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In the stands for England’s 2010 triumph, the opener is now integral to their World Cup defence 14 years on

Andrew Miller03-Jun-2024Fourteen years ago, in May 2010, Phil Salt was a kid in the stands at the Kensington Oval in Barbados, watching England’s cricketers parading their first piece of global silverware, after victory over Australia in the final of that year’s World T20. Now he’s back as an England star in his own right, seeking to launch his team’s defence of the same trophy at the same venue, when they take on Scotland in Bridgetown on Tuesday morning.By his own admission, Salt’s is not a homecoming to rival that of Jofra Archer or Chris Jordan, the two born-and-bred Bajans in England’s anticipated starting XI. Even so, having spent six formative years in Barbados – honing his love of cricket from the age of nine to 15, while his father Chris was working as a property developer – he acknowledges it’s an extraordinary turn of events.”To be back here and have the opportunity to play for England in a World Cup isn’t something I ever thought I’d be doing, but it’s certainly very special,” Salt said. “Everything about the place suits me. Pretty laid-back, a lot of cricket, a lot of sport, still got a lot of friends on the island. I don’t think there’s too many people that disagree that living in Barbados is a touch. But yeah, I loved it.”Salt played a small part in England’s T20 World Cup victory in Australia two years ago. After coming into the starting XI as a replacement for the injured Dawid Malan, he did not bat in the semi-final against India as Jos Buttler and Alex Hales romped to a ten-wicket victory, then made 10 from 9 balls at No.3 in a low-scoring final against Pakistan.Now, however, is very much his moment. Six months ago, he nailed his audition to be Buttler’s regular opening partner with back-to-back centuries against West Indies in Grenada and Trinidad, then ran hot at a crucial juncture of Kolkata Knight Riders’ recent IPL triumph, with a run of 290 runs from 144 balls in five innings, including 89 not out from 47 balls against Lucknow Super Giants.Salt had always had the ability to start an innings strongly – two years ago, he marked his T20I debut (coincidentally, also at Bridgetown) with 57 from 24 balls. And yet, he recognises his game has gone to a new level in recent months, to the extent that he enters this tournament as one of the most dangerous batters on display.”It’s been a combination of things,” he said. “The opportunity to gain more experience in international cricket has definitely been the biggest part of it in my own head. I’ve also had a look at where I’m strong, where I’m not, used the analysis, learnt from the coaches, to make those movements in my game.”I can’t put my finger on any one thing, but it’s maybe a mindset shift, that I want to be the person winning more games for England. You like to think [that people fear you] as an opening batter, but the moment you recognise that and you start thinking, ‘I’m the big guy I am’, the game’s always going to bite you. I try not to think about anything like that and keep it one ball at a time.”Salt’s form was integral to KKR’s third IPL title•BCCI

Another key facet of his growth, he says, has been the opportunity to bat alongside his England captain in the Hundred – an alliance that has been instrumental in Manchester Originals reaching the final for two years running. In 2022, Salt’s tally of 353 runs in ten innings was second only to Malan (377), while his 232 the following year may have been dwarfed by Buttler’s haul of 391, but they came at a blistering strike-rate of 194.95.The pair reprised their antics in an opening stand of 82 in 6.2 overs against Pakistan at The Oval on Thursday – England’s final warm-up ahead of the Scotland encounter. Though Salt admitted their partnership had taken a while to click, he felt the dynamic was now similar to the one he had enjoyed in the Vitality Blast with his former Sussex captain, and now England selector, Luke Wright.”[Luke] liked to take a few balls. So, my role at the time was just to get us off to a flyer,” Salt said. “That probably stood me in good stead for batting with someone like Jos.”We do have different styles. In my career I’ve always been the aggressor and I suppose I am the aggressor early on in this partnership. I feel like we both showcased it pretty well at The Oval the other night. I didn’t get a flyer, but we sort of hung in and then Jos went and then we dovetailed nicely.”It’s good because we both communicate a lot out there and we realise that when one goes, we feed the strike to the other person, so there’s no ego about it. It’s whoever goes first. We just communicate and it sounds really simple, but I’ve batted with a lot of people and it’s not always the case. So, it’s nice when you have that connection with your partner.”It remains to be seen whether it’s a partnership that can carry England all the way to their third T20 World Cup title. But, auspiciously for Salt, when they won the first of those back in 2010, it was once again the opening partnership that laid the foundations for everything that followed. As the impressionable youngster in the stands remembers well.Related

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“Craig Kieswetter was definitely one [role-model],” Salt said, recalling the Somerset opener who burst to prominence alongside Michael Lumb, after the pair were hastily thrown together on the eve of the tournament, and contributed a match-winning half-century in the final.”He was a bit of an unknown at the time and then he came out, and I was in awe of him. I thought he was brilliant, he took some incredible catches and the way he played, he was certainly someone I tried to model myself on at the time. I watched a lot of good cricket here. People like Chris Gayle … when I was a kid, anybody who hit the ball hard or kept, I’d watch them on YouTube and just try and try and emulate them.”And though he played down any similarities between the class of 2010 and the team he’s fronting up for now, Salt did recall the highlight of his day out at that original final. If he gets to emulate it this time around, he really will have fulfilled his childhood dream.”Colly [Paul Collingwood] came past up this stand here – the Hall and Griffith where I was sat upstairs watching the final – with the trophy and said, ‘here, touch it while you can’. So, I got a touch of the trophy that day. That’s the thing that always sticks with me when I think about that day.”

