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Eight-wicket victory with 13 balls to spare continues surging run of form for Vince’s men

Matt Roller11-Aug-2021Southern Brave will spend the next 48 hours at the top of the table in both the men’s and women’s Hundred after completing a double-header win against Welsh Fire.The men’s victory cruise was set in motion by Danny Briggs, who bowled tightly at the start of the innings, and Tymal Mills and Chris Jordan’s mastery at the death, before Quinton de Kock and James Vince’s fluent fifties saw them home with 13 balls to spare.After consecutive defeats in their opening games, Brave were on the ropes early in the season but have bounced back in style, winning four on the bounce (plus a no-result) and finding a winning formula on their home ground at the Ageas Bowl. They are following the standard narrative arc for a Mahela Jayawardene side, emulating his success with notorious slow-starters Mumbai Indians.Their final fixture, at home to Oval Invincibles on Monday night, looks increasingly like a shoot-out for a spot in the knockout stages, though the loser of Trent Rockets’ game against Birmingham Phoenix on Friday will be looking anxiously over their shoulder.Fire, meanwhile, are mathematically out: they won their first two games thanks to consecutive fifties from their captain Jonny Bairstow, but have nosedived since his surprise Test recall with five defeats on the bounce.Vintage Vince, classy Quinny

The circumstances of de Kock’s second consecutive unbeaten fifty in the Hundred were bizarre: he faced only three balls out of the first 30 in the run-chase, with Paul Stirling teeing off with a Powerplay boundary blitz and Vince shielding the left-hander from a match-up with Glenn Phillips’ offspin, and should have been out lbw to Qais Ahmad on 13, too, but Fire opted not to use their review. “I wasn’t getting much of a chance but the other two guys were flying,” de Kock said afterwards. “Patience was needed.”Vince dominated with a calm innings, driving, pulling and sweeping to score all around the ground and bringing up a 36-ball fifty without breaking sweat on a true, hybrid pitch. He eventually plinked Qais to long-on for 53, at which point de Kock took over: he nailed a pull off Jimmy Neesham over midwicket, then hit Qais for consecutive boundaries and whacked him for six to remove any semblance of scoring pressure.He began the tournament with a series of unconverted starts but has now scored 129 runs without being dismissed in his last two innings. He is in the sort of form that marked him out as one of the Hundred’s few remaining superstars and is demonstrating why Jayawardene was so delighted to bring him in as a replacement for David Warner.Quinton de Kock plays a shot to the leg side•Harry Trump/Getty Images

Brave’s backloading
Vince started the tournament looking out of his depth as a captain, feeding Trent Rockets’ strong options with a series of strange calls and getting his sums wrong in the defeat in Cardiff. But he has improved markedly – possibly thanks to Jayawardene’s influence – and has started to hold a significant chunk of his death bowlers’ allocation back for the end of an innings.On Thursday night, he left 15 balls each of Jordan and Mills until the final 40 of the innings, and bowled them in tandem for the final 20. The result was that Fire had to attack early on, attempting to take down Brave’s spinners in Briggs and Jake Lintott, who took two wickets each.At the death, Jordan and Mills were again superb as Fire managed 25 runs – including only one boundary – in the final 20 balls, despite having two set batters at the crease in Leus du Plooy and Glenn Phillips. Neesham, who faced only two balls, was wasted at No. 7 after they opted to leave out a bowler (Matt Milnes) for an opener (David Lloyd) – though execution was a bigger issue for Fire than intent.With Jofra Archer out of the tournament through injury, it looks increasingly likely that Mills and Jordan will be England’s death-bowling partnership in October’s T20 World Cup – on recent evidence, they would be well-equipped to stymie even the best finishers.Banton’s blitz
It has been a rough 18 months for Tom Banton, whose star has fallen considerably since he burst onto the T20 scene with a stellar year in 2019 that saw him light up the Blast and Big Bash, and earn himself PSL and IPL deals. He struggled with bio-bubble life on the fringes of the England team last year and had a nightmare start to the year, contracting Covid-19 at the PSL which affected him for the first few months of the summer with Somerset.He finally found form at the end of June, scoring 77 and 107 not out in consecutive Blast innings, but was then called into England’s ODI squad to run the drinks and lost all rhythm when forced into self-isolation after his team-mates tested positive. He managed only 60 runs in his first six innings for Welsh Fire and looked horribly out of form.So his 36 off 20 was a welcome return to fluency, if not quite the match-winning score required to arrest Fire’s slump. He thumped three sixes in the space of five balls in the Powerplay, charging Danny Briggs to launch him over long-off then heaving and pulling consecutive George Garton deliveries into the stands. He tried to keep the innings moving by taking on Lintott in the middle phase but holed out to deep midwicket before he was able to press on.

