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Sam Konstas showned his character with a classy response to being dropped for the first Test against Sri Lanka, said Australia selector on duty Tony Dodemaide.Dodemaide stopped short of guaranteeing Konstas would reclaim his opening spot for the home Ashes next summer but insisted the star teenager remained part of succession plans for an ageing Australian squad.Australia cited Travis Head’s form as an opener on the last subcontinent tour in 2023 for the “difficult” decision to oust Konstas from the top of the order in Galle.Related

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Konstas turned heads with his aggressive approach in his first two Tests to help seal a rare series victory over India, but has not toured the subcontinent before.The 19-year-old was seen congratulating Josh Inglis’ family as the previously uncapped West Australian took his spot in the XI for the first of two Tests in Galle.After being told he would be dropped, Konstas offered to arrive at the ground early for day one on Wednesday to help with preparations.”There’s a lot to like and be impressed about Sam,” Dodemaide said. “One of the things is his ability to take things in his stride. It’s remarkable really, whether it’s playing in front of 90,000 and Jasprit Bumrah at the MCG or getting told that you’re left out of the Test.  He was like, ‘Oh yeah mate, no stress. I get it’.”Konstas memorably slapped the world’s best paceman Bumrah around the ground in Melbourne as he scored a half-century in his first Test dig on Boxing Day. He then partnered with Usman Khawaja to ignite the series-winning run chase at the SCG.But Dodemaide would not guarantee Konstas would be able to reprise his heroics during the next home series, with two Sri Lanka Tests, the World Test Championship final and a West Indies tour to play out before then.”We won’t pre-empt what’s happening there,” Dodemaide said. “But clearly he’s done a lot right hasn’t he?”We’re looking for those successor players to come in, there will be some turnover naturally in the next couple of years or so and he’s very much staked a claim.”Selectors will also not rule out Konstas returning to the XI in the second and final Sri Lanka Test, pending the result in the first.”He’s a hugely talented player, hasn’t played a lot in this part of the world but he’ll learn quickly obviously,” Dodemaide said.”The opportunity to have him here, not to say that Test two is out of the question obviously depending on what happens here, but the opportunity to give Nathan McSweeney, Cooper Connolly and even now Ollie Peake [on the tour as a development player] is an investment in the future.”The call to drop Konstas sparked criticism from Australia’s most prolific Test runscorer Ricky Ponting, who had previously called for him to retain his spot.”There is a real missed opportunity for the Australians here to get to learn a bit more about Sam Konstas,” the former Test captain said on Channel Seven.”If he is the player we all think he is, I would have loved to have seen him work out a way to play spin in tough conditions in Sri Lanka over the next couple of weeks.”Dodemaide said Australia needed to prioritise a first series win in Sri Lanka since 2011 even if the side had already qualified for the WTC final.”A lot of the narrative has been around this tour doesn’t matter. It really does, it’s Test cricket. That’s our priority,” he said.

Sri Lanka have named a largely unchanged 16-man T20I squad to travel to New Zealand later this month. Only Dunith Wellalage misses out from the squad that faced the same opposition at home last month. The team is expected to leave for New Zealand on December 20.While no reason has been cited for Wellalage’s omission, it is likely that his spin-bowling attributes would have been less useful in New Zealand’s more seam-friendly conditions. Wellalage is currently taking part in the Lanka T10 tournament for Jaffna Titans.Apart from Wellalage, Sri Lanka’s team – led by Charith Asalanka – has a familiar feel. Pathum Nissanka, Kusal Mendis, Avishka Fernando, Kusal Perera, Kamindu Mendis and Asalanka comprise the primary batting options, while Chamindu Wickramasinghe is in line to play a more prominent role than on recent tours as the sole seam-bowling allrounder.

