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Former West Indies fast bowler Andy Roberts has questioned the fitness of the current pace attack on the eve of the first Test against England at Edgbaston.Roberts was speaking in Birmingham at Wicketz, a children’s clinic hosted by the Lord’s Taverners, ahead of the day-night Test alongside fellow West Indies greats Viv Richards, Curtly Ambrose and Richie Richardson. While all four former players acknowledged there were significant weaknesses in the side, Roberts handed out the harshest assessment of bowlers.”To be honest I don’t know what is the strength of West Indies cricket today because we don’t bat too well and at times it depends on the fitness of the fast bowlers,” Roberts told ESPNcricinfo. “It seems as though some of them are prone to breaking down.”I’m hoping that they are all at full strength and that they’ll all be able to last the full five days. If they do they may have a chance but you see it’s very difficult if you do go in with four bowlers and you have problems with one because the overall team is not as strong as I would like to see.”Roberts was critical of the amount of time players spend in the gym and suggested they should spend more time in the nets. But he singled out 20-year-old Alzarri Joseph as the bowler who could thrive in English conditions.”He’s young, I think he’s probably the fittest of the lot in terms of not breaking down and he also swings the ball a bit which is not common,” Roberts said. “Jason Holder, Kemar Roach and Shannon Gabriel are more seamers. They seem to hit the deck a lot harder and try to get legcutters and offcutters whereas Alzarri Joseph, especially early in the innings, will try to swing the ball and that’s very important here in England. So I won’t be surprised early on, if he takes the new ball, if he takes one or two early wickets.”In contrast, former West Indies bowling coach Ambrose felt the current crop of bowlers were holding their own in Tests, but he called on the batsmen to push harder for competitive – and defendable – totals.”I’m not saying they don’t have batsmen who can score runs, they do,” Ambrose said. “But you can’t keep scoring 180, 200, 220 in Test cricket and expect to win too many games.”One of the batsman who has impressed Richardson, the former team manager, is Shai Hope. Although Hope averages just 19.57 in ten Tests to date, Richardson believes his temperament marks him out as a batsman who can develop into a mature player.”His attitude towards batting, towards the game, he’s always willing to learn,” Richardson said. “He listens and you can see he would make changes to his game.”If he got out a particular way he would go into the nets and try to work on his weaknesses and I like that about him. He’s always willing to learn and always asking questions, he’s got a desire to work hard and to achieve great things.”Richards, perhaps typically, called on the West Indies batsmen to show no fear and, while acknowledging England are heavy favourites going into the series, believed the pink ball could be something of a leveler in the opening match.”England is one of the best places for you to play the game itself and one’s got to look at it that way,” Richards said. “All the players from the West Indies who have toured this part of the world would have gone back from England being a much better player. I’m hoping the guys do understand that, the batters themselves understand that.”There are no demons playing in this country. If you can play and you back yourself enough, you’re going to have success and that’s what it’s all about. Knowing your requirements, knowing your limits, the things you can get done and the things that you cannot get done.”Don’t worry about them talking about the seam and the swing and all that sort of stuff, it can be countered. If you’re good enough.”

ScorecardHamidullah Qadri. Remember the name•DerbyshireCCC

Derbyshire’s Hamidullah Qadri made history on the opening day of the Specsavers County Championship clash with Glamorgan.Qadri, 16, became the first player born in the year 2000 to play in county cricket as Derbyshire were bowled out for 288 in the Division Two day-night fixture.No 11 Qadri came out to bat under the lights and survived being bowled off a no ball as he made an unbeaten 11, aiding a Derbyshire recovery that saw 131 runs added for the last three wickets.Derbyshire lost their first wicket in the fourth over when Luis Reece was lbw to Timm van der Gugten but Wayne Madsen (70) and Billy Godleman (34) added 98 for the second wicket.Van der Gugten broke the partnership when Madsen (70) edged one to the wicketkeeper and Godleman followed when a rare attempt at an expansive shot resulted in another catch for Chris Cooke behind the stumps.Marchant de Lange had Gary Wilson caught behind before Graham Wagg claimed two wickets in successive overs when Alex Hughes was lbw and Jeevan Mendis was caught low down at second slip by Nick Selman.With the penultimate ball before the second break, Derbyshire lost their seventh wicket when Tom Taylor became Van der Gugten’s third victim and Cooke’s fourth when he was caught behind.Derbyshire recovered in the evening session, with Daryn Smit and Tom Milnes adding 66 for the eighth wicket before Smit picked out gully off De Lange.Milnes reached his half-century before edging behind to Cooke off Michael Hogan, who ended the innings by having Tony Palladino caught at mid-off, but Derbyshire would have been pleased by their recovery.

