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Neither of the three captains from Group B teams were short of confidence, but it was Ihsanullah, the Afghanistan Under-19 captain, who firmly said his team has set sights on the title

Mohammad Isam20-Jan-2016Neither of the three captains from Group B teams, Ihsanullah, Abraash Khan and Charith Asalanka, were short of confidence, but it was the Afghanistan Under-19 captain who firmly said that his team has set sights on the title.Ihsanullah, the younger brother of Nawroz Mangal, drew confidence from Afghanistan’s series win against Pakistan in October 2014, and said that the Under-19 side looked up to the senior team.”We beat Pakistan in their home so we hope we can beat them and top our group. We dream of winning the trophy, ,” Ihsanullah said. “Obviously, we are inspired by the national team and wish to play for them. Our future is so bright so now we are looking for this achievement. All our national players are heroes. There’s nothing in Afghanistan but cricket is getting very big, because of them.”Sri Lanka’s Asalanka, meanwhile, was wary of the expectations with his country having never won the Under-19 World Cup.”I think all teams will have target to win the World Cup,” he said. “I will have the responsibility to bring the trophy home. If I can, it will be for the first time, and it will be a big thing. I think it is a tough group. Canada, Afghanistan and Pakistan are good sides.”Abraash, the Canada captain, said that they were keen to get past the group stage for the first time and give a good account of themselves.
“Our goal is to make the second round in this tournament,” he said. I know Canada has played many World Cups in the past, I played in the last one.”We never made the second round. If we really believe in our preparations, we can make it. We don’t play that much cricket. Sometimes it is good to be an underdog. People don’t expect you to do well. We are trying to change opinions in the World Cup.”Abraash took inspiration from offspinner Nikhil Dutta who has featured in the BPL and CPL, and said that Canada’s participation in the regional tournament in West Indies held them in good stead.”Nikhil and I are from the same club. We have played in the same team, Abraash said.” It is good to see him making big strides and hopefully we can all follow his footsteps. We won one game out of six in the West Indies regional tournament. It was a good tournament to prepare for the World Cup because it is a step up for us.”Abraash also identified Davy Jacobs, who has played for Eagles, Free State and Mumbai Indians among other teams, as a key figure.”Davy Jacobs is in my club,” Abraash said. He is not with the national body but he is the head coach in the Ontario Cricket Academy. We trained with him all winter and played with him all summer as well.”

Ricky Ponting has called Michael Clarke a definite starter for Friday’s first Test against New Zealand in Wellington

Cricinfo staff13-Mar-2010Michael Clarke will join Australia’s Test squad in New Zealand on Monday after ending his personal leave to deal with the breakdown of his two-year engagement. Clarke has confirmed his departure with Cricket Australia and a spokesman told Cricinfo he would fly from Sydney on Monday morning with the five-day specialists.Clarke, the vice-captain, has been at home since leaving the one-day squad early last week and will be pleased to exit the intense local spotlight. Ricky Ponting is looking forward to getting his deputy back and Michael Hussey has said any sledging of Clarke’s personal situation by the New Zealanders would be “going a little bit too far”.”I don’t know, we’ll have to wait and see really,” Hussey told reporters in Wellington. “He’s such a mentally tough person. He’ll be fine. It’s important we don’t get caught up in that by-play.”Phillip Hughes, Steven Smith, Simon Katich and Marcus North will fly to Wellington with Clarke, who finalised his travel plans with Michael Brown, Cricket Australia’s deputy, over the weekend. Ponting is confident Clarke will not have any problems readjusting to life in the Test side and he is a definite starter at the Basin Reserve on Friday.”He’ll get himself prepared for the first Test,” Ponting said after losing the final match of the one-day series. “It’s obviously been a tough time for him the last few days at home.”All the guys here have given as much support as possible and he was given as much time as he needed to get everything sorted at home. He’ll come back for us as the vice-captain and an experienced player in the Test side.”

