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South Africa expect to see solid benefits from their T20 league in the not-too-distant future

Firdose Moonda08-Jan-2024The success of a T20 league relies on a strong contingent of active local international players, Faf du Plessis, a veteran of the circuit who will lead Jo’burg Super Kings for the second season of the SA20, believes.”The secret always lies in the national players being available,” du Plessis, former South Africa captain, told a select group of journalists during captains’ day in Cape Town two days out from the start of the tournament. “I’ve played in some competitions where you get the national players for only half the competition or a third of the competition, and then the standard really drops.”And therein lies the conundrum that has caught fire over the last week, since the extent of South Africa’s understrength Test squad that will play in New Zealand became clear. They will be captained by Neil Brand, who has yet to play a Test, and half the traveling group of 14 players are uncapped. The other half have just 50 Tests between them and only two – Keegan Petersen and David Bedingham – have played Test cricket in the last year. The composition of the squad was necessitated by the fact that the first-choice players are required to play the SA20, for exactly the reason du Plessis outlined.Related

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But read his rationale again – you need high-profile international players to maintain the quality of a domestic league – and you may conclude that it sounds a bit chicken-and-egg. In order to produce high-profile international players, a country needs to play high-profile international cricket. But South Africa have had to cut down on its internationals to accommodate the SA20. At some point, doesn’t that mean it will run out of high-quality internationals for the league?Graeme Smith, the former South Africa captain who is now the commissioner of the SA20, doesn’t think so. In fact, he is hopeful that the SA20 can soon begin to add to the production line of South African cricket. “It’s domestic cricket, but the platform and the competition here make it a bridge closer to international cricket,” he said. “Hopefully in year two, three or four years, we will start to see the benefits.”He may have a point. South Africa’s white-ball coach Rob Walter indicated that because of the scarcity of T20Is – South Africa played three against India last month and will not play any more before the announcement of their World Cup squad – he will have to rely on the SA20 and the IPL when selecting his squad for the event in June 2024.That means players like du Plessis, who has not played international cricket since February 2021 but has dominated run-charts in various T20 leagues, could find himself in contention for the national side, although he played down his own chances.

“You want to play Test cricket as a cricketer, that’s for sure. It’s still my most favourite format of the game. [But] ultimately, the cards have been dealt and we are unfortunately going to miss that series in New Zealand”Aiden Markram

“That team would have been selected already, probably in terms of 90% of the squad,” du Plessis said. “You can look at tournaments and pick one or two guys that are carrying some good form but if you ask the coach, he would have 90% of his team in his mind already.”It also means that a rookie who has an outstanding season could force his way into the national side, as was the case with Gerald Coetzee. He finished as the third-highest wicket-taker in last season’s SA20, debuted across all formats later in the year, and is now one of South Africa’s most promising prospects.Perhaps it’s possible that South Africa’s next generation of Test players will emerge from T20 leagues, though it won’t happen overnight and, in the immediate term, the future of the Test side will remain a concern.South Africa will only play two-Test series through the 2023-25 World Championship cycle, and won’t play any home Tests between January 2025 and September 2026. Ask around, and many current and former players want to find ways to fit more Test cricket into the calendar but don’t know how that could work.For his part, du Plessis – who calls himself a “purist who wants to see Test cricket still played in 50 or 100 years’ time” – has a suggestion: “Maybe it’s considering playing four-day Test matches so you have an extra day in the calendar to play maybe a third Test match,” he said. “I am not a big fan of two Test matches [in a series]. Everyone walks away from the series thinking there should have been one more or what if? I was joking with Aiden [Markram] earlier and said after losing the Newlands Test [to India] in one-and-a-half days, why didn’t the two captains get together and say let’s play another Test match tomorrow?”The Cape Town Test ended in just over four sessions•Gallo ImagesWe won’t know whether Markram or Rohit Sharma seriously thought about that but Markram, who is among those who will miss the New Zealand Tests, also spoke about the primacy of Test cricket. “You want to play Test cricket as a cricketer, that’s for sure,” he said. “It’s still my most favourite format of the game. [But] ultimately, the cards have been dealt and we are unfortunately going to miss that series in New Zealand.”Markram’s even-toned answer reflects much of the mood in the country. While much of the cricketing world continues to view the message South Africa are sending with the make-up of their squad to New Zealand as an indictment on the game, there is acceptance at home. Test coach Shukri Conrad said the national team has to “find a way to co-exist” with the SA20, and Smith agreed. “The SA20 is a four-week tournament in a whole year. We can co-exist,” he said. “There has been an intent from CSA to say this product [the SA20] is important for us and we need to give it the best chance to succeed, and for that we need to have our best players available.”And, in many ways, South Africa could be setting a few precedents for how countries outside of the Big Three [Australia, England and India] will operate. “It’s still quite new in the world at the moment and hopefully over this next year we can carve a new way forward,” Markram said.He wouldn’t be the only one looking at that timeframe as cricket’s landscape changes and national boards walk the tightrope between league cricket and bilateral arrangements.

