New Zealand 286 for 9 beat Australia 280 by six runs
Kane Williamson held his nerve, ran the last man out with a direct hit and stopped Marcus Stoinis seven runs short of pulling off the most miraculous of Australian chases in an Eden Park ODI.
Stoinis' unbeaten 146 turned a comfortable New Zealand victory into an utterly thrilling encounter. And yet he was only on the tour because the first-choice allrounder Mitchell Marsh was resting a shoulder problem. Stoinis joined a motley assortment of other second-choice players standing in for the captain Steven Smith, his deputy David Warner and the wicketkeeper Matthew Wade among others, but the innings he conjured was among the finest played for Australia in recent memory, showing equal parts composure and brutality. Stoinis was the first from his country to wallop a century and pick up three or more wickets in the same match.
The visitors had slid as far as 54 for 5 when Stoinis arrived at the crease, and he took his time in the company of James Faulkner before taking the game on with immense courage and power even as Australia's wickets started to run out. His tally of 11 sixes, most hit straight or in the arc between midwicket and mid-on, was the highest ever in an ODI at Eden Park. As a breakout performance it recalled Andrew Symonds against Pakistan at the 2003 World Cup - Stoinis and Australia will hope so.
The arrival of last man Josh Hazlewood pushed Stoinis into a corner from which he could only attack, and he piled up 54 runs in four overs without the No. 11 ever having to take strike. Ultimately it was the search for a single that ended things, as Williamson struck with an underarm from short mid-on to dismiss Hazlewood when only seven runs were required from 19 balls - a fair measure of how destructively Stoinis had played.
Memorable runs followed up a fine spell with the ball from Stoinis, who bowled his 10 overs straight through the middle of the innings as the Australians held New Zealand to a manageable 286. While numerous chances went down, 29 extras conceded, and a Hazlewood one-hander on the boundary became six when the paceman's foot brushed the rope, regular wickets throughout prevented the hosts from creating the sort of momentum required to pass 300.
In his second ODI appearance, Stoinis prospered with his muscular medium-fast bowling, beating Williamson and Martin Guptill for pace in the air and off the wicket on his way to a three-wicket haul. Travis Head was also handy with his part-time offspin, coaxing Ross Taylor to drag on onto the stumps.
Guptill had appeared to be the New Zealand's best hope of a big score before he fell to Stoinis, and it took an innings of impressive composure from Neil Broom to take them beyond 250. Eventually, his 73 off 75 balls proved just about enough.
Australia had been forced into a hurried reshuffle on match morning, with Finch taking over leadership from an injured Wade after Smith and Warner both missed the tour. The resultant changes to the Australian top order left them vulnerable to intelligent New Zealand bowling, and the early overs saw a steady procession of wickets that suggested this would not be a close encounter.
Finch and Head were out trying to assert themselves early on, via a pull to square leg and an upper cut to third man. Shaun Marsh's return to Australian colours ahead of the India tour ended with dance down the wicket to Mitchell Santner and a comfortable stumping for Tom Latham. Either side of his dismissal, Peter Handscomb and Glenn Maxwell both edged length deliveries behind, and when the debutant Sam Heazlett also offered up an edge, the score fell to 67 for 6 and New Zealand looked sure winners.
What followed reflected tremendous credit on Stoinis, but also on how Twenty20 has influenced the thinking of batsmen around the world. Stoinis and Faulkner were happy to let the required rate blow out to near 10 an over, getting themselves in and working out the vagaries of Eden Park's drop-in pitch and short boundaries before accelerating.
Pat Cummins played his part by striking the ball cleanly to help Stoinis bring the asking rate down, before Santner earned another stumping with his slower pace, flight and spin. Mitchell Starc was unable to contain himself when presented with Santner's last delivery and was caught on the midwicket boundary, before Stoinis caught fire with a barrage of sixes to take Australia so close to a win they had no right to expect for most of the afternoon.
Wade had been ruled out due to a back complaint he reported on match eve. His absence meant Handscomb took the gloves, and also that the young Queensland batsman Heazlett made his debut in the middle order. Heazlett was included in the squad without having played a single domestic limited-overs match for his state and was listed to bat at No. 7.
There was next to no swing for Starc with the new ball after Finch sent New Zealand in to bat, and it was a short ball from the left-armer that brushed Tom Latham's glove to offer Handscomb a catch behind the wicket. Guptill and Williamson appeared to be setting a sound platform before the captain squeezed a Stoinis delivery off bat and pad to backward point, and a similarly promising stand between Guptill and Taylor ended when the latter fell to Head.
Stoinis then found a way past Guptill and coaxed Colin Munro to pop a catch to mid-on, leaving Broom and James Neesham with the salvage job. Neesham played with particular verve and was looking to accelerate further when he was well held by Head on the midwicket boundary for 48.
Santner and Tim Southee did not last long, and Broom eventually miscued a length ball from Faulkner to long-on as the overs ticked down. Trent Boult connected with a couple of meaty blows, which in the final analysis gave Williamson's men just enough breathing room to contain the Stoinis Hurricane.
Monday 30 January 2017
Sunday 29 January 2017
2nd T20 IND 1-1 ENG
India 144/8
England 139/6
India win by 5 runs
Jasprit Bumrah conceded just two runs and took two wickets in the final over to secure India a nerve-shredding victory in the second T20 in Nagpur and level the series at 1-1. Jos Buttler seemed to have struck the decisive blows when he hit the last three balls of the penultimate over for 12 runs but both he and Joe Root were dismissed by Bumrah as England fell short.
With Root and Ben Stokes well set and 32 required off the last four, India broke through via Ashish Nehra. Bumrah then conceded three runs off the 18th over, as his slower ball proved almost impossible to hit. Nehra's final over was taken for 16, Buttler just clearing Virat Kohli's jump at long-on for a six that brought England's requirement down to eight from six balls, before Bumrah provided the kiss of death.
England could have sealed the series but, as the pitch slowed down, so did they. Root anchored the chase, as he did in Kanpur, but again struggled for fluency although he had cause to feel aggrieved after being given out lbw despite an inside edge. Bumrah then removed Buttler's leg stump and Moeen Ali swiped at thin air with six needed off the final ball as India held on in front of a tense home crowd at the VCA Stadium.
KL Rahul was the only player to record a fifty in the match and his 47-ball 71 featured some of the most fluent batting of the night. Rahul was one of only three India batsmen to reach double-figures as they struggled to break free, with Chris Jordan claiming three key wickets for England, but their total of 144 for 8 ultimately proved to be enough.
As in Kanpur, England's attack put in an intelligent performance to prevent India reaching 150. Moeen did not concede a boundary during an immaculate four-over spell and Jordan removed Rahul, as well as the twin pillars of Kohli and MS Dhoni, to finish with 3 for 22. His final over, during which there were two run-outs, conceded just five runs as he repeatedly thwarted Dhoni - though Bumrah's finishing was even better.
Recognising this was a slower surface - Eoin Morgan called it "a really Indian wicket" at the toss - England included a third spinner, in Liam Dawson, and both sides tailored their plans accordingly. Dawson opened the bowling for England, with an over that cost just five, while Yuvzendra Chahal sent down three-quarters of his allocation in the Powerplay.
Sam Billings and Jason Roy each struck Chahal for six in the third over of the chase but England's openers were dismissed by consecutive deliveries from Nehra. Kohli then focused on spin to try and push up the asking rate before dew rendered the ball difficult to drip, with Amit Mishra and Suresh Raina delivering eight overs in tandem. Mishra had Morgan caught on the boundary but then committed a cardinal sin as Stokes survived would have been a golden duck thanks to a front-foot no-ball.
Still, like India's batsmen before them, England were finding run-scoring hard work. Of the 10 T20Is previously played at the VCA Stadium, only three had been won by the chasing side; India had themselves fallen victim a year ago, in their opening match at the World T20, when New Zealand defended a meagre-looking total of 126 with room to spare.
England's advantage seemed to be in the power at their disposal and Stokes' reprieve was put into sharper focus when he struck Raina down the ground for six and four to start the 14th over, just as the requirement had gone above nine an over. Another muscular heave off Chahal comfortably cleared long-on to bring up England's hundred but Nehra trapped him with a slower ball to precipitate the late slide.
That the bowlers would hold greater sway in Nagpur was evident early on. Kohli struck three early boundaries - including one imperious six off Tymal Mills - but should have been given out lbw on 7 when Jordan struck him in front of middle and leg. He departed soon after, trying to clear the infield again, having scored 21 of the first 30.
Rahul initial contributions had been limited to nudges for one or two but registered his first four from Jordan's next ball, rifling a drive over extra cover, and began to find his touch against the spinners. India had finished the Powerplay reasonably well placed on 46 for 1 but Moeen and Adil Rashid followed up three boundary-less overs, which also saw the removal of Raina to an ungainly slog-sweep. Rahul broke the shackles by smacking a Rashid full toss into the crowd at deep midwicket.
India stalled again as Moeen gave Yuvraj Singh a working over before dismissing him lbw but Rahul struck Dawson for six and four in an over that cost 15, then took two more boundaries off Rashid to bring up the hundred in the 14th over. Rahul and Manish Pandey added 56 together but the going was tough as England reverted to seam and the full chocolate box of variations.
The last six overs saw England concede just two boundaries - one a thick-edged Rahul four off Stokes, the other Pandey crashing Mills over long-on - as India added 39 for 5. Rahul picked out deep midwicket trying to kick on and Pandey was bowled by Mills' slower ball but, even though Jordan silenced Dhoni, Bumrah had the final word.
England 139/6
India win by 5 runs
Jasprit Bumrah conceded just two runs and took two wickets in the final over to secure India a nerve-shredding victory in the second T20 in Nagpur and level the series at 1-1. Jos Buttler seemed to have struck the decisive blows when he hit the last three balls of the penultimate over for 12 runs but both he and Joe Root were dismissed by Bumrah as England fell short.
With Root and Ben Stokes well set and 32 required off the last four, India broke through via Ashish Nehra. Bumrah then conceded three runs off the 18th over, as his slower ball proved almost impossible to hit. Nehra's final over was taken for 16, Buttler just clearing Virat Kohli's jump at long-on for a six that brought England's requirement down to eight from six balls, before Bumrah provided the kiss of death.
England could have sealed the series but, as the pitch slowed down, so did they. Root anchored the chase, as he did in Kanpur, but again struggled for fluency although he had cause to feel aggrieved after being given out lbw despite an inside edge. Bumrah then removed Buttler's leg stump and Moeen Ali swiped at thin air with six needed off the final ball as India held on in front of a tense home crowd at the VCA Stadium.
KL Rahul was the only player to record a fifty in the match and his 47-ball 71 featured some of the most fluent batting of the night. Rahul was one of only three India batsmen to reach double-figures as they struggled to break free, with Chris Jordan claiming three key wickets for England, but their total of 144 for 8 ultimately proved to be enough.
As in Kanpur, England's attack put in an intelligent performance to prevent India reaching 150. Moeen did not concede a boundary during an immaculate four-over spell and Jordan removed Rahul, as well as the twin pillars of Kohli and MS Dhoni, to finish with 3 for 22. His final over, during which there were two run-outs, conceded just five runs as he repeatedly thwarted Dhoni - though Bumrah's finishing was even better.
Recognising this was a slower surface - Eoin Morgan called it "a really Indian wicket" at the toss - England included a third spinner, in Liam Dawson, and both sides tailored their plans accordingly. Dawson opened the bowling for England, with an over that cost just five, while Yuvzendra Chahal sent down three-quarters of his allocation in the Powerplay.
Sam Billings and Jason Roy each struck Chahal for six in the third over of the chase but England's openers were dismissed by consecutive deliveries from Nehra. Kohli then focused on spin to try and push up the asking rate before dew rendered the ball difficult to drip, with Amit Mishra and Suresh Raina delivering eight overs in tandem. Mishra had Morgan caught on the boundary but then committed a cardinal sin as Stokes survived would have been a golden duck thanks to a front-foot no-ball.
Still, like India's batsmen before them, England were finding run-scoring hard work. Of the 10 T20Is previously played at the VCA Stadium, only three had been won by the chasing side; India had themselves fallen victim a year ago, in their opening match at the World T20, when New Zealand defended a meagre-looking total of 126 with room to spare.
England's advantage seemed to be in the power at their disposal and Stokes' reprieve was put into sharper focus when he struck Raina down the ground for six and four to start the 14th over, just as the requirement had gone above nine an over. Another muscular heave off Chahal comfortably cleared long-on to bring up England's hundred but Nehra trapped him with a slower ball to precipitate the late slide.
That the bowlers would hold greater sway in Nagpur was evident early on. Kohli struck three early boundaries - including one imperious six off Tymal Mills - but should have been given out lbw on 7 when Jordan struck him in front of middle and leg. He departed soon after, trying to clear the infield again, having scored 21 of the first 30.
Rahul initial contributions had been limited to nudges for one or two but registered his first four from Jordan's next ball, rifling a drive over extra cover, and began to find his touch against the spinners. India had finished the Powerplay reasonably well placed on 46 for 1 but Moeen and Adil Rashid followed up three boundary-less overs, which also saw the removal of Raina to an ungainly slog-sweep. Rahul broke the shackles by smacking a Rashid full toss into the crowd at deep midwicket.
India stalled again as Moeen gave Yuvraj Singh a working over before dismissing him lbw but Rahul struck Dawson for six and four in an over that cost 15, then took two more boundaries off Rashid to bring up the hundred in the 14th over. Rahul and Manish Pandey added 56 together but the going was tough as England reverted to seam and the full chocolate box of variations.
The last six overs saw England concede just two boundaries - one a thick-edged Rahul four off Stokes, the other Pandey crashing Mills over long-on - as India added 39 for 5. Rahul picked out deep midwicket trying to kick on and Pandey was bowled by Mills' slower ball but, even though Jordan silenced Dhoni, Bumrah had the final word.
Saturday 28 January 2017
1st ODI SA 1-0 SL
Sri Lanka 181 (48.3 ov)
South Africa 185/2 (34.2 ov)
South Africa won by 8 wickets (with 94 balls remaining)
The confidence boost Sri Lanka gained from their T20 series victory did not carry over into the start of the one-day internationals as they were trounced by eight wickets in Port Elizabeth. A masterclass of limited-overs legspin by Imran Tahir snuffed out the middle order as they limped to 181, which proved a scant challenge for South Africa's full-strength top order.
Tahir finished with 3 for 26, including the scalp of top-scorer Kusal Mendis for 62, and did not concede a boundary in his 10 overs to ensure South Africa always held control after choosing to bowl first. Wayne Parnell had made swift work of the openers, before a stand of 72 for the third wicket between Mendis and Dinesh Chandimal steadied the innings, although it was laborious progress against probing bowling from South Africa's quartet of seamers. It meant that when Tahir made his inroads, with three wickets in 15 balls, Sri Lanka had little to show for the consolidation and the innings frittered away.
An opening stand of 71 in 13 overs between Quinton de Kock and Hashim Amla, two of the senior South Africa players rested from the T20 series, broke the back of the chase and the target was knocked off with more than 15 overs to spare.
For the eight teams taking part, all one-day internationals at the moment lead towards the Champions Trophy in June. While Sri Lanka appear to have many questions to answer, South Africa's squad for this series is probably not far from what they will take to the tournament, but some players are still in need of performances to cement their positions.
Chief among those is Parnell, and he made the perfect start when he trapped Niroshan Dickwella lbw first ball. He soon followed that with the wicket of debutant Sandun Weerakkody, who had only arrived in the country yesterday after a delayed flight, when he had a waft outside off which smacked of jetlag.
Sri Lanka knew they had to avoid further early losses, so caution was the watch-word for Chandimal, although Mendis showed greater inclination to attack, twice taking two boundaries in an over off Parnell and Andile Phehlukwayo. Mendis was given lbw on 48, but the decision by Richard Kettleborough was overturned when replays showed an edge off his sweep, and he reached his fifty from 74 balls.
But it wasn't long before Tahir started to unpick the innings. Chandimal, who had taken 47 balls to find the boundary, was beautifully set up by a series of leg-breaks, before Tahir tossed a googly wide which spun back between bat and pad. Two overs later, he removed Mendis, lbw, playing back to a delivery that spun enough to beat the outside edge, and this time the review brought no reprieve.
Upul Tharanga, captaining this side in Angelo Mathews' absence, continued in the middle-order role he had in last year's tri-series in Zimbabwe despite his 13 hundreds coming as an opener. He could not lift his side, however, when he drove limply to cover, although Tahir deserved credit for switching his line to around the wicket.
