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A match-shaping 146 by the talented teenager Matt Renshaw put Queensland in a strong position over South Australia after day one of the Sheffield Shield match at Adelaide Oval

ESPNcricinfo staff03-Feb-2016
ScorecardMatt Renshaw struck his second first-class century on the trot and both have been big – 170 v NSW followed by 146 v SA•Getty Images

A match-shaping 146 by the talented teenager Matt Renshaw put Queensland in a strong position over South Australia after day one of the Sheffield Shield match at Adelaide Oval.In a fixture that features two members of the Australian Test squad for New Zealand in Joe Burns and Chadd Sayers, neither man was able to have a major impact on proceedings. Burns reached 35 in partnership with 19-year old Renshaw before he was bowled by the left-arm spin of Tom Andrews. Further partnerships ensued between Renshaw and Chris Lynn, then Sam Heazlett capitalised on the platform he was given by spanking 75 from a mere 83 deliveries.Renshaw himself as many as seven sixes in his second consecutive first-class hundred, having compiled 170 for the Bulls against New South Wales at Mackay before the Big Bash League break. He was ultimately dismissed by Joe Mennie with the second new ball, edging through to wicketkeeper Tim Ludeman.Sayers, meanwhile, was taken for 76 runs from his 22 overs for the sole consolation of Lynn’s wicket. Mennie and Andrews claimed two wickets apiece.

Munir Hussain, the legend of Urdu cricket commentary in Pakistan, has died aged 83 of a cardiac arrest in Karachi

Umar Farooq29-Jul-2013Munir Hussain, one of the pioneers of Urdu cricket commentary in Pakistan, has died aged 83 of a cardiac arrest in Karachi. A former right-arm seamer, he played a single first-class match for Kalat District in 1969-70, taking two wickets against Quetta in the Quaid-e-Azam trophy.Born in November 1929, Hussain had earned many accolades during his distinguished commentary career spanning several decades. He was presented the Best Urdu Commentator of the Decade Award (1985-95), the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation, and the PCB’s World Cup Legends Award presented on the 10th anniversary celebrations of Pakistan’s victory in the 1992 World Cup.He was also the founder of the first Urdu cricket magazine . He also wrote a popular weekly column in the Urdu daily for years, and had commentated on the game on television and radio in the 1970s.”Munir , a journalist and broadcaster of renown from the early 1970s, had a fan following of his own,” Najam Sethi, the PCB’s acting chairman, said. “He was an informed, easygoing and affable personality; his death will be widely mourned by the journalist and broadcast community as well as the cricketing fraternity across the country.”

The BCB has sold various sponsorship rights for $14 million for four years to Aamby Valley, an affiliate of Sahara India Parivar, and Axiom Technologies

ESPNcricinfo staff04-Jun-2012The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has sold various sponsorship rights for $14 million for four years to Aamby Valley, an affiliate of Sahara India Parivar, and Axiom Technologies. It is the biggest sponsorship deal in Bangladesh cricket.Sahara’s winning bid ended Grameenphone’s eight-year association between 2003 and 2011 as Bangladesh’s sponsors. They bid approximately $9.4 million, substantially more than the $ 3.4 million from Grameenphone and $4 million from Robi, another telecom company. Sahara won branding rights for the national team and the national cricket academy, and title sponsorship and in-stadia sponsorship for 2012-13, among other rights.Apart from the national team sponsorship, Sahara was the only company to bid for the sponsorship rights of the academy at a price of $130,000 per year.Axiom was awarded title sponsorship and in-stadia sponsorship for 2014 and 2015, and beverage and ticketing rights from 2012 to 2015.

