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Yorkshire’s hopes of securing the return of international cricket to Headingley have encountered another setback, after the second postponement of an emergency general meeting called to ratify key governance changes at the club.Yorkshire was stripped of its right to host the third Test against New Zealand at Headingley in June, as well as an ODI against South Africa in July, following revelations about a culture of institutional racism at the club – many of which came to light during Azeem Rafiq’s emotional testimony before a parliamentary select committee in November.The suspension – which Lord Kamlesh Patel, the chairman, had warned posed an existential threat to Yorkshire’s finances – was provisionally lifted last month, on the proviso that Yorkshire rubber-stamped a series of governance changes by the end of March, including the removal of the influence of the family trust run by the former chairman, Colin Graves, which bailed out the club to the tune of approximately £15 million in the early 2000s.However, the original attempt to hold the EGM fell through in February – which led to Patel accusing a group of members, including another former chairman, Robin Smith, of attempting to “delay and derail” the reforms – and now a second date, March 14, has also had to be cancelled, due to an administrative error.Related

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According to an email sent by Yorkshire’s secretary, Paul Hudson, “a technical issue within our historic database systems means that notice of the EGM may not have been sent to all members”.With a third date now set for March 31, this latest delay means Yorkshire have one last chance to hit its end-of-March deadline for meeting the ECB criteria for a return of international cricket, and Hudson warned the members that further delays would jeopardise the proposed return of the club’s sponsors – most of whom withdrew their backing at the height of the crisis last year.”Many of our sponsors, who had paused their relationship with us during the crisis last year, are lining up to return together with some completely new sponsors who have approached us,” Hudson wrote. “Obviously, from the sponsors’ perspective, their return and the levels of sponsorship are going to be dependent upon the return of international cricket to Headingley.”The latest developments come after Cindy Butts, the chair of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC), warned that the game was “facing a reckoning” following Rafiq’s revelations, amid what she described as a “staggering” response to an ICEC online survey.”What is clear is that all is not well in cricket,” Butts was quoted as saying in The Guardian, after more than 4,000 people had come forward to detail their experiences of discrimination on the basis of race, gender and class.”Cricket is facing a reckoning. It has to grasp this opportunity to understand and diagnose what the problem is. And then recommend – in an evidence-based way – what the solutions are to its problems. That is abundantly clear.”Cricket needs to really look in the mirror. It has to say: ‘This is what we look like and we are prepared to tackle the issues that are prevalent within the sport in a concerted, serious and considered way.’ We hope that, through our report, we will be able to help the sport to move forward into a much more positive place.”

Andrew Strauss, England’s interim director of cricket, believes that the absence of Stuart Broad and James Anderson in the Caribbean will encourage other members of England’s Test team to assume leadership roles, and thereby provide more “options” for the incoming regime, as and when a new head coach and permanent MD are appointed later this year.Speaking at Lord’s on Wednesday, following the unveiling of a new-look Test squad shorn of eight players who featured in this winter’s 4-0 Ashes defeat in Australia, Strauss denied that Broad and Anderson’s voices had become too powerful within the England dressing-room. However, he singled out Chris Woakes and Mark Wood as two members of the bowling attack whom he believed had the capacity to grow in their absence.”It’s hard to criticise either Jimmy Anderson or Stuart Broad in how they are on and off the field,” Strauss said. “They are exceptional performers on the field and they are very professional off it, which is why they have played for so long.”What I do think is it gives an opportunity at the moment for people to stand up and play leadership roles they haven’t previously. We need a good solid spine to that team moving forward. We need leaders, not just the captain, and this provides an opportunity for some of the players to do that.”Teams always need a number of influential voices to push the team forward. Everyone expects the captain to do that but anyone who has played for England knows that influential voices behind the captain are important. In the bowling attack, we’re looking at the likes of Wood and Woakes to play more of that role. Expect a lot from Stokes and Bairstow as well. They have the chance to pull out the stops and help Joe Root.”Wood was England’s stand-out performer in the Ashes, claiming 17 wickets at 26.64 including a career-best 6 for 37 in the fifth Test at Hobart, but the retention of Woakes is a more contentious pick. His six Ashes wickets came at 55.33, and further exacerbated a split between his world-class record in home Tests (94 wickets at 22.63) and his unconvincing stats abroad (31 wickets at 52.38).However, the fact that the Tests in the Caribbean will be using a Dukes ball may have played to Woakes’ favour – as well as the fact that he can be relied upon to pitch the ball up and attempt to make it swing, an issue that was an apparent bone of contention between Root and his senior pairing after the second-Test defeat, when England’s captain publicly criticised the defensive lengths that they had bowled under the Adelaide floodlights.While Strauss did not directly address that apparent cause of disquiet, he acknowledged that the vagaries of the Kookaburra ball demand a certain ruthlessness when the window of opportunity opens. With that in mind, he hinted that England would once again be looking to develop the horses-for-courses, home-and-away stable of bowlers that had been a feature of Ed Smith’s tenure as national selector, prior to his removal from the set-up by Strauss’s predecessor, Ashley Giles, last year.Mark Wood was the stand-out performer for England in Australia•Getty Images

