All posts by csb10.top

Somerset County Cricket Club announce that the official opening of the Sir Vivian Richards Gates at The County Ground, Taunton scheduled for Sunday, 12 May will be postponed until later in the season.In a message to the Club, Sir Vivian Richards said "that he was elated at the honour given by the Club in recognition of his past services but regrets that his cricket commitments in the West Indies in connection with the fourth Test Match in Antigua has thwarted his plans to attend. He hopes however, to attend later during the year".

Former India batter Gautam Gambhir is on top of the BCCI’s wishlist to take up the position of India men’s head coach after Rahul Dravid’s term ends at the conclusion of the 2024 T20 World Cup in June.ESPNcricinfo has learned Gambhir, who is currently the mentor of Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL, has been contacted by the BCCI to gauge his interest in the job, and further discussions are expected after KKR complete their IPL 2024 campaign. However, the deadline for applying for the India head coach job is May 27, a day after the IPL final.Dravid, it is learnt, has communicated to the BCCI his decision not to seek another tenure. VVS Laxman, who had been expected to succeed Dravid, had made himself unavailable last year due to personal reasons.While Gambhir, 42, has no experience of coaching at international or domestic level, he has been in charge of the coaching staff at two IPL franchises. He was the mentor at Lucknow Super Giants in IPL 2022 and 2023 – they qualified for the playoffs in both seasons – before joining KKR for the 2024 season, where they will finish the league stage on top of the points table. Gambhir’s move to KKR for IPL 2024 was unexpected but it is learned he was persuaded to become the team’s mentor by the franchise’s principal owner Shah Rukh Khan.Related

• BCCI has not approached any former Australian for India coaching job, says Jay Shah

• India's next head coach: Ponting and Langer rule themselves out

• Gambhir: 'Creating hype' around young India players after two-three games will 'backfire'

• BCCI invites applications for new India men's head coach

• Gambhir returns to Kolkata Knight Riders as team mentor

Gambhir was part of India’s T20 World Cup triumph in 2007 and the ODI World Cup victory in 2011. He captained KKR for seven IPL seasons from 2011 to 2017, and they qualified for the playoffs five times and won two titles in 2012 and 2014 under his leadership. They also reached the final of the defunct Champions League T20 in 2014.Last week, the BCCI posted an advertisement seeking applications for the position of India men’s head coach. The job, the BCCI said, would be for all three formats for a duration of three and a half years starting from July 2024 until December 2027.Dravid had begun his two-year term as India’s head coach after the 2021 T20 World Cup. His stint was supposed to end after the 2023 ODI World Cup in November last year, but he agreed to an extension until the end of the 2024 T20 World Cup, which will be played in West Indies and the USA in June.

CSA has noted the personal decision by Quinton de Kock to not take the knee ahead of Tuesday’s game against West Indies*. All players had been required, in line with a directive of the CSA board on Monday, to take the knee in a united and consistent stance against racism. And de Kock, who had chosen not to take a knee – or raise a fist or stand in attention, the other expressions of support for the BLM movement – in the past, opted against taking part in the game in Dubai altogether in a late decision.The board’s view was that while diversity could, and should, find expression in many facets of daily lives, this did not apply when it came to taking a stand against racism. In an update after the South Africa vs West Indies game started, the board said it would await a further report from team management before deciding on the next steps. All players are expected to follow this directive for the remaining games of the World Cup.Related

• Why did Quinton de Kock refuse to take a knee?

• 'I believe de Kock is committed to an antiracist agenda' – CSA chairperson Lawson Naidoo

• SACA CEO: Cricket South Africa has caused a 'crisis' by mandating taking a knee

• Temba Bavuma: Team 'surprised and taken aback' at Quinton de Kock's refusal to take a knee

• "We didn't anticipate we would be viewed as a white takeover'

On Monday, the CSA board said it recognised concerns that “the different postures taken by team members in support of the BLM initiative created an unintended perception of disparity or lack of support for the initiative”, and feel it is “imperative for the team to be seen taking a united and consistent stand against racism, especially given South Africa’s history”.Since the BLM movement re-emerged last year, South Africa have adopted varied stances towards supporting the anti-racism movement, but the national team has not taken a knee together. The closest South Africa came to that was when all the players, support staff and administrators involved in the 3TC event last July, including director of cricket Graeme Smith, took a knee before play. Thereafter, all South Africa’s players raised a fist before the Boxing Day Test against Sri Lanka last December, before the discussion re-emerged on their tour to the West Indies this winter.

