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The allrounder has been pleased with his bowling in the BBL but has been disappointed by his lack of runs

Alex Malcolm02-Feb-2021West Indies and Sydney Sixers allrounder Carlos Brathwaite has cautioned against the Caribbean Premier League introducing the Power Surge into this year’s tournament for fear it might jeopardise players preparation for the T20 World Cup in India.Speaking ahead of the BBL final at the SCG on Saturday, Brathwaite has liked the innovation that was introduced in the BBL this season as part of three new rule changes.Leagues around the world are looking at the success of the Power Surge in the BBL with a view to possibly introducing it elsewhere.Whilst Brathwaite is not against the Surge coming into the CPL altogether, he said the timing of such a move was important as it would not be ideal for middle-order batsmen ahead of the T20 World Cup in India where there will be no Power Surge in play.”It’s a nice innovation for the tournament,” Brathwaite said. “However, with the World Cup being around the corner, it also can give a false pretence of where a guy is at. If he gets a massive spark in the Surge and then you see him with a strike-rate of 170, 180, 200.Related

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“If you’re going to the World Cup and there’s no Surge in the World Cup then all of a sudden it can be a bit of a false dawn. So, I don’t know if this year in the lead up to a World Cup would be the best for it. I think it’s something that the Big Bash will keep because they’ve been gaining rave reviews from pundits, journalists, and players. So, in a few years, if it’s the thing, yeah, why not. I just think it’s a matter of timing.”Brathwaite has bowled four Power Surge overs across the tournament picking up two wickets at an economy rate of 12.00. Of the 23 bowlers in the BBL who have bowled four or more overs in the Surge, he is ranked 19th for economy rate in the Surge overs.”The challenge is a big one for sure,” Brathwaite said. “It’s about clarity. You’re expected to get met in the Surge. Teams target around 15 runs per over in the Surge overs, so if you can restrict teams to 7, 8, 10 runs, I guess you’re winning.”I guess on reflection, one thing I’d like to have done is to have picked up a few more wickets. I’ve gone quite defensive, around the wicket, into the heels and just trying to mix it from there, whereas you watch other guys in the tournament go a bit more attacking and basically have the same fields that they would have in the first Powerplay and try to break the back of the batting because players are taking a lot more risk in the Surge as well. So on personal reflection that’s one thing I could potentially have done a bit better.”Surge numbers aside, Brathwaite has been an outstanding contributor with the ball for the Sixers throughout the tournament. He has taken 16 wickets at an economy rate of 7.84. Of the 17 bowlers in the BBL who have taken 15 wickets or more, only six have a better economy rate.Success with the bat has been harder to find: ‘I forgot my runs in Barbados apparently’•Getty Images and Cricket Australia

“I think the pitches probably suit my bowling a lot more than most places around the world,” Brathwaite said. “I’m able to run in and hit good lengths. Kind of that four-day length. For me personally, one of my cues is hitting the top of off stump. From place to place that I go I would always be talking to one of the local players just to get an idea of what length hits the top of off stump.”My powerplay bowling probably hasn’t been the best in the first four, but that being said, coming back in the Surge or at the death, or coming in those middle overs with five men out and trying to control the run-rate, I think I’ve been executing quite well and keeping things quite simple and not thinking too much or getting funky with my fields, just being really clear and executing as well as I possibly can.”Brathwaite has struggled with the bat though scoring just 45 runs in 10 innings with a highest score of 21, but remains hopeful he can deliver if needed in Saturday’s final.”I forgot my runs in Barbados apparently,” Brathwaite said. “So hopefully if needed with the bat, I can come to the forefront as I haven’t done for the season. So that has been a bit disappointing. But overall, I do think I’ve helped the team with the ball massively, in the field, and off the field gelled quite well as well. All positives bar the bat.”He is excited to play again at the SCG for the first time this season, a venue where he made his highest Test score.The ground will have a 75 percent capacity for the BBL final meaning more than 28,000 will be allowed to attend.”I’m looking forward to playing at the SCG,” Brathwaite said. “I probably played one of my best Test knocks there. Having been deprived of that and now being able to represent the team in front of our fans at the SCG it may be a bit more of an occasion than just a Grand Final.”So once we control our emotions and continue to execute, the other guys have played enough cricket at the SCG to know and understand and assess the conditions quickly and then implement the game plan that has worked over the last few years if the conditions are the same.”

