under-19 World Cup recently. We have rested a few senior cricketers. We have a lot of cricket this year at home and abroad. Fitness will be a big issue in Sri Lanka. We have taken all this into account when selecting this squad.”

Bangladesh tour of SL

April 27: Bangladesh vs SLC Board President’s XI, Colombo Cricket Club
April 29: 1st ODI
May 2: 2nd ODI
May 4: 3rd ODI (all ODIs at P Sara Oval)
May 7: Bangladesh vs SLC Board President’s XI, Colombo Cricket Club
May 9: 1st T20I
May 11: 2nd T20I
May 12: 3rd T20I (all T20Is at SSC)

Apart from Salma and Rumana, they have also left out young pacer Marufa Akter and opener Sharmin Akter. Sultana Khatun is the newcomer in the squad.This will be the first limited-overs bilateral series between Bangladesh, who leave for Colombo on April 25, and Sri Lanka in women’s cricket. Both teams have collected two points each with Sri Lanka occupying the eighth spot after six matches Bangladesh are seventh after three matches in the Women’s Championship points table. Sri Lanka beat Pakistan last June while Bangladesh’s points have come from two abandoned matches in New Zealand last December.Bangladesh squad: Nigar Sultana Joty (capt), Fargana Hoque Pinky, Shamima Sultana, Fahima Khatun, Murshida Khatun, Jahanara Alam, Sanjida Akther Maghla, Sobhana Mostary, Lata Mondal, Shorna Akter, Nahida Akter, Fariha Islam Trisna, Ritu Moni, Disha Biswas, Rabeya Khan, Sultana Khatun

Brook’s 153 caps record-breaking display but England toil for breakthroughs in reply

Valkerie Baynes02-Dec-2022With a mountain to climb, Pakistan openers Imam-ul-Haq and Abdullah Shafique harnessed up and shinnied towards England’s monster first-innings total on the second day of their contest in Rawalpindi.After Harry Brook pressed on from his overnight 101 to reach 153 off just 116 balls as England were bowled out for 657 at better than a run a ball shortly before lunch, the home duo negotiated more than two sessions unscathed. On a pitch that remained a road throughout both days, to the disgust of PCB chairman Ramiz Raja, they staged an opening partnership approaching the 200-mark with Imam 90 not out at stumps and Shafique on 89.The pair faced up to a spin attack comprising Jack Leach, Will Jacks and Joe Root with class through a middle session, which contrasted with England’s fireworks of the previous four, but still contained flashes of excitement.Imam launched Leach over the rope at deep midwicket to break a run of 11 dot balls from England’s only frontline spinner and Shafique advanced down the pitch to dispatch Jacks over long-on to bring up Pakistan’s fifty.Shafique raised his half-century with a glorious drive to the cover boundary off Jacks, his seventh four of the innings, and Imam followed suit a short time later, pushing a Root delivery towards cover for a single.England served up 21 consecutive overs of slow bowling as captain Ben Stokes set attacking fields. Jacks fulfilled the part-timer role which helped secure him a Test debut when Ben Foakes failed to recover from the sickness bug which swept through the touring camp on match eve and Root reprised one he has played many times before with Liam Livingstone, England’s other debutant and sometime spinner, suffering a jarred knee that kept him off the field for much of the afternoon and evening.It was all a precursor to James Anderson returning to try and extract some reverse swing. There wasn’t much on offer from the limited evidence of the one over he sent down before tea, nor was there any more than a hint after the break, although there was a chance.With the fifth ball of the evening session, Anderson fired one into Shafique’s ribs which kissed the glove before sailing down the leg side to Ollie Pope, standing in for regular keeper Foakes. Diving to his left, Pope made an excellent take but the on-field umpires deferred to their TV counterpart, Marais Erasmus, and replays showed that the ball had gone to ground a fraction before meeting Pope’s glove.Searching for a breakthrough after Leach conceded 12 off the 41st over, Shafique hitting a six down the ground and Imam clearing mid-off for four, Stokes entered the attack to no avail as the hosts stood firm.Pakistan managed to prise out England’s remaining six wickets by lunch, but not before England had added a further 151 runs, having already amassed 506 for 4, the most runs ever scored on the opening day of a Test match.Stokes, who had taken England past that milestone with a brutal six over long-on off Mohammad Ali in the dying light on Thursday, unleashed another back over bowler Naseem Shah’s head off the second ball on Friday en route to 41 off 18 deliveries. He was out four balls later when Naseem took the pace off and took out the top of middle stump.Related

