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The Bangladesh captain said his side had had a lot to prove after their 2-0 defeat in the West Indies in July

Mohammad Isam02-Dec-2018Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan called his side’s victory over West Indies in the second Test in Mirpur – capped by enforcing the follow-on and winning by an innings for the first time – a special achievement. The win helped the hosts seal a 2-0 series victory.What made it special was how Bangladesh turned their fortunes around after suffering a series defeat by the same margin back in the West Indies only four months ago.Shakib said he had demanded the best from his players, having delivered them a message to not forget how poorly they played against the same team in July. He said he was happy to see them respond strongly.”This is the first time we enforced the follow-on in more than 100 Tests in 18 years, which is definitely something special,” Shakib, who has been involved in ten of Bangladesh’s 38 innings defeats, said. “We haven’t done this against smaller teams, so to do it against a higher-ranked side is an achievement. We obviously had a lot to prove after losing to them in that manner [in July]. I think we have done that at least at home.”I would thank my team-mates and the coaching staff, for believing that it was possible. I was quite demanding of my players in this series. I wanted a lot from them. I think everyone contributed in their own way, but I saw everyone really wanting to contribute to the win.”The series defeat in the West Indies was particularly scathing for Bangladesh as they were bowled out for 43 in the first Test, the lowest Test total since 1974. Bangladesh’s combined batting average of 12.60 was also the lowest in 63 years by any side, and even though they did wage a comeback by winning the ODI and T20I series, Shakib said a stronger riposte was always going to come through a Test series win over the same opponents.”We never expected such a performance in the West Indies,” he said. “We held discussions after the Test series defeat there, and then came back strongly in the ODIs and T20Is.”Since we didn’t do well in the Tests [there], we had this opportunity to do well at home. We wanted people to at least understand that it was a performance in their home conditions, and see that we could do the same in our home conditions.”Shakib also praised his batsmen for making the most of good batting conditions in the first two days of this Test. Mahmudullah struck his third Test hundred, a bloody-minded 136 that spanned over six hours, while debutant Shadman Islam, Liton Das and Shakib himself struck half-centuries.”Our batsmen have done well on good wickets,” Shakib said. “Both sides [Bangladesh and Sri Lanka] made plenty of runs in the Chittagong Test in January. Afterwards, we have played mostly on tough wickets, at home and in the West Indies. Even the opposing side didn’t reach 500. It is not right to blame the batsmen all the time.”In this game, they believed in the plan put in front of them. We no longer prepare flat wickets on which we are expected to score 500 and draw the game. We try to win every game, and this changed mindset has taken us to a better place as cricketers.”

If they had avoided a five-point deduction for a slow overrate at Trent Bridge, Northants would have pipped Notts for promotion. As it was their final victory had a bittersweet taste

Press Association28-Sep-20172:24

Championship round-up: Somerset stay up, but despair for Middlesex

Northamptonshire’s ninth victory of the season, completed with some ease in benign batting conditions at Grace Road, had a bitter-sweet element for the men from Wantage Road.Events at Hove, where Nottinghamshire needed only to draw with Sussex to confirm they would take the second promotion place from Division Two, meant that Northamptonshire finish the season third – and it will be little consolation that no team has made more of its’ collective ability.Northants were left to particularly rue the five-point deduction suffered after defeat at Trent Bridge in late August for a slow over-rate. It was a tough time for Northants in the field as they suffered several injuries, including that of the captain Wakely, with Rory Kleinveldt taking over, and to bowl in stifling conditions on the hottest spell of the season.Without that penalty, however, Northants would have finished level on points with Notts – and ahead of them on wins.As for Leicestershire, they were consigned to a winless season.Northants head coach David Ripley said: “We’ve really played well through the back end of the season, in some adversity, including in this game with losing Rory Kleinveldt.”It is frustrating that nine wins isn’t enough, especially with the points deducted in Nottingham – we deserved the deduction, but the circumstances were extraordinary.”The bowlers did a remarkable job, Richard Gleeson at the end of the season has been outstanding, Ben Sanderson has been Mr Consistency, and Rory Kleinveldt has taken 50 wickets – winning games is about taking 20 wickets, and more often than not we’ve done that.”We’ve got some good players, and they’ve all contributed, but of there’s an area we’re looking to improve it’s in the batting and turning good scores into big, match-winning scores. We’re talking to Luke Procter – we need to recruit someone who can challenge our batters for a spot, and him coming in would do that.”Alex Wakely’s Northants side came so close•Getty Images

