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A 114-ball 103 from Robin Uthappa helped India A beat New Zealand A by six wickets in the first unofficial ODI in Visakhapatnam

ESPNcricinfo staff08-Sep-2013
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsRobin Uthappa and Unmukt Chand put on 178 for the opening wicket in 30 overs•BCCI

Robin Uthappa has endured five frustrating years on the sidelines since marking his international debut with a match-winning 86 against England back in April 2006 – the highest score by an Indian debutant in ODIs. He was part of the India team that lifted the inaugural World Twenty20 in 2007. But a slump in form in 2008 led to him being dropped and ever since, Uthappa has been on ODI exile.On Sunday, he made a strong statement of intent with an all-round performance that guided India A to a comprehensive six-wicket win over New Zealand A in the first unofficial ODI in Visakhapatnam. Uthappa took four catches, and then struck a 114-ball 103 to set India A on their way to an easy victory. Uthappa put on 178 for the opening wicket in 30 overs with his captain Unmukt Chand, who cracked 94 off 88 after twin failures in the unofficial Tests.Uthappa got off the mark in rather fortuitous circumstances with an inside edge off Adam Milne that raced behind for four. But he soon settled in, and displayed the same confidence and flair which he had shown for India between 2006 and 2008.Uthappa made expert use of his wrists, attacking loose deliveries and sensibly rotating the strike. He reached his fifty in the 18th over by opening the face of the blade and picking the gap between point and cover for his seventh four. Uthappa showed increasing aggression as the innings wore on, executing the pull to devastating effect. He dispatched Matt Henry for two sixes and hit another one off Milne to reach his century in 110 balls.Chand smashed nine fours and six sixes, pulling repeatedly with power, and looked to be heading towards a well-deserved century, but departed for 94 after holing out to Tom Latham at deep midwicket.Uthappa carried on, and added another 48 with Aditya Tare, but eventually flicked one to Colin Munro at fine leg. Two more wickets fell in quick succession, but with just 23 more needed, India A remained comfortable. Kedar Jadhav hit the winning runs as India A overhauled the target with 5.5 overs remaining.It wasn’t entirely smooth sailing for the hosts at first, after a 70-run eighth-wicket partnership between Ish Sodhi and Daryl Mitchell propelled New Zealand A to a competitive 257. The visitors, choosing to bat, got off to a solid, but unhurried start, as the openers Anton Devcich and Luke Ronchi added 36. But Uthappa got the breakthrough, diving wide to his left to take a blinder to send back Ronchi off Shrikant Wagh in the ninth over.Devcich, Latham and Carl Cachopa all made useful contributions, but wickets at regular intervals from Dhawal Kulkarni, Ashok Menaria and Rahul Sharma, who each finished with three scalps, left New Zealand A precariously placed at 183 for 7. Mitchell counter-attacked with a 62-ball 51, but was overshadowed by Chand and Uthappa’s match-winning blitz.

Marshall Ayub could be making his Test debut as a No. 3 batsman against New Zealand, but he hasn’t had much of a chance to bat in match situation recently

