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Steven Croft’s second successive century and some devastating new-ball bowling helped Lancashire seize control of their Championship match against Worcestershire at Blackpool

17-Aug-2011
Scorecard
Steven Croft’s second successive century and some devastating new-ball bowling helped Lancashire seize control of their Championship match against Worcestershire at Blackpool. Returning to his home club, Croft made 107 off 111 balls as Glen Chapple’s batsmen scored 282 in their first innings. That total looked formidable as Worcestershire slumped to 21 for 5 before Aneesh Kapil and Gareth Andrew guided their side to 77 for 5 at the close.In a dramatic last 90 minutes of the day, Chapple took three wickets and Kyle Hogg two more as the visitors’ top order had no answer to late swing and sharp movement off the Stanley Park wicket. Matt Pardoe, Vikram Solanki and Alexei Kervezee all fell to slip catches while
Moeen Ali was lbw first ball and skipper Daryl Mitchell played on.The performance of the Lancashire seamers almost overshadowed the achievement
of 26-year-old Croft, who had come to the wicket with his side on 62 for 3. He soon lost Paul Horton before adding 87 with Farveez Maharoof, who made 29, and 90 in under 14 overs wicket with his sixth-wicket partner Gareth Cross.Croft dominated both stands, reaching his 50 in 60 balls and then hitting four big sixes as he reached his century off only 38 further deliveries. The Worcestershire spinners came in for rough treatment, Ali being dispatched for two leg-side sixes and Shaaiq Choudhry conceding 25 runs off two overs as Croft reached his hundred with a six over long on.Croft’s destruction of the Worcestershire bowling left Mitchell’s team deeply regretting the escape they had given him on 33 when the sun’s reflection off a window prevented substitute fielder Nick Harrison even getting a hand to a straightforward chance at long leg off Alan Richardson.The Worcestershire attack eventually got their man when Croft fended a vicious Kapil delivery straight to Mitchell at slip and that wicket sparked a collapse as Lancashire lost their last five wickets for 26 runs in just 53 balls. Richard Jones finished with 3 for 62 and Andrew 3 for 47.The afternoon’s rapid dramas were in sharp contrast to a tough morning session in which Mitchell’s bowlers had made reasonable use of winning the toss to reduce Lancashire to 97 for 4 at lunch. On a wicket offering the visitors’ attack plenty of early help, Horton made a watchful 47 but the opener was fourth out 10 minutes before lunch when he edged Ali to Mitchell at slip.The Worcestershire seamers had controlled the rest of the session, Jones taking two wickets and Richardson the other as the Red Rose top order sought to see off the new ball.

Cricinfo previews the first one-day International between England and Pakistan at Chester-le-Street

The Preview by Liam Brickhill09-Sep-2010

Match facts

September 10, 2010, Chester-le-Street
Start time 10.15am (9.15am GMT)Pakistan will be hoping that Mohammad Irfan’s introduction to the squad will bring smiles to the players’ faces in the first game of the one-day series•Getty Images

Big picture

It’s September, but with five one-day internationals still to be played the end of the English summer continues to appear some distance off. This is not the finale that anyone had planned with Pakistan exhibiting the malaise and confusion it was feared they would when the spot-fixing allegations that have rocked cricket’s very foundations were first brought to light.Appearing distracted and mentally unprepared, they were easily swept away by England in the short Twenty20 series in Cardiff and the autumnal end of what has been densely-packed summer is threatening to turn into a one-sided farce. A Pakistan team that includes the likes of Shahid Afridi, Umar Akmal and Shoaib Akhtar can never be totally written off, however, and England will still, surely, be wary of a backlash.But the scent of scandal hanging over the team will not dissipate any time soon, and though captain Afridi has suggested that just one victory would do wonders for the team’s morale it’s difficult to see how they could turn things round and regain their focus sufficiently to take this series the full distance.England probably wouldn’t mind a stiffer challenge to prepare them for a winter in Australia and, despite the notable run of their success, they still have questions to be answered and flaws to be ironed out. It is England’s batsmen, rather than the bowlers, that appear a touch unsettled, and there will be another shake-up as the squad switches to one-day mode and and Andrew Strauss returns to the helm.With dwindling crowds also a concern as the summer draws in, interested parties from across the spectrum want nothing more than a competitive and absorbing contest. Whether that will be the case remains to be seen.

