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Former spearhead Glenn McGrath, however, prefers that Australia play the left-arm quick only if he is “100% fit”

Daniel Brettig in Sydney02-Jan-20181:11

‘Play Starc only if 100% fit’ – McGrath

A recovering Mitchell Starc is a strong chance to return to Australia’s team for the fifth Ashes Test at the SCG, though he would be doing so over the objections of the former spearhead Glenn McGrath, who believes the left-arm quick should only resume bowling when he is “100% fit”.Having failed to recover from a bruised heel in time to take part in the Boxing Day Test, Starc bowled off his full run for about 30 minutes in the SCG nets on Tuesday, and is clearly eager to front up on his home ground alongside fellow New South Welshmen Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon. The captain Steven Smith, meanwhile, took a rare day off the nets due to some back soreness but is expected to be fine to play.

SCG Pink Test marks 10 seasons

When Glenn and Jane McGrath founded a breast cancer charity in 2005, they intended to raise awareness about the affliction and also to help ensure sufferers were afforded as much support as possible. The first “pink” day three of the SCG Test followed, and in 2018 the Jane McGrath foundation marks 10 years of that day.
“Great to be back here and to think 10 years have gone by is amazing,” McGrath said. “The SCG was my home ground, my favourite cricket ground in the world, so anytime I get to come out here is pretty amazing. But to be the Sydney Pink Test as we call it now makes it that much more special and for 10 years to have gone past is incredible – each year it seems to get bigger and bigger. The way the cricket community has got together and supported the foundation is amazing, I think we’ve got 119 McGrath breast care nurses, supporting more than 160,000 individuals and families going through breast cancer.”
The foundation’s fundraising goal for this match is A$1.3 million equivalent to the employment of 10 full-time breast care nurses over 12 months, who can provide support for 1000 individuals. This year’s events will also feature a “pink picnic” at the Sydney Football Stadium for those unable to get into the SCG, with the cricket to be played on a big screen, and pink picnic rugs and a hampers provided.

With nearly two months between this match and the first of Australia’s tour of South Africa, Starc has the opportunity for a break in between, even if he is named in the squad for the ODI series against England. The announced is due on Wednesday. McGrath, who was famously averse to any sort of resting or management during his long and durable career, said he would prefer to see Australia be cautious with Starc, given the niggardly nature of heel injuries and the looming South African assignment.”You want him playing but you want him at 100% and you want to make sure next series he’s ready to go at 100%, so if Starcy’s not 100% I’d be tempted to rest him, unfortunately for the Sydney public,” McGrath said. “They want to see him performing on his home ground and he wants to be out there as well, but you’ve got to think ‘ok, South Africa’s important’, so we’ll wait and see.”As a player you want to play every game, you really only think about the next game and do whatever you can to get through it. When you’ve got important series, South Africa coming up, Australia have won this series here, he’s such an integral part of the Australian line-up. I think they missed him in Melbourne more so bowling to the tail, because the pace and the lengths he bowls, he can clean up a tail pretty quickly.”The SCG strip, part of a natural wicket block as opposed to the MCG’s drop-in surface, is another factor for the selectors, as its extra live grass may be more helpful to Jackson Bird, who had little joy when replacing Starc in Melbourne. How much the wicket is shaved and whether it dries out much more ahead of Thursday’s coin toss will also determine whether Ashton Agar becomes a serious chance to join Lyon in a dual spin attack.Cummins, who is expected to play his first Test on his home ground, said Starc’s heel was showing good signs in that it had not worsened at all since the first time the left-armer experienced pain, as opposed to the more serious ailment Cummins had suffered during his 2011 Test debut in Johannesburg. But he agreed that it would not be wise to risk Starc’s ability to take part in South Africa.1:34

