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The England coach said he had not been involved in any planning for the on-field verbals and does not believe they send a good image to the next generation

George Dobell in Adelaide03-Dec-2017England coach Trevor Bayliss has admitted he is not comfortable with the sledging that has characterised the early days of the current Ashes series and feels stump microphones should be “turned down” in an attempt to avoid negatively influencing the next generation of cricketers.After Australia flustered Jonny Bairstow in Brisbane with talk of him head-butting Cameron Bancroft, England have hit back in Adelaide with the umpires stepping in between James Anderson and Steven Smith at one point on the first day and Stuart Broad roaring in the face of Peter Handscomb after dismissing him in the opening over on the second day.But Bayliss, previously close to many of the Australia players as coach of New South Wales and Sydney Sixers, categorically denied he was involved in any plans to sledge the Australia players”Personally, from my point of view, I’m probably not [comfortable with the sledging],” Bayliss said. “And it’s certainly not something I’m involved in planning.”But it’s just the way the game is these days. I’d like to see the stump microphones turned down. I don’t think they are necessarily a great thing for young kids watching at home. I don’t think anyone has to listen to what is being said. But it’s grown men playing a very competitive sport and sometimes those emotions boil over.”It’s just red blooded young males competing against each other. Most of the time it’s fairly light hearted. Sometimes there’s a lot more made of it in the press than what happens in the field.”Meanwhile, Bayliss said Joe Root would make the same decision over bowling first if he won the toss again. Accepting that England had “bowled a little short” on the first morning, Bayliss felt they had subsequently adjusted well.”He wouldn’t do anything different,” Bayliss said. “It’s well documented that one of our challenges is taking wickets on flatter wickets. So Joe wanted to give our guys the best opportunity to take 20 wickets. It didn’t work out, although I thought we bowled pretty well.”Look, it wasn’t an easy decision. It wasn’t taken lightly. But for us to win games, you want to take 20 wickets. Joe thought if we bowled first on a fresh wicket it would provide our best opportunity. We bowled pretty well and didn’t get the results we thought we deserved.”And, while Bayliss accepted that Australia’s attack had more pace, he felt England still had the weapons to make inroads on surfaces such as the one in Adelaide.”It’s well documented they’ve got three guys who are quicker than ours,” he said. “But it doesn’t mean they’re impossible to play. You’ve still got to be able to move the ball.”Certainly on that wicket, the bowlers we’ve got are more than capable of taking wickets and creating chance. The bowlers we’ve got are the bowlers we’ve got. There is no point wishing someone could come along with a click of the fingers.”

The neutral fan might find it difficult to look away from higher-profile matches in Australia and South Africa, but this New Zealand-Pakistan series, pitting two closely-matched and in-form ODI sides, promises to be a cracker

The Preview by Danyal Rasool05-Jan-2018

Big Picture

If inconsistency is the bane of Pakistan cricket, obscurity has to be New Zealand’s. These are two sides who never quite seem to get the credit they merit – indeed, the credit they have earned. They both go into this series in excellent form, though you wouldn’t know it by the chatter (read: pin-drop silence) this series has generated. You only have to declare your admiration for a recent string of impressive results Pakistan may have strung together, only to have it waved away with the inescapable riposte, “It’s Pakistan, mate, you won’t have to wait long to see it all fall apart.”The Black Caps’ problem, on the other hand, is one entirely out of their control. Overshadowed almost entirely by their extroverted neighbours, they find themselves perennially damned by faint praise and lionised by verbal pats on the head. Too few people watch their home season – partly because of the time difference with most of the rest of the world – to be with the state of New Zealand cricket at any given point in time. They are well liked and supported, but mainly because they’re viewed as innocent, harmless underdogs. In essence, they are the cricketing version of that most dreadful of platitudes: that nice guys finish last.It isn’t even true in their case. But it is why it’s easy to forget that the Black Caps are currently the World Cup runners-up, and why it barely registered when they overtook the side they face on Saturday as the top-ranked T20I side this week. They have put together formidable results at home over the past five years, and are hot on the back of demolishing the hapless West Indies in every Test, ODI and T20I they played, even while resting key players like Kane Williamson, Trent Boult and Tim Southee along the way.Pakistan, meanwhile, still haven’t disembarked the cloud nine they’ve been on since they caught fire in the Champions Trophy all the way back in June. They haven’t lost an ODI since, and rock up to this series with nine wins on the bounce in the format. However, the limited-overs whitewashes against Sri Lanka haven’t quite convinced some, with this away series being viewed as the benchmark to assess what progress – if any – has been made. However, it would be disingenuous to deny that the Champions Trophy, at least, was won in decidedly foreign conditions, and so Pakistan’s reputed partiality to home comforts has been somewhat exaggerated.This is a meeting of two form sides, and if each plays to its potential, it could prove to be every bit as absorbing as the higher-profile series in Australia and South Africa that eclipse this one.

