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The BCB’s anti-corruption officials and the Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League’s technical committee are looking into a controversial stumping incident from a match between Gulshan Cricket Club and Shinepukur Cricket Club at the Shere Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka on Wednesday.The incident took place in the dying moments of the game, when Shinepukur batter Minhajul Abedin was out stumped even though he had enough time to make his ground. Minhajul stepped out against offspinner Naeem Islam. The ball was delivered wide. Mihajul withdrew from his shot. Wicketkeeper Alif Hasan collected the ball wide of the stumps, and failed to break the stumps with his first attempt. Minhajul stood still, bat grounded just outside the crease. He even seemed to pull the bat further away from the crease. Alif broke the stumps on his second attempt.On Thursday, the BCB said in a statement* that it had “taken note of the concerns”.”The BCB Anti-Corruption Unit and the League’s Technical Committee have promptly initiated an investigation into the alleged irregularities associated with the match,” the BCB’s statement said. “The BCB remains committed to ensuring fairness and discipline in all cricketing activities under its jurisdiction and will take the necessary actions based on the findings of the investigation.”The timing of the dismissal raised eyebrows. Shinepukur, battling for survival in the tournament with just two points in nine outings, needed just six runs in seven overs to beat Gulshan, who were on 11 points. Minhajul’s dismissal ended their innings on 173, and they lost by five runs.On-air commentator Mazhar Uddin Omi expressed astonishment, saying, “This is shocking, I have never seen anything like this before.”On Wednesday, the Cricket Committee of Dhaka Metropolis (CCDM), the BCB body that organises the league, had said that it had informed the board’s anti-corruption body about the incident, and were waiting for the umpires’ report on the incident.”We saw the footage. It was the last dismissal of the day. This sort of thing is usually the match referee’s responsibility,” CCDM’s league coordinator Sabbir Ahmed said. “We are aware of the TV umpire sitting next to him also, so they must have studied the footage. They are supposed to give a report on the incident.”The Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League is Bangladesh’s premier List A competition, on top of the Dhaka league pyramid. The last round of this season’s competition concludes next week, before the top six teams battle for the title in the super league. The bottom three teams will fight for survival, as two teams are relegated every season.

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) will maintain their ultra-aggressive batting approach from last season, head coach Daniel Vettori has said ahead of their IPL 2025 opener against Rajasthan Royals in Hyderabad.”Whatever ground we go to, we have an understanding that the batting team is going to be aggressive,” Vettori said. “The only thing that can mitigate that is the pitch, but most times, the pitches in IPL are very flat.”When you come to these grounds, you know exactly what to expect. You know how the batsmen are going come against you. It’s quite…..maybe not fun is the right word, it’s a good challenge for a bowling group to try and work their way through that.”That’s what Pat [Cummins, the captain] addressed the bowling group the other day. He said the expectation is on the batters to do all the work, score the runs and the bowlers can sort of feed into that. If we get those days to make it all work, it’s going go a long way in us winning games. The onus on batting group to score runs and for the bowlers to be able to mitigate that.”Vettori expressed excitement about the expectations surrounding the team and hoped they could replicate the intensity that took them to last year’s final.”Expectations bring some excitement,” he said. “Expectations are built around the performances of last year and the quality of the team we’ve been able to put together at the back end of last season and into the auction.”As a franchise, we’re really excited about the season because we have that foundation from the five players [Cummins, Heinrich Klaasen, Nitish Reddy, Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma] we retained and how well they performed last year, hopefully we have the squad to perform as well this year if not better.”Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma, who claimed the second-highest run tally for an opening pair last year, will continue at the top for SRH. Vettori also welcomed Ishan Kishan into the side, calling him a “huge addition”.”Don’t think we’ll be changing the opening combination, Ishan complements them as well as anyone,” Vettori said. “He has a similar stye of game, left-handed, the ability to take on all types of bowlers. We’re very lucky to have him part of the squad to complement those two, then have Nitish and Klaasen and few of our younger batters to be able to come into the squad as well. We look at that as a huge addition to the team.”Vettori was pleased to see a fit-again Cummins and Nitish, with Cummins recovering from an ankle issue that forced him to miss the Champions Trophy. Meanwhile, Nitish, one of their breakout stars from IPL 2024, comes back following a rehab from a side strain that kept him out of action for a month.”They’ve come through their training sessions really well,” Vettori said. “They had injuries around January, it’s been an extended period since they played but they’ve also had time to recover. When they play as much cricket as they do, it’s sometimes nice to be able to get the chance to refresh.”Both of them are eager and excited about the season. That’s a great position to have. Sometimes when you come into the IPL, it’s the end of a very long season, players can be slightly jaded, but those two are very keen to go.”Cummins will lead a strong pace battery that has two other prolific performers in Mohammed Shami and Harshal Patel – bowlers who won the purple cap in IPL 2023 and 2024 respectively.”Shami two years ago was purple cap winner, Harshal [won it] last year – they are two big additions,” he said. “We know it is big shoes to fill from Bhuvi [Bhuvneshwar Kumar] and Nattu [T Natarajan] – stalwarts of the Sunrisers, who mean much to the franchise.”It was hard to see them go, but that’s the dynamic of the auction. You have to be as nimble as possible to take opportunities. To see Shami come to us, bowl so well in the Champions Trophy is fantastic, those two can complement what Pat brings to the table.”

