Needing to win all three T20Is to claim the Ashes, England are facing a complication with the uncertainty around Anya Shrubsole’s fitness and if she is unfit, the visitors could look to field a markedly spin-heavy attack

Adam Collins in Sydney16-Nov-20171:01

‘We’ve got to be fearless’ – Knight

“He’s a very busy man,” Australian captain Rachael Haynes said after Australia Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull visited her team. He sure is: taking a curtain call yesterday after the successful same-sex marriage survey, this morning honouring the men’s football team for qualifying for the World Cup, then straight to North Sydney Oval for this photo-op with the women who can retain their Ashes silverware with a victory on Friday in the opening T20I.The binary state of the multi-format series – England needing to clean sweep the three T20Is to snatch a come-from-behind win – makes it simple. Haynes, however, stressed she will not be satisfied with a win in the first match alone. “We’re not just thinking it’s one game away,” she emphasised. Instead, they enter the final leg of the Ashes wanting to hammer the visitors.There isn’t much of love lost between the sides, highlighted by Australia coach Matthew Mott stating after the drawn Test – at the same venue on Sunday – that England batted in a way that showed they never much cared about winning. Valid or otherwise, it was punchy.”We had a little bit of a chuckle about it,” responded Mark Robinson, his opposite number. “There’s not much you can really say. Sometimes coaches are frustrated at the end of the day when it doesn’t quite go how you want it to do. I’ve been there myself. But I don’t really take much notice.”England captain Heather Knight believes her charges have claimed some timely momentum by salvaging a split result after Ellyse Perry’s majestic double-hundred. “We fought really hard to get those points in the Test after Australia batted really well,” she said. “Everyone is really looking forward to playing T20, getting a red stripey kit on and going out and expressing ourselves. It is the form of the game where you try and play your shots.”To help with that, she has Sarah Taylor in glittering form after stroking an unbeaten 93 off 76 balls on Thursday in a tour game against the Australian Governor-General’s XI. “It was really nice to see her in the runs being her usual innovative self,” Knight said. “One shot she hit over backward point reverse-sweeping, which is a new one from her.”Robinson quickly added that she has been “outstanding” with the gloves as well. One of the highlights of the Test was her sharp catch to dismiss Elyse Villani up to the stumps off the seam of Anya Shrubsole. “I think it was 140 overs before she let a bye go in that Test Match,” he said, “which is incredible.”Knight also pointed to England’s record in must-win fixtures – including their successful World Cup run – as proof that they can hold nerve when it matters most. “We have got to concentrate like a knock-out game and take confidence from the fact that we have performed really well in knock-out games over the last year,” she said.A slight complication for the visitors, however, is the fitness of opening bowler Shrubsole, who picked up a hamstring niggle at training on Monday. “Anya is a proven international bowler with a great record, so it is going to be a big decision if she didn’t play,” Robinson said. The decision on her will be taken after a medical assessment closer to the toss.Getty Images

Her omission would open the door to a markedly spin-heavy England attack, doubly so given that the T20 will be played on the same drab surface as the Test, where only six wickets fell in the final two days. Both captain and coach declared the most likely scenario is the two Danielles in the squad – Hazell and Wyatt – will both get their first opportunities on tour. The former is currently ranked third in the world for T20 bowlers in the ICC ratings.”She keeps it simple and she nails what she does,” Knight said. “I know they have both been desparate to get out there and contribute to this tour and they want to make an impact and do well and T20 is their preferred format, where they are bankers.”Robinson noted that given 18-year-old left-arm spinner Sophie Ecclestone’s excellent tour to date, she might be hard to leave out – much in the way as World Cup champions Laura Marsh and Alex Hartley. When asked if all four frontline spinners could feature in the XI, Robinson said: “Possibly. And we haven’t really used [Wyatt] for the last year as a bowler but she bowls off-spin and the captain has a pretty decent record herself. So, there could be seven spinners at some point.”Haynes, however, is less inclined to make a flurry of changes to her side. “I don’t think that we will take four spinners in to be honest,” she said. “We’ll pick a balanced team and that team will be based on the conditions.” She will have plucky Victoria offspinner Molly Strano as a new option, brought into the squad after the Tests.Australia are yet to finalise their XI in part due to forecasts of rain that could hit Sydney at the worst possible time. But what does appear likely is that 20-year-old excitement machine Ashleigh Gardner will return after being left out for the Test. “She’s a really dangerous player in this format and she’s been very successful in WBBL batting up the order,” Haynes said. The bulk of Gardner’s 414 runs in the Women’s Big Bash League last year came at No.3 and that could give Haynes the freedom to “play around with our order.”England are expected to adopt a similar approach with Katherine Brunt, recast as a T20 blaster in addition to new ball duties in this year’s Kia Super League, where she was the sixth-highest run-getter in the tournament batting from second drop in the Yorkshire list. She batted at No. 5 in the tour game, and Robinson hinted she may again in the main event.From Sydney, the series will move to Canberra, the nation’s capital, for the last two T20Is. If the hosts finish off the job between in the first T20I, they can expect an invite to join PM Turnbull at his place of work.

