Category Uncategorized

A round-up of the fourth day of the fourth round of matches in Division Two of the Quaid-E-Azam Trophy

ESPNcricinfo staff13-Nov-2010Pakistan Television took the remaining five Hyderabad wickets to complete an 80-run win at the Niaz Stadium, their first in four matches. PTV’s new-ball pair of Saad Altaf and Mohammad Ali needed less than 20 overs on the final day to run through Hyderabad, who were dismissed for 142. Left-arm fast bowler Altaf took his 14th first-class five-wicket haul in his 40th game and had match figures of 12 for 155 while Mohammad Ali finished with 4 for 69. Hyderabad had slumped to 82 for 8 before No. 10 Zahid Mahmood’s unbeaten 35 off 30 deliveries took them close to 150, which was too little too late.Asid Ashfaq and Tanzeel Altaf bowled Lahore Ravi to a huge win against Quetta at the Lahore City Cricket Association Ground. Beginning the day on 17 for 1 and chasing a target of 345, Quetta looked like neither winning nor drawing the game, losing wickets regularly to be bundled out for 111. Ashfaq, the fast bowler, took 4 for 51, and was supported by legspinner Tanzeel, who finished with 3 for 27. Only three Quetta batsmen reached double figures, and their side continues to languish at the bottom of the points table.Jaffar Nazir, the fast bowler, gave Khan Research Laboratories the first-innings lead with a five-wicket haul against Lahore Shalimar at the Gaddafi Stadium. Lahore began the day needing 74 runs adrift of KRL’s 446 with three wickets in hand. Pakistan Under-19 batsman Usman Salahuddin was batting on an unbeaten hundred. However, Jaffar had Salahuddin caught behind for 141 to dash Lahore’s hopes. He also picked up the other two wickets to complete his 31st first-class five-wicket haul.
Assured of first-innings points, KRL then eased to 195 for 5 with Ali Khan and Bazid Khan helping themselves to half-centuries before the match ended in a draw.Peshawar took first-innings points against Abbottabad after their game ended in a draw at the Gohati Cricket Stadium in Swabi. Resuming on 147 for 4, Peshawar collapsed to be dismissed for 213. Sajjad Ahmed top scored with 65 while captain Akbar Badshah made 41. Mohammad Naeem, the left-arm spinner, took 5 for 60. Set a target of 226, Abbottabad scored at a brisk pace, reaching 157 for 6 in 40 overs before the game was called off. Medium-pacer Riaz Afridi picked four wickets, including three top order batsmen, while Wajid Ali, the Abbottabad captain, top scored with 46.

Losses of up to US$125 million have been claimed by the PCB as a series of tours have been relocated, postponed and cancelled

Osman Samiuddin07-Dec-2009The financial crunch currently engulfing the PCB, a fallout of the Lahore terror attacks on the Sri Lankan team in March and the subsequent banishment of Pakistan as an international cricket venue, dominated proceedings at the first meeting between an ICC task force and the board in Dubai. As a result, there has emerged the possibility of a series between Pakistan and an ICC World XI to help raise funds to sustain cricket in the terror-struck country.The PCB gave a detailed presentation to the five-man task force about how it has been hit by the terror attacks, and particularly how revenue from a broadcasting deal with Ten Sports will take a big hit not only because teams will not play in Pakistan in the near future, but also because ties with India are currently on hold. Losses of up to US$125 million have been claimed by the PCB as a series of tours have been relocated, postponed and cancelled. In just over a year, Pakistan has also lost hosting rights of the 2008 Champions Trophy and the 2011 World Cup because of security concerns.Ijaz Butt, chairman PCB, said that during the meeting with the ICC ways to soften the impact on development work in Pakistan were discussed. “We made a detailed presentation to the ICC task force of our own views on the situation,” Butt told reporters at Gaddafi Stadium. “So far we have suffered a lot of losses because of postponements, relocations and cancellations and that is having an impact on domestic and junior cricket. We have losses of nearly 71% of our total revenues, amounting to US$125 million. Task force members were informed of the measures taken by PCB to combat these challenges.”The board was in any case in a bad way financially when Butt took over but a five-year TV deal with Ten Sports, worth approximately US$140 million was meant to have eased the situation somewhat. The terror attacks have put paid to that for now. As an example of how bad the situation is, it is believed that the board is not using Kookaburra balls in domestic cricket because they are too expensiveThe meeting was more for brainstorming ideas rather than producing concrete proposals. One such idea, Cricinfo understands, is a series of limited over matches – ODI or T20s – between an ICC World XI and Pakistan in the UK or the Middle East next year. Two possible windows have been also been discussed, either in the UK immediately after the World Twenty20 next year in April, or in November-December, in the UAE. As well as raising revenue for the PCB, the series is intended to highlight the cricket fraternity’s support for Pakistan.Much of the meeting revolved around the issue of the board’s depleted funds and little substantial discussion was held on ways to get international cricket back to Pakistan; that, it seems to have been acknowledged, was something outside the control of cricket boards for now.Unsurprisingly, ways to revive ties between India and Pakistan were also examined; India and Pakistan have entered another phase of not playing each other, after the Mumbai terror attacks last year resulted in a cooling of political ties between the countries. It is an important rivalry for Pakistan. Butt said that the PCB lost US$40 million as a result of India cancelling a tour to Pakistan in January 2009. A large chunk of the Ten Sports deal, it is believed, was based on India playing Pakistan. There was, however, a general consensus at the meetings that India needs Pakistan as well, for it remains a financially lucrative contest. Butt said there were “no developments” on the possibility of playing India at neutral venues, only that all aspects of Pakistan’s current and future FTP were discussed.The task force, which comprises Ranjan Madugalle, Ramiz Raja, Mike Brearley, Dave Richardson and Giles Clarke, will now take the ideas further and make a list of recommendations to the ICC. “Our presentation and discussion has happened,” Butt said. “They asked us for information on our FTP and domestic cricket. Now future meetings can happen or they can discuss among themselves and make recommendations. The option of playing at a neutral venue is there, so I think we will be given due space in the FTP.”

