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After a lean start to the 2017-18 season, the India batsman hit back with a record-breaking double-century and says he is in a good frame of mind ahead of the Sri Lanka series

ESPNcricinfo staff10-Nov-2017Cheteshwar Pujara’s ability to bat hours on end, scoring massive amounts of runs, has become his signature. He has played the longest innings by an Indian in Tests, and his tally of 1611 runs last season is a national record in first-class cricket. So when he goes through a lean patch, questions are raised.In August, after the end of a productive series against Sri Lanka, Pujara went to play domestic cricket in England. He returned home with a top score of 34 in seven innings, and wasn’t his usual self in the Ranji Trophy either, where his first two innings yielded 35 and 13.”Sometimes, people expect a lot out of me because I have the habit of scoring big runs.” Pujara told . “The expectation is that I should score a hundred every second or third innings. It is difficult to always fulfil that.”Pre-season runs are a vital part of Pujara’s success. Upon his return from a difficult tour of the West Indies in 2016, when he was dropped from the XI, he struck 166 and 256 not out in two Duleep Trophy matches. They were vital innings, he felt, and paved the way to his becoming the highest run-getter in the world in 2016-17.Now, with two weeks to go for the home Tests against Sri Lanka, Pujara made his 12th double-hundred, another national record. He followed up with an innings of 182.”The moment I start scoring big runs, as a batsman, my rhythm comes back and my concentration improves,” Pujara said. “Everything looks good. So, it is a perfect start before I head into the Sri Lanka series.”Cheteshwar Pujara recorded his 12th first-class double-century•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Pujara said that his low scores prior to his back-to-back hundreds weren’t due to a lack of form. “I was playing on some tough pitches in England. All the matches were on challenging pitches and most of the games were low-scoring ones. I accepted my failures and I did learn so many things out of it.”It wasn’t that I was going through a bad phase or that I wasn’t timing the ball well,” Pujara said. “It was just a time where I had to stay patient. I was playing on tough pitches and if I get a good ball, just accept it and learn new things, what are the things I can still improve on and then start scoring runs again.”When I came back to India, in the first game, I had a little bit of jet lag but I was batting well and got good start and got out playing a bad shot for 35 [against Haryana]. Even in the next game [against Jammu & Kashmir], I looked in good touch but I made a mistake and got out [for 13]. So, overall I knew I was batting well.”The gap between the end of the Sri Lanka series and the start of the tour of South Africa is short. India play their last match at home on December 24 and the Cape Town Test begins on January 5. Pujara, however, is usually picked only for Test cricket and the last Test against Sri Lanka ends on December 6. So he will have more time to prepare for South Africa”When you travel abroad, you have to alter a few things,” Pujara said. “Obviously, the basic things remain the same. You have to have different preparations depending on the country you are visiting. If you are going to South Africa, there are certain things that I know that I need to do to perform well there, and I will work on them. I have played enough cricket in England that when we go there [in July-August 2018], I know the things I need to do there.”

The back injury that Faf du Plessis suffered against Bangladesh may keep him out of the day-night encounter against ZImbabwe. Dean Elgar will likely captain the side in his absence

Firdose Moonda18-Dec-2017South Africa’s Test captain Faf du Plessis is in doubt for the inaugural four-day Boxing Day day-night Test against Zimbabwe, as Cricket South Africa opt for a cautious approach to managing his return from injury.Du Plessis has not played any cricket since late October when he hurt his back during the second ODI against Bangladesh. He was initially prescribed six weeks’ rest. However, at the same time, du Plessis had surgery on a problematic shoulder. As a result, he played no part in the recently concluded Ram Slam and was not named in the CSA Invitation XI to play Zimbabwe in a warm-up match scheduled for Wednesday.Mohammed Moosajee, South Africa’s team manager who is also a medical doctor, told ESPNcricinfo last week that du Plessis was “on track”, but also emphasised that a late decision will be taken given the workload over the next three months.”If we reach next week and see that Faf would benefit from another week off, then we will give him that time,” Moosajee said. “We are not going to be foolish with his return, because there is a lot of cricket over the next few months.”After the Zimbabwe Test, South Africa host India for three-Tests starting on January 5, six ODIs and three T20s and then have a four-Test home series against Australia in March.Given that the South African management prefer their players to have some game time after returning from an injury and before representing the national side, it seems a better option for du Plessis to sit out the Test and perhaps even play in the upcoming domestic one-day tournament which starts on Wednesday. South Africa would have a ready-made batting replacement in AB de Villiers, who will play the warm-up match and has declared himself eager for a Test return. They will also likely turn to stand-in captain Dean Elgar, who led the side at Lord’s when du Plessis was on paternity leave.South Africa are only expected to name their Test squad after at least some of the warm-up match has been played and they have monitored the progress of some of their other players. Dale Steyn and Chris Morris are both due to play in the match and could make a return following significant time out of the game. Morne Morkel, who is coming back from a side strain, is not in the squad but recently played a three-day provincial match for Easterns, with positive reasons. He bowled 19.4 overs and took seven wickets for 43 runs.

The Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium can now be added to the list of recent venues (the others being the MCG and the Wanderers) in which either the batsmen or the bowlers had absolute advantage over the other

Mohammad Isam04-Feb-2018The Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium can now be added to the list of recent venues (others being the MCG and the Wanderers) in which either the batsmen or bowlers had absolute advantage over the other. By the end of the Test match, in which both sides thought every morning that the pitch would break up over that day, players from the two teams had differing views on it. While Sri Lanka opener Dimuth Karunaratne said he did not think this was a good track for the well being of Test cricket, Bangladesh’s stand-in captain Mahmudullah felt there was nothing wrong with it.Karunaratne said that he felt it wasn’t the right kind of pitch as it had nothing to offer to the bowlers. Indeed, the Sri Lankan bowlers struggled to draw a false stroke out of Mominul Haque and Liton Das for four hours, and then when they did dismiss them, they were thwarted by the dead bats of Mahmudullah and Mosaddek Hossain.Karunaratne said that he hoped the pitch in Mirpur will have a bit more spice for the bowlers. “Bangladesh put up 500-plus on the board but our batters showed a lot of character to reply with 700-plus. The boys did well to put them under pressure on this wicket by getting a big score. I don’t think this is a good wicket for Test cricket because already 1,500 runs have been scored. I think there needs to be something for the bowlers as well. I am hopeful we get a 50-50 wicket in the next Test.”Normally, in the subcontinent, there is some turn in the fourth and fifth day. Here there wasn’t much turn or bounce. Batsmen could play big shots off the back foot as well. Once a batsman got set, he was able to get a really big one on this wicket. There were a lot of big runs in the scorecard.”Mahmudullah, however, didn’t agree with Karunaratne. When asked of his opinion on Karunaratne’s comments, Mahmudullah said that both teams should be happy with their batsmen getting plenty of runs at a good run rate in a Test match.”I think batsmen from both sides did well. I don’t know how he said it wasn’t a good wicket for Test cricket. I think we have to ask him what type of wicket he wants. Test match is always hard – whether it was a batting-friendly, spin- or pace-friendly wicket. Batsmen from both sides dominated the game. The run rate was quite good. I think it was a good wicket.”Mahmudullah, however, did admit that he expected there to be some turn every day of this Test, like usually happens in Chittagong: “I think the wicket was really good from the first to the fifth day. I didn’t expect [it] to be this good.”I thought it might start turning from the second or third day, or the fourth or fifth. Having said that, I think everyone had to work hard to score runs.”Mominul, who scored 176 and 105 in this game, said that he had trained his mind to expect a bit of turn. “I thought it would turn a bit more. I didn’t want to be surprised with the turn, which is why I kept that in mind,” he said.Now, the pitch debate is likely to rage on during the rest of the Test series, as had been the case with the Shere Bangla National Stadium’s surfaces during the Bangladesh Premier League and the tri-nation series.

In November, the Tasmanian earned a Test recall after seven years purely on his reputation as the best pure gloveman in Australia. On Sunday, he proved his worth with a stunning, vital grab up to the stumps off Mitchell Marsh

