Kent lose unbeaten record as Sussex power to nine-wicket win

Sussex 158 for 1 (Evans 65*, Salt 63*) beat Kent 154 for 8 (Bell-Drummond 50, Mills 3-23) by nine wicketsVitality Blast leaders Kent Spitfires lost their maximum record when they were outplayed by Sussex Sharks at Hove. The Sharks, who themselves are unbeaten in the competition, moved to second place in the South Group table with this emphatic victory by nine wickets with four overs remaining.Chasing 155, Sussex got off to a fine start when Luke Wright and Phil Salt powerd 38 runs off the first four overs before Wright was bowled by Adam Milne with the last ball of the fifth over for 24 off 18 balls.Sussex were looking strong at 81 for 1 at the halfway stage, with Salt leading the charge with an unbeaten 40. But in the final stages even Salt’s destructive batting was overtaken by Laurie Evans, who hit Fred Klaasen for 16 in three deliveries. Evans finished with 65 not out from 35 deliveries, with six fours and three sixes, while Salt’s unbeaten 63 from 44 ball included six fours and two sixes.Jofra Archer, keen to prove his fitness for the second Ashes Test against Australia at Lord’s, returned for the Sharks and so did Chris Jordan, replacing Reece Topley, who was not 100% fit.Archer, who will also play for Sussex 2nd XI in a three-day match against Gloucestershire at Blackstone, starting on Tuesday, went for 20 in his first two overs. But Jordan broke through for the Sharks in the third over when his offcutter hit the top of the dangerous Zak Crawley’s off stump.Daniel Bell-Drummond responded by hitting Jordan for successive sixes over square-leg as Kent raced to 52 after five overs before some tight bowling by Tymal Mills, who dismissed Ollie Robinson and Heino Kuhn in successive overs, and Rashid Khan, who bowled Bell-Drummond with a googly for 50, gave the Sharks some control in the middle overs.When Archer returned to bowl the 17th over, with the Spitfires 130 for 5, he conceded just three runs. And in the next over Mills dismissed the dangerous Mohammad Nabi for a 29-ball 43. In his final over, Archer conceded just five runs and had Milne caught in the deep by Phil Salt to finish with figures of 1 for 28 from his four overs.

'You are good enough' … How a few words turned Tammy Beaumont's England career around

It’s August 2013 and England have just lost an ODI to Ashes rivals Australia at Lord’s. Tammy Beaumont is emotional. She thinks it’s her fault. She made nine runs. She questions whether she’s good enough to play international cricket.”Yes you are,” three words from then-assistant coach Carl Crowe set in motion a plan to find out what makes her tick, what’s going to make her a better player.Having made scores of 13 and 1 in the preceding Test match, Beaumont played no further part in that Ashes series – won by England who prevailed in the remaining two ODIs and two of the three T20s. Beaumont toured the West Indies later that year and was part of the 2014 World T20 in Bangladesh, where England finished runners-up to Australia but where Beaumont failed to reach double figures in four innings.It’s 2016 and England have hastily arranged an extra warm-up game before starting their World T20 campaign in India. Beaumont – who had so far been batting in the middle order, just as she had on that fateful day at Lord’s – opens alongside then-captain Charlotte Edwards. Beaumont scores 50. She knows she can open the batting at international level.”That was a bit of a turning point for me,” Beaumont said. “Opening, I’ve always felt most natural there. For a long time at the beginning of my career I was not opening the batting and almost having to fit into positions that didn’t suit me, didn’t make me feel quite at home and there was a little period where I kept getting picked for England and completely underperforming to what I wanted to do and what the coach at the time wanted me to do, so I’d end up on the outside of the team again.”It took me having that setback and realising I really wanted to open the batting for England and I could really set my stall out and be motivated to really work hard towards that. That was before I even got the chance to open, then when I did get that chance I made sure that I took it.”Tammy Beaumont of England is seeking some big scores in the Ashes•Getty Images

