Pakistan have appointed the Australian Trent Woodhill as their batting coach for the Champions Trophy

Umar Farooq30-Apr-2013Pakistan have appointed the Australian Trent Woodhill as their batting coach for the Champions Trophy. He will join the squad directly in England and will be on probation for three weeks with the national side in June.Woodhill, 42, is currently part of the support staff with Delhi Daredevils in the ongoing IPL. He was New Zealand’s assistant coach till last year and has also been involved with Melbourne Stars in the Big Bash League in Australia.”He was offered a short-term role as batting coach and he has accepted it,” Intikhab Alam, PCB Director international cricket, told reporters. “His services will be on trial and if the management is happy with his work his contract will be extended.”The decision to appoint Woodhill followed serious concerns over Pakistan’s fragile batting, which flopped during their 3-0 rout in the Tests in South Africa earlier this year. The team also lost the five-match one-day series 3-2. Pakistan had been hunting for a batting coach for the last year and a half but never settled on one candidate.In response to a PCB advertisement last year, several former players, including Zaheer Abbas and Saleem Malik, applied for the role but the PCB had insisted on hiring a candidate with at least a Level 3 coaching accreditation and a minimum of five years’ experience working with top cricketers. Pakistan appointed the former captain Inzamam-ul Haq ahead of the India tour last year but he wasn’t retained.”He (Woodhill) was preferred over the former players in our country only because of his qualification,” Alam said. “These days, coaching qualifications have become very necessary. He is an experienced coach and has worked with various teams, but if the experiment goes wrong, it’s a three-week contract, not a lengthy one.”

Shashank Manohar, the former BCCI president, has said the Indian board should seek a probe into all the IPL 2013 matches by an external investigation agency

ESPNcricinfo staff27-May-2013Shashank Manohar, the former BCCI president, has called for an investigation by an external investigation agency of all the IPL 2013 matches. Manohar said the BCCI should not solely depend on the board’s and the ICC’s Anit-Corruption and Security Units (ACSU) to keep cricket clean as they do not have the authority to track illegal activities – tracking phone conversations, for example.”The BCCI should immediately file a criminal complaint with the investigating agencies, urging them to probe all 75 games [76] in the current IPL edition,” Manohar told the . “The board should provide them [the investigating agency] with a raw feed of the games as well as CCTV footage recorded at every venue.”It has to deal with this menace with an iron fist. The board or ACSU do not have any machinery or legal authority to track the illegal activities, so it should not depend on these agencies alone.”His comments come in wake of the alleged spot-fixing in IPL 2013, in relation to which three Rajasthan Royals cricketers were arrested on May 16. The controversy has since grown, with top Chennai Super Kings official Gurunath Meiyappan being arrested for allegedly betting on IPL games, and his father-in-law – who is also the BCCI president and managing director Super Kings’ owner, India Cements – N Srinivasan refusing to resign from his post with the Indian board despite mounting pressure to do so.Manohar said in an earlier interview with the that he had spoken to some of the BCCI officials before their emergent working committee meeting on May 19, and told them if they wanted “to clean things up, then do it thoroughly. If, at the end of it all, 13 and not three players are involved in fixing, so be it”.Apart from making sure the IPL is clean, now Manohar said it’s important to have stringent processes in place for international cricket played in India too. “The board should approach the central home minister, requesting governmental support in investigating the criminal actions in any event run by the BCCI, which would also include international fixtures. It should request [the minister] to send an advisory to all states one month before the start of an event, so that the investigating machinery can swing in action well in advance to prevent any match-fixing , betting or spot-fixing.”The BCCI, he said, should ask players to register their mobile-phone numbers with the board, so that the investigating agencies could monitor things with more efficiency.