Tamim Iqbal has been forced to pull out of his T20 stint with Essex due to “personal reasons” which have required him to return to Bangladesh.His signing for the NatWest Blast was only confirmed last week and he made his first appearance against Kent on Sunday. He scored 7 before being bowled by Adam Milne in a seven-wicket defeat.A brief Essex statement said: “We wish him all the best and it would be appreciated if Tamim’s privacy is respected during this time.”

Former South African Test opener Jacques Rudolph will retire from all forms of cricket at the end of the 2017 English season. The 36-year old has stepped down as four-day captain for Glamorgan with immediate effect, but will continue leading the T20 side until his retirement.”The time feels right to call an end to my playing career,” Rudolph said. “I have been incredibly fortunate to have enjoyed playing the game I love for the last 20 years. But at the end of this summer it will be time to focus on a new venture away from cricket and spend more time with my young family.”Rudolph, a product of the famed Afrikaans Hoer Seunskool, made his first-class debut twenty seasons ago in the 1997-98 summer. He played 48 Tests in two stints – the first 35 came between 2003 and 2006 and the remaining 13 between 2011 and 2012 – because he had signed a Kolpak deal with Yorkshire in 2007.By scoring 1000 runs or more in his first four seasons with the county, Rudolph found his way back into the South African team. But his second coming yielded only one Test century and he was dropped in November 2012. Rudolph then turned his attention to playing franchise cricket for the Titans and eventually called time on his South Africa career after the 2015-16 season.Rudolph has been with Glamorgan since 2014 and has captained them for the last two seasons. In 2017, he scored 319 runs in five first-class matches at 35.44 and 305 runs in eight one-day matches at 38.12. The T20 competition he will lead Glamorgan in begins on July 7. While Rudolph has not detailed what life after cricket holds, he has interest in a game farm with fellow South African batsman Boeta Dippenaar.With Rudolph standing down, Glamorgan have given the Championship captaincy to their 35-year-old Australian seamer Michael Hogan until the end of the season.

Scorecard1:42

County Championship Round-up: England hopefuls make their case

Given they were relegated, it might be argued that every Nottinghamshire batsman paid the price for the collective underperformance that defined their 2016 season, yet it was Riki Wessels who found himself carrying the can, dropped for the last four matches after scoring just 489 runs at 25.73, of which 159 came in one innings.After two exceptionally good seasons, across all formats, it came as a painful blow, especially since there were several other experienced hands in Nottinghamshire’s misfiring middle order who might equally have been singled out as the county sought to give younger players the chance to prove their worth.So when, during a pre-season interview, he suggested that it would be folly for Nottinghamshire to trust young players to lead them back into Division One he must have known he would need to produce supporting evidence of a pretty compelling nature.It is to his great credit, then, that as Trent Bridge witnessed Division Two cricket for the first time in 10 years it was Wessels who responded to a familiar crisis with the innings that transformed the day, leaving the dressing room just as 84 for 4 was about to become 88 for 5 and not returning until Nottinghamshire were 447 all out, by which time, unbeaten, he had crafted his maiden double-hundred – at quicker than a run a ball, too.He has only once before come close to such riches in first-class cricket in England and Wales, coincidentally against Sussex, when he was out on 199 at Hove in May 2012. He must have feared he would run out of partners this time but with Stuart Broad making 57, Luke Fletcher 25 – after his extraordinary 92 at Chester-le-Street last week – and Jake Ball 18, he will have several drinks to buy.There was one obvious moment of good fortune, when Harry Finch spilled a fairly routine chance at slip, off the promising young pace bowler, Jofra Archer. Wessels was on 47 at the time, and had that one stuck Nottinghamshire would have been 174 for 7, facing the prospect of making not one batting point, let alone five.Yet that moment apart, this was the Wessels of 2014 and 2015, his footwork and timing increasingly impressive, mixing power with ingenuity as the confidence flowed back.Riki Wessels made a maiden first-class double-hundred•Getty Images

