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In the many recriminations and deliberations that followed the Newlands scandal, there was little doubt that Bancroft had the hardest road back to regaining a place in the Australian team

Daniel Brettig27-Jul-2019Seventeen months ago, Cameron Bancroft sat in a room at the WACA Ground, flanked by the state’s chief executive Christina Matthews, and conveyed his greatest disappointment about the Newlands ball tampering scandal in which he had been a pivotal figure.”Through the last few days, sitting in my own company, the thing that breaks my heart the most is that I have given up my spot in the team for somebody else for free,” he said. “People know that I’ve worked so hard to be able to get to this stage in my career, and to know that I have just given somebody an opportunity for free is devastating for me.”In the many recriminations and deliberations that followed the scandal, there was little doubt that Bancroft had the hardest road back to regaining a place in the Australian team. For while Steven Smith and David Warner were acknowledged as world class talents, Bancroft was a batsman still making his way, struggling as much as thriving in his first eight matches against England and South Africa. Countless others had the chance to bar Bancroft from returning through their own performance.Yet Bancroft never lost sight of his goal – keeping his baggy green cap in full view at home in Perth, then carrying it with him to a county stint with Durham. Through runs there, and then by wearing numerous blows to the body in making the unbeaten 93 on a fiendish Southampton pitch, Bancroft convinced the selectors he was worthy of a return, foiling the likes of Joe Burns, Kurtis Patterson, Peter Handscomb and Will Pucovski in the process. He’s got his spot back, and has no intention of giving it away “for free” again.”It’s good motivation isn’t it, to look at it and go ‘yeah i’m playing cricket but there’s something bigger I eventually want to be able to get back to’,” Bancroft said of his cap. “I guess it was good motivation to keep working hard, keep training. yeah. whenever that happened, it was out of my control. it was just a bit of inspiration and motivation to keep my goals and keep focused.”At home it’s got its little spot that it sits in outside my bedroom. yeah I kept it there . It’s something you’re obviously very proud of it. it’s a very prestigious item to have and you take good care of it because it means something to you. So that’s kind of how I dealt with that and being able to see that is obviously really good to focus your goals and where you want to be going.”Definitely times when I was challenged a lot. but like anything, you go through those moments the best you can. You learn a bit about what you need to do to keep moving forward, and just take it day by day really. If you ask me 18 months ago if I’d be sitting here, it was probably the last thing from my mind.”Ask Bancroft about Australian cricket culture since Newlands, and the response is instructive. He focuses not on fitting in around others, but on doing the right things in his own mind. Through the tribulations of the past year or so, including the loss of his contract with Durham for 2018, reinstated this year, Bancroft also learned to be somewhat less obsessive about the game. “One of the big lessons that I learnt last year was about being true to yourself,” Bancroft said.Steven Smith and Cameron Bancroft could end up in the same Australia XI once more•Getty Images

“There is no doubt that I wasn’t as true to myself as I could have been at times. You learn from those mistakes that you make and you try and be better moving forward. At the end of the day, what you do and your actions is completely up to you. I made a mistake and I’ll learn from it and move forward and get better.”I think being serious about cricket is important but I think it’s also about being able to realise the game is just a game of cricket. There’s certainly other parts of your life that you can value, that are important too. I definitely connected with more of that last year and certainly opened up new avenues that I hadn’t done before. They’ve brought a lot of enjoyment and happiness to my life, so for that it was a good experience and i’d like to think it’s helped me enjoy cricket in a different way.”Those avenues included meditation and yoga, accompanied by running plenty of kilometres (about 35 a week) to maintain the fitness and strength that helped make Bancroft one of the most durable batsmen in the Australian system. All these things helped build resilience, not only to the ball hurled down at him, but the volleys of abuse he faced with Durham that will doubtless be multiplied during the heat of an Ashes series in England.”Sure, there were times when people booed or what not, or ask you to sign pieces of sandpaper, stuff like that. But it doesn’t faze me. I just get on with it,” Bancroft said.”It doesn’t bother me too much. It is what it is. People will react how they want to react. Hopefully I can use it if people want to be like that, to give you energy to perform well. I can’t control that. I guess the journey that I’ve been through over the last 18 months, you get exposed to things like that. I’ll just deal with it and keep moving forward.”I think how people want to feel about that and react, I guess, is really how they want to deal with that. For me it’s just about playing good cricket. That’s kind of where I’m at right now. That’s definitely the thing that I can change and impact on moving forward, so that’s certainly where my focus will be right now.”Dealing with a moving ball was something central to Bancroft’s desire to return to Durham, and the lessons of the stint were writ large across his Southampton innings. Playing the ball late, judging the whereabouts of his off stump, leaning gently, head over the ball, into his drives, Bancroft combined physical toughness with the light touch required to avoid edges, pads and stumps being exposed to quality bowlers.Cameron Bancroft plays through the off side•Getty Images/NurPhoto

