Sports
Maxwell, Inglis make it 4-0 for Australia
Glenn Maxwell and Josh Inglis nullified Sri Lanka’s hopes of breaking duck in the T20I series as Australia went up 4-0 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday. Sri Lanka had a lowly 139/8 to defend but their bowlers made a bright start in the Powerplay, reducing Australia to 49 for 3 in the ninth over. Maxwell and Inglis joined forces to resuscitate the innings, and eventually turned what seemed like a tricky chase at one point to a rather comfortable one in the end. The hosts completed the chase with 11 balls and six wickets to spare.
Sri Lanka’s troubles all series have been linked to their batting, and Pathum Nissanka looked to set that right on Friday. He and Danushka Gunathilaka started briskly in the PowerPlay and despite the latter’s dismissal, the innings continued to flow seamlessly at a fair clip thanks to Nissanka’s shot-making and Kusal Mendis joining in the fun.
Sri Lanka got to 73 for 1 at the halfway stage, their best effort in 10 overs in the four T20Is in the series. Unfortunately for them, though, that’s where Australia’s turnaround began. Nissanka and Mendis took on Glenn Maxwell’s arm by trying to sprint across for a second run after hitting to him at long on.
Maxwell, however, caught Mendis short of his crease with a direct hit, giving Australia a much-needed breakthrough at that stage. Charith Asalanka brought his trademark exuberance to Sri Lanka’s innings, taking on Adam Zampa in the 15th over to get his side past the 100-run mark, but a collapse ensued.
Asalanka fell trying to hit out against Jhye, and Nissanka departed giving Zampa the charge, after which the lower-order crumbled. Sri Lanka went from 110 for 2 in the 16th over to 122 for 8 in the 19th. Chamika Karunaratne saw through Kane Richardson’s change of pace, carting him for two fours and a six in a 17-run final over that pushed Sri Lanka to 139 for 8.
Based on how the first half hour of Australia’s chase went, it felt like Sri Lanka may have actually scored enough on what was an uncharacteristically slow surface at the MCG. Australia stuck with their opening experiment of Ashton Agar, who struggled to get going against the offspin of Maheesh Theekshana, while Lahiru Kumara attempted to ping him back with excess pace.
Ben McDermott didn’t enjoy much success with run making either, and ended up departing with a soft return catch to Theekshana in the fifth over. Agar played out 23 balls in the PowerPlay, scoring just 17 runs as the dot-ball pressure ramped up. Sri Lanka’s quicks kept the foot on the pedal in the post-PowerPlay phase too, as Aaron Finch and Agar fell trying to break out of the rut.
At 50 for 3 in 9 overs, Australia were on shaky ground and in desperate need of a quick bail out to transfer the pressure back on the bowling side that had its tail up. Up stepped Josh Inglis, starting off by smashing leg spinner Jeffrey Vandersay for two fours – one a reverse hit – in the 10th over.
As Maxwell settled in, Inglis took control of the proceedings, and continued to get boundaries that helped dwarf the equation further. The duo played out Theekshana in his fourth over and targeted the quicks. The tables completely turned in a four-over span where Australia went from 73/3 in 11 to 109/3 in 15, with Maxwell too starting to cut loose.
Dushmantha Chameera had Inglis nicking to the keeper in the 16th over, but not before the Aussie batsman added 40 off just 20 deliveries. Maxwell took over from that point on to ensure there were no late and dramatic turnarounds for Sri Lanka. Off the first ball of the penultimate over, Maxwell secured the victory, while finishing on an unbeaten 48 off 38 deliveries.
(Cricbuzz)
Gujarat Titans rode their red-hot momentum wave to keep the Rajasthan Royals winless in Jaipur with a 77-run win, marking their biggest ever victory in their relatively short IPL history. Shubman Gill and Sai Sudharsan set up a big total with the bat, before the bowlers ran through the batting lineup to catapult the Titans to second position on the points table with only net run-rate separating them from table-toppers Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Brief Scores:
Gujarat Titans 229/4 in 20 overs [Shubman Gill 84, Sai Sudharsan 55, Washington Sundar 37n.o.; Brijesh Sharma 2-47]
Rajasthan Royals 152 in 16.3 overs [Ravindra Jadeja 38, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi 36; Rashid Khan 4-22, Jason Holder 3-12, Kagiso Rabada 2-33]
Who won GT the match?