Perhaps in sympathy, the conditions were very much in favour of the visitors, as has been the case throughout this game. Batting has been at its most difficult in the first hour or so of the morning, when the ball has swung and seamed, so the fact a saturated outfield outfield prevented play starting until 12.40pm was ideal for Northants, who began the day needing another 180 to win with ten second innings wickets in hand.By the time play began, a bright sun had taken any menace out of the atmosphere and indeed the pitch. Northants did lose Rob Newton, the opener pushing lazily at a wide delivery from left-arm seamer Dieter Klein to edge a catch behind, but Procter and Wakely added 121 for the second wicket in good time and – an early possible run-out of Wakely aside – without real alarm before Wakely top-edged a pull and was well caught by Sam Evans at deep backward square.Two more wickets fell after the break, Richard Levi palpably leg before swishing across the line at Callum Parkinson – the young left-armer very much one of Leicestershire’s few positives this season – and Procter, with a hundred very much on the cards, also leg before to a Raine delivery that kept a little low.Procter, on loan from Lancashire, had a fine match at the top of the order, dismissed only once in making 176 runs.

Graham Napier’s big-hitting exploits have been a feature of a long county career and he have his home Colchester crowd a treat with a big-hitting farewell hundred

Will Macpherson at Colchester07-Aug-2016
ScorecardGraham Napier gave his hometown crowd a treat•Getty Images

This looked, for a long time, looked like being remembered as or maybe even But Graham Napier was among his people, here at Castle Park, his homeground in Colchester, where he was born.The crowd was sparse, and most of them seemed to be discussing their latest bout of gout or their latest round of bets. Even more of them seemed, in tones sterner still, to believe that they were watching the last day of the Colchester Festival, ever.All the more reason, then, for this to be Napier, by the standards of the shires, has always been a cricketer with a touch of Hollywood about him, so after a typically tenacious five-for in Sussex’s innings and – vitally for a fierce competitor – with plenty still worth fighting for, he made a marvellous draw-securing 124, the seventh first-class ton (and first since 2013) of a career that will be long-remembered in these parts.When that draw – which surely felt like a win, and takes Essex top of Division Two by a point – had been declared and he’d had time to ditch his pads and his whites, he wandered over, shaking plenty of hands on the way, hugged his mother and kissed his wife, all the while smiling wearily; the local lad done good.The most impressive aspect of Napier’s innings was his ability to rein in his instincts for some of his trademark tonk. He was patient, reading the match situation, nudging and nurdling his way to seven from his first 40 balls. Having lost Ryan ten Doeschate for a century every bit as good as his own, Napier continued to accumulate in the company of David Masters, who defended as though his life depended on it during a 28-over partnership that put the result beyond doubt.Only after tea, following 20 overs of graft for the pair and with the game safe, did he open those burly shoulders, punching through mid-on, sweeping the spinners and bunting to cow. Having brought up his century with an ugly top-edged sweep that went through the hands of the running square-leg, he nailed wicketkeeper Ben Brown down the ground for three sixes in four balls, before becoming the wicketkeeper’s first professional wicket – caught at long-on.The bearhug Masters was given up on arrival of the ton appeared as if it might never end. Free from the shackles of that embrace, Masters took 30 from ten Brown deliveries, in his old mate Napes’ spirit.”It’s been an emotional game,” Napier, affable as ever, reflected. “To walk off the field with five wickets and a hundred to my name, at what is just a lovely place to come and play cricket, knowing it’s the last time I’ll walk off on this ground: it’s a fairytale. This is my first club, I’ve played here since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and in the Colchester area generally.”After lunch was a tough session. The longer we batted, the less we had to bowl, so that was on my mind! I get huge amounts of pleasure from playing that way, batting against my instincts. I think it sums up what four-day cricket is about. This is why we play it and love it; it’s my favourite form of the game. Four days of tough cricket, and it’s going down to two hours before the end before we know what the outcome would be. That’s hugely satisfying.”There was nothing certain, of course, about this being such a happy ending for Essex when Ashar Zaidi, moments after being dropped at long-off, slogged to the man at cow. They were 170 ahead, shortly before lunch, and out ambled No. 8 Napier to join ten Doeschate, who had earlier lost James Foster to the first ball of a new Jordan spell after 45 minutes of resistance.This, from ten Doeschate, was not merely a captain’s innings. It was the sort of captain’s innings a captain plays when the team he captains have just signed another potential captain: Varun Chopra in this case. He made 109, across five-and-a-half hours, a triumph of nose-to-the-ground dogged defence, until he was surprisingly bowled round the legs by Luke Wells.He had milked singles, propping miles forward with soft hands and defending with the splice and only playing strokes – cuts, flicks and jabbed drives – when they were absolutely on offer. He had done brilliantly to survive 27 overs on day three, let alone take the game within 55 overs of its conclusion. Napier, fortunately for him, did the rest.Perhaps Chopra won’t captain Essex next season after all. Ten Doeschate’s side, despite all three of their wins having come with Alastair Cook in the XI, remain very well placed for promotion. Before that, they have quarter-finals – starting on Monday in Nottingham – in both white-ball competitions.There was little more Sussex and Luke Wright, who remained cheerful as ever, could have done. By the end, Danny Briggs was bowling medium pace and the wicketkeeper was being sprayed to all parts, and before then Wright had tried leg theory, spin twins and everything in between. A pitch that had looked ready to break up just remained too true, and the batting too good.As the afternoon drifted on Sussex, just like everyone else, realised a win was beyond them, and they might as well just settle for a part in a day that will live long in the memory.