The Jammu and Kashmir bowler hadn’t played with a cricket ball until he was 17. Now he’s in the IPL, and bowling in the nets for India at the T20 World Cup

Mohsin Kamal02-Nov-2021″India soon,” Umran Malik wrote in his Instagram bio in 2018. He was 18, part of the Jammu & Kashmir Under-19 squad, and had started playing leather-ball cricket just a year before. He was still to get a game in the Cooch Behar Trophy, but his bowling in a practice session left India’s U-19 selectors stunned.”They had come to visit Vaishno Devi Mandir,” Malik says. “They saw me bowling in nets on a cement wicket and asked, ‘Who are you? You are bowling so fast! Why are you not playing matches?'”The selectors approached a J&K U-19 coach and advised him to give Malik a game. It was the first time Malik realised that he could make it big.Last month Malik, now 21, became only the fourth cricketer from J&K to play in the IPL. As soon as he ran in to bowl in his opening game, for Sunrisers Hyderabad, the speedometer came into focus. He touched 150kph several times in his spell. In his second match, he bowled the fastest delivery by an Indian in the tournament’s history – 152.95kph.Related

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• Raw pace and nerveless accuracy: How Umran Malik regained Sunrisers' middle-overs control

• Umran Malik to stay back in UAE as net bowler for India's T20 World Cup campaign