Poor Sussex, who must struggle to remember when they last had a full complement of fit bowlers. Vernon Philander and Ajmal Shahzad have joined the injured list since last week’s heavy defeat against Kent. Steve Magoffin returned but otherwise they arrived with a hugely inexperienced attack in which Adam Barton, a 21-year-old left-arm seamer who had bowled against Nottinghamshire for Cambridgeshire MCCU last month, was making his Sussex debut.Barton took a mauling, suffering the indignity of being scooped for six twice by the imperious Wessels, although the heaviest toll was inflicted on Stuart Whittingham, another seamer with only a handful of matches, punished to the tune of 43 runs from just 20 deliveries to Wessels, 40 of them in boundaries. In a way, they perfectly illustrated his point about trusting to youth.It was unfortunate for Sussex that Magoffin, the principal architect of Nottinghamshire’s rocky morning session, was unable to bowl more than 18 overs, leaving the field after taking his fifth wicket soon after lunch.Yet even without that setback, Sussex’s decision to leave out David Wiese, their South African Kolpak, seemed a gamble. Archer had his moments, including the wickets of Alex Hales and Jake Libby with the first four balls of his second spell, but took some punches too.Under a heavily cloudy sky and with Nottinghamshire willing to risk preparing competitive pitches, Luke Wright’s decision to forego the coin toss and bowl was the right one, of course. Indeed, the scorecard did nothing but endorse it until Wessels and Broad put on 132 for the eighth wicket.Five wickets for 37-year-old Magoffin, putting all his experience to good use in a textbook display of quality seam bowling, underpinned it beyond argument and at 180 for 7 the only interruption to the dominance of Magoffin had been provided by Hales, whose 45 off 39 balls was also mostly at the two rookies’ expense.Magoffin, the man who denied Wessels on 199 in 2012, has taken five wickets or more on 27 occasions, including six times in his last 11 innings. He took 12 in the match, six in each innings, when he last bowled at Trent Bridge two years ago.Yet he was on the losing side then and it will take a mighty effort from here by Sussex for there not to be a repeat as Nottinghamshire look to consolidate their start with a third win in three. Two wickets for James Pattinson, in what will now be, at least for the time being, his final Championship match for Nottinghamshire, and one for Broad left them 11 for 3 at stumps.

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File photo – Pragyan Ojha’s third five-wicket haul in List A cricket put Bengal into their first final since 2012•PTI

Bengal openers Shreevats Goswami and Abhimanyu Easwaran struck centuries to help them post 329 for 4, before Pragyan Ojha took five of Jharkhand’s last six wickets – including that of MS Dhoni – to bowl them out for 288 to win by 41 runs at Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla. They will play Tamil Nadu in the final on Monday.Goswami and Easwaran added 198 for the first wicket after Dhoni elected to field. Goswami, who was named Player of the Match, was the more aggressive of the two, hitting 11 fours and a six in his 99-ball 101 before he fell to medium-pacer Monu Kumar in the 35th over. Easwaran also made 101, his second century of the tournament, and like 127 against Mumbai, this innings too consisted of more running than it did boundaries.After his dismissal in the 40th over, Bengal scored 100 runs off 62 balls, fueled by their captain Manoj Tiwary. His unbeaten 75 off 49 balls, took Bengal past 320 while Varun Aaron took the most wickets for Jharkhand, but was also their most expensive bowler, going for 89 runs.Jharkhand started slowly, but their partnerships progressively increased till the fifth wicket fell. The two most substantial of those were 54 for the fourth wicket between Dhoni and Saurabh Tiwary (48) and 97 for the fifth between Dhoni and Ishank Jaggi. But their chase fizzled out when Dhoni fell to Ojha for for a 62-ball 70 at the end of the 43rd over. Jaggi (59) was dismissed by Sayan Ghosh (2-52) shortly after and the last four batsmen fell to Ojha in a collapse that eventually read 6 for 38.