NZ vs SL, T20I series

Dec 28 – 1st T20I in Mount Maunganui
Dec 30 – 2nd T20I in Mount Maunganui
Jan 2 – 3rd T20I in Nelson

Notably, Bhanuka Rajapaksa retained his position in the squad despite middling performances in the recent Abu Dhabi T10, as well in Sri Lanka’s last series against New Zealand. While another curious retention is Dinesh Chandimal, who, despite being named in recent squads, last played a T20I in February 2022.Wickramasinghe will supplement a varied seam attack consisting of Matheesha Pathirana, Nuwan Thushara, Asitha Fernando and Binura Fernando. Spinners Wanindu Hasaranga, Maheesh Theekshana and Jeffrey Vandersay round out the squad.The first two T20Is will take place in Mount Maunganui on December 28 and 30, before the action moves to Nelson for the final match on January 2.

Sri Lanka squad for T20I series in New Zealand

Charith Asalanka (capt), Pathum Nissanka, Kusal Mendis, Kusal Perera, Avishka Fernando, Kamindu Mendis, Dinesh Chandimal, Bhanuka Rajapaksha, Wanindu Hasaranga, Maheesh Theekshana, Jeffrey Vandersay, Chamindu Wickramasinghe, Matheesha Pathirana, Nuwan Thushara, Asitha Fernando, Binura Fernando

Madeline Penna starred with the bat before Tahlia McGrath finished the job with the ball as Adelaide Strikers posted a 38-run win over Hobart Hurricanes in the WBBL on Saturday.Bottom-placed Strikers made 140 for 7 in the game at Adelaide Oval thanks largely to Penna’s 60 off 40 balls. In reply, Hurricanes were bowled out for 102 in 15.2 overs, with Elyse Villani (44 off 39) the top-scorer in an otherwise horror batting display. Strikers captain McGrath (4 for 13) starred with the ball, while Megan Schutt (2 for 14) and Anesu Mushangwe (2 for 18) were also crucial.Hurricanes opener Lizelle Lee entered the match on the back of scores of 150 not out and 103. But she was out caught behind for just eight in the second over when she attempted to belt Orla Prendergast down the ground.They were, however, on track for victory at 63 for 1 in the ninth over, but a collapse of nine wickets for 39 runs spelt the end for them. The result left third-placed Hurricanes nursing a 4-4 record with just two games remaining before the finals.Strikers (2-6) are still last, but the defending champions were happy after finally snapping their five-match losing run.”It’s been a long time coming, and it’s so good we can get a win,” Penna told . “To get it at home in front of our fans is so nice. We have really loyal fans here. Sometimes when you’re losing, you don’t have those people who back you. But we know our fans here at Adelaide back us in whether we’re winning or losing. It’s really good we could get a win for them.”McGrath was also thrilled with the win. “It’s been a really tough season,” she said. “We haven’t quite been up to our standard, and cricket is a brutal game when you’re not at your standards.”We’re still trying to get something out of this season. It is really tough at times, but it’s easy to smile when you have games like that.”Strikers were in all sorts of trouble at 45 for 4 after eight overs when Penna strolled to the crease. Things were still precariously placed at 109 for 6 in the 16th over when Penna was dropped on 44. She received another life – on the same score – and made the most of it by guiding Strikers to the full 20 overs.Penna’s innings, which featured six fours and two sixes, only came to an end when she was run out on the final ball.

Marcus Harris believes he’s ready to go if the selectors call on him to open the batting in the first Test against India in Perth, and feels he’s well-equipped to handle it after performing well under pressure for Australia A.Harris, 32, produced a gritty 74 on another difficult day of batting at the MCG against India A, when the next highest Australia A score was 35 from No. 10 Corey Rocchiccioli, as the other Test contenders failed to impress in the final game before the Test squad is announced.Australia’s chairman of selectors George Bailey was at the MCG with the Australia A team but is yet to confirm to Harris or anyone else who will get the nod for Australia’s Test squad.However, it appears more than likely that both Harris and Nathan McSweeney will be named in an expanded squad that may feature 13 players including a spare batter and a spare bowler.Harris was asked after play on day two whether he felt he had done enough to earn a call-up and he was typically pragmatic about it. “I don’t know, it’s a good question,” he said. “I think, externally obviously this game was getting built up a lot, which is fair enough. I feel like I’ve been batting well, but so have lots of other people.”So if I get called upon I feel like I’m ready to go, and if I don’t, then so be it. I feel pretty well-equipped. I think maybe if I was in this position 12 months ago, I probably wouldn’t have been able to perform the way I have at the start of this season. My results last year probably said that. So I’ve been proud of that.”Harris is the only player in the Australia A squad to have opened the batting in both matches against India A. He opened alongside Sam Konstas in the first game in Mackay for scores of 17 and 36 before opening alongside McSweeney in the second. Harris said the selectors hadn’t said a lot to him in the lead-up to either game.Related

