Day: October 28, 2021

Dubai, October 28, 2021 (PPI-OT):Adam Zampa turned the game for Australia in the eyes of his skipper Aaron Finch after a seven-wicket win over Sri Lanka in Dubai.

The Aussies are now two from two at the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021, but they looked like they were in for a mammoth chase when Charith Asalanka and Kusal Perera started teeing off early.

The pair took Sri Lanka to 78 for one inside ten overs when Zampa struck. The spinner had already had one lbw shout turned down, but the pressure he imposed paid off as Asalanka holed out to Steve Smith.

He added the wicket of the dangerous Avishka Fernando in his next over and finished with figures of two for 12, good enough to be named Player of the Match despite David Warner’s 65 in the chase, a decision even Finch agreed was correct.

The Australian skipper said: “As a batter, I love batters getting [Player of the Match] but I think when you’re looking at the impact on a game, Zamps was terrific tonight. On the back of a really good powerplay from Sri Lanka, the way that he controlled the game, especially from that bottom end where the right-handers had a short boundary to hit to, he was fantastic.

“He got big wickets. That was a world-class performance from him.”

With two wins, Australia now take on England, the other unbeaten side in Group 1, knowing that a win would take them to the brink of the semi-finals.

And Finch, who made a quickfire 37 in the comfortable chase of 155, knows that it will be a big ask against the reigning 50-over world champions.

He added: “It’s always a great battle [against England]. We’re looking forward to it. They’ve probably been the form side in white-ball cricket for a long time. We love playing them and it’ll be an entertaining game.”

After winning all their first-round matches, and then getting the better of Bangladesh in the opening Super 12 match, Sri Lanka tasted defeat for the first time.

The frustration will come from letting a good position slip, with Perera and Asalanka having put the team in a strong position batting first.

And skipper Dasun Shanaka admitted that his team had allowed the momentum of the game to swing away from them after a perfect start.

He said: “We got the start that we really needed but in the middle phase we were not able to capitalise. We could have done a little well in the middle period, missing out really cost us. It’s a bit of a concern. The other day, Asalanka took us home. The set batsman needs to take us home. I felt slightly we were 25-30 runs short on that wicket.

“We know how good those two batsmen are in world cricket. We have to bowl well and contain them in the powerplay and we couldn’t do that. In the coming games we should capitalize in the powerplay with the ball. The Sharjah wicket, we’ve played two games there so we have some good plans and we should come well in the next game.”

For more information, contact:
Headquarters,
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Street 69, Dubai Sports City,
Sh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road, Dubai, UAE
Phone: +97-143828800
Fax: +97-143828600
E-mail: enquiry@icc-cricket.com
Website: www.icc-cricket.com

Dubai, October 28, 2021 (PPI-OT):David Warner came into a clash with in-form Sri Lanka laughing off questions over his form – he then answered them in style as Australia underlined their status as title contenders at the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021.

The opener had scored just 17 runs in his last five T20 innings but with two of those knocks coming in the warm-up matches for this tournament, Warner was not concerned.

And perhaps a clash with Sri Lanka was just what the doctor ordered, with 65 today Warner has now passed 50 in each of his last four innings against Sri Lanka in T20Is.

He rode his luck a little, Kusal Perera putting down a simple catch when Warner had just 18 and had gloved one through off the bowling of Dushmantha Chameera.

But aside from that, it was a measured knock, happy to play the supporting role as skipper Aaron Finch set the tempo early on before ratcheting it up a notch alongside Steve Smith, with the pair showing that age has not slowed their running between the wickets.

Australia with an in-form Warner are a very different beast. He and Finch put on 63 in the powerplay, the best showing of the tournament so far and the sort of platform that made a formality of chasing 155 – a par score in Warner’s eyes.

And with Covid having affected the amount of cricket that has been possible over the last couple of years, Warner was relieved to be back out there scoring runs.

He said: “I had to start fresh. Everyone was talking about my form but I reiterated that it’s not the thing I’m worried about, it’s about going out there and starting well. Finchy started well, we gelled well out there and applied pressure to the bowlers.

