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Hamish Marshall, Gloucestershire’s veteran batsman, has announced he will be leaving at the end of the season after 11 years with the club

ESPNcricinfo staff08-Jun-2016Hamish Marshall, Gloucestershire’s veteran batsman, has announced he will be leaving at the end of the season after 11 years with the club.Marshall, 37, will be returning to his native New Zealand after agreeing a deal with Wellington Firebirds, where he hopes to continue his 18-year playing career while also pursuing job opportunities for life after cricket.”I have had 11 incredible years at Gloucestershire and would like to thank my team mates, the staff and the supporters for making it such a memorable time,” he said.”At the stage I am at in my career I have to start thinking about life after cricket and what is best for my family. I am lucky enough to have been offered an opportunity that is too good to turn down and in order to take this up I will be leaving Gloucestershire at the end of the season.”Marshall joined Gloucestershire in 2006 – initially as an overseas player, before committing to the club as a home-qualified player through an Irish passport in 2008. That decision brought an end to his international career, in which he played 13 Tests, 66 ODIs and three T20 internationalsHe finished top of the club’s 40-over and Twenty20 batting averages in 2008 and has been a mainstay of the middle order across all formats ever since, including the side that beat Surrey by six runs at Lord’s last season to win the 2015 Royal London Cup, Gloucestershire’s first trophy for more than a decade.In 2011 Marshall and Kevin O’Brien set a T20 record partnership of 192 for the first wicket against Middlesex at Uxbridge, helping Gloucestershire to a total of 254 for 3 which remains the highest score in domestic 20-over cricket.He is also Gloucestershire’s highest-ever T20 run scorer with 2537 runs so far.”I have so many amazing memories from my time here but the highlight has to be winning the Royal London One-Day Cup at Lord’s last year – that is something that will stay with me forever.”There is still a lot of cricket to be played until the end of the season and I look forward to trying to keep scoring runs and helping the side fight for success in all three competitions.”Gloucestershire chief executive Will Brown said: “Hamish is a model professional and has been a wonderful role model and ambassador for the club.”He holds a dear place in the heart of Gloucestershire supporters who have admired his skill and warmed to him as a down-to-earth and humble man.”As a senior player in the dressing room he has played a crucial role in helping to develop the talented group of youngsters that went on to achieve success in the Royal London One-Day Cup and I have no doubt he will continue to be an integral part of the team for the remainder of the season.”The club would like to thank Hamish for his outstanding service over the last 11 years and we wish him and his family all the very best for the future.”

Steve O’Keefe, the left-arm spinner, is all set to return from a lengthy injury layoff when Australia face hosts Sri Lanka in a three-Test series, beginning on July 26

ESPNcricinfo staff11-Jul-2016Australia left-arm spinner Steve O’Keefe, who is set to return from a lengthy injury layoff in the Tests in Sri Lanka later this month, has said a stint at the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai helped him get warmed up for the series. O’Keefe, who last turned out for Australia in a Test against West Indies in Sydney in January, had been nursing a calf injury. He trained with 16 other Australians in Chennai for a week from July 4, including others from the squad for the Sri Lanka series: Joe Burns, Peter Nevill and Jackson Bird.”It was a really good opportunity to – a lot of the main guys had already been in the West Indies and had sort of acclimatised being able to play on slow wickets [in the Caribbean]. So for myself, Jackson Bird, Peter Nevill and Joe Burns, it was a really good opportunity to acclimatise and get used to what will probably be similar conditions in Sri Lanka,” O’Keefe said after the Australia players arrived in Sri Lanka.O’Keefe has not played competitive cricket since February, when he represented New South Wales against Western Australia in the Sheffield Shield. Training in Chennai offered him a chance to get relatively match fit, he said. “We were fortunate enough to be able to train with the MRF fast bowlers. We were also able to get a game in. For myself, I haven’t played for about four months, so it was great to be able to get 90 overs in these conditions and bowl 20 overs in a game scenario. It’s a really invaluable experience which puts me in a good position to turn up [in Sri Lanka] and hit the ground running.”We’ve got a really good, extended, pre-season, pre-tour before we play our first game, so I feel like I’m in a pretty good position, like the other guys are as well. I missed the end of the Shield season. I had plenty of time to get fit and go away from the game, but now I’m hungry and ready to play.”Australia have over two weeks before the first Test starts in Pallekele on July 26, which gives them ample time to familiarise themselves with the conditions. O’Keefe acknowledged two spinners could come into play in these conditions, and said he was happy to bowl alongside Australia’s first-choice Test spinner Nathan Lyon.”Steve Smith, the captain, always talks about being adaptable and assessing conditions as quickly as possible. I guess in these conditions, they’re going to spin a little bit more than at home, but that poses a whole different challenge in itself: how quickly you bowl, what kind of shape you put in the ball […] We’ve got 16 days before the first game, so we’ve got plenty of time to try a few things out, get yourself in a good place. And look, if there’s a need for two spinners, myself and Gazza [Nathan Lyon] are here, and I’ll be ready to go.”

