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He admits New Zealand’s ODI tour to Bangladesh will be early for comeback but is working towards the small milestones

Ashish Pant11-Aug-2023Kane Williamson has admitted that making it to the ODI World Cup in India in October remains a “tough goal” for him. But Williamson is cautiously optimistic as he continues “to tick off the small milestones” on his road to recovery, having undergone surgery for a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament [ACL] in his right knee in April.”To be at the World Cup is always special. It’s still just guesswork at the moment in terms of when the day is or how it’s tracking at the time,” Williamson told reporters at the Bay Oval about where he stands with regard to a potential comeback.”There’s a lot of work to do. I am just really following the programme, with the professionals for physio, the support staff and New Zealand Cricket. And it’s tough, because you do have some good days, and then you have a few variable ones.Related

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When asked what he thought his recovery chances for the World Cup were when he got injured back in March, he said: “Yeah, obviously slim, and still, you know, a tough goal. However, something like that [World Cup] in the back of your mind is obviously motivating and you want to keep seeing those improvements.”The New Zealand white-ball captain was speaking for the first time since posting a video on social media on August 1, where he was seen taking throwdowns in the nets. Williamson hasn’t started facing bowling in the nets yet but he will join the national side in England during the T20Is and ODIs to continue his rehab. He suggested that there was “definitely more movement” in the knee but also made certain that he wasn’t looking too far ahead of himself.”Yeah, good, just kind of on that same journey path really where there’s been some nice little progressions and working through some of those little milestones and return to the running phase, which I am in at the moment,” Williamson said of his recovery.”It has been nice to get back on the feet a little bit more and sort of get more into the net sessions and get slightly more involved as well. [There is] definitely more movement. I suppose that’s almost the name of the game…let’s get the strength and the movement to improve throughout. It is obviously a bit of a slow journey, as a number of others are experiencing.”Kane Williamson has started taking throwdowns in the nets•Gujarat Titans

While Williamson was unable to give a timeline about a possible return, he did suggest that making it to New Zealand’s tour of Bangladesh for the three ODIs in late September in the lead-up to the World Cup would “probably be a bit early”.”It’s a tricky one – you start entertaining a few earlier targets,” he said. “It is a lot about the healing element as well. You can have the strength work, the movement, the confidence, but the actual healing is what has to happen and there are a lot of things to really assess before that time. So, that [Bangladesh] series, by all accounts, is too early.”Williamson was also hopeful he was not far away from taking on the bowlers in the nets too.”Yeah, still, throws and things, working through some of those positions. I never really had to break it down so much ever in terms of some of the spin work, the variation and links, all these sorts of things that you never thought too much about,” he said.”Now, you’re really trying to exaggerate some of the movements and get them better prepared for the higher intensity stuff. But you know, it is progressing nicely, and hopefully not too far away, really from both.”Williamson said he was “really looking forward” to joining the squad in England, where New Zealand will play two T20 warm-ups on August 25 and 27, before the T20Is from August 30 to September 5 followed by the ODIs from September 8 to 15.”The team hasn’t spent that much time together anyway, but obviously being off the grid a little bit, it’s nice to be hitting over there and connecting with the group. One of the last tours that one and the Bangladesh one before obviously the World Cup, so it will be nice to spend some time with the team and do a bit of training and rehab with the group as well,” he said.

The visitors finished the day at 258 for 4, with the former captain 114 not out

Mohammad Isam15-May-2022Stumps Angelo Mathews’ 12th Test century headlined Sri Lanka’s fine first day against Bangladesh in Chattogram. His century, and 92-run stand for the third wicket with Kusal Mendis, revived Sri Lanka in the second session before keeping things locked in their favour till the end of the day. Bangladesh would rue dropping Mathews on 69, but it was an otherwise tight contest for the Sri Lanka batters against the steady home spinners.After the big stand with Mendis, Mathews added another 75 for the unbroken fifth wicket with Dinesh Chandimal, who was unbeaten on 34 at stumps. Mathews was on 114, using all of his experience to hit his first century against Bangladesh. Only the Bangladesh spinners took wickets, with Nayeem Hasan taking two and Taijul Islam and Shakib Al Hasan one each.Mathews’ most fruitful zone was in front of the wicket, mostly driving straight on a pitch that had low bounce but was good for batting from the second session. Between extra cover and midwicket, he struck 11 boundaries and hit a straight six too. The rest of Mathews’ boundaries were hit towards fine-leg.When he was on 69, in the 65th over, Mahmudul Hasan Joy dropped Mathews at slip off Taijul, and although Mahmudul made it up with a good grab in the next over to get rid of Dhananjaya de Silva, it proved to be a costly drop.The third session started poorly for Sri Lanka, when Mendis pulled Taijul’s long-hop to Nayeem at short midwicket. They had earlier gone wicketless throughout the second session as Mathews and Mendis bedded in for the long haul.Mendis batted quite conservatively, only hitting a couple of cover drives and another boundary through midwicket, as he allowed Mathews to thrive. They had come together late in the first session after Nayeem had taken two wickets. The offspinner, playing his first Test in more than a year, removed Dimuth Karunaratne in his first over, before getting Oshada Fernando caught behind. Bangladesh, though, lost two of their reviews with ordinary lbw appeals.

