Pakistan have recalled fast bowler Umar Gul to their ODI squad that will play Ireland and England in seven matches from August 18

Umar Farooq09-Aug-2016Pakistan have recalled fast bowler Umar Gul to their ODI squad. The 32-year-old last played 50-over cricket for his country in April 2015. Gul is one of four fast bowlers – including the uncapped Hasan Ali – chosen to play against England and Ireland from August 18.Legspinner Yasir Shah has also made a return to limited-overs cricket for the first time since November 2015. He had been suspended for a doping offence and was unavailable for selection when Pakistan had toured New Zealand in January 2016. Seven out of the 16 men from that squad have been sidelined.

Changes to Pakistan’s ODI squad

In: Sami Aslam, Sharjeel Khan, Umar Gul, Yasir Shah, Hasan Ali, Mohammad Nawaz
Out: Ahmed Shehzad, Anwar Ali, Asad Shafiq, Mohammad Irfan, Rahat Ali, Sohaib Maqsood, Zafar Gohar

Fast bowler Mohammad Irfan was one of those to be left out. In the past, Pakistan have handled him with great care, mindful of his injury-prone nature. His pace and bounce have been seen as assets, but with only 12 wickets in nine ODIs over the past 12 months, he has been overlooked by the new selection panel led by Inzamam-ul-Haq.Others who haven’t made the cut include Ahmed Shehzad, Sohaib Maqsood and Anwar Ali. While Shehzad has fallen out of favour due to issues with indiscipline and inconsistency, Maqsood and Anwar have struggled with their recent form. Maqsood has not done much since starting his career with back-to-back fifties, while Anwar has gone wicketless in four of his last six matches.Sami Aslam, who made two high-quality half-centuries in the Edgbaston Test against England, was drafted in, as was Mohammad Nawaz, who made his Pakistan debut in the Asia Cup in February. Nawaz is yet to take an international wicket, but had a productive time in the Pakistan Super League where he finished with 13 wickets at an average of 18. He was also part of the A team tour to England this July.Meanwhile Hasan, a 22-year-old right-arm seamer, is the only squad member without any experience in international cricket. He made his List A debut in 2013 and has taken 40 wickets in 21 matches at an average of 22.87. Like Nawaz, he has recent experience of English conditions thanks to his inclusion in Pakistan’s A team tour last month.”While picking the squad, the team management and skipper were consulted and all concerned gave their consent in this regard,” chief selector Inzamam said in a statement issued by PCB. “The team has been selected keeping in mind the conditions and the recent performances of some players in domestic and A Team tours. The team is a fine blend of experience and youth and the selectors believe that this team will do well.”Gul’s return to the Pakistan team has come two months after he had accused the selectors of “double standards”. Though he has had problems with fitness, missing large chunks of cricket in 2013 and 2014 due to a knee injury, he said he had been overlooked for the 2015 World Cup despite meeting the minimum fitness requirements. After he was left out of the Test squad for England and even the national camps in Abbottabad and Lahore, Gul said he felt the selectors had lost faith in him.Pakistan’s ODI squad: Azhar Ali (capt), Sharjeel Khan, Sami Aslam, Mohammad Hafeez, Babar Azam, Shoaib Malik, Sarfraz Ahmed, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Amir, Wahab Riaz, Umar Gul, Hasan Ali, Imad Wasim, Yasir Shah, Mohammad Nawaz

Darren Bravo and Kraigg Brathwaite found runs off the pink ball on the second day of the West Indians’ tour game against the PCB Patrons XI

ESPNcricinfo staff08-Oct-2016
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsKraigg Brathwaite scored 55 off 131 deliveries•AFP

