This comes after Brook played a heroic knock of 171 in the recently-concluded Test match against New Zealand in Christchurch. The knock saw England post a humongous first inning total of 499. It is safe to say that Brook played a crucial role in the victory for the Three Lions.

The middle-order batter smashed his 7th Test century and massively helped England in taking a 1-0 lead in the series. Brook scored an impressive 15 boundaries and 3 sixes in this fabulous knock.

Thanks to this knock, Brook rose 2 places, overtaking India’s Yashasvi Jaiswal for the second spot. The England batter is just 41 points behind teammate Joe Root who remained as the number 1 Test batter in the world.

After heroics with the bat in the first Test, the England duo of Ollie Pope (up eight spots to 32nd) and skipper Ben Stokes (up seven places to 34th) also made substantial gains in the ICC Test rankings for batters.

Coming to the bowler rankings, South Africa’s Marco Jansen rose 19 places and moved to the 9th spot following his incredible performance against Sri Lanka where he bagged 11 wickets. He also moved up to 2nd in the Test all-rounder rankings.

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The Sri Lankan team wasn’t able to chase down 515 runs in the fourth innings which helped the Proteas to take a 1-0 lead in the 2-match series. Jansen was named as the Player of the Match for his spectacular bowling performance and he also joined legendary Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan in an elite list.

Jansen became the bowler to achieve the second-best figures in Durban and the fourth bowler to take 10 or more wickets at the ground. He joined the likes of Australia’s Clarence Grimmett, Muralitharan and India’s Venkatesh Prasad. Grimmett holds the record of the best figures in Durban and took 13 wickets by giving away 173 runs in 1936.

He also became the first-ever left-handed bowler from South Africa to take a 10-wicket-haul in a Test match. Jansen’s sensational bowling display is one of the main reasons why the Proteas won the match so comfortably. The win was quite important as it saw them reach the second position on the World Test Championship (WTC) points table.

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The victory saw South displace Australia from the second spot on the table and move closer to securing a spot in the final of the ICC Test tournament which will be played next year at Lord’s.

The Proteas currently stand with a point percentage of 59.26% having won 5 and lost 3 of their 9 matches. They only trail behind India, who remain on top of the table with a point percentage of 61.11%.

Coming to the match, Sri Lanka always looked as the side that will end up on the losing side after they got bundled out for just 42 runs in their first innings, In reply, South Africa posted a total of 366/5 before declaring which set up a mammoth target of 516 runs for the Lankan Lions.

Sri Lanka’s batting order never really got going in the second innings either and were bundled out for 282 runs which saw them lose the match by a massive 233-run margin and drop to the 5th spot on the WTC points table. The second and final Test of the series between the 2 sides will be played in Gqeberha from December 5.

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The Lankan Lions could only manage to score a total of 42 runs before getting bundled out against the Proteas in Kingsmead. For the hosts, Marco Jansen was the star of the show, picking up 7 wickets while giving way just 13 runs.

A total of 16 wickets have fallen on the day so far and this number can become even bigger if the Proteas also end up suffering a batting collapse.

The post BREAKING: Sri Lanka bundled out on 42, post third-lowest Test total in South Africa appeared first on Cricket Country.

Varma became the youngest player to score a T20I century against South Africa and the second-youngest Indian player to score a T20I ton only behind Yashasvi Jaiswal.

Abhishek Sharma first started the carnage with his knock of 50 from 25 deliveries before Varma carried India over the 200-run mark and eventually to the mammoth total of 219/6 in 20 overs. The left-hander came out unbeaten on 107, scoring 8 boundaries and 7 sixes.

South Africa started slow never really looked to be in the chase despite Heinrich Klaasen (41) and Marco Jansen (54) trying incredibly hard to take their side through. The Proteas ultimately got restricted to 207/7 in their 20 overs and lost the match.

With this victory, India now take a 2-1 lead and also ensure that they won’t come out on the losing side in the 4-match series. The Men in Blue will now play the series finale against the Proteas which is set to take place in Johannesburg on November 15.

The post Tilak Varma scores magnificent maiden ton as India beat South Africa by 11 runs in 3rd T20I appeared first on Cricket Country.

During the 19th over, Hardik might have felt confident from himself, as he made a solid statement to Arshdeep . Pandya told Arshdeep to “enjoy from the other end now,” which indicated that he as the intention to face the rest of the balls.

