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Western Australia fast bowlers Simon Mackin and David Moody bowled their side to victory in a close encounter with South Australia at Adelaide Oval, where the Redbacks fell eight runs short of their target late on the third day

ESPNcricinfo staff03-Feb-2017
ScorecardFile photo – Simon Mackin has taken 23 wickets in his past two Sheffield Shield games•Getty Images

Western Australia fast bowlers Simon Mackin and David Moody bowled their side to victory in a close encounter with South Australia at Gliderol Stadium, where the Redbacks fell eight runs short of their target late on the third day. Set 200 to win the low-scoring match, South Australia were dismissed for 192, the match ending when Moody bowled the No.11 David Grant for 4.Moody finished with 4 for 45 but the key man was Mackin, whose 5 for 78 in the second innings left him with match figures of 12 for 159, the best analysis by any bowler in a Sheffield Shield game since November 2012, when South Australia’s Gary Putland took 12 for 92. Even more remarkably, Mackin now has 23 wickets in two games, having taken 11 for 101 in the last Shield match before Christmas.In this game, he ran through the South Australia middle order, dismissing Callum Ferguson, Jake Lehmann and Alex Ross cheaply, and then later picking up the key wicket of Tom Cooper, who had made 55 and given the Redbacks an excellent victory chance. Cooper and Alex Carey (46) had put on 99 for the sixth wicket, but once they both departed the Warriors pounced.The day had started with Western Australia on 7 for 196 in their second innings, needing to add runs to set South Australia a challenging target. Debutant wicketkeeper Josh Inglis did a fine job in compiling 40 before he was caught behind off Kane Richardson, who collected 5 for 69 and, like his colleague Chadd Sayers, finished with nine wickets for the match.

A round-up of the West Zone games from the first round of the Inter-State T20 tournament

ESPNcricinfo staff29-Jan-2017Ajinkya Rahane struck 78 off 53 balls, including 11 fours and a six and Aditya Tare bettered him with 79 off 41 balls to amass 211 for 3 for Mumbai and yet they could barely cling on to victory. Baroda were wilting at 84 for 5 in the 10th over when Vishnu Solanki took control, razing an unbeaten 69 off 34 balls at a strike-rate of 202. The game hurtled to a hair-raising finish at Reliance Stadium in Vadodara but, in the end, there were just too many runs to chase down.Much of that was down to Rahane, who lost his place in the Indian T20 side, and the Mumbai captain Tare. They galloped along during their second-wicket partnership, putting on 152 runs in only 84 balls. There was only one bowler who could maintain an economy rate under 9 – Irfan Pathan, on the 11th anniversary of his taking a hat-trick in the very first over of the India-Pakistan Test in Mohali, conceded a mere 27 runs in his four overs. That’s just over six runs an over in a match that threw up 416 runs at 10.4 per over.File photo: Ankit Bawne’s career-best score could not prevent a five-wicket win for Gujarat•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Baroda’s challenge was based on a sound opening stand as Kedar Devdhar and Miten Shah put on 52 in 4.5 overes, but they were hurt badly as soon as they lost their first wicket. Pravin Tambe, the 45-year old legspinner, used that opening to dismiss Deepak Hooda and both Pathan brothers for single-digits to put Mumbai on top. He finished with 3 for 26 in four overs but had to spend much of his time on the field fretting as Solanki kept pushing. He put on 59 for sixth wicket with Swapnil Singh at 10.11 per over and 56 with the seventh with Soaeb Tai at over 16 an over. But eventually, he ran out of time.Gujarat overcame Ankit Bawne’s unbeaten 59-ball 90 to beat Maharashtra by five wickets. That Maharashtra posted 154 for 7 was down to a fifth-wicket partnership of 47 between Bawne and debutant Naushad Shaikh, and an unbroken eight-wicket stand of 45 off 20 balls between Bawne and debutant Jagdish. Offspinner Rujul Bhatt took 3 for 28, while the new-ball pair of Chintan Gaja and Ishwar Chaudhary impressed with figures of 2 for 30 and 1 for 16 in their respective quotas.Gujarat lost two early wickets in the chase, and when Dhruv Raval was taken out for 20, they were 56 for 3. A half-century stand between Bhatt and Chirag Gandhi then kept them on course. Although Bhatt fell for 54 off 34 balls, and Jesal Karia was dismissed for a duck, Rohit Dahiya partnered Gandhi to knock off the remaining runs. Gandhi was unbeaten on 39 off 22 balls, while Dahiya’s struck at 200 for his 32 not out.

