South Africa complete clean sweep of depleted Sri Lanka

Day 3: Record Williamson-Nicholls partnership crushes Pakistan's confidence

Pakistan endured another miserable day on their tour of New Zealand with Kane Williamson completing another double century, his second of the season, and Daryl Mitchell reaching three figures for the first time in his career, on day 3 of the second Test going on at Christchurch. The day started with both Williamson, not out on 129 overnight, and Henry Nicholls, unbeaten on 89, resuming the grounding down of opposition. It didn’t take much time for New Zealand to reach 300 from their overnight score of 286, and for Nicholls to complete his second hundred of the season. However, keeping with the trend of missed chances yesterday, Nicholls was dropped twice again today, first, at the score of 92, then, after he had reached his 100. Williamson too, was dropped once in the morning. The two batsmen continued to pile on the agony for the visitors as the Pakistani bowlers looked deflated. The partnership swelled to epic proportions, becoming the highest for any wicket in Pakistan vs New Zealand matches. The 369-run stand is also the third-biggest for any wicket by a New Zealand batting pair. Nicholls managed to reach his 150 while an unrelenting Kiwi captain completed his second double hundred of the season. But before Williamson’s milestone, Pakistan finally got a breakthrough when Nicholls got a top edge to a rare bouncer from Mohammad Abbas. He scored 157. BJ Watling missed out on the fun when he was dismissed cheaply by Shaheen Shah Afridi, for just seven. But Daryl Mitchell, in the team due to Neil Wagner’s injury, made full use of this opportunity. He and Williamson went on the offensive and started to smash the Pakistan bowlers to all round the ground. Williamson’s innings finally ended when he attempted an upper cut which landed in the hands of the third man fielder. This shot and the way the two batsmen were batting was a clear sign that the Kiwis wanted to declare soon. It was now a race against the time for Mitchell to get to his maiden Test hundred. Williamson was poised for declaration after tea but gave enough time to the all-rounder to complete his ton. The New Zealand innings ended at 659/6, a lead of 362 runs. When Pakistan came out to bat, the two openers – Shan Masood and Abid Ali – showed great restraint, not scoring a run for the first few overs. Then, the in-form bowler Kyle Jamieson came into the attack and made an impact immediately, getting Masood to edge a delivery to slip on the second ball of his first over. He was out for a 25-ball duck. Abid Ali also seemed to have succumbed to Jamieson when the umpire gave him out lbw. But he survived thanks to a nick that even he wasn’t aware of. Eventually, Pakistan ended day 3 on 8/1, trailing by 354. An innings defeat looms large on the horizon for Pakistan. Unless, someone plays a really special knock.

There is no end to Renegades' misery as Finch and Co. lose seven in a row

Melbourne Renegades’ miserable BBL 10 campaign continued on its distraught path as Aaron Finch and Co. lost yet another match which they should have won. The Renegades were beaten comprehensively by a huge margin of 60 runs by the Adelaide Strikers, even while chasing a par total of 172 runs at the Adelaide Oval. The match was over in the 10th over Although the scorecard will show that Renegades got out of the reach of the match probably after the power surge, however the match for the Red Machine was lost in the 10th over itself when they needed four runs to get from that over to get the Bash Boost point, but instead of going for those runs, Mohammad Nabi decided to play three balls and got only one run, even as Sam Harper had got out playing a rash short just before him. With one ball in hand, young Mackenzy Harvey needed to score three runs, but of course, he could not as Danny Briggs bowled a brilliant over to defend the four runs, giving away just a solitary single. 'Gades can't seem to get out of the hole The Renegades team got into a hole after that and much like every match, in this game too there was no coming out of it. Even after losing Aaron Finch off the first ball, the ‘Gades had an impressive start courtesy of some cracking shots from two youngsters in Harper and Harvey. They put on 67 runs off 55 balls but most importantly set up a platform for the likes of Nabi, Beau Webster, and Jake Fraser-McGurk to get on with it. But that did not happen as Nabi was choked for the flow of runs and even after playing 16 balls, which included four dots in the power surge, could only score seven runs. Similar was the case for Webster and Imad Wasim who couldn’t just get on with the game. McGurk on the other hand came too late to create any difference. Worst Power Surge ever This was the worst power surge in the history of the BBL as Renegades could only score five runs of the two overs and lost two wickets in the process as well. Firstly Nabi was served four yorkers by Wes Agar, the fourth one getting his wicket, and then in the second over Peter Siddle worked his magic and got rid of Imad Wasim by conceding just three runs. Danny Briggs the game changer The England Pro Briggs was once again at his best throwing in yorkers at will and not letting the run rate. He bowled four overs and gave away just 17 runs for two wickets. At one stage the Sussex man had figures of 1/8 in just three overs. It was he who stopped the flow of runs as Rashid Khan the premium spinner of the Strikers wasn’t at his best today. The Weatherald-Gibson Earlier in the day, Strikers after winning the toss had decided to bat first. But the decision really didn’t go their way as they lost Phil Salt early at the score of 14 runs in the fourth over. After that skipper, Alex Carey and Matt Renshaw built a slow but steady partnership of 54 runs before spinners in Nabi and Imad pulled on their tricks and from 68/1 the Strikers were soon 72/4. But after that Jake Weatherald and Ryan Gibson built a 53 ball 98 run partnership during which they hit Josh Lalor for 23 runs in one over and got a total of 67 runs from their last five, taking the total to 171, which at one point of the time looked impossible. What's Next? Strikers with this victory have now moved on to the fourth position and will take on Renegades in a reverse leg game on 8th January. Renegades on the other hand seemed to have lost any confidence that they might have had coming into this game and would look to play for pride from now onwards.

