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Geelong is about to become just the second non-capital city to host a full international featuring Australia, and this may be just the start

Brydon Coverdale14-Feb-2017Ask the average cricket fan in six weeks’ time who won this T20 series between Australia and Sri Lanka and they’ll likely have forgotten. Ask them in six months and they may not remember the matches ever happened. And yet this series is momentous – not only because Australia are fielding two teams in two countries almost simultaneously. It is significant also because cricket is taking a rare detour into regional Australia.Geelong is not exactly beyond the black stump – it is only an hour’s drive from Melbourne and boasts a population of nearly 200,000 – but it is the gateway to the farming districts of south-west Victoria. That one of its landmarks is the National Wool Museum tells you that you’ve left the big smoke. And this Sunday, Geelong will become just the second non-capital city to host a full international featuring Australia.The only other city to have done so is Cairns, which hosted top-end matches in 2003 and 2004 during the southern winter. In a home summer, only the six state capitals plus Canberra have ever hosted Australia’s men’s team. But Geelong, home to one of the oldest and most loyally-supported AFL teams, start and end point for cycling’s Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, now gets its chance to host international cricket.In order to meet ICC standards for the size of the playing area, the pitch orientation at Kardinia Park – aka Simonds Stadium – has been altered to slightly off-square. The ground had a taste of elite cricket last summer when it hosted a warm-up BBL match between the Melbourne Stars and Melbourne Renegades, and then a two-day practice game between West Indies and a Victoria XI ahead of the Boxing Day Test.And if the city is not excited enough at the prospect of hosting international cricket, the absence of the captain Steven Smith and his deputy David Warner, who are in the UAE preparing for the Test tour of India, means Australia will be led in this match by Aaron Finch, a loyal member of the Geelong Cricket Club. Finch grew up in the nearby country town of Colac, and from his early teenage years has been playing for Geelong.”It’s something that I’m really proud of, to get the opportunity to captain Australia, but to get to do it in front of my home fans and friends and club team-mates,” Finch told ESPNcricinfo. “There have been a lot of people in that area who have helped my cricket a huge amount over my career. I’m sure it will sink in a bit more on the day, but it’s something that I’m very proud of and grateful for.”The amount of work that so many people do to try and attract the biggest and best events to the area is huge. I think this is just a small reward for that. The footy club has been unbelievably successful over the last 15 years, on and off the field … No matter what sport comes to the area, people come out and support it. I think it’ll be a huge boost for the area, but also I think the game will finally realise that Geelong is a fair dinkum place for cricket.”And perhaps this is just the start for Geelong – and regional Australia in general. The venue has a pair of useful allies in the chief executive James Sutherland, a Geelong Cats supporter, while the current chief of the Kardinia Park Trust is Sutherland’s former second-in-command Michael Brown. The BBL will be expanded next summer to include an extra eight games, some of which are likely to be played outside the capital cities. Finch, who captains the Renegades, said he was looking forward to the prospect of Geelong potentially hosting a BBL match next year – and maybe even having its own side further down the track.James Sutherland, the Cricket Australia chief executive, also has a long association with Geelong•ICC”We played a Renegades v Stars practice game the year before last, and we got 12,000 people to a practice game – when only half the stands were available, because they were in the renovation stage,” he said. “To me that just goes to show that the people are going to come and support the best of whatever you provide … I can guarantee you’re packing out Simonds Stadium, every game.”You see Sheffield Shield games get taken to regional areas more than anything else. I think with the way the landscape of cricket is changing, you see how many kids and families and women are coming to the game now and are new to cricket … if you took a Big Bash game to Geelong, or to Wollongong or somewhere like that, I think you’d find the results would be enormous.”For the time being, Finch is thrilled to be the first man to captain Australia in an international match in Geelong. Although he now lives in Melbourne, he has never changed clubs, believing that he should give back to the Geelong club that gave him his start in elite cricket all those years ago.And after being dropped from the ODI side in December, then recalled and made stand-in captain during the recent Chappell-Hadlee Series, Finch is just happy to be part of the national side. To be axed at the age of 30 leads naturally to self-doubt and wondering if your days as an international cricketer are over.”That is the first thing that goes through your mind – when Trevor Hohns called me and said ‘we’re not picking you in this squad’, I actually couldn’t disagree with him,” Finch said of being dropped in December. “I hadn’t made many runs, so it was hard to see yourself getting back in there, especially when guys have been performing so well. Then a bit of luck goes your way and you end up captaining the side a couple of weeks later.”And now, he captains a T20 outfit missing Smith, Warner, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Glenn Maxwell, among others, with the first Test in India due to begin the day after the final T20 in Adelaide. In their place are the likes of Ben Dunk, Michael Klinger, Ashton Turner, Tim Paine and Jhye Richardson.”It’s going to be interesting, I can’t remember it happening in the past,” Finch said. “The squad that’s been picked in the T20s is still a fantastic squad. Any time that you take Warner, Smith, Starc, Maxwell, Hazlewood out of an Australian XI, it’s always going to hurt slightly because they’re some of the best in the world.”But then you look at the guys who have been picked and it’s hard not to see how they’ll be very successful as well. They’re coming off great Big Bash tournaments, which in my opinion is the toughest T20 competition to be successful in around the world, because the quality of cricket is exceptional.”

