Both Tim Paine and the Australia coach felt umpire Joel Wilson shouldn’t be blamed for the Ben Stokes not-out call and that the team should get better with their reviews

Daniel Brettig at Headingley26-Aug-2019Justin Langer and Tim Paine conceded that poor use of the DRS had returned to haunt Australia in the nerve-shredding final moments of the Headingley Test, which left the tourists without a review to call upon for a final lbw decision by the umpire Joel Wilson on Ben Stokes that would have been overturned on review.ALSO READ: Brettig – Mistakes haunt Australia as Headingley hoodoo strikes againEngland still needed two runs for victory when Nathan Lyon beat Stokes on the sweep and appealed fervently for lbw, only to have Wilson rule it not out. Stokes later said he could not believe ball-tracking had showed the delivery to be hitting the stumps squarely enough to overturn the not-out decision, but for Langer, the sequence underlined one of the areas his team needed improvement in.Two earlier wasted reviews, one for a Lyon lbw appeal on the third evening and then another for Pat Cummins against the last man Jack Leach with England still needing five runs to win, had meant there were none available at the critical moment. Plenty of criticism has been directed Wilson’s way for not giving Stokes out, but Langer reasoned that Australia could have put themselves into a position where recourse was available with better judgment.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

“We’ve been really poor at it this whole series,” Langer said. “We talked a lot about getting better at our reviews. There wasn’t so many this game as there were at Lord’s, but certainly we have control of that. We have your way we go about it, but sometimes you don’t quite get it right. To be fair, the one off Pat Cummins, it was getting pretty desperate at the end there and that often happens. That’s just how it works out.”The umpire should make the decision he thinks is right regardless of reviews in my opinion. If they think it’s out they should give it, if they don’t they should give it not out. The review system is as it is and sometimes they go your way, sometimes they don’t.”Paine, who quipped that he might consider handing over reviewing duties to someone else, said that he had not watched a replay of the final lbw call, nor would he. “No. I saw it live,” he said. “That’s all I needed to see. I don’t want to watch that again.”Nevertheless, he declined to criticise Wilson, who had faced severe criticism for a string of overturned decisions during the first Test of the series at Edgbaston, served as third umpire at Lord’s and then returned to the middle for Headingley, where he had actually officiated far better across the game up until the concluding moments. There had been room for doubt, too, in the lbw appeal, given how full the ball had pitched, leaving Wilson with little chance to judge how much Lyon’s quicker delivery was turning.”I have no issue with that, we can’t control that,” Paine said. “I don’t think I’ve got a referral correct the whole series so I can’t sit here and bag the umpires and again we have got to focus on what we can control and umpiring decisions isn’t one of them.”I’m sure it is something that will be written about but we also had other opportunities to win the game and opportunities on other days with our batting and we didn’t take them, so to sit down and single out an umpire is unnecessary. He is no different to everyone else – he is allowed to make mistakes.”

Team names, colours and logos announced, along with first picks from Test and local player lists

Matt Roller03-Oct-2019After months of speculation, the first clear details of The Hundred, the ECB’s new 100-ball competition, have been revealed, with each team’s name, logo, and kit launched alongside the announcement of the first five players recruited for each squad.There were no surprises in terms of team names or the destination of England’s Test players, though a handful of the selections in the ‘local icon’ draft were unexpected.ALSO READ: Central contract and local icons drafts explainedThat means that the Leeds team, Northern Superchargers, picked Ben Stokes over Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root, with those two headed to Cardiff (Welsh Fire) and Nottingham (Trent Rockets) respectively.The local icon draft saw most of England’s white-ball contracted men selected by their respective teams, as well as a handful of young county players. Perhaps the most eye-catching was Tom Banton’s £100,000 deal to play for Welsh Fire alongside Glamorgan’s T20 captain Colin Ingram, as revealed by ESPNcricinfo.Dan Lawrence (London Spirit, £60,000) was selected ahead of Ravi Bopara and Dawid Malan, while Pat Brown (Birmingham Phoenix, £60,000) was picked as confirmation that his stock has risen exponentially over the past two seasons.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Saqib Mahmood and Matt Parkinson (Manchester Originals, both £75,000) were selected ahead of Liam Livingstone by head coach Simon Katich, to continue a good end to the season which also saw them picked to tour New Zealand as part of England’s Test and T20 squads.Oval Invincibles plumped for Tom Curran (£75,000) and Jason Roy (£125,000), meaning that Sam Billings, Joe Denly, and Ollie Pope will all be available in the main draft. Southern Brave opted for James Vince (£100,000) and Chris Jordan (£75,000), leaving Phil Salt, Luke Wright and Liam Dawson among the player pool for the full draft on October 20.James Anderson and Stuart Broad were confirmed in non-playing roles at Manchester and Trent respectively, where they are expected to be involved in mentoring and promotional activities.In the women’s draft, England captain Heather Knight was picked up by London Spirit alongside Western Storm team-mate Freya Davies, while Manchester Originals and Trent Rockets look to have done best out of the picks, selecting Sophie Ecclestone and Kate Cross, and Katherine Brunt and Nat Sciver respectively.Playing kits revealed for The Hundred•Getty Images

