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Darren Stevens claimed a five-wicket haul as Kent ripped Sussex apart on the final day for the second win of the season

Vithushan Ehantharajah at Hove17-Apr-2017
ScorecardOn the eve of the 20th anniversary of Darren Stevens’ first-class debut, the Kent allrounder put the finishing touches on a performance to confirm that age is just a number. With scores of 68 and 71 not out under his belt, he picked up his 14th five-wicket haul in first-class cricket to helped Kent to an emphatic 226-run win.Sam Northeast, unable to fathom just how a 40-year-old, who had to battle to secure a new contract at the end of last season, could carry on this way likened him to Benjamin Button. And as long as Stevens is enjoying his cricket – how could he not after days like this? – he will continue to stick two fingers up at Father Time.Northeast, who had a strong match himself with an unbeaten 173 and some sharp captaincy, left Hove on Sunday hoping for a bit of cloud in the morning. Someone upstairs was listening.At 9am the skies were blue but, by the time the players had walked down the stairs from the dressing rooms to the middle, clouds had taken over. Then, moments after Ajmal Shahzad guided Wayne Parnell to Joe Denly at point for the final wicket, the sun returned to illuminate Kent’s celebrations. Kent’s second victory in as many matches saw the visitors move to second, a point behind Nottinghamshire in the early Division Two standings.The damage was done by Stevens in the morning session, Sussex limping to lunch on 93 for 6. The hosts actually started pretty well in their pursuit of 427, following Kent’s overnight declaration: Harry Finch and Chris Nash put on 59 between them, hitting boundaries at will. Nash, in particular, looked in good touch, putting Mitchell Claydon into the Pavilion at square leg for six. Then Stevens happened.Replacing Matt Coles from the Sea End, Stevens, who turns 41 at the end of the month, took four wickets for seven runs in 25 balls to blow Sussex’s top order to bits. Claydon then interrupted the procession before Delray Rawlins gave Stevens his fifth wicket, edging behind when trying to leave. Not for the first time, Ben Brown was the only Sussex batsman to emerge unscathed from a humbling defeat. He registered his second fifty of the match – from 51 balls – and finished undefeated on 69.Kent got their tactics spot on. Northeast reckoned the pitch had only got better to bat on – a point he made after his unbeaten 173 – and knew he would have to box smart. It paid off.With Sean Dickson unable to field with a shoulder and hamstring complaint, Adam Ball, an excellent close catcher, was pulled out of a 2nd XI match and stationed at first slip. While he dropped the first chance that came his way, diving to his left after an edge from Stiaan van Zyl, he made amends soon after to remove the same batsman for a four-ball duck. He then caught Jofra Archer to give Coles his second wicket of the innings.Pressure was applied with close fielders: Will Gidman, often at third slip, donned a helmet so that he could step up a few paces into a position Joe Root has fielded in for England, termed “Suicide Gully”. When David Wiese was playing his shots, Daniel Bell-Drummond was stationed out on the hook and, soon enough, took the first chance that came his way. Marginal gains contributing to a major win.Northeast was bullish afterwards: “We’re an ambitious group of players who want to be playing Division One cricket – there’s absolutely no doubt about that. If we keep playing like this, we’ll be very close.”Meanwhile, Sussex have confirmed they are “in the process of registering” Angus Robson. The batsman, who was released by Leicestershire earlier this season, could come into the first-team squad for Sussex’s next match against Nottinghamshire, which starts on Friday. While there is no doubt Sussex possess game-changing batsmen, particularly in white-ball cricket, the introduction of a top-order player like Robson will add much-needed stability to their four-day line-up.

Tom Abell, who replaces Chris Rogers, will be 23 by the time the 2017 season starts, making him one of the youngest captains on the county circuit

ESPNcricinfo staff21-Dec-2016Somerset have named Tom Abell as their Championship captain for 2017. Abell, who replaces Chris Rogers after the Australian’s retirement, will be 23 by the time the season starts, making him one of the youngest captains on the county circuit. Jim Allenby, meanwhile, will continue to lead the club in T20 and 50-over cricket.The veteran Rogers enjoyed a successful one-off campaign with Somerset in his final season as a professional, seeing them narrowly miss out on a maiden Championship title on the last day. His replacement could not be more of a contrast, in terms of experience: Abell, a former Schools Cricketer of the Year, made his first-class debut in 2014 and has only played 32 matches.In 2016, his returns dipped to 538 runs at 25.61 and he will now have to balance opening the batting with an even greater workload – although he will have experienced heads, such as fellow opener and former captain Marcus Trescothick, to help him learn the ropes.

