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The hosts were on track for a bigger total before a late collapse but were still able to come away with victory

Firdose Moonda23-May-2024T20 World Cup co-hosts West Indies got on the front foot in their final preparations for the tournament with a commanding 28-run win over South Africa, their biggest margin of victory over them batting first. Neither side had their first-choice XI available, with some players rested or still at the IPL, but West Indies will be pleased with their dominance at home, especially as this was the first international at Sabina Park in almost two years.Home boy Brandon King, captaining in place of Rovman Powell, set the tone with an aggressive 45-ball 79. He also shared in a 79-run second-wicket partnership with Kyle Mayers, who is not in the T20 World Cup squad. King was the mainstay as West Indies built a healthy platform with scores of 64 for 1 in the Powerplay and 109 for 1 at the halfway stage, but they lost 6 for 40 between the 14th and final over to finish on 175 for 8.Related

• Nortje returns in Markram-led South Africa T20 World Cup squad

• King to captain West Indies against South Africa in absence of IPL players

South Africa will have been encouraged with their bowling comeback, especially the early signs from Ottneil Baartman. On T20I debut, Baartman dismissed Johnson Charles early on but then pulled up in his delivery stride after 10 balls, with what looked like a left knee niggle. However, he completed the over and went on to take 3 for 26. Allrounder Andile Phehlukwayo also finished with three wickets in his quota of four overs.South Africa’s much talked-about top order was reduced to 35 for 3 in the fifth over and neither Quinton de Kock nor Ryan Rickelton made it into double figures with the latter struggling to find the boundary. While West Indies hit seven fours and eight sixes in the first 10 overs, South Africa scored eight fours and one six. South Africa needed 99 runs off the last 10 overs and though Reeza Hendricks went on a career-best 87 off 51 balls, his surge came too late. Gudakesh Motie’s 3 for 25 and Obed McCoy’s 2 for 15 meant South Africa were too far behind and eventually dismissed for 147 in the final over.

King Brandon

On his home ground, and in his first match as an international captain, King dominated South Africa upfront and set the tone for West Indies comeback to Sabina Park. He enjoyed the bulk of the strike in the first three overs and capitalised on that. He faced 16 out of 18 balls and scored 28, including three fours and two sixes.By contrast, Charles, only saw two balls and had not scored a run. Charles became Baartman’s first international wicket but King went on to record his fastest T20I fifty off 26 balls and was closing in on his highest score in a display headlined by innovative movement at the crease which included exposing his stumps. Phehlukwayo eventually benefitted from King making room, when he sent down a full, wide ball that King had to reach for, and toe-ended it to van der Dussen, who ran to his right from the covers. King was dismissed at the end of the 11th over for 79, six fewer than his T20I career best.Reeza Hendricks lack support in South Africa’s chase (file photo)•Getty Images

West Indies’ middle order gives way

After King’s start, West Indies should have been eyeing a total above 200 but their middle order was unable to back up their stand-in captain’s start. No-one from Andre Fletcher down was able to get into double figures and Matthew Forde’s 5 was the highest score outside the top four. Fletcher and Fabian Allen were guilty of trying to play Phehlukwayo across the line and were bowled and trapped lbw respectively, while Akeal Hosein and Forde were deceived by Baartman’s variations. Hosein was bowled by a wobble seam delivery and Forde pulled a knuckle ball square of the wicket. Motie’s run-out in the final over meant West Indies lost 6 for 40 in the final third of their innings.

Forde’s first

After figures of 0 for 54 in his first T20I, against England last December, Forde may have wondered if he was due to chase leather again when de Kock hit his first ball for four. It was a remarkably timed shot, with no footwork at all, as de Kock struck Forde straight down the ground. But the young West Indian had the perfect riposte. His next delivery was wide of off stump, de Kock neglected to move his feet again and nicked behind. De Kock’s dismissal for 4 meant that he has only crossed fifty three times in 30 innings, all in T20s, since his ODI retirement last November and has a top score of 12 from his last five trips to the crease.Another Hendricks half-century Hendricks controversially missed out on a spot in South Africa’s starting XI at the 2022 T20 World Cup despite scoring four fifties in succession in the lead-up because he could not displace captain Temba Bavuma. But there should be no reason for him not to start the tournament this time. His 87 was his 10th T20 half-century of 2024 and 49th in his career and was the standout knock in a disappointing South African batting performance. He was the only player to score more than 20. The highlights of his performance were the way he timed the ball early on and then showed off his power hitting towards the end, albeit too late to take South Africa over the line.

