Sports
Karunaratne climbs up in Test Player Rankings
Sri Lanka’s win in the first match of the ICC Men’s Test Championship has put the team on top of the table powered by MRF (on percentage points), and several players including skipper Dimuth Karunaratne have improved their rankings after the first Test in Galle.
Captain Karunaratne’s Player of the Match effort of 147 and 83 has lifted him four places to seventh, just one below his career-best sixth position attained in August 2019. Former captains Angelo Mathews (up two places to 23rd) and Dinesh Chandimal (up four places to 46th) have also advanced.
Left-arm spinners Lasith Embuldeniya (up four places to 37th) and Praveen Jayawickrama (up six places to 44th) and off-spinner Ramesh Mendis (up 28 places to 57th) have improved in the rankings for bowlers.
Fast bowler Shaheen Afridi has made it to the top five of the MRF Tyres ICC Men’s Test Player Rankings for the first time in his career after a fine show in the first Test against Bangladesh which Pakistan won by eight wickets.
The 21-year-old left-arm bowler, who grabbed seven wickets including a haul of five for 32 in the second innings of the Chittagong Test, has moved up three places to fifth position after overtaking James Anderson, Kagiso Rabada and Neil Wagner.
Shaheen’s new-ball partner Hasan Ali too is at a career-best position after finishing with a similar seven-wicket match haul that included a five-for in the first innings. Hasan has advanced five places to 11th place. His previous best in Tests was 14th, reached in May this year.
Pakistan’s opening batters were not the ones to be left behind. Abid Ali may have missed out on a century in each innings but his scores of 133 and 91 helped him shoot up 27 slots to a career-best 20th position while Abdullah Shafique enters the rankings at 83rd with scores of 52 and 73.
For Bangladesh, Mushfiqur Rahim is up four places to 19th with scores of 91 and 16 while Liton Das has moved up 26 places to a career-best 31st position after accruing 114 and 59. Left-arm spinner Taijul Islam has progressed two places to 23rd after an eight-wicket match haul that included seven scalps in the first innings.
The thrilling draw in Kanpur between India and New Zealand had quite a few performances from either side that reflect in the latest weekly update that also includes the first Test between Sri Lanka and the West Indies at Galle, which the host side won by 187 runs.
Debutant Shreyas Iyer’s Player of the Match effort of 105 and 65 helped him enter the rankings in 74th position while opener Shubman Gill (up six places to 66th) and Wriddhiman Saha (up nine places to 99th) also made notable progress after notching half-centuries.
Ravindra Jadeja is up two places to 19th among bowlers with five wickets in the match and is also up one place to second among all-rounders. Ravichandran Ashwin is the third-ranked all-rounder and 79th among batters.
For New Zealand, Tom Latham’s knocks of 95 and 52 place him back in the top 10 as he goes up from 14th to ninth. Fast bowler Kyle Jamieson is ninth among bowlers, his three wickets in each innings resulting in a gain of six places. Tim Southee has gained 15 rating points to reach within one point of second-placed Ashwin (840) after his eight-wicket match haul.
Morocco’s plans for their World Cup quarterfinal against France have been shaken up after it was confirmed that star forward Ismael Saibari will miss the match.
Saibari sustained a hamstring injury in the last-16 match against Canada and has not recovered in time for the crucial knockout match, coach Mohamed Ouahbi said on Wednesday.
“Everyone is 100 percent fit except Saibari. This game comes too soon for him, but I hope he is not out for the rest of the competition,” Ouahbi told reporters ahead of Thursday’s last-eight showdown in Boston.
Saibari, who has just joined Bayern Munich from Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven on a five-year deal for a reported fee of 50 million euros ($57m), has been one of the standout players at this year’s World Cup.
He scored in each of his team’s three group games and converted the winning penalty in the shootout as Morocco beat the Netherlands in the last 32.
However, the attacking midfielder came off early with a hamstring problem in the 3-0 win against Canada in the last 16 last Saturday.
Should Morocco progress, Saibari might make a comeback in the semifinals.
“He’s not ready, but I hope it’s not the end of the tournament for him,” Ouahbi said.
Saibari went off the pitch to receive medical attention after sustaining an injury against Canada [Aljazeera]
Soufiane Rahimi, who is an out-and-out striker, came on for Saibari in that game and scored Morocco’s third goal.
The Atlas Lions are seeking to avenge their 2-0 defeat against France in the semifinals of the 2022 World Cup.
That was the first time any African or Arab team had reached the last four of the tournament, and their incentive this time is to match that run.
Ouahbi dismissed suggestions that his team can say they have already had a successful tournament by getting to the quarterfinals.
“We absolutely want to win the game tomorrow, so we will not listen to people who say it doesn’t matter if we go out now,” said the coach, who took over from Walid Regragui in March.
“Tomorrow, we will try to get to the semifinals. I don’t like this sentiment that we have already done well and anything else is a bonus,” added Ouahbi, who said he had watched the 2022 meeting of the sides as a fan, on television.
Meanwhile, Morocco’s Real Madrid star Brahim Diaz insisted his side can compete with the much-fancied France as he prepares to come up against Kylian Mbappe, his colleague at club level.
“Tomorrow, we are playing one of the favourites, but we have shown we can compete, and that is why we are here. I have full faith and full confidence in the team.”
[Aljazeera]
West Indies have been fined ten percent of their match fee and penalised two World Test Championship (WTC) points for maintaining a slow over-rate in the second Test against Sri Lanka in Antigua.
Match referee Javagal Srinath imposed the sanction after the hosts were found to be two overs short of the target after time allowances were taken into consideration.
As per to the ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel, players are fined five percent of their match fee for each over their team fails to bowl within the allotted time, with the maximum penalty capped at 50 percent of the match fee. Additionally, a side is penalised one point in the WTC points table for each over short as per the ICC WTC playing conditions.
Captain Roston Chase pled guilty to the offence and accepted the proposed sanction, so there was no need for a formal hearing.
West Indies bowled 188.3 overs across both innings and secured a draw after conceding a 50-run deficit in the first innings. Having won the first Test at the same venue, by an innings and 217 runs, the result was enough to complete a 1-0 series win. They stand ninth on the WTC table with 18 points, after the deduction, with one win, two draws and seven losses in ten games.
[Cricinfo]
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