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Domestic cricket in Bangladesh should be scheduled during the cooler part of the year, and venues must have better facilities, the former Bangladesh captain Khaled Mashud has urged. Mashud has asked the BCB to make these changes after many players suffered in the ongoing heat wave across the country.In the 2016-17 season, the National Cricket League first-class tournament began in September but took a break to accommodate the Bangladesh Premier League T20 competition, which was held from November 8 to December 9. The NCL ended after a second phase that stretched from December 20 to January 6.The Bangladesh Cricket League, the four-team first-class competition, then took place from January 28 to March 8. The Dhaka Premier League, which began this season on April 12 and is likely to end in mid-June, has a history of scheduling delays as the major clubs want the top cricketers to participate in the List A competition. Since September last year, the Bangladesh team has been busy playing home or away, so it was hard for the BCB to make the clubs agree to start the DPL in March, when the top cricketers were in Sri Lanka.Mashud, who is also Prime Bank Cricket Club’s coach, said the major domestic competitions such as the DPL and the two first-class competitions must be completed by mid-April.”Implementing the domestic calendar during the season is everyone’s priority,” Mashud wrote in a Facebook post. “It won’t be possible to hold back the [Dhaka Premier] league this season but these concerns should be addressed ahead of the next season. I would urge the BCB to finish the longer-version and one-day competitions by mid-April. They can think of a T20 tournament when the weather gets hotter. I believe such a step will help Bangladesh cricket.”The temperature in Bangladesh touched 38 degrees last week. Mashud cited the examples of Gazi Group batsman Jahurul Islam and Prime Bank wicketkeeper Zakir Hasan, who suffered severe cramps during DPL matches. Zakir was particularly affected during Prime Bank’s May 21 match against Gazi Group Cricketers, suffering seizures despite being given an ice massage in the dressing room. He still hasn’t recovered from his cramps.The DPL has had to deal with other issues too. Avishek Mitra, the Mohammedan Sporting Club batsman, suffered a hamstring injury at the BKSP ground, where there was no ambulance to take him for treatment. In the end, the team had to improvise and use a cycle-van.Mashud also pointed out the effect of power failures, at the BKSP and Fatullah grounds, on players.”Like every other place in the country right now, power failure is also affecting the stadiums,” he wrote. “Cricketers don’t get adequate rest after returning from fielding for 50 overs. While there are generators in place for international matches, it is not the case for domestic games.”It is quite embarrassing to find such a situation in the only List A tournament in the country in which local and foreign stars participate. A bigger challenge awaits from May 24 when the Super League begins. Ramadan is also starting on May 27 which is a major concern for me as a coach.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details4:36

Bangar: ‘Uthappa deflated the Tahir threat’