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Naseem’s fellow quick, Haris Rauf, sat in the dressing room with his right quad wrapped in an ice pack after rolling over the ball while fielding the previous day. Meanwhile, legspinner Zahid Mahmood suffered agony of another kind, his four wickets coming at an eye-watering cost of 235 runs in 33 overs – the most-expensive analysis by a Test debutant.Livingstone lofted Zahid for six down the ground on the seventh ball he faced in Tests, but he faced just three more before holing out to deep square leg off Naseem.Brook took to Zahid in a remarkable over, which went for 27 runs. He reverse-swept a six over extra cover, swept the next ball fine for four, and reverse-swept again for another four. He wasn’t done yet either as he hammered the fourth ball for four through long on and lofted next for six back down the ground. Brook tried to go big once more on the last ball and while he miscued and sent a top edge back over his own head, the ball trickled away for another three runs to compound Zahid’s woe.Two fours in three balls off Naseem’s next over, the second of which split keeper and first slip for four, brought up Brook’s 150, although he lofted an attempted sweep next ball to Saud Shakeel at deep square leg.Ollie Robinson took England past 600 with a six off Zahid down the ground before Jacks picked out Naseem at midwicket off Mohammad Ali after a 30-run cameo. Robinson failed to overturn his lbw dismissal off Zahid for 37 and Anderson miscued Zahid’s googly straight to Imam at deep square leg to be last man out.

Vaibhav Suryavanshi’s innings against UAE saw him fall just six runs short of the India record for highest score in a youth one-day match, held by Ambati Rayudu

Shashank Kishore12-Dec-2025Vaibhav Suryavanshi slammed a blistering 95-ball 171 in the Under-19 Asia Cup opener against UAE Under-19s on Friday. He fell just six short of Ambati Rayudu’s long-standing India record in youth one-dayers – the 177 against England in Taunton back in 2002.Suryavanshi, yet to turn 15, hit nine fours and 14 sixes during his innings, before being bowled attempting a paddle in the 33rd over of India Under-19s’ innings. They eventually finished with 433 for 6 after being put in to bat. In response, UAE could only manage 199 for 7, leading to a 234-run win for India and a Player of the Match award for Suryavanshi.Last month, Suryavanshi had smashed a 42-ball 144 – the joint-third-fastest century by an Indian in men’s T20s – against UAE at the Rising Stars Asia Cup in Doha. He had got to his century off 32 deliveries that day, in the process recording the joint-sixth-fastest century in all men’s T20s.Suryavanshi – a certainty to feature in next month’s Under-19 World Cup in Namibia and Zimbabwe – also recently slammed an unbeaten 61-ball 108 at the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy to become the youngest century-maker in the tournament’s history.He had a breakthrough year in 2025, when he became the youngest to slam an IPL century, for Rajasthan Royals (101 off 38 balls) against Gujarat Titans. Having made history just a few months earlier – by becoming the youngest pick in an IPL auction at 13 – Suryavanshi featured in seven games in the 2025 edition, all as an opener. He made 252 runs at a strike rate of 206.55.After IPL 2025, he was part of the India Under-19 squads that toured England and Australia. He smashed a 78-ball century in the first four-day fixture in Brisbane, and finished as the second-highest run-getter of the multi-day series against Australia Under-19s, scoring 133 runs in three innings as India won 2-0.Prior to that, he had amassed 355 runs at a strike rate of 174.01 in the one-dayers against England Under-19s.

