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Marcus Trescothick has promised his “unconditional support” to his replacements having stepped down as captain of Somerset

George Dobell21-Jan-2016Marcus Trescothick has promised his “unconditional support” to his replacements having stepped down as captain of Somerset.Trescothick, now aged 40, was appointed captain in 2010 but, despite leading the side through some of the most enjoyable, competitive years in their history, the trophies remained elusive.Chris Rogers, recently signed as Somerset’s overseas player, will captain the side in the Championship, while Jim Allenby, Australian-born but England-qualified, will captain the side in the limited-overs formats. Trescothick, whose decision was described as “mutually agreed with the club”, will continue to play.Trescothick’s spell as captain will be remembered for its near misses; 2010 was especially painful as Somerset, who have never won the County Championship, finished runner-up in all three trophies. Despite finishing level on points with Nottinghamshire in the Championship, Somerset missed out by virtue of fewer victories. They also missed a final-ball run-out that would have won them the T20 final.They were runners-up in the T20 and 40-over competitions again in 2011 and in the Championship in 2012.But at a club where success has – rightly or wrongly – often been defined a little more in terms of enjoyment than silverware, Trescothick’s period in charge may be remembered as a golden age. And it is true that sell-out crowds – even Championship cricket still attracts decent audience numbers in Taunton – exciting cricket and the emergence of some fine homegrown players may be interpreted as more important than trophies.Not by everyone, though. The decision to appoint two Australian-born cricketers – and it is noticeable that James Hildreth, who might be seen as an archetypal Somerset cricketer, has been overlooked – speaks of a desire to inject a ruthlessness into the side that it has rarely displayed.The management wants regular international cricket at a ground whose charm was once exemplified by its dog track and scrumpy. The replacement of the old pavilion, charming but beyond its time, with a fine, new stand might be a metaphor for the club’s current state. Progress often brings casualties.”I have loved being captain of Somerset,” Trescothick said. “It has been a tremendous privilege and honour to lead this great club over many years.”But now is the right time for change. I will be giving Chris and Jim my unconditional support, as well as focusing on scoring as many runs as I can in the season ahead. I would like to thank all of the players, coaches and members for their support during my tenure.”Matt Maynard, the club’s director of cricket, said: “Marcus has made an unbelievable contribution to the club as its captain over many years. I know I will be joined by all of our members in thanking him for his unfailing commitment and dedication to leading the side.”Marcus will now have an opportunity to focus all of his energies on his batting and we hope that stepping down from the captaincy will extend his playing career in the seasons to come.”

It was a day of incredible feats in Visakhapatnam, but as well as the visitors did, they still ended it trailing by 117 runs

The Report by Sidharth Monga04-Oct-20197:52

Agarkar: SA left India’s spinners short of ideas at times

Stumps South Africa exorcised some of the demons from their last tour of India on a day of glorious batting in which two of their players scored hundreds. So tough is it to play in India that despite doing much better than expected, South Africa were looking at the prospects of having to bat out three-and-a-half sessions to save the Test, which is roughly what they had batted in this innings.

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Thanks to R Ashwin’s 27th five-for, Dean Elgar and Quinton de Kock will have to put off full-fledged celebrations of their incredible hundreds by two days. India still led by 117 runs with two South African wickets standing. Should the last two wickets fall early, India have enough cushion to be able to time their declaration in the third innings.Yet the magnitude of South Africa’s achievement cannot be understated. They were 15 short of becoming the first visiting team since 2013 to score 400 when not batting first in India. That year was the start of India’s dominant run at home since when they have lost just one home Test and only weather has been able to deny them a win at home when they have won the toss.Dean Elgar braces for a long vigil ahead of a session•BCCI

Bringing the biggest fight to the Indian juggernaut were Elgar of the “this is not Jo’burg” fame from the last tour and de Kock, who was not considered good enough by the South Africa selectors the last time around. The originator of that Jo’burg jibe, Ashwin, had to work much harder for his wickets here, but he showed he had just enough in his repertoire to come out with his head held high on a tough day.Elgar’s 160 was 18 short of the highest score by a visiting batsman in India’s latest dominant run at home, de Kock’s 111 was a wonderful display of natural talent backed by a clear head. It was hard work for India’s spinners on a pitch that might not have been as flat as Rajkot against England or Delhi against Sri Lanka but didn’t quite break up like Indian pitches do of late. That shouldn’t take credit away from South Africa who were ruthless against any marginal error in length, especially on the fuller side.For long periods of the innings, South Africa’s was the second-fastest innings of 80 overs or longer by an away team in India in this dominant post 2013 era. Elgar, de Kock and Faf du Plessis, who nearly matched his 2015 series tally of 60 runs in one innings, hit 42 fours and seven sixes between them. That’s 64.4% of their runs in boundaries.R Ashwin leaps in joy•BCCI

