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Western Australia ended a two-year wait for a Shield victory in thrilling fashion when Nathan Coulter-Nile claimed the final South Australia wicket with the penultimate ball of the match

ESPNcricinfo staff13-Feb-2011
Scorecard
Western Australia ended a two-year wait for a Shield victory in thrilling fashion when Nathan Coulter-Nile claimed the final South Australia wicket with the penultimate ball of the match. It gave Coulter-Nile four scalps while Michael Hogan bagged three in a collective effort from the attack, but Graham Manou and the tail almost secured the visitors a drawWestern Australia declared at their overnight score of 9 for 324, leaving South Australia a tough target of 378. James Smith and Daniel Harris began in steady fashion, adding 45, before Hogan intervened. One wicket led to another, as Michael Klinger departed two balls after Harris, leaving his side in trouble.Aiden Blizzard added 38 runs with Smith before Coulter-Nile struck for the first time in the day. Within the space of two overs the visitors had lost their top order as Aaron O’Brien and Daniel Christian fell for ducks. Smith’s dismissal for 65 suggested an early finish to proceedings.However, Manou resisted with a gutsy innings and found stubborn support from the lower order. Rob Cassell (4) faced 55 deliveries until he was lbw to Michael Beer and Manou was caught behind with 10 overs remaining. Jake Haberfield and Peter George, who has a first-class average of three, almost denied Western Australia the outright victory but George edged into the slips in the dying moments.The defeat pushed them to the bottom of the table, while the hosts are level on 14 points with Victoria and Queensland.

To achieve the same undefeated run with a young, developing squad this season has meant a lot to Ponting, who is now 35 and moulding a group he hopes can take back the Ashes and defend the World Cup within the next year

Brydon Coverdale at the MCG19-Feb-2010The only other time Australia went through a home summer unbeaten in Tests and ODIs, Ricky Ponting was 26, Steve Waugh was captain, the team was full of stars and they beat up West Indies and Zimbabwe. To achieve the same undefeated run with a young, developing squad this season has meant a lot to Ponting, who is now 35 and moulding a group he hopes can take back the Ashes and defend the World Cup within the next year.Two Twenty20s still remain but in the two longer formats, his men have been unstoppable. There was a drawn Test in Adelaide and an ODI washout in Sydney, but no games were lost. After the 125-run victory over West Indies at the MCG, Ponting said he was thrilled with the size of Australia’s wins, which included four ODI wins with victory margins of over 100 runs against West Indies and Pakistan.”I’m really proud of what we’ve done this summer,” Ponting said. “There can be a lot said about the opposition but one-day cricket tends to bring a lot of teams closer together and we haven’t allowed that to happen this summer in the nine completed games that we’ve played, so I’m proud of the boys for that.”I thought this was a bit of a dangerous game for us, the West Indies almost having a nothing-to-lose sort of attitude and probably a little bit of extra pressure on us to get out there and finish the summer on a good note. To the guys’ credit, once again we found something a little bit even better than we’ve shown right through the summer.”One of the most pleasing aspects of the one-day portion has been the way the rank-and-file members of the side have stood up. This time it was James Hopes, who began the summer as a fringe ODI player and was named Man of the Match for his brutal half-century, while Adam Voges, who has been an even more peripheral player, helped him with an unbeaten 45.Doug Bollinger continued his stranglehold over Chris Gayle, Ryan Harris took his wicket tally to 21 in eight ODIs, and Clint McKay pushed his case to remain a first-choice fast man. The win took Australia’s tally to 24 successes from 27 completed ODIs since the end of the Ashes and it has put them in a strong position a year away from the World Cup, where they will defend their title with a new-look squad.”I thought [Hopes] was terrific in Brisbane and showed some really good signs over there,” Ponting said. “He was terrific tonight. That sort of hitting at the end of the innings is what you’re always looking for. It hasn’t just been him. I was really happy for Vogesy tonight, to get that opportunity and capitalise the way he did was great.”You look at Harris and Bollinger and McKay and those guys … they’ve not let any one game get away from them and that’s a terrific attitude to have around our group. There’s a little bit of competition for spots and guys are working exceptionally hard. We’ve unearthed some players this summer and that’s going to be good in 12 months time with a World Cup.”There have been few positives for West Indies during the limited-overs games. Their disappointing trip culminated in their worst all-round effort in the final game as they dropped five catches, allowed Australia to post the third-highest ODI total ever scored at the MCG, and then lost three wickets in the first four overs.”We played terrible in all three departments,” the coach David Williams said. “I think we fielded decent up until this game but to drop five catches in 50 overs, that tells a lot. It was really disappointing.”We didn’t get good starts and that’s important in one-day cricket. All four games we struggled at the top of the order. We exposed the middle order a little bit too early. It was always difficult coming from behind playing against a top-class side.”