Bangladesh returned to the top of the Women’s ODI World Cup Qualifier points table with a 34-run win over Scotland, who remain in third place. Scotland have only one match left in the competition and must beat Ireland on Friday and hope one of Pakistan or Bangladesh loses both their remaining matches to give themselves a chance of making it to the World Cup. Bangladesh, with a game in hand, only need another victory to confirm their spot for the main event in India later this year and look set to make a second successive World Cup appearance.Their victory was built on their captain Nigar Sultana’s third fifty-plus score in as many matches, which has also put her on top of the qualifiers run-scorers table. Bangladesh boast two of the top three batters so far. Sharmin Akhter, who scored her second fifty in three matches is the other.Sharmin and Fargana Hoque’s second-wicket stand of 103 runs put Bangladesh on track for a big score after the early loss of Ishma Tanjim, who got into double figures for the first time in her career after debuting against Thailand last week. She was caught at mid-off in the ninth over, off Priyanaz Chatterji, which left the experienced Hoque and Sharmin to help Bangladesh recover. They each scored 57 and took their partnership deep to set a platform for Joty. She was in to bat in the 30th over and wasted little time as she struck her first boundary off the 13th ball she faced and quickly got her strike rate over a run a ball. Her fifty came off 39 balls and she was unbeaten on 83 at the end of the innings.All of Scotland’s frontline bowlers, apart from legspinner Abtaha Maqsood, were among the wickets but none were able to keep Joty quiet and she was the major contributor in each of the four partnerships she was part of. Her 61-run sixth-wicket stand with Fahima Khatun took Bangladesh over 270 and ensured they set Scotland a challenging target.In 21 previous ODIs, Scotland had only chased seven times before today and won chasing once. They successfully reached a target of 134 against Netherlands in Amstelveen last year. Today’s task was to score more than double that number of runs and it was always going to be tough.They were off to a speedy start with 12 runs from the first two overs before Abbi Aitken-Drummond played an expansive drive and edged Marufa Akter onto her own stumps. That was Marufa’s first wicket of the qualifying campaign. Left-arm spinner Nahida Akter made the big incision when she bowled Scotland captain Kathryn Bryce with a delivery that snuck through the bat-pad gap and onto middle stump and then caught Pippa Sproul off her own bowling. Scotland were 31 for 3 in the eighth over and struggling.Sarah Bryce and Ailsa Lister put on 47 for the fourth wicket but Lister was run out for 18 and Bryce was left to marshal the rest of the middle and lower order against a Bangladesh attack that have skill and variety in their arsenal. Legspinner Rabeya Khan had Megan McColl out lbw and though Sarah Bryce looked composed for most of her 42 but popped one back to offspinner Jannatul Ferdus. She bowled Katherine Fraser in her next over to sit joint second on the tournament’s leading wicket-takers list, two behind Hayley Matthews.Chatterji and Rachel Slatter scored a pair of 61 – both career-bests – and shared in a record 115-run eighth wicket stand, the highest for Scotland for that wicket but their efforts came too late. Though they frustrated a Bangladesh attack that went searching for wickets, the margin of Scotland’s defeat makes the contest look closer than it was. They were never really in the chase and Bangladesh’s net run-rate did not take that much of a hit. Theirs is the highest of the six teams at 1.49.File photo: Amy Hunter scored 76•Getty Images