“I’ve worked on a lot of parts to my game, where my bat comes down, my back-foot play, how I move my feet, everything,” Bancroft said. “You’re just fine-tuning all those details to be a better cricketer. I’ve had a lot of time to be off the park and in the nets to do that and I guess each time you play is an opportunity to make that a part of your batting. That learning process is never ending and I’ll keep working hard.”Certainly up in Durham, dealing with sideways movement is part of batting up there. You don’t always feel like you’re 100% on top of the bowling or the game but you just do the best you can while feeling a little bit uncomfortable out there, not feeling in complete control. I think they were the conditions in Southampton and it was nice to be able to do that and I’m sure I learned a lot at Durham. There were times out there when i felt like ‘I’ve seen this before, this is like batting at the Riverside a little bit. That’s learning i guess.”I’d certainly much rather get hit than get out at times, so yeah. It was just – there’s certainly a bit of luck involved. No doubt about it on a pitch like that – and I had my fair share of luck, no doubt about it. You just stick to a game plan you think’s going to be successful out there and as much as the ball was going up and down – frighteningly at times – the ball just nipping back and being able to attack your stumps, for me was far more dangerous than worrying about the ball was that bouncing a bit. But they’re potentially conditions we could face at some point in the series and I guess you learn from the past and that helps you in the future.”As for his reunion with Smith and Warner, Bancroft agreed that all had taken paths that were lonely at times, on their way back to the national team, its pressures and rewards. “For all three of us, really, our journeys were all different,” Bancroft said.”We all fought battles that were very personal and very different. But I think understanding each other and what each other was going through was certainly something that happened. It’s nice to be back in the side, it’s nice to see Dave, it’s nice to see all the boys, not just him. I guess as you connect closer together as a team, you build that good culture the Australian cricket team has been looking to improve.”

New blow ends realistic hopes of World Cup recall, and raises questions about fast bowler’s future

George Dobell06-Jul-2018Reece Topley has been ruled out of the rest of the season after being diagnosed with a recurrence of a stress fracture in the lower back.Only days after it emerged he had come close to a recall to the England limited-overs squad – the selectors considered him (and Yorkshire’s Matt Fisher) as a replacement for the injured Tom Curran in the T20I squad facing India – the 24-year-old Topley experienced pain in his back while bowling for England Lions on Monday and was sent for a scan. The results show the fracture that he suffered last year has returned.He will see surgeons next week and is expected to undergo an operation shortly afterwards where a titanium pin will be inserted to strengthen the spine.From a personal perspective, the news is catastrophic for Topley. Aged 24, his highly promising career has been plagued by back injuries. Having worked long and hard to come back from the last setback, this new blow not only ends any realistic hopes of earning a recall to the England squad ahead of the World Cup campaign, but raises questions about his future in the game.It is his fifth stress fracture – all in L3 and L4 lumbar vertebra – in six seasons as a professional cricketer. Out of contract at Hampshire at the end of the season, clubs are likely to prove highly cautious over future contract offers.Topley is the third bowler on the fringes of the England squads – Toby Roland-Jones and Mason Crane are the others – to have suffered a recurrence of a stress fracture this season. That’s a situation which is bound to prompt some reflection on the treatment of such injuries at the ECB. Both Roland-Jones and Topley also spent time on the ECB’s recently discontinued pace programme.The news realistically ends a relationship between Hampshire and Topley that never really took off as expected. Signed amid great hope and competition, he managed only three Championship matches in three years and was disappointed to be left out of the side playing in the Royal London Final at Lord’s on Saturday.He impressed the England management as recently as last week, however, in bowling with pace and skill in a Lions match at Northampton – he claimed 4 for 16 – and revived hopes he could add to his tally of 10 ODI and six T20I caps.

