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The innocuous practice game had more reasons to be forgotten than to be remembered despite the centuries by Ahmed Shehzad and Misbah-ul-Haq and Junaid Siddique’s brave approach

The Bulletin by Mohammad Isam15-Feb-2011
ScorecardThe innocuous practice game had more reasons to be forgotten than to be remembered despite the centuries by Ahmed Shehzad and Misbah-ul-Haq and Junaid Siddique’s brave approach. Pakistan beat Bangladesh convincingly by 89 runs at the Shere Bangla Stadium in Mirpur and it was a game that reminded Bangladesh of holes in their system and gave the young Pakistan batsman ideal practice ahead of their first big tournament.The Pakistan dressing room went through a nervy first 90 minutes before settling in with the 152-run stand between Misbah and Shehzad, but the battle for the ‘story of the day’, as far as the locals were concerned, would be a tight contest between the ticket bungle-up and Bangladesh’s four dropped catches.When Shehzad walked in with Mohammad Hafeez to open the innings, the ground was half-full with most of the ticket-holders left stranded at a nearby indoor stadium with vouchers in hand. Shehzad cut and drove with ease though wickets fell quickly for Pakistan. After Hafeez drove straight at Mahmudullah at cover, Kamran Akmal and Younis Khan succumbed as soon as spin was introduced, Kamran miscuing a drive and Abdur Razzak foxing Younis for 5.The game changed as soon as Misbah took over, with each left-arm spinner looking more ineffective than the other. Razzak and Suhrawadi Shuvo bowled a poor line and their frustration was compounded by dropping catches off each other at long-off when Shehzad was on 42 and 56. Hafeez too had a let-off when Siddique dropped him on 16, a simple chance at midwicket, while Mohammad Ashraful found Shahid Afridi’s skier at mid-off hard to handle.”The four dropped catches were a bit disappointing. Razzak has never been our best fielder but the others were really disappointing,” Jamie Siddons, the Bangladesh coach, said. “I’m glad it was a practice game and not the 19th.”Shehzad’s batting gave Pakistan hope as it reaffirmed his position at the top of the order alongside Hafeez, who did a fine job in New Zealand. Shehzad latched into anything short and there were many opportunities. He hit nine boundaries and a six in his 122-ball 103. “I think he looked really good and he has been doing well since the
New Zealand tour where he got a century in the last game,” Pakistan’s coach Waqar Younis said. “He is in superb touch, and for a young man to be so responsible at such a big stage, it was great.”It was Misbah’s timing, however, that caught the eye, his run-a-ball 100 had four big sixes and eight boundaries. He was severe on the spinners, cutting and punching the ball with ease, a handy lesson for batsmen on both sides.Bangladesh’s chase had a terrible start when Tamim Iqbal played down the wrong line to Abdul Razzaq’s first delivery of the innings. Siddique’s courage to open up his game was a surprise. Some of his boundaries were exquisite, mainly forcing the ball down the ground but even making room to hit Razzaq over covers. But he holed out to Asad Shafiq off Wahab Riaz, whom Siddique had struck for a six over square-leg an over ago. His 28-ball 38 included six boundaries and the six, and he added with Imrul Kayes, who made 39.Bangladesh’s experiment to use Mushfiqur Rahim at No. 4 failed and so did Ashraful after he struck a boundary off his first ball. Razzaq picked up Shakib and Ashraful after he took out Tamim. Once the game slipped out of Bangladesh’s grasp, they used a longer batting line-up to give their batsmen a go before the big game against India on February 19. The result ensured a few more tense net sessions for Siddons and Shakib.

Allen Stanford has been deemed unfit to stand trial on charges of running a $7 billion fraud and needs treatment for a drug addiction, a US judge has ruled

