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Australia A will face New Zealand A in two four-day matches over the next couple of weeks

Andrew McGlashan31-Mar-2023Alongside those appearing at the IPL and preparing for spells in county cricket, there is a group of Australian players across the Tasman looking to make an impression on the national selectors.The Australia A squad that faces their New Zealand counterparts over two four-day games in Lincoln – using the Dukes ball to replicate Ashes conditions in the UK – is a combination of players close or recently in the Test team, some with a realistic chance of pushing for a place in the near future, a few reasonably experienced domestic cricketers and those at the younger end of their careers.It is not what an Australia A squad would look like if everyone was available – anyone with a county deal was not considered because they will already be playing in UK conditions – but Matt Renshaw and Mitchell Swepson are included from those recently in India. Peter Handscomb was in the original group but withdrew after getting his deal with Leicestershire.Related

• Spencer Johnson on Ashes radar after being named in Australia A squad

• Bruce, Bracewell, Ajaz in NZ A squad for four-day matches against Australia A

• Aussies overseas: IPL and county cricket amid Ashes build-up

It will be an important couple of weeks for Renshaw who is viewed as a serious candidate to open again for Australia in the long term when a vacancy arises. However, India was a difficult tour for him where he missed out twice in the first Test in the middle order, having been preferred to Travis Head, then fell cheaply again in Delhi after being called in as David Warner’s concussion sub.He is likely competing with Handscomb, Cameron Bancroft and Marcus Harris for a spare batting spot in the Ashes. One thing in Renshaw’s favour is his versatility of being able to cover any position in the top six.Swepson, meanwhile, faces an interesting time in his career having been overlooked for the three Tests in India where he was available (he missed the Delhi Test to fly home for the birth of his child). With Australia’s next subcontinent Test tour not until visiting Sri Lanka in early 2025, it is difficult to see where Swepson’s chance to add to his four caps will come.Outside Renshaw and Swepson, the only other member of the squad previously capped by Australia is pace bowler Wes Agar who played two ODIs on the 2021 tour of West Indies when a number of first-choice players were not available.Matt Renshaw will still hope to be in Ashes contention•Getty Images

The name closest to breaking through to international level is Western Australia allrounder Aaron Hardie. He made an important 45 in last week’s Sheffield Shield final, and claimed four wickets, but his overall batting returns for the season with an average of 29.07 were probably a little below expectation.Hardie was touted as a possible replacement for Cameron Green when he was injured during the Australian season and is the closest like-for-like available, although Mitchell Marsh could yet come back into the frame if he is able to bowl substantially after his ankle surgery. Hardie and Nathan McSweeney will share the captaincy in New Zealand.With an eye on the Ashes, the selectors will need to consider how to provide wicketkeeping cover for Alex Carey. They could use Handscomb as was the case in India, but if they wanted a full-time keeper as back-up, Queensland’s Jimmy Peirson has a strong case to be considered although Josh Inglis likely remains in pole position. Over the last three seasons, Peirson has made 1337 Shield runs at 37.13 with five centuries (Inglis has averaged 51.56 in his 14 matches for WA in the same period) and he also impressed on the Australia A tour of Sri Lanka last year.However, the most intriguing name in the squad is left-arm quick Spencer Johnson whose remarkable rise continues after a season that brought BBL and Shield success for Brisbane Heat and South Australia respectively, including six and seven-wicket hauls for the latter.With Joel Paris, the WA quick, having withdrawn through injury, Johnson is now the one left-arm fast bowler in the squad and while it remains unlikely he will get an immediate international call-up, he could well be back-up to Mitchell Starc across formats.Elsewhere in the squad, there is a collection of top-order batters in the 18-25 age group with an eye on the future. The most exciting of them is 18-year Teague Wyllie, another from the WA production line, who made a maiden Shield century this season and was unbeaten in the chase to secure the title.Mitch Perry, a talented allrounder from Victoria, Xavier Bartlett and Jordan Buckingham (who replaced Parris) are pace bowlers who should enjoy the chance to operate with the Dukes ball.New Zealand’s resources are also stretched due to the ongoing series against Sri Lanka, but the side features a number of players with international experience, including Doug Bracewell and Scott Kuggeleijn who have played Tests this season and left-arm spinner Ajaz Patel. They will be captained by Tom Bruce who has 17 T20I caps.New Zealand A squad: Tom Bruce (capt), Adithya Ashok, Doug Bracewell, Henry Cooper, Jacob Duffy (game 1 only), Dean Foxcroft, Cam Fletcher, Mitch Hay, Scott Kuggeleijn (game 2 only), Cole McConchie, Robbie O’Donnell, Will O’Rourke, Ajaz Patel, Brett Randell, Sean SoliaAustralia A squad: Wes Agar, Xavier Bartlett, Jordan Buckingham, Aaron Hardie, Caleb Jewell, Spencer Johnson, Campbell Kellaway, Nathan McSweeney, Mitch Perry, Jimmy Peirson, Matthew Renshaw, Mitchell Swepson, Tim Ward, Teague Wyllie

