Australia One Day Cup | Cameron Bancroft century lifts Western Australia to win over Queensland

In a run-fest at The Gabba, Western Australia managed to stay on top of the home side Queensland Bulls, defeating them by 70 runs to win their third match of the Australian domestic One Day Cup. The 70 run victory margin may look very large, but not if it is revealed that the chasing team made 291 as well.

Chasing a target of 362, set up by the WA, Queensland didn’t have a great start as they lost their skipper Usman Khawaja at the team score of only 13. From there onwards, wickets fell at regular intervals before Joe Burns ( 73) and Jimmy Peirson (62), two of the most experienced Queenslander got together and stitched a 124 run partnership off just 104 balls.

The duo threatened to complete what would have been the second-best chase in Australian domestic ODI. When they were at the crease, the Bulls needed only 125 runs in 75 balls with six wickets in hand.

However, Andrew Tye came back with a vicious spell and got both wickets one over apart. This broke the Bulls’ resistance and the entire team could only get up to 291 in 48.5 overs. Tye picked three wickets in total for the WA side.

Earlier in the day, after winning the toss and deciding to bat first, Western Australia rode on a magnificent hundred from Cameron Bancroft along with some stupendous hitting at the backend by Cameron Green and skipper Ashton Turner to get to 361-3 in their 50 overs. While Bancroft remained unbeaten on 124 off 105 balls, Green was removed on 70 off 55 balls by James Bazley. Turner also remained unbeaten on 70 off only 41 balls.

Courtesy of this win, WA now have three wins in four games and are at the top of the six-team points table.

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T20 World Cup | After final loss, heartbroken Jimmy Nessham tweets ‘335 days’

If there was one player who would have wanted nothing but the T20 World Cup, it was the New Zealand all-rounder Jimmy Neesham. Having been robbed of a title in the ODI World Cup in 2019 on boundary count, Neesham had tweeted that instead of becoming a cricketer, one should try and become a baker and die fat at sixty. He was so distraught at the loss that he almost lost belief in the game. He was also unable to get some sort of calm as other players did by winning the World Test Championship. But then the all-rounder came back two years later and exacted revenge in a telling fashion, single-handedly throwing out England from the T20 World Cup by hitting a 13 ball 27 when his team needed to chase 57 off the last four overs. However, as his entire team celebrated in joy the semi-final win, Neesham tweeted the famous lines of Kobe Bryant, “What’s there to be happy about, is the job finished, I don’t think so.” All this showed that he badly wanted to win the title and the loss has not really gone down well. In yet another fresh tweet, the 31-year-old wrote, ‘335 days.’ indicating the number of days left for the T20 World cup in 2022, which would be held in Australia in October-November 2022. It is proof of the fact that he is not over this loss either and would leave no stone unturned to win the Cup in 2022.

Mitchell Marsh’ s T20 World Cup heroics to hold zero weight ahead of Ashes selection: Chief Selector

Australia chief selector George Bailey has stated that Mitchell Marsh’s World Cup heroics or for that matter his tremendous form in the shortest format of the game, will hold no importance as far as the Ashes selection is concerned. Bailey, once a T20I captain for Australia himself has stressed that the two formats are as different as they could be and they are ‘they're different sports in many respects.’ They're (T20s and Tests) about as far removed, we joke internally that they're different sports in many respects," Bailey told SEN's Dwayne's World on Monday. He argued that winning the T20 World Cup does not give Australia any sort of advantage in the upcoming Ashes and there is enough time to deliberate on the same. "I think it's really important that we celebrate the tournament and the role he's played in that team, and celebrate the fact that he's an Australian hero for a day and he's very much a catalyst behind us holding the trophy above our heads.” Bailey praised Marsh for him tremendous knock in the T20 WC final. Despite shunning him for the Ashes spot, Bailey levelled the playing field saying that Marsh can make a comeback into the Test and he hopes that Marsh will enjoy the best form of his life in the coming years. "What I can say about Mitch is that we have full confidence that the next two, three and hopefully four years are going to be the best cricketing years of his career, so hopefully we get to see him playing all three formats for Australia." Mitchell Marsh's last big score came in the Test format back in early 2018 when he scored 101 and 96 in back to back matches across two different series against England and Australia. He has not been in the Test XI since September 2019.

Continuing to improve as a group is the bigger picture: Williamson humble in defeat

New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson, who has on several occasions been famed for his calm demeanour was once again an idol of humility in the post-match press conference of the T20 World Cup. Having lost his second ICC World Cup as a captain, the Blackcaps player chose to see the bigger picture and stated that New Zealand will always continue improving as a team. Speaking at the post-match press conference in Dubai, Williamson said, “You know the picture is always big. You narrow it down to sort of one game here, one game there and the wins and losses that come as a part of what we do.” “But the bigger picture is the important one and it is trying to continue to improve as a group,” he added. Talking about his team, which is relatively low on experience as it was the first-ever World Cup for most of its players, the 31-year-old said that he is proud of the way they played in the tournament. “You know they played extremely well. There’s a lot of growth here. But as a cricket team, or as any sports team you keep looking forward and try and play better cricket day-to-day, “ he said. New Zealand lost the T20 World Cup 2021 final by eight wickets to their trans-Tasman rivals Australia.

Josh Hazlewood becomes only 2nd player alongside Yuvraj Singh in exclusive list

Australian speedster Josh Hazlewood, whose exceptional spell of 3/16 lit up the T20 World Cup final has joined an exclusive list alongside Indian legend Yuvraj Singh. Hazlewood has now become one of the only two players to have featured in the final of a winning ODI, T20, as well as the U-19 World Cup campaign. While Yuvraj completed this feat after playing instrumental roles in the 2007 and 2011 World Cup, Hazlewood won his silverware six years apart, having won the 2015 ODI WC in Australia and the T20 WC now in the UAE. The two are also the members of another elite club having won the U-19 WC as well. Mitchell Marsh also joins them in this list however, he did not feature in the final of the 2015 ODI World Cup and was only in the squad for Australia in that tournament. Interestingly Hazlewood was initially not in the plan for the World T20 tournament but came into the scheme of things against England last year. He had not featured in the shortest format of the game for four years before that. In 2021, he won the Indian Premier League with the Chennai Super Kings as well as the WC that has been elusive to Australia for all these years.