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“They just said that I’ll open in the first game and we’re not really sure what’s going to happen with the second game,” Harris said. “So I don’t know if that was the plan.”Harris said the second game had provided a few more clues on the selectors’ thoughts but he was not reading too much into it given his previous experiences with Australia A and Prime Minister’s XI selection.”It was probably pretty obvious what was happening,” Harris said. “You’d have to ask them, to be honest. You never know. Like last year, for example, we had the bat-off in Canberra, and they picked Renners [Matt Renshaw] who was batting at three. So, yeah, I don’t know.”Harris said he learnt a lot from last summer’s experience where he entered the home season appearing to be in a race to replace David Warner. That has been evidenced by his performances, having posted scores of 143 and 52 in the first Sheffield Shield game of the summer as well as 63 in a One-Day Cup game and 74 against India A. He also believes the media and public scrutiny has not felt any more intense.”No, honestly, it hasn’t,” Harris said. “I think this time I’ve probably embraced it a little bit more than what I have before. I think in the past I’ve probably tried to really try to avoid it. That probably builds it up a little bit more, whereas this time, I’ve probably just taken it as it’s come at me and accepted it for what it is. I think I might have said maybe a couple weeks ago at the Junction Oval, I could probably write all the articles that are going to be written in the next couple of weeks. So none of the stuff that comes out is surprising, which, I think, anytime you go through things more often, you get more used to it, more equipped to deal with it. I’m probably just more experienced at it.”Marcus Harris scored a century in Victoria’s Sheffield Shield game against Tasmania last month•Getty Images

Harris has certainly matured with his game. In times past, he might have tried to blast his way to a score on a surface as treacherous as the one that has been presented at the MCG. But he struck just one boundary on the second day. What has been noticeable this season has been his improved ability to rotate the strike and score with control, picking off a lot more singles and twos than he might have done in the past. He credited his Victoria coach Chris Rogers, former Australia Test opener, with imprinting a simple message on him at the start of the season.”If the wicket’s doing a little bit, [he said] you don’t always have to look to hit it for four, look to hit it for two. And it was just something simple that sort of resonated with me a little bit,” Harris said. “I think a lot of the times when you do well on wickets like that, you actually spend a lot of time down the other end.”Harris did note he needed some luck, having played and missed a lot and edged one short of the wicketkeeper on the opening night. He also had a huge slice of luck when he was given not out on 48 – he tried to turn offspinner Tanush Kotian to the leg side and the ball deflected to slip. India A were convinced it came off the edge but the umpire thought it was pad.”I hit my pad on the way through,” Harris said. “Hence why I stood my ground. Then the umpire gave it not out, so I was like, I don’t know. But then we watched the replay and I think the boys said they watched it 20 times and you couldn’t really tell. So the god’s honest truth was I wasn’t sure. But if they reviewed it and said you’d hit it and got caught, I would have [thought] fair enough.”It just went my way.”

