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Sri Lanka’s preparations for the first Test in Cardiff have taken a blow with the news that Nuwan Pradeep, their match-winning seamer against the England Lions on Sunday, is set to fly home after picking up a serious knee injury

Andrew Miller in Cardiff24-May-2011Sri Lanka’s preparations for the first Test in Cardiff have taken a blow with the news that Nuwan Pradeep, their match-winning seamer against the England Lions on Sunday, is set to fly home after picking up a knee injury.Pradeep claimed figures of 4 for 29 in ten hostile overs as Sri Lanka overcame the follow-on to bowl the Lions out for 183 in Derby and win a thrilling contest by 38 runs. However, he sustained damage to his anterior cruciate ligament after treading on the ball in the course of that spell, and is expected to be out of action for six to eight weeks.”It’s bad news for the young man,” said Stuart Law, Sri Lanka’s interim coach. “The warmer you are the better with these injuries, but as he stopped he was dragging his leg around yesterday. It’s a shame.”In the absence of their limited-overs spearhead, Lasith Malinga, Pradeep had looked likely to slot straight into the Test team with his extra pace through the air and unorthodox slingy action. “He was definitely in the mix after his performance in Derby,” said Law. “He’s one of our cards up our sleeve, so it’s a shame if he has to go home. I’m heart-broken for him.”Sri Lanka’s problems could be compounded by the potential loss of their veteran seamer Dilhara Fernando, who was limping during training after bowling through the pain of a less serious knee problem during that same match in Derby, in which he took six wickets. He was named in their 12-man squad for Thursday, but remains in doubt.Farveez Maharoof, who has been playing county cricket for Lancashire, has been drafted into the squad as cover, having already featured during their opening warm-up match against Middlesex in Uxbridge, when several members of the original 16-man squad were still in India playing the IPL.Given his form for Lancashire and his all-round abilities, Maharoof could well end up playing his first Test since 2007. He started the season with a century on Lancashire debut and followed the tour game against Middlesex, in which he took two wickets, with a four-wicket first-innings haul for Lancashire against Yorkshire.Sri Lanka’s other seam-bowling options are Suranga Lakmal, Thisara Perera and Chanaka Welegedara. Perera took four wickets at Derby, while Lakmal and Welegedara took three and five wickets respectively in the game against Middlesex.Maharoof played 20 Tests between 2004 and 2007, and was a regular in Sri Lanka’s one-day side till early 2009 after which a combination of injuries and the emergence of Angelo Mathews as Sri Lanka’s premier allrounder kept him out of the national team. He made a comeback during the 2010 Asia Cup but has not played any international cricket since.”We’ve drafted Maharoof in as injury cover, and it’s the perfect opportunity to get him involved because he’s been here a long time,” said Law. “He’s been playing well for Lancashire, we’ve got good reports from the Lanky boys saying he’s fitted in well – bowling well, batting well, he’s a good man around the dressing room – so it was natural, rather than have someone who’s been sitting at home doing nothing. It was a common-sense decision.”Maharoof’s inclusion in the Sri Lanka squad means he is unlikely to be available for Lancashire until the end of the tour in mid-July.

Results from the ODI series were supposed to count towards points in the ICC’s new one-day league