“It would be a completely different conversation if I was feeling quite scratchy and feeling out of touch. I’m very fortunate that that’s not the case”

Firdose Moonda27-Dec-2024The numbers say Aiden Markram has had exactly the kind of Test year he always has. Currently on 499 runs, he averages 35.64 in 2024 which is only a fraction lower than his overall average of 35.75, and more than the 34.60 in 2021 and 33.60 in 2018, his other two profitable years. Before this match, he scored an important fifty just a game ago, but still, he came into this Test under so much pressure that his captain Temba Bavuma was asked whether he felt the need to take Markram out for a cup of coffee and check on him and Bavuma indicated that he might have.”I look at Aiden and the struggles that he’s going through and I resonate a lot with the experiences that he’s going through as a player. Putting myself in his shoes, sometimes you just need someone to speak to. Not necessarily someone to tell you what to do, but just to be empathetic to whatever it is that you’re going through,” Bavuma said before the match.Bavuma went on to heap praise on Markram as a leader in the side and a mentor to the younger players and promised that when he “gets over to the other side, that’s where the satisfaction is.”A score of 89 is not quite getting over the line, especially in a year where South African batters have collectively scored ten hundreds but Markam can appreciate the value of what he did at SuperSport Park.”For me, it’s not about me making hundreds. Obviously, making hundreds is great and it does feel good and you know you’re contributing, but it’s more the situation of the game that you find yourself in and when you find yourself getting out, that can frustrate you a lot,” Markram said. “The hundred would be fantastic if it were to happen, but it’s not about Aidan Markram scoring a hundred. It’s more about getting the team into a really strong position where we can hopefully win a game of cricket.”Markram used the word “frustrated” several times to describe the space he finds himself in and he explained it not as someone who thinks his spot in the team is under scrutiny (sidenote: it’s not) but as someone who knows he is capable of a little more.”It was really frustrating because I feel like I’ve been moving well and seeing the ball nicely, but finding some really interesting ways to get out. That’s more the frustrating part, but it’s been quite a busy year.”There’s times where you lack a little bit of mental edge because you’re playing so often and you go through a bit of mental fatigue. That’s where the frustration comes from. It would be a completely different conversation if I was feeling quite scratchy and feeling out of touch. I’m very fortunate that that’s not the case. I’m obviously frustrated that I haven’t been scoring runs. Obviously, it plays on you as a guy who has pride in performance and wants to contribute to winning games at cricket.”Aiden Markram gets some help with his back•AFP via Getty Images