Ahead of the T20I series in India, New Zealand stand-in captain opened up on the effects of packed scheduling and quarantine protocols

Vishal Dikshit16-Nov-20212:43

Southee on NZ schedule: ‘We haven’t had a chance to stop and think’

New Zealand have barely had the time to process their loss to Australia in the T20 World Cup final in Dubai on Sunday night, and yet, less than 24 hours later, they arrived in Jaipur for a tour of three T20Is and two Tests. The T20I leg of the series will start less than 72 hours after their defeat in the world tournament’s final.New Zealand’s stand-in T20I captain Tim Southee, in the absence of Kane Williamson who opted out of the T20Is, said the packed scheduling, quarantine and bubble life do take a “toll” and make “things a lot tougher” for the players but it’s something they “just have to adapt to and get used to” as they can’t control it. He hopes they don’t have to play in biosecure environments for too much longer.Related

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• Stead admits NZ are facing a 'tough and challenging' schedule

“It’s obviously a pretty busy schedule, we knew this was going to be the case even leading into the T20 World Cup, we had a series in Bangladesh and Pakistan,” Southee said while interacting with the media online from Jaipur on Tuesday. “[Some of] the guys were at the IPL so something over last couple of years have made scheduling a lot tougher. Sides have to do quarantine and what not, it’s been a bit of a challenge but as players you just have to crack on and play what’s in front of you.”With what’s happened in the world in the last couple of years, it’s made things a lot tougher with bubbles, quarantine, and it does take its toll. After a while we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, whether we’re going to have to continue to play in bubbles and schedules having more pressure on with quarantine time thrown in as well. It’s something we can’t control and something we just have to adapt to and get used to but it does take its toll. A few players have been in a number of bubbles for long periods of time so it does weigh you down after a while. So, hopefully, we don’t have to deal with bubbles for too much longer.”With what’s happened in the world in the last couple of years, it’s made things a lot tougher with bubbles, quarantine, and it does take its toll” – Tim Southee•ICC via Getty

“It’s busy and we haven’t really had a chance to stop and think after the disappointment in the way things finished there (in Dubai) but we have to shift our focus to this series and then obviously for the Test series. To represent your country is a great honour so that’s gets me up and going.”In the lead up to their T20 World Cup campaign that started on October 18, New Zealand toured Bangladesh for five T20Is in September and then Pakistan for an original tour of three ODIs and five T20Is, which they eventually pulled out of. Now, they play three T20Is in India within five days and two more Tests before they head back to New Zealand for their home summer.Southee said New Zealand could be looking at rotating their T20I squad in India, which was the same group of 15 that played in the World Cup in the UAE.”It’s something we have to look at throughout this series of three games in five days, with travel days in between and then a couple of days and then go into a Test series,” Southee said. “The guys have to be managed throughout the series and we’ve got a squad of 15 here that were involved in the T20 World Cup which I’m sure we’ll use throughout the T20 series.”