Hailing from a family of modest means in Jammu’s Gujjar Nagar, Malik began playing at a young age. His father, Abdul Rashid, a fruit-seller in Shaheedi Chowk, his mother and two older sisters, were all supportive of his passion.”After playing in school during the day, he would leave the bag at home and go to play cricket in the evening as well,” says Rashid. “I used to tell him, ‘Play cricket but pay some attention to studies as well.’ I never refused to buy equipment or other things for him.”Malik’s long, steady run-up and smooth, explosive jump had commentators and fans liken his action to that of Waqar Younis. “I used to bowl fast from the very beginning,” he says. “I had a natural action. I didn’t copy it from anyone.”At 17 he ventured beyond gully cricket, into competitive tennis-ball tournaments around Jammu. The matches usually took place in the evenings and drew big crowds. Batters relished these games – ten overs an innings, short boundaries – but Malik’s pace often stole the spotlight.”Every team wanted him in their side,” says Raman Thaploo, a J&K cricketer who has watched Malik’s cricket journey closely.Malik would practise in the nets with the J&K senior Ranji Trophy team•Sahil Magotra/JKCA video analystHis growing popularity in tennis-ball cricket made him give leather-ball cricket a try. In his very first local match with a cricket ball, in 2017, he hit some huge sixes and bowled a fiery spell.As his reputation spread, he acquired the nickname “Ghajini”. Like Aamir Khan’s character in the hit Bollywood film of that name, he had close-cropped hair and a strong physique. Thaploo remembers: “People used to say, ‘ bowling [Ghajini hits huge sixes and bowls very fast].”Soon Malik’s friends suggested he go to a coach to improve his skills. He made his way to MA Stadium, where Randhir Singh Manhas, a local coach, trained young cricketers. “I remember it was the morning session, and as usual, I didn’t have many bowlers,” Manhas recalls of Malik’s first time there. “When he came to me, I said, ‘Okay, you can bowl.'”He had just bowled a couple of balls when Ram Dayal, a senior J&K cricketer, walked in. He stopped at the nets and watched for a while. “He [Dayal] asked, ‘Who’s this guy? He has raw talent and bowls around 135 to 140kph,'” Manhas says.Manhas asked his new pupil to come to the stadium daily. While much about Malik was in place, Manhas worked on a couple of things. “He was a natural talent. Usually players with Cosco [tennis-ball] background are quick through the air.”However, his jump and landing weren’t that perfect, so I worked with him on it. Later, when Irfan Pathan came here [as J&K mentor], he too helped him a bit.”Another player who practised at that ground was Abdul Samad, younger than Malik but a more seasoned cricketer, who would go on to play for J&K and Sunrisers Hyderabad before Malik. The two began training together every day. “I knew Samad earlier but we became best friends in 2018,” says Malik. “We’re now more like brothers.”Malik’s career was still not quite on track. When he went for the J&K U-19 trials, he was in for a surprise. “I was told that I haven’t played at district level, so I can’t appear in the trials.”Still, he decided to show up again the next day. “I went to nets and as they didn’t know whether I had played district or not, I started bowling. I just bowled one ball and the selector came to me and said, ‘You will be in the team, don’t worry. Just keep yourself ready.'”The many trophies Malik picked up in local and domestic matches are displayed proudly in his home•Courtesy of Umran Malik”He played his first match here at Jammu,” Thaploo remembers. “When he bowled the very first ball, it went above the keeper’s head after bouncing. Umpires were stunned. They asked him if he had played any nationals before.”The following year, Malik was rejected at the U-23 trials. In February 2020, Samad, now a part of J&K Ranji Trophy team, met the J&K U-23 team coach to plead Malik’s case. It was Samad, too, after being picked by Sunrisers Hyderabad for the 2020 IPL, who suggested Malik’s name to the franchise as a net bowler. “I told Samad to send my videos to them,” says Malik.Soon Malik was in the Sunrisers camp, surprising elite batters with his pace. On one occasion Kedar Jadhav asked him whether he was in the team or a net bowler. On another, Thaploo recalls proudly: “He was bowling very fast to Jonny Bairstow in the nets, and he told him to bowl a bit slow. However, as Malik doesn’t understand English much, he continued bowling fast. Then someone from the SRH camp came to him and said, ‘He is asking you to bowl a bit slow, you’re bowling too fast!'”Malik’s impressive show as net bowler in the 2020 IPL prompted the franchise to continue with him in 2021. In September this year, during the second leg of the competition, he received a call from the state cricket association, asking him to report back to Jammu for Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy trials. Instead he found himself included in the Sunrisers team as a short-term replacement for T Natarajan, who had tested positive for Covid-19 in Dubai.”Alhamdulillah, I was included in the team, else I had to travel back the next day,” says Malik. “It was an amazing feeling.”Once Sunrisers had lost the race to the playoffs, they provided Malik an opportunity in the playing XI, against Kolkata Knight Riders. He had just bowled three balls when the cricketing world started asking: who is this guy?Malik clocked 150kph in his very first over, and a couple more times in the game. He was, until then, unaware of the speeds he bowled at.Malik impressed Virat Kohli enough in the IPL to merit a call-up as net bowler with the Indian team at the T20 World Cup•BCCI”I thought I could bowl around 140-145kph max. I hadn’t checked my pace before playing in IPL,” he says. “Making my debut in the IPL and performing well in the first match was the most special moment of my life.”In the next game, against Royal Challengers Bangalore, Malik went a step further by bowling the second-fastest delivery of IPL 2021 – the 152.95kph-ball. At the post-match presentation, Virat Kohli spoke in support of the youngster: “Whenever you see talent like this, you are going to have your eyes on them and make sure you maximise their potential.””I really felt proud on seeing such a big player talking about me,” says Malik. “Nobody knew me a day before and now the world was talking about me.”Back home, Abdul Rashid’s phone didn’t stop ringing after his son’s IPL debut. From journalists turning up at his house and shop to relatives paying congratulatory visits, it was a busy week for him and his family.”Not only my family but whole Jammu-Kashmir and India is happy after seeing his bowling,” says Rashid emotionally. “His hard work has paid off.”On the basis of his IPL outing, Malik was included in the Indian contingent as a net bowler for the T20 World Cup. While pace is his major weapon, he can also generate swing into right-hand batters, and likes the bouncer. He is working to improve his skills, and is focusing on his yorker.”My first dream would be to see our team lifting the World Cup,” he says. “I will try to bowl well in the nets and impress selectors, so that they pick me for any of the future series, Inshallah.”That “India soon” bio could become reality sooner than expected.

The Boston Red Sox are expected to place pitcher Dustin May on the 15-day injured list with an undisclosed injury, and No. 6 prospect Connelly Early is being called up from Triple A Worcester to make his major league debut on Tuesday against the Athletics, according to a report from Foul Territory.

The 23-year-old Early was selected by the Red Sox in the fifth-round of the 2023 MLB amateur draft out of the University of Virginia, and has flown through the minor league system.

Early began the 2025 season in Double A Portland, going 7-2 with a 2.51 ERA. He earned a promotion to Triple A Worcester and has continued his stellar season, posting a 3-1 record with a 2.83 ERA in 28.2 innings pitched.

The Red Sox enter Tuesday with an 80-65 record and sit in third-place in a hotly contested American League East. Boston is three games behind the first-place Toronto Blue Jays.