In the day’s earlier match, Ireland, already out of contention for the World Cup, recorded their first win of the campaign over Thailand. Ireland’s win by 46 runs also confirmed Thailand, who are winless after three matches, have no chance of making it to the World Cup. Ireland have lost three of the four matches they have played so far and will be particularly disappointed with their struggles to close out this game quickly. Thailand were never in the hunt to chase 306 but batted until the last over and scored their highest ODI total in response.Ireland’s batting came to the party with the first total over 300 of the World Cup Qualifier. Gaby Lewis, Amy Hunter and Leah Paul all scored half-centuries at a good clip but none of them went on to three figures. Paul’s 67* came off just 40 balls as Ireland posted their fourth-highest ODI total of 305 for 4. They would have thought they had enough, especially with Thailand 76 for 4 in the 18th over.But there was plenty of fight in Thailand’s middle and lower order. Naruemol Chaiwai and Phannita Maya put on 90 runs for the fifth wicket and though the required run-rate climbed above eight runs an over in their time together, they frustrated Ireland in the field.Ireland’s catching also left a lot to be desired. After putting down six chances against West Indies and three against Bangladesh, they dropped two of legspinner Cara Murray and two off debutant offspinner Kia McCartney in this match. Both Murray and McCartney were expensive and conceded 68 and 73 runs but bowled a full allocation of 10 overs each.Thailand’s No.7 Suwanan Khiaoto scored her first ODI half-century and put on 71 off 69 balls with Thipatcha Puttawong in a stubborn eighth-wicket stand. Louise Little separated them and took three wickets in two balls to finish with career-best figures of 4 for 5 for 28.

Orange Cap table

Suryakumar Yadav shone the brightest against DC and smashed an unbeaten 73 off 43 on a slow pitch to take MI to a match-winning score. With this knock, he took his tally to 583 runs from 13 innings and moved up by a place to occupy the third spot.Also in action on Wednesday night was KL Rahul. But he managed to add only 11 runs and advanced one place, to be at No. 6 with 504 runs from 12 matches.GT’s opening pair of B Sai Sudharsan and Shubman Gill are still the one-two in the list with 617 and 601 runs.

Purple Cap table

MI left-arm quick Trent Boult went past Josh Hazlewood of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) after his 1 for 29 against DC, to be third on the list.That apart, Prasidh Krishna of GT remained at the top with 21 wickets, and Chennai Super Kings’ Noor Ahmad, who also has the same number of wickets, is second because of an inferior economy rate.Here’s what ESPNcricinfo’s MVP table looks like.And here are some other IPL 2025 tables that show the season’s best performers in different aspects of the T20 game.

• Highest batting strike rates
• Best bowling economy rates
• Most sixes
• Best bowling figures in a match

Eighteen years spent in the belief that (this year the cup is ours), 17 of them ending in wretched disappointment for one of the IPL’s biggest and most passionate fan bases, three of them ending with defeat at the final hurdle.Eighteen seasons in, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) are finally IPL champions. Their victory in their fourth final came at the expense of another trophy-less team that had put together a heartwarming IPL 2025 campaign; it wasn’t to be for Punjab Kings (PBKS), but their time will surely come too.It’s a sign of how far T20 has come that 190 beating 184 was a bowler-dominated game. PBKS did brilliantly to restrict RCB to 190 after sending them in, but RCB’s bowlers did even better, with Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Yash Dayal – who have all won IPL titles at other teams – bringing their experience and nous to play on an unusual Ahmedabad surface.The margin of victory was narrow – six runs – and while it showed how closely matched these two teams have been over the season, it was also deceptive. Shashank Singh, who finished on an unbeaten 30-ball 61, hit Josh Hazlewood for 6, 4, 6, 6 to end the match and the season. But those hits came just a touch too late; PBKS went into the final over needing 29, and Hazlewood had started with a pair of dots that all but ended the contest mathematically.2:28

