All posts by n8rngtd.top

North hundred too much for Middlesex

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Marcus North hit a brilliant 137 not out as Glamorgan made it two wins from two matches in this season’s Yorkshire Bank 40 by overpowering a below-par Middlesex by 26 runs at Lord’s.

06-May-2013
ScorecardMarcus North, seen here for Perth, made his ninth List A hundred•Getty Images

Marcus North hit a brilliant 137 not out as Glamorgan made it two wins from two matches in this season’s Yorkshire Bank 40 by overpowering a below-par Middlesex by 26 runs at Lord’s.Glamorgan skipper and former Australia batsman North led from the front. He hit 16 fours and three sixes in his 98-ball innings and featured in an unbroken stand of 156 in just 16.3 overs with Jim Allenby, who scored 69 not out from 50 balls.Opener Will Bragg also contributed a 72-ball 62, riding some early luck against the new ball after Middlesex had decided to bowl first on an excellent surface.Bragg’s partnership of 86 in 16 overs with North got the Glamorgan innings going again after they slid to 38 for 2 when Mark Wallace was caught at first slip and Chris Cooke, later in the same over, was run out by Joe Denly’s direct hit from cover.Dawid Malan, Chris Rogers and Paul Stirling all briefly threatened to do something spectacular at the top of the Middlesex batting order but Will Owen took three wickets in 18 balls from the Pavilion End, after Allenby had initially removed Rogers.And, with slow left-arm spinner Dean Cosker also putting in a tight spell, it was only a matter of time from 110 for 4 – despite Berg’s late hitting – before Glamorgan’s victory was confirmed. Berg made a brave 75 from 57 balls but it only served to reduce the margin of victory.It was a fine effort by Glamorgan, who had totalled 285 for 7 from their 40 overs in the previous day’s 28-run win against Yorkshire at Colwyn Bay but then had to endure a near five-hour journey to London from north Wales before waking up to prepare for this match.Rogers, fresh from his match-saving County Championship double hundred against Surrey, produced some eye-catching strokes in his 22 before being caught off a leading edge at cover, but Malan had already survived a stumping chance on 35 when he fell at the same score, lifting a catch to point off Owen.Denly went for 11, caught at the wicket driving loosely at a wider ball from Owen, who then struck a crucial blow for his team by bowling the hard-hitting Stirling for 36 through an ugly legside heave.Neil Dexter drove one six over long on against Michael Hogan in his 24, but Hogan soon had him caught at deep cover and Berg was then left with only the tail for company. He hit Owen for two defiant sixes but saw wickets continue to tumble as John Simpson was caught at deep mid-off, Josh Davey was held at deep midwicket and Toby Roland-Jones also hit a catch into the deep. Berg was finally ninth out, bowled by Hogan after hitting six fours besides his two sixes.The North-Allenby partnership was far too much for Middlesex. Hardly anything got past the bat, once they both got their eye in, as they took full advantage of a superb batting pitch and Middlesex’s attack was beginning to look very ragged by the time the overs ran out.The last five overs of the innings brought 60 runs and, in all, 180 runs were plundered from the last 20.3 overs only for the loss of Bragg, who was athletically held by a diving Tom Smith at backward point off Davey.North’s first six was swung over midwicket off a Dexter full toss, just before Glamorgan’s 200 arrived in the 34th over, and he later added a powerful hit into the grandstand off Roland-Jones’s penultimate ball of the innings.Allenby, too, produced some meaty blows as he went past 50 from 39 balls, including a full-blooded club over wide long on from a couple of steps down the pitch against an astonished Corey Collymore.

Smith targets October return

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Graeme Smith, South Africa’s injured Test captain, is aiming for a return to action in the team’s next Test series, against Pakistan in October