Daniel Brettig in Durban04-Mar-2018On day one of his Australian Test recall, seven years after his previous appearance, Tim Paine dropped a catch up to the stumps. It came from a James Vince outside edge procured by Nathan Lyon generating bounce from around the wicket, and caused plenty of annoyance for Paine. He had, after all, been chosen as arguably the most highly-rated gloveman in the country.Six Tests later, Paine vindicated that rating with the catch that finally sunk a doughty South African rearguard, standing up to the stumps for Mitchell Marsh’s fast mediums and clasping the chance offered by Aiden Markram after he’d made superb century. Watching from back home, one of Paine’s fellow custodians of the gloves for Australia, Adam Gilchrist, described the catch as “sublime”. With the younger and supremely talented Alex Carey waiting in the wings, Paine has made his glovework count.”I’ve tried it a few times on flattish wickets, there was a bit of reverse swing so if we’re honest, we were going to try and trap him on the crease and get him lbw but as you saw, it bounced a bit more and got an outside edge so very grateful it stuck,” Paine said. “I think it’s always a chance when you’re up to the stumps. It certainly mixes the batsmen’s feet up a little bit and makes them play in a certain, different way.”We saw South Africa do it a lot with Vernon (Philander), guys who can hit a really nice length, get the keeper up to the stumps, it’s just a different scenario for a batter to deal with. It worked well. I wouldn’t say they were starting to get away from us, they were playing very well, but we knew we had a new ball around the corner and we know what our attack can do when we start to get it at the tail.”So we knew we were one wicket away and we were right in the contest, but from a wicketkeeping point of view, that’s what I try and do. I try and change the game, so just needed to come up to the stumps to try and do something different and it was great that it stuck in there.”The chance to dismiss Markram arrived through a determined spell from Marsh, who has been a major contributor for Australia with both bat and ball. Paine said that while he was not entirely sure about speed gun readings that had Marsh touching 139kph during his spell, he had little doubt about the allrounder’s value to the team on days like this, when the frontline attack of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon was briefly blunted by Markram and a rejuvenated Quinton de Kock.”I’m not sure about that speed gun. He’s actually claiming it, don’t worry,” Paine quipped. “But Mitch has obviously had some shoulder issues and he’s coming back and gaining some confidence, playing beautifully with the bat. I think in Australia and sort of across the world we’re starting to see what Mitch is capable of. Back home in Australia we’ve seen him bowl faster than that.”I certainly wouldn’t be keeping up to the stumps to him with the pace I’ve seen him bowl in Australia. He’s developing into a fantastic all-round package at international level. It’s really exciting for him and it’s great for our side to have someone coming of age like he is.”The Paine and Marsh combination opened up an end for Starc, who threatened to bring the match to the swiftest of finishes with three wickets in a single over before poor light forced the use of spin for the final 40 minutes. Starc is still on a hat-trick, and Paine said the Australians would try to give him the chance to take the final wicket to end the match when the final day resumes.”He gets a chance tomorrow now. We’ll come in early tomorrow, do another warm-up and see what happens,” Paine said. “I think they were going to go off but I think most nights teams have been offered spin so I know one of the nights I was out there the South Africans were offered spin on day one, they decided not to take it. Obviously the state of the game tonight we thought we’d have a crack at getting that last wicket.”It was just getting darker and darker so even the spinners were becoming a little bit harder to see. It’s got to be fair for the batters. It was great they gave us the chance with the spin but the umpires were constantly checking the light and it was just getting to the stage where it was just too dark.”Looking overall at the match, Paine said an even contribution across the team had been a major positive, even if it will not go down as one of Australia’s better batting performances. “I think we’ve actually played a decent team game of cricket except for Starcy’s couple of bursts with the ball,” he said. “We haven’t had an outstanding batting performance. Mitch Marsh was good in the first innings.”I think just our ability to keep sticking at it, keep fighting … it’s a world-class team we’re playing against and we know that’s what we’re going to have to do. Hopefully in the next game we get hundreds and we get guys that can support Starcy a bit more with the ball. I think whilst we’re in a good position to win this game tomorrow, if it goes ahead, we can play a lot better.”

A two-season wait finally comes to an end for two-time winners Chennai Super Kings, who face defending champions Mumbai Indians in the season opener at the Wankhede

The Preview by Karthik Krishnaswamy06-Apr-20183:27

Agarkar: It feels like CSK have picked a team for Chennai conditions

Big picture

May 24, 2015, Eden Gardens. We didn’t know it then, but this would be the last bit of on-field action for Chennai Super Kings for close to three years. An inconsequential top-edged four in a big defeat, in their sixth IPL final.On Friday, Super Kings will be back, with a team full of familiar names and sentimental favourites, and while they would have liked to play their comeback match in front of their home fans at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, this is probably the next-best thing: Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede. The IPL’s two most successful franchises, head-to-head, in the opening match of a new season.Despite all the upheaval between that 2015 final and now, there’s a remarkable number of old storylines still at play when these two sides meet: half of the 22 players who lined up for that match are still part of the two squads, with two – Harbhajan Singh and Ambati Rayudu – crossing over from blue to yellow.Taken too far, however, continuity can turn into stagnation, and that’s a danger Super Kings, in particular, will have to guard against, with their squad containing 11 players in their 30s. It’s also a squad that looks a touch unbalanced, loaded with spinners and light on pace options and power-hitters. It might be just the right squad for the slow turners that they typically play on in Chennai, but perhaps not for flatter, bouncier pitches – like the Wankhede, for instance.Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede, then, will be a massive litmus test for Super Kings’ adaptability, right at the start of the season. Any early cracks they show will be ruthlessly pounced upon by every other team.Chennai Super Kings have a superior head-to-head record over every franchise except Mumbai Indians•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

In the news

Stephen Fleming, the Super Kings coach, has confirmed that Faf du Plessis is unavailable for selection. Du Plessis is recovering from a finger injury that troubled him all through South Africa’s recently concluded home summer, an injury that was aggravated by a painful blow from (Mumbai’s) Pat Cummins during the Johannesburg Test.

