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Ahead of his final Test match, Angelo Mathews became the latest voice to sound the alarm around the lack of Test cricket for nations outside of India, England and Australia.Sri Lanka will be playing just four Tests in 2025 – their lowest number of Tests in a calendar year since 2013, not counting a Covid-curtailed 2020. If you look at the 2023-25 World Test Championship (WTC) cycle, an even bleaker picture begins to emerge. In the previous cycle, each of Australia, India and England played at least 19 WTC Tests each over a two-year period. Champions South Africa, for instance, played just 13.In the upcoming cycle, Australia are slated for 22 Tests, England 21, and 18 for India. Sri Lanka are set to play even fewer than they did in the previous cycle, with 12 Tests over the course of six two-Test series – joint lowest with Bangladesh.”I think it’s quite sad to be honest,” Mathews said. “I mean, the younger generation are urging for more Test cricket. Test cricket is obviously the pinnacle of cricket. We all should push for more Tests. These guys are so enthusiastic about Test cricket.”I feel there has to be a minimum of 10 matches at least [in a year]. Teams like England, India or Australia are playing 15-plus games a year. Why can’t we play? We can. If we keep pushing, I mean, we have to. We have won World Cups. We have done so much for cricket as a nation, and we deserve to play Test cricket, just like Australia, India and England.”Related

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Mathews’ gripes aren’t new. Sri Lanka Test captain Dhananjaya de Silva banged the drum earlier this year ahead of their two-Test series against Australia. But it’s notable that a player with 118 Tests under his belt speaks up, after all, how many more Sri Lankans will realistically have the opportunity of matching that milestone?Even the timing of his retirement was, in part, impacted by the lack of Tests scheduled for Sri Lanka. While retirement was always on the cards for the now 38-year-old, particularly with it being the start of a new WTC cycle, the decision to play just the first Test was a decision borne in many ways out of circumstance.”I played my 100th Test in Galle, so I thought I’d say goodbye in Galle. But the main reason was because we don’t have any games coming up, at least for now. After this, we’ll be having our next assignment in Test cricket after a year’s time, that is a very long wait,” explained Mathews.”I thought it’s good to give an opportunity to whoever is going to replace me in the second Test, because he’s not going to get an opportunity till the next year (laughs). And in that year, you don’t know what what’s going to happen. So I thought I’d just play one game and then try and give an opportunity to the other guy who’s replacing me in the second Test.”

New Zealand have lost their most experienced fast bowler to injury with Lockie Ferguson ruled out of the Champions Trophy 2025. Ferguson, who has played 65 ODIs, including the last two World Cups where his team reached the final four, suffered a hamstring injury while playing in the International League T20 (ILT20) tournament in the UAE earlier this month. Kyle Jamieson has taken his place in the 15-member squad who are slated to kick off the ICC event on Wednesday with a game against hosts Pakistan in Karachi.Ferguson picked up the injury at the start of February when he left the field without completing his full quota of four overs for the Desert Vipers. He did not play their two remaining matches of the season and was on the sidelines during the ODI tri-series that followed in Pakistan. Ferguson tested his hamstring out on Sunday, bowling three overs in a warm-up game against Afghanistan. On Tuesday, he was ruled out of the Champions Trophy.Related

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Ferguson is the second fast bowler that the Black Caps have lost in the last week with Ben Sears also down with a hamstring complaint. Although the Champions Trophy is expected to be played in conditions that might be hard work for the quick bowlers, New Zealand’s stocks now look very green. Jamieson joins Will O’Rourke, Jacob Duffy and Natham Smith as seamers with less than 15 ODIs’ under their belt, which places added focus on the only senior fast bowler left in the squad, Matt Henry.Jamieson, 30, has only just recovered from a back injury of his own, having spent 10 months out of the game. His hiatus from ODI cricket stretches back even longer – till September 2023. He has recent form going his way though. Jamieson proved his fitness during the Super Smash T20 competition, along with the talents that made him eye-catching in the first place, bowling full lengths and getting the ball to swing in. He picked up 14 wickets in 12 innings at an economy rate of 5.95. Helped by that performance, his domestic team, Canterbury, made it to the final. Jamieson has also earned a PSL deal and will play for Quetta Gladiators later this year.New Zealand are one of the pre-tournament favourites at the Champions Trophy. They won the tri-series final at the same venue where they will open their campaign, with their batting depth and their allrounders proving key at crucial moments. New Zealand are in group A and after the game against Pakistan, they play Bangladesh in Rawalpindi on February 24 and India in Dubai on March 2. The top two teams in each group go on to the semi-finals.

