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Jonny Bairstow says it would be stupid not to push for an England return this summer and is targeting big runs for Yorkshire in a bid to end his international exile.Thursday will mark exactly nine months since Bairstow’s last appearance in an England shirt, during the T20 World Cup semi-final defeat to India. That summer began with his axing outright from the Test side as part of a revamp of the red-ball side following a 4-1 tour of India, in which Bairstow earned his 100th cap in the fifth and final Test at Dharamshala.Since then, England have overlooked Bairstow when opportunities have arisen for a wicketkeeper-batter.While Jamie Smith started the 2024 Test season with the gloves, his absence from the New Zealand tour for the birth of his first child saw Essex’s Jordan Cox brought into the squad. When Cox broke his thumb ahead of the first Test, Durham’s Ollie Robinson was drafted in as a replacement, with Ollie Pope keeping for the series.Smith was also installed behind the stumps for the Champions Trophy, replacing Phil Salt across the limited-overs formats. Salt himself had taken on the role when former white-ball captain Jos Buttler opted to give up keeping.Bairstow’s situation is especially complicated because he remains on an ECB central contract, which is only set to expire this October. Speaking at Headingley during Yorkshire’s pre-season media day, the 35-year-old refused to address whether he had received any clarity from head coach Brendon McCullum or men’s managing director Rob Key but is adamant a return is not out of the question.”Yes, because I’m still contracted,” Bairstow said, when asked if a recall was still realistic. “I’d be stupid not to. The whole purpose of everything is to try and play for England, and that will be the challenge for the whole group. Everyone wants to go on and do that.”As an ‘exile’ and someone who hasn’t played for however long, it’s something that of course you want to get back to. And that comes by scoring runs.”[It’s] Not my fault I got given a two-year contract, just to stay at the periphery. I was in at Yorkshire doing everything I can pre-season-wise, I went on pre-seaon with Yorkshire, starting the summer with Yorkshire, putting my best foot forward for the guys in the dressing room and seeing what the best for us as a group is. That bit is completely out of my control.”It’s not my choice. I can load the gun, but I won’t be the one pulling the trigger. We’ll wait and see on that.”Bairstow was integral to a remarkable 2022 summer that launched the Bazball project under McCullum and newly installed Test captain Ben Stokes. His four centuries in five innings, which included twin hundreds against India at Headingley, drove a philosophy of unwavering positivity with the bat.It was a hot streak that was only curtailed by a devastating broken leg, which subsequently kept Bairstow out until the 2023 season, when he returned for the Ashes. As well as ruling him out of the final Test that summer against South Africa, and tours of Pakistan and New Zealand, he missed the opportunity to pick up a second global title as England triumphed in 2022’s T20 World Cup. Previously he had been integral to 2019’s 50-over success as one of the most dominant ODI openers in the format’s history.Having been told he was left out due to a run of low scores, Bairstow believes he has the capacity to change that opinion. And with India touring for five Tests this summer, and an Ashes to follow in the winter, he feels his record against both opponents should hold him in good stead. Particularly with a hundred on each of his last two tours of Australia.”It was just mentioned around form, really,” he said of the initial conversation following his axing. “That’s obviously subjective, people’s opinions and what have you – and that’s fine.”This is obviously a big summer with India, then Australia coming up. My numbers against those two teams, especially in England and Australia, have been good on the last couple of tours to Australia. The last time India toured here, I was not too bad. We’ll wait and see what happens.”First and foremost my job is to concentrate on Yorkshire, and making sure we get off to a good start to the year. I’ll let the rest take of itself.”Bairstow will begin the season for Yorkshire following the club’s promotion to Division One, with Joe Root and Harry Brook set to play some part in the first six rounds of the Championship ahead of the summer’s opening Test against Zimbabwe on May 22.Earlier this week, reported Bairstow will be handed Yorkshire’s red-ball captaincy, filling the vacancy left by Shan Masood, who took on the role for two years before moving to Leicestershire.Conversations between Bairstow and the club around the captaincy have been ongoing since last summer. His potential participation in the IPL, and then PSL, are understood to be the reason why Yorkshire have delayed confirming his appointment, with the season due to start next week. Bairstow’s late father, David, captained the county between 1984 and 1986.

