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What to expect from and who to look out for at the upcoming Faysal Bank T-20 Cup

Umar Farooq30-Nov-2012Sialkot Stallions
Coach: Ijaz Ahmed Jr
Captain: Shoaib Malik
Mohammad Yousuf, captain of Lahore Lions, would be hoping to impress the Pakistan selectors•Getty Images

Defending champions Sailkot Stallions are the most effective T20 side on the Pakistan domestic circuit. They have missed out on claiming the title only twice, winning it six times. They hold the record for the most number of consecutive wins, being unbeaten for 25 matches between 2006 and 2010. Stallions represented Pakistan in the Champions League in October this year, but failed to qualify for the main event – they lost the opening game against Auckland Aces but won their next game against Hampshire.Opener Imran Nazir leads the solid top order, and the middle order is centred around captain Shoaib Malik. Seamer Naved-ul-Hasan and promising young left-arm spinner Raza Hasan lead the bowling attack. Stallions will miss spinner Abdur Rehman, who is serving a 12-week ban for using a recreational drug during his stint with Somerset in England.Player to watch out for: Left-hand batsman Haris Sohail, one of the in-form Pakistan batsmen on the domestic circuit since 2010. He has scored 673 runs at 134.60, with four hundreds and two half-centuries in the President’s Trophy. He also has a sound temperament, and could be in the national reckoning soon.Lahore Lions
Coach: Mohsin Kamal
Captain: Mohammad Yousuf
Captained by experienced batsman Mohammad Yousuf, Lions possess nine active international players. Nasir Jamshed, Ahmed Shehzad, Kamran Akmal and Mohammad Hafeez, who has left his native side Faisalabad Wolves to join Wolves as a guest player, make up the top order. Umar Akmal, Yousuf and Abdul Razzaq bolster the middle order, and the bowling attack is led by left-arm fast bowler Wahab Riaz, Aizaz Cheema and Under-19 player Zia-ul-Haq. Lions, who claimed the 2010-11 title, are thus a potentially dominant side.Player to watch out for: Thirty-eight-year-old Mohammad Yousuf is among the finest batsmen Pakistan has produced. Though not a big fan of Twenty20 cricket, he still holds a respectable batting strike rate of 110.86 in the domestic T20s. He hasn’t played any domestic tournament since June 2011 and is keen to make a comeback to the national team.Karachi Dolphins
Coach: Tauseef Ahmed
Captain: Shahid Afridi
Captained by Shahid Afridi, the line-up has powerful openers like Shahzaib Hasan and Khalid Latif, and Fawad Alam and Asad Shafique in the middle order. Their bowling is led by fast bowlers Sohail Khan, Mohammad Sami and Tanvir Ahmed.Player to watch out for: There are few who carry the hopes of the public like Shahid Afridi. But he is currently struggling to make an impact with bat and ball. He had scored 30 runs in six matches at an average of six and claimed four wickets at 42.74 at the World Twenty20 in October. In his last ten international innings across all formats, he averages 6.30. He would be eager to find form ahead of the upcoming limited-overs series against India.Rawalpindi Rams
Coach: Sabih Azhar
Captain: Sohail Tanvir
Rawalpindi Rams, the runners-up of the previous tournament in Karachi and the winner of inaugural edition of super-eight T20 in Faisalabad, are the underdogs. The side contains some specialist T20 players like Awais Zia, Sohail Tanvir and Yasir Arafat. Umar Amin and Umar Waheed are in the middle order and can rescue the side from any early wobbles. Mohammad Nawaz, a talented 18-year-old left-arm spinner, and Hammad Azam lead the bowling attack.Player to watch out for: Awais Zia had a productive season last year. He was the leading run-getter for Rams and the fourth-highest overall with 177 runs from five games.Bahawalpur Stags
Coach: Shahid Anwar
Captain: Bilal Khilji
This is the new team that has been introduced into the competition. Most of their local stars, like Bilal Khilji and Kamran Hussain, had featured for Multan in the previous tournaments and have finally landed in their own regional side. Stags made a handful of acquisitions, adding the likes of Kashif Siddique and Mohammad Talha to their line-up as guest players, to make up a formidable side. Former Pakistan wicketkeeper Zulqarnain Haider from Lahore is another guest player.Player to watch out for: Mohammad Talha has gone out of contention after been a strong prospect for the national side. An injury-prone pacer, he would be looking for an opportunity to regain form.

