Legends League Cricket Update

 

We are now 10 games into this knockabout – albeit with two washed out.

 

India Capitals are the best unit so far with three wins from five. Their most recent win was against bottom of the table Manipal today. They also have the highest victory in terms of runs after setting Bhilwara a target of 198 and getting them all out for 120.

 

No century has been scored since Kevin O’Brien and Ashley Nurse both exchanged them in the opening game. The highest score in the interim was Zimbabwe’s Solomon Mire’s 82 in that big India win over Bhilwara.

 

Despite their bottom of the table Mohammad Kaif is the highest run scorer. The Uttar Pradesh alumni’s 196 runs are 23 more than anyone else. His teammate Dilwan Fernando is also impressing despite the losing ways of his team. He became the second player to score a fourfer in the team's solitary win on Monday. Two players are tied with 7 wickets apiece overall but veteran veteran Pravin Tambe’s has the lowest average at 11.71. 

Sheffield Shield Mini Round-Up

 

As of this morning, all 6 teams have now turned out in The Marsh Cup at least once with South Australia and Victoria both playing twice. No one has really got an advantage yet – with both teams to have played twice with a 50% success rate. Tasmania top the table courtesy of a single impressive win over South Australia this morning. They chased down South Australia’s target of 220 with a huge 103 balls still in the tank. Caleb Jewell pulled off the third century of the tournament so far with an impressive 126* off 97 balls. Tasmania’s decent start to the tournament is also underlined by the fact they also have the bowler with the best figures with Tom Rogers bagging 5-32.

 

Still early days and hard to say whether Tasmania are decent or South Australia are a bit crap. The litmus test will be on Friday when they play against Queensland who lost their first game of the season against Western Australia.

 

 

Sri Lankan Major League Tournament Update

There were more results this week – and some by quite considerable margins.

 

The most impressive victory came as 3^rd place Nondescripts sunk the Sri Lankan Navy and won with 10 wickets in hand. The first innings lead of 167 was too much for the Navy to fight back from and it sees them drop down to 10^th in Group B.

 

Whilst the game between Chilaw and Bloomfield was heading for a draw from a very earlier stage, it still proved entertaining thanks to no fewer than 5 centuries across both teams. The largest of which was from Vishua Cathuranga who scored 172 of Chilaw’s 552 runs. Bloomfield were 374-4 when hands were shaken.

 

In terms of the two most impressive players of the tournament, yet again they have played absolute blinders and, you would suspect, will be called up into the Sri Lankan side sooner rather than later. Nishan Madushka produced with the bat again, scoring 125 and 81 in the draw between Ragama and the Police Sports Club. The 23 year old now has 1025 runs. His nearest rival has 603. Equal consistency was shown by Sri Lankan Army’s Kaumal Nanayakkara who registered near identical figures of 12-3-33-6 and 12.3-2-39-6 as Ace Capital were bowled out for 85 and 105. He now has 54 wickets – 11 more than anyone else.

 

 

Legends League Cricket Update

 

Not sure of the provenance of this competition or who it is benefiting but it’s always fun to see the old boys having a run out.

 

It must be said that it is odd that the tournament is running at the same time (and seemingly sharing player) with the Road Safety World Series 500 miles away.

 

Two teams, Gujarat and Mainpal, have played twice with the former winning both and the latter losing both. The tournament is rounded off by Bhilwara (1 win from 1 game) and India Capitals (1 loss from 1 game).

 

Having only retired three weeks ago, Gujarat’s Kevin O’Brien is proving the most destructive batter scoring the highest of the 2 centuries that have been scored across the two games.

 

In terms of bowlers it is another player that has only recently stepped out of the limelight that has excelled thus far. Fidel Edwards last played an international T20 game last year and has the best individual performance with his 4-29 for Bhilwara in their win against Manipal.

 

This game is no flash in the pan affair, with the final over a fortnight away. 

