Sikandar Raza, Hamilton Masakadza and Tendai Chatara combined to lead Zimbabwe to a 12-run win over Sri Lanka, their first victory against a Full Member at a neutral venue in 15 years

The Report by Mohammad Isam17-Jan-2018
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
AFP

Sikandar Raza, Hamilton Masakadza and Tendai Chatara combined to lead Zimbabwe to a 12-run win over Sri Lanka, their first victory against a Full Member at a neutral venue in 15 years. Raza made an unbeaten 81 and took the key wicket of Kusal Perera, who made 80.He also took two catches, off Angelo Mathews and former Sri Lanka captain Thisara Perera. It was the Thisara catch that finally swung the game Zimbabwe’s way. Thisara climbed into Graeme Cremer for 15 runs in the 38th over, after his side slipped to 199 for 6 chasing 291 to win.Wanindu Hasaranga’s dismissal in the 40th over didn’t deter him either. Thisara hit Cremer over long-off for his second six before an edge through third man brought the equation down to under a run-a-ball. Akila Dananjaya then holed out at cover, and although replays showed that Tendai Chatara may have marginally overstepped, the third umpire’s decision went in favour of Zimbabwe.Thisara picked singles thereafter but after he had struck a huge six in the 47th over, he struck a low full toss to Raza at deep midwicket. Thisara’s exit, after his 37-ball 64 with five fours and three sixes, was the opening Zimbabwe needed as Chatara eked out the last wicket, that of Dushmantha Chameera in the 49th over.It was Kusal Perera who gave Sri Lanka the early impetus in the chase. He began with cuts and slashes reminiscent of his boyhood hero Sanath Jayasuriya. At the other end, Upul Tharanga survived a scare when the ball hit his leg stump but the bails didn’t come off. He chipped a catch to mid-on in the sixth over, and Kusal Mendis, recalled for this tri-series, did the same in the next over.But Kusal didn’t relent with his attacking intent, finishing the Powerplay with a brutal cut over point that went for six.Soon after Kusal reached his fifty, Solomon Mire dropped him at deep point on 57.Angelo Mathews, who needed some attention for cramps, sprung to life in the 18th over when he smashed Blessing Muzarabani for a six over midwicket, and four through the slips. Kusal kept finding the boundaries too while Zimbabwe found more ways to drop him: Graeme Cremer dropped him off his own bowling in the 24th over with his score on 77.But finally, Muzarabani used all of his height at short fine leg to pluck out a catch off Kusal on 80. He had struck eight fours and two sixes in his 83-ball innings.Kusal’s exit forced Sri Lanka to slow down. Mathews and Chandimal struck just one boundary in six overs, before Mathews fell in the 31st over. Mathews swatted at a Muzarabani bouncer, but it was brilliantly intercepted by Raza at short midwicket.Chandimal tried to stay in touch with the required run-rate but Jarvis got one to keep low, which hit his off stump. Asela Gunaratne followed him soon after, deceived by Cremer and stumped by Brendan Taylor.Openers Masakadza and Solomon Mire had earlier given Zimbabwe a strong start with a 75-run stand. Masakadza blasted Suranga Lakmal for two fours in the first over and Solomon Mire bludgeoned five fours in his 37-ball 34.After Mire fell in the 13th over, Ervine followed cheaply. Masakadza and Taylor added 57 runs for the third wicket. The well-set Masakadza fell in Gunaratne’s first over after making 73 off 83 balls with 10 boundaries. Taylor fell for a 51-ball 38, before Raza and Malcolm Waller added 57 for the fifth wicket. Waller slammed two fours and a six in his 29 off 35 balls.Raza though lifted Zimbabwe’s momentum towards the end, striking Lakmal for five fours in two overs. He added 61 runs for the sixth wicket with Peter Moor off just 6.3 overs. Moor struck two sixes in his 19 before becoming Gunaratne’s third victim. Thisara also took two wickets, while the other front-line bowlers couldn’t make much of an impact.

