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Finch heads to the beach to freshen up for the tour of New Zealand after a nightmare season with Melbourne Renegades

Alex Malcolm27-Jan-2021Australia’s T20 captain Aaron Finch believes players will need to be rested from tours moving forward as he thinks months on end in Covid-19 bubbles are unsustainable following a nightmare BBL season.Finch will lead Australia’s T20 tour of New Zealand which departs Australia on February 7, one day after the BBL final.The 18-man squad was announced on Wednesday, just a day after the final round of BBL season where his Melbourne Renegades claimed a morale-boosting consolation win over Hobart Hurricanes despite finishing last on the table for the second-straight year.Finch scored just 179 runs at 13.76 from 13 innings and although he took full responsibility for his own form, he did concede the endless cycle of Covid hubs for touring Australian players had taken its toll on him.”I had an absolute shocker with the bat,” Finch said. “The harder I trained the worse I got, which is the opposite to what everyone tells you to do.”My wife worked it out the other day that I’ve had 20 or 21 days since April that I haven’t been in lockdown or in a bubble. I’m going down to the beach for a few days to relax. My kit bag won’t be coming out of my car, I can tell you. It will be locked away.Related

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“We’ve got 14-days of quarantine and training once we get to New Zealand. That plenty of time. For me personally, it will be maybe four or five hits once I’m there and that should be good enough. I know what I need to do to get ready. Just a clear mind. That’s the most important thing.”Trevor Hohns, the national selector, was confident Finch would be able to emerge from his slump on the New Zealand tour. “He’s been a bit out of nick or out of runs, whatever they like to say these days, and he’ll be concerned about his form but let’s face it on the international stage he’s very well credentialed and one of the best players in the world.Australia will send two separate squads overseas to New Zealand and South Africa at the same time. The selectors have picked a first-choice Test squad for the tour of South Africa while Finch has a T20I squad without the experience of David Warner, Steven Smith, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood among others, but featuring some exciting prospects who had starred in the BBL.But in the new post-Covid world where biosecure hubs are the new norm, Finch conceded that Cricket Australia may need to adopt England’s model of forcing multi-format players to rest from certain sections of certain tours, as England have done with the upcoming tour of India, in order to keep players fresh and at their best to avoid the type of form slump Finch has experienced.”I think if you’re playing a few formats of the game, there’s going to need to be a chop-out from selectors and from Cricket Australia,” Finch said. “You notice what England is doing with their squads at the moment, there are guys that aren’t travelling for the first two Tests [against India], and then coming in.”If the Covid bubble and hubs continue for a long time, that will be something that would be looked into, no doubt. The welfare of players is paramount and being locked up for months is pretty unsustainable I think, when you’re away from your families and your families can’t travel.Aaron Finch will be back in Australia colours at the end of February•Getty Images

“That will be individual as well. Some guys who are married with kids will find it tougher than a young single guy, for example. I think you just have to monitor everything in that regard.”Australia allrounder and Sydney Sixers captain Moises Henriques, who was selected in the Test squad to tour South Africa has endured an unusual summer by comparison to Finch. He has been in hubs since October but has hardly played while being a squad member for the entirety of Australia’s four-Test series against India.”To be honest, I don’t feel like I haven’t played much,” Henriques said. “When you’re away in that set up, when you’re away with the Australian team there’s a lot of external noise that you take in mentally. You’re constantly preparing to play each day and then you train. You don’t really have too many days off.”I think a couple of days off here and there always helps the mind and the body. The other thing you’ve got to remember as well is for the last 10 years I’ve almost played cricket for 11 months of the year anyway. I think it’s almost a matter of a mindset personally. If I can reframe how I see things and how I want to look at things, it really determines whether or not I feel fresh or not.”But Henriques was keen to stress that the players were well looked after in the various hubs and they did have the chance to opt-out at any stage.”They’re all decisions that at the end of the day are mine,” he said. “If I am feeling fatigued or tired or whatever I don’t have to go on those tours if I really don’t want to. We’re not forced to go anywhere. It’s always the player’s decision. If I’m feeling exactly how I’m feeling now I’ll be welcoming any opportunity that comes my way.”