Starc confident he’s going to play – Cummins

“I’d say that [South Africa] is probably the big concern. If it was really bad that’s I guess what would keep him out,” Cummins said. “But it’s different to me. He can walk around. Each time I kind of bowled a spell it got worse and worse. The way he was saying, it was almost worse in the first innings and stayed the same for the whole Perth match.”And the last couple of weeks it’s definitely got a lot better. So it’s definitely different to what I had. By the end of my match, or even the first innings, I could hardly walk. It’s like anything. It’s a bruise. If you keep smashing it, it will get bigger and bigger. But he says it’s in a good spot now. I think if he doesn’t think he can get through this match he wouldn’t play but we’ll find out in the next couple of days.”Starc joined Cummins, Hazlewood, Bird, Smith and his deputy David Warner for a conference in the middle of the SCG before training, in which the subject up for discussion was swinging the ball. Both conventional and reverse swing are likely to factor in Sydney, and Cummins said the assistant coach David Saker had been at pains to discuss taking care of the ball to ensure it would be capable of doing both.”We were actually just talking about swinging the ball and the keys,” Cummins said. “Obviously for bowlers our major tool is the ball, batters the bat. It’s about getting our message the same, which side to shine. It’s kind of sometimes a decision of ‘when do we start shining it one side or the other to get it reversing’ and things like that. I thought both teams did it pretty well in Melbourne.”He also assuaged concerns that the Australians needed Starc to be playing in order to take 20 wickets. “We’ve seen Birdy out the back there he’s bowled beautifully on this wicket and all season in the Shield and taken lots of wickets,” Cummins said. “So I think he’ll fit in pretty seamlessly and here at the SCG. Hopefully there’s a bit more spin for Gazza [Lyon] and we saw how important the first couple of games were when the ball spun, how damaging he can be.”I think we’ll be fine, we’ve got Mitch Marsh in as well. The good thing about our group at the moment is we can all get up for a big spell and it feels like anyone can bowl that big spell that can crack a game open. It doesn’t feel like there’s one spearhead.”For his part, McGrath said he was not in favour of allowing fielding teams more latitude in terms of deliberate bounce throws to encourage greater reverse swing, a practice both teams were warned about by the umpires at the MCG. “You try to look after the ball and get it swinging on pitches like in [Melbourne] where there’s nothing happening,” he said.”Sometimes in India where the pitches are quite flat. But I think conditions in India are a little more abrasive anyway. Not sure how I feel about that. If that [bounce throwing] happens naturally fair enough, but if it’s intentionally throwing it in the deck any chance they get, I think there is a bit of a line there.”

Damien O’Donohoe, the chief executive of the Caribbean Premier League, believes there is space in the cricket calendar for the CPL and the new English T20 league, set to start in 2020, to co-exist and eventually benefit each other

Andrew McGlashan28-Oct-20161:39

‘CPL second only to the IPL’ – O’Donohoe

Damien O’Donohoe, the chief executive of the Caribbean Premier League, believes there is space in the cricket calendar for the CPL and the new English T20 league, set to start in 2020, to co-exist and eventually benefit each other.The 2016 CPL was staged from June 29 to August 7, which is likely to be the timeframe the ECB will try to exploit with the new T20 league that is causing much angst in the county game. The ECB is keen to make use of the school summer holidays, which run from mid-July through August, to try to attract a new, younger fan base to the sport.But the fact that English cricket is only now looking to revamp its domestic T20 competition – and is still three years from having the new venture ready to launch – means other T20 leagues are well ahead in their development. While the ECB has managed to find a way of accommodating the IPL, allowing players who wish to compete to take part in the tournament, and in some cases actively encouraging participation in the Big Bash League, which has no impact on the English summer, the direct competition from the CPL could cause problems.There may be an indication of the impact during the 2017 English season when the NatWest Blast returns to a block in later summer after three seasons of being played largely on Friday nights from mid-May until late July. In those three years, the CPL has forged its position as an attractive proposition for overseas cricketers. Staging the NatWest Blast at the same time might mean missing out on the West Indian T20 stars – some of the more attractive signings in the game – who will already be in action for their CPL teams.”It probably will be a similar window but we work quite closely with the ECB and at the end of the day there will be room for both leagues,” O’Donohoe told ESPNcricinfo. “The ECB has their own challenges, and I really wouldn’t envy their job, but they are real professionals who will make it a success. What we’d love in time is that we get the English stars in the CPL and they get some of ours.”But there is no denying that English cricket is playing catch-up with the format of the game they launched in 2003. “They have much bigger challenges in terms of the politics of the game than anybody else,” O’Donohoe said. “Of course, they created this form so they should be leaders in this space, but they are not. But they have huge plans…so there will be great things to come.”Of more immediate interest to O’Donohoe is the continued growth of the CPL. He was speaking in London on Thursday when St Lucia Zouks became the last of the six sides to become a privately-owned franchise after its acquisition by Jignesh Pandya, the founder of the Rohan Group of companies, who currently serves as the Chairman of Global Sports Ventures and Royal Sports Club. Global Sports Ventures was recently announced as having signed a $70million deal with USACA.The CPL staged six matches in the USA during the 2016 season and its plans for expansion in the country are well documented. O’Donohoe hopes that “in the not too distant future” there will be two franchises based in the US. He is also determined, though, that the CPL, which he believes stands second to the IPL among the various T20 leagues, needs to continue to play to its own strengths.”When we speak to the guys at the Big Bash, which we do on a daily basis, they have a very different idea of what they are trying to do, trying to bring a whole new audience to the game. Some of their games get 80,000 people, which we could never do in the Caribbean, but from an international point of view we have 80 million TV viewers in India, are the first professional league to go into America and have our six franchises sold and hopefully in the not too distant future we can have two franchises in the US.”Our single-biggest issue with the CPL has always been time zones and when we play our games. We have a huge international audience but if we play games during the day it doesn’t fit with our product, we are a local product and can’t fit it just for an international audience. The great thing about the east coast would be the time zone. Los Angeles would be fantastic so would San Francisco and Silicon Valley. We would love to go there in time, but the east coast will be our focus initially. New York would be No. 1 on our list. But we have a lot of work to do.”