Daily Round up | Jan 5: Kane Williamson continues form

New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson has continued his brilliant form in Test cricket after scoring a double ton against Pakistan in the second Test while South Africa have completed a clean sweep win against Sri Lanka in the two-match Test series. Here is the daily round up for the day. Kane Williamson shows class New Zealand captain Kane Williamson was once again among runs after he scored a fine double ton against Pakistan in Christchurch. Williamson scored 238 runs in the first innings while Henry Nicholls struck 157. New Zealand ended up the first innings at 659/6 (D). Sourav Ganguly to be discharged BCCI President Sourav Ganguly will be discharged from the Woodlands Hospital on Wednesday, the MD & CEO of Woodlands Hospital, Kolkata, Dr Rupali Basu, confirmed on Tuesday. Ganguly will be monitored daily at his home, Dr Basu added. “The discussion was on the two other coronary blockages that need to be treated by angioplasty in this admission vis-a-vis at an immediate later stage,” said Dr Basu. South Africa complete clean sweep win South Africa have completed a clean sweep win against Sri Lanka in the two-match Test series in Johannesburg. The hosts defeated Sri Lanka by 10 wickets in the second Test after chasing down a mere target of 67 runs in the second innings. Aiden Markram scored 36* while Dean Elgar remained unbeaten at 31. Earlier, Lungi Ngidi picked up four wickets for South Africa. Sri Lanka were bundled out for 211 with captain Dimuth Karunaratne scoring 103 in the second innings. KL Rahul ruled out India batsman KL Rahul has been ruled out of the Test series against Australia after sustaining a wrist injury. “KL Rahul sprained his left wrist while batting in the nets at the MCG during Team India’s practice session on Saturday. The wicketkeeper-batsman will not be available for the remaining two Tests of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy as he will need about three weeks time to recover completely and regain full strength,” BCCI said in its media release. Moeen Ali tests positive for COVID-19 England’s Moeen Ali has tested positive for COVID-19 after reaching Sri Lanka. “Following PCR tests administered on arrival at the airport in Hambantota on Sunday 3 January, The England and Wales Cricket Board can confirm that Moeen Ali has tested positive for Covid-19,” an official statement from the ECB read. England are slated to play a two-match Test series against Sri Lanka.

Afghanistan Cricket Board gets UAE visas, ODI series against Ireland to go as planned

The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) managed to procure the UAE visas for the players who were to travel to the country for the ODI series against Ireland. The development must have brought relief in the ACB as Cricket Ireland was not ready to reschedule the series to Oman due to the visa issues between the ACB and the UAE authorities. As per a Cricbuzz report, ACB received the visas at 10 o’clock in the evening on Monday, but not before the board had booked the tickets to Oman. The Ireland team has already arrived in the UAE, and Afghanistan will travel to the country next week for the series. ''Actually, the plan was to go to Oman and we booked the ticket as well to go to Oman. But Yesterday in the evening after 10:00 clock our UAE visa arrived. Some of the players' visas arrived in the night and some in the morning. So we decided to go to UAE as the Ireland team is also staying there as well. So later the plan was changed that the team will move to UAE instead of Oman. We will go at the end of next week,'' Cricbuzz quoted Afghanistan Cricket Board media manager Hikmat Hasan as saying. The ODI series will be three-match long and it will begin on January 18, while the last match of the series will be played on January 23 at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi.