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Debutant resists as under-strength top-order looks vulnerable against Lancashire’s new-ball attack

Paul Edwards06-Sep-2022Yorkshire 130 for 4 (Bean 42, Williams 2-22) trail Lancashire 276 (Jennings 119, Wells 84, Hill 6-26) by 146 runsFew games are so wonderfully enriched by their past as cricket yet few should be more wary of being enchained by it. It is a tricky path to tread. Before the rain-delayed start to our cricket at 12.55 this afternoon, a memorial was dedicated to Peter Eckersley, who skippered Lancashire to the title in 1930 and 1934. Eckersley once piloted an aircraft containing his team to an away match in Cardiff and most of the photographs of him also feature either a plane or a posh car. One can imagine him as a suspect in an Agatha Christie whodunit.Shortly after this ceremony ended, play began, a couple of hours late, and Lancashire lost their last two wickets for the addition of only four runs. Ten minutes later, 20-year-old Fin Bean, who made a quadruple century for the second team in June, walked out to play his maiden innings in first-class cricket. Bean was unlikely to know it and there was scant reason for him to care, but of all the buildings that encircled this sacred field two decades ago, only the pavilion remains and even that is now overshadowed by a hotel and a corporate hospitality venue. The blare of the present, the imperative of now, is everywhere.And yet Peter Eckersley lived just as vividly as Fin Bean lives. Understanding such things is a triumph of historical imagination and a very necessary one in these months of notions and nostrums. So in the midst of confusions about cricket’s role and direction it was pleasant to be reminded of a few of our game’s verities this afternoon. One of these is the intensity of the Roses match, something into which Bean was inducted this afternoon as he scored just one run from his first 27 balls. Patiently, he left some balls alone; steadfastly, he tapped others back to the bowler. Then he stroked an on-drive and a cover-drive to the boundary off Will Williams and we realised here was a left-hander capable of grace as well as grind.Related

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By then, Adam Lyth had gone, caught at short leg by Josh Bohannon off Williams for 13, and it was plain that Yorkshire’s under-strength top-order was vulnerable to a Lancashire new-ball attack led by Tom Bailey, one of county cricket’s quiet masters. But Bean resisted Bailey and Williams, even though, as he admitted later, the ball was “nipping around a bit”. In company with George Hill, who might still have been in slight shock after his 6 for 26 yesterday, Bean put on 63 for Yorkshire’s second wicket. At times the cricket was a trifle slow but these things are relative.Certainly it was furlongs removed from the drawn game at Old Trafford exactly a century ago when play was possible on only two days out of three and 504 runs were scored in 252.3 overs. These, though, are not the most intriguing features of that match. 20,000 spectators watched Lancashire compile 118 all out from 77.3 overs on the Saturday of the August Bank Holiday weekend and 10,000 saw Yorkshire bat out for a draw on the following Tuesday when the visitors needed only eight runs from five overs to win but finished three short with eight wickets down, Wilfred Rhodes making an unbeaten 48. Effectively, however, Yorkshire were nine down; their skipper, Geoffrey Wilson, was in hospital with appendicitis. Even more significantly, perhaps, Yorkshire were on course for the first of what would be four successive titles and were content to remain top of the pile while denying Lancashire any chance of overhauling them.Will Williams took two wickets for Lancashire•Getty Images

A hundred years later, it is Lancashire who are chasing the title, albeit a little distantly, whereas Yorkshire fear relegation, an indignity unknown to Rhodes, Roy Kilner and those other giants. The home side’s hopes were raised a tad when Hill was bowled by a glorious leg-spinner from Matt Parkinson for 32 and lifted again when, after 153 minutes in the middle, Bean was pinned in front of his stumps by Bailey for a 116-ball 42. He will have been disappointed not to reach a half-century but he had looked as if he belonged. In its way his innings had counted for much more than his gourmandising for the second team. “This innings shows that I can play at this level, which is a big thing for a young player,” he said.Lancashire enjoyed one more success before the weather closed in. After struggling for 3 runs in 10 balls, Will Fraine was bowled by Williams when playing no shot but Tom Kohler-Cadmore and Jonny Tattersall ensured their side reached 130 for 4 before the umpires took the players off for bad light that had been gathering from the west. Ten minutes later, the rain was bucketing down.No matter… or not much anyway. Our delayed and truncated day had honoured the Roses match and Bean had taken his first steps towards the fulfilment of a dream. From the 1864 suite the blazered nobility from both counties had watched it all with the discernment that only decades in the game can bring. For once, one did not begrudge them their mighty lunches. Roses matches are their occasions, too, and that smoked salmon was never going to eat itself.

