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Sri Lanka chip away in second innings, but their batting collapse on 13-wicket day could prove costly

Liam Brickhill14-Feb-2019South Africa extended their lead to 170 by stumps on the second day of a fast-moving Test at Kingsmead, but lost four wickets in the process. This kept Sri Lanka just about in the game, their persistence with the ball making up a little for their brittleness with the bat as their top order offered flair, but little substance. Kusal Perera’s 51 was the top score in their 191.Dale Steyn collected 4 for 48, moving ahead of Kapil Dev on the all-time wicket-takers list to bowl Sri Lanka out in just over two sessions. Then in the evening, debutant Lasith Embuldeniya took two wickets, and Kasun Rajitha and Vishwa Fernando one each, to keep South Africa to 126 for 4 at the close.Rajitha struck first for the visitors after South Africa started their second innings after tea, with Aiden Markram offering a lose waft to slip after a breezy 28. Vishwa then found a little extra bounce off a length to surprise Hashim Amla into a glide into the hands of gully, and soon afterwards, Embuldeniya rushed one through Temba Bavuma’s sweep to trap him lbw and reduce South Africa to 77 for 3.Sri Lanka may have found themselves in an even better position had they been able to take the opportunities that came their way. Probing but largely without luck, Vishwa should have had a second wicket – and Sri Lanka a third in the space of four overs – when he found the edge of Elgar’s bat before he had made 30, only for Kusal Mendis to put a relatively tough offering down in the slips.Sri Lanka also missed a clear chance to run Faf du Plessis out early in his innings, but a fumble at cover saw it go begging. Embuldeniya held a stinging return catch to get rid of Elgar before too much damage had been done, but du Plessis and Quinton de Kock added an unbroken 31 thereafter.While there is still only a fine line separating these two teams in this match, Sri Lanka had started the day in a position of relative strength. But Steyn’s repeated incisions, and the inability of the top order to dig in, eroded that position as the day wore on.Steyn wasn’t the fastest South African bowler on show – both Kagiso Rabada and Duanne Olivier bowled quicker, with Rabada nudging towards 150kph at times – but the Sri Lankan lower order, nevertheless, struggled to deal with his attacking lengths.Sri Lanka also made things harder for themselves as, within the first thirty minutes of play, they had already declined to take a review that would have saved debutant Oshada Fernando when he was given out lbw to Steyn. Replays proved the ball would’ve missed leg stump. Having failed to use one when they could’ve been saved, they burnt one when Dimuth Karunaratne was given out and replays only served to confirm the umpire’s call.AFP

Neither Kusal Mendis nor Niroshan Dickwella lasted long, undone by Vernon Philander’s persistent line in the channel and Olivier’s disconcerting bounce respectively. But at the other end, Kusal Perera refused to allow the dismissals to slow his tempo. Having taken back to back boundaries off Philander, he crunched Rabada on the up through cover and then lifted the same bowler for six over deep square leg to race into the 20s.Dhananjaya followed Kusal Perera’s lead in taking the attack to the bowlers, but moments before lunch his propensity to get after the bowling brought his downfall as he fell for a well-laid bouncer trap that was executed by Rabada.Kusal Perera brought up a 60-ball fifty but he was swiftly running out of partners and with the field spread, he eventually played one shot too many and swatted a slog straight to Zubayr Hamza – on the field as a substitute fielder – at deep extra cover.The short-ball approach from the quicks went into overdrive when South Africa exposed the soft underbelly of Sri Lanka’s tail. Stats revealed over a third of deliveries bowled at the Sri Lankans overall were bumpers.Like Embuldeniya, Rajitha was also in the firing line, particularly against Olivier, but he ducked and weaved bravely for almost an hour at the crease before the pair’s resistance was finally broken by an electric piece of reflex fielding by Markram at short leg, his stop-and-release run-out bringing an end to what was the longest partnership, in terms of balls faced, in the entire innings.Having resisted for over 90 minutes, Embuldeniya sliced a full ball from Rabada high in the air but only as far as Steyn, back-peddling from cover, to bring the innings to an end and prompt the umpires to call for an early tea. His two wickets later in the day meant that Sri Lanka aren’t out of the game yet, even if South Africa hold the advantage.

