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Western Australia have finalised their squad for next summer, with the Tasmanian wicketkeeper Tom Triffitt and the young Victorian spinner Ashton Agar the only imports from outside the state

Brydon Coverdale04-Jul-2012Western Australia have finalised their squad for next summer, with the Tasmanian wicketkeeper Tom Triffitt and the young Victorian spinner Ashton Agar the only imports from outside the state. The fast bowlers Jason Behrendorff and Matt Dixon were upgraded from rookie deals to full contracts, as was the batsman Tom Beaton.The opening batsman Wes Robinson was not offered a new contract after a disappointing summer in which he averaged less than 30, while Michael Johnson and Martin Paskal were also dropped. The Warriors had already lost the fast bowlers Mark Cameron and Brad Knowles to retirement, and the batsman Luke Pomersbach is also gone from the squad after being handed a deal by Queensland.The other departure was of Luke Ronchi, who is pursuing a career in his country of birth, New Zealand, and it was his absence that opened the door for Triffitt to move from Tasmania. But Triffitt, 21, won’t have it all his own way behind the stumps with two young glovemen, Cameron Bancroft and Sam Whiteman, signed on as rookies.Bancroft, Whiteman, Will Bosisto and Ashton Turner are all new additions to the rookie list and they will all be part of Australia’s squad at the Under-19 World Cup, to be held in Queensland in August. Agar, an 18-year-old left-arm spinner, is also part of the World Cup squad and has been signed to a full contract, joining Michael Beer as the only specialist spinners on the 17-man list.”Ashton Agar has been recruited with a view to increasing our spin bowling options and he will team up with Michael Beer,” Lachlan Stevens, the Western Australia coach, said. “Allrounder Ashton Turner is also a promising spin option and the competition for spots between that trio will be similar to what is being created with our three wicketkeepers, and that’s what we are after.”Essentially we are hoping our senior players can create a new legacy for the Warriors brand by being competitive with the best sides in Australia and showing leadership with their on and off-field responsibilities.”Western Australia have also named a 10-man development squad, designed to provide opportunities for players sitting just outside the contract list. The former Test batsman and coach Geoff Marsh will head the development squad, which includes former state squad members Jake Fawcett, Drew Porter and Luke Towers, as well as the former Tasmania batsman John Rogers and the former New South Wales allrounder Tim Armstrong.Western Australia squad Ashton Agar, Tom Beaton, Michael Beer, Jason Behrendorff, Travis Birt, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Liam Davis, Matthew Dixon, Ryan Duffield, Marcus Harris, Michael Hogan, Michael Hussey (CA contract), Mitchell Johnson (CA contract), Mitchell Marsh, Shaun Marsh, Marcus North, Nathan Rimmington, Tom Triffitt, Adam Voges.Rookies Cameron Bancroft, William Bosisto, Joel Paris, Ashton Turner, Sam Whiteman.

James Pattinson, the Australia fast bowler, may have broken down again with serious injury after he complained of side pain when taking the second new ball on the third morning of the second Test against South Africa in Adelaide

