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Misbah-ul-Haq, the captain who has brought discipline back to Pakistan cricket, was not about to forego a perfect opportunity for an attritional day

The Report by David Hopps18-Jan-2012
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsWickets late in the day got England back into the match•Getty Images

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• The 114-run stand between Mohammad Hafeez and Taufeeq Umar is the sixth century opening stand for Pakistan against England and their first against England since 1996.

• This is only the sixth time that both openers have scored over fifty in an innings for Pakistan against England. The previous occasion was the forfeited Oval Test in 2006.

• Hafeez scored his seventh half-century in Tests. The 88 is his second-highest score against England after the 95 in the forfeited Oval Test in 2006.

• Taufeeq’s half-century is his 13th in Tests overall and his third fifty-plus score in his last four innings. Since his comeback in 2010, Taufeeq has scored 1026 runs at an average of 44.60 with three centuries.

• Misbah-ul-Haq became the sixth Pakistan batsman to score over 1000 runs as captain. His average of 74.07 is comfortably the highest on the list followed by Saleem Malik’s 52.35.

• Misbah also became the 28th Pakistan batsman to reach the 2000-run landmark in Tests. His average of 46.47 puts him fifth on the list of Pakistan batsmen with 2000-plus runs.

• England have won only two Tests in the subcontinent after conceding a first-innings lead. Both the wins have come against Pakistan, in Lahore (1961) and Karachi (2000).

Misbah-ul-Haq, the captain who has brought discipline back to Pakistan cricket, was not about to forego a perfect opportunity for an attritional day. There was a Test to be won and he was determined to win it slowly. The stadium was virtually empty and he seemed of a mind to empty it further. He might prove to be a wise old bird.Misbah is a batsman to slow a heartbeat. He is also a captain to calm a nation. His drip-feed innings enabled Pakistan to negotiate the second new ball, but it did not quite make the match safe. He had plodded to 52 in nearly three-and-a-quarter hours when Graeme Swann won an lbw decision, via the review system, in the penultimate over of the day. It was appropriate that his final shot was a studious defensive push.His departure filled England with fresh resolve. They immediately grabbed another wicket in the final over, James Anderson’s late swing proving too much for Abdur Rehman. Pakistan’s lead at the close was 96, but in such favourable batting conditions England could be satisfied at taking seven wickets in the day.Only once in the past 20 years have England won a completed Test after making less than 200 in the first innings of a match. They bowled with great discipline in the last two sessions and stifled Pakistan, but Saeed Ajmal’s career-best 7 for 55 has left them with a monumental task.Misbah’s main ally was Mohammad Hafeez, who has played only two Test innings against England and has narrowly missed a hundred on each occasion. The first time, at The Oval in 2006, Pakistan refused to play in protest of ball-tampering allegations and England won by a forfeit. There were times when another Pakistan forfeit seemed to be England’s only chance of getting out of this one.Hafeez’s 88 spanned four hours. He had a century for the taking when he swept in ungainly fashion at a floated delivery from Graeme Swann and was struck on the boot. He opted for the DRS in the belief that he might have got outside the line, but umpire Bruce Oxenford’s decision was narrowly upheld.Swann’s two wickets provided a necessary lift. His personal battle with Ajmal is expected to be one of the decisive duels of the series and Ajmal’s seven wickets, perhaps five of them gifted by England’s batsmen, invited excessive expectations on a sedate pitch. He was in his 14th over when Hafeez fell and his previous over had disappeared for 13, including a slog-sweep for six by the same batsman.England’s challenge in the first session rested with Stuart Broad. Taufeeq might have been run out on 38 when Ian Bell, from square leg and with one stump to aim at, narrowly missed. Instead, Broad struck 21 overs into the second day when Taufeeq was bowled by an excellent delivery from around the wicket that held its line to strike off stump.Broad’s emotions had swirled quite differently the previous ball. Hafeez, on 52, mishooked a bouncer towards short midwicket where Chris Tremlett made ponderous progress, dived and dropped it. Broad flashed one of his Draco Malfoy looks and it was a wonder that Tremlett did not turn to stone. Perhaps Broad imagined that he already had.There was much of Malfoy in Broad’s morning. There normally is. Andrew Strauss is a captain who has learned to resist Broad’s glowers whenever he wants an appeal referred to the third umpire. In his second over of the morning, he nipped one back to strike Hafeez on the pad, but Strauss resisted his overtures and the television replay proved him right.Ten minutes from lunch, Broad nipped one back to Younis Khan, still on nought, and pressed Strauss to refer the lbw appeal. The captain smiled benignly. The replay showed the ball was too high. As one observer has memorably observed, Broad indulges in L’Oréal appeals – because he is worth it. Broad’s second wicket, Azhar Ali, came earlier in the same over, a hint of away movement enough to find the outside edge.Dubai was a world away from the first Test of the last series between these sides: Trent Bridge 2010, where the ball hooped around for England’s swing bowlers and Pakistan were hustled out in no time for 182 and 80 on their way to a 354-run defeat.England have nine players remaining from that Test, Ian Bell and Chris Tremlett being the only additions; Pakistan have nine missing, all bar Umar Gul and Azhar. The restructuring of Pakistan’s Test side has gone far beyond the replacement of the three players jailed for spot-fixing. Salman Butt’s Pakistan has been virtually scrubbed from memory.England had a bonus shortly before tea, when Jonathan Trott cut one back sharply to have Younis lbw, so adding him to Jahurul Islam, of Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka’s Tharanga Paranavitana as one of his three Test victims.They only collected one wicket with the second new ball, Jimmy Anderson having Asad Shafiq caught at the wicket, when they needed to turn the match. Misbah nudged here, nurdled there and pulled a few faces. The scoring-rate fell from 3.5 runs per over in the morning to barely two in the final session. But England got him in the end and will believe this Test is not over yet.

