The National Cricket Academy could soon be shifted out of Bangalore, with Pune, Dharamsala and Mohali shortlisted as possible alternatives

Amol Karhadkar13-Aug-2015The National Cricket Academy’s restructured Centre of Excellence is likely to be shifted out of Bangalore. The NCA board, during its meeting in Delhi on Thursday, decided to move the premier training academy to a permanent facility with world class infrastructure and short-listed Pune, Dharamsala and Mohali as possible alternatives.Bangalore has been home to the NCA since it was founded in 2000. During a meeting on April 30, the NCA board, headed by MP Pandove, had held preliminary discussions over the possibility of moving it out due to impending issues over the 49-acre plot on the outskirts of the city. The BCCI had in 2013 decided to move the NCA from the Chinnaswamy Stadium premises to a new facility at Kurki, near the Bangalore airport, but the plan couldn’t take off since the plot that was bought was embroiled in a legal tangle.Pune may lose out to the two northern cities. Despite having perhaps the most modern cricket stadium in the country, the Maharashtra Cricket Association still does not have a residential academy. Mohali and Dharamsala, on the other hand, have residential academies run by the Punjab Cricket Association and the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association, respectively.Besides, some NCA board members, during Thursday’s meeting, were of the opinion that stationing the NCA in a city at a higher altitude may help cricketers increase their stamina. Dharamsala is situated roughly 1500m above sea level.The BCCI is likely to take the final call during its Annual General Meeting next month.

The most important moment in Hampshire’s fight to avoid relegation from Division One of the LV= Championship came in mid-afternoon – not at Trent Bridge, but at Headingley

David Hopps at Trent Bridge23-Sep-2015
ScorecardLiam Dawson continued his good form with 69•Getty Images

The most important moment in Hampshire’s fight to avoid relegation from Division One of the LV= Championship came in mid-afternoon – not at Trent Bridge, but at Headingley. It was the news that Sussex had been dismissed for 248 and narrowly missed a batting point. With that news, Hampshire instantly knew they would live to fight another day.Put simply, if Sussex lose to Yorkshire and Hampshire beat Notts, it would be Sussex who are relegated along with Worcestershire. There is life in this Division One relegation scrap yet. Hampshire, who looked as good as down a month ago, and who were said on these very pages, a little carelessly, to be “fighting a losing cause” after the first day were doing everything to question the notion.

Carter switch; Trent Bridge refit

Andy Carter has rejected a new deal with Nottinghamshire and will instead sign for Derbyshire. “I’ll have more chance to play all three formats at Derbyshire, which is where I think I should be,” he said.
Trent Bridge is set for an £8 million revamp. Nottingham’s reported that three local councils will give loans to cover the renovation of the pavilion, as well as refurbishment of the William Clarke Stand and media facilities. The works would be carried out during the winters of 2015-17.

Twice, at 89 for 5 and 203 for 8, their plight was obvious, only for Ryan McLaren and Gareth Berg to summon a defiant ninth-wicket stand of 95. When bad light took the players from the field for the second time, with more than 13 overs remaining, they trailed by only 42 runs, although they have a new ball less than two overs old to withstand in the morning.Liam Dawson’s 69 from 97 balls, ended when Steven Mullaney had him lbw, was another vital Hampshire contribution. “We bat a long way down and keep battling, that’s the make-up of our team,” said Dawson. “All we can hope is that Yorkshire do us a favour.” Well, they beat Hampshire last week, and they are the champions after all, so a favour would be nothing if not even-handed.Hampshire resumed with their first innings one ball old – enough for Stuart Broad to have sent the nightwatchman Ryan Stevenson packing – and it was not long before the left-arm quick Harry Gurney was making inroads into their top order.He struck with his first ball, a fortunate wicket as Jimmy Adams was strangled down the leg side, then followed up by having Will Smith caught at the wicket and silencing an attractive 42 from James Vince by bringing one back from around the wicket to bowl him off an inside edge. Brett Hutton then had Michael Carberry lbw.Dawson fashioned the recovery. He has been in excellent form since returning from a month’s loan at Essex, making 140 against Yorkshire in Hampshire’s last outing. Initial support came from Sean Ervine. But two o’clock arrived and, at the very moment the ECB announced, as planned, Samit Patel’s return to the England fold, Patel defeated Ervine’s vigorous attempt to hit down the ground, the catch smartly taken at mid-off by Broad, an England team-mate once more. Right on cue. If Samit did amateur dramatics (for which he has a wonderful range of facial expressions), he would not need a prompter.”From a position of 200 for 8 you would expect to knock over a side for less than 300,” Nottinghamshire’s director of cricket, Mick Newell, said, “but I think it’s a pretty good pitch but a slow pitch and that’s frustrated us today in terms of winkling out their lower order. They’ve obviously got two very good players in at 9 and 10 who made it very tough for us.”

