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Pat Cummins is finally set to play a Test on home soil in the Ashes and hopes to emulate Mitchell Johnson, whose carnage brought home the urn in 2013-14

Daniel Brettig12-Oct-2017Pat Cummins wants to be Australia’s Ashes enforcer, pinpointing Joe Root and Alastair Cook as England’s key wickets. He admitted the hosts will likely resort to bouncers – both verbal and literal – to regain the urn this summer.Ahead of a summer in which Cummins will finally play a Test on home soil – no less than six years after his storied debut against South Africa in Johannesburg – the 24-year-old is taking inspiration from how Mitchell Johnson intimidated England’s Ashes tourists four years ago, and has reasoned that the adjustment from softer northern hemisphere surfaces will offer a significant advantage for Steven Smith’s Australians.”We’re lucky there’s a few of us who are all pretty tall and get a bit of bounce with a bit of pace,” Cummins said in Sydney. “I’d love to play that [intimidation] role, hopefully the wickets have a bit of pace and bounce in them, getting the adrenaline up and running in and trying to bowl quick.”No one really likes it if you’ve got real pace and real accuracy. Especially those kinds of guys, they play on slower wickets where there’s not as much bounce. So over here and in South Africa as well it’s one of our biggest strengths, as batsmen we grow up on these wickets and as bowlers, getting bounce has always been really important. So I think it’s trying to make it as different to their home conditions as possible, bouncy fast wickets and short balls are definitely that.”Just playing a Test match in Australia will be a pretty weird feeling, I’ve played five now but none at home which is obviously what you grow up watching, so it’ll be great to be part of an Ashes series, it’ll be pretty amazing. I was over there a couple of years ago in England, running drinks, so the prospect of playing in front of a home crowd, I can’t wait.”The elevated place of Cummins in Australia’s planning for the home summer was underlined by how he was sent home early from the limited-overs tour of India to enjoy several weeks of rest before playing in the Sheffield Shield matches that lead into the first Test at the Gabba in late November. His memories of Johnson include the exhilaration felt by spectators and the hostility faced by the English batsmen, not only from the bowlers, but also the snarling presence of their team-mates in the field. Root and Cook can expect to bear the brunt this time around.”That series, one of the most exciting in recent times where fast bowling has really excited world cricket, and as a fast bowler I was super pumped to watch Jono [Johnson] and how he kept the whole morale of the side up at home in Australia against the Poms,” Cummins said. “That just shows the importance of having a really quick bowler and hopefully one of us three or four guys can do a similar job.”I think we all show our aggression differently, you probably tailor it towards which batsman you’re bowling to. That was one of the things along with the 150kph bouncers that really intimidated them, not just bowling. Hopefully that’s not our only tool – I’m not quite quick-witted enough to come up with too many sledges, but hopefully we can show our aggression in other ways.”Joe Root’s probably their most in-form batsman so I think he’ll be the prize wicket along with Alastair Cook, either of those two will be prime wickets.”While Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood are returning to full fitness after foot and side injuries, Cummins has come through a severely taxing series of overseas assignments with a clean bill of health, even after taking the field as Australia’s sole fast bowler in enervating Chittagong heat against Bangladesh. He has taken plenty of confidence from the experience, after years punctuated by plenty of injuries, rehab sessions and only the occasional sequence of cricket.”I think more so having the captain and the selectors’ confidence to pick me as the sole fast bowler in a Test match [helped], a year or two ago I thought I was really far away from a Test match, let alone confident in my form and my body to be the only [pace] bowler,” Cummins said. “I feel like I’ve played a lot of cricket on the subcontinent this year, so I’m looking forward to playing some Shield games with the red ball and getting used to these conditions again.”It has been a little bit weird watching the Test matches throughout the summers, but I’ve probably felt for the last five or six years I haven’t been that close to [playing] a Test match. Watching the one-dayers and the T20 sides I feel like I should be out there, but the Test matches I haven’t really been close to, more watching as a fan. So to go out there and play will be doubly special.”Like Starc and Hazlewood, Cummins is expecting to play in two of three Shield matches for New South Wales before joining the Ashes squad in Brisbane ahead of the Tests.

