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Karunaratne, who top-scored in the first ODI, said the fact that most of the batting order had got starts was encouraging

Andrew Fidel Fernando18-Jul-2021Although none of Sri Lanka’s batters hit a half-century in the first ODI, the team has the ability to put up scores that will challenge India – something beyond 300. This was what allrounder Chamika Karunaratne said following Sri Lanka’s drubbing in the match. Karunaratne had top-scored from No. 8, hitting 43 off 35 balls, but five other Sri Lanka batters had made scores greater than 20.Karunaratne said the fact that most of the batting order had got starts was encouraging.”A lot of our batsmen got good starts, but a lot of us weren’t able to continue,” he said. “We were trying to play longer innings – even when I was batting with Dasun Shanaka in the 42nd or 43rd over I asked him if I should go for some big shots, but he told me to wait until the 45th over. If more of our batsmen had been able to bat longer, we could have attacked earlier and gone for a bigger score. We do have the ability to get to 300 or 350, and hopefully that will happen in the next games.”Related

• Dasun Shanaka urges young Sri Lanka side to 'keep faith in the process'

• Series on the line as ailing Sri Lanka prepare to face mighty India again

• Report: Dhawan, Kishan, Shaw lead Sri Lanka rout

Sri Lanka’s innings had been beset by slower-than-ideal batting and the team had especially struggled to rotate the strike against the spinners, through the middle overs. They played out 159 dot balls through the course of their 50 overs.”This wicket was playing a bit slow, so we did talk during our innings about putting the ball into gaps and running hard a little bit more,” Karunaratne said. “But they also bowled really well. They bowled in good areas and their captain managed the field well.”On the field, Sri Lanka were essentially blown off the park. They conceded fifty runs inside the first five overs, and 100 inside 13 overs. Karunaratne said India’s rapid scoring rate was partly down to Sri Lanka going in search of wickets as well.”We tried to get wickets rather than bowl dot balls. We tried to use our bouncers and our pace. They are a top team and we knew they would attack us. If we’d taken wickets we would have been able to pull them back. We were able to get one in the powerplay, and if we’d had another one or two in the powerplay we would have been able to change the game a little bit. “

Unequivocal support for head coach in wake of call for sacking for attending family funeral

George Dobell01-Jul-2020West Indies cricket are “blessed” to have Phil Simmons as coach, according to Cricket West Indies (CWI) president, Ricky Skerritt.In an unstinting demonstration of support, Skerritt made it clear that Simmons’ role as head coach remains “not in any way threatened” despite demands from one CWI board member, Conde Riley, for him to be sacked.”I want to assure West Indies cricket fans that Phil Simmons still has the full backing of CWI, no matter what has been said,” Skerritt said. “When all is said and done, Phil’s job is not in any way threatened by that letter.”Riley, also the president of the Barbados Cricket Association, suggested Simmons had “endangered the lives” of the entire West Indies touring party by temporarily leaving the bio-secure ‘bubble’ in Manchester to attend a family funeral.”There was no question of me not going to the funeral,” Simmons said. “It is a very, very hard time for us. My wife, my daughters and my son needed that support. This has not been an easy time for my family. My wife was very close to her father and his passing has hurt us. All the guys [in the West Indies touring party] have been very close to me. It won’t disrupt us. It will just make us a little stronger going into the Test series.”Family is a huge thing for me. It’s the same thing we’re trying to build here and everyone is supporting everyone. If someone wants to try and use that against me, all well and good. If that is to break up the camp and change our focus, that hasn’t worked. I had to do what is right for my family, just as I will do what is right for CWI for the rest of the series.”As Skerritt made clear, Simmons had permission to attend the funeral and his departure and re-entry were managed by the medical teams from CWI and the ECB. He has subsequently remained in isolation at the team hotel – he has watched the on-going warm-up match from his hotel-room balcony – and been tested twice for Covid-19. Both tests have been negative.ALSO READ: Phil Simmons faces sacking call after attending family funeral“He went through a very vigorous recruitment process nine months ago and was the best man we could have found for the job,” said Skerritt. “He’s still the best man. I’m confident the people of the Caribbean have already thrown their support behind Phil and will continue to do so.”Phil is the right man at the right time. We’re so blessed to have Phil back with us and to have Jimmy Adams as his boss. I don’t think I need to worry at all with those two guys leading the cricket.”It is a well-established policy for CWI players and officials while on tour to be given permission for compassionate leave as and when needed. The matter of coach Simmons’ exiting and returning to Old Trafford should never have controversial in any way.”While Skerritt admitted his request for Riley to withdraw the letter had, at this stage, fallen on deaf ears, he offered an olive branch of reconciliation towards the Barbadian.”My only response was to ask him to withdraw the letter,” Skerritt said. “It was an unnecessary and hasty burst of emotion. I’m stunned that the letter reached the public.”But Conde is a tremendous custodian of the game of cricket in Barbados. He gets my respect and I probably tolerate stuff like this more than I would with others. I think quietly at the right time we’ll make up. The problem is there are very strong influences around him and outside of the board who try to bring distrust and throw cold water on cricket-first activities we’ve been moving forward with.””Cricket administrators have to understand that our role is to provide the best possible environment for cricket and to give the best support and resources to our cricketers and management team,” Skerritt continued. “Giving them a sense of controversy and possible distrust and confusion is one of the worst gifts you can give.”

