Tag Futebol

Max O’Dowd showed the patience required to get the job done in the chase, even as Nepal’s bowlers applied significant pressure of their own

Ashish Pant04-Jun-20245:43

Moody: The depth of Netherlands’ seam-bowling challenged Nepal

Tim Pringle and Logan van Beek’s three-wicket hauls backed up by Max O’Dowd’s patient half-century got Netherlands over the line in a nervy chase in their opening game of the T20 World Cup 2024, against a spirited Nepal in Dallas.It was a rude welcome for Nepal in their first T20 World Cup in a decade, with the Netherlands bowlers putting up a fine show and bowling them out for a mere 106 in 19.2 overs. But Nepal weren’t done yet. They squeezed the Netherlands batters in the middle overs and took the chase into the 19th over. O’Dowd, however, held his own with an unbeaten 54. He rode his luck and made sure to take his side over the line by six wickets and eight balls to spare.Early-morning rain and overcast conditions delayed the toss by 30 minutes and Netherlands captain Scott Edwards had no hesitations in bowling after winning the toss. The bowlers backed up their captain’s decision with Pringle, van Beek, Paul van Meekeren and Bas de Leede all getting among the wickets.In reply, Nepal put up a fight but dropped a couple of crucial chances at key intervals.

Dallas turns blue and red, but Orange holds sway

The Grand Prairie Stadium can seat 7000 but the vocal Nepal fans made it feel a lot bigger, flocking in nice and early getting behind their team. But the overcast conditions assisted the Netherlands seamers and they got their first wicket through left-arm spinner Pringle, whose decision to keep giving the ball flight paid off as Aasif Sheikh’s thick outside edge found short third in the second over. Pacer van Beek then struck with his first ball, angling a length ball sharply back into Kushal Bhurtel and catching him plumb in front.Nepal’s players appreciated the lively support they got in Dallas•ICC/Getty Images

Fast bowler Vivian Kingma also found big movement as the Nepal batters found putting bat to ball an arduous task. In the first six overs, Nepal played and missed 17 of the 36 balls (47.22%), which is the highest for any team in a men’s T20I (for which ESPNcricinfo has ball-by-ball data available). They hit five fours but could only manage three singles and a two in the first six overs, as Nepal managed only 29 runs in the powerplay for the loss of two wickets.

A stranglehold in the middle and at the death

Rohit Paudel, the youngest captain at a T20 World Cup at 21, kept his composure but lost partners at a steady rate. He pumped Kingma for a four over covers in the seventh over, but Pringle came back in his second over to remove Anil Sah, his attempted sweep only going as far as deep backward square leg. Kushal Malla hammered van Meekeren for a four over mid-off but fell three balls later trying a repeat of that shot, deceived by the slower offcutter and spooning the ball straight up.Bas de Leede then got rid of Dipendra Singh Airee caught at slip as Nepal slipped to 53 for 5 after 11 overs. Paudel was busy during his 35 off 37 but ultimately perished giving Pringle his third wicket. Karan KC and Gulsan Jha added 22 off 17 balls for the eighth wicket – the second-highest stand of the innings – to push the score past 100. Van Beek ended the innings with a two-in-two.Rohit Paudel was resilient but fell right before the death overs started•AFP/Getty Images

Nepal apply the choke

Early wickets was the need of the hour, and Nepal managed that with Sompal Kami getting rid of Michael Levitt with his second ball, caught by the cover fielder. Both Kami and Karan kept the bowling tight conceding only four runs in the first 15 balls. Vikramjit Singh broke the shackles with two back-to-back fours but run-scoring remained slow. Nepal bowled 19 dot balls in the powerplay as Netherlands reached 36 for 1 after the first six.It was going to get tougher for Netherlands in the middle overs, with the spinners coming into the equation. Airee conceded just a single in his first over after the powerplay, before taking out Vikramjit with a length ball that beat the batter’s attempted slog sweep and caught him in front. An over earlier Vikramjit was dropped at deep backward square leg by Kami, but he couldn’t cash in.O’Dowd and Sybrand Engelbrecht tried to steady to ship in a 28-run stand before a run out brought about the latter’s end. O’Dowd struck a straight drive back at Kami, who expertly deflected the ball back onto the non-striker’s stumps and caught Engelbrecht short. Nepal conceded just 48 runs in the middle overs (6 to 15) making Netherlands fight for every run.Max O’Dowd took Netherlands home with an unbeaten 54•AFP/Getty Images

