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South Africa allrounder Chris Morris has been ruled out of action for two months with a left knee injury. Morris had been carrying the niggle for eight months but it worsened over the last two weeks which led to the CSA medical committee recommending a break for full recovery. The injury rules him out of the ODIs against Ireland and Australia.”Chris has been carrying a chronic left knee patella tendon injury for the last eight months which we have treated and managed up to this point,” South Africa team manager Dr Mohammed Moosajee said. “The injury has flared up considerably over the last two weeks leaving us with no option but rest and rehabilitation to allow the knee time to fully recover. He will take no further part in the match against Ireland and the series against Australia and will target a return back to international cricket for the Sunfoil Test series against Sri Lanka in December.”Dwaine Pretorius was added to the squad for the ODIs against Australia which start on September 30 in Centurion.

ScorecardChris Dent ensured Gloucestershire did not subside•Getty Images

Chris Dent and David Payne saved Gloucestershire’s blushes on the first day of their final County Championship game of the season against Sussex.Dent batted through the day, showing terrific resilience on a wicket that provided the visiting bowlers with plenty of lateral movement, but did not get any meaningful support until Payne walked to the crease at 97 for 7.The pair then peeled off an unbroken 104-run stand for the eighth wicket as Gloucestershire reached 201 for 7.Sussex were content to field first and made up for a delayed start by taking three Gloucestershire wickets inside 15 overs.Chris Jordan bowled Gareth Roderick in the sixth over before Steve Magoffin added 19-year-old debutant James Bracey, two overs later, and Ollie Robinson bowled George Hankins to leave the hosts 12 for 3 in the 15th over.Hamish Marshall, in his last game for the county he has represented so well for the past 10 years, provided temporary resistance, but eventually perished, lbw to Magoffin for 14.Boundaries were hard to come by and though Phil Mustard hit an early four through extra cover, it was to be his only scoring shot. Magoffin, with his tail up, found an outside edge and Sussex wicketkeeper Ben Brown took the catch.At 42 for 5, Sussex must have felt they would be batting sooner rather than later.However, the indomitable Dent stuck to his task and despite losing sixth-wicket partner Jack Taylor cheaply, he joined forces with Craig Miles and then Payne, to guide Gloucestershire towards a total that at one stage, looked nothing more than a pipe dream.Miles helped himself to 20 before falling to a smart leg-side catch by Brown off Jofra Archer, and thereafter Dent reached his fifty, with seven fours.Better known for taking wickets than scoring runs, Payne played sensibly at the opposite end and having reached tea, on 143 for 7, Gloucestershire increased the tempo in the final session with Dent finishing the day unbeaten on 86 and Payne 48 not out.When bad light forced the players off, with 28 overs of the day remaining, the eighth-wicket pair had not only taken the score through the 200 barrier, but had posted their century stand in less than 23 overs.

Mark Wood has been ruled out of England’s tour to India after the discovery that he bowled at the tail end of the English domestic season with a broken ankle.It all means that Wood faces a third ankle operation within a year and, however optimistic the prognosis, it is bound to cast doubts on the resilience of England’s fastest bowler and invite concerns about his career both at county and England level.Wood had already been ruled out of the one-day and Test series in Bangladesh and his hopes of recovering in time for the India tour were banished when it was discovered that he fractured a bone in his left ankle when bowling in a Specsavers County Championship match against Surrey in September.With Durham under threat of relegation, he chose to ignore warning signs that something was wrong and battled on gamely. Durham stayed up, but it all came to naught when the ECB relegated them anyway after reluctantly intervening to prevent their bankruptcy.England’s national physiotherapy lead Ben Langley put an optimistic slant on Wood’s recovery, taking comfort from the fact that the injury is different to the one that required two earlier operations.”Woody showed his commitment to Durham with the way he bowled 35 overs in that Surrey game, and we know now that he also showed a hell of a lot of courage and resilience,” Langley said.”His foot and ankle swelled up hugely during the game, which was obviously worrying, and then we were perplexed when nothing significant showed up on the first scan.”It was only when we got him in for a second scan that we discovered he’d been playing on despite having fractured a bone.”So it’s a different injury to what he’s had the previous surgery for, and there’s no reason to think that when he’s had this bone fragment removed, he won’t be able to get back to bowling as well he has for Durham, England Lions and England in the second half of the 2016 summer.”Wood has been awarded a central Test contract by England for 2016-17 – without such an award it would have been questionable about whether Durham could have afforded his salary so soon after requiring a financial bailout from the ECB – but his ability to fulfil a full international summer remains unproven.He made a blistering comeback in the second half of the summer, delivering some of the most potent fast-bowling spells of the season as he helped Durham’s to the final of the NatWest T20 Blast and also featured in England’s 4-1 victory over Pakistan in their one-day international series.He bowled more than 200 overs in all competitions, purportedly without ill effects, but when he pulled out of the Bangladesh tour the problems became evident. Concerns can only have deepened with the latest news.