As part of the ECB’s tie-in with KP Nuts, each team will wear the logo of a brand of crisps on their shirt – so Welsh Fire’s all-red strip features a yellow Hula Hoops ring on the front, while London Spirit’s navy blue number is emblazoned with Tyrrell’s.Having registered a trademark application for “Western Fire” in a bid to win over Somerset and Gloucestershire fans, the ECB’s U-turn on the Cardiff-based team was revealed in full: Welsh Fire will wear red, while their badge features the words “Tân Cymreig”, the Welsh translation of the team’s name.Northern Superchargers (Headingley) – Ben Stokes, Adil Rashid, David Willey, Lauren Winfield, Linsey Smith
Manchester Originals (Old Trafford) – Jos Buttler, Saqib Mahmood, Matt Parkinson, Sophie Ecclestone, Kate Cross
Trent Rockets (Trent Bridge) – Joe Root, Alex Hales, Harry Gurney, Katherine Brunt, Nat Sciver
Birmingham Phoenix (Edgbaston) – Chris Woakes, Moeen Ali, Pat Brown, Kirstie Gordon, Amy Jones
Welsh Fire (Cardiff) – Jonny Bairstow, Tom Banton, Colin Ingram, Bryony Smith, Katie George
London Spirit (Lord’s) – Rory Burns, Eoin Morgan, Dan Lawrence, Heather Knight, Freya Davies
Oval Invincibles (The Oval) – Sam Curran, Tom Curran, Jason Roy, Fran Wilson, Laura Marsh
Southern Brave (Ageas Bowl) – Jofra Archer, James Vince, Chris Jordan, Anya Shrubsole, Danni Wyatt

The ODI captain was upbeat about two relatively inexperienced players in the format leading West Indies’ charge

Vishal Dikshit11-Nov-2019Their first bilateral ODI series win since 2014, their first away ODI series win since 2011, and a few youngsters stepping up as the main performers to help West Indies take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series against Afghanistan – captain Kieron Pollard is understandably upbeat.Pollard, in his first ODI series as captain, praised two players who have both played fewer than 25 games in the format: Nicholas Pooran, for showing the “maturity” lower down the order, and Roston Chase, for his “cleverness” as a bowler.”Very happy to win an away series since I think 2011, a series in itself since 2014,” Pollard pointed out after winning the second ODI, by 47 runs. “It’s a great achievement for us. At the end of the day, we ask the guys to do certain things and they’ve responded pretty well and the results show the way that we prepare for the matches.”West Indies won the opening game after bowling out Afghanistan for 194, and then chasing it down with solid half-centuries from Shai Hope (77*) and Chase (94) for a seven-wicket win. In the second ODI, they defended 247 on the back of three-fors from Sheldon Cottrell, Chase and Hayden Walsh Jr.Pollard was, however, also appreciative of the fact that West Indies had beaten a team ranked lower than them.”So far, what has gone well is guys are sticking to the plans, sticking to what we actually want to do, and it’s actually coming off,” Pollard said. “The longer we do that and more consistently we do that, we’re going to put up consistent performances. Yes, it’s against Afghanistan but Afghanistan has beaten us recently.”A lot of people say, ‘it’s just Afghanistan’, but we take pride in what we want to do and the guys have shown by effort even off the field and then coming onto the field and trying to deliver the goods.”Chase has taken five wickets for 61 runs in his 20 overs in the series so far, with an impressive economy rate of three per over. He was also the first-change bowler in the second game and removed opener Hazratullah Zazai, Asghar Afghan and Ikram Alikhil to put Afghanistan in trouble at 109 for 5.”Roston, two games consistently he has played his role to perfection,” Pollard said. “Yes, he didn’t get many with the bat today, but again he showed with the ball the experience that he has, the cleverness, changing of pace, setting the fields in different aspects, trying to get the results.”The bowlers have been doing a very good job, limiting Afghanistan to 194 in the first ODI and then coming tonight, again just over 200, I think it was a fantastic effort by them, led by Sheldon and Jason [Holder], opening the bowling, getting the early wickets, those are the things we asked for.”West Indies got good starts with the bat in both games, but it was Pooran’s 50-ball 67 in the second ODI that helped them put on a competitive score when as no other batsman could score as quickly on a pitch that was not as easy to bat on.”If you look how we set up, our first four batsmen are guys who we want to just bat and bat long, and then from No. 5 Pooran, coming down, again changing that tempo and trying to clear the boundaries as well, as per the roles the guys have been given,” Pollard said. “He came in, he got his eye in, it was not a wicket where the ball was coming on to the bat, and he stayed there till the end. We needed one guy staying till the end or getting that one fifty for us, and he did it.”He hasn’t played many games and he’s showing that level of maturity as an individual, but again we’re not surprised by the results because of the work he’s been putting on and off the field.”

