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Adam Voges reflects on how the frankness with Australia coach Darren Lehmann told him he was out of the World Cup squad allowed him to focus on securing a Test spot

Daniel Brettig06-Jul-20151:28

‘It’s been a long road to get here’ – Voges

“I’m done then, am I?”Through his tears, Adam Voges summoned the gumption to ask Darren Lehmann if his international hopes were completely snuffed out. It was Allan Border Medal night in January 2014, and outside Doltone House on Sydney’s Elizabeth Street, Lehmann had told Voges that he would not be figuring in the team’s 2015 World Cup plans.Up to that moment, virtually all of Voges’ opportunities to play for Australia had been in coloured clothing. His record showed he had seldom let the team down. So to hear he would not be considered for the squad that would compete for the game’s biggest trophy on home soil truly hurt. There was not much room for any other chances, but Voges had to ask the question.Stubbing out a cigarette, Lehmann replied. “No, you’re not done, there’s always opportunities.” It might have been a throwaway line from a selector to a jilted player, but it has turned out to be very true. Voges cast off any bitterness about missing a World Cup spot and forged ahead for West Australia. Eighteen months later he is set to play in the first Investec Ashes Test in Cardiff.”I didn’t think I’d ever let anyone down when I’d played one-day cricket,” Voges said. “I thought my performances statistically were good and I played in a lot of teams that won games, so from that point of view it was pretty disappointing. But Boof was very honest and I knew exactly where I stood at the end of it.”It took a little while I must admit, but I moved on and my focus from then was doing well for WA. I think during that conversation I said, ‘Well I’m done then am I’, and his answer was no, you’re not’.”So maybe there was that little glimmer of hope when I walked away from that, but he certainly didn’t shut the door that’s for sure. It was just an honest chat that we had. It hasn’t changed me or him as a person in any way. I think there’s still a mutual respect and a good relationship there. I’m sure it was a hard chat for him to have as well.”Lehmann’s frankness allowed Voges to focus on Western Australia, and a prolific 2014-15 season elbowed him onto the plane to the West Indies and England. In Dominica he showed the value of his calm, measured batting on the way to a memorable debut hundred, and in England his ability to soak up pressure and bat around more combustible teammates will be invaluable.Adam Voges ended a long wait for the baggy green with a century on debut in the Caribbean•Getty Images

“I was batting the other day [in Chelmsford] and I came out and Warner was smacking them. Then he got out and Watto came in and he smacked them. Then he got out and Mitch Marsh came in and he smacked them,” Voges said. “I was quite happy doing my thing at the other end. If I can build partnerships with those guys then that’s what I try and focus on.”There will be times where I hopefully get a bit of a run on as well, and I’m certainly not there to just occupy balls. I’ll certainly be proactive and positive in the way that I play but those guys were on a different level the other day. I think that’s the art of batting, knowing when are the right times to attack and when a bloke is bowling well and you need to get through a tricky period. And knowing when you can cash in as well.”Generally, an Ashes is not considered the best time to include players with minimal Test match experience. However, Voges’ rich history of first-class matches, both in England and Australia, leaves him well placed to make an immediate impact, much as the opener Chris Rogers did in 2013.”I’ve learnt a bit of patience over the last few years,” Voges said. “My two young ones will be here tomorrow, and I think they’ve taught me patience pretty well. But I think it’s just experience – it’s going to be a big occasion, I’m sure there will be some nerves. You’d be disappointed if there weren’t.”But just going back and knowing I’ve played a lot of cricket now and just being able to go back on that experience and hopefully that will hold me in good stead.”That experience includes plenty of knowledge of England players. Stuart Broad, for one, was a team-mate with Nottingham. “Off the field, he’s a nice guy,” Voges said. “I’ve played a lot with him, I’ve always got along well with him. It’s always different when you walk across the white line, and we won’t be saying too much to each other I’m pretty sure. Once it’s all finished I’m sure we’ll have a beer afterwards but we’re here for business now, and that’s how it will be.”It’s the Ashes, we all grow up watching and is probably the most important Test series, so from that point of view, because of the occasion and how big it is, there’s always going to be a little bit of niggle in the heat of the moment, and that’s fine. Looking forward to getting out there.”

