Cricket news round-up – 4 August: Win for India, good day for England in the Ashes

India began their campaign against West Indies with a T20I win. England edged ahead after a tight third day in first Ashes Test. Edmonton Royals managed their first win of Global T20 Canada League 2019.

India win a low scoring fixture

India recorded a scrappy victory over West Indies in the first T20 International at Lauderhill in Florida. Navdeep Saini made a great impression on his debut international match by picking up three wickets. Two of those wickets came in consecutive deliveries in his first over and the other coming in an exceptional wicket-maiden 20th over. West Indies started losing wickets from the start and lost half of their side within first six overs. Kieron Pollard showed some responsibility with his run a ball 49 but except him and Nicholas Pooran no other West Indian batter could reach double-digits in a two paced pitch as they finished with 95/9 in 20 overs. Along Saini, all the Indian bowlers ended with at least a wicket.

Indian chase did not start well as they lost Shikhar Dhawan early. Rohit Sharma scored 24 before getting caught by Pollard of Sunil Narine. Narine got another wicket on next ball as Rishabh Pant played a slog sweep first ball just to get caught at the boundary. India lost Pandey, Virat Kohli, and Krunal Pandya before finally Ravindra Jadeja and Washinton Sundar won by four wickets.

The Ashes, First Test, day three

England had a slight edge in the first Ashes Test of the summer and for Australia again all depends on Steve Smith. Starting the day with 267/4, England lost four wickets in the morning session. At one stage they were 300/8 but Chris Woakes and Stuart Broad added 65 runs for the 9^th wicket and finally took them to 374.

Australia lost David Warner in the third over and after losing Cameron Bancroft quickly as well the team total was 27/2. Smith again led the recovery with Usman Khawaja (40) and at the time of latter’s departure, Australia were on 75/3. Travis Head and Smith remained unbeaten till the end of day’s play as Australia took a 34 run- lead with seven wickets in hand.

A brilliant comeback and win for India A

India A recorded a brilliant victory, coming from behind in the second unofficial Test against the hosts at Queen’s Park Oval. After conceding a lead of 128 runs in the first innings, India A bowlers made a strong comeback in the second one. However, their fourth innings target was 278 and they were 185/3 at the end of day three. Abhimanyu Easwaran and Anmolpreet Singh ensured that there was no late drama and they remained till the end to complete the chase early in the second session. Easwaran remained unbeaten on 59 and Anmolpreet on 51 as they built an unbroken partnership of 100 runs.

Vitality Blast – Lancashire vs Nottinghamshire

An all-round show from the Australian Glenn Maxwell handed Lancashire a tight win in their Vitality blast T20 match against Nottinghamshire. Coming to bat at 14/3 which soon became 35/4, Maxwell led the recovery along with the captain Dane Vilas as the pair added 107 runs in 11 overs. Both of them got dismissed in the 20^th over as Maxwell scored 73 and Vilas scored 46 to take Lancashire to 151/6.

Nottinghamshire chase started in the worst possible manner and with 96/3 they lost three more wickets for just five runs. Their captain Daniel Christian did his best and remained unbeaten on 41 off 24 balls but the lower order could not support much. Despite a boundary on last ball, Nottinghamshire lost the match by three runs.

Matt Parkinson (3/22) and Liam Livingstone (2/22) were the most successful bowlers as Maxwell also bowled two tight overs for 13 runs.

Global T20 Canada

The Global T20 League in Canada saw two high scoring matches on Saturday. In the first match, more than 400 runs were scored as Brampton Wolves beat Toronto Nationals by 11 runs. Batting first, the Wolves scored 222/6, thanks to 36-ball 66 from George Munsey and 18-ball 48 from Babar Hayat. In response, Nationals could reach 211 as their captain Yuvraj Singh delivered 51 off 22 balls.

In the other match, Edmonton Royals finally got their first win of the tournament as they chased down 196 runs within 18 overs against Winnipeg Hawks. Batting first Hawks scored 195/6, driven by Shaiman Anwar’s 62 and JP Duminy’s 48. The chase was mastered by the Royals opener Anshuman Rath, who remained unbeaten on 87 off 50 balls. Their captain Mohammad Hafeez scored 55 runs off 30 balls in a handy 99 runs partnership with Rath.