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West Indies have finalised the dates for their white-ball tour of Pakistan, which will see them play three T20Is and as many ODIs between Dec 13 and 22. All the games will be played in Karachi, with the ODIs part of the World Super League cycle leading up to the 2023 World Cup.The announcement of the tour should assuage any concerns surrounding the uncertainty of the tour after Pakistan’s entire home season was plunged into jeopardy when New Zealand withdrew from a tour on the day of the first match in September, citing security concerns. It was swiftly followed by England calling off their planned four-day tour in October.

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Tuesday’s first IPL game between the Delhi Capitals and the Kolkata Knight Riders produced a momentary argument involving Tim Southee, Eoin Morgan and R Ashwin, which required intervention from the KKR wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik, who said he was happy to have played peacemaker.The argument came about in the final over of the Capitals innings, after Ashwin had been dismissed by Southee off its first ball. The prelude, Karthik explained after the game, had come off the last ball of the previous over, when the Capitals had snuck in an overthrow after a throw from point had deflected off Rishabh Pant at the non-striker’s end.”Rahul Tripathi threw the ball, it hit Rishabh Pant, and then ricocheted,” Karthik said. “And Ashwin called for it and they started to run. I don’t think Morgan appreciates that. I think he’s somebody who, when the ball hits the batsman or the bat, he expects them not to run in the spirit of cricket.”Again, it’s a very grey area, it’s a very interesting topic. I have my own opinion on it but at the moment I’ll just say I’m happy I played peacemaker and things have come to a good standstill right now.”There isn’t a clause in the playing conditions that stops a team from running overthrows off of deflections off the stumps, the batters, or their equipment; a relevant clause to look at is clause 37.2 in the IPL playing conditions, which directly deals with exceptions when it comes to obstructing the field, but provides some hints about the legality of taking a run off a deflection. The clause says that a batter is not out obstructing the field if the “obstruction or distraction is accidental, or […] in order to avoid injury”.

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In Tuesday’s case, there was nothing to suggest Pant deflected the ball intentionally. It is, however, common to see batters not taking extra runs when the ball deflects off them – a judgement call not based on law.After Southee dismissed Ashwin off the next ball, he exchanged words with Ashwin, before Morgan chipped in as the batter made his way back to the dugout. Karthik was seen getting in between the two parties before Ashwin turned around and walked out. Pant, who was at the centre of the incident, said he didn’t see anything wrong with the situation on the whole.Dinesh Karthik and Rishabh Pant were among the players involved in the overthrow fracas•BCCI

“I think it’s part and parcel of the game because both teams are striving to win the match, so some things are gonna happen. Whatever is good for the game,” he said. “I think that was in the spirit of the game, nothing much, because at the end of the day Ash and Morgan are trying to win the game for their sides and there can be some miscommunication in between.”The culmination of this mini-contest came during KKR’s chase, when Ashwin was brought on to bowl his last over to Morgan and had him caught at slip for a second-ball duck which he celebrated animatedly. But KKR’s lower-middle order saw them through a nervous phase to seal victory by three wickets.Morgan, incidentally, was England’s captain when they were the beneficiaries of the most famous unintentionally deflected throw in cricket history. In the last over of the 2019 World Cup final, the ball hit Ben Stokes’ bat as he dived to make his ground, and ran away to the boundary, taking the question of whether or not to profit from the deflection entirely out of the batting team’s hands.

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.

Deepti Sharma, one of the chief architects of India’s eight-run win over England in the second women’s T20I, says she has got better at reading and handling difficult match situations and enjoys playing under pressure.Chasing 149, England were cruising with opener Tammy Beaumont (59) and captain Heather Knight (30) in the middle but Sharma was involved in the dismissal of both the batters – the former lbw, and the latter via an unusual run-out – off successive balls in the 14th over to bring India back into the match.Related

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“I like playing in pressure situations, whether it is in any position in the team – batting, bowling, or fielding. As an allrounder, I just want to contribute to my department and take the team forward,” Sharma said at the post-match virtual press conference. “I like leading from the front, like in domestic tournaments when I play as a senior player and win matches for my team, that gives different confidence.”When you bring that confidence here, of course this platform is not easy but it depends on how you handle it. I now know how to read and handle situations, so I find it easy to play because I know I can handle things easily now.”After that 14th over, England were left needing 43 off the last 36 balls with six wickets in hand, but they fell short – a fatal slide had been triggered by Sharma.

India penalised for slow over rate

India were fined 20 per cent of their match fee for maintaining a slow over rate. They were ruled one over short of the target after time allowances were taken into consideration.

“In accordance with Article 2.22 of the ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel, which relates to minimum over rate offences, players are fined 20 per cent of their match fees for every over their side fails to bowl in the allotted time,” the ICC said in a release on Monday.

India T20I captain Harmanpreet Kaur pleaded guilty to the offence and accepted the proposed sanction, so there was no need for a formal hearing.

On-field umpires Ian Blackwell and Paul Baldwin, third umpire Sue Redfern and fourth umpire Tim Robinson levelled the charge. Phil Whitticase of the Emirates ICC International Panel of Match Referees imposed the sanction.

“It was a crucial over and crucial wicket [of Beaumont]. Earlier [in the same over] also we had taken a DRS [review against Beaumont] but we were unlucky [as the had ball pitched outside off],” Sharma said. “Next, when I bowled [Beaumont was given lbw, England reviewed and this time] it was umpire’s call and it was hitting the stumps. It gave us a lot of confidence.”We bounced back after that and then the run-out helped us to pull back the match.”The 23-year-old also contributed with the bat, scoring 24 off 27 balls as India posted 148 for 4. Opener Shafali Verma (48 off 38) and captain Harmanpreet Kaur (31 off 25) were the other major contributors.”When I was batting, I was looking forward to building a partnership and also score six to seven runs per over,” Sharma said. “That was the mindset but we couldn’t score as much as we wanted. We had got a good start, we thought we can score 160 but the 140 total wasn’t bad because we knew as a bowling unit, we bowl in partnership and we were supporting each other and we could defend the total.”She said the conditions were slightly difficult for batting at the County Ground in Hove. “Actually wicket was holding up a bit. In the last match, ball was coming onto the bat but today it was holding, it was slightly slow off the pitch, so it was little difficult batting.”With the series tied at 1-1, India will take on England in the third and final T20I on July 14 to wrap up their UK tour.