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In Brisbane, Ryan Harris collected seven wickets for the match and bowled Queensland to victory over New South Wales

ESPNcricinfo staff19-Nov-2014
ScorecardRyan Harris finished with seven wickets for the match•Getty ImagesThere were two bowling sights Australia’s selectors wanted to see this week: Peter Siddle return a bag of wickets and Ryan Harris get through a match with his knee in good order. On both fronts they were satisfied. In Adelaide, Siddle took seven wickets in a Man-of-the-Match display and in Brisbane, Harris also collected seven and bowled Queensland to victory over New South Wales.In his first match at first-class level since the Test tour of South Africa in March, Harris sent down 32.5 overs and was instrumental in the Bulls recording a 188-run win. As New South Wales chased the unlikely target of 371 for victory, Harris skittled the top order and removed Nick Larkin, Scott Henry and Nic Maddinson in the space of three of his overs to leave the Blues at 3 for 21.When Luke Feldman added Ryan Carters, lbw for 11, the total was a very shaky 4 for 26. Kurtis Patterson and Peter Nevill did their best to recover before Patterson was bowled for 45 by Harris, who finished the innings with 4 for 59. Legspinner Cameron Boyce then picked up a handy trio of wickets as he presses for more attention from the national selectors.Boyce ended up with 3 for 48 and James Hopes collected the last two wickets to complete the win. Hopes and Harris had been important with the bat in the second innings for Queensland; having come together with the score on 7 for 72 they compiled a 103-run partnership that ended when Harris was out for 50. Hopes was on 69 when he declared at 8 for 200.Harris said he was pleased with his match after a long period recovering from knee surgery, but that he was not quite ready for Test cricket yet. “Probably not yet. I think I need another game and a few more overs,” he said. “I’m getting better, towards the end there I was a bit tired, just lack of fitness. But I’m better with each spell I bowl.”

James Sutherland, the Cricket Australia chief executive, has spoken for the first time about the “homework” fiasco that enveloped the national team on a horrid tour of India, stating his displeasure at how the squad’s discipline broke down

Daniel Brettig15-May-2013James Sutherland, the Cricket Australia chief executive, has spoken for the first time about the “homework” fiasco that enveloped the national team on a horrid tour of India, stating his displeasure at how the squad’s discipline broke down to the point that four players including then vice-captain Shane Watson were suspended from a Test match.At the time of the suspensions, which also ruled James Pattinson, Usman Khawaja and Mitchell Johnson out of contention for the third Test of the series in Mohali in March, Sutherland was overseas and conspicuous by his absence from CA’s public response to the episode, leaving the team performance manager Pat Howard to field questions. However Sutherland told ESPNcricinfo that he had since gained a deep understanding of the issues at play, and stressed to team management that such a scenario could not be allowed to unfold again.”My starting point with all of that is personally I’m disappointed we got to that stage,” Sutherland said. “I now have a pretty in-depth understanding of where and how it got to there and I’m still disappointed that it happened in the circumstances when it got to there and how it got to there.”I’m supportive of the decisions that were made at the time and I’m a really firm believer in the fact that those decisions will ultimately stand us in good stead as we build to sustained performance at the highest level. I think it’s pretty well understood internally what I think about it, and the need for us to ensure those things are dealt with better before they ever get to that stage.”While Sutherland was hesitant to attribute the suspensions and their prelude to any one major factor, he conceded that communication within the team had broken down, leaving players unaware of how badly the team’s captain Michael Clarke, coach Mickey Arthur and team manager Gavin Dovey felt that standards had slipped. It was an area the absence of the retired Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey was keenly felt.”It would be dangerous to narrow it down to one or two things,” Sutherland said. “It was a culmination of a whole lot of things, and to pinpoint it as being communication of people not necessarily understanding where they were … yes that is one of the reasons no doubt. But there’s a whole lot of others as well I think.”Issues of leadership and character within Australian cricket had been on Sutherland’s mind well before the events of India, and he would like to see greater emphasis placed on the education of young players so that their responsibilities to teammates and the game as a whole are better understood, alongside their burgeoning skills as batsmen and bowlers.”Clearly we want to be building or developing the best players and part of that is developing players who are not only capable in a cricketing sense,” Sutherland said. “They are strong of character, they’re highly resilient, they’re able to adapt, and they have all of these character traits. To some extent you’re born with those and to some extent they’re circumstantial according to your environment and also they can be developed.”That’s part of our challenge as a sport in developing our best talent is to do that even better in this day and age, understanding the variability of cricket today, the need to adapt and the need to be resilient, to get through tough conditions in a foreign country you might never have visited before. All of those things are part of character.”That comes back to our point about sending more younger players away for longer periods to learn what it’s like to try to fight through a six-week tour when you can’t make a run and fight your way through it. Phil Hughes in India, it wasn’t great to see him early on in the tour, but the way he fought through that tour of India I thought was fantastic, just the sort of stuff we want to see from our players when they’re down.”Sutherland said plans were in the works to extend CA’s remit to educate players at an earlier age, the better to prepare them for a game that is now split across three formats and a wide variety of attitudes and career paths, from the Baggy Green ideal now co-opted by the Commonwealth Bank as the new major sponsor of the Test team, to the individualism and money upfront mentality of the IPL, BBL and other Twenty20 leagues.”One of the things we will want to do over the next couple of years is identify and work with that talent at an even younger age than we have in the past,” Sutherland said. “We’ve tended to let the cream rise to the top in recent times, but perhaps we need to nurture those high potential players a little bit earlier, and develop their other character beyond their cricket abilities and prepare them for what’s next.”It’s not a lesson out of India, it’s something we’ve been talking about for quite some time, certainly I’ve been speaking to Pat Howard about it ever since he started [in 2011]. We’ve been talking about nurturing our young, talented teenagers a little bit earlier than we have in the past. Some other sports do that very well and I’d like to see cricket doing a lot more of that in the next little while.”

