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Sylhet Division, the Bangladesh domestic side, had a narrow escape when their team bus nearly plunged off a bridge near Bhairab, 83 km east of Dhaka

Mohammad Isam11-Dec-2012The squad of Sylhet Division, the Bangladesh domestic side, had a narrow escape when their team bus nearly plunged off a bridge near Bhairab, 83 km east of Dhaka after the driver lost control in the narrow highway. None of the players or coaching staff was hurt, they have not reached home despite having left Rangpur, the venue of their last National Cricket League match, 24 hours ago.According to Rajin Saleh, the former Bangladesh captain and Sylhet stalwart, the bus struck the railing and hung out off the bridge. The front part of the bus was badly damaged after slamming against the barrier.”We just about escaped,” Rajin told ESPNcricinfo. “The bus was probably approached by a lorry from the right but most of us were asleep. We started off from Rangpur at 5:30 pm last evening and the drive was slow because of the fog. Probably it was a lorry which suddenly came, at least that’s what the driver told us.”They vacated the bus and the next one arrived an hour later, which took them a few miles down the road where they met a roadblock due to a political strike from Tuesday morning across the country.”We have been stuck in this restaurant in Bhairab since 7:00am this morning,” Rajin said. “The people here have cooked for us but we won’t get out of this place until the strike ends in the evening.”The accident occurred on one of the world’s deadliest highways, the N2, which connects Dhaka and Sylhet, and according to the road-safety experts, kills around 750 people a year.

Wayne White has left Leicestershire after deciding he no longer wanted to play for the club. He has joined Lancashire on a three-year deal.

ESPNcricinfo staff25-Jan-2013Wayne White has left Leicestershire after deciding he no longer wanted to play for the club. He has joined Lancashire on a three-year deal.White, 27, won the Friends Life t20 with Leicestershire in 2011 and played in all but six of their matches last season, including a full County Championship campaign for the first time, scoring 616 runs at 29.33, but informed the club at the end of the season that he wished to move on.”Having entered into discussions with Wayne at the end of the season he advised us that he no longer wished to play for the club,” Leicestershire chief executive Mike Siddall, said. “The Board agreed that it would be in the best interest of club and player that he leaves.”Head Coach Phil Whitticase added: “While we are disappointed to lose Wayne we only want players at Grace Road who have a real desire to play for the club. We have sufficient quality in the squad to make up for Wayne’s departure, with an excellent group of committed players.”Leicestershire have been suffering from talent-drain for several years. Ben Smith, Darren Maddy, Luke Wright, Stuart Broad, James Taylor and Harry Gurney are among the players to have been reared at Grace Road before leaving to flourish elsewhere.White began his career at his home-county, Derbyshire, but it was after moving to Grace Road in 2008 that his career got going. He made his maiden first-class century, his only to date, against his old club in 2010 and enjoyed the best season of his career in 2012, taking a career-best first-class haul of 5 for 54 in April on the way to 43 wickets at 29.90.But with a year to run on his two-year contract, he has decided to leave Grace Road for Old Trafford where Lancashire cricket director Mike Watkinson sees potential in White.”He is still an emerging cricketer which fits well with our strategy and is adept in all formats of the game,” Watkinson said. “He has had an impressive record over the past couple of seasons which suggests there are better things to come. Wayne will bring additional quality in our seam bowling department and will also contribute with the bat in the middle order.”White will be still be playing Division Two cricket next season at least after Lancashire were relegated in 2012. Nevertheless, he said he was excited about challenging for trophies with Lancashire.”Playing at Old Trafford is something I am really looking forward to,” White said. “The club has put a lot of work into redeveloping the ground and securing the Ashes Test for this year. Hopefully, as a playing group, we can make it a memorable one on the field for Lancashire, too. Working with Peter Moores and his staff is a great opportunity for me and I am excited by his plans for the playing squad.”I have enjoyed my time with Leicestershire and it will be a wrench to leave, but I am looking forward to a new, exciting chapter in my career with Lancashire and to be part of a successful playing squad.”