England are wary of a “scarred” Australia team determined to overcome the empty celebration of a drawn Ashes series in 2023 and win this edition outright.Heather Knight, England’s captain, led her side back from six points down at home last year to level the contest at eight points each by winning both white-ball legs. And while that fightback provides this year’s tourists with confidence, Knight believes it will also spur on Australia, who have held the trophy since 2015.”They’re going to be really tough for us to beat out here in one-day cricket but we’re really confident with where we’re at,” Knight told reporters at North Sydney Oval on the eve of the first ODI at the same venue. “We’ve had some brilliant wins over the last year and that 2023 series will give us a lot of confidence.Related

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“We know that the Aussies were probably a bit scarred by that and they’re going to come out really hard, and we’ve got to be prepared for that and have our plans ready to face that, and to try and counteract that ourselves.”Knight’s language echoed that of England spinner Charlie Dean, who 24 hours earlier said her team “don’t have as many scars” from previous Ashes defeats. Last year’s draw marked a significant turnaround for England from back-to-back wins for Australia, both by 12 points to four.Australia captain Alyssa Healy wrinkled her nose and smiled when told of Knight’s comments and subsequently asked about the importance of building momentum early off the back of five straight ODI victories heading into the Ashes, which starts with three ODIs followed by three T20Is and a four-day Test.”I think you want to throw the first punch,” Healy said. “You want to get out there and take the first two points, that’s how it goes, and then you can hopefully settle in from there. But I don’t feel like we’ve played one another very often of late, outside of World Cup warm-up games and whatnot.Alyssa Healy: ‘A draw is not a great feeling for both sides’•Getty Images

“So the opportunity to get out there and sort of feel each other out is an interesting concept. But at the same time, I think we know what we’re going to bring in the one-day format, and, hopefully, we just focus on ourselves tomorrow and go out there and do that.”Getting off to a fast start won’t be Australia’s sole objective, with Healy also reflecting that they had put so much emphasis on winning the Test which kicked off the 2023 series that they ended up being overtaken by England.”It was just the way that it petered out at the end,” Healy said. “We put a lot of work into that Test match. We hadn’t played with the Dukes ball before, and there was a lot of focus on that and we got that job done. And then we assumed that at the white-ball game, you know, we’d be okay.”But England threw a few things at us that we hadn’t seen before, and probably took the game on a little bit more and put us on the back foot, which we’re well prepared for now, from a lot of teams right around the world. So we benefited from that experience. But I think leaving England the girls were like, ‘we don’t want that to happen again’. A draw is not a great feeling for both sides, and probably for them as well for us to keep the trophy in that regard. So we’ll hopefully get the job done outright this time.”Knight felt similar motivation to put this year’s result beyond doubt after 2023.”I have positive memories of it but also tainted with regret and frustration that we weren’t able to do something really special and win it outright,” Knight said. “I don’t think we’ve got a mental edge. They’re an extremely good side that we’re going to have to be at the top of our game to try and beat. They’ll certainly go in as favourites and our job will be, as it was in 2023, to go in and try and disrupt, and try and do things a little bit differently, to try and break that success and run that they’ve had.”Healy, who has been cleared to return to wicketkeeping duties after a knee injury kept her out of the home series against India and restricted her to a batting role on the tour of New Zealand last month, said she felt less nervous heading into this Ashes series as captain.Previously, she was thrust into the role when Meg Lanning withdrew shortly before Australia’s departure for England on medical grounds. Lanning never played for Australia again and later revealed the mental and physical health battles that led to her announcing her international retirement in November 2023.”I won’t lie, I think last one, it was kind of last minute,” Healy said. “There was a lot of uncertainty around what was going to unfold, but at the back of my mind, I was still prepared to lead if need be. In this instance, I feel a bit more comfortable in the role and I’ve probably managed to put my own stamp on the group a little bit more so in that sense, it feels a bit more comfortable. Being at home as well. But in saying that I know that, in particular, we’re going to be put under the pump a lot this this series, and, just hopefully, back myself to get that job done.”