The England batsman found career-best form during the home season, but for a variety of reasons has not played much since

Alex Malcolm29-Dec-2020You’re not going to lose it in three weeks. That is the attitude Sam Billings is carrying into his first BBL match for the Sydney Thunder after 14 days quarantine in an Australian hotel room.Billings could be forgiven for showing some frustration at the Covid cricket world where isolation and bio-secure bubbles are the new norm.He is in the best form of his career having established himself in England’s ODI team thanks to a superb home series against Australia. But an embarrassment of riches in the England T20I team and a Covid outbreak in South Africa meant he did not play a single game on England’s tour before heading straight to Australia where he spent two weeks, including Christmas, stuck in a hotel room as part of the Australian government’s strict border requirements on international travellers entering the country.Rather than wallow in what might have been, Billings is going with the flow.”You’re not going to have everything aligned perfectly at times,” Billings told ESPNcricinfo. “But you have a really good idea of what you need going into a game to be mentally ready.”It’s like riding a bike. You’re not going to lose it in three weeks. It’s just about getting your mind right. Two really good training sessions and I feel in a really good place.”Quarantine hubs have made life difficult for international cricketers. Billings’ England team-mates Tom Banton and Tom Curran both withdrew from the BBL citing bubble fatigue.Related

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Billings was well aware of what he signed up for. He was full of praise to Cricket Australia for setting the travelling England players up with two-bedroom apartments, a treadmill, and an exercise bike, to keep the legs ticking over while cooped inside.Billings believes the key to not letting the walls close on him was his attitude, however, he was also extremely sympathetic to those who had opted out.”The most important thing was getting into a really good routine,” he said. “Kind of having a purpose for each day and the first hour of the day was all about setting it up in terms of what I wanted to get out of it and having some organisation to it.”I think that’s the real key. Not just letting the days drift and feel as if you’re not getting too much out of it. I was very lucky with the support I had around me and had a kind of plan to embrace it and look at it from a positive point of view as opposed to a negative mindset.”I think as well as a player, we’re going to have to used to these kinds of things, and constantly learn and evolve on the back of them. At times it’s hugely challenging for some individuals, and it’s so individual. If guys are really struggling, it’s absolutely no judgement.”Billings, 29, credits the toughest year of his career for his discernible shift in mindset. A freak shoulder dislocation cost him a chance to be part of England’s magical 2019 World Cup. Rather than regressing, it has propelled him to greater heights in terms of his preparation and his mental strength. The results were obvious for all to see when he made his maiden international century against Australia at Old Trafford in September.”I think the whole process is natural,” Billings said. “As you get older and more experienced it’s something that develops. Missing the World Cup through injury the year before, it was a pretty steep learning curve in terms of what I needed to get done.”I had to reflect on things I needed to get done and things I needed to improve. For a really bad experience which I wouldn’t wish on anyone, actually what came out of it was a really positive summer. Probably my best summer in an England shirt. It was only through the back of the changes I made through being injured, that I developed. I saw it as, obviously a negative experience, but a huge positive that really helped me develop as a bloke but also as a cricketer as well.”Some continuity in selection has also helped. England’s limited-overs teams have been among the most difficult to break into in recent times and an extended run certainly added his progress.”For me, it’s all about, and it’s so cliché, focusing on the process as opposed to trying so hard to perform well,” Billings said. “Certainly at times for England I would play one game and do well and be out of the side because it’s such a hard side to get into. But this summer was so nice to play a consistent run of games. Not worrying about not playing the next game has just allowed me to play and play my own way.’If you hit a boundary an over and then you’re running people ragged out to the sweepers, that’s when you put people under pressure at relatively low risk’•Getty Images