By the time the game begins on Sunday evening, RCB will know exactly what they need to make the playoffs

Srinidhi Ramanujam20-May-20236:00

Moody: Royal Challengers should start afresh in home return

Big Picture: Make or break for RCB

It all boils down to the final four hours. After 69 games across 52 days, the last league match will decide the identity of the players fourth team in the playoffs.The spotlight is on Royal Challengers Bangalore as they return home to the Chinnaswamy to host the Gujarat Titans after nearly a month on the road. They will know exactly what they need to qualify in the top four if net run rate becomes a factor, but the simplest route is to win. If they make it, it will be their fourth successive playoff appearance.So what’s going well for RCB? They are coming into this crucial fixture off two successive wins – against Sunrisers Hyderabad and Rajasthan Royals. Their strength is their batting, having scored more than 180 in three of their last four games. More specifically, it is their top-order batting, with Faf du Plessis (702), Virat Kohli (538) and Glenn Maxwell (389) doing the bulk of the run-scoring. The dependency on their Big Three could be a crucial factor in a crunch game.Winning at the Chinnaswamy also hasn’t been straightforward for RCB this season. While several teams have struggled to maximise their home advantage, it’s 3-3 for RCB in Bengaluru this year, and 40 wins in 83 games overall.So while RCB have everything to do to qualify for the playoffs, the Titans are already through. Hardik Pandya’s team is only the second side to finish top of the table in two successive seasons, after the Mumbai Indians in 2019 and 2020.

Team news: Will Titans rest players?

Fast bowler Josh Little had missed a few matches to play an ODI series for Ireland against Bangladesh, but he re-joined the Titans squad on May 16. Vijay Shankar had also missed the previous game after getting hit in the nets. With Titans already through to the playoffs, the big question is whether they will rest any of their players, considering they play Qualifier 1 on May 23.Du Plessis said at the toss of their previous game against Sunrisers that one of Hasaranga and Hazlewood was missing due to a niggle without specifying who it was.

The big question

Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis have been prolific at the top for RCB•BCCI

Form guide

RCB WWLLW
Gujarat Titans WLWWL

Impact Player strategy

Anuj Rawat kept wickets for RCB instead of Dinesh Karthik in the last two matches and he is expected to do it again against Titans. Karthik or Mahipal Lomror could sub in and out for for left-arm spinner Shahbaz Ahmed depending on whether they bat or bowl first.Royal Challengers Bangalore (probable XII): 1 Virat Kohli, 2 Faf du Plessis, 3 Glenn Maxwell, 4 Mahipal Lomror, 5 , 6 Michael Bracewell, 7 Anuj Rawat (wk), 8 Wayne Parnell, 9 Karn Sharma, 10 Harshal Patel, 11 Mohammed Siraj, 12 Titans had swapped Shubman Gill with fast bowler Yash Dayal in their previous game against SRH. If Little returns, Gill and Mohit Sharma could be their Impact Players depending on whether they bat or bowl first.Gujarat Titans (probable XII): 1 , 2 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 3 Sai Sudharsan, 4 Hardik Pandya (capt), 5 David Miller, 6 Abhinav Manohar/Vijay Shankar, 7 Rahul Tewatia, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Josh Little, 10 Noor Ahmad, 11 Mohammed Shami, 12

Pitch and conditions

Bengaluru has been hot and humid this week but i rained on match eve and a couple of spells of rain is likely on Sunday as well. The average first-innings total at the Chinnaswamy Stadium is 194, so expect a run-fest.

Stats that matter

• Kohli is a beast in Bengaluru with 3106 T20s runs at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, the most by any batter, at a strike rate of 140.82.
• Rashid Khan has dismissed du Plessis three times in eight T20s, and conceded only 32 runs in 45 balls.
• Gill has scored at 148.14 against Mohammed Siraj in the IPL, with no dismissals in six innings.