The most striking method, though, was Elgar’s, who had to fight through a top-order collapse on the first evening and saw Temba Bavuma go early on the third morning. During the last South Africa tour of India, Ashwin had mocked Elgar by saying in a press conference that this is not Johannesburg with regards to his dismissal trying to hit offspin against the turn. In this innings, though, Elgar, who called the pitches on the last tour a farce, kept playing Ashwin against the turn. Thirty-six of Elgar’s runs against Ashwin came through the leg side, including the slog sweep to bring up the century. Ashwin showed he was a good sport by applauding the innings even before the ball had landed beyond the midwicket boundary.In the four years since that last tour, South African cricket has seen a lot of turmoil, but Elgar has been a picture of stability. He has been their best batsman these four years, and that has not happened without a method. His method against spin here was to defend solidly, but every once in a while – like a swimmer coming up for a breath – he hit a boundary to earn himself the breathing space that India’s cauldron-like conditions deny you. Sixty-three of his 160 runs came through lofted shots, the highest rate for any batsman in this Test. Rohit Sharma, known for his lofted hits, was just behind.Elgar’s stability allowed du Plessis to get into an attacking mindset, employing the sweep shot to good effect. India’s bowling seemed unremarkable in this period, but they were not allowed to bowl well. Calculated risks were taken to put them off their rhythms. One of the biggest changes from the second evening was that Ashwin was now bowling a more defensive, straighter line. However, for Ashwin it has always been about getting the drift to bowl it wide outside off and not just spearing it in there. When he got one to drift away from du Plessis, the South Africa captain was now playing at a ball outside the line of his head, and it turned back to take an inside catch for backward short leg to hold.Jadeja races to 200 Test wickets•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

At 178 for 5, South Africa still needed to do a lot of work. The ball had gone soft, the pitch was not turning from the straight, and India strived to save their spinners for the second new ball. De Kock, who had started attacking at any rate, was not going to let part-timers and a seemingly less-than-100% Mohammed Shami get away with quiet overs. Some clean hitting followed in a second successive stand of 100 or more. De Kock, too, brought up his hundred with a six off Ashwin.Just before that, Elgar made a fatal misjudgement of length, top-edging a sweep for Jadeja to become the fastest left-arm bowler to 200 wickets. The new ball had more bite than the old one, and Virat Kohli was now asking his star spinners to do something for him. Ashwin did just that with two ripping offbreaks followed by one that didn’t turn and consumed de Kock. He completed his five-for with a loopy wide offbreak to draw an expansive drive from Vernon Philander and bowl him through the gate. With just four overs left in the day, South Africa would have expected better from a veteran who played this Test partly because of his batting.Those wickets in the extra half hour to make up for the rain on the first day had set up a thrilling finale to this Test. Provided there was no more rain.

Their nine-wicket win in a rain-hit clash all but knocked Sydney Thunder out of contention

The Report by Deivarayan Muthu02-Feb-2019Sydney Sixers 1 of 85 (Vince 43*, Hughes 41*) beat Sydney Thunder 6 for 128 (Green 34*, Abbott 2-23, T Curran 2-32) by nine wickets with nine balls to spare (via DLS method)
A cohesive bowling effort, led by seamers Sean Abbott and Tom Curran, secured Sixers’ spot in the semi-finals and all but knocked out the Thunder in the Sydney Smash at a packed SCG. After the bowlers cleverly exploited a two-paced pitch to limit the Thunder to 6 for 128, rain interrupted Sixers’ chase multiple times and the target was ultimately revised to 84 in 12 overs. Sixers’ England recruit James Vince peeled off this third 40-plus score in four innings, in an unbroken 85-run stand with Daniel Hughes, to overcome the rain and steal the Thunder.While the Sixers can enjoy more than a week off before they head to the MCG to face the Melbourne Stars in the last league match this season, the Thunder will have to beat table leaders Hobart Hurricanes in their final league match on next Saturday and hope that the Stars lose their last three games, to sneak into the semi-finals.Hit the deck
Left-arm seamer Ben Dwarshuis fed Thunder captain Shane Watson with a brace of full balls on the pads, which were nonchalantly picked away over the square-leg boundary. Abbott also fed Watson with a leg-stump full-toss, and watched it disappear to the square-leg boundary. He then shortened his length in the same over and had 19-year-old Jason Sangha ramping a catch to Steve O’Keefe at third man.Curran also hit similar hard lengths – neither driveable nor pullable – and shackled both Watson and Callum Ferguson, restricting the Thunder to 1 for 38 in the Powerplay. Left-arm spinner O’Keefe then got a full ball to grip, turn, and bounce past the outside edge of Watson in a two-run over. Something had to give, and that something was Watson nicking Curran behind for 28 off 24 balls.Spin to win
O’Keefe then combined with teenage legspinner Lloyd Pope and ran rings around the Thunder middle order. Ferguson could have been dismissed on 20, when he weakly slog-swept O’Keefe against the break and skied it into the Sydney sky, but wicketkeeper Josh Phillipe dropped the swirling ball near the square-leg region. Ferguson added only six runs to his tally before O’Keefe dangled one up wide of off stump and had Ferguson holing out to deep midwicket.Sean Abbott celebrates the wicket of D’Arcy Short•Getty Images