Left-arm quick will decide in the coming days if he will enter the mega auction, given Australia’s heavy touring schedule either side of this year’s IPL

Alex Malcolm12-Jan-2022Mitchell Starc is contemplating a return to the IPL for the first time since 2015 as he tries to juggle Australia’s Test commitments in the subcontinent with preparation for the T20 World Cup title defence at home in October.Speaking ahead of the fifth Ashes Test in Hobart, Starc revealed he was seriously considering entering the IPL mega auction, which is scheduled for February.”I’ve got two days to get my paperwork in so that might be something I do today before training,” Starc said. “I’ve not put my name down just yet, but I’ve got a couple more days to decide on that. It’s certainly on the table, regardless of the schedule coming up. I haven’t been for six years or so.”With obviously a heavy weighting towards T20s over the last period of time and the World Cup coming up later this year, that’s one to take into consideration.”Starc has only played in two seasons of the IPL, back in 2014 and 2015 for Royal Challengers Bangalore, despite being one of the best and most valuable T20 bowlers in the world over the last seven years.He took 34 wickets in 27 matches for Royal Challengers at an economy rate of 7.16 and a strike rate of 17. As a multi-format player for Australia, Starc has opted to use the IPL window in the April-May period each year to rest and recover and also spend time with his wife, Alyssa Healy, given the pair is separated for large portions of each year because of their respective playing schedules.Starc has plenty to consider from a workload perspective. Australia have a three-match ODI series and one-off T20I at home against New Zealand that follows the Ashes, and then a five-match T20I series against Sri Lanka in February. The Test team is then scheduled to go to Pakistan in late February ahead of three Tests in March, followed by three ODIs and one T20I finishing on April 5.The IPL has expanded to a ten-team competition in 2022, with each team now set to play 18 home-and-away games plus the playoffs, meaning the tournament will run from April into early June.Australia are also scheduled to visit Sri Lanka for a Test and limited-overs tour in June and July, and there will be no break until August for any multi-format player opting to be involved in the IPL.The Pakistan tour is a topic of conversation among the players after they were briefed by Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers’ Association about the trip this week.”The schedules are quite jam-packed, when you throw in all the tours, obviously we’ve got a couple of white-ball series post the Ashes before that Pakistan tour,” Starc said. “Then you take in consideration the IPL, then a Sri Lankan tour after that, so it’s a massive six months of cricket for everyone, but certainly for those multi-format players.”We had a bit of a briefing the other day about the upcoming tour [of Pakistan]. I think it’ll take some time for all players to process that information. And then obviously, we’ve got a Test match this week to play and perform in and then we’ll move on to what comes next.”

Pakistan batter to have another procedure before being discharged

ESPNcricinfo staff22-Dec-2021Abid Ali, the Pakistan batter, has undergone an angioplasty a day after he complained of chest pain while batting in a Quaid-e-Azam Trophy match and had to be hospitalised.The 34-year-old will undergo another angioplasty tomorrow, before being discharged. In a message from his hospital bed this morning, Abid said he was doing well and asked his fans to pray for his recovery.On Tuesday evening, a PCB statement had said that Abid had been diagnosed with Acute Coronary Syndrome or ACS. “He is under the care of Consultant Cardiologist who is liaising with PCB medical team regarding further treatment. He is currently stable,” the statement read. ACS is often used to describe a range of conditions resulting from a sudden, reduced blood flow to the heart.Abid returned to his domestic side, Central Punjab, following the recent Bangladesh tour, where he was Player of the Series for the Tests after scoring 263 runs at 87.66. He was playing his sixth first-class game this season and had scored 766 runs at an average of 51.89 with three hundreds. On the last day of the ongoing game at UBL Complex in Karachi, he had crossed a half-century when he complained of discomfort around his shoulder and chest area before he was rushed to the hospital.Abid has been the highest run-getter in Tests for Pakistan since his debut in 2019, and in 2021 he is fifth in the world with 695 runs in nine Tests at 48.87, including a double-hundred against Zimbabwe in Harare. He made his debut in Rawalpindi in 2019 after spending 12 years in domestic cricket for 7116 runs in 106 first-class games. He made his Test debut at the age of 31 and began with a century, and also became the only player in history to reach three figures on both Test and ODI debuts.Central Punjab finished in fifth place in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, where Northern and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa took the top-two spots and will contest the final. They have drawn five games, won two and lost three so far this season.

