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Having postponed talks on a new deal until next month, Anthony McGrath is putting up a strong case to continue a county career already spanning 17 years.

Myles Hodgson at Headingley16-Aug-2012
ScorecardAnthony McGrath reminded the Yorkshire management of his ability•PA Photos

As a negotiating tactic to try and secure another contract, scoring a century to guide Yorkshire to maximum batting points against one of their main promotion rivals is probably as good as any. Having postponed talks on a new deal until next month, Anthony McGrath is putting up a strong case to continue a county career already spanning 17 years.Expected to be the player most under threat by the emergence of Joe Root at the start of the summer, McGrath has responded to the challenge impressively. He scored his first century in a year earlier this summer against Hampshire and has now followed that with 104 against Derbyshire, the Division Two leaders, to put Yorkshire in command of a rain-affected match.His innings, which included 10 fours and a six, helped secure maximum batting points with three balls of their allocated 110 overs remaining with McGrath bringing up the landmark in conjunction with his century by on-driving Tim Groenewald. It laid the platform for Yorkshire to either declare immediately to give themselves more time to bowl at Derbyshire, or advance quickly towards a major first innings total.In the event they did neither, losing five wickets for nine runs in the next 15 balls to a succession of ill-conceived shots and were dismissed for 420. They only recovered their momentum when Tim Bresnan, who raced up the M1 to join the match after being overlooked by England for the final Test, won an lbw decision against Wayne Madsen with the final delivery of the day.”The bonus points system always keeps it interesting at the end,” McGrath admitted. “Derbyshire probably did us a bit of a favour by sticking people on the fence, which made it a bit easier. Three, four or five runs were available every over from 98 overs, so we were confident of getting there. We wanted to bowl at them, but we also wanted to try and get as many as possible.”Yorkshire’s equation was complicated by the 26-point lead Derbyshire had secured at the top of Division Two, ensuring they have little to gain in engineering a finish should more time be lost in the match. It put the onus on quick run-scoring when Yorkshire resumed on 127 for 2 having lost the final two sessions of the opening day to rain.Adam Lyth and Gary Ballance provided that impetus, scoring at nearly four an over throughout the morning session during a 116-run partnership. Lyth fell seven short of his century and Ballance followed shortly after lunch for an eye-catching 79, both perishing to loose shots attempting to push the scoreboard along.Restricted to only two runs an over for the first half hour after lunch, McGrath teamed up with Andrew Hodd, making his debut as a loan signing from Sussex and also hoping to secure a new contract at the end of the summer. They were both frustrated by Derbyshire’s initial accuracy, but needing 24 off the final four overs of allocated bonus point overs, they accelerated to reach their objective during a 131-run stand.They fell in quick succession with Wes Durston, Derbyshire’s off-spinner, exploiting Yorkshire’s desire for rapid runs to finish with career-best figures of 5 for 34, although Hodd must also have gone a long way towards securing a permanent contract by scoring 58 precious runs on debut.”It’s probably different to what he’s used to down in Sussex because the wickets are different up here, especially this one because there’s more grass on this pitch than there has been for a long time,” McGrath explained. “If you bowl straight with pace it’s difficult to score. He found it tough during that period, but got through that and played really well and was integral towards us getting full batting points.”Having given themselves only 11 overs to bowl at Derbyshire, Yorkshire looked likely to be frustrated until Bresnan struck with the final ball, but it will take fair weather and an exceptional performance on an easy-paced wicket to contrive the victory they require to close the gap on the leaders.

UAE roared back into their Intercontinental Cup match against Kenya, ending the second day 149 ahead with seven wickets remaining

