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Olivier wrecks Pakistan again with a fifer

Duanne Olivier took his third five-wicket haul of the series as South Africa gained a 77-run first innings lead on the second day of the third and final Test against Pakistan at the Wanderers Stadium on Saturday.

The fast bowler took five for 51 as Pakistan were bowled out for 185. The tourists lost their last five wickets for 16 runs.

GIANLUIGI GUERCIA / AFP

South Africa were 25 for one in their second innings at tea, losing stand-in captain Dean Elgar, who was caught behind off Mohammad Amir for five.

Olivier was twice involved in crucial breakthroughs in Pakistan’s innings.

He ended an hour of frustration for South Africa when he took two wickets in four balls immediately after the morning drinks break, ending the stubborn resistance of nightwatchman Mohammad Abbas, who batted for 88 minutes and faced 51 balls in scoring 11. Three balls later Asad Shafiq ducked a bouncer but was caught behind off his glove.

Abbas and opening batsman Imam-ul-Haq, who went on to make 43, were both dropped twice during the first hour of play. South Africa also missed two run-out opportunities.

Pakistan were reduced to 91 for five when Imam was caught at second slip off Vernon Philander but Babar Azam (49) and captain Sarfraz Ahmed (50) put on 78 off only 61 balls for the sixth wicket.

Kagiso Rabada ended the stand when Sarfraz was caught at first slip and four balls later Olivier had Azam caught at long leg. Olivier made it a double strike when Faheem Ashraf was out first ball, splicing a mistimed pull to short leg.

Olivier started the series as South Africa’s fifth-choice fast bowler but played in the first Test in Centurion because of injuries to Vernon Philander and Lungi Ngidi. He had match figures of 11 for 96, prompting South Africa to opt for a four-man pace attack when Philander returned for the second Test.

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January 12, 2019
England’s ‘biggest year in a generation’ starts with Windies test

England begin a 2019 that England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chief executive Tom Harrison believes represents a “once in a generation” opportunity with a West Indies tour that could yet prove uncomfortably awkward.

With both a World Cup — a tournament the England men’s team have never won — and an Ashes on home soil on the horizon, it will be a challenge for England’s leading cricketers in both the one-day and Test formats to maintain their focus on the challenge in front of them rather than be distracted by the bigger prizes ahead.

Glyn KIRK / AFP

A three-Test tour and five-match one-day series in the Caribbean, which gets underway with a warm-up fixture against a West Indies Board XI in Barbados next week, should provide a good barometer of England’s progress.

Joe Root’s Test side are second in the world rankings, while Eoin Morgan’s men top the equivalent one-day standings.

By contrast, the West Indies are currently eighth in the Test table and ninth in the ODI list.

England, fresh from an emphatic away Test series win in Sri Lanka that followed a home success against top-ranked India, will be firm favourites.

And yet England have won only one Test series in the West Indies since 1968, when Michael Vaughan’s team sealed a 3-0 victory in 2004.

Overwhelming favourites

They’ve toured the Caribbean twice more since then, losing 1-0 in 2009 and then drawing 1-1 four years ago after a build-up where ECB chairman Colin Graves had dismissed the West Indies as “mediocre”.

Root’s men will have to cope with the pressure of being overwhelming favourites to beat a struggling West Indies side who will be coached by an Englishman in the recently-appointed Richard Pybus.

Yet for England, the stakes are even higher in what will be Australian coach Trevor Bayliss’s final year in charge before stepping down.

Following their miserable first-round exit at the 2015 World Cup, former England captain turned ECB supremo Andrew Strauss, made limited-overs cricket a priority.

This year’s edition will prove the worth of that policy.

More than that, the fact the Ashes and the World Cup fall in the same season — something that hasn’t happened since the inaugural 1975 men’s World Cup in England — could provide the ECB with a massive opportunity to connect with a wider British sporting public who have lost contact with the game.