Watch the T20 World Cup on ESPN+

Sign up for ESPN+ and catch the Men’s T20 World Cup live in the US. Match highlights of South Africa vs West Indies is available here in English, and here in Hindi (US only).

It was agreed that team members would make their own decision about whether to take a knee, raise a fist or stand to attention during that series. Notably, all the players of colour and some white players and members of staff, including coach Mark Boucher, Rassie van der Dussen and Kyle Verreynne, took a knee while other white players raised a fist and the rest stood to attention.CSA’s board has steered away from directing the team until this point, but changed their mind after South Africa’s opening T20 World Cup match against Australia, where Australia took a knee but South Africa maintained their three options. England, West Indies, India and Scotland have also taken a knee so far, while Pakistan held their hands to their hearts. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have not made any gestures yet but Bangladesh have previously taken a knee.”Concerns were raised that the different postures taken by team members in support of the BLM initiative created an unintended perception of disparity or lack of support for the initiative,” a CSA statement read. “After considering all relevant issues, including the position of the players, the Board felt that it was imperative for the team to be seen taking a united and consistent stand against racism, especially given SA’s history. Several other teams at the World Cup have adopted a consistent stance against the issue, and the Board felt it is time for all SA players to do the same.”The CSA board directive comes at the same time as the Social Justice and Nation-Building (SJN) hearings are being conducted, aimed at investigating the extent of racial discrimination in South African cricket. Several former players have made allegations of exclusion and told stories of being othered including Ashwell Prince, Paul Adams, Omar Henry, Roger Telemachus and Loots Bosman. The hearings are in their second phase and are listening to responses from those who have been incriminated by first phase testimony. Among them was former team manager Dr Mohammed Moosajee, who criticised the national team for not taking a united stance in making a gesture in support of antiracism.CSA will appear at the hearings on Thursday, in its first public appearance since the start of the proceedings. It has resolved not to comment on any SJN matters until after the hearings but appears to have responded to one of the issues raised, which is about the national team taking a knee.”A commitment to overcoming racism is the glue that should unite, bind and strengthen us. Race should not be manipulated to amplify our weaknesses. Diversity can and should find expression in many facets of our daily lives, but not when it comes to taking a stand against racism,” CSA board chair Lawson Naidoo said.The hearings will conclude on Friday and the ombudsman Dumisa Ntsebeza will issue a report to CSA by November 30.

Smriti Mandhana’s sublime century, Punam Raut walking when the umpire was saying not out and an improved spell from Ellyse Perry were the notable features on another truncated day of the pink-ball Test on the Gold Coast which is now likely to need to some ingenuity from the captains to engineer the chance of an outright result.Australia chipped away either side of the second new ball before another ferocious Queensland storm sent the players off midway through the middle session. The forecast for the weekend is good and there will be 108 overs scheduled on both days, but the game will need to move at a pace from here. The onus, initially at least, will be on Mithali Raj if she wants to push for four points.Mandhana had departed for a magnificently-constructed 127, ending a second-wicket stand of 102 with Raut, after which Australia made further inroads. That included the wicket of Raut who walked for a thin nick against Sophie Molineux at the same time as umpire Phillip Gillespie was saying not out, although it was not entirely clear if she had seen the initial decision. There is no DRS for this series, so Raut could have survived if she had wanted to; it provided a chance to debate the merits and spirit of walking.Perry claimed her first wicket of the multi-format series in what was her best spell of the season to date – although she had been denied twice earlier, once when she overstepped to give Mandhana a lifeline and then when Beth Mooney dropped Raj – and shortly before the storm Raj was run out by Annabel Sutherland.Related

• Smriti Mandhana records the highest score for a visiting player in Australia

• Smriti Mandhana aces pink-ball test after 'two nets sessions'

• Punam Raut's decision to walk: 'It's something that we all respect a lot,' says Smriti Mandhana