A turbo-charged innings from Robin Uthappa and a relatively more sedate one from Gautam Gambhir helped Kolkata Knight Riders overhaul 182 with 11 balls to spare and reclaim the top spot in the league. Their 158-run partnership – the second highest for KKR in the IPL – ruthlessly exposed the limitations of a Rising Pune attack that was without Ben Stokes, who was nursing a niggle.In Stokes’ absence, there was a case for Rising Pune to pick either New Zealand fast bowler Lockie Ferguson or Australian legspinner Adam Zampa. Instead, they opted for South African batsman Faf du Plessis, who did not even get to bat.Five of Rising Pune’s six bowlers went for over eight runs an over – and three went for over 10. Pune’s fielding was as slipshod as their bowling. Uthappa, who was dropped on 12, moved to his highest IPL score of 87 off 47 balls at a strike-rate of 185.10. Gambhir, who was dropped on 32, went on to make 62. By the time they were dismissed in successive overs, the game was all but over. It was IPL debutant Darren Bravo who applied the finishing touches with a cover-driven four.Tripathi thrives in the Powerplay
The first over of the match, which had four plays-and-misses and an outside edge that burst through Uthappa’s gloves, turned out to be a false dawn for KKR. Rahul Tripathi was scoreless when Uthappa dropped that difficult chance. Yusuf Pathan then shelled a simpler catch to reprieve Tripathi in the seventh over. By then the opener had given Rising Pune their second successive fifty-run opening stand.He darted around the crease and manufactured swinging room to hit a variety of drives, including an inside-out four over covers off Sunil Narine. In all, Tripathi took two of KKR’s key bowlers – Narine and Umesh Yadav – for 28 runs off 13 balls. His early assault allowed Ajinkya Rahane to play himself in at the other end.Dhoni doesn’t start slowly
Before this match, Dhoni had scored just 27 runs off 54 balls from Narine in T20s – 3 off 13 balls in his previous game against KKR. But when Dhoni arrived on Wednesday night, Narine had only one over left. Gambhir held him back, and Dhoni pounced on Piyush Chawla, hitting him for back-to-back boundaries. Dhoni then pulled Kuldeep Yadav for a six and took Pune to 140 for 2 in 16 overs. Gambhir turned to Narine for the next over, but Dhoni saw him off.The rousing finish
Kuldeep brought KKR back by removing both Dhoni and Manoj Tiwary, who was sent ahead of du Plessis, with googlies. KKR, however, were without their previous match-winner Nathan Coulter-Nile, who was rested for this clash. Chris Woakes and Umesh served up a volley of length balls, and Smith and Dan Christian clattered 30 off the last two overs to lift Pune to 182 for 5.The partnership that won it
KKR lost Narine, who opened again, in the third over of the chase when Dhoni collected a throw from Shardul Thakur and dexterously flicked it onto the stumps. Imran Tahir induced a swirling top edge from Uthappa in his first over, but Jaydev Unadkat dropped it, falling backwards at deep midwicket. Uthappa soon got stuck into rookie offspinner Washington Sundar, gloriously lofting him for back-to-back sixes down the ground. Tahir wasn’t spared either – he was driven down the ground for a six. At the other end, Gambhir simply nurdled the ball into the gaps and let Uthappa do his thing.Uthappa soon unfurled dabs and sweeps, and secured runs in the other V – behind square. With every boundary, KKR highlighted the lack of depth in the Pune attack. The weakness in fielding was also exposed when Sundar put down Gambhir at short fine leg.Having watched his frontline bowlers regularly disappear to the boundary, Smith turned to Tripathi’s occasional medium-pace. He fared just as poorly, conceding 12 off his only over. In the first six overs KKR made 45 for 1. In their next six, they bashed 78 for 0. Game over.

Ravindra Jadeja has overtaken R Ashwin at the top of the ICC Test rankings for bowlers, after taking nine wickets against Australia in the third Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Cheteshwar Pujara was also a major gainer as his 202 off 525 balls propelled him above Virat Kohli to become the top-ranked India batsman in Tests. He was at No. 2, behind Australia captain Steven Smith.Although the Ranchi Test was drawn, at the end of the fourth day, the hosts had seemed in quite a dominant position thanks to these two players. Pujara, by facing more balls than any other Indian (where data is available) in Tests, secured a whopping 152-run lead though Australia had put up 451. It was the third double-century of his career, second against Australia, and it helped him continue a rich vein of form in the 2016-17 home season – 1259 runs at 66.26 with four hundreds and seven fifties.The top bowlers in Test cricket•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Jadeja, meanwhile, has outbowled his closest competitor Ashwin in the first innings this season – a sign that he was becoming a threat even without the pitch helping him too much. In all, Jadeja has taken 67 wickets at 22.98 with four five-wicket hauls in 24 innings. The changes he has made to his bowling, namely the ability to draw batsmen forward with flighted deliveries, as opposed to his usual method of bowling darts to get bowleds and lbws have made a strong impact. Kohli, at the end of the Ranchi Test, singled out Jadeja as “standing apart” from the rest of his bowlers.The top batsmen in Test cricket•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Smith consolidated his place at the top of the rankings with scores of 178* and 21 in Ranchi. Smith has 941 rating points is now joint-fifth highest ever with Peter May. Only Don Bradman (961), Len Hutton (945), Jack Hobbs and Ricky Ponting (942) have ever got more.India will hold on to their position at the top of the rankings at the April 1 deadline for a cash award of $1 million. Australia and South Africa, on the other hand, have a chance to take over the second position. If Smith’s men at least draw the upcoming Dharamsala Test, they will finish at No. 2. South Africa can take over if Australia lose, and they either draw or win the Hamilton Test against New Zealand. The team that finishes second will be awarded $500,000 and the third-placed team will get $200,000.