A brief recap of the second round of games in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2025-26

Shashank Kishore28-Nov-2025

Mhatre’s maiden ton studs Mumbai win

Ayush Mhatre continued his exciting initiation into top-flight cricket with a 53-ball 110 in Mumbai’s convincing win over Vidarbha as they made it two in two. Mumbai chased down 193 with 13 balls to spare and seven wickets in hand.Named India Under-19 captain for the Asia Cup earlier in the day, this was Mhatre’s maiden T20 century. His knock contained eight fours and eight sixes. Mhatre’s knock paved the foundation, while Suryakumar Yadav (35 off 30) and Shivam Dube (39 off 19) polished off the chase. Mhatre’s century made him the youngest man (18 years, 135 days) to get hundreds in first-class, List-A and T20s, shaving more than a year from Rohit Sharma’s record (19 years, 339 days). He also became the third-youngest to hit a men’s T20 century, after Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Vijay Zol.Dube also continued to be relied on as a handy seam option, picking up 3 for 31 off his four overs. He has now bowled seven overs across two matches for four wickets.

Shaw half-century gives Maharashtra first win

Prithvi Shaw marked his captaincy debut for Maharashtra with a sparkling 36-ball 66 in an eight-wicket win over Hyderabad. It was Maharashtra’s first win in the competition, as they hunted down 192 with eight balls to spare. Arshin Kulkarni anchored the chase superbly, finishing unbeaten on 89 off 54 deliveries to seal victory.

Samson misses out; Kerala lose

Kerala stumbled against Railways, losing by 32 runs after failing to chase down a modest 150 in Lucknow. Sanju Samson, who opened the tournament with a half-century, was out for 19 off 25 balls, while Rohan Kunnummal, his opening partner who made an unbeaten 60-ball 121 in Wednesday’s win over Odisha, managed just 8.

Chahal, Sindhu shine; Haryana clinch Super Over

Haryana edged out Punjab in a tense Super Over finish to claim their first win of the tournament. Punjab’s chase of 208 was driven by Anmolpreet Singh’s 37-ball 81, but Yuzvendra Chahal turned the tide with a vital double-strike, removing Salil Arora and Nehal Wadhera in quick succession.Related

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Punjab’s chase grew increasingly chaotic: Gurnoor Brar was retired out after a scratchy 8 off 10 balls, before Sanvir Singh (30* off 16) and Harpreet Brar (10* off four) somehow stretched the game into a Super Over. There, Punjab mustered only a single run while losing Abhishek Sharma and Sanvir. Haryana needed just one delivery in response, striking a boundary first ball to clinch a dramatic win.Nishant Sindhu top-scored for Haryana in regulation time with a 32-ball 61. He had also played a key role in their opening game, hitting a cameo 33 while also picking up 2 for 28.

All-round Anukul stuns Karnataka

After returning figures of 2 for 13 in three overs to restrict Karnataka to 157 for 9, Anukul Roy, the left-handed allrounder, single-handedly took Jharkhand home in a tense final-over finish.With no other batter scoring more than 15, Jharkhand’s chase came down to how long Anukul could steer the innings, and he did that by scoring an unbeaten 95 in 58 balls. Wickets kept tumbling around No. 5 Anukul, with seven batters returning single-digit scores, but his nine fours and five sixes earned Jharkhand their second win in two games to move atop Group D.