Young county captains

• Kim Barnett: Barnett was 22 when he first led Derbyshire in the Championship in 1983 and supervised a period of unparallelled success for the county. Recently returned as director of cricket with Derbyshire once more in the mire.

• Rory Hamilton-Brown: Chris Adams, Surrey’s director of cricket, presented Hamilton-Brown as a natural captain when he first skippered Surrey in 2010 at 22. He led them to promotion, but he never recovered professionally from the tragic death of his team-mate and old school friend Tom Maynard.

• Alex Lees: Became Yorkshire’s youngest appointed captain since Lord Hawke when, at 23, he led them in limited-overs cricket in 2016, but replaced after one season.

“I feel hugely privileged and humbled to be made captain of Somerset County Cricket Club,” Abell said. “To have the opportunity to play for Somerset was a dream for me so to captain the club is something incredibly special.”To follow on from some of the previous captains of the club who are listed on the honours board in the pavilion is an incredible feeling and something that I don’t think will sink in for a while. After such an exciting and successful 2016 campaign, I hope we can build on what we created and bring further success next season.”Abell’s age need not be a barrier to success, with Somerset’s director of cricket, Matthew Maynard, citing the example of South Africa’s Graeme Smith, who took charge of his country at 22. In county cricket, 23-year-old Alex Lees captained Yorkshire in limited-overs cricket last year – though he has since stood down – while Rory Hamilton-Brown was 22 when he became Surrey’s youngest captain in a century in 2010.”People will no doubt point out Tom’s age but that doesn’t come in to it,” Maynard said. “If you’re good enough, you’re old enough and Tom is certainly good enough. Anyone who has spent any time in his company knows that his knowledge and understanding of the game are outstanding. He has an old head on those young shoulders and he is held in very high regard by his teammates.”He is the epitome of what this club is all about both on and off the field. His temperament and attitude are beyond reproach and there is no doubt in my mind that he will be an excellent captain for this club not just in 2017 but in the years to come.”Allenby has been an occasionally divisive figure since his arrival from Glamorgan in 2014 but last year he led Somerset to the semi-final of the Royal London Cup. They did, however, also finish bottom of the NatWest T20 Blast South Group.”To be captain of this club is a real honour and I am delighted to be doing the job,” he said. “I think that we’ve built something pretty special in the 50-over competition. We were so close to a Lord’s final and I see no reason why we can’t go one better next year. There is a really talented group of players here and I am excited to see just what we can achieve together.”

The Association has won four trophies this season having also taken the Ford Trophy and women’s Super Smash

ESPNcricinfo staff21-Mar-2021Canterbury may need a bigger trophy cabinet after becoming the first team to win four domestic titles in a New Zealand season with the men’s side clinching the Plunket Shield and the women claiming the one-day Hallyburton Johnstone Shield.It follows previous success of the men winning the Ford Trophy one-day competition and the women taking out the Super Smash. The only title that has not gone Canterbury’s way this season is the men’s Super Smash which was retained by Wellington.The Plunket Shield was secured with two rounds still to play when Canterbury beat Central Districts by nine wickets and Northern Districts could only earn a draw against Wellington to put them out of the running.Up at Eden Park’s Outer Oval, the Canterbury Magicians secured their silverware with a thumping eight-wicket victory over Auckland. Amy Satterthwaite had an outstanding all-round day with 4 for 27 followed by 73 while captain Frances Mackay was unbeaten on 94 in the chase.”Amy took all the pressure off me in the middle, she was outstanding,” Mackay said. “Auckland Hearts had a score on the board that could have been defendable, although they probably needed everything to go their way.”We did lose an early wicket, but then to have someone of the class of Amy to come out and steady the ship, as they say – she was brilliant in the way she did that.””She makes such a difference to our side. She’s three players, one of the best fielders in the competition, can bowl her ten overs and then icing on the cake with a few runs.”

