Lehmann's cultural remedy for Australia

 

Australia's new coach Darren Lehmann has pushed the importance of fun and a balanced perspective on life to remedy a team culture that has variously been described as toxic, insular, selfish, undisciplined, and just plain stupid. Lehmann has openly desired the national coaching job for quite some time, but given that it has fallen into his lap a mere two weeks before the first Ashes Test, his initial message to the touring team could not afford to be elaborate.

Upon the squad's arrival in the medieval town centre of Taunton, Lehmann sat down his players and staff to set out a simple but clear direction for the Australian team, both on the field and off it. Relieving the tension of the past few days in Bristol and London was high on Lehmann's list of priorities, while also ensuring focus shifted instantly to Wednesday's tour match against Somerset.

"Hopefully with the enjoyment factor, we'll get that going for a start," Lehmann said of the culture he wished to create. "When you start winning games you have a lot of fun so we need to start winning some games, simple as that. It's about getting all the lads and everyone in a direction we want to go. We're going one way and that is forward and everything starts afresh

NewZealand beat India by 1 run in T20 match

Brendon McCullum lifted New Zealand from 2 for 2 with a calculated 91 that highlighted his importance to his side, especially in Twenty20s. McCullum had support from Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor, but he was almost single-handedly responsible for New Zealand reaching a competitive score with a knock that began watchfully, and then exploded into a frenzy of powerful hits over extra cover, down the ground and over midwicket.

McCullum often begins a Test innings with a charge down the track and it was probably the two early wickets that made him play with some caution initially. Rob Nicol and Martin Guptill came out swinging but were bowled by incoming deliveries from Zaheer Khan and Irfan Pathan, and New Zealand were 2 for 2 in the second over.

McCullum broke free in the fifth over, flicking and cutting Zaheer for boundaries. L Balaji, making his T20I debut and playing his first game for India since February 2009, was inside-edged past short fine leg and sliced over point for boundaries in the next over.

Williamson, a calm man under pressure usually, ensured he gave the strike to McCullum, who was now in control enough to ward off his usual self-destructing tendencies.

Sweeps, reverse-sweeps and scoops were kept away. The one time he tried a reverse-sweep, on 38, he got away with a close lbw shout against R Ashwin, with the umpire ruling there was an inside edge when replays indicated there wasn't any. McCullum's one good innings during the Test series against India was ended when the umpire did not spot an inside edge. It was his turn to benefit today.

McCullum went after Ashwin, lofting him over extra cover for boundaries and down the ground for sixes. Ashwin, the lone spinner playing ahead of the recalled Harbhajan Singh, went for 34 in three overs.

There was not much help for the spinner, though, and MS Dhoni's selection of three medium-pacers in the XI worked on the pitch with some grass cover. Zaheer was sharp, Irfan productive, and Balaji an efficient third seamer. Yuvraj Singh bowled two tidy overs of slow left-arm on his comeback from cancer and was alert in the field.

McCullum was hard to control, though, and was only nine short of what would have been his second T20I hundred when he was eventually bowled after missing a sweep off a slow cutter from Irfan Pathan in the 17th over. Taylor and Jacob Oram were around to take New Zealand to a respectable score on a pitch where the ball came on at decent pace.

With the injured Virender Sehwag missing this game, it will be interesting to see who opens the India innings with Gautam Gambhir.

Australia crush Pakistan by 94 runs

Australia began the series with one of their worst Twenty20 losses but they finished it with their second-best win in the format, crushing Pakistan by 94 runs in the dead rubber in Dubai. David Warner and Shane Watson set up the victory with an Australian-record opening partnership before Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc ran through Pakistan, who suffered their worst defeat in a T20 international and were all out for 74, their lowest total in the format.

Pakistan still won the series 2-1 but if the old sporting cliché that you're only as good as your last performance can be trusted, the Australians will be reasonably happy when they arrive in Sri Lanka in the next few days for the ICC World Twenty20. The fact that Warner and Watson both fired and found their six-hitting rhythm would be especially pleasing for the captain George Bailey, although some more runs from the middle order would have been preferable.

Cummins was outstanding with the new ball as Pakistan slumped to 19 for 5 in the chase, and Brad Hogg's 1 for 11 - the most economical four-over spell by an Australian in a T20 international - was another positive sign for the Australians. They narrowly missed out on bettering their most comprehensive T20 victory, the 95-run defeat they inflicted on South Africa at the Gabba in January 2006, and it was a win Australia desperately needed, having fallen to tenth on the ICC T20 rankings

 

'We believe we can win' - Sammy

West Indies captain Darren Sammy has said his team has the self-belief to go all the way and lift the ICC World Twenty20 title in Sri Lanka, starting later this month. Sammy said he was touched by the support from the fans and urged them to continue showing faith in the team.

"This is a huge tournament for the team and the fans as well, so we will go to Sri Lanka and give it all we've got," Sammy said before the team's departure for Sri Lanka. "We believe we can win, but it will be hard, tough work. Once we play together and continue to get the backing of the fans, we know we can lift the title."