“It’s the world of sport, when you ride the highs, you’ve got to ride the lows and you have to stay confident, keep a smile on your face and never let it get to you.

“It was great to get out there in the middle, spend some time there, running between the wickets. Little things like that just keep your mind ticking.

“When you are in those pressure situations, if we were chasing ten an over at that stage, you have to train your mind not to panic. In the last six to twelve months we haven’t played that much cricket so I haven’t been in those situations. So it’s good to get back out there, get the cricket cues going.

“It was great to get out there and get some runs on the board but the most important was the start we got, me and Finchy from a batting point of view, and then through the middle we were able to control the innings, and then it’s handy to have Smithy out there to run between the wickets.”

Part of the challenge for all the top-order batters is the slow nature of the wickets, with Warner having explained that he had taken to training on synthetic wickets and polished concrete in order to adjust.

That appeared to pay dividends. He added: “That’s helped and it’s something we’ll keep continuing through this World Cup.

“You’ve got to have a nice, stable base on these wickets. When people take pace off the ball, you’ve got to wait for the ball, when there’s pace on it, you can sit on it.”

Warner certainly did that against Sri Lanka. Next up are familiar foes England, the only other unbeaten side in Group 1.

For more information, contact:
Headquarters,
International Cricket Council (ICC)
Street 69, Dubai Sports City,
Sh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road, Dubai, UAE
Phone: +97-143828800
Fax: +97-143828600
E-mail: enquiry@icc-cricket.com
Website: www.icc-cricket.com

Dubai, October 28, 2021 (PPI-OT):Pakistan coach Saqlain Mushtaq believes Afghanistan’s ability to play fearless cricket makes them a dangerous proposition as the sides prepare to meet at the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021.

Both sides have a 100 percent record in the Super 12s so far, with Pakistan recording impressive victories over rivals India and New Zealand, while Afghanistan beat Scotland by a massive 130 runs.

Pakistan also sit third in the ICC MRF Tyres Men’s T20I Team Rankings ­ four places above their opponents ­ but Saqlain insists there won’t be any complacency when his team take to the pitch in Dubai on Friday.

“Afghanistan are a strong unit,” said Saqlain. “We can’t really say that it’s very easy and you will roll over them. It’s not like that.

“They have a wonderful bowling attack, especially the spinners. And when they go for batting, they just play the way they feel it, what’s in their heart, what they think.

“They just go and execute the plan. They just play sort of a fearless cricket and I think that kind of team can be dangerous.

“But as I said before in my answers, you play for your pride. You don’t think, well, this is a small team and this is a big team. No, not like that. Otherwise your mind will train or start thinking in that way.

“So, in the World Cup, it’s a mega win. You play all the teams with the same intensity, with the same attitude, with the same sort of mindset and you execute your plan the way you execute the plan against the bigger name teams. So, Afghanistan are a good team.”

Afghanistan’s spinners played brilliantly against Scotland as Mujeeb Ur Rahman took five for 20 and Rashid Khan ended with four for nine.

Saqlain knows plenty about spin bowling, having taken 496 wickets for Pakistan during his career as an off-break bowler, and is wary of the threat posed by Afghanistan’s turners.

“They’ve been doing really well in different leagues,” he said. “And they are quite confident of doing their business on the day.

“They are very good but obviously we should play our game and we should execute our plan with clarity of the mind. But they are very good bowlers.”

When the sides met at the 50-over ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup in 2019, Pakistan edged to victory by three wickets and with just two balls to spare in a thrilling game.

Afghanistan are competing in this tournament with the backdrop of a complicated political situation back home but Rashid says the team are focused purely on the cricket and relishing the challenge of facing their rivals.

“It’s always a good game against Pakistan,” explained the spinner. “Even when we played in 2018 in Asia and also in terms of 2019 World Cup – they were good games.

“To be honest, at the moment, the only thing we have in the mind that we’re here for the World Cup and we’re playing five games and we need to win three games.