ICC Women's T20 World Cup Qualifier Update

 The tussle to join the big girls in the T20 World Cup started yesterday. Bangladesh, Ireland, Scotland and the USA (in Group A) and Papua New Guinea, Thailand, UAE and Zimbabwe (in Group B) will play off against each other, with the two finalists making it to the main competition next year.

 

So far, the front runners are Bangladesh and Zimbabwe who have both won their first two games. Despite this, the largest victory saw Ireland destroy America today. After America only managed 91 runs, despite batting their full allocation, Ireland then chased it down in 13.1 overs to do themselves no end of a favour in qualifying to the semi-finals where, you would imagine they would play Zimbabwe. Similarly, the highest scoring individual innings came from a team that haven’t been doing terribly well overall. Theertha Satish got 68 runs but was the only one who looked up for a fight as the UAE only managed 119 in pursuit of Papua New guinea’s 148. Bangladesh’s Nigar Sultana is the highest overall run-scorer with 67 against Ireland yesterday and 34 versus Scotland today. The standout bowling performer is also a Bangladeshi. Shohely Akhter scored the tournament’s only 4-fer today against Scotland – returning stunning figures of 4-7 from her 4 overs.

 

Tomorrow is a rest day before the final takes place on Sunday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sri Lankan Major League Tournament Update

 There were fewer results in this week’s round and those that were completed were more narrow victories than we have seen recently. The most comprehensive victory was Galle’s innings and 13 run beating of Kalutara Town which saw Galle move up to 7^th place.

 

If high scoring draws are your thing, your fixture of this weekend’s round would have been Police Sports Club versus Ragama. The Police sit 5 places below Ragama and would have been happier for the draw. This can be seen in the batting of Heshan Dhanuskha who batted his hear tout for his 233 – the third highest individual score of the tournament. The tournament’s leading run-scorer, Nishan Madushka, also didn’t disappoint as he put on 125 in the first inning and 82 in the second. He has now scored 925 at an average of 185. This is 324 more runs than anybody else.

 

Not a round seems to go by without someone bagging an eight-fer. This time out it was the turn of Sonal Dinusha who got his in the drawn match between Colombo and Moors. This was another drawn match between the sides that are first and second in Group A. Whilst the game is officially down as a draw, Moors needed just 8 more runs to claim the victory with two wickets in hand before time run out.

 

The top wicket taker Kaumal Nanayakkara got 6 more wickets to take his total to 42 at an average of 13.78. 

Road Safety World Series Update

 Two big losses for the two teams making their debuts as South Africa beat New Zealand by 9 wickets yesterday and Sri Lanka beat England by 7 today.

Andrew Puttick's 51* was the difference for South Africa as they chased down New Zealand's target of 99. 

Despite only scoring 15 today for Sri Lanka, Tillakaratne Dilshan is still the principal run scorer with 122. The main man for the Sri Lankans today was Sanath Jayasuriya. The 53 year old's extraordinary figures of 4-2-3-4 held England to a mere 78 runs. Sanath now has 4 wickets but still trails Nuwan Kulasekera's 6 wickets. 

India play West Indies tomorrow. 

Road Safety World Series Update

 In case you were thinking of crossing the road without holding your grown-ups hand, the Road Safety World Series is back.

After a full round of fixtures India, Sri Lanka and West Indies beat South Africa, Australia and Bangladesh.

The biggest victory was that of West Indies today who got Bangladesh all out for 98 before winding the total in with 5 overs to spare.

Individually the highest run scorer has been Tillakaratne Dilshan who got 107 against Australia whilst his teammate Nuwan Kulasekera's 4-36 is the best bowler after one game.

Tomorrow New Zealand enter the tournament against South Africa whilst England make their bow on Tuesday. 

Sri Lankan Major League Tournament Update

Another cycle of game shave been completed with many of the fixtures pitting teams off against each other that are right next to each other in the table.