Somerset were left facing a major headache after another batting collapse left them staring a third defeat of the season after just the first day at Horsham.

ESPNcricinfo staff22-May-2013
ScorecardSomerset had no answer for Steve Magoffin•Getty ImagesSomerset were left nursing a major headache after another batting collapse saw them staring at a third defeat of the season after just the first day at Horsham. Having dominated champions Warwickshire at Taunton at the end of April, they now resemble relegation candidates rather than title challengers.Director of cricket Dave Nosworthy admitted Somerset have an issue after his side were routed for just 76 by Steve Magoffin’s career-best 8 for 20. They lasted only 23.4 overs as Magoffin ran through them, including a blast of five wickets in 13 balls.”There are no excuses we didn’t get it right,” Nosworthy told “We won the toss and chose to bat but it didn’t work for us.”I think the lads are all very disappointed, you train as hard as you do and try your best but at the end of the day you have got to be responsible for your own innings and get out there and perform, which nobody has managed to do for us today.”Nor have many managed to perform at all this season. A poor show with the bat in the opening match at Durham seemed to be an aberration for Somerset as they found form at The Oval and then racked up over 400 against a much-vaunted Warwickshire attack. But a slip at Headingley, where a draw was declared with Somerset 61 for 6 in their second innings, became a harsh reality after a thumping defeat at home to Middlesex.Their batting order is ageing, inexperienced or out of form. They have been reliant on 37-year-old Marcus Trescothick and overseas player Alviro Petersen. Here, Petersen failed and Trescothick’s 20 was one of only three double-figure scores.Somerset can also not turn to their bowling attack for much comfort. The first three into the attack here, Peter Trego, Steve Kirby and Alfonso Thomas, have a combined age of 102. Together with Jamie Overton and Jack Leach – two youngsters whose development is essential for the club – they shipped 298 runs at over four an over to close day one 222 behind.They had envisaged progress at a similar rate themselves with the bat but had no answer for Magoffin who bowled 11 overs unchanged to produce the best performance by a Sussex bowler since Mushtaq Ahmed took 9 for 48 when the county clinched the Championship title against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in 2006.He started by bowling Arul Suppiah through the gate – Suppiah’s sixth single figure score in eight innings this season – then a touch of inswing proved too much for Petersen. But the real damage was done after James Hildreth was caught low down at slip in the 12th over.From 42 for 3, Somerset subsided to 43 for 7, with Magoffin taking three wickets in four balls in the 14th over. Trescothick was caught behind playing away from his body before Trego and Thomas fell in successive deliveries.Somerset’s last three wickets put on 33 to avoid total ignominy but there was no stopping Magoffin. After Jack Leach was caught behind, Magoffin bowled top scorer Jos Buttler for 22 to pick up his eighth wicket and record the best bowling performance at Horsham since Northamptonshire’s Vince Broderick took 9 for 35 in 1948.Chris Jordan took the other two wickets and Sussex openers Chris Nash and Luke Wells were soon putting conditions into perspective with a stand of 83.Thomas dragged Somerset back into contention when Nash, captaining Sussex on his home ground in the absence of Ed Joyce, played on before Joe Gatting edged his second ball to second slip.A typically fiery burst from Kirby was rewarded with the wicket of Wells while Mike Yardy, who hit three successive balls from Kirby to the boundary, squandered a good start when he was bowled by Peter Trego at the start of a new spell.But Sussex regained control in a fifth wicket stand of 85 between Rory Hamilton-Brown and Matt Machan before the latter was run out by Leach’s direct hit from midwicket.Somerset fought back after tea by taking five wickets, including Hamilton-Brown – whose 77 included 11 fours and two sixes and was his highest score since returning to the county before he became one of four victims for Thomas.Despite the clatter of wickets, ECB pitch inspector David Capel said he was perfectly happy with the surface.

