Cricket

  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 ...

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...

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 ...