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Net sessions in Antigua indicate that India had narrowed their squad down to 13 for the first Test with Rohit Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Shardul Thakur possibly missing out

Karthik Krishnaswamy in Antigua19-Jul-20163:25

‘If you are used to getting 100 in 150 balls, maybe here you will have to get 100 in 200 balls’ – Rahane

Towards the end of India’s practice session at Sir Vivian Richards Stadium on Monday, Rohit Sharma ignored a teasing legbreak outside his off stump. Cheteshwar Pujara, the deliverer of that legbreak, grinned. Someone behind him – possibly R Ashwin – yelled out: “Bowled, Yasir!”In the first half of 2015, Pujara versus Rohit was a batsman-against-batsman contest, a selection headache for India’s Test-match team management. Now, things were a little different. Pujara was bowling to Rohit. No matter what Rohit did, Pujara was yelping excitedly, whether it was a defensive push into the off side – “caught at silly point!” – or a leg-side slog – “caught at midwicket!”Pujara had already finished a long batting stint, as had M Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane. In pairs, they had rotated through three different nets – seamers, spinners and throwdowns.Rohit had not batted with that group. He was now batting against Pujara, Ashwin – who continued bowling despite a long spell against the first set of batsmen – and a pair of net bowlers. At the other two nets were Wriddhiman Saha and Stuart Binny.Binny, by then, had bowled a lengthy spell, and had looked particularly sharp against Dhawan, swerving the ball past the left-hander’s outside edge on a couple of occasions. Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Shami had bowled alongside Binny at the seamers’ net, and had both looked to hit fullish lengths, with Ishant sending down the odd bouncer for variety.Concurrently, Ashwin, Jadeja and Amit Mishra had been in operation at the spinners’ net. When the first set of batsmen had completed their sessions, Mishra had bowled to an empty net with head coach Anil Kumble keeping close watch. With the toe of his shoe, Kumble had drawn a line extending down the pitch from leg stump, and seemed to instruct his legspinner to try and pitch the ball within the stumps, perhaps in order to keep the lbw and the outside edge in play.Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Shardul Thakur only came out when the core batting group had finished its session, and bowled solely to Rohit, Saha, the allrounders, and the lower order.Watching the first half – or three-quarters, in terms of time – of the net session, it seemed as though India had narrowed their squad down to 13 for the first Test in Antigua. Rohit, Umesh, Bhuvneshwar and Thakur did not seem to be among the 13.It also looked like India were planning to play five bowlers – or four specialists and an allrounder – leaving them two major calls to make on the eve of the match: whether to pick Dhawan or Rahul to partner Vijay at the top of the order; and whether to pick a seam-bowling allrounder in Binny, a spin-bowling allrounder in Jadeja, or to pick both and leave out Mishra.With three days to go for the Test match, not too much could be gleaned from looking at the pitch, straw-coloured and glowing in the afternoon sun, except that there was hardly any grass on it. The pitches in St. Kitts, where India played their two warm-up matches, were on the slow side, and Ashwin had reckoned his team would need to be patient in order to take 20 wickets given similar conditions in the Test series. “I’m sure I’ll have to be as boring as possible in terms of trying to plug away all day long,” he had said.On Monday, Rahane reinforced that point, from both batting and bowling perspectives.”Patience will be the key as a batting unit but once you get set it is important to [make] each and every session [count] because we will have to give time for our bowlers,” he said. “It is not easy to take 20 wickets on this kind of pitches, especially on the slower tracks. As a batting unit, we will have to take responsibility and I think one or two batsmen will have to get set and score big here.”And that, he said, might mean a guarded approach from the batsmen.”You cut out certain shots because, technically, I don’t think we will have to change anything really. But we will have to cut out some shots initially, in the first or second session, and after that when you get used to the conditions you will play your shots. But initially, it is important to take time for yourself. If you are used to getting 100 in 150 balls, maybe here you will have to get 100 in 200 balls. So as a batsman it is important to play at least 200-plus balls here.”It will be even more vital for India’s specialist batsmen to spend time at the crease if there are only five of them. The trade-off, of course, is an extra bowler, another body to share the workload of taking 20 wickets in sluggish conditions.