Middle order rally keeps Railways in the hunt for first innings points over table toppers Karnataka; Assam eye consolation win

ESPNcricinfo staff26-Nov-2017Kulwant Khejroliya and Vikas Mishra picked up three wickets apiece to put Delhi in a position from which they could possibly enforce the follow-on against Hyderabad in Uppal. Hyderabad endured a full-blown collapse that saw them slip from 107 for 2 yto 170 for 8. They finally finished on 194 for 8 at stumps in response to Delhi’s 415, with only Tanmay Agarwal offering any sort of resistance in top scoring with 63.Earlier in the day, Delhi added 79 for the loss of their last five wickets, with Vikas Tokas’s unbeaten 28 helping them cross the 400-mark. New ball bowler Ravi Kiran and left-arm spinner Mehedi Hasan picked up three wickets each for Hyderabad.A middle-order rally from Arindam Ghosh (70 not out) and Mahesh Rawat (86 not out) brought Railways to within 193 runs of Karnataka’s 434 in New Delhi. Shreyas Gopal (44 not out) and No. 11 Abhimanyu Mithun added 46 to take the visitors past 400.In reply, Railways wobbled at 83 for 4, with Mithun and K Gowtham, the offspinner, picking up two wickets each. Shivakant Shukla (28) and Pratham Singh (35) were guilty of frittering away strong starts to hand the advantage to the visitors on a platter. But that was only until the fifth-wicket association of Ghosh and Rawat, the captain, kept the bowlers at bay for a better part of Sunday afternoon. Their stand was worth 158 when stumps were drawn.A four-wicket haul from left-arm spinner Rahul Singh raised Assam’s hopes of finishing the season with a win. After pocketing a first-innings lead of 26 after skittling Maharashtra for 253, their top order carried them to 101 for 3, their overall lead at 127 when stumps were drawn on the second day in Pune. Their hopes of stretching that past 250 will hinge on Gokul Sharma, the captain, and Sibsankar Roy – two of their most accomplished batsmen – who made half-centuries in the first innings.Maharashtra’s middle order has been riddled with inconsistency all season. The story was no different on Sunday. Resuming on 64 for 3, they quickly slipped to 160 for 6 before lunch. It needed two lower order contributions – Shrikant Mundhe (27) and Pragyan Bhati (31) – to lift bring Maharashtra to within 30 runs of Assam.

The former Australia captain fills the void left by Rahul Dravid’s departure

ESPNcricinfo staff04-Jan-2018Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting will return to the IPL this season, this time as head coach of Delhi Daredevils. Hemant Dua, the chief executive of Daredevils, made the announcement on Twitter.Ponting takes over from Paddy Upton and former India captain Rahul Dravid, who had stepped down after the previous season owing to BCCI’s conflict-of-interest regulations. While Upton’s contract wasn’t renewed, Dravid chose to coach India A and India Under-19 teams over the IPL franchise.Delhi were in contention for a playoff berth last season, only to taper off towards the end of the group stage. They eventually finished the season sixth, with six wins in 14 matches. The franchise is yet to win a title in 10 attempts.Ponting had coached Mumbai Indians to their second IPL title in 2015, but the franchise chose to not renew his two-year contract when it expired in 2016. He had joined the franchise as a player in 2013, but stepped away midway through the tournament due to poor form.Ponting also worked with Mumbai Indians in an advisory capacity in 2014. Prior to that, he was briefly part of Kolkata Knight Riders for the inaugural edition in 2008.