Daniel Brettig at Adelaide Oval24-Nov-2012James Pattinson, the Australia fast bowler, has broken down again with a serious injury after he complained of side pain when taking the second new ball on the third morning of the second Test against South Africa in Adelaide.Having bowled the first ball of the 84th over, Pattinson, 22, spoke to his captain Michael Clarke and walked off the ground. After speaking with the team physio Alex Kountouris it emerged that he was troubled by pain in his left side. Pattinson left the ground to have scans which confirmed a left side injury, though its exact severity is yet to be known.To that point Pattinson had bowled only nine overs out of the first 83, as Clarke sought to preserve him in the Adelaide heat on a largely unhelpful pitch.The most hostile and aggressive of Australia’s crop of young fast bowlers, Pattinson has battled a succession of injuries since he first toured for the national side in India in 2010. A brilliant start to his Test career last summer was curtailed by a foot injury during the Sydney Test against India in January.It was later revealed that Australia’s selectors chose to play Pattinson in the SCG Test despite medical evidence that he was at high risk of suffering an injury due to his bowling workload up to that point. They preferred to keep him in the team due to his strong bowling form, and he duly suffered from a stress injury in Sydney.Pattinson then returned to action during the West Indies tour, but while playing in the Trinidad Test suffered a back injury while throwing off balance from the outfield and was sent home. His lead-in to this summer’s home Tests was carefully managed, affording him a quartet of Sheffield Shield matches and no Twenty20 cricket.Before the match, Pattinson said he did not want to be rested, as his body felt free of niggles. “At the moment I’ve got no soreness in my body, so I want to keep playing, I don’t want to get rested,” he said. “But I suppose there’ll come a time when I’ll have a high workload and it’ll look like I’m going to get rested as we’ve spoken about.”I’m happy for that, I put the faith in the medical staff’s hands and if they think it’s a good idea for me to get rested one Test then so be it. We’ve got to want what’s best for the team and if that’s best for the team then so be it.”

The offspinner took four wickets as West Indies were bundled out for 148

Hemant Brar22-Jan-2021Mehidy Hasan registered his best bowling figures as Bangladesh beat a depleted West Indies side by seven wickets in the second ODI in Mirpur to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series.Mehidy bagged 4 for 25, and Mustafizur Rahman and Shakib Al Hasan chipped in with two wickets each as West Indies’ batting collapsed for the second successive game. At one stage, they were tottering at 71 for 7 but Rovman Powell, surprisingly batting at No. 8 even in this inexperienced line-up, resisted with the tail and struck a 66-ball 41. He was the last man out as West Indies were bowled out for 148 in 43.4 overs.Bangladesh faced little trouble during their chase, especially after Liton Das gave them a breezy start. Tamim Iqbal, meanwhile, looked happy to play the anchor’s role, scoring 50 off 76 balls, as the hosts chased down the target in 33.2 overs. They now have 20 points from two World Cup Super League games, while West Indies are yet to open their account.In the morning, Jason Mohammed opted to bat on a used pitch. After being bundled out for 122 in the first ODI, West Indies decided to strengthen their batting by bringing in debutant Kjorn Ottley, the left-hand opener, in place of the fast bowler Chemar Holder, but the gulf between the two sides was evident right from the start.Sunil Ambris fell in the fifth over when Mustafizur squared him up with the one that moved away off the seam. The batsman got an outside edge towards backward point where Mehidy took a sharp catch. Ottley and Joshua Da Silva looked solid for a while but failed to rotate the strike; there were 47 dots in the first ten overs.Once spin was introduced, it was the same story as the first ODI as 36 for 1 became 41 for 5 in the space of 28 balls. Ottley, who had moved to 24, tried to go over extra cover against Mehidy but failed to clear Tamim Iqbal. Three balls later, Mehidy had his second wicket when Da Silva was bowled playing for the turn against a straighter one.In the next over, Andre McCarthy tried to slog-sweep Shakib but, just like the first ODI, failed to pick the arm ball and was bowled. West Indies had added only two more to their tally when Kyle Mayers, who had scored an impressive 40 in the last outing, was run out for zero while responding to Mohammed’s call for a quick single.Mohammed and Nkrumah Bonner gave some semblance of stability during their 26-run stand for the sixth wicket before Shakib struck with yet another arm ball, this time sending back Mohammed. At the other end, Bonner chopped Hasan Mahmud onto his stumps and it looked like West Indies might be all out under 100.Powell then struck a couple of lusty blow and took the side past the three-figure mark during a 32-run stand with Alzarri Joseph for the ninth wicket. On the eve of the match, Joseph had expressed his desire to develop into an allrounder and he took a small, positive step in that direction today but Mustafizur’s cutters proved too good for him and he ended up edging one to gully.Powell and Akeal Hosein added 28 for the tenth wicket before Mehidy returned to dismiss Powell and wrap up the innings.Bangladesh started their chase positively even though Joseph found some swing with the new ball and kept Iqbal in check. But Das played some sublime drives through the off side, against both Joseph and Mayers, to ensure the score kept moving at a decent rate.Das’ innings was cut short on 22 when Hosein trapped him lbw with a quicker one. Hosein had picked up 3 for 26 in the first ODI and he impressed once again with his clever changes of pace. He found turn as well but both Iqbal and Najmul Hossain Shanto played him calmly and took the side past 50. Their 47-run stand was broken when Shanto hit Mohammed straight to short midwicket.Iqbal, though, kept dealing in ones and twos – with an occasional boundary in between – at the other end and brought up his 48th ODI half-century. He fell immediately after reaching the milestone but Shakib, alongside Mushfiqur Rahim, knocked off the remaining 40 runs without further hiccups.

