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Usman Khawaja expects to be dropped from Australia’s ODI team the moment Aaron Finch is fit after a finger fracture, despite his Man of the Match-winning turn against Ireland in the opening match of the South Africa tour.Clearly benefiting from conditions more familiar than those witnessed recently in Sri Lanka, Khawaja stroked his way to an unbeaten 82 in the company of David Warner and Steven Smith. While hopeful the innings meant a turnaround from his wretched times in Sri Lanka, Khawaja had no illusions about where he now stood in the limited-overs order of preference.”You can never count your chickens in cricket or in life, you can’t get too far ahead,” he said. “I’m only here because Shaun Marsh hurt a finger and Finch was out with a broken finger as well, so I got an opportunity opening the batting. To get out there and be Man of the Match first game of the tour is a really nice feeling.”Nice to get out there early on, I enjoy opening the batting in shorter form cricket, so it was good fun and with Davey at the other end going berserk it made life a lot easier.”It was a tough time over there [in Sri Lanka], it’s been a tough couple of months. So from an individual point of view it’s nice to get out there and score some runs. We played some really good cricket the back half of Sri Lanka, but I still didn’t contribute the way I wanted to contribute over there, so I had a tough time there, but glad I could contribute to a win first up here.”The Australians were quickly into a groove against Ireland, and now face a South Africa side shorn of AB de Villiers due to injury. Khawaja said it was useful to pick up the winning habit instantly in South Africa, and acknowledged the hosts would have to be weakened by de Villiers’ enforced absence.”We won and that’s the main thing,” Khawaja said. “You want to win as much as you can and keep reaffirming that winning feeling. Winning is a habit, it’s a cliche but it’s true, the more you win, the more natural it becomes. Every game you play we want to win every time, whether it’s a dead rubber or a final, because that’ll keep us in good stead for really close games.”I don’t know who’s going to take over [AB’s] role but they’ve got big shoes to fill, he’s one of the best batsmen in the world. Looking at it from that point of view it’s never nice to see a player not play, especially someone like AB because he brings a lot of people through the gates and that’s what it’s all about in the end. But he’s a big player for them, so they are weakened, but South Africa have a lot of depth.”

ScorecardRob Keogh will be signing more autographs after his eye-catching feat•Getty Images

Rob Keogh’s 9 for 52 and Ben Duckett’s 185 from 159 balls put Northamptonshire in complete control after day two against Glamorgan at Wantage Road. The home side declared their second innings 305 for 7 leaving Glamorgan 451 to win and they survived three overs to the close without score.The day turned remarkably after Rob Keogh’s morning spell – his 9 for 52 was the sixth-best return in Northamptonshire’s history – helped bowl Glamorgan out for just 124 in the morning session.”Three-for was my best before so it wasn’t expected but it’s spinning, we saw their young bowler spin a couple and we were saying if he can get wickets, we must have a chance too,” Keogh said. “It’s been coming out really nicely this year, I’ve been bowling pretty well but I haven’t had much luck but together it came together.”With the ball spitting out of rough outside the right handers’ off stump from the Wilson End, it appeared the game would move on very quickly after Glamorgan lasted only one session on the second day. But Duckett was seemingly playing on a different wicket as Northants looked to build on a first-innings lead of 145.He slapped seven fours and two sixes – the second a graceful lofted drive off Owen Morgan – to race to fifty in just 30 balls. His second fifty was more sedate but a glorious extra-cover drive off Michael Hogan and a steered pull against Tim van der Gugten, raised a century in 81 balls and then past a thousand Championship runs for the summer for the first time – the first Northants batsman to achieve the feat since Stephen Peters in 2010.Duckett went on to post his third best first-class score. Taking three consecutive boundaries from Graham Wagg – bowling his left-arm spin – with sweeps either side of deep midwicket. But trying to loft van der Gugten down the ground, he found Michael Hogan at mid-on. His season strike-rate (from all the cricket he has played) stands at 99.42It ended the second fabulous performance of the day after Keogh’s exploits in the first session. His return was the seventh instance of a nine-wicket innings haul for Northants and the best figures for the county against Glamorgan.Finding significant help outside the right-handers’ off stump from the Wilson End – from where Kiran Carlson took four of his 5 for 28 on day one – Keogh floated Glamorgan to destruction. Genuine dismissals were mixed in with poor strokes as the visitors found no way to overcome the off spinner.Keogh struck in the fourth over of the morning with Nick Selman sharply held at short leg by Saif Zaib. Will Bragg followed lbw to Keogh’s arm ball. David Lloyd tried to be positive and use his feet but found a sharply turning ball beat his off drive.Then followed two naive sweeps from out of the rough by Anuerin Donald and Carlson – both caught by Chad Barrett at backward square-leg. Graham Wagg advanced to both his deliveries – the second of which he wasn’t to the pitch off and gloved a catch to short leg.At that stage, Keogh had 6 for 25. But any dreams of just the second 10-wicket haul for Northamptonshire were dashed as Graeme White found turn into the left-handed Jacques Rudolph, whose composed innings of 37 came to an end with a catch at leg slip. But Keogh cleaned up the tail to complete a nine-for and put Northants firmly in control of the match.