A round-up of the Group A games of the Ranji Trophy 2015-16 season on October 16, 2015

ESPNcricinfo staff16-Oct-2015
ScorecardFile Photo – Arup Das and Krishna Das shared all 10 wickets from the Odisha innings•PTI

Seamer Krishna Das took 7 for 21 to bowl Odisha out for 88 and give Assam, who had made only 92 yesterday, an almost inconceivable first-innings lead. Assam then managed to cobble a total in triple-figures, finishing on 137 for 8 at stumps. The Cuttack pitch afforded 15 wickets on Thursday and 13 today, so any advantage seems vital and the visitors are 141 runs ahead.Krishna and Arup Das, who took 3 for 45, took care of all the Odisha batsmen. Only Natraj Behera and Anurag Sarangi managed to get double-figure scores and Odisha’s best partnership – 22 runs – was put on by the ninth wicket.But the help that was available to the fast bowlers meant the hosts were able to reel in some of the ground they lost. Suryakant Pradhan struck twice in the second over of Assam’s second innings to dismiss Kunal Saikia and Gokul Sharma for ducks. At the other end, Basant Mohanty removed Amit Verma, also for a duck, to leave the visitors on 13 for 3.By the 45th over Assam were 86 for 6. But coming in at No. 7 Syed Mohammad struck 42 off 158 balls with four fours to record the highest score of the match so far and perhaps tempt his team into contemplating an away victory.
ScorecardOvernight rain followed by intermittent showers on the second day resulted in only 16.2 overs being bowled in the Group A game between Bengal and Rajasthan at the Eden Gardens.The start of the match was delayed by an over hour. Resuming from 104 for 3, Rajasthan lost two wickets while putting on 38 runs. Pragyan Ojha got the first when he went through the defences of Ashok Menaria in the 43rd over while Ashok Dinda had Puneet Yadav caught for 14 in the 50th.Ojha came back to dismiss Arjit Gupta for 5 in the 59th over but then the weather intervened. Only 59.4 overs have been possible after two days. Karnatka v Vidarbha in Bangalore – Satish 81* leads VidarbhaDelhi v Haryana in Delhi – Sehwag threat looms

The jury in the Chris Cairns perjury trial retired to consider its verdict on Tuesday lunchtime after Justice Sweeney, the presiding judge, had completed his summing-up of the eight-week case

ESPNcricinfo staff23-Nov-2015The jury in the Chris Cairns perjury trial retired to consider its verdict on Tuesday lunchtime after Justice Sweeney, the presiding judge, had completed his summing-up of the eight-week case.”All going well, you will be deliberating tomorrow,” the judge had told the jury on Monday during the second day of his conclusion, in which he completed his revisiting of the evidence of two of the three key witnesses, Lou Vincent and Eleanor Riley, Vincent’s ex-wife.During tomorrow’s session, he will take the jury through the evidence of Brendon McCullum, the New Zealand captain, before assessing the joint charge of perverting the course of justice against Cairns and Andrew Fitch-Holland, his former attourney, and summing up the case for the defence.Cairns denies two counts of perjury and perverting the course of justice, relating to his successful libel action against Lalit Modi in 2012, in which he stated that he had “never” cheated at cricket and would not contemplate doing so.The charge of perjury requires the evidence of more than one key witness to be accepted as true. On Friday, Justice Sweeney advised the jury to treat the evidence of one of those three, Vincent, with care, given his self-confessed reputation as a liar.”Provided you keep the warning clearly in mind, what you make of him in the end is entirely a matter for you and no-one else,” Justice Sweeney told the jury.Today, he added that the evidence of Ms Riley is the most important of the three, given that it is direct evidence taken from a night out with Cairns at the Manhattan Bar and Grill in Greater Manchester in 2008. On that evening, Cairns was alleged to have allayed Riley’s fears about her then-husband’s match-fixing by saying that “everyone did it in India, and they would not get caught”.In his defence, both Cairns and his then-wife, Mel, had denied that any such conversation had taken place. Riley had been “in drink”, in the words of Cairns’ lawyer, Orlando Pownall, QC, although she had insisted that her recall was accurate, adding that she would not have travelled all the way from New Zealand to lie in court.Justice Sweeney also drew the jurors’ attention to two further pieces of evidence. Andrew Hall, the former South Africa bowler, had testified that Cairns had told him that he had been suspended from the Indian Cricket League following allegations of match-fixing. And Cairns had also appeared on an ICC list of players with the “allegation Mr Cairns arranged match-fixing”.Neither of those allegations were “evidence of the truth”, said Justice Sweeney. It was simply a fact of those matters existing.If the jury is unable to return a verdict during Tuesday’s session, prior commitments mean that the court will not be reconvened until Friday.

