Cricket news round-up – 1 October: Pakistan win second match, Australia Women take 2-0 lead

Pakistan won the second match against Sri Lanka as international cricket returned to Pakistan. Australia Women won the second match of the three-match series against Sri Lanka Women to take 2-0 lead. Northamptonshire resigned Pakistan all-rounder Faheem Ashraf. West Indies will be hosting Ireland for limited-overs series.

Pakistan welcome back international cricket with a win

International cricket returned to Pakistan as the second one day went underway between the hosts and touring Sri Lanka. Pakistan ended in the winning side, thanks to a brilliant hundred by Babar Azam and a five-wicket haul by Usman Shinwari.

Batting first Pakistan scored 305/7 as Babar scored 115 and Fakhar Zaman added 54. Sri Lanka had a terrible start and were reeling at 28/5 as Shinwari took three wickets in his first spell. Shehan Jayasuriya and Dasun Shanka added 177 runs for the 6th wicket and gave Sri Lanka hope but Shinwari picked up Jayasuriya for 96 and triggered another collapse and The Lankans were all out for 238. Sanaka scored 68.

Australia Women lead the series by 2-0

Australia women took an unassailable lead in the three-match T20I series against Sri Lanka women by winning the second match by nine wickets. Thanks to a very tight bowling performance by the Australians, Sri Lankan batters could score only 84/8 in 20 overs. All the Australians bowled economically including Nicola Carey who bowled 4-1-9-1.

In response, Australia scored the required runs in just 9.4 overs losing only the wicket of Alyssa Healy. Erin Burns remained not out on 30 and Beth Mooney on 28 which gave her the second player of the match in the series.

Faheem Ashraf resigned by Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire county club resigned Pakistan all-rounder Faheem Ashraf for the first half of the 2020 season. The 25-year-old Ashraf played in the 2019 T20 Blast, picking 11 wickets at an average of 19 and ended the tournament journey as the club’s joint-leading wicket-taker. He will be available in all formats until the end of the group stage of the tournament, subject to NOC clearance.

The head coach, David Ripley said, “The fact he’s got the extra pace is key, we’ve got a very fine group of seam bowlers that got us into Division 1 and that’s not going to change. But when it’s a bit flatter and it’s the last 2 days of the game and that little bit of nip has gone out of the wicket, someone with a bit of pace and swing and bowling yorkers then I can see him being a genuine threat when the wickets are flatter.”

West Indies to host Ireland in 2020

Ireland will be touring West Indies in January 2020 for a three-match ODI and as many T20 Internationals. This will be the first time that the two teams will face each other in a full three-match series. Cricket West Indies announced the whole schedule on Monday which will begin on January 7 with two day-night ODIs in Barbados.  The third and final ODI will be played in Grenada on January 12. The T20I series will be played on January 15, 18, and 19 in Grenada and St Kitts (last two).