Masakadza, 36, was appointed Zimbabwe’s captain across formats in February but with the ICC suspending Zimbabwe in July, things have become uncertain

ESPNcricinfo staff03-Sep-2019Zimbabwe captain Hamilton Masakadza has announced his decision to retire from international cricket after the upcoming T20I tri-series in Bangladesh.”After a great deal of consideration, I have decided to announce my retirement from all formats of international cricket at the end of the upcoming triangular series in Bangladesh,” Masakadza said at a press conference at Harare Sports Club on Tuesday. “It has been an enormous privilege to have played for and captained my country, and this is one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make.”Masakadza, 36, had been Zimbabwe’s captain across formats since taking over from Graeme Cremer in the fallout of Zimbabwe’s failed World Cup qualifying campaign last year – his second stint in charge, having also lead the country in 2016. The ICC’s suspension of Zimbabwe in July meant that his future as well as that of other cricketers in the country became much more uncertain, and Masakadza said that without the lure of a potential place at the T20 World Cup next year to look forward to, he felt the time was right to end his international career.He becomes the second Zimbabwe player – after Solomon Mire – to announce his retirement after the ICC suspension.”I was looking forward to the ICC T20 World Cup Qualifier in Dubai next month, but with Zimbabwe barred from the event, I feel the time is right to shift the focus to the next generation,” Masakadza explained. “There is some fantastic talent coming through, and with Zimbabwe’s focus now on the 2023 edition of the ICC Cricket World Cup, I believe now is the time for the younger players to rise to the challenge of taking us to the global showpiece.”I was sort of feeling it was coming towards the end of my career. The one thing that was keeping me going was trying to play one more World Cup for the country, in T20, but now that we’re not involved with that, I just thought I might as well call time now. Make way for the next guy coming through. I’d be standing in the way of someone else if I stayed on.”Masakadza’s decision brings to an end one of the most storied careers in Zimbabwean cricket. In February 2000 he was the first black Zimbabwean player to score a first-class hundred, doing so while aged just 16. He made his Test debut in 2001 against West Indies and became the youngest player to score a Test hundred on debut, a record that has since been broken by Bangladesh’s Mohammad Ashraful. In all, he played 38 Tests and scored 2223 runs at 30.04.A veteran of 209 ODIs – only the Flower brothers Andy and Grant and Elton Chigumbura have played more for Zimbabwe – Masakadza scored 5658 runs at 27.73. His best came during the five-match ODI series against Kenya in 2009 when he scored 467 runs, including two scores over 150, a record at that time for the most runs in a bilateral series.He has so far appeared in 62 T20Is, tallying 1529 runs at 25.48 with a strike rate of 115.92. His best in the format, an unbeaten 93, came against Bangladesh in 2016. While it was in the Test arena that he initially made his greatest strides, Masakadza developed into one of Zimbabwe’s most devastating batsmen in the shorter formats and in 2009 entered the top five of the T20I batting rankings, the highest ever by a Zimbabwean in the format.”Throughout my international career, it has always been about giving everything to the team, playing with dignity, and upholding the spirit of the game,” he said. “It has not been an easy road. I failed it at times, but I’ve never stopped trying. That’s what makes it sad for me to leave. But I can do so with pride, and a big smile on my face, knowing I have given everything to the game, and my nation.”Masakadza thanked Zimbabwe Cricket, his coaches and the support staff that helped to prolong his career from his teens into his mid-30s. He mentioned Andy Flower, with whom he played at Takashinga cricket club, as a past mentor and paid tribute to his wife Vimbai as “a remarkable pillar of strength”.”But most of all, I have to thank the teams I played with,” he said. “I know what I’m going to miss the most is being part of a change room. The joy of bonding together and striving to achieve a goal is what made cricket special for me. I learnt a lot from my team-mates, and I leave the game with wonderful memories, and strong friendships.”Finally I would like to thank the Zimbabwe cricket fans. The game is lucky to have you, and I’ve been lucky to play before you. To represent Zimbabwe and thus to represent you has been a privilege, and one which I will always cherish.”Masakadza will continue to play domestic cricket for at least one more season. “It was very big for me, when I started playing, playing with guys like Andy and Grant Flower, guys who had played such a long time at this level. I learned a lot from them. It would only be fair to give another youngster the same opportunity to learn a bit from me, and feed off me as well.””As a bit of advice to the next guy [to captain Zimbabwe], the biggest thing is to put the work in and get the boys working together as a unit, pulling together in one direction. Once you do that, with the amount of talent we have in Zimbabwe, we’re really hard to stop.”

