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Lachlan Stevens has been named head coach of the Melbourne Renegades WBBL team and the Victoria Women’s team amid the restructuring at Cricket Victoria.The Renegades role is a comeback for Stevens who was previously their head coach in the first two seasons of the WBBL.Most recently he had been interim head coach of the Victoria men’s team following Andrew McDonald’s appointment as Justin Langer’s assistant with the national side.Stevens replaces Tim Coyle in the Renegades position after he was let go earlier this month while with Victoria he fills the role vacated by David Hemp.”It’s a great time to be returning to the women’s game given the growth female cricket has enjoyed in recent seasons,” Stevens said. “It’s always enjoyable to watch and work with players at all stages of their careers and I’m honoured to be able to work with another Victorian cricket side. I look forward to watching all of them going about their training and playing.””I was lucky enough to be a part of the Renegades in the first two seasons of the WBBL and I’m looking forward to catching up with several of those players again in the not too distant future. I can’t wait to watch the WBBL up close again with all the progress that’s been made in the game over the last three years.”Renegades, Victoria and Australia allrounder Sophie Molineux admitted it had been a shock to see Coyle leave his job.”There’s a lot going in, not just in sport, but it definitely hit home when we saw Coyley go,” she said. “The last couple of years at the Renegades he’s done a massive amount of work to get us into position to play in semi-finals and be really close to the grand finals.”We’ll always be thankful for what he’s done. The group has definitely got some really sad emotions about him not being able to come back.”The Victoria team includes Meg Lanning and Ellyse Perry when they aren’t on international duty.

England fast bowler Jofra Archer will not be available for the Rajasthan Royals in the 2021 IPL. The decision was taken on Friday by the ECB who said Archer would be “stepping up” his training intensity after spending time in rehab to tend to the finger surgery carried out recently as well as a longstanding elbow injury.Archer has been training with Sussex at Hove this week as he works his way back to fitness. England coach Chris Silverwood and elite pace bowling lead Jon Lewis were in attendance to see his progress on Thursday, when Archer underwent a full session of batting and bowling in the nets, followed by some running work.He was back at the ground on Friday, doing some sprints on the outfield during the lunch break of Sussex’s match with Yorkshire, in which England captain Joe Root is also playing.”The England and Wales Cricket Board has confirmed that England and Sussex bowler Jofra Archer will not play in the 2021 Indian Premier League,” the ECB said in a media release on Friday. “Archer returned to bowling this week with higher intensity, and the ECB and Sussex medical teams will continue to monitor his progress.”The ECB pointed out that Archer was “expected” to return to playing cricket in the “next fortnight” if he could “bowl and prepare pain-free.” It is understood that Archer could return to playing in a second XI match in the next fortnight followed by a Championship game for Sussex in mid-May.The Royals were initially optimistic about Archer’s return, accounting for the strike bowler missing out on at least their first four matches in the league phase. Such optimism evaporated soon after the ECB said on April 11 that while Archer would be returning to training there was no date set for his return to playing.The other big deterrent for Archer, who was the Most Valuable Player in IPL 2020, was the mandatory week-long quarantine participants have to serve upon entering the IPL bubble this season. All three concerned parties, Archer, the ECB and the Royals, agreed that it would interrupt the fast bowler’s preparation and bowling build-up.Archer returned to England in March after T20Is in India for surgery on his right hand to remove fragments of glass wedged in during a fish tank accident at home in January. Simultaneously, Archer also received treatment for a longstanding elbow injury for which the fast bowler has taken cortisone injections.At the outset of this IPL, Kumar Sangakkara, the former Sri Lanka captain and now the Royals’ team director, had said while Archer’s unavailability was a “big blow”, the franchise could not act “selfishly” and would take a “holistic view” about his return.

Usman Khawaja and Marcus Stoinis have returned – at least loosely – to the national team fold after being named in a 26-man preliminary squad for Australia’s proposed white-ball tour of England in September.Test batsman Travis Head has also been named in a white-ball squad for the first time since he missed selection for the 2019 World Cup, while Riley Meredith, Josh Philippe and Daniel Sams make their first appearances in a senior training group, likely to be seconded to the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane next month before a cut-down group is conveyed to the UK.Khawaja and Stoinis were the two most high-profile names to lose their national contracts after falling out of favour last summer, though it had been made clear in Khawaja’s case at least that he remained a likely top-order replacement in the event of injuries to the likes of David Warner, Steven Smith or the limited-overs captain Aaron Finch.The selection chairman Trevor Hohns outlined the fact that a larger than usual squad would need to be sent should the tour go ahead, given the fact it will not be possible to send replacement players in the event of injury or illness. England are currently playing the West Indies in a biosecure “bubble” in the time of Covid-19 and similar arrangements are being worked through for an Australian tour.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

