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The board is taking a cautious approach after Stokes tore his hamstring during the tournament

Matt Roller16-Aug-2024Gus Atkinson will miss the final of the men’s Hundred after being made unavailable by the ECB ahead of England’s Test against Sri Lanka on Wednesday.Atkinson took 22 wickets in his debut series against West Indies and was named Player of the Series. He has only featured once for Oval Invincibles this year, returning figures of 0 for 28 in 10 balls against Trent Rockets on Wednesday night, and will not feature in Sunday’s final at Lord’s as he prepares for the Test series.”Gus has been withdrawn, which is quite understandable,” Sam Billings, the Invincibles’ captain, said. “It’s disappointing for him but Saqib Mahmood has been phenomenal for us all tournament and showed his class the other night. He’ll stay in the side.”The Invincibles are also missing Spencer Johnson through injury, but Tom Curran will return after he was rested on Wednesday.The ECB is taking a cautious approach to England players’ availability after Ben Stokes tore his hamstring playing for Northern Superchargers, ruling him out for the rest of the summer. Chris Woakes has already been withdrawn from the tournament, though Jamie Smith, Ben Duckett (both Birmingham Phoenix) and Jordan Cox (Invincibles) are available this weekend ahead of the first Test.Related

• 'Cultural architect' Tom Moody targets back-to-back titles for Oval Invincibles

• Hamstring tear rules Stokes out of summer

• ECB pull Chris Woakes out of Hundred

• Spencer Johnson ruled out of UK tour

“Jordan will be available and I think that’s great for him,” Billings said. “I’ve been in that position before where as a young player, you get withdrawn and miss out on playing time. For anyone to play in a final at Lord’s in the leading domestic competition in the country, in front of a packed house is perfect preparation for international cricket.”Jofra Archer, who is being managed carefully after long spells on the sidelines with back and elbow issues, is expected to be available for both Saturday’s eliminator and Sunday’s final, if Southern Brave qualify. He was made unavailable for two group-stage games to manage his workload, but Brave captain James Vince is not anticipating any restrictions in the knockouts.”I’ve not heard otherwise, so I’m hoping that’s the case,” Vince said. “Obviously we’ve got tomorrow to take care of first, but as I understand it, he is available for both should we make the final. I can’t give you 100% confirmation because I don’t know that myself, to be honest. But there’s not much travel involved and it’s only 20 balls [per match] so I’m sure he’ll be fine.”In the women’s Hundred, Chamari Athapaththu is unavailable for the Invincibles in their eliminator against London Spirit on Saturday, having linked up with Sri Lanka’s squad for their ODI series in Ireland. Laura Harris has returned to the squad as cover, while Megan Schutt has also been with the squad throughout and will come into contention.

Jayawardene had previously served as Mumbai’s head coach from 2017 to 2022

ESPNcricinfo staff13-Oct-20244:45

‘MI needed someone stable who owners and players trust’

Mumbai Indians have reappointed former Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene as their head coach ahead of IPL 2025. Jayawardene takes over from Mark Boucher, under whom the franchise finished last in IPL 2024.Jayawardene had previously served as Mumbai’s head coach from 2017 to 2022.”My journey within the MI family has always been one of evolution,” Jayawardene said in a statement. “In 2017, the focus was on bringing together a talented group of individuals to play the best cricket ever and we did very well. Now to return, at the same moment in history, where we look ahead at the future and the opportunity to further strengthen the love of MI, build on the vision of the owners, and continue to add to the history of Mumbai Indians, is an exciting challenge I am looking forward to.”Related

• IPL 2025: Paras Mhambrey appointed Mumbai Indians bowling coach

• Jayawardene resigns as SL's consultant coach six months after one-year extension

• IPL mega auction: Six retentions, RTM back, Impact Player to stay

• IPL retention FAQs: What is the modified RTM rule? Has the auction purse increased?

After his first stint as Mumbai’s head coach, Jayawardene had taken up a broader role in 2022 as the franchise’s global head of performance. In that role, he oversaw the coaching and scouting at all the four teams the franchise owners now have – Mumbai Indians in the IPL, MI Emirates in the UAE’s ILT20, MI Cape Town in the SA20 and MI New York in the USA’s MLC.Jayawardene is among the most successful coaches in T20 cricket, having led Mumbai alone to three titles during his first tenure.6:35

