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Shoaib Malik singlehandedly carried Central Punjab through the second half of their innings as they defeated Sindh by 12 runs via the DLS method to move into third place. Central Punjab elected to bat and lost Babar Azam and Muhammad Akhlaq inside five overs. Malik joined Ahmed Shehzad at that point and the pair added 42 for the third wicket before Shehzad fell in the 11th over to leave them 71 for 3. From that point onwards, only one Central Punjab batter got into double-figures – Hasan Ali who made 12 off four balls. Abrar Ahmed and Rumman Raees shared seven wickets to peg Central Punjab back. But despite the bowling dominance at the other end, Malik managed to not only bat through to the end of the innings, but helped add 98 from the point of Shehzad’s wicket, eventually finishing unbeaten on 85 off just 47 balls as they posted 168 for 8. He hit eight fours and five sixes.Sindh began their chase with speed, openers Khurram Mansoor and Sharjeel Khan adding 48 in 4.4 overs before the former fell to Sameen Gul. Shan Masood kept the pace up as well, getting Sindh to 76 for 2 when he fell in the eight over. But from there, Sindh collapsed against the offspin of 18-year-old Qasim Akram to fall to 110 for 6. Those wickets eventually came back to haunt them as the match had to be decided by the DLS method.

India are set to host New Zealand, West Indies, Sri Lanka and South Africa over the next nine months as part of the 2021-22 home season, for a total of four Tests, three ODIs and 14 T20Is spread from November 2021 to June 2022.Stretching a jam-packed home season to June is a rare occurrence considering it is month of extreme heat and the onset of monsoon in different parts of India. But it is a direct consequence of the IPL becoming a 10-team tournament from the 2022 edition as two new franchises will be announced in October by the BCCI.The home series announced were all part of the Future Tours Programme (FTP) for the 2018-23 cycle, but the final schedule has come with one change: Sri Lanka will now play two Tests instead of three, as originally planned, and three T20Is in February-March 2022. The Tests will start on February 25 (Bengaluru) and March 5 (Mohali), and the three T20Is on March 13 (Mohali), March 15 (Dharamsala) and March 18 (Lucknow).The tours of New Zealand and West Indies remain as scheduled.Only three days after the T20 World Cup final on November 14 in Dubai, New Zealand will play the first T20I in Jaipur, followed by two more on November 19 (Ranchi) and 21 (Kolkata), and then the two Tests starting November 25 (Kanpur) and December 3 (Mumbai).ESPNcricinfo Ltd

West Indies are slotted to play three ODIs on February 6 (Ahmedabad), February 9 (Jaipur) and February 12 (Kolkata) and as many T20Is, on February 15 (Cuttack), February 18 (Visakhapatnam) and February 20 (Thiruvananthapuram).Only five days after that series ends, Sri Lanka will play the first Test in Bengaluru.South Africa will play five T20Is in June 2022, covering for the ODIs that were abandoned last year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. That three-match series had to be postponed after the first ODI in Dharamsala, which had been abandoned because of rain. The BCCI has now decided to replay that tour as a T20I series on June 9 (Chennai), June 12 (Bengaluru), June 14 (Nagpur), June 17 (Rajkot), and June 19 (Delhi).Between the Sri Lanka and South Africa series, the BCCI will also slot in the IPL, this time with 10 teams, which could further extend the duration of the tournament. Also, soon after New Zealand leave India in December, India are scheduled to tour South Africa for three Tests, three ODIs and four T20Is; that tour will go on from December 17 to January 26, without taking travel and quarantine dates into account.The 14 T20Is and another T20 World Cup in Australia next year mean India’s next T20I captain after Virat Kohli will have his hands full. India will also play another three T20Is, along with as many ODIs, in England next summer.