The PCB has said that it will respond to the recommendations and suggestions made by the ICC’s Pakistan Task Team (PTT) within ten days

ESPNcricinfo staff08-Jul-2011The PCB has said that it will respond to the recommendations and suggestions made by the ICC’s Pakistan Task Team (PTT) within ten days.”We are observing each and every recommendation in microscopic detail and we will write a detailed response with our observations to the ICC in ten days’ time,” PCB chief operating officer Subhan Ahmed said.The PTT had presented a 38-page report during the ICC’s annual conference, listing 63 far-reaching recommendations that it believed would strengthen cricket in Pakistan. The report has also called, in strong terms, for a resumption of cricket ties with India, recognising it to be a key component of the fabric of Pakistan’s cricket.The PCB is reportedly unhappy with some of the suggestions in the report, particularly on selection and contract issues. They are also clear that the recommendations are merely guidelines, and they are not obliged to implement them.”These are recommendations and not obligatory directives,” a senior board official said. “They are not meant to be mandatory. These recommendations are just an observation by the task team. It is assumed that by adopting them, the system will improve but it is completely up to the board to comprehend what actually is feasible to adopt and what is not.”A member of the PCB governing council pointed out that the task team had not visited Pakistan even once to check ground realities while compiling the report. “What is also disappointing is that the task force has given no roadmap for the revival of international cricket in Pakistan,” another board official said.Former captain Javed Miandad was also critical of some of the guidelines. “Making recommendations or suggestions regarding the quality of cricket balls we use in our domestic circuit or our selection process are issues that should not be of concern to the task force,” he said. “These are purely internal matters of the PCB.”

A disciplined performance in the field and an explosive 35 off 19 balls from Brad Hodge helped Kochi Tuskers overcome Kolkata Knight Riders in the last match at the Nehru stadium

The Bulletin by Firdose Moonda05-May-2011
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsEoin Morgan opened up late, but Kochi’s bowlers held their nerve to finish on the winning side•AFP

