Cricket Life

  Cricket Highlights & Scorecard Sri Lanka 133 for 6 (de Silva 40*, Bhanuka 36, Yadav 2-30) beat India 132 for 5 (Dhawan 40, Padikkal 29, Dananjaya 2-29) by four wickets India, who anyway brought a replacement team to Sri Lanka, were further severely hamstrung by nine of their players having to go into isolation. They had Bhuvneshwar Kumar - a bowler who bats a bit - as high as No. 6, because they had only five recognised batters available to them. And yet, they almost defended 132, their spinners - Rahul Chahar, Kuldeep Yadav, and Varun Chakravarthy - stymying Sri Lanka's chase through the middle overs. Sri Lanka eventually stumbled over the line to record their first T20 victory in six matches, with Dhananjaya de Silva holding the innings together with 40 not out off 34 balls. He hit the winning run with just two balls to spare, and with Sri Lanka down to their last serious batting pair. A thigh-high full toss turns the match Sri Lanka's way When a squall blew through t...

Cricket Highlights & Scorecard  India 164 for 5 (Suryakumar 50, Dhawan 46, Chameera 2-24, Hasaranga 2-28) beat Sri Lanka 126 (Asalanka 44, Bhuvneshwar 4-22, Chahar 2-24) by 38 runs As has been the case right through the tour, Sri Lanka were decent with the ball, containing India to 164 for 5, but their batting let them down once more. Between the end of the 5th and 16th over, Sri Lanka scored only 69 runs, and lost five wickets. Essentially, with the likes of debutant Varun Chakravarthy impressing, and Yuzvendra Chahal delivering another outstanding spell, Sri Lanka lacked the firepower to mount a serious challenge. Suryakumar Yadav makes it look easy Already one of India's best batters in the ODIs, Suryakumar Yadav played the defining innings in the first T20I, producing the game's only half-century - with 50 off 34. Where others struggled for timing on this surface, Yadav's batting was effortless. He hit his seventh ball for four, whipping his wrists to lo...

Cricket Highlights & Report Sri Lanka spinners ripped through India's middle order after a long rain break, taking five wickets in the space of 38 runs, to knock the wind out of India's innings. Then, chasing 227 in 47 overs, opener Avishka Fernando compiled a mature 76 off 98 balls to put Sri Lanka on the brink of victory. There were some middle-order jitters, but the 109-run second-wicket partnership Fernando had put on with Bhanuka Rajapaksa, who hit 65 off 56, had made enough ground to eventually see the hosts clamber to their second ODI win of the year. The winning runs were hit with three wickets and 48 balls to spare, earning Sri Lanka 10 valuable ODI Super League points. They move to 11th on the table. Only the first seven teams gain automatic qualification. India, fielding as many as five debutants, and having made six changes to the side that sealed the series on Tuesday, were, for a change, the team that made the most mistakes. In addition to losing...

Cricket Highlights & Scorecard  Toss: Australia. England's lamentable record against Australia at Lord's - their last win was in 1934 - continued as the tourists romped to an innings victory. Of more immediate concern, this was England's seventh consecutive Test defeat, prompting a national outcry on a scale more familiar in football. For Australia the match offered reassuring confirmation of the stamina and resourcefulness of a bowling attack deprived of McDermott. He was rushed to hospital on the second day for an operation on a twisted bowel, which was to rule him out of the rest of the series. Even before the game began there were signs of desperation in the England camp. After the defeat at Old Trafford Gooch, who had originally been appointed to lead the side for the first three Tests, was, perversely, entrusted with the captaincy for the rest of the series. Yet a throwaway remark by Gooch that he would stand down if performances did not improve on...

Cricket Highlights & Scorecard  Toss: England. Test debuts: A. R. Caddick, P. M. Such; B. P. Julian, M. J. Slater. An enthralling match of splendid individual achievements was won by Australia with 9.4 overs to spare. A rarity among modern Tests in England, it was shaped by slow bowling and finally decided by leg-spin. Warne, the 23-year-old Victorian, returned match figures of eight for 137, the best in England by an Australian leg-spinner since W. J. O'Reilly took ten for 122 at Leeds in 1938. One particular delivery from Warne set the tone for the series. His first ball in an Ashes contest pitched outside leg stump and hit the top of Gatting's off stump. Gatting looked understandably bewildered as he dragged himself off the field. Thereafter only Gooch played Warne with conviction: never, perhaps, has one delivery cast so long a shadow over a game, or a series. Warne also produced a stunning catch at backward square leg to dismiss Caddick in the tense final...

Cricket Highlights & Scorecard  Toss: England. Test debuts: M. C. Ilott, M. N. Lathwell, M. J. McCague, G. P. Thorpe. Rarely before can a draw have been welcomed with such rapture in England, for, after seven consecutive Test defeats, this was not only a moral victory but a victory for morale. After three days, another Australian win looked almost certain. That evening, however, Australia were severely censured by the referee, Clive Lloyd, for their deportment on the field after complaints from both umpires. To what extent that influenced the change that overtook the match is problematic. Australian coach Bob Simpson said not at all: if his players were more subdued after the rest day it was just that England gave them nothing to become excited about. What could be quantified were inspiring centuries from the patriarch Gooch and the initiate Thorpe, the first England player since F. C. Hayes in 1973 to score a century on Test debut. By Tuesday evening, it was En...

