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Australian batter to make maiden appearance in English first-class cricket

ESPNcricinfo staff29-Jan-2024
Will Pucovski, the Australian top-order batter, will play county cricket for the first time in April after signing a short-term deal with Leicestershire to cover for Wiaan Mulder.Pucovski, 25, is widely considered one of Australia’s brightest young talents and made his Test debut three years ago, playing against India at the SCG. But he has faced multiple setbacks in his fledgling career, suffering regular concussions and also taking leave from the game to manage his mental health.He has had a quiet Sheffield Shield season for Victoria, playing five matches and passing 50 only once, but averages 43.94 across his first-class career and made 62 in his maiden Test innings, opening the batting alongside David Warner.With Mulder unavailable at the start of the English summer while finishing the domestic season in South Africa, Leicestershire have brought Pucovski in for the first five matches of the County Championship season. He will play alongside his Victoria team-mate Peter Handscomb, who is also returning to the county this season.Pucovski spent time in the UK last year, playing for Weybridge in the Surrey Championship, but this will be his first experience of county cricket. He said: “Talking to Pete, he couldn’t speak more highly about the environment and [the] club’s group of players and staff.”Claude Henderson, Leicestershire’s director of cricket, said: “We are really pleased to have secured Will’s signature. He has impressed for a while in the longer format, and he will give our batting line-up a real boost at the start of the summer.”Leicestershire finished fourth in Division Two of the Championship last summer during a turbulent season. Head coach Paul Nixon left his role as head coach in circumstances which remain unclear while several senior players also departed, but the club rallied under Nixon’s replacement Alfonso Thomas and won the Metro Bank One-Day Cup.

Yorkshire chair tells DCMS select committee he “didn’t think it was appropriate” to phone Rafiq

Valkerie Baynes20-Feb-2024Colin Graves has still not apologised directly to Azeem Rafiq for the racism he suffered while a Yorkshire player.Graves last month returned as Yorkshire chair having held the role from 2012 to 2015, part of the period for which the club were fined £400,000 for failing to address the systemic use of racist or discriminatory language. That followed revelations by Rafiq, who spoke out about his experiences of racism while playing there.Graves, who refused to appear as a witness at the parliamentary hearings which followed Rafiq’s complaints in November 2021, appeared before the Department of Culture, Media and Sport select committee on Tuesday. There he accepted the opportunity to place on record an apology to Rafiq but, when asked if he had called Rafiq to apologise directly, Graves revealed he hadn’t.”I haven’t apologised to him personally, no,” Graves told the committee. “If I had the opportunity to talk to him then fine, I would do because he should not have experienced what he experienced.”But Graves faced further grilling by John Nicolson MP, who questioned why he had not reached out to Rafiq.”Certainly from my point of view, I didn’t feel that was appropriate at the time,” Graves said. “I’ve apologised today to Mr Rafiq and anybody else who experienced any discrimination or racism. I just had plenty things going on around not to pick up the phone to Mr Rafiq.”Pressed further by Nicolson about having “plenty of things going on” which prevented him from phoning, Graves replied: “Fine, if that’s how you see it, I don’t see it like that.”Related

