Connect with us

Sports

SLC keen to help Pakistan and looking for a window

Published

on

by Rex Clementine

Sri Lanka Cricket is keen to help Pakistan once again after cricket in the country came to a standstill with New Zealand and England pulling out from their bilateral tours. Pakistan cricket chief former Test captain Ramiz Raja had reached out to his counterparts at SLC requesting the possibilities of a short tour. However, SLC is cramped for room for an immediate tour but will consider travelling to the country for a white ball series, possibly this year, SLC sources told The Island.

Sri Lanka are set to leave for Oman on the 3rd of October and that ruled out a series in Pakistan before the ICC T-20 World Cup. Soon after the World Cup, Sri Lanka will host West Indies for two Tests and the board will look at the possibility of touring Pakistan after that series.

Cricket in Pakistan stopped after the 2009 terror attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore. Pakistan were forced to play their home games in UAE, an exercise that cost the PCB an arm and a leg.

In 2017, Pakistan made a huge step forward when the last game of a bilateral series against Sri Lanka was played in Lahore. In that series, two Tests, five ODIs and two T-20s had been played in UAE and the final T-20 in Lahore.

Since, then Pakistan has hosted Bangladesh, West Indies and Zimbabwe in limited overs cricket while South Africa had played Test match cricket. Sri Lanka had toured Pakistan for both white ball and red ball games.

PCB was looking to bring all international teams back to the country but the pulling out of New Zealand in the 11th hour followed by England’s no show have been massive blows. Pakistan officials have been bitter about the cancellations and have promised to take up the matter with the ICC.

SLC was highly impressed by the security arrangements that were in place for the team and officials during all their visits and had sent senior Air Force officer Roshan Biyanwala to assess the situation before the team travelled to Pakistan. Biyanwala had given a clean slate and the tours completed successfully.

Pakistan has been one of Sri Lanka’s strongest allies in cricket. Several Pakistan players including former great Wasim Akram played a hastily arranged exhibition match in Colombo along with leading Indian stars before the 1996 World Cup when Australia and West Indies pulled out due to security reasons.

Much before that, Pakistan was a pillar of strength when Sri Lanka applied for full member status with the ICC in 1970s. Abdul Hafeez Kardar in his capacity as Chairman of the Pakistan board aggressively pushed Sri Lanka’s case. He was responsible in training Sri Lankan coaches and curators in Pakistan to uplift the standard of the game in the island.



Sports

Why the delay? Sri Lanka puzzled over timing of Kuhnemann’s action report

Published

on

By

Matthew Kuhnemann's action was reported to be suspect. [Cricbuzz]

Multiple senior Sri Lankan players had raised concerns over Matthew Kuhnemann’s bowling action after the first Test, Cricbuzz has learnt, with many in the team now left puzzled over why the match officials waited until the end of the series to report the Australian left-arm spinner. According to sources within the team, a couple of them in particular had indicated having found something “not quite right” about the way Kuhnemann was finishing his action while he starred in the first Test win with nine wickets in Galle.

This comes in the wake of the 28-year-old’s action being officially reported by the ICC with its legality now under scrutiny. Kuhnemann, who finished on top of the wicket-takers’ list with 16 wickets at 17.18, will now have to undergo independent testing within the next two weeks to be cleared to bowl again in international cricket.

However, some of the Sri Lankan batters seem to have had an issue with it as early as the latter part of the opening Test. With one of them even having approached Sri Lankan spin bowling coach Piyal Wijetunge to watch replays and analyse Kuhnemann’s action. It’s learnt that Wijetunge couldn’t find anything untoward with it and put the batter’s doubts down to the unique ‘wrist action’ used by the Aussie finger spinner.

The Sri Lankan batter in question and some of his colleagues though weren’t convinced by the spin bowling coach’s explanation and continued to raise eyebrows over some of Kuhnemann’s deliveries as the series progressed.

“They were finding it difficult to leave the crease against him, because they felt like he could adjust and make changes very late, which they found unusual. It’s not like they were questioning his action after every delivery but there were some balls which they were concerned with,” the source told Cricbuzz.

For the record, a number of Sri Lankan batters did succumb to Kuhnemann while trying to play him from their crease.

