Farbrace recruits veteran seamer and reliable allrounder for 2024 season

ESPNcricinfo staff22-Jun-2023Chris Wright, Leicestershire’s veteran seamer, will join Sussex from the start of the 2024 season on a two-year contract, with Lancashire allrounder Danny Lamb also making the move to the south coast.Wright, who turns 38 next month, has claimed 567 wickets at 32.30 in a 196-match first-class career that has spanned 20 seasons. His best innings figures of 7 for 53 came against Gloucestershire at Bristol in 2021.He will be available for all formats for Sussex, having picked up 174 domestic white-ball wickets in his career. This season, he has found a strong vein of form with the bat as well, averaging 56.8 in 10 innings in the County Championship. This includes twin scores of 66 not out and 40 not out in a memorable win against Yorkshire at Headingley.”I am delighted to be joining Sussex for the 2024 season and beyond,” Wright said. “I have long admired the club and am looking forward to contributing to its future success.”Speaking to Paul Farbrace [head coach] and having played against the team a number of times I am excited to be joining such a talented and ambitious group. Hopefully, I will take lots of wickets and provide some valuable experience to the team.”Farbrace added: “I’m delighted that Chris has committed the next two seasons to joining our project at Hove. He is a vastly experienced cricketer who will bring skill, experience, and a huge passion for the game.”Chris is someone I have admired for a long time, and his quality with the ball will be fantastic for our developing team and will help us to win matches.”Sussex will be the fifth county of Wright’s first-class career, following earlier stints at Essex and Middlesex, as well as a successful period at Warwickshire between 2011 and 2018, where he helped win the County Championship in 2012.Related

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Lamb, meanwhile, joins on a three-year deal. “I’m extremely excited for the opportunity,” he said. “A brilliant new challenge and one which I feel has come at the right stage in my career.”I’ve always enjoyed playing against Sussex and at Hove. I like what Sussex are about and the vision for the future with Paul Farbrace at the helm of a young ambitious squad. I can’t wait to get going and I look forward to contributing to the team in all formats.”Mark Chilton, Lancashire’s director of cricket, said: “Danny has found first-team opportunities limited over the last couple of years, so we completely understand the decision he’s made moving to Sussex. We wish him all the best for the next stage of his career.”A medium-paced allrounder, Lamb has an impressive record across formats but has struggled for game-time at Lancashire this year and has recently been playing for Gloucestershire on loan.

Dawid Malan adds fifty to help hosts reach 286 for 4 in response to Sussex’s first-innings 216

ECB Reporters Network20-Jul-2023Adam Lyth’s excellent 115 – his second LV= Insurance County Championship century of the season – underpinned a dominant Yorkshire batting display as they seized control after two days against Sussex at Headingley.Lyth led the county’s 286 for 4 in response to Sussex’s inadequate first-innings 216 after the visitors elected to bat on a pitch they believed would get worse but has got much better.Lyth’s 31st career first-class century included 18 fours in 175 balls and was ably supported as opening partner Fin Bean made 45, South African overseas batter Ryan Rickelton 46 and England white-ball star Dawid Malan 51.Play started with Sussex advancing their first innings from 120 for 6 overnight after they struggled in bowler-friendly conditions during a shortened first day.All-rounder Fynn Hudson-Prentice and Australian overseas seamer Nathan McAndrew gave their total respectability by completing a 94-run partnership for the seventh wicket. Impressive Hudson-Prentice top-scored with 73 and McAndrew added 47.It was a sign of things to come that they batted comfortably late on day one and early on day two in advancing from 76 for 6.Matthew Fisher finished with 4 for 69 for Yorkshire, all four of his wickets coming on the opening day.Left-arm spinner Dan Moriarty claimed two of the four morning wickets including Hudson-Prentice brilliantly caught by substitute fielder Matthew Revis running back towards the long-on fence. He was on for Lyth at the time.Yorkshire clearly haven’t had things easy in Championship cricket for the last season-and-a-half.And while Lyth, dropped on 38 at second slip by James Coles, played the lead role, it is his 21-year-old opening partner Bean’s form this season which is even more pleasing as they build for the future.Even though he missed out on the big eye-catching score in this innings, Bean still went beyond 600 Championship runs for the season – a milestone Lyth later reached as well.Bean put his name in lights last summer with a remarkable 441 in a second-team Championship match at Nottinghamshire when not on contract at Headingley.It earned him an almost immediate rookie deal with the county, and only last week that was turned into a maiden two-year full professional deal following three Championship centuries in 2023.Stalwart Lyth has not had a solid opening partnership since fellow Championship-winner Alex Lees left for Durham in late 2018. Now, this Lyth and Bean alliance looks to be set in stone for a good while to come.Lyth, as ever, drove handsomely as Yorkshire confidently made inroads into Sussex’s total.At one stage, he and Bean hit five fours in seven balls off the seam of Hudson-Prentice and Henry Crocombe in the 15th and 16th overs, moving the score to 75 without loss. In fact, 76 out of Yorkshire’s first 89 runs came in boundaries.Lyth drove with more of a flourish and Bean was more compact and mechanical. The latter is not too dissimilar to the way Sir Alastair Cook bats.Lyth reached his fifty off 77 balls shortly after Bean had departed, caught at slip trying to play forcefully off the back foot against McAndrew – 94 for one in the 22nd over.But Lyth found another partner in Rickelton, who is playing his second of four Championship matches as a short-term replacement for captain Shan Masood, away on Test duty with Pakistan.Rickelton was quick on his feet in lofting Coles’ left-arm spin for six over long-off before he edged the seam of Ari Karvelas to second slip as he jammed down on a full ball.Lyth later reached his century off 157 balls but was the first of two wickets in as many overs from off-spinner Jack Carson, who helped Sussex end the day well. Lyth chipped to midwicket and George Hill edged to slip without scoring, leaving Yorkshire at 258 for four in the 63rd over.While Sussex limited the damage late on, Malan reached his fifty off 82 balls.

