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A power-packed half-century from 23-year old Stephan Baard was followed up by a triple-wicket maiden from from Bernard Scholtz as Namibia outplayed Papua New Guinea by 49 runs in Malahide

ESPNcricinfo staff18-Jul-2015
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsNamibia’s left-arm spinner Bernard Scholtz bowled 16 dot balls in four overs•ICC/Sportsfile

A power-packed half-century from 23-year old Stephan Baard was followed up by a triple-wicket maiden from Bernard Scholtz as Namibia outplayed Papua New Guinea by 49 runs in Malahide.Often times there is nothing quite like scoreboard pressure. It’s doubly useful on a tired pitch where the slower you bowl the harder it is to hit. Before the game, Namibia had decided that if the ball was too full or too short, their batsmen would go after it. Come game day, they amassed 181 for 5 in their 20 overs. As with such big scores, one of the top order goes on to score big.Baard typified Namibia’s pre-game attack plan. When the ball was overpitched, he drove viciously through cover and mid-off. Three fours and two sixes came from that part of the ground. Then when PNG were forced to bowl flatter and shorter, he used the sweep and the pull liberally. Meanwhile, Namibia got past 60 runs in the Powerplay for a third time in the tournament and he eased to a fifty off 27 balls.He did slow down thereafter, but consequently stayed at the crease until the penultimate over to ensure the early platform amounted to a sizeable total. Baard, with 233 runs at an average of 77.66 is the top-scorer of this year’s World T20 Qualifier, so Namibia’s middle order simply had to bat around him. Sarel Burget, at No. 5, made 38 runs off 20 balls in a fourth-wicket partnership that yielded 74 runs in 42 balls.That he didn’t pick up the Man-of-the-Match award indicates the value of Scholtz’s effort with the ball. He offered no pace for the batsman and profited when they tried to make some of their own. That can be a difficult plan for a spinner to trust, considering this was slam-bang T20 cricket. But in Malahide, the ball wasn’t coming onto the bat and it was a pretty large ground too.So Scholtz kept bowling slow and broke PNG’s chase in the 13th over. Charles Amini mistimed a loft because of the lack of pace and was caught at long-on. Next ball, Scholtz slowed it up further and Mahuru Dai swept across the line straight to deep midwicket. The hat-trick ball was looped up above the eyeline as well, got loads of turn to hit new batsman John Reva on the pads, but it had pitched outside leg stump. He would finish the over trapping Reva plumb in front for the score to dip from 90 for 4 to 90 for 7. Scholtz bowled 16 dot balls in his four overs, Papua New Guinea’s priorities shifted from hunting down the runs to lasting the 20 overs.Things had looked very different at the start of the chase. Tony Ura helped ransack 68 runs in the first six overs to keep Papua New Guinea well ahead of the rate. He had five fours and a six in his 21-ball 34 and was looking especially good while driving the ball. But Namibia found a way past him through a run-out and thereafter did not find much resistance to their progress to the top of the Group A table thereafter. If they remain on top until the end of the league stage, they will claim direct qualification into the World T20 in India next year.

Steven Smith scored a timely half-century as Australia’s selectors consider their Test squad to tour India, helping New South Wales to first-innings points in their match against Western Australia

ESPNcricinfo staff25-Jan-2013

Scorecard
Steven Smith made 72•Getty Images

Steven Smith scored a timely half-century as Australia’s selectors consider their Test squad to tour India, helping New South Wales to first-innings points in their match against Western Australia. Moises Henriques was also in form and at stumps was unbeaten on 62 alongside Steve O’Keefe on 16, and at 6 for 263, the Blues had a 21-run lead over the Warriors.On a slow pitch that most batsmen found hard work, Smith batted for more than three hours for his 72 and struck nine boundaries before he was dismissed by Jason Behrendorff. Several New South Wales batsmen made starts, including Scott Henry (39) and Peter Nevill (26), but both were removed by the debutant spinner Ashton Agar.Henriques struck six fours and one six in his innings and for much of the time was batting alongside Smith in a 72-run partnership. Earlier, the Warriors had added only 10 runs to their overnight total before losing their final wicket, which was claimed by O’Keefe, who ended up with 4 for 55.

