Spin might not play as a big a role in the UAE in October-November as anticipated, says England captain

Matt Roller21-Jul-2021Eoin Morgan does not expect pitches to be conducive to spin in the T20 World Cup in October-November, and feels there are still spots up for grabs in the England set-up despite the fact that they will not play another T20I before naming a provisional squad for the tournament in mid-September.England have never bowled as many overs of spin in a T20I series outside of an ICC event as they did against Pakistan (28 in three games), and with the World Cup scheduled to be played in the UAE (some first-round matches will be hosted in Oman) immediately after the rescheduled IPL, there had been suggestions that playing on slow, spin-friendly pitches would serve them well for the tournament.Related

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Morgan, however, suggested that venues in the UAE were used to a heavy load of games, and that based on his previous experiences playing there, spinners should not be expected to be significantly more effective than seamers.”We know as a side and a squad how good we are when wickets are good to bat on,” Morgan said on Tuesday night, after England beat Pakistan in their third T20I to seal the series 2-1. “We know our weakest point is when it’s not so easy, and tonight, I don’t think it was. There was a bit of an extreme circumstance where the ball turned a lot and was quite slow off the wicket [so the win was] extremely positive.”Today, going in with a different-balanced side – not necessarily going in with two out-and-out spinners and making up overs with a couple of allrounders – if you add Ben Stokes into that to cover another allrounder’s position, or Sam Curran, that presents a strong 12 or 13 within itself if we do play on wickets that turn a lot, [but] I am not anticipating that to happen. Having played in the UAE recently at the time of year that the World Cup is going to take place, the ball actually didn’t turn a great deal.”The IPL was played there after I can’t remember what tournament when we were there last time around [in 2020] and the wicket was still fine, good, held together really well. The curators there did a great job. I don’t think they will [spin]. They might, but I don’t think they will. If you go IPL and then you have the very start of the World Cup in Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Dubai as opposed to having it in Oman as well, that might play a part but I think they can host a lot of cricket. They’ve been used to it for a while.”Morgan also left the door open for players to make a late push for inclusion in the squad through performances in the Hundred, having previously suggested that Tymal Mills, the left-arm quick, could bowl himself into contention. He also suggested that the make-up of England’s squad would depend on the venues they are due to play at, which are yet to be confirmed.”It’s going to be role-dependent,” Morgan said. “Hopefully our fixtures and venues are announced before we have to announce the squad and then we can map out the roles that we might need in various different strongest XIs and then we can work back from there. If we end up playing all our games at Abu Dhabi, or all our games at Sharjah, it creates different challenges. If they’re spread out, we’d need a more versatile squad.1:01

How long was Liam Livingstone’s monster six?

“We want as many options as possible. We are continually monitoring different guys. There are certain players we look at that that could have avenues in: guys that do things differently, left-armers, guys that bowl at pace or have a huge impact on the game, predominantly hit boundaries with the bat. There is still opportunities for guys to do that in the Hundred, and have an outside chance.”England face several tough choices heading into the World Cup, not least since Liam Livingstone was named player of the series after furthering his case for inclusion in the starting XI. Dawid Malan, who is averaging 26.80 with a strike rate of 114.52 in T20Is this year following his 31 off 33 balls on Tuesday night, looks vulnerable as a result of Livingstone’s success, but Morgan said he still saw Malan playing “a big role” for England.”Just because he’s had a quiet series doesn’t mean he’s not a good player,” Morgan said. “He’s done exceptional things for us over a long period of time. I think today’s game, the way he played actually suited his game more than most. He’s a guy that can take time and can go through the gears whereas actually, the majority of our team and the majority of our batting XI can’t. So when the scores are a little bit lower, he doesn’t have to push himself as much as he normally does or has done in an England shirt to date.”Liam is a guy we have wanted to find more out about. He’s certainly grown in stature, probably in the last year or so with his involvement in and around the group. When guys haven’t had opportunities for a number of years, having been involved for a short period of time, we look at how they come back in: have they improved certain things? I think Liam has improved a huge amount, and would say that himself. Other guys like Saqib Mahmood have done the exact same.”

