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Kimber and Mulder fire Foxes chase as Foakes hundred goes in vain

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Ben Foakes’ maiden List A hundred could not prevent Leicestershire Foxes from kicking off their Metro Bank One-Day Cup Group A campaign with an impressive five-wicket victory against Surrey at the Kia Oval. It was their highest winning total when chasing in all one-day cricket.Louis Kimber smashed five sixes in a brutal 89 not out off 62 balls and Wiaan Mulder struck three of his own in a 53-ball 67 not out as Leicestershire won with a comfortable 7.4 overs to spare at 329 for 5. With only two players lost to the Hundred, compared to Surrey’s 13, the Foxes look a good outside bet for this year’s 50-over competition.Foakes hit two sixes and eight fours in 106 from 107 balls while Ben Geddes sprinted to 67 off just 39 balls in the closing overs of Surrey’s 325 all out, in which seamer Tom Scriven finished with a one-day best of 5 for 66.But Mulder and Kimber’s unbroken stand of 146 in 18.1 overs, a Foxes List A sixth-wicket record against Surrey, swept Leicestershire home after Peter Handscomb’s 54-ball 57 and an excellent 46 from 37 balls by Lewis Hill had helped to propel them to 186 for 5 at the halfway stage of their reply.Foakes was unable to keep wicket after suffering a knee niggle when batting and Josh Blake, substituting for him behind the stumps, caught Hill off a gloved sweep at Cameron Steel.Rishi Patel and Sol Budinger got the Foxes off to a fast start before both were caught at mid-on, for 16 and 33, off Matt Dunn and Conor McKerr respectively.Ben Foakes scored his maiden List A hundred•Getty Images

Hill and Handscomb added 79 in ten overs for the third wicket but Colin Ackermann was needlessly run out for 10, sent back after turning for a third run that was never there, and Handscomb cut a near-wide from legspinner Steel to point.Mulder, however, was soon pulling Steel for six to bring up Leicestershire’s 200 in the 27th over, punching an extra cover four and swinging a legside six off McKerr. Kimber, meanwhile, pulled McKerr for six, off drove Dan Moriarty for another maximum and virtually settled matters by taking 21 from the 36th over, bowled by Dunn, with three sixes hooked and pulled over the longer boundary.Surrey’s innings, which stuttered at first after Leicestershire had chosen to bowl, was built around Foakes’ typically elegant effort and rounded off by a burst of spectacular hitting by Geddes, the promising 22-year-old batsman in at No. 7 with orders to shepherd the tail to a respectable total.Steel, too, played his part with a quickfire 40-ball 50 that included leg-side sixes off Ackermann and Josh Hull, a 6ft 7in teenage left-arm quick making his List A debut. Steel, who came in with Surrey in a hint of bother at 129 for 4 in the 23rd over, helped Foakes to add 95 in 14 overs for the fifth wicket.Foakes had cruised to fifty from 55 balls, having initially stabilised the innings in a partnership worth 66 with Dom Sibley, who had seen fellow opener Ryan Patel edge low to slip on 17 and skipper Rory Burns depart looking distinctly disgruntled at being adjudged caught behind for 5 from a fine ball from Chris Wright that pitched on leg stump and jagged across him.Sibley’s 34 from 40 balls ended when he nicked a flat-footed drive at Hull to the keeper and Jordan Clark hoisted Scriven for six before his cameo of 19 was cut short by an attempted back-foot force against the same bowler that he dragged down into his stumps.Foakes began to accelerate when he clubbed Mulder’s medium pace high over the short boundary on the Harleyford Road side and he then earned himself another six by just clearing deep midwicket with a pull off Hull, followed by a rasping square cut for four two balls later. He was soon past his previous List A best of 92 while Steel swung Ackermann’s offbreaks over the long boundary and collected a further maximum with a whiplash pull off Hull.Steel fell to a low catch, confirmed after an umpires’ discussion and taken at the second attempt by Patel at mid-on as he dived forward to scoop up a miscue off Scriven, leaving Foakes to complete his hundred in the 39th over but then top-edged a pull at the same bowler high into the air for keeper Handscomb to claim.Geddes began by striking Scriven way over the long-on rope but saw the innings threaten to peter out after McKerr was well caught on the boundary for a handy 13, Yousef Majid bowled for 2 and Moriarty caught at deep mid-on for a five-ball duck.The response from Geddes was to hit three sixes from the first four balls of the final over, over extra cover, straight and to square cover before he was caught from the fifth ball attempting a repeat of his last scoring shot.