Composed O’Dowd steers Netherlands home

When Edwards fell cheaply, it felt Netherlands’ chase could go astray, but O’Dowd brought all his experience into play. He curbed his natural aggressive instincts and made sure he kept his end secure even when Netherlands went 40 balls without a boundary between the 12th and 18th overs. O’Dowd had a huge slice of luck when Paudel spilled a straightforward chance in the 18th over at long-off. He was on 40 at the time and Netherlands still needed 18 off 17, but the dropped chance seemed to ease his nerves. In the penultimate over, with Netherlands requiring 13 off 12, he smashed Abinash Bohara for a four and six to reach his 13th T20I fifty. De Leede then finished the chase with a four through covers, triggering a sigh of relief in the Netherlands camp and securing two crucial points.

Limited play enhances Middlesex’s hopes against promotion rival

Paul Edwards13-Sep-2022
The floodlights were on at the start of play today but only meteorologists would have called the morning autumnal. Although leaves on trees close to traffic lights or busy junctions have been exhausted to crisp death, most of the others remain green in the suburbs this September. It was shirt-sleeve order in MCC’s pavilion yesterday and London retains the lingering sense of summer that Clarissa Dalloway recognised nearly a century ago: “The King and Queen were at the palace. And everywhere, though it was still so early, there was a beating, a stirring of galloping ponies, tapping of cricket bats; Lord’s, Ascot, Ranelagh and all the rest of it; wrapped in the soft mesh of the grey-blue morning air…”By noon, though, we were taking an early luncheon and the light rain may have come as a relief to Glamorgan who had neither taken a wicket nor looked like doing so. The obstacles blocking their path towards bowling bonus points and parity in the game were all too predictable. Mark Stoneman and John Simpson had scored 1501 first-class runs this season before this match began and their 134-run stand for the fifth wicket earned Middlesex a first-innings lead whose final size has yet to be determined. And after that early lunch, the umpires also opted for an early tea when bad light and then rain returned just before four o’clock.So it was Stoneman’s day and certainly the first session had reminded us how well-organised a player he is and how many productive strokes he possesses without having recourse to his muscly thumps to leg or his iron-wristed cuts past point. By contrast, there was something damagingly soporific about the opener’s batting this morning; he didn’t destroy David Lloyd’s attack or smack boundaries to all parts. He merely went about his professional business so efficiently that by at lunchtime he was on 96 and Middlesex’s deficit was 30.This pattern changed a little in the afternoon session, although Stoneman would insist that he was simply responding to the balls he’d received. Soon after reaching his third century of the season he took three fours in an over off James Harris: a squeeze past the slips, a pull and a cut. Simpson took up the theme with a couple of boundaries off Michael Hogan before reaching his own fifty off 109 balls. Then two overs later, Stoneman was gone for 128 when fishing limply at a ball outside off stump from Ajaz Patel.Nevertheless, as he stomped off unhappily – another good sign – one was reminded that he might be one of the ex-England openers in the county game with a chance of returning to the Test team. There is, of course, so much competition that one wouldn’t be astonished to hear that the group hold self-help meetings in which they share their experiences and their woes: “My name is Haseeb and I opened for England.”As it stands, Rory Burns, Ben Duckett, Haseeb Hameed, Keaton Jennings, Adam Lyth, Jason Roy, Sam Robson and Dom Sibley are all playing county cricket and each of them probably nurtures hopes of receiving that call from Brendon McCullum. So long is the list that Chris Dent is entitled to wonder who he’s upset. There have been summers in which he would have let no-one down.After much umming and ahing and standing about, we got back on at 4.45 with a fond hope – it was more statistical calculation really – that we would play another 25 overs. It turned out to be as realistic as an NHS target. Simpson and Higgins tucked into some loose stuff from the spinners before Lloyd took the new ball and the rain returned just after five. Before long, the umpires had given the day up as a bad job.Not for Simpson, of course. His fidgets have become mannerisms and they are barely separable from his cover-drives, his firm persuasions through midwicket or his extraordinary value to Middlesex’s cricket for a dozen summers. He is unbeaten on 72 and he will resume his 60-run partnership with Higgins, secure in the plain assurance that his team is winning a game that should go far towards deciding the second promotion place.They are not winning by much, though, and not irrecoverably, but a lead of 72 and five wickets to fall still suggests a match-shaping advantage. And suddenly one was beguiled by the simple prospect of watching 104 overs tomorrow; 624 tiny segments of action that should make up a full day’s cricket. That is an end-of-season reflection, of course; every defensive prod, every smart stop is suddenly precious. Maybe it is autumn, after all.