Sri Lanka’s ODI captaincy may pass back to Angelo Mathews, barely six months after he resigned from the position, or go to Test captain Dinesh Chandimal who has not consistently featured in the XI

Andrew Fidel Fernando04-Jan-2018Sri Lanka’s ODI captaincy may pass back to Angelo Mathews, barely six months after he resigned from the position, or it may go to Dinesh Chandimal, who has not consistently held a place in the XI.Thisara Perera captained Sri Lanka in the recent ODIs against India, but is now unlikely to be persisted with under head coach Chandika Hathurusingha’s new regime. The decision to strike out in another direction – the next World Cup only 18 months out – was made in a meeting featuring SLC office bearers, the selectors, and Hathurusingha, a board release said.”During the discussion, the Chairman of selectors informed me that they are considering appointing either Angelo Mathews or Dinesh Chandimal to fill the role,” SLC president Thilanga Sumathipala said. The final decision is set to be announced on January 9 – before the team departs for the ODI tri-series in Bangladesh.That Mathews and Chandimal are even being considered makes plain the dearth of limited overs leadership for Sri Lanka. In addition to Perera, Upul Tharanga has also captained the side over the last year, but tasted very little success. Lasith Malinga might perhaps have been a captaincy option, had he not been dropped from the side.Although unlike Chandimal, Mathews earns an automatic place in the XI, his case is complicated by injury. Mathews has suffered from a raft of leg complaints over the past 18 months, missing whole tours and finding himself unavailable for months at a time. His latest injury was a hamstring strain, which ended his tour of India early.

Suresh Raina has been ruled out of the second ODI in New Delhi as he still continues to recover from viral fever that kept him out of the series opener in Dharamsala

ESPNcricinfo staff18-Oct-20161:13

Suresh Raina did not get enough time to recover for the second ODI after missing the first match in Dharamsala

Illness will keep Suresh Raina out of the second ODI as well, against New Zealand in Delhi, after he missed the opening match in Dharamsala. The team’s medical staff said there was insufficient time for Raina to recover from a bout of viral fever. No replacement was named for him.Raina was also unable to bat while captaining Uttar Pradesh in the first round of the Ranji Trophy on October 6.Raina last played and ODI in October 2015, having not been picked for the ODI series in Australia and was not part of a second-string team that toured Zimbabwe. He was not chosen to play the T20Is against West Indies in Florida either. He was recalled for the home series against New Zealand on the basis of his ability to also provide some part-time spin, since R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja were rested.

Fast bowler Rusty Theron has retired from South African domestic cricket following continual knee problems, but he remains available to play in T20 leagues

Firdose Moonda08-Oct-2015Fast bowler Rusty Theron has retired from South African domestic cricket following continual knee problems, but he remains available to play in T20 leagues.* Theron played four ODIs and nine T20s for South Africa between October 2010 and March 2012 and was a senior member of the Warriors franchise. He played his last game for them in February.”After the CPL this year and a bothersome knee, I decided to focus on my studies for now. I will still be looking to forward to the CPL, IPL and some cricket in the UK as of next year when I have had some time to work on and settle the niggles that have bugged me for the last while,” Theron told ESPNcricinfo.Theron’s hand was forced during the Caribbean Premier League this year when he suffered a knee injury from which he did not think he would recover in time to honour his deal with the Warriors. Theron was only due to turn our for them in the twenty-over competition but withdrew to concentrate on his studied in the USA and allow his knee to settle.Theron had a reputation for being a skillful death bowler, and earned a national contract before he even played a game for South Africa. He was contracted in February 2010, after a season in which he played a major role in the Warriors winning their first, and to date, only trophies in the franchise era. They lifted both the forty-over and twenty-over cups and Theron was their leading wicket-taker in both competitions. In the forty-over tournament, he was the leading bowler overall with 21 wickets from nine matches at 18.80 and in the twenty-over event, he was third overall with 11 wickets from eight matches at 19.27.Theron took 12 wickets in 50-over cricket at 14.41 and 12 again in T20 cricket at an average of 21.75, which included series against India and Australia. However, he struggled to establish a regular place for himself in a career that was plagued by injury.A stress fracture kept him out of cricket for almost a full season in the 2012-13 summer. Trouble with his knee meant he did not play any first-class cricket last season too. Theron has relocated to the USA where he is studying English and hopes to go into teaching on his return home.Theron’s retirement has left the Warriors without an international seamer after Wayne Parnell moved to the Cobras over the winter. They have some experience in the form of Basheeru-Deen Walters and will bank on the likes of Simon Harmer, who is part of South Africa’s Test squad, to mentor a young attack.*14.00GMT, October 8: This article was updated after Rusty Theron spoke to ESPNcricinfo.