Daren Ganga, the Trinidad & Tobago captain, was banking on Ravi Rampaul’s experience to restrict New South Wales in the Super Over in Chennai

ESPNcricinfo staff29-Sep-2011Daren Ganga, the Trinidad & Tobago captain, has said that Ravi Rampaul would have bowled a tight final over and a Super Over “on most days”. Rampaul conceded 16 in the final over to allow New South Wales to force a tie, after which he went for 18 in the Super Over, a target T&T could not chase in Chennai.”Rampaul is our most experienced bowler,” Ganga said. “He has done the job for us in the past, and with more than 15 runs to defend in one over, he is going to pull it off on most days. Maybe he was tired [for the Super Over], having to bowl back-to-back overs after having bowled at the death.”You have to give credit to [Moises] Henriques, though, for the way he batted. We have tried it [bowling around the wicket] time and again during practice, angling it across, and more often than not it worked.”Chasing 140, New South Wales were 123 for 8 at the end of the 19th over. Rampaul was hit for three fours in the 20th over – Henriques hit two, while Patrick Cummins hit one – as New South Wales tied the game. Rampaul then came back on to bowl the Super Over, and Henriques hit him for four fours.There was confusion over Trinidad’s batting line-up in the Super Over. Darren Bravo, a left-hand batsman, initially came out to open, but had to return to the dug out as Lendl Simmons and Adrian Barath took strike against left-arm spinner Steve O’Keefe. Trinidad wanted a left-right pair, but were unaware they had to follow the order mentioned in the list the captains submit before the Super Over.”We were under the impression that you could ask any two of the three to open,” Ganga said. “The rules aren’t explicit and it’s a learning [experience] for us.”New South Wales’ captain Simon Katich said he had chosen O’Keefe to bowl the Super Over because of the sluggish pitch. “We felt pace off the ball was the best option, it showed at the back of our innings as well. Also, O’Keefe had a good outing with the ball [1 for 14 in four overs].”Henriques, who was Man of the Match for his two wickets, 18 not out off nine balls, and his Super-Over blitz, said he was clear about how to go about the chase.”He [Cummins] was fresh to the crease, and at that stage [in the last over] we needed eight of three. I thought about it before the ball was bowled and realised if we took the two [off the fourth ball] I could still be on strike for the last ball if a four or a six was required. As it turned out, I was not needed at all.”

Ricky Ponting believes it is “absolutely possible” that Australia can trounce England with a 5-0 Ashes clean-sweep this summer