The BCCI has withdrawn the complaint against Steven Smith and Peter Handscomb hours after lodging it with the ICC, as the aftermath of the Bengaluru Test continued to unfold at a rapid pace.* A joint statement after the two board CEOs met constituted the second statement of peace in two days, after the ICC had said on Wednesday that it was not going to pursue the DRS controversy further.That, it is understood, came after the ICC had studied match footage and the evidence available before deciding to not press any charges against any of the Australia players or Virat Kohli. This was communicated to both the boards, who wanted the ICC to initiate proceedings. The BCCI wanted an investigation into their allegations that Australia sought dressing-room assistance on DRS reviews, and CA wanted action against Kohli who had made public accusations that Australia systemically manipulated DRS protocols.

What they said about withdrawing the complaint

CA’s James Sutherland: “We are halfway through what has already been a riveting series – and there is still much to look forward to. In discussing the relevant issues in depth, we have agreed that it is in the best interests of the game to put these differences aside and clear the way for the focus to be on the cricket.”
BCCI’s Rahul Johri: “While having responded officially to one incident which happened in the last Test, together, we believe that the focus of the teams and the joy they provide to the fans should not be diluted and it is imperative to ensure that the rest of the series, which promises a great cricketing contest, not be compromised.”

The incident occurred on the final day of the Test, when Smith looked towards the dressing room after having chatted with non-striker Handscomb when given out lbw in a tense chase, apparently for clues on whether to review the call or not. Umpire Nigel Llong intervened immediately, and sent Smith on his way. In his post-match conference, Smith put his actions down to a “brain fade”. Kohli disagreed with that, saying Australia took help from their dressing room on at least three occasions before making their mind up on DRS reviews in the Test. Kohli said he had made the umpires aware of the matter on two occasions before the third one played out in full view.Incidentally, the other two incidents that Kohli spoke of were not even part of the complaint that the BCCI CEO Rahul Johri lodged on Thursday. Under the DRS protocols, the Smith incident was already dealt with when he was not allowed to communicate with his dressing room. Had he then sought a review, it would have been disallowed.The BCCI, though, pushed for a charge for a level 2 offence under the ICC code of conduct, contending that Smith and Handscomb had acted against the spirit of cricket. To prove Smith and Handscomb had violated the spirit of cricket, the BCCI would have to prove intent, for which there is no evidence available. Handscomb had already tweeted an explanation for the incident saying he had asked Smith to look up because he didn’t know the playing conditions.Once the ICC received this complaint, it spoke to Johri and CA CEO James Sutherland, who were both present in Mumbai, and impressed upon them that the charge BCCI wanted to press was near impossible to prove. The drama ended late in the night, when the joint statement was released at 11.28pm.It said: “The BCCI will withdraw the complaint filed with ICC with an expectation that the two captains will meet prior to the Ranchi Test and commit to lead their teams by example and play the rest of the series, in the right spirit, demonstrating that the players from both teams are true ambassadors for their respective countries.”This should put end to a hostile aftermath of the Bengaluru Test, in which both the boards and their media wings became active participants. BCCI’s official Twitter handle released a clip of Smith’s dismissal with the caption “dressing room review system?”. On Thursday, Sutherland called Kohli’s claims “outrageous”, and the BCCI responded in a media release that it stood behind its captain.*18.00GMT, March 9: This article was updated after the BCCI withdrew its complaint.

Suryakumar Yadav has been added to Mumbai’s 14-member squad for the 50-overs Vijay Hazare Trophy after he tendered an apology to the Mumbai Cricket Association for retweeting a post on Twitter that questioned his exclusion from the team for the Inter-state T20 tournament.”The president has accepted his apology and he has been cleared to play in the Vijay Hazare tournament. Surya had sent a letter yesterday and met with the president [Ashish Shelar] today,” MCA joint-secretary Unmesh Khanvilkar told ESPNcricinfo. “Surya wrote in his letter that such things wouldn’t happen in the future. He also said that it was the agency [that manages him] that had retweeted the post.”The Mumbai batsman had earlier been asked to show cause and appear before the MCA’s managing committee. Consequently, Suryakumar’s selection for the Vijay Hazare Trophy inter-state one-day tournament had been withheld pending the committee’s decision.Khanvilkar said on Tuesday that players were not allowed to comment on selection decisions on social media. Suryakumar, 26, has been involved in a few controversies over the last few years. Last year, Suryakumar was let off with a warning for tweeting his displeasure at opener Jay Bista’s omission from the Mumbai side for their semi-final game against Madhya Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy. He had also quit as Mumbai captain midway through an underwhelming 2014-15 season. At that point he was reprimanded by MCA officials after some players complained against him for using abusive language on the field and in the dressing room.Mumbai will take on defending champions Gujarat in the opening match of the tournament on February 25.