Ruhuna Royals kept their semi-finals hopes alive with a comfortable four-wicket win, having restricted an uninspired Basnahira Cricket Dundee to 123 for 4

The Report by Andrew Fernando25-Aug-2012
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsNasir Jamshed guided Ruhuna’s chase with a half-century•Ron Gaunt/SPORTZPICS/SLPL

Ruhuna Royals kept their semi-final hopes alive with a comfortable four-wicket win, having restricted an uninspired Basnahira Cricket Dundee to 123 for 4. Nasir Jamshed guided Ruhuna home in 16.4 overs with a measured 51 from 46 balls, after Aaron Finch had provided an explosive start to the run chase. Wahab Riaz took 2 for 19 for Ruhuna in his last match before the Pakistan players depart for national duty in the UAE.Basnahira had little to play for, with last night’s Kandurata win ending their chances of reaching the semi-final, and at times in their final match, the lack of motivation showed. Tillakaratne Dilshan’s run out was almost solely down to lethargy. When Rilee Russouw called him for a single to mid-off, Dilshan sauntered down the pitch, when only a sprint would have got him home. A lunge at the end when he realised the throw was already coming in was not enough to save him.A failure to take risks even with plenty of wickets in hand also hamstrung the innings. Of the seven batsmen who came to the crease, only Cameron Borgas scored at quicker than a run a ball. Ruhuna bowled with discipline, but in failing to even attempt the big shots Basnahira resigned themselves to a poor total they would always struggle to defend. They may have also been hampered by an injury to Russouw, who was hit on the nose by Lasith Malinga as he and Borgas were progressing steadily after two early wickets.Aaron Finch led Ruhuna’s reply with four fours and two sixes in his bellicose 28, while Jamshed played anchor at the other end. Basnahira’s spinners crimped the flow of runs through the middle overs, but even Rangana Herath’s return of 2 for 16 couldn’t apply sufficient pressure to induce panic. Wickets fell towards the end as Lahiru Thirimanne and Riaz were dismissed in the same Mahmudullah over, but Jamshed ensured there would be no hiccups, crossing fifty just before the winning run came via a no-ball.

His unbeaten 104-run sixth-wicket stand with Ravindra Jadeja gives India the advantage after two days

Andrew McGlashan26-Dec-2020A century of the highest calibre by Ajinkya Rahane put India in control of the second Test after it appeared Australia would bowl themselves back into contention. Instead, with the help of a string of middle-order allies, chiefly the recalled Ravindra Jadeja in an unbroken stand of 104, Rahane lifted his team to an advantage of 82.Australia started the day well – Pat Cummins producing a magnificent eight-over spell that removed both overnight batsmen, Shubman Gill and Cheteshwar Pujara, and included barely a delivery off line – but tailed off during the final session which included shipping 45 runs in 11.3 overs of the second new ball. Rain brought a slightly early finish, what ended up being the final delivery of the day bringing Rahane his third life when he fended a short ball to point against an increasingly frustrated Mitchell Starc but the chance burst out of Travis Head’s hands as he hit the turf.Ajinkya Rahane takes a moment after a hard-fought century•Getty Images

