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Adam Wheater, the wicketkeeper-batsman, is to return to Essex three years after leaving for Hampshire. Wheater, who had already gone on loan to Essex after losing the gloves at Hampshire, has signed a two-year contract.With Hampshire preferring Lewis McManus as their wicketkeeper for the second half of the season, Wheater was asked to play as a specialist batsman – something he did creditably, scoring a maiden first-class double-hundred in July after which he reiterated his desire to keep wicket.During Wheater’s previous spell at Essex, where he made his first-class debut in 2008, his path was blocked by James Foster and he eventually bought himself out of the final year of his contract to move to Hampshire ahead of the 2013 season. That caused some controversy, when Wheater was preferred to club favourite Michael Bates because of his batting.Foster remains Essex’s first-choice keeper but, at the age of 36, he has already begun to look at opportunities outside the game, taking up the post of cricket professional at Forest School last year. Wheater, who was rumoured to be a target for Essex, will now be considered next in line.”It’s great to be back at Essex, where I started my career,” Wheater said. “I’d like to thank Hampshire for their understanding of moving to Essex and wish them every success in the future.”The signing will bolster Essex’s squad for an expected return to Division One of the Championship. With only one team set to go up, the Division Two leaders are 20 points clear of Kent – who have only one game remaining – and need just a handful of bonus points from their last two fixtures to seal promotion.Wheater made seven first-class hundreds in his four seasons with Hampshire, as well as two in List A cricket. In 2016 he averages 47.22, with a high score of 204 not out, but after McManus was granted an extended run behind the stumps, Wheater made it clear he would prefer to seek opportunities elsewhere rather than play as a specialist batsman, despite a year remaining on his contract.His loan move to Essex was announced last week but it has swiftly been made permanent. He joins Varun Chopra – who will also return on loan from Warwickshire after signing a three-year deal – in making a comeback to the county.Essex’s head coach, Chris Silverwood, said: “To be able to bring Adam back to the club on a permanent basis is brilliant for us, he comes into the squad with Division One experience, which is exactly what we need should we get promoted.”

A change of clothing, a change of ball, a change of format, a change of personnel. A change of fortune? Australia would certainly hope so. After the humiliation of the No. 1 Test side in the world being whitewashed by the No. 7, Steven Smith’s men are now searching for a win – any old win – to restore a little bit of self-confidence. There are two pieces of good news for Australia that will encourage them ahead of this five-match ODI series.One: Rangana Herath is not playing. The man who claimed 28 wickets in the Test series retired from ODIs earlier this year. Two: the Australians might find the pitches for the ODI series a little more to their liking. Of course, it should be noted that there was nothing wrong with the Test pitches. But surfaces designed for 50-over matches and plenty of entertainment – those will suit Australia more.Just as in the Tests, Australia enter this series as No. 1 in the world – the difference is that their lead is so sufficient that even a total disaster will not see them drop from the top spot. A change of personnel will bring some freshness to the group. From outside the Test squad come James Faulkner, Aaron Finch, Adam Zampa, George Bailey, Travis Head and Matthew Wade.Still, that leaves nine members of the ODI party who must shake off the disappointments of the past month and find fresh spark in the shorter format. Along with Smith, and his deputy David Warner, there is Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, Usman Khawaja, Shaun Marsh, Nathan Coulter-Nile and Moises Henriques. Mitchell Marsh was originally named in the squad, but has been sent home to rest.”No matter where you play, if you’re not winning, things are going to be a little bit flat,” Faulkner said in Colombo on the eve of the first ODI. “But we’ve got some new faces, and I’m one of them, that come into the group and bring some energy and some excitement for the five games and the two T20s after that.”Faulkner is, at least, certain to play the first match, after being dropped at the end of the ODI tri-series in the Caribbean in June. But what the rest of Australia’s XI will look like remains a mystery. The axing of Glenn Maxwell, Australia’s reigning ODI cricketer of the year, alters the balance of the side, while the return of Warner from injury and the inclusion of Shaun Marsh create a top-order glut.The likelihood is that Warner and Finch will open, and it would take a brave selector to leave Marsh out, given the form he displayed in the Colombo Test. That might in turn make it hard to find room for Khawaja, who was second only to Smith on Australia’s run charts in the West Indies tri-series. But the dropping of Maxwell from not only the XI but the wider squad shows that almost nobody is safe.”Besides the skipper, no one else is really guaranteed a spot in the side,” Finch told reporters in Colombo on Friday. “You have to be performing all the time. You just have to keep getting the business done, and if you don’t, there’s always someone breathing down your neck for your spot.”When you’ve got young guys performing well, Travis Head to go to England and get 175 [for Yorkshire] and play well in the last domestic one-day summer, there’s always someone breathing down your neck. So you have to be performing all the time, or have a real lot of credits in the bank.”One player with almost unlimited credits in the bank is Starc, the Player of the Tournament in last year’s World Cup and arguably the most dangerous wielder of a white ball at pace in the world right now. Not only that, but Starc is coming off the sort of Test series that would seem fanciful for a fast bowler in Asia: 24 wickets at 15.16, a wicket every 26 balls. The only question is whether the selectors may wish to rest Starc at some point during the ODI series.The other query around Australia’s attack is whether they will opt for one or two spinners. The young legspinner Zampa has shown remarkable poise during his first year as an international cricketer and is coming off an outstanding Caribbean Premier League season. He should be the starting spinner, ahead of Lyon, who in any case could use a break after sending down 154 overs in the Test series, the most for any bowler from either side.Whatever side Australia’s selectors come up with, at least they can view this change of format as a fresh start.

