Jay Lenton was brought on for the final delivery so he could do the running, with Hayden Kerr on strike

Andrew McGlashan26-Jan-2022It will say retired hurt on the scorecard – and there was no doubting Jordan Silk’s hamstring injury – but cricket came as close as it ever has to a tactical retirement of a batter during the pulsating finish of the BBL Challenger final at the SCG.With one ball remaining and Sydney Sixers needing two to win, their coach Greg Shipperd, one of the most experienced figures in the game, signalled furiously for Silk to come off the ground so that Jay Lenton, a late addition after Josh Philippe tested positive for Covid-19, could do the running off the final delivery with Hayden Kerr on strike.Silk, who damaged his hamstring in the field, had come out three balls previously with Sixers hoping the right hander could target a short leg-side boundary. He limped through for a single off his first delivery, watched Kerr launch a six over deep midwicket then hobbled back for a second from the penultimate ball almost using his bat as a crutch.A batter is permitted to retire at any point – it doesn’t even have to be retired hurt – but initially Adelaide Strikers’ captain Peter Siddle appeared less-than-impressed as he approached the umpires although shortly after the finish had a more mellow view.”You can retire blokes, at the end of the day you can retire, it’s not actually a big issue,” he told Fox Cricket. “As soon as I brought it up with the umpires, obviously I was disappointed at the time, but it’s just a retirement…sometimes it happens at crucial times. It’s just part of the game.”Sixers’ captain Moises Henriques, who himself picked up a calf injury, explained the thinking behind Silk initially coming to the crease.”We sent him in at No. 8 to try to get a couple boundaries in that last over,” he told Fox Cricket. “As soon as he wasn’t able to face a ball and we needed a person to run, we knew he couldn’t run so we just thought we’d retire him and put out someone who can.When asked if there was any spirit of cricket debate to be had, Henriques said: “I don’t understand how so. They’re clearly within the rules of the game. Unfortunately we had a guy go down with a hamstring, one of the fittest guys in the league, probably something to do with our schedule, five flights in eight days and so many back-to-back games.”For Lenton, the last ball provided the final act in a whirlwind 24 hours where the former Sydney Thunder player, whose previous BBL match had been the Challenger final in 2020, had gone being an assistant coach giving throwdowns to being told to run as fast as he could to secure a place in a final.”I didn’t even bring my kit to training yesterday,” he said. “I was wanging balls then Mo said go get your kit and have a hit. About one o’clock today I got told I was playing.””I said to [Hayden], it’s the best nought not out I’ve ever had without facing a ball. Never been more excited for it, that’s for sure. It was bizarre…I’m standing there then all of a sudden it’s ‘get him [Silk] off, get him off’ I’m running. Pretty frantic, sums up the day to be fair.”

WA had been 6 for 89 before the lower order hauled them to a total which proved just enough

AAP11-Mar-2022Australian pace bowler Jhye Richardson played a crucial role with the bat but suffered a hamstring injury when bowling as Western Australia beat New South Wales in the one-day final.Star WA batter Shaun Marsh (knee sprain) was also injured in Friday’s match at Melbourne’s Junction Oval as they triumphed by 18 runs, collecting their 15th domestic one-day title.In a see-sawing game highlighted by Hilton Cartwright’s astonishing and crucial outfield catch, WA made 9 for 225 from their 50 overs before NSW were dismissed for 207 in 46.3 overs.Richardson top-scored with 44, leading WA’s rearguard fightback after they had slumped to 6 for 89. An over after bowling Baxter Holt for a duck, Richardson pulled up awkwardly in his delivery stride and had to leave the field injured with NSW on 6 for 117.Richardson took five wickets in the second Ashes Test win at Adelaide Oval, but then went out of the side because of soreness and was left out of the Pakistan tour squad.No. 3 Moises Henriques had paced the NSW innings with 43 from 75 balls when he belted spinner D’Arcy Short to long-on. Cartwright was horizontal when he took an all-time classic diving catch, leaving NSW 8 for 204. It proved the match-winning moment – Henriques and Ben Dwarshuis, who was unbeaten on 31, had put on 36 for the eighth wicket and NSW appeared to be heading to a win. Adam Zampa and Tanveer Sangha were then dismissed for ducks to end the match.WA quick Andrew Tye, who was on a hat-trick, took 4 for 30 and was named player of the match, while Aaron Hardie snared 3 for 41.Matthew Kelly and Jason Behrendorff put on 52, a WA record for the 10th wicket in one-dayers, and that proved the difference. Kelly made 27 not out and Behrendorff hit two sixes off Hayden Kerr in the last over of the innings for his unbeaten 24.While WA’s score was well short of par on a wicket that did not appear to be playing too many tricks, it proved enough to thwart NSW.Marsh gave WA an injury scare at 2 for 70 when he turned back quickly after attempting a quick single. He had a sharp pain in his left leg and dropped to the ground in pain. Marsh needed medical attention for several minutes before resuming his innings.But two runs later, Adam Zampa bowled him for 29, ending his 61-run stand with Cameron Bancroft. Zampa bowled captain Ashton Turner with his next delivery for a duck and Cartwright survived the hat-trick ball.Matthew Gilkes dropped a sitter off Kelly when he had only made 2. Gilkes then caught Richardson in the deep to give Daniel Sams his third wicket and it was given out, despite the fielder appearing to touch the boundary rope with his foot.