ESPNcricinfo staff29-Jul-2011
Scorecard
UAE roared back into their Intercontinental Cup match against Kenya, ending the second day 149 ahead with seven wickets remaining.The first day belonged to the Kenyan bowlers but UAE proved the adage that a total can never be judged until both sides have batted as they ended up restricting Kenya to just a six run lead on first innings.Things started badly for the home side as Tammy Mishra fell early for 1. Dominic Wesonga, the not out overnight batsman, followed soon after without adding to his 34 and by the time Ramesh Mepani was lbw to Amjad Javed for 8, Kenya were floundering at 106 for 6, still 107 runs behind.That the home side even ended up with a slender first-innings lead from there was a surprise but Samarth Patel and Hiren Varaiya combined for the first of two recovery partnerships. The pair added 46 in 17 overs to arrest the decline. Patel made a careful 30 from 81 balls before falling to Arshad Ali. Wicketkeeper Mansukh Jesani fell after a scrapping for 31 balls but that brought an unlikely batting hero, No. 10 Rajesh Bhudia to the fore.Shunning caution he swiped five boundaries and a six and ran hard to make 44 from 41 balls, completely dominating a 50-run stand with Varaiya. Eventually Bhudia was out to Ahmed Raza who removed next man in Lucas Oluoch for a golden duck.With the momentum firmly with the home side UAE were reduced to 31 for 3. Oluoch striking with the second ball of the innings to send Arshad Ali on his way and Wesonga, five overs later, removing the other opener Abdul Rehman. Oluoch collected his second wicket when Amjad Ali was trapped in front for 16 but that proved to be the last success of the day for Kenya.Saqib Ali bedded down in a partnership with the more attacking Amjad Javed and the pair carried the visitors into the ascendancy. Saqib struck eight fours and a six to end the day unbeaten on 70 while Amjad raced along at nearly a run a ball, reaching 66 from 76 balls by stumps. The pair added 124 and have given their team a great chance of setting a challenging target.

Mark Boucher, the South Africa wicketkeeper, reached yet another landmark during the fourth day of the second Test against West Indies in St Kitts, notching up his 500th dismissal

Cricinfo staff22-Jun-2010Mark Boucher, the South Africa wicketkeeper, reached yet another landmark during the fourth day of the second Test against West Indies in St Kitts, notching up his 500th dismissal. An edge from Ravi Rampaul off Morne Morkel was snapped up by Boucher to mark the historic moment, as he became the first wicketkeeper to get there.Boucher is the most successful Test wicketkeeper till date, with 478 catches and 22 stumpings, and is now the only wicketkeeper to have scored in excess of 5000 runs and effected 500 dismissals. It will be a while before the record is broken, as the next 13 members on the list of most successful wicketkeepers have all retired. Kamran Akmal, with 181 dismissals to his name, is 14th.Boucher had been excluded from the initial few games on this tour, with AB de Villiers preferred as the wicket-keeper batsman and the milestone, one of the few highlights of what has so far been a dull Test, came as welcome relief. “I have kept wicket to some fantastic bowlers and also on wickets that at times have been friendly to bowlers,” Boucher said. “It has been a hard month for me and it is nice for me to have something to smile about.”Once you have played international cricket for as long as I have done you tend to look back on what you have done and also to look to the future. I would like to carry on playing Test cricket for a while now. I also have goals on the one-day front and I will keep working on my game to become a better cricketer both for myself and for South Africa.”Earlier in the game, Jacques Kallis reached 11,000 runs in Tests on his way to his 35th Test century. He remains the only player to have scored more than 10,000 runs and grab 200 or more wickets, and is currently sixth in the list of highest run-getters in the format.