UAE cricket has taken a significant step towards full professionalism, with the Emirates Cricket Board granting two-year central contracts to eight of its players

ESPNcricinfo staff21-Jul-2016UAE cricket took a significant step towards full professionalism, with the Emirates Cricket Board granting two-year central contracts to eight of its players. A further four players, including captain Amjad Javed and vice-captain Shaiman Anwar, have been given annual, part-time retainers, but will continue with their day jobs.The eight centrally contracted players include a number of young, promising players, with only Rohan Mustafa and Mohammad Shahzad having a significant amount of experience.”For the first time in the UAE, we will have professional contracts,” Emirates Cricket Board member Zayed Abbas told the . “We are proud to say that, from today onwards, we are professional.”UAE have notched up notable successes in the past few years. Their runner-up finish in the Cricket World Cup Qualifier in January-February 2014 resulted in them qualifying for the 2015 World Cup and attaining ODI status. They also qualified – ahead of Afghanistan – for the Asia Cup earlier this year. These achievements have raised the profile of UAE cricket and unlocked the income that has made the move towards professionalism possible.”It will definitely enhance their performances,” UAE chief selector Waleed Bukhatir said. “Being full-time cricketers from morning to evening, they will be performing better and giving more to the ECB [Emirates Cricket Board], as opposed to being employed somewhere else and then coming in the evening and playing.”Bukhatir alluded to the possibility of the ICC reducing funding in future if, for example, UAE were to lose its ODI status, but insisted that the move towards professional contracts would withstand such eventualities.”We need to work with the resources that are available to the ECB,” Bukhatir said. “We do realise there is support that might not be there if the team doesn’t perform. But we want to be optimistic. We were realistic in deciding on this programme. It is meant to continue, even if there were to be any cut from the ICC in terms of the financial support they give.”

MS Dhoni India’s limited-overs captain, and Jasprit Bumrah are the only changes to the Test squad for the two Twenty20 Internationals against West Indies at Fort Lauderdale in Florida on August 27 and 28.

ESPNcricinfo staff12-Aug-2016MS Dhoni, India’s limited-overs captain, will lead the 14-member squad for the two T20Is against West Indies in Florida on August 27 and 28. Dhoni and Jasprit Bumrah are the only members in the squad who are not who are not in the West Indies for the ongoing Test series.The squad for the USA matches includes nine members of India’s 2016 World T20 team. Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Hardik Pandya, Pawan Negi, Harbhajan Singh, Ashish Nehra and Manish Pandey have missed out.

Changes from World T20 squad

In: KL Rahul, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Amit Mishra, Stuart Binny
Out Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Hardik Pandya, Pawan Negi, Harbhajan Singh, Ashish Nehra, Manish Pandey
Full squad for WI T20s: MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Amit Mishra, Stuart Binny

While Pandya and Pandey are with the India A team in Australia, Raina, Yuvraj and Harbhajan will feature in the upcoming Duleep Trophy that will be played with the pink ball, and under lights starting from August 23 in Greater Noida.Yuvraj and Raina have been named captains of the India Red and India Green teams in the Duleep Trophy respectively. Negi does not feature in the squads for the Duleep Trophy either, while Nehra is recovering from a knee surgery following the conclusion of the IPL in May.KL Rahul, who made his T20I debut in Zimbabwe in June and has been in good form in the ongoing Test series against West Indies, has been retained, while Amit Mishra and Stuart Binny have been recalled to the squad. Binny last played a T20I in Zimbabwe in 2015, while Mishra has not featured in the format since April 2014.Meanwhile, M Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Shardul Thakur, Ishant Sharma and Wriddhiman Saha will return after the fourth and final West Indies Test in Port of Spain, which is scheduled to end on August 22. Vijay, Pujara and Thakur are likely to be available for the second round of the Duleep Trophy.