Sri Lanka's problems were compounded by a mix-up between Dhananjaya de Silva and Asela Gunaratne, which saw the latter run out after a relay throw from the deep via Quinton de Kock to Parnell at the bowling end.
Nuwan Kulasekara clubbed a couple of lusty shots, including the one six of the innings, before edging Kagiso Rabada. With nine overs remaining, there was little choice but to try and see out the innings. They failed by nine deliveries as Parnell and Chris Morris removed the final three wickets. From the start of the 43rd over, they had not scored more than one run off a delivery.
South Africa's top order is daunting with all the big-guns back, and it would have taken a remarkable effort from Sri Lanka to defend the total. Suranga Lakmal's first ball took de Kock's outside edge, but the ball fell short of the slips. De Kock could have been run-out from mid-off on 21. However, the way the openers imposed themselves on Sri Lanka's wrist spinners - Jeffrey Vandersay and Lakshan Sandakan - showed their intent for a ruthless performance.
Sandakan, who had claimed 4 for 23 in the second T20, was taken for 10 in his first over, and Vandersay, a late call-up to the one-day squad, 14 off his first. Although Sandakan struck against the run of play, when de Kock drove to cover, boundaries came regularly. Amla barely broke sweat in bringing up his fifty off 56 deliveries, and Faf du Plessis was able to enjoy an extended net after his brief down time following the Test series.
While Amla's slightly soft dismissal, as he lobbed a return catch to Gunaratne, was a disappointment for him, it gave the crowd what they wanted - AB de Villiers at the crease. To chants of "AB, AB", he played within himself but did loft one over the boundary. Back as captain, in his first one-day international since last June, the day could not really have gone any better.
South Africa 185/2 (34.2 ov)
South Africa won by 8 wickets (with 94 balls remaining)
The confidence boost Sri Lanka gained from their T20 series victory did not carry over into the start of the one-day internationals as they were trounced by eight wickets in Port Elizabeth. A masterclass of limited-overs legspin by Imran Tahir snuffed out the middle order as they limped to 181, which proved a scant challenge for South Africa's full-strength top order.
Tahir finished with 3 for 26, including the scalp of top-scorer Kusal Mendis for 62, and did not concede a boundary in his 10 overs to ensure South Africa always held control after choosing to bowl first. Wayne Parnell had made swift work of the openers, before a stand of 72 for the third wicket between Mendis and Dinesh Chandimal steadied the innings, although it was laborious progress against probing bowling from South Africa's quartet of seamers. It meant that when Tahir made his inroads, with three wickets in 15 balls, Sri Lanka had little to show for the consolidation and the innings frittered away.
An opening stand of 71 in 13 overs between Quinton de Kock and Hashim Amla, two of the senior South Africa players rested from the T20 series, broke the back of the chase and the target was knocked off with more than 15 overs to spare.
For the eight teams taking part, all one-day internationals at the moment lead towards the Champions Trophy in June. While Sri Lanka appear to have many questions to answer, South Africa's squad for this series is probably not far from what they will take to the tournament, but some players are still in need of performances to cement their positions.
Chief among those is Parnell, and he made the perfect start when he trapped Niroshan Dickwella lbw first ball. He soon followed that with the wicket of debutant Sandun Weerakkody, who had only arrived in the country yesterday after a delayed flight, when he had a waft outside off which smacked of jetlag.
Sri Lanka knew they had to avoid further early losses, so caution was the watch-word for Chandimal, although Mendis showed greater inclination to attack, twice taking two boundaries in an over off Parnell and Andile Phehlukwayo. Mendis was given lbw on 48, but the decision by Richard Kettleborough was overturned when replays showed an edge off his sweep, and he reached his fifty from 74 balls.
But it wasn't long before Tahir started to unpick the innings. Chandimal, who had taken 47 balls to find the boundary, was beautifully set up by a series of leg-breaks, before Tahir tossed a googly wide which spun back between bat and pad. Two overs later, he removed Mendis, lbw, playing back to a delivery that spun enough to beat the outside edge, and this time the review brought no reprieve.
Upul Tharanga, captaining this side in Angelo Mathews' absence, continued in the middle-order role he had in last year's tri-series in Zimbabwe despite his 13 hundreds coming as an opener. He could not lift his side, however, when he drove limply to cover, although Tahir deserved credit for switching his line to around the wicket.
Sri Lanka's problems were compounded by a mix-up between Dhananjaya de Silva and Asela Gunaratne, which saw the latter run out after a relay throw from the deep via Quinton de Kock to Parnell at the bowling end.
Nuwan Kulasekara clubbed a couple of lusty shots, including the one six of the innings, before edging Kagiso Rabada. With nine overs remaining, there was little choice but to try and see out the innings. They failed by nine deliveries as Parnell and Chris Morris removed the final three wickets. From the start of the 43rd over, they had not scored more than one run off a delivery.
South Africa's top order is daunting with all the big-guns back, and it would have taken a remarkable effort from Sri Lanka to defend the total. Suranga Lakmal's first ball took de Kock's outside edge, but the ball fell short of the slips. De Kock could have been run-out from mid-off on 21. However, the way the openers imposed themselves on Sri Lanka's wrist spinners - Jeffrey Vandersay and Lakshan Sandakan - showed their intent for a ruthless performance.
Sandakan, who had claimed 4 for 23 in the second T20, was taken for 10 in his first over, and Vandersay, a late call-up to the one-day squad, 14 off his first. Although Sandakan struck against the run of play, when de Kock drove to cover, boundaries came regularly. Amla barely broke sweat in bringing up his fifty off 56 deliveries, and Faf du Plessis was able to enjoy an extended net after his brief down time following the Test series.
While Amla's slightly soft dismissal, as he lobbed a return catch to Gunaratne, was a disappointment for him, it gave the crowd what they wanted - AB de Villiers at the crease. To chants of "AB, AB", he played within himself but did loft one over the boundary. Back as captain, in his first one-day international since last June, the day could not really have gone any better.
Thursday 26 January 2017
5th ODI AUS 4-1 PAK, 1st T20 IND 0-1 ENG - 3 match series
IND 147/7
ENG 148/3
England win by 7 wickets
They waited, and waited, and waited, and finally England's bowlers had the chance to spearhead a victory on this tour. True, none of them picked up more than two wickets, but that only established how good they were as a unit. India were kept to a measly 147 on a pitch that wasn't in any way untoward and as icing on the cake Eoin Morgan shellacked a half-century to make sure his team took a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.
Tymal Mills, Chris Jordan, Liam Plunkett and Ben Stokes were given a brief to bowl length and just short of it, while ensuring the batsmen do not have room to use their pace to relieve the pressure. Moeen Ali was at his restrictive best, picking up 2 for 21 in four overs, targeting the stumps with flat darts and in the end the services of their specialist spinner Adil Rashid was not even needed.
India, who had lost the toss and were put in, seemed rather obsessed with power-hitting. They had gone through the entire World T20 playing proper cricket, only to be brutally swept aside by West Indies in the semi-final. From the moment Virat Kohli carved the third ball of the match for four through point, it seemed like they were trying go for the boundary every single ball. It did not pay off though, as England dashed a little bit of the Republic Day celebrations at a jam-packed Green Park stadium in Kanpur.
Admittedly, it doesn't seem the worst strategy to leave your brain behind as a batsman when playing T20. There's 10 wickets to negotiate 20 overs, and while batting first, it even seems logical to do so. But India don't normally play in this fashion and will need time to catch up with the rest of the world. This evening, for example, they couldn't deal with how they were bleeding wickets, at the worst possible times.
Kohli and KL Rahul, who opened the batting, fell within three overs of each other on either side of the Powerplay. Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh and Manish Pandey - Nos 3, 4 and 6 - dismissed within three overs as well, between the 11th and the 14th. India couldn't lay a good enough foundation at the start and were running out of batsmen by the end. No one made it past a score of 36.
The key for England was in how well they read the pitch. It was both grassy and cracked and lent itself to fast bowlers who were willing to hit the deck and also experiment with cross-seamers and slower balls. Jordan and Mills - who were playing their first matches on this tour - did exactly that. Then Moeen, who began his spell having Kohli caught at short midwicket for 29 off 26, excelled in the middle overs, bowling stump-to-stump. His length was lovely as well, not full enough to drive freely and not short enough that the batsman could use the pace. The end result, he conceded only one boundary.
India had somehow mis-hit their way to 47 in the Powerplay, but once England had the comfort of having five men on the boundary, the edges no longer found gaps. They offered a mere 37 runs between the 13th and 19th overs. Moeen had created the pressure, the quicks came back, knowing they will be targeted, but by varying their pace and banging the ball into the pitch without the width to cut or pull, they gave India, who were by now only trying to hit the ball as hard as they could, very few options.
Hardik Pandya found that out when he was cramped by a a short ball rising up to his shoulder and found deep point; Mills meanwhile had his first T20I wicket. Rahul was caught unawares by a sharp bouncer from Jordan in the fourth over, which he could only fend to short fine leg.
Yuvraj top-edged a pull to long leg off Plunkett and Raina was bowled by a searing yorker from Stokes. Morgan's captaincy should be credited here, forcing the two left-handers to deal with the kind of bowling they generally dislike facing, and less so with an innings in jeopardy: fast and at their bodies. Moeen played his part too, spinning the ball away or making it skid on, rarely letting himself be lined up. MS Dhoni managed to stick it out till the end, hitting a couple of fours in the last over, but 147 was nowhere near par.
It showed when Jason Roy and Sam Billings blitzed 36 in three overs at the start of the chase. India did put a stop to the mayhem in the next over with legspinner Yuzvendra Chahal, picked ahead of Amit Mishra, bowling both batsmen. But it didn't matter in the larger scheme of things since England managed to gun down a third of their target within the first six overs. With that in the back of their minds, Joe Root, returning from a niggle, and Morgan put on 83 runs for the third wicket and that partnership was more than enough to seal a straightforward chase. A further sign of how disappointing India's batting had been on the day was debutant Parvez Rasool picking up the England captain for 51 and barely celebrating. He knew it just didn't matter.
ENG 148/3
England win by 7 wickets
They waited, and waited, and waited, and finally England's bowlers had the chance to spearhead a victory on this tour. True, none of them picked up more than two wickets, but that only established how good they were as a unit. India were kept to a measly 147 on a pitch that wasn't in any way untoward and as icing on the cake Eoin Morgan shellacked a half-century to make sure his team took a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.
Tymal Mills, Chris Jordan, Liam Plunkett and Ben Stokes were given a brief to bowl length and just short of it, while ensuring the batsmen do not have room to use their pace to relieve the pressure. Moeen Ali was at his restrictive best, picking up 2 for 21 in four overs, targeting the stumps with flat darts and in the end the services of their specialist spinner Adil Rashid was not even needed.
India, who had lost the toss and were put in, seemed rather obsessed with power-hitting. They had gone through the entire World T20 playing proper cricket, only to be brutally swept aside by West Indies in the semi-final. From the moment Virat Kohli carved the third ball of the match for four through point, it seemed like they were trying go for the boundary every single ball. It did not pay off though, as England dashed a little bit of the Republic Day celebrations at a jam-packed Green Park stadium in Kanpur.
Admittedly, it doesn't seem the worst strategy to leave your brain behind as a batsman when playing T20. There's 10 wickets to negotiate 20 overs, and while batting first, it even seems logical to do so. But India don't normally play in this fashion and will need time to catch up with the rest of the world. This evening, for example, they couldn't deal with how they were bleeding wickets, at the worst possible times.
Kohli and KL Rahul, who opened the batting, fell within three overs of each other on either side of the Powerplay. Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh and Manish Pandey - Nos 3, 4 and 6 - dismissed within three overs as well, between the 11th and the 14th. India couldn't lay a good enough foundation at the start and were running out of batsmen by the end. No one made it past a score of 36.
The key for England was in how well they read the pitch. It was both grassy and cracked and lent itself to fast bowlers who were willing to hit the deck and also experiment with cross-seamers and slower balls. Jordan and Mills - who were playing their first matches on this tour - did exactly that. Then Moeen, who began his spell having Kohli caught at short midwicket for 29 off 26, excelled in the middle overs, bowling stump-to-stump. His length was lovely as well, not full enough to drive freely and not short enough that the batsman could use the pace. The end result, he conceded only one boundary.
India had somehow mis-hit their way to 47 in the Powerplay, but once England had the comfort of having five men on the boundary, the edges no longer found gaps. They offered a mere 37 runs between the 13th and 19th overs. Moeen had created the pressure, the quicks came back, knowing they will be targeted, but by varying their pace and banging the ball into the pitch without the width to cut or pull, they gave India, who were by now only trying to hit the ball as hard as they could, very few options.
Hardik Pandya found that out when he was cramped by a a short ball rising up to his shoulder and found deep point; Mills meanwhile had his first T20I wicket. Rahul was caught unawares by a sharp bouncer from Jordan in the fourth over, which he could only fend to short fine leg.
Yuvraj top-edged a pull to long leg off Plunkett and Raina was bowled by a searing yorker from Stokes. Morgan's captaincy should be credited here, forcing the two left-handers to deal with the kind of bowling they generally dislike facing, and less so with an innings in jeopardy: fast and at their bodies. Moeen played his part too, spinning the ball away or making it skid on, rarely letting himself be lined up. MS Dhoni managed to stick it out till the end, hitting a couple of fours in the last over, but 147 was nowhere near par.
It showed when Jason Roy and Sam Billings blitzed 36 in three overs at the start of the chase. India did put a stop to the mayhem in the next over with legspinner Yuzvendra Chahal, picked ahead of Amit Mishra, bowling both batsmen. But it didn't matter in the larger scheme of things since England managed to gun down a third of their target within the first six overs. With that in the back of their minds, Joe Root, returning from a niggle, and Morgan put on 83 runs for the third wicket and that partnership was more than enough to seal a straightforward chase. A further sign of how disappointing India's batting had been on the day was debutant Parvez Rasool picking up the England captain for 51 and barely celebrating. He knew it just didn't matter.
Wednesday 25 January 2017
3rd T20 SA 1-2 SL
Sri Lanka 170 for 5 beat South Africa 169 for 5 by five wickets
Sri Lanka spoiled AB de Villiers' comeback by snatching the T20 series from South Africa to claim the first silverware in the country in their history. Niroshan Dickwella's career-best 68 overshadowed de Villiers' 63, in his first international outing in six months, as Sri Lanka chased down 170 with one ball remaining but it was Seekkuge Prasanna's 16-ball 37 which completed the second highest successful chase at Newlands.
South Africa were without their newest spearhead, 20-year-old Lungi Ngidi, for most of their time in the field after he bruised his hip, and he could not bowl his final two overs, but had a tardy fielding effort rather than lack of resources to blame for their inability to defend the total. They put down five catches in total and saw several more aerial chances go unclaimed to allow Sri Lanka some leeway in what was a tough task.
Still, it took cool heads for Sri Lanka's batsmen to cross the line, especially after Imran Tahir removed their stand-in captain Dinesh Chandimal early on and then removed Dickwella and Dhananjaya de Silva in the same over. Sri Lanka had to rebuild their innings twice and eventually needed 26 runs off the last two overs. Against the inexperience of Andile Phehlulwayo and debutant Dane Paterson, Prasanna and Asela Gunaratne got there to seal a memorable win.
By the time the 19th over began, Prasanna already had 23 off 10 balls - having brought the target down from a daunting 50 off 21 balls - but Gunaratne had yet to score a run and only faced one ball after Kusal Mendis was run-out in the previous over. The pair ran hard off the first and second deliveries before Prasanna advanced on a Phehlukwayo slower ball and sent it over long-on for six. He did not get hold of the next one, losing his bat as he swung, but finished the over with a ramp over the Mangaliso Mosehle's head to leave Paterson with 11 to defend off the last over.
Gunaratne took the pressure off the final passage of play with a scoop over fine leg for four and took quick singles before he swung across the line and top-edged over Mosehle to level scores. In his excitement, Gunaratne thought the match was over and grabbed a stump out of the ground in celebration only to be told he needed one run was still needed. He drove the penultimate ball through the covers and this time could keep the stump.
Having threatened through the series, with 43 in Centurion and 22 in Johannesburg, Dickwella went one better and converted his start into his first T20 half-century. He had support from Upul Tharanga, who was playing in his first T20 since the World T20 in 2012, and was aggressive from the get-go. The pair punished width early on and took on the short ball and it took a change of pace to separate them.