“I know that when I’m on, when I’m playing well, when I’m comfortable in the environment, I know that I add value to any side that I play in. Hopefully, I just continue to do everything I can to give myself the best chance and that’s all I can do really. Hopefully, I can add some value to the Thunder.”This will be Billings’ third stint in the BBL after playing 11 games over two seasons, from 2016 to 2018, for cross-town rivals the Sydney Sixers. But Billings was keen to join the Thunder due to a connection with Sydney’s western suburbs. He experienced a life-changing summer at Penrith Cricket Club in 2013-14 playing Sydney grade cricket alongside Pat Cummins. Eoin Morgan, Jos Buttler, and Joe Root have also represented the Thunder in recent times but Billings’ friendship with Shane Watson, through their experiences at Chennai Super Kings was the clincher.”I’m pretty close to Shane Watson through my time at Chennai, I spent a lot of time with him,” Billings said. “I’m very thankful for all the help he’s given me. He had nothing but positive things to say about the Thunder. It was a pretty easy decision.”The biggest thing for me was that I was their guy that they wanted from day one and that goes a long way for any player. Straight away it was that loyalty both ways. I really enjoyed that. I’m really fired up to do well and give back to these guys.”He joins a Thunder team in red-hot form. He will slot in nicely into the middle order and is looking forward to a rare opportunity to keep wicket.”It will be great to get the gloves back on, hopefully, there are not too many cobwebs,” he said. “And obviously in the middle order, that’s something that I really want to make my own if I’m honest. In terms of internationally but also around the world as well. Not many players want to bat in the middle order. Obviously, it’s a pretty challenging position against spin with the field out.”He explained it can also be a different challenge in Australia compared to other parts of the world. Australia have struggled to produce world-class middle order T20 players with the style of play required on the bigger grounds with the field spread asking for slightly different skills.”I think with these big grounds it’s obviously about being positive, backing your options,” Billings said. “You can kind of run people ragged with these big pockets. I like my running between the wickets so I think that’s a huge part of it.”That’s kind of how you can go at low risk 10-an-over against spin. If you hit a boundary an over and then you’re running people ragged out to the sweepers, that’s when you put people under pressure at relatively low risk. There will be different challenges. Obviously, a lot of pace bowlers go into the pitch [with shorter lengths] because of big square boundaries.”It’s coming up with different game plans and hitting gaps. It’s not necessarily all about hitting sixes. You hit the ball hard along the ground over here. The outfields are generally so quick that you get value. It’s just playing smart cricket on these big grounds.”

Candid allrounder accepts lifestyle fell short of standards during tough year, but is itching to make up lost ground

Daniel Brettig at The Oval12-Sep-2019A candid Mitchell Marsh has revealed the extent of his spiral out of the Australian set-up last summer and also his path back to playing the fifth and final Ashes Test, despite what he readily acknowledges is a fractious relationship with many of those who follow the game Down Under.”Yeah, most of Australia hate me,” he said with amusing resignation. “Australians are very passionate, they love their cricket, they want people to do well. There’s no doubt I’ve had a lot of opportunity at Test level and I haven’t quite nailed it, but hopefully they can respect me for the fact I keep coming back and I love playing for Australia, I love the baggy green cap and I’ll keep trying and hopefully I’ll win them over one day.”Named one of two Test team vice-captains ahead of the 2018-19 season, Marsh was initially a central part of plans being drawn up by the Australian coach Justin Langer, but a poor tour of the UAE against Pakistan and then a brief and unproductive stint at home against India left him not only out of the Test side but removed from World Cup calculations and also losing his Cricket Australia contract.Marsh said that personal issues, including the suicide of a close friend late last year, combined with underperformance and fitness issues to leave him a long way from enjoying the game. It took extensive work on his fitness, technical elements of his game and also his mentality with the Western Australia sports psychologist Matt Burgin to put him into the place where he was able to squeeze onto the Ashes tour. At The Oval he was given permission by Langer to attack with the ball, resulting in arguably his finest Test bowling display so far.”I wasn’t making runs – if you bat No. 4 for Australia you need to make runs,” Marsh said. “Last year was a range of stuff, a few things in my personal life. I lost a close friend to suicide at the start of the summer and when things like that happen, I didn’t handle it as well as I could have and that transitioned into my cricket at times as well. I understand everyone goes through tough periods in their life but I certainly didn’t handle it as best I could.”But to have gone through that and got through the summer the way I did and finished with WA, I knew I still had love for the game. It was a tough summer last year. I tried to put it behind me as quickly as possible and here I am. It took me until probably March, the last three Shield games of the year for WA. When you play cricket or you do anything and you want to do well badly and it doesn’t work out, it’s very easy to get down on yourself.”I was certainly at that stage, so I did a lot of work with our sports psych Matt Burgin at WA just about detaching myself from the outcome, working as hard as I can, getting as fit as I can, preparing well and it sort of started from there. I’ve hardly played any cricket since then but that’s what I’ve been doing.”At the same time, Marsh’s physical fitness had measured up poorly against the likes of Ben Stokes, forcing him to make numerous lifestyle and diet changes in order to do better. “As a professional athlete when you have setbacks you always think the worst, you think you might not play again after a summer I had last year,” he said. “There’s been no secret recipe, I’ve just worked my arse off for the last five months hoping to get another opportunity.”I wanted to come here and have a positive influence on this group, i think I’ve done that running the drinks and I just waited for my opportunity. I don’t necessarily eat that bad, I’m just a big eater, so I probably cut down my portion sizes a fair bit. There’s no secret JL’s certainly challenged me from a fitness perspective, he wanted me to get fitter and stronger and over the last six months I’ve put everything I’ve had into it.”I’ve certainly changed my lifestyle a little bit, I’m waking up every day trying to be the best cricketer I can be, and today was good reward for that but it’s one day of a Test match. It wasn’t terrible [but] my body likes to put on weight easily and my mum loves to feed me, so I haven’t had as many roasts at home the last six months, but it hasn’t been that hard. I love playing for Australia, I just love it, and I want to keep doing it, so I’ll keep working my arse off.”Marsh’s contribution at The Oval was very welcome for the Test team at the end of a draining series, and he hoped it would be the start of a far more productive run in the team. “I think in the past my role as a bowler has been to hold an end,” he said. “JL came up to me before the start of play and at lunch time and he just said ‘go for it, attack, bowl the way you want to bowl’, and I was a little bit, not shocked, but it gave me the confidence to go out there and give it everything I had.”Maybe a change of mentality allowed me to bowl a bit more attackingly as a player and it was fun. I want to be the best I can be at both batting and bowling, I don’t really want to pigeonhole one of them. No doubt as an allrounder at times you certainly hit them better than you’re bowling or vice versa but that’s just something that happens in cricket I guess as an allrounder. I want to be the best allrounder I can be in both facets of the game.”

