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ScorecardFile photo – Stafanie Taylor dominated a third-wicket stand of 70 with Merissa Aguilleira to help West Indies chase down 151•Getty Images/ICC

Stafanie Taylor dominated West Indies’ chase of 151, slamming 90 off 51 balls to take them to 154 for 4 in 19.1 overs and a six-wicket win in the first T20 international against India Women in Mulapadu. Taylor slapped 12 fours and three sixes and scored over 58 percent of West Indies’ runs. That, after India Women put up 150 for 4, with Harmanpreet Kaur justifying her decision to make first use of the surface with an unbeaten 68, and Veda Krishnamurthy scoring an even 50.Taylor began by playing second fiddle to Hayley Matthews in a brisk opening stand of 31 in four overs. After Matthews’ dismissal for 18, Taylor took charge of proceedings, dominating partnerships of 40 for the second wicket with Britney Cooper (16) and wicketkeeper Merissa Aguilleira, with whom she added 70 for the third wicket. When Aguilleira fell, three balls after Taylor, she had scored just 15. It was Shikha Pandey, the right-arm medium pacer, who dismissed both batsmen, but by then, West Indies were left with just nine to get off 13 balls, and Deandra Dottin and Kycia Knight saw them home with five balls remaining. Pandey finished with 3 for 31 in four overs, while Preeti Bose, the offspinner, took the other wicket, having Cooper stumped.West Indies could have been chasing much lesser after having reduced India to 28 for 2 in the sixth over with their new-ball duo of Shakera Selman and Dottin sending back both the openers. Krishnamurthy and Kaur repaired the damage with a third-wicket partnership of 88 off 69 balls. Krishnamurthy fell for 50 off 46 balls, but Kaur stayed till the end to lift the total. Kaur played a more brisk 68 off 50 balls with the help of six fours and three sixes.Selman and Dottin were both economical and took three wickets between them. Matthews, though wicketless, kept India quiet, giving away just 14 runs in four overs.The second match takes place on Sunday, before the series concludes on Tuesday. Both matches take place at the same venue.

The BCB has appointed former England all-rounder David Capel as the head coach of the Bangladesh women’s team for four months. He will join the training camp ahead of the team’s Asia Cup campaign in Thailand next month.He is the fourth foreign coach after former India player Mamatha Maben, former Sri Lanka pace bowler Chanak Gamage, and former Australian wicketkeeper-batsman Shane Deitz.Capel, who had been the assistant coach of the England women’s team from 2013 to 2015, will also take the Bangladesh side to the February 2017 Women’s World Cup qualifier in Sri Lanka.Bangladesh and Ireland gained automatic berth to this ten-team tournament through their ODI status. The top four teams from this competition will qualify to the main event in England and Wales in June 2017.Capel, who played 15 Tests and 23 ODIs for England, was also head coach and first team manager of the Northamptonshire County Cricket Club from 2006 to 2012.

