With both sides having lost six of their nine games, a win will give their playoffs pursuit a push

Sruthi Ravindranath18-Oct-20207:04

Should Jadeja bat ahead of Dhoni? Could Tahir replace Bravo?

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The Chennai Super Kings and the Rajasthan Royals are in a bit of crisis at this point in the tournament. Both sides have lost six of their nine games. Both lost their respective last matches, which were close contests, and desperately need their wicketkeeper-batsmen to click. But there were positives in their respective losses too – a few of their batsmen showed good hitting form, albeit a bit too late into the tournament. Or maybe not.ALSO READ: CSK vs RR Fantasy Pick – Take a risk, make Uthappa your captainThe chopping and changing of the line-up has not been fruitful, but the Royals’ batting looked in much better shape in the match against the Royal Challengers Bangalore, with a few drastic but much-needed changes in place. While Robin Uthappa’s promotion to the top of the order worked well, captain Steven Smith at his usual No. 4 position hit form with a half-century and gave them the required impetus in the middle order. Sanju Samson, however, has continued to struggle with the bat after a dream start to the tournament. In the end, an incredible AB de Villiers assault and the gamble of giving Jaydev Unadkat the penultimate over instead of Jofra Archer cost them two points.For the Super Kings, however, it was fielding slip-ups that proved costly in the game against the Delhi Capitals. Shane Watson and Faf du Plessis, although a bit slow to get off the blocks with the bat, laid out the foundation. Their middle order, which had lacked firepower up to that point, stepped up and plundered 57 runs off the last four overs against arguably the best death bowling attack in the tournament. Jadeja, coming in after MS Dhoni’s yet another low score, struck a 13-ball 33 not out as Ambati Rayudu helped from the other end with an unbeaten 25-ball 45.While both sides’ campaigns are nearing a point of no return, a win for either of these teams will give their playoffs pursuit a push.

In the news

Dwayne Bravo’s groin injury kept him off the field during the Capitals’ chase, which eventually prevented him from bowling the crucial final over of the match. Coach Stephen Fleming said Bravo would miss “a few days or a couple of weeks”. The Super Kings could look to bring back Josh Hazlewood or go for an extra spinner in Imran Tahir.

Previous meeting

A Samson special ensured a win for the Royals in their opening match of the season in Sharjah. Samson slammed a 32-ball 74 and took Royals to 216. In response, the Super Kings fell short by 16 runs even as du Plessis scored a 37-ball 72.

Likely XIs

Chennai Super Kings: 1 Faf du Plessis, 2 Sam Curran, 3 Shane Watson, 4 Ambati Rayudu, 5 MS Dhoni (capt, wk), 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 Deepak Chahar, 8 Piyush Chawla, 9 Shardul Thakur, 10 Karn Sharma, 11 Josh Hazlewood/ Imran TahirRajasthan Royals: 1 Jos Buttler (wk), 2 Robin Uthappa, 3 Sanju Samson, 4 Steven Smith (capt), 5 Ben Stokes 6 Riyan Parag, 7 Rahul Tewatia, 8 Jofra Archer, 9 Shreyas Gopal/Mayank Markande, 10 Jaydev Unadkat, 11 Kartik Tyagi

Strategy Punt

• The Super Kings could use Sam Curran as a floater. Curran opened the innings in the last two games with contrasting returns: against the Sunrisers, he made a 21-ball 31 but was dismissed for a duck against the Capitals. He could be used in the middle overs to counter the Royals’ spinners as he averages over 50 and strikes at 241 against spin this season.
• Are the Royals missing a trick by pushing Jos Buttler down the order? Buttler has been at his best while opening the innings and is the only opener, apart from Chris Gayle, to average over 40 and strike at 150-plus in the IPL. Meanwhile, Stokes has not been particularly successful in his new role at the top. Will the Royals swap their positions?
• Will the Royals bring in Mayank Markande against the Super Kings? The Super Kings haven’t exactly been at their best against spin this year, with a scoring rate of only 7.7. This might prompt the Royals to bring in Markande and bowl him along with Shreyas Gopal and Rahul Tewatia, also considering the fact that their legspinners picked up four wickets during the reverse fixture earlier in the tournament.

