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Broad’s late strikes leaves Edgbaston Test in balance
Even after a day when Australia would believe they had a better outing, they are left needing 174 runs with seven wickets in hand. The visitors bundled out England for 273, set themselves a target of 281 and reached 107 for 3 by the end of the fourth day’s play at Edgbaston, on Monday. While Nathan Lyon and Pat Cummins led the charge with the ball, picking four wickets each, Usman Khawaja yet again kept one end safe with the bat, heading to stumps unbeaten on 34.
England, resuming on 28 for 2 after a rain-hit third day, started aggressively with Joe Root bringing out three reverse scoops in the first seven balls of the morning. After having failed in his first attempt, he picked up a six and a boundary off the next two, despite three slip fielders and a wicketkeeper standing up. The 16-run over off Scott Boland set in motion England’s approach on the day.
Australia struck in the first hour itself, with Cummins’ inswinging yorker cleaning up Ollie Pope on 14. However, while Pope largely remained away from the strike, Root was scoring at nearly run-a-ball with Boland being at the receiving end of his cuts and drives that raced away for boundaries.
Harry Brook took some time to settle in, but once he got going, Root took the secondary role. Brook was aided by a couple of short deliveries by Lyon and he duly put them away to welcome the offspinner into the attack with boundaries. Root, who had slowed down for a brief period decided to attack the offie soon after the drinks interval but missed out on a big hit after stepping out against the spinner and was stumped with ease on 46.
With the ball moving around a bit, England slowed down considerably after Root’s dismissal. Brook, who had been tied down for a while, eventually fell while looking to break-free. He pulled Lyon straight to the mid wicket fielder, and departed four short of a fifty.
England, uncharacteristically, made a watchful start post Lunch, after having been tested for a brief period late in the morning session. However, Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow managed to add 46 runs for the sixth wicket before the latter was eventually trapped leg-before by Lyon. He took a review for the second time in his innings, but this one didn’t come to his rescue.
Stokes was the more aggressive of the two in the partnership, taking advantage of the width offered by Boland and Cummins, cracking the duo for a couple of boundaries each. While he took advantage of Boland’s lines, he tried to disturb Cummins’ length. Just when it seemed Bairstow had settled in and smashed a couple of boundaries off the Australian captain through the point-cover region, he fell.
Stokes departed soon after, undone by an incoming delivery from Cummins. He also took a review which showed that the ball would’ve clipped the top of the legstump. He became the third English batter to have missed out on a half-century on Monday (19)
Josh Hazlewood bowled a testing spell of short-picthed deliveries and nearly had Ollie Robinson and Stuart Broad caught fending. But despite the best diving efforts of Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith, the duo survived. However, Moeen Ali was caught behind nicking a short delivery down the legside.
Despite reducing England 229/8 in the third quarter of the post-Lunch session, Australia had to wait for 70 balls to dismiss the last two batters, a period in which England managed to add 44 runs. Lyon and Cummins eventually cleaned up the tail, setting base for an interesting fourth innings.
In response, Australia, after three poor starts in England this summer, finally managed a good one with openers – Khawaja and David Warner stitching a half-century stand. There wasn’t much assistance for the pacers, and Khawaja got going with a couple of boundaries in the first over of the chase itself. Warner, on the other hand, took his time to settle in.
Soon enough, the duo went conservative with their stroke play, playing out the first hour of the post Tea session rather dourly. Barring a couple of deliveries from Moeen Ali that ripped past them, there wasn’t much danger posed by the English attack. Robinson, who had bowled a couple of maiden overs on a trot, began to lose his line and length and offered ample opportunities for Warner and Khawaja to score some easy boundaries.
However, just when it seemed like Warner was getting comfortable, a delivery from Robinson from round the wicket nibbled away slightly and caught the outside edge of his bat to the ‘keeper.
Labuschagne took little time to settle at the crease. He got going by reverse sweeping Moeen for a boundary, and followed it up with a couple of more hits to the fence. But his stay was short-lived. For the second time in the match, he was caught edging an out-swinger by Broad to the ‘keeper.
After a half-century stand to begin with, Australia failed to capitalise, and England sneaked with another wicket late in the day, with Smith too falling for an out-swinger – looking to drive at a full delivery but only edging to the ‘keeper.
Boland, who was brought in as a nightwatchman for the last 20 minutes of play, did well to keep Khawaja safe at the other end and even picked up three boundaries to help Australia past the 100-run mark.
Brief Scores:
England 393/8 decl. (Joe Root 112*, Jonny Bairstow 78, Zak Crawley 61; Nathan Lyon 4-149, Josh Hazlewood 2-61) & 273 (Joe Root 46, Harry Brook 46; Pat Cummins 2-63, Nathan Lyon 2-80) lead Australia 386 (Usman Khawaja 141, Alex Carey 66, Travis Head 50; Ollie Robinson 3-55, Stuart Broad 3-68) & 107/3 (David Warner 36; Stuart Broad 2-28) by 173 runs
Rajat Patidar led defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) into the final with the quickest innings of 90 or more in the IPL, scoring a delightful unbeaten 93 off 33 to take his team to 254 for 5, the highest total in an IPL playoff, against the best attack of the tournament, Gujarat Titans (GT). Having finished in the top two, GT still have a chance to make the final at their home ground in Ahmedabad in Qualifier 2 as they await the winner of the Eliminator between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Rajasthan Royals. The last eight IPLs have been won by the side winning this fixture: Qualifier 1.
Asked to bat first in chase-friendly Dharamsala, RCB came out full of intent and skill despite missing the injured Phil Salt, but GT nearly snuck back in with a period of 22 balls, 18 runs and two wickets of set batters in a single Jason Holder over. In the time that Patidar scored 93 off 33, the other end, including extras, produced 68 off 37 legal deliveries.