 

One of these closely fought games was between Ragama and Burgher who were 3^rd and fourth on the table. Ragama’s Nishan Madushanka got his third century of the tournament as Ragama only needed to bat first. His 107 helped bolster Ragama’s score of 413-9d. Burgher lost by an innings and 21 runs.

Another huge win could be found in the game between table-toppers Tamil Union who skittled the Sri Lankan Air Service all out for 87 in the final innings to claim a 270 run win.

The highest individual score for this round of matches came from Chilaw Mariams’ Gaurav Jathar who got 139 of the 391 first innings runs. Saracens were asked to follow on but played for time on the final day to claim the draw. Chilaw Mariams sit 4^th.

 

Two seven wicket hauls were bagged in this round. The most economical of which was in a bottom of the table clash between Panadura and Bloomfield. Nimesh Vimukthu got 7-45 as Bloomfield were all out for 135 chasing down a first innings target of 426. They were asked to follow on but, like Saracens, batted out the day.

More impressive was Kamal Nanayakkara, who already lead the wicket taking tally but got a fivefer in his first innings and 7-56 in the second. The Army man now has 36 wickets across the competition. 

Sri Lanka Under 19s Tour of England Round Up

 England sealed a clean sweep in this Youth ODOI series. With each passing game , the target the English had to chase got progressively harder. Today they chased down 252, despite a mid-order wobble. 

It has been an especially battter friendly series with 7 centuries scored across both teams. Despite England's overall success, the top three highest scores were all from Sri Lankans. Shevon Daniel's 155 was the highest score in the 2nd ODI and Ranuda Somarathne had the most runs overall with 161.

Lancashire's Tom Aspinwall registered the best figures of 4- 67 in the first innings to round of a good series for Lancastrians. His 6 wickets was the most of anyone in the three games. 

Lahore Qalandars Tour of Namibia Update

 As might have been expected of a T20 side playing a 50 over game, Peshawar Zalmi started strongly but then petered away as they tried to chase down 262. Their bowling unit proved strong with Mamoon Ur Riaz registering 3-31 as Namibia Eagles got to 262-8. 

Lahore looked unlikely to chase that before a massive surge of runs between the 30th and 40th overs with two back to back overs yielding 14 runs before a wicket took the wind out of their sails. They eventually ended their innings 5 runs short in a thrilling encounter. 

The second and final game is on Friday. 

Namibia Global T20 Mini Round Up

 The final of this fun little competition went to form and the Lions beat the Lahore Qalanders – however it went to the wire as they needed 11 runs off the last over and 6 off the last two to take it.

 

Yet again Reeza Hendricks played a blinder resetting his highest score for the tournament at 94* off 59. He finishes the tournament with the first and second highest score. Evan Jones went wicketless in the final but still ends up as the best bowler with 9 wickets @ 13.55.

 

The Lions now chip off home and the Lahore Qalanders play out two One Day games on Wednesday and Friday…..which is odd for a T20 team. 

Sri Lanka Under 19s Tour of England - 1st ODI Update

 The first ODI between England Under 19s and Sri Lanka Under 19s is one of those ones I find tricky to write about.

The Sri Lankans batted almost all of their full allocation before the heavens opened with them on 248-9. This would have been a challenging target and set up a good game....but so prolific was the rain in Worcester that it only allowed England the chance to chase down 172 in 25 overs. They nearly screwed this up by losing wickets very regularly but managed to get there in the final over.

One thing that is clear is that Nottinghamshire's Fateh Singh was the player of the match with figures of 3-49. 

Namibia Global T20 Update

 In a triumph of scheduling, Lions, the strongest team in the competition played twice today. The first game, Lions vs Peshawar Zalmi, will be repeated in tomorrow's formal. Lion's won the dress rehearsal before they lost their final game; handing Namibia Eagles a conciliation win to round off their tournament. Gerhard Erasmus was the player of the match for Namibia.

Reeza Hendricks got 55 runs in the first game and sat out the second.....and still is the tournament leading run scorer. The same is the case with Evan Jones who got 2 wickets in the first game, sat out for the second and still has 2 more wickets than anyone else. 