South Africa do not need to panic about the decline in the national cricket team’s performances or the structures lower down but do need to devise steps for improvement, according to CSA’s general manager of cricket, Corrie van Zyl

Firdose Moonda04-May-20163:38

Cullinan: Steyn’s injuries have cost SA in Tests

South Africa do not need to panic about the decline in the national cricket team’s performances or the structures lower down but do need to devise steps for improvement, according to CSA’s general manager of cricket, Corrie van Zyl.Van Zyl, a former national caretaker coach, is one of the people involved in plotting South Africa’s revival and does not believe they are that far away from seeing success again despite Tuesday’s news that the Test team has slipped to No.6 on the rankings having been top four months ago.”I am not worried about South African cricket to be honest. Some of our performances this season, I could explain. It wasn’t nice to see but I could understand them,” van Zyl said at the launch of the Africa T20 Cup in Cape Town. “For example, Dale Steyn was not available for a big part of the Test series and we had three youngsters that bowled so there was inexperience.”Yet there was an opportunity for them to come through and look how Kagiso [Rabada] came through. Where I would have been worried is if we didn’t have the Kagiso’s and Chris Morris’ coming through. That would have been a different story.”In the 2015-16 season South Africa lost successive Test series against India and England, with Steyn missing three-quarters of the matches, and crashed out of the World T20 in the first round. Their dramatic descent prompted CSA to enlist the services of 1995 World Cup-winning rugby captain Francois Pienaar, who is part of a four-person panel conducting a review into national team performance, and to put together a separate 14-person group to investigate the state of domestic cricket.Van Zyl is not on either committee but, as someone intricately involved with development, is certain to have some input and the message he will deliver is that things are not as bad as they may seem.Despite his optimism, van Zyl admitted South Africa have to do some soul-searching about how to turn those individual successes into team triumphs. “I’m not turning a blind eye to our performances. We have to go and look at it and ask how can we do better and we have the reviews to look at that,” he said. “We must be totally open and say let’s see what the review brings. It’s an opportunity for us to research whether change is possible and whether change would be good or not.”Part of the changes at the international level could involve the coaching department, where Russell Domingo’s job has come under the microscope. Lower down, the spotlight is trained on whether the current franchise system is strong enough and perception, especially among former players, is that it is not.Van Zyl is specifically tackling this and has so far not found anything alarming. “A lot of things are built on perception, even this thing of there is no depth. We can’t work on perception” he said. “I have just looked at stats and performance benchmarks – things like how many batsmen have been scoring above 45, how many bowlers are averaging less than 24 and going for less than six runs an over, as examples -and what we do is track the depth and pull it back over a number of years. We see fluctuations over the five years. It’s not that we now seeing a huge dip or a huge decline in standard.”One of the things van Zyl discovered is that the number of first-class matches ending in three days instead of four was up last season but something similar happened three years ago. He is in the processes of understanding why the first-class competition yielded those results and coming up with solutions to avoid it happening again.”If there is a little bit of a decline we mustn’t say it’s just a trend, we need to ask what we can do to change it. Do we need to improve our coaching to improve performances again? Was it pitches?,” van Zyl asked. “We have built in very specific measures to see how things are going and we build strategy on that. It’s important in any sport that when you build strategy you build it on something concrete.”Once South Africa have a clear roadmap to redemption they will begin implementing it for the 2016-17 season, which starts earlier than usual. New Zealand visit for two Tests in August before Australia play ODIs in South Africa, then there are three Tests in Australia and a home series against Sri Lanka.Does van Zyl think South Africa can climb the rankings again?”I have no doubt that we will be there again,” he said. “I’m not a prophet of doom and I suppose in my position I can’t be but honestly, I know we have talent in this country. Of that there is no question.”

The first game will be held on July 22, the second on July 23 and the final one on July 25.

ESPNcricinfo staff19-Jul-2021The final leg of Bangladesh’s tour of Zimbabwe will take place sooner than expected with both boards agreeing to bring the T20I series forward by a few days.The original schedule had the three matches set for July 23, 25 and 27 but that has now been changed so that the first game will be held on July 22, the second on July 23 and the final one on July 25.A press release from Zimbabwe Cricket on Monday said these changes were made to accommodate the challenges that the broadcast production company was facing.Bangladesh have dominated this tour, winning the only Test by 220 runs and are on the verge of blanking Zimbabwe 3-0 in the one-day series that’s followed. The visitors might well consider the T20I series to be the most crucial part of the tour given that a World Cup is coming up in October. Bangladesh have these three T20Is against Zimbabwe, then five more against Australia in August, a further five against New Zealand in September and finally three matches against England in October to firm up their plans for the global tournament coming up in three months’ time.Zimbabwe may not have such big-picture concerns, having not qualified for this year’s T20 World Cup, but they will be eager for some silverware.