They plan to get some game time before the five-Test series starting November 22

Shashank Kishore04-Nov-2024India batters KL Rahul and Dhruv Jurel will arrive in Australia a week earlier than the rest of India’s Test squad to gain some match time ahead of the five-Test series beginning on November 22 in Perth.Rahul and Jurel will line up for the India A side led by Ruturaj Gaikwad for the second and final four-day fixture to be played from November 7 at the MCG. India A lost the first game by seven wickets in Mackay, where the last day was marred by a ball-change controversy although Ishan Kishan escaped a dissent charge after an argument with the on-field umpire.Rahul was left out of India’s XI following their defeat to New Zealand in the first Test in Bengaluru, where he scored 0 and 12. Rahul made way for the returning Shubman Gill for the second and third Tests of the series where India were blanked 3-0, their first whitewash at home in 24 years.Related

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Meanwhile, Jurel, who made his Test debut against England earlier this year, hasn’t featured in any of the five home Tests since Rishabh Pant’s comeback. He has had two red-ball outings since the conclusion of the England series in March, one Duleep Trophy game and then the Irani Cup last month. He managed only 2 and 0 in the Duleep Trophy fixture before scoring a brisk 93 off 121 balls against Mumbai.The decision to send both players early to get some match practice is pertinent given the Indian team cancelled their only intra-squad warm-up fixture for centre-wicket match simulation in Perth.”We are travelling with a squad of 19 players and only three days were allotted to us. I don’t know how much workload we can get in those three days in terms of getting everyone prepared,” captain Rohit Sharma had reasoned on Sunday.”The management feels that we’d rather have a match simulation where batters can spend more time in the middle and the bowlers can bowl a lot of balls. That is something that we, as a team, feel more comfortable doing rather than playing a practice game because game time is not a problem.”The Indian team is set to depart for Australia on November 10, and will train at the old venue in Perth, the WACA, ahead of the series opener at the Optus Stadium, where they last played on the 2018-19 tour, which they won 2-1.India are likely to miss Rohit for that opening game because of his unavailability due to personal reasons and his direct replacement in the squad is Abhimanyu Easwaran, who scored 7 and 12 in the first A game after scoring four straight first-class hundreds at the start of the Indian domestic season, unless they decide to rejig the batting order.

Stakes in all Hundred teams for sale for 2025 with ECB sending prospectuses to potential investors next month

Matt Roller21-Aug-2024Lancashire want to partner with an IPL franchise and run Manchester Originals as a joint venture from 2025. The ECB will distribute prospectuses to potential investors early next month, with stakes in each of the eight Hundred teams for sale, and Lancashire have met with various interested parties over the last month.The club have actively grown their profile in India over the last five years, with a strategy which has included men’s and women’s pre-season tours, friendlies against teams linked to Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and the signings of Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar and Venkatesh Iyer as overseas players.As the owners of Emirates Old Trafford, Lancashire will be gifted a 51% stake in Manchester Originals by the ECB as part of the Hundred’s sale process. They have made clear that they are looking for a “sporting partner” rather than a purely financial investor, and their chief executive, Daniel Gidney, told ESPNcricinfo that they would “love” to work with an IPL franchise.Related

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“Our preference is a partner who will partner with us on cricket, who can really help us grow our cricket, and clearly we have a strong interest in India,” Gidney said. “We’d love to work with an IPL team, of course, because of the opportunities that would bring – both for us and for them… our pathway is the best in the country, and so is our medical staff.”The ECB is running the sale of stakes, with the Raine Group – the American bank involved in the recent deals at Chelsea and Manchester United – and Deloitte acting as financial advisors. But Lancashire will be actively involved in choosing a partner, and hosted officials from several franchises – understood to include Lucknow Super Giants – during the Hundred.The two London Hundred franchises – London Spirit (Lord’s) and Oval Invincibles (The Oval) – are expected to be worth the most, with Manchester Originals and Birmingham Phoenix (Edgbaston) following. “As I’ve said to different people from that part of the world, the first round is being run by the ECB, so you need to get your number up,” Gidney said.”If you want an ego and to pay a lot of money, then London is your gig. There’ll be loads of people that want London, but there’s only two teams, and one of those only wants a passive investor so it narrows your choice down. Outside of that, I said to people: ‘If you want cheap, we are not it. If you want the best , we are it.”Avram Glazer, the co-owner of Manchester United, owns Desert Vipers in the UAE’s ILT20 and is understood to be considering a bid for a stake in a Hundred franchise, with representatives attending matches over the past few weeks. But the Glazer family’s ownership has been unpopular with United fans, meaning a bid for a stake in the Originals appears unlikely.”We are unique in the cityscape of the UK in having two massive brands and Premier League football teams that both [feature] the name of the city,” Gidney said. “All I’m going to be drawn on that subject is I think it would be very difficult for Manchester Originals to be renamed either Manchester United or Manchester City.”A Lancashire spokesperson said that the club have also held talks with other American sports investors, including from the NFL, women’s football and the NBA and are not ruling any options out before the process officially gets underway.Gidney believes that the ECB should consider increasing the number of overseas players per team in the Hundred from three to four when private investment arrives and salaries increase. He would also favour a tweaked draft system which would allow for more “local heroes” in Hundred squads, with two of Lancashire’s best players – Liam Livingstone (Birmingham Phoenix) and Saqib Mahmood (Oval Invincibles) – not involved in the Originals set-up in the Hundred’s first four seasons.”I would absolutely see the benefit of some form of consolidated contracting,” Gidney said. “An opportunity for us to have a bit more Lancashire personality would be great. You’ve still got to be best vs best, you’ve still got to get in the XI, but originally, we talked about having some local heroes within a squad and I would love to see that come back in.””The key for the success of the Hundred going forward is that player salaries have to go up – on both the men’s and women’s side – to attract the best talent. You can’t have a scenario where [Shaheen Shah] Afridi is choosing to play in Canada over us. That’s just nonsense.”I think there’s probably 30 to 40 players who are currently playing in the Hundred but I don’t think they should be. I think they should be playing in the One-Day Cup… if you’re looking at the investment, you have to have best vs best. On some occasions, have you had the best players in the world playing in that game? I would say the answer is no.”August 22, 1000 GMT – This story was updated to include a clarification from a Lancashire spokesperson.