Bumrah, Suryakumar, Hardik among Moody’s MI retention picks

“We are thrilled to have Mahela back as the head coach of Mumbai Indians,” Akash Ambani, owner of the franchise, said. “With our global teams having found their footing within their ecosystems, the opportunity to bring him back to MI arose. His leadership, knowledge, and passion for the game have always benefited MI.”Under Boucher, Mumbai made the playoffs in IPL 2023, when they lost the second qualifier to Gujarat Titans, but in the next season they finished at the bottom of the points table with just four wins in 14 games.Jayawardene’s first task in his second stint as head coach will be to finalise Mumbai’s retentions ahead of the deadline on October 31.In addition to coaching in the IPL, Jayawardene has been in charge of teams in the Hundred (Southern Brave) and Bangladesh Premier League (Khulna Titans). Jayawardene has worked with the Sri Lanka team in different capacities, including a recent stint as a consultant coach. During his tenure, Sri Lanka had won the 2022 Asia Cup in Dubai.Each franchise will have a purse of INR 120 crore, an increment of INR 20 crore from the last time, to build a squad for IPL 2025.

The Pakistan batter believes Agha, Shadab and Nawaz should be allowed to settle in their roles with the World Cup imminent

Umar Farooq04-May-2023With only a few ODIs left to play ahead of the 50-over World Cup, Imam-ul-Haq has advised against experimenting with Pakistan’s underperforming middle order, even though the team has taken an unassailable 3-0 lead in their five-match series against New Zealand. Imam, the player of the match in the third ODI, was especially not convinced by the option of playing Iftikhar Ahmed or Mohammad Haris as power-hitters in the middle overs.”To be honest I don’t think so because we don’t have time to do experiments,” he said. “With Agha [Salman], Shadab [Khan], and [Mohammad] Nawaz, we have enough power-hitting to improvise. It’s just a matter of giving them confidence. Their stats aren’t as big as we have in the top three and it’s tough for them because they get five to six overs but their chip-in is impactful and useful.”Pakistan have largely relied on their top three, consisting of Imam, Fakhar Zaman and Babar Azam, who have scored 62.6% of the team’s runs – the highest among all nations – since the 2019 ODI World Cup. They average 19 runs per dismissal more than the rest of their batting – which is also the highest for any team. The Imam-Babar partnership reaped an average of 89.83 including six hundred-run stands; Fakhar-Babar and Fakhar-Imam, meanwhile, have put on 817 and 812 runs respectively.Related

• Sethi offers Babar Azam conditional backing as all-format captain

• Imam, Babar and bowlers help Pakistan wrap up series

On the other hand, Pakistan’s middle order has failed to consistently build on the platform set by the top order. The batters between No. 4 and No. 7 have averaged 26.9, marginally lower than West Indies, whose middle-order batters average 26.2. While Imam said he preferred to have a settled line-up with the bat given there’s an ODI World Cup around the corner, he noted that their bowlers needed to strike more often in the middle overs.”Both Nawaz and Shadab are outstanding allrounders so we have to give them the confidence,” Imam said. “Babar might be thinking differently but that is what I feel. We have only two games left and it’s really very important to go into a bigger tournament, you have to be settled as much as you can with your main players. We have very less cricket and I don’t think we have enough time to find a workaround.Fakhar Zaman and Babar Azam, along with Imam, tend to score a high percentage of Pakistan’s runs in ODIs•AFP/Getty Images

“But I feel within 11 to 35 overs we need to take wickets in them and we aren’t able to fetch enough. Sometimes, I feel this is missing and if our spinners in the middle start taking wickets then the match will be a lot more in our control. Today [last night], we took wickets in middle overs hence we managed to reduce them to under 270. So going forward I think fielding and fitness is another department we should make a difference. Catches on crucial stages become very important.”Pakistan’s squad for the New Zealand series features many players with strong ODI records in recent years, thus increasing their chances of securing a spot in the World Cup roster. Their team combination, however, has forced a lot of top-order players – including Abdullah Shafique, Shan Masood, Mohammad Rizwan and Mohammad Haris – to drop down to the middle order. When asked if the competition threatens his place, Imam said his ability to handle pressure has helped him remain relevant.”When you play for Pakistan, you find yourself under pressure in every situation and coming out of it is something that defines you,” he said. “It’s important to handle pressure and that is where you create a difference. Everyone is very talented and all the new openers making their way into the side are good and it automatically creates a sense of competition within. You always remain on your toes, you have to notch up the level of your performance and keep up your fitness, and with everyone around, it creates healthy competition which is good for the team.”Imam said that of late, his role has evolved to include more aggression. But he tempered it to better suit conditions that weren’t exactly batter-friendly in Rawalpindi.”I am no more playing an anchor role because one-day cricket is fast now and if you look at my last eight or nine games, my strike rate is over 100. So now when we get a ball [that’s in the slot] we will have a boundary but today (last night) especially the wicket was playing differently and we were in the Pindi phase of mind.”The ball wasn’t coming on the up but Fakhar and I do not think a lot as we [have been] playing together for a long time now. The plan is [that it is] always good to have 50-60 runs in the first ten without losing a wicket and then if the wicket is good we try and settle it [total] around 330 to 350. But the wicket was on the slower side and the ball wasn’t coming on the bat well, so we knew 270-280 [would be par] but if our top four went with runs it could have gone to 300-plus.”

