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Rohit named ODI player of the year, Cummins Test player of the year, Labuschagne Emerging player of the year

ESPNcricinfo staff15-Jan-2020England allrounder Ben Stokes has won the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for the ICC player of the year after playing starring roles in the side’s maiden 50-over World Cup triumph and one-wicket win in the Leeds Test during the Ashes in 2019.In a World Cup final for the ages, Stokes struck an unbeaten 84 off 98 balls to help England tie with New Zealand’s 241. He then made eight off three balls in a Super Over shootout, which also ended in a tie, but England eventually won the title on boundary count. Stokes also produced a similar stellar display in the longest format, his unbeaten 135 off 219 balls helping England secure an improbable chase of 359 from 9 for 286 at Headingley.ALSO READ: Botham, Flintoff, Stokes – who is England’s greatest allrounder?Australia quick Pat Cummins and India’s white-ball vice-captain Rohit Sharma scooped up the other top honours, winning the Test player of the year and ODI player of the year awards respectively. Cummins’ Australia team-mate Marnus Labuschagne, who closed out 2019 as the leading run-getter in Test cricket, was named Emerging player of the year, while Scotland’s Kyle Coetzer was recognised as the Associate player of the year.Cummins had put in a number of strong performances in Test cricket in 2019, including match-winning five-wicket hauls against Sri Lanka and New Zealand. His hot form was also central to Australia retaining the Ashes away from home in 2019. The 26-year old had gone wicketless in a mere three innings out of 23 Test innings in the past year. In all, Cummins took 59 Test wickets in 2019, 14 more than any other bowler.Rohit had reeled off 648 runs in nine innings at an average of 81 and strike rate of 98.33 in the World Cup in the UK. Only Sachin Tendulkar (673) and Matthew Hayden (659) have scored more runs than Rohit in a single edition of the World Cup.Rohit’s India team-mate Deepak Chahar’s 6 for 7 against Bangladesh in the Nagpur T20I, which also included a hat-trick, was chosen as the best T20I performance of the year. Chahar’s figures are also the best ever in men’s T20Is.England’s Richard Illingworth, meanwhile, won the David Shepherd Trophy for the umpire of the year. India captain Virat Kohli, who had claimed three major awards last year, won the spirit of cricket award for asking fans to cheer for Steven Smith – and not boo him – at the 2019 World Cup, when the Australian was returning from a one-year ban for his role in the Newlands ball-tampering scandal.

Cricket Australia could pull biggest overseas names out of tournament for ODI series against Zimbabwe