Miserly on his return to action for Australia A following the back injury that curtailed his India tour, Jackson Bird has outlined the tourists’ Ashes bowling blueprint

Daniel Brettig in Bristol22-Jun-2013Typically miserly on his return to action for Australia A following the back injury that curtailed his India tour, Jackson Bird has outlined the tourists’ Ashes bowling blueprint to place England under the kind of sustained pressure so desired by their coach Mickey Arthur.Should Australia be seeking a purveyor of sustained tight bowling with subtle swing and bounce from a decent height, then Bird is a non-negotiable selection for the first match of the series at Trent Bridge, having shown in two Tests so far that he has the rare capacity to land the ball more or less where he wants to. He hinted at this again on day one in Bristol, nearly pinning Michael Klinger lbw twice in the first over of the innings and going to stumps with 0 for 29 from 10 overs.As part of Australia’s long-term planning for this northern summer, Bird was a tourist to these parts with Australia A in 2012 also, and learned valuable lessons about bowling in England. Chief among these is that any paceman who walks onto the ground with delusions of grandiose swing and bowling the perfect ball will soon find himself nursing expensive figures while patrolling the boundary – consistency is everything.”You’ve got to be pretty strict on your lines and length,” Bird said. “The wickets are a little bit slower so anything too full or short or anything with width just gets put away so you’ve got to be really diligent with your lines and length and not give away too much. I probably didn’t bowl as well as I would have liked last year [in England].”When I first came over here I was more worried about the movement and trying to swing the ball and trying to get that sideways movement as well, so when I reverted to trying to just hit my line and length, if I put the ball in the right area I tend to swing the ball anyway. So I learnt that pretty quickly and by the end of the tour I was able to do that.”Bird was perhaps the most valuable find of the past Australian summer, the delay in his selection when he might have been chosen for the pivotal Perth Test against South Africa immediately looking foolish as he moved the ball appreciably against Sri Lanka while scooping 11 wickets at 16.18 on the Boxing Day/New Year swing.He was likely to figure in the India Tests on less forgiving surfaces before a back stress fracture was diagnosed, forcing him home. The early return to Australia may have cost Bird a Cricket Australia contract, but he bore no grudge about the fate that befell him, reasoning it allowed him time to freshen up for a tour far more amenable to his modus operandi.”I hadn’t had an injury in about six years before that so to get it during a Test series was pretty disappointing but it probably happened at a good time,” Bird said. “I got the three months off to get myself fit and strong, get rid of my back injury and also a few other niggles. If it had happened at the end of the tour I probably would have missed out on the Ashes as well so looking at it that way it probably was good timing.”Like Ed Cowan, George Bailey, James Faulkner and numerous others in the Australian set-up, Bird has benefited greatly from a strong team and culture in Tasmania, having moved south from New South Wales in search of improved fitness, focus and performance. He said the Tigers had imbued him with plenty of belief, something he was now seeing among other members of the Australian Test bowling attack after their work together so far in England.”When I first got down to Tassie I basically wanted to get myself into a position to play first-class cricket – I tried to get as fit as I could,” Bird said. “Then when I got my chance I definitely had the full support of [now retired coach] Tim Coyle, the coaching staff, George and all the players as well. It puts your mind at ease when you’re running in knowing that everyone’s behind you. Tim was a great coach and we’re sad to see him go, but he definitely made me feel very welcome.”

Chris Wright, the Warwickshire and England Lions pace bowler, has been ruled out for the remainder of the season due a stress fracture of his back

ESPNcricinfo staff15-Jul-2013Chris Wright, the Warwickshire and England Lions pace bowler, has been ruled out for the remainder of the season due a stress fracture of his back.Wright had taken 19 wickets at 36.26 in eight Championship matches and also played against the New Zealanders for the Lions at Grace Road in May.He confirmed the diagnosis over Twitter: “Good luck 2 @CricketingBears 2day & 4 rest of season. Bad news will miss it due 2a stress fracture but will return stronger & better!”In a subsequent message he added that the recovery time is expected to be around six months which means he could struggle to be in contention for the Lions’ winter commitments which include shadowing the main squad during the Ashes series in Australia.Warwickshire’s bowling attack has been badly hit by injuries during this season and they seem unlikely to defend their Championship title. They currently sit sixth in the table, 50 points behind leaders Sussex, with seven matches remaining.