Darren Bravo and Kraigg Brathwaite found some form with the bat on the second day of the West Indians’ tour game against the PCB Patrons XI. Both batsmen struck fifties and shared an 82-run partnership for the second wicket as the West Indians ended the day on 174 for 2 in response to the PCB Patrons XI’s score of 308.Bravo was unbeaten at stumps on 73 off 178 deliveries, having anchored the side through his partnerships with Brathwaite and Shai Hope (58 for the third wicket). He struck 12 fours and two sixes, while Brathwaite, who scored 55 off 131 deliveries, struck four fours before he was dismissed. Leon Johnson was the only other West Indian batsman to be dismissed on the day, falling to Ahmed Jamal for 11.Earlier, PCB Patrons XI resumed from an overnight score of 241 for 5 and went on to hit 67 runs off nearly 14 overs before being bowled out for 308. Adnan Akmal, who was unbeaten on 26 overnight, took the lead, scoring 69 off 67 balls with 10 fours. He had support from Asif Zakir as the pair stretched their overnight partnership of 34 runs to 85 before the stand was broken by Devendra Bishoo. The pair scored at a rate of 4.81 and were eventually dismissed in successive overs with the total close to 300. Bishoo, who had taken three wickets on the first day, completed his five-for and conceded 107 runs, while Holder took the remaining three wickets on the second day.

A round-up of the second day’s play in round one of Ranji Trophy Group A matches

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Oct-2016

Group A

Fast bowlers Krishnamoorthy Vignesh and Aswin Crist helped Tamil Nadu compete against Mumbai in Lahli. Vignesh finished with 5 for 41 on debut, while Crist returned figures of 3 for 51 as they made sure Tamil Nadu – who had been all out for 87 – conceded a first-innings lead of only 89 runs.Openers Washington Sundar and Abhinav Mukund then wiped out that deficit with a 107-run stand that shifted the momentum firmly in Tamil Nadu’s favour. However, Dhawal Kulkarni broke the partnership to open a passage of play in which six wickets fell for the addition of just 43 runs. Debutant left-arm spinner Vijay Gohil did most of the damage, taking 3 for 36. Tamil Nadu went to stumps with a lead of 64 and only four wickets in hand.Harpreet Singh raced to an unbeaten double-century to help Madhya Pradesh post 465 from an overnight total of 292 for 7. Seamers Ishwar Pandey and Gaurav Yadav then reduced Uttar Pradesh to 131 for 5 as Madhya Pradesh established a dominant position by stumps on day two in Hyderabad.In the morning, resuming on 112, Harpreet hit 104 of the 173 runs Madhya Pradesh added. He was well supported by Ankit Sharma, who scored 61 off 97 in an eighth-wicket stand that yielded 155 runs in 208 balls. Madhya Pradesh maintained a run-rate of almost 5 in the 36 overs they faced.With the ball, Pandey made the first breakthrough and Yadav made the next three, before the run-out of Piyush Chawla left Uttar Pradesh struggling at 96 for 5. Eklavya Dwivedi and Kuldeep Yadav saw them through to stumps without any further losses.Uday Kaul and Gurkeerat Singh scored unbeaten fifties in an unbroken 110-run fifth-wicket stand to rescue Punjab and take them to 154 for 4 against Railways in Delhi.This was after Siddarth Kaul dismissed Railways’ overnight batsman, Ashish Yadav (81) Shivakant Shukla (128), and then removed Anureet Singh to complete his five-wicket haul. Overall, Punjab took 5 for 74 in the day and bowled Railways out for 331.In their reply, Punjab were reduced to 44 for 4 by the Railways quicks, before Uday Kaul (59*) and Gurkeerat (66*) put up resistance.Baroda declared on 544 for 8, before Gujarat‘s openers survived 15 overs to stumps on another batsman’s day in Jaipur.Resuming on 285 for 2, Baroda’s overnight batsmen Aditya Waghmode and Deepak Hooda added a further 57 runs before their 175-run third-wicket partnership was broken. By that stage, Hooda had got 118; Waghmode was dismissed shortly after for 142.Contributions of 47 from Hardik Pandya and 66 not out from Swapnil Singh took Baroda past 500. Gujarat’s openers, Samit Gohel and Priyank Kirit Panchal, closed out the day at 34 for 0.