Logan van Beek, who played for Netherlands in the 2014 World T20, produced the best performance of a young career to spearhead Canterbury’s 304-run victory against Otago

ESPNcricinfo staff27-Oct-2015
Peter Fulton made 155 off 144 balls in Canterbury’s second innings•Getty Images

Allrounder Logan van Beek, who played for Netherlands in the 2014 World T20, produced the best performance of a young career to spearhead Canterbury’s 304-run victory against Otago in Christchurch. Van Beek scored his maiden first-class hundred to rescue Canterbury’s first innings and then took career-best match figures of 8 for 70 – six in the final innings – to bowl out Otago on the fourth day.Having lost the toss, Canterbury were in deep trouble when 20-year old fast bowler Jack Hunter, playing his second first-class game, dismissed both openers for ducks in the first over of the match. Hunter, who finished with figures of 4 for 47, along with Michael Rae and Sam Wells, cut through the line-up and reduced the hosts to 130 for 8.Van Beek, the grandson of former West Indies and New Zealand Test cricketer Sammy Guillen, rallied the lower order during an aggressive hundred from No. 9. He made an unbeaten 111 off 125 balls, adding 59 for the ninth wicket and 104 for the tenth, before Canterbury were dismissed for 293.”It was one of those situations where the team was in trouble, I’ve been in that situation a lot of times before and I’d get 20, 30 or get [out] early and we’d just fall over,” van Beek told stuff.co.nz. “We went five runs at a time and next thing you know I was on 40. When Will came out it was five runs at a time. I threw a bit of caution to the wind and next thing I know I’m on 90.”I’ve had a few coaches and players ask why did I take the single the first ball. I thought Will was playing it so well. I was quite relaxed, I thought if it’s going to happen it’s going to happen,” van Beek said of his decision to not farm the strike. “He took this big flay at a short and wide one. My heart just went …. (gasps). He looked at me and kind of winked.”I’ve been in the gym preparing my body. I had a goal to be ready for the first game of the season, I ticked that off. All the hard work’s paid off.”Otago began the second day on 5 for 0 but the wickets column quickly filled up. Only three batsmen made it past single figures, with No. 8 Nick Beard top scoring with 22, as the visitors were routed for 91 in 36.3 overs. New-ball bowlers Ryan McCone and Will Williams took three wickets apiece, while van Beek had figures of 2 for 13, to give Canterbury a lead of 202.Their top order did not fail a second time. Openers Leo Carter and Ronnie Hira made half-centuries, and though they fell in quick succession to leave the score 134 for 2, Peter Fulton and Ken McClure built on that platform. At stumps on the second day, Fulton was 97, McClure 47, and Canterbury were 272 for 2. They declared on 350 for 2 on the third day with Fulton unbeaten on 155 off 144 balls, having hit five sixes, and McClure on 66 not out.Chasing a target of 553, Otago opener Brad Wilson held up one end, but wickets fell at the other. After two half-century stands for the first three wickets, and Sean Eathorne retiring hurt, Otago began to lose batsmen regularly. They slipped from 159 for 2 to 213 for 6 by stumps on the third day, with van Beek picking up three wickets. Losing Wilson for 100 just before stumps was a severe blow to Otago.Though there was rain on the fourth day, Canterbury needed only 12.4 overs to wrap up the victory. Van Beek took the last three wickets to finish with a career-best innings haul of 6 for 57. Otago were dismissed for 248 in 97.1 overs.