England 589 for 8 dec and 98 for 1 (Cook 49*) lead Pakistan 198 (Misbah 52, Woakes 4-67) by 489 runs
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsA first-innings lead of 391 against the Pakistan side that had beaten them at Lord’s should have been an occasion for ecstasy among England supporters following the Old Trafford Test. It was a time for bunting in the streets, BBQs on the lawn and dancing in defiance of the squally Manchester showers that long before the end had drained the tension from a prolonged third day.But as Alastair Cook chose not to enforce the follow-on, England’s utterly dominant position was strengthened to a background of muttering and grumbling that their appetite for a quick kill had not been satisfied. If there was any risk at all in making Pakistan bat again, many could not see it.Few Test captains put the opposition in again these days without misgivings, but having dismissed Pakistan in 63.4 overs, Cook’s reluctance was highly debatable even allowing for modern trends and the non-stop schedules that make captains reluctant to ask their bowlers to go the extra mile. Understandable, perhaps in the case of Ben Stokes, who had just returned from a knee operation. Others can be tasked with debating the pros and cons more deeply.England advanced that lead to 498 in 21 overs for the loss of Alex Hales, one player who might have benefited from Cook’s decision as he addresses a tendency to plant his front foot before the ball is released but who fell to Mohammad Amir for 24, an inside edge this time and a frustrated walk off without waiting for the umpire’s decision. Just as disturbingly, Hales has adopted a pencil moustache which gives him the look of a shifty character in a Miss Marple murder mystery.As for England’s malfunctioning middle order, James Vince and Gary Ballance, neither will get the chance to play a meaningful innings. In fact, with England already in an impregnable position according to Test-match statistics, they might not get to the crease at all.Whatever the considerations, Pakistan’s captain, Misbah-ul-Haq, would nevertheless have allowed himself a moment of satisfaction at the decision. At lunch, with Pakistan having subsided from four down overnight to be 119 for 8, the potential for a three-day defeat felt real, but that calamity was averted, first by a half-century of baleful countenance and stubborn stroke by Misbah, and then by another display of stubbornness by his England opposite number.Misbah added 60 in 15 overs with Wahab Riaz for the ninth wicket to hold up England after lunch before a top-edged sweep against Moeen was held by Cook at short fine leg. Wahab continued to eye Moeen’s spin, slog-sweeping him for six and then reverse-sweeping him just short of the ropes, before Moeen had him caught at deep midwicket by Hales. Moeen was challenged to prove himself in this Test, but as luck would have it he has so far batted nine balls for 2 not out and bowled 7.4 overs. At least he can claim he has done nothing wrong.Pakistan’s first innings went from bad to worse as they lost four wickets in the morning session. All four England quicks took a wicket in a session that was interrupted for an hour by rain.Their starting position was a dispiriting one: four wickets already lost for 57, still 532 runs in arrears. On a cloudier day, there was bounce and zip in the pitch and Pakistan proved unequal to the task.It took six balls for England to sense that it might be an excellent bowling morning, Shan Masood edging James Anderson on the bounce to Vince at third slip. Masood managed a more controlled boundary off Anderson, clipping off his pads, but a jab at a rising delivery later in the over gave Joe Root an inviting catch at second slip.Misbah, as one would expect from the old fox, met everything thrown at him with phlegm. He could not disguise his surprise when a back-of-a-length delivery from Broad exploded from the pitch, flew over his horizontal bat, and landed directly in the hands of Cook at first slip. More discomfiture followed from a well-directed bouncer from Chris Woakes in the last over of the morning, which flicked his glove as he jerked his head away in self-preservation and he lost a piece from his helmet in the process. He just got on with it, giving the impression that he had seen it all before.The rain break interrupted England’s progress, but when they resumed at 12.30pm it was not long before Asad Shafiq fell to a slower offcutter by Stuart Broad, a front-foot drive flying to Hales at backward point.The most idiosyncratic innings, though, was played by Sarfraz Ahmed, whose slash at two of his first three balls, from Broad, indicated his state of mind. His counterattack lasted 18 balls, 26 riskily assembled, before he edged Stokes to second slip.All it required was for Woakes to take a wicket for England’s pace bowlers to complete the set. It duly arrived with Root’s third slip catch of the morning – and fourth of the innings – enabling England to go to lunch a ball early.Woakes had his fourth wicket of the innings, a self-effacing allrounder making a name for himself. Not that he will make much of it: he seems the sort who signs leaving cards in tiny handwriting where he will not get in the way of others. But he has had a fine Test and his haul was a rewarding moment on a day that deteriorated with the weather.