ECB Reporters Network10-Sep-2024Warwickshire captain Alex Davies became the first player to score 1,000 runs in Division One of the Vitality County Championship this summer on a severely truncated second day against local rivals Worcestershire at Visit Worcestershire New Road.The 30-year-old began his innings needing a further 34 and turned Logan van Beek square of the wicket for a boundary to reach the milestone during the morning session.Surrey batter Rory Burns started the day as Davies’ nearest challenger but he was dismissed for 21 against Somerset with his total on 974.It was the second time Davies had completed 1,000 runs in a campaign after, in 2017, becoming the first Lancashire wicket-keeper to achieve the feat.He moved to Warwickshire for the 2022 season and the first two years at Edgbaston produced first class returns of 649 at 28.21 and 437 at 25.70.This summer he has struck four centuries and averages 56.88.He eventually fell to Ethan Brookes who delivered an impressive nine-over spell which yielded two wickets before bad light and rain ended play for the day at 2.15pm after 37 overs were possible.Those spectators who waited until the play was officially called off were entertained via the club PA to a series of weather anthems including ‘Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head’ and ‘It’s Raining Men.’Warwickshire needed only four overs to polish off the Worcestershire first innings but not before the home side had secured a second batting point.Jack Home, who was making his Championship debut, pulled Chris Rushworth for successive boundaries to bring up the 300.But then Rushworth struck twice in the space of three balls.He ended a stand of 65 between Tom Taylor and Home by trapping the latter lbw for 29 and then knocked out the off stump of on loan Surrey spinner Amar Virdi.It left Taylor unbeaten on 36 from 49 balls.Taylor then took the new ball but only five balls were possible before bad light stopped play with Warwickshire 6-0.When play resumed after a short delay, Taylor made the first breakthrough when Rob Yates tried to work the ball on the leg side and was caught off a leading edge at mid on by Virdi.Taylor bowled an excellent opening spell and constantly beat the bat.Davies went to his four-figure milestone in spectacular fashion against Logan van Beek during his first over.He twice hit the New Zealander for sixes backward of square and then a square drive to the boundary took him past 1,000 in an over costing 16 runs.Davies completed a 59-ball half-century with three sixes and six fours as Warwickshire reached 76 for 1 off 20 overs by lunch.But former Warwickshire all-rounder Ethan Brookes struck with the first delivery after the resumption when Will Rhodes aimed to work to leg and inside edged through to keeper Gareth Roderick moving away to his right.There was more joy for Brookes with the prized scalp of Davies (58) who went for a drive but took his one hand off the bat and inside-edged onto his stumps at 91 for 3.Van Beek switched ends and claimed his first scalp when Sam Hain (11) tried to turn a delivery on the on-side and was bowled shortly before the players left the field for the final time.

Batters clinch three-wicket victory in white-knuckled run chase at Headingley

Matt Roller09-Jul-2023The Ashes are still alive. England’s batters clinched a three-wicket win in a white-knuckled run chase at Headingley, led by Harry Brook’s 75 on his home ground before Chris Woakes and Mark Wood took them across the line.Australia, who would have sealed a first away Ashes win since 2001 with victory, struck regularly on the fourth day to leave England in serious trouble at 171 for 6. Mitchell Starc was the spearhead, taking two wickets either side of lunch – including the middle-order engine room of Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow.Brook and Woakes added 59 for the seventh wicket, England’s highest partnership of the match, before Starc’s fifth wicket – Brook top-edging to cover – gave Australia another sniff. But Wood, whose five-wicket haul in the first innings set the game up for England, joined Woakes and iced the run chase.Wood hooked Pat Cummins over fine leg for six, then cleared his front leg to blast Starc through cover and take the requirement down to single figures. With four to win, he survived a top-edged swipe off Starc, Alex Carey unable to cling on after scrambling back towards the boundary rope and diving at full stretch onto his front.Then, with scores tied, Woakes opened the face and scythed Starc through point for four, holding his arms aloft in celebration before embracing Wood. The pair’s all-round exploits over the last four days have kept England alive in the series: they are two-one down heading into the fourth Test at Old Trafford on July 19.There is a nine-day break before the start of that Test, one for which both teams will be grateful after another exhausting, exhilarating day which saw both teams let control of the game slip from their grasp. Australia were behind for much of the game but it took until Brook’s partnership with Woakes for England to assert their dominance on the chase. Even then, there was a twist – but it came late enough for them to scrape home.Mitchell Starc made crucial breakthroughs either side of lunch•AFP/Getty Images

England needed a further 224 runs to win at the start of the fourth day but lost a wicket in the fifth over of the morning: Ben Duckett was smashed on the shin by Starc, falling over to the off side. His review could not save him, with ball-tracking projecting that the ball would have crashed into his leg stump.Unexpectedly, it was Moeen Ali who walked out at No. 3, after Brook had deputised for the injured Ollie Pope in that role in the first innings. The experiment did not last long – Starc ripped out Moeen’s leg stump with a 90mph/144kph rocket – but gave the illusion of extending England’s batting line-up and crucially, allowed Brook to return to No. 5.Related