Form guide

New Zealand WWWLL (last five completed matches, most recent first)
Pakistan WWWWW

In the spotlight

While Martin Guptill has never cracked the red-ball code, he remains one of the most elegantly destructive batsmen in limited-overs cricket. Back in the squad for the first two ODIs after missing much of the West Indies series with injury, Guptill showed glimpses of the form that has seen him regarded so highly by the New Zealand hierarchy in the third T20I, scoring 63 off 38 balls.That doesn’t detract, however, from a lean 2017 for the New Zealand opener. He has found it hard to get going in ODIs, with no score above 33 in his last seven innings. However, you only need to look at the innings just before that to understand why he slots straight back into the side when fit – an unbeaten 180 against South Africa to seal a 7-wicket win.Pakistan’s openers from the Champions Trophy final, Azhar Ali and Fakhar Zaman, both impressed hugely in a tour game against a New Zealand XI, scoring centuries before retiring out, and helping their side to a crushing 120-run win. While Pakistan have often looked elsewhere for openers when playing on slower surfaces, Azhar’s superior technique and temperament see him get the nod in conditions of the sort New Zealand’s pitches will offer. He looks set to have nailed down the opening slot already, but how he actually performs against bowlers of the quality of Boult and Southee – as opposed to the more modest challenges of the New Zealand XI he faced in Nelson – will go a long way towards determining how successful Pakistan will be on this tour.

Team news

New Zealand should field a full-strength side for the first game, with Kane Williamson returning to take over as captain from stand-in Tom Latham. Tim Southee, who was also rested for the last two ODIs against West Indies, is expected to start.New Zealand (possible): 1 Martin Guptill, 2 Colin Munro, 3 Kane Williamson (capt), 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Tom Latham (wk), 6 Henry Nicholls, 7 Mitchell Santner, 8 Todd Astle, 9 Tim Southee, 10 Matt Henry/Lockie Ferguson, 11 Trent Boult,Pakistan may well opt to stick with the side that won the tour game so convincingly, which would mean Imam-ul-Haq, who has started his career brightly, may have to sit the opening game out. Mohammad Hafeez is expected to play his first match as a specialist batsman since he was banned from bowling, with Shoaib Malik expected to take over that part-time responsibility.Pakistan (possible): 1 Azhar Ali, 2 Fakhar Zaman, 3 Babar Azam, 4 Mohammad Hafeez, 5 Shoaib Malik, 6 Sarfraz Ahmed (capt & wk), 7 Faheem Ashraf, 8 Shadab Khan, 9 Mohammad Amir, 10 Hasan Ali, 11 Rumman Raees

Pitch and conditions

The Basin Reserve, which hosts ODI cricket for the first time since January 2016, has historically offered seam and bounce for the bowlers. However, having not seen the ground host much limited-overs cricket of late, it is difficult to predict what sort of strip will be on offer. Rain is forecast for Saturday, but with enough dry spells to allow a completed game.

Stats and trivia

• New Zealand, traditionally considered Pakistan’s whipping boys, have won 11 of the last 12 matches across formats against the visitors. The only loss came in a T20I in Auckland in January 2016
• It has been two years since the last time the Basin Reserve hosted an ODI. The game, too, was a contest between New Zealand and Pakistan. New Zealand won by 70 runs.

Quotes

“It doesn’t change too much. Our roles are exactly the same in Twenty20 and one-day cricket. We’re going to try and have a bit of a fun and get the innings off to a great start,”

The batsman is set to be rewarded for his consistent performances in domestic cricket while Soumya Sarkar and Liton Das, who underperformed in South Africa, might be dropped

Mohammad Isam06-Jan-2018Batsman Anamul Haque, who last played an ODI in the 2015 World Cup, is likely to be picked in Bangladesh’s squad for tri-series at home against Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.

BCB expands coaching staff in Mirpur camp

In the absence of a head coach, the BCB has recruited several coaches for the ongoing training camp, ahead of the tri-series, in Mirpur.
Richard Halsall, the assistant coach, is in charge of coaching the side while BCB director Khaled Mahmud has been given the role of technical director. In addition to bowling coaches Courtney Walsh and Sunil Joshi, Simon Helmot, the High Performance head coach, will assist the players as a batting consultant.
HP’s bowling coach Champaka Ramanayake is helping out the bowlers too. The coaching staff also includes Mario Villavarayan (strength and conditioning coach), Thihan Chandramohan (physio), Bayezidul Islam (physio) and Iftekharul Islam (trainer).
Three other BCB coaches are also part of the training camp, including Sohel Islam who is looking after the spinners.

