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Twice during another absorbing day’s play at Woodbridge Road, Kent thought they were in a position to dictate terms – and twice they saw their plans ripped apart by an inspired Stuart Meaker

David Lloyd at Guildford 22-Jul-2014
ScorecardStuart Meaker has claimed eight wickets in the match to go with a half-century•Getty ImagesTwice during another absorbing day’s play at Woodbridge Road, Kent thought they were in a position to dictate terms – and twice they saw their plans ripped apart by an inspired Stuart Meaker, who is relishing every minute of his return to Championship action.At 316 for 9 early on the third morning, Surrey seemed in grave danger of surrendering a potentially decisive first-innings deficit of around 90 to their fellow promotion hopefuls, only for Meaker to make an excellent half-century at No. 9 while sharing in a situation-changing stand of 82 with Matt Dunn.But if Meaker’s batting was good, his post-tea bowling spell bordered on the brilliant. With Brendan Nash and Rob Key both well set, the 25-year-old quick bent his back still further to remove two half-century makers in the space of eight deliveries. From sitting relatively pretty on 164 for 2, the visitors were suddenly a startled-looking 173 for 4 with uncertainty written all over their faces.A couple of overs later, Sam Northeast went in search of a distinctly optimistic single after driving Meaker just wide of mid-on and was comfortably run-out following Darren Stevens’ understandable decision to send him back. Then, with the total stuck on 176, Stevens looked around in horror to find he had been brilliantly caught low down at second slip as Dunn joined his fast-bowling mate in the wickets column.It was a terrific passage of play. And while Kent regrouped sufficiently through Sam Billings and Calum Haggett to reach 229 for 6 by the close, they are only 239 ahead going into the final day with all outcomes possible on this fast-scoring ground.Kent will certainly believe they can get among Surrey’s batsmen in the fourth innings, having posed plenty of problems during the second. But whether they can find a bowler to match Meaker is the big question.’This has been a big chance for me’

“I was happy with that,” said a smiling Stuart Meaker after dominating the third day of Surrey’s match against Kent by scoring 53 and then taking 4 for 67. “But I’m not sure whether I’m happier with the 50 or the four wickets. I was a bit scratchy at the start of my innings and there were a few edges but I’ve had that done to me before as a bowler so I thought why not keep going.
“I was gutted to miss out on those last two runs [to give Surrey maximum batting points] but Matt Dunn and I had chanced our arms.”
And the wickets? “I was due a long bowl and it has been tough sitting on the sidelines seeing the other boys going at it. This has been a big chance for me to come in and I’m glad it came off the way it did today. I think it’s still alto play for in the game but if we can break this [seventh-wicket] partnership tomorrow we have a great chance of winning the game.”

This pitch has encouraged the quicks from the very start – offering pace, bounce, carry and movement. Indeed, umpire Rob Bailey mentioned midway through the third day that he had seldom, if ever, seen so many runs scored when the bat was being beaten so regularly. But having a big enough heart to keep pounding away when the wickets are not coming is another vital attribute – and one which Meaker demonstrated throughout this steamy day.He had missed a total of eight Championship matches – initially through injury and then as a result of selection policy – before being recalled to front-line duty on Sunday. A frustrated tweet a week or two ago indicated that he felt the wait was longer than strictly necessary but a four-wicket haul in the first innings here looked to be an even better response.Today’s runs were a nice bonus but not entirely unexpected because he made a Championship score of 72 as long ago as 2009. Meaker the bowler caught the eye even more, though.First, he made sure Kent did not get away to a flier by finding a couple of outside edges as Daniel Bell-Drummond tried to lower his bat beneath a lifter and Ben Harmison defended unsuccessfully. It was the later, nine-over spell of 2 for 33 that really rocked Kent, however – Nash snicking an attempted upper cut and Key finding slip after driving at one that left him.The pace was right up there throughout, so was the aggression and with Meaker consistently hitting the right line and length it was easy to remember why he figured so prominently on England’s radar a year or two ago.