Coach Gary Stead pinpointed Mitchell’s ‘versatility’ as a valuable aspect

ESPNcricinfo staff13-Nov-2021Daryl Mitchell has been called into New Zealand’s Test squad for their series against India following Devon Conway’s broken hand.Conway, who will miss the T20 World Cup final against Australia, suffered the self-inflicted injury when he thumped his bat after being dismissed in the semi-final against England.Mitchell has played five Tests since making his debut in 2019 and made his maiden century against Pakistan in Christchurch in January.”It’s a shame for Devon to miss out on the first series of the new World Test Championship cycle, but it also offers up an opportunity for someone else,” New Zealand coach Gary Stead said. “Daryl’s versatility means he can cover a lot of batting positions and he’s certainly got plenty of confidence at the moment.Related

• Ind vs NZ T20Is: Rohit to lead; Kohli, Bumrah, Hardik absent

• Hand injury rules Devon Conway out of T20 World Cup final and India tour

• Rohit, Pant, Bumrah and Shami to sit out Test series against New Zealand

“He’s proven he can perform in Test cricket and I know he’s excited to rejoin the Test group.”Conway’s first chance to return to the line-up will come against Bangladesh in early January when they tour New Zealand for two Tests. He has made a remarkable start to his Test career with a double century on debut against England at Lord’s in June which he followed with 80 in the second Test and another half-century in the World Test Championship final against India.New Zealand will need to decide who replaces him at the top of the order for the two matches in Kanpur and Mumbai. Will Young could be the likely candidate although the uncapped Rachin Ravindra may also be considered as he would provide another spin option.New Zealand travel to India on Monday, the day after the T20 World Cup final, with the opening T20I of the tour on Wednesday in Jaipur. Conway will travel to India with the squad before returning home with the T20 cohort following the three-game series. Players are still required to go through managed isolation when they return home.

Jake Ball, England’s newest seam-bowling recruit, has been given a vote of confidence by two veteran Test cricketers, Stuart Broad and Kumar Sangakkara

Andrew Miller12-May-2016Jake Ball, England’s newest seam-bowling recruit, has been given a vote of confidence by two veteran Test cricketers, Stuart Broad and Kumar Sangakkara, ahead of his possible Test debut against Sri Lanka at Headingley next week.Ball, who has soared to the top of the County Championship Division One wicket-takers list with 19 at 21.15 in four appearances for Nottinghamshire, was named in a 12-man squad alongside his county team-mate Broad, who has witnessed at close quarters his rapid improvement over the past two seasons.”Having seen him grow over the last three or four years, he’s one of the quickest-improving bowlers I’ve seen in a while,” Broad told ESPNcricinfo during the launch of the Investec Test series in London.”He’s tall, he’s got pace, he gets bounce from a fuller length, he’s got the skill to go around the wicket and over the wicket to the left-handers, and to move it in and out of the right-handers,” Broad added.”He’s got every attribute to be a successful Test match bowler. It’s a good move to get him involved in the squad, and he’ll be very excited about joining up, I’m sure.”

Sangakkara hails new SL stars

Kumar Sangakkara has backed Kusal Mendis, his young heir at No. 3, to rise to the occasion in the Investec Test series against England.
Mendis, 21, has a top score of 46 in three Test appearances to date, but Sangakkara believes he has the pedigree to become a “very special” player for Sri Lanka.
“Kusal has a lot to offer,” Sangakkara told ESPNcricinfo. “He has a great head position, he gets into the ball very well, he has a lot of good things to build upon, so he’ll be very special in years to come.
He also expressed his hope that Sri Lanka’s young pace bowler, Dushmantha Chameera, would be fit for selection after sitting out the opening warm-up against Essex.
“He is exciting, with very good control and bowls very quickly, at 150kph. There are some sparks that augur well for the future of Sri Lanka cricket.”