AB de Villiers’ bright start as South Africa’s limited-overs captain has hit a speed bump and it did so in embarrassing fashion

Firdose Moonda in Kimberley21-Jan-2012AB de Villiers’ bright start as South Africa’s limited-overs captain has hit a speed bump and it did so in embarrassing fashion for a man who prides himself on professionalism, athleticism and commitment to the cause.South Africa put on a barely believable and sometimes-comical fielding display, mixing terrific catches like Alviro Petersen’s leap on the boundary to dismiss Kumar Sangakkara with horrible gaffes such as Morne Morkel’s drop of Angelo Mathews. “We weren’t great in the field today,” de Villiers said. “We created a few chances that we didn’t take.”Usually energetic and committed in the field, South Africa appeared frantic and pressured as Sri Lanka built confidently during their chase of 300. Dinesh Chandimal and Thisara Perera attacked bad balls and ran well between the wickets, although they had one mix-up that could have had either of them dismissed. de Villiers said being under that sort of pressure had tested his ability to use his bowlers, and he felt he could have done it better.”I needed to take a few chances because we needed wickets and I thought the bowlers did really well on a good pitch. But I made a few tactical errors and used the wrong bowlers at the wrong time.”The decision to keep the spinners on against a fluent Perera was one such strategic mistake. “I thought the spinner could get us one,” he said. “We tried to bounce him but the ball wouldn’t come up. It was one of those pitches where it was not very easy to take wickets. We tried slower balls. I tried every single bowler in the team.”Wickets were always going to be hard to come by on a flat pitch, and de Villiers admitted South Africa had actually lost the game with the bat. After a speedy start, they were well placed to score over 300, but had to settle for 299 for 7. They lost four wickets for 47 runs and their lower-middle order was unable to score as freely as de Villiers had against a regrouped Sri Lankan attack that bowled with discipline.de Villiers accepted full responsibility for South Africa’s slowdown towards the end of their innings. “We should have got to 330 but I got out at a very bad stage. We needed a partnership there.”de Villiers was bowled for 96 by a Perera slower ball in the 41st over with South Africa on 250 for 5. Wayne Parnell, Robin Peterson and Vernon Philander are capable of big hitting but were forced to play a more watchful game. South Africa scored only 49 runs off the last 9.1 overs.”We put the lower order under huge pressure so they couldn’t play the game they would normally play,” de Villiers said. “But with the ball, they [Parnell and Philander] showed variation and skill, and then we let them down in the field.”Despite the stumble towards the end of the innings, South Africa can take heart from the pressure they created at the start and the return to form of Graeme Smith. With talk over the former captain facing the axe, Smith announced his intention to continue playing the 50-over format of the game brutally. “Hopefully he makes it happen now and maximises this,” de Villiers said. “I am expecting more runs from him in Jo’burg.”The final match of the series will be South Africa’s last home appearance of the summer before they head to New Zealand and England. de Villiers said they want end this series in as strong a position as possible. “We spoke about ruthlessness before this game but we weren’t that ruthless. We’ll have to do that better. We wanted a whitewash but we didn’t do that. We want to make it 4-1 now.”

Daniel Harris and Kieron Pollard smashed whirlwind half-centuries as South Australia overwhelmed Western Australia

The Bulletin by Andrew Fuss13-Jan-2011
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsDaniel Harris got South Australia off to a flier against Western Australia•Getty Images

The “Doctor” struck at the WACA – in more ways than one – as South Australia cruised to a 46-run win over the hapless Warriors in a KFC Big Bash match that had everything from streakers to an assistant coach taking a screamer – on the field.Man of the match Daniel ‘Doc’ Harris was the destroyer for the Redbacks, blasting 70 off just 37 balls; part of a 98-run opening stand with skipper Michael Klinger (35 off 25) that set-up a massive total of 202.The Fremantle Doctor – the name of the strong wind that comes off the ocean near the ground – also caused some destruction during the Redbacks’ innings, bringing down a large tree outside the ground, which crushed a car and landed on Foxtel’s outside broadcast van, affecting their coverage of the match for some time.In a match billed as the battle of the big-hitting West Indians, Kieron Pollard (55 off 26) came out on top, equalling the fastest 50 of the Big Bash summer and proving why he’s worth the price of admission alone. Even a broken nose to Australian one-day hopeful Callum Ferguson – courtesy of a Saj Mahmood bouncer – and a late-innings collapse, where they lost 6 wickets for 12 runs, could not stop South Australia from posting a big score.As has been the case in several Big Bash matches this year, early wickets hindered the team chasing, with Chris Gayle’s bizarre stumping – the ball deflected off Graham Manou’s stomach and back onto the stumps – deflating the Warriors’ hopes early. Pollard was again in the action in the field, this time unleashing a verbal tirade on in-form Warriors opener Shaun Marsh (24 off 22), which lasted several overs until Marsh was dismissed thanks to a gem of a catch from Klinger, diving full length to his right at cover.The Warriors middle order was left with too much to do and collapsed late; the only other highlight – a diving catch late in the innings by South Australian assistant coach Jeff Vaughan, who was forced to field because of injuries to Ferguson and Dan Christian, who strained a leg muscle.The victory moved South Australia to the top of the Big Bash table, ahead of their clash with Queensland next Thursday in Adelaide, while the Warriors are floundering at the bottom of the table, with a tough match at home to Victoria next Tuesday on the cards.