The rejigging of the senior selection committee, and the announcement of six new Test centres – Pune, Ranchi, Indore, Rajkot, Visakhapatnam and Dharamsala – were among the major cricket-related decisions made at the BCCI’s AGM in Mumbai

Arun Venugopal in Mumbai09-Nov-2015The rejigging of the senior selection committee, and the announcement of six new Test centres – Pune, Ranchi, Indore, Rajkot, Visakhapatnam and Dharamsala – were among the major cricket-related decisions made at the BCCI’s AGM in Mumbai. While former India wicketkeeper MSK Prasad replaced Roger Binny as the South Zone selector, Gagan Khoda was drafted in place of Rajinder Singh Hans from Central Zone.The BCCI president Shashank Manohar felt the shake-up was necessary as he did not want Binny’s son, Stuart, to be done “injustice”.

November 17 deadline for DDCA to host SA Test

The Delhi & District Cricket Association has been given a deadline of November 17 to keep Feroz Shah Kotla ready to host the fourth Test between India and South Africa starting December 3. BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur said if the DDCA missed the deadline, newly-announced Test venue Pune would host the match.
“The DDCA has to give us the requisite permissions [from civic bodies and security] by the 17th, if we don’t have the permissions from the DDCA by the 17th, the match will be given to Pune,” he said.

“As I said, the perception [of conflict of interest] has to change. I said there should not be injustice on Stuart Binny also,” Manohar said. “If he is a deserving player he should not get not flak from media that because he is Roger Binny’s son he is playing. We can’t destroy his career also.”Prasad’s candidature, on the other hand, was strongly backed by his home body, the Andhra Cricket Association, and the only other person said to be in the running was former Tamil Nadu and India batsman WV Raman. The TNCA, it is learnt, did not aggressively push Raman’s case as Manohar had already zoomed in on Prasad. “[TNCA president] N Srinivasan was very clear that no favours should be sought from anyone at the AGM,” a TNCA source said.Prasad had put in his papers as ACA cricket operations director – a position he has held for six years now – close to a week ago to ensure that his nomination did not violate any conflict-of-interest norms. Prasad felt his elevation would “give hope to all those players coming from nooks and corners of the country”.”I am a representative of the minnows of Indian cricket,” Prasad told ESPNcricinfo. “When somebody from some state can rise to this position, then as a player also anybody can rise to that position.”On how he would approach his new job, Prasad said he would look to replicate what he had done in Andhra: “I am very clear that the systems we have adopted in Andhra – the clarity of selection policy – which if I can place in front of you or anybody, it will be appreciated.”The inclusion of Khoda, the former Rajasthan and India batsman, was a bit of a surprise. Manohar explained the decision to drop Hans in characteristically pithy fashion: “Looking at his performance we decided to go for a new one.”The decision to grant Test status to six new centres, Manohar said, was because of the glut of home Tests India were set to play in 2016. “Next year we are going to have about 12 Test matches in India and each stadium has all the facilities of hosting international games,” Manohar said.There was little discussion, however, on whether the NCA would stay in Bangalore or be moved out. Niranjan Shah, the newly appointed chairman of the NCA board, told ESPNcricinfo that a decision on this would be made after the committee was fully constituted. “We didn’t discuss this at the meeting,” Shah said. “After Diwali, our committee will meet and discuss the future course of action. The whole committee has to be formed.” Shah also confirmed that the BCCI did not discuss the issue of DRS.There was also no discussion on the Cricket Advisory Committee that includes Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman. However, the board secretary Anurag Thakur confirmed that “all the three will remain”.Thakur also formally announced the introduction of contracts for women cricketers. “The women have also come under the contracted players. There will be two categories: category A and B. And they will paid Rs 15 lakh and Rs 10 lakh each,” he said.