Playing as an opener, Beaumont made steady progress through that tournament, but in her first T20 afterwards, some three months later against Pakistan in Bristol, she hit 82 off 53 balls.Two years later she smashed 116 off 52 in a T20 against South Africa – reaching her century from 47 balls in an England women’s record – amid a hugely successful summer which also included back-to-back centuries in the accompanying ODI series against South Africa and ultimately led to her being named alongside the likes of Jos Buttler and Virat Kohli as one of ‘s Five Cricketers of the Year for 2019.Beaumont’s progress has not been without the odd hiccup. She scored just 54 runs in five innings at the World T20 at the end of 2018 but found form again during England’s tours of India and Sri Lanka in March.ALSO READ: Six players to watch in the Women’s Ashes“I had a really good summer last year in England against South Africa and New Zealand and then had a bit of a blip in the World Cup in my own form, which I found really disappointing, but I came back in January and worked incredibly hard to try and move my game on again and that’s how I feel at the moment,” Beaumont said.”It wasn’t like I needed to develop a whole new shot, there wasn’t a glaringly obvious weakness to my game. It was just a case of say, I’d hit a shot seven out of ten times, trying to take that to nine out of ten so overall I’d get a little bit better in each way and hopefully become a bit more of an all-round player.”In the recent rain-affected series in which England dominated West Indies, Beaumont was clearly seeing the ball beautifully but was unable to convert good starts to big scores, something she is determined to turn around come Tuesday’s first Ashes ODI against Australia in Leicester.”Personally I think I would have liked to score a few more runs in a way,” she said. “As a batter I think you never get bored of scoring runs but I’m pleased about how I’m playing. I just want to see a few more runs on the board next week.”It’s the biggest rivalry in women’s cricket. It’s the battle of the heavyweights, for want of a better term. They’re really well supported and have been very successful in the past but we’re playing really good cricket at the moment and got a really good feeling about this group so hopefully it’s going to be a really good series.”England’s 3-0 sweep of the ODIs against West Indies and victory in the only one of three T20Is not washed out took their winning streak to 14 matches across all formats. They freely speak about keeping that record intact.”We really talk about it a lot,” Beaumont said. “Particularly at the back end of that India-Sri Lanka trip, it was something we were really kind of desperate to hold on to and going into this West Indies series it was really driving us forward in that.”But once the Ashes start it’s all about that particular game that we’re playing and just trying to get points on the board to try and win the Ashes back, which is kind of the main focus and has been for most of the summer really.”

We wanted Rabada to skip IPL, says du Plessis; bowler says plan fell through

South Africa captain Faf du Plessis has revealed South Africa tried to stop fast bowler Kagiso Rabada from going to this year’s IPL, where he eventually injured his back and was withdrawn towards the end.Rabada, South Africa’s key strike bowler who has six wickets so far in the World Cup at 50.83, confirmed that there had been a plan to have him miss the IPL, but said it had not worked out. He was the IPL season’s second-highest wicket-taker, his 25 wickets one behind compatriot Imran Tahir, despite playing five fewer matches.After South Africa exited the World Cup with another disappointing defeat – this time to Pakistan – du Plessis was asked if he felt Rabada’s workload had been managed well. Since the start of last year, only Nathan Lyon has bowled more overs in international cricket than Rabada. If du Plessis could have had his way, he wouldn’t have had Rabada – playing for Delhi Capitals – bowling the additional IPL overs and instead been working on rehab and recovery.”I don’t think we’ll ever have a perfect answer for that because he’s probably biting on too much,” du Plessis said. “But we did try and get him not to go to the IPL; to try and stay and get fresh. That wasn’t the case of [course] and then when he went there, we were like, let’s try and get him back halfway through the IPL because it’s important, not just for him, but a few other players.”I mean, I spoke about it before the IPL even started, that it’s important that we try and find space to rest our three-format players, because they play all the formats all the time, and then IPL. So I don’t think it’s necessarily just the IPL, but it was important for a few guys to rest; and the fact that they didn’t meant that they came into the tournament not fresh. That’s not an excuse; that’s just a fact.”Rabada himself confirmed that there had been a plan to have him miss the IPL, but said it had not worked out. “That was basically just to rest up prior to the World Cup for obvious reasons like injury and being fresh for an important tournament.” Rabada said, during an interaction with reporters in the mixed zone on Sunday, after South Africa’s defeat to Pakistan.The plan to have Rabada sit out the IPL fell through, and an alternative couldn’t be worked out either – for reasons he did not reveal. “Well, the plan was to leave early but that didn’t work out – don’t ask me about any of that – but eventually I came back earlier as you might know.”ESPNcricinfo understands that Rabada was released by Capitals the moment CSA wanted him back. Scans for a niggle cleared Rabada of injury but CSA didn’t want to take any risks, and Capitals complied.Getty Images

