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There is a mixture of youth and experience for the matches against Zimbabwe as the hosts look to build on a their one-day success

Liam Brickhill08-Oct-2018The youngest member of South Africa’s T20 squad is 22, the oldest 39, and it’s this blend of youth and experience that allrounder Andile Phehlukwayo – himself only 26 days shy of being the most youthful player in the group – believes strikes just the right balance in this format.”There is that balance between the guys that are experienced and already have a few T20 caps and the newbies,” Phehlukwayo said on the eve of the first of three T20Is against Zimbabwe. “That’s where the balance in the team comes in, and that’s really good to have in the team.”South Africa have included two potential international debutants, Gihahn Cloete and Rassie van der Dussen, for the games against Zimbabwe, as well as offering further chances to fast bowlers Junior Dala and Dane Paterson, and allrounder Robbie Frylinck.”There are a lot of guys in the team who are quite new,” Phehlukwayo said. “But looking at their performances at the domestic level, they’re really deserving of their caps. Gihahn is a really exciting batter. Rassie has done well overseas. He’s gone over and played in the Caribbean Premier League and in America and done really well there. Junior and Rob have had a few caps. Every guy that’s in the squad has put in performances at the domestic level and done really well, put up their hands and earned their spot in the international team.”The depth within the South African system is really good,” he added. “A few guys have had a few caps this series, and it’s good to see new guys coming in and putting up their hands up before the World Cup.”Indeed, it’s going to be hard to see any white-ball cricket that South Africa might play between now and May next year outside of the context of the World Cup and while the format might be different, clues as to how the new names in South Africa’s T20 squad might also be part of their thinking for England can be gleaned from the cricket they’ve played recently. All four newcomers are coming off stints in the A side, which took part in a triangular one-day series against India and Australia’s A teams in August.Cloete was part of the same Under-19 team as Quinton de Kock, and consistent performances at domestic level lead to his inclusion in South Africa A’s trip to India. He responded with a fluent fifty in a one-day game against Australia A, and opened his domestic season with 81 against Lions last week.Frylinck was also part of that A tour, having made his T20I debut against Bangladesh last year following a stint with Trinbago Knight Riders in CPL 2017. At 34, Frylinck brings a wealth of T20 experience and adds value as a two-in-one player. He has played 98 T20s, scoring his runs at 148.22 and taking a wicket every 18.5 deliveries, relying on a mixture of knuckleballs and yorkers at the death.Paterson’s bowling skillset is similarly modern, and he made a good impression with 5 for 19 against India A before returning to South Africa and helping Cobras to a winning start to their domestic season with a match haul of 7 for 135 against the Knights at Newlands. Van der Dussen’s contributions to that A tour were a little slim, but he is riding on excellent T20 returns from the Global T20 in Canada and the Caribbean Premier League.As South Africa builds towards Vision 2019, all of the above – as well as Dala, who played two ODIs in Sri Lanka – will believe that their T20 skills might be transferable to a slightly longer format. Phehlukwayo certainly believes that’s the case, suggesting that the fine margins of the shortest format can help to hone vital skills.”T20 cricket helps with all the small skills, all the small fundamentals of trying to hit the ball into the gaps and using skills that you might not use particularly often in the long format,” he said. “It just enhances your level, and the variety of shots you have, the skills you can use.”South Africa galloped to a 3-0 victory in the ODIs, and by the third game they were starting to express the sort of positivity that coach Ottis Gibson is trying to make the touchstone of their limited-overs cricket. Replicating that over and over will be key to making it part of the team culture, reckoned Phehlukwayo.”We’ve got to stick to the level of cricket and the brand of cricket that we play,” he said. “We’ve got to put a lot of emphasis on the culture and the brand of cricket that we want to play. We want to be really positive, we want to execute our skills, and it doesn’t matter about the opposition. In pressure situations, you want to be the person that’s there and doing well.”

