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Five years after his coaching debut with Australia, Mickey Arthur is back at the Gabba. This time as the coach of Australia’s opponents

Brydon Coverdale12-Dec-2016Back in 2011, Mickey Arthur became the first foreigner to be appointed Australia’s coach. His first Test in charge was at the Gabba, where David Warner, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon and Usman Khawaja were all part of the XI. This week Arthur returns to the Gabba, now as an Australian citizen. Again Warner, Starc, Lyon and Khawaja will play, and again Arthur is coach. Only, now he’s coach of Australia’s opponents.”A true gentleman,” the Australia captain, Michael Clarke, called Arthur in the lead-up to that 2011 Brisbane Test. “To me it doesn’t matter where you come from, if you’re the right man for the job… then I believe you deserve to get it,” Clarke said of Arthur at the time. Arthur got it, all right. Got it right in the back, on the eve of the 2013 Ashes. He was appointed to end a year of hand-wringing, navel-gazing and Argus-reviewing. He was ousted in a coup he never saw coming.Now that Arthur returns to where it all started, he calls the whole experience surreal. Perhaps not in a Salvador Dali melting-clocks kind of way, but for Arthur the persistence of memory is no less vivid. For a year and a half, these Australians were his men. His fingerprints remain on the side. One of his final acts was making Steven Smith a late addition to the 2013 Ashes squad. In that series, Smith scored his first Test century, and the rest is history. But by then Arthur was history too.

Arthur was appointed to end a year of hand-wringing, navel-gazing and Argus-reviewing. He was ousted in a coup he never saw coming

In his last stretch as coach, Arthur’s Australians lost a home Test series to South Africa and were crushed 4-0 in India. It is a scenario that might soon look very familiar to his successor, Darren Lehmann. Although Arthur concedes that he might have erred by suspending players in India during the homework saga, he says he did what felt right at the time. He also admits that some part of him views the upcoming series as a chance to prove Cricket Australia wrong.”Of course there’s a part of me that feels that,” Arthur said. “And I wouldn’t be honest if I said otherwise. I always maintained that I loved my two years with Australia and I was very fortunate to be able to coach the Australian national team. I loved the first year and a bit of it – that was outstanding and I thought we made some significant progress.”But yes, there is a part me that’s coming back and wants to show that. But I’ve said it numerous times – the series isn’t about me versus Australia. The series is about two very, very good cricket teams going head to head, and I hope that can be the focus for the remainder of the tour because that’s exactly what it is.”Mitchell Starc has said the current Australian team is a lot closer under Lehmann than it was under Arthur•Getty ImagesAnd yet, as much as Arthur would like to shift from his own past, it is impossible to ignore the history. Starc, who debuted in that same Gabba Test that marked Arthur’s first game with Australia, said on Sunday that the current squad was “a lot closer” under Lehmann than Arthur. Lyon expressed a similar view on Monday, declaring Australia were now “one of the closest teams I’ve ever played in”.They are the kind of words that could hurt a man like Arthur, always jovial, always doing what he felt was right at the time. But nor are they surprising sentiments: during that period, the Michael Clarke-Shane Watson rift was playing out, and factions formed within the squad. Mitchell Johnson wrote in his memoir this year that he lost respect for Arthur after the homework sackings. Arthur, though, is pleased Australia are now in a better place.”It’s actually great to hear,” Arthur said. “I’m not beating around the bush when I say the team wasn’t very close in those times, but that was because of different characters. So that’s good to hear, and everybody inherits teams at different phases in their cycle. I came into the team after a very unstable period in Australian cricket.

Now that Arthur returns to where it all started, he calls the whole experience surreal. Perhaps not in a Salvador Dali melting-clocks kind of way, but for Arthur the persistence of memory is no less vivid