Jamaica decimated defending champions Trinidad & Tobago in the first semi-final of the 2016-17 Regional Super50 Competition, piling up 434 to set up a 292-run win

ESPNcricinfo staff16-Feb-2017
ScorecardJamaica piled up 434, the highest total in the Regional Super50 competition, to knock out defending champions Trinidad & Tobago and enter the final. Their 292-run win included centuries from Chadwick Walton and Jermaine Blackwood, but it was Rovman Powell’s all-round performance that throttled T&T.Having won the toss and opted to field, T&T watched as Walton and USA’s Steven Taylor shared an opening partnership of 174 which lasted a little over 21 overs. The pair dominated T&T’s attack from the outset, taking 25 runs off Ravi Rampaul in the sixth over of the innings and bringing up the century stand in the 12th over. Taylor, who reached his half-century off 35 balls, was eventually dismissed by Jason Mohammed for 88 off 71 balls, having hit five sixes and eight fours in his second fifty of the tournament.Walton and Blackwood then built on that foundation with a 95-run partnership for the second wicket. Walton brought up his maiden List A hundred off 84 balls and went on to score 117 off 96 balls with nine fours and seven sixes.Jamaica had reached 269 in the 36th over by the time Walton was dismissed, giving Powell enough of a platform to go after T&T. Powell smashed nine sixes and six fours in his 45-ball 95 during a third-wicket partnership of 163 with Blackwood that came off only 84 balls. Powell reached his half-century off 25 balls and helped Jamaica plunder 128 runs off the last 10 overs to bring up the ninth-highest total in List A cricket. It was also only the second time a team had put up a score of more than 400 in the regional competition. Blackwood, who also scored his maiden List A century, was unbeaten on 108 off 88 balls with six fours and as many sixes.Any hopes T&T had of chasing down the total were snuffed out by the seventh over when they were tottering at 40 for 4. Denesh Ramdin and Jason Mohammed (62 not out) resisted briefly, adding 63 for the fifth wicket, before Powell’s medium-pace wiped out the lower order. The allrounder took five of the last six wickets as T&T were bowled out 142 in 26.3 overs, the fourth-heaviest defeat in List A cricket. Powell took 5 for 26 in his eight overs while Jerome Taylor took 3 for 27.The second semi-final will be played between Barbados and Leeward Islands on February 16, with the final on February 18.

BCCI president Anurag Thakur has said the BCCI has put any plans for a mini IPL in the USA on hold, with T20 internationals being the preferred foray in the American market

Peter Della Penna31-Aug-2016BCCI president Anurag Thakur has said the board has put any plans for a mini IPL in the USA on hold, with T20 internationals being the preferred foray in the American market. The key obstacle, according to Thakur, was the time zone difference. Matches would need to start at 10am local time on the east coast in the USA, making mid-week fixtures difficult to draw big crowds and also limiting their options for alternate venues around the country.”I think we must understand the time difference,” Thakur told ESPNcricinfo. “IPL is seen in India from 7 o’clock to 11 or 11.30 at night. So you have to play somewhere in the east coast here (USA) so [that] the timing matches. If we have to play in the day here, the matches should be seen in India at night because broadcasting is a big thing. So you can’t make your home fan lose [by] playing outside India. So which are the provinces you can play in United States? That’s a big task.”IPL, we are not even thinking of hosting it outside India. It has to be hosted in India, but there are many other options what you can do which we’ll let you know over a period of time when we come out with a long-term plan for this market.”The BCCI had announced the idea of a “mini IPL” or “IPL overseas” in June when Thakur had said the board would host the tournament in September. A final approval was awaited after talks with franchises and broadcasters but no announcement has been made yet. During informal conversations with the BCCI, though, top officials have pointed out bizarrely that Thakur had never announced any plans for a tournament called “mini IPL.”The USA and UAE were options being discussed at the IPL governing council and working committee meetings earlier this year. “We have to look into various details: which country we can play in, how many teams, how many players should participate, who will be the broadcaster – all these issues need to deliberated, but we are keen to play in that [September] window,” Thakur had said in June.The BCCI had been trying to fill an empty window as India are not scheduled to play any cricket till the home Tests against New Zealand start on September 22.1:07

