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Says India’s win in Australia “changes nothing”; gives “complete credit” to his team-mates for the result

PTI26-Jan-2021Ajinkya Rahane won many fans with his astute captaincy during India’s triumph in Australia but he has made it clear that the leader of the side remains Virat Kohli, for whom he is happy “filling in” when required.Come February 5, Rahane will once again be India’s Test vice-captain, against England, with Kohli back in charge. Will things be different now, though? “Nothing changes. Virat was and will always be the captain of the Test team and I am his deputy. When he was absent, it was my duty to lead the side and my responsibility to give my best for Team India’s success,” Rahane told PTI, while on his way to Chennai for the England series.Related

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Rahane said his relationship with Kohli has always been smooth. “Me and Virat have always shared a good bonding with each other. He has, time and again, praised my batting. Both of us played memorable knocks for our team in India and overseas conditions. It only helped that Virat comes at No. 4 and myself at No. 5 – we have had a lot of partnerships.”We have always backed each other’s game. When we are at the crease, we discuss threadbare about opposition’s bowling. We caution each other whenever one of us plays a rash shot.”And how does he find Kohli as a captain? “Virat is a sharp captain. He takes good on-field decisions. Whenever the spinners are in operation, he is banking on me and he believes that taking those catches at slips off [R] Ashwin and [Ravindra] Jadeja is one of my core competence areas.”Virat expects a lot from me and I try and ensure I do not let him down,” Rahane, who is 13 short of a milestone of 100 catches in Tests, said.People may have spotted a “leader” in Rahane down under, but he downplayed his role in the victory. “With regards to leadership, I can only say that it varies from person to person. A captain is as good as his team. When you win a match or a series, it’s always a collective effort and not because of singular man’s contribution.”It’s your team-mates who make you a good leader. The complete credit of this series win belongs to my team.”Rahane’s classy hundred in the Melbourne Test, according to India’s head coach Ravi Shastri, was a catalyst for change. Having been through rough patches with the bat in recent past, does Rahane feel more secure about his place in the Test side after that innings?”Honestly speaking, I never ever felt that my place in the side was ever in danger. The captain and team management always had faith in me,” Rahane said. “Yes, sometimes in few series, a player is off-colour but that doesn’t mean that his class is gone. A player needs only one knock to get back to his form.”When I was going through a bad patch, my captain boosted my morale. It’s always comforting to know that you have his backing and you are then focused on giving your best without any worries.”

Aaron Finch proud of the way his team adapted to conditions after watching the first innings

Andrew McGlashan05-Mar-2021New Zealand coach Gary Stead has criticised his team’s approach with the bat in the fourth T20I, saying the batsmen did not “fire a shot” at Australia early in the run chase on what was a challenging surface.Stead acknowledged the game swung significantly Australia’s way when Aaron Finch took 26 off the last over from Kyle Jamieson, but felt New Zealand were timid with their response – they were 25 for 1 after the powerplay and then collapsed to 82 for 9 before some late hitting from Jamieson pushed them to three figures.The surface changed considerably from the first match – this was the fourth game on the surface in three days with the women’s series also taking place – which “surprised” Stead but he said the batsmen had been too slow to adjust.”The disappointing thing for me is I’m not sure we fired a shot at them tonight. When Kyle came in and played the way he did, it was too late then, the game was gone, so we need to think how we do that a little earlier,” he said. “In those situations, when it is tough, that was a very good score they had, then you have to try and get ahead of the run rate if you can and that provides a little more opportunity for the middle order to work out the way they need to play it.Related

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“It’s that intent to hit boundaries, get on the front foot, even just running between wickets and things like that and I thought we took a step backwards from where we had been earlier in the series. There are things we can do better.”Spinners were effective throughout the game with Mitchell Santner setting the tone, and Stead said that Kane Williamson had considered using himself or Glenn Phillips but did not feel the match-ups were right with Finch still at the crease.Finch had the advantage of viewing conditions at very close quarters for 20 overs and was quick to hand Ashton Agar the first over of New Zealand’s chase with the left-arm spinner bowling three in the powerplay.”It was one of those days where we got a lot of information out of the way New Zealand bowled and we adapted beautifully,” he said. “Ashton Agar was outstanding and all the bowlers were really good.”Finch was often starved of the strike but made the decision reasonably early that he would try and take the innings as deep as possible. “We always knew two new batters on a surface like that was going to be really challenging, especially towards the back end when you expect guys to blast them, it’s going to be tough on that kind of surface.”After a poor performance in Christchurch and a narrow loss in Dunedin, Australia now have the chance to clinch the series before quickly packing their kit bags and jumping on a chartered flight back across the Tasman on Sunday evening.”The fact we were 2-0 down and back to 2-2, really proud of the way we’ve fought,” Finch said. “It’s not the first time we’ve done it, either. It’s a really good character test at the best of time because the ebbs and flows are so big.”