A disciplined performance in the field and an explosive 35 off 19 balls from Brad Hodge helped Kochi Tuskers overcome Kolkata Knight Riders in the last match at the Nehru Stadium this IPL season.Hodge’s last over blitz, in which he took 21 runs off countryman Brett Lee, proved to be the difference between the two sides, as Kochi defended 156 by 17 runs. In the chase, RP Singh and Sreesanth failed to get the same kind of movement that Brett Lee extracted early in the Kochi innings. Jacques Kallis and Eoin Morgan didn’t have to take many risks early on as there were many poor deliveries that were smacked to the boundary. In the first three overs, the bulk of the short and wide ones came from RP Singh.R Vinay Kumar and Prasanth Parameswaran pulled back the chase before it raged out of control with a selection of back of a length deliveries that proved difficult to get away. Although they kept the boundaries down, they didn’t trouble the batsmen much and failed to get a breakthrough until after the halfway stage, when Kolkata were well set. Kallis was the senior partner and easily outscored Morgan in that phase. Seven times in the first ten overs Kallis stole the strike at the end of the over.Just as Kallis looked as though he had grown roots, Raiphi Gomez rattled Kolkata with a double strike in his second over. He bowled Kallis with a legcutter and had Gautam Gambhir caught in the covers off consecutive balls, which left Morgan to assume the senior role. Manoj Tiwary could not last long, and Yusuf Pathan was expected to counterattack, but he and Morgan were frustrated by Gomez’s variations and Parameswaran’s accurate fuller deliveries. Sreesanth let the noose loosen, giving Morgan back-to-back boundaries but Vinay Kumar was on hand to tighten it. Confusions between Morgan and Yusuf mounted in Vinay’s last over, and Morgan was run out when both batsmen ended up at the wicketkeeper’s end.It brought Brett Lee to the crease, in poetic justice for the last over he bowled, which went for 21. There were 25 to get off the last over of Kolkata’s innings. Lee was run-out and the task proved too steep.Kochi’s innings was anchored by a third-wicket partnership between Mahela Jayawardene and Michael Klinger before being given momentum at the death by Hodge. It didn’t look as though Kochi would get over the 150-run mark, especially after the way things started. Lee’s first over was a whole bag of peaches. He got impressive away movement and started the innings with a maiden.Some success seemed inevitable after the start Kolkata got and it came from Jaidev Unadkat, although he hardly deserved it. He banged one in, too short and too wide outside off that Brendon McCullum chased and his fine edge nestled in Kallis’ hands at slip.Parthiv Patel came in at No. 3 and opened his account with two stunning boundaries. He looked energetic and confident in his strokeplay and dealt with Unadkat’s bouncer and the introduction of spin, in the form of Iqbal Abdulla, with relative ease. Surprisingly, it was the short ball that undid him, when he charged down the track and miscued a pull shot to midwicket.The stage was set for Jayawardene to play an innings of authority and, with Klinger at the other end, he did exactly that. They played creative cricket, managing a boundary off five of the seven overs they were together for and pushed each other to take singles before Klinger holed out. When Abdulla got the wicket of Ravindra Jadeja for eight, Kochi were being pegged back and some impetus was needed.The floodgates were opened with Jayawardene’s six over long leg at the start of the 17th over and Kochi put on 54 runs in the final four overs, with Hodge’s fireworks yielding almost half of those.

The Report by Andrew Fidel Fernando in Galle08-Nov-2018
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsOn the third day of a Galle Test that has defied most predictions, Keaton Jennings produced an exceptional, unbeaten hundred, Ben Stokes provided a half-century and Ben Foakes and Jos Buttler made middling contributions to propel England to a virtually unassailable position. The visitors were 446 runs ahead at stumps, with Sri Lanka’s having had to bat seven overs following a declaration, as the day waned.England will hardly be bothered that they didn’t get a wicket before the close – there are two more days to play, and this is a notoriously treacherous surface on days four and five. No team has ever successfully chased more than 99 at this venue. No team has ever batted out more than 114 fourth-innings overs. Sri Lanka’s situation, in short, is bleak in the extreme.Jennings’ 146 not out off 280 balls was not quite flawless. There were mishits and plays-and-misses through the day, as Sri Lanka’s spinners – Dilruwan Perera in particular – repeatedly tested his outside edge. He should also have been out for 58 off the bowling of Dhananjaya de Silva, but the umpire turned the lbw appeal down, and Sri Lanka declined to review. But as many who have made second-innings hundreds on turning pitches in Asia will attest, you need such pieces of good fortune to build the kind of mammoth innings Jennings produced.What he did especially well was to resolutely defend the balls that threatened his stumps, and his pads, and let the turning deliveries spin past his blade. On the many occasions he was beaten, the close-in fielders would yelp and gesticulate, but Jennings refused to be shaken out of his calm. His defensive strategy had worked thus far. Why let the unplayable balls panic him into a different method?It was on the off side that Jennings prospered most, partly because Sri Lanka had two offspinners in their attack, but also because his most profitable strokes in the innings were the reverse sweep, the cut and the back-foot punch through the cover region. Of his first hundred runs, a full third came behind square on the off side. More than two thirds came on the off side in general.Sri Lanka attempted to curb the reverse sweep via various means, initially putting a man deep, then pulling him into the circle to try and tempt a mistake, and later even briefly posting a gully, in addition to a slip, to try and block off that area. Jennings continued to reverse sweep despite this, and just kept scoring runs. It wasn’t until later in the day, especially as England strove for quick runs ahead of the declaration, that Jennings began to play more expensively to leg. Of his nine fours, seven came on the off side.Sri Lanka had given themselves a glimmer of hope in the first session when they claimed three wickets for 14 runs, but through Jennings’ 107-run stand with Stokes, England virtually ground the opposition into the dust. Stokes was the aggressor, making 60 off 93, striking three big blows down the ground off the spinners, while Jennings pottered along at his own steady pace. By the time the pair were parted, England were 320 runs ahead, and batting had begun to look quite easy.Neither Buttler nor Foakes had much trouble beginning their innings, both going on to half-decent thirties, and sticking around for 77 and 61-run stands respectively. Foakes fell one ball before Joe Root declared the innings, holing out to deep midwicket in his attempts to make quick runs.Sri Lanka’s openers were largely untroubled as they took the team to 15 for no loss. Many hopes rest on Dimuth Karunaratne, who was not only Sri Lanka’s top-scorer in their most recent Test series, but has a reputation for playing long innings, against good opposition, in spinning conditions. Dinesh Chandimal is the other batsman who has recently produced marathon knocks with any deal of consistency, but he was off the field the entire day, still suffering from the groin strain he picked up while fielding on day one. It is likely to hamper his batting as well, and in any case, he cannot come in higher than at No. 7.For the hosts, a difficult day was made tougher by the fact that the retiring Rangana Herath could not prove effective against an England top order packed with left-handers. In his final innings with the ball, he removed Joe Root for the second time in the game, having him caught behind with a gripping delivery. Later, he removed Buttler, caught excellently at silly point by a diving Kaushal Silva.Herath led the team off the field after England declared, with 433 wickets to his name, which for now places him eighth equal on the all-time list, though he is sure to slip to ninth soon enough, when Stuart Broad, who is not playing in this Test, takes another scalp.