They climbed to third position in the BPL by handing a 15-run defeat to Sylhet Sunrisers

Mohammad Isam07-Feb-2022How the match played outKhulna Titans climbed to third position in the BPL by handing a 15-run defeat to Sylhet Sunrisers. After Soumya Sarkar and Mushfiqur Rahim struck fifties, the Khulna bowlers managed to defend 182 runs despite a soapy ball in the heavy Sylhet dew.In their first home game, Sylhet crashed to their sixth loss in seven matches. If losing wasn’t enough, their main fast bowler Taskin Ahmed was ruled out for the rest of the tournament due to a back injury ahead of the game. Sylhet were also penalised five runs for changing the condition of the ball. New captain Ravi Bopara’s inauspicious start became further confusing when he didn’t give the team’s leading wicket-taker Nazmul Islam a single over.Khulna didn’t mind any of it. They recovered from 46 for 3 at the end of the powerplay, when Mushfiqur and Sarkar added 136 runs for the unbroken fourth wicket, taking Khulna to a match-winning total.Big hitMushfiqur hit his 16th fifty in the BPL, but the first in this season. He struck some of his trademark shots, including sixes over midwicket and backward square leg, and six fours around the ground. Sarkar reached his fourth BPL half-century, which included two sixes over midwicket and long-on. As a pleasant surprise, Sarkar seemed to focus less on the nice shots, and more on accumulating the runsWhen defending the total, veteran left-arm spinner Nabil Samad removed Lendl Simmons in the sixth over. Anamul Haque couldn’t make much of an impact with his 47 off 33 balls. Mohammad Mithun and Bopara fell within three balls of each other, leaving Colin Ingram and Mosaddek a mountain to climb.Alauddin Babu provided an entertaining finish when he struck Kamrul Islam Rabbi for three consecutive sixes in the final over in which they needed 36 to win. But Rabbi managed to keep him down to two runs in the last three balls to pick up the win.Big missBopara’s blunder of not using their top wicket-taker Nazmul was a major talking point. There wasn’t a question of dew for most of the innings, as both offspinners Mosaddek Hossain and Sohag Gazi bowled their full quota of four overs each.At times captains in the BPL have tended to keep their left-arm spinners away when a left-hand batters are at the crease. And course Sarkar was around for a long time, but right-hander Mushfiqur was in the middle too. ESPNcricinfo also learned that Nazmul wasn’t injured; he fielded the entire 20 overs. Unless something has been missed, there was no cricketing reason for not giving even one over to Nazmul.

“I think our top four is going to play a big role and our ability to score big hundreds is going to be important”

Valkerie Baynes05-Mar-2022Rachael Haynes lived up to her captain’s praise as her carefully crafted century played a huge part in helping Australia navigate a potential upset in their World Cup opener against England.Haynes, Meg Lanning’s deputy, started slowly on a Hamilton pitch that proved tricky to score on early, before the pair broke the shackles in a 196-run second-wicket partnership as England’s bowlers struggled to make inroads. Australian spinners Alanah King and Jess Jonassen shared five wickets between them to defend their total of 310 for 3 in a 12-run victory for the tournament favourites.Before the match, Lanning had identified Haynes as vital to her side’s title aspirations.”She’s a very important part of our squad on and off the field,” Lanning said in her pre-match press conference. “For me personally, she’s been incredible and really does make my job a lot easier.”She comes in in good form. She’s an important part of the team. She’s going to play an important role for us if we are to win this World Cup and I can’t really see her stopping anytime soon, to be honest. She’s fit, she’s strong, she’s playing well, and she’s playing important role for the team. We’ll see what happens after this World Cup but I could see her playing for a long time down the track.”At 35, Haynes is the oldest member of the Australian squad and had taken three months off last year through a combination of a hamstring injury, interstate travel restrictions and parental leave to be with partner Leah for the birth of their son, Hugo.Related

