NEW DELHI: Suryakumar Yadav has been named India’s T20 captain, the country’s cricket board announced Thursday, after Rohit Sharma quit the shortest format following last month’s World Cup triumph.
The 33-year-old Suryakumar will lead a 15-member T20 squad to tour Sri Lanka for three internationals starting on July 27 in Pallekele.
Shubman Gill recently led a second-string Indian side to a 4-1 T20 series victory in Zimbabwe and has been named vice-captain in T20 and ODI matches.
Rohit will continue to lead the ODI team, which will follow the T20 side by taking on Sri Lanka in three matches on August 2, 4 and 7 at Colombo’s R. Premadasa Stadium.
Virat Kohli will also return for the 50-over matches, while pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah remains absent from the tour after a grueling season.
Rohit and Kohli had decided to take a break but returned for the ODI matches as India begin preparations for next year’s Champions Trophy to be hosted by Pakistan.
All-rounder Hardik Pandya, who was Rohit’s deputy in the T20 World Cup, had started as a frontrunner for the job but lost out due to his frequent injury breakdowns.
Pandya, 30, suffered an ankle injury during the ODI World Cup at home last year and was out of action until the start of this season’s Indian Premier League where he returned to captain Mumbai Indians.
Pandya remains part of the T20 squad but is out of the ODI series, which will see the return of Shreyas Iyer, who earlier lost out on his contract with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
Suryakumar, an attacking middle-order batsman who has been India’s go-to player in the T20 format, remained new coach Gautam Gambhir’s top choice, according to media reports.
Rohit, Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja announced their retirements from the T20 format after India’s thrilling win over South Africa in the final last month in Barbados.
The match was also Rahul Dravid’s last as head coach and Gambhir was handed the job last week to build on the team’s World Cup win.
Suryakumar, who previously captained Mumbai in domestic cricket, last year led India to a 4-1 T20 series win over Australia and followed it up with a 1-1 result in South Africa.
T20I squad: Suryakumar Yadav (capt), Shubman Gill (vice-capt), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rinku Singh, Riyan Parag, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Khaleel Ahmed, Mohammed Siraj
ODI squad: Rohit Sharma (capt), Shubman Gill (vice-capt), Virat Kohli, KL Rahul (wk), Rishabh Pant (wk), Shreyas Iyer, Shivam Dube, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Washington Sundar, Arshdeep Singh, Riyan Parag, Axar Patel, Khaleel Ahmed, Harshit Rana
Suryakumar takes over as India’s new T20 skipper
https://arab.news/yd4wn
Suryakumar takes over as India’s new T20 skipper
- Decision comes after former skipper Rohit Sharma quit shortest format last month
- Suryakumar last year led India to a 4-1 series win over Australia, 1-1 draw against South Africa
Australia smash England for 193 in 2nd T20
Cardiff, UK: Jake Fraser-McGurk top scored with 50 as Australia set England a demanding target of 194 to keep a their three-match T20 series alive in Cardiff.
England looked set for a chase in excess of 200 as the tourists made another rapid start with captain Travis Head smashing 31 off just 14 balls.
Australia were cruising along at 119-2 in the 13th over before Fraser-McGurk’s flashy innings came to an end when he was caught off the bowling of Liam Livingstone.
Just like in the opening game of the series, which Australia won by 28 runs, it was left to the English spin attacking to limit the damage.
Livingstone also took the wicket of Marcus Stoinis but was surprisingly given only three overs despite being the pick of the bowlers with figures of 2-16.
But Josh Inglis’ 42 off 26 balls put momentum back into the Aussie innings before Cameron Green and Aaron Hardie hit Sam Curran for 20 off the final over to post a total of 193/6.
England’s new white-ball era off to shaky start in loss to Australia in first T20 cricket match
SOUTHAMPTON, England: A new era for England’s white-ball teams got off to a shaky start with a 28-run loss to Australia on Wednesday in the first of three T20 matches between the fierce cricket rivals.
Australia was put into bat and dismissed for 179 with three balls remaining — an under-par score at the Utilita Bowl in Southampton given the team smashed 86 off the powerplay and was 118-2 after 10 overs. Travis Head hit a 19-ball fifty in his knock of 59 to get the Australians off to a rapid start.
England, with a batting lineup missing injured captain Jos Buttler and including uncapped Jordan Cox and Jacob Bethell, stumbled to 52-4. After Liam Livingstone (37) and Sam Curran (18) threatened a fightback with a 54-run partnership for the fifth wicket, England lost three wickets in 10 balls to plunge to 113-7 and was eventually all out for 151 with four balls left.