A round-up of Sunfoil Series matches

ESPNcricinfo staff02-Feb-2013Cape Cobras registered a thumping nine-wicket win over Titans in Benoni, to take their place at the top of the Sunfoil Series points table after nine matches. After their attack had combined to bowl out Titans for under 200 for the second time in three days, they were left chasing a mere 17 runs for victory. Opener Alistair Gray had to retire hurt after facing just one ball, but that had no impact on Cobras cruising to victory.Cobras bowlers’ efforts were built upon by Stiaan van Zyl, who struck a century from No. 3 as in their first innings. Justin Kemp, batting at No. 8, consolidated their position in the game with 73. That lifted Cobras to 373, with a first-innings lead of 179. By the time Titans drew even in the second innings, they had already lost seven wickets with Johann Louw and Beuran Hendricks – the most effective bowlers in the first innings, too – causing most of the damage. From then on, it was just a matter of time before Cobras closed out the game.In a game that followed a similar path, Dolphins beat Warriors by nine wickets in Durban. After choosing to bowl, Dolphins skittled out Warriors for 92 – that total took some rearguard effort in fact, as Warriors were at one stage 36 for 6. Left-arm pacer Mthokozisi Shezi caused most of Warriors’ trouble, taking a five-for. He was well supported by his partner with the new ball, Kyle Abbott, who took 3 for 19 in the innings.A series of cameos from the Dolphins batsmen then put them firmly on top, as they got to 245 with Khayelihle Zondo top scoring with 51. In Warriors’ second innings, Abbott came good once again, knocking over four top-order wickets as they were dismissed for 198. That left Dolphins with 46 to chase, and they did so in 12 overs at close to four an over.Lions were at No. 2 on the points table, after drawing their ninth-round game with Knights in Kimberley. Knights chose to bat, and based on a collective effort got to 348. While none of the line-up got to a hundred, the innings was built around Rilee Rossouw, who top scored with 80, and Werner Coetsee, who made 78 from No. 7. They then had Lions in a spot of bother, bowling them out for 219.However, the 129-run first-innings lead did not make too much of a difference, as Lions did not let any of the Knights batsmen score quickly enough for them to force a result, especially since rain came into the equation; Lions played out 42 overs in their second innings, for 108 for 2, as the match petered out into a draw.

England Lions continued their streak of poor performances with a 45-run loss to Australia A in the fourth unofficial ODI in Sydney on Monday

ESPNcricinfo staff25-Feb-2013
ScorecardAaron Finch led from the front, scoring a scintillating century for Australia A•Getty Images

England Lions continued their streak of poor performances with a 45-run loss to Australia A in the fourth unofficial ODI in Sydney on Monday. The Lions are still winless on the tour, having lost both their tour matches and all the unofficial ODIs played so far.Australia A’s victory was set up by an aggressive ton from captain Aaron Finch. Having chosen to bat first, Finch put aside the quick dismissals of Joe Burns and Callum Ferguson to dominate a lax Lions attack, which conceded 27 extras in the match.Finch combined with Adam Voges to add 177 runs for the third wicket in 31.4 overs. Voges scored a steady 81, hitting nine fours during his 105-ball knock, before he was run out in the 40th over. England Lions then made a brief comeback picking up three wickets for 35, including the wicket of Finch, to leave Australia A at 6 for 240. A blistering seventh-wicket stand of 44 runs off 26 balls between wicketkeeper Tim Paine and Cameron Boyce boosted Australia A to 8 for 285.England Lions’ reply centred solely on Gary Ballance’s innings. Alex Hales and captain James Taylor were dismissed early. Ballance consolidated the innings with a 56-run partnership with Varun Chopra but the latter squandered a good start falling to fast bowler Alister McDermott.Ballance then stitched together some useful partnerships with Ben Foakes and James Vince to keep Lions in the game. After the 40th over, Lions still needed a stiff 86. The game changed in the next over as Ballance left the field after being struck on the head by a bouncer from McDermott. He did not return to bat and, although Rikki Clarke and Roland-Jones tried pushing up the score with some quick runs, England Lions were eventually dismissed for 240.