A combination of technical deficiencies, temperamental uncertainties, and India’s predatory instincts rolled South Africa over again but this time the visitors were also left mentally shot

Firdose Moonda in Delhi04-Dec-20151:13

‘India deserve credit for their bowling’ – Domingo

Regardless of the outcome, this Test was always going to present South Africa with a selection of what-ifs. What if South Africa had got to Delhi with something more than pride to play for? What if they had picked Dane Piedt earlier? But, after they were left deflated on another day, they had to face the one what-if they would have hoped to avoid: what if they were not good enough to compete in this contest at all?After Hashim Amla dropped three catches in the slips, India pushed on and punished South Africa. They later struggled to deal with the quicks, an area where South Africa have been usually unflappable. At the end of the day, the only conclusion South Africa could reach was that they were not up to the standard. Their coach Russell Domingo seemed to be resigned to that reality though he was perplexed about the reasons behind it.”It’s not through lack of trying or lack of effort or lack of commitment. It just hasn’t worked for us. Things just haven’t gone well for us,” Domingo said. “And you also need to make your own luck. Things have gone well for India and they have made their own luck.”It’s true that more things have gone well for India than they have for South Africa but it is also true that South Africa have not justified anything going right for them. India have won every toss and made the right decision every time, which has allowed them to make better use of the conditions. That, however, had nothing to do with South Africa’s fall this time. Confidence, or the lack of it, did.South Africa let it slip midway through the first day, when they actually had some measure of control, having reduced India to 139 for 6. The visitors operated essentially with three bowlers – Morne Morkel, Kyle Abbott, and Dane Piedt – and they probably needed one more on the first day and perhaps two today, but they were hit by lack of resources.Even as Morkel and Piedt were inconsistent today, Abbott was exceptional as he kept it tight and found movement. But Ajinkya Rahane and R Ashwin combined well to keep the scorecard ticking, leaving South Africa drained. With every run conceded, South Africa seemed to take a step closer to the Emirates flight that will depart from Delhi at 4am on Tuesday morning. Domingo, though hoped that thoughts of home did not overwhelm the job that had to be done here.”It has been a long tour,” Domingo admitted. “But the talk before the game was all very good. We spoke about how important every Test is, how we know we haven’t played as well as we can so whether its subconscious that it’s one foot on the plane I can’t comment on.”Instead, he felt that Rahane and India’s lower order ground the attack and drained everything South Africa had in their tank. “We’ve been outplayed over two days. One guy scored a great hundred and their No.9 (Ashwin) had a lucky escape and went one to score fifty and then we capitulated under some good bowling, ” Domingo said. “Their batting was pretty average until Rahane’s 100 today. One guy has gone on and played a really good innings.”But it was more than that. While Rahane was the only one to get to three figures, he was part of three fifty-plus partnerships, the seventh and eight wicket stands yielding 157 runs together. Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin proved as menacing with the bat as they have been with the ball. What that realisation sunk in, the real difference between South Africa and India was highlighted.Hashim Amla was hiked to No.3 but fell for a painstaking 3, after dropping three catches•Associated Press”They’ve managed to bat better at the back end of their innings than we have. Once we’ve been under pressure we’ve fallen away badly,” Domingo said. “And the Indian bowlers have have continuously kept us under pressure. Every time it looked like getting better, someone got out or someone got a good ball. There were a few dismissals that could be deemed as soft, they were a few down to good bowling so it was a bit of both. They deserved a lot of credit.”Not only have South Africa’s been bundled out because of technical deficiencies and temperamental uncertainties but also because India have been able to prey on those. Jadeja identified that Bavuma often hung back in the crease and nailed the batsman with a skiddy ball. Umesh Yadav, who knew that he was getting good movement, surprised JP Duminy from round the wicket with one that straightened. Virat Kohli was smart to cramp the out-of-form pair of Amla and Faf du Plessis with close-in fielders to force an error. Not even switching places – Amla came in at No.3 while du Plessis dropped to No.5 – could help South Africa turn things around.A combination of these have skittled South Africa again. This time, they looked as mentally shot as they were physically, but Domingo managed some optimism.With India set to hammer their home advantage, what were South Africa’s chances? “We’ve got to keep believing,” Domingo said. “You’d be foolish to put money on South Africa winning now but if we can do something special, bowl them out for 120, end up chasing 320….” If. What if.

