Category Uncategorized

England will want to sharpen their skills in the second match ahead of the five ODIs, but such is the confidence in the team it is hard to see past another home victory

The Preview by Andrew McGlashan06-Sep-2010

Match facts

September 7, 2010, Cardiff
Start time 6.00pm (1700GMT)Spirits remain high in the England squad as they keep their focus on maintaining their Twenty20 winning streak•PA Photos

Big picture

A cricket match was completed at Cardiff on Sunday which, given what had happened over the last week, was something to be very grateful for. England, in their first Twenty20 outing since winning the world title in May, were impressive with the ball and in the way Eoin Morgan and Michael Yardy chased down the target, while familiar Pakistan failings came to the fore in the field.However, the hosts will know it wasn’t a perfect performance. Three catches went down and the batting subsided to 62 for 5 as Pakistan threatened to turn the game around. England will want to sharpen their skills in the second match ahead of the five ODIs, but such is the confidence in the team it is hard to see past another home victory.Pakistan need to rethink their strategy because it was a complete waste to leave Abdul Razzaq in the dug-out for 20 overs and Shahid Afridi needs more time in the middle. One of them has to bat in the top three. Shoaib Akhtar bowled quickly to rattle England’s top order, but his fielding was an embarrassment with the drop of Morgan the turning point in the game.

Form guide (last five completed matches; most recent first)

England WWWWW

Pakistan LLWLW

Watch out for…

Craig Kieswetter is facing his last international innings of the summer and, if Steve Davies takes his chance over the next two weeks, what could be his last international innings for quite a while. England’s next Twenty20 isn’t until January following the Ashes and Kieswetter’s form has been on the slide since the World Twenty20. He was undone by Shoaib’s pace in the opening game, but has the backing of Paul Collingwood to continue with his attacking mindset. However, he really needs a substantial innings to remain central to the team’s future plans.Shahid Afridi has returned to lead Pakistan in the midst of a crisis and has tried his best to move the talk away from spot-fixing allegations. He remains one of the finest Twenty20 cricketers in the world, but couldn’t have much impact with the bat on Sunday as England’s death bowling proved hard to get away. With the ball, though, he caused problems with two wickets and almost turned the game around. If anyone can change Pakistan’s fortunes it’s Afridi.

Team news

There is no reason for England to change a winning formula so James Anderson is likely to remain on the sidelines of the Twenty20 team. However, Luke Wright needs a much-improved display after dropping a catch and making a duck on Sunday while the captain could also do with a few runs.England (probable) 1 Craig Kieswetter, 2 Steve Davies (wk), 3 Ravi Bopara, 4 Paul Collingwood, 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 Luke Wright, 7 Tim Bresnan, 8 Michael Yardy, 9 Graeme Swann, 10 Stuart Broad, 11 Ryan SidebottomIt’s always a guessing game with Pakistan, but given the lack of options in a reduced squad the same XI is likely to take the field. However, it would be very strange if they didn’t alter the batting order to make better use of Afridi and Razzaq.Pakistan (probable) 1 Shahzaib Hasan, 2 Kamran Akmal (wk), 3 Fawad Alam, 4 Mohammad Yousuf, 5 Umar Akmal, 6 Shahid Afridi (capt), 7 Abdul Razzaq, 8 Umar Gul, 9 Wahab Riaz, 10 Saeed Ajmal, 11 Shoaib Akhtar

Pitch and conditions

There was more turn than anyone expected in the first match and this game will be played on the same surface so the spinners are likely to be key again. The large boundaries cut down on the fours and sixes – there were none of the latter – and when even Afridi can’t clear the ropes you know it’s hard work. Heavy rain is forecast on Monday and showers on Tuesday, but the new outfield drains well.

Stats and Trivia

• Pakistan’s 126 for 4 on Sunday was the first time they hadn’t hit a six in a Twenty20 international.
• Graeme Swann, who took 2 for 14 in four overs, is now England’s second-most economical bowler in Twenty20s behind Andrew Flintoff for players with at least six caps.

