All posts by csb10.top

ScorecardHardus Viljoen picked up six wickets in the match as Kent rolled on (file photo)•Getty Images

Kent kept up the pressure on second division leaders Essex after wrapping up a convincing victory by an innings and 127 runs over Sussex in the Specsavers County Championship. Their first Championship win at Hove since 1992 moved Kent on to 195 points, the same number as Essex – who are pushing for victory themselves against Worcestershire at Chelmsford – had at the start of the round.Kent will be hoping that Worcestershire’s batsmen show more application than Sussex’s managed on the third morning as they tamely surrendered eight wickets in 27.5 overs, several of them to questionable shots. Kent seamers Mitch Claydon, Hardus Viljoen and Matt Coles took three wickets each as Sussex suffered their first Championship defeat of the season to end their own slim chance of making a late charge for promotion.Their hopes of making Kent work for victory depended largely on the experienced Chris Nash and Luke Wells but both fell within 30 minutes of the resumption. Nash got a beauty from Viljoen which pitched and left him off the seam but Wells tried to cut a ball that he should have left alone and gave second slip Coles a head-high catch. He wasn’t the only Sussex batsman with poor judgement outside off stump.None suggested they were in the mood to get their head down thereafter. Coles found some extra bounce to have Fynn Hudson-Prentice caught off the glove and Craig Cachopa gave a catch to wicketkeeper Sam Billings, moving in front of first slip.Skipper Ben Brown could consider himself unfortunate when he played on to a ball from Darren Stevens that hardly bounced and by then it was only a case of whether Sussex might hold on until rain arrived at lunch time. But their tail offered little resistance. Ollie Robinson guided a ball at least a yard outside off stump from Coles to third man, Danny Briggs was pinned by Claydon’s nip-backer and with lunch delayed after the ninth wicket fell Claydon wrapped things up when last man Steve Magoffin was caught behind. Only Nash batted for longer than an hour.Kent head to Beckenham next week where victory over Northamptonshire could set up a potential winner-takes-all promotion decider against Essex at Canterbury on September 20.

The biggest obstacle in New Zealand’s path to a first ever Test series win over South Africa is the opposition’s pace pack, according to coach Mike Hesson.”From a seam bowling point of view, they are strong, they have got a lot of variety,” Hesson said in Durban. “They have some bounce bowlers, some good swing bowlers, some seam bowlers so that will provide it’s own challenges.”New Zealand are fresh off a 2-0 sweep over Zimbabwe, where their batsmen profited from time in the middle but were not always challenged by a hardworking but tame attack. Donald Tiripano, Michael Chinouya, Chamu Chibhabha and Prince Masvaure all bowled around 130kphs and slower, did not find movement or bounce and offered regular freebies. Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander, Kagiso Rabada, Kyle Abbott, Wayne Parnell or Chris Morris are not expected to be as generous.South Africa’s six seamers, of which three are likely to play, are known for swing, seam movement and speed. Even though they have not competed in a Test match in nearly seven months and two of the three first-choice picks – Philander and Steyn – missed most of last summer with injuries, Hesson expects them to pose a serious threat to his line-up.”Vernon has played a lot of cricket recently so he has got loads of overs under his belt. He is a high quality bowler. We saw him at his best a few years ago. He hits lovely lengths and we know he is going to provide a challenge there, most likely with the new ball,” Hesson said, referring to Philander’s outings with the South African A team. Philander travelled to Zimbabwe and Australia where he was his usual miserly self, although he did not lead the wicket-takers’ list.Philander’s hauls in the last two years have decreased significantly from when his career began. But New Zealand will remember his 21 against them in the series in 2012, of which 10 came in the Hamilton Test South Africa won, and his seven in the Newlands match a year later. They will be wary of his ability to tempt batsmen outside the off stump, to create uncertainty with subtle movement and if nothing else, to hold his end while his team-mates attack.It is most likely those team-mates will be Steyn and Rabada, and Hesson mentioned both as men New Zealand would watching out for. “In terms of Kagiso Rabada, he has got pace, bounce and skill and he is fresh so he keeps running in at you hard. He is someone we are going to have to spend a bit of time on. We know he is a quality bowler. And then when you’ve got Dale Steyn at the other end, there is no let off.”New Zealand will draw inspiration from their recent form – they batted three times in the two-match series in Zimbabwe, registered six centuries and were not bowled out in any of their innings – but remain cautious that run-scoring won’t be as simple in South Africa as it was in Bulawayo. “We recognise that the surfaces there (Zimbabwe) are significantly different than they are here,” Hesson said.What they don’t know is exactly how different. There has never been a first-class match played at Kingsmead in August before so nobody knows what to expect from early season conditions. Durban does not get as cold as the rest of South Africa in winter, neither does it get as dry as the inland of the country, so it is unlikely to be too fresh a pitch. It may even take some turn, as it did during a limited-overs series played last August, which New Zealand were part of. If it does, they have come prepared.”It depends how dry the wicket is. If we think it’s going to turn – it turned during the one-dayers last year – we might play two spinners,” Hesson said. “We wouldn’t be afraid playing two spinners, if we felt that it was going to be dry and turn.”That was New Zealand’s strategy in Zimbabwe where they fielded both Ish Sodhi and Mitchell Santner to back up a three-pronged pace pack comprising Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Neil Wagner. Wickets were spread among them with Wagner topping the charts with 11 scalps and Sodhi (eight), Boult and Santner and Southee (six each) not far behind. On unresponsive surfaces, the five-man attack combined to take 20 wickets twice and win the series.With that in mind, it may turn out that the biggest obstacle between South Africa defending an unbeaten record that has stretched back 14 series from 1931, and New Zealand, is the opposition’s pace pack.