Dean Elgar’s 128* and Faf du Plessis’ 52 led South Africa’s fightback on the opening day in Dunedin after the New Zealand quicks jolted the visitors early

The Report by Andrew McGlashan07-Mar-2017
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details1:10

Moonda: All eyes on Bavuma after Elgar

On 22 consecutive occasions, the captain winning the toss in New Zealand had opted to bowl. When South Africa were 22 for 3 on the opening day in Dunedin, Dean Elgar may have pondered if Faf du Plessis had picked the right time to end that run. But Elgar did more than most to make sure it worked out fine in the end as his seventh Test hundred carried South Africa to 229 for 4.The dominant stand of the day came between Elgar, who was dropped by BJ Watling on 36, and du Plessis as they added 126 for the fourth wicket before further consolidation alongside Temba Bavuma in a stand of 81 which survived the entire final session. However, New Zealand ensured the game did not run away from them, for the most part keeping a lid on the scoring, after making the surprise decision of selecting two frontline spinners.Elgar’s seventh Test century, and a third in his last seven outings, came from 197 balls including 20 boundaries which highlighted how focused he was on leaving and defending unless there was something on offer to attack. He has become one of the preeminent opening batsmen in the game, although his returns can fly under the radar. He was named Man of the Series against Sri Lanka in January and this innings took his average above 40 for the first time since his third Test (which was also against New Zealand) as he finished within two runs of a new career-best score.While Elgar’s recent returns mean this performance shouldn’t be unexpected, there was plenty at the start of the day which did confound expectation. Kane Williamson had put considerable faith in his luck with the coin changing after making the crunch decision to leave out vice-captain Tim Southee in favour of Jeetan Patel. But after losing all five tosses in the one-day series the run continued which meant bowling with an attack New Zealand would be more expected to field on the subcontinent than at home: it was the first time they had selected two specialist spinners at University Oval.Patel was bowling by the sixth over and conceded just eight runs in his first 10 overs to help New Zealand build and sustain pressure in the first session. There was certainly some grip for him and Mitchell Santner to suggest the selection call was not out of the realms of fantasy, but there were times when New Zealand felt a quick bowler light.There was nothing strange, however, in the manner of the early wickets. Stephen Cook’s defensive mindset led to him padding up against Trent Boult. Then Neil Wagner, on his home ground, produced a superb over at the start of his second spell. Firstly, he caught Hashim Amla flat-footed, after he had made 1 off 27 balls, with a full delivery which clattered into the stumps and then he switched to Wagner 101 mode with a brute of a short ball to bounce out JP Duminy.When you are a captain who was undecided what to do until moments before the toss, you are probably questioning your decision to bat when walking in at 22 for 3. But alongside Elgar, du Plessis took the sting out of the morning session. A penny for Southee’s thoughts as he saw the ball swinging but a spinner in operation.Neil Wagner’s double-strike in the 19th over sent back Hashim Amla and JP Duminy•AFP

The major moment of the day came off the first delivery of the second over after lunch when Elgar tickled Boult down the leg side but Watling could not gather the low catch. He did not offer another chance. As the fourth-wicket partnership bedded in, Williamson was left with the juggling act of not over-bowling Boult and Wagner. The way in which Elgar and du Plessis bided their time reinforced how they knew they could force Williamson’s hand and their reward was a period before tea which brought seven boundaries in 19 deliveries, although that was a rare period of brisk scoring.Du Plessis reached his fifty with a delightful drive off Santner before handing New Zealand a boost during an action-packed over against James Neesham who had been selected ahead of Colin de Grandhomme but not bowled until the 57th over. Clocking over 140kph, Neesham had du Plessis given lbw only for the decision to be overturned by the DRS due to a very thin edge (du Plessis initially reviewed for height, so thin was the nick). Three balls later there was no doubt, du Plessis pulling to Boult at deep midwicket ten minutes before tea in uncharacteristically careless fashion.It was an opening for New Zealand, especially with Bavuma coming off 21 runs in five innings against Sri Lanka, but while the bowling remained accurate it was difficult with the ageing ball. Elgar moved into the 90s with a neat skip down the pitch to loft Santner down the ground then reached three figures with a crunching pull through midwicket off Neesham.Bavuma took 20 balls to open his account but after a top-edged hook evaded long leg became more secure, surviving Wagner’s attempts to rough him up with the older ball. The new ball was taken and caused a few uneasy moments, but could not conjure the breakthrough New Zealand needed. There was much that went against history on the opening day of this series and though it’s too early to say how history will judge the match, South Africa will have ended highly satisfied with having hauled themselves out of the mire.