Shannon Gabriel and Kemar Roach shared nine wickets as West Indies took the first-day honours

The Report by Andrew Fidel Fernando14-Jun-2018Stumps CWI Media/Randy Brooks

Shannon Gabriel delivered a brutal spell with the new ball, then later came back to blast out the middle order to take 5 for 59. Dinesh Chandimal hit a terrific 119 not out off 185 balls, but had little support from the rest of the batting order. The result: another day dominated by West Indies, who shot the opposition out for 253, before their openers survived the two overs before stumps unscathed. The Gros Islet surface rewarded seam bowling, but had largely appeared decent for batting. In fact, Sri Lanka had chosen to bat first, expecting big runs.It was Gabriel’s early spell that defined the day. Second ball, he squared up debutant Mahela Udawatte, who sent a low catch toward third slip, where Jason Holder completed an excellent, diving low-take. Two overs late, after a confident Dhananjaya de Silva had hit two square boundaries off Gabriel’s short balls, he claimed de Silva’s wicket with a beauty. Having the ball jag towards the right-hander off a back-of-a-length, Gabriel struck de Silva on the forearm, watched the ball ricochet into the stumps, he gloated as he jogged past the injured batsman. De Silva had to be walked off the ground by a physio holding an ice pack, but although there were initial fears that a bone could have been fractured, X-rays have cleared de Silva of any serious injury, team manager Asanka Gurusinha said. As his arm is merely bruised, de Silva is likely to bat again in the second innings.Gabriel took three more wickets, in much later spells. He had a length ball leap at Roshen Silva, who could only edge it to Holder again, at third slip. He drew Niroshan Dickwella into a drive and had him caught in the gully. Finally, he fired one in at the pads of Suranga Lakmal, who could not get his bat in the way, and was standing right in front of the stumps. This was Gabriel’s third five-wicket haul, the other two having come against Pakistan.Chandimal’s hundred was in some ways predictable, though given the manner in which the remainder of the batting order folded, it was invaluable as well. He hit all but one of his fours behind square, but was proactive when there were singles or twos for the taking. It was not a whirlwind innings like, his knock against India in 2015. It wasn’t a stonewall, like his century in Abu Dhabi last year. This was something in the middle, and in this game, that is what his teammates needed. He had had two clear reprieves in the innings though. On 14, he was dropped by Devon Smith at second slip, off the bowling of Miguel Cummins. On 119, he top-edged a flick to the man at point, only for bowler Kemar Roach to have been shown to have overstepped. Towards the end of the innings, he even launched Roach over long off for six.Elsewhere, West Indies’ bowlers ran rampant. Kusal Mendis had batted alluringly for 45, before trying a swat off his hips, which ended up looping into the air, to be caught by wicketkeeper Dowrich as he ran towards square leg. Holder was the bowler. Later in the day, Roach knocked out Nos. 10 and 11 in quick time, finishing with 4 for 49 himself.Beyond Chandimal’s 67-run stand with Mendis, there were no fifty-plus associations among the Sri Lanka batsmen. Through the whole innings, only Mendis and Kusal Perera could cross 30. When their innings ended, West Indies openers Kraigg Brathwaite and Smith came to the crease, and saw out the final two overs.

After a remarkable day’s play – not least because there was no rain – New Zealand found themselves five wickets shy of beating South Africa and levelling the series

The Report by Alagappan Muthu28-Mar-2017
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details1:46