Mennie has played one Test and two ODIs for Australia will bolster an attack that lost Kyle Jarvis and Ryan McLaren at the end of the 2017 season

ESPNcricinfo staff17-Jan-2018Lancashire have signed Australia pace bowler Joe Mennie as their overseas player for the majority of the 2018 season.Mennie, 29, who has played one Test and two ODIs for Australia, will bolster an attack that lost Kyle Jarvis and Ryan McLaren at the end of the 2017 season and play across all three formats although he won’t be available for the final three Championship matches in September.Mennie’s signature completes Lancashire’s off-season recruitment following the signings of Graham Onions and Keaton Jennings from Durham and Australia allrounder James Faulkner for the T20 Blast.”It was really important that we brought in a high-quality overseas player to the club who has good availability and this is exactly what we’ve got with Joe as he’ll be involved in all three competitions throughout the season,” Lancashire head coach Glen Chapple said.”It was vital that we bolstered our fast bowling ranks within the squad after the departures of Kyle Jarvis and Ryan McLaren at the end of last season. We have now done that with the signing of Joe and Graham who will complement our current group of home-grown fast bowlers.”Joe will add quality to our squad and we believe his bowling style will suit English pitches and conditions. We’ve heard only good things about his character and personality and we’re confident that he will slot straight into the changing room when he arrives.”Mennie’s one-off Test appearance was a tough affair against South Africa at Hobart in November 2016 when Australia were bundled out for 85 on their way to a series defeat. Mennie took one wicket, that of Temba Bavuma, before being one of the players cast aside by the significant changes which followed that heavy loss.However, he has 200 first-class wickets at 26.17 – including 51 at 21.21 in the 2016 season – often operating in the favourable batting conditions of his home ground of the Adelaide Oval.

ESPNcricinfo understands that following Cricket Australia’s hurried investigations into the ball-tampering incident, it has apparently emerged that David Warner “is the issue”

Daniel Brettig in Johannesburg27-Mar-2018David Warner and Cricket Australia may be headed the same way as Kevin Pietersen and the ECB, with the vice-captain increasingly isolated as the instigator of the ball-tampering incident that has blown up into a perfect storm.In reference to the view within the team that Warner had hatched the idea and delegated it to his opening partner Cameron Bancroft with the captain Steven Smith’s approval, ESPNcricinfo has been told “the truth is starting to come out”. With the CA Board holding a teleconference with the head of integrity Iain Roy and the chief executive James Sutherland following the former’s hurried investigation, sources close to the board confirmed Warner “is the issue”.The enormity of the backlash against the Australian team and CA more broadly – by corporate sponsors and broadcasters bidding for television rights in particular – has led to a determination by Sutherland, the team performance chief Pat Howard and the Board chaired by David Peever that drastic action must be taken in an attempt to reset the game’s image. In that sense, Warner, Smith, Bancroft, the coach Darren Lehmann, assistant David Saker and others will be made to pay for the outrage as much as the offence itself.Briefing against Warner has been intense over the past 24 hours, leading to reports that team-mates want him out of the Australian side and that CA management are equally keen to see the back of him – the side’s senior bowlers Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon were angry at being implicated in the scheme to get the ball moving more sharply as the Newlands Test slipped away from Australia. Counter reports emerged on Tuesday that “everyone knew” about the attempt to alter the ball’s condition.Warner’s mixed relationship with the team and CA has endured for some years, after his “rehabilitation” in the wake of the Joe Root saga in 2013. Reports that Warner has left the team’s WhatsApp messaging group and distanced himself from the rest of the touring squad are not a surprise to those who have seen his persona veer wildly at times between the attack dog seen in 2013-14 and the reserved teetotal image he sought to foster between 2015 and 2017.Divisions within the team over the issue are a byproduct of the desperation being felt, with the realisation that international careers will end in an effort to save the face of the wider organisation and to preserve its appeal to fans and, by extension, the game’s commercial value. Even so, the fallout from the affair may also lead to the end of Sutherland’s long tenure as chief executive, given he has presided over a slipping of the team’s culture.Numerous experienced observers have pointed to the fact that the CA strategy announced last year omitted the “spirit of cricket” as one of its pillars for the first time since the documents had first been drafted in the early 2000s. The current strategy, devised to chart the path for CA and the state associations from 2017 to 2022, instead featured a “how we play” clause stating: “Be real, smash the boundaries, make every ball count, stronger together”.Previous editions of the strategy included pillars such as: “Strengthen and protect the ‘spirit of cricket’; thrive at the elite level; attract, develop and keep people in the game; and ensure cricket has a strong and sustainable financial base.”The aims of the current strategy were instead: “We will be the leading sport for women and girls; we will promote cricket to inspire love for the game; we will use technology to deliver great experiences for fans, participants and volunteers; we will maximises long-term sustainable revenue to drive investment in the game.”Pietersen’s days as an England cricketer were ended in 2014 after the 5-0 loss of the Ashes in Australia. While many details of the tour were never publicised, Pietersen was removed from the team as part of an attempt to change its culture.

