To me, it doesn't matter how good you are. Sport is all about playing and competing. Whatever you do in cricket and in sport, enjoy it, be positive and try to win.
West Indies have picked uncapped opening batsman Evin Lewis to replace Lendl Simmons for the World T20 in India. Simmons was ruled out of the tournament last week due to a back injury.
Lewis, 24, has been in good form recently, in domestic matches for Trinidad & Tobago. He scored 221 runs in six matches for T&T in the Nagico Super 50 tournament, including one century and a fifty. In five matches of the WICB Regional 4-day Tournament, he has scored 442 runs at an average of 49.11, including a century and three fifties. His overall T20 record stands at 1044 runs in 34 innings at an average of 31.63.
Simmons was the fourth player to be ruled out of the West Indies T20 squad, after Sunil Narine, Kieron Pollard and Darren Bravo had also withdrawn from the team. It was speculated that Dwayne Smith, who won the Man-of-the-Match award in the final of the Pakistan Super League, was a favourite to replace Simmons, while Jonathan Carter was also reportedly in contention.
Clive Lloyd, WICB's chairman of selectors, said Lewis had been picked in keeping with West Indies' policy to give younger players more exposure.
"Evin Lewis is a young and exciting batsman who we believe will fit into the team set-up very well. He has the ability to perform at this level of the game," Lloyd said. "His selection is in keeping with our policy to give exposure to young, talented players we believe will help to carry West Indies cricket forward."
The West Indies team, which arrived in Kolkata on Monday after a two-week camp in the UAE, are scheduled to play warm-up matches against India and Australia on March 10 and March 13. They are in Group 1 of the Super 10s stage with England, South Africa, Sri Lanka and one of the teams from the first round. They will play their first match of the World T20 against England in Mumbai on March 16. Source by : espncricinfo
David Richardson, the ICC chief executive, has expressed confidence that the India-Pakistan match will take place in Dharamsala as scheduled on March 19 despite there being security concerns over the venue. Richardson was speaking in Delhi on Monday, even as a two-member team from Pakistan visited Dharamsala to assess the security arrangements for the World T20. On Tuesday, MV Sridhar, tournament director of the World T20, said the delegation had been given security assurances by the local administration and all scheduled plans for the match were "on track".*
"As of now all the plans as scheduled are on track. In the worst-case scenario, if something happens we will have to go back to the drawing table. But as of now that's not on the cards," Sridhar said in Dharamsala.
Richardson addressed concerns around Dharamsala and Delhi, a venue that has had severe administrative problems. He was confident that scheduled matches could proceed at both venues.
"Challenges in respect to those two venues, they are there," Richardson said. "But we are dealing with those problems. The venues were decided a year back and all arrangements are in place to stage the matches at those two venues.
"These challenges have reasons not through the fault of the BCCI or the ICC. But the fact is that we are dealing with these and we are confident that the matches will proceed at those two venues. The Indian government has shown a commitment to make sure that adequate security measures are in place at all the venues for all the teams."
According to a PTI report, Federal Investigation Agency Lahore director Usman Anwar and PCB chief security officer Azam Khan arrived in India via the Wagah border and left for Dharamsala on Monday. Their report will have a crucial impact on whether the PCB clears its men's and women's teams for travel to India on March 9 for the World T20.
The Pakistan government had initially granted the PCB permission to play in India, but the board decided to put the visit on hold until they were guaranteed foolproof security. The PCB's move was prompted by the Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh expressing his state government's difficulty in providing security for the India-Pakistan match. Source by : espncricinfo
Lasith Malinga has stepped down as Sri Lanka's T20 captain ahead of the World T20 in India, but will remain part of the squad. Angelo Mathews will lead the team in his place. The team is hopeful Malinga can be available for their first match on March 17, though that is dependent on his recovery over the next week.
Sri Lanka have also made two other changes to their squad for the World T20, on the day the team is due to depart to India; Lahiru Thirimanne and Suranga Lakmal have been brought in to replace Jeffrey Vandersay and Niroshan Dickwella.
