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The 33-year old Punjab allrounder played three ODIs for India in 2016

ESPNcricinfo staff10-Nov-2023Gurkeerat Singh Mann, the 33-year old Punjab allrounder, has announced his retirement from international and Indian cricket. He played three ODIs for India in 2016 and was an IPL champion with Gujarat Titans six years later.Gurkeerat’s talents as an offspinner and a quick-scoring batter were first noticed in 2011, when he was part of the Punjab Under-22 side that won the CK Nayudu Trophy. Steady performances from there on took him towards an India call-up. By 2015, he was making the ‘A’ team and played a crucial part in winning a tri-series final against Australia A. Gurkeerat took that form and confidence into that season’s Ranji Trophy and when he scored a double-hundred and followed that up with a nine-wicket haul, his step up was complete.Gurkeerat was picked in India’s Test squad for the home series against South Africa in November – but he did not play – and at the start of 2016, he toured Australia with India’s limited-overs squad and made his ODI debut in Melbourne.

Allrounder said he would honour overseas league commitments, made after missing out on the original contracts’ list

ESPNcricinfo staff16-Sep-2022Jimmy Neesham has declined a New Zealand central contract, while Blair Tickner and Finn Allen have been handed their first deals.Neesham was offered one of the two vacant spots in the list after the departure of Trent Boult and Colin de Grandhomme, but turned it down having already committed to various T20 tournaments since his omission from the original list.”I know the news of my decision to decline a central contract today will be seen as me choosing money over representing my country,” Neesham posted on an Instagram story. “I had planned to accept a contract offer in July, however since being left off the list I have committed to other leagues around the world. It was a difficult decision but I have decided to honour those commitments rather than go back on my word to re-sign with NZ Cricket.”Playing for the [Blackcaps] has been the greatest honour of my career and I remain committed to taking the field with my countrymen for the foreseeable future, especially in pinnacle world events.”Related

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Neesham has his name in for the SA20 league, which has its auction on September 19.Tickner, the fast bowler, and opening batter Allen have filled the two vacant spots. Boult stepped away from his contract earlier this year to allow him more time with family and the ability to play T20 leagues around the world, while de Grandhomme retired from international cricket shortly after being picked in the BBL draft by Adelaide Strikers.The new inclusions have featured in New Zealand’s limited-overs sides in recent months. Allen is a highly regarded talent who can expect to be included for the upcoming T20 World Cup. He has already made 334 runs at a strike rate of 169.54 in 13 T20I innings. He has also played eight ODIs, making a vital 96 on the tour of the West Indies last month and impressing when he came back into the team for the final match against Australia in Cairns.”Finn clearly has huge talent and potential,” New Zealand head coach Gary Stead said. “He’s shown he’s up to the international level in his limited opportunities to date. In particular, his match-winning 96 against West Indies on a difficult wicket in Barbados showed his class and maturity.”Tickner has played six ODIs and 11 T20Is, most recently against Netherlands, and was part of the initial touring squad for the Test series in England earlier this year.”Blair’s been in Blackcaps squads for all three formats over the past 12 months which is testament to his progress,” Stead said. “He’s a bowler who just keeps improving and we’ve been particularly impressed with his red-ball development, which saw him in the recent squads for the England and South Africa Tests. He knows the environment, understands his role, and bowls with good pace and aggression.”New Zealand will name their T20 World Cup squad on September 20. They will prepare for the tournament with a tri-series in Christchurch featuring Pakistan and Bangladesh from October 7 to 14. Their first match of the T20 World Cup is against hosts Australia at the SCG on October 22.

Homegrown James takes career-best figures as defending champions lose by an innings and 30 runs

David Hopps09-May-2021Essex’s Championship defence is running aground. In Somerset and Yorkshire, the two counties most fancied to raise a challenge, anticipation will be growing that this could be their year. They now have one win in five and their second defeat of the season – by an innings and 30 runs against Nottinghamshire – will demand an urgent assessment of why their season is going awry.Even the convenience of a third day lost to heavy rain did not allow Essex to give the slightest indication that they might save the game. They trailed by 95 at the start of play, with seven wickets remaining, and would have needed to bat until tea or thereabouts. Instead, they capitulated on the stroke of one o’clock. With half their group games spent they lie second bottom and need a quick response.Dismissed for 99 on a Trent Bridge greentop in the first innings, they lost their last seven wickets for 38. Faced again by encouraging bowling conditions (how could it be otherwise after Saturday’s deluge?), their last six second-innings wickets fell for 29. There is a lot of onus on their top four to fire and, in this game, Tom Westley and Dan Lawrence failed in both innings.Related