Sri Lanka coach Graham Ford has said he will not consider a coaching position with Surrey until his contract with Sri Lanka expires in January next year

Andrew Fidel Fernando09-Aug-2013Sri Lanka coach Graham Ford has said he will not consider a coaching position with Surrey until his contract with Sri Lanka expires in January next year. Ford had been linked with the Surrey role, which has been vacant since June, but says the suggestion that he is a favourite to take over at the county is speculation.”During the Champions Trophy I was informally asked by the Surrey CEO if I would consider their vacant position,” Ford said. “My reply was that my Sri Lanka contract finished in January 2014 and would consider all options available to me from there on. I have had no further discussions with Surrey and believe that there is no foundation to the story.”SLC officials had said earlier that Ford had not approached them about finishing early with Sri Lanka. “We have not had any indication of that sort so far,” said secretary Nishantha Ranatunga, with SLC president Jayantha Dharmadasa adding that the board was not unhappy with Ford’s work with the national side.Ford has strong ties with Kevin Pietersen, who plays for Surrey, and was the man the latter endorsed to take over the England coaching job after Pietersen’s turmoil with Peter Moores ended with Moores’ sacking in 2009. A move to Surrey will also strengthen the county’s South African connection, with Graeme Smith having signed on as captain until 2015. Ford also has county experience under his belt, having been Kent’s director of cricket.Ford became Sri Lanka head coach in January 2012, after Geoff Marsh was sacked from the position. Sri Lanka won their first Test series in almost three years, and progressed to the final of the World Twenty20 during Ford’s tenure, but were also whitewashed 3-0 in a Test series in Australia.

Charlotte Edwards has achieved a huge amount in her career but she put regaining the Ashes as among her finest moments after England secured the multi-format series with a match to spare.

Andrew McGlashan at the Ageas Bowl29-Aug-2013Charlotte Edwards has achieved a huge amount in her career but she put regaining the Ashes as among her finest moments after England secured the multi-format series with a match to spare.It has not been an easy few years for Edwards with England’s standing having slip from their 2009 high point of being Ashes holders, World Twenty20 champions and World Cup winners. They relinquished the Ashes in 2011 and have since suffered narrow losses in the World Cup and World T20 at the hands of Australia.Now they have an unassailable 10-4 lead in this summer’s series having drawn the Test and bounced back emphatically from defeat in the first ODI at Lord’s when there could have been a danger of the recent reversals overwhelming them.”It’s possibly one of my proudest moments in cricket,” Edwards said. “After the winter we had, a disappointing winter, to come back in the way we have done and beat the world champions on home soil as convincing as we have done is really pleasing for us. I’m incredibly proud of all of the team and the way that they have bounced back.”Edwards insisted there had been no magical formula for this Ashes success which has come under new head coach Paul Shaw after Mark Lane stood down earlier his year”The first thing is not to panic and that’s one thing our new coaching staff have instilled in us,” Edwards said. “We went away and worked on a few things and changed the order up a bit. The players bought into that and trained hard. We always believed we could beat this Australian team and that has been the biggest thing for us. We had complete belief in one another and everyone has contributed.”Their five-wicket victory at the Ageas Bowl was orchestrated by Lydia Greenway’s unbeaten 80 – the highest score for England in Twenty20 – an innings which Edwards lauded as the greatest she had seen.”This innings today was outstanding from her,” she said. “I’ve seen many innings, Sarah Taylor included, and this was the best innings I’ve seen certainly in T20 cricket under the circumstances.”Greenway acknowledged she had not played better: “As Charlotte said, under the circumstances – the Ashes were there to be won and we didn’t want to leave it until Durham. It’s great to have contributed.”And, like the men, there were plans in place for a hefty celebrations although perhaps not in quite the way Alastair Cook’s team finished at The Oval on Sunday evening. But the party, would have to start on the team bus as they headed to Gatwick for their flight up to the North East ahead of the final Twenty20 at Chester-le-Street on Saturday.”I’ve just seen a load of Budweiser. It could be a good trip to Gatwick. It’s important we celebrate. We’ve got a big game at Durham but you don’t win the Ashes every day. Watch out the M3.”Such revelry was far from Jodie Fields’s mind as another Australian captain was left to reflect on leaving an Ashes series empty-handed. “I’m pretty gutted to sit here and have lost the Ashes particularly after the men lost,” Fields said. “We saw it as our responsibility to work hard to bring it home and now both Australian teams will go home without the Ashes.”