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She returned to international action during the Ashes series in January, scoring a half-century in the drawn Test – again combining with Lanning for a 169-run first-innings partnership, while her highest ODI score for the series was 31 in the third and final fixture in Melbourne.But Haynes was in fine touch as she scored an ODI career-best 130 against England on Saturday, patiently riding out the first half of the innings with wicketkeeper Amy Jones standing up to the stumps almost from the outset as she reached 39 not out off 60 deliveries before she and Lanning began to make the most of having plenty of wickets in hand.”It’s funny, coming into this game I was probably a little light on runs,” Haynes said. “I didn’t feel out of nick but I was just getting out early, so it’s really nice to make a contribution today. I think our top four is going to play a really big role in this tournament and our ability to go and score big hundreds is going to be really important, particularly on flatter wickets.”Haynes was almost lost to the sport in her late 20s after dropping out of international reckoning for more than three years. But she was recalled in early 2017 and made vice-captain a year later. Now she is one of Australia’s most experienced players, having played 69 ODIs and 75 T20Is, including six World Cups across both formats.”I think in tournament play it’s good to have those tight contests and be pushed,” she added. “England certainly did that today and to walk away with the win is obviously a really positive start to our campaign. Our goal is obviously to be a part of the business end and playing finals and those sorts of things. It’s nice to get that first one away.”

LSG’s bowlers led a remarkable comeback after Prithvi Shaw ran away to 61 off 34 balls

Sidharth Monga07-Apr-20224:18

Did Rishabh Pant err in not bowling his spinners enough?

The Lucknow Super Giants spinners stifled Delhi Capitals, and their death bowlers maintained the chokehold to restrict them to the third-lowest 20-over total for the loss of three wickets or fewer in the IPL: 149. With dew around, it became an easy target to chase, but even LSG stumbled in the end and finished the chase only in the last over despite a 52-ball 80 from Quinton de Kock.It was a remarkable comeback from LSG after Prithvi Shaw ran away to 61 off 34 balls. However, the other Capitals batters – David Warner and Rishabh pant among them – couldn’t manage even a run a ball between them. It wasn’t for the want of trying: they all tried to hit out, but Ravi Bishnoi, K Gowtham and Krunal Pandya tied them down before Jason Holder and Avesh Khan finished off with just 19 runs in the last three overs, the second-lowest aggregate for an IPL side who had top-six batters at the wicket.

Capitals fined for slow over rate

Delhi Capitals have been fined for maintaining a slow over rate during the match against Lucknow Super Giants on Thursday. Since it was the team’s first offence of the season under the IPL’s code of conduct, captain Rishabh Pant was fined INR 12 lakhs.

Between them the LSG spinners bowled 10 overs for 57 runs and took all three wickets to fall. Gowtham also bowled the first maiden Pant has faced in the IPL.Shaw welcomes back Warner
This was a homecoming of sorts for Warner to the team he made his IPL debut for. Shaw was there to make him feel at home, giving him a right-hand impression of the batter he used to be before he began to set himself up for the long innings. The LSG fast bowlers tried to bowl hard lengths at Shaw, but kept getting cut or pulled. He alone scored 47 in the powerplay, letting Warner ease his way back in.Against the spinners Shaw remained aggressive and effective, going over cover with ease and punishing any error in length. In the eighth over, he stepped out to Gowtham to hit him for a straight six before going over cover for four.Prithvi Shaw hits Jason Holder over midwicket for a six•BCCI

Shaw gone, choke on
Gowtham responded by moving round the wicket and pushing one across Shaw. Shaw saw a third boundary in a row and went for the cut, but the angle and some extra bounce defeated him to take the top edge.Capitals then made a curious move to promote Rovman Powell to No. 3. Before today, Powell had struck at 150 against pace and 116 against spin. He was now being exposed to spin on a surface with grip.Bishnoi and Gowtham now sucked the life out of the innings. Warner went cutting a wide ball, which kept getting away from him, and managed just a top edge, the third time he has got out to Bishnoi in six balls. A desperate Powell saw a full ball and went for the slog, but it turned out to be the wrong’un, which took out off stump. Gowtham then proceeded to cramp Pant and bowl a maiden.When Sarfaraz Khan reverse-swept the last ball of the 11th over, it was the first boundary by a batter not named Shaw.Pant’s struggles
More than Warner or Powell, Pant’s struggle was stark. He managed just eight off the first 19 balls he faced, surviving a run-out chance in the process. It was with the last ball of the 15th over that he finally broke free, lofting a Bishnoi wrong’un over extra-cover. When Andrew Tye offered him a full-toss and two slot balls in the 16th, Pant finally went past a run a ball with a four and two sixes. Sarfaraz got stuck into Avesh in the 17th over, making it 130 for 3 and raising hopes for Capitals.Holder’s mix of cutters and yorkers, though, completely shut Pant and Sarfaraz out. He bowled the 18th and the 20th, but conceded no boundary. Avesh made a stellar comeback in the 19th, conceding just the one four. This 36-ball 39 was Pant’s third-slowest innings of 30 balls or more. To make matters worse, the bowlers were wiping the ball with a towel every ball, an ominous sign if you have only managed a low total.Rovman Powell is bowled by Ravi Bishnoi’s googly•BCCI