The squad had been training at the High Performance Centre in Barbados for nine days. The World T20 will be the team's first international assignment after the home series against New Zealand.

"The camp went very well and we are all in the right frame of mind," Sammy said. "We will head off to Sri Lanka believing in ourselves and believing in each other.

Franklin speaks about NZ's World T20 chances

James Franklin believes the upcoming World Twenty20 could be the final time some of the New Zealand players take part in a world event together and feels the experience in the side could take it to the latter stages of the tournament.

"Probably it is the last World Cup for this group of players playing together," Franklin said after the first of two Twenty20 internationals between India and New Zealand was washed out in Visakhapatnam. Franklin, Daniel Vettori, Jacob Oram, Brendon and Nathan McCullum, and Kyle Mills - part of the New Zealand squad for the World T20 - are all well over 30 years.

"It is a pretty experienced T20 team. A lot of guys have played T20 all over the world so if individuals get in form then I think we have got a real chance of going fairly deep in this tournament."

Franklin skipped New Zealand's recent tour of West Indies and focused on playing T20 cricket for Essex with an eye on the World T20 but said he wanted to play for his country in all three formats. Franklin made a comeback to the Test side for the recent two-match series against India after his previous Test against Pakistan in January 2011.

White says 'fantastic preparation' ahead of World T20

Australia may have already lost the Twenty20 series against Pakistan, but their middle-order batsman Cameron White has said the series is "fantastic preparation" for the upcoming World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka. Australia collapsed to 89 all out in the first T20 but turned in an improved performance in the second, going down on the last delivery of the Super Over.

"We'd like to be winning, we made great steps from the first game to the second," White said, a day ahead of the third T20 in Dubai. "We are heading in the right direction, and from a prep point of view this is fantastic."

The conditions in Dubai have been helping spinners, with Pakistan packing the side with three/four slow bowlers. White said the testing series would hold Australia in good stead in the World T20. "I don't think you can ask any more than what we are experiencing at the moment (in terms of preparations)," he said. "I know we are experiencing very tough conditions, very similar conditions to what we are going to experience in Sri Lanka, and against very good bowlers."

White was also pleased with the amount of matches Australia were getting to fine-tune their World T20 strategies. "The way the Twenty20 game is set up internationally, it is just two games at the back of a Test and ODI series. You come in for two games and then you might not play again for a month, two, three or six months," he said. "(Here) we are playing three games in a row, we have two more warm-up matches, five solid games leading into a big tournament."

Despite Australia's series defeat against Pakistan, and just one victory in five previous T20 matches, White said his team was "definitely looking to win" the World T20. "We finished second in the last [World] T20, Australia traditionally have a good record in big tournaments, so I think we are a good chance going into the tournament."

No excuses for failed chase - Mohammad Hafeez

Mohammad Hafeez, Pakistan's new Twenty20 captain, has said there was no excuse for his team not chasing 132 in the first match against Sri Lanka, despite them returning to the international circuit after a two-month layoff. Hafeez made an encouraging start to his new role by restricting the hosts' strong batting line-up, but his first-ball duck was the start of Pakistan's slide.

After the defeat in his maiden game as captain, Hafeez was philosophical, admitting that Pakistan were beaten by a better team. He said the pitch was difficult to bat on, but didn't offer that as an excuse for his side crumbling to 95. He didn't attribute the loss to Pakistan's lack of match practice over the last couple of months either.

Pakistan had the upper hand at the start thanks to Sohail Tanvir's incisive new-ball spell and some poor shot selection. Sri Lanka were struggling 96 for 7 at one stage but Thisara Perera's late 32 converted a paltry score to a match-winning one.

"As a bowling unit we did well to restrict them to 132. Tanvir was brilliant with the new ball," Hafeez said. "This was a difficult pitch to bat on and we were hoping to restrict them to 110-120 after getting seven wickets. But in the end Perera made the difference. He took the game away from us."

Umar Gul, one of Pakistan's most effective slog-over bowlers, had a poor game, conceding 43 in four overs. "We also thought that on this pitch, had we batted first, we would have posted 140," Hafeez said. "But we did not finish well when we bowled. Umar Gul is usually our match-winner but today he wasn't able to do that job. Having said that, 132 was still chaseable but if your main batsmen fail then it's very difficult to win such games."

Pakistan were jolted early when Hafeez and debutant Shakeel Ansar were dismissed with the first two deliveries of the chase. The number of dot balls in the first half of the innings increased the pressure, as did Sri Lanka's effective fielding. Two experienced batsmen capable of changing the game, Shoaib Malik and Shahid Afridi, were sent back by terrific catching. Commenting on Pakistan's approach, Hafeez said there was no specific plan to be watchful after the loss of two wickets.

"There was no such instruction for the two batsmen [Ahmed Shehzad and Khalid Latif] to be defensive," Hafeez said. "They were trying hard and Angelo Mathews bowled a good spell. I think as a batsman it's up to him to decide how to approach the situation, how to build the innings."

Hafeez is leading an experimental Twenty20 side with a few new players, after Misbah-ul-Haq was dropped from the format. He backed the squad to come good ahead of the World Twenty20 in September.