A match-winning century sparked extraordinary scenes in March, capping a surge that propelled Jason Sangha back towards national reckoning

Deivarayan Muthu01-Sep-2025It has been five months since Jason Sangha guided South Australia to the Sheffield Shield title and sent the Karen Rolton Oval into euphoria. But his memories of the win and the celebrations, including the iconic ground invasion, are still so fresh that he was reliving it with Queensland’s Angus Lovell during dinner in Chennai, which is approximately 5000 miles away from Adelaide.Last month, Sangha was part of a group of 12 Australians who had spent in time Chennai and trained at the MRF academy, where they also played a three-day game against former Ranji Trophy champions Saurashtra.”We were talking about the win the other night and talking about how that [revelry] just wouldn’t happen at any other state,” Sangha recalls. “You know, there’s so much passion with the people from South Australia. They love their cricket, they love their AFL, but they love the cricket when the cricket season is on.Related

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“It’s the same in the AFL. Like, when the two AFL teams are playing really well, there’s a really good buzz around the city. And when South Australian cricket is doing well, or if Travis Head or Alex Carey are playing well, there’s a really big buzz around the city for cricket. If I go back home, there’s still people talking about the Shield final and we’re trying to focus on it for next season.”Sangha is gearing up for the season with his new-found ability to bat for long and score big. After chalking up six fifty-plus scores, including three centuries in 12 innings in the 2024-25 Shield, he made a career-best 202 not out off 379 balls in his most recent first-class fixture for Australia A against Sri Lanka A in Darwin in July. Sangha puts his stellar run down to taking emotions out of his game and thinking clearly.”I’m just a lot more level-headed than I probably would have been,” he says. “Whether I’m playing club cricket, if I’m playing state cricket, A-team cricket, even over here [in Chennai], I just want to keep having those good habits, keep being consistent with how I train, how I play, rather than sort of being checked in and checked out or being really intense and then dropping off and not batting for a while.”So it’s just having a more of a level-headed approach, being more consistent, and look, if that leads to higher honours, that’s great. But at the same time, if I’m scoring runs in every game that I’m playing and I’m putting my best foot forward, then I can live with the result.”Jason Sangha’s career has been revived by his move to South Australia•Getty ImagesSangha has certainly strengthened his Test credentials with his recent double-hundred against Sri Lanka A but doesn’t want to look too far ahead.”Yeah, I mean, every kid’s dream is to obviously play for Australia,” Sangha says. “That’s the pinnacle of how good you are as a cricketer – to play for Australia. And no doubt I’d love to do it as well. But I think I’m just really content with where my game is at right now. I’ve probably been trying to sort of figure out a method to have some sort of consistency.”Having batted on different surfaces in Chennai, including red and black soils, Sangha hopes to tap into that experience when he returns to the subcontinent. With some players set to come back to India for an A tour later this year and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to follow in 2027, this trip to Chennai was particularly significant for the Australia hopefuls such as Sangha himself.

The Boston Red Sox are flying high heading into the All-Star break. Winners of seven straight and nine of their last 10, they currently sit at 50-45 and hold the American League's third Wild Card spot.

They're also getting healthy at the right time. Not only is third baseman Alex Bregman expected to return to the lineup this weekend, but outfielder Masataka Yoshida was activated from the injured list on July 9—and went 3-for-4 with a double in his return. While ultimately a good thing, this also means that there's a logjam in the Boston outfield, and has led some to speculate that the team could trade 2024 All-Star Jarren Duran to make room.

After the Sox's 3-2 win over the Tampa Bay Rays, however, fans made it clear that they want the team to keep the 2024 All-Star Game MVP. In a video shared on X (formerly Twitter) by Underdog's Jared Carrabis, the Fenway faithful could be heard chanting "Keep Duran!" at chief baseball officer Craig Breslow. Check it out:

All Breslow could do is smile and wave.

Over Boston's seven-game win streak, Duran his hitting .360 with two home runs and 11 RBI. The Red Sox are back at it on Friday at Fenway for a 7:10 p.m. first pitch.

Ruben Amorim has been told he already has the perfect replacement for an injured Benjamin Sesko in the Manchester United squad. The Red Devils endured an anxious wait after the striker limped off late in the dramatic 2-2 draw against Tottenham, sparking fears of a potentially devastating knee injury for their marquee summer signing. He is now expected to miss around a month of action for Amorim's side.