A round-up of Premier League Tournament matches played in Sri Lanka this week

Andrew Fidel Fernando02-Apr-2013Moors Sports Club beat Panadura Sports Club by seven runs in a thrilling, final-round match of the Premier League tournament. The win put Moors at the top of Group A and helped them book a place in next weekend’s final.Moors, who were placed second before this match, needed an outright victory over leaders Panadura to secure a final berth. Panadura won the toss and put the opposition into bat on a result-oriented pitch. Moors were dismissed for 240, thanks largely to a five-wicket haul by Gayan Sirisoma. Panadura, though, were skittled for exactly half that score in their first innings as Malinda Pushpakumara took 7 for 56, dismissing five of the top six batsmen.
Sirisoma grabbed another five wickets in the second innings as Moors fell for 130 with none of their batsmen crossing an individual score of 20. That collapse gave Panadura a second chance, but they fell eight runs short of a target of 251, in spite of contributions from Chamara Silva, Prasanna Jayawardene and Dinesh Ranga Cooray. The last-wicket pair of Sirisoma and Sujeewa de Silva added 23 runs together before de Silva was given out lbw, ending Panadura’s season.In Group B, a run fest helped Sinhala Sports Club (SSC) keep Tamil Union at bay as they qualified for the final, which will be played on their home ground. SSC captain Thilina Kandamby’s unbeaten 340, which broke the Sri Lankan first-class record for the highest individual score set by Kusal Perera two weeks ago, was the standout performance of the round.A Tamil Union bowling attack, that featured Chanaka Welegedera, Suranga Lakmal and Rangana Herath, failed to prevent SSC from scoring a massive 787 for 8, nullifying Tamil Union’s chances of an outright win. Dimuth Karunaratne was the first of three centurions, hitting 115 off 170 balls, after his opening partner fell for a four-ball duck. Kaushal Silva made 180 at No. 4. Kandamby arrived after Karunaratne’s dismissal, with the score at 241 for 3, and put on 195 with Silva. He later shared a 226-run partnership with Upul Bandara for the seventh wicket, before eventually declaring the innings at stumps on the second day. Needing almost 800 to get the first-innings points they needed to displace SSC, Tamil Union had little to play for on the final day and were all out for 314. Kaushal Lokuarachchi was the highest wicket-taker for SSC, picking 4 for 136.Air Force Sports Club and Burgher Recreation Club competed in what was effectively a relegation battle amid some controversy. The pitch prepared for the match was deemed unsuitable and the teams played on a different surface, which only allowed for a two-day match. The difference between the two teams was 1.7 points, with Air Force on 51.6 and Burgher on 49.9, but Air Force managed to secure first-innings points by gaining a lead of 29 runs to help seal their place in the Premier League. Opener Thuppahi Nadeera scored an unbeaten 105 in the first innings for Air Force and guided his side to 244, with little support from his teammates. Left-arm spinner Akila Isanka then took 5 for 90 as Burgher were dismissed for 215. With only two days of play possible, the match ended in a draw.Sri Lanka Navy Sports Club defeated bottom-placed Kurunegala Youth by six wickets. Navy needed an innings victory to stay in the first-class competition and, their six-wicket victory wasn’t enough to take them past Badureliya Cricket Club in the points table. Navy made 369 in the first innings, with Chanaka Ruwansiri making 122. Although they dismissed Kurunegala Youth for 212 and 182, they still had to bat in the fourth innings to chase a target of 26.Three left-arm spinners topped the list of wicket-takers this season. Moors’ Pushpakumara took 64 wickets, ahead of Panadura’s Sirisoma and Colombo Cricket Club’s Dinouk Hettiarachchi, who both took 58. No bowler with more than 30 wickets had a better average or strike rate than 19-year-old offspinner Tharindu Kaushal who finished with 50 wickets in spite of playing fewer matches than the table leaders due to his national commitments. Sachithra Senanayake, who led the table before he left for national duty, finished with 49 scalps.Among the batsmen, SSC’s wicketkeeper Kaushal Silva scored the most runs, hitting four hundreds and two fifties to pile up 814 runs. Former Test opener Malinda Warnapura made 804 runs while Air Force’s 20-year-old batsman Yashodha Lanka made 802. The best average however, belonged to Kusal Perera who scored 695 runs at an average of 115.83 in four fewer matches than the table leaders.The end of the season also sees six teams – three lowest-ranked teams from each group – culled from the top competition. These teams will move down to form an emerging league, which begins next year. The matches in the league will be treated as club matches. After the final round, Burgher Recreation Club, Lankan Cricket Club and Saracens Sports Club were relegated from Group A, while from Group B, Navy Sports Club, Galle Cricket Club and Kurunegala Youth Cricket Club will not play first-class cricket in 2014. The relegations are part of a three-year plan to halve the number of clubs playing in the top three-day tournament, in order to improve the quality of the first-class competition.