Chamari Atapattu made her fifth ODI hundred but it wasn’t enough to challenge Australia

The Report by Andrew McGlashan09-Oct-2019Alyssa Healy continued her prolific run-scoring form by plundering a 71-ball hundred on her way to an unbeaten 76-ball 112 as Australia surged to a record-breaking 18th ODI victory in a row with a nine-wicket hammering of Sri Lanka.Chamari Atapattu’s 103, her fifth ODI hundred and her second century of the tour following her T20I ton in Sydney, anchored Sri Lanka’s effort but the next-best score was 24 and they could still only post 8 for 195, which proved way short of giving Australia a challenge. A 3-0 series result was nothing less than expected, but Australia’s ruthlessness was impressive.Healy and Rachael Haynes, who backed up her maiden ODI century with 63 to take her tally to 237 runs in the series, cruised towards the target – although both were dropped in the same over off Achini Kulasuriya – before Haynes was out sweeping with 37 runs needed.Healy raced off the blocks in the chase and Australia’s fifty came up in the sixth over. She should have been dismissed on 68 but the chance was spilled at deep midwicket and Haynes was then given a life on 39, but even if held it’s unlikely the result would have differed.Healy’s third ODI hundred, which have all come in the last two years during which time she has averaged 57.15, came with captain Meg Lanning alongside her and a match-winning six was a fitting way for Australia to set their new record, surpassing the 17 wins in a row they managed between 1997 and 1999 under the captaincy of Belinda Clark.For the first time in the series, Sri Lanka were able to set a target and there was a promising foundation at 1 for 68 before Harshitha Madavi was smartly run out by Healy’s direct hit as she ran around from behind the stumps after a badly misjudged single. They slumped to 5 for 87 as Georgia Wareham struck twice, but Atapattu held firm.She added 49 with Ama Kanchana and 47 with Oshadi Ranasinghe, bringing up an impressive hundred off 120 deliveries, to put a seal on a tour where she has been head and shoulders above the rest of Sri Lanka’s batting.

Shai Hope’s blistering 88 powered Tridents to 185, before Reifer snared five wickets, including three in his last over, as Barbados opened their CPL campaign with a win

The Report by Peter Della Penna13-Aug-2018Raymon Reifer prepares to bowl•Randy Brookes/CPL T20/Getty Images