Former Sri Lanka and Canada wicketkeeper-batsman Pubudu Dassanayake has been appointed national coach of the USA cricket team by ICC Americas

Peter Della Penna08-Sep-2016Former Sri Lanka and Canada wicketkeeper-batsman Pubudu Dassanayake has been appointed USA’s coach by ICC Americas. The ICC regional body also appointed Eric Parthen as the new Project Manager to oversee the strategic plan to grow cricket in the USA.”I am delighted to have been given the opportunity to coach USA, especially at what is an exciting time for USA cricket,” Dassanayake said. “I believe there is a great deal of talent here; it will just require hard work from everyone involved to get the best out of these players and hopefully see US cricket progress to higher honours.”Our initial focus is on preparing the senior team for the WCL Division 4 event in LA next month. That is the first step on what I hope will be a successful journey.”Dassanayake played 11 Tests and 16 ODIs for Sri Lanka in 1993 and 1994. He moved to Canada in 2001 and represented the Canada national team in 2005 and 2006, captaining them in the Intercontinental Cup. After retiring, he served as Canada’s national coach from 2007 to 2011, and Nepal’s national coach from 2011 to 2015. Along with captain Paras Khadka, Dassanayake has been credited with lifting Nepal’s fortunes in their rise from WCL Division Four to the top flight of Associate cricket in the WCL Championship.Nepal also qualified for their first major ICC tournament during Dassanayake’s tenure, reaching the 2014 World T20 in Bangladesh where they recorded wins over Hong Kong and Afghanistan. He stepped down from the Nepal role in October 2015, citing personal reasons. He moved back to his home base in Canada but briefly returned to Nepal in a consultancy coaching role for the team’s WCL Championship wins over Namibia in April and their tour of England in July ahead of WCL Championship fixtures in the Netherlands in August.Dassanayake was shortlisted as a finalist for the USA coaching job in July and confirmed his interest in the role to ESPNcricinfo during a USA 30-man national squad camp in Florida, where he attended in a guest coaching capacity during a series of training sessions as well as two 50-over intrasquad matches to familiarize himself even more with the team ahead of his anticipated appointment. “Nepal, they were from Division Four to Division One and played a World Cup and I want to do the same for USA,” he said.Dassanayake also traveled to St Vincent in August where he coached an ICC Americas combined U-19 squad in the WICB Regional U-19 tournament. He is expected to be in New York this weekend where a New York invitational XI, which includes ten USA national squad players, will be playing two 50-over matches against a Marylebone Cricket Club touring side on September 10-11. He will also be in place to lead USA’s five-day national team camp in Indianapolis from September 17-21, which includes two 50-over matches against the same MCC tourists as well as three days of intrasquad training and trial games.Parthen, who has previously served as Executive Director of USA Boxing and Chief Executive of USA Taekwondo, will be tasked with overseeing the implementation of plans to expand cricket in the USA. Since July 2013, Parthen served as the executive director of the El Pomar Youth Sports Park in Colorado Springs, where the ICC Americas office recently shifted from its prior location in Toronto.”I am thrilled to be joining ICC Americas at such a pivotal point in its history,” Parthen said. “My focus will be on working with the whole cricket family here in the US and creating a sustainable structure to allow cricket to flourish at all levels.”

National selector James Whitaker expects Eoin Morgan to return as captain of the England ODI side in India despite opting out of the tour of Bangladesh

