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New Zealand quick Adam Milne is unlikely to make it to the squad for the ODIs in India next month, having yet to fully recover from an elbow surgery, according to national selector Gavin Larsen

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Sep-2016New Zealand quick Adam Milne is unlikely to make it to the squad for the ODIs in India next month, having yet to fully recover from an elbow surgery, according to national selector Gavin Larsen.Milner last played competitive cricket in April. He sustained a grade two hamstring tear in his right leg during the IPL in May, and was subsequently ruled out of his county stint with Essex as he required surgery on his elbow. He has been named to play in three 50-over matches between a New Zealand XI and an Emerging Players XI in Lincoln next week, but is set to only play as a batsman.”Milne is just coming back from a wee tidy-up elbow operation he had,” Larsen told .”He’s travelling nicely and he’s going to play in those games, but we are keen to keep expanding his batting game so he’s going to play as a batsman. It’s probably fair to say that it would be a stretch [for him to make the squad for India].”Milne had earlier missed IPL 2015 after failing to recover from a heel injury he picked up during the World Cup, where he missed New Zealand’s last two matches.Seam-bowling allrounder Corey Anderson, who is recovering from a back injury, however, reportedly has a brighter chance of making the squad for the ODIs in India. He will be part of the Emerging Players XI team in the three one-dayers against New Zealand XI.”We will monitor Corey, like we’ll watch everyone, and assess where he is at after those games,” Larsen said.”It is the bowling obviously we are very keen to see Corey keep progressing in, to be getting back to being selectable as a genuine allrounder. We are trying to get that on track as quick as possible.”New Zealand XI: George Worker, Anton Devcich, Will Young (capt), Colin Munro, Mark Chapman, Adam Milne, Tom Blundell, Ben Wheeler, Seth Rance, Jacob Duffy, Hamish Bennett, Cameron FletcherEmerging Players XI: Michael Bracewell (capt), Jeet Raval, Robbie O’Donnell, Corey Anderson, Colin de Grandhomme, Tim Seifert, Shawn Hicks, Todd Astle, Scott Kuggeleijn, Matt Henry, Lockie Ferguson, Edward Nuttall

Rangana Herath wants to cap his 17-year international career off by becoming the third Sri Lankan bowler to take 300 wickets in Tests

Sa'adi Thawfeeq23-Apr-2016While Rangana Herath may have retired from limited-overs cricket to extend his Test career, there may still be doubts over how much he could put his 38-year old body and those surgically repaired knees through. The Sri Lanka left-arm spinner, though, wanted to secure 300 Test wickets and be part of his team’s next 10 Tests before taking a call on his future.”I have not set any goals for myself. Whenever I have played for my country, I have always wanted to see how best I could contribute to win,” he said. “That has been my approach all the time. It would be a big achievement if I can get to 300 Test wickets, but after that, I don’t see any goals that I can pursue.”There are about ten Tests lined up for this year and I’ve decided that I can manage myself and my knees playing in that format rather than the hustle and bustle of one-day cricket,” he said.Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas are the only Sri Lankans with 300 or more Test wickets. Herath is three short of the mark and could get to it this May in the first of three matches against England at Headingley, the venue where he played a starring role in a famous win for Sri Lanka in 2014.With three Tests at home, against Australia, to follow the England tour and three Tests in South Africa in December, Sri Lanka would want to retain Herath’s services for as long as possible. He has been the team’s leading wicket-taker since Muralitharan’s retirement in July 2010. Overall, only James Anderson and Stuart Broad have taken more wickets than Herath’s 226 in this period.The problem, though, is his fitness. In 2012, he underwent arthroscopic surgery to have the cartilages of both knees repaired.”It was fine for the first few years or so, but with the extra workload of playing international cricket, the pain in both knees started to come back, especially when I am running,” Herath said. “I have managed to continue playing by taping my knees. I was not 100% certain of being fit to play in all three formats, that’s why I decided to stick to Test cricket, a pace at which I can manage my legs. I am lucky that I didn’t end up as a fast bowler because my career wouldn’t have lasted this long.”Herath’s retirement would leave another hole in a Sri Lankan side that is struggling to cope with the retirements of Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene. But Herath expressed faith in the youngsters coming through. “You don’t need one bowler to run through the entire opposition,” he said. “We still have quality fast bowlers and spinners who can take 20 wickets to win a Test match.”We have plenty of good spinners around, like Dilruwan Perera, Tharindu Kaushal, Sachithra Senanayake and Jeffrey Vandersay, but they need to be given a consistent run in the national team. That is how they will gain the confidence to bowl under pressure and under different conditions and situations and win matches for us. I will certainly want to share my experience and help young spinners and contribute in whichever way I can.”Herath made his Test debut as a 21-year old in 1999, but it took him over a decade to find a permanent place in Sri Lanka’s XI. “When I was dropped from the side, I never gave up hope. I knew I had the skill to play for the national team and kept on performing at domestic level,” he said. “The national selectors thought that I was good enough and persisted with me for virtually all the matches played by the Sri Lanka A team. That gave me hope that one day I would be considered to play in the senior side.”A tours, however, were infrequent at that time and Herath had been playing in the Staffordshire League in England in 2009, when he was summoned to the national squad to replace an injured Muralitharan for the home Tests against Pakistan. He took 15 wickets at 26.93 and helped Sri Lanka win the series 2-0.Although Herath played 71 ODIs and 17 T20Is, he never played in a World Cup final until 2014 when Sri Lanka beat India to lift the World T20 title in Bangladesh. His 5 for 3 against New Zealand in a virtual quarter-final at that tournament is widely regarded as the best bowling performance in the shortest format.Herath had helped his team enter World Cup finals on two other occasions, but was left out for the summit clashes. In the 2011 World Cup semi-final, he took 1 for 31 off nine overs against New Zealand, and in the 2012 World T20, he returned his second-best figures of 3 for 25 against Pakistan, both at the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo.Herath has not thought of life after cricket yet. “I am still employed with Sampath Bank and have some years to serve with them,” Herath, who is presently their business promotions manager, said. “I am lucky to have an employer like Sampath Bank who has never questioned my position even on occasions when I had not been part of the national team.”

