Century-makers Chris Dent and Alex Gidman put on 267 for the third wicket as
Gloucestershire reached 348 for 3 on the opening day of the Cheltenham Festival against bottom-of-the-table Kent.

10-Jul-2013
ScorecardChris Dent made his third first-class century and second at Cheltenham•Getty Images

Century-makers Chris Dent and Alex Gidman put on 267 for the third wicket as
Gloucestershire reached 348 for 3 on the opening day of the Cheltenham Festival against bottom-of-the-table Kent.Gidman joined Dent in the middle after young Kent seamer Calum Haggett had
accounted for Michael Klinger and Dan Housego to leave Gloucestershire on 74 for
2 in the 19th over.Dent reached his first hundred of the season from 205 deliveries and advanced
to a career-best 153, with 17 fours and two sixes in his 270-ball innings,
before Haggett had him caught behind.Gidman, who survived difficult catching chances on 38 and 58, brought up his
third County Championship century of the year from 185 balls and moved on to 145
not out at stumps, having struck 19 fours and a six.After winning the toss, home skipper Klinger helped Dent get the innings off to
a brisk start with a flurry of boundaries from the bowling of South African star
Vernon Philander and Charlie Shreck.Haggett made the breakthrough for Kent in his second over from the College Lawn
End. Klinger chased a wide delivery and only succeeded in edging it to Darren
Stevens at second slip to depart for 20 with the score on 46. Haggett, who was released by Somerset without making a first-class appearance,
struck again in his fifth over when Housego, on 13, got an inside edge onto his
stumps.Tight spells from Philander and Stevens slowed the scoring rate and an
evenly-balanced morning session ended with Gloucestershire on 98 for 2 from 31
overs.But It was a different story thereafter as Dent and Gidman took advantage
of the short boundaries square of the wicket and a quick outfield to lead
Gloucestershire into a strong position.Gidman enjoyed a slice of luck on 38 when Brendan Nash failed to grasp a
head-high chance at extra cover off Stevens. His second reprieve came on 58 when
Stevens, at backward point, failed to hold a diving catch off Philander.Dent also offered a chance on his way to three figures. He
flicked the third ball after tea from Charlie Shreck down the legside, but
wicketkeeper Geraint Jones was unable to hold a one-handed diving catch. Soon after, Dent swept James Tredwell’s offspin for a single to bring up his
third first-class hundred and his second at Cheltenham, having scored a ton
against Surrey at the ground two years ago.Gidman, 32, reached his century eight overs later with a single to square leg off
Tredwell. Having given up the captaincy at the end of last season, Gidman is enjoying an excellent season.Dent and Gidman accelerated the scoring rate in the closing hour’s play and no
bowler suffered more than Tredwell, who is still searching for his first
Championship wicket of the summer. Dent struck him for two straight sixes and
Gidman also hit him for six over midwicket as he ended the day with 0 for
83 from 19 overs.Kent finally had a third wicket to celebrate when Haggett struck with four
overs of the day remaining. Dent flashed at a ball outside off stump and snicked
a catch to Jones.

Matthew Wade is earnestly hoping to follow David Warner’s lead under the noses of the national selectors in the tour match against Sussex