The two things England have most enjoyed in this Test match so far have been with neither bat or ball

Andrew McGlashan in Auckland23-Mar-2018The two things England have most enjoyed in this Test match so far have been with neither bat or ball: Ed Sheeran popped into the dressing room while in Auckland for three gigs this weekend, and rain wiped out most of the second day with more forecast for the next two. Stuart Broad’s 400th wicket aside, there is not much else they can take from it.Sheeran, a cricket fan who is friends with Shane Warne, received a bat from Mark Wood and a signed shirt. “A few of the lads chatted to him for a while, it was nice especially after a couple of average days to meet someone of his calibre,” James Anderson said. “It was nice of him to come in, there are a lot of big fans in there.”Back on the field there was precious little to savour in the 23.1 overs possible. They bowled tightly but without much penetration which is not a new story. Anderson managed to extract Kane Williamson for 102, but New Zealand’s lead swelled to 171.Having been bowled out for 58, the game is so far advanced that the weather is not yet a problem for the home side, but the forecast is poor for the weekend. From such depths England will take any help they can, although Anderson insisted they could yet haul themselves out of the mire.”We have to keep believing we can save it because if we don’t have belief there’s no point turning up and putting in the hard yards and bowling the overs in the middle,” he said. “We’ve got to believe that we can get something out of this game.”Twenty-four hours after registering their sixth-lowest total in Test history and threatening the lowest by anyone – 26 – there was a sense of England still trying to work out how it happened. The same could be said for New Zealand.When asked his thoughts on batting before lunch on the first day, Anderson said: “It was a big chance for my maiden hundred.” Gallows humour is not a bad idea.”I can’t remember experiencing an hour like that before,” he added. “Certainly at the start of the game. It’s just one of those things, when the stars align, you’re not on form and facing two world-class bowlers it’s going to happen. We’ve got to try and work very hard to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”There was still a sense of disbelief in Williamson’s voice: “It was a bit of a perfect storm, really. England have a very long batting line-up. Even when you do fire you expect a partnership or two. It was doing just enough and that just enough was on our side. Hard to beat it from our perspective with ball in hand.”On the first day England coach Trevor Bayliss lamented technical failings from batsmen with a reluctance to get on the front foot to a slightly moving ball and while the major post-mortem will wait until after the match, Anderson said the onus was on the batsmen to work out what had gone wrong.”I’m sure the batsmen are working hard with the coaches to figure out what went wrong with them and counter that during the second innings and hopefully bat much better. I think it’s something after the game we’ll really have a chat about it but at the minute you’ve really got to do what you can do to influence this game.”More rain would be music to England’s ears. Otherwise, they might have time to see one of Ed Sheeran’s concerts in person.