Form guide (last five completed matches)

England WLWLL

Pakistan WLLLL

Watch out for…

In the course of the two Twenty20s in Cardiff, Michael Yardy appeared to come of age as an international cricketer. The effectiveness of his bowling in limited-overs cricket has not been in doubt since his recall, but his batting – which he insists is his stronger suit – is also becoming increasingly reliable. He was at the crease with Eoin Morgan when victory was secured in both games, and is well on his way to becoming a genuine international allrounder.For a player who has not yet been selected for the national side gigantic left-arm seamer Mohammad Irfan has already built up quite a following, aided by the spread of videos of his bowling online on sites such as Youtube. Although his exact height has not yet been verified, he is undoubtedly very tall indeed and the awkward bounce he will generate – allied to the left-arm trajectory – could prove challenging for an England line-up that is not quite firing on all cylinders.

Team news

England’s squad has, for obvious reasons, been by far the more settled during Pakistan’s visit but Kevin Pietersen’s absence, and Steve Davies’ introduction, has mixed things up a bit. Andrew Strauss and Jonathan Trott also return to the side for the one-dayers and with Ravi Bopara likely to keep his place it may be Luke Wright who is edged out for the time being.England (probable) 1 Andrew Strauss (capt), 2 Steve Davies (wk), 3 Jonathan Trott, 4 Paul Collingwood, 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 Ravi Bopara, 7 Tim Bresnan, 8 Michael Yardy, 9 Graeme Swann, 10 Stuart Broad, 11 James AndersonThere is always a measure of uncertainty in picking Pakistan’s squad but apart from the introduction of Irfan, who was called up in the midst of a glut of injuries that added to their woes in an already turbulent summer, there probably won’t be too many changes. Asad Shafiq is likely to remain a reserve batsman, and while Fawad Alam froze under pressure in the Twenty20s, he showed in Pakistan’s warm-up against Somerset that, given time at the crease, he can be an effective limited-overs batsman and will probably be retained. Given his greater experience at the top of the order, Mohammad Hafeez could also be preferred to Shahzaib Hasan.Pakistan (possible) 1 Mohammad Hafeez, 2 Kamran Akmal (wk), 3 Mohammad Yousuf, 4 Umar Akmal, 5 Shahid Afridi (capt), 6 Fawad Alam, 7 Abdul Razzaq, 8 Umar Gul, 9 Mohammad Irfan, 10 Saeed Ajmal, 11 Shoaib Akhtar.

Pitch and conditions

Expect the bowlers to dominate in helpful conditions in Durham. The last match to be played at Chester-le-Street was a low-scoring CB 40 match in which both spinners and seamers picked up wickets. Overcast conditions could also help the ball to swing but, thankfully, rain is unlikely.

Stats and Trivia

• The vastly experienced Mohammad Yousuf is Pakistan’s second-highest runscorer in ODIs behind Inzamam ul-Haq with 9458 runs. He is also second to another great – Saeed Anwar – in the list of Pakistan’s one-day century makers with 15 in 275 games to Anwar’s 20.
• Graeme Swann passed 50 wickets in the summer – across all formats – during the Cardiff Twenty20s and now has 52 international scalps at a combined average of 16.46 this season

Quotes

“Despite whatever allegations have been out there, I still maintain that cricket generally is a very clean sport and that two teams are playing to beat the other 100%. If I can allay fears, I think there is no chance in my mind that these games coming up will not be played in that spirit.”
“Unless he’s dropped, he will play. If I’m told, ‘Don’t play X, Y, Z,’ they won’t play. If I’m not told, I’ll select the best team. But I’ve not been told anything. Let’s wait.”
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England find reverse-swing to make key inroads after Leach’s early breakthroughs