Marchant de Lange will replace Lasith Malinga in the Amazon Warriors squad, while Jeevan Mendis has been named as a replacement for the injured Justin Ontong for the Barbados Tridents

ESPNcricinfo staff16-Jun-2015South Africa fast bowler Marchant de Lange has been confirmed as a replacement for Lasith Malinga, who has been ruled out of the tournament due to injury, in the Guyana Amazon Warriors squad ahead of the start of the Caribbean Premier League on June 20. Also, Sri Lanka allrounder Jeevan Mendis will replace the injured Justin Ontong in the Barbados Tridents squad.Umar Akmal, the Pakistan batsman, and South Africa allrounder David Wiese will also join Amazon Warriors midway through the tournament to replace Tillakaratne Dilshan and Thisara Perera, who are expected to play for Sri Lanka against Pakistan in a five-ODI series beginning on July 11.Two more squad changes were also announced by the CPL. Young wicketkeeper Nicolas Pooran has been ruled out of the tournament due to injury and has been replaced in the St Kitts & Nevis Patriots squad by Shane Dowrich.Allrounder Shakib Al Hasan has also had to withdraw from the tournament due to his commitments with Bangladesh, who host three ODIs against India followed by a home series against South Africa that runs through August 3. His place in the St Lucia Zouks squad will be taken up for the first four games by Eddie Leie for the first four games before Nathan McCullum joins the squad for the remainder of the tournament.

West Indies batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s son, Tagenarine, will make his first-class debut at the age of 16

ESPNcricinfo staff24-Jan-2013West Indies batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s son, Tagenarine, will make his first-class debut at the age of 16, for Guyana against Leeward Islands in the regional four-day competition in Antigua from February 9.Tagenarine has been selected as an opener for Guyana, who are captained by spinner Veerasammy Permaul.Tagenarine, like his father, is said to be a patient batsman, hard to dislodge and capable of spending a lot of time at the crease.Shivnarine had also made his first-class debut for Guyana as a teenager, when he was 18. He is currently playing the Bangladesh Premier League and will be away during the course of his son’s debut.The competition has been dominated by Jamaica for the past five years. Guyana last won the title in the 1997-98 season.