“When the odds are in your favour in Test cricket, you have the opportunity to really put pressure on the opposition and dominate those sessions,” Strauss said. “I think Australia did that exceptionally well against us and we weren’t good enough against their bowling. I don’t think it is a case of criticising our bowlers, I just feel like when you are learning to win as a team, you have to identify those sessions and you have to win them well.”When you are looking at selecting teams you need to make a distinction between England teams at home and away, because I think they are different things. Then, secondly, you are always looking at it strategically. What are our needs now between winning today and tomorrow and what are our best resources to do that?”What you want is variety in your bowling attack. When you look at the team we’ve selected, we’ve got Mark Wood who gives us that X-Factor of extra pace, and we’re looking at Saqib Mahmood as someone who can develop into that kind of bowler. Then you want the tall, hit-the-deck bowlers and ones who are able to swing the ball. We’re trying to have that variety in the attack, so whatever the conditions we can exploit this.”Despite the clarity of his decision-making, the timing of Anderson and Broad’s removal from the set-up has come under fire, not least from the former England captain Michael Atherton, who wrote in The Times that it was an “odd moment” to make such a call.England have won one Test series in the Caribbean since 1968 (coincidentally it came in 2004, the last time that neither man featured in an England Test squad), and Strauss was at the helm for the chaotic campaign in 2009, when he and Andy Flower came together as an emergency captain-coach partnership following the sacking of Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores.”I’ve been to the West Indies a number of times and it’s not an easy place to go and win, and England’s record there is not good,” Strauss said. “We definitely have to take that into account. When you’re selecting teams you’re always trying to balance winning today with winning tomorrow, and you’re trying to do both, quite frankly.”Thinking back to 2009 – and history doesn’t repeat itself, so you have to be careful not to draw those parallels – but one of the things we did early in that tour was just have a frank and honest conversation about where we were as a team, and that’s the sort of thing that will happen out there on the ground in the West Indies.Related

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“We need to get better. And there have been all sorts of reasons why you could mitigate our performance recently, around workload and bubbles and all that sort of stuff. But we’re looking forward here. No one likes to see English Test cricket where it is currently. That’s the players’ responsibility, the coaches’ responsibility and we need a degree of honesty and humility as well for us to move forward.”We feel like we’ve selected a team that is capable of winning out in the West Indies and that is absolutely the intention,” Strauss added. “But of course we’ve got half an eye on tomorrow – it’s the start of the new cycle and it would be remiss of us not to do it. My job is really to give that new director of cricket and coach options to choose from going forward and we’ve got that opportunity right at the moment.”When Strauss last came on board as England’s director of cricket, in the spring of 2015, he made a similarly big call about a big personality by finally ending speculation about Pietersen’s potential recall to the Test team – a decision that subsequently helped the incoming head coach, Trevor Bayliss, to start his tenure with a clean slate.However, Strauss insisted that to describe Anderson and Broad’s longevity as an “issue” that needed similar resolution did a disservice to their outstanding contributions to the Test team.”I don’t see it as an issue to be ‘dealt with’,” Strauss said. “I think that’s very harsh on James Anderson and Stuart Broad. They’ve given everything to England cricket over a long period of time. The new director of cricket and coach will have their own strategic ideas and that’s absolutely right for them to go in the direction they feel is fit. What I’m trying to do is just create options for them.”After speculation that Alec Stewart and Richard Dawson might be drafted in as England’s stand-in coach for the Caribbean tour, Strauss eventually opted for Paul Collingwood, Silverwood’s deputy, to provide continuity. He will be backed up by Marcus Trescothick, Jon Lewis, Jeetan Patel and Carl Hopkinson for the series and, like Flower before him in 2009, Strauss acknowledged that Collingwood had a big opportunity to stake his claim for the role in the long term.”It’s a five week tour, and it feels like there’s a distinct advantage of having someone who has been part of that set-up already,” Strauss said. “Paul Collingwood obviously deputised for Chris Silverwood out in the West Indies with the T20 team and had done a very good job out there by all accounts.”He is definitely one we should have an eye on moving forward for the head coach’s role. It’s an opportunity for him to understand what that job entails and to start this process with the red-ball reset as well. He’s the right sort of character to do that. He’s enthusiastic, he’s got bundles of energy, he’s very clear on how he sees the England Test team playing.”

