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The two-match Test series between these two teams which was originally scheduled for this year will now be played in 2025

ESPNcricinfo staff16-Mar-2024Bangladesh will host Zimbabwe for a five-match T20I series in May, with one eye on the 2024 T20 World Cup. This comes days after the BCB announced that the team will be touring the USA for three T20Is in May, ahead of showpiece event that will be co-hosted by the USA and the West Indies from June 1.The first three T20Is, from May 3, will be played in Chattogram, while the last two matches will be held in Dhaka.The BCB also said in a release that the two-match Test series between Zimbabwe and Bangladesh which was originally scheduled for this year will now be played in 2025. It will be the first Test series between the sides since 2018.Related

• Bangladesh set to tour USA for three T20Is ahead of World Cup

The last time the two teams played against each other in a bilateral T20I series was in July 2022 in Harare, when Zimbabwe defeated Bangladesh 2-1. Overall, Bangladesh hold a 13-7 win-loss ratio against Zimbabwe in the shortest format.Bangladesh will start their T20 World Cup campaign on June 8 against Sri Lanka scheduled in Dallas. They are part of Group D along with Nepal, Netherlands, South Africa and Sri Lanka.

Bangladesh vs Zimbabwe fixtures

• 1st T20I: May 3
  2nd T20I: May 5
  3rd T20I: May 7 (first three games in Chattogram)
  4th T20I: May 10
  5th T20I: May 12 (last two games in Dhaka)

Zimbabwe failed to qualify for the 2024 T20 World Cup, with Uganda and Namibia advancing from the Africa leg of qualifiers for the 20-team event. They had also failed to make the cut for the 2019 and 2023 ODI World Cups, but will be part of the 2027 ODI World Cup as co-hosts.

He says the backing from the team management has helped “take a bit of pressure off” as he makes a return to India’s squad

Shashank Kishore18-Sep-20225:50

How Harshal Patel has used his injury to become even better

Training without the fear of competition has been liberating for Harshal Patel.Having recovered from a rib injury that ruled him out of the Asia Cup that just finished in the UAE, Harshal is looking forward to life on the road again, which will soon include a maiden World Cup appearance. But first he has to deal with the T20Is against Australia starting on Tuesday in Mohali.Related

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Harshal has spent the past four weeks in rehabilitation at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru. The first two weeks were spent working on his physical conditioning, before he resumed bowling. One of his key focus areas has been to be ahead of the curve and continue as the X-factor bowler teams yearn for.”I want to be tighter with my execution,” Harshal told ESPNcricinfo in August. “And I achieved that more or less last IPL [19 wickets in 15 matches]. I will continue to strive for that. If I’m bowling one or two bad balls out of 24, [I want to see] if I can completely eliminate that.”You’re not going to be able to do that every single game, but if I can do that in two games out of five, or three games out of five, that will be a goal worth striving for.”Known for his terrific slower balls and a potent dipping yorker, Harshal vaulted to the top of the wicket-taker’s charts at IPL 2021 and has ridden that wave all the way to an India cap last November.Nearly a year on, he’s emerged as a key member of India’s T20I arsenal. The time off due to injury, he believes, has helped him explore different facets of his craft apart from working on their execution, which is the “tougher bit.” Two of those areas are his new-ball bowling and variations in lengths.”I’ve explored a little bit in terms of the lengths I can bowl with the slower ball,” he explained. “Usually when I bowl the slower balls, it’s mainly fuller or at the good length. But now I’ve started bowling more shorter slower balls which are working out very well for me. That’s one thing obviously.”I’ve also been working on my new-ball skills for a while. I started doing that mid-IPL. Just because in the IPL, what I was supposed to do [mainly middle-overs and death bowling], all my skills were top notch, so I didn’t need to work on them.”So, every time I’d go to practice, I’d take a new ball and start bowling with it because it’s good to have a skill and not need it than the other way round,. It’s just something I’ve been working on and if I get an opportunity, for India or for RCB [Royal Challengers Bangalore], I would love to do that.”Harshal is deeply analytical, and challenges himself to keep getting better. That the team management has been clear of what they expect of him has helped, too.Harshal Patel: My ability to bat at No. 8 is something they [team management] really value•Getty Images