Other performers included Easwaran with 132, Varma with 121 and Mukesh Kumar with 5 for 86

ESPNcricinfo staff04-Sep-2022Centuries from Abhimanyu Easwaran and Rajat Patidar and Tilak Varma alongside Mukesh Kumar’s five-wicket haul in the first innings headlined India A’s dominant show in the drawn first unofficial Test against New Zealand A in Bengaluru.After Mukesh’s 5 for 86 helped bowl New Zealand A out for 400, Patidar led the way with 176 off 256 balls and found support from Easwaran and Varma. India A declared their first innings on 571 for 6 after securing a lead of 171 on the fourth and final day. Left-arm wristspinner Kuldeep Yadav then struck twice to dismiss Chad Bowes and Mark Chapman before the umpires signalled the end of the game with the visitors on 133 for 4.New Zealand A’s first innings revolved around Joe Carter’s career-best 197 after they had opted to bat. None of the other batters could even reach fifty with Mukesh turning out to be the wrecker-in-chief. The 28-year-old Bengal fast bowler, who was representing India A for the first time, struck at regular intervals to finish with a five-wicket haul.Related

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The Indian batters then came out with positive intent with Easwaran and Priyank Panchal, the captain, adding 123 runs for the opening stand in 28.3 overs. Panchal fell just before stumps for 47 on day two to Rachin Ravindra, but Easwaran went onto notch up his 16th first-class ton on the third morning. He added 45 runs to his overnight score of 87 before falling to left-arm wristspinner Michael Rippon.It was Patidar, though, who stole the show on day three. In the midst of a golden run across formats over the last six months, the 29-year-old brought up his ninth first-class century. Coming in to bat at 157 for 2, he first added 104 runs for the third wicket with Easwaran, 64 with Sarfaraz Khan for the fourth and then shared a 186-run fifth-wicket stand with Varma to take India A into the lead.Patidar ended the third day on 170 but could only add six runs to his overnight tally falling to seamer Logan van Beek on the fourth morning. Varma, however, pressed on to bring up his maiden first-class century. He hit nine fours and six sixes during his 183-ball121 before his dismissal triggered India’s declaration. Ravindra was the pick of the bowlers for New Zealand A, taking 2 for 112 in 32 overs.New Zealand A got off to a steady start in their second innings with Bowes and Ravindra putting on 51 runs for the opening wicket. Kuldeep and Yash Dayal left the visitors wobbling before the game ended in a draw.The second unofficial Test between the two sides will take place in Hubbali from September 8.

Selected at the age of 30 with only four T20s to his name, the legspinner quickly impressed on his debut

Alex Malcolm06-Oct-2022Yannic Cariah looked like he belonged. Thirty years old, on T20I debut, bowling to Aaron Finch and Glenn Maxwell in Australia for the first time. Picked ahead of Akeal Hosein. Selected ahead of Fabian Allen and Hayden Walsh.He bowled like a veteran with impeccable control, forcing a mistake from Maxwell who can maul inexperienced legspinners in his sleep.In just his fifth career T20 game, Cariah took 1 for 15 from four overs, bowled 13 dot balls and conceded one boundary against the reigning world champions on their home patch.Was he surprised?”The funny thing about this, when you work your entire life for something, the work you put in, confidence goes within yourself,” Cariah said. “I’m very confident in my ability and what I can do. What I believe in. Nobody can take that away from me.”Yannic Cariah has spent his entire career hiding in plain sight. It’s all been there for anyone to see yet few have seemed to notice.Related