Former Pakistan captain Imran Khan has agreed to be a mentor for the Peshawar Zalmi franchise, according to its owner Javed Afridi

PTI23-Dec-2015Former Pakistan captain Imran Khan has agreed to be a mentor for the Peshawar Zalmi franchise, according to its owner Javed Afridi.”Imran Khan has become the mentor of our team,” Javed told , “We are overjoyed with this development as he represents the best of Pakistan cricket and we will benefit immensely from his guidance and advice.”We want the Pakistan Super League to benefit from the legacy and vision of Imran the cricketer.”The tournament is scheduled to begin on February 4, when Peshawar will be captained by Shahid Afridi.Imran’s involvement in cricket has been quite minimum since he retired in 1992, following Pakistan’s victory at the World Cup. He has since become a prominent politician in Pakistan, which might put a limitation on the time he can spend with the team.Imran has not had much experience in the T20 format either, but Javed brushed those details aside and instead focused on how a presence like Imran’s could impact the youngsters in his team.”Even if he has not played T20 cricket it doesn’t matter what is important is his insight and views on cricket and how it should be played,” Javed said.

New Zealand threatened Pakistan’s 171 for 8, but the many strands of the visitors’ varied attack came together to truss up the hosts, 17 runs short of their target

The Report by Andrew Fidel Fernando15-Jan-2016
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsThe dangerous Martin Guptill was run out for 2•Getty Images

New Zealand threatened Pakistan’s total of 171 for 8 through fifties to Colin Munro and Kane Williamson, but the many strands of Pakistan’s varied attack came together to truss up the hosts, 17 runs short of their target. The pace trio of Wahab Riaz, Umar Gul and Mohammad Amir created chances, while the spin of Imad Wasim, and Shahid Afridi provided economy. Mohammad Hafeez had earlier provided the base for Pakistan’s innings, with 61 from 47 balls from the top of the order.Wahab was left to defend 20 runs from the final over, with Williamson on strike. He had the batsman caught at deep square leg first ball to effectively seal the match, before taking the final wicket of the innings off the last ball. New Zealand’s chase had begun slowly before being invigorated by Munro. They gave up most ground during the middle overs, when four middle-order wickets were lost for 18 runs.Amir’s part in his international return was relatively low-key, but full of frustration. He had Williamson dropped off his bowling in the fourth over, then had another straightforward catch spilled towards the end of the match. He eventually took the wicket of Matt Henry in the penultimate over to finish with figures of 1 for 31 from four overs. Wahab claimed three scalps, Gul and Afridi took two wickets apiece, while Wasim returned 1 for 18 from his full quota.Williamson had made a stuttering start to his innings, as Pakistan introduced spin as early as the second over – most likely to upset Martin Guptill’s rhythm in the early overs. Williamson was on two from six balls when he ran Guptill out in the second over, and then continued to progress slowly. He was 10 from 20 balls at one stage, and his first boundary came off the 36th ball he faced – as late as the 12th over.In between Colin Munro had blasted 56 off 27 balls and got out. He sent six balls over the rope – memorably uppercutting Gul over third man in a fifth over that yielded 23 runs – as he reeled in New Zealand’s required rate. His departure heralded a middle-order collapse. Corey Anderson, Luke Ronchi, Grant Elliott and Mitchell Santner all fell in single figures.Williamson attempted to resurrect the innings from 109 for 6 after 15 overs, but continued to lose partners just as he discovered fluency. He struck smart, square boundaries to keep his side alive, but was eventually out for 70 off 60 balls.Perhaps wary of being fatally seduced by the size of the Eden Park boundaries, Hafeez saw out the first over, scoreless, then moved to five off ten balls before he became more ambitious. A lap-scoop off Trent Boult and a slap over the covers next ball moved him into a higher gear, before he plundered 18 runs off Corey Anderson’s first international over in six months, hitting three fours and a six on the off side.That over helped lift Pakistan to 62 for 1 at the end of the Powerplay. Hafeez progressed at a more even pace when the field relaxed and New Zealand applied their spinners in tandem. Debutant legbreak bowler Todd Astle was the more expensive of the pair, as Hafeez and Shoib Malik lifted him over the rope in a three-over spell that cost 28. Having had Soahib Maqsood stumped first ball, then also taking the wicket of Malik, Santner didn’t give away a boundary in his four overs, which conceded just 14.Hafeez mined the gaps in the outfield to near fifty, which he reached off 36 balls. He freed his arms again when pace returned to the attack, sending Boult over the covers again, then swatting a Milne bouncer to the wide long-on fence, but holed out at deep square leg off Milne’s next ball.Shahid Afridi burned typically brightly for a typically brief period of time. He rocked the 16th over – bowled by Matt Henry – cracking two sixes and two fours in a span of four balls, but was out soon after. Having dropped a catch off Umar Akmal earlier, Kane Williamson held on to the chance from Afridi, leaving the batsman with 23 from 8 balls.Having been 147 off 5 after 17 overs, Pakistan might have hoped for total in excess of 180, but good death bowling from Adam Milne and Henry in the two final overs thwarted those ambitions. Imad Wasim contributed a valuable 18 from 9 balls.

