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New Zealand head coach Gary Stead has said that being denied the opportunity to get some game-time after a six-month gap in Test cricket is the “most disappointing part” after their one-off Test against Afghanistan was called off without a ball bowled.New Zealand had this match to familiarise themselves with the subcontinent conditions, with the series against Sri Lanka and India coming up. But persistent rain and outfield issues in Greater Noida reduced the first-ever Test between the two teams to a no-show.”The most disappointing part for us is that we lost the opportunity to be match-hardened and match-ready when we go into our Test match [against Sri Lanka] next week,” Stead said at the post-match press conference. “The guys are really disappointed. It was an opportunity to play Afghanistan. It doesn’t come around that often.Related

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“They have some unique bowlers – it’s always good to get your head around how you face them. The way they play is a little bit different to other countries. It’s always learning what you can do when you get in those match situations.”The one-off Test was not part of the World Test Championship. However, Stead said the team was left “frustrated”, as the format is “very, very dear to the team’s hearts”.”Even though it was fine for those two days, there were thunderstorms the nights before and the ground was just too soft and the umpires deemed that unfit to play on,” he said. “So that is sort of out of the players’ hands in a way as well.”But we were frustrated. We have come here to play cricket and play a Test match and as Jonathan [Trott, Afghanistan head coach] said, Test cricket, certainly to our group of players that is here, that’s very, very dear to their hearts and every Test you get to play in is a big one.”So regardless of whether it has World Test Championship points or not, that opportunity to get out there for five days, it looked a great surface. The whole block looked fantastic, so it would have been a great match of Test cricket.”New Zealand are not slated to play another Test against Afghanistan in the current Future Tours Programme cycle. Stead welcomed the prospect of playing more Tests against Afghanistan, heaping praise on their recent achievements in white-ball cricket, including a win against New Zealand in the group stage of the 2024 T20 World Cup.Persistent rain and outfield issues in Greater Noida led to the one-off Test being called off•AFP/Getty Images

“I don’t make the decisions around the Future Tours Programme and big tours,” Stead said. “But I said it right from the start of coming here, Afghanistan have knocked just about every top team in the world over now. So they’re certainly a force and becoming more and more of a force in world cricket. That’s something for the Afghanistan and New Zealand boards to get their heads around.”It was our first Test match against Afghanistan and we were really excited about that. They’ve been great competitors of ours over the last few World Cups. We’ve had some great games of cricket.”Stead said New Zealand were “desperate” to make the World Test Championship final. Five of their remaining eight Tests in the cycle will be in Asia, but he is confident of the side adapting to the conditions.”The World Test Championship is alive and well, and we’re currently in third place, and we want to make the finals again,” he said. “We’ve been there once in the past, and we are desperate to get there again. So every test match we play will be an important one.”The conditions that we face in Galle will be, I’m sure, different to Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai when we come back here again. So it’s still about adapting to the different surfaces where I’m learning from those. But also banking the knowledge you have created in the past even though it’s been a couple of [sessions of] trainings out there, we’d still bank on what we’ve learnt on those sort of pitches.”

Fifties by Jake Libby, Brett D’Oliveira and Adam Hose ensured Worcestershire would make Essex bat again in their rollercoaster match at Chelmsford.When bad light took the players off the field with 20 over remaining on day three of the Vitality County Championship match, Worcestershire had turned a 138-run first-innings deficit into a 165-run lead.Libby laid the foundations for the recovery with a 112-ball 65 at the top of the order. But it was an 80-run stand for the sixth wicket between D’Oliveira (51 from 71 balls) and Hose (64 off 91) – the pair coming together with two runs still required to erase the arrears – that gave Worcestershire hope of securing a third successive victory to move clear of the relegation area.Simon Harmer spearheaded the mercurial Essex attack, sending down 26 overs in the foreshortened day and taking 3 for 110, including the wicket of Hose to an extraordinary delivery. Essex will be looking for a first victory in four games on the final day to maintain their fading interest in the title race.Nightwatchman Joe Leach lasted just four balls on a grey, overcast morning before Sam Cook ended his 21-ball nought by inducing a thick edge through to the wicketkeeper. Gareth Roderick narrowly avoided a pair before he was turned around by Jamie Porter on six and nicked to second slip.Libby found good support from Kashif Ali in a 51-run third-wicket stand until Paul Walter was introduced and with his fourth ball had Ali following the ball across him through to slip.Libby survived a couple of scares but reached his fifty from the 90th ball faced, his eighth four helped on its way high over the wicketkeeper’s head. His latest partner Rob Jones took a liking to Harmer, hitting four successive boundaries, two of them identical shots on the sweep.However, the 55-run fourth-wicket stand was broken soon after lunch when Libby drove loosely at Cook and was caught low down at backward point. And six runs later, Jones went for another sweep against Harmer, this time more uppishly, and Dean Elgar completed the dismissal when running back from square leg.That left Worcestershire five down and still two runs short of making Essex bat again. That landmark was duly achieved and built on as Hose and D’Oliveira dug in obdurately initially to the extent that Porter came on for three overs and went off again without conceding a run. The first fifty of their partnership took 16 overs.The run-rate rose steeply with 31 runs added by the pair in the next four overs before Matt Critchley switched ends to give Harmer a rest and first ball had D’Oliveira fencing to second slip. Harmer’s rest spanned the tea break but his first ball after the interval brought the downfall of Hose, who padded up outside off-stump to a ball that turned prodigiously as it hit the crease to leave him bewildered to see the bails lying on the ground behind him.Harmer had a third wicket to his name when Ethan Brookes went to reverse-sweep, as he had successfully on several occasions in the first innings This time, however, the ball popped up off an edge to Robin Das diving full-length at short leg to cling on one-handed.With the floodlights on and the light deteriorating appreciably, Essex declined the option of taking the new-ball when it was due after 80 over, sticking with their spinners. The gesture proved in vain as the umpires deemed it too dark to continue an over later.