Head coach calls suspension of Gunathilaka, Kusal Mendis and Dickwella ‘a massive blow’ to the team’s chances

Madushka Balasuriya02-Oct-2021The year hasn’t been ideal for Sri Lanka in terms of World Cup preparations. Three of their premier white-ball batters have been handed year-long suspensions, and another is just feeling his way back from injury. But head coach Mickey Arthur believes his side is coming together nicely, even if the batting remains a work in progress.”I think the good thing with squad we’ve got at the moment is that we can be flexible, we can certainly be flexible in terms of how we set our team up,” Arthur, speaking a day ahead of his team’s flight out to Oman for the T20 World Cup first round, said. Sri Lanka have to slug it out with seven other teams to get to the main competition, featuring the top-eight teams and four qualifiers.Related

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“I’ve been watching the IPL very intently because we’re going to be playing on the same wickets [during the World Cup]. Looking at the conditions, we’ll probably go two seamers and two spinners, and then our allrounders, and potentially another part time spinner from our top-order batsman. But we are flexible enough – if the wickets dry out considerably – to go with three out-and-out spinners.”Sri Lanka begin their T20 World Cup campaign on October 18 with the first of three qualifying games – against Namibia, Ireland and the Netherlands – but prior to that, they square off in two T20s against Oman on October 7 and 9. The team will also have two warm-up games, against Bangladesh and Papua New Guinea, on October 12 and 14.While the calibre of the competition in these games might not be as high as what Sri Lanka re likely to face if they make it to the World Cup proper, at this point, simply playing some competitive cricket is arguably the most important thing. Especially in terms of getting the batting in gear.”That [the batting] is an area we’ve worked extremely hard on over the past nine days. We’ve had three practice games, we’ve had some skill sessions to prepare players to sweep, we identified where and how we want our players to play. We’ve almost scripted a game,” Arthur said. “I think if our batting clicks it’ll give us a really good chance, because I think our bowling attack is very good and our fielding standards have improved dramatically.”We’ve been very clear in what we want our players to do in terms of our match practice, and then we’ve gone to nets after that, reviewed it and practiced it. So, I’m really comfortable now that we have got better at it. But it’s certainly a work in progress. There’s no magic wand here.”One of key areas being looked at has been Sri Lanka’s running between the wickets. In a team lacking big-hitters, Arthur believes an ability to limit dot balls would be crucial in being able to set and chase imposing totals. “That’s something I’ve been working on for the last nine months with our group,” he said. “It’s easy to stand and try and hit boundaries, but having the ability to deflect a ball into a gap off a good ball is a real art. That’s the real art of batsmanship. So, we’ve done a lot of drills during this phase, and we’ve harped on that.”That said, in Chamika Karunaratne, Sri Lanka do have one player capable of clearing the boundary comfortably – as showcased numerous times in the recent home series against South Africa. In a squad that allows for a lot of flexibility, Karunaratne would likely play a key role in helping up the tempo for the side when necessary.Mickey Arthur gives his final decision during a nets session•PA Images via Getty Images

“He will have a floating role,” Arthur said. “What we’ve done over the last couple of training sessions and practice games is that we’ve given clear identification as to at what stage each player comes to the wicket, and what’s the skill set required for that particular stage of the game.”So he clearly fits in there. We want to get him probably overs 15-20, so that him, Dasun Shanaka and Wanindu Hasaranga sort of fix that berth for us.”However, without the suspended top-order trio of Danushka Gunathilaka, Kusal Mendis and Niroshan Dickwella, much of the batting responsibility would have to be shouldered by Kusal Perera, himself on his way back from injury.”That [the suspensions] was a massive blow for us. You’re talking about three of your top-five batters in the white-ball format there. That was a bitter pill to swallow for sure. You suddenly got back to square one in terms of your planning again,” Arthur said. “It was really disappointing, but it led us to find the likes of Charith Asalanka, who has come on beautifully, Kamindu Mendis, who’s playing beautifully, Pathum Nissanka probably got another opportunity again. It’s allowed Dinesh Chandimal to come back into the mix. Bhanuka Rajapaksa to come back into the mix. So out of that adversity it’s allowed opportunities to other players.”As for Perera, Arthur confirmed that the former skipper had been taking part in the intra-squad matches over the past few days and shown “absolutely no signs of injury” – though the plan was still to ease him back in to the side. “He has been working unbelievably hard with the physio. He batted today, he went out and setup the innings beautifully with young Pathum Nissanka. He played an exceptional innings and showed absolutely no signs of any injury. We’ll still take it slow with him, because he’s one of our major players.”We’ll have him in tip-top condition come the first game on the 18th. But how do we use him in the coming games? Perhaps he plays two out of four.”