Stats that matter

• The Super Kings and the Royals were among the top spin units in 2019 but their spinners have been misfiring this season. While the Super Kings spinners have been the most expensive this season, with an economy of 9.1, the Royals’ have taken the least wickets (12).
• Jofra Archer has been the key for the Royals this season, both in the powerplay and at the death. Among fast bowlers who have bowled at least 20 overs this season, Archer has the best economy (7).
• Dhoni is set to be the first to 200 matches in the IPL.
• The Royals have lost the most wickets in the powerplay compared to other teams this season. They’ve lost 27 wickets in nine matches and on average, have lost a wicket almost every 16th ball.
• Rayudu is five short of 5000 T20 runs.

Fleming revealed that Bravo had sustained a groin injury

Deivarayan Muthu17-Oct-20201:20

Fleming: Jadeja was the only option for last over with Bravo’s injury

Dwayne Bravo, the Chennai Super Kings’ designated death bowler and highest wicket-taker in T20 cricket, is injured again and will miss a “few days or a couple of weeks,” according to their head coach Stephen Fleming.Fleming revealed that Bravo had sustained a groin injury, which was serious enough to keep him off the field, and hence he couldn’t bowl the final over against the Delhi Capitals in Sharjah. In the injury-enforced absence of Bravo, Dhoni tasked Ravindra Jadeja with the responsibility of defending 16 off the last over, but centurion Shikhar Dhawan and Axar Patel sealed the chase with a ball to spare, handing the Super Kings their sixth defeat in nine games.”He seems to have a right groin injury, I think, and it was obviously serious enough to keep him off the field,” Fleming said at the post-match press conference. “He’s obviously desperately disappointed that he couldn’t bowl the last over – that’s what he’s pretty much in the team for. He will have to be reassessed going forward, but at this stage you’d imagine it’s going to take a few days or a couple of weeks, but we will assess that tomorrow.”Bravo had turned up for the IPL in the UAE with a different injury – a knee problem suffered during the CPL – and missed the Super Kings’ first three games. He didn’t bowl in the CPL final because of that injury and instead played as a specialist batsman for the Trinbago Knight Riders. During their first three games, the Super Kings used fast bowlers Lungi Ngidi and Josh Hazlewood, but then Bravo returned to the XI against the Sunrisers Hyderabad and has since been part of the side.Bravo impressed with his yorkers and slower variations in the Super Kings’ return fixture against the Sunrisers and the Kolkata Knight Riders, providing more depth to both the bowling attack and the batting line-up. In six matches so far in IPL 2020, Bravo has bowled 14 yorkers, according to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data. Only Mumbai Indians’ Jasprit Bumrah (19) and Sunrisers’ T Natarajan (40) have bowled more yorkers than Bravo in the tournament.Bravo’s injury depletes a Super Kings squad that is already without two other first-choice players in Suresh Raina and Harbhajan Singh, who had both opted out of the tournament for personal reasons. However, Bravo’s absence could open up a spot for Imran Tahir, who was the highest wicket-taker in IPL 2019, with 26 strikes at an economy rate of 6.69. Tahir was also the Guyana Amazon Warriors’ highest wicket-taker in the CPL and third overall, with 15 scalps at an economy rate of 5.82 from 10 games.New Zealand spin-bowling allrounder Mitchell Santner is the other overseas option for the Super Kings. Tahir and Santner are the only overseas players to have not played for the Super Kings this season. With the UAE tracks tiring in the second half of the IPL, the Super Kings will look to one of these two spinners to fill the Bravo-sized hole.The Super Kings’ next match is against the Rajasthan Royals in Abu Dhabi on Monday.