Shaheen Shah Afridi and Haris Rauf knocked the top of the visitor’s batting

Danyal Rasool02-Apr-2022After a month of Australia making Pakistan work for every run, wicket and win, here was the exception to the rule. In a rare lacklustre performance, Australia found themselves blown away by a dominant performance as they were crushed by nine wickets to seal a 2-1 series win.It came courtesy of a fiery fast bowling performance, and an unbeaten 190-run partnership between Babar Azam and Imam-ul-Haq. Pakistan had put Australia in to bat, skittling them out inside 42 overs for 210 before making light work of that target on a featherbed of a surface, with Imam and Babar making an unexperienced Australian bowling attack look particularly toothless. An undefeated 105 by Babar, his second consecutive hundred, and an unbeaten 89 from Imam helped Pakistan canter to a nine-wicket win with 73 balls to spare.Australia knew it was coming, and yet there seemed no way to stop it. A sensational – and yet by now, almost predictable – first over from Shaheen Shah Afridi got rid of Travis Head, dealing Australia a blow that left them groggy throughout the innings, and Haris Rauf removed Aaron Finch before Australia were off the mark.Magicians tend not to perform their tricks too often, but repetition doesn’t make Afridi any less inscrutable. It was a full toss that did for Head first up, but with the moving in the air, there was little the batter could do to prevent it crashing into off stump.Finch has struggled this series, and it showed in the way he tried to tackle Rauf, playing listlessly across the line and finding himself trapped plumb in front. Australia were yet to put a run on the board, and the discipline of Pakistan’s pace bowlers meant they couldn’t get off to the brisk start that characterised their first two innings. Rauf coaxed an edge out of Marnus Labuschagne early, and the normally fluid Ben McDermott got bogged down, managing just 14 in his first 34 balls.Australia looked to be rebuilding with a 53-run stand, but Zahid Mahmood drew a leading edge from Marcus Stoinis as Imam took a sharp catch, before Mohammad Wasim ended McDermott’s innings of attrition. A handy rearguard from Alex Carey and Cameron Green followed, with the batters capitalising on a drop in intensity from the hosts. The field spread out and easy singles are available, and with the frontline fast bowlers out of the attack, Australia were steadily rebuilding as they pushed towards a competitive total. Carey brought up a 55-ball half century two balls after a glorious six over cover drive off Wasim, and for the first time, Pakistan were on the back foot.Babar Azam punches down the ground•PCB