“The Argus review, there was a new director of cricket, a head coach, a convener of selectors and a captain all trying to find their way within a structure. So it was a tough period for Australian cricket – it was a tough time for all of us wanting to know what our boundaries were and how the whole jigsaw fitted in.”And it was a largely insecure time for the players as well, because there was a lot of change coming about. Dave Warner made his debut here, Mitchell Starc made his debut here in my time. There were a lot of young players – Nathan Lyon was trying to make his way. Young Phil Hughes at that point was trying to make his way. So it was a tough period for everybody, and during tough periods people are insecure.”There’s no two ways about that, and you can’t sugarcoat anything – that’s international sport, and your currency is performance, so it’s tough. And since then, the guys have matured, they’ve gone on and Mitchell Starc has become a world-class cricketer, so of course he feels more comfortable in his environment, obviously. It’s just different phases, that’s all.”Mitchell Johnson said he had lost respect for Arthur after the homework sackings•Getty ImagesOf course, much has changed since 2011, besides Arthur’s dismissal. John Inverarity came and went as chairman of selectors, and so did Rod Marsh. Clarke, Watson, Johnson, Ricky Ponting, Brad Haddin and Ryan Harris have all retired. The assistant coaches have all moved on. Of the hierarchy that Arthur worked within, team performance manager Pat Howard and CEO James Sutherland are among the only survivors.On field, Australia have had as many ups and downs as ever. Under Lehmann, there has been a 5-0 Ashes triumph at home, the lifting of a World Cup, and a return to No. 1 in the Test rankings. But there has also been the recent humiliation at the hands of South Africa, and a historic 3-0 series thrashing in Sri Lanka, which extended Australia’s record in Asia to nine straight losses.Lehmann’s job seems secure for now – he is contracted until 2019 – but should his men capitulate in India the way Australia did under Arthur in 2013, the landscape could change. When losses accumulate, pressure builds, and as Arthur learnt, something’s got to give. For now, he is happy to be back coaching in Brisbane, even if it is against his country of citizenship.”It’s pretty surreal really, to be walking into the Gabba,” he said. “It’s pretty surreal to be coming back as a visiting coach. But I guess that’s how the cricket world operates these days and that’s what happens. It’s a ruthless world out there. To be coming back to the Gabba and to have a tour of Australia is fantastic.”

The Plays of the Day from the third ODI between West Indies and England in Bridgetown

George Dobell in Bridgetown09-Mar-20176:28

#PoliteEnquiries: Stokes’ hair or Moeen’s beard?

Reunion of the day

There was a great deal of talk before the series about the reunion between Ben Stokes and Carlos Brathwaite. Infamously, the last time they were in direct combat with one another, Brathwaite clubbed Stokes for four successive sixes to win the final of the World T20. As it was, we had to wait until the 76th over of the third ODI of the series for Stokes to bowl at Brathwaite again, but the moment did not disappoint. Stokes’ first delivery kept horribly low and cut back to strike Brathwaite on the pads. For unfathomable reasons, umpire Gregory Brathwaite (apparently no relation…) initially gave the batsman not out, though DRS ensured the right decision was reached eventually. It was, no doubt, a sweet moment for Stokes. But he would be the first to admit that a wicket in a dead-rubber ODI is no substitute for winning a global limited-overs trophy.Blow of the day

It looked, for a while, as if Evin Lewis would play no further part in the match after the first hour. Having retrieved a Joe Root shot from the edge of the cover boundary, he lost his footing on the perimeter and, for a while, appeared to have knocked himself unconscious, but as his team-mates and the West Indies’ physio gathered round him, it became apparent that he had sustained a blow to his left arm. After a delay of five minutes or so, Lewis gingerly got to his feet and left the playing area. It was some surprise when it was announced that he had sustained only bruising and was deemed fit to bat. Even so, the incident may prompt a review about the distance between the playing areas and permanent structures in international cricket.Drop of the day

Root had made just 1 when he clipped Alzarri Joseph to midwicket. Lewis, who really didn’t enjoy the happiest of days, had some ground to make but seemed just a little slow to realise he was going to have to dive forward to take the chance. He eventually did so but, despite first appearing to scoop the ball up an inch or so off the turf, he lost his grasp upon it as his elbows hit the ground. Root went on to make 101 and put on 192 in 30.3 overs with Alex Hales for the second wicket.Review of the day

It seemed Hales might be denied a comeback century when he was adjudged by umpire Brathwaite to have been trapped leg before to the part-time offspinner Kraigg Brathwaite when he had scored 93. He reviewed straight away, though, perhaps believing he had got an edge on his attempted sweep, or thinking the ball, delivered from round the wicket, may have pitched outside leg stump. But replays and ball-tracking technology showed that, though the ball pitched in line and did not take the edge, it would have drifted past the off stump in the strong cross wind. Hales went on to record his fifth ODI century moments later.Record of the day

When Hales top-edged the sharp Joseph for six it brought him the fifth ODI century of his career in his 39th innings and 41st match. That meant he had reached five ODI hundreds quicker than any previous England player. David Gower (43 innings and 45 matches) was previously fastest.