An unbroken eighth-wicket stand of 116 between Tim Bresnan and Graeme Swann lifted England from a parlous 212 for 7

The Report by George Dobell in Chelmsford30-Jun-2013
ScorecardKevin Pietersen looked fluent before losing his patience against Tom Craddock•Getty ImagesA few weeks ago, when Lancashire bowled Essex out for 20, there were those within the England set-up who privately expressed concerns about the value of this game as preparation for the Ashes.Those concerns were understandable. Despite a talented squad, Essex are currently placed in the middle of Division Two of the County Championship and, with a view to their county commitments, took the opportunity to rest three or four first-choice players for this match. Would they put up any sort of resistance?Yet a second-string attack who had, before this game, claimed only eight first-class* wickets between them this season, dismissed England’s top seven for only 212. An unbroken eighth-wicket stand of 116 between Tim Bresnan and Graeme Swann spared any acute embarrassment, but it was a day that suggested the surfeit of limited-overs cricket England have experienced of late has not been ideal preparation for the Ashes.Some caution is required before anyone concludes that England’s Ashes plans are in chaos. Complacency was certainly a contributory factor in one or two dismissals – notably Kevin Pietersen’s – and this game was designed precisely with the aim of easing England’s players back into the disciplines required for first-class cricket. It would be wrong to read too much into it.It was an inglorious performance from England’s top-order, though. Inserted by prior agreement and on a blameless pitch – Ravi Bopara, the Essex captain, later admitted he would have liked to bat but was happy to agree to England’s request – each one of the top seven made a start but failed to convert it into a meaningful contribution due to some looses strokes and a lack of concentration.There were some encouraging performances from Essex players, too. Tymal Mills, a 20-year-old left-arm fast bowler who played at the request of the England management, generated speeds in excess of 94 mph according to the television speed gun, while Tom Craddock, a 23-year-old leg-spinner who went into this game without a first-class wicket this season, claimed three in his first nine overs and demonstrated good composure in the face of Pietersen’s aggression.Pietersen had settled in against some woeful bowling. Fed a diet of full-tosses and long-hops, he eased three of his first four deliveries to the boundary and demonstrated his intent against Craddock’s legspin by driving the first delivery he faced from him over mid-on for four. He was dropped moments later attempting a repeat, Craddock unable to cling on to a sharp return chance, but then tried the shot once more and was well held by a relieved bowler. Pietersen’s dismissal, careless as it was, will irritate some but, in the grand scheme of things, it is more important to note that he looked fit and in fine form. He is likely to treat Ashes matches with far greater respect.If that wicket owed something to Pietersen’s impatience, the wicket of Matt Prior owed more to the traditional skills of a legbreak bowler. Drawing Prior into pushing at one outside off stump, Craddock took the outside edge with a delivery that turned appreciably on its way to the keeper.In between times, Ian Bell was the victim of a wonderful piece of fielding. Jaik Mickleburgh, at short leg, anticipated Bell’s stroke as the batsman shaped to dab-sweep and, moving sharply to his left, clung on to the catch one-handed. Bell had struggled for fluency throughout, but it was a somewhat unfortunate ending.Earlier, Joe Root had endured a painful start to his career as an England opening batsman. Root, promoted in place of the discarded Nick Compton to allow room for Jonny Bairstow in the middle-order, got off the mark with an edge that bounced just short of the slip cordon and was later struck on the left knee by a delivery from Mills. Despite the ball appearing to hit Root on the pads, the batsman was clearly in some pain and, a few deliveries later, was drawn into poking at one from Saj Mahmood that he could have left outside off stump and edged a catch to second slip. Root spent much of the rest of the day with an ice pack on his knee, but an England team spokesman said that it was not considered a serious injury.Mills was impressive, if inconsistent, but faded as the warmth of the day began to tell. Working up a sharp pace, he dismissed the England captain (and Mills’ Essex team-mate) Alastair Cook with a delivery that was probably a bit too close for the cut shot the batsman attempted and Jonathan Trott, who was drawn into feeling for one angled across him that he could have left.By contrast Mahmood, once seen as an England fast bowler of great potential, barely passed 80 mph and conceded five an over in a performance littered with full-tosses. He did, however, compensate with the wicket of Root – just his second first-class victim of the season – and later saw Bairstow leave one that tailed in a fraction to hit the top of off stump.But if England were to take any positives from the day, it will have been a reminder of the strength of their lower-order batting. While Bresnan resisted stoutly, Swann counterattacked in characteristic style. He hit Craddock for four boundaries in five balls and later Mills for three in succession as the pair steered their side from any danger and both completed half-centuries shortly before the close.Essex rested their captain James Foster, swing bowler Reece Topley and allrounder Graham Napier from their full-strength side, while England left out James Anderson and Stuart Broad from their likely first Test line-up. While Broad has a minor shoulder injury, the result of diving to regain his ground in the dying moments of the Champions Trophy final, an England spokesman confirmed that he would have been fit to play had this been a Test. It was also confirmed that England have no plans to send any of their squad bowlers along with Compton to further enhance the Worcestershire side in their game against the Australians later this week.*This match had first-class status removed on the third day