Mandhana, who resumed on 80, was given a reprieve off her second ball of the day when she drove a full toss from Perry to point where Mooney took what appeared to be a fantastic one-handed catch diving to her right. But any debate over whether it was clean was rendered moot when replays showed Perry’s no-ball.Having said the previous evening that she would not change her game in sight of three figures, Mandhana was true to her word. She moved into the 90s with arguably the shot of her innings, a perfect straight drive off Sutherland, and it took her just another 11 balls to reach the century when she twice pulled Perry for boundaries in the space of three deliveries.She continued to pick off boundaries, taking her tally to 22 alongside a six, the best of the ones after three figures being a drive wide of mid-off against Georgia Wareham who was finally given her first bowl on debut in the 60th over.Ashleigh Gardner continued to offer Australia the most control – her spell in the session reading 11-6-12-1 – and she made the breakthrough when Mandhana was lured into driving to short cover.With Mandhana departed, India had two batters together – Raut and Raj – whose natural game is a more sedate tempo. Raut continued along in her own bubble until the moment that got people talking while Raj played herself in as the new ball loomed.Sutherland had been impressive with the old ball but, when given the first chance with the new one, a wayward over cost 11 shortly before the dinner break.Shortly after the resumption Raj got her life on 23 when she edged Perry into the gully where Mooney shelled Australia’s fourth catch of the innings in what has been another fielding display below their high standards. However, Mooney made amends by taking a tougher chance when left-hander Yastika Bhatia, who had settled nicely on debut, was squared up by Perry’s movement with the outside edge carrying low.Raj had played in a very controlled manner but her stay was ended by a direct hit from Sutherland after she had set off for a single to midwicket, been sent back and slipped a little. It what is likely to be her final Test, she will hope for one more innings.

The BCCI has advertised for the position of head of cricket at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bangalore. The position was till now held by former India captain Rahul Dravid, whose two-year term has come to an end. Dravid can apply again should he be interested in getting an extension.The job mainly involves development of emerging and youth cricketers not only at the NCA but also India A and age-group teams, working in close co-ordination with both men’s and women’s national coaching teams and captains to ensure a seamless supply of talent, assisting selectors of both men’s and women’s sides at senior, age-group and India A level, and developing all coaching programmes at the NCA.The qualifications required for the job are an experience of representing India in at least 25 Tests and having coached for at least five years at international level or at India A, India Under-19, India women or IPL. Candidates must be under 60. The last date to apply is August 15.If Dravid does apply for the job, it will end, for the time being, any speculation around his becoming India’s next coach. The current coach, Ravi Shastri, and his team of B Arun, R Sridhar and Vikram Rahour, end their term with the T20 World Cup later this year.Dravid’s term began in July 2019. India’s feeder systems have come in for praise after a severely depleted Test side beat Australia in Australia earlier this year. India were able to send a second-string side to Sri Lanka when all the first-choice players were in England this July. They won the ODI series, but lost the T20I series. They had lost the services of eight players during the last two T20Is of the series because of Covid-19 cases in the Indian camp. Dravid travelled to Sri Lanka as the coach of this team.

An Ashes debut for Perth’s new stadium remains in Cricket Australia’s sights, with the chief executive James Sutherland to head west this week for meetings aimed at getting the 60,000 capacity Burswood development up and running in time for the third match of next summer’s five-Test series.On the day tickets went on sale to the general public for all venues but Perth, Sutherland said he was in continuing talks with stadium management – helmed by former CA executive Mike McKenna – the West Australian government and the builders to see if the precinct can be ready in time for the Ashes.This is despite reports out of Perth last month indicating the state government had all but ruled out the possibility of the Test being played in the new stadium, which features drop-in pitches. A January ODI between Australia and England appears the more likely time for the unveiling.”Either way we’re very optimistic that we’ll be playing cricket at the new stadium in 2017-18, but we’re hopeful it will be a Test match because I think people will come from everywhere to be a part of the event,” Sutherland said. “We know there’s latent demand in the UK just waiting for an announcement and they’re ready to go, because Perth’s just that little bit closer to the UK and I know it’s a place that English travellers love to get to.”We’re looking towards the end of this month to make a decision. We want to get tickets on sale as soon as possible, give everyone plenty of notice of what needs to get in order, but certainly we’ll continue to have conversations, I’m in Perth this week to have some conversations with relevant people and we’ll hopefully, by the end of this month, be able to make announcements about when tickets go on sale.”The stadium’s management – which also includes CA’s former head of events Chris Loftus-Hills – has remained steadfast that the venue is intended only to be ready in time for next year’s AFL season. Australia have hosted Ashes Tests at incomplete stadiums before, most recently during the Adelaide Oval redevelopment, when the majority of the ground was available for play.File photo: The new stadium in Burswood is expected to hold a capacity of 60,000 people and will feature drop-in pitches•Getty Images

“From what I understand the stadium will be fully complete and ready to go [when it hosts its first match],” Sutherland said. “It’s very much about the logistics and planning. The completion dates for the stadium actually work pretty well for us, but at the same time a Test match in Perth at the new stadium would be a huge event, and there’s little room for things to go wrong in terms of teething problems that are in some ways perhaps inevitable.”We’re really optimistic about the way in which the event could be staged in the new stadium, we’ve got great confidence in that, but we also understand that through government, through the stadium manager and also the builders, there are a lot of logistics we’re not necessarily across that need to be worked through.”We’d love to see the Test match be the opening event for the new stadium, but to some extent that’s out of our control. We’ll just put our best foot forward and try to impress that upon the powers that be in Perth.”CA recently named Antonia Beggs as the governing body’s new head of match operations and events, after she had previously served at the head of client relations for the European PGA tour and as Championship director of the Ryder Cup. After relocating from Britain, Beggs is expected to start in her new role in mid-July.