Zimbabwe captain feels situational awareness which they lack at the moment will only come if they play more Tests

Liam Brickhill in Bulawayo25-Oct-2017Graeme Cremer, the Zimbabwe captain, rued his team’s batting failures after West Indies completed a 117-run win in the first Test in Bulawayo. Zimbabwe collapsed from 91 for 1 to 159 all out on the second day at Queens Sports Club, and crumbled again in similar fashion on the fourth day. Cremer suggested “we couldn’t quite work out how to score against their bowlers on this wicket”.”I thought on day one we were excellent with the ball and in the field,” Cremer said. “We had a really good opportunity there to go and put some runs on the board and put them under pressure, but we had too many soft dismissals on day two. For me it comes down to that first innings. Even if we had got 250, in their second innings they would have been under a bit more pressure.”Zimbabwe’s lapses on the second day allowed West Indies a 60-run first innings lead, and the visitors built on that thanks to patient innings from their top five. Their batsmen were, perhaps, helped by the fact that they have seven Tests to Zimbabwe’s two this year.”It makes it easier when you are playing a lot more Test cricket, because you learn how to play different situations and you realise how much time there is in the game,” Cremer said. “I thought West Indies did it really well in the second innings – they slowed the whole game down and never looked rushed. It’s something we need to learn to do a bit more, in those periods that are tough just soak up the pressure. Then the opposition search for wickets and you get to score. The more we play I’m sure we’ll get better at that.”Zimbabwe were eventually set the monumental task of scoring 434 or surviving six sessions to avoid defeat. “We thought we would just play normal, positive cricket, and if we batted out today we could assess where we were at and whether we needed to try and survive the day or go for it,” Cremer explained. “It wasn’t to be. To chase down 434 is always going to be tough, especially on a wicket that was starting to deteriorate. The West Indies were just a bit better.”One clear positive for Cremer was the return of batsman Brendan Taylor and new-ball bowler Kyle Jarvis. Though neither could affect the outcome of the game, both players put in telling performances. “They came in and it was like they never left,” he said. “Guys accepted them straight back in. It was great to see Jarvy with the new ball again – I thought he was good on a tough wicket. BT obviously didn’t score in the first innings but we saw in the second innings how good he is and how good he can be. It was just a pity he got out when he did.”Cremer also paid tribute to fellow legspinner Devendra Bishoo, who spearheaded West Indies’ attack with nine wickets in the match, without denying that there was a bit of friendly rivalry between the two. “Bish bowled really well,” Cremer said. “I thought I went okay, I lost rhythm now and again but that can happen. But there’s definitely that competition between legspinners, but Bish is a good guy and we’re mates. We will probably exchange tips after the series, but not now.”