Firdose Moonda14-Jul-2013Graeme Smith, South Africa’s injured Test captain, is aiming for a return to action in the team’s next Test series, against Pakistan in October. Smith suffered a recurrence of an ankle injury that has plagued him throughout his career in May and was ruled out of cricket for at least five months.At the time, Smith was playing for Surrey and had to return home for surgery. He missed the Champions Trophy and will sit out of the upcoming limited-overs tour to Sri Lanka in order to make a full recovery. As matters stand, that looks set to be earlier than initial estimates with the trip to the UAE a definite possibility for Smith to make his return.Smith has made “steady progress” according to South Africa’s team manager and doctor Mohammed Moosajee and the management team are “aiming to have him for the Pakistan series”. His cast came off two-and-half-weeks ago and he has been walking on crutches since the last week of June. He is expected to use them until the first week in August, when he should be able to walk on his own.Smith’s wife, Morgan, is due to give birth to the couple’s second child this week. She wrote on a blog for magazine that Smith has “just started rehab on his ankle so he is going to be mobile again pretty soon, which will be perfect timing for when the new baby arrives”.Although Smith is not captain in the shorter formats, his absence has been noticeable. South Africa have struggled to find a suitable partner for Hashim Amla in the 50-overs format and will head to Sri Lanka with that as one of their major concerns.Their options are between Smith’s Test opening partner Alviro Petersen, who was drafted into the Champions Trophy squad but did not play a game, and young wicketkeeper-batsman Quinton de Kock. Colin Ingram, who filled the role during the Champions Trophy, is not expected to continue in it.While South Africa would value Smith’s presence in the one-day team, it is far more important to them to have him for Test matches. Not only has he been the leader of the Test side for a decade but he led them to No. 1 in the world last year and has spoken about his ambitions to keep them there.South Africa have not played a Test since defeating Pakistan 3-0 in a series at home in March and will make a return to the format after eight months in October. They play two Tests in the UAE, which will be new coach Russell Domingo’s first longer-format assignment and Smith’s presence would be a huge boost.Moosajee confirmed the support staff are working toward that. “He has three months to go and we will have to take a call closer to the time but we are hopeful he will be able to play in that series,” he said. “He is doing well so far and we will continue to monitor him.”

Relief for Gale as century ends run drought

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Andrew Gale’s last hundred was scored against Durham in June 2011, when the Olympics were in the distance and Syria was still governable. Yorkshire expects more from its captains. On Scarborough’s wide acres, he finally delivered.

Paul Edwards at North Marine Road07-Jun-2013
ScorecardIt was a very important innings for Andrew Gale•Getty Images

Andrew Gale’s last hundred was scored against Durham in June 2011, when the Olympics were in the distance and Syria was still governable. Yorkshire expects more from its captains. On Scarborough’s wide acres, he finally delivered.Since that last hundred, Gale has played 33 innings and made only five fifties. In 2012 he scored 487 first-class runs. “If Root and Bairstow were available….” the cricket talk has begun in the Leeds pubs. “If he wasn’t captain…” The implication has rarely been left hanging in the air.So when Gale got inside the line of a delivery from Samit Patel, Nottinghamshire’s England allrounder, and hoisted it high over the wide long on boundary to reach his hundred, he was entitled to punch the air wildly and kiss the White Rose badge on his helmet.Physical clichés are forgivable when a cricketer has proved that his powers of resistance are still intact. Every player knows that there will come a time when the fires will burn low and never be rekindled.By close of play, the mixture of delight and relief had become untrammelled joy as Gale reached a career-best 159 not out and had been joined in his contentment by Gary Ballance, whose unbeaten 103 was his second century of the season.Only one wicket had fallen in the day and all thoughts of Yorkshire having to follow-on had long been forgotten. The game is surely as dead as the BetaMax cassette.Gale had, of course, been beaten by some of the 282 deliveries he faced in the day, but none of those reverses had amounted to the complete defeat which leads to the lonely trudge back to the pavilion which had so often characterised his last two years in Championship cricket.His century was all the more laudable given the context in which it was scored. Yorkshire’s skipper began the day with no runs at all to his name and his side on 29-3, still 265 short of the follow-on.He put on 94 in 29 overs with Phil Jaques before the Australian was caught at short leg by James Taylor off Patel for 51; Yorkshire’s No3 was attempting a hit to leg but the ball made contact with only bat edge and pad.

Andrew Gale

“I felt scratchy at the start of the season and I’ve been working hard at a few technical things in the nets. I was disappointed not to get to three figures against Somerset last week. That hurt me a lot.
“I know the press have been saying that I hadn’t scored a century for two years so I wanted to make sure that if I got to 60-70 today that I’d not only get over the line but go on to make a big one.
“Scarborough’s a good ground for me, I’ve always scored runs here. It’s quite fast and bouncy, I score a lot of runs square of the wicket and it suits my style of play.
“I’m a bit more upright in my stance. At the start of the season I was falling over a little bit at the crease and it felt like if the ball nipped back that I would get out lbw so I’ve worked at getting a little bit more upright and balanced.”