Daniel Brettig25-Jul-2013David Warner drastically improved his chances of taking part in the Investec Ashes over the course of a single innings for Australia A in South Africa. Now Matthew Wade is earnestly hoping to do the same, under the noses of the national selectors in the tour match against Sussex.Warner’s effort, a blistering 193, has provided inspiration for the rest of Australia’s bedraggled squad even if it was made 7,000 miles away. Until that innings the nation’s batting had been a laughing stock for the best part of four days, but Warner has at least provided some indication for the rest of what is possible with a little confidence.So far on tour, Wade has been less a member of the team than the answer to a trivia question: which man apart from Michael Clarke has made a Test century in 2013? Wade’s quite brilliant hundred against Sri Lanka at the SCG has since faded from view after he ceded his wicketkeeping position to the vice-captain Brad Haddin.Nonetheless, the travails of the batsmen at Trent Bridge and Lord’s have offered Wade a glimmer of opportunity and, like Warner, he is hoping to barge his way into calculations by rattling to a large score at Hove – not that he is thinking too far ahead of course.”Any batsman who goes out and dominates and gets 150 or 200 will have a chance to play,” Wade said. “But I haven’t spoken to anyone about a spot coming up. I’m just excited to have a game of cricket because I’ve been on the sidelines for a few weeks. To go into a game thinking those sort of things is wrong thing to do. If you go into a game thinking if I get runs I will play the Test match it won’t do you any good.”Wade’s keeping has been the cause for most concern over his brief Test match career, but his batting is highly regarded. On several occasions when he was still a selector, the captain Michael Clarke suggested Wade would contend for a place as a batsman alone, and it is one after-effect of Adam Gilchrist’s influential career that most wicketkeepers have almost had to consider themselves batsmen first.”Gilchrist ruined it for everyone,” Wade said with a laugh. “It’s like being an allrounder. I feel comfortable where I’m at with keeping and batting. When I got dropped I went up to the Centre of Excellence in Brisbane for six-eight weeks and worked really hard with Ian Healy. I was going up for a couple of days at a time and did a lot of work with him and Hadds was there as well. It felt like I came a long way in that period. I was here in England for the ODIs and felt my keeping was going pretty well. Fingers crossed things keep going in that direction.”Watching from the boundary’s edge, Wade has been greatly impressed by England’s bowling, the best he has seen around the world so far. But he harked back to memories of the home Tests against South Africa in late 2012 for a reminder that Australia can bat should conditions and confidence dovetail effectively.”It’s been terrific and world class bowling,” Wade said of England. “It’s the best I’ve seen in the 18 months I’ve been around Test cricket. We knew their bowlers would be hard work. I’d love to have an opportunity to have a crack at them. We played South Africa in Australia and didn’t find too many problems scoring 400-500 in an innings. Wickets were different and we have to adjust. We have to find a way. It’s not impossible. We have all scored runs against very good players before.”As for the wider questions about why Australia’s batting had deteriorated, Wade agreed with Usman Khawaja that the increase in the number of green Sheffield Shield pitches had been a significant factor. “First-class cricket has been hard work over past couple of years to score big runs. Pitches have not been ideal,” Wade said. “They have been greener than previously and that is an issue for batmen hitting big hundreds. It is not a technical issue that players have not been scoring big runs.”It has been great for bowlers. Batting wise it is harder but a good challenge. Everyone talks about batsmen getting big hundreds, 200s and 250s but that is a big ask in games that are only going two and a half or three days.”

Luke Wright staked his case for a return to England’s one-day plans with a dominating hundred in the Lions’ crushing, 202-run defeat of Bangladesh A

Mohammad Isam20-Aug-2013
ScorecardLuke Wright reached a century from 51 balls•Getty Images

Luke Wright staked his case for a return to England’s one-day plans with a dominating hundred in the Lions’ crushing, 202-run defeat of Bangladesh A at Bristol. Wright hammered an unbeaten 143 from just 68 balls as the Lions piled up 353 for 4 from 50 overs and then took two wickets in his only over as the tourists were dismissed for 151.Gary Ballance, who made a century in a two-day match against Australia last week, scored 115 to further enhance a reputation that has swelled this season but it was Wright, captaining the Lions in this series, who stole the show with an aggressive display that included 11 fours and ten sixes.The pacing of Wright’s innings was Twenty20-esque, as his strike rate bounced higher every over. He reached 50 off 26 balls, and needed just another 25 to complete his seventh List A hundred.Wright hit Sohag Gazi, Rubel Hossain and Mominul Haque for three sixes each. Monimul was smashed for 24 in his only over, as Wright hit him for three consecutive sixes, although handing a part-timer the 46th over against a rampant Wright was a dubious decision. He was severe on the other bowlers, too, and his acceleration jump-started the Lions’ innings, which hovered below five runs an over until the 37th over.With Ballance, Wright crunched 176 in the last 13 overs, his in-form batting partner providing him with just the support needed for such an innings. Their fourth-wicket partnership brought 225 runs in just over 20 overs, making sure the Lions crossed the 350-run mark. Ballance, the Yorkshire batsman pressing for a senior call-up was hardly noticed in Wright’s mayhem but his 115 came off 89 balls, with four sixes and ten boundaries.Bangladesh A could have been expected to step up in this contest against England’s second-string side but they remained ordinary with the ball for a third successive game. While it would be hard to look past Wright’s innings, the bowling attack comprised of only one uncapped pace bowler, Al-Amin Hossain, who took 2 for 69 – Elias Sunny and Naeem Islam took one each.Their batsmen, too, batted like the Bangladesh of old, ie. trying to bat out the 50 overs rather than batting to the tune of the target. The chase was massive, and it was doubly hard against the likes of Boyd Rankin, Northamptonshire’s Friends Life Twenty20 hero David Willey, and a tight spell from Danny Briggs, who took 2 for 37 in 10 overs.Captain Jahurul Islam laboured to 36 off 80 balls, an example of the visitors’ fast declining confidence after their five consecutive losses in the tour matches since the first week of August. Briggs, Wright and Michael Carberry picked up two wickets each, the last two having just bowled one over apiece at the death. There was one wicket each for the four seamers at the top.