“That is the theme we have in the mind as a whole team and we have the quality and the skills in the team that we can qualify for the semi-finals.

“That’s the only thing in the mind of each and every player. We don’t think about what’s happening in the future. We don’t think about what happened in the past.

“That’s something which is not in our hands, it is not in our control, and we shouldn’t think about it – we don’t want to put any extra pressure on us.

“If we have so many things in the mind that might affect our performance, that might affect the team performance. And even the fans will be upset with that when you don’t perform well.

“As a team, we’re just focusing on this World Cup to get better and better and qualify to the next round.”

For more information, contact:
Headquarters,
International Cricket Council (ICC)
Street 69, Dubai Sports City,
Sh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road, Dubai, UAE
Phone: +97-143828800
Fax: +97-143828600
E-mail: enquiry@icc-cricket.com
Website: www.icc-cricket.com

Dubai, October 28, 2021 (PPI-OT):Nicholas Pooran says West Indies must be aggressive in a do-or-die game against Bangladesh, as they look to get their ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 campaign back on track.

Back-to-back defeats against England and South Africa has made this a difficult start for the defending champions and they sit bottom of Group 1 on the eve of Friday’s match in Sharjah.

Though their chances of reaching the semi-finals are slim, three wins from their remaining games would catapult them back into contention for the knock-out round and prolong their hopes of becoming the first side to successfully defend the title.

Much of the pre-match talk is focussed on Sharjah’s shorter boundaries and how the likes of Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard and Andre Russell could take advantage.

But Pooran is ignoring outside predictions and just wants a clinical performance with both bat and ball.

“It’s a do-or-die game for us,” he said.

“And we believe that we’re going to be successful tomorrow. And again, I can’t emphasise enough how important it is to perform our roles. Once we do that, then everything can take care of itself.

“I definitely think it’s a good opportunity for us to bounce back. We’re not sure how Sharjah is going to play tomorrow.

“But our focus is not on the small boundaries, to be honest. We just want to execute our skills. And once we can do that, then the results can take care of itself.

“We can’t really say it’s short boundaries and we’re going to hit sixes. And we want to be aggressive as a team.

“We can’t really say that. Only when we go tomorrow and we assess the pitch, the conditions there, then we can actually try to put a game plan into place as quick as possible and try to get a really good score.”

West Indies could call upon all-rounder Jason Holder, after he was elevated to the squad to replace Obed McCoy, who was ruled out with a leg injury.

With 199 international matches in all forms of the game, Holder brings more experience to a veteran team.

West Indies also have a squad of players that have played all over the world in various T20 leagues, including the Bangladesh Premier League and Pooran admits that familiarity with their opponents is an advantage.

“It helps a lot. I spent a lot of time in Bangladesh as well. Not only me, but a lot of the other guys as well,” he said.

“We have good friendships. We make good friendships with the guys. We get to understand them. We get to learn from them as well especially under different conditions.

“So going into that game actually knowing what these guys do, are very familiar with it, that helps us a lot as batters and as bowlers as well.

“The mood in the camp is still good. The guys generally think we were hit by losing those two games and we have only ourselves to blame. But the mood is still good, we know what we have to do and everyone is up for the challenge.

“And Jason coming to the team, quality player as well. We’re happy to have him. We wish him all the best.”

Bangladesh are in the same boat as West Indies and must win to stand any realistic chance of reaching the semi-finals after defeats to Sri Lanka and England.

Their batting has fluctuated in the four games they have played and an off day against England heavily contributed to an eight-wicket defeat.

“We speak about the batting failure,” said spinner Nasum Ahmed.

“We are unable to score runs in the first six overs, which is keeping us behind the game. We are also losing wickets (in the powerplay). Everyone wants to do well but we are not able to do it.”

For more information, contact:
Headquarters,
International Cricket Council (ICC)
Street 69, Dubai Sports City,
Sh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road, Dubai, UAE
Phone: +97-143828800
Fax: +97-143828600
E-mail: enquiry@icc-cricket.com
Website: www.icc-cricket.com