The real pressure is in the format he captains South Africa in: T20Is. In 18 matches in 2024, he averages 15.56 and has only crossed 30 once, and his form during this year’s T20 World Cup was reminiscent of Bavuma’s during the 2022 tournament.Then Bavuma was captain of the T20I side and in poor white-ball form which did not endear him to the South African public and explains why he has such a close understanding of the spotlight Markram has been under.And while it can be difficult for fans to separate form across formats, especially in a calendar where everything seems to morph into one cricketing monolith, it has to be said that white and red-ball forms are different and while South Africa’s white-ball teams are going through a difficult time, Tests are, as Markram called them, “a beast”, or rather, a different beast.Initially, Markram played like it was the same animal and hit ten boundaries in his first fifty runs he scored in what looked like an all-or-bust approach to the innings.Markram explained it as being down to him not having the softest hands in the game and adjusting between his instinct to attack and his understanding of the patience required on what is a fairly spicy pitch.Corbin Bosch scored a fifty on Test debut•AFP/Getty Images

The latter came out deeper into his knock, when he was happy to see his former under-19 team-mate Corbin Bosch take Pakistan on and worked his way from 87 to 89 in 14 balls. Markram was trying to anchor the tail, and though he ended up being dismissed before the proper fireworks began, perhaps his presence gave Bosch the confidence to play with the freedom he did.It was Markram who capped Bosch in ODIs and who has been his friend and team-mate since childhood. While they took vastly different journeys to the national side, Markram almost seemed to take more pride in what Bosch did than his own runs and the sense of genuine pride in his friend shone through.”It looks pretty easy for him at this moment, this whole Test cricket thing, and (his innings) was a great momentum shift for us. It’s a hugely valuable knock, probably worth more than a hundred,” he said.”He’s always been a really talented guy. In the last few years, he’s really put his head down, grafted and put in performances to get the chance. I’m really happy for him that he’s grabbed his opportunity as he has. There’s still a lot left in his tank that he has to offer and I’m glad some of the world can see what he’s about.”But to Bosch himself he said “nothing inspirational”.”I just told him whatever he’s done to get the call-up and to get the opportunity will certainly be good enough at this level as well,” Markram said. “You don’t want to put things in his mind that make him second-guess things and stuff like that. He’s had a great debut so far and it’s good for him that it started out this way.”That’s where seniority, in terms of caps, not age, comes in. As someone who Bavuma has entrusted with some of the team talks and some of the on-the-sidelines chats, Markram has also found a way to help himself.”(As a leader), it’s more just about being there for guys that need it. It’s not about getting too involved,” he said. “Often what you say to other people can help you as well.”Maybe this time, for him, it did.

The state’s winless run in the tournament has now extended to 14 matches but they will have Nathan Lyon against Victoria

ESPNcricinfo staff23-Oct-2023Former Test batter and New South Wales captain Kurtis Patterson has been dropped from their Sheffield Shield team for the match against Victoria after another winless start to the season.It is the second time this year that Patterson has been dropped after he was left out for the final game of last season when he was replaced as captain by Moises Henriques. Since last November Patterson has averaged just 14.92 in the Shield and has started this season with scores of 32, 4 and 10.Blake MacDonald, who made his first-class debut in the final game of last season against South Australia and scored 61, comes into the squad.Related

• Khawaja rested for second straight Sheffield Shield game due to workload management

• Lyon would be ready if ODI World Cup call came

• McAndrew, McSweeney star as SA belt NSW in Shield

• Jhye Richardson sidelined after another shoulder dislocation

New South Wales have not won a match in their last 14 Sheffield Shield outings stretching back to February 2022 but should have claimed the opening game of this season against Queensland only to be denied by Michael Neser and Jimmy Pierson.They were then comprehensively beaten by South Australia in Adelaide last week when they were bowled out for 183 and 136.However, in a boost for their hopes against Victoria at the MCG they will have Nathan Lyon available with the offspinner set to play his first four-day game of the season as he continues his comeback after the Ashes-ending calf injury.Lyon is due to play the match in Melbourne, followed by NSW’s two home games against Western Australia and Tasmania next month ahead of the Test summer which begins in mid-December.For Patterson, this latest omission continues a difficult few years after he had reached the Australia Test side against Sri Lanka during the 2018-19 season and scored a maiden century in Canberra.Since that season, where he hit three first-class centuries and another brace for a CA XI against Sri Lankans in Hobart which ultimately earned him his Test call, he has made three hundreds and averaged 27.19 in first-class cricket.New South Wales squad vs Victoria Jackson Bird, Ben Dwarshuis, Jack Edwards, Matthew Gilkes, Chris Green, Ryan Hackney, Moises Henriques (capt), Daniel Hughes, Nathan Lyon, Blake Macdonald, Jack Nisbet, Jason Sangha, Chris Tremain