UK death toll from Covid-19 causing disquiet in the Caribbean, says CWI CEO Johnny Grave

ESPNcricinfo staff14-May-2020West Indies’ cricketers will only tour England for their postponed Test series in July if they are “100% sure” they are not putting their health at risk, according to the CWI chief executive, Johnny Grave.Speaking on Sky Sports after it was confirmed that England’s players plan to begin their own phased return to training on Monday, Grave admitted that the UK’s death toll from the Covid-19 pandemic, already in excess of 30,000, has caused some alarm in the Caribbean.”There are relatively few cases here in the Caribbean, therefore, we’re all relatively safe from a coronavirus point of view,” he said. “Just in terms of sheer numbers of deaths in the UK, obviously over 30,000 people is an enormous number but in population terms here in the Caribbean for people who are based and who have lived most of their lives on the smaller islands, you are talking about 40-50 per cent of the total populations.”It is a very different mindset here in terms of going to what is seen as one of the eyes of the storm of this virus. So we’re going to have to be very, very careful that first up we take the medical advice that the ECB give us and secondly that we’re 100 per cent sure that we’re not putting any player’s health at risk before we can contemplate the tour taking place.ALSO READ: England face Ben Stokes dilemma in event of split squads“We’ve had, as you can imagine, lots of conversations individually and – as of the start of this month – we started really a much wider discussion with the ECB over what a tour might look like,” he added.”Certainly, from our point of view, it’s really just listening to those ECB plans both from Steve Elworthy [Director of Special Projects], from a logistics and venue point of view, and professor Nick Peirce [Chief Medical Officer] from a medical point of view.”So, we’re in good dialogue with the ECB and ultimately we’re waiting to hear from them and clearly they need to get UK Government approval before we can seriously contemplate a tour to the UK.”Ashley Giles, England’s team director, admitted that he could understand West Indies’ concerns, but remained confident that the tour would go ahead as planned.”I would be nervous, certainly, but I think we are all nervous, aren’t we? Clearly being outside and looking in, as with any scenario, it can be quite scary but we are doing everything we possibly can to answer all of the West Indies’ questions and we will be speaking to Pakistan as well and mitigate as much risk as we possibly can. We can’t mitigate all risk but as much as possible to get guys comfortable.”We have to remain confident. A big part of my job is trying to get cricket on but it has to be safe and it has to be right. We would never compromise the safety of our players and our people. Right now I am confident. We hope we don’t take another dip which would put all of us back, [but] if we continue on this trajectory hopefully we will have the right conditions to play some Test cricket.”A significant hurdle for CWI will be the assembling of their squad ahead of the trip to England, with all internal flights in the Caribbean currently suspended.”At the moment there’s no regional travel between the main airlines so first up we need to think through where the pool of players would come from across the Caribbean,” said Grave.”We’d expect at least seven or eight countries to make up the Test squad. I don’t think commercial flying is going to be appropriate here from the medical advice that we’ve been getting so we’re looking at chartering planes within the Caribbean and then ultimately a trans-Atlantic charter to get over to England.”

“It’s sad actually that we haven’t toured England again after doing so well, especially in white-ball cricket”

ESPNcricinfo staff16-Mar-2023Tamim Iqbal, Bangladesh’s ODI captain, has expressed his frustration that his side are not given the opportunity to tour England and Australia more often.Bangladesh have not toured England for a bilateral series since 2010, when they played two Tests and three ODIs. Tamim, then aged 21, hit hundreds at Lord’s and Old Trafford, and while Bangladesh were heavily beaten in both Tests, they took the ODI series to a decider thanks to a memorable win in Bristol.Related

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Their most recent bilateral tour to Australia was even longer ago, a three-match ODI series back in 2008. They are due to travel there for two Tests in March 2027, according to the ICC’s Future Tours Programme, but are not due to play an away series against England in this edition of the FTP.”That’s a long way away now, 2010,” Tamim told the UK’s . “But those innings I will always remember. Scoring a hundred in England is not easy, especially for a team like us. The memories are something that, when I’ve finished cricket, I will take forever in my heart.”Those two are really close to my heart, but the most important thing is you guys need to invite us more often. That was the last time we played there, which is unfortunate. Bangladesh is in a situation now where we should tour Australia and England more often and I don’t know why that doesn’t happen.”It’s been 13 years now and we haven’t been back to England. It’s sad actually that we haven’t toured again after doing so well, especially in white-ball cricket.”There are more than 600,000 people in England and Wales who registered as Bangladeshi in the 2021 census, and Bangladesh’s fixtures at the 2017 Champions Trophy and 2019 World Cup attracted substantial crowds.And Tamim believes that would be repeated if Bangladesh were invited for a bilateral tour. “I can guarantee you, it will be less England fans and more Bangladeshi fans, for sure,” he said.”If you remember the 2017 Champions Trophy, we actually outnumbered the English fans… whatever format we play, if we get invited to play in England, it will be a full house.”Bangladesh are due to tour England later this year, but their opponents will be Ireland. The teams are due to play three ODIs in the final fixtures of the ICC’s Super League, which are expected to be staged at Chelmsford in the second week of May. The fixtures have not yet been confirmed.