Cricinfo staff16-Aug-2010Ricky Ponting believes it is “absolutely possible” that Australia can trounce England with a 5-0 Ashes clean-sweep this summer. Although Ponting didn’t quite match Glenn McGrath’s 5-0 prediction from four years ago – which turned out to be correct – he was confident that Australia had learnt from their mistakes and such an outcome was “all in our hands”.The Australians gave up the urn in England last year with a 2-1 defeat and while they have performed strongly since then, a 1-1 draw against Pakistan last month raised a few questions. The Headingley loss was Australia’s first Test defeat since the Ashes, and back home they won’t have as much reason to fear the swinging ball.By the first Test at the Gabba, Australia should have regained their No. 1 wicketkeeper Brad Haddin and the offspinner Nathan Hauritz, while they hope Peter Siddle will also be available after battling back stress fractures. Ponting met Cricket Australia officials in Melbourne on Monday to plan for the Ashes and said there was no reason to rule out a 5-0 win.”It’s absolutely possible,” Ponting told reporters. “There’s no reason why not. It’s all in our hands. It’s how well we play and how well we take charge of different situations. We’ve learnt from a lot of the mistakes that we’ve made. There’s no doubt we made some mistakes in the last Ashes series in England that probably at the end of the day cost us the series.”We know now that we’re a more experienced and probably a better team now than we were then. We put that together plus we’re playing in our conditions, we hope to win this series and win it well. Batting collapses probably were the reason we lost the series last time around and our inability to bowl them out on the last day in Cardiff. I’ve got confidence in the squad of players that we’ve got that they are going to be good enough to win an Ashes series.”Following Australia’s 1-1 series with Pakistan, England have started their series against the same opponents with two powerful victories, winning inside four days at both Trent Bridge and Edgbaston. They play two more Tests against Pakistan, their only five-day outings before the Ashes, while Australia will fine-tune their preparations with two Tests in India in October.”[James] Anderson and [Stuart] Broad and those guys have really stepped up,” Ponting said of England.” They are coming together well as a team. We have to make sure at the end of the Indian tour that we have got everything in place to make sure that we’re ultra-competitive against them.”They [England] certainly have bowled well and they’ve had great conditions to bowl in as well, the English. We’ll have a different set of conditions and a different ball when they come out here and I’m sure our guys will equip themselves really well. We know where we have to bowl to all of their batsmen. They’ve got no one there who’s going to surprise us at all.”Jonathan Trott, the England batsman who scored a century on debut at The Oval last August, offered a wry response to Ponting’s assessment. “I’ve only played one game against them, and they wanted to win that game but it turned out pretty good for us,” he said. “That’s all I can say, I don’t know the guy and his character, but I’d find if I’d said something like that I’d have put more pressure on myself and the team, more than if I go about my business the way I know.”

The former coach had already been banned for 20 years for inappropriate behaviour towards a female player

AAP15-Nov-2024Cricket Australia has handed former Sri Lanka Test player Dulip Samaraweera with another ban after allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards a second player while coaching.Already suspended from any involvement in Australian cricket for 20 years after being found to have behaved inappropriately towards a female player, Samaraweera has since been accused of further misconduct.The second matter relates to his time when he worked as a private coach, while employed by Cricket Victoria. Samaraweera has denied the claim but chose not to participate in the investigation and has been banned for 10 years for breaching the sport’s code of conduct.The ban will be served concurrently with his initial 20-year suspension, meaning he is still not able to return to any coaching role with Australia or a state or territory body until 2044 when he will be 72.AAP understands neither complainant has so far opted to pursue criminal charges.The seven-time Test representative had been involved in Cricket Victoria’s women’s program for almost 16 years, including as a long-time assistant coach at the WBBL’s Melbourne Stars, before resigning in May.Cricket Victoria chief executive Nick Cummins had previously labelled Samaraweera’s conduct “utterly reprehensible” and “a betrayal of everything we stand for” after CA released the findings of its initial investigation in September.”The victim in this case has demonstrated incredible strength of character and courage in speaking up,” Cummins said after the initial charge.  “She will continue to receive our ongoing support to allow her to achieve her goals on and off the field.”From an organisation perspective, the safety and wellbeing of everyone at Cricket Victoria is paramount. We will not tolerate any behaviour which compromises that position, or our people, and will always support our culture of speaking up.”The Colombo-born Samaraweera opened the batting in seven Tests for Sri Lanka between 1993 and 1995, before later moving into coaching. He was an assistant coach with the Stars from the inaugural WBBL season in 2015, and even served as Victoria’s interim head coach for most of last summer.Samaraweera had been due to take over the role full-time, but resigned in May when Cricket Victoria’s conflict of interest policy prevented him from hiring his brother Thilan to the coaching staff.