Batsman insists he can still do the job in the shortest format, even though he hasn’t always been in the running for selection

Mohammad Isam25-Mar-2021Ross Taylor has said that he has eyes on the T20 World Cup later this year even though he hasn’t featured in the last two New Zealand squads in this format. He believes there is still enough time to return with the side set to play a lot of matches leading up to the main event in India.Taylor was speaking ahead of the third ODI against Bangladesh in Wellington, having been passed fit following a hamstring injury that kept him out of the first two games.”I think I’ve still got ambitions on the T20 World Cup,” Taylor said. “I think there’s still a lot to go. The selectors have wanted to give these guys the opportunity which is fair enough. This is a good format, especially in New Zealand, for getting these guys into international cricket, if they are not going to play a lot of ODI and Test cricket. T20 is the logical way of bringing them into the side.”In the last two years, Taylor has played 14 out of New Zealand’s 24 T20Is. He made 166 runs with two fifties against India last year, but saw his batting position go to new players like Devon Conway and Glenn Phillips. Taylor said that he was surprised to be dropped from the New Zealand team for the T20I series against Australia, and now Bangladesh. He got to play only four deliveries during the T20I series against West Indies in November last year.”It was a bit of a surprise, getting player of the year and facing four balls. I am not going to lie. You have respect their decision that this is a format to give the guys an opportunity to play.”I feel age is just a number. I am able to do a job that’s required. There’s a lot of cricket to be played in the winter. I will be around somewhere,” he said.After the Bangladesh T20I series at home, New Zealand are likely to play against Pakistan and Bangladesh again during their winter, ahead of the T20 World Cup. On Wednesday, New Zealand selector Gavin Larsen said that they haven’t yet ruled Taylor out entirely from their T20 plans.”(New Zealand coach) Gary (Stead) has been working really closely and talking with Ross. Ross sits in behind those current group of incumbents that we’ve got now,” Larsen told stuff.co.nz. “As we said when we didn’t pick Ross originally it was a really tough decision and I’ll say that again because we know his pedigree and the quality. We know and Ross has stated to us that he’s still keen and he thinks he can still contribute. From our side as selectors that’s great. We always take the approach of ‘never say never’. We know he’s sitting there and if we needed to call for Ross then we know he’d be jumping out of his skin.”

Visitors can only manage five wickets on final day after declaring on lead of 395

ECB Reporters' Network11-Apr-2021Nottinghamshire found the required resilience to pick up the significantly enhanced eight-point reward for a draw in their opening LV= Insurance County Championship match after visitors Durham had given their bowlers the whole of the final day to claim 10 wickets and a first victory at Trent Bridge in the competition since 2013.Without a win in the Championship in 26 matches before this one, Nottinghamshire had suffered 17 defeats in that period, a record that made Durham favourites to take the last-day honours in this match, especially after bowling out their hosts in 74.1 overs in the first innings.Related