ScorecardHaseeb Hameed continued to notch up the landmarks in a memorable season•Getty Images

A day that began with the acclamation due to a new young champion ended with many spectators questioning the tactical judgement of the current champions after the 269th Roses match had ended in a somewhat mystifying draw at Old Trafford. However, since cricket is, above all, a team game, let us leave the glittering talent of Haseeb Hameed for later consideration and proceed immediately to the issues that were puzzling some spectators as they left the ground on Tuesday evening.The facts are these and it is important to keep a tight grip on them: in the morning session Lancashire scored 162 runs in 23 overs before declaring on 232 for 3. That closure challenged Yorkshire to score 367 in 71 overs to win the game and thereby close the gap on  Middlesex to 15 points, with Andrew Gale’s team having a game in hand on the leaders.Although Adam Lyth was dropped in the gully by Alviro Petersen when he had made 3, he and Alex Lees batted in untroubled fashion for the entire afternoon session and Yorkshire were 148 for 0 off 41 overs at tea. At that point the visitors needed 219 off 30 overs, an asking rate of 7.3 runs an over. Demanding? Most certainly, but nothing that this Yorkshire side is not used to tackling in an era of T20 cricket.This is not T20, though, and that needs to be borne in mind when considering Yorkshire’s decisions. Bowlers can bowl higher and wider than they can in the short-form game and they can bowl as many overs as needed. Moreover, fields can be set more or less as a skipper wishes: nine men on the boundary if you like. This was also, of course, a fourth day wicket, although the ease with which Lees and Lyth added 188 runs in 52 overs suggested that it was hardly littered with unexploded bombs.All the same, with absolutely nothing to lose but a few wickets in an attempt to secure what would have been a most wonderful victory Yorkshire agreed the draw when they required 179 runs off 19 overs with all their wickets to spend. Fifty years ago such a decision may have seemed explicable although it is doubtful whether Brian Close would have opted against having a gamble. After all, who turns down a free lottery ticket, even if the odds are massively stacked against winning? Yorkshire, one thought, might at least have given it a go.Their first team coach, Jason Gillespie, took a different view. “Chasing was in the back of our minds. We thought we’d assess at tea, which we did. We thought ‘let’s keeping batting and we’ll get feedback from Lythy and Leesy’ he said. “They are the two lads who were out there. Their feedback was that with the deteriorating pitch, it would be a big challenge for them to go for it, let alone a new batter coming in. If it was 40 or 50 fewer runs, absolutely we’d have had a crack.”There were a couple of those moments where we thought ‘come on, we can do this’. Leesy and Lythy are always very much if push comes to shove, they want to take the attacking option. But both their feedback was the same. They felt that the pitch was deteriorating.”Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lancashire’s director of cricket, Ashley Giles, took a slightly different view. “We were a little bit nervous on the balcony,” he admitted. “When they got to that position with none down we perhaps thought they might have gone on a little bit longer. But that’s their decision and nothing to do with us. We are happy to come out if it with a strong draw against a very good team.”And perhaps no one wearing the red rose was happier in his humble, self-effacing fashion on Tuesday evening than Hameed, who, when he reached a century off the ball immediately before Lancashire’s declaration, became the youngest batsman in the history English first-class cricket to score two centuries in a match.There is going to be ballyhoo and there is going to be hype. That was almost certain well before half-past twelve when Hameed pushed Adil Rashid to cover point for the single which made him the first Lancashire batsman to score two centuries in a Roses match and only the third batsman from either side to do so. Percy Holmes, in 1920, and Ted Lester, in 1948, were the others. Once Hameed had joined them, however, a tide of remarkable statistics continued to flow in, proclaiming the emergence of one of the most talented opening batsmen the English game has seen, at least since the emergence of Alastair Cook.When he reached 70 in this innings, Hameed became the youngest Lancashire player to make a thousand runs in a Championship season. He is also the first teenage opener from any county to make four centuries in a Championship season. And he hasn’t stopped breaking records yet. In fact, he has only just begun.So the glare of national publicity will soon be turned on the head of this 19-year-old Boltonian who wants nothing more from life than to be allowed to pursue his vocation as a professional cricketer. Fortunately, one senses that despite his inexperience, Hameed is well able to cope with all the attention that will come his way. Amid all the questions and doubts that surrounded this day’s cricket, that much is certain. It is a comforting thought on a strange evening.

