Still hasn't played a single Test: Chris Rushworth becomes leading wicket-taker for Durham in First Class history

For a man who was forced to sell satellite dishes and attend call centre phone calls after not being selected in the first team of his childhood club, it has been a once in a century effort to become the leading wicket-taker in the club's First Class history. And it has been achieved by none other than the always hardworking, rusty, but at your neck, 34-year-old Chris Rushworth.

When Rushworth claimed the wicket of Worcestershire's Jack Haynes, there were tears in his eyes. All the players in the field applauded as the man, who created history, lost in the moment of glory, re-energised himself went back to his run-up. He then came back again to help his team in going for the victory on the last day of Durham’s clash against Worcestershire at the Riverside Ground in Chester Lee Street.

The 34-year-old, who made his First-Class debut in 2010 against Yorkshire, has now overtaken his former teammate Graham Onion, who even represented England in nine Tests and four ODIs. A one-club man, Rushworth took nine wickets in this game to lead Durham to their second win of the season and pushing them to equal points as Nottinghamshire who occupy the second position in the Group one table. The match was won by 258 runs by the home side.

The Sunderland-born has so far picked 26 wickets this season. From the time he helped Durham survive the relegation scare in the 2012 Championship and then picked up 54 wickets to help them win their third Championship in the very next year in 2013, Rushworth has been an integral part of the set-up.

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Natarajan on the road to recovery after knee surgery, shares exercise video

India’s left-arm pacer T Natarajan, who got injured in the now postponed Indian Premier League is getting on the road to recover in his rehabilitation program at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru. The Tamil Nadu pacer went through knee surgery on April 27. Posting a video of his rehabilitation, Natrajan captioned it as, “I wake up each day stronger than before !! #Rehab #Progress.” The Tamil Nadu player was a breath of fresh air in the IPL’ 2020 edition, bowling yorkers at will and getting all the recognition that he rightly deserved. The 29-year-old, call this luck or reward for good performance, got to debut for India in all three formats on the Australia tour last year, even though he was not in the original squad, and only got in when Varun Chakravarthy got injured. This year though, he didn’t bowl that great for the Sunrisers Hyderabad, who struggled in this year’s league, winning only of their six games before it was suspended and then postponed due to rising cases of Covid in the Bio-bubble. With India's Sri Lanka tour approaching in July this year, a fit Natarajan could be part of that team. Natarajan, who has so far taken 13 wickets in seven international games across all formats for India, was able to play just two IPL games this season, in which he took two wickets.

Hanuma Vihari confident of India doing well in the WTC Final

India’s middle-order batsman Hanuma Vihari, who is being praised all over the internet for his tremendous work in helping the people during the second wave of Covid-19 in India feels that the Men’s team could do great in the upcoming World Test Championship Final. “We are in the finals and we are playing New Zealand, which is going to be challenging in these conditions, we all know that, but the Indian team can do outstanding things," Vihari, who is currently in England playing for Warwickshire in the County Championship 2021, after being unable to fetch an IPL contract for this season. The Andhra player came into the limelight from his 161 ball 23 runs Test and tour saving innings for India against Australia in Sydney, in January this year. An injured Vihari along with Ravi Chandran Ashwin played 254 balls scoring only 62 runs and forcing a draw in a match that looked a certain loss for the Men in Blue. The 27-year-old though has not been himself since then, scoring just a single fifty in his last 10 innings. Even in county cricket, he has been a flop show till now, with just 100 runs in six innings at an average of 16.25 and with two ducks in his name. But the Andhra skipper is confident that the experience of playing in England would not only help him in the WTC Final against New Zealand in Southampton but also in the subsequent five-match Test series against hosts England. "I am trying to prepare in the best way possible for the WTC final and the England series. It's going to be interesting and exciting as well for all the Indian fans because it's the first edition of the WTC,” said Vihari who would join Team India on June 2, when the Blue brigade reaches England for the three-month-long stay.

David Saker, bowling coach in Cape Town 2018 Test, responds to Bancroft's 'self explanatory' call

The Newlands Test saga seems to have been opened up once again by the comment made by Cameron Bancroft, who was at the heart of the crisis that saw himself along with Steve Smith and David Warner face suspension from playing the game and representing Australia at the world stage. Responding to the development of the matter, the then bowling coach of Australia, David Saker has said that there were a lot of things that should have been done by the Australian team and all including him and the head coach Darren Lehman could well be blamed partly or entirely for the loss of credibility in Australian players and team. He went on to say that these finger pointing towards one another can go on and for years without any purpose other than crisis lingering over players and individuals involved. “Obviously a lot of things went wrong at that time. The finger-pointing is going to go on and on and on. There was a lot of people to blame. It could have been me to blame, it could have been someone else. It could have been stopped and it wasn’t, which is unfortunate,” Saker told to The Age. Pointing to Bancroft for his latest comments with regards to Mitchell Starc being aware of what was happening at the ground, Saker said that maybe the right-handed opener was trying to get an easy closure for himself by revealing all he knew about. “Cameron’s a very nice guy. He’s just doing it to get something off his chest ... He’s not going to be the last. You could point your finger at me, you could point your finger at Boof (Darren Lehmann), could you point it at other people, of course, you could. The disappointing thing is it’s never going to go away. Regardless of what’s said. We all know that we made a monumental mistake. The gravity wasn’t as plain until it all came out,” Saker added. Notably, Cameron Bancroft’s interview with The Guardian where he concluded that it was ‘self-explanatory’ that bowler must be knowing if the ball was being tampered with. Following Bancroft’s interview, Cricket Australia said that the governing body that led a ‘detailed and comprehensive investigation of the Cape Town Test is still open to hearing new information or evidence from anyone including Bancroft himself.

When Malik became captain, I had thoughts of quitting cricket: Shahid Afridi

Shahid Afridi, arguably Pakistan’s most famous cricketer after Imran Khan has revealed an incident where he thought of quitting professional cricket, as early as 2009. The 41-year-old felt that after his herpes in the 2009 World T20 winning campaign of the team, he wasn’t really given as much importance as he should have been and Shoaib Malik was made the skipper instead of him. “Shoaib Malik had become the captain and there was a lot of politics going on within the team,” Afridi was quoted as saying to Samaa TV. Boom-Boom recalled that at that point in time an elderly persona and the might Allah himself came to his rescue and put some sense into his mind. Talking about the elderly man, Afridi said, “He said you’re so worried about your own performance and worldly matters. Just compare your hardships to those of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and you will realise that yours are nothing." The Multan Sultans player who played 398 ODIs, 99 T20is and 27 Tests for his country shed light on the 2007 Shoaib Akhtar- Mohammad Asif controversy as well, where Ajhtar was sent back to Pakistan after having hit Asif with a bat during a dressing room argument. “Things happen,” Afridi said. “Asif had sided with me in a joke which enraged Shoaib and all this happened. But Shoaib has a very beautiful heart,” added the man who scored 11,196 runs and took 541 wickets in his 20 years long international career.