South Africa’s towering left-arm quick talks about his upbringing and the hard yards to get to the top

Firdose Moonda23-Aug-2022Koos Jansen spotted the cricketing talent of his twin sons, Marco and Duan, when they were nine-years-old and ran with it. Much like Richard Williams, who masterminded Venus and Serena’s rise to being among the best players tennis has ever seen, Koos made it his mission to train and talk to his kids about the sport he believed they would excel in, becoming cricket’s equivalent of King Richard. Let’s call him King Koos.Like Williams, and in keeping with a few other famous cricketing dads, Koos Jansen wasn’t always gentle in his methods.”There have been some very tough times when my dad was very tough on us,” Marco Jansen, South Africa’s 22-year old tearaway, said. “There was no sugarcoating. Back then, he spoke to us in the same way he is speaking to us now. Nothing has changed. That enabled us to grow and mature a bit quicker than all the other kids when we were a bit young.Related

• Marco Jansen, a kid who beat Kohli in the nets, is now a Mumbai Indian

• Elgar's quiet achievers lay another marker for resurgent South Africa

• Verreynne's grandfather in hospital after falling ill in stands during Lord's Test

• Root: Stokes' honesty about mental health epitomises leadership qualities

“Since we were growing up, he is the one that has been – not the tough guy – but harder on us, especially when it comes to sport.” Koos demanded the best from his boys in other spheres too, such as academics. “But we weren’t that great,” Jansen said.By Jansen’s own admission, and despite some eye-watering numbers (164 and 80 respectively) in a T20 game for example, the pair were not stand-out youth players either. “My high school career didn’t go well. I wasn’t the top schoolboy cricketer,” Jansen said.Neither of he nor Duan played in an Under-19 World Cup and both made their names as net bowlers. In a professional era where the pathways are clearly laid out, and usually followed, theirs is the stuff of fairytales, which is why when Jansen made his Test debut, with only 18 first-class appearances to his name (and of those only half in South Africa’s top-tier of domestic cricket), he could barely believe his good fortune. “If you had told me you will make your debut against India in South Africa, I would have laughed and said, no, there’s no chance,” he said.There was an element of his selection which was about him being in the right place at the right time. South Africa were without Anrich Nortje for that India series and would have picked Duanne Olivier for the Boxing Day Test but he had not fully recovered from Covid-19 and was nursing a hamstring niggle. When Jansen’s name appeared on the team-sheet, it was a surprise and he found himself under scrutiny immediately.He was nervous and his first spell was wayward but he returned later in the match and showed off an ability to swing the ball at pace, to exploit any bounce and to challenge even the best. In India’s second innings, Jansen dismissed Mayank Agarwal, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane and Mohammed Siraj to finish his debut match with five wickets.He has since added KL Rahul – three times – Cheteshwar Pujara and most recently Joe Root to his list of wickets and continues to ask serious questions of marquee players. In Root’s case, Jansen struck him on the pad with a delivery that shaped in and the amount of movement on offer at Lord’s surprised Jansen himself. “I didn’t expect the ball to swing that much,” Jansen said. “The plan was to stick around that off stump or fourth stump area and let the ball pass through there. If it nips back then it brings all dismissals into play and if it just straightens, you can nick him off. When you get the big names out, it’s always a good feeling.”Duan (left) and Marco Jansen with Virat Kohli in the nets on India’s 2018 tour•Koos Jansen