Leeward Islands moved a step closer to clinching a spot in the semi-finals of the Regional Super50 with an eight-wicket win over West Indies Under-19 at North Sound on Monday. West Indies Under-19 were bowled out for 78 in 45.3 overs, 20 of which were maidens, after being sent in before Montcin Hodge and Jahmar Hamilton’s unbeaten 72-run third-wicket stand clinched victory with one ball left in the 17th over.Left-arm spinner Akeal Hosein did most of the damage with the ball for Leewards, finishing with figures of 4 for 8 in ten overs with five maidens. Fast bowler Alzarri Joseph plucked out the first two wickets, getting Shian Brathwaite and Emmanuel Stewart caught behind to make it 13 for 2. Hosein then ripped through the middle order to claim the next four wickets to make it 34 for 6. Captain Kirstan Kallicharan accounted for nearly half of West Indies Under-19’s runs, scoring 33 at No. 6 before he was ninth out to left-arm spinner Jason Campbell with the score on 78 and Campbell cleaned up the tail for the last wicket with nothing added to the total.Monday’s results meant that West Indies Under-19 are the first team eliminated from semi-finals contention in either group. Leewards can clinch a semi-finals spot with a win in either of their final two group games against Trinidad & Tobago or Windward Islands. They can also qualify if Kent lose any of its final three group games against Trinidad & Tobago, Windward Islands or West Indies Under-19.Trinidad & Tobago created an eight-point cushion over Kent for second place on the Group A table with a 32-run win over Windward Islands at Coolidge. Despite a 104-run opening stand between Evin Lewis and Kyle Hope, Windwards held T & T to 214 after sending them in, but could only manage 182 in reply.Lewis propelled T&T early by dominating the opening stand with Hope, scoring 75 off 69 balls with 11 boundaries. Hope (29) and Nicholas Alexis (46) combined for another 75 as the top three accounted for the bulk of T&T’s total. Denesh Ramdin was the only other batsman to reach double-figures, making 22 before he was dismissed by Kesrick Williams at the end of the 43rd over to make it 180 for 4. His wicket sparked a rapid collapse as T&T lost their last seven wickets for just 34 runs and they couldn’t last all 50 overs, bowled out in 47.5 as Williams, Shane Shillingford and Kavem Hodge took three wickets apiece.Man of the Match Shannon Gabriel helped pin down Windwards’ reply, taking two wickets with the new ball while Rayad Emrit and Khary Pierre struck once each in the space of three balls to make it 43 for 4 in the 15th over. Sunil Ambris resuscitated the chase, continuing his superb tournament with his fifth half-century in six matches. Ambris added 58 with Hodge (27) and another 50 with captain Liam Sebastien.Gabriel though struck a controversial blow two balls into the 41st, claiming Sebastien leg-before, playing back to a good length ball which replays showed had pitched six inches outside leg stump to the left-handed Sebastien with Gabriel bowling over the wicket. With the tail exposed, Gabriel and Ravi Rampaul brought a swift end to play. Kyle Mayers fished an edge-behind off Rampaul for the seventh wicket before a pair of catches on the boundary by Alexis put T&T one away from victory which Gabriel sealed by bowling Williams with a full and straight ball two deliveries into the 47th, leaving Ambris stranded on 75. Gabriel’s 5 for 33 was his maiden five-for in List A cricket and he did it in just 50 balls delivered.A win for Trinidad & Tobago over Kent in their next match would clinch semi-final spots for both T & T and Leewards. Windwards are still mathematically alive, but need a pair of bonus point wins over Leeward Islands and Kent in their final two games, combined with three losses by Trinidad & Tobago and another Kent loss to West Indies Under-19.

The anti-doping tribunal hearing West Indies allrounder Andre Russell’s case is set to deliver its verdict on January 31. The independent tribunal is looking into whether he breached the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) code by being negligent about filing his whereabouts three times between January and July 2015. If found guilty, Russell faces the danger of being banned for two years. According to the WADA code, if an athlete misses three tests in a 12-month period, it amounts to a failed dope test.The charge was pressed by the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) last March. JADCO said Russell had been negligent about filing his whereabouts despite several reminders over phone, email and through written letters. Still Russell failed to file his whereabouts on January 1, July 1 and July 25, 2015.In his defence, Russell told the tribunal that he had not been properly trained to file the whereabouts. And considering he was busy fulfilling various cricket commitments he had authorised his agent and travel agent to file his whereabouts on his behalf.The three-member tribunal comprising Hugh Faulkner, Dr Marjorie Vassell and Dixeth Palmer, a former Jamaica cricketer, was due to deliver the verdict in December. But no reasons were offered by the tribunal in public behind the delay.The delayed verdict has kept not just Russell, but also various T20 franchises waiting in anticipation. Although not contracted with the West Indies Cricket Board, Russell is one the most valuable players in the various Twenty20 domestic leagues across the world. Kolkata Knight Riders (IPL), Sydney Thunder (Big Bash League), Islamabad United (PSL), Nottinghamshire Outlaws (NatWest T20 Blast) and Jamaica Tallawahs (Caribbean Premier League) are some of the teams he has represented, and he has been the most valuable player for more than one team and tournament.