ESPNcricinfo staff20-Apr-2020South Africa’s limited-overs tour of Sri Lanka, which was scheduled for the first half of June, has been postponed because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The teams were set to play three ODIs and three T20Is during the tour, with results from the former counting towards points in the ICC’s new one-day league.”It is very sad that we have been forced to take this step and we will re-schedule the tour as soon as cricket returns to a sense of normality and our international fixture list allows,” Cricket South Africa acting chief executive Jacques Faul said in a statement.”Our Proteas would not have been able to prepare properly taking our own lockdown situation into account and, more importantly, health considerations for our players, which are always paramount, were the over-riding factor.”Graeme Smith, CSA’s director of cricket, had also earlier indicated that players would need six weeks of preparation time before embarking on a tour, given the ongoing global lockdowns.South Africa’s next assignment is a two-Test, five T20I tour to West Indies in July-August. A decision on that tour is expected mid-May.The inaugural ODI league was due to run from May 2020 to March 2022, featuring the 12 Test-playing teams and Netherlands – the 13th ranked ODI side, which qualified for the league from the World Cricket League Championship. The top eight sides from the league will qualify automatically for the 2023 World Cup.”[This series] would have been a particularly important tour for us with the three ODIs counting for the new ICC one-day league and the T20 programme being part of our preparation for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup scheduled for Australia later this year,” Faul said. “It is very frustrating for the players who want to build on the good form they showed at the back-end of our home summer against Australia.”This is the second one-day series with ODI league points at stake to be postponed, after Ireland v Bangladesh. The ICC is yet to officially comment on how the schedule will be rejigged to accommodate series that are part of the ODI league and the Test Championship, but more is expected on this following high-level meetings on Thursday.Two series that count towards the Test Championship – Sri Lanka v England and Bangladesh v Australia – have also been postponed due to the pandemic. The men’s T20 World Cup is scheduled to be played in Australia in October-November, another tournament that is in doubt in current circumstances.

Mohammad Amir and Wahab Riaz left out of an overhauled Pakistan squad

Umar Farooq16-Jan-2020The experienced pair of Shoaib Malik and Mohammad Hafeez will return to the Pakistan side for the T20I series against Bangladesh next week. Mohammad Amir and Wahab Riaz have been left out, with pace bowler Muhammad Musa keeping his place in the shortest format, while batsman Ahsan Ali and fast bowler Amad Butt were called up.For the second T20I squad in succession, head coach Misbah-ul-Haq rung in the changes as Pakistan look to break a streak of seven T20Is without a win. Pacer Shaheen Afridi returns to the side for the first time since May, having sat out the T20s against Sri Lanka and Australia as he recovered from about of dengue fever, while Usman Qadir keeps his place and may finally be in line for his debut. Haris Rauf has also been called up after his impressive season in the Big Bash League with the Melbourne Stars.Squad: Babar Azam (capt), Ahsan Ali, Amad Butt, Iftikhar Ahmed Haris Rauf, Imad Wasim, Khushdil Shah Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Mohammad Musa, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Afridi, Shoaib Malik, Usman Qadir”He[Hafeez] is experienced enough and has performed well in past,” said Misbah when asked about the merits of his selection. “At the time when him and Malik were ruled out, we never said that they will never be considered again. Obviously, we were trying out our pool, but we found they were missed. So even if Hafeez hasn’t played much cricket lately, he is experienced and mature enough to contribute for Pakistan.”Hafeez was suspended from bowling in ECB competitions just last week after umpires reported him following a match at Taunton in August, and independent testing revealed he was breaching the 15-degree limit. Hafeez pledged to contest the findings, but as things presently stand, Pakistan will not have his services as a bowler available to them.In the last 12 months, Pakistan have lost 8 out of 9 completed T20s they have played, and a side that was until recently ranked comfortably at the top of the T20I rankings has begun to fall apart. They still hold the number one ranking, but that is more by dint of their remarkable record in the time before this recent string of poor results. Misbah said they needed to continue to experiment until they found a combination that worked for Pakistan.”We have lost two series earlier and it was important for us to think hard about how we can return to winning ways,” said Misbah. “Most of our decisions were taken considering the fact that we have been losing and have to start winning again. So we’ve got our experienced players back and picked our domestic performers. We wanted to persist with Khushdil Shah and Usman Qadir and picked Harris Rauf on his performance in the national T20 Cup and the Big Bash.”We have tried a mix of senior and young players which enable us to retain our winning momentum. Until the World T20, everyone is in consideration. Yes, the situation has been alarming after we lost against Sri Lanka and then in Australia. But we are going to keep experimenting until we don’t get to our best combination. The results I know weren’t up to our expectations but we don’t need to be frightened.”Another surprise was the axing of Mohammad Amir, who has taken more wickets in T20I cricket than any other Pakistan bowler since the start of January 2018. He quit Test cricket to focus on white-ball cricket, and there was dismay at the PCB when that happened, who, among other things, demoted his category A contract to one in category C, the lowest category. On dropping him, Misbah, who had himself expressed unhappiness with players picking and choosing what formats they wanted to play in, said, “We tried to be consistent with young players. Having senior bowlers like Amir and Wahab sit out is tough. The whole idea of dropping them is to include younger bowlers in the playing XI.”The three match T20I series against Bangladesh will start on January 24, with the other two T20Is to be held on January 25 and 27. All three games will take place at the Gaddafi Stadium.

