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“I am trying to wrap my head around,” says the captain about his side’s lack of intensity against New Zealand at the Hagley Oval

Firdose Moonda19-Feb-2022Dean Elgar did not blame off-field issues, quarantine or the absence of a warm-up match for South Africa’s lack of intensity in the first Test in Christchurch but thinks his team may be trying too hard in their quest to compete.Like coach Mark Boucher, Elgar could not completely “wrap my head,” around how South Africa have gone from the highs of beating India a month ago to the low of their second-biggest Test defeat ever, but could not fault their effort despite acknowledging a lack in intensity.”The harder you try, the more you fail,” Elgar said, in reference to his bowlers’ inability to hold an end on a seamer-friendly surface. In 117.5 overs, South Africa only sent down 15 maiden overs, compared to New Zealand’s 28 in 91 overs across both innings, and allowed the hosts to bat them out of the match.”It’s extremely frustrating being a captain and the ball has been hit both sides of the wicket. You can’t set a field for that,” Elgar said. “That’s down to execution and the skills department. I can’t say it was nerves. We were so deep into the game, those nerves were out of our system. It’s extremely difficult to build pressure when runs are being scored on both sides of the wicket. It also boils down to guys trying too hard. The harder you try, the more you fail. That might have been a scenario but it’s not an excuse. It allowed their middle-to-lower order to come in and dictate the pace of play. That was down to us not being consistent enough.”Ultimately, though, South Africa lost the match in the first innings, when they were dismissed for their lowest total against New Zealand – 95 – and looked completely at sea against the moving ball on a green top. Although Elgar said it “would have been nice to have played a warm-up game,” in the build-up to the match he indicated conditions at Lincoln University, where South Africa trained, equipped them well for the Hagley Oval and agreed that not having a competitive fixture before the Tests was not a reason for their collapse. “I am not going to use quarantine as an excuse. We are here to represent our country and we need to be firing by the time match day comes. If that is an excuse, it’s a very weak excuse to be using.”Instead, he explained the batters’ issues as a case of being too defensive, with 13 of the dismissals coming from catches behind the wicket. “When the ball is going around a little bit, you still have to have a positive mindset. You will have to look to score but in the same breath, you have to remain pretty disciplined within your game plans. That ties in with our intensity. That is one area that I can put my finger on,” he said.While it is unfair to single out one batter from South Africa’s poor performance, the spotlight has fallen on opener-turned-No. 3 Aiden Markram, who averages less than 26 in his last 20 Tests and 9.7 in his last 10 innings. Elgar still backs Markram as a quality player who is one good innings away from glory but admitted there is an issue around his form, which is probably caused by the same over-eagerness that affected the attack. “It’s not foreign that he has been struggling. I am sure that conversation will come up with the selectors,” Elgar said. “Maybe it’s the mental game he is fighting.”We know he is a quality player. He is only one innings away from turning a lot of things around for him. It’s also the same case of trying too hard. The conversation around his position has been in the media. The selectors have to have conversations around that. It’s a very valid question around him as a person and his capacity in the side. He needs to stop trying so hard. Naturally he is a gifted player and he is one score away from turning things around.”File photo – Aiden Markram and Dean Elgar runs between the wickets•AFP via Getty Images

Markam was moved down into the spot Keegan Petersen left vacant when he contracted Covid-19 but essentially operated as an opener in this match and could find himself benched when Petersen returns for the home series against Bangladesh, or sooner. South Africa have Ryan Rickelton, who is averaging over 100 in first-class cricket this season with three hundreds from his last five innings, in reserve. They were considering playing him in the first Test and will likely do so again in the second. It would seem a no-brainer, even though Boucher said the team management decided a line-up with Rickleton was, “how we felt the line-up needed to be,” and selection convener Victor Mpitsang told ESPNcricinfo Rickleton was overlooked because Zubayr Hamza has more experience.Elgar was asked if he was happy with team selection and indicated he was, with the debate in his mind over the ratio of batters to bowlers, rather than which batters were being used. “I was very comfortable with the XI we selected. I am a captain that is pro having a spinner from a stability point of view but history tells you at the Hagley Oval, spin doesn’t have much effect. Playing in foreign conditions you have to go with what history tells you,” he said. “I was comfortable with the four-seamer approach, knowing that against India we only used four seamers. As I sit here now, I am pretty comfortable with the 7-4 split but the next few days will be interesting for us on this very topic.”After losing in three days, South Africa have given themselves two extra days off before the second Test starts on Friday and Elgar said they will use the time to mull over selection and ponder why they appeared so flat in the first Test, knowing that it is not the myriad off-field issues that continue to plague South African cricket. “It’s not foreign to us with regards to what’s been happening off the field. As a group we’ve worked through that and worked it out already. I don’t see that as being an influence in our camp,” he said. “It (the poor performance) is something I am also trying to wrap my head around. I was trying to process it last night and still haven’t come to anything yet. Hopefully in the next day or two I’ll be able to put my finger on why.”