The domestic revamp, as expected, is here, with departmental teams making a return to the mix

Danyal Rasool11-Aug-2023The format and structure of Pakistan’s domestic system will undergo yet another overhaul, four years on from the last one, with an additional first-class competition and departmental sides returning to the domestic fold.The departmental teams will, however, not play the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy alongside the regional teams, as was the case in the past. Eight departmental teams will instead play a separate tournament, named the President’s Trophy, after the conclusion of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy. The number of participating teams in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy has been increased from six to eight. Provincial teams have been done away with, and cities have made a return to the competition.The Quaid-e-Azam Trophy will run from September 10 to October 26, while the President’s Cup will start on December 15 to January 30. A further ten regional teams will play the second division of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, named the Hanif Mohammad Trophy, which will run concurrently with the main Quaid-e-Azam Trophy.The eight teams that will play the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy are Peshawar, Karachi Whites, Lahore Blues, Rawalpindi, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Multan, Lahore Whites and Faisalabad.Related

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The departmental teams that will take part in the President’s Cup are Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited, Sui Southern Gas Company, Water and Power Development Authority, Khan Research Laboratories, Pakistan Television, National Bank of Pakistan, and State Bank, with an eighth to be confirmed later. Both the tournaments will comprise a league stage and a final, which the top two teams will play.Much of the revamp has not come as a surprise.It was expected that the model proposed and pushed through during Ehsan Mani’s time as chairman, when Imran Khan was the PCB patron, would be done away with, and departments would make a return.But the separation of regional and departmental tournaments means several players could feature for a regional as well as a departmental side. It likely also means, though, with the significantly superior financial muscle the departments possess, that the President’s Cup will de facto become the highest quality first-class competition in Pakistan, supplanting the QeA.”This structure provides a level playing field to regions and departments as they will have the best cricket talent available to them,” director of domestic cricket operations Junaid Zia, who acknowledged the inputs from Misbah-ul-Haq and Mohammad Hafeez of the PCB’s cricket technical committee, said. “The separation of regions and departments in different tournaments also provides enhance earning opportunities for cricketers with separate contracts and more matches.”The revamp comes during a season when Pakistan have no home Test matches scheduled at all, with a three-match series in Australia the only Test cricket for Pakistan in the next 12 months.There was no mention from the PCB about the release of a schedule or structure for women’s cricket. ESPNcricinfo was told it would be announced separately.