The likely XIs

Mumbai Indians: 1 Evin Lewis, 2 Ishan Kishan (wk), 3 Rohit Sharma (capt), 4 Suryakumar Yadav, 5 Kieron Pollard, 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Krunal Pandya, 8 Mitchell McClenaghan, 9 Mustafizur Rahman, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Rahul Chahar.Chennai Super Kings: 1 M Vijay, 2 Sam Billings, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 Shane Watson, 5 Kedar Jadhav, 6 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 7 Dwayne Bravo, 8 Ravindra Jadeja, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Shardul Thakur, 11 Mark Wood.

Strategy punt

Shane Watson has struggled against left-arm spin in the IPL since the start of the 2015 season, scoring 100 runs off 105 balls while being dismissed ten times. M Vijay (5.84 per over) and Sam Billings (6.41), meanwhile, have poor scoring rates against spin in the Powerplay overs of T20 games. Given that these three are Super Kings’ main options to open the batting, Mumbai should seriously consider giving Krunal Pandya the new ball.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Stats that matter

• Super Kings have a positive head-to-head against every team in the IPL apart from Mumbai, against whom they have won 10 games and lost 12.
• Since the start of the 2015 season, Rohit Sharma has had difficulties against legspin, having been dismissed nine times in 27 innings against that type of bowling while striking at 113.7. His IPL record against Imran Tahir is middling: 50 off 42 balls while being dismissed once.
• MS Dhoni has become a distinctly slower starter in recent seasons of the IPL. Until the end of the 2014 season, he made his runs at a strike rate of 122.35 across the first ten balls of his innings. Since the start of the 2015 season, that number has dropped to 98.97.
• If JP Duminy starts for Mumbai, Super Kings should look to bowl their offspinners against him at every opportunity. He has career T20 strike rates of 84.3 against Harbhajan Singh and 92.00 against Suresh Raina.
• Kieron Pollard doesn’t bowl that much these days, and he probably shouldn’t bowl anyway on Saturday. Almost all of Super Kings’ batsmen have towering strike rates against him in T20 cricket, with Suresh Raina (180.4), Shane Watson (179.6), MS Dhoni (177.1) and Dwayne Bravo (145.2) leading the way.

Fantasy picks

Evin Lewis comes to the IPL with a massive reputation and a stunning T20 record. The one question mark all highly-rated overseas players have before they start their IPL careers is whether they can handle top-quality spin. As things currently stand, that isn’t an issue with him – against pace, he averages 31.37 and scores at 8.93 per over; against spin, the corresponding numbers are 38.41 and 8.84. Plus, as a less-known quantity to IPL attacks, the start of the tournament is perhaps the time when oppositions won’t have formulated highly specific plans against him. With all this in mind, the hard-hitting Trinidadian should be an excellent fantasy pick.

Quotes

“It’s hard to read it right now. It’s very dry underneath. It’s tough one to read. Usually it plays pretty well. This time of the year the average score is 165. We’re expecting there will be good pace and carry. Dew factor… there’s a lot of aspects of it to consider… but think it’ll be pretty good.”
“I would like to keep that as a surprise. Our middle order is very good and we have got good openers in Evin Lewis and Ishan Kishan. We will see on the 7th where I bat. I would like to keep that as a surprise.”

Queensland will take on Tasmania in the Sheffield Shield final which begins on March 23

ESPNcricinfo staff17-Mar-2018Michael Neser in his follow-through•Getty Images

Queensland will head into the Sheffield Shield final full of confidence after a stunning come-from-behind win over New South Wales in Wollongong.The Bulls began the final day 156 runs in front. Charlie Hemphrey managed the five runs he needed to score his second century in as many matches. He fell shortly after for 101.But the Bulls pushed on with Jack Wildermuth scoring 45 not out while Michael Neser and Mark Steketee made valuable lower-order contributions to allow a declaration to set up a chase of 280 from 52 overs. Blues paceman Trent Copeland finished with four wickets in the second innings and nine for the match.The Blues chase started with Nick Larkin falling lbw second ball to Neser. The rest of the top order got starts but no batsman could go on with it as New South Wales slumped 7 for 156 as they tried to stay up with the required run-rate.Peter Nevill then put together a string of partnerships with Sean Abbott, Steve O’Keefe and Harry Conway to take the Blues within sight of an unlikely victory. But he was the last man out, caught in the gully off Brendan Doggett for 53, with 37 still required.Neser finished with three wickets while Doggett, Wildermuth and Mitch Swepson each picked up two.

