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West Indies coach critical of his batters being too timid

Andrew McGlashan02-Mar-2020West Indies coach Gus Logie feels that a “fear factor” has been the reason for the team’s poor showing at the T20 World Cup after they were eliminated with a game to go following a heavy defeat against England.Chasing 144, West Indies were skittled for 97, collapsing in a heap after Stafanie Taylor was stretchered off injured, having previously struggled in a small chase against Thailand and scrapped to 124 against Pakistan, which they couldn’t defend. It has been a far cry from the team that won in 2016 and reached the semi-finals in their home event in 2018.”I think it went wrong from the start,” Logie said of the performances during the tournament. “It’s T20 cricket, you need show courage, you need to show composure. If you are timid you are not going produce the kind of scores you want to produce and we’ve seen that with our batting, it’s been pretty timid the whole series starting with the first game against Thailand when you have a score of 70-odd to get and it took 16 overs to get it.”That tells me, at the end of the day, while the players have some batting ability I think there’s a fear factor in the middle to play their natural game. It’s unfortunate that they wait until they get to the highest level of the game, in a World Cup, to show that lack of courage.”Logie said that players struggled to translate the freedom they were able to play with at training into the pressure of match situations.”Batting is an individual thing, you play as well as you can, you have to back yourself. Some of the balls these ladies are patting, you bowl those balls in the nets and they go way, way out of it. It’s not to say they can’t play the shots, I think it’s about believing in themselves under pressure.”Over the years, we’ve always had good performances, but if you look at the scores they’ve always been about 120-130. We’ve had good bowling performances and defended it in the field. I don’t think we have scored 160s and 170s as regularly as we want to.”Seam bowler Shakera Selman, one of a group of experienced players who overcame injury problems ahead of the tournament, conceded the World Cup had continued a dismal time for the team.Shakera Selman reacts on the field•Getty Images

“We haven’t been playing well for the last year or so, and I guess it just continued into this tournament. I think the only way is forward. I don’t think we can get any lower than this,” she said. “Obviously we expected to get out of the group stage, although many people didn’t have us to qualify. We know what we’re capable of as a team, and I think our next series is so far ahead in June, hopefully we can actually perform the way we know we can.”Logie defended the decision to bring Deandra Dottin back into the team after a serious shoulder injury, which made her consider quitting the game. Apart from a brief tournament in Trinidad before the World Cup, Dottin had not played for a year, and in three innings in the tournament has made just 12 runs while also struggling in the field and being unable to bowl.”We tried to give her time to get it together but things happen so quickly,” Logie explained. “She was thrust back in the opening position in this game, but it didn’t work. The medical team cleared her to play cricket. She had a little tournament in Trinidad prior to coming here and did reasonably well, [but] the level of cricket is a bit below [this level]. We’ve been nursing her along and hoping, she hasn’t been bowling, but we felt she’s been batting pretty well.”West Indies have one game left, against Pakistan, to try and salvage something from the tournament but they are struggling to find 11 fit players after the injury to Taylor alongside concerns over Britney Cooper, who twisted her ankle late in the chase against England, while Chinelle Henry is also doubtful.”We’ve had a few setbacks on this tour to key players,” Logie said. “We are looking to put out an XI that will stay on the park.”

Bancroft top scored in Australia’s first innings at Newlands, and that earned him three votes as part of Cricket Australia’s awards voting process

Andrew McGlashan11-Feb-2019Cameron Bancroft earned Australian Cricket Awards votes from the Newlands Test against South Africa after which he was handed a nine-month ban for sandpapering the ball.Before Australia were plunged into crisis, Bancroft top scored in Australia’s first innings with 77 out of 255. It was enough to earn him three votes (two from the players and one from the umpires/media) as part of the awards voting process.Bancroft was trapped lbw by Vernon Philander early in a collapse of 5 for 25 that would eventually lead to Australia conceding a deficit of 56.It was during South Africa’s second innings, as they built on the lead on the third afternoon, that the now infamous footage of Bancroft using a piece of yellow sandpaper on the ball was beamed around the world on live television, with pictures later showing him trying to hide it down his trousers.He initially indicated to the umpires that his sunglasses case was what he had been seen retrieving from his pocket before eventually admitting he had been tampering with the ball in the post-day press conference, although he did not admit to using sandpaper until it came out in the subsequent investigations.Bancroft was handed a nine-month suspension which ended late last year and he has returned with some success in the BBL with Perth Scorchers.Before his comeback, he wrote a letter to himself where he said he had come to terms with how people could perceive him after the events of Newlands. “Many people will judge you as a cheat, but that is OK,” Bancroft wrote. “Always love and respect everyone. You will love those people because you forgive them. Just like you’re going to forgive yourself… You know you cannot say sorry enough, but actually it is time you allow your cricket to be about what you have learnt and use this opportunity to make a great impact.”Bancroft will now be turning his attention to the last part of the Sheffield Shield season as he resumes his first-class career with Western Australia. He also has a county deal with Durham when the English season begins in April, which could give him a chance to make a case for a recall to the Australia Test squad for the Ashes.