Mitchell Johnson at the WACA. For the better part of a decade, this was one of the most watchable parts of Australia’s home summer. Johnson was quick anywhere, but something about Perth brought his threat to a new level, even in the years when the WACA’s typical pace and bounce suffered a lull. Nowhere did he take more Test wickets than the 45 at 22.77 he claimed in Perth, and his best work there came against South Africa.Johnson was back at the WACA on Wednesday, 50 days out from the ground hosting South Africa for the first Test of the Australian summer. But this year, South Africa’s batsmen will not have to worry about the threat of Johnson running in on a zippy pitch with a breeze to help him swing the ball. And yet another left-arm danger could be just as effective, if not more, when the home summer begins: Mitchell Starc.Johnson’s retirement during last season stripped 313 wickets from Australia’s Test attack, but the transition to a post-Johnson era has been smooth. That is largely thanks to Starc, whose swing, pace and mastery of the yorker have made him one of the most challenging fast bowlers in world cricket at the moment. If Australia’s recent series in Sri Lanka was a disaster it was not because of Starc, who topped Australia’s wicket list with 24 at 15.16.It was the highest series tally ever by a visiting fast bowler in Sri Lanka, and it was followed, in the one-day series, by Starc breaking the world record for reaching 100 ODI wickets in the fewest matches. Australia will be greatly looking forward to seeing what Starc can achieve during the six home Tests this summer, after he missed the second half of last season due to an ankle injury that required surgery and a long recovery.”It was really exciting to see Mitch Starc perform well,” Johnson said in Perth on Wednesday. “I thought he was really close when we went over to England for that last Ashes series, and wasn’t quite there. But he’s shown that after his injury he’s really committed to working really hard and did all the work. I’ve kept in touch with him and he was really positive going into that series. To be the leading wicket-taker in Sri Lanka in those conditions was a real positive and a good step forward.”He can dominate again [at home] on wickets that are going to provide bounce, and with his height, it’s going to be very difficult. He bowls the fuller ball, gets the ball up there, and especially on a wicket like the WACA where it can get good bounce, it’s really vital to be up there. He’ll swing the ball when he pitches the ball up.”That yorker he’s got is very dangerous. He’s always working to improve his game. He’s still pretty fresh in Test cricket. He’s only going to get better. He’s going to keep breaking records, I think, as well. It’s really exciting to see him play really well.”The first Test against South Africa will be Australia’s first in Perth since Johnson farewelled Test cricket there last November. The three bowlers who rounded out Australia’s attack alongside Johnson in that match – Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon – have continued to steer Australia’s Test bowling with success since then.”It’s nice to be able to finish and have him performing in the line-up that Australia have,” Johnson said of Starc. “It’s a pretty inexperienced bowling line-up. They’ve got Nathan Lyon there, who’s got plenty of experience spin-bowling, and Josh Hazlewood is still trying to find his feet. There’s always going to be pressure on him to be like a [Glenn] McGrath.”But I think we’ve got a really good bowling line-up at the moment, and it’s really well-balanced. Those guys are really tall as well, so in these conditions they’re going to be really difficult to play. Coming up against South Africa at the start is really going to test Australia. But the bowling is really good at the moment. I’m really happy where it’s placed.”Johnson, like the current Australians, is less happy with where the team is placed on the Test rankings – No.3 after losing top spot in Sri Lanka – but it is also a time of change for South Africa, who are currently ranked fifth.”South Africa are going through a bit of a change at the moment but there are a few guys that have just come into really good form,” Johnson said. “Dale Steyn’s back in form, Morne [Morkel] is floating around there as well, and they’ve got a great batting line-up as always. Australia have always competed very hard against them.”

Match facts

September 1, Headingley
Start time 1400 (1300GMT)1:56

New heights for ever-improving England

Big picture

The series is in the bag but the fun, as far as England are concerned, is only just beginning. “We haven’t reached our peak yet,” said Alex Hales on Tuesday night, after leading a record-breaking rampage in the third ODI at Trent Bridge – and unnervingly for Pakistan, he is almost certainly right. With a national-record 171 under Hales’ own belt, and a world-beating mark of 444 for 3 for the team as a whole, England have served notice of just how formidable their one-day set-up might soon turn out to be.But, with a current ranking of No. 5 in the world, and with memories of their debacle in the 2015 World Cup still fresher in the memory than anyone would care to admit, England’s motivation to keep improving won’t be dented by such short-term triumphs, no matter how impressive. The Champions Trophy looms in 2017, and the 2019 World Cup soon after that – both on home soil. If this young and hungry squad keeps its eye on the ball as successfully as Hales, Joe Root, Jos Buttler and Eoin Morgan managed on Tuesday afternoon, an end to England’s drought in global 50-over tournaments could surely be on the cards.Pakistan, likewise, have half an eye on the next World Cup, albeit for far less palatable reasons. Their current ranking of No. 9 may seem implausible – especially when set against their magnificent march to the top of the Test pile – but nothing they have produced in the series so far disputes their lowly status, and the pressure is self-evident if they wish to avoid the ignominy of having to pre-qualify for a tournament that they won, as cornered tigers, under Imran Khan in 1992.Amid the carnage at Trent Bridge, there were a few fleeting indications that the patient has a pulse. Sharjeel Khan’s welcome aggression at the top of the order was matched, in precise numerical terms, by Mohammad Amir’s furious 58 at No. 11, and if more of their team-mates can be encouraged to have a go and hang the consequences – as England themselves did in their post-World Cup epiphany 18 months ago – then the future could yet be a touch brighter.On the flip side, however, the state of Pakistan’s fielding was beyond lamentable. Three grotesque errors in the opening moments of England’s innings set the tone for a woeful day’s work, and though Wahab Riaz just managed to avoid claiming a world record of his own – his analysis of 10-0-110-0 was three runs more economical than Australia’s Mick Lewis at Johannesburg in 2006 – his summer-long tussle with the front line proved incredibly costly, as England benefited from a brace of no-ball reprieves, for Hales on 72 and Buttler on 75.England, to be honest, weren’t a whole lot more impressive in their own fielding effort – in addition to several lapses in their groundwork, Hales blotted his copybook with a routine drop at backward square, and Buttler spilled a running catch behind the stumps as well. But those blemishes merely served to reinforce Hales’ assertion that his team is a work in progress. It’s scary to think how good they might be one day. For Pakistan, however, the current situation is, simply… scary.

