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Misbah-ul-Haq has stepped down as Pakistan’s Twenty20 captain

ESPNcricinfo staff10-May-2012Misbah-ul-Haq has stepped down* as Pakistan’s Twenty20 captain and Mohammad Hafeez has been named his successor for the Sri Lanka series in June.

Pakistan Twenty20 squad

Khalid Latif, Ahmed Shahzad, Mohammad Hafeez (capt), Shoaib Malik, Umar Akmal, Shakeel Ansar (wk), Shahid Afridi, Yasir Arafat, Umar Gul, Sohail Tanvir, Saeed Ajmal, Raza Hasan, Haris Sohail, Mohammad Sami, Hammad Azam, Nasir Jamshed
In: Mohammad Sami, Shakeel Ansar, Haris Sohail, Raza Hasan

Misbah had captained Pakistan in eight games. His last Twenty20 assignment was the three-match series against England in the UAE in February, which England won 2-1. Misbah scored 67 runs there, with a strike-rate of just over 80.Hafeez said he was looking forward to the additonal responsibility. “Representing Pakistan is always an honour and captaining it is more than that. Now being a captain, I don’t see any added pressure,” Hafeez said. “The strategy might be different but while implementing them I will take my coaches and the PCB on board to get the best results for the team.”Fast bowler Mohammad Sami, who last played for Pakistan in 2010, made a comeback. Sami had taken only one wicket in five matches for Karachi Dophins in the domestic Faysal Bank Super Eight T20 Cup in March, but had finished as the joint leading wicket-taker in the Bangladesh Premier League for Duronto Rajshahi. He was particularly successful against Dhaka Gladiators, claiming a hat-trick and then figures of 5 for 6 against them in two league games.The new faces in the squad include Sialkot Stallions batsmen Shakeel Ansar, who came into the limelight with his maiden Twenty20 hundred against Peshawar Panthers in March in the Faysal Bank Super Eight T20 Cup, and Haris Sohail who went through that tournament scoring 173 runs in four matches without being dismissed. Left-arm spinner Raza Hasan, who claimed 12 wickets in five games in the Super Eight T20 Cup for Sialkot, also made it to the squad.Pakistan will play two Twenty20s, five ODIs and three Tests between June 1 and July 12 in Sri Lanka.*This story has been updated to reflect that Misbah-ul-Haq has not announced an official retirement from Twenty20 cricket

The IPCC has handed responsibility for investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of Tom Maynard back to the Metropolitan police

ESPNcricinfo staff19-Jun-2012The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has confirmed that it has handed responsibility for investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of Tom Maynard back to the Metropolitan police.The matter had been passed on to the IPCC has a matter of course, after Maynard was found dead on tube tracks near Wimbledon Park station on Monday, having been pulled over by police while driving in the early hours of the morning. Maynard, the 23-year-old Surrey batsman, subsequently abandoned his car and fled the scene.However, the police regulator will not investigate the case further, as Maynard eluded the chasing officers before his body was discovered almost an hour later.”The IPCC has assessed the referral from the Metropolitan Police Service regarding the death of a 23-year-old man,” an IPCC statement said. “The police evidence is that at 4.13am officers saw a car being driven erratically which they followed.”The driver then decamped and after a short chase on foot, officers lost sight of him and had no further contact. The man appears to have been hit by a train at 5.04am. In the circumstances the IPCC has referred this matter back to the MPS. British Transport Police will prepare a file for the coroner.”Maynard’s death was marked by a minute’s silence at The Oval, his home ground, before the start of the second ODI between England and West Indies. Tom, the son of former England and Glamorgan batsman Matthew Maynard, has been the subject of tributes and messages from former players and members of the cricketing community and his family issued a statement on Tuesday, expressing their thanks and asking for privacy.The statement, issued through the British Transport Police (BTP), said: “The Maynard family would like to thank everyone for the many messages of support following Tom’s tragic death in London yesterday morning.”As you can appreciate, the news has come as a devastating blow and although the family is grateful for all the kind messages of sympathy, we would ask that we can be left to grieve in private at this very difficult and sad time for us.”