The PCB has bought four bulletproof buses as part of its effort to provide the “best possible arrangements” in terms of security for players visiting the country. The board hopes the additional measure, first proposed during the chairmanship of Zaka Ashraf in 2012 and sanctioned last year, will help in convincing overseas players and teams to tour Pakistan.Barring Zimbabwe’s limited-overs tour in May 2015, Pakistan have not hosted an international game since the attacks on the touring Sri Lankan team in Lahore in March 2009. In that incident, gunmen shot at the team bus near Gaddafi Stadium, injuring five cricketers and killing six security personnel and two civilians.The PCB has since struggled to convince teams to tour the country and Pakistan have had to play their “home” matches at neutral venues, mostly in the UAE, which has been their base for the past several years.”We have bought these four Coaster buses as part of our efforts to revive international cricket in the country,” a PCB spokesman told ESPNcricinfo. “There will be high expectations from teams willing to visit Pakistan and we want to ensure that we provide them with the best possible arrangements. Having these bulletproof vehicles would play a major part in convincing teams [about security arrangements].”The PCB relies heavily on the government for security arrangements for visiting teams and the bulletproof buses will be an additional safety measure for teams travelling within the city. The buses were initially sanctioned at a PCB governing board meeting in 2012, but with the change of leadership the purchase was delayed. The matter was taken up again by PCB executive committee head Najam Sethi last year.”We are actually planning to host the PSL final in Lahore, but this requires us to convince overseas players to come,” the PCB spokesman said. “We have to have discussions with the players about their safety and security and I think this new addition in our security facilities will definitely give us an edge. Our ultimate goal is to revive international cricket, and we are doing our best to make sure we can.”The PCB has suffered financially from having to arrange matches in the UAE and from missing out on bilateral series against India. This prompted PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan to suggest that the Pakistan board should receive a “higher percentage of the income” from matches against India at ICC events.