Queensland comfortably secured their third win in as many matches in a rain-truncated affair against Western Australia at the WACA Ground in Perth

Daniel Brettig06-Oct-2016Joe Burns scored an unbeaten 78 in Queensland’s successful chase•AFP

Queensland have stolen a march on the rest of the field in the Matador Cup, comfortably securing their third win in as many matches in a rain-truncated affair against Western Australia at the WACA Ground in Perth.In a tournament with a fixture list that is slightly skewed, with Brisbane and Perth hosting most of their matches before the action moves to Sydney, Queensland lead the points table with 12 points, before New South Wales have played a single match.Rain in the early afternoon reduced the match to 38 overs per side, after Western Australia captain Adam Voges won the toss and chose to bat. The home side were driven primarily by Voges’ innings of 85, with Cameron Bancroft making 65 in support. Their stand of 117 formed the backbone of the final score of 221. Ben Cutting and Luke Feldman claimed two wickets apiece for Queensland, while wrist spinner Mitch Swepson was economical in his eight overs.Queensland’s pursuit wobbled early to 3 for 77, before the sometime Test opener Joe Burns found a willing ally in Nathan Reardon. Their stand of 116 put the target well within reach, and Burns hung around to ensure the Bulls did not slip up against Western Australia as South Australia had done over the weekend.

Ravi Shastri, the former India captain who served as the team director between 2014 and 2016, has said that the Lodha Committee should continue having a “dialogue” with the BCCI, rather than pushing it into a corner

ESPNcricinfo staff23-Sep-20164:25

‘Some Lodha recommendations could take Indian cricket backwards’

Ravi Shastri, the former India captain who served as the team director between 2014 and 2016, has said that the Lodha Committee should continue having a “dialogue” with the BCCI. Shastri also suggested that the committee should not “push” the board into a corner over the implementation of reforms as that could prove to be “detrimental” to Indian cricket in the long run.”If you try and push it immediately it might just be detrimental at this moment of time,” Shastri told his former India team-mate and co-commentator Sanjay Manjrekar during an interaction that was part of India’s 500th Test celebrations. “There are certain areas where I thought you can still have a dialogue with the Lodha Committee because those are things, if applied, it could take the game back. It could be detrimental.”Since the release of the Lodha Committee’s report in January this year, the BCCI has been stoutly defending its position that some of the recommendations would damage Indian cricket on the field as well as financially. However, the Supreme Court on July 18 upheld the committee’s report, making it mandatory for the BCCI to implement most of the recommendations. The committee has set two deadlines for BCCI and state associations – September 30 and December 30 – to implement the recommendations, failing which the board and its state units could be held in contempt of court.Shastri said that he did not agree with the recommendations of a three-year cooling-off period for administrators, an age cap of 70 years for officials, and trimming of the national selection panel from five to three members. Incidentally, the BCCI had also declared its reservations on the cooling-off period and age-cap recommendations.Shastri termed the three-year cooling-off period harsh and believed it could dissuade players who wanted to move into cricket administration. Instead, he suggested, administrators could be allowed an initial term of six years.”Why would I want to join the BCCI? Why would any player want to join the BCCI? If I have an idea that is something constructive that I can do, contribute [and] in three years you are telling me to go. What can anyone achieve in three years? How do I know the guy after [me will be] competent enough? If I have done a competent job, I should be respected for my competency. Six years is no harm. After that, if you have to sit out for three years [and] come back for another six, fair enough.”Shastri opposed the age cap for administrators saying there was “no substitute” for experience. “We have got a couple of guys in the board [who are] 70-plus but then, forget a youngster, they’ll give anyone from any field a run for their money. I am not targeting anyone or anything,” he said. “I have seen them working, people know who I am talking about. They are outstanding.”Shastri also supported the BCCI’s decision to stick to a five-member national selection panel, instead of the three-member panel suggested by the Lodha Committee. At its annual general meeting earlier this week, the BCCI appointed a new five-member selection panel chaired by former India wicketkeeper MSK Prasad. Shastri stated that applying a model practised by countries like Australia was not suitable for a more densely populated country like India.”When I played the game, I thought three selectors was enough. But today the way the game has evolved, with the three formats of the game, the interest that exists in the country, the combined number of people that play the game in India is more than the population of all the countries that play cricket together,” he said. “So if Australia has three selectors that is fine – they have 17-20 million people. Here you are asking the poor guy too much. He will get serious travel miles. He will go from one end to other end of the country and still not be able to do the job. I think five is still in order.”Shastri said there was no need for a “boxing bout” between the committee and the BCCI. “It shouldn’t be like a boxing bout. A genuine effort should be made ideally from both parties to have a dialogue on certain things. Most of the recommendations are anyway accepted and the board is trying to do something.”Shastri feared that if the Lodha Committee remained adamant, Indian cricket could be set back by “five years”.”If things were that bad, you wouldn’t have achieved what you have achieved. We are celebrating the 500th Test match,” he said. “You won two World Cups. You were the No.1 team in the world. So all cannot be wrong. Yes, there might have been areas where you need a whack on the backside to be corrected.”We want Indian cricket to carry on. We don’t want it to go back by five years. We don’t want this team to suffer after five years. There will be total chaos. Other teams will get the upper hand. And then again you will have to try and climb up the ladder.”