BCCI president Anurag Thakur has said the board has put any plans for a mini IPL in the USA on hold, with T20 internationals being the preferred foray in the American market. The key obstacle, according to Thakur, was the time zone difference. Matches would need to start at 10am local time on the east coast in the USA, making mid-week fixtures difficult to draw big crowds and also limiting their options for alternate venues around the country.”I think we must understand the time difference,” Thakur told ESPNcricinfo. “IPL is seen in India from 7 o’clock to 11 or 11.30 at night. So you have to play somewhere in the east coast here (USA) so [that] the timing matches. If we have to play in the day here, the matches should be seen in India at night because broadcasting is a big thing. So you can’t make your home fan lose [by] playing outside India. So which are the provinces you can play in United States? That’s a big task.”IPL, we are not even thinking of hosting it outside India. It has to be hosted in India, but there are many other options what you can do which we’ll let you know over a period of time when we come out with a long-term plan for this market.”The BCCI had announced the idea of a “mini IPL” or “IPL overseas” in June when Thakur had said the board would host the tournament in September. A final approval was awaited after talks with franchises and broadcasters but no announcement has been made yet. During informal conversations with the BCCI, though, top officials have pointed out bizarrely that Thakur had never announced any plans for a tournament called “mini IPL.”The USA and UAE were options being discussed at the IPL governing council and working committee meetings earlier this year. “We have to look into various details: which country we can play in, how many teams, how many players should participate, who will be the broadcaster – all these issues need to deliberated, but we are keen to play in that [September] window,” Thakur had said in June.The BCCI had been trying to fill an empty window as India are not scheduled to play any cricket till the home Tests against New Zealand start on September 22.1:07

Anurag Thakur announcing the mini IPL in June 2016

ScorecardChris Rushworth claimed four wickets as Lancashire were bowled out for 204•Getty Images