Left-arm fast bowler Sohail Tanvir has been called up to the Pakistan one-day squad as cover for Mohammed Irfan and Umar Gul

ESPNcricinfo staff18-Mar-2013Left-arm fast bowler Sohail Tanvir has been called up to the Pakistan one-day squad as cover for Mohammed Irfan and Umar Gul. Tanvir, who is already in South Africa playing for the Lions franchise in the domestic Twenty20 competition, will have to juggle his participation in that event with any possible recall to the Pakistan squad.Tanvir met with the Pakistan management during the third ODI at the Wanderers on Sunday. Misbah-ul-Haq said the team had been in discussions with Tanvir and were considering using him as back-up at the post match press conference.The Lions coach Geoffrey Toyana confirmed to ESPNcricinfo that Tanvir had been in touch with Pakistan but said he will turn out for the franchise on March 19 in Centurion, where they play the Titans. Should the Lions win that match, they will have taken a massive step towards qualifying for the final.Tanvir will then fly to Durban where Pakistan play the fourth ODI on March 21. If the Lions need Tanvir, he will have to go straight to East London to play for the them again on March 22. However if he is not needed, the Lions will rest him and he can continue to be part of the Pakistan camp until the final one-day match in Benoni on Sunday, before returning to the Lions for the knockout stages.Irfan, the seven-foot tall bowler, is struggling with a stomach bug. He had to leave the field during the Wanderers match and was treated off field. He also picked up a hamstring strain on Friday night in Centurion although Misbah clarified that “there is nothing wrong with his hamstring.” Irfan returned to bat later in the match. Gul, who has been out of form, was left out of the third match with a knee injury.Tanvir has played an important part in the Lions campaign. He is the joint second-leading wicket-taker in the tournament with 10 scalps at 16.40.

Australia sealed a tight win over New Zealand on the third day at the Bert Sutcliffe Oval in Lincoln

ESPNcricinfo staff01-Apr-2013
Scorecard
Australia sealed a tight win over New Zealand on the third day at the Bert Sutcliffe Oval in Lincoln. New Zealand began the day on 153 for 4, and would have hoped to save the game on what was the final day but were bowled out for 241. They slipped to 175 for 6 and then lost their captain Tim Seifert, who had held the innings together until then, making 97. Having collapsed to 196 for 9, New Zealand were helped by an unbeaten 33 from No.11 Harley Jenkins, who stretched the lead to 206.Australia had limited time to chase down 208 but did so successfully, with three wickets to spare. They were 38 for 3 at one stage but didn’t stray from their objective of winning the game. Opener Jaron Morgan made 72 in 89 balls and was ably supported by the middle and lower orders, with valuable contributions from each batsman. Tom Andrews made 31, Cameron Valente guided the chase after Morgan fell with an unbeaten 36, and there was assistance from Guy Walker, Matthew Short, and Jake Doran, who scored at better than a run a ball. The chase was completed in 44.5 overs.In the first innings, both teams declared after batting for 80 overs. New Zealand made 385 for 9, with the openers Rakitha Weerasundara and Henry Collier being among four batsmen to hit half-centuries. Australia responded strongly, scoring at better than five an over, making 420 for 4, thanks to hundreds from Short and Sean Willis.

You can be hero and villain on the same night. Ask Amit Mishra and Ashish Reddy

The Report by Sidharth Monga25-Apr-2013
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
One more stump for picket fence in the backyard•BCCI