Venkatesh shines; Jitesh, Suryavanshi fall cheaply

Released by KKR after being bought for a hefty INR 23.5 crore last year, Venkatesh Iyer offered a timely reminder of his value in the middle order with an unbeaten 55 off 34 balls in Madhya Pradesh’s 62-run win over Bihar. This was their first win in the competition.Set 175, Bihar collapsed for 112. Fourteen-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi, almost certain to feature in the upcoming Under-19 World Cup, has so far made 14 and 13 in his two outings. With one win from two matches, MP will also be lifted by the return of Rajat Patidar for their third game on Sunday.Vaibhav Suryavanshi started SMAT 2025 with a couple of low scores•PTI

Meanwhile, Jitesh Sharma’s stint with his new team Baroda hasn’t started the way he would’ve liked. After making 4 on debut in a defeat against Bengal, he managed just 5 in Friday’s loss against Puducherry. Baroda have now lost both their games. Adil Ayub Tunda, the fast bowler from Jammu and Kashmir who has impressed several talent scouts, picked up 4 for 30 for Puducherry.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar led the stifling of LSG’s batters, before Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma blew away their bowlers

Sidharth Monga08-May-20242:24

Deep Dasgupta: Quite a statement from SRH

Sunrisers Hyderabad obliterated Lucknow Super Giants, first stifling them with the new ball and then sensationally chasing down 166 in just 9.4 overs – the highest 10-over score in any T20. The massive win lifted them to No. 3 on the points table with 14 points in 12 matches, and also gave them a much-needed net-run-rate boost. The chase was so brutal that LSG didn’t even bother with their Impact Player.A lot will rightly be spoken of the explosive batting of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma, who got to their fifties in 16 and 19 balls respectively, putting on a hundred between them inside the powerplay for the second time this IPL, both times the highest powerplay scores in all T20 cricket.Related

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However, it was with the ball that SRH set up the win. Bhuvneshwar Kumar led the way with figures of 4-0-12-2, conceding only singles, completely shutting down the LSG top order, which scored just 66 in the first 11.2 overs. That the top order had not been enterprising enough was underscored by the unbroken 99-run stand off 52 balls between Ayush Badoni and Nicholas Pooran, which eventually proved to be hopelessly inadequate.Mumbai Indians were collateral damage on the night, knocked out of contention for the playoffs by this result, the first team at IPL 2024 to be officially out.

Bhuvneshwar gets stuck in

A word about the fear surrounding the SRH batters first. It was that fear which, in part, prompted LSG to bat first. And then they ran into Bhuvneshwar, who was unerring in his length and drew movement off the pitch. Quinton de Kock – 66 off 66 off Bhuvneshwar in T20 cricket overall – managed just 1 off 4 off him, those four balls inclusive of a near-dismissal and his wicket, caught superbly by Nitish Reddy at deep-square leg.Bhuvneshwar Kumar nailed his match-up against Quinton de Kock•AFP/Getty Images

It was a sensational catch made to look easy as Reddy took it over his head, threw it back in the field of play, stepped out and came back to complete the catch, but Sanvir Singh soon outdid him with a low catch diving forward at mid-on to send back Marcus Stoinis. Bhuvneshwar ended the powerplay with 3-0-7-2. Add Shahbaz Ahmed’s 2-0-9-0 to that, and LSG had had their worst powerplay of the year: 27 for 2.IPL debutant, the Sri Lanka legspinner V Viyaskanth, kept the lid on after the powerplay only for Krunal Pandya to inject some momentum into the innings by hitting Jaydev Unadkat for successive sixes, the tournament’s 999th and 1000th. The first one was an extraordinary straight hook to a head-high slower bouncer over long-on. Little did we know the shot would become a mere footnote by the time the night was done.

Badoni, Pooran rescue LSG

KL Rahul, 29 off 33, perished trying to hit the pace of Pat Cummins, and Krunal was run out by the SRH captain and birthday boy as he tried to steal a single when the boundaries were not coming. It had taken 9.1 overs for the first four of the innings, but Badoni and Pooran found the boundary regularly. Badoni led the charge by moving around in the crease and manipulating the field, getting to a fifty in 28 balls. Pooran joined in towards the end, using the pace of T Natarajan and Cummins. Two of the quickest bowlers on display, Cummins and Natarajan, went for 97 between them.Ayush Badoni gave LSG a much-needed lift•BCCI