• Colin Graves insists he witnessed no racism during his tenure at Yorkshire

• Rafiq urges sponsors to abandon Yorkshire if Graves returns

• Colin Graves apologises to racism victims as Yorkshire set date for EGM

• Colin Graves returns to Yorkshire board ahead of reappointment as chair

Graves issued a “personal and unreserved” apology to all victims of racism at Yorkshire County Cricket Club last month, after it was confirmed that his return to the board would be ratified at an emergency general meeting (EGM) at Headingley on February 2.”I’ll apologise again today,” Graves told the select committee. “Because anybody from a minority ethnic background who experienced either discrimination or racism at Yorkshire, that should never have happened. It never will be acceptable and it certainly won’t be going forward. I apologise for anybody who went through any discrimination or racism, it is not accepted.”Graves also repeated his apology over an interview last year in which he dismissed the accusations as “banter”.”I did an interview in June, July 23 where I used the word ‘banter’. At the time I didn’t realise the insensitivity of that word,” he said. “And again, since then I’ve apologised for using that word and I apologise again. I should not have used it. It was a bad judgement from my point of view.”Graves reiterated his assertion that he was never made aware of any issues of racism during his previous tenure as Yorkshire chair.”Basically the way I ran the club previously, maybe the processes weren’t thorough enough to record those kind of things, if it happened and when it’s happened, so from my point of view, I never heard anything about racism through any management meeting, any board meeting, it was never brought to my attention,” he said.When Graves’ return was mooted in January, Rafiq wrote a newspaper column urging sponsors to leave the club. Graves said that in the 11 days since he had assumed the role, no sponsors had left and a further six had expressed an interest in holding talks.Graves said his primary focus was to ensure Yorkshire returned to a stable financial footing, after which he would leave, estimating a maximum two- to three-year term.As part of his return to the club, Yorkshire were set to receive an immediate injection of £1 million, followed by further investment worth £4 million. Graves’ original involvement with the club came about in similar financial circumstances in 2002, when as the founder of the Costcutter supermarket chain, his bail-out saved them from bankruptcy. His family trust, which is managed by independent trustees, is still owed nearly £15 million by the club.Meanwhile, Cindy Butts, chairwoman of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) which produced a report last year exposing racism, sexism and class-based discrimination in the sport, appeared before the committee and accused former England allrounder Ian Botham of “untruths” surrounding the report.She told MPs that Botham had been invited to give evidence to the commission, despite his claims that he was not asked to contribute.Botham described the ICEC findings as “nonsense” and the ECB’s commissioning of the report as a “complete and utter waste of money”.Butts also expressed disappointment that the ECB “didn’t call out Lord Botham” saying they “should have had a moral backbone on this issue”.”Firstly, we did invite Lord Botham to give evidence to us,” Butts said. “He didn’t respond. The county which he chairs, Durham, contributed to our call for written evidence and we thank them for that.”He [Botham] said he didn’t know anybody who had contributed to our report when, in fact, a number of well-known named cricketers such as Heather Knight, the England women’s captain, responded and gave evidence to us. So there are a number of untruths that he spoke about the report.”But the most disappointing thing for me, I feel, is that Lord Botham is a chair of a first-class county. What confidence to those within the county who may suffer racism, sexism, class-based discrimination . . . what confidence can they have if they are subject to discrimination to come forward and be able to talk about their experiences and have confidence that something could be done about it?”Richard Thompson, the ECB chair, later told the committee he had phoned Botham after he made the comments “to question why” and “made it very clear to him I didn’t agree” with his views.On the day that Thompson, Richard Gould, the ECB’s chief executive, and his deputy, Clare Connor, appeared before the select committee, the ECB published a progress report on its plan to make cricket more inclusive in the wake of the ICEC report, saying that 11 of its 12 programmes were on track.Earlier this month, the ECB announced that Connor, the former England women’s captain who also served as interim CEO prior to Gould’s appointment, would be stepping down from her post for personal reasons at the conclusion of the hearing.

ECB chief executive says depth of county talent pool is English cricket’s ‘superpower’

Matt Roller02-Apr-2024Richard Gould, the ECB’s chief executive, says there is a “strong consensus” within English cricket that the Hundred should be opened up to private investment and that the owners of American and British sports teams, as well as IPL franchises, have made their interest clear.The ECB has consulted with the first-class counties since the end of the Hundred’s third season in August, discussing the ownership model of the competition’s eight clubs which each comprise a men’s and women’s team. Several options have been tabled, with host counties likely to be given equity stakes in the teams that play at their home venue.Counties would then be free to sell those stakes on to interested investors, or retain them if they choose. The governing body would retain ownership of the competition as a whole, which is reportedly valued at over £1 billion, but could sell its own stake in the teams.Discussions will continue but Gould’s comments were the clearest indication yet that private investment is imminent. “The future of the Hundred is very strong in terms of ticket sales, broadcast interest, and franchise interest now in terms of third-party investors who are interested in it,” he said at an event launching the 2024 season at The Oval.”We’re having really good discussions with the game. There is a strong consensus that we would like to see private investment come into the Hundred. There’s a very strong consensus that that should be through investment into the teams rather than the central competition, and now we’re working through the options of what that could potentially look like, in terms of how control, revenue and capital is shared.”Gould does not expect English cricket to follow South Africa’s lead in selling all eight Hundred teams to IPL team owners. “Our interest won’t just be with IPL franchises,” he said. “We have got a lot of interested sports owners from the [United] States and from this country. So we’ll be looking at all those options.”The ECB would keep overall control of the Hundred, which has been valued at £1 billion,•Getty Images for ECB