De Kock aces the chase
With Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav in the side and with Lalit Yadav becoming effective with part-time spin, Capitals still had an attack to fight in defence of the small total, but the wet ball tipped the scales in LSG’s favour.Mustafizur Rahman and Lalit kept things tight for the first four overs, but the floodgates opened when Anrich Nortje bowled for the first time in an IPL match in India. The fifth over was full of half-volleys, which de Kock dispatched for three fours, before pulling a short ball for a six.The target was so low that it took a string of tight overs to take the asking rate past 8.5 an over, but just one beamer from Nortje that went for a six in the 14th over for it to come crashing down to 7.5. Another beamer in the 16th sent Nortje off, and de Kock hit Kuldeep for two fours. When he finally fell, de Kock had left his side seven an over to get in the last four overs.Krunal, Badoni calm the nerves
Fourteen balls without a boundary, bowled by Mustafizur and Shardul Thakur, created nerves for LSG, making it 17 required off 10 balls. Krunal and Deepak Hooda tried their best to find the boundary, but the defensive bowling remained top-class. Eventually, though, Krunal picked a slower one and lofted it back over Mustafizur’s head, and then picked three straight braces to leave just five to get in the last over. They still needed Ayush Badoni to come out and hit a boundary when it came down to five off four.

Mumbai Indians left-arm spinner talks about why he will not head home post IPL to meet his family who he has not seen for nine years

S Sudarshanan12-May-20222:39

Vettori: Royals looked for a bad ball, but Kartikeya never gave it to them

When Kumar Kartikeya Singh left home in Uttar Pradesh nine years ago, he had decided to return only after achieving something. On April 30, Kartikeya lived a dream many Indian youngsters aspire: to play in the IPL. Having originally joined the franchise as a net bowler, Kartikeya graduated into the main squad and helped Mumbai to victory on debut, against Rajasthan Royals, with 1 for 19 in his four overs.Kartikeya is still pinching himself at the pace at which his life has turned a corner in a matter of months. But he will never forget that day when he joined the Mumbai camp as a net bowler a few years ago and stood next to legends of Indian and world cricket. “When I reached, I couldn’t take my eyes off Rohit Sharma, whom I had only watched on TV till then. I saw him and Sachin [Tendulkar] face-to-face,” Kartikeya told Mumbai’s social channel.The day of reckoning arrived against Royals, but Rohit was around to calm the nerves of the 24-year-old, who is originally from Uttar Pradesh although he plays for Madhya Pradesh in domestic cricket.Related

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“When Rohit handed me the ball, he told me to focus on my bowling and bowl freely without a worry and that he would take care of everything,” Kartikeya said. “He then praised me after my spell and the coaches lauded me for not being nervous and being brave.”Kartikeya took the prized scalp of Royals’ captain Sanju Samson, helping limit them to 158 for 6.That match holds a lot of significance for Kartikeya, who has led an itinerant life since leaving the KVS cricket club in his native Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh for Delhi, where he was under Sanjay Bharadwaj’s tutelage for six years, and then to Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh, where he began taking bigger strides. He got through the trials there, something he was unable to in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, and made it to the Under-23 squad of Madhya Pradesh as well as the Ranji Trophy trials the following year.He made his Vijay Hazare Trophy debut in 2018-19 and picked up six wickets in four matches that season – the third-most for Madhya Pradesh.After doing well in his first year of professional cricket, Kartikeya called up his father, who is in Uttar Pradesh police, for the first time in six years. “I called my father for the first time in those six years. Though he was happy, he didn’t show it and told me that you still have a lot to achieve and hung up.”Kumar Kartikeya picked up Dwayne Bravo and Simarjeet Singh in one over•BCCI