New Zealand’s inability to bowl out Australia during the Trans-Tasman series has placed the spotlight on their highly regarded pacemen Trent Boult and Tim Southee

Brydon Coverdale in Christchurch25-Feb-2016At the start of this summer, New Zealand had two bowlers inside the top ten in the Test rankings: Trent Boult and Tim Southee. Australia had one, Mitchell Johnson, and unbeknownst to them he was about to retire. But the inability of New Zealand’s attack to take 20 wickets in any of the five Tests between the teams this season was a major factor in Australia’s domination and retention, twice, of the Trans-Tasman Trophy.Perhaps the most surprising thing was that in their home conditions in Wellington and Christchurch, New Zealand’s attack, led by Southee and Boult, struggled to find anywhere near as much swing as Australia’s fast men. The conditions played a part – Steven Smith won the toss and sent New Zealand in on green pitches in both matches – but Australia also proved capable of finding reverse swing later in the Tests.The final wicket tally for the five Tests home and away makes for lopsided reading. Josh Hazlewood topped the wickets with 22 at 32.63, Nathan Lyon was second with 20 at 27.75, and Boult was third with 18 victims at the inflated average of 42.11. No other New Zealander took more than 10 wickets across the five Tests and only Neil Wagner and Mitchell Santner, who each played only one Test, averaged under 40.Southee’s tally was especially disappointing. He finished the summer with nine wickets against Australia at 62.77, and rarely looked seriously threatening. Although Southee took 13 wickets at 16.30 in the two home Tests against Sri Lanka that came between the two Trans-Tasman contests, outgoing captain Brendon McCullum said after the loss in Christchurch that Southee could soon face competition for his place.”It’s probably not my question to answer any more. He is a strong leader in the group but Tim’s got some challenges in the next little while,” McCullum said. “There’s other guys coming through who are performing very well, Matt Henry in particular, and it’s going to push Tim to make sure he’s operating at his best which we saw for a good 12 to 18 months. He’s got some challenges but I still believe he’s a strong leader in the group and he’s just got to smooth out some of his rough edges.”One man who did himself plenty of favours at Hagley Oval was Wagner, who collected match figures of 7 for 166 and was tireless in enacting the team plan of repeated short-pitched bowling to a packed leg-side field. It was a desperate tactic used because the New Zealanders were failing to swing the ball, but Wagner’s willingness to bowl long, hard spells will make him an attractive option for the selectors going forward.”The beauty of Neil is that he makes things happen,” New Zealand coach Mike Hesson said. “Even on benign surfaces, where we play the majority of our cricket, he does generate wicket-taking opportunities. I think he got 6 for 70 in the first innings once he decided to bowl 25 overs of bumpers and there are not many people around the world who can do that.”I have been fortunate enough to work with Neil for a long time, so I know he’s a gutsy performer. But I thought the skill he showed, that’s a really a difficult thing to do, to get the ball between chest and head consistently and I thought his ability to keep them in that area and keep challenging was world-class and certainly kept us in the match.”Should the selectors decide to grant more opportunities to Wagner and Henry in New Zealand’s upcoming Test campaigns, it could mean something of a changing of the guard, with the attack having been based around Southee and Boult for some time. Hesson conceded that choosing New Zealand’s attack would not necessarily be as straightforward as it had at times in recent years.”I think there will be [tough selections],” Hesson said. “Tim and Trent for two years have been exceptional for us but we have different guys in the squad who do different things. We have alluded to Neil. He brings a different option. Dougie Bracewell is a bit different, as is Matt Henry, so within those five we have got, we should be able to get a pretty good attack in all conditions around the world.”New Zealand finished the five Tests against Australia this summer with four losses and one draw, but Hesson said he felt that the battle had been somewhat closer than that scoreline suggested.”In Australia we felt we were pretty close in Adelaide,” Hesson said. “I think over here, to be fair, we weren’t close in the end result but certainly felt that if things had been a little different then we might have been able to put a bit more pressure on them.”