Quotes

“I didn’t have to say anything. You just look at each other, and those smiles go on your faces. We’ve got great memories of that. But from a captain’s point of view you’ve got to try to tell the guys to restart … and we did it 100%.”
Paul Collingwood enjoyed having most of his World Twenty20 winners back together“We missed some opportunities, like catches and run-outs. So next time I hope we will avail these opportunities. In this kind of cricket, fielding is a main weapon if you want to win.”

The former Pakistan captain also felt the PCB had been “unjust” on Shaheen Shah Afridi to remove him from the T20I captaincy

PTI and ESPNcricinfo staff13-Sep-2024Former Pakistan captain Moin Khan has said his son Azam’s confidence has taken a beating because of the inability of the Pakistan selectors and team management to give him a consistent run in the side.Moin took the example of the T20 World Cup earlier this year in the West Indies and the USA, Azam’s most recent appearance for Pakistan. Azam played only the opening match of Pakistan’s campaign, the Super-Over defeat to USA. He played as wicketkeeper-batter, and scored a first-ball duck. He was dropped thereafter, with Mohammad Rizwan, who played as a specialist batter against USA, taking back the keeper’s gloves.”I watched the entire World Cup and the matches leading up to it, and it seemed like Azam was the number one choice for wicketkeeping and batting,” Moin told . “Then suddenly, after just one match, the entire strategy was changed.”Pakistan exited the tournament at the first group stage itself, winning two games and losing to USA and India.”Azam wasn’t given a chance to keep wickets after one match and was dropped after getting out on the very first ball [against USA],” Moin said. “Any player can get out on the first ball, but here the tradition of developing players that used to exist is no longer there. Whether it’s the captain or the management, if they make such quick changes to players, how can we produce good players?”Azam has faced scrutiny right through his career for his fitness, and while Moin agreed with some of the criticism, he said his son was now working hard on that area.”I’m not saying that all the blame lies with the team management and the captain; Azam has his own shortcomings too,” Moin said. “He needs to make himself physically and mentally stronger, and follow the fitness routines of other sportsmen.”For the past month or so, I’ve noticed he’s been working hard to improve his fitness with his trainer Shehzar Mohammad, even taking him along to the Caribbean [Premier] League. I hope Azam has learned a lot from this experience.”

‘Removing Shaheen from the captaincy was unjust’

Moin expressed strong support for Shaheen Shah Afridi to be Pakistan’s white-ball captain. Shaheen had taken over as T20I captain – and was seen as a frontrunner for the ODI captaincy too – in the wake of Babar Azam’s resignation following the ODI World Cup in India last year. Shaheen’s tenure lasted just one series, however, with Babar reinstated in March.”Shaheen Afridi has the ability to lead the team and is highly liked by the players. He is an excellent choice for captaincy in T20s,” Moin said. “In white-ball cricket, I don’t see anyone else suitable for the role. Removing him from the captaincy was unjust.”Moin also advocated for one captain for all formats, and felt that constant leadership changes only stood to affect team performance.”Players may not listen to their captain if there are constant changes,” he said. “If the cricket board provides full support to the captain and assures them of a long-term responsibility, the team’s performance will improve.”

Australia star misses out on third Test century after entertaining duel with debutant Filer