Virat Kohli scored yet another hundred in a chase, an unbeaten 154, as India hunted down 286 to take a 2-1 lead in the ODI series

The Report by Karthik Krishnaswamy23-Oct-2016
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details4:44

Agarkar: India overdependent on Kohli while chasing

Virat Kohli scored yet another hundred in a chase, an unbeaten 154, as India hunted down 286 to take a 2-1 lead in the ODI series. India lost their openers with only 41 on the board, before Kohli and MS Dhoni, who promoted himself to No. 4, added 151 for the third wicket to bring the equation down to 94 from 85 balls. New Zealand may have sensed an opening, given the inexperience of India’s middle order, but Manish Pandey showed no nerves in adding an unbroken 97 with Kohli to steer India home with 10 balls remaining.The team batting second had won each of the last three ODIs in Mohali before this, chasing down 299, 258 and 304. Given that recent trend, given the likelihood of dew setting in under lights, and given Kohli’s record in chases, New Zealand probably needed at least 300 to test India on a flat batting surface with true bounce.They looked like they would get there, when a 73-run second-wicket partnership between Tom Latham and Ross Taylor took them to 153 for 2 in the 29th over, but a middle-order collapse cost them what turned out to be a significant amount of momentum. They lost six wickets for 46 runs in the space of 9.2 overs. James Neesham and Matt Henry added 84 for the ninth wicket to rejuvenate their innings, but their total of 285 was probably 20 runs short of posing India a serious challenge.Then they did the unthinkable: Kohli was on 6 when he opened his bat face to try and dab Henry to third man. He was probably looking to place the ball finer than he did, but ended up steering it straight to Taylor at wide slip. Tumbling to his right, Taylor dropped a regulation low catch.Either side of that, though, they sent back Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma, and prompted Dhoni to walk in earlier than he usually does in ODIs. With Kohli and Dhoni at the crease, plenty of hard running was to be expected, but they also found the boundary regularly, going after Mitchell Santner and Neesham to hit four fours and a six from overs 15 to 18. The six, sent soaring over long-off against Santner’s left-arm spin, took Dhoni to 9000 ODI runs. He became the 17th player overall, the fifth Indian, and the third wicketkeeper to the mark.By the 26th over, both had brought up their fifties, and then Dhoni welcomed Neesham’s reintroduction with a straight six that hit the sightscreen on the full, to become the most prolific ODI six-hitter among Indian batsmen. By the end of the 35th over, the target was less than 100 runs away.Dhoni fell on 80, chipping Henry to short cover when he rolled his fingers over the ball and got it to stop on the batsman. Santner sent down a tight 37th over, conceding only one run, and India suddenly needed 93 from 78, but Pandey showed he could be relied on to find the boundary in such circumstances, flat-batting a short ball from Henry back over the bowler’s head, and targeting the same boundary in more conventional fashion against Neesham, off a fuller ball.By now, Kohli had stepped up a gear as well. When Tim Southee brought fine leg into the circle, he used his wrists to take a hip-high ball from middle stump and whip it wide of the fielder, and was impressed enough with his own shot to pump his fist. His reaction was far more muted when he guided Neesham for a single to third man to bring up his hundred at the start of the next over, just a simple lift of the bat to the crowd.Then, in the 48th over, came a typical flurry of late boundaries, against Trent Boult: three fours – the best of them an open-faced jab off a near-yorker to beat deep point to his left – and a straight six. It left India just one run to get, and Pandey finished by slugging Southee to the midwicket boundary.Replacing Anton Devcich in New Zealand’s line-up, James Neesham scored 57 off 47 balls to lift New Zealand to 285•Associated Press