They will instead be expected to make up the numbers in a future match

Firdose Moonda27-Nov-2019Cape Cobras will not be sanctioned for missing Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) transformation target in a four-day first-class fixture last month. They will, however, be expected to make up the numbers in a future match.ESPNcricinfo has learned that a meeting between the Cobras and CSA, which took place shortly after it was reported that CSA were yet to launch its inquiry, resulted in the board all but accepting the Cobras’ reasons for their team selection and undertaking to discuss the implementation of targets at domestic level, which could change in the near future.As reported two weeks ago, CSA was due to consider aligning domestic targets with national targets, which are calculated on average over a season, after their coaches’ conference in May. This did not happen but the matter is expected to be on the agenda at CSA’s next meeting along with a proposal to not distinguish between players of colour (including those of Asian or Mixed Race heritage) and black African players.Currently, the national team must field an average of six players of colour of which at least two must be black African, while domestic franchise teams must field six players of colour including at least three black Africans. The national team’s targets are calculated over the course of a season, but the domestic teams have been expected to adhere to targets in every game until the Cobras opted not to.By the system followed at national-team level, if only two black African players are included in the XI in any match and four in another, the target would be considered to have been met.For their first fixture against Warriors, the Cobras fielded only two black African players in their XI, among seven players of colour. The Cobras explained their selection to CSA in writing before the match, saying they prioritised giving those players who had returned from the Test tour of India (such as Zubayr Hamza and George Linde) game time while also retaining in-form players from the previous three rounds. They claim CSA understood and approved their team.When the match began and the team was made public, CSA was questioned about the composition of the Cobras’ line-up. CSA spokesperson Thamie Mthembu told ESPNcricinfo that an inquiry would be conducted to ascertain whether the Cobras had a valid reason for missing the target.CSA is yet to deliver its findings in writing to the Cobras or to make them public but sources have revealed that the franchise will not be penalised. Instead, they will be expected to field four black African players in a fixture later in the season, in what is essentially an application of the system used with the national team.Whether that will prompt a change that applies to throughout the domestic system is yet to be seen. The five other domestic franchises have treated the target as mandatory since they were implemented in 2016 but, having seen the Cobras successfully argue otherwise, they may be tempted to do the same.

Wet patches on the pitch caused the umpires to call off the game shortly before 10pm

Andrew Fidel Fernando05-Jan-2020India won the toss and chose to bowl first, but that’s as far as the weather allowed the first T20I to progress in Guwahati. Rain had fallen through much of the afternoon, and arrived again soon after the toss to delay the start. Although the showers lasted less than an hour, they caused too much damage to the ground – only the square and the bowlers’ run-ups were protected by covers.Once the rain stopped, groundstaff worked for almost two hours on the field. Super Soppers worked non-stop, and even steam irons and hairdryers were used on the pitch. The umpires also made repeated inspections, but all this eventually came to nothing. The match was abandoned shortly before 10pm.