• Travis finds his feet to thwart England's Head-hunting approach

• Woakes' guile and guts ignite England to seize their moment

• Crazy things do happen at Headingley and sometimes crazy is good

Joe Root traded boundaries with Zak Crawley either side of drinks but never settled, and a change of ball in the 19th over brought a wicket in the 20th. Crawley crunched Mitchell Marsh through the off side with a trademark cover drive, but Marsh’s next ball was a fraction shorter and drew the outside edge.Brook played positively from the outset, spanking Scott Boland through cover-point for consecutive boundaries, but his stand with Root was a brief one. Cummins dug one in short, angling down the leg side, which Root attempted to pull but gloved through to Alex Carey. It was not Cummins’ best ball but extended his remarkable dominance in his head-to-head battle with Root.Stokes, no stranger to a Headingley run chase, calmly worked his first ball away through the leg side for four but was strangled down the leg side in the second over after lunch, flicking Starc through to Carey to fall for just 13. Starc smiled wryly, exerting his considerable influence on a second successive Test.Bairstow joined Brook, who had reached 42 after a handful of false shots early in his innings, but did not last long. He inside-edged his sixth ball for four, past his leg stump, then chopped his eighth onto his middle stump, beaten by Starc’s movement back into him; after 78 on the opening day of the series, Bairstow has added 63 runs across his next five innings.Jonny Bairstow looks back after dragging a drive onto his stumps•AFP/Getty Images

Australia sensed an opening. They were four wickets away and Woakes hardly exuded calm early on, regularly playing and missing and picking up boundaries via both edges of the bat. But with Cummins reluctant to introduce Todd Murphy – who bowled only two overs on the last day – Australia were reliant on their three main seamers.Brook brought up a 67-ball half-century, his second in successive Tests, but both batters continued to keep Australia’s fielders interested, particularly when facing the short ball. Top-edges looped up tantalisingly without going to hand, and ball regularly beat bat before the drinks break.Brook crunched boundaries away through point off Cummins and the lesser-spotted Murphy, but was rushed by Starc’s short ball and spooned a catch to cover via the top edge, trudging off with 21 runs still required. But It took England only 14 balls to knock them off.Murphy’s brilliant parry on the midwicket boundary denied Woakes a certain boundary, but Wood – fuelled by adrenaline – took on Cummins’ bouncer and swiped him into the Football Stand for six. When Wood crunched Starc through cover, England were close; when Woakes slashed him through point, they had their first Ashes win in four years.

It could be a chance for both teams to test their reserves, but for completely different reasons

Srinidhi Ramanujam14-May-20223:07

Have Titans identified their best playing XI?

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A day after their crushing defeat against Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings had tweeted: “It’s not the end of the road”. They would want to believe so after being knocked out of IPL 2022, as they look to start planning for the next season with two games remaining in this one.Super Kings and their opponents on Sunday, Gujarat Titans, are on the two extreme ends of the points table. While Super Kings, the defending champions, are placed ninth, Titans, being on top, are the only team to get into the playoffs so far.A victory at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday will assure Titans a top-two finish, while Super Kings might want to test their bench strength.

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You can watch the match on ESPN+ in English and in Hindi.

To be fair to them, Super Kings have had a few positives. Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devon Conway have enjoyed success at the top in recent times, and rookie pacers Mukesh Choudhary and Simarjeet Singh have been promising, especially in the powerplay. Maheesh Theekshana, in his debut season, has 12 wickets so far, the most by a fingerspinner this IPL. And Shivam Dube, despite blowing hot and cold, has made a difference with his power-hitting.However, there are big questions. MS Dhoni, who took back the captaincy after Ravindra Jadeja stepped down, has said he will remain with the team in “some capacity” next season, but that may or may not be as a player. Dwayne Bravo, at 38, isn’t getting any younger. Where does Ambati Rayudu, who tweeted on the eve of the match – before deleting it – that this would be his last IPL, stand? Not to forget, Super Kings will also have to find an able leader next season if Dhoni decides to step aside (again).Testing the bench could be an option for Titans, too, after they bounced back against Lucknow Super Giants following two losses in a row. While they have a well-rounded bowling attack, Titans brought back Matthew Wade, who had failed at the top of the order earlier, to address their No. 3 issue and he lasted only seven balls in the previous match. Their captain Hardik Pandya’s form – or the lack of it – has not had a major impact on the team with David Miller, Rahul Tewatia and Rashid Khan doing the finishing act. However, going into the crucial stage of the tournament, they would want Hardik to get into the groove. At least with the bat.