Befitting the rivalry between Australia and India, the latest tussle for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy started in eventful fashion with wild momentum swings and a DRS controversy as pace bowlers from both attacks thoroughly dominated in favourable conditions at Optus Stadium.By the end of a madcap first day’s play, India had remarkably finished on top after stand-in captain Jasprit Bumrah tore through Australia’s top-order with spectacular seam bowling. He finished with 4 for 17 from 10 overs.He claimed debutant Nathan McSweeney for 10 in the third over before dismissing Usman Khawaja and Steven Smith with consecutive balls in the seventh over to turn a fast-moving first Test on its head.Related

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In just his second red-ball match opening the batting, McSweeney faced a baptism of fire and initially judged the length well before Bumrah adjusted to a fuller length and trapped him on the pads. Smith’s shift back to his favoured No.4 did not start well after he shuffled across his stumps and was plumb lbw by a wicked Bumrah delivery that decked back a mile.Australia nosedived further when Travis Head was bowled by a cracker of a delivery from debutant quick Harshit Rana, while Mitchell Marsh and Marnus Labuschagne fell to Mohammed Siraj.Mohammed Siraj struck twice, including trapping Marnus Labuschagne lbw•Getty Images

Having started the season slowly, Labuschagne had an excruciating time. He was dropped by Virat Kohli at second slip after edging Bumrah and didn’t score off his first 23 deliveries faced. He received mock applause from the terraces when he finally broke his drought, but Labuschagne could never get going and made a painstaking 2 off 52 balls.Bumrah wasn’t quite done as he returned in the shadows to dismiss Pat Cummins as Australia limped to stumps at 67 for 7.It was a remarkable turnaround after India were bowled out for 150 in just 49.4 overs. Nine of Indian batters were caught behind the wicket – keeper or in the well-stocked cordon – in a mode of dismissal that has been common in Perth over the years at Optus Stadium and at the nearby WACA ground.After India sensationally left out veteran spinners R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, Bumrah elected to bat after winning the toss. With overcast skies above a green-tinged surface, it was undoubtedly an agonising decision but batting first appeared the logical move given the pitch is expected to deteriorate amid warmer weather later in the match.With unseasonal wet weather ahead of the match, there had been particular intrigue over how the pitch would behave. There was movement and bounce, but perhaps not the minefield the scoreboard indicates.India’s top order were all at sea against superb new ball bowling from Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood, who claimed all four wickets in the first session. Starc, especially, was outstanding to set the tone for an Australian pace attack that strangled India.Having pushed through injury issues last summer, Starc entered the season fit and firing. He continued his strong form with fast and probing bowling, especially troubling the left-handers with an immaculate line and away swing.Marnus Labuschagne took a good relay catch to dismiss Harshit Rana•Associated Press

Seemingly attempting to start the series in the same fashion as the Ashes series in 2021-22, Starc’s first delivery was an anti-climax and missed the leg stump of opener Yashasvi Jaiswal and flew to the boundary.He was on target after that and his accuracy overwhelmed Jaiswal, who on his eighth delivery, as he tried to score his first runs in Australia, drove on the up and edged to McSweeney in the gully.With his bat well in front of his body, it was an errant stroke that had echoes of an ungainly dismissal for Pakistan captain Shan Masood in last year’s Perth Test.With captain Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill unavailable, Devdutt Padikkal received an unexpected opportunity at No.3 after impressing in the India A matches recently. But he was totally shackled by the quicks and did not score off his first 22 deliveries faced. The pressure proved too much with Padikkal on the next ball edging Hazlewood behind with an angled bat trying to defend to covers.All eyes were on Kohli, who received healthy applause from the 31,302 crowd although Indian fans in the terraces were vastly outnumbered in a rare sight.India desperately needed their long-time talisman to shrug off a form slump on a ground he scored a brilliant century in the 2018-19 series. Kohli batted well outside the crease in a well-worn strategy he had successfully implemented previously in Australia.But Hazlewood, who has had great success against Kohli over the years, adjusted and bowled a back of length. Kohli on 5 could only fend a lifting Hazlewood delivery that landed straight to first slip.Opener KL Rahul, who just a week ago had been struck on the elbow in an intra-squad match simulation, bravely batted through the carnage. He struck India’s first boundary off the bat in the 12th over in ungainly fashion when he tried to evade a Cummins short ball only for it to hit his bat and fly over the slips.Rishabh Pant doing Rishabh Pant things, playing a remarkable falling scoop off Pat Cummins•Getty Images