Tom Harrison, the ECB chief executive, has defended the introduction of a new T20 tournament, slated to get underway in 2020, by insisting that the concept will “future-proof” the game in England and Wales.Harrison also stated he would like “as much cricket as possible” to be broadcast free to air, and insisted that a key aim of the new competition would be to underpin the future of Test cricket.Speaking in between presentations with all members of the ECB – the first-class counties, the MCC and representatives from the recreational game – Harrison confirmed the organisational details of the new competition, as published by ESPNcricinfo earlier this month – and expressed his confidence that he will receive a mandate to progress plans for the tournament within the next few weeks.To further those plans, the ECB’s executive board will meet on Tuesday to agree a ground-breaking amendment to the constitution of the ECB that will allow them, for the first time, to run a competition that excludes some of the 18 first-class counties. After that, a letter will be sent to all 41 members of the ECB (the 18 first-class counties, the MCC, the 21 recreational boards and the Minor Counties Cricket Association) asking them to approve those constitutional changes. The ECB requires 31 positive responses within 28 days of the date on the letter for the changes to be passed. A non-response is effectively a no-vote.Realistically, it is most unlikely that the ECB’s plans will be derailed at this stage. All 18 counties and the MCC have now signed media deeds assigning their broadcast rights to the ECB – the final county signed a couple of days ago – after the ECB threatened to withhold funding (£1.3m per county per year for five years, starting in 2020) if they delayed further.Several counties are deeply unhappy – one complained of being “co-coerced” while another stated that “Devon and Dorset are telling the Test grounds how to run their business” – but those grumbles are now likely to remain below the surface. Depending on your point of view, the non-first-class counties have been won over by the ECB’s plans, or won over by the ECB’s offers of extra money.One or two concessions have been won by recalcitrant counties. The ECB have confirmed that the change to the constitution will apply only to the new-team T20 competition – meaning all three existing competitions will continue to feature 18 teams – and they have confirmed that are aiming for eight of the 36 games in the new-team competition to be broadcast free to air. After what will have been a decade-and-a-half behind a paywall, that might yet prove to be the most significant development of all.Most of all, though, Harrison sought to explain the motivation behind the advent of the new competition. Accompanied by England’s limited-overs captain, Eoin Morgan, who attended the meetings to add his support, he drew on research that suggests that the imprisoned spend more time outside than many of today’s children in the UK, and that only 2% of British kids list cricket as their favourite sport. In short: cricket needs to act if it is to remain relevant.”It is very clear we are not currently talking to as big an audience as we should be, because our tournaments are not as relevant as they should be,” Harrison said from the Royal Institute of British Architects, where the meetings were held as the offices at Lord’s are currently being refurbished. “We have to think differently if we’re going to be successful at attracting family audiences to our competitions. We need to change our thinking on that to be relevant to a new generation that responds to big box-office occasions.”This is about creating something different. If we’re successful at that, we’ll be successful at boosting our existing tournaments as well as creating something dramatically different for English cricket and for a thriving new audience for English cricket.”Arguing that plans to play the new-team competition at the same time as the 50-over competition and Test cricket did not risk “cannibalising” the existing audience, Harrison insisted that the aim was to find an entirely new and different audience for the game.”We don’t see the audiences for Test cricket being impacted by the new T20 competition,” he said. “We’ve done an awful lot of work in understanding our county championship audience, our Blast audience, our 50-over audience. What this is designed to do is complement that with a whole new audience that we’re currently not talking to.”This is about growth. This is a fantastic opportunity for us to create something that appeals to an entirely new audience, grows cricket’s overall audience, and enable us to control something that has real value for the long term.”Key to that will be the ECB’s ability to strike a better balance between subscription and free-to-air broadcasting. While Harrison can make no guarantees – it is, after all, up to the broadcasters to decide what they show – he confirmed that discussions with free-to-air providers were positive and on-going.”In an ideal world, I’d like to maximise revenue and reach,” he said. “I would love to have as much cricket as we could [on free to air]. But we’re a pay-TV business. We’re underwritten by pay TV. Right now, there aren’t too many alternatives to that, so we have to be smart about how we package and work with our commercial partners to make sure we get that balance right between reach and revenue.”We’ve a great opportunity. There’s a desire from free-to-air to partner with us on new T20. They’re excited about where we’re taking the game. These are not conversations you can have if you’re not presenting something very clear, very exciting and very different to the market. So we’re in a very strong place.”Defending the accusation that the 50-over tournament would be diminished by being played in the shadow of the new T20 competition, Harrison said: “The 50-over tournament will be where county members can see young players coming through. It will give young players a chance to showcase their abilities earlier in their career than they would otherwise get. There’s reason to be very cheerful about the 50-over tournament.”In theory, it is just about possible that individual counties could lobby their chairmen and chief executives over the next couple of weeks and demand they reject the constitutional amendment. Realistically, though, from the moment the counties voted to pursue the new-team competition as their only option from 2020 onwards this was an inevitable outcome.