India’s most experienced bowler in the T20 squad, Ashish Nehra, has said picking up early wickets and, later on, the scalp of Ben Stokes were key to turning things around in their five-run win in the second T20 in Nagpur. England were well placed chasing a target of 145 with 42 required from five overs and seven wickets in hand but Jasprit Bumrah and Nehra choked the flow of runs in four of those five overs, claiming three wickets between them in the period.”When you are defending a score like 145, it is important to pick up a wicket up front, which we got in my [second] over,” Nehra said. “It puts pressure on the batsmen. With the wicket slow, if you take two, three wickets early then the batsmen will be on the back foot. If Amit Mishra had not bowled a no-ball, we could have been in the game earlier.”Nehra had opened the bowling with Yuzvendra Chahal and went for only five runs in his first over before dismissing attacking openers Sam Billings and Jason Roy at the beginning of his second over to finish his spell on 2-0-7-2. When Nehra came back to bowl, England were 32 away from the target with four overs left.”I knew [the 17th] had to be the over where we had to pull it off,” Nehra said. “Luckily it happened – that over went for five or six and Ben Stokes got out. We were back in the game, but my last over was fine till the last ball went for a six. Had I picked up a wicket, we would have had 15 to defend in the final over and Jasprit Bumrah’s bowling is not easy to score [off]. He still did the job.”Mishra, who came into the XI for Parvez Rasool, had also brought India back in the middle overs when he dismissed Eoin Morgan with an uncharacteristic offspinner in the 11th over and then bowled Stokes two balls later for a first-ball duck before a check with the third umpire revealed he had overstepped for a no-ball. Stokes went on to score 38 off 27 balls and nearly saw England through.Bumrah has emerged as India’s most potent death-overs bowler and bowled three of the last five overs for only 14 runs. England were still favourites when the last over started with eight runs needed and Joe Root, on 38, on strike but Bumrah dismissed him and then Jos Buttler two balls later to turn the tables on England. Bumrah finished with figures of 4-0-20-2, the eighth time he has conceded fewer than six runs per over while completing a full four-over quota in the 23 T20Is he has played. Nehra explained how Bumrah’s success is down to his precision with the older ball, compared to his own forte of taking wickets with the new ball.”Bumrah’s strength is bowling with the old ball – whether it’s the slower ball or yorker,” Nehra said. “He’s learning day by day and he will only get better from here. In the one-day series, we saw 350 and 380 were scored but Jasprit Bumrah still bowled five or at least three overs in the end.”Even though Bumrah conceded nine runs in the 16th over – when he came back into the attack – it was Nehra who kept India’s chances alive by conceding only five runs in the next over, which also included Stokes’ wicket. When England needed 24 form 12 balls, Nehra bowled his last over in which Jos Buttler clubbed the left-arm pacer for a four and six to bring the equation down to eight from six balls.”When you are bowling in the death you are always under pressure in T20, but still you have to back yourself,” Nehra said. “You practice the skills in the nets, but I personally feel as a bowler it is mental toughness that counts. Last five balls were fine, but then the last ball went for a six. I was confident after Buttler got out Jasprit will do the job.”Bumrah did finish the job even though England were only four wickets down and needed eight from the final over. Two wickets and another two dot balls meant England fell short of India’s total by five runs.