The selection committee is likely to announce the squad on Sunday, but they are mulling whether to pick 14 or 15 members, with the selection of wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Mithun still in question.Anamul’s recent form bodes well for Bangladesh: he piled up 1077 first-class runs at 63.35 in 2017 with the highlight being a double-century against Dhaka division. He also hit 596 runs in 16 innings in the 50-over Dhaka Premier League before capping the year with 206 runs in eight BPL innings at a strike-rate of 128.75.However, top-order batsmen Liton Das and Soumya Sarkar and quick Taskin Ahmed, who underperformed in South Africa, could be left out.Mithun was not part of the ODI squad that toured South Africa, but he impressed for Rangpur Riders in the BPL. He ended the tournament as the second-highest scorer among locals with 329 runs at a strike-rate of 117.50. He had also performed well in the first-class and List-A competitions.Mustafizur Rahman, who had missed the ODIs in South Africa because of an ankle injury, is set to return to the side. Uncapped left-arm spinner Nazmul Islam might have to tussle with Sunzamul Islam for a place in the squad.Both had displayed similar form in List-A cricket in 2017, but Nazmul had a more productive BPL stint than Sunzamul, which might tilt the balance in his favour.Bangladesh’s likely ODI squad: Mashrafe Mortaza (capt), Mushfiqur Rahim, Tamim Iqbal, Imrul Kayes, Mahmudullah, Shakib Al Hasan, Sabbir Rahman, Anamul Haque, Nasir Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Rubel Hossain, Mohammad Saifuddin, Nazmul Islam.

‘I’m a very fast-bowling minded coach and I guess we will always have to find a balance to see if we get four fast bowlers in the team,’ South Africa’s coach has said

Firdose Moonda09-Jan-2018South Africa will field four frontline quicks as often as possible, particularly at home, as they aim for a more aggressive approach in familiar conditions. After the team’s 72-run win in the opening Test against India, which was effectively achieved inside three days with a four-pronged pack pack, coach Ottis Gibson indicated the team balance will not change and South Africa will keep firing with their fast men.”I’m a very fast-bowling minded coach and I guess we will always have to find a balance to see if we can get four fast bowlers in the team, first of all. We’ll look at things like are the conditions suited to four fast bowlers. If not we try and shape the team in other ways,” Gibson said. “Ultimately, especially in this series and for the rest of the summer, we will be looking to see how best we can fit four fast bowlers into whatever formula we come up with.”The hosts went into the Newlands Test with their strongest quartet of seamers – Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander, Morne Morkel and Kagiso Rabada – and on a pitch with good pace, bounce and carry bowled India out for scores of 209 and 135 despite losing Steyn to injury midway through the match. With surfaces only expected to get spicier as the series moves up-country to SuperSport Park and The Wanderers, Gibson wants to keep the same structure to the side.Steyn has been ruled out of the remaining matches with a heel injury, which means one of Duanne Olivier, Lungi Ngidi, Chris Morris or Andile Phehlukwayo will likely be included in the XI for the second and third Tests. Which one will depend on whoever can convince Gibson they’re up for the biggest fight. South Africa’s new coach is interested in a bowler who is willing to show his fast and furious side.”When you are playing at home, you must play to your strengths,” Gibson said. “If you want to beat the best team in the world, which India are, then maybe we have to do something slightly different to what we’ve done in the past. We have to get stuck in and be tough with the bat and the ball; get in their faces a bit and use our physicality in terms of our pace. We had, in this game, three guys bowling over 140 [kph] so we need to use that and have a presence that says we are trying to get to where you are as a team.”Given that South Africa have six more Tests in the next 12 weeks (two against India and four against Australia) and Gibson’s approach to the team make-up, a logical question will be over the fitness of the fast men. Already, South Africa are one down, with Steyn’s injury, and over the last year all of Philander, Morkel, Morris and Ngidi have had relatively serious injuries.Asked how he intends to keep them all firing through the summer, Gibson explained that he is working on a national plan that will cover all the country’s quicks to achieve their long-term availability. “Last week we had a discussion with the medical panel about trying to set up a a group of people to look after fast bowlers better. I think that fast bowlers are the bedrock of a really good cricket system and if we want to be No.1 in the world, especially in our conditions, fast bowlers are very important to that process,” Gibson said. “We need to find ways of looking after, monitoring, training our fast bowlers better because there have been a lot of injuries even before I got here.”The flip side to Gibson’s approach is that it will also have effects on players of other disciplines, such as spinners. South Africa has never been a country renowned for its spinners but recently, Keshav Maharaj has been so reliable that he is often the only slower bowler included in Test squads. Maharaj played at Newlands but bowled only 10 overs out of the 116.2 South Africa delivered and it’s difficult to see how he will have more to do on the Highveld.Still, with a winter tour to Sri Lanka later in the year, Gibson has provided Maharaj with reassurance that he is a key part of South Africa’s plans. “He has been spoken to about how we will look to shape up for this series and he is very much a part of it,” Gibson said. “He is still a very important part of our group whether he plays or not. Keshav is very much a part of our plans for the rest of the summer and even further going forward because he is a world-class player.”The other group affected by the decision to go guns blazing are the batsmen and South Africa’s also suffered on a sporting pitch. Though they made 286 in their first innings, all of them apart from AB de Villiers, who contributed almost a quarter of the total team runs on his own in the match, struggled. A standout feature of de Villiers’ innings was his intent to score runs quickly, a tactic Hardik Pandya also employed for India.Gibson said he would continue to encourage that style of batting, rather than a conservative approach which will slow the game down. “If you think on a wicket like this, as a batsmen, there’s always a ball with your name on it, then the simple approach is to make sure you get your runs before that ball gets you,” Gibson said. “Try and play positively. The pitches will lend itself to pace and seam movement and batsmen have to adapt but ultimately once you’re there, you’ve got to try and get runs. If you bat 15 overs and score no runs and then that ball with your name comes and you’ve scored no runs then you haven’t really moved the game forward. The message that I will be giving is that when you get out in the middle try as best as you can to get runs before the ball gets you.”