The Under-16 Vijay Merchant Trophy, which was scheduled to begin in January 2022, has been postponed following a fresh surge in the number of Covid-19 cases in India and the growing threat of the Omicron variant. In a letter to the affiliated units of BCCI, which ESPNcricinfo has seen, BCCI secretary Jay Shah said that the primary reason for the postponement is because “participants are still not vaccinated and as such, are vulnerable,” as those below 18 years of age are still not eligible to take the vaccine in the country.”We have been closely monitoring the situation in lndia and across the world, and it is estimated that the caseload will shoot up in the immediate future if the situation is not controlled now,” Shah said in the letter. “After consulting experts and seeking views of the medical teams and operations team, it has been decided that keeping health and safety in mind, the U16 Vijay Merchant Trophy is postponed for this season.”We must exercise caution and not be adventurous and put the health of our talented cricketers at grave risk.”On Thursday, India reported 13,154 new Covid-19 cases, the number of active cases stands at 82,402.The BCCI announced in July that it was confident that all tournaments, including those for various age groups and women, will be played this season.”Ahead of the domestic season, we had said that will endeavor to have a full season across age groups,” the letter further said. “We started off well and are now mid-way into the season having completed 748 matches when we have again encountered a serious issue, The cases across lndia are spiraling and despite being a large number of adults doubly vaccinated, they have still been infected.”The tournament was scheduled to be played between January 9 to 21, in four venues across Agartala and Guwahati.

Quinton de Kock will miss at least the third Test between South Africa and India as he awaits the birth of his first child. De Kock’s wife Sasha is expected to give birth in early January, which could rule him out of both the second and third Tests, especially given bio-bubble conditions.South Africa’s selection convener Victor Mpitsang confirmed to ESPNcricinfo that he expects de Kock “to miss the last Test”, which will leave the team without their wicketkeeper and key lower-middle-order batter. Should de Kock need to leave the bubble earlier than the last Test, for example during the second Test, it is unlikely he will be able to return to the biosecure environment in time for the final Test. One of Kyle Verreynne and Ryan Rickelton will play in de Kock’s place.Verreynne made his debut on South Africa’s tour of West Indies in June in the absence of vice-captain Temba Bavuma, who was injured. He scored 39 runs in three innings. He has since played three first-class matches for Western Province and scored one half-century. Rickelton, who is uncapped, has had a better recent run. He is 10th on the first-class batting charts this season, and has scored two centuries in his last three games as well as led the Lions to the top of the points table.The last time de Kock sat out a South Africa game was at the T20 World Cup, where he opted out of the second group-stage match after refusing to comply with a CSA board directive to take the knee. De Kock subsequently took a knee in the remaining three matches. CSA has since confirmed that the national team will take a knee throughout the summer. This Test series will be the first time South Africa’s red-ball team collectively takes a knee after the board gave players the choice to take a knee, raise a fist, or stand to attention on their tour of the West Indies.