Mohammad Isam in Chittagong04-Oct-2013Marshall Ayub is waiting patiently to grab his first opportunity in international cricket but the heavy downpour in Chittagong meant that his only chance of getting some practice before his likely Test debut appeared slim. Rather than having an innings under his belt, he has to content with thinking about is last century and plan his indoor nets using advice from the man who’s position he could be taking.That last century was his sixth since February 2012 and it came in a three-day practice match in Khulna played among Bangladesh’s 30-man preliminary squad for the New Zealand series in early September. It came from No. 3, a position for which Bangladesh are desperate to find a new batsman, and more importantly, it caught coach Shane Jurgensen’s eye.Habibul Bashar, Bangladesh’s best-ever No. 3 and coincidentally the selector present at the game, said at the time that it will be an innings to talk about when they select the first Test squad.”The 156 in Khulna got me back into reckoning [for the Bangladesh side],” Marshall told ESPNcricinfo. “I had an ordinary tour of England for Bangladesh A (in August this year). I thought I may have lost out on the progress I had made before this tour. I had scored some runs in the last domestic season but I just had to score in my first innings back from England.”He returned from England with 139 runs from eight one-day innings, with a highest score of 39 against Hampshire. It was a setback for Marshall, after he had scored 1,069 first-class runs with four centuries in the 2012-13 season. That welcome run of form came after a few average seasons Marshall had to endure on his return to first-class cricket following a career-threatening injury five years ago.From an underwhelming talented batsman who had three first-class centuries, he struck four more and increased his average from 26.8 to 36.9 in the space of 17 innings in the National Cricket League (for Dhaka Metropolis) and the Bangladesh Cricket League (for Central Zone).Mohammad Ashraful, his senior teammate in first-class cricket, told him to increase his endurance, which would translate to better concentration for longer innings. “It was a simple piece of advice from Ashraful . He told me to increase the intensity of my training sessions. I have to run more laps, for instance, so that my concentration increases.”I had to bat longer in the nets, so that I got used to playing longer innings. I had to do all of that in the field, but that advice really helped. Endurance, fitness and longevity in the field are all connected together,” Marshall said.As a quirk of fate, Marshall is now closest to taking Ashraful’s No. 3 slot after the former Bangladesh captain was provisionally suspended for alleged involvement in corruption during the BPL.Their batting styles could not be any more different as Marshall likes to take a more traditional approach to building an innings, coupled with his overall quiet and calm disposition. Jurgensen and the rest of the Bangladesh team management have been looking for a batsman with solidity in a line-up that is full of aggressive batsmen like Tamim Iqbal, Anamul Haque, Mushfiqur Rahim, Shakib Al Hasan and Nasir Hossain.Marshall could be their answer, but No. 3 has been a troubled position in the Bangladesh team since Bashar’s retirement. Drafting in a new guy in one of the most important places in the team is a major call, so Marshall has to be in control of his emotions, as he has always been through the most difficult of times.

Debutant Matthew Fisher fired Yorkshire to an opening-night NatWest T20 Blast win over Derbyshire at Headingley with a stunning five-wicket haul under the new floodlights

ECB/PA15-May-2015
ScorecardMatt Fisher shone under the floodlights at Headingley•Getty Images

Debutant Matthew Fisher fired Yorkshire to an opening-night NatWest T20 Blast win over Derbyshire at Headingley with a stunning five-wicket haul under the new floodlights.Seventeen-year-old Fisher joined Rich Pyrah and Jack Brooks as the only Yorkshire players to take five wickets in a 20-over match as the Falcons were bowled out for 128 inside 19 overs on the way to a seven-wicket defeat with 20 balls remaining.Fisher struck twice through the middle of the innings as Derbyshire, invited to bat, slipped from 66 for 1 in the ninth to 81 for 6 in the 13th, a loss of 5 for 15 in 25 balls. South African Hashim Amla top-scored with 29, but him falling caught at cover off Pyrah hurt the Falcons badly.A crowd of 5,953 saw Fisher record 5 for 22 from 3.2 overs before watching third-wicket pair Andrew Gale and Jonny Bairstow impress in Yorkshire’s chase with 41 off 36 balls and 40 not out off 35.Tim Bresnan, Liam Plunkett and Adil Rashid all struck once for the Vikings, while Pyrah added an excellent 2 for 13 from his four overs. His wickets were part of the mid-innings collapse.

Insights

Matthew Fisher has been tipped as an England fast bowler before he has barely bowled a ball in anger for Yorkshire. “I think he is going to be an unbelievable bowler,” said Tim Bresnan after his introduction to Championship cricket against Nottinghamshire and Warwickshire in early season, voicing what may had quietly believed from the outset.
Bresnan said: “He is 17 years old, and he is swinging it both ways at 85mph and has a sharp bouncer as well. He looks a really good prospect.” His five wickets against Derbyshire, at only 17, will only encourage that belief. Not a bowler to be targeted clearly. Fisher joined Rich Pyrah and Jack Brooks as the only Yorkshire players to take five wickets in a 20-over match – and the first, naturally, to achieve it under Headingley’s new floodlights
David Hopps