Foxes players to come off furlough as planned with a view to being fit for county season on August 1

George Dobell30-Jun-2020Leicestershire’s players are to resume training on Wednesday despite a second lockdown in the city of Leicester.While most of the UK is slowly beginning to enjoy greater freedom, Leicester’s period in lockdown has been extended by at least two-weeks after a surge of Covid-19 cases in the area. Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the BBC the city had seen “10 percent of all positive cases in the country over the past week”.But despite the fact that Leicestershire’s Grace Road ground is within that lockdown area, the club’s players will come off furlough on Wednesday with a view to being fit to resume playing county cricket on August 1.ALSO READ: County season from August 1, but formats to be decided“It’s an incredibly challenging situation,” Sean Jarvis, who started his role as the club’s new CEO on June 24, told ESPNcricinfo. “We are clarifying things with both the city and county councils but our understanding right now is we are permitted to train from July 1 and we will be in a position to resume playing on August 1. We’re proceeding as if it’s business as close to normal as we can.”With a chance that Leicestershire will not be able to use their home ground, the club are currently exploring options elsewhere. The most likely alternative venue is Kibworth Cricket Club, which has previously hosted women’s ODIs, though Oakham and Uppingham will also be considered.While Jarvis said Leicestershire would be happy to “go with the consensus” when the counties decide on which formats to play in the truncanted season, their own preference is for white-ball cricket.”In terms of expense and logistics, we would probably prefer a 50-over competition to start the season followed by a T20 Blast,” Jarvis said. “That way we could minimise hotels stays. But if the consensus is we start the season with a first-class competition, we are prepared for that, too.”Either way, Leicestershire will be keen to welcome spectators to their Grace Road home if T20 cricket resumes, as planned, at the end of August. The club has significant financial issues and would welcome the cash-flow such ticket sales could generate.

The update means that Lamichhane will be able to play the CWC League 2 tri-series matches against Namibia and Scotland this month

ESPNcricinfo staff01-Feb-2023The Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) has revoked the suspension on Sandeep Lamichhane, paving the way for him to play in Nepal’s upcoming Cricket World Cup League 2 tri-series at home against Namibia and Scotland.Britant Khanal, the CAN general manager, told ESPNcricinfo that the decision to remove the suspension and allow Lamichhane to play in the tri-series was with the condition that he would “respect the limitation prescribed” by the court that granted him bail in January this year. And if Nepal were to go on tour, Lamichhane’s participation would depend on whether the court gave him permission for it or not.Lamichhane, who was suspended in September last year after an arrest warrant was issued against him in Kathmandu over an alleged case of coercion of another person. He was granted bail for the equivalent of around USD 15,300 but was barred from leaving the country until the final verdict.The news of Lamichhane’s arrest warrant was made public on September 8, when he was in the West Indies as part of the Jamaica Tallawahs squad at the CPL. He returned to Nepal after that saying he would face the “baseless allegations” and was taken into custody by police in Kathmandu on October 6.A statement from CAN acting secretary Prashant Vikram Malla said at the time that the suspension would remain in place pending a complete investigation. For his part, Lamichhane had said he would “fully cooperate in all stages of the investigation and will fight a legal battle to prove my innocence”.Lamichhane, 22, is by far Nepal’s most high-profile cricketer, and the only one to have played in T20 leagues in most parts of the world, including in the IPL, the BBL, the PSL, the BPL, and the CPL.He is also the world’s second-fastest bowler to 50 ODI wickets and third-fastest to 50 T20I wickets, and last played international cricket in August 2022, in the T20I series against Kenya. He was also Nepal’s captain at the time of the arrest warrant, a position he lost following his suspension.

Monty Desai joins Nepal as head coach

Monty Desai, until recently the assistant coach with the West Indies men’s team, is set to take charge as Nepal head coach. Khanal said that CAN had recommended Desai’s name to the Nepal Sports Council, whose ratification is mandatory for all such appointments.Nepal’s next assignment is the ODI tri-series, to be played in Kirtipur from February 14 to 21.