“This preliminary list covers the contingencies of playing one-day internationals and T20 internationals in bio-secure hubs with the likely prospect of not being able to bring in replacements should the tour proceed,” Hohns said.”The preliminary list includes several exciting young players who have recently excelled at state level and in the BBL. These emerging players are among those we would like to develop further as we believe they have a bright future in Australian cricket. The preliminary list also has a view towards the upcoming T20 World Cup and in the longer term the 2023 World Cup.”Ben Oliver, Cricket Australia’s head of national teams, said that negotiations with the ECB and the Australian and British governments were continuing with any potential quarantine requirements for the players on return to Australia, which currently has closed international borders, a key issue.”There’s a lot of complexity around the tour and international cricket at the moment, but we’re doing everything we can to make sure we give that tour the best chance possible to proceed,” he said. “We take the quarantining environment very seriously and it’s important that we understand that fully before a decision on the tour is made.”Obviously for elite cricketers, elite athletes generally, the ability to train and stay fit and keep ticking over is an important factor. The health and safety of players and staff and the public health component is most critical. The quarantine arrangements aren’t confirmed. They obviously exist in terms of general international travel at the moment so that’s something we’re working through.”‘[It’s] at the start of our home summer so we are interested to understand how we navigate that. Equally we are fully supportive of the quarantine requirements that are in place across Federal and State and Territory Governments and our obligations around that from a public health perspective. We’re having constructive conversations with government agencies and particularly the ECB.”Oliver also confirmed that Hohns would continue as selection chairman for the forthcoming summer, after his previous contract ended earlier this year. “We’re moving forward with our selection panel as it was at the end of last season,” he said. “The panel is really focused on the challenges of the upcoming 12 months. We have some interesting challenges as we swap between formats and different tours that players are going to be involved in. Trevor is committed through this season.”In addition to the UK tour, originally slated for July, CA has also postponed a Test tour of Bangladesh and a limited-overs visit by Zimbabwe. Neither of the latter two series have as yet been rescheduled.

What, in all honesty, have England learnt from their two-Test stopover in New Zealand? In one sense, it was a trip that lived down to its pre-series expectations, as a superbly well-drilled home team handed out a succession of lessons to a side that has neglected the longer format for several years now, and was unsurprisingly found wanting when those rusty attributes were suddenly called upon.But on the other hand, it was a missed opportunity, not so much in terms of the scoreline – England haven’t won a single Test match in New Zealand since 2008, let alone an entire series – but in terms of how, and to whom, those lessons were handed out. With an arduous series in South Africa looming, the past month has served more as an exercise in confirmation bias rather than a Test reboot, leaving England no closer to answering their eternal selection issues than they were at the end of the home summer.With the possible exceptions of Ollie Pope with the bat and Chris Woakes with the ball, no player in the course of the two Tests performed much better than the baseline of their pre-series expectations – a state of affairs which arguably reflects well on the three batsmen, Joe Root, Rory Burns and Ben Stokes, who arrived in the country with their places in the side secure and who duly topped the averages.Unfortunately, the steady returns of those three (or in Root’s case, his dramatic upturn in form from first Test to second) were offset by the fact that more than a few of England’s squad members performed distinctly worse than anticipated. With the South Africa Test squad being announced on Saturday, we take a look at the movers and shakers in England’s brave new Test world.

Joe Root is congratulated by Ollie Pope after bringing up his 150•AFP / Getty Images

Ollie Pope (110 runs at 36.66)Forget his absurd dalliance with the wicketkeeping gloves (honestly, of all the cupboards that England should find bare, when did that one get emptied?), Pope’s display of doughtiness in the second innings at Hamilton was the single biggest discovery of the series. Admittedly, it came on the flattest deck in humanity, so it would be advisable to curb the enthusiasm just a touch. Nevertheless, it was the performance that England needed to revive any hope of a series-squaring win, and the chance to spend the best part of two sessions watching and learning from England’s modern master, Joe Root, will have been invaluable.Chris Woakes (4 wkts at 23.75)There were some seriously slim pickings on the bowling front for England, as their haul of 20 wickets across two Tests amounted to their worst collective strike-rate in Test history. But Woakes was a relative revelation, albeit from a similarly low base. His self-confessed “surprise” at earning a recall in Hamilton was reflective of a pretty terrible overseas record – just 18 wickets at 61.77 in 12 previous Tests. But, by focusing on a relentless line and length and accepting any lateral movement as a bonus, Woakes was able to emulate the “bowling dry” tactics that James Anderson and, before him, Matthew Hoggard espoused when out of their comfort zones. And when he did finally nip one off the seam, he was already in the right areas for Tom Latham to nick to slip.