Had James Anderson’s stress fracture healed a trifle more quickly, he would have been playing against Pakistan in the Test match at Lord’s. Instead of that, however, he spent his Saturday at the home of cricket. That, at any rate, is probably how Chris Firth sees it.On most weekends in the summer Firth captains Southport and Birkdale’s first team but at around 5.30am on the first morning of this game, he began tipping up around a thousand seats to remove the overnight rain from them. This is county week at Trafalgar Road and that matters to folk round here.Southport is not alone, of course. By a lunacy of the fixture list likely to make even the most tranquil Buddhist scream in frustration, the coming week sees Lancashire play at Southport at the same time as Glamorgan are playing at Colwyn Bay and Kent at Tunbridge Wells. And yes, it is the Cheltenham Festival, too. It is as though someone had decided to hold a beauty contest for England’s cricketing Elysiums.At all of these great grounds members have taken unpaid holidays in order to welcome first-class cricket. Sightscreens have been painted, hospitality sold and patios brushed to within a cubit of their stony lives. Wickets have been rolled and weather forecasts studied with more than jocular cynicism. Outground cricket is not some indulgent Betjemanesque whimsy; it could be near the heart of the English four-day season if only some counties and a few ECB officials loved it a little more and saw the long-term value of spending a few bob taking the game to the people.Rarely, though, does the composition of the teams in an outground match contain such delightful contrasts as was on offer at Trafalgar Road. In the Lancashire team, for the first two innings anyway, was Anderson, who will almost certainly open England’s bowling against Pakistan on Friday, but also Tom Moores, who was making his first-class debut. Moores, indeed, was watched by his father, Peter, not so long ago an England coach himself, but today, was simply a dad watching his lad.In the Durham side was Ben Stokes, who may line up alongside Anderson on Friday, and Adam Hickey, who had never played in the County Championship before. Of the four players, Moores had just about the better day. His 54-minute 25 helped Lancashire recover a smidgeon from 105 for 5 when Karl Brown was out for nought.Moores added 41 with Steven Croft but was dropped twice, receiving the first generosity when he nicked his first ball to Stokes at third slip, who thus dropped his second catch of the day and hurled the ball into the ground in Vizigothic fury. Merseyside cricket fans are generally unimpressed by such histrionics. “Hey, Stokesy-la! Butterfingers!” one yelled.Moores eventually nicked a catch to Michael Richardson off the medium pace of Keaton Jennings and the same bowler removed Kyle Jarvis, caught and bowled for 2, but it was not these later batsmen’s fault that Lancashire were 188 for 7 at tea or bowled out for 204 shortly after the resumption.Chris Rushworth, bowling on a surface which offered him pace and bounce but which both he and Lancashire’s Alviro Petersen described as a “good cricket wicket”, dismissed the last three batsmen in 11 balls early in the evening session to end the Lancashire innings. Rushworth finished with 4 for 30 from 17 overs while the Lancashire skipper, Croft, was the last man dismissed, caught and bowled by Sunderland’s finest beard for a valiant 54.How Croft must have regretted the profligacy of his colleagues, who had managed to turn a very respectable 91 for 2 into a very dodgy 105 for 5 in just three careless post-prandial overs. This decline began when Luke Procter, having got his nut down in characteristic fashion to make 30 in 135 minutes, flashed at Paul Coughlin but only edged a catch to Richardson.Then Petersen, perhaps surfing the contentment that comes when you make a half-century against a decent attack, called Croft for a second run but was well beaten by Jack Burnham’s throw from deep midwicket. Two overs later, Brown’s horribly flat-footed slash only nicked a catch to Jennings off Graham Onions. In less than the time it took the corporate hospitality boys to move from the claret to the port, Lancashire had gone from gentle prosperity to genteel poverty.But even after they had been bowled out 60 runs short of acceptability, Lancashire cricketers could still console themselves that they had Anderson in their attack during Durham’s first innings. This consolation appeared especially significant when Anderson removed Jennings in the third over of the day but Mark Stoneman and Scott Borthwick then added 69 for the second wicket in a manner that ranged from the confident to the vulnerable. The former was shown by the boundaries the pair stroked off Jarvis; the latter, by the over in which Borthwick played and missed five times to Anderson.Still, though, the pair survived and it looked as though Durham’s cricketers were heading for a position of strength when Procter removed both Stoneman and Burnham in the last five overs of a day that had begun at noon. Catches were edged to Moores and Croft and the Lancashire pair made no mistake. Rushworth considered the game evenly poised and few in the happy crowd on Saturday seemed keen to dispute the contention.And in many respects that final session was the best of the day. A fed and watered crowd watched the cricket in bubbling contentment and the Southport and Birkdale chairman, Tony Elwood, even sported his Bertie Wooster blazer. For the club’s volunteers, all their work was utterly worthwhile as the evening warmed. The sun shone, too, although if the tireless Lindsey Bridge could have found a ladder long enough, she would have sent someone up with a duster to give it a polish.

