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Karl Brown put Lancashire well on top against Leicestershire at Old Trafford as he narrowly missed his first Championship century for four years

ECB/PA15-Jun-2015
ScorecardKarl Brown narrowly missed his first century for four years•Getty Images

Karl Brown narrowly missed out on a first LV= County Championship century since early 2011 – but his composed 96 still ensured Lancashire reached the halfway stage of their clash with Leicestershire at Emirates Old Trafford in total control.The 27-year-old right-hander hit 14 fours and a six in 231 balls from the top of the order as the Division Two leaders responded strongly to Leicester’s first-innings 207 all out with 314 for four from 96 overs at close on day two.Brown shared in half-century stands or better for Lancashire’s first three wickets before falling lbw to Ben Raine in the first hour of the evening, leaving the score at 248 for three in the 76th over.He added 91 inside 32 overs with opening partner Paul Horton before lunch, 83 inside 25 with Alviro Petersen through the majority of the afternoon and 74 inside 20 either side of tea with Ashwell Prince.Horton made 54 off 104 balls, Petersen 46 off 65 and Prince an unbeaten 74 off 110.Brown navigated some tight bowling from the visitors during the morning session, with off-spinner Jigar Naik and new ball partners Atif Sheikh and Raine bowling five successive maidens between the end of the fourth over and the start of the tenth.But Leicester failed to maintain the pressure, and they only took one wicket in each of the first two sessions and two in the last.There was another memorable moment for former Lancashire batsman Andrea Agathangelou on his first return to the club he left at the end of last season.Agathangelou scored a first day 54 before taking a stunning one-handed second slip catch – head high diving to his right – to help left-arm seamer Rob Taylor get rid of Horton in the final over before lunch.Naik had Petersen lbw as he shuffled across his crease and played to leg deep into the afternoon session as Lancashire fell to 174 for two in the 57th over before Raine denied Brown his milestone after tea.Brown was trapped lbw playing back to one which kept low – 248 for three in the 76th.Prince and captain Steven Croft then added 55 inside 12 overs for the fourth wicket, meaning this was the first time Lancashire’s first four wickets in an innings had each put on 50 or more since 2007.Naik picked up his second wicket when he had Croft caught at mid-off with 303 on the board in the 87th over.

The EPP suffered a batting collapse on the second day of their match against the Dr DY Patil Sports Academy as they fell from 153 for 1 to close on 235 for 7

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Dec-2012
ScorecardEngland’s Performance Programme squad won their tour match against Dr DY Patil Sport Academy, racing past a target of 228 in just 30.1 overs. Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes provided the power, hitting 13 sixes between them, after two declarations on day three set up the chance of a result.The EPP halted their first innings on their overnight score of 235 for 7, still trailing by 42 runs, before Stokes, Toby Roland-Jones and Stuart Meaker helped reduce the Academy to 47 for 4 and then 85 for 5. Prashant Naik and Pankaj Jaiswal put on 100 for the sixth wicket, the declaration coming when Naik fell to Varun Chopra’s occasional offspin for 70.After Chopra and James Taylor opened the first innings, Craig Kieswetter and Gary Ballance strode out second time around. They fell in pursuit of quick runs but Stokes and Buttler cracked on, adding 91 in eight overs.Taylor then joined Buttler in another 50 partnership and although Vishal Dabholkar returned to claim his second and third wickets, the EPP overhauled their target with almost four overs to spare. The win was their second on tour, after an innings victory against the same opponents last week.

Kamran Akmal, the Pakistan wicketkeeper, has said he is in favour of having the PCB check the assets and bank accounts of all of its players every six months to ensure that the players are clean

ESPNcricinfo staff12-Nov-2011Kamran Akmal, the Pakistan wicketkeeper, has said he is in favour of having the PCB check the assets and bank accounts of all of its players every six months to ensure that the players are clean.”I would support any move by the PCB to regularly check player assets and accounts,” Akmal told . “I say it should be a six month exercise. Only such an exercise can clean up our image and end these baseless allegations made against us all the time.”Earlier this month, three Pakistan players – Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir – were given jail sentences after they were found found guilty of conspiring to bowl pre-determined no-balls in the Lord’s Test against England in August 2010. Following the spot-fixing trial, the ICC’s Anti-Corruption and Security Unit said they were considering new investigations based on information that came out during the trial.”I would welcome any move by the ICC to have a fresh inquiry based on evidence allegedly given in the spot-fixing trial in London,” Akmal said. “I am ready to make myself available to any investigation. Because I want this stigma to go away for ever.”The ICC and PCB cleared me to play for Pakistan but yet the media keeps on mentioning my name in relation to spot-fixing stories.”Akmal has had a controversial time behind the stumps for Pakistan over the course of his career and has been criticised for his shoddy wicketkeeping. He was dropped after the 2011 World Cup semi-final in which Pakistan lost to India, and his place was taken by his youngest brother, Adnan Akmal. He subsequently lost his central contract for the second half of 2011 as well, but said he is determined to prove his worth in domestic cricket and make a comeback.