Miller, Klaasen, Maharaj have been included while Rabada has been rested

Firdose Moonda31-Oct-2024Marco Jansen and Gerald Coetzee will make their returns to international cricket in next month’s T20I series against India at home after a conditioning break. Both players have been part of the CSA domestic T20 Challenge, after Jansen last featured at the T20 World Cup in June and Coetzee at the preceding T20I series against West Indies in May.The pair have worked on a shoulder and hip niggle respectively and were the first two bowlers to be given an extended period of time off as Cricket South Africa (CSA) introduced structured breaks in play to work on conditioning. Lungi Ngidi, who is part of the Test squad in Bangladesh but has not played a game since an ODI in October, will have his turn to work over the next six weeks, as he prepares for the home Tests against Sri Lanka and Pakistan. He is not part of the T20I squad for the India series while Kagiso Rabada has been rested with the Tests in mind.Fast bowler Anrich Nortje, who opted out of a national contract, has also not been named in the squad. “I wanted to prioritise other fast bowlers in the group. Anrich is a quality player, he plays in leagues around the world and we know what we get from him. We need to give some of our other bowlers an opportunity to play quality opposition,” Rob Walter, South Africa’s white-ball coach said at a press conference.Related

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South Africa still have several big names in the squad. Heinrich Klaasen, David Miller and Keshav Maharaj, who were not part of South Africa’s white-ball squads in the UAE, have all been included.The squad will be captained by regular leader Aiden Markram and will have Reeza Hendricks and Ryan Rickelton at the top of the order.There are two uncapped players, allrounders Mihlali Mpongwana and Andile Simelane, who were the joint second-leading wicket-takers in the recently completed T20 Challenge. They were among four players who took 12 wickets at averages of 14.08 and 14.25 respectively. Both have been part of South African squads in the recent past and add to a strong all-round contingent. Donovan Ferreira, who was the third-highest run-scorer in the T20 Challenge, and Patrick Kruger have also been included.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Notably, there is no room for Tabraiz Shamsi after he also opted out of a national contract last month. He remains available for international cricket but South Africa have opted for Maharaj and legspinner, Nqabayomzi Peter.”Shammo’s situation is similar to Anrich Nortje,” Walter said. “They are both available and wanting to play. For me, giving Nqaba Peter an opportunity to play was a priority. Shammo has played a lot for South Africa and in leagues around the world. We know what we get from Shammo.”He is a fierce competitor and loves playing for South Africa. It’s important we get the balance right between experience and inexperience.”South Africa’s seam-bowling contingent will be bolstered with the addition of Lutho Sipamla for the third and fourth matches on the Highveld. Sipamla last played for South Africa in 2022 in a Test match and has not played a white-ball international since April 2021 but his career-best 4 for 12 at the Wanderers in the T20 Challenge final forced him into the squad. Sipamla will not be in the squad for the coastal games in Durban and Gqeberha, which kick off the series, which starts on November 8.There has been no movement on Quinton de Kock’s availability, despite him not announcing his T20I retirement. Walter had previously said he has not had any discussion with de Kock about his future and that remains the case.”Quinny’s status is as it has been for the last couple of months. I continue to leave the ball in his court. I have allowed him to have his space and not play international cricket. If he wants to play for South Africa, we will have that conversation. For now, he is not part of our selection conversation,” Walter said.

South Africa Squad for T20Is against India

Aiden Markram, Ottneil Baartman, Gerald Coetzee, Donovan Ferreira, Reeza Hendricks, Marco Jansen, Heinrich Klaasen, Patrick Kruger, Keshav Maharaj, David Miller, Mihlali Mpongwana, Nqaba Peter, Ryan Rickelton, Andile Simelane, Lutho Sipamla (only for third and fourth T20I), Tristan Stubbs

Familiar failings undermine England top order before tail comes to the rescue in fine style