Western Australia club cricket regulations state that any player suspended from playing for the state side is also barred from club cricket, but the clubs turned this around with a vote

Daniel Brettig14-May-2018A constitutional anomaly that may have blocked the banned Australian opener Cameron Bancroft from playing club cricket in his hometown in Perth, has been waived by the clubs. This means he can turn out for his club Willeton before he is again eligible to represent his state and country.Alongside David Warner and Steven Smith, Bancroft was banned by Cricket Australia for his part in the Newlands ball-tampering fiasco, handed a playing suspension of nine months while his senior team-mates were sanctioned for 12. The CA charge sheet stipulated that all players were banned from playing for Australia or their states, but remained able to play club cricket.However Western Australia club cricket regulations state that any player suspended from playing for the state side the Warriors is also barred from playing in Perth Premier Cricket. A vote of the competition’s 16 clubs was required to turn this around, with a simple majority enough to allow Bancroft to play. On Monday night, 14 clubs voted in favour of letting him play, with two against.Christina Matthews, the WACA chief executive, said the meeting was required due to a “lack of understanding” at CA about the rules regarding club cricket in Western Australia. Bancroft, Warner and Smith were interviewed and charged under the Board’s code of conduct within a matter of days of the end of the Newlands Test, as CA pushed to contain the issue amid television-rights negotiations.”They were put in an awkward position by the sanctions in the first place and a lack of understanding of the rules that applied across premier cricket in Australia, but this is good news for Cameron,” Matthews said of the clubs. “Cameron more than anything wants to play cricket here.”Like anybody he has his ups and downs but, overall, I think he is in a pretty good space. He’s not far off starting his community service, we have some things lined up for him there and we’ll hopefully finalise those this week. He’s really committed to doing that in a genuine and authentic way, and not just a box-ticking way.”Matthews said that the debate over whether or not to waive the regulation, which took about half an hour, related largely to whether an exception should be made when other players had been forced to miss club games when suspended from WA duty. “It was the fact that there’s been other players who have had to serve out sanctions when sanctioned by Cricket Australia in other competitions,” Matthews said. “So it’s just reasonable debate and discussion about why it wouldn’t apply in this circumstance and how the circumstances were different.”Bancroft is reportedly in talks to take part in the out-of-season Twenty20 club tournament to be played in Darwin in July.

Despite being the highest scorer in England’s world record total, Alex Hales knows he still can’t be sure of his place in the one-day side

Melinda Farrell20-Jun-2018It’s not often you hear a batsman muse that he isn’t guaranteed a place in his side after making almost 150 as part of a record-setting innings. So it speaks volumes about the strength of England’s current batting options that Alex Hales did so after his magnificent century in the third ODI against Australia.Hales’ blistering 147 off 92 balls was the highest score in England’s batting frenzy and yet, once Ben Stokes returns from injury, he still expects to be in a three-way battle with Jonny Bairstow and Jason Roy for two positions in the top order.”To get a score like that at my home ground and get the record score is one of the days I’ll never forget in my life,” Hales said. “I don’t think my situation has changed much since yesterday [the day before the game] in terms of those two guys being ahead of me.”You’ve got Jonny who’s got four hundreds in five games and Jason, when in form, is one of the best players in the world. The situation stays the same for me. I need to keep knocking on the door and scoring as many runs as I can. Today was one step towards that.”It’s a nice problem for the selectors and the coaches to have: a squad as strong as we are at the moment, with the depth we’ve got, and guys not even in the 15 who are knocking on the door. It’s healthy competition and keeps everybody striving to improve.”To put together such an impressive team performance against a tough, strong nation. It’s probably our best ever team performance in terms of what we did with the bat and the way we fielded, and particularly the way the spinners bowled. It was as good as I’ve ever played in. A special day.”If Stokes is fully fit by the start of the India one-day series it gives Hales two more ODIs against Australia, then four T20Is to further press his claims.”I think that’s the situation I’m in,” said Hales. “It’s almost like what Jonny was in for a couple of years. Every time he got a chance, he scored a lot of runs.”Every opportunity I get is going to be gold dust moving forward. [It] was a great day for me but, again, it’s something I’m just building over the next couple of games.”The stunning victory at Trent Bridge was the second time Hales has racked up a major score in a record ODI innings for England at his home ground; he made 171 off 122 balls when England belted 444 for 3 to defeat Pakistan in 2016. At times, particularly during Hales’ partnerships with Bairstow and Eoin Morgan, it seemed possible that England could reach 500 runs. It’s a milestone Hales thinks this team can crack in the near future.”I think so,” said Hales. “The way the game is going now, the 50-over game has changed so much, even since the last World Cup. The standard has gone through the roof. There were murmurs of it when Morgan came out to bat between me and him today.”They bowled quite well at the death so it wasn’t to be today. It was as good a chance as we have. But who knows – the way the game has progressed in the last few years, there’s no reason why it can’t happen.”[There was] just a little tongue-in-cheek ‘today’s the day we’re going to do it – this is our chance’. When we got past the 444 we got last time, we had a little smirk to each other and said let’s push to that 500, it’s a great chance. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be.”