Wants country’s coaches to prioritise match-winning performances over individual statistics

Umar Farooq28-Oct-2020Grant Bradburn, the head of high performance coaching in Pakistan wants to see a significant shift in redeveloping approaches for players growing up, emphasising the need for a team-centric approach than a player-centric approach. He was speaking to media on a day he structured a programme for coaches in the country to mentor players, and ingrain a culture that prioritised match-winning performances over those that only served to inflate a player’s individual statistics.Over the last two years, Pakistan has restructured the entire domestic structure and made a major institutional revamp, combining domestic cricket and national academies into one high performance centre. Earlier, the PCB had coach education managers who had been designing the player development program and executing them with relatively little supervision But in the new structure, the PCB changed the title of the role to “head of coaching” giving the job extensive context, making it a programme to reeducate the coaches not only about the technical side of the game but also rethink the approach they took to working with youth and national cricketers.There is a perception in Pakistan cricket and has often been a talking point about players playing in a way that might work well for them in terms of cement their place in the side, even if it happened to the detriment of the team. Bradburn may have seen this first hand, given he was involved with the national side as fielding coach before being given his role at the High Performance Centre. With a broad overview of Pakistani cricket culture, the former New Zealand cricketer reviewed local coaching methods and now targets Bradburn target the coaches’ coaching style as the key to ensuring players develop a keen match sense from a budding age.”One of the very important elements is game sense,” said Bradburn. “Our players have a lot of knowledge and skill but as coaches we must be promoting game sense so the players are versatile when they find themselves in various situations. These are the things we must search for in our selection That’s the complexity of selection and coaching and that is what we are trying to get our coaches to work on. We need to measure results by matches won, not individual statistics.Grant Bradburn stresses strong communication and building relationships with his players•Peter Della Penna

“Every player has their strengths but if we look at one very important difference, what we are promoting now is that our selectors and coaches look at winning performances. No longer are we are so interested in runs, wickets, averages and strike rates as we are in match winning performances. How many times does a player move the game in our favour? It’s about playing for the country and for the team and then it’s about playing for me and this needs to adopted as our central approach, and coaches need to reflect it.”Historically, Pakistan hasn’t been a major feeder of coaches to the cricketing world. Rashid Latif, Kabir Khan and Inzamam ul Haq went onto to take the Afghanistan coaching job at the time the country had Associate status in world cricket, but never quite stayed long enough in the job. Aqib Javed was the head coach of the UAE national side for four years, with the spell including the country’s appearances at the 2014 World T20 and the 2015 World Cup.The current setup in the Pakistan coaching staff comprises entirely of Pakistanis, the first time since 2003 that has been the case. Over the years the PCB hired foreign coaches in one role or the other, avoiding an environment it was feared could feed into internal politics, trust deficits, and infighting that plagued the side in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Besides, the lack of professionally qualified coaches in Pakistan meant local options were limited.According to Bradburn, there is enough skill and knowledge about cricket in Pakistan to breed local coaches, but it requires a level of expertise that needs working on. “In Pakistan, we are very lucky to have an amazing wealth of cricket experience, but that doesn’t necessarily relate to coaching knowledge,” he said. “It’s my job to help out that wonderful experience ex-cricketers have, and to turn it into coaching expertise too. Coaches don’t need to spoonfeed players all the time, but enable them to understand the game and make good decisions at crucial times.”These cricketers are valuable and they need to provide inspiration to the next generation of players. There are some very experienced cricketers and very passionate people in our coaching system but we need to continue to develop their coaching skills to provide what our player needs. So it’s the player who needs to be at the forefront so we need coaches who are determined to allow our players to be as good as they can be not to put a ceiling on them to instruct the players to be only good as they themselves were.”Developing good relationships and showing them what good coaching is starts and stop with good communication. All of our coaches from top to bottom must be experts in communicating. Sometimes these communication are difficult, but we must get away from our culture of telling our players exactly how they need to play. Our players know how to play and if we have a player-centric approach we need to allow them flourish and be the best in the world.”