Nottinghamshire ended Surrey’s unbeaten run in the Clydesdale Bank 40 by winning a one-sided contest at Guildford with 57 balls and five wickets to spare

15-Jul-2012
ScorecardNottinghamshire ripped through Surrey’s top order to leave them 8 for 5•PA Photos

Nottinghamshire ended Surrey’s unbeaten run in the Clydesdale Bank 40 by winning a one-sided contest at Guildford with 57 balls and five wickets to spare.With Harry Gurney taking 4 for 22 and Darren Pattinson 3 for 27, the Nottinghamshire required just 124 for victory, which was never seriously in doubt after James Taylor – who made an unbeaten 41 off 57 balls – and Samit Patel had seized the initiative with a third-wicket stand of 57 in 14 overs.Having elected to bat on the same pitch as the one that yielded over 900 runs for the loss of 12 wickets in the County Championship, Surrey slumped to 8 for 5 before recovering to make 123, their lowest total in one-day cricket for seven years.The hosts lost Jason Roy to the third ball of the match, leg before to Patel, Steven Davies to the ninth, caught at first slip off Pattinson, and Gary Wilson to the 10th, caught behind. With Zander de Bruyn falling to an excellent head-high catch at second slip by Adam Voges and Rory Burns toe-ending a drive off Pattinson to mid-on, the home side were in deep trouble.But thanks to Matthew Spriegel, who countered with 39 off 76 balls, Surrey eventually found their feet. Spriegel steered Harry Gurney down to the third-man boundary to ironic cheers, before clipping Pattinson through square leg for four.But 10 overs later, Zafar Ansari lofted Jake Ball to Riki Wessels, who held on to a tumbling catch running back from mid-off to make it 46 for 6. Spriegel was joined by Gareth Batty and together they added 43 in 11 overs. Batty despatched Patel to the rope at long-on and cover drove Steven Mullaney for four.But Surrey were pegged back further when Gurney picked up three wickets in eight deliveries. Batty, attempting to force the former Leicestershire man off the back foot, was caught behind for 24.Spriegel, shaping to cut, had his off stump pushed back. Lewis edged behind and Michael Lumb drew a line under the Surrey innings when held on to a sharp chance at short fine leg off Ball.In reply, Nottinghamshire lost Lumb to a run out, when Lewis pounced on Hales’s defensive push to backward point off Spriegel. Three overs later, Alex Hales collected two successive fours off Stuart Meaker, only to depart a couple of balls later to a lofted catch at deep square leg.Taylor cut a no-ball from Meaker for four before lifting the free hit back over the bowler’s head. But shortly after despatching Batty to the rope at extra cover, Patel was caught at slip off Kartik.With just 29 needed off 100 balls the writing was on the wall, notwithstanding the loss of Voges, who was caught behind looking to launch Kartik into the car park at the Railway End. Having just been dropped at short mid-off, the gloss was taken off the Nottinghamshire’s victory when Wessels then fell to a leading edge off Batty.

David Warner, the Australia opening batsman, is ready to adapt his normally explosive gameplan during the tour of UAE where they will play Afghanistan and Pakistan

ESPNcricinfo staff23-Aug-2012David Warner, the Australia opening batsman, is ready to adapt his normally explosive gameplan during the tour of UAE where they will play Afghanistan and Pakistan.Warner’s ODI strike-rate of 84.64 is perhaps not as high as many would expect from a player who made his name in Twenty20 and he wants to ensure he has more than one way to keep the scoreboard moving. On the recent tour of England he made a half-century at Lord’s but also struggled against the moving ball. He expects this trip to be another test of his technique, but more from the spinners than the quicks.With that in mind Justin Langer, the batting coach, insisted much of Australia’s practice during their camp in Darwin was based around combating spin which will also be a key part of the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka.”Justin put forward to them that we needed wickets to be turning and challenging… balls were turning and going over guys’ heads and doing all sorts of things and the boys adapted very well,” Warner said. “The challenge for me personally is to keep rotating the strike – it’s a part of my game I’ve got to keep working on.”One of Australia’s major problems in England was batsmen making starts but not converting into substantial scores. There were times when scoring seized up, especially against Graeme Swann at The Oval, and Warner is training himself how to ensure that the pressure does not becoming overwhelming with a series of dot balls.”I can’t just go ‘three dot balls and now I’ve got to hit a boundary’ or ‘four dots and then I get off strike’ as that could be five balls I’ve wasted getting one run for the team,” he said. “And if I do get bogged down and face three dot balls, I mustn’t just try to hit one out of the park and get a soft dismissal; that could put us in a tough situation and it says I’m not playing for the team.”In my mind, rotating the strike is what I want to get out of this tour and if I can rotate the strike as well as hitting my boundaries then that’ll be good for the team.”Australia will begin the tour with their first one-day international against Afghanistan in Sharjah but they will not be easing into the trip, well aware that Afghanistan can approach the match with a nothing-lose-attitude that makes them dangerous.”It gives them a chance to see where they are against the rest of the world,” he said. “We’ve maybe slipped down the rankings and it gives them the perfect opportunity, if they can knock us over, to say ‘we can beat anyone in the world’ – that’s their challenge. Our challenge is to try and beat another team and we always play to win. We’re not going to take them lightly.”