Requirement to field seven players of colour by 2022-23, including three Black Africans, put on hold

Firdose Moonda04-Dec-2020Cricket South Africa’s interim board have temporarily suspended new transformation targets imposed on national teams which would have required them to field seven players of colour, including a minimum of three black African players, by the 2022-23 season. The message was communicated to team management on Thursday and is effective immediately, and board will deliberate on the best way to ensure representation at its next few meetingsThat means that, for now, the South African team is required to stick to the old target, calculated on average over the course of a season, which asks them to field a minimum of six players of colour, of which two are black African. They had begun the international season under instruction to increase that to three black African players – which they stuck to in all three T20s against England although they fell short of the overall players of colour requirement – but can now revert to two black African players if they decide to.”The documents regarding transformation by the previous board are held in abeyance until the interim board is able to apply to its mind. We have asked that be communicated to [director of cricket] Graeme Smith, [selector convenor] Victor Mpitsang and [head coach] Mark Boucher,” Judith February, a member of the interim board, told ESPNcricinfo.The interim board had, up to this point, not had the opportunity to address transformation targets as it continues to work through the forensic report which was used to fire former CEO Thabang Moroe. The report also implicates company secretary Welsh Gwaza, who has since been suspended. Gwaza was a permanent invitee on every CSA committee, including the transformation one, although it is not known how much influence he had on the new targets, which were presented to South Africa’s sports minister Nathi Mthethwa by former independent board member Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw, who has since resigned.As reported by ESPNcricinfo earlier this week the new targets would require 25% of the national team to be made up of black African players (up from 18% until the end of last season). Next season, 2021-22, the percentage is set to increase to 27%, and in the 2022-23 season it would sit at 33%. The number of players of colour required overall sits at 58% now, and is set to increase to 63% by 2022-23.ALSO READ: CSA release forensic audit in wake of firing of CEO Thabang MoroeWhile the percentages do not always equate exactly to a set number of players, it meant that, this season, South Africa needed to field between six and seven players of colour in a team, of which at least three would have to be black African more often than not. Though the targets were not made public, they were evident in practice, when Anrich Nortje missed out on the first T20. With Kagiso Rabada ruled out of the ODIs, the target could have proved difficult to maintain.The interim board has not set a timeframe when they will pronounce on new targets, though they are only expected to be in their positions for three months, ending in January 2021. That means things could change again for the national team during the course of this season. It also remains to be seen how the ministry, who have previously criticised CSA’s transformation record, will receive new targets.Mthethwa has given the interim board the scope to “have no holy cows” in doing as much as it can to stabilise CSA, and has described them as “a group of people who would know what to do”.

Mullagh was the outstanding member of the Aboriginal team that toured England in 1868

Daniel Brettig28-Dec-2020No-one in the history of Australian cricket has waited longer for induction to the game’s hall of fame than the 152 years since Johnny Mullagh made his name as the outstanding member of the Aboriginal team that toured England in 1868.Mullagh’s belated induction to a hall of fame, that has until now been populated purely by white cricketers, takes Cricket Australia closer to righting the many wrongs of the game’s history in relation to Aboriginal Australia, along similar lines to the efforts being made among the current generation of elite male and female players.But it speaks volumes for how far the game’s custodians need to go to better acknowledge lesser-known pockets of the game’s history that Mullagh, from the Wimmera region of western Victoria, is not only the first Aboriginal cricket to enter the hall of fame, but also the first person of colour.Related