After missing the playoffs in back-to-back seasons, Barbados Tridents got their CPL 2018 campaign off to a winning start by easily defending the highest-ever CPL total made in Guyana, in a 30-run win over the Amazon Warriors. At a ground where the average first-innings score in the CPL has been 126, Tridents overcame a shaky start of 11 for 2 to post 185 for 4, following a brilliant 88 off 45 balls by Shai Hope, before Raymon Reifer’s five-wicket haul derailed the Amazon Warriors chase.Tri-dented in the PowerplayTridents’ opening combo of Martin Guptill and Dwayne Smith were both dismissed in the first two overs, and there was little to indicate that a record total was imminent. Rayad Emrit emulated his Trinidad pal Dwayne Bravo’s incredible effort 24 hours earlier, with a one-handed catch to claim Guptill at mid-off. Smith fell at the end of the next over, driving Chris Green’s offspin to extra cover, and Tridents were reduced to 11 for 2 in two overs.Hope-ful partnershipHope and Steven Smith came together to steer the Tridents back into the match with a 105-run stand for the third wicket. Smith played the classy shots early, including a delightful straight drive off Green for four, to keep the scoreboard moving. However, the partnership could have been halved had Hope been runout on 31, with the score 64 for 2, in the last ball of the ninth over. Smith turned down a run to backward point as Hope hared from the non-striker’s end, but Sherfane Rutherford’s rushed throw missed the stumps after Hope had given up getting back in.The 24-year-old turned belligerent at the end of the 11th over, heaving Imran Tahir against the turn over long-on and straight down the ground for consecutive sixes. It spurred Smith to come out of his shell at the start of the 12th over, guiding a pair of cuts behind point for four off Keemo Paul, as Tridents produced 20 runs in a four-ball sequence across the two overs. Hope ended the 12th over by gliding two to third man to bring up a 30-ball half-century. He then took Sohail Tanvir apart for two sixes over long-on and a four through extra cover in the 13th over to bring up the 100-run partnership, putting Tridents in a commanding position with seven overs left.Pooran powerThe departure of Smith, who played around a straight ball from Tahir, allowed Hope to take the innings into high gear with Nicholas Pooran. Hope’s six assault continued off Paul in the 18th, driving over the extra cover boundary for the shot of the innings. But he fell two balls later, just 12 short of what would have been his maiden CPL ton.Pooran took the opportunity to remind everyone of his devastating ball-striking ability by swatting 21 runs off the final over, bowled by Paul, to put the chase out of reach for the host side. He began with a flat six over long-off, before collecting a scampered two. The third ball was smashed magnificently into the second-tier over long-off, and nearly landed on the roof. It took him to 38, six more than his best innings from a lackluster 2017 campaign. A helicopter whip for six over long-on two balls later showed Pooran’s style to match his strength, and he finished unbeaten on 45 off 27 balls.Reifer madnessDespite the fall of Chadwick Walton at the end of the second over, the Warriors had progressed confidently to reach 40 for 1 in the fifth over of the chase, when Reifer started to ruin the host side’s pursuit with his canny left-arm medium pace. Extra bounce resulted in a top-edged pull by Luke Ronchi that landed in Ashley Nurse’s hands at midwicket, before Shimron Hetmyer fell next ball, yanking Reifer to one of the two men out on the boundary during the Powerplay, Guptill covering good ground at deep midwicket to put Reifer on a hat-trick.Rutherford joined captain Shoaib Malik for an 84-run stand as Warriors kept themselves in the hunt. Legspinner Imran Khan didn’t bowl a single over on the night, with dew making it difficult for spinners to grip the ball. But Tridents captain Jason Holder’s gamble to bring back Nurse to bowl offspin in the 16th over paid off. One ball after Malik smashed him for six over long-on, the Guyana captain misjudged the length while trying to guide Nurse with an open face to third man, and wound up chopping onto his stumps for 38.As the required run rate continued to climb following Malik’s departure, Reifer exploited the breach with three wickets in the 19th to kill off the chase. With 39 required off the last two overs to win, Green scythed a Reifer full toss behind point for four, but perished off the next ball, with a tame drive to Holder at extra cover. Jason Mohammed sliced Reifer to the cover sweeper two balls later, before a slower bouncer next ball to Rutherford resulted in a gloved catch to Pooran to put Reifer on a hat-trick for the second time in the night. Reifer once again didn’t get the hat-trick, Paul this time punching a full toss down the ground for a single, but the efforts were enough to bag the Man-of-the-Match award.

Dougie Brown, the former England and Scotland allrounder, has been named coach of UAE

ESPNcricinfo staff28-May-2017Dougie Brown, the former England and Scotland allrounder, has been named coach of UAE. He will begin working with the team full-time on June 1, leading up to a limited-overs tour of the Netherlands in mid-July.Earlier this year, Brown had worked with UAE over a three-month spell as interim coach. UAE had been without a full-time coach since former Pakistan pacer Aaqib Javed resigned from the post in April 2016.Brown, who played 25 ODIs and two T20Is in an international career spanning a decade from 1997 to 2007, had also previously overseen Netherlands, during the Desert T20 tournament in the UAE in January. Before that, he had worked as English county Warwickshire’s director of cricket, and the club won the domestic one-day cup during his time in charge.Waleed Bukhatir, a member of the Emirates Cricket Board Member and UAE’s chief selector said: “Dougie’s influence with and impact on the players has been evident through their recent form and commitment, and we look forward to watching them continue this upward curve under his guidance.”Brown said he hoped to build on the strides he made during his three-month stint with the team. “We have had an outstanding three months and I continue to be impressed with both individual and team performances,” he said. “I relish the opportunity to further develop the team culture and reinforce our style of play.”