The ECB initially told counties it intended to confirm changes by the end of May and implement them in time for the 2025 season, but has since cooled on that timeframe. “We’re not putting huge deadlines on it,” Gould said, with the consensus over the broad principles around the Hundred’s future not yet reflected in the detail.”The game has suffered from divisions over the last five or six years, and we would rather take a bit of time in order to get to the conclusions that we think the game is seeking, rather than rush people,” Gould said. “We can, frankly, create more value with a game that is operating as one.”The ECB are still resigned to the fact that the BCCI will not grant active men’s players No-Objection Certificates to feature in overseas short-form leagues. “It’s not something that we are working into our proceedings,” Gould said. “I can see why: they [the BCCI] have got a dominant global position there, and they want to try and make sure that they can retain that.”Indian broadcast money generally follows Indian players… the BCCI and the IPL have just said, ‘No, we want the IPL to be the No. 1 global tournament and in order to do that, we need to make sure that we rely on our strengths which is the size of our market and the quality of our players’. That may change at some point… but we are not basing any of our models on that, at this point.”Related

• Cricket needs IPL money, but is it good for the future of the game?

• Hundred faces MLC clash as 2024 fixtures are announced

• Mark Chapman, Manchester Originals chair: 'The ECB aren't talking to Hundred boards'

• Jason Roy goes unselected as West Indian power-hitters dominate Men's Hundred draft

• Meet Jamie Overton, England's T20 World Cup bolter

Some smaller counties have raised concerns that proposed ownership models may further entrench the chasm between them and the biggest clubs, but Gould denounced the idea that the ECB’s management are hoping to kill some counties off by stealth as “a totally mad conspiracy” theory.”I’ve been in the game 20-odd years and that conversation has always been around, but we’re the one professional sport that hasn’t lost a club [in England] and we’ve been going 140-odd years. Look at rugby and football. We’ve done extremely well as a sport to maintain that 100% record, and that’s where our intent lies.”The depth of our talent pool, both in terms of men and women, is our superpower at the moment… having more teams and more players and more depth to our talent pool is ideal. It’s where we want to be. It increases competition. It provides more opportunity for talent to come through. I don’t see any backward step in terms of 18 first-class counties.””But we also need to make sure that clubs do not feel restricted by that, so that we can make sure that [counties] that are particularly good at delivering talent or crowds through the doors… we need to make sure that they’re celebrated too. We can’t run it all at a median denominator. We have to let clubs and counties fly.”

“Because we have so few pitches here in Ireland that can host international cricket, we had to make a fairly difficult decision,” Warren Deutrom, Cricket Ireland CEO, said

ESPNcricinfo staff22-Apr-2024Cricket Ireland has confirmed that they cannot afford to host Australia this summer and that they have postponed what would have been the teams’ first-ever men’s bilateral series.Australia were due to travel to Ireland in late August for three ODIs and a one-off T20I before moving onto England for a tour which comprises three T20Is and five ODIs. Richard Holdsworth, Cricket Ireland’s performance director, told ESPNcricinfo last month that the series was in doubt and Warren Deutrom, their chief executive, has confirmed its indefinite postponement.Deutrom told the podcast: “It was a difficult conversation, picking up the phone to Nick Hockley to say, ‘look Nick, we’ve looked at our schedule, we think we’re going to have to make some fairly difficult choices here about what stays and what goes, and we’ve concluded – difficult though it might be to believe – that we reckon this is the only way forward.'”Ireland do not have a permanent home stadium and the costs of staging international cricket – which requires significant temporary infrastructure – are extremely high as a result. They have recently staged ‘home’ fixtures against South Africa and Bangladesh in England but there is already significant pressure on English pitches at the relevant stage of the season.Related

• As Cricket Ireland CEO Warren Deutrom departs, he leaves behind a complicated legacy

• Ireland government approves permanent cricket stadium in Dublin

• Ireland could play men's T20 World Cup on expired contracts

• Ireland to host South Africa in Abu Dhabi

• Australia men's tour of Ireland could be postponed due to financial and venue pressures

