The former Australian fast bowler Glenn McGrath reckons that Virat Kohli will have his task cut out against the English fast bowler James Anderson on India’s upcoming tour of England. Anderson had troubled Kohli a lot the last time India toured England as he had consistently dismissed him on low scores and had not let him cross the score of fifty even once in the whole test series.
Stuart Broad took a nasty blow on his face while batting on the third day of the 4th test match against India at the Old Trafford Ground, Manchester. He had come to bat at a stage when England had already taken a substantial lead and thus, quite obviously, he did not look to hang around. He started looking for big shots straightaway.
Broad got a few short deliveries away for boundaries, but, Varun Aaron, who is the quickest Indian fast bowler, bowled him a perfect bouncer which was directed towards his body. He couldn’t get his bat on that and the ball hit him straight on his helmet grill. It was a seriously quick ball and it actually broke the grill to go inside and smack the Nottinghamshire man on the nose.
Broad was down immediately. The blood started flowing out of his nose and there was no way that he was going to bat any further. The English medical staff took him out of the ground and rushed him to the hospital where it was found that there were cuts and fracture in his nose and he would need stitches.
Broad didn’t feature in the test match after that. The match actually got over the same day as after getting dismissed for 367, the English team bundled out India for just 161 runs in the second innings and won by an inning and 54 runs.
It was supposed to be hard for England to get India all out cheaply in the absence of Broad, but, the likes of Jordan and Moeen Ali produced the goods and England got up by 2-1 in the series.
Broad had the figures of 6 for 25 in the first innings and he was named man of the match for that performance.
The South Africa Cricket team secured a big win in the third and last match of the 3-match One Day International series against Sri Lanka. With that win, the Proteas sealed the series by 2-1.
It’s the first time that South Africa has won a One Day International series in Sri Lanka.
The experienced players of the South African side played fantastically well in the series. The opening batsman Hashim Amla, who has recently been named as the skipper of the test side, scored two hundreds, while, AB De Villiers, arguably the best batsman in the world, scored a hundred as well as a fifty. The young guys like Quinton De Kock played their part too.
The South African teams that had toured Sri Lanka before didn’t have any wicket taking spinner. But, this time around, the Proteas were equipped in that department as they had Imran Tahir who is an attacking leg spinner.
Tahir was the major factor for the Proteas in the series. In all the three matches, he took crucial wickets in the middle phase of the Sri Lankan innings and kept South Africa ahead.
In the last match, Sri Lanka was well on track in the chase of 340. They had scored almost 100 in the first 10 overs and had got on top of the visitors, but, that’s when De Villiers threw the ball to Tahir and he made all the difference. With key breakthroughs, the Pakistan-born spinner pushed Sri Lanka’s back against the wall.
Sri Lanka failed to recover from that deadly Tahir spell and eventually couldn’t hunt down that huge target despite a late fight by the captain Angelo Mathews.
Tahir can be extremely useful for South Africa in the test series too which will start next week.
Matt Prior has backed ECB’s decision of axing Kevin Pietersen. The wicketkeeper thinks that the environment in the Three Lions’ changing room would be much better in the absence of maverick batsman.
Although Matt Prior admitted that in terms of ability, Pietersen might have been better than any other cricketer that has played for England till date, but, at the same time he also said that apart from the ability, the values are also very important and in that regard, KP wasn’t right up there.
Prior said, “The England Cricket Board emphasises a lot on the values and rightly so. It’s very important for a player to have the passion to win matches for the country that he is representing at the international level.”
There had been reports of Prior and Cook playing a part in Pietersen being axed and now after this statement, those reports seem to be true.
Prior had had very tough time with the bat in the Ashes series against Australia. He failed miserably in the first three test matches and as a result of that, he was dropped for the 4th one which was played in Melbourne. He was the deputy skipper of the team, despite that; the England team management took that decision.
According to Prior, being dropped was a little bit heart breaking for him, but, he was clearly out of nick and thus, didn’t deserve to be in the playing XI.
When asked about him being left out, the South Africa born cricketer said, “I have taken it as a challenge. I desperately want to be back amongst the runs and regain my spot back in the England test side.”
Prior has featured for the Three Lions in 75 test matches in his career so far.
The first test match between India and South Africa is going to start from tomorrow at the Wanderers, Johannesburg. It’s a vital test series for the Indian cricket team. They have already been outclassed by the South African side in the one day international matches on the tour and they can’t expect the test matches to be any easier. The South African test bowling line up is even more lethal.
India’s bowling has also been strengthened as one of their premier fast bowlers Zaheer Khan has come back into the side. However, he has not bowled at the international level since a while, so, one cannot expect him to start hitting the right lengths straightaway, but, his presence on the ground will certainly benefit the other Indian fast bowlers who are lacking experience.
The other player with whom India has big expectations in the test series is Cheteshwar Pujara. The 25 years old right hander has got a very tight defence and he is perhaps the most organized player in the Indian batting line up. He is good at playing with the horizontal bat and the biggest positive about him is that he doesn’t throw away the good starts. Once he gets in, he makes the bowling team work hard. He has already had 5 hundreds in his brief test career so far.
As far as South Africa is concerned, they have played some brilliant test cricket in the last few years. They have performed well against almost every team and they would like to continue their good work in this series as well. They would be making one change in their playing XI that had featured in the second test match against Pakistan in UAE. Hashim Amla would replace Dean Elgar.
Monty Panesar’s career seems to be getting back on track. After being selected in the England test squad for the Ashes series down under, the 31 years old left arm spinner has now been signed on a permanent basis by Essex.
Panesar had spent a bit of time at Essex towards the end of the last season too, but, he was there on loan only. He performed pretty well in that brief period though and managed to get his spot back in the England test squad.
There were speculations that the county might sign him on a permanent basis because of his consistent performances during the loan period and those speculations proved to be true.
The second half of the last season was pretty tough for Panesar. Because of his misbehaviour with the security persons at a bar, his county Sussex terminated his contract.
Essex then signed him on loan and according to Panesar, he is thankful to Essex for giving him that opportunity during that difficult period.
Talking to the reporters yesterday, Panesar said, “I had a fantastic time at Essex towards the end of the previous season. I was there only for a brief period of time, but, I felt comfortable both on and off the ground.”
“I will never forget the huge round of applause that the fans had given me when I was brought into the attack to bowl my first over for Essex. That was really helpful for me. I started feeling respected again.”
Meanwhile, the CEO of the Essex county cricket club Derek Bowden has expressed his happiness over the fact that Panesar signed for his county on a permanent basis.
Bowden said, “We are glad that Monty signed a permanent deal. It was great to have him here last season. He performed well and hopefully, he will continue to do so in future as well.”