By his own admission, Ball’s rise to prominence began in 2014-15, after a winter of gym-work gave him the necessary strength to back up his talents, and a season-best haul of 39 wickets earned him an England Lions call-up.”He got a lot fitter and stronger, which really helps with his extra bounce as he really bounds in with a bit more energy in his run-up,” said Broad. “I think he enjoyed his experience with the Lions in the winter, reports came back of him really impressing with his skills, as he’s got a lot of white-ball skills as well, and that’s a good place to be.”Ball’s credentials were fully showcased during a remarkable televised County Championship fixture between Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge last week. In a contest that came down to the very last ball after a thrilling final-day run chase, Ball emerged with match figures of 7 for 125, including the prized scalp of Joe Root, caught at slip in the first innings for a first-ball duck.”He’s hit the ground running this season, and it always helps when you get one of England’s best batters out first ball on the telly, doesn’t it?” Broad said. “I think it’s exciting in county cricket when you get people rewarded for good performances, and no one can argue that his start to the season doesn’t deserve further recognition.”Ball’s best haul to date, however, was his 5 for 98 in the second innings against Surrey in April, when he included Sangakkara among his victims, caught behind for 83 to trigger a decisive collapse.”He’s improved his line and length,” Sangakkara told ESPNcricinfo. “Instead of searching for wickets, he tries to bowl the ball in exactly the right area, and wait for the batsman to make a mistake or for the ball to do something that allows him to get a wicket. That’s something that any bowler takes a while to learn, and to have Jake learn that at a young age is very important.”When I faced him he did exactly that, he swung the ball into the left-handers and he can bowl very well both round and over the wicket. That constant movement of the ball troubles any batsman. He also bowls a heavy ball, he’s not the quickest but he’s very challenging in English conditions.”Sangakkara, who retired from Test cricket last year with a national-record haul of 12,400 runs, concedes that this summer’s tour promises to be a “steep learning curve” for Sri Lanka. Despite a squad containing several veterans of their memorable series win at Headingley in 2014, he believes the most important thing is for the younger members of the side to absorb the experiences on offer against opponents whom he described as “the world’s best”.”They are here to try and win, but also they are here as part of a long-term process,” he said. “I think the next one-and-a-half years under Graham Ford [the new coach] will be very important for Sri Lanka’s players, to understand themselves as players and as people, and their strengths, weaknesses and how to grow.”England, it could be said, are currently reaping the rewards of their own 18-month rebuilding phase, with their recent 2-1 Test series win in South Africa and their near-miss in the World T20 final in India firm evidence of the progress they have been making.”I think the huge strides the England cricket team has taken in the last couple of years is realising that we are in the entertainment industry and actually, yes we want to win games but win them the right way,” Broad said. “That’s by people leaving the ground day to day thinking, ‘cor, that was good fun, wasn’t it?'”The mainstay of England’s performances in all three formats has been Root, arguably the most rounded batsman in the world today.”He’s hugely consistent at the moment,” Broad said. “He’s played some really important knocks, and he’s at that stage now when opposition teams will be looking at him and thinking ‘how will we get Joe Root out?'”He does have that added pressure that teams may do more research on him, but he’s the sort of character who can cope with that. Cooky’s coped for 11 years.”He’s a tricky player to bowl at because he scores quickly,” Broad added. “He doesn’t give chances but the ball still runs away to the boundary, he’s got a beautiful ability to hit gaps, and long may that continue.””He’s been wonderful for England, ever since that dropped catch second ball in the Ashes Test,” said Sangakkara, recalling Brad Haddin’s costly miss at Cardiff in the first Test of the 2015 Ashes.”It just goes to show, a lapse in the opposition allowed one of the best players in England’s recent history to rise to the status that he has now. It is thoroughly deserved. He is very good against pace and spin, he’s very attacking, he looks to score, he’s got a good defence, he’s very good on the back foot, which is very important, and his temperament is excellent for all formats of cricket.”Investec is the title sponsor of Test match cricket in England. For more on Investec private banking, visit investec.co.uk/banking