Seamer receives fitness boost ahead of Ireland Test and upcoming Ashes

Vithushan Ehantharajah23-May-2023England were handed good news ahead of the Test summer as scans revealed Ollie Robinson had suffered no damage to his left ankle.The seamer reported discomfort in the ankle after day two of Sussex’s LV= Insurance County Championship match against Glamorgan at Hove last week. He left the field on day three with soreness and sported crutches and a protective boot on day four leading to fears about his fitness to face Australia next month.With James Anderson also nursing a minor groin strain, and queries over whether captain Ben Stokes can operate fully as an allrounder given his long-standing left knee issue – as well as more significant injuries to Jofra Archer and Olly Stone – there were concerns England would be understocked in the bowling reserves with an Ashes series on the horizon.Related

• Neser looms as World Test Championship reinforcement amid Hazlewood's tight turnaround

• Anderson likely to miss Ireland Test as Ashes precaution

• Robinson ankle injury overshadows Glamorgan duo's feats at Sussex

• Sussex rue absent cutting edge as Glamorgan go large in rearguard of overkill proportions

However, following scans on Monday, the ECB has announced that all is well. Robinson, who has 16 caps to his name and is the ICC’s No. 6-ranked Test bowler, will prepare with the men’s national team as usual from this weekend.An ECB statement read: “Scan results have revealed no damage to the ankle and that Robinson will join up with the England men’s Test squad this weekend ahead of the LV= Insurance Test match against Ireland starting on Thursday, June 1 at Lord’s.”Robinson’s soreness resulted from tendon irritation, which will be monitored over the next week and coming week. As such, it is highly likely he will now miss the Ireland Test, which begins in nine days, to preserve him for the opening Test against Australia at Edgbaston starting on Jine 16.Anderson and fast bowler Mark Wood are also expected to sit out against Ireland, which means England are likely to go in with a seam attack of Stuart Broad, Chris Woakes and Matthew Potts. The selectors are yet to decide whether to call in bowling reinforcements, with a decision to be made one way or another later this week.

“That’s why you pay big money to big-game players,” Tom Moody says of Starc’s second-ball wicket of Travis Head

ESPNcricinfo staff21-May-20241:33

‘That’s why you pay big money for big-game players’

Mitchell Starc has had a patchy IPL 2024, but he brought his experience and nous of playing in “some big games and big occasions” when it mattered by running through the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) top order in Qualifier 1 in Ahmedabad.Starc bowled three overs in the powerplay and sent back Travis Head off the second ball of the game, and Nitish Kumar Reddy and Shahbaz Ahmed, the last two off consecutive balls in the fifth over.”I guess I have played a fair bit of cricket so I have been fortunate enough to play in some big games and some big occasions,” Starc said between innings on the official broadcast after Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) had stopped SRH for 159. “Nine months ago [in the ODI World Cup final] we were here in front of a full stadium. It was nice to get the team off to a good start that we needed [today].Related

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“We know the powerplay wickets are very important. The way Sunrisers take on the powerplay, they have sort of matched us throughout the season in terms of getting off to good starts. It was great to get powerplay wickets and I think our bowling group was fantastic throughout.”Starc got the ball to seam from the outset and struck with his second ball, castling his Australia team-mate Head with one that shaped back in sharply. Vaibhav Arora then sent back Abhishek Sharma for 3 as SRH lost their big-hitting openers inside two overs. Starc bowled his third over inside the powerplay and first removed Reddy with a short-of-a-length ball that the batter skied with an attempted pull, and then hit Shahbaz’s middle pole off the inside edge.But Head’s wicket was one that Starc enjoyed the most, and one he wants to keep in his “back pocket”.”I might keep that one in the back pocket for when he starts to give me some niggle and I have to pull it out on him,” Starc said. “He’s been phenomenal through the tournament. But we knew he was going to be a big wicket.”Obviously Abhishek for them at the top as well. That partnership has been key for them, so to get both of them pretty cheap was great and we got set on our way today.”After the match, and after Starc had won the Player-of-the-Match award, Ravi Shastri brought up the fact that Starc had pulled his length back a bit in the early overs. “Yeah, spot on. Particularly with the way Trav and Abhishek have been playing throughout the series, they like the width [and to] free their arms,” Starc said. “So if we can get that ball swinging and keep it in line with the stumps and bowl a really hard length, which we really did in the powerplay, and that really got into their middle order…”Starc’s delivery to remove Head left Tom Moody impressed as well. “Class from Starc. We know that he has had a difficult three-quarters of the tournament, but that’s why you pay big money to big-game players,” he said on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show.On asked about the conditions, Starc conceded there was dew, which started to appear about halfway through the SRH innings. He said he expected the surface to get better to bat on in the second innings.”There is certainly dew now. It started to pick up through probably halfway through our innings. The wicket has got a bit skiddier. There is some swing. Our spinners found a way to be effective and take wickets,” Starc said. “The wicket is going to get a little bit better just with the dew and the bit of skid but in turn, it is also going to swing a little bit.”