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An unbeaten 110 in the 2010 Under-19 World Cup third-place playoff against Sri Lanka, playing alongside Kraigg Brathwaite and Jason Holder. A member of the famed Queen’s Park Cricket Club in Trinidad, home of some of West Indies’ greatest-ever players. Five first-class centuries for Trinidad and Tobago. Leading run-scorer in West Indies’ first-class competition in 2016-17. Two first-class five-wicket hauls. Captain of the West Indies Emerging Team that won the domestic 50-over competition in 2019-20. An impressive List A bowling record.Yet he hasn’t played in the CPL since 2016.”That’s not my fault,” Cariah said. “That’s the people picking the sides. I have no control over that.”When you meet Cariah, you can see how he might be underestimated and even overlooked. He is very softly spoken. He doesn’t carry himself with a swagger.But there is an inner confidence and belief in his ability that only begins to show the longer you speak to him.It’s a confidence and a belief that shouldn’t surprise anyone given he has learned the game through watching videos of Shane Warne and Brian Lara. But it took a little while after the Under-19 World Cup to find his place in domestic cricket.”I’m a genuine allrounder,” he said. “But when I started off, I made my Trinidad debut as a legspinner. And then I found it difficult to maintain my spot as a legspinner because of other bowlers. So I put some more emphasis on my batting. I made my comeback as a batter, and then after my batting took off, my bowling was always there. I never neglected [either] of them. I just kept getting better and better over a period of time.”Despite leading the West Indies Emerging Team to their title in 2019-20, Cariah then went two years over the Covid-19 pandemic without playing a single domestic match. But his self-belief never abated during that time.”I’m blessed with a gift to play cricket,” Cariah said. “I always believe that I can make it to the top without giving up. Once I don’t give up. I guarantee I’m going make it.”Yannic Cariah made his international debut against New Zealand•AFP/Getty Images

After a two-year absence from domestic cricket, he made 72, 72, 18 and 100 in his first four first-class innings for Trinidad and Tobago earlier this year. He also bagged 4 for 59 against Leeward Islands. After years of no one noticing, someone finally did. West Indies selector Desmond Haynes noticed.Cariah was picked for West Indies A against Bangladesh A in a first-class match in August and acquitted himself well enough to be called up for his ODI debut against New Zealand, which led to his selection for Australia. Cariah noted the jump in intensity from domestic to international level.”You have to think a lot faster and have a lot of clarity in what you’re doing, to execute your skills and be decisive in what to do,” he said. “Because if you bowl a bad ball it will be put away easily. They ain’t going to miss any bad balls.”But there were hardly any bad balls on Wednesday. He beat Maxwell and Finch four times in his first two overs. His length was immaculate, a product of his maturity and his ability to read the conditions quickly on his first trip to Australia.”I figured out which lengths were best for me to bowl and my style of bowling and I adapted really, really quickly,” he said. “What made it even better for me is Australia bowled first. And I saw [Adam] Zampa bowl and I saw the lengths he was bowling, so I know with my style of bowling once I hit my areas it’s going to be difficult for anybody to play.”It’s the type of attitude his hero Warne would have been proud of. Cariah might not have the bluff or bluster or swagger of the late, great legspinner, but he has the same mindset.”Whatever I do, I play to win,” Cariah said. “I don’t play to compete. I play to win.”I’m a very quiet person. But if they get to know me, I’m very cool. I do my best in everything I do. Good things happen to me. I have a positive mindset. I’m very confident within myself.”

A total of 140 cricketers have signed up for the season, including the likes of Eoin Morgan, David Miller and Alex Hales

Aadam Patel22-Nov-2022The sixth season of the Abu Dhabi T10 begins on Wednesday at the Zayed Cricket Stadium with New York Strikers, led by Kieron Pollard, taking on Bangla Tigers, who will be captained by Shakib Al Hasan.Wednesday’s double-header will also see the reigning champions Deccan Gladiators clashing with Team Abu Dhabi. The two sides will be led by Nicholas Pooran and Chris Lynn respectively,Mushtaq Ahmed will once again be in charge of a Gladiators team with the likes of Andre Russell, David Wiese and Tabraiz Shamsi. The Gladiators came on top of the group standings last year, winning seven out of their ten games before beating Delhi Bulls in the Qualifier and then again in the final.The Bulls, coached by Andy Flower, will begin their campaign in a triple-header on Thursday and are captained by Dwayne Bravo who will be hoping to go one better after falling short after fellow West Indian Russell smashed 90* off 32 balls in last year’s final.Two new franchises have joined for this year’s edition from USA with the launch of the Strikers and Morrisville Samp Army increasing the amount of teams to eight.Moeen Ali will lead the Morrisville franchise once he joins up in the UAE after winning the T20 World Cup with England in Australia, while Lance Klusener is head coach. The Strikers will be coached by Carl Crowe and will also benefit from having Yuvraj Singh as a mentor.He isn’t the only Indian name set to feature, with the likes of Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh and S Sreesanth all signed up for the competition.The tournament will feature some of cricket’s most well-known names with 140 cricketers signed up, including the likes of Eoin Morgan, David Miller, Adil Rashid, Wanindu Hasaranga and Alex Hales.Each team will face each other once, with 33 games scheduled over the next 12 days in Abu Dhabi. The top two sides will advance to a Qualifier with the winner progressing to the final on Sunday, December 4. The winner of the eliminator between third and fourth place will face the loser of the Qualifier in a virtual sem-final, with the winner of that game advancing to the final.A T10 league for Sri Lanka has also been announced with the Lanka T10 League schedule to take place in June next year.

