Michael Roberts
Several of the cricket teams today seem to be loaded with wicket-keeper batsmen who are good enough to be counted among the best twenty-five batsmen in their country.
Rishab Pant batting 
… and botching a stumping
Category Archives: tower of strength
An Interloper’s Reading of Days 3-to-5 at Visakhapatnam
Dannie Byrne
DAY THREE: “Magnificent centuries from Elgar and de Kock bring the South Africans right back into this match; Day 3 at Visakhapatnam”
Maybe it was due to it being a Friday, but my driver’s punctuality slipped from Indian time to something more akin to what you often experience in the Arabian world. In the Arabic language to ask the time literally translates as “What hour is it?” There is really no need to bother with inconsequential minor details such as minutes. I once waited two weeks for a bus in Sudan. Each morning I went to the scheduled point of departure and asked in reasonably good Arabic, “When is the bus leaving?” To which the answer was always “bukra” ( tomorrow ). In order to try to extract a little more information I’d follow up with, “What time?” To which the answer was invariably “Insha’allah.” One of the difficulties of travelling as an atheist is that it is difficult to really plan anything when it’s left to god to decide what time you can board the bus.
Filed under Indian cricket, memorable moments, performance, tower of strength
Chamari Atapattu hammers Aussies in Losing Cause
Chamari Atapattu scored 113 runs in 66 balls against World top-dog Women’s Cricket team Australia ay Sydney today — albeit in a losing cause because Australia had piled on 217 for 4 wkts in their twenty overs in the First ODI match up during the Sri Lankan Women’s tour. I was fortunate to catch most of her innings because I turned on the TV with the intention of watching Australia play Wales in the World Cup Rugby tournament. I can assure readers that Chamari’s striking was clean and scintillating. Several of her sixers or fours were straight hits.
Chamari Athapathtu … at North Sydney Oval on September 29, 2019 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images)
Afghan Mountain Men bury the Bangla Deltaic Men
Result
Only Test, Afghanistan tour of Bangladesh at Chattogram, Sep 5-9 2019
342 & 260
If a team has just performed poorly at a World Cup, a structural overhaul of some kind is usually in order. With Afghanistan, there was a sudden change in captaincy just prior to the event, which hadn’t gone down well with some of the senior players. But, as they crashed out after losing all their nine games, other issues came to the fore, and even the players’ temperament was called into question. Changes were inevitable. In the period since, the ACB handed the captaincy reins to Rashid Khan, and when Phil Simmons left as head coach, they put Andy Moles, the chief selector, in his place on a temporary basis.
Remembering Joe Hoad, A Bajan Man True
Joe Hoad passed way a year or so back due to a medical mishap. My appreciation of the man and his contribution to Sri Lankan cricket was recorded earlier in Cricketique via a ditty of my own in what may pass for “islander strain:”
Joe’s no Imran Khan,
He’s just a plain Bajan man, man.
You see Joe,
Da man could talk
Boy, how he could talk
That man know how to walk the talk, and even how to talk the walk
Lankans castled by Astle and Kiwis ‘malinguered’ by MALINGA
Sri Lanka Innings
WIA Fernando…. b Astle …..6 ………..Over 6.4 bowled’m with a wrong’un! Avishka didn’t pick that up at all. It pitched around length outside off, turned in a fair bit and Avishka was on the back foot to steer it away after it turned away but it went the other way to knock over off stump 39/2
MD Gunathilaka ….. b Astle ………..30 …….Over 8.5 another wrong’un and another one beaten! ……This time it’s the well-set Gunathilaka. He pitched it nicely and slow with some flight on leg stump, Gunathilaka went back to defend it but the ball turned away and knocked over the stumps 50/3
Heroes: Two Number Elevens who hung in There till the Last Hurrah …. Fernando and Leach
Andrew Fidel Fernando, in ESPNcricinfo, 30 August 2019, where the title is “The near-identical tales of Vishwa Fernando and Jack Leach taking their teams to epic wins”
On a warm weekend afternoon, a left-hand No. 5 batsman is on a fourth-innings warpath for the ages. There are fearsome quicks tearing in – bowlers who together form one of the most lethal attacks on the planet. They are breaking like waves but they can’t quench this inferno. The batsman is cutting, hacking, driving and reverse-bludgeoning his way through incredible odds. On the leg side, it’s open season. The area beyond the boundary is bombarded repeatedly. From the ground first, and later, thrillingly, from the air.
Heartbeats around the planet have quickened on his account. Shallow breaths are being drawn all through the stadium. But although he is batting better than he (or perhaps anyone) ever has, late in the piece, he must endure a moment of utter helplessness. Continue reading
EMERGING TEAMS of SRI LANKA and BANGLADESH face off in August
Sri Lanka Emerging Team …………………………………304/7
Bangladesh Emerging Team ……………………………………………….… 118 SL Emerg won by 186 runs
SCORECARD SUMMARY
SRI LANKA EMERGING TEAM ……………………………..304/7(50 OVERS)
- Charith Asalanka71 (79)
- Wanindu Hasaranga70 (46)
- Shahidul Islam2/71 (10)
- Shafiqul Islam2/22 (7)
BANGLADESH EMERGING TEAM …………………………………..118(28.3 OVERS)
- Saif Hassan50 (70)
- Afif Hossain19 (33)
- Wanindu Hasaranga4/12 (6)
- Nuwan Thushara 2/21
Player Of The Match = Wanindu Hasaranga
Pathum Nssanka
Dimuth Karunaratne stands as Calm as Tall
Andrew Fidel Fernando in ESPNcricinfo, 17 August 2019, where the title runs “Karunaratne, a cool captain for Sri Lanka’s high seas”
The selectors are making strange picks, the board is trying to sack another coach, the sports minister is making serious overreaches, the XI changes from series to series, but from amid this chaos, which to many has seemed like the wreckage of a once-was cricketing power, Dimuth Karunaratne has eked out a small but significant patch of stability.