Marginal gains

Sam Curran celebrates with team-mates after claiming the wicket of Jeet Raval•AFP / Getty Images

Sam Curran (6 wkts at 39.66, 40 runs at 40.00)The jury is still out on what, exactly, Curran brings to this England team, besides bucket-loads of competitive spirit (which is not a trait to be under-valued) and an unconventional line of attack. His pace is pop-gun, and his bouncer brings to mind Dominic Cork’s, in that it looks innocuous but is often well-enough directed to trouble batsmen who ought to know better. But when armed with the new ball, he extracted as much movement as any player on either side, and thanks to a brace of not-outs with the bat, his allround attributes had been enhanced by the end of the tour too. Vernon Philander is living proof that there is a place for medium-pace in South Africa. But Curran’s yo-yo selection record shows no sign of an early end.Joe Denly (113 runs at 37.66)The less said about that catch, the better – or about the second Test as a whole, really, where Denly succumbed cheaply to one of the better balls of the series. However, his efforts in the innings defeat at Mount Maunganui are worthy of recognition, in that he came about as close as any England batsman to meeting the cautious, crease-occupational demands of England’s new era. No-one truly believes that Denly is the answer to all of England’s problems, but he’s a senior player in this side by dint of his long county experience, and with five fifties in his last five Tests, he’s giving himself a chance to be the stop-gap that they so desperately need.Joe Root (239 runs at 79.66)No-one should doubt the value of Root’s extended net at Hamilton. Ten-and-a-half hours of crease occupation on the deadest of decks may not be definitive proof of an overdue return to form, but it gave him the in-game opportunity to iron out the flaws that have dogged his game all year long, particularly his balance at the crease which was notably more fluent by the end. And by then he had answered his critics in emphatic style at precisely the moment when the doubts about his captaincy were at their loudest. Arguably, his leadership from the front merely deferred that issue rather than quashing it – Root remains a grimly reactive leader whose win-loss ratio resembles a coin toss. But with the mounting exception of Rory Burns, there’s really no-one else in the squad remotely qualified for the role.Rory Burns (184 runs at 61.33)For the first time since Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook were bankers at the top of the order, England are set to start and finish a calendar year with the same opening batsman in situ. It’s a fact that both underlines Burns’ achievement in bucking a trend that has devoured previously likely lads such as Adam Lyth, Mark Stoneman and (in seaming conditions at least…) Keaton Jennings, but also emphasises how small his sample size still remains. Nevertheless, it’s hard to quibble with a fifty and a century in consecutive Tests, even if he was monstrously fortunate to survive a messy third evening at Hamilton.

Steady as she goes

Ben Stokes bowled despite pain in his knee the previous day•Getty Images

Ben Stokes (145 runs at 48.33; 2 wkts at 84.00)Expectations are heightened for this year’s BBC Sports Personality-elect, and so the fact that he did not exceed them doesn’t mean that Stokes had an especially poor series. Nevertheless, he seemed in a bit of a bind as England’s new era began – he was seeing the ball so well at Mount Maunganui until a single mistake derailed England’s first innings, and thereafter he seemed reluctant to trust his fluency, as if uncomfortably aware of what would happen if he gave his wicket away again. His bowling was typically wholehearted but England’s attitude to his dodgy knee is terrifying.Stuart Broad (4 wkts at 41.25)We learnt nothing about Broad that we didn’t already know – which on the one hand is reassuring, for his four-wicket haul in the first innings at Hamilton was a real old pro’s performance: canny, patient and resilient, and evidence that he’s still got it as England embark on a new Test cycle. But he has started to become the fall guy for England overseas – he missed three of England’s six Tests in Sri Lanka and West Indies last winter – and if James Anderson and Mark Wood are fit for South Africa, there are no guarantees he won’t be squeezed again. It is, you could argue, a better problem to have than most.Jos Buttler (43 runs at 21.50)Caught in two minds like Stokes, but with extra jeopardy, given that there’s only room for one wicketkeeper, and Jonny Bairstow will be gunning for his gloves in South Africa. Buttler’s back injury in Hamilton was terrible timing in so many ways, for the suspicion is growing that No.7 is his only viable berth now that the Test team has pivoted towards old-school values – and if Bairstow finds form in South Africa, it’s hard to see how England make room for them both. Served up a handy rearguard in the first innings at Bay Oval, but his indecisive leave on the final day epitomised a team that is no longer sure whether to stick or twist.

Slipping off the pace

Jofra Archer sees the funny side after Joe Denly’s dropped catch•AFP / Getty Images

Jofra Archer (2 wkts at 104.50)He’s not the messiah! But that might actually prove to be a blessing in the long term, given the unreasonable expectations that had been placed on Archer before the tour. He looked, more than anything, like a man in need of a rest – who can imagine how drained he was by that meteoric rise in England’s summer to end all summers. But he’ll have learnt a huge amount on this brief trip – about the Kookaburra ball, about overseas pitches, overseas crowds, and workload management. On the plus side, his variations were in full working order … even if his fielders weren’t.Jack Leach (2 wkts at 76.50)Irrespective of a bout of gastroenteritis that made his non-selection a moot point, Leach’s omission at Hamilton was a huge vote of no-confidence for the only specialist spinner since Graeme Swann to even remotely look the part. England missed him by the end of the match too – in his short Test career, he’s claimed 23 wickets at 20.26 in the third and fourth innings, so it’s not as if he’s been an abject failure in his primary role. But for whatever reason, England have seen fit to send a message that he’s not quite what they are looking for.Dominic Sibley (38 runs at 12.66)He’ll surely get another go in South Africa, because England prefer to give too many chances, not too few, but there wasn’t a whole lot of encouragement to be taken from Sibley’s initial forays in New Zealand. Granted, his first act in Test cricket was to play a part in a fifty-run opening stand, and England haven’t produced too many of those in recent times. But the manner in which he was twice clocked on the helmet – once in the Whangarei warm-up, once in the Hamilton Test – was a concern, especially on pitches this slow. Kagiso Rabada will doubtless have taken note, let alone Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Co.Zak Crawley (1 run at 1.00)One innings, six balls, one run, one nick-off to the keeper. What can you read into that? Next to nothing, especially as he’s surely going to be squeezed out for the South Africa tour, but at least he’s been blooded at Test level now. His fielding lacked a touch of co-ordination too, but at least he wore a smile in adversity (not least when his Kent team-mate Denly dropped that clanger).