Nasir Hossain was pleased to have reached his maiden Test century, after squandering a couple of chances late last year

Mohammad Isam in Galle11-Mar-2013Bangladesh finished their most productive innings in Test cricket with three centuries in Galle – the first time they had achieved that. Nasir Hossain was the last of the three centurions, but his performance was as important to the team as those of their captain Mushfiqur Rahim and Mohammad Ashraful.Nasir scored 100 and helped Bangladesh pass Sri Lanka’s 570 for 4. His 106-run stand with Mushfiqur helped the captain worry less about the scoring rate as he approached his double-hundred, the first by a Bangladesh player. The pair batted at 3.87 runs per over, and by the time their stand ended, Bangladesh were dictating terms.Nasir also added 31 and 37 for the seventh and eighth wicket, with Sohag Gazi and Abul Hasan. His maiden century came on the back of scores of 96 and 94 in the last two Tests, against West Indies at home. On both occasions he was the ninth batsman out, though he spent just five and two balls in the nineties respectively in those two innings. So he took extra care this time, but he did offer a chance when his lofted on-drive just missed the fingers of mid-on. That shot took him from 90 to 94. He took only singles in the next ten deliveries to reach the milestone.”I am very happy that I could see it through this time,” Nasir told ESPNcricinfo. “It wasn’t a great feeling to be dismissed in the 90s. I got out just before tea in one of the innings, so it was really important that I got a hundred when I had another opportunity today.”Tamim bhai was telling me that you could have had three centuries if you had scored those hundreds. I was telling myself that yes, it could have been three hundreds on the trot. But everything happens for a reason.”During his short career of six Tests before this game, Nasir has had to curb his natural instincts by playing to the situation. Chief selector Akram Khan, after picking him for the first time in 2011, said that was Nasir’s strength.On this occasion, Nasir padded up on the third morning, when Mushfiqur and Ashraful got together, and sat like that for an entire day. On the fourth morning, he was called into action after 17 minutes, when Ashraful fell. Coming in to bat with the team on 444 for 5, it is easy to slip into a casual mindset. Nasir, however, made it a point to enjoy the challenge.”We have some very good batsmen in the top and middle order. I enjoy batting at this number. But it is not without its challenges,” he said. “I am presented with different situations every day. I sometimes have to face the second new ball, adjust between old and new balls and also sometimes I have to make runs quickly.”Nasir has bigger challenges to face this year and in the future. His biggest advantage is his ability to withstand pressure, and though it is just his seventh Test, such traits often help in the most difficult situations.

Runs from Gary Wilson and Ed Joyce combined with some tight bowling at the death helped Ireland sneak a two-run win over Kenya and wrap up the Twenty20 series 3-0

