Category Uncategorized

Fast-bowling duo pick up five wickets to restrict Sri Lanka to modest score on a flat pitch

The Report by Andrew Fidel Fernando07-Jan-20203:25

Iyer’s resolve, Kuldeep’s variations – five reasons why India beat Sri Lanka

India flexed their bowling muscles against an underwhelming Sri Lanka batting unit in Indore, Navdeep Saini taking two wickets and going for 18 across four rapid overs, while Shardul Thakur neutered the opposition at the death with three wickets of his own.Having kept the visitors to 142 for 9 – a total Lasith Malinga felt was 25-30 short of a competitive score – India then flexed their batting muscles. KL Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan flew through the Powerplay overs and put on 71 for the first wicket, breaking the back of the target. Shreyas Iyer and Virat Kohli then made thirties to carry the hosts to victory, with 15 balls and seven wickets to spare.Although there were bursts of energy in Sri Lanka’s batting, these never lasted long enough to put India under serious pressure. Each of Sri Lanka’s top three got starts, but none could make more than 35. The middle and lower order (this Sri Lanka lineup bats to as low as No. 9) kept being undone by India’s wiles.Wanindu Hasaranga’s three successive boundaries to finish gave the innings a sheen of respectability, but the moment, Rahul hit two stunning cover drives back-to-back against Malinga, it became clear just how good this pitch was, and how much Sri Lanka were going to struggle to defend this score.BCCI

Sri Lanka fail to capitalise on start
Avishka Fernando had looked good too at the start of Sri Lanka’s innings. He had hit his own sumptuous cover drive, off Jasprit Bumrah, to get off the mark, before spanking Saini through the legside twice soon after. But when he was tested with spin, his timing fell apart. Trying to launch Washington Sundar over mid-off in the fifth over, he managed only to find the fielder, departing for 22 off 16. At the other end, Danushka Gunathilaka struggled his way through the Powerplay before Saini rattled his stumps with a 148 kph full delivery in the eighth over.Kusal Perera then looked good through the middle period, hitting three sixes off the spinners, including an audacious reverse-pull off Kuleep Yadav. But with Sri Lanka’s scoring rate now flagging, he holed out trying for a fourth six – Kuldeep claiming the wicket immediately after that reverse-pull. Still, Sri Lanka were only four down, in the 14th over. There was plenty of firepower to come, you thought. Not a lot of big-hitting materialised, however, as Thakur and Saini in particular kept making breakthroughs in the last third of their innings.KL Rahul imposes himself in the PowerplayEach of the six boundaries India hit in the Powerplay came off Rahul’s bat. He clattered Lahiru Kumara through the legside for his first four, then smoked the next four boundaries through the covers – against both seam and spin. There were nervous moments during this stretch as well. In the fourth over he got a top edge off de Silva that fell into space on the legside. In the fifth over Lahiru Kumara struck him in the ribs. But he almost single-handedly hauled India to 54 by the end of six overs – a near ideal start to this chase. It took Dhawan almost until the end of the ninth over to hit his first boundary, but Rahul’s confident work had more than accounted for his tetchiness.Hasaranga made the first inroads with the ball, first bowling an advancing Rahul through the gate with a googly, before trapping Dhawan in front (the original decision was overturned in Sri Lanka favour on review), but by this stage Sri Lanka badly needed wickets to be falling at the other end as well. They didn’t.Sri Lanka’s struggle for menace with the ballSri Lanka were hamstrung by the absence of Isuru Udana, who went off the field with a muscle strain in the fourth over, after making a stop at short third man. Dasun Shanaka – Sri Lanka’s fourth-choice seam bowler – put in a decent shift as a replacement, getting through four overs for only 26 runs. But he lacked Udana’s guile. Iyer would be dismissed for 34 off 26 by Kumara, but Kohli was never going to let this chase meander. He hit a four and two sixes off the last six balls he faced, and the match was done.