Middlesex sneaked a one-wicket win at Edgbaston and that leaves Warwickshire with a yawning gap of 48 points to safety in Division One of the Specsavers Championship

Jon Culley at Edgbaston06-Jul-2017
ScorecardA match that might have finished in an historic tie just went the way of Middlesex after a tense and absorbing conclusion, providing the defending champions with only a second win of the season and the hope that they might yet claw back more of the space that opened up between them and leaders Essex with last week’s thumping defeat at Chelmsford.None of the ties in first-class cricket has featured identical totals in both innings, yet that prospect was on the cards here as Middlesex, who had looked as though they would reach their target comfortably while Nick Compton and John Simpson were together, began to lose wickets with disconcerting regularity in the post-lunch session.Warwickshire fought as you would expect from a side desperate for a win and stand-in captain Jonathan Trott was never without an idea that might make something happen, but they are now 48 points adrift from safety,They gave themselves a substantial shot of hope and adrenalin before lunch when Jeetan Patel managed, seemingly against all probability, to draw Compton out of his crease and had him stumped.Until that moment, Middlesex looked in command, needing 112 with six wickets in hand. Yet Warwickshire, who have not enjoyed too many good moments in a largely dismal season, used that wicket as a motivational factor and had a fresh determination as they emerged for the afternoon session.Ryan Higgins at first maintained Middlesex’s momentum but Warwickshire somehow kept themselves in it. A fine catch by William Porterfield, diving forward from gully, removed Simpson off Rikki Clarke. And from 170-6, needing 64, Middlesex stumbled three more times.James Harris was unable to get out of the way of a super ball from Boyd Rankin – among a mixed bag of a performance, it has to be said – and gave a catch behind at 193-7, Higgins popped up a bat-pad short-leg catch off Patel at 210-8 and, tantalising Warwickshire fans even more, Ollie Rayner stepped across one from Rankin to be leg before, leaving his side nine down with seven still required.Tim Murtagh and Tom Helm kept their nerve admirably, however, taking four singles off Clarke before Murtagh found a gap on the offside against Rankin and took three runs to the longer boundary.Dawid Malan, Middlesex’s acting captain, believed the key phase of the match had been the last session on day three, when Tom Helm dismissed Trott for 99 and rapidly cleaned up the tail, leaving Warwickshire at least 20 or 30 runs short of where they had hoped to be.”I think the way Tom plus Tim Murtagh and Ryan Higgins bowled at the end of day three – their spell set it up for us because at tea they had been in the driving seat and we probably bowled them out for a lot less than they should have got,” Malan said.”We desperately needed that win. We haven’t been playing our best cricket so far and have not been able to string four good days together.”We have won two and lost two of our last four which is disappointing on the loss side because we pride ourselves on being hard to beat, but positive on the winning side.”To get a win moving forward with guys due to come back from injury and England duty when the Championship starts again we are in a good position to get a few wins in a row and be pushing for the top.”The concern for Warwickshire, of course, is about finding a way somehow to get away from the bottom, although with only six matches left time is running out.Yet coach Jim Troughton still believes his team’s character remains intact, even though results suggest that time is catching up with some of the senior members of their dressing room.”Yes, we probably need to win at least half our remaining games but in 2010 we needed to win four out of five and if there is one thing you can always say this team has been good at, over the years of winning trophies and getting to finals and bringing this club a lot of success, it is being up for it in the big games that matter.”We always knew that we were hitting a period of transition and that this season was going to be tough and we’ve had some performances this season we have not been proud of, where we have crumbled under pressure or drifted through sessions.”But this is a league in which anyone can beat anyone. Somerset have shown that up at Scarborough. And in this game we have gone toe to toe with a good side so we have to take positives from that.”We need to keep asking questions of the older players. We need to compete over all four days of games and to walk off at the end of the game knowing we have given everything and (on this occasion) I don’t need to question that.”He could not question the passion of some of those players, either, as was evident in the scenes on the third evening, before and after Stevie Eskinazi was dismissed for a duck – the score at which Warwickshire had been convinced he was out in the first innings before going on to score the match-winning individual score.The umpires had to intervene, asking Rikki Clarke and Keith Barker in particular to calm down, giving Trott another challenge as captain he might not have bargained for. Troughton admitted the incident had been a cause for concern.”We had a chat with the umpires and recognised that the passion probably bubbled over a little bit,” he said.”Our members maybe sometimes ask where’s the fight, where’s the passion in our team. They definitely saw it there but to people watching without knowing the context it does not look great. So we talked about being competitive and hitting them hard but not stepping over the line.”