The opener smashed his sixth IPL hundred and 21st overall in T20s to lead Kings XI Punjab to 193 for 3, a score that proved too much for Sunrisers Hyderabad

The Report by Deivarayan Muthu19-Apr-2018
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details5:26

Agarkar: Sunrisers lacked firepower in the chase

Prior to the start of IPL 2018, Kings XI Punjab’s director Virender Sehwag said Chris Gayle would be worth the money spent on him if he were to win his team two or three games. Gayle has now played two match-winning innings in two matches. Four days after his 33-ball 63 against Chennai Super Kings, Gayle shellacked his sixth IPL hundred and 21st overall in T20s to consign Sunrisers Hyderabad to their first defeat of the season.On Sunday, Gayle lined up CSK’s medium-pacers, but adopted a different approach against a formidable Sunrisers attack. He saw off Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s first spell and later unleashed a brutal assault on Rashid Khan’s legspin. All told, Gayle smashed 42 off 16 balls from Rashid at a strike-rate of 262.50.Gayle batted through the innings for his 104 not out off 63 balls, which also included four twos. In pursuit of 194, Sunrisers lost early wickets as well as Shikhar Dhawan to an elbow injury, and there was no way back for them, despite fifties from their captain Kane Williamson and Manish Pandey.

Tye’s knuckle balls do the job

Andrew Tye, the Kings XI Punjab seamer, finished with figures of 4-0-23-2. Those two wickets included those of Kane Williamson and Deepak Hooda, both deceived by knuckle balls. Here’s Tye at the post-match press conference:
On choosing the knuckle ball: “It all depends on how I’m feeling at that time – whether the knuckle ball or the offcutter or the legcutter, back of the hand or anything – all depends on what I feel is working for me on the day. Today it was the knuckle ball, so I stuck with it and bowled a lot of them. Sometimes it works, sometimes I get hit into the crowd and look like a bit of an idiot.”
On the advantage of bowling second: “As a bowler [we] look what the opposition has done, what bowlers have worked for them. [Today] we summed it up to this: it was skidding on a bit, so a good hard length when the ball was new was sort of not bouncing. So you could pull it back a little bit, and [use] the slower balls to hit hard on that wicket to give the batsman no freedom to hit in the arc.”

Kings XI’s Jekyll-and-Hyde start
After becoming the first captain to opt to bat this season, R Ashwin reckoned Kings XI would be better off setting a target as opposed to chasing one against the best attack in the tournament at one of India’s larger grounds. Gayle and KL Rahul began cautiously against the swing and change-ups of Bhuvneshwar and Chris Jordan, and played out 12 dots in the first three overs. Gayle then launched Kings XI’s innings when he hit four boundaries in seven balls, including three leg-side sixes off Jordan and Rashid. In between, he was dropped on 14 by wicketkeeper Wriddhiman Saha off Rashid’s first ball – a difficult chance off the toe end when he looked to cut.Rahul, at the other end, had an early scare when he was given out lbw on 5, but he survived after a review thanks to a thin inside edge. Rahul moved to 18 off 20 before being pinned in front by a Rashid skidder. Rahul’s Karnataka team-mate Mayank Agarwal flickered briefly before slicing Siddarth Kaul to backward point for 18 off 9; by then Kings XI were 83 for 2 in the 11th over.Chris Gayle raises his bat upon reaching his 21st T20 century•BCCI

Gayle v Rashid: round-II
With two wickets falling in quick succession, Gayle slowed down and brought up his fifty off 39 balls. He then kicked into top gear and became only the second batsman, after AB de Villiers, to take Rashid for four sixes in an over. Gayle did so off successive balls, in the 14th over, which cost 27 runs.When Rashid erred too full, Gayle simply opened up hips and put the sightscreen in danger, and when Rashid dragged his length back he mowed the ball over the leg side. The visual moment of the over, though, came when he hared back for a second run off the last ball and wore a wry smile.With their premier spinner leaking runs, Sunrisers were forced to look beyond their frontline options. Deepak Hooda, however, could not do much with his part-time offspin.Gayle’s party continues
After getting to his first fifty off 39 balls, Gayle surged to his second off only 19 balls. He moved to 99 with his 11th six – the most by a batsman this season – and raised the landmark by guiding one past backward point in the 19th over. He brought out the ‘cradle’ celebration and later dedicated the knock to his daughter, who will turn two on Friday.Gayle found supporting hands from Karun Nair (31) and Aaron Finch (14*) as Kings XI finished strongly at 193 for 3. Rashid, the best T20 bowler right now, was left nursing his worst figures of 4-0-55-1.Sunrisers sink in chase
Sunrisers suffered a major setback in the first over when Dhawan retired hurt after taking a blow to the elbow, and he did not return to bat. Mohit Sharma varied his pace excellently and bowled both Wriddhiman Saha and Yusuf Pathan to leave Sunrisers at 37 for 2 in five overs.Williamson and Pandey worked past the early strikes with a 76-run stand for the third wicket, but they struggled to keep in touch with the soaring asking rate. Mujeeb Zadran’s mystery spin, Andrew Tye’s knuckle balls, and the bigger boundaries in Mohali did not help Sunrisers’ cause either. When Williamson holed out for 54 off 41 balls in the 15th over, Sunrisers were left needing 81 off 34 balls. It was just too much for a middle order lacking muscle.