You can be hero and villain on the same night. Ask Amit Mishra and Ashish Reddy. Reddy scored a whirlwind 36 off 16 balls to help Sunrisers Hyderabad get 59 off the last four overs and give them something to bowl at. Mishra kept them alive with the wickets of Michael Hussey, M Vijay and Suresh Raina. However, Mishra, promoted to No.5, wasted 21 balls for just 15 runs, and dropped MS Dhoni even before he had opened the account. Reddy was given the last over to bowl with 15 to defend, and a now-rampaging Dhoni to face. Reddy completely froze, and bowled the most predictable slower balls imaginable for Dhoni to win it easily.Spared villainy was Dwayne Bravo who bowled length in the final overs to allow Reddy those runs, but more crucially batted like a rabbit in the headlights, manufacturing – as the IPL’s wont has been – a thriller out of nowhere. He played out a maiden from Karan Sharma – who registered this IPL’s most economical four-over figures of 0 for 8 – in the 16th over. Then he holed out on the bowling of Ishant Sharma for a near game-changing 7 off 16.The man who well and truly snatched heroism from villainy was Dhoni. He too began dozily, playing six dots before he top-edged Dale Steyn to long leg where Mishra missed him. How Dhoni made Sunrisers pay for it. Firstly, after Bravo’s maiden left Super Kings needing 46 off last four, Dhoni hit two sensational and consecutive pulled sixes off Steyn, who at times bowled at close to 150 kph. One over midwicket, and the other dragged from wide outside off to clear long-on. This was brutal hitting against the best bowler in the world.Bravo, though, turned it around again, and Sunrisers went to Steyn to bowl the 19th over with 27 runs to play with. Dhoni played another calculated over. Steyn bowled with third man and fine leg up to defend areas down the ground. Dhoni dabbed the first past short fine leg for two, and square-drove the second over point for four. The third one he slogged over deep midwicket. This was the first time Steyn was hit for three sixes in an IPL innings, and only the second time in any Twenty20 game.Steyn came back, though, with Ravindra Jadeja’s wicket, and left Super Kings needing 15 to win off the last over. Darren Sammy, the IPL debutant, was the only man who had bowled earlier on the night and had an over to go. Cameron White, though, went to Reddy. Perhaps he was thinking if this was Reddy’s evening, it might be his night too. It wasn’t.Reddy began with a back-of-the-hand slower ball that was almost off the pitch. He ran up again, and tried the same slower ball again. Dhoni missed, but it was not as though he had not picked it. Reddy had got lucky Dhoni didn’t connect. Reddy, though, tried it again, and Dhoni smacked it clean out of the ground. Eight off four now. Reddy was clearly nervous. He tried the normal yorker now, and missed his line by feet. Five wides. Hang on. Dhoni admits to having touched it. So three off four now becomes four off three. Dhoni pulled the next slower ball to beat long-on and bring the win that put Super Kings level with Royal Challengers Bangalore at the top of the table.Watching all this, Shikhar Dhawan would be wondering whatever happened to what should have been a special Sunrisers debut for him. He came out from a month in the cold storage, braved a blow in the unmentionables, scored a fifty to give Sunrisers a total to bowl at, but ended as a footnote on a night Dhoni went from 0 off 6 to 67 off 37.

Sunrisers Hyderabad gave themselves a lead over Royal Challengers Bangalore in the race for the final spot in the IPL playoffs with a comprehensive win over the troubled Rajasthan Royals

The Report by Sidharth Monga17-May-2013
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
File photo: Amit Mishra took big middle-order wickets•BCCI

Sunrisers Hyderabad gave themselves a lead over Royal Challengers Bangalore in the race for the final spot in the IPL playoffs, with a comprehensive win over the troubled Rajasthan Royals, their sixth win out of seven home games. Both Sunrisers and Royal Challengers have a game left, but Sunrisers play the easier opposition in Kolkata Knight Riders. Royal Challengers go up against Chennai Super Kings in their last match.Royals, who have qualified for the playoffs but have also been rocked by an alleged spot-fixing scandal, began the game needing a big win to give themselves a chance of finishing in the top two. For a long time they looked like they could do so, thanks largely to James Faulkner’s second five-for of the season – both against Sunrisers – but they let Sunrisers back in followed by an indifferent batting display in the chase of 137.Royals will rue a seemingly innocuous moment in the sixth over. Sunrisers had gone against their winning formula of chasing at home and were in deep trouble when Biplab Samantray took two instinctive steps down the wicket and went back a little lazily. The ball had gone towards point, Ajinkya Rahane swooped in, and had actually run Samantray out. Except that nobody appealed.Had Rahane appealed, Sunrisers would have been reduced to 21 for 4. Instead Samantray – 8 off 12 then – went on to score his first IPL fifty, which took Sunrisers to a fighting total. With Darren Sammy, Samantray added 56 runs in 5.5 overs. Sammy scored 23 off 19. Sunrisers didn’t even manage a big push towards the end, because Faulkner came back to undo the rebuilding work, but Sunrisers’ bowlers have defended worse than 136.Their two big bowlers – Dale Steyn and Amit Mishra – set the tone of the defence. Steyn bowled fast, accurate and with swing, and conceded just four runs in his first two overs. Royals had surprisingly still opened with Rahul Dravid and Ajinkya Rahane because they needed a huge-win-or-nothing approach: they couldn’t have missed out on the playoffs but needed a win and a big net-run-rate boost to compete for the top two slots.The pressure exerted by Steyn was too much on the openers, and Mishra didn’t let up at all. He returned the joint-most economical figures of this season: 4-0-8-2. In between, Rahane and Shane Watson holed out, effectively ending the chase. Mumbai and Super Kings now finish in the top two, and Royals await either Sunrisers or Royal Challengers in the eliminator.