Saurashtra opener Kishan Parmar, who was playing his second first-class match, struck his maiden century to revive his team from 130 for 5 to 234 for 5 against Delhi in Vadodara. Saurashtra closed the day with a lead of 89 runs.Seamer Navdeep Saini and offspinning allrounder Nitish Rana had done the damage with the ball, sharing four wickets between them. This came after Delhi’s lower order, led by Pradeep Sangwan’s 75 off 100 balls, opened up a first-innings lead of 145. Sangwan was briefly assisted by Manan Sharma (33) in a 62-run stand for the eighth wicket to frustrate Saurashtra. Kushang Patel, the new-ball bowler, picked up his third five-for in first-class cricket as Delhi were dismissed for 237 in 58.3 overs.Half-centuries from debutant Pavan Deshpande and opener R Samarth helped Karnataka gain the upper hand over Maharashtra in Mohali. Resuming on 67 for 1, Karnataka were ahead by 150 as they ended on 313 for 9, with the second-wicket stand of 101 between Kaunain Abbas (41) and Samarth (64) forming the bedrock of the innings. Deshpande then helped consolidate the lead with Stuart Binny and CM Gautam.Karnataka, who could have been down to 10 players after Maharashtra denied them a replacement for Manish Pandey, who was called-up to the India Test squad as a replacement for the injured Ajinkya Rahane, were handed a reprieve after Swapnil Gugale, the opposition captain, did a U-turn. David Mathias, the fast bowler, came in to bat at No. 7 but fell cheaply. Vinay Kumar, the Karnataka captain, struck an unbeaten 36 to all but knock Maharashtra, who need an outright win, out of contention.Left-arm seamer Tanvir Ul-Haq negated Vidarbha‘s advantage as Rajasthan, bowled out for 140, came storming back to dismiss their opponents for 116 in Greater Noida. Tanvir finished with career-best figures of 6 for 21 in 10.3 overs as the Vidarbha innings lasted just 41.3 overs after bad light delayed start of play by over an hour. Siddesh Wath, the wicketkeeper-batsman, playing his second first-class game, top-scored with 50. Rajasthan’s openers Manendar Singh and AV Gautam batted 11 overs to end on 10 without loss.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsDawid Malan turned the match in Barisal Bulls’ favour with three consecutive sixes in a crucial over•BCB

Fifties from Dawid Malan and Shahriar Nafees helped Barisal Bulls chase down 164 with five balls to spare against Chittagong Vikings. The pair added 150 runs for the second wicket to ease a chase that looked tense at one stage.Malan was unbeaten on 78 off 48 balls with three fours and seven sixes, most of them hit high into the stands beyond the midwicket boundary. Nafees made a 59-ball 65 that had seven fours and a six, but his dismissal, followed by Thisara Perera’s wicket in the penultimate over gave Chittagong a hint of a chance before Mushfiqur Rahim finished the win with two boundaries in the last over.Malan and Nafees came together in the second over when Josh Cobb was undone by Subashis Roy’s slower delivery for six. But the pace bowler dropped Malan on 8 off his own bowling in the sixth over. The pair batted well together, feeding each other the strike when one of the batsmen found boundaries frequently.They got into the groove after the Powerplay but after the 13th over, the asking rate kept rising and Barisal went into the last three overs needing 34. Malan took pressure off the side and turned the match for them with three successive sixes off Dwayne Smith in the 18th over. Mushfiqur meanwhile, reached a milestone during his last-over heroics, becoming the first batsman to score more than 1,000 runs in the BPL.Earlier when Chittagong batted first, Tamim Iqbal began with a lofted drive over cover in the third over before his trademark cuts, pulls, flicks and charge at bowlers brought him nine more fours and two sixes. He brought up his highest score in the BPL with his 75, moving past the 69 he scored in 2015. He fell to a slower ball from Kamrul Islam Rabbi in the 14th over after sharing 116 runs for the opening partnership. Jahurul, who fell in the following over, made 36 with four boundaries.Tamim and Jahurul’s partnership came at 8.92 per over, which was also the first 100-plus opening partnership in this season. Chittagong, however, could not cash in on the base – they only added 47 runs in the remaining 6.5 overs, when Anamul Haque and Dwayne Smith conjured two fours and two sixes.