Will Rhodes joins Warwickshire opening partner in team for county curtain raiser against Surrey

ESPNcricinfo staff28-Feb-2019Dominic Sibley will be chasing a fourth century in as many first-class matches when he faces his former club, Surrey, as part of the MCC XI in next month’s Champion County Match in Dubai.Sibley scored 106, 144 not out and 119 in Warwickshire’s last three County Championship Division 2 matches in September 2018. He will be joined by Warwickshire opening partner Will Rhodes in the match at the ICC Global Cricket Academy on March 24.The MCC team, captained by Stuart Broad and finalised on Thursday, includes three players each from Essex and Somerset.Representing 2017 county champions Essex are batsmen Tom Westley and Dan Lawrence and right-arm seamer Sam Cook. It will be Westley’s second appearance in the traditional curtain raiser to the English county season after also playing for MCC in the 2009 fixture against Durham at Lord’s.Tom Abell, Dominic Bess and Peter Trego make up the Somerset contingent.Bess will be playing in his second Champion County Match after scoring a century at No.9 last season and taking eight wickets for the match. Somerset captain Abell scored 883 runs in the 2018 Championship.All-rounder Trego, who has played more than 200 first-class matches for Somerset, represented MCC on the tour to Argentina in 2008 and against Warwickshire in the Champion County Match of 2013.Worcestershire’s Ben Cox is MCC’s wicket-keeper for the match. He has been playing most recently for Otago Volts in New Zealand’s domestic T20 tournament and starred in the Worcestershire side which won its maiden Vitality Blast title last year.Lancashire left-arm spinner Stephen Parry completes the MCC team.MCC Assistant Secretary (Cricket) John Stephenson said: “This group boasts plenty of experience in county cricket and we are fortunate to have Stuart Broad to lead the team as captain. He will be able to pass on some of his knowledge to the younger players.”Surrey were undoubtedly the best team in the Specsavers County Championship last season so it will be a tough test, and the challenge for MCC will be to match the excellent victory over Essex in last year’s Champion County Match.”MCC X: Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire) – (capt), Tom Abell (Somerset), Dominic Sibley (Warwickshire), Tom Westley (Essex), Dan Lawrence (Essex), Will Rhodes (Warwickshire), Peter Trego (Somerset), Ben Cox (Worcestershire) – (wk), Dominic Bess (Somerset), Stephen Parry (Lancashire), Sam Cook (Essex)

Lizaad Williams’ second three-wicket haul in two days left Zimbabweans reeling with a measly lead of 29 in their only warm-up fixture ahead of the inaugural four-day Test

ESPNcricinfo staff22-Dec-2017
ScorecardAFP

Lizaad Williams’ second three-wicket haul in two days left Zimbabweans reeling at 120 for 7 in their second dig against CSA Invitation XI at Paarl, with a measly lead of 29. The hosts were earlier lifted to 287 in their first innings, courtesy half-centuries from Temba Bavuma and Dayyaan Galiem.Having snared a 91-run lead, Williams led CSA Invitation XI’s charge, bowling the visitors’ first-innings top-scorer, Hamilton Masakadza, off the second delivery of the innings. A 49-run second-wicket stand between Solomon Mire (20) and Craig Ervine (34) steadied Zimbabweans after the early wobble, but Ervine’s dismissal – via Williams – in the 13th over led to the tourists subsiding from 50 for 1 to 107 for 7. Ryan Burl (17*) and Chamu Chibhaba (48) kept vigil at stumps on second day even as Shaun von Berg and Michael Cohen finished with two wickets apiece.Earlier, CSA Invitation XI’s resumption on 55 for 3 on second day featured a collapse of its own – 5 wickets for 61 runs – which was bookended by fifty stands. While Bavuma anchored the first, in Tladi Bokako’s (41) company, with his 70-run knock, Galiem’s 54-ball 57 steered the second, with von Berg (24), helping the side scramble past 250 even in the face of a four-for from Graeme Cremer.