The absence of several senior players during the tour of the West Indies provides an ideal platform for fringe players to show what they can do on the international stage, Suresh Raina has said

ESPNcricinfo staff31-May-2011The absence of several senior players for the upcoming tour of the West Indies provides an ideal platform for fringe players to shine on the international stage, Suresh Raina, India’s captain for the limited-overs leg of the Caribbean tour, has said.”It’s a great opportunity for the youngsters who have done well in domestic cricket,” Raina told the media ahead of the team’s departure for the West Indies. “I am happy with the side, as we have some very good batsmen in Rohit Sharma, Manoj Tiwary, S Badrinath and Shikhar Dhawan, all of whom have done well in first-class cricket.”Raina, has led a similarly second-string Indian side in the past, for a tri-series Zimbabwe in May-June 2010, though India performed poorly on that tour, losing both matches against the hosts and one against Sri Lanka.This time, India are without the services of Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni and Zaheer Khan, who have all been rested, in addition to the ill Yuvraj Singh, and the injured duo of Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir for the lone Twenty20 and the five ODIs that follow. MS Dhoni will take over the captaincy from Raina for the Tests, and Zaheer will return, but the other seniors will miss the Test leg as well.Raina said he has learnt a lot about the art of captaincy from Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid and Dhoni, and was prepared for the challenge.”West Indies have players like Gayle missing, but it will be a challenge for us,” Raina said. “There’s always pressure and we have done well under pressure. It’s for us as players to execute the plans of the coach well. We have to play our natural game.”The tour will be the first assignment for India’s newly-appointed coach Duncan Fletcher, who said he was a supporter of the rotation policy. “While I was in England [Fletcher coached England between 1999 and 2007], I started the rotation policy resting senior guys,” Fletcher said. “I was heavily criticised by the English authorities. It’s important to do that considering the heavy schedule. We need to look into the matter as we go into the future.”He said he looked forward to working with the youngsters, but cautioned against complacency. ” Any team playing at home is difficult to beat. We should not be complacent. There is a lot of talent in India and my job is to prepare these youngsters.”Yes, we would like to beat England in England and Australia in Australia. But the first job is the tour of the West Indies. It’s very important not to look too far down the road. India have a plan to stay at the top. The young players have the potential and this tour will show the depth of talent we have.”He also said that the club versus country debate is something that just has to be dealt with. “That’s the way it is in modern day sports. We have to ensure that all the players are fit enough.”India’s tour of the West Indies kicks off with a T20 game on Friday in Port of Spain.

Jack Clarke, Cricket Australia’s chairman, will be more cautious in his dealings with India following its role in dismissing John Howard as the ICC’s vice-presidential candidate in Singapore

Peter English30-Jun-2010Jack Clarke, Cricket Australia’s chairman, will be more cautious in his dealings with India following its role in dismissing John Howard as the ICC’s vice-presidential candidate in Singapore. Australia has developed an increasingly strong relationship with the BCCI, including developing the Champions League Twenty20, but the board was part of the group that blocked Howard’s passage.A frustrated Clarke said India wasn’t the only country to oppose the joint recommendation of Australia and New Zealand at the meetings in Singapore over the past two days. However, the decision by the ICC’s board to request another candidate has altered the environment.”You hope it doesn’t affect your relationship but it obviously puts a block there for a while and makes you wary, I suppose,” he said. “But we have to deal with all the member countries of the ICC … We’ll have a board meeting in October and there’s no point not rolling up.”Zimbabwe and South Africa were the original opponents to Howard’s nomination, raising their protests outside an ICC meeting in Dubai in April, but a group of six members signed a letter on Tuesday night expressing their desire to veto the recommendation. The list didn’t include Zimbabwe, but India’s strength allowed them to bring Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh on board, highlighting a return to the days when the Asian and African countries voted en-masse.Despite seeing Howard “knocked off” by the alliance, Clarke refused to say the enormous power of the bloc was unhealthy for the future of the game. “In any business model where a company has 75% of the income it is not an ideal model, but that’s not India’s fault they do that,” he said. “With distributions that go to all the countries, [India] earn it and distribute it evenly among nine of the Test-playing countries and the Associates.”It is a powerful bloc, it’s a reality of life. But you’ve also got to remember that until 1992 Australia and England had a power of veto [in ICC meetings].”There is a strong feeling that if India had supported Howard he would have had no problems in becoming the deputy to Sharad Pawar, the incoming ICC president. “I can’t speculate about that,” Clarke said. “I’ve been on the board for 18 months, been to seven meetings, I think the bloc vote that was once there before my time doesn’t exist at the same level.”A BCCI source told AFP there was “nothing personal against Howard”. “But we do accept the argument that only a man with previous experience in cricket administration should head the ICC. Howard was not involved with Cricket Australia at any time.”