The Australia captain said that in high-pressure tournaments like the World Cup, England’s ultra-aggressive approach to ODI batting could backfire

Daniel Brettig30-Jan-2018Australia captain Steven Smith has questioned whether England’s bull-at-a-gate batting approach will stand up to the pressure of a World Cup. Smith also said he wanted the Australia squad that will play five ODIs in England this year to be as close as possible to their desired 2019 World Cup combination.England’s methods, rejuvenated since their 2015 World Cup failure, place emphasis on a hyper-aggressive start with the bat, and Smith said that while it was fine in bilateral series there would be a chance of it coming unstuck during the knockout phase of a high-pressure tournament.That much was true of New Zealand three years ago; they pushed all-out attack to get as far as the 2015 World Cup final, only to fall in a heap against Australia’s pace bowlers in front of 93,013 at the MCG. Smith said that while Australia were entering a period of introspection, driven by the team’s dipping ODI fortunes, they would try to find a way suited to their playing stocks and mental approach.”I think our one-day cricket has been disappointing for just over a year now. A lot of it comes down to poor decision making, and execution out in the middle,” Smith said. “We’ve seen when we’ve played well and won games it’s been about the top four, someone there going on and getting a really big score. Then others coming in and playing quite positively around the person getting that big score. That’s the blueprint that I think works for us.”England have played a different brand of cricket where they go really hard the whole time. That can be risky as well at times, particularly in big tournaments. You might get yourselves to the semi-finals or something but you can have those days where you get bowled out for 150. There are a few things to think about in regards to one-day cricket and the way we want to play. We just haven’t been good enough, to be honest, the last couple of weeks and the last year.”[England] are clear in the way they play. They’re all very aggressive and go out there and take the game on from ball one. I don’t think our players aren’t clear, we’re just not executing it and making the right decisions at key times. If we get those decisions right, and guys are smarter in the way they play in the middle, we’ll turn things around.”Smith’s team lost the No. 1 ODI ranking they had held since winning the 2015 World Cup in February last year, and have steadily slid down the ICC’s table ever since. They now sit at No. 5, behind South Africa, India, England and New Zealand, following their 4-1 series loss to Eoin Morgan’s team.Given that Cricket Australia’s strategic goal for the national team is to be No. 1 in all three formats, the current state of affairs is causing furrowed brows at the game’s Jolimont headquarters. Smith and chairman of selectors Trevor Hohns both admitted the team’s leaders needed to refresh in terms of approach and personnel before the June series in England, which will mark more or less a year until the next World Cup.”I think that makes sense. The World Cup being in England, any exposure to those conditions with the likely squad is important,” Smith said of taking a prospective World Cup group to England. “A lot can happen in a year as well with injuries and things like that. For us, it’ll be trying to get that squad as close as what we think the World Cup is going to be.”Our middle overs with the bat have been disappointing. We’re continually losing wickets and you can’t do that anymore against good teams,” he said. “You have to have those big partnerships in the middle and let our guys who are big and strong, give them the freedom of the last 10, 15 overs to try and clear the pickets. We’ve got guys there who do it really well, we just haven’t set the game up for them to do it.”Then the first 10 overs with the ball. At times it’s felt like we’re trying to get through the 10 overs and having a deep breath, then getting the four guys out and we’re behind the game when that 10 overs are finished. We’ve been really good at pulling it back after that for a while, but we’ll make things a lot easier for ourselves if we start well with the ball.”Also speaking on Tuesday, Hohns said the series in England was a key point at which the selectors and team management needed to stabilise both the personnel and the team tactics to be used over the year that followed.”In our winter here we go to play five one-dayers against England again, so we will be trying at that stage to get a unit together that hopefully can play together and stay together leading into the World Cup,” Hohns told . “Of course form will dictate what happens there, but we’ll certainly be looking at what type of player we want to take us through to that World Cup and get them playing together.”We need to sit down and have a look at everything. Not necessarily a review, we don’t need to have a national inquiry every time we lose a series, but we’re clearly not playing well at the moment, so yes we will be assessing how we play the game and secondly what players are required to play the way we want to play and the utilisation of our players, whether we’re utilising them the right way.”Like Smith, Hohns said Australia did not need to plagiarise England. “We don’t necessarily have to copy how other teams are playing, England are playing very well, they’re a red-hot side as we know, so we’ll have a look at how they’re playing but try to develop our own style.”

Hong Kong scored their first ever ODI win over a Full Member when they beat Afghanistan by 30 runs on a rainy afternoon at the Bulawayo Athletic Club