Andrew Miller15-Oct-2024There has been precious little for Pakistan cricket to cheer in recent months, but on the opening day of the second Test in Multan, Kamran Ghulam provided a moment of unbridled joy as he brought up a gutsy century in his maiden Test innings, to carry the fight for his embattled team.Though he fell late in the day for 118, bowled by Shoaib Bashir as he looked to stay proactive with the close of play looming, Ghulam’s debut efforts helped to lift Pakistan to 259 for 5 – scarcely riches by the standards that England were dishing up on this very same surface last week, but the beginnings of a score nonetheless.Despite Pakistan’s experience in the first Test, when their first-innings 556 ended up on the wrong side of an innings defeat, Ghulam’s resolute efforts – allied to a career-best 77 from Saim Ayub and an atypically entrenched 37 not out from Mohammad Rizwan – kept Pakistan on course for the sort of 300-plus score that could yet be competitive if their spin-heavy attack can take advantage of a pitch that had been heavily watered and dried with industrial fans in the four-day turnaround between Tests.The danger for Pakistan, however, may yet come from the weapons that they won’t be able to deploy. Despite two early wickets for Jack Leach, who has now claimed nine in three innings on this surface to reassert his status as England’s senior spinner, their most pronounced threat came through a mid-afternoon spell of reverse-swing, excellently harnessed by a three-pronged seam attack. Uniquely, all three hail from Durham, among them Ben Stokes, who was back to lead the team for the first time since his hamstring tear in August. In opting to ditch both Shaheen Shah Afridi and Naseem Shah for this contest, much will be resting on their lone quick, Aamer Jamal, if Pakistan hope to utilise similar skills.All such considerations can wait for now, thanks to the efforts of Ghulam, who – at the age of 29 – was the second oldest Pakistani to record a debut century. He achieved the feat with a gleeful swing through the leg-side off Joe Root, after an anxious wait in the 90s that had encompassed the evening drinks break. A few more moments of delay could not perturb him, however, after more than a decade of service in Pakistan’s Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, in which time he might have assumed that his haul of more than 4500 runs at 49 would forever be overlooked.His innings had begun at 19 for 2 in the tenth over, after Leach – thrown the ball early after Stokes’ quick assessment of the surface – had become the first England spinner to strike twice so early in a Test match since Johnny Briggs in 1889. His impact threatened another meltdown to match Pakistan’s fourth-evening collapse in the first Test, but Ghulam proved his mettle from the outset, showcasing his familiarity with the arid conditions and his faith in the methods that had finally got him noticed.His first boundary was a composed launch for six back over Leach’s head, and in easing through to his first half-century from 104 balls, he recorded a milestone that had eluded his more illustrious compatriot, Babar Azam, in the 18 out-of-form innings that had resulted in his omission.Brydon Carse produced a key breakthrough with the old ball•Getty Images

Ghulam had faced just two deliveries of fast bowling in his first 120, however, when Stokes brought himself into the attack midway through the afternoon, and the challenge instantly went up a notch. In his first over, Stokes found a fat edge that flew at a catchable height through the vacant slip cordon, and when a second edge fell short soon afterwards, Root found himself donning a helmet four yards from the bat in a bid to make any further chance count.The breakthrough, however, arrived at the other end. Ayub’s reputation had suffered in this series, largely as a consequence of his hopelessly misfiring opening partnership with Abdullah Shafique, which at least reached double-figures for the first time in nine innings. It didn’t get much further, however, as Leach bowled Shafique for 7 to reduce Pakistan to 15 for 1, before Shan Masood clipped on the up to Zak Crawley at midwicket for 3.In isolation, however, Ayub has been a qualified success at the top of Pakistan’s order, and this was his third half-century in four first innings, following his twin fifties against Bangladesh last month. But, with tea approaching, and England beginning to make the ball talk, Matthew Potts threatened his outside edge with a diet of hooping outswingers from over the wicket, before Stokes pouched a firm push through the line at a very straight silly mid-off (168 for 3).After tea, Brydon Carse, energetic as ever, roughed up Saud Shakeel with an excellent short ball, then found his edge for 4 with an even better 140kph/87mph delivery that fizzed through to Jamie Smith behind the stumps. And England’s position could have been stronger still had Ben Duckett clung on to a loose slap from Ghulam, on 79, as he chose to take the attack to the returning Leach and almost paid the price at mid-on.The value of Stokes’ economy with his seamers throughout a morning session was brought to bear in the evening, with Carse helping to keep Rizwan under the cosh for 19 deliveries without scoring before Potts took over and so nearly landed an innings-altering blow. His first delivery to Rizwan, on 6 at the time, zipped past the outside edge and into Smith’s gloves, but England declined to use a review – even though replays showed that the ball had grazed the splice of his bat.England’s endeavours were worthy of another breakthrough before the close, and though he had once again been the weaker link in the attack, Bashir obliged with a critical strike late in the day. Armed with the second new ball, he skidded a good-length delivery past Ghulam’s tired charge, and clipped the top of leg to prise a critical opening that could yet make the difference in Pakistan’s quest for a serviceable first innings.