The last year has not been kind to Matt Prior but that should not diminish what he achieved for England and, if his career does prove to be over, he can be remembered as a key part of the period of sustained success

George Dobell22-Jul-2014So another pillar of England’s glory years is washed away.Matt Prior’s decision to take the rest of the summer off to recuperate from injury almost certainly ends an international career that has encompassed some of the brightest moments in England’s recent Test history.When England became the first side to win three Tests in a series in Australia by innings margins, Prior averaged 50 with the bat and claimed 23 catches. When England whitewashed India, at the time rated No. 1 in the Test rankings, in 2011, Prior averaged nearly 70 with the bat and again kept tidily. And when England came from behind to win in India in 2012, Prior again averaged 50 and held his own as keeper despite the workload demanded by two spinners and turning wickets.The statistics are good – 4,099 Test runs and an average of 40.18 suggest he could probably have made it as a specialist batsman – but it was Prior’s selflessness that rendered him one of the most valuable players of his generation. His first Test century, on debut in 2007, was typical: it provided the acceleration England required before a declaration. His final Test century, in Auckland in March 2013, was a masterful display of restraint and determination and saved a series that looked lost.One image will endure: when Prior was informed he had been dropped from the Ashes team for the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne at the end of 2013, he immediately congratulated and hugged his replacement, Jonny Bairstow, before giving him catching practice. You can tell a great deal about people from the way they react to disappointment. In such circumstances, Prior shone.There were some hiccups along the way. His struggles, particularly with the gloves, towards the end of 2007 saw him dropped and he was rarely, by the very highest standards, as happy standing-up to the spinners as he was standing back to the seamers.But it was often in adversity that Prior’s ability came to the fore. And just as he responded to team crisis with his best performances, so he responded to his own failings by working harder than ever and coming back a better player. Until a recent dip, his keeping since his return to the team in late 2008, had been reassuringly sound.For that reason he should probably not be written-off completely now. Like Jonathan Trott, he could return. But he will be 33 by the start of next season. It may well be, in time, that he is included – alongside Graeme Swann, Trott and even Andy Flower – in a list of those crushed by the remorselessness of England’s schedule and the intensity of its environment. 32-year-olds should not be so broken.So a return is unlikely. England need to find a replacement now and, if they decide the time is right to select Jos Buttler, need to give him a lengthy run in the team to allow him to develop. He, too, will have grim days. But he will benefit from the experience and needs to feel that he is more than Prior’s deputy. England must not go back to the days when they selected highly promising young keepers – the likes of James Foster and Chris Read – and then abandoned them after they struggled to adjust.This is the right decision, though. The Prior of 2014 threatens to compromise the reputation of the fine cricketer that represented England with distinction. He is clearly not as agile with his keeping and that lack of confidence has fed into his batting, where his shot-a-ball mentality was never going to succeed in Test cricket. Some of the chances he has put down have been desperately tough; several have not been. Many of the byes he has conceded have been no fault of his; but an uncomfortably large amount have been. He deserves credit for acknowledging that. He deserves credit for putting the team before himself.Prior’s comments raise questions about England’s backroom operation, though. How was it was a man so palpably unfit, a man who had kept in only one Championship game in the season ahead of the first Test, selected for four Tests in succession? How was it that, despite the army of medics, the apparent professionalism of a system that scans and measures and monitors everything players do, a wicketkeeper was allowed to play when he had a quad injury and required an operation on his Achilles?And why was it that, even after a Test in which Prior’s performance was clearly inadequate, England’s captain should suggest his selection was all but guaranteed should be want to continue? Has the England dressing room become so cosy a place that even the injured can be accommodated? Loyalty is a wonderful quality. But when it becomes blind, when it is to an individual and not a cause, then it becomes a weakness.It is understandable that Cook wanted Prior around, though. With Trott and Swann gone, he is missing the trusted senior players he once had and needed Prior’s experience in the field, in particular. James Anderson and Stuart Broad, who looks little fitter than Prior, need to answer their captain’s call now.There has been talk of a new era in England for some time now. And that is only right: the team must renew and refresh.But that old era, the era of Prior and Cook and Anderson and Swann and Trott and Andrew Strauss and Kevin Pietersen… it was quite something. There is no guarantee England will ever see the like again.

Greetings Confectionery Stallers, and welcome to the first instalment of the Confectionery Stall’s Ashes result prediction blogs, which will pepper the year from now until the final over of the series