ESPNcricinfo staff27-Jan-2011Allen Stanford, the American billionaire who invested in cricket in the Caribbean, has been deemed unfit to stand trial on charges of running a $7 billion fraud and needs treatment for a drug addiction, a US judge has ruled.Stanford is facing charges of fraud, money laundering and obstruction but the court has ruled him incompetent to face trial. He sustained an injury after being attacked in jail in 2009 and has become addicted to the medication he was prescribed for treating depression and anxiety.”The court finds Stanford is incompetent to stand trial at this time based on his apparent impaired ability to rationally assist his attorneys in preparing his defense,” US District Judge David Hittner wrote in his ruling in Houston, Texas.Hittner denied a request by Stanford’s lawyers to release him on bond and place him in a private treatment facility for his addiction, ordering him instead to be committed to the custody of the attorney general to “undergo medical treatment for his current impaired mental capacity” and eventually take a competency exam. The judge also recommended that Stanford be sent to a medical facility within the US Bureau of Prisons.Stanford became famous in the cricket world after creating the Stanford 20/20 tournament in the West Indies. He then, in partnership with the ECB, launched a Stanford Super Series Twenty20 cricket competition with his All-star team from the West Indies taking on England in a $20-million winner-take-all match.Stanford has pleaded not guilty to 21 counts of fraud, money laundering and obstruction. He faces up to 375 years in jail if convicted.

While Associate nations ponder a future that may not include being part of the World Cup some of the game’s least well-known nations take their first steps towards the World Twenty20

ESPNcricinfo staff23-Feb-2011While Associate nations ponder a future that may not include being part of the World Cup, some of the game’s least well-known nations take their first steps towards what they hope can ultimately be a place at the expanded 2012 World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka.Although the 2015 World Cup is set to be trimmed to 10 teams this has been balanced to some degree by the expansion of the Twenty20 event which will increase from the 12 sides that took part in 2010 to 16 for the next tournament.However, it is highly unlikely that the seven countries who begin the qualifying campaign on February 24 will reach the showpiece event next year. Cameroon, Gambia, Lesotho, Mali, Morocco, Rwanda and the Seychelles will play in an initial qualifier in Ghana at the end of this month.Sixteen teams will take part in the final global qualifier in UAE in early 2012 to decide the final places at the World Twenty20. The six Associate and Affiliate members with one-day international status – Afghanistan, Canada, Ireland, Kenya, the Netherlands and Scotland – have automatically qualified for the UAE event.Three teams from the Asia region, two teams from Africa, Americas and Europe, and one team from East Asia-Pacific will play in the global qualifying event.In 2010 in the Caribbean the two Associate and Affiliate nations involved were Ireland and Afghanistan. Although neither progressed to the Super Eights, Ireland caused England problems in Guyana and Afghanistan performed with great credit during their first global tournament.

Gerald Majola, the Cricket South Africa chief executive, has admitted the team will struggle to shed their chokers’ tag after the collapse which cost them the World Cup quarter-final against New Zealand in Mirpur

Firdose Moonda in Colombo27-Mar-2011Gerald Majola, the Cricket South Africa chief executive, has admitted the team will struggle to shed their chokers’ tag after the collapse which cost them the World Cup quarter-final against New Zealand in Mirpur.”We’ve always had this chokers tag with us; unfortunately we’ve allowed it to stick. We haven’t applied ourselves,” he said in Colombo, where he will watch the semi-final between New Zealand and Sri Lanka on Tuesday. “We have to accept the problem and then deal with it.”South Africa left no stone unturned to address what Majola calls “the problem” before coming to this tournament. They picked a varied and dynamic team, which they used creatively. They employed the same psychologist who worked with the national rugby team when they achieved World Cup glory in 2007. With their new look, Majola said that he was “quietly confident that we would win the World Cup.”After their first six games, he was convinced. “When I looked at the draw, I thought we would play either India or Pakistan in the final. But we failed ourselves. The match was basically a replica of the England game. We needed calm heads.”Majola knows all about being calm under pressure in sport, having played so much of it himself. He contested many finals. One of those was the SA Cup final, a rugby match, where Majola had to take the penalty kick that would force a draw. His side was down 3-0 and the kick was right in front of the posts. He missed.”I remembered that final after the New Zealand game,” he said, adding that the way he felt then was how Graeme Smith felt after South Africa’s loss. “I have known Graeme since he was 18 years old in 1998, when I was a selector, and I have never seen him so distraught.”Majola went into the dressing room after the loss and was confronted with a team that had “tears rolling” out of their eyes. Although he is disappointed in them, he said he can’t be angry because they are “taking ownership” of what happened.Times like these usually call for a massive regime change and heads to roll, but in South Africa’s case the change was always going to happen. Corrie van Zyl and Smith both announced before the tournament that they would be stepping down from their positions as coach and captain respectively. The process to appoint a new coach has already started, with applications closed. “We have a shortlist of six names that we will announce after the tournament,” Majola said. The new coach will be appointed in June and the ODI captain will be decided in consultation with him.van Zyl, who will return to his job as manager of the high performance programme, held a press conference in Johannesburg on Sunday, where he echoed what Majola said about the ghosts of the past catching up with them. “All the disappointments of the past World Cups have caught up with us,” he said. “That’s where the pressure starts piling up. We must remember that most of the squad that played in this tournament weren’t part of those campaigns, but we make them part of that by constantly reminding them of previous failures.”Although South Africa made concerted efforts to overcome pressure, when it was right in front of them, staring them in the eyes, they collapsed. “Pressure is a huge factor,” van Zyl said. “When you reach the knockout phase, there’s the feeling that this is perhaps your last opportunity and you need to make it count. It plays on you and you need to keep your composure. We didn’t do that and that was unfortunate.”He also dismissed all thoughts that the wrong selections were made, with critics saying that an experienced big hitter in the mould of Mark Boucher or Albie Morkel would have made a difference. “I don’t believe we needed anyone else but the 15 players we had. They were the right players for the conditions.”