Meanwhile, Chris Silverwood has declared an interest in becoming the county’s new head coach

ESPNcricinfo staff19-Aug-2024Jonny Bairstow will play his first match of the season for Yorkshire this week when the County Championship returns following a six-week break.Bairstow has only played two first-class games for his home county since the end of the 2020 season due to his England and IPL commitments. He is yet to feature for Yorkshire in any format this season, having taken a short break from the game between the T20 World Cup and the start of the Hundred, where he represented Welsh Fire.But he will return for Thursday’s fixture against Sussex at Scarborough, with Yorkshire sitting just outside of the two promotion places in Division Two. They are four points behind second-placed Middlesex heading into the final five games of the season, and can close the 27-point gap on leaders Sussex this week.Bairstow made 123 runs in seven innings for Welsh Fire this season•Getty Images

Bairstow lost his place in England’s Test team after failing to reach 40 on their tour to India this year, and appears unlikely to feature in their T20I and ODI series against Australia in September. He declared at the start of the Hundred that “all I want to do is play for England”, but was short of runs for Welsh Fire, with 123 runs and a single half-century across seven innings.”I spoke to Jonny, and he still has ambitions of getting back into the England team,” Ottis Gibson, Yorkshire’s head coach, said last week. “When he was coming back from his injury last year, our medical team and coaches – everybody associated with the club – helped him get back into the England fold.”If it’s that we need to do that again with him, give him some love and get him into a position where he puts good performances in, everybody benefits from that. Jonny Bairstow is a serious cricketer anyway, but when he has a point to prove, he’s even more dangerous. Hopefully, we can take advantage of that.”Related

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Yorkshire confirmed on Monday that Bairstow is available to play at Scarborough after a shoulder niggle, but his availability for the final four games of the season has not yet been confirmed. They will be without their captain Shan Masood this week, who is with Pakistan’s Test squad ahead of their series against Bangladesh.The club announced earlier this month that Gibson will leave his job at the end of the season, and are also in the process of recruiting a new director of cricket, having advertised for the role earlier in the summer.Chris Silverwood, who recently left his job as Sri Lanka coach, has declared his interest in the head coach vacancy: “I haven’t spoken to anybody as yet,” he told talkSPORT. “Would it interest me? Absolutely, it’s my old county and I have a great love for Yorkshire.”

Bhuvneshwar has led Sunrisers in seven games in the past, winning two and losing five

ESPNcricinfo staff30-Mar-2023In the absence of designated captain Aiden Markram, Bhuvneshwar Kumar will lead Sunrisers Hyderabad in their opening match of IPL 2023, against Rajasthan Royals in Hyderabad on April 2.Markram is in South Africa for the two-match ODI series against Netherlands and will arrive in India only on April 3. The series is crucial for South Africa’s direct qualification for the ODI World Cup, to be played in India later this year. They need to win both ODIs against Netherlands (without over-rate penalties) and then hope Ireland lose at least one ODI against Bangladesh in a three-match home series in May.Bhuvneshwar has been with Sunrisers since their inception in 2013, and has led them in the past as well – in six games in 2019 and once in 2022. Sunrisers won two of those seven matches.After finishing eighth on the points table in 2022, Sunrisers revamped their squad ahead of this season. One of the big changes was releasing their then-captain Kane Williamson and handing over the reins to Markram.Markram recently led Sunrisers Eastern Cape to the inaugural SA20 title, where he also finished as the tournament’s third-highest run-getter, scoring 369 runs at a strike rate of 127. He also bagged 11 wickets at an economy of 6.19 with his offspin.Apart from Markram, Marco Jansen and Heinrich Klaasen will also be unavailable for the first match. That leaves Sunrisers with only five overseas players – Harry Brook, Glenn Phillips, Adil Rashid, Fazalhaq Farooqi and Akeal Hosein – to choose from for their first match.Sunrisers’ second game is on April 7, against Lucknow Super Giants in Lucknow.