  Cricket Highlights & Scorecard Toss: England. England stumbled from one crisis to another as the post-mortem raged over Gooch's failure to wrest the Ashes from Australia. They began the Fifth Test hopefully, as Atherton became his country's 71st captain and the sixth from Lancashire. But England were vanquished by another huge margin. Their downfall was overshadowed by Ted Dexter's resignation as chairman of the selectors, six months before his five-year term officially ended; the announcement was greeted with applause around the ground. Lathwell and Caddick were both dropped, while McCague's back ruled him out. So Malcolm and Watkin were summoned, along with Maynard, for his first Test since his debut against West Indies in 1988 and subsequent ban for touring South Africa. Then, 48 hours before the match and 17 days before his 41st birthday. Emburey was recalled, as an afterthought, when team manager Keith Fletcher realised the truth of warnings a...

  Cricket Highlights & Scorecard Toss: England. To general astonishment, England reversed the form of the summer, outplayed Australia and won the final Test deservedly and decisively. The result came more than six and a half years or - as one paper recorded - 2,430 days, 11 hours and 49 minutes after England's last win over Australia, at Melbourne in December 1986. It brought about a halt, at least temporarily, in the mood of national teeth-gnashing that had accompanied England's previous failures. For Australia, who had enjoyed a triumphal progress round the British Isles with only trivial setbacks, the defeat came hours before they flew home; it was like having the perfect holiday and then being nabbed by customs. The win was a particular triumph for the England captain Mike Atherton, in his second game in charge; he was immediately named as captain for the winter tour to the West Indies. It was a cause for quieter satisfaction for Ted Dexter, the much-vil...

  Scorecard & Cricket Highlights At Cardiff, June 18. Bangladesh won by five wickets. Bangladesh 5 pts. Australia 1 pt. Toss: Australia. Two days after being humbled by England, Bangladesh produced the greatest upset in 2,250 oneday internationals to outclass world champions Australia. This match looked like David and Goliath in more ways than one. Mohammad Ashraful's mother had worried about her slightly built son taking on the physically imposing Australians, but he emerged a hero, striking 11 fours in a dazzling, run-a-ball innings. He kissed the pitch after reaching a maiden one-day hundred with a single off McGrath. Bangladesh, chasing 250 to win, now needed just 23 off three overs with six wickets left. Ashraful fell next ball, caught at long-on off Gillespie. But Aftab Ahmed, little taller than Ashraful, and Mohammad Rafique held their nerve, bringing it down to seven off six balls. The murmur of anticipation was now a barely suppressed roar. Aftab struck the first bal...

 Scorecard & Cricket Highlights England 574 for 9 dec (Bell 140, Cook 118) beat South Africa 343 (Kallis 75, Smith 75) and 133 (Swann 5-54) by an innings and 98 runs England's cricketers needed just 18 overs on the final morning at Durban to wrap up a thumping innings-and-98-run victory in the second Test, as South Africa's tail crumbled under the sheer weight of scoreboard pressure bearing down on them following the team's desperate performance on the fourth evening. Graeme Swann and Stuart Broad were once again the stand-out performers, as they shared nine of the ten wickets in the innings, with Swann claiming the spoils with 5 for 54 in 21 overs. South Africa resumed their fight on 76 for 6, with Mark Boucher and Morne Morkel entrenched in a 26-run stand for the seventh wicket, and though Morkel pulled Broad with some confidence through midwicket for the first boundary of the day, he was unable to deal with the wiles of Swann, who continued once again h...

Scorecard & Cricket Highlights  At The Oval, September 25. West Indies won by two wickets. Toss: West Indies. A tournament full of insipid, forgettable moments ended with one of the most memorable finals in recent years, as West Indies scripted a soul-stirring fightback to put paid to England's hopes of winning their first one-day tournament of any significance. For a region devastated by various opponents on the cricket field, and by Hurricanes Ivan and Jeanne off it, this was a victory to savour. The reactions of the players immediately after Bradshaw struck the winning boundary told the story - the entire West Indian party roared on to the field in semi-darkness, hugging, kissing, and screaming, ecstatic yet bewildered by their achievement. None of those wild celebratory scenes looked even remotely possible when West Indies slumped to 147 for eight in their quest for 218. The top-order batsmen had all perished - Chanderpaul the last of them for a dogged 47 - and England ...

Scorecard & Cricket Highlights Toss: Australia. Test debut: A. M. Smith. In the Third Test, Australia had levelled the series through fine work from some of their senior players. The most notable aspect of Australia's comprehensive win in the Fourth Test, which gave them the lead for the first time, was that the protagonists were young players in their first Ashes series. Elliott, aged 25, and Ponting, aged 22, scored centuries to lead Australia out of trouble and into an unbeatable position, after the 22-year-old Gillespie had destroyed England's first innings with seven for 37, the best figures by an Australian in a Headingley Test. England returned to their old ways, bowling and fielding poorly to concede a huge first-innings score, and batting with minimal application under sustained pressure. But the Australians were back to their best, combining tightly disciplined play with just the right amount of risk-taking. Before the start of play on the first mo...

Scorecard & Cricket Highlights  Toss: Australia. Test debut: D. W. Headley. The slumbering giant, aroused by the unaccustomed situation of trailing in a Test series, awoke, flexed its not inconsiderable muscle and demolished the opposition with brutal efficiency. Australia's emphatic triumph put them back on track after a stuttering start and weeks of depressing grey skies and rain. Suddenly, the weather resembled something vaguely like summer, but England's first defeat in eight Tests dampened the optimism springing from their resounding victories in the one-day series and the First Test. The contest had high achievement and occasional drama, but, from the moment Steve Waugh put his stamp on it, the whip hand was held by Australia. Waugh became the first batsman to score twin Ashes hundreds for 50 years; backed up by Warne, who convincingly returned to his best form, he well and truly wrested the initiative from England. Australia had reinforced McGrath...