Kuhnemann is no stranger to Sri Lanka having made his ODI debut here in 2022, and then having gone on to make an impression in his maiden Test series in India the following year. And this is the first time during his eight-year professional cricket career that his action has been officially questioned. A source did admit that the Sri Lankans had not found anything out of place when they were studying Kuhnemann’s bowling videos as part of their preparation for the Test series. That it was only after they saw him bowl during the first Test in Galle that alarms were raised.

“Our focus was more on Nathan Lyon and the damage that he could cause in Galle. But we did watch a lot of Kuhnemann’s videos from his past performances, and nothing really caught our eye. There were a few deliveries through the series though that didn’t quite feel right,” revealed one of the batters.

“What we don’t understand is why the match officials, who were the same for both Tests, waited until the series was over before reporting his action,” he added.

None of this of course has any bearing on how Australia deal with the situation, with Kuhnemann’s immediate future as a bowler in international cricketer dependent on the outcome of the testing conducted by the human-movement specialist in the next two weeks.

Interestingly, the Sri Lankan spin coach’s assessment, like learnt, seemed to be along the lines of how former ace Indian spinner R Ashwin had broken down Kuhnemann’s action a couple of years ago on his YouTube show.

Ashwin had highlighted the uniqueness of the left-armer’s wrist in its loading position and why it could create an optical illusion of there being an elaborate “elbow extension”, which according to the laws of the game cannot be over 15 degrees.

“The way his wrist breaks, it will look at times like an elbow extension. But there’s nothing like that in his action. It’s more the wrist involvement,” Ashwin had said.

Cricket Australia have thrown their support behind the Queenslander, who now plies his trade in Tasmania, and will work through the process, which will involve Kuhnemann bowling at similar speeds and with similar revolutions on the ball as he would have during the second Test. The results will then show if there is an elbow extension beyond the legal 15 degrees in order to deem whether his action is legal or not in its current form.

It’s learnt that Sri Lankan cricket will wait until the results are made public before making any further statements about the issue regarding Kuhnemann’s bowling action.

Continue Reading

Latest News

Grant Fisher smashes world indoor 5000m record in Boston

Published

on

By

Less than a week after he took apart the world indoor 3000m record in New York, USA’s Grant Fisher added another world indoor record* to his tally, this time over 5000m at the BU David Hemery Valentine International in Boston on Friday (14).

The double Olympic bronze medallist dropped Jimmy Gressier just after the half way point and continued to extend his lead throughout the second half. After passing 3000m in 7:39.16 – a comfortable 16 seconds outside the world indoor record of 7:22.91 he clocked last Saturday – Fisher continued to churn out sub-31-second laps.

After covering the final 400m in 59.36 seconds, Fisher charged through the line in 12:44.09, a five-second improvement on the previous world indoor record of 12:49.60 set by Kenenisa Bekele in 2004.

Gressier held on for second place in 12:54.92, a European indoor record and outright French record.

[*Subject to the usual ratification procedure]

[World Athletics]

Continue Reading

Sports

Ostapenko hands Swiatek heavy loss to reach Qatar final

Published

on

By

Iga Swiatek hit just eight winners compared to 31 by Jelena Ostapenko [BBC]

Iga Swiatek suffered her worst defeat in two years as Jelena Ostapenko breezed past the world number two in straight sets to reach the Qatar Open final.

Ostapenko needed just and hour and eight minutes to wrap up a 6-3 6-1 victory over the five-time Grand Slam champion in Doha.

The last time Swiatek was on the wrong end of such a one-sided match was a 6-2 6-2 loss to Elena Rybakina at Indian Wells in March 2023.

The 23-year-old Pole was on a 15-match winning streak at the Qatar Open and chasing a fourth successive title.

Ostapenko, ranked 37th in the world, has now won all five of her meetings with Swiatek.

“I feel like this court has a special energy,” said the Latvian, 27.

“I was pretty confident that I would beat her because we’ve played a lot of matches and I kind of know how to play against her.

“I’m really happy with the way I’m handling my emotions this week. I’m just so happy to be in the final.”

Ostapenko will play Amanda Anisimova in today’s final after the American beat Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-3 6-3.

[BBC Sports]

Continue Reading

Trending