Hain marked international debut with 89 off 82 after prolific domestic form finally rewarded

Cameron Ponsonby24-Sep-2023Every generation has a cricketer that is the best of the bunch to never play for England. A decade ago it was James Hildreth, now it’s Sam Northeast, but tomorrow it will never be Sam Hain.Having “made peace” with the idea that his chance for England may never come, Hain, 28, scored a fluent 89 off 82 balls on ODI, making a strong impression as he looks to force his way into the international set-up Dawid Malan style. Safe in the knowledge that he’s not starting as first-choice, but aware that as long as the runs flow, so too will the opportunities.”I know how good English cricket is,” said Hain, who moved to the UK from Australia at 16 to sign for Warwickshire.”The depth is unbelievable. I actually made peace that I might never, ever get the chance but that doesn’t mean I lacked ambition. When I was younger, I probably searched for playing for England too much. And it took me away from the real process of things and the journey that I’ve been on over the last 10 years. I’m just happy to get a chance.Related

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“The last few years I guess I’ve tried to find a reason why I play [and] it’s because I really love it. It’s why I started, so I just find that over the years it’s just helped me ride the highs and lows a little easier.”The much touted statistic that follows Hain around is his record-breaking List A average that sits at 58.56. According to the spreadsheets, this man is the best in the country at this. And yet England never gave him a go until now.Simply put, this was because cricket’s old adage that it’s “not how, but how many” when it comes to run-scoring is obsolete. A statement of received wisdom that, in terms of accuracy, sits somewhere alongside the earth being flat and your mum thinking you’ll drown immediately if you get into a swimming pool less than half-an-hour after eating a biscuit.It’s a falsehood that Hain knows all too well, with the quantity of runs coming from his bat across his career never being the issue, but instead the quality of them. He went undrafted in the first two Hundred drafts despite his reputation as a borderline white-ball phenom, and it was because of a pedestrian T20 strike rate that sat at 126 until the end of 2020. In his own words, the omission was a “kick up the backside” and spurred the change in approach that was the first brick in the wall towards an England debut.”That forced my hand a little bit,” Hain said, reflecting on his change in approach when at the crease. “To actually delve into my game more so than ever.”Hain has always had a 360 game, he just used to be more circumspect in its adoption. Now, and more to the point, for a number of years, those shackles have gone. Nevertheless, it is somewhat of an oddity that Hain, as the Patron Saint of the Forgotten Format, earnt his ODI debut on the back of his change in T20 form. The days of the List A to ODI pipeline existing in England are long gone. Hain, even with – or more accurately, because – of his remarkable run-scoring in List A cricket has seen opportunities in the format dry-up.”We don’t actually play a lot of 50-over cricket if you’re involved in the Hundred,” said Hain, who has played just five List A matches in the last four years. “And you actually forget how much time there is to bat.”Thankfully for Hain, he remembered in time to turn what had been a nervy, stuttering start of just one run from his first 11 deliveries, into a fluent innings that carried England to 300 and beyond.While on 1, Hain slashed a ball that flew through the hands of a diving backward point for two runs, and the next ball he skipped down the wicket and launched the ball for four over mid-on. On such fine margins, international careers are born.”I tried to keep my emotion in check as much as possible,” said Hain, who had the added bonus of his Australia-based dad, Bryan, being in the crowd thanks to him coincidentally being in Europe for the rugby World Cup.”Anyone who says they’re not nervous on a day like this would be lying,” Hain added. “There’s nerves there and that’s because I really care. I really I’ve waited a long time for an opportunity and I am grateful for it.”I wanted to do really well not only for my family, but for all the people that have supported me over the years. I was waking up around 12, two and four [in the morning]…probably the worst I’ve been. I moved over here at 16 and your international debut is something you want to try to make as memorable as possible, but I was at peace whether I scored runs or not. I just really wanted to take in the day for what it was.”