A round-up of the third day of the sixth round of Ranji Trophy Group C matches

ESPNcricinfo staff11-Dec-2012
ScorecardServices dismissed the last five Goa batsmen in time to take the points for first-innings lead in Porvorim and maintain their position at the top of the Group C table.They broke the 119-run fourth-wicket partnership between Ravikant Shukla and Rohit Asnodkar in the first over of the day and then took the remaining four wickets for 60 runs. Continuing with his overnight score of 52, Asnodkar added another 31 which took the team total to 381 in reply to Services’ 473. Right-arm medium bowler Yashpal Singh finished with figures of 4 for 12.Services came out to bat for 39 overs in the second innings and were 99 for 2 when the match ended in a draw.
ScorecardHimachal Pradesh and Assam ended up sharing one point each after only 50 overs were possible on the last day of the Group C tie in Guwahati. Himachal started the day 158 behind Assam’s first innings total, lost only one wicket and ended the day on 316 for 5, only 38 short of Assam’s total. Amit Kumar was out in the 10th over of the day, but Rishi Dhawan and Aatish Bhalaik shared an unbeaten 143-run stand.Allrounder Dhawan continued his good form scoring his third century of the season and taking his total to 460 runs. He earlier took four wickets in the match which made him the highest wicket-taker of the season so far with 32 wickets.
ScorecardSeventeen wickets fell on the third day at Malappuram and at the end of it Jammu & Kashmir had beaten Kerala by 74 runs. It was the first time J&K had won a second Ranji Trophy match in a season since 2000-01.The day had begun with J&K on 68 for 3 in their second innings, leading by 120. They were dismissed for 151. Padmanabhan Prasanth took 5 for 16 in 14.4 overs, while KR Sreejith claimed 3 for 56.Chasing a target of 204, Kerala had reached 44 for 0 before they began to collapse. They lost five wickets for 21 runs, and their last four wickets for 15. Apart from the openers, no one else got past 20 and Kerala were dismissed for 129. Parvez Rasool took 5 for 43 in 18 overs and Manik Gupta claimed 5 for 26 in 9.4

Mike Brearley, the former England captain, has said that Mohammad Amir, the Pakistan fast bowler currently in prison for his role in the spot-fixing scandal, should be treated more leniently

Siddhartha Talya20-Dec-2011Mike Brearley, the former England captain, has said that Mohammad Amir, the Pakistan fast bowler currently in prison for his role in the spot-fixing scandal, should be treated more leniently. Brearley said the pressure put on young players to fix spots or matches can be “appalling” and, should they admit their guilt and be willing to play their part in the fight against corruption, they ought to be given a second chance.”We also need to recognise that the pressure put on the young player by criminal bookies or their agents, or by their corrupt team-mates, can be appalling,” Brearley said in his Voice of Cricket Lecture at the Raj Singh Dungarpur World Cricket Summit in Mumbai. “As a result, some of those involved might need to be treated with compassion, especially if they admit their guilt and are willing to be enlisted in the battle against corruption. Deterrent and retributive justice tempered with mercy and discrimination is vital in sentencing and punishing.Mike Brearley has said that Mohammad Amir should be treated with more leniency•AFP