Andrew Miller22-Jun-2023Ellyse Perry conceded that getting out for 99 was “a bit of a bummer”, but she wasn’t about to let that dent her enjoyment of a compelling first day of the Women’s Ashes at Trent Bridge.Perry’s dismissal, caught in the gully off the high-octane debutant Lauren Filer, was the key moment of the contest so far, as England battled back from a daunting post-lunch scoreline of 202 for 2 to reduce Australia to 238 for 6, following a lengthy rain delay.Ashleigh Gardner and Annabel Sutherland then demonstrated Australia’s formidable batting depth in a seventh-wicket stand of 77, but when Lauren Bell’s first delivery with the new ball prised out Gardner for 40, the teams went to the close evenly matched on 328 for 7.”It was just a great tussle,” Perry said at the close. “Importantly, it was a nice way for us to finish at the end there, after a pretty tricky session after the rain delay.”If both teams look at it, I think they’d be pretty happy with today in different areas, and then there’s probably other areas where one team got the upper hand over the other. So yeah, I think that’s a great day of Test cricket, if it looks like that.”For much of her 153-ball stay, it was business as usual in Ashes Tests for Perry, who compiled a career-best 213 not out against England at Sydney in November 2017, before bossing their most recent Test in England, at Taunton in 2019, with twin scores of 116 and 76 not out.One player, however, caused her more bother than the rest of England’s attack. Filer touched speeds in excess of 75mph on debut after her coach, Jon Lewis, had said before the match that she was bowling “with more pace than probably anyone else in the country”. And she seemed to have snagged a fairytale first-ball wicket when Perry, on 10, was pinned on the pads and given out lbw, only for Perry’s review to confirm a big inside-edge.Related

• Lauren Filer off to a flyer as England see benefit of remodeled action

• Ellyse Perry's 99 sets the tempo for Australia as Lauren Filer cranks up the pace on debut

• From sickbed to Ashes hotbed, Kate Cross is ready to be England's Test spearhead

• Alyssa Healy nervous but excited for 'most hyped Women's Ashes'

• Lauren Filer backed to give England 'wicket-taking' edge

She wouldn’t be denied that maiden wicket for long, however, inducing a slash to gully from Beth Mooney at the end of her third over. And when she returned in the afternoon for her third spell, Filer landed the big fish. Perry, looking for her hundred, was lured into the drive and hurried by some extra lift and bounce. Nat Sciver-Brunt at gully made no mistake.Asked if the landmark had been playing on her mind, Perry insisted that she’d been thinking about “nothing in particular”.”Like every other ball, it’s just an opportunity at a particular moment in time, and I’d had a really great tussle with Filer the whole time. I thought she was extremely impressive today on debut and brought the game alive at different points.”So that ball just had my measure, which is totally fine. It’s a number, and one that we talk about a lot in cricket, but the whole experience out there today was so much fun. I’ve loved every opportunity. Sometimes things just go that way. It’s hard to be disappointed.””It was nice to contribute,” she added. “It was nice to be a part of a few really good partnerships, particularly that one with TMac [McGrath]. It’s just like any other time to get out. It’s a bit of a bummer, but gosh, the game definitely goes on, and life goes on for sure.”With the contest coming hot on the heels of the epic final day of the opening Men’s Ashes Test at Edgbaston, a healthy crowd of 5,545 turned out at Trent Bridge as the Women’s Test returned to a major venue for the first time since 2001, with Hove, Worcester, Wormsley, Canterbury and Taunton having hosted Ashes contests in the intervening two decades.”I really enjoyed today, to be out there and to be a part of it,” Perry said. “To have a great atmosphere with the crowd, which just shows how much the game’s come along, and how much quality there was in the game today, with bat and ball, was just awesome.”Much of that quality was provided by England’s Sophie Ecclestone, who bowled 28 consecutive overs either side of the rain break, to claim the day’s best figures of 3 for 71 in 31 overs. That included the crucial wicket of McGrath, bowled by a beauty for 61 to end her daunting century stand with Perry, then two more in three balls as Jess Jonassen and Alyssa Healy joined a mini-collapse.”It’s probably quite unique, if I think about the Tests that I played in over the years, to just have one frontline spinner in the bowling attack, and that probably just speaks volumes of how incredibly good Sophie Ecclestone is,” Perry said. “She’s the pre-eminent spinner in the world, really.”

