Latest News
Miller and Baartman help South Africa end Netherlands jinx in low-scoring nail-biter

South Africa made heavy weather of a modest chase in New York before David Miller and Tristan Stubbs dug deep to save them from a third straight defeat at Netherlands’ hands at an ICC tournament.
Miller and Stubbs added 65 for the fifth wicket to lift them from the pits of 12 for 4 on a pitch that didn’t play anywhere as badly as the scorecard suggested, even though there was enough in it for quick bowlers – 13 of the 15 wickets fell to them, while there were two run outs.
As he walked out to bat, Miller might have had a flashback of Adelaide 2022, where his wicket, with 47 needed off 28 balls, shut the door on South Africa and gave Netherlands a 13 run win. On Saturday, Miller stayed the course and remained unbeaten on 59, flicking on his best six-hitting self in the penultimate over with South Africa needing 16 off 12.
In the end, in a game where 209 runs were scored in 38.5 overs, South Africa won with enough to spare.
Quinton de Kock was run out without facing a ball. Reeza Hendricks got a peach from Logan van Beek that angled in and straightened to hit the top of off. Vivian Kingma had the first of a double when he strangled Aiden Markram down leg to leave South Africa 3 for 3. And when Heinrich Klaasen’s rush of blood had him picking out Tim Pringle attempting a pull off Kingma, Netherlands dared to dream – or maybe just expected the expected, considering the recent results between the two sides at ICC events.
Both Miller and Stubbs are instinctive batters who love taking the bowlers on. But the situation they walked out to was not for that sort of batting, it was a crisis. A mis-step could have meant curtains. So they chose caution, saw off the powerplay without any further damage, and hit only a further two boundaries until the ten-over mark to leave South Africa needing 72 off the last ten overs.
Stubbs was on 9 off 21 at this point, struggling to force the pace, especially when the ball was dug in to the pitch. A hint of grip for the spinners also made it difficult for him to hit out. So when Bas de Leede came on in the 11th, Stubbs gave him the charge and enjoyed a massive slice of luck as a thick inside edge flew wide of the midwicket fielder.
Miller, too, rode some luck. A big hit down the ground off left-arm spinner Pringle only just eluded the long-on fielder in the 12th over with South Africa still needing 57 off 50.
Stubbs finally shrug off the pressure that had built around him with a hoick for six off Vikramjit Singh, and then launched van Beek down the ground three balls later to turn the tide South Africa’s way.
It should have been a smooth ride from there, with South Africa needing 29 off 30. But there was another twist. First, Paul van Meekeren delivered a maiden over to Miller, and the pressure showed when Stubbs holed out to deep midwicket in the next, off Bas de Leede. Then, in the 18th, van Beek came back after being walloped for six by Miller to dismiss Marco Jansen.
But, with South Africa needing 16 off 12, de Leede erred in line. Miller began the penultimate over by dispatching a half-tracker over fine leg, and then finished the game with a sequence of 2, 0, 4 and 6 – cue a roar and wild fist pumping.
Miller had tamed the demons of Adelaide 2022.
Sybrand Engelbrecht who represented South Africa at the Under-19 World Cup in 2008 and only recently made his Netherlands’ debut, top-scored with a 45-ball 40 on surface where the next best among the top seven was 12.
At the toss, Netherlands were put in to bat seemingly because South Africa wanted to exploit the morning conditions, and had them tottering at 32 for 4. South Africa’s four-pronged pace attack, led by Marco Jansen was breathing fire at that stage, with pace and bounce off the pitch for assistance.
South Africa’s hostility didn’t end there, with Ottneil Baartman and Anrich Nortje ensuring there weren’t any freebies. This resulted in Netherlands attempting to manufacture strokes, like Scott Edwards did when he executed a reverse scoop for six, but they simply didn’t have enough.
It came down to Englebrecht’s patient knock and his 54-run association with van Beek to get them into three figures. It would have been inadequate on most days, but Netherlands can give themselves a pat on the back for making a match out of it to keep Group D very open.
Brief scores:
South Africa 106 for 6 in 18.5 overs ( David Miller 59*, Tristan Stubbs 33; Vivian Kingma 2-12, Logan van Beek 2-21, Bas de Leed 1-34) beat Netherlands 103 for 9 in 20 overs (Sybrand Engelbrecht 40, Logan van Beek 23; Ottneil Baartman 4-11, Anriche Nortje 2-19, Marco Jansen 2-20) by four wickets
[Cricinfo]
Foreign News
Scores of whales to be euthanised after mass stranding in Australia

Australian authorities are euthanising about 90 false killer whales which survived a mass stranding on a remote beach in Tasmania.