Sent in to bat on a pitch where the ball came on and allowed batsmen to play freely on the up, New Zealand’s openers made their best start of the series. They were watchful initially, scoring only 12 in the first three overs, before Martin Guptill walked down the track to the first ball of the fourth and launched Hardik Pandya for a massive six over long-on. That shot set the tone for an abrupt change of gear: Guptill hit two fours and another six in the next two overs, and Tom Latham joined him by pulling Umesh Yadav over the square-leg boundary.Just when Guptill seemed set for a big innings, Umesh had him lbw, nipping one back just enough to beat his inside edge. Kane Williamson looked in sublime touch after his hundred in Delhi, timing his drives sweetly until he fell against the run of play, lbw trying to sweep Kedar Jadhav.Taylor began scratchily, struggling to pierce the infield against Amit Mishra and Axar Patel, but having only scored 14 off his first 28 balls, he began to find some fluency, hitting two fours and a slog-swept six to move to 44 off 56. His partnership with Latham, who got his second half-century of the series, had moved past 70, and New Zealand’s score had crossed the 150-run mark.Just then, Mishra produced two beautiful, dipping legbreaks to have both Taylor and Luke Ronchi stumped. At the other end, Corey Anderson and Latham chipped Jadhav to fielders inside the circle. Santner popped a leading edge, off Jasprit Bumrah, to point, and Tim Southee inside-edged Umesh onto his stumps.At 199 for 8, New Zealand were in danger of getting bowled out a long way short of 50 overs, but Neesham and Henry delayed it. Neesham worked out a sensible method to score his runs, his first three boundaries all struck with a straight bat down the ground, and Henry, at the other end, went after anything wide – slashing and punching Umesh for two fours – while defending anything on his stumps.As the slog overs approached, Umesh’s old failings resurfaced, as short balls followed wide length balls that allowed the batsmen to free their arms. In the 47th over, Neesham stood tall and pulled him through midwicket before slicing a wide-ish ball to the third-man boundary to bring up his half-century. Henry hit him for a six and two fours off successive balls in the 49th over, and Umesh ended with figures of 3 for 75. New Zealand were bowled out with two balls still left to play, but managed to score 285.

Mehedi Hasan struck 44 and took 2 for 12 to help Rajshahi Kings complete a thrilling fightback to post a 49-run win against Rangpur Riders in Mirpur

Mohammad Isam in Mirpur28-Nov-2016
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsMehedi Hasan struck 44 off 32 and returned figures of 2 for 12•Raton Gomes/BCB

Rajshahi Kings improved their chances of a top-four finish after complete a stunning comeback to register a 49-run win against Rangpur Riders. After being reduced to 43 for 7 in the 10th over, Farhad Reza and Mehedi Hasan struck an 85-run unbroken eighth wicket stand to lift Rajshahi to 128.Rangpur managed to mirror Rajshahi’s batting collapse and were bowled out for just 79 runs in 17.4 overs. Left-arm spinner Nazmul Islam and pacer Abul Hasan took three wickets each while Mehedi picked up two. Mohammad Sami and Samit Patel also contributed a wicket each.Rangpur’s batting line-up never got going in the chase. Soumya Sarkar was the first man out, stumped in the third over. Mohammad Shahzad was bounced out by Mohammad Sami.Nasir Jamshed fell a ball later, giving Mehedi a return catch. Liam Dawson was incorrectly adjudged lbw, replays showing he had edged the ball onto his front pad. Nazmul was also lucky with his second wicket, of Shahid Afridi who was stumped off wicketkeeper Umar Akmal’s pads after he had missed the delivery that kept low.Rangpur lost mainstay Mohammad Mithun and Ziaur Rahman who was stumped in the 13th over, reducing them to 58 for 7. Rangpur were quickly skittled with Abul taking the last three wickets to fall.Earlier, Rajshahi’s slide had begun with Sunny’s tumbling caught and bowled off Mominul Haque’s drive, which made it 25 for 2 in the fifth over. The ball was going over his head when he managed to bring it down and complete the catch off the second attempt. In the same over, Patel edged to Shahzad.Abul gave Sunny his third wicket in the seventh over when he holed out to deep midwicket. When Afridi took the return catch of Sabbir Rahman, Rajshahi were reduced to 43 for 7.Farhad and Mehedi were then forced to pick up the singles to resurrect the innings. Farhad hammered Rubel Hossain over his head in the 17th over, it was the first six of the innings. Mehedi also launched Rubel for a straight six in the final over.Farhad was unbeaten on 44 off 32 balls with two fours and two sixes, while Mehedi contributed with an unbeaten 33-ball 41 with three fours and a six. The pair added 85 runs, a new BPL record for the eighth wicket.Rajshahi are now on ten points, equal with Rangpur and Chittagong Vikings.