That dismissal took place five overs before lunch and it was the last of the day. The remaining two sessions were taken up with Gale and Ballance adding an unbroken 237 for the fifth wicket. In doing so they established a raft of records to delight the statisticians, although the anoraks had not donned their uniforms this very warm Friday.The partnership was a new fifth-wicket record for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire beating the 152 put on by John Hampshire and Neil Hartley at Trent Bridge in 1981. It is also the highest fifth-wicket stand by Yorkshire batsmen at Scarborough and the highest fifth-wicket partnership in county cricket on the ground.Of the twoWhite Rose centurions, Ballance is in better form and probably looked the more fluent. The majority of his shots were played with the assurance of a man near the top of his game. His cutting of Paul Franks, his clipping of Luke Fletcher to midwicket and his footwork against most bowlers made it fairly clear why the England selectors have been looking closely at him.Gale’s eventual confidence was harder won and, perhaps for that very reason, it was more pleasurable to watch. But by the end of the day both batsmen were playing with complete freedom. The follow-on had been saved, the second new ball had been seen off and Nottinghamshire’s attack, so threaterning just 24 hours earlier, had been made to look anodyne, the former Yorkshireman, Ajmal Shahzad, among them.Shahzad was deliberately cut high over the slips by Ballance, who later reverse swept Patel for two fours. Gale came down the wicket and punched the ball to the square leg boundary. The 200 stand was brought up with four byes off Shahzad which ballooned high over Chris Read’s head; the Notts wicketkeeper/captain sat on the grass and looked back resentfully at umpire Nigel Cowley. The contrast with his counterpart’s emotions could barely have been more marked.The last hour of this day’s play must have been a delight for Gale. At last he was master of his demesne again. Three of the Cleckheaton batsman’s 13 hundreds have been scored at Scarborough and none of his innings anywhere can have been much more important to his career.Cricket must suddenly seem an easy game on such evenings and even the knowledge that the game was surely heading for stalemate late tomorrow afternoon could not mar his joy.

Sarfaraz's job is to 'keep scoring runs, all the time', and he hasn't stopped doing it

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Not being picked in the Test team despite his monster first-class numbers upset him, but he isn’t about to give up

Kunal Kishore18-Jan-2023It’s the new word doing the rounds in the cricket circuit these days: . It doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as does, but Sarfaraz Khan will take it. After all, his job, as spelt out by his father Naushad Khan, is “to keep scoring runs, for whichever team, all the time”. Since his second coming, so to say, he has been doing it in first-class cricket better than most others ever do.The ‘A’ tour of Bangladesh didn’t go well for him, but Sarfaraz has since hit three centuries in seven Ranji Trophy innings, following on from his tally of 928 runs from nine innings at 154.66 and 982 runs from nine innings at 122.75 in the two previous Ranji seasons. There were seven centuries in there, including a triple-hundred, against Uttar Pradesh, in January 2020. The latest big one, an innings of 125 in 155 balls, came in a stuttering Mumbai batting effort in Delhi yesterday, when the next best score was Prithvi Shaw’s 40, and the team totalled just 293.The first-class average of 80.47 from 36 matches (before the latest century) was always going to bring Don Bradman into the discussion, and it did after play on Tuesday. “It gives me happiness that I have been close to his [Bradman’s] record in the last three seasons,” he said. “It won’t always be the same, but I am happy to be around him right now.” For the record, while Bradman averaged 99.94 in Tests, his first-class average was marginally lower, at 95.14.Related

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With numbers like these, it’s understandable that there has been a clamour to give him a chance at the Test level. Of late, whenever an Indian Test squad has been announced, and he has not featured in it, eyebrows have been raised. On January 13, when the squad for the first two Tests against Australia was named, the general feeling was: what more does Sarfaraz need to do? It crossed his mind too.”My father came [to Delhi] a couple of days ago, and I trained with him for two days in Ghaziabad [near Delhi] before the game. He knew I was upset [at not being selected],” Sarfaraz said. “So he said, ‘Our job is to keep scoring runs, for whichever team, all the time’. Since I was a child, whenever I have been a bit confused, or things have not gone right, he does the same thing, he just motivates me and gives me confidence, and prepares me mentally.”