Rising in absentia

Jonny Bairstow walks back to the pavilion after losing his wicket on the first day of the fifth Ashes Test•AFP / Getty Images

Jonny BairstowHis absence was felt when Buttler went lame, but to give the selectors their due, they were right to stick to their guns having chosen to drop Bairstow for the New Zealand Tests. It would have been easy to keep him on as cover when Denly rolled his ankle in the warm-ups, but that would have amounted to a pretty lame kick up the backside. After all, Bairstow has averaged 20.25 in his last nine Tests – a woeful return for a player of his talent. On the plus side, everyone knows what Jonny can do when he feels he’s got a point to prove.James AndersonWill his calf hold up? That’s the only concern as England prepare to welcome back their all-time leading wicket-taker. The ultimate takeaway from those dead-deck drubbings in New Zealand is that the attack sorely misses Anderson’s mastery of his craft – his relentless accuracy as much as his ability to make the new ball talk.Mark WoodHe bowled like the wind in his last Test appearance, against West Indies in St Lucia in February, and having missed the Ashes with a side strain, he’ll be gagging to make up for lost time on the eve of what will be his 30th birthday in January. Injury management comes as part of the package where Wood is concerned, but like an over-eager spaniel, he rarely holds back in anticipation of another breakdown.Moeen AliIs he ready to get back on the Test treadmill yet? Moeen sounded pretty ambivalent during the Abu Dhabi T10s last month, but Joe Root’s sweet-talking could hardly have been more earnest in the wake of the New Zealand Tests. He’s a team man, ultimately, and that will probably tip the balance.

Heather Knight marked her return from injury with a nerveless innings to help seal a nail-biting victory for England at Taunton and clinch their T20I series against New Zealand 2-1.Knight, playing her 200th game for England after missing the first two matches of this series with a hamstring problem, struck 42 off 36 balls to get her side most of the way to the target of 145 – although it took an equally calm Sophia Dunkley to see the hosts over the line with a boundary from the penultimate ball.England’s bowlers had contained New Zealand early before an unbroken stand of 36 from 14 balls between Brooke Halliday and Katey Martin took them to a competitive total. Leigh Kasperek’s three wickets put England in danger at 97 for 4 but Knight steadied the innings during partnerships worth 55 with Amy Jones and 40 with Dunkley.Heather Knight played a vital hand in the chase•Getty Images

Knight fell with eight runs needed but Dunkley found the ropes from an Amy Satterthwaite full toss with one ball to spare.The sight of Anya Shrubsole, who hadn’t played any part in the series, on crutches and in a moon boot before play was of concern for the home side ahead of announcing their squad on Saturday for the five-match ODI series with New Zealand starting in Bristol next week. She sprained her ankle at training on Tuesday and, having undergone scans, will be assessed by team medical staff in the coming days.Big three shackled
England’s attack kept a lid on New Zealand’s vaunted top order of Suzie Bates, making her 250th appearance for the White Ferns, Player of the Series Sophie Devine and Satterthwaite, all of whom have played more than 100 T20Is.They scored only seven fours between them and while Bates and Devine made starts there was to be no reprise of the former’s highest T20I score of 124 not out at the same ground against South Africa in the tri-series of 2018, nor of Devine’s rousing half-century which allowed New Zealand to level the series against England at Hove on Saturday.Tash Farrant missed a tough caught-and-bowled chance to dismiss Bates for 7 in the second over. But, after Bates swept her for four in front of square leg in the seventh over, Farrant responded with the next ball, sending leg stump cartwheeling with a fuller, straighter ball to dismiss Bates for 34 off 30.After a brief stoppage when all four floodlight towers went out due to an electrical fault, Sarah Glenn removed Satterthwaite, who picked out Katherine Brunt – back after pulling up sore from the first match – at long-on. When Sophie Ecclestone beat Devine’s attempted leg-side swipe with a ball that clattered into middle and leg, New Zealand were 90 for 3 in the 15th over.But the tourists managed to score 50 off the last four overs, thanks largely to Halliday and Martin, who struck three fours each, contributing 25 and 13 respectively to lift their side.Leigh Kasperek bagged two in two balls•Getty Images

