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“Catching has not been an issue so far,” says Head, who is yet to go full-tilt on fielding drills

Alex Malcolm22-Oct-20235:06

Should Australia change their batting order to be more effective?

Travis Head is optimistic he could return to play against Netherlands on Wednesday but Australia may err on the side of caution with his hand injury given he is still yet to have a full batting session against bowlers after only recently arriving in India.Head has linked up with Australia’s squad in Delhi having watched Australia’s first four matches of the World Cup from his couch in Adelaide while he recovered from the broken left hand he suffered just over five weeks ago on the tour of South Africa.Australia’s selectors took a huge gamble by keeping Head in the 15-man squad despite the fact he was unavailable for the early part of the tournament with chair George Bailey stating on Saturday that Head would slot straight back in at the top of the order despite the sublime form of Mitchell Marsh.Head revealed he has had four hits in the nets since getting his hand out of a splint. He began by hitting tennis balls only and progressed to facing the sidearm in the nets in Delhi on Saturday. He is optimistic about playing against the Netherlands on Wednesday but Saturday’s clash with New Zealand in Dharamsala looks a more likely return date.Related

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“I had a really good hit yesterday,” Head said on Sunday in Delhi. “I think each session is getting better but again we’ve got to be mindful of the fact that I think it was five weeks [since the injury] a couple of days ago, and I sort of got told [around] that six-week mark.”Everything keeps going well, but again, it’s [about] how I woke up this morning. It’s how I can potentially back up tomorrow and train.”Still a few things I need to tick off but I’m optimistic. We’ll see what happens. If it continues on this rate, who knows. Keep doing things day-by-day to hopefully give yourself the best chance.”Head said he was confident the bone had healed, and it was only a bit of pain and stiffness in the hand that he had to deal with. He also needs to regain strength and mobility in his left hand given it had been immobilised in a splint for four weeks although he does not think it will affect his power.”I don’t hit massive sixes anyway, so maybe I’ll just keep them on the carpet a little bit more,” Head said.Travis Head is back with the Australia squad•Getty Images

He has been able to bowl during his time off but his bowling, whilst useful, is not critical to his return. Fielding is the other major query.”I’ve been doing some catching but not at full tilt yet,” Head said. “So that’s another thing we need to tick off over the next few days. I’m optimistic. Obviously, it’s important to understand the process. Not trying to rush it too much because that can set us back. But it feels good. Catching hasn’t been an issue so far. The progression over the next couple of days is to field and see where I’m at.”[I’ll] take it slow to make sure once I come back that I’m ready just to stay there.”Head was very grateful to the selectors for keeping him in the squad. Having missed out on selection for the 2019 World Cup he thought his chances had evaporated again the moment Gerald Coetzee’s thunderbolt cracked his left hand at Centurion in September.”It was not something that I expected at the time,” Head said. “Obviously [there was] a range of emotions through those three or four days early on to think that I [had] missed a chance again to be involved. And I felt like I was contributing well.”When I left [South Africa] and they put it on the table there was a lot of things that needed to go really well. Very fortunate the group stayed healthy as well because that was another scenario that might not have happened. So very happy the boys were fit and going well which meant they could keep me around, which is nice.”But it’s also nice to have the confidence to potentially do the right things and now it’s a case of hopefully day-by-day getting better and hopefully I can contribute at the end and I guess pay a bit of the faith back.”

Uncapped Arnav Jain also named as Netherlands look to manage in the absence of players participating in the Hundred and the Royal London Cup

ESPNcricinfo staff13-Aug-2022Wicketkeeper-batter Wesley Barresi has been recalled for Netherlands’ three-match ODI series against Pakistan which begins on August 16 in Rotterdam, while uncapped 20-year-old batting allrounder Arnav Jain has also been named in the 15-member squad.Legspinner Philippe Boissevain, who played one ODI in the series against England, has been left out.Barresi, 38, last played international cricket in June 2019 in the series against Zimbabwe. Netherlands look to manage in the absence of players currently participating in the Hundred and the Royal London Cup, with up to seven players currently playing in those two competitions are unavailable for national selection. Fred Klaassen, Colin Ackermann, Roelof van der Merwe, and Timm van der Gugten are all currently participating in the Hundred, with Paul van Meekeren, Shane Snater and Brandon Glover involved in England’s domestic one-day competition.Scott Edwards, who was named captain midway through Netherlands’ series against England after Pieter Seelaar announced his retirement, takes charge of a full series for the first time.Pakistan arrived in the Netherlands on Saturday and will play three ODIs on August 16, 18 and 21. All three games will be played at the Hazelaarweg Stadium in Rotterdam.Netherlands squad: Scott Edwards (capt), Musa Ahmad, Shariz Ahmad, Wesley Barresi, Logan van Beek, Tom Cooper, Aryan Dutt, Arnav Jain, Viv Kingma, Ryan Klein, Bas de Leede, Teja Nidamanuru, Tim Pringle, Max O’Dowd, Vikram Singh