New Zealand A Tour of India First Test Write Up

 To say that the Bengaluru pitch might have been batter friendly in the first Unofficial A test between India and New Zealand might be underselling it rather. Across the two completed innings there were no fewer than 4 centuries and the bowlers – India’s led by the experienced Kuldeep Yadav – didn’t get a look in.

The first century was the biggest. Joe Carter’s 197 off 305 balls saw New Zealand back from a bas start where they were 10-1 and 28-2. They eventually were all out for 400. The Indian innings then began with three batters passing the mantle of being the most impressive scorers on to one another. First off was Abhimanyu Easwaran who got 132. He and Rajat Patadar batted fluently together before the former was out. This allowed Madhya Pradesh’s Patidar to go on and top the opener and reach 176. To round it off Tilak Varma got the third century of the innings – 121 off 183. India A then declared with a lead of 171 – hoping to maybe skittle New Zealand out – but it was not to be.

 

2 more Tests are scheduled with the next starting on Thursday in Hubballi. 

Sri Lankan Major League Tournament Update

 This has been quite a hard tournament to follow and update.

 

Firstly, as you can imagine, the coverage in Sri Lanka has been patchy. Also, there are so many teams and the fixtures are all over-lapping; for example, a round of matches has finished today but another started today as well…..problematic, at best. I will therefore take this arbitrary point to offer you some findings.

 

Moors are the team to beat so far. They are the only team with a 100% record which is even more impressive considering they have played 3 matches – whereas others have just played the one.

 

As ever in these competitions there are some huge gulfs in terms of the teams. On 6 occasions teams have been beaten by an innings. Moors success is underlined by the fact that they have beaten 2 teams by that margin. Fans of Kandy will be concerned that they have been beaten by an innings now fewer than three times.  

The standout batter in the tournament remains Nishan Madushka. He registered a huge 300* in the last round of fixtures against lowly Sebastianites. With a score like that you will not be surprised to hear he is the highest tournament run scorer as well with nearly 200 more than anyone else.

 

This round of games has also seen the Sri Lankan domestic legend that is Malinda Pushpakumara land the outrageous figures of 8-27 in Colts innings victory over Lankan. This is the second eightfer of the tournament. The first was bagged by Sri Lankan Army’s Kamul Nanayakkara in a match against Bloomfied. Nanayakkara is the tournament’s best wicket taker with 24 @ 12.95.

 

Matches continue…..seemingly all the time. 

Namibia Global T20 Update

 The Lions look the team to beat with 2 wins in 2. Today Lahore looked the best of the rest as they beat the Namibian Eagles by a huge 8 wickets.

The Lions hold all the individual tournament records too. Reeza Hendricks has both the highest individual score (77 from the first game) and the most runs overall (108) - this despite playing one fewer game than his rivals.

A similar situation is in place with the bowling where Evan Jones has the only fivefer and has the best tournament figures - 7 @ 5.85.

Games continue tomorrow but the final is likely to be Lions versus Lahore. 

Namibia Global T20 Update

The Richelieu Eagles and DP World Lions' match got in Namibia's Global T20 League underway today.

 

The tournament is a bit like the Champions League of cricket....just a bit crapper. The DP World Lions, Lahore Qalandars, and Richelieu Lions are the three teams that are competing. It was planned to add another squad—the Bengal state team from India—to the mix. However, the BCCI refused to give the Bengal team permission to compete.

 

The Namibia Global T20 competition features a total of seven matches, followed by two one-day matches between Lahore Qalandars and Richelieu Lions. The Wanderers Cricket Ground in Windhoek will host each game with the final on the 5th. 

 

The first game was won by the South African set-up thanks to the experience of Reeza Hendricks who got 77 off 42 balls in the first innings total of 183. Namibia’s Eagles could not compete with that and fell 18 runs short.

 

Tomorrow sees the Richelieu Eagles play Lahore.