Brett Lee showed more improvement after injury but it was Stuart Clark and Scott Coyte who claimed the recognition as New South Wales swept past Queensland

ESPNcricinfo staff29-Oct-2010

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsScott Coyte narrowly missed a hat-trick as he collected 3 for 31•Getty Images

Brett Lee showed more improvement after injury but it was Stuart Clark and Scott Coyte who claimed the recognition as New South Wales swept past Queensland at the Gabba. The Blues overhauled the hosts’ 158 in the 33rd over for the loss of four wickets, taking advantage of the powerful performance from their bowlers.Clark was the Man of the Match for grabbing an early victim in both innings and Coyte finished the Bulls off with three breakthroughs in four balls. Coyte, a former indoor cricketer, cut his run-up to help speed up the over-rate and struck in devastating fashion.After dismissing Chris Hartley, he knocked over Nathan Rimmington and Chris Swan, and would have had a hat-trick if Peter Nevill had picked up Cameron Boyce’s legside nick. The return of 3 for 31 was a relief for Coyte, who started with an 11-ball over.Clark collected 2 for 31 off nine overs in the seaming conditions while Lee returned 2 for 43, including the played-on of Lee Carseldine. Lee operated mostly in the 130kphs and moved the ball through the air as he continues to gain confidence after six months of rehabilitation on his elbow.On a difficult night for batting, Queensland were 4 for 89 after 20 overs and needed James Hopes’ late 39 off 34. Phil Jaques (30) helped the Blues to a two-run lead after their first innings while Moises Henriques (36) and Nic Maddinson – the 18-year-old was unbeaten on 39 – steered them home.

The IPL will include two more teams from the 2011 season and will auction the franchise rights at a base price of $225 million, the league’s commissioner Lalit Modi announced

Nagraj Gollapudi17-Dec-2009The IPL will include two more teams from the 2011 season and will auction the franchise rights at a base price of $225 million, the league’s commissioner Lalit Modi announced on Thursday. That figure – double of what the most expensive franchise was sold for in 2008 and more than four times the base price in that first auction – is, in an uncertain market, a sign of the league’s confidence in itself and the Twenty20 format.That valuation is all the more surprising given that the franchises will almost certainly be based in relatively small markets – the metros and bigger cities already have teams. The favourites to be host cities for the two teams are Ahmedabad and Lucknow.However, signs of the IPL’s growing net worth were evident in February when Rajasthan Royals, the then IPL champions, sold a 11.7% stake in their franchise for approximately US$15.4 million. That put the valuation of the franchise at around $140m, more than double the $67m paid for it a year previously.The league’s expansion will see a much longer fixture list – 94 games as opposed to 59 in the first two seasons if the format remains the same – and accommodating it in the 45-day window without compromising players’ fitness, and keeping the international calendar in mind, will be a challenge.Modi’s announcement followed a meeting of the IPL’s governing council at the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai that was also attended by board president Shashank Manohar and secretary N Srinivasan.He announced details of next season’s league, which will begin on March 12 in Hyderabad – home to the current champions, the Deccan Chargers – with the final and the third place play-off on April 25 at the D Y Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai. The semi-finals will be held in Bangalore.Another important decision taken today was to remove the two-player cap on centrally contracted Australian players in each IPL team. The cap had been in response to Cricket Australia’s concern of an exodus from its pool of contracted players when the league started.Modi also said he had received requests from 12 Pakistan players to be part of the auction for the third IPL on January 19. Each team has been allotted $750,000 to make new signings at that auction.The player auction for the fourth IPL will take place after the Champions League in the third or fourth quarter of 2010. The process for the players would be on the same lines as during the inaugural edition but said only “certain” players would be bid without going into much details. “The current franchises would be allowed to keep a certain number of players, the modalities are being worked out.”