Aaron: Kohli has been king of the castle for 18 years

18th time lucky for No. 18

At the end of it, all eyes were on one man, the man with 18 on his back. Like his innings in last year’s T20 World Cup final, Virat Kohli’s 43 in this game seemed at various points like it belonged to another era, too risk-averse, and likely to set his team a below-par total. But there were clues throughout his knock that this wasn’t the sort of pitch that Ahmedabad has rolled out routinely this season, where 196 had been the smallest first-innings total in eight games. He had struggled especially to generate power with his pull shot, with the PBKS seamers generating tennis-ball bounce when they bowled into the pitch.A target of 191, for all that, seemed too small for a PBKS line-up that had gunned down 204 with an over to spare at the same ground two days previously. But this pitch was different, and it didn’t necessarily ease up through the second innings. Between them, two of PBKS’ brightest batting talents outdid Kohli’s struggles: where Kohli scored 43 off 35 balls, Prabhsimran Singh and Nehal Wadhera scored 41 off 40 between them.2:38

Aaron: Patidar a huge factor in RCB’s title win

Krunal bends another final to his will

Krunal has won three IPL titles with Mumbai Indians (MI), and was Player of the Match in one of them. That was for what he did with the bat.This time, he came in to bat in the 18th over and holed out for 4 off 5. This time, he turned the match with the ball.The final was on a knife edge when he came on. PBKS were 52 for 1 at the end of their powerplay; RCB had been 55 for 1 at the same stage.Krunal’s first over contained most of the ingredients that made him so difficult to hit on this pitch, which had just enough natural variation of pace and turn to make him hard to line up. He bowled fast and into the pitch, either angling the ball into the right-handers’ leg stump and cramping them for room or firing it wide of off stump to offer a single to sweeper cover that they didn’t particularly want. Only three runs came off this over.His next over brought in another dimension: the ability to spot the batter’s intentions and change his pace at the last moment. Seeing the struggling Prabhsimran charge at him, Krunal – whose usual pace hovers in the 98-101kph range – dangled an 80kph ball outside his eyeline. Wrenched out of shape, Prabhsimran skewed a catch to point.2:06

Aaron: Iyer ‘one of the best captains in the IPL’

Iyer and Inglis fall at the wrong times for PBKS

Go back to November 19, 2023. Shreyas Iyer had been in red-hot form through that ODI World Cup, and had played the innings of India’s semi-final win. Then, in the final, he had fallen early, caught behind off a back-of-a-length delivery.The same script played out all over again now, more or less. Where he had poked uncertainly at Pat Cummins two years ago, he top-edged an attempted slash through point, off Romario Shepherd. It was a massive inflection point in this game, leaving PBKS needing 112 off 62 balls.They were still in with more than a shout, though, because of their batting depth, and because Josh Inglis was playing a blinder. On this pitch where the short or shortish ball wasn’t coming onto the bat at anything like a predictable pace or height, he was playing the pull like a man in a dream. He scored 33 off 10 pulls, against pace and spin, hitting one four and four sixes.At 39, however, he looked to step out and launch Krunal over long-on, and didn’t quite find either the power or elevation to do so. At that point, with PBKS needing 93 off 47, it seemed all but over.2:03

Do titles alone define a team’s legacy?

Too late for a Shashank Redemption

Shashank had started his season at the same ground, and hit five fours in a now iconic final over, leaving his captain, on 97, without the strike.He ended it with another burst of brilliance, keeping PBKS hanging on by their fingernails even as the required rate kept climbing. He hit Hazlewood for two sixes in the 16th over, and kept the equation within the bounds of possibility: 55 off 24. Then, with the rest of PBKS’ batters and genuine allrounders back in the hut, he refused singles and kept the strike all through the 19th over, hitting Bhuvneshwar for a six and a four to bring it to 29 off the last six balls.It wasn’t to be, but the explosion at the finish, when the match was done, showed how much closer PBKS could have come if things had gone just a little differently.Virat Kohli and silverware make quite the striking pair•BCCI

Jitesh plays a crucial hand

Through most of RCB’s innings, it felt difficult to pin down whether they were going a touch too slow on a flat pitch or laying a strong platform on a slow one. While Kohli did his thing at one end, his top-order colleagues kept falling just when they were looking threatening, with Phil Salt, Rajat Patidar and Liam Livingstone scoring 66 off 43 between them. All three fell to Kyle Jamieson, who used the slower legcutter to telling effect, either getting it to die on the batter from shorter lengths or dip disconcertingly when he went full.Jamieson, Azmatullah Omarzai and Vijaykumar Vyshak all hammered away on a hard length, and RCB couldn’t quite find a way to attack that length until Jitesh Sharma walked in. His 24 off 10 balls was a crucial little cameo in the end, featuring a flat-batted six over cover when he exposed all his stumps to create room, and a scooped six over his head, hit while chest-on to the bowler, Jamieson.Jitesh’s innings threatened to take RCB past 200, but their ambitions were nipped in the bud by Vyshak, who dismissed Jitesh while conceding just five runs in the 18th over, and Arshdeep Singh, who found the reverse-swing that allowed him to go full and attack the stumps in a three-wicket final over that cost PBKS just five runs.