The other matches in the T20 series are in Cardiff on Friday and Manchester on Sunday. Then comes a five-match ODI series between the teams, where Buttler — England’s white-ball talisman — may return from his right calf injury that will cause him to miss the T20s.
With the 30-year-old Jamie Overton also selected for the first time, England’s lineup included three uncapped players as well as a stand-in captain in Phil Salt. Australia’s more-established team had too much for the hosts, with the 86-run opening partnership between Matthew Short (41 off 26 balls) and Head building an excellent platform.
Head crashed 30 runs off the first over bowled by Curran, who quickly disappeared from England attack.
It took the arrival of spinners Adil Rashid and Livingstone to slow the run-rate, and Australia started to quickly lose wickets — with the last eight departing for 61.
In the chase, the 23-year-old Cox was out for an unconvincing 17 off 12 balls and the 20-year-old Bethell managed only 2. Overton was also in the top seven of an inexperienced and fragile batting lineup, and made 15.
Australia’s fielding was brilliant, with Tim David’s catch — on the dive after turning round and running into the leg side — to remove Cox particularly standing out.
A remarkable act of batting defiance
- Ian Bestwick recently added his name to those of the great ‘blockers,’ facing 137 deliveries and scoring zero runs in an English county league match
Cussedness — deliberate obstinacy — is a behavioral trait often associated with people in northern England. My experience of this quality stems from an upbringing in mining communities in Derbyshire, in the East Midlands.
When Ian Bestwick strode out to bat for Darley Abbey Cricket Club’s 4th X1 in Division Nine South of the Derbyshire County Cricket League on Aug. 24, he could have had little idea that he was about to take cussedness to a new level.
Bestwick was to face the might of Mickleover CC’s 3rd X1 bowlers. In 35 overs, these opponents had amassed a total of 271 for four declared, of which 19-year-old opening bat Max Thompson blasted 186. In the Derbyshire league, matches in Divisions 7 to 10 consist of 80 overs, with the team batting first limited to a maximum of half the overs. However, teams are allowed to declare their innings closed after 30 overs have been bowled. Perhaps Bestwick was piqued that Mickleover did not declare after 30 overs with their total on 192.
There has been many a cricketer who has felt that the opposition should have declared earlier than they did. This is one reason limited-over cricket was introduced. The reason for the introduction of the declaration option by this league at this level of cricket is not clear. It is also unclear why the matches are not “win or lose,” in which the team scoring the highest number of runs in a fixed number of overs is the winner.
A combination of the declaration option, which varies the number of overs available to both teams and which allows the possibility of a drawn match, provided the context for Bestwick’s innings. His team was young and inexperienced and had just been subjected to a battering. They also had to face 45 overs, since the overs unused by Mickleover were carried over. Added to this, both teams were near the foot of the table and desperate for points. An attempt to deny Mickleover points would be a logical justification for slow batting.
Bestwick took this attempt seriously. He batted throughout the innings, faced 137 deliveries and scored zero runs. Remarkably, he was dismissed early in his innings, but the delivery was declared a no-ball by the umpire, who was his captain. After that Bestwick grew into his task. It seems that he refused to run when he could have done so, not only off his own batting but also as the non-striker. This behavior was deliberately and determinedly stubborn, not helpful to others, and must have been of immense irritation to the opposition. One wonders what sort of remarks they may have made during the course of the innings.
The upshot of his efforts was that his team’s total score after 45 overs was a paltry 21 for the loss of four wickets. Nine of those runs were extras and a further four were scored in a single shot by Bestwick’s son, Thomas, with whom he shared a partnership of 11 in 24 overs. If the original intention was to deny Mickleover points this was partly achieved. They gained 18 points in achieving a winning draw as opposed to 27 on offer for an outright win. However, Darley Abbey gained only three points for scoring so lowly in a losing draw and, with three matches remaining, the points difference between them, Mickleover and one other team is 42 points, a gap which may be too much to bridge.
Reports have suggested that the mood in Darley Abbey’s team after the match was euphoric. Bestwick’s extraordinary feat of defiance and concentration made headlines not just in Derbyshire, but also in the UK’s national media and other parts of the world. Inevitably, comparisons have been made with slow scoring innings and players in professional cricket. There are many examples. The most frequently quoted in terms of number of deliveries faced without scoring a run was by New Zealand’s Geoff Allott, who failed to score from 77 deliveries in 1999. This effort helped his team secure a draw.
Other players have been cast as slow scorers, not always fairly. One example is Geoffrey Boycott, who was once dropped by England after scoring 246 in 555 deliveries against India in 1967 in a match which England won. Boycott described his exclusion as “the deepest wound of his professional career.”