New Zealand have picked batsmen Hamish Rutherford and Tom Latham have along with left-arm spinner Roneel Hara in the squad for the two Twenty20 matches against England next week

ESPNcricinfo staff20-Jun-2013New Zealand have picked batsmen Hamish Rutherford and Tom Latham, along with left-arm spinner Roneel Hira in the squad for the two Twenty20 matches against England next week.New Zealand have excluded the injured trio of Daniel Vettori, Tim Southee and Grant Elliott, while Kane Williamson and the out-of-form wicketkeeper Luke Ronchi will also return to New Zealand.Rutherford, who scored a century on his Test debut earlier this year, has played all three of his T20 matches against England during their tour to New Zealand in March earlier this year. Latham has played three T20s, while Hira has played 13 games for New Zealand.Vettori underwent surgery on his Achilles tendon injury, after he struggled through the
Champions Trophy, his first ODI tournament in two years. Vettori bowled 11 overs in two matches but looked in discomfort, even receiving saline injections for pain during the match against Sri Lanka.Elliott suffered a calf injury prior to the Group A match against England and was replaced by Corey Anderson in the Champions Trophy squad. Southee, too, missed the match against England after he was ruled out due to an ankle injury.The two T20 matches will be played on June 25 and June 27 at The Oval.Squad: Brendon McCullum (capt), Corey Anderson, Doug Bracewell, Ian Butler, James Franklin, Martin Guptill, Roneel Hira, Tom Latham, Mitchell McClenaghan, Nathan McCullum, Kyle Mills, Colin Munro, Hamish Rutherford, Ross Taylor

Bangladesh’s professional cricketers have withdrawn their threat to stay away from the Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League

Mohammad Isam20-Jun-2013Bangladesh’s professional cricketers have withdrawn their threat to boycott the Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League. The decision was taken after assurances from the Bangladesh Cricket Board that the new gradation- and rotation-based system of players’ transfers would only be applicable to this season.Former Bangladesh batsman Tushar Imran confirmed the development after some of the players met the Cricket Committee of Dhaka Metropolis chairman, Jalal Yunus on Wednesday. “We have informed them that we will play from July 3,” Imran said. “But we have some demands, one of which is to get rid of the gradation and rotation system from next season. We have also asked for 70% advance payment.”On June 17, the cricketers had threatened to “stay away” from the league to protest against the new transfer system, which allowed Dhaka clubs to pick players in a process similar to the draft system in American sports. The only difference, in the case of the Dhaka league, was that the first club to be allowed to pick players in the transfer would be decided through a lottery and not according to financial conditions or last season’s results. This system, according to the cricketers, restricts a player’s freedom to choose clubs.Jalal Yunus said that the old system would be re-introduced for the next season. “We have guaranteed them that the gradation and rotation system will only be in place this year,” Jalal said. “From next year, they can have the usual players’ transfer. They have also asked for 70% of the payment before the league, we have said 50% would be paid.”The league, however, could be delayed after BCB president Nazmul Hassan admitted that he is not in favour of running the competition with the ACSU report still pending.