Former England, Yorkshire and Warwickshire allrounder ends 20-year playing career

ESPNcricinfo staff31-Jan-2022Tim Bresnan, the former England allrounder who played a pivotal role in the Ashes triumph in Australia in 2010-11, has retired from professional cricket.Bresnan, 36, announced the decision through his club, Warwickshire, on Monday, ending a 20-year playing career after he helped them secure an eighth County Championship title in 2021.”This has been an incredibly tough decision, but after returning to winter training I feel that this is the right time,” Bresnan said. “I have continued to work hard throughout the off-season to prepare for my 21st professional year, but deep down I feel I can’t reach the high standards that I set myself and my teammates.”The hunger and enthusiasm that I have for the game I love will never leave me, but whilst my head is willing to tackle the 2022 season, my body is not.”Bresnan, part of the England side that won the Ashes in Australia in 2010-11 and on home soil in 2013, represented his country on 142 occasions, including 23 Tests. Having made his Test debut against West Indies at Lord’s in 2009, Bresnan was called into England’s Ashes side for the Boxing Day Test in 2010 as a replacement for Steven Finn and ended up playing a crucial role, helping to bowl Australia out for 98 in the first innings and taking 4 for 50 in the second as England sealed their defence of the Urn.With his broad-shouldered bowling style, allied to a composed batting technique that grew in stature particularly on the county circuit in his later years, Bresnan was an under-rated but crucial component of the England team that rose, in the summer of 2011, to become the No.1 Test side in the world. From making his debut against West Indies at Lord’s in 2009, through to the opening match against the same opponents, at Trent Bridge in 2012, he featured in 13 consecutive England wins, and was also in the England team which won the World Twenty20 in 2010.During his first-class career, Bresnan amassed 7,138 runs and 575 wickets with seven centuries and nine five-wicket hauls.”I will always look back at my career with immense pride and it’s been an absolute honour to represent Warwickshire, my home county and country,” Bresnan said. “Growing up I never would have believed how lucky I was to play with and against some of the finest cricketers to grace the game… the opportunity to wear the Three Lions is something that should never be taken for granted and I’m proud to have played a very small part in our country’s storied history.”I’m excited for my next chapter and am determined to throw everything into it, like I did on the cricket field for so many years.”Bresnan joined Warwickshire from Yorkshire in June 2020, initially on loan before signing a two-year deal intended to take him through to the end of the 2022 season. He had played for Yorkshire from 2001 to 2019, helping them to County Championship titles in 2014 and 2015.Bresnan was implicated in the investigation into institutional racism at Yorkshire when Azeem Rafiq named him in testimony to November’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee hearing into his accusations of racism and bullying at the club. Bresnan denied making racist comments but apologised “for any part I played in contributing to Azeem Rafiq’s experience of feeling bullied at Yorkshire”. Warwickshire subsequently said that Bresnan would join its players, coaches and management in cultural awareness and appreciation training.Paul Farbrace, Warwickshire’s director of cricket, praised Bresnan for making the difficult decision to retire well before the start of the new season.”Tim has had an astounding career,” Farbrace said. “I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with him throughout his cricketing journey and he has been a marvellous servant to the game. When Tim joined Warwickshire, I believed he could make a huge impact to our side with his experience, knowledge and attitude, and as a County Champion he has certainly achieved that.”His performances for the club have been exemplary… during his international career, Tim rose to the occasion when his country needed him and his achievements on the biggest stage show how talented and driven, he is.”

The allrounder smacked 56 off 46 to steer a thrilling chase in a rain-shortened match in the Vijay Hazare semi-final