Australia’s T20 captain and coach have begun planning for the home T20 World Cup in October next year with the Ashes series still ongoing

Alex Malcolm13-Sep-20192:39

Chat around 2020 T20 World Cup squad on with management – Finch

In the midst of a gruelling Ashes series and the wake of a World Cup semi-final exit, Australia have already begun preliminary planning for next year’s T20 World Cup in Australia.Aaron Finch, Australia’s T20 and ODI captain who is back in Australia preparing for the start of Victoria’s domestic season, revealed he has had recent discussions with coach Justin Langer and the team hierarchy, about which group of players will likely be needed in the lead-up to the T20 World Cup next October.Australia have never won the men’s T20 World Cup, or even hosted it. They finished runners-up to England in 2010. They are scheduled to played six T20 internationals at home in October and November against Sri Lanka and Pakistan followed by three more on a tour of South Africa in February and three in New Zealand in late March.There will be no domestic T20 between now and the matches against Sri Lanka and Pakistan although a number of players not involved in the Ashes have been playing in the T20 Blast in England, and Australia’s revamped 50-over domestic competition starts on September 21. Finch said that the team hierarchy, now coordinated under Australia’s new general manager of national teams Ben Oliver, has a rough idea of which players will be set for the T20 World Cup, based on informal chats he’s had with the selectors recently. But form in the Marsh One-Day Cup, he added, could play a part.”[I’ve had] some pretty brief chats over the last couple of weeks, pretty much just trying to nut out a squad that we think can take us through to the World T20 in October and November,” Finch said.”Whether there are 24 or 25 players that we think can play a role in different scenarios, it’s just about making sure that we’re on the same page in our thinking in terms of selection and stuff like that. Of course, there’s always curve balls, guys who turn up and play well and start the season will really push.”There’s a lot of T20s coming up over the next 8-10 months, so the fact that guys have got more, and I suppose, longer exposure to limited-overs cricket, whether it be one-day or T20 I think it’s a really good thing. No doubt there’ll some guys who jump out of box and really put their hand up for those sides.”ESPNcricinfo understands some players have already been told they are in calculations for the T20 internationals in October and the T20 World Cup next year.Australia began long-term plans for the 2020 T20 World Cup in early 2017 when Ricky Ponting took over as assistant coach to Darren Lehmann in a bid to build towards the tournament. Ponting helped the squad, captained by David Warner, to a T20 tri-series win over New Zealand and England in March 2018, just prior to the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa.Aaron Finch, Justin Langer and Ricky Ponting chat at training•Getty Images

Ponting then stepped back from the T20 role in the wake of the scandal citing that new coach Langer should take charge of the team in all three formats for continuity, as Australia tried to rebuild its culture within the men’s team. Ponting returned to the coaching group for the 2019 World Cup.Finch took over as captain and had a tough initiation losing four straight series before leading the side to a share of the series against India at home and an impressive 2-0 success in India in January. Intriguingly though, that side did not feature Australia’s vice-captain Alex Carey, who subsequently had an outstanding 50-over World Cup, as Peter Handscomb kept wicket and Glenn Maxwell starred with the bat.The revamped domestic 50-over competition is another key plank of Australia’s planning. The tournament is no longer played in a single month-long block on suburban club grounds in September-October prior to the Sheffield Shield season starting. It will now run deep into November with some games played in between Shield fixtures.”I think it is a really good thing,” Finch said. “In the past having it as a full block, for a lot of players, with there not being any one-day cricket from the end of the one-day comp through to mid-January, it can be tough to really select guys and guys to put their name forward who did have a good one-day comp because it’s so far apart. So this year I think the balance is as good as it’s been for a long time now.Cricket Australia also made a concerted effort to schedule domestic 50-over games back on international venues to give players more exposure to those venues. Finch said this was crucial to prepare players for international cricket.”I think it’s huge,” he said. “To turn up for Australia and having guys not having played a game at international venues it’s surprising at times but it’s also part of the scheduling. So I think that is a great addition, that there will be more one-day games.”Guys will have more access to playing one-day cricket on the main venues, which at the end of the day when you’re pushing for selection for Australia and you finally get the call up to come to a ground where you’ve played before and you feel comfortable is really important. There’s a lot of nerves that go around when you’re lining up for Australia for the first time so as comfortable as you can make it around the environment is really important.”