That ended soon after, though, when a bit of reverse swing did for Green as he heaved wildly across the line. It opened the floodgates, and four wickets fell for 18 runs as Rauf and Afridi returned to chip in. But in an entertaining six-over passage of play, Sean Abbott threw caution to the wind, swinging for the fences just about every delivery, riding his luck and further antagonising an increasingly irate Afridi. He managed the strike expertly; Adam Zampa never even got off the mark through the partnership, and by the time he chipped one to short third off Rauf, he’d scored a 40-ball 49. With the target set at 211, Abbott had given himself and his fellow bowlers something to work with.But two days out from a match that saw 348 prove inadequate, any hope Australia harboured of a series win hinged on early wickets, and several of them. It was in that department where Australia’s absences were really felt tonight. Jason Behrendorff, Nathan Ellis and Abbott simply don’t possess the qualities of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, and especially Mitchell Starc to blast out an opposition, not least a top order as settled as Pakistan’s is right now.Fakhar Zaman fell for a brisk 17, but with the asking rate hovering around four, the match situation was primed for the more sedate and assured Babar and Imam. Babar being put down at short midwicket on 1 felt like a significant moment in the game, but Australia’s sloppiness in the early overs meant it didn’t come as much of a surprise. A couple of boundaries in the ninth over composed the Pakistan captain, and once that partnership established a foothold, any Australian optimism quickly fizzled out.What followed was a cavalcade of class from the two highest runscorers this series. They appeared to rotate the strike and find the boundaries at will against spin and seam alike. Imam skipped down the wicket to smash Zampa to cow corner, before Babar caressed boundaries off Green off the next two balls either side of the wicket as the target and asking rate shrunk by the over. At last, it looked like a contest between a full-strength home side and a depleted touring party stretched particularly thin.Babar was the more proactive partner, and got a 16th ODI hundred before the game was won, as the two old friends performed a little jig mid-run to celebrate. Imam, meanwhile, would be denied the chance for a third successive hundred simply because Pakistan ran out of runs to chase, and capped a sensational series by knocking off the winning runs, skipping down the wicket to send Labuschagne down the ground.On a tour where Australia have been blown away by Pakistan’s hospitality, tonight was the night the generosity finally ran out.

Warne planned to pay Symonds out of his own pocket with assistant berths already filled

Matt Roller19-May-2022Shane Warne planned to pay Andrew Symonds out of his own pocket to be an assistant coach for London Spirit in the Hundred in 2022.Warne, who died in March after a heart attack, coached Spirit in the first season of the competition in 2021, though spent most of it self-isolating after contracting Covid-19.Spirit had already recruited a full team of support staff for the 2022 season when he approached Symonds, his long-time Australia team-mate and broadcast colleague at , to ask if he was interested in becoming an assistant coach.ESPNcricinfo understands that Symonds later contacted Spirit about the role but he was not expecting to be involved in the Hundred before his death in a car accident on Saturday.Related

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Adam Gilchrist, who played with both men for Australia, told radio’s Rush Hour show: “A little thing that Roy [Symonds] was telling me just last week was that Warnie had been speaking about getting him over to be a fielding coach or an assistant coach at the London Spirit in the Hundred competition over there in England which Warnie was coach of.”It was only a couple of weeks ago that Roy found out there was no budget put aside for Roy; there was nothing documented in the London Spirit set-up. Warnie was doing that of his own accord and was going to pay Roy the wage that he was going to get for being over there.”Roy couldn’t believe it. That sense of mateship and friendship was everything that Roy built his whole life around – trust and loyalty. Here we are a few days later after him relaying that story to me and he’s disappeared. He was loyal to a fault, he really was.”Darren Berry, Warne’s former Victoria team-mate, is still due to be an assistant coach at Spirit this year, with Trevor Bayliss since appointed as interim head coach for the 2022 season. “Numbness descends as SKW [Warne] had arranged both Roy and I to be his trusted assistants at the London [Spirit],” Berry tweeted.”My great mate had told me this during a catch up at the Adelaide Test this summer. He loved Roy and Roy loved him. He was paying out of his own salary to get Roy on board. I just can’t yet fathom that I will go to the London Spirit in honour of these two great mates.”