Richard McInnes is realistic about why he is back in Bangladesh as head coach of the National Cricket Academy: to produce international-quality players

Mohammad Isam01-Aug-2012Among the appointments of foreign coaches in Bangladesh this year, Richard McInnes’ easily stands out, even counting the abrupt change in the senior team’s coach in April. The point is, not many coaches return to a post, so McInnes’ comeback as the head coach of Bangladesh’s National Cricket Academy (NCA) for a two-year period has drawn plenty of interest in the country.McInnes is realistic about why he is back in Bangladesh: to produce international-quality players. “My job is to produce players for the national team, and these players will play domestic cricket as well,” McInnes told ESPNcricinfo. “Hopefully, as a byproduct of their time here (at the NCA), they’ll dominate domestic cricket and get selected for the national team.”My job is to provide very strong support to Richard Pybus (the national coach) and his team. I want to make sure we provide anything they need; players who aren’t on tour for the different formats, they’ll be getting ready here for their particular format, whether its Test, ODIs or Twenty20s. We’ll have a very strong link between the national team and this place.”The seven years since 2005, when McInnes stepped down from his post of manager of Bangladesh’s high performance unit, have seen many changes, the biggest being the increase in international wins and the emergence of a few more dependable players. Back then, he was the man in charge of the only available source of players for a Test team that had many revolving doors.Now the academy, just like the high performance unit, is modeled after a finishing school for cricketers, from where they are just a step away from the Bangladesh A team. But spots in the national team are not completely guaranteed these days, even for those who are earmarked as special talents, simply because the selection panels nowadays won’t punt on a 17-year-old ‘genius’. The player must perform in domestic cricket as well, and McInnes’ is someone who has knowledge of the country’s first-class structure.”The first-class system here needs some work from what I’ve been hearing,” he said. “One of the challenges is the absence of quality fast bowling, and wickets where ball swings and bounces. These are the conditions the Bangladesh team tends to struggle with when they go overseas. That’s not easily fixed because of the climatic and soil conditions.”[For the cricketers] it is a little bit like the chicken and the egg: batsmen get criticised when they can’t do well against fast bowling, but they don’t get 6’4″, 6’6” fast bowlers at home. We’ll try and create some things [to aid them in this respect] here.”McInnes is hardly a fan of a quick evolution. He is appreciative of having a first-class system in place which will, for example, teach a batsman how to bat an entire day. “How do you train someone to bat for five to six hours in a Test match? You can’t train them – that’s where the first-class competition is really, really important. We need players to bat out a day in first-class cricket, come back the next day and bat till lunch on day two. We will try to get players to make big hundreds in first-class cricket.”His primary goal will be to prepare players for each spot in the national team, thereby increasing competition and raising the performance of the incumbents. “If we’re all doing our job, we have two-three players for every position in the national team. [Then] there’s real competition for the spots. Players who are in the national team know that they have to perform well to hold on to that spot.”The thing that I bring [to the job] is making sure we’re thorough, preparing across all areas. There’s an advantage with a live-in programme [like the NCA’s], we have a lot of time to do these things.”McInnes’ is also pleased with the new facilities at his disposal. When he was with the high performance unit, he had spent many hours on the road during his daily commute to BKSP, the sports institute located 40km north of Dhaka. The NCA, on the other hand, built on the Shere Bangla National Stadium premises in Mirpur, comes with its own field and residential quarters.Seeing players who worked with him at the high performance unit make the step up to the international level, has pleased him, McInnes said. “Eleven out of the 13 who played in the Asia Cup [in March] were in the programme. I was in India at the time, watching the matches, and I talked to Mushfiqur [Rahim, the Bangladesh captain] on Facebook. I was very proud of that, and I think a lot of those players understand what they need to do to be successful.”The high performance programme collapsed following McInnes’ departure in 2005, and Shakib Al Hasan, in recent years, has often spoken of restarting it. However, when it first began, the cricketers were not too pleased with the tough training regimen in place, as well as the food that they were served. Now, almost every cricketer from those camps are now either playing for Bangladesh (Shakib, Mushfiqur, Tamim Iqbal), have played for the team (Alok Kapali, Naeem Islam, Shahadat Hossain, Shahriar Nafees) or are on the fringes, like Shamsur Rahman. And these players remember McInnes for the changes he brought about in Bangladesh cricket and the skills he made them develop.This time around, McInnes will have to deal with the weightier expectations, fueled by the success he enjoyed during that last stint in the country. He will get his first taste of how much Bangladesh has changed since then when the NCA takes on the West Indies High Performance team in September.

