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The visitors lost 10 wickets on day three across two innings, with Australia piling up 199 for 6 declared in 31 overs in between

Alex Malcolm10-Dec-2022A stunning three-wicket maiden from Scott Boland has put Australia on track for a 2-0 series sweep following a day where the game accelerated dramatically at the Adelaide Oval. Boland’s bedazzling spell reduced West Indies to 38 for 4 at stumps on day three chasing an improbable fourth innings target of 497.The visitors lost 10 wickets on day three across two innings, with Australia piling up 199 for 6 declared in 31 overs in between after the hosts opted against enforcing the follow-on as they did in Perth. Instead, they declared at sunset and asked West Indies to face 22 overs under lights with Boland ripping through their top order taking three wickets in his first over to leave the visitors reeling at 15 for 3.Having gone wicketless in the first innings to see his Test bowling average reach double-figures, Boland dropped it back under 10 as he nicked off Kraigg Brathwaite, pinned Shamarh Brooks lbw, and had Jermaine Blackwood caught superbly at gully by Cameron Green in six perfect deliveries.Related

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Three wickets soon became four when Tagenarine Chanderpaul attempted to glance Mitchell Starc down the leg side. Australia’s half-hearted appeal was turned down but their review showed a tiny spot on his bat and the decision was overturned.Devon Thomas and Jason Holder dug in valiantly for 13.3 overs to prevent further losses but pushing the game beyond a fourth day looks improbable.Earlier, West Indies lost six wickets in the morning session for 112 to be bowled out for just 214 in their first innings, having started the day at 102 for 4, to concede a first-innings deficit of 297. The morning was highlighted by two calamitous run-outs of West Indies’ two top scorers in the innings with Chanderpaul and nightwatchman Anderson Phillip falling to needless mix-ups.Nathan Lyon also extracted sharp spin to pick up two wickets and finish with three in the innings as West Indies were bowled out on the stroke of dinner. Starc bagged two in an extended session that lasted longer than it should have after Australia missed three catches behind the wicket.West Indies’ day started with Chanderpaul run-out in the opening over without adding to his overnight score of 47. He defended a ball close into the off side and wanted a quick single but Phillip did not respond leaving Chanderpaul scrambling to return to safety. Starc, having delivered from around the wicket, raced across to his right and opened his body superbly to fire with his left hand and hit the middle of middle from close range with Chanderpaul’s full-length dive not enough to save him.Holder was out two overs later edging a full ball from Starc that tailed away and Alex Carey took an excellent catch low to his right.Phillip and Joshua Da Silva then mounted a positive rearguard putting together a brisk 60-run stand in 13 overs. The strokeplay was aggressive despite the running between the wickets remaining questionable. Playing in just his second Test match, Phillip had only reached double-figures in ten of his previous 30 first-class innings with a highest score of 36 not out.Mitchell Starc’s direct hit found Tagenarine Chanderpaul short•Getty Images

He struck five boundaries and a six to post his highest first-class score while Da Silva looked secure and rotated the strike well and was only threatened by Phillip’s lackadaisical running. Da Silva could have been run out at the striker’s end after Phillip made a very late call to take a single to mid-off but the throw from Michael Neser was wide of the stumps.Phillip nearly ran himself out having lazily grounded his bat short of his ground when Marnus Labuschagne missed an attempt to break the stumps after gathering a wide throw. It would have been no surprise given he was penalised for running one short earlier in the partnership.Da Silva was trapped lbw by Lyon playing deep in his crease to a ball that spun back sharply. Umpire Kumar Dharmasena initially shook his head but Australia’s review overturned the call as it was hitting the top of middle. Lyon would later snare Alzarri Joseph with an identical dismissal.Phillip finally ran himself out when Roston Chase ignored a needless call for a single after a misfield at cover. The ball ricocheted to Labuschagne at mid-off. Phillip came halfway down before turning back after Chase called no. Labuschagne’s throw at the striker’s end missed but Carey had time to collect and underarm onto the stumps as he was still running up from his keeping position.Chase and Marquino Mindley frustrated the Australians with a last-wicket stand of 43. Mindley fought admirably given he was batting with a hamstring injury flicking Starc for six over backward square. Carey, David Warner and Labuschagne all missed chances behind the wicket off sharp edges with Cameron Green denied twice.Australia’s batters enjoyed a centre-wicket in the second session twilight with Usman Khawaja in particular cashing in on a tiring West Indies attack top-scoring with 45. Warner looked less fluent but the pair added 77 before both fell Chase in the same over.Labuschagne and Steven Smith feasted on the spin of Chase and Brathwaite thereafter with a relentless array of sweeps and reverse sweeps before tea. Labuschagne become just the second Australian batter to pass 500 runs in a two-Test series but fell in the last over before the break for 31. Travis Head came out after tea and clubbed 38 not out off 27 balls to set up a declaration. Green and Carey were the only ones failing to make 28 or more, both falling unselfishly in pursuit of quick runs with Green’s lack of time in the middle this summer remaining a concern.

Fifteen years on from breakthrough tour, fast bowler recalls guest appearance in NZ domestic cricket

Vithushan Ehantharajah13-Feb-2023″Baz brought that up, actually,” James Anderson said with a smirk. “He wasn’t happy with it. He was fuming. Apparently the whole team [New Zealand] were fuming at the time with Auckland.”Of the myriad numbers and quirks in a career entering its 22nd year, there is one that sticks out within Anderson’s 282 first-class appearances. One that his current Test coach Brendon McCullum still holds against him.Back on the 2008 tour of New Zealand, the series in which Anderson and Stuart Broad first took the reins of England’s bowling attack, the Lancashire quick went on a secondment to Auckland to jumpstart what had, up until then, been a sporadic 20-cap career.Anderson, 25 at the time, had come off the back of a harrowing ODI series against the hosts. He played all five games but took just four wickets at an average of 67.50, with an economy rate of 7.29 that jars even by modern standards. And on the tour of Sri Lanka three months earlier, he had been superseded by the 21-year-old Broad in the Test squad.And after he missed England’s three-day warm-up game, the coach at the time, Peter Moores, decided that a brief secondment to New Zealand domestic cricket was the best course of action, rather than have him stewing on the sidelines during the first Test in Hamilton.Auckland jumped at the chance, shorn of bowlers with Kyle Mills and Chris Martin on international duty and Daryl Tuffey and Andre Adams taking part in the renegade Indian Cricket League. The link came through Ottis Gibson, England’s bowling coach, who was knew Auckland coach Mark O’Donnell well enough to float the idea. Needless to say, the home board was less than pleased.James Anderson bowls for Auckland during the 2008 Test tour•Getty Images

“We are not particularly enthusiastic about it,” Justin Vaughan, chief executive of New Zealand Cricket, said at the time. “But we can understand why Auckland want to do it with some of their other bowlers absent. We would be happier if they gave a chance to a young New Zealand bowler, because we can see a scenario where Anderson bowls himself into form and then helps England win the deciding final Test because of that.”Wellington chief executive Gavin Larsen, whose side would face Anderson, went a step further, telling newspaper: “We can’t get our heads around this. It really hits me in the pit of my stomach.”Vaughan, unfortunately, was right. Anderson would only bowl in once in an innings defeat to Wellington, taking 2 for 95. But the tune-up meant he returned to the national team in Wellington in good enough fettle to come into the XI for the second Test, with Moores leaving out Steven Harrison and Matthew Hoggard after a lastlustre loss in Hamilton.Anderson took 5 for 73 and then 2 for 57 as England made it 1-1, before winning it outright in Napier. It remains their last series victory in New Zealand.Given where we are with Anderson’s story right now – 177 Tests, 675 wickets and still more to come in 2023 – it’s fair to say the Auckland stint was inspired. In an interview with StuffNZ last week, he regarded the appearance and the shot in the arm it administered as “probably one of the best decisions I’ve made in my career”. He even revealed his Auckland cap still takes pride of place in his collection in his home study.Related

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“It was amazing for me,” Anderson recalled to the gathered English press on Monday before indoor training at the Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui, where the first Test is due to begin on Thursday. “I think Ottis Gibson knew the coach of Auckland at the time. He wanted Chris Tremlett to go and play but Chris didn’t want to [he was injured] so then I put my hand up. I’d rather play that game than carry the drinks at Hamilton. It turned out to be a very good decision. I bowled a lot of overs – didn’t set the world alight but bowled a lot of overs, it got me into a good rhythm and got me into a good place to play the next game.”He will return to Wellington for the second Test on February 21. Like Broad, it is a visit he is looking forward to, 15 years on.”We’ve got find memories here and it is special,” Anderson said. “Every time we go back to Wellington you remember that and look back at that as something huge for both of us, not just in terms of the way we played and what happened after that but just that moment, with Hoggard and Harmison having been such a massive part of England’s success – 2005 and Harmy was No.1 in the world at one point. Them being those senior bowlers and us taking their places gave us so much confidence to go on and try and emulate them, I guess.”Anderson’s Auckland jaunt is all the more interesting in the present day given the noise around Australian batter Steve Smith’s stint with Sussex ahead of this summer’s Ashes. The move was highly criticised in some quarters for giving an outstanding opposition player a leg-up ahead of what will be a hard-fought series.As it happens, NZC floated a reciprocal favour from one of the 18 counties for the 2008, given New Zealand were touring England later that year. Moores’ response to Vaughan’s suggestion – “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it” – was far from committal. Anderson, however, was typically unperturbed by Smith’s presence in County Cricket, much like the rest of his team-mates.”I don’t mind it, I don’t think it will have any bearing on the result of the Ashes. Steve Smith playing four (three) games of county cricket won’t have a bearing on how many runs he gets in the first Test. Some people might not think it’s great that they’re getting time in the middle but they’ll have warm-up games and stuff like that in England anyway. So I’m not that fussed.”

Renuka Singh’s five-for against England lifted her to No. 5 among bowlers, as Lea Tahuhu moved from tenth to seventh

ESPNcricinfo staff21-Feb-2023Richa Ghosh has become the fifth Indian in the top 20 for batters in the ICC T20I rankings for women following useful contributions in the past week at the women’s T20 World Cup. That’s a career-best for Ghosh in the batters’ table, and she is joined there by Amelia Kerr and Muneeba Ali, who have also reached career-high numbers.Ghosh scored 44 not out in 32 balls in a win over West Indies, and 47 not out in 34 balls in the defeat to England, which gave her enough points to finish the week up 16 spots to 20th despite a first-ball duck against Ireland. Smriti Mandhana (No. 3), Shafali Verma (No. 10), Jemimah Rodrigues (No. 12) and captain Harmanpreet Kaur (No. 13) are the other Indians in the top 20.

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Meanwhile, Kerr, also the 13th-best T20I bowler in the world, hit a match-winning 66 against Sri Lanka to get to No. 16 in the batters’ list, her best to date. She is also up at No. 3, a one-spot rise, among allrounders in T20Is.Also, another of Ghosh’s India team-mate to make big moves was Renuka Singh, who picked up a career-best 5 for 15 against England. That meant a rise of seven spots to fifth among bowlers.On February 15, Muneeba scored 102 in 68 balls against Ireland to become the first Pakistan batter to score a century in women’s T20Is. That lifted her ten spots to 64th position, the best she has ever been at.Muneeba Ali became the first Pakistan woman to score a T20I century•ICC/Getty Images

Within the top ten for batters, Meg Lanning has moved up one place to fourth after scoring 48 not out against Bangladesh, while Suzie Bates has climbed two places to No. 6 after her 81 not out and 56 against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, respectively.Some distance behind, Tazmin Brits (up six places to No. 21), Amy Jones (up two places to 26th), Orla Prendergast (up eight places to 38th) and Harshitha Samarawickrama (up four places to No. 39) were the other batters to move up.On the bowlers’ table, Lea Tahuhu has not only moved up from tenth to seventh after picking up eight wickets in four games – including a three-for against Australia – but has also breached the barrier of 700 rating points for the first time in her career.Darcie Brown, still only 19, has also entered the top ten for the first time – at No. 8 – while Hayley Matthews has got to the tenth spot after a 2 for 14 against Pakistan.Among allrounders, Ashleigh Gardner remained at No. 1, but Deepti Sharma has dropped a couple of places to fourth, with Matthews and Kerr moving up, and Nida Dar reaching the fifth spot after going up two spots.

After India’s nine-wicket defeat in Indore, Shastri had said that they were complacent, overconfident, and overeager to dominate

ESPNcricinfo staff08-Mar-2023Rohit Sharma doesn’t agree with former coach Ravi Shastri’s assessment that India were overconfident and complacent going into the third Test against Australia, and it led to their nine-wicket defeat.”Honestly, when you win two games, if the people outside are feeling that we are overconfident, it’s absolutely rubbish, because you want to do your best in all four games,” Rohit said on the eve of the final Test in Ahmedabad. “You don’t want to stop by winning just two games, it is as simple as that.”Obviously, all these guys, when they talk about being overconfident and all that, especially the guys who are not part of the dressing room, they don’t know what kind of talk happens in the dressing room. Ruthless is the word that comes to my mind, and it comes to every cricketer’s mind, being ruthless. Not to give any inch to the opposition when they are playing, especially when they’re touring abroad, and that is exactly what we have also experienced when we have toured outside. The opposition will never let you come into the game, never let you come into the series. And that is the mindset we have as well.Related