Kasperek comes through
After a sedate start, Danni Wyatt struck Devine for four through midwicket and six over long-off in the third over to get the run chase moving. Jess Kerr struck in the next when Tammy Beaumont miscued to midwicket where Devine swallowed the catch. Wyatt carried on, however, helping herself to five more boundaries, including three on the trot off Kerr in the sixth over, through midwicket, cover and third as England finished the Powerplay 40 for 1 compared to New Zealand’s 37 without loss.But when Kasperek took two wickets in two balls, New Zealand were well and truly in the game. Expensive at Chelmsford, where she took 1 for 54, Kasperek claimed 3 for 25 from her four overs and ended the series as the leading wicket-taker with six at 16.50. She had Nat Sciver caught by Hayley Jensen at deep midwicket and then ended Wyatt’s enterprising knock of 35 off just 23 balls, pulling to deep square leg where Thamsyn Newton took the catch. Amy Jones survived the hat-trick ball and she joined Knight in rebuilding the England innings.After 10 overs, England were 66 for 3 compared to New Zealand’s 61 for 1. Jones struck back-to-back fours off Satterthwaite’s second over, the 12th of the innings, and Knight chimed in two balls later, punishing a full toss through backward square leg. But Kasperek returned to the attack in the 13th over and, after she was pulled for Jones’ fifth boundary, she struck two balls later, luring Jones into an attempted slog and finding an edge on to the stumps.Shining Knight
Knight made a welcome comeback, striking five fours on the way to her score, including a slog-sweep off Kasperek’s final over which bounced and cleared Newton at deep square leg and another off Devine through midwicket in the 19th. When she picked out Bates at mid-off from Devine’s penultimate ball, England needed eight off seven balls. Maia Bouchier, playing just her second match after making her international debut in the previous game, was bowled by Satterthwaite on the first ball of the final over, heaping the pressure on the hosts.But Brunt and Dunkley, who had held their nerve with a 92-run stand to defeat India, also at Taunton, during their ODI series earlier in the summer, did so again in truncated style. A single to Brunt followed by a hard-run two to Dunkley left England needing four off the last two balls. Dunkley needed just one, smashing a four through midwicket to seal the match and the series.

“I helped build that ground,” said the taxi-driver, “Leastways I helped smooth the outfield and bloody stony it was, too. That’s over thirty years ago now and they tell me it’s settled down nicely. The old field used to be next to the football pitch and was slap in the middle of town but the Buckminster Estate sold it off to Sainsburys and gave the cricket club land out of town. Mind you, there’s a lovely view over the Vale of Belvoir and you can sometimes see Belvoir Castle.”So there is and so, apparently, you can. Fittingly enough I’d only been in Grantham five minutes before being reminded of the power of the market economy. But places transcend the imprint of even their most famous daughters and Gorse Lane certainly deserved what became a day in the sun. Two years ago Nottinghamshire hosted Durham here only to the extent of turning up and watching torrential wash the game away. Covid-19 took care of the two matches scheduled in 2020 so this was fourth time lucky for the ground on the hill.Perhaps it was fourth time lucky for many of the spectators who ringed this field, sometimes six-deep, and if so, they also deserved what became a climax to cherish when Dane Paterson thrashed Ben Sanderson for a straight six to secure the two-wicket win that ends Northamptonshire’s interest in the Royal London Cup but leaves Nottinghamshire to battle for a qualification place on Thursday.Six runs were needed off three balls when Paterson got out the long handle but there had been many other times in the previous half-hour or so when nerves had informed the shot selection of a Nottinghamshire side whose bright-badged caps and fresh faces betray the inexperience of youth. As wickets were lost and dot balls surrendered to the Steelbacks’ three spinners it seemed probable that the match would hinge, unfairly perhaps, on the moments earlier in the game when Ben Slater swung Tom Taylor to James Sales at deep square leg and Ben Compton was bowled round his legs by Saif Zaib.Taylor had made 53 and Compton 71. Notts were 154 for three in the 39th over and needed another 57 runs when the second of those vital wickets fell. It hardly required much insight to conclude that his team had wanted Compton to take them home. Once he and Slater were gone they needed Brett Hutton’s big six off Zaib and 19 runs from a Sunderland-born bowling all-rounder whose 22 years make him almost an old pro in the current Notts dressing room. For yes, if this was a day Grantham CC will always treasure, it will surely also be one on which Liam Patterson-White revealed his wide-ranging ability to affect cricket matches. And it has not always been thus…When Patterson-White made his Nottinghamshire debut against Somerset two seasons and a world ago he was so ill on the first day of the game that he took no part in it. Once recovered, he followed a four-ball nought with a five-wicket return but could not prevent his team losing by 132 runs in a season that ended, so we thought, with their relegation. One or two things have happened since those blissful afternoons in Taunton. Most notably for our present purpose, Patterson-White has taken another 32 first-class wickets and 13 in List A cricket, the last five of which came at a cost of 19 runs this afternoon at Grantham, where the pitch was plainly not averse to turning.Northamptonshire were 112 for 3 in the 22nd over when Patterson-White came on at the Gorse Lane End. By the time he had completed an accurate ten-over spell replete with subtle changes of flight and pace, the visitors were 175 for eight and it needed some shrewd batting from Sanderson and Sales to see them struggle to 210. The slow left-armer was assisted by two factors: the first was a surface that offered help; the second was the presence at the Pavilion End of another slow-left-armer Fateh Singh, who conceded only 33 runs from ten overs in his third List A game. Between them the two spinners constricted the flow of runs that had seemed so free, first when Emilio Gay was batting and later when Luke Procter was making 44, his side’s top score. But the batters were complicit, too: Gay slashed Tom Barber to Slater at deep point and Procter swept Patterson-White straight to Paterson at square leg. Even on a frisky wicket, just the sort of surface that should be used for more List A games, the Steelbacks’ total was perhaps 25 light. It was a deficiency that returned to hurt them.The crowd appreciated it all, of course. We had hardly got beyond the first Powerplay before the festival atmosphere that outground cricket so often engenders was present at Grantham.The pylons beyond Wyville Road may be dull and one could also manage without the growl of traffic on the A1, yet when all these irksome assaults have been considered Gorse Lane remains a lovely home of cricket, a club in which its members obviously take great pride. They will have planned hard and worked long for this day and, as so often, the cricket did not let them down, Nottinghamshire should need no urging to return here and Liam Patterson-White may be especially keen to do so.