Form guide

(completed matches, most recent first)
England WWWWW
Pakistan LLLWL

In the spotlight

Others seem capable of more high-octane exploits, but no one better exemplifies the thrum of understated class in England’s new-found one-day team than Joe Root. His fury at falling for 85 from 86 balls on Tuesday once again highlighted the desire in his veins, while hinting at a rare weakness in the most rounded batsmen among England’s young guns – namely, a tendency to falter just short of three figures. However, with consecutive scores of 65, 93, 61, 89 and 85 in his last five ODIs, Root has already equalled England’s record of five fifties in as many innings, and he has the chance to press for six in a row, a feat surpassed just once in one-day history, by Javed Miandad (9) in 1987. His innings at Trent Bridge was typical of his best knocks – nigh on anonymous for his first 40 runs, as he nudged the singles and ceded the limelight to the belligerent Hales, before stepping up his intent once the stand had been cemented.Figures of 10-0-74-2 aren’t usually much to write home about, but Hasan Ali emerged with rare credit on an ignominious day for his team-mates. His thrusting, skiddy pace accounted for the dangerous Jason Roy early on – a wicket that was celebrated with a roar of triumph reminiscent of Brett Lee on the same ground in the 2005 Ashes – but it was his subtle variation and calm head at the death that really caught the eye. With England seemingly marching to a total of 450-plus, Hasan’s back-of-the-hand wiles outfoxed the swinging blades of Buttler and Morgan, with just a solitary run off the bat from his first five balls, before a slightly desperate heave over the covers from Buttler secured England the boundary that carried them to a coveted team record. As victories go, it was pyrrhic in the extreme from Hasan. But, for a player who hadn’t yet claimed his maiden international wicket at the start of the series, his willingness to front up in adversity won’t have gone unnoticed as his coach, Mickey Arthur, threatens to wield the axe on a failing squad.

Team news

At Trent Bridge, Ben Stokes came through his first spell since his calf injury with no alarms, and another recently sidelined bowler is making a case for a recall too. David Willey is fit again after sustaining a hand injury, and with the series already wrapped up, there may be a temptation to rest either Chris Woakes, who has had a busy summer, or Mark Wood, whose fitness needs to be monitored after an energetic comeback. There might be a temptation to play Jonny Bairstow on his home ground, but when six of England’s players aren’t required in the compiling of a world-record total, fiddling with the batting seems superfluous in the extreme.England (probable) 1 Alex Hales, 2 Jason Roy, 3 Joe Root, 4 Eoin Morgan (capt), 5 Ben Stokes, 6 Jos Buttler (wk), 7 Moeen Ali, 8 David Willey/Chris Woakes, 9 Adil Rashid, 10 Liam Plunkett, 11 Mark WoodThe gigantic seamer Mohammad Irfan, belatedly added to the squad as a replacement for Mohammad Hafeez, might be worth a call-up in place of the perspiring Wahab, whose erratic display at Trent Bridge was a liability. Mohammad Nawaz performed creditably with bat and ball as a stand-in for Imad Wasim, but either he or Shoaib Malik could expect to make way if Imad has recovered from his knee injury.Pakistan (possible) 1 Sami Aslam, 2 Sharjeel Khan, 3 Azhar Ali (capt), 4 Babar Azam, 5 Sarfraz Ahmed (wk), 6 Shoaib Malik, 7 Mohammad Nawaz/Imad Wasim, 8 Hasan Ali, 9 Yasir Shah, 10, Mohammad Irfan, 11 Mohammad Amir