Andy Zaltzman25-Feb-2013Greetings Confectionery Stallers, and welcome to the first instalment of the Confectionery Stall’s Ashes result prediction blogs, which will pepper the year from now until the final over of the series.By the time the action begins in, of all places, Cardiff, I confidently predict that I will have confidently predicted all 21 possible series outcomes. I will therefore be able to march onto The Oval outfield in August as the teams shake hands for the final time, brandishing a print-out of one of these blogs, shouting “I told you so” through a loud-hailer, before being manhandled by over-zealous stewards for attempting to express my historical right to walk on the outfield at the end of a Test series (see sub-blog below).The last couple of months have given many pointers to what will happen in the Ashes. The difficulty is working out which of these are pointing in the right direction, and which are, like Italian road signs, completely and deliberately misleading. Are England plunging into turmoil, or plunging out of it, with Pietersen stung and invigorated and Strauss bringing wisdom and control? Are Australia really weaker than they have been for two decades, or already rebounding from their entertaining-for-the-neutral slump? Or both?ENGLANDAFPMy suspicion is that England’s messy but rapid bout of blood-letting will benefit the team in the short-to-medium term, which in an Ashes year is all that matters. All the evidence suggests that Strauss is a good captain, but he will need several of his players to break out of their current cycles of not-quite-bad-enough-to-be-dropped tolerability.He will also require greater consistency from his one world-class batsman – the deposed captain and victim of one of the oddest coups in cricket or any other walk of life. Pietersen has been hit or miss for some time. He has scored an outstanding 7 centuries in his last 18 Tests (since July 2007), but still averages only 47 in that period. He has been out for less than 20 in 13 of these 32 innings, and has no scores between 45 and 94. He has played great innings, but not great series. England will need one from him in the summer, and they may well get it. If he seriously wants to captain England again, he knows the only way he will do so is by (a) behaving himself, and (b) scoring brontosaurus-loads of runs. Perhaps Pietersen’s entire captaincy reign was an elaborate ruse by the ECB to ensure his continued dedication and a crushingly dominant resentment-fuelled Ashes.(As a possibly interesting statistical appendix to this, Pietersen has on occasion been compared to Viv Richards, and the Master Blaster himself was also not one for destroying his opposition with consistent, merciless unstoppability. After his annus mirabilis in 1976 – six centuries in 8 Tests – over the rest of his career he only once scored more than 400 in a series (446 v Australia in 1988-89), and only once hit more than one century in a series (two, against England in 1980-81). Brian Lara, by contrast, topped 400 in 11 series, and scored two or more hundreds on nine occasions.)On the bowling front, England’s attack may not be the most consistently threatening, but the Ashes is a home series and since 2005, every single England bowler has a better average at home than overseas (apart from Broad, marginally and unimpressively). Panesar and Anderson both have significantly better records in England, and Harmison, since his breakthrough tour of West Indies four years ago, has averaged 29 at home and 46 away.Furthermore, if Brett Lee fails to recover from his injury in time, it is probable that they will face a bowling attack with a grand total of zero Test wickets in England. If England can keep it that way for the duration of the series, they will probably win (barring some some overly cautious declarations, some overly jaunty declarations, an encyclopaedia of run outs, or a two-month monsoon) (although with Cook and Strauss opening, regular scores of 450-0 off 210 overs may not be enough to give the bowlers time to force a victory).AUSTRALIAPA PhotosAustralia’s victory in the Sydney Test has enabled the baggy greens to perch a little less baggily atop the heads of Ponting and his men, and, less importantly, allowed them to retain their position as number-one-ranked cricket team in the world, despite having lost consecutive series to the two best cricket teams in the world.Cricket’s undisputed number-one-ranked sage, Sir Richie Benaud (his knighthood has been bestowed upon him unilaterally by The Confectionery Stall, in recognition of Sir Richie’s services to brightening my summers from 1981 to 2005), famously stated that “captaincy is 90 per cent luck and 10 per cent skill – but don’t try it without the 10 per cent”. Thus, in my book, cricket captaincy is statistically identical to scientific research, veterinary surgery, piloting an aircraft, and seduction. And it should be noted that Benaud had one of the biggest 10 per cents known to mathematics.From 1995 to 2007, Australian skippers were blessed with a healthy wodge of the 90 per cent luck portion of the captaincy cake, simply by being able to say to themselves: “I think I should probably put Warne and/or McGrath on now. Yes, Warne and/or McGrath it is. Yup. Lovely piece of captaincy there Mark/Mr Waugh/Ricky , even if I do say so myself.”Ponting, by contrast, now has Hauritz and MacDonald at his disposal. However much of the 10 per cent you believe Ponting possesses, and it is certainly not all 10, it should be remembered that even Michelangelo would have struggled in the Sistine Chapel if someone had snapped his paintbrush in half, and told him to work with a pair of chopsticks instead.However, with the retirement of Hayden and the injury to Lee, only Ponting remains of the golden era regulars. Perhaps this will help the new generation to play without constant comparisons to the players they are not. Batsmen are queuing up in state cricket, and Johnson and Siddle should be dangerous in English conditions. England may be playing Australia six months too late. After all, Michelangelo would eventually have adjusted to his chopsticks and come up with a half-decent ceiling if the Vatican Painting and Decorating Committee had been threatening to sack him if he didn’t.PREDICTIONThe Confectionery Stall’s first Ashes series prediction, then, is England 2 Australia 2. These are currently two reasonable sides, neither as good as they were in 2005. They should be evenly matched, with England perhaps slight favourites due to home advantage.As an England supporter raised in the 1980s, however, I am pessimistic by inclination, and see the cricketing glass as not merely half empty but also leaking all over my trousers. And thus I am aware that the last time an Ashes series began the sides apparently evenly matched and with England slight favourites, in 1989, England were on completely the wrong end of a seismic, era-defining 4-0 clattering from which it took the team and me 16 years to fully recover. But still, it’s going to be 2-2 this time. As long as the selectors don’t pick 29 different players. And as long as Terry Alderman stays in retirement. And Tim Curtis too.