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Prior to Mullagh, whose image will also adorn the medal awarded to the winner of the individual match award for the Boxing Day Test this year, the list of the game’s inducted greats also served as a reminder of how monocultural Australian cricket’s corridors of achievement and power have commonly been. The 54 names previously inducted in order since 1996 are a roll call of not just whiteness but narrow western European origins:Fred Spofforth, John Blackham, Victor Trumper, Clarrie Grimmett, Bill Ponsford, Sir Donald Bradman, Bill O’Reilly, Keith Miller, Ray Lindwall, Dennis Lillee, Warwick Armstrong, Neil Harvey, Allan Border, Bill Woodfull, Arthur Morris, Stan McCabe, Greg Chappell, Lindsay Hassett, Ian Chappell, Hugh Trumble, Alan Davidson, Clem Hill, Rod Marsh, Monty Noble, Bob Simpson, Charles Macartney, Richie Benaud, George Giffen, Ian Healy, Steve Waugh, Bill Lawry, Graham McKenzie, Mark Taylor, Doug Walters, Shane Warne, Charlie Turner, Glenn McGrath, Mark Waugh, Belinda Clark, Adam Gilchrist, Jack Ryder, Jeff Thomson, Wally Grout, David Boon, Matthew Hayden, Betty Wilson, Norm O’Neill, Ricky Ponting, Karen Rolton, Cathryn Fitzpatrick, Dean Jones, Billy Murdoch, Sharon Tredrea and Craig McDermott.Criteria for inclusion has traditionally been based on the strict requirement of playing at least 20 Test matches, scoring at least 1000 runs or taking at least 100 wickets. Mullagh doesn’t fit that, but Ian Chappell had twice put his name forward to be added to the Hall of FameThe hall of fame’s chairman, Peter King, described Mullagh’s omission from this list for the first 24 years of inductees as an “oversight” by its judges. “This was probably a bit of an oversight in retrospect,” he said. “We have chosen Johnny as a representative of that era … The ongoing inductee criteria hasn’t changed beyond that. That record speaks for itself and really should have been acknowledged previously. He was a standout in that era.”In this case we wanted to acknowledge the impact Indigenous players have had on the game. That was a decision we made, which I think is a great decision. His record pretty much speaks for itself and it really should have been acknowledged previously, but he’s a stand out character in that era.”It’s a little bit difficult to get a lot of background on it, we’ve been searching for people related to Johnny but we’ve been unsuccessful in that pursuit at this point. He was born in 1841, he was about 50 when he died and he was about 27 when he went on the tour to England. There’s some patchy information around the rest of his career.”Among other notable Aboriginal figures in Australian cricket, Aunty Faith Thomas stands as the first ever Indigenous woman to represent Australia in sport, playing her one and only Test match against England in February 1958. In more contemporary times, Jason Gillespie played the last of his 71 Tests for Australia in 2006, claiming 259 wickets and also scoring a memorable double century against Bangladesh – he has been eligible for inclusion since 2011, five years after retirement. Both must be in contention to be inducted in coming years.”I think this is really opening the way to the future, and hopefully going to be engaging a lot more with Indigenous talent,” King said. “We’ve seen this in other sports and I think there’s opportunities for cricket to embrace that relationship with Indigenous people a lot more strongly. They were the first touring team to travel outside of Australia, so they did pave the way and hopefully this will open a bit more of an engagement opportunity with the rest of the talent that’s out there.”Australia’s captain Tim Paine and his deputy Pat Cummins, recently discussed their ignorance of the many private battles fought by cricketers of colour. “My learnings are how much it affects some of my teammates and me being unaware of that for probably 15 years as a professional cricketer,” Paine said. “So just the shift in that now.”

Tamil Nadu remain unbeaten and will take on the winner of Baroda vs Punjab in the final

Varun Shetty29-Jan-2021Tamil Nadu beat Rajasthan in the semi-finals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy for the second season in a row and continued to remain unbeaten this year. In a game of six dropped catches, the runners-up of last year’s edition differentiated themselves with their assured and clinical batting as their experience shone through in a chase of 155. Arun Karthik led the way with an expertly-crafted and unbeaten 89, and sealed the seven-wicket win in the company of captain Dinesh Karthik.Rajasthan start off strong