Six teams will take part in the tournament, which was last held in December 2019

Mohammad Isam22-Dec-2021The 2021-22 Bangladesh Premier League will take place from January 21 to February 18. The players’ draft will be held on December 27 in Dhaka, although the participating teams are allowed to sign one Bangladeshi and three overseas players outside the draft.Teams are required to register at least three overseas and ten local players (except those signed outside the draft) from the draft. During a BPL match, a team has to pick three overseas players. If picked in the draft, the overseas players can earn between US$ 20,000 and 75,000, while the local players will earn between BDT five lakh (approx. US$ 5,555) and 70 lakh (approx. US$ 77,700).Six teams will take part in the tournament, last held in December 2019, with four previous owners having bought franchises from the BCB.”There was a bit of uncertainty regarding the BPL,” Ismail Haider Mallick, BPL governing council chairman, said. “We had to consider whether the Bangladesh team can finally play in New Zealand due to the Covid situation. We were prepared to hold the BPL. Six teams have registered with us. We have a few conditions for them – they have to guarantee the participation money. They have to make this payment before the tournament starts.”The tournament will be played in three venues across Dhaka, Sylhet and Chattogram. The Bangladesh team will return home from New Zealand on January 14 or 15, which leaves them with a few days to prepare for the T20 competition.The champions will get BDT one crore (approx. US$ 111,100) while the runners-up side will get BDT 50 lakhs (approx. US$ 55,555).

Dilshan Fonseka, the team’s trainer, has also tested positive

Madushka Balasuriya31-Jan-2022Uncapped Sri Lankan fast bowler Nuwan Thushara has tested positive for Covid-19, and his participation in Sri Lanka’s upcoming T20I tour of Australia has been put in doubt as a result. Dilshan Fonseka, the team’s trainer, has also tested positive and, like Thushara, is “currently undergoing covid-19 protocols”, according to a Sri Lanka Cricket statement*.Though the update about Thushara has just come to light, ESPNcricinfo understands that he had returned a positive result six days ago. His second RT-PCR test is scheduled for Tuesday, the seventh day from the initial test, but with the team set to fly out on February 3, SLC and its medical team will have to decide whether Thushara can travel with the rest of the squad or not.Related

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According to the head of SLC’s medical department, Prof Arjuna de Silva, even in the event of a negative test on Tuesday, Thushara would need to undergo further tests before getting clearance to play.”We haven’t still decided on that [his inclusion in the travelling party],” de Silva said. “Generally, under normal protocol, we do a cardiac and lung assessment [prior to clearing a player]. If we send him with the team, assuming his second PCR comes back negative, we will then have to assess him in Australia before he plays.”de Silva, though was optimistic of Thushara’s inclusion, with the 27-year-old currently asymptomatic, and also confirmed that no-one else from the travelling party had been in close contact with Thushara, who had picked up 12 wickets in eight games for Galle Gladiators in the recent Lanka Premier League.The quick with the slingy action has, unsurprisingly, been compared with Lasith Malinga, who was recently hired by SLC as a bowling strategy coach for the tour of Australia. The squad has a number of other fast-bolwing options: Dushmantha Chameera, Lahiru Kumara, Chamika Karunaratne, Binura Fernando and Shiran Fernando. Nuwan Pradeep was not picked for the tour.Sri Lanka are scheduled to play five T20Is in Australia from February 11-20, with the first two games in Sydney before the action moves to Canberra and then Melbourne.