Bangladesh were bowled out for 46, the lowest total in a Women’s World T20 game

ESPNcricinfo staff10-Nov-2018by 60 runs
A spell-binding display of fast bowling from Deandra Dottin rescued West Indies after their batting faltered in unfriendly conditions for strokeplay in Guyana. She finished with the third-best figures ever recorded in women’s T20Is – 3.4-0-5-5 – as Bangladesh crumbled to 46 all out chasing a mere 107.It was pace that caused all the problems. Pace on a pitch that discouraged it. But Dottin didn’t care. She was the fourth bowler used, in the ninth over of the game, and made her threat quite plain. A bouncer fetched her first wicket – caught and bowled. An inswinger veering into the stumps brought her more success. A new batsman walked out without a helmet and a short ball coming for her throat made her reassess. Quickly.Bangladesh were unprepared for such fury. Their feet wouldn’t move. Their bats didn’t work. And their presence barely mattered. Dottin only saw the wickets behind Fargana Hoque, Nigar Sultana, Rumana Ahmed, Lata Mondal and Salma Khatun. She broke them four times in 22 deliveries to pick up the best haul by a West Indian in women’s T20Is.It makes sense to have the hosts play in the prime-time spot on a triple-header day, and to keep the early one for India games considering the time zones. But that meant they had to deal with a pitch that was very slow and low. Bangladesh had prepared for that, packing their XI with spinners, with Rumana’s legbreaks particularly hard to get away. The 27-year old who learnt part of her craft from Australia’s Stuart MacGill finished with 2 for 16, using the crease well and putting so much work on the ball that it drifted, dipped and turned too.Her job was made a touch easier thanks to Jahanara Alam. The former captain took two wickets in the third over of the game to set West Indies back. Hayley Matthews – the player of the match in the final of the 2016 edition – was caught superbly by Lata Mondal at mid-off. Dottin fell the very next ball, victim of another fine fielding effort, at point by Fahima Khatun. West Indies had lost a hefty chunk of their fire power with more than three-fourths of the innings left.The energy Bangladesh showed while fielding and the confidence they had while bowling, dissipated as soon as they returned to the dressing room. Jahanara, who picked up three wickets, including a ridiculous return catch, where she over-ran the ball, but stuck her left hand behind her only for it to stick, spoke rather nervously during the mid-game interview. “We’ll try,” she said.On the other hand, West Indies began their night dancing. They had to get serious, double-time, when their top order vanished, leaving the captain Stafanie Taylor to not only hold things together but also cobble up a meaningful total. She made 29 off 44 balls, her natural attacking intent curbed by the conditions and the lack of support. Eventually, she found help from wicketkeeper Kycia Knight, who managed 32 from 24, even as her team-mates yelled and cheered at the boundary edge. The coach Hendy Springer, meanwhile, was seen performing a literal face palm after his team slipped to 50 for 5.Those last few runs – 28 came in the final three overs – had geed West Indies up. They walked out for the second innings after a much more solemn huddle but were back to higher spirits in no time. Shakera Selman picked up a wicket with her sixth delivery. Then she made the ball ghost Jahanara for several torturous minutes before putting her out of her misery – the outswinger that kept beating her bat finally pinging off it only to be caught at mid-off. The crowd, by this time, had sensed a fightback was on. And if they didn’t, the insanely cool secret handshake that Selman and Matthews exchanged right there on the pitch left room for little doubt. The defending champions had found a foothold and they weren’t letting go.

The Pakistan fast bowlers completed the demolition job they had begun on the first night, dismissing Cricket Australia XI for 114, but their batsmen stumbled once again

ESPNcricinfo staff09-Dec-2016
ScorecardRahat Ali finished with three wickets•Cricket Australia/Getty Images