The injury raises question marks over his participation in the remainder of the series

Firdose Moonda in Potchefstroom01-Oct-2017Morne Morkel’s participation in the remainder of the first Test against Bangladesh is in doubt after he sustained a side strain on the fourth afternoon. Morkel will be taken for scans on Monday. This also raises question marks over his availability for the second Test starting October 6.Morkel, who took two wickets in a searing opening burst, left the field in his sixth over of the second innings. He bowled Tamim Iqbal off his fourth ball and trapped Mominul Haque lbw with his sixth. However, replays showed the ball would have missed leg stump, but Mominul didn’t avail a review.In his next over, Morkel knocked out Mushfiqur Rahim’s middle-stump with a full delivery but had overstepped in doing so. That made it the 14th time in Tests that he’d taken a wicket off a no-ball. Temba Bavuma said the disappointment if missing the wicket lingered.”Morne is a big team player, and he’s obviously a senior player in the team so he knows there’s a lot of responsibility thrust on his shoulders to lead the attack. When he commits a cardinal sin he really takes it emotionally,” Bavuma said. “I think if there was still time out there on the field he would have come back even stronger. Knowing the guy, I understand the emotional side of it all and I know that sitting in the change room he’s still having a go at himself.”Morkel had more time in the change room than he might have expected. He only bowled 20 more deliveries before walking off, with Duanne Olivier completing the over.Morkel has had a fairly regular load in this Test match. He bowled 19 overs in the first innings, five less than Kagiso Rabada’s 24 but more than Olivier (11) or Andile Phehlukwayo, the fourth seamer. Phehlukwayo, who was particularly under-utilised, bowled only six overs, thereby bringing into question South Africa’s strategy to play the extra bowler.The slowness of the surface has meant Keshav Maharaj, the left-arm spinner, has had to do more than his share of the work, with 27.1 overs in the first innings. He was given the ball in the 12th over of the second innings.With Bangladesh sliding in the second innings, South Africa should not miss Morkel too much in Potchefstroom, but Bavuma still described it as a “massive blow,” and was even willing to step up himself, if needs be.”He’s the leader of the attack and he was hot at that point in time. Luckily we’ve got guys in the reserve tank, and I’ll be bringing my bowling spikes tomorrow as well,” Bavuma joked “Andile, KG, Keshav and Duanne will all be putting their hands up and doing work for the team.”Still, Morkel’s injury adds to a growing list of walking wounded in the South African camp. They are already without Dale Steyn, who continues to recover from a shoulder injury, Vernon Philander and Chris Morris, both of whom will only resume playing later in October.Wayne Parnell, not considered for selection in this Test because of lack of four-day cricket recently, Beuran Hendricks and Dwaine Pretorius are the other players who may come into consideration.

Virat Kohli said India’s players had reached a stage where they could no longer be content with learning from every performance, but needed to start dominating Test matches regularly to become a better team

Karthik Krishnaswamy in Antigua25-Jul-20163:19

‘Probably the perfect finish’ – Kohli

Bat once, bat big, bowl the opposition out twice, and achieve all of this inside four days. In the first innings, the fast bowlers take eight out of ten wickets. In the second, the spinners take eight out of ten. India were expected to win, and keep winning, when they arrived in the West Indies, but they may not have expected to start the series with a win that ticked off every box to make up the perfect Test-match template.Virat Kohli, India’s captain, couldn’t have been more pleased with the manner in which his team went 1-0 up in the four-Test series. He said India’s players had reached a stage where they could no longer be content with learning from every performance, but needed to start dominating Test matches regularly.”If you look at it logically, that’s probably the perfect finish, which every team looks for,” he said. “The seamers usually dominate the first innings when you play away from home. The wicket tires out on day four and five. That’s when the spinners come into play. In the first innings, spinners are taking couple of the breakthrough wickets. In the second innings, fast bowlers are doing this for you and then the spinners will open it up again.”I think it was wonderful partnership bowling by all our bowlers in the two innings. And the batsmen as well. We have spoken about one thing, that we have the skill and ability to declare innings more often than not rather than struggling to get to 350 with our lower order. So that’s the kind of mindset we need to play with.”You know when you start off with five batsmen, obviously you need to take more responsibility. I think they are all good enough to do that. As I’ve said before, we are not at a stage now where we need to come and improve. We should be ready enough in international cricket to start dominating Test matches and win those crucial situations and sessions. That’s how we become a better team.”If you think we are going to keep learning every series, learning every game, we will never get that hunger and that mindset to win games from difficult situations. We need to challenge ourselves a little bit, which this team has been willing to do and which is a wonderful sign. The way we finished the Test, it all panned out pretty nicely.”R Ashwin was the standout Indian bowler on the fourth day, finishing with figures of 7 for 83 as West Indies’ second innings folded half an hour after tea. While Kohli hailed Ashwin’s bowling, he said Amit Mishra had also played an important role at the other end.”It was a very good effort from the bowlers [to spend two days on the field and bowl West Indies out twice],” he said. “The good thing was that we didn’t bowl that much in the first innings, so everyone’s mindset in the second innings was, yes, we can bowl again.”[It] becomes crucial to have bowlers who can get you those one or two wickets at the end. Their role becomes big. If you end up bowling 15-20 extra overs [in the first innings], this doubt comes into your mind whether you can start [bowling again] or not.”I think [the first innings] ended at a perfect time for us last evening, and then we got 13-14 overs and got a wicket again, so it was good to get some rest in the evening, and the bowlers’ attitude was very good, all of them voluntarily said, yes, we’ll bowl, and the spinners took the responsibility.”They knew the fast bowlers had done a lot of bowling in the first innings, so we’ll have to take that responsibility. Ashwin obviously bowled very well, and Mishra also bowled very well but didn’t get wickets. But both kept the pressure on, and we talk about partnership bowling – that was a classic example, that the spinners didn’t have to bowl that much in the first innings, but took the responsibility from the fast bowlers in the second innings, and did the job fully.”Kohli also felt the team needed to avoid losing wickets close to breaks in play and try and bowl the lower order out quicker•AFP