Angelo Mathews, the Sri Lanka allrounder, will lead Pune Warriors in IPL 2013. Mathews takes over Warriors’ captaincy from Sourav Ganguly, who will not play in this year’s IPL

ESPNcricinfo staff28-Mar-2013Angelo Mathews, the Sri Lanka allrounder, will lead Pune Warriors in IPL 2013. Mathews takes over Warriors’ captaincy from Sourav Ganguly, who will not play in this year’s IPL.The decision to appoint Mathews would mean Warriors will be without their regular captain when playing their away game against Chennai Super Kings, following the IPL governing council’s decision to exclude Sri Lankan players from matches in Chennai.He wasn’t the first choice captain for Warriors. However, once Australia captain Michael Clarke, their preferred choice, was ruled out of this edition of the tournament due to a back injury – one that also forced him to miss the last Test in India – it was clear that Sri Lanka’s Test and ODI leader would take over.Mathews thus becomes the fourth captain to lead Warriors, who open their third IPL campaign with an away game against Sunrisers Hyderabad on April 5. While Yuvraj Singh led the team in their inaugural season in 2011, Sourav Ganguly and Steven Smith shared the responsibility in Yuvraj’s absence last year due to illness. This year, despite Yuvraj having recovered from his rare germ cell cancer, it was known even before the auction on February 3 that the possibility of him leading the team was remote. “Both him and the owners were reluctant to have him as the skipper since Yuvi the allrounder is so much more important to the balance of the team than Yuvi the captain,” an insider said.Mathews, in all likelihood, will be one of three Sri Lankans to captain IPL teams this year, with Mahela Jayawardene leading Delhi Daredevils and Kumar Sangakkara in charge of Sunrisers Hyderabad. The franchises have already shown concern over the decision to keep the Sri Lankan players away from the Chennai games due to political tensions, saying that Super Kings may subsequently have an added advantage in their home games.Former South Africa quick Allan Donald, who was initially appointed Warriors’ bowling coach last season, has been named the franchise’s head coach. Former India batsman, Pravin Amre, will continue in the role of assistant coach. Trainer Rob Walters, who had previously worked with South Africa and Delhi Daredevils, has been signed as fielding coach and fitness trainer.

Varun Chopra and Ian Westwood provided the platform for Warwickshire to pick up a batting bonus in an otherwise frustrating draw