He had played just four T20 innings before this and is the latest unknown entity from MI’s scouting stable

ESPNcricinfo staff24-Mar-2024Mumbai Indians have played some of the most iconic T20 batters at No. 3 over the years, from Suryakumar Yadav to Rohit Sharma to Cameron Green. On Sunday night against Gujarat Titans, out walked Naman Dhir at No. 3 when Ishan Kishan fell in the first over of the chase of 169.It was just the sixth T20 game of Dhir’s professional career and he is yet to play a 50-over game in domestic cricket. What was he doing in the IPL then for the five-time champions?Bought for INR 20 lakh at the last auction, Dhir is the latest unknown entity from MI’s scouting stable. He is 24, a hard-hitting batter from Punjab. Known for hitting big sixes down the ground, his four T20 innings before this had earned him just 39 runs since his T20 debut a few months ago in November, with a high score of 17. For Punjab too, he has mostly batted at No. 3 in his fledgling career so far. In the Ranji Trophy, he has two centuries from 20 innings – both from last season – from 14 games for an average of 30.21.Related

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It was in the Sher-e-Punjab T20 Cup – a state T20 league organised by the Punjab Cricket Association – in August last year that he made himself noticed with his hitting exploits. In 12 innings in that tournament, Dhir smashed 466 runs (second-highest) at a strike rate of 192.56 while averaging 42.36. He scored two centuries along the way – 127 off 56 and 105 off 44 – which included a total of 30 sixes.On Sunday, he smoked three back-to-back fours against Afghanistan’s Azmatullah Omarzai and a six in the same over. Dhir lofted the first ball of the third over over mid-off, the second over midwicket and the third (after a wide) for a one-bounce four to the square-leg boundary. A dot ball later, Dhir clobbered a half-volley over long-off for an 86-meter six. Omarzai, however, fought back on the last ball of the over by trapping Dhir lbw with the help of a review.”He came out and he was very expressive. Again that lofted shot, you have got to be excited about these things,” Kieron Pollard, Mumbai batting coach, said after the match. “I thought he had a lot more to offer, his calmness even when we lost that first wicket, to continue that intent is a good start for him. This is only the start, at the end of it he scored 20 odd, let’s give him that space, let him enjoy the moment, it’s a big occasion for these guys. As a franchise we’ll continue to unearth new talent. In the future we can continue with continuity as we go along.”Kudos to the scouts, all the guys who work behind the scenes to unearth these sorts of talent within in India. He was one on our radar. He has been in the Mumbai setup over the last couple of months, going to England on a developmental tour. So, it’s something we would’ve seen in that guy.”Mumbai would have thought Dhir did his job with a 10-ball 20, but they eventually fell short by just six runs in the end.