Anurag Thakur announcing the mini IPL in June 2016

A round-up of the Sunfoil Series matches played from March 31-April 2, 2016

ESPNcricinfo staff02-Apr-2016Wayne Parnell finished with career-best match figures of 12 for 105, guiding Cobras to a nine-wicket win over Dolphins at Newlands. Parnell had scythed through Dolphins for a career-best 7 for 51 in their first innings, and he took 5 for 54 in the second, ensuring that the game ended with a day to spare.Dolphins folded for 139 in their second innings, setting Cobras a target of 71. Dolphins lost Simon Khomari early, but Andrew Puttick (33 not out) and Stiaan van Zyl (37 not out) made sure there were no further hiccups as Cobras marched to 74 for 1 in 16.5 overs for their third win of the season.On the first day, Parnell had made sure Dolphins’ innings lasted just 46.3 overs after they were asked to bat. Vaughn van Jaarsveld, who top-scored with 58, and Senuran Muthusamy combined for a third-wicket stand of 72, but Muthusamy’s dismissal for 21 sparked a collapse as Dolphins slipped from 91 for 2 to 118 for 8. That they got to 183 was courtesy a rearguard effort from Craig Alexander, their No. 10, who blasted 54 off 35 balls.Parnell came good with the bat, too, stringing together a timely sixth-wicket stand of 101 with Dane Vilas after Cobras had been reduced to 99 for 5 in their reply. Parnell made 31, and Vilas top-scored with 80, to take Cobras to 252 and give them a 69-run lead. Dolphins’ new-ball bowlers did the bulk of the damage, with Alexander bagging 5 for 62, and Rabian Engelbrecht picking up 3 for 60.Several Dolphins batsmen got off to starts in the second dig, but none managed to make it count. Besides Parnell’s haul, Dane Piedt and fast bowler Brendan Young took two wickets apiece, while Vernon Philander accounted for one. Both Cobras and Dolphins, however, were already out of contention for the title.Warriors chased down 95 in 17.2 overs to beat Knights in a wicket-fest inside two days in Kimberley, giving them their first victory of the season. It also meant Knights suffered their fourth defeat as their push for the title received a significant blow.Fifteen wickets tumbled on the first day, and 16 on the second, before Martin Walters’ 40 off 39 balls, the second-best score in the match, helped Warriors break their drought. Edward Moore, the other opener, stayed unbeaten, on 29, as did No.3 Colin Ackermann, on 21.Having opted to bowl, Warriors seized the initiative by routing Knights for 128 in 51 overs. South Africa international Simon Harmer and Jerry Nqolo did the bulk of the damage, claiming combined figures of 21-9-36-7.Even as wickets fell around him, Rudi Second ground out 41 in 155 minutes, the highest score in the low-scoring match. Werner Coetsee (33), the captain, and opener Reeza Hendricks (18) were the only other batsmen to make double figures.Warriors then suffered a collapse of their own, but useful lower-order wagging put them in the lead. Seamer Duanne Olivier picked up his tenth five-wicket haul in first-class cricket and was ably assisted by Malusi Siboto as Warriors were reduced to 94 for 7 by the 40th over. Harmer stepped up with the bat and found company from No.9 Sisanda Magala; the pair put on 53, the joint-second best stand in the match.Facing a deficit of 37, Knights saw their top order getting cleaned up by Anrich Nortje. He ended with career-best returns of 5 for 34. Coetsee, Shadley van Schalkwyk, and Malusi Siboto mounted some late resistance, but Knights only managed to set a target of 95, as they lasted for even lesser time in the second innings, getting bowled out for 131 in 34.4 overs. The small target was easily knocked off courtesy positive batting from Warriors’ top three, as the team collected 15.3 points.

Like winning a hat the day after losing your head, Worcestershire’s discovery of a potent overseas bowler has come too late to save their Division One status

George Dobell at New Road22-Sep-2015
ScorecardTom Fell responded with the bat after Shannon Gabriel’s five-wicket haul•Getty Images