Essex 321 for 8 (Rymell 78, Khushi 77, Wheater 53) beat Sussex 224 (ten Doeschate 4-34) by 97 runsJosh Rymell celebrated his maiden professional half-century as Essex Eagles qualified for the Royal London Cup knockouts with a 97-run victory over Sussex Sharks.Rymell showed maturity beyond his four List A appearances to craft 78 as he put on 115 with Feroze Khushi – who clocked up 77 on the back of a century at Durham last time out.Adam Wheater smashed a quick-fire 53 as the Eagles racked up 321 for 8, which the Sharks never looked like chasing – getting bowled out for 224 with Travis Head top-scoring with 38 in front of a sold-out Cloudfm County Ground, Chelmsford.Essex face Lancashire in their last group game on Thursday; if they lose they’ll play an away quarter-final, if they win and Durham also win they’ll have a home quarter-final, while a victory at Emirates Old Trafford and a Durham defeat to Hampshire will see Eagles progress straight to a home semi-final.Essex, having been put in, lost Alastair Cook and Tom Westley within the first eight overs – bowled and smashed straight at point respectively – before Khushi and Rymell patiently built the foundations of a large total.The 20- and 22-year-olds showed patience and ran hard rather than peppered the boundary for much of their stays – although both the 50 and 100 stands were brought up with sixes off Rymell’s bat, coming in 76 and 127 deliveries respectively.Rymell, who had been promoted to open, reached his maiden half-century in 70 balls but departed for 78 when he was lbw to 78 – ending a 115-run stand.Khushi reached the milestone in one few ball and along with the hard-hitting Paul Walter put on 54 in 39 balls before an Essex wobble.Walter top-edged to fine leg before Ryan ten Doeschate and Khushi were caught in the ring within nine balls of each other.But the Sharks’ fightback didn’t last as Wheater launched an assault of three sixes and three fours to score 53 in 29 balls – his fifty coming after two successive maximums although perished attempting a third, with Simon Harmer lbw soon after.Aron Nijjar teed off with a 16-ball 28 to get the Eagles over 300 and set their highest total of the campaign.The chase began with Ali Orr surviving a regulation drop by Westley on three but chopped Jack Plom on having only added a further seven runs, before skipper Tom Haines edged Plom to slip.Ben Brown slapped spinner Nijjar’s third ball to midwicket and Travis Head was bowled by Harmer – both getting starts but neither managed to settle like Khushi or Rymell.David Wiese exploded with 36 off 20 balls, during a 52-run stand with James Cole, before splicing to midwicket and Oli Carter thrashed out to deep midwicket.Sharks’ inexperienced lower-order couldn’t match Wheater, Walter and Nijjar’s hitting as Coles and Danial Ibrahim were both caught behind.Will Beer was extraordinarily caught by Harmer at mid-on and Archie Lenham was snatched at mid-off – as ten Doeschate returned figures of 4 for 34.