India A completed a clean sweep in the one-dayers over New Zealand A though they faced much stiffer competition in the final game

ESPNcricinfo staff12-Sep-2013
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Ashok Menaria needed only 26 balls to reach his half-century•BCCI

India A completed a clean sweep in the one-dayers over New Zealand A though they faced much stiffer competition in the final game after the visitors put up 290. India A were in trouble during the chase at 79 for 4 before quick half-centuries from Ashok Menaria and Kedar Jadhav, and a calm cameo from Mandeep Singh helped pull off a tight two-wicket win.India have hardly been troubled in the previous two games, as their solid top order set up comfortable chases, but this time a rejigged order didn’t provide a strong start. Unmukt Chand, who hit half-centuries in both previous matches, and Sanju Samson fell attempting the ramp shot, before Robin Uthappa and Sachin Baby were dismissed in the space of four deliveries.The required rate was touching seven at that stage, before the spinners allowed India back into the chase. Menaria clubbed three sixes and a four off a wayward over from legspinner Todd Astle and Jadhav hit two sixes and two fours off the other legspinner Ish Sodhi as 66 runs came in six overs. Menaria needed only 26 balls for his fifty, while Jadhav was a bit more watchful, taking 53 deliveries.At 207 for 4 after 37 overs, India were in control of the chase. Scott Kuggeleijn, though, put New Zealand ahead with a double-wicket maiden, removing both the set batsmen. It was left to Mandeep, batting at an unfamiliar No. 7 position, to ensure the clean sweep, helped by crucial contributions from Jalaj Saxena and Rahul Sharma. Things were so tense that words were exchanged between Rahul and Mark Gillespie after the pair collided when the former took off for a run.With three overs to go, and only three wickets remaining, India still needed 25, but Kuggeleijn undid his earlier good work by leaking 18 off the over. “My aim was to bat till the end,” Mandeep said after finishing unbeaten on 37. “One good over could change the whole scenario, I was waiting for that over.”India were made to work so hard for the win due to a solid effort from New Zealand’s batsmen. Luke Ronchi got a duck, but Carl Cachopa was the only other batsman in the top five to miss out on a half-century. Anton Devcich completed a successful tour by top scoring with 66, while the youngsters Corey Anderson and Tom Latham also helped themselves to fifties. It still wasn’t enough to prevent a second-string India A team from winning 3-0.

Dav Whatmore, the Pakistan coach, has said the recent Test loss against Zimbabwe has been “embarrassing, upsetting and disappointing”, but on the positive side, has provided the team with preparation ahead of the upcoming series in the UAE