Fisher became the youngest post-war county cricketer when he debuted in a one-day match aged 15 in 2013, and he made his first Championship appearance earlier this summer.He is currently out of consideration for four-day cricket due to A-Level exams, but he passed this test under lights with flying colours.”It’s been great under the lights here with a bumper crowd,” he said. “We didn’t get off to a great start – we didn’t get our line and length right. But then I got the call, and I tried to hit my lines and went from there.”It’s been a really good start to the season for me. I haven’t expected to play Championship or T20 cricket. The England lads have come back, and I didn’t think I’d play this game with the calibre that’s in the squad but Jason Gillespie’s shown faith in me, and I’ve paid him back.”Fisher broke a dangerous second-wicket partnership of 39 between Amla and Chesney Hughes (27) with his second ball by getting the latter caught at point. He then trapped Shiv Thakor lbw in his second over before returning to get two wickets in the 17th over as Derbyshire slipped to 115 for 8.He had Alex Hughes caught and bowled and Tom Poynton (27) caught behind at either end of the over, and he wrapped up the innings at the start of his fourth over by getting Ben Cotton caught and bowled running towards cover.Cotton bowled Andrew Hodd for a golden duck two balls into Yorkshire’s reply. Alex Lees then sliced Mark Footitt to third man in the fifth over, leaving the score at 31 for 2, but Yorkshire’s win was rarely in doubt.Gale and Bairstow put on 69 inside nine overs, taking three sixes off former Yorkshire spinner David Wainwright in the 13th over.

Jason Gillespie is due to meet ECB officials in the next few days to discuss the vacant England coaching position

George Dobell18-May-2015Jason Gillespie is due to meet ECB officials in the next few days to discuss the vacant England coaching position.Although Gillespie, the former Australia fast bowler, has expressed his contentment in his current role as coach at Yorkshire, he will meet Andrew Strauss, England’s new director of cricket, in the coming week to discuss the role and is believed to be open-minded about his options. Not only would the job come with a handsome pay rise on his current salary, but whoever is offered it will be given assurances that they will have time to turn around the fortunes of the England side.With a tough year coming up – the next four Test series are against New Zealand and Australia (at home) and Pakistan and South Africa (away) – all serious candidates are likely to require such assurances after Peter Moores was sacked after just 13 months in charge.Gillespie, who was confirmed as a candidate by Strauss last week, is one of a quartet of Australians in whom the ECB have shown some interest. While Justin Langer, the Western Australia and Perth Scorchers, has essentially ruled himself out after calling a press conference to announce he had extended his contract with Western Australia and Perth Scorchers.Tom Moody (currently with Sunrisers Hyderabad, but previously Sri Lanka coach) and Trevor Bayliss (currently with Sydney Sixes and Kolkata Knight Riders) remain strong candidates.Gary Kirsten, the former South Africa and India coach, is another man identified as a strong candidate by the ECB. He ruled himself out of the reckoning at an early stage the last time England were recruiting, just over a year ago, so it may prove relevant that he has not chosen to do so on this occasion.Leading English candidates, such as Ashley Giles, who won the County Championship title with Warwickshire and is now with Lancashire, and Mark Robinson, who has won numerous trophies, including two County Championship trophies, at Sussex, appear to be viewed – unfairly – as damaged goods.Giles was England’s limited-overs coach when the side reached the final of the Champions Trophy in 2013, but also presided over the wretched World T20 campaign in 2014. He was never given full control of the England team – Andy Flower remained head coach – and almost never had a full strength ODI squad from which to pick.Robinson has an excellent record at Sussex and has recently impressed as Lions coach within the England set-up. But his close relationship with Moores – Robinson’s early coaching experience came as Moores’ assistant at Sussex – and his lack of international experience looks set to count against him.That means that England look set to name their third foreign-born coach in four appointments – Duncan Fletcher and Flower were both born in southern Africa – and could well lead to a situation where both coaches in the forthcoming Ashes series are former Australia players. It remains quite possible that a limited-overs coach will be appointed underneath the head coach.Some stumbling blocks remain. Several potential candidates have expressed their unease at the extent of the decisions already taken by Strauss – not just over the future of Kevin Pietersen, but over the appointment of captain and vice-captain as well – while the speed with which Moores and Paul Downton were sacked, and the somewhat clumsy manner in which it was done, have not convinced everyone that the ECB are necessarily the most benevolent employers.