ScorecardSteven Patterson recorded career-best figures•Getty Images

At a time when a potential home Test debut for Scott Borthwick against Pakistan has been widely floated, it is perhaps inevitable that the Durham wicket that gained most attention was the one where Steven Patterson just vaguely stood there at the end of his run and happened to get in the way.Borthwick, who began the match with a Championship average top side of 80, has had a prolific season, in contrast to the current incumbent as England’s No. 3, Nick Compton, who has mustered 151 runs at 16.77 in a troubled season for both Middlesex and England.Patterson, one of the stingier bowlers around, was probably silently berating himself for allowing Borthwick something as self-indulgent as a front-foot drive when the ball was parried at mid-off by the diving Andrew Gale. Borthwick first held the pose – as if displaying his England credentials for a dozing photographer – then sensed a single, aware that Gale is carrying a few niggles and is a bit exposed in the field these days.But there was a Patterson roundabout to negotiate and Borthwick was still a foot short of the crease, sliding in on his knees, when Gale’s direct hit struck the stumps. The physio had to come on to give Gale attention, but it was only a graze and he was safe in the knowledge that he had pronounced he has not become an automatic single just yet.That was England affairs done and dusted, Borthwick left to curse a scorecard showing two runs in six balls. Attention turned to the Championship, the arena in which, day in day out, Patterson proves his worth. This time, with career-best figures of 6 for 56 to celebrate, and Durham dismissed for 172, he might get a share of that headline.Chris Rushworth, who two seasons ago took nine wickets in an innings, did his best to upstage Patterson late on, serving up a draught of local defiance. Shaven pate shimmering in rare evening sunshine, he claimed all four Yorkshire wickets to fall, including Alex Lees for 71 and Patterson, loping out as nightwatchman, for a second-ball duck, to leave Gale and Gary Ballance playing charily for the close.With the bat, Jack Burnham stuck it out, his 49 from 134 balls representing a mature contribution in a decent first full season, showing the sort of resilience that is expected from this Durham side, no matter how inexperienced. He drove pleasantly at times, but he never drove Patterson, wisely settling for suspicious pushes into the leg side.”Patto does what Patto does,” his coach, Jason Gillespie, is fond of saying. He does not so much hit a length as beat it into submission at speeds just above the motorway speed limit, but not quite fast enough to make the camera flash. But when he hits the seam he can change lane as sharply as the best of them. On a nibbly Chester-le-Street seamer, he was a permanent irritation: as nagging as a wasp in the kitchen, the thing you can’t quite remember, the noise in the car you can’t quite place.Every team needs a Patto, someone to throw the ball to when the pressure is on, and for Yorkshire the pressure was at maximum. They have four senior pace bowlers absent – Jack Brooks, Ryan Sidebottom, David Willey and Liam Plunkett (the latter with England) – their hugely promising fast bowler, Matt Fisher, is plagued by hamstring trouble, and England have also called up the legspin of Adil Rashid.Add Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root, and Yorkshire had eight missing in all. Two seamers were on Yorkshire Championship debut, Ben Coad and Josh Shaw, although Shaw had at least had some experience at Gloucestershire, where he has been called back from an intended season’s loan.With one point separating Lancashire, Durham and Yorkshire at the top of Division One, the table is a triumph for the north, although this being the north, the did curb its regional pride with the observation that Lancashire are in a false position.Durham were reasonably placed at 74 for 2 when Patterson struck for the first time with his second ball after lunch, having Mark Stoneman lbw, pushing well forward. Then came a run of 3 for 8 in 18 balls: Michael Richardson edged a brute of a ball which spat off a length; Paul Collingwood, who seemed intent on breaking him early, managed one cover drive but then mistimed a wide one to backward point; and Ryan Pringle’s off stump was removed as he groped forward.Coad and Shaw both acquitted themselves well, and Tim Bresnan produced a decent delivery of his own to have Usman Arshad caught at the wicket, but Gale ran Patterson for 14 overs in all, a spell broken by lunch, his value never more apparent. A brief second spell went unrewarded before Gale turned to him again after tea and he ended the innings courtesy of two off-side catches. A bowler just doing his job, and doing it well.