A round-up of the sixth day’s action at ICC World Cricket League Division Five in Jersey

Peter Della Penna in Jersey 28-May-2016Aamir Kaleem’s stellar tournament with bat and ball continued as he claimed his second straight Man of the Match award in Oman’s two-wicket win over Guernsey at St Clement. Kaleem put his stamp on the match today in all three disciplines: running out opener Tom Kimber with a direct hit from point, taking 2 for 12 in ten overs including the prized wicket of Matthew Stokes, and top-scoring with 35 to lift up Oman after entering at 13 for 4 in the fifth over.With net run rate tiebreaker at play in the WCL, Oman crucially won the toss and inserted Guernsey. It meant Guernsey entered the day needing to not only win but do so by at least 100 runs in order to pass Oman on net run rate, having entered the day +1.188 behind them.They would also have to do it without captain Jamie Nussbaumer, who missed the game with a leg injury. It caused a reshuffle to the batting order with Stokes dropping down to take Nussbaumer’s spot at No. 4 while Kimber, who replaced Nussbaumer in the XI, opened instead of the team’s leading scorer Stokes.Despite the urgency of the day with promotion up to Division Four at stake, Guernsey employed a cautious approach from ball one and eventually finished on 141 for 8. They only scored from 11 deliveries in the first 60 balls bowled by Oman over the course of the opening Powerplay to reach 23 for 1. GH Smit was the batsman to fall in that stretch, spooning Rajeshkumar Ranpura to mid-on for 13.Even after the new-ball spells of Ranpura and Munis Ansari were negotiated, Guernsey’s top order could not get out of a rut against the first-change tandem of seamer Sufyan Mehmood and the left-arm spin of Kaleem. From the 14th through the 16th overs, Kimber and Oliver Newey played out 17 straight dots. Newey’s own streak of 14 straight dots was broken with a bit of luck, as an edge off Mehmood split the keeper and slip to go for four.However, Newey’s vigil ended two overs later as this time another edge off Mehmood was safely pouched by Swapnil Khadye behind the stumps for 11. Three balls later, Kimber ran himself out pushing for a risky single as Kaleem swooped in and fired a direct hit that connected with Kimber well short at the non-striker’s end. Kaleem then struck again in back-to-back overs to nab Stokes first and then David Hooper both defending down the wrong line to arm balls for a pair of lbw decisions to make it 48 for 5 in 24 overs.With the exception of the 37th over, Oman kept all eleven fielders inside the ring from overs 25 through 42 to pile the pressure on stand-in captain Ben Ferbrache and Oliver Nightingale. Ferbrache eventually fell driving to mid-on for 10. After 41 overs, Guernsey’s run rate was still crawling at two per over with the score on 82 for 6 before Jason Martin produced a late surge with 33 off 32 balls.A straight six by Martin off Zeeshan Maqsood in the 42nd followed by a scoop off captain Ajay Lalcheta over fine leg finally forced Lalcheta to push the field back. Guernsey eventually scored 51 off the final eight overs – the 45th and 46th were the only two of the entire innings in which 10+ runs were scored – to provide faint hope of an improbable result, with the final equation being that they needed to bowl Oman out for 39 in order to pass them on net run rate.Newey made it look briefly possible with his new-ball burst. He began by forcing a false drive from the tournament’s leading scorer, Maqsood, to Ferbrache at mid-off and struck Vaibhav Watagaonkar on the toe with a yorker next ball to make it 10 for 2. Ferbrache dismissed Jatinder Singh edging behind while Khawar Ali was also given out caught at the wicket as Guernsey erupted in the field.Kaleem’s cool head steadied Oman’s nerves though and by the time Noorul Riaz was caught at cover for Newey’s fourth wicket, the score was 39 for 5, meaning Oman needed a single to guarantee promotion regardless of the match result. On the same ground where Kaleem and Lalcheta produced a vital 101-run stand against Nigeria, the pair added another 53 against Guernsey with Kaleem unfurling a series of cuts and pulls among his five boundaries.Left-arm spinner Max Ellis wound up removing both men, but Khadye finished off the job for Oman. Khadye shepherded the tail superbly to finish 33 not out with the winning run taken off a bye.Oman will face Jersey in the final after the hosts put in a clinical display to defeat Nigeria by ten wickets at St Martin. Jersey inserted Nigeria at the toss and bowled them out for 93 in 26.4 overs. Ben Kynman took 6 for 18, a new best for a Jersey bowler in WCL tournaments eclipsing Andy Dewhurst’s 6 for 20 against Bahamas at WCL Division Five in 2008.The game was on pace to end well before Oman’s chase against Guernsey began and with Jersey starting the day behind Guernsey and Oman on net run rate, they set a brisk pace chasing down the target as insurance to go ahead of Guernsey on net run rate in case Guernsey defeated Oman. Nat Watkins made an unbeaten 50 off 41 balls with nine boundaries while captain Peter Gough finished 41 not out off 44 balls with victory achieved in just 14.1 overs to mark Nigeria’s second ten-wicket loss of the tournament, a result that guaranteed relegation to ICC Africa regional qualifying.Tanzania will join them despite beating Vanuatu by seven wickets at St Saviour. Vanuatu was the only team to choose to bat first on winning the toss on Friday, a decision they regretted after losing two wickets without any runs on the board, including star allrounder Nalin Nipiko. It brought captain Andrew Mansale to the crease and he remained for the rest of the innings, making 60 not out off 124 balls in his side’s total of 149 in 48.5 overs.Mansale’s innings was crucial in the context of the tournament as a low total followed by a rapid Tanzania chase would have clinched relegation for Vanuatu and allowed Tanzania a crack at staying in Division Five. Instead, Tanzania’s equation required them to get to the target in 18.1 overs, but never made a serious challenge. Their only double-digit over in that span was a ten-run eighth and by the deadline they had settled for 63 for 1. Kassim Nassoro made 50 not out off 73 balls as a consolation victory was eventually achived in 42.1 overs.Saturday’s final between Oman and Jersey will be played at St Saviour while the third place game for the chance to stay in Division Five will be played between Guernsey and Vanuatu at St Martin. The fifth place game will be played between Nigeria and Tanzania at St Clement.