ScorecardSam Billings arrived back from England duty at 3am, but couldn’t save the day for his county•Getty Images

Around 3am this morning, Sam Billings checked into Kent’s team hotel in Bromley. He had just completed the long drive down from Old Trafford, where he had been 12th man during England’s T20 defeat against Pakistan, and not released until after the game had been completed.After five hours’ sleep, Billings arrived at Beckenham to prepare himself for the third day of Kent’s Championship match with Northamptonshire. He netted for several hours, readjusting to the red ball after training for several days against the white ball – in vain as it turned out.At 10.55 this morning, Billings walked out to the crease after the dismissal of Sam Northeast, Kent’s batting totem all season. Kent were 22 for 5 and still trailed by 132 runs. They had to clear that deficit, and add another 200 runs or so, if they were to have a chance of gaining the victory their season depended on. It was time for a returning hero.Initially, Billings did not seem like one. He edged his very first ball, from the relentlessly probing Ben Sanderson, through the slips, and a couple of other boundaries followed from edges. Yet there were glimpses – a cut off Sanderson, an extra-cover drive off Azharullah – that Billings’ late night drive would be vindicated, and he would be the hero Kent needed.In the last over before lunch, Billings shaped to drive, and then pulled his bat away: as if he had thought he was playing a T20, only to remind himself at the last split-second that this was a first-class game. The indecision proved fatal: Billings’ did not lift his bat up in time, and the ball took an inside edge to uproot his off stump. As he trudged off, the fate of this game went with him. His efforts had been to no avail.Kent could certainly feel aggrieved. By reducing Division One to eight teams from next year, and allowing only one team to win promotion this season, the ECB had already hampered their chances of returning to the top tier for the first time since 2010, before plucking their best young batsman away from such a crucial fixture.Given that there are those who think that Billings could one day play in Test cricket too, it is debatable whether he learned as much from training with the England squad for two days than he would have done from playing a full part in the most important Championship game yet in Kent’s season.A few hours later, Kent had to accept that a season’s worth of fine Championship cricket would not be enough to secure promotion. A fourth successive victory would have kept up the pressure on Essex, ahead of what could have been a winner-takes-all showdown at Canterbury next week. But instead this three-day defeat effectively scuppered them. Five points from their game in hand, against Glamorgan on Monday, will put Essex out of reach come what may.Northants, meanwhile, could celebrate their win with a raucous sing-song. They had not merely beaten the second-placed side in Division Two; they had thumped them. If their first-innings total of 384 was underpinned by a brilliant double hundred from Ben Duckett, well-supported by Alex Wakely, then they showed the depth of their bowling stocks to take Kent’s 20 wickets for a cost of just 414 in the match.Rory Kleinveldt bowled superbly all match, swinging the ball late to claim eight wickets, but he had a coterie of fine support acts. Steven Crook took four wickets in the match, including the critical blows of Hardus Viljoen, driving once too often after a 63 that had been laced with powerful shots down the ground, and Billings in consecutive overs before lunch. Sanderson was remorseless in his line and length. And Rob Keogh, who will surely never replicate his nine-wicket haul last week, again suggested that he can be more than a serviceable offspinner.Northants’ sense of optimism is palpable. A year that has brought a second T20 Blast victory in four seasons, and a quarter-final spot in the Royal London One-Day Cup, has now yielded consecutive Championship victories. This was, in Wakely’s belief, a complete performance. While the upturn in Northants’ Championship form has come far too late for a tilt at promotion, he reckoned that was no bad thing. “Promotion would have been too early for us, with where we are as a squad,” he said.David Ripley, the head coach, left Beckenham early to return to Wantage Road. Tonight the ground will host an Extraordinary General Meeting, where members will be asked to vote to cede control of the club to a limited company, NCCC Holdings, to generate more investment. Wakely is among those who supports the move, believing that it will enable Northants to replicate the success of Northampton Saints, who became an incorporated company in 2000 and have been able to invest more in their squad and sporting facilities since.While Northants “went nowhere” after winning the T20 Blast in 2013, Wakely is convinced that this time can be different.And the most obvious reason of all for optimism lies in Ben Duckett who, rather inevitably, scored the winning run: he is on the brink of signing a new contract. Wakely reckons that he can be as good as AB de Villiers, and urged England to take him to Bangladesh. “He needs to be fast-tracked into the England team, as Joe Root was,” he said. “Who knows how good he can be?”