Andrew Miller24-Mar-2022Close England 204 (Mahmood 49, Leach 41*, Seales 3-40) vs West IndiesIf variety is the spice of the Spice Island, then the pitch at St George’s served up a two-course taster on the first day in Grenada. After ten days of often enervating attrition in Antigua and Barbados, the façade of English batting competence crumbled at the first sign of heat from a pumped-up West Indies seam attack, before a mighty final-session rescue act from England’s tenth-wicket pair dropped a sizeable hint that the truest mischief in the surface had already been and gone.And by the close, who could rightly say where the balance of the series truly lay? In slumping to a nadir of 67 for 7 in the hour after lunch – a passage of play that included three key wickets for no runs in ten balls, and six consecutive single-figure scores from Nos. 2 to 7 – England seemed hell-bent on resetting their very own red-ball reset. After the earnest insistences from Joe Root and Paul Collingwood that lessons had been learned and progress had been made since the all-too-recent misery of the Ashes, the hyper-implausible figure of Kyle Mayers begged to differ, as his startling morning figures of 5-5-0-2 instigated a collapse that could have come straight out of Scott Boland’s playbook.But then, out of the wreckage strode the batting saviours of Jack Leach – still as diffident as ever, even with his contrasting heroics at Headingley and Lord’s to serve as cult-status proof of his unlikely prowess – and England’s newest recruit Saqib Mahmood, who fell to the day’s final ball for an agonising 49, the highest score of his professional career. With Leach left high and dry on 41 not out, Nos. 10 and 11 had top-scored in a Test innings for the first time since 1885, when Australia’s Tom Garrett and Edwin Evans had made 51 not out and 33 not out respectively, in what turned out to be a thrilling six-run win against England.Related

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Only time will tell whether this stand will be as critical, but together Leach and Mahmood sapped the resolve of an all-too-easily deflated West Indies attack, whose collective legs were weary after the exhaustions of the first two Tests, and whose adrenaline bonked all too soon after the fall of Chris Woakes to the second ball after tea – at which point, with England in tatters at 114 for 9, their opponents seemed mentally to check out and put their pads on in anticipation of what promised to be the decisive innings of the series. They were still waiting, 90 runs and more than 46 overs later.Nevertheless, the final analysis of England’s innings revealed two men with scores in the 40s, and next to nothing else – and so on balance, West Indies’ decision to bowl first remained amply justified, even in a topsy-turvy fashion.From the outset it had been clear that a cracked and grassy surface with more than a hint of moisture underneath would be a prime bowl-first deck. However, when Kraigg Brathwaite unleashed an apparent four-pronged seam attack, following the decision to reinforce their batting at the expense of the spinner, Veerasammy Permaul, few could have expected it would be that extra batter, Mayers, who would prove to be the morning’s most penetrative option.For the first 40 minutes of the day, England’s openers Alex Lees and Zak Crawley seemed just about to have the measure of conditions that were closer to Chester-le-Street and Canterbury than they had faced all winter, as they withstood a torrid but occasionally over-eager burst from Jayden Seales in particular, to inch along to 23 for 0.But then West Indies clocked that less might well be more on a surface offering purchase for those who were willing to grip the ball on the track in the manner of an old-fashioned English seamer. And so Mayers, with his Darren Stevens-esque medium-paced wobblers, was tossed the ball in advance of West Indies’ fastest option, Alzarri Joseph. And from that moment on, it was a different dynamic.Kyle Mayers grabbed two early wickets for West Indies•Associated Press

