Category Uncategorized

Ricky Ponting is confident Australia’s pace attack can threaten every team in the World Cup, after they proved too good for Zimbabwe in the 91-run win in their opening game of the World Cup on Monday

Brydon Coverdale22-Feb-2011Ricky Ponting is confident Australia’s pace attack can threaten every team in the World Cup, after they proved too good for Zimbabwe in the 91-run win at Motera on Monday. Australia have gambled on a bowling unit full of speed for this tournament and Mitchell Johnson took 4 for 19 in the opening victory, while Shaun Tait and Brett Lee also fired.The Zimbabwe top-order batsmen were jumpy against Tait and Lee in particular, but the captain was most pleased by the accuracy of Johnson, who he believes can be one of the stars of the tournament. Although it’s difficult to draw from that performance how Australia will fare against the stronger teams, Ponting is confident that no batsman will enjoy facing the trio.”If we get those three up and running and bowling as well as they can, then I don’t care what team we’re playing against or what conditions we’re playing in, that intimidation is going to be there,” Ponting said. “Those three guys are pushing 150kph and with the conditions that we’ve seen, the ball’s going to reverse at different times here as well.”If we’ve got those three guys bowling well in reverse-swinging conditions, then it’s going to be difficult. They can intimidate because they can use their short balls well. They generally don’t give too much away either. If they’re all bowling well, we’ll go a long way in the tournament.”Ponting described Johnson’s effort against Zimbabwe as one of the best spells he had seen from the left-armer in one-day cricket, and his two wickets in two overs early in the innings helped halt Zimbabwe’s fight. Johnson has taken 32 ODI wickets at 21.25 in India and he is set to overtake Nathan Bracken as Australia’s most successful bowler in the country.Ponting believes that Johnson will succeed in the subcontinental conditions again, after an Australian summer in which it seemed like the bad old Mitchell Johnson was back to stay. But having been axed for the Adelaide Ashes Test, Johnson began to regain his form, and even before the Zimbabwe outing, the captain was confident he could be one of the key men in the World Cup.”With the skill set he’s got, he could be one of the players of the tournament, there’s no doubt about that,” Ponting said in the lead-up to the opening match. “We saw in the last couple of games in Australia how dangerous he can be with the bat. He went in as a pinch hitter in Sydney and got 50-odd for us there and changed the way the game was going.”He went to Perth then, and probably bowled as well as he bowled for the whole summer, got 3 for 18 or something and got a few runs as well. He’s in pretty good shape at the moment. He’s got the chance to be one of the outstanding players in this tournament.”Australia left Doug Bollinger and John Hastings out of their series opener, and after the success of the attack it is unlikely there will be any changes for their second match against New Zealand. Jason Krejza also showed some promising signs against Zimbabwe, collecting 2 for 28, and should hold his place for Friday’s game.

It was another case of what could have been for Bangladesh as they mixed talent and frustrating naivety to stutter to 330 for 8 on the opening day in Dhaka

The Bulletin by Sahil Dutta20-Mar-2010Bangladesh 330 for 8 (Tamim 85, Mahmudullah 59, Swann 3-94) v England

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsTamim Iqbal’s glittering innings lit up the morning for Bangladesh•PA Photos

It was another case of what might have been for Bangladesh as they mixed talent with frustrating naivety to stutter to 330 for 8 on the opening day in Dhaka after their innings had been launched by a blistering 85 from 71 balls from Tamim Iqbal. Mahmudullah contributed a silky half-century and captain Shakib Al Hasan returned to form with 49, but England chipped away after opting to play five bowlers.In oppressive heat and on a track remorselessly lifeless for the quick bowlers the visitors toiled hard. They were punished whenever they strayed by a Bangladesh side bristling with positive intent but unable to buckle down and build something more substantial. The tone was set by Tamim’s sizzling assault in the morning session.He celebrated his 21st birthday by launching into England’s new-ball bowlers, dispatching Tim Bresnan for 23 from three overs and pinning Alastair Cook on the defensive almost immediately. He was dropped twice, a tough chance on 7 by Paul Collingwood at second slip and a much simpler offering to Cook at mid on 35 from a leading edge, and they cost England.Having climbed to No. 2 in the world following his Man-of-the-Match outing in Chittagong, Graeme Swann’s introduction was supposed to halt the run glut but Tamim was in no mood to let up. Identifying Swann as the pivotal threat in England’s attack Tamim picked off two boundaries from his first over before unfurling four more in successive deliveries a couple of overs later, the last of which was handsomely deposited over mid on as he bought up a half century from just 34 balls.Having sauntered to 80 with almost an hour remaining before lunch it appeared Tamim was on his way to becoming only the fifth player in Test history to make a century before lunch on the first day. The fireworks had left Cook desperately seeking some stability and it came from his second spinner, James Tredwell, who was making his Test debut at the expense of Michael Carberry.Despite lacking the effervescence that makes Swann such a force, Tredwell has a game honed through a decade in the English shires, and he proved accurate enough to induce a poorly-executed sweep from Tamim which, in a flurry of bat and gloves, looped up to Matt Prior although the ball came off the forearm. Tamim looked disgusted to have been given out he had every right to feel aggrieved.Having prized an opening Swann then burst through with a two wickets, trapping the debutant Jahurul Islam in front for a sixth-ball duck before removing Junaid Siddique, a century-maker in his last innings, in similar fashion after lunch. With England on the brink of taking control Shakib joined Mahmudullah for an enterprising 59-run stand.Mahmudullah was unhurried and untroubled, working the ball around nicely and feathering boundaries during a half-century reminiscent of VVS Laxman. He reached his 50 with a languid cover drive off Swann and looked set to go on, but drove lazily to point against the first ball of a new spell by Steven Finn. It was Finn’s only joy on a tough day. He was on the wrong end of Tamim’s attack during the morning session and failed to find the consistency and bite, albeit on a very placid track, that he produced at Chittagong.Meanwhile, Shakib chose to swipe his way out of poor form. Having been dismissed twice by Swann in the first Test, Shakib took the attack to his nemesis, slog-sweeping and cutting well, without quite giving an air of permanence. He reached 49 before missing an attempted heave across the line to give Tredwell his second wicket of the day. Once again Bangladesh needed a period of rebuilding.Mushfiqur Rahim had picked up where he left off in Chittagong, displaying technique and temperament during a calm knock that threatened to edge the day for Bangladesh before he fell to a snarling delivery from Bresnan to the second new ball. On a day where nothing even offered to move off the seam Bresnan got one to climb and jag away from Rahim. With the shadows lengthening Abdur Razzak attempted an ambitious slog to leg to become Swann’s third lbw victim of the day and epitomised the regular lapses of concentration that continue to haunt Bangladesh’s progress.Throughout the day Cook’s captaincy was more robotic than insightful, chasing the ball and quickly reverting to defensive fields as England flagged in the late-afternoon heat. Yet on a pitch that looks like it could deteriorate come the latter stages, their eight wickets ensured the edge after a fluctuating day.