New Zealand allrounder Anton Devcich held on, limpet-like, but struggled to find the boundary. Against O’Keefe and Pope, he mustered only 15 off 16 balls. It was Abbott who made the incision when he returned and made Devcich miscue a scoop to short fine leg. At 4 for 90 at the start of the 16th over, Thunder’s innings desperately needed a finishing kick, and Chris Green provided that with a 22-ball 34. No other batsman in the match had a greater strike rate than Green’s 154.54. He struck three fours but it was his six hard-run twos that stood out. Curran later closed out the innings with his crafty variations, including the yorker and the back-of-the-hand slower ball.Vince, Hughes, rain… No Thunder
The Sixers got off to the worst possible start in the chase, Josh Phillipe falling to a hare-brained mix-up off the first ball. Green followed it with four successive dots in the second over to give his side hope. However, Vince dashed them with two monster sixes off legspinner Jonathan Cook and seamer Gurinder Sandhu. Rain then appeared and reappeared as Ferguson hoped that it would break the Sixers’ momentum. No way. While Vince continued to tee off against pace, Hughes attacked Thunder’s gun bowler Fawad Ahmed to coolly finish off the game, with nine wickets and nine balls to spare.

Australia’s pacemen have wasted no time plotting their first target of the Indian summer, after Nathan Coulter-Nile predicted a short-pitched barrage to be directed at Rohit Sharma

Daniel Brettig19-Nov-20182:41

‘Australia is the one place where we want to leave our mark’ – Rohit Sharma

Australia’s pacemen have wasted no time plotting their first target of the Indian summer, after Nathan Coulter-Nile predicted a short-pitched barrage to be directed at the opener Rohit Sharma as a way of testing what the fast bowler called a “compulsive” tendency to play the hook and pull shots.Speaking in Brisbane ahead of the first T20I meeting between the two sides at the Gabba on Wednesday night, Coulter-Nile stated that he and his fellow Western Australian Jason Behrendorff would look to replicate the sort of new ball success they had against Rohit in India a year ago, where he was twice dismissed cheaply.This time around, Coulter-Nile added, the bounce on offer at the Gabba would add to the tricks in the Australians’ fast bowling locker, with the ground’s expansive square boundaries – relative to a far shorter straight hit – providing further impetus for the fast men to drop short against batsmen still adjusting to unfamiliar climes.”[Rohit] is an unbelievable player, he’s got a good record all round the world, so he’s definitely a player to watch but we’ve also had success with the new ball as well,” Coulter-Nile said in Brisbane. “I think Dorff got him out the last time we played him, hit him on the pad, so we’ll look to do that again early. Big square boundaries here, so we might test him a little bit, he’s a good puller of the ball but he is compulsive as well so we’ll try to get him out there.”I think everyone knows [Behrendorff] is a fantastic option up front. He’ll swing it here, beautiful conditions today, so hopefully the same sort of conditions and we can hold our chances, because he’ll certainly create a few.”Rohit Sharma mistimes a pull•Getty Images