AB de Villiers has become the first big-name player to throw his weight behind South Africa’s new T20 competition, which is set to launch in the 2017-18 summer. The tournament will comprise of eight privately-owned franchises and will aim to attract high-profile internationals in a model similar to the Indian Premier League, the Big Bash League and the Caribbean Premier League.”I am so excited about it. It’s going to be great. Lots of credit to Cricket South Africa for coming up with that. It’s vital for our cricket. It will motivate some of the youngsters to stick around, to fight it through and to play for South Africa,” de Villiers said.”The domestic tournament is going to do wonders for our cricket and I think it can definitely come up [] an IPL when it comes to entertainment and quality of cricket. With some of the names that I have heard who are interested in coming over, it’s going to be fantastic.”Cricket South Africa (CSA) put out a tender notice to invite bids for franchise ownership on Saturday and is in the process of securing sponsors – some international – to fund the event. Should foreign currency be behind the tournament, CSA will be able to match or even rival payments in leagues around the world – something that was identified as a major hurdle in luring internationals to the current domestic tournament, where they are paid in Rands.The benefits will also extend to locally-based players. More money will mean big pay-days for South African cricketers too, which Haroon Lorgat explained was a consideration when the event was conceptualised.Complete details of South Africa’s tournament are yet to be revealed but CSA have identified a window in November-December for the competition, with a final pencilled in for December 16, a public holiday. The proposed dates are in the middle of the South African summer, which also means they will clash with the Australian summer – and potentially the BBL – and the Indian home season, and could create scheduling conflicts.De Villiers, though, is hopeful South Africa will attract some of the best players from all over the world. “I think there are quite a few countries already available. I am not sure about India. I haven’t heard anything from them yet,” he said.South Africa’s current domestic T20 has had a smattering of internationals taking part. This season Kevin Pietersen (Dolphins) and Kieron Pollard (Cobras) were involved while in the past Andre Russell (Knights), Owais Shah (Cobras),Darren Sammy (Titans), Dwayne Bravo (Dolphins) , Sohail Tanvir (Lions), Craig Kieswetter (Warriors) and Chris Gayle (Dolphins and then Lions) had brief stints at the tournament. South Africa’s internationals have only been briefly available for their franchises but with the new event, that is set to change.

Former India captain Mohammad Azharuddin has been disqualified from contesting for the post of HCA president after his nomination papers were rejected by returning officer K Rajiv Reddy on Saturday.Uncertainty over whether Azharuddin’s life ban imposed by the BCCI had been lifted, and whether he was classified as an HCA voter, resulted in his disqualification.”(He had not given) a satisfactory explanation whether the BCCI ban on him in the wake of the match-fixing scandal was not lifted and that he failed to provide adequate proof that he was enrolled as a voter,” Reddy told the .Azharuddin said he wasn’t given a reason for the decision. “Right from the beginning, I think the process looked to me a little bit fraud. I gave them the court order also,” Azharuddin said. “People are misinformed. I think things should be put to rest. Court has given an order which has cleared me of everything.”The returning officer should answer my questions, but he is not present. I will go for a legal case. I think the Lodha Committee rules and orders are not followed at the HCA.”Azharuddin was banned for life after being found guilty of fixing matches in an investigation conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation. Azharuddin’s initial attempts of challenging the ban were unsuccessful, but in 2012, a division bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court ruled the BCCI ban illegal.Azharuddin, who filed his nomination papers representing the National Cricket Club on Tuesday morning, had said he didn’t “foresee any issue” with the BCCI ban.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details1:23