Litton Das will be Shakib’s deputy as the allrounder takes over from Mominul Haque

ESPNcricinfo staff02-Jun-2022Shakib Al Hasan will take the reins for Bangladesh in Test cricket once again, being confirmed as captain on Thursday. He takes over from Mominul Haque, who had resigned as captain on May 31 after leading the side since October 2019. Litton Das has been named Shakib’s deputy.”What I have discussed – or, what we have discussed – and learnt is that he [Shakib] is available to play,” BCB president Nazmul Hassan said on Thursday. “After the series against West Indies, we have a series against Zimbabwe. Shakib is uncertain for that series, and it’s unclear how long Shakib will remain the captain for.”I had three names. The people responsible for [selecting the captain] had their discussions and gave me three names – one of them would be the captain and one of the others would be the vice-captain. If Shakib had refused the captaincy, we would have turned to the other two.Related

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“We wanted to appoint both the new captain and the vice-captain. And after the preliminary discussions, we decided to have Shakib Al Hasan as the captain and Litton Das as the vice-captain.”Results did not go Bangladesh’s way a lot during Mominul’s tenure: in all Bangladesh won just three Tests under him, losing 12 and drawing two. Also, Mominul’s own batting form fell away – he has 162 runs in six Tests so far in 2022, averaging 16.20 – as a result of the pressures of captaincy, and that was one of the primary reasons for him giving up the job. “When you play well, even if the team doesn’t win, you are still in a position to motivate them. I felt that captaining a side is tough when I am not scoring and team is not winning,” he said at the time of announcing his resignation.Shakib, 35, has had numerous stints as Bangladesh’s Test captain, first leading the side in a game against West Indies in 2009. He captained for six more matches in the first half of 2010, and again in August 2011 against Zimbabwe, before falling out of favour with the then BCB chief Mustafa Kamal. He took over the Test captaincy once again in December 2017, replacing Mushfiqur Rahim. He held the role for nearly two years, till he was handed a one-year ban from all cricket in 2019 for failing to report a bookie’s approach.Incidentally, Shakib’s future in Test cricket has been a topic of discussion in recent months, with the allrounder going back and forth on his commitment to red-ball cricket. In February, Shakib had reportedly asked the BCB for some time off from Test cricket, but was nonetheless selected in the squad for the tour of South Africa.Shakib, though, suggested that he was “jaded”, and requested a break from international cricket, which the BCB eventually granted him. But then board president Nazmul Hassan publicly questioned Shakib’s commitment to his country and, following another round of meetings between the allrounder and the BCB boss, Shakib was included in the squad for South Africa. In the end, though, he did miss the Tests due to illness in his family.In the Test series assignment that followed, at home against Sri Lanka, Shakib finished as the highest wicket-taker for the hosts. The visitors, though, won the series 1-0.Hassan further confirmed that former Indian batter Wasim Jaffer and former Australia batter Stuart Law will join the Under-19 coaching team.”Our Under-19 [men’s] coaching staff will have Stuart Law and Wasim Jaffer,” Hassan said. “Stuart Law will be the head coach and Wasim Jaffer will be BCB’s batting consultant. We can use them in various capacities.”

Durham quick says he has been told to “be aggressive, use my pace, use my bouncer”

Matt Roller20-Jun-2022The French footballer Claude Makélélé was a player so influential that a position was named after him: the deepest member of a midfield three plays in “the Makélélé role”. English cricket has its own equivalent: a fast bowler hitting the pitch hard in the middle overs of an ODI operates in “the Plunkett role”.The hole left by Liam Plunkett’s unceremonious exit from the England set-up has been vast since the 2019 World Cup, when he was the unsung hero of England’s triumph with an all-star list of vital scalps in the middle overs – not least the wicket of Kane Williamson as he took 3 for 42 in the final. He was no longer a genuine quick bowler by that tournament but had developed a method to succeed, generally bowling cross-seam and looking to hit the top of the stumps or the splice of the bat.England’s decision to move on from Plunkett immediately after the final was brutal, but has ultimately proved justified: injuries limited him to 13 all-format appearances across the next two years and he is now in the United States, preparing to play his part in the launch of Major League Cricket.But with ODI series few and far between – England have played only 20 games in the format since that World Cup, and many of those with a weakened squad – they have struggled to find a replacement for Plunkett: no England fast bowler has taken more than five middle-overs wickets in the last three years. Various seamers including Saqib Mahmood and Mark Wood have been tried in his mould but with moderate success at best.Step forward, Brydon Carse, the South African-born fast bowler who is the latest man off the Durham production line. First capped during last year’s ODI series against Pakistan when a second-string squad came together at short notice after a Covid outbreak, Carse has been used exclusively as a second-change bowler and has impressed, regularly hitting 90mph/145kph and bowling aggressive, “hard” lengths to keep batters on the back foot.Related