Malinga had offered to step down as captain after concerns had grown over his slow recovery from a knee injury. He had handed Sri Lanka Cricket a letter voicing reservations about continuing as captain, as he could no longer guarantee participation in Sri Lanka's full campaign. The overuse injury to his left knee had kept him out of competitive cricket for three months. Though he returned to play one Asia Cup match, he has been sidelined for almost two weeks since.
Thirimanne's initial omission from the World T20 squad had caused a stir, as his limited-overs contributions had been good throughout 2015, despite very lean Test returns. Both Kumar Sangakkara and Aravinda de Silva had publicly supported Thirimanne following that omission, and, having now been installed as selectors on Monday night, have made Thirimanne a late addition to this World T20 squad.
He has been in good domestic form, albeit in first-class cricket, having hit two centuries and a fifty in five innings over the span of a month. Last year, he averaged 43.05 across 24 ODI innings. He had also made significant contributions to Sri Lanka's 2014 World T20 campaign - particularly in the semi-final against West Indies, where he top-scored with 44.
Lakmal comes fresh from captaining his first-class side to victory in the Premier League Tournament. He had been injured for parts of the domestic season, but claimed 19 wickets in the last four rounds of four-day matches. His inclusion bolsters the seam-bowling contingent in this squad, which now features three frontline pacemen, as well as allrounders Angelo Mathews, Thisara Perera and Dasun Shanaka.
The ousted selection panel had picked wicketkeeper-batsman Niroshan Dickwella as a potential opening partner for Tillakaratne Dilshan. But with the team now having moved Dinesh Chandimal to the top of the order, Dickwella finds himself left out by the new selectors. Legspinner Jeffrey Vandersay was unused during the Asia Cup, where tracks generally favoured seam bowlers. Source by : espncricinfo
Pakistan have replaced batsman Khurram Manzoor with Ahmed Shehzad in their World T20 squad, with chief selector Haroon Rasheed admitting that Manzoor's inclusion was a gamble that "backfired" in the Asia Cup.
Based on the Asia Cup performances, there had been a lot of deliberation among the selectors at the National Cricket Academy in Lahore. The top order was the main concern with Mohammad Hafeez, Manzoor and Sharjeel Khan combining for just 94 runs in Pakistan's four games in the tournament. To address the batting issues, the selectors brought back the experienced Shehzad, who was earlier dropped for his inconsistency. He won his place back with his performance in the Pakistan Super League, where he scored 290 runs in ten games at a strike-rate of 143.56, including a half-century in the final.
"The inclusion of Khurram backfired and as a chief selector I take full responsibility," Haroon Rasheed told ESPNcricinfo. "Call it an error of judgement or whatever, but we all have seen him scoring runs in domestic cricket and we gave him a chance. He didn't grab it, it's up to the player to justify his selection and in his case he didn't. We gambled on [Shoaib] Malik last year and it paid off.
"Now when we look around for who is going to replace Khurram, we don't really have a serious contender, but Ahmed at least has some experience under his belt. He did show some form in PSL too, otherwise we haven't seen any other [impressive] opening batsman."
There were suggestions that Salman Butt might be added to the squad but the idea was shot down; the board is not ready to reintegrate the former captain into the squad so soon after the end of his ban for spot-fixing in 2010. Butt, though, is "eligible" to play international cricket and recently scored 536 runs at 107.20 to finish second highest run-scorer in the National One-Day Cup behind Kamran Akmal. But captain Shahid Afridi opposed Butt's selection and that along with the PCB's lack of interest in bringing him back at this point meant Shehzad got the nod.
There were also murmurs of Afridi's place in the team being in question but he has been retained. He is set to call time on his international career at the end of the World T20 and his form was another major worry to come out of the Asia Cup; he scored only two runs in two innings there, and claimed two wickets from three bowling innings, continuing his year-long dip in form (17 T20s for 173 runs at 12.35 and 12 wickets at 35.41). During the Asia Cup he remained a mere shadow of his former self, reportedly skipping team meetings, training sessions and press conferences as well as having his on-field captaincy scrutinised, especially the way he used his bowlers.
PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan had previously hinted at a change in leadership for the World T20 but with just a few days left for Pakistan's tournament to begin the board decided against such a move. "I understand there is a lot of criticism but I am not going to change anything one week before the major tournament in India," Khan recently said. "Afridi will remain captain unless he himself pulls out of the job. He has been serving Pakistan from the last 15 years. There are problems in his captaincy which can't be mended, especially at a time when his career is about to be end." Source by : espncricinfo
Bangladesh have drafted opening batsman Imrul Kayes into the squad for the Asia Cup in place of Tamim Iqbal, who has opted out due to the imminent birth of his first child. This is the only change from Bangladesh's World T20 squad that was announced earlier this month.
Imrul's last international appearance for Bangladesh came at home against Zimbabwe last month in a four-match T20I series. He scored 1 and 18 in the third and fourth matches, which Zimbabwe won to level the series 2-2. He had made his comeback to the T20I squad against Zimbabwe in November after a gap of nearly four years. He had a successful run for Comilla Victorians in the Bangladesh Premier League 2015-16, finishing as the second-highest run-getter in the tournament with 312 runs in 12 matches at a strike rate of 114.70.
The Asia Cup 2016 starts from February 19, with a qualifying round between Afghanistan, UAE, Hong Kong and Oman. The winner of the qualifying round will join the four Full Member teams in the region for the main draw which starts from February 24. Bangladesh play their first match of the tournament on February 24 against India.
Bangladesh Asia Cup squad: Mashrafe Mortaza (capt), Shakib Al Hasan, Imrul Kayes, Mohammad Mithun, Mahmudullah, Mushfiqur Rahim, Soumya Sarkar, Sabbir Rahman, Nasir Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Al-Amin Hossain, Taskin Ahmed, Arafat Sunny, Abu Hider, Nurul Hasan Source by : espncricinfo
Twenty20 captain Lasith Malinga, vice-captain Angelo Mathews and seamer Nuwan Kulasekara are back from injury for Sri Lanka,for the Asia Cup and the World T20 that follows. All three players were included in the identical 15-man squads named for both tournaments. Left-arm spinner Rangana Herath, who had missed Sri Lanka's three-match T20 series in India, also made a return. Wicketkeeper-batsman Niroshan Dickwella has also been named, while the likes of Lahiru Thirimanne and Danushka Gunathilaka missed out. Legspinner Jeffrey Vandersay, offspinning allrounder Shehan Jayasuriya, and seam-bowling allrounder Dasun Shanaka find places in the squads, but Seekkuge Prasanna and Kasun Rajitha - who played in the recent T20 series in India - have been overlooked. The spin-bowling contingent features Herath, Sachithra Senanayake and Vandersay, while Milinda Siriwardana's left-arm spin and Jayasuriya's offspin is also available. The seam attack is spearheaded by captain Malinga; Kulasekara, Dushmantha Chameera and Thisara Perera are in tow. On the batting front, Tillakaratne Dilshan and Mathews provide experience to the top seven, but the XI also looks likely to feature batsmen as yet unproven in this format. Shanaka and Jayasuriya have played four and five T20 internationals respectively, and even Dinesh Chandimal has not established himself in the format yet, averaging less than 15 in 28 T20 international innings. Dickwella, 22, has also played only two T20 internationals, and did not break through to double figures in those outings. He will be among those contending to partner Dilshan at the top of the order, with Kusal Perera suspended due to a doping charge. Dickwella is coming off strong domestic season, having hit 189 runs at a strike rate of 173.39, in six innings, during the recent Super T20 Provincial Tournament. Thirimanne had played a significant role in the previous World T20 campaign, even top-scoring in the semi-final against West Indies, but the paucity of his recent Test results has seemingly seen him fall out of favour with the selectors. He had,however, averaged more than 43 in ODIs last year - though he did not play T20 internationals. The selectors have also backed the experience of Herath, despite mild concerns over his fielding. With Malinga, Kulasekara and Senanayake also in the squad, much of the bowling unit that had been vital to Sri Lanka's 2014 World T20 victory, remains in place. Dilhara Fernando, who played his first international match since 2012 in Visakhapatnam on Sunday, does not find a place. Sri Lanka begin their Asia Cup defence in Mirpur on February 25, and their World T20 campaign starts in Kolkata, on March 17. Source by : espncricinfo
MS Dhoni: "l will try to give everybody a game because it is something as important as playing with a settled team."