Bangladesh are 1-0 up going into the decider in Colombo and are confident of upsetting the hosts, who have lost all six of their most recent completed ODIs

Mohammad Isam31-Mar-2017

Match Facts

April 1, 2017
Start time: 0930 local (0400GMT)Kusal Mendis, who hit his maiden century in Dambulla, has shown signs of his desire to be a leading batsman in world cricket•AFP

Big Picture

Sri Lanka would have felt hard done by after rain ruined the second ODI, when they put up a total of 311. No team had ever won a 50-over game on the island after being set a target over 300.But after taking Sri Lanka’s last six wickets in the final five overs, Bangladesh must have thought they were in the contest. Taskin Ahmed’s hat-trick would have charged them up even further and considering they had made their highest total away from home in the first ODI – 324 – things had been shaping up brilliantly before the weather intervened.Bangladesh may be 1-0 up and eyeing a series win, but with Kusal Mendis living up to his promise and the rest of the Sri Lankan line-up batting around his maiden hundred Tuesday, the hosts would feel like they have got their menace back. Upul Tharanga made an eye-catching half-century as well, but the team management would want him to play a longer innings, while also hoping Thisara Perera’s 9 in Dambulla was a one-off low score. The big-hitting allrounder made 55 off 35 balls only a week ago and another such display could help them end a six-match losing streak.With the action moving to the SSC, and its slow and dry surfaces, Bangladesh would have an easier time putting behind their bowling performance from the last game. They can expect grip for Mustafizur Rahman’s cutters and turn for Mehedi Hasan’s offbreaks. So should the weather hold up well, a contest with a lot of context is on the cards.

Form guide

Sri Lanka LLLLL (completed matches, most recent first)
Bangladesh WLLLL

In the spotlight

After his Test century in Galle earlier this month, Kusal Mendis had said that he wanted to be a leading batsman in world cricket and his 107 off 107 balls in Dambulla was another reminder of this young batsman’s ambition. He was very much on-side dependent but that was mostly because the Bangladesh bowlers preferred to attack his stumps. Sri Lanka would expect more runs from their No. 3, especially in a crunch situation.He didn’t get going in the first ODI but Mushfiqur Rahim had a pretty good day behind the stumps, despite missing one stumping. He held a fine running catch to dismiss Danushka Gunathilaka, helped in the Tharanga’s run-out and then produced direct hits to end Dilruwan Perera and Thisara Perera’s stay in the middle. All he needs no are some runs.Mehedi Hasan and the rest of the spinners will look to extract purchase from a usually-response SSC pitch•AFP

Team news

Sri Lanka made three changes to their XI in the second ODI but while their batting clicked, the newly-formed bowling attack couldn’t be tested. They are likely to remain unchanged, but there is a chance Seekkuge Prasanna will enter the XI.Sri Lanka (possible): 1 Upul Tharanga (capt), 2 Danushka Gunathilaka, 3 Kusal Mendis, 4 Dinesh Chandimal (wk), 5 Asela Gunaratne, 6 Milinda Siriwardana, 7 Thisara Perera, 8 Dilruwan Perera, 9 Suranga Lakmal, 10 Nuwan Kulasekara, 11 Nuwan PradeepBangladesh have Imrul Kayes, Rubel Hossain, Nurul Hasan, Shuvagata Hom, Subashis Roy and newcomer Sunzamul Islam on the bench but it is unlikely that they would break their winning combination in the third ODI.Bangladesh (possible): 1 Tamim Iqbal, 2 Soumya Sarkar, 3 Sabbir Rahman, 4 Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), 5 Shakib Al Hasan, 6 Mosaddek Hossain, 7 Mahmudullah, 8 Mehedi Hasan, 9 Mashrafe Mortaza (capt), 10 Mustafizur Rahman, 11 Taskin Ahmed

Pitch and conditions

An ODI hasn’t been played at the SSC in six years, but in the interim, it has hosted plenty of List-A games. The average score for the team batting first those games is a remarkably low 146. Sri Lanka’s cricket manager Asanka Gurusinha said he expected this particular track to be batting friendly. Chandika Hathurusingha was slightly surprised that the pitch looked underprepared even two days before the ODI. Weather in Colombo could be troublesome on match day too, with chances of a late-afternoon shower.

Stats and trivia

• The last ODI played at the SSC was before the 2011 World Cup, while Bangladesh’s last ODI here was in 2005.
• The rained-out second ODI hurt Bangladesh more as they lost the chance to go up to No. 6 in the ICC ODI rankings. The two teams will retain their places at on the table – Sri Lanka at No. 6 and Bangladesh at No. 7 – regardless of the how the third ODI pans out.