Aaron Finch also pitched in with a half-century, helping Australia progress to 6 for 277 at stumps on day one

The Report by Deivarayan Muthu14-Dec-20181:44

Laxman: Bumrah is leading the pace attack in a short span of time

Contrasting half-centuries from local boy Marcus Harris, Aaron Finch and Travis Head helped Australia overcome a mini-collapse of 4 for 36 and made India feel the heat – both literally and figuratively – on a 39-degree day at the new Perth Stadium. Despite the late dismissals of Shaun Marsh (45) and Head (58) on a pitch where one ball exploded and the next rolled at shin height, Australia progressed to 6 for 277 at stumps on day one.After India went into a Test without a frontline spinner for only the third time in their history, Harris and Finch, perhaps, made them rue the decision by putting on a 112-run opening stand. Although part-time offspinner Hanuma Vihari plucked out Harris and Marsh, India’s attack lacked the control a fit R Ashwin or Ravindra Jadeja could have provided. Their absence also ramped up the workload on Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Shami, who had just sealed the Adelaide Test for India on Tuesday. Ishant even left the field in the post-tea session because of an abdominal strain before returning and stretching his body at the edge of the boundary.The scorecard will tell you Ishant conceded only 35 runs in 16 overs, but he had struggled for rhythm with the new ball. His lengths weren’t full enough and his lines didn’t quite threaten the stumps either. That umpire Kumar Dharmasena pulled him up for a front-foot no-ball, when he had a fair margin of his foot behind the crease, perhaps, rattled him.Finch, meanwhile, was rattled by a bevy of inswingers, including Shami’s first ball, which drew an lbw appeal. Despite Finch getting pinged above the knee-roll, India chanced a review and lost it, with ball-tracking confirming that it would have bounced over the stumps.Harris, though, at the other end was simply unflappable. He needed 16 balls to get off the mark, but once he bed in with a variety of strokes, he looked the part. He got cracking with a triptych of drives: back-to-back hits down the ground off Ishant and then one through the covers off Umesh Yadav. He was just as unflustered when Shami sent down a shooter that crept under his defensive bat and bounced twice before Rishabh Pant collected it in the 28th over. The next ball was scythed through cover-point and Harris continued to be severe on anything that was remotely full and wide outside off.1:53

Kartik: Finch needed this innings to resurrect his Test career

He raised his maiden Test fifty with a neat clip through midwicket and elicited warm applause from his coach Justin Langer, who has a stand named after him at this venue, and his father Kim Harris, who was in the grandstand. He could have been dismissed on 60 had KL Rahul latched onto a difficult catch at second slip off Shami.Finch scored a less fluent fifty before Bumrah pinned him with a perfectly pitched inswinger. Bumrah then got on a roll with the old ball and had bouncers snarling at Khawaja’s throat from around the wicket. Khawaja wore blows on his body, stabbed and fended his way to 1 off 25 balls against Bumrah. Something had to give, and that something was Khawaja throwing his hands at a short, wide ball from Umesh and nicking off for an utterly painstaking 5 off 38 balls. Three overs later, this place flew like the curator had promised. A back-of-a-length offbreak from Vihari took off like a NASA rocket and had Harris fending a catch behind to Pant for 70 off 141 balls.Three for 134 then became 4 for 148 when Peter Handscomb slashed Ishant to second slip, where Virat Kohli who had replaced Rahul pulled off a blinding one-handed catch.India’s seamers tested Head and Marsh with extra bounce after the pitch seemed to have quickened up in the final session. They somehow weathered the burst and settled down, adding 84 for the fifth wicket. However, three overs before the second new ball was due, Marsh chased a wide offbreak from Vihari and sent a thick outside edge flying to Ajinkya Rahane for a chest-high grab at first slip.Head pressed on to follow his first-innings 72 in Adelaide with an equally vital fifty here. However, he threw his wicket away when he went after a wide ball from Ishant and carved it to third man in the 83rd over. Tim Paine and Pat Cummins ushered Australia to stumps without any further damage and left India with a teasing thought: what might have been on a pitch where the ball is turning sharply for even a part-time spinner.