Matt Roller12-Feb-2020More than half of the overseas players in the inaugural season of the Hundred could require replacements for part of the competition due to availability clashes, after Cricket Australia confirmed that players selected for a rescheduled ODI series against Zimbabwe will be required to leave the tournament early for a training camp.Ten Australians were picked up in October’s draft, including six top-band £125,000 picks: Aaron Finch (Northern Superchargers), Glenn Maxwell (London Spirit), D’Arcy Short (Trent Rockets), Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc (both Welsh Fire), and David Warner (Southern Brave). Australia used their most recent series involving Zimbabwe – a T20I tri-series in 2018 – to try out fringe players, and their selectors could take the view that pulling players out of a short-form competition soon before a T20 World Cup is counter-intuitive.ALSO READ: The Hundred draft – full squad listsBut with England, West Indies, South Africa, New Zealand and Pakistan all playing international fixtures during the competition itself, it is likely replacement players will be a regular feature. The situation could have been even worse but for the cancellation of Ireland’s planned T20I series against Afghanistan, which was initially expected to clash with the end of tournament and thus rule Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi, Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Qais Ahmad out of the final few group games.While the exact dynamics of the replacement process are unconfirmed, replacement players are initially set to be chosen from the pool of players unsold in the player draft, meaning Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard and Lasith Malinga could yet appear in the competition.Domestic players without a Test central contract will also be replaced in the event of international selection. For example, if Ollie Pope is selected for England’s series against Pakistan, Southern Brave will be able to sign a replacement non-overseas player for the games that he misses in the second half of the tournament.That could cause a headache for counties, who could face losing players from their One-Day Cup campaign at the last minute. Each Hundred team will pick one ‘wildcard’ player immediately after the Vitality Blast group stage to add to their squad, so counties could lose a handful of key players with little notice before the start of the 50-over competition in July.Australia’s three-match series at home to Zimbabwe had initially been scheduled for mid-June, but has now been rescheduled for August. Dates remain unconfirmed, but players will be required to attend a training camp in Brisbane from August 4. While the ECB will hope that Starc, Smith and Warner are not pulled out of their new competition, the fact that the fixtures form part of the new ODI Super League could mean that Australia are unwilling to take them lightly.Anticipated overseas player availability by team (as of February 12, 2020):Trent Rockets:
Rashid Khan – available throughout
D’Arcy Short – will miss final three group games if named in Australia ODI squad
Nathan Coulter-Nile – will miss final three group games if named in Australia ODI squad
Southern Brave:
Andre Russell – will miss at least three group games if named in West Indies T20I squads
David Warner – will miss final three group games if named in Australia ODI squad
Shadab Khan – will miss majority of tournament if named in Pakistan Test squadNorthern Superchargers:
Aaron Finch – will miss final two group games if named in Australia ODI squad
Mujeeb Ur Rahman – available throughout
Chris Lynn – will miss final two group games if named in Australia ODI squadWelsh Fire:
Mitchell Starc – will miss final three group games if named in Australia ODI squad
Steve Smith – will miss final three group games if named in Australia ODI squad
Qais Ahmad – available throughoutOval Invincibles:
Sunil Narine – will miss at least three group games if named in West Indies T20I squads
Sandeep Lamichhane – available throughout
Fabian Allen – will miss at least three group games if named in West Indies T20I squadsManchester Originals:
Imran Tahir – will miss final group game if named in South Africa T20I squads
Dan Christian – available throughout (last played international cricket in 2017)
Mitchell Santner – will miss first group game if named in New Zealand T20I squadLondon Spirit:
Glenn Maxwell – will miss final three group games if named in Australia ODI squad
Mohammad Nabi – available throughout
Mohammad Amir – available throughout (retired from Test cricket)Birmingham Phoenix:
Kane Williamson – will miss first two group games if named in New Zealand T20I squad
Shaheen Afridi – will miss majority of tournament if named in Pakistan Test squad
Adam Zampa – will miss final three group games if named in Australia ODI squad

Ticket sales stopped at Lucknow and Kolkata after the Indian government’s directive

Nagraj Gollapudi12-Mar-2020The remaining two ODIs of the ongoing series between India and South Africa will be played to empty stadiums. The development comes in the wake of the Indian government directing the BCCI and other national sporting federations including the Indian Olympics Committee on Thursday to “avoid” mass gatherings at sporting events as it takes steps to contain the coronavirus pandemic. Lucknow will be hosting the second ODI on March 15 and Kolkata the final ODI on March 18.Officials at the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association (UPCA) and Cricket Association of Bengal confirmed to ESPNcricinfo that they had received the advisory issued by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports earlier in the day.The sports ministry’s advisory read: “To deal with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has issued advisories and advised the state governments to take appropriate action under the Epidemic Disease Act, 1897.”You are advised to adhere to advisories issued by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare and ensure that no public gathering takes place in any sporting event. In the event the sporting event cannot be avoided, the same could be done without allowing gathering of the people, including spectators.”The UPCA, its secretary Yudhveer Singh said, consulted the BCCI once it had got the government advisory. “Once we received the note from the government we checked with BCCI and then decided to conduct the match without spectators,” Singh said.Former Bengal player Snehasish Ganguly, who is now the CAB secretary, too, said ticket sales were instantly stopped earlier on Thursday. “We have got a clear circular form the central government saying spectators not to be allowed for the matches in the stadium,” Snehasish, who is the elder brother of the BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, said. “We stopped the ticket sales as soon as we got the government circular. We had sold 10,000 tickets on . We had also started selling tickets to the [CAB] clubs from Wednesday, but that has also been stopped. The gate sales were scheduled to commence from tomorrow, but that will not happen now.”Snehasish said that financially the staging associations would be affected but the CAB understood these were “sensitive” times and it would comply with the directives.Later on Thursday evening, the BCCI sent out a statement saying it was “working closely with the Government of India along with Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare” and after holding discussions with both ministries, it decided that the remaining two ODIs “will be played without any public gathering, including spectators”.For the first ODI in Dharamsala, a decent crowd turned out on Thursday despite the spectre of the pandemic as well rain threat looming large. In the end, the match was washed out without a ball being bowled.