Last week, Nathan Lyon went past Richie Benaud. On the first day in Chittagong, he passed Jason Gillespie. Now, only six men stand above him on the all-time list of Australian Test wicket-takers: Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Dennis Lillee, Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee and Craig McDermott. And another five-wicket haul for Lyon was further evidence that he has found a method that can lead to success in Asia.In February, there was 8 for 50 against India in Bengaluru. Then there was 5 for 92 in Dharamsala. In Mirpur, there was 6 for 82 against Bangladesh. And now 5 for 77 and counting in the first innings in Chittagong. Lyon has come a long way from being dropped after his first Test in India back in 2013. In fact, on the first day in Chittagong, Lyon went past Richie Benaud and McGrath to become Australia’s second-leading Test wicket-taker in Asia, behind only Warne.”I think it’s a lot to do with confidence,” Lyon told reporters after the first day’s play. “This is probably my sixth tour in the subcontinent area so I think leading an attack where I’ve played the most games, lead the wicket column with the bowling group, I’ve put enough pressure on myself to go out there and perform well.”I’ve watched a lot of footage of Ashwin, who in my book is probably the No. 1 spinner in the world. So in these conditions it’s all about adapting and learning and probably putting your ego aside, and what works for me in Australia probably doesn’t really work here in the subcontinent. Saying that it’s also my strength as well, so I can’t go too far from that.”I have to put my ego away and really bowl with confidence, in my terms ‘bowl ugly’. That might be round-arm for me, trying to undercut the ball a little bit more but using my stock ball as a variation. I think I’ve learnt a lot in the subcontinent and I’m embracing the challenge.”Lyon was particularly pleased with his success on a pitch that did not provide the kind of turn that he might have expected from an Asian pitch – and particularly one on which Australia had chosen to field three frontline spinners. Not since the corresponding Test in Chittagong in 2006, when Dan Cullen debuted and bowled alongside Warne and Stuart MacGill, had Australia played three genuine spinners in the XI.”I think the wicket’s going to deteriorate, yeah for sure, but I think I might have spun one ball out of 28 overs today,” Lyon said. “There’s not much spin there at the moment so it’s a good challenge for us spinners to challenge the batters and challenge their defence on a wicket like this. But subcontinent wickets around the world spin when the game goes on so I’ve got no doubt that this one will.”Still, despite Lyon’s five-wicket haul, Australia still have plenty of work ahead of them after Bangladesh reached 253 for 6 at stumps having chosen to bat first. Sabbir Rahman made 66 and Mushfiqur Rahim was well set and unbeaten on 62 at the close of play, and if the pitch does deteriorate, first-innings runs will be all the more valuable.”It’s pretty even,” Lyon said. “They played well. Sabbir and the skipper, they batted really well, they took the game on, they played some brave cricket. You’ve got to give credit where credit’s due. They played some good shots. But at the end of the day I was pretty proud of our bowlers’ efforts to go out there and keep fighting all the way through to the 90th over.”As I said before, that was the hardest conditions I’ve ever had. The wicket’s not really doing much, there’s not much spin, there’s no bounce. So to challenge the Bangladesh batters as much as we could, I thought it was a pretty good day to be honest.”

Given Australia’s inexperience in Bangladesh conditions – none of their 14 players have played a Test here before – and the hosts’ record at home of late, Steven Smith is wary of picking favourites for the two-Test series, stressing that this will be a tough outing.There is also the matter of Australia’s recent record in the subcontinent. The Bangladesh series, Australia’s first tour of the country since 2006, gives Smith and his team a chance to improve on their 2-1 series loss to India earlier this year, while adding more consistency to their overall performance.”I think it is going to be a great series,” Smith said, at a press conference after Australia’s arrival in Bangladesh. “Bangladesh are very good here. I am not picking a favourite. We have to be confident in our skill set and hopefully we can get our processes right and have a really good series.”Now it is an opportunity for us to change [our record in the subcontinent]. I thought we did some things really well in India. We just needed to do it for little bit longer, and consistently. This is another opportunity to showcase our skills, show what we learned over there and hopefully give our best foot forward.”The series will also be something of a testing site for Australia’s squad, particularly the bowling attack, with an eye on the 2021 tour of India. Smith shed light on the reasons behind Steve O’Keefe’s omission from the Bangladesh tour, despite a good performance in India, and on Ashton Agar’s likely role as a second spinner after Nathan Lyon.”He [Steve O’Keefe] is unlucky. He did very well in the first Test match in India. He made contributions in the other three Tests,” he said. “We just see it as a bit of a time to try and get someone new into the group.”Ashton has been around for quite a while now. He has worked on his art and become consistent. It will be fantastic to see him get an opportunity. It is obviously four years till we travel to India. It is always a tough tour for us. It is the series that I want to win in my tenure as captain, so it is an opportunity for Ashton get some experience in this condition with an eye to next time we go to India.”Smith pointed out that keeping the pressure on Bangladesh senior players would be key to his team’s chances. Bangladesh have never beaten Australia in Tests.”[Shakib, Tamim and Mushfiqur] have played a lot of cricket and understand their game really well. They are dangerous so we have to be on top of them if we are going to have success.”