Mark Higgs, the left-arm spinner who last played state cricket in 2005, has won a surprise call-up to the Big Bash League for the Hobart Hurricanes

ESPNcricinfo staff09-Jan-2013Mark Higgs, the left-arm spinner who last played state cricket in 2005, has won a surprise call-up to the Big Bash League for the Hobart Hurricanes. Higgs, 36, has been confirmed as a replacement player for Ben Hilfenhaus, who was ruled out of the rest of the tournament due to injury, and could make his Twenty20 debut against the Brisbane Heat on Saturday.The chance for a BBL deal appeared to have passed Higgs by when the Adelaide Strikers preferred fellow veteran Brad Young after trialing both men before the tournament began. But the Hurricanes apparently took note and have gambled on Higgs, who is the coach of the ACT Comets Futures League side and until last summer was the captain.The absence of fellow left-arm orthodox bowler Xavier Doherty, who is part of Australia’s ODI squad, could make Higgs an important player for the Hurricanes if they reach the finals. An allrounder who played for both New South Wales and South Australia from 1997-98 until late 2005, Higgs was good enough to play for Australia A and toured with the national side to the ICC KnockOut Trophy in Kenya.In other squad changes on Wednesday, the batsman Travis Head was approved as a replacement for the injured James Smith in the Adelaide Strikers squad, while Adam Crosthwaite could play for the Sydney Sixers in their last qualifying match. Brad Haddin, the Sixers’ first-choice gloveman, is part of the ODI squad and the backup Daniel Smith faces a fitness test ahead of Wednesday night’s game against the Melbourne Renegades.

Captain Faf du Plessis was quite clear in his assessment that South Africa fell at least 10 runs short of a defendable total against West Indies at Nagpur