On the win: ‘We had the belief that we could get them out in those 60 overs’
“Super proud of the whole team, the way we stuck to our plans in this Test match after being put in. Our performance with the bat was outstanding. The pitch didn’t offer much [to the bowlers] in the first three days to be honest. I think the first day was most challenging [for the batters], after that it was quite difficult for the bowlers to gain anything from the track but I think the way we played in the second innings, after being put under pressure this morning, Jasprit and Shami, was absolutely outstanding.”We thought 60 overs to go, we could have a crack at the result, and we had the belief that we could get them out in those 60 overs. I think the bowlers were just outstanding and what happened in our second innings, right at the end with the bowlers, a bit of tension on the field [and needle between the teams] really helped us and really motivated us to finish this game.”On lower order’s contribution with bat: ‘They have that desire in them to do the job’
Just to applaud what Jasprit and Shami did… It takes a lot of character and heart to play under those circumstances as bowlers who don’t get much to bat, and just putting their hand up for the team when we needed it most, it was something that we were really proud of and we want to let them know. They were charged up and both took the new ball and got us two breakthroughs as well, which were very crucial for us.”When we were our most successful in Test cricket for a year and a half, our lower order was contributing big time and that’s something that we went away from a little bit when we play away from home. So that was one of our focuses, the batting coach has really worked hard with the boys and they are putting in the hard work. Most importantly when they walk out to bat, they believe that they can stay there and give some runs for the team. I think that belief was missing [before]; we were practising but now they have that desire in them to do the job for the team and we know how priceless those runs are and that proved to be the case even today as well.”Comparing this victory to the 2014 Lord’s win: ‘What happened on the field really charged us up’
“I was part of the winning Test match last time when I was a player under MS [Dhoni]. That was pretty special as well, Ishant bowled an outstanding spell. In that game, we put them under pressure on day four itself.”But this one, to get a result in 60 overs, when we all thought let’s just have a crack at what we have in front of us… It’s quite special and especially when someone like Siraj is playing for the first time at Lord’s and bowling the way he did, [it] was outstanding. As I said, what happened on the field [the verbals] really charged us up and gave us that extra motivation to finish the game off.”On the timing of the declaration: ‘I thought anything under 55 doesn’t sound right’
“It was more a case of ‘what’s the number of overs we are comfortable with’. I thought anything under 55 doesn’t sound right, I don’t want to walk off the field later thinking ‘what if we had four or five more overs left with us’. We decided, okay, 60 is our mark, and we are going to have a crack at them in 60 overs but, as I said, the crucial breakthroughs with the ball were the right start for us and we carried on from there.”We have three more games to go, our aim is five Test matches. We are not going to sit on our laurels after this match and just take it easy. If at all, we going to get more intense and more precise in what we do in the next three games.”

South Africa have confirmed their tour to Sri Lanka for three ODIs and as many T20Is during September. All six matches will be played at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, with the series starting with the first ODI on September 2 and ending with the third T20I on September 14.”We are delighted to have another tour confirmed for the Proteas men’s team with the ICC T20 World Cup just around the corner,” CSA’s acting CEO Pholetsi Moseki said. “Playing against quality opposition in the sub-continent is the best way for our team to prepare for this event and we are grateful to Sri Lanka Cricket for accommodating us during this time of the year where schedules are highly condensed.”

South Africa’s tour of Sri Lanka

• First ODI: September 2

• Second ODI: September 4

• Third ODI: September 7

• First T20I: September 10

• Second T20I: September 12

• Third T20I: September 14

The last time South Africa played a bilateral series in Sri Lanka was in 2018, which included five ODIs and a solitary T20I apart from two Tests. While South Africa had won the ODI series 3-2, Sri Lanka took the only T20I on the tour. This time, they would be playing three T20Is, which would mean better preparation for the T20 World Cup in the UAE in October.”With an ICC white-ball world event in each year of the next three, game time is golden for every team and we are looking forward to watching our team play as they continue to add to the building blocks of their 2021 T20 World Cup preparation”, Moseki added.The teams had also faced off earlier in the year when Sri Lanka played two Tests in South Africa, where the hosts triumphed in both matches in Centurion and Johannesburg.

Sri Lanka batter Bhanuka Rajapaksa has been fined $5000 for a breach of contract and is essentially on probation for two years, having been handed a one-year ban as a suspended sentence. SLC dealt out these punishments for breaching “the obligations of Player Contract 2019-2020 while appearing in social and other media interviews”, according to an official release.Rajapaksa has been publicly protesting his continued omission from Sri Lanka’s major teams, most recently suggesting he should have been part of Sri Lanka’s squad for the tour of England. This even prompted a response from head coach Mickey Arthur, who told the newspaper that although Rajapaksa had “superb hitting ability”, he had been omitted because of substandard fielding, and poor fitness and weight management.”Bhanuka failed the skinfold test and went home without doing the rest of the tests. This just shows me the attitude and the shortcuts he is looking to take,” Arthur said. “We are building a culture of pushing the players to be the best they can be. We want our best players on the field. He would be in our T20 squad. However, at the moment, his skinfold numbers have gone up and he has got to work on it.”Despite the punishments, Rajapaksa has been included in the biosecure bubble training squad that may be picked from, for the forthcoming series against India.