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.”

Despite the eliminator ending at 1.27am, Muttiah Muralitharan’s wits were intact as he broke down Sunrisers Hyderabad’s season and the loss against Kolkata Knight Riders in Bengaluru

Shashank Kishore in Bengaluru18-May-2017The city where they were crowned IPL champions last year was the same city which wrecked their hopes this year. Sunrisers Hyderabad arrived in Bangalore late last month and saw a potential win against a struggling host slip away because of rain. Now, in the Eliminator, they were 20 minutes away from having a shot at Qualifier 2 and perhaps even defending their crown as it rained for a better part of three hours immediately after they posted 128, numbers-wise a sub-par score at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. But then it stopped, making way for a six-over chase in which Kolkata Knight Riders had to get 48.To not get there, Knight Riders needed a serious meltdown, and they almost had one when they lost three wickets in the first seven deliveries, but the advantage of a truncated game always favours the chasing team. Gautam Gambhir demonstrated as much with his unbeaten 19-ball 32, which helped Knight Riders home with four balls to spare. Muttiah Muralitharan, Sunrisers’ bowling coach, said it was his team’s “destiny” to not progress.Asked if prior playing experience on this surface, which they were denied because of rain during the league phase, might have helped approach their batting better this time around, Muralitharan said with a laugh: “Had we played and won [against RCB], we would have been in Mumbai [for Qualifier 1]. It’s destiny. Twenty more minutes and we would have gone through. It’s all about destiny. It’s part and parcel of the game.”Muralitharan isn’t a stranger at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, having spent two seasons with Royal Challengers Bangalore. But he may have well been mistaken into believing it was his first time here, upon looking at the 22 yards for this game. The ground where Royal Challengers nearly chased down 209 to beat Sunrisers in the final last year was now throwing up vastly different conditions. The reasons attributed to the sudden change in the nature of the square are many.A change in composition of the soil and a reduction in thickness of clay to aid bounce hasn’t worked because of the dry heat, according to the ground’s curator. This has also caused the tracks to break down faster because of cracks opening up. Unlike last year, where five totals of 200 or more were scored, the average first-innings score here this season was 148, something Sunrisers were targeting upon being put in to bat.Muttiah Muralitharan: ‘The batsmen played well, the bowlers who we picked at the auction did well. Overall we are satisfied with the performance’•AFP