The PCB’s much-trailed ‘connection camp’ ended on Monday with what officials said was a roadmap to bring the game out of the doldrums it finds itself in at the moment.Officials and the team management, including both head coaches Jason Gillespie and Gary Kirsten, described a day of open and robust conversations, including about the lack of unity within the national side, with the two national captains, Shan Masood and Babar Azam, and a group of other players.The camp was organised as Pakistan stutter through one of the bleakest periods in their history, with administrative tumult begetting a succession of disastrous on-field results. Over the last year, Pakistan have lost to Afghanistan in the ODI World Cup, to USA at the T20 World Cup and most recently 2-0 to Bangladesh in a home Test series.Related

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Speculation has been rife throughout of growing differences in the dressing room, building from last year but propelled this year by the appointment and swift removal of Shaheen Shah Afridi as Pakistan’s T20I captain, and the return of Babar Azam as the T20I captain. Kirsten, the white-ball coach, is said to have been surprised by the degree of it when he first took up the job.Salman Naseer, the PCB’s chief operating officer, acknowledged that a lack of unity had been part of the discussions, not just within the team but between the board and players.”The session was about this, that we openly and candidly accept and identify [issues] and ask for a commitment from each other, demand it, on how we can improve our performances and how we work together as a team,” Naseer said at a press conference in Lahore after the camp ended. “Our unanimous view was that we need to resolve this going forward and need to identify how we do it.”Naseer did not go into the details of the discussions, saying that providing a “safe space” was essential in allowing people to open up. But tension between players and the board has also been building, especially after a number of top stars were denied NOCs to participate in leagues over the summer. Afridi, Babar, Mohammad Rizwan and Naseem Shah were all prevented from playing in leagues before the start of Pakistan’s home season, with workload management the primary reason cited by the board.”Where the talk is of unity, it wasn’t only about the team,” Naseer acknowledged. “It was between the team and management and how we can work together to do things more successfully. These were definitely part of the discussions. We talked about planning, we talked about workload management.”Everyone is feeling that the performances of players, and management, can be better. The idea was to sit together, identify issues and what can be better. What our vision is and how do we get there?”The camp is not believed to have brought up the more immediate questions facing the Pakistan side, in the immediate aftermath of the loss to Bangladesh and with England’s imminent arrival for a three-Test series in October. But Kirsten, who has been in Pakistan for the last 12 days watching the Champions Cup, struck a note of optimism in praising the depth of talent in Pakistan – in contrast to the chairman Mohsin Naqvi’s recent observations on the same.”I’ve been here the last 12 days or so watching the Champions Cup and have been really encouraged at the depth of quality of players in this tournament,” Kirsten said. “It’s been fantastic to see. I’ve really enjoyed the tournament. The quality of the competition has been high. Been great to see a lot of young players showcasing what they are capable of.”The discussions will continue, according to Gillespie. “Because we’re new to the job, our job is to listen and learn and look to implement ways where we can be more effective as players, as a team, and as coaches. What was really clear today was the pride the Pakistan players have in playing for Pakistan and how they want to inspire the country. That was really exciting to hear. The players care and are desperate to do well. We’re on this journey together and we’ll do everything we can to help.”

Towards the end of the opening T20I between Australia and Scotland in Edinburgh, talk switched from Travis Head’s pyrotechnics to the ‘long ball’ tactics of left-arm spinner Mark Watt and the grey areas of the Law that his innovation approach challenges.The ball after having Mitchell Marsh taken on the rope, Watt delivered one of his 25-yard deliveries to Josh Inglis who made the very late decision to step away with it taking the leg bail. The umpire called ‘dead ball’, although he did appear to speak to Inglis. It happened again a short while later when Marcus Stoinis stepped away having started to face up, although on this occasion the ball missed the stumps.”It’s just trying to rush [the batters],” Watt has previously explained. “By the time I’ve let it go, the batsman looks up and the ball’s halfway down the wicket.”The wording of the relevant Law, 20.4.2.5, showed the umpire had made the correct call. “Either umpire shall call and signal Dead ball when…the striker is not ready for the delivery of the ball and, if the ball is delivered, makes no attempt to play it. Provided the umpire is satisfied that the striker had adequate reason for not being ready, the ball shall not count as one of the over.”However, the “adequate reason” for the batter to pull away is left for the umpire’s discretion and Watt clearly felt Inglis had been ready to face. Freeze frames of the moment Watt started his run up did appear to suggest that Inglis was still looking down when tapping his bat, although he was looking towards the bowler before the ball was delivered.On commentary, the former Scotland captain Preston Mommsen suggested Inglis had been fortunate. “The unexpected nature of the delivery coming from 23, 24 yards. He’s a very lucky man to still be there,” he said.There wouldn’t have been an impact on the result, but it’s not the first time the debate has been sparked as to whether Watt was denied a wicket. The same situation occurred in the T20 World Cup earlier this year when Oman batter Khalid Kail was ‘bowled’ after stepping away and umpire Chris Brown called dead ball. On that occasion Watt and captain Richie Berrington spoke to the umpire but on Wednesday, apart from a few gesticulations the game went on, although there were boos from the crowd after the second dead-ball call.During the World Cup example, Tom Moody, who was commentating for the game, believed Kail was ready and ball shouldn’t have been dead. “The batter’s looking up. He’s ready. To me, that is a legitimate ball,” Moody had said. “The ball is live. As soon as the batter has placed his bat down and faces up, looks up to the bowler, he’s ready to go.”Australia were on alert for the tactic when they faced Scotland in the T20 World Cup in St Lucia, where Inglis was a member of the squad and Stoinis was in the XI.