Only 42.3 overs were possible due to intermittent showers, enough time for the opener to score a fifty and the fast bowler to show some menace

The Report by Andrew Fidel Fernando15-Jun-2018Stumps Devon Smith drives•AFP

Lahiru Kumara delivered 13.3 hostile overs, and Kasun Rajitha was probing on Test debut, but a half-century from Devon Smith drove West Indies foreward on a rain-hit second day. They stand only 135 runs behind Sri Lanka, with eight wickets still in hand. Only 42.3 overs were delivered in the day, the rain arriving during lunch to wash out much of the afternoon and evening sessions, before stumps were eventually drawn due to bad light at 5:55 pm.Snith was measured for much of the day, hitting only four fours (two of which were edges past the slip cordon) and a six in his 53 not out off 134 balls. He had his outside edge beaten on plenty of occasions, even through the last few overs of the day, but he did enough to survive, and did not miss out when genuinely poor balls were on offer. The half-century is his seventh overall, and his first since April 2015. Smith was especially strong on the legside in this innings, once advancing to launch Akila Dananjaya over long on for six.Kumara, perhaps, will consider himself unlucky for having only collected figures of 1 for 48. He troubled each of the four West Indies batsmen who came to the crease on day two, often surprising them with the bounce and pace he generated. He touched 145kph on occasion, generally aiming at the batsmen’s ribs. His breakthrough came very late in the day – Kusal Mendis diving to his right from second slip to complete an excellent low take off Kieran Powell, who had attempted to drive that ball. In the first session, Kumara could easily have had Kraigg Brathwaite lbw, with a ball that jagged in from well outside off stump. The ball had hit Brathwaite above the knee-roll though, and umpire Aleem Dar felt it was probably going over the stumps.Rajitha was not quite so aggressive, but there was obviousl skill to the manner in which he operated. He moved the ball both ways off the pitch, and frequently went looking for that edge, his length often full and his line always testing. He had made the first breakthrough, shortly before lunch. Angling a ball in at Brathwaite, Rajitha got it to straighten just a fraction. The result was a feather edge to the wicketkeeper – that touch so light that Brathwaite even reviewed believing he had not hit the ball. DRS disagreed, however. Brathwaite was out for 22 off 79 balls, having gritted his way through almost the entire first session.So disciplined had Sri Lanka’s quicks been in the first session that West Indies made only 63 runs in 25 overs. The scoring rate increased after the first extended rain break, but went south again in the final 6.2-over stretch of play.Encouragingly for Sri Lanka, there was decent turn for their offspinner Dananjaya on day two. Nevertheless, West Indies are still completely in control of this game, particularly with their strong middle order still alive in the first innings.

After early starts led to a dramatic dip in attendance last year for weekend double-headers, the organisers decided to push this season’s three games to the evening