Afghanistan kissed the World T20 goodbye by beating table-toppers West Indies by six runs in a low-scoring thriller

The Report by Mohammad Isam27-Mar-2016
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details2:38

Chappell: Afghanistan showed WI’s weakness against leg spin

Afghanistan kissed the World T20 goodbye by beating table-toppers West Indies by six runs in a low-scoring thriller. Asghar Stanikzai had shown his hand when he said they would use spin to restrict West Indies’ big hitters on the eve of the match. Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan backed up their captain’s confidence with figures of 2 for 26 each and kept West Indies to 117 in their chase of 124.West Indies finished as the No. 1 team in Group 1 and will take on either India or Australia in the semi-final, but they will go to Mumbai with a sobering defeat. They became Afghanistan’s second Full Member scalp in the tournament, after Zimbabwe, and the match was another strong reminder that cricket needed to be more inclusive.West Indies required 40 runs from the last five overs, but Rashid had Denesh Ramdin stumped at the end of the 16th to tip the game off balance. Then it was Afghanistan who had to deal with a blow as fast bowler Hamid Hassan was pulled out of the attack. He was deemed to have bowled a second hip-high full toss by the square leg umpire, but Andre Russell, the batsman who had been struck by that ball, was rubbing his body below the waist.Gulbadin Naib finished the over with two dot balls and in the next one, Russell was run out. West Indies needed 25 runs from 12 balls when Carlos Brathwaite thumped Naib for a six over long-off but a ball later, Darren Sammy was caught at deep cover. Brathwaite freed his arms again and found another six over midwicket and wisely nudged the last ball of the 19th over for a single to retain strike. At the time, West Indies needed 10 runs off six balls.Nabi began the final over with two dots before Najibullah Zadran, who got them to a competitive score with his unbeaten 48, ran about 20 yards to his left from deep midwicket to complete a superb diving catch to get rid of Brathwaite, West Indies’ last dangerman. With the equation demanding 10 runs off three balls, Andre Fletcher, who left the field at the start of seventh over with a tweaked hamstring, came out again and could only hobble across for three singles as Afghanistan completed a historic win.West Indies had, however, begun the chase on the right note. Johnson Charles blasted Mohammad Nabi for two massive sixes in the second over. But Evin Lewis, on T20I debut, was tied down and dismissed by Amir Hamza, when the batsman slogged one down Rashid’s throat at deep midwicket.Fletcher struck Hamid and Hamza for fours through cover but Charles, on 22, was beaten by Hamid’s pace and chopped the ball onto his stumps. That’s when West Indies’ troubles began. First Fletcher left the ground with what looked like a hamstring strain and a ball later Rashid removed Samuels with a big-spinning googly.Ramdin and Dwayne Bravo added 41 runs for the fourth wicket, and seemed set to produce the one partnership a chasing team needs in the face of a low total. They took plenty of singles and Bravo crashed the legspinners Samiullah Shenwari and Rashid for a pulled four and six each in the 10th and 13th overs. It was Nabi again who brought Afghanistan back, trapping Bravo lbw in the 14th over, and took them home from there. For a spinner to bowl the last over, with only nine runs to defend, it was a spectacular effort.Things hadn’t looked particularly promising for Afghanistan when they batted. Samuel Badree and West Indies had them at 56 for 5 in the 12th over, but Najibullah persevered. Given a promotion to No. 6, he was unbeaten on 48 off 40 balls with five boundaries that included a six over long-on. His last two fours, in the final over, came via a switch hit and a crash through the covers.Najibullah added 34 runs for the sixth wicket with Nabi, who was unlucky to be caught by Marlon Samuels at mid-off after a rebound from Sammy at cover. That the ball even carried that far indicated how hard Nabi had hit his drive.Such scrapping was made necessary by Badree’s skillful spell. The legspinner, who took 3 for 14 off his four overs, bamboozled Usman Ghani with a googly, kept Mohammad Shahzad quiet and then dismissed him when the release shot – a big hoick down the ground – was taken by mid-off. Shahzad finished as second-highest scorer behind Tamim Iqbal and by the end of the night, he had even more to celebrate.