Allrounder asked for a break from Test cricket after being dropped following the first Ashes Test

George Dobell16-Jan-2020Moeen Ali has claimed he is “refreshed and ready to go” after taking a break from international cricket, but says he has yet to make a decision on whether he will return to Test cricket for England’s tour of Sri Lanka in March.Moeen, who asked for a break from Test cricket after being dropped following the first Ashes Test, has now admitted he was suffering from “burn-out” and felt he had become “one of the first guys to get the blame” when England lost.And while he says “no timeframe” has been put on a possible Test return, he has said that “when I’m ready, I’ll be back for sure”.”I felt burnt out,” Moeen told the BBC Cricket Social. “I felt tired mentally and physically. I needed this break to recharge my batteries and work on a few things on my game. And to just find that hunger and love for the game again.”It’s not something people would normally do. Especially after you’ve just won the World Cup and the Ashes are playing. I was doing quite well before that. It was tough. But I knew it was the right thing to do.”A lot of people could see I probably needed a break. It’s easy to just carry on, keep going and almost dig a deeper hole at times. But I just wanted to step back from it. I started reading about my faith a bit more. And I started taking interest in other things rather than focusing on cricket 24/7.”I love being away and travelling and playing cricket. But it was almost too much and it needed to take a bit of a back seat. I can put my cricket to one side. It’s not my be-all and end-all. I’ve more than cricket in my life and I wanted to spend time being normal in the winters.”A lot of the time if we lose I feel I am one of the first guys to get the blame for it. Yes, there have been days when I have not had good games but I feel sometimes it is easy to point the finger at me. It did get to me and that was one of the reasons why I needed to step back from Test cricket. I felt like I was drained from it all. But I have got to become a stronger person for that as well. It is difficult, but I will be fine.”Moeen will join up with the England limited-overs squad in South Africa in the next couple of weeks, and he says he will “probably” come to a conclusion about the Sri Lanka tour after talks with the England management in South Africa.”I’m not sure yet [about going to Sri Lanka],” he said. “I’m going to go to South Africa now for the one-day stuff and I will probably decide there. I’ll speak to a few people.ALSO READ: Broken rib was ‘most pain on a cricket field’ – James Anderson“I’ll definitely come back when I feel ready. England – the ECB – have been amazing in terms of support and they fully understand where I’m coming from. Playing all forms of the game is not the easiest thing at the moment as we play so much cricket.”There’s no time frame. When I’m ready I’ll come back for sure. But I know I’ve got to fight for and earn my spot again. Which I’m looking forward to. I’ve missed being around the guys and being on tour. I missed the banter with the boys. But I know, in the long run of my career, I needed this break.”While Moeen insisted he still “definitely” saw Test cricket as “the pinnacle” of the sport, he suggested that playing franchise cricket had helped him improve his game and recover his confidence after losing the Test part of his ECB central contract.”When that contract was taken I had a few approaches from franchise cricket which is great because you feel valued,” he said. “It was just the intensity of Test cricket was too much at the time. I have still got to earn some money, even though it is not all about the money. You want to play a good standard of cricket. I felt valued when all the leagues came in for me.”For me it is enjoying my cricket. I bat up the order [and] bat low down for England and I want to improve my batting and bowling before I come back and I want to come back a better player I was.”