South Africa are not ready to head home just yet, despite having just a lead of 70 with four wickets in hand going into the fourth day of the Adelaide Test. “We’ve got two big days left and tomorrow (Sunday) is one of the biggest ones. There’s a lot of fight. We’re not on the plane yet,” Neil McKenzie, South Africa’s batting coach, said.Those words may be dismissed as fanciful, but Australia would do well to look back to four years ago, when Russell Domingo, South Africa’s assistant coach then, vowed similar and was proved similar right. On that occasion, South Africa were staring at defeat on the final day, having stumbled to 77 for 4 chasing 430. They batted out a draw.Now, they will need to bat with resolve if they are to set Australia a challenging target. “Hopefully Stephen Cook converts, which is what his track record shows he can do,” he said. “And then if Quinton de Kock can produce the Quinton de Kock knock that everyone knows he can do and has been doing, that would push us up past 180 and 200. If we can get there, we know we’ve done it to Australia before, where we’ve knocked them over so that will give us a lot of confidence.”McKenzie was particularly happy for Cook, his former Highveld Lions team-mate, with whom he’s worked closely on footwork throughout this tour. “Cookie is just one of those hard-working cricketers; sort of old-school,” he said. “He does it his way. It doesn’t always look pretty but has a method that has worked for him. He has got nearly 40 first-class hundreds so you can’t mess with technique.”Mentally he is right up there in terms of one of the toughest guys playing cricket at this stage. He has endured a lot of noise about his technique but normally what Cook does well is capitalises on starts and he has a good conversion rate. We hope that follow suit tomorrow.”Even if Cook continues, he has only the tail to keep him company, but Vernon Philander, Kagiso Rabada and Tabraiz Shamsi have all showed they can contribute. Since it’s them that will have to do the defending, McKenzie believes they have enough motivation.”We’ve got a couple of guys who can do damage at the back end and we have a bowling unit who are ready to go,” he said. “We’ll leave everything out there, whether we get bowled out early or whether we battle into the evening.”He even joked South Africa could get enough runs to declare again. “That will be the best day of Test cricket ever,” he laughed, when asked about Faf du Plessis’ surprise declaration on the opening day. McKenzie explained the decision was based on what South Africa saw in the Sheffield Shield, when teams declared in order to make use of the ball under lights.”It’s our first Test with the pink ball. We can only look at stats. We watched when the state sides played and both declared. You take a lead from what you see,” he said. “Commentators and ex-players were all applauding the decision and we stand by it.”