Having never scored more than 233, GT needed something special, and only Jos Buttler came close to that with 29 off 11. The RCB fast bowlers ran riot and took out half the side within the powerplay.
RCB would have dearly loved to have Salt back, but his absence allowed them to play Jacob Duffy as the fourth overseas player. Venkatesh Iyer started the innings with two fours off the first two balls, moving around in the crease to try to mess with the lengths of the GT fast bowlers. It took Virat Kohli four balls to lay bat on Kagiso Rabada’s hard lengths, but Venkatesh ramped him for a six first ball even though he got into a tangle.
Even though Rabada came back immediately with the wicket of Venkatesh, the makeshift opener had done his job with 19 off seven. Immediately after the wicket, Kohli charged at Siraj and drove him over mid-off. Some classic batting – a flick off the hip, a late cut and a square cut – from Devdutt Padikkal consigned Rabada to 18 in his second over and brought up the team fifty in just four overs.
Rattled, GT had to move away from bowling Siraj and Rabada through the powerplay for the first time in eight matches.
Holder and Rashid Khan combined to bring GT back into the contest. Holder kept hitting the hard lengths, and Rashid bowled his first two overs for no boundary. In between, Holder managed to remove Kohli and Padikkal for 43 off 25 and 30 off 19. Not big innings but ones that understood the assignment.
Having gone funky with their selection – no Romario Shepherd in the batting-first XI so they could play an extra bowler if Shepherd was not needed – RCB promoted Krunal Pandya to likely maintain ideal points of entry for Tim David and Jitesh Sharma. While Krunal did his job with 43 off 28, it was the other batter that led to dropping jaws.
Patidar broke the spell off 22 quiet balls with a pulled six off a Holder ball that wasn’t quite short enough. After a boundary-free first over from Kulwant Khejroliya, playing his first game of T20 cricket since last April, Prasidh Krishna created two opportunities in the 14th over. The first one, a leading edge, fell between the converging wicketkeeper and deep third. The second one went straight to Rabada at deep square leg, but was dropped with Patidar on 26 off 20. At the end of the 14th over, RCB were an even 140 for 3, the last time you could say the match was even.
Starting with no-balls from Khejroliya in the 15th over, the flood gates opened for 114 runs in the last six overs. Two of his nine sixes were bona fide highlights reels for the year. The first an extra-cover drive off Rashid from the crease, and then a back-foot drive over cover off Rabada, who by now had the purple cap. That shot off Rabada left even Kohli awestruck.
The GT bowlers didn’t quite try a quick bouncer at him, but Patidar nicely steered a slow bouncer over short fine with a delayed hook. At one point, even a century seemed likely, but he didn’t quite get enough strike.
For the first time ever, both innings of an IPL match started with two fours as B Sai Sudharsan hit Duffy for fours, but the GT openers were not as successful as the RCB top order at upsetting the bowlers’ lengths. Both Shubman Gill and Sudharsan tried charging at Bhuvneshwar, but got only two runs from his first over.
The pressure was mounting, but the first wicket came in an unconventional manner, with Sudharsan losing his bat as he cut Duffy away for four. The bat ricocheted onto the leg stump before the ball could reach the fence. Bhuvneshwar then extended his dominance over Gill with a wobble-seam delivery that got his leg stump. Now Bhuvneshwar leads the head-to-head with six wickets in 79 balls for just 80 runs.
No option left, Buttler came out swinging, looked dangerous, but Josh Hazlewood got the better of him with a knuckle-ball legcutter. The rest was always going to be a formality but RCB carried it out in style. Rasikh Salam bowled a double-wicket maiden to get Nishant Sindhu and Jason Holder to leave GT five down within the powerplay. Duffy ended up with three wickets, Bhuvneshwar reclaimed the purple cap, and only some late damage control from Rahul Tewatiya prevented this from becoming the biggest defeat in an IPL playoff match.
Brief scores:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru 254 for 5 in 20 overs (Venkatesh Iyer 19, Virat Kohli 43, Devdutt Padikkal 30, Rajat Patidar 93*, Krunal Pandya 43, Jitesh Sharma 15*; Kagiso Rabada 2-54, Jason Holder 2-39, Prasidh Krishna 1-53) beat Gujarat Titans 162 in 19.3 overs (Sai Sudarshan 14, Jos Buttler 29, RahulTewatia 68; Jacob Duffy 3-39, Bhuvenshwar Kumar 2-28, Josh Hazelwood 1-39, Rasik Salam 2-24, Krunal Pandya 2-16) by 92 runs
[Cricinfo]
Defending champions SC Jaffna Kings have made three signings, headlined by Shakib, while Galle Gallants and Colombo Kaps have signed two players each.
The Paddy Marketing Board has approximately 115,000 metric tonnes of paddy stocks purchased from farmers, which are currently stored in the Board’s warehouses, and it has been planned to retain a sufficient buffer stock from these reserves and sell the remaining quantity in order to provide the necessary storage space and financial resources for the purchase of paddy from farmers during the upcoming Yala season.
Accordingly, the Cabinet of Ministers has approved the resolution furnished by the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Land and Irrigation to sell the aforementioned paddy stocks
following a formal tender procedure.
Patidar leads the way as Royal Challengers Bengaluru storm into second straight final
Kandy Royals sign Vijay Shankar for LPL 2026
Cabinet approves sale of Paddy stocks held by the Paddy Marketing Board
Amendment to the Promotion of Export Agriculture Act, No. 46 of 1992 to be gazatted
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