Head, Abhishek deliver the knockout punch

LSG tried to make use of the slow pitch by bowling K Gowtham’s offspin to the two left-hand openers, which was a sound-enough plan. With Head and Abhishek, though, plans hardly seem to matter. Head pulled Gowtham away for four in the first over, and Abhishek took down Yash Thakur in the second. Again, even Thakur seemed to be bowling to a sound plan: sweeper cover and deep-square leg, bowl into the pitch, but Abhishek pulled him in front of square. So he put two men back on the leg side, and Abhishek made room and carved him through point. By the time they had reached 25 in two overs, plans ceased to matter at all.Head and Abhishek just picked their spots and sent the ball there no matter the pace on the ball, no matter the length, no matter the fields. All told, the ball took that journey to the boundary once every second ball. You can take your pick from among Head’s kneel-down six into the sight screen, Abhishek’s languid pick-up over wide long-on off Badoni’s offspin, or his extra-cover drive for six to end the game… But try as you may, you will struggle to find a shot more incredible than Head off-driving Ravi Bishnoi off the back foot for a huge six over long-off.Head ended up with 89 off 30, and Abhishek, 75 off 28. Gowtham’s economy of 14.50 was the best among all the LSG bowlers.

In his upcoming autobiography, the Pakistan great has detailed his struggles with the habit, which he says ended when his first wife died in 2009

ESPNcricinfo staff29-Oct-2022Wasim Akram has opened up on his struggle with a cocaine addiction after his playing career ended, in his upcoming autobiography .Akram, Pakistan’s leading wicket-taker in both Test and ODI cricket, retired in 2003 after an 18-year international career, but continued to travel the world on commentary and coaching assignments. The cocaine habit, he says, began after he retired, when he started to crave a “a substitute for the adrenaline rush of competition”, and ended after the death of his first wife Huma in 2009.Extracts from his book, published alongside an interview in , paint a frank picture of Akram’s slide into addiction.”I liked to indulge myself; I liked to party,” he writes. “The culture of fame in south Asia is all consuming, seductive and corrupting. You can go to ten parties a night, and some do. And it took its toll on me. My devices turned into vices.”Worst of all, I developed a dependence on cocaine. It started innocuously enough when I was offered a line at a party in England; my use grew steadily more serious, to the point that I felt I needed it to function.”It made me volatile. It made me deceptive. Huma, I know, was often lonely in this time . . . she would talk of her desire to move to Karachi, to be nearer her parents and siblings. I was reluctant. Why? Partly because I liked going to Karachi on my own, pretending it was work when it was actually about partying, often for days at a time.”Huma eventually found me out, discovering a packet of cocaine in my wallet . . . ‘You need help.’ I agreed. It was getting out of hand. I couldn’t control it. One line would become two, two would become four; four would become a gram, a gram would become two. I could not sleep. I could not eat. I grew inattentive to my diabetes, which caused me headaches and mood swings. Like a lot of addicts, part of me welcomed discovery: the secrecy had been exhausting.”Akram retired with 414 wickets in Test cricket and 502 in ODIs – both remain Pakistan records•AFP

Akram went into rehab, finding the experience distressing – “The doctor was a complete con man, who worked primarily on manipulating families rather than treating patients, on separating relatives from money rather than users from drugs” – and ended up relapsing.”Try as I might, part of me was still smouldering inside about the indignity of what I’d been put through. My pride was hurt, and the lure of my lifestyle remained. I briefly contemplated divorce. I settled for heading to the 2009 ICC Champions Trophy where, out from under Huma’s daily scrutiny, I started using again.”Akram says the cocaine use ended after Huma’s death in October 2009 from the rare fungal infection mucormycosis.”Huma’s last selfless, unconscious act was curing me of my drug problem. That way of life was over, and I have never looked back.”Akram has since remarried, and has three children – two sons from his first marriage and a daughter from his second. In his interview with , he said he had written his book for his children.”I’m a bit anxious about the book,” he said, “but I think once it is out, I’ll be kind of over it. I’m anxious because at my age, I’m 56 and I’ve been diabetic for 25 years, it is just stress, you know . . . it was tough to revisit all the things. I’ve done it for my two boys, who are 25 and 21, and my seven-year-old daughter, just to put my side of the story.”