With World Cup preparations in full swing, Pakistan have, as expected, named a young, second-string squad

Danyal Rasool24-Aug-2023Qasim Akram will captain Pakistan at the Asian Games, where the men’s team will play for a gold medal in – T20 – cricket between September 28 and October 7 in Hangzhou, China. With World Cup preparations in full swing, Pakistan have, as expected, named a young, second-string squad, with Asif Ali, Mohammad Hasnain, Shahnawaz Dahani and Usman Qadir among the highest-profile names.Neither the captain, Akram, nor the vice-captain, have played international cricket for Pakistan in a squad where only eight out of 15 players have. Much of the squad’s recent playing time has come with the Shaheens, with whom eight players from this squad toured Zimbabwe for two four-day games and six 50-over games, before triumphing in the ACC Emerging Cup in Sri Lanka last month, and later finishing as runners-up in a T20 tournament in Darwin.Pakistan will enter the tournament at the quarter-final stage, which means their first game will take place in early October, with the final set for October 7.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Cricket has been played at the Asian Games twice before – at Guangzhou 2010 and Incheon 2014. Bangladesh won the first edition with Sri Lanka emerging triumphant the second time. Afghanistan were runners-up on both occasions. Pakistan did not feature in 2014, and finished as bronze medallists in their only appearance in 2010.They will also field a women’s team at this edition of the Games. That squad, led by Nida Dar, was announced in July. The women’s competition at the Games will be played before the men’s commences.

Pakistan men’s squad for the Asian Games:

Qasim Akram (capt), Omair Bin Yousuf, Aamir Jamal, Arafat Minhas, Arshad Iqbal, Asif Ali, Haider Ali, Khushdil Shah, Mirza Tahir Baig, Mohammad Hasnain, Muhammad Akhlaq (wk), Rohail Nazir (wk), Shahnawaz Dahani, Sufiyan Muqeem, Usman Qadir

England have sent the back-up plus Joe Root to take on an Ireland side who missed the boat for India

Andrew Miller19-Sep-2023

Big picture: Back to the margins

It’s no slight on the visitors, honest. But here we are again, all the same. Just as Ireland opened England’s international season at Lord’s back in June, with a contest so translucent that both teams found themselves peering straight through it towards more pressing matters beyond, so they have returned at this fag-end of the English summer, with the narrative once again marching off into the middle distance.Back in June, the focus for the two squads was England’s Ashes bid on the one hand, and Ireland’s 50-over World Cup qualification campaign on the other (and we’ll come back to that sorry saga in a moment). Now? It’s just cricket for the sake of cricket.Three ODIs that, when they were first added to the schedule last year – before the BCCI had got round to finalising any dates for the World Cup – had been intended to form part of both teams’ final preparation for the main event in India next month.Instead, Ireland dropped the ball with calamitous finality in Zimbabwe, losing each of their first three qualifying games to crash out at the group stages. Then England torched any pretence of remaining relevance by extracting each of their World Cup-bound players from the reckoning – with the honourable exception of Monday’s late addition, Joe Root, whose form across 50 overs has gone from non-existent to troubling in the space of four ropey displays against New Zealand.All things considered, therefore, this contest could – at a pinch – have more relevance four years down the line. That’s already the distant target that Heinrich Malan, Ireland’s coach, has urged his players to build towards, notwithstanding the more immediate target of the T20 World Cup in the USA next summer, at which Ireland will be present after a significantly better showing in this year’s other qualifying event in Edinburgh.But for England too, with a backlog of outstanding white-ball cricketers itching for an opportunity on the international stage, there’s relevance to be found on an individual basis this week, even if the three matches are destined to be forgotten amid a deluge of main event action in October.We’ve been here before (sort of) in England’s recent history. Two summers ago, at the height of the Covid crisis, Ben Stokes – himself in recovery from a broken finger – led a scratch team of county stars in three matches against Pakistan, after the entire frontline squad had been sent into isolation following an outbreak.They won the series handsomely, three emphatic wins to nil, with one especially familiar name seizing his chance for white-ball honours. Zak Crawley, England’s Ashes Bazballer extraordinaire, is now captain of this rejigged squad, having played his only three ODIs in that Pakistan series (including an unbeaten half-century on debut).Ben Duckett, Crawley’s Test opening partner and now vice-captain, was named in that squad too but didn’t play. Now, he’s unquestionably one of the players with designs on a reserve role at the World Cup, as are Brydon Carse and Will Jacks – two other players with the proven pedigree to thrive given half a chance. All things considered, therefore, there will be plenty to play for this week… just not, at this juncture, anything of immediate consequence.