Rajasthan’s decision to bat against a TN side that has won each of their last six games chasing seemed like a decent one when the game began. Despite losing a wicket in the first over to R Sai Kishore’s left-arm spin, Rajasthan kept the scoring rate high in the powerplay as captain Ashok Menaria and opener Aditya Garhwal picked the right bowlers to target. Those happened to be seamer Aswin Crist, who replaced Sandeep Warrier after the fast bowler was called up to the national team’s nets, and offspinner B Aparajith who came on during the powerplay.But on a slow-ish pitch, Aparajith had the last laugh against Garhwal, who couldn’t get enough power on a slog sweep and holed out to long-on. At the other end, however, Menaria kept the attack going against Crist, whose jitteriness would translate to three fours and a six in four consecutive balls at the hands of Menaria to end the powerplay.No. 4 Arjit Gupta also kept the pressure on Aparajith as TN began to wither under pressure. Shahrukh Khan had dropped a catch in the second over, and there would be two more dropped at long-on by Crist. Rajasthan were 120 for 2 at the end of the 13th over, with Menaria past 50.The comeback
Sai Kishore didn’t come back on till the 12th over, having bowled the first one, and his return was the catalyst for a big comeback in the second half for TN. Having first dried up the boundary options from his end, Sai Kishore managed to get one to rise on Menaria’s pull. Arun Karthik ended a streak of dropped catches by plucking one low after running in from deep midwicket, and it was the signal for a squeeze.Medium-pacer M Mohammed had Mahipal Lomror pick out long-off in the next over, and the scoring rate collapsed from there as Sai Kishore got through his spell. Gupta had held one end up for his 45, but when he fell to M Ashwin in the 18th over, Rajasthan’s innings was already on a rapid decline. No one after No. 4 managed to score at more than run a ball and the innings sputtered and stopped at 154 for 9: a collapse of 7 for 34 in the last seven overs. Mohammed dug into the lower order and finished with 4 for 24.Tamil Nadu’s experts combine
Starting off wasn’t easy for TN as Rajasthan’s trio of left-arm seamers kept it tight. Tanveer Ul-Haq made the first breakthrough, getting C Hari Nishanth lbw with one slanted into him in the third over. Next over, Aniket Choudhary pushed one across after swinging a few in, and Aparajith was taken sharply at first slip by Rajesh Bishnoi with a lunge to his left. At the end of the powerplay, even the then chart-topping batsman N Jagadeesan seemed to be stuck, with the score 35 for 2.But Arun looked in control at the other end, as he looked to deflect and nudge on a sluggish and gripping track with the odd chip, and one stylish pull for six. That kept the score going until Jagadeesan swept Ravi Bishnoi to deep midwicket.At 70 for 3 at the halfway stage, TN still seemed in control with their two most experienced batsmen in the middle. Dinesh was his industrious self and the two started to chip away at the required run rate with expert manoeuvring and calculated boundaries.Arun banked on going inside-out, showed an ability to play the field with reverse-ramps and lap-sweeps, and added another sumptuous front-foot pull for six to his score. As their equation eased, so did Rajasthan’s concentration. By the time the target was breached, they would drop three catches – all off Khaleel Ahmed’s bowling – and miss a run-out chance as well as the two Karthiks saw TN home with an unbroken 89-run stand.

Alex Carey made 99 for South Australia but his was the only innings of note for the home side

ESPNcricinfo staff04-Mar-2021David Warner made a stylish return to action with a thumping 87 off 74 balls in his first outing since the Test series against India in mid-January as New South Wales cantered to victory with more than 20 overs to spare.Having been sidelined by a groin injury which he has said will continue to affect him for some time to come he pummeled the South Australia attack at Adelaide Oval after the home side had been rolled for a significantly under-par total with only Alex Carey’s 99 giving them something to bowl at.Warner was soon into his work as New South Wales raced ahead of the asking rate and brought up his half-century from 46 deliveries. As he and Ollie Davies charged towards the winning post it looked as though it would be a race between the target and Warner’s hundred before he spliced high into the on side looking for another boundary.Related

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Davies, who made a half-century on debut against Victoria last month, unfurled his strokeplay again including three fours in a row off Spencer Johnson in another entertaining innings.South Australia, who collapsed to lose a high-scoring match at the WACA two days ago, made a poor start after batting first with both openers gone inside four overs. The in-form Travis Head started a recovery but when he missed a big drive at Sean Abbott the innings fell away to 6 for 137.Carey played superbly and alongside Corey Kelly carried the Redbacks towards a position where they might have had a late push in the closing overs, but when he edged Liam Hatcher behind one short of his century the last four wickets fell for 14 with 3.3 overs unused.The two sides will meet in the Sheffield Shield starting on Saturday when New South Wales will have Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood available.

