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An emotional Graeme Smith has apologised for not explaining why he wasn’t with the South African team upon its return from the World Cup

Firdose Moonda05-Jun-2011An emotional Graeme Smith has apologised to fans for not explaining why he wasn’t with the South African team upon its return from the World Cup. Smith arrived in South Africa only on Saturday, and said he needed a break due to the “emotional stress” he experienced in the aftermath of South Africa’s dispiriting quarter-final exit.”I was feeling incredibly emotional at the time,” Smith read from prepared statement in Johannesburg. “Prior to the World Cup I had asked permission to go on to Ireland to attend to a personal matter. At the time I had faced a full media schedule and felt that signalled the end of the campaign. What I did not take into account was the public’s reaction.”Smith went to Ireland to propose to Morgan Deane, who is now his fiancée and then travelled to India for the fourth season of the IPL, where he was part of the Pune Warriors squad. South African fans reacted angrily to his no-show, some describing it as cowardly following his last assignment as ODI captain. He also stopped interacting with the public on social networking site, Twitter, that Cricket South Africa has encouraged its players to sign up on and use.Smith said his no-show was caused by anxiety and that he needed some time out. “The emotional stress was something that I hadn’t been through before in my career,” Smith said. “I felt it best to take a break from being stupid and saying stupid things. The fans have a first-hand line from their phone to my phone so I just wanted a break.”Smith said the World Cup campaign had exhausted him mentally, particularly because of the high expectation placed on the team. South Africa took what was believed to be their strongest squad into the tournament but were forced to exit at the quarter-final stage after a 49-run loss to New Zealand. South Africa failed to chase 222 in Dhaka, a performance that led to them being relabelled as chokers. It’s a term that has raised much controversy in South Africa and one that continues to haunt the national side.”I am still convinced that we adopted the right strategy in deciding to use three spinners in addition to two strike pace bowlers. This meant that all of our lower order had to bat one place too high,” Smith said. He did not make excuses for his team’s batting and admitted that the fault was with the top order, that, he said, “did not bat as expected and it is something we, myself included, need to work hard on.”Graeme Smith will stay on as Test captain•Associated Press

Smith has been through a patch of poor form in recent months; he notched up a top score of 45 in seven matches at the World Cup. In 12 ODIs this year, he has averaged 28.25, substantially less than his career average of 39.25. His Test average has also slipped, to 35.87 in five Tests in the 2010-11 season, compared to 49.71 over his career.”I admit that my own form has not been what I had hoped it would be of late,” he said, admitting that without strong performances with the bat, he will struggle to the formidable leader he once was. “Nothing that I say in the next few weeks is going to be worthwhile unless I can back it up with performance.”Smith has battled a knee injury since the IPL and said he hopes to develop a personal programme, with the new coach, who will be appointed on Monday, in order to make a full recovery. It appears that most of the healing has to happen in the mind, with Smith saying he would like to rediscover the joys of playing cricket. “The last two to three months have been the toughest of my career. I want to get back to enjoying my cricket again.” Without the responsibility of captaining in the shorter formats of the game, form is something Smith can concentrate on. He remains the country’s Test captain, despite speculation that he would step down at Sunday’s press conference.While Smith has used his time away to refresh his mindset and sharpen his physique (he looked distinctly slimmer than he has in a long time), he hopes the rest of the World Cup squad have also been able to get over their calamitous exit. “Time is a good healer and it gives you perspective. It’s easy to be emotional at the time.”There are a lot of exciting times ahead for us with the appointment of the new coach and ODI captain. We did a lot of work in the off season on our team culture. Ultimately, it’s always about the cricket and it always has been.”AB de Villiers is expected to succeed Smith as the ODI captain. South Africa take on Australia and Sri Lanka in their home season this year.

The Pakistan board has expressed its disappointment at not having a domestic team invited to participate in the 2010 Champions League Twenty20 in South Africa

Osman Samiuddin28-May-2010The Pakistan board has expressed its disappointment at not having a domestic team invited to participate in the 2010 Champions League Twenty20 in South Africa. This appears to be a u-turn on an earlier stance it had taken, when in the aftermath of the IPL snub to Pakistan players, Ijaz Butt, the PCB chairman, had ruled out the participation of any Pakistan team in the Champions League. That, says the chairman however, was not what he had said at the time.”Those comments of mine were about the IPL and our participation in that event and not at all about the Champions League,” Butt told Cricinfo. “I had said our players would not be in the IPL because of what had happened at the auction. I did not say that our domestic teams would not go to the Champions League. Why would I deprive them of that opportunity? My comments were misinterpreted.”Nevertheless, the confusion means that Sialkot Stallions, Pakistan’s domestic Twenty20 champions five years running now, will again miss out on the most lucrative global club tournament in cricket. Sialkot, which won the RBS Twenty20 in March this year, could potentially include Pakistan players such as Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Asif, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Abdur Rehman and Abdul Razzaq. They were invited to take part in what would have been the inaugural Champions League at the end of 2008 but the terror attacks on Mumbai in November that year forced a postponement to 2009. By that time, relations between India and Pakistan having deteriorated, no team was invited from Pakistan.”Nobody has invited us this year and that is disappointing,” Butt said. “We asked them about it and we received no reply at all. We will take up this issue with the ICC. After all, why are we being discriminated against like this? Clubs from so many other countries are invited and our Sialkot side has done so well over the last few years.”A Champions League official, however, told Cricinfo that no Pakistan team had been considered for the 2010 tournament after Butt’s statements in February. “Mr Butt had formally announced and communicated in February that no Pakistani team would be permitted to compete in the 2010 CLT20, and as Mr Butt is the Chairman of the PCB, the Governing Council of CLT20 could not and did not consider any invitations to Pakistani teams,” the official told Cricinfo. “Unfortunately, due to the announcement by Mr Butt, it is now clearly too late to even consider the addition of Pakistani teams to the 2010 CLT20.”Gerald Majola, chief executive of Cricket South Africa, one if the founding members of the Champions League, also said it was too late to include a Pakistan team. “I don’t think the PCB approached us,” he told Cricinfo. “If that was the case we would’ve known earlier. Unfortunately it too late now, things have been finalised so there can be no question of sending an invite.”However, whether or not the league was ever considering inviting a team from Pakistan is open to question. Another tournament official told Cricinfo that “the plan was always to invite the same make-up of teams as 2009, with the understanding that if English teams were unavailable, the field would be reduced to 10 teams.”To my knowledge PCB made no approaches to be included in this year’s CLT20,” he said. “There won’t be any late invitations issued. The match schedule is being drafted at the moment and venues being finalised, so we’re advanced in our planning.”That means Shahid Afridi, who helped South Australia qualify, could be Pakistan’s only representative in the tournament this time round, although his national responsibilities until September 22 makes his participation uncertain as well. The number of teams taking part was reduced to ten this year (from 12) after the ECB said its sides could not take part because of a clash of dates with the end of the English domestic season. Other than Bangladesh and England this year, teams from all Test-playing countries participate in the tournament. The tournament is run jointly by the cricket boards of Australia, India and South Africa.

Division One leaders need less than two session to take the nine wickets they needed

ECB Reporters Network25-Aug-2024Title favourites Surrey took less than two sessions on day four to bowl out Lancashire for 177 at the Kia Oval to complete an impressive innings-and-63-run victory.Conor McKerr polished off Lancashire’s tail to finish with 4 for 27 while Dan Worrall and Jordan Clark picked up three wickets apiece as long-time Division One leaders Surrey, champions in 2022 and 2023, made it seven wins from ten Vitality County Championship matches this season. It is another big step for Surrey towards a third title in a row.Matty Hurst, Lancashire’s highly rated 20-year-old wicketkeeper-batter, tried hard to hold up Surrey by adding a fine 64 to a first-innings 46 in what is only his 12th first-class appearance but there was never any real doubt about the eventual result as wickets fell regularlyLancashire resumed still 214 runs adrift on 26 for 1 from 11.1 overs, after a rain-hit third day had seemingly given them a chance of escaping with a draw, but lost their last nine wickets for 151 runs as Surrey’s five-man pace attack proved too hot for them to handle for the second time in the game.Worrall, the Championship’s leading wicket-taker with 40 at an average of only 15.55 runs apiece, made the initial breakthroughs by dismissing Lancashire captain Keaton Jennings for 13 and 16-year-old debutant Rocky Flintoff in successive balls in the fifth full over of the morning.First, coming from around the wicket to left-hander Jennings, he swung one back into the former England Test opener who offered no shot and saw the ball thud into the top of his off stump. And another fine piece of bowling by Worrall immediately inflicted a first ball duck on young Flintoff, the son of former England captain Andrew who had batted so promisingly for 32 on day one as Lancashire’s youngest first-class cricketer.Pushing forward to an outswinger that also bounced perhaps more than he expected, Flintoff edged to keeper Ben Foakes who took an excellent diving catch in front of first slip.That left Lancashire 33 for 3 and they soon declined further to 82 for 5 as Josh Bohannon chopped a short, rising ball from Clark into his stumps to go for 29 and George Balderson edged a returning Worrall to second slip on four.Hurst, however, was then joined by Venkatesh Iyer in a sixth-wicket stand of 36 that at least took Lancashire through to lunch, with Iyer even having the temerity to flip Worrall over the short leg-side boundary for six. Yet it took only two balls after the interval for Surrey to break the stand, with Iyer nibbling at Clark outside off stump and thin-edging through to Foakes.Tom Hartley also offered some lower resistance, battling through a testing spell from Sam Curran in which he was beaten several times before hitting Will Jacks’ off spin over long-on for six.Hurst, though, was disgusted with himself for clipping the first ball of McKerr’s second spell – an innocuous loosener – straight into Ryan Patel’s hands at midwicket after a defiant 116-ball stay featuring seven fours. And the end was nigh when McKerr took two more wickets in his eighth over, Tom Aspinwall lofting a full toss straight to mid off and Josh Boyden losing his off stump to depart for a second-ball duck.Hartley was last man out, for 22, fending McKerr to Patel at short leg just after 3pm. Worrall finished with 3 for 34 while Clark took his own season’s Championship wicket tally to 32 with his 3 for 43.