South Africa performed the ultimate anti-choke as 21-year-old tearaway Marchant de Lange defended seven runs off the last over to clinch the Twenty20 series 2-1

Firdose Moonda22-Feb-2012
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsMarchant de Lange’s last-over heroics gave South Africa an unlikely win•Getty Images

South Africa performed the ultimate anti-choke as 21-year-old tearaway Marchant de Lange defended six runs off the last over to clinch the Twenty20 series 2-1. After keeping South Africa to a below-par score on a small ground with short boundaries, New Zealand were on track to cruise to victory and needed less than a-run-a-ball by the 15th over. However, tight bowling from Johan Botha and Morne Morkel dragged New Zealand back, before de Lange’s last-over heroics gave South Africa an unlikely win.Jesse Ryder, who made his return after a calf injury, scored a typically meaty half-century to take New Zealand to the brink. He slowed down as he approached his fifty and looked to bring it up – and the win closer – with an adventurous shot against Johan Botha. With New Zealand requiring eight, he walked across his stumps to scoop over fine leg but was caught by Morne Morkel on the edge of the circle. That meant the 19th over had cost just three runs and left New Zealand with a new batsman at the crease with seven needed of the last over.De Lange, playing in just the third twenty-over match of his career, was brought on. His first ball was full. James Franklin drilled the ball to long-off and raced through. Nathan McCullum faced the next ball. It was short and wide but he let it through, expecting it to be called wide – it wasn’t. Then, he panicked. Nathan tried to pull the third ball but only succeeded in gloving it high, to give AB de Villiers a catch.As de Lange’s confidence grew, New Zealand’s shrank and he banged in a bouncer to new batsman Doug Bracewell, who swung hard but missed. The next ball was full and Bracewell slogged but found Hashim Amla, diving forward at point. So New Zealand needed six runs off the last ball and there would be one more twist. De Lange overstepped and Franklin scurried through. The equation changed and four were required of the final delivery but Tim Southee’s swing found only fresh air as de Lange held his nerve to bowl full outside off. And so he had inflicted an unlikely defeat on an opposition, the type of which has so often been experienced by South Africa.De Lange’s performance turned around a largely uninspired performance from the rest of the seamers, who veered too often on the leg-side line. It was up to Botha, who was his usual wily, miserly self, to apply the brakes after New Zealand’s openers were off to a speedy start – Rob Nicol and Martin Guptill shared a stand of 65 in six overs. Nicol regularly took the ball from outside off and planted on the leg side but, eventually, he did that one too many times and was caught in the deep.With Guptill also falling for a misjudged aerial shot, the stage was set for Ryder to take New Zealand home. He started with a streaky boundary off a thick outside edge that flew through the vacant second slip area but then he pulled, charged down the track to loft and slapped through the offside with his usual power. His display of disdain put pressure on South Africa, who made careless errors in the field, dropped him once and sent down 12 wides.Despite the visitors lapses, New Zealand committed even more with bat in hand. Brendon McCullum swung at a short ball and was caught behind and Kane Williamson had no control over a shot he skied to mid-wicket. It left the middle-order with too much to do after a controlled performance from New Zealand in the field should have been enough to win them the match.They struck three times in the first eight overs to remove Richard Levi, makeshift No.3 Albie Morkel and Amla. de Villiers and Duminy built a partnership in the old-fashioned way, taking two overs to establish themselves before Duminy struck a glorious, high-elbowed six into the stands.The pair had found good rhythm when Duminy was run out by Nicol against the run of play, backing up too far at the non-striker’s end. Nicol had created an opening and he prised it apart even further in the next over. He bowled de Villiers when the South Africa captain missed a slog-sweep and struck Justin Ontong on the thigh to have him out lbw. The wickets forced South Africa to slow down and allowed Bracewell and Southee to put together a string of ten dot balls that ended with the wicket of Johan Botha – a one-handed snatch out of the sky by Martin Guptill.Wayne Parnell and Robin Peterson rallied to take 27 runs off the last three overs but South Africa still ended up with a total that would take a disciplined effort, or a few moments of magic, to defend. Between Botha and de Lange, they provided enough of that.