Middlesex 294 for 7 (McCullum 110, Malan 70, Ingram 3-38) beat Glamorgan 266 (Ingram 85, Rudolph 45, Fuller 3-53) by 28 runs
ScorecardDawid Malan enjoyed a good day after his England call with runs and wickets•Getty Images

Brendon McCullum hit 110 off 85 balls and Dawid Malan produced a telling all-round display, scoring 70 and taking two wickets, the day after his England call-up as Middlesex secured a 28-run victory against Glamorgan in Cardiff.Despite another masterful innings from Colin Ingram, who scored 85 from 73 balls, Glamorgan were beaten for the first time although they remain top of the table ahead of their break from this competition before resuming in the first week of August.Middlesex, who were put in to bat on a good pitch, made a respectable 294 for 7, but after an opening partnership of 176 in 27 overs between McCullum and Malan, they would have expected to have reached a total in excess of 350.On the ground where he scored 160 on his Championship debut for Glamorgan against Leicestershire 10 years ago, McCullum was soon into his stride, striking boundaries on both sides of the wicket, but he was reprieved on 49, when a leading edge was dropped off Craig Meschede at mid-off.He then raced to his first century for Middlesex, but after scoring 110 from only 85 balls with 11 fours and five sixes he struck a full toss to long-off.Earlier, Malan, who was named in England’s T20 squad on Monday for the forthcoming game against Sri Lanka, played a composed innings of 70 before touching one to the wicketkeeper.From a strong position, Middlesex then suffered a mid-innings collapse, as Ingram settled into an accurate 10-over spell with impressive figures of 3 for 38. Eoin Morgan played a laboured innings of 10 from 16 balls, which included eight singles, until he swept Ingram to deep square leg.Glamorgan’s bowlers were so effective that no boundaries were struck between the 30th and 46th overs, and it needed a partnership of 46 in 26 balls between Toby Roland-Jones and Ollie Rayner to boost Middlesex’s total.Needing to score at six runs an over, Glamorgan’s openers Jacques Rudolph and David Lloyd made a rapid start, reaching 50 from the first ball of the eighth over with Lloyd striking Roland-Jones for three fours in his third over. He scored 41 from 29 balls, before pulling a short ball from James Fuller to Paul Stirling on the long leg boundary.Rudolph and Will Bragg then added a useful 49 before Rudolph was caught behind from James Franklin’s fifth ball of his opening over. Bragg soon followed and at the half-way stage Glamorgan required a further 174 with seven wickets in hand.Franklin, obtaining movement from the River End, halted Glamorgan’s progress and took his third wicket when Aneurin Donald wafted at one outside the off stump.Ingram and Chris Cooke then settled in to their stand, playing every ball on merit, with Ingram reaching his third consecutive one-day fifty from 47 balls. With ten overs remaining, Glamorgan needed a further 87, but Franklin’s gamble paid off when he brought Malan on to bowl his occasional legspin with Cooke holing out at long-on, and Meschede falling in similar fashion.Ingram, however kept going until the 47th over when he drove Fuller to long-on and with him went his team’s hopes of maintaining a 100% record.

ScorecardJoe Leach completed a memorable match as he helped run through Leicestershire•Getty Images

The deteriorating pitch played its part, but the Leicestershire batsmen did not help themselves in being bowled out for 43 in their second innings in 25 overs on the third day against Worcestershire at Grace Road. It left the visitors just 86 to win, a target they reached for the loss of three wickets.Leicestershire’s previous lowest score against Worcestershire was 52, made in 1965. The total is the lowest made in the Championship since Lancashire bowled Essex out for 20 at Chelmsford in 2013.There was little indication of the mayhem to come when Leicestershire picked up the two first innings wickets remaining to Worcestershire overnight, Jack Shantry caught at first slip and last man Charlie Morris run out in his eagerness to get Matt Henry his half-century.Thereafter, however, it was chaos. Henry struck in his first over, Paul Horton edging an outswinger low to third slip, but while Neil Dexter could do little about a Joe Leach delivery that rose and took the shoulder of the bat before flying straight to point, skipper Mark Cosgrove was playing a disappointingly airy drive to the Henry inswinger which disturbed the left-hander’s off-stump.With the score 11 for 3, Mark Pettini then decided the time was right to risk a quick single to a misfield and paid the price, Ross Whiteley throwing down the stumps from wide gully. The Leach delivery which pinned Angus Robson on the back foot both seamed back and kept low, before, astonishingly, another risky single saw Aadil Ali run out by a Brett D’Oliveira throw which took out middle stump.Wells went the same way as Robson, though his foot movement was minimal, and Ben Raine then fenced at an ordinary delivery from Henry and edged to the wicketkeeper.Niall O’Brien reached 17 before edging Leach to Whiteley at third slip, while Henry produced another fine delivery to bowl McKay. Having taken 5 for 99 in the first innings, Leach’s 4 for 10 gave him career-best match figures of 9 for 109.Leicestershire did pick up three wickets during Worcestershire’s chase, though once again the pitch could not be blamed for Daryl Mitchell dabbing at a wide delivery and edging McKay to O’Brien, or for Whiteley – promoted to hit out – dumping McKay to mid-on, but D’Oliveira could do little about the delivery from McKay that left him and took the edge on its way through to O’Brien.