Ahead of the Ashes some in the England camp feel the decision to promote Steven Smith to No. 3 in the batting order may weaken a significant strength in the Australian line-up

George Dobell27-Jun-20152:17

‘Smith at No. 3 is good for us’ – Broad

It can be hard to tell what is real and what is propaganda in the silly season before the Investec Ashes begins, but somewhere between the hype and hubris, it seems England really do sense an opportunity.Freed from expectation – a whitewash defeat in the last encounter takes care of that – England have been buoyed by the public reaction to their encouraging performances against New Zealand and feel that Australia might, just might, have made a tactical error that renders that somewhat more vulnerable that they might have been.Specifically, some in the England camp feel the decision to promote Steven Smith to No. 3 in the batting order may weaken a significant strength in the Australian line-up.Certainly that was the suggestion of Stuart Broad as he looked ahead to the series. Echoing the views of his former England (and Nottinghamshire) colleague, Graeme Swann, who recently expressed doubt over Smith’s technique, Broad suggested that he may find batting up the order in England an altogether more testing experience.The figures do not really support that view. Smith scored 253 runs (and was dismissed only once) in his last Test batting at No. 3, against West Indies in Jamaica, and made 111 in his first innings of the tour batting in the same position. But perhaps, Broad thinks, a Dukes ball and English conditions could prove advantageous to England.”He’s obviously had a fantastic 18 months since he’s changed his technique a bit,” Broad said. “But I think it’s an advantage for us with him coming in at No. 3 with the Dukes ball in England.”I’m certainly not doubting the quality of him as a player. He’s a wonderful player and I enjoy watching him play when I’m not bowling at him. I think if he comes in at five like Joe Root does for us there are not many weaknesses there.”But you have to have a very tight technique to bat in the top three against the Dukes ball in England and it’s up to us as an opening attack to get an early wicket and get him in early against the new ball, because he’s not had amazing success in England. I’ve got a few ideas. We’ll be looking to try and test his technique with a Dukes ball early.”Stuart Broad is eager to target Steven Smith with the new ball•Getty Images

Broad hopes the Ashes will be played on surfaces he describes as “slow seamers, not quick wickets” in the hopes that England have the experience to cope better with such conditions. And he believes England have an attack – with Ben Stokes’ all-round skills allowing England to play four seamers – that is reminiscent of the unit of 2005.”All our bowlers have the skill to seam the ball around off stump and I think our batsmen have the skill and the foot movement to play seam bowling,” he said. “Our batsmen our very sound with the seaming ball and I’d like to test the Australians’ technique with a ball moving slightly.”It’s probably the closest to the 2005 attack that England have had in 10 years. Stokesy brings that advantage of being able to bat in the top six and be a fourth seamer. It makes him an integral part of the team.”The spinner is going to play a huge role, too. We all talk about the big seamers but in England later in the summer the wickets can dry up and turn. Look at Swanny in 2013 when he was leading wicket taker and Ashley Giles, the role he played in 2005. He did a really good role.”Broad also expressed disappointment at recent comments made by Craig Kieswetter about his period in the England side. Kieswetter said the England side was divided by cliques and suggested that success had changed the players.”James Taylor was talking about that a bit in the Notts changing room,” he said. “He was a bit surprised as it’s not something he’s noticed.”When people come out and say negative things it’s a shame, because playing for England is the absolute pinnacle of your career. It’s your dream and 99.9 percent of people leave their England cap behind with the best memories of their life, apart from having kids and stuff like that.”Craig only played white ball cricket so he hadn’t spent a huge amount of time around the England set-up. I’m sure Craig has got some fantastic memories. I can only speak from my experiences, I’ve loved every minute of it and know when I retire I can have a nice glass of wine and look back on some hugely fond memories.”

India A’s bowlers did not find enough help from a final-day pitch at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, as the first four-day game finished in a draw after they set Australia A 240 to win in 55 overs

The Report by Karthik Krishnaswamy in Chennai25-Jul-2015
ScorecardTravis Head and Cameron Bancroft added 79 runs for the second wicket of 140 balls•K Sivaraman