Tharanga lobbed a catch to mid-on off Wayne Parnell's first ball, a slower delivery, to give South Africa a breakthrough but it was when stand-in captain Dinesh Chandimal was bowled by Tahir's first delivery that Sri Lanka were under real pressure. Tahir's over went boundary-less and then a hat-trick of missed chances came off Parnell's second over, including a return catch, with Dickwella surviving two of those chances. He made South Africa pay.
He saw off Tahir and targeted Phehlukwayo at first, before switching gears and lapping Tahir but South Africa's complications came when they needed a replacement for Ngidi after he injured his hip diving at cover. Jon-Jon Smuts had to fill in but his two overs cost 22 runs as Dickwella reached fifty off 34 balls.
With five overs to go, Sri Lanka needed more than ten an over but would have been fairly comfortable with Dickwella well settled. Tahir had an over in hand, though, and appeared to have changed the game. He had Dickwella caught in the deep and de Silva stumped to turn things South Africa's way but Sri Lanka had more muscle.
In the end, South Africa might blame their middle-order problems for not posting a big enough total. They lost 4 for 28 runs in 25 balls between the 14th and 18th over, including de Villiers which may have been the difference.
South Africa trialled a new opening partner for Smuts in Reeza Hendricks and it proved a good decision. While Smuts continued to show nothing more than glimpses of the potential that took him to the top of the domestic T20 competition run-charts, Hendricks had the composure for a longer stay and formed one half of the hosts' major partnership on the night
After Smuts was given out lbw, Hendricks was joined by de Villiers and was happy to cede control to the senior man, but not before a third perfectly timed offside drive to the end the PowerPlay strongly.
De Villiers initially played within himself before giving making room to drive through point for his first boundary. He did not focus on finding the rope too many more times early on, though, and strike-rotation with a partner who was as speedy as him formed the foundation of their scoring. Every single was cheered loudly, twos and a solitary three were even more appreciated but there was no doubt the crowd was expecting more. When de Villiers danced down the track to meet a Lakshan Sandakan delivery on the full and send it straight back over his head for six, Newlands erupted. Their superstar was back.
A scoop off Gunaratne saw de Villiers overtake Hendricks before the latter was stumped. Hendricks will not be happy with his carelessness when he dragged his foot out against Sandakan after the ball spun across him and he failed to push his foot behind the line. Chandimal needed two attempts to complete the stumping and, still, Hendricks did not inch further back.
Despite that wicket bringing South Africa's most dangerous hitter, David Miller, to the crease, Sri Lanka had created an opening to claw their way back. Miller, Farhaan Behardien and de Villiers all departed and South Africa entered the final two overs on 141 for 5 without one of their regular finishers on hand. Nuwan Kulasekara did an exceptional job in his final two overs which only cost 11 and removed de Villiers.
Mosehle took the opportunity to show what he could do with a stunning cameo. He plundered three sixes off the first four balls in the last over, which cost Isuru Udana 21, and took South Africa's total over 160 but it was not enough.
Sri Lanka spoiled AB de Villiers' comeback by snatching the T20 series from South Africa to claim the first silverware in the country in their history. Niroshan Dickwella's career-best 68 overshadowed de Villiers' 63, in his first international outing in six months, as Sri Lanka chased down 170 with one ball remaining but it was Seekkuge Prasanna's 16-ball 37 which completed the second highest successful chase at Newlands.
South Africa were without their newest spearhead, 20-year-old Lungi Ngidi, for most of their time in the field after he bruised his hip, and he could not bowl his final two overs, but had a tardy fielding effort rather than lack of resources to blame for their inability to defend the total. They put down five catches in total and saw several more aerial chances go unclaimed to allow Sri Lanka some leeway in what was a tough task.
Still, it took cool heads for Sri Lanka's batsmen to cross the line, especially after Imran Tahir removed their stand-in captain Dinesh Chandimal early on and then removed Dickwella and Dhananjaya de Silva in the same over. Sri Lanka had to rebuild their innings twice and eventually needed 26 runs off the last two overs. Against the inexperience of Andile Phehlulwayo and debutant Dane Paterson, Prasanna and Asela Gunaratne got there to seal a memorable win.
By the time the 19th over began, Prasanna already had 23 off 10 balls - having brought the target down from a daunting 50 off 21 balls - but Gunaratne had yet to score a run and only faced one ball after Kusal Mendis was run-out in the previous over. The pair ran hard off the first and second deliveries before Prasanna advanced on a Phehlukwayo slower ball and sent it over long-on for six. He did not get hold of the next one, losing his bat as he swung, but finished the over with a ramp over the Mangaliso Mosehle's head to leave Paterson with 11 to defend off the last over.
Gunaratne took the pressure off the final passage of play with a scoop over fine leg for four and took quick singles before he swung across the line and top-edged over Mosehle to level scores. In his excitement, Gunaratne thought the match was over and grabbed a stump out of the ground in celebration only to be told he needed one run was still needed. He drove the penultimate ball through the covers and this time could keep the stump.
Having threatened through the series, with 43 in Centurion and 22 in Johannesburg, Dickwella went one better and converted his start into his first T20 half-century. He had support from Upul Tharanga, who was playing in his first T20 since the World T20 in 2012, and was aggressive from the get-go. The pair punished width early on and took on the short ball and it took a change of pace to separate them.
Tharanga lobbed a catch to mid-on off Wayne Parnell's first ball, a slower delivery, to give South Africa a breakthrough but it was when stand-in captain Dinesh Chandimal was bowled by Tahir's first delivery that Sri Lanka were under real pressure. Tahir's over went boundary-less and then a hat-trick of missed chances came off Parnell's second over, including a return catch, with Dickwella surviving two of those chances. He made South Africa pay.
He saw off Tahir and targeted Phehlukwayo at first, before switching gears and lapping Tahir but South Africa's complications came when they needed a replacement for Ngidi after he injured his hip diving at cover. Jon-Jon Smuts had to fill in but his two overs cost 22 runs as Dickwella reached fifty off 34 balls.
With five overs to go, Sri Lanka needed more than ten an over but would have been fairly comfortable with Dickwella well settled. Tahir had an over in hand, though, and appeared to have changed the game. He had Dickwella caught in the deep and de Silva stumped to turn things South Africa's way but Sri Lanka had more muscle.
In the end, South Africa might blame their middle-order problems for not posting a big enough total. They lost 4 for 28 runs in 25 balls between the 14th and 18th over, including de Villiers which may have been the difference.
South Africa trialled a new opening partner for Smuts in Reeza Hendricks and it proved a good decision. While Smuts continued to show nothing more than glimpses of the potential that took him to the top of the domestic T20 competition run-charts, Hendricks had the composure for a longer stay and formed one half of the hosts' major partnership on the night
After Smuts was given out lbw, Hendricks was joined by de Villiers and was happy to cede control to the senior man, but not before a third perfectly timed offside drive to the end the PowerPlay strongly.
De Villiers initially played within himself before giving making room to drive through point for his first boundary. He did not focus on finding the rope too many more times early on, though, and strike-rotation with a partner who was as speedy as him formed the foundation of their scoring. Every single was cheered loudly, twos and a solitary three were even more appreciated but there was no doubt the crowd was expecting more. When de Villiers danced down the track to meet a Lakshan Sandakan delivery on the full and send it straight back over his head for six, Newlands erupted. Their superstar was back.
A scoop off Gunaratne saw de Villiers overtake Hendricks before the latter was stumped. Hendricks will not be happy with his carelessness when he dragged his foot out against Sandakan after the ball spun across him and he failed to push his foot behind the line. Chandimal needed two attempts to complete the stumping and, still, Hendricks did not inch further back.
Despite that wicket bringing South Africa's most dangerous hitter, David Miller, to the crease, Sri Lanka had created an opening to claw their way back. Miller, Farhaan Behardien and de Villiers all departed and South Africa entered the final two overs on 141 for 5 without one of their regular finishers on hand. Nuwan Kulasekara did an exceptional job in his final two overs which only cost 11 and removed de Villiers.
Mosehle took the opportunity to show what he could do with a stunning cameo. He plundered three sixes off the first four balls in the last over, which cost Isuru Udana 21, and took South Africa's total over 160 but it was not enough.
2nd Test NZ 2-0 BAN
Day 1
Bangladesh 289 (84.3 ov)
New Zealand
Tim Southee and Trent Boult shared nine wickets as New Zealand bowled Bangladesh out for 289, pegging the visitors back after a 127-run third-wicket stand between Soumya Sarkar and Shakib Al Hasan had threatened to set up a big first-innings total on a flat Hagley Oval surface. The Sarkar-Shakib stand, rattling along at 4.98 per over, had moved Bangladesh to 165 for 2 in the 36th over before Boult and Southee turned the day around with three wickets in the space of 17 balls.
The pace and texture of the day was transformed. The last five Bangladesh wickets stretched the innings out by a further 46 overs, during which time they scored 110 runs, with the lower order - particularly the debutants Nurul Hasan and Nazmul Hossain Shanto, who added 53 for the sixth wicket - batting resolutely and New Zealand helping them with some puzzling tactics. Kane Williamson, their captain, did not use their specialist spinner Mitchell Santner all day, and got his quicks to pepper the lower order with incessant short balls, not changing tack even after taking the second new ball.
The short ball dismissed Nazmul, Taskin Ahmed and Nurul, but by no means swiftly, and dealt the No. 11 Rubel Hossain a jarring blow to the elbow, but it was hard not to wonder if the fast bowlers wouldn't have been better served bowling a good length and looking for some swing. It was via this method that Southee ended Bangladesh's innings with his fifth wicket, pinging Kamrul Islam Rabbi's back pad in front of middle and off stump with late away-swing from a good length. Kamrul faced 63 balls to score 2, and added 32 for the last two wickets - in 18 overs - with Nurul and Rubel.
New Zealand could have wrapped up the innings far more swiftly had they held on to their catches. Nurul alone enjoyed three lives. On 4, he reached out to a wide one from Boult and nicked towards third slip, where the ball bounced off Southee's hard hands. Then, on 21, he sparred at Colin de Grandhomme with an open bat-face, and bisected first and second slip, leaving Ross Taylor and Jeet Raval looking questioningly at each other. Finally, on 36, he jabbed at a short one from Neil Wagner angled across his body, and Taylor got his hands in a tangle while going for a straightforward chance coming at his chest.
In all, it wasn't the greatest day for New Zealand's catchers; Raval, diving across from second slip, had dropped Sarkar off de Grandhomme on 52, denying Taylor what would have been a simple shoulder-high chance.
Still, New Zealand will have been pleased to restrict Bangladesh to under 300 after the start they had made. The turnaround began in the ninth over after lunch, when Boult got a fullish ball to stop on Sarkar and leave him off the pitch as he strode forward to drive; checking his shot; he only managed to spoon a catch into the covers. Then came a perfectly delivered short ball angled across Sabbir Rahman to square him up and produce a nick to the slips. Four balls later, Shakib overbalanced a touch while trying to glance Southee and tickled a catch down the leg side.
Sarkar, making a comeback thanks to a spate of injuries to Bangladesh's players, made his maiden Test fifty and eventually fell 14 short of a hundred. It was an odd innings, defined by his willingness to go after anything remotely close to his driving arc, often stroking the ball on the up, and while it looked pretty when it came off, it often didn't, as his control percentage - 74 - suggested. His innings contained its share of plays-and-misses, airy drives that sneaked into gaps, and edges that streaked to the third-man boundary.
At the other end, Shakib was equally keen to drive on the up, but looked more secure while doing so, his footwork and weight transfer indicating the form he was in, coming off a double-hundred in the first Test. Both batsmen also pulled with authority, the fast bowlers' attempts at banging it in short causing little discomfort on a pitch with true bounce but not a lot of pace.
Sent in to bat under largely blue skies, Bangladesh's patched-up top order had to contend with a new-ball pair generating swing consistently. Southee struck in the fourth over, cramping Tamim Iqbal, Bangladesh's stand-in captain, with a short, rising ball that came back in towards the left-hand batsman's right armpit. Looking to tuck it away into the leg side, Tamim only managed to glove it to the keeper.
Mahmudullah and Sarkar then added 31 brisk but uneasy runs as Southee and Boult continued to swing the new ball and beat their edges. Twice in a row, Boult bent the ball back through the gap between bat and pad after angling it across Mahmudullah, and missed the off stump by inches. Two balls later, he had a confident caught-behind appeal turned down when a short ball climbed awkwardly at the batsman. New Zealand reviewed Paul Reiffel's not-out decision, and technology confirmed the ball had gone past bat and brushed only right shoulder.
Boult didn't have to wait much longer, though. In only his next over - the 11th of Bangladesh's innings - Mahmudullah drove away from his body and outside the line of another inwardly curling delivery, and BJ Watling dived to his left behind the wickets to pluck an excellent catch off the inside edge.
Day 2
Bangladesh 289
New Zealand 260/7 (71.0 ov)
New Zealand trail by 29 runs with 3 wickets remaining in the 1st innings
Rain brought day two to an early end after three wickets in two overs from Shakib Al Hasan had left the second Test delicately poised. Replying to Bangladesh's 289, New Zealand had slid from 252 for 4 to 260 for 7 when bad weather arrived some 20 minutes from scheduled close of play, ending a seesawing day in which New Zealand had routinely held the upper hand only for quick losses of wickets to stall their progress.
First, New Zealand had capitalised on two dropped catches and moved to 46 for 0 before Kamrul Islam Rabbi pegged them back with two wickets in three balls. Then a 106-run third-wicket partnership between Tom Latham and Ross Taylor, which rattled along at 4.41 per over, put Bangladesh on the back foot only for both to fall, against the run of play, in the space of 8.5 overs. Shakib's triple-strike came after another meaty partnership - 75 for the fifth wicket between Henry Nicholls and Mitchell Santner. Nicholls was batting on 56 at stumps, with New Zealand seven down and trailing by 29 runs.
Shakib, Bangladesh's most experienced bowler, had only been used for four overs when he came back into the attack to start the 67th of New Zealand's innings. His under-utilisation may have had something to do with the fact that left-handers comprised four of New Zealand's top six, but if that was the case, it reflected one-track thinking from their captain Tamim Iqbal, for within four balls of his new spell, Shakib dismissed a stodgy left-hander.
Playing for turn, Santner went on the back foot to work Shakib, bowling from left-arm over, into the leg side. The lack of turn, however, left him in a fully open position and he ended up playing across the line and missing by a long way. The ball hit his back pad in front of middle stump. Reviewing Paul Reiffel's out decision, Santner had to walk back without technology either upholding or rejecting it, as ball-tracking failed to materialise. Umpire's call seemed the likely outcome, with the ball looking like it may have gone on to clip leg stump. New Zealand got their review back, but not their No. 6.
Bowling with a low arm from around the wicket and getting the ball to skid on towards the stumps, Shakib gobbled up BJ Watling and Colin de Grandhomme in his next over. Both played for the turn, and both were bowled playing unneccessarily aggressive shots. Watling chopped on an attempted cut, de Grandhomme played a loose drive, leaving a massive gap for the ball to sneak through.
If the scorecard at stumps was an indictment of New Zealand's batsmen for frittering away their starts, it also flattered Bangladesh's bowlers, who were frustratingly inconsistent for most of the day. They began excellently in the first session, lost their discipline in the second, and seemed to be letting the game drift in the third before Shakib intervened.
Taskin Ahmed, though, was excellent with the new ball, beating the outside edge four times in his first three overs, and finding Jeet Raval's edge in his sixth, only for Sabbir Rahman, moving to his right from second slip, to grass a knee-high catch. Taskin troubled the two left-handed openers so frequently because of his line, which didn't allow the comfortable leave despite his angle across them, his length, which was usually on the fuller side of good, and every now and again a bit of seam movement towards the slips. He did overpitch on a few occasions - Latham in particular capitalised with three splendid, full-faced drives to the straight boundary - but that did not cause him to pull his length back at any point.
Mehedi Hasan opened the bowling with Taskin, extracted bounce, and created a chance in his first over, provoking a drive away from the body from Raval that resulted in a low chance that Mahmudullah, rising too quickly at second slip, shelled. Raval didn't do much with his two lives. The opening partnership had stretched to 46 before Kamrul, coming on as second change, broke through in the 15th over, his first. Trying to pull one that was perhaps not short enough, Raval was cramped for room and only managed a bottom-edge onto the stumps.