India's limited-overs captain MS Dhoni has all but ruled himself out of batting up the order in the upcoming Asia Cup T20 and World Twenty20, starting March 8. Ahead of the team's departure to Bangladesh, Dhoni backed a stable, in-form, top order, and said that he would consider promoting a big-hitter instead of himself if there was a big partnership at the top.
"It is very difficult. In a normal scenario, I don't see myself batting up the order because of the batting line we have got," Dhoni said. This is a departure from Dhoni's recent preference of batting at No.4, though in a different format. Dhoni
had batted at No.4 in the second ODI against Bangladesh last year in Mirpur, for the first time since July 2012. Dhoni showed glimpses of his best form during the course of his 47, and later said: "I would like to bat slightly up in the order so I can play a bit more freely."
Since that match, Dhoni has batted four times at No.4 in ODIs, scoring 134 runs.
Dhoni, however, explained that the T20 batting line-up was settled, with Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma opening; Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh form the middle order. Dhawan got bright starts against Australia in the T20s in Melbourne and Sydney and then set up India's win against Sri Lanka in the second T20 in Ranchi with a rapid fifty, his first in T20 internationals. Rohit, on his part, hit back-to-back fifties in Melbourne and Sydney, before making 43 in Ranchi.Kohli stroked three successive fifties in Australia, tallying 199 runs in the three-match T20 series, before being rested for the Sri Lanka T20s. From the middle order, Raina and Yuvraj helped India seal a clean sweep against Australia in Sydney with an unbroken 53-run partnership in a tight finish.
"Virat, he is at 3, Raina at 4, Yuvraj Singh at 5, I am 6, Jadeja, Hardik. We may try [a promotion] if there is good
partnership; we may try one of the hitters to go up and express maybe from the very first ball," Dhoni said. "But whether I see myself getting that promotion, I think it will be slightly difficult."
Dhoni also dismissed concerns about the No.6 and No.7 batting positions, feeling that they would not have much to do, especially if the top order clicked.
"As of now it [No.6 and No.7] doesn't seem like [a problem]. Usually six and seven won't or should not get an opportunity. If the team is doing well, I don't think No.6 and No.7 will or should get more than 10 balls or 12 balls and you will have to make the most," he said.
Dhoni said he was keen to "give everybody a game"' ahead of the World T20. India named the same team for all three matches in the recent home series against Sri Lanka. It meant Pawan Negi, a left-field selection for the Asia Cup and the World T20, has not played an international game yet.
"I will try to give everybody a game because it is something as important as playing with a settled team," Dhoni said. "It is important for everybody to have games under their belt. Against few of the sides we will really be able to give games to few of the other players who are part of the team but have not got a chance to play so far but still we will look to win games and that's our top priority but the conditions will allow us to give a few games to others who have not played."
Asia Cup 2016 is scheduled to begin in Bangladesh from February 24 and will run up to March 6. Here is the complete schedule of the tournament. The much-awaited India-Pakistan contest is on Feb 27 in Mirpur.
February 24, Wednesday: Bangladesh vs India 19:00 IST (13:30 GMT), Mirpur
February 25, Thursday: Sri Lanka vs TBD 19:00 IST (13:30 GMT), Mirpur
February 26, Friday: Bangladesh vs TBD 19:00 IST (13:30 GMT), Mirpur
February 27, Saturday: India vs Pakistan 19:00 IST (13:30 GMT), Mirpur
February 28, Sunday: Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka 19:00 IST (13:30 GMT), Mirpur
February 29, Monday: Pakistan vs TBD 19:00 IST (13:30 GMT), Mirpur
March 1, Tuesday: India vs Sri Lanka 19:00 IST (13:30 GMT), Mirpur
March 2, Wednesday: Bangladesh vs Pakistan 19:00 IST (13:30 GMT), Mirpur
March 3, Thursday: India vs TBD 19:00 IST (13:30 GMT), Mirpur
March 4, Friday: Pakistan vs Sri Lanka 19:00 IST (13:30 GMT), Mirpur
March 6, Sunday: Final 19:00 IST (13:30 GMT), Mirpur ______________________________ Source by | indianexpress