In the 30 T20s this year, he has bowled 54 overs in the middle phase for 19 wickets at an economy rate of 6.61 and 41.1 overs at the death for 18 wickets at 10.17. In comparison, in the 11 innings where he came on in the first six, he has averaged just one over per game.”They [India coach Rahul Dravid and captain Rohit Sharma] have been nothing but supportive,” Harshal said. “Whatever the team ethos is, they have taken precedence over individuals, which is a great thing.”They told me my role exactly. They said, ‘we want you to be able to bowl in all three phases, not just middle and death’. They’ve been bowling me once at the end of the powerplay every single game just to get used to that.”It isn’t just his bowling that Harshal has been working on. He takes great pride in his ball-striking too. “My ability to bat at No. 8 is something they [team management] really value,” he said.”I have not been working a lot on my batting because of time constraints, because you’re constantly in competition. But during rehab, I’ve had a chance to hit 500-700 balls over two-three weeks. It’s something I’ve wanted to work on for quite a while because I really want to contribute in that capacity as well.”What has helped along the way is clarity of roles and backing from the captain and the coach. Harshal believes this is critical for individuals from a mental standpoint, because it helps in better decision-making, especially when players return from injuries.”It does take a bit of pressure off you,” he said. “Because sometimes people make foolish decisions when they’re returning to play. They’re either trying to do too much or trying to push too hard because they feel that their place is in danger or for whatever reason.”But if you know for a fact the team management will remember what you’ve done prior to getting injured, and those performances and contributions are not forgotten, then that gives you a sense of calm or comfort that once you go back into the team – obviously you will have to perform again and again and that goes for every single cricketer – you know that you will hold that place in the team.”As Harshal looks ahead, the mention of ‘World Cup’ brings a smile to his face. He grew up like any other kid dreaming of playing in one, and in about a month’s time, it will all come true.”Obviously I am super excited,” he said. “I will get nervous at some point, but at this point of time, I’m just excited. The two World Cups India have won in 2007 and 2011, I vividly remember where I was and what I was doing.”After we won the World Cup, like every kid, we took our scooters and went onto the roads to dance and jump and shout. It would be great if I could play and if we end up winning the World Cup, to have that circle completed would be a great feeling. But [right now] it’s going to be a lot of excitement and nervous energy.”