They had two other opportunities to remove Rahane – one a miss and the other a drop. On 57, he edged Starc between Tim Paine and the lone slip Steven Smith moments after the off-side field had been strengthened at the expense of the cordon. Then, on 73, in the first over with the second new ball a chance went to hand, Rahane jabbing at a full, wide delivery from Starc, but Smith was late to react above his head at second slip. By the end of the day, Australia were ragged and in need of regrouping.Rahane needed treatment for what appeared a back problem twice during the afternoon session (and later for blows on the hand and neck) but it did not disrupt his almost zen-like progression at the crease. His 12th Test century, and second at the MCG, came up from 195 balls with a fierce square cut against Cummins, a hallmark of an innings where his strokeplay flourished when he wanted it to. Rarely did he miss the chance to score amid over after over of keeping out the good balls, the softness of his hands ensuring when the edge was found it usually went to ground. His most prolific scoring area with 20 runs was third man.India managed just 54 runs in the first session and Australia will have come away feeling they could have had more than two wickets. Cummins was magnificent – he beat Pujara with the first delivery of the day, close to enough for Paine to burn a review – and Josh Hazlewood could have had Gill in the second over when Paine was unable to hold an inside edge diving to his left.Cummins eventually lured Gill into an expansive drive to end a promising maiden Test innings and in his next over claimed the huge prize of Pujara, although this one owed everything to Australia’s captain as he flung himself in front of first slip to hold a low chance that would not have carried. That was, however, to prove the exception in the fielding effort. At the time, Australia’s 195 was looking considerable and Cummins was rested with a spell that read 8-4-12-2.India, with Rahane absorbing a lot of pressure, did very well to take the sting out of the session, whittling the deficit down well inside three figures before Nathan Lyon, who found considerable turn on occasions to suggest a fourth-innings run chase will be a demanding prospect, removed Hanuma Vihari with a gloved sweep.Up to this point, Australia had controlled the run rate so despite a small first-innings total they always had a little bit of breathing space. That changed with the arrival of Rishabh Pant who brought impetus and quickly skipped to 24 at a run-a-ball with some measured, selective strokeplay. It appeared to help free up Rahane, too, although that was also the reward for his hours of earlier hard work.Pant was cut off by Starc, bringing up his 250th Test wicket, when he edged a cut with India still behind and Australia hopeful of something close to parity, but that door was slammed shut. Jadeja, effectively brought in as Virat Kohli’s replacement, played a central role with an innings of maturity and patience. By the close, when he had faced 104 deliveries, he had struck just one boundary – a neat back-foot punch off Cameron Green. He showed a defence to match Rahane’s and resisted trying to take on Lyon.As the wind suddenly swirled around the MCG, Starc got a delivery to climb at Rahane but it was the India captain’s day. He was getting treatment from the physio when, in what was perfect timing for India, the rain arrived and the umpires called play off. Few deserved the comfort of the dressing room more than Rahane. A chance to take stock and resume tomorrow. However, he may already have defined this game.

A round-up of the games from the Quandrangular Under-19 series in Australia

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Apr-2012Kurtis Patterson scored 99, and Travis Head and Meyrick Buchanan made half-centuries, to lead Australia Under-19 to a four-wicket victory in the final over against India Under-19 at the Tony Ireland Stadium in Townsville. Chasing a target of 261, Australia lost two early wickets before they were steadied by a 103-run stand between Head and Patterson. They then took control of the game through a 98-run partnership between Patterson and Buchanan for the fourth wicket. After Patterson was stumped one short of a century, Australia lost two more wickets in quick time, but had done enough to ensure victory with five balls to spare. None of the Indian batsmen made a half-century in their innings but they were well placed for a formidable score at 191 for 4 in the 39th over. However, they lost four wickets for six runs, before No. 10 Kamal Passi hit 41 off 30 deliveries to boost the visitors to 261. Gurinder Sandhu and Ashton Agar took three wickets each for Australia.England Under-19 beat New Zealand Under-19 comprehensively, easing home by nine wickets at the Endeavour Park Ground in Townsville. The pace-bowling duo of Aneesh Kapil and Adam Ball shared seven wickets to bowl out New Zealand for 78 in under 33 overs. Only four batsmen reached double-figures, the openers being among them. A steady start of 34 for 0 was in vain, as 10 wickets fell for 44. Kapil took 4 for 6 in five overs and Ball chipped in with three. England reached their target in just over 18 overs, opener Daniel Bell-Drummond remaining unbeaten on 41.