“I don’t think the whole truth has been told yet, or can be told. The 18-year old Mohammad Amir, who was subject to pressure and was, I believe, uninterested in any illegal financial gain, should have been, and I think should now be, treated much more leniently.”Amir was sentenced to six months in jail after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to accept corrupt payments and conspiracy to cheat during the Lord’s Test in August last year. The case was brought to court following a sting operation by the newspaper, which alleged that player agent Mazhar Majeed had arranged for Pakistan captain Salman Butt to ensure Amir and Mohammad Asif would bowl three pre-determined no balls.Unlike Butt and Asif, who were found guilty after a 21-day trial, Amir had pleaded guilty before the trial began. Justice Cooke, who presided over the trial, said the early admission of guilt played a part in the reduction of Amir’s jail term from nine to six months. Amir’s appeal against his sentence, however, was subsequently dismissed.”Like all secret organisations that recruit the naïve for illegal activities, the criminals linked to gambling draw people in by involving them first in activities that seem of a minor importance,” Brearley said, adding that such activities could include information about the pitch or fitness of players in the dressing room. “And once in, threats against the player or his family may make it extremely difficult to get out. In the strenuous search for exemplary punishment, there has to be room for giving a misguided young player a second chance.”Brearley said cheating was cricket’s most important issue and called for stakeholders to speak out against it. “Whistleblowing should become an absolute duty for everyone in the game.”

In the build-up to this Test match, England referred back so often to Headingley and Johannesburg, the scenes of their capitulations in their last two marquee series against Australia and South Africa, that complacency could not have been further from the

Andrew Miller at the WACA18-Dec-2010In the build-up to this Test match, England referred back so often to Headingley and Johannesburg, the scenes of their capitulations in their last two marquee series against Australia and South Africa, that complacency could not have been further from their thoughts. But somehow they’ve let their ascendancy slip again. With five wickets tumbling on a raucous third evening at the WACA, they face the prospect of going to Melbourne on Boxing Day with the series locked at 1-1, and the destiny of the Ashes in the balance all over again.On Friday, a display of individual brilliance from Mitchell Johnson hoisted Australia back into the contest, but Saturday’s batting performance owed more to demoralisation than any particular brilliance on the part of the bowlers. This time, Johnson needed no prodigious swing to find the edge of Andrew Strauss’s bat, while the last-ball dismissal of Paul Collingwood, whose score of 11 exactly matches his average in his last nine innings, summed up a match that is no longer in England’s hands.”It’s just one of those things,” said Chris Tremlett, who was England’s outstanding performer on the day with 5 for 87. “We bowled pretty well today at the end of the day, we fought back after a tough morning session and we were pretty pleased to bowl them out for what we did [309]. But credit to Australia, they bowled pretty well this evening. For the last few months, England have played pretty tough cricket, so it’s just one of those things.”However, the dynamic of the series has been transformed with astonishing speed. On Friday morning, as England’s openers moved effortlessly along to 78 for 0, the joke doing the rounds – with a serious undertone – was whether Australia’s bowlers could manage as many as 20 wickets in the series, never mind the match. Their tally at that stage stood at 17 after two completed Tests, at a cost of 1475 runs. Since the dismissal of England’s series mainstay, Alastair Cook, however, they’ve racked up 15 for 190.”Teams are always going to bat well [sometimes],” said Peter Siddle.
“You can’t just think that they’re going to be poor or be great all the time. To their credit they batted really well in those first few matches and we couldn’t break it, but it was just a matter of being patient and bowling as a group – that’s what’s changed here. All four quicks have bowled with patience and consistency and in great partnerships together … it’s put the pressure right on them.”England’s preparation and attitude throughout their Ashes campaign has been faultless, and Australia will remember full well what happened in England 18 months ago, when an innings victory at Headingley left England needing to bounce straight back in the final Test at The Oval to snatch the Ashes. They did just that, with Andy Flower and Andrew Strauss refusing to panic even while the press and public went into a tizzy on their behalf. The onus now will be to find the same level heads again.”It’s pretty obvious the guys are disappointed to get out because they’ve put in some pretty impressive performances in the other games,” said Tremlett. “But we’re not worried about momentum. They are going to take some momentum with a positive performance on their front, but we’re going to concentrate on our game. We’re still full of confidence, we’re still 1-0 up in the series and there’s always tomorrow and we still believe we can do it.”The second-innings collapse, when it came, was dramatic and unpreventable, with a succession of previously unruffled batsmen falling to strokes that they would not have played in other circumstances – particularly Kevin Pietersen, whose open-faced steer into the slip cordon almost caused him to thwack his bat on the plastic seating as he returned to the dressing-room.Tremlett, however, insisted that a degree of decorum had been retained in spite of England’s impending defeat. “It’s about not panicking when those situations happen,” he said. “Throughout the series the dressing room has been a pretty calm environment, even though we lost a few wickets we still remained pretty calm. It’s a long shot but we still believe we can put a partnership together and still win this game.”Siddle, however, was already preparing for Australia’s victory celebrations, with the prospect of a real tussle going into the festive season finale. “It does change things,” he said. “There was obviously a lot of pressure on us in this match to get a result. Mike Hussey was outstanding, Shane Watson held it together. It’s just a good team effort so far. There’s still a lot of work to be done but it does make a big change for us.”We just knew we had to change a little bit and work a little bit harder in the matches,” he said. “We just knew that if we played our best cricket that would put them under a lot of pressure. That’s what we’ve shown in this Test match, that we can play some good cricket.We’ve shown everyone out here, batting and bowling, that we can fight and we can work hard. If we could be patient and work them over, instead of them playing on top of us, we knew we could get results.”