Hampshire thrashed Kent Spitfires by 163 runs in the Royal London Cup at Beckenham, after a sensational 181 by Tom Prest.The 19-year-old creamed the Kent attack to every corner of the ground in an innings of 138 balls, which included seven sixes. Prest put on a stand of 207 with Nick Gubbins, who himself hit 117 from 107 balls, as the visitors posted 396 for 5 from their 50 overs, a club-record List A total.Hamid Qadri was the pick of Kent’s bowlers, but even his two wickets came at the cost of 71 balls and the Spitfires slumped from 45 without loss to 233 all out in a run chase that looked doomed as soon as wickets began to fall. Jack Campbell had Hampshire’s best figures with 4 for 44, while Alex Blake was Kent’s top scorer with 62.The word was that the wicket wasn’t a typical Beckenham road but Kent’s decision to field looked rash, as an attack that had to do without Grant Stewart, who was playing purely as a batter due to a heel injury, struggled to make any impression.Related

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A healthy crowd of over around 1,800 saw Hampshire’s openers made 49 without loss before Nathan Gilchrist bowled Aneurin Donald for 21, but that was the hosts’ last success for over two hours, as Gubbins and Prest flayed the bowling.Gubbins cut Joey Evison for four to reach his 50, while Prest survived an early appeal for a catch after reverse-sweeping Qadri and reached his half-century by hitting George Linde for six over cow corner.Gubbins’ century arrived during a bruising over for allrounder Joey Evison that went for 17. Prest took five from the first two balls and Gubbins hit 12 from the remaining four.Prest glanced Gilchrist for two to reach three figures, but the stand was finally broken when Qadri took two wickets in the 38th over. Gubbins finally fell when he was caught by Gilchrist and the hosts’s hopes were fleetingly raised when Ben Brown was caught by sub fielder George Ealham for just 2.They quickly nosedived again as Toby Albert joined Prest and made a rapid 35 before he was lbw to Navdeep Saini.Prest drove Quinn for four to pass 150 and eventually perished in the 50th over when he holed out to Gilchrist and was caught on the boundary by Ealham.It said something about the way the innings had gone that the home fans were relieved Hampshire hadn’t reached 400 and Kent made a solid enough start to the chase, reaching 45 without loss before Ben Compton was caught by Fletcha Middleton off John Turner for 24.Campbell then quickly removed both Tawanda Muyeye and Ollie Robinson. The latter made 40 before he was caught behind and Robinson was caught by Scott Currie for 22.Felix Organ had Joey Evison caught for one by Ian Holland and when Prest then had George Linde caught by Holland for 3, Kent were 113 for 5 and fans were already starting to leave.They missed some fireworks from Blake, but he rapidly ran out of partners. Stewart offered some brief entertainment with 15 before he fell to a steepling catch by Donald off Organ.Blake smacked Prest for a six over long-off to reach 50 and stood his ground after a strong appeal for a catch off Organ, but then fell to a superb diving catch by Donald in the same over, the brilliance of which was nearly matched by Albert when sprinted to remove Qadri off Currie for seven.Campbell had Matt Quinn caught by Holland for eight and despite some late hitting by Gilchrist, who made his highest List A score of 33, the rout was completed when he swished Campbell to Gubbins.