“The simple fact for us was that because we have so few pitches here in Ireland that can host international cricket, we had to make a fairly difficult decision,” Deutrom said. “It required us to have to open up Malahide Cricket Ground and if we were going to do that, we estimated it was going to be a very, very significant six-figure loss for us, to have to open up Malahide.”The fact is, broadcast rights wise, Australia would probably be the fourth-largest of all the various [opponents] that we would have… it wouldn’t even have covered the cost of production, opening up Malahide and bearing in mind it’s an entirely green-field site. Those, unfortunately, are the difficult decisions we have to make.”Deutrom said that the postponement “highlights the massive imperative to keep pushing government to build us a permanent stadium”, with plans in place to build a high-performance centre at the new Sport Ireland campus in Abbotstown, in the Dublin suburbs. “We have to pull a ticket and stand in line in terms of all the other investments the government has,” he said.Ireland last played Australia men in the T20 World Cup 2022•ICC via Getty Images

He also defended the decision by saying that Cricket Ireland is trying to “rebalance our spend” and increase investment in women’s and age-group teams. “We are no longer a board that exclusively weighs itself by the amount of men’s senior cricket that we host… we are going to try and obviously play Australia again into the future,” Deutrom said.”But we are playing 46 international matches this year. We’re supporting 47 or 48 matches at provincial level with our men’s Inter-Pros, our women’s Super Series; we have an emerging competition; our Wolves [men’s A team] have been in Nepal; we’re going to be hosting West Indies Under-23 this year. That is an awful lot of representative cricket.”Ireland will announce this week the outcomes of Friday’s board meeting, which will include details of their men’s international schedule for 2024. They will face Pakistan next month in three T20Is and are also due to host Zimbabwe (one Test, three ODIs, three T20Is) and South Africa (three ODIs, three T20Is) according to the Future Tours Programme – though both series are expected to be cut.Dave Richardson, the former ICC chief executive, has been recommended for a role on the Cricket Ireland board and his appointment is due to be ratified at the upcoming AGM. “For me, wouldn’t it be great to be probably the only national governing body in Ireland that is going to have a recent former CEO of the world game of what is a major sport sitting on the board?” Deutrom said.Cricket Ireland has come under pressure in recent weeks for the controversial purchase of two Tesla cars for senior officials – one for Deutrom, the other for chief financial officer Andrew May – at a time when their precarious financial position is prompting them to cancel tours by leading international teams. Deutrom defended the decision, but revealed that one of the cars has since been returned. “It’s been painful, because the perception is that it’s a snout in the trough,” he said.”I suspect it’s the perception of the posh brand that has asked all the questions. At a human level, if I could go back and give the car back and get a slightly less posh model at a slightly accelerated price to save myself the hassle? Hell, yes. But from a company financial perspective, would I want the company to pay slightly more just to avoid the perception? No, I wouldn’t be doing my job.”

Another potential overlap could be South Africa travelling to Pakistan for an ODI series as prep for the 2025 Champions Trophy, pencilled in for mid-February

ESPNcricinfo staff10-May-2024The third edition of the ILT20 is set to be on a collision course with the BBL and potentially the SA20 in 2025. As per the fixtures of the ILT20, a six-team franchise-based competition in the UAE, announced on Friday, the tournament is set to run from January 11 to February 9 in 2025.While the dates for both BBL and SA20 haven’t been announced, ESPNcricinfo understands the former is set to run until January 26 while the latter will start soon after the New Year’s Test against Pakistan ends in Cape Town on January 7. Another potential overlap could be South Africa travelling to Pakistan for an ODI series as preparation for the 2025 Champions Trophy, pencilled in for mid-February, also in Pakistan.Adding to the complexities of the ILT20 is also a possible clash with the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), although the ILT20 has been a far more lucrative proposition for top players. These clashes with other leagues have meant a high turnover in players throughout the ILT20, with teams making signings for exclusive windows, even as players jet in and jet out from one competition to another.Related