The England coach Trevor Bayliss has admitted England’s wicketkeeping position remains a debating point for the selectors ahead of the Test series against Pakistan.Bayliss was as impressed as anyone with Jonny Bairstow’s batting during the series against Sri Lanka – “nobody is hitting the ball better than Jonny,” he said – but confirmed that Jos Buttler would keep wicket for the limited-overs games and revealed that other names were being considered for the Test team.Bairstow claimed 19 dismissals against Sri Lanka – a record for an England keeper in a three-match series – but also missed four chances, including a straightforward effort off Chris Woakes at Lord’s. He also missed, by conservative judgements, six chances in the four-match series against South Africa. While his position in the team as a batsman is beyond question after he contributed two centuries and was named Man of the Series, his future as keeper is less clear.CricViz, the analytics company, gave Bairstow’s keeping a rating of -111 for the Sri Lanka series. For comparison, they rated Dinesh Chandimal -22 for the same games, gave Sarfraz Ahmed a rating of +20 for the Pakistan series and AB de Villiers, Quinton de Kock and Dane Vilas ratings of -62, -21 and +41 respectively for the series against England in South Africa. Bairstow finished that series with a -28 rating.

Bayliss on…

Tymal Mills
“I’ve only seen him at one practice in South Africa and the reaction of our batters at the time said enough: there was plenty of them lining up in the spinners’ net to have a bat to stay away from him. It will be exciting to see what he’s got.”
Resting players
“If there was a World Cup just round the corner I’d be playing our strongest team. But it’s just a one-off match. It is a chance to give them a little bit of a break and get about 12 days off. And it’s a chance to look at a few new, younger players.”
Broad’s limited-overs future
“The limited-overs team has been picked on merit but that does not mean that it’s the end of his career. There’s bowlers in the team that still haven’t cemented their spot. He’s there or thereabouts. He’s keen to play at home in the 2019 World Cup and we are aware of that. There is no reason why he couldn’t be playing in the Champions Trophy next year.”

Describing himself as an “old school” judge who would always prefer to pick the “best wicketkeeper” rather than a batsman who can do a job with the gloves, Bayliss mentioned Ben Foakes, the young Surrey wicketkeeper, as one man under consideration.”I am a little bit old school,” Bayliss said. “I think the best wicketkeeper should be the wicketkeeper.”Our wicketkeepers – and there are three of them if you include Sam Billings – are young and inexperienced, I suppose. They are probably batters who are wicketkeepers.”I’ve said to all three of them that I believe the wicketkeeper in the team should be the best we have. Basically just to make sure they continue to work hard. Jonny, Jos and Sam certainly have stepped it up with the practice.”Personally I believe it is a wicketkeeping position. Ben Foakes is one name that has been mentioned, along with two or three others. From the selectors’ point of view, it is something we are going to have to work through and think pretty carefully about.”Foakes is only 23 and enjoying his first season as first-choice wicketkeeper at Surrey. While he developed at Essex, he was obliged to leave for more opportunity as his progress was blocked by the brilliant James Foster. But Foakes was identified as a player of great potential long ago: he was selected for the Lions side for the 2012-13 tour of Australia before he had played a List A game and has been invited to train with the full England team several times since.He is a good enough batsman to have played for much of last year as a specialist and, while Bayliss has yet to see him play, Surrey’s director of cricket, Alec Stewart, rates him as “the most talented keeper in the country” and Andy Flower has long recognised him as one for the future.Whether that future is now remains uncertain. In an ideal world, Foakes would be allowed to continue to develop in the county game before being exposed to the pressure of international cricket. But the England management are concerned about the prospect of a winter where England will play seven Tests in Asia, with the keeper expected to spend a large amount of time standing up to the stumps against the spinners.In the short term, Bayliss has reassured Buttler that he remains first-choice keeper in the limited-overs sides and suggested he could go some way to convincing the selectors to recall him to the Test team with a strong performance in the white-ball matches. Realistically, though, he will need to prove himself in the County Championship with Lancashire; he has not played a first-class game since he was dropped from the Test team in October and he is not scheduled to play one ahead of the Pakistan series.”Jos will be the wicketkeeper for the limited-overs games,” Bayliss said. “He has been in the last few white-ball series.”Runs could put him back in the frame for the Test side, but the selectors would like to see him score runs in the four-day game to show us he’s back in form. We know the devastating player he can be. It’s a bit unfortunate we don’t have any games for another couple of weeks, but he will get his opportunity I’m sure.”Bayliss also hinted that Scott Borthwick was in pole position to replace Nick Compton as England’s No. 3 against Pakistan. While he is another player Bayliss has yet to see play in the flesh, his record on Durham’s tricky surfaces is exceptional. He has passed 1,000 first-class runs in each of the most recent three seasons and also offers legspin bowling – he won a Test cap as a spinner in early 2014 – and strong fielding.”I haven’t actually seen him bat,” Bayliss said. “But the feedback I’ve got is that he is a player who is in form. He is a tough sort of a cricketer playing at Durham where sometimes the wickets have got a little bit more in them. He is very enthusiastic; a great guy to have in the team. But he’s not the only one. There’s a few others around that could get a game.”