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Two quick wickets for Chris Rushworth gave Durham the start they wanted but they could take only three more after opening batsman Ben Slater had led the way in stifling their ambitions, standing firm for 48 overs for his 73.With rookie allrounder Lyndon James showing he has backbone as well as potential, turning a maiden fifty into a fine unbeaten 79 in only his third first-class match and sharing a 124-run partnership with skipper Steven Mullaney, Nottinghamshire were never in serious danger, the teams touching fists (handshakes being outlawed) on a draw with eight-and-a-half overs remaining of the schedule.”The result shows that we can fight and bat for the draw, in the same way that we fought with the ball after losing Jake Ball and Brett Hutton from the attack,” Slater said. “The target in the first session was just to get past the new ball and then take as much time out of the game as I could, but at the same time staying positive.”For Lyndon to bat how he has in his third or fourth game it was almost as though he had played 50 or 60 games. It just shows what a head he has got on young shoulders.”Durham’s overnight declaration at 332 for 4, following the county record fifth-wicket partnership between centurions David Bedingham and Ned Eckersley, challenged Nottinghamshire to score 396 to win, a fourth-innings total surpassed only twice in the history of first-class cricket at Trent Bridge, both times in the 1920s.Rushworth soon made that unlikely prospect even more remote, producing a beauty to bowl Haseeb Hameed for a duck and following up by dismissing Ben Duckett leg before to leave them 21 for 2.But Slater and Joe Clarke added 67 for the third wicket and though Durham celebrated enthusiastically after Clarke, who had looked in good order in making 38, nicked to slip in the last over before lunch, it took them another 20 overs to make another breakthrough as 22-year-old James provided admirably durable support for Slater’s cause.Indeed, James survived his senior partner, who was the next out, leg before as swivelled to pull Scott Borthwick’s legspin.After a sleet shower had forced the players off for an early tea, taking four overs out of the schedule, James reached his half-century from 106 balls with six fours. Nottinghamshire were able to score much more quickly and as Mullaney pulled Matt Salisbury for his third six a Nottinghamshire win was not entirely out of the question.That possibility promptly disappeared as the next ball took Mullaney’s off and middle stumps out of the ground but after the new ball brought no further breakthroughs – and with their earlier worries about slow over rate allayed by the umpires – Durham agreed that the spoils be shared.Durham captain Borthwick said: “We felt this was a game we could win and the result was a tough one to take for us. The partnership between David Bedingham and Ned Eckersley on day three put us in a really good position and while we knew we had to graft today we did create chances and there was a lot of playing and missing.”But we needed those half-chances to stick for us before the pitch flattened out and it got a bit easier to bat on.”We felt we’ve played all the cricket, the better cricket in this game and yet we have come away with the same points as Nottinghamshire, but there were a lot more positives than negatives from the performance.”

Second ton of the season for opener as Gloucestershire left to rue decision to insert

ECB Reporters' Network29-Apr-2021Sam Evans’ third first-class century helped Leicestershire dominate the opening day against Gloucestershire at Bristol as they made 264 for 4 having been sent in.Evans, 23, born in Leicester and a Loughborough University graduate, followed up his 138 at The Oval in round two with 102 here. He and Lewis Hill, with 77 not out, steered Leicestershire from 129 for 3 into a strong position as Gloucestershire were left to rue their decision at the toss.Bowling first can often be an advantage on pitches at Bristol that get increasingly benign but there was little to encourage the hosts’ seamers as they endured a hard first day in the field for a second week running.Evans was their chief adversary as he further grew his reputation with a century in 251 balls with 13 boundaries to continue to press the case of university cricket. The demise of universities’ first-class status and the uncertain future of the centres of excellence begs the question of whether those like Evans who choose to read for a degree will have a route into professional cricket in the future.He lost his opening partner Hassan Azad to the second ball of the day as Dan Worrall claimed his 200th first-class wicket, but led his side calmly through the morning session to reach 92 for 1 at lunch.He drove Ryan Higgins for four through cover and Worrall straight down the ground. A flick to fine leg brought him within sight of a half-century before he drove keenly at Josh Shaw and edged at catchable height perfectly between the wicketkeeper and first slip who was standing quite wide. James Bracey dived right, Kraigg Brathwaite dived left and the ball whistled to the fence to give Evans fifty in 126 balls.After lunch, he lost Marcus Harris, driving at Worrall and caught behind for 62 – the Australian’s first half-century in county cricket – and Rishi Patel bowled for just 2, shouldering arms at Worrall.The second new ball was taken with Evans 17 shy of a hundred and he inside-edged Higgins past his stumps for four and leaned out to drive the same bowler through cover before a flick to fine leg raised a century to be toasted in common-rooms around the country. But he couldn’t see out the day, lifting Worrall to short square-leg.