The fast bowler, who was due to join Mumbai Indians, undergoes surgery in an attempt to fix his hamstring issues

ESPNcricinfo staff11-Mar-2023Jhye Richardson will miss the IPL and is all but sure to be out of contention for the Ashes after undergoing surgery to overcome his hamstring issues.Richardson suffered a recurrence of the injury playing club cricket last week as he attempted a return to action after initially pulling up in the BBL. He was ruled out of the ODI series in India and the surgery option was taken in a bid to find a long-term solution.He was due to line up for Mumbai Indians in the IPL for what would have been his second stint at the tournament following a season with Punjab Kings.”Injuries are a big part of cricket, that’s a fact,” Richardson tweeted. “Frustrating? Absolutely.”But I’m now in a scenario where I can get back to doing what I love and work bloody hard to become an even better player than before. One step back, two steps forward. Let’s do this.”Richardson has been let down by his body over the last two seasons having previously undergone major shoulder surgery in 2019, which ruled him out of that year’s ODI World Cup and Ashes.He took a maiden Test five-wicket haul against England in Adelaide in December 2021, his first Test since injuring his right shoulder, but a nagging heel injury ruled him out of the next match and he has not played Test cricket since.He played in the T20I and ODI series on the tour of Sri Lanka in June of 2022 but then had an interrupted pre-season for WA. A number of soft-tissue concerns limited him to just two Sheffield Shield games and one Marsh Cup game prior to the BBL.”Obviously it’s devastating that he has re-injured that hamstring again and he is going to miss a significant amount of time to get his hamstring right,” Western Australia coach Adam Voges said. “We all feel for Jhye and we’re hopeful that whatever they come with as a solution can fix his hamstring and we get him back out there because it has been a tough 12 months for him.”

Isle of Wight fixture a triumph for Hants in more ways than one

Paul Edwards at Newport23-May-2019
Just before 11.30 on the final morning of this game the Radio Solent gazebo nearly blew away. For an alarming moment we thought the excellent Kevan James and Dave Bracegirdle would have to broadcast to the nations of the world as it were. But decency was soon restored and the gazebo’s bid for freedom was an isolated incident in any case. No one else expressed a wish to depart this paradise on the island of chines and chapels.Eight Nottinghamshire batsmen shuffled away, of course, but they were given no option by Sam Northeast’s attack, who completed their side’s 244-run victory at just gone three o’clock when Jake Ball looped a ball from Mason Crane into the covers where Aneurin Donald took the catch. Yet it was slightly ironic that the final wicket should fall to a spinner; Hampshire’s three seamers had been the chief architects of victory on this final day and it was appropriate that Kyle Abbott, Fidel Edwards and Keith Barker should each take six wickets in the match.Other spectators may identify the importance of Wednesday’s partnership between Ajinkya Rahane and Northeast in deciding the game’s outcome. Aesthetes would agree but there is surely an equally sound argument that Nottinghamshire’s failure to make any breakthroughs on the first morning when the ball was nipping around was as significant as anything else in shaping the match.Sam Northeast bats for Hampshire•Getty Images