This is the only change from the squad that lost 2-1 against India last month

ESPNcricinfo staff02-Jan-2020Jason Holder has been rested from West Indies’ squad for the first two ODIs against Ireland, to be played in Barbados on January 7 and 9. This is the only change from the most recent ODI squad that completed a tour of India last month, with its strength dropping from 15 to 14.”The decision was taken to rest Jason due to the heavy workload he has had over the last year,” chief selector Roger Harper said in a statement. “With an important year ahead for West Indies cricket, we saw this as the best opportunity to give him a break to recharge his batteries and refresh his mind so he could be ready to perform at his best as our Test captain throughout 2020, as the number one ranked all-rounder in Test cricket and an important member of the team in the white ball formats.”The lack of major changes in the squad reflects West Indies’ gains from their India tour. They lost both the ODI and T20I series against India by 2-1 margins, but pushed the hosts hard, with a number of the younger players showing promise for the future. Before that, the team played a full series against Afghanistan in India, completing a 3-0 ODI sweep and winning the solitary Test but losing 2-1 in the T20Is.”The Afghanistan and Indian series told me that the team is making very positive strides,” Harper said. “Winning the ODIs against Afghanistan, our first ODI series win for five years, followed by the very competitive performance in against India is testament to that. The team demonstrated a determination to compete and gave it every effort.”Against India the batting was consistent and while the bowling had its moments, it is clear that we have to improve our ‘death’ bowling. However, the fact that the team played in such an organised and competitive manner consistently augurs well going forward.”This series against Ireland offers us the opportunity to build on the performances in India, build confidence as a team and for individual players. Just like the series against Afghanistan, the Ireland series is an important one for us, one we must win.”The ODI series against Ireland, which concludes with the third match in Grenada on January 12, will be followed by three T20Is in Grenada (January 15) and St Kitts (January 18 and 19).West Indies ODI squad: Kieron Pollard (capt), Sunil Ambris, Roston Chase, Sheldon Cottrell, Shimron Hetmyer, Shai Hope, Alzarri Joseph, Brandon King, Evin Lewis, Keemo Paul, Khary Pierre, Nicholas Pooran, Romario Shepherd, Hayden Walsh

He hasn’t bowled a ball in the BBL this season but Stoinis believes his adaptability remains one of his strengths

Daniel Brettig28-Jan-2020Marcus Stoinis believes he can still break into Australia’s T20 World Cup team as an allrounder despite being recast as a non-bowling opening batsman for the Melbourne Stars in the Big Bash League, a role in which he is all but assured of finishing as the tournament’s top scorer this season.In a telling departure from the positions he has occupied for Australia, Stoinis has been used at the top of the order by the Stars, where he gets the advantage of extra time to start his innings, while also not bowling at all.The result has been a tally of 607 runs from 14 regular season games at an average of 60.70 and a strike rate of 134.29, underlining the wisdom of placing Stoinis at the top, even though he is unlikely to contend for a similar spot for Australia where Aaron Finch and David Warner are locked in as openers.ALSO READ: Melbourne Stars dealt finals blow with Sandeep Lamichhane unavailableAsked whether he could command an allrounder’s place in the national T20 squad despite the change in role for the Stars, Stoinis noted that the likes of Jon Wells had been adept at the middle order job, but argued he still had the IPL with the Delhi Capitals in which to show his allround abilities.Marcus Stoinis walks off after his breathtaking innings of 147•Getty Images

“I do understand that definitely they’re very different and you’ve had guys like Jon Wells – how well’s he done – I mean, he’s been a good player for a long time, I’ve known him from Western Australia. So I’m really happy for him,” Stoinis said. “But then also, for me I’m not too worried because I’ve batted everywhere my whole career.”I’ll go to the IPL in two months and most likely I’ll be batting five or six. So to me, I see it as I’m adaptable, I’m trying to do everything I can in the game and if the selectors see it as ‘you’re an opening batsman’ or whatever, that’s up to them.”You’ve got to be careful with what you feel you deserve and I think I’ve probably been guilty of having expectations that you think other people should reward you for certain things. So I’m very aware, I’m just enjoying what I’m doing. I understand that the national selectors wanted me to go back to domestic cricket, or Big Bash cricket and dominate, so hopefully I’ve sent that message.”Numerous opening batsman have occupied the other spot opposite Stoinis for the Stars, and the club still looks to be trying to find their best combination despite qualifying at the top of the table and earning a home final against the Sydney Sixers at the MCG on Friday night.