• Early panic turns to measured optimism

  Sesko had only been introduced in the second half, but collapsed after a heavy challenge and immediately signalled for medical help. With all substitutions already made, United were forced to finish the match a man down. After the match, Amorim did little to calm nerves, admitting: " I am more concerned with an injury, because it's in the knee, we don't know, we need Ben to be a better team. I have no idea. Because it's the knee we never know."

  Following his withdrawal from Slovenia’s pivotal World Cup qualifiers against Kosovo and Sweden, Sesko returned to Carrington for a detailed medical evaluation. Club doctors performed extensive scans to determine the severity of the damage, and the results brought a collective sense of relief as there was no major ligament injury. He remained in Manchester to begin targeted rehabilitation while waiting for the medical staff to finalise a long-term recovery schedule. According to , Sesko is expected to be absent for "at most a month," a relatively positive outcome given the initial fear that his season might have been derailed.

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  Zirkzee left as the lone senior striker

  Sesko’s brief spell on the sidelines leaves United with a striking shortage. Joshua Zirkzee is now the only natural centre-forward available to Amorim, raising the prospect of tactical reshuffles or emergency cover. But not everyone believes United should panic or search for temporary solutions in the market, as one of United’s former forwards, Dwight Yorke, insists the answer is already inside the building. Yorke, speaking to , encouraged Amorim to embrace youth rather than resort to stopgap signings. He warned that United have a history of drafting in short-term forwards who fail to meet expectations, insisting that the club should avoid repeating the same mistakes.

  "I think Amorim has got to invest in the young players and bring some fresh talent through to give a little bit of a chance if Sesko is out injured," he said. 

  "If you're going to bring in a makeshift option as cover, we’ve seen United do that in the past and it hasn't worked. It's too big of a club for bringing in a player that’s not the right fit to improve the team. I’d understand if they were firing on all cylinders to get someone else in there but when things are not going so great, it’s a difficult fit. If United are going to go and sign someone else, I think they have to go out there like Liverpool and bring in someone who would have a really big presence at the football club. Otherwise, the under-23s are there for a reason.”

• Is Obi the answer to Amorim's struggles?

  Yorke pointed to one player in particular, the 18-year-old Chido Obi. The Nigerian-born striker arrived from Arsenal in 2024 and featured seven times in last season’s Premier League campaign before returning to the under-23 side this term.

  "What about Chido Obi? I know the first-team squads are big, but you’ve got to get these young players around the team for when situations like this happen. When I was at United, the youngsters could train with us and then we’d let them play to get game time and train with us more. It’s so that when they come, they are already up to speed. That’s something I would look at.

  “I would like to see Obi put in if Sesko is out. If you're good enough to be at United, you've got to give them a chance. History has shown that this is a club where young players get that chance to stand in and step and we’ve seen that time and time again. If they're going down the road of just trying to bring in somebody who's just okay, United will find themselves going back down the other way again, and I wouldn't go down the road. We’ve seen where that goes.”

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  When can Sesko return from injury?

  United return to Premier League action on November 24 against Everton, a match Sesko will miss as his rehabilitation continues. Should he remain on schedule, the Slovenian could target a return for the December 21 trip to Aston Villa or the Boxing Day showdown with Newcastle at Old Trafford.

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Cruzeiro e Internacional se enfrentam neste domingo (5), em jogo válido pela 32ª rodada do Campeonato Brasileiro. Veja onde assistir, horário e prováveis escalações do confronto!

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➡️Siga o Lance! no WhatsApp e acompanhe em tempo real as principais notícias do esporte

Enquanto isso, o Internacional não possui vida resolvida na competição, mas quer vencer para afastar de vez qualquer flerte com a parte inferior da classificação.

FICHA TÉCNICA
CRUZEIRO X INTERNACIONAL
32ª RODADA – CAMPEONATO BRASILEIRO

Data e Horário: 05/11/2023, às 16h (de Brasília)
Local: Mineirão, em Belo Horizonte (MG)
Árbitro: Matheus Delgado Candançan
Assistentes: Bruno Raphael Pires e Daniel Paulo Ziolli
VAR: Rodolpho Toski Marques
Onde Assistir: Globo, Premiere e tempo real do Lance!

CRUZEIRO

Rafael Cabral; William, Luciano Castán, Neris e Marlon; Matheus Jussa, Filipe Machado e Lucas Silva; Matheus Pereira, Arthur Gomes e Bruno Rodrigues. Técnico: Zé Ricardo.

INTERNACIONAL

Rochet; Bustos, Vitão, Mercado e Dalbert; Mauricio, Aránguiz, Johnny e Wanderson; Alan Patrick e Valencia. Técnico: Eduardo Coudet.