ESPNcricinfo staff24-Feb-2012
ScorecardRuns from Gary Wilson and Ed Joyce combined with some tight bowling at the death helped Ireland sneak a two-run win over Kenya and wrap up the Twenty20 series 3-0.With 13 balls of the innings remaining, Kenya had six wickets in hand and only 11 runs required for victory. But after Tanmay Mishra was dismissed for 37 off the final delivery of the 18th over, Ireland ruthlessly strangled the lower order. George Dockrell removed Ragheb Aga and conceded just four off his final over, leaving John Mooney to defend seven: he leaked four, and had Alex Obanda caught, to seal a nail-biting win.Kenya had failed to defend the same total in the first T20 on Wednesday but looked to be well set for a consolation victory at 59 for 2 in the 13th over. However, Boyd Rankin’s dismissal of Collins Obuya for 42 checked the hosts’ progress and despite a 35-run partnership between Mishra and Aga, Ireland held their nerve.The tourists’ effort had been built on solid middle-order contributions from Wilson and Joyce but they were the only Irishmen to reach double-figures on another spin-friendly pitch. Slow left-armer Shem Ngoche claimed his best T20 figures of 4 for 14 but in the end the 55-run stand between Wilson and Joyce provided the central plank of Ireland’s victory.

Lord MacLaurin, the former chairman of the ECB, has laid into the “crazy” schedule that England’s cricketers have been subjected to in Australia this winter, but believes it will have little bearing on their performance in the World Cup

Andrew Miller07-Feb-2011Lord MacLaurin, the former chairman of the ECB, has laid into the “crazy” schedule that England’s cricketers have been subjected to in Australia this winter, but believes that their 6-1 thrashing in the one-day leg of a four-month tour will have little bearing on their performance in the forthcoming World Cup.The England team arrives back in the UK on Tuesday afternoon, almost exactly a month after retaining the Ashes in style with an innings-and-83-run victory in the fifth and final Test at Sydney.At the time, the achievement was rightly hailed as one of the most meticulously planned successes in the history of English cricket, with the ECB’s planners and the team’s back-room staff earning as much credit for their efforts as the players themselves. However, in the wake of their one-day drubbing, the team’s welcoming committee is unlikely to be as rapturous as might have been the case in the immediate aftermath of the Test series.What is more, the players themselves are unlikely to be particularly high-spirited either, seeing as they will be reconvening at the airport on Saturday after just three days with their families, ahead of their departure for Dhaka and a further seven-week stint at the World Cup. England’s coach, Andy Flower, voiced his own frustration at the end of the Australia tour, and called for a greater say in the team’s future plans.”I think it’s a crazy itinerary,” Lord MacLaurin told ESPNcricinfo. “You are asking a load of guys to go out to Australia for 100 days, and concentrate on a Test series in which they did extraordinarily well, so I’m sure they would say that the one-day series is after the Lord Mayor’s show. Do you really want to go into seven ODIs when you’ve been at high-pitch Test cricket for a number of weeks, especially when they did supremely well?”During his tenure as the first chairman of ECB from 1997 to 2003, MacLaurin was credited with a number of initiatives that transformed the standing of English cricket, including the standardisation of the team’s uniform and a better presentation of the players when at home and on tour. In many ways, the 2010-11 Ashes was the ultimate statement of the team’s new-found professionalism – however, no-one has been able to legislate for an itinerary that has been designed to exhaust.On the morning after the series win in Sydney, the players were sent on a long-distance coach trip to Canberra to prepare for the ODI series, and amid an itinerary that included a further eight internal flights, they have succumbed to a host of injuries – the most recent of which is the broken finger that now jeopardises Eoin Morgan’s participation in the World Cup.”I think we’d all agree that the past seven matches have been a bit futile, and I don’t think anybody’s learnt too much about each other from that,” said MacLaurin. “The Ashes campaign was a magnificent effort from all concerned – it was very, very well planned and all credit to them – but I wouldn’t worry about the one-day defeat, to be quite honest with you. I think the team needs a bit of a break, and I think they will do reasonably well at the World Cup.”The situation mirrors that which England encountered in the winter of 1995-96, shortly before the start of MacLaurin’s tenure as ECB chairman, in which they went to an Asian World Cup on the back of a tiring Test series in South Africa and a subsequent 6-1 ODI defeat, and were humbled by Sri Lanka in a seminal quarter-final in Faisalabad.While MacLaurin maintained that, ultimately, the volume of international cricket was an ICC concern, he believed that the professionalism of the current squad was such that they would be more than capable of rising to their next challenge.”I think the whole thing is better managed these days,” said MacLaurin. “I don’t think anyone particularly wanted these seven matches, but I’m sure there’s a lot of steel in this side, a lot of determination, and a lot of very good leadership, and we probably didn’t have that all those years ago – in fact I’m sure we didn’t have it.”Mike Atherton, England’s captain during that 1996 campaign, reiterated MacLaurin’s faith in the current set-up. “This squad is better able to cope with the itinerary, because they have been very successful over the last two years,” he told ESPNcricinfo. “Beating Australia in the Tests, actually hammering them, will give them a deep well of confidence going into the World Cup.”A pounding in the ODIs is not ideal, but they are better able to come back from that, for a number of reasons,” Atherton added. “They are far more experienced in the subcontinent than our squad was, and these days, they are playing a style of game all year round, in England and abroad, in which they go out and try to whack it from ball one. You just feel it’s not going to affect them as much as it would have done ten or so years ago.””I have huge confidence in the abilities of Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower, and all those associated with the ECB,” added MacLaurin. “I’ve been vocal about one of two things about the ECB since I left office, but you have to give credit where credit is due, and the set-up there now is good, and to win the Ashes is a huge, huge achievement. I still think we might surprise a few people in the World Cup, and I wouldn’t take too much notice of this last 6-1.”

