World T20 | Sarfaraz Ahmed, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali included in Pakistan's final squad

UAE Summer T20 Bash: A perfect warm-up for Ireland, Namibia, Scotland and PNG before World T20 2021

With the T20 World Cup 2021 first round around the corner, Emirates Cricket Board in partnership with Cricket Ireland, Cricket Scotland, Cricket Namibia, and Cricket Papua New Guinea decided to host the Summer T20 Bash, a tournament that would allow the aforementioned teams some much-needed game time before they head into the all-important World Cup. The tournament, with no final or finalist, is basically like warm-up fixtures with the only difference being that they would be treated as international T20 games. It will be hosted at the single venue of ICC Academy, Dubai Sports City (Dubai) from Tuesday, October 5th through to Sunday, October 10th. In the series, the host nation the United Arab Emirates, who have actually not qualified for the T20 World Cup 2021, will play four games, three against Ireland, and one against Namibia. In the other three games in this seven-match series, Scotland will play two games, one each against Papua New Guinea and Namibia, while Papua New Guinea & Namibia will play among themselves once as well. Thus every team in this tournament will get a hands-on experience of at least two games. Mubashshir Usmani, General Secretary Emirates Cricket Board was happy to announce this much-needed tournament in the light of the fact that the teams competing in the first round would hardly have warm-up games leading up to the tournament. “Emirates Cricket Board is very pleased to welcome Ireland, Scotland, Namibia and Papua New Guinea to the UAE and we are delighted to host the ‘DafaNews Summer T20 Bash’. This is a great opportunity for these participating teams to fine-tune their T20 skills as they approach their ICC Men’s T20 World Cup matches, and for our (UAE) team to gain experience from once again facing an ICC test-nation who will be highly motivated in putting their skills and experience on display. We look forward to a highly competitive series on home soil,” said Usmani in a press release by ECB. Tournament so far The tournament which started on October five has turned out to be an exciting affair with Sony Ten even broadcasting games involving UAE. 1st Match; UAE vs Namibia, October 05th In the first match, Namibia, who would be competing in Group A in the first round alongside Netherlands, Ireland and Sri Lanka, turned out to be too good for the hosts UAE. They won the match by 17 runs courtesy of a stellar bowling performance by Jan Nicolaas Frylinck, who picked up six wickets with his left-arm medium-fast to restrict the hosts to 142-9, thereby handing them a 17 run defeat. Check full scorecard here 2nd Match: UAE vs Ireland, October 07th In the second game of the tournament, hosts UAE were once again on the receiving end, but this time at the hands of Ireland. Once again it was some brilliant bowling performance from Ireland which restricted the home side to only 123-7 in the allotted 20 overs. Curtis Campher picked three wickets while experienced Mark Adair and young leggie Benjamin White picked two wickets each. The chase then turned out to be a cakewalk for the Irish as Pual Stirling and Kevin O’Brien put up 90 for the first wicket in just 13 overs. Even as they fell and so did skipper Andrew Balbarnie in a space of 25 runs, which took 36 balls to complete and got people thinking that the match might stretch to the last over, but it wasn’t to be as Campher hit two fours in a row to finish the game in the 19th over itself. Check full scorecard here 3rd Match: UAE vs Ireland, October 08th It took matches, but UAE did come back eventually in the third game and beat much higher-ranked Ireland to salvage some pride of playing at home. The victory was even sweeter because it was UAE’s biggest margin of victory against a test playing nation. The Irish were bowled out for 109 in 18.4 overs chasing a total of 163. For UAE, right-arm leg break bowler, born in Chennai, India, Kartik Meiyappan was the hero of the game, picking four crucial wickets including those of well set Campher and George Delany. In batting, Chirag Suri and Basil Hameed scored important runs for the hosts. In fact, Suri scored his fourth T20I fifty, making 51 off 44. Check full scorecard here 4th Match: Scotland vs PNG, October 08th Playing their first game of the tournament, the Scottish team showed no mercy whatsoever in bashing Papua New Guinea by eight wickets with 14 balls remaining. It was a proper show of inter from the Scottish team which meant business even in its warm-up game against neighbours Ireland earlier this week, defeating them by five wickets. In this game, PNG scored 154 in their 20 overs courtesy of a fifty by skipper Assad Vala and some late charge by Sese Bau who scored 38 off 26 balls. Scotland, on the other hand, didn’t skip a beat. With fifty from George Munsey and an unbeaten 41 from Richie Berrington, they reached the target in the 18th over itself. Check full scorecard here In the remaining two days, three matches will be played including Scotland vs Namibia on October 9th, UAE vs Ireland and PNG vs Namibia on October 11.