Two new faces named in 15-man squad to take on Pakistan in the UAE later this month

ESPNcricinfo staff20-Sep-2017Uncapped batsmen Sadeera Samarawickrama and Roshen Silva have earned call-ups to the Sri Lanka Test squad touring the UAE.Back in the fray, meanwhile, are two relatively experienced hands. Lahiru Thirimanne, who last played a Test in June 2016, has been recalled, as vice-captain no less. Opener Kaushal Silva, whose most recent Test was in South Africa in January, is also in the squad.Among those absent are Asela Gunaratne and Kusal Perera , who remain unavailable through injury, and Upul Tharanga, who has ruled himself out of contention from Test cricket for six months. Angelo Mathews will also miss the first Test, at least, due to a calf injury.On the bowling front, Sri Lanka have opted to omit the pace of Dushmantha Chameera and Lahiru Kumara, and will instead rely on seam movement and control. Leading the quicks will be Nuwan Pradeep and Suranga Lakmal, who had both performed creditably on Sri Lanka’s most recent tour to the UAE, in 2013-14. Left-arm seamer Vishwa Fernando, and Lahiru Gamage – who is uncapped in Tests – are the other frontline seam options.Sadeera Samarawickrama bats for Sri Lanka Under-19s•ICC

A familiar trio form the slow-bowling contingent: left-arm wristspinner Lakshan Sandakan has been picked alongside fingerspinners Rangana Herath and Dilruwan Perera. There is no place, however, for Malinda Pushpakumara, the left-arm spinner who debuted during Sri Lanka’s home series against India in August.Samarawickrama’s call-up was somewhat expected, given his returns in the Premier League Tournament this year. He topped the Tier A run-charts, hitting 1016 runs at an average of 59.76, while also keeping wicket for Colts Cricket Club. In February, he had also made 185 against an England Lion’s attack featuring Toby Roland-Jones and Tom Curran, in Dambulla. Even if Niroshan Dickwella – the other wicketkeeper-batsman in the squad – takes the gloves, Samarawickrama could be in line for a middle-order position.While this is Samarawickrama’s first entry into the national squad, Roshen Silva had been in a Sri Lanka Test squad last year, though without breaking into the XI. He has also been selected on the basis of solid first-class performance. He scored 614 runs at 55.81 in this year’s Premier League tournament, and has maintained an average of 48.19 over 156 first-class innings, typically batting in the middle order.Places for these two batsmen means Dhananjaya de Silva – who had been so impressive in 2016 – no longer even finds a place in the main squad. He is among five players who are on standby – the others being spinners Akila Dananjaya and Jeffrey Vandersay, allrounder Dasun Shanaka, and fast bowler Kumara.Sri Lanka are set to depart for the tour on Sunday, and will begin their first Test in Abu Dhabi from September 28. The second Test, in Dubai, will be a day-night encounter.Sri Lanka squad: Dinesh Chandimal (capt), Lahiru Thirimanne (vice-capt), Dimuth Karunaratne, Kaushal Silva, Kusal Mendis, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Roshen Silva, Niroshan Dickwella, Rangana Herath, Lakshan Sandakan, Dilruwan Perera, Suranga Lakmal, Nuwan Pradeep, Vishwa Fernando, Lahiru Gamage

Fast bowler Sohail Tanvir and left-arm spinner Veerasammy Permaul claimed five wickets between them to help set up a seven-wicket victory for Guyana Amazon Warriors against Jamaica Tallawahs in a top-of-the-table clash at Providence on Thursday