Head coach Sanath Jayasuriya couldn’t believe Sri Lanka had bottled yet another last over against India in their Asia Cup Super Fours game in Dubai.Their loss instantly brought back memories from July 2024, when they squandered what should have been a straightforward chase against India. On that scarcely believable night in Pallekele, Sri Lanka needed just nine runs from two overs with six wickets in hand. Yet, they stumbled against the bowling of Rinku Singh and Suryakumar Yadav as the game went into a Super Over, where they managed just one run, which Suryakumar took one delivery to score.On Friday, Sri Lanka needed 12 runs to win in the last over with six wickets remaining and centurion Pathum Nissanka on strike. But he fell immediately and when Dasun Shanaka hit the last ball towards wide long-on with Sri Lanka needing three to win, there was a chance of closing out the game in regulation time. Except, Shanaka sprawled a full-length dive to complete the second run to level the scores, anticipating the throw to be fired at his end, completely unaware that Kuldeep Yadav had misfielded and that there could have been a chance for a third. It meant the game was to be decided in the Super Over, where Sri Lanka stumbled again.Related

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“I would’ve preferred to finish games in normal time,” Jayasuriya said at the post-match press conference. “No captain or coach wants to go to a Super Over. Unfortunately, Dasun missed completing the third run. But no, there’s no mental block against India. Our batting line-up is strong, and we’ve given them confidence. Chasing 200 (203) is never easy, but we almost did it, which shows the quality we have.”There is no doubting Sri Lanka’s class or quality, and few embody it better than Nissanka. Having first broken through as a Test batter in 2021, he has since blossomed into a formidable white-ball player. Just last week, after the group stage, Nissanka spoke glowingly of Jayasuriya’s influence, and the freedom the coach has given him to develop a niche, along with a leeway for mistakes. On Friday, he repaid that faith in style, turning what looked a daunting chase of 203 into a stroll at one stage with a sublime 107 off 58 balls.What made the innings even more remarkable was the character behind it. Jayasuriya revealed afterwards that Nissanka had been carrying groin and hamstring niggles since the group stage. Yet, his determination to deliver for the team drove him through the pain. On a muggy night when as many as three Indian fielders cramped up, Nissanka put his body on the line.It took an ill-judged flick straight into the hands of Varun Chakravarthy at short fine leg with 12 needed off the final over to finally stop him. Jayasuriya was all praise for Nissanka and Kusal Perera, who scored 58 off 32 balls during their second-wicket stand of 127 in just 70 deliveries.2:01

‘SL will surprise some teams in T20 World Cup’

“When you’re chasing 202 (203), you have to keep finding boundaries,” Jayasuriya said. “Their partnership was the key. The momentum shifted when we started losing wickets. That’s natural in a chase because someone has to take risks. Sadly, Pathum got out at the wrong time, and later on, the ball began to turn more. Still, it was a very good game of cricket.”Kusal is one of the best players of spin in our team. He played that role well again, though I’d have liked him to bat longer. Both took calculated risks, and when they wanted boundaries, they executed them. Pathum also had a bit of a hamstring issue recently but still gave 100% for the team, which shows his commitment.”Sri Lanka will return home without a win in the Super Fours from their three games; such a result didn’t seem likely when they went through the group stages unbeaten, following wins against Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Hong Kong in what was dubbed as the group of death. Reflecting on their campaign and looking ahead to the next six months leading into the T20 World Cup in February, Jayasuriya stressed on the need for the batters to adapt faster to challenging conditions.”In T20 cricket, assessing conditions quickly is everything,” Jayasuriya said. “In Abu Dhabi, for example, the first-round pitches had pace and bounce, but in the second round, things changed, and we were too slow to adapt. That cost us. The disappointment was the Bangladesh match in the Super Four – 168 on that pitch was a good score, but we didn’t bowl well enough to defend it. Against Pakistan, we didn’t assess the conditions [in Abu Dhabi] quickly enough, and were late to adapt.”Today, India played very well to get over 200. Our boys showed they’re capable of chasing that, but again we just fell short. Apart from that Bangladesh game, I’m fairly satisfied, though disappointed not to reach the final. We have the batting and bowling quality. The key is to execute plans according to conditions and opposition. If we do that consistently, this team can go very far.”