The city’s cricket may be best known for its erstwhile Sixes tournament, but it is a new T20 competition that can pave the way forward

Peter Miller17-Mar-2017A multi-use sports ground in the middle of Kowloon, Hong Kong, was the unlikely venue for the latest franchise T20 tournament. For five days, passionate supporters watched excellent cricket, overlooked by the massive apartment blocks that dominate the landscape in this busy city. Sellout crowds and millions of online viewers mean that the second edition of the Hong Kong T20 Blitz can be considered a success. Infrastructure at the ground was non-existent, which meant it was a makeshift affair, but comments from those who watched in Kowloon and around the world have been almost universally positive. That Cricket Hong Kong pulled it together is entirely to their credit.There is no reason why cricket can’t take off in Hong Kong. The city has a diverse, multicultural and vibrant population. Many of those who have made this small corner of Chinese territory their home come from countries where cricket is loved. Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Brits, Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans are here. It was a former British colony just like every other major cricketing nation.And cricket is succeeding. The last three years have been among the most successful in Hong Kong’s cricketing history. There was the win against Bangladesh at the 2014 World T20, gaining ODI and T20I status, and the successful second running of their own T20 franchise competition featuring superstars like Darren Sammy, Misbah-ul-Haq and Kumar Sangakkara.There has been cricket in Hong Kong as far back as 1841. The first game played by a Hong Kong team took place in 1866. Despite this long history and their recent successes, all anyone seems to remember when you mention cricket here is the Sixes tournaments that took place at Kowloon Cricket Club or the Hong Kong Stadium, that venue for the Rugby Sevens tournament, between 1992 and 2012.. There are plans to bring it back, with Cricket Hong Kong’s CEO Tim Cutler feeling it has a place in the developmental landscape. Still, it is an obvious point of frustration for Cutler that a tournament that hasn’t happened in five years is still what his corner of the cricketing world is most famous for.

There is no reason why cricket can’t take off in Hong Kong. The city has a diverse, multi-cultural and vibrant population

The Sixes came to an end not because it was unpopular, but because the Hong Kong government turned down Cricket Hong Kong’s application for funding and they could not find a sponsor to cover the shortfall. But cricket moves on quickly and now all anyone wants to talk about is T20.With that in mind three Australians that are at the heart of Hong Kong cricket had an idea that was something of a whim. Commercial director Max Abbott, Charlie Burke, the director of cricket, and Cutler decided to have a franchise T20 tournament played at the Tin Kwong Road Recreation Ground in Mong Kok. Once they had made that call, they committed to it completely.That first tournament was a fairly low-key affair, although it was live-streamed around the world. Cricket Hong Kong have been at the forefront of this kind of coverage at Associate level, with multi-camera set-ups, commentary and replays all playing a part in their streams on YouTube and Facebook. The only big name who took part in the 2016 competition was Michael Clarke, and the event was marred by rain, but there was enough positivity generated to do it again this year and to make it even bigger.Of course, the Hong Kong Sixes had star names in the past, from Shane Warne to Sachin Tendulkar to Brian Lara, but the quality of overseas stars attracted to the Blitz this year was a massive plug for cricket in Hong Kong. The excitement when the big names were leaving the stadium was frenetic, with security staff having to push back excited fans desperate for a picture with their heroes.Cricket in Hong Kong is still often associated with the Sixes, five years after tournament was discontinued•AFPSimon Millington, the former chairman of Cricket Hong Kong and the man who organised that last Sixes tournament in 2012, was at all five days of games and was impressed with what the Blitz brought to Hong Kong.”I have always been a passionate supporter of the Sixes but the world has moved on and it was clear to see from the interest, both locally and internationally, that the T20 Blitz is what people want to see,” he said. “It is time to cut the emotional ties with the Sixes and look forward.”The interest in the event was overwhelming. While the small ground was sold out, the really impressive numbers were for the live-streaming, which was beamed around to world for free. Over three million people watched live; the numbers watching clips of the event since is continuing to rise. If you build it, they will come, as Kevin Costner said.The television production was entirely self-funded by Cricket Hong Kong and cost US$65,000. There was serious interest in a TV company picking up the rights when Yusuf Pathan was signed for the event. That interest quickly disappeared when the Indian allrounder did not get a no-objection certificate from the BCCI. The TV money could have taken the event to another level, and paid for improved infrastructure at the ground, but Cutler was still delighted with how things went.

“I have always been a passionate supporter of the Sixes, but the world has moved on. It is time to cut the emotional ties with the Sixes and look forward”Simon Millington, former chairman of Cricket Hong Kong