A round-up of the first day’s play in the Ranji Trophy quarter-finals

Cricinfo staff24-Dec-2009
Scorecard
Mumbai were pushed to the brink by Haryana’s seamers but fought back admirably, thanks to Ajinkya Rahane and Ajit Agarkar who took them to 238 for 5 at stumps on the first day in Rohtak. Mumbai’s decision to bat first seemed to have backfired when Joginder Sharma and Sanjay Budhwar reduced them to 17 for 2. Wasim Jaffer briefly resisted before Sachin Rana broke Mumbai’s backbone, picking up wickets off successive deliveries. Life came a full circle for Rohit Sharma, who followed his majestic triple-hundred in the last league game with a first-ball duck. Mumbai seemed down and out, but Rahane and Agarkar counter-punched with a 174-run stand in 58.1 overs. Agarkar cracked nine fours and a six before Rana made him his third scalp of the day. Rahane however stood firm, carrying on after reaching a well-deserved century, including 14 fours. Ramesh Powar gave him resolute company, blocking out 29 deliveries without scoring.
Scorecard
Tamil Nadu’s batsmen gave them the early ascendancy against Delhi at the Palam A Ground. The hosts’ decision to field first was countered admirably by openers Abhinav Mukund and Murali Vijay who both made fifties and put on a century partnership. Vijay was the first to fall, dismissed by Mithun Manhas after striking nine fours during his 51. Arun Karthik, who came in at one-drop, took over the mantle from his captain and guided his side’s progress through the day. Mukund was sent back by Vikas Mishra after the visitors crossed 150. S Badrinath’s aggressive innings was nipped in the bud before Srikkanth Anirudha continued the good work with Karthik. The latter’s wicket in the closing stages gave the hosts some consolation but they still have a long way to go, given the good form of the Tamil Nadu lower order.Assam 17 for 1 (Gupta 1-1) v Uttar Pradesh 213 (Kaif 56, Konwar 5-79)
Scorecard
Offspinner Arlen Konwar continued his dream-run at this year’s Ranji trophy, picking up 5 for 79 as Assam held sway against Uttar Pradesh in Guwahati. The visitors’ decision to bat first was initially vindicated by their top-order with the first two wickets adding 96 runs. Shivakant Shukla provided the early impetus with a stroke-filled 47 before Mohammad Kaif anchored proceedings with a sedate half-century. Konwar however, changed the complexion of the game completely with his fine spell. He signaled his intentions early in his spell, getting rid of Tanmay Srivastava and Shukla to spoil the good work done by the top-order before coming back to dismiss Parvinder Gupta and trigger a massive middle-order collapse from which the visitors never recovered. Sairaj Bahutule got rid of Kaif and the tail, leaving Amir Khan stranded on 23. Dheeraj Jadhav injured himself on the field and did not come out to open Assam’s innings which faced an early setback when Amit Sinha fell with stumps in sight.