West Indies’ batters will attempt to strike the right balance between defence and attack when they face up to England in the second Test at Trent Bridge, with the captain, Kraigg Brathwaite, saying that they have “to find a way” to put runs on the board.The tourists were bowled out for totals of 121 and 136 to lose by an innings at Lord’s, with no one in the top seven managing more than the 27 by debutant opener Mikyle Louis in the first innings. Brathwaite said that while there had been discussions about what a young batting line-up, four of whom came into the series having played fewer than five Tests, could do differently – such as taking the attack to England’s bowlers – the focus of his message would be on doing the same again, but “for longer”.”It’s pretty simple what we’ve got to do,” he said. “We’ve got to bat a lot better. Obviously we’ve got to find a way, which we’ve had some discussions around different things we can do better as a team. There are still a bit of positives with the bat. With the ball, as I said before, [England scored] 50-60 runs too many but it was a positive to get ten wickets. But with the bat, we’ve just got to put runs on the board. It’s simple.Related

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“A few guys did get in and didn’t go on. It’s just important that you go on for longer, because the longer you bat, the easier it becomes and it’s important to stay in that plan for as long as possible. Obviously you want to put away bad balls, that’s what everybody wants to do. But it’s that hard work that you do for 40 minutes, being able to take that to an hour, two hours. And it is a balance, a mixture of putting away the bad balls, because when you put away the bad balls it gives them confidence. We just got to keep learning. You know, I think a lot of learning would have taken place in the first Test and you’ve just got to believe in our ability and do it and aim to do it for longer periods.”While many of his players are learning on the job, Brathwaite has the experience of 90 Tests to fall back on – and he remains unflustered by a lack of personal form with the bat, which has seen him score one half-century in his last eight Tests going back to February 2023, during which time he has averaged 15.13.”I know what I have to do and it’s obviously important to lead this team and lead the batting, just to build this foundation is obviously what I’m focusing on and obviously that always puts us in a better position to score big runs,” he said. “I enjoy captaining, I enjoy leading. I’ve been opening my whole life, so when I go there to bat, for me, it’s always to see off that new ball, and be there as long as [I] can. That’s always my focus, so I don’t see it as any added pressure. Yes, you know, at times you don’t get runs and it could be a little bit tough but it’s just important to stay mentally tough and keep believing.”On the team’s motivation, he referred to their victory in Brisbane earlier this year, having been beaten heavily by Australia in the first Test, as proof “that we could get it done after a loss”, and said that it was important not to dwell on the lack of preparation time that resulted in such an underwhelming performance at Lord’s.”I think from a belief point of view, it shows that we could get it done after a loss, albeit in different conditions,” Brathwaite said of the Gabba victory, West Indies’ first in Australia since 1997. “It was [a few] months ago. But yes, we could take a bit from that. But the main thing is just having that belief in yourself.”We have a motivation, we got to be better than in the first Test. As you know, the batsmen [have] obviously got to put runs on the board, and that’s our focus. I think once we remain disciplined, session by session, build partnerships that will put us in a good position, you know, and the overall result of the game.”What’s gone is gone. The first defeat is gone. The preparation period is gone. I think the guys are in very good spirits. Mentally it’s really important to believe in yourself. Guys are ready to go.”The two-match series in Australia in January was West Indies’ only Test commitment between July 2023 and the current England series, and Brathwaite reiterated calls by his predecessor, Jason Holder, for administrators to do as much as possible to schedule more games, while also looking forward to home series against South Africa and Bangladesh following the conclusion of their trip to England.”It’s a challenge. I mean, we be longing for more Test cricket. I think the more you play it, the faster you will learn,” he said. “Obviously if it is drawn out over a long period of time, playing two Tests here, two Tests there, you will take longer to learn. The guys are learning, that is the positive, but yes, we need more Tests. It would improve everything about the make-up of playing Test cricket because it’s always going to be tough. You get good periods, you get bad periods, and the more often you play, you pretty much understand it better.”But we have what we have. We have a good period now till December, we have six more Test matches for the year. So we’ve got to make use of that and hopefully, going forward, we can get more because it will benefit the players. The more Test matches you play, the more experience you get. You always learn because I’m pretty much still learning after 90 games. Yeah, we need more Test cricket.”