Essex steal a march in grim conditions but Bresnan endures for Warwickshire

Andrew Miller20-May-2021Warwickshire 159 for 7 (Bresnan 47*, Sibley 43, Siddle 4-36) vs EssexThat long-awaited return to a county cricket ground proved to be slow, bleak and joyless. And that was just Dom Sibley’s innings. But by the time a filthy squall of rain blew across Chelmsford at 4.30pm to coat the ground in an unseasonably wintery glow of floodlights (and drive away each and every one of the 100-odd diehards at the Hayes Close End of the ground) Sibley’s stereotypically dour 43 from 120 balls had been trumped by another notable returnee to the fray.When Essex won the 2019 County Championship title, amid emotional scenes at Taunton two years ago, Peter Siddle’s presence had been conveyed via a cardboard cut-out in the corner of the dressing room. He had played an integral role in the triumph with 34 wickets at 20.08 in the first half of the campaign, before departing for his Ashes swansong, and then remaining sidelined by the pandemic throughout last summer’s Bob Willis Trophy triumph.And so this was Siddle’s first outing at Chelmsford since July 2019 – when, as it happens, he’d claimed a first-innings five-for, also against Warwickshire – and his first chance to take formal receipt of that elusive winner’s medal, along with his county cap (No. 164, for those who like to keep tabs) during an on-field presentation during the lunch interval.But before he’d had a chance to try out that new headgear for size, Siddle’s impact on the day’s events had been more than just ceremonial. The first of his four wickets took just three balls to arrive, as Will Rhodes fenced to fourth slip having withstood the new ball for 10 dour overs, and Siddle had doubled Warwickshire’s jeopardy before the end of his second over, as Rob Yates lost his middle stump to a nip-backer.Jamie Porter added a third before lunch, as Pieter Malan kissed a beautiful angled delivery through to Tom Westley at third slip, but throughout a grim first session, Sibley endured with painstaking attrition – parked on the front dog like the part-man, part-bollard that he has been brought up to be, refusing to let the bowlers see anything but the maker’s name as he made up for lost time after his early-season finger break.Sibley’s runs were scarce and hewn from granite – a first-ball clip for four off Porter was a freebie that never looked like tempting him into thinking his eye was in, and in fact almost a sixth of his final total came in one bizarre moment when Adam Wheater fielded a return from the deep and winged a shy away through fine leg, to gift his quarry a lesser-spotted seven.Timing has never been at the core of Sibley’s game – although you might argue that his comic timing was spot-on in the circumstances. What more hearty fare could the Chelmsford faithful have wished for on such a blustery and soul-sapping morning, than the sight of 55 runs being chiselled out in 28 overs of the session, with Sibley himself dripping along at a personal rate of exactly one for every over, like the inexorable impact of gravity on the panes of a stained-glass window.Even though he was dropped on 32 at leg slip (a position that Kane Williamson will no doubt have inked into his battle-plan) it still came as something of a shock when, in the first hour after lunch, Sibley was turned inside-out by the ever-excellent Sam Cook to give Simon Harmer the easiest of his two catches at second slip.For the most part, Sibley had treated his stay like a live net. But, on a day when those in action of England’s probable middle order at Lord’s – Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope and Ben Foakes – contributed 0, 0 and 0 between them, the barnacle tendencies of their incumbent opener were made all the more valuable by hindsight.Talking of hindsight, it seems extraordinary that Warwickshire would inflict such a scenario on themselves by choosing to bat first in such conditions, although given the knowledge of what Harmer tends to do on this ground in the fourth innings, it was perhaps a question of which bullet they would prefer to dodge. As it was, a scoreline of 76 for 5, on a day when barely any other contest had got beyond the opening pleasantries, was less than ideal by any standards.But Warwickshire, to their credit, refused to buckle to the conditions. In the 40th over, Harmer’s first-ball proper (after a sighter over before lunch) was blatted high over long-on by a pre-emptive Michael Burgess, who manned the barricades alongside the inestimable Tim Bresnan with a gutsy 56-run stand for the sixth wicket.But just when Burgess seemed to have weathered the worst of Essex’s threat, he was undone through a combination of bowler skill and personal misjudgement, as Siddle nipped a length ball off the seam to pluck out his off stump as he shouldered arms for 35.Olly Stone – who would surely have relished cranking it up in these conditions – didn’t last long as Harmer swooped brilliantly to prise him out for 4, his right hand almost behind him as he plucked the edge to give Cook his second of the day.But Bresnan, his stock seeming to rise as a county batsman with every passing year, endured through two closes – the first at tea when the apocalypse appeared to have ended any prospect of further play, and then after a further 2.4 overs in the late evening, in which time he flipped Porter over midwicket to finish as the day’s top scorer on 47 not out.By then, Essex’s paltry returning crowd had fled for home. The circumstances of the post-lockdown reboot could not be less ideal for Chelmsford, a tight ground with a cramped perimeter, where numerous choke-points render social distancing impossible and so have limited their numbers to a handful. But at least those that were present were able to witness their table-topping outfit doing the needful on the field once again – in spite of Sibley and the weather doing their best to be further killjoys.

New Zealand seamer took 75 wickets in 11 games for club in 2018 season

ESPNcricinfo staff27-Jan-2020Matt Henry, the New Zealand seamer, will return to Kent for the first seven matches of this season’s County Championship.Henry, who impressed during last year’s World Cup with 14 wickets as New Zealand reached the final, took 75 wickets at 15.48 in the 2018 Championship, helping Kent to promotion.He took five five-wicket hauls that season, including 7 for 45 against Durham and 7 for 42 against Northamptonshire, and struck a first-class best 81 from 75 balls from No. 9 against Derbyshire.”I’m thrilled to be able to come back to Kent after having such an enjoyable time here in 2018,” Henry said. “It was great to see the club perform so well back in Division One last summer.”There’s a great group of guys here and I’m looking forward to playing in a Kent jersey again in the club’s 150th year.”Kent’s director of cricket, Paul Downton, said: “Matt is a hugely popular figure in the dressing room and also with our members and supporters.”We are absolutely delighted that he will be joining us for the first half of the season as we look to compete and win matches in Division One.”Matt’s ability to lead the attack, and his proven ability to take wickets in English conditions, make him a really exciting addition to our squad. We can’t wait to welcome him back to Kent this season.”