A brilliantly-measured partnership between Jordan Cox and Jack Leaning steered Kent Spitfires to a 16-run win over Middlesex in their Vitality Blast match at Canterbury.The hosts were wobbling on 47 for 4 before Cox and Leaning both made 64, helping them recover to 178 for 8, despite a hat-trick for Chris Green, who took 5 for 32.Luke Hollman countered with a high-class 51 off 33 balls, but the visitors lost wickets too frequently to seriously threaten the hosts and finished on 162 for 8.Middlesex’s decision to field after winning the toss initially seemed vindicated when Blake Cullen took wickets with the last two balls of the third over, after he’d been hit for 13 off the previous four by Daniel Bell-Drummond, before the Kent skipper skied the fifth and was caught by Eoin Morgan at mid-off for 15.Joe Denly slashed at the next ball and fell to a diving catch by John Simpson for 10 and in the next over Ollie Robinson edged Steven Finn and was caught behind for 8, leaving Kent on a modest 42 for 3 at the end of the powerplay.Green had Alex Blake stumped off a wide for six, but Cox and Leaning responded with a cleverly-paced stand of 123, marked by smart running between the wickets and a well-timed acceleration that saw the last five overs produce 64 runs.Green’s final over saw Cox caught by Max Holden, a two, a six and then a hat-trick. Leaning was caught by Morgan, Darren Stevens stumped off his first delivery and Milnes caught by Bamber.Middlesex’s reply got off to a disastrous start. Stevie Eskinazi was caught behind off Denly for 4 and Paul Stirling skied James Logan’s first delivery to Blake for a duck. Holden got a bottom edge to Stevens and was caught behind for 10, Simpson played a horrible shot to Leaning and was caught by Cox for 4 and Eoin Morgan cut Stevens to Bell-Drummond and was out for 27.Stevens then bowled Green for 16 and although Nathan Sowter offered some late resistance with an unbeaten 31, when Fred Klaassen had Hollman caught by Blake off the final ball of the penultimate over, it left Middlesex needing 25 off six, a task that finally proved beyond them when Cullen holed out to Milnes and was caught by Blake for 4

The weather forecast is bleak beyond contention yet the cricketers are still practising in their morning nets. Most days in the summer and many in the winter you will find them there or indoors, preparing not merely for the next few hours but for the next game, the next week, the next season. They say Tom Graveney had a net every day of the season; an artist ensuring he could still draw a perfect circle. And here are Graveney’s heirs on a ground he once called home. One feels strangely honoured to watch them on this dull Sunday morning when there’s not a hope in hell of three sessions’ play…But it was not just professionalism and a hard-earned distrust of meteorology that informed the players’ warm-ups at the County Ground. There remains every chance that both these counties will qualify for Division One of the County Championship in late summer. If so, they will not meet again in another West Country derby but will play only the other four teams in the top division. However, they will carry through half the number of points they gained in the two matches they have played against each other in the conference stage. This meant that when Craig Overton pinned Tom Smith with the seventh ball of the day the bonus point Somerset gained for taking three wickets will be worth half a point at the sharp end of the summer, always provided, of course, that Gloucestershire also qualify for the top division.And Somerset’s bowlers were not finished. Two balls after Smith departed Tom Lace was strangled down the leg side, which, to judge from his reaction, was more or less what the former Middlesex batsman would have liked to have done to Steve O’Shaughnessy the instant he saw the finger go up. Next over Kraigg Brathwaite clipped Josh Davey very low to short midwicket where Tom Abell took a good catch to his left. The trap could not have been more obvious had Somerset’s captain carried a large sign round his neck with the words: “This is a trap” written upon it. Baldrick would probably have considered the ruse beneath his dignity. Either way, Gloucestershire were 21 for 5, Somerset needed one more wicket for another point and nobody needed to visit the moral maze to guess which team welcomed the rain that began a few minutes later.Related