• JP Duminy named Sharjah Warriorz head coach in ILT20

• Kane Williamson opts out of New Zealand central contract for 2024-25

• PCB confirms PSL expansion from 2026 with two new teams

The BBL suffered a mass exodus of overseas players for the finals series last season when the ILT20 started on January 19 but a few overseas players were at least able to play most of the regular season before leaving for the UAE. That will not be the case next summer for those who are contracted to the ILT20.The BBL was hoping to offset any potential clashes with overseas leagues by having Australia’s home-grown Test stars available to play after the Sydney Test against India finishes on January 7. But Australia has a two-Test tour of Sri Lanka scheduled for late January to early February and it understood that the Test players might only be available for three BBL games, if at all, depending on who needs a rest after five Tests against India in seven weeks.Speaking to ESPNcricnfo recently, David White, the CEO of ILT20, had admitted the January-Feburary 2025 was a crowded window with the “added complications” of the Champions Trophy. White had said the ILT20 would look at all options including moving the window to the October-November period subject to ICC’s FTP which comprised bilateral engagements.Eventually the ILT20, which received List A status from ICC prior to the 2024 season, has decided to stick to the same window the tournament has been played over the last two years.”Having considered all aspects, the January-February window for Season 3 has turned out to be the most suitable,” White said in a media release on Friday.Last week, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) announced a radical move to push PSL to an April-May window, in an effort to avoid an increasingly crowded December-February window including hosting the eight-team Champions Trophy. In case the PSL does move to April-May window, it could have a positive impact on ILT20. In 2024 the PCB had allowed top Pakistan players to feature in the ILT20, which White said “spiked’ crowd attendances at the three venues in the UAE.

Despite the heavy defeat, Uganda captain takes heart from their comeback with the ball in the death overs

Mohammad Isam04-Jun-2024Afghanistan head coach Jonathan Trott believes that their net-run-rate-boosting win against Uganda will stand them in good stead in Group C, which also includes co-hosts West Indies and New Zealand. Afghanistan started their campaign with a 125-run demolition of World Cup debutants Uganda, Fazalhaq Farooqi leading the way with figures of 5 for 9. Their NRR is currently 6.25.”I think in a tight group with the quality of sides, net run-rate may play its part,” Trott said after the game. “I don’t worry too much about the weather and the rain, and that’s up to the cricketing gods. But I think it’s more of a confidence boost the way that we played and finished off the game as well. I think Fazal [Farooqi] bowled really well, and helped the whole team. So that’s pleasing.”It was the opening pair of Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran that set the tone for victory with a 154-run partnership – the second highest for the first wicket in the men’s T20 World Cup. Though Ibrahim’s dismissal triggered a collapse of 5 for 29 in the end overs and slowed Afghanistan down – they didn’t score a single boundary in the last six overs of their innings – their 183 for 5 proved too much for Uganda.Related

• Gurbaz, Ibrahim and Farooqi hand Uganda a thrashing

“I think obviously our opening partnership was really good and set a great platform,” Trott said. “I think obviously we didn’t capitalise on it as much as we could and that’s something we need to work on going forward. So, the exciting thing is there’s still things we can do better and as a coach that’s obviously the challenge for the players but also exciting for us if we can get that right.”I think coming into the tournament and starting on these wickets, especially against a slightly older ball, is a little bit tricky. So we’ve got to get better at that. We only scored 30-odd in the last six overs and with the platform we had, we should have done a bit better. We shuffled the order a little bit, and maybe that’s our fault a little bit, as coaches, decision making, mixing the order up a little bit left-right hand…”We want to look at that and hopefully get that right next game. There’s always areas to improve. Fielding, bowling, death bowling, variations, boundary hitting. So we’re looking to improve the whole time.”Farooqi warmed the bench at Sunrisers Hyderabad throughout IPL 2024, but he hit the ground running in his first T20I for Afghanistan in this World Cup, bagging his first five-for in the format. Two of those five wickets came in the very first over of Afghanistan’s defence, and Uganda were eventually dismissed for 58 in 16 overs.”It looks like he’s worked really hard on his game,” Trott said. “I am very pleased for him today. The way that he was able to bowl and stuck to his plans. He showed his skill that he is able to swing the ball and take wickets early. It always creates trouble for the opposition and gets us going in the right direction.”Rahmanullah Gurbaz chats with Uganda’s players after the game•ICC/Getty Images

Uganda captain happy with their death bowling

Despite the heavy defeat, Uganda captain Brian Masaba took heart from their comeback with the ball in the death overs after the early assault from Gurbaz and Ibrahim. It was the first instance of a team not conceding a single boundary in the last six overs of a men’s T20 World Cup innings. Masaba and seamer Cosmas Kyewuta shared four wickets between them to tie down Afghanistan’s middle-order hitters.”That’s a huge bonus for us. In a T20 game, very often the game can go very quickly in the last five overs,” Masaba said. “Especially considering the fact that we are under the pump for most of the innings. So to come back like that and restrict them the way we did, it’s a huge bonus for us. We’ll look to carry that into our games going forward.”