Rahul made it to 26 before being given not out by on-field umpire Richard Kettleborough after Starc appealed for caught behind. After Australia reviewed, Snicko showed a spike as the ball passed the bat and the decision was overturned. Having indicated that the bat hit his pad, Rahul trudged off the ground shaking his head as India slumped to 47 for 4.After lunch, allrounder Marsh made a successful return to bowling with the wickets of Dhruv Jurel, who had been selected on the back of his performances for India A, and Washington Sundar.Marsh had only bowled four overs since tearing his hamstring at the IPL. But he ran in powerfully and finished with 2-12 from five overs in a boost for an attack without allrounder Cameron Green, who will miss the entire series due to a back injury.India’s hopes rested with a counterattacking Rishabh Pant and debutant Nitish Kumar Reddy, who combined for 48 runs – the biggest partnership of the innings.Pant was typically adventurous, marked by an audacious scoop for six off a full delivery from Cummins, while Reddy mixed orthodox drives with paddle sweeps to thwart offspinner Nathan Lyon.But both were unable to kick on as India were dismissed by tea. In his first red-ball match since the New Zealand Tests in March, Cummins looked a little underdone and was unable to find a consistent length as he finished with 2 for 67 from 15.4 overs.He did dismiss Pant and Reddy and left the field mightily pleased with Australia’s performance. But Cummins’ mood soured quickly and just over two hours later he trudged off the field after being dismissed by his opposite number.

Shan Masood drew a sharp line between his side’s batters and bowlers after their innings defeat against England in Multan – he defended the batters and criticised the bowlers for failing to do their job. Speaking after the match, Masood lamented their inability to take 20 wickets, largely dismissing the pitch as a mitigating factor for their struggles.”What England showed us is you can find a way. They took 20 wickets on this pitch, so you can’t say it’s impossible to take 20 wickets on this pitch,” Masood said. “We can’t find the easy way out to those 20 wickets, because then we wouldn’t have scored a huge first-innings score. You have to find a way as a team, and the formula of Test cricket is you can’t win a Test without taking 20 wickets. That, and first-innings runs.”We’ve repeated mistakes, by setting up the match and then letting those positions slip. When you score 550 and bat for two days, there’s a human element where there is scoreboard pressure. If in these conditions you are to set up a game, you put up a big score. And then not let the team take too big a lead.”Related

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It was a point – Pakistan’s failure to take 20 wickets – Masood repeatedly brought up. There was significantly less introspection about Pakistan’s showing with the bat in the second innings. He admitted losing “one or two fewer wickets yesterday” would have been useful, but that was about as far as Masood went in his evaluation.Much of the wider talk has revolved around the placidity of the surface, and how little it offered the bowlers, even as the game wore on. Chris Woakes, who removed Babar Azam in the first innings and knocked back Abdullah Shafique’s off stump off the first ball of the second, called it “a pitch that offered bu****r all”. Mike Atherton, working as a broadcaster on the game, called it “a shocking pitch”. Masood would have had little pushback if he’d chosen to line up behind them to exonerate his bowlers, but he opted to take a different route.”It was the same pitch for both sides, and both sides were similar – three pacers and two spinners,” he said. “They found a way, and we didn’t execute as well. Conditions change over the course of a Test, and we have to learn to find a way.”We take the discussion of the pitch too seriously. You plan a pitch for your squad and your strategy, but you can’t control every aspect of the pitch. The last Test we played here in 2022, that was a slightly different pitch. England’s squad was different, as was ours. Here, we expected this pitch to break up very quickly. Maybe around the end of Day 2 and the start of Day 3. Which is why we tried to prolong the innings.”Masood, in particular, blamed a “lapse” from the bowlers with the second new ball. By that time, England had gone past 400, with Harry Brook and Joe Root well into the partnership that would become the largest away stand in Test history. Abrar Ahmed had proved ineffectual, perhaps hampered by the illness that put him in hospital the following day. Pakistan did not make any inroads overnight, or the morning that followed.”The pitch today and yesterday wasn’t a Day 1 or Day 2 pitch,” Masood said. “The new-ball bowlers got a spell; there was enough with the new ball and there were open cracks. That was an opportunity the bowlers had to drag the game back to Pakistan. We’ll have to absorb pressure in that period and improve. These lapses have occurred before. You set up a big total and restrict the opposition, so you can drive the game on the third day. The 220 we scored, if we had conceded only a 50-run deficit, then scoring 170 in two sessions would have been a different story.”Masood’s review of that period may come off as harsh, particularly on Naseem Shah. Late on the third day, he had Joe Root trapped in front off a ball that came in, but missed out because of umpire’s call when a fair chunk of the ball was hitting leg stump. The following morning, Root pulled one off Naseem straight to Babar Azam at midwicket, and it went down.There wasn’t much introspection about Pakistan’s second innings on Shan Masood’s part•Getty Images