Former Worcestershire player was jailed for rape in April 2019

George Dobell30-Jun-2020Alex Hepburn, the former Worcestershire allrounder, has lost his appeal against his conviction for rape.Hepburn was sentenced to five years in prison in April 2019 after he was convicted on one count of oral rape following a retrial at Worcestershire Crown Court.The jury heard that the victim, who was left with a post-traumatic stress disorder that included facial paralysis, had thought she was having consensual sex with Hepburn’s then county colleague Joe Clarke, in April 2017.ALSO READ: England players given sexual consent training in light of Hepburn convictionDuring the trial, the jury heard how Hepburn had “dehumanised” women, rating them in text messages to his team-mates in a “sexual conquest competition” on the social media platform WhatsApp.Hepburn, it was alleged, had been “fired up” by the contest and took advantage of his victim after finding her alone on a mattress on the floor of the flat he shared with Clarke.But at the Court of Appeal, Hepburn’s barrister, David Emanuel QC, argued that the WhatsApp messages should not have been used as evidence in the case.”The idea propagated by the Crown, that he was so desperate to win the game this year that he would ignore true consent if he had to, is just not supported by anything in the messages or by the fact of the game itself,” Emanuel said.”I accept it would be different if there was talk of sex against will, or trickery to gain a point, or taking a chance, but there’s nothing like that in the messages.”They are too far removed as to be able to be to do with the facts of the alleged offence.”The panel of three senior judges, including the Lord Chief Justice, Ian Burnett, rejected the appeal.During Hepburn’s sentencing at Hereford Crown Court on April 30, 2019, Judge Jim Tindal referred to the WhatsApp group as a “pathetic sexist game” and told him: “You thought you were God’s gift to women. You saw the victim as a piece of meat, not another human entitled to respect.”Following the case, the PCA – with the help of funding from the ECB – established a sexual consent training workshop. Every England player, male and female, as well as players at all 18 first-class counties and all Kia Super League teams were obliged to attend the classes.

The 19-year-old dreams of representing Pakistan in all formats and scoring big hundreds like his idol

Danyal Rasool18-Jun-2020Pakistan may currently be coached by two of their most famous batsmen, but for inspiration, the newest member of their squad is looking slightly east. The Attock-born Haider Ali, who rose to national prominence after scoring a half-century for Pakistan in an otherwise painfully one-sided defeat to India in the Under-19 World Cup semi-final earlier this year, views India’s Rohit Sharma as his main inspiration.”As far as role models are concerned, mine is Rohit Sharma,” Haider said in a video press conference. “I really like him as a player, and want to give the side an aggressive start at the top, and hit the ball cleanly like him. He is a man for all three formats, and he can adapt his game to all three formats. And the thing I like best is when he crosses 50, he moves on to a 100, and then he’s thinking of 150, and even 200. That’s what I want to do: to think about getting big scores, and when I get there, aim for even bigger ones. He finishes the game off for his side, and is a real match-winner.”Haider emerged as one of Pakistan’s most promising young batsmen by excelling in all three formats over the past few months. Having only made his first-class debut in September last year, the 19-year-old had a splendid opening season which culminated in a second-innings 134 for the unfancied Northern side in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy final. It was his second hundred of the season, in addition to three half-centuries as he finished with an average a shade below 50.Haider Ali’s balance and cover-driving reminds Ian Bishop of Babar Azam•Getty Images