Jennings chimes in with 54* to help overhaul Northamptonshire with 26 balls to spare

ECB Reporters Network09-Jul-2021New Zealand opener Finn Allen made his third fifty in 11 Vitality Blast innings this season as Lancashire Lighting thrashed Northamptonshire Steelbacks by eight wickets at Emirates Old Trafford.Allen made 66 off 37 balls with seven fours and three sixes as his side overhauled the Steelbacks’ moderate total of 142 for 8 with 26 balls to spare.The result keeps Lightning’s hopes of qualifying for the quarter-finals very much alive but the Steelbacks’ chances are very slim after an evening in which the visitors were not on form in any of the three disciplinesNorthamptonshire’s innings got off to a dreadful start when they lost their openers Ben Curran and Ricardo Vasconcelos to catches in the deep in the first 11 balls. Steven Croft and Tom Hartley were the successful bowlers and they were joined by Liam Hurt in the fifth over when Josh Cobb clipped him to Danny Lamb at short fine leg and departed for 20.Poorly placed on 42 for 3 after their Powerplay, the Steelbacks’ reconstruction of their innings was left in the hands of Rob Keogh and Mohammad Nabi and this pair added 60 in nearly nine overs before Nabi was leg before wicket for 27 when attempting a pull off Lamb.Keogh went on to make a gutsy 56 despite appearing to suffer a leg injury but he was one of four wickets to fall in the final four overs as the Steelbacks’ innings ran out of steam.Lancashire’s cricket, by contrast, was outstanding with at least five fine catches being taken in the deep. Hurt’s 3 for 22 represented his best return in T20 cricket but no member of the Lightning attack was collared. Lamb took 2 for 27 and Luke Wells conceded only 18 runs from three overs of leg spin.Lancashire’s reply got off to a very brisk start with the fifty coming up in 33 balls and both Allen and Keaton Jennings scoring freely. The pair had set a first-wicket record for Lancashire against Northamptonshire before Allen pulled Nabi to Josh Cobb at midwicket.However, neither this wicket nor that of Alex Davies, caught at deep midwicket by Nabi off Freddie Heldreich for seven materially affected the outcome. Having reached his own fifty off 38 balls, nine balls more than Allen had taken, Jennings was unbeaten on 54 when victory was clinched by Dane Vilas’s massive six.

Batsman’s involvement in sordid WhatsApp group was revealed during Alex Hepburn trial

Jon Culley05-Feb-2020Joe Clarke was used to being in the spotlight. Since his debut for Worcestershire at the age of 18 in 2015, his story had encompassed only success and the promise of more. This time it was different.This time the headlines were not about Joe Clarke the England batsman in waiting, as they had tended to be during his rapid rise as the golden boy of New Road. They were about Clarke as a central figure in a grubby tale of sexist, misogynistic behaviour that many had imagined to belong to distant, less enlightened times, and which had profound consequences for one of those involved.Sitting in an office overlooking his new home ground at Trent Bridge, Clarke confides that the dark shadow cast by the episode is still there. “If I could go back and change what happened, I would,” he said. “For all the parties involved. That thought runs through my mind every day.”He is referring to the shocking consequences of a night out in Worcester almost three years ago that were thrust brutally into the public domain in January of last year, when his former Worcestershire team-mate, Alex Hepburn, now serving a prison sentence, stood trial on a charge that he had raped a woman in an apartment in the city centre. Clarke, who had gone to the bathroom to be sick and subsequently passed out there while the alleged offence was taking place, having previously had consensual sex with the same woman, appeared in court as a key witness.The trial concluded with the jury failing to reach a verdict but a retrial was scheduled for April, when Hepburn would be found guilty and sentenced to five years in custody. In the meantime, the emergence in the first trial of sordid messages exchanged between Hepburn, Clarke and another former New Road colleague, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, via WhatsApp, had led to Clarke and Kohler-Cadmore being withdrawn from an England Lions squad preparing to go to India, pending likely disciplinary action.By the time of the retrial, Clarke was two weeks into his debut season for Nottinghamshire, to whom he had moved at the end of the 2018 season. He did not need to miss any cricket in order to appear but when Hepburn’s guilty verdict was announced on April 12, Nottinghamshire were playing Somerset at Trent Bridge.At the end of the match, in which Clarke scored just two runs in each innings after making 112 and 97 not out on his Championship debut for the county the week before, Nottinghamshire head coach Peter Moores was reluctant to be drawn into discussing Clarke’s state of mind but admitted he had found it difficult to concentrate.His new employers hoped it would be a short-term distraction but it proved not to be the case. Clarke had been signed as one of the hottest young prospects around, a batsman who by 22 years old had scored more first-class hundreds than any English batsman at the equivalent age in the modern era apart from Alastair Cook. Yet his form for the remainder of the season, apart from an unexpected flourish in the final round of the Championship, betrayed only fleeting glimpses of the player Nottinghamshire thought they had signed.Subsequently, Clarke and Kohler-Cadmore were charged with bringing cricket into disrepute over their part in the unsavoury WhatsApp group and the crude game of sexual conquests it revealed. They were ultimately fined £2,000 each and banned for four matches, the suspension deemed to have already been served by the matches they missed by being dropped from the Lions tour.The punishment imposed by the ECB struck some as rather light, although it has to be remembered that however deplorable their behaviour might have been, neither Clarke nor Kohler-Cadmore had committed a criminal offence. There were punishments of another kind, though. Self-inflicted, psychological ones for which neither player seeks sympathy, but real nonetheless.ALSO READ: Kohler-Cadmore’s ‘U-turn’ deserves credit, but wider questions remain“It was difficult last season to go out there and focus on my game,” Clarke said. “It was the first time in my career that I’d walked out to the middle with something in my mind other than my batting.”Lots of players have things going on in their personal lives but after the court case mine were in the public domain, for everyone to see. I couldn’t leave them behind. I might try to but, in the early weeks of the season at least, I’d hear things said, sometimes in the crowd, sometimes by opposition players. Then it was at the front of my mind again.”Looking back now, the way I am now, I don’t think it would affect me as much as it did. But at the time it was very raw. There were so many emotions going through my mind.”Clarke struggled for form after a bright start to the Championship season•Getty Images