Sunrisers’ hopes of semi-final berth are all but over after eight-wicket loss

ECB Reporters Network13-Jun-2024The Blaze 140 for 2 (K Bryce 57*, S Bryce 54*) beat Sunrisers 137 for 7 (Scrivens 42) by eight wicketsKathryn Bryce continued her prolific Charlotte Edwards Cup form with an unbeaten 57 from 37 balls as The Blaze racked up an eighth straight success, coasting past Sunrisers at Lord’s.Bryce, the tournament’s leading run-scorer, registered her fourth half-century in six games, sharing a third-wicket partnership of exactly 100 with her younger sister Sarah, who struck 54 not out from 35.The Scotland international pair maintained their side’s 100 per cent record in the group stage, steering them to a comfortable victory with 29 deliveries still unused.Earlier, home captain Grace Scrivens top-scored with 42 from 38 as Sunrisers posted 137 for seven, but the result all but mathematically ends their slim hopes of qualifying for the semi-finals.Scrivens was soon up and running after Sunrisers had been put in, cracking two boundaries from Grace Ballinger’s opening over – one wrong-footing the fielder thanks to a deflection off the bat of non-striker Mady Villiers.Having swept Sarah Glenn for four, Villiers was lbw attempting to give the spinner’s next ball the same treatment, but Lissy MacLeod maintained her side’s momentum, hitting over the infield to good effect in a brisk 16 from 11.Once MacLeod was bowled, beaten for flight by Gordon (two for 32), Sunrisers became bogged down during the middle overs – even more so after losing Scrivens to Marie Kelly’s direct hit from mid-off.Jo Gardner (22 from 26) and Jodi Grewcock (22 from 18) did their best to rebuild with a partnership of 35 from 31 before Heather Graham (two for 22) reasserted the visitors’ dominance with two wickets in three deliveries.Despite gleaning eight from Graham’s final over, Sunrisers’ total looked short of par – although their hopes gained a significant boost when Grewcock turned the first ball of The Blaze’s reply to send Tammy Beaumont on her way for a duck.The visitors would have been under more pressure if Gardner, running in from mid-on, had held on to Kelly’s miscued drive off Kate Coppack, but the opener capitalised on that let-off to clear the ropes twice in the next over.Kelly’s good fortune soon ran out when she speared Eva Gray to cover, but Sarah Bryce joined forces with her sibling in a measured partnership that ensured The Blaze were always ahead of the asking rate.The elder Bryce dispatched Nicola Hancock’s first two deliveries to the fence and brought up her half-century from 33 deliveries with another boundary, reverse-sweeping Villiers neatly beyond point.Sarah seized the initiative as The Blaze eased towards their target, hammering Gray for two sixes in as many balls and going on to post her first 50 of the tournament before applying the finishing touch with a square-cut boundary off Amu Surenkumar.

Says the timing of the announcement – two days before the PSL – was “wholly unnecessary”, and the way it was communicated to the player amounted to “really poor management”

Danyal Rasool03-Mar-2024Lahore Qalandars’ owner Sameen Rana has castigated the PCB for announcing its decision to tear up Haris Rauf’s central contract just two days before the start of the PSL, tagging the board’s handling of the situation as “pathetic”. Speaking to ESPNcricinfo, Rana said he did not wish to get into whether the decision was correct but its timing severely disrupted his side’s PSL campaign, and the way the information was passed on to the player amounted to “really poor management”.”The timing of that announcement was wholly unnecessary,” Rana told ESPNcricinfo. “There was no Pakistan series coming up, or any emergency situation that necessitated the announcement two days before the PSL. Whatever the logic was, the timing was really bad. It was a huge blow psychologically for him, because his whole life’s main aim is playing for Pakistan.Qalandars were understood to be privately fuming at the time the decision was announced. Shaheen Afridi told ESPNcricinfo on the day of the decision that the PCB would “understand in time” that making the decision just before the PSL started was not correct. But while Qalandars held back from expressing public outrage at the time, now, Rana has not.Related