Du Plessis went on to say Rabada’s pace has been down this tournament. The South Africa captain also said he couldn’t have rested Rabada in international series. To do so, you need a second line of bowlers. “That challenge we are going to have as a team all the time,” du Plessis said. “You can’t unfortunately go back with the national side and say to KG: ‘Listen, you’re going to rest for the next two series.’ He’s such a big player for the team; it’s a difficult thing to do.”You know, you need guys that can… you need three or four or five bowlers in the wings waiting, so you can have a bit of a rotation system. I mean, that was the plan with Anrich [Nortje] in the back-up and pipeline, and he got injured as well. So therefore all our pace is gone and there’s so much responsibility on KG to carry that load of being the lone fast bowler.”CSA, however, can’t compensate the players enough for missing the IPL the way Cricket Australia and ECB do. It is tempting to imagine if AB de Villiers would have retired in the first place had there not been an IPL to go to, where he actually said the IPL was “better than the World Cup”. South Africa also lost Dale Steyn for the World Cup as he could not recover in time from the injury he sustained playing the IPL ironically as a last-minute replacement. Steyn’s absence has also hurt South Africa, leaving Rabada to do all the striking work.”KG at the moment is feeling like he needs to do something, but it’s not happening for him; and therefore, you’re not seeing that same intensity when he bowls – or not bowls; or when he celebrates a wicket or when he’s going through after the over back to his mark,” du Plessis said. “Obviously Dale is a special bowler, and the fact that he’s injured, we can’t use that as an excuse. There’s enough good bowlers in our team to still be better than what we did today. There was a lot of bad balls bowled on a wicket that if you just bowled really good lines and lengths, it was tough for the batters to score.”Du Plessis said this is a challenge Rabada will have to find ways to get the better of. “You know, he’s a great bowler. He will be able to fix that. His career has been one that’s been probably just going up and up and up and up and up every time he’s played for us.”So this is probably his first stumbling block as a great fast bowler. So for him now, it will be to see how he responds, how he learns in this period and how he makes sure he gets better. Because he has been great for us, but now he needs to take stock of where his bowling is and then try and get better as a bowler.”Nortje had been ruled out of the World Cup in the first week of May itself with a thumb injury. Once the tournament started, South Africa suffered a blow when Steyn was ruled out too, and Lungi Ngidi hurt his hamstring in the game against Bangladesh which didn’t let him complete his quota of 10 overs. Ngidi further sat out three matches before returning for the clash against New Zealand, which was South Africa’s fourth loss in five completed games.GMT 1400 The story was updated to include Rabada’s quotes.