David Warner, patient? In Sri Lanka, he knows he needs to be. Almost two years since his last Test hundred overseas, Warner is emphasising long innings and strike rotation as the keys to Australia’s success in Sri Lanka, and also in India next year.Not since a century in the first Test against Pakistan in Dubai in October 2014 has Warner topped three figures away from home ports, scoring minimally in the West Indies last year and then squandering plenty of starts in the Ashes as he tried to adapt his game. While conscious of not losing his natural attacking instincts, Warner said there would need to be more nuance to the way the Australia’s top order confronts Sri Lanka’s spin bowlers in particular.”The challenge for us is about batting long periods of time,” Warner said in Pallekele. “We know that’s what wins games in these conditions. You’ve got to be able to bat well into the next day and that’s the focus for us. It’s about adapting to these conditions, adapting to the things that are thrown at us and we have to take those challenges. It’s not about challenging specific bowlers. There are times in games when you might need to apply some pressure.”You’ve got to be patient enough. You’ve got to rotate the strike. Your patience comes with hitting your four-balls, your boundary balls. They’re the ones you’ve got to really wait on. That’s what we’re talking about with patience in this game, especially over here. You’ve got to bite the bullet.”[Rotating the strike] is the key, especially with a right-hand, left-hand combination, to try to mix it up a bit with the bowlers. These days a lot of teams either have a left-arm orthodox [spinner] or a right-arm offie. You’ve always got to try to rotate the strike and that’s the most important thing when it comes to playing spin or playing fast bowlers as well. Try to put the bowlers off a little bit.”Asked about his lack of hundreds away from home in recent times, Warner said he would be trying to balance attack and defence. “I always try my best,” he said. “If I have to bat for a day or a day-and-a-half, I go out there and I try to do that. But the element of my game is to try to score runs. I try to apply pressure on the bowlers and that has always been my game plan. That’s what I always set out to do and I probably won’t change that. It has been a while since I’ve scored a hundred outside the country. We’ve got to start well, bat long periods of time.”Tactically, Warner is expecting the series to be fought on an attritional basis at times, as the Australians try to adapt to a slower Asian Test match tempo while Sri Lanka set defensive fields and seek to prey on the visitors’ patience. “You’re going to have to be prepared for some boring fields. Both teams are going to use that,” he said. “You’re going to have your sweepers out there, especially for the spinners. You are going to have your fielders in the deep, so you have to be prepared to get your runs in ones and twos.”Whoever is the fittest team will probably win the games. It can be like that in these conditions. Unless you’re going to blast them out of the park with the bat or your quicks somehow manage to go through them on low tracks, it is going to be a big grind. It is going to be a big grind. That’s where the spinners play a big role.”Warner believes the IPL experience has helped him approach spin better•BCCI

Warner excelled as a captain earlier this year when he led Sunrisers Hyderabad to their first IPL title. As deputy to Steven Smith for Australia, he is looking to provide an example to players further down the order, making use of the Indian experience he has gleaned over the past decade. Tellingly, he said that practice pitches were often more useful than the strips used for matches.”Times have changed. It’s a bit different,” Warner said of how his methods against spin had evolved. “That’s the fortunate thing for us to go over and play IPL. I’ve been over for eight years, nine years in a row now. It’s the experience you gain from training on the wickets there, you can actually use that to your advantage. Yes it’s a white ball, but still the conditions and the surfaces, once they deteriorate, get quite challenging.”In that form of the game, you have to try to score. So it gives you a bit of an advantage to actually, one, look to score but then improvise as well when you play Test cricket. The game’s about moving forward and we try to get on with the game and try to score. It gives you an advantage to look for those scoring options rather than just trying to survive. But then again, it does suit you in certain areas to get back in your crease and use your feet to survive as well.”Nathan Lyon and Steve O’Keefe have trained with near-new balls in the nets at Pallakele, and Warner said there would be times when both sides throw the ball to the spinners early on. “A lot of teams have done that in the past in subcontinent conditions – we also saw that with Pakistan in the UAE,” he said.”I think the harder the ball, the more inconsistency with spin and variation and that’s probably the main thing that skippers like to use. Plus the bounce. I think you’ll see that more in the second innings of the game; in the first innings, you probably won’t see it too much unless we’re trying to dry up one end for both teams.”Warner is entering the series with a fractured finger in the final stages of healing after he broke it during the ODI series in the West Indies. This is added to the thumb he has broken more than once, meaning he needs special reinforcement in his gloves and can expect to be dealing with pain when he bats and also, at times, in the field. Usman Khawaja has been practising to field in the slips, but Warner will be closer to the bat for the spinners, either at leg slip or second slip.”It’s going well at the moment. A couple of times when I’ve hit on the toe [of the bat] it’s been a bit painful,” Warner said. “I’ve experienced that before with the thumb but just with the game moving forward I’ll do the same thing I did with the thumb – put a guard over the top that’s underneath the glove and has a bit of silicon feel to it and stops a bit of vibration. But I should be ready to go.”