Jon Culley at Edgbaston13-Apr-2013
ScorecardIan Westwood helped Warwickshire put on another century opening stand with Varun Chopra•PA PhotosIn five months’ time, this match will almost certainly be nothing but a distant, watery memory, with little bearing on anything that happened in between. Yet Warwickshire were unable to avoid some sense of frustration. Not only were they denied the chance to take full advantage of what may be the weakest opponent they will face in defence of their title, picking up a paltry four bonus points, they had also to swallow the news that Sussex, Durham and Middlesex had picked their way through the gloom and the puddles to register first-round wins.”It is frustrasting,” the Warwickshire captain, Jim Troughton said. “Looking at the state of the game, we knew that their score was under par and that after the start our openers gave us we would back ourselves to bat big and have another go at them. But there is a long season ahead of us and if we keep playing solid cricket the points will take care of themselves.”You’d like to start with a win but you can’t do it if you can’t get on the field. I feel sorry for Gary [Barwell], the groundsman. He had to get the ark out last year and he’s needed a snowplough this time.”At least there was encouragement to draw, not least in the increasing reliability of the opening batsmen, Varun Chopra and Ian Westwood, who compiled their sixth century partnership in their last 12 matches together.”They have become so important,” Troughton said. “Early season it is commonplace to see three or four wickets down before lunch. The ball is going to nibble, as it has done in the other games in this round. So if you’ve got a partnership at the top of the order, with the consistency they have together, and with the batting we have to follow, you have the chance to put big totals on the board.”Chops and Westy know each other’s games really well and they are a left-hand, right-hand combination, which is good. Age-wise they have a lot of growth left in them as a partnership. I still think Westy is improving and Chops seems to go away every winter and come back a better player.”He’s got 1,000 runs two years in a row and if he keeps playing as he is he will be knocking on the door for England. While he is playing for Warwickshire he is challenging himself to keep improving.”Westy and myself were perhaps the two players whose form hit a consistent vein in the second half of last season and it is good for us that he and Chops seem to be continuing where they left off.”Their progress to 139 on the last day here, before Westwood sliced a drive to backward point off Tim Groenewald, served to reinforce Derbyshire’s coach Karl Krikken’s point of view that Division One will be an unforgiving environment for his Division Two title-winners.”In both divisions you aim to make as few mistakes as possible because mistakes get punished,” he said. “Last season we didn’t make many mistakes but in this game we have been a bit lacking in some areas and we just have to up it a little bit next time.”Groenewald’s breakthrough gave him the honour of taking the first Division One wicket by a Derbyshire player since Kevin Dean against Somerset in September 2000. It sparked a Warwickshire collapse of sorts, as the champions sought to up the tempo. William Porterfield drove Wes Durston’s offspin straight to short extra-cover, Chopra edged behind as Chesney Hughes gave his left-arm spin a dusting down, then Troughton, advancing down the wicket, was stumped after reaching for his shot as Durston bowled wide of the stumps. A boundary from Laurie Evans snatched a first batting point just before lunch — then rain intervened for the final time.

Quinton de Kock has been ruled out of the rest of the series against against West Indies with an ankle ligament tear

Firdose Moonda in Centurion20-Dec-2014Quinton de Kock has been ruled out of the rest of the series against against West Indies with an ankle ligament tear. The wicket-keeper will miss the remaining two Tests, and all of the limited-overs matches which includes three T20s and five ODIs, with an eye on making a recovery in time for the World Cup.He requires between six and 12 weeks of rehabilitation but South Africa’s first match of the tournament is in eight weeks’ time, which team manager Mohammed Moosajee said will “hopefully afford a sufficient recovery period.”De Kock rolled over his ankle during the warm-ups on the morning of the third day of the Centurion Test and was unable to keep wickets for the rest of the match. AB de Villiers, who did the job before de Kock debuted in Sri Lanka, was handed the gloves and will keep them for the rest of the series. Cricket South Africa said a player “to act as cover will be announced in due course.”That would likely mean a Test debut for the only reserve batsman in the squad, Temba Bavuma. The Lions No.3 has played 68 first-class matches and an average of 35.95 and would likely bat in de Kock’s position in the lower middle-order. If he plays, he will be the first black African batsman to ever represent South Africa and the first black African player to turn out for the team in almost four years, after Lonwabo Tsostobe was part of the New Year’s Test in 2011.Alternatively, South Africa could search outside the squad but that would against their policy of promoting players who have been non-playing members of the squad before casting the net wider. A batsman who may come into contention would be Farhaan Behardien, who is currently second on the this season’s first-class competition run-charts. Rilee Rossouw, the Knight’s batsman. is injured, while Colin Ingram, who is the third on the run-scorers’ list, has accepted a Kolpak deal at Glamorgan.More worryingly for South Africa will be whether de Kock will return to full fitness before the World Cup. Since November last year, he has been both the first-choice opener and wicketkeeper and has formed a successful partnership with Hashim Amla at the top, while also relieving AB de Villiers of the workload. Although de Villiers could find himself back behind the stumps, if de Kock is not available for the World Cup, South Africa will have to look for another opener. Morne van Wyk, who played at the 2011 World Cup and currently captains the Dolphins, would be one option but South Africa will hope de Kock is fit in time.