Pakistan’s left-arm spinning allrounder Imad Wasim has risen to the top of the ICC’s T20I rankings for bowlers. Imad displaced South Africa’s Imran Tahir, who dropped two positions to third following a poor performance in his side’s series defeat to England. The legspinner had claimed the No. 1 ranking in January but leaking 75 runs in his last seven overs, for only one wicket, has not helped his cause.As a result, Imad, enjoyed his first spell at the top of the T20I bowlers rankings. India’s Jasprit Bumrah occupied second place. Among the other big movers were Tahir’s South Africa team-mate Chris Morris, who jumped up 32 places to the 29th spot, and England’s Liam Plunkett, who rose 26 places to No. 38.England, who had begun their series against South Africa, ranked No. 2 along with Pakistan, now have sole ownership of that position. New Zealand remain the top-ranked team in T20Is.AB de Villiers, who topped the batting charts in the England series with 146 runs, returned to the top 20 in the batsman’s rankings, climbing up 12 places. England opener Jason Roy, who put behind a disappointing Champions Trophy with 103 runs in three T20Is, was rewarded with a career-best 25th position. Virat Kohli continues to be the No. 1-ranked batsman, followed by Aaron Finch and Kane Williamson.England gained two points after their 2-1 victory over South Africa, allowing them to take control of the second spot on the team rankings. Although they had held the same position earlier, it had been together with Pakistan, who have now dropped to No. 3.

ScorecardOn Friday, Luke Wells returned from a knee injury to play his first match for eight months. He was greeted by one of the worst sights for a batsman in cricket: a 90 mph inswinging yorker from Kagiso Rabada down the slope at Hove. As he trudged off for a golden duck, Wells laughed at his own ill fortune in receiving such a delivery. The sport can be cruel like that.But it can also give generously, enough to make up for all the fallow and infuriating times. For Wells, this was such a day: the best of his cricketing career yet, and the sort that he might never repeat.It was not merely about the runs he scored, all 258 of them. It was about the manner in which he scored them. Wells, a batsman with a reputation for adhesive defence, was transformed into a hitter of brutal belligerence.Consider how he handled the 87th over of the day, from Ryan Pringle’s offspin. First, Wells used his huge stride to gallivant down the wicket and heave an emphatic straight six, a shot of such dominance that Graham Clark, at long-off, was reduced to applauding. Then, he pulled Pringle over square leg for another six. Next, staying in his crease, he again launched him straight, this time into the hospitality seating at long-off for a third consecutive six.The fourth ball scuppered hopes of an encore of Garry Sobers’ feat at Swansea in 1968, but it brought no relief for Pringle – Wells’ late, precise square cut still went for four. So did a slog-sweep the following ball. In the circumstances, Pringle could be forgiven for delivering an egregious full toss, which Wells launched over midwicket for another six and, with it, brought up his maiden 250. As if that was not bad enough for Durham, the final delivery was a no-ball to boot. Wells, almost repentant for inflicting such misery upon his opponent, defended the extra ball into the off side, promoting sarcastic cries of “Get on with it” from a few heady supporters.Thirty-four runs had come from Pringle’s over, and 32 from Wells’s bat: not bad for a player ordinarily considered a first-class specialist, and whose top score in 50-over or Twenty20 cricket is just 23.So imperious was his batsmanship that Stiaan van Zyl was reduced to the role of incidental extra even as he scored an undefeated 141; at one point, Wells scored a full fifty, to progress from 157 to 207, while van Zyl faced a solitary ball.If the carnage was not expected of Wells, capitalising on his start was: this was his 36th first-class score over 50, and the 14th time he has converted it to a century. And it was built upon familiar foundations: the assiduous leaves against the new ball; the impeccable straight bat; the driving, especially straight, interspersed with cuts and leg-side flicks. Then, like a gawky teenager discovering alcohol for the first time, Wells experienced a new and thrilling sensation; as he flicked Chris Rushworth over fine leg with no discernible effort, one of his seven sixes, he must have felt a man intoxicated.All the while, van Zyl carried on too. If his century was forgettable set against carnage at the other end, it contributed to history: a partnership of 376, the highest ever third-wicket stand against Durham. The previous highest? That would be Trevor Penney and Brian Lara in 1994, when Lara was en route to his 501. In the closing stages of his innings, Wells felt almost as dominant.By the time he scythed Paul Coughlin to Keaton Jennings to be dismissed, Wells had also made family history, usurping his father Alan’s career best: “I’ve always wanted to beat him in something.”Intriguingly, he credited his red-ball best to intensive training in limited-overs cricket, in an attempt to force his way back into the side. “The white-ball practice that I’ve been doing with Mike Yardy and the other guys has really been paying off – especially against the spinners I feel a lot more dynamic. I can score at a better rate now without taking any undue risks – just natural batting.” It is a window into how the norms of modern batting are being peeled back, and even batsmen renowned as austere are capable of pyrotechnics.Though van Zyl was altogether more restrained, he gave evidence of why he had earned 12 Tests for South Africa. He used his feet dextrously against Pringle and late cut exquisitely against seam to record his maiden Championship century for Sussex. Only just after reaching the landmark, when edging Pringle to Paul Collingwood, who shelled a tricky catch at first slip, did he offer a chance. Wells was chanceless throughout; Sussex utterly imperious.It seemed an age ago that Graham Onions had found away movement to snare Chris Nash with the morning’s fourth ball. His back injury, rendering him unable to bowl, was a cause and symbol of Durham’s dreadful day.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details5:10