Two balls later, New Zealand were two down. Kane Williamson may be among the hardest players in the world to dismiss, but even he could do little when confronted with the perfect late outswinger - full enough to draw him forward but not so full that he could get close to the pitch of it, its initial line close enough to off stump to force him to play, and its movement late enough to prevent him from adjusting and withdrawing his bat. Wicketkeeper Nurul Islam tumbled to his right to take his first catch in Test cricket.
Latham batted serenely through the first session, never following the ball with his hands even when he was beaten, and had only one real moment of discomfort, when the slingy Rubel Hossain bowled a bouncer that didn't rise as much as expected. Latham was unable to sway away in time, and the ball crunched into his helmet grille and sent the protective attachment at the back of his neck flying.
By lunch, Latham and Taylor had added 23, and had seen out some tight bowling from Bangladesh's quicks. Their discipline suffered after the break, though, and boundary balls grew frequent. Taylor, who has looked in excellent touch since the series against Pakistan - thanks in part to adopting a consciously side-on approach, with front shoulder pointing down the pitch rather than opening out to mid-on - drove fluently through the covers in addition to showing off his usual strengths of cutting and working the ball off his legs.
The first 13 overs of the post-lunch session brought 83 runs at 6.38, including nine fours and two sixes, and New Zealand seemed to be running away with the game, when Bangladesh profited from a loss of concentration from Latham on 68. Looking to cut one that wasn't quite wide enough for the shot, he top-edged Taskin in the first over after drinks.
Taylor could have followed him seven overs later, when he misread the flight of an offbreak from Mehedi and whipped it in the air to deep square leg, only for Kamrul, diving forward, to drop the low chance. He was on 75 at that point, had already brought up one landmark - becoming the third New Zealander to pass 6000 Test runs - and seemed set to bring up another and equal the late Martin Crowe, his mentor, on 17 Test hundreds. But that wasn't to be; he had added only two runs to his score when he drove too early at Mehedi in his next over and spooned a catch to short midwicket.
Day 3
Bangladesh 289
New Zealand 260/7 (71.0 ov)
New Zealand trail by 29 runs with 3 wickets remaining in the 1st innings
Persistent rain ruled out any chance of play on the third day of the second Test at Hagley Oval. Having begun at around 6am, the rain never really let up through the morning and afternoon, eventually forcing the umpires to call off play at 4 pm, two hours before the scheduled close.
With 17 wickets falling over the first two days, there was still a fair chance of the Test match ending in a decisive result, given better weather on days four and five. At stumps on day two, New Zealand were trailing Bangladesh's first-innings total of 289 by 29 runs, with three wickets in hand, having lost three quick wickets to Shakib Al Hasan's left-arm spin.
Day 4
New Zealand 354 and 111 for 1 beat Bangladesh 289 and 173 by nine wickets
For the second time in successive Test matches, Bangladesh imploded in the second innings after holding their own in a neck-and-neck first innings battle. Once again, their batsmen played a significant role in their own downfall. Having started the day on level terms, they conceded a lead of 65, before collapsing spectacularly in their second innings, with the bulk of their batsmen gifting New Zealand their wicket.
Set a target of 109, New Zealand romped to a nine-wicket win in 18.4 overs, with the promotion of Colin de Grandhomme - who struck an unbeaten 33 off 15 balls, with four sixes including two in two balls off Nazmul Hossain Shanto to seal the win - ensuring they completed the job on the fourth day itself, some ten minutes into the half-hour extension.
After a third day lost to rain, the fourth had begun with Henry Nicholls falling two short of a maiden Test hundred and helping New Zealand gain a first-innings lead of 65. It was a useful lead, but only that. Given New Zealand had to bat last, the match was still in the balance when Bangladesh began their second innings towards the tail-end of an extended first session. By tea, however, they were halfway through yet another second-innings meltdown, and were 100 for 5 - effectively 35 for 5 - with only one of their wickets falling to a defensive shot.
Bangladesh lost Tamim Iqbal inside the 10 overs they needed to bat out before lunch, the stand-in captain top-edging a hook off Tim Southee. After the break came a period of calm, with Soumya Sarkar stroking the ball fluently and Mahmudullah defending resolutely during a second-wicket stand of 41. With Bangladesh seven runs short of wiping out their deficit, though, Sarkar attempted to steer Colin de Grandhomme to third man - a risky proposition given three fielders in the cordon - and middled the ball to gully.
Shakib Al Hasan edged his first ball between second slip and gully, trying a similar open-faced steer, and reached out a long way from his body to try and cut the next ball. Raval put down a straightforward low chance. If anyone thought that moment would cause Shakib to thank his lucky stars and knuckle down, they were wrong; having only faced four more balls, he tried to cut Southee without making any attempt to keep the ball down, and guided the ball straight to backward point.
Ten overs later, Mahmudullah - who had seen off a period of good-length bowling and another of short-pitched bowling from Southee and Neil Wagner - tried to drive Wagner on the up, and chopped on. By now it looked as if the next wicket could come off any ball. Walking down the pitch to de Grandhomme, Nazmul Hossain Shanto somehow survived despite playing a series of wafts outside off. Sabbir Rahman swished and missed twice, while still on 0, against Wagner.
Something had to give, and finally a wicket came off a wicket-taking ball, off what turned out to be the last ball before tea, Sabbir caught behind off the shoulder of his bat when Wagner got one to rise awkwardly in the corridor.
Within 7.3 overs of the final session, 100 for 5 had become 115 for 8, with the short ball sending off Nurul Hasan and Mehedi Hasan either side of a scorching Trent Boult yorker that took out Nazmul's middle stump. Then came Bangladesh's biggest partnership - 51 in eight overs - as Taskin Ahmed and Kamrul Islam Rabbi backed away from their stumps and swung at New Zealand's overdone short-ball attack, before Boult ended it with another yorker. Southee ensured each of New Zealand's three frontline quicks finished with three-fors, Rubel Hossain top-edging a pull to the keeper. Bangladesh had only lasted 52.5 overs in their final innings of the tour.
How different things had been at the start of the day's play, with New Zealand 260 for 7 in their first innings, trailing by 29 runs. They turned that deficit into a lead of 65 thanks to Nicholls, who added 30 for the eighth wicket with Tim Southee and 57 for the ninth with Neil Wagner.
Runs flowed freely at the start of the day's play, with 20 coming off the first four overs, and Mehedi giving New Zealand a helping hand by dropping Southee at second slip off Kamrul. It didn't prove too costly, with Southee only adding two runs to his score before driving Shakib Al Hasan uppishly to short extra-cover, where Mehedi made amends with a sharp grab.
Bangladesh's next fielding lapse, however, was more expensive. Extra bounce from Taskin Ahmed with the second new ball forced Wagner to fend to gully, where Nazmul put down a regulation chance. Next ball, Taskin had a loud lbw appeal upheld after straightening one into the left-hander from right-arm over, only for a review to earn the batsman the most marginal of reprieves, with the ball falling millimeters foul of the thin line between "pitching outside leg stump" and "umpire's call".
Nicholls was already in his groove by then, driving Kamrul for successive fours either side of cover, and Wagner joined in the fun with glances to the fine leg boundary when Taskin and Rubel Hossain strayed onto his legs. Then, with a century in sight, Nicholls came down the track to Mehedi, got too close to the pitch of the ball, and dragged an attempted cover drive back into his stumps off the bottom edge. Trent Boult then lofted Mehedi for a big six over long-on, before the innings ended in unusual circumstances, with Wagner run out when he was past the crease but airborne.
Bangladesh 289 (84.3 ov)
New Zealand
Tim Southee and Trent Boult shared nine wickets as New Zealand bowled Bangladesh out for 289, pegging the visitors back after a 127-run third-wicket stand between Soumya Sarkar and Shakib Al Hasan had threatened to set up a big first-innings total on a flat Hagley Oval surface. The Sarkar-Shakib stand, rattling along at 4.98 per over, had moved Bangladesh to 165 for 2 in the 36th over before Boult and Southee turned the day around with three wickets in the space of 17 balls.
The pace and texture of the day was transformed. The last five Bangladesh wickets stretched the innings out by a further 46 overs, during which time they scored 110 runs, with the lower order - particularly the debutants Nurul Hasan and Nazmul Hossain Shanto, who added 53 for the sixth wicket - batting resolutely and New Zealand helping them with some puzzling tactics. Kane Williamson, their captain, did not use their specialist spinner Mitchell Santner all day, and got his quicks to pepper the lower order with incessant short balls, not changing tack even after taking the second new ball.
The short ball dismissed Nazmul, Taskin Ahmed and Nurul, but by no means swiftly, and dealt the No. 11 Rubel Hossain a jarring blow to the elbow, but it was hard not to wonder if the fast bowlers wouldn't have been better served bowling a good length and looking for some swing. It was via this method that Southee ended Bangladesh's innings with his fifth wicket, pinging Kamrul Islam Rabbi's back pad in front of middle and off stump with late away-swing from a good length. Kamrul faced 63 balls to score 2, and added 32 for the last two wickets - in 18 overs - with Nurul and Rubel.
New Zealand could have wrapped up the innings far more swiftly had they held on to their catches. Nurul alone enjoyed three lives. On 4, he reached out to a wide one from Boult and nicked towards third slip, where the ball bounced off Southee's hard hands. Then, on 21, he sparred at Colin de Grandhomme with an open bat-face, and bisected first and second slip, leaving Ross Taylor and Jeet Raval looking questioningly at each other. Finally, on 36, he jabbed at a short one from Neil Wagner angled across his body, and Taylor got his hands in a tangle while going for a straightforward chance coming at his chest.
In all, it wasn't the greatest day for New Zealand's catchers; Raval, diving across from second slip, had dropped Sarkar off de Grandhomme on 52, denying Taylor what would have been a simple shoulder-high chance.
Still, New Zealand will have been pleased to restrict Bangladesh to under 300 after the start they had made. The turnaround began in the ninth over after lunch, when Boult got a fullish ball to stop on Sarkar and leave him off the pitch as he strode forward to drive; checking his shot; he only managed to spoon a catch into the covers. Then came a perfectly delivered short ball angled across Sabbir Rahman to square him up and produce a nick to the slips. Four balls later, Shakib overbalanced a touch while trying to glance Southee and tickled a catch down the leg side.
Sarkar, making a comeback thanks to a spate of injuries to Bangladesh's players, made his maiden Test fifty and eventually fell 14 short of a hundred. It was an odd innings, defined by his willingness to go after anything remotely close to his driving arc, often stroking the ball on the up, and while it looked pretty when it came off, it often didn't, as his control percentage - 74 - suggested. His innings contained its share of plays-and-misses, airy drives that sneaked into gaps, and edges that streaked to the third-man boundary.
At the other end, Shakib was equally keen to drive on the up, but looked more secure while doing so, his footwork and weight transfer indicating the form he was in, coming off a double-hundred in the first Test. Both batsmen also pulled with authority, the fast bowlers' attempts at banging it in short causing little discomfort on a pitch with true bounce but not a lot of pace.
Sent in to bat under largely blue skies, Bangladesh's patched-up top order had to contend with a new-ball pair generating swing consistently. Southee struck in the fourth over, cramping Tamim Iqbal, Bangladesh's stand-in captain, with a short, rising ball that came back in towards the left-hand batsman's right armpit. Looking to tuck it away into the leg side, Tamim only managed to glove it to the keeper.
Mahmudullah and Sarkar then added 31 brisk but uneasy runs as Southee and Boult continued to swing the new ball and beat their edges. Twice in a row, Boult bent the ball back through the gap between bat and pad after angling it across Mahmudullah, and missed the off stump by inches. Two balls later, he had a confident caught-behind appeal turned down when a short ball climbed awkwardly at the batsman. New Zealand reviewed Paul Reiffel's not-out decision, and technology confirmed the ball had gone past bat and brushed only right shoulder.
Boult didn't have to wait much longer, though. In only his next over - the 11th of Bangladesh's innings - Mahmudullah drove away from his body and outside the line of another inwardly curling delivery, and BJ Watling dived to his left behind the wickets to pluck an excellent catch off the inside edge.
Day 2
Bangladesh 289
New Zealand 260/7 (71.0 ov)
New Zealand trail by 29 runs with 3 wickets remaining in the 1st innings
Rain brought day two to an early end after three wickets in two overs from Shakib Al Hasan had left the second Test delicately poised. Replying to Bangladesh's 289, New Zealand had slid from 252 for 4 to 260 for 7 when bad weather arrived some 20 minutes from scheduled close of play, ending a seesawing day in which New Zealand had routinely held the upper hand only for quick losses of wickets to stall their progress.
First, New Zealand had capitalised on two dropped catches and moved to 46 for 0 before Kamrul Islam Rabbi pegged them back with two wickets in three balls. Then a 106-run third-wicket partnership between Tom Latham and Ross Taylor, which rattled along at 4.41 per over, put Bangladesh on the back foot only for both to fall, against the run of play, in the space of 8.5 overs. Shakib's triple-strike came after another meaty partnership - 75 for the fifth wicket between Henry Nicholls and Mitchell Santner. Nicholls was batting on 56 at stumps, with New Zealand seven down and trailing by 29 runs.
Shakib, Bangladesh's most experienced bowler, had only been used for four overs when he came back into the attack to start the 67th of New Zealand's innings. His under-utilisation may have had something to do with the fact that left-handers comprised four of New Zealand's top six, but if that was the case, it reflected one-track thinking from their captain Tamim Iqbal, for within four balls of his new spell, Shakib dismissed a stodgy left-hander.
Playing for turn, Santner went on the back foot to work Shakib, bowling from left-arm over, into the leg side. The lack of turn, however, left him in a fully open position and he ended up playing across the line and missing by a long way. The ball hit his back pad in front of middle stump. Reviewing Paul Reiffel's out decision, Santner had to walk back without technology either upholding or rejecting it, as ball-tracking failed to materialise. Umpire's call seemed the likely outcome, with the ball looking like it may have gone on to clip leg stump. New Zealand got their review back, but not their No. 6.
Bowling with a low arm from around the wicket and getting the ball to skid on towards the stumps, Shakib gobbled up BJ Watling and Colin de Grandhomme in his next over. Both played for the turn, and both were bowled playing unneccessarily aggressive shots. Watling chopped on an attempted cut, de Grandhomme played a loose drive, leaving a massive gap for the ball to sneak through.
If the scorecard at stumps was an indictment of New Zealand's batsmen for frittering away their starts, it also flattered Bangladesh's bowlers, who were frustratingly inconsistent for most of the day. They began excellently in the first session, lost their discipline in the second, and seemed to be letting the game drift in the third before Shakib intervened.
Taskin Ahmed, though, was excellent with the new ball, beating the outside edge four times in his first three overs, and finding Jeet Raval's edge in his sixth, only for Sabbir Rahman, moving to his right from second slip, to grass a knee-high catch. Taskin troubled the two left-handed openers so frequently because of his line, which didn't allow the comfortable leave despite his angle across them, his length, which was usually on the fuller side of good, and every now and again a bit of seam movement towards the slips. He did overpitch on a few occasions - Latham in particular capitalised with three splendid, full-faced drives to the straight boundary - but that did not cause him to pull his length back at any point.
Mehedi Hasan opened the bowling with Taskin, extracted bounce, and created a chance in his first over, provoking a drive away from the body from Raval that resulted in a low chance that Mahmudullah, rising too quickly at second slip, shelled. Raval didn't do much with his two lives. The opening partnership had stretched to 46 before Kamrul, coming on as second change, broke through in the 15th over, his first. Trying to pull one that was perhaps not short enough, Raval was cramped for room and only managed a bottom-edge onto the stumps.
Two balls later, New Zealand were two down. Kane Williamson may be among the hardest players in the world to dismiss, but even he could do little when confronted with the perfect late outswinger - full enough to draw him forward but not so full that he could get close to the pitch of it, its initial line close enough to off stump to force him to play, and its movement late enough to prevent him from adjusting and withdrawing his bat. Wicketkeeper Nurul Islam tumbled to his right to take his first catch in Test cricket.
Latham batted serenely through the first session, never following the ball with his hands even when he was beaten, and had only one real moment of discomfort, when the slingy Rubel Hossain bowled a bouncer that didn't rise as much as expected. Latham was unable to sway away in time, and the ball crunched into his helmet grille and sent the protective attachment at the back of his neck flying.
By lunch, Latham and Taylor had added 23, and had seen out some tight bowling from Bangladesh's quicks. Their discipline suffered after the break, though, and boundary balls grew frequent. Taylor, who has looked in excellent touch since the series against Pakistan - thanks in part to adopting a consciously side-on approach, with front shoulder pointing down the pitch rather than opening out to mid-on - drove fluently through the covers in addition to showing off his usual strengths of cutting and working the ball off his legs.