Jeet Raval could take Martin Guptill’s place at the top of the order while Todd Astle is set to fill in for the injured Mitchell Santner

ESPNcricinfo staff10-Nov-2016Opening batsman Martin Guptill has been left out of New Zealand’s squad for the upcoming two-Test series against Pakistan. Uncapped Auckland batsman Jeet Raval and allrounder Colin de Grandhomme have been picked, while allrounder Todd Astle, who played his only Test in November 2012, has been recalled.Raval, who was in the squad for New Zealand’s Test tours of Zimbabwe and South Africa earlier this year, is set to take Guptill’s place at the top of the order. The 28-year-old left-handed batsman averaged 55.71 in last season’s Plunket Shield and in three matches this season has scored 244 runs at an average of 40.66.Guptill’s form in Tests this year has been a worry for the side. In nine matches, the batsman scored 393 runs at an average of 24.56 with two fifties, struggling for runs in the home series against Australia and on the tours of South Africa and India. Four other players who were part of the India tour – Doug Bracewell, Jeetan Patel, Luke Ronchi and Ish Sodhi – missed out. Among the excluded players who toured India, Ronchi had the best performance, ending as the highest run-getter for New Zealand with 200 runs in six Test innings. Patel and Sodhi picked up six and three wickets respectively, while Bracewell did not get a game.”Jeet has been in the picture for a while now and he benefitted from spending time in the environment during the tour of Africa,” New Zealand selector Gavin Larsen said. “His form in recent seasons has been excellent and the opportunity for Jeet to begin his international career in familiar conditions will be important.”Luke, Martin, Doug miss out this series, but we know that they and the others who miss out will continue to work hard on their game and get the chance to continue staking a claim in the domestic competition.”Astle and de Grandhomme were rewarded for their consistent performances in domestic cricket, with Astle’s legspin set to cover for the absence of allrounder Mitchell Santner, who fractured his wrist recently. Astle is the only specialist spinner in the squad.Astle has taken 116 wickets in the last three Plunket Shield seasons, and 14 in this edition of the tournament. He has also contributed with the bat for Canterbury, scoring 267 runs, including a career-best 195 against Northern Districts in the first round.De Grandhomme, who has played an ODI and four T20Is for New Zealand, has been picked as an all-round option. He has scored 216 runs in three Plunket Shield matches so far, including one century, and has taken five wickets for Auckland as a seamer. The century, an unbeaten 144, came in tight two-wicket win against Otago, in a run chase of 373.”Todd’s been incredibly consistent at the domestic level, having been one of the top four wicket-takers in the Plunket Shield for the past threes seasons,” Larsen said. “His bowling has continued to improve and he’s also shown impressive form with the bat, so Todd provides a similar skill set to Mitchell Santner in his absence.”Since Colin returned from injury last season, he’s made a number of key contributions with bat and ball. He’s made an impressive start to the current Plunket Shield season and he provides us with another strong allrounder option.”Six players were not considered due to injury: Santner, Mark Craig, Adam Milne, Mitchell McClenaghan, Colin Munro and George Worker. Corey Anderson, too, was not considered, as he continues to work on building up his bowling workload, after recovering from a back injury. Anderson had been picked as a specialist batsman in the ODI series against India, but bowled four overs in the fifth match.The first Test will be played in Christchurch from November 17, while the second Test starts from November 25. Astle and de Grandhomme have been withdrawn from the New Zealand A squad for the tour match against the Pakistanis, with Kyle Jamieson and Luke Woodcock taking their place.New Zealand squad Kane Williamson (capt), Todd Astle, Trent Boult, Colin de Grandhomme, Matt Henry, Tom Latham, Henry Nicholls, Jimmy Neesham, Jeet Raval, Tim Southee, Ross Taylor, Neil Wagner, BJ Watling

A round-up of all the Ranji Trophy Group A matches on October 18, 2015

ESPNcricinfo staff18-Oct-2015
ScorecardFile Photo: Karun Nair struck 15 fours for his unbeaten 101 and put up an unbroken 176-run stand with R Samarth•K Sivaraman