A cohort of South Africa’s Test players will begin their preparations for the floodlit Test against Australia later in the year by facing the pink ball in the A-team series in Brisbane.The opening four-day game against Australia A at Allan Border Field will be a first experience of facing the pink ball in first-class for the South Africans, albeit this match will be in daytime conditions.The South Africa A squad includes nine Test players, including captain Stephen Cook who made his Test debut against England in January, with some of them having a good chance of being in the squad for the full of Australia tour which starts in October and includes South Africa’s first day-night Test in Adelaide from November 24.The other Test players on this tour are Dean Elgar, Temba Bavuma, Wayne Parnell, Vernon Philander, Dane Piedt, Stiaan van Zyl, Dane Vilas and Hardus Viljoen. Elgar and Bavuma are established in the Test line-up while Piedt is currently the frontline spinner.There had been initial reluctance from the South Africans to play a Test under lights with a lack of preparation and experience in such conditions being a major factor. However, after much behind-the-scenes work an agreement was reached to mean that Australia will host two day-night Tests in their season with Pakistan also playing under lights at the Gabba in December.”The guys are really on a high and looking forward to the first game,” Cook said. “It will be the first time the guys play with the pink ball in a first-class match, so the guys have prepared for that and are very excited about that.The second match of the series will be played in Townsville from August 6-9, before a one-day series that also involves India A, Australia A and a National Performance Squad begins on August 13.

Bipul Sharma’s four-wicket haul set up Mohammedan Sporting Club‘s six-wicket win against Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club in a match shortened by rain in Mirpur. The win confirmed Mohammedan’s place in the Super League, as they finished on top of the points table with 14 points. Dhanmondi’s hopes of a top-six finish ended, although they kept themselves safe from relegation, finishing their campaign with 10 points.A wet pitch delayed the start by two hours, after which Mohammedan decided to bowl in the 42-overs-a-side game.In the first over, pacer Nazmul Hossain removed Abdullah Al Mamun with a snorter that was easily caught by Naeem Islam, who walked back a few steps from his position at first slip. Mahbubul Karim, who top scored with 29, and Marshall Ayub added 56 for the second wicket before both batsmen fell quickly.Nazmus Sadat and captain Mahmudullah added 42 for the fifth wicket, before Zabid Hossain and tail-ender Shafiul Islam added a further 45 for the eighth, in only 6.2 overs, as Dhanmondi finished on 187 for 8.Bipul took 4 for 24 while Nazmul, Habibur Rahman, Shubashis Roy and Naeem Islam jnr picked up one each.Mohammedan also lost an early wicket in their reply, when left-arm spinner Abdur Rahman had Ezaz Ahmed caught and bowled in the second over. His opening partner Habibur was also caught and bowled, by Mahmudullah, but Mushfiqur Rahim dropped anchor and added 73 runs for the third wicket with Naeem Islam. Both batsmen scored fifties to give Mohammedan a strong base in the chase.Thereafter, Mushfiqur and Bipul added 70 runs for the fourth wicket, the partnership taking Mohammedan within seven runs of victory. Mushfiqur was unbeaten on 66 off 82 balls with seven fours and two sixes. Bipul struck three fours and two sixes in his 25-ball 34.Mahmudullah signed off the season with returns of 3 for 52.The match between Legends of Rupganj and Brothers Union was called off early and moved to the reserve day, Thursday, due to a “wet pitch,” according to the Cricket Committee of Dhaka Metropolis, the BCB standing committee that runs the DPL.