Full coverage of Sachin Tendulkar’s announcement to retire from Tests

ESPNcricinfo staff10-Oct-2013October 10
News – Tendulkar to retire after 200th Test
Tributes – ‘It’s not just the talent he was born with but what he did with it’
Timeline – A look back at Tendulkar’s journey
Gallery – Tendulkar’s 51 Test centuries
Video – ‘We were all crying happy tears’
Video – ‘The hero India was looking for’
Statistics – 34,273 runs and counting
Feature – Tendulkar’s Mumbai roots
Video – ‘Overseas centuries set Sachin apart’ – Manjrekar
Video – Dravid: ‘He would have listened to his heart’
Feature – My favourite Tendulkar moment

Embarrassing though this was for Somerset, bowled out for just 90 and struggling to work out why they have lost all three of their matches so far, Worcestershire can only be encouraged.

Jon Culley at New Road05-May-2015
ScorecardCharlie Morris took a his career-best match figures•Getty Images

Embarrassing though this was for Somerset, bowled out for just 90 and struggling to work out why they have lost all three of their matches so far, Worcestershire can only be encouraged. It took them until July to register a first win in their last Division One season in 2012, which ended in relegation. To have one to their name in the first week of May will fire belief that they are capable of holding their own.Clearly, Somerset are in a bit of bother. After two defeats at Taunton, they succumbed here rather too meekly for anyone’s comfort. At tea on the second day, they had been firmly in the match, nine runs in front with Worcestershire six down. Two sessions more and the contest had been turned on its head.It was as if conceding 161 runs after tea on Monday had convinced them that Worcestershire were too good. There was clearly still something in the pitch for the bowlers, certainly some up-and-down bounce from one end, but to be bowled out for 90 in 32 overs was desperately poor. Charlie Morris and Joe Leach bowled well with the new ball but it was the lack of conviction and the neglect of application that will have alarmed Matthew Maynard, their new director of cricket. Only James Hildreth, who made 35, seemed to have any will to apply himself to the task.”I’m a little bit shellshocked, really,” their captain, Marcus Trescothick, said. “I can’t remember ever losing three Championship matches on the bounce. We certainly did not see it coming before the season began.”We haven’t performed anywhere near the level we expect over the three days. We’ve got a bit of soul-searching to do because we can’t carry on in this vein.”Trescothick had been bowled for a duck by the second delivery of the morning as Morris took the new ball from the Diglis End. Then Johann Myburgh pushed tentatively at a ball outside off stump to be caught behind, Tom Cooper surrendered one stump as Morris claimed his third and Jim Allenby lost two stumps to Joe Leach, who then had Alex Barrow caught at first slip. In the blink of an eye, it seemed, Somerset were 19 for 5 and effectively gone.Morris, impressively accurate and pretty quick, finished with 4 for 38 for career-best match figures of 9 for 109. Leach, who played only because Gareth Andrew was injured, added two more to his first-innings three and Jack Shantry wrapped things up with four wickets in the space of 17 balls, three in 11 after lunch.It meant that, having seen good positions slip away from their opening two matches, Worcestershire could congratulate themselves at having seized this one with conviction and followed it through.It is only one win to go with two defeats but there is plenty about which to be optimistic. Three of their young batsmen have centuries – Tom Fell against Yorkshire, Richard Oliver against Sussex and now Ben Cox, who played so handsomely for his career-best 109 on Monday. In Morris, meanwhile, they have a bowler capable of match-winning spells with the new ball.”It was Alan Richardson-esque, the way he hit line and length with pace and nipped the ball around,” their director of cricket, Steve Rhodes, enthused. “Charlie had new ball spells in both innings that were unbelievably good. He made life very difficult for some excellent Somerset batsmen.”Everyone knows how tough it is going to be for us in Division One so to get a win early in the campaign is important for confidence. I know Somerset are going through a tough spell but they are still a battle-hardened Division One side.”Trescothick can console himself with that thought too. Although they have lost some experienced batsmen since last winter, Somerset ought to be capable of getting back on track.”These situations can turn around pretty quickly,” he said, as if to reassure himself. “It is just down to team unity and the work we put in behind the scenes.”