Umar Farooq23-Sep-2013Dav Whatmore, the Pakistan coach, has said the recent Test loss against Zimbabwe has been “embarrassing, upsetting and disappointing”, but on the positive side, has provided the team with preparation ahead of the upcoming series in the UAE.”All three adjectives (upsetting, disappointed and embarrassing) can be used to describe the way I feel after the defeat against Zimbabwe,” Whatmore told ESPNcricinfo. “I understand you cannot win with these sort of performances but I don’t want to blame. I rather look for reasons and try to see things in a perspective than being judgmental.”I know things were not good as we were a bit naughty with both bat and ball. But in the end, we only lost one Test match. I know it’s Zimbabwe and I am also not happy with the result at all. I would like to think and public should understand that Zimbabwe team gave us a better fight than what the whole public thought. It wasn’t easy breaking them down as they were not a bad team in their home conditions.”Pakistan are yet to win a series under Whatmore, who has six months remaining in his two-year contract, and the team’s next assignment – the two-Test series against South Africa in the UAE – is a tough one. But it was in the UAE that Pakistan earned a remarkable win against the then No. 1 side, England, and Whatmore understood that there would be expectations this time too.”I have confidence in the Pakistan team,” he said. “You can’t just say (that we don’t have a chance). The conditions will be entirely different.”I feel we are in a better position than before. At least Zimbabwe gave us better preparation and they were bit stronger than what a lot of us thought.”The selectors are likely to consider Taufeeq Umar for the opening role, with Mohammad Hafeez’s selection for the series in jeopardy. Whatmore said there was a need for a reshuffle in the XI as the series would be played in entirely different conditions from what were encountered in Zimbabwe.”There is good ground for discussion on the change ahead of (South Africa series),” he said. “You are going from one competition to another in totally different conditions and against an opposition that has a different formation. So there are number of variations and I don’t think we can fit the same set of eleven players to play the number one team. But yes, we need to be consistently looking towards strengthening the team combination.”Whatmore’s coaching and Misbah-ul-Haq’s captaincy came under severe criticism after the series in Zimbabwe, but ESPNcricinfo understands the PCB has no immediate plan to remove the head coach, although they are not intent on renewing his contract that expires in April 2014.”Misbah has some wonderful leadership qualities and has been successful since he took over recently,” Whatmore said. “My observations are that by nature he is a methodical person who thinks deeply before making decisions. This is reflected in his batting as well. He takes a little time at the beginning but at the end his contribution is effective. His consistency in contributions during 2013 has been second to none. It’s easy for people to be critical.”Whatmore, 59, might not have had the positive results with the squad, but he insisted that he has been doing his job whole-heartedly. “I can not control what people think,” he said. “I know what I am doing being a professional coach with 15 years of international experience and nobody has such experience. When you are about to conclude your contract, these questions do emerge. But the renewal depends on mutual willingness. I know what I do is done with the best of intention and at the end of the day I can sleep straight, comfortably.When asked if the results haunted him, Whatmore replied, “I don’t worry. Everyday I need to know what we are doing is correct. Like everybody, I also make mistakes and I admit them. I am doing the best possible job what I can do.”

James Harris and Steven Finn, two seam bowlers who have laboured so long under the burden of “promise”, combined to haul Middlesex into the ascendancy on a day of hard graft at Lord’s