India A’s bowlers found less help than they may have expected from a final-day pitch at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, as the first four-day game finished in a draw after they set Australia A 240 to win in 55 overs. A solid start, aided by some ordinary bowling, kept Australia A interested in the target, but a clump of wickets towards the end subdued their ambitions.Cameron Bancroft and Travis Head made half-centuries, and added 79 for the second wicket to leave Australia A needing 125 from the last 20 overs, before falling in the space of six balls. Head nicked Abhimanyu Mithun while going hard at a fullish ball angled across him, and Bancroft pressed forward to Amit Mishra and popped a catch to silly point.Three overs later, Naman Ojha missed a stumping off Pragyan Ojha when he spun one out of the rough and past Nic Maddinson’s inside edge. This was the 39th over, and it was the first time either Ojha or Mishra had bowled from the Pavilion End. Until then, India A’s frontline spinners hadn’t bowled in tandem at all.In the first innings, all nine Australian wickets taken by the bowlers had come from the other end. But the stumping chance suggested they could have bowled a spinner from the Pavilion End earlier, and Ojha gave more evidence of the help now available from there when he spun one sharply, from the line of the stumps rather than the rough, to get Peter Handscomb caught behind in the third mandatory over.Maddinson, who had already struck Mishra and Ojha for sixes over long-on, continued playing his shots, even reverse-sweeping Ojha to the vacant point boundary. But the target was too far beyond Australia A’s reach, and the players shook hands with nine mandatory overs remaining.At tea, Australia A had been 81 for 1 in 23 overs, and 48 of those runs had come in boundaries. They had not needed to do anything outlandish to hit them; all the Indian bowlers had fed them the odd bad ball, particularly short ones, and only one of their 12 fours – Head lofting Ojha against the turn over mid-off – came off a risky stroke. India’s only success had come when Usman Khawaja, looking to sweep Mishra from the rough, top-edged a catch to leg slip.In the morning, India A added 85 runs for the loss of five wickets in the pursuit of runs that didn’t come as quickly as they would have hoped, on a pitch that remained too slow for expansive shots. Against some tight Australian bowling, they only made 64 runs in the first session, at a rate of 2.29. Gurinder Sandhu continued bowling parsimonious offbreaks, using his height to extract a fair amount of bounce, and Marcus Stoinis, who had made 77 in Australia A’s first innings, capped off a satisfying match with two perfect offcutters to bowl Karun Nair and Naman Ojha.

Kyle Coetzer’s 38-ball 63 and Safyaan Sharif’s 3 for 27 wrapped up a 23-run win for Scotland over Oman in their World T20 Qualifier Group B game in Edinburgh

ESPNcricinfo staff18-Jul-2015
ScorecardKyle Coetzer struck nine fours and a six for his 63•ICC/Donald MacLeod

Scotland have booked their place in the World T20 in India after beating Oman by 23 runs in their last Group B game in Edinburgh. With all matches having being played in Group B, Netherlands, Afghanistan and Oman, who are second, third and fourth respectively will play in the playoffs next week. Netherlands finished second, falling just short of the top spot in spite of beating Kenya by four wickets – they needed to score the target of 98 within eight overs but reached it in the ninth. Opening batsman Kyle Coetzer’s 38-ball 63 and pacer Safyaan Sharif’s 3 for 27 helped wrap up the win for Scotland. The win helped them finish at the top of the Group B table with four wins in six matches, while Afghanistan also finished on eight points with three wins in six games and two abandoned matches.Coetzer, who had initially been omitted from Scotland’s squad for the Qualifier, gave the team a brisk start, 60 in 6.1 overs with Calum MacLeod, before the latter was dismissed by seamer Mohammad Nadeem for 20. Scotland appeared to build on the aggressive start with a promising 35-run stand between Coetzer and Matthew Cross but left-arm spinner Zeeshan Maqsood brought Oman back by dismissing Cross and George Munsey in a space of 10 deliveries to leave Scotland on 101 for 3. By then, Coetzer had brought up his fifty and made his way to 63 – taking his tally for the tournament to 173, the highest for Scotland – before Maqsood had him edge one to the keeper off the final ball of the 14th over. Richie Berrington (26) and Preston Mommsen (32*) helped Scotland add 54 runs off the last six overs to finish on 173 for 5.Oman’s start was not ideal as Sharif claimed openers Zeeshan Maqsood and Zeeshan Ahmed within the first four overs of the innings. Jatinder Singh and Aamir Kaleem added 44 for the third wicket, but Alasdair Evans’ strikes off successive deliveries in the 11th over – to account for Jatinder and Mehran Khan – left Oman reeling at 68 for 4. Kaleem’s 40-run partnership for the fifth wicket with Amir Ali looked to revive the chase but after that stand was broken in the 15th over, Oman found it difficult to keep up with the required rate. Shareef was eventually dismissed for 59 off 47 deliveries in the 18th over and with 39 required off 12 deliveries, the match slipped away from Oman.