The first 13 overs of the post-lunch session brought 83 runs at 6.38, including nine fours and two sixes, and New Zealand seemed to be running away with the game, when Bangladesh profited from a loss of concentration from Latham on 68. Looking to cut one that wasn't quite wide enough for the shot, he top-edged Taskin in the first over after drinks.
Taylor could have followed him seven overs later, when he misread the flight of an offbreak from Mehedi and whipped it in the air to deep square leg, only for Kamrul, diving forward, to drop the low chance. He was on 75 at that point, had already brought up one landmark - becoming the third New Zealander to pass 6000 Test runs - and seemed set to bring up another and equal the late Martin Crowe, his mentor, on 17 Test hundreds. But that wasn't to be; he had added only two runs to his score when he drove too early at Mehedi in his next over and spooned a catch to short midwicket.
Day 3
Bangladesh 289
New Zealand 260/7 (71.0 ov)
New Zealand trail by 29 runs with 3 wickets remaining in the 1st innings
Persistent rain ruled out any chance of play on the third day of the second Test at Hagley Oval. Having begun at around 6am, the rain never really let up through the morning and afternoon, eventually forcing the umpires to call off play at 4 pm, two hours before the scheduled close.
With 17 wickets falling over the first two days, there was still a fair chance of the Test match ending in a decisive result, given better weather on days four and five. At stumps on day two, New Zealand were trailing Bangladesh's first-innings total of 289 by 29 runs, with three wickets in hand, having lost three quick wickets to Shakib Al Hasan's left-arm spin.
Day 4
New Zealand 354 and 111 for 1 beat Bangladesh 289 and 173 by nine wickets
For the second time in successive Test matches, Bangladesh imploded in the second innings after holding their own in a neck-and-neck first innings battle. Once again, their batsmen played a significant role in their own downfall. Having started the day on level terms, they conceded a lead of 65, before collapsing spectacularly in their second innings, with the bulk of their batsmen gifting New Zealand their wicket.
Set a target of 109, New Zealand romped to a nine-wicket win in 18.4 overs, with the promotion of Colin de Grandhomme - who struck an unbeaten 33 off 15 balls, with four sixes including two in two balls off Nazmul Hossain Shanto to seal the win - ensuring they completed the job on the fourth day itself, some ten minutes into the half-hour extension.
After a third day lost to rain, the fourth had begun with Henry Nicholls falling two short of a maiden Test hundred and helping New Zealand gain a first-innings lead of 65. It was a useful lead, but only that. Given New Zealand had to bat last, the match was still in the balance when Bangladesh began their second innings towards the tail-end of an extended first session. By tea, however, they were halfway through yet another second-innings meltdown, and were 100 for 5 - effectively 35 for 5 - with only one of their wickets falling to a defensive shot.
Bangladesh lost Tamim Iqbal inside the 10 overs they needed to bat out before lunch, the stand-in captain top-edging a hook off Tim Southee. After the break came a period of calm, with Soumya Sarkar stroking the ball fluently and Mahmudullah defending resolutely during a second-wicket stand of 41. With Bangladesh seven runs short of wiping out their deficit, though, Sarkar attempted to steer Colin de Grandhomme to third man - a risky proposition given three fielders in the cordon - and middled the ball to gully.
Shakib Al Hasan edged his first ball between second slip and gully, trying a similar open-faced steer, and reached out a long way from his body to try and cut the next ball. Raval put down a straightforward low chance. If anyone thought that moment would cause Shakib to thank his lucky stars and knuckle down, they were wrong; having only faced four more balls, he tried to cut Southee without making any attempt to keep the ball down, and guided the ball straight to backward point.
Ten overs later, Mahmudullah - who had seen off a period of good-length bowling and another of short-pitched bowling from Southee and Neil Wagner - tried to drive Wagner on the up, and chopped on. By now it looked as if the next wicket could come off any ball. Walking down the pitch to de Grandhomme, Nazmul Hossain Shanto somehow survived despite playing a series of wafts outside off. Sabbir Rahman swished and missed twice, while still on 0, against Wagner.
Something had to give, and finally a wicket came off a wicket-taking ball, off what turned out to be the last ball before tea, Sabbir caught behind off the shoulder of his bat when Wagner got one to rise awkwardly in the corridor.
Within 7.3 overs of the final session, 100 for 5 had become 115 for 8, with the short ball sending off Nurul Hasan and Mehedi Hasan either side of a scorching Trent Boult yorker that took out Nazmul's middle stump. Then came Bangladesh's biggest partnership - 51 in eight overs - as Taskin Ahmed and Kamrul Islam Rabbi backed away from their stumps and swung at New Zealand's overdone short-ball attack, before Boult ended it with another yorker. Southee ensured each of New Zealand's three frontline quicks finished with three-fors, Rubel Hossain top-edging a pull to the keeper. Bangladesh had only lasted 52.5 overs in their final innings of the tour.
How different things had been at the start of the day's play, with New Zealand 260 for 7 in their first innings, trailing by 29 runs. They turned that deficit into a lead of 65 thanks to Nicholls, who added 30 for the eighth wicket with Tim Southee and 57 for the ninth with Neil Wagner.
Runs flowed freely at the start of the day's play, with 20 coming off the first four overs, and Mehedi giving New Zealand a helping hand by dropping Southee at second slip off Kamrul. It didn't prove too costly, with Southee only adding two runs to his score before driving Shakib Al Hasan uppishly to short extra-cover, where Mehedi made amends with a sharp grab.
Bangladesh's next fielding lapse, however, was more expensive. Extra bounce from Taskin Ahmed with the second new ball forced Wagner to fend to gully, where Nazmul put down a regulation chance. Next ball, Taskin had a loud lbw appeal upheld after straightening one into the left-hander from right-arm over, only for a review to earn the batsman the most marginal of reprieves, with the ball falling millimeters foul of the thin line between "pitching outside leg stump" and "umpire's call".
Nicholls was already in his groove by then, driving Kamrul for successive fours either side of cover, and Wagner joined in the fun with glances to the fine leg boundary when Taskin and Rubel Hossain strayed onto his legs. Then, with a century in sight, Nicholls came down the track to Mehedi, got too close to the pitch of the ball, and dragged an attempted cover drive back into his stumps off the bottom edge. Trent Boult then lofted Mehedi for a big six over long-on, before the innings ended in unusual circumstances, with Wagner run out when he was past the crease but airborne.
Sunday 22 January 2017
2nd T20 SA 1-1 SL
South Africa 113 (19.3/20 ov)
Sri Lanka 119/7 (19.4/20 ov)
Sri Lanka won by 3 wickets (with 2 balls remaining)
It has taken almost a month but Sri Lanka were finally made to feel welcome in South Africa on an unusually cracked, dry Wanderers surface and they made themselves completely at home. They earned their first win on the tour and leveled the three-match series by bowling South Africa out for their third-lowest score in a T20, lowest against Sri Lanka and lowest in Johannesburg - but it came at a cost.
Angelo Mathews twisted his ankle with seven balls to go in the chase and expects to be out for a "couple of weeks". He could not run between the wickets at the end, but saw Sri Lanka to victory with two last-over sixes. Mathews joins an injury list that already includes Nuwan Pradeep, who will return home with a hand fracture, and Danushka Gunathilaka, who has not played a match because of a back problem.
But those concerns were for later. Mathews' unbeaten half-century topped off a day when he was rewarded for just about every bowling change and, for the first time on the tour, looked a man properly in charge of those under his command.
In contrast to the conservative approach he took in the Tests, Mathews set attacking fields against an over-eager South Africa line-up and got the results he wanted, especially for Lakshan Sandakan. The left-arm wrist spinner claimed four wickets on debut and did his bit to befuddle the hosts, who played as though they were expecting the usual bounce and carry and did not adjust to the slower pace of the pitch.
Had Sri Lanka batted normally, they would have strolled to victory but weeks of being under the pump appeared to have to taken its toll. Their nerves threatened to derail them even more than Lungi Ngidi, who followed up on Friday night's Man-of-the-Match performance with a four-wicket haul. Ngidi bowled at good pace and plucked wickets every time he had the ball in hand, starting with a double strike in his second over.
After Niroshan Dickwella got Sri Lanka off to a confident start, Dhananjaya de Silva pulled Ngidi to David Miller to give South Africa an opening. Two balls later, Kusal Mendis widened it when he tried to hit Ngidi over the off side but missed and saw his middle stump taken out.
Dickwella made up for the early lapses by taking on Andile Phehlukwayo to get the Sri Lanka chase back on track. He hit three consecutive fours off, all in the fine-leg area, as Phehlukwayo struggled to get his line tight enough. But when Dickwella tried to be as attacking against Ngidi, he failed.
South Africa sensed an opportunity to squeeze Sri Lanka, despite them having their two most experienced batsmen at the crease. Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal did not find the boundary for six overs while Imran Tahir and Aaron Phangiso operated in tandem and the required run rate climbed.
Phehlukwayo allowed Mathews to break the drought and the Sri Lanka captain then sent Phangiso over long-off to warn South Africa he was not going to go down quietly. Jon-Jon Smuts was brought on in the 14th over and then Ngidi at the other end, by which time Chandimal had had enough of being patient. He went after Ngidi and nicked off to leave it to Mathews to finish things.
Three more partners deserted the captain and Sri Lanka needed nine runs off the last eight balls before Mathews himself showed signs of strain. He raced through for a leg-bye but had to put in a dive after rolling his ankle, and then had to stand and deliver the result.
It should never have become that difficult for Sri Lanka after South Africa's below-par batting performance that reeked of inexperience. The new look top order did scant justice to their call-ups by squandering starts. Smuts was caught at short fine leg, flicking off the pads, and Theunis de Bruyn handed a catch to deep square leg to put South Africa in early trouble at 13 for 2 in the fourth over. Mangaliso Mosehle, who was promoted to No. 4, was caught behind chasing a wide ball off Sandakan's first delivery.
Heino Kuhn showed slightly more composure but when his assault on spin ended - he went after a Sandakan googly that beat his outside edge and was stumped - South Africa sunk deeper. De Silva had Miller caught at slip, trying to sweep a ball that gripped and turned, and Sandakan removed the two allrounders, Wayne Parnell and Andile Phehlukwayo, in the space of three balls, both reverse-sweeping. South Africa were 74 for 7 in the 12th over and it was up to Behardien to try and get them to something respectable.
He had Phangiso for company and they shared in the best partnership of the innings - 33 for the eighth wicket - during which they identified Asela Gunaratne as the man to target. He tried to take pace off the ball but did not threaten with his lengths and South Africa got away with a few.
Just as it seemed South Africa were settling, Mathews brought left-armer Isuru Udana back and Behardien was caught off an inside edge attempting an expansive drive. Tahir and Phangiso could not last the full complement of overs and South Africa were bowled out halfway through the final over. They would have known their total was unlikely to be enough but might not have expected it to be so close.and.
Sri Lanka 119/7 (19.4/20 ov)
Sri Lanka won by 3 wickets (with 2 balls remaining)
It has taken almost a month but Sri Lanka were finally made to feel welcome in South Africa on an unusually cracked, dry Wanderers surface and they made themselves completely at home. They earned their first win on the tour and leveled the three-match series by bowling South Africa out for their third-lowest score in a T20, lowest against Sri Lanka and lowest in Johannesburg - but it came at a cost.
Angelo Mathews twisted his ankle with seven balls to go in the chase and expects to be out for a "couple of weeks". He could not run between the wickets at the end, but saw Sri Lanka to victory with two last-over sixes. Mathews joins an injury list that already includes Nuwan Pradeep, who will return home with a hand fracture, and Danushka Gunathilaka, who has not played a match because of a back problem.
But those concerns were for later. Mathews' unbeaten half-century topped off a day when he was rewarded for just about every bowling change and, for the first time on the tour, looked a man properly in charge of those under his command.
In contrast to the conservative approach he took in the Tests, Mathews set attacking fields against an over-eager South Africa line-up and got the results he wanted, especially for Lakshan Sandakan. The left-arm wrist spinner claimed four wickets on debut and did his bit to befuddle the hosts, who played as though they were expecting the usual bounce and carry and did not adjust to the slower pace of the pitch.
Had Sri Lanka batted normally, they would have strolled to victory but weeks of being under the pump appeared to have to taken its toll. Their nerves threatened to derail them even more than Lungi Ngidi, who followed up on Friday night's Man-of-the-Match performance with a four-wicket haul. Ngidi bowled at good pace and plucked wickets every time he had the ball in hand, starting with a double strike in his second over.
After Niroshan Dickwella got Sri Lanka off to a confident start, Dhananjaya de Silva pulled Ngidi to David Miller to give South Africa an opening. Two balls later, Kusal Mendis widened it when he tried to hit Ngidi over the off side but missed and saw his middle stump taken out.
Dickwella made up for the early lapses by taking on Andile Phehlukwayo to get the Sri Lanka chase back on track. He hit three consecutive fours off, all in the fine-leg area, as Phehlukwayo struggled to get his line tight enough. But when Dickwella tried to be as attacking against Ngidi, he failed.
South Africa sensed an opportunity to squeeze Sri Lanka, despite them having their two most experienced batsmen at the crease. Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal did not find the boundary for six overs while Imran Tahir and Aaron Phangiso operated in tandem and the required run rate climbed.
Phehlukwayo allowed Mathews to break the drought and the Sri Lanka captain then sent Phangiso over long-off to warn South Africa he was not going to go down quietly. Jon-Jon Smuts was brought on in the 14th over and then Ngidi at the other end, by which time Chandimal had had enough of being patient. He went after Ngidi and nicked off to leave it to Mathews to finish things.
Three more partners deserted the captain and Sri Lanka needed nine runs off the last eight balls before Mathews himself showed signs of strain. He raced through for a leg-bye but had to put in a dive after rolling his ankle, and then had to stand and deliver the result.
It should never have become that difficult for Sri Lanka after South Africa's below-par batting performance that reeked of inexperience. The new look top order did scant justice to their call-ups by squandering starts. Smuts was caught at short fine leg, flicking off the pads, and Theunis de Bruyn handed a catch to deep square leg to put South Africa in early trouble at 13 for 2 in the fourth over. Mangaliso Mosehle, who was promoted to No. 4, was caught behind chasing a wide ball off Sandakan's first delivery.
Heino Kuhn showed slightly more composure but when his assault on spin ended - he went after a Sandakan googly that beat his outside edge and was stumped - South Africa sunk deeper. De Silva had Miller caught at slip, trying to sweep a ball that gripped and turned, and Sandakan removed the two allrounders, Wayne Parnell and Andile Phehlukwayo, in the space of three balls, both reverse-sweeping. South Africa were 74 for 7 in the 12th over and it was up to Behardien to try and get them to something respectable.
He had Phangiso for company and they shared in the best partnership of the innings - 33 for the eighth wicket - during which they identified Asela Gunaratne as the man to target. He tried to take pace off the ball but did not threaten with his lengths and South Africa got away with a few.
Just as it seemed South Africa were settling, Mathews brought left-armer Isuru Udana back and Behardien was caught off an inside edge attempting an expansive drive. Tahir and Phangiso could not last the full complement of overs and South Africa were bowled out halfway through the final over. They would have known their total was unlikely to be enough but might not have expected it to be so close.and.
4th ODI AUS 3-1 PAK, 3rd ODI IND 2-1 ENG
Australia 353/6 (50.0 ov)
Pakistan 267 (43.5 ov)
Australia won by 86 runs
A David Warner hundred. A catalogue of Pakistan fielding errors. A big win for Australia. It was as if the fourth one-day international in Sydney was a recap of the Test campaign earlier this summer. Certainly the result was the same - a series victory for Australia. Unlike in the Tests, Pakistan at least tasted success in this series, having won in Melbourne, but the best they can now hope for is to win the dead rubber in Adelaide and finish 2-3.
This was a match that got away from Pakistan early. Warner raced to a half-century from 35 deliveries, and together with Steven Smith lifted the score to 1 for 212 in the 36th over. Glenn Maxwell and Travis Head then built on that platform as Australia plundered 118 from the final 10 overs. Smith, Maxwell and Head all benefited from Pakistan's awful catching, and the target of 354 would have required the highest successful ODI chase ever on Australian soil.