The Pakistan team management confirmed to ESPNcricinfo the change would have to be made just 90 minutes ahead of the scheduled start in Centurion

Danyal Rasool in Centurion 26-Dec-2018A late injury setback for Haris Sohail means Shan Masood will take his place in Pakistan’s starting eleven for the Centurion Test. Haris, who has had knee troubles for much of his career, saw another knee injury flare up, forcing him up onto the sidelines.The Pakistan team management confirmed to ESPNcricinfo the change would have to be made just 90 minutes ahead of the scheduled start. It is a blow to Pakistan’s hopes of standing firm against an intimidating South African attack, with Haris one of the players in impressive touch across the home summer. Two centuries against Australia and New Zealand had been accompanied by a string of medium-sized scores, seeming to suggest Haris’ career was back on track after lengthy injury layoffs.This is the second time injury has struck Haris on a tour of South Africa. When Pakistan toured here in 2013, an ankle injury ruled him out of making what would have been his international debut.Haris’ replacement, Masood, has not played international cricket in over a year, dropped after several low scores across series against England, West Indies and Sri Lanka. Masood has, however, been performing impressively for a number of months on the domestic circuit since. He scored 161 against England Lions in Dubai last month, and was in contention to open the batting had Pakistan opted to drop Fakhar Zaman or Imam-ul-Haq.Masood had made his Test debut against South Africa in 2013, in Abu Dhabi. He scored 75 in his first innings as Pakistan won by seven wickets on that occasion. Since, however, he has managed to add just another two fifties and one hundred in 23 innings, his career average standing at 23.54.

Firdose Moonda19-Oct-2017Dale Steyn aims to return to action after a year on the sidelines next month, most likely in South Africa’s franchise T20 competition which is expected to be played in the window created by the postponed T20 Global League. Steyn was set to play in the Global League and had been bought by the Cape Town Knight Riders, and his recovery remains on track.Following months of rest and rehabilitation after breaking a bone in his shoulder last November, Steyn started bowling again around three weeks ago, when the South African squad was preparing for the first home Test against Bangladesh. He spent a few days with them in camp in Potchefstroom and has since been working with trainers in Cape Town, bowling three time a week. Next week he will increase that to four times with a view to being back to his best in November.”It happens quite quickly. I go off three paces on the Monday, then Wednesday I go off five paces, but I bowl 26 balls. Then Friday, I bowl off five paces but I bowl 30 balls. At the moment, where I am at right now, I bowl Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and at about 70% or 80% of my full run-up, at about 60-70%,” Steyn told ESPNcricinfo at a sponsor event on Thursday. “Next week, I will move it to bowling on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday off and bowling again Thursday and Friday. And we just up the percentage every week so eventually when we play the T20s, I will going full run-up, full-pace.”After many months of not bowling at all, Steyn is finally finding the form and rhythm he needs to be match fit and, crucially, is not in any pain while doing it. “My arm is perfect, if anything its stronger than it was before because its reinforced with a pin,” he joked. “It’s 100% now. I’ve just got to start reminding myself how to bowl at high speeds because I haven’t done it for a year.”When Steyn was injured in Australia, he had only just recovered from a prior shoulder injury and a groin injury, all of which has limited his game time since the end of 2015. As a result, his recent list of injury concerns have caused questions over whether he could continue his career, the man himself wants to play “until either they don’t like me anymore, or I am not good enough”. He is confident he is fit enough to come back because it was not a case of poor conditioning but an unusually complicated problem that kept him off the field for so long.”There’s only ever been two of us that have ever broken this bone in cricket. To diagnose a time frame for how long it was going to take to come back was quite difficult. It’s not like a hamstring, where they’ve had ten billion people that have torn hamstrings and they say in six to eight weeks you will be up and running again. They can’t say three months and you will be up and running again, six months. I was kind of a guinea pig going through this whole process and the other guy never went back to playing cricket, he was a schoolboy,” Steyn said.”When I originally broke the bone, I also tore my bicep tendon, my pec and a muscle at the back called the infraspinatus. That’s three muscles that ruptured when I broke that bone. So the bone took a while to heal and strengthen but then those muscles took a long time to recover. That’s why it took so long and then when I started to bowl, typical me, I was trying to go from 0 to 100 quickly and I injured a pec. We are finally at a point where everything is strong, now it’s a case don’t do anything stupid. As cricketers we get injured all the time. I go for a run up the mountain and I could get a hamstring injury.”So does that mean Steyn is staying indoors for the next few weeks?Not quite. He confessed that he will still be surfing because “that’s fine” and enjoying an outdoor lifestyle, but knows the onus is on him to prove that he can cope with the workloads of international cricket. “It’s pretty tough bowling 150 kilometres normally. Now I’ve got to do it with a broken bone in my arm. It’s a tough ask but I think I am doing okay.”Steyn is also particularly “excited” to work under new coach Ottis Gibson, whom he met during the time he spent in Potchefstroom and whom he has had brief conversations with since.”It’s the first time in my career I have had a head coach who was a bowler. With all due respect to the previous coaches, they were all batters, they see the game differently to the way that bowlers see the game. When I sat in one or two meetings, I saw Ottis’ eyes light up when KG [Kagiso Rabada] was talking, I saw his eyes light up when Morne [Morkel] was talking; they didn’t light up so much when Hashim [Amla] was talking.It gets me excited because he is on the same wavelength as us. For the first time its also great to see that the head coach is out in the middle when the bowlers are bowling and not in the nets with the batters. The love is being shared a little and I think the bowlers will start to get taken a little bit more seriously when it comes to decision making. I do feel they have a lot of offer. It has been batter dominant for a long time, so I am quite excited about the head coach being an ex-bowler.”