“I don’t know his diagnosis exactly but he has just had this underlying fever for the previous couple of weeks,” assistant coach Watson says

ESPNcricinfo staff12-May-2022The questions around Prithvi Shaw’s health continue with Delhi Capitals’ assistant coach Shane Watson saying that the opener is unlikely to be available for the team’s last two league games.Shaw has been down with a fever and has been admitted to a hospital. He last played on May 1, against Lucknow Super Giants, and has missed three games since then.”I don’t know his diagnosis exactly,” Watson told the Grade Cricketer on Thursday, “but he has just had this underlying fever for the previous couple of weeks, which they’ve had to really get to the bottom of it to find out exactly what it was. It’s not looking great for him to be available for the last couple of games, which is a big shame because he is an incredibly skilful young batter taking the best bowlers in the world down a lot of the time.”It’s a big loss for us to not have him. The last couple of weeks he has been under the weather. Hopefully, he gets back to full health soon, but unfortunately, it’s not going to be in time for the minimum of last two games that we’ve got.”In an in-game interview during yesterday’s match against Rajasthan Royals, head coach Ricky Ponting told host broadcaster Star Sports that “Prithvi has been ruled out now”, without specifying for how long.At the post-match presentation, captain Rishabh Pant was asked if Shaw’s IPL was over. He too didn’t have a concrete answer. “We miss him, but at the same time that is something we cannot control,” Pant said. “He got typhoid or something like that because the doctor told me that. Hopefully, he will be back [but] we don’t know yet. If he is back it’s going to be a good addition for us.”Capitals currently have 12 points from 12 games with a healthy net run rate, which gives them a genuine shot at the playoffs.

Neither player entered tour bubble ahead of Sri Lanka series after two Covid positives detected

Firdose Moonda22-Dec-2020
Beuran Hendricks and Keegan Petersen have been withdrawn from South Africa’s Test squad to play Sri Lanka.Neither player entered the tour bubble when the playing group convened on Saturday, after two positive Covid-19 results were detected last week. CSA cannot, for reasons of doctor-patient confidentiality, name who the infected players are.The other 17 squad members have tested negative on all three occasions, thus making the environment bio-secure. South Africa will not add any players to the squad for the two-Test series which starts on Boxing Day.Having cleared three rounds of testing, South Africa can begin training as a full squad on Wednesday after having staggered sessions so far. They will also no longer be confined to their hotel rooms at the Irene Country Club and can use communal areas, with social distancing rules in place, but will not come into contact with Sri Lanka, who are housed at the same venue. In addition, they will not be permitted to leave the venue except to travel to SuperSport Park and the Wanderers for the duration of the series.Related

• Armed with a stronger seam attack, Sri Lanka look to beat the odds again

• Should South Africa go short at SL's batsmen? Nortje isn't sure

• Karunaratne on matching South Africa's seam bowling – "We're about equal if you look at pace"

• The Galle demolition to the Durban miracle – Sri Lanka's recent dominance over South Africa

• Sri Lanka's tour of South Africa set to go ahead as planned

Cricket South Africa have enforced stricter controls for this series than they did for the England tour – in which players were allowed to play golf at various courses around the Western Cape province – both at the behest of Sri Lanka Cricket and because the England tour was unsuccessful.Three South African players tested positive for Covid-19 – one before the tour, one after entering the bubble and one after the T20 series – as did two hotel staff, and the one-day series was postponed. Two members of England’s touring party also tested positive although, on verification, their results were confirmed as false positives. South Africa, who are also due to host Australia this summer, need the Sri Lanka series to take place without incident to get their international hosting back on track.For that reason, they pushed the final round of domestic first-class matches, which were due to start last Sunday, into next year following positive cases in two of the three matches that began on December 13. Hendricks, Petersen and eight other players in the national squad were part of two of those games.At SuperSport Park, the match between the Titans and the Dolphins was called off after the first day because a Dolphins’ players tested positive while in Bloemfontein, the game between the Knights and the Lions continued despite a Lions’ player testing positive on day three. Several more Dolphins and Lions players were also found to be infected.The impact has been felt by the national squad who have lost at least one certain starter for the Sri Lanka Tests. Hendricks, who has only played one Test, would most likely have been the third seamer in the absence of the injured Kagiso Rabada. Hendricks debuted at the Wanderers last summer and took six wickets in the match, including 5 for 64 in the second innings, and is familiar with conditions up-country, having made the Lions his domestic home. Instead, South Africa will rely on Lungi Ngidi and Anrich Nortje for experience and could hand a debut to Glenton Stuurman, Migael Pretorius or Lutho Sipamla.Petersen was less likely to play than Hendricks but, after three summers averaging over 50 domestically, he made a strong case to be considered at No.3. He should also have been the next man in line after being a non-playing member of the squad last season but will have to make way for one of Sarel Erwee, Raynard van Tonder or Kyle Verreynne for now.Updated squad: Quinton de Kock, Temba Bavuma, Aiden Markram, Faf du Plessis, Dean Elgar, Keshav Maharaj, Lungi Ngidi, Rassie van der Dussen, Anrich Nortje, Glenton Stuurman, Sarel Erwee, Wiaan Mulder, Kyle Verreynne, Migael Pretorius, Dwaine Pretorius, Lutho Sipamla, Raynard van Tonder