Form guide

England WWWLL
Ireland WWWLL

In the spotlight: Joe Root and Curtis Campher

“A nice addition” is how Ireland’s coach described Joe Root’s late call-up to England’s squad, for a one-off appearance on his home ground of Headingley, before getting his head back down in preparation for the main squad’s departure for India next Wednesday. He’s into the reckoning in place of Harry Brook, whose own response to a low-key performance against New Zealand has been to hunker down and visualise the better times that came before it (and hopefully afterwards too), now that he’s been preferred to Jason Roy in those World Cup plans. Root, however, is a more mechanical beast than his colleagues, and still has some last-minute tinkering to be done as he readjusts to the rhythms of the 50-over game after a year on the sidelines. In particular, he seemed bothered by his inability to rotate the strike against New Zealand, and lacked faith in the Root-scoop that had served him so well in Bazball. Surely nothing he can’t surmount, but it’s indicative of England’s overall lack of preparation for their title defence.Leaving aside his mighty exploits with the ball – four wickets in four balls at the 2021 T20 World Cup will take some beating – most of Curtis Campher’s finest moments in international cricket have come from the middle-order. He made a brace of half-centuries in his maiden ODI appearances on Ireland’s last white-ball visit in 2020, and after making a first Test hundred from No. 7 in Galle, he saved his best yet for Ireland’s moment of crisis in Bulawayo this summer, a superb 120 from 108 after coming in at 33 for 4 against Scotland. In the end it wasn’t quite enough in an agonising one-wicket defeat, but at the age of 24, the time has come from him to stop being the “rescue act”, as coach Malan put it, and start setting the team’s agenda from No. 3.

Team news: Root’s cameo takes precedence

All change from the New Zealand series, with the exception of the No. 3, as a host of England players with genuine aspirations jostle for the chance to star in the absence of the big guns. Phil Salt – a T20 World Cup winner in November – seems likely to start with the gloves, despite the close attentions of Surrey’s rising star Jamie Smith, whose chance may come when Root has had his net, and will probably open alongside Jacks, whose versatility as an opener, auxiliary spinner and general purpose power-hitter makes him a very tempting option as a World Cup reserve. Crawley and Duckett will slot into the middle-order, having opened in the Test against Ireland in June. On the bowling front, Carse has another chance to enhance his deck-hitting attributes, while Rehan Ahmed is self-evidently Adil Rashid’s legspinning heir apparent. Three more outings at the age of 19 can only bed him in further. Sam Hain is the likeliest of England’s four potential debutants to get a go, but at least two will feature.England: 1 Will Jacks, 2 Phil Salt (wk), 3 Joe Root, 4 Zak Crawley (capt), 5 Ben Duckett, 6 Sam Hain, 7 Rehan Ahmed, 8 Brydon Carse, 9 Tom Hartley/George Scrimshaw, 10 Luke Wood, 11 Matthew PottsStirling is Ireland’s stand-in captain, having taken over from Balbirnie after the World Cup debacle. How long he remains in the role is for Cricket Ireland to decide, but the two senior men will be leading their team in every sense, in their new partnership at the top of the order. Seeing as each made a hundred in a memorable 329-run chase at the Ageas Bowl three years ago, it feels like a safe pair of hands. Campher slots in at three, ahead of the rising star Harry Tector and the keeper Lorcan Tucker, while George Dockrell showcased his powerful ball-striking during Ireland’s series against Bangladesh at Chelmsford in May. On the bowling front, Josh Little’s left-arm pace offers a genuine point of difference.Ireland: 1 Paul Stirling (capt), 2 Andy Balbirnie, 3 Curtis Campher, 4 Harry Tector, 5 Lorcan Tucker (wk), 6 George Dockrell, 7 Andy McBrine, 8 Mark Adair, 9 Barry McCarthy, 10 Craig Young, 11 Josh Little

Pitch and conditions

It’s late September in Yorkshire, so let’s not get our hopes up… there’s a weather warning in place for Wednesday and the omens are not entirely promising. The outfield has been drenched with rain over the last few days and Yorkshire are desperately hoping that it dries out in the next 24 hours. It’s been under covers non-stop, so you’d imagine some assistance for the seamers will be in the offing. The club reckon 14,000 tickets have been sold, but there will doubtless be a few gaps in the stands.