It was too much for Pakistan. Far too much. Only if Sharjeel Khan had sustained his early striking would Pakistan have had a hope, but his dismissal summed up the difference between the two sides. On 74 from 46 deliveries, Sharjeel slog-swept Adam Zampa to deep midwicket, looking for his fourth six of the innings. But Warner, running around the boundary, showed perfect judgment to take the catch and effectively dash Pakistan's chances.
Compare that to a chance that Sharjeel himself had in the deep earlier in the day, when Head skied one off Junaid Khan. Sharjeel grassed what should have been a straightforward opportunity, and Head went on to raise a half-century off 35 deliveries. It was Sharjeel's second drop of the innings, after he had also put down Smith at backward point. In all, Pakistan missed four very gettable catches as well as two much harder ones.
There were also fumbles and overthrows enough to make the fielding coach Steve Rixon wonder why he bothered. Pakistan's fielding was more chaotic than the Shahrah-e-Faisal at peak hour, and was one of the key factors in the result. Australia missed a couple of chances too, but took the important ones. Warner snared an even better catch at deep midwicket after the Sharjeel one; running in quickly he snapped it up low to the ground to get rid of Shoaib Malik for 47.
But even if Pakistan's fielding had been perfect, they would still have faced trouble from Warner. He was dropped, but not until he was well past 100. It was his eighth ODI century in 12 months and featured 11 fours and two sixes. He slowed down after his quick start and brought up his hundred from his 98th delivery, but with such a platform he might still have been dreaming of a double-century when he edged behind off Hasan Ali for 130.
Warner had been the architect of two key partnerships for Australia: a 92-run opening stand with Usman Khawaja, who edged behind off Hasan for 30, and then a 120-run second-wicket combination with Smith. When Hasan broke the stand, he did it comprehensively, getting both Warner and Smith in the same over - Smith was lbw for 49 - but Head and Maxwell proved more than capable of continuing the destruction.
Maxwell was dropped on 8 by Hasan, who had also grassed Warner on 113, and the Maxwell-Head partnership was worth exactly 100 in just over 10 overs. Both men struck the ball cleanly and went at a brisk rate - Head's fifty came from 35 balls and Maxwell's from 34 - before Head was caught in the deep by Malik off the bowling of Mohammad Amir for 51 off 36. Hasan completed a five-wicket haul by getting Matthew Wade and Maxwell (78 off 44) in the final over, but it meant little.
Australia had piled on 6 for 353, and Pakistan needed everything to go right to win. It was already clear that this was not an "everything goes right" kind of day for Pakistan. Azhar Ali, back from injury to captain the side again, edged Josh Hazlewood to slip in the second over, and Babar Azam was well caught at long-on by Hazlewood off Head's offspin for 31 off 39 balls. Then Sharjeel, who had made a 36-ball fifty, fell, and Australia were firmly in control.
The required run-rate began to balloon. Mohammad Hafeez was taken in the deep off Zampa for a run-a-ball 40, Malik holed out off Head, Umar Akmal skied a catch off Mitchell Starc for 11, and Mohammad Rizwan was trapped lbw by Zampa for 10. Then came the formalities of wrapping up the tail: Amir was caught behind off Pat Cummins for 5, Imad Wasim tickled a catch behind off Hazlewood for 25, and next ball Hazlewood bowled Junaid for a golden duck.
Australia had completed an 86-run win and secured the series. Warner was rightly named Man of the Match; his hundred set up Australia's total and his two catches highlighted the chasm in the fielding of the two sides. Australia can now head to Adelaide to celebrate the final match on Australia Day; Pakistan look ready for home already.
England 321/8 beat India 316/9 by 5 runs
Chris Woakes pulled off the Kolkata grandstand finish that had eluded his team-mate, Ben Stokes, in last year's World T20 final, as he held his nerve in the face of a supreme onslaught from India's man of the moment, Kedar Jadhav, and delivered for England their first victory in India in eight matches and more than 10 weeks of touring.
The end, when it came, was anticlimactic to all but the 11 relieved Englishmen in the outfield, and their nerve-shredded dressing room. With 16 runs to defend, Woakes recovered from being slammed for six and four in the first two deliveries of the game's final over to chalk up four consecutive dot-balls, including the vital scalp of Jadhav for 90 from 75 balls, to seal a consolation win in the three-match ODI series.
It was a supremely hard-earned victory at the end of an extraordinary series that has featured a grand total of 2090 runs in six innings - a record for a three-match rubber. And England's effort was all the more impressive given that they lost the toss (and with it the chance to pace their innings against a measurable end-point) as well as one of their frontline seamers, David Willey, who had to withdraw from the attack with a shoulder injury after two overs.
However, thanks to another tapestry of hard-hitting cameos all down the order - from Jason Roy against the new ball to Woakes and Stokes at the death - England ended up with just enough runs on the board. And when 321 for 8 on a sporty seamer's surface equals "just enough", you know the format has entered a new dimension.
The foundations of England's victory were laid by the opening pair of Roy and Sam Billings, who was playing in his first match of the series after Alex Hales' withdrawal with a broken hand. From the outset, India's seamers found bounce and movement from a probing line and length outside off stump to force a naturally aggressive duo to sit tight for their opportunities.
To both men's credit, they did just that. Roy once again took the lead with his third fifty of the series while Billings alongside him played the holding role, contributing 35 to a 98-run stand that was only broken by the advent of the first drinks break.
Bairstow, a late replacement for Joe Root, made 56 from 64 balls to keep England ticking along in the middle over, while Morgan, a centurion at Cuttack, showed once again that he's rediscovered that pocket-battleship power that once set him apart among England one-day batsmen.
The return of Hardik Pandya threatened another decisive momentum swing, as he picked off both set batsmen, plus a slightly subdued Jos Buttler, in a brilliant six-over spell that proved both incisive and restrictive. England, however, no longer know how to stop attacking in the closing overs, and Stokes in particular served notice of his intention to banish the memories of his last visit to Kolkata. He finished unbeaten on 57 from 39 balls, with Woakes chipping in with 34 from 19, as England posted a total that would have counted as formidable in any series.
Nevertheless, having demonstrated the potency with the new-ball in defeat at Pune and Cuttack, the onus was on England's seamers to strike hard and strike fast in the most favourable conditions they had encountered all winter. And they should, by rights, have done so with the very first delivery, when Woakes was shown on replay to have grazed Ajinkya Rahane's glove with an off-stump lifter, but nobody thought to appeal.
Rahane, however, did not detain them for long. He had been brought in as a replacement for the out-of-sorts Shikhar Dhawan, but managed just 1 from six balls before being bowled by a big inswinger from the left-arm seam of David Willey. Willey, however, struggled with his line, conceding five wides in two overs before clutching at his shoulder and leaving the field for treatment, never to return.
His departure could have been a devastating blow for England in less conducive conditions, but fortunately their remaining four seamers closed ranks to good effect, allowing the spinner Moeen Ali to get through an impressive eight-over spell of Jadeja-esque pace and purpose that covered off Willey's remaining workload.
But India, true to their current form and reputation, just kept coming. KL Rahul took a block-or-blast approach against the new ball, slotting a monstrous six over the covers in Woakes' first over before falling to a similarly aggressive wallop when Jake Ball entered the attack as Willey's replacement in the sixth.
Virat Kohli, inevitably, proved a different class of opponent, as he calibrated the conditions in his inimitably forensic fashion, and set about pacing the chase with his second half-century of the series. On 35, Ball at deep backward square dropped a clanger as Plunkett banged in a bouncer - a terrible miss from a fielder who clearly had too long to think about the stature of the man who had launched the ball his way - but for once such a let-off wasn't overly costly.
Where Pune and Cuttack had offered nothing but misery once the hardness had gone from the new ball, Kolkata kept on giving if the seamers were willing to bend their backs. And, in the 20th over, Stokes struck the big blow, luring Kohli into the drive with a bit of width outside off, for Buttler to complete a high take to his right as the ball kicked off the outside edge.
Yuvraj Singh kept India's innings ticking along for a while, climbing into a rare Moeen long-hop to batter a huge six over midwicket. But, on 45, he aimed in the same direction off the extra pace of Plunkett, and could only pick out Billings on the edge of the rope, who silenced a raucous crowd with a simply judged take.
MS Dhoni, too, was a victim of that extra spring in the pitch, as he climbed into a drive against Ball to snick another flying edge to Buttler. However, before his departure, he had demonstrated that Plunkett's pace and bounce could work in India's favour too, when he top-edged a pull that sailed over the keeper's head for six. And Jadhav was in the mood to take that tactic and run with it.
With Pandya a slap-happy accomplice, India's sixth-wicket pair camped themselves on the back foot and waited for England to bang the ball half-way down the track. From a dicey scoreline of 173 for 5, they carved 104 runs from the next 85 balls, with a fusillade of boundaries to keep an asking rate of nine an over in constant sight.
Jadhav smashed Woakes for back-to-back fours in his eighth over before bringing up his fifty with a stunning back-foot smash over long-on off Stokes from 46 balls, but Pandya was the revelation on this occasion - connecting with ferocity time and time again, not least with a duck-and-pull six over fine leg off Plunkett that brought up his maiden ODI fifty from 38 balls.
A change of plan was needed as India brought the requirement down below fifty with five overs remaining, and Stokes once again delivered, finding a fuller inswinging length to beat Pandya's ambitious wipe across the line and bowl him for 56 from 43 balls. One over later, Jadeja was gone as well, caught in the deep by Bairstow, but not before he had slaughtered Woakes' fuller length for two of the hardest-hit boundaries of the night.
Jadhav toasted Woakes' final delivery straight down the ground, making it 16 off the over, and leaving India needing a very gettable 27 from the final three overs. Morgan responded by turning back to Stokes - the man whose death skills had deserted him so fatefully on his previous appearance at this venue, in last year's World T20 final.
This time, Stokes responded with skill and nerve, limiting India to four singles - one of them a harshy judged wide - in an over that also included the scalp of Ravi Ashwin, caught off a steepling top-edge as he tried, but failed, to take on the length ball just as Carlos Brathwaite had so triumphantly achieved nine months earlier.
Still Jadhav wasn't done, inside-edging another four past the keeper to keep India within reach, but a diet of low full-tosses from Ball kept his more aggressive intentions at arm's length to leave Chris Woakes defending 16 runs from the final over of the night.
Cue Jadhav's most outrageous stroke of the night - an open-shouldered slam for six over wide long-off, to reduce the requirement to 10 from five, and revive agonising memories of Stokes' own implosion nine months earlier. When Jadhav followed up one ball later with another flat-bat for four over mid-off, Eden Gardens was ready for lift-off.
But Woakes and his captain Morgan weren't done yet, knowing full well that, at eight-down, one good delivery could still derail the chase. Instead, Woakes offered four, finding a consistently awkward length outside off that forced Jadhav to reach for his strokes. He reached, fatefully, with a drive into Billings' midriff at long-off, and with him went the game.
Pakistan 267 (43.5 ov)
Australia won by 86 runs
A David Warner hundred. A catalogue of Pakistan fielding errors. A big win for Australia. It was as if the fourth one-day international in Sydney was a recap of the Test campaign earlier this summer. Certainly the result was the same - a series victory for Australia. Unlike in the Tests, Pakistan at least tasted success in this series, having won in Melbourne, but the best they can now hope for is to win the dead rubber in Adelaide and finish 2-3.
This was a match that got away from Pakistan early. Warner raced to a half-century from 35 deliveries, and together with Steven Smith lifted the score to 1 for 212 in the 36th over. Glenn Maxwell and Travis Head then built on that platform as Australia plundered 118 from the final 10 overs. Smith, Maxwell and Head all benefited from Pakistan's awful catching, and the target of 354 would have required the highest successful ODI chase ever on Australian soil.
It was too much for Pakistan. Far too much. Only if Sharjeel Khan had sustained his early striking would Pakistan have had a hope, but his dismissal summed up the difference between the two sides. On 74 from 46 deliveries, Sharjeel slog-swept Adam Zampa to deep midwicket, looking for his fourth six of the innings. But Warner, running around the boundary, showed perfect judgment to take the catch and effectively dash Pakistan's chances.
Compare that to a chance that Sharjeel himself had in the deep earlier in the day, when Head skied one off Junaid Khan. Sharjeel grassed what should have been a straightforward opportunity, and Head went on to raise a half-century off 35 deliveries. It was Sharjeel's second drop of the innings, after he had also put down Smith at backward point. In all, Pakistan missed four very gettable catches as well as two much harder ones.
There were also fumbles and overthrows enough to make the fielding coach Steve Rixon wonder why he bothered. Pakistan's fielding was more chaotic than the Shahrah-e-Faisal at peak hour, and was one of the key factors in the result. Australia missed a couple of chances too, but took the important ones. Warner snared an even better catch at deep midwicket after the Sharjeel one; running in quickly he snapped it up low to the ground to get rid of Shoaib Malik for 47.
But even if Pakistan's fielding had been perfect, they would still have faced trouble from Warner. He was dropped, but not until he was well past 100. It was his eighth ODI century in 12 months and featured 11 fours and two sixes. He slowed down after his quick start and brought up his hundred from his 98th delivery, but with such a platform he might still have been dreaming of a double-century when he edged behind off Hasan Ali for 130.
Warner had been the architect of two key partnerships for Australia: a 92-run opening stand with Usman Khawaja, who edged behind off Hasan for 30, and then a 120-run second-wicket combination with Smith. When Hasan broke the stand, he did it comprehensively, getting both Warner and Smith in the same over - Smith was lbw for 49 - but Head and Maxwell proved more than capable of continuing the destruction.
Maxwell was dropped on 8 by Hasan, who had also grassed Warner on 113, and the Maxwell-Head partnership was worth exactly 100 in just over 10 overs. Both men struck the ball cleanly and went at a brisk rate - Head's fifty came from 35 balls and Maxwell's from 34 - before Head was caught in the deep by Malik off the bowling of Mohammad Amir for 51 off 36. Hasan completed a five-wicket haul by getting Matthew Wade and Maxwell (78 off 44) in the final over, but it meant little.
Australia had piled on 6 for 353, and Pakistan needed everything to go right to win. It was already clear that this was not an "everything goes right" kind of day for Pakistan. Azhar Ali, back from injury to captain the side again, edged Josh Hazlewood to slip in the second over, and Babar Azam was well caught at long-on by Hazlewood off Head's offspin for 31 off 39 balls. Then Sharjeel, who had made a 36-ball fifty, fell, and Australia were firmly in control.
The required run-rate began to balloon. Mohammad Hafeez was taken in the deep off Zampa for a run-a-ball 40, Malik holed out off Head, Umar Akmal skied a catch off Mitchell Starc for 11, and Mohammad Rizwan was trapped lbw by Zampa for 10. Then came the formalities of wrapping up the tail: Amir was caught behind off Pat Cummins for 5, Imad Wasim tickled a catch behind off Hazlewood for 25, and next ball Hazlewood bowled Junaid for a golden duck.
Australia had completed an 86-run win and secured the series. Warner was rightly named Man of the Match; his hundred set up Australia's total and his two catches highlighted the chasm in the fielding of the two sides. Australia can now head to Adelaide to celebrate the final match on Australia Day; Pakistan look ready for home already.
England 321/8 beat India 316/9 by 5 runs
Chris Woakes pulled off the Kolkata grandstand finish that had eluded his team-mate, Ben Stokes, in last year's World T20 final, as he held his nerve in the face of a supreme onslaught from India's man of the moment, Kedar Jadhav, and delivered for England their first victory in India in eight matches and more than 10 weeks of touring.
The end, when it came, was anticlimactic to all but the 11 relieved Englishmen in the outfield, and their nerve-shredded dressing room. With 16 runs to defend, Woakes recovered from being slammed for six and four in the first two deliveries of the game's final over to chalk up four consecutive dot-balls, including the vital scalp of Jadhav for 90 from 75 balls, to seal a consolation win in the three-match ODI series.
It was a supremely hard-earned victory at the end of an extraordinary series that has featured a grand total of 2090 runs in six innings - a record for a three-match rubber. And England's effort was all the more impressive given that they lost the toss (and with it the chance to pace their innings against a measurable end-point) as well as one of their frontline seamers, David Willey, who had to withdraw from the attack with a shoulder injury after two overs.
However, thanks to another tapestry of hard-hitting cameos all down the order - from Jason Roy against the new ball to Woakes and Stokes at the death - England ended up with just enough runs on the board. And when 321 for 8 on a sporty seamer's surface equals "just enough", you know the format has entered a new dimension.