Titans will be based out of Ahmedabad, and captain by Hardik Pandya

ESPNcricinfo staff09-Feb-2022The new Ahmedabad-based IPL team will be called Gujarat Titans. The franchise revealed the name on Wednesday, ahead of the IPL auction on the weekend.Titans, among two new entrants to the IPL along with Lucknow Super Giants, was bought by CVC Capital Partners (Irelia Company Pte Ltd) last October. The franchise has three players on their roster ahead of the auction: Hardik Pandya (captain), Rashid Khan and Shubman Gill.It will be only the second IPL team for all three players, with Rashid coming over from Sunrisers Hyderabad, Gill from Kolkata Knight Riders, and Pandya from Mumbai Indians. This will also be the first time Pandya leads an IPL franchise.Titans have also finalised their coaching staff comprising Ashish Nehra (head coach), Gary Kirsten (mentor and batting coach) and Vikram Solanki (director of cricket). The trio has worked together for Royal Challengers Bangalore previously.Titans’ home stadium will be the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, the world’s largest cricket stadium.”We want this group to achieve great things for Gujarat and its many passionate fans, which is why we have chosen the name Titans,” Siddharth Patel, a partner at CVC, said in a release on Wednesday. “As we approach the league’s mega auction, we are confident that we will be able to put together the right combination of players going into the new season. We want individuals that are not only highly skilled but who are inspired to be Titans of the game.”We look forward to starting on our journey with the passion and support of the people of Gujarat, and hope to inspire and win over new fans from all over India and the world.”Titans will have INR 52 crore (USD 7 million approx.) in their purse for the auction, having spent INR 38 crore (USD 5.1 million approx.) on Pandya (INR 15 crore/USD 2.02 million approx.), Rashid (INR 15 crore) and Gill (INR 8 crore/USD 1.07 million approx.).

She is serving pre-tournament quarantine because of her delayed arrival after the birth of her first child

Annesha Ghosh02-Mar-2022South Africa opener Lizelle Lee has been ruled out of the team’s opening match of the ODI World Cup against Bangladesh on March 5 in Dunedin.ESPNcricinfo has learnt that Lee, the 2021 ICC Women’s ODI Cricketer of the Year and South Africa’s most explosive batter, is currently serving a mandatory pre-tournament quarantine at the New Zealand government’s Managed Quarantine and Isolation (MIQ) facility after a pre-arranged delayed arrival in the country following the birth of her first child. She will link up with the South African squad this weekend and will hence miss the fixture against Bangladesh on Saturday.Lee is understood to have arrived in New Zealand last weekend, more than two weeks after other members of the South African touring party landed and entered quarantine at MIQ. The delay in Lee’s arrival in New Zealand is down to an arrangement facilitated by the ICC, Cricket South Africa (CSA), the South Africa Cricketers’ Association (SACA) and New Zealand Cricket (NZC) following a months-long liaison among them and Lee, who had requested CSA for a delayed departure so she could spend time with her wife, Tanja Cronje, who gave birth to their son on February 22.”Look, it’s a tough one,” Lee told ESPNcricinfo in an interview in January when asked what juggling cricket and the impending birth of her child might look like for her leading into the World Cup. “Our baby is due no later than February 25. I’m trying everything in my power to try get a later flight to New Zealand for the World Cup because I really want to be there at the birth and not only being at the birth, but just being there the few weeks before trying to help Tanja with everything that’s going on. I mean it’s not going to be easy for her doing anything alone.”I know, things are bit hard at the moment because of Covid and I know they want everybody to try and fly in on the same time, but it’s just different circumstances; it’s not like I’m trying to stay home just to stay home. It’s literally the birth of our first child. Hopefully, the ICC and New Zealand can accommodate that and I know CSA is backing me as well, they’re already trying from their side.”It’s a tough decision deciding where I’m going to either stay, maybe skip the World Cup, or I don’t know. My family is extremely important to me and, like I said, it’s our first child and I don’t want to miss out and I want to give my best for South Africa at the World Cup as well.”Lee, placed sixth on the ICC rankings for ODI batters following her recent dominance at No. 1, had missed South Africa’s home series against West Indies, too, in January-February having been grounded by Covid-19.South Africa, semi-finalists in the 2017 ODI World Cup, play their second match on March 11 against Pakistan, in Mount Maunganui. They lost both their warm-ups: against India by two runs and England by six wickets in a rain-curtailed fixture.