When India came back after sealing the win, Kohli said Anil Kumble, their head coach, made “special mention” to players whose contributions may not have leaped out of the scorecard.”In the first innings, four wickets each to Umesh [Yadav] and [Mohammed] Shami, but the way Ishant [Sharma] bowled and Mishi picking up those two wickets in the end also played an important role,” Kohli said, when asked to elaborate on these contributions. “Otherwise you have to play the guys who have bowled a bulk of the bowling and tire them out more for those final two wickets.”There the guy who takes the wickets at the end finishes off the game and helps the other bowlers stay fresh. Someone like Ishant maintained the pressure, the run-rate did not go beyond two in the first innings. All those things count massively in the course of the game. This morning, Umesh getting one wicket for us, Ishant an important breakthrough last evening. These are the moments that don’t get much attention but they are very important to winning a Test match.”Despite the ease of the win, and the range of contributions, Kohli felt there were still areas India needed to improve in. One of these – which he had mentioned before the Test match as well – was to avoid losing wickets close to breaks in play.”I think [there are] a couple of areas with the bat we can improve on, especially not losing wickets close to the breaks,” he said. “I think we did that three times. [Cheteshwar] Pujara was one, Shikhar [Dhawan] was the other, just before tea [on the first day], and then myself soon after lunch on day two.”See, these are the things, which if we have enough runs on the board and start scoring quickly, you tend to ignore these things. But I have that it in my mind pretty strongly because every team will want to challenge you strongly and will want to dry those runs out. So you have to capitalise [on] those important moments so the team doesn’t lose that momentum and can start scoring runs again.”We’ve lost wickets in those moments previously. That’s one area I still think we need to tighten up a little bit more if we want to be in complete control of things in all the sessions that we play. We’ve done really well in this game, but that’s one area we have addressed before and we certainly want to improve on.”Another area in need of improvement, he said, was to try and bowl the lower order out quicker. West Indies raised their score from 144 for 7 to 243 in the first innings, and from 132 for 8 to 231 in the second.”That’s an area we need to address. It also happens that you take the top-order wickets quickly, so you become a little desperate to keep taking wickets, and forget the things that got you those initial wickets. It becomes very important that the fielders also stay relaxed, don’t get frustrated, and bowlers also don’t get frustrated.”It’s important that we still keep bowling in consistent areas. If you’re getting the pure batsmen out, you don’t need to do anything different to get the tailenders out. That’s one thing we’ll have to play out smartly in the remaining Test matches, so that we save our energy, and don’t end up bowling 8-10 extra overs, and if we get the tail out quickly, that’s a good habit as well, so obviously we’ll plan and see how we can do this. We’ll look to keep playing the same kind of cricket, and if we get the opportunity to win each match, we’ll try to win each match.”

A day after informally discussing the fate of the Champions League Twenty20 with Cricket Australia and Cricket South Africa, the other stakeholders of the tournament, BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur dropped another hint that it may be scrapped

Amol Karhadkar25-May-20152:15

The end of CLT20?