As the focus shifts from pink-ball cricket to red-ball cricket, West Indies will look to build on the doughty performance they showed to challenge Pakistan in the first Test in Dubai

Umar Farooq20-Oct-2016

Match facts

October 21-25, 2016
Start time 10am local time (0600 GMT)

Big Picture

After lop-sided T20 and ODI series, West Indies fought to make the day-night Test in Dubai a thriller. While Pakistan eventually won in the last hour of play on the fifth day, they had to work hard for the 1-0 lead as West Indies showed resilience for two long days, thanks to Darren Bravo’s plucky 116. Bravo held the side’s chase together, taking the team to within 83 runs of the target of 346 before being dismissed.West Indies also had other strong performances – Devendra Bishoo’s record 8 for 49, and Marlon Samuels’ 76 in the first innings – and through their performance in the second innings appeared to have regrouped as a team after the limited-overs losses.The attention on the day-night Test and the pink ball will now shift to the traditional day game and the red ball. For Pakistan, the likely return of Younis Khan, who was added to the squad after recovering from dengue fever, will be a boost to a batting line-up that floundered without his calming influence in the second innings in Dubai. Azhar Ali’s form at the top of the order will be important, as will Yasir Shah, but West Indies can look at Bravo’s innings in Dubai for lessons on how to tackle Yasir. A 3-0 scoreline is not unlikely for Pakistan but they will probably have to work harder for it than they had to in the limited-overs series.

Form guide

Pakistan: WWLLW (last five completed matches, most recent first)
West Indies: LDLDL

In the spotlight

Inducted into the opening slot, Sami Aslam has struggled to convert his starts into big runs in the five Tests he has played in. In Dubai, he scored 90 in the first innings and 44 in the second but couldn’t go on and reach a century. Similarly, on the tour of England, he scored 82 and 70 in the Edgbaston Test.The conditions in the UAE make it tough for fast bowlers to get wickets, and West Indies’ troubles have been compounded by the lack of effectiveness of frontline bowler Shannon Gabriel. Although he consistently bowled at speeds of over 140kph in Dubai, Gabriel couldn’t find the wickets while also struggling to control the run rate as much as his Pakistan counterpart Wahab Riaz. His trouble with no-balls in the first innings – he bowled 10 – was also an issue for West Indies. He will have to step up for them to fare better.West Indies will hope Darren Bravo’s outstanding form in Asia continues in the remainder of the series•Getty Images

Team news

Babar Azam, who made his debut in Dubai, may make way for Younis Khan in the playing XI. Pakistan may also look at bringing in left-arm spinner Zulfiqar Babar in place of Mohammad Nawaz, who also made his debut in Dubai.Pakistan (possible): 1 Sami Aslam, 2 Azhar Ali, 3 Younis Khan, 4 Misbah-ul-Haq (capt), 5 Asad Shafiq, 6 Sarfraz Ahmed (wk), 7 Mohammad Nawaz, 8 Wahab Riaz, 9 Yasir Shah, 10 Mohammad Amir, 11 Sohail Khan.While there are a few weak links, West Indies may not want to tamper too much with a combination that fought hard in the first Test.West Indies (possible): 1 Kraigg Brathwaite, 2 Leon Johnson, 3 Darren Bravo, 4 Marlon Samuels, 5 Jermaine Blackwood, 6 Roston Chase, 7 Shane Dowrich (wk), 8 Jason Holder (capt), 9 Devendra Bishoo, 10 Miguel Cummins, 11 Shannon Gabriel.