“The Blitz was beyond all of our wildest dreams, for all of the hard work from all of the franchises, staff, volunteers and press that have come, people that have watched online and everyone at the ground. I couldn’t be happier. And yet there is so much room to grow. As excited as I am about the success of our second edition of the Blitz, I am looking forward to the next step in Hong Kong cricket even more.”That next step for cricket in Hong Kong is a matter for debate. The standard of cricket on show was pretty good, with local players from within the national set-up doing well. A hundred from Nizakat Khan, a match-winning innings from Babar Hayat in the final, classy runs from Anshuman Rath and very good bowling from Aizaz Khan and Tanveer Ahmed, showed that there is cricketing talent in Hong Kong.Depth is lacking, though. Each of the franchises had one or two players who did little more than field and occasionally needed to be instructed to watch the captain to get their positioning right. That player pool needs to be increased if cricket in Hong Kong is to continue to improve.The weekend days saw a sellout crowd of around 1500. Almost all of those who were at the tournament across the five days were expats from cricket-playing countries; many of those will have been born or brought up in Hong Kong, but cricket has still not made a significant impact with the native Chinese population.The Chinese population in Hong Kong has not yet taken to the game, but many believe that that is the way forward•Jarrod Kimber/ESPNcricinfo LtdThe debate about whether the future is in the expats who make Hong Kong their home, or if it is with expanding the sport to the Chinese population, continues apace, with most realising that both are vital. The possibility of cricket making it big in China using Hong Kong as a springboard is an exciting one. In terms of people and money there is no market that offers more than China. Only the USA comes close in terms of potential revenue generation from outside the existing cricketing nations.”The role of cricket in Hong Kong and China cannot be underestimated. Cricket offers players a chance to partake in a team sport that has global accreditation,” said Mark Wright, sports development manager at Hong Kong Cricket Club. Wright went on to say that over the last five to ten years Hong Kong Chinese players have made great strides, with Cricket Hong Kong setting up multilingual development programmes with some of the biggest names in world cricket.Cricket Hong Kong visits Chinese language schools to promote the game, and Wright says this is vital to the hopes of expanding the sport. Getting Chinese youngsters to play the game, and to talk about the sport, is how a love for cricket is developed. Whether an event like the Blitz can generate interest outside those who are already fans is questionable, but the prospect of generating a product that can create income that allows funding of developmental programmes is exciting.For all the nostalgia for the Sixes, only T20 can do that for Hong Kong cricket. There is talk of the Sixes returning in October this year, but the franchise T20 competition is now the crown jewel of cricket in this crazy, hectic and loveable city. Those who run the game need to be cognisant of that. Sixes is a day at the circus; T20 is a vibrant sport that is growing by the day.

Rashid Khan and Ali Khan are examples of how sport can foster friendships beyond geopolitical obstacles

Peter Della Penna in Lauderhill06-Aug-2017The advent of T20 franchise leagues has thrown up some peculiar sets of team-mates, who may have not played together a decade ago, in the pre-IPL era. A prime example being Ricky Ponting and Harbhajan Singh, who teamed up for Mumbai Indians in 2013, close to five years after being on opposite sides of the ‘Monkeygate’ drama.The animus in that episode was down to a heated cricket rivalry, not broader geopolitical implications. In that sense, the chances of two cricketers from Afghanistan and USA being good enough to not only make a franchise T20 side but play alongside each other in the same team may have seemed infinitesimal at the height of the US war in Afghanistan.But Guyana Amazon Warriors made that a reality earlier this year when they signed Afghanistan legspinner Rashid Khan. USA fast bowler Ali Khan, who hails from Dayton, Ohio, after migrating from Pakistan as a teenager, had already been part of the squad for a season. Now, he is team-mates with Rashid, as is USA captain Steven Taylor.”I’m from Pakistan originally and Afghanistan is right next to Pakistan, so the cultures are pretty much the same, the language is the same,” Ali says. “[Rashid] He understands my language and talks to me in my language and that helps us get together.”Rashid has arrived as one of the most high-profile overseas players for the 2017 season, but Ali, who played just one game last season, doesn’t command the same recognition yet. Rashid, however, likes what he sees in Ali, who took a four-for in a trial game.”He has bowled well in the warm-up matches, as well as in the net sessions,” Rashid says. “He has been good. Let’s hope he gets a chance to deliver. I believe in him and he’s really talented. If he gets chances in the XI, he will deliver.”I have seen two boys from USA: Taylor and skipper Ali Khan. They are really talented and they are really good. They were in Division Three. Cricket is improving day by day here. Hopefully in the coming years, USA will be a much better side and they will play some good cricket.”Despite being thousands of miles away from Kabul, Rashid had a handful of supporters in Lauderhill on Saturday. Noorul Bari, a 24-year-old who moved from Kandahar to Miami three months ago, took a day off from work on Saturday from his job as a cashier at a retail outlet to watch Rashid and Mohammad Nabi in action. He was pleasantly surprised to find the American Taylor in the starting line-up alongside Rashid.The local Afghanistan community has embraced the CPL in America•Peter Della Penna”In Afghanistan, most of the time we do not mix politics with sports,” Bari says. “Even though our players like Nabi were playing with Pakistan players in PSL and we have tensions with Pakistan, when it comes to sports, we keep it away from politics and bad things. I don’t think Afghans have any problem with USA because USA have supported Afghanistan to grow from ashes to prosperity.”They supported us to have democracy and [hold] democratic elections. They built our infrastructure and helped us a lot. They work in Afghanistan to rebuild our country and establish security forces. So we don’t have problems with USA and when it comes to cricket and sports, we love cricket.”Bari endured a two-hour bus ride from Miami to make it to the Central Broward Regional Park and took his position along the rail on the North Mound, both cheeks painted with the Afghan tricolour while holding a small sign for Nabi and Rashid. He’s never seen the national team play, but has attended several matches last year for the domestic Shpageeza T20 competition. He is excited to now see Rashid and Nabi playing in T20 competitions overseas.The big hearts of Afghan fans have regularly swelled in their rise to Test status as they rally behind their “peace ambassadors” as one fan in London described them in the Afghanistan v MCC match at Lord’s last month. That ambassadorship has continued in America as fans like Bari looked on to see Americans and Afghans come together with the Amazon Warriors.”That’s the great advantage of playing in the leagues that you get to play with all players throughout the world and meet different cultures,” Ali says. “Rashid is a great guy and a very good addition to our squad plus a very good guy off the field. We hang out pretty much, go out to eat and have fun. This is his first time in USA so I’m just going to try to take him out sometime when we have free time and show him around.”

