Back stress fracture curtails Billy Stanlake's stint with Derbyshire in County Championship

Sri Lanka cricket offers innovative retainer contracts; Dickewella and de Silva get top grades

In a recent move by Sri Lanka Cricket, the board has announced retainer contracts to 24 Men’s players, which is eight less than the previous year’s 32. While wicket-keeper batsman and all format player Nirisan Dickwella along with all-rounder Dhananjaya de Silva got the top A1 grade and would be paid remuneration worth USD 100,000 for the 2021-22 season, Veteran batsman Dinesh Chandimal was pushed to C2, the fifth-lowest grading on a 12 point grading system. Tom Moody, the Director of Cricket Sri Lanka and Arvinda de Silva, Cricket Technical Committee chief explained the grading system which was an accumulation of 100 points earned by a player through parameters such as Performance (out of 50), Fitness (out of 20), Leadership (out of 10), Professionalism (out of 10) and Future Potential and Adaptability (out of 10). While the Test skipper Dimuth Karunaratne is in A3 grade and the ODI skipper Kusal Perera is in A2, the surprising part is the grade of B1 given to T20I skipper Dasun Shanaka. To finalise this year’s contract, previous year’s and 2019-20 season’s performances were considered for grading. All players will have to sign their contracts by June 3. Apart from the national contracts, there is also a provision for a Domestic annually renewable Development Contract which will be available to six players aged under 25 and will be renewed for three years after which those players would not get that contract any further. There is also a provision for Incremental Contract for players who do not have either national or domestic development contracts. To gain this, a player must gain 10 points on a system that would give three points for a Test appearance and one point each for T20I and ODI appearance. Players like Praveen Jayawickrama, who recently made a sensational debut in Test cricket picking a five-for in his very first innings against Bangladesh could benefit from the Incremental contract as he has not been placed in any grade of the central contract for this year. The Sri Lankan ODI team is currently in Bangladesh for a three-match ODI series against the hosts beginning May 23. Contract Grade Breakdown A1 (USD 100,000): Dhananjaya de Silva, Niroshan Dickwella A2 (USD 80,000): Kusal Perera, Angelo Mathews A3 (USD 70,000): Kusal Mendis, Dimuth Karunaratne B1 (USD 65,000): Suranga Lakmal, Dasun Shanaka B2 (USD 60,000): Wanindu Hasaranga, Lasith Embuldeniya B3 (USD 55,000): Pathum Nissanka, Lahiru Thirimanne C1 (USD 50,000): Dushmantha Chameera, Kasun Rajitha C2 (USD 45,000): Dinesh Chandimal, Lakshan Sandakan C3 (USD 40,000): Vishwa Fernando, Isuru Udana D1 (USD 35,000): Ramesh Mendis, Oshada Fernando D2 (USD 30,000): Danushka Gunathilaka, Lahiru Kumara D3 (USD 25,000): Ashen Bandara, Akila Dananjaya

West Indies Test training squad, management receives Covid-19 vaccine jabs

Jomel Warrican and Chemar Holder were among the Eleven players and support staff members of the West Indies’ red ball training squad that received Covid-19 vaccine jabs in St. Lucia on May 19. The two other members of the squad received their second jab as well. The doses were administered to the squad members by Cricket West Indies in partnership with the Government of St. Lucia and the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA). It wasn’t compulsory for all the members of the squad to get vaccinated, although some of them have already been vaccinated in their home countries and would receive their second jab in St. Lucia. CWI’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr Israel Dowlat thanked the CARPHA and Govt. of St. Lucia for their support. “We are extremely grateful to have our governments and CARPHA who have been partnering with us to host cricket safely and to get our squads vaccinated.” On their part, CARPHA Executive Director Dr Joy St. John thanked the cricket team, which holds a lot of important and influential capacity in the Caribbean, for helping it promote vaccination at the times when the US influenced NOVAX gang is also being a great influence among the Caribbean people. "Cricket West Indies is leading the way in helping to raise awareness of the need to get vaccinated. They have been actively encouraging their players and staff to get vaccinated and we urge the people of CARICOM to follow them to safety by getting their vaccines as soon as possible," he said. Both the red ball and white ball squad is training in St. Lucia ahead of their upcoming cricket of summer which will see them participate in a total of 22 games across all formats within a span of three months. This includes two-Test series of two matches each against South Africa and one three-match ODI series against Australia. The Men in Maroon will also play a match T20I series with each team as well. The first assignment is Kraigg Brathwaite’s team taking on Dean Elgar’s in the first Test at the Daren Sammy Cricket Ground in St. Lucia from June 10 onwards.

CPL 2021 to commence on August 28

The Caribbean Premier League (CPL) will start on August 28 while the title clash has been scheduled to take place on September 19. All the 33 matches are slated to take place at Warner Park in St Kitts & Nevis. Pete Russell, Hero CPL's COO expressed his delight and said that it is exciting that the window for the 2021 edition has been finalised. "It is really exciting to have the tournament window for 2021 confirmed and I would like to thank the St Kitts & Nevis government for agreeing to host this year's event. We would also like to extend our thanks to Cricket West Indies for helping us create this window in a busy summer of cricket for them. We are looking forward to once again successfully staging the Hero CPL in 2021,” he said. The 2020 season had a global viewership of around 523 million which was 67% more in numbers as compared to 2019 edition. Trinbago Knight Riders were crowned the champions after they defeated St Lucia Zouks by 8 wickets in Trinidad after chasing down a target of 155 runs in just 18.1 overs. Lendl Simmons and Darren Bravo scored unbeaten fifties to see their side home. Earlier, Trinbago captain Kieron Pollard had scalped a four-for as St Lucia were bundled out for 154 in 19.1 overs.

Kyle Jamieson downplays hype around Duke ball, looks to replicate Stuart Broad's style of bowling

New Zealand young pace sensation Kyle Jamieson has warned his teammates against getting carried away with the expectations of extracting too much help in the air and out of the surface with the duke ball. In a media interaction, Jamieson said that New Zealand bowlers have experience of bowling in helpful conditions back home but with the Kookaburra balls and hence if they go on for searching a lot of help, they would end up losing accuracy. "You don't want to start trying to move the ball two sets of stumps and then get caught on the bounce. We've found favourable conditions in New Zealand at times, albeit not with the Dukes ball, and we are mindful of the fact that if you start searching too much, you can get hurt a little bit,” Jamieson said. New Zealand players who were to travel to the UK for the Test series practised with the duke ball in a preparation camp in Lincoln. The likes of Jamieson was not part of that group although interestingly he had a pair of duke balls with him in the kits while at the IPL 2021. Jamieson reiterated that the duke ball will not swing straightway and all the time and hence bowlers will have to bowl disciplined line and lengths. "He [Shane Jurgensen, the New Zealand bowling coach] hid those two Duke balls in my bag but I didn't get a chance to use them. There's a lot of talk around how much the Dukes ball can move but it also doesn't necessarily move all the time and it can take a while for it to start going,” Jamieson added. It will be Jamieson’s first opportunity to bowl in the longest format out of New Zealand and the tall bowler is looking to model the bowling styles of Stuart Broad, who relies a lot on the wobble and scramble seam to deceive batsmen with unexpected nature and amount of movement. "I'm certainly excited by the chance of it moving around little bit. The part of the next few days [will be] to gauge around what the ball feels like and how much it's going to move. We've seen in previous English summers the likes of [Stuart] Broad using the scrambled seam or wobbled seam ball. We'll try and play around that and gauge the effective way to operate,” Jamieson said.