Seamer takes 3 for 4 before Pant and Virat Kohli hit half-centuries to steer the chase in third T20I

The Report by Saurabh Somani06-Aug-20195:16

Dasgupta: The unbeaten 65 could change Pant’s career

West Indies put up an improved performance in the final T20I, with their batsmen having their best day collectively, but it wasn’t enough to deny India a 3-0 sweep, with terrific bowling upfront by Deepak Chahar complemented by a match-winning partnership. Kieron Pollard’s first T20I half-century in more than seven years took West Indies to a competitive 146 for 6, but half-centuries by Virat Kohli (59) and Rishabh Pant (65*) and their century stand for the third wicket meant India hunted down the target in 19.1 overs.The Chahar effect
Deepak Chahar reduced West Indies to 14 for 3 inside four overs, taking out the top three and getting the ball to hoop around corners and jag both ways. It was a magnificent exhibition of swing bowling, yanking batsmen out of position, hands following the ball, feet not in sync. Chahar bowled three overs on the trot, and had figures of 3 for 4 at the end. He wouldn’t complete his quota, but his strangulation at the top meant India could come out of the Powerplay with hardly much against them. On a pitch that offered turn to the spinners and held up a bit, and with short boundaries, that was crucial.Rahul Chahar – Deepak’s double first cousin – was making his international debut and fulfilling a childhood dream of the two playing for India together, but the leggie had to cede the limelight to the seamer.In his first over, with Sunil Narine facing up with the specific mandate of going after the bowling, Deepak kept his lines tight at the start. Then he threw one a bit wider, but it was still nibbling in the air. With leaden feet, Narine could only toe-end a flat-bat hit to Navdeep Saini at mid-on. Both Evin Lewis and Shimron Hetmyer fell in Chahar’s next over, done in by balls that most left-hand batsmen would have fallen to. Both times, Chahar slanted the ball across them, and got it to swerve back into the batsman like a Formula 1 car taking a hard left. Pads were rapped, appeals were belted out, and fingers were raised. Lewis even burned a review for his team, though to be fair to him, he might have thought the ball was missing leg – it wasn’t, because the initial angle had dragged him far enough across.Deepak Chahar removed West Indies’ openers•Associated Press

The Pollard-led revival
The start was rocky, but the depth and power in West Indies’ batting meant they could kick on nonetheless and still end up with an adequate total. Pollard, at No. 4, showed off his power with several clean hits down the ground. He hit six sixes, which meant that even though there were periods of dot balls building up, getting the run rate back into healthy territory was only a hit or two away. Pollard fell to a Saini slower ball, but Rovman Powell – fresh off a power-packed half-century in the second T20I – showed he wasn’t a one-hit wonder with a rollicking finish that took West Indies past 140, and might have also taken him into the wishlists of several IPL franchise owners.The Kohli-Pant stand
With Kohli taking control of the chase and Pant showing his full repertoire, India’s innings never fell in choppy waters. Two shots each by both batsmen stood out. Pant twice drove Keemo Paul inside-out over extra-cover, the ball pinging off the bat and flying over the boundary. The execution of the shot was stunning enough both times, but the fact that Pant could conceive of the shot was extraordinary in itself. Pant would hit his trademark unorthodox shots too, including a reverse-sweep and an audacious flick, but those drives were shots associated more with pitches where the ball comes on nicely and 200 is par.Kohli too had his wow moments. A ball after he had seen a leading edge off Carlos Brathwaite fall in no-man’s land but hang in the air long enough to steal two, he unleashed a cover drive that landed millimetres inside the cover boundary. Two balls later, facing Paul now, Kohli sent the ball whirring to the deep-midwicket fence, whipping through the line with wrists of steel and timing of silk.The two had come together at 27 for 2 in the fifth over, both under a bit of a cloud. Pant had fallen cheaply in the first two T20Is, and while Kohli had managed to stick around longer than Pant, he hadn’t looked fluent. In this game too, they played within themselves at the start, getting used to the pace of the pitch, and then began opening up. They ended up adding 106 in just 12.5 overs, with the last five overs of the stand yielding 55 runs. It was a partnership that finished the match off as a contest, but Pant ensured there was a flourish at the end, driving Brathwaite straight back over his head and into the sightscreen for the winning hit.

Sachin Tendulkar’s son, a left-arm quick, is set to play two four-day matches in Sri Lanka next month

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Jun-20181:15

Archive: Tendulkar’s son bowls at England in the nets

Arjun Tendulkar, the son of Sachin Tendulkar, has been picked in the India Under-19 squad for two four-day matches in Sri Lanka in July.A left-arm quick, Arjun, had been picked in the Mumbai Under-19 one-day side for the JY Lele invitational tournament in September last year. He also bowled in the nets in the lead-up to the Lord’s Test between England and South Africa in 2017, sending Jonny Bairstow off with an injury scare when he struck him on the toe with a yorker. Arjun also bowled in the India nets during the home series against New Zealand last year.However, he did not find a place in the one-day squad that will play five games against Sri Lanka. The four-day squad will be captained by 18-year-old Delhi wicketkeeper-batsman Anuj Rawat, who had scored two half-centuries, including one on debut, in as many matches for Delhi during the 2017-18 Ranji Trophy.”We are happy on Arjun being selected in Indian under-19 team. It is an important milestone in his cricketing life. Anjali and I will always support Arjun in his choices and pray for his success,” Sachin told The one-day squad will be led by 16-year-old Uttar Pradesh wicketkeeper-batsman Aryan Juyal, who had played two matches in the 50-over Vijay Hazare Trophy earlier this year and was part of the Under-19 World Cup winning team in January.Seventeen-year old left-arm spinner from Gujarat Siddharth Desai was picked in both squads. He also made his first-class debut in the 2017-18 season and was named the Man of the Match in his first two matches, taking nine and eight wickets against Kerala and Haryana respectively. He currently has 29 wickets from five first-class matches and three scalps from as many one-day matches.Atharwa Taide, also picked in both squads, was the captain of the Vidarbha Under-19 team that won the Cooch Behar Trophy earlier this year. He led them to their maiden title with a marathon knock of 320 off 483 balls in the final against Madhya Pradesh.

The Delhi Daredevils batsmen did not recognise the troubles a slow pitch in Mohali would pose and were bowled out for 67