It will be the first women’s T20 tournament to be held in Bangladesh; could kick off at the end of the ongoing BPL

Mohammad Isam17-Jan-2025The BCB will be launching a maiden Women’s Bangladesh Premier League (WBPL); it is likely to be held soon after the ongoing men’s competition ends on February 7. According to Nazmul Abedeen Fahim, the BCB director, it will be a three-team competition, with each team playing the others twice for a total of six league games followed by the final.”The board has been thinking about the various ways that we can take women’s cricket forward,” Fahim said. “Whether we can do a T20 competition for women was in our thoughts. We have decided today that we will do the Women’s BPL.”Fahim said the BCB is in talks with some of the men’s BPL franchises regarding ownership of the women’s teams, and that a couple of owners have shown interest.”We have already spoken to a few BPL franchises, who have shown interest [in owning women’s teams],” he said. “We want to see how a women’s tournament has an effect on our T20 cricket. We are hopeful that it will help our women’s game progress.”Fahim said that only allow one overseas player will be allowed in the playing XI, with the squads having a maximum of 15 players each.”We won’t take many overseas players due to the financial constraints,” he said. “Four overseas players puts financial pressure on the teams; perhaps they don’t want to take that pressure. We want to give more opportunities to our domestic cricketers. We want to add competitiveness.”It will be the first women’s T20 tournament to be held in Bangladesh. Women cricketers in the country play the one-day league in Dhaka, and the BCB recently launched a women’s three-day competition.

The allrounder is still building up to full capacity but Australia are never short of options with the ball

AAP and ESPNcricinfo staff29-Sep-2023Ellyse Perry’s knee injury could keep her from bowling for the entire white-ball series against West Indies that kicks off the women’s home summer.Perry hurt her left knee playing the second one-day international of Australia’s series against Ireland in July. The injury forced her out of the final match against the Irish, as well as England’s franchise tournament the Hundred.In early September, Cricket Australia (CA) named the 32-year-old allrounder in the squad for the white-ball series against West Indies that begins with a T20I at North Sydney Oval on Sunday.CA said at the time Perry was expected to be “fully available” for the six-match series, and on Tuesday she had her first competitive hit-out since July in a one-dayer for Victoria against Western Australia.Related

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Perry did not bowl in that match and said she may not do so again until after the West Indies series finishes in mid-October.”Nothing’s wrong, it’s just building workloads back up again so I’m fully prepared for the summer,” she said. “In terms of my full fitness, bowling will probably be something that I still work through across this series.”It might mean that I’m not available to bowl until late in the piece or perhaps towards the start of the WBBL.”Australia used Perry’s bowling sparingly during the white-ball legs of the women’s Ashes that preceded the Ireland tour and she has not sent down more than two overs in a T20I since the 2020 T20 World Cup.Australia are rarely short of bowling options in their limited-overs teams. Fellow allrounders Ash Gardner, Annabel Sutherland, Tahlia McGrath, Jess Jonassen and Georgia Wareham have all been selected in the squad to face West Indies.Perry shrugged at criticism of CA’s decision to schedule the first match of the women’s summer on the same day and in the same city as the NRL grand final.”The summer scheduling, and how much cricket we need to fit in, you can’t always get things 100 percent in a clear window,” she said. “Given the time of the match, being played early in the day, at a wonderful venue, there’s plenty of value in this fixture. I’m sure we’ll get a good crowd.”Perry played alongside Meg Lanning as Australia’s captain made her return to cricket this week following a four-month medical absence.Lanning hit a half-century in the first of two matches and CA is hopeful she will return to the national side later in the home summer. Perry heralded Lanning’s return to state cricket as a big step towards an Australia comeback.”That’s absolutely significant,” she said. “At the same time, it’s just significant that she’s back and she’s enjoying playing her cricket. She really just picked up where she left off in terms of her batting.”