Nottinghamshire batter to attend hearing in July following not guilty plea

George Dobell17-Jun-2021Joe Clarke is set to face trial on a charge of affray following an incident in Powys last year. Clarke, the Nottinghamshire and England Lions batter, appeared at Welshpool Magistrates’ Court on Thursday where he entered a not guilty plea to the charge.He was granted unconditional bail prior to a direction hearing, which is scheduled to be heard in Mold Crown Court on July 16.According to the , who first reported the story, Clarke appeared in court alongside family members Oliver Clarke, aged 30, Richard Clarke, aged 20, and Robert Clarke, aged 26. All faced the same charge in connection with an incident in Four Crosses in Montgomeryshire on July 5, 2020.Related

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The timing of the news is not ideal for Clarke. He is, on form, arguably England’s best uncapped T20 player – he is averaging in excess of 50 in this year’s Vitality Blast with a strike rate over 200 – and might well have been considered for the current squad in normal circumstances.But with the ECB keen to avoid further negative publicity following the debacle concerning players’ historic social media posts, it may well be that England are unwilling to include Clarke.In July 2019 he pleaded guilty to bringing the game into disrepute after Whatsapp messages he exchanged with team-mates at his former club, Worcestershire, were deemed to demonstrate a disrespectful attitude towards women. He was fined and informed that he would not be considered for England or England Lions selection for a period. While that period will long since have elapsed, it is unlikely he will be selected while this issue is outstanding.”The club is aware of the situation involving Joe Clarke and will await the outcome of those proceedings in due course,” Nottinghamshire said in a statement.

Captain puts focus on enjoyment amid extraordinary circumstances of early England recall

George Dobell07-Jul-2021You didn’t think Ben Stokes would turn England down in their hour of need, did you?He is not, by any means, at full fitness. And he does not, by any means, have a full strength squad at his disposal. But when the cry for help came through, late on Monday night, he was happy to answer it. Not for the first time, Stokes was the man England turned to in a crisis.”I had to stand up,” Stokes said matter-of-factly from England’s team hotel in Cardiff. “It was like when I came back for Durham a bit earlier [than had been planned]: my job needed me to do something, so I had to stand up.”It’s the same with this. It’s earlier than planned from a medical and fitness point of view. But when a job comes and calls you, you need to stand up and make yourself available.”Stokes is, in many ways, the perfect temporary leader. He is an automatic pick, he has natural authority, he is calm under pressure and, as a man with no obvious captaincy ambitions, he will be very happy to pass the responsibility back in a week or two. It’s his second experience of England captaincy after he deputised for Joe Root, who was on paternity leave, for the first Test of last year’s series against West Indies. As he put it: “I’ve captained because Joe was having a baby and I’m captain now because of a Covid outbreak. So it’s a strange situation. But it’s a huge honour and I’m looking forward to it.”Ben Stokes hatches a plan in the field•Getty Images

It might be wise, though, not to expect too much from Stokes as a player. On the evidence of his recent outings with Durham, he is some distance from his best with the bat or the ball. Until the weekend, there was every chance the England management were going to leave him out of both this ODI series and the T20 series which follows to allow him time to build up both his form and fitness ahead of the Test series against India.”After the phone call from Chris Silverwood, my wife sent me a screenshot of an article saying England aren’t going to rush Ben Stokes back,” Stokes continued. “I tried to make light of the situation and sent the same thing to Ashley Giles as well. It’s one of these situations that’s an example of ‘if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry’.”I felt 45 [years old] after bowling in the Championship game,” he added, after taking figures of 3 for 55 against Warwickshire at Edgbaston on Monday. “But there’s no issues in terms of how many overs I have bowled going into a one-day game, so my role won’t change from the last four or five years.”While Stokes, talking ahead of training, was reluctant to confirm any plans, he did hint that Brydon Carse, whom he called “a seriously impressive cricketer”, would play. He also praised John Simpson, who could be preferred to Ben Duckett with the gloves.”He’s got that pace and X-factor that every team wishes they had,” Stokes said of Carse. “He’s known for his bowling but he is a genuinely good batsman as well. I see him in a similar role to Liam Plunkett in the England team.”I have played against Simpson a lot. He’s a very, very talented player and a very good gloveman as well. We know they are heading into an international for the first time but they have got a lot of experience if they get an opportunity to play.”Stokes also clarified he would return to the middle-order after a brief foray into the top three in India in March. He scored 99 in the second ODI of that series; it was one of the five times in his most recent eight ODI innings that he has passed 75.Related