George Dobell16-Sep-2016National selector James Whitaker expects Eoin Morgan to return as captain of the England ODI side in India despite opting out of the tour of Bangladesh.Morgan, England’s ODI captain since the end of 2014, decided against travelling to Bangladesh due to security concerns. While Whitaker echoed the view of Andrew Strauss, England’s director of cricket, in terming Morgan’s view “disappointing” he also made it clear that it would not be held against him when it comes to future selection.”Eoin has done exceptionally well as captain,” Whitaker said. “Over the last couple of years he’s established a really good leadership base. He’s done a marvellous job.”It’s slightly disappointing that he’s turned this opportunity down, but we expect him to be captain in India. At the same time, we’ll review as we do after every series. Other people will come in and put pressure on those guys. And all I’ll say is, I expect him to be captain in India.”While Jos Buttler has been appointed for the three ODIs in Bangladesh, he made it clear earlier this week that he viewed that as an “interim” appointment. “Eoin is very much captain of the England ODI team,” he told ESPNcricinfo. “I fully expect him to take up the reins when he is available.England have lost only one ODI this summer – and that in a dead rubber against Pakistan – winning series against Sri Lanka and Pakistan in the process and setting a new record ODI score. Morgan has generally been seen as a crucial part of their new, more positive approach.Meanwhile, Whitaker also provided a strong hint that Ben Stokes will be vice-captain of the England ODI side in Bangladesh. Although an official vice-captain has yet to be named, it has become clear that there is great respect for Stokes’ influence among the management with his absence seen as a crucial factor in England’s poor performance in the final Test of the summer at The Oval.”We haven’t nominated a vice-captain yet,” Whitaker said. “But Ben Stokes is taking a leading role more and more in both forms of the game.”He is an astute reader of the game. And a very astute motivator of other players around him. But from official point of view, we haven’t named one. Jos and Trevor will take a view, but Ben Stokes is a galvaniser of people and an astute reader of the game. He is taking a more leading role on that senior player group.”England are meanwhile confident that Alastair Cook will be available for the first Test in Bangladesh despite him returning to England to attend the birth of his second child.Cook’s wife, Alice, is due to give birth in the week starting October 10. So, while the rest of the England Test squad will travel to Bangladesh on October 9, Cook will go at the start of the month and gain some familiarity with the conditions.While he is then expected to return to England as his Test colleagues arrive – and, as a consequence, miss the two warm-up games in Chittagong, to be played on October 14-15 and 15-16 – the England management are confident Cook will be back in time for the first Test on October 20, and has the experience to cope with the absence of warm-up games.”He’ll go out for a little bit of practice at the back-end of the one-day series, then come back home and then go out ready for the first Test,” Whitaker told Sky Sports. “He’s got a lot of experience, he’ll figure it out. I’m sure he’ll be ready for the first Test.”

India have agreed to use DRS for the Test series against England on “trial basis” to “evaluate the improvements made” in the system

ESPNcricinfo staff21-Oct-20164:33

Agarkar: 95% of cricketers will be in favour of DRS

India have agreed to use DRS for the upcoming Test series against England on a “trial basis” to “evaluate the improvements made” in the system. India had played in the first series with umpire reviews, against Sri Lanka in 2008, but this will be their first bilateral contest since then with all the components of the DRS – including ball-tracking technology – in place.”We are happy to note that Hawk-Eye has institutionalised all the recommendations made by BCCI, and we confirm that this improved version of DRS will be used on a trial basis during the forthcoming series against England,” the BCCI president Anurag Thakur said. “Based on the performance of the system and the feedback that we will receive, further continuation in forthcoming series will be decided.”One of India’s biggest concerns with the DRS, the predicted path of the ball after it hits the pad in the case of lbw decisions, will be addressed by the use of ultra-motion cameras. The manual intervention in determining the point of impact will be minimised by the introduction of Ultra Edge, which according to a BCCI release had been approved by Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT]. It will also eliminate the possibility of another touch after the first impact affecting the predicted path or point of impact.”Earlier, there was a possibility that the operator would have missed a delivery and hence an lbw appeal could have been missed,” the BCCI release said. “Now, Hawk-Eye has developed the technology to record and save all images so that in case an operator fails to arm the tracking system, the images can be rewound and replayed.”Since their first experience with the system in its nascent stages, India were the biggest opponents of the DRS. The only times India used it since that 2008 series was in ICC events and in one Test series against England in 2011. In that series, the DRS was not used for lbw decisions.The BCCI’s sustained refusal to use the DRS meant that other countries would not use the system only when playing India. The board rarely articulated its opposition to the system in detail; India’s former Test captain MS Dhoni used to say they would use DRS only when it was 100% accurate.The current India coach Anil Kumble, who is also the head of the ICC cricket committee, had made a visit to MIT before he took over the India job to be apprised of the latest developments in the DRS technology. During the recent series against New Zealand, India’s current Test captain Virat Kohli had said India “definitely wanted to think about DRS”, which was the first significant departure from their previous stance.On October 19, the ICC general manager Geoff Allardice made a presentation in Delhi that was attended by Kumble. Two days later, India confirmed their acceptance of the system albeit on a trial basis.

Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur said his batsmen had given West Indies legspinner Devendra Bishoo “eight soft wickets” during their second-innings collapse on the fourth day of the day-night Test

ESPNcricinfo staff17-Oct-20163:16

Want to be a team that closes the opposition out – Arthur

Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur said his batsmen had given West Indies legspinner Devendra Bishoo “eight soft wickets” during their second-innings collapse on the fourth day of the day-night Test in Dubai. Having taken a 222-run lead in the first innings, Pakistan were dismissed for 123 in 31.5 overs, losing their last six wickets for 11 runs. Chasing 346, West Indies were 95 for 2 at stumps with senior batsmen Marlon Samuels and Darren Bravo at the crease.Arthur praised Bishoo but rued that the collapse had given West Indies a chance to win the game. He said Pakistan’s plan when they chose not to enforce the follow-on was to score about 180 runs in 45 overs and shut West Indies out of the match.”I am not going to take anything away from the way Bishoo bowled because he bowled really, really well,” Arthur said. “I thought we gave him eight soft wickets. We were cutting against the spin, some lazy shots. That is something we have spoken hard about because that’s not how we play the game. We worked so hard to get ourselves in front of the game and then in one session we lost 6 for 11 and that gave West Indies a sniff. We want to be better than that. We want to be a team that closes the opposition out when we get the opportunity and we didn’t.”The message was very simple: we wanted a score of 180 in 45-50 overs. We felt that would have given us 25-30 overs tonight and a full day tomorrow. So we were looking at 180 in probably 45 overs at the most and we played poorly.”Bishoo, whose returns of 8 for 49 were the best by a visiting bowler in Asia, said he had reflected on his performance in the first innings – 2 for 125 in 35 overs – and decided to bowl straighter, targeting the stumps, in the second innings.”Last evening I spent some time thinking about how I had bowled in the first innings and I was bowling most likely fourth-fifth stump and they were cutting the ball down to cover for a single all the time,” Bishoo said. “So I tried to bowl straighter on the stumps. I expected the ball to spin more on the fourth and the fifth days, and that’s exactly what happened. I used the rough a little and I tried to use the crease a bit more and tried to bowl more on the stumps.”Arthur said the batting implosion had forced Pakistan to play slightly defensively when West Indies came out to chase on the fourth evening. He said the team was working towards eradicating issues, like the sudden collapse, from their game.”We’ve batted really well, certainly through the Test matches in England I thought we were excellent, and we were brilliant in the first innings here. So that is something we are trying to eradicate. We want to get this completely out of our game. Consistency is something we need to keep working on, we are talking long and hard about it.”We were disappointed that we took our foot off their throat and gave them a glimpse into the game when we should have put them out of it. Because what that would have done for our spinners tomorrow is it would have allowed us to have close catchers for longer. So tonight we have a man at sweeper and we haven’t got a silly point to Bravo and that’s simply because the game is getting closer.”

A century from Faf du Plessis lifted South Africa to 9 for 259 before they declared on the first day in Adelaide

The Report by Brydon Coverdale24-Nov-2016
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsMitchell Starc struck the first blow•Getty Images