The Indian board intends to schedule home matches in February-March as well as in October-November every year

Nagraj Gollapudi16-Nov-2017As the ICC gets ready to fine-tune a schedule for the Test and ODI leagues next month, the BCCI has made it clear that any new international calendar would need to account for a fixed Indian home season, played across two windows: October-November and February-March.In October, the BCCI – along with the other Full Members – approved in-principle a nine-team Test and 13-team ODI league, due to start in 2019 and 2020 respectively. Members have been working on drawing up a workable calendar for the leagues and, in December, board chief executives will meet to flesh out a week-by-week schedule at a workshop in Singapore.Earlier this month, the BCCI invited Geoff Allardice, the ICC general manager (cricket) and the organisation’s point man on scheduling discussions, to let him know these were the lines they were thinking along. Although it is the members who negotiate with each other and draw up the final schedule, the ICC facilitates the discussions.”The BCCI’s stance has been that these are our windows we will play at home,” a BCCI member told ESPNcricinfo. “We have been building on this for a while now.”The BCCI has only started to push for a fixed home-season – the likes of which England and Australia have had forever – over the last four years, and specifically when N Srinivasan was board president. Srinivasan, however, wanted a home season stretching from October to March, followed by the IPL, which can stretch to nearly two months.Since 2013 India have played nine Tests in February and March – eight Tests against Australia (in 2013 and 2017) and one against Bangladesh. Between 2014 and 2016 they did not play any Test series in these months. Historically, in 83 years since 1934, India has played 54 Tests at home in those months.Since the 2011 World Cup, India have not hosted any ODIs in February or March. At most of these times, India have been playing away from home on tours to South Africa, Australia or New Zealand.October-November is much more a fixed home-season for India. They have scheduled a Test series every year in those months since 2013; even in 2014 they were scheduled to play against West Indies but the series was abandoned. Nine Tests have been played over the last four years in these months and 31 ODIs; since 1934, they have played 93 Tests at home in October-November and 149 ODIs since they hosted their first in that period in 1981.The real challenge for India over the last four-year cycle has been the long stretches where India play only at home or only away. Most of their major away-tours are now scheduled one after another in a span of 12 months; they had one stretch starting from November 2013 till February 2015, and another looms from December 2017 to February 2019.Led by its chief executive officer, Rahul Johri, the BCCI is now keen on splitting the home season across two windows. And it is something Johri and the late MV Sridhar, who was the BCCI’s GM (cricket operations), have stressed upon right from when discussions began on the leagues. The BCCI is happy to tour overseas during the rest of the year and outside of the IPL season, which now has an established window between April and May.An official from another Full Member said he understood the BCCI’s decision, given that other major teams had similar home seasons. Barring England, who have a home season spanning from May to September, other countries are happy to split their home seasons into shorter windows.”It is completely logical,” the Full-Member official said. “After the IPL they want to travel. And then they want to kick off the domestic season with Indian content. And then later in February-March they again want some home content. It is only fair. Lots of boards want a balance. They don’t have five months of intense home cricket and then nothing for the next 12 months. And India have always been very clear about their aims and objectives.”

New Zealand’s only warm-up match in a tour played during India’s off-season will be played on a pitch that bears little resemblance to the raging turners that they are likely to confront during the Test matches