ScorecardSam Billings•Getty Images

Unbeaten centuries from Kent’s Sam Billings and Joe Denly counted for nothing as Colin Ingram’s ice-cool unbeaten 95 steered Glamorgan to a thrilling three-wicket win over Kent in a rain-affected Royal London One-Day Cup south group clash in Canterbury.In a game reduced to 42 overs per side following the loss of 90 minutes to drizzle mid-way through Kent’s innings, Ingram proved the immovable bedrock of the Welsh reply, hitting four fours and six sixes to clinch victory with seven balls to spare.Chasing a revised target of 293 from their 42 overs, Glamorgan openers Jacques Rudolph and David Lloyd took a sensible and pragmatic approach as they pursued at an asking rate of almost seven-an-over.With the floodlights on in relative gloom, the pair played themselves in before pressing the run-rate accelerator toward the end of their nine-over powerplay.Lloyd, the right-hander with an unfeasibly wide stance, was quick to straight-drive Matt Coles, then pulled viciously for another boundary when the Kent paceman dropped short.Rudolph (24) was caught on the sweep at deep square leg from James Tredwell’s second delivery of the day to make it 63 for 1and Tredwell should also have removed Will Bragg without scoring, only for Billings to miss a sharp stumping chance.Lloyd moved to a 48-ball 50 with a pulled four off David Griffiths and Bragg upped the tempo further with a 56-ball half-century with five fours and a six.The pair added 86 before Lloyd (65), in attempting a flat-bat pull against Coles picked out Latham at square leg then, two balls later Bragg (52) was caught at mid-wicket when attempting a reverse lap against Tredwell.Tredwell took a third wicket having Aneurin Donald (9) caught at long-off but Glamorgan’s fifth-wicket partners Ingram and Chris Cooke combined to rekindle the run chase and, with 10 overs required, had reduced their victory target to 86 runs.Ingram, the elegant left-hander, continued to show consummate timing in reaching a 30-ball 50 with three sixes but, with 55 needed Cooke (21) needlessly heaved across the line to be bowled by Coles then, with the target reduced to 36, Graham Wagg (8) was run out by Coles’s under-arm shy to the non-striker’s end after Ingram demanded a single.With three overs remaining Craig Meschede (8) ran himself out attempting two to deep cover, but Griffiths’s over ended with Ingram clubbing four over point and a six into the building site.In the penultimate over, Ingram steered another brace of boundaries to third man leaving Timm van der Gugten to win it.Batting first on a slow pitch that had had the sting taken out of it by Saturday’s thunderstorms, Kent’s openers Tom Latham (9) and Daniel Bell-Drummond posted a half-century first-wicket stand, only for both to fall in quick successionLatham flicked lazily off Wagg to be caught at long leg then Bell-Drummond nicked to the keeper after Michael Hogan got one to seam away using the Canterbury slope.Denly might have joined them back in the hutch when, with his score on 11, he sliced to point where Dean Cosker downed a tough overhead chance.Sam Northeast (26) pulled a length-ball from Van der Gugten straight into the hands of deep mid-wicket just before Denly posted a 64-ball 50 with four fours and a six.Rain arrived just before 1pm, leading to the loss of eight overs, forcing Kent to up their tempo after the 2.30pm re-start.Billings also enjoyed a let off when, on 27, Hogan dropped a skier at mid-off off the bowling off Meschede and took advantage by scampering to a 36-ball 50 with a six off Cosker that flew onto the Kent players’ balcony.The milestones continued when Denly moved to the fifth List A hundred of his career with eight fours and a brace of sixes.Billings continued to show why the Delhi Daredevils invested in his services in the 2016 IPL with a stunning display of clean, inventive hitting. His 53-ball 100 came with a the biggest six of the day off Hogan and took just over an hour.The pair went on to add 170 off 92 deliveries coasting past Kent’s previous List A fourth-wicket record against Glamorgan of 146 set by Alan Ealham and Chris Tavare at Swansea in 1980 as the hosts scored at 14 an over from the final five overs. In the end though, it all proved to no avail.