January 18, 2017 issue
Cricket
Virat Kohli sparkles when it comes to run chases. And captaincy has a special effect on him. Sunday was no different after Kohli took over as India’s limited-overs captain from Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the first of three ODIs against England.
Virat Kohli’s masterly 122 off 105 balls and local-boy Kedar Jadhav’s 76-ball 120 (12x4s, 4x6s), backed by a vociferous crowd, helped India pull off a thrilling three-wicket victory after being in serious trouble at Pune.
In his first Test as stand-in captain on the 2014 tour to Australia, Kohli smashed 115 and 141 at Adelaide. When he officially took over as Test captain in Sydney, he slammed 147. And he made sure India didn’t falter in his first match after taking over as ODI skipper.
England piled up 350 for seven after Virat Kohli asked them to bat first. India finished on 356 for seven in 48.1 overs, achieving the second highest run chase by India in ODIs.
The win kept Virat Kohli’s record of not losing a single match on home soil intact. What made the chase an epic affair was Kohli and Jadhav both suffered cramp, but ensured they brought India within touching distance of what seemed an unlikley win.
The visitors posted 350/7, their highest ever ODI total in India in the first game of the three-match series at the MCA Stadium.
However, at 63 for four with Yuvraj Singh (15) and MS Dhoni (6) both out, hopes of chasing a mammoth total was fading.
But till Virat Kohli was in the middle, he kept the hope alive. Despite the loss of early wickets, Kohli did not alter his approach. Not the one to regularly go for sixes, Kohli’s first scoring shot was a six off paceman David Willey over long on.
With a flat six, Kohli brought up his 17th century in ODI chases, equalling Sachin Tendulkar’s record. Overall it was his 27th. But there was no celebration on reaching the landmark.
He hit five sixes, but the last one off Chris Woakes was one to admire. The England pacer gave no room to free his arms, but Kohli, with his sheer power, managed to send the ball sailing into the stands over deep midwicket.
Virat Kohli wasn’t the only one taking the responsibility; Jadhav took greater risk to score at a fast pace.
From overs 13 to 33, Kohli and Jadhav added 157 runs. Jadhav did not hold back playing his strokes as he raced to a 29-ball half-century. His century came off just 64 balls.
Like Kohli, Jadhav too toyed with the England bowlers, smashing them all over the park. The biggest worry for India was that Kohli and Jadhav both struggled with cramp. Kohli’s gem of an innings came to an end after a slower ball from Ben Stokes took the leading edge, ending the 200-run stand for the fifth wicket. If Jadhav struggled to run, he put his hands to good use with focus more on playing the big shots.
When Jadhav arrived, India needed 287 runs to win in 38 overs. By the time Jadhav holed out to Stokes playing a pull shot, India needed just 60 runs in as many balls. Hardik Pandya (40 no, 37 balls) and R Ashwin (15 no) kept their cool in the end to see the team through with 11 balls to spare.
Jason Roy provided a dream start for England with a quickfire 61-ball 73. The visitors consistently scored over six runs per over as they scored 90/1 in the first 15 overs.
After a flying start, all that the England batsmen had to do was consolidate which Joe Root did with his patient 95-ball 78. Root’s innings helped India slow down England’s momentum for a while. But Stokes’ power-packed batting shifted the balance as the visitors added 105 runs in the last eight overs.
There was a talk England might face the spin music, but their batsmen were hardly troubled by Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja on a flat deck. With no Indian pacer able to control the leaking of runs, Kohli wasted no time in introducing spin as early as the 10th over.
While the fast bowlers leaked runs (77/1 in 12 overs), the spinners applied the brake. For 30 balls, Roy and Root were not able to score a boundary, which brought down their scoring rate to just under six for the first time.
Ravindra Jadeja (1/50 in 10 overs) was the most economical among the seven bowlers used by Kohli. Ashwin, who bowled well initially (20/0 in four overs), had a rare off day as he leaked 63 runs in his eight overs without any wicket.
Brief scores: India 356/7 (Virat Kohli 122*, Kedar Jadhav; Jake Ball 3/67) beat England 350/7 (Joe Root 78, Jason Roy 73; Hardik Pandya 2/46) by 3 wickets.
This is Pakistan's first ODI win on Australian soil in 12 years. Both teams have won one match each in this series.
Mohammad Hafeez and Shoaib Malik were the big scorers for Pakistan with 72 and 42 runs apiece as the team chased down Australia's 220 all out in 48.2 overs. Hafeez was awarded Man of the Match.