Aiden Markram says the squad tried to simulate spinning conditions during a training camp in Pretoria

Firdose Moonda06-Oct-2025South Africa are expecting a slew of spin when they begin their World Test Championship (WTC) title defence in Pakistan later this week and stand-in captain Aiden Markram is confident his players are ready.Though this South African unit has not played red-ball cricket together since the previous WTC final in June, some of their players were involved in a two-Test series in Zimbabwe in June-July and others have been at the county championship. Their main preparation took place over the last two days at a training camp in Pretoria, where they tried to replicate the home advantage Markram believes Pakistan have every right to exploit.”If it’s your home game, you can pretty much prepare whatever wicket you’d like to prepare. That’s how I see it,” Markram said ahead of the team’s departure on Monday. ” Ultimately, if it’s going to be extreme like it was in the English series, then it’s going to be difficult for both teams from a batting point of view. For us as a squad, we’ve just got to be happy with what we have, whatever the conditions look like and to back whoever it is on the day to get the job done. So I’m not too fussed by it.”Markram’s reference to “the English series,” harks back to this time last year, when Pakistan hosted England. After losing the first Test, Pakistan won the next two on pitches that turned square after using everything from industrial fans and heaters to windbreakers to dry out the surfaces. Those games were played in Multan and Rawalpindi. South Africa will play in Lahore and Rawalpindi, where 29 of 31 wickets in the England Test fell to spin.No pitch in South Africa can behave that way but they tried at the High Performance Centre. “There’s three pitches that are spinning quite a bit and two out of those three are really exaggerated,” Markram said. “The one that’s a little bit in between is still sharp spin but slightly easier to bat on. And then we’ve got one strip in the middle as well where it’s pretty normal. We try to keep it as dead as possible but it’s not always that easy, just to have the ball squat a bit low. It’s difficult to do that on the Highveld, but we’ve tried our best. We’re trying to tick all the boxes.”South Africa have also picked a spin-heavy squad, which includes left-arm spinner Senuran Muthusamy and offspinners Simon Harmer and Prenelan Subrayen. “They’re all quite different. If you look at the two off-spinners to start with, Simon and Subs, especially having faced them now where it is spinning, it’s two completely different challenges they throw at you. That’s something great to have as a squad,” Markram said. “You don’t really want similar types of spinners. They are each quite different, different paces, different types of spin in terms of side spin and overspin and stuff like that, which reacts differently off the wickets. They’ll play a massive role for us there if what we’re expecting is going to be the case.”South Africa’s first-choice spinner Keshav Maharaj will only join the squad for the second Test, when they will have four specialist spin options. They will not, however, enjoy the return of their regular Test captain Temba Bavuma, who was ruled out of the series with a calf injury. While Markram is used to standing in for Bavuma, and did on South Africa’s tour to Bangladesh last year, making up for Bavuma’s place in the batting order is not as simple.As South Africa’s leading run-scorer of the last WTC, Bavuma provides stability and experience at No.4, which South Africa will have to find elsewhere. One replacement option is Dewald Brevis, who debuted in Zimbabwe and has an aggressive approach across formats.”He’d definitely be an option, especially with the way he plays spin,” Markram said. “If the conditions are going to be exaggerated, he can quickly change the momentum of the game doing what he does and playing the way he does. He’ll be a definite consideration.”He won’t be the only one. South Africa have also recalled Zubayr Hamza, who recently played for the A side against New Zealand A and scored a second-innings hundred in the first match, and WTC squad member Tony de Zorzi, who proved his credentials in the subcontinent with 177 against Bangladesh last year. “He played incredibly well in Bangladesh and scored big runs there, where it was also quite challenging. So I don’t think it’s necessarily that Dewald is a dead-given straight swap, but I’m very sure he’ll be in the conversation.”The first Test of the series starts in Lahore on Sunday.

Big-hitting finisher joins Yuvraj Singh and Kieron Pollard in T20I cricket’s elite list

ESPNcricinfo staff13-Apr-2024Dipendra Singh Airee, Nepal’s big-hitting finisher, entered the record books as the third man to hit six sixes in an over in an international T20 game, achieving the feat in the last over against Qatar in their ACC Men’s Premier Cup match in Al Amerat on Saturday.Starting the final over on 28 off 15 balls and Nepal on 174 for 7, Airee smashed medium pacer Kamran Khan for six sixes to end on 64 from 21. Nepal’s 210 for 7 then proved too much for Qatar as they went down by 32 runs. Airee also took two wickets in the chase.