Colin de Grandhomme hit an unbeaten 72 off 35 balls to take Auckland to victory against Canterbury, after they had lost half their side within the 12th over of their chase at Eden Park.Auckland were reduced to 75 for 5 after medium-pacer Ed Nuttall ran through their top order with a career-best 3 for 17. What followed was an unbroken partnership of 81 between de Grandhomme and SM Solia (29 off 21), that came off just 42 balls, and took Auckland past their target of 151 with ten balls to spare. 21-year-old left-arm spinner Jeremy Benton was taken for 30 runs in his solitary over during the course of Auckland’s chase.Earlier, Cam Fletcher’s 37 and a 16-ball 35 by Andrew Ellis were the only significant contributions for Canterbury as they folded for 150 after electing to bat. Canterbury lost regular wickets, with legspinner Tarun Nethula returning career-best figures of 4 for 18, while pacers Donovan Grobbelaar and Tymal Mills took three wickets each in an innings where only five batsmen got into double figures.The win – their fourth in as many games – kept Auckland at the top of the table.Tom Bruce continued his fine domestic form with an aggressive 74 off 41 to lead Central Districts to a nine-run win against Wellington in Nelson. Central Districts scored a competitive 181 for 5 before Wellington fell short despite a quick half-century by captain and opener Hamish Marshall.Wellington’s chase saw a strong opening stand of 55 in the Powerplay, between Marshall and Michael Papps before they lost three wickets in the next four overs. Marshall went on to score his 15th T20 fifty, off 35 balls, but the rising asking rate led to his wicket, for 52 off 37, after Luke Ronchi and Grant Elliott fell for low scores. Wellington needed 69 in the last six overs and brought it down to 29 off 12 but Michael Pollard was bowled for 22 and they fell short despite an unbeaten 26 off 17 from Luke Woodcock. Left-arm spinner George Worker finished with a frugal 2 for 25 from four overs.Put in to bat, Central Districts lost Mahela Jayawardene for 5 in the second over before Worker, the other opener, and captain Will Young fell within the space of four balls at the score of 46. However, Bruce and Dane Cleaver revived them with a stand of 61, as Bruce did the bulk of scoring to take them past 100. Cleaver scored 15 and Bruce’s belligerent knock, with eight fours and three sixes, powered them till the last over that helped them go past 180. Elliott took two wickets but almost all bowlers leaked too many runs.Neil Broom celebrated his call-up to the ODI squad against Bangladesh with an unbeaten 54 off 41 balls as Otago registered a thumping eight-wicket win against a Northern Districts side that featured as many as six international players at the Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui.Northern Districts put on 157 after electing to bat, through contributions from Tim Seifert (41) and Corey Anderson (39). The pair brought impetus to the innings that was otherwise kept in check by tight bowling from Anaru Kitchen, Neil Wagner, and Warren Barnes, who took 5 for 46 in the ten overs among them.Otago’s innings wasn’t of the same brand, with openers Kitchen and Hamish Rutherford (39) racing off to a 51-run stand that took just 4.3 overs. Their separation brought a brief halt in momentum, but an unbroken stand of 91 for the third wicket between Broom and Michael Bracewell (41 off 27) took Otago to victory with 15 balls to spare.

Match facts

Thursday, January 20-24, 2017, Christchurch
Start time 1100 local (2200 GMT)Bangladesh’s Test line-up won’t have Mushfiqur Rahim for the first time in nearly 10 years•Getty Images

Big picture

Bangladesh’s tour of New Zealand just got harder, with their captain Mushfiqur Rahim, opener Imrul Kayes and No. 3 Mominul Haque ruled out of the second Test in Christchurch. They will need time to recover from injuries. Mushfiqur’s thumb will keep him out for at least three weeks, Imrul has a grade-two thigh strain, and Mominul has a rib injury.Mushfiqur’s absence, in particular, will be a shock to the system: this will be the first time since June 2007 that he will not be a part of their batting order. He has been a stable cog in a middle order that has undergone through several changes over the years. In his absence, greater responsibility will fall on Shakib Al Hasan and Mahmudullah.Imrul, too, has been important as one half of Bangladesh’s best opening partnership, so Tamim Iqbal will carry a double burden – as opener and now, captain. Soumya Sarkar will open for the first time in Tests. Mominul’s absence is also a severe blow: he made 64 and 23 in Wellington and had not missed a Test since February 2013. Bangladesh will do well to replicate their first innings at Basin Reserve, but improve upon their bowling.

Bangladesh’s injured

• “Mushfiqur still has pain in the joint of his right thumb, which needs time to heal,” Bangladesh physio Dean Conway said. “At this stage we are confident that he will recover fully in a couple of weeks and will be fit for our next Test commitment.”

• “Imrul has a strain in the front thigh muscle sustained on day four of the first Test. He will need around two weeks to return to training from the day of the injury.

• “Mominul is nursing a bruised rib cage. The x-ray on him came out clear but he was unable to make the necessary movements in training today and is not fit for the Test.”

New Zealand have few such worries, given almost everyone made contributions in the first Test. Tom Latham and Kane Williamson struck hundreds while Ross Taylor, Henry Nicholls, Mitchell Santner and BJ Watling all contributed. As at Wellington, it will be their bowling, which brings a range of threats, and that will be the difference.

Form guide

New Zealand WWWLL (last five completed Tests, most recent first)
Bangladesh LWLDD

In the spotlight

Neil Wagner will once again test the Bangladesh¹s technique against the short ball. He was relentless against Mushfiqur in the second innings in Wellington. Shakib Al Hasan made the highest score by a Bangladesh batsman in the first innings but played a wild shot that derailed their effort in the second. Free-flowing batting is his forte but there will be times when he has to curb the natural instinct.Team news
The hosts are unlikely to change their line-up barring any last-minute injuries.New Zealand (probable) 1 Jeet Raval, 2 Tom Latham, 3 Kane Williamson (capt), 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Henry Nicholls, 6 Colin de Grandhomme, 7 BJ Watling (wk), 8 Mitchell Santner, 9 Tim Southee, 10 Trent Boult, 11 Neil WagnerWicketkeeper Nurul Hasan and Soumya Sarkar will come in for the injured pair of Mushfiqur and Imrul Kayes. The uncapped Nazmul Hossain Shanto is likely to replace Mominul at No.3. Nazmul and fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman, who were travelling with the squad, were called in as back-up.Bangladesh (probable) 1 Tamim Iqbal (capt), 2 Soumya Sarkar, 3 Nazmul Hossain 4 Mahmudullah, 5 Shakib Al Hasan, 6 Nurul Hasan (wk), 7 Sabbir Rahman, 8 Mehedi Hasan, 9 Rubel Hossain, 10 Taskin Ahmed, 11 Subashis Roy

Pitch and conditions

The Hagley Oval pitch was under covers for most of the last two days, but both teams are expecting it to be bowling-friendly especially in the initial skirmishes. Pakistan, the last visiting team that played at this venue, had a rough time, getting bowled out for 133 in the first innings.

Stats and trivia

• Tamim Iqbal will become Bangladesh’s ninth Test captain.
• BJ Watling needs two catches off the bowling of Tim Southee to break the New Zealand record for best wicketkeeper-bowler partnership.
• Ross Taylor has the chance to equal Martin Crowe’s record for most Test centuries by a New Zealander – 17.

Quotes

“It hasn’t been a frustrating tour. The way we played cricket, was quite good. The result doesn’t show our competitiveness.”
“Hagley Oval is a pretty good surface. Generally a bit of grass is left on it and ball tends to seam around. I think the first couple of hours are crucial, but it does turn into a nice batting wicket.”