The attention may be on Yuvraj Singh, but Irfan Pathan has been quietly scripting a comeback story of his own

Andrew Fernando in Colombo14-Sep-2012Four days before the World Twenty20, Irfan Pathan seems lighter. It’s not just that he looks leaner in a tight-fitting India practice shirt than he has been since his last major injury; it goes deeper than that. It’s in his disposition, the way he quips at the start of each question before answering it in earnest. Smiles, delivers each sentence with poise; his expression giving away that he is loving every moment of being inside that shirt, even when he is off the field. It’s a lightness of being, and it’s infectious. A state of mind he says he had to find to cope with frustration of his stuttering international career.Even before a back injury ruled him out for eight months in 2010, Irfan had been in and out of the national team for reasons of form and fitness. He arrived on the international scene with the pressure of being expected to be the next Kapil Dev, and perhaps he allowed that to wear him down mentally in his younger years, as his body continued to break down just as he had seemed to build some momentum in his performances. Now, though, those expectations are the farthest thing from his mind, he says. He has learnt to let go, learnt to take each match in isolation and to simply be grateful for the good days.”This is what I’ve learnt throughout the year,” he says. “I love playing, but sometimes you just put too much pressure on yourself by thinking about performance. Eventually you have to come down to the level where you love the game and you just play.”Irfan was part of the squad for the ODI tri-series in Australia early in the year, but could not convince the selectors to give him another extended run in the national team. Perhaps long-standing perceptions of him as an underachiever and too slow a seamer to be effective at the international level, were taking their toll on the opportunities provided to him.”A lot of people talk about my pace, but I’m generally never bothered. I’m not an out-and-out quick bowler. Everyone has their own gifts and I have my strengths and weaknesses as well. I’m really happy with my seam position, and I’ve done a lot of work on that. I’m really happy with the way things are going and the zip that I’m getting off the wicket.”That “zip” saw him become one of the leading wicket takers in India’s ODI series against Sri Lanka in July and August. It was a series he wasn’t initially picked for, but was drafted in when Vinay Kumar withdrew through injury. He was still fairly pedestrian in terms of pace, but what brought Irfan results was working out his opponents and bowling to a strategy.Upul Tharanga is one of the best cover drivers in the Sri Lanka team, but Irfan turned his opponent’s strength into a weakness in the fifth ODI when he pitched one slightly shorter and wider of off stump and drew the batsmen into an aerial stroke with short extra cover in place. He had tried the same ploy in the previous over and been creamed for two fours through point, having missed his length. Irfan stuck to his plan, though, and gleaned the reward. He was a man marked out for his raw talent as a 19-year-old, but eight years later, the canny tricks of experience are what are bringing him results.”I’ve tried to learn a few tricks in terms of thinking out the batsmen. The more experience I have, the better I’m getting in terms of that. I think that long term, that’s what I want to keep working on.”For now, Irfan is just happy that this latest comeback has lasted this long. “I will do whatever the team needs,” he says. Batting at three or as low down as nine, bowling with the new ball or the old, he’s simply visibly ecstatic to be part of the team at all. Having shed the ambition and expectation that crippled large parts of his career, Irfan has made things simpler for himself.Yuvraj Singh’s return to international cricket has hogged the headlines, but quietly, in the background, Irfan has been scripting a comeback tale of his own. He will hope this one will be his last.

