England appoint Trescothick as batting coach; Jeetan Patel, Jon Lewis to coach spinners, pacers

Former England opener Marcus Trescothick has been appointed as the batting coach of the England cricket team, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said in a statement on March 01. Trescothick is currently serving as the Assistant Coach at Somerset, a county he represented before taking up the coaching role and will take up his responsibility for England starting mid-March.

Trescothick will replace former England batsman Jonathan Trott, who is serving as the batting coach of the team on the ongoing tour of India.

Along with Trescothick, the ECB has announced as many as three appointments in the coaching department.

Former New Zealand and Warwickshire off-spinner Jeetan Patel has been appointed as the full-time spin bowling coach of the team after he applied for the role last month.

Also, former England pacer Jon Lewis who was coaching the England Lions squads has been promoted as the pace bowling coach of the team. Lewis has been with the England cricket team on the tour of India. Following his appointment for the senior team, he will vacate the position of Lions’ coach, which will be taken up by Richard Dawson, who was the head coach at Gloucestershire County. Dawson will assume the role next month.

“Following an extensive recruitment process, I’m really excited about the calibre of the individuals that we’ve appointed into these specialist roles. Marcus, Jon and Jeetan have demonstrated their ability at the highest level and also show huge potential for the future. Working alongside Carl Hopkinson, our current Elite Fielding Coach, we have the makings of a strong specialist coaching team, possessing a diverse range of experience,” ECB Performance Director Mo Bobat on the appointment of new coaches in England set up.

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Shahid Afridi's age confusion continues to amaze fans

Former Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi’s tweet on his birthday has attracted some controversy. Afridi who celebrates his birthday on March 1 thanked fans and family and made a revelation about his age that he has turned 44 in a tweet. “Thank you very much for all the lovely birthday wishes - 44 today! My family and my fans are my biggest assets. Really enjoying my stint with Multan and hope to produce match winning performances for all MS fans,” his tweet read. Now when he has revealed his real age, it does dismantle him from certain records and one of these is being the youngest player to score a hundred in ODI cricket. Afridi scored the then fastest ODI ton after he completed his century in 37 balls against Sri Lanka in Nairobi in 1996. He eventually scored 102 off 40 deliveries before getting out. The right-handed batsman was supposed to be 16 years and 217 days old when he notched up the hundred. But after his own admission about his age now, Afridi would have been 19 years 217 days old when he had scored this century against the Lankan lions. This means that he is not the youngest batsman to score a century in ODI cricket. Infact, Afghanistan's Usman Ghani should now hold this record who was 17 years and 242 days old when he struck 118 in 143 balls against Zimbabwe back in 2014. Afridi’s record of the fastest ODI century was taken over by New Zealand’s Corey Anderson who notched up the 100-run mark in 36 balls against West Indies in 2014. Later, this record was broken by South Africa’s AB de Villiers who scored a completed a hundred in just 31 balls against the Caribbean team in 2015.

He's been the pinnacle of the game for a while: Maxwell on Kohli

Australia all-rounder Glenn Maxwell was snapped by the Royal Challengers Bangalore for a sum of Rs. 14.25 Cr during the IPL 2021 mini auctions. RCB’s decision received mixed reactions from the fans and the pundits but the Aussie all-rounder is looking forward to playing under skipper Virat Kohli. "It [RCB stint] is going to be next level. He's been the pinnacle of the game for a while as a multi-format player from Tests all the way to T20s," Maxwell told AAP. "He's been able to adapt his game, dominate for a long period of time and deal with the Indian pressure of being their captain and their best player. I am looking forward to watching him go about his work, not just in games but in training, and hopefully tapping into some of the leadership stuff and try and learn off him," he added. The right-handed all-rounder also talked about the way Kohli supported his decision of taking a break for sometime due to mental health issues in 2019. "He's been a solid backer of my stance. In a way he probably understood a lot of the things that I was going through ... a lot of expectation and pressure, which I'm sure he can relate to," Maxwell said.

Rohit Sharma, R Ashwin achieve career-best ICC Test rankings

The results of the last two Test matches between India and England have impacted the International Cricket Council (ICC) Test rankings massively as the top performers have jumped on the rankings while others have slid down. Top scorer from either side in the last two Tests--Rohit Sharma has jumped to his all-time high position on the ICC Rankings for batsmen in Tests. He has jumped to the eighth position with 742 rating points, which is 20 more than his previous best of 722 points attained in 2019. He had scored a magnificent 161 runs in the first innings of the second Test against England to set up the game for India on a pitch that was offering a lot of assistance to spinners. Rohit has replaced his teammate and India’s number in Tests--Chetehswar Pujara, who unusually has gone two consecutive Tests with a string of low scores on Indian pitches, at the eighth position. Pujara has slid to 10th position on the ICC Rankings that also includes Indian skipper Virat Kohli at the number five position. On the ICC Rankings for bowlers in Tests, spinners from both sides have made significant gains. Man of the match with an 11-wicket haul in the last Test, Axar Patel has leapfrogged 30 positions to reach the 38th position on the rankings table. On the other hand, Ravichandran Ashwin made an inroad into the ranking above him and jumped four places to the third position, only behind Australia’s Pat Cummins and New Zealand’s Neil Wagner. English spinner Jack Leach has not been able to win Tests for his team in the last two games against India, but his own performances have been tremendous. He has jumped three places to breach the list of top-30 bowlers on the ICC Rankings. Meanwhile, the ICC has also notified that the rankings system will be made a weekly-updating system starting in March 2021. According to the weekly system, the men’s rankings table will be updated every Wednesdays at 08h00 GMT for all formats of the game, and all the performances till every Tuesdays will be considered. For the women’s game, the rankings will be updated every Tuesdays at 08h00 GMT and similarly to the men’s rankings, all performances till the previous day will be considered. The ICC said that the first change in the rankings s per the new system will be made on March 2 (Tuesday) for women’s cricket while for men’s cricket, the first change will be on March 3 (Wednesday).

NZ vs AUS | Final three T20Is to take place behind closed doors

The fans have been barred from the final three T20Is between New Zealand and Australia which will be played at Wellington Regional Stadium after a COVID-19 lockdown in Auckland. The third T20I that was earlier scheduled to take place in Auckland was moved to Wellington while the last two matches were also shifted to the same venue from Tauranga. “They’ve made sure that they’ve looked after the players’ mental and physical wellbeing and come to the right decision,” he told reporters on Monday. The Blackcaps lead the series 2-0 so far and need one more victory to take the unassailable lead in the series. Talking about the home support, Australia spinner Ashton Agar said that the crowd’s support does play an important role in boosting the team’s confidence. “A home ground advantage always helps when you’ve got a crowd that’s right behind their home team and that’s how it’s been so far,” he said. “It’s always a fun crowd here in New Zealand, it’s always a great atmosphere, so for them to not have that particularly on a game that the series hinges on could be a massive advantage for us.” The four Auckland based players (Chapman, Guptill, Neesham and Phillips) self-isolating in Wellington have now received negative COVID tests and will be able to train with the team on Tuesday. The third encounter between the two teams will take place on Wednesday. The second match turned out to be a close and high-scoring encounter. New Zealand batting first posted 219/4 in 20 overs riding on Martin Guptill’s 97 while Australia fell short of just 4 runs. Marcus Stoinis scored 78 off 37 but his innings went in vain as the visitors lost the match eventually.