Opener Abhimanyu Easwaran’s hundred helped Bengal cruise to their fourth consecutive win and consolidate their position at the top of the Group C points table. After Easwaran’s 127 lifted Bengal to 230, the bowlers shot out Mumbai for 134 in 36.2 overs at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.Easwaran, who struck his third List A century, held firm even as wickets tumbled around him. Seamers Shardul Thakur and Abhishek Nayar did the bulk of the damage, claiming combined figures of 18.5-1-82-7. Easwaran, however, stitched fifty partnerships with Anustup Majumdar and Aamir Gani before he was the seventh Bengal batsman to be dismissed.Mumbai lost their openers within five overs and were seven down by the time they reached 100. Seamer Sayan Ghosh and left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha ripped through the batting line-up with three wickets each. Shreyas Iyer top-scored with 34 and while Siddhesh Lad (23) and Aditya Tare (20) got starts, Mumbai’s chase never really took off.File Photo – Parthiv Patel scored his third List A century•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Andhra suffered a batting collapse to fold for 106 as Gujarat thumped them by 182 runs in Chennai. Captain Parthiv Patel was Gujarat’s hero, hitting 104 off 123 balls, including 11 fours. Rohit Dahiya played the sidekick with an unbeaten 39-ball 53 as Gujarat put up 288 for 7. Jasprit Bumrah (4 for 29) and Rujul Bhatt (3 for 21) then wrecked Andhra’s chase and bundled them out in 31.5 overs.Dwaraka Ravi Teja, coming in at 39 for 5, provided the lone source of resistance with 44 off 64 balls. In fact, he was the only Andhra batsman to pass 10.Having been sent in, Gujarat lost Priyank Panchal early, but Parthiv shared useful stands with Samit Gohel and Bhargav Merai to set a solid platform. By the time Parthiv was dismissed, Gujarat had reached 200. Jesal Karia and Dahiya then struck late blows to take their team past 280.Madhya Pradesh needed only 38.1 overs to chase down 291 against Goa in Chennai. Captain Naman Ojha powered the chase with an unbeaten 87-ball 105. He was well supported by Rajat Patidar (64 off 53 balls) and Harpreet Singh (83 off 60 balls) as MP completed their chase with seven wickets in hand.Ojha and Rajat Patidar laid the foundation with a 92-run opening stand off 83 balls. Ojha and Harpreet then pressed on to add 116 in 15.1 overs. Ojha struck six sixes and six fours en route to his eighth List A century.Goa had rebounded to reach 290 after being reduced to 23 for 2. Their captain Sagun Kamat (63 off 75 balls) and Suyash Prabhudessai (52 off 47 balls) hit half centuries, but it was Snehal Kauthankar’s 110-ball 94 that led Goa’s batting. Playing his fourth List A game, Kauthankar made his career-best score, but late wickets prevented Goa from reaching 300. Ankit Kushwah was the pick of the bowlers for MP, finishing with 5 for 60.

Batsman Gautam Gambhir has criticised Delhi coach KP Bhaskar for “creating an atmosphere of uncertainty” among the youngsters in the side. Gambhir said he had an argument with Bhaskar after Delhi’s Vijay Hazare Trophy match against Uttar Pradesh on Monday, but insisted that he was standing up for the younger players in the side, who felt insecure, and had not abused Bhaskar as had been stated in a few news reports.Gambhir was also critical of Bhaskar’s selection policies, particularly the exclusions of batsmen Unmukt Chand and Nitish Rana during the Vijay Hazare Trophy”If protecting a youngster is a crime, I am guilty. If making 20-22-year-olds feel secure in an insecure environment is a crime, then I am guilty. But I could not have let this man (Bhaskar) play with careers of young players like Unmukt Chand and Nitish Rana,” Gambhir told PTI on Tuesday.”Dressing room is a private environment. It’s like a bedroom. There may be many discussions but that’s not supposed to be discussed with media. I never spoke what all he (Bhaskar) said after we lost a T20 match in Himachal as to what laurels he had brought to Delhi cricket and where these youngsters are taking it to? Is it how you deal with youngsters?”I know how to deal with people. Lot of things have been said about him, about how I abused this man or that man. Lot of things are blown out of proportion. I backed certain boys for 2-3 years as these were the best boys to back. It is irrelevant from which club they come and we need to get this culture out of the way.”For last three years, I have been trying to give security to these young players who are all 23 or 24. There has been a culture in Delhi cricket about making players insecure. I have myself faced that when I was a youngster. When I got into the Ranji Trophy team, I was made to feel insecure. Then only I had decided, if I ever take charge I will never make young boys feel insecure.”Rana played only the first three matches of the Vijay Hazare Trophy and was dropped after scores of 5, 5 and 0 while Chand was brought in for the last two matches, against Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, where he struck half-centuries.Chand had captained Delhi in three Ranji Trophy matches this season, while Gambhir was on national duty. For the Vijay Hazare Trophy, Delhi’s selectors chose to appoint 19-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant as captain in place of Gambhir. The decision, Bhaskar had said at the time, had been taken by consensus and with a view to manage Gambhir’s workload.”Look at somebody like Unmukt Chand. He was an India A captain recently, captained Delhi when I wasn’t a part of the team,” Gambhir said. “Suddenly you don’t even pick him for Delhi’s one-day side. Look where you have got his career to. Look at Nitish Rana, he played Duleep Trophy, he has played IPL for Mumbai Indians and suddenly three bad one-day games, you send him back.”I don’t have problems with people being dropped from the playing XI but don’t send them back. Look how insecure they will feel when they come back next into the side. How much insecurity have you put in Unmukt and Nitish’s mind? They are 23-year-olds for god’s sake.”Delhi doesn’t have a good cricketing structure and already players feel they are one match away from getting dropped. I told Bhaskar throughout the season, just don’t make players this insecure.”Delhi had middling results in the first-class and List A tournaments this season. In the Vijay Hazare Trophy, they finished fourth among seven teams in Group B, winning three of the six matches. They had a mid-table finish in the Ranji Trophy, too, winning two of their eight matches with two losses and four draws. They did well in the Inter-state T20 tournament, however, topping the North Zone table with three wins in five matches.”When Unmukt got dropped, he (Bhaskar) kept on lying in front of the whole team,” Gambhir alleged. “Unmukt called him to ask why he has been dropped from the team and he said ‘I was not happy that you are keeping wickets’. If he was not happy he should have said that in a selection meeting. Had Nitish scored one 50, would he have called Unmukt on SOS basis then?”It was decided at a selection meeting that Unmukt would be picked as a wicketkeeper because he kept wickets previous year as well. When Unmukt confronted him, Bhaskar said he was referring to zonal team and then Unmukt told him on his face he was lying. Unmukt had just played for a North Zone team 15 days back. That team had Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh and Shikhar Dhawan. If you want to tell me that zonal team was inferior to a Delhi team, good luck to these people.”Bhaskar told that he had “discharged his obligations with honesty” and would file a report shortly.”I have been told to restrain. Wait till I submit my report. All I did was discharge my obligations with honesty. Beyond that I can’t comment on anything now,” Bhaskar said.

Match facts

Gujarat Lions v Kings XI Punjab
Rajkot, April 23, 2017
Start time 1600 local (1030 GMT)3:37

Decoding the bowling woes of Kings XI and Lions

Form guide

• Kings XI Punjab (sixth): Lost to Mumbai Indians by eight wickets, lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad by five runs, lost to Delhi Daredevils by 51 runs

• Gujarat Lions (eighth): defeated Kolkata Knight Riders by four wickets, lost to Royal Challengers Bangalore by 21 runs, lost to Mumbai Indians by six wickets

Head to head

Overall:
Lions and Kings XI have a 1-1 record against each other, winning their respective away games in 2016.

In the news

Gujarat Lions’ victory at Eden Gardens has boosted morale in their camp. Captain Suresh Raina returned to form with a match-winning 84 and said his wanted to “restart” their season. Whether Dwayne Bravo, who on Tuesday said he was “a couple of games away” from full fitness, makes an appearance or not remains to be seen.Lions’ beefed-up batting fired in Kolkata, and may have to keep performing above potential, given their bowlers have underwhelmed.Kings XI Punjab began their season with back-to-back wins, and have lost four on the bounce since. They seemed to spark back to life in their last game, only for Mumbai Indians to demolish a target of 199 in 15.3 overs. Eoin Morgan and David Miller were dropped for that game. Manan Vohra too was absent, due to illness, and if he has recovered he could take back his role as opener and Shaun Marsh could be pushed to No. 3.Both sides have almost reached a stage where anything less than a win would hamper their qualification chances.

The likely XIs

Kings XI Punjab 1 Hashim Amla, 2 Manan Vohra, 3 Shaun Marsh, 4 Glenn Maxwell (capt), 5 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 6 Marcus Stoinis, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Mohit Sharma, 9 Sandeep Sharma, 10 Varun Aaron, 11 Ishant SharmaGujarat Lions 1 Brendon McCullum, 2 Aaron Finch, 3 Suresh Raina (capt), 4 Dwayne Smith, 5 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 6 Ishan Kishan, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 James Faulkner, 9 Praveen Kumar, 10 Dhawal Kulkarni, 11 Basil Thampi

Strategy Punt

• Axar Patel may be asked to bowl more than one over in the Powerplay. He has a healthy record against all of Gujarat’s overseas players in the IPL. Axar has dismissed Brendon McCullum twice, conceding 35 runs off 36 balls, he has dismissed Dwayne Smith once, giving away 11 off 12 balls and, though he hasn’t dismissed Aaron Finch, he has kept him to only 10 runs off eight balls.