Derbyshire 261 (Andersson 79, Madsen 70, Balderson 4-71) and 139 for 3 need another 374 runs to beat Lancashire 367 (Green 121, Jennings 106) and 406 for 6 dec (Turner 121, Balderson 82, Jones 63) Ashton Turner scored his second century in three innings to put Lancashire on course for what would be a first Rothesay County Championship victory of the season in the Division Two match against Derbyshire at Chesterfield.The Australian made an unbeaten 121 from 135 balls and was well supported by George Balderson, 82 off 60, and 63 from Michael Jones before Lancashire declared on 406 for 6, with Ben Aitchison taking 3 for 64.That set the hosts the small matter of 513 which would be their highest-ever fourth-innings total but by the close they were 139 for 3, still 374 runs away.Lancashire began the day already well placed with a lead of 220 but Aitchison sent a tremor through the foundations with three wickets in an eight-over spell from the Lake End.Josh Bohannon was drawn into pushing at one that did enough to take the edge before Keaton Jennings aimed a big drive and was given out caught behind although his reaction suggested he did not think he made contact.When Matty Hurst was lbw to one that kept slightly low, Derbyshire sensed there might be an opening but first Turner and Jones and then Balderson emphatically reasserted Lancashire’s authority.Turner pulled Aitchison for six on his way to a 67-ball fifty while Jones was even more dominant, reaching his half-century, which contained two maximums, from only 41 balls. But it was the running between the wickets as much as the boundary count that hurt Derbyshire with the pair finding the gaps at will to cruise along at more than six an over.Jones swept Mitch Wagstaff for another six and was eying a fourth until Aitchison at deep midwicket knocked the ball up for Zak Chappell to complete a smart relay catch.But by lunch, Lancashire’s lead was 377 and that soared as Balderson engaged the turbo, racing to a 42-ball fifty before Turner drove Wagstaff for his 10th four to reach a fine hundred from 124 deliveries.The lead was over 500 when Balderson drove Martin Andersson to cover, ending a stand of 157 in 21 overs, which was the signal for Lancashire to declare leaving Derbyshire a highly improbable target.A more realistic proposition was to hold out for a draw but they lost Caleb Jewell in the fifth over when he was squared up by James Anderson and caught at third slip. It was the fourth time this season that Anderson has dismissed Jewell who, as an Australian, is in good company.That was Lancashire’s last success for 24 overs as Wagstaff and Harry Came stood firm with the latter twice stroking Anderson for two boundaries after tea.But the odd ball was keeping low and Balderson broke the stand when he squeezed one through Wagstaff’s defence and Came went in the next over, caught behind pushing at Tom Bailey.Derbyshire’s position would have been even more parlous if Wayne Madsen on eight and Brooke Guest on 14 had not been dropped in the slips but Lancashire remain strong favourites to complete the job on the final day.

Smriti Mandhana, ranked No. 1 among batters in the ICC ODI rankings for women, has gone past Tahlia McGrath to move to No. 3 on the T20I table after her match-winning 62-ball 112 against England in the first match of the series. The other big mover after the match was Lauren Bell, the England quick who returned 3 for 27. She moved up to No. 4, pushing team-mate Sophie Ecclestone and India’s Renuka Thakur down.Mandhana’s 112, her first T20I century in what was her 149th appearance in the format, also gave her the best rating of her career – 771 points. No. 2 Hayley Matthews is just three rating points in front, and well within Mandhana’s reach when England India play their second T20I on Tuesday, but table-topper Beth Mooney is quite a distance away, with 794 points.