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Against the Netherlands on Sunday, he replaced Sam Curran in the England side and bowled with hostility. He pinned Tom Cooper lbw with his second ball and cranked up the pace in his first spell, taking 1 for 14 from his first four overs without conceding a boundary and finding extra bounce to lift one short ball past Scott Edwards’ grille.He was less successful at the death, finishing with 1 for 36 from his seven overs, but is clearly learning on the job: Sunday was his fourth ODI appearance but only the 11th List A game of his career. England have picked him on potential. “It’s great to see him hit the series with plenty of energy, plenty of pace and offer something different,” Eoin Morgan said.”[Morgan] has been very clear with me,” Carse said. “He said I am going to come on first or second change and look to bowl through the middle, be aggressive, use my pace, use my bouncer and just make it difficult. I want to come on and be aggressive.”I want to make an impact in the game. That might not necessarily be taking wickets, but creating opportunities from the other end.” Plunkett, Carse added, is someone he is “striving to be like… he had a very good England career and if I can fulfil that role going forward, it’s a big positive.”Carse hit a top speed of 91mph/146kph on Sunday, and said that he hoped his pace could “add a different dimension”. “Obviously when things are clicking, it’s good to bowl quick,” he said. “If I can be bowling in and around that 90mph mark then I’m sure it will create opportunities for me in any side in which I am playing.”Sunday’s ODI was Carse’s first England game under Morgan, having made his debut when Ben Stokes stood in as captain last summer. Stokes has been a prominent advocate of Carse’s ability and with several fast bowlers injured, it seems like a matter of time before Carse is named in a Test squad.But for his own knee injury, which he suffered on the Lions tour to Australia last winter, Carse might well have pushed his case in time for the ongoing New Zealand series, but Jamie Overton moved ahead of him in the pecking order after impressing at the start of the County Championship season while Carse was sidelined.He has a close relationship with Matthew Potts, his county team-mate, who has impressed in his first Tests for England, and said that it had been inspiring to see him succeed at Test level. “Matthew really has come a long way in the last 18 months as a bowler,” Carse said. “He works hard on and off the field and he thoroughly deserves where he’s at the moment.”[A Test cap] is something definitely in the back of my mind,” he added. “I want to play red and white-ball cricket, and I want to play Test cricket for England.” But in the short term, Carse’s focus is on filling the Plunkett role: if he can do so on a regular basis, it would be invaluable for England.

Marnus Labuschagne said that the players felt Smith was set for a big innings

AAP09-Jul-2022Steven Smith’s closest batting ally has warned the floodgates could open again after he broke his 18-month Test century drought against Sri Lanka.Smith went to stumps unbeaten on 109 at the end of day one in Galle, helping put Australia in control of the second Test after a 134-run stand with Marnus Labuschagne.Without a century since January 2021, Smith was back to his classic best on Friday in a near faultless 212-ball display.”The boys said this morning when he rocked up to the ground, he was in the Smudge headspace and he looked locked in,” Labuschagne said.Related

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It showed. In control from the outset, Smith waited on loose balls from Sri Lanka’s bowlers as he punished anything full and hit it to the cover or long-on boundary.On one of the few occasions a ball beat Smith’s bat, the right-hander gave an immediate thumbs-up down the wicket to debutant Prabath Jayasuriya. But moments like that were few and far between.The vice-captain produced arguably the best two shots of the day, twice punching Jayasuriya past mid-on for four. Ten of his 13 boundaries came down the ground, as he got to the pitch of the ball well and controlled the game.Steven Smith plays through the leg side•AFP

