Cricket Life

Scorecard & Report New Zealand  167 for 5 (Mitchell 72*, Conway 46, Neesham 27; Livingstone 2-22) beat  England  166 for 4 (Malan 41, Moeen 51*; Southee 1-24) by 5 wickets James Neesham contemplated retirement in 2017. He didn't. Daryl Mitchell never contemplated opening the batting. He did. And together they dragged a New Zealand side adamantly trying to lose all the way to a T20 World Cup final. It was utter madness. And it came from outta nowhere. England, much like they did   five years ago   on a sparkling night in Kolkata, had the game in their hands. And not one but two big-hitting allrounders took it away from them. The equation was 57 off 24. More than two runs a ball. As much as conditions in this tournament have favoured the team batting second, here there was no dew. The single biggest thing that made run-scoring easy on these dry UAE pitches was nowhere to be found. That's why Mitchell - the best T20 six-hitter in New Zealand...

  Scorecard & Report Australia  177 for 5 (Warner 49, Wade 41*, Stoinis 40*, Shadab 4-26) beat  Pakistan  176 for 4 (Rizwan 67, Zaman 55*, Starc 2-38) by five wickets Second night in a row, second tournament favourites - Pakistan this time - paid the price for conservative batting in the first innings and were consumed by the curse of the defence. They looked in much more control than England did in Abu Dhabi, with Australia needing 62 off the last five with just five wickets in hand. They had two batters, who had barely batted in the tournament, but   Matthew Wade   and   Marcus Stoinis   got the better of possibly the best attack of the tournament with clean hitting. It will be tempting to paint Hasan Ali, whose 18th over went for 15 and who dropped Wade in the 19th before he unfurled a hat-trick of sixes, as the villain, but the match was lost when Pakistan scored just 71 in the first 10 overs on arguably the best batting track Dubai has ro...

Scorecard & Report Harbhajan Singh bounced back from his disappointing Test series with an allround performance to savour, as England were sent tumbling to a 39-run defeat in the first one-day international at Delhi. Having managed just eight wickets in 148.4 overs in the Tests, Harbhajan at last showed a glimpse of his true colours with the second five-wicket haul of his one-day career, as India successfully defended a meagre total of 203. And that was not all - had it not been for his hard-hitting 37 in the latter stages of a disappointing batting performance, that total would have been considerably less defendable. After being asked to bat first on an improbably grassy pitch, India's innings started aggressively, stuttered timidly as Kabir Ali and James Anderson got the better of the top order, and had slumped to a nadir of 147 for 7 before Harbhajan got stuck in with his unique brand of willow-wielding. His 46-ball effort included three fours and a vast six off Liam Plunket...

  Scorecard & Report Toss: England. Test debuts: England - K.J.Barnett, D.V.Lawrence, P.J.Newport, R.C.Russell; Sri Lanka - A.W.R.Madurasinghe, M.A.R.Samarasekera. England's dismal run of eighteen Test matches without a win had to end sooner or later, and when Sri Lanka, put in, were 63 for six nine minutes before lunch, there was much talk of the match being over no later than Saturday, with the England players returning to their counties for the next round of four-day Championship matches due to start the following Tuesday. In the end, Sri Lanka kept them at the ground until after lunch on the final day. It was certainly an undistinguished morning for the Sri Lankans. Silva, dropped at the wicket off Lawrence in the sixth over, was less fortunate in the seventh when he gave Russell, one of four new players in the England team, a more straightforward chance. Lawrence, who bowled with speed and hostility, Newport and Barnett were the other newcomers. Sri Lanka had two new caps ...

Scorecard & Report Australia won their seventh consecutive Ashes series at four o'clock on August 4, by which time their successful defence of the trophy had taken not quite 4,000 deliveries, or just over a week in actual playing time. Victory at Trent Bridge was a testament to their resourcefulness, for England at two stages held the upper hand. Australia trailed by 80 runs with three first-innings wickets remaining at the end of the first day, and England led by 110 with eight second-innings wickets remaining late on the second: the visitors regrouped on both occasions in dynamic fashion, led first by Gilchrist, then by Warne. England, meanwhile, experienced their usual quota of misfortune and miscellaneous acts of God. First of these was the loss of their captain. Atherton, moments after he had won England's first toss in ten attempts. McGrath's second delivery looped from Atherton's forearm guard to second slip, and umpire Hampshire upheld the appeal for a catch...