The hostility of the conditions is unlikely to have helped the bowlers either. The Test has been played with temperatures hovering in the high 30s and the sun blazing down; high-performance coach Tim Nielsen said yesterday “the heat and length of time” Pakistan were out on the field ended up getting to them.Meanwhile, there will invariably be criticism that Masood has been selective in the way he has framed his argument. Slumping to 82 for 6 on a surface England piled on the fourth-highest score in Test history can hardly be seen as spectacular batting, particularly in light of Pakistan’s repeated third-innings failures. It’s also worth mentioning that a 170-odd run fourth-innings target is precisely the situation Pakistan found themselves in during the second Test against Bangladesh, only for the visitors to knock it off with little drama.Masood mentioned the importance of not falling into a huge deficit to help Pakistan’s third innings, but even when that goal has been realised during his tenure, a decent third innings has not. In Sydney, Pakistan managed a narrow lead against Australia before slumping for 115, as they did during the second Test against Bangladesh after sneaking a 12-run lead in Rawalpindi. This is the largest lead they have given up during his time, but as he admitted, a spicier pitch may simply have meant a failure to put up the big first-innings total Pakistan did.”We’ve got into good positions three times, and if you keep in mind the first-innings scores – 448, 274, 556 – you’d have to accept they are good innings scores. We have to look at the batting and bowling effort and how to combine them, and stay in the game. The third and fourth innings will only be match-winning when the bowling and batting innings are in tandem.”

Allrounders often tend to draw from doing well in one discipline to do well in the other but there is perhaps a chance that R Ashwin’s primary skill might have held back his secondary one.”Bowling and batting are very separate sports in the same game,” Ashwin said after the second day of the Chennai Test between India and Bangladesh. “One is done consciously. The other one is done subconsciously. So, for me, to compartmentalise both has taken its own due.”He scored 113 off 133 balls that helped the hosts post 376 in the first innings. The bowlers then ran through Bangladesh, knocking them over for 149 and taking almost complete control of the proceedings.Related

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Ashwin walked in at 144 for 6 and immediately put what he has learned over a long career into practice: that with the bat in hand, he needs to be an entirely different person from the one who has gone on to become one of the greatest spinners in history.”At this stage, I am able to sequence that and split both of them and see as a cricketer. So, when I walked there [to bat] the only thing I wanted to do was to settle down my game. The mind can play tricks because I am a bowler who plays on 12, 18, 24 balls ahead when I am sequencing it. As a batter, I shouldn’t do that. I just use my experience when I get in. So, now it’s more about just focusing on the ball and hitting it as I see it.”This was Ashwin’s second successive century at his home ground, Chepauk, following on from a 106 against England in similar circumstances in 2021. He wasn’t quite able to pick which one he liked better.”I worked quite a lot on how I can maximise my shots, maximise my game”•BCCI

“Both. [The England Test] had so much riding on it. We lost the first one and came to the second. Last time when I played at Chennai, I felt like I was making sort of a comeback in more than one way. I was a little here and there. I went to Australia and came back here. That was different and I enjoyed it. I think my batting has come along a lot better since that particular game. I worked quite a lot on how I can maximise my shots, maximise my game. I worked on how I can play fast bowling and all that sort of stuff. I’m glad it’s coming out nicely.”Ashwin does this – pushing himself even at 38 with 500 wickets already in the bag – for a very simple reason.”Happiness. You want to be good. You excel. You feel happy at the end of the day. It drives me towards that. Every time I do well, it leaves me in a good, happy state of mind. That’s what you get on this journey for. You want to do well. You want to excel on the global stage. People are watching you and you feel happy about it.”There was a time, though, when Ashwin couldn’t find a way to play his cricket with this kind of freedom. “I was critical of myself earlier but not much now because I have already put so much pressure on myself. Not only did I put myself under pressure, but there was pressure from outside too. I used to find happiness in answering my critics with my performance, or in the press conference. But that’s not the case now. The most important thing for me these days is to enjoy my game, by staying in the moment, by playing my cricket with a smile on my face. Four-five years ago, I made a promise to myself, with great difficulty, that I would not respond to anyone from then on and would play for my own happiness. And I have maintained that to date.”As is often the case with his bowling, Ashwin had Jadeja as his partner for the course of a match-turning 199-run seventh-wicket stand.”You don’t plan for such things. Jaddu is one cricketer who has evolved so nicely. I always envy him. I have made that amply clear. So gifted, so talented. He has found ways to maximise his potential. Keeps it really simple. He can repeat it day in and day out. I wish I could be him but I am glad I am myself. He is an exceptionally good cricketer. I am happy for him. Likewise, in so many ways, watching him bat over the last couple of years has given me insight into how [much] better I can be. Both of us have grown together. Both of us have done some special things. We really value one another at this stage. Both of us are enjoying each other’s success more than ever before.”