Australia’s multi-format stars have been handed their best red-ball preparation for a summer in five years, with players to have up to four Sheffield Shield matches to fine tune for the Test series against India.Cricket Australia announced the schedule for the domestic summer on Thursday, which includes the new women’s T20 competition before the WBBL. As has been the case in recent seasons, the Sheffield Shield while the men’s one-day cup sits at seven matches each.Related

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But for the first time in a long time, multi-format players will have a long stretch of Shield games to prepare for the Test team’s bid to win back the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.Australia’s last overseas white-ball commitment this year is on September 29 in England, giving players a week before the beginning of the Shield season on October 8. Even if the quicks are rested from the first round, each state will play another three fixtures before players enter camp for the first Test against India starting November 22.Pat Cummins is missing the entire limited-overs tour of the UK in September while Mitchell Starc will only feature in the ODI series against England. Josh Hazlewood has been included for both formats.While Starc played matches for NSW during the 2020-21 bubble, Cummins and Hazlewood have not played Shield before the first Test since November 2019. Mitchell Marsh, meanwhile, has only played two Shield matches since 2019.Availability of multi-format players for the Shield will likely be impacted by the limited-overs visit of Pakistan with the ODI series starting on November 4. The proximity of the T20Is (November 14-18) to the start of the India series means only players not featuring in the Test will likely be selected. There are also two Australia A-India A matches from late October which will pull players out of domestic cricket.The glut of Shield matches will also provide an opportunity for the likes of Matt Renshaw, Marcus Harris and Cameron Bancroft a chance to push their selection causes.While Australia’s Test team is largely set for now, they will want to take a reserve batsman into the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Chief selector George Bailey said in March there was no longer a front-runner to one day replace Steven Smith or Usman Khawaja at the top of the order, after each of Renshaw, Harris and Bancroft missed out on national contracts.Bailey has indicated that a specialist opener will be the one to eventually replace Smith or Khawaja in the long-term future, after the former was moved into the role to replace David Warner last summer.In total six Shield rounds will be played before the BBL break, before each state plays four more matches in February and March. Shield fixtures will again be interwoven with the one-day cup, which starts on September 22, with Western Australia aiming for a fourth consecutive title in both competitions.The Shield final will take place between March 26-30 while the 50-over finals will take place on consecutive days – the Marsh Cup on March 1 and WNCL on March 2.The 50-over WNCL tournament, where Tasmania are bidding for a hat-trick of titles, again has 12 matches per team, while the newly introduced T20 series for women includes four games each as a result of the shortened WBBL.Each of the eight WBBL teams will feature as well as the ACT Meteors, with the tournament to run while Australia’s big-name players and overseas stars are in Bangladesh for the T20 World Cup.