Aditya Tare, the Mumbai captain, lauded birthday boy Abhishek Nayar’s counterattack that helped the defending champions scrape home by two wickets in a low-scoring thriller in Lahli

Arun Venugopal08-Oct-2016Aditya Tare, the Mumbai captain, lauded birthday boy Abhishek Nayar’s counterattack that helped the defending champions scrape home by two wickets in a low-scoring thriller against Tamil Nadu in their Ranji Trophy opener in Lahli.Set a target of 97, Nayar came in at the fall of the third wicket on 24 and then watched the side slide to 35 for 5. He then conjured a fighting unbeaten 56-ball 45 with the tail to see Mumbai through on what Tare described a “tricky wicket.””One person you can bank on during crisis is Abhishek Nayar,” Tare told ESPNcricinfo. “He is a specialist when it comes to playing under pressure and he’s done it a lot of times in the past. The wicket had already started to deteriorate. It would viciously bounce or keep low because the cracks had widened. It was always never going to be a cakewalk for us. I thought we did pretty well to hold our nerves.”While there were inevitable comparisons to Mumbai’s one-wicket heist against Tamil Nadu last season, both Tare and Nayar said that game hadn’t crossed their minds during the chase.Nayar, who turned 33, revealed he was promoted – he had batted at No.7 in the first innings – to counter Rahil Shah’s left-arm spin. “Chandu sir [coach Chandrakant Pandit] sent me up the order because their left-arm spinner, Rahil [Shah], was bowling really well,” Nayar explained. “So, they sent me to try and get him out of the attack and get some runs flowing. The mindset was that I have to play aggressively and take them on.”Nayar was appreciative of No. 9 batsman Balwinder Singh Sandhu, who contributed 12 runs to their 30-run stand for the eighth wicket. “I expected five-six runs from each one of them and if they could collectively get 10, I could get the remaining 40,” he said. But with Sandhu prised out by Aswin Crist with Mumbai needing seven, Nayar decided to take a chance against debutant seamer K Vignesh, who had a memorable debut, picking up nine wickets.The move worked as Nayar smashed a six off the first ball with a “pick-up shot” to level the scores before hitting the winning run two balls later. “I wasn’t sure whether or not we will be able to sustain for one more over because the ball was doing quite a bit and they were bowling well,” he said. “So, I decided to take a chance in the first ball of the over. Because I knew what he was bowling to me – he was bowling that to me for quite a while – I set myself up for that. I just gave it a full throttle, hoping that even if I didn’t time it, the ball would still go out of the ground.”While scoring was difficult, Nayar also credited Tamil Nadu for their accuracy. “It was basically a very green pitch. Initially, there was a very thick covering of grass that made it very tough for stroke-play. What made things more difficult was the outfield was super slow, so getting boundaries was not easy. In normal grounds where you get four runs, you get two for it. Later on, the cracks widened up on the pitch, so it was quite uneven.”We ended up batting in the toughest session of the game – in the morning – when the ball did the most. With the new ball, I anticipated them to come in hard and they bowled really well, so kudos to them. “Tare admitted it was nerve-wracking for him to watch the chase unfold.”I was just sitting in the dressing room by myself with my pads on, with sweaty palms ball after ball,” he said. “I just can’t stay out and rub my anxiety on to others. It is a sort of superstition and a way of hiding my nervousness also.”He also singled out the will to win as a constant trait of any Mumbai team. “In many situations, many teams would give up, or they wouldn’t know how to win, but our history is such that there have been so many games which we have almost lost, but the Mumbai team has won it,” he said. “There is a lot of faith in one another and not giving up. That’s what we showed today.”