J Suchith had made it clear at the end of the third day that Karnataka were not going to push for an outright win on Sunday. “We are looking to bat and bat and bat,” he said. R Samarth and Karun Nair lived up to the talk, and helped themselves to their fourth and seventh first-class hundreds respectively, as Karnataka declared their second innings on 331 for 3.During the course of collecting their milestones, they also put on an unbroken stand of 176. Once Nair got to his hundred, captain Vinay Kumar called them in and the tea interval was advanced by four minutes.Set an improbable target of 372 in a minimum of 22 overs, Vidarbha batted for another half an hour before both the captains agreed to settle for a draw at the start of the mandatory overs, with no prospect of an outright win for either team.In the morning, Vidarbha must have had a tiny ray of hope after seamer Swapnil Bandiwar’s full-length delivery knocked KL Rahul’s off stump out of its groove in the third ball of the day. It turned out to be a false dawn, as the visitors managed only one more wicket, of Manish Pandey, all day. Samarth and Nair then went about gathering runs patiently even as Vidarbha’s shoulders drooped.Later, Wagh was fined 60% of his match fee by the match referee for his outburst against the umpires on Saturday. Wagh had slammed the umpiring, accusing them of favoring the home side. Wagh had also questioned the integrity of Karnataka wicketkeeper CM Gautam, accusing him off claiming bump balls. Vidarbha captain S Badrinath refused to comment on Wagh’s accusations against the umpires and Gautam, but said his team “was on the unlucky side.”
ScorecardBengal walked away with first-innings honours from a clash against Rajasthan that was severely interrupted by rain in Kolkata. Manoj Tiwary, who rescued Bengal with a century against defending champions Karnataka in their season opener, top-scored with 83, while Abhimanyu Easwaran and Pankaj Shaw contributed 53 and 52 respectively.Behind by 84, Rajasthan were struggling at 15 for 3, with Ashok Dinda, the pace spearhead, accounting for the openers. But Ashok Menaria absorbed the pressure and faced 174 balls for his unbeaten 69 to take Rajasthan to 146 for 5 in 57 overs before the umpires called for stumps. The result left both teams in the bottom half of the group, with Bengal having a game in hand after playing just two matches as compared to Rajasthan’s three.Delhi v Haryana – Shreyas Iyer wins Delhi tough chase

Virender Sehwag has been dropped from India’s Test side for the first time since he made an emphatic comeback to the long format with a century in Adelaide in 2008-09

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Mar-2013Virender Sehwag has been dropped from India’s Test side for the first time since he made an emphatic comeback to the long format with a century in Adelaide in 2007-08. That, incidentally, remains his last century outside Asia. No replacement has been named for Sehwag for the remaining two Tests of the series against Australia, which makes Shikhar Dhawan a favourite to open in the Mohali Test starting on March 14.The two remaining Tests of the current series, which India lead 2-0, are the last ones they are scheduled to play before they go on four continuous overseas tours beginning with South Africa later this year.In his first reaction, Sehwag – who had been dropped from the ODI side for the series against England in January – tweeted: “Will continue to work hard for my place in the team. I trust my game and am confident that, ‘I’ll be back.’ Best wishes to the team.”Since his comeback, Sehwag’s performance outside Asia might have been questionable, but he kept his place in the side with typically dazzling match-winning knocks on the lower and slower tracks. Outside Asia, since Adelaide, Sehwag has scored just 523 runs in 12 Tests, at an average of 22.73 with a highest of 67. In Asia, though, over the same period he has amassed 3622 runs at 57.49, at a game-changing strike rate of 94.1.However, over the last two years, the big innings began to dry up even in Asia. After his 173 against New Zealand in Ahmedabad in November 2010, he had to wait more than two years for another Test century. In November 2012, Sehwag earned another lease of life with a typical century against England again in Ahmedabad but, between then and being dropped, he has had scores of 25, 30, 9, 23, 49, 0, 2, 19 and 6.This is a big fall for India’s most prolific opening combination in Tests: Gautam Gambhir was dropped before the start of the Australia after three years without a Test century. Now India are possibly looking at a raw opening combination going into South Africa.Not even naming a replacement opener is a big statement made by selectors who don’t seem to have other options available but have still gone ahead and omitted him. Dhawan, his Delhi team-mate, is now a front-runner for Mohali, but Ajinkya Rahane can’t be ruled out either. Sandeep Patil, the chairman of selectors, did say before the start of the England series that Rahane was picked as a middle-order batsman, but the Indian team management has been flexible and doesn’t always stick to statements made in the press.India squad: MS Dhoni (capt. & wk), M Vijay, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harbhajan Singh, R Ashwin, Pragyan Ojha, Ajinkya Rahane, Ashok Dinda, Cheteshwar Pujara.