Essex attack made to toil six months on from shortest Championship match of modern times

ECB Reporters Network28-Apr-2022Opener Will Young personified an obdurate batting performance by Northamptonshire on the first day of their LV= Insurance County Championship match at Chelmsford. The New Zealander followed up his match-saving 96 against Yorkshire last week with a painstaking 63 before Northants lost a clutch of late wickets to creep to 233 for 7 at the close.Young’s 100-run partnership for the second wicket with Emilio Gay set the tone for a day of frustration for the Essex attack. After Young became the second of Sam Cook’s two victims, the cudgels were taken up by Luke Procter, around whom Northants’ middle-order resistance was built. The left-hander will resume on Friday morning on 60 from 164 balls.Essex’s decision to put Northants in appeared to have been vindicated immediately when Ricardo Vasconcelos edged Cook’s third ball into the slip cordon. But thereafter, the Essex bowlers toiled on a benign strip that offered little before they finally parted Gay and Young, who dug in for a workmanlike 38-over partnership that had few frills, few thrills and even fewer chances. It became the story of the day.It was a far cry from Northants’ calamitous visit to Chelmsford last September that resulted in the shortest match of the modern four-day era: students of the unusual will remember that it finished half-an-hour into day two. This time, though, the visitors passed the 45 that constituted their second-innings total then inside 20 painstaking overs; the 81 of their 2021 first innings was overtaken with the first ball after lunch in an over where Young hit Shane Snater for three fours from alternate deliveries.Cook kept the pair in check in a seven-over opening spell in which the seamer conceded just eight runs, the only dent coming when Gay pulled him with supreme nonchalance to the boundary. The second-wicket stand had reached three-figures when it was finally broken. Snater got one to move away from Gay and Alastair Cook took the catch low down to his right at first slip.Young’s three-hour, 146-ball stay ended soon after when he shouldered arms to a ball from Cook that nipped back off the seam and trapped him lbw.Proctor and Rob Keogh put on 45 quietly and efficiently in 16 overs until the stroke of tea when Keogh prodded tentatively at a delivery from Matt Critchley that the bowler caught tumbling forward just above his boot-straps.Paul Walter, called in to replace loanee Adam Rossington, denied permission to play against his parent club, claimed the scalp of Saif Zaib with his rarely seen medium-pacers, pinned lbw shuffling across the stumps. Lewis McManus hung around for three-quarters of an hour for 7 before he wafted at one outside off stump from Snater and Simon Harmer pounced in front of Cook the elder at first slip to snaffle the catch.If Cook junior was the pick of the Essex bowlers with his two wickets, then the Australian Mark Steketee chose the fourth of his six-match stint to bowl his most controlled and impressive spell since he joined at the start of the season.The waywardness of Steketee’s first outing against Kent earlier in the month when he went for almost four runs an over was replaced by a parsimonious economy of 1.86. His efforts were finally rewarded when Harmer took a sharp one-handed catch at second slip to account for Tom Taylor just before stumps.

Club threatened with further sanctions after failure to outline plans for change

Matt Roller31-May-2022 • Updated on 01-Jun-2022Essex have fallen “significantly short” of diversity targets for their board introduced by the ECB and have been told that they could face sanctions.The ECB’s action plan to tackle racism and all forms of discrimination, published in November after what outgoing chief executive Tom Harrison described as an “earthquake” of revelations around institutional racism, included a target for county boards to feature 30% female representation and “locally representative ethnicity” by the end of April 2022, which has been achieved at an aggregate level.Two-thirds of the first-class counties have met targets or are in the final stages of recruitment and have committed to doing so, while five – Hampshire, Lancashire, Middlesex, Surrey and Warwickshire – have been granted “comply or explain” extensions.Related

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But the ECB said in a statement on Tuesday that Essex had been placed “in a non-compliance process as they have fallen significantly short of their targets and do not yet have a clear action plan to deliver change within an appropriate timescale”.The statement added: “As part of this process, Essex CCC must provide an updated action plan for approval by the ECB and sanctions may be considered if sufficient progress is not made within agreed deadlines.”Essex were fined £50,000 last month by a Cricket Discipline Commission (CDC) panel and warned over future conduct after accepting two charges relating to a historic racist comment by John Faragher, their ex-chair.”The club continue to make great strides in creating a board which represents the diverse communities we serve as Essex Cricket,” John Stephenson, Essex’s chief executive, said in a statement on Wednesday. “We have had to overcome many obstacles to date, but I am pleased with the progress we are making and the plans in place to implement a positive change.”The ECB issued the club with a formal letter regarding non-compliance and this forms part of the process in driving change. We are taking the whole process very seriously and it was disappointing that the club were singled out from the nine other county organisations who also don’t currently comply.”I am in constant dialogue with the ECB regarding our progress and they completely support everything we are doing to address the issues they raised. We are undergoing an action plan to address board diversity, which forms part of an ongoing process to apply changes.”Stephenson added that the club will soon release the full independent investigation into historical allegations of discrimination at Essex, with five new board members and three new directors due to be appointed at an upcoming AGM.”I can assure our members, supporters, commercial partners and other stakeholders that plans to drive compliance will be implemented in time to meet the ECB deadlines and we are confident that no further sanctions will be taken against the club,” he said.Elsewhere in the latest update on the action plan, the ECB said it had made £2.5 million of funding available to support facility development to “improve provisions for families and under-served communities” at professional venues.The ECB has also started recruiting for a new ‘head of discipline’ to manage discrimination allegations, assist counties and oversee investigations processes.June 1 – This story was updated to include John Stephenson’s comments