A trademark, enterprising century from Dinesh Chandimal led Sri Lanka’s charge towards a big score, making New Zealand rue multiple lapses in the field on the opening day in Galle. Chandimal switched gears across the first two sessions on his way to a 16th Test century, helping the hosts finish on a commanding 306 for 3. Unbeaten half-centuries from Angelo Mathews and Kamindu Mendis provided the support act.New Zealand would have picked up more than three wickets in the day had Daryl Mitchell not put down two catches at first slip, Tom Blundell not missed Dimuth Karunartne’s stumping, and William O’Rourke not overstepped when he had Mathews caught behind. It was Chandimal’s chanceless innings, however, that hurt the visitors the most. He raised his sixth hundred in Galle and his fourth 50-plus score in eight Test innings while batting at No. 3 – out of his usual position in the middle order, to accommodate Kamindu at No. 5 and Kusal Mendis at No. 7.The only thing that went New Zealand’s way was the early wicket of Pathum Nissanka who edged an outswinger from Tim Southee behind at the end of the first over. Chandimal took on the fast bowlers when the new ball was still swinging around to set an early base for his team, and once the ball got older and conditions eased out for batting, with the sun beating down nicely, the hosts piled on the runs.Tom Blundell missed a stumping chance of Dimuth Karunaratne•AP

Karunaratne was the beneficiary of two lives; first dropped at slip on 5, off O’Rourke, and then he survived a stumping chance on 17 when he came down to attack Ajaz Patel and took a big swing but missed. Chandimal also edged the ball a few times early on against the pace bowlers but that didn’t deter him from going for his shots. He got off the mark with a fierce scythe that crashed the ball to the deep-point boundary and then went over the covers against Southee’s outswinger. He took on Ajaz’s left-arm spin from around the wicket to score quick runs.The most picture-perfect of his boundaries was against O’Rourke when he drove a full delivery on the up, square on the off side with a lot of power and impeccable timing. When he raced to 41 off 42, Southee brought on left-arm spin from both ends to stem the flow of runs before lunch and the tactic worked as Ajaz and Mitchell Santner bowled in tandem for 15 overs for 36 runs, with the odd ball turning sharply. A now-patient Chandimal was on 49 for 13 balls before finally getting to the landmark on his 79th ball.A brief spell of showers in the first hour pushed the lunch break from 12pm to 12.22pm and when play resumed, it was a fielding effort, aided by a mix-up, that ended the century partnership. Karunaratne flicked a ball from Santner to midwicket and ran all the way to the other end, but Chandimal barely left his crease. Glenn Phillips’ throw from midwicket, meanwhile, reached short leg and not the keeper, and Latham hit the stumps with an under-arm throw just in time to find the batter – scrambling to regain his ground – short.New Zealand then handed a life to Mathews. When O’Rourke had to re-bowl the last ball of the 44th over because he had overstepped, he had Mathews tickling one down the leg side and saw the umpire’s finger go up only to see the hand stretched to the side seconds later. Mathews settled his nerves thereafter by patiently seeing off the spinners who stuck to tight lines and lengths with slightly flat trajectories.Dinesh Chandimal, who recently had a baby, made 116•SLC

Chandimal, meanwhile, continued to drive full deliveries through the covers, loft the spinners down the ground when the field wasn’t spread out, and he even got a bonus four runs via overthrows to reach 95. He soon acknowledged his century with a rock-the-baby celebration having become a father in June. Mathews relied heavily on back-foot cuts and punches off the spinners, transferring his weight on the ball with his powerful arms and wrists. Chandimal fell soon after Mathews registered his 44th Test half-century, when he danced down and missed an offbreak to lose his off stump, a reward for Phillips for bowling tight lines through the day.Luck continued to favour the hosts even in the last session. Kamindu, the centurion from the first Test, edged his seventh and eighth deliveries in almost identical fashion off Southee not long before the second new ball was taken, but on both occasions the ball flew through the gap between Blundell and wide slip. After being dropped by Mitchell at slip off O’Rourke after the new ball was taken, Kamindu produced a flurry of boundaries, which started with a slog-swept six off Ajaz and included three more fours in quick succession to bring up his 53-ball half-century.O’Rourke used his height and bounce to also draw an edge off the splice of Matthews’ bat late in the day, but when the ball only kissed Tom Latham’s fingertips before going for four, Latham’s wry smile summed up New Zealand’s day.