The ICC has paid 46% of the fees due to Sri Lanka’s cricketers for the World Cup, ESPNcricinfo has learned

ESPNcricinfo staff20-Dec-2011The ICC has paid 42.36% of the fees due to Sri Lanka’s cricketers from the 2011 World Cup to September 30, 2011, ESPNcricinfo has learned. The payment of US$2 million was made directly into the players’ bank accounts, instead of routing it through Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), on December 16.The Sri Lankan players, who had not been paid since the tournament ended in April, were owed a total of about $4.3 million by SLC, who had not been able to pay the players because of financial constraints. The money from the ICC represented the participation fee from the tournament due to Sri Lanka.While the money was paid directly, it was arranged with assistance from SLC, who told the ICC of the amounts owed to each player and provided their respective bank account details, a person with knowledge of the payments said. Tony Irish, the chief executive of the South African Players Association, said that arrangement to pay the players was negotiated between the Federation of International Cricketers’ Association (FICA) and the Sri Lankan Players Association (SLCA).Earlier this month the Sri Lanka sports minister, Mahindananda Aluthgamage, said the ICC had agreed to pay US$2 million to SLC and that the coach and players would be paid out of those funds. The SLCA had also contacted FICA for assistance over the delay in the cricketers’ salaries for series following the World Cup this year.SLC ran into financial problems after running up debts of $32.5 million to finance the building of two international stadiums in Hambantota and Pallekele, and to renovate the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, for the World Cup. All three stadiums have since been handed over to the military because the board was struggling to maintain them.

The bare statistics of Jack Stackpoole’s first-class career as a medium-fast bowler are unremarkable but his real claim to fame was he was one of only two men to dismiss Don Bradman first ball

Martin Williamson16-Dec-2010The bare statistics of Jack Stackpoole’s first-class career as a medium-fast bowler are unremarkable – three matches for Queensland immediately before World War two brought an end to cricket for the duration – but his real claim to fame was he was one of only two men to dismiss Don Bradman first ball.Stackpoole, who has died at the age of 93, was born in Queensland but raised in South Australia, returning home as a teenager and after impressing in Grade cricket, he was drafted into the state side for their home Sheffield Shield match against South Australia. His debut was remarkable.Bradman won the toss and batted, but South Australia were bowled out inside two sessions, Stackpoole taking career-best figures of 6 for 72, including Bradman, caught at silly mid-on, much to the disgust of a large crowd who had turned up to see the Don bat. He took 3 for 66 in the second innings as Queensland sneaked a two-wicket win.Stackpoole modestly told The Argus newspaper it was “just the luck of the game … I don’t want to be made a hero at Don’s expense because I am a great admirer of his.”After two more appearances the war stopped competitive cricket and Stackpoole went on to serve in campaigns against the Japanese in the Far East. He returned and continued bowling steadily in Grade cricket but was not given another chance for Queensland. He went on to become a state selector.

The New Zealand captain has put off surgery in his bowling shoulder, fearing that it could keep him out of cricket for upto 12 months

Cricinfo staff21-Dec-2009New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori has put off surgery on his bowling shoulder, fearing it could keep him out of cricket for up to 12 months. Vettori suffered a torn labrum in his left shoulder during the ICC World Twenty20 in June but has managed to bowl despite the pain and is currently among the best allrounders in world cricket.”I can still bowl with it. It sometimes hurts but I can manage it,” Vettori told the . “It’s frustrating, but it’s not stopping me from doing my main parts. Surgery would fix it but that would also mean six months to a year out. That’s something I don’t want to deal with.”Vettori has been resting since the end of the home Tests against Pakistan, in which he took ten wickets and scored 287 runs including a century, but is expected to make his first appearance for Northern Districts in a Twenty20 game against Auckland at Mt Maunganui on January 2.He will be available for the home series against Bangladesh in February and the following tour by Australia. The Australians were stretched by West Indies but Vettori said it would be wrong to underestimate them. He also refused to predict if New Zealand would win a Test, let alone the series.”That’s one of those horrific questions,” he said. “I can see headlines made out of the answer so I’d rather not say. They’re still proving themselves to be a very good team. They have a fair few injuries, yet can bring guys in that immediately perform. That says they still have depth, even if they’re missing those great names like Warne, Gilchrist and McGrath.”The series clashes with the first half of the IPL and Vettori hoped his best players would not choose the lucrative Twenty20 tournament over representing their country.”I think that’s just acknowledging the current environment,” Vettori said. “The pull comes through remuneration and New Zealand Cricket has to find a way to accommodate that and find some sort of solution. We don’t want to see any of our top players not available for New Zealand and that’s the goal of the players’ association and New Zealand Cricket.”His views were echoed by Heath Mills, the New Zealand Cricket Players Association chief, who said it was very important to begin negotiations with NZC to prevent player drain.”I’ve not spoken about figures with New Zealand Cricket and we haven’t thrashed those around with the players at all because we need to get into the negotiations and work out, or hear, what New Zealand Cricket’s financial position is,” Mills told the . “We do have a good relationship with New Zealand Cricket and this is their problem as much as it is ours and we need to work hard together to find the right outcome.”