Gerald Coetzee has been ruled out of the ODI tri-series in Pakistan as well as the Champions Trophy after experiencing tightness in his groin while bowling at the Centre of Excellence in Pretoria on Wednesday.* Before the latest setback, a left-hamstring injury had restricted Coetzee’s SA20 to just one appearance.”Following further assessment by the Proteas medical team, it was determined that the symptoms posed an increased risk of significant injury at a higher bowling load required for the upcoming 50-over matches,” CSA said in a release. Corbin Bosch and Lutho Sipamla are the frontrunners to replace him.Earlier in the day, South Africa’s white-ball coach Rob Walter named the 12-member squad, which included Coetzee, for the first match of the tri-series, against New Zealand, in Lahore on February 10. It has as many as six uncapped players, but that will change as the SA20 ends over the coming weekend.For the opening game of the series, Walter will have among his choices batter Meeka-eel Prince, fast bowlers Gideon Peters and Eathan Bosch, and allrounder Mihlali Mpongwana – none capped at the international level so far – as well as Matthew Breetzke and Senuran Muthusamy. Breetzke has been capped in Tests and T20Is, while the experienced Muthusamy has played four Tests.

Tri-series schedule

Feb 8 – Pak vs NZ in Lahore
Feb 10 – NZ vs SA in Lahore
Feb 12 – Pak vs SA in Karachi
Feb 14 – Final in Karachi

Players will be added to the squad following the SA20 Eliminator between Sunrisers Eastern Cape and Joburg Super Kings on February 5, CSA said in a statement, adding that Keshav Maharaj and Heinrich Klaasen would be available for South Africa’s second ODI of the series, against Pakistan on February 12 in Karachi, and the squad for the remainder of the series would be announced on February 9 after the SA20 final.The series is of great significance to the three participating teams, since it will be their last set of games before the Champions Trophy is played in Pakistan (with India’s matches to be held in Dubai) from February 19. Of South Africa’s squad members for the big eight-team tournament, Marco Jansen, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Kagiso Rabada, Ryan Rickelton, Tristan Stubbs, and Rassie van der Dussen will not play any part in the tri-series. They will leave for Pakistan on February 14, the same day as the tri-series final in Karachi.South Africa, in Group B at the Champions Trophy, will open their campaign on the third day of competition, against Afghanistan in Karachi. The others in their group are Australia and England.The 11 players for the first ODI, including captain Temba Bavuma and the support staff, will leave for Lahore on Wednesday evening.

South Africa squad for first ODI of the tri-series

Temba Bavuma (capt), Eathan Bosch, Matthew Breetzke, Junior Dala, Wiaan Mulder, Mihlali Mpongwana, Senuran Muthusamy, Gideon Peters, Meeka-eel Prince, Jason Smith, Kyle Verreynne* 1210 GMT, February 5, 2025 The story was updated after Coetzee was ruled out.

Rohit Sharma has linked up with Mumbai’s squad for their training sessions ahead of the second phase of the 2024-25 Ranji Trophy, starting January 23. The group had a two-hour centre-wicket session at Wankhede Stadium on Tuesday, and are expected to train through the week as they build up to their sixth-round home fixture against Jammu and Kashmir.India Test and ODI captain Rohit’s participation in the game is not yet confirmed, but his keenness to train with the group in consultation with head coach Omkar Salvi suggests that there is a possibility he could be available for at least one of the two remaining fixtures. The Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) is expected to announce the squad later this week.Related

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Rohit’s return to train with his first-class side comes at a time when his Test future has become a subject of great debate. Rohit, 37, isn’t ready to give up just yet, having clearly stated his intention to continue playing in the longest format despite having “stood down” from India’s XI for the fifth and final Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Sydney earlier this month.He had scored just 31 runs in five innings across three Tests on tour in Australia. Prior to that, he had averaged 13.30 over ten innings against Bangladesh and New Zealand during the 2023-24 home season, during which he led India to a shock 3-0 defeat to New Zealand, the first time ever that India had been whitewashed at home in a series of three or more matches.Rohit Sharma bats during a training session with the Mumbai Ranji Trophy team•PTI

After the SCG Test, India head coach Gautam Gambhir had stressed on the importance of Test players turning up to play domestic first-class cricket as often as possible. He had also refused to speculate over the future of the Test future of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, another veteran who has been well off his best in recent times.When asked about his thoughts on a long-term roadmap for the team in red-ball cricket, and whether it was time to invest in youngsters, Gambhir had said, “Look, it’s too early to talk about it. The series has just got over. I think we still have five more months to plan where we want to head towards. But it’s not the right moment right now for me to talk about that. Where are we going to be after five months?”A lot of things change in sport. Forms change. People change. Attitude change. Everything changes in sport. And we all know that five months is a long time. So, let’s see before the [England] series what’s going to happen. But whatever will happen, will happen for the best interest of Indian cricket.”Mumbai, the defending Ranji Trophy champions, are primed to make the knockouts. They are currently third in Group A with three wins in five matches, only a point behind second-placed Jammu and Kashmir.