Acknowledges errors, says “I will hold myself in check” with respect to reviews

ESPNcricinfo staff16-Mar-2021R Ashwin was one of the star performers for India in the back-to-back Test series wins in Australia and against England at home. But, even as he picked up 44 wickets at 18.56 in seven Test matches, his expertise (or lack of it) with DRS did raise an eyebrow or two. He knows it, and – tongue firmly in cheek, wide smile in place – shifts the blame to Rishabh Pant for the poor success rate with reviews of late.”I think we need to change the lens with which people are looking at me with the DRS,” Ashwin, a guest at the , said. “Sometimes what people are telling us might not be true, because before this series against England, my DRS was extremely good. Because when you take DRS, you need to rely on the keeper’s resources.Related

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“Because I ask valid questions in terms of saying… I know whether the ball has struck in line or not, but with respect to the line from the angle that I am bowling and the bounce, the keeper really needs to help.”And then came the light-hearted blame game: “And Rishabh is actually letting me down on a lot of occasions. I took him aside and I said, ‘we need to sit together on a crash course with DRS, because Ravi (Shastri) has a few complaints with me going for DRS’.”Cue a lot of laughs, as expected. Jokes aside, Ashwin does want to fix the issue. “So, honestly, yeah, if there is one improvement I would like to make it’s go for better DRS in the future series, I will hold myself in check.”Since the start of 2018 till the start of the England series, in the 19 Test matches Ashwin played, 20 reviews were asked for by the Indians when he was bowling. Of those, four were overturned upon appeal, five were deemed to be umpires’ calls, and 11 reviews were squandered. In the four Tests against England, India got one review right when Ashwin was bowling, while nine were lost and one was an umpire’s call.Next up for Ashwin, who is not a part of India’s white-ball teams, is the IPL, where he will be a part of the Delhi Capitals again, with Pant as well. There’s something for the two of them to chat about.

The series opener on December 6 will now be played in Hyderabad, while Mumbai will host the game on December 11

ESPNcricinfo staff22-Nov-2019The BCCI has swapped the venues for India’s first and third T20Is against West Indies. The series opener, on December 6, will now be played in Hyderabad, while the Wankhede will host the third and final game on December 11.It is understood that on Friday Mumbai Cricket Association secretary Sanjay Naik along with former MCA president Ashish Shelar updated the BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah about Mumbai police’s inability to provide adequate security on December 6, which is the anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition as well as Ambedkar Jayanti. Accordingly, the BCCI requested Mohammad Azharuddin, the president of Hyderabad Cricket Association, who readily agreed to the swap.”The BCCI has agreed to swap the dates of the Mumbai [December 6] and Hyderabad [December 11] games. We were able to carry out the swap after HCA president Mohammed Azharuddin agreed,” a senior MCA official was quoted as saying by PTI.Last year, the fourth India-West Indies ODI was also moved from the Wankhede to Cricket Club of India’s Brabourne Stadium due to administrative issues at MCA.

Cricket Association of Bengal president also speaks of ‘appalling’ manner in which Ravi Shastri was picked as India coach

Sidharth Monga30-Oct-2018In a letter to the BCCI’s office bearers, Sourav Ganguly, the president of the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB), said he has a “deep sense of fear and worry” about how cricket is being run in India and that the game’s popularity is “in danger” because of the current administration.In his letter, which ESPNcricinfo has accessed, he has also spoken publicly for the first time about the “appalling” way in which Ravi Shastri was selected as the national team’s head coach. He also criticised the handling of the recent sexual harassment case and the changing of playing conditions in domestic cricket in the middle of the season.

Change in independent committee

Veena Gowda, the independent member on the BCCI’s internal complains committee, has replaced PC Sharma on the independent committee put together to probe into allegations of sexual harassment against the BCCI CEO Rahul Johri. The BCCI statement on its website did not give a reason for the change but Vinod Rai, head of the the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA), told the that Sharma, a former Central Bureau of Investigation director, is in a “minor” conflict of interest. Sharma’s son-in-law is a BCCI employee, the paper reported.
The BCCI has also uploaded the terms of reference for the committee on its website, which made clear that the committee was free to probe into allegations that pertain to a time outside Johri’s tenure with the board. An email address will soon be set up to invite any person “desirous of placing any fact before the committee”. The first meeting of this committee will be held in Mumbai, where the CoA will share with the committee all it knows about the case.