Praises Thirimanne for his commitment, hints at a hard call on Kusal Mendis

Andrew Fidel Fernando18-Jan-2021The quick turnaround from a South Africa series may have led to the rapid Sri Lanka collapse on day one, which went on to define the Test. This was the reading of coach Mickey Arthur, who said that Sri Lanka’s 135 all out may have been a result of forgetting the batting tempo that is required on local surfaces.Due to the pandemic, Sri Lanka have not played at home since August 2019. Their recent Tests in South Africa were their first in the format in over 10 months, and having left South Africa on January 8, the team had only about five days in which to prepare for the first Test against England.Before the series, regular captain Dimuth Karunaratne (who was ruled out of this Test through injury) had said that returning to play in Sri Lanka should not pose major problems to players who have played in such conditions all their lives. But after the Test, Arthur believed Sri Lanka’s batsmen had not quite made the adjustment.Although Sri Lanka lost both South Africa Tests comfortably, they were never skittled for as low as 135. They did, however, recover in Galle to post 359 in the second innings.”The first innings was very poor – it was an unacceptable batting performance,” Arthur said. “I’m not one to ever look for excuses, but it was like we were batting at the Wanderers and Centurion in terms of tempo. We hadn’t changed our tempo to bat in the subcontinent – coming back and batting in Sri Lanka, where it’s all about patience, trusting your technique, wearing the opposition down and grinding away.”We got that in the second innings after we had a long, hard chat after day one, and we spoke about how we’re going to make it better. And the guys responded nicely in the second innings. But it was too late. Even if we get 220 in the first innings, we would have kept ourselves massively in the game. That was disappointing. But we’ve put it right in the second innings.”Arthur was full of praise for Sri Lanka’s centurion in that second dig – Lahiru Thirimanne, whose 111 helped ensure England would at least have to bat again, where an innings defeat once seemed possible.It was only Thirimanne’s second ton in 72 innings, however, and he had been severely criticised for his long-term failures. Arthur had some insight as to why Thirimanne continued to be selected in the years between those tons (the first century had come in 2013).Sri Lanka had less than five days to prepare for the first Test after South Africa tour•SLC

“I’ve heard all the rhetoric that’s gone with Lahiru Thirimanne, but since I’ve worked with him, all I’ve seen is a player that works incredibly hard at his game,” Arthur said. “He’s a player that’s got a really good technique. I don’t know what’s done before.”I can only talk about what I’ve seen. We took him to South Africa befause we felt as a reserve batsman, he was a player that played fast bowling well. I thought he played the quicks well at the Wanderers. [He got 17 and 31 in that game.]”We want him to turn those 30s into hundreds, and he came out here and he proved his worth. He’s a very hard-working, likeable team member to see him get a hundred for me was really nice. Just rewards for a lot of effort that he’s put in with his batting.”Kusal Mendis, meanwhile, may be left out for the second Test, after collecting his fourth consecutive Test duck in the first innings of the first Test, before making just 15 in the second dig.”I’ll keep reaffirming I think Kusal Mendis is a wonderful player,” Arthur said. “I think Mendis will score a lot of runs in the future, for Sri Lanka. But he’s been under pressure – of course he has. We spoke long and hard about him playing this Test match.”We thought coming back into local, familiar conditions might trigger it for him. That’s a discussion we’ll have in the next day or two. But he is under pressure. It’s how you come out of that that’s the key. As a leadership group we’ll sit down and make that decision in the next day or two.”

After topping the runs charts in India’s three-ODI series in Zimbabwe, KL Rahul revealed his determination to prove his short-form credentials