Half-centuries from Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan wrestled momentum back for Pakistan after Jayden Seales’ triple-strike had put West Indies in the box seat in Multan. On a surface tailor-made for spin, it was the fast bowler who proved the pick of the bunch, exploiting pace and slight seam movement to send debutant Mohammad Hurraira, Kamran Ghulam and Babar Azam back for single figures. Pakistan had, at that point, been reduced to 46 for 4, with West Indies looming ominously over the tail. But a gritty unbeaten 97-run rearguard for the fifth wicket, from Rizwan and Shakeel, thwarted the visitors for the rest of the day, to ensure Pakistan would end the day with a semblance of control.After the start was delayed by four hours owing to heavy fog that enveloped the ground, Pakistan won the toss and batted first in hazy conditions with the floodlights on throughout the course of the day. Left-arm spinner Gudakesh Motie bowled the first ball, an indication of how both sides perceived the pitch upon which each played three specialist spinners. Motie got rid of Pakistan captain Shan Masood early on, squeezing him down to the debutant wicketkeeper Tevin Imlach on the on side, but for the rest of the hour, it was Seales’ show.He had been sniffing right from the outset, and got his reward when Hurraira hung his bat out and edged to the keeper. It was followed up by a beauty to remove Kamran Ghulam, who had just dispatched an outswinger to the boundary. The next ball, he attempted to shoulder arms but it seamed back into him wickedly, rapping the thigh, with Hawk-Eye showing it would have clipped the top of off.Kamran Ghulam was lbw shouldering arms to Jayden Seales•PCB

The big fish came soon after, another glorious use of the seam. Seales hit a hard length which Babar looked to parry into the off side, but it shaped away just enough to kiss the outside edge through to Imlach. Babar would review, but, like Ghulam, he would not be reprieved.The innings threatened to fall apart at that point, but Saud Shakeel, seasoned on surfaces like these, restored some order to proceedings for Pakistan. The sting was taken out of the quicks and the spinners negotiated deftly, while Mohammad Rizwan at the other end kept his concentration levels up as West Indies continued to prowl.There was a notable acceleration from the pair after tea, right from when Shakeel got to his knees and swept Kevin Sinclair for four. It was a shot that brought the pair bounty through the session, giving them a release shot as the ball began to rip. The next six overs produced seven boundaries with Rizwan the chief aggressor, brave enough to use his feet to spin and ensuring the strike kept ticking over.There remained plenty for the visitors to get excited about. A number of balls beat the outside edge by a whisker, and Shakeel popped one up dangerously close to short midwicket just shy of a half-century. But when he got there, and Rizwan followed up soon after, the milestones were both well-deserved. By now, the light had been deteriorating consistently, and midway through Kraigg Brathwaite’s first over, the light-metre came out, and the players went off. By then, Pakistan were arguably the happier side, having been dragged by Rizwan and Shakeel towards a rather less perilous position than they found themselves in after the first hour.

CSA Invitational XI 285 for 8 (Senokwane 79, Akhter 3-51) vs England LionsZaman Akhter’s pace and bounce was the feature as the Gloucestershire quick claimed three wickets on the opening day of the England Lions’ four-day match against a Cricket South Africa Invitational XI in Cape Town.After Tom Lawes struck twice with the new ball – including the first delivery of the day – Akhtar made the most significant inroads as the hosts reached stumps at 285 for eight.Akhtar broke a century stand for the third wicket when he found extra bounce off a good length and Jean du Plessis edged to James Coles at second slip. Nottinghamshire’s teenage spinner Farhan Ahmed then claimed Lesego Senokwane, the leading run-scorer in the ongoing CSA 4-Day Series, when he miscued a swipe to Akhtar at mid-on after adding 79.Skipper Dan Mousley and Coles both took a wicket each in the afternoon, but the Lions were made to toil before the reintroduction of Akhter in the final hour.The 25-year-old produced a brutish short ball that Sinethemba Qeshile could only feather behind as he took evasive action after an eye-catching 73. From the next ball Matthew Boast popped a simple catch to backward point.The four-day game is the Lions’ only match of a three-week tour that has focused on providing the 19-player squad with individualised and high-quality training.