The Pakistan legspinner has dismissed the Australian batsman seven times and made sure everybody at the Gabba knew it

Daniel Brettig26-Nov-2019Yasir Shah may have just “woken up the beast.” This is the general sense in the Australian camp after his haughty celebration following Steven Smith’s dismissal for the seventh time in last week’s first Test in Brisbane.It’s fair to say that Smith was perhaps not at his most focused when he entered the fray, after David Warner, Joe Burns and Marnus Labuschagne had already taken Australia well past Pakistan’s first innings.But he will be very much more so in Adelaide, admitting that Yasir’s gesture had undoubtedly raised his competitive ire. The Australians flew into Adelaide on Tuesday and were followed a couple hours later by the visitors, who must win in Australia for the first time since 1995 if they wish to square the series.”I am motivated, particularly after he put his fingers up … that he got me seven times,” Smith said in Adelaide. “A couple of the boys were in the sheds just after that and said ‘he’s just woken up the beast’ or something like that. We’re in for a battle next week. I’m not going to be giving away my wicket very easily this time.”I actually didn’t even know that he’d gotten me out [seven times]. I thought that he’d gotten me out once or twice. Seven times? There you go. Pakistan [UAE] 2014, he got me twice at least there, actually three times.”Though the record looks impressive for Yasir, several of these dismissals came in scenarios when quick runs were sought to further Australia’s advantage. “A few of those times I was slogging to set up a game or second innings he got me out slogging trying to do something once or twice too,” Smith said. “A couple of I guess you’d call them cheap wickets in a way, but he’s got me a couple of conventional times as well.”I thought he bowled really well at the Gabba last week. He got good drift and a little bit of spin when it was on offer. I’m not overly worried about him but playing with a bit more discipline this week and hopefully will score some runs.”I spoke to JL in the morning [before batting] and I was like ‘how should I go about this, should I just take it on’. He said ‘just go out and entertain them, do what you want’,” Smith said. “It was probably a bit more casual than if I’d come in at 2 for 20. I probably would have been a bit more cautious and got into my innings a bit more rather than playing a somewhat reckless shot. But we live and we learn and we go again.”The scoreboard was in a pretty good place. I wasn’t too disappointed. I usually do get pretty disappointed when I get out but the position we were in, we were in a pretty good one so it didn’t faze me too much and it seemed to make him pretty happy, that’s for sure.”Yasir had less success against Labuschagne, who contributed the sort of big, spinal first innings hundred that Smith has made into his trademark. Comparisons have been made as to the quirky nature of both Smith and his eager pupil, though the older man was not shy to draw a distinction.”He’s way stranger than I am,” Smith said. “I thought he played beautifully. I’ve been really impressed with the way he went about things in England, the way he prepared, we talked a lot about batting. He’s got a good understanding of what he’s trying to do, what he’s trying to achieve.”He’s been getting a lot of starts since sort of getting into the side. He’s got a lot of 60s and 70s. The challenge for him is to turn them into 180 like he did last week. If he’s doing that consistently, he’s going to be a very, very good player in all forms of the game.”

Four blistering sixes from AB de Villiers won the night for Bangalore Royal Challengers

The Bulletin by Sriram Veera09-Apr-2011
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsAB de Villiers smashed five sixes in his 54 off 40 balls•AFP