A day after informally discussing the fate of the Champions League Twenty20 with Cricket Australia (CA) and Cricket South Africa (CSA), the other stakeholders of the tournament, BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur dropped another hint that it may be scrapped. ESPNcricinfo understands that a meeting of the CLT20 governing council is likely to be convened soon to make the final call.”We still have CLT20. We will have meetings on how to make it a better tournament, or something in place of that. We just finished the season eight of the IPL which has been very successful. We will now start thinking on those lines [fate of CLT20],” Thakur told a group of select journalists in Kolkata on Monday.”If CLT20 cannot attract crowds in India or abroad, you need to sit down and think about other options. It’s in the interest of cricket. In the interest of cricket, you make changes. Like from Test cricket we switched to ODIs, then T20s and now we’ve the IPL. With time, you bring in changes so that the game does not die. There should be enough takers for the game. Tournament should be successful.”

Fitness test for Bangladesh-bound cricketers on June 6

The BCCI will conduct fitness tests for the India players selected for the Bangladesh tour on June 6 – the day before they fly out – in Kolkata
Over the last year or so, BCCI had not conducted fitness tests on the national team since they were playing non-stop cricket ahead of the World Cup. With another gruelling season of international cricket ahead though, beginning in Bangladesh and culminating with next year’s World Twenty20, BCCI have had a change of mind.
A meeting between BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya and secretary Anurag Thakur failed to break the deadlock over India’s support staff for the tour of Bangladesh. “You will get to know about coach and support staff before 6th of June,” Thakur told reporters after the meeting.

For more than a month, the fate of CLT20 has been hanging in the balance. BCCI, the majority stakeholder of the tournament, and the broadcaster aren’t keen on hosting it, but they will need a formal consent from CSA and CA before cancellation. The South African board seems to have accepted that CLT20 is a history, having already announced Africa T20 Cup to be held in September, when the CLT20 usually takes place.IPL chairman Rajiv Shukla had also said that the BCCI was planning to do away with CLT20, adding that they were exploring possible alternatives.Sections in the media had reported of a tournament involving the top four IPL teams from this season. Although Thakur denied those claims, he admitted that the Champions League has been struggling to attract any takers.”Would you like your product to go down?” he said “No. You will only get sponsors if you’ve a successful tournament. There will be no takers otherwise. Eventually, you will have to look for cricket first. For me, that one-month window has to be used properly in the interest of cricket and cricket board.”

Plenty of things went right for South Africa on the third day in Adelaide but they still faced the prospect of a difficult chase as Australia led by 273 runs at stumps

The Report by Brydon Coverdale24-Nov-2012
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Faf du Plessis made an impressive 78 on debut•Getty Images

Plenty of things went right for South Africa on the third day in Adelaide. Faf du Plessis made an impressive 78 on debut, Jacques Kallis shrugged off the pain of his injured hamstring to score a fighting fifty, and Rory Kleinveldt took three quick wickets late in the day to rattle Australia’s top order. But when stumps rolled around, one unavoidable fact remained: South Africa were going to need to complete the biggest Adelaide Oval chase in 110 years – and possibly of all time – to take a 1-0 lead in the series.Adelaide might be renowned as a batting paradise but the way the surface can break up on the fourth and fifth days can make run-scoring difficult. The biggest successful chase in Adelaide Oval Tests was 315, scored by Joe Darling’s Australians in 1902, and by stumps on Saturday, Michael Clarke’s side already led by 273. Clarke was at the crease on 9 and Michael Hussey was on 5, and the score had moved on to 5 for 111 thanks largely to a solid opening stand from David Warner and Ed Cowan.But if any team knows about hefty pursuits it is Graeme Smith’s outfit. Four years ago, they chased down 414 at the WACA, with only four wickets down, and six members of that side are also playing in Adelaide. They can also take heart from the fact that James Pattinson is almost certain not to bowl in the fourth innings after being sent for scans to assess pain that he felt in his left side early on the third day. Kallis can bat injured, but Pattinson won’t be much good with the ball.The Australians will hope for the same kind of bowling success that Kleinveldt and his colleagues enjoyed on the third afternoon. Cowan and Warner put on 77 for the opening wicket and Warner was enjoying the chance to thrash boundaries off Imran Tahir’s legspin when Kleinveldt ended the party. He drew a leading edge from Warner, who was caught at cover for 41, and two balls later Rob Quiney’s Test future was placed in serious jeopardy when he edged behind for a duck, an almost identical dismissal to the first innings.Kleinveldt also got rid of Cowan, who on 29 played on to leave Australia at 3 for 91 and Tahir relieved after he should have had Cowan earlier in the innings. Cowan had been caught at cover off a leading edge and Tahir celebrated what he thought was his first wicket of the game, but replays confirmed what the umpire suspected – he had over-stepped, an unforgivable error for a slow bowler, and Cowan was briefly reprieved.