The Pakistan fast bowlers completed the demolition job they had begun on the first night, dismissing Cricket Australia XI for 114, but their batsmen stumbled once again against the pink ball under lights in Cairns. The visitors ended the day on 5 for 124 in their second innings, ahead by 218 runs.CA XI had begun the second day on 4 for 3, and had little respite from a three-pronged pace attack. Mohammad Amir did not add to the three wickets he took on the first day, but Rahat Ali picked up two more to finish with three as well, as did Wahab Riaz who razed the lower order. Left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz bowled only five overs and did not take a wicket. CA XI were shot out in 39.1 overs, having conceded a first-innings lead of 94.In their last competitive innings before the day-night Test against Australia in Brisbane from December 15, Pakistan lost Sami Aslam and Babar Azam cheaply once again. They were out for 12 and 22, falling to fast bowler Mark Steketee. Opener Azhar Ali held one end up with an unbeaten 44 off 153 balls, but Younis Khan, Misbah-ul-Haq and Asad Shafiq made fleeting visits to the crease.Azhar added 45 for the fifth wicket with Shafiq, who was dismissed late in the day.Wahab said at the end of the day that he deemed this pitch was on the slower side. “It’s summer here, which is why I feel the wicket is on the slower side. I had to see how the pitch was behaving [at the start of my spell]. It wasn’t doing much and was on the slower side. There wasn’t much bounce and carry, but I managed to do what I do and bowl fast. But the ball travels well under lights. There’s swing and seam and carry through to the keeper.”He played down questions about Pakistan’s scoring rate by saying that it was a welcome sign that the batsmen were spending time in the middle.”It’s good that the batsmen are taking their time. This is what we’ve lacked in the last two-three Tests. Our batsmen have not been staying in for a long time. They’re getting starts but no one has been converting them to big scores. So I think it’s good that they’re taking time and have confidence before going into the Test series. Run rate doesn’t matter as much as the confidence they’re getting.”

Jamie Overton’s four wickets against Middlesex brought hope to Somerset supporters that their talented yet unfulfilled side will be replenished

David Hopps at Taunton15-May-2013
ScorecardNeil Dexter closed the day with an unbeaten half-century•Getty Images

Somerset supporters concerned that their talented yet unfulfilled team is growing old together can take heart from days like this: the young ‘uns are coming. Foremost among the new breed is Jamie Overton whose career-best 4 for 65 challenged Middlesex’s visions of supremacy at the Tractor Ground.It is not really the Tractor Ground, of course, but “County Ground” is always so unimaginative (its only saving grace is that it is not named after an airline) and it sounded like the Tractor Ground shortly after lunch when Tractor himself – arguably Somerset’s most famous fan and ill-advisedly unprotected against the unseasonable chill – was on full revs, bellowing for all he was worth for Alfonso Thomas to slow Middlesex’s progress.Thomas failed, largely because Joe Denly, whose first 10 scoring shots were boundaries, reached 40 by a mixture of good fortune, easy pickings and a decent shot or two. But what the Great Alfonso could not deliver, the Young Pretender did, finding the outside edge to take three of the first four Middlesex wickets to fall. Toby Roland-Jones made up the foursome with two for grabs on the morrow.The Middlesex wickets that matter are those of the openers, Sam Robson and Chris Rogers. Neither particularly catch the eye, but they have an adhesive quality which is at the heart of Middlesex’s championship challenge and which makes up for a flaky middle order. Overton removed then both, at which point five more wickets tumbled for 66 in 18 overs before Neil Dexter summoned a necessary response with an unbeaten 73. Rogers’s Australian late coming this summer might not set the Ashes alive but England will value his wicket as much as most. Like many squat batsmen he can look frustratingly immovable.Overton, still only 19, and still routinely confused by all but the most committed Somerset observer with his equally promising twin brother, Craig, bowled at a fair lick in his 21 overs. The first thing that strikes you about him is his robust appearance for one so young; he may need it at Taunton which is not exactly a fast bowler’s dream. Somerset’s skipper Marcus Trescothick put Middlesex in on a green pitch, but Rogers and Robson dealt with what limited threat there was.
.
Somerset recovered in the afternoon session with three wickets in as many overs. Rogers, who had not been as solid as his young fellow Australian, Robson, nicked Overton to wicketkeeper Jos Buttler. The next over saw the left-arm spinner Jack Leach bowl Denly shouldering arms and then Overton struck again when Dawid Malan was snapped up by Trescothick in the slips off Overton.Leach, like Overton a promise of good things to come, bowled with good control and finished the day with three wickets as James Hildreth snapped up John Simpson at short-leg off Leach and Gareth Berg swept a catch to Peter Trego at mid wicket.”Nailed on draw and you don’t get many points for a draw,” muttered one Somerset sage soon after lunch as Middlesex prospered. He will doubtless return with a more optimistic slant on things for the second day. At Taunton, 293 for 8 at the end of the first day suggests that stalemate should be avoided and it is Somerset who have the edge.