Five blistering sixes from AB de Villiers, and his 52-run partnership with Saurabh Tiwary, won the night for Bangalore Royal Challengers.The first came in the ninth over in which Sreesanth leaked 15 runs as Bangalore moved to 80 for 2. It was a full delivery, off a free hit, and de Villiers went down on a bent knee to paddle-scoop it for a stunning six over fine-leg. The next blitz from him came after spinners Muttiah Muralitharan and Ravindra Jadeja choked up the run flow in the next few overs. With 33 runs required from the last three overs, de Villiers imposed himself against Raiphi Gomez, who was asked to bowl his first over in that pressure situation. The second delivery was smashed over midwicket, the fifth disappeared over long-off and the final delivery was bulldozed over long-on. Game over.It wouldn’t have been an easy decision for Mahela Jayawardene, Kochi’s captain, to turn to Gomez but RP Singh’s poor effort in the 15th over must have forced his hand. With 59 runs needed from the last six overs, RP Singh bowled a poor over. The first delivery was outside leg stump and Saurabh Tiwary shoved it to the fine-leg boundary. The second was a wide, the third was spanked to the straight boundary, and he kept bowling length and went for 15 runs.Bangalore played the waiting game well; they saw out Muralitharan and treated Jadeja with some caution as they knew the seamers could be taken for plenty. It was the same resolve that saw them come back in the game with the ball and restrict Kochi to 161 after Brendon McCullum and VVS Laxman had added 80 runs in the first nine overs.McCullum and Laxman are as different as a Bollywood masala flick and art-house cinema, but they combined superbly to lay a good platform. McCullum was the McCullum the world knows: aggressive, adrenaline-pumping and audacious as ever. He sashayed down the track in the first over to slap a Zaheer Khan delivery over extra cover, but really exploded in the second over against Dirk Nannes. A blasted off drive was followed with a slashed boundary but it was a thunderous pull over the midwicket boundary that really tested the lung power of the home crowd.Laxman has been itching for the IPL to start to prove his worth in the shortest format of the game. There were a few lovely hits: a late cut for four against Tillakaratne Dilshan, lofted on drives on a bent knee and a couple of flicks, but it was a flat-batted thumping six over long-on that really declared his ambition to do well in this tournament. It was a short-of-length delivery from Abhimanyu Mithun, who must have been really shocked to see Laxman back away and flat-bat it over the boundary.However, slowly, and surely, Bangalore began to claw their way back. In the final delivery of the ninth over, Laxman slog-swept Dilshan straight to deep midwicket, and in the 12th over, McCullum fell, top-edging a paddle scoop off Virat Kohli. Suddenly, the slow bowlers began to apply the squeeze. The legspinner Asad Pathan combined well with Kohli to keep Brad Hodge and Mahela Jayawardene in check. Jayawardene tried to break free against Daniel Vettori but was stumped in the 15th over, and Brad Hodge was yorked by Zaheer Khan in the 18th over.It was left to Jadeja, who showed maturity in his shot selection, preferring the straight hits down the ground instead of across-the-line heaves, to push the score along. He did his bit with the ball too but it didn’t prove enough.

Sri Lanka Cricket is seeking government grants and a soft loan to meet part of the amount it spent on co-hosting the 2011 World Cup, according to sports minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage

ESPNcricinfo staff14-Jun-2011Sri Lanka Cricket is seeking government grants and a soft loan to meet part of the amount it spent on co-hosting the 2011 World Cup, according to sports minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage.”Sri Lanka Cricket ran out of funds after hosting the World Cup and sought government help to settle some payments,” Aluthgamage said. SLC has asked for a grant of two billion rupees ($18.35 million) and a loan of 1.5 billion rupees ($13.75 million) from the state-run Bank of Ceylon.Sri Lanka built two new grounds, one in Hambantota and the other in Pallekele, while the R Premadasa stadium in Colombo received an extensive renovation for hosting World Cup matches. “In total, we spent about five billion rupees ($46 million) to build the three World Cup venues,” Aluthgamage said.The board was forced to pledge the newly-built stadiums plus the income from upcoming tours as collateral to raise funds to pay for the World Cup. Sri Lanka hosted 12 games over the course of the tournament. SLC is expecting to get about $25 million from the ICC by way of hosting rights but will require government support to bridge the deficit.”It’s not a crisis situation yet. We are confident the government will help us out,” Aluthgamage said.

Harper says his target is to make the selection process as transparent as possible