Karthik Krishnaswamy in Nagpur 25-Mar-2016It was an over sent from the heavens. Three googlies from Imran Tahir and nearly three wickets.Marlon Samuels looked to drive the first one through the covers. The ball turned into him and forced him to hit it straighter, and in the air. Tahir got his left hand to the ball but couldn’t wrap his fingers around it.Andre Russell looked to slog the second beyond wide long-on, but ended up hitting it squarer than intended and deep midwicket ran a few steps to his left to take a simple catch. Darren Sammy simply didn’t pick the last one. It hung deliciously over his eyeline, dipped wickedly, and turned through the gap between front pad and airy cover drive to hit the top of middle stump.Two wickets taken, only one run conceded and West Indies were 100 for 6 after 17 overs. The over might have turned the match South Africa’s way had West Indies been chasing 140. But they were only chasing 123 and still only needed a perfectly gettable 23 off the last three overs.After the match, South Africa captain Faf du Plessis was quite clear in his assessment that his side fell at least 10 runs short of a defendable total.”The batting today was the difference between us winning and losing,” he said. “We needed to get to 130-135 to have a par score. I thought we were 10 runs short, definitely.”On the eve of the match, du Plessis had counted adaptability and “being smart in decision-making” among the strengths of his batting side. He had hoped these qualities would make the difference against a West Indies batting unit reliant on power hitting, given the large outfield and the expectation that the pitch would provide turn.The pitch met du Plessis’ expectations: it was slow, low and offered a fair degree of turn, though not to the extent seen during the India-New Zealand match on March 15. West Indies’ batting proved to be as reliant on big hitting as du Plessis had noted and, as a consequence, was not at its best with the ball not coming on to the bat.But before they could expose West Indies’ frailties with the bat, South Africa had failed to demonstrate the adaptability and smart decision-making du Plessis had spoken of. After the match, he conceded that they had been “frantic” at the start of their innings, when they lost their three most experienced batsmen to what he called “soft” dismissals: Hashim Amla to a run out, du Plessis himself to a spooned catch taken at mid-off, and AB de Villiers to a shot played across the line. Rilee Rossouw also slashed a wide delivery straight to point.”Obviously batting first, the thinking was that it wasn’t going to be the same wicket as Mumbai, doesn’t take a brain surgeon to look at that. But those decisions you make when you’re batting, we didn’t make them tonight,” du Plessis said. “The run-out, caught at mid-off, and Rilee – our first three wickets for me were all soft wickets. AB’s wicket was also a soft wicket.”They didn’t bowl us out tonight. We were put in situations where we needed to be smarter and we weren’t. If you don’t do those things you’re not going to bat as well as you can. We went into this game thinking that West Indies is a power hitting team and we rely on being smart. Ten or 15 runs more, I think we could have won the game. They don’t rely on touch, on getting ones and twos, whereas this ground is spot on for that. That’s where we lost the game.”Du Plessis said Quinton de Kock and David Wiese – who added 50 for the sixth wicket – showed South Africa how they could have played on the Nagpur surface, but only after the top order had already collapsed.Hashim Amla’s run out was the first of several soft dismissals according to South Africa captain Faf du Plessis•IDI/Getty Images”I thought we were very frantic there, up front,” du Plessis said. “Obviously you never want to start your innings with a run out, that just puts you back, puts it all, puts everything in a bit of a negative mode, because you’re giving the opposition a wicket, but to lose three or four wickets so quickly, that broke our momentum in the innings, and that was the difference between us [scoring 122 and] getting to 140.”The guys batted beautifully in the middle, David Wiese once again as a guy that’s coming in today, had a great game, and I can’t fault the bowlers today. Obviously there’s been a lot of pressure and a lot of stuff said about our bowling unit over the last two weeks or so, but they fought really hard today.”Especially in a big game like today, you want your big players to stand up, and myself, Hashim and AB, one of us needed to anchor the innings and be there. Quinton played an amazing innings, a mature innings, that’s something he hasn’t done a lot. Normally he plays his aggressive game and he’s very free. Today the shoe was on the other foot and he adapted brilliantly. And he showed the rest of the batting unit what it is like to adapt on that wicket.”Despite all this, South Africa’s bowlers kept them in the game till the last over. Tahir took those two wickets in the 17th and Wiese, mixing up his pace brilliantly, conceded only three runs in the 18th over. It took a slash and a thick edge past the keeper from Marlon Samuels, which streaked to the third man boundary in the 19th off Chris Morris, to bring the equation down to 10 off eight balls.Du Plessis said the edged four made him think “oh my word, it’s not meant to be for us today”, but he was quick to add that West Indies had earned their luck by staying “half a step” ahead of South Africa right through the game.”We’re not playing close to how good we are or can be, and that’s frustrating,” du Plessis said. “We want to be better, and unfortunately we’re not producing the goods on the day. As I said, you need a bit of luck but also you make your own luck, and I feel if you win those small moments in the game, generally the luck goes your way.”That’s why it didn’t go our way tonight, because we were just half a step behind West Indies all the time. But they’re playing great cricket and that’s why it’s going for them. They’re a confident team and things will fall their way, because you almost earn that luck, and they deserve it.”The win put West Indies through to the semi-finals and left South Africa hanging from edge of the precipice. They will need Sri Lanka to beat England, and then need to beat Sri Lanka themselves, to have any chance of progressing. It was not the situation du Plessis had expected his team to be in at this stage of the competition.”[I’m] disappointed, because I had strong hopes of winning the tournament, and now we’re hoping for other performances to go our way,” he said. “We’ll obviously be rooting for some opposition to try and do us a favour, but if it doesn’t happen like that, there’s no excuses.”

Steve Magoffin took a four-wicket haul as Sussex completed their second victory of the season and condemned Derbyshire to a fourth consecutive defeat