It was another day out for the famed Sudharsan-Gill combination. But once again, it was GT’s bowling unit that sealed this contest. On a good batting strip, 230 was certainly not beyond the realms of possibility for RR after yet another blazing Vaibhav Sooryavanshi start. But Kagiso Rabada continued to make hay in the Powerplay, bouncing out Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shimron Hetmyer after Mohammed Siraj dismissed Sooryavanshi off the short ball. The game was still on after the Royals scored 78 in the Powerplay but Rashid Khan cut the middle-order to size to shut the hosts out.
A lengthy opening over spells doom for RR
Perhaps the only thing that went right on the evening for RR was the toss as Yashasvi Jaiswal, standing in for an injured Riyan Parag, elected to field first. The hosts donned an all-pink kit to support a noble cause but their bowling unit, which hadn’t been in the pink of health for a few games, looked far from incisive. And nothing drove home that fact more than an 11-ball opening over from Jofra Archer, who overstepped and bowled multiple wides as he failed to control the swing on offer. Eighteen runs came off the first over and Archer was replaced by Brijesh Sharma in the third over, summing up what was to come for the Royals.
Gill, Sudharsan make merry
The bowling was shoddy and for a pair that has mastered the art of percentage batting, Gill and Sudharsan were not going to miss out. Tushar Deshpande speared too many outside leg stump to the left-hander, who was the dominator early on before Gill put on an exhibition of aesthetic power-hitting, launching Archer down the ground with effortless ease. An 82-run Powerplay marked GT’s most productive phase of the season. Both batters eventually brought up their fifties – off 30 balls each.
Did RR pull things back?
Head coach Kumar Sangakkara had an animated chat with his players during the timeout that followed the Powerplay. It seemed to work to some extent as the spin duo of Ravindra Jadeja and Yash Raj Punja tightened the screws, combining for 2/71 off their eight overs. The steady slowdown told on Sudharsan as he miscued a slot delivery off Punja to long on, before Buttler shanked a 107.2 kph Jadeja delivery to long off. On the back of the spinners’ success, Jaiswal turned to an over of part-time spin from Donovan Ferreira but once the pacers returned, they travelled again. Gill found an able ally in Washington Sundar, who kept the momentum going with regular hits to the fence.
Archer endured an off day so bad that he did not even bowl his fourth over. Gill missed out on a hundred and Brijesh sent down a four-run 19th over, but Sundar and Rahul Tewatia peeled off three sixes off Deshpande’s final over to wrest momentum back in the Titans’ favor as they finished on 229.
Sooryavanshi tees off again
A breezy but entertaining blitz this time. Little surprise that he struck a six off the first ball he faced from Siraj, although he jammed an inswinging yorker onto his right ankle, demanding the physio’s attention. He visibly struggled with his running and there were a couple of streaky shots that followed, but it did not seem to affect him as he smashed a couple of sixes off Rabada. His skill was on full display with a late cut through backward point and a drill straight back past Siraj, but a well-directed bumper at the body got the better of him as Siraj let out a huge roar.
Rashid Khan closes out the game
Dhruv Jurel attacked the pacers in the Powerplay, underlined by a 22-run over off Siraj. But once Rashid was introduced, Jurel’s recent woes against spin surfaced again. He was cleaned up by a googly before Donovan Ferreira was bamboozled by the leg-break a couple of deliveries later. Rashid was impeccable with his lengths and would go on to nab two more including Ravindra Jadeja, who showed positive intent early on with a six and a four off his first two balls but eventually had too much on his plate. Closing it out – fittingly with a bunch of short-pitched deliveries – was Jason Holder, who continued his rich vein of form with the ball as RR were bundled out inside the 17th over.
Where do the teams go next?
GT fly back home to face SRH on Tuesday (May 12) in a contest that could hand the winner a foot in the playoffs. RR are set for another long break and do not play for the next week, taking the field against Delhi Capitals in Delhi on Sunday (May 17).
At least five senior Australia players have been left unimpressed by the initial 2026-27 Cricket Australia contract offers they have received in recent days and are yet to commit to signing them.
Meanwhile, a larger group of BBL stars are considering whether to play overseas during the summer after the stuttering BBL privatisation proposal stalled pay re-negotiations that would have redressed the fact that they have been earning between A$100-200,000 less than overseas players in the league in recent years.
First reported by Code Sports on Saturday, ESPNcricinfo understands a handful of Australian players were unimpressed by the initial CA contract offers that were tabled to them in the last week.