Cricket South Africa will be holding a spin bowling camp next week at the Centre of Excellence in Pretoria ahead of upcoming tours of Bangladesh and India

ESPNcricinfo staff10-Jun-2015Cricket South Africa will be holding a spin bowling camp next week at the Centre of Excellence in Pretoria ahead of upcoming tours of Bangladesh and India.Batsmen JP Duminy, Temba Bavuma and Reeza Hendricks, and spinners Aaron Phangiso and Dane Piedt are the internationals who have been invited for the camp. A host of Under-19 players will also be involved as South Africa prepare to defend their junior World Cup title next year in Bangladesh.Former internationals Nicky Boje and Paul Adams will be the spin-bowling coaches while HD Ackerman and Neil Johnson will be the batting ones.”This annual camp has particular significance this year,” said Vinnie Barnes, CSA High Performance manager. “If one looks at our international fixture list for the second half of the year, we have away Test Series in both Bangladesh and India while South Africa A will be playing both four-day unofficial Tests and a triangular one-day series in India.”Spin bowling obviously plays an important part on the subcontinent so it is important that we prepare players properly, particularly those who have little or no experience of playing in that part of the world.”The camp will also be attended by some of our less experienced batsmen who will be representing these various squads. Some of our (senior-team) batsmen have also asked to attend in preparation for the tour of Bangladesh.”Our Under-19 squad struggled during their recent tour to Bangladesh where they will be defending their world title next year so we are also involving players at this level.”Spinners Aaron Phangiso, Ruben Claassen, Bjorn Fortuin, Tshepo Ntuli, Dane Piedt, George Linde, Shaun von Berg, Sean Whitehead, Nduduzo Mfoza, Tshepiso Ndwandwa, Lizo MakhosiBatsmen Temba Bavuma, Rudi Second, Theunis de Bruyn, Omphile Ramela, Gihahn Cloete, JP Duminy, Reeza Hendricks, Rivaldo Moonsamy, Dean Foxcroft, Wiaan Mulder, Dayyaan Galiem

Azhar Ali followed up a 79 in the first ODI with his second ODI hundred – both as captain – to seal only their third successful chase of 250 or more in the last four years

The Report by Sidharth Monga29-May-2015
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
1:13