Peter Della Penna24-Jul-2018This August will mark the third straight summer that a few Caribbean Premier League matches will be played in Florida. Even though the overall number of matches played at the Central Broward Regional Park in Lauderhill keeps shrinking – from six in 2016 to four in 2017 and now three in 2018 – organisers are hoping to rebuild the on-ground fan experience by scheduling this year’s slate as floodlit games in primetime.After a pair of weekend sellouts in 2016, crowds dipped dramatically for last year’s pair of weekend double-headers that featured Jamaica Tallawahs, St Kitts & Nevis Patriots, Guyana Amazon Warriors and Barbados Tridents. The Sunday twin-bill had an especially poor turnout of approximately 2500 in the 10,000 capacity stadium after the sweltering heat from day one managed to turn away fans from coming back for the next game 24 hours later. CPL chief executive Damien O’Donohue said it left them no choice but to make this year’s matches with evening starts.”There’s so many factors to be considered when you’re hosting these games and everything is a learning curve,” O’Donohue told ESPNcricinfo. “The single-biggest factor is that we were playing games in over 100-degree heat and people just aren’t going to come out in South Florida for that. You see that for baseball, you see that for other sports there. It’s not a well-attended part of the world for sports activities, especially in August and September.”In 2016, there were two games with 7pm starts on Thursday and Friday, which had modest attendance as most fans flew in from New York and Toronto to be there for the sold-out weekend matches. Those weeknight crowd figures turned off organisers from continuing with weeknight games, considering that the cost to hire supplemental light fixtures was $250,000 to support the limited permanent floodlights in place at the stadium.Eliminating the floodlight cost for 2017 by scheduling early day time double-headers on the weekend saved the CPL tremendously in operational costs. According to a source, the CPL lost money in both years of staging games in Florida but lost less money in 2017 than they did in 2016 – in spite of far smaller attendance figures last year – primarily due to the bill for extra floodlights in 2016.Since the Tallawahs are now the hosts for all three games in Florida for 2018, as opposed to every game being a neutral match earlier, the franchise picked up the floodlight bill off the CPL to offset central operating costs for matches starting at 8pm on August 18 against Guyana Amazon Warriors and 6pm on August 19 and 22 against Trinbago Knight Riders and Tridents.Ticket prices, which were raised 50% last year in the grandstand from $42 to $65, have also been slashed dramatically in an effort to encourage fans to come back to their 2016 numbers. General admission tickets are priced at $25 and grandstand tickets at $40, while specially priced tickets for kids 12 and under are being offered for the first time at $15 and $20 respectively.”Playing in the middle of the day, I don’t think it worked for players and it certainly didn’t work for fans,” CPL chief operating officer Pete Russell said. “I think the lights were obviously a key part of the change and the fact that we were able to get the lights meant that we’ve gone with the schedule that we’ve got.”The challenge then for us is what is the cost of putting the lights in. Fortunately for us, we now have someone there who has decided to commit to putting the lights in for these games because that’s a big investment. The reason we switched it back is because fans didn’t like the experience and that’s not good for us.”Another contributing factor that hurt attendance last year was that Trinbago Knight Riders, the franchise with the largest fan base especially for those traveling in from New York and Toronto, did not come to Florida. Russell says that the league strongly urged the Tallawahs ownership that Knight Riders were part of the Florida ticket.”We spent a lot of time discussing the pros and cons and just felt that was better,” Russell said. “St Kitts was better in Jamaica because of the Chris Gayle factor and we didn’t think St Lucia would do the same numbers in Florida that it hopefully would in Jamaica.”O’Donohue believes they may not be able to turn a profit in Florida until there is stronger support from a governance perspective, including more support from the ICC to make it successful countrywide as opposed to isolating events to Florida or other hubs. He thinks a major ICC event needs to be hosted in the USA to spur growth akin to football’s rise after the 1994 FIFA World Cup.”It’ll be great come November or December when we get clarity in terms of what ICC Americas see the future as for cricket in the USA,” O’Donohue said. “I think it needs to be a collective thing with whoever has the rights to an American league or potentially the CPL expand with franchises into America. We’ve had the model work for [football] in the USA and I think that needs to be applied for cricket. Obviously, stadiums are one big issue and the lack of them and I think the ICC need to invest quite heavily in the USA with a 10-year plan to host a World Cup there in 10 or 12 years time and we all build toward that.”O’Donohue and Russell both say they are keeping a close eye on the USA Cricket elections because of the impact it may have on the CPL’s ability to play in Florida or anywhere else in the USA in the coming years. The CPL as well as ventures like the 2015 Cricket All-Stars tour, and West Indies T20Is against India in 2016 and Bangladesh next month, have only been sanctioned by the ICC after the USACA was suspended and subsequently expelled as the ICC’s Associate national governing body in the USA. As such, there is a bit of uncertainty as to what happens when the ICC transitions control once again to the new USA cricket board that is installed after inaugural elections conclude on July 29.

England have announced Ollie Pope will make his debut, but both teams have other selection issues

The Preview by Sidharth Monga08-Aug-20181:29

Ollie Pope ‘very mature for a young man’ – Root

Big picture

The only team that could afford to lose the first Test did at Edgbaston. Imagine England coming to Lord’s, expected to be drier than Edgbaston, 1-0 down, sans Ben Stokes, having somehow messed up in swing-friendly conditions despite the availability of their best bowling resources. They very nearly did through a run-out and through dropped catches. Had England not closed out Edgbaston, they would have begun to doubt whether they could close this India team out at all.India, on the other hand, couldn’t go in with their first-choice bowling resources. The conditions are expected to favour them more at Lord’s, where the pitch wore a green look two days out but is expected to be drier. India have more spin options, and their best new-ball bowler is injured. Despite the failure to win the first Test, India have positives to look at. India’s bowling, while still not consistently of the match-winning variety in these conditions, looks better and deeper than it often does. If it doesn’t fall apart, it will keep them more competitive than if only their batting was working.England are possibly dangerous too. They know they weren’t even close to playing the perfect Test with the bat and in the field, and yet they have a lead in the series. They will also know from experience from their tour of India and Australia that visiting teams tend to crack sooner if they are kept under consistent pressure. They will look to do that at Lord’s. Just keep building that pressure the way they did on the final day at Edgbaston and then pounce on the opportunities that come their way.Except that England will have to do it without Ben Stokes, who brings an important complement to the correct, traditional Test-match bowling of James Anderson and Stuart Broad. He is a different challenge after you have faced that immaculate inquiry from the two quicks. His body falls away, he is not always accurate, he tends to get uneven bounce; he messes with the rhythm. His possible replacement is another correct, classic bowler, Chris Woakes, or an offspinner, Moeen Ali. It is a big hole that India might want to exploit.