Anwar Ali, Pakistan’s No. 9 batsman, waltzed into the belly of a baying Premadasa with 66 required from 35 balls, and produced a cataclysmic 46 from 17 balls, to help prise stunning victory from the clutches of almost-certain defeat

The Report by Andrew Fidel Fernando01-Aug-2015
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details1:20

By the Numbers – Anwar Ali a lethal No. 9

Anwar Ali, Pakistan’s No. 9 batsman, waltzed into the belly of a baying Premadasa with 66 required from 35 balls, and produced a cataclysmic 46 from 17 balls, to help prise stunning victory from the clutches of almost-certain defeat. He brought the chase of 173 to sudden life when he plundered two sixes and a four off debutant Shehan Jayasuriya in the 17th over, before treating Thisara Perera and Lasith Malinga with almost as much disdain to send Pakistan to within eight runs of victory.Malinga had Anwar caught behind in the penultimate over, and another wicket would also fall two balls later, but Imad Wasim was on hand to provide the finish. Binura Fernando had the task of defending six runs in the final over, but Mohammad Irfan pinched a single first ball, then Wasim socked the next delivery over the wide long-on rope to spark celebrations in the Pakistan camp.Long before even Anwar’s innings, Pakistan appeared to be tumbling to a heavy loss at 40 for 5 in the eighth over. It had been Shahid Afridi’s brutal 22-ball 45 that lit the flame that Anwar stoked into the inferno that devoured Sri Lanka. The hosts have now lost all three series in this tour, though in mitigation, they were fielding six players with two T20 international caps or fewer, in this match.Perhaps it was the inexperience that saw Pakistan gain a foothold in the match. Afridi kept making room against the spinners early in his innings, but instead of darting it at his body, Milinda Siriwardana sent two balls at the stumps, which Afridi swung away for a four and a six to get his assault in motion, in the tenth over.More huge strikes would follow from Afridi’s blade soon after. Malinga was tonked over deep square leg in the eleventh over, and Jeffrey Vandersay was blasted over the leg-side rope twice. Sri Lanka may have felt they had quelled the Pakistan surge when they got rid of Afridi and Mohammad Rizwan within five deliveries, and the required rate had crept up to 12, by the end of the 15th over, but Anwar had the measure of the pitch and the bowling almost from the beginnings of his innings.His fifth ball, from Jayasuriya, was swatted over cow corner for six, another slog-sweep carried the ball over deep square leg, before the over was finished with a searing drive to the long-on fence. Next over he walloped two Thisara Perera full-tosses to the fence. Then with 20 runs needed from 12 balls, he carted the first three balls of Malinga in the 19th over for 12. Only towards the end of this barrage did victory even seem possible for Pakistan. They ended up getting there with four balls to spare.All this after the young Sri Lanka bowlers, backed by an enlivened, youthful fielding unit had gutted Pakistan’s top order. Binura dismissed the openers, Mohammad Hafeez and Umar Akmal were run-out thanks to some sublime work in the field, and an advancing Shoaib Malik was beaten comprehensively by Siriwardana, in his first T20 international over.Sri Lanka will feel 172 for 7 was a score they should have defended on a slow surface. Earlier, Chamara Kapugedara eased years of frustration and sent a packed Colombo crowd into raptures as he blasted 48 not out from 25, after Sri Lanka had themselves been in some bother at 90 for 5 in the 13th over.Kapugedara built gradually to the crescendo, missing an attempted glide to third man first ball, before squeezing a few runs into the outfield to get himself to 11 off 13 balls. His charge began in the 17th over when he skipped down the track to send a Sohail Tanvir delivery over the long-on rope first, before repeating the stroke off Anwar Ali next over.He hit Irfan for a four and six successively, but saved his most winning shot for the final over. Anticipating a ball on the stumps from Tanvir, Kapugedara shuffled across to the off side and whipped the full-length delivery high over deep square leg for his fourth six of the innings. Though he didn’t quite manage a fifty, he left the field bat raised, soaking in rousing applause.The rest of the Sri Lanka innings had mostly been built piecemeal by the young batsmen. Jayasuriya’s 40 from from 32 balls was the most substantial top-order contribution. Siriwardana capped a fine first international tour with a useful 23 off 19.Pakistan’s one-wicket victory places them third on the T20 rankings. Sri Lanka, who are still top-placed, have some difficult issues to grapple with. Malinga’s depleted menace after surgery is chief among them.