Many casual fans, and potential cricket lovers, were ‘abandoned’ when the ECB decided to end live free-to-air television coverage of home internationals after England’s 2005 Ashes triumph in favour of more lucrative deals with satellite broadcasters.

But as Michael Atherton, the former England captain turned The Times cricket correspondent wrote, the absence of a major international football tournament in 2019 offers cricket the chance to “own” the summer in its birthplace.

“Rarely, though, have the two biggest events in the English cricket calendar, the World Cup and Ashes —- as well as the women’s Ashes —- combined with so little competition for what marketing types term ‘eyeballs’,” said Atherton.

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January 12, 2019
Steve Smith leaves Bangladesh T20 league with elbow injury

Former Australian cricket captain Steve Smith will drop out of the Bangladesh Premier League Twenty20 tournament due to an elbow injury after playing just two matches, his franchise Comilla Victorians said Thursday.

“Smith has suffered an elbow injury. We are not sure how he picked it up, but the last two days he could not bat in training due to the problem,” Victorians’ head coach Mohammad Salahuddin told AFP.

“He had an MRI test here but the result was not very clear. He sent the report to Australian physicians who advised him to return home immediately,” he said.

Geoff Robins/AFP

Smith, who was leading Comilla in the tournament, scored just 13 runs in his two matches, including a duck in the last match, in which his team was dismissed for a lowly 63 runs.

Salahuddin said he expected Smith to return to the league once he had recovered from the injury. He was scheduled to leave Dhaka at 10pm local time.

Comilla signed Smith initially as a back-up to Pakistan’s Shoaib Malik but later added him to the squad following clearance from the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB).

The BCB had initially blocked his participation after other franchises raised objections as Smith was not included in the initial players’ draft list for the tournament.

Smith is currently serving a one-year ban from international cricket and Australia’s domestic Sheffield Shield and Big Bash leagues over a ball-tampering scandal last year.

His former deputy David Warner, who is serving a similar ban for his role in the scandal, is also playing in the BPL, captaining the Sylhet Sixers franchise.

South African big hitter AB de Villiers, West Indies’ Chris Gayle and England’s Alex Hales are among the other international stars set to play in Bangladesh’s lucrative Twenty20 league.

The BPL was dogged by match-fixing scandals and delayed pay for some foreign players after it started in 2011.

After a one-year suspension in 2015 it has since been staged without serious controversy.

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January 11, 2019
South Africa hand debut to batsman Zubayr Hamza

With captain Faf Du Plessis suspended by the ICC for the third Test against Pakistan for slow over-rate, the South African team has roped in 23-year-old batsman Zubayr Hamza as his replacement. The Proteas, however, have persisted with their all pace attack which means spinner Keshav Maharaj sits out the final Test as well.

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Hailing from Cape Town, Hamza is an attractive middle-order batsman with a healthy average of 49.29 for his domestic side Western Province. He has nine centuries in the 52 List A games that he has played prior to this International debut. Hamza’s inclusion means that uncapped opener Pieter Malan misses with the team’s premier opener Aiden Markram being declared fit for the third Test.

In the opposition camp, misfiring Fakhar Zaman has been dropped for 20-year-old leggie Shadab Khan to give coach Mickey Arthur his preferred five-man bowling combination. Pacer Faheem Ashraf has also been picked to replace the ineffective Yasir Shah who has only picked a solitary wicket in this Test series.

The final Test is scheduled to start on Friday at the Wanderers stadium in Johannesburg with the hosts targeting a 3-0 whitewash.

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January 11, 2019
No complacency, says South Africa’s stand-in captain Elgar

Stand-in South African captain Dean Elgar said on Thursday he had given a “blunt message” to his players ahead of the third and final Test against Pakistan, starting at the Wanderers Stadium on Friday.

“I spoke to the team yesterday and I told them that any complacency needs to be ironed out,” said Elgar, who is standing in for the suspended Faf du Plessis. Elgar said South Africa were determined to complete a 3-0 clean sweep against the tourists.