The silence which has followed the removal of Don Lockerbie as USACA’s chief executive does not bode well for the game in the USA

Martin Williamson29-Nov-2010It has been over a week since Don Lockerbie was ousted as chief executive of the USA Cricket Association and still there has been no official explanation of why he was dismissed and what the process will be to replace him. The board to a man has shut up shop and declined to offer any insight to what happened.What has emerged is that Lockerbie appears to have been dismissed ahead of the board meeting in Florida last weekend, so it has the hallmarks of a coup organised by Gladstone Dainty, the man who presided over USACA’s slide into the complete dysfunctionality which led to it being twice suspended by the ICC. He seems to have resumed control; the wall of silence certainly is a hallmark of the way he operates.Lockerbie appears to have paid the price for his ambitious plans for US cricket failing to materialise. Speaking to him in July 2009, three months after he took office, there was a feeling that he believed he could make things happen tempered with a suspicion he had bitten off far more than he could chew. Promises of an IPL-style tournament in the USA in 2010 and a fully professional national team by 2012 were not supported by a sound financial model.He came to the USA with the advantage of being well connected within the ICC but the disadvantage of having been in charge of stadiums at the 2007 World Cup. And while happy to talk at length to the media when things were going well, as soon as the going got tough he clammed up, too often failing to return calls or answer the tougher questions.The turning point was the triangular Twenty20 tournament he organised in Florida in May. The idea was sound but it had to feature India, Pakistan or West Indies to succeed. Instead, he brought in Sri Lanka and New Zealand, two sides with limited box office appeal and small numbers of local expats. Excuses given for cancelled games bordered on the daft, attendances were small, and almost everyone seems to have been left out of pocket. Nobody has been willing to discuss the finances of the event, but sources close to the tournament indicate USACA sustained huge losses.Since then spending has continued despite increasing questions of how it was all being financed. He appeared to spend a lot of time courting relationships on the subcontinent without any of them producing tangible returns. Eventually it appears Lockerbie ran out of support and possible USACA of cash.The burning question now is what direction USACA will take. Dainty has far too much baggage to take charge again in anything other than a caretaker role, although don’t expect that to stop him trying.Internationally, Lockerbie has wasted up a lot of goodwill. Until a credible replacement is in place, nobody is likely to want to get involved.The ICC, meanwhile, which bent over backwards to help US cricket under Lockerbie, seems to have been as wrongfooted by his removal as anyone, and is just as in the dark. It is unlikely it will want to keep backing any board led by Dainty and is likely to sit back and wait to see what happens.So for now, US cricket is back in limbo. The worrying thing is with a board unaccountable to anyone, even its own stakeholders, that situation could rumble on for years.

Highest individual scores in the last innings of the match and the player with a better batting average than the Don, and more

Steven Lynch27-Nov-2007The regular Tuesday column in which Steven Lynch answers your questions about (almost) any aspect of cricket:

Astle at Christchurch in 2002: the second-highest score in the fourth innings of a Test © Getty Images
What is the highest individual score made in the fourth innings of a Test match, or any first-class match? asked Tony Britton from Ireland
The highest score in the fourth innings of a Test remains George Headley’s 223 for West Indies against England at Kingston in 1929-30 – he was helped by the fact that that was a timeless Test. Nathan Astle ran him exceedingly close with 222 for New Zealand against England at Christchurch in 2001-02. There have only been three other double-centuries in the fourth innings of a Test: Sunil Gavaskar’s 221 for India v England at The Oval in 1979, Bill Edrich’s 219 for England v South Africa at Durban in 1938-39 (another timeless Test), and Gordon Greenidge’s 214 not out to help West Indies win the 1984 Lord’s Test against England. The first-class record changed hands last year, when Cameron White made 260 not out in the final innings for Somerset against Derbyshire at Derby (Somerset still lost by 80 runs, despite making 498). White broke the record previously held by Hansie Cronje (251) since 1993-94.Inspired by the fact there’s an ODI scheduled for Melbourne on February 29, 2008, how many Test matches have been in progress on Leap Year Day? asked Daniel McDonald from Australia
There have been 12 occasions when play was scheduled in a Test match for February 29, although in three of them no actual play took place because of bad weather. The first was in 1904, when the third day’s play in an Ashes Test at Sydney was washed out, the fate also of the sixth scheduled day of the 1911-12 Ashes Test, again at Sydney. The first time there was any play in a Test on Feb 29 was in 1932, when New Zealand played South Africa at Christchurch: the South African opener Jim Christy completed the first Leap Year Day hundred in a Test. Since then it has happened in 1935-36, 1963-64, in two matches in 1967-68 and 1979-80, and one each in 1987-88 and 1999-2000. The most recent time play was scheduled for Feb 29 – Zimbabwe v Bangladesh at Bulawayo in 2003-04 – rain again prevented any play. There have been seven ODIs on a Leap Year Day: one in 1984, three in 1992, two in 1996 (including the famous World Cup game at Pune when Kenya beat West Indies), and two in 2004.How many players have a Test average higher than Don Bradman’s, if you include everyone? asked Mohammad Imthinal from Sri Lanka
The only person to average more than Don Bradman’s 99.94 in Tests is the West Indian Andy Ganteaume, who had one Test innings, against England at Port-of-Spain in 1947-48, and scored 112. He never played again, so finished with an average of 112.00. The Sri Lankan Naveed Nawaz played one Test, against Bangladesh in Colombo in 2002, and scored 78 not out and 21, giving him a Test average of 99.00. The highest of anyone else who has had at least 15 innings is Michael Hussey’s current average of 86.18.I note that in the ODI between India and Pakistan on November 8 a total of 57 wides were bowled. Is this a record? asked Paul Clifford
Well, 57 would have been a new record – but in fact there were “only” 47 wides in that match at Mohali, 31 by Pakistan and 16 by India (actually there were only 38 deliveries signalled wide, as some of them cost more than the one-run penalty). The record for the most wides in a single ODI remains 52, sent down by Kenya (21) and India (31) in a World Cup match at Bristol in 1999. There have been three other matches in which the wide count exceeded the recent Mohali game, as this new table shows.