The change might necessitate a rejig of the batting order, since Reifer batted at No. 3 in the first Test, in Roseau

ESPNcricinfo staff18-Jul-20236:45

Will a pace-friendly pitch work better for West Indies vs India?

Kevin Sinclair, the offspin-bowling allrounder, has received his first Test call-up, for the second Test against India, with West Indies looking to bounce back after a crushing loss inside three days in the first Test against India.He replaces Raymon Reifer, the batting allrounder, in the 13-member squad in the only change from the opening Test.Reifer, however, will remain with the squad in Trinidad as an injury cover.Related

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Sinclair, the 23-year-old Guyana player, has a decent first-class record, where he has snapped up 54 wickets in 18 games at an average of 23.98, with a best of 6 for 33. He has also scored 756 runs at 29.07, which includes six half-centuries.He gave a good account of himself in the four-dayers against Bangladesh A earlier this year, finishing as the leading wicket-taker in a three-match series with 13 wickets at 25.69, as West Indies A won 1-0. He also scored 149 runs at 49.66 with a best of 60.Sinclair has played seven ODIs and six T20Is for West Indies so far, picking 11 and four wickets in the two formats, respectively. He was most recently part of the ODI World Cup qualifier in Zimbabwe, where he picked up two wickets in three outings as West Indies failed to make it to the main draw of the ODI World Cup for the first time.The rest of the squad was unchanged, with Kemar Roach, Alzarri Joseph, Shannon Gabriel and Jason Holder forming the fast-bowling department. Rahkeem Cornwall, who was off the field for a while in the first Test because of a chest infection, has been retained, and so has left-arm spinner Jomel Warrican.On the batting front, without Reifer, who batted at No. 3, the rest of the batters could move up one place each, with Sinclair possibly slotting in below Holder at seven. Unless there is a Test debut planned for Kirk McKenzie.The second Test will run from July 20 to 24 in Port of Spain, and will mark the 100th Test between West Indies and India. The two teams first met in a Test match in 1948 in Delhi.West Indies squad for the second Test: Kraigg Brathwaite (capt), Jermaine Blackwood (vice-capt), Alick Athanaze, Tagenarine Chanderpaul, Rahkeem Cornwall, Joshua Da Silva (wk), Shannon Gabriel, Jason Holder, Alzarri Joseph, Kirk McKenzie, Kevin Sinclair, Kemar Roach, Jomel Warrican

England seamer experienced lower back pain while with Lancashire

ESPNcricinfo staff16-May-2022Saqib Mahmood, the England fast bowler, has been ruled out for the season after being diagnosed with a lumbar stress fracture.Mahmood, who made his Test debut in the Caribbean in March, missed Lancashire’s most-recent Championship fixture with lower back pain and subsequent scans revealed the full extent of the problem. Mahmood has a pace bowling development contract from the ECB and his rehabilitation will be jointly managed by England and Lancashire, with no timeframe set for a return.His absence will further deplete England’s seam-bowling resources for the upcoming series against New Zealand, with Chris Woakes and Mark Wood both out of contention and Ollie Robinson struggling for fitness – although James Anderson, Mahmood’s Lancashire team-mate, and Stuart Broad are expected to return to the Test set-up. Matthew Fisher, who debuted alongside Mahmood, has been on the sidelines since mid-April, with the reporting that he is also set to miss the rest of the summer with a back stress fracture.Related