Chris Tavare is another who acquired a reputation as a blocker. In his younger days in county cricket Tavare was an elegant attacking batter. At that time, England required an opening batter and he was asked to adapt his game for the sake of the team, something he achieved with notoriety. Among his slowest innings was one of 35 runs scored in Madras in six-and-a-half hours in 1982. Among Indians, a slow innings is referred to as “doing a Tavare”.
It remains to be seen if “doing a Bestwick” becomes part of cricket’s lexicon. While constructing this column the name Bestwick began ringing other bells. Digging deeper, I discovered a Billy Bestwick and, to my surprise, he was born less than half a mile from my birthplace in Heanor, Derbyshire, but a long time earlier in 1875. He played 323 matches for Derbyshire between 1898 and 1925, claiming almost 1,500 wickets. These included the rare feat of all 10 in an innings, all of which were bowled.
Billy Bestwick’s record would have been more impressive but for a verdict of “justifiable homicide” brought against him in 1907 after a man was killed in an establishment which he frequented. He was fired by Derbyshire and moved to South Wales, rejoining Derbyshire in 1919. After retirement he became a Test match umpire in which role he acquired a reputation for cussedness, upsetting several famous names with decisions of which they did not approve. In conclusion, it should not be assumed from these cautionary Bestwickian tales that cussedness, cricket and products of Derbyshire mining communities are synonymous, although I can think of many other examples.
Cricket federation aims to attract more Saudi children to the sport
- We have been working with international schools, and now we are targeting Saudi boys and girls, says coach Kabir Khan
RIYADH: The popularity of cricket is growing among fans and players in the Kingdom, and this year the Saudi Arabian Cricket Federation launched its Schools Cricket program, the aim of which is to promote the sport to boys and girls across the Kingdom.
As part of the program, the SACF recently ran a summer camp at Al-Rowad International Schools that, according to the federation, saw around 100 children take part.
In an exclusive interview with Arab News, SACF head coach Kabir Khan said: “We started our schools program this year. But we have been working closely with all the international embassy schools — like those of Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh — for the past three years. And now we are targeting Saudi boys and girls.
“We are digging deep into the school system, and more schools are going to be contacted now,” he continued. “Several schools are already aligned, and we are planning go to all the others and engage with as many as we can. We all know, for any sport, if you don’t go deep into schools then you don’t have the junior system, and without a junior team it won’t be a productive and sustainable model. So, to make it more sustainable, and to get more boys and girls to play the game, we have to start from junior cricket and promote cricket at grassroots level.”
Khan said the number of children at the summer camp was “encouraging,” but added that the SACF “has to make an effort as well.”
He said: “It depends a lot on our efforts, so we are focused on how we introduce the game and how we involve them, the new cricketers.” He went on to explain that it was important to stress the fun side of the sport to get children interested, and then “slowly get them to a competitive level.”
One of the biggest challenges the federation has faced is cricket’s image among Saudis.
“There is a general perception that it’s a street game — and a dangerous one as well,” Khan said. “We need to change that perception. Cricket is a sport from England. It’s the national sport in the UK. It’s not a street sport. Basically, it was a game of gentlemen and gradually got famous in different parts of the world. Now, it’s the second biggest sport in the world.”
Cricket is hugely popular across the globe, second only to soccer as the most-watched sport. It has been played in Saudi Arabia for decades, but mainly by expatriate workers from the South Asian countries. Now Khan hopes Saudi children will take it up.
“We are providing proper playgrounds, academies, and a safe environment for all the kids who want to play — whether as a hobby or (with a view to making it) a career. It has got a lot of potential,” he said.
“Saudi schools are going to play a huge role in the future of Saudi Arabian cricket, for both males and females, as part of the vision of our chairman, Prince Saud bin Mishal Al-Saud, and our CEO, Tariq Ziad Sagga. This year, we are just contacting (schools) and creating events. We want all the boys and girls to play for fun and start slowly. Step by step we will make pathways for them so that they go to the national team,” he continued. “In 10 years, we hope there will be enough numbers for the senior male and female national teams to represent Saudi Arabia and make a name for the nation, for them, their families, and for us as well.
“I should say that we don’t want Saudis — whether male or female — in the junior or senior teams just because they are Saudis. We want to train them as hard as we can. And obviously we want people to see that they are talented, that they can perform, and that they are good enough to represent their country,” added Khan. “We don’t just want them to participate; we want them to perform and win as well. That might take a bit of time, but we want to have Saudis reach the highest level. We want them to be as good as anyone in the game.”