Dutch discovering that “good cricket in patches” not enough to upset the big teams

Firdose Moonda09-Oct-20231:07

McClenaghan on the mistakes Netherlands made with the ball

It is “only two games in” to the World Cup, as Colin Ackermann noted, but concerns that Netherlands may be overwhelmed by the quality of the opposition at this tournament are already emerging after big defeats.Make no mistake, the Dutch have not disgraced themselves in any way – far from it – and they’ve had their moments in both games. But their ability to keep the pressure on is under the spotlight.”We’ve played some good cricket in patches, we just haven’t put together enough phases where we dominate,” Ackermann, top-scorer against New Zealand, said after the 99-run defeat. “We need to put together all three phases of the game to win.”This is going to be the challenge for Netherlands throughout this tournament, and they know it. They’ve already come through a World Cup Super League, where they played series against five of the teams they will face at this World Cup, and lost them all. In the aftermath, they said the learnings from those defeats helped them at the qualifying tournament, where they beat a Full Member (West Indies) and qualified ahead of two others (Zimbabwe and Ireland). But now that they are at the big dance, they can see that it will take more than what they did in Harare three months ago to cause similar upsets.Related

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• Being 'aggressive' the way to go for Santner in spinning conditions

For a start, they seem to be setting up their game incorrectly in choosing to chase in both their matches. Fielding first, without the kind of potency of attack that some of the teams at this tournament have, means they are chasing the game – literally – all the time. If they are given the opportunity to decide what to do in future games, they may want to consider setting the target, even if the opposition attack is intimidating, in order to establish a different kind of control.In this match, though, Netherland were banking on putting New Zealand under pressure early on, as they did with Pakistan. “Against Pakistan we took three wickets in the powerplay and pegged them back pretty well,” Ackermann said. “It didn’t work out that way today for us. I think we probably were looking to follow the same blueprint.”And even in the Pakistan game, it only worked briefly. Netherlands had Pakistan 38 for 3 inside the first 10 overs before a 120-run partnership between Mohammed Rizwan and Saud Shakeel laid the platform for the lower order. Against New Zealand, it took 12.1 overs before the Dutch got the first wicket and they then allowed New Zealand to score at more than six runs an over throughout the middle period.Colin Ackermann made 69 off 73 balls•ICC/Getty Images

Netherlands missed Logan van Beek, especially because Ryan Klein does not have the same pace, and stuck to their tactic of opening with a spinner, something which only Afghanistan have also done at this tournament. Again, it seemed a tactic that was as premeditated as bowling first and Ackermann all but confirmed that. “Aryan Dutt poses a massive threat with a new ball on these wickets,” he said. “He poses a big threat for the left-handers up front. We saw today he got three maidens in the first three overs. It’s all about match-ups for us.””Match-ups” and “blueprint” are the kind of tactical buzzwords you hear on commentary and analysis shows and occasionally in team meetings but from the noises other teams are making, they also talk about being adaptable and flexible and that vocabulary was not present in Ackermann’s post-match press conference. Perhaps he just wasn’t asked about it. But for argument’s sake, if Netherlands are not thinking a little out of the box, now is a good time to start, because the big teams will keep coming and they will have to find ways to compete more evenly with them.It’s still far too early to come to too many conclusions about the way Netherlands will go in this tournament, and a common trope is that they are bound to upset someone, but to do that small improvements are needed quickly. In chasing big scores, they have yet to properly challenge and they understand that if they are in the same situation again, they can expect it to be just as difficult.”Sometimes you’ve got to try and take it as deep as possible, but then the rate keeps climbing. These bowlers do make it difficult for us,” Ackermann said. “They’re not just going to give us easy boundaries in the middle overs. We lost by 100 runs today but I think we just gave them too many runs. We shouldn’t have chased 320. Maybe 280 – 290 would have been a decent chase today. We needed to set a firm base.”And that suggests improvements with both bat and ball are needed before Netherlands next game, against South Africa in a week’s time.