Sarfaraz’s fitness could be one of the reasons for his continued omission from the Test side. At the same time, it’s also true that while he has monster numbers in the Ranji Trophy, and first-class cricket in general, he hasn’t always sparkled when given the opportunity at the India A level. In six ‘A’ games so far, Sarfaraz has just 205 runs at an average of 34.16. Just before the Ranji season started, he scored 21 and 0 in his two innings on the tour of Bangladesh.”A human being can’t be successful all the time,” he said when asked about the ‘A’ numbers. “When I played my first match for India A, I scored 71 not out [in Bloemfontein]. The other players got out, otherwise I could have scored a century. But yes, I was dismissed cheaply a few times. After that, in the series against New Zealand A, I was out early once and scored 60 in another innings.”It has happened a few times that the lower-order batters have got out quickly, and I didn’t have the opportunity to score more. I will keep trying to improve my numbers for India A too.”On the subject of his fitness, Sarfaraz said, “In December last year, Delhi Capitals [his IPL team] had conducted a 14-day fitness camp, so their players are prepared for the season. So I have been at it since then, working to make sure my fitness is up there. Keeping in mind the next IPL, the focus of the Delhi Capitals team is on the fitness of the players, especially me.”

Exciting end to eventful journey for Ferling

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In 12 months, 17-year-old quick Holly Ferling has gone from playing club cricket with her younger brother to impressing on the biggest stage in the women’s game

Abhishek Purohit in Mumbai18-Feb-2013A couple of hours after Australia had won their sixth Women’s World Cup, three of their players walked onto the outfield of Brabourne Stadium and lay down in the sea of confetti that covered the ground following their celebrations. Seeing that, an excited Holly Ferling raced towards them from the dressing room, her speed matching that of her run-up. She poured still more confetti on a team-mate, clicked photographs and then leaped onto the back of another team-mate who carried her all the way to the dressing room.Seventeen-year-old Ferling, the “baby of the team” in her own words, had been in tears before the start of the final when informed by her idol, Ellyse Perry, who’d missed the Super Sixes stage with injury, that she was replacing her for the big game. Overcoming her disappointment, Ferling had hustled drinks to the middle with all the enthusiasm of the teenager she is, feeling “more nervous” than the batters themselves. She’d hesitated to walk across the TV cameras stationed just outside the boundary rope, stopping to gingerly ask for permission from the cameramen. She’d heard people calling out her name, posed for pictures, and signed autographs, all the while “pinching” herself to confirm all this wasn’t the dream of a “star-struck” girl.A day earlier, Ferling couldn’t stop laughing while speaking. She was sharing space with women such as Perry, Cathryn Fitzpatrick, Lisa Sthalekar. It had been an “unreal” 12 months for Ferling, in which she’d gone from playing club cricket with her younger brother to delighting audiences on the biggest stage with her pace, her bounce, her vivacity and her joyous celebrations.Ferling’s goal this year was to make her state debut for Queensland. Little did she know what was in store. “I will never forget this,” Ferling said with sparkling eyes and a permanent grin on her face. “I was playing age-group stuff. I was playing my grand final for my A-grade team [in club cricket]. I was Queensland Junior Cricketer of the Year [the first woman to win the award]. I went to Sri Lanka [with the World Twenty20 squad], made the Shooting Stars group [the junior national side]. It is an absolute honour … so hard to put into words. This is something you only dream about, to grow from making my state debut to making my international debut in months.”I am really very star-struck to be honest. It was the time I went to Sri Lanka, I had seen some of these girls on television, I hadn’t actually played with any of them. I didn’t know what to expect. I was like, ‘I am training alongside my heroes, sharing a room with them.'”Ferling said all she had been told to do in the tournament was to run in and bowl fast, and credited her use of the bouncer to growing up playing alongside men, especially her brother. “I do love my bouncer. I worked on it playing against the men, having a variation when they are coming at me. I definitely wanted to have it against my brother if he ever annoyed me. He is over six foot now and he is learning to bowl them back at me. It fires me up.”He plays for the same club as me. I was an opening bowler and he was an opening batter. It worked out well until he started getting stronger and older and started hitting me. Now he is bowling even quicker. I have had to improve my batting otherwise I am going to get hit. He likes the short one as well.”Ferling obviously shares a close relationship with her brother, who told people at the pub he works in to go home and watch his sister play for Australia in the World Cup. In the team, Ferling’s guide was the captain Jodie Fields. “She is my club captain and my state captain as well, someone I know really well and trust.”At 17, Ferling had the chance to witness how “fanatical” people are about the game in India. She found it “incredible” they knew her name and wanted her autograph. Fielding in the deep, she would struggle to hear her captain’s instructions amid the crowd’s cries in Cuttack.She relates all this without pausing for breath, with the infectious zest of a teenager who’s having the experience of her life and can’t wait to tell it all to whoever is willing to listen. Holly Ferling, 17, World Cup winner. “Incredible” indeed.