Mike Hesson has been announced as head coach of the Pakistan white-ball team. The former New Zealand head coach, who is currently with PSL defending champions Islamabad United, will join the PCB from May 26, the day after the conclusion of the PSL 2025. The PCB have not officially revealed the length of Hesson’s contract, but ESPNcricinfo understands he has been appointed on a two-year deal.Hesson replaces Aqib Javed, who was interim head coach for five months, taking over after Gary Kirsten abruptly resigned six months into a two-year contract as head coach. Javed, meanwhile, has been appointed director of High Performance. ESPNcricinfo understands he will continue to remain in position as one of five voting members on the PCB selection committee, a position he continued to hold while serving as head coach.”I am pleased to announce the appointment of former New Zealand cricketer and renowned coach Mike Hesson as the white-ball head coach of the Pakistan men’s team,” PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi said. “Mike brings with him a wealth of international experience and a proven track record of developing competitive sides. We look forward to his expertise and leadership in shaping the future of Pakistan’s white-ball cricket. Welcome to the team, Mike!”Related

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The PCB pursued Hesson as their first priority as soon as the position became vacant in April. His first assignment is likely to be a five-match T20I series against Bangladesh at home, should it go ahead according to schedule.Hesson, 50, was appointed head coach of New Zealand in 2012, enjoying a highly successful six years in the position with the national side. Under Hesson, New Zealand became a dominant force at home and reached their first World Cup final in 2015, when they lost to Australia.He was appointed director of cricket for Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the IPL in 2019, before they parted ways in 2023.Pakistan do not currently have a red-ball coach, with no details on when one is expected to be appointed. Javed served as interim Test coach for Pakistan’s tour of South Africa and home series against West Indies at the turn of the year after Jason Gillespie quit the role six months into his stint. Pakistan’s next Test series comes at home against South Africa in October.

Gujarat Titans (GT) captain Shubman Gill was substituted out after their innings in the defeat to Rajasthan Royals (RR) on Monday night after “a little back spasm”, but hopes to be fit for their home game against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Friday.He made 84 off 50 balls opening the batting as GT posted 209 for 4 in Jaipur, but did not take the field for the second innings. He was replaced by Ishant Sharma, who was brought on as an Impact Player, while vice-captain Rashid Khan took over captaincy duties. GT fell to a heavy defeat, with teenager Vaibhav Suryavanshi hitting a stunning 35-ball hundred.Gill explained after the game that he was advised not to take the field by GT’s medical team as a precautionary move, with a short turnaround before their next match. “I just felt a little back spasm in my back, and we have a game a couple of days after from this,” Gill said before the post-match presentation. “The physio said [that we] didn’t want to take a chance.”Related

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GT have won six of their first nine matches and remain well-placed to reach the IPL 2025 playoffs. “It doesn’t matter for us what happened in the previous match, win or lose,” Gill said. “We take one game as it is and the next match is at Ahmedabad and we have had a good run there, so hopefully we’ll be able to continue that.”They took the game away from us in the powerplay and credit to them for that… There were a couple of things that we could have done better, but it’s very easy to sit out and say those things. Some chances came early our way. We couldn’t grab those. But in hindsight, I think there are some areas that we need to work on as a group.”On Suryavanshi’s innings, Gill said, “It was his day. His hitting was just tremendous and I think he made full use of his day.”