“Dig deep. Don’t give up. Test cricket is tough.”Kraigg Brathwaite is not expansive with the bat. Ditto with words. But in those pithy sentences, the West Indies captain sent a clear message to his players to not lose heart despite being beaten in two days and an hour at Lord’s .Brathwaite admitted West Indies had arrived at Lord’s with the aim of winning the first Test of the three-match series. His fast bowlers Kemar Roach (before he was injured) and Shamar Joseph wanted to ruin James Anderson’s farewell. Eventually, though, West Indies were simply the support cast at the Anderson gala attended by full houses including on Friday, for which the ECB refunded fans because there was fewer than 15 overs of play.”For me to the boys [the message] is generally: things will not always go as planned,” Brathwaite said after the defeat by an innings and 114 runs. “Also, we came to win the Test and it didn’t happen. But [there are] still two Tests remaining in this series and we still have six Tests remaining for the year. So it’s all a build-up. We can’t believe that because of this [England] win, we are out of it or anything. We got to dig deep, we got to keep believing and keep stressing on it. It’s easy to give up. It’s easy to say, ‘well, I can’t get it done’, but we got to keep believing and keep supporting one another.”West Indies’ batters committed basic errors with the bat•Getty Images

West Indies failed to bat 50 overs in both innings – 41.4 in the first, 47 in the second. No batter got to 50, with the unbeaten 31 from tailender Gudakesh Motie, who threw his bat around on day three, being their highest score. The disappointing bit for West Indies was that their batters were easily defeated and committed basic errors at the smallest nudge from England’s bowlers, especially debutant Gus Atkinson.Fast bowler Jayden Seales, who took four wickets on day two, had pointed to the batting failure on the first day when West Indies were dismissed for 121. Brathwaite, who made 6 and 4 at Lord’s, concurred.”Batting first, you want to put runs on the board in the first innings especially. We know where we went wrong. We know where we can be better. My thing for the group is stay mentally tough. It’s Test cricket. You go through successful periods, you go through tough periods, but you just got to be strong and believe in your ability. You got to believe that something’s around the corner. Just keep doing the right things. And everything will work out.”Related

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When asked what positives West Indies could take from this defeat, Brathwaite said bowling England out was a good start. “We got ten wickets. We did bowl them out albeit [for] 50-60 runs too many. With the bat, we got three guys that got 20-odd, they batted for close to an hour if not an hour. We caught decently as well.”West Indies do know how to win Tests and even series. They haven’t lost a Test series against England at home in two decades and are current holders of the Richards-Botham Trophy. Brathwaite said he, along with his predecessor Jason Holder, would remind the players of those facts and keep them inspired for the rest of the series.”We all have had some memories, we’ve all had glimpses of doing great stuff on this level … That’s what I call experience. That’s where experience comes in, Jason Holder has been great sharing his and I will continue to do it (too). As I said, we just got to dig deep on. Stay mentally tough.”

Namibia allrounder David Wiese said he is retiring from international cricket after their final T20 World Cup 2024 group stage match against England.After Wiese was dismissed by Jofra Archer in the final over of Namibia’s chase in a rain-curtailed match in North Sound, Archer and other England players walked over to shake his hand. He then raised his helmet and bat to the crowd as he walked off before being greeted by his team-mates, including captain Gerhard Erasmus, at the dugout.”I mean, [the next] T20 World Cup is still two years away, I’m 39 years old now, so , in terms of international cricket, I don’t know if there’s much left in me,” Wiese said in the post match press conference.Related

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“Obviously, I [would] still like to play the game for a couple more years, I feel like I’ve still got a lot to contribute and a lot to play,” he said. “But I just feel like what better place to end a special career for me personally with Namibia. I’ve had a lot of good times with them and to play my last game for them possibly at a World Cup against a world-class team like England, it just seemed like the right time.”Wiese, who usually bats in the middle order, was promoted up the order to No. 3 with Namibia needing to chase 126 in 10 overs. He smashed 27 off 12 with two fours and two sixes before holing out at long-on, as England went on to register a comfortable victory.