Count ’em: Mohali has 18 floodlight towers – possibly a record © Getty Images
Looking through Glenn Turner’s career I saw that in 1971-72 he averaged 96 in a series in the West Indies. What I found astounding was that that five-Test series finished 0-0. This seems inconceivable today, at least in a long series. How many times has this happened and when was the last? asked Stephen Partridge from the UK
That series in the Caribbean in 1971-72, in which Glenn Turner scored two double-centuries (and four in all on the tour) was – perhaps mercifully – the last of four five-Test series which have finished without at least one positive result. The other three all involved India: their series against Pakistan away in 1954-55 and at home in 1960-61 (the two countries played out 13 successive draws at around this time, and overall 36 of their 57 Tests have ended in draws), and the home series against England in 1963-64. There have also been two four-Test series which ended up 0-0: England v New Zealand in 1949 (a series which put an end to three-day Tests), and Pakistan v India (again) in 1989-90, which was Sachin Tendulkar’s debut series.Which cricket stadium has most floodlight towers? Is it the PCA Stadium in Mohali? asked Sumanth from India
Without going round every ground it’s hard to say, but the feeling in the Cricinfo office is that it would be hard to beat the one that you mention, the Punjab CA Stadium in Mohali, which has 18 floodlight towers, as you can see in the picture above. One reason for this is that the ground is near an air-base, so the towers have to be a bit lower than is customary.

Injury to Shadab Khan hurts hosts as Ravi Bopara’s 88 not out goes in vain

ECB Reporters Network26-May-2023Tom Kohler-Cadmore led the way with 72 as Somerset made it two wins from two in the Vitality Blast, chasing down a target of 184 to beat Sussex Sharks by five wickets with three balls to spare at the 1st Central County Ground.The game had been held up for nearly ten minutes in the seventh over of the Somerset reply when Nathan McAndrew and debutant Shadab Khan collided on the Hove outfield going for a high catch offered by Kohler-Cadmore.Both players spent several minutes on the ground receiving treatment from Sussex’s medical staff before being helped to their feet. McAndrew was able to bowl his four overs after passing a concussion protocol but Khan, the Pakistan legspinner who was making his Sussex debut, had to leave the field.Sussex coach Paul Farbrace said, “Shadab is okay, although he’s got a bit of a sore neck. The doctor felt it was best to take him out of the game. We tried to replace him with Henry Crocombe but the match referee said it had to be like-for-like which is why Harrison Ward came on. It could have been a lot worse but that can happen when you’ve got two committed players going for the same ball in a swirling wind. The good thing is they are both okay.”It left Sussex skipper Ravi Bopara, who had earlier scored an unbeaten 88, without one of his key bowlers and with Fynn Hudson-Prentice’s 2.3 overs costing 51 runs Bopara was left with little room for manoeuvre, especially when Kohler-Cadmore started to move through the gears.Kohler-Cadmore, who joined Somerset from Yorkshire during the winter, relished a flat pitch and fast outfield as he shared a match-winning stand of 104 off 63 balls with skipper Tom Abell. Kohler-Cadmore hit five sixes and five fours from 42 deliveries and when he was caught off Tymal Mills trying to guide the ball over third, the target was down to 22 from four overs.Abell was run out off the final ball of the penultimate over for 42 with both he and Lewis Gregory stranded at the same end, but Gregory hit the second ball of the final over for four to seal the deal for Somerset.Until he lost one of his key bowlers, Bopara must have thought his innings would have been the difference. The 38-year-old had warmed up for the Blast by scoring 144 from 49 balls in a second team match against Middlesex on Tuesday, and although there was never any danger of a repeat against an experienced Somerset attack he played superbly nonetheless.In his 440th game in the format, Bopara came in after Sussex had lost Tom Clark and Tom Alsop in Craig Overton’s first two overs and he barely played a false shot until the last over when Abell dropped a difficult diving catch at midwicket.Bopara hit seven sixes and three fours with principal support coming from Ali Orr who scored 33 including three successive boundaries off Matt Henry before he was superbly caught one-handed in his follow through by Gregory.Michael Burgess helped Bopara add 57 in 42 balls for the fifth wicket but the total swelled when Henry was taken for 16 off the last four deliveries of the innings as Bopara swung him over midwicket for six off a no-ball and guided the free hit to the backward point boundary.Despite losing Will Smeed in the second over, Somerset had 50 on the board after four thanks to Tom Banton’s assault on Hudson-Prentice whose over went for 29, including successive sixes.Banton was well caught by the diving Orr trying to help a bumper from Mills over long leg but after the delay, with a second Hudson-Prentice over costing 16 as Kohler-Cadmore hit him for successive sixes, Somerset always had the chase under control.