Smith had maintained in recent months that his longest drought since his first Test ton in 2013 had not been playing on his mind. But the joy was evident to see when he brought up his century, driving Kasun Rajitha through the covers and raising his arms aloft after hugging team-mate Alex Carey.”With someone of his calibre, he almost never feels like he’s out of form.” Labuschagne, who also hit 104, said. “It’s just for him the standard he’s set is so high that when it drops a little bit, his expectations are still at that really high level.”He’s a very harsh critic on himself, having set a standard for Australia for the last eight or nine years. He’s always still hitting the ball well. It’s just confidence thing.”Getting that one today, I think is really going to open up the floodgates and we could have a really big next 10 Tests or so in the next year.”After admitting he had missed the pressure of batting on spinning wickets last month, Smith’s runs were desperately needed by Australia. Brought to the wicket at 70 for 2, the tourists would have found themselves in trouble if Smith had fallen early.Smith’s century brought him back level with Joe Root on 28, after it had been pointed out to him during the week the former England captain had briefly overtaken him.He is also now level with Michael Clarke for the fifth most hundreds in Australia’s history, with only Ricky Ponting, Steve Waugh, Matthew Hayden and Don Bradman ahead of him.

John Turner’s maiden five-for followed by nerveless Toby Albert finale

ECB Reporters Network14-Aug-2022John Turner’s maiden professional five-wicket haul and Toby Albert’s nerveless unbeaten 65 maintained Hampshire’s 100 per cent Royal London Cup record in a nail-biting victory over Lancashire.South African-born Turner’s five for 25 led an impeccable fast bowling display from Hampshire, with Jack Campbell and Scott Currie removing the rest.In form batter Rob Jones crashed 84 in a 119 partnership with Steven Croft, to take his competition average to 239, as Lancashire scored 183.Liam Hurt’s brutally quick three for 25 made sure Hampshire couldn’t ease to victory but 20-year-old Albert, on the back of a match-winning 84 against Derbyshire, managed to get his side over the line with 10 balls to spare.Related

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Hampshire’s eight-wicket victory keeps them top of Group B with a perfect record, with Lancashire now three points adrift with three wins, a washout and this defeat – both will expect to make the knockout stage.On a blistering quick wicket, having been asked to bowl by Keaton Jennings, Campbell and Turner had Lancashire seven for 3 inside five overs.
Turner’s first delivery of the match set the tone, with Ben Brown taking the ball at shoulder height a couple of steps in from the 30-yard circle. Jennings couldn’t resist attempting to cut at one though on his return from Lions duty, but the extra bounce found his edge.Luke Wells impatiently skied Campbell and Josh Bohannon was caught behind to a ball which gloriously shaped in.Lancashire still hadn’t scored off a run off the bat at this stage, but Jones pushed and ran to cover before unfurling a square drive to begin a very profitable, and needed fourth-wicket partnership.Jones has been in fine form in the competition with scores of 70 and 85, both without being dismissed. Here he was effortless in reaching a 60-ball fifty, often using the bounce to his advantage.The pair had recovered the situation before Lancashire collapsed again, with the last seven wickets falling for 57 runs. Croft was yorked by Campbell to end the county’s record fourth-wicket stand against Hampshire before George Balderson clothed Turner to midwicket.Currie then opened the floodgates with a triple wicket maiden, taking three wickets in four balls. Jones fell for the first time in this season’s cup when he cut to point, Tom Bailey edged behind first ball before Will Williams defended his first ball but was pinned second. George Lavelle and Liam Hurt were both caught trying to attack Turner to give him his five.Hampshire plodded rather than attacked the target. Ben Brown, promoted to open, was lbw to a Bailey delivery which seamed in, Tom Prest dragged a wide Hurt ball onto his stumps having been bogged down, and Nick Gubbins fell into a perfectly placed short extra cover trap off Balderson.Hurt’s searing pace had Aneurin Donald chopping down and Fletcha Middleton caught behind with a frighteningly quick delivery from his long run-up and low action. Felix Organ also hit onto his own stumps off Bailey and Scott Currie swung two boundaries before he was pinned by Luke Wells.Sixteen-year-old debutant Dom Kelly belied his inexperience with 17 in a 38-run stand with Albert but cut to point with 18 still needed. But Albert reached back-to-back fifties in 64 balls and ticked off the remaining runs with Turner to the backdrop of a raucous crowd, with the winning runs a lofted on-drive for four.