Birmingham maintain winning start as bumper Bank Holiday crowd sees lopsided contest

ECB Reporters Network29-May-2023Birmingham 99 for three (Davies 51*, Yates 30) beat Lancashire Lightning 98 (Briggs 4-15, Mousley 4-13) by seven wicketsBirmingham Bears extended their 100 per cent start to the Vitality Blast and ended Lancashire Lightning’s with a commanding seven-wicket victory in front of a sun-soaked 11,243 crowd at Edgbaston.After choosing to bat, Lightning tumbled all out for 98 after losing their last seven wickets for 36 runs in 35 balls. They were spun to destruction as Danny Briggs took four for 15, Dan Mousley three for 13 and Jake Lintott two for 24. Only Steven Croft (22, 13 balls) passed 20 for the visitors.Lightning desperately needed to strike early when the Bears replied but openers Alex Davies (51 not out, 39 balls – his maiden Blast fifty for the Bears) and Rob Yates (30, 24 balls) added an untroubled 50 by the seventh over to set up a victory stroll. The Bears reached 99 for three with 34 balls to spare.”We didn’t really sense that this was going to be a game for the slow bowlers but we talk about being adaptable because so much depends on who can adapt quickest,” Mousley said. “Maxy got the early wicket and then we thought, ‘okay. it’s going to offer a bit of assistance to the spinners’ and we took advantage of that.”I love bowling and playing away in the ILT20 last winter I just learned as much as I could by bowling to some of the best players in the world. It made me realise that I am actually okay at it and I have brought that confidence back here.”With Phil Salt ruled out by a back spasm, Josh Bohannon came into the Lightning side to open the batting but perished fourth ball, bowled through a mow at Glenn Maxwell. Luke Wells, scorer of a match-winning 66 against Derbyshire Falcons on this ground nine days earlier, fell in the next over to a superb return catch, clutched centimetres from the ground, by Mousley.Croft bashed 18 from four balls from Henry Brookes to get the innings going momentarily but the bowler gained his revenge when he was waiting at square leg to accept a catch when Croft lifted a sweep at Mousley. That was 62 for three and from that point the Lightning fell in a heap in the face of fine spin bowling backed up by brilliant fielding.Mousley switched ends to bowl the dangerous Liam Livingstone first ball back. Chris Benjamin took a stinging slip catch to prevent Colin de Grandhomme damaging his former team. Mousley made a steepling catch at long off from Daryl Mitchell look simple and Rob Yates took a blinder at extra cover to oust Luke Wood.Wood was the second of Briggs’ four victims as he plucked off the tail with three wickets in four balls and Lightning committed the heinous T20 crime of leaving 31 balls unused.Faced with such a meagre target. Yates allowed himself the Blast luxury of a leave, first ball, and the Bears openers killed the game dead with a stand 50 of in 39 balls. Yates top-edged a sweep at Matt Parkinson to short fine leg and Maxwell’s home debut knock yielded only two from three balls before he missed an attempt to carve Hartley through the off side, but it was already game over.Sam Hain reached the crease facing one of the less exerting equations he has faced over the years – 37 needed from 74 balls with eight wickets in hand. He was soon bowled by Wells’ third ball but Davies advanced smoothly to his 16th Blast half-century and the captain eased his side home to the jubilation of most in the big crowd, though you got the feeling a fair few of them would have swapped the cakewalk for a more gripping contest in perfect Bank Holiday weather.With three wins from four, Lancashire’s head coach, Glen Chapple, was philosophical. “We lost three wickets to very good catches and throw in a bit of bad luck and before you know it you’re six down. We’re not going to dwell on it, we’re just going to crack on.”