Lewis Gregory gave Somerset a powerful start•Getty Images

Somerset moved into third place in the NatWest T20 Blast South Group with a 14-run victory over Hampshire in front of a 6,000-plus crowd at Taunton.Opener Lewis Gregory led the way after the hosts had won the toss, smacking 43 off 20 balls, with nine fours, in a total of 204 for 9. Jim Allenby contributed 37, while Gareth Berg claimed 3 for 35.In reply, Hampshire were bowled out for 190, Lewis McManus top-scoring with 34. Tim Groenewald was the pick of the home attack with 2 for 28 from his four overs.Somerset made a whirlwind start to their innings thanks to some sweet timing from openers Gregory and Steve Davies and some woeful Hampshire bowling that saw the second over from Kyle Abbott feature two over-stepping no-balls and cost 25.By the end of the fourth over Gregory and Davies had taken the score to 61, the former being dropped on 24 by Berg off Brad Wheal, a tough chance, with the skied ball arriving over his shoulder.It was a relief for Hampshire when James Vince produced a good catch above his head at mid-on to dismiss Davies for 32, made from just 13 balls, Shahid Afridi the successful bowler.Man-of-the-match Gregory holed out to deep midwicket off Berg, having looked in prime form and by the end of the six-over Powerplay Somerset had raced to 83 for 2.Allenby took time to play himself in before producing some cracking shots. Peter Trego fell cheaply, but James Hildreth ensured there was no let-up for the bowlers with a breezy 25 off 18 deliveries.Allenby drove a catch to extra cover off Berg, but Michael Leask hit Wheal for six and two more maximums in the same over by Roelof van der Merwe, including a ramp shot, had Somerset on course for 220.But the 18th over saw van der Merwe run out and Abbott strike twice to dismiss Leask and Groenewald, forcing last pair Craig Overton and Max Waller to exercise caution.Hampshire replied positively despite losing Rilee Rossouw to only the eighth ball of their innings, bowled by Overton, whose opening over still coast 14.Vince cracked 33 off 15 balls, with seven fours, before being bowled by a full ball from Gregory. But George Bailey quickly followed, a victim for Groenewald, who put an early brake on the scoring rate.Carberry was dropped on 2 by Hildreth at short fine-leg off Overton as Hampshire ended the Powerplay on 51 for 3. He and Sean Ervine added 49 in good time before the latter was bowled by van der Merwe for 19 attempting a scoop shot.Carberry had progressed to 30 and was looking dangerous when run out by Groenewald in a mix-up with Lewis McManus over a second run. At 93 for 5 in the 11th over, the visitors were in trouble.McManus lofted successive sixes off van der Merwe in the 13th over, but the next saw Waller beat Afridi’s defensive shot and bowl him for 18.When McManus was caught by Allenby at extra cover off a skier to give Waller his second wicket, Hampshire were left needing 53 off four overs, with only three wickets in hand.Despite the best efforts of Berg (31 off 21 balls), they were always falling short and when he was run out the innings ended with three balls remaining.