Stats and trivia

• Ireland have won each of their last two white-ball fixtures against England. At the T20 World Cup in Melbourne last October, they prevailed by five runs on DLS after England misjudged the pace of their chase with rain looming at the MCG.
• However, at the Ageas Bowl in August 2020, it was a far more emphatic display. Stirling led the line with 142 from 128 balls, as his 214-run stand with Balbirnie powered Ireland to a seven-wicket win.
• Overall, England have won ten and lost two of their 12 completed ODIs against Ireland, dating back to their first meeting at Belfast in 2006. Aside from Southampton, the one that got away was a whopper – Ireland’s incredible World Cup win in Bengaluru in 2011, powered by Kevin O’Brien’s 50-ball hundred.

Quotes

“Obviously having Joe in the team makes it stronger – no matter what team you’re in. It’s great having him, especially for me as captain. I can lean on him with that kind of stuff as well, so that’s awesome. Hopefully he gets what he wants out of it.”
Stand-in England captain Zak Crawley is looking forward to leading a side which features his old Test skipper, Root“What are we crying out for is just more consistent cricket. Everyone’s playing at the World Cup, and we won’t be part of that this time around, so that makes us more hungry when we get these opportunities to play quality opposition at quality grounds..”
Heinrich Malan, Ireland’s coach, wants his players to focus on the international opportunity, irrespective of England’s distractions

Andrew McGlashan01-Dec-2023Former Australia captain Tim Paine has slammed the SCG pitch produced for the Sheffield Shield match between New South Wales and Tasmania as an “absolute disgrace”, after 24 wickets tumbled on the third day with the visitors bowled out for 68, but there remains confidence in the quality of surfaces for upcoming matches including the New Year’s Test against Pakistan.The clatter of wickets came across just 63 overs on Thursday, as batters were confronted with extreme seam movement and uneven bounce. Tasmania fell well short of chasing 143 after the home side had themselves lost 9 for 55 in the second innings.”That wicket was absolute disgrace,” Paine told SEN Tassie. “This a Test venue in the strongest state in the country, and they rolled that up. That’s embarrassing. The ball was seaming sideways, it was going up and down, it wasn’t fit for first-class cricket. That was a disgraceful wicket.”I haven’t spoken to people, but you could see it on the screen it had those cracks where it’s like got grass over it. You don’t even see that in club cricket.”Related

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Paine questioned how such a surface could be produced at a major Test venue, and said that it undermined the Sheffield Shield competition.”What’s going on at Cricket New South Wales or the SCG? That was such a bad wicket to play cricket on,” he said. “Whether we won or lost, whatever, I could have bowled on that and taken wickets. It’s not good enough.”How that can happen at one of the premier Test venues around the world is a disgrace. That was below standard for grade cricket and this is meant to be the premier first-class cricket competition in the world, and that is meant to be one of the iconic Test match venues… and that’s what we are getting served up.”New types of grass are being used at the SCG this season, with the Shield surfaces comprising a different variety than will form the Test pitch against Pakistan in early January. ESPNcricinfo understands that there are no concerns about the quality of pitch that will be brought up for that Test, which is shaping as David Warner’s farewell from the format, and will be played on one of the centre wickets used for TV games.Nathan Lyon, who played in the Tasmania match, was sure the pitch for the Test match would bear little resemblance. “I expect totally different,” he said.The ground will also host three BBL matches before the Test, with Sydney Sixers facing Melbourne Renegades (December 8), Adelaide Strikers (December 22) and Melbourne Stars (December 26).However, it also understood that elements of the pitch preparation will be reviewed with the proximity of the WBBL double-header matches on November 26 a potential factor as well as some poor weather.Chris Tremain, the New South Wales quick who claimed 6 for 31 in Tasmania’s second innings, defended the groundsmen by saying they had been hampered in the build-up by the weather and that the surface had started soft which caused divots to form that then hardened to create the uneven bounce.”Don’t think that wicket was poorly prepared,” Tremain told ESPNcricinfo. “In the balance of bat versus ball obviously ball was the winner, but I wouldn’t be too quick to hang the groundsman out to dry.”Tasmania captain Jordan Silk, while more measured than Paine in his views, said conditions had been skewed too far towards the ball.”I’ve played quite a lot Shield cricket, and can’t say I’ve played on a wicket quite like that where the ball was nipping around a lot. There were cracks on lines, and it was snaky,” he said. “You had not just the sideways movement but you also had a few balls climbing up then some climbing down.”Think you can cop a bit of wear and tear over the course of a game; but when there’s been 40 wickets in 160 overs of cricket, you probably think it’s a bit too heavily weighted towards the bowlers. And that’s coming from someone who is really keen on having some sporting wickets, but it was slightly too far towards the bowling side.”