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“We want to do best in all the games. If it seems overconfident or anything like that to the outsiders, it doesn’t really matter to us, because Ravi himself has been in this dressing room, and he knows what sort of mindset we have when we play. It’s about being ruthless, not being overconfident.”Batting first after winning the toss in Indore, India lost seven wickets in the first session and were all out for a mere 109 as Matthew Kuhnemann picked up 5 for 16. They fared only slightly better in the second innings, posting 163 and setting a target of 76, which Australia chased down easily.”This is what a little complacency, a little bit of overconfidence can do when you take things for granted, you drop guard and this game will bring you down,” Shastri had said on air. “I think it was a combination of all these things when you actually cast your mind back to the first innings, see some of the shots played, see some of the overeagerness to try to dominate in these conditions. You reflect back, take a step back or two to analyse.”The result gave Australia a shot at squaring the series after having fallen 2-0 behind following losses in Nagpur and Delhi. In terms of the bigger picture, Australia’s Indore win sealed their spot in the final of the World Test Championship. For India to do the same, they need to win in Ahmedabad. Anything less than a win and they will have to rely on New Zealand not losing to Sri Lanka 2-0.

Dhawan made 99 but his team couldn’t give him any support until the No. 11 came out and took an extremely minimal part in a fifty-run partnership

Deivarayan Muthu09-Apr-20233:34

Dhawan and the difficulty of being an anchor batter in T20s

Shikhar Dhawan watched nine wickets tumble around him, but he stood out amid the rubble, his unbeaten 99 taking Punjab Kings to a respectable 143 for 9. That total looked even more respectable when Sunrisers lost their openers Harry Brook and Mayank Agarwal early with the slower balls gripping the Hyderabad surface.But Rahul Tripathi rose above the conditions to score a sprightly half-century and give Sunrisers their first victory of the season. He contributed 63 in an unbroken 100-run stand off 52 balls with his captain Aiden Markram to help ice the chase and hand Kings their first defeat of the season.

Bhuvneshwar, Jansen go bang, bang, bang

On Friday, Sunrisers’ seamers were neutralised on a black-soil turner. Two days later, Bhuvneshwar and co. were on the money from the get-go on a pace-friendly red-soil Hyderabad track. Bhuvneshwar struck first ball to trap Prabhsimran Singh lbw for a duck.Much like Bhuvneshwar, Jansen, picked ahead of legspinner Adil Rashid, exploited the early swing on offer. The left-arm seamer struck with his second legal ball to pin IPL debutant Matt Short lbw for 1. He won another lbw appeal from umpire Bruce Oxenford next ball, but Jitesh Sharma overturned the on-field decision on review. Jitesh managed four before Jansen had him chipping a drive to mid-off in his next over. T Natarajan also found swing in the powerplay as Sunrisers’ seam attack thrived at home.

Dhawan or nothing for PBKS

Once the early movement disappeared for the seamers, Dhawan took some trips down the pitch and hit them over the top. However, at the other end, legspinner Mayank Markande, who was playing his first game for Sunrisers, tore through the middle and lower order with his stock ball and the wrong’un. The innings was going so badly pear shaped that Kings had to Impact Sub a batter for a batter, bringing Sikandar Raza in for the already dismissed Prabhsimran, but it didn’t really help matters. Together the two players contributed 5 runs off 7 ballsMarkande, meanwhile, came away with figures of 4 for 15 in his four overs. Dhawan quietly played him out, but laid into Natarajan and Umran Malik, taking 61 off 31 balls from them. He reached his fifty off 42 balls by launching Natarajan over midwicket for six and then went 6,4,6 against Malik in the 18th over. Dhawan was dropped three times along the way, but he carried on until the end of the innings. He contributed 52 in an unbroken 55-run partnership for a last wicket with debutant Mohit Rathee – an IPL record.Dhawan’s 69.2 was the second-highest percentage of runs scored in a completed IPL innings that went 20 overs or ended with a team all out. It was second only to Brendon McCullum in the first match of the IPL, where he shellacked 158 out of KKR’s total of 222 (71.2%).2:49