The Indian team is trying to “push the limits” of what they can do. According to assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate, they are doing this in order to be well-prepared for the challenges in the next 18 months: the Champions Trophy, Asia Cup and T20 World Cup.With Rohit Sharma as captain and Rahul Dravid as coach, India had shed their safety-first approach with bat in limited-overs cricket. It paid dividends when they finished as the runners-up of the 2023 ODI World Cup and the winners of the 2024 T20 World Cup.Now Suryakumar Yadav has replaced Rohit as T20I captain and Gautam Gambhir has taken over as coach, but the template has remained the same. In the first T20I against Bangladesh in Gwalior, India chased down 128 in 11.5 overs. Then, batting first in Delhi, they found themselves on 41 for 3 inside the powerplay. But Nitish Kumar Reddy and Rinku Singh only momentarily took their foot off the pedal and powered India to 221 for 9.”Hundred per cent,” ten Doeschate said, when asked if playing fearless cricket was part of the team philosophy. “I think it has shown in the way we have played. The Test match in Kanpur is a great example.”Related

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In that second Test in Kanpur, rain and a wet outfield allowed only 35 overs across the first three days. But India’s attacking approach with the bat meant they won with more than one session to spare.”We are trying to push the limits of what we can do as a team,” ten Doeschate said. “We have obviously got the quality to do it. And then it’s about giving the players the belief to do it in a safe space, that if it’s not going to go right, it’s also okay. And even if you look back at the first two games, someone like Sanju [Samson] getting a quick start in the first game in Gwalior, it would have been easy for him to knock it around and just get a 50-60 not out. But you can see he was trying to push the boundary. He knows the state of the game, and the messaging has been pretty consistent with that.”We want the guys to expand their game. We want to move cricket forward, like it’s going with the times. And we want to be prepared for the big crunch moments that are coming up in the next 18 months.”Gautam Gambhir oversees India’s training session in Hyderabad•PTI

Another change since Gambhir became the coach has been the push to make as many players in the side bowl. In the second T20I, despite Hardik Pandya not rolling his arm over, India used seven bowlers, with each picking up at least one wicket.”You see the way the game is going, it’s very rare that all five bowlers, or even six bowlers, are going to go well on a given day,” ten Doeschate said. “So it’s nice to have options. Ideally, you want them to bowl a little bit more, but someone like Hardik not bowling in the last game, it’s just a testament to the depth of the bowling in the team.”India fielded the same XI in the first two T20Is. But now with the series sealed, they are likely to try their bench strength.”That was always the plan,” ten Doeschate said. “Obviously, there’s a nice depth in the squad – a lot of guys have the IPL experience. We are trying to expose as many guys as we can to international experience with what we have coming up. So someone like Harshit Rana, we are keen to give a game to. Obviously, Tilak [Varma] came into the squad a bit later. Jitesh [Sharma] is there as well. We want to give Sanju another chance. So there are options.”The third and final T20I will be played in Hyderabad, where the average run rate in IPL 2024 was 10.54. But ten Doeschate said India would not blindly trust the data.”Certainly the data and the evidence is around that [a high-scoring game]. But a little bit like when we got to Delhi the other day, you don’t want to read too much into the data. We probably feel that those first three wickets we lost was maybe because of going a little too hard. The wicket was a little bit sticky.”So we will have a look at this wicket. We are aware of the high-scoring nature of this pitch during the IPL but also we are five months away from the IPL now. So conditions could change as well. Fingers crossed, it’s a high-scoring game and a quality game.”