The American forward is having a brilliant start to the Championship season

• Wright scores two goals against QPR
• Coventry continue impressive start to season
• Unbeaten in opening three matches

• WHAT HAPPENED?

  U.S. international Haji Wright is sparking Coventry to an early-season excellence as the forward notched two goals in a 7-1 rout over QPR. 

  Both finishes came during counterattacks from, with Wright clinically scoring both on low crosses in the box. With the win, Frank Lampard's side is now third in the English Championship. It's a resounding start for a team that narrowly missed promotion in the Championship playoffs last season. 

  Wright is now on three goals on the season and has scored in back-to-back games. 

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• WATCH THE GOALS

• THE BIGGER PICTURE

  Haji Wright is one of several American forwards who are in strong form at the moment, and his excellent play is helping Coventry have another surprise attempt to reach the English top flight next season. 

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• DID YOU KNOW?

  Wright last season had 12 goals in an injury-hit campaign, where he made 29 league appearances. 

Yash Dayal held his nerve and gave away just seven runs in the final over to help RCB seal a thriller

S Sudarshanan18-May-20242:47

‘Kohli left CSK bowlers frustrated’

Virat Kohli was nearly in tears. Faf du Plessis could not contain his joy. MS Dhoni was nowhere to be seen after the game. All of it summed up the drama of the night in Bengaluru, as Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) won their sixth game on the trot in IPL 2024 to knock Chennai Super Kings (CSK) out and make the playoffs.RCB have been in this situation many times – needing a win in their last league match to make it to the knockouts. They were at the same venue last year, where they managed to post a tall score featuring a Kohli century, only for a Shubman Gill ton to overshadow it all and knock them out. On Saturday, they found themselves in a similar situation again.RCB were asked to bat first. They posted 218 and needed to win by at least 18 runs to knock CSK out. They were helped by blazing starts from Kohli and du Plessis with cameos from Rajat Patidar and Cameron Green.Related

How du Plessis-Kohli masterclass revived RCB after rain break

Yash Dayal's year – stung by Rinku to stinging CSK

Du Plessis: 'I dedicate the Man of the Match to Yash Dayal'

Stats – RCB do six in a row, and Kohli does it in sixes

Ball-by-ball – Ferguson and Dayal deny Dhoni and Jadeja in dramatic finish

CSK came within touching distance. They needed 10 off the last two balls to qualify with Ravindra Jadeja, the batter who hit a six and four to win CSK their fifth title last year, on strike. But Yash Dayal bowled two off-pace length balls to deny Jadeja and CSK. This was after being taken for a massive six on the first ball of the last over by MS Dhoni, and then using the back-of-the-hand slower one to have him caught at deep square leg.CSK hopes dipped at that moment and RCB never let them back.Kohli, du Plessis and the rain breakKohli has reinvented himself this season like none other. He is leading not just the pack of run-scorers this season (708) but also that of six-hitters with 37 to his name. Tushar Deshpande delivered a couple of length ball that he duly deposited into the stands. Du Plessis also struck one off Shardul Thakur when rain hit pause on RCB’s charge at 31 for 0 in three overs.The 40-minute intervention seemed to have changed the track, with both Maheesh Theekshana and Mitchell Santner bowling seven dots in the two overs since resumption. RCB finished the powerplay at 42 for none, their joint-lowest score this season alongside the 42 for 3 they made against CSK in the season opener.Kohli tried to break the shackles with sixes off Santner and Ravindra Jadeja but holed out to wide long-on. Du Plessis, though, hit two sixes and a four of a Jadeja over to get to a 35-ball fifty after being on 29 off 28 at one point.Patidar, Green and a tall finishThat Patidar takes down spin is an open secret, and he proved it with a massive hit over long-off off Theekshana, who was the most economical CSK bowler. But he loves playing fast bowlers more. And that facet came to the fore with the ease he hit Simarjeet Singh for a four and six off successive balls. He continued his unhindered strokeplay against Deshpande and Thakur to super-charge RCB’s progress, along with Green, who showed his power game to full effect.Green slapped Simarjeet through point before hammering Theekshana straight down the ground. He then hit Thakur for back-to-back sixes as RCB crossed 200 for the sixth time this season, becoming the third team to do so in an IPL season.The result? CSK leaked 63 at the death (overs 17 to 20), the most they conceded in the phase in the entire season. The presence of dew meant they were not able to grip the ball and use the assistance the pitch had, especially when off-pace length balls were dug in.Dinesh Karthik and Mohammed Siraj celebrate RCB’s win•BCCI