Faizan Janjua has resigned from his post as vice-president of USACA after just over five months in the position

Peter Della Penna03-Sep-2015Faizan Janjua, who was elected to his first term on the USA Cricket Association board of directors in March, has resigned from his post as vice-president after just over five months in the position. Janjua’s resignation was announced via Facebook on Wednesday night, and comes just five days after the USACA board was absent from the ICC’s town hall meeting for USA stakeholders in Chicago.”I knew from the get-go that it would be hard to work with the current regime of USACA,” Janjua wrote. “But I wanted to give it a shot. Now it is very evident that I can’t proceed with a very ill-managed organization. Therefore, I’m resigning as 2nd VP of USACA.”When contacted by phone on Wednesday night, Janjua told ESPNcricinfo: “There was no real effort to steer the organisation in the right direction. If you want to correct something, you have to recognise where you are doing wrong or where the problem is and they are not even willing to do that.”They think the whole ICC thing is being malicious toward USACA, which is wrong. Their responses to some of the questions raised by the ICC, they are not willing to answer them. They hide behind the USACA constitution and their answer to everything is, ‘We are governed by the USACA constitution.’ I think it’s very unlikely that they will be reinstated.” The ICC had suspended the membership of the USACA in June.According to Janjua, the USACA board’s absence from the Chicago town hall meeting run by the ICC on August 29 was an organised effort. Janjua says that during a USACA board meeting on August 25, the board decided not to attend the meeting because they claimed they were “informed of the town hall but not formally invited”. However, an ICC spokesperson denied the USACA claim that they were not invited to the town hall.”It is incorrect to suggest that the USACA was not invited to attend the Town Hall meeting,” an ICC spokesperson told ESPNcricinfo on Thursday. “The ICC wrote to the USACA president, inviting him and representatives of his board. This invitation was reiterated during ICC’s meetings with USACA in New York some weeks ago, and in correspondence following this meeting.”Separate from his USACA post, Janjua serves as president of the Northwest Cricket League and ran on the same ticket as Atlanta Georgia Cricket Conference president Suren Gandavaram in the 2015 USACA election and won a vice-president post that had been vacated by Michael Gale who chose not to seek re-election. However, Gandavaram’s bid against Dainty failed, leaving Janjua without a major ally on the board and as a result he says he ran into steady opposition during meetings.”In one of the meetings, all of them jumped on me because I was asked by the ICC about the ghost leagues,” Janjua said. “I told them what was true, what was happening in my area because I am familiar with it. One of the leagues called Seattle Cricket League is not an active league and they did not like it.”Janjua, 45, first came to attention on the US cricket scene in 2012 when he was part of a five-man league presidents committee appointed by the USACA to oversee the appeals process filed by the 32 USACA member leagues who were barred from voting in that year’s election after the completion of a member leagues compliance audit. After all appeals were rejected, Janjua blasted the process, calling it a sham in an email to all USACA members.Janjua also was part of the six-man league presidents committee formed after the 2014 USACA AGM to come up with revisions to a proposed new USACA constitution after a vote to ratify the document was deferred at the AGM. The group’s proposals were put forward to the USACA board in January and were rejected outright. As a result, the 2015 USACA elections went ahead under the USACA constitution that has been in place since 2008. When asked why he pursued a spot on the USACA board after these experiences, Janjua said he was hoping to be an agent of change from the inside.”I gave it a shot but it didn’t work,” Janjua said. “The current board, they do not have the vision or the capacity to change anything. It has to be a different group. If people are hoping that these people will change, it’s not going to happen. They’ve been around for long enough and they know how to control the organisation. The ICC or someone else will have to come up with a different group of people, those who have the right idea and the vision to change cricket.”ESPNcricinfo attempted to contact USACA president Gladstone Dainty for a response to Janjua’s comments. An email and phone message left with Dainty were not responded to.