Even Bharadwaj told Kartikeya: “this was not the dream we saw. You have to play at a higher level.”Cut to the day before his IPL debut, which Kartikeya relayed to his father. “When I told my father that I was going to play, he told his battalion and they had a screening on a projector, watching with everyone. When I picked up my first wicket, all of them stood up and applauded. When I saw that video, I saw my father smile and enjoy just like he used to before I started.”Kartikeya has featured in every match for Mumbai so far since his debut and against Kolkata Knight Riders, he got the wickets of Ajinkya Rahane and Venkatesh Iyer. On Thursday against Chennai Super Kings, he took two more wickets – that of Dwayne Bravo and Simarjeet Singh.While his and Mumbai’s IPL journey will end next week, Kartikeya is still in no hurry yet to meet his parents. He wants to make one more stop before he heads home. He wants to join the Madya Pradesh squad for the Ranji Trophy knockouts, which will be played in June. With 12 wickets, Kartikeya is MP’s joint-highest wicket-taker in that tournament and he does not want to get distracted by the comforts of being home, which remains his final destination.”When I left home, I had thought of returning only after achieving something,” Kartikeya said. “After the IPL, I will go to MP to play Ranji Trophy knockouts and go home only after that. I will be going home after nine years and am excited to see my parents’ reaction.”

With Williamson potentially unavailable, Bhuvneshwar or Pooran are likely to lead Sunrisers in their last league match against Kings

ESPNcricinfo staff18-May-2022Sunrisers Hyderabad’s captain Kane Williamson will exit the IPL bubble to return to New Zealand for the impending birth of his second child.”Here’s everyone at the #Riser camp wishing Kane Williamson and his wife a safe delivery and a lot of happiness,” the franchise posted on their social channel.Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who has captained Sunrisers in the past, and Nicholas Pooran, West Indies’ new white-ball captain, are among the options to lead them in their last league fixture against Punjab Kings on May 22 at the Wankhede Stadium, if Williamson is to miss the match.Both Sunrisers are Kings are still in the race for the playoffs, but only just. Their hopes hinge on Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Capitals slipping up.Williamson struggled for form so much this season that his strike rate of 93.50 is the worst among batters with a minimum of 100 runs. On Tuesday against Mumbai Indians, Williamson dropped down to No.6, with Priyam Garg instead partnering Abhishek Sharma at the top. After Garg set the platform with 42 off 26 balls, Rahul Tripathi and Pooran launched from there as Sunrisers reached 193 for 6. Williamson, who walked out to bat in the 18th over, made an unbeaten eight off seven balls.With Williamson now potentially unavailable, fellow New Zealander Glenn Phillips might be in contention to make his debut for Sunrisers. Phillips can bat in the top as well as in the middle and bowl quickish offbreaks. He has also kept wicket in the past, but a back condition has limited that skill. Notably, Phillips was the top six-hitter in T20 cricket in 2021, with 97 sixes in 57 innings.

Earlier this month, the former Pakistan batting great had tested positive for Covid-19

ESPNcricinfo staff22-Jun-2022Former Pakistan batting great Zaheer Abbas is in an intensive care unit at a private hospital in London. It is understood that the 74-year-old is on dialysis after being diagnosed with pneumonia following his arrival in London from Dubai.Abbas has been in London since June 16, and was taken to the hospital after feeling unwell the following day. Earlier this month, he had tested positive for Covid-19 in Dubai, which delayed his scheduled departure to London. While his condition improved and he boarded his flight to London, his health took a turn for the worse. He was admitted to the ICU soon after, and ESPNcricinfo understands he was placed on dialysis.