Mark Ramprakash has been dropped by Surrey for their next County Championship match against Somerset

ESPNcricinfo staff15-May-2012Mark Ramprakash has been dropped by Surrey for their next County Championship match against Somerset following a poor start to the season which cumulated in a pair against Worcestershire last week.Ramprakash, 42, has scored 62 runs in eight Championship innings and his pair at New Road, completed when he was caught down the leg side off Richard Jones as he was out twice in a day, was just the third of his first-class career.Chris Adams, the Surrey cricket manager, said it was not a decision he took lightly. “We have not selected Mark Ramprakash for the game against Somerset which was a very difficult decision to make,” he said. “Mark has had a tough start to the season and has not made the impact with the bat that he would have wanted to.”But you do not score the amount of runs that Mark has without knowing your own game and I know he will work hard to find his form again. The challenge now for Mark is to push hard to regain his place for the remainder of the season.”The difficult start to this season followed a 2011 campaign that was also below Ramprakash’s usual high standards. He was hindered by injury during the year and made 700 runs at 33.33 in 13 Championship matches with one hundred.

The travel and border restrictions will require a new-look schedule for the 2020-21 season

Daniel Brettig10-Sep-2020The tenth edition of the Big Bash League may be played in 10-game blocks in individual centres in a concession to the constraints of Covid-19, and may venture as far afield as Launceston and the Northern Territory as the tournament turns its expansive venues footprint into a series of contingencies to get its gargantuan 61-game schedule completed.Anthony Everard, Cricket Australia’s executive in charge of fan engagement and one of the BBL’s principal architects from its very first edition in 2011, said that while there had been no conception of a global pandemic in planning to take the BBL to as many venues as possible over its first decade, a choice of as many as 15 venues in which to play out the tournament meant that probable obstacles to playing in Victoria, in particular, need not be catastrophic.”It wasn’t that long ago that we basically had the six Test-playing venues around the country available, and it’s been one of the great legacies of the BBL in opening up not just different parts of Australia but creating a footprint of venues around the country from Launceston to the Gold Coast, to Geelong, to Gippsland and everywhere in between,” he said. “That gives us a heap of options we might not have otherwise had.ALSO READ: BBL finale set to be given clear air for broadcasters by shifting New Zealand series“I’m not sure we had a global pandemic in mind when we made those decisions, but it certainly is going to be very helpful when it comes to needing to move the BBL festival from market to market, particularly when you factor in that you’ve got international cricket being played in parallel also. That’s something we’re spending an enormous amount of time trying to come up with a schedule that leverages that.”One concept on the drawing board is for a travelling circus style in which all clubs, players and broadcasters would stop over in a venue for around two weeks, play over 10 days at one or two grounds and then jet off to the next available hub.”We want to try and retain as many of the successful ingredients of the BBL as possible, which is that appointment viewing night after night, school holidays, but equally we need to be responsive to our environment,” Everard said. “I don’t reckon there’s a sports league in the country that would criss-cross state borders as rapidly as the BBL over summer, a different game in a different city every night, and that’s just not going to be realistic this year.”We’ve been watching, listening and learning from how the other sports have gone about it. There is another model on the table whereby we look at adopting a travelling roadshow of BBL festivals that come to your town, 10 nights only, 160 of the best T20 players from around Australia and the world, and then the show leaves town, moving on to the next market. So we’re going to be very reliant on the support of state governments to the extent we can move the BBL around the country. We’re just going to have to be really adaptable as things unfold.”Everard’s role also takes in the staging of international cricket around the country, with this season seeing a distinct move away from a central CA events team travelling to each venue, with far more reliance placed upon the staff of each state association to put on events at and around the scheduled fixtures.”Off the field it certainly builds resilience and it has galvanised Australian cricket in a way I haven’t seen in my time,” Everard said. “On the field, if I bring it back to the BBL, there’s a lot of commentary and speculation around who will and won’t play in the BBL, but one of the best features of the BBL is the surprise and delight element, you never quite know who is going to step up.”Whether that be Jofra Archer a few years ago at the Hurricanes, or in more recent times Josh Philippe and Riley Meredith are in the Australian squad now off the back of their BBL performances. I’m really excited about who is going to seize the opportunity to have their breakout year in the BBL.”