Other big names inducted in the tournament’s mini-draft include Chris Lynn, Shane Watson and Brendon McCullum

Umar Farooq24-Jul-2018

T10 teams after mini draft

Maratha Arabians: Rashid Khan (icon), James Faulkner, Alex Hales, Dwayne Bravo, Kamran Akmal
Pakhtoons: Shahid Afridi (icon), Colin Ingram, David Willey, Mohammad Irfan, Liam Dawson
Bengal Tigers: Sunil Narine (icon), Jason Roy, Sam Billings, Asif Ali, Mujeeb Ur Rahman
Punjabi Legends: Shoaib Malik (icon), Evin Lewis, Chris Jordan, Luke Ronchi, Liam Plunkett
Kerala Kings: Eoin Morgan (icon), Kieron Pollard, Sohail Tanvir, Paul Stirling, Dasun Shanaka
Rajputs: Brendon McCullum (icon), Mohammad Hafeez, Rilee Rossouw, Chris Lynn, Mohammad Shahzad
Northern Warriors: Darren Sammy (icon), Andre Russell, Dwayne Smith, Wahab Riaz, Nicholas Pooran
Karachians: Shane Watson (icon), Jofra Archer, Anton Devcich, Colin de Grandhomme, Ben Laughlin

Rashid Khan, Chris Lynn, Brendon McCullum and Andre Russell are among the big names who will take part in this season’s T10 League. The eight franchises – up from six last season – gathered in Dubai on Monday for a mini-draft, where they picked their icon players and chose four players to retain from their 2017 squads.The teams will meet again for the main draft on September 2 to pick eleven players for the ten-day tournament in December.Rashid and McCullum will be the icon players for Maratha Arabians and Rajputs respectively, while Lynn and Russell will turn out for Rajputs and Northern Warriors. Rashid is one of three Afghanistan players in the league, alongside Mujeeb Ur Rahman (Bengal Tigers) and Mohammad Shahzad (Rajputs), while Ireland has a representative too, in Paul Stirling (Kerala Kings).Pakhtoons retained Shahid Afridi as their icon player while Shoaib Malik and Eoin Morgan renewed their ties with Punjabi Legends and Kerala Kings respectively. Darren Sammy has moved from Bengal Tigers to the newly inducted Northern Warriors franchise, as icon player.The other new team, Karachians, has signed up Shane Watson as its icon player. Watson last competitive match was the IPL final, in which he smashed a match-winning unbeaten 117.Ahmed Shehzad and Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed have been released by their franchises.The inclusion of two new teams will increase the length of the tournament, from 13 matches over four days to 28 over ten days. In addition, Team Sri Lanka have undergone multiple makeovers – they renamed themselves Rajasthani Heroes first, and then Rajputs.The six existing teams were allowed to retain two players in category A and one each in B and C. The two new teams had an open list to pick their new set of five players from.Each category is based on the player’s form, experience and tournament fee, with the icon having the highest value. Following the success of last year’s inaugural edition, the organisers have hiked the franchise fee from USD 400,000 to USD 1.2 million for the two new teams. All eight teams are entitled to 10% of the central revenue pool, which includes net income from media rights, gate money and sponsorship.In May, the ICC presented a SWOT analysis, in which it listed T10 as a “threat” but also suggested that “cricket as a sport should continue to capitalise on shortened format opportunities like T10″.”The response I can tell you has been exceptional over the year since we launched T10,” Shaji Ul Mulk, the chairman of the T10 League, told ESPNcricinfo. “The commercial success of T10 is the very fact that we have sold two news teams for USD 1.2 million each and have sold partial shares of Kerala Kings with the same price. So this has immediately given valuation to the exiting team owners.”With new valuation the stakes have grown with the format itself evolving further. After the sensational success of the first year and making global history, T10 Cricket League management has decided to allow the other existing five teams to resell full or partial shares.”It’s actually about creating value for the existing team owners in line with the triple valuation of the league in the first year since inception. It’s a very rare cricket league in the world that in a year has become cash positive. For the new teams we will be seeing positive growth because we hope to have another one or two teams in next couple of years and I am sure the valuation by that time will be much higher than it is today.”