Melbourne Cricket Club, the custodians of the MCG, have no plans to adopt the improved drop-in pitch systems used by Adelaide Oval and Perth Stadium, and have for years had minimal links with the company at the cutting edge of drop-in pitch technology in Australia.StrathAyr, the portable turf company that first become involved in managing the transition between cricket and football at major venues following the creation of drop-in pitches for Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket at Waverley Park in suburban Melbourne, has only a limited relationship with the MCG, dating back to its use by the rival Docklands Stadium to produce drop-in pitches in the early 2000s.While the company is still contracted by the MCG to transport the pitches from its nursery to the centre of the ground at the conclusion of each football season and back at the beginning of the next, the cricket club has chosen instead to go it alone. It is attempting to produce quality pitches from concrete pitch trays that have long since been superseded by the porous, open-bottomed steel versions favoured at Adelaide Oval, Perth Stadium and elsewhere.In the case of Adelaide Oval, StrathAyr was closely involved in the construction of the drop-in pitches first installed in 2013, when the ground became a multipurpose venue for both AFL and cricket matches. Working closely with the oval’s curator Damian Hough, they oversaw the use of steel trays on a natural base, supported by pylons, to create a far more natural wicket environment that could also be micromanaged out of season.This blueprint then formed the basis for the construction of the Perth Stadium drop-in pitches, first used for a Test match last summer. In each case, the surfaces produced have been able to create a set of distinctive characteristics, offering something to batsmen, pacemen and spin bowlers. Adelaide’s surface has evolved into one using a generous grass covering that affords the possibility of seam and spin throughout the match, while Perth has so far offered plenty of bounce and pace, in keeping with the pitch’s higher clay content and the traditions of the WACA.ALSO READ: From ‘poor’ ICC rating to match abandoned: timeline of a troubled MCG pitchHowever the MCG’s recent efforts to reinvigorate its pitches has been limited to the removal of the concrete slab under the drop-in wicket block and the growing of new pitches in the original concrete beds, which are not open at the bottom, a marked difference from the Adelaide and Perth systems. The MCC’s chief executive Stuart Fox has insisted that the club can find a pathway to better pitches without changing systems.”The curators talk, they’re part of a network, so they’re always sharing information. We have made changes like removing the concrete base in the middle,” Fox said. “We actually think we’re on the right path.”The drop ins severely deteriorate by day five. Ours haven’t shown that, so that’s why we’re trying to liven up things at the earlier stages of the game – the lateral seam movement is quite important. Age has been a bit of a factor with the pitches. As we move forward the next three years we’ll have new pitches here that hopefully there might be a new brand of cricket for the MCG.”The MCG curator Matt Page, who moved from the WACA and its work on pitches for the new Perth Stadium to the MCG in 2018, had initially spoken about how he was hopeful of implementing a similar system to Adelaide and Perth at the MCG. “The pitches are in a steel tray but they have open bottoms so water can pass through, and the thing is with the concrete pillars, they’re 600mm wide, so basically on a pillar you’ll get half the wicket sitting on one, and half of the tray sitting on another,” Page told ESPNcricinfo last year.ALSO READ: Inside the MCG’s pitch reboot“Then in the middle you’ve got your natural environment in terms of drainage sand and drainage gravel. So it should behave more like an in-situ wicket. It’s a more natural environment for them to grow in, that’s why they went down that path with what Adelaide do. That’s where we’re at at the moment, we’ve got this concrete slab and we want to improve the technology, and it’s with the architects as to how we’re going to get that out and what system we’ll put in place once the season’s done. To go to the rails system, hopefully that’s going to improve our pitch performance.”The MCG curator Matt Page works on the pitch during an Australia training session•Getty Images

However by the start of this season, it was clear that rather than making the full change from one system to another, Page had been left to try to grow new pitches and get better results out of the old ones, while using the same concrete trays. “I guess for us it was trying to create as much of a natural wicket table as we possibly could with the trays. The only thing is the tray is still out there, everything else is like an in-situ wicket, and I guess we’re hoping they might perform more like a natural wicket block,” Page said in October.”The actual tray itself is no different, the thing we’re trialling is a different type of clay which we’re looking at. We’ve built two wickets out the back in our practice area with this different clay. We’re looking at improving our pace and bounce and hopefully, we’ll get some cracks in it which hopefully will lead to some deterioration in our longer formats. That’s all an exciting process that we’re looking forward to and something that we’ll look progressing with over the next couple of years.”That brought some marginal improvement in the surface early in the season, notably the pitch prepared for the Sheffield Shield match won narrowly by Queensland over Victoria. But anxiety at the MCC about the lack of assistance for bowlers led to an underprepared pitch for the Shield game against WA, which was abandoned on Sunday – much to the embarrassment of the MCC, Cricket Victoria and Cricket Australia – less than three weeks before the Boxing Day Test.”I think we all know it’s not ideal but our curators and staff have our full support,” Fox said. “They haven’t done this on their own, it’s been at the direction of the MCC and that has been supported by all of our stakeholders. CA have been fantastic. We’ve all wanted life in the pitches, we didn’t want this much and it is unfortunate and we apologise for that but we’re not going to crucify people.”It’s all about learning with pitches that are fairly old. Everyone’s heard about the story and the journey and we’re spending a lot of money to improve our pitches over the long term. It was never ever going to be a short totem game it’s a long term game. It takes a lot of time. a lot of investment. We think we’re on the right path.”As far as drop-in pitches are concerned, the MCC’s path looks an increasingly lonely one.