18-May-2013
ScorecardSteve Magoffin helped secure a very efficient victory for Sussex•Getty ImagesSteve Magoffin took a four-wicket haul as Sussex completed their second victory of the season and condemned Derbyshire to a fourth consecutive defeat in the County Championship.Magoffin snapped up two of the remaining three Derbyshire wickets in the first half hour of the fourth morning to finish with figures of 4 for 44. That left Sussex a victory target of just 42 in the Division One clash at Derby and they knocked off the runs in 5.5 overs for the loss of only one wicket to celebrate a 24-point haul.Derbyshire were in a hopeless position overnight on 189 for 7, only 11 runs in front, with rain their only hope of avoiding another defeat. Although the skies over the County Ground were grey, the weather was dry and the match resumed on time.Richard Johnson had shown determination to keep the Sussex attack at bay but he lasted only three more overs as Sussex claimed the new ball immediately. They did not have long to wait for the breakthrough with Johnson pulling James Anyon to fine leg where Magoffin took the catch and Sussex struck again in the next over.Magoffin beat Tim Groenewald’s attempted drive which left Mark Footitt to get the home side past 200 with a couple of fours, before he was caught behind going for another big drive at the same bowler.It became a case of how long Sussex would take to wrap up the win. They lost Chris Nash for a duck when he edged an attempted cut at Groenewald into Johnson’s gloves. But Wells clipped and drove Groenewald for boundaries and Mike Yardy showed he wanted to get the job done in a hurry by driving and pulling the seamer for consecutive fours in the fifth over. Wells hit the winning runs in the sixth over when he lifted Footitt over the slips to the third-man boundary to complete a comprehensive victory for Sussex.

There is a danger of Associate nations losing interest in 50-over cricket with the reduction of the 2019 down to 10 teams according to Warren Deutrom, the chief executive of Cricket Ireland

ESPNcricinfo staff11-Jul-2014There is a danger of Associate nations losing interest in 50-over cricket with the reduction of the 2019 World Cup to 10 teams according to Warren Deutrom, the chief executive of Cricket Ireland.The Associate and Affiliate nations have been battling for whatever morsels come their way under the restructuring of the ICC. While there is the promise of a performance-based pathway to Test cricket through the Intercontinental Cup and a play-off series with the lowest ranked Test nation – the ECB has put a Test against a potential qualifier into the new draft of the FTP – and a 16-team World T20 there is a fear that the middle format is being forgotten.The next World Cup in Australia and New Zealand will include 14 teams, but the tournament in England four years after that will be cut to ten countries in an everyone-plays-everyone format replicating the 1992 event, which is considered to be the ideal formula.The exact details of qualification for the 2019 tournament have yet to be confirmed, but the likely option is that the top eight teams in the ICC ODI rankings will qualify automatically with the bottom two entering a tournament with the leading Associate and Affiliate nations for the final two spots.However, Deutrom is concerned that the reduction in places for lower-ranked teams to qualify could see the format wither.”We, as Associates, have begun to circulate our concerns more strongly in recent months. The pathway to Test cricket has been put in place, the World T20 is now a 16-team event but we strongly feel the 50-over game has been somewhat overlooked,” he told the Irish radio show.”I think the Test countries think, ‘Great you now have a pathway to be in the 50-over World Cup’, but actually if it’s only 10 teams [in the World Cup] there’s a real risk of Associate countries not being part of that.”There’s a risk that some lower-ranked Associates may wonder about playing 50-over with the only real pathway being into 20-over cricket. If all these countries start turning away from 50-over cricket you have to ask yourself that if there are fewer teams playing 50-over cricket what’s the point in having a pathway because it will only be open to a small number of countries. If the 50-over structure is not assessed there’s a real risk of it losing context.”Deutrom believes Ireland can rightly consider themselves the leading Associate nation but also said that his comments were speaking for the non-Full Member nations as a whole and warned that Ireland’s experience at the World T20 – when they were knocked out in stunning fashion by Netherlands – had reinforced that they can “take nothing for granted”.He was talking shortly after arriving back in Ireland from the ICC’s annual conference in Melbourne where the new structures and powerbases were rubber-stamped, but his pragmatic view of the Big Three is that it was the best way forward.”There’s this sense that from a pure best practice, governance perspective, does it look great? Probably not,” he said. “But in terms of what governance is meant to be, it’s probably meant to be a means to an end where a sport will be meritocratic, which from our point of view it is now becoming and there are better means for us to realise our objectives.”That key objective for Ireland remains Test cricket and Deutrom remained steadfast in his belief that Ireland will achieve their goal with the prize of that match against England.”Is it still important? Hell, yes. Why? Because it’s the best. If we are the No. 1 Associate what do we do next? When we launched that strategy it probably came out of nowhere. The ICC had not really considered expanding the number of Test nations. I hope it does not come across as arrogant, but I’m of no doubt that ICC would not have put that pathway in place had Ireland not stated its aim. We wanted to look at a proper vision.”