This follows reporting in the Age on Thursday that Test and ODI captain Pat Cummins had been offered A$4 million per year over the next three years, much of which was reported to be guaranteed money.
Under the current MoU (Australian players pay deal between CA and the Australian Cricketers Association), which runs until mid-2028, up to 24 national contracts are given out by national selectors for the 2026-27 financial year (July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027) and those players share A$21,916,257 in the year in base salaries.
Players are ranked and receive contracts based on importance and the number of games they are likely to play in the cycle, with the lowest player earning a base of $360,645. In addition, players also earn nearly A$19,000 per Test appearance, nearly $8000 per ODI and nearly $5000 per T20I in match payments on top of the base. There are win bonuses on top, with a Test win worth roughly $30,000 per player in total. There is also a CA marketing pool, which contracted players share depending on appearances with commercial partners.
Player pay was already an issue in Australia and at the heart of the BBL privatisation debate. The rising money on offer in the franchise world has led players to consider whether locking themselves into a 12-month CA deal would cost them money over the year.
Players like Marcus Stoinis and Tim David have not had CA deals in recent years, knowing they would qualify for a base upgrade by playing the minimum number of T20Is in a year (six), whilst being able to sign franchise deals freely without the need for NOCs, to maximise earnings elsewhere.
CA got creative this year by offering contracts for only 21 players for for 2026-27 so that fewer players could share more of the unchanged pool despite Australia being set to play an unprecedented 17 Tests (possibly 18) in the financial year. They will only play nine ODIs and five T20Is in the period.
But the priority of paying Test players has been a source of tension for the white-ball players, who feel they can earn more than the offered CA deal if they went freelance. Meanwhile, there are three-format players concerned about what they are missing out on if they have to rest from certain series, or if more minor bilateral series are being played while lucrative franchise tournaments are on.
Cummins articulated this concern in March around playing two Tests against Bangladesh in August this year while letting go of the chance to earn upwards of A$675,000 (US$485,000) to play in the Hundred.
How the issue gets resolved in the short term remains unclear. Australia have two white-ball tours of Pakistan and Bangladesh coming up but they fall in the previous contract cycle. The first games of the 2026-27 cycle are the home Bangladesh Tests in August.
Meanwhile, a group of a dozen high-profile Australian BBL players are understood to be furious over the stalled privatisation proposal. The players had set up a WhatsApp group last October to discuss their long-term options after spending three years frustrated at CA over the pay disparity between them and overseas players. The introduction of the draft and the platinum signing of A$420,000 meant the likes of Luke Wood and Mohammad Rizwan were paid significantly more than Australian players with significantly better T20 records, who were on $200,000-$300,000.
CA was set to renegotiate the MOU with the ACA if they could move to the next phase of their privatisation plan but that fell over when two states did not want to proceed. A hybrid plan is now being devised but discussions with the players have been set aside for the moment.
The BBL stars are now considering their options. It is a unique season coming with the ILT20 moving to November before the BBL. There are Australian players who have been offered A$500,000 to play in the UAE.
Meanwhile, the SA20, which is seen as the major threat to the BBL, is rumoured to start on January 17.
The BBL is likely to run from mid-December until the last weekend in January, as it did last year. It does mean Australian players could play both but would need an NOC to go and would miss the first week of the SA20. It would lead to the farcical situation that happened a couple of years ago when several Australian players benefited from their BBL teams not making finals, which meant they could get to South Africa earlier and earn more money, as contracts are generally prorated on a games played basis. Australia’s Test players, however, would not be available for either as they have a five-Test tour of India that runs from mid-January to early March that immediately follows a four-Test home series against New Zealand in December and early January.
Australian players were furious when Dewald Brevis and Aiden Markram were bought for R16.5 million (A$1.3 million or US$940,000 approximately) at the SA20 auction last year, four to five times more than some of the top Australian contracts in the BBL.
It is understood that the senior BBL stars do not expect that type of money in the BBL in the short term but were hoping to close the gap significantly this year before privatisation redressed the situation in 2027-28.
It is understood that part of CA’s proposal to the states was to increase the salary cap by up to A$1.5 million. The issue for Australia’s players is that the bottom-end players in the BBL earn a minimum of A$52,000, whereas it is only roughly A$17,000 in the SA20, with the two salary caps reasonably similar at around A$3.2 million.
[Cricinfo]
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