Manchester Originals take their defence of 120 to the wire in low-scoring thriller

Vithushan Ehantharajah03-Sep-2022Trent Rockets 121 for 8 (Malan 19, Little 2-18) beat Manchester Originals 120 for 9 (Turner 26, Cook 4-18) by two wicketsOne of the many criticisms of the 2022 edition of the men’s Hundred was the lack of close finishes. The kind which build legends and tear down legacies, or even simply give mortals a taste of nectar or soul-crushing agony. Now, in the 32nd and final game, we had it.Trent Rockets won the Hundred, and to work out how would require starting right at the end. A chase of 121 which always felt on the verge of going off the rails had somehow stayed upright until the final five deliveries, with a seemingly unlikely 11 required for victory. Lewis Gregory, captain of the Rockets, Somerset till he dies, England once in a while, found them within three.A miraculous flat six over square leg from a near-perfect leg-stump yorker was the surprise knife into the side of Manchester Originals. The four flicked around the corner from a next-ball full toss, then the single to take Rockets over the line, simply twisted it.As Gregory roared like a man finally being allowed to exorcise the tension he had managed so well up to that point, Richard Gleeson fell to his knees, eyes red from the pain of knowing he was most to blame. More so through having the courage and trust to deliver that final set. His second ball could have been better, but the first was more or less exactly what he wanted. It didn’t matter what the third was.Having been there at the end of Lancashire’s last-ball defeat in the Vitality Blast final against Hampshire, this was another demoralising moment for Gleeson – at the end of an otherwise breakthrough summer in which he’s made his England debut and earned a role as a designated reserve for the T20 World Cup. One crumb of comfort was how quickly he rose to his feet to congratulate the victors. The 34-year-old is no stranger to returning from adversity.How we got to this finish will remain a mystery, because nothing about how the match’s previous 195 deliveries suggested anything close to a high drama, high-quality finale. There was ebb and flow, which isn’t exactly what this format is supposed to be about. The scores and balls go up, then they come down, while the broadcasters assure you this is the best thing ever. By the end, they weren’t even hamming it up.Everyone got what they wanted at the toss. Manchester Originals chose to bat first, which suited Trent Rockets who were going to bowl. Midway through the fifth set, with Originals reeling on 22 for three – captain Laurie Evans, wily fox Wayne Madsen and soon-to-be England’s T20 starting opener Phil Salt all seen off in the space of 23 balls – it looked like one team had it very wrong.Sam Cook made the initial breakthroughs•Getty Images

Perhaps cues should have been taken from the women’s game. Oval Invincibles played a tacky pitch better than Southern Brave, in part because they could plan a route to their target of 102 rather than thrash around blindly on a pitch that wasn’t conducive to an engaging spectacle. By CricViz’s metrics, this was the toughest surface for batting in the Hundred this season.It was made that little harder by Sam Cook and Samit Patel, whose variants of seam and spin claimed four for 18 and three for 23 respectively. Cook’s were split evenly between the first 20 and final 20 deliveries. Evans was trapped lbw and Madsen bowled, before he returned at the death to remove Tom Lammonby with a leg-stump yorker and then castle Gleeson.Patel’s work, however, kept an explosive middle-order under wraps. Tristan Stubbs was undone by a bit of bounce – a top-edged sweep to fine leg taken superbly by wicketkeeper Tom Moores as he tracked the ball towards fine leg. The long levers of Walter came and went, as a leading edge found a sprawling Dawid Malan at cover to leave Patel on a hat-trick.The third did not come immediately, but it was perhaps the most valuable of the lot. Ashton Turner, Originals’ replacement for Andre Russell, was finding more joy than any of his team-mates, even striking Patel into the stands at midwicket for the only six of the innings. An attempt to repeat the shot against the 37-year-old found Cook in the deep. Nevertheless, the Australian’s jolt of adrenaline was enough for the tail to sneak to 120.Even with the deck as it was, the expectation was of a comfortable Rockets win, given a line-up packed full of international experience. However, their three T20I centurions all underwhelmed: Alex Hales clubbed Little to cover, Malan (19) gifted Stubbs a leading edge into the covers off Walter, and Colin Munro (16) gave Parkinson the last laugh with a catch at long-off after striking him for back-to-back fours.Patel offered little with the bat. He was struck on the head by a Walter short ball and then fell for just nine from 13 to leave a testing yet achievable 36 from 26. By the final 15, just after Moores had become Walter’s second, there were 24 required which became 15 from 13 when a scampered three was followed by a Daniel Sams heave to leg off Tom Hartley that was carried over the boundary by Lammonby.Related