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Mahmood, 25, played in Barbados and Grenada on England’s Test tour of the West Indies, claiming six wickets at 22.83 and impressing with his pace and ability with the old ball. He also top-scored with 49 in the third Test, as he and Jack Leach raised England from 114 for 9 to 204 all out.Having turned down a chance to go to the IPL as a replacement player, Mahmood had been hoping to cement his Test credentials this summer. “I spoke to a couple of the guys around me and felt as though it was in my best interests at the moment to focus on red-ball cricket,” he said. “Hopefully that can highlight my ambition to play Test cricket and to give myself the best chance to do that by performing here for Lancashire.”He had only featured once for Lancashire in the Championship, taking 4 for 90 in the victory over Gloucestershire in the third round of the competition, and was left out of the squad to play Warwickshire earlier this month in order to receive treatment on a shoulder injury sustained over the winter.With Woakes, Wood and long-term absentee Jofra Archer out of contention, England once again seem set to be reliant on Anderson and Broad, after the veteran pair were omitted from the squad for the Caribbean. The loss of Mahmood and Fisher could hasten a call-up for uncapped Durham quick Matthew Potts, the Championship’s leading wicket-taker with 35 at 18.57, while Craig and Jamie Overton have been in good form for Somerset and Surrey respectively.

Green has shown enough poise to suggest that the lessons of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy will be converted into truly influential displays

Daniel Brettig18-Jan-2021With the possible exception of Will Pucovski, seldom has more expectation accompanied a recent Australian debutant than that experienced by Cameron Green.He had undoubtedly scored the runs to warrant his place at such a young age, cracking comfortably more than 1000 with four sizeable centuries in his most recent 12 Sheffield Shield games. Green also carried the promise of a possibly dominant allrounder having first been chosen by Western Australia as a bowler and scooping plenty of wickets before he was held prisoner by a series of back problems.Add to this the prospect of starting out in the highest of high-profile Test series against India, and there was much for Green to take in, even before he took the batting and bowling creases. What spectators and viewers have seen of Green in the subsequent four matches is a player of enormous promise, undoubtedly, but one still smoothing the rough edges of his game with the bat and even more so with the ball.He has, as Simon Katich observed during his breakout innings of 84 at the SCG, “two gears”, those of stolid defence and then a much more freewheeling and powerful hitting game. The nuances of Test cricket require a range of different gears at many points in between those poles, as aptly demonstrated on the penultimate day of the series.Cameron Green punches down the ground•Getty Images