Some related to the damage done to how he was portrayed. “I had previously been associated only with positive things,” he said. “I’d been on four Lions tours in a career of only five or six years. If there was a story about Joe Clarke, it was about being one of the batters with a chance of playing for England. All positive.”I’d wanted to be seen here as Joe Clarke, the successful Nottinghamshire batsman. I felt all that was being taken away from me because now I had this other tag, and it stayed with me all season.”As soon as the extent of Clarke’s involvement in the WhatsApp group and the behaviour linked to it became apparent, Nottinghamshire made it clear to him that there was a level of conduct of which they expected none of their players to fall below.Yet, as with Alex Hales after the drug test failures that saw him cast out by England in a World Cup year, they wanted to help their player find a path forward and arranged for him to see a psychologist, which Clarke says helped him.Nonetheless, as match followed match with no sustainable improvement in his form, the county’s patience wore thin. Eventually he was dropped, from the Vitality Blast quarter-final against Middlesex and the subsequent Championship fixture. “It was the first time I had been dropped in my career and it was a hard thing to hear,” Clarke said.Inevitably, too, there were feelings of regret, even remorse about what he had allowed himself to become involved with.”It was a long time ago and it feels now like I was young and naive and probably immature in a way,” he said. “At the time, it felt like it was just three mates talking in a private chat but seeing it in the light that I see it now…”You look back and of course I regret it. Obviously I do. If I could take back everything that happened, in terms of the whole situation for all the parties involved, then I would. It runs through my mind every day.”But I am a lot older now. People might have judged me for what happened but I’ve learned a hell of a lot from my experiences and I think I’m going to be better for it. I’ve made some changes in my own way of life and in the way I train.”There is clearly regret, too, that he was not able to deliver the performances for Nottinghamshire that were expected of him in a season that ended in the most ignominious of relegations, without a single win to their name. “I was a new player with big expectations on me,” he said. “I wanted to be someone who was consistently performing and that did not happen.”If there was a benefit to be obtained from being dropped it was the chance for he and Moores to have one-to-one conversations purely about his cricket. As he grappled with his psychological problems, Clarke had neglected his technique but Moores was able to identify issues that were making him vulnerable.”We looked at some clips of Marnus Labuschagne,” Clarke said. “We thought that this was a batsman with similar movements and a similar game to mine. I came in on a day off and did some work, went back into the team for the last home game of the season and scored two hundreds.”It still was not enough to provide even a late-season glint of brightness in Nottinghamshire’s Championship season. Already relegated during the round that Clarke missed, they piled up a season-high 498 in the first innings but still managed to lose against opponents Warwickshire by eight wickets.A draw against Surrey in the final round completed a full summer without a Championship win in a campaign in which the travails of the team did little to improve Clarke’s state of mind. His own struggle for form was mirrored by several others, fellow new signings Ben Duckett and Ben Slater among them.”The dressing room was a tough place to be in terms with how we dealt with being relegated,” he said. “There were some very upset people, about individual form and the way our team had performed. The way we were relegated, in a year where only one team went down after we’d started among the favourites to win the title, was a really hard pill to swallow.”A winter of reflection, plus more new faces, has yielded renewed optimism. Clarke, confidence buoyed by those runs against Warwickshire and the bonus of a contract with Manchester Originals he knew nothing about until a congratulatory text arrived from a friend, is trying to see this year as his real debut season for Nottinghamshire and the last one as a false start. Kohler-Cadmore’s recall to the Lions squad is further encouragement.Tom Kohler-Cadmore is back in the England Lions squad in Australia•Getty Images