South African bags four early wickets as visitors stutter to 68 for 6 in reply to 238

David Hopps26-Jun-2022Chelmsford is Simon Harmer country again. The sun is up, the pitch is turning on the first day and one by one he can expect that all his dreams will come true.If Hampshire are to quicken their Championship challenge here – they lie second, three points behind Surrey as the halfway stage of the season approaches – then they will need to withstand Harmer at his most potent. Few county sides have shown the ability to do that. Much more likely is that he will finish with something approaching the best match figures of the season.By the close of the opening day, he held figures of 8-2-23-4 with Nick Gubbins, James Vince, Liam Dawson and Aneurin Donald already ticked off. The welcome inclusion of a few Championship matches in midsummer might be designed for him.An attention-grabbing haul will also sharpen his chances of retaining his place in South Africa’s side for a three-Test series against England, beginning at Lord’s on August 17. He returned to the fray after a near seven-year absence in March and April and returned 13 for 78 in two Tests, with Bangladesh shot out for 53 in Durban. But his fellow spinner, Keshav Maharaj was also in the wickets and it would be a rare thing for two specialist spinners to be fielded in England.These are the days of summer wine that Harmer has been missing, a throwback to 2017 when he took the second-highest haul in the country with 72 wickets at 19.19 and teams came to Chelmsford and came over all of a tizzy.The following seasons were successful, too, but his rewards have been meagre this summer, with only 12 wickets at 39.33 at the start of this match, partly the result of three tortuously slow, low Chelmsford surfaces in which all matches have been drawn. This surface had more bounce and pace, not just for Harmer, but also for the seamers. He was brought into the attack as early as the eighth over after Sam Cook had dealt with arguably the weakest opening pair in the country.The most extraordinary dismissal was Harmer’s first, that of Vince, who decided to try to dominate Harmer from the outset. Perhaps the influence of “Bazball” is now beginning to permeate county cricket. If Vince imagines such an approach will win an England recalled at 31 he may be deluding himself. He charged down the pitch to the second ball he faced, his first from Harmer, failed to reach the pitch, as the ball turned substantially through a wild swing, and was stumped.Harmer’s second over included the wicket of Dawson, who conjured up a gentle leg-side push at a turning delivery despite the presence of two close fielders, and even though it took a deflection of the wicketkeeper’s gloves en route it could not be construed as unfortunate.
Gubbins pushed firmly to silly point in Harmer’s sixth over and he had two wickets in two balls when Donald propped limply forward to be caught at short leg.In this season of good county surfaces, one of the most regrettable aspects is that so few of them have broken up on the final day. Matt Parkinson, Lancashire’s legspinner, is arguably the only slow bowler to have presented a persistent threat. Faced by a turning surface from the outset, Hampshire’s response was inadequate, but it is difficult to improve against something you meet so infrequently.Kyle Abbott, Hampshire’s South African pace bowler, suggested that Hampshire’s approach against Harmer had been a considered one.”We are coming up against a world-class spinner so we knew it was going to turn but we didn’t expect it to turn that much that quickly on day one,” he said. “It maybe took us a bit by surprise but we now have a challenge ahead of us now.”We discussed Harmer and how we wanted to play him but he is world-class and has taken a lot of wickets for Essex over the years and been successful for South Africa. I thought we played him pretty well except for some of those ones which we managed to get out. We need to find a way to negotiate that.”Essex were in bother themselves at 105 for 7 but allrounder Shane Snater hit about him cleanly to make 71 from 73 balls – the left-arm spin of Dawson suffering the most – and remarkably his third half-century of the season was enough to make him Essex’s third-highest Championship run-scorer. There was skill alongside the power, notably when he leant back to avoid a short ball from Brad Wheal and uppercut to the third man boundary. He fell attempting to slap Wheal down the ground.Nine days ago, Snater was a part of the Netherlands bowling attack which was flailed for a world record 498 by England in Amstelveen. He went for 99 runs, although he picked up the wicket of his cousin Jason Roy.”I don’t know what the groundsman has done differently but it has brought Harmy more into the game which is good for us,” he said. “If it is going to turn they also have spinners, but he is just so much better.”