Stats that matter

• Shaun Marsh has scored only 15 off 27 balls against Praveen Kumar
• Lions have only taken 20 wickets in six games – the fewest of all teams this season. To put that in perspective, Bhuvneshwar Kumar has taken 16 wickets all by himself.
• Kings XI bowlers are only marginally better, taking 26 wickets. These two teams are the only ones conceding more than nine runs an over.
• Lions have the worst economy rate in the Powerplay (10.05) and middle overs (9.38) in IPL 2017. On the other hand, Kings XI have the worst economy rate (12.40) in the last five overs.
• Mohit and Sandeep are the main bowlers for Kings XI in the slog overs, and both have gone at more than 12 an over. Of the 81 balls they have sent down, 13 have gone for sixes.
• Rajkot has been the best batting ground in IPL 2017 – teams score at a run rate of 9.88 and every wicket costs 46.45 runs
• McCullum has a strike rate of 200 against Ishant Sharma in the IPL, scoring 74 off 37 balls. Mohit Sharma, meanwhile, has dismissed McCullum twice in seven balls.

Supporters who no longer want to attend the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy are being urged to put their tickets up for resale by midnight on Tuesday in an attempt to avoid pockets of empty seats at the grounds.The ICC collects information on the team preferences of ticket-buyers (those that opt to select a team) and with 30% of those for the Cardiff semi-final specifying India there had been suggestions of a mass no-show.So far there have been 5000 returned and resold for the England-Pakistan semi-final in Cardiff and 2000 for the India-Bangladesh match at Edgbaston, with both matches officially sold out. The main postcodes for ticket purchasers for Wednesday’s first semi-final have been Cardiff, Birmingham, Harrow and North London.While Edgbaston and The Oval have enjoyed strong crowds throughout the group stages, Cardiff has had a problem with no-shows from ticket holders, with 8000 missing across three group matches. The England-New Zealand match was 300 tickets away from a sellout, but on the day there were significant holes in the crowd.That has partly been attributed to the poor weather, which affected the first week of the tournament, but an ICC spokesperson said the number of unused tickets in Cardiff had been a “disappointment”, although they were confident of being able to maximise the 14,000 capacity for the first semi-final.”Across the three games in Cardiff there have been 8000 tickets sold which haven’t been used, which is disappointing, but beyond the selling of them and the regular communication to those purchasers, if people then chose not to use them there isn’t much we can do,” Claire Furlong, the ICC’s general manager of strategic communications, said.”That’s been reasonably disappointing here, but we are doing as much as we can across all of our channels. It is a sellout but we are doing as much as we can to ensure it’s a sellout with bums on seats as well.”Cardiff was a sellout for England’s group match with New Zealand but some with tickets did not show up•Getty Images

Although tickets have to be reposted by midnight they can continue to be sold in the morning although, so far, returned tickets have been snapped up quickly. The ICC will make a decision on whether there will be walk-up sales when the final return figure is known.Hugh Morris, the Glamorgan chief executive, defended his ground after it came in for criticism for the crowds during the tournament. “The first game that we hosted in the tournament was England and New Zealand. Our capacity was just over 14,000 and there were 13,900 tickets sold and a couple of hundred available at the end after being sent back at a late stage,” he told BBC Radio Five Live.”We had ostensibly sold that game out. In reality there were about 10,000 people in the ground and we need to find out why those people didn’t turn up. The weather wasn’t great. Whether that has had an impact I don’t know.”England captain Eoin Morgan said: “Cardiff has always been a very good venue for us and the last game we had great support and a full house and everybody seems to get right behind us. I think tomorrow is sold out. That is what I have been told.”