No Australian players in Women's T20 Challenge

No players from Australia and South Africa are in the three squads that will take part in the four-match Women’s T20 Challenge, which will be held in Jaipur from May 6 to 11 on the sidelines of the IPL playoffs.South Africa’s players are unavailable because of their home series against Pakistan, which begins on May 6. The surprise, however, is in the absence of Australia’s cricketers. The world leaders in the women’s game, Australia had fielded the largest overseas contingent in last year’s one-off exhibition match, including stars such as Meg Lanning, Megan Schutt, Ellyse Perry, Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney.Only last month, Cricket Australia’s female high-performance manager Shawn Flegler had told that the board would support Australians participating in any exhibition matches played this year. “It’s a great opportunity for the players, and to see a women’s IPL get off the ground would be a great thing for the game more broadly,” Flegler had said.A report on CA’s website yesterday, headlined “Aussies in frame for women’s IPL games”, suggested the players would take part in the tournament. However, the report also confirmed that Australia’s pre-Ashes camp would begin in Brisbane on May 13, two days after the final of the Jaipur tournament.For the upcoming Indian competition, 39 players, including internationals, have been divided among three teams – Supernovas, Trailblazers, and Velocity. The teams will be led by Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana and Mithali Raj respectively.Some of the top players from England and New Zealand will be present and, unlike last year, when only players from Australia, New Zealand and England made up the overseas contingent, the upcoming edition will feature three West Indians in Stafanie Taylor, Hayley Matthews and Shakera Selman, while Sri Lanka and Bangladesh will be represented by Chamari Atapattu and Jahanara Alam respectively.Current India women head coach WV Raman has been named the coach of Harmanpreet’s Supernovas, while fielding coach Biju George will be in charge of Mandhana’s Trailblazers. Former India women’s captain Mamatha Maben, who had applied for the India women head coach’s position after the exit of Ramesh Powar last year, will coach Raj’s Velocity.Supernovas: Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Anuja Patil, Arundhati Reddy, Jemimah Rodrigues, Mansi Joshi, Poonam Yadav, Priya Punia, Radha Yadav, Taniya Bhatia (wk), Chamari Atapattu*, Lea Tahuhu*, Sophie Devine*, Natalie Sciver*Trailblazers: Smriti Mandhana (c), Bharti Fulmali, Dayalan Hemalatha, Deepti Sharma, Harleen Deol, Jasia Akhtar, Jhulan Goswami, R Kalpana (wk), Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Suzie Bates*, Sophie Ecclestone*, Shakera Selman*, Stafanie Taylor*Velocity: Mithali Raj (c), Devika Vaidya, Ekta Bisht, Komal Zanzad, Shafali Verma, Shikha Pandey, Sushma Verma (wk), Sushri Dibyadarshini, Veda Krishnamurthy, Amelia Kerr*, Danielle Wyatt*, Hayley Matthews*, Jahanara Alam*

Alzarri Joseph's record-breaking 6 for 12 routs Sunrisers Hyderabad

First IPL match ever, 22-years-old Alzarri Joseph steamed in, bowled the tournament’s top run-scorer David Warner – off an inside edge – with his first delivery, and went on to have a debut beyond all fantasies.In defence of Mumbai Indians’ 136 for 7, which had only been made respectable by Kieron Pollard’s 46 not out off 26 balls, Joseph produced one of the great IPL bowling performances. He claimed 6 for 12, consistently rushing batsmen with his deceptive pace. Those figures broke an IPL record that had stood since the very first season, bettering Sohail Tanvir’s 6 for 14.

Joseph’s stunning IPL debut

  • Alzarri Joseph’s 6 for 12 are the best bowling figures in the IPL. The previous best was Sohail Tanvir’s 6 for 14 in the inaugural edition in 2008. The previous best on IPL debut was Andrew Tye’s 5 for 17, in 2017.

  • Sunrisers Hyderabad were dismissed for 96, which is their lowest total. Their previous lowest was 113, also against Mumbai Indians, in 2015

  • The 40-run defeat was the first loss for Mohammad Nabi in eight IPL matches.

  • Joseph also became the seventh bowler to take a wicket off the first ball of his debut IPL game, joining a list that includes Wilkin Mota, TP Sudhindra, Ali Murtuza, Amit Singh, Ishant Sharma and Dwaraka Ravi Teja

  • Joseph became only the second bowler to deliver a wicket-maiden in his first IPL over. Pat Cummins was the only other bowler to achieve this feat.

Despite being posed with a modest target, even if it was on a tricky home pitch, Sunrisers never got themselves moving. They lost their in-form openers inside the first five overs, and although several batsmen got starts, no one could push beyond 20. Joseph and Mumbai continued to take wickets, and the required rate ballooned. When Rashid Khan fell towards the end of the 15th over, with 49 to get off 25 balls and only three wickets left, the match was effectively sealed.2:05