ESPNcricinfo staff15-Jun-2016KL Rahul made his mark in international cricket with a century at the SCG in January 2015, in just his second Test. The call-up had come in the middle of an outstanding Ranji Trophy season, which he finished with 838 runs at an average of 93.11. In the months leading up to his debut, his technique was lauded by coaches with regularity. Even Rahul Dravid praised him for being technically correct. He was seen as a promising Test prospect by everyone. But Rahul thinks that was not doing him justice. He always saw himself as good enough to succeed across formats, he said following his run-chart topping performance in the ODIs against Zimbabwe.”Coaches or your players in the dressing room can tell you you’re not good enough for certain formats, but I never thought they were right,” Rahul told . “I knew I was blessed with certain skills, so I stuck to that, I worked really hard on my game, and made sure my strengths became so strong that every time the ball was there, it went for a boundary.”Though these are early days in Rahul’s career, his game has come a long way since his first appearance in international cricket, and it would appear as if he has been driven, in part, by a firm resolve to prove his doubters wrong: “My advice would be not to listen to people. I mean, obviously, you have to listen to your coaches and your elders, but you don’t have to do what they say all the time. You know best about your game – go out there, be yourself and express yourself. If someone says you can’t do something, prove them wrong.”After becoming the first Indian to hit a century on ODI debut, he said he had worked hard to tune himself up for the shorter formats. “I worked on my weaknesses, made sure I got a lot fitter, because in one-dayers and T20s, you need to do a lot of running. Rotating the strike becomes very important, so you need to be quick and you need to be fit for that. Obviously, if you’re a good fielder, it adds an edge to you. You can save 10-15 runs on the field; definitely, that gives you an edge over another player. The captain always loves having good fielders in the team.”Having spent considerable time in the slips in the Zimbabwe series, Rahul, also a wicketkeeper, has had occasion to observe MS Dhoni from close quarters. He used the time to ask questions on captaincy and keeping, he said. “When he makes a few changes in the field and I don’t understand why he has done that, I go up to him and ask him why he made that change. He’d explain why, what was the thought process of moving the fielder somewhere or giving someone the ball over somebody else.”Also with keeping stuff, I just asked a few things today, because standing behind the stumps on wickets like this, the ball wobbles after it beats the batsman and that is really difficult for the wicketkeeper to collect. So I asked him if he does something differently.”He stands in different positions for different bowlers, and we have three extremely different bowlers. Dhawal [Kulkarni] is wicket to wicket and [has a] very nice action, Barinder [Sran] is left-arm seamer, so you stand somewhere else and Jasprit [Bumrah] has a very awkward action and it can be very difficult for the keeper sometimes. So just few things like that … asking him where he stands, if he’s thinking about different things or he just sticks to basics. Those are a few things I tried to ask him and tried to learn from him in these three games.”Rahul’s dominant displays at the top of the order played an important part in India’s convincing wins in Zimbabwe, but it was the bowlers who set up the victories by dismissing the opposition for small totals in all three games. “I think a lot of credit goes to the bowlers and the way they’ve come out there and executed their plans. We spoke about pitching the ball up because there was some movement in the wicket, and the wicket was assisting the bowlers. But to come out there and execute the plans in all three games was great to see. I thoroughly enjoyed fielding and catching and watching the bowlers bowl. Credit goes to the boys and the way we’ve all worked together.”

Pat Cummins continued his outstanding return from injury with four wickets, Doug Bollinger ended a difficult week with three, and Josh Hazlewood made a strong comeback from a break with two as New South Wales earned a bonus-point win over Queensland at Dr

ESPNcricinfo staff14-Oct-2016
ScorecardPat Cummins picked up 4 for 26•Getty Images

Pat Cummins continued his outstanding return from injury with four wickets, Doug Bollinger ended a difficult week with three, and Josh Hazlewood made a strong comeback from a break with two as New South Wales earned a bonus-point win over Queensland at Drummoyne Oval.Set 173 for victory, the Blues reached their target in the 40th over with four wickets in hand, gaining the bonus point by the small margin of five deliveries. Ben Rohrer, batting at No.8 after sustaining an injury earlier in the day, struck the winning six off Michael Neser as New South Wales kept their tournament alive.Ed Cowan had set up the successful chase with 51 at the top of the order before he became one of three wickets for Ben Cutting, and captain Moises Henriques contributed 35 to the innings. Queensland’s bowlers simply had too few runs to defend after the earlier dominant display from the New South Wales fast bowlers.Bollinger, who on Monday had appeared at the coronial inquest into the death of Phillip Hughes, picked up 3 for 38 including two wickets at the top of the order to set New South Wales on the winning path.Cummins had struck in the second over of the game and ended up with 4 for 26, putting him equal top of the tournament wicket tally after a long lay-off due to stress fractures of the back. And Hazlewood, who was playing his first game after being rested following Australia’s tour of Sri Lanka, showed no signs of rust in collecting 2 for 30 from his 10 overs.Neser top scored for the Bulls with 47 and there were also contributions from captain Jason Floros and Nathan Reardon, who each made 36, but Queensland were dismissed in the 48th over for 172.