The Report by Liam Brickhill in Bulawayo08-Mar-2018
ScorecardHong Kong scored their first ever ODI win over a Full Member when they beat Afghanistan by 30 runs on a rainy afternoon at the Bulawayo Athletic Club. The victory was built around Anshuman Rath’s half-century and was sealed by an outstanding spell of offspin bowling from Ehsan Khan, backed up by some inspired fielding.As a result, Afghanistan were left needing a miracle to qualify for the 2019 World Cup. They have lost three out of three matches in this tournament so far and will need several things going their way to stay in contention.Afghanistan were trundling along steadily in pursuit of 242 when Ehsan was brought on from the clubhouse end in the 16th over. With loop and flight, he tempted Rahmat Shah into an expansive drive. With dip and turn, he spun the ball sharply in between bat and pad to disturb the stumps. With that, Afghanistan were 56 for 2, and Hong Kong had their opening. Before his first over was up, Ehsan had also dismissed the set Ihsanullah for 20, a gloved sweep landing in the hands of Rath, tumbling to his left at slip.At 57 for 3, with Mohammad Nabi still to bat, Afghanistan might still have considered themselves in a favourable position. But Hong Kong’s bowling attack never let the pressure drop, with Tanwir Azfal’s medium pace particularly effective. Bowling a wicket-to-wicket line with Scott McKechnie up to the stumps, Afzal didn’t give the batsmen much to work with. Having made the first incision with the wicket of Javed Ahmadi for 22, his figures in his first spell were 6-0-15-1.The pressure built up by the bowlers brought desperate strokes against Ehsan at the other end. With the required rate closing in on six an over, Samiullah Shenwari bent low to sweep but missed the ball entirely to be bowled for 9, as Afghanistan slipped to 73 for 4.Hong Kong gather around wicket-taker Ehsan Khan•ICC

Still, though, Afghanistan were not entirely out of the match. Mohammad Nabi shepherded the middle order, helping to keep a fidgety Najibullah Zadran in accumulation mode. They nudged and pushed their way through a 59-run stand.With the required rate climbing and ominous rain clouds closing in from the north, Najibullah eventually decided to have a go at Nadeem Ahmed’s left-arm spin. He couldn’t get anything on his slog sweep, however, with the ball crashing into his pad and the umpire upholding a vociferous lbw shout. Two overs later, Sharafuddin Ashraf missed a huge slog across the line and was bowled for 1; Afghanistan 134 for 6.Hong Kong’s discipline soon brought results, Ehsan Nawaz sprinting around at short third man to cut off a dab, and firing a flat throw to McKechnie to find Nabi short of his ground and run out for 38.Fifteen minutes later, rain, thunder and lightning arrived to force the players from the field. When they returned, Afghanistan’s total was revised to 226, with three overs left to play. Dawlat threw the bat around, but they were never going to get close. For his career best figures of 4 for 33, Ehsan was named Man of the Match.Earlier in the day, Rath provided the bedrock of Hong Kong’s innings, helping them recover from an early wobble which saw them reduced to 43 for 3. He put together stands of 50 with captain Babar Hayat and 67 with McKechnie to keep Hong Kong ticking over, looking particularly effective when playing off the front foot through the covers.Rath, who was Hong Kong’s leading run-scorer during the World Cricket League Championship with 678 runs at 75.33, started in measured fashion against both pace and spin. His innings eventually gained momentum, and he came out on top during a fascinating duel with Afghanistan’s quicks, cutting and pulling both Dawlat and Shapoor Zadran. With Tanwir Afzal smashing 22 from just 9 deliveries towards the end, Hong Kong reached a total that would prove more than enough.

Among the batsmen, captain Meg Lanning moved up one spot to No. 3, while Beth Mooney moved up to fourth and Smriti Mandhana to seventh

ESPNcricinfo staff01-Apr-2018Australia swing bowler Megan Schutt has become the top-ranked bowler in the ICC’s T20I rankings for women after emerging as the highest wicket-taker in the recent T20 tri-series in India. Australia clinched the title by by beating England in the final in Mumbai, where Schutt was named Player of the Series for her nine wickets from five matches, and the best economy rate in the series (minimum five overs) of 6.28.Schutt had briefly held the top spot last year too, but only for three days in November. She is now on 669 rating points, followed by New Zealand offspinner Leigh Kasperek (630) who picked up 10 wickets in the four home T20s against West Indies. Kasperek jumped seven spots to overtake Hayley Matthews, Jess Jonassen and Poonam Yadav. Poonam went up six places to her career-best fifth spot while her team-mate Jhulan Goswami returned to the top-20 list by taking 15th place.Among the batsmen, Australia captain Meg Lanning moved up one spot to No. 3 after not being dismissed even once during the tri-series while scoring 175 runs, including her match-winning 88* off 45 balls in the final on Saturday. West Indies captain Stafanie Taylor is still at the top while Suzie Bates is second. Australia opener Beth Mooney moved up to fourth place and India’s Smriti Mandhana from 20th to seventh.In the women’s team rankings, which take into account results across formats, Australia are at the top, followed by England, New Zealand and India.