“He’s one of those rare players that you look across all formats and you can just see him being successful everywhere”

Matt Roller12-Dec-2022Harry Brook’s abundant talent and simple technique mean he could be on track to replicate the worldwide, all-format success enjoyed by Virat Kohli. That is the “massive shout” that Ben Stokes, England’s Test captain, made after Brook’s second-innings hundred set up a 26-run win over Pakistan to seal the series with a game to spare in Multan.Brook is only 23 but has been discussed as one of England’s leading young batters for a number of years and made his Test debut at the end of the English summer after Jonny Bairstow’s ankle injury ruled him out of the third Test against South Africa at The Oval, having been the spare batter for the first six matches of the season.Related

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He made 12 in his only innings on debut but blitzed his way to scores of 153 and 87 in the first Test of the series in Rawalpindi, threatening Gilbert Jessop’s 120-year record for the fastest England hundred in both innings. And after being dismissed cheaply playing what he described as “a shocking shot” in the first innings in Multan, Brook responded with a well-paced 109 in the second – the only century of the match – to pick up the Player-of-the-Match award.Brook has also played 20 T20Is, finishing September’s tour of Pakistan as England’s leading run-scorer before a quiet run of form in the T20 World Cup triumph. Currently uncapped in ODIs, he will also come into contention to bat in the middle order for the 50-over side ahead of their title defence in India next October.”After the summer he had last year, getting all the big-ups before he made his debut at the back end of the summer, to come here and put in that kind of performance again was just phenomenal,” Stokes told Sky Sports.”He’s one of those rare players that you look across all formats and you can just see him being successful everywhere. It’s a massive shout, but Virat Kohli is one of those guys where his technique is just so simple and works everywhere. The pressure that he puts back onto opposition is exactly what we’re about.”Stokes added in his post-match press conference that Brook’s form was “not a surprise” to him. “The expectation on his shoulders coming into this team, because of how good he’s been for Yorkshire, was obviously huge,” he said. “But I think that just shows that kind of stuff doesn’t really affect him.”He’s a player whose technique is suited to all three formats, he wants to always look to be putting pressure back onto the opposition, and he’s won another game for England. [He made a] huge contribution last week, and the hundred he scored here was obviously massive for us in getting that big lead.Ben Stokes said Harry Brook is “a pretty simple lad to captain”•Matthew Lewis/Getty Images

“He’s a pretty simple lad to captain: he just gets about his business, loves his batting, wants to constantly improve, constantly work on it. He’s a pretty easy bloke to have in your dressing room.”Brook was caught at mid-off for nine in the first innings, looking to hit debutant spinner Abrar Ahmed back over his head for six, but tempered his attacking instincts in the early stages of England’s second innings. After facing 41 balls, he had only scored 13 runs, but he gradually went through the gears to bring up a 137-ball century on the third morning.”I was pretty disappointed with my first-innings dismissal,” Brook told the BBC’s . “It was a shocking shot, to be quite honest. I wanted to learn from that. I went out there and tried to play the ball on its merit as much as possible. Obviously, I defended a few more balls than I have done in the last couple of weeks.”I felt good out there: long may it continue. I don’t like to look too far ahead. I like to stay in the moment and just play in the next game. All I’m focused on now is enjoying this win and then concentrating on next week.”His form since coming into the side means that England will face a middle-order logjam when Bairstow returns to fitness, which could come in time for their two-match series in New Zealand in February. With Ben Foakes left out of the second Test for Ollie Pope, who took the keeping gloves, it could be that Bairstow keeps wicket on his return after a significant period as a specialist batter.”We’re very, very lucky with the way in which we can replace Jonny, to have Harry coming in, because those two, batting No. 5, they both go about it in exactly the same way,” Stokes said. “They bring so much to the team and obviously Harry playing the way he has done at the moment with Jonny not being in the team, unfortunately, it’s the best thing you want.”You want competition for places, you want a strong squad to be able to pick from, and you want those headaches when it comes to the final XI every week, rather than saying ‘I’m not sure who we’re going to pick, let’s pick a name out of the hat.’ We’re definitely not in that situation, and we feel like we’ve got all bases covered at the moment.”