Crawley, a centurion in Antigua, quickly lost patience with Mayers’ impertinence in the channel outside off. Having made his discipline on the drive such a feature of that apparent breakthrough innings, it was a familiar failing that sent him on his way for 7 as he flung his hands through a cunningly bowled legcutter, and spooned a simple chance to Brathwaite in the covers.Enter Root, with a hundred in each of the first two Tests of the series, but reunited with a situation more akin to England’s collapse to 48 for 4 on the first morning of the series in Antigua. And Mayers never offered him a chance to settle. His fourth ball hit the seam and wobbled wildly round Root’s outside edge; five balls later, Mayers scrambled that same seam, and kissed the edge of a defensive push down the line to have Root caught behind for a nine-ball duck.Lees’ introduction to the Test team has now featured a new highest score in four of his five innings, which must count as progress of sorts. He played a compact holding role throughout the morning session, but before England’s position could be claimed to have improved, they were three-down for 46 at lunch. Dan Lawrence – another player who seemed to have made visible strides in the first two Tests – had no answer as Seales returned with his discipline reframed. Despite burning a review after been pinned on the knee-roll by a nipbacker, he was sent on his way for 8 from 31 balls.In Antigua, England’s pre-lunch struggles had proven to be their nadir; here, however, they was merely the prelude. Four overs after the break, Ben Stokes – his blood pumping after a restorative century in Barbados – tried to take on Joseph’s short ball, and shovelled a spliced pull straight back into the bowler’s lap for 2 (53 for 4).Five balls and no runs later, Lees’ vigil was ended in uncompromising fashion by a pumped-up Roach, who was adamant that he’d found the edge two balls earlier, but when Brathwaite declined to waste his final review, he merely bombed the edge from round the wicket once more, and this time there was no doubt as Joshua da Silva sent him on his way for 31 (53 for 5).And then, as if it prove that the events of the previous fortnight had been a fever-dream, Jonny Bairstow capped England’s dramatic reversion to the mean with their third wicket for no runs in the space of 10 balls. Joseph – easily the quickest bowler on either side in the absence of Mark Wood – bent his back on another off-stump lifter, and Bairstow nicked off to da Silva for the 15th duck of his Test career, and his fifth since the start of 2021.From 53 for 6, it was now a familiar race to the bottom for England’s lower order. Ben Foakes was duly pinned on the crease as Seales ripped a bail-trimmer through his defences for 7, at which point England’s run of scores – +31 708207 – read like they were planning an international call to the Netherlands to fill the dead playing time on the final two days of this Test (though hopefully not for a T20I, to judge by past experience).Saqib Mahmood produced unexpected resistance from No. 11•Getty Images

At least Chris Woakes and Craig Overton broke the run of single-digit scores, not that this had been their original plan for first-day heroics, following their unlikely (and some might say, unwarranted) reprieves in England’s seam attack. But Roach prised them apart after an eighth-wicket stand of 23 – at the time, England’s joint-best of the innings – as he leapt wide on the crease to spear an outstanding nip-backer into the top of off stump (90 for 8).Woakes held the line well for the remainder of the session – during which time, in the absence of a regular spinner, Brathwaite even turned to Nkrumah Bonner and Jermaine Blackwood for an over apiece of speculative moon-balls. It seemed he had merely been stalling for time, especially when Woakes drove loosely at his second ball after the break to be bowled by Seales for 25. But it didn’t quite turn out like that.At first it was simply a matter of holding up an end – and few batters do that better than Leach, as shown by that epic 1 not out alongside Stokes three years ago. But as their stand extended, and both men’s eyes got in, a late-evening counterattack was the order of the day. Mayers, brought back in the hope of more magic, was slapped into the stands by Mahmood, while Leach’s love of a length ball became more and more apparent as he brought his favourite cover-drive out of mothballs.The new ball came and went, with ample swing but no major threat, but Blackwood’s return for the day’s final over proved a passion-killer for Mahmood, as he thwacked a fierce drive through the line to move to the brink of a memorable fifty, only to get too greedy to his very next ball, and under-edge a wild hoick into his own stumps. Nevertheless, he had given his team a chance – and his A game is still to come on what promises to be a pivotal second day.

Board official Dr Vince Adams is irked that ex-CEO is in line to get US $300,000 but players are still owed match fees