Steyn’s masterclass in Nagpur had everything, conventional swing with the new ball that got him the wickets of Murali Vijay and Sachin Tendulkar and a blistering reverse-swing whirlwind after tea that saw India lose their last six wickets for 12

S Aga08-Feb-2010
“He maintained mastery of orthodox outswing and inswing from a neutral position without telegraphing his intent. He was lithe, with a wickedly fast arm that elevated him to express status. Only in inches was he lacking – but he even turned that to his advantage with a bouncer as malicious as they come, skidding on to the batsman.” Mike Selvey could have been writing about Dale Steyn, and not Malcolm Denzil Marshall, who took his final Test wicket, Graham Gooch, when the boy from Phalaborwa was all of eight years old.Pound for pound, Marshall was probably the greatest fast bowler of all time. Doubters need only look at the tour of India in 1983, when his 33 wickets at 18.81 came against a batting core – Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath, Dilip Vengsarkar, Ravi Shastri and Kapil Dev – that finished with 81 centuries between them. Steyn is no facsimile of the Bajan titan. His action is far more classical and side-on, where Marshall was more open-chested. But like his predecessor, Steyn can bowl furiously quick, and hoop the ball both ways. When he nips it back off the seam as well, he’s nigh on unplayable.The masterclass in Nagpur had everything, conventional swing with the new ball that got him the wickets of Murali Vijay and Sachin Tendulkar and a blistering reverse-swing whirlwind after tea that saw India lose their last six wickets for 12. Steyn’s figures for that passage of play were 3.4-2-3-5. At the WACA in its pace-and-bounce heyday, it would have been eye-catching. On a relatively placid Nagpur pitch, it was mindboggling.Ignore Virender Sehwag, a batting iconoclast. The other Indian batsmen faced 62 balls from Steyn, scoring 17 runs. That would suggest that he frustrated the opposition out. Far from it. Each man was worked out in a certain way. Vijay had already been troubled enough by the outswinger when Steyn summoned up the sort of incoming delivery that had detonated the stumps of Jonathan Trott and Ian Bell in the recent home series. Tendulkar had driven an outswinger for four in his previous over, but one pitched slightly shorter and a couple of inches closer to middle stump suckered him into another drive that only found the edge. It was straight out of said-the-spider-to-the-fly.Even as he finished with 7 for 51, Steyn spoke with special fondness of the Tendulkar dismissal. “That one, and Vijay just before him,” he said almost bashfully. “I worked him [Vijay] out quite nicely with two balls that went away and then bringing one back in which he left. That kind of stuff just doesn’t happen out in the middle. We’ve really planned it.”As a quick bowler, you know that if you pitch the ball up, you’ll get driven,” he said of the trap set for Tendulkar. “But when you pitch it up, you have a chance of finding the edge of the bat. I didn’t mind being hit for four down the ground or being nicked through the slips. If he’s willing to drive, there’s a chance I can get a wicket. That’s the risk you take when you pitch up.”Circumstances too played a part with the ball splitting open after 55 overs, by which time India had progressed to 212 for 4. Paul Harris and JP Duminy bowled a couple of overs with the replacement before tea, and then the fun commenced. “Corrie [van Zyl] sat us down at tea and said that the session after lunch wasn’t good enough,” said Steyn. “We didn’t get the wickets that we wanted. We had the ball changed and once it started to reverse and we got one or two lucky dismissals, it just started a roll.”He certainly isn’t the first South African quick to wreak havoc in Indian conditions. Even though he never delivered the sort of headline spell that Steyn managed on Monday, the great Allan Donald took 17 wickets at a paltry 16.11 in his four Tests in India. Lance Klusener once took eight in an innings at the Eden Gardens, but Steyn hadn’t asked for notes from either before embarking on this latest Indian adventure. “To be honest, I haven’t spoken to anyone like Allan,” he said. “But one thing that does happen in our side is that information gets passed on. When those guys leave, they pass it on to the remaining guys. Information on these wickets and how to bowl in these conditions will remain in our team. It’s up to the players in the side to actually go out there and execute the plans.”The biggest part of that plan was reverse swing, something that Steyn had stressed even in the build-up to the series. “You’re not going to get a lot of sideways movement off the wicket because there’s not a lot of grass on them,” he said with a smile. “You’ve got to rely on getting the ball to do something through the air. I said before that a ball bowled at 145k, whether it’s in Jo’burg or Nagpur, is still 145ks in the air. The plan was to hit the deck hard, with pace.”India’s extra-long tail was especially clueless against the kind of reverse swing that Waqar Younis once perfected. But just as lethal were the inswingers he bowled with the hard new ball. “It’s something I’ve been working a lot with in the nets,” he said. “I don’t want to reveal all my secrets. You work on these things and then it’s nice to see guys shoulder arms and then the ball cannons into the stumps. I got Bell like that in Johannesburg and that was where it started from. It’s a skill that you have to have in your armoury as a pace bowler.”Sehwag took 34 off the 38 balls he faced from Steyn in the first innings, but was altogether more shaky the second time. When he flailed one to slip, South Africa’s job of going one-up in the series was nearly half done. Emboldened by Steyn’s post-tea burst, Graeme Smith hadn’t gone the safety-first route and batted again. “Some of the guys wanted to know if we should go out and bat again and really take the game away from India,” said Steyn. “Or whether the bowlers had enough energy to come out there and bowl for another 25 overs. It was a quick chat and it worked out quite nicely. We wanted to pick up two to three wickets and we were able to get two.”Five years ago, Jason Gillespie produced one of the finest fast-bowling performances (9 for 80) seen on Indian soil as Australia romped to a 342-run victory at the old stadium across town. That though was a rather more helpful surface, with tufts of grass seldom seen on the subcontinent. Without that assistance, Steyn did what Marshall had done so memorably at Kanpur in the opening Test of that ’83 series, blitzing the batsmen with subtle movement at high pace. Steyn is hardly an imposing physical specimen, and it was an Indian bowler that Sunil Gavaskar recalled when asked about Marshall Law at Green Park. “He actually bowls more like Kapil, especially that outswinger. But he’s about 10k quicker.”On largely lifeless pitches, that extra hustle makes all the difference. Unless Tendulkar produces the kind of once-in-a-lifetime innings that VVS Laxman played in the Garden of Eden, India will be out of chips and on the street long before this match enters a fifth day.