Sreshth Shah in Bengaluru23-Oct-2019In a match shortened to 40-overs a side, Tamil Nadu beat Gujarat by five wickets in a nervy encounter in the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2019-20 semi-final, to set up a title clash against Karnataka.Chasing 178 for victory, Tamil Nadu were 96 for 5 but Shahrukh Khan’s 56* off 46 balls saw them pull through with an over to spare, enthralling the handful of neutral fans who turned up at the Just Cricket Academy Ground on the outskirts of Bengaluru.Both teams had star-studded line-ups. R Ashwin, fresh off India’s Test series win over South Africa, flew in on Tuesday to join the Tamil Nadu squad for the semi-final. He had M Vijay, Washington Sundar, Abhinav Mukund and captain Dinesh Karthik in his side. Gujarat, too, had their share of India cap-holders, with Axar Patel and Piyush Chawla being led by Parthiv Patel. Gujarat needed a win, while Tamil Nadu needed anything but a defeat. A no-result would have put Tamil Nadu into the final, with the tournament rules stating that head to head results would be the tie-breaker if both sides had an equal number of wins coming into a knockout match, and Tamil Nadu had beaten Gujarat when both teams faced each other in the league stages in Group C.Unsurprisingly then, Karthik chose to field first on winning the toss, with one eye on the grey clouds in the distance.The clouds remained all day, but the rain didn’t arrive, as the match began at 10.30am, an hour and a half after the scheduled start.Priyank Panchal and Parthiv, the Gujarat openers, have been their two most dependable top-order batsmen over the last few years. Their solid opening partnerships had led Gujarat to nine wins in ten matches in the tournament thus far. Before the game, the only time both Gujarat openers failed was in the defeat against Tamil Nadu. So when they both fell inside the fifth over to Ashwin and Washington respectively, it seemed that Tamil Nadu had taken an early stranglehold on the match. A brief partnership of 45 between No. 3 Bhargav Merai (20) and No. 4 Dhruv Raval (40) then followed, which helped Gujarat negate the early damage done by the Tamil Nadu spinners, but a middle-order collapse once again handed Tamil Nadu the advantage.M Mohammed was the wrecker-in-chief during the middle overs. After Merai fell to T Natarajan, Mohammed struck off his first delivery to dismiss Raval when he edged a drive to the slip cordon. In the same spell, Manpreet Juneja (12) and Karan Patel (4) fell victim to Mohammed’s nippy deliveries. By the time Karan was out in the 21st over, Gujarat were tottering at 102 for 6.The handful of spectators kept switching their support from one team to the other, almost as if one moment they wanted nothing more than to see a heavyweight clash between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in the final, but the next they realised they’d much rather see a proper contest right now than sometime in the future and began screaming for Axar Patel to push Gujarat towards a respectable total.In Chawla’s company, Axar added 23 for the seventh wicket. The eighth-wicket stand with Roosh Kalaria lasted only six balls, but in No. 10 Chintan Gaja, Axar found someone with whom he could bat out the full 40 overs. Together they made 26 runs but Axar perished for 37 trying to clear the long-on boundary. Gujarat’s tenth-wicket partnership still had 3.2 overs to bat, and with Gaja leading the way, they added 18 more to finish on 177 for 9.Tamil Nadu’s chase began poorly, with Vijay chopping Gaja onto his stumps for 3. Axar and Kalaria bowled a tight spell with the new ball, allowing Tamil Nadu to score only 25 runs in the first eight overs. Axar then struck as No. 3 B Aparajith guided an attempted cut into Parthiv’s gloves to rock Tamil Nadu further, but just like the Gujarat innings, a rescue effort from the third-wicket partnership followed. Abhinav had survived the tricky period with the new ball, and he opened up in No. 4 Karthik’s company. The experienced duo motored along in a 45-run third-wicket stand to bring the game into the balance, as Abhinav held up one end and Karthik took on the boundary riders. But the wickets of both set batsmen, on either side of Vijay Shankar’s dismissal, gave Gujarat the look-in they needed. With 15 overs to go on a surface that was two-paced all day, Tamil Nadu, with two new batsmen at the crease, needed 81 to qualify for the final.By now, Tamil Nadu had slipped behind the VJD par and some nervous moments followed as the skies turned dark once again. But there was no inclement weather. Instead, there was a storm from Shahrukh’s bat.With his partner Washington nudging the ball around for singles (twos were difficult because of the ground’s dimensions), Shahrukh took on the other Gujarat bowlers, first slapping Kalaria to point for four before depositing Chawla’s googly over long-on. That brought the crowd – by now, prepared for a Tamil Nadu defeat – back to life, with the batting team needing 27 off 24 balls. Over the next two overs, Shahrukh guided Axar to the third-man boundary and followed it with a flat-batted six off Kalaria over long-off to bring the equation to 11 off the final two overs.In the penultimate over, Washington thumped a four off the first ball, after which Shahrukh drilled a full toss over long-off to seal Tamil Nadu’s win. Such was the fervour during the final stages of the chase that Shahrukh didn’t even acknowledge his half-century till the end of the game.The result means that Tamil Nadu have reached a domestic final for the first time since 2016/2017.