The decision came after Kapil Dev and Sandeep Patil urged the board to help Gaekwad

PTI14-Jul-2024The BCCI has decided to release INR 1 crore for the treatment of former India batter Aunshuman Gaekwad, who is battling blood cancer at a medical facility in London.The BCCI’s decision came after Kapil Dev and Sandeep Patil urged the board to help Gaekwad.”Mr Jay Shah has instructed the BCCI to release INR 1 crore with immediate effect to provide financial assistance to India’s veteran cricketer Mr Anshuman Gaekwad, who is battling cancer,” the BCCI apex council said in a statement.”Shah has also spoken to Mr Gaekwad’s family to take stock of the situation and extend support,” the statement continued. “The board stands by Gaekwad’s family in this hour of crisis and will do whatever is essential for Mr Gaekwad’s quick recovery.”The BCCI will continue to monitor Mr Gaekwad’s progress and is confident that he will come out of this phase strongly.”Gaekwad, 71, played 40 Tests and 15 ODIs for India between 1975 and 1987. Later, he became a selector and then the coach of the national team.

England captain posts fitness update after injury sustained during the Hundred this month

Matt Roller28-Aug-2024Ben Stokes is on track to recover from his hamstring injury in time to play a full role as an allrounder in England’s Test series against Pakistan in October.Stokes tore his left hamstring two-and-a-half weeks ago while playing for Northern Superchargers in the Hundred. He was ruled out for the rest of the summer but has been with the England squad during their ongoing series against Sri Lanka, and has been batting in the nets at Lord’s ahead of Thursday’s second Test.England are due to arrive in Pakistan on October 2 ahead of the first Test five days later, which is scheduled for Multan. They won 3-0 on their most recent tour there in 2022, with Stokes only bowling 35 overs in the series as he managed a chronic knee injury. A return to full fitness ahead of this tour would be a significant boost to their chances.Stokes described his return as “scratching an itch” on Tuesday. “I’m all good, just slowly progressing,” he said in an ECB video. “It’s still very early days in the rehab period… I want to get back as quick as I possibly can, so being around the medical team here with physio and doctors, I thought that was going to give myself the best chance of getting back sooner rather than later.”Ollie Pope, England’s stand-in captain, believes that Stokes will be “as fresh as anyone” heading into their winter tours to Pakistan and New Zealand. “He’s obviously still a fair while away off playing, and he’s not trying to play as a batter and a first slip – just yet, anyway. But it’s been great to see him.Related

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• Olly Stone confirmed as Mark Wood's pace replacement for Lord's Test

“Injuries are never ideal, but they’re also great chances for people to keep improving their game and have a little bit of time of reflection and think about what he can work on in his game. I’m sure that’s exactly what he’s doing in the nets. Going into that Pakistan series and then into New Zealand, he’s going to be as fresh as anyone.”Zak Crawley, who is also missing the Sri Lanka series, came to Lord’s on Tuesday with his broken little finger in a split. Like Stokes, he is targeting a return for October’s tour to Pakistan, though will not be able to resume batting until later next month. “It’s great to have those guys around,” Pope said.”I know [Crawley] is gutted he’s not here playing in these Test matches, but for him to pop in and catch up with the guys is great and it shows where we’re at as a squad, and how we’re a tight-knit unit. We want to keep driving that forwards because I think that helps us on the pitch as well.”Mark Wood is also out of this series injured, and has been replaced in England’s XI by Olly Stone for the second Test at Lord’s. Pope played with Stone at London Spirit in the Hundred this year, and believes that he will be able to replicate Wood’s impact as a high-pace bowler – even if he may not touch Wood’s top speeds.”He’s obviously had a tough time, and has injuries that unfortunately fast bowlers can just get, especially when they bowl up to 90mph. I’m really excited for Olly to get the opportunity to pull that shirt back on. I know how hard he’s worked and I know how hard it is being injured for such a long period of time.”Stokes described Pope as moving into his interim role “seamlessly” and said that he had enjoyed watching from the dressing-room in Manchester. “I was actually pretty relaxed and pretty chilled,” he said. “I thought I might be a little bit frantic… When you don’t have the emotion of being in the game, you do look at it from a different point of view.”