At the Under-19 World Cup, his performances caught the eye of Ian Bishop, who said he reminded him of Babar Azam. Haider would soon earn a contract with Peshawar Zalmi at the Pakistan Super League, where his meteoric rise continued, his reputation enhanced by a string of steady scores at the blistering strike rate of nearly 160. Only five Pakistan batsmen scored more runs than his 239, and just two – Shadab Khan and Kamran Akmal – could boast a superior strike rate. Having shown form like this across formats, Haider wants to be a part of the Pakistan side in all three forms.”I started my cricket in Attock as a tape-ball player in 2015. In 2016, I began to play hard ball and play for the Under-16 side and then Under-19,” Haider said. “In my family, my cousin is the only one who played cricket, and no one else. Watching him, I began to get interested in the sport.”My aim was to represent Pakistan. My aim is to play all three formats, and my preparation for all three formats is great. Recently in the domestic first-class competition, I did well, and before that there was the U-19 World Cup. I then played the PSL, so I’ve had practice in all three formats. As soon as I get the chance, I’ll give my best.”I always wanted to play under the coaching of Younis Khan, and I’m glad I will get the opportunity this time. I want to learn as much as possible from this tour and ask lots of questions of both Younis and Misbah [-ul-Haq]. I want to learn how to play all three formats and what mindset to approach all three formats with. I’m very excited about how much I can grow over these next three months.”When I moved up from U-19 to the PSL, the coaches, Shoaib Malik, and Kamran Akmal gave me plenty of inspiration. They said it is essentially the same cricket, nothing too difficult. The coaches told me not to be scared, and to make the best use of my talents. And so I played my natural game and thankfully the performances followed. Even on the England tour, we have legends for coaches and I look forward to following their advice, and hopefully it works out for me.”Haider Ali has been called up to add meat to the middle order•ICC via Getty

That Haider made his preference for a top-order role evident may put some additional pressure on Fakhar Zaman, who currently occupies that slot in the Pakistan T20I side alongside Babar Azam. Zaman has struggled for consistency over the past two years and has held onto that opening slot for lack of an appropriate replacement more than anything else. Haider, however, insisted that he was happy to fill in wherever given the chance for now.”The fans and crowd can’t be there, so we have to cope with the conditions. Where I bat is up to our management. My role is to give my best where I am assigned to bat. Some players can play in the top order and struggle lower down. At club level, I can play both up or down the order. I’d like to bat higher up, but retain the flexibility to do a job where I’m required. I’m very excited. For England, my personal prep is complete. Whenever I get the chance, I’ll give my best and hopefully make a contribution to the team.”He also reflected on the third anniversary of Pakistan’s victory over India in the 2017 Champions Trophy final, saying it birthed in him a desire to be a part of the Pakistan side and enjoy its highs. “I wanted to represent Pakistan at that moment. It was an unbelievable feeling. When we play against India, it is very crucial, and the fact Pakistan won in such a one-sided match was a very unbelievable feeling.”Last year, after Pakistan limped to an 89-run defeat against India at the World Cup in England, Sharma, who had scored a century, was asked what tips he had for Pakistan’s batsmen. “If one day I become coach of Pakistan, I’ll tell them,” he had replied. “What shall I tell them right now?”Whatever he has to say, there’s at least one player in Pakistan’s side who’ll listen with rapt attention.

England’s highest wicket-taker may have a novel way of confounding batsmen with his wrist position