Pitch and conditions

The pitch for the previous Test in Abu Dhabi, between England and Pakistan in October last year, drew criticism for its unresponsive nature. In matches prior to that one, however, the pitch offered some assistance to seamers and spinners. The weather is expected to be clear in Abu Dhabi for the course of the game.

Stats and trivia

• Darren Bravo has made 1507 runs in Asia at an average of 60.28, the third-best for any overseas batsman with at least 1500 runs in Asia. Bravo has hit five hundreds and seven fifties in just 15 Tests in Asia
• Misbah-ul-Haq is set to equal Imran Khan’s record of captaining Pakistan in the most Tests. The Abu Dhabi match will be Misbah’s 48th Test as captain
• Pakistan have a 4-0 win-loss record from eight Tests in Abu Dhabi – the most they have played and won at any venue without losing a match
• Marlon Samuels made his debut in 2000 and has played 69 Tests. He needs another 146 runs to complete 4000 runs in the format

Quotes

“I am very happy the way Pakistan won the Test, the way Azhar scored a triple hundred and joined that elite group. I was watching the match and was very excited when on the last day there were ups and downs. The way West Indies fought and Darren Bravo scored that fighting hundred, its pleasing when youngsters play like this.”
“We are accustomed to the conditions, only pink ball was new to us. Our body needed to get accustomed to the clock, bowling in the night and the afternoon start. Now we have the whole day, and it is a small adjustment.”

A round-up of the action from day four of Group C matches in the Ranji Trophy on November 16, 2016

ESPNcricinfo staff16-Nov-2016Medium-pacer M Ravi Kiran took 4 for 32, as Hyderabad beat Services by ten wickets at the Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai.Ravi Kiran’s four-for on the final day completed Hyderabad’s comeback, who had scored 580 in the first innings, after being 141 for 6 on the first day. This 580 came in handy, as they were able to enforce the follow-on after removing Services’ last wicket in the first over of the final day, dismissing them for 360.Their medium-pacers then ran through Services’ top order, reducing them to 27 for 3 within 12 overs. First-innings centurion Shamsher Yadav (24) and G Rahul Singh (59) put on Services’ first resistance, adding 77 for the fourth wicket. But Ravi Kiran removed both of them in consecutive overs and Services were 117 for 5 in the 33rd over. Akash Bhandari broke the second resistance, a 60-run stand for the sixth wicket, and opened up Services’ tail, as they lost their last five wickets for 42 runs and were bowled out for 239.Hyderabad chased down the their target of 20 without losing a wicket, taking a bonus point in the process.Andhra defeated Tripura by an innings and 38 runs in Valsad as DP Vijaykumar and Bhargav Bhatt took four wickets each, to help them clinch the victory 58 overs into the day.Tripura started the day on 165 for 3, still trailing Andhra’s 524 by 188. In the seventh over of the day, overnight batsman Abhijit Dey was dismissed for 43. His partnership of 95 with Yashpal Singh (59) was the highest of the innings. The next four Tripura batsmen all made twenty-plus scores, but with no other significant partnerships they folded for 305 as Vijaykumar and Bhatt took all eight wickets to fall on the day. Andhra’s captain, Hanuma Vihari was the Man of the Match for his unbeaten 233 in the first innings.Goa fell 35 short of an outright win against Kerala at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai.Both teams showed a desire to win outright, starting with Kerala who began the day on 154 for 4. They added 103 in 21 overs, before declaring on 257 for 9 and setting a target of 315 in 63 overs. The declaration came after last man-in Fabid Ahmed smashed 22 runs off the four balls he faced, having come in after Iqbal Abdulla (37 off 27) was dismissed at the start of the 67th over. Medium-pacer Saurabh Bandekar accounted for the overnight batsmen, Rohan Prem (70) and Mohammed Azharuddeen (64) to finish with 5 for 70.Goa’s captain, Sagun Kamat, led their charge after opener Sumiran Amonkar was dismissed in the fifth over. He put on 111 at 4.13, for the second wicket with Swapnil Asnodkar (41), and 127 at 5.04, for the third with Snehal Kauthankar (41), before falling for a 176-ball 151 with Goa still needing 57. They only managed 22 in the four overs after, as the match ended in a draw.Himachal Pradesh survived an early scare to draw their match and take three points against Chhattisgarh in Kanpur.Chhattisgarh’s overnight batsman and stand-in captain Abhimanyu Chauhan, brought up his first century as a Chhattisgarh player, having begun the day on 69. He was dismissed for 109 with the score on 247, after helping Chhattisgarh add 72 to the overnight score of 175 for 4. Avnish Dhaliwal chipped in with 43, as they declared on 309 for 9, setting HP 234 to win.HP’s response began shakily, and after a 24-run opening stand, they lose four wickets in 13 overs to be reduced to 51 for 4. Robin Bist (20) endured along with Sumeet Varma (26) for a fifth-wicket stand that added 28 in 17.2 overs, as HP looked to hang on to a draw.They felt a second hiccup, when Ajay Mandal took two wickets in the 43rd over to reduce them t0 106 for 7. But Rishi Dhawan (41*) and Mayank Dagar (4*) hung on for the last 67 balls to secure a draw.Opener Shubham Khajuria’s unbeaten 110, along with Pranav Gupta’s 80 helped Jammu & Kashmir draw against Haryana in Cuttack after being asked to follow-on.J&K batted out the entire day after starting on their overnight score of 38 for 0. Opener Khajuria put on a 167-run partnership for the second wicket with Pranav, after his partner Umar Nazir had been dismissed for 38 in the first session. Pranav was dismissed in the 94th over and Owais Shah fell in the 99th, but J&K had done enough by then. Mohit Sharma, took all the wickets to fall, finishing with 3 for 21.

Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq struggled to explain how his side ended up losing by an innings in a Test which they had begun by declaring on 443

Osman Samiuddin at the MCG30-Dec-2016Edgbaston, Dubai, Sharjah, Christchurch, Hamilton, and now Melbourne: Pakistan’s rise to the No. 1 Test spot and subsequent fall has been punctuated by a series of spectacular batting collapses.On the final day at the MCG, on a still-pristine pitch on which Australia had added 159 runs in the morning in under 30 overs, Pakistan lost their last eight wickets for 100 runs. That sealed their 11th successive Test defeat in Australia and, with it, a chance to go to Sydney with the series still alive.Misbah-ul-Haq, the Pakistan captain, had his own future on his mind, but he struggled to explain how his side ended up losing a Test which they had begun by declaring on 443 by an innings and 18 runs.Pakistan had to bat out a minimum of 67 overs when they began their second innings in a Test in which three days were almost half lost to rain.”There is no explanation,” he said. “Once you are under pressure, from a position when you score [443] in the first innings and are dominating the game, then on the last day you are saving the Test, that pressure sometimes does things like that. And it was sheer pressure. Full credit to Australia, the way they batted and put us under pressure.”Though he acknowledged his side’s batting in pressure situations “is not what it should be”, he did also point towards the limitations of a bowling attack that twice wilted under pressure from Australia’s batsmen.The first time was on the third day when, after a tight opening spell, David Warner and Usman Khawaja rattled along at such speed that they punctured whatever momentum Pakistan had built from Brisbane and their first innings here.Then, on a final day which began with Australia 22 ahead and six wickets down, Pakistan allowed the lead to balloon to 181 half an hour before lunch.”Those two sessions took the game away from us almost,” he said. “From a winning position, you are on the back foot. We just gave the momentum back to Australia. They were a bit lucky they played well, took their chances, and after that we were in no position to attack.”Even today, in the morning session, we could’ve taken a couple of wickets. [Mitchell] Starc played well and that was a big blow for us. If we had taken one more wicket, wrapped the tail up, maybe 50-60 runs deficit, it could have been easy for us to handle the situation.”The taking of wickets has been a particular problem. When Steven Smith declared today, it was the sixth time in the last five Tests Pakistan have played in Australia that the hosts have had the luxury of declaring.Yasir Shah conceded over 200 runs in an innings for the second time this year, continuing a tour in which he has bowled mostly to fields set for run-saving, rather than wicket-taking.”I think as a bowling unit, we couldn’t put pressure,” Misbah said. “When the opposition is playing well and you’re not bowling well, then it is difficult to implement any sort of plan, any sort of strategy. That has been happening to us.”Yasir is a bit low on confidence at the moment. That sometimes doesn’t give you control as a captain. When you have no control, you struggle with your strategies. And it looks to those sitting outside, watching, what’s going on? That’s where I think everything went wrong for us in this Test.”