Debutant seamer takes four wickets across third day to leave Notts six down in follow-on

ECB Reporters Network24-Aug-2024Daniel Hogg took his first four wickets in first-class cricket as Durham edged towards victory in their Vitality County Championship clash with Nottinghamshire despite some gritty resistance from Matt Montgomery and Jack Haynes.Durham picked up the last two Notts first-innings wickets with minimum fuss and the visitors only added nine runs to their overnight total, which left them with a first innings deficit of 302.The follow-on was then enforced by the hosts and the Notts opening pair of Ben Slater – who made his fourth fifty of the season – and Haseeb Hameed started well. But after Hameed was dismissed the floodgates opened and first-class debutant Hogg helped reduce Notts to 99 for 4.However, Montgomery and Haynes frustrated the hosts in the evening session, with the pair surviving 50.3 overs but Durham got two late wickets with the new ball to leave Notts 212 for 6 at stumps, still trailing by 90.Hogg was excellent throughout the day and he picked up the baton left by Neil Wagner, who was missing on Saturday due to a shoulder injury picked up in the field on day two. Skipper Scott Borthwick entrusted the 19-year-old with new-ball duties and he picked up four wickets across the day, including that of Hameed.Resuming on 220 for 8, the visitors had a mountain to climb as they were still 311 behind Durham’s total.Callum Parkinson created an early chance as Lyndon James was dropped by Ollie Robinson on 55, but James only added one more run to his tally as he attempted to pull a short ball from Ben Raine and edged it to Robinson.Hogg then wrapped up the innings with his maiden first-class wicket, as Brett Hutton was caught behind. In the follow-on, he caused Slater and Hameed plenty of problems, with Slater being dropped by Borthwick at first slip on 5.Ben Slater battled for his half-century•Getty Images

Hameed and Slater weathered the storm as they put on 52 for the first-wicket partnership, before Hameed was caught behind down the legside off the bowling of Hogg for 34 just before lunch to give the hosts their first scalp of the second innings.Raine then removed Freddie McCann in the first over after lunch with the youngster caught behind for a five-ball duck. Slater, who had passed a personal milestone of 8,000 career first-class runs earlier in the day, was living a charmed life but he made the most of his luck and played a lovely cover drive off the bowling of Parkinson.While Slater was beginning to motor, wickets continued to fall at the other end as Joe Clarke became Hogg’s third victim of the day, trapped LBW for 5. Slater made his fifty from 111 balls after surviving another drop from Borthwick on 49, but the opener was then run out by substitute fielder Paul Coughlin on 53 after a mix-up between the wickets with Haynes.Montgomery and Haynes adopted a rearguard action as the visitors looked to take as much time out of the game as they could with the pair batting out seven consecutive maidens at one point.The pair continued that approach after tea but there was a moment of controversy as Haynes hit a Parkinson delivery on to the shin of Graham Clark and it deflected back to the spinner who caught it. The Durham fielders were convinced that they had their man but umpires Paul Baldwin and Peter Hartley disagreed.Haynes reached his fifty off 143 balls just after Durham took the new ball, but Montgomery then fell at the hands of Hogg for a 164-ball 38, ending a 96-run partnership that lasted 50.3 overs. Raine then got Luke Fletcher for a duck, with the hosts needing four wickets to wrap up victory on day four.

Record stand rescues defending champions after Worrall wrecks top-order in powerplay