So you know his average and that he was dismissed for a duck in his last innings, but do you know what his favourite subject was in school?

ESPNcricinfo staff27-Aug-2017

Dilruwan Perera might have missed out on selection but instead stepped forward to give Sri Lanka balance and options – and a famous series win

Osman Samiuddin in Dubai10-Oct-2017They didn’t let him take the last wicket. Although given that he was understudy to the original, and most endearing, understudy in Sri Lanka cricket and that it was said – and now former – understudy who did get that wicket it won’t sting at all. Rangana Herath – who else? – put the final dot on this series win, and nobody will begrudge him that. But at its heart was the man who isn’t even the man who wasn’t – Dilruwan Perera.It’s perfectly reasonable if Perera has sort of passed you by as a cricketer. He’s not Sri Lanka’s main spinner. In fact, until recently it’s been difficult to say what he really is. His Test career began with a 95 and zero overs in the fourth innings of a big chase. That, by the way, was against Pakistan, in Sharjah. Later in the year he took 35 wickets across three Test series. When he took 15 in the whitewash of Australia in 2016, it was beginning to look like he was an offspinner. During the course of that series he became the quickest Sri Lankan bowler to 50 Test wickets – this, in the land of Herath and that ultimate conqueror of statistics, Muttiah Muralitharan.Then he stopped taking wickets, to the degree that in three Tests against India, he took just two. But he started scoring some runs again. After his debut he had gone 16 innings where his highest score was 16. That 16 was a great effort because there were six ducks in that run as well. Since the start of this year he has averaged nearly 35 with four fifties.So, if pushed, we might shrug and say he’s an offspinning allrounder. Which is the other reason why he may have passed you by. Offspinning allrounders are cricket’s least sexy classification, the mom jeans of the sport. Nobody chooses to be one, nobody grows up wishing to emulate one. You do it because you do one thing but you want to be adequate at another so that your chances of getting picked improve.Who even is one anymore? There’s Roston Chase. Okay, so there’s Moeen Ali, but he’s Moeen Ali, a category of one. R Ashwin is a supreme offspinner and a batsman who averages nearly 33 but allrounder is not a natural description for him. So, there’s Roston Chase.It feels like they’re modern cricket’s faulty product, recalled in this age of Twenty20 for not being fit for any purpose. But try recalling a great offspinning allrounder of the past. Mark Waugh? Carl Hooper? You’re more likely to end up with a list of great batsmen who could bowl. They’re not really a thing. And in this light, it makes perfect sense that Sri Lanka apparently considered not picking him at all until the last minute for Abu Dhabi. What would he do?What would he do? This not-really-a-thing would end up securing Sri Lanka one of their most unexpected series wins in at least three years, perhaps even more than that England win if you caught how badly outplayed they were at home to India and how badly their board seemed to be outplaying the team itself. He would, really. Sri Lanka had a whole line of performers over the two Tests, from Dimuth Karunaratne, Dinesh Chandimal and Niroshan Dickwella to Suranga Lakmal, Nuwan Pradeep, Lahiru Gamage and, of course, Herath.

Only at the very end of the series, when Perera took his five-fer, was Sarfraz Ahmed asked whether Pakistan had focused too much on Herath