Young Middlesex bowlers hold nerve to secure a six-run win over Lancashire

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Visitors indebted to Luke Hollman’s four wickets, Sam Robson’s 76 as Danny Lamb threatens to steal game

ECB Reporters Network03-Aug-2021Middlesex’s young bowlers just about held their nerve to secure a six-run win over Lancashire in a magnificent Royal London Cup match at Emirates Old Trafford.Defending 257, the visitors were indebted to 20-year-old leg spinner Luke Hollman, who took 4 for 56, but the visitors had to withstand a late assault from Danny Lamb, whose 21-ball 33 looked as though it might win the game until he was bowled by Ethan Bamber when four balls remained in the game.Middlesex’s total owed much to Sam Robson’s 81-ball 76 and also to Martin Andersson’s partnerships with tailenders Thilan Wallalawita and Bamber that saw 67 runs added for the last two wickets in less than ten oversThe visitors probably envisaged making an even bigger total when they were 80 for 1 in the 18th over but Stevie Eskinazi became the second of his side’s batters after Josh de Caires to be caught by Lamb when he top-edged a rank full-toss from George Balderson to fine leg where the Lancashire all-rounder dived full length to clutch the ball in his right hand.Eskinazi’s departure for 45 was followed by that of the Middlesex skipper Peter Handscomb for 14 seven overs later and once again Lamb literally had a hand in things when he dived backwards from short fine-leg to take a one-handed snare off Jack Morley.Related

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By that stage Robson had reached his fifty off 54 balls and the four-day opener continued to bat fluently despite injuring his groin and needing a runner. Robbie White was caught behind off leg-spinner Luke Wells for 18 and that wicket started a collapse that saw Middlesex decline from 154 for 3 to 190 for 8 in nine overs.Three of the five wickets were taken in eight balls by Tom Bailey, who finished with 3 for 33 and was clearly the pick of his side’s attack. Indeed Bailey was the only bowler to concede less than five runs an over and Wallalawita helped himself to two sixes and a couple of fours when Jack Morley and Liam Hurt’s radar malfunctioned. Andersson ended the innings unbeaten on 42.Lacashire’s reply began badly as both Josh Bohannon and Wells fell to Bamber and James Harris for single-figure scores but Keaton Jennings and Rob Jones had put on 63 in some comfort before Jennings injured his calf when setting off to complete a leg bye.Following treatment he was helped from the field in obvious pain but Jones and Steven Croft added a further 77 before Croft fell to Hollman for 41. Balderson then hit de Caires for two sixes over the short leg-side but both he and Jones were dismissed by Hollman, whose eighth over was crucial in deciding the outcome.Jones was caught by de Caires at long-off for a career-best List A score of 72 but that only prompted Lamb’s defiant assault that nearly brought Lancashire a famous victory. Jennings’ injury prevented him coming out to bat when Lancashire’s ninth wicket fell.

The Ali Khan-Dwayne Bravo mutual admiration society

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“He’s someone I have a lot of time for – someone that I believe has a lot of talent,” Bravo says of Khan

Barny Read02-Feb-2021Ali Khan paid homage to long-term mentor Dwayne Bravo, who was equally chuffed with the USA seamer’s latest T10 League heroics that saw Khan take three wickets in just five balls. But Khan would be be denied the chance of a hat-trick, thanks to a deep finger cut on his bowling hand that put the leading wicket-taker in doubt for the remainder of the competition.Khan was unable to finish his over thanks to the cut that came from his diving catch that removed dangerman Tom Kohler-Cadmore, but had already done enough to claim Man-of-the-Match honours with his figures of 3 for 0 in 0.5 overs that restricted the Pune Devils to just 57 for 7 from their ten overs.Even with his fourth finger busted open, the 30-year-old removed Alex Davies with his first ball before bowling two dots that preceded the wickets of Nasir Hossain and Karan KC in immediate succession. After his 2 for 4 against the Gladiators the previous day, it secured a second Man-of-the-Match award in less than 24 hours for the Delhi Bulls quick. Khan said the support of Bravo has been a key factor in his excellent form with the ball.Related