Form guide

England WWLDL
India LWWLL

In the spotlight

The man most annoyed with the Kohli-is-left-alone narrative should be Ajinkya Rahane. He has played two Tests in this overseas cycle and has scored a crucial 48 on a brutish pitch in one of them, in Johannesburg. In the previous cycle, he was even more important than Kohli, waging a lone fight in Durban, setting up a win at Lord’s, counterattacking to take the pressure off Kohli in Melbourne. And yet – starting with his struggles against spin in India, continuous cricket on spin-friendly tracks, and then the scarcely believable axing in South Africa – his game looks a wreck. Then again, he has his chances now, and in the ruthless world of international cricket what is being talked about is his average of 10.72 in seven Tests in the last 12 months. The man likeliest to support Kohli has to stand up, and stand up now.You could almost see India taking a backward step the time Jonny Bairstow got into his innings. Root scored the most pristine runs, Kohli the most evocative ones, but Bairstow came closest to dominating. He has the form, the confidence and the intent that England require in the middle to negate the spin threat at Lord’s. More so, now that England’s batting is thinner in Stokes’ absence.

Team news

England made one change the day after the Test, partly to deny R Ashwin so many left-hand batsmen to feast on, partly as a response to Dawid Malan’s form with the bat and in the slips. The 20-year-old promising right-hand batsman Ollie Pope has been confirmed to make his debut. Which one out of Woakes and Moeen plays will depend on the pitch and the forecast.England 1 Alastair Cook, 2 Keaton Jennings, 3 Joe Root (capt.), 4 Ollie Pope, 5 Jonny Bairstow (wk), 6 Jos Buttler, 7 Chris Woakes/Moeen Ali, 8 Adil Rashid, 9 Sam Curran, 10 Stuart Broad, 11 James Anderson.India have never played the same XI in successive Tests under Kohli. It will be a surprise if they do so at Lord’s. The questions they have: do they need an extra batsman, do they need an extra spinner, and who should the reinforcements be?If India go for that extra batsman, it will mean leaving out Hardik Pandya, who admittedly didn’t get much to bowl but was India’s second-highest run-getter at Edgbaston. Listening to Bharat Arun, India’s bowling coach who has seen the pitch, India don’t seem ready to make the “conservative” move of going in with only four bowlers.That means if the spinner – Ravindra Jadeja or Kuldeep Yadav – comes in, he will replace either Umesh Yadav, who didn’t start off well at Edgbaston, or Pandya.Even if the combination doesn’t change, will India keep persisting with Shikhar Dhawan, in whom they have put the trust earlier teams used to invest in Virender Sehwag? And if they don’t, do they pick Cheteshwar Pujara, who hasn’t had a great time in England this year or Karun Nair, who will come with less baggage and memories of a triple-century against the same opposition?Having raised all these questions, this might well be the time India don’t change their XI under Kohli.India (possible): 1 M Vijay, 2 Shikhar Dhawan/Cheteshwar Pujara, 3 KL Rahul, 4 Virat Kohli (capt.), 5 Ajinkya Rahane, 6 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 7 R Ashwin, 8 Hardik Pandya, 9 Ravindra Jadeja/Umesh Yadav, 10 Ishant Sharma, 11 Mohammed Shami

Pitch and conditions

The Lord’s ground staff has worked hard to maintain a tinge of green on the pitch despite the heatwave in England. The days of the Test match itself are expected to be cooler with the odd shower around. The conditions underfoot are expected to be similar to Edgbaston, which raises the question to which we don’t have a definitive answer: will the ball swing similarly too?

Stats and trivia

• The last time England beat an Asian opponent at Lord’s was India in 2011. Since then they have lost three and drawn two Tests with Asian teams at Lord’s.
• James Anderson averages 14.5 against Kohli in England and 92 in India.
• During the course of his five-for at Edgbaston, Ishant Sharma went past B Chandrasekhar to become India’s seventh-highest wicket-taker. He has the joint-highest number of five-fors for Indians in England: two.
• Alastair Cook has converted his last two centuries into doubles, but he has scored only two of those in 21 Tests now. Despite those big innings, he averages 34.71 over the period.
• At Edgbaston, both sides dropped four catches each. While it is near impossible to calculate the damage caused – partnerships are formed, momentum is lost, bowlers get tired – the reprieved batsmen went on to cost England 154 runs, and India 86.

Quotes

“One of the most exciting things about last week is that we weren’t at our best, but we found a way to win under pressure, and wrestle momentum back in our favour. That’s a sign of some strong characters in our dressing room. And having had some indifferent results in the recent past, to pull off a win like that is a really good sign for us moving forward.”
“There is good grass cover in it (pitch) and that is required basically to keep the wicket together. The pitch is going to be an all-round wicket: batsmen bat well they can get runs, obviously dukes ball in overcast conditions, and when the wicket wears off the spinners can come in. Tempting thought to field two spinners but we have to take a call on that depending on the team balance. But two spinners definitely in contention.”