Pandya was batting on 33 off 35 balls, but he ended up struggling against the bowling from Gerald Coetzee and Marco Jansen. He did not touch a single ball in the penultimate over. In the final over, he got dropped twice and was refusing to take a single for four deliveries.

On the penultimate delivery, he snatched couple of runs and finished the innings with a boundary. Though he told Arshdeep to stay at the non-striker’s end, Pandya only managed to score 6 runs in 10 balls.

The post Hardik Pandya told Arshdeep Singh to ‘Enjoy from Other End’ in 19th over, then played 8 dot balls appeared first on Cricket Country.

This incident happened in the 15th over of the inning. After the second ball was bowled, Sanju caught the throw when he was on the pitch. Marco was not happy with him damaging the right side of the pitch with his boots. Soon after, Suryakumar came in to interfere and had a verbal exchange with Jansen. Geraldn Coetzee, who was on the non-striker side, interfered as well.

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In the span of a few seconds, he on-field umpire also came running in from the square leg in order to prevent the situation from getting any worse.

The post WATCH: Suryakumar Yadav argues with Marco Jansen as South African all-rounder complains about Sanju Samson appeared first on Cricket Country.

During the pitch report, it was evident that the grass cover would aide movement. The former Australia captain, Ricky Ponting suggested that bounce or lack of it could well be a factor. This turned out to be true as South Africa’s seamers like Marco Jansen, Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje capitalized on the conditions and took them through to their maiden T20 World Cup final appearance.

“It seems strange to me that you’ll use a brand new wicket for a semifinal one that you’ve actually got no idea about how it’s going to play. We heard the preparation for this wicket started about a week and a half,” Ponting told the host broadcaster.

The former player was also not happy with the uneven bounce that the pitch had to offer and said that, “There was a game early in the tournament – West Indies and New Zealand – which was a 150 plays 140 type game. And at least they had some sort of idea of how that wicket was going play. I know the ball swung that night. That’s okay. You can deal with that. But the variation in bounce and seam that we’ve seen here, I’m not sure if I’m the groundsman, I’ll be experimenting with something like that in such a big moment.”

The ICC will have to answer a lot of questions regarding the various questionable pitches on which matches were played during the T20 World Cup.

The post “It seems strange”: Ricky Ponting on use of new pitch for SA vs AFG match appeared first on Cricket Country.

Following a strong innings and a surprising 32-run victory against India, the Proteas collapsed in the first innings, with Siraj unquestionably took centre stage. The South African hitters were unable to manoeuvre because Siraj applied constant pressure. In just the 16th over of the innings, he had claimed five wickets, including the spectacular ball that removed South African batsman Marco Jansen from the game.

The delivery was accurate in length and form; a full ball that was angled just outside off, drawing Jansen forward to defend, only to curve away late, giving Rahul an easy catch. Replays following the wicket, interestingly, showed the former Indian captain, Virat Kohli, standing in slips and indicating to Siraj where to bowl to Jansen just prior to the ball.

Additionally, Kohli gestured to Siraj to target Jansen’s outside edge, suggesting that the ball would be caught by KL Rahul or the slip fielders. Surprisingly, the dismissal went down precisely as Kohli had planned, demonstrating not only the skill of India’s bowlers but also their keen tactical awareness.

Watch the dismissal here:

Team India showed their willingness to take control following a miserable performance in the first Test, where both hitters and bowlers failed badly in an innings defeat. Siraj was displaying extraordinary technique and precision. India managed just 245 and 141 in the first and second innings, respectively, while the hosts amassed a formidable 408 runs, led by a powerful century from Dean Elgar.

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On his way to his knock, a moment from the opening day’s final session went viral on social media. The incident occurred in the 45th over of the first innings of the game. The South African fast bowler, Marco Jansen, lost his cool and threw a mouthful at the Indian batter after Rahul had hit him for multiple boundaries a few overs earlier and a six-over sweeper cover in the previous delivery alone.

Rahul pushed the fuller ball to short cover as Jansen returned to testing length and line after getting struck for a maximum. The India batter only smiled in response to the furious Jansen’s brief remarks, but there was no single taken.

India finished Day 1 at 208 for eight after Rabada took five wickets earlier in the day, including the dismissal of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. Debutant Nandre Burger also struck two wickets with the new ball. In his 2014 Australian debut, Rahul—who had only batted at No. 6 once in his career—but today returning to the same position the wicketkeeper-batter scored his 14th career fifty.

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