Two of these three decisions – made with the blessings of the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) – directly involved Ganguly, and possibly overruled him.Ganguly was on the Cricket Advisory Committee that selected Shastri as India’s coach after the bitter falling out of captain Virat Kohli with incumbent coach Anil Kumble. First, the deadline for the application was extended, allowing Shastri to apply. After the interviews, Ganguly said in a press conference he wanted to give Kohli some time to think about his demand. However, the CoA and the BCCI announced Shastri’s appointment the same evening. The first press release said Rahul Dravid and Zaheer Khan had been appointed batting and bowling consultants, but neither Dravid nor Zaheer ever got to work with the team.”My experience in the matter of coach selection was appalling,” Ganguly wrote. “The less said the better.”Ganguly is also the head of the BCCI technical committee, which has traditionally framed rules, regulations and playing conditions for the domestic game. But their recommendations on how to include north-eastern state teams into Ranji Trophy were also overlooked. “Cricketing rules are changed in the middle of a season, which has never been heard of,” Ganguly wrote. “Decisions made in committees are turned around with complete disrespect.” There have been other cases of qualification criteria being changed mid-tournament in domestic cricket this year as well.Another important recommendation of the committee was to favour day-night Test cricket, but the BCCI CEO Rahul Johri said that plan was put on hold because the team management was against it. Consequently, for India’s tour later this year, Cricket Australia has scheduled an all-day Test in Adelaide for the first time since 2014.Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri share a laugh•Getty Images

Ganguly was also critical of the manner in which the charges of harassment against Johri was being handled by the CoA. After an anonymous sexual harassment complaint against Johri popped up on Twitter on October 12, a divided CoA constituted an independent committee on October 30 to investigate the allegations. There had also been murmurs of an internal complaint against Johri, but the CoA neither acknowledged nor denied them until it asked this committee to look into internal complaints as well.Johri was first given a week to explain himself; Diana Edulji, one half of the CoA, wanted Johri to resign before any such probe, but Vinod Rai constituted the independent committee, which was then revealed to include a member, PC Sharma, whose son-in-law was a BCCI employee.”I don’t know how far it’s true, but the recent reports of harassment has really made the BCCI look very poorly,” Ganguly wrote in his letter. “More so the way it has been handled. The committee of CoA from four has come down to two and now the two seem to be divided.”Ganguly used strong language to describe the state of cricket administration in India. “I write this mail to you all with the deep sense of fear as to where Indian cricket administration is going,” he wrote. “Having played the game for a long period of time, where our lives were ruled by winning and losing, and the image of Indian cricket was of paramount importance to us. We wake up looking at how our cricket is faring even now.”But with deep sense of worry, (I used the word worry) I beg to state that the way things have gone in the last couple of years, the authority of Indian cricket to the world and the love and belief of millions of fans is on the way down.”Indian cricket with its massive following has been built over the years of hard work from superb administrators and greatest of cricketers who have managed to bring thousands of fans to the ground. I, at the present moment, think it’s in danger. Hope people are listening.”Ganguly’s comments came on a day when it was revealed that the CoA had identified the CAB as one of the state associations “partially compliant” with the Supreme Court order of August 9 that had directed all BCCI members – states – to follow the new constitution created on the basis of the Lodha Committee’s recommendations.

The soft ball turned less sharply off the pitch and the Khettarama surface itself has become easier to bat on, according to Sri Lanka’s interim head coach Nic Pothas, thus allowing Zimbabwe’s revival