Like winning a hat the day after losing your head, Worcestershire’s discovery of a potent overseas bowler has come too late to save their Division One status.Shannon Gabriel, the West Indies fast bowler playing only his second game for the club, generated unusually sharp pace on an unusually green surface to claim the third five-wicket haul of his career in bowling Middlesex out for 98 runs in just 34 overs. Six of their batsmen were dismissed for ducks on the way to their lowest first-innings score of the season.But Worcestershire were assured of relegation before this game. Despite the emergence of a group of highly-promising young players – eight of their XI in this match developed through the club’s system – they have been unable to take advantage of promising conditions in several games and have lost 10 of the 15 they have completed to this stage.But how different it might have been had they had the services of a top-quality overseas player. While nobody at the club – well, nobody in the club management; the supporters are quite different – has a bad word to say about Saeed Ajmal, the Pakistan spinner who played eight Championship games earlier in the season, the fact is that he is a shadow of the bowler he used to be.Let us not be drawn into the debate about the rights and wrongs of the ICC’s clampdown on bowling actions: like discussions on capital punishment, fox-hunting and Kevin Pietersen, it only leads to arguments. But since Ajmal was obliged to remodel his action, he is unable to generate the pace or spin he once could. Whereas he claimed 63 wickets for Worcestershire at 16.47 in 2014 – albeit in Division Two of the Championship – this year he has managed just 16 at 55.62. It may well have been the difference between relegation and survival.To make matters worse, Sachithra Senanayake, the Sri Lanka spinner who played five matches earlier in the year and also suffered a similar fate to Ajmal, could only manage nine wickets at 42.33 during his stay.It has left Worcestershire unable to press home their advantage at crucial times. Such as the match against Sussex where, set 247 to win, they reached 57 without loss before collapsing to defeat. Or the match when Durham recovered from 102 for 9 to score 198 and eventually win by six wickets. Or the match against Nottinghamshire when they collapsed twice, first from 207 for 3 to 283 all out and then from 172 for 2 to 210 all out. In eight of the first 11 matches, Worcestershire held a first-innings lead, but were rarely able to sustain their advantage.While it is true that it would be unfair to expect overseas bowlers such as Ajmal or Senanayake to stiffen the batting, had Worcestershire had an alternative choice, the targets may have been lower or the batting stronger. In retrospect, their signing was a risk.But it was an understandable risk. Worcestershire do not have the budget to compete with many of their rivals in the market for players, so they are obliged to take chances or select players who may be unfashionable for various reasons. Sometimes, as with Damien Wright and Shakib Al Hasan, that has worked well; this year it has backfired.And whatever criticism supporters may want to aim at Steve Rhodes, Worcestershire’s director of cricket, there can be no faulting his effort. Rhodes and his fellow coaches – Elliott Wilson, Matt Mason and Kevin Sharp – will be running coaching sessions throughout the winter from as early as 7am in the hope of finding, and nurturing, the next generation of players.Recent evidence would suggest they are doing it very well. In Joe Clarke, a 19-year-old with a calm head, they have one of the finest young batsmen the club has produced in the last couple of decades – Rhodes rates him the best home-grown batsman since Steven Davies – while the allrounder Ed Barnard is not so far behind. In Tom Fell, Joe Leach and Charlie Morris they have three more fine, young players who should enjoy long futures with the club.One player not yet secured on a long-term deal is Ben Cox. The 23-year-old keeper has enjoyed a season of impressive progress and here took a couple of outstanding catches; not least an effort diving far to his left to dismiss James Franklin. But perhaps unsettled by the development of Clarke, who also wants to keep wicket, or perhaps increasingly aware of his worth in the open market, he has yet to agree a new deal. As things stand, he is out of contract in 12 months.”Relegation has been a tough pill to swallow,” Rhodes told ESPNcricinfo, “but not as hard to swallow as it has been previously.”Often, we went into games with a side containing one international player. And often, we were up against four, five or even six international players. At crucial times, that tends to show.”But we have a host of talented youngsters. We have signed most of them up on long-term contracts and, the way we are going, I would say that in three years we should be doing very well and there can be no excuses.”By “very well” Rhodes means having a team capable of staying in the top division for a sustained period – they have experienced five promotions and five relegations in the last 12 years – and challenging in white-ball cricket. For a club with obvious financial constraints – their cricket budget is about half of Surrey’s, for example – it is a worthy ambition.Such has been Rhodes’ success with young players that he will join Andy Flower – a spectator at New Road on the first day of this game – as an England Lions coach this winter and admits he is a much-improved coach.”I’ve massively changed as a coach,” Rhodes said. “You can do so much damage as a coach and I fear that, over the years, there have been some players I’ve just left confused. But in the last few years, I have tried to simplify things. I’m not going to let our rivals know exactly how we do things, but we have the best crop of young players we have had here for many years. Some of them have international careers in front of them.”Worcestershire took advantage of winning an important toss here. After the first session was lost to rain, they exploited conditions very well with Gabriel, in particular, gaining steep bounce from only just short of a good length. After Sam Robson, for whom batting looks an exhausting, unnatural business at present, edged one that reared on him to the slips, Dawid Malan was beaten for pace and lost his middle stump next ball. It was Malan’s third duck in succession; a span that has occupied just five deliveries.While Neil Dexter survived the hat-trick ball – he played and missed at it – he and Franklin soon perished to outside edges, before Nick Compton’s defiance was ended when he was drawn into poking at one outside off stump. Gabriel then returned and, in a wonderfully quick spell, completed his five-wicket haul by trapping Ollie Rayner on the crease, ending James Harris’ miserable innings with a fenced edge and having Toby Roland-Jones caught hooking.Perhaps Middlesex will reflect that a few of their batsmen could have left the ball more often. But in these conditions and against bowling of this pace, batting looked a treacherous proposition. Their lead over Nottinghamshire in the race for second place – 12 at the start of the day – had been cut to nine by stumps.In reply Brett D’Oliveira, cutting especially well and looking admirably solid, and Fell posted an unbroken 66-run stand for the second wicket to take Worcestershire to within 19 runs of Middlesex’s first-innings total. It is too late to save them from the drop, but it does promise much better times in the years ahead.