Meg Lanning was named the women’s cricketer of the year and Cameron White won the men’s domestic player of the year at Cricket Australia’s annual awards function

ESPNcricinfo staff23-Jan-2017Meg Lanning’s anointing as Australia’s finest women’s cricketer of the year was an achievement because it was so expected. Cameron White’s return to the dais as domestic men’s player of the year, after also doing the trick in 2014, was equally laudable because it was not.As captain of Australia, the Melbourne Stars and also Victoria, Lanning has dealt with the weight of expectation for quite a few years now. A sweep of the Belinda Clark award as the most accomplished player in the Southern Stars, plus the inaugural women’s domestic prize, showed exactly how well she had dealt with it over the course of 2016.

Domestic votes breakdown

Domestic Men’s Player of the Year: Cameron White (47.90% of the vote)
Runners up: Travis Head (17.65%), Peter Handscomb and Chadd Sayers (5.88% each)
Bradman Young Cricketer of the Year: Hilton Cartwright (41.07%)
Runners up: Jake Weatherald (26.79%), Matthew Renshaw (8.04%)
Domestic Women’s Player of the Year: Meg Lanning (50%)
Runners up: Alex Blackwell (11.43%), Molly Strano (10%)
Betty Wilson Young Cricketer of the Year: Sophie Molineux (36.36%)
Runners up: Georgia Redmayne (28.79%), Ashleigh Gardner (24.24%)

Three Clark Medals meant Lanning is now only one short of the overall record for multiple garlands – four apiece shared by Shelley Nitschke and Karen Rolton. Lanning’s 51 votes pushed her ahead of last year’s winner Ellyse Perry (43 votes) and Jess Jonassen (33).For White, the sensation was more of proving pundits, critics, coaches and selectors wrong. He spent much of last summer out of Victoria’s first XI, only recalled towards the end of the Sheffield Shield season. However a match-saving century against New South Wales in Alice Springs played a major part in allowing Victoria to sneak into and ultimately win the Shield final, over South Australia.White followed up with 378 runs and another century during the first half of the Shield competition this time around, as a different Victoria regime helmed by Andrew McDonald saw fit to include him in the side more consistently. In addition he put on a domineering display in the Matador Cup to start the season, while also performing creditably for the Melbourne Renegades in the Big Bash League.He polled 47.5% of the vote for the award, well ahead of the next-best Travis Head, on 17.65%. That differential also sent a pointed message from the nation’s players to the selectors, coaches and planners at Cricket Australia – performance, not potential, remains their primary measure of a peer’s quality, something White has in spades.Lanning’s carrying off the Clark Medal for the third time was highlighted by an exceptionally-strong ODI year, featuring an innings of 134 to sink South Africa in Canberra in November. In addition to being a match-winner, the century gave Lanning nine ODI hundreds, the most by an Australian surpassing Rolton and equalling Charlotte Edwards with the most for any nation.In four matches of the Women’s National Cricket League, Lanning also piled up 359 runs and two centuries, including one worth 190 – bettering her own record for the highest score in any WNCL match. While Lanning was unable to get as far as three figures in her Women’s Big Bash League matches during the voting period, a top-score of 97 not out stood tall among five half centuries and another 502 runs. In all it earned her precisely 50% of the vote, leaving all others trailing in her wake.Other award winners included the allrounder Hilton Cartwright, who claimed the Bradman Young Cricketer of the Year prize well ahead of South Australia’s fluent left-hander Jake Weatherald and the recent Test debutant Matt Renshaw. Cartwright’s award will be some consolation after he had the strange experience of making his Test debut in Sydney and then was left out altogether from the tour squad for India.The first award of the Betty Wilson Female Young Cricketer of the Year prize – Wilson was also inducted to the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame on the night – went to Lanning’s fellow Victorian, Sophie Molineux.