ESPNcricinfo staff10-Jul-2020Fast bowlers are widely known to use three different methods to get the ball to swerve through the air: conventional swing, contrast swing, reverse swing. James Anderson, however, can lay claim to a fourth method: reverse reverse swing.What’s that?According to no less an authority than Sachin Tendulkar, who faced him in 14 Test matches and was dismissed by him a record nine times, Anderson has a way of confounding batsmen with his wrist position while delivering the outswinger with the reverse-swinging ball.The conventionally swinging ball swings towards the rough side, and the reverse-swinging ball towards the shiny side. The ball’s orientation for the conventional inswinger, therefore, is the same as the one for the reverse outswinger. The two deliveries usually involve different wrist positions, but Anderson, Tendulkar noted in a chat with Brian Lara on the app, had the ability to deliver a reverse outswinger with the wrist position of a conventional inswinger. “With reverse swing, Jimmy Anderson was possibly the first bowler who bowled reverse swing also reverse,” he said. “What I experienced, over a period of time, [is] that he would hold the ball as if he was bowling [a reverse] outswinger, but [at] the release point, he would try and bring the ball back in, and [a] number of batters would look at the wrist position, and what he has actually done, he’s shown you that he’s bowling inswing, but the imbalance between both sides of the ball would take the ball away from you.”What he has done is, he’s got you to commit to play, for an [inswinger], and the ball, after covering almost three-fourths of the length of the pitch, starts leaving you. But you had already committed [to play], because you’ve seen that inswing position, and that is something which was new to me. Nobody had done that.”Now, [a] number of guys, you see their shine, and what they’re trying to do – I spotted even Stuart Broad trying to do that at some stage, but Anderson started this [a] long time ago. So I rate him very very highly. One of the best exponents of reverse swing.”One of Anderson’s best spells in reverse-swinging conditions came in Kolkata in 2012, when he took three wickets in each innings to help England take a 2-1 series lead. Anderson had Tendulkar caught behind for 76 in the first innings with a reverse outswinger, but it’s unclear whether that ball was a reverse-reverse outswinger.Nonetheless, if other bowlers can master Anderson’s seeming ability to deliver reverse reverse swing, it gives batsmen one more thing to worry about, particularly when the ball is at that stage of its lifespan when it’s transitioning from swinging conventionally to reversing.

Stand of 178 sees Notts take control on day one against Lancashire

Paul Edwards at Trent Bridge15-Aug-2020From the moment Ben Slater cover drove his tenth ball of the day to the boundary it was plain that this would be a morning when batting came easy to him. Cricketers treasure such times and loathe wasting them. They know how easy it is to get out when the game is alien or the bowling barely playable. Slater made 471 runs in the County Championship last season, his first with Nottinghamshire after his move from Derbyshire, and a few people thought him a second-tier cricketer promoted above his station. Only a fortnight ago he was on loan at Leicestershire. And now the fours flowed like cream from a jug, ten of them in a 63-ball fifty, three in one Liam Hurt over, accustomed cover drives mixed with perfectly timed punches down the ground.Maybe the familiarity of the opponents helped a little; most certainly their generosity of length did. Thirteen days ago the on-loan Slater was making 172 against three members of this Lancashire attack at Worcester. He knew the disciplines required when facing Tom Bailey while the left-arm swing bowler Luke Wood was his colleague at Trent Bridge last season. And until lunchtime at least, each ball became little more than the context for the stroke he chose to play. Things were more difficult in the afternoon session; for one thing Dane Vilas’s bowlers offered fewer presents. So Slater was grateful for the assistance of Ben Duckett, whose sharp eye and quick hands helped him put on 178 for the second wicket on Nottinghamshire’s best day of this season like no other. Both men made hundreds and Duckett’s dismissal, leg before to Bailey for 116 three overs before the light closed in, has not altered the shape of the game.Having chosen to bowl first, Lancashire were in disarray before the shine had left the new ball. Nottinghamshire’s openers, Slater and Haseeb Hameed, had 50 runs on the board inside ten overs and the departure of the former Lancashire batsman Hameed, lbw for 22 when trying to work George Balderson to leg in no way disturbed Slater’s rhythm. Nottinghamshire took lunch with their score on 107 for 1 and must have known they already had an opportunity to dictate the course of this game.The cricket became a trifle scrappier in the early afternoon but perhaps it could scarcely have been otherwise. Duckett took the dominant role but his style his busier than the more classical Slater and he is more comfortable manufacturing glides and cuts off a subtly angled bat. Such an approach invites risk. It can even appear rash and the former Northamptonshire batsman had an escape on 27 when he edged Bailey through the left hand of Keaton Jennings at first slip. But mixed in with such scares were the typical small man’s pulls and sweeps and the offspinner Liam Livingstone became a frequent sufferer. Duckett reached his fifty off 69 balls and by tea he was 91, thereby trailing Slater by one run despite facing 47 balls fewer. Shortly after the resumption Duckett cover drove a Tom Hartley full toss to the boundary and overtook his partner.But Slater still got to his century first when a Bailey misfield at cover allowed him to scamper the run he needed. Four balls later Duckett whipped the same unfortunate cricketer to the square-leg boundary to reach his own hundred, his first for Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge. Each batsman congratulated the other although there was no unseemly hugging, a fact which will have pleased James Whitaker, the match referee. Apparently Whitaker is something of a stickler when it comes to vectors of happiness and is as quick to suppress them as the Puritans were to shut the theatres.Lancashire’s players were similarly restrained when they finally took Duckett’s wicket, although since the total was 256 there is the alternative explanation that they simply couldn’t be arsed making much whoopee. They will, however, take a different view of matters in Hucknall and Welbeck, Sandiacre and Sherwood. There may have been one or two afternoons this season when Nottinghamshire’s supporters did not regret their enforced exclusion from Trent Bridge. But they will be sorry to have missed this one, and maybe Slater missed them, too, not least because it prevented him pondering whether one or two of those applauding his century were also doubting his worth less than a year ago.