The best, in fact. Though Jansen has an IPL deal and was among the players who opted out of the series against Bangladesh earlier in the year, he spoke of Test cricket as the highlight of becoming an international. “I enjoy the red-ball format. It’s the format where what you put in, you get out. If you bowl well, you will get wickets. If you bat well, you will score runs,” he said. “That’s what I have enjoyed the most. And just being around the guys, they make it [nice] to play the game.”As the youngest in the group, Jansen is soaking up the knowledge from players who are much more experienced than him, much like he did with his dad.”Like today, we had a long practice session, so then you chat to them and you ask all the nitty gritty stuff,” he said of South Africa’s preparations for the second Test at Old Trafford. “They help you think out of the box. And there’s the coaches as well. They bring a different perspective. There’s a lot of angles or perspectives you have at your disposal to try and figure out what you can do to give yourself the best chance to perform.”There’s also some advice about what not to do. Naturally, because of Jansen’s frame – he stands at 2.06 metres tall – there are concerns about overbowling him and injuries. He has already overcome what was turning into a stress fracture of the lower back. “I’ve had problems when I was 18 or 19 – a semi-stress fracture in the lower back. I have grown a lot quicker for my body to adjust to my muscles and all those kinds of stuff.”To try to prevent future issues, he has to work specifically on his lower body and abdominal area. “My core has to be strong. My glutes, my lower body have to be very strong because that’s where most of my loads go. Because I twist a lot, if my core muscles are quite strong, then I have a base to work from.”That’s how Jansen’s entire career has been. He has the foundations laid by his family (and he wants you to know that Koos was also always there for “a bit of love and a bit of softness”) and he built on those by almost immediately joining the best cricketers in the country and turning out regularly for them. And it’s not just any international team.After the last year South Africa have had in Tests, and their performance at Lord’s, there’s already talk this pace pack could become one of the best going around. Asked if he thought the South Africa attack was as good as it could be, Jansen checked himself. “I wouldn’t say we are unbeatable. We put in the hard yards and we are still putting in the hard yards,” he said. “We don’t take anything for granted because we know when we do that, Mother Cricket is going to kick you on the backside.”Or make that, Papa (King) Koos.

New Zealand had given themselves a platform at 159 for 2 in the 38th over but the borderline stumping of Amelia Kerr set in motion a collapse of 8 for 53

Andrew McGlashan04-Apr-2021Australia secured a world-record 22nd ODI win in a row with a powerful batting display in Mount Maunganui as half-centuries from Alyssa Healy, Ellyse Perry and Ash Gardner carried them to victory with more than 11 overs to spare.The match was finished, and record secured, when Gardner pulled her third six which also brought up 41-ball half-century. Perry had anchored the innings after the early losses of Rachael Haynes and Meg Lanning briefly suggested New Zealand might find a way back into the game.After a watchful start Healy, one of four players to appear in all 22 victories, took the chase by the scruff of the neck with her first major innings of the tour. However, at 136 for 4 the game wasn’t entirely secure, but any notion of it being a problem was quickly dispelled as Gardner found her range, much as she had in the first T20I, and dominated an unbroken stand of 79 with Perry.Earlier, New Zealand had given themselves a platform at 159 for 2 in the 38th over but the borderline stumping of Amelia Kerr set in motion a collapse of 8 for 53. Lauren Down, recalled to the team for the series, made a career-best 90 but the tempo at the top of the order left too much pressure on others to accelerate. Megan Schutt and Nicola Carey shared seven wickets between them.Schutt had struck with her first delivery of the day when a wicked inswinger snaked between Hayley Jensen’s bat and pad to take leg stump. It was slow going in the opening exchanges with Down taking 19 balls to get off the mark but a second-wicket stand of 69 with Amy Satterthwaite gave a foundation.After Satterthwaite lofted to mid-on – Lanning kept fielders inside the ring as long as possible to build pressure – Down and Amelia Kerr added 90 in an 18-over stand that occasionally threatened to break free against a disciplined Australia attack.The Australia squad after their world record 22nd ODI win in a row•Getty Images

Tayla Vlaeminck, whose first four overs cost just four, had 21 taken off a two-over comeback spell while legspinner Georgia Wareham went for a run-a-ball. Down, who had scored 75 runs in her previous 10 ODI innings, reached a maiden fifty off 90 balls.However, the innings lost its way when Amelia Kerr was given out stumped off Schutt – it was a very tight decision by the third umpire and from the replays broadcast hard to say it was clearly out. With the innings having been built at a largely sedate pace, the remaining batters had little time to play themselves in and the pressure told. Katey Martin was run out from cover and Down’s innings ended with a leading edge back to Carey whose wicket-to-wicket medium pace was tough to score off.Maddy Green and Brooke Halliday both managed sixes to suggest they could provide the late power but fell shortly after each of their boundaries.The first over of the chase from Jess Kerr cost 11 but she and Rosemary Mair tightened their lines and were rewarded when Haynes chased a drive in the seventh over. New Zealand were then buoyant when Lanning, who has a phenomenal record chasing and an even more so at this ground, edged Hannah Rowe to the keeper to leave Australia 37 for 2.Healy had reached 25 off 38 balls when she upped the tempo with a six over midwicket after Perry had eased into her innings with consecutive boundaries off the returning Lea Tahuhu. Healy was dropped on 46 – by Tahuhu long-on – with the resulting six bringing up her fifty from 57 deliveries and another life came her way on 61 when Jensen missed a low return catch.Next over, though, she got a leading edge back to Amelia Kerr and when Satterthwaite lured Beth Mooney into driving to cover there was just a glimmer for New Zealand if they could strike again.But Australia’s batting order oozes confidence and Gardner stamped her authority on the chase with two early boundaries against Amelia Kerr who she had also targeted in the first T20I. As her innings progressed she added off-side sixes against Mair and Tahuhu while Perry ticked over to a 73-ball fifty to show her batting is in fine fettle.The job, though, for this tour is not yet finished with the Rose Bowl series – which Australia have held since 2000 – still up for grabs. It would be a brave person to suggest that task won’t be completed in the second game by a side that has taken the one-day game to a new level.