Full rankings tables

• Click here for the full team rankings

• Click here for the full player rankings

Shafali Verma, who returned to India’s T20I XI and partnered Mandhana at the top in the first game after last having played a T20I in October 2024 after which she was dropped, also moved up a spot to No. 13 after scoring 20 in 22 balls and looking fairly rusty.Harleen Deol also re-entered the rankings at joint-86th after she scored 43 in 23 balls. Deol had last played a T20I in July 2023 and had dropped out of the rankings.Bell’s rise in the bowlers’ rankings has created something of a traffic jam at the top of the table. Pakistan’s Sadia Iqbal is the No. 1 with 746 rating points, but Bell – with Australia’s Annabel Sutherland (736 points) and India’s Deepti Sharma (735) above her – is just 19 points behind. In fact, Deepti, Bell and Ecclestone (725) are all a good performance or two away from getting to the top of the table.

It will be Trent Rockets, not Northern Superchargers, who face Oval Invincibles in Sunday’s Hundred final at Lord’s after a soggy night in south London ended in an abandonment. Showers delayed the start by 20 minutes, prompted two hour-long interruptions, and eventually wiped the game out altogether, with Rockets progressing by virtue of their higher group-stage finish.The final call came at 9.52pm, nearly four hours yet only 80 legal balls after the scheduled 6pm start. Rockets twice started to chase adjusted targets – 134 off 75, then 105 off 55 – only for the drizzle to turn into rain, and the crowd had thinned by the time a final heavy downpour prompted umpires James Middlebrook and Martin Saggers to finally pull the plug.The final will start barely 20 hours after the Eliminator ended, and a stop-start night hardly served ideal preparation. “It’s been a long day… I thought you had to wait until the rain stops before you start,” reflected Rockets’ Marcus Stoinis, who removed Harry Brook and David Miller before the rain took over. “It’s a bit of chaos, but I think it will be fine.”Invincibles, by contrast, have had since Monday to prepare for Sunday’s final as table-toppers, and will welcome back Stoinis’ close friend Adam Zampa as a handy replacement for Rashid Khan. Jordan Cox and Sam Curran helped them to surge home against Rockets in the stand-out match of the group stage, and they are gunning for a third successive title.David Willey struck with his third ball to remove Zak Crawley•ECB/Getty Images

“It was a good contest last time,” Stoinis said of their meeting at The Oval earlier this month. “We probably had the better of them for the majority of that game and they played really well. Credit to them for winning… It was some of the best hitting that there’s been in any cricket, really. But to be honest, we haven’t really thought about it – we haven’t had a chance!”This was a cruel end for Brook’s Superchargers, but one they could have avoided. These two teams were level on points heading into the final week of the group stage, but Superchargers lost their last fixture on Tuesday, and Rockets clinched second place with a win on Wednesday. With no reserve day for the Eliminator, it proved enough for them.”I think everybody in the world knew that was going to happen,” Brook said, ruefully. “Everyone saw the forecast was going to be shocking from about five or six o’clock. It is what it is. We can’t do anything about it.”It’s easy to say loads of things when you’re sat on the losing side. You could say we could have played last night, knowing that it was going to rain tonight; or we could have brought the game earlier, say the girls play at 11 and we play at 2. But this is how they’ve set the schedule… There’s so many things you could say.”Harry Brook was cleaned up by Marcus Stoinis•ECB/Getty Images

Rockets shaded the limited action there was, with captain David Willey setting the tone after winning what looked like an important toss. He struck with his third ball, which Zak Crawley edged to slip, and frontloaded his 20-ball allocation into the first 40 in the knowledge that the innings was unlikely to last its scheduled duration.Dan Lawrence top-scored with an unbeaten 44 from No. 3 around cameos from Dawid Malan and David Miller as Superchargers reached 76 for 3 after 50 balls at the first rain break, and 119 for 5 after 75 at the second. Lawrence was unusually due to keep wicket, but the discarded Michael Pepper took the gloves as a substitute fielder after Malan tweaked a muscle.After the first long delay, Jacob Duffy pushed the first ball of Rockets’ chase past Tom Banton’s pad; after the second, Banton slashed him over slip for four and picked up four leg-byes from an attempted scoop. But no sooner had Matthew Potts removed his cap to bowl the second set, than the rain returned with a vengeance, sending Superchargers’ season down the drain.