Phil Salt top-scored with an opening 44 off 35 balls in Lancashire’s 178 for 6 before Wood’s hand in hosts’ defence

ECB Reporters Network supported by Rothesay05-Jul-2025Lancashire Lightning 178 for 6 (Salt 44, Chappell 3-23) beat Derbyshire Falcons 136-6 (Madsen 53, Wood 3-25) by 42 runsEngland limited-overs pacer Luke Wood struck twice with the first two balls of Lancashire’s defence of a 179-target as they beat struggling Derbyshire by 42 runs at Emirates Old Trafford to put one foot in the Vitality Blast quarter-finals.Wood’s international team-mate Phil Salt top-scored with an opening 44 off 35 balls in Lancashire’s 178 for 6.He was supported by valuable contributions from England white-ball captain Jos Buttler with 23, Liam Livingstone’s 35 off 23 and Australian Ashton Turner’s late 31 not out, setting Lightning up for their seventh win in nine North Group matches.Their elevation to top spot in the table was then all but confirmed from the moment left-armer Wood ousted Caleb Jewell and Martin Andersson at the start of the Falcons’ reply, which stuttered to 136 for 6 despite Wayne Madsen’s entertaining 53 off 40 balls. Wood finished with an excellent 3 for 25.This was bottom side Derbyshire’s seventh defeat in nine games.Unfortunately, Livingstone suffered a suspected hamstring injury and needed to use captain Keaton Jennings as a runner from 23 onwards.Earlier, Livingstone became the 12th Englishman to reach 7,000 career runs in T20 cricket. Two others in that dozen include Buttler and Salt.Lightning raced out of the blocks and were in a position to potentially swamp the Falcons at 124 for 2 after 13 overs.Salt and Livingstone had just taken a six apiece off Pat Brown’s seam, and they shared 68 in seven overs for the third wicket from 65 for 2 early in the eighth over when Buttler departed caught and bowled off Samit Patel’s left-arm spin.Opener Jennings, who hit 22, had taken four fours off Ben Aitchison’s seam in the second over of the match having been inserted.Derbyshire limited the damage impressively during the final seven overs, which saw pacer Zak Chappell remove both Salt and Livingstone caught at deep cover en-route to an excellent 4 for 23.Lancashire started this fixture, at 3pm, having only returned home at 3.45am from their winning trip to Northampton last night following issues on the M1.But there was no sign of rust.In fact, with four wickets falling in succession at the end of the Northamptonshire innings last night, including a Saqib Mahmood hat-trick, Lancashire had struck six times in six balls combining that with Wood’s double strike early here.Wood had opener Jewell caught at first slip and then bowled Andersson with a sumptuous in-swinging yorker.The first-ball wicket even won a lucky couple in the crowd a Dubai holiday as part of Lancashire’s Fly Emirates sponsorship.Wood later had opener Aneurin Donald caught at short fine-leg trying to ramp – 28 for 3 after five overs.Wood also helped the leg-spin of Luke Wells remove Brooke Guest with a smart catch at long-on.Madsen reached 50 off 36 balls with back-to-back swept sixes off Wells, but he sliced a full toss to cover as one of two 14th-over wickets for Australian off-spinner Chris Green as the score fell to 86 for 6.Chappell finished with a belligerent 34 not out to cap a handy personal performance which went unrewarded.