Andrew Miller03-May-2015
ScorecardJames Harris and Steven Finn, two seam bowlers who have laboured so long under the burden of “promise”, combined to haul Middlesex into the ascendancy on a day of hard graft at Lord’s.After Sam Robson’s first-day 178 had hinted at the sort of toil that might be in prospect on a typically unforgiving surface, Middlesex’s challenge was compounded after two balls of Durham’s reply when Tim Murtagh, their Ireland seamer, limped out of the attack with an injury to his left hamstring.But in his absence, Harris led the line with aplomb, claiming two of the first three wickets to fall, before Finn, with his penultimate ball of a frustrating 14-over workload, extracted some extra lift outside off stump to bowl Callum McLeod off his arm for 13.With James Franklin removing Scott Borthwick for 26 to claim his first wicket in Middlesex colours, Durham were indebted to a composed unbeaten 61 from their South Africa-born opener, Keaton Jennings, son of Ray, who was joined at the close by the nightwatchman, Chris Rushworth.At 157 for 4 overnight, Durham are one good partnership from restoring a measure of parity to the contest, but they failed to capitalise on some of the best batting conditions of the match so far. They regularly shipping wickets when well set, with all four dismissed batsmen making between 13 and 26. Geoffrey Boycott would have a fit, if he wasn’t pre-occupied with an even more slipshod effort in Barbados.To a degree, Durham missed their opportunity with the ball as well. After overnight rain had caused a 50-minute delay, their seamers briefly thrived in the damp morning conditions and capitalised on the void in Middlesex’s batting left by the late extraction of Robson on the first evening.John Hastings, their one-Test Australian allrounder, produced a bullish spell to extract both overnight batsmen for the addition of 12 runs. First to go was Franklin, who was trapped on the crease from round the wicket as Hastings shaped the ball back down the slope to pluck out his middle stump for 18. Then Harris had a loose waft outside off, and snicked a simple chance through to Phil Mustard behind the stumps for 9.But from the relative nadir of 341 for 6, Middlesex consolidated through the efforts of Simpson and Neil Dexter, who took their partnership to 58 before – with the sun breaking through after lunch and batting looking comparatively effortless – Dexter was late onto a Hastings bouncer and picked out Usman Arshad on the fine leg boundary for 33.But Simpson ground on, reaching his half-century from 89 balls with nine fours, and adding 41 for the eighth wicket with Rayner, who made 16 before Rushworth rapped him on the pad to claim his second victim of the innings.In a prelude to his efforts with the ball, Murtagh came and went in a hurry as he got himself into a tangle against the legspin of Scott Borthwick and was bowled on the heave for 11. And then, with only the No.11, Steven Finn, for company, Simpson took one chance too many against the persevering Hastings, and flapped an attempted glide to mid-off.Durham’s reply seemed solid from the outset, with Stoneman making the early running in his opening stand with Jennings, with two fours including a well-timed on-drive against Harris. But the bowler had his revenge when Stoneman pushed too firmly outside off and edged a simple catch at a comfortable height to Ollie Rayner at second slip. It was due reward for Middlesex’s perseverance. After their triumph at Taunton, they are enjoying their cricket at the moment.

Derbyshire’s groundstaff were cleared of any blame after the third day of the LV= County Championship Division Two match against Gloucestershire was abandoned without a ball bowled.

ECB/PA02-Jun-2015
ScorecardThe covers couldn’t stand the wind at Derby•Getty Images

Derbyshire’s groundstaff were cleared of any blame after the third day of the LV= County Championship Division Two match against Gloucestershire was abandoned without a ball bowled. High winds on Monday night had torn a section of the covers, allowing water to saturate a small area where the bowler’s feet land and make it too dangerous for the game to resume.Umpires Tim Robinson and Steve Garrett hoped the area would dry out in the sun and wind but after a fourth inspection at 3.15pm, they decided it was still unfit for play. Both Derbyshire and Gloucestershire backed the decision to call the game off for the day and the teams will now hope for decent weather on Wednesday to try to force a result.”There was a severe weather warning issued for overnight on Monday and when we got to the ground this morning, it wasn’t fit for play,” Derbyshire’s elite performance director Graeme Welch said. “We had a similar problem at Cardiff earlier in the season and that was on a smaller area. This one is where the bowler’s feet are landing and, put it this way, if my bowlers had been due to run in I wouldn’t have wanted them to bowl on that, it’s quite dangerous.”Gloucestershire head coach Richard Dawson agreed with Welch’s assessment, adding: “It’s one of those situations where it’s no-one’s fault, there was howling wind and rain and you can’t do anything about it. The covers had got blown about with the power of the wind and the footholds were just mud. There was nothing the groundstaff could have done, they tried their best today so hats off to them but that’s the English weather. Who would have thought it was June!”Gloucestershire were in a good position to put Derbyshire under pressure and Dawson added: “It’s frustrating because I think we’ve bowled well and it would have been interesting if we could have got a full day in but we will have a crack and see if we can get a victory tomorrow.”

After finishing with the best-ever figures on ODI debut, Kagiso Rabada said he hadn’t dreamt of a start like this to his ODI career

