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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.

Scorecard
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.

Leicestershire could be looking for a new coach after reports in Australia linked Andrew McDonald with the same role at Victoria. While Leicestershire insist McDonald has, to date, only been approached for a role with Melbourne Renegades (the Big Bash side), rumours persist that he has become the preferred candidate for both the first-class and limited-overs teams.”When you have a coach as good as Andrew, it is inevitable that other teams will be interested,” Wasim Khan, Leicestershire’s chief executive, told ESPNcricinfo. “But as things stand, he tells me he has only been approached for a role with the T20 side. My reaction was ‘great; good for you’.”Despite a poor year in limited-overs cricket, McDonald has made a strong impression as elite performance director at Leicestershire. After several miserable years, the club are currently fifth in Division Two of the County Championship and retain ambitions of winning promotion. If that sounds modest, it must be remembered that, when McDonald was appointed ahead of the 2015 season, the club had not won a Championship match since 2012.While McDonald is two years into a three-year deal with the club (he is contracted from February to September until the end of the 2017 county season), he may well conclude that the opportunity to become head coach of Victoria and Melbourne Renegades is too good to miss. Indeed, with the Matador Cup season starting in the first week of October, Victoria may well want McDonald before the end of the current county season. It is not thought sustainable to continue in both roles.McDonald, who played four Tests for Australia, represented Victoria, the state of his birth, for more than a decade. The vacancy arose when David Saker left to take up the role of bowling coach with the Australia team.

Kraigg Brathwaite, whose innings of 74 could not prevent a struggling West Indies batting unit from falling short of the follow-on mark on day three of the Antigua Test, praised India’s bowling attack for the pressure they sustained through the day.”I think I haven’t seen any bowlers bowl so well in the early stage of the innings,” Brathwaite said. “They bowled with a lot of discipline. They also set attacking fields and really backed it up with good disciplined bowling.”Replying to India’s 566 for 8 declared, West Indies were bowled out for 243. Following on, they ended the day 21 for 1, with Brathwaite dismissed in the first over.”It’s a bit of both,” he said, when asked whether West Indies’ situation was more a reflection of poor batting or good bowling from India. “As a batsman, you have to know when you have to curb your aggression and defend, or when to attack. I think it’s all about individual batsmanship as a whole. It’s about having confidence in what you do and building partnerships and bat throughout the third day.”While there was no denying the uphill nature of the task West Indies face over the last two days of the match, Brathwaite said their batting line-up was capable of saving the game.”We had just a bad day,” he said. “We have some really good batsmen. Today it didn’t go well but tomorrow we should come back and bat really well and put some runs on the board.”He expected the pitch to remain good to bat on and hold together on days four and five “Little bit of grass. I don’t think it will crack up. The bounce is still good and we have to come tomorrow and see if it continues or if it gets low.”

Leicestershire Foxes have bolstered their batting ranks by snapping up big-hitting Cameron Delport for NatWest T20 Blast fixtures this summer.Delport, a South African-born left-hander, qualifies to play for Leicestershire as a non-overseas player. He has made 2,045 T20 runs in 88 innings at an average of 25.56 and strike rate of 135.70. Delport has also picked some useful wickets with his medium paced seamers, taking 23 at 27.56 with an economy rate of 7.65.He is well-known to Elite Performance Director Andrew McDonald following a spell at Sydney Thunder in 2015 and also played alongside Umar Akmal at Lahore Qalandars earlier this year.McDonald said: “Cameron has experience in most of the world’s top T20 competitions and his knowledge and skill will be valuable assets for us. He will give us another useful option in our batting roster and is also a good person who will contribute greatly to the changing room.”

Scorecard2:10

‘Good to start the tour on a high’ – Younis

There may be more impressive individual performances and more action-packed days in the next two or three months but, in the context of this Pakistan tour, this was an almost perfect start.On a benign pitch, in front of a good natured crowd, Pakistan were able to ease their way into a tour that promises some tough moments on and perhaps off the pitch, with a low-key day – a wonderfully low key day from a Pakistan perspective – of gentle cricket.It wasn’t like this the last time they were here. The last time Pakistan were in Taunton, in September 2010, they were besieged. It was only days after the story had broken and, as helicopters hovered over their hotel and journalists waited in the car-park, the atmosphere inside the squad was anything but low key and gentle.The Pakistan camp remain nervous, probably unnecessarily so, about the reception that awaits them on this tour. So to have started this trip with three weeks training out of the spotlight and then enjoy a relatively uneventful day during which nearly all of their top six enjoyed a decent amount of time in the middle represented an ideal start.Not for the first time, Pakistan were grateful to the composure and class of Younis Khan. The 38-year-old, who missed the 2010 tour having fallen out of favour with the team management, finished the day unbeaten on 99 having added 179 for the fifth-wicket with Asad Shafiq.It was not a flawless innings. Younis was reprieved on 20 (a tough chance wide to Marcus Trescothick’s right at second slip) and again on 75 (when Alex Barrow was unable to cling on to an even tougher chance offered via the inside edge). But, in between times, he began to settle into the pace of pitch and the movement in the air and unveiled many of those familiar strokes – the devastating sweep, the flamboyant cut and the pleasing drives off front and back foot – that have already brought him more than 9,000 Test runs and 31 centuries.”It’s not easy for any team when they come to England,” Younis said afterwards. “But we have come to the country very early and we are very well prepared. I think this may be the first time that Pakistan have batted well at the start of a tour. We nearly all had 50 or 60 balls in the middle.”It would be fantastic for me if my performances helped the team do well. It would make me the happy man of the earth.”Shafiq was no less impressive. Joining Younis with the side on 132 for 4 and in just a little trouble, he survived an early run out chance but then was admirably compact and watchful in steering his side into a safer waters. While he may reflect he squandered an excellent opportunity to register a century – he sliced a somewhat wild drive off a wide one that turned a little – he will have taken confidence from this start.The one man to miss out was the captain. Misbah-up-Haq felt for his second ball, a delivery some way outside off stump, without any foot movement and edged to slip.Tougher challenges remain, of course. The days when county teams looked upon these matches as an opportunity to make a name for themselves are largely gone, especially for bowlers. So here Somerset, resting the Overton brothers and Lewis Gregory, fielded an attack that included three men with one Championship cap for the club between them including a first-class debut for 18-year-old off-spinner, Dominic Bess, who moved from Sidmouth to Exeter a couple of years ago to ensure him of more opportunity at club level.They bowled tidily enough. Paul van Meekeren, a Dutch international who has been playing club cricket for Benwell Hill near Newcastle, has just signed until the end of the season and did himself no harm with a whole-hearted effort. After Mohammad Hafeez missed a straight one, van Meekeren produced a beauty that draw a stroke from Azhar Ali but left him to take the edge.Tim Groenewald also finished with two wickets. Two balls before Misbah’s departure he had seen Shan Masood fall across a straight one as he tried to whip the ball through the leg side.But Josh Davey, the Scotland international, was less fortunate. After dropping a relatively simple caught and bowled chance offered by Masood on 17, he was also the unlucky bowler on both occasions that Younis was reprieved. On another day, he might also have won a leg before shout against Hafeez before the batsman had scored.Masood, especially efficient off his legs, and Hafeez, who pulled successive sixes when the medium-paced Davey dropped short, may both feel they missed out on the chance to cash-in against this inexperienced attack. But, in terms of gaining time at the crease ahead of the serious business part of this tour, this was a pleasing start for Pakistan.