Quotes

“The seniors have responded to [the responsibility of getting a big score] really well. It comes with the belief and maturity of the players. They are really confident in their preparation now.

Fast bowler Peter Siddle faces an uncertain future after being diagnosed with stress fractures in his back that will require “a significant amount of time away from the game”

Brydon Coverdale25-Feb-2016Fast bowler Peter Siddle faces an uncertain future after being diagnosed with stress fractures in his back that will require “a significant amount of time away from the game”. Siddle played the first Test against New Zealand in Wellington and was an important figure in the first innings, collecting 3 for 37, but he suffered back spasms in the second innings and was ruled out of the second Test in Christchurch.At the Basin Reserve, Siddle became the eighth man in Australia’s Test history to reach the double of 1000 runs and 200 wickets, testament to his consistency over his 61-Test career. However, at the age of 31 and with no shortage of fast-bowling depth in Australian cricket, regaining the fitness and form required to press for further international selection will be an enormous challenge for Siddle.”Peter returned to Melbourne on Monday and had scans following the bout of back pain he suffered during the first Test in Wellington,” David Beakley, the Cricket Australia physio, said. “Unfortunately those scans have indicated a stress fracture in his lower back. He will now require a significant amount of time away from the game with a lengthy rehabilitation process.”Whilst he is laid off with his current back injury, we will take the opportunity for Peter to have exploratory surgery on his left ankle to investigate and treat the cause of his ongoing ankle pain. Once that surgery is complete we will have a better idea of his prognosis and likely rehabilitation time frame.”In Siddle’s absence, James Pattinson returned to the Test team in Christchurch and collected six wickets in Australia’s victory, while Jackson Bird finished with seven victims for the match. Josh Hazlewood was the leading wicket taker among Australia’s fast bowlers this summer with 33 at 31.13, and when Mitchell Starc returns from injury, Australia will have plenty of options.Starc began the Test summer in fine form, with 13 wickets at 23.23 in what was effectively two and a half Tests against New Zealand, before suffering an ankle injury that required surgery and ruled him out of the rest of the season. Starc will miss Australia’s World Twenty20 campaign in India next month but Australia’s coach Darren Lehmann is hopeful of having him available for June’s one-day tri-series in the Caribbean.”We’re hoping he’ll be available in the West Indies, part of the one-day tour there, and then full tilt at Sri Lanka [in July-August]. That would be the goal for us and the medical team. He’s going pretty well at the moment.”The absence of Starc for more than half the summer, as well as the retirement of Mitchell Johnson during the home series against New Zealand, tested Australia’s bowling depth and Lehmann was especially pleased that others were able to stand up well enough to help the team regain the No.1 Test ranking. Allrounder Mitchell Marsh’s bowling developed strongly over the summer, and Nathan Lyon was the leading wicket taker with 33 victims at 26.84 in the eight Tests.”It’s certainly a reflection on the depth of bowling,” Lehmann said of the No.1 ranking, regained after the win over New Zealand at Hagley Oval. “We’ve picked a side with the conditions in mind here, and we’ve got a fair few guys injured at the moment. That’s a good sign for us going forward, when we start to get our full quality quicks to pick from. That will put pressure on them as well, coming back. They’ve got to perform to play. That’s a good thing for us going forward.”I think just the consistency from 1 to 11 has been really good for us. Lyon has been exceptional again throughout the tour. His Test match bowling is second to none. Really pleased for all the blokes who have worked hard. We’ve lost a big chunk of our side in one hit. But they changed around pretty quickly, we took a punt on a couple of players and they did well.”

“Highlights package” is how the South Africa ‘A’ captain, Justin Ontong, described Shikhar Dhawan’s record-breaking 248 in the final league game of the A team tri-series