Alastair Cook faced a tough task just over a year ago, with England’s dressing room torn apart by bickering and the No. 1 Test ranking wrestled away by South Africa. Once again, in the final Test in Sydney, he has to rise to the challenge.

George Dobell01-Jan-2014Just over a year ago, with the dressing room torn apart by bickering and the No. 1 ranking wrestled away by South Africa, Alastair Cook assumed the captaincy of the England Test side.It was a tough time to take charge. The division between Kevin Pietersen and some of his colleagues was at its widest and England faced a daunting tour of India. By the time they lost the first Test of that series, it looked as if Cook may have inherited an impossible task.But Cook found a way. At first he instigated a solution to the Pietersen issue. Then, through the example of his second-innings century in Ahmedabad, he showed his team how to score runs in India. He led from the front. Ten months into the role, England were unbeaten in a series, had reached the final of the ICC Champions Trophy and had retained the Ashes and won in India.Now, however, Cook’s leadership is under scrutiny. England have not only been beaten in Australia, but there is a perception that Cook is the sort of captain who follows the game. The sort of captain who is reactive rather than proactive. The sort of captain who operates by numbers rather than intuition.But leadership comes in different forms. Cook may never be a great orator – David Bowie went through a period of cutting up words at random in magazines and forming song lyrics from them and sometimes it seems Cook takes the same approach with his press conferences – and he may never have the tactical imagination of Mike Brearley, but he is respected by his team, he is the youngest man in history to score 8,000 Test runs and, having taken on the job with very little experience, he is learning his trade in public.He admits he has much to learn. But, as he takes his team into the final Test of an Ashes series trying to avoid a whitewash, he feels he is improving and that some of the criticism is based purely on the results.”I do think I’m a better captain now because I’ve done the job for longer,” Cook said. “You only really learn on this job no matter how many times you talk about it to people outside the game. The only way you really learn is when you’re out there.”You get flak when you lose games of cricket whatever you do and we’ve lost four in a row. You’re going to get flak for that. Again, when you’re winning in India that flak doesn’t come and that is the nature of the thing.”I do need to continually look to improve, without a doubt. It would be very wrong of me not to do so. There’s never a fine art to captaincy; there are always people outside with different ideas as to what we should be doing. But Michael Clarke was getting a lot of stick when Australia were losing 4-0 in India, with people saying he wasn’t a good captain, and suddenly he’s winning games of cricket and he’s the world’s best captain. So that’s the world we live in and we appreciate that.”Alastair Cook faces the second big challenge of his fledgling captaincy•AFPLeading England over the next couple of years is likely to prove demanding. Cook accepts that an era is ending for the team that took England to the top of the world ratings and suggested as many as three new caps could be given for the Sydney Test. With such change to the team, he feels the importance and senior players and the current management structure become even more acute.”I think it is the end of an era. If you go back eight or nine months, the England team picked itself and everyone was very solid in terms of results. What’s happened over the last few months is that we know we can’t solely rely on the 11 or 12 guys we picked constantly. But that gives opportunities to different faces and it’s quite exciting to see whether those players can grab their chance.”There’s still a lot of cricket left in some of the more experienced guys. You only have to look at two players who have played very well for Australia here in Chris Rogers and Brad Haddin. They’re delivering the goods at 36 years old. So experience can still be a good thing.”We know what a good player Matt Prior has been over 75 Tests. He’s had a lean year and he’s the first to hold his hand up about that. His keeping has been pretty good for most of that time but we need him to be scoring runs too. He’s nowhere near the end of his career. He’s got to go back and prove that he’s the best wicketkeeper batsman in the country if he wants his place back.There was strong support too for Andy Flower, the coach who must help him reach fulfillment as a captain.”He is a very good coach. I know the defeat has happened in a bad way here, but we are certainly evolving as a side and a lot of players are coming in. We do need strong leadership at this time. Andy is a strong man and a good leader.”If Cook is to prove an equally good leader, he can begin by rediscovering his batting form. A half-century in Melbourne – probably his most fluent innings of the series – hinted of a return to brighter times, but Cook’s primary role in the side will always be as a batsman and his leadership will immediately appear more effective if he can return to the prolific form that played such a role in England’s success in India