His innings was mint, his declaration sweet. He took the shine off all of Australia’s fine bowling and silenced the lollygagging Australian fans. There, the terrible puns are out of the way early. Now for the substance, and on the first day – and night – at Adelaide Oval, everything Faf du Plessis did was of substance. From the moment he walked to the crease, things were against him. The pink ball was swinging, the Australians were on top, the score was 3 for 44. And du Plessis walked out to the sound of a booing crowd.But if the spectators remembered du Plessis’ previous visit to the ground, when he blockaded for 376 balls on debut to salvage an unlikely draw, they would have known he is a hard man to perturb. And with his ball-tampering conviction behind him, du Plessis had but one focus: leading his team back into this match. When he ran off late in the evening at 9 for 259, a hundred to his name and an aggressive declaration forcing Australia’s openers to bat for an awkward period under lights, he had done so.By Test standards it was an exceptionally early declaration, coming after only 76 overs of the first innings of the match. But perhaps he had noted that David Warner had been off the field being treated for a shoulder injury, and thus a declaration would mean Warner was prevented from opening the innings. In any case, although the debutant No.11 Tabraiz Shamsi had fun swinging the bat, there seemed little to be gained from batting on.If South Africa’s bowlers did not strike, they at leasted tested Australia’s openers. It took 38 balls for Australia to find any runs off the bat, a single through midwicket from Usman Khawaja, sent out to open because Warner could not. Next ball, the debutant Matt Renshaw got off the mark in Tests with a boundary tucked off his hip from his 19th delivery. By stumps, Australia were 0 for 14, with Renshaw on 8 and Khawaja on 3. But on day two, they would have to get set once again.And if day one proved anything, it was that getting set against the swinging and seaming pink ball was a challenge. In the third over of the match, Stephen Cook was lbw to Mitchell Starc for 4, only to be reprieved because it was a no-ball. But Dean Elgar, Hashim Amla and JP Duminy had no such luck as they each fell with scores of 5, all to edges behind the wicket. In fact, every wicket until the eighth fell to catches behind the wicket.Elgar edged a swinging ball from Starc and was snapped up at third slip by Usman Khawaja, Amla nicked Hazlewood and was caught by Renshaw low to his right at first slip, and Duminy gave Matthew Wade his first Test catch in more than three years when he inside-edged behind off Hazlewood. South Africa were 3 for 44, and du Plessis was walking to the crease. His team needed something special, and du Plessis duly delivered an innings of remarkable character.Faf du Plessis embraces Kagiso Rabada after bringing up his hundred•Getty Images

When given width outside off he drove extremely well, but he also picked off runs through midwicket when the bowlers strayed onto his pads. He struck 17 boundaries, more than half of them off Starc. He brought up his fifty from 92 deliveries, and his century from 147. By that stage he had the No.10 for company, wickets having fallen regularly throughout the innings. They just weren’t falling at his end. When he declared, he had 118 off 164 balls.Du Plessis was the anchor but needed help along the way. First it came in a 51-run stand with Cook, who used his early reprieve to reach his highest score of the tour. Cook went to the tea break on 40 but could not add to his score upon the resumption, and edged Starc to Steven Smith at second slip. It left South Africa at 4 for 95, with two wickets each to Starc and Hazlewood, who were the most dangerous of the bowlers.Jackson Bird, playing his first Test since the tour of New Zealand in February, struggled to find his rhythm early and leaked runs, but improved after tea and was rewarded when Temba Bavuma edged him behind for 8. Quinton de Kock struck a brisk 24 before edging Hazlewood behind and it was the first time on this trip that de Kock had failed to reach fifty in any innings – Test or tour match – and it ended his run of five consecutive Test scores of fifty or more.Hazlewood snared his fourth wicket just before dinner when Vernon Philander was given out caught behind for 4, only to ask confidently for a review as the ball had brushed his leg on the way through to Wade. However, the thinnest imaginable spike on Real-Time Snicko suggested there might have been a faint inside edge before the ball struck Philander, and third umpire Aleem Dar upheld the on-field decision.Still Australia could not run through the tail. Kyle Abbott contributed 17 from 50 balls and put on 54 with du Plessis for the eighth wicket – the highest partnership of the innings – before he was lbw to Bird. The final wicket came when Kagiso Rabada dragged his back foot just outside his crease off Nathan Lyon and was stumped by Matthew Wade, giving Lyon his first wicket since the first innings of the Perth Test, and ending his 660-ball drought.And yet still South Africa fought. Shamsi, on debut and with a first-class average of 8.18, struck an unbeaten 18 in a 39-run stand before his partner, du Plessis, called an end to the innings. The result was a Test match poised in a fascinating position at stumps on day one. And all because of du Plessis, who had made 118 out of 259 and then wrong-footed Australia with his declaration. If he has had a week to forget, at least this was a day to remember.