Green walked out to accompany a settled Steven Smith when Australia had just lost the fourth wicket of the morning session, Matthew Wade glancing into Rishabh Pants gloves and perhaps into history as far as his stop-start Test career is concerned. The Gabba surface, which has rewarded tight bowling throughout the match, had begun to deteriorate further in terms of the widening of existing cracks and the forming of new ones, while Mohammad Siraj was putting in yet another outstanding spell.Perhaps genuflecting to Smith, who with every hour of this series has looked more like his usual Test match self and must now be looking forward to rejoining battle with South Africa three years since the unseemly events of 2018, Green concentrated almost solely on survival through his first 41 balls, managing only six singles in that time. He may also have been run out by his very first ball, edging Washington Sundar towards the covers and being reprieved on his instinctive dash for a single by the fact that the bowler was off-balance in retrieving it.This period underlined that, at this developmental point, Green is still liable to be tied down by good bowling without the ability as yet to find unseen corners of the field in which to escape the strikes with singles or more forcefully turn the scoreboard over with twos. This meant that Smith, playing far more positively, took the major share of responsibility in the early part of their stand to ensure the scoring rate did not dip below three an over with time and the unpromising weather forecast on Australian minds.A view pushed consistently by Greg Chappell down the years and now more widely understood, is the value of getting gifted players into the Australian side early on, the better for them to learn many of the required lessons at the highest possible level and thus mature as quickly as possible without gaining too many bad habits. It was the same philosophy that saw Smith himself make his Test debut for Australia as early as a 21-year-old in 2010 before ironing out the deficiencies in his game rapidly enough to be an international force by the age of 24.So it should follow that, much as Smith has worked his way into this series, Green will be able to evolve in a timely fashion in his Test career. “I certainly feel as though I’ve got better as the series has gone on, just purely out of spending time in the middle that’s for sure,” Smith said.”I think I said after Melbourne the longest I’d spent in the middle was 63 balls or whatever it was, the one-day hundreds that I scored at the SCG, and that was for about 12 months. So certainly been able to spend a good amount of time in the first innings in Sydney playing with really positive intent. That made me feel a lot more comfortable at the crease and able to find some rhythm.”I thought [Green] batted really well. They bowled pretty well to him to be fair, the wicket was starting to do a few things. I reckon there was that one over from Natarajan where he copped a few, that’s where the wicket started to sort of play a few more tricks. I think he got five balls in that over that did probably five different things.”The other half of Green’s game, still taking time to unfold in the wake of back stress fractures, is that of a pace bowler who has the natural gifts of height and trajectory with which to worry most top players should he get all the mechanics into a sound enough order. This much was neatly summarised by Damien Fleming earlier in the Test, with the understanding that a bowler concentrating on technical form and changes to ensure the avoidance of future injuries will always take time to “groove” an action before full fluency returns.”He bowls full and definitely shapes the ball away from the right-hand batsmen,” Fleming said on Seven. “His first Test match in Adelaide, I think it was deliberate for him to bowl short to Virat Kohli. Now since that Test Match, I think he has bowled a fraction short, hasn’t given that red Kookaburra enough time to swing in the air. I think it’s due, isn’t it? Your fourth Test match, get your first Test wicket?”He’s made changes to his action because of stress fractures. He’s come into this series with hundreds of runs in Sheffield Shield so his batting technique is grooved, but unfortunately, he is still trying to groove this bowling action which over time is only going to benefit himself and the Australian cricket team. But, you know, four-over spells in Shield cricket coming into this Test series, I don’t think he has built the confidence in his action yet.”That sort of confidence may be derived from a wicket or two, and this was certainly something Smith had in mind as he looked at some of the widening cracks at the Gabba. “All the boys have been really impressed with him around the group, the way he’s handled everything as a young kid coming into play Test cricket,” Smith said of Green.”I think tomorrow he might actually be quite a handful with the ball, with that extra height and those cracks coming into play, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him firstly take his first wicket in Test cricket, which I know he’s pretty eager to get, but I think he might just be in for a pretty reasonable day.”If Green has not dominated moments of this series in the manner of India’s find Siraj, he has shown enough poise at a young age to suggest that the formative lessons of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy will be converted into truly influential displays well before he reaches the age at which Smith finally felt at home as a Test cricketer.

ESPNcricinfo’s live updates on the Ranchi Test

Firdose Moonda19-Oct-2019

A survey by the Professional Cricketers Association strongly supports promotion and relegation in four-day cricket but on The Hundred there is not a word