Sibley unbeaten on 142 before Lancashire duo stage unbroken opening partnership of 127

Paul Edwards06-May-2022
In Season 1, Episode 20 of Leo McGarry, the White House chief of staff, is determined to expose the hypocrisy of Congressmen regarding drug-enforcement. “We play the full nine innings at this level, Stuart,” he informs a senator’s PA, “Tell your friends.” If we overlook, for the moment, the dreadful faux pas of placing a baseball reference in a report on a cricket match, a comparable resolve has informed Lancashire’s cricket in the first month of this season.The games against Kent and Gloucestershire were only won deep in their final sessions but Lancashire’s players stuck to their task until the job was done, and Dane Vilas’s team has already shown similar tenacity against Warwickshire. Near the end of the first day the visitors were well placed on 240 for 4, only for a dog-tired seam attack to take three wickets with the new ball before the close. This morning Lancashire’s bowlers may have admired the application of Dom Sibley, who finished unbeaten on 142, but they dismissed the visitors for 315 and then took their ease as Luke Wells and Keaton Jennings celebrated their maiden opening partnership by putting on an unbroken 127 in the increasing gloom with Wells stroking the ball around particularly felicitously for his 70 not out.And perhaps some bad light was perversely appropriate. As these words are being written, a large number of Lancashire cricketers and some old players are gathering in the pavilion for a dinner to mark the 50th anniversary of the county’s famous Gillette Cup semi-final victory over Gloucestershire in which David Hughes defied light that gets worse with every passing year to hit the off-spinner John Mortimore for 24 runs in an over. The anniversary of that famous game actually occurred on July 28 last year but the dinner had to be postponed because of Covid.No matter. The folk attending that dinner will ignore the rain that is pelting down outside and they will tell tales of the days when Annie Walker ruled The Rover’s Return, old footballers served in pubs and women wore hats in church. Some of the yarns they exchange may even be true although one would not be shocked to hear it asserted that they don’t make bad light like they used to.That semi-final victory against Gloucestershire has become as much a part of Lancashire folklore as Francis Thompson’s run-stealers, Reggie Spooner’s style and Jack Simmons’ appetite. Yet some of those dining in the pavilion will also have watched today’s cricket and they should be full of admiration for Wells, whose drives through the off-side tortured every Warwickshire seamer with the exception of Olly Hannon-Dalby, who bowled 11 overs for 13 runs.Related

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Both Wells and Jennings are 6ft 4in left-handers but they complemented each other perfectly on this Friday afternoon and the only pity was that our day’s cricket was shortened by 35 overs, first by bad light, and then by drizzle, which became so heavy that Matt Merchant and his team had the square covered long before play was abandoned at 5.20. “I can’t stand the rain,” sang a Lancashire steward, although, heaven help us, he’s hardly had any of the stuff to dislike this spring.Instead, staff and supporters have been able to appreciate the honest toil of bowlers like Hasan Ali, who took two of the three wickets to fall this morning, and the strokeplay of Wells who hit Craig Miles for three fours before lunch and Nathan McAndrew for three more in the long hour when the members were digesting their lunches and the Vice-Presidents were getting stuck into the Grand Marnier. Wells reached his fifty off 90 balls with a square-driven four off Danny Briggs. In most of his dozen boundaries there was a minimum of effort but a maximum of return, although that could not be said of the fifth ball of the 42nd over, which was bowled by Rob Yates and clouted to the boundary over mid-on. Inspired by this cleanly-hit stroke, the umpires decided the light was not up to snuff and took the players off.Actually it had been getting gloomy for some time and ten minutes later it was raining. The spectators went home and one hopes they appreciated the fine batting they had seen. For his part, Wells is delighted to play for Lancashire now, but he was born in Eastbourne and it was strangely moving to watch a cricketer raised in Sussex bat so beautifully on what would have been Alan Ross’s hundredth birthday.Perhaps only one person in Emirates Old Trafford was aware that this was the centenary of one of the finest cricket writers and prose stylists that ever composed a sentence. But maybe we should let that pass on this soaking Mancunian evening. The members are returning and soon they will be shawled in their memories. Meanwhile, a member of the catering staff is laying the table in preparation for the festivities. On a whim, she turns to her mate: “But, tell me,” she says, “Who is this David Hughes, anyway? Has he been on Strictly?”

South Africa internationals David Miller and Gerald Coetzee will also be part of the Dallas-based franchise

ESPNcricinfo staff15-Jun-2023Faf du Plessis, Devon Conway, Mitchell Santner, Ambati Rayudu and David Miller are among Texas Super Kings’ signings for the upcoming MLC 2023. As reported earlier, the side will be coached by Stephen Fleming who is also in charge of Super Kings in the IPL and SA20.