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England could do with such form now. His squad is talented, of course. But nine of them are uncapped and one or two others must have thought their international careers were over. It is asking a huge amount of them to deputise for World Cup winners.Their preparations since the call-ups have been far from ideal, too. Though the results of the squad’s PCR tests came back negative on Wednesday afternoon, thus avoiding throwing the series into even more chaos, the delay meant that training was not able to begin until 3pm. Until then, they were marooned in their rooms and limited to conversations over Zoom. They will have, therefore, just one training session ahead of the game.With that in mind, Stokes’ ambitions for the series sounded unsurprisingly modest. But he is not the sort of cricketer to accept a place among the also-rans. He is, quite clearly, in Cardiff to win. And as one of those characters who gives those around him confidence simply by his presence, England are in as safe hands as they could be in these odd circumstances.”I’m not going to put too much pressure on myself or the guys who will be playing because it is exceptional circumstances,” Stokes said. “We will just get through it. I just want to make sure everyone has a good time.”But I expect us to be very competitive. It doesn’t matter what names are on the back of an England shirt; we are walking out there as the No. 1 [ranked] team. That is an exciting thing to say you are a part of, whether you are an experienced player, a young player or someone coming into the group for the first time. You don’t get picked in an England team without being successful in county cricket.”Situations like these are so rare and such a fluster, I would say you have got a chance to represent your country so let’s do it with a smile on our face and just enjoy it as much as we can as a group.”The guys picked have put their hand up in county cricket and deserve to be in this situation, albeit through extreme circumstances. Everyone warrants their place in the squad.”It’s an amazing opportunity for guys on the fringes. It’s a really exciting time for them as individuals and for the public who follow the team. We’re going to look at it from a positive. We haven’t seen these guys in an England shirt because of how strong we have been.”I’m looking forward to leading out the next exciting cricketers coming through in England, who will no doubt be in an England shirt in the future. It just came quicker than we expected.”

Australian takes over from long-serving John Stephenson at Lord’s

George Dobell19-Jul-2021Jamie Cox, the former Tasmania and Somerset batter who captained both sides during an outstanding career in domestic cricket, has been appointed as MCC Assistant Secretary (Cricket and Operations), warning that the game faces “some moral and ethical challenges”.Cox is succeeding John Stephenson, who has stepped down after 17-years in the role at Lord’s to become Essex’s chief executive. The 51-year-old Australian is charged with overseeing the club’s out-match programme, which sees them play around 500 games a year, the overseas touring schedule and delivering the influential MCC World Cricket committee. He starts in September.But Cox believes his period in in the role will be defined by a debate over the “spirit of cricket” and his ability to “lift the ethical standards of the game”.Cox accepts that any talk of the spirit of the game is fraught with difficulty. He accepts that everyone has a different definition of what it means to play “hard but fair” and knows that will some will dismiss him as “naive and crazy”. But he hopes the example of recent New Zealand teams, who he believes “stumbled across a magic formula”, can inspire the whole game and start a debate.”I think our game has some moral and ethical challenges,” Cox told ESPNcricinfo. “But certainly my leadership of the MCC will be defined around the want and need to play the game the right way.”It’s one of the areas that attracted me to the role. It’s not just about the guardianship of the Laws of the game but the spirit of the game, too. It’s really dear to me.”As part of my presentation for the role, I used that famous photograph of Freddie Flintoff hunched over Brett Lee at the end of that 2005 Test at Edgbaston. Because it’s celebrated as the best of cricket and an example of the wonderful spirit in which the game can be played. But, as I see it, that should be pretty normal behaviour.He added: “Without sounding naive and crazy, if there’s anything that we can challenge to try and just lift the ethical standards of the game, that’s exactly what I’ll be trying to do. I’ll stand strongly behind the right way to play. Because I think it’s critical.”I’m an unashamed lover of New Zealand sport and New Zealand cricket. I’ve asked people in Australia ‘Why haven’t we actually done a study based on how New Zealand managed to become number one in the world? Why haven’t we copied them?’ There are some great lessons to adopt.”I unashamedly admire the way New Zealand play. And I think it’s fabulous that they’ve got the reward of winning the World Test Championship after a few near-misses in one-day cricket.”When Brendon McCullum took over, he decided how his team was going to play and it was going to be true to itself. I think he stumbled across a magic formula, really, and they play the game the right way.”I look at the way Kane Williamson behaved at the end of that amazing 2019 World Cup final and I’m just not sure an Australian would have handled themselves in quite that manner. It was so statesmanlike.”Some will point out that Cox’s own record is not without blemish. While he was a ‘walker’ throughout his career – a habit which he admits underwhelmed some of his Tasmania colleagues – he was sacked from his job as general manager at the South Australian Cricket Association after a tapping-up scandal in the Big Bash.”I made a mistake,” he says. “And I got pretty heavily penalised for it. It was a long time ago and it was a pretty basic administrative error.”But I’ve made my piece with it and now I consider it part of my journey. It taught me a lot and I actually think I’m a better administrator – a better person, even – because of the tough times I went through. It’s my only scar in the game. It’s not something I love but yeah, it happened.”Like many in the game, Cox was shocked by the 2018 ball-tampering debacle in Cape Town. He feels, however, that Cricket Australia – and Justin Langer and Tim Paine, in particular – have a done “a decent job” of improving the way in which the national team plays and feels Australian teams of an earlier era had something in common with modern New Zealand sides.”I’ll never forget the day I woke up and heard the [ball-tampering] news,” he says. “It was a horrible time. There’s no Australian that’s proud of it. But Australian cricket was probably heading that way for quite some time. It had developed an edge. When you look back now, you can see the tension boiling.”I think [Cricket Australia] have done a decent job – not a perfect job – of restoring their reputation.”I reckon there was an era – and I speak of the era in which I grew up with guys who were a lot older than me – when they used to play the game incredibly tough, but there was a line that never got crossed. It was always played in the right spirit. Cricket can still be incredibly hard-edged and competitive, but maintain that respect.”Another of Cox’s challenges is trying to make sure the MCC – something of a bastion of privilege – is relevant beyond the club’s membership. And to do that, he believes they have to look beyond cricket’s male constituency.”It is a club that’s looking to continually evolve,” he says, “and I’ve read enough to know that it understands those challenges. It knows that in order to remain relevant, it has to continue to grow and diversify.”The opportunities to grow the game through male participants like myself are probably limited. So therefore we’ve got to think about opportunities to open up the game to new markets and offer the game to people who might have not previously had that opportunity. With a fresh set of eyes and ears, I hope we can continually lift the bar. I am both excited and deeply honoured to be joining the MCC.”