A team of experts at the site said complex conditions have made it impossible to save them.
They are part of a pod of 157 whales that had beached near Arthur River, in the island’s north west. The rest had died shortly after the stranding.
Tasmania has seen a series of mass whale strandings in recent years – including the country’s worst-ever in 2020 – but false killer whales haven’t mass stranded there in over 50 years.
False killer whales are technically one of world’s largest dolphin species, like their orca namesakes. They can grow up to 6m (19ft) and weigh 1.5 tonnes.
Authorities on Wednesday said the pod had been stranded at the site for 24 to 48 hours, and the surviving animals were already under extreme stress.
Local resident Jocelyn Flint told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation she had travelled to the site on Wednesday morning after her son noticed the pod while out shark fishing overnight.
“There are babies… There’s just families of them. Their eyes are open, they’re looking at me, like ‘help’.”
“It’s just absolutely horrific.”
The site – about 300km (186 miles) from the city of Launceston – is extremely difficult to access and transport any rescue equipment to, marine biologist Kris Carlyon told media.
“This is possibly the trickiest location I’ve seen in 16 years of doing this role in Tasmania,” he said.
“We’re talking a very rough, steep, single lane road into the site. We can get four-wheel drives in there, but not a lot else.”
Rough conditions meant returning the animals to the sea at the location they stranded was impossible, so an expert team tried to relocate two and refloat them, but were unsuccessful.
“The animals just can’t get past the break to get out. They just keep turning around and coming back towards the beach,” said Shelley Graham, from Tasmania’s Parks and Wildlife Service.
With conditions for the next two days forecast to be similar, expert wildlife veterinarians made the “tough” and “confronting” decision to euthanise the remaining whales.
“The longer these animals are out stranded, the longer they are suffering. All alternative options have been unsuccessful, euthanasia is always a last resort,” Dr Carlyon said.
That grim task – which involves shooting the animals – is expected to begin on Wednesday but continue on Thursday.
Authorities are still working out how to dispose of the carcasses. The site has important cultural heritage for Aboriginal people so a department spokesperson earlier suggested “it may be a case of… letting nature run its course”.
Authorities have asked members of the public to avoid the site, with bushfires burning nearby and limited road access.
More than 80% of Australian whale strandings take place in Tasmania – often on its west coast.
Around 40 pilot whales were stranded further south at Macquarie Harbour in 2020 and about 350 of them died despite rescue efforts. Another 200 became standed in the same harbour in 2022.
Whales are highly social mammals and are well known for stranding in groups because they travel in large, close-knit communities which rely on constant communication.
There are a range of theories for why beachings occur. Some experts say the animals can become disoriented after following fish they hunt to the shore.
Others believe that one individual can mistakenly lead whole groups to shore.
[BBC]
Latest News
Gill and Theekshana are the new No. 1s in ODI rankings

Shubman Gill and Maheesh Theekshana have become the new No. 1 men’s ODI batter and bowler respectively in the ICC rankings update released on the opening day of the Champions Trophy. Gill has gone past Babar Azam on his list, while Theekshana has gone past Rashid Khan on his.
Gill had an excellent time of it in the home ODI series against England, which India won 3-0, with scores of 87, 60 and 112, which made him the top run-getter in the series, his 259 runs coming at an average of 86.33 and a strike rate of 103.60. The next highest scorer, Shreyas Iyer, was 78 behind Gill with 181 runs.
This is the second time Gill has gone to the top of the pile in ODI cricket – the previous occasion was during the ODI World Cup in 2023.
Gill’s rise has pushed Babar to second place. Gill has 796 rating points, while Babar has 773.
They are followed in the top five by Rohit Sharma, Heinrich Klaasen and Daryl Mitchell, who has moved up two places after the tri-series in Pakistan where he scored 81, 10 and 57.
Following the two-ODI series against England, Sri Lanka captain Charith Asalanka has moved up eight spots to No. 8, while Mohammad Rizwan, the Pakistan captain, has reached 15th place.
Sri Lanka are not a part of the Champions Trophy, having missed out on qualification, but along with Asalanka, Theekshana made the most of the two-ODI series at home against Australia, returning 4 for 40 and none for 11.