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Colombo16-Jul-2017The soft ball turned less sharply off the pitch, and the Khettarama surface itself has become easier to bat on. So said Sri Lanka’s interim head coach Nic Pothas, after Zimbabwe turned a scoreline of 59 for 5 into 252 for 6 by the end of the third day. The unbeaten pair of Sikandar Raza and Malcolm Waller have been most responsible for that turnaround, their partnership currently worth 107.”You’ve got to give credit to our players as well as the opposition,” Pothas said. “Once the hardness went out of the ball, it obviously became a bit more difficult, and it spun less than yesterday. I thought Raza played really well, as did PJ Moor and Waller.”But our guys were phenomenal. They did their jobs. I thought the quality of the fielding was superb. It hasn’t been easy, but we’ll get up again tomorrow morning, try to get a few quick wickets, and then chase a score.”Having conceded a first-innings lead of 10, Sri Lanka are presently looking at a fourth-innings chase north of 300, unless they can dismiss Zimbabwe quickly on the fourth morning. Only three times have teams successfully chased down targets of over 300 in Sri Lanka. One of those occasions had been against Zimbabwe, however – Sri Lanka hunting down 326 at the SSC in 1998.Sri Lanka will hope that, as Pothas says, the Khettarama pitch is not as treacherous as Rangana Herath predicted it would be, 24 hours prior. Both Pothas and cricket manager Asanka Gurusinha have put Sri Lanka’s performances in this Test largely down to conditions.”The pitch has changed quite a bit. Once the hardness went out of the ball today, it didn’t seem like it did as much as yesterday,” Pothas said. “Yesterday and day one the ball spun. At the end of the day we’re playing in the subcontinent and wickets spin. You just need to come up with plans to score, and how you’re going to get wickets. Today it was surprising that it didn’t do as much as expected, but we just need to find a way of getting wickets.”With Herath having claimed nine of the 16 Zimbabwe wickets to fall so far, there has been scrutiny about the performance of the remaining bowlers, who have gone through long spells without threatening to take wickets. Pothas, however, defended Sri Lanka’s quicks in particular, again ascribing their lack of wickets to conditions.”The amount of work those guys put in behind the scenes, and the effort they are putting in today with a soft ball, and a wicket that’s not conducive to fast bowling – I thought they did a fantastic job on it,” he said. “If we’re going to keep judging them, we need a bit of perspective. I think under the conditions they did a great job.”Though Sri Lanka have largely fielded well in this Test – Dimuth Karunaratne taking two especially sharp catches at slip in this innings – their fielding over the past few months has come in for stern criticism, particularly after the Champions Trophy defeat to Pakistan. Pothas, however, again defended the side on that front, suggesting they had turned a corner.”Are we judging them on one hour against Pakistan? I think we need to be careful on that, because in the first innings I thought we fielded phenomenally well. I think in general, we’ve been pretty harsh on them even when they put in good performances. I don’t think they get enough credit for it. When we played against South Africa at The Oval, I thought we fielded brilliantly. We fielded brilliantly against India. Then we had an hour of madness at the end of the Pakistan game, which was unfortunate. Since then we’ve done some pretty good stuff in the field, so I think we need to be a bit careful with always looking at the negative part of their fielding.”Sri Lanka dropped no fewer than six catches during the ODI series against Zimbabwe, however. Half of those chances were straightforward.

Kolkata Knight Riders opener Robin Uthappa has said the “batting chemistry” he shares with his partner Gautam Gambhir has helped their productivity in the IPL

ESPNcricinfo staff17-Apr-2016Kolkata Knight Riders opener Robin Uthappa has said the “batting chemistry” he shares with his partner Gautam Gambhir has helped their productivity in the IPL. Gambhir and Uthappa shared a 92-run opening stand in Knight Riders’ eight-wicket win over Sunrisers Hyderabad on Saturday. While Uthappa made a 34-ball 38, Gambhir was unbeaten on 90 off 60 deliveries in the chase.”The batting chemistry between us is really good. Like today, in the initial part of the innings, Gauti was taking some time and then I went on the offensive for a little bit. Then I got hit and Gauti took over from there,” Uthappa told . “That is where all the understanding and the complementing each other factor comes into the picture – in situations like that. When I found it difficult to grip the bat, Gambhir took the onus upon himself and I played second fiddle where I was just rotating the strike to give him a lot more of the strike during the course of the innings. He did what was required of him – to take the onus on himself.”With 1094 runs in 27 innings, Uthappa and Gambhir have the second-highest aggregate for an opening pair in the IPL, after Chennai Super Kings’ M Vijay and Michael Hussey. In Knight Riders’ title-winning campaign in 2014, Uthappa and Gambhir had two century and three half-century stands and ended the season with second-highest aggregate – 490 runs in 11 innings. Uthappa was bought by Knight Riders in the 2014 auction and has opened with Gambhir in all but five matches since.”It helps to have a stable opening combination throughout the tournament,” Uthappa said. “I think we kind of cracked it in the first year when I joined KKR. Once we got that figured, it became a very formidable opening partnership.”I think myself and Gautam complement each other beautifully and we have a great understanding between each other. We understand the importance of rotating strike and backing each other. We know exactly what to say to each other when we are batting in the middle, during the course of the innings.”Uthappa also said the off-field relationship he shared with Gambhir helped their on-field performance: “We have played a lot of cricket together. We do open a lot together so there is a great understanding, and over the years we have gotten along really well. It has also got to do a lot with the kind of relationship we share off the field, which has always been great with him. I do believe when you spend so much time with each other, and you have been opening consistently over a period of time, you tend to find your space and stay within that. You also help each other out.”Knight Riders’ win over Sunrisers in Hyderabad was their first of six successive matches away from home, and Uthappa hoped they could build on the success. They now have two wins from three games this season.”Winning games away from home matters a lot. We are playing six on the bounce outside our home ground, so it is important for us to start well,” Uthappa said. “We are very happy with the way we played this game. I truly believe that we will be really successful if, more often than not, we play to our potential.”