Pitch and conditions

Another pleasant late-summer’s day is on the cards in Leeds, on a surface that may have been a touch on the slow side for last weekend’s Royal London Cup semi-final between Yorkshire and Surrey, but was a belter this time last year, when England (304 for 7) beat Australia (299 for 7) by three wickets.

Stats and trivia

• Eoin Morgan needs one more run to reach 5000 in ODI cricket. Among England-qualified batsmen, only Ian Bell (5416) and Paul Collingwood (5092) have scored more runs in the format. However, Morgan’s record includes the 744 he made for Ireland between 2006 and 2009. He is currently seventh on England’s list, with 4255.
• Root, who needs another fifty to set a new England record of six half-centuries in consecutive innings, is 22 short of 3000 ODI runs.
• England have won four of their last five completed ODIs at Headingley, dating back to 2008 – including their last meeting with Pakistan, a four-wicket win in 2010. However, there have also been three abandonments in that time, against West Indies in 2009 and 2012, and Australia in 2013.
• A better memory for Pakistan at Headingley came in 2001, when Waqar Younis claimed his career-best figures of 7 for 36 – the second-best by a Pakistani in ODI history and the seventh-best overall.

Alastair Cook has said that England will seek to “park” all of the off-field hype surrounding Mohammad Amir’s comeback to Test cricket, despite reiterating his belief that players who get involved in corruption ought to be banned for life.However, he also admits that the distractions may help to galvanise a Pakistani team that is eager to make amends for the controversies of their 2010 tour.”We’ll spend a lot of time talking about it in the build-up,” Cook told ESPNcricinfo during a Yorkshire Tea event at The Oval, “but once we get out there we’ll just be thinking about playing.”Obviously it’s more of a distraction on the Pakistan side, but we know they tend to get united behind distractions. But all that stuff off the field, we’ve just got to park it, and we’re pretty good at that.”Nevertheless, ignoring the hype of Amir’s comeback is not the same thing as ignoring the threat that he will pose in his first Test appearance since the lifting of his five-year ban for spot-fixing, and Cook in particular remembers the challenge he posed as a teenaged prodigy that summer.Cook was dismissed three times each by Amir and his then new-ball partner, Mohammad Asif – who was also implicated and jailed in the News of the World sting, as he mustered 57 runs in six innings, either side of a cathartic and career-changing century at The Oval in the third Test.”It was warm and humid, it was muggy,” Cook recalled. “When the sun was out it was hot and there was rain around. The ball swung.”He bowled brilliantly as a youngster on his first tour, in good conditions he was an absolute handful,” he added. “But a lot of water has gone under a few bridges since then, so it’ll be interesting to see how he copes and see the crowd reaction is.”But as an England side, we’ve got to stay away from that sideshow. Whether you agree with him playing or you don’t, that’s not for us to say as players. It’s down to us to play him as a fantastic bowler.”Nevertheless, memories of the 2010 Lord’s Test are sure to come flooding back when the players take the field for the first Test next week, and Cook admitted that the atmosphere on that fourth and final day six years ago, on the morning after the newspaper’s revelations that Pakistan’s bowlers had been bribed to bowl no-balls to order, was one of the most peculiar he had ever experienced on a cricket field.”It was very surreal, horrible,” he said. “Did Swanny [Graeme Swann] get a five-for? I don’t think anyone celebrated any wickets. It was a disappointing day as we were on the verge of what we thought was a genuine win.”And that’s the problem when you fix games of cricket, or spot-fix, you tarnish games of cricket for the players, the crowd, everyone. The punishment should be befitting of someone who does that.”Guys who are paying a lot of money to watch us want to see a genuine spectacle, they want to know the 22 players, and the two umpires, are trying their best, and nothing should distract from that.”My feelings are clear, if you get caught matchfixing, you should be banned for life.”England come into the Test series off the back of a convincing 2-0 victory over Sri Lanka but with recent memories of their own 2-0 loss against Pakistan in the UAE last winter – when a near-miss in the first Test at Abu Dhabi gave way to two comprehensive defeats at Dubai and Sharjah. Cook, however, is confident of setting that record straight.”They are massively different conditions,” he said. “Misbah scored about 95% of his runs against spin, I don’t think he’ll be facing as much spin as he did there.”They’ve got a very good bowling attack, with a lot of variety, backed up by good spin. But it was a very close series. I don’t think 2-0 quite reflected the sides. We are a bit more comfortable in those conditions, but we were unlucky in that first Test.”