USA opener Steven Taylor will be singing David Rudder’s when he lines up against the team he grew up supporting in Barbados on Friday night in the T20 World Cup 2024. Taylor, born in Florida to Jamaican parents, has also laid down a marker for his friend Akeal Hosein, whom he said he would be “hunting, first ball” at Kensington Oval.Taylor was brought up on America’s south-east coast but was a West Indies fan on account of his family heritage. He said it will be “a wonderful feeling” to play against West Indies on Friday: “I’m representing my parents, my Jamaican heritage,” he said. “At the end of the day, I might be born American, but I speak more Jamaican than I speak American sometimes.”While defeat will not mathematically eliminate USA, they realistically need to win both remaining games to qualify for the semi-finals.Related

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“[I remember] growing up, watching [Brian] Lara, Chris Gayle,” Taylor said. “To have the chance of playing against [West Indies] now and on a World Cup stage, on the highest stage of life… I might beat them. It might be a great feeling.Taylor was part of the USA side which lost by 39 runs to West Indies in the 50-over World Cup qualifier in Zimbabwe last year, and said the margin of defeat showed they were capable of beating the opposition. “We gave them a fight at the end of the day and we know that we have a chance of beating them once we play good cricket on the day.”Speaking about playing West Indies, he said, “I used to sing the song ‘rally’ growing up as a kid, but at the end of the day, I’m representing my real country, where I was born and grown, and I just hope that we can come over the line against West Indies.” Asked if he would be singing the anthem on Friday, he said with a grin, “I did last time, but in my head.”Taylor has been on the books of three different CPL franchises and has also played regional cricket for Jamaica, and is relishing the chance to take on some familiar faces – and Hosein, his former Barbados Tridents team-mate, in particular. “He’s a good friend of mine,” Taylor said. “I know most of his tricks so for sure I’ll be hunting him, first ball.”He is also looking forward to coming up against Andre Russell, another former team-mate: “I played with him most days,” Taylor said. “I wouldn’t say I look up to him, but he’s more of a big brother to me as well.”USA fell to an 18-run defeat in their opening Super Eight fixture against South Africa in Antigua, but took confidence from Andries Gous’ innings of 80 not out and a good comeback with the ball after an expensive start.”I would say we’re playing good cricket and the team is gelling well together,” Taylor said. “At the end of the day, we know that we’re going to be the underdogs for all teams that we play against in the Super Eights. So, we’re just here to play good cricket and if we go in, we win; if we lose, we lose.”

Kagiso Rabada sustained a rib injury during South Africa’s first training session in India on Tuesday, which ended up ruling him out of the Eden Gardens Test on the morning of the match. No decision has been made on whether he will be available for the second Test, which starts in Guwahati next week.ESPNcricinfo has established that Rabada was taken for a scan the morning after injury occurred. However, he still attended Wednesday’s training session. The extent of his participation in that session is unclear, though. He did not take part in Thursday’s optional training – which is regular practice for many senior players – and underwent a fitness test before play began on Friday morning. After experiencing discomfort during the test, a late call was made, ruling Rabada out of the Test match.Corbin Bosch, who has played three Tests prior to this tour, was named in the XI in Rabada’s place. Bosch was also part of South Africa’s Test squad in Pakistan, but did not play in either of the matches on the tour. He is now one of three seamers in South Africa’s line-up for the first Test; the other two are Marco Jansen and Wiaan Mulder.South Africa do not have any other seamers in their squad, after Lungi Ngidi was left out of both the Pakistan and India series in a horses-for-courses approach to playing in the subcontinent. Despite Rabada’s injury, no replacement players have been called up to the squad yet.South Africa will play another Test, followed by three ODIs and five T20Is, over the next five weeks in India. The white-ball squads have not yet been announced, but it is expected that South Africa will select as close to a first-choice T20I squad as possible, with next year’s T20 World Cup in mind. Rabada is expected to be part of that T20I squad.