The Preview by Sidharth Monga in Delhi15-Sep-2016Two weeks ago New Zealand were facing the pace barrage of Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada in South Africa’s off-season. A short stop at home later, they are in Delhi, during India’s off-season, preparing for what promises to be a challenging Test series on India’s raging turners. It is so early in the season that even the pre-season fumigation in the press-conference room – Delhi is fighting an outbreak of mosquito-infested diseases – was carried out only minutes before New Zealand arrived.All New Zealand have between landing in India and the Test series, to prepare for what has the makings of the biggest challenge in Test cricket today, are a couple of training sessions in Delhi, a three-day game against Mumbai that begins on Friday, and two more training sessions at the venue of the first Test.India are not going to do them any favours either. Not that New Zealand expected any. They didn’t expect the track for the three-day game to prepare them for what is in store, and Feroz Shah Kotla is certainly in no mood to surprise them pleasantly. The track for the match against Mumbai, which won’t be a first-class fixture and will thus let all 15 have a bat and a bowl, is not quite a greentop but looks nothing like what you will encounter at Indian Test venues.”It is what we expected to see here,” Ross Taylor said of the grass on the Kotla pitch. This is consistent with what Virat Kohli felt when India gave England barely any spin to face in their warm-up matches before the Tests in 2012-13.”We were given flattest of tracks during practice matches in England and Australia, and then suddenly presented with a greentop during the Tests,” Kohli had said back then. “During practice matches, we would face those 120kmph bowlers … If they [England and Australia] wanted to be fair to us, they could have provided us with same kind of tracks for practice matches, like what were used in Tests. Especially, when they knew that visiting teams get very less time to practise. Now they would be playing on turning tracks and definitely would know where they stand.”England played three warm-up matches before the Tests on that tour, but only once, against Haryana, did they get to face genuine spinners. In the other two games, the only spin they faced was delivered by part-timers. New Zealand, having seen the pitch at the Kotla, didn’t look in a mood to complain. “We are expecting the wickets to turn,” Taylor said at the press conference a day before the warm-up game. “We are not expecting the Test wickets to look the way it is looking at Kotla.”For New Zealand the warm-up game is more about getting used to the weather, with temperatures in the mid-30s when it is winter back home. “A warm-up game is a warm-up game,” Taylor said. “A chance to get out and play in Indian conditions. Obviously a lot warmer than a couple of days ago back home in New Zealand. Stretch your legs so to speak. We are expecting a tough match against Mumbai tomorrow.”Before the reversal in South Africa, New Zealand were the side expected to present the toughest challenge to the hosts in this season of 13 Tests. They still possibly have the best spin resources among the touring teams this season. But the scheduling of the series relegates them to being a bit of a sideshow. They are used to this. When they go to England, they play in May; their last tour to India was in August-September, and this year they are playing back-to-back Test series in off-seasons. It is a fact not lost on them.”The last two tours we had here we didn’t even have a warm-up game,” Taylor said. “So it’s nice to have a warm-up game against a good opposition. It’s going to be a hard-fought series over the next three weeks. The boys are looking forward to it.”If the warm-up game is just a means to acclimatise yourselves to the heat and if you are expected to adjust from South African conditions to Indian ones suddenly, how do you do it? In the nets, Taylor said. “Regardless of whether you are playing on a bouncy green wicket or on a turning wicket, you have got to put yourself under pressure in training and try to simulate as much as possible.”Accordingly, one of the members of New Zealand’s support staff was seen asking the groundsmen to shave off the grass on the nets pitches. The next three days are not just about what goes on in the middle at the Feroz Shah Kotla, but also about how much the ones not on the field can take away from their nets sessions.

England slumped to 107 for 8 in response to Australia’s 481 after incisive bursts from Peter Siddle, Mitchell Marsh and Nathan Lyon

The Report by David Hopps21-Aug-2015
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsFor Australia, The Oval has so far staged the Alternative Ashes. If Australia prosper here, it will not be just a consolation victory, it will be the Ashes as they imagined at the airport check-in that might unfold: Steven Smith striking a Test hundred to belie his air of innocence, Michael Clarke directing affairs with an air of contentment and Peter Siddle producing threatening seam-bowling spells fuelled only, cricket folklore will have it, by a steady diet of bananas.Instead, as Australia know only too painfully, it has not turned out like that. England, they will grouse, have rigged the pitches. After all, how can you trust a nation that just across town at the Barbican toyed with having Benedict Cumberbatch speak Hamlet’s soliloquy at the beginning of the play? Something is rotten in the state of England, they will say and, if it had not been, the Ashes would have been theirs. Friday at The Oval proved it.There has not been anything approaching a close match in this unpredictable series and, with England still 175 runs short of avoiding the follow-on with only two wickets remaining, there is unlikely to be one here. Neither side has been able to fight back when under pressure. Some will blame one-day cricket. Non-stop schedules might also have a bit to do with it. It has been a series of exciting cricket and tired minds.Everything witnessed at The Oval – indeed, in London once Australia’s victory at Lord’s is taken into account – has made England’s imaginings that they might force a 4-1 Ashes win impossible to credit. Faced by a daunting Australia total of 481, England’s assembling of 107 for 8 was feeble in the extreme, the captain Alastair Cook still left with one half-century in the series, Jos Buttler destroyed by a routine offspinner and Adam Lyth, Jonny Bairstow and Ben Stokes all surrendering to disorganised hooks and pulls.Lyth’s Ashes series sees him 105 for 8. He has looked overawed at this level. His maladroit pull to mid-on from Siddle’s second ball was one of his worst dismissals of the series. His Test chance might have come and gone.This is not a quick pitch, quite the opposite, but it has dried fast, the Australians have enjoyed the sun on their back and it will be warmer still on Saturday, approaching a stultifying 30C. Storms, though, are threatening later in the Test – if there still is a Test. There probably won’t be.Australia, in hindsight, will rue selection decisions during the series. Siddle, so routinely overlooked that he feared he might never play another Test, gave them control; Mitchell Marsh, illogically left out at Trent Bridge as Australia relied on only four bowlers, took 3 for 18 and would have taken four had he not overstepped when having Mark Wood caught at the wicket shortly before the close. There is a no-ball epidemic in Test cricket and umpiring attitudes have caused it.Steven Smith brought up his 11th Test century•Getty Images