Mumbai’s coach expressed joy over team’s resilience and feels established sides need to push themselves

Shashank Kishore26-Jun-2022Mumbai’s hunt for a Ranji title now extends to its seventh year, but the foundation has been laid for a bright future. These were the thoughts of head coach Amol Muzumdar as he sat down to reflect on his maiden season in-charge.Mumbai’s white-ball season had been disappointing, to state it mildly, with the team failing to make it through to the knockouts of both competitions. In the Vijay Hazare Trophy, the 50-over competition, Mumbai finished last in Group B with a solitary win in five games. In the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, the domestic T20 tournament, they fared slightly better with three wins, but couldn’t get past the group stage again. Come the red-ball event, there was growing pressure from both within and the outside to deliver results.Related

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• Amol Muzumdar: Mumbai's players 'have bought into the future'

While they couldn’t win their 42nd title, Muzumdar felt the tournament provided a glimpse of what they could deliver going forward.”It’s been exciting ever since I took over last June,” he said after losing the final to Madhya Pradesh on Sunday. “I’m very proud of these young boys. We’re watching the generation-next of Mumbai cricket and a little dose of it was provided this season. The future looks bright and I’m excited about it.”When I took over in June 2021, I was only focused on improving and getting back on track as far as red-ball cricket was concerned. That was the basis of the foundation we laid last July-August.”We hadn’t qualified for a Ranji final since 2016-17, so that was one thing that was told by the MCA and the others around Mumbai cricket. Had we won, that would’ve come true, but at the same time, we’re back on track with a young side. It’s the next generation, they all have unbelievable talent and we need to just show them the direction.”Come the big final, Mumbai had most things going their way. Sarfaraz Khan was in the form of his life, having racked up over 900 runs already. Yashasvi Jaiswal had struck back-to-back centuries in the quarter-final and the semi-final. Left-arm spinner Shams Mulani had picked up 37 wickets. Then they had the experience of Dhawal Kulkarni to bank on in the pace department. In short, Muzumdar said, “all bases were covered,” and it was just a matter of one determined team toppling them in key moments.Amol Muzumdar led Mumbai to their first Ranji Trophy final since 2016-17•Cricket South Africa

“It was all bases covered coming into the final,” Muzumdar said. “In the bowling especially, we had the experience of Dhawal, the pace of Tushar [Deshpande], who is a slippery customer. Mohit [Avasthi] is young and exuberant. Then a left-arm spinner in great form. We had Tanush Kotian, an exciting offspinner. I think just the one day [the third day] didn’t go our way, it hasn’t happened that we have failed to pick up wickets across lengthy periods. It was a terrific performance till the finals.”Muzumdar was particularly pleased about how Mumbai bounced back at different stages this season despite the hard knocks. Their inability to pick up one final wicket to beat Saurashtra in their opening game could have gone against them. In their second match, they bounced back from being shot out for 163 in the first innings to beat Goa by 119 runs. In their final game, they were in a must-win situation against Odisha, because Saurashtra too were eyeing the lone qualification spot from the group, and Mumbai went through. Muzumdar pointed to these results to explain how the gap had narrowed down among the teams.”There are no small teams anymore,” he said. “In fact, it’s a little bit of a push for the bigger teams like Karnataka, Mumbai, and Delhi to push themselves to the next level. There was tough competition in the league phase. It was brilliant [that the Ranji Trophy was going] because at one stage I felt we were personally going to lose out on another year.”We went to Kolkata for the league phase on January 3 and then the third Covid wave hit on January 5. We were pushed back to Mumbai. But credit to the BCCI for organising the league phase before the IPL and the knockouts in Bangalore, where there’s less chance of rain in June. To give opportunities to so many of India’s aspiring cricketers, credit to the BCCI for that. The Ranji Trophy is crucial, it’s the basis of Indian cricket, so to get it going was great to see.”