Speaking to the media at the event, Hafeez said, "We wanted to get that total on the board... We kept the pressure on. First with the ball, then at that stage [batting], we wanted to hit the ball for 3-4 overs."
"This is the way to move forward. We take one game at a time, we were more focused with this. Hopefully... We will do the job for Pakistan [in the next game]."
Hafeez said the team had enjoyed the support from the crowd and thanked them.
The men in green tied Australia down with spin changes in pace, cutters, pace off, change ups, all restricted Australia, according to ESPN Cricinfo.
Mohammad Amir shone with three wickets to his name while Junaid Khan and Imad Wasim bagged two wickets each. Shoaib Malik and Hassan Ali have one each to their names.
Amir sent Mitchell Marsh (0), James Faulkner (19) and Pat Cummins (0) back to the pavilion in his 9.2 over spell.
Junaid Khan dismissed David Warner (16) and Usman Khawaja (17). He also performed a run-out sending Mitchell Starc home for three runs.
Steven Smith (60) and Glenn Maxwell (23) were both bowled out by Imad.
Malik showed Matthew Wade the way to the pavilion at 35 runs.
Travis Head, caught by Rizwan on Hassan's ball, went back to the pavilion with 29 runs to his name.
Australian captain Steve Smith won the toss and chose to bat in the second of five one-day internationals against Pakistan.
Pakistan are missing captain Azhar Ali, who suffered a hamstring injury in the first ODI in Brisbane on Friday which Australia won by 92 runs.
He has been replaced by Asad Shafiq. Mohammad Hafeez is captaining the team in Azhar's absence.
In other changes, Shoaib Malik and Junaid Khan have joined the squad to substitute Wahab Riaz and Mohammad Nawaz.
Australia have made two changes to the side that beat Pakistan on Friday. Chris Lynn is out with a neck injury and has been replaced by Usman Khawaja and fast bowler Josh Hazlewood comes in for Billy Stanlake.
After posting 426 in their first innings on Friday, South Africa bowled Sri Lanka out for 131 before lunch on day three, before dismissing the out-gunned sub-continent side again for 177 to complete a 3-0 series sweep.
All of the home seamers claimed wickets on a pitch that had plenty of steep bounce and more than enough lateral movement to leave the Sri Lankan batsmen flailing.
Left-arm fast bowler Wayne Parnell, who took six wickets for 89 runs over the two innings, was perhaps the pick, while Kagiso Rabada (5-94) was unlucky not to pick up more with some hostile spells.
Debutant seamer Duanne Olivier (5-57) will be pleased with his return in helpful conditions, while Vernon Philander (4-63) also pitched in.
South Africa made short work of wrapping up the tourists’ first innings after Sri Lanka resumed the day on 80 for four.
Philander started the rot when he induced an edge from Dinesh Chandimal to wicket-keeper Quinton de Kock with the batsman on five, before Rabada grabbed the key wicket of Sri Lanka captain Angelo Matthews (19) soon afterwards as de Kock produced a magnificent diving catch in front of first slip.
Olivier claimed his first Test wicket when Herath top-edged a vicious bouncer and was caught by Stephen Cook, and later removed Upul Tharanga (24), before Parnell took two wickets to wrap up the tail.
South Africa captain Faf du Plessis enforced the follow-on and Sri Lanka were quickly on the back foot again as Rabada accounted for opener Kaushal Silva for a first-ball duck.
The tourists simply could not cope with the accuracy of the home side’s seamers.
The impressive Olivier snapped up two more quick wickets, with Dhananjaya de Silva (12) and Mathews (10) both caught at second slip by du Plessis, who leapt to an almost impossible height to pluck the ball out of the air for the latter dismissal.
The game was up for Sri Lanka when Rabada rattled the stumps of opener Dimuth Karunaratne (50), who had a provided lone resistance.
Sri Lanka went to tea at 124 for six in their second innings and tried to hit their way out of trouble after the interval, but the home side proved too clinical and wrapped up the innings less than 10 overs after the restart.
Following are the statistical highlights of the first Test between New Zealand vs Bangladesh:
1. The previous highest innings was Australia’s 586 against England at Sydney in 1894-95. Australia lost that Test by 10 runs after following on. Bangladesh features twice in the top five on the list. Monday’s margin was the seventh largest difference for any team in a Test.
The previous highest such difference for Bangladesh was 389 against West Indies at Mirpur, Dhaka in 2012-13, where they made totals of 556 and 167.