Yorkshire recover from 11 for 3 before sealing convincing victory with ball

ECB Reporters Network24-Jun-2022Harry Brook’s blistering knock of 67 from 31 balls dug Yorkshire Vikings out of trouble and propelled them into the Vitality Blast North Group qualification places at Northamptonshire Steelbacks’ expense.Brook’s effort, which included four fours and four sixes, underpinned his partnership of 90 from 46 with skipper David Willey as Vikings fought back after a dreadful start to post 190 for 7 at Wantage Road. Yorkshire allrounder Matthew Waite registered a T20 career-best with both bat and ball, following an unbeaten 35 from 20 with figures of 3 for 18 as the home side crumpled to 128 all out in 16.2 overs.It was a third straight defeat for Northamptonshire, who have now dropped out of the top four and face a struggle to make the quarter-finals.Josh Cobb’s decision to send Yorkshire in after winning the toss was swiftly justified as the Steelbacks skipper opened proceedings with two tight overs and the wicket of Finn Allen, caught off a leading edge at short cover.With Adam Lyth and Tom Kohler-Cadmore both holing out to Ben Sanderson, the visitors slumped to a perilous 11 for 3 in the fourth over before Willey and Brook hauled them back into the game. Willey, who rejoins Northamptonshire at the end of the season, was required to play little more than a supporting role while his partner tore into the bowling, lifting Sanderson, Tom Taylor and Jimmy Neesham for a series of majestic leg-side sixes.Aside from a powerful drive straight back at Sanderson, who could only parry the ball, Brook offered no chances as he raced to his half-century from 21 deliveries and looked odds-on to convert that into a ton. However, he became one of three victims in five balls for Graeme White – and the only controversial one of those dismissals, given out caught behind after swinging across at the left-arm spinner.Any prospect of a renewed Yorkshire collapse was averted by Jordan Thompson and Waite, who crashed Sanderson for three boundaries off the final over as the visitors finished with a flourish.Northamptonshire made just as subdued a start to their innings, with Ben Curran chopping on to Willey and Shadab Khan’s tidy legspin provoking Cobb into a wild heave that saw his bat fly towards square leg, while the ball sailed away into the hands of backward point.But it was Waite who collected the prize scalp with his third delivery as big-hitting opener Chris Lynn speared it straight to Willey at mid-on to leave the Steelbacks teetering at 22 for 3.Neesham briefly revived his side’s hopes by hammering 26 from 13 but, having dispatched Shadab over the midwicket fence twice in an over, he picked out the point fielder next ball – and the procession gathered pace. Dom Bess struck twice in as many deliveries and, despite a late flurry of boundaries by Nathan Buck, the outcome was never in doubt.

Updates, analysis and colour from the fifth day of the fourth Test

Varun Shetty19-Jan-2021*Most recent entry will appear at the top, please refresh your page for the latest updates. All times are local.

5:38pm: Chuck the scripts out

AFP via Getty Images

There isn’t anything in the world today that will give you better than this. No fables, no mysteries, no fantasy worlds, no rollicking political thrillers will match up to India’s youngest members building around the oldest one, who took bruises, knocks and some amount of intimidation to take this game deep.And then, the patience – yes, the patience – of Pant. Strung along at a strike rate around 40 for the largest part, gave himself time. “Give yourself time,” they’ve been telling him forever. He did at Sydney, it was his best Test innings they said. And then he comes back, and he brings us this. Unbeaten on 89, taking India to win with three overs to spare. At the Gabba. No one does this at the Gabba. A record chase, a loss for Australia for the first time since 1988.A tied series was enough. A draw would do it. That was the talk all day. It was probably the balm that made this Indian line-up so composed today: play time, there’s little to lose. That manifested in a Shubman Gill innings of pure class up front. A 91 that kept Australia humble even as they kept breaching Pujara’s defenses to hit him, multiple times, on the body.This was the last day, this was Starc’s time. Gill tore into him for an over of 20 runs, and Starc never quite returned all day from that. Spare a thought for Pat Cummins – No. 1 in the world, possibly the fittest man in the game. He had to do it all today, carrying that bowling line-up, arguably the best in the world, that has been defied three innings in a row now. And it culminates in a series loss.This series was 0-1, India had been bowled out for 36. They were severely incapacitated. They had no business pulling off their greatest series win of all time, with ten minutes to go. Yet, here we are. What a series. Pure quality in every single session from two brilliantly competitive teams. It will take a while to forget it.

5:15pm: It is on

A hooked six, a spliced four, a ramp and a vicious sweep. Australia are utterly under the pump at the moment. There are no clouds, the cracks themselves are assisting India’s batsmen, and there isn’t a bowler in sight who seems to have an answer right now. India’s swashbuckling young left-handers are setting them up for history.

4.39pm: 69runs, 15 overs, 6 wickets