Half-century from Hashim Amla and Dean Elgar also helped counter Australia’s reverse swing in Port Elizabeth

The Report by Brydon Coverdale10-Mar-2018Stumps
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsAt tea, this day of Test cricket was bereft of life. It was not pining for the fjords, it had simply ceased to be. As Dean Elgar and Hashim Amla crawled along at 1.65 per over in the middle session, the only action of note came when the umpires tried to silence the brass band in the crowd. The musicians left the ground – at last, a controversial dismissal to generate some interest – but nothing could revive that particular session of cricket. It had run down the curtain and joined the now-invisible choir.And then for something completely different. After tea the ball started reverse-swinging, the wickets began to tumble, and the runs flowed. From 43 runs, two fours and no wickets between lunch and tea, suddenly there were 110 runs, 17 boundaries and five wickets between tea and stumps. AB de Villiers sprinted to a 62-ball half-century – by way of comparison, Elgar had taken 164 deliveries – and by stumps South Africa were in the lead. Had Amla and Elgar stayed together South Africa would have been lucky to be in the lead by stumps on day three.It was a curious day’s play, not so much slow burn as spontaneous combustion. As soon as the players returned from tea, the ball reversed. Mitchell Starc curled the fourth delivery of the session past Amla’s bat to bowl him for 56 from 148 balls, and in the next over, Josh Hazlewood enticed an edge behind from Elgar for 57 off 197 deliveries. And suddenly the game opened up. As if to signal the change, de Villiers drove the next ball for four through cover.Even as de Villiers moved the score along, wickets kept falling at the other end. Mitchell Marsh, whose sole wicket in Durban was his first in Test cricket for more than a year, snapped up two in two overs, reversing one in to trap Faf du Plessis lbw for 9 and then trapping Theunis de Bruyn in front for 1. Quinton de Kock on 9 was done in by a beautiful offbreak from Nathan Lyon, drifting, turning and beating the bat to clip his off stump.But by stumps, de Villiers had found a capable partner, and his stand with Vernon Philander was worth 36. They had moved the total along to 263 for 7, with de Villiers on 74 from 81 balls, Philander on 14, and South Africa’s advantage sitting at 20 runs. And although he had support here and there, de Villiers was responsible for that scoreline.He struck 14 boundaries and was typically powerful square of the wicket through the off side, also driving and pulling handsomely. It was an innings that would not have been out of place in a one-day international, and if he goes on to turn it into a century on day three it could be the match-defining performance. Already he had delivered South Africa from a position of stagnation to a position of strength.The day had stared with Elgar and nightwatchman Kagiso Rabada at the crease, and although it was a disappointing morning for Rabada off the field – he was hit with a level two Code of Conduct charge and could be suspended for the rest of the series for his shoulder bump with Steven Smith on day one – he enjoyed the chance to bat up the order and struck 29 before he chopped on to the bowling of Pat Cummins.It was the only wicket that would fall for the first two sessions, as Amla and Elgar painstakingly put together their 88-run partnership. Twice Amla was adjudged lbw only to be reprieved on review, first on 7 when he was found to have been struck outside the line of off stump by Cummins, and then on 40 when he had gained a thick inside edge onto his pad off Hazlewood.Amla brought up his fifty from his 122nd delivery and Elgar got there from his 164th with an edge through the slips for four – one of only two boundaries in the middle session. It felt as though while South Africa had wickets in hand, they had also failed to make the most of reasonable batting conditions. The loss of both Amla and Elgar within two overs after tea could have led to a collapse to reverse-swing, but for the counterattacking talent of de Villiers.In the end, South Africa found themselves ahead, the brass band was reinstated, and the day of Test cricket was revived.