BCB president Nazmul Hassan has said the murder of an Italian national in Dhaka on Monday could seal the fate of the Bangladesh-Australia Test series, officially due to begin next week

Mohammad Isam29-Sep-20151:16

Coverdale: CA cannot risk ignoring government advice

BCB president Nazmul Hassan has said the killing of an Italian national in Dhaka on Monday could seal the fate of the Bangladesh-Australia Test series, officially due to begin next week. However, he also said he believed that the security assurance – including a four-layered cover – given to Cricket Australia’s security team by the highest level of the Bangladesh government in their meetings over the past two days should be sufficient for a touring team.Cricket Australia, Hassan said, is likely to inform the BCB of its decision on the tour in the next couple of days.While it is quite rare for a foreign national to be a target of such an attack in Dhaka, the timing of the incident will not help matters related to the tour. The team’s departure was delayed after the Australia government issued a travel alert last Friday.”The situation is now different after the death of the Italian national,” Hassan told reporters at his residence in Dhaka on Tuesday. “The UK and US governments have also given out alerts. This is a very rare incident in Bangladesh but one has to understand the difference between this and a cricket team that is given blanket security.”Hassan said that the specific threat did not relate to the touring team but to an annual event held by Australian expatriates in Dhaka. “Every year on October 2, Australians living here hold a private party in a hotel. They had information related specifically to that programme.”He also spoke on the meetings between the two sides. “In the space of a day and a half we took them to the highest level of our security and intelligence agencies, the home minister, as well as the prime minister’s security advisor,” Hassan said. “Everyone reassured them that there won’t be any trouble. We will give them four-layered security.”

Part-time offspinner Kraigg Brathwaite took six wickets but contrasting forties from Milinda Siriwardana and Angelo Mathews helped Sri Lanka set West Indies a target of 244 on the third day in Colombo

The Report by Deivarayan Muthu24-Oct-2015
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details0:56

Braithwaite six-for gives Windies chance

Part-time offspinner Kraigg Brathwaite, who had managed only three wickets in 81 first-class matches before this Test, claimed figures of 11.3-4-29-6 to run through Sri Lanka’s middle and lower order, but contrasting forties from Milinda Siriwardana and Angelo Mathews set the visitors a target of 244. However, Brathwaite then get out for a scratchy 3, minutes before scheduled tea as rain ended the session and eventually the day with West Indies still 224 away from their target.With the pitch starting to play more tricks, West Indies face the prospect of delivering their best batting performance of the series for them to draw level with Sri Lanka. Brathwaite’s struggle with the bat continued. He was pinned lbw by a Dhammika Prasad incoming ball, after surviving two loud appeals on 0 – one for lbw and the other for a catch down the leg side.The other opener, Shai Hope, also survived an lbw appeal, on 11, but the on-field call of not out prevailed because of umpire’s call, after Mathews had reviewed the decision. Hope stayed unbeaten on 17 off 28 balls before rain interrupted.Despite the regular loss of wickets, Sri Lanka were earlier pushed ahead by a busy 67-run partnership between Siriwardana and Mathews.If Kaushal Silva’s 105-ball vigil was boundaryless, Siriwardana’s second and third scoring shots were caressed past the covers for fours. He clouted Jomel Warrican over midwicket and to the cow corner for a four and six, and then sent Devendra Bishoo straight down the ground for another six. By then the lead had crossed 150. Bishoo got alarming turn but erred short, as he has been throughout the series, allowing Mathews to settle down.Mathews wedged the ball into the gaps, and was the ninth Sri Lanka batsman dismissed, off Brathwaite for 46, falling short of his fifth fifty-plus score in five Tests at the P Sara Oval. Dilruwan Perera nicked to slip the next ball, giving Brathwaite his sixth wicket, and Jermaine Blackwood his fifth catch.West Indies had also begun well before ceding the stage to Siriwardana and Mathews. Warrican found the outside edge of Dinesh Chandimal’s bat in the first over of the day, but it snuck away to the right of Denesh Ramdin and did not carry to slip either.It was not long before Silva’s bubble burst as he played against the turn, lobbing a catch straight to Blackwood at slip. Two balls later, Jerome Taylor removed Chandimal with an inducker, Ramdin taking a sharp catch flinging himself to his left.Brathwaite followed it with another double-strike. He first got one to spin away from round the wicket and nipped out Siriwardana. He then struck at the stroke of lunch, having Kusal Perera forcing an edge behind to leave the hosts six down for 165.Herath came out swinging after lunch, hitting reverse sweeps as well as orthodox sweeps in a 30-run stand with Mathews. Brathwaite, however, polished Sri Lanka off, the last four wickets tumbling for 11 runs.