Teams agree on draw after Jharkhand extend lead to 1008, the biggest in the history of first-class cricket

Himanshu Agrawal in Kolkata16-Mar-2022Their first-innings lead – a mammoth 591-run lead at that – over Nagaland took Jharkhand into the quarter-final of this season’s Ranji Trophy. Nagaland’s struggle finally ended just after halfway on the fifth day, as the two teams shook hands at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens, with Jharkhand having taken a lead of 1008, the highest in the history of first-class cricket, when they finished on 417 for 6 in their second innings.When the final day’s play started, Jharkhand were 132 for 2 in their second innings, already 723 ahead, and could have pushed for a win, as they might have when they bowled Nagaland out for 289 after putting up 880 in their first innings. But they chose to bat on, taking a result out of the contest. As a result, opener Utkarsh Singh and middle-order batters Anukul Roy and Kumar Kushagra, who had scored 266 in the first innings, added to their numbers.Jharkhand added 285 runs in just over 53 overs of play on the day. Roy followed his first-innings 59 with an entertaining 159 off 164 balls, smashing 14 fours and seven sixes in his knock. He added 163 with Kushagra, who scored 89 in 104 balls. Utkarsh was the first wicket to fall on the day, caught off Shrikant Mundhe for 73 after resuming on 50.Kushagra joined Roy at the start of the 51st over, and after the 58th, the two started to up the scoring rate. They took 41 off four overs as Roy edged closer to a century, and he got to the landmark, his second in first-class cricket, in the 66th over by hitting a six off left-arm spinner Imliwati Lemtur.He continued to have fun against the spinners, taking four and six off consecutive balls from Rongsen Jonathan in the 77th over, before cracking two successive sixes off Lemtur in the next. Though Roy fell to Jonathan for a career-best 153, Kushagra continued to go big, launching Jonathan for two sixes before being dismissed off the third ball of the 91st over, which turned out to be the final delivery of the match.The Ranji Trophy quarter-finals begin after the IPL concludes on May 29, the tournament having been split into two chunks this season. The fixtures for the knockouts have not been released yet.

There has been a return to community cases in NSW but the tournament model allows for measures to be tightened if required

Andrew McGlashan15-Oct-2020Cricket Australia is confident the WBBL structure can react to a changing Covid-19 landscape as the start of the tournament which will be played entirely in a Sydney hub draws closer.The competition will begin on October 25 and run until the end of November, played at a variety of venues around the city with players based in a ‘village’ at the Sydney Olympic Park. As it stands, crowds will be able to attend at varying levels across the different grounds based on capacity restrictions.After a period of 12 days without community transmission of Covid-19 in New South Wales, cases have returned over the last week but the way the competition has been set-up provides various contingencies should they be required.ALSO READ: From Suzie Bates to Laura Wolvaardt – all the WBBL overseas players“One of the focus areas for building the competition has been the village which is a really self-contained facility to create a safe environment where we can scale up and down the level security and overlay that’s required,” Alistair Dobson, the head of the Big Bash, said.”Crowds will be something we work really closely with the New South Wales government on around capacity – different venues will have different requirements. The hill at North Sydney Oval will be different to the big stands at the [Sydney] Showgrounds.”We have a really scalable model which will allow us to pull different levers if the situation changes. We haven’t talked specific [Covid] numbers but it’s something we monitor and talk about daily.”There are 23 overseas players signed up for the tournament with those from England, West Indies and South Africa currently undergoing two weeks quarantine in various cities before all the teams join up in Sydney next week. Those who live in Sydney will also be required to stay within the village, which will allow players some degree of freedom around the hotels but with strict protocols still in place to restrict any wider movement.”It’s an enormous sacrifice and it goes without saying that there isn’t a part of the game that hasn’t had to make really big sacrifices to get the WBBL season over the line and the same will apply for all the different formats this year,” Dobson said. “There’s an element of freedom within the village because we are able to create such a secure environment around it.”Part of what we’ve tried to set up is that players who are essentially leaving home for five or six weeks, from a mental health and wellbeing point of view, have an experience which is positive and not the hard bubble some other competitions have gone through. There are restrictions outside the village in terms of going into restaurants nearby or those sorts of things, [and] there’s an element of being able to flex that up and down.”On Thursday, it was announced that 12 additional WBBL matches would be live on Fox Cricket meaning more than half the tournament will be televised with the other games available via streaming.