Failed to capitalise on our good start – Bhuvneshwar Kumar

Joseph’s star turnHad Lasith Malinga been available, there is every chance Joseph would still be awaiting his IPL debut, but boy how he grabbed the opportunity. Joseph claimed two wickets off his first two overs, bowling David Warner off his inside edge with his first ever IPL ball, before having Vijay Shankar caught at point off a top edge soon after the Powerplay ended.His two wickets off successive deliveries in the 16th over, definitively swung the game in Mumbai’s direction. He bowled Deepak Hooda with a full, straight delivery, which the batsman inside-edged onto his stumps. Next ball, Rashid Khan was rushed into a pull shot, which the batsman could do no better than top edge – Joseph himself running through to take a simple chance.The final two wickets were almost just a bonus. Bhuvneshwar Kumar had his middle stump pegged back by another full, straight one. Four balls later, No. 10 batsman Siddarth Kaul was caught behind trying to run Joseph to third man.That Kaul wicket concluded the second excellent away result for Mumbai, who in the last two seasons had been infamously slow starters in the IPL. With this victory to follow the one against Chennai Super Kings on Wednesday, Mumbai have announced they are once again serious title contenders.Pollard’s manic finishFor so much of Mumbai’s own innings, it seemed as if they would not muster a competitive score. They had been a pathetic 5 for 65 after 12.5 overs – four of their top five batsmen having failed to score at a run-a-ball. Pollard, though, eased himself into his innings, hitting 9 off his first 13 balls, thanks to some good fortune (more on that later), before exploding in the 19th and 20th overs.He walloped the first ball of Siddarth Kaul’s final over over long off, before blasting one into the legside stand two balls later, then muscling another into the stand beyond long on two balls after that. Mumbai made 20 off that Kaul over, then 19 off the final one bowled by Bhuvneshwar Kumar, thanks again to some serious luck for Pollard.Alzarri Joseph wheels away in celebration after completing a five-for•BCCI

Sunrisers’ horror dropsVery rarely does Rashid Khan let a catch slip through his fingers, but he did so today, and wouldn’t you know it, it was Mumbai’s eventual top scorer that he reprieved. Pollard should have been out for 8 off 13 balls had Rashid held a straightforward chance at deep extra cover. He would go on to pummel 37 off 13 balls after the drop.According to ESPNcricinfo’s , the drop cost Sunrisers Hyderabad 21 runs, which very much looks like the difference between the two teams.To make things worse, Mohammad Nabi also dropped Pollard off the penultimate ball of the innings – palming the ball over the boundary to give him six, before Deepak Hooda at long off failed to stop a ball that deflected off his body for four.Mumbai’s support actsAlthough Joseph was easily the visitors’ best bowler, the attack actually put in an excellent performance between them. Jason Behrendorrf claimed 1 for 28 from his four overs, Jasprit Bumrah took 1 for 16 from his three, and Rahul Chahar had struck the first blow, removing Johnny Bairstow in the fourth over of the innings. Chahar finished with figures of 2 for 21, later removing Yousuf Pathan as well.

Andrew Tye replaces injured Kane Richardson for India ODIs

Australia fast bowler Kane Richardson has been ruled out of the ongoing India tour after failing to recover from an injury sustained at training ahead of the T20I series. Western Australia’s Andrew Tye will replace him for the forthcoming ODI leg of the tour.Richardson is understood to have picked up the injury while batting in the nets in Hyderabad, where Australia trained before the first T20I in Visakhapatnam on February 24. Richardson didn’t play in that game.”Kane reported some left side pain at training prior to the opening T20I in Vizag,” Australia physio David Beakley confirmed. “Unfortunately he has not recovered well enough in order to play a further part in the tour. Kane will return home to continue his rehabilitation, and we (will) monitor his progress over the coming weeks.”Richardson’s injury means Australia have only one reserve bowler on the bench – Nathan Lyon – as they head into the final T20I in Bengaluru with a 1-0 lead.Richardson, who has taken 13 of his 27 ODI wickets against India, was on a comeback trail following a successful BBL season, where he topped the bowling charts with 24 wickets in 14 games for title-winners Melbourne Renegades.He last featured for for the national team during the limited-overs tour of England in 2018 where Australia lost all six matches.Tye also last played an ODI series for Australia during that tour, but featured in the T20I series against India at home in November. He will join the squad along with Shaun Marsh in Hyderabad on Thursday, the venue of the first ODI on March 2.