Ollie Pope ruled out for rest of Ashes following shoulder dislocation

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Ollie Pope has been ruled out of the remainder of England’s Ashes campaign after dislocating his right shoulder during the second Test at Lord’s last week.Pope, who has twice suffered shoulder dislocations in the past, underwent a scan in London on Monday, which revealed the full extent of the injury, He will undergo surgery and will miss the final three Tests against Australia, before beginning his rehabilitation under the guidance of the England and Surrey medical teams.Having damaged the shoulder diving for a ball on day one of the Lord’s Test, Pope aggravated the injury on day three after the umpires insisted he take the field after batting in England’s first innings, scoring 42. It was a situation that left England frustrated, with Jeetan Patel, England’s spin coach, acknowledging that England would have had to field with ten men had he not fronted up.Related

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“It’s a pretty tough situation when you nearly bust your shoulder and you’re told it was an external [injury],” Patel said. “It was always going to happen. He’s so committed to this team. He was always going to fall on something. And now he’s back off.”Pope is also England’s designated vice-captain, although that leadership gap is straightforward to fill, with Stuart Broad likely to step up as Ben Stokes’ deputy, having fulfilled the role unofficially last summer. A bigger issue, however, is who now steps into the vacant No. 3 spot at Headingley.Despite averaging 22.50 across four innings against Australia, Pope has averaged 45.25 at first-drop since Stokes and head coach Brendon McCullum took charge at the start of last summer. Now, with England 2-0 down and facing a must-win match to keep the Ashes alive, there is an unwanted problem to solve at the top of the order.Speaking at Headingley on Tuesday, Joe Root lamented the loss of Pope, and did not rule out a return to No.3, a position Root has not assumed since relinquishing the captaincy before the start of last summer.

“Ollie has been phenomenal over the past 18 months. He’s stepped up as vice-captain and the more responsibility that has been given to him we’ve got more out of him as a player. He’ll be a big miss for us. He’s a hell of a player and a great mind to have in the group – Ben gains a huge amount from having him as vice-captain. Of course, it will be a big loss. He’s been an integral part of this team and will continue to be for many more years to come.”I feel like the last couple of years, I’ve got a very good understanding of my game. I’ve said many times before, it’s my turn now as a senior player to give back to everyone else that had to put up with me as captain for so long and doing it my way. I’m there to go and try to score runs in whatever position that is, and try to get us back into this series.”Dan Lawrence is the closest thing to a like-for-like replacement. He is the only spare batter in the squad, with England choosing not to name a replacement in their squad, and has also been in sound domestic form, scoring 491 runs at 44.63 for Essex with two centuries.Dan Lawrence is set to come in for Pope at Headingley•Getty Images

The last of the 25-year-old’s 11 caps came under Root’s tenure during the Caribbean tour in March 2022. A 91 in the second Test against West Indies at Bridgetown underlined his qualities. Having bided his time with squad places under Stokes, he could be in line for a Bazball debut. While Root was not in a position to reveal how England will mitigate for Pope’s loss, with Stokes expected to name an XI on Wednesday, he did champion Lawrence’s merits to step into an Ashes and perform.”He’s in good form as well,” Root said. “Got 150-odd for Essex in the last Championship match (152 against Warwickshire) He had a great touch there where he walked off the field and got in his car and came down to Lord’s, he didn’t have to field.”He’s in a good mood, in good spirits and in good form as well, which is always nice when you’ve got guys on the periphery or next in line that are scoring runs and feeling good within their own game. That’s a nice position to be in.”You’ve seen a glimpse of what he can do in Test cricket, he scored a brilliant 90-odd and got out last ball of the day when he looked nailed on for a hundred there, in Barbados. He’s got a very exciting career ahead of him whenever that opportunity arises for him. He’s got that steeliness about him where he wants to succeed at that level. He’s got a great game to go with it, so it’s an exciting prospect.”Another option could be to re-introduce Moeen Ali to the side following his finger injury as Pope’s replacement, pushing the rest of the batters up the order, which would mean Root batting at three. Harry Brook could also be considered for the role though there may be a reluctance to shift him from number six after an indifferent start to the series, with 132 runs at 33 from four knocks.