England spinner stifles chase as visitors fall short of victory required to stay in hunt

ECB Reporters Network01-Jul-2022James Fuller’s quickfire 45 and impeccable bowling from Liam Dawson and Nathan Ellis fired Hampshire into the Vitality Blast quarter-finals at the expense of Gloucestershire.Allrounder Fuller needed only 24 balls to smack his haul at the death to drag Hampshire to an above-par 140. Gloucestershire, who needed to win to keep their knockout hopes alive, lost wickets with regularity with Dawson returning 2 for 16 and Australian Ellis 1 for 14 in his four overs – as Hampshire won by 15 runs.Hampshire chose to bat first on a sluggish used pitch and battled their way to above par thanks to some late-innings hitting. Before then it had been a struggle as Gloucestershire bowled incredibly tightly on a pitch similar to a typical Seat Unique Stadium wicket.Only 24 runs came in the powerplay with Ben McDermott and James Vince both falling, the former to Mohammad Amir who only bowled three balls before walking off clutching his side.Benny Howell had Tom Prest top-edging a slog sweep with the pressure building before his slower ball found Ross Whiteley chopping on via his pad, on the way to 2 for 29.Joe Weatherley kept things ticking, but his dismissal sent Hampshire sliding. Weatherley and Dawson handed Tom Smith figures of 2 for 18, before Fuller teed off. Forty-six runs came from the final three overs, and 36 from the final two, as Fuller swung Ryan Higgins for back-to-back sixes over the long square boundary before plopping David Payne over the straight boundary twice.The visitors moved Iain Cockbain up to open for the first time this season but he only lasted until the second over when Prest brilliantly ran him out with only a single stump to aim at. It was an atonement for Prest, who had dropped a tough chance off Chris Dent. And he would complete his penance when his offspin forced Dent to sky to deep extra cover – 40 for 2 at the end of the fourth over.Miles Hammond skied to McDermott but Dawson’s introduction swung the momentum. The left-armer’s first over only went for three runs, his second just two runs, the wicket of Glenn Phillips and four play and misses from Higgins, before he bowled Higgins with a jaffa in his third over – at which point he had 2 for 9. Mason Crane joined in to get Jack Taylor caught behind.Gloucestershire had the rate well in hand throughout but the regularity with which they lost wickets came back to bite them, with Howell swiping to deep square leg to become the seventh man to depart to leave 38 needed from the last five overs.Only 15 runs came in the following three overs and the burden was too much for James Bracey – who had scored 38 off 30 – when he was caught splicing to third. Tom Smith was run out off the first ball of the last over, with 17 required, before Ellis bowled Payne to a rapturous response from a packed Ageas Bowl.

Opener’s big hundred leaves England playing catch-up despite dismissing Virat Kohli for 0

Alan Gardner13-Feb-2021A majestic innings in capricious conditions from India opener Rohit Sharma gave the hosts a strong platform at the outset of the second Chennai Test. Rohit counterattacked during a harum-scarum morning session and then settled in to grind England into the dry, cracked clay of the MA Chidambaram Stadium, converting his fourth Test hundred as an opener into a dominant 161.After Virat Kohli had voiced his dissatisfaction with the pitch produced at Chepauk for the first Test against England, it was no surprise to see the ball turn and spit for the spinners on day one of the rematch. Kohli himself was done in by it, bowled for a fifth-ball duck by the returning Moeen Ali before lunch. But that was the high point of the day for Moeen and England, as Rohit and Ajinkya Rahane produced a bustling century partnership that threatened to be decisive even at such an early stage.England claimed three early wickets – including one for Olly Stone with his third ball on only his second Test appearance – but were effectively shut out by Rohit and Rahane during the afternoon session, despite regular half-chances coming and going. Again Joe Root was left to rue a lack of control from his spinners: Jack Leach was the more consistent, asking questions throughout the day, while Moeen went at more than four an over, despite picking up the wickets of Kohli and Rahane.Rohit rode his luck at times, gloving Leach short of slip on 41 and enduring some nervy moments against Moeen in the 90s, but he picked when to attack with judicious care to ensure that India would not squander their in advantage after winning the toss. He skipped along briskly during the early exchanges, scoring 80 from 78 balls before lunch, and kept England toiling long into the day. Such was his dominance that he was visibly frustrated after slog-sweeping Leach to deep backward square leg, having scored almost exactly two-thirds of his side’s 248 for 4.Related

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Rahane showed his quality, too, reaching fifty for the first time since his Boxing Day Test hundred at the MCG. He fell shortly after Rohit, although not before he had controversially been given not out on review when the third umpire failed to check whether a delivery from Leach had bounced up to hit the glove off the pad.In the next over, Rahane was bowled sweeping at Moeen, and Root himself picked up a wicket when he had R Ashwin stabbing a bat-pad catch to short leg, but with Rishabh Pant bringing out his trusty frying pan to deal with the spitting ball India bounced along to reach 300 in the final over of the day, much to the satisfaction of the home fans who had been allowed back in for this match.England, whose attack featured three changes from the one that bowled them to victory in the first Test, made a good start after being put into the field, with Stone striking in the second over, Shubman Gill pinned lbw offering no shot. Rohit and Cheteshwar Pujara then played positively during an 85-run partnership at more than four an over, with the former latching on whenever England’s bowlers missed their lengths. Rohit hooked Ben Stokes for six, twice swept Leach for fours to bring up a 47-ball fifty and drilled another boundary to long-on to take India to 100 shortly before the break.There was plenty of work to do for England’s spinners on day one•BCCI