Scans revealed a rare stress fracture in his C6 vertebrae meaning an extended period on the sidelines for the legspinner

Alex Malcolm24-Feb-2021Queensland and Australia legspinner Mitchell Swepson looks set to miss the remainder of Australia’s domestic summer after being diagnosed with a stress fracture in his neck.Swepson missed Queensland’s Sheffield Shield and Marsh Cup matches against Tasmania after developing neck pain in the back end of the BBL season. Scans revealed he had stress fracture in the C6 vertebrae.Martin Love, former Australia Test batsman and now Queensland’s Sport Science and Medicine Manager, said the injury was extremely rare and would require a very cautious approach in terms of treatment and recovery.”It is certainly not a common injury with spinners for instance, and so while Australian Cricket has a great deal of information about managing stress fractures in fast bowlers, it is not quite as clear cut in Mitch’s case,” Love said.Related

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“We will work closely with Mitch and Cricket Australia to manage his recovery. We are encouraged by the successful returns of many bowlers who have had to deal with back stress fractures during their careers so hopefully, this case proves relatively straightforward.”Fast bowlers have their bowling loads carefully monitored within the Cricket Australia system due to a high prevalence of stress fractures but spinners aren’t monitored as vigilantly.Swepson has delivered over 260 overs in games for Queensland, Brisbane Heat, and Australia this season, which was 30 more than the previous season but nowhere near the 340 he bowled across all three formats in 2018-19.Mitchell Swepson had been enjoying an impressive season•Getty Images

However, he will have bowled a large amount of overs in the nets that went uncounted while with the Australian Test squad for the four-match series against India. He was due to go to South Africa with the Test squad before the tour was postponed.Swepson was shattered to be sidelined, particularly after playing such a huge part in their early-season wins where he took 23 wickets in three games, including three five-wicket hauls to put Queensland on top of the table.”I’m obviously extremely disappointed that I can’t be out there playing for Queensland right now but I’m trying to remain positive and will be doing everything that I can to get some games in towards the end of the season,” he said.Queensland are also set to be without pace bowler Michael Neser for their Sheffield Shield match against Western Australia next week. Neser is still recovering from a hamstring strain but the Bulls are confident he will be ready to face Victoria on March 15.

The ECB is not in a position to provide venues for the games keeping in mind Covid-19 restrictions

Matt Roller09-Apr-2021Ireland’s planned two-match T20I series against Pakistan in England in June has been postponed, with scheduling issues the main reason for the decision.The series was initially pencilled in for 2020, but was postponed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, which wiped out all of Ireland’s home fixtures for the season. ESPNcricinfo reported in January that Cricket Ireland was in talks to stage the games in England, with one of Ireland’s international grounds, in Clontarf, still unavailable after the square was relaid.Talks reached an advanced stage, but with Pakistan players due to be involved in both the rescheduled PSL, and then with the World Test Championship final and England women’s international fixtures also due to start in June, there were too many variables for the ECB to confirm the fixtures.Related

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Richard Holdsworth, Cricket Ireland’s performance director, told ESPNcricinfo: “We had agreements drawn up with two grounds but the ECB came back to us and said that they had so many international teams coming into the country already, and that the logistics around bubbles and Covid protocols are such a significant operation that having another two countries in at that time was just too much.”It is a shame, especially in a T20 World Cup year, but we still have three [T20Is] lined up against South Africa in July and against Zimbabwe in August. We’re trying to reschedule the Pakistan ones for a future date at some stage down the line.”Holdsworth also confirmed that Ireland’s away Test in Sri Lanka had been postponed once again, after being pencilled in for December, meaning their period without playing a Test would extend to at least two-and-a-half years.”[The Future Tours Programme] is a real mess now that everyone is trying to reschedule stuff. There’s a stack of overlaps,” Holdsworth said. “When you add in quarantine times, the whole scheduling issue has become a nightmare for everybody. SLC are committed to us still playing that Test before the end of the FTP cycle, but not in December.”