Durham stalwart takes over role left vacant when Jon Lewis became England Women’s head coach

Vithushan Ehantharajah11-Jan-2023The ECB has appointed Neil Killeen as England men’s elite fast bowling coach.Killeen, 47, ends a 30-year association with his home county, Durham, to take the role which has been vacant since November when Jon Lewis was appointed head coach of the England Women’s team. From January 18, Killeen will work across the England men’s pathway programmes, focusing on developing and preparing the next generation and those next-in-line.The appointment is in keeping with Killeen’s progression with the international set-up during 2022. He was bowling coach on England’s ODI tour of the Netherlands at the start of last summer, working alongside newly appointed white-ball coach Matthew Mott, and was in charge of the quicks during the England Lions’ training camp in November. That month saw him work with Test regulars James Anderson and Ollie Robinson ahead of the tour to Pakistan, along with Jofra Archer and Saqib Mahmood who were recovering from injury. He has also undertaken secondments with England Under-19s.Killeen also spent the end of the 2022 season as Durham’s stand-in head coach after James Franklin left his contract in September with three rounds of the County Championship before Ryan Campbell was appointed as a full-time replacement. Killeen was understood to be under consideration for the role.Related

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He leaves Chester-le-Street having made more than 350 appearances for the club, winning the Friends Provident Trophy in 2007 and remains Durham’s leading wicket-taker in List A cricket. He moved straight into coaching following retirement after the 2010 season, working with the second team before assuming roles as assistant lead and head bowling coach. Killeen is credited with playing a key role in the development of Durham talent, including Test captain Ben Stokes and fellow internationals Mark Wood, Matthew Potts and Brydon Carse.”I’m delighted to be appointed Elite Pace Bowling Coach with the ECB and can’t wait to get started with a new challenge,” said Killeen. “It’s an exciting time to be joining the ECB, as there is a wealth of fast-bowling talent and coaching around the country that I’m looking forward to working with in order to maintain England’s strong contingent of pace bowlers in the future.”I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone at Durham for the continued support both as a player and a coach over the last 30 years, it has been a great journey. A big thank you also to all the members for their continued support throughout my career. I look forward to returning and watching alongside them in the future. It has been an honour to represent the club and I would like to wish them continued success for the future.”

Ashton Turner, in typical Scorchers style, chose not to talk up his team’s chances, and called Heat’s run of wins “an amazing feat”

Tristan Lavalette03-Feb-2023Back on January 7, after being thrashed by Perth Scorchers at Optus Stadium, the finals weren’t even on Brisbane Heat’s radar. They had just two wins from their first eight matches, after all.Less than a month later, Heat have journeyed back to Perth, only a win away from a second BBL title.If they cause a boilover on Saturday against Scorchers, the defending champions, at a sold-out Optus Stadium, Heat would have produced the most remarkable turnaround in BBL history.”I was actually scratching my head early doors. Winning and losing is a habit either way,” Heat captain Jimmy Peirson told reporters on Friday, one day away from the final. “But I always had the belief in our squad.”After that first loss against Scorchers, by seven wickets, they lost the return fixture four days later, by eight wickets. But the return of Test stars Usman Khawaja and Marnus Labuschagne helped galvanise Heat, who won seven of their last eight games to storm into their first BBL final in ten years.”They brought their class, experience and definitely put us on the right track. We needed that confidence boost,” Peirson said of Khawaja and Labuschagne, who both played eight games before heading to India on Australia’s Test tour. “Their energy rejuvenated our campaign and that’s a big contributing factor to why we’re playing some nice cricket now.”