Moody: ‘Tripathi showed that he is of high value’

Tripathi, Markram see SRH home

Sunrisers decided to shake up their batting line-up by pairing up Agarwal with Brook at the top. Brook seemed comfortable with pace on the ball, but when Arshdeep Singh cut it down to 117kph and bowled a knuckle ball, he was bowled through the gate for 13 off 14. Then, when Agarwal dared to sweep Rahul Chahar off the stumps, he spliced a catch to long-on, leaving Sunrisers at 45 for 2 in the ninth over.Tripathi and Markram then got together to settle the innings. When Chahar darted it quicker and flatter outside off, Tripathi used the pace to glide the ball behind point. When Chahar slowed his pace down and tossed up his legbreaks, Tripathi stretched out to either drive him inside out over extra cover or sweep him over midwicket. He treated Rathee with even more disdain, smashing him for two sixes and two fours in eight balls.Tripathi’s high intent and execution allowed Markram to sit back and tap the ball into the gaps. Fittingly, it was Tripathi who finished the game for Sunrisers with eight wickets and almost three overs to spare.

“He will serve for a very long time for Sri Lankan cricket, but we’ll have to keep an eye on how much he bowls”

ESPNcricinfo staff06-May-20233:02

Moody: ‘Pathirana completely shut the door on Mumbai’s power-hitters’

Matheesha Pathirana “shouldn’t even get close” to red-ball cricket, in the opinion of MS Dhoni, his captain at Chennai Super Kings in IPL 2023.Pathirana, a new-gen version of Lasith Malinga, has emerged as one of the aces in Dhoni’s pack in the IPL, and picked up three wickets for just 15 runs against Mumbai Indians at Chepauk on Saturday, bowling all his overs in the back-half of the innings.”I personally think he is not someone who should play a lot of red-ball cricket,” Dhoni said at the post-match presentation, almost like a plea to the powers-that-be in Sri Lankan cricket. “I think he shouldn’t even get close to it. Even in white-ball cricket, the 50-over version he should play as less as possible. [He should] play the big ICC tournaments because he is not somebody who will change a lot. This [having an impact in short bursts] is what he will do, so you can always use him at crucial times.Related

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“But make sure that he is fit and available for all ICC tournaments and he will be a great asset for Sri Lanka. Not to forget, he is a really young boy. Last time [in 2022], when he came, he was slightly more lean, but he has added muscle, which means he has got pretty strong. I feel he will serve for a very long time for Sri Lankan cricket, but we’ll have to keep an eye on how much he bowls.”Pathirana was unsold in the auction ahead of IPL 2022, but was drafted in by CSK after Adam Milne was ruled out with a hamstring injury.Last season, he had played two games for CSK, picking up two wickets. This time, he has played seven games, in which he has picked up ten wickets – all at the death – at an economy rate of 7.60, the last number made even more remarkable by the fact that he has bowled only four of his 27.2 overs this season before the 12th.”People who don’t have very clean [conventional] action, batsmen find it difficult to pick them – in a format like this, where you have to go after the bowler, it makes it slightly difficult,” Dhoni said. “That is just on the action part, we are not talking about the pace that he bowls [at], the variations he has and the consistency he has got. All of it makes him special. What is important is to keep an eye on how much cricket he is playing.”ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Dhoni wanted to bat but was ‘outnumbered’

It was CSK’s third win in five games at Chepauk this season, but only the second 3.30pm game that was played at the venue. With rain forecast for the evening, Dhoni said he was not sure about his decision at the toss but went with the view of the majority of the CSK think tank and chose to field.”Frankly I was slightly doubtful. What I wanted was I wanted to bat first. But the think tank together said there are chances of rain,” he said. “I had a simple calculation. I said 3:30pm the game starts. Let’s say you win the toss and if you are batting first, maximum in one-and-a-half to two hours the game gets over. By the time rain comes, major part of the game would be done with. I was slightly outnumbered, and I said let’s go with the majority.”If there is some kind of confusion, we sit and talk about [it]. It is not about who has said what. Ultimately, we try to decide what is best for the team and you go with the majority. It was slightly confusing because I felt the wicket will slow down and it has always been very good initially to bat on. So I strongly felt that even if rain comes, majority of the game will be done and it won’t have an impact on the game directly.”CSK have two more home games left – against Delhi Capitals and Kolkata Knight Riders – and an away game in Delhi to end the league stage.