A round-up of matches from the first day of the Zimbabwe domestic Twenty20 competition

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Oct-2012Mountaineers pulled off a tight win over Matabeleland Tuskers at the Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo, beating them by five runs and seal victory off the penultimate ball of the game. After being put in to bat, Hamilton Masakadza led the way, smashing 84 in 66 balls, hitting five fours and three sixes. Mountaineers lost an early wicket but Masakadza and Tino Mawoyo (54) added 107 for the second wicket. Masakadza remained unbeaten and stretched the score to 167.The Tuskers put up a good fight and were well placed at 103 for 2 in the 15th over. Craig Ervine top-scored with 71 at No.3, adding 50 with Charles Coventry for the second wicket and 53 Brian Chari for the third. Together with Keegan Meth, Ervine helped take the score to 149 for 3 in 18 overs. But, 19 needed to win off the last two, a collapse ensued. Shingirai Masakadza picked up three wickets in the 19th over, dismissing both Meth and Ervine, and the rest of the batting crumbled soon. Seven wickets were lost for 13 runs in 11 balls, and Tuskers folded for 162.Mashonaland Eagles beat Southern Rocks comfortably at the Harare Sports Club. After choosing to field, the Eagles bowlers bowled economically and restricted Rocks to 120 for 8. Ben Slater made 39 in 34 balls and Alester Maregwede chipped in with 30 off 25. But barring the pair, there was no significant contribution from the rest. The Eagles response began well, with the openers Cephas Zhuwao (49) and Chamu Chibhabha (46*) adding 89 for the first wicket. They scored quickly, too, in 12.1 overs, and those who followed just had to consolidate. Chibhabha stayed through to the finish, helping his team win with four overs to spare.

On the second day, Sri Lanka were 50 for 5 in response to New Zealand’s 221. Before the third day was done, the Test was finished, and the hosts had won

Sa'adi Thawfeeq in Galle19-Nov-2012After the opening hour on the second day of the Galle Test, Sri Lanka were 50 for 5 in their first innings, in response to New Zealand’s 221. Before the third day was done, the Test was finished, and Sri Lanka had won by ten wickets.”This is what winning Test matches is all about,” Mahela Jayawardene said after his team took a 1-0 lead in the series. “Winning tough moments and getting ourselves into a winning position under pressure.”It was a good Test match for the first two days. New Zealand fought really well with the new ball and put us under a lot of pressure. We managed to fight through that situation and get ourselves into a position where the first innings wouldn’t have mattered.”Through half-centuries from Jayawardene and Angelo Mathews, Sri Lanka bounced back from 50 for 5 and made 247, taking a slender first-innings lead. The Test had effectively become a one-innings contest.”We then had to play the last two innings well to win the Test match, and Rangana [Herath] and Nuwan [Kulasekara] bowled really well this morning to give us that opportunity,” Jayawardene said.New Zealand began the third day on 35 for 1 but collapsed against Kulasekara and Herath, who finished with 11 wickets in the match. They were dismissed for 118 and Sri Lanka’s openers achieved the target of 93 in the 19th over. Despite New Zealand’s capitulation, Jayawardene said they were “a fighting team”.”Their batsmen struggled purely because of some quality bowling,” he said. “Usually at Galle, the team that wins the toss and bats first holds the advantage and goes onto win the match. When we lost the toss, what we spoke about was to make sure that we kept the pressure on. The only thing we could do was to make sure we didn’t give them a good advantage after the first day.”Jayawardene said the Galle pitch was “a very good wicket, not one that will deteriorate much until the fourth and fifth day.””It still looked a very good wicket after the match,” Jayawardene said. “I thought Shaminda [Eranga] and Kule [Kulesekara] bowled really well up front, to take some early wickets and put their middle order under pressure, and Rangana came and bowled really well. When you lose the toss in these situations, you have to play safe and stay in control.”

Nic Pothas, the former Hampshire wicketkeeper, has been appointed the new director of cricket of Guernsey.