Rashid, who hasn’t played an ODI since last December, has slipped to the second spot, but isn’t too far behind Theekshana – he has 669 ratings points to the table-topper’s 680, and a good Champions Trophy campaign can take him back to the top.
Behind Theekshana and Rashid on the bowlers’ table is Namibia’s Bernard Scholtz followed by India’s Kuldeep Yadav and Pakistan’s Shaheen Shah Afridi in the top five. Mitchell Santner the New Zealand captain, has made big moves too, his five wickets in the three ODIs in the Pakistan tri-series giving him a five-spot boost and putting him at No. 7.
[Cricinfo]
Latest News
Babar’s form in focus as Pakistan begin title defence

We live in a time when the ODI is starved for attention, with the older sibling commanding instant respect for its age and wisdom and the younger one bawling at full lung capacity if you dare to look away while it cartwheels around the room. For all that, the middle child never fails to remind us how captivating it can be whenever a global tournament comes along. The last two ODI World Cups produced so many classics between them, and so many passages of play that showcased the variety of skills that this format can both compress and give breathing room to.
Given how little we’ve seen of it over the last year-and-a-half or thereabouts, then, our appetite for the ODI should be at its peak, even if the Champions Trophy remains an awkward fit in the calendar and the interests of the ICC’s member boards. So much has happened since Sarfaraz Ahmed lifted this trophy eight years ago, enough for everyone to forget that it even exists, but here we are now, and here it is once again.
We have Pakistan, the defending champions and (co-ish) hosts, to start us off, and they’ll face familiar foes in the tournament-opener. No visiting team has played more ODIs in this country than New Zealand’s 11 since the start of 2019, and they begin this Champions Trophy a mere five days after beating Pakistan in the final of an ODI tri-series. Karachi hosted that match, and will host this one too.
It says something about the two teams that New Zealand and Pakistan finished fourth and fifth – just inside and just outside the knockouts spots – on the league tables of both the 2019 and 2023 World Cups, and that Pakistan won the head-to-head meetings both times. It speaks of two teams with potentially title-winning strengths as well as title-squandering flaws, and this, perhaps, makes it the ideal contest to kick things off.
He’s gone 21 innings without an ODI hundred, and while this wouldn’t be abnormal for most batters, Babar Azam isn’t most batters. That sequence only includes two single-digit scores, so it isn’t as if he’s been struggling, but few things will bring as much joy to Pakistan at the start of a global event on home soil as a big score from their until-recently-irreproachable run machine. He’s batting at the top of the order now rather than No. 3, so a score of significance will also ease any doubts Pakistan may have about the structure of their line-up.
In the recently concluded tri-series, New Zealand’s spinners finished with a combined economy rate of 4.41, which was remarkable considering their Pakistan and South Africa counterparts went at 5.67 and 5.94 respectively. It speaks to the quality of Mitchell Santner and Michael Bracewell, who picked up five wickets apiece during the tri-series at near-identical averages and economy rates. They form as enviable a spin combination as any in this tournament: a left-arm fingerspinner and an offspinner, both extremely handy with the bat.
Haris Rauf played no part in the recent ODI tri-series after going off the field with a side strain during the opening game against New Zealand. He has been bowling in the nets in the lead-up to the Champions Trophy, though, and Pakistan captain Mohammad Rizwan was confident he would be fit to start the tournament-opener. This should leave Pakistan able to pick a full-strength XI.
New Zealand go into the Champions Trophy with two of their original fast-bowling selections – Lockie Ferguson and Ben Sears – out of the tournament. There’s also doubt over whether Rachin Ravindra – who hasn’t played a game since being struck on the head by the ball while fielding during the first match of the tri-series – will be fit to start, but the opener has been batting during training sessions in the lead-up to this tournament. New Zealand will take a call on him after their training session on Tuesday, with Will Young likely to open alongside Devon Conway should they decide not to risk Ravindra. Ferguson’s replacement Kyle Jamieson will not arrive in Karachi in time to be available for the first game.
Pakistan (possible): Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam, Saud Shakeel, Mohammad Rizwan (capt & wk), Salman Agha, Tayyab Tahir, Khushdil Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf, Abrar Ahmed.
New Zealand: Rachin Ravindra/Will Young, Devon Conway, Kane Williamson, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Latham (wk), Glenn Phillips, Michael Bracewell, Mitchell Santner (capt), Matt Henry, Jacob Duffy, Will O’Rourke.
[Cricinfo]
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