Karun Nair’s first time at No. 3 this season helped him break away from an inconsistent run and he credited giving himself the time to get in was the reason for his match-winning half-century

ESPNcricinfo staff04-May-2015Karun Nair has been a floater in the Rajasthan Royals batting line-up and had had a highest score of 25 prior coming into their home game against Delhi Daredevils in Mumbai. But pushed up to No. 3 for the first time in the season, he produced a rapid, match-winning half-century that he credited to taking the time to play himself in.”I told myself at the beginning of the innings I should just play run-a-ball and look for the odd boundary,” he told , “I gave myself time in the first ten to fifteen balls and from then on I decided to go for the big shots. I am not a powerful hitter, but I can hit the ball for a six. A six doesn’t necessarily need to go out of the ground, it has to just clear the fence and I think I can do it easily.”His 61 off 38 balls was part of a 113-run partnership with Ajinkya Rahane at a run-rate of 9.82. Nair said the gameplan had been to take the game deep and set things up for their finishers.”We spoke about running hard between the wickets and then getting the odd boundary and play normal cricket shots,” Nair said. “We wanted to take the game as deep as possible because we have good hitters in our side. We did that really well. The plan was to get ten runs in every over after the time out and target 170 at the end of 20 overs. Anything more than that was always meant to be a bonus. One boundary an over was what was discussed in the meeting.”His team-mate James Faulkner also had a successful outing, picking up 2 for 22 in conditions that helped fast bowlers at Brabourne stadium, where Royals had had a camp prior to the start of the tournament.”There was a fair bit of assistance with the new ball and you had to bash it into the wicket. There was a fair bit of seam. But that is T20 cricket; you get flat tracks where you don’t get much swing or spin, but then you have tracks that turn a long way. This one had a bit of seam tonight and had good carry which was great. I think that is what everyone likes, different challenges every single time.”Faulkner was making a return to the XI after missing the game against Mumbai Indians last Friday and spoke about the demands on an foreign player in the IPL.”I missed out on the last game since we decided to give Rusty Theron a go,” Faulkner said. “Tonight I came back into the side. That is how the format works. There is always a lot of class sitting on the bench.”It doesn’t matter if you are there from the start or join halfway through, you are always expected to put up your best. You are an overseas player at the end of the day, and looked at to bring something unique to the table. Once you play international cricket, there is always going to be expectations from you in any Twenty20 league. Every overseas player is used to that.”