“It is very difficult to balance the side at the moment. I am not 100% sure if Shakib would be able to bowl”

Mohammad Isam18-Dec-2022Shakib Al Hasan is likely to play the Dhaka Test as a pure batter after he was unable to bowl post the first day in Chattogram. Head coach Russell Domingo said that they would have difficulty in balancing the side if that was the case, but would be happy having Shakib as batter and captain as they try to level the series.”He could play as a batter [only],” Domingo said after Bangladesh lost the first Test. “Obviously he didn’t bowl enough overs. He is still struggling with his shoulder and [ribcage] bruising. It left us with four bowlers – a big blow for us.”Ebadot [Hossain] broke down [too], so we were stuck with three bowlers. It is very difficult to balance the side at the moment. I am not 100% sure if Shakib would be able to bowl. He is definitely available to play as a batter, which is an issue for us. We need an allrounder.”Related

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Shakib made 84 in the second innings in Chattogram, getting out trying to slog Kuldeep Yadav as he looked for quick runs even as Bangladesh kept losing wickets at the other end on the fifth morning. The hosts eventually lost the match by 188 runs but Shakib’s batting was one of the few bright spots in the game.Domingo said that Shakib has shown that despite his “laidback” demeanour, he is hungry to perform in Tests. The topic came up for discussion after Shakib was not seen on the field for certain periods during India’s first innings, but Domingo believes Shakib wants to continue to play Tests.”It is a tricky question. It is a good question,” he said. “He comes across as very laidback, but when he is in the contest, he has pride in performance. Looking from the outside, you may think, ‘Does he really care?’. But I know that he has a lot of pride in performances. He doesn’t want to be embarrassed out there. He is competing 100%.”Bangladesh have brought on left-arm spinner Nasum Ahmed as cover for Shakib, who is unlikely to bowl in the second Test. But Shakib’s fitness aside, they have other worries too – specifically with the bat. They were folded for 150 after India posted 404 in the first innings, before performing much better with the bat on the fourth day. However, late wickets meant survival would be difficult while chasing an improbable 513.Russell on debutant Zakir Hasan: “It was a no-brainer to pick him due to his confidence and form”•AFP/Getty Images

Domingo said that their top order “isn’t confident”, but the inclusion of Zakir Hasan was a timely one, as he brought recent runs from domestic and A cricket.”We wanted to compete. India is a good side, but once again, one bad session with the bat destroyed our chance in the match,” Domingo said. “Four-hundred is a good score, but it is manageable in Chittagong. We shouldn’t have been bowled out for 150 in the first innings. The most disappointing thing is the poor decision making from the batters.”There’s a lack of confidence in the top order. They are not managing to find a way to get out of the slump. There’s a whole host of players in the top five or six that haven’t played well or been as consistent as I had hoped. The young player who hasn’t played Tests with us is confident at the moment. He has shown us how to do it. He played really well.”Domingo was particularly disappointed at the timing of Litton Das’ dismissal on the fourth evening. He had built a nice defensive approach but six minutes before the tea break, dinked one straight to mid-on, playing what seemed like a half-hearted loft of Kuldeep.”I was disappointed with Litton’s dismissal, particularly the timing of it,” he said. “He is such a good player, so I am sure he’d be disappointed with it too. I can’t see Virat, Root, Smith or Marnus giving their wicket away in that sort of mode six minutes before tea. Litton is that good for us.”Domingo also explained that Mahmudul Hasan Joy and Mominul Haque were dropped due to lack of form.”It is based on the fact that domestically and for the A side, [Joy] hasn’t really got a lot of runs off late,” he said. “He hasn’t played international cricket for five to six months. It was a no-brainer to pick Zakir due to his confidence and form. That’s why Joy missed out.”Mominul got 10 of his 11 hundreds at this venue. He’d be the first to admit that in the last year, he hasn’t got the runs. But he is too good a player to not have around. You cannot lose a player of Mominul’s quality. He will definitely be considered for the second Test.”Mominul lacks confidence. He is under constant scrutiny, [and] pressure. He probably is trying too hard, listening to a lot of opinions, [and] trying a lot of things. He needs to go back to find his own to get runs. Some of the best players in the world have gone through slumps.”

England will pick their squad for the seven-T20I tour of Pakistan tour next week and might have to name an expanded contingent of players

Matt Roller28-Aug-2022England’s injury crisis has deepened ahead of their seven-match T20I series in Pakistan and the T20 World Cup this winter, with Liam Livingstone becoming the latest to be ruled out of the final stages of the men’s Hundred.Livingstone was the MVP at the 2021 men’s Hundred as Birmingham Phoenix finished top of the table after the group stage, before losing in the final. But an ankle injury means it’s the end of the Hundred for him this time around.England’s white-ball set-up had hoped the Hundred would give key players the opportunity to find form ahead of a busy winter but a significant number of players have had to withdraw through injury.