Firdose Moonda12-Aug-2013″Highlights package” is how the South Africa A captain, Justin Ontong, described Shikhar Dhawan’s record-breaking 248 in the final league game of the A team tri-series in Pretoria that put up an imposing target of 434 for the home side. Ontong said they were “butchered” by Dhawan’s batting, but added they could have won the game had someone batted through during the chase.”Dhawan summed up conditions quickly,” Ontong said. “Every shot he hit found the gap or went over the fielders. It was like watching a highlights package. He hit so many good shots, it’s hard to pick out one that stood out. There were a few sixes that went into the construction site.”It was probably the best one-day innings I’ve seen. But I am also really proud of the boys. We showed some character when we were batting and if someone batted through, we could have won the game.”India A won the toss and were 161 for 1 at the halfway stage. But on a flat pitch and on a ground with short boundaries, Dhawan seamlessly switched gears to tear into the bowling, reaching his double century with just over 10 overs still left to play.”There was nothing the bowlers could do,” Ontong said. “They were bowling the lines and lengths they wanted to be bowling and he just hit them off those lines and lengths.”Ontong conceded that the South Africa players were left in despair by the innings, but coach Vincent Barnes reminded the team of the match when South Africa had successfully chased down Australia’s 434 in Johannesburg.”There was a bit of humour at the lunch break, because that’s what you need in situations like that, ” he said. “Some of the boys had their heads down but the coach, Vincent Barnes, came and said a few words. He told us that he was part of that 438 game and that if we put on partnerships we could get there.”South Africa came close to the target after opening batsman Reeza Hendricks and Vaughn van Jaarsveld scored centuries to keep the team interested till the last few overs.”It was a flat wicket with nothing in it and for 80% of the time we chased really well. It’s not every day you get two guys scoring a hundred and the team is still on the losing side, Actually, its not everyday you get four hundreds in a one-day match.”Reeza and Vaughn scored two very special hundreds and our bowlers were exposed to international players of top quality. When you play ODI cricket, you will sometimes play on flat wickets, although this one was maybe a little flatter than you get elsewhere and the outfield was also very quick.”

West Indies’ fast bowlers made best use of the early morning conditions in Townsville to give their team an advantage that India failed to bridge as the day wore on

The Report by George Binoy in Townsville12-Aug-2012
West Indies’ fast bowlers made best use of the early morning conditions in Townsville to give their team an advantage that India failed to bridge as the day wore on. They took the field after an aggressive war cry during the team huddle on the boundary, after which their four quicks worked their way through India’s top order with a primarily short-of-a-length attack. Deprived of scoring opportunities and losing wickets regularly, India stagnated and managed only 166.Faced with a middling target, West Indies could afford to see off the new ball but they lost two early wickets in the process. India’s pace options were limited, though, and once the spinners came on the middle-order batsmen settled in without much trouble. John Campbell and Anthony Alleyne charted the course with a 58-run partnership and Kyle Mayers helped finish it with 17 balls to spare. Mayers’ 43 complemented his performance earlier in the day – 10-0-35-2.The early work, however, was done by Mayers’ colleagues, Ronsford Beaton and Jerome Jones. Beaton hit speeds of 143kph bowling with the wind, while Jones ran into it and delivered at 135 kph. They focused on keeping the ball back of a length and quite straight, giving the Indian batsmen very little to come forward to. There were cracks on the surface, which resulted in some uneven bounce.Jones, the left-armer, struck first, having Prashant Chopra caught at square leg in the second over. Beaton hit Unmukt Chand on the body, forcing the batsman to take a breather on his haunches. Chand and Baba Aparajith concentrated on survival but in the ninth over Aparajith tried to hook a bouncer from Beaton and gloved it to the wicketkeeper.India were 25 for 2 after the mandatory Powerplay and Beaton and Jones finished their first spells with maiden overs. Their replacements, Justin Greaves and Mayers, kept the Indians pinned to their crease. India had hobbled to 50 for 3 when Chand’s patience wore thin in the 20th over. He had been let off by the keeper Sunil Ambris earlier but the second edge, off Mayers, was taken.Smit Patel, India’s wicketkeeper, settled against West Indies’ spinners and was instrumental in getting India over 150. He made 51 but was unable to stay until the end, when Beaton and Jones returned to check India at the death.India’s new-ball bowlers weren’t as fast but they were accurate. Sandeep Sharma moved the ball both ways. His inswing was significant but it was two perfect outswingers that found Ambris’ edge and the top of Kraigg Brathwaite’s off stump. His first spell read 5-2-5-2.Campbell and Alleyne had to see off a few overs of pace before spin was introduced in the 12th over, and from then on the chase got easier. They kept driving to long-on and long-off to pick up singles with little risk. The scoring wasn’t quick but it didn’t need to be. West Indies and India were level around the 31st over mark, at 87 and 86 for 4, but the gap grew after that.Harmeet Singh, the left-arm spinner, picked up three wickets but India needed to trigger a collapse to avert a West Indian victory. Alleyne and Mayers did not allow that to happen, and their 58-run stand secured the gam