ECB chief reiterates importance of player welfare with Australia’s Covid rules possibly preventing families on tour

Andrew Miller12-Aug-2021Tom Harrison, the ECB chief executive, says that England and Australia will use every diplomatic channel available to ensure that this winter’s Ashes can go ahead as planned, in spite of the players’ fears that their families may not be permitted to travel due to Australia’s stringent Covid-19 restrictions.The prospect of a postponed Ashes tour has become increasingly realistic in recent weeks, amid concerns that a number of England’s senior players – in particular multi-format players such as Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes and Mark Wood – would be reluctant to head straight from the T20 World Cup in the UAE to Australia, and spend up to four months away from their young families.Related

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• FAQs: Will the Ashes 2021-22 go ahead as scheduled? What are the major issues?

Several former England captains have expressed their reservations about the tour taking place in such circumstances, most recently Andrew Strauss, who captained England’s last victorious Ashes tour in 2010-11, and said this week it would be “unrealistic” to expect the players to tolerate such lengthy enforced absences.Harrison, however, in a briefing before the start of the second LV= Insurance Test between England and India at Lord’s, insisted that the ECB’s “people first” policy would remain intact in spite of the “critical” importance of an Ashes tour to the finances of international cricket. He added that the lengths to which the board had gone to ensure a smooth passage for this summer’s series, including representations to the Prime Minister’s Office to enable India’s families to travel, was proof that the sport’s hotline to government was open, and that the relevant authorities were listening.”Managing player welfare, keeping players safe and with their families near and around, has been a real key theme through this pandemic,” Harrison said. “We’ve taken the view that people come first, and we will continue to take that approach as we continue to navigate this crisis for as long as it takes.”We are working very closely with Cricket Australia, and I had my latest conversation with my counterpart at CA yesterday,” Harrison added. “We are speaking every few days on this matter. All the right conversations are happening at government level in Australia, and we will be using our own diplomatic channels in the UK to ensure that the view of the players and the ECB, because we are jointly approaching this, [is put across].”The financial implications of an Ashes postponement would be devastating for Cricket Australia, and by extension the global game, as the ECB recognise all too well given the efforts they made to fulfil their home summer fixtures in 2020 – including three-Test series against West Indies and Pakistan, and white-ball visits from Ireland and Australia themselves.All of those fixtures took place in bio-secure bubbles behind closed doors, and were worth in excess of £120 million in TV revenue alone. However, the mental toll that the effort took on England’s players was considerable, with Stokes’ withdrawal from this summer’s India series the most significant evidence yet that such strictures are unsustainable.Tim Paine and Ben Stokes shake hands in the last Ashes•Getty Images