Rory Hamilton-Brown has announced that he will stand down as Surrey captain to focus on his own game

George Dobell10-Aug-2012Rory Hamilton-Brown has resigned as captain of Surrey having struggled to regain equilibrium following the death of close friend and team-mate Tom Maynard. Although Hamilton-Brown has reaffirmed his commitment to pursuing a playing career, he has accepted it will take time to regain the mental and physical fitness required to fulfil one of the more demanding jobs in cricket.Gareth Batty will continue as Surrey captain until the end of the season, with the club making a decision about a longer-term solution in the off-season. Batty and new signing Vikram Solanki will be among the candidates for the role, though Chris Adams, Surrey’s director of cricket, has made no secret of his desire to bring in new faces.Hamilton-Brown’s resignation brings to an end an experiment that was beginning to bear fruit. Just 22 at the time of his appointment in 2010 – the youngest Surrey captain in more than a century – Hamilton-Brown assumed leadership of a team struggling in all formats of the game. While progress was not always smooth, Surrey won the CB40 competition and Championship promotion in 2011 and, with a squad boasting several highly talented young players, looked set for a period of sustained success.Then came the tragic incident in June that claimed the life of Maynard – a young batsman in whom club and country had high hopes – and Hamilton-Brown was given indefinite compassionate leave to come to terms with his grief. While he has taken the first tentative steps towards a first-team return, he has decided that the responsibilities of captaincy are a burden he can do without at this stage of his rehabilitation. Surrey have not won a Championship game in his absence and endured a poor T20 campaign.”I am honoured to have captained Surrey, the county I have played for since I was nine years old,” Hamilton-Brown said. “It has been a privilege to have been in charge of a fantastic group of players and what we achieved together is a great source of pride to me, particularly our unprecedented record of only one defeat in 20 Clydesdale Bank matches.”I am only 24 and would now like to concentrate on my own game and try to achieve ambitions I have in the game by continuing to play well for Surrey.”Adams said: “I would like to thank Rory for everything he has achieved during his three years as captain. Having taken on the captaincy in 2010, winning a Lord’s final and securing promotion to Division One in 2011 were both fantastic achievements. He has undoubted talent and a desire to take his game to the next level. I hope he achieves all his ambitions within the game in the years to come.”Surrey remain in contention to retain the CB40 trophy – they are top of Group B having lost just one of their eight games – but have slipped into relegation trouble in the Championship, losing their most recent match against Durham by an innings.