ESPNcricinfo staff13-Dec-2012Nic Pothas, the former Hampshire wicketkeeper, has been appointed the new director of cricket of Guernsey. He beat off candidates from four countries to become the island’s first director of cricket and the first full-time cricket-specific coach.It will be the first major role for Pothas, 39, since being released by Hampshire at the end of the 2011 season. He joined the club in 2002 having begun his career with Transvaal. He scored 11, 438 first-class runs at 40.85.He finished his career with the highest average of any wicketkeeper for Hampshire, for whom he scored 17 centuries for Hampshire.Around 40 applications were received from across the UK, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand with Johannesburg-born Pothas being offered the role that will begin with World Cricket League Division Five in Singapore in February.”Nic really impressed us,” Mark Latter, chief executive of the Guernsey Cricket Board said. “He clearly has the desire and energy to make a real impact in the island. He brings drive and a steely determination that will serve us all well.”It is fair to say that some momentum has been lost recently. The next few years will bring much hard work for all involved but also some exciting times, and I can’t wait to get started on this next part of our journey. We’ll set some tough targets but I have a feeling Nic can make these happen.”Pothas has previous experience of island cricket having played for Cenkos Centurions in Guernsey’s Twenty20 Premier League. “Being involved in the GPL allowed me to meet some fantastic people with infectious love for Guernsey cricket and the island,” Pothas said. “I cannot wait to become a part of that too.”I am looking forward to the opportunity of joining such an ambitious organisation; using my experience, knowledge and energy to take Guernsey Cricket through the next phase of their development.”

West Indies captain Darren Sammy said that batting till the final over of the innings, despite the clutch of early wickets, made the difference for his team in the fourth ODI in Mirpur

Mohammad Isam in Mirpur07-Dec-2012West Indies captain Darren Sammy said that batting till the final over of the innings, despite the clutch of early wickets, made the difference for his team in the fourth ODI in Mirpur. They fought their way to 211 for 9 after losing half their side by the 24th over, and that total eventually proved to be too big for a Bangladesh line-up that looked all at sea against quality pace bowling.”Looking at the way the game was unfolding, I always told myself that if we bat till the end we stand the chance of scoring 190-plus,” Sammy said. “It is about applying yourself in the middle. My partnership with [Darren] Bravo was crucial. We just said ‘let us try to bat deep’.”We wanted to have a go in the last four overs. We kept losing wickets, so we had to push [launching the final surge] back. But it proved today that 212 runs was a lot [to chase] on that wicket.”Sammy’s all-round performance was, ultimately, the difference between the two sides. He held firm with the bat after West Indies had fallen to 102 for 6 in the 32nd over from the relative comfort of 71 for 1 just an hour before. He took stock of the situation and batted calmly with Darren Bravo, the pair adding 43 runs for the seventh wicket. Bravo was caught and bowled by offspinner Sohag Gazi, one of several poorly-timed dismissals for West Indies, in the 43rd over.Sammy then had the likes of Veerasammy Permaul and Sunil Narine for company but, even now, rather risking hitting out and allowing his team to be bowled out, he kept his head. He only launched in the last three overs of the innings, taking 35 valuable runs. He did have a life, being dropped at deep-square leg on 30 when West Indies were 168 for 8, and he made it count for his team.”Last game it was Marlon [Samuels], today it is me. It is about players putting their hands up and doing what matters for the team,” Sammy said. “As a leader, you always try to lead from the front. It gives you a good feeling inside. It won’t happen all the time because it is a team sport but when you do it, it feels good.”Sammy also made a major contribution with the ball, removing Anamul Haque and Naeem Islam off successive balls in his first over before accounting for Mominul Haque in his third over. He took advantage of the Bangladesh batsmen’s impatience. With Kemar Roach, his opening partner, he had reduced Bangladesh to 13 for 5 by the sixth over, and the series-levelling win was all but confirmed.West Indies thrived by attacking with pace and short pitched bowling up front and, today, the spinners did the other half of the job. The bowling unit’s showing pleased Sammy: “Our pacers have been taking the wickets throughout the Test series. In this game the ball was carrying nicely, maybe because of the dew. We all know Kemar bowls 90-plus miles per hour. Even [Dwayne] Smith did a good job. Sunny [Narine] and [Veerasammy] Permaul got some spin. All the bowlers put their hands up.”Saturday’s game now, for all intents and purposes, is a final, and West Indies are in the ascendancy. The pressure was on them when they returned to Dhaka from Khulna 2-0 down, and they have turned their form around as they would have liked. “It was a must-win game for us, I’m just happy that the team did what they had to do to win,” Sammy said. “We have had good days in the Test series, the last [one-day] match … We did what we had to do today, which is level the series. It sets up a big final tomorrow.”