Middlesex, trying to close a 15-point gap behind second-placed Yorkshire in the promotion race, utterly dominated an afternoon in Derby where the home side, attempting to overcome their own 19-point deficit to elude a first wooden spoon since 2016, lost six wickets for three runs in 43 balls.With Toby Roland-Jones returning five for 34 in all, Derbyshire ignominiously sank from 130 for two to an eventual 173. The decline set in when Harry Came fell for 66 as the Middlesex captain extended his recent superb sequence to 36 wickets at 16.92 in six matches.Led by Mark Stoneman’s rampant, unbeaten 79, Middlesex then romped through the evening, too, reaching 125 for one in reply on the first day of a vital Vitality County Championship meeting for them. No home seamer could match the accuracy and late movement on an occasionally two-paced pitch that meant “TRJ” claimed all his five scalps bowled or LBW.Belatedly exploiting conditions after Ryan Higgins’s outswing had undone Luis Reece for 20, he first removed Brooke Guest, missed by Noah Cornwell off his own bowling when three but out for seven 50 minutes from lunch, which arrived at 99 for two.Startling carnage then swept in from nowhere from the afternoon’s seventh over. Came lost his off stump and, after Wayne Madsen top-edged a cut at Ethan Bamber to first slip to go for 20, Roland-Jones knocked over two more for ducks and a then a third without score once David Lloyd had returned a catch to Bamber for two.Derisive applause greeted the single that finally took Derbyshire off 133, the score at which the last hapless trio had fallen, and the former England man’s spell ended with 8-5-6-4. It took the 17-year old bowler Harry Moore, in only his third first-class innings, and spinner Jack Morley, on loan from Lancashire, to add 35 for the ninth wicket.Having resisted 38 balls for one run, Morley unaccountably then leapt out to Luke Hollman’s leg spin and was bowled by his 39th before Moore miscued a lofted drive to deep mid-on for 32, which brought tea two overs early.In five of their last eight completed innings, Derbyshire had failed to better their 173 here. But Middlesex were aware at the interval that Yorkshire were doing well in Cardiff and that Sussex, the other side above them, already seemed well set for success in Bristol.If the obvious task was to make their own advantage now count, it didn’t help that the second ball of the reply, a half-volley from Zak Chappell, was clipped by Sam Robson low to mid-on. But their response to being one down without a run scored was full-on aggression: a dozen fours had come by the twelfth over.Chappell, who’d received his county cap in a presentation at the start, could celebrate no further as the two left-handers, Stoneman and Max Holden plundered 71 in the hour that took the former to his first fifty for eleven innings, off only 41 balls.If the tempo eased against the spinners on a surface already taking turn, Holden, the foil to Stoneman’s belligerence, moved quietly on to 44 not out by the close and the pair will resume their 125-run partnership on Wedneday with Middlesex only 48 in arrears.

Oval Invincibles claimed the most significant scalp of their title defence so far with a six-wicket over Southern Brave in their top-of-the-table clash at The Kia Oval.Tom Curran claimed four wickets, his younger brother Sam chipping in with two, to restrict Brave to 118 for eight before a curious chase that saw Dawid Malan face 10 consecutive dot balls and Chris Jordan not concede a run from his first 11 deliveries.Jordan Cox, England’s latest call-up to the Test squad, and Sam Curran eventually broke the shackles in a 58-run stand from 27 balls to usher the hosts over the line with 15 balls to spare.James Vince was the only Brave batter who came to grips with the home attack, scoring 52 from 39 balls, as Invincibles moved a step closer to booking their place in the knockout stages.Skipper Sam Curran has been central to a run of five wins in six games, and while he would claim a third successive Meerkat Match Hero award again tonight, it was his older brother Tom who took the limelight with the ball taking 4 for 24 in front of a crowd of 23,948. The visitors slipped to 31 for four as wicket fell too regularly around Vince.Sam Curran was unfurling his airplane celebration early when he bowled Alex Davies before Tom found a regulation edge from Andre Fletcher through to Sam Billings. Will Jacks bowled Leus du Plooy and Laurie Evans top-edged Adam Zampa to leave Brave immediately behind the game.Captain Vince set about hauling his side back into the contest, sharing a 58-run stand with Kieron Pollard, who edged Sam Curran to give Billings his third catch after managing 18 from 15 balls.Tom Curran was on a hat-trick from the final ball of the innings, removing Jofra Archer and Akeal Hossein from successive balls, before Craig Overton just about avoided the field and saw the ball run away to the rope.Jacks thumped the first ball of the reply for six, only to get a leading edge to Overton two balls later, before the chase lost all momentum.Malan did manage a heaved six before he simply could not locate the ball, eventually being well held by Archer at mid-on to depart for 14 from 31 balls.But the in-form Sam Curran joined Cox and immediately set about putting the game to bed, the pair taking 23 from four Hosein deliveries to settle any nerves. Hosein did get Sam Curran, but not before he added 35 from 18 balls, as Cox finished unbeaten on 46 from 29 balls.Meerkat Match Hero, Sam Curran, said: “Huge win. The two form teams at the moment and a top of the table clash. We knew we had to win this to give us the best chance of going straight through to Lord’s (and reach the final).”We have complemented each other really well with the ball this season. Towards the end we just had a swing and hope and it worked out.”I’m really confident and enjoying the environment. I feel this team has got it right and hopefully we can do that for the rest of the tournament.”

New Zealand are about to embark on a period where they will play six Tests in two months. That’s rare, on two counts. First, it’s almost a whole year’s work for them – like in 2020 and 2021, when they went on to become the inaugural World Test Champions. And second, all of those matches are in Asia. In the last decade, they have never played more than three subcontinent Tests in a single year. This eight-week trip, starting with the one