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“It’s a really nice setup. DJ Bravo is a really good captain, a leader both on and off the field and gives you a lot of confidence,” Khan said. “Especially in T10, [because] you can go for a lot of runs. He’s always the kind of leader who comes back and backs you and keeps you confident and gets you ready for the next ball.”Bravo has played an important role in Khan’s ascent as a cricketer. It was the West Indies all-rounder who had plucked Khan from a US Open T20 tournament in 2017, and has since taken the pacer with him to the Global T20 in Canada as well as the Caribbean Premier League.That led to Khan being selected for the first time at the last edition of the Indian Premier League, and these milestones in Khan’s career – as well as performances such as those over the past two days – give Bravo an enormous sense of pride.”He’s someone I have a lot of time for – someone that I believe has a lot of talent and to see the way he bowled today with a lot of pace and aggression to pick up wickets, he’s very good for our team,” Bravo said.”He’s someone who’s special to me, because I saw him in the US playing and I invited him to play for my team in Trinidad and since then, he’s done very well. Every time he does good, I feel good.”Khan now has seven wickets from just less than eight overs in the Abu Dhabi T10, with strike rate of just 6.7 and would be a big miss for the Bulls should he not return for the remainder of the tournament. He was also denied a historic IPL debut with the Kolkata Knight Riders, as a side strain ultimately ended his time with the franchise and resulted in his release when the retention lists were drawn up last month.Khan will be hoping that his T10 exploits don’t end in the same disappointment, and fortunately for both the player and his Super League leading team, they are guaranteed a spot in Friday’s set of knockouts with a game to go. It means they may have just enough time to get Khan sewn up and back into their attack by the weekend.”We’re going to get stitches now, so let’s see how it feels by tomorrow,” Khan said. “If it needs to be rested because we’re in a good position, we have that luxury of having getting a rest. So we’ll see how it comes out in the next couple of days and if I can be ready for the playoffs.”

Deepak Chahar, Ishan Kishan to join India A squad for red-ball series in South Africa

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Both are in Kolkata for the third T20I against New Zealand and will leave with the squad on November 23

PTI21-Nov-2021Deepak Chahar and Ishan Kishan have been added to the India A squad that will travel to South Africa for three four-day matches.Chahar and Kishan are in Kolkata for the third T20I against New Zealand and will leave with the squad on November 23.”Yes, Deepak and Ishan have been drafted to the squad. They will finish the match in Kolkata and link up with the A team before they leave for South Africa,” a senior BCCI official confirmed the development to PTI.Related

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It is understood that Kishan is being sent because the Chetan Sharma-led committee had initially kept only one wicketkeeper for the ‘A’ tour in Railways’ Upendra Yadav.”They needed a second keeper and who is better than Ishan. He probably now would be first keeper and rightly so,” another official said.Chahar has not played a lot of red-ball cricket but with his ability to swing the ball, selectors want to keep him busy.Gujarat top-order batter Priyank Panchal will lead the India A squad for the South Africa tour, beginning November 26.Squad: Priyank Panchal (capt), Prithvi Shaw, Hanuma Vihari, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Devdutt Padikkal, Sarfaraz Khan, B Aparajith, Upendra Yadav (wk), K Gowtham, Rahul Chahar, Saurabh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Umran Malik, Ishan Porel, Arzan Nagwaswalla, Ishan Kishan (wk), Deepak Chahar

Steven Smith on Australia captaincy: 'If the opportunity did come up again, I would be keen'

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“I’m always going to have to live with Cape Town regardless of whether I lead again or not”

Reuters and ESPNcricinfo staff29-Mar-2021Three years after his ignominious exit as Australia’s captain in the wake of the ball-tampering scandal, Steven Smith has said he is keen and ready to lead the national side again if an opportunity came his way.Smith was suspended from international cricket for 12 months and banned from leadership roles for two years for his role in the scandal during the Cape Town Test in March 2018.After Smith’s ban Tim Paine took over the reins of Australia’s Test side while Aaron Finch was handed the captaincy of the white-ball formats.”I’ve certainly had a lot of time to think about it and I guess now I’ve got to a point where if the opportunity did come up again, I would be keen,” Smith told .”If it was what Cricket Australia wanted and it was what was best for the team at the time, it’s certainly something I would be interested in now, that’s for sure.”Related