In the news

Lockie Ferguson missed the last match and Hardik said the move was “tactical, considering the ground dynamics”. The New Zealand quick might come in place of Alzarri Joseph or Mohammed Shami, if Titans decide to rest him for a match or two.Chennai Super Kings have had a forgettable season and must get their plans in place for IPL 2023•BCCI

Likely XIs

Chennai Super Kings: 1 Ruturaj Gaikwad, 2 Devon Conway, 3 Moeen Ali, 4 Robin Uthappa, 5 Shivam Dube, 6 Ambati Rayudu, 7 MS Dhoni (capt, wk), 8 Dwayne Bravo, 9 Simarjeet Singh, 10 Maheesh Theekshana, 11 Mukesh Choudhary.Gujarat Titans: 1 Shubman Gill, 2 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 3 Matthew Wade, 4 Hardik Pandya (capt), 5 David Miller, 6 Rahul Tewatia, 7 Rashid Khan, 8 Alzarri Joseph/Lockie Ferguson, 9 Mohammed Shami, 10 Sai Kishore, 11 Yash Dayal.

Strategy punt

Shubman Gill has been dismissed inside ten balls five times in 12 innings. His average of 22.3 against Super Kings is his poorest against a team in the IPL. Given that he has been dismissed by a fingerspinner twice this edition, Dhoni could bowl Moeen Ali or Theekshana at the start of the innings.

Stats that matter

• Hardik averages 55 and strikes at 149 against Bravo in T20s.
• Titans have hit a total of 58 sixes this season, the least by a team.
• Choudhary has taken 11 wickets in the powerplay this season, the highest among all the teams.

He made 65 international appearances after becoming Test cricket’s youngest wicketkeeper in 2002

Shashank Kishore09-Dec-2020Eighteen years after becoming Test cricket’s youngest wicketkeeper as a baby-faced 17-year-old in Nottingham, Parthiv Patel has announced his retirement from all forms of the game.Patel finished with 25 Tests, 38 ODIs and two T20Is, his last international appearance coming in India’s famous Test win in Johannesburg in January 2018. A year later, he was also part of the squad when India won a Test series in Australia for the first time in their history.Apart from playing for India, Patel will be remembered for his contributions to Gujarat. He led the side to the Vijay Hazare Trophy in 2015, scoring a match-winning maiden List A century in the final against Delhi. He outdid that achievement the next season, when he made 143 against Mumbai to help Gujarat pull off the highest successful run-chase in a Ranji Trophy final.Only two months before that Ranji Trophy triumph, Patel had earned a Test recall after eight years, ahead of the third Test against England in Mohali. So abrupt was his inclusion that Patel, who was captaining Gujarat in a first-class game in Hubli at the time, had to make an eight-hour road trip to Goa before arriving in Chandigarh via a stopover in New Delhi on the eve of the match. Patel was always a gutsy batsman, a quality he displayed even on his Test debut when he occupied the crease for 84 minutes and helped save the game with an unbeaten 19. This facet of his game earned him the occasional promotion to open the batting, which he did most memorably while keeping out the fiery Shoaib Akhtar and scoring 69 in the deciding Rawalpindi Test of India’s 2004 tour to Pakistan. In all, he scored six half-centuries in Tests, with a highest of 71 against England in Chennai in 2016.Patel took an unusual route to the top level: he captained India at the 2002 Under-19 World Cup, played for India A, played Test cricket before playing senior domestic cricket. He settled into the Test team quickly, playing 19 out of India’s 20 Tests from his debut, but a drop-off in the quality of his glovework – the missed stumping of Ricky Ponting on the final day of the 2004 Sydney Test was a particularly noteworthy error – led to his exclusion. The emergence of Dinesh Karthik and later MS Dhoni pushed him further down the pecking order, and his appearances thereafter were sporadic: a one-off Test in 2008 when Dhoni opted out of a Test series in Sri Lanka, a handful of white-ball games as a specialist opener in 2011 and early 2012, and five more Tests in the 2016-2018 period.While his international career was a stop-start affair, Patel was an IPL regular, usually as a punchy presence at the top of the order. He was part of three title-winning teams – the Chennai Super Kings in 2010 and the Mumbai Indians in 2015 and 2017 – and was Mumbai’s highest run-getter in 2017 with 395 runs at a strike rate of 134.81. He played for six IPL franchises in all, most recently for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2019. He was part of their squad in 2020 as well, but didn’t get a game with the team preferring to use AB de Villiers as their first-choice keeper and promoting Devdutt Padikkal to open the batting.Patel ended his career with numbers that put him in elite company. In all first-class cricket in India, he scored 9500 runs at an average of 44.18; only Wasim Jaffer, Cheteshwar Pujara, Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir have scored more. Overall, he finished with 11,240 first-class runs at an average of 43.49, with 27 hundreds, including a best of 206 against Odisha in the 2008-09 season, as well as 486 catches and 77 stumpings.He remains the fourth-youngest Test debutant for India, behind only Tendulkar, Piyush Chawla and L Sivaramakrishnan.