The batter has a grade one strain and will look to return to action next week

ESPNcricinfo staff03-May-2021Ross Taylor has been diagnosed with a grade one calf strain after he limped out of New Zealand’s first training session ahead of their departure for England with a calf injury.*He was batting in the marquee that has been built at the high performance centre in Lincoln to enable the squad to train over the next couple of weeks. An update from NZC on Tuesday said he would remain with the squad for his rehab.”Taylor will to return to batting and running next week before linking up with the Test squad ahead of their departure for England next weekend,” a statement said.Taylor said he had felt the tightness last week as he continued the rehab from the hamstring injury which disrupted the end of his home season but was confident he had time to get right before the England Tests.”Pretty happy with where it is, timing has been really good,” he said. “Would like to be injury free, obviously, but timing-wise it’s not too bad.”New Zealand coach Gary Stead admitted any injuries this close to a tour were a concern. “You are always worried when any injuries happen but someone of Ross’s standing and calibre as a Test player you always have a little bit of a concern,” he told reporters on Monday. “Fingers crossed everything is good and we still have time on our side, but we’ll just have to wait and see what the medical team say.”Related

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The New Zealand squad are due to depart for England in the middle of May ahead of the two-Test series that begins on June 2 to be followed by the World Test Championship final against India in Southampton.Stead hinted that even if there was some doubt over Taylor’s immediate fitness he would likely make the trip. “Ross has a great Test record behind and we want him in our team,” he said.New Zealand are likely to be without their IPL-based Test players – Kane Williamson, Trent Boult, Kyle Jamieson and Mitchell Santner – for at least the first match against England and potentially both given the strict quarantine rules now in place for arrivals from India that require 10 days isolation.They have named an expanded squad of 20 for the two England Tests which will be trimmed to 15 ahead of the WTC final.Devon Conway is in line for a Test debut while the uncapped Rachin Ravindra has also been included. All the players in New Zealand have had their first dose of Covid-19 vaccine and will have their second before leaving.Monday was the start of two training camps they will have prior to departure with conditions created to as closely resemble what they’ll encounter in England as possible.”We’ve got two open wickets, the groundstaff have done an amazing job in getting the facilities up pretty close to what I think English conditions would be like then we have the marquee as well,” Stead said. “We are still a month away from playing England so there’s still four weeks of good, solid preparation so today is the start of that for us.”11.52pm GMT, April 3 – the story was updated with details of Taylor’s injury

Visitors avoid follow-on by one run, then decline chance to chase 150 in 21 overs

ECB Reporters' Network22-May-2021Rain quashed Hampshire’s push for victory against Leicestershire as a match dominated by the weather finished in a draw at the Ageas Bowl.After the start of play was delayed by three hours due to a wet outfield, Leicestershire avoided the follow-on by one run after a last-wicket stand of 30 from Ed Barnes and Alex Evans helped their side limp to 84 all out in response to Hampshire’s first innings score of 233.With 22 overs of the day remaining, James Vince opted during the tea break to forfeit his side’s second innings and dangle the carrot of a 150-run victory target in front of Foxes skipper Colin Ackermann.But the Group Two cellar-dwellers refused to take the bait, blocking out 17 overs for 26 runs, losing only opener Sam Evans, who became Kyle Abbott’s seventh wicket of the match in what was a typically wholehearted and high-class bowling performance.The players shook hands at 6pm with four overs of the day remaining, shortly after a moment of mild controversy when Australia opener Marcus Harris looked to have edged Keith Barker to Liam Dawson at slip, but much to the chagrin of the allrounder it was adjudged not to have carried.Just 80.5 overs were bowled across the first three days before play finally got underway at 2pm with the Foxes resuming on 28 for 5 and needing another 55 runs to make Hampshire bat again.Hampshire, chasing their fourth win of the season, struck in the third over of the day when Abbott had Harry Swindells caught superbly by Dawson for eight. Two further rain delays accounted for 11 more overs but Abbot and Mohammad Abbas, who took 3 for 19, continued to run amok in perfect bowling conditions as the visitors slumped to 54 for 9 when the South African quick ended the admirable resistance of Rishi Patel for 27.Abbott bowled superbly for his 6 for 47 – his third successive five-wicket haul after the 11 he picked in the victory over Middlesex last week.However, the young fast bowling duo of Barnes and Evans dug in manfully as Leicestershire nudged their way past the follow-on target before Lewis McManus took a simple catch when Brad Wheal located the edge of Evans’ bat.