2. The previous biggest total that resulted in a defeat against New Zealand was also by Bangladesh, 408 at Hamilton in 2009-10. What probably stumped Bangladesh completely in the second innings was Mushfiqur Rahim’s head injury that led to him being hospitalised. No one scored a fifty apart from Sabbir Rahman. But Bangladesh were also equally ineffective in their bowling.
3. Set a target of 217, New Zealand’s runs rate in the chase was 5.47. It was second-highest in any successful Test chase of 200-plus. The quickest was England’s chase of 205 at 5.77 against South Africa at The Oval in 1994. Only once have New Zealand had a quicker innings of 200-plus at any stage of a Test – 5.63 against Australia in their first innings at Christchurch last year.
Test series
The tourists were all out shortly before tea on the final day for 244 chasing 465 runs with paceman Josh Hazlewood and spinner Steve O'Keefe both snaring three wickets.
Pakistan's hopes of holding out for a draw evaporated with the dismissals of leading series run scorer Azhar Ali and veteran Younis Khan before lunch.
Wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed topscored with a fighting unbeaten 72 off 70 balls.
Australia completed a series clean sweep after a 39-run win at the Gabba and an innings and 18-run victory in Melbourne.
It was Pakistan's 12th straight defeat since their last Test win in Australia in Sydney 22 years ago.
David Warner was named man of the match for his scintillating hundred before lunch on the opening day, while skipper Steve Smith was announced as the official player of the series.
The tourists lost four wickets in the first session after resuming at 55 for one.
The highest target successfully chased down in the fourth innings at the Sydney Cricket Ground was Australia's 288 for two against South Africa in 2006.
Azhar Ali lasted just six balls into the final day before he was out in a soft dismissal on his overnight score of 11.
He tried to work Josh Hazlewood to the leg-side only to bunt the ball back to the bowler for an easy return catch.
Azhar finished as the highest Pakistan runscorer in a series in Australia with 406 at 81.20.
Babar Azam followed in Hazlewood's next over, trapped leg before wicket for nine to end a disappointing series with a total of just 68 runs from six innings.
Younis Khan missed out on becoming the first Pakistan batsman to reach 10,000 Test runs when he was caught in the deep off spinner Nathan Lyon for 13.
Younis, who scored an unbeaten 175 for his 34th Test hundred in the first innings, did not get enough on a Lyon delivery and lobbed it to Hazlewood at mid-on.
It was a significant wicket for Australia following on from the first-over dismissal of Azhar to have Pakistan plunging towards defeat.
Nightwatchman Yasir Shah's 93-ball defiance ended a half-hour before lunch when he was snapped up at the slips by fielding substitute Jackson Bird off left-arm spinner Steve O'Keefe for 13.
Asad Shafiq went soon after lunch, bowled by Mitchell Starc off a thick inside edge for 30.
Skipper Misbah-ul-Haq resisted for 98 balls before he went after O'Keefe and skied to the safe hands of Lyon at mid-off for 38 – his highest score of a struggling series.
Misbah, at 42 playing his probable last innings in Australia, was given a generous ovation as he left the SCG. Wahab Riaz cracked three fours off nine balls before he lost a review for caught behind off O'Keefe for 12, and O'Keefe ran out Mohammad Amir for five to put Australia on the brink of victory.
Hazlewood claimed the last wicket and his third of the innings when he had Imran Khan caught in the slips for a duck.
Australia tour India next month for a four-Test series, while Pakistan do not have any Tests scheduled until April, when they will tour the West Indies for a four-match series.
Talking to the press, Inzamam was quite candid in his views about Pakistan’s sluggish show in Tests. “First of all we couldn’t play well under pressure and twice our batsmen failed to hold their nerve for even two sessions of the day which is quite unfortunate,” he said. “Even when they were in strong position, our batsmen could not show aggression. In Brisbane they scored with an average of 3.1 and were even slower in Melbourne. The Australians on the other hand were aggressive, scoring at times at almost eight runs an over,” he observed.
“When you go on the defensive, it allows the opposition bowlers to dominate you and that’s what happened with our team.”
“Our key batsmen like Younis Khan, Asad Shafiq and others just played a couple of good knocks in the three Test series and only Azhar Ali was consistent with more good knocks. As for Misbah, he failed to play even a single good innings,” lamented Inzamam. “Now if that is the standard of our consistency, it is not good enough at the international level.”
“Our bowlers might have been experiencing fatigue as no bowler could take five wickets in an innings which was sorry to see,” he added. “Our main bowlers have been playing regularly in the last three series and the fatigue could have affected their performance.”