Justice (retired) AP Shah, the BCCI ombudsman, has ruled that Pravin Amre is in violation of the BCCI’s internal conflict-of-interest rules by virtue of his role as assistant coach of the Delhi Daredevils while also being a managing committee member of the Mumbai Cricket Association.Shah stated in his order that Amre couldn’t continue holding both positions during the next edition of the IPL, and directed the BCCI to initiate “appropriate action against him in accordance with the guidelines”.The ombudsman, however, dismissed the complaint against former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar, which had suggested that he was in conflict by continuing to run his private coaching academy while serving as the director of National Cricket Academy.Both the complaints were filed by Nadeem Memon, a former curator of the Wankhede Stadium and a former MCA managing committee member.Shah noted that Amre should not have taken any position on the coaching staff of an IPL franchise while being an administrator. Amre had contended that his work with Daredevils didn’t affect his honorary role as an “elected member of the MCA managing committee”.”At the risk of repetition,” the ombudsman stated, “no administrator (managing committee member) can be on the pay roll of an IPL franchise. The BCCI is also directed to write to all the IPL franchises to clarify Rule 1(A) (B) of the rules on conflict of interest that the franchises cannot employ any administrator (as defined in the rules) as part of its support staff.”In Vengsarkar’s case, Shah was of the view there wasn’t any conflict as he was neither a coach nor a part of the selection process, and that his role in the NCA was honorary. Shah concurred with Vengsarkar’s contention that his appointment as NCA director ought to be viewed vis-à-vis his stature as former India captain.”It is an admitted fact that Mr Vengsarkar is not being paid any salary, and his appointment as director, NCA, is an honorary post (presumably in light of his distinguished cricketing past),” Shah wrote. “It is also an admitted fact that Mr Vengsarkar has been running cricket academies for 21 years.”The ombudsman also found Raghuram Bhat, the former India and Karnataka left-arm spinner, to be in conflict as he worked at the Brijesh Patel Cricket Academy and the IDBI Academy, while heading Karnataka’s Under-14 and Under-16 selection committees.Responding to an anonymous complainant, Shah directed the Karnataka State Cricket Association to ask Bhat, who is also a member of the association’s managing committee, to disassociate himself from both academies.”Rule 2(C) of the BCCI rules on conflict of interest clearly stipulates that ‘cricketers appointed as coaches of Indian teams or national selectors shall not be associated with any private coaching academies during their tenure,'” he stated. “In the event that Mr Bhat decides to continue his association with either academy, or any other cricket academy, then he cannot continue in his position as a chairman/selector of the Under-16 team.”