ESPNcricinfo staff08-Jul-2016
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsFast bowler Sohail Tanvir and left-arm spinner Veerasammy Permaul claimed five wickets between them to set up a seven-wicket victory for Guyana Amazon Warriors against Jamaica Tallawahs in a top-of-the-table clash at Providence. After skittling Tallawahs for 100 in 18 overs, Amazon Warriors got to the target with 12 balls to spare on a typically slow surface. Guyana now have three wins in three matches, having already beaten St Kitts & Nevis Patriots and Trinbago Knight Riders.Tanvir laid down the marker, having Chris Gayle, who smashed 108* in his previous match, lbw with an inswinger off the first ball he faced. Permaul then struck twice in two balls, in the fifth over, removing Kumar Sangakkara and Chadwick Walton. Tallawahs crawled to 29 for 3 at the end of the Powerplay, having scored only two boundaries during that period.Three boundaries then came in the space of eight balls as Rovman Powell and Shakib Al Hasan threatened a recovery. They lofted Australia legspinner Adam Zampa for sixes down the ground, after Powell had hit a four over Permaul’s head.But then Shakib holed out to deep midwicket off Permaul. Zampa also struck, undoing Nkrumah Bonner – who had come into the XI for Andre Russell – and Andre McCarthy for ducks to leave the visitors at 80 for 6. The lower order folded, and Powell was the ninth batsman to be dismissed, for 38. Barring Powell, only Shakib managed to pass 20.The chase wasn’t easy for Amazon Warriors. They fared worse in the Powerplay than Tallawahs, scoring 13 while losing captain Martin Guptill and Dwayne Smith to Pakistan left-arm spinner Imad Wasim, who finished with figures of 2 for 6. Chris Lynn and Jason Mohammed, however, settled Amazon Warriors with a 42-run partnership for the third wicket in 9.2 overs. The stand ended when Mohammed was pinned lbw for 22 by Shakib. The wicket hardly dented the hosts though, with Lynn and Anthony Bramble teeing off for 48 in 4.4 overs to seal the chase.Permaul bagged the Man-of-the-Match award for his career-best T20 figures of 3 for 20. After the game, he said he had focused on bowling a tight line. The two wickets that I picked up earlier really set up Jamaica and we kept bowling consistently, picking up wickets at the crucial stages of the game,” he said. “It is important to bowl wicket-to-wicket [in Providence]; we know the conditions very well. It [The pitch] is a bit two-paced and keeps low.”Amazon Warriors have a day’s break before taking on Patriots at home on Saturday, and Knight Riders on Sunday. Tallawahs have three days to regroup before facing Barbados Tridents in Bridgetown on Monday.

It was the irascible Jarrod Kimber who spoke for much of the cricket world in his brief verdict on the brutal finish of the Dominica Test match. “Australia’s tail,” he tweeted, “is the second best Test team around after South Africa.”

Daniel Brettig in Roseau08-Jun-2015It was the irascible Jarrod Kimber who spoke for much of the cricket world in his brief verdict on the brutal finish of the Dominica Test match. “Australia’s tail,” he tweeted, “is the second best Test team around after South Africa.”Such ribbing of Australia’s batsmen has been going on inside the dressing room as well, and with good reason: the regularity of the lower order bailing out the top is one of the few longest running themes of the team, beginning even before the retirements of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Justin Langer and Damien Martyn signalled the end of the golden age in 2007.At Windsor Park, Australia’s final four wickets piled up enough runs to leave West Indies in a parlous position, and the last one alone added 97 through an inspired union between Adam Voges and Josh Hazlewood. Mitchell Johnson and Nathan Lyon also played their part, proving themselves more adept than their full-time batting colleagues at adapting to the prevailing conditions.Johnson, who was once spoken of as a potential allrounder but is now content to be the most destructive No. 8 batsman in the game, offered a warm grin when asked to expand on the performances of the Australian tail during his time in the team. It cannot be forgotten that Johnson’s stand with Brad Haddin on day one of the 2013-14 Ashes gave him enough of a platform to terrorise England with the ball.”There is a little bit of ribbing going on, not too much,” Johnson said. “We take pride in what we do down the bottom order there. Myself personally I like to score runs when I can and I know Mitchy Starc likes to and Josh did an outstanding job. To have that big partnership down the bottom was outstanding. We do pride ourselves on that and we’ve done that very well over the last few years where other teams haven’t quite being able to do it.”There has been a little bit of ribbing going on but we’ve got a big Test match coming up and I’m sure they [the batsmen] will be out there to put on some big partnerships and some hundreds so I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”There is less reason to worry when the reasons for Australian lower-order success are examined. Chief among them is the fact that many of Australia’s bowlers possess techniques and methods far more correct than they used to be, and at times more aesthetically pleasing than those of the batsmen above.Johnson, Hazlewood and particularly the injured James Pattinson play with the clean lines and simplicity of top six players, while Nathan Lyon gets his eyes over the ball with fierce commitment and both Mitchell Starc and Ryan Harris offer the sorts of robust, thumping techniques that can have fielders scurrying if they can survive their first few balls.By contrast, the relative struggles of Fawad Ahmed to be a batting concern of any merit have arguably played against his inclusion – if you want to bowl for Australia these days, you’d better be able to bat at least a little. Hazlewood’s growing confidence as an international cricketer is reflected in his batting as well as his bowling, while Starc can expect to offer more with the bat than he did in Dominica.”Josh is still really new to the game and still very fresh but he’s been able to go out there and play his game and do what he has done for New South Wales, and I guess do what he did as a junior,” Johnson said. “He’s got that height, he’s got a great pace about him, he can step it up when he needs to I think with his pace. But I think think what he does for our team he brings a great balance.”And Mitch Starc, I think there’s been a lot of talk about how good his one-day performances and Twenty20 performances have been, to be able to come into this Test match on a slow wicket a turning wicket and to be able to bowl the way he did, cleaned up the tail for us which was really exciting for me. But those two guys have been outstanding.”We’ve got a lot of fast bowlers in the Australian team that have been performing for a while and it is really hard being a fast bowler in Australia right now because we do have the stocks there, and you know, it is really exciting for Australian cricket.”And if the success of the bowlers must continue to be built upon runs of their own making, then at least they will be used to the pressure.