Speaking last month, Harrison defended the loosening of England’s Covid restrictions for this year’s Tests, saying that asking the players to go “‘once more unto the breach dear friends’ … isn’t an acceptable place for responsible employers to continue to go”. And he was adamant that that attitude would continue to dictate their efforts to keep the Ashes on track.”This is not players asking for anything unreasonable,” he said. “We are asking the Australian government to give some leniency, frankly, because it’s going to be important for us to ensure that we can give comfort to the players. That their families are going to be able to be in Australia, and that those conditions in which they are quarantined will be reasonable, and enable the players to be at their best in that Test series.”It’s a conversation that’s going to take place over the next few weeks. We are not going to have an answer by the end of this Test, for example. But I am very confident we will get to a place where we can fulfil our obligations to tour.”While Harrison acknowledged that Australia’s complex mix of state and federal legislation made the negotiations trickier than they might otherwise be – Sydney, for instance, is currently in an extended state of lockdown – he remained hopeful that cricket’s traditional status within Australian society will help to ensure that the various levels of government can come up with a workable solution.”The Ashes is so important to global cricket, much like an England-India series, but even more so in certain parts of the world,” he said. “The integrity of the Ashes is going to be paramount, and we’ve expressed that, and Cricket Australia understand this too. This is not an adversarial conversation, it’s one which we’re doing together.”To a lesser extent the Australian players have had to endure bubble existence, but they know exactly what it’s about. They were here last year, they’ve just been in Bangladesh, and know only too well what it’s like to be in these environments. It’s a little unsustainable to ask people to continually go to that extent, particularly in a country which has taken a hardline approach to border control.”There’s always political overlay in these matters,” Harrison added. “But the Sports Minister in Australia is a very senior cabinet position… sports has a level of influence, I think, which is greater than it is in this country too.”We’ve got all the right people paying all the right levels of attention to the importance of this debate, and to the critical nature of making sure we answer these questions that we are reasonably asking, to ensure we can get everything right, and that we can all look forward to a very exciting Ashes series in Australia this winter.”

Taskin Ahmed also included in 20-man squad after regaining fitness

Mohammad Isam30-Nov-2021Opening batter Saif Hassan has been ruled out of the second Test against Pakistan starting December 4 after he fell ill with typhoid.Saif had a tough time in the Chattogram Test, getting bounced out twice by Shaheen Shah Afridi for 14 and 18. Saif averages 14.45 in 11 Test innings with a high score of 43. The BCB’s medical team will monitor his recovery.Bangladesh’s Test loss in Chattogram was followed by good news after Shakib Al Hasan was ruled fit for the second Test. Shakib missed the first Test, as well as the T20I series against Pakistan and the last couple of matches in the T20 World Cup due to a hamstring injury.Shakib passed a fitness test in Dhaka on Monday, which brought him back into a team that badly needs his contribution. Fast bowler Taskin Ahmed has also returned to the side, while Mohammad Naim, the T20 specialist, makes his first appearance in the Test squad. Taskin had hurt his finger during the third T20I against Pakistan on November 22, which had ruled him out of the first Test.Naim is the standout call-up in the squad. The 22-year-old has played 32 T20Is and two ODIs. He played the last of his six first-class matches in February 2020. Naim averages 16.63 in the format, and has scored only one half-century.The team management had already picked fast bowlers Khaled Ahmed and Shohidul Islam for the Chattogram Test. The new inclusions make it a 20-man squad for the Dhaka Test, which is unusual for a home game.Squad for second Test: Mominul Haque (capt), Shadman Islam, Najmul Hossain Shanto, Mushfiqur Rahim, Shakib Al Hasan, Liton Das, Yasir Ali, Nurul Hasan, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Taijul Islam, Taskin Ahmed, Ebadot Hossain, Abu Jayed, Nayeem Hasan, Mahmudul Hasan Joy, Rejaur Rahman Raja, Khaled Ahmed, Shohidul Islam, Mohammad Naim