The foundations of England's victory were laid by the opening pair of Roy and Sam Billings, who was playing in his first match of the series after Alex Hales' withdrawal with a broken hand. From the outset, India's seamers found bounce and movement from a probing line and length outside off stump to force a naturally aggressive duo to sit tight for their opportunities.
To both men's credit, they did just that. Roy once again took the lead with his third fifty of the series while Billings alongside him played the holding role, contributing 35 to a 98-run stand that was only broken by the advent of the first drinks break.
Bairstow, a late replacement for Joe Root, made 56 from 64 balls to keep England ticking along in the middle over, while Morgan, a centurion at Cuttack, showed once again that he's rediscovered that pocket-battleship power that once set him apart among England one-day batsmen.
The return of Hardik Pandya threatened another decisive momentum swing, as he picked off both set batsmen, plus a slightly subdued Jos Buttler, in a brilliant six-over spell that proved both incisive and restrictive. England, however, no longer know how to stop attacking in the closing overs, and Stokes in particular served notice of his intention to banish the memories of his last visit to Kolkata. He finished unbeaten on 57 from 39 balls, with Woakes chipping in with 34 from 19, as England posted a total that would have counted as formidable in any series.
Nevertheless, having demonstrated the potency with the new-ball in defeat at Pune and Cuttack, the onus was on England's seamers to strike hard and strike fast in the most favourable conditions they had encountered all winter. And they should, by rights, have done so with the very first delivery, when Woakes was shown on replay to have grazed Ajinkya Rahane's glove with an off-stump lifter, but nobody thought to appeal.
Rahane, however, did not detain them for long. He had been brought in as a replacement for the out-of-sorts Shikhar Dhawan, but managed just 1 from six balls before being bowled by a big inswinger from the left-arm seam of David Willey. Willey, however, struggled with his line, conceding five wides in two overs before clutching at his shoulder and leaving the field for treatment, never to return.
His departure could have been a devastating blow for England in less conducive conditions, but fortunately their remaining four seamers closed ranks to good effect, allowing the spinner Moeen Ali to get through an impressive eight-over spell of Jadeja-esque pace and purpose that covered off Willey's remaining workload.
But India, true to their current form and reputation, just kept coming. KL Rahul took a block-or-blast approach against the new ball, slotting a monstrous six over the covers in Woakes' first over before falling to a similarly aggressive wallop when Jake Ball entered the attack as Willey's replacement in the sixth.
Virat Kohli, inevitably, proved a different class of opponent, as he calibrated the conditions in his inimitably forensic fashion, and set about pacing the chase with his second half-century of the series. On 35, Ball at deep backward square dropped a clanger as Plunkett banged in a bouncer - a terrible miss from a fielder who clearly had too long to think about the stature of the man who had launched the ball his way - but for once such a let-off wasn't overly costly.
Where Pune and Cuttack had offered nothing but misery once the hardness had gone from the new ball, Kolkata kept on giving if the seamers were willing to bend their backs. And, in the 20th over, Stokes struck the big blow, luring Kohli into the drive with a bit of width outside off, for Buttler to complete a high take to his right as the ball kicked off the outside edge.
Yuvraj Singh kept India's innings ticking along for a while, climbing into a rare Moeen long-hop to batter a huge six over midwicket. But, on 45, he aimed in the same direction off the extra pace of Plunkett, and could only pick out Billings on the edge of the rope, who silenced a raucous crowd with a simply judged take.
MS Dhoni, too, was a victim of that extra spring in the pitch, as he climbed into a drive against Ball to snick another flying edge to Buttler. However, before his departure, he had demonstrated that Plunkett's pace and bounce could work in India's favour too, when he top-edged a pull that sailed over the keeper's head for six. And Jadhav was in the mood to take that tactic and run with it.
With Pandya a slap-happy accomplice, India's sixth-wicket pair camped themselves on the back foot and waited for England to bang the ball half-way down the track. From a dicey scoreline of 173 for 5, they carved 104 runs from the next 85 balls, with a fusillade of boundaries to keep an asking rate of nine an over in constant sight.
Jadhav smashed Woakes for back-to-back fours in his eighth over before bringing up his fifty with a stunning back-foot smash over long-on off Stokes from 46 balls, but Pandya was the revelation on this occasion - connecting with ferocity time and time again, not least with a duck-and-pull six over fine leg off Plunkett that brought up his maiden ODI fifty from 38 balls.
A change of plan was needed as India brought the requirement down below fifty with five overs remaining, and Stokes once again delivered, finding a fuller inswinging length to beat Pandya's ambitious wipe across the line and bowl him for 56 from 43 balls. One over later, Jadeja was gone as well, caught in the deep by Bairstow, but not before he had slaughtered Woakes' fuller length for two of the hardest-hit boundaries of the night.
Jadhav toasted Woakes' final delivery straight down the ground, making it 16 off the over, and leaving India needing a very gettable 27 from the final three overs. Morgan responded by turning back to Stokes - the man whose death skills had deserted him so fatefully on his previous appearance at this venue, in last year's World T20 final.
This time, Stokes responded with skill and nerve, limiting India to four singles - one of them a harshy judged wide - in an over that also included the scalp of Ravi Ashwin, caught off a steepling top-edge as he tried, but failed, to take on the length ball just as Carlos Brathwaite had so triumphantly achieved nine months earlier.
Still Jadhav wasn't done, inside-edging another four past the keeper to keep India within reach, but a diet of low full-tosses from Ball kept his more aggressive intentions at arm's length to leave Chris Woakes defending 16 runs from the final over of the night.
Cue Jadhav's most outrageous stroke of the night - an open-shouldered slam for six over wide long-off, to reduce the requirement to 10 from five, and revive agonising memories of Stokes' own implosion nine months earlier. When Jadhav followed up one ball later with another flat-bat for four over mid-off, Eden Gardens was ready for lift-off.
But Woakes and his captain Morgan weren't done yet, knowing full well that, at eight-down, one good delivery could still derail the chase. Instead, Woakes offered four, finding a consistently awkward length outside off that forced Jadhav to reach for his strokes. He reached, fatefully, with a drive into Billings' midriff at long-off, and with him went the game.
Friday 20 January 2017
1st T20 SA 1-0 SL
South Africa 126/5 (10/10 ov)
Sri Lanka 107/6 (10/10 ov, target 127)
South Africa won by 19 runs
There is no substitute for experience in international cricket and South Africa showed that as they claimed the T20 series lead in a shortened 10-over match at SuperSport Park. David Miller and Farhaan Behardien shared in a fourth-wicket stand of 51 off 27 balls to help set a target of 127 before Imran Tahir took two wickets in his second over to put South Africa on course for victory, but not without Sri Lanka's most serious challenge of the tour so far.
The visitors got their chase off to a strong start through Niroshan Dickwella and Dhananjaya de Silva. They put on 59 runs for the first wicket, inside six overs, before Tahir's double strike removed them both. Dickwella holed out to deep midwicket but de Silva was defiant and came down the wicket to hit Tahir for successive sixes before missing a slog sweep and seeing his middle stump removed.
In the next over, Aaron Phangiso, the only other member of South Africa's World T20 squad to feature in this match had debutant Thikshila de Silva caught at midwicket off a slog sweep and Sri Lanka's middle and lower-order had much to do.
Seekkuge Prasanna kept them in it with back-to-back to sixes off Phangiso but the damage was done. Sri Lanka needed 40 runs off the last three overs, which was not an impossible ask, but lost three wickets for three runs, two of them to debutant Lungi Ngidi in the same over to spoil their chances of success. Prasanna was caught behind off a back-of-a-length ball and Mendis was caught in a relay catch between Heino Kuhn and Tahir on the deep square leg boundary to prove Ngidi's promise on a night the veterans shone.
South Africa sported five new caps, including Man of the Match Ngidi, in their XI and a new captain in Behardien, and made the most of being asked to bat first after afternoon showers delayed the start of play by more than two hours. They rewarded the sellout crowd, who waited in the wet, with an entertaining encounter despite the new batsmen's limited success in their desperation to impress.
Home favourite Heino Kuhn, who was making a return after five T20s in the 2009-10 season, made a promising start but was out lbw to Nuwan Kulasekara when he shuffled across his stumps and missed a flick. Jon-Jon Smuts, the domestic T20 competition's leading run-scorer, only lasted an over more before a top-edge ended his fun. Theunis de Bruyn, a non-playing member of the Test squad, looked the most confident of the trio - his shot arm jab for six off Suranga Lakmal was the highlight of his knock - but he found a diving Asela Gunaratne at point to leave it to Miller and Behardien to give South Africa a total to defend.
Miller had already smoked a six off a Prasanna googly in the over de Bruyn was dismissed and with South Africa scoring at a rate of over 11, Behardien and Miller could take an over to get their eye in. They treated Gunaratne with respect - he was the only Sri Lanka bowler to finish with an economy rate in single figures - before launching their late assault.
South Africa doubled their score in the last four overs as Behardien tucked into full tosses from Nuwan Pradeep and Miller took Angelo Mathews' second over for 19 runs. He brought out the slog sweep, the pull and a swat thorough the covers off Mathews, before unleashing an inside-out drive and one over midwicket off Kulasekara, whose second over also cost 19. Miller holed out to long-on when he was on 40 but Mangaliso Mosehle spanked his first ball in international cricket for six and Behardien batted through to ensure South Africa had enough.
Sri Lanka 107/6 (10/10 ov, target 127)
South Africa won by 19 runs
There is no substitute for experience in international cricket and South Africa showed that as they claimed the T20 series lead in a shortened 10-over match at SuperSport Park. David Miller and Farhaan Behardien shared in a fourth-wicket stand of 51 off 27 balls to help set a target of 127 before Imran Tahir took two wickets in his second over to put South Africa on course for victory, but not without Sri Lanka's most serious challenge of the tour so far.
The visitors got their chase off to a strong start through Niroshan Dickwella and Dhananjaya de Silva. They put on 59 runs for the first wicket, inside six overs, before Tahir's double strike removed them both. Dickwella holed out to deep midwicket but de Silva was defiant and came down the wicket to hit Tahir for successive sixes before missing a slog sweep and seeing his middle stump removed.
In the next over, Aaron Phangiso, the only other member of South Africa's World T20 squad to feature in this match had debutant Thikshila de Silva caught at midwicket off a slog sweep and Sri Lanka's middle and lower-order had much to do.
Seekkuge Prasanna kept them in it with back-to-back to sixes off Phangiso but the damage was done. Sri Lanka needed 40 runs off the last three overs, which was not an impossible ask, but lost three wickets for three runs, two of them to debutant Lungi Ngidi in the same over to spoil their chances of success. Prasanna was caught behind off a back-of-a-length ball and Mendis was caught in a relay catch between Heino Kuhn and Tahir on the deep square leg boundary to prove Ngidi's promise on a night the veterans shone.
South Africa sported five new caps, including Man of the Match Ngidi, in their XI and a new captain in Behardien, and made the most of being asked to bat first after afternoon showers delayed the start of play by more than two hours. They rewarded the sellout crowd, who waited in the wet, with an entertaining encounter despite the new batsmen's limited success in their desperation to impress.
Home favourite Heino Kuhn, who was making a return after five T20s in the 2009-10 season, made a promising start but was out lbw to Nuwan Kulasekara when he shuffled across his stumps and missed a flick. Jon-Jon Smuts, the domestic T20 competition's leading run-scorer, only lasted an over more before a top-edge ended his fun. Theunis de Bruyn, a non-playing member of the Test squad, looked the most confident of the trio - his shot arm jab for six off Suranga Lakmal was the highlight of his knock - but he found a diving Asela Gunaratne at point to leave it to Miller and Behardien to give South Africa a total to defend.
Miller had already smoked a six off a Prasanna googly in the over de Bruyn was dismissed and with South Africa scoring at a rate of over 11, Behardien and Miller could take an over to get their eye in. They treated Gunaratne with respect - he was the only Sri Lanka bowler to finish with an economy rate in single figures - before launching their late assault.
South Africa doubled their score in the last four overs as Behardien tucked into full tosses from Nuwan Pradeep and Miller took Angelo Mathews' second over for 19 runs. He brought out the slog sweep, the pull and a swat thorough the covers off Mathews, before unleashing an inside-out drive and one over midwicket off Kulasekara, whose second over also cost 19. Miller holed out to long-on when he was on 40 but Mangaliso Mosehle spanked his first ball in international cricket for six and Behardien batted through to ensure South Africa had enough.
Thursday 19 January 2017
3rd ODI AUS 2-1 PAK, 2nd ODI IND 2-0 ENG
Pakistan 263/7 (50.0 ov)
Australia 265/3 (45.0 ov)
Australia won by 7 wickets (with 30 balls remaining)
"We've traditionally chased pretty well here at the WACA," Steven Smith said after sending Pakistan in to bat. Perhaps what he meant was that he chases pretty well at the WACA. Last summer, Smith plundered 149 as Australia hunted down a target of 310 against India, winning in the last over. This time it was easier - Australia passed Pakistan's 263 with five overs left - but again a Smith hundred got them there.
Smith finished unbeaten on 108, his eighth ODI century, as Australia took a 2-1 lead in the series. There were important contributions from a range of sources - Peter Handscomb struck 82 on debut, Josh Hazlewood took 3 for 32 from his 10 overs, and Travis Head took two wickets and then hit the winning runs - but Smith was the architect of the victory. Pakistani sloppiness was another major factor in the result.
Twice before he had passed 10 runs, Handscomb was the recipient of good fortune. First he was caught at slip, and reprieved by a late call of a Junaid Khan no-ball, and then he was dropped at point - Junaid had overstepped again, in any case. But for the first of the no-balls, Australia could have been 3 for 46 in the 11th over; the third wicket did not truly fall until Australia had 228 on the board, and the job was almost done.
Early wickets gave Pakistan hope. Australia's openers both fell within the first 10 overs, Usman Khawaja caught behind for 9 off Mohammad Amir, who found some swing with the new ball, and David Warner caught behind off Junaid for 35. But after Handscomb's let-offs, the wind went out of Pakistan's sails, and a 183-run partnership between Smith and Handscomb set the tone for the chase.
Handscomb milked singles and struck six fours, though three of those were genuine edges past or over the wicketkeeper, and finished with the third-highest score by an Australian on ODI debut. Only Phillip Hughes (112 against Sri Lanka in 2013) and Phil Jaques (94 against South Africa in 2006) had scored more in their first one-day international for Australia. Eventually his luck ran out and he was caught behind trying to hook Hasan Ali.
Head struck an unbeaten 23, including the winning boundary, and Australia wrapping up the win with seven wickets in hand meant Glenn Maxwell neither batted nor bowled in the match. As has been the case throughout this series, Head was the only spinner Australia used, while also batting ahead of Maxwell. It is a strange scenario that Maxwell finds himself in, but for Australia a win is a win, regardless of who contributes.
Here, the major contributor was Smith, who looked far more fluent than Handscomb, and reached his century from 97 balls, finishing with 11 fours and a six. Along the way, Smith became the fastest Australian to the milestone of 3000 runs in ODIs, getting there in his 79th innings - one quicker than both Michael Bevan and George Bailey.
But it was the final ten overs of Pakistan's innings that really turned this match. Sharjeel Khan had given them a platform with 50 at better than a run a ball, and Babar Azam built it up further with a half-century of his own, yet Pakistan were unable to make the 300-plus total that would really have challenged Australia. From 4 for 213 after 40 overs, they should at least have got close.
Instead, Azam and Umar Akmal both fell to Josh Hazlewood, who in the absence of the resting Mitchell Starc was outstanding and finished with 3 for 32 from his 10 overs, and Pakistan's momentum evaporated. The final five overs brought Pakistan only 21 runs, and just a single boundary. Pakistan had struggled to 7 for 263, a total that looked only just competitive.
The innings started briskly for Pakistan when Sharjeel plundered 20 runs off the fourth over, bowled by the raw fast bowler Billy Stanlake. A six was pulled imperiously over midwicket and was followed by three consecutive fours, which left Stanlake with 2-0-27-0 in his second ODI. But Hazlewood struck with the very next delivery when he trapped Mohammad Hafeez lbw for 4.
Sharjeel again picked off three consecutive boundaries later in his innings, this time off Head, but next ball chopped on for 50 from 47 deliveries to give Head the first of his two wickets. Asad Shafiq also fell to Head on 5 when he advanced and sent a thick edge to short third man, but Azam then found a willing ally and put on 63 with Shoaib Malik for the fourth wicket.