Tom Helm claims two wickets to put Worcestershire on the back foot

ECB Reporters Network27-May-2019Middlesex struck back with the ball after being dismissed for 221 on the opening day of their County Championship match against Worcestershire at Blackfinch New Road.The visitors were bowled out in 66.2 overs after being put into bat with Charlie Morris and Josh Tongue continuing their impressive start to the season. Morris, the leading wicket-taker in Division Two, picked up three more scalps to take his tally to 23 and Tongue also added a further trio of wickets to lift his total to 15.Only Middlesex skipper Dawid Malan, who had recovered from a groin injury suffered on England duty earlier in the month, and keeper John Simpson batted with much authority, scoring 45 and 35 respectively.Tom Helm bowled a fine new-ball spell for Middlesex, which brought him two wickets, and then Callum Ferguson fell just before the close for an aggressive 37, meaning Worcestershire will restart tomorrow on 64 three 3.Batting was a challenge for the bulk of the day in the first meeting between the two counties since 2015 with the ball nibbling around sufficiently to keep the bowlers interested and occasionally keeping low.It is the start of successive home games for Worcestershire against three of the pre-season favourites for promotion along with themselves in Middlesex, Lancashire and Sussex.They were without all-rounder Wayne Parnell (hamstring) but welcomed back Tongue after a one-game injury absence while fit again Malan and Tim Murtagh – available after international commitments with Ireland – returned for Middlesex.Morris broke through in his first over of the day as Max Holden played half forward and nicked through to Ben Cox for no score.Sam Robson was lbw to a Tongue delivery which kept low and Nick Gubbins was bowled by Ross Whiteley.Malan, who suffered his injury blow in the ODI against Ireland, and Steve Eskinazi, looked to be repairing the pre-lunch damage during a partnership of 62. But Whiteley enjoyed a second success when Eskinazi was leg before for 27 and then Malan departed in the same fashion to Morris after striking six fours in his 91-ball knock.James Harris became another lbw victim in the next over from Ed Barnard. Simpson and Toby Roland-Jones added 31 before the latter went for a cut against Joe Leach and fell to a sharp first slip catch by Riki Wessels.Tongue accounted for Helm (1) and Nathan Sowter – the fifth player of the innings to fall lbw.Simpson was largely responsible for taking Middlesex past the 200 mark until he ballooned a simple catch to Whiteley on the off side against Morris, who finished with figures of 15.2-2-53-3. Tongue took 3 for 49, with Whiteley, Leach and Barnard the other wicket-takers.When Worcestershire batted, Daryl Mitchell and George Rhodes were both caught behind off Helm during a fine opening spell.Ferguson reeled off a succession of boundaries, including three in an over from Harris. He dominated a partnership of 53 with Tom Fell but after making 37 was lbw to Roland-Jones to leave the game evenly poised. Fell remained defiant and was unbeaten on 18 from 86 balls by the close.