The delights of small-town cricket in southwest France
- Catus CC, established in 2004 in a village with a population just under 1,000, is an example of a club set up by people who love the game
This week I am in southwest France, visiting friends who spend their summer in the valley of the Lot River. It flows westwards in a tortuous fashion for 485 km, joining the Garonne, which then flows northwest to the city of Bordeaux and on to the Atlantic Ocean.
It is my first visit to this region, which is famous for wine production. I am aware that cricket is played in France, having taken a team to play near Versailles for a number of years around the turn of the 21st century.
On this basis, it seemed a reasonable assumption that cricket would be played in the southwest. A little research revealed the existence of an Association des Clubs de Cricket du Sud-Ouest, founded in 1992. It comprises 10 clubs: Bordeaux-Giscours, Catus, Damazan, Eymet, Saint Aulaye, Eyliac, two Toulouse clubs and, in 2024, Nimes and Montpellier rejoined. This means the ACCSO covers a large area, with attendant transport costs.
On a very well-organized website, committee members’ contact details are displayed. My introductory email was answered by the secretary, Hugues “Hui” Scheers, who informed me his club, Catus CC, would host a cup semifinal on Aug. 25. Catus was only a half-hour drive away from my base, and my traveling companions and hosts decided to join the adventure.
Catus is a small village with a population just short of 1,000. The cricket club was formed in 2004 and received a boost in 2007 when the mayor granted the use of an area of flat land near Lac Vert, along with financial support for a synthetic pitch.
On arrival, a picturesque scene unfolded. The ground is part of a sports and leisure complex, backed by a hill topped with imposing oak and chestnut trees. At the other end is a small river, which posed a problem because the ball was often hit into it until a local rule was introduced that stipulates bowling can only take place from the hill end.
Catus was facing Toulouse CC Wolves. Both teams contain many South Asian players, mainly Indians in the case of Toulouse. Catus has a more varied composition. Amongst its ranks are Afghanistan refugees, who were very welcoming and keen to talk cricket, about which they are passionate. This was evidenced by the fact they travelled over 3.5 hours from their base, close to the Spanish border.
The name of another team member, Sri Lankan Amal Saminda Silva, will be familiar to cricketing aficionados as his older namesake represented his country. This Amal Silva, who has French citizenship by virtue of marriage, is also an accomplished and elegant player, scoring 102 out of his team’s 302. This total is a record in the competition and the highest scored at Catus cricket club.
Two Afghans, Badshah Khan and Jamal Ziauddin scored 62 and 46, respectively. There was much raw talent on display. The top order of the Toulouse Wolves team made a spirited start in their pursuit of a formidable target but could not keep up the momentum, being dismissed for 159 in 27.2 overs.
The victory puts Catus CC in the final of the Blevins Franks Cup, so named after a sponsoring company which specializes in financial services for people moving to — and living in — France. Catus has also reached the final of the BF League.
This follows a stellar season in 2023 when they reached the finals of both cup competitions and topped the league. The cup competitions are in T20 and 35 overs format, the former being introduced in 2022. The Ligue is 40 overs but may be reduced to accommodate travel time.
As ever in club cricket, a handful of people manage clubs and leagues. At Catus, Scheers told me that he was mowing the outfield at 8 a.m. before setting up electrical connections to computers and the mounted camera which streams the match. Club funds are tight and there is a reliance on donations at both club and ACCSO levels.
As if match day preparations and management were not enough, cricket clubs in France were landed with a new situation in 2023. Association France Cricket, the governing body, was accused of simulating women’s matches to obtain financial aid from the International Cricket Council. It was also accused by players, clubs and recent FC members of lacking transparency about how those funds were used.
The scandal has led to the disbandment of the women’s national team — unfortunate timing given that cricket is to become an Olympic sport in 2028. This means the sport will receive “high level” status in France and the national governing body becomes eligible to apply for more public funding.
The scandal has also led to ACCSO members deciding not to affiliate with FC in 2024. In turn, this means competitions organized by ACCSO are open solely to clubs which have either affiliated to an “association sportive omnisports” or taken out insurance cover mandated by the French Code du Sport with a commercial insurer.
ACCSO members report that the on-going situation with FC is “fluid”. It must be galling for local clubs with limited funds to learn of the financial irregularities and phantom matches generated by their national governing body.
Amid the welter of franchise cricket now in existence and the riches which it has created for players, team owners, advertisers and other stakeholders, it is easy to forget that grass roots cricket is played and organized by people who love the game. They do not do it for money and they can be found in unexpected places. One such place is Catus, where a cricketing home has been provided for people whose life’s journey has, at times, been bleak.