Travis Dean became the fourth batsman to cap off his first season with a century as his 111 helped Victoria take giant strides towards overhauling SA’s 340 in the Shield final

The Report by Daniel Brettig in Adelaide27-Mar-2016
ScorecardGetty Images

Back in October, Travis Dean was the talk of Australian cricket, as only the second man after Arthur Morris to make dual centuries on his state debut. As Victoria sought to squeeze South Australia, Dean joined another select group by becoming the fourth batsman to cap his first season with a hundred in the Sheffield Shield final.Justin Langer, Phillip Hughes and Jordan Silk are the others, and their efforts all contributed to victories. Dean helped the Bushrangers take a giant stride towards doing likewise, setting the platform for what may yet become a mighty first-innings total in reply to the Redbacks’ reasonable, but now eminently reachable 340.SA took the second new ball with four overs remaining and Daniel Worrall, the day’s most outstanding bowler, soon curled a perfect inswinger through the defences of Matthew Wade. Nightwatchman Scott Boland survived numerous uncomfortable moments before the close, including a missed chance by Sam Raphael behind point, as another vocal Glenelg Oval crowd of 2,548 rode every delivery.Aided by a fluent Peter Handscomb, Dean absorbed plenty of pressure on a cool and overcast day that lent itself almost perfectly to seam and swing bowling. His technique stood up to more or less everything Chadd Sayers, Joe Mennie and Daniel Worrall hurled at him, and it was not until the final hour that Elliot Opie was able to coax him into an edge.Dean’s occupation thwarted a bowling attack that had carried much before them this season, and highlighted the trouble with choosing four seamers on a pitch that has offered some movement but is also drying into something where a spinner can prosper. SA’s captain Travis Head was left to bowl his offbreaks a little more than he might have preferred, with Adam Zampa in India and Tom Andrews, the left-arm spinner, missing out on the final XI.The final two South Australian wickets had added only 15 on resumption, giving Sayers and company the chance to defend a greater tally than many they had successfully followed up on over the course of the season. Rob Quiney was able to get off to a swift start as several Sayers deliveries swerved towards his hip. But after those early boundaries, it was a challenging time for batsmen.Quiney succumbed when he guided Worrall low to Raphael at gully, and Marcus Stoinis was beaten first ball. Plenty of questions were asked by the bowlers, and Dean needed all his technical skill to answer them. He achieved one small victory by prompting Worrall to try a short-pitched attack, but Stoinis was unable to endure, judged by umpire Paul Wilson to have gloved a bouncer to Alex Carey behind the stumps.Handscomb’s beginning was somewhat skittish, and he survived one vehement lbw appeal from Sayers. But he showed an inclination to get the scoreboard moving more regularly, and eased the pressure on Dean by putting some back onto SA’s seamers. Gradually, some of the Redbacks’ earlier discipline wavered, and Dean was able to pick off a few more loose balls.The partnership gathered momentum after tea, as SA became increasingly fretful for a wicket. Words were exchanged between Handscomb and Head when SA’s captain fielded off his bowling and fired a throw back towards the stumps, which the batsman swatted away to the boundary by way of self-preservation. The Redbacks appealed for obstructing the field, and after some consultation between the umpires, were turned down.Dean’s well-deserved century arrived soon after, not only making some Shield final history, but also breaking a recent sequence of lean scores – 9, 11, 1, 4 and 0 before this innings. An emotional celebration was follow by further occupation, but on 111, Opie was able to find a crack in the wall to break the stand at 140. That wicket gave SA an opening, and the loss of Wade before the close left the match delicately balanced once more.