Opener gives squad a boost after tough tour of India, as England build towards Australia opener

ESPNcricinfo staff15-Feb-20252:28

Buttler: ‘We’ve done plenty of training throughout the tour’

England’s Champions Trophy prospects have received a boost after Ben Duckett was given the all-clear, following a left groin injury sustained during last week’s ODI series against India.Duckett’s form at the top of the order had been one of the positives for England in an otherwise disappointing campaign. He made two half-centuries across the T20I and ODI series, in which England won just one of the eight matches, but contributed regular strong starts in the powerplay, alongside Phil Salt, which whom he made three consecutive fifty stands.However, Duckett appeared to tweak his groin while fielding in the latter stages of India’s innings in the final ODI at Ahmedabad on Wednesday, and was visibly hampered while making a boundary-laden 34 in England’s subsequent innings.However, with England having decamped to the UAE ahead of their Champions Trophy campaign, scans on Duckett’s groin have revealed no significant issue, and an ECB press release declared him “fit and available” for England’s tournament opener against Australia in Lahore on February 22.England are due to arrive in Pakistan on February 18, and the news is a welcome boost given the squad’s other injury concerns. They have already lost Jacob Bethell to a hamstring injury, with Somerset’s Tom Banton drafted into the squad as a replacement, while Jamie Smith has not featured since the third ODI on January 28 due to a calf injury.Ben Duckett was in form during the India tour without converting his starts•Getty Images

There are concerns among the fast-bowling contingent too, with Brydon Carse managing a toe injury and Jamie Overton affected by a hamstring issue. Jofra Archer is also nursing a cut hand.The squad has had to ride out criticism of their training methods, too, with Kevin Pietersen particularly outspoken about their lack of net practice during the ODI series.Renewing his attack on X on Thursday, Pietersen said that injuries are part and parcel of sport, adding that that was not what was stopping “batters from batting against net bowlers and learning the art of playing spin”.However, Brendon McCullum, England’s head coach, rejected the “factually incorrect” take on England’s preparations, and insisted that his team was on track to compete strongly at the Champions Trophy.”Guys have come from a lot of cricket and keeping guys fresh is just as important, especially when you have injuries,” he said. “We’ve done lots of training. We have had injuries in the camp so we’ve backed guys off a little bit to make sure we had a fit team.”

India batter becomes the first to score 50 ODI hundreds, and also breaks Tendulkar’s record for most runs in a World Cup

ESPNcricinfo staff15-Nov-2023After becoming the first batter to score 50 ODI centuries, Virat Kohli described the moment as “the perfect picture,” for having achieved the record in a World Cup semi-final against New Zealand, in front of his wife Anushka Sharma and Sachin Tendulkar, the man whose record he broke.As he flicked Lockie Ferguson behind square in the 42nd over of India’s innings and completed the two that got him to his 50th hundred, Kohli celebrated with a leap and a punch in the air, before taking off his helmet, raising his arms and bowing towards the stands, where Tendulkar and Anushka stood applauding the achievement.”It’s stuff of dreams, Anushka was sitting right there, Sachin was there in the stands,” Kohli said while being interviewed during the innings break. “I mean, it’s very difficult for me to explain this, but if I could paint the perfect picture, I would want this to be the picture. My life partner, the person I love the most, she’s sitting there. My hero, he’s sitting there. And I was able to get the 50th in front of all of them and all these fans at Wankhede as well, such a historic venue. It was amazing.”Related

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While Tendulkar had scored his 49th hundred in his 451st ODI innings, Kohli had equalled that landmark in just 277 innings – against South Africa in India’s penultimate league game of this World Cup – and then broke the record in his 279th innings.”I said it in Kolkata, the great man (Sachin Tendulkar) just congratulated me, all this feels like a dream for me, honestly,” Kohli said. “It’s too good to be true, feels surreal, I never thought I’ll be here ever in my career. Just to help the team so many times, again, a big game today, I had to kind of play the role I’ve played throughout the tournament so that the guys around me can go and express themselves. Just glad that everything came together so nicely and we put up a great total on the board as well.”