S.Kodikara/AFP

There is a personal reason for Elgar to get a win as captain. His only previous international captaincy was in the first Test against England at Lord’s in 2017 when Du Plessis flew home to be at the birth of his first child.

South Africa were beaten in that match and Elgar admitted that he found the experience “chaotic”.

“It was the start of a very big series with all the hype and media commitments, so I wasn’t really able to enjoy it,” he said.

“This time we’ve got the series in the bag and although it’s still a massive goal to win 3-0 there is a little less stress. I’m hoping to enjoy this experience.”

Elgar said South Africa had been in position to finish off opponents in the final Tests of previous series, notably against India last year, but had let the opportunities slip.

South Africa will move up to second place on the International Cricket Council Test rankings, which Elgar said he regarded as “a massive opportunity”.

Elgar said he was “pretty sure” opening batting partner Aiden Markram would play after undergoing a fitness test on Thursday.

He also hinted that South Africa would again opt to play four fast bowlers on a pitch which has usually favoured them. “It looks a good wicket and hopefully it will have pace and bounce.”

Pakistan’s ‘fiery’ fast-bowlers

If South Africa went the all-seam route, Elgar said he would be aware of the problem of keeping up with the required over rate, following Du Plessis’s ban for a second over-rate offence in 12 months. “I will have to bowl a few overs,” he said of his left-arm spin, “and (off-spinner) Aiden (Markram) may have to bowl a few overs too.”

As an opening batsman, Elgar said he had been “mightily impressed” with Pakistan’s fast bowlers. “They come out with some fire. When conditions suit them, potentially they are up there with the best.”

Pakistan batsman Azhar Ali said that although his team were disappointed to have lost the series, they hoped to bring their “A game” to the Wanderers.

“Every Test match you play outside (the UAE) is important for us. Hopefully we can win this Test match and it will be very good for us, especially with the one-dayers coming up.”

Pakistan play a series of five one-day internationals after the Tests.

“Any tour of South Africa you learn a lot,” said Azhar. “It is always tough. We tried to plan for it and practise for it but unfortunately it did not go to plan. But there are still some things we think we have achieved. A few of the batsmen got stuck in and showed they can play on these wickets.”

Despite being Pakistan’s most experienced batsman, Azhar has had a poor series, with only 44 runs in four innings.

“Coming into this series I had good confidence and the way I was playing in nets and in the side (warm-up) game I felt very good,” he said.

“Unfortunately I didn’t perform but I still have one game to play and hopefully I can convert that good touch in the middle.”

Azhar said the Wanderers pitch looked better for batting than those for the first two Tests. “It looks a better track. Yes, it has grass but in terms of cracks, I think they will widen much later than in the first two Test matches.”

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January 11, 2019
Kohli says Pandya’s ‘sexist’ comments not reflective of team

India captain Virat Kohli Friday distanced his team from controversial comments deemed sexist by all-rounder Hardik Pandya on a TV chat show that sparked social media outrage.

Pandya bragged about his prowess with women during an interview on the Indian show that also involved opening batsman KL Rahul, sparking concern about the culture within the squad.

The programme, Koffee with Karan, is hosted by Bollywood producer and director Karan Johar who encourages guests to open up on personal matters.

Both players were ordered to explain themselves by the Board of Control for Cricket in India and face suspension with the furore overshadowing the team’s upcoming one-day series against Australia, starting in Sydney on Saturday.

Kohli was pressed on the matter in a pre-game media conference and made clear the comments were not acceptable.

“From the Indian cricket team point of view, any inappropriate comments that are made in that scenario are something that we definitely don’t support,” he said.

Kohli added that the two players “have understood the magnitude of what’s happened”.

“Definitely it has to hit hard, they will definitely understand the things that have not gone right.

Indian cricket chiefs on Wednesday said the two players had been given 24 hours to explain themselves, with Pandya already posting an apology on social media.