Firdose Moonda10-Jul-2015Eddie Leie had the best returns by a South African on T20 debut. Kagiso Rabada finished with the best figures by anyone on ODI debut. It’s no wonder, then, that Hashim Amla could joke about the possibility of another fresh face to field on Sunday.”With two debutants doing so well, I think we should fly someone in tomorrow to play on Sunday, so they can also do well,” Amla said, quickly clarifying that he was only having a laugh.South Africa do not have any other uncapped players in the limited-overs’ squad and no obviously promising ones bubbling under, but the youngsters they do have are coming through and doing so well. Apart from Leie and Rabada, Rilee Rossouw is making good after his dodgy start of four ducks in six innings in ODIs and South Africa will have some new players in the Test squad. Simon Harmer and Stiaan van Zyl both impressed on debut and Temba Bavuma and Reeza Hendricks will want to carve a niche for themselves.To all of them, Amla has a simple message. “From the team’s perspective, we don’t have great expectations. We want guys to do well and perform at their best,” he said. And if the results are great, as they have been so far, that’s an added bonus.That’s something Rabada already knows. In little over a year, he has gone from being an Under-19 World Cup winner to an international headliner, but he is not overwhelmed. “Everything has been coming my way but I have just kept it simple, made sure I am ready to play, make sure I live the life an athlete is supposed to live – to a certain extent,” he said. “I didn’t dream of a start like this.”Now that it’s happened, Amla expects Rabada to understand that it won’t happen every time. “It’s not rocket science. When you have expectation like that – you can’t take six wickets every game,” Amla said. “One thing that works in his favour, he works extremely hard and comes from a grounded background and understands you can go from hero to zero in one game. Sunday is another game. The way we look at it is that he has had a great game today. We know the person that he is, it’s not like he is going to rest and say I will live off my six wickets for the rest of my life.”And Rabada has already showed his captain that he knows that. “Every time you represent your country, you have the responsibility to make sure you fulfill your role. Every game, I am going to make sure I am ready and if I play, I am going to try to do well.”But for tonight, Rabada can enjoy his success and he will. The wicket he took the most pleasure in was the first – Tamim Iqbal – because “I thought that was a pretty good ball.” And the hat-trick. “That was a fluke. I went for a yorker and missed it by miles.” Not a bad miss at all.

While announcing the calendar for the forthcoming domestic season well in advance, the BCCI has omitted Duleep Trophy for 2015-16 season

Amol Karhadkar20-Jul-2015While announcing the calendar for the forthcoming domestic season well in advance, the BCCI has omitted Duleep Trophy for 2015-16 season. According to a top BCCI executive, the inter-zonal first-class tournament has been left out for only one year.

Groups for inter-state tournaments

Ranji Trophy
Group A: Odisha, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Assam, Bengal, Haryana, Vidarbha, Delhi, Karnataka
Group B: Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Mumbai, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Baroda, Railways, Andhra
Group C: Jharkhand, Saurashtra, Hyderabad, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Tripura, Services, Goa, Jammu & Kashmir
Vijay Hazare Trophy (domestic one-day competition)
Group A: Punjab, Mumbai, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Rajasthan, Services, Hyderabad [Host association: Hyderabad]
Group B: Karnataka, Railways, Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Kerala, Haryana [Host association: Karnataka]
Group C: Odisha, Vidarbha, Delhi, Baroda, Andhra, Tripura, Maharashtra [Host association: Delhi]
Group D: Bengal, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Saurashtra, Madhya Pradesh [Host association: Saurashtra]
Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (domestic T20 competition)
Group A: Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Hyderabad, Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Vidarbha [Host association: Vidarbha]
Group B: Punjab, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Saurashtra, Tripura, Kerala, Jammu & Kashmir [Host association: Kerala]
Group C: Madhya Pradesh, Andhra, Delhi, Railways, Baroda, Assam, Goa [Host association: Baroda]
Group D: Mumbai, Odisha, Karnataka, Services, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra [Host association: Odisha]