While Angelo Mathews said they were open to shuffling batsmen around, he emphasised that it was important to retain players too

Andrew Fidel Fernando07-Aug-2018Sri Lanka are in a little bit of a muddle. So woeful have they been in ODIs lately, that it is difficult to say who exactly forms the core of their team, let alone what those individual players’ roles are. So right now, they are trying to experiment, and yet are trying to strike a balance – they also want to give prospective players a good run in the team before they are cast off and new aspirants take their place.The background to this, of course, is that Sri Lanka are coming out of a period of incredible flux. In the 20 months between the start of 2016 and August 2017, Sri Lanka had fielded no fewer than 39 players in ODIs, as the previous selection committee shuffled cricketers furiously while the team’s performance nosedived. Sri Lanka know now that changing players that often does not yield good results – in fact, it led them to their biggest ODI slump in 20 years. But that time is now running out to nail down their World Cup combinations, and the team is still performing woefully.”We have an opportunity to try a few combinations, but at the same time we need continuity,” Angelo Mathews said, reflecting on the balance Sri Lanka must now find. With the series against South Africa now dead, this would ordinarily be a good time to trial new players, but Sri Lanka cannot afford to experiment anywhere near the extent South Africa can, because even the hosts’ core players have not begun to perform consistently in this format.”We will try to give opportunities to whoever who has not played so far, but unfortunately I don’t think we will be able to give everyone the opportunity. This is a learning process and we need to keep the same player as much as we can.”One of the players Sri Lanka are praying will come good is Kusal Mendis. Although Mendis had an excellent start to the year, playing match-winning knocks in Bangladesh before hitting a Test hundred in Trinidad in June, his form appears to have fallen off since. He has not crossed 40 in his nine most recent innings – across formats. After he had begun this one-day series with scores of 3 and 0, Mendis was moved down the order to No. 4, where he made 31 off 34 balls on Sunday. This shuffling around of batsmen could be a feature of Sri Lanka’s short-term ODI future, while they work out their best combination, Mathews said.”If you look at the last game or two, Kusal Mendis hasn’t been scoring runs at No. 3. In the last couple of games that he has played, going to the wicket in the first couple of overs when you don’t have runs behind you, can also worry you a little bit. We know the talent that he has got – he is an unbelievably good player. Flexibility has been spoken about in the dressing room – we want everyone to be flexible.”Sri Lanka have made a conscious decision to request batting-friendly ODI pitches at home, in order to replicate the kind of conditions they are likely to encounter in England next year. Despite the 0-3 scoreline in the series so far, this is a strategy worth persevering with, Mathews said.”We’ve got to play for our pride now. We started something in the last match – when we play on good wickets, the bowlers and the batters will get exposed. That is something that we have to deal with – it’s something that we have to get better at. We will continue to do what we have planned, without shoving it away after one or two games. This is a process.”