A round-up of the third day’s action in the fifth round of matches of the 2009-10 Regional Four-Day Competition

Cricinfo staff15-Feb-2010The final day at the Guyana National Stadium promises to be gripping after tournament leaders Jamaica and Combined Campuses & Colleges played out an engaging third day. From 37 for 2 Jamaica crashed to 164 to leave CCC a target of 206; by stumps they were 91 runs away at 115 for 4. Kavesh Kantasingh’s four wickets did most of the damage for Jamaica, who were indebted to Donovan Pagon’s second half-century of the match. Three wickets down the order to the legspinner Gavin Wallace further dented Jamaica, who failed to cash in on a first-innings lead of 41. CCC’s openers Omar Phillips and Jamal Smith put on 62 before Tamar Lambert, Jamaica’s captain, picked up 3 for 18 from 16 overs. The match remained interestingly poised with CC captain Floyd Reifer’s presence on 25.Omari Banks continued to be the main player for Leeward Islands against Windward Islands at the Bourda. After snaring a career-best seven-wicket haul on day two, Banks hit a half-century to help Leewards reach a poor score of 198. With a lead of 143 overnight, Leewards – yet to win a game this season – collapsed in 63 overs. Banks’ 93-ball 57 was crucial and he added 82 for the fifth wicket with his captain Steve Liburd (48). The other men to reach double digits were Kieran Powell (29), Mali Richards (20) and Montcin Hodge (19) as Nelon Pascal and Rawl Lewis shared the spoils. Pascal picked up 4 for 4 and the veteran Lewis 3 for 39. That helped set Windwards a target of 320 and they were 128 for 4 at the close with
Andre Fletcher (46) and Pascal (11), sent in as nightwatchman, at the crease.Barbados remained on top of Guyana at the Albion Sports Complex despite a fightback from the hosts on day three. Guyana, chasing 329 to win, were 59 for 3 at stumps to give Barbados hopes of their third win of the season. Devendra Bishoo’s 5 for 45 – making it ten in the match – was followed by a declaration with Barbados 154 for 9; soon afterwards Guyana lost three wickets for 18 runs. Tino Best, who picked up six wickets earlier in the day, struck first when he dismissed the struggling Guyana captain Sewnarine Chattergoon caught at square leg for 20. Sulieman Benn and Pedro Collins then struck as Guyana fell from 35 for 0 to 53 for 3.Guyana had resumed play on 189 for 7 and were bowled out for 229 to give Barbados a lead of 174, with Best in good form with 6 for 65 and Ryan Hinds claiming 3 for 49. Barbados’ decision not to enforce the follow-on surprised many and there was not much to speak of from the batsmen apart from a cameo 36 from Veerasammy Permaul. Bishoo’s five game him match figures of 10 for 120, the first such instance in his career, and Chattergoon brought himself on and bowled 28 consecutive overs either side of lunch for figures of 2 for 35.