What is plain, though, is that this was Hampshire’s third championship victory of the season and they seem set fair for honours. From an island on which Prospero might have chosen to remain they now go to Lord’s, which is possessed of its own insularity, for the Royal London Cup Final; and thence on Monday to Yorkshire, whose inhabitants would probably welcome a ten-mile Channel round its boundary as a physical expression of the spiritual detachment they have always felt in any case.To judge from their cricket over these four days, Northeast’s cricketers are ready for the battles to come. They took their time over their win on Thursday but they truly lost only one of this game’s 11 sessions, albeit they took only three wickets on the last morning. The first of these fell when nightwatchman Matt Carter failed to jab down on a straight ball from Barker and was lbw for 23 in the fifth over of the day; then Joe Clarke, having laboured over 19 balls was out for nought when he prodded at his 20th and nicked a catch to Tom Alsop off Abbott. It was a shot that could have brought Clarke nothing but grief but it was entirely consistent with the rest of his innings.The most vital wicket, though, was that of Jake Libby, who batted for over an hour with Chris Nash before he fell to the perfectly legitimate aggression of the Hampshire seamers. Away from their sport, Edwards and Abbott probably contribute to worthy charities and fuss over their neighbours’ pets. Put a cricket ball in their hands, however, and they become, like William Munny in , men “of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition.”Such an approach is part of the fast bowler’s armoury, of course, and it was particularly evident when Edwards roughed up Nash and Libby in the half-hour before lunch. Aided by three short legs, the battering was enough to put any chap off his couscous and it worked when Libby, having paddled the ball to the fine leg boundary, prodded a catch to the vulturesque Oli Soames. That left Nottinghamshire on 131 for 5 and suddenly the main question being asked was ‘when’ not ‘if’.The answer to that query soon became clear. Abbott was brought on at the Carisbrooke End immediately after tiffin and he trapped Nash for a gutsy 60 – his third fifty of the season – with one that seemed to nip back a fair way. Any hopes that visiting supporters might have harboured that their team could kindle comparisons with Rorke’s Drift were probably extinguished four overs later when another ball from Abbott kept very low and gave Tom Moores no price whatever when it thudded into his pad. Half an hour later Steven Mullaney was bowled by a similar delivery and all that remained was to dot an “i”, cross a “t” and dismiss Stuart Broad.Yet even when this game was done, several spectators stayed at Newclose and pondered what they had just seen. And not just the cricket, you understand, but the event itself and its many triumphs. Before very long tiredness will hit the volunteers like heat in the desert. But they can put their heads down knowing they have rendered Hampshire a noble service. In the winter cricket people will look back and choose their best week of the year. Some will choose Newclose in May and they will not be far wrong. It has already been one of the songs of summer.

Tournament to kick off in Dubai; final of UAE’s new T20 league likely to be on February 12

ESPNcricinfo staff22-Nov-2022The UAE’s new International League T20 (ILT20) is set to begin on January 13 in Dubai, with the final likely to be contested on February 12. The six-team ILT20 is expected to have 34 matches, with each team playing the others twice before four playoff matches.The tournament is set to clash entirely with South Africa’s new T20 league, the SA20, which has announced fixtures running from January 10 to February 11, 2023. Australia’s Big Bash League will also be on at the time – it starts in December and runs till February 4. The 2023 season of the Pakistan Super League (PSL), meanwhile, is set to begin on February 9, and the Bangladesh Premier League is also expected to be played somewhere in the same window.Related

• MI Cape Town vs Paarl Royals to kickstart SA20 on January 10

• PSL looks to expand salary caps to stay ahead in T20-league game

• Russell, Moeen, Hasaranga among big-ticket sign-ons for ILT20

• Moeen Ali tussle epitomises arms race as ILT20, SA20 compete

• UAE T20 league sets $450,000 contract for top players

While all this adds up to huge competition to attract the best players and also broadcast audiences, the ILT20 will take comfort in the fact that it has a strong roster of players committed to the tournament, including Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Trent Boult, Alex Hales, Moeen Ali, Wanindu Hasaranga, Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Sikandar Raza.Several of the ILT20 franchises are owned by Indian companies, including those that own the IPL’s Mumbai Indians, Kolkata Knight Riders and Delhi Capitals. The owners of Manchester United FC, Lancer Capital, are also on the list. The contracts of top players in the cash-rich league are expected to be in the region of USD 450,000 per season, making it the second-most lucrative T20 league behind the IPL.

Unorthodox left-arm wristspinner helps defend a total of 172 to get his team off the mark this BBL season

Tristan Lavalette19-Dec-2022Emerging left-arm wristspinner Patrick Dooley claimed four wickets in an electrifying performance as Hobart Hurricanes ended a losing run against BBL defending champions Perth Scorchers with a tense eight-run victory in Launceston.Defending 173, Dooley starred with crucial wickets at pivotal junctures during Scorchers’ see-saw chase to emerge as Hurricanes’ hero.Fellow wristspinner Shadab Khan dashed Scorchers’ hopes with a brilliant diving return catch to dismiss Aaron Hardie in the penultimate over.Rebounding from a big opening loss to Melbourne Stars, Hurricanes snapped a five-game losing streak to Scorchers.Dooley quickly becoming Hurricanes’ cult hero
Dooley was a Covid-19 replacement player last season for Brisbane Heat with his sole game against Hurricanes.He didn’t claim a wicket in that game but bowled tidily and obviously made an impression on Hurricanes’ hierarchy, who were happy to snap him up.After an encouraging season debut against Stars, where he clean bowled Marcus Stoinis for his first BBL wicket, Dooley was brought into the attack in the fourth over amid an onslaught from star recruit Faf du Plessis.