Fast bowlers Aamer Jamal and Khurram Shahzad will make their debuts, while Agha Salman will be the only spin option

Danyal Rasool13-Dec-2023For the second time in as many tours to Australia, Pakistan have decided to line up in the opening Test with a relatively inexperienced bowling attack. Fast bowlers Aamer Jamal and Khurram Shahzad will both make their Test debuts, with Shaheen Shah Afridi leading the attack.That leaves no room for Hasan Ali or any specialist spin bowling, with Noman Ali sitting out in favour of batter and part-time spinner Agha Salman. Seam-bowling allrounder Faheem Ashraf will bat at eight, with Pakistan opting for batting depth over a pedigreed spinner.There were relatively few surprises in the batting line-up, and while both Mohammad Hafeez and Shan Masood talked up Mohammad Rizwan’s all-round contribution to the side, Sarfaraz Ahmed is the wicketkeeper while Rizwan remains on the bench. It is understood the option of playing Rizwan as a specialist batter was briefly considered, but in Noman’s absence, Agha’s part-time offspin provided him the edge.Related

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Pakistan’s plans were thrown into disarray when Abrar Ahmed, the first-choice spinner, was injured ahead of the Perth Test, and now battles to be fit for the remaining two. Sajid Khan was flown in as emergency replacement, but he only arrived on Tuesday evening, and a Thursday start was deemed to be too soon for him. With four left-hand batters in Australia’s top seven, the offspinner was considered a better match-up than left arm spinner Noman, and his lack of readiness has seen them ditch the idea of a specialist spinner altogether.The pitch was under covers for most of the day, but had heavy patches of greenery on Tuesday, two days out from the Test. The pitch at this venue last year against West Indies, while rated “good”, was much blander than are usual in Perth, with the fast bowlers not quite getting the assistance they have historically been accustomed to. The Optus Stadium curator said some of the grass would be shaved off the pitch, but Pakistan captain Masood said he expected it to provide significant assistance to fast bowlers.While Pakistan have wrestled with how to manage their team combination, Australia announced their starting XI three days out from the Test. They play three specialist fast bowlers, spinner Nathan Lyon, and seam-bowling allrounder Mitchell Marsh.Pakistan XI for first Test against Australia: Imam-ul-Haq, Abdullah Shafique, Shan Masood (capt), Babar Azam, Saud Shakeel, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wk), Agha Salman, Faheem Ashraf, Shaheeh Shah Afridi, Aamer Jamal, Khurram Shahzad

Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant could not put in big scores for their teams

Hemant Brar24-Nov-2019KL Rahul’s blazing half-century against Punjab gave Karnataka their third win in as many matches in the Super League of Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2019-20. Prithvi Shaw played a similar knock for Mumbai as they defeated Jharkhand in the other Group B game.Meanwhile, in Group A, Haryana beat Delhi with the help of Yuzvendra Chahal’s three-for and replaced Baroda at the top of the table. Baroda lost to Maharashtra earlier in the day.Karnataka v PunjabRahul’s unbeaten 48-ball 84 trumped Mandeep Singh’s 76 off 50 balls as Karnataka beat Punjab by seven wickets.In response to Punjab’s 163 for 6, Rahul got Karnataka off to a flyer and despite Devdutt Padikkal scoring 2 off three balls, the duo added 33 in just 2.1 overs for the first wicket. Rahul kept going for his shots and brought up his fifty off 22 balls.Along with Manish Pandey, Rahul took the side past 100 with a 60-run stand for the third wicket. Pandey fell for a 29-ball 33 but by then his side required just 25 from 29 balls, which they knocked off with 12 balls to spare.Shubman Gill, who was released from the Test side along with Rishabh Pant on Friday, managed only 11 off nine balls, as Ronit More took 4 for 27, his best T20 figures.Mumbai v JharkhandSmarting from their defeat against Tamil Nadu, Mumbai rode on Shaw’s 39-ball 64 to take down Jharkhand by five wickets.Chasing 171, Shaw targeted the arc between long-on and deep midwicket and took Mumbai to 50 in 5.2 overs. He got to his fifty off 28 balls with a straight six off left-arm spinner Sonu Singh before dragging a sweep on to his stumps.Despite Shaw’s innings, Mumbai still needed 64 from 36 balls. However, a 26-run 16th over took the game away from Jharkhand. It started with Shivam Dube hitting offspinner Utkarsh Singh for three successive sixes, and while Dube perished attempting the fourth, Siddhesh Lad smashed the fifth ball for four before collecting two off the sixth.Earlier, Kumar Deobrat struck 58 off just 30 balls with the help of eight fours and two sixes, but once he was dismissed, Mumbai didn’t let the other batsmen score freely. Jharkhand’s eventual 170 for 5 didn’t prove enough.Maharashtra v BarodaRuturaj Gaikwad, Kedar Jadhav and Azim Kazi all scored in 40s before their bowlers skittled Baroda for 98 to give Maharashtra a 67-run win.Continuing his good form, Gaikwad smashed seven fours and a six in his 27-ball 47 before he was trapped lbw by Swapnil Singh. Jadhav (47* off 42) and Azim (48* off 33) then added 87 in 61 balls in an unbroken third-wicket stand to take them to a competitive 165 for 2.Baroda’s chase never really took off. Samad Fallah dismissed Aditya Waghmode for a first-ball duck in the opening over. And when Deepak Hooda and Krunal Pandya too fell cheaply, Baroda were struggling at 37 for 3 in the seventh over.Kedar Devdhar (27 off 20) was the only one to offer some resistance but once he was run out, the rest of the batting just collapsed.Haryana v DelhiHimanshu Rana starred with 59 off 40 balls as Haryana beat Delhi by 30 runs in the north India derby.Batting first, Haryana lost their openers in the first two overs but Rana and Shivam Chauhan (47 off 31) added 105 in 66 balls for the third wicket. While they got out in back-to-back overs, the incoming batsmen kept finding the boundaries and powered the side to 181 for 6.Navdeep Saini had an uneventful return from the groin injury, conceding 21 from three overs without picking up any wicket.Bolstered by Pant’s addition, Delhi would have backed themselves to chase the target down but the wicketkeeper-batsman ended up consuming 32 balls for his 28. By the time he got out, the asking rate had gone past 13. Nitish Rana showed some fight with a 25-ball 37 but it came a too little too late. For Haryana, Chahal was the most successful bowler, registering 3 for 27, his best figures in the seven matches he has played this tournament.