Fast bowler Prasidh Krishna suffered a blow to the head during the second match between India A and Australia A in Lucknow and has been replaced by Yash Thakur as a concussion substitute for the remainder of the game.Prasidh was hit on the helmet on the second day by fast bowler Henry Thornton in the 39th over of India A’s innings. He was attempting to pull a bouncer, and continued to bat after the mandatory concussion check.After the 42nd over, however, Prasidh began walking back to the dressing room and the new batter Mohammed Siraj came in. When India A were eight down at the fall of Siraj’s wicket, Gurnoor Brar came in at No. 11, and when B Sai Sudharsan was dismissed after that, the concussion substitute Thakur walked out as the last batter, replacing Prasidh in the XI.India A were dismissed for 194 in the first innings, in response to Australia A’s 420, and the visitors were 16 for 3 in their second innings at stumps on the second day.While the extent of Prasidh’s injury is not clear, India’s selectors are meeting later on Wednesday to pick the Test squad for the two-match series against West Indies starting on October 2.Prasidh is a contender for the Test squad, along with Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj and Akash Deep as the other fast bowlers. They had formed the crux of India’s pace attack for the five-Test tour of England, where Prasidh took 14 wickets in three matches at an average of 37.07.The ongoing series between India A and Australia A was Prasidh’s first competitive appearance since the tour of England ended in the first week of August. He was wicketless in the first game – conceding 90 runs in 21 overs – and had taken 1 for 76 in 17 overs in the first innings of the second match.

Neither New Zealand nor Pakistan have had an ideal World Cup. The former is on three points after four games with just a solitary win, while Pakistan’s sole point has come courtesy a washout against England.That match, for all intents and purposes, should have been firmly locked under the wins column for Pakistan, but such has been the weather in Colombo that any result has been firmly at the behest of the weather gods.”I’ve been around this a long time and there’s lots of things you can’t control, and weather’s one of those. It’s just something that we’ve got to roll with,” New Zealand head coach Ben Sawyer said ahead of Saturday’s match against Pakistan.Related

• Fatima Sana – a captain burdened, a fast bowler unrestrained

• New Zealand look to stay in semi-final hunt against winless Pakistan

Rains have been forecast throughout the day for Saturday as well, but for Sawyer, the preparations remain the same with the past few days also allowing some time for reflection on their washed-out game against Sri Lanka.”I thought we bowled really well,” Sawyer said. “It was a target that we thought we could chase. We just didn’t get the chance to do that. So practised really hard the last couple of days and yeah, ready to go for Pakistan tomorrow.”For Pakistan too, the weather has proved an unwelcome guest, bringing their victory charge against England to an abrupt end. It was the first time this tournament that they had managed to produce a complete performance with the ball, and before rain ended play they were looking quite comfortable with the bat as well – an area they had struggled with in the lead-up to the game.”The pitches are supporting the bowlers, especially spinners. Our spin department and fast bowling department are also doing great,” Pakistan opening batter Omaima Sohail said. “But we need to step up in our batting.”Pakistan’s improvement is not something that has evaded Sawyer and New Zealand, who are acutely aware of what they are capable of.”Their top order is, they made it look like light work of maybe chasing down that total the other night,” he said. “So, they’ve been impressive. They’ve really challenged a couple of weeks or two of the top nations. So, been impressed in particular with their bowling.”2:14

Sawyer: ‘We’ve got to be really wary of the Pakistan attack’

One reason for this uptick has been their increasing familiarity with the conditions in Colombo, where batting hasn’t been the easiest. This will be just New Zealand’s second game at the Khettarama this World Cup, though the rains ensured they were unable to bat against Sri Lanka.”We played here four matches, so now we know what the situations and what the pitch acts [like],” Sohail said. “So, we know what to do in upcoming matches. We will do better hopefully.”For New Zealand their focus will be on trying to put up more complete performances. Their batting has been bolstered almost solely by runs from Sophie Devine and Brooke Halliday, who have struck 260 and 142 runs respectively over their four matches. Sawyer however is confident that the rest of the team will come good sooner rather than later.”They’ve [Devine and Halliday] looked great and to me, I know it might sound a bit silly, but it’s really exciting,” Sawyer said. “Yeah, we have had probably two batters do the bulk of the work for us at the moment, so if we can get three or four firing at once, I think we can post some huge scores.”It’s a long tournament; it goes for a month. I think we’ve already been on the road a month, as every other team has, and you’re going to have people firing at different times and hopefully we’ve got some that are really going to fire towards the back end. So I’ve got no doubt those runs are coming.”