Mark Wood: 'When I'm at full biff, it's like a catapult'

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Hindsight is a terrible tease, but where might this series be now had Mark Wood been fit to play the first Test at Edgbaston? To judge by his ferocious pad-thumper to a motionless Pat Cummins in the afternoon session, Australia’s captain probably wouldn’t have been quite so composed in that fraught run-chase, especially against a bowler with a proven ability to transcend the conditions on flat decks – see Wood’s priceless performance on the final day at Multan for recent evidence.But he’s here now, all right, and after claiming his fourth five-wicket haul and his first on home soil, a sensational 5 for 34 in 11.4 overs, Wood was champing at the bit to make up for lost time in England’s hour of Ashes need.”I’m delighted,” Wood told Sky Sports at the close. “Obviously I haven’t played a Test match in a while, but to be able to come back fairly fresh and produce that was pretty special.”However, Wood was also keen to prove that he’s learnt a few new tricks since he was last unleashed in a home Test, against India at Lord’s almost two years ago. For pace may be pace (yaar) when you’re playing on a road in Pakistan, but on one of the most helpful home surfaces that he’s ever been unleashed on, Wood had a mission to ensure that his eye-watering speed was translated into wicket-taking success.”I was really happy that I could show in home conditions that I can bowl as well,” he said. “Movement, that’s what’s deadly I think. If you just bowl fast, these top players are just used to that. They face dog-stick guys [throwing the ball] off 17 yards, so they’re used to facing quick bowling. So I the thing that helped today was the movement really.”For all that his day’s work was done in the blink of an eye (or three-and-a-bit, to be exact – four precisely measured bursts of four, two, three and 2.4 overs, spread evenly across the innings) Wood’s tactics were more carefully calibrated than his raw speed might suggest, as he explained in front of the Sky Sports replay screen at the close.”In general the wicket felt to me like, when you went up there, it came onto the bat, it slid on,” he said, referencing how David Warner had leant on Stuart Broad’s first ball of the match and pinged it for four down the ground.Mark Wood unleashed extreme speed in his first outing of this summer’s Ashes•Getty Images

“So it was about trying to hold the good length to keep [the batter] on the crease and then I thought, ‘right, this is the one I’m going to try and get the wicket’, push it right up there with a bit of swing, and luckily it paid off.”No wicket was more spectacular in that regard than his first, a stunning stump-wrecker to Usman Khawaja that was clocked at 94.6mph – and given Khawaja’s prior record in this series, 300 runs from almost 20 hours of application across the first two Tests, no wicket was more essential to England’s cause, either.”We were discussing it as a bowling group out there,” Wood said. “At Headingley you think, ‘full, full, full’, but then you can get drawn in, so it’s just that balance of when to attack the stumps and when to hold it in. It was more a case of bashing the top of the stumps on that nicking length, and then the odd one full rather than being full all the time.”A still image of Wood’s point of release during that spell emphasised the extraordinary physical toil his bowling puts on his body, but also the remarkable rewards when his action is perfectly aligned, with a braced front knee, and fully loaded torso, compared to a fractionally buckled load-up for his second spell, when his speeds intermittently dipped below 90mph.”When I’m at full biff, it feels like all my body’s going towards the batsman. It looks like an awful position, but it’s almost like a catapult sling that, when you let it go, all the chinks in the chain fizz the ball out.”But it was the subtlety that Wood brought to his performance that pleased him the most – especially knowing that, in the past, he probably wouldn’t have been given first dibs on such a pitch.Related