Gloucestershire trail by 117 overnight after ex-England opener posts 195, his Durham best

ECB Reporters Network11-Jul-2023Durham 433 for 8 (Lees 195, Clark 82) lead Gloucestershire 316 by 117 runsAlex Lees gave the England selectors a gentle nudge after scoring his third century in as many innings to guide Durham into a strong position against Gloucestershire in their LV= Insurance County Championship clash.Lees anchored the innings with a flawless knock of 195, posting his highest score as a Durham player since his move to Seat Unique Riverside in 2018. Graham Clark provided the perfect complement with 82 as the two shared a stand worth 195 after the hosts were reduced to 109 for four in reply to Gloucestershire’s 316.The two batters rebuilt the innings and propelled Durham ahead in the game, having skittled the visitors’ tail within the first half-hour of day two. It allowed Brydon Carse to tee off late in the day to push the hosts into a 117-run lead at the close with two first-innings wickets remaining.Resuming on 280 for six, Gloucestershire put their foot down before the arrival of the new ball. Zafar Gohar smashed three boundaries off Carse’s first over, while Josh Shaw cleared the rope with a huge strike over long-on against Parkinson to earn a second batting bonus point.Durham answered fire with fire as Carse responded with a hostile spell to make the breakthrough. Shaw could only glove behind to Robinson down the leg-side and the next ball was too good for Matt Taylor. Zaman Akhter survived the hat-trick ball and another barrage from Carse before the arrival of the new ball.Ben Raine then wrapped up the innings within three deliveries with the new Kookaburra in hand by bowling Gohar and pinning Dominic Goodman lbw, securing maximum bowling points for the hosts.Shaw made quick inroads for the visitors to remove Michael Jones, but Lees responded by taking the attack to the Gloucestershire bowlers. The left-hander shared a stand worth 67 with Scott Borthwick before the Durham captain picked out substitute fielder Jack Taylor as he aimed to clear the short boundary, presenting Shaw with his second wicket.Lees worked his way to his fifty from only 56 balls, but Durham had issues at the other end when David Bedingham emulated his captain’s dismissal falling three balls before the lunch break. Ollie Robinson continued the procession after the interval as fell caught and bowled to Goodman, leaving Durham in trouble at 109 for four after losing three wickets for 32.The home side required patience at the crease and Lees duly delivered without taking any risks on his march to three figures. He showed composure in a slow grind through the nineties before bringing up his third hundred of the term after striking Gohar straight down the ground to the fence.Clark offered a useful foil at the other end to support the former England opener. After a period of consolidation, the two batters upped the ante and cranked up the pressure on the Gloucestershire bowlers.James Bracey turned to a variety of options, but could not stop the onslaught from the fifth-wicket stand, especially from Lees who powered his way to his highest score of the season by passing 150 with three-straight pulls to the boundary against Akhter.Ben Charlesworth took the ball in the 70th over and finally broke the stand for 195 when Clark drilled the ball straight to Chris Dent at short mid-wicket, falling narrowly short of a deserved century. Carse and Lees guided the hosts to their third batting bonus point before the new ball.Matt Taylor found his rhythm from the off with the new ball to end Lees’ brilliant knock for 195 and then Raine first ball to give the visitors hope of skittling the hosts late in the day. But, Carse stamped his authority in the final hour, reaching fifty from 45 balls and smashing three sixes in the process, ensuring Durham ended the evening in command closing in on maximum batting points.

The duo will now travel to Pakistan for the three ODIs starting June 8 in Multan

ESPNcricinfo staff03-Jun-2022Rovman Powell and Romario Shepherd will miss the ongoing three-match ODI series in the Netherlands because of visa delays, Cricket West Indies (CWI) said in a statement on Friday.Both Powell and Shepherd immediately travelled to London from India after their participation in the IPL, as their visa interviews could not have taken place in India due to the IPL bio-secure protocols. The CWI statement said that “despite having the interviews the day after their arrival, they are both still in London awaiting the appropriate visas to be able to travel to the Netherlands.”Powell played for Delhi Capitals and played his last game on May 21 in Mumbai, whereas Shepherd, who represented Sunrisers Hyderabad, played his last match in the IPL on May 22. Both teams did not qualify for the IPL playoffs which would have given the West Indies squad hope of the two players making it for the ODIs in Netherlands.Related