ESPNcricinfo previews the Champions League T20 qualifying match between Kandurata Maroons and Sunrisers Hyderabad

The Preview by Rohan Sharma16-Sep-2013Match FactsSeptember 17, 2013
Start time 2000 (1430 GMT)Kumar Sangakkara and Thisara Perera will be required by their teams to give insight about the opposition•BCCIBig PictureWhile this match represents a Champions League debut for Kandurata Maroons and Sunrisers Hyderabad, both teams will know just how vital it is to hit the ground running in what could potentially be a short tournament for either side. Both teams need to win at least two of the three qualification matches to have a strong chance of making the main draw.This will be the first time these sides face each another, so Kumar Sangakkara will play an influential role in providing some insight on the inner workings of Hyderabad. Thisara Perera can also shed some light on Kandurata, as a number of his compatriots make up the roster.Both teams have strong bowling departments that include several international players. Kandurata possess some of the best T20 players in the world, and feature a spin attack which includes Rangana Herath, Ajantha Mendis and Suraj Randiv, backed by the ever-dependable Nuwan Kulasekera. Hyderabad are slightly more potent, beginning with the raw pace of Dale Steyn, the guile of Amit Mishra, the bounce of Ishant Sharma, the wicket-taking knack of Perera, and the leg spin of Karan Sharma. The fresh early-season pitch in Mohali might also work in their favour.Players to watchThilina Kandamby is one of the many former Sri Lankan players to make up the side, and played an instrumental role in Kandurata’s successful Super 4’s campaign. He finished as the second-highest run-scorer in the tournament with 107 runs in two innings, at an impressive strike rate of 148.61. His best performance came in the final group match against Uthura Yellows, where he struck 90 off 54 to get Kandurata close to a 159-run target, but ultimately couldn’t prevent a six-run defeat.Amit Mishra had a solid outing in IPL 2013, finishing with 21 wickets in 17 matches. His best performance came against Pune Warriors, when he snapped up the last three batsmen for his third IPL hat-trick, as Hyderabad achieved an improbable 11-run victory after being dismissed for a paltry 119. He recently played in India’s 5-0 ODI series victory over Zimbabwe, where he equalled the record for most wickets in a bilateral series, with 18 in 5 matches.Stats and Trivia Shikhar Dhawan led the way for Hyderabad’s batsmen at IPL 2013 with 311 runs, despite missing seven matches due to injury Of the top six batsmen who scored the most runs in the Super 4’s T20 tournament in Sri Lanka, four of them represented Kandurata: Kandamby, Sangakkara, Upul Tharanga and Lahiru Thirimanne Quotes”I am cool and aggressive; aggressive from inside and cool from outside.”
“We’ve got experience with the likes of Sangakkara, (Nuwan) Kulasekara, Upul Tharanga and Ajantha Mendis, who are among the best in the world at the moment. Whether you look at our bowling or batting, we have a lot of ability and the side is well balanced.”

Arsenal star Declan Rice was reportedly serenaded by Arsenal team-mates following last-ditch heroics against Luton Town.

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Rice netted 97th-minute winnerFired Arsenal to a 4-3 win Players celebrated dancing to Vanilla Ice’s famous track Ice Ice BabyWHAT HAPPENED?

The England international emerged as the hero by scoring in the seventh minute of stoppage time to fire Arsenal to a remarkable victory at Kenilworth Road to extend their lead at the top of the Premier League standings to five points over second-placed Liverpool. And it is no surprise that the raucous pitch-side celebrations continued in the away dressing room in the aftermath of the 4-3 win.

AdvertisementGetty ImagesTHE BIGGER PICTURE

According to the team danced to the tunes of Vanilla Ice’s famous track Ice Ice Baby which has been closely associated with Rice in the last couple of years. The former West Ham player hummed it on Sky TV programme A League Of Their Own and also boasts of having an advertising campaign with the lead slogan ‘Rice Rice Baby’.

DID YOU KNOW?

Rice has been in sensational form since he moved to the Emirates in the summer. It was his third goal in this Premier League campaign and the fifth time that the Gunners have snatched the three points with a winner after regulation time. Mikel Arteta's men have shown incredible character and seem determined to make amends by going all the way to lift the title in May after losing steam at the business end in the previous season.