The dates for the Friends Life t20 quarter-finals have been announced with Somerset’s trip to Nottinghamshire on August 7 the pick of the games

ESPNcricinfo staff18-Jul-2011The dates for the Friends Life t20 quarter-finals have been announced with Somerset’s trip to Nottinghamshire on August 7 the pick of the games.After a frenzied final round of the group stages, where qualifying positions were far from settled going into the games, the eight quarter-finalists can now begin their preparations in earnest.Leicestershire will host Kent at Grace Road on August 6 with Hampshire and Durham meeting at the Rose Bowl a day later in the only afternoon fixture of the four games. Sussex will meet Lancashire at Hove on August 8.Somerset were runners up to Hampshire in last year’s tournament and in their summer of near-misses came second to Nottinghamshire on the last day of the Championship season in 2010. They will get a chance to atone for that when the two sides meet at Trent Bridge.Leicestershire are having a difficult Championship season, sitting at the foot of Division Two, but have made the quarters of the t20 for the first time since 2006. Lancashire are scrapping for a bigger prize – the Championship – and have the chance to reach Twenty20 finals day when they meet 2009 t20 winners Sussex.

Torrential rains around noon ensured the third abandonment in four games played over two days in Trinidad, keeping Windwards and CCC indoors for the final league game of the Caribbean T20

Cricinfo staff30-Jul-2010 – Match abandonedTorrential rains around noon ensured the third abandonment in four games played over two days in Trinidad, keeping Windward Islands and Combined Campuses and Colleges indoors for the final league game of the Caribbean T20. The more anticipated match-up of the day, between Guyana and Barbados met a similar fate earlier in the day leaving the tournament organisers worried about the knock-out games of the tournament to be played at the same venue over the next two days.Though the rains cleared after three hours, the Queen’s Park Oval was completely submerged and the officials were forced to abandon the second game two hours in advance, after having called off the first match immediately. Things were different yesterday when a washout was followed by a delayed and curtailed second match in the night.CCC and Windwards finish the tournament winless, while Barbados tops Zone B by virtue of a net run-rate advantage over Guyana despite being tied on points. Weather permitting, Guyana will play the hosts in the first semi-final tomorrow while Barbados will square off against Jamaica in the second. The losing semi-finalists will clash in a third-place play-off on the 31st ahead of the final.

Jason Kerr says batter suffered “pretty serious” injury when rolling ankle playing football in warm-ups

ESPNcricinfo staff and ECB Reporters Network12-Sep-2024Somerset threw open the County Championship Division One title race by beating leaders Surrey in a thrilling day-four finish at Taunton – but victory came at a cost, with Tom Banton ruled out* of Saturday’s Blast semi-final rematch between the teams after rolling his ankle while playing football.Banton batted at No. 11 in Somerset’s second innings, scoring 46 in a vital last-wicket stand with Craig Overton worth 71. Surrey then collapsed from 95 for 3 to 109 all out in the final session of the game, Somerset securing victory with minutes left in the day to cut the champions’ lead at the top to eight points.Speaking before the extent of Banton’s injury was confirmed, Jason Kerr, Somerset’s head coach, conceded that it was “pretty serious”, adding that James Rew would be added to their squad as wicketkeeping cover.”Tom is an incredible talent, but so is James and we believe he has a bright future in all formats,” Kerr said. “Yesterday was a fantastic day and we need to use the confidence and momentum from that tomorrow. We know that anything can happen in the short format of the game, but the confidence in the group is extremely high and it’s a challenge that we’re all looking forward to.”Aside from Banton, who top-scored with 132 in the first innings, Somerset’s heroes were Archie Vaughan – the son of former England captain, Michael – and Jack Leach. Vaughan, playing only his second first-class match, claimed match figures of 11 for 140, while Leach took 9 for 142.Somerset’s dramatic victory kept them in touch with Surrey, the two-time defending champions, and maintained their hopes of winning a domestic treble, having also progressed to the One-Day Cup final later this month.”It was a crazy hour at the end,” Somerset captain, Lewis Gregory, said. “There were periods when not much happened, but the lads hung in there and Jack Leach and Archie Vaughan were fantastic the whole game.”To get a win with only a couple of minutes left in the match was very special. Four-day wins are some of the most pleasing you have as a cricketer because you work so hard for them.”Archie has taken to first-class cricket like a duck to water. The fact that he is more of a batter than a bowler is the really exciting bit and we believe he is going to be very good to watch with the bat over a number of years. If you throw in the off-spin he has bowled in this game, there is a mighty special cricketer developing.”Leachy is a great mate of mine. He has been through a good deal of adversity in his life and not just his cricket career. It’s great to see him back in the England squad and I’m sure he will show what he can do in Pakistan.”The coaches and myself said at the start of the season that we wanted to be in a position to challenge for trophies come September. The fact that we can still win three shows the calibre of players we have in our dressing room.”Although Surrey had their lead at the top cut, they remain in control of their own destiny with two rounds of the Championship to play – a home fixture against Durham and a trip to Chelmsford to play Essex.”We had a concentration lapse for the last hour of the game and it cost us the result,” Surrey head coach, Gareth Batty, said. “It was a very good game of cricket and we played our part in it, but Somerset deservedly take the points.”We are still top of the league and eight points clear. And, while we had a poor hour, there were still lots of positives to take from the game for us.”Archie Vaughan bowled nicely, but it is for Somerset to comment on his performance. It’s a really nice start for the lad and we wish him all the success for the future.”It will stay in the dressing room how we are feeling. We are a very tight unit and we will go into next week incredibly confident that we can do what is required at The Oval.”We meet Somerset again at Finals Day on Saturday. It will be a different format and different colour ball, but both teams have played good cricket in the group stages. There will be a few new faces in the match-ups and we will go again.”*September 13, 4.23pm BST – This story was updated following confirmation of Banton’s omission