Chennai Super Kings came back from a slow start to post 128 off their last ten overs and edge Sunrisers out in a four-run win

The Report by Varun Shetty22-Apr-2018
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details4:32

Faulkner: Sunrisers will be upset about the no-ball that wasn’t called

Ambati Rayudu’s masterclass was nearly outdone by one from Kane Williamson, but Chennai Super Kings survived that attack from Sunrisers’ captain and then a Yusuf Pathan cameo to crawl to the top of the table. In a match where all the action happened at the back end of the two innings, the difference was only four runs.The difference, perhaps, was that Super Kings had kept more wickets in hand up front than Sunrisers had. Seamer Deepak Chahar took three wickets inside the Powerplay as Sunrisers put up a poor response after being set 183 in the absence of the injured Shikhar Dhawan.Rayudu uses experience to beat conditionsSuper Kings found it hard after being put in. Afternoon games in Hyderabad have often brought out low-scoring games because the summer heat – the temperature was in the mid-30s today – dries the surface up.Shane Watson, whose explosive batting had helped Super Kings put up 107 for 1 in the first ten overs against Rajasthan Royals on Friday, was kept quiet. At the other end, it didn’t appear part of the returning Faf du Plessis’ brief to take on the bowling. With a a struggling Suresh Raina at No. 3, Super Kings put up both the season’s lowest Powerplay score – 27 for 1 – and ten-over score – 54 for 2, almost half of what they’d got against Royals.Rayudu approached it differently. Moments after walking in against Rashid Khan in the eighth over, he hit a mistimed sweep over midwicket. When Williamson brought Bhuvneshwar back for a third over to try and break the partnership in the 10th over, he picked his slower ball and nailed a slog sweep for six.For most of his 112-run partnership with Raina, Rayudu looked like he had a plan for this kind of a surface. It was, after all, his home ground. While Raina looked decidedly on the defensive, trying to walk around in the crease to drop balls on either side with soft hands, Rayudu first maneuvered the spinners around with use of the feet to get settled, and would then mess with the seamers’ lengths when he got boundaries at third man trying to slash them onto the leg side. In his last 16 balls Rayudu scored 48 runs, with six fours and three sixes.The Rashid problem and the miscalculationIt was, however, a Raina blitz against Rashid that signalled the attack in the 12th over. The legspinner had been caned by Chris Gayle in his last match, often bowling flat and full to allow him cleans swings through the line. When Raina slogged a loopy googly over midwicket in his second over, he quickly resorted to the same strategy despite finding success with flight earlier. He darted the next one full outside off and it ended up in the same place.Rashid was forced into trying to rush through his next two overs. Eleven of his last 12 balls didn’t land fuller than short-of-a-length and he was hit for six off the only full one in that period to go for 28, and finish with figures of 4-0-49-1, days after going for 55 in four overs.Stanlake and Shakib leaked runs simultaneously and a cheeky over from Deepak Hooda earlier meant Sunrisers didn’t bowl out Bhuvneshwar for the first time ever. They conceded 128 in the last ten overs.The other Kane, the umpiring mistakeChahar’s figures read 3 for 1 when Sunrisers were 22 for 3, and with Manish Pandey and Hooda gone, Williamson found himself at the forefront of a collapsing team that didn’t have both Dhawan and David Warner in the XI for the first time.Like Super Kings in the overs immediately following the Powerplay, Sunrisers were watchful but for completely different reasons. Williamson and Shakib only occasionally went after boundaries during their 37-ball stand of 49 for the fourth wicket. The moment Shakib tried changing that, he fell to Karn Sharma.Williamson didn’t have that problem when he went after the legspinner though. Shortly after lofting Jadeja over long-off, he proceeded to take 22 off Karn’s next over, with sixes through midwicket, square leg and long-off. Yusuf Pathan, on nine off 12 at that point, took the cue and got two sixes off the Dwayne Bravo in the next over. Suddenly, the equation was 52 off 24, and Sunrisers were in the game.Two balls later, though, came a moment that might have been the one that put them out. Williamson, deep in the crease against Shardul Thakur, tried to fend off a beamer that was clearly above waist height. It wasn’t called a no-ball by square leg umpire Vineet Kulkarni. Yusuf hit the next ball for six, which may have still been the outcome if that ball was a free-hit. But the loss of that run and an extra ball was decisive.Williamson fell to Bravo on 84 next over and Thakur had Yusuf caught off a slower ball. Despite a wild 17 off four from Rashid, Sunrisers fell short.