Mushfiqur Rahim kept the game competitive, scoring an unbeaten 98 to rescue Bangladesh after they had slipped to 117 for 6

The Report by Mohammad Isam28-Jul-2019Sri Lanka made an auspicious start to life after the 2019 World Cup, clinching the ODI series against Bangladesh with one game to spare. They won the second ODI by seven wickets after their bowlers put together a great team effort. Their batsmen saw off tricky periods in their chase, but mostly dominated the visitors who posted 238 for 8 after deciding to bat first. It is Sri Lanka’s first series win at home in three-and-a-half years, and it came via a combination of young and experienced players.Avishka Fernando’s stunning 82 came off 75 balls, including nine fours and two sixes, and he gave Sri Lanka the perfect start in their chase. He added 71 for the first wicket with Dimuth Karunaratne and 58 for the second with Kusal Perera, before Angelo Mathews and Kusal Mendis steered Sri Lanka home with an unbroken fourth-wicket stand of 96.Avishka jumped to life in the sixth over when he cracked Shafiul Islam for three fours in a row, punching him off the backfoot twice before pulling one high through square-leg. He struck Mustafizur Rahman for two more fours in the eighth over, before pulling him in his next over for his first six.Karunaratne’s dismissal in the 12th over hardly slowed down Avishka, who slog-swept his second six and struck two more fours. He was dropped on 77, albeit with Mosaddek Hossain making the best of a tough catch running in from deep cover. Avishka, however, fell in the next over, miscuing a Mustafizur cutter, having put Sri Lanka in a strong position.There was a slight wobble in the 25th over when Kusal Perera, having made 30, was caught at cover off Mustafizur, but Mendis and Mathews ensured a smooth ending to the chase. They played out four overs without forcing the issue, but the introduction of a part-timer, Sabbir Rahman, released the pressure, with a boundary coming off his second ball and shifting the momentum towards Sri Lanka. Mathews and Mendis soon picked up fours off Shafiul, Soumya and Mustafizur, and steadily took Sri Lanka to the target in 44.4 overs. Mathews finished unbeaten on 52 off 57 balls with seven fours while Mendis was not out on 41 off 74 balls with four fours.Mushfiqur Rahim shapes to play the ball•Associated Press

They may have had to chase far less had Mushfiqur Rahim not rescued Bangladesh from the depths of 116 for 7. Mushfiqur and Mehidy Hasan changed the course of the innings with an 84-run partnership for the seventh wicket, Mehidy playing the aggressor with six fours in his 43.Mushfiqur’s plan, meanwhile, was to bat deep, and it worked out well as he remained unbeaten on 98. He didn’t go too hard at the bowling until a 16-run penultimate over, when he hit two fours and a six off Isuru Udana. His approach was dictated by the wickets Bangladesh had lost, and a sluggish R Premadasa Stadium pitch that offered turn for the spinners.Akila Dananjaya, in his first match back for Sri Lanka, made full use of the pitch, finishing with 2 for 39. Nuwan Pradeep and Isuru Udana also took two wickets each but the home side started to flag after the 35th over, and enabled the Mushfiqur-Mehidy partnership to flourish.But in their first match after Lasith Malinga’s exit, Lahiru Kumara and Nuwan Pradeep stepped up really well. Albeit through a tame full-toss, Sri Lanka’s first wicket came when Soumya Sarkar was trapped lbw. Tamim was bowled for the sixth game in a row, dragging Udana on to his stumps in the ninth over.Mohammad Mithun and Mahmudullah fell to Dananjaya, who made the ball rip from outside off stump plenty of times in his first spell. It was also in his over that Sabbir Rahman was run out after a mix-up with Mushfiqur. Mosaddek Hossain fell to a Udana bouncer, leaving Bangladesh six down in the 33rd over.Mushfiqur’s fight managed to make it a more interesting game but ultimately Bangladesh were at least 30 runs short.