David Hopps20-Jul-2018Professional cricketers in England and Wales have come out overwhelmingly in favour of the retention of a two-division Championship with promotion and relegation in a powerful message to the ECB working group currently debating the future structure of the first-class game.The players’ message will quicken the belief that a move to a Conference system – variously advocated over the past few months by Yorkshire and Sussex in an attempt to protect the 18-team county structure – is gradually losing support.Players are even more adamant that they want to play the three county formats – four-day, 50-overs and Twenty 20 – in distinct blocks, even though they know that the ECB has indicated that this will be impossible once The Hundred becomes the centrepiece of the English summer.The Hundred, envisaged as English cricket’s groundbreaking challenge to the IPL and Big Bash – and worth an extra GBP £1.3m to the 18 first-class counties – has invited widespread debate, including ridicule from many established county supporters, as proposals about how it will work have gradually emerged.Disappointingly, the opinion of the players on The Hundred has yet to be surveyed on the grounds that it is outside the remit of the working party, chaired by the Leicestershire chief executive Wasim Khan.As far as The Hundred is concerned, the ECB is keeping decisions within an inner circle and allowing limited opportunity for opposition.With 89% of PCA playing members surveyed believing Test Match cricket is the most important format of the world game, those thoughts are supported in domestic male cricket too.The structure of the County Championship is one key area which is under review and feedback from players suggests 79% would like to keep promotion and relegation with members agreeing the current system maintains an intense standard of competition for both players and spectators.Players firmly believe there should be no four-day cricket played during The Hundred, therefore not compromising the Championship which a large majority of players still view as the most important.But if players can express preferences, turning those into a workable fixture list is much more problematic.As many as 93% of players have called for the county white-ball season to be played in blocks so they can avoid the chopping and changing that they believe causes a fall in standards.That led PCA chairman Daryl Mitchell to warn as the survey results were revealed that some switching between formats is inevitable.”With the desire to create blocks for different formats over recent years, it has meant that the Championship has been slightly marginalised with a huge proportion of games being played in April and September,” he said.”Players feel there is a need for more four-day cricket to be played in the middle of the summer for members and supporters to watch as well as to enable players to play in better conditions. This will therefore mean switching between formats is inevitable.”The survey, carried out to gain members thoughts on how male county cricket will be played from 2020, will feed into the ECB’s working group. Disappointingly, it was completed by only 240 of more than 350 regularly active professionals.PCA director of development and welfare Ian Thomas and former PCA Chairman and current personal development manager Mark Wallace are on the ECB’s working group to represent the views of current players.The PCA chief executive David Leatherdale is on leave of absence from his role due to stress with non-executive chairman Matthew Wheeler taking on Leatherdale’s responsibilities in the interim.The volume of T20 Blast games to be played from 2020 is also yet to be decided and 72% of players would like there to be either 14 group games per season as now, or a rise to 16 to allow for each county in North and South Group to play each other twice.As long as 50-over cricket remains the format played internationally, there is a strong feeling that domestic cricket should mirror the international level with only 10% of players wanting to move away from the current 50-over competition.PCA Chairman, Daryl Mitchell, said: “It was great to see a large number of PCA playing members respond to this survey and this is a vital piece of research to understand members’ views to further influence the PCA’s stance on the domestic structure.”I am pleased to see the results support views which we are always informally gathering through conversations around the county circuit.But Mitchell again sidestepped the issue of The Hundred, even though many players have expressed disillusionment or anger that the eight-team tournament will not be played in the accepted worldwide gold standard of T20.”2020 it is an exciting time for cricket in this country with the new competition bringing huge opportunities to our playing membership and with that it is imperative we get the domestic structure right,” he said.

James Tredwell has asked Kent for permission to talk to other counties having become frustrated by his lack of first team opportunities

George Dobell20-Jun-2017James Tredwell has asked Kent for permission to talk to other counties having become frustrated by his lack of first team opportunities.Tredwell, England’s Test spinner as recently as April 2015, has been limited to just 32.4 overs so far in the Championship season as a combination of unhelpful surfaces and selection issues have minimised his opportunities.The final straw appears to have come with the signing of Pakistan legspinner Yasir Shah as Kent’s overseas player for four matches in mid-season. While Yasir’s pedigree is undoubted – he was the second fastest bowler in Test history to claim 100 wickets – so is Tredwell’s frustration. Having played five early-season Championship matches on unresponsive surfaces, the 35-year-old Tredwell could be forgiven for looking forward to playing in more helpful conditions in mid-season.Tredwell, who has been granted a benefit season this year, is out of contract with Kent in October. The club have another highly-rated offspinner, Adam Riley, on their staff. He has yet to play a first team game this season.Their fortunes could be used to illustrate the plight of the contemporary spinner in English cricket. With much of the Championship campaign played in early-season conditions where seamers are expected to do the bulk of the bowling, the opportunities for spin bowling in red ball cricket are diminishing by the year.Daniel Bell-Drummond and Sam Billings are also out of contract with Kent the end of the season. While Bell-Drummond is understood to have held talks with Warwickshire, who have made approaches to several players, Kent remain quietly confident of retaining his services. Not only do they have at least as good a chance of Warwickshire of playing Division One cricket next year, but Bell-Drummond emerged through the Kent system alongside the likes of Billings, Riley, Adam Ball and Sam Northeast and is immersed in the culture of the club.Kent have not ruled out the possibility of offering Tredwell a new contract.