ESPNcricinfo staff30-Apr-2017The Delhi Daredevils batsmen were at a loss for ideas out on the field in Mohali and their mentor Rahul Dravid was at a loss for words in the press conference. His team was bowled out for 67 – their lowest total in IPL – and Kings XI Punjab beat them with 10 wickets and 73 balls to spare.”Really disappointing… I don’t know… there’s not much to say,” Dravid said amid long pauses, perhaps recalling how his team struggled endlessly on a pitch that was slower than normal. “We were really poor and we didn’t bat particularly intelligently on that kind of wicket. We didn’t assess the conditions well enough and we didn’t give ourselves a chance.Sandeep Sharma, on the other hand, did realise the opportunity that lay underfoot. He concentrated on bowling a tight line and hitting a good length, demanding the batsmen play on the up. Those shots had been so very easy in the Mohali of two days ago, when the match took place under lights. But now a dry surface, baking under the afternoon sun, the ball kept stopping on the batsman.”Normally you see Sandeep swings the ball a lot but I think he quickly figured the wicket was slightly on the slower side and so he bowled wicket to wicket and hit the right lengths,” Dravid said. “I think the key for him really was the length. That sort of forced our batsmen to play some shots and we hit the ball in the air a lot which was not a wise thing to do so much on a slow wicket.”Daredevils came to Mohali with a four-match losing streak and desperately wanted to break it. “It was going to be a defining week for us,” Dravid said. “It hasn’t started particularly well. Hopefully we can go to Delhi and turn it around.”To do so, they might need to sort out the kinks in their batting line-up. Sanju Samson, Shreyas Iyer, Karun Nair and Rishabh Pant make up the top five and they have only ten international caps between them.Dravid, however, had a counter to that criticism. “But they’ve been playing the IPL for a while now,” he said. “Most of them have shown glimpses of good performances in this tournament and in the past as well. So really its going to be up to us and then themselves to lift ourselves up after this and really go out and try and play good cricket and not think too far ahead, try and focus on the next game and put in, definitely, a much better performance.”The other talking point was the out-of-form Karun Nair assuming captaincy of the team with Zaheer Khan injured.”Obviously last year’s vice-captain JP [Duminy] isn’t here and Quinton [de Kock] isn’t here as well, so we had decided that Karun would be the person who would take over the captaincy and we stuck with that,” Dravid said. “There are times when people are going to run out of form. Whether you’re the captain or vice-captain sometimes you run out of form. It happens. That’s not a reflection on his captaincy. Still he’s led junior teams and he’s led quite well. Nothing much he can do when you don’t put enough runs on the board.”

The India-Pakistan World T20 match on March 19 has been moved to Eden Gardens in Kolkata, because of security concerns over the original venue Dharamsala

ESPNcricinfo staff09-Mar-20161:35

The Ind-Pak decision wasn’t taken lightly – David Richardson

The India-Pakistan World T20 match on March 19 has been moved to Eden Gardens in Kolkata, because of security concerns over the original venue Dharamsala. The ICC chief executive David Richardson made the announcement in Delhi on Wednesday, ending weeks of uncertainty over the fixture, which began with the Himachal Pradesh chief minister saying his government would not be able to provide adequate security for the match.The PCB, however, has continued to delay the departure of the Pakistan men’s and women’s teams to India pending assurance from the BCCI or the Indian government. “The PCB has also today conveyed to ICC and BCCI that our government is expecting an assurance to Pakistan against specific threats to the Pakistan team from various political parties and groups during the tour,” the board said in a release. “Pending this assurance and in accordance with the recommendation by the security delegation, the PCB has decided to defer the departure of Pakistan men and women teams to India.””The decision to relocate the match has been made for security reasons,” Richardson said in Delhi. “The concerns initially arose following alleged public comments recently reported by the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, warning of demonstration and attempts to disrupt the peaceful conduct of the match. Our concerns relate both to uncertainty as to the level of those threats as well as the level of commitment to implement any security plan developed to mitigate such treats.”The decision was not taken lightly. The ICC and the BCCI understand the disappointment that is likely to be felt by many over the decision to move the match. But the safety and security of the event is of paramount importance to the ICC and we have taken into consideration the concerns shared with us by our security advisors as well as Pakistan Cricket Board.”As far as those who have purchased tickets online for the match, they will be offered the choice of a full refund or the opportunity to exchange their tickets for ones for the Kolkata match.”Finally, I would like to confirm that the ICC has been assured by all relevant state authorities that all adequate security measure are in place and will be implemented to ensure that the event is staged in a safe and secure environment for all stakeholders.”Though the PCB had always expressed reservations about playing in Dharamsala once the issue began, the BCCI and the ICC remained confident the game would go ahead as planned. However, the problems came to a head this week after a three-man security delegation from Pakistan inspected the venue and was unhappy with the preparations. Their report to the PCB on Tuesday recommended that Pakistan not play at the venue, and the ICC announced the change in venue the next day.