But on 39, Malik became the first international wicket for Stanlake when he edged behind, and Azam was joined by his cousin, Akmal. They combined for a 60-run stand that should have been terminated earlier, when Akmal danced down the pitch to Head and missed an agricultural heave, but Wade failed to glove the ball and missed a straightforward stumping.
Azam was the key for Pakistan. Although he struck only four fours and one six in his 84, he gave Pakistan something to work with, and in fact scored more in this innings along than he did in the entire Test series against Australia. Along the way, Azam also joined Viv Richards, Kevin Pietersen, Jonathan Trott and Quinton de Kock in reaching 1000 ODI runs in 21 innings, the all-time record.
But Pakistan needed him to turn it into a century. Instead, Azam pulled Hazlewood and was brilliantly caught at deep midwicket by a diving Handscomb, and in Hazlewood's next over Akmal gloved a bouncer through to Matthew Wade for 39. Another stunning catch in the next over, this time Head running with the flight of the ball at mid-off, robbed Pakistan of Imad Wasim for 9.
With the late wickets went Pakistan's hopes of a total anywhere near 300 - and that was what they needed. Australia cruised to their target with 30 balls to spare, and took a 2-1 lead in the five-match campaign. It will take some sort of effort for Pakistan to win the series from here.
India 381/6 (50.0 ov)
England 366/8 (50.0 ov)
India won by 15 runs
Remember the time chasing was hard in ODIs? A second match of this series assumed heart-stopping proportions as a flat track, a fast outfield, short boundaries and batsmen with self-belief the size of a small planet came together. India put up 381, fuelled by a career-best 150 from Yuvraj Singh and a 10th hundred from MS Dhoni. But they only just came away the victors of the match, and the series, as Eoin Morgan responded with one of the great innings by a batsman in England colours.
Beyond the runs Morgan made [102 off 81], beyond his ball-striking and the weird areas he exploited with those whiplash wrists - his composure under pressure was unreal. There were over 40, 000 people in Cuttack bellowing against him. The Indian spinners had done well despite the dew to complicate matters. The required run-rate had nudged over 10 at the end of the 36th over but, since England had lost half their side by then, Morgan had to wait. He was the set batsman - 46 off 48 balls - and his team needed him to last till the end. To that effect, he would defend his way through an R Ashwin over because after that it would be him against the Indian quicks. Morgan was gambling, and it was even paying off for a while.
He made one of the headline contributions in a remarkable match. There were 747 runs, 19 sixes and 81 fours and its final swing took place in its penultimate over when Jasprit Bumrah held his nerve to run Morgan out for 102 while he was backing up to get back on strike.
To get to that stage took a big effort from Bhuvneshwar Kumar, playing his first ODI in a year. He began his second spell in the 42nd over, conceding just eight runs. He could have had a wicket, too, had Ravindra Jadeja been able to take a skier from Moeen Ali at long-on. In his next over, he gave away only three singles and bowled Moeen, who had hammered back-to-back fours to reach a half-century mere minutes ago. The wicket was the result of a little sleight of hand. With the required rate - two runs a ball - suffocating him, the batsman never saw the offcutter coming. As a result, instead of two well-set hitters at the crease, India had the comfort of aiming at England's lower order.
The other big play came in the middle overs, when Jadeja bowled the dangerous Jason Roy for 82 and Ashwin took care of Joe Root for 54. The offspinner then befuddled both Ben Stokes for 1 and Jos Buttler for 10 to rob England of a majority of their firepower, with the side 176 runs adrift of the target and nearly 20 overs left in the chase. Jadeja was remarkable. In a game where runs were scored at more than seven runs an over, he kept an economy rate of 4.5 by bowling wicket-to-wicket. And Ashwin went back to his old ways of deceiving batsmen in flight - Root top-edged a sweep, probably thinking the trajectory was flatter than it was. That broke a partnership of 100 between him and Roy at over run-a-ball. The crowd at Barabati stadium breathed easier.
They had spent the first innings in pure nostalgia with each ball that Yuvraj and Dhoni sent their way during a partnership of 256 in 230 balls. At one end, there were flowing drives with scintillating timing and from the other came brutal swats. No one was safe. Not Stokes, who was winded when Dhoni whacked a ball back at his chest. Not Alex Hales, who was wringing his fingers after trying to get under a pull from Dhoni. Not even the Spidercam was spared damage.
Yuvraj wasn't quite as murderous, or maybe he was and was just a little bit kinder to things both living and non-living on the ground. He came in at the end of the third over, enjoyed England trying to bounce him out on a pitch that barely had any in the first place, and bedded in to make his first hundred since the 2011 World Cup. It came off his 98th delivery and the celebrations made it clear how much the innings meant to him. He looked skyward, with his hands aloft. Then the bat handle thumped into his chest and he may even have become misty-eyed. At 35 years, having spent three years nowhere near the ODI team, wondering what would become of his career, coming back with his highest score had to be sweet.
There was no place for such emotion with Dhoni. He was what the situation made him. When he came in at the fall of Shikhar Dhawan's wicket in the fifth over, he blocked 14 straight deliveries from Chris Woakes, who was the sole reason India were 25 for 3. The next time those two faced each other, the ball was muscled over the midwicket boundary. Dhoni finished on 134 off 122 balls - having been 6 off 22 once - and became the first Indian to hit 200 sixes in ODIs. The shot that took him there - eerily similar to the one that won India the World Cup in 2011 - hit the top tier behind long-on. There was another reminder of that night in Mumbai; the final was the last time Yuvraj and Dhoni had put on 50 runs or more together.
But the clear-headed England that made all the early breakthroughs happen by bowling full and keeping a tight line on off stump fell into a trap. They bowled too short at Yuvraj, who eventually realised there was nothing in the pitch to make him fear such a line of attack. It is true that extreme pace has unsettled him regardless of conditions but he didn't have to face any on Thursday. A one-bounce pull for four got him going, drives through mid-off and cover showcased his timing and a pristine punch down the ground told the crowd they were in for something special. With Dhoni concentrating on staying at the crease to such a point that he barely even thought about runs early in his innings, and a severe lack of wickets, the middle overs became party time.
India hammered 94 runs in the 10 overs between the 30th and the 40th and finished with 73 off the last five. Also responsible for the late flourish were Kedar Jadhav, who belted three fours and a six in 10 balls, Hardik Pandya ,who began his innings with a four and six, and Jadeja, who helped take 14 runs off the final over.
Australia 265/3 (45.0 ov)
Australia won by 7 wickets (with 30 balls remaining)
"We've traditionally chased pretty well here at the WACA," Steven Smith said after sending Pakistan in to bat. Perhaps what he meant was that he chases pretty well at the WACA. Last summer, Smith plundered 149 as Australia hunted down a target of 310 against India, winning in the last over. This time it was easier - Australia passed Pakistan's 263 with five overs left - but again a Smith hundred got them there.
Smith finished unbeaten on 108, his eighth ODI century, as Australia took a 2-1 lead in the series. There were important contributions from a range of sources - Peter Handscomb struck 82 on debut, Josh Hazlewood took 3 for 32 from his 10 overs, and Travis Head took two wickets and then hit the winning runs - but Smith was the architect of the victory. Pakistani sloppiness was another major factor in the result.
Twice before he had passed 10 runs, Handscomb was the recipient of good fortune. First he was caught at slip, and reprieved by a late call of a Junaid Khan no-ball, and then he was dropped at point - Junaid had overstepped again, in any case. But for the first of the no-balls, Australia could have been 3 for 46 in the 11th over; the third wicket did not truly fall until Australia had 228 on the board, and the job was almost done.
Early wickets gave Pakistan hope. Australia's openers both fell within the first 10 overs, Usman Khawaja caught behind for 9 off Mohammad Amir, who found some swing with the new ball, and David Warner caught behind off Junaid for 35. But after Handscomb's let-offs, the wind went out of Pakistan's sails, and a 183-run partnership between Smith and Handscomb set the tone for the chase.
Handscomb milked singles and struck six fours, though three of those were genuine edges past or over the wicketkeeper, and finished with the third-highest score by an Australian on ODI debut. Only Phillip Hughes (112 against Sri Lanka in 2013) and Phil Jaques (94 against South Africa in 2006) had scored more in their first one-day international for Australia. Eventually his luck ran out and he was caught behind trying to hook Hasan Ali.
Head struck an unbeaten 23, including the winning boundary, and Australia wrapping up the win with seven wickets in hand meant Glenn Maxwell neither batted nor bowled in the match. As has been the case throughout this series, Head was the only spinner Australia used, while also batting ahead of Maxwell. It is a strange scenario that Maxwell finds himself in, but for Australia a win is a win, regardless of who contributes.
Here, the major contributor was Smith, who looked far more fluent than Handscomb, and reached his century from 97 balls, finishing with 11 fours and a six. Along the way, Smith became the fastest Australian to the milestone of 3000 runs in ODIs, getting there in his 79th innings - one quicker than both Michael Bevan and George Bailey.
But it was the final ten overs of Pakistan's innings that really turned this match. Sharjeel Khan had given them a platform with 50 at better than a run a ball, and Babar Azam built it up further with a half-century of his own, yet Pakistan were unable to make the 300-plus total that would really have challenged Australia. From 4 for 213 after 40 overs, they should at least have got close.
Instead, Azam and Umar Akmal both fell to Josh Hazlewood, who in the absence of the resting Mitchell Starc was outstanding and finished with 3 for 32 from his 10 overs, and Pakistan's momentum evaporated. The final five overs brought Pakistan only 21 runs, and just a single boundary. Pakistan had struggled to 7 for 263, a total that looked only just competitive.
The innings started briskly for Pakistan when Sharjeel plundered 20 runs off the fourth over, bowled by the raw fast bowler Billy Stanlake. A six was pulled imperiously over midwicket and was followed by three consecutive fours, which left Stanlake with 2-0-27-0 in his second ODI. But Hazlewood struck with the very next delivery when he trapped Mohammad Hafeez lbw for 4.
Sharjeel again picked off three consecutive boundaries later in his innings, this time off Head, but next ball chopped on for 50 from 47 deliveries to give Head the first of his two wickets. Asad Shafiq also fell to Head on 5 when he advanced and sent a thick edge to short third man, but Azam then found a willing ally and put on 63 with Shoaib Malik for the fourth wicket.
But on 39, Malik became the first international wicket for Stanlake when he edged behind, and Azam was joined by his cousin, Akmal. They combined for a 60-run stand that should have been terminated earlier, when Akmal danced down the pitch to Head and missed an agricultural heave, but Wade failed to glove the ball and missed a straightforward stumping.
Azam was the key for Pakistan. Although he struck only four fours and one six in his 84, he gave Pakistan something to work with, and in fact scored more in this innings along than he did in the entire Test series against Australia. Along the way, Azam also joined Viv Richards, Kevin Pietersen, Jonathan Trott and Quinton de Kock in reaching 1000 ODI runs in 21 innings, the all-time record.
But Pakistan needed him to turn it into a century. Instead, Azam pulled Hazlewood and was brilliantly caught at deep midwicket by a diving Handscomb, and in Hazlewood's next over Akmal gloved a bouncer through to Matthew Wade for 39. Another stunning catch in the next over, this time Head running with the flight of the ball at mid-off, robbed Pakistan of Imad Wasim for 9.
With the late wickets went Pakistan's hopes of a total anywhere near 300 - and that was what they needed. Australia cruised to their target with 30 balls to spare, and took a 2-1 lead in the five-match campaign. It will take some sort of effort for Pakistan to win the series from here.
India 381/6 (50.0 ov)
England 366/8 (50.0 ov)
India won by 15 runs
Remember the time chasing was hard in ODIs? A second match of this series assumed heart-stopping proportions as a flat track, a fast outfield, short boundaries and batsmen with self-belief the size of a small planet came together. India put up 381, fuelled by a career-best 150 from Yuvraj Singh and a 10th hundred from MS Dhoni. But they only just came away the victors of the match, and the series, as Eoin Morgan responded with one of the great innings by a batsman in England colours.
Beyond the runs Morgan made [102 off 81], beyond his ball-striking and the weird areas he exploited with those whiplash wrists - his composure under pressure was unreal. There were over 40, 000 people in Cuttack bellowing against him. The Indian spinners had done well despite the dew to complicate matters. The required run-rate had nudged over 10 at the end of the 36th over but, since England had lost half their side by then, Morgan had to wait. He was the set batsman - 46 off 48 balls - and his team needed him to last till the end. To that effect, he would defend his way through an R Ashwin over because after that it would be him against the Indian quicks. Morgan was gambling, and it was even paying off for a while.
He made one of the headline contributions in a remarkable match. There were 747 runs, 19 sixes and 81 fours and its final swing took place in its penultimate over when Jasprit Bumrah held his nerve to run Morgan out for 102 while he was backing up to get back on strike.
To get to that stage took a big effort from Bhuvneshwar Kumar, playing his first ODI in a year. He began his second spell in the 42nd over, conceding just eight runs. He could have had a wicket, too, had Ravindra Jadeja been able to take a skier from Moeen Ali at long-on. In his next over, he gave away only three singles and bowled Moeen, who had hammered back-to-back fours to reach a half-century mere minutes ago. The wicket was the result of a little sleight of hand. With the required rate - two runs a ball - suffocating him, the batsman never saw the offcutter coming. As a result, instead of two well-set hitters at the crease, India had the comfort of aiming at England's lower order.
The other big play came in the middle overs, when Jadeja bowled the dangerous Jason Roy for 82 and Ashwin took care of Joe Root for 54. The offspinner then befuddled both Ben Stokes for 1 and Jos Buttler for 10 to rob England of a majority of their firepower, with the side 176 runs adrift of the target and nearly 20 overs left in the chase. Jadeja was remarkable. In a game where runs were scored at more than seven runs an over, he kept an economy rate of 4.5 by bowling wicket-to-wicket. And Ashwin went back to his old ways of deceiving batsmen in flight - Root top-edged a sweep, probably thinking the trajectory was flatter than it was. That broke a partnership of 100 between him and Roy at over run-a-ball. The crowd at Barabati stadium breathed easier.
They had spent the first innings in pure nostalgia with each ball that Yuvraj and Dhoni sent their way during a partnership of 256 in 230 balls. At one end, there were flowing drives with scintillating timing and from the other came brutal swats. No one was safe. Not Stokes, who was winded when Dhoni whacked a ball back at his chest. Not Alex Hales, who was wringing his fingers after trying to get under a pull from Dhoni. Not even the Spidercam was spared damage.
Yuvraj wasn't quite as murderous, or maybe he was and was just a little bit kinder to things both living and non-living on the ground. He came in at the end of the third over, enjoyed England trying to bounce him out on a pitch that barely had any in the first place, and bedded in to make his first hundred since the 2011 World Cup. It came off his 98th delivery and the celebrations made it clear how much the innings meant to him. He looked skyward, with his hands aloft. Then the bat handle thumped into his chest and he may even have become misty-eyed. At 35 years, having spent three years nowhere near the ODI team, wondering what would become of his career, coming back with his highest score had to be sweet.
There was no place for such emotion with Dhoni. He was what the situation made him. When he came in at the fall of Shikhar Dhawan's wicket in the fifth over, he blocked 14 straight deliveries from Chris Woakes, who was the sole reason India were 25 for 3. The next time those two faced each other, the ball was muscled over the midwicket boundary. Dhoni finished on 134 off 122 balls - having been 6 off 22 once - and became the first Indian to hit 200 sixes in ODIs. The shot that took him there - eerily similar to the one that won India the World Cup in 2011 - hit the top tier behind long-on. There was another reminder of that night in Mumbai; the final was the last time Yuvraj and Dhoni had put on 50 runs or more together.
But the clear-headed England that made all the early breakthroughs happen by bowling full and keeping a tight line on off stump fell into a trap. They bowled too short at Yuvraj, who eventually realised there was nothing in the pitch to make him fear such a line of attack. It is true that extreme pace has unsettled him regardless of conditions but he didn't have to face any on Thursday. A one-bounce pull for four got him going, drives through mid-off and cover showcased his timing and a pristine punch down the ground told the crowd they were in for something special. With Dhoni concentrating on staying at the crease to such a point that he barely even thought about runs early in his innings, and a severe lack of wickets, the middle overs became party time.
India hammered 94 runs in the 10 overs between the 30th and the 40th and finished with 73 off the last five. Also responsible for the late flourish were Kedar Jadhav, who belted three fours and a six in 10 balls, Hardik Pandya ,who began his innings with a four and six, and Jadeja, who helped take 14 runs off the final over.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)