Pakistan will play two Tests in West Indies in July, while the limited-overs leg of the tour has been deferred to a later date in the Future Tours Programmes cycle for which the dates have not been decided yet

ESPNcricinfo staff25-Jan-2013Pakistan will play two Tests in West Indies in July, while the limited-overs leg of the tour has been deferred to a later date in the Future Tours Programmes cycle for which the dates have not been decided yet. The decision was taken by the WICB in a meeting held recently. Pakistan were originally scheduled to play the Tests, five ODIs and two Twenty20s in the Caribbean in June and July.The tour has been split because Pakistan plans to host India in August for a series that is yet to be confirmed, and West Indies are to host Sri Lanka and India for a one-day tri-series to be played immediately after the Champions Trophy. In order to avoid a clash in dates, the WICB had asked the PCB to reschedule their tour.In order to accommodate the tri-series with Sri Lanka and India, West Indies also scrapped the two Tests they were scheduled to play with Sri Lanka in May, which was also clashing with the IPL.Pakistan last toured West Indies in 2011 for one Twenty 20, five ODIs and two Tests.

Peter Roebuck fell to his death from his Cape Town hotel room while being questioned by police about an alleged sexual assault, it has been reported

ESPNcricinfo staff13-Nov-2011Peter Roebuck fell to his death from his Cape Town hotel room while being questioned by police about an alleged sexual assault, it has been reported. A police statement said the circumstances surrounding Roebuck’s suicide were being investigated.Western Cape provincial police spokesperson Frederick van Wyk was quoted by Reuters as saying that “a cricket commentator committed suicide by jumping from the sixth floor of his hotel.” He died on impact.A report in the , Roebuck’s employers, said he was questioned in his room at the Southern Sun Hotel by a Cape Town detective and a uniformed police officer from the sexual crimes unit from around 9 pm.Roebuck, who the report said was agitated, asked a fellow cricket journalist for help. ”Can you come down to my room quickly? I’ve got a problem,” he said. He asked for help to find a lawyer and for contact to be made with the students he helped to house in Pietermaritzburg, near Durban.Minutes later, the reported, Roebuck fell to his death from a window. It is believed only the uniformed officer was in the room. Paramedics rushed to the hotel but Roebuck was pronounced dead.Police established a crime scene and took personal items from the room, including a laptop.Colonel Vishnu Naidoo of the South African Police Services, told ESPNcricinfo that they suspect no foul play and that it was a suicide. He said there would be an inquest, after which the SAPS would make a statement; he said he expected that to be “next month”.In 2001 Roebuck received a suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to common assault for caning three young South African cricketers he had been coaching. ”Obviously I misjudged the mood and that was my mistake and my responsibility, and I accept that,” he’d said at the time.