A month after being picked by Trinbago Knight Riders at the CPL draft, the South Africa quick is set to make his IPL debut

ESPNcricinfo staff27-Apr-2018Fast bowler Junior Dala has replaced his injured South Africa team-mate Chris Morris at Delhi Daredevils for the rest of IPL 2018. Morris, who was the only overseas player to be retained by Daredevils, for INR 7.1 crore (USD 1 million approx.), has been sidelined with a back injury.Dala had set a base price of INR 20 lakh (USD 30,000 approx.) but found no takers in the auction in January. Daredevils have now bought him at that price, and this will be his first IPL stint.Dala made his T20I debut against India in February this year. He impressed with his unique action – he takes off on his right foot in his pre-delivery stride and lands on the right foot again – and skiddy pace. He was the joint-highest wicket-taker in the three-match T20I series at home against India, claiming seven wickets at an economy rate of 9.16.Dala adds depth to a pace attack that includes Trent Boult, Avesh Khan, Dan Christian, Mohammed Shami, Harshal Patel, Sayan Ghosh and Liam Plunkett, who had replaced the injured Kagiso Rabada.Last month, Dala was picked by Trinbago Knight Riders in the Caribbean Premier League draft. In all, Dala has played 52 T20s, taking 49 wickets at an economy rate of 8.21.

The batsman, who also contributed with his medium-pace bowling, last played an international match for West Indies in March 2015 at the World Cup

ESPNcricinfo staff01-Mar-2017West Indies batsman Dwayne Smith has announced his retirement from all international cricket. Smith, 33, who is playing for Islamabad United in the ongoing Pakistan Super League, confirmed the decision before the start of the second qualifying final against Karachi Kings in Sharjah. His last West Indies appearance came at the 2015 World Cup.Smith made his international debut on West Indies’ tour of South Africa 2003-04, beginning with the New Year’s Test in Cape Town in January 2004, after Marlon Samuels flew home with a knee injury. He made an impression straightaway, scoring a century on debut – a run-a-ball unbeaten 105, his only international century – in the second innings of the game, to help West Indies draw the match and end their streak of seven successive Test losses in South Africa. The team, however, did lose the series 3-1. Smith played only nine more Tests, scoring a total of 320 runs in the format. His last Test appearance for West Indies was in March 2006, against New Zealand in Napier.Smith had a far more substantial run in the limited-overs sides, where he also made useful contributions with his medium-pace, although his batting returns remained modest. Having begun in the lower order, Smith was promoted to the top order, including as an opener, after 2014 and did better there. Six of his eight ODI fifties came when he batted in the top three, and his average of 25.27 was better than his overall career average of 18.57. Overall, he played 105 ODIs scoring 1560 runs at a strike rate of 92.69. He also took 61 wickets in ODIs, with a career-best of 5 for 45 and three four-fors.Smith was part of two World Cup squads for West Indies in 2007 and in 2015, where his final appearance came against UAE in Napier. Following West Indies’ early exit from the 2007 World Cup, Smith spent close to three years out of the ODI and T20I squads before making his return in 2010.He was part of three World T20 squads – in 2007, 2012 and 2014. While he played only one match during West Indies’ title run in the 2012 World T20, he was picked in the next edition as the side’s designated opener and scored 125 runs in five matches. In 33 T20 internationals, he scored 582 runs at 18.18 with a strike rate of 122.78, although he only made three fifties.Smith has been a popular cricketer on the T20 circuit, over the last few years, turning out to play for franchises in the Indian Premier League, the Caribbean Premier League, the Bangladesh Premier League and the Pakistan Super League, as well as the NatWest Blast in England.