“We have also been overly relying on leg-spinner Yasir Shah, who had emerged as our main bowler in the past few series. But he failed miserably in Australia and generally all our bowlers conceded too many runs,” Inzamam pointed out. “I feel that the bowlers, if they were not getting wickets, should have at least tried to control the flow of runs but that did not happen.”
When asked why skipper Misbah looked out of sorts on the field despite being a mentally strong person, Inzamam said: “Look, when your team is not performing and you are also struggling with the bat, the pressure is doubled and Misbah is also passing through the same situation.”
However, when asked whether Misbah would be able to come out of this grim situation at a ripe age of 42, Inzamam avoided a detailed reply and simply said, “it is up to Misbah.”
The head of selectors, though, lamented the fact that head coach Mickey Arthur could not stay in Pakistan for a longer period to watch and groom the back-up players. But he added that during the Pakistan Super League (PSL), he would sit with Arthur to short-list the best boys from the back up pool and will hold a training camp for them in Lahore.
top-five across all formats
Williamson, who aggregated 145 runs in New Zealand's 3-0 T20I series win against Bangladesh, moved up two positions to be ranked fourth in the T20I rankings for batsmen.
Williamson joined Virat Kohli as the only two batsmen to feature in the top-five of all three formats. Williamson is ranked fifth in ODIs and fourth in Tests. Kohli, who will take over India's captaincy in all three formats following MS Dhoni's decision to step down from limited-overs captaincy, is the No. 1 ranked T20I batsman while he occupies the second position in both the ODI and Test rankings.
Colin Munro also took upward strides in the T20I rankings. The 29-year-old left-hander, who scored a 54-ball 101 in the second T20I against Bangladesh, jumped 20 spots to currently occupy the 19th position.
In the rankings for bowlers in the 20-over format, New Zealand's Mitchell Santner and Ish Sodhi reached career-best 18th and 19th positions respectively while Adam Milne moved up to the 17th spot.
Bangladesh's Mustafizur Rahman took a giant leap, moving up 10 places to enter the top-10 at the 10th position. He became the highest ranked T20I bowler for his country, going past Shakib Al Hasan, who is currently ranked 11th after moving up three spots himself. The T20I bowling charts is headed by South Africa's Imran Tahir, followed by India's Jasprit Bumrah and West Indies' Samuel Badree.
The whitewash New Zealand achieved in the T20I series against Bangladesh has helped them cement their No. 1 position in the T20I rankings for teams. They gained one point in the series win and have a six-point lead over the second-placed India.
escapes unhurt in gun attack
Nobody was hurt in the incident that happened on the night of January 7 in Afghanistan’s capital city of Kabul, while the attackers managed to escape the scene after their futile attempt.
Zadran, a left-arm paceman, is one of Afghanistan’s most accomplished cricketers on the international circuit and attained cult status when he hit the winning runs against Scotland during their 2015 World Cup encounter in the New Zealand city of Nelson, thus giving his side their first ever victory at a major ICC tournament.
Though the motive of the attack remains unclear, it is a shocking incident that has brought back memories of the one witnessed in Pakistan in 2009 when terrorists attacked the team bus of the visiting Sri Lankan team.
According to Khaama Press, the Afghanistan News agency that broke the news, it is not the first time that an assassination attempt has been carried out against Zadran.
Speaking in the aftermath of the match, Zadran exuded confidence that cricket would not remain under any harm in war-torn Afghanistan with even the Taliban in support of the sport.
“Taliban like cricket, I am a cricketer,” declared Shapoor Zadran in his brand of English at the time. “Taliban no attack cricketer.”
Though it is unclear now as to who attacked Zadran, it is a big relief to know that Zadran, who has played 39 One-day Internationals and 27 Twenty20 Internationals for his country, as well as his brother, survived the attack without any injuries.
No official confirmation or details regarding the attack has been made yet with the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) yet to release a statement on the matter.
The risk level in Pakistan, according to Eastern Star, who provides security for various cricket boards, including the International Cricket Council, was “at an extremely elevated state”.
The Pakistan Super League final is scheduled for Lahore in the country, and FICA has already advised players in that final, not to go.
The WICB doesn’t seem to be expecting too much fall-out with the PCB after the refusal, as the Caribbean board announced the region would be hosting Pakistan in two T20Is, three ODIs and three Tests across five venues.
The West Indies’ rejection marks the third after Ireland and Sri Lanka rejected travelling to the country over the last two years.
In 2009, a bus with Sri Lankan players was attacked in Lahore and since then, the ICC has refused to sanction games in Pakistan.