Both Warriorz and RCB are now out of the tournament, with Gujarat Giants joining DC and MI in the playoffs

Shashank Kishore08-Mar-20256:01

RCB ‘have a lot of work to do’

UP Warriorz went out of WPL 2025 in the most thrilling manner, and they took defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru along with them. This means Gujarat Giants will now make their maiden playoffs appearance, joining Delhi Capitals and Mumbai Indians. The fight for the top spot, though, is still wide open.Warriorz belted the tournament’s highest total yet, courtesy Georgia Voll’s unbeaten 99, another record for the WPL’s joint-highest individual score. And that nearly didn’t prove enough because Richa Ghosh and Sneh Rana threatened a jailbreak.Ghosh smashed 69 off 33, but her dismissal with RCB needing 55 off 3.4 overs left them on the edge. Then came another twist, when Deepti Sharma, who dismissed Ghosh, conceded the most runs in a single over in the WPL’s short history – 28 off the 19th – as Rana smacked her for an incredible sequence of 4, 6, 6, 4, 6 to bring the target down to 15 off seven balls.Sneh Rana’s six-ball 26 gave RCB a glimmer of hope•BCCI

One of the fours also came off a no-ball, but more dramatically, prior to delivering that ball, Deepti stopped short of her delivery stride when Kim Garth backed up too far at the non-striker’s end, but did not run her out.But Rana’s magic ended when she muscled a flat hit straight to Poonam Khemnar, whom RCB had let go ahead of the auction, at the deep midwicket fence. That blow, which left RCB nine down, was the knockout punch for the defending champions, with Warriorz sealing victory in the final over when they had Renuka Singh run out.Fittingly enough, Voll, who at one point may have wondered if her magical knock may have gone in vain, delivered the final over that she began with two dots to all but close it out before the run-out. It marked an incredible end to Voll’s maiden WPL stint, which had needed her to cut short her home renovation in Queensland to make a quick dash to India only a week ago.Having come in as a replacement for Chamari Athapaththu, Voll showed potential to possibly be retention material, a definite positive for the Warriorz in a campaign that brought them just three wins in eight matches.

Voll, Harris make merry

Having made an impression in her first set of games for Australia in Alyssa Healy’s absence, Voll did the same in the WPL too. Three nights after hitting a half-century on debut, she cranked it up several notches along with Grace Harris as the Warriorz went hell for leather in the powerplay, hitting the second-most boundaries (13) in this phase in the tournament’s short history.Voll exhibited her strong back-foot game, a consequence of having been brought up on bouncy decks in Queensland. She often stayed beside the line and opened up impossible gaps in the backward point region, but the standout was her display of brute forearm strength and a strong bottom hand to play a ferocious whip in front of square.At the other end, Harris scooped and paddled her way to boundaries, quick to pounce on anything loose – and there were plenty of such deliveries from RCB’s new-ball pair of Garth and Renuka. Warriorz muscled their way to 67 for 0 in six overs – the highest powerplay score this season.Kiran Navgire’s 16-ball 46 came at a strike rate of 287.50•BCCI