“I loved my time at Worcestershire but coming here seemed like the right next step and it was such a shame when there was so much expectation on me last year that I couldn’t perform the way I wanted,” he said.”I’ve not heard from anyone in the England set-up but I was led to believe that after the [disciplinary] hearing the selection criteria would be the same for me as anyone else. If I can score some runs and help Notts go straight back up we’ll see where it leads.”I can’t change what has been done, much as I’d like to. The only thing I can control is the future so I want to look forward now, rather than back.”All I can do is work as hard as I can and put in consistent performances for Nottinghamshire. If I’m doing that then I’m sure I’m knocking on the right door.”

Maddinson was struck by a short ball from Jhye Richardson and was forced to retire hurt

ESPNcricinfo staff09-Dec-2018Victoria’s progress into a strong position against Western Australia was overshadowed by a nasty injury to Nic Maddinson who suffered a fractured arm after being struck by a short ball from Jhye Richardson.An early tea was taken when Maddinson suffered the blow on his right forearm, immediately dropping his bat and reeling away in pain. The physio and doctor were quickly in the middle and Maddinson was soon being taken to a nearby hospital for scans which showed a fractured ulnar – the long bone in the forearm – which is expected to sideline him for four to six weeks.It was a cruel blow for Maddinson who had marked his Sheffield Shield debut for Victoria with a brilliant 162 in the first innings and it also comes less than two weeks before the start of the Big Bash.Either side of Maddinson’s injury, Victoria kept themselves in control as they secured a 128-run first-innings lead which they extended to 240 by the close.Will Pucovski, in his first match back since taking a break from the game, replaced Maddinson after tea and was unbeaten on 51 at the close alongside captain Travis Dean who overcame a lean run of form to reach 50.Ashton Turner provided resistance for Western Australia with 80 as the last four wickets added 111 to remove the threat of the follow-on with Josh Inglis and Richardson providing solid support. Turner was lbw to Jon Holland when in sight of a century as the left-arm spinner, capped for times at Test level, claimed 5 for 65 from 38.3 superbly controlled overs.

Kagiso Rabada completed the third 10-wicket haul of his 22-Test career, became the fifth-youngest to 100 Test wickets and went past 50 wickets for the calendar year as South Africa completed an innings and 254-run demolition of Bangladesh