Sarfraz Ahmed gets four-match suspension for racist comment

Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed has been suspended for four matches after he admitted to making a racist comment at South Africa’s Andile Phehlukwayo during the Durban ODI.Sarfraz will be forced to miss the final two ODIs against South Africa, and then two of the three T20s that follow. The PCB said he will not play the third T20 either, but return home “immediately”. Shoaib Malik will captain in his absence.The ICC release said that Sarfraz will also have to attend “an education programme to promote the understanding and awareness of issues directly relevant to the offence that he has committed”.Remarkably that ICC release was made public half an hour after the world realised that Sarfraz wasn’t playing in the fourth ODI at the Wanderers because Malik turned up for the toss in his place.”We wanted him [Sarfraz], but the incident… we all know what has happened,” Malik said. “I don’t want to comment about it. But they’ve given me this opportunity, and I want to do my best.”Malik later said he only found out he would be captaining the team on the morning of the match. “When we got to the ground, that’s when I came to know I’m captaining the side. It’s a great honour to represent your country as a captain or a player, and whenever the opportunity comes to you should give your best shot. And that’s what I did.”It was actually South Africa captain Faf du Plessis who first indicated that Sarfraz had been handed a four-match ban. “We’ve heard that he’s out for four games,” he said during his toss interview.In Durban, during the second ODI, during Phehlukwayo’s innings, as he got South Africa’s wobbling chase back on track, Sarfraz was heard on the broadcast stump mics saying in Urdu: Translated literally that is: “Hey black guy, where’s your mother sitting today? What [prayer] have you got her to say for you today?”Since then, Sarfraz has apologised twice, the first an apology in the general direction of nobody, but then backed up by a personal one to Phehlukwayo. The day after the match, Sarfraz tweeted that his comments were “not directed towards anyone in particular”. Then, two days ago, Sarfraz tweeted a picture of himself shaking hands with Phehlukwayo, with this caption: “This morning I apologised to Andile Phehlukwayo and he was gracious enough to accept my apology and I hope the people of South Africa also accept my apology.”The punishment came five days after the incident, allowing Sarfraz to play the third ODI in Cape Town. Ahead of that game, du Plessis said his team had forgiven Sarfraz for the comments.ICC CEO David Richardson said Sarfraz’s apology was taken into account when deciding on his penalty. “The ICC has a zero-tolerance policy towards conduct of this nature,” he said. “Sarfraz has promptly admitted the offence, was regretful of his actions and has issued a public apology, so these factors were taken into account when determining an appropriate sanction.”Pakistan do not have a back-up wicketkeeper in their T20 squad, so Mohammad Rizwan, who took the gloves in Johannesburg, will stay on for the T20s.

Jason Roy, Sohail Tanvir lead Sylhet rout of Rajshahi

How the game played outSylhet Sixers climbed out of the bottom of the Bangladesh Premier League points table with a 76-run win over Rajshahi Kings in this season’s first match played in Chattogram. Sohail Tanvir and Mohammad Nawaz took three wickets each to headline an excellent Sylhet bowling performance to shoot Rajshahi out for 104 in 18.2 overs.Laurie Evans’ early dismissal rocked Rajshahi, who failed to gain any momentum in their chase of Sylhet’s 180 for 6.Sylhet earlier put up a strong total, mainly because of a 62-run third-wicket stand between Jason Roy and Afif Hossain. Roy, in his first innings for Sylhet, struck four fours and two sixes in his 28-ball 42, while Afif scored 28 in 29 balls. Towards the end, Tanvir slammed four fours in his unbeaten 23 off nine balls.Turning points

  • Sylhet added 90 runs in the second half of their innings despite losing a set Roy at the end of the tenth over.
  • Zakir Hasan and Fazle Mahmud took up 5.2 overs to add 36 runs, and that didn’t really help Rajshahi to recover from their three early losses.
  • Run-rate pressure led to Fazle, Christiaan Jonker and Mehidy Hasan falling in the 15th over to Nawaz.