Maddy Darke’s unbeaten 106 along with Katie Mack’s 68 set up Australia A’s eight-wicket victory over India A in the second one-dayer in Mackay. The openers added 131 as Australia A chased down India A’s 219 with ease to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series.Having been put into bat, Raghvi Bist and Tejal Hasabnis hit fifties helping India A fight back with a 124-run stand for the fourth wicket. But Charli Knott and Grace Parsons triggered a collapse as the visitors slumped from 176 for 3 to 218 all out.The game started with Tayla Vlaeminck’s superb opening spell of 4-3-3-1 where she had Priya Punia caught behind. Nicola Hancock replaced Vlaeminck and dismissed Shweta Sehrawat in her first over before Knott sent back Shubha Satheesh for a 38-ball 24.Bist and Hasabnis started slowly before picking boundaries in overs from Parsons and Kate Peterson. They focused on rotating the strike in the middle overs and eased past fifties. But India’s acceleration was cut short by Parsons having Hasabnis caught and bowled and Knott having Minnu Mani caught behind in successive overs.Shipra Giri got going with a couple of fours but with Bist getting run out in the 45th over, India slipped to 203 for 6. Maitlan Brown cleaned up the tail in a triple-wicket maiden over, which included a run out, as India were bowled out in 48 overs.Mack and Darke were aided by wides and a couple of threes from Soppadhandi Yashasri and Sayali Satghare’s opening spells as Australia A coasted past fifty in the 11th over. Between overs eight and 16, every single one went for at least five as Mack reached fifty in the 16th over. Darke reached hers in the 21st over with Australia A on 121 for 0.Satghare trapped Mack lbw in the 23rd over but Darke carried on. Her 38-run stand with Knott included just one boundary but brought the asking rate well under three. Tahlia McGrath hitting four boundaries in her first 15 balls quashed the little chances for a visitors’ comeback and allowed Darke to complete a century in the 37th over. The duo stayed unbeaten to take Australia A home with 58 balls to spare.Australia A had swept the T20I series 3-0 and have the chance to repeat the feat in the ODIs at the Gold Coast on Monday.

Tristan Stubbs will be backed as South Africa’s Test No. 3 for both his batting approach and intimidating presence, according to Test coach Shukri Conrad. As the sole selector of both the squad and the playing XI, Conrad has made the decision to give Stubbs a “good run” in the position despite his inexperience, because he sees something special in him.”Technique is obviously a big factor because you’re going to be facing the new ball the bulk of the time,” Conrad said from Trinidad, where South Africa will play West Indies in the first of their two Tests from Wednesday. “And he’s quite an imposing character, a big, strong, strapping boy, and I quite like that. I like the fact that at the top of the order, there are quite imposing guys; guys that have got a good aura about them and strong body language.”South Africa’s top three for this series will be: Aiden Markram, who stands at 1.85 metres, is an Under-19 World Cup-winning captain and the only national men’s captain to qualify for a senior World Cup final; Tony de Zorzi, a bubbly character who is not afraid to speak his mind, especially on social media; and Stubbs, who is 1.84 metres tall and broad-shouldered.Related

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Conrad didn’t elaborate on what the advantage of three physically big players would be, but it may have something to do with who they are being followed by: their diminutive captain Temba Bavuma, who is 1.62 metres tall and has not batted in a Test match since March last year.Bavuma was forced to withdraw from the Boxing Day Test against India with a left hamstring injury, a month after he suffered a right hamstring injury at the ODI World Cup. He is fully rehabilitated after a lengthy off-season and last week said he was ready to take on the responsibility of the No. 4 spot, as South Africa’s most experienced batter and one of only three squad members (Kagiso Rabada and Keshav Maharaj are the others) with more than 50 Test caps. That doesn’t mean Bavuma needs protecting, but that he needs players who can bat around him and lay a foundation. And Stubbs has been identified as someone who can do that. “His psyche and his technique speak to someone who will do that job really well,” Conrad said. “We’ve got a good one for the future of South African cricket.”The numbers suggest Conrad is on to something. Stubbs has played 18 first-class matches over his career and has an eye-catching average of 50.20. His most notable long-format innings was the 302* he scored against (now-relegated) Kwa-Zulu Natal (KZN) Inland in Pietermaritzburg last February. Although the opposition was the weakest in South Africa’s top tier, Stubbs scored his runs quickly, off 372 balls, to demonstrate his dominance. His first red-ball hundred also came against KZN Inland, in February 2020, in the second tier of South Africa’s domestic system. Stubbs was playing for Eastern Province (EP) and batting at No. 7 when he hit a 232-ball 105 to take EP from 135 for 5 to 327 for 8, and give them a first-innings lead. He has three more centuries in the format, the most high profile being 117 for South Africa A against Sri Lanka A in Colombo last year, when Conrad first decided to try him up the order.It was on that tour that Stubbs was identified as a possible long-term pick for the No. 3 spot and Conrad has all but committed to giving him the rest of this World Test Championship cycle to see if he can make the spot his own. “I’m going to give him a good run,” Conrad said, “I’d be surprised if we didn’t back him throughout the rest of the cycle. I’m pretty confident Tristan is going to come good.”South Africa play eight more Tests in this cycle – two in the West Indies, two in Bangladesh and two at home against each of Sri Lanka and Pakistan – which will give Stubbs a variety of oppositions and conditions to adjust to. He has received no special instructions or expectations from Conrad other than to express himself in the way he feels most comfortable and believes that the results will come. “We do who we are,” Conrad said. “It’s become quite a cliche now being the best version of yourself, but…”But that’s the mantra Conrad is adopting, albeit not in catch phrases. “Whatever that identity is, you couple that with the conditions that you’re confronting and then marry that with what the skills the opposition bring, but ultimately, you still operate with your own identity in mind. That’s the only messaging I’ve given Tristan and the rest of the batters.”