The new fitness requirement has been criticised by the players

ESPNcricinfo staff28-Sep-2019The Bangladesh Cricket Board has decided to raise the beep-test requirement at the domestic level in a bid to address the overall drop in fitness levels among Bangladesh men’s players. The national selectors recently instructed the first-class teams to only pick players who reach at least 11 on the test, an increase by two levels from last season when a fitness test first became mandatory.”We have noticed that the fitness of the national players are very poor,” Nazmul Hassan, the BCB president, said. “The coach [Russell Domingo] asked, ‘What sort of fitness is this? I have never seen such fitness of players in South Africa’. We cannot suddenly increase the fitness-level requirements. We cannot reach the mark of 13 points [in the beep test] or even go above that.”So, there has been a decision regarding this, that if we keep the fitness acceptance levels so low in the domestic or lower-tier competitions from where the players get into the national side, then naturally the players in the national side will only score nine or ten in the beep test. Now let’s see. We have taken the decision after considering everything. I think we have to improve the fitness.”But the new requirement, made known to the cricketers three weeks prior to the start of the 2019-20 season, has not gone down well with some. Tushar Imran, the leading first-class run-scorer, said it was unfair on the part of the selectors to impose it so close to the season.”I am always prepared to take up a challenge,” Tushar told , “but it is not fair to say that we can’t play if we can’t reach 11. Cricket is our bread and butter. It is going to be difficult for a lot of cricketers.”A lot of ‘super-fit’ players from the senior side are not scoring a lot of runs or taking wickets. What will the selectors do with them? [But] we are prepared to take the challenge, because it is our livelihood.”Former Bangladesh captain Mohammad Ashraful argued that only players in the national side or in the high-performance camp will get the necessary facilities to raise their fitness levels.”It wouldn’t have been any problem to get 11 if we were given proper training facilities in the off-season,” he said. “I got 11.5 last year, but these facilities are only available to the national team, the high-performance side and the Under-23 team. I remain hopeful that I can do 11.5 this year too, since I never had fitness concerns when playing for Bangladesh.”Shuvagata Hom, a domestic star who has played 17 international matches, said that if a certain fitness level was set as a requirement, the domestic players should have been given more time to be prepared for it.”It is going to be difficult for players outside the national set-up,” Hom said, “because we hardly get seven to ten days of training for the first-class competition. We don’t get to do long fitness camps, which would have helped us reach that stage in fitness when asked to take this beep test at a short notice.”The first-class sides will announce their squads after the fitness test, which is likely to be held on October 1. The National Cricket League begins on October 5.