Bangar: Rising Pune have fitted their jigsaw

Ben Stokes and Jaydev Unadkat have been pivotal to Rising Pune Supergiant’s surge up the IPL points table, and their efforts on a dry, up-and-down pitch at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium led them to second with a 12-run win against Sunrisers Hyderabad. It was Sunrisers’ first home defeat of the season.Stokes energised a moribund Pune innings with 39 off 25 balls, and his innings, along with 31 off 21 from MS Dhoni, gave them a total of 148 and a fighting chance. Then, bowling cross-seam and extracting inconsistent bounce, Stokes took three key wickets – Shikhar Dhawan, Kane Williamson and David Warner – to ensure Sunrisers never took control of the chase.They were never entirely out of it either, though, and when Unadkat began the last over, they needed 13 runs with four wickets in hand. Incredibly, Unadkat bowled a maiden took a hat-trick to end with figures of 5 for 30.Won’t concede boundaries, won’t take catchesThe first big moment of the game was a bit of quality fielding. Rahul Tripathi, flicking Ashish Nehra to the left of short fine-leg, set off immediately. Perhaps he didn’t factor in Bipul Sharma’s left-handedness. Bipul moved quickly to the ball, took aim, and hit direct at the striker’s end with Tripathi not even close to regaining his ground.It was the only bit of quality fielding in the Powerplay, though; Bipul dropped a sitter at the same position to let off Steven Smith, Siddarth Kaul did not move at mid-on when Ajinkya Rahane spooned a possible catch towards him, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, diving to his left at short fine leg, gave Smith a second life.Maybe it was deliberate from Sunrisers, for apart from a Rahane six over long-on, off Moises Henriques, there were no boundaries in the first 10 overs. There was little attacking intent as well, with Rahane and Smith content to milk leg-side singles for most part. After 10 overs, Rising Pune were 51 for 2.Getty Images