Navgire cranks it up

RCB had a gift soon after the powerplay when Harris was run out, but Kiran Navgire didn’t take long to settle in, muscling her second ball, off Ellyse Perry, over the 60-metre boundary at deep square leg, and then carrying on to hit legspinner Georgia Wareham for back-to-back sixes in the following over.At the other end, Voll raised her second straight fifty, off 31 balls, when she swung a full-toss to the deep midwicket boundary. The second-wicket pair’s comfort against spin forced Smriti Mandhana to turn to Renuka again in the 12th over, but the move proved utterly ineffective as Navgire clobbered her for 4, 2, 4, 0, 6, 6. The sixes were a thing of beauty for her nonchalance in swatting length balls bowled into the deck over the leg-side fence.Overs 9-12 brought Warriorz 64 runs as they set themselves up for over 200. RCB had a clutch of wickets in the back end when they dismissed Navgire, Chinelle Henry and Sophie Ecclestone, but a tiring Voll charged towards a the tournament’s first-ever century, only to be denied off the last ball when a half-attempt at a second run to long-on, which would have brought up the landmark, led to Deepti being run out.Richa Ghosh reached fifty off 25 balls•BCCI

RCB go hell or high water

Mandhana was out to a tame pull early on, but RCB kept going after the bowling with S Meghana, playing in her first game of the season, picking up 22 off the second over, bowled by Harris. Perry didn’t take long to settle in either, as she was up and running with three successive fours off Henry – all to different parts. She got on top of the bounce to cut the first one along the ground, then flicked a full-toss to fine leg, and followed up with the most blistering of pulls.This intent cost Meghana and Perry their wickets, but not before they had played neat cameos. But there was a sense that they’d left too much for Ghosh to cover up – which she nearly did, exhibiting tremendous range. She used the depth of the crease to pull, made room to get beside the line to loft imperiously, and was quick to rock back when the bowlers dropped short to unfurl flat-bat pulls that bisected long-on and deep midwicket.Her 64-run sixth-wicket stand with Wareham kept RCB alive, before it got to a point where it was Ghosh or nothing. When she fell, the end was nigh. But Rana wasn’t going to go down without a fight. In the end, she nearly pulled RCB home, but the fairlytale wasn’t to be.

SLC and the sports minister are at loggerheads on various fronts as the row over the administration of cricket in the country deepens

Andrew Fidel Fernando15-Nov-2023Sri Lanka Cricket has initiated a defamation lawsuit against the country’s sports minister, as the row over the administration of cricket in the country deepens.SLC is currently suspended by the ICC, at the request of SLC’s own officials, in an attempt to impress on the Sri Lankan government that the ICC will not tolerate political interference in the board.Meanwhile, at home, SLC and the sports minister are at war on various fronts – this defamation lawsuit being the latest of them. Separate from this legal action, the sports minister has also vowed to fight the stay order delivered by the Sri Lankan courts last Tuesday, which removed the “interim committee” that the minister had appointed, and essentially reinstated the board officials who had been sacked the previous day.Related

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“In response to the persistent and damaging defamatory statements made by the Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs Roshan Ranasinghe, Sri Lanka Cricket has taken a decisive step to protect its reputation and integrity,” a board release said. “Therefore, on the 13th November 2023, [SLC officials] jointly filed a defamation lawsuit in the District Court of Colombo, seeking damages amounting to 2.4 billion rupees on behalf of the Sri Lanka Cricket.”The release did not mention which particular statements SLC alleges are defamatory, but the comments that have been taken exception to, likely came on Saturday, during a long press conference the sports minister held, in which he accused the board of corruption and mismanagement, among other things. The minister has been accusing the board of corruption for around a year, but has often done so in parliament where his speech is protected from defamation suits due to parliamentary privilege.SLC had also held a press conference on the same day which featured personal insults directed at the sports minister.Under Sri Lanka’s sports law, which has been in place since 1973, the sports minister does have a range of powers over SLC as well as other sporting bodies in the country.SLC is seeking assurances from the top level of Sri Lanka government, that there will be no further political interventions, which in turn is likely to see the ICC suspension on the board lifted.