The Cricketer rounds up the best and worst from this week in cricket, from a record-extending Sheffield Shield win to David Warner opting out of a £125,000 deal
Cricket Australia's decision on Tuesday to cancel the remainder of the Sheffield Shield as a coronavirus precaution has secured New South Wales a record 47th victory in the first-class tournament – as many as the trailing Victoria (32) and Western Australia (15) state sides combined.
The Blues, who led the league by 12.23 points through the nine rounds of completed fixtures, become the first team to earn the trophy without playing a final since the one-off title decider was introduced at the beginning of the 1982/83 season.
While the outcome ends a six-year wait for Shield honours for the Sydney-based squad, that pales in comparison to the drought ended under similar circumstances on the other side of the Tasman the previous day.
Wellington's title in New Zealand's Plunket Shield competition was their first in 16 years, snapping the longest gap between the trophy heading to the Basin Reserve since the competition was launched more than a century ago.
"You don't imagine getting a text on your team's WhatsApp chat saying that due to COVID-19 the last two rounds of the Plunket Shield have been cancelled [meaning that] we are the champions," said seamer Hamish Bennett.
"A great text to receive, but a message received with mixed emotions amongst the group. One extreme of winning the Shield which every team works so hard for and is the most prestigious title to win in New Zealand cricket.
"The other extreme of hearing our season is over, done, finished, not another ball for me to bowl, not another boundary for Devon Conway to hit. A hollow feeling, a feeling I imagine many other athletes are currently dealing with, along with their supporters."
Leicestershire have appointed Colin Ackermann as their new captain in all formats for the 2020 season, after initially promoting the Dutch international to lead the county in white-ball action part-way through last summer.
The 28-year-old succeeds Paul Horton in the role after a campaign in which the Foxes went winless in the four-day game following their opening-round victory over Sussex. That result was the first of its nature for the county at Hove since 1995, and came fuelled by Ackermann's own maiden five-for with his part-time off-spin.
"It is obviously a huge honour and privilege to captain this club," Ackermann told the club website.
"Nico [head coach Paul Nixon] approached me a couple of weeks ago and asked me if I wanted to do it, and obviously it was an easy decision for me.
"Paul Horton did a fantastic job over the last two years. He led the team very well but his job is not finished just yet. I will still lean on him for advice throughout the season as well as Chris Wright and Mark Cosgrove, the other senior players in the team."
Rilee Rossouw had helped Multan Sultans top the PSL's group stage, but they must wait on for a trophy
In their third attempt at the the Pakistan Super League, the upstart Multan Sultans franchise not only managed to play their way into a playoff place for the first time, they did so by emphatically breaking the stranglehold on the top spot in league action held by Peshawar Zalmi and Islamabad United throughout the first four seasons.
Unfortunately for the fans of South Punjab, that's about as far as the tournament managed to get. Coronavirus concerns had already sent the league behind closed doors in Lahore and Karachi the previous week, but even a hastily rearranged and condensed knockout format could not get started before the Pakistan Cricket Board made the call to postpone the finals with immediate effect on Tuesday.
The reasoning behind the decision was very clear: Alex Hales had developed symptoms of possible infection the day after returning home from his time with Karachi Kings, and the league could not guarantee that more players or staff would not suffer similarly.
But, unlike in the cases of New South Wales and Wellington, the organisers remain hopeful of picking up where they have temporarily left off, even if – as some rumours have suggested – that might be as far away as November.
For the time being, the pacesetters' wait therefore must go on as question marks linger about if and how the competition may eventually conclude.
While we're on the topic of Pakistani cricket, the once-bright star of Umar Akmal entered its latest torrid chapter this week as the former international batsman was formally charged with two separate breaches of the PCB's anti-corruption code.
Akmal collected more than 220 caps for his country between August 2009 and October 2019, but if found guilty of either infraction he could be issued with a ban of anything between six months and a lifetime.
In each case, he is alleged to have breached article 2.4.4 of the code, which relates to "failing to disclose to the PCB Vigilance and Security Department (without unnecessary delay) full details of any approaches or invitations received...to engage in corrupt conduct".
The 29-year-old had been due to represent Quetta Gladiators during this year's PSL campaign, but he was replaced by Anwar Ali at the defending champions on the tournament's opening day after being suspended pending the outcome of this investigation.
Matthew Wade and David Warner have both pulled out of their domestic trips to England this summer
David Warner has become the first player to withdraw from The Hundred, according to his manager.
The controversial Australian opener had been set to join up with Southern Brave after being selected with the 12th overall pick in last year's men's player draft, but it appears he will forgo the £125,000 contract that comes with in order to turn out for Australia in a concurrent three-match home ODI series against Zimbabwe.
That said, various reports have suggested that the Southampton squad are on the verge of securing the services of compatriot Marcus Stoinis in his place.
No longer the middling seaming allrounder one might recall from World Cup action last year, the 30-year-old has now metamorphosed into a burly short-form opener who tallied more runs in his latest Big Bash campaign than any other batsman has done at one edition in the tournament's nine seasons (705 at 54.23, including a league record 147 not out against eventual champions Sydney Sixers). Thus, the loss of Warner could well end up working out in the Brave's favour.
Back in the county game, Somerset are to be without Matthew Wade as they continue to hunt down an elusive maiden County Championship crown.
The Tasmanian player had been due to land in Taunton for the first half of the campaign before the arrival of Babar Azam at the end of May for the T20 Blast and a brace of red-ball outings.
However, a statement from the club confirmed that a knee injury picked up on international duty will demand that the 32-year-old instead has "at least a sustained period of rest". No replacement has yet been named, though all seven of Wade's scheduled matches have since been postponed due to COVID-19.
It was a tough time for English cricket fans this past week, with the ECB's announcements both that the recreational game would be suspended until further notice and that no professional cricket would get under way until at least May 28.
More broadly, this sudden lack of cricket is affecting spectators and players all around the globe, as not a single official first-class or T20 game was completed in the past seven days due to the coronavirus outbreak.
All scheduled action in Australia, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe was wiped out completely in the past week as boards have reacted to the pandemic, while Bangladesh has so far scrapped 12 fixtures in its Dhaka Premier Division List A tournament since the second round of matches was completed last Monday.
The slowdown in the global game shows no signs of abating any time soon either, with West Indies Championship cricket and the Indian Premier League now no longer set to resume later this week, while Cricket Ireland have in the past seven days called off fixtures against Zimbabwe (April 2-12) and Bangladesh (May 14-19). Bangladesh have also now postponed their planned trip to Pakistan next month.
Ackermann image © ICC Business Corporation FZ LLC 2018
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