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The scandal centred around Smith, his deputy David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, who was caught on camera attempting to change the condition of the ball using sandpaper, and it plunged Australian cricket into crisis.Paine has since led Australia’s Test side with distinction, but with the wicketkeeper-batsman turning 37 by the time he captains in the Ashes series against England at the end of 2021, a clear succession plan would be required.Few players have better credentials to succeed Paine than the 31-year-old Smith but it has been fast bowler Pat Cummins who has been nurtured in the past as Australia’s vice-captain and he has been handed the one-day captaincy of New South Wales this season”I’m always going to have to live with Cape Town regardless of whether I lead again or not. It’s always there,” Smith said. “I’ve been through all that now.”Time keeps moving forward, and I’ve learnt so much the last few years about myself and grown as a human being. I feel as though I’d be in a better place if the opportunity did come up.”If it doesn’t, that’s fine as well and I’d support whoever is in charge the same way I’ve supported Tim and Finchy. I haven’t always felt like I wanted to do it again. That’s only come in the last little bit.”The topic of Smith captaining Australia again came up during the visit by India this season when Finch missed the second T20I with injury and Cummins was not part of the squad. Matthew Wade was handed the role with coach Justin Langer there is a “process” to go through before Smith can captain again.Speaking to ESPNcricinfo late last year, CA chairman Earl Eddings said that there had not yet been discussions about Smith.”We’ve got some great young leaders coming through,” he said. “So it’s not just about should Steve take over, it’s about what’s best overall. Steve’s a great young man and he was a good captain when he was there. Like any succession there’s planning in place. Have we sat down as a board specifically to discuss the next captain? No we haven’t.”We’ll be guided by the recommendations of the selection panel, they always come back to our board at the right time with their recommendation, and we’ll go through it in detail when they do that.”

Tasmania's third Shield win, Ponting's first

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A draw was all Tasmania needed for their third Sheffield Shield triumph, and a draw was what they celebrated after a relatively uneventful final day at Bellerive Oval, Hobart

The Report by Alex Malcolm26-Mar-2013

ScorecardThe victorious Tasmania team with the Sheffield Shield. This is Tasmania’s third title win•Getty Images

A draw was all Tasmania needed for their third Sheffield Shield triumph, and a draw was what they celebrated after a relatively uneventful final day at Bellerive Oval, Hobart.The title-winning moment came not with a wicket, but a solid front-foot defensive stroke from Hartley. But the celebrations were no less emotive or spontaneous. Twenty years after his debut for Tasmania, Ricky Ponting finally added a Sheffield Shield title to his long list of career achievements.Queensland took the final three wickets of Tasmania’s second innings within the first seven overs of the morning. James Faulkner, who batted so superbly yesterday, fell 11 runs short of his maiden first-class century when he gloved an attempted hook off Michael Neser through to keeper Chris Hartley. Faulkner’s disappointment of missing a century would have been tempered by his well-deserved Man-of-the-Match award.Luke Butterworth holed out to deep square leg five balls later. Cameron Gannon bounced out Ben Hilfenhaus in the next over. The last four Tasmanian wickets fell to short balls on a surface seemingly lacking life and bounce. It left Queensland needing 446 from 87 overs for the unlikeliest of victories.The Bulls never made any attempt to chase the set target. The run-rate scarcely exceeded two-per-over throughout the day.Both Bulls openers, Luke Pomersbach and Greg Moller, like their Tasmananian counterparts yesterday, dragged balls onto their stumps attempting horizontal bat strokes.
Peter Forrest became Evan Gulbis’ fifth victim of the match when he played the wrong line and lost his off stump.Nathan Reardon and Joe Burns put together a 63-run stand from 187 deliveries before Luke Butterworth nipped one through the gate to end Burns’ season on the stroke of tea.
Reardon made his way to just his third first-class fifty before a searing yorker from Ben Hilfenhaus struck him on the toe in front of off stump.The game looked destined for a draw with Hartley and James Hopes defending stoutly. But when Butterworth trapped the Bulls skipper with 10 overs remaining there was a possibility of Tasmania claiming an outright win. But Hartley and Neser ensured that result never eventuated.

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