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“I’m usually on the flat ones, to be fair, and my record is much better away from home,” he said, citing a record of 49 wickets at 24.18 overseas, compared to 35 at 40.71 prior to today, both from 13 Tests.”On wickets like today, when the ball moves around, you’re automatically thinking Anderson, Broad, Robinson, Woakes,” he added. “They are your top guys who can trouble people in these conditions.”For me, being able to move the ball today, it’s really helped me, because that’s not something that I’ve always done to be, to be brutally honest. I’ve tried to work hard behind the scenes on the wobble-seam, through speaking to the other guys and the bowling coaches.”It’s something I’m trying to get better at. I’m 33, but I’m still trying to get better and better, even though it’s a slow progress. It doesn’t just happen overnight.”But I like bowling away from home, because it brings in reverse-swing. And the bouncer attack on flat pitches, I feel really that suits me, because they sometimes skid through and it’s hard to play especially with the field.”The short ball at Headingley, however, proved a trickier weapon to get right, particularly when the WACA-born-and-bred Mitchell Marsh was climbing into his sensational run-a-ball counterattack in the afternoon session.”If you bowled it too short, it looped over the keeper, and then if you didn’t get short enough, it’s in that Australian sweet spot, where they play it really well,” Wood said. “It’s about that happy medium you got to find.”Mitch Marsh played fantastically well. He was difficult to bowl at in that period, when the ball went from having that zip off the wicket, and all of a sudden, it looked very different when he was in. But of course, when a new batter came in, it was tough again.”I’ve had a good day. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, I’ve got to back it up. This is a must-win game, and we’ve got to back it up in the second innings. But the outfield is rapid and rock hard. We’re gonna score quickly if the lads can get in tomorrow.”

Blistering Bell-Drummond fires Kent to sixth straight win

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A brilliant 111 from Daniel Bell-Drummond and a Grant Stewart hat-trick helped the Kent Spitfires to an emphatic 55-run win over Middlesex in the Vitality Blast at Canterbury.Bell-Drummond’s joyous innings lasted 58 balls and included four sixes as for the second consecutive evening Middlesex shipped way in excess of 200. Kent posted 228 for 3, but having stunned Surrey with a Blast-record run chase the previous evening, this time Middlesex subsided to 173 all out, with George Linde and Joey Evison also claiming three wickets apiece. Luke Hollman was the visitors’ top scorer with 48 from 20 balls, but the required rate became unmanageable and they were all out with an over to spare.The Spitfire Ground was sold out on a sweltering Friday night, with over 5,000 packed in to watch the hosts, resurgent after five consecutive wins, take on a Middlesex side who were still bottom of the South Group, despite Thursday night’s miracle.An early chance went begging when Tawanda Muyeye, who was on 8, holed out to Toby Greatwood, only for Hollman to miss an over-the-shoulder catch. Muyeye smote the next ball for six and the openers put on a stand of 127 before he was bowled by Josh de Caires for 50.Related

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The run-rate slowed slightly and Joe Denly was on 12 when Martin Andersson missed a difficult chance to catch him off Hollman, but it picked up again as Bell-Drummond reached his second Blast century with a classic cover drive for four off Greatwood and when Ryan Higgins’ 17th over only went for three it felt like a minor triumph for the visitors.Bell-Drummond was one short of his best Blast score when he hoicked Max Harris to Jack Davies at square leg and he departed to a standing ovation.Denly went for 30 driving Higgins to Andersson at long on but Sam Billings smashed 22 off the final over, meaning Middlesex had conceded exactly the same number of runs they did a week ago when Kent won the reverse fixture at Lord’s.

Hopes of a second miracle in 24 hours dimmed when the first three overs went for just six and Joe Cracknell swept Linde to Bell-Drummond in the fourth. Although Max Holden initially carried on where he had left off against Surrey, with 10 off his first two balls, he was bowled for 11, playing on to Evison.Linde then took two wickets in the eighth over: Higgins played on to the first ball before John Simpson fell to a diving catch by Evison on the boundary. Stephen Eskinazi went for 32, flicking Evison to Grant Stewart and Davies rattled off a quick 24 before he was lbw to the same bowler.Hollman and de Caires went down fighting, plundering 23 from Michael Hogan’s 14th over and putting on 60 for the seventh wicket, but a nightmarish 16th over for Stewart ended with Hollman caught in the deep by Jordan Cox off the tenth and final delivery.At the start of his next over Stewart had de Caires caught on the boundary by Jack Leaning and the bowler’s redemption was complete when Harris was taken just inside the rope by Cox.The rout was sealed when Greatwood chipped Agar to Evison and Kent, having seemed dead and buried little more than a fortnight ago, stand every chance of reaching the knock-out stages.