Knight Riders’ Nathan Coulter-Nile kept bowling cross-seam and got the ball to stop on the batsmen. Manufacturing strokes was hard as David Warner and Kane Williamson found out. It was only when the bowlers pitched short did they have any leeway. Despite having seven wickets in hand, Sunrisers could only manage 30 off their last five.”The wicket was not great to play shots, we would’ve been bowled out for 70-80 if we tried to play shots,” Muralitharan said. “We were thinking of 140 and finished 10 short because they bowled well. We had the bowling to defend it across 20 overs. Had we taken two or three wickets early, they would have struggled. We’ve seen how teams have defended 130-135 here. It’s unfortunate. They won the toss and so they deserved to win.”Muralitharan chose not to focus on the playing conditions. A regulation cut-off time for this match – the cut-off time for play to begin in the playoffs is one hour more than the cut-off time for the league-phase games – would have meant Sunrisers would have qualified. Asked whether a reserve day, instead, would have been the way to go, he laughed it off.”We all prefer 20 overs. We didn’t expect it to rain. Anyone can win or lose, but we had a great season,” he said. “The batsmen played well, the bowlers who we picked at the auction did well. Overall we are satisfied with the performance – eight wins and five losses before this. It doesn’t always go your way.”We are all disappointed not getting through, but we had some great performances. Unfortunately you can’t win every time. We made sure we gave our best and our best was not good enough. We have to take it on the chin. Let’s see, hopefully if we can get the same team next year – I don’t know what the rules are going to be – we can once again try and win.”

Lions’ left-arm spinner Jean Symes has been suspended from bowling in domestic cricket with immediate effect, after a test found his bowling action to be illegal

ESPNcricinfo staff09-Feb-2016Lions’ left-arm spinning allrounder Jean Symes has been suspended from bowling in domestic cricket with immediate effect due to an illegal action. He will not be allowed to bowl until remedial work is undergone and he passes a re-assessment of his bowling action.The suspension comes after an independent assessment of his action revealed it to be illegal. Symes, who has 68 first-class wickets at 37.66 and 60 List A wickets 31.00, is currently representing his provincial side, Gauteng.

In a further blow to the already delayed Dhaka Premier League, BCB president Nazmul Hassan has said he wouldn’t perturbed if it didn’t take place.

Mohammad Isam25-Jul-2013In a further blow to the already delayed Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League, BCB president Nazmul Hassan has said he wouldn’t be perturbed if it didn’t take place as the preparation of the grounds in Sylhet, Cox’s Bazar, Dhaka and Chittagong for the World Twenty20 in March 2014 was his priority.”We are trying our best to hold the Dhaka Premier League in the first week of September instead of August 29. If it happens, it happens; if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen,” Hassan said. “The World Twenty20 should get top-most priority, ahead of all domestic tournaments. The month of August is a very important one for me because the ground inspection team is coming, and all the grounds are undergoing work at the moment.”The comment comes a day after the tournament, which will primarily require the Shere Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka where the groundstaff have only just started to repair damaged parts of the outfield, was postponed for the fourth time in five months.Earlier in June, Hassan expressed anxiety over the mentions of more Bangladesh players in the ICC Anti-Corruption and Security Unit’s report on corruption in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL). He said at the time he was not confident of holding the Dhaka Premier League, because he might have to pull up players from clubs after the transfer/recruiting programme is completed. The league was subsequently delayed from July to the end of August, and now it has been shifted to September.Hassan said that the league’s delay was because of the space the BCB needed to create in the calendar to hold the BPL this year. But the fact remains that the Dhaka Premier League clubs were reluctant to compete when the national cricketers were away in Sri Lanka in March, when it was first scheduled to be held. It was two weeks after the BPL ended on February 19.”We needed to correct the slot because of the BPL,” he said. “I personally feel that the Dhaka Premier League is a very important league, and it has the biggest contribution to our cricket. It should get top priority.”We have asked for the full calendar on July 29. I am not too worried if for some reason the games don’t take place. The old thing could be interrupted to make room for the new tournament,” he said.In this case, the schedule of the National Cricket League (NCL), the first-class tournament, has become vulnerable as the Dhaka Premier League could spill over to after the New Zealand tour in October, when the NCL was supposed to be held. BCB are also planning to host the Bangladesh Cricket League, a zonal first-class tournament, and the BPL, after the New Zealand’s tour to Bangladesh.If the BCB president’s comment is anything to go by, Bangladesh’s domestic season could be compromised to prepare and host the World T20. The last time the Dhaka Premier League was not held in a season was when the Under-19 World Cup was held in Bangladesh in 2004.