The Report by Mohammad Isam08-Oct-20171:21

Moonda: Bangladesh just not able to cope with SA quality

Kagiso Rabada completed the third 10-wicket haul of his 22-Test career, became the fifth-youngest to 100 Test wickets and went past 50 wickets for the calendar year as South Africa completed an innings and 254-run demolition of Bangladesh. Bangladesh folded for 172, following on from their first-innings 147, inside two sessions on the third day to suffer their heaviest defeat in Tests against South Africa.South Africa had used the short ball to tremendous effect in the morning session to nip out four wickets and the core of Bangladesh’s batting. It took them just over an hour after the lunch break to carve up the remaining six. Rabada’s 10 for 63 is second only to Dale Steyn’s 11 for 60 among the most economical 10-wicket hauls for South African bowlers.It was hard to tell which innings went worse for the visiting team. For a very brief period of nine overs following the lunch interval, Bangladesh found some respite when Mahmudullah and Liton Das struck nine well-timed boundaries and punched 43 runs. Liton struck two each off Wayne Parnell and Andile Phehlukwayo, driving them through the covers twice and picking up the other two on the leg-side. Mahmudullah married grace with power and was partial to the cover region, where he collected five of his seven fours.But Phehlukwayo ensured it was short-lived when Liton Das, having misread the line, shouldered arms to be bowled. Next over, Rabada was back among the wickets when he had Mahmudullah slicing to be caught brilliantly by a diving Dean Elgar at gully. Sabbir Rahman committed a similar error and edged a catch to Faf du Plessis at second slip.Taijul Islam and Rubel Hossain lost their stumps to searing pace, giving Rabada his fourth and fifth scalps. Phehlukwayo then put Bangladesh out of their misery with his third wicket when Mustafizur Rahman’s leg stump was shattered.It was hardly a different story to what had transpired in the morning. South Africa unsettled Bangladesh with a barrage of short deliveries. Rabada found the outside edge of Soumya Sarkar when the batsman dangled his bat outside his off-stump and was smartly caught by a diving du Plessis at slip. He then struck Mominul Haque flush on the helmet before the ball deflected over the keeper. Two balls later, Mominul holed out to deep square leg off another short ball.So nasty were South Africa with the short stuff that in all three of Bangladesh’s batsmen were hit on the helmet. After Rabada, Duanne Olivier, who sent down a marathon 10-over spell, was responsible on two of those occasions. Mushfiqur was on the receiving end of the worst of those blows when took his eyes off one that climbed on him at pace, leaving him with little time to react. It forced a lengthy break in play with Mushfiqur receiving medical attention before he could get back up and resume his resistance. He was subsequently taken to the hospital during the break, where tests revealed that he was fine.South Africa, however, were relentless with the length. Imrul Kayes was strangled down the leg side when he tried to tuck a hip-high short ball from Olivier to be caught by Quinton de Kock. Imrul had made 32 that was characterised by some confident shots, but, for the most part, a lot of struggle.It was then the turn of Mahmudullah to cop a blow on the head, but he did well to steady himself and tackled the delivery better than the rest. South Africa would go on to strike one final time, at the stroke of lunch, when Mushfiqur misjudged Parnell’s line and offered his pad to a length ball that nipped in slightly to trap him in front of off. Mushfiqur opted to review, but replays showed that the impact was inside and the ball would have clipped off-stump, forcing the appeal to be withheld.As with the ball, South Africa were hardly pushed as a batting unit with four of their batsmen – Elgar, Aiden Markram, Hashim Amla and du Plessis – cracking hundreds. What must have been most encouraging would be the manner in which Rabada led the attack in their first Test without Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander since January 2007.

Amad Butt, the uncapped 21-year-old fast bowler, has been included in Pakistan’s 13-man squad for the one-off T20 against England, at Old Trafford, next week

ESPNcricinfo staff01-Sep-2016Amad Butt, the uncapped 21-year-old fast bowler, has been included in Pakistan’s 13-man squad for the one-off T20 against England, at Old Trafford, next week.The match will be Sarfraz Ahmed’s first as T20 captain after he was named in April as Shahid Afridi’s replacement following the World T20 in India.Butt, who was part of the recent Pakistan A tour of England, has 12 wickets in six T20 matches. He played in the Pakistan team that knocked out England in the semi-final of the 2014 Under-19 World Cup in the UAE.The top-order batsman Khalid Latif is also included alongside left-arm pace bowler Sohail Tanvir. Mohammad Irfran, who was a late addition to the one-day squad after Mohammad Hafeez was injured, is retained for the T20.From the one-day squad current playing in England, Sami Aslam, Yasir Shah, Umar Gul, Hasan Ali and ODI captain Azhar Ali are not included.Squad Sarfraz Ahmed (capt), Khalid Latif, Sharjeel Khan, Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Rizwan, Babar Azam, Mohammad Nawaz, Imad Wasim, Mohammad Amir, Wahab Riaz, Mohammad Irfan, Sohail Tanvir, Amad Butt