There were early signs of turn and the ball disturbing the surface, though, and it was Leach who broke the second-wicket stand when Pujara tamely steered to slip. That brought cheers from the crowd, with Chepauk back at 50% capacity for this game, as Kohli walked out to bat – but they were silenced a few moments later when Moeen tossed up an inviting delivery that ragged back inside the India captain’s expansive drive to ping the off bail.Kohli was left looking quizzically at his partner, and lingered while the umpires confirmed that the ball had indeed crashed directly into the stumps. But as has often been the case during Moeen’s Test career, he mixed the sublime with the ordinary: his first ball of the day was a full toss, and a similar delivery saw Rahane get off the mark with a drive through cover.With Rohit sweeping aggressively – he scored six boundaries and 31 runs from the 16 times he employed the shot – and Rahane working the gaps interspersed with the occasional off-side boundary, India held England at bay before pressing home their advantage as the day wore on. Rohit, who survived an early review for lbw against Leach, was occasionally ruffled by the left-arm spinner’s line, while Rahane had to endure some uncomfortable moments against Stone’s short stuff, but as the partnership grew so will England’s sense of foreboding about a surface on which they will have to bat last.Having moved to 97 by rifling Moeen over long-off for six, Rohit almost toe-ended a paddle sweep to short midwicket, before bringing up his hundred with a more effective attempt a couple of overs later. England thought he should have been given out stumped on 159, but TV umpire Anil Chaudhary gave Rohit the benefit of the doubt despite his back foot seeming to be on the line when Foakes dislodged the bails.Chaudhary was again the focus of attention once Rohit had departed, when he declined to wind the replay on after determining that the delivery had missed Rahane’s inside edge. England’s review, which had been lost in error, was later restored by the match referee – but their frustration was palpable at the end of a day that clearly distilled the challenge ahead.

Sri Lanka’s captain has expressed ‘regret’ over his decision not to tour the country for September’s limited-overs matches

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Karachi18-Dec-2019Halfway through the Test series, several Sri Lanka players have expressed confidence that Pakistan is safe to tour. Not only that, captain Dimuth Karunaratne now even regrets pulling out of the ODI leg in September.Pakistan and Sri Lanka had originally been slated to play the ongoing Test series in September, and the limited-overs leg at this time of year. But so intent was the PCB on resuming Test cricket in Pakistan that they switched the series around, hoping that a safe and successful limited-overs tour would convince the holdouts among the Sri Lanka Test side to travel to Pakistan.It worked. Members of the limited-overs side took good reports of the security situation in Pakistan back to Sri Lanka’s senior players. Karunaratne had been among 10 cricketers to opt out of the September tour, but all of those players made themselves available for the Test series.”Now I do regret not coming for the shorter formats,” Karunaratne said, ahead of the Karachi Test. “At that time it was a really hard decision to take, because I had heard and read lots of things about Pakistan on news and social media – not positive things. But the guys who came here before gave really good comments and that’s why all the seniors decided to go and play a good Test series. Now I think I should have come and played the one-dayers.”The PCB took a further step towards normalising high-profile tours of Pakistan on Wednesday, when it confirmed a tour of Pakistan in February 2020 by an MCC team led by Kumar Sangakkara. It is also hoped that Bangladesh will tour sometime in the next eight weeks, but that visit has not yet been confirmed. Another series, with South Africa, is also in the works, while the Pakistan Super League is expected to be played in Pakistan in its entirety next year.”I can’t appeal to Bangladesh about whether they should come, but what I can say is that for me it feels really safe,” Karunaratne said. “The guys who are giving us security, they are giving us not just 100% but more than 100%. That’s why we feel really good. We went out for dinner as well. I can say that Pakistan is now safe for cricket.”The ongoing Test series is the first in the country since 2009, when the Sri Lanka team bus was attacked by terrorists in Lahore. Six security personnel and two civilians were killed in that attack.