• Rauf out of PSL with shoulder dislocation

• PCB terminates Rauf's central contract

• Shaheen Afridi: Imran Khan suggested I become Qalandars captain

“Rauf’s our premier bowler, our highest wicket-taker after Shaheen Afridi. To publicly humiliate him and issue a press release announcing the termination of his central contract, I have never seen this happen anywhere,” Rana said. “I would never treat my employees like that.”The employee at least has the right for you to call, email or message them. None of that happened with Rauf, and it was pathetic. It was really poor management.”The decision came two months after Rauf made himself unavailable for Pakistan’s three Test series in Australia; at the time, chief selector Wahab Riaz had publicly criticised Rauf, saying he had gone back on his word. Wahab said Rauf’s decision would hurt Pakistan, and that his central contract mandated him to be available. Pakistan went on to lose the Australia series 3-0.While disciplinary proceedings against Rauf were not made public, the PCB issued a statement on February 15 that Rauf’s responses in a personal hearing were unsatisfactory, and that the board was terminating his central contract. In addition, it would prevent him from playing any overseas T20 league till June 30 2024.The development put title-defenders Qalandars “on the receiving end”, Rana said. Their 2024 campaign has gone from bad to worse as injury, unavailability, and indifferent performances have seen them rooted to the bottom of the table, winless in their first seven games.Rauf, who was searching for form before the PSL, began poorly, but had his best day against Karachi Kings, taking 1 for 22 in four overs, but even that could not prevent Qalandars from slipping to a final-ball, two-wicket defeat; and Rauf injured himself in that close finish. He dislocated his shoulder while diving to take a catch off the penultimate delivery of the game, and the injury is expected to keep him out of action for about six weeks.”I don’t know what the PCB was thinking; I was on the receiving end. Haris was our premier fast bowler. If someone treats you like that, you can’t pretend it doesn’t affect you,” Rana said. “Especially when it’s your country, something you’re emotional about anyway. And especially Haris, who is a naturally emotional person.”It was an additional responsibility on me and the whole team to keep motivating him, and keeping him in the right frame of mind. He is a very strong boy, but again, a negative thought can creep into your brain. But unfortunately, after he seemed to be returning to form and performed brilliantly, he got injured. Of course we can’t control that.”

Pigeons and windows come a cropper as Warwickshire turn the screw at Canterbury

ECB Reporters Network 11-Jul-2023Kent 171 and 55 for 1 (Denly 29*, Compton 17*) trail Warwickshire 549 for 7 dec (Yates 228, Maxwell 81) by 323 runsA double-century from Rob Yates put Warwickshire in a commanding position after day two of their LV= Insurance County Championship game with Kent at Canterbury.The visitors declared their first innings on 549 for seven, a lead of 378, before reducing Kent to 55 for one at stumps.Yates hit his highest first-class score of 228 not out from 421 balls, with 23 fours and a six, having batted for nearly nine hours. Australia’s Glenn Maxwell made 81 in his first championship appearance for four years and Henry Brookes was unbeaten on 52 as the visitors dominated throughout.Chris Rushworth bowled Tawanda Muyeye early in Kent’s second innings and although Ben Compton and Joe Denly survived till the close, the hosts are still 323 behind with two days remaining.Warwickshire began the day on 155 for two and they’d nudged into a three-run lead when Sam Hain edged Arshdeep Singh and fell to a diving catch by Jordan Cox for 32.Jacob Bethell immediately went on the attack, clubbing Hamid Qadri for a six that flew into the gardens on the Old Dover Road side of the ground. The ball was lost, somewhere in the vicinity of a dead pigeon it had apparently hit.Kent’s hopes were looking nearly as lifeless when Jack Leaning briefly revived them with two wickets in five balls. Bethell was out for 31, caught by a back-pedalling Arshdeep at deep mid-on for 31 and Ed Barnard went for a four-ball duck, narrowly surviving an lbw shout off the third ball he faced before getting caught behind.This spasm of hope for the home side quickly subsided as Yates and Maxwell put on a stand of 124. The former reached three figures when he cut Arshdeep to third man and the lead was exactly 100 at lunch.Maxwell looked set for a hundred, but he was caught behind chasing a wide delivery from Matt Quinn, though with the lead already past the 200 mark there was little celebration either in the middle or on the boundary.The most dramatic moment of the afternoon session came when Yates hit Qadri for a six that went so far over the bowler’s head that it ended up smashing a glass panel on the balcony of the Kent dressing-room.Yates cruised past his previous highest score of 141 with a straight-driven four off Grant Stewart and it was 442 for six at tea.Michael Burgess was subsequently out for 42, caught off Quinn by Harry Finch at backward point but Yates survived a major scare when he was on 199, chipping a ball from Qadri just out of reach of three fielders, before he drove the next ball through the covers to pass 200.The declaration came as soon as Brookes had creamed Leaning for six to reach his half-century, leaving Kent with 14 overs to survive under increasingly ashen skies.Muyeye lasted just five balls before Rushworth sent his off stump flying and although Denly and Compton made it to the close on 29 and 17 respectively, Kent will need something approaching a miracle over the next two days to avoid a damaging defeat.