England Test opener adds half-century to first-innings ton as Surrey defeat Sussex by six wickets

ECB Reporters Network09-Sep-2020England Test opener Rory Burns added 52 to his first-innings hundred to lead Surrey to their first victory of the Bob Willis Trophy, at the final attempt, in a six-wicket win against Sussex at the Kia Oval.Surrey captain Burns was joined in a decisive third-wicket partnership of 64 in 14 overs by Jamie Smith, who scored 33 from 51 balls as a fourth-innings target of 156 was chased down in 44.5 overs on a turning pitch.There was a late twist to a well-contested match, however, when 16-year-old debutant James Coles – Sussex’s youngest first-class cricketer – dismissed both Smith and Burns in the space of four balls to leave Surrey 120 for 4.Ben Foakes, on 1, then edged Delray Rawlins just short of slip but he survived to finish on 13 not out, hitting the winning blow when he pulled the same bowler for six after a necessarily circumspect fifth-wicket stand of 37 in 18 overs with Will Jacks, who ended up unbeaten on 22.Victory was eventually completed a little over an hour after lunch on a day which began with Sussex resuming their second innings on 109 for 9 after a torrid final session the previous evening against Surrey spinners Dan Moriarty and Amar Virdi.They made 128 in the end, thanks to Stuart Meaker’s defiant 42, but a policy of controlled and sensible aggression by Surrey’s top order paid dividends as Burns and company never allowed Sussex’s own trio of young spinners to settle.Jack Carson, the highly-promising 19-year-old off-spinner, did remove Scott Borthwick for 11 in the eighth over, having been given the new ball, and Rawlins’ left-arm spin then accounted for Hashim Amla for the second time in the match, caught low at short leg, before the Burns-Smith alliance looked like taking Surrey to a comfortable win.But Coles’s double strike when brought back to bowl his fourth over, first bowling Smith middle stump with an arm ball – his third ball back – and then having Burns stumped by Ben Brown after beating his forward push on the outside, at least concentrated Surrey minds again and the youngster finished with figures of 2 for 32 from 11 overs.All-rounder Coles, a student at Oxford’s Magdalen College and brought up in the Oxfordshire age group teams before joining the Sussex Academy at the end of last year, is believed to be the second-youngest player – after Pakistan’s Shoaib Malik – to take three wickets or more on first-class debut.The Surrey chase began with Borthwick managing one straight six off Carson before he was caught at slip from one that turned and bounced, and Amla’s 18 included two sixes – straight off Carson and then pulled over the mid wicket ropes off Rawlins.Surrey had earlier finished off Sussex’s second innings for 128, with off-spinner Virdi taking the final wicket for figures of 4 for 40. Slow left-arm spinner Moriarty, the chief destroyer of Sussex’s second innings, ended with 6 for 70.Sussex added another 19 runs before Meaker went down the pitch to Virdi but could only pick out Jamie Overton at long on after putting on 26 for the last wicket with No. 11 Henry Crocombe, who remained 9 not out and hit one lovely on-driven four off Moriarty.

ESPNcricinfo’s updates from the 48th match of IPL 2020

Debayan Sen28-Oct-2020