The capture of two wickets in as many overs by Surrey’s spinners, Gareth Batty and Zafar Ansari, dented an otherwise sturdy reply from Durham

Andrew Miller at Kia Oval02-May-2016
ScorecardMark Stoneman hit a brisk half-century•Getty Images

Much like the weather that started and finished with a blanket of cloud but burst, ever so briefly, into blue skies and sunshine, there was an isolated moment on the second afternoon at the Kia Oval when the prevailing conditions looked as though they were about to give way to something more amenable for this contest’s hard-worked bowlers.Sure enough, the capture of two wickets in as many overs by Surrey’s spinners, Gareth Batty and Zafar Ansari, meant that, by the time an early close was confirmed shortly before 6pm, Durham’s otherwise sturdy reply to a hefty first innings of 457 had been undermined by the knowledge of the trials that might yet be in store as this match works towards its conclusion.At stumps Durham had reached 156 for 2, thanks to half-centuries from both openers, Mark Stoneman and Keaton Jennings, and a confident pair of opening gambits from Scott Borthwick, who reached stumps unbeaten on 20, and the teenager Jack Burnham, who displayed both technique and confidence in taking on Ansari with a brace of straight sixes. The first nearly took out a spectator in the pavilion; the second came right on the stroke of tea, a delicate pop back over the bowler’s head, as if to show the way to the dressing room.However, it was the nine-ball hiatus that bridged the two partnerships that could prove to be the key to the outcome of this contest. After a lively start to the day from Surrey’s lower-order, who added 86 runs to their overnight 371 for 7, Stoneman and Jennings negotiated Surrey’s seamers with aplomb before becoming unstuck as the slow men twirled into the game.First to go was Jennings for 53, who sized up a pre-meditated sweep but was beaten all ends up before swishing his bat in fury over his shattered stumps. Then, in the very next over, Stoneman propped half-forward to be adjudged lbw to Batty for 57, the end of another fine innings in which he had rattled along at not far shy of a run a ball without ever really seeming to be in a hurry.On a curious looking wicket which has been shaved at both ends in a bid to encourage some turn, Surrey’s spinners will expect to come into their own in the second half of the game, and Ansari in particular is eager to make up for lost time after his horrible thumb injury last season.Ansari may have missed England’s winter campaigns in the UAE and South Africa, but with the national selector James Whitaker and Peter Such, the ECB’s spin coach, both watching his efforts on Monday, he’ll be encouraged that he remains high in their thoughts for the summer campaigns against Sri Lanka and Pakistan.Batty, meanwhile, had a no-less prominent part to play with the bat, as his 40 from 81 balls helped to secure Surrey’s full haul of batting points and apply a glossier finish to an innings that looked to have lost its way a touch in the latter stages of the first day.With Ben Foakes setting the early agenda with a brace of boundaries in Chris Rushworth’s first over of the day, Surrey were eventually prised out by the hard-working Ben Stokes, who finished with figures of 4 for 117 in a 33.4-over spell that was a world away from his short-but-sharp efforts at the World T20 last month.After Brydon Carse had claimed his third of the innings to remove Foakes for 38, Stokes extracted the final two scalps – Surrey’s debutant seamer Mathew Pillans was well caught by Borthwick at second slip for a well-compiled 15 that had included an uppercut off the eyebrows for four, before Batty – giving himself room to have a mow with the No.11 Matt Dunn for company – lost his middle and leg stumps soon after swiping a Stokes bouncer over backward square for the only six of the innings.