Azhar Ali scored his second century in three ODIs

Azhar Ali began his captaincy career with three straight defeats to Bangladesh, but it couldn’t be put down to his batting. Now needing a win in each of the ODIs against Zimbabwe to maintain their ICC ranking, Azhar followed up a 79 in the first ODI with his second ODI hundred – both as captain – to seal only their third successful chase of 250 or more in the last four years. This was Pakistan’s first series win in two years.A target of 269 on such a flat pitch with an innocuous attack might look an underwhelming one, but Sikandar Raza with his unbeaten 100 and Chamu Chibhabha with 99 would have thought they had got Zimbabwe into competitive territory given Pakistan’s chasing record. However, there was nothing in the pitch for the bowlers, nor any genius in the Zimbabwe attack to rise above the conditions. Azhar anchored the chase patiently, with support from almost every other batsman: all batsmen reached double figures, and Zimbabwe could never manage a double breakthrough.Pakistan’s chase began on an undesirable note: Mohammad Hafeez had injured himself in the field, thus breaking the opening partnership that added 170 in the first ODI. Sarfraz Ahmed joined Azhar at the top, and the two got off to a swift start. Azhar kept dropping the ball into the gaps, and Sarfaraz began to sweep the new-ball bowlers, a shot that consumed him with the score 46 in the ninth over.Despite Mohammad Hafeez’s fall at the score of 68, Azhar kept scoring at close to a run a ball, walking down the wicket to chip the ball every time he needed to score quick runs. A key moment came in the 23rd over when Chibhabha dropped him at short cover. Azhar had reached 53 off 54 already, but losing him with the score just 109 would have put Pakistan under severe pressure. Instead Zimbabwe had to wait close to 10 overs for their next wicket, with the same bowler Graeme Cremer producing a leading edge to get Asad Shafiq at short cover. By then the two had added 86 for the third wicket, and Pakistan now needed just 116 off 18.2 overs.It is a walk in the park in modern cricket, but with Pakistan you never know. Against this Zimbabwe attack, though, they continued batting without panic. If there were any nerves, some excellent chips over extra cover by Haris Sohail settled them. Sohail’s urgency allowed Azhar the inconspicuousness you love when you are nearing a hundred. By the time Azhar fell – a soft square cut straight down backward point’s lap, which should annoy him – the equation had come down to 60 required off 59.Out come Shoaib Malik – once upon a time a cool finisher – to join Sohail, who Pakistan hope will become a cool finisher, to make sure the hosts cruised through without any dramas. It was an un-Pakistani chase in that it was neither a quick burst nor nervous. It was calm and achieved just what was required.The bowling effort of their fast bowlers, though, would have left them unsatisfied. Albeit on a flat pitch, this was the fourth straight time against a Pakistan attack that Zimbabwe had added at least 56 for the opening wicket. It was the spinners who inflicted major damage. Yasir Shah got two including the dangerous Sean Williams, Shoaib Malik accounted for Chibhabha and along with Mohammad Hafeez, the three spinners conceded only 86 runs in 19 overs for four wickets.Chibhabha, making his comeback after missing the first ODI, could have done with a more urgent opening partner. As he struck at a run a ball, Vusi Sibanda got stuck, scoring only 13 off 47 in an 83-run opening stand. Damningly for the Pakistan quicks it took a spinner to break the stand.Chibhabha, on the other end, didn’t need to become desperate. Pakistan kept feeding his cut, and he moved sweetly along even though Yasir took two big wickets in his figures of 10-0-40-2. Before Williams lobbed one back at Yasir, stand-in captain Hamilton Masakadza fell caught by the keeper on the reverse-sweep although there wasn’t conclusive evidence to support umpire Shozab Raza’s decision.The umpire would be involved in another dubious call, in the 35th over, with Chibhabha looking for a single to bring up a maiden century and then set up for the Powerplay. From round the wicket Malik pitched outside leg, with the ball turning further down, and with the limited technology available pictures weren’t clear with regards to any contact with the bat or glove. Chibhabha’s reaction, though, and the painstaking walk back suggested this should have been called a wide.With Richmond Mutumbani scoring a Sibanda-esque 7 off 26, Zimbabwe were in real danger of being kept to a tame total. Except that Raza found good touch against the team from the country of his birth. He made room, peppered the cover boundary time and again, including scooping a near-yorker over short third man for four. Despite Raza’s hundred off 84 balls, Zimbabwe enjoyed little support from the other end, and took only 112 off the last 15 overs. It proved to be too little in the end.