Ravindra and Jadeja, the bright spots in the chaseAfter Glenn Maxwell, brought back in place of Will Jacks, struck first ball to have Ruturaj Gaikwad caught at short fine leg. Dayal then had Daryl Mitchell miscue to wide mid-off. CSK’s charge in the powerplay was led by Rachin Ravindra, with some assistance from Ajinkya Rahane.Rahane targeted Dayal and hit a six and two perfectly-timed fours off him. He added 66 off 41 for the third wicket with Ravindra, whose gameplan seemed quite simple – to slice the length balls square through off.Like he did and succeeded against Maxwell in the first over. He would use even the slightest of width – like Mohammed Siraj provided in the fourth over – to thrash it through point, while the short-of-good-length ones would either be ramped over short third or heaved through midwicket. He brought up his half-century off 31 balls and looked good to be the difference, before a mix-up with Shivam Dube saw him be run out.Thereon, dew was a constant presence in the middle, which made RCB reluctant to bowl spin. That helped Ravindra Jadeja, who walked in after Ravindra’s dismissal, to get into the groove quickly. An off drive against Green got him going before hit a six each of Dayal, Siraj and Lockie Ferguson. Despite middling almost everything, it was not enough to see the side through.Contrasting middle oversIn hindsight, the middle overs proved to be the difference between the two teams. It was the phase in which Patidar and Green showed RCB the way. It was the phase were RCB scored boundaries at will. It was the phase that set them up for a tall final flourish with the bat.RCB scored 113 runs in overs 7 to 16, and lost just two wickets. But CSK could not quite capitalise in the phase, and could score only 80. What’s more, they lost four wickets in the phase, one each in the 12th, 13th and the 14th to be devoid of any momentum. One of those was all du Plessis’ brilliance. Mitchell Santner had creamed a lofted off drive off Siraj that seemed to clear mid-off. But du Plessis swiftly moved to his right and timed his leap perfectly to pluck out a one-handed stunner. CSK, as a result, went from 115 for 3 to 129 for 6 in the space of 13 balls.It prompted Dhoni to walk out to bat at the earliest point this season. And even his 25 off 13 was not enough for a possible fairytale ending, if it indeed is one.

MatériaMais Notícias

Há sete anos, no dia 22 de setembro de 2015, o Corinthians erguia a sexta taça do Campeonato Brasileiro na história do clube, após uma goleada contra um dos seus maiores rivais.

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Argentina levou virada para Arábia! Listamos as maiores zebras da história das Copas do Mundo

Veja tabela da Copa do Mundo

Na ocasião, o Timão venceu o São Paulo por 6 a 1, em casa, na Arena Corinthians. Na época, Tite – atual técnico da Seleção Brasileira – comandava o elenco campeão.Bruno Henrique, Ángel Romero (autor de dois), Edu Dracena, Lucca e Cristian foram os responsáveis por um dos placares mais históricos do clube alvinegro.

Do lado do São Paulo, Carlinhos foi o autor do único gol. Naquela partida, uma defesa de Cássio – após uma cobrança de pênalti deAlan Kardec – também ficou registrada. Mesmo com a goleada, o título já era certo para o Timão, graças ao empate por 1 a 1 com o Vasco, no São Januário, pela 35ª rodada do Brasileiro de 2015. Vagner Love foi responsável por balançar as redes.

O Corinthians foi campeão por 81 pontos – 12 a mais que o vice-líder, Atlético-MG. Nas redes sociais, o Timão relembrou o aniversário do título.

Veja a postagem feita pelo clube alvinegro:

Lógico que pra goleada do #HexaNaFavela ficar ainda mais bonita, tinha que ter o Cássio pegando pênalti e levando a Fiel à loucura! 😎✋🤚#VaiCorinthians pic.twitter.com/LvDCrZe30D

— Corinthians (@Corinthians) November 22, 2022

Relembre a escalação de Tite para o hexa do Corinthians no Campeonato Brasileiro:

Cássio; Fagner, Felipe, Edu Dracena e Uendel; Ralf, Bruno Henrique, Rodriguinho e Danilo; Lucca e Romero.