Alan Gardner14-Sep-2024The face-off between Surrey and Somerset, locked in a tussle for the County Championhip and semi-final opponents at last year’s Blast Finals Day, was always likely to be compelling. Somerset went on to lift the T20 trophy in 2023 and their hopes of becoming the first team to retain the title remain alive after a magnificent stand of 144 from 98 balls between Sean Dickson and James Rew lifted them from the wreckage of 7 for 3 to set up an unlikely stroll to victory.It was Surrey’s second humbling of the week by their main rivals for silverware, following the dramatic defeat at Taunton that loosened their grip on a third consecutive Championship pennant. A patched-up team, deprived of four first-choice players by England call-ups, looked far from fluent after being inserted, Lewis Gregory taking 3 for 15 – but they seemed firm favourites after Dan Worrall and Tom Curran combined to remove Somerset’s top three inside the first 13 balls of the chase.But Dickson and 20-year-old Rew, playing his first game of the campaign – and second T20 of his professional career – turned the innings on its head with the highest-ever partnership on Finals Day. Between them, they allowed the Somerset supporters who had made the pilgrimage to Edgbaston to enjoy the closing stages in relative comfort.Both Dickson and Rew, who was only called into the squad on Friday as a replacement for the injured Tom Banton, produced career-best T20 innings to send the defending champions through. Dickson fell with three needed for 78 off 57, while Rew finished unbeaten on 62 off 44 to keep Somerset’s pursuit of an unprecedented domestic treble – having already reached the final of the One-Day Cup – on track.Frankie panky tickles Surrey
It had been a stuttering batting effort from Surrey, but they had at least put a score on the board. Chasing 154 would not usually daunt a team with Somerset’s top-order prowess, though the absence of leading run-scorer Banton – injured during the Championship heist at Taunton – had reduced their firepower from the off. They were then hobbled by Worrall’s very first ball, which swung violently from a leg-stump line to trap Tom Kohler-Cadmore plumb in front (at least this time, it was a quick kill for Kohler-Cadmore, who was pinned down by Worrall for 10 consecutive dots in the Hundred last month).At the other end, Tom Curran had to wait until his third delivery for success, straightening one off a length to take Tom Abell’s leading edge. Worrall then removed a footwork-less Will Smeed, wafting an edge to the keeper, to leave Somerset three down in the third over and already facing a mountain to climb in defence of their title.Dickson to the rescue (again)
Somerset won two low-scorers at 2023 Finals Day, defending 142 and 145 – with Dickson the top-scorer in both games. He rose to the occasion again, steering the partnership with Rew as it grew from minor impediment to Surrey’s chances of a first T20 title since the inaugural 2003 edition, into a major roadblock.Dickson was the first to hit his stride, taking a brace of fours off Jordan Clark as Somerset reached 29 for 3 at the end of the powerplay. They were behind the rate but soon playing catch-up against Surrey’s spinners: Dickson slog-swept Cameron Steel into the Hollies for the first six of the innings, then Rew launched Dan Lawrence high to the same part of the ground, just clearing the man at deep midwicket. The follow-up was lashed past extra cover for four, Surrey captain Chris Jordan left face down on the turf after diving for the catch in vain.Dickson heaved Steel for six more, just beyond the reach of the diving Sibley at deep midwicket, then punched the next ball clean over long-off on the way to a 31-ball half-century. Rew added another six when swivel-pulling Clark over deep backward square leg and the required rate dropped below a run a ball in the following over, thanks to two more boundaries off Jordan. Somerset’s stand-in wicketkeeper eventually went to fifty from 38 balls, by which point Surrey’s hopes were all but extinguished.Lewis Gregory dismissed Ollie Pope in a superb spell•Getty Images

Sibley throws some shapes
Asked to bat in potentially nibbly September conditions, Surrey’s initial impetus came from Lawrence, one of three England Test players back in the side (counterbalanced by Will Jacks, Sam Curran, Jamie Overton and Reece Topley being away on T20I duty). Lawrence merrily hacked and swiped – in much the manner of his final Test innings of the Sri Lanka series – to reach 19 off 11 inside the first two overs, before skying Josh Davey to cover.Sibley had only faced one delivery at that point, and had prodded and poked to 4 off 6 before showcasing some of the improved T20 chops that have underpinned his most productive Blast season since 2017. Davey was walloped unceremoniously into the crowd over long-on, before Jake Ball’s arrival into the attack was greeted with an impudent ramp to fine leg. With Ollie Pope clipping, pulling and driving three of his first ten balls for four, Surrey were in good shape at the end of the powerplay on 62 for 1.Gregory goes bang-bang
Gregory’s first noticeable contribution – aside from winning the toss – was to jog past one at mid-off, as Lawrence picked up his third boundary. At 32, with a long day in prospect, perhaps Gregory realised diving was not the best option; and he certainly proved he knew what he was doing when he came on to bowl the eighth over of the contest. Gregory’s canny mediums were perfectly suited to this late-season Edgbaston deck, though there was plenty of skill involved as Pope was done by a legcutter that toppled off stump. Jamie Smith then played around a slightly fuller one to the same effect and Surrey’s solid start and been replaced by a scorecard reading 69 for 3.Surrey scrap in vain for a score
Surrey’s rebuild began with a partnership of Test match graft between the two former England opening partners, Sibley and Rory Burns. With Burns, the only left-hander in the line-up, pushed above Laurie Evans to bat at No. 5, a partnership of 36 off 28 steadied the ship for Surrey. Although they both departed in the space of eight balls, Sibley becoming a third wicket for Gregory as he picked out deep midwicket, Evans helped drag the innings up towards 150.Evans walloped Ball flat into the Hollies Stand for the second six of the innings but, in contrast to Somerset’s chase, there were few cleanly struck attacking shots – Surrey only managed six boundaries outside the powerplay, while Somerset went on to pillage 16.