“After reflecting on my comments on Koffee with Karan, I would like to apologise to everyone concerned who I may have hurt in any way,” Pandya said on Twitter.

“Honestly, I got a bit carried away with the nature of the show. In no way did I mean to disrespect or hurt anyone’s sentiments. Respect,” he added.

Pandya, who was in the squad that beat Australia for the first time in an away Test series, boasted about his success with multiple women.

“You are just watching and observing how (women) move, as I said I am a little from the black side (influenced by West Indies culture) so I have to see how they move first,” he said.

Pandya also said he had bragged to his parents after losing his virginity.

It remains unclear whether he will play on Saturday, proving another headache for Kohli with the seam-bowling all-rounder usually an automatic pick.

India will play three one-dayers against Australia after winning their first-ever Test series in the country 2-1.

Saeed Khan/AFP

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January 11, 2019
India suspend Pandya, Rahul over comments on women

India on Friday suspended all-rounder Hardik Pandya and batsman Lokesh Rahul over comments made about women on a TV show and could force them to leave the team’s Australia tour, a cricket board source told AFP.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has told the team management that the duo will not play in at least the first of three one-day internationals in Sydney on Saturday while a full inquiry is launched.

“Both Pandya and Rahul have been suspended pending an inquiry over their misogynist remarks in a TV chat show,” the source said.

Both could be ordered back to India, the source added, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of an official announcement.

Pandya, who was in the squad that beat Australia for the first time in an away Test series, boasted on the TV celebrity show about his success with multiple women.

Rahul was on the show at the same time and watched his teammate’s bragging that sparked outrage on social media.

Pandya, 25, has apologised for his conduct, but BCCI administrator Vinod Rai has suggested a two-match ban for both players.

Diana Edulji, former India women’s captain who is part of a Supreme Court-appointed committee overseeing BCCI affairs, said Friday the duo should not play until an investigation is complete.

Skipper Virat Kohli distanced himself from the controversy earlier Friday, saying the team does not support any “inappropriate” comments.

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January 11, 2019
Finch announces team for the first ODI against India

Australian captain Aaron Finch has finalized his playing XI for the first One Day International against India. He announced his XI earlier on Friday, a full day before the first game is set to commence.

Veteran spinner Nathan Lyon has been included in the playing team ahead of promising leggie Adam Zampa. Several of the Aussie Test brigade like Usman Khawaja, Shaun Marsh, Peter Handscomb will be given a shot at the ODI squad as well despite a sub-par showing in the red ball series.

Saeed Khan/AFP

The Australian team management also confirmed that wicketkeeper Alex Carey will be pushed to the opening slot in the wake of the World Cup a few months from now. Veteran pacer Peter Siddle is also to make a comeback to the team having played his last International game in 2010, which means that lanky pacer Billy Stanlake is set to miss out.

“He well and truly deserves his spot. Any tour you go on, Siddle is one of the first picked I would think for what he brings to the team and the skill set he brings.” the Australian captain was quoted speaking to cricket.com.au.

The first game is set to be played in Sydney on Saturday, 12th of January at 7:50 IST, with the next two games in Adelaide and Melbourne respectively.

Australia XI: Aaron Finch (c), Alex Carey (wk) Usman Khawaja, Shaun Marsh, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Stoinis, Glenn Maxwell, Nathan Lyon, Peter Siddle, Jhye Richardson, Jason Behrendorff.

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January 11, 2019
Carey to open for Australia with eye on World Cup

Alex Carey has been promoted to opener while veteran Peter Siddle returns from the one-day wilderness in Australia’s opening clash against India Saturday in Sydney as they experiment ahead of the World Cup.

Wicketkeeper Carey has played six one-dayers and usually comes in well down the order, but with an eye on the World Cup later this year in England, skipper Aaron Finch said selectors wanted to see what he could do.

“It’s just an opportunity to see Alex play in a position he’s done quite bit of now in Big Bash and one-day cricket,” fellow opener Finch told reporters Friday.