Star of the dayThe experienced Tanvir wasn’t the captain for this game, but he delivered a very good all-round performance. First, he blasted 23 in quick time before picking up three wickets.The big missSoft dismissals hurt Rajshahi in their pursuit of 181. First, Mominul Haque’s attempted clip off Taskin Ahmed went straight to short fine-leg, and then Ryan ten Doeschate was bowled off a really short delivery from Alok Kapali.Where the teams standRajshahi are stuck in fifth place with three games remaining, while Sylhet have returned to the sixth spot following the win.

Rain, bad light delay India's quest for 3-1 after Kuldeep five-for

Stumps After rain took away three hours, India nipped out three lower order wickets when play resumed on the fourth day in Sydney. Then, the last-wicket pair of Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood held on for an hour before wristspinner Kuldeep Yadav, playing his first Test of the tour, and only his sixth overall, picked his second five-for by removing a stodgy Hazlewood, who could have been out much earlier had Hanuma Vihari held a top-edged slog sweep at midwicket. India quickly enforced the follow-on, Australia’s first at home in 31 years after securing a 322-run lead.Suddenly, the time lost to rain seemed irrelevant. Then, with four minutes before the scheduled tea interval, Jasprit Bumrah bowled a lifter that rapped Marcus Harris on the glove, with all eight light towers at the SCG burning. The blow was partly because Harris misjudged the length and looked to duck away by taking his eyes off the ball.A strong Sunday crowd that had paid good money expected a proper contest were left annoyed, much like Virat Kohli, when they saw the umpires converge to pull out the light meter and the players walked off. Sadly – or much to the relief of the Australian team – they did not return, leaving everyone debating the whys and wherefores of the cricket’s playing conditions.The big picture, however, was the situation left Australia only slightly better than the position they had been in at the start of the day.India’s first-ever series win in Australia is all but sealed. Kohli can lay his hands on the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, but he will be aching for a 3-1 scoreline. For that, India would need 10 wickets on the final day, but with a forecast similar to Saturday’s and the rule book that calls for play to stop at the slightest hint of rain or play to hinge on a light reading – despite having quality, state-of-the-art floodlights – it seems possible the Sydney Test could end in a draw.Getty Images

The delay at the start of play may have made Kohli’s decision to enforce the follow-on straightforward. With time running out and 14 wickets still to take, he threw the ball to Mohammed Shami and he struck off the third delivery. Pat Cummins, who had shown admirable fight both against pace and spin, got a grubber that beat the bottom to crash into the stumps.Peter Handscomb saw this as an opportunity to score runs and showed authority against Kuldeep, first by sweeping him off a length and then playing a finely-timed short arm jab to the midwicket boundary. At the other end, Shami was properly banging the ball into the pitch and getting it to respond. Handscomb was jumping back into his crease, expecting balls to rear up, only for it to sneak low. This is how he would fall eventually, but to Jasprit Bumrah, who used the age-old tactic of short-short and slightly-full to get his man. Handscomb, playing back to a length ball, only managed to chop on, the ball keeping a touch low again. The lower order was exposed to India’s pace pack under cloudy skies.Kohli quickly brought on his spinners, a move to keep his fast bowlers fresh for when he would eventually enforce the follow on. Kuldeep had a fourth when Lyon was out sweeping to a full toss that drifted away and struck him on the boot, possibly outside the line. Australia had two full reviews, but Lyon saw Starc non-committal in asking him to refer. Lyon obediently walked off. In the commentary box, Ricky Ponting was furious, terming Australia’s move ‘slack and not desperate enough.’The last-wicket pair then had some fun, making India chase deliveries to the boundary through slogs – some well-timed, others miscued – on a slow outfield, where the ball often pulled up short of the boundaries. They batted out 14 overs for 42 before Kuldeep came on to get Hazlewood with a wrong’un.Australia’s openers then had to bat out a mere four overs in the second innings before they went off and spent a better part of a farcical day in the change room even as a frustrated Sunday crowd disapproved of ICC’s rigidity with the rules by switching on the backlights of their mobile phones, as if to say ‘you want more light? Here, take this.’ Unfortunately, they know it would’ve only fallen on deaf ears.