An unbeaten century by Luke Wright and 78 not out from Matt Prior propelled Sussex into the Clydesdale Bank 40 semi-finals at the expense of Kent

27-Aug-2012
ScorecardLuke Wright and Matt Prior made a mockery of Kent’s struggles with the bat•Getty ImagesAn unbeaten century by Luke Wright and 78 not out from Matt Prior propelled Sussex into the Clydesdale Bank 40 semi-finals at the expense of Kent, who they drubbed by nine wickets in Canterbury. The second-wicket pair added 152 in 21.4 overs to brush the hosts aside with ten overs remaining and overhaul them in the table to secure a home tie against Hampshire in the last four.All was not lost for Kent at the conclusion but once Warwickshire’s win at Yorkshire was confirmed their chances of being the best group-stage losers disappeared. They only had themsevles to blame as, despite a tricky St Lawrence pitch, they allowed Sussex to quickly get their teeth into the pursuit of their modest total of 210 for 5.One-day openers Wright and Chris Nash plundered 23 from the opening two overs from the Pavilion End – 13 off Matt Coles then 10 off Darren Stevens – and Sussex continued to score freely, posting 50 in 6.2 overs. The opening stand ended in the ninth over when Nash, driving on the up at Stevens, had his off stump plucked out by one that nipped down the slope and through the right-hander’s gate.England wicketkeeper Prior escaped a huge fourth-ball appeal from Stevens for leg-before, then another with his score on 16 when sweeping at James Tredwell, but he survived both courtesy of excellent decisions from umpires Richard Kettleborough and Jeremy Lloyds. The decisions proved crucial and seemingly crushed Kent’s morale as Prior dug in with Wright to win the match with their sensible and unflustered second-wicket stand.Taking the two-paced pitch fully into account, Wright coasted to a 53-ball half-century then, having played himself in, Prior accelerated with a swept six off seamer Mark Davies and a straight drive over the ropes against Tredwell to post the century stand and reach his personal 50 from 55 balls.The duo claimed 18 off the penultimate over of the match by Coles and then Wright reached his second one-day ton of the summer with a dabbed single to backward point as Sussex made a mockery of the Spitfires total.Kent, who started the day on top of the Group C table, batted first after winning the toss and made a sticky start on a dry, yet green-tinged pitch. They lost young opening batsman Sam Billings with only 10 on the board when he edged to Prior, fielding at slip, against CB40 debutant Steve Magoffin.Prior’s understudy behind the stumps, Ben Brown, then stood up to the wicket to claim a magnificent catch that accounted for Kent captain Rob Key, who gloved a lifter from Kirk Wernars to be caught behind with 63 on the board. Sam Northeast flicked across the line of a Will Beer top-spinner to go lbw then Kent suffered another soft dismissal when Brendan Nash called for a second run on a misfield to fine leg by Magoffin, who picked up to run out Stevens with a throw to the non-striker’s end.Alex Blake’s penchant for the reverse sweep finally led to his downfall, caught at short third man, bringing Nash and Geraint Jones together for a face-saving unbroken sixth-wicket stand worth 57 in 33 balls. Jones bludgeoned three fours as well as two consecutive sixes off Michael Yardy in his cameo 37 from 18 balls, while Nash anchored the other end with an unbeaten 51 from 59 balls and with only one boundary.

Australia’s captain Michael Clarke is digesting the first series defeat of his reign, and its nature cannot go down easily