Few games are worth waiting three months for, but on the resumption, the PSL served up a UAE-style thriller. In a game that the Lahore Qalandars dominated but somehow found a way to lose control of in the final few overs, Rashid Khan smashed three fours off the final over, when they needed 16, to rescue a game that had slipped away for his side, condemning Islamabad United to a stunning last-ball defeat. With one needed off the final delivery, Tim David’s top edge cleared the keeper, and United’s fate was sealed.The Qalandars had got off to a brilliant start thanks to three wickets up top from James Faulkner in the first innings. United struggled for fluency throughout the innings as wickets fell regularly, with only a cameo from Faheem Ashraf, who top-scored with a 24-ball 27, taking them past 120. That late surge dragged Shadab Khan’s team back into the game, with the 143 they posted looking like the sort of total that was just about defensible in the UAE; the very notion would have been unthinkable in Karachi.Fakhar Zaman and Sohail Akhtar got the Qalandars off to a fluent start, but accurate, disciplined bowling from United derailed the chase fairly soon. Zaman lost fluency and was cleaned up by Ashraf , and as the asking rate began to climb, captain Akhtar became increasingly key for his side. When he smashed Shadab for 15 in the 12th over, the Qalandars were back in the game, but the true consequences of that over were yet to emerge.With wickets falling regularly and Ben Dunk nowhere near his best, the game looked dead and buried for the Qalandars when Hasan Ali removed the Australian in a superb penultimate over. Singaporean international David’s six off the final ball meant United needed to defend 15, and Shadab threw Hussain Talat the ball instead of taking it himself. Rashid smashed him for three successive boundaries, and a rollercoaster of a contest was suddenly done and dusted.The decision
Shadab’s confidence with the ball isn’t what it might have been, but even so, backing Talat, who didn’t otherwise bowl all day, to line up for that final over seemed an unnecessary risk. Shadab would later say he didn’t fancy bowling at the left-handers, and with Dunk there till the 19th over, he kept himself away from the bowling crease. But Dunk was gone, and with Rashid and David batting, there were two right-handers out in the middle for the Qalandars. Shadab, nevertheless, didn’t quite trust himself at the moment. Talat’s over was fairly ordinary, in truth, but given it was his first, laying the blame at his feet would be excessively harsh.Faulkner’s military medium
Faulkner was a surprising pick in the replacement draft for the Qalandars anyway, but when he was thrown the ball to open alongside Shaheen Afridi, the faith the Qalandars had placed in him seemed excessive. Even more so when he shuffled to deliver what could most generously be termed medium-fast deliveries and Colin Munro took him apart with a four and a six off successive deliveries.But it was that lack of pace that would prove especially destructive on a slow pitch, particularly when the Australian mixed it up by deliberately taking the pace off some. Munro was undone when he played down the wrong line, but Faulkner was only getting started. While Afridi was unfortunate not to pick up wickets, his less celebrated new-ball partner was more than making up for it. Rohail Nazir was undone by an offcutter that slowed off the surface, while Shadab found no timing on another slower delivery as United reeled. Akhtar was so impressed that Faulkner went on to bowl his full allotment of four on the trot, and by the time he was done taking three wickets, his side was in charge.The Rashid Khan masterclass
It’s difficult to overstate the enormity of the impact Rashid’s availability had on the Qalandars’ chances. While it seemed initially he would be lost to Sussex for the T20 Blast at this time of year, he chose to stick with the PSL, and with the opportunity to bowl in these conditions, why wouldn’t he? Rashid in the PSL is just about as close to a cheat code as T20 cricket has these days, and with United already under pressure when he was introduced, the Afghan asphyxiated them through the middle overs.His four overs conceded just nine runs, along with the wicket of Talat, as the wheels came off entirely for the batting side. The combination of the quicker, flatter delivery, the conventional legbreak, and a devilish googly ran United ragged, and by the time he was done, United had only managed to hobble on to 101 for 7 in 16 overs. And all that without mentioning his later exploits with the bat.Where they stand
United slip to fourth, with three wins in five, whilethe Qalandars go top with eight points and four wins in five matches.

Right after his first IPL stint in 2008, where he struck at nearly 184, Ross Taylor went on his first international tour of England and cracked 154 not out off merely 176 balls in the Manchester Test. Daniel Vettori was New Zealand’s captain back then and Chris Martin was still an active cricketer. Thirteen years later, Taylor, now 37, looked back on his first tour and looked ahead to his seventh tour of England.”It was a strange time,” Taylor recalled at Auckland airport. “I guess a lot of Black Caps were retired and I don’t think I’ve batted at four [before]. So, that was the first time that I batted at four in Test cricket. Being one of the senior batsmen after five Tests was probably something strange.”Hundred-odd Tests later, [England is] still a great place to play cricket – probably one of the best tours to go on. Obviously being in a bubble is going to be a bit strange. Thirteen years ago, fond memories of that tour and still to date one of the best innings I’ve played in Manchester in the second Test.”Taylor had sustained a calf strain earlier this month when he was training at the high performance centre in Lincoln. Taylor had also recently suffered a hamstring injury, which disrupted the end of his home summer, but he was confident of his fitness in the lead-up to the two Tests against England and the following World Test Championship (WTC) final against India.”Obviously you don’t want to have those little niggles and this [calf] niggle came about trying to get the hamstring right,” he said. “It’s part and parcel of being an international cricketer.”More is made of it when you get older. If you get a calf or a hamstring injury at 32, nothing’s made of it, but when you’re 37, there’s a few more headlines, but it is what it is, and I’m comfortable with where I’m at.”