ESPNcricinfo staff17-Oct-2019Darren Bravo might have been left out of the West Indies squad for the one-off Test against Afghanistan, but lead selector Roger Harper backed the batsman to strike form in domestic cricket and return to the side.Bravo scored a mere 47 runs in four innings at an average of 15.66 in the Test series against India. His form hardly improved in the CPL, where he managed 128 runs in seven innings, striking at 103.22, and only one half-century.”Firstly I don’t want to term it as dropping a player like Darren Bravo,” Harper said in a press conference at the Queen’s Park Oval on Wednesday. “We all know the quality of a player like Darren Bravo, with the sort of Test and one-day record he has representing West Indies.”We recognised Darren has not been at his best as we have seen over the years. Therefore, we wanted to give him the opportunity to go away, maybe play club cricket, but definitely our regional cricket, get his game right and come back to being the best he can be, so that he can make a real positive impact for our West Indies team and be the force we know he can be in world cricket.”The new selection panel of Harper, Miles Bascombe and coach Phil Simmons also gave maiden call-ups to legspinner Hayden Walsh Jr and opener Brandon King for the white-ball squads. Walsh Jr topped the bowling charts in the 2019 CPL with 22 wickets from nine games. But more than the wickets, it was his wicket-taking ability – an astonishing strike rate of 9.1 – that impressed the selectors. King was the leading run-scorer with 496 runs at an average of 55.11 and a strike rate of 148.94.ALSO READ: Hayden Walsh Jr’s moment of truth, at 36,000 feet“During the CPL, he [Walsh Jr] excited everyone with his performances and given the direction white-ball cricket has gone, we realize the need for bowlers capable of taking wickets,” Harper said. “Walsh has proven he is a wicket-taker and I think he will have a great impact on the team, especially in middle overs so that we won’t be drifting through but can keep control of games.”He [King] had an outstanding season, made runs in our domestic four-day competition and followed it up with an outstanding CPL that demanded a place in the team. We were impressed not just by his stroke play, but his maturity and wish him all the best.”Apart from King and Walsh Jr, experienced batsman Lendl Simmons also reaped rewards of a strong show in the CPL and made a comeback to the T20I side. His 430 runs at an average of 39.09 and a strike rate of 150.34 were second only to King’s tally. Meanwhile, Denesh Ramdin, who last played a T20I in November 2018 when West Indies toured India, also found a place in the 20-over side as the selectors went for a back-up wicketkeeper in each format.”Similar to Brandon King, his [Simmons’] weight of runs in the CPL prior to the squad selection made us had to consider him,” Harper said. “When we looked at the balance of the team, we needed a player like him because he is a versatile batsman.”One of the things we tried to carefully do in all three squads is to have a wicketkeeper as cover. Denesh brings with him a lot of experience and as a batsman can contribute in the middle if required and I think he will add a good blend to the team as well.”Talking about his own appointment, Harper said his target was to make the selection process as transparent as possible.”If the West Indies team is to move forward it’s an area we have to get right. I look forward to working with coach Simmons, fellow selector Bascombe, taking the advice of captain Holder and Pollard so that we make this process as transparent as possible, so that every player who is performing and meeting the criteria, will feel they have a fair chance at being selected. Once we do that I believe players will give their best and we will see a positive effect of that on the field.”

Newcastle United are set to receive £4.8m from the Premier League, Chronicle Live has reported.

It comes after Norwich City and Watford secured an immediate promotion from the Championship back to the top flight. As a result, the Premier League will not have to provide the two clubs with parachute payments totalling £83m.

Relegated clubs are entitled to a slice of Premier League broadcasting cash for two years if they go down in their first season or three years if they survive for longer, but that goes out the window when they return to the top flight.

The money which would have gone to Norwich and Watford can now be distributed among the current top-flight clubs.

Chronicle Live also pointed out that the windfall will increase if Bournemouth join them in coming straight back up. The Cherries are fourth in the table, already assured of a play-off place.

Transfer Tavern verdict

It’s a welcome boost to Newcastle’s transfer budget as they look to build a squad strong enough to avoid any relegation trouble next season.

One possible target is Young Boys striker Jean-Pierre Nsame, valued at £6.3m by Transfermarkt. Theoretically, this latest windfall could cover around 75% of the potential fee for the Cameroon forward, who last year was described as being ‘in another galaxy’ after a run of 41 goals in 46 matches.

The news could also improve Newcastle’s chances of landing Joe Willock permanently. It has been reported that the Arsenal loanee would cost as much as £20m if the Magpies are to upgrade his loan move.

The immediate returns of Norwich and Watford to the Premier League may already be reaping some knock-on benefits for the Tyneside club.

In other news, these comments from a Championship manager are promising for Newcastle.