Daniel Brettig at Old Trafford10-Jul-2012Australia’s captain Michael Clarke is digesting the first series defeat of his reign, and its nature cannot go down easily. Clarke’s team was kicked around Old Trafford as England completed a 4-0 victory, the heaviest defeat of an Australian ODI side in any bilateral series in the 41-year history of limited overs internationals.The tourists were given still more reason to recall the tour unhappily by a hamstring injury to David Hussey, preventing him from fielding in the seven-wicket defeat. Clarke said the series reflected a wider problem in the team’s limited-overs cricket over the period of his captaincy, given that it had been preceded by battling series victories over Sri Lanka and South Africa away, before a triangular series win at home and a tied encounter in the Caribbean.However he would not countenance the result as a “wake-up call” to the national side generally, given how strongly the Test team’s results had improved over Clarke’s tenure. “It’s a completely different team, completely different format so I don’t want to compare the Test team with the one-day team,” Clarke said. “It’s a reminder, not a wake-up call. We knew through the Australian summer we weren’t playing anywhere near as good a cricket as we needed to be against Sri Lanka and India.”We went to the West Indies and just got over the line there so it’s not like this is the first series where we haven’t played as well as we’d like. Our one-day cricket hasn’t been as consistent as it needs to be if we want to stay at the top of the table. Hence how close the first, second, third and fourth are on the rankings points now. We’ve got a lot of work to do as a one-day team.”The ODI side has been used as a way of providing opportunities for numerous players to press their claims for other formats. Some like George Bailey have shown tentative progress, but others like Peter Forrest and Steve Smith are now struggling to justify their selection, developmental or otherwise.”It’s certainly not about opportunity. We’re giving plenty of guys the opportunity to grab it with both hands,” Clarke said. “There’s a few players that haven’t experienced these conditions so that was a good taste of it. Against good opposition in international sport you’ve just got to find a way to win, whether it’s with the bat, with the ball in the field. Good teams do that, they’ll be down or they’ll lose the first match of the series, but they’ll find a way to turn it around, and we haven’t been good enough to do that so that’s an area we have to improve.”We need to play better cricket. We need to sit down as a team and have a look at our performances over the last 12 months and areas we need to get better. It certainly wasn’t preparation. I thought our training was outstanding and we played some really good cricket in the couple of warm-up games but we have no excuses.”I think a lot of credit needs to go to England as well. They’ve outplayed us in all four matches, they’ve been very consistent, their bowlers have bowled with good patience and discipline and their batters have made runs. We haven’t done both. We didn’t have anybody make a big score as a batter, we lost a lot of early wickets throughout the series and we didn’t execute our skills as well as you need to.”

Manish Pandey scored his second century of the season and KL Rahul was out in the nineties for the second time in the season as Karnataka took a 193-run lead

The Report by Karthik Krishnaswamy in Hubli15-Dec-2013
Scorecard
Manish Pandey’s 161 put Karnataka in total control•ESPNcricinfo LtdManish Pandey scored his second century of the season and KL Rahul was out in the nineties for the second time in the season as Karnataka took a 193-run lead with three wickets in hand. By the time Pandey was bowled late in the day by a delivery that stayed low, his 161 had made a Punjab win nearly unthinkable.With two days remaining, Punjab will need a far better effort from their batsmen in the second innings – they were bowled out for 174 in the first – if they are to take any points from the game.For the second day running, the sun beat down through a cloudless sky, and the spectators surveyed a glowing outfield through crinkled eyes. A pitch that had helped the quicker bowlers on the first day was easing into one full of runs.The contrast between the two innings, though, had more to do with the batting approaches of the two sides than with the conditions. None of the Punjab batsmen, for instance, had shown the sort of patience Rahul did late on day one, in going to stumps on 22 from 74 balls. He had left well outside off stump, and played the drive only when the ball was pitched right up, with an elegantly abbreviated follow-through.He played two such drives in the third over of the day, one through cover and one down the ground, off Sandeep Sharma, and the two boundaries seemed to loosen his concentration momentarily, as he hung his bat outside off at the last ball of the over. The edge, however, dropped short of second slip. In the previous over, Gony had appealed unsuccessfully for lbw after getting one to keep low at Pandey.Those were the only two moments when Punjab came close in the morning session, which ended with Karnataka 166 for 2. After Gony’s first spell of five overs, none of the bowlers looked threatening. Rahul took a liking to Taruwar Kohli’s medium-pace, and drove him straight to bring up Karnataka’s 100 and between point and cover to bring up his third half-century of the season.Pandey, who began the day quietly, burst into life by launching Sandeep over the long-off boundary, and repeatedly pulled him off the front foot, with his bat typically pointing skywards. He was watchful against spin, scoring just seven off 35 balls before lunch from debutant left-arm spinner Vinay Choudhary. He didn’t try to change gears even when he was stuck on 49 for 10 balls.This restraint didn’t last too long, though. Pandey threw his hands out at the first ball he faced after lunch, from part-time offspinner Gurkeerat Singh, and edged thickly, but Mandeep Singh failed to cling on at slip. Pandey was on 59.In Gurkeerat’s next over, Rahul missed a sweep, and the ball struck wicketkeeper Gitansh Khera’s shoulder and bounced onto the stumps. The third umpire took his time poring over replays before ruling that Rahul’s foot had slid out of the crease. By this time, his 159-run partnership with Pandey had taken Karnataka past Punjab’s 174.CM Gautam was lbw to VRV Singh soon after, but Pandey continued to swell Karnataka’s lead while dominating partnerships of 52 and 68 with Stuart Binny and debutant Karun Nair. He moved into the nineties with a straight six off Choudhary and whipped the next ball wide of mid-on to go to 97. The next ball he faced, from Gurkeerat, cleared the sightscreen at the press box end. His second 50 had taken him just 70 balls. That run-spurt had come at just the right time, to knock the life out of Punjab’s bowlers just after they had struck two quick blows.