• No Holder, Lewis or Hetmyer for WI's ODI tours of Netherlands, Pakistan

• Pakistan vs WI ODIs moved from Rawalpindi to Multan

The final match of the ongoing ODI series – which West Indies currently lead 2-0 – will take place on Saturday in Amstelveen, which means Powell and Shepherd will now directly fly to Pakistan for the ODI series starting June 8 in Multan. For the final game in Amstelveen, West Indies will again have only 13 players available for selection, like in the first two matches.The West Indies squad will travel from Amsterdam to Pakistan on Sunday for matches at the Multan Cricket Stadium on June 8, 10 and 12. The games were initially slotted for Rawalpindi but were moved to Multan in light of political uncertainty in Islamabad, the country’s capital, adjacent to Rawalpindi.ODI squad to Pakistan: Nicholas Pooran (capt), Shai Hope (vice-capt), Nkrumah Bonner, Shamarh Brooks, Keacy Carty, Akeal Hosein, Alzarri Joseph, Brandon King, Shermon Lewis, Kyle Mayers, Anderson Phillip, Rovman Powell, Jayden Seales, Romario Shepherd, Hayden Walsh Jr.

Career-best 114 has hosts in box seat but needing big bowling effort to force victory

ECB Reporters Network14-May-2022Worcestershire 368 and 59 for 1 (Libby 17*, Lakmal 1-19) trail Derbyshire 565 for 8 dec (Dal 114*, Masood 113, Guest 77, du Plooy 62, Thomson 54) by 138 runsA career-best unbeaten century from Anuj Dal put Derbyshire in complete control of the LV=Insurance County Championship match against Worcestershire at Derby.The all-rounder made 114 from 177 balls before Derbyshire declared on 565 for 8, their highest ever score against Worcestershire, and a lead of 197.Leus du Plooy scored 62 and Alex Thomson 54 while 18-year-old left-arm spinner Josh Baker took 3 for 150 in 44 overs.Worcestershire were left with 16 overs to negotiate and they lost Ed Pollock to Suranga Lakmal before closing on 59 for 1, some 138 runs behind.They had reeled Derbyshire back in the previous evening so it was vital they kept up the pressure from the start of play but a dropped catch in the third over of the morning handed the home side the initiative.Luis Reece was on 22 when he skied Josh Baker into the covers where Pollock circled under the ball and then dropped a simple catch.It was a big moment as Reece and du Plooy proceeded to bat for another nine overs, adding 41 more runs, before the second new ball broke the stand.Worcestershire had delayed taking it for six overs, a decision which looked even more puzzling when the first delivery from Charlie Morris lifted and moved away to have Reece caught behind.By the time Ed Barnard trapped du Plooy lbw with a full-length delivery, Derbyshire were only two runs behind and Dal and Thomson turned that into a healthy lead with a seventh-wicket stand of 78 in 26 overs.Worcestershire’s attack got little out of the pitch although Baker bowled with control in only his 10th first-class game and deserved better figures.It was an impressive performance from a young bowler who eight days ago was being dispatched to various parts of New Road by Ben Stokes.Before this game, he had never bowled more than 30 overs in an innings so he can look back on this day with some satisfaction when he celebrates his 19th birthday on Monday.It was Baker who broke the stand, having Thomson lbw as he played back but Dal and the tail put Derbyshire firmly in the box seat.Sam Conners stayed with Dal for 15 overs before he was stumped charging Baker in the last over before tea and Derbyshire piled on the runs in the final session.When Dal pulled Ben Gibbon for four, it was the first time in Derbyshire’s history they had posted two scores of 500 or more in a season at Derby.Dal cut Gibbon for his ninth four to reach his second first-class century and with Ryan Sidebottom, batting with a runner because of a calf injury, added 72 before the declaration cameAlthough Derbyshire were a bowler down and the pitch remains a good one for batting, Worcestershire have to overcome scoreboard pressure to save the gamePollock took three fours from the first over by Conners but was comprehensively bowled when Lakmal cut one back in the sixth over.Derbyshire were unable to make further inroads and with Sidebottom out of action, will need a big effort from Lakmal and the rest of the attack to force victory on day four.