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Another go at clearing that region went too straight and into Stubbs’ mitts at long-on, the first of two wickets for four runs in the eight balls that led to Gleeson’s fateful final five.The journey to that point had been long and winding, beginning at the start of August and featuring a Friday-night detour to the Ageas Bowl for Manchester Originals to earn the right to be here. And now, thanks to two wickets each for Little, Walter, Hartley and Parkinson, they were on the verge of doing it the hard way. Now they’ll have to start from the beginning and do it all again.As for the Rockets, this was no less than they deserved. They have set the standard in the men’s competition, right down to leaning on Nottinghamshire’s fashioning of Trent Bridge into one of the best short-form venue experiences in the world. For the longest time, the ground and the county have set a high standard for white ball cricket. Now they have another trophy to show for it, after a match that served a timely reminder that, no matter the format, cricket always wins.

“Different places, different conditions, and different countries,” the quick bowler says about similarity with start at Asia Cup

Madushka Balasuriya17-Oct-2022If the last year is anything to go by, Sri Lanka don’t mind doing things the hard way.In their most recent Test series at home against Australia, they lost the first Test comprehensively before bouncing back to take the second. In the ODI leg of the tour, too, there was a first-game defeat before winning three on the trot to take the series. They then repeated the trick against Pakistan, losing the first Test and winning the second. And then, most recently, they suffered an big defeat to Afghanistan in the Asia Cup opener before winning five in a row to take the title.Related

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Safe to say, an early wake-up call seems to be a go-to Sri Lankan strategy of late – well, at least that’s the running joke within Sri Lankan cricket social-media circles. Even so, Sunday’s 55-run defeat to Namibia has taken the now-customary slow Sri Lankan start to new levels – or depths.As things stand right now, Sri Lanka know they need to win their next two games, against UAE and Netherlands, to have a chance to make the main round of the T20 World Cup, but they will need other results to go their way because of the heavy opening-day loss. And that’s without considering possible washouts.”You know, yesterday we lost the match, and so right now, somehow we have to win; no matter what, we have to win the next two matches,” Chamika Karunaratne said, speaking ahead of Tuesday’s game against UAE. “I think the boys all know that. We are definitely going to put more than 100% in the next two matches. We are looking at the players that we have right now.”Still, all four teams are playing good cricket. Even in the last match yesterday, UAE versus the Netherlands finished in the last ball. We don’t know what can happen, and because this game is always exciting and a bunch of funny things. Anything can happen, so we’ll see.”Reflecting on their loss to Namibia, Karunaratne echoed Dasun Shanaka’s sentiments from the previous evening, giving credit to their opponents while accepting his own team’s failings.”We just had a bad day, and we have to accept that Namibia played good cricket yesterday from all three departments, batting, bowling and fielding,” he said. “So we have to accept that, and what we have to do is we have to review what we did, our mistakes and everything.”So we will take it more seriously and just play the next few matches because we are better than that. We are so much better than that.”The similarity with the Asia Cup start were pointed out to Karunaratne, but he was keen to highlight the differing circumstances.Sri Lanka won the Asia Cup after losing their first match against Afghanistan•AFP/Getty Images

“[At] the Asia Cup, we lost to Afghanistan in the first match, and after that, we won all the matches. But we aren’t thinking the same way because the Asia Cup is over now. It’s history,” he said. “Now we have to think about the World Cup. Different places, different conditions, and different countries.”The ground is also so different. Even one side is 57, one side is 55, and long straight. So many things are different, so we have to plan, and we have to play our game.”After that Asia Cup win, Sri Lanka had been touted by many as dark horses for the World Cup. Provided they make it through following this early blip, Karunaratne feels they have all the tools in place to go deep in the tournament.”We have everything. We have the power-hitting, we have players who can control the game, and we are fit players, strong players and mindful, tactical – we have all who can play in the different areas, where we have the pace, we have the variation and the spin is really good,” he said. “What we have to do is we have to bring the right attitude. That’s the most important thing.”But we have to have that. Not for us, even for the other sides, as well. But I think if we bring the right attitude – that’s the main thing – we can beat any team anytime.”