For his part, Rohit said that adaptation to Australian conditions was key to the challenge of performing, as India recognise the significance of their opportunity to win a Test series down under for the very first time. Their closest efforts previously were drawn encounters in 1980-81 and 2003-04.”It’s either Perth or Brisbane. India has always played at Perth or Brisbane and this time around we’re at Perth,” Rohit said. “Those two conditions are obviously very challenging. Australia has bowlers who are very tall and extract those conditions, use them to their advantage. Indian batsman generally are not that tall. Obviously it’s not that easy for us but all the guys are quite determined to change things around this time.”Of course, their bowling attack will challenge us no matter the format. But as a batting unit we’re prepared to face that challenge. The reason we came down few days early here is to get used to the bounce. Brisbane has always challenged us, so as a batting unit we are ready to accept it. This time we want to change our fortunes and come out with some exceptional performances. It’s not going to be that easy, we understand that. But we have quality in our unit.”It’s the one place that we want to leave our mark and do well. The last time we played a Test series here, although we lost two games and drew one, I thought there were a few close games being played. We want to make it count this time around. There’s a real good feeling inside the group in all three formats – the motivation of the team is to just try and seize all the moments and win tournaments. When you do well in places like Australia you feel good as a team.”Reflecting on the possibility of verbal provocation from India, given Australia’s relatively recent commitment to play the game with far less of an abrasive edge, Coulter-Nile pointed out that the shortest format did not necessarily grant as much time for players to get steamed up, either by circumstances or in an effort to motivate themselves.”I’ve never been sledged by them. T20 its a little bit hard to sledge, you don’t have that time in the field to really get angry, so I don’t think you’ll see too much of it during the T20s,” he said. “I don’t talk to any of the batters personally, in T20s I don’t think people have too much to say. If they get an opportunity I don’t think that’ll happen, it’ll just be talk with the ball, talk with the bat.”There has been plenty of criticism around Australian cricket of this summer’s schedule to date, particularly how much white-ball players have been required to jump from one format to another. But Coulter-Nile was happy to at least be playing a series of three matches against India, ahead of a Test series of four and then a further three ODIs in the new year.”I think we like a bit of continuity and so even if we don’t win the first game you can learn from your mistakes and try to build on that. If you do win you can try to hold it over them,” Coulter-Nile said. “But a one-off T20, especially a T20 game it can go either way. Three is a good number I think.”Confidence comes from wins so we’ve just got to find a way to win, scrap a win out, find a bit of luck. Once one happens, you get confidence and build it up. We’ve played these guys a lot so hopefully the confidence is there. We’ve all performed well against India and against their players, so hopefully guys can take that confidence into playing for Australia.”

Ottis Gibson put in a request with CSA to withdraw ‘key players’ early, but ESPNcricinfo understands that the board did not bring up the issue with the BCCI

ESPNcricinfo staff10-May-2019South Africa coach Ottis Gibson put in a request to withdraw “key players” from the IPL in early May to prepare for the World Cup. But Cricket South Africa (CSA) chief executive Thabang Moroe did not bring up the issue with the BCCI, ESPNcricinfo understands, worried of the consequences of doing so.A report by has suggested that the status of India’s scheduled tour to South Africa in 2021-22 may have prompted Moroe’s action – or rather inaction. A tour by India would provide a major financial boost to an organisation that has forecast losses of R 654 million over the next four years, with any change to the scheduling of such a lucrative tour likely to worsen those losses.Captain Faf du Plessis, Imran Tahir, Quinton de Kock and Chris Morris – who replaced the injured Anrich Nortje in South Africa’s World Cup squad earlier this week – are all still in India, with du Plessis and Tahir both part of the Chennai Super Kings squad that will play in Sunday’s final against Mumbai Indians – for whom de Kock plays – after their six-wicket win over Delhi Capitals on Friday night.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Before the tournament started, CSA had confirmed to the BCCI that its players would be available for the full duration of the IPL. Gibson, however, had requested to CSA that key South Africa players part of the World Cup squad return in the first week of May, which would have likely ruled them out of the IPL playoffs.Kagiso Rabada was also part of Delhi Capitals’ squad until just over a week ago, when he returned to South Africa under something of an injury cloud, having complained of a stiff back and been sent for scans that prompted CSA to call him home. But it is also understood that the return of Rabada from the IPL was not a smooth process. The IPL is understood to have not thought his back issue serious enough to merit an early exit, but CSA’s medical team insisted he return to South Africa after Proteas physio Craig Govender, who happened – by chance – to be travelling through Delhi at the time, saw the scans.For his own part, Rabada said via social media channels that his return was purely “precautionary”.”Ipl was really fun!,” Rabada said on Instagram. “Extremely glad for the opportunity! Sad to leave but good to be home! Bittersweet. Regarding my back, I’m good – precautionary is all.”Imran Tahir is a photographer’s dream•BCCI

At the time of writing, CSA had not responded to ESPNcricinfo’s request for comment on the issue of Gibson’s request to have his players back early, though quoted a spokesperson as saying: “We are not aware of such a request made to the executive.””Our understanding is that, as is the case with New Zealand, the Windies, etcetera, we as CSA do our best to assist our players in maximising their IPL income,” the spokesperson added. “It is only Australia and England who can afford to pull their players out.”The members of the England squad who had been active in the IPL – including Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer, Sam Billings and Jonny Bairstow – were all directed by the ECB to return to England on or before April 26. The four members of Australia’s World Cup squad who had been part of the league returned by April 30.But, given that the IPL pays national boards a fee for each foreign player taking part in the league, and CSA’s precarious financial position, it was not in a position to risk ruffling any feathers by calling South Africa’s World Cup players back early. CSA said that “discussions” around the departure date of its players from the IPL were still happening in March, and by the middle of April, CSA told ESPNcricinfo, the plan was “for guys who make the final to join us on the 13th.”South Africa’s pre-World Cup camp begins on Sunday, May 12, the day of the IPL final that du Plessis and Tahir will be part of. South Africa will then depart for England on May 19.