Brendan Taylor has said his team will continue to play attacking Test cricket, even though chasing a win against New Zealand in Bulawayo may have cost them the match

Firdose Moonda07-Nov-2011Brendan Taylor, the Zimbabwe captain, has said his team will continue to play attacking, aggressive Test cricket, even though chasing a win instead of playing for the draw against New Zealand in Bulawayo may have cost them the match. New Zealand won by 34 runs after setting Zimbabwe a steep 366 to chase for victory.On a traditionally flat pitch, Zimbabwe decided to bat for a result, despite needing 305 on the final day with eight wickets standing. A century from Taylor and a half-century by Tatenda Taibu kept them in the hunt but a spectacular collapse, in which they lost six wickets for 44 runs, saw them end up on the losing side. Taylor said he had no regrets about thinking positively.”If we want to become better cricketers, we have to play like that,” he told ESPNcricinfo. “If you don’t test yourself, you won’t know how far you can go.”Taylor has only captained Zimbabwe in three Tests, but has already become known for brave decision making. In Zimbabwe’s comeback Test, against Bangladesh in Harare in August, Taylor declared Zimbabwe’s second innings on 291 for 5 early on the fourth day, setting Bangladesh 375 to win. Critics said Zimbabwe should have batted longer to ensure Bangladesh were out of the game but Taylor preferred to dangle the carrot instead. The result was a comprehensive 130-run win for Zimbabwe with two sessions to spare.When Taylor found himself in the opposite situation, with New Zealand leaving Zimbabwe a gettable target, he accepted the challenge. “You have to be realistic and we felt that it was realistic to go for the win.” Even though Zimbabwe have a short batting line-up, which Taylor admits “stops at No. 7,” Taylor felt that with two frontline batsmen occupying the crease for most of the day the target was within reach. He shared a 108-run fourth-wicket partnership with Taibu and believed one of them would take Zimbabwe over the line. “I wanted us both to spend a session or a session-and-a-half at the crease and thought that if one of us was there at the end, we could win.”It was when the pair were dismissed that the collapse began, which raised questions about Zimbabwe’s lack of stability in the lower-middle order. “We are missing some guys through injury,” Taylor said. “Elton Chigumbura is struggling with a hamstring injury and Graeme Cremer has been out for a while [with a knee injury]. They could really make a difference.”While the cricketing world was touched, disappointed and some even a little heartbroken for Zimbabwe after they lost, Taylor said the team were not overcome by a sense of gloom. “Within 20 minutes afterwards we were ok. We had a meeting and everyone was very praiseworthy of each other. We gave it our all; for five days we played good cricket and to take it late into the fifth day we knew we had done something right.”Since their return to Test cricket, Zimbabwe have won one Test and lost two, won four ODIs, including a record run-chase against New Zealand, but lost seven and been defeated in four Twenty20 internationals. Taylor said it’s not the numbers but the progress that matters.”To have won the third ODI against New Zealand gave us confidence and we came close in the Test. We can hold our heads high. The senior guys have performed and helped the younger guys.”The Test against New Zealand saw contributions from several of the more-experienced players in the team. Vusi Sibanda scored 93 in the first innings and Chris Mpofu showed an understanding of the conditions to take 4 for 92, before Taylor and Taibu shone on the final day. There were also impressive performances from some of the younger players: Kyle Jarvis took 5 for 64 and Malcolm Waller, on debut, scored an undefeated 72 in the first innings. “We can take positives out of all of these things,” Taylor said.Zimbabwe have a break for the next two months, during which the players will play in the local T20 competition. Their first assignment next year is a tour of New Zealand that consists of a one-off Test, three ODIs and two T20s. It will provide a barometer to measure how Zimbabwe cope in foreign conditions.