Cameron Green’s 87 help Western Australia stretch to a competitive first-innings score

ESPNcricinfo staff03-Nov-2019Usman Khawaja gave himself the chance to press his Test claims by grinding out a platform for Queensland with the help of Joe Burns and Bryce Street on day two of the Sheffield Shield match against Western Australia at the Gabba.After Western Australia were able to stretch their first innings as far as 332, due largely to an industrious unbeaten innings of 87 not out by the emerging allrounder Cameron Green, Queensland dug in to reach 1 for 167 as Street dropped anchor.Burns was by the far the most enterprising of the three home batsmen on show, gliding to 76 from 119 balls before he was lbw to a ball of very full length to Green that looked to be going on to hit middle and leg stump.From there Khawaja and Street scrounged their way through another 31 overs for 67 runs, taking Queensland more than halfway towards the Western Australia total without ever being able to assert themselves against Green, Jhye Richardson, Matthew Kelly or David Moody.Following Travis Head’s century against New South Wales at Adelaide Oval and the strong early season performances of Marcus Harris and Will Pucovski, Khawaja needs a score of note to keep his name in the forefront of the selectors’ minds despite a brilliant recent record batting in Test matches in Australia.

The Australia opener went out of the side as his form dropped, but he was back – and running on energy drinks – as the ball-tampering saga dramatically flared up