Peter Della Penna12-Jul-2022Dr Vince Adams, a member of the the USA Cricket Committee appointed in August 2020, has leveled scathing criticism at the board for its handling of recent financial and governance issues, including prioritising a payment of US $300,000 to ex-CEO Iain Higgins ahead of money owed to the national team players. Adams has fired off a series of emails in recent days, copies of which have been obtained by ESPNcricinfo, in which he has labeled the transition from the expelled USA Cricket Association to USA Cricket in 2018 as a “humungous [sic] mistake”.”It is a grave disappointment to those of us who spent over two years replacing USACA with USAC,” Adams wrote in an email on July 7 to USA Cricket operations director Richard Done in which the rest of the board of directors are also copied. “Even with so much less resources, USACA’s problems never came close to this dishonorable and unprincipled behavior of USAC’s leadership. The sad truth is that several members of the board and senior officials feel the same, but some would rather stay quiet, selfishly compromising themselves for small perks.”Adams, 72, is a former Guyana opening batter who made his first-class debut as a 19-year-old in 1969 in a side captained by Joe Solomon that also featured Alvin Kallicharran. He only played five first-class matches though, after injuries from a car accident derailed his career. He migrated to America a short time later and became an engineer, eventually obtaining a doctorate from the University of Tennessee. He has spent the last two decades as a senior government employee in Ohio working for the United States Department of Energy and is highly respected in the US Cricket community.Prior to being on the Cricket Committee of USAC, Adams was appointed by the ICC in 2016 to be a part of a “sustainable foundation” advisory group tasked with helping to streamline American cricket governance following USACA’s suspension in 2015. When USACA was expelled by the ICC in 2017, the sustainable advisory group’s chief task was to write the constitution for the new governing body that would take over.Adams’ email message comes after a lengthy thread in which Srini Salver, a former USA batter who currently serves as the male athlete rep on the board, sent a string of emails starting on June 30 questioning why a number of USA players are still yet to receive match fees despite competing in eight home ODIs in Texas played as part of ICC Cricket World Cup League Two from May 28 through June 15. Adams – who is a member of the cricket committee along with Salver, former USA men’s captain Sushil Nadkarni, former USA women’s player Nadia Gruny and former New Zealand international Jeff Crowe – then fired off the first wave of criticism at USA Cricket for their inactivity toward rectifying the player payments.”The habitual non-payment of players has been a major sore point for the [Cricket Committee], and we directed that it must be of the highest priority to ensure that players get their monies on time and must not be treated any way differently to USAC’s staff in this regard. We also directed all trips, matches, tournaments, etc., incurring these expenses, must not receive prior approval without the guaranteed available funds to cover these expenses. I recognise that this may be out of your control, but it is more than obvious that the CC’s decisions mean nothing!”Besides what appears to be the continued disparate treatment suffered by the players, this is a very basic principle of financial management, even in running cake-shop operations. So the clearly continued demonstration of incompetence and uncaring attitude towards the players by USAC’s management, are not only shocking, but also embarrassing and outright wrong!”The payment issues are the latest in a series of disputes over the handling of USA player central contracts. Not long after securing ODI status in April 2019, USA’s players became the highest paid in the Associate world that summer. USA Cricket touted in a press release that their highest central contract was in excess of $90,000. But by the summer of 2020, USA Cricket slashed every player’s salary by at least half, putting everyone on a flat $1800 per month pay rate citing the lack of matches and tight finances during the Covid-19 pandemic. USA’s international fixtures resumed in September 2021 and yet their players’ pay has not been restored to pre-pandemic levels.One email response from Salver, on July 7 following the message from Adams, highlights the $300,000 payment which the USA Cricket board has approved for Higgins, even though some USA players are yet to be paid their tour fees. This further enrages Adams, who then sends another email just hours later, saying that while a CEO should be paid what he has earned “whether it is $1 or $1 million”, he took issue with the process by which the payment was approved, and that it was prioritised over outstanding player fees.”The blatant pooh poohing of our own constitution is also a blatant disregard of the IRS 501C3 laws,” Adams writes, which relates to USA Cricket’s status as a non-profit corporation that allows it to be exempt from paying federal income tax. “It’s time for the IRS to be informed of the innumerable questions surrounding USAC’s failure to follow the rule of law, its conflict of interests, and dysfunctionality.”It obviously also demands that it is time for the public and the cricketing community to be made aware of these worrisome misgivings that affect them, so that they could hold the USAC board members accountable for their actions, especially now at these elections. It’s a burning shame that all of the guardrails we put in place to make USAC a model operation representative of the greatest country, are so brazenly being torn down by this board.”