But Perera was everywhere Sri Lanka needed him to be without attracting undue attention, until perhaps the statistical landmark of a five-wicket haul in the final innings made people stand up and take notice. Except before then, with Chandimal he took Sri Lanka closer to 400 in Abu Dhabi, when they could have folded for 350. He was the one who broke Pakistan’s opening stand in response, not Herath or the far sexier left-arm wrist spin of Lakshan Sandakan, whose googly Pakistan could not read.In Dubai, his fifty was part of Sri Lanka’s acceleration post Chandimal’s go-slow, and there were eight wickets. There is no shame in admitting that it’s difficult to recall more than a standout moment or two – the three middle-order wickets in 11 balls which turned Pakistan’s slow start into a disastrous one and then, of course, the critical wicket on the final afternoon of Sarfraz Ahmed. He got bounce on that one, but better was that he was catching some lovely drift.What he gave Sri Lanka was what all teams ever have craved: balance and options. The reason Sri Lanka did eventually pick him for Abu Dhabi was because of the extreme heat – they were worried a four-man attack would not be able to handle the workload without incurring an injury or compromising effectiveness.So Perera did not just take wickets and score important runs; he bowled enough overs – as many as Herath (107) – to keep Lakmal, Pradeep and eventually Gamage fresh enough. In that selection, Sri Lanka out-thought Pakistan. Pakistan had an offspinning allrounder of their own, albeit one completely untested at international level, but it does make you think. And it lets you wonder what might they have done with the presence of another guy who does one thing pretty well and another thing adequately enough, just not well enough for him to be called an allrounder and who did, for a few years in the UAE, give them precisely that balance.All series, at every opportunity, Pakistan were asked about Herath. How would they plan against him? Why does he take so many wickets against them? It was so right that only at the very end, when Perera took the five-fer, that Sarfraz was asked whether Pakistan had focused too much on Herath. He was asked it twice in fact, and neither time did the questioner take Perera’s name, nor did Sarfraz specifically refer to him in answering that no, Pakistan had planned for all of Sri Lanka’s attack and that all of Sri Lanka’s attack had bowled well, not just Herath.But it was as if it had dawned on everyone just then, when it was all said and done, that hey, this guy, whatshisname, he had actually done Pakistan in. That guy, you know, Dilruwan Perera, offspinning allrounder.

Ten men have coached Bangladesh over the last two decades

ESPNcricinfo staff05-Jun-2018Steve Rhodes, the former England wicketkeeper, is Graphic: Steve Rhodes is all set to become Bangladesh’s 11th coach in the past two decades•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Puducherry and Bihar completed victory inside two days; Jalaj Saxena made it a birthday to remember, and Shahbaz Nadeem got a maiden first-class 100