Salman Butt and Mohammad Amir will have appeals against their spot-fixing sentences heard on November 23 in London

ESPNcricinfo staff18-Nov-2011Salman Butt and Mohammad Amir will have appeals against their spot-fixing sentences heard on November 23 in London.Butt was given a two-and-a-half year jail term after being found guilty of conspiracy to cheat and conspiracy to accept corrupt payments based on orchestrating no-balls against England, at Lord’s, in 2010.Amir was given two six-month sentences under the same charges, to run concurrently, and is currently in detention at a young offenders’ institute.The Court of Appeal will hear their cases on Wednesday and it will be presided over by the Lord Chief Justice.Mohammad Asif and agent Mazhar Majeed were jailed for a year and 32 months respectively. The three cricketers and Majeed were caught after a sting operation which produced evidence of Majeed setting up the deliberate no-balls that were delivered during England’s first innings at Lord’s. Majeed claimed to have paid Asif £65,000, Butt £10,000 and Amir £2,500.

The PCB chairman has promised to take “more than significant” action against leading Pakistan players in the aftermath of an inquiry committee report

Osman Samiuddin09-Mar-2010Ijaz Butt, the PCB chairman, has promised to take “more than significant” action against leading Pakistan players in the aftermath of an inquiry committee report looking into Pakistan’s recent tour of Australia, during which they lost every single international match they played, as well as tours to New Zealand and Abu Dhabi before that.Recommendations of the report, compiled by a six-man committee headed by Wasim Bari, include heavy fines and bans on top Pakistan players, including Shahid Afridi, the Akmal brothers, Naved-ul-Hasan and Shoaib Malik.Butt refused to identify any of the players or the nature of the punishments, though he confirmed that bans and fines were part of the action the board is expected to announce either on Tuesday or Wednesday. “We are looking at fines and bans as punishment and the action that we will take will definitely be more than significant,” Butt told Cricinfo.The report was discussed on Monday among senior officials in the board and the selection committee, where the selectors were essentially told to keep the 15-man squad for the World Twenty20 as flexible as possible, the implication being that some big names might not be travelling.Officials who attended the meeting confirmed to Cricinfo that Malik and Naved were possibly facing bans for breaches of discipline on tour, while Afridi and the Akmal brothers would be fined between Rs2-3 million and be placed under probation for a set period.Kamran and Umar Akmal are likely to be fined for their part in the run-up to the final Test in Hobart, when Kamran repeatedly and publicly insisted he would be picked despite a PCB release stating the opposite, and Umar allegedly feigned an injury and threatened to not play. Afridi is expected to be pulled up for his ball-biting incident while captaining the side in the last ODI in Perth, for which he has already been punished by the ICC.Though the recommendations have been leaked out, the report itself is not expected to be made public. “We met with the selectors yesterday and discussed the report,” Butt said. “Some of the information was leaked from that and I will not comment on the identity of the players for now. We will make public the actions that we take, not the report itself.”But I can tell you that the report is very concrete. It has taken inputs from the reports of the captain, the coach, the manager. The committee called these people in as well and asked pertinent questions based on what they read. It is a solid document.”The inquiry committee also included the board’s legal advisor Tafazzul Rizvi and it is believed that the recommendations have been vetted for their legal solidity.

Grave also backs centralising travel costs in the WTC, and spreading out hosting rights for men’s world events

PTI17-Jun-2024India has a “leadership role to play” in ensuring that Test cricket not just survives but thrives in regions like the West Indies, according to its CEO Johnny Grave.Grave, who joined Cricket West Indies (CWI) back in 2017, lauded the BCCI’s commitment to Test cricket despite a gruelling calendar but said more needs to be done at the ICC level to protect the red-ball game outside India, England and Australia.Out of the nine competing ICC Full Members, only these three will play a five-match series in the 2023-2025 World Test Championship cycle. Three teams – Ireland, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe – have never been part of the championship, which was introduced in 2019.Grave, currently busy with co-hosting the T20 World Cup, spoke on the future of the game and the role he expects the BCCI to play.”India have a leadership role to play,” Grave told PTI. “They’re now the No. 1 board when it comes to power, influence and resources. To date, they’ve been fantastic in how they’ve continued to play all three formats of the game, [and with] their commitment to Test cricket. I don’t think it has ever been as strong as it is now.”Is the BCCI doing enough in the leadership role? “I think they are,” Grave said. “They’re becoming increasingly influential in the key decisions that the ICC makes. The BCCI were hugely supportive in one of the biggest things the ICC have achieved in the last 12 months, which is getting cricket back into the Olympics after a gap of 128 years.”The fact that India came on board and supported that bid was absolutely, in my opinion, crucial for the result that the ICC got, which was the acceptance of cricket into the LA Games.”And we’re already seeing from the Associate world, in particular, that being an Olympic sport has a very big impact on them, positively, in terms of how they can get money from government, get money from the Olympic associations to drive the game at all levels.”