“It’s a position that he’s performed really well within the last couple of years. He’ll get a good opportunity up there. We are starting to get a balanced side that we feel can adapt to a lot of different conditions.”

Usman Khawaja will come in at number three with Test discards Shaun Marsh and Peter Handscomb following them. Marcus Stoinis and Glenn Maxwell round out the top of the order.

Seamer Siddle played his last one-day international in November 2010, but gets another chance to impress with the country’s top fast bowlers being rested.

“I never thought I’d get the opportunity to play one-day cricket for Australia again,” he admitted. “I’d probably forgotten about it really … I feel like a young kid getting his first opportunity.”

He joins Jhye Richardson, Jason Behrendorff and Nathan Lyon as other specialist bowlers in the starting XI confirmed by Finch.

Usual spearheads Mitch Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins are absent for the three-game series ahead of two upcoming Tests against Sri Lanka.

Apart from the matches against India this month, Australia also play one-dayers in India and then against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates ahead of the World Cup, which Finch said was enough time to pin down their best team.

“That’s a very tough 13 games coming up and then the World Cup preparations are underway in the UK, so there’s still games to get that right,” he said.

“While it would have been great to have a settled side for the last 18 months or so I think it’s still enough time to get it right and make sure that come the World Cup we are ready to go with a really well balanced and settled side.”

Australia: Aaron Finch (capt), Alex Carey, Usman Khawaja, Shaun Marsh, Peter Handscomb, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Jhye Richardson, Jason Behrendorff, Peter Siddle, Nathan Lyon.

Saeed Khan/AFP

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January 11, 2019
Bracewell, Kuggeleijn set up New Zealand’s T20 win

The recalled Doug Bracewell and debutant Scott Kuggeleijn starred with bat and ball for New Zealand to beat Sri Lanka by 35 runs in the one-off Twenty20 match in Auckland on Friday.

It ended a dismal tour for the Sri Lankans with the drawn first Test followed by a succession of losses in the second Test, three one-dayers and the Twenty20.

New Zealand, sent into bat, recovered from 55 for five to finish on 179 for seven with Bracewell (44) and Kuggeleijn (35 not out) the key contributors.

Fiona Goodall/AFP

Although the target was not daunting, and Sri Lanka easily kept up with the required run-rate to be four for 118 after 12 overs.

But their last six wickets fell for the addition of only 26 more runs and the innings folded for 144 with 19 balls remaining.

Kuggeleijn and Bracewell both took wickets in their opening overs.

Kusal Perera, who raced to 22 off 12 deliveries was removed by Kuggeleijn’s third delivery while Niroshan Dickwella, who smacked a four and a six from the first two balls of the innings, went for 18 with the first ball from Bracewell.

Kuggeleijn and Bracewell also took the catches to dismiss Kusal Mendis (17) and Thisara Perera (43).

The first game all tour for Sadeera Samarawickrama was a short-lived affair when he was bowled first ball by Lockie Ferguson.

Ferguson finished with figures of three for 21 while Ish Sodhi took three for 30.

Sri Lanka did with the toss and put New Zealand into bat with impressive early results.

With a more disciplined bowling attack than was seen in the ODIs, and with astute field placements, Sri Lanka ripped through the New Zealand top order to have them four for 27 midway through the fourth over.

Ross Taylor, who tormented Sri Lanka in the one-dayers, had to play a more circumspect role.

His first 11 runs were all singles from 22 deliveries before he first found the boundary on his way to 33 off 37.

Taylor’s patience, however, had set the stage for the Bracewell and Kuggeleijn to hit out and give the total some respectability.

Bracewell clubbed 44 off 26 balls including five sixes and a four while Kuggeleijn only faced 15 deliveries to be not out 35 with four sixes and a four.

New Zealand now prepare to host India in a series of ODIs while Sri Lanka head to Australia.

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January 11, 2019