Yorkshire in disarray by the time rain finally descends on Chelmsford and lose top-three spot

ECB Reporters Network17-Aug-2022Grant Roelofsen’s sublime innings helped Essex to a third successive Royal London Cup win and bolstered their chances of qualifying for the knockout stages.The South African recorded his third half-century in a row in the competition, finishing with a season’s high of 90 off 97 balls before Essex’s last eight wickets fell inside 14 overs for the addition of 56 runs.Roelofsen put on 151 – the only significant partnership of the game – with Essex captain Tom Westley, whose 52 was his fourth successive score above fifty.Yorkshire were soon in trouble in pursuit of 241, losing four wickets in the first six overs, and never recovered before heavy rain ended play – a relief not just for the Chelmsford outfield, but also or one of the most parched parts of the country. Essex, winning by 88 runs on DLS, leapfrogged Yorkshire into third place, though they have played a game more.Related

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Roelofsen dominated the third-wicket stand. Though not afraid to improvise with the reverse-sweep, the most eye-catching of
Roelofsen’s impressive array of strokes was a punishing off-drive though the covers for one of eight fours.There were two sixes for the South African in an over from Harry Sullivan over midwicket, and a third even more effortlessly off Matt Revis. At other times he was content to keep the scoreboard ticking along with nudges and flicks for singles and doubles.Westley was very much the sleeping partner. His fifth boundary, clouted firmly past Revis, brought up not only his own fifty, but also 150 for the stand. However, without addition he miscued an attempted pull over midwicket and skied a return catch to Sullivan. Roelofsen perished not long after when he went for one reverse-sweep too many against Sullivan and picked out Shutt at backward point.The pair had come together 25 overs earlier after Feroze Khushi was bowled by Ben Coad playing down the wrong line, and was followed almost immediately by opening partner Josh Rymell, run out on his call by a direct throw to the non-striker’s end by Shutt fielding at mid-off.However, the parting of Roelofsen and Westley prefaced a collapse from 184-2 to 240 all out.Robin Das fell to a carbon-copy of Roelofsen’s dismissal, chipping up Dom Bess to Coad. Nick Browne was bowled trying to give himself room against Shutt. Luc Benkenstein attempted to slog Waite and was bowled before Aron Nijjar was castled by Shutt. Waite mopped up the innings by having Jamal Richards caught behind and Ray Toole held one-handed at full stretch by Will Fraine at wide mid-on.The target did not initially look onerous, but Yorkshire were quickly in trouble. Roelofsen, swapping batting pads for the wicketkeeper’s, was soon back on the scorecard, catching Harry Duke behind off a faint tickle and then stumping Will Luxton, who tried to charge Nijjar.Shane Snater then had Fraine edging to slip, and next ball trapped Jonathan Tattersall like a statue in his crease to claim his third wicket in 11 balls.George Hill and Waite dug in doggedly for nine overs until Waite’s 35-ball vigil for 15 ended when he was lbw to one that kept low from Toole. The New Zealand seamer followed that by finding the edge of Revis’s bat and Yorkshire had fallen to 71-6.Five runs later the players scuttled off as the first serious rainfall of an otherwise dry season quickly flooded the ground and forced Duckworth and Lewis into decisive action.Tom Westley, expecting rain, had even slipped in a couple of rapid overs himself to ensure there would be a positive resut. “With 10 overs constituting a game, I brought myself on early. It started spitting in the sixth or seventh over and you could see clouds building everywhere so that was the reason why I came on for those token two overs.”I suppose being bowled out before we had faced the full 50 overs went in our favour because it gave us a bit more time to move the game forward and give us a bit more time with the ball. It’s pretty infuriating though that our number 11 is having to bat in every single game after we have got ourselves into some fantastic positions.”We don’t want to sell ourselves short by making the same mistakes over and over again it is a learning experience for a lot of these guys but from where we started against Derbyshire, which was an appalling performance given the standards we set, we have gone from strength to strength.”

Jasprit Bumrah was the Player of the Match for taking nine wickets in the Visakhapatnam Test against England