Adam Collins05-Oct-2018At the beginning of the 2017-18 summer, Matt Renshaw endured the first truly horrid run of his professional career: a stretch of six Sheffield Shield innings worth 70 runs that got him dropped from Australia’s Test team. Four months later, when the ball-tampering scandal broke in Cape Town, he raced from a Shield final to a Test in Johannesburg, jacking himself up on Red Bull to open the batting in the Bull Ring.Renshaw is now in the UAE with the Test side, under new coach Justin Langer, having had a productive stint with Somerset in the County Championship (tallying three centuries and 513 runs in six matches).But on the morning of March 25, in Brisbane, Renshaw woke to see his cousin (and housemate) sitting stunned on the couch. “Have you seen what has happened,” his cousin asked. Renshaw joined him on the couch to watch the ball-tampering footage from Newlands. Then he went to play day three of the Shield final.”Pat Howard was at the ground and talking to all the coaches,” Renshaw recalls, while watching Alastair Cook bat for Essex at Chelmsford. “Then Wade Seccombe pulled me aside and said, ‘You might need to prepare to go to South Africa’. He didn’t have anything for me apart from that and I was like ‘but we’re playing the Shield Final, it is pretty serious.’ And he said that I had to be prepared to go over.”Two days later, he was waking to a call from Trevor Hohns, Australia’s chairman of selectors, confirming that hunch.”He said that I needed to get on a plane.” Renshaw helped Queensland win the title before he had to depart that afternoon, without a clue what was waiting for him at the other side. Sure enough, it was cricket’s version of the twilight zone, Bancroft still with his team-mates, readying himself to fly to the mayhem at home.”I was like, ‘geez, this is full on,'” Renshaw says. “I just didn’t know what to say.”Then while heading to the Wanderers for his one training run the day before dusting off his baggy green, an unusual edict came through. “We were getting off the bus and the security manager told us to hand our phones in. We had never handed our phones in before.”When Lehmann entered the dressing room, it was with red eyes. “I was sitting in the corner trying to work out what was going on. As he said [that he was resigning], people started breaking down. I just didn’t know how to feel because I had been out of the side for six months. I was just confused. And obviously, I was pretty upset; Boof was my coach when I was first picked and he has done so much for my cricket but because I was away from that side it was quite a challenging position to be in.”Did it cross his mind that in another world he could have been the Bancroft character in this sorry story? “Yeah, I have thought about it,” Renshaw replies. “If [David Warner] comes up to you and tells you to try and do this – I don’t know if you should be put in that scenario, but you never know what is going on behind closed doors and what they were trying to do, which is quite a tough thing to think about – how I would have reacted? But you never knew until you are pushed in that scenario.”Renshaw says that Warner “occasionally” gave him a hard time, but he chalks that up to familiarity between the pair.”When I was in the side, the times I would be cheeky, he’d pull me up. It was good for me at the time learning about when to do things, and certain scenarios, with batting especially. But when we’re out in the middle we work really well together. I think he potentially sees a little bit of me in him. Hopefully, I can learn from a few things that have happened in his life and when to bring that cheeky side out. There might have been times when I have brought it out at the wrong time.”Renshaw had been playing golf in a group that included Warner the day he realised he wouldn’t be making his Ashes debut last November.During Renshaw’s slump in form – in hindsight, he understands that he honed his survival mechanisms so well it came at the expense of his intent to score – Lehmann asked him to travel to the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane to face Australia’s first-choice attack ahead of selection.”I got through that without getting out and felt really confident and it had given me a second wind, so I thought I was going to be fine and going into the Test series feeling pretty good,” Renshaw says. “Getting dropped after that was quite confusing as I had gone and batted in front of them. I was batting really well and had some sense of hope.”Renshaw’s slump coincided with Bancroft’s glittering form, meaning the two were pitted in a virtual race to open alongside Warner. This was highlighted by Langer, then West Australia’s coach, who publicly backed his man, Bancroft.Renshaw is at peace with what happened. “The only way [Bancroft] was going to be play was if I got dropped, so he [Langer] wants his players to get picked and that’s completely understandable. I went and spent some time with [Langer] a couple of times while they were [in England] for the ODIs to get to know him, hopefully before a fruitful Test campaign. It is just about getting to know him as a person.”But it was also the WA side that gave Renshaw a hard time after he lost his Test spot, in the Shield fixture at the WACA played as the Ashes began in Brisbane. “They were chirping,” Renshaw smiles. “That was when I was wondering if I was really enjoying the cricket I was playing at the time because I wasn’t doing well and thinking too much about the game.”It took an unplanned T20 stint with Brisbane Heat in the BBL for Renshaw (he played only one match) to feel at peace with the game again. In turn, he started scoring in the Shield again after Christmas, making him the obvious man to fly into the Test side when Bancroft was banned. Fuelled with energy drinks, he threw himself around the Wanderers outfield in a sign to onlookers that he, for one, would not be going through the motions.”I knew my role over there was to provide loads of energy. I knew if I could bring that into the field and the dressing room, it would relax a lot of people who had been over there two months by then and all that happened before was mentally draining. Going into that final Test, I think we were just trying to get back to where we were before and trying to win back the Australian public.”To the extent that exhaustion informed the Cape Town saga, Renshaw is not able to judge from the distance he was at when the wheels fell off. He did, however, detect a shift between what he was seeing on television through the marathon summer compared to what the emphasis had been inside the camp a year earlier during another taxing series, for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.”When we were playing in India, it was a bit fiery, but in every meeting we discussed playing on skill and not emotion. That’s one thing I learned from that tour: trying to be the better team without letting our emotions get the better of us because if we do that then our skills will drop. Seeing a few of the things that happened when I was out of the side, I thought, ‘Are they still going on that? The ‘skill not emotion’ mantra? But you just don’t know because you are not in the side.”It will be a different Australian side that takes the field in Dubai on Sunday, just as it will be a different Renshaw. He asserted himself markedly for Somerset, finding the sort of balance between defence and attack that has seen him compared favourably to another Australian opening batsman from Queensland – Matthew Hayden.He received an untimely knock to the helmet when fielding at short leg in Australia’s warm-up match against a Pakistan A side in Dubai last week and there are questions over whether he will be fit enough or prepared enough to open in the Tests, but after his struggles last summer and the extraordinary turn of events that took him to Johannesburg, Renshaw is better prepared for what lies ahead.