Smith, an Australia captain-in-waiting, had prepared for his elevation to the job in satisfying fashion as his 11th Test match hundred helped Australia to a first-innings total of 481. It felt like a position of authority even before Smith and his eighth-wicket partner Mitchell Starc embarked upon a stand of 91 in 16 overs, Starc’s clean-hitting half-century coming with perfunctory shrugs at the ease of it all. When Smith dragged on a wide one from Steven Finn, ending a stay of 143 from 226 balls, England, it turned out, were broken, as doomed as Hamlet in the face of his sea of troubles.Series over? Can’t win the match? Faced by such truths, England collapsed. From 60 for 2, they lost six wickets for 32 in 11 overs; good bowling combated by witless batting. That after much talk before play of: “Bowled well first day, sunny day for batting, happy with how things have gone.”Cook, the one England wicket to fall before tea, will point to the sharp turn immediately found by Nathan Lyon, an offspinner of gathering reputation, pitching leg and hitting off. Lyth followed, no ryhtym to his batting, a shadow of the batsman Yorkshire know.It was Ian Bell’s departure, off bail removed as Siddle seamed one away, that first communicated to England the challenge they faced. It was the loss of Joe Root, freshly installed as the No. 1 batsman in the world, the player who has had the happy knack of disguising their deficiencies, that probably caused them to lose heart: 6 in 39 balls, most un-Root-like these days, ended with Australia’s successful review when Snicko revealed a faint edge.Bairstow and Stokes opted for attack and both fell to cross-batted aggression against short balls; in between, Buttler was unhinged by both dip and turn as Lyon crashed one through the gate. Moeen Ali survived but was struck on the helmet by Johnson. Broad’s duck, a third for Marsh, added to the melee, unsurprisingly so because he had only bowled five laborious overs in the day and looked like a man whose Ashes work was as good as done. He blows hot and cold but considering his workload he can be forgiven for that.How quaint seemed England’s ambitions for the second new ball, only two balls away when Australia resumed at 287 for 3. They took four wickets in the morning, but two fell to Moeen in the last over of the session, Peter Nevill to a sharp leg-side catch by Buttler, and there was to be no kick-on after lunch as Moeen and Stokes were struck around by Starc and fleeting thoughts of dragging themselves back into the Test floated into the London skyline.Smith’s 11th Test hundred came 20 minutes before lunch when he hurried through for a single to mid-on off Moeen. It was a far cry from the confident manner in which he reached his first Test hundred on this ground two years before – a six over long-off against, would you believe it, Jonathan Trott.Strikingly, all 11 of Smith’s hundreds have come in the first innings, his average surpassing 70, twice as high as in the second innings. He has scored them home and abroad and with this century, more so than on his debut hundred, he will feel he has begun to address the challenge of English conditions.Voges, as ever, looked confident through the leg side, but Stokes trapped him lbw for 76 with a decent inswinger. It might have been two wickets in two balls, as Smith, on 92, flayed at a short, wide one from Finn, only for the bowler to find that his feet had been as inaccurate as the delivery, landing the wrong side of the line by about six inches.Many do these days, the umpires entirely oblivious until a wicket falls. Umpiring standards have been high in this series – justification enough, the ICC will say, to concentrate on the business end, but it has gone far enough. Draw the line – preferably where it is drawn already.

Torrential rain washed out the Ryobi Cup match between Queensland and Tasmania at the Gabba without a ball being bowled

ESPNcricinfo staff27-Jan-2013
Scorecard
Torrential rain washed out the Ryobi Cup match between Queensland and Tasmania at the Gabba without a ball being bowled. Brisbane and the surrounding areas suffered exceptionally heavy rainfalls on Sunday as ex-tropical cyclone Oswald moved down the coast.The abandonment could be significant in shaping the final points table, with the Bulls sitting third and the Tigers fourth with two matches each remaining. Victoria and South Australia are at the top of the table.