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Arsenal are grappling with mounting injury concerns and Takehiro Tomiyasu is the latest casualty. He is expected to be sidelined for a minimum of four weeks due to a calf injury and will miss key fixtures against Aston Villa, Brighton, Liverpool, West Ham and Fulham. He joins the lengthy list of absentees which include Fabio Vieira, Thomas Partey, Emile Smith Rowe and Jurrien Timber.

Graeme Swann has insisted there was no bullying culture within the England dressing room as claimed by Kevin Pietersen

ESPNcricinfo staff08-Oct-2014Graeme Swann has insisted there was no bullying culture within the England dressing room, as claimed by Kevin Pietersen in his autobiography, saying that the emotion shown on the field was because the players were involved in “international sport, not the Under-11s”.In his column for the , Swann said he never shouted at one of his own team-mates over a dropped catch. He acknowledged there was some truth to Pietersen’s claims that Jonathan Trott had reacted angrily during a match in Bangladesh on the 2010 tour although said Pietersen had “misinterpreted” the incident.Swann had already called Pietersen’s book a “work of fiction” and the various claims “codswallop” and did not hold back in further criticism.”There was absolutely no bullying. Sure, bowlers shout at fielders if they are out of position or not concentrating,” he said. “A bowler or wicketkeeper delivers a bit of a kick up the backside – just like a goalkeeper shouts at his centre-half. This is international sport, not the Under-11s.”If Kevin or other players can’t take a bollocking for being unprofessional, for being out of position or seemingly not trying, they are in the wrong business.”However, another version of events over how errors in the field were treated came from Ajmal Shahzad, the Nottinghamshire seamer, who played for England in 2010 and 2011 and recalled feeling under pressure to apologise for errors.”There were times when I misfielded balls, in the World Cup I dived over a ball [and] there were some senior players you just didn’t want to look at,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live. “You knew they were disappointed and [thought it was] a bit of a disgrace … what you’d done was really bad.”If you did something wrong it wasn’t looked kindly upon. It did feel quite bad. I remember misfielding [in Bangladesh] and didn’t want to look up because you knew you were going to get these hard looks, stern looks – and it did feel a little uncomfortable.”Time to move on – Giles

The former England coach Ashley Giles has said “everyone has to move on” amid the fallout from Kevin Pietersen’s autobiography.

Giles was close with Pietersen as a player – he gets a brief mention in the book when Pietersen writes about England’s buddy system in 2004: “My buddy was Ashley Giles. Again, still a mate.”

After the Ashes whitewash, with rumours swirling about Pietersen’s future, Giles called Pietersen a “million pound asset” although he would never have the chance to work alongside him again as coach.

“I played in the dressing room with Kev and got on very well with him, but similarly with those other guys as well,” Giles said in his first press conference as Lancashire’s new head coach. “I coached them, and I never had any major issues with any of them.

“He’d still consider himself a multi-million pound asset, I’m sure. He’s that sort of player, he’s the big show if you like. Things have unfolded, and he’s not going to play for England, by the looks of it, again. I’m sure it’s disappointing for him, and everyone has to move on.”

About the Trott incident in Bangladesh, Swann said it stemmed from a field placement and that Trott had misunderstood a signal from Matt Prior over whether he was able to dive for a ball. “So Trotty started screaming from the boundary, ‘F*** off, f*** off.’ There’s a bit of truth in the story Kevin tells but, really, he has misinterpreted it,” Swann said.Shahzad, meanwhile, added that there was often only one route to dealing with mistakes, and encouragement when things went wrong was in short supply. “There weren’t many times when someone would come up to you and say ‘don’t worry about it – that’s sport, you have ups and downs’. It was a tough environment.”Swann was also strong in condemning Pietersen’s comments about Prior, who came in for a sustained campaign in the book over his perceived role in causing dressing-room splits.”Matt is the most passionate bloke about protecting the team environment. He was the voice of the dressing room … Now Kevin has written a whole chapter assassinating him, even having a pop at him for taking his bike to New Zealand. Kevin’s attack on Matt is, dare I say it, a bit like bullying.”One of the more cryptic responses to the claims in Pietersen’s book has come from Chris Tremlett, who was part of the successful 2010-11 Ashes tour as well as the more recent whitewash. “Glad @KP24 has finally been able to give his side of the story. People can now make an informed opinion of what went on in the dressing room,” he posted on Twitter.