England announce revamped central contracts; Ollie Robinson, Jack Leach, Malan get their first

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has revamped and released its central contract for the 2021-12 season. The board has junked the format-specific contracts for players and has made a list of players who are expected to play for England across formats in the next 12-month period. There are a total of 20 players who have been awarded central contracts and this includes the newcomer such as Ollie Robinson, who made his Test debut in the just-finished summer. Dawid Malan, who returned to the longest format this summer has also earned the contract and so has Zak Crawley, who was dropped from the side after a string of low scores against New Zealand and India. However, there was no place for Dob Sibley and Haseeb Hameed, who made an encouraging comeback against Indian after a gap of five years in the contract list. There was serious doubt on Jonny Bairstow’s future in the longest format but he has got the contract as well. Moeen Ali, who recently announced retirement from the Test format and his spin bowling pattern in the format, Jack Leach, and Adil Rashid, who has been an instrumental part of the England white-ball formats, have also got the contract. The injured duo of Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer, who are all set to miss a significant part of the next 12 months due to complicated injuries, have also been retained on the list of players to get contracts. The ECB also issued incremental and pace bowling contracts to seven players in total. The incremental has been given to three players such as Tom Curran, Dom Bess, Liam Livingstone and Chris Jordan while the pace bowling contracts have been awarded to Saqib Mahmood, Craig Overton and Olly Stone. The Managing Director of England’s Men Cricket, Ashley Giles rated the revamped central contract as "the fairest and most transparent way of rewarding players across all formats". He congratulated all the players who earned the contract while specifically mentioning the trio of Jack Leach, Dawid Malan, and Ollie Robinson, who got the contract for the first time. England Men's Central Contracts Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Jofra Archer, Jonathan Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Sam Curran, Jack Leach, Dawid Malan, Eoin Morgan, Ollie Pope, Adil Rashid, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood

Jemimah Rodrigues credits 'The Hundred' for regaining confidence

India batter Jemimah Rodrigues who impressed everyone with her unbeaten 49 against Australia in the first T20I match that was eventually washed away due to rain in Queensland has credited ‘The Hundred’ tournament for regaining her confidence. Jemimah has had a rough patch with the bat before she was roped in by the Northern SuperChargers for the competition. "There's so much to learn, but it wasn't an easy time for me. There are lots of things going on sitting out, there were a lot of doubts in my head sitting out, but I'm grateful to be a part of this team. If not for the Hundred, I don't think I would've even been selected to play for India," Jemimah said in the press conference. The right-handed batter played her first match on the trip and wasn’t picked for the ODI series and the one-off day-night Test earlier against the Australian side. Rodrigues expressed her disappointment on the same but admitted that it was about creating the right balance. "Honestly, any player would be frustrated not getting picked for ODIs especially when I knew I was batting well and in good form. But at the end, I'm ready for what the team wants, and if the team was finding the right balance, I'm happy sitting out," she added. The Indian team suffered a 1-2 defeat in the three-match ODI series while the pink-ball Test ended in a draw. The second encounter of the three-match T20I series will be held on Saturday in Queensland.

Martin Guptill laments pull out from Pakistan, assures New Zealand's readiness for World T20

Opener Martin Guptill has said that New Zealand were looking forward to getting on to the field and prepare for the T20 World Cup before the tour was cancelled minutes before the start of the first ODI between the sides. Calling the pull out a “disappoint” event for all stakeholders, Guptill expressed hope that Cricket will make a comeback soon into the country. "I guess it was disappointing for everyone involved. We were all looking forward to playing some cricket and getting a bit of game-time before the World Cup and that wasn't to be. I know Pakistan are really looking forward to having some cricket back in their home country. We're all hoping that there's going to be cricket there again soon,” Guptill said during a virtual press conference. Notably, days after New Zealand returned from the tour, Pakistan Pakistan's federal minister for information and broadcasting, Fawad Chaudhry had said in a press conference that Guptill’s wife, Laura McGoldrick had received an email threatening to his life in Pakistan. Discussing the threat, Guptill said that he and his wife followed the right process and consulted the “right people” to deal with the issues. "It never is," Guptill said while discussing the threat. "We sent it to the right people to sort of deal with it. Obviously, nothing came of it. It is what it is, and we just had to go through the right channels to get it dealt with properly. Laura [McGoldrick] never actually told me what the email said, so I had no idea what was going on. As I said, we sent it to the proper authorities to get it sorted.” Guptill was rested from the T20I series against Bangladesh that preceded the tour of Pakistan and hence it was imperative for him to get going with the bat against “tough opponent” in Pakistan before the global T20 event in UAE and Oman. Also, New Zealand are set to open their World T20 campaign with the clash against Pakistan and hence Guptill said that the recent experience would have been handy for the Blackcaps. However, he said that the lack of match practice will not deter them from bringing their A-game from the word go and they will fight hard to win the contest "I think like any game against Pakistan, they're a tough opponent and in these conditions, it's going to be pretty tough again. We're going to have to be on our A-game and bring it to them and not take a backward step, just like every other game that we play. It's going to be a tough game, I'm not going to lie, but we're going to prepare well and look forward to that game,” Guptill added. New Zealand’s hopes of breaking their string of bad luck in the T20 World Cup will rest heavily on the experienced shoulders of Guptill and if he will be able to give them a brisk start with the bat, the Blackcaps middle-order filed with young and explosive batsmen will be confident of doing their job in a perfect fashion.