UK-based company apparently tracks odds of at least 600 independent bookmakers to detect anomalies in betting patterns

PTI17-Sep-2020The BCCI has roped in UK-based company Sportradar to detect betting irregularities during IPL 2020.”As part of the agreement, all matches in IPL 2020 will be monitored by Sportradar’s Integrity Services to detect betting irregularities,” a statement released by the company on Thursday said. “Sportradar will also provide a risk assessment to the BCCI, driven by intelligence and data-driven insights. Furthermore the BCCI will be able to call upon Sportradar’s Intelligence and Investigation Services during the term of the partnership, if required.”An IPL source, who confirmed the development to PTI, said: “Sportradar has very recently red flagged at least half a dozen games in the Goa football league that came under a fixing cloud. They have also worked with FIFA, UEFA and various leagues across the globe.”The BCCI Anti-Corruption Unit has, in recent times, tracked unusual betting patterns during state T20 leagues, including the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL), as a major betting company stopped taking bets after unusual bets were being placed.According to Sportradar, its Fraud Detection System (FDS) “is a unique service that identifies betting-related manipulation in sport. This is possible due to the FDS’s sophisticated algorithms and constantly maintained database of odds, which are leveraged for the purpose of detecting match-fixing.”It is believed that the company tracks the odds and movements of at least 600 independent bookmakers to detect anomalies in betting patterns. It processes around 5 million data sets per day.How Sportradar’s fraud detection works
As part of Sportradar’s fraud detection, a mathematical algorithm is used to study betting patterns. It is a “sophisticated model”, which monitors live betting during an event.”There are 25 live alerts, which instantly identify irregular betting in the marketplace,” The Sportradar website says. “The mathematical model uses calculated odds, which runs alongside bookmakers’ odds, in order to highlight if the odds during a specific minute or time is out of line, and therefore, potentially suspicious.”There are also “44 detailed pre-match alerts, which are based on odds movements observed at betting operators”.”An alert is generated in FDS when odds at a bookmaker changes greater than pre-defined parameters.”

Mitchell Starc has not quite found his radar in the series so far and has fallen away in ODI performance since last year’s World Cup

Daniel Brettig01-Dec-2020Though India are the team with a host of bowling problems right now, Australia are not without their own concerns. Chief among these is Mitchell Starc, who has taken 1 for 147 from 18 overs across the opening two ODI games as India’s batsmen found him somewhat easier to line up than his pace counterparts Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins.With Cummins being rested from the remainder of the white-ball games, Starc’s role may need to change according to the tactical requirements of the captain Aaron Finch, but for the most part the captain is understanding of a fast bowler who has been among the world’s pre-eminent white ball merchants for most of the past decade.This is not to say Starc has not fallen away in ODI performance in a similar manner to India’s new ball ace Jasprit Bumrah in the 18 months since last year’s World Cup, because he has. In that period since the Cup, Starc has claimed just 12 wickets at 54.25 in 11 matches, while costing 6.28 runs an over across series against India, South Africa, New Zealand and England.”I think he’s going okay. He hasn’t been at his very best,” Finch said. “You have to understand his standards are a lot higher than what you expect from most other people because of how dominant he’s been over the last 8-9 years, especially in the white-ball formats. He’s been super.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

“So he’d love to be swinging the ball and getting it right early on but the reality is when you’re defending big totals and you’re playing against good players, they are coming hard at you. So, there’ll be conversations had today about what we can do slightly different. Whether it’s a tactical thing or when we’re using him through the innings. We’ll chat about that today. Definitely no panic stations here from my point of view.”The flipside, however, is Starc’s evolution as a Test bowler, for he has over a similar timeframe enjoyed the most fruitful passage of his long-form career. In eight Tests since late January 2019, he has scooped no fewer than 45 wickets at 18.42, with a stunning strike rate of 34.8 balls per wicket. Finch acknowledged that it was easier for Cummins and Hazlewood to flip from the IPL to white-ball duty at home, whereas Starc prepared by loading up on overs in the Sheffield Shield for New South Wales ahead of the Test schedule.”At times it can be easier to go from T20 back to 50-over cricket just because you’ve almost got the intent and then you can just rein it in a little bit more. He’s still bowled really well in the Shield in the first couple of rounds,” Finch said.”From my point of view, and chatting to other guys about his technique, and little things that his fellow bowlers and the fast bowling cartel really monitor, they seem to think he’s going really well. So it’s just a matter of time. There’s nowhere to hide in ODI cricket when you’re playing on some really flat wickets with quality opposition.”More broadly, Finch reckoned Australia’s bowling and fielding had improved from game one to game two, noting the outstanding catches from Steven Smith ad Moises Henriques. He was equally happy with Henriques’ canny overs of medium pace through the middle of the Indian innings on Sunday night.”Our fielding definitely wasn’t up to scratch in the first game,” he said. “A few chances went down. In the second game, I thought it was a lot better. I thought our energy and our intent was great. Moises and Smudge took a couple of absolute hangers that turned the game really. Virat [Kohli] goes on and gets 130-140-150 or Shreyas [Iyer] goes on and gets a big score and they’re probably cantering towards 390. So, I think the way that we’ve bowled through the middle overs has been very impressive.”India have come ultra-hard at the start. Obviously, like you’d expect chasing big totals and probably we’ve gone a little bit defensive really early. That happens. The way that [Adam] Zampa has bowled has been outstanding. Moises bowled seven overs the other night. They were brilliant overs to get out of him through that middle period. It was a really simple game plan and we adapted really well to that wicket as well. So, yeah all in all they’ve been pretty good performances.”As for the replacement of David Warner, Finch said he would weigh up the balance between promoting a current member of the side like Marnus Labuschagne and also leaving the middle order untouched, after it functioned so well given a strong platform in each of the opening two games.ALSO READ: Labuschagne puts hand up to open in Warner’s absence“The middle order’s been functioning really well the last little while, I think it played well in England. And it’s done a really good job in this series as well,” Finch said. “There’s a kind of not wanting to do that. Marnus is a class player. If we go that way great. Alex Carey the role of him and Maxy [Glenn Maxwell] at six and seven has been really crucial and provides a bit more freedom for that middle order to go about their business and be ultra-aggressive as well. They’re a few reasons why I wouldn’t like to do it but there’s still a lot of good players there we can choose to do that role.”Left-hand, right-hand combinations are among the issues that Finch is pondering. “It definitely has its advantages at times,” he said. “With Davey and I in particular we’re so different styles of play. Whether LH-RH it doesn’t make too much of a difference. As an example, if you use [Justin] Langer and [Matthew] Hayden as an opening combination.”They played so differently that you had to bowl totally different to each of them anyway, regardless of whether they’re both left-handed, both right or left-right. I think that’s what complements opening partnerships than just that left-right combo.”