Stokes, Dhoni and the power differenceSmith ended up facing 39 balls without hitting a four or a six. At the post-match presentation, he noted the difficulty of timing the ball, and praised the contributions of his team’s “stronger boys”. Stokes was one of them – he hit three sixes in his 39 – and MS Dhoni the other.Before this game, against the quicker bowlers, Dhoni had scored 75 off 35 balls when they had pitched it full or short, but only 43 off 52 balls off the in-between lengths. Initially, the Sunrisers seamers kept pitching it on a good length or just short of a good length, and Dhoni was batting on 10 off 14 balls at the 18-overs mark. Uncharacteristically, it was Bhuvneshwar Kumar who lost his length, feeding him two short balls and an overpitched wide ball in the 19th over, and Dhoni spanked them for 4, 6 and 6.The cross-seam masterclassWhen Stokes came into the attack, Sunrisers were 25 for 0 after two expensive overs from Unadkat, who kept providing width to Dhawan and Warner, and two quiet overs from Washington Sundar, who kept denying them width. Stokes struck with his first ball and his third, both legcutters. One, bowled cross-seam, hit the shiny side, skidded low, and bowled Dhawan. The other, hitting the seam, bounced extra and kissed Williamson’s glove.Giving himself room against Washington in the next over, Warner hit the offspinner for three fours, but Stokes made sure Sunrisers wouldn’t claw things back too quickly, only conceding two off his second over.Unadkat ends Sunrisers fightbackTaking Stokes’ cue, Shardul Thakur and Daniel Christian mixed up slower balls with cross-seam deliveries, and in tandem with Imran Tahir kept Warner and Yuvraj Singh relatively quiet, with the odd boundary keeping the teams neck-and-neck. Stokes returned in the 13th over and derived extra bounce again; Warner failing to keep down a slash, picked out sweeper cover. When Tahir bowled Henriques with a googly, Sunrisers needed 53 from 36.By the time Unadkat came back to bowl the 18th over, the equation read 32 off 18, with Yuvraj on 47. Both Yuvraj and Naman Ojha fell in that over, caught by sweeper cover, failing to generate enough power against Unadkat’s slower ball.Three twos in Stokes’ final over left Sunrisers needing 13 off 6. They would end up getting 0 for 3 off those six balls, their lower order finding no way of dealing with Unadkat’s slower ball. He kept pitching them at a length that was too short to hit down the ground and not short enough to pull. Bipul Sharma, Rashid Khan and Bhuvneshwar Kumar all holed out, one after another, getting far more elevation and far less distance than they desired, and what should have been a tense final over turned into a rout.

Sharjeel Khan appeared before a three-man tribunal set up to hear the alleged corruption charges laid against him, on Friday. Khalid Latif, his team-mate for Pakistan and Islamabad United and similarly implicated, did not appear, however. He cited health reasons, forcing the postponement of his hearing by a week on the condition that no future adjournment would be granted.Sharjeel and his lawyer agreed to the timelines to be adopted under the PCB’s Anti-Corruption Code, with the formal hearing set for May 15 in Lahore. He was given a deadline of May 5 to respond to the alleged code-of-conduct breaches he and Latif were accused of during the PSL. The PCB said in a release that it “may, at its discretion, file a rebuttal by May 10”.The tribunal extended Latif’s date, asking him to appear on March 31 to chalk out a timeline for the formal hearing. “He made an application for adjournment via email to the Chairman of the Tribunal citing health reasons and requesting that proceedings be adjourned to next week,” a PCB statement said. “In the interest of justice the request is allowed and the proceedings in respect of Khalid are adjourned to 11:30am on 31st March 2017. Notice would also be issued with a stipulation that no further adjournment would be granted.”The tribunal, comprising Justice (retired) Asghar Haider (head of the tribunal), former PCB chairman Tauqir Zia and former wicketkeeper Wasim Bari, met at the National Cricket Academy in Lahore. “The Tribunal in consultation with both parties agreed upon the procedure and timelines to be adopted under the Anti-Corruption Code,” the PCB said. “PCB shall submit its opening brief detailing its claims along with the evidence to be relied on by 14th April 2017.”It is understood that Nasir Jamshed, who was arrested in the UK in relation to the same case, was in touch with both Latif and Sharjeel during the PSL. The PCB, as part of its prosecution, will send two officials to travel to the UK to question Jamshed.”This time period (until April 14) has been agreed in order to give the PCB ACU an opportunity to travel to UK to interview Nasir Jamshed and meet with relevant UK authorities and determine if any of its findings are to be incorporated in the prosecution,” PCB’s release stated.Sharjeel and Latif were provisionally suspended last month under the PCB’s Anti-Corruption Code as part of an investigation into an organisation’s alleged attempts to corrupt the second season of the PSL. Both players had denied some of the alleged breaches they were accused of but admitted to at least one of the more minor charges.