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In truth they were the lightest showers, psiloi compared to the hoplites that rolled in later. The umpires went out to the talk to the ground staff, although maybe O’Shaughnessy was just keeping out of Lace’s way, and cricket began again at noon. Only eight balls could be squeezed into this session but even they were significant. Ian Cockbain played on to the last of them, thus giving Somerset their fifth bonus point of the match and Overton his fourth wicket with the new ball, a fact that Chris Silverwood will have noted with interest. There was little to detain any of us thereafter. An early lunch was called and the abandonment was announced at 3.10. Having beaten Somerset at Taunton, Chris Dent’s side will take 16 points into Division One compared with their opponents’ 9.5, always providing both teams get that far.But a very wet game did produce one undisputed victor: Gloucestershire have not just accommodated spectators on these extraordinary days; they have made them welcome and that warmth has extended to the media and the rest of cricket’s caravan. Any necessary regulation has been light touch and enforced with the greatest good humour. As much as the spectators who turned up to watch the match, the Gloucestershire staff who made it possible for them to do so are a credit to the game.

It has been more than a year since Ellyse Perry limped out of the T20 World Cup after severely injuring her hamstring. She has admitted it has taken her all that time to return to a level close to what she was pre-injury. And there’s more work to be done too.She has also used the opportunity – and the imbalance between training and playing created by the Covid-19 – to make adjustments to her run-up, which have taken time to feel natural. Her Australia comeback will be against the same side she was facing when the dreams of a home World Cup final were shattered.Perry sat out Australia’s one international assignment since the World Cup – the visit by New Zealand last September – before returning to action in the WBBL with Sydney Sixers which followed shortly after.The runs came at a good volume – 390 at 48.75 – but a strike-rate of below 100 (96.53) was enough to create some debate about her batting. Meanwhile, with the ball, it was a struggle as she claimed eight wickets with an economy rate of 8.35 and that was followed by a WNCL campaign for Victoria where she took just two wickets in six matches.”Throughout my rehab process I saw that as a great opportunity to work on a few different things and one of those was improving the efficiency or effectiveness of my run-up to give me a little more balance and power at the crease,” Perry explained. “That was a work in progress and bringing it into the first round of actual competition at the start of the WNCL, I didn’t expect it to go smoothly. Those first couple of games against New South Wales probably weren’t perfect but since then it’s been really great because I’ve been able to iron that out. It feels fine now.”Related

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“That’s always the challenge and the best part of being involved in sport is the constant need to improve and evolve as a player,” she added. “It’s no different for any player. At different points in your career, there are different challenges and ways to go about things, but from a bit of a broader picture, it’s probably taken me the best part of 12 months to feel like I’m back to full playing fitness and performance levels.”By no means do I think I was close where I was before I got injured during the WBBL, and it’s probably still a bit of a work in progress, but it’s been a really nice opportunity to work on various aspects of my game.”A trade-off for this tour currently taking place is that the Australia players have missed the final stages of the WNCL with the final between Victoria and Queensland taking place in Melbourne on Saturday. Victoria, who are without six names plus the injured Annabel Sutherland, made a request to Cricket Australia about delaying the final to allow the Australia players to be available, but the original schedule has been retained.”In the current climate you’ve got to make the most of opportunities to play cricket,” Perry said. “The fact there’s a final going ahead is the most important thing because you just don’t what will happen at the moment. It was worth a shot asking the question. Domestic cricket means a lot to all of us.”It’s a shame, it would have been really nice to play the whole season but it’s also very hard to complain when there’s an opportunity to play international cricket as well.”Australia will complete their managed isolation in Christchurch on Saturday ahead of the first T20I in Hamilton on Sunday evening. They will be aiming to use advice passed on from the men’s side who found themselves off the pace at the start of their series against New Zealand last month.”Some of the mail we got from the men’s team was that when they came over here adjusting to the pace of a match again after being in quarantine for two weeks and just training was probably the biggest shock for them,” Perry said. “So there’s something to be aware of, just making sure we step up from training to competition again and we are not on our heels from the get-go.”

England are unlikely to need any reminders about the physical challenge that their four-Test series in India will pose this month after four tough weeks in the Sri Lankan heat, but a picture Nick Compton posted on Instagram recently might serve as one all the same.Compton captured Matt Prior collapsed in a chair in the Nagpur dressing room during the drawn fourth Test of England’s 2012 tour, which sealed a 2-1 series win – England’s first in India since 1984-85. With his head on the armrest, Prior appears overcome by the exhaustion of his efforts in the series.