A ninth-wicket partnership between Keith Barker and Jeetan Patel gave Warwickshire the momentum, which they maintained by reducing Yorkshire to 148 for 7

Jon Culley at Headingley04-Aug-2013
ScorecardChris Woakes took four wickets to take his match tally to seven•Getty Images

Andrew Gale’s disappointment at letting a strong position slip away to hand Warwickshire the chance to claim a third straight win would have been felt more sharply had events elsewhere not favoured Yorkshire. Derbyshire’s surprise win at Hove guarantees his side stay top, while Durham’s defeat at Lord’s leaves the title rival whose results were concerning them most with some ground to make up. Moreover, he left the ground in steady rain, which he will not have minded at all if it is a foretaste of what lies ahead on the final day.Even so, it had been a poor day compared with the opening two, beginning with a sloppy opening session for which Gale could offer no excuse, not least because he was guilty of one of two bad drops that enabled Jeetan Patel to score 63 when he should have been out on 37 or 42. Jack Brooks spilled the first chance, on the square leg boundary, and Gales the second, at short midwicket. Adil Rashid, the legspinner, was the bowler feeling the pain.Those chances came during a stand of 99 between Patel and Keith Barker, who played some fine cricket shots in making 49 and felt he was unlucky to be given run out as he came back for a second to a firm stroke through cover off Rashid retrieved by Brooks. Patel, with less finesse, hit 10 fours and a six over long-on off Ryan Sidebottom that gave Warwickshire an unexpected lead.It was the kind of turnaround that gives one side a fillip and creates uncertainty for the other and it was no surprise in that respect that the eight overs Yorkshire had to negotiate before lunch brought more problems as Chris Woakes removed both their openers. Alex Lees, failing to move his feet, edged to third slip before Adam Lyth, playing across a full length ball, was leg-before.Yorkshire fought back after lunch, Gale seeking to make amends for his drop and Gary Ballance continuing to enjoy his run of form. They added 76 before Gale, trying to adjust to extra bounce, fended a ball from Boyd Rankin that looped to William Porterfield at gully.Yet more wastefulness followed as Rashid, whose early season form with the bat seems to have deserted him, fell to a poor attempted hook and Azeem Rafiq – batting despite a damaged wrist – was caught off bat and pad. When Ballance was bowled by a full-length ball from Woakes off an inside edge, Warwickshire were again firmly in control. Woakes then had Liam Plunkett caught behind – much to the obvious anger of the batsman, who was adamant he had not hit the ball – to finish the day with 4 for 31.When bad light and then rain curtailed play early, Yorkshire’s advantage looked dangerously small at 141, raising the prospect that Warwickshire might need less than half a day to forge a path to victory, should the weather be kind to them. If they pull it off, the gap between themselves and Yorkshire will be 21 points.”We were not at our best this morning, it was uncharacteristic,” Gale said afterwards. “We missed a couple of easy chances, my own included, and we did not bowl well enough, and we probably took a bit of that into our batting.”It would have been nice to be four or five down rather than seven but if we can get anything over 200 I think it will be game on tomorrow. And if there is rain about, results elsewhere have gone for us and it might be one of those days you look back on and think that things have gone our way even though we didn’t play well.”

Less than 24 hours after he captained Australia in a T20 at the MCG, George Bailey scored 94 to lead Tasmania to a Ryobi Cup win over New South Wales in Hobart

ESPNcricinfo staff04-Feb-2012
ScorecardLess than 24 hours after he captained Australia in a T20 at the MCG, George Bailey scored 94 to lead Tasmania to a Ryobi Cup win over New South Wales in Hobart. In a match full of outstanding individual performances, it was Bailey and Jason Krejza (6 for 55) who ended up on the winning side, while Usman Khawaja’s century and Scott Coyte’s six wickets went unrewarded for the Blues.The major problem for New South Wales was that they failed to bat out their 50 overs after Khawaja gave them such a good start. Khawaja struck three sixes in his 100, including two consecutive ones over cover off Luke Butterworth, and he showed that he has plenty to offer in the limited-overs format, having now scored three centuries in his 16 one-day games.But when Khawaja departed in the 34th over it led to a string of wickets as Krejza troubled the middle and lower orders with his flight and turn. Several of the New South Wales batsmen contributed to their own downfalls – four of Krejza’s wickets were from catches in the deep – including Steven Smith, who chipped a catch to long-on for 45.The Blues were bowled out in the 48th over for 230 but when Tasmania stumbled to 2 for 8 as Coyte began in fine fashion it seemed that maybe the target was good enough. However, Bailey and Mark Cosgrove (52) combined for an 82-run stand to put the Tigers back on track, Bailey anchoring the chase with his impressive strokeplay.Coyte picked up 6 for 60 in what was comfortably a career best, initially troubling the top order with swing and later with some extra bounce and pace, but he needed support. Only one other bowler picked up a single wicket and the Tigers were able to cruise home with 31 balls to spare, with Butterworth at the crease on 42 and Brady Jones on 16, and it was enough for Tasmania to move to the top of the Ryobi Cup table.