Tim Bresnan said that Kevin Pietersen’s return for his first England appearance in almost three months was no different to having a player come back into the side following an injury

ESPNcricinfo staff30-Oct-2012Tim Bresnan said that Kevin Pietersen’s return for his first England appearance in almost three months, after a destabilising episode that threatened to see the batsman cast into the international wilderness, was no different to having a player come back into the side following an injury.Pietersen was part of the England XI taking on India A in a three-day tour match and took a catch off Bresnan’s bowling to help remove Ajinkya Rahane in the first session. Pietersen last featured for England in the second Test against South Africa at Headingley at the start of August but Bresnan described his team-mate as the “same old Kev” and said it was good to have him back.”For the lads it’s nothing different to having a player come back to the squad who has been missing for a while,” Bresnan said. “There’s not been much made of it. Everyone in the know of what’s being going on, they’ve sat down and spoke about things and I guess a few of the senior players have spoken, but for the rest of the boys it’s pretty much been like having someone who’s been injured come back in the side, it’s not been exceptionally different.”It’s been the same old Kev. The energy in the field he showed today, all day, it was just Kev to be honest. It’s been good.”Despite losing Steven Finn to a thigh problem early in the day, England’s bowlers made regular breakthroughs after being asked to bowl in their first tour outing. Bresnan was the pick of the attack, with 3 for 59, while Graeme Swann also picked up three wickets as India A closed on 369 for 9, Manoj Tiwary top-scoring with 93.”Overs under the belt is key in warm-up games, especially when we’re playing Twenty20 cricket for quite a spell over the last month or so,” Bresnan said. “So definitely, get a day out there, get a day in the legs, a day in the field.Tim Bresnan was England’s most successful bowler on day one against India A•AFP

“You can get value for your shots out there, if it’s past the infield, it’s pretty much four. There’s not much margin for error short or full so I think that’s a bit of rustiness but you expect that first day out.”They played nicely, Tiwary played lovely but it seems like a nice wicket to bat on and obviously we’ll know more after we have a go on it but it wasn’t doing particularly much. And they dug in for a partnership when the going was good so that’s part of what cricket’s about.”The biggest stand of the day came when Tiwary put on 110 with Irfan Pathan for the seventh wicket. Tiwary was eventually the eighth man out, the first of two in two deliveries for Bresnan, who said that he had enjoyed bowling with the SG ball. “We’ve been using them a bit in Dubai the last couple of day,” he said. “I like the balls here, they’re nice to bowl with, swing a bit early on and reverse a bit later on, the spinners like them. It’s a lot like a Dukes, but not a Dukes.”

There are few things Kumar Sangakkara has failed to achieve in Test cricket. As he walked off the SSC ground on the second afternoon of his 100th Test, he knew that one of those unfulfilled goals – playing in a win over Australia – was one step closer

The Report by Brydon Coverdale17-Sep-2011
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsMichael Hussey made his fourth Test hundred against Sri Lanka•AFP

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