Saurabh Somani15-Dec-2018Hardik Pandya turned his three into five, and Jalaj Saxena made it a 32nd birthday to remember. Meanwhile, Shubman Gill went one better than Shreyas Iyer among batsmen back from India A, and will resume the day on 199 not out. And Shahbaz Nadeem got to a maiden first-class century, completing a happy homecoming for the India A team members, while two matches in the Plate Group finished on the second day itself. Here are the highlights of how the second day of the sixth round for Ranji Trophy 2018-19 went.Hardik takes five as Baroda fight backHe had three wickets on a high-scoring first day, and Hardik Pandya took the remaining two to end with 5 for 81 with Mumbai all out for 465. That Mumbai scored at five runs per over was not as impressive as Baroda being in the match after Mumbai were 384 for 3. More importantly for Pandya, who bowled 18.5 overs, if his economy rate seemed high, the pitch didn’t seem to have much in it for bowlers. Baroda ended the day on 244 for 1. In that light, Hardik’s figures are impressive. Are they impressive enough to merit a dash to Australia before the Boxing Day Test though? Gill, Nadeem lead the wayYuvraj Singh is playing his second Ranji match of the season, but he hasn’t even got to bat yet and Punjab are already ahead by 93 runs against Tamil Nadu. That’s thanks to Shubman Gill, who is batting on 199, at a strike-rate of more than 85. Of those runs, 108 have come in boundaries, and Gill has dealt with Tamil Nadu’s bowlers imperiously.Shahbaz Nadeem hit a maiden first-class century, making 109 from No. 8 to drag Jharkhand to 354. For Uttar Pradesh, Dhruv Pratap Singh, the 21-year-old right-arm seamer playing his first match of the season, took career-best figures of 6 for 105. In a match that could well decide who finishes top two and who doesn’t, UP ended the day on 173 for 4. Suresh Raina is still batting on 65, and Rinku Singh, UP’s best batsman this season, is on 22.Among other notable batting feats, Abhimanyu Easwaran made a career-best 186 – more than half of Bengal’s 336, against Hyderabad. Tripura’s Pratyush Singh hit a maiden first-class century, taking his team to a position of strength against Goa.Two men who didn’t get to centuries but made significant 90s were Saurashtra’s Vishvaraj Jadeja and Vidarbha’s Akshay Karnewar. Vishvaraj, 20, had made 97 on the first day, missing out on a century on debut in Saurashtra’s post-Jaydev Shah era, though his team are reasonably placed against Maharashtra. Karnewar, the ambidextrous bowler, hit 94 to lift defending champions Vidarbha from 202 for 6 to 331 all out against Railways.In the Plate Group, Vineet Saxena is batting on 150, fresh off an unbeaten 202 in his last match, with Uttarakhand dominant against Nagaland.Birthday-boy Saxena makes Delhi feel the post-Gambhir bluesJalaj Saxena took 6 for 39 – in 31 overs – to make it a memorable 32nd birthday as Delhi were bowled out for 139 against Kerala and were made to follow on. They’ve already lost five wickets in 13 overs with just 41 on the board in their second dig, and need 140 runs just to make Kerala bat again. In their first match since Gautam Gambhir’s retirement, the Delhi batsmen haven’t covered themselves in glory.ALSO READ: Jalaj Saxena: record-making allrounder, but not for Indian sidesPuducherry, Bihar win in two daysPuducherry smothered Arunachal Pradesh by 334 runs to win inside two days to pocket six points. Both teams had already been bowled out once on the first day, and Puducherry rode on Paras Dogra’s 139 and Fabid Ahmed’s 88 to pile on 351. Arunachal couldn’t effect a similar turnaround when they batted, crashing to 71 all out, with Pankaj Singh taking 5 for 25. Captain Rohit Damodaren took 4 for 7 in five overs, and at one point he had figures of 3-3-0-3.Meghalaya crashed to an innings and 71 runs defeat against Bihar, for whom Ashutosh Aman was the star once again. Aman had already taken 8 for 51 in the first innings, and he followed that with 6 for 17 in the second. He thus had his best match, and innings figures. His first-class career is only five matches old, but he already has 39 wickets, at a stunning average of 4.79. His economy rate is 1.74, and he takes a wicket every 16.5 balls. Almost makes Meghalaya’s 46 all out look good.Tight finishes loomingOn the first day, 15 wickets had fallen in the Haryana vs J&K match. On the second, 19 fell. J&K grabbed a slender 16-run lead on the first innings, and then made 205. Yuzvendra Chahal, back for Haryana, took 4 for 37. A target of 222 in a low-scoring match isn’t particularly easy, but Irfan Pathan made it more difficult for Haryana with a burst of four wickets.Rajasthan and Odisha were also engaged in a low-scoring thriller, with 18 wickets falling on second day after 14 had fallen on the first day. Tanvir Ul-Haq (5 for 14) and Aniket Choudhary (5 for 49) had bowled Odisha out for 111 in their first innings. Basant Mohanty took a fifer of his own as Rajasthan then keeled over for 148, leaving Odisha with a target of 173. However, Tanvir added two more wickets, bowling two overs without giving up any runs, as Odisha ended the day on 6 for 2. In the first innings, Tanvir had bowled 23 overs, and so far in the match he’s bowled 25 overs for just 14 runs and seven wickets. Spare a thought for Basant Mohanty, who has taken 11 for 49 – his best match figures – but now needs his batsmen to step up.

Brief scores

Groups A and B:
Baroda 244/1 (Waghmode 87*, Solanki 128*) trail Mumbai 465 (Iyer 178, Lad 130, Hardik Pandya 5-81, Bhatt 4-76) by 221 runs in Mumbai
Maharashtra 86/3 (Jadhav 38*) trail Saurashtra 398 (Vishvaraj Jadeja 97, Snell Patel 84, Vasavada 62, Sanklecha 6-103) by 312 runs in Nasik
Karnataka 348/7 (Padikkal 74, Shreyas 93, Nagwaswalla 3-48) lead Gujarat 216 (Panchal 74, Shreyas 2-21, Vinay 2-33) by 132 runs in Surat
Railways 170/2 (Pratham 84*) trail Vidarbha 331 (Fazal 53, Karnewar 94, Avinash Yadav 5-78) by 161 runs in New Delhi
Delhi 139 (Saxena 6-39) & 41/5 (Warrier 3-16) trail Kerala 320 (Rahul 77, Manoharan 77, Saxena 68, Shivam 6-98) by 140 runs in Thumba
Punjab 308/2 (Gill 199*, Mandeep 50*) lead Tamil Nadu 215 (Vijay Shankar 71, Gony 5-55) by 93 runs in Mohali
Hyderabad 20/1 trail Bengal 336 (Easwaran 186, Ravi Kiran 4-46) by 316 runs in Hyderabad
Himachal 320/5 (Chopra 65, Kalsi 103*, Rishi Dhawan 76) lead Andhra 173 (Sai Krishna 74, Jaiswal 5-50) by 147 runs in Amtar
Group C
Uttar Pradesh 173/4 (Garg 54, Raina 65*) trail Jharkhand 354 (Jaggi 95, Kishan 54, Nadeem 109, Dhruv 6-105) by 181 runs in Lucknow
Services 213/2 (Navneet 79*, Paliwal 104*) lead Assam 211 (Sinha 56, Pandey 5-74) by 2 runs in New Delhi
Haryana 145 (Rohit 41, Mudhasir 4-50, Umar Nazir 5-55) & 49/4 (Irfan Pathan 4-10) trail Jammu & Kashmir 161 (Ajit Chahal 3-31, Yuzvendra Chahal 3-50) & 205 (Owais 71, Ajit Chahal 3-55, Yuzvendra Chahal 4-37) by 172 runs in Lahli
Odisha 111 (Choudhary 5-49, Tanvir 5-14) & 6/2 (Tanvir 2-0) trail Rajasthan 135 (Lomror 85, Basant Mohanty 6-20) & 148 (Gautam 51, Basant Mohanty 5-29) by 166 runs in Bhubaneswar
Goa 107/4 (Kauthankar 42*) trail Tripura 358 (Pratyush 110, Rajib Saha 68*, Amit Verma 3-87) by 251 runs in Agartala
Plate Group
Bihar 242 (Babul 43, Lakhan 3-30) beat Meghalaya 125 (Biswa 56, Aman 8-51) & 46 (Aman 6-17, Quadri 4-24) by an innings and 71 runs in Shillong
Sikkim 332 (Milind 139, Sinan 3-74) and 75/3 lead Mizoram 161 (Taruwar 74, Chaudhary 5-57) by 246 runs in Jorhat
Puducherry 136 (Fabid 41*, Deendyal 4-36, Neri 3-28) & 351 (Dogra 139, Fabid 88, Deendyal 4-63, Neri 3-76) beat Arunachal 82 (Fabid 6-29) & 71 (Pankaj 5-25, Rohit 4-7) by 334 runs in Goalpara
Uttarakhand 371/4 (Vineet 150*, Panwar 101) lead Nagaland 207 (Jonathan 69, Dhapola 5-49) by 164 runs in Dehradun