Offspinner Ashley Nurse has made a comeback into the West Indies T20 squad after more than two years

ESPNcricinfo staff01-Sep-2017After more than two years out of the side, offspinner Ashley Nurse has made a comeback into the West Indies T20 squad. The 28-year old last played a T20 international in January 2015, but has been picked for the one-off game against England later this month, in place of legspinner Samuel Badree, who was unavailable due to a prior commitment. West Indies retained the other 12 players that featured in the squad for the home T20I against India in July.

West Indies T20 squad changes

IN: Ashley Nurse
OUT: Samuel Badree
Squad: Carlos Brathwaite (captain), Ronsford Beaton, Chris Gayle, Evin Lewis, Jason Mohammed, Sunil Narine, Ashley Nurse, Kieron Pollard, Rovman Powell, Marlon Samuels, Jerome Taylor, Chadwick Walton (wk), Kesrick Williams

Nurse has so far gone wicketless in the four T20 internationals he has played since his debut in April 2011 but has been one of the main bowlers for Barbados in List A matches. He was the leading wicket-taker in their domestic 50-over competition last season. Recently, however, he hasn’t been as impressive, going wicketless for Trinbago Knight Riders in the two CPL matches he has played.”We have a good mix of experience and youth that should adapt to English conditions quickly,” chairman of selectors, Courtney Browne said. “Coming off the series win against India in the Caribbean in July our expectations is to see the team play a highly competitive game and bring that T20 Caribbean atmosphere to England.”The experience Browne talks about includes the likes of Chris Gayle, Sunil Narine, Kieron Pollard, Marlon Samuels and Jerome Taylor. And leading the younger players is opening batsman Evin Lewis, who scored a 53-ball hundred against India less than two months ago.The only T20 between England and West Indies will take place on September 16 in Chester-le-Street, before a five-match ODI series starts on September 19 at Old Trafford.

Sophie Ecclestone, the uncapped Lancashire left-arm spinner, has been named in England Women’s 15-member squad for the three-match T20 series at home against Pakistan

ESPNcricinfo staff01-Jul-2016Sophie Ecclestone, the uncapped Lancashire left-arm spinner, has been named in England Women’s 15-member squad for the three-match T20 series at home against Pakistan. Her Lancashire team-mate, Kate Cross, however, was left out. Kent left-arm seamer Natasha Farrant, who was not picked for World T20 as well as the ODI series against Pakistan, replaced the injured Anya Shrubsole.Ecclestone and Farrant are the two changes to the squad that swept Pakistan 3-0 in the ODI series. Ecclestone, only 17, is the second left-arm spinner in the squad behind Alexandra Hartley, who made her international debut against Pakistan in the third ODI in Taunton. She is yet to play a T20 international.

England Women’s squad for Pakistan T20s

Heather Knight (capt), Tammy Beaumont, Katherine Brunt, Sophie Ecclestone, Natasha Farrant, Georgia Elwiss, Jenny Gunn, Alexandra Hartley, Danielle Hazell, Amy Jones (wk), Laura Marsh, Natalie Sciver, Fran Wilson, Lauren Winfield, Danielle Wyatt

“The T20 series brings a new set of challenges and further opportunities for the players, and I’m really pleased to call-up Sophie Ecclestone for the first time, and to welcome Tash Farrant back into the dressing room,” Mark Robinson, the head coach, said.”Sophie brings youth, vitality and another left-arm spin option alongside Alex Hartley into the squad. We have two world-class offspinners in Danielle Hazell and Laura Marsh, but we also need to be aware of the talent that we have underneath, and making sure that we are developing the likes of Alex and Sophie, by having them in the group and giving them international match-day experience.”Robinson said that it was a “real shame” that seamer Beth Langston missed on of selection again, because of injury. “She worked tremendously hard during the winter and had a great tour to Sri Lanka with the England Women’s Academy, but unfortunately hasn’t been able to get involved so far this summer because of her ankle,” he said.Robinson also said that Cross was still in the side’s plans, despite being overlooked for the Pakistan T20 series. “Kate Cross has been left out of this squad to face Pakistan, but we do see her as a Twenty20 bowler moving forwards,” he said. “There is no reason why she can’t be an outstanding bowler across all formats of the game, and we feel that there’s a window now where we can do some focused technical work with her away from match situations to help get her ready to perform at her best in the Kia Super League next month.”The T20 series begins with the first match at the Brightside Ground in Bristol on Sunday.