The bowling Sri Lanka faced in practice games ahead of the Test series was of modest quality, opener Dimuth Karunaratne has said. Karunaratne made scores of 8, 16 not out, 0 and 100 not out in three-day first-class matches against Essex and Leicestershire, but felt those outings had been inadequate preparation for the challenge of facing England’s attack.”I don’t think the century in that warm-up game was very satisfying,” Karunaratne told the . “I don’t think that kind of preparation will do any good ahead of a tough Test series. The oppositions we played were basically second-string teams. In our second warm-up game, there were just two fast bowlers and the rest were spinners. I wasn’t too pleased after getting the hundred.”Though he has not made a significant score in the ongoing series, Karunaratne had been one of Sri Lanka’s better batsmen of the past two years, hitting 1283 runs at an average of 38.88 across 2014 and 2015. He was especially impressive in similar conditions in New Zealand, where he averaged 42.12 after four Tests.He said he would have preferred to play a Division One county side ahead of this series. Essex and Leicestershire are both in Division Two.”During the practice game, of the two fast bowlers, the quickest guy bowled just four overs,” Karunaratne said. “Some of the Division Two bowlers didn’t ask many questions. When we play that kind of opposition and all of a sudden play James Anderson and Stuart Broad in the Test match, the gap is huge. We tend to make more mistakes and get out cheaply. When England come to Sri Lanka, they play our A team as warm-up.”Karunaratne made more significant contributions during the 2014 Test series in England, in which he had scores of 38, 16, 28 and 45, as part of an opening partnership which saw Sri Lanka past the 10th over in three out of four innings. The opening partnership has been less steady on this tour, but did survive 16.2 overs in Sri Lanka’s most-recent innings, in which the team went on to make 475.”When we won the Test series here in 2014, Kaushal Silva and I had batted for more than ten overs and we had seen off the new ball threat,” Karunaratne said. “That made things easier for the guys who followed. This time, I got out in the third or fourth over of the first three innings and then it’s hard on rest of the batsmen. We needed to rotate the strike and put the loose balls away and be active always. When runs are on the board, the opposition’s mentality also changes, and they aren’t too attacking. We can hear them talking that runs are being scored and the need to cover certain areas.”Karunaratne has been out to the series’ leading wicket-taker, James Anderson, twice in his four innings so far. He reported having faced a sharper England spearhead.”Anderson this time around is a changed bowler from what we had seen of him in the past,” Karunaratne said. “He has good rhythm. Last time he was only concentrating on swinging the ball. This time what we have found is that he has got the length spot on too. He was bowling lot of inswing for me last time, but this time not a single inswinger. He hits the deck hard and when he does that with the swing he creates, the ball cuts away too quickly. That makes it even tougher.”Conditions at Lord’s are likely to be the most comfortable for batsmen so far in the series, with temperatures forecast to be above 20 degrees right through the Test and a flatter surface expected. The visitors will likely need to add to the six Sri Lankan names already up on the Lord’s batting honours board if they are to be competitive in the third match.”Last time I had got a start at Lord’s, but didn’t know how to build the innings,” Karunaratne said. “The Lord’s wicket has lot of runs. It’s a batting paradise. The swing will be less and the sun will be out.”Mahela Jayawardene had a chat with me and he gave me some options. Then Kumar Sangakkara called me and stressed the need to remain positive. His tips are useful as he has played here a lot. Sanath Jayasuriya too had a chat with me. Currently I take guard on the middle stump. He suggested that I should maybe move between middle and off stump as that allows me to stop playing outside the body. He had done the same thing during his playing days. These are very useful tips.”

Justice (retired) AP Shah, the BCCI ombudsman, has asked the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) vice-president Dilip Vengsarkar and managing committee member Pravin Amre to respond to allegations of conflict of interest relating to their coaching assignments. While Vengsarkar and Amre have been asked to respond by June 1, the BCCI has been asked to reply by May 24.The complaint has been filed by Nadeem Memon, a former curator of the Wankhede Stadium and a former managing committee member of the MCA. In Memon’s complaint, accessed by ESPNcricinfo, he has contended that Vengsarkar and Amre were in conflict by virtue of their roles as National Cricket Academy (NCA) director and Delhi Daredevils assistant coach respectively. He also pointed out that Vengsarkar ran a private academy.”I would like to bring to your notice that Vengsarkar runs a cricket academy for junior cricketers in Mumbai and Pune,” Memon wrote. “It baffles me that how it is not a conflict of interest despite Vengsarkar not making any financial gains from his post as NCA director.”Although Vengsarkar has agreed to do the NCA job honorary, it would dangerous to ignore the conflict of interest. The former India skipper can very well favour boys from his academy at the NCA. There is no guarantee that Vengsarkar wouldn’t be tilted towards Mumbai players.”Vengsarkar was appointed as NCA director last November, while Amre joined Daredevils ahead of the 2015 IPL season.It is understood the BCCI has asked the MCA’s officials, members and coaches to submit declarations relating to any possible conflict of interest relating to their roles.