Sri Lanka chief selector Ashantha de Mel has said that the national selection committee may streamline the selection of teams, and have a separate squad for Twenty20s

Sa'adi Thawfeeq15-Oct-2012Sri Lanka chief selector Ashantha de Mel has said that the national selection committee may streamline the selection of teams, and have a separate Twenty20 squad, following Sri Lanka’s 36-run loss to West Indies in the World Twenty20 final in Colombo.The changes are likely to be introduced in the one-off T20 international against New Zealand to be played at Pallekele on October 30.Vice captain Angelo Mathews is expected to take the reins for the game against New Zealand, with Mahela Jayawardene having resigned from the captaincy following the World Twenty20 final.”We will have to go with Mathews for the moment but we will assess the captaincy. The team should be captained by a player who has a permanent place in the side,” de Mel said. “We need to separate the Test and ODI players from the T20 players and pick a squad that will fulfill the requirements of T20 cricket.”We will pick a young side with players who can make a clean strike of the ball,” he said. Sri Lanka hit the least sixes of the four semi-finalists in the World Twenty20 and managed only one six to West Indies’ seven in the final. “We really have to assess the situation and start building a team of T20 cricketers for the next World T20 in Bangladesh in 2014,” said de Mel.”We need to find some strong hitters who can clear the boundary successfully. Players like Mahela Jayawardene and Angelo Mathews don’t have the power so they adopt different methods to score runs like the scoop and the reverse sweep. Even playing those strokes you need the strength to clear the fielders,” he said.Mathews exposed his stumps and was bowled attempting to play the scoop shot against Darren Sammy and Jayawardene failed to clear the short third man fielder when he reverse swept Sunil Narine. De Mel said that Dilshan Munaweera, who was unused after the group stages of the World Twenty20, was a player who could hit sixes.”Chamara Kapugedera is another batsman who could easily clear the boundary but he has been under so much pressure from all quarters for failing to contribute big scores that he was eventually dropped,” de Mel said.Kapugedera hit 13 sixes in six matches for NCC in the Premier club T20 tournament and had a strike rate of 179.64.De Mel also said Sri Lanka paid the penalty for not being aggressive enough chasing a West Indies total of 137 for victory. Sri Lanka’s batsmen were circumspect after the dismissal of Tillakaratne Dilshan in the second over, and struggled to score at the require run rate throughout the innings. They were eventually dismissed for 101.”I don’t know what went wrong with our batting, for in the earlier matches we used to score at least 50 runs in the first six overs of Powerplay. Here they managed only 30 runs which put the fielding side on top.”I think we also panicked during our innings when there was a slight drizzle and threw away wickets rather unnecessarily trying to up the score, the two run outs of Thisara Perera and Jeevan Mendis didn’t help either. Everything seemed to go against us.”