They had few alarms completing a seven-wicket victory over Leicestershire

ECB Reporters Network13-Sep-2019Northamptonshire moved into second place in Division Two after completing a seven wicket victory over Leicestershire in the Specsavers County Championship match at the Fischer County Ground.Beginning the day on 22-0, with a target of just 141 to win, openers Ben Curran and Rob Newton extended their partnership to 68 before Newton went leg before to an Alex Evans delivery that came back in to the right-hander.Curran, on 40, edged a flat-footed drive at Will Davis to Colin Ackermann at second slip, and Ackermann picked up a second catch when first innings centurion Rob Keogh edged a drive at left-arm spinner Callum Parkinson.The odd ball was beginning to turn for Parkinson, but by that stage Alex Wakely was well established, and the vistors’ former skipper saw his side across the line with an unbeaten 40.

A career best 73 for Pakistan opener Fakhar Zaman set Pakistan up for a convincing win over Australia in Harare

The Report by Daniel Brettig05-Jul-2018
Pakistan gained a mental advantage over Australia by dominating Aaron Finch’s team in a match that served as a dress rehearsal for Sunday’s Twenty20 triangular tournament final at the Harare Sports Club.Having beaten Pakistan comfortably in their first meeting, the Australians put in an unfocused performance, dropping far too short with the new ball after Finch sent Sarfraz Ahmed’s side in to bat to allow Fakhar Zaman to fire off a succession of pull shots on his way to the highest score of the match. They then lost a series of early wickets to the late moving ball in the hands of Faheem Ashraf and the 18-year-old left-armer Shaheen Afridi.Having slid as low as 75 for 5, Australia never looked likely to get close to their target, though the wicketkeeper and vice-captain Alex Carey played another intelligent innings down the order. Pakistan’s victory also served the purpose of preventing Australia from taking their place at the top of the ICC’s T20 international rankings.Both sides had already qualified for Sunday’s tournament final, making this game chiefly a chance to gain information and psychological high ground. Australia kept the same side that delivered comfortable wins over Pakistan and Zimbabwe to be the first team to reach the decider. Pakistan included the youthful Afridi for his second T20I in place of Hasan Ali, while Usman Khan came in for Mohammad Nawaz.4:18

‘Steven Smith is the toughest batsman to bowl to’

On a cold morning in Harare, Billy Stanlake failed to induce the sort of early collapse he had been responsible for in Monday’s match. While Jhye Richardson enjoyed the good fortune of having Haris Sohail clip his first delivery straight to square leg to depart for a golden duck, the Pakistan top order were able to feast on a generous helping of short stuff.Fakhar was the major beneficiary, flashing nine boundaries and a trio of sixes on the way to the highest score of his T20I career thus far – he is Pakistan’s leading run-maker in this tournament by a distance, and will require far more careful planning by Australia’s pacemen and coaches ahead of the decider.They reached 80 inside nine overs before Hussain Talat was cramped for room by Glenn Maxwell’s off-breaks and bowled, and from there a series of nifty partnerships ensured that Finch’s side was unable to restrict the run rate. A particularly heavy toll was taken from the bowling of Ashton Agar, while 18 runs from the final over rather disfigured Aaron Tye’s previously excellent figures.Needing a rapid start given the task they were facing, Finch and D’Arcy Short were instead confounded by Pakistan’s fast men pitching the ball much further up to the bat and finding movement both in the air and off the seam. Finch was cornered by an Afridi delivery bending back at him and was caught behind off the inside edge, then Travis Head’s minimal footwork was exposed when Faheem Ashraf seamed one back to pluck out middle stump.Maxwell managed a pair of boundaries before he played around a late inswinger from Afridi that pinned him in front of middle stump, and the innings of Nic Maddinson – who made the squad despite being cut from the New South Wales contract list – lasted only eight balls before he misread a well-pitched wrong’un from Shadab Khan and was comfortably stumped.Short had persevered without timing the ball with anything like the power of which he is capable, but was well and truly beaten by the yorker Afridi served up on his return to the bowling crease. From there it was largely a matter of damage limitation for the Australians, as Carey knocked the ball around with the sort of resourcefulness that is quickly becoming his trademark without ever looking likely to threaten a distant target.Pakistan will now go into the final with plenty of confidence, while the Australians must face Zimbabwe before reconsidering their approach to Fakhar, Afridi and the rest of Sarfraz’s team.