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How quickly perceptions can change. Little more than week ago, Nottinghamshire were easy to depict as the county that had tried and failed to buy their way out of decline. But they won at the 31st time of asking, shouldering aside Derbyshire by an innings, and have followed that up by thrashing the champions by an innings.They now top Group One and, although they are surely the Katy Perry of the Championship – “You’re hot then you’re cold, you’re yes then you’re no, you’re in then you’re out, you’re up then you’re down” – they might just surprise everyone for qualifying for the top group with a top-two finish.They even had a homegrown player at the heart of their victory. Lyndon James, a willowy allrounder with close-cropped fair hair, followed up a maiden first-class 50 in Notts’ first-innings with career-best bowling figures of 4 for 51, and 6 for 54 in the match. A product of Caythorpe in the Notts Premier League, he will help lift the reputation of a Notts academy that has often invited criticism in recent seasons.With bat and ball, James looked to be a thoughtful cricketer, and indeed had a season as Notts’ 2nd XI captain. He glided to the crease and swung the ball at the high end of medium pace. Notts have not been entirely sure how to get him into the side, but it is in the middle order where he gives them a better balance, allowing them to pick a spinner as well as lighten the bowling load on the captain, Steven Mullaney.The most striking attribute about Notts’ bowling performance, though, was not the individual but the collective. Their consistency never gave Essex an outlet, and the other batter who did resist for any length of time, Paul Walter, was rendered almost strokeless as his 30 encompassed 106 balls.It soon became apparent that after the deluge, and on a warmer but still cloudy morning, the bowlers would still prosper. Nevertheless, Notts needed early proof of that in the wickets column and Fletcher, who took a couple of overs to find his range, provided it by having Nick Browne caught at the wicket with one that left him.Browne, with two half-centuries in the match, scored 43% of Essex’s runs off the bat. With his departure, the dam had been breached. Four wickets fell for nine runs in 25 balls, three of them to James.He began with a double wicket maiden. Ryan ten Doeschate, who invites an lbw, fell to a big inducker and Adam Wheater was bowled through the gate, driving, second ball, hardly the show of resolve that Essex needed. Walter’s obduracy was then ended by a fast catch to his left, at second slip, by Ben Duckett.James had enjoyed a rewarding Championship debut against Essex in 2018 and now he had visions of his first five-wicket haul, only for Haseeb Hameed to drop Peter Siddle at third slip.When Siddle was ninth out, the second new ball was due and Stuart Broad was meaningfully hanging around the stumps as if he quite fancied bowling with it. Mullaney, astutely, allowed James two more overs to get his maiden five-for, but it was not to be and back-slaps at the end of his spell did not dissuade him from a frustrated grimace and scuff of the turf.

The two have opened 59 times in ODIs, with a tally of 3050 runs, including nine century stands

Vishal Dikshit in Mumbai15-Jan-20202:17

I’m really making the most of my form – Warner

David Warner extended his prolific summer across formats, topping it with an unbeaten century that handed India a drubbing in the opening ODI of the series in Mumbai on Tuesday. Warner’s 18th ODI century was his fourth across formats since the summer started for him back home.Before that Warner had a dismal run during the Ashes in England, putting together all of 95 runs in 10 innings. On Tuesday, Warner said that he was batting well in the nets in England but the runs weren’t coming. Warner then returned home to hit form straightaway, with a T20I century against Sri Lanka, and currently averages 171.57 in 12 international matches this season, with two half-centuries and five centuries – one in T20I cricket, three in Tests and the latest one in ODIs.Warner recalled how he batted for long hours in the nets before the Pakistan Tests, in which he scored consecutive hundreds, including a career-best 335 not out in Adelaide.”Yeah I was hitting them well in England in the nets too and couldn’t get a run on the board,” Warne said at the press conference. “I have a hunger and a desire to score runs all the time. I look back at that little phase there [in England] and it was just a small hiccup. I wasn’t out of form, I was out of runs.”I’m really making the most of it at the moment, my feet are moving well. I’m getting my head over my front leg, my weight is going through the ball. All those small things are coming into play. When you are in that kind of form and touch and everything is going well for you, you have to make sure you are practicing the same and doing all the hard work.”I look back at the beginning against Pakistan, I trained a lot going into the first Test match, JL (Justin Langer) noted to me I had been batting for almost two hours in that session which is unlike me. I didn’t play a Shield game leading in and I felt like I needed to bat time. It put me in real good stead for the summer.”ALSO READ: How Starc and Finch masterminded Australia’s victoryDavid Warner congratulates Aaron Finch on his hundred•BCCI

Warner and Aaron Finch put on a dominating stand like never before against India that was only their second 10-wicket loss at home. Warner said his chemistry with Finch off the field, and their understanding of each other played a crucial role in how they performed on the field. The two have opened 59 times in ODIs, with a tally of 3050 runs, including nine century stands. Against India, they average a staggering 106, having opened 10 times for 954 runs, including three century stands.”The most pleasing thing for me up the other end was seeing Finchy transfer his weight into the ball very well,” Warner said. “He talks about not doing that as consistently, but tonight was probably the best that I’ve ever seen him bat. The way that he played was fantastic. It was great to have that winning partnership and be clinical there and [win] none down.”We complement each other on the field but we’re great mates off the field and I think we know each other’s games so well and personalities that now we can have honest conversations out there. If we’re playing shots that we wouldn’t, we reassure each other about that, it’s purely we complement each other, it’s just great to go out there and play the way that we do. When he’s going, I know what my role is and when I’m going he knows what he’s role is and we communicate that straight away and I think that’s the best thing about our partnership, it works very well.”When asked if Warner saw himself and Finch opening the batting in the next World Cup too, in 2023 in India, Warner brought up a few other factors, apart from form and fitness, into play.”I think we’ll speak to our wives first. We’ll both be 36 or 37, I’ve got three kids – I hope that’s the last one (laughs) – and in that three years you’ve got form, wives, family. Take one step at a time.”