The Australia fast bowler also said ‘all the pressure’ was on India to win the series

Daniel Brettig23-Mar-20172:42

‘The pressure is firmly on India’ – Hazlewood

Australia fast bowler Josh Hazlewood expected a result-oriented pitch for the series-deciding fourth Test against India in Dharamsala, though not necessarily the juicy kind that helped Adam Gilchrist’s team clinch the most recent Australian victory in India, 13 years ago.Dharamsala is the home ground of the deposed former BCCI president Anurag Thakur, and differences between a state association and the Indian board’s leadership were at the heart of the grassy pitch served up in Nagpur in 2004. The disconnect ultimately provided a priceless advantage to the visitors, who at that stage had Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Michael Kasprowicz in their bowling attack alongside Shane Warne.Hazlewood, though, has memories of the sluggish surface the HPCA ground served up at the World T20, when Mitchell McClenaghan’s cutters and Mitchell Santner’s left-arm spin spearheaded a victory for New Zealand. Knowing that India must win the match to regain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Hazlewood did not think the relatively friendly batting conditions in Ranchi will be replicated.”I think the wicket will determine a result,” he said. “They need to win so the wicket they serve up will bring a result into the game. The pressure is firmly on them. We can draw it but we obviously want to win it, win 2-1 and win a series in India, which rarely happens.”I’d love to see it fast and bouncy. But that’s what they said in Pune as well and we didn’t quite get that. I think the way they saw Pat Cummins bowl the other day, they don’t really want it any faster than Ranchi, I wouldn’t think. We’d love it to be that way, would feel a bit more like home, but I don’t think we’ll get that.””We played New Zealand here in the T20 World Cup nearly 12 months ago. It spun quite a bit that game. They can make it however they want, really. It sometimes has pace and bounce and sometimes has spin. Guess we’ll find out.”‘All the pressure is on them. I think the whole Indian team has [felt pressure], and probably the skipper more so’ – Hazlewood•Associated Press

Equanimity about conditions and match situations has been a hallmark of the Australian approach in this series, and Hazlewood retained his laconic streak when pondering the physical toll of spending more than two complete days in the field in the last game.”You’re probably going to bowl that many overs in a Test match, it’s just the fact we did it one go,” he said. “It was a long time out in the field but that’s what you prepare for and that’s what a Test match brings. Everyone has pulled up well and ready to go again.”I might roll the arm over lightly just to see how it goes. We’ve bowled enough so far this series and we’ve been playing non-stop for a long time now so we know what we’re doing bowling-wise it’s just a matter of recovering and preparing for the next Test as best we can.”The tourists’ due diligence on the fitness of the recalled Cummins included precautionary back scans between Tests. It was a source of relief to medical staff both in India and back home that they came up clear.”It’s great to have him back,” Hazlewood said. “I’ve spent a lot of time with Patty [at New South Wales] and finally got to play a Test with him last week which was great. I think everyone was taken aback by the way he bowled and to get that lift and pace off the wicket like that. He’s a pretty special player and to bring that extra pace is what you need sometimes on those wickets to get those breakthroughs.”He’s going to be great if he can stay on the park and join the [fast bowlers’] cartel and have a good partnership moving forward. You never want to see guys in the sidelines injured, and Pat’s obviously been playing for a majority part of this year in one-day cricket and T20s. But it’s great to see him back in the Test format. He obviously had a great hit-out in that last Test and bowled fast for the whole duration, so it’s amazing what he’s going to do back in Australia and on bouncy wickets in South Africa and places like that.”With the possible exception of the 2015 Ashes, Hazlewood said he has never been part of a Test match more hotly-anticipated than this one. In his mind, the pressure of the occasion will weigh heavily on India’s cricketers, none more so than the captain Virat Kohli. “It’s pretty exciting. We had that win in Pune, feels quite a while ago now, but we’ve competed for every day of Test cricket so far. We’re pretty excited that if we can put a couple of good days together here in Dharamsala against a great opposition that we can come away with a win which is something you’d never forget.”Before we came over, they were expected to win 4-0. The pressure is still firmly on them being 1-1 going into this decider and all the pressure is on them. I think the whole Indian team has [felt pressure], and probably the skipper more so. There’s a little bit more pressure on him. It’s just that they are expected to win in their own backyard, just as we are at home. So the more pressure we can put on the better.”