“Centralise travel costs and accommodation in WTC”

India have toured the West Indies three times in the last five years, providing a massive financial boost to the CWI, which largely depends on media-rights money from Indian and English broadcasters to keep the game afloat in the Caribbean.As of now, series in the WTC cycle are bilaterals with the home board pocketing all broadcast revenues and the visiting teams having to pay for their own travel. Grave wants the ICC to centralise the travel costs – West Indies have to spend quite a bit on travel in crisscrossing the globe.India have toured West Indies three times in the last five years•AFP via Getty Images

“We have to have a league mentality that we’re all in it together as the Test playing nations,'” Grave said. “And I think the World Test Championship is a start to that. I think it’s gaining some momentum. I think it can be improved.”Centralise flights and accommodation within the World Test Championship and take on those costs as the costs of the league rather than placing all that burden on the participating teams as we’re so negatively disadvantaged by that.”

T20 World Cup to offer economic boost of US$300 million in the region

In Grave’s words, the CWI has not been in a better place financially after multiple tours from India and England in the post-Covid era. The T20 World Cup, which is the first ICC men’s event held in the Caribbean since 2010, will also add to the coffers of CWI, which generates an annual revenue of US$50 million.The six chosen venues needed urgent renovation to be World Cup ready and that has cost $50 million approximately, with half of the amount spent on the Kensington Oval in Barbados, where the final will be staged.Related

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“It’s been 14 years since we hosted our last men’s event,” he said. “And it’s hugely important [that we get to host world events].”[Building infrastructure] is a huge part of hosting a World Cup because the legacy of that means that the six grounds that are playing hosts for this World Cup will have facilities that we, Cricket West Indies and our home boards, can benefit from for hopefully for the next decade.”West Indies are co-hosting the T20 showpiece with USA, and going forward, more world events will be jointly hosted and not just by India, England and Australia, as it has been the case in the last ten years.”We made the point that we think there should be more equal revenue sharing of ICC distributions [BCCI currently gets nearly 40% of the share]. And part of that equality was the spreading around [the hosting rights for] the men’s events.2:19

WI captain Rovman Powell on what a home World Cup means for West Indies

“Some of the bigger host countries could be making $100 million from hosting a men’s event based on the revenues that they would keep.”And therefore, it’s another way in which if you’re not spreading around those events, that the few nations that do host are benefiting more than others, as well as getting on-the-field home advantage and playing in home conditions that they should know better and be able to adapt better.”It’s an important part of the change of the next cycle, there’s going to be multiple teams hosting.”

Chaturvedi’s 404 not out leads Karnataka past Mumbai and to the title in Shivamogga

Shashank Kishore15-Jan-2024Prakhar Chaturvedi etched his name into the record books by scoring the first quadruple century in the final of the Under-19 Cooch Behar Trophy, against Mumbai in Shimoga on Sunday.Along the way, he surpassed Yuvraj Singh’s 24-year-old record of 358, the previous highest individual score in the tournament final. Overall, he slotted in at No. 2 on the list of highest individual scores in the tournament, after Vijay Zol’s 451 not out for Maharashtra against Assam in the 2011-12 season.Opening the innings, Chaturvedi made 404 not out as Karnataka batted Mumbai out of the game and won on the basis of a first-innings lead. Karnataka posted 890 for 8 after 223 overs of batting in response to Mumbai’s 380 all out on the second day. Chaturvedi faced 638 balls in all, hitting 46 fours and three sixes in his knock.It marked a spectacular turnaround in fortunes for Chaturvedi, who wasn’t picked in the Under-19 squad for the season to begin with, but now elicits the prospect of making his senior team debut for Karnataka in the Ranji Trophy, in the same season where he also missed the India Under-19 World Cup bus.