ESPNcricinfo previews the IPL match between Kochi Tuskers Kerala and Kings XI Punjab in Indore

The Preview by Nitin Sundar12-May-2011

Match facts

Friday, May 13, Indore
Start time 2000 (14.30 GMT)Parthiv Patel has batted with verve for Kochi•AFP

Big Picture

We are into that part of the season where calculators are whipped out, heads are scratched, spread-sheets are filled and scenarios are chalked out. The good news for Kochi Tuskers Kerala is that they can still make the play-offs. The good news for Kings XI Punjab is that if they beat Kochi on Friday, they will be on par with them on the points table. The bad news for both is that another slip-up could end their faltering campaigns. It’s all to play for as the IPL heads to its newest destination, the Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore.It will be a ‘home’ game for Kochi, which is tough to justify given that Indore, located in central India, is around 800km closer to Mohali than it is to Kochi. Not that Kochi will mind the migration, given that they have won more games away than at home this season. Mahela Jayawardene will hope for a pitch with pace and carry on it – his seam-heavy attack thrives in zippy conditions, while his batsmen have been bowled out three times on sluggish tracks.Interestingly, Kochi and Punjab are the only sides that have managed to defeat both Chennai and Mumbai – finalists of IPL 2010, and two of the form teams so far this year. Whichever side derives more self-belief and momentum from those performances will run out winners on Friday.

Form guide (most recent first)

Punjab: WLLLL (ninth in points table)
Kochi: LWWLL (sixth in points table)

Team talk

In five games, David Hussey’s contribution to Punjab’s cause has been 20 runs and one wicket. David Miller and Ryan McLaren will feel hard done if they continue to warm the bench while Hussey plays.Ramesh Powar has leaked 9.33 runs per over for his two wickets. Sreesanth has every right to be indignant if Powar keeps him out again.Predict the playing XIs for this match. Play ESPNcricinfo Team Selector.

In the spotlight

In the first week of IPL 2011, Paul Valthaty was clubbing everything off the front foot, while also producing wickets with his split-finger slower balls. Since then, he has been circumspect at the top of the order, and shown a reluctance to swing through the leg side. How he goes in the last four games will decide whether he is a one-week wonder or a genuine talent.Parthiv Patel‘s baby face undermines his determination, and his stature offers few clues of his impeccable sense of timing. He specialises in cuts and chops when offered width, and can unleash a fierce little slog-sweep. Parthiv’s pluck at one-drop, sandwiched between Brendon McCullum’s brutality at the top, and Mahela Jayawardene’s finesse at No. 4, could prove crucial to Kochi’s fortunes.

Prime numbers

• He may have a reputation for waywardness, but Sreesanth (6.14 runs per over) has easily been Kochi’s most economical bowler this season
• Lasith Malinga (59 wickets) has ended RP Singh’s (58) perch at the top of the IPL wicket-takers list. RP will want to wrest back the honour during his spell against Punjab

The chatter

“I am not making an excuse but in our last few games we have played on some mediocre wickets and then you have to scrap for runs. It is a challenge and we need to adapt to that. On good tracks we have done well against strong teams be it Delhi or Kolkata.”
Will the Indore wicket bring a smile to Mahela Jayawardene‘s face?</i