The first signal came from the non-striker Faf du Plessis, before the umpire was satisfied that Miller’s late gesture signalled his intent to review

ESPNcricinfo staff11-Nov-2018Was DRS protocol correctly followed when Aleem Dar’s decision to give David Miller out lbw was reviewed in the third ODI between Australia and South Africa in Hobart?Miller, on 41, was given lbw to Glenn Maxwell and after considerable debate with the non-striker Faf du Plessis it was the South Africa captain du Plessis who first made a clear review signal to umpire Dar. Dar appeared to hesitate in signalling for the DRS until Miller himself made a half-hearted gesture of brushing his arm, after which Dar called in the TV umpire, satisfied with the striker’s intent to review. The ball-tracking projection predicted the ball would have gone over the stumps and Dar overturned his decision.

It took a LONG time for the Proteas to review, but they'll be glad they did! #AUSvSA@GilletteAU #CloseMatters pic.twitter.com/E7u7X9QgEu

— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) November 11, 2018

The ICC playing conditions for ODIs state that only the batsman dismissed can request for a review. “Only the batsman involved in a dismissal may request a Player Review of an Out decision and only the captain (or acting captain) of the fielding team may request a Player Review of a Not-out decision.”The playing conditions also state that a “review request shall be made by the player making a ‘T’ sign with both forearms at head height,” and while that is not strictly enforced Miller’s gesture did not meet those standards.There was also a question over whether the review request from South Africa had come within the permitted 15-second period. It was a borderline call with host broadcaster putting a stop clock on it which came to 18 seconds, although the time restriction is again not always enforced strictly.Miller went on to make 139 off 108 balls and shared a partnership of 252 with du Plessis, leading South Africa to 320 for 5 in the series decider at Bellerive Oval.

Liam Brickhill, ESPNcricinfo’s South Africa correspondent, picks his all-time South Africa World Cup XI

Picked by Liam Brickhill26-Feb-2019While they carry an infamous knockout record with them, South Africa have also often been the form team heading into World Cups since their readmission. Herschelle Gibbs, with an average of 56.15 and over 1000 runs in World Cups, opens the batting, while Hashim Amla’s two hundreds and better strike rate push him ahead of Gary Kirsten. Jacques Kallis, one of three allrounders in the side, is another batsman to have scored over 1000 runs, while no South African has scored more runs at the tournament than AB de Villiers’ 1207, and unsurprisingly he has also scored the most hundreds (four).ESPNcricinfo LtdLance Klusener’s World Cup record speaks for itself, while Shaun Pollock’s 31 wickets at an economy rate of just 3.60 also wins him a place. Mark Boucher keeps wicket, while Dale Steyn and Allan Donald – South Africa’s leading wicket-taker at World Cups with 38 – open the bowling.No World Cup team is complete without a spinner, and Imran Tahir’s average of 16.31 makes him an obvious choice. Kepler Wessels, as a man virtually incapable of choking, captains the side, while Faf du Plessis makes it in as 12th man for his cool, calm and collected manner and outstanding fielding.