Australia’s No. 3 was happy to acknowledge Broad won the early round

Andrew McGlashan26-Jun-2023Marnus Labuschagne believes the slowness of the Edgbaston pitch played a part in him being drawn into twice edging Stuart Broad during the first Ashes Test but while he is looking at some technical adjustments it isn’t something he will dwell on for long.Labuschagne nicked deliveries outside off stump in both innings – the first against the outswinger Broad said he developed especially for him and Steven Smith – with Australia’s batting coach Michael Di Venuto saying he had never seen that happen before.Labuschagne netted extensively at Lord’s over the weekend in preparation for the second Test which starts on Wednesday, at the venue where his Test career took off in 2019, with the Sunday session watched by Ricky Ponting, the pair sharing the occasional word.Related

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While he did not want to divulge everything he had learnt from his twin dismissals, Labuschagne put some of it down to the conditions although did suggest Broad may have out-thought him in the first innings.”When you get out first ball you just throw it in the bag. Potentially I thought that they were going to come straight and then he got a nice ball that swung in the right area,” he said. “With a lack of bounce at Edgbaston, it sucks you in to thinking you can hit the ball a bit more and I just made a few poor decisions [against balls] that were really wide. They’d be eighth or ninth stump, some of those deliveries.”They were very uncharacteristic dismissals to how I’ve usually played, that’s why I was pretty frustrated with myself to get out that way and asked myself the question, ‘why did I play at those deliveries?’.”I’ve come up with my own summation of what that is. Now it’s if there’s anything I can do tactically or technically to make sure it doesn’t happen again. It’s a rarity that I’d play at those balls so it’s not something I’m going to overthink, but I hold myself to a much higher standard than those dismissals.”Labuschagne was happy to acknowledge the skill of Broad for having the better of him in the first Test. The only previous occasion he had been dismissed by him was the bizarre occasion when he walked across his stumps in Hobart and ended up flat in the crease.”He’s 2 and 0 now so he’s done his homework,” Labuschagne said. “That first [and only] ball I got in the first innings was a very nice ball. I haven’t faced Stuart Broad where he’s really been able to swing it away. He usually angles in, and that one definitely swung.”First ball, most of the time you just play and miss at that then you go ‘okay’, you can make the adjustments out there. I said this about [R] Ashwin, guys who take the time to do the homework, understand the game, and work out how they’re going to get certain guys out, I’ve got so much respect for them so if they’re putting the time and effort in and it pays off, that’s a credit to them.”On the flip side, Labuschagne was confident that he has the body of work to show he can respond to the challenge, which his batting coach Neil D’Costa had earlier told ESPNcricinfo was part of the “arm wrestle” that everyone enjoyed watching in Test cricket.”I’ve tried to make my game as adaptable as possible, so I don’t have one way of batting,” he said. “Some people play their whole career and bat one certain way and have one method that works… I’m always working on my game and working on my technique to think of ways I can score runs.”