ESPNcricinfo staff05-Feb-20241:54

Manjrekar: Bumrah’s impact key to India drawing level

Jasprit Bumrah finished the Visakhapatnam Test against England with nine wickets – 6 for 45 and 3 for 46 – to help India draw level at 1-1 in the series. The highlight of his performance was the yorker that swung into Ollie Pope and uprooted his middle and leg stumps in the first innings.”As a youngster that [the yorker] is probably the first delivery I had learned because I had come from tennis ball cricket and I had seen the legends of the game, Waqar [Younis], Wasim [Akram] and even Zaheer Khan, I had seen them on the television, how do they bowl yorkers,” Bumrah told the broadcaster after India’s 106-run victory. “As a kid I used to feel that is the only way to take wickets. So that is the first delivery I learned. Yes, I kept it with me and I kept on using it to my advantage and now even in Test cricket when you get wickets off it, it’s great.”Bumrah now has 36 wickets in six Tests in India, at an outstanding average of 13.06 and strike rate of 29.5, but he said he wasn’t focussed on numbers anymore. “I don’t look at numbers because when I was a youngster I used to look at numbers. Yes, it made me excited, but you know, if you think about numbers, there’s a lot of pressure anyway playing for India. And if you take that added baggage, it doesn’t really help. So I’m very happy that we won and when you contribute towards that success it feels even better.”Related

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When asked if he felt like the leader of India’s attack, even though players like R Ashwin have a lot more experience than him, Bumrah said: “Not the leader but I feel that I have played a little more cricket. We are going through a transition. There are a lot of new bowlers coming in. So it’s my responsibility to help them and guide them in whatever way I can. So yeah, it’s always good that when we have certain conversations, what do we have to do in certain scenarios, it feels great.”Bumrah gave India timely breakthroughs on the final day of the Visakhapatnam Test, trapping Jonny Bairstow lbw in the final over before lunch, and then breaking a half-century stand for the eighth wicket by catching Ben Foakes off his own bowling. After the game, Rohit Sharma was asked if Bumrah was a luxury to have in the team.”Yeah, it is [a luxury to have Bumrah]. I mean, look, you know, he’s a champion player for us,” Rohit said. “It’s been a while, you know, that he’s doing the job for the team. But yeah, I mean, when you win a game like that, you know, you’ve got to look at the overall performance as well. We were good with the bat and then obviously we know that winning a Test match in these kind of conditions is not going to be easy. We wanted our bowlers to step up and they did that.”

“If given the responsibility, I would be more than happy to take it on,” Venkatesh says about the KKR captaincy

Vishal Dikshit24-Nov-20244:23

INR 23.75 crore for Venky Iyer – Moody ‘shocked’

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) were among the two franchises – along with Rajasthan Royals (RR) – who came into the mega auction without any right-to-match (RTM) options in the bag, and they are getting close to retaining a majority of their core, although with the unexpected amount of INR 23.75 crore they shelled out for Venkatesh Iyer. But by spending a combined INR 5.60 crore on opening batters Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Quinton de Kock, the defending champions have “balanced off” after breaking the bank for Venkatesh.Along with their retentions of Rinku Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Harshit Rana and Ramandeep Singh, and by buying Anrich Nortje again, they have nine players of ten from the squad that won IPL 2024.”Auctions are this way only,” KKR CEO Venky Mysore said of splurging on Venkatesh. “At the end of the day it’s about the player you want and the type of player you want in the set-up. Of course, prices have a meaning within a certain band and so it surprises you all the time. When you have salary caps like this going up (INR 120 crore compared to 100 crore last auction), obviously [player] prices will also expand. For us it was about trying to keep our core. We’ve kept six players and brought 2-3 players back from last year. that was always the kind of thinking and as far as he (Venkatesh) is concerned we definitely did’t want to find ourselves in a situation where we may not be able to bing him back. But it always balances itself. When you look at Quinton de Kock (INR 3.60 crore) and Nortje (INR 6.50 crore) that we’ve picked, it balances off in many ways. On an overall basis, it all works out.”They’ve proven on the field what they can do. You saw in a championship year, and one year we went to the final as well, in 2021. He (Venkatesh) was highly instrumental and terrific guy in the team. He had clearly given us an ultimatum that, ‘If you don’t pick me, I will be very sad’. So we didn’t want him to be sad, and we’re also very happy.”The first day of the auction saw as many as three players bag deals of over INR 20 crore each, with two of them – former KKR captain Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant – breaking the previous record of the biggest IPL deals. When asked if he was surprised by the big price tags this time as many big-name players wanted to explore the market, Mysore said, “Not really, to be honest. Players put in their base prices only, we’re the ones who are raising the paddle. It’s always a function of what the availability of the purse is and in that situation and timing what not. I still maintain that the RTM rule should have been the old rule.”