“It is not cancelled or removed. It is deferred to the start of the next season,” Dr MV Sridhar, general manager of cricket operations, BCCI, told ESPNcricinfo. “Since it has been decided to plan domestic calendar taking India’s international calendar into consideration, it was decided that rather than overlapping the Duleep Trophy with the World Twenty20 in March, it would be apt to postpone it to the start of the 2016-17 season. Since India are set to play 16 Test matches in 2016-17, first-class cricket would get priority and the Duleep Trophy will be played at the start of the season.”For the last three domestic seasons, Duleep Trophy served as the season-opening tournament in October. But with the BCCI opting to advance the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy to avoid a clash with the Indian Premier League, the Duleep Trophy was dropped out of the calendar.Whether cancelled, or removed or postponed, the fact remains that the BCCI has preferred to host one-day and T20 tournaments over the Duleep Trophy, which till early 2000s used to be India’s premier selection tournament. With the Indian team starting to play international cricket virtually round-the-clock, the Duleep Trophy lost its shine and became a platform for fringe players to make a case for selection.Duleep Trophy isn’t the only tournament to have borne the brunt of BCCI’s restructuring. The Deodhar Trophy will be played as a three-team tournament for the second season. The domestic one-day winning team will compete for the trophy against two teams chosen by the national selectors. It would mean that the NKP Salve Challenger Trophy is as good as scrapped. The last two editions of Challenger Trophy were played in the same format as the revised Deodhar Trophy.Even in the past, the BCCI has scrapped domestic tournaments for a season or two. After staging the inaugural Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy in 2006-07, the BCCI had not organised it for the next two years citing lack of a suitable slot in the calendar.

Dav Whatmore, the Zimbabwe coach, says his side will need time and experience to start converting ability into performance

Liam Brickhill in Harare14-Jul-2015Dav Whatmore knows a thing or two about coaching struggling sides, and coaxing success out of whatever resources are at hand. He masterminded Sri Lanka’s World Cup win in 1996, and sparked a change in Bangladesh’s trajectory when he took over the coaching role there in 2003.He moved into his current position with Zimbabwe less than six weeks before the World Cup earlier this year, and was able to bring enjoyment and cohesion back into the team environment in remarkably quick time. Yet positive results haven’t been forthcoming, and on Tuesday Zimbabwe slipped to a 3-0 series defeat to India despite putting themselves into positions of dominance in all three matches.”That was a hugely disappointing effort in that first game. We honestly thought we should have won that. When you get so close, and you don’t, I think psychologically it becomes a little bit greater when you play the next one. We’ve got the potential, as you can see, we just need to transform our ability into performance, and that comes from here,” Whatmore said, pointing at his head.Though Whatmore prompted “a total 180 in the players’ mindsets” very quickly, according to former captain Brendan Taylor, he insists there is no quick fix for Zimbabwe’s issues.”It doesn’t happen like that,” Whatmore says, clicking his fingers to emphasise the point. “It never does. It takes a bit of time. If you look at the history of Zimbabwe cricket over the last four years, if you’ve done your research you’ll know that we’ve only played a handful of games. And to improve you need to go through certain situations more often. So hopefully boys will learn as quickly as possible, because we are now playing competition which we haven’t had in the past.”It’s okay to say ‘be patient with us’, it’s a cliche but I’m very pleased to have played these three games and we look forward very much to the future matches coming in this calendar year. And we look to improve. So please bear with us, we are trying really hard to get it right and we will need a bit more time. As other sides do.”Zimbabwe have been slightly surprised by the way these pitches have played, as ordinarily Harare Sports Club tracks ease out during the course of the day, particularly in winter. In this series, there has always been something on offer for the bowlers. They “briefly” considered batting first after Elton Chigumbura won his third toss in a row, Whatmore explained, “but this wicket generally gets a lot better than this. It’s sort of misbehaving a little more than what most of us thought. Generally speaking this wicket flattens out a little bit more, but it’s had some life in it right throughout.”India haven’t had it all their way in this series, slipping to 87 for 5 in the first match, losing 6 for 77 in the last 10 overs on Sunday, and wobbling at 82 for 4 today, but Zimbabwe were never able to land the killer blow and, as Whatmore admitted, “we’ve let them off the hook a couple of times”.The problem, for Chigumbura, is a lack of ruthlessness.”It’s just about being ruthless,” he said. “You tend to relax when you are on top, or sometimes some guys realise we’re on top. And also because of not playing many games regularly. I think the more we play the more we could quickly learn from these mistakes.”We need to dig deep when we get into these situations. I think that’s where we’re lacking. We always get into a good position, in almost every series that we play we’ll get one or two chances that we can take with both hands and win the game, but we don’t.”Zimbabwe have a quick turnaround in which to try to set things right before the Twenty20 series starts on Friday, but they can also look forward to an unusually full schedule in the months to come. With a little luck and a lot of hard work, particularly on the psychological aspect of their game, Zimbabwe could yet be another of Whatmore’s success stories.