Can KKR and Titans produce another humdinger at high-scoring Eden?

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Big picture: Will we witness Rinku magic again?

There isn’t a lot to talk about when talking about this game, is there? Just kidding. Where my Rinku fans at?Living up to that epic night three weeks ago is not going to be possible. 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 to win a game feels like a once-in-a-lifetime event.And in any case, both teams will want to focus on making the game as boring as possible. That sounds like a blasphemous way to build up to an IPL match, especially one that pits a side that kept defying the odds all the way to the title last year and one that has produced this year’s most outrageous result.But here’s the thing. Both Gujarat Titans (7 games) and Kolkata Knight Riders (8) have had enough of a go at this to figure out what their strengths and weaknesses are and how to play to them. In other words, their experience will help them manage difficult situations better, instead of letting them go so far that they end up needing a miracle.

Form guide

Gujarat Titans: WWLWL (Last five matches, most recent first)
Kolkata Knight Riders: WLLLL

Team news

KKR’s Litton Das left the IPL on Friday to attend to a medical emergency in his family in Bangladesh.Shubman Gill batting deep into the innings could enable Titans to mitigate the KKR mystery spin threat•BCCI

Toss and Impact Player strategy

Kolkata has not been kind to fast bowlers, so Titans, who have barely had to use Rahul Tewatia’s legspin, might decide to give him a proper run here. They’re also likely to swap Shubman Gill for Josh Little or Alzarri Joseph when they have to bring in their Impact Player.Gujarat Titans possible XII: 1 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 2 , 3 Hardik Pandya (capt), 4 Vijay Shankar, 5 David Miller, 6 Abhinav Manohar, 7 Rahul Tewatia, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Mohammed Shami, 10 Noor Ahmad, 11 Mohit Sharma, 12 KKR will be pleased to see Jason Roy finding form. With Venkatesh Iyer and Suyash Sharma settling into life as Impact Subs, they aren’t short on options. They’ll want their quicks to buck up, though. With just 13 wickets at an average of 55.5 and an economy rate of 11.5, they are the worst-performing seam unit in the competition.Kolkata Knight Riders possible XII: 1 N Jagadeesan (wk), 2 Jason Roy, 3 , 4 Nitish Rana (capt), 5 Rinku Singh, 6 Andre Russell, 7 David Wiese, 8 Vaibhav Arora, 9 Sunil Narine, 10 Umesh Yadav, 11 Varun Chakravarthy, 12

Stats that matter

  • Andre Russell is averaging 18 – his second-lowest in an IPL season – with five single-digit scores in eight innings. Not the best time to come up against Rashid Khan, who has dismissed him five times in 39 balls for 54 runs in T20 cricket.
  • 3.6 vs 13.8. Those are Rinku Singh’s balls-per-boundary numbers against pace and spin this season. So if you’re the Titans captain, do the right thing. Don’t give him pace.
  • Shubman Gill has an average of 59.2 and a strike rate of 143 against spin since IPL 2022. His batting deep into the innings might enable Titans to mitigate KKR’s mystery spin threat.
  • Though right now one of them is not feeling so great. Sunil Narine has an economy rate of 8.9 in IPL 2023. Never in the history of this tournament has he been so expensive. Also, he hasn’t picked up a wicket for five matches straight. That’s another first for him in the IPL.
  • Hardik Pandya has a strike rate of 102 against pace this season. This is the second-lowest among all batters who have faced at least 50 balls.

Pitch and conditions

Eden Gardens, after hosting three matches in this year’s IPL, has produced an average first-innings score of 222. It is the highest out of all the grounds on show in the tournament. So expect a few runs. Spin has offered a bit of respite, though – 21 wickets at an economy rate of 8.7 (versus 10.9 for pace) and a strike rate of 15.6, which is another season-topping metric among the grounds this IPL.

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