Worcestershire 147 for 7 (Libby 61*, J Taylor 2-11, Lawrence 2-27) trail Surrey 490 (Lawrence 175, Smith 86, Sibley 76, Taylor 3-99) by 343 runsShoaib Bashir equalled the most expensive over in the history of English first class cricket while on loan to Worcestershire for the Vitality County Championship encounter with Surrey at ‘Visit Worcestershire New Road.’The England spinner, on loan for a month to Worcestershire from Somerset, conceded 38 runs including five successive sixes to Dan Lawrence.It was a wake-up call for Bashir who in the winter picked up 17 wickets in three Tests in India.Lawrence cleared the boundary with the first five deliveries of the over between long off and wide long on.The next ball went for five wides and then Lawrence took a single off a no ball before last man Dan Worrall failed to score off the eighth delivery.It equalled the 38 struck by Freddie Flintoff off Alex Tudor for Lancashire against Surrey in a Championship match at Old Trafford in 1998.Lawrence went onto to make a career-best 175 before he was last out with the Surrey first-innings total on 490.Worcestershire then slumped to 147 for 7 with only Jake Libby, with a 145-ball half century, offering much resistance as Lawrence’s fine day continued with two wickets.Lawrence surpassed his 161 for Essex – against Surrey in 2015 at the Kia Oval – in only his second first class match.The only other time more runs have been conceded in an over was a Shell Trophy encounter in New Zealand in 1990 when Lee Germon and Roger Ford (Canterbury) took advantage of contrived bowling from Robert Vance (Wellington) and hit 77.Lawrence had a scare in the middle of his sixes blitz when the third was caught by Adam Hose at long on but the Worcestershire batter carried the ball over the boundary rope.Surrey advanced from their overnight 340 for 5 in sedate fashion during the morning session, adding 88 in 29 overs for the loss of three wickets before Lawrence cut loose on the resumption.Worcestershire were without the injured pace bowler, Adam Finch (leg) and Academy player Chris Ellison deputised in the field.Tom Taylor struck in the first over of the day after Surrey had resumed on 340 for 5.Jordan Clark added only a single before he played back and picked out Bashir at midwicket.Lawrence, who had resumed on 91, completed his century in regal style with a cover drive off Taylor for his 14th boundary.Sean Abbott showed plenty of aggression in the chase for a fourth batting point but he paid the price after giving Taylor the charge and was bowled.Gus Atkinson tried to work Bashir to leg and was bowled to give the spinner his second wicket.James Taylor was run out after playing Bashir to third and attempting a second run and Lawrence’s fine knock ended when he was caught at deep backward point off Allison, his 223-ball knock containing six sixes and 16 fours.When Worcestershire batted, Sean Abbott struck with his first delivery after replacing Worrall when Gareth Roderick was caught behind from a delivery which nipped away.Kashif Ali, back in the side after his break from the game, made 17 before being strangled down the leg side off Atkinson at 59 for 2.Rob Jones was undone by a delivery of extra bounce by James Taylor to give Ben Foakes his third catch.Foakes held onto another chance after Hose (10) aimed a drive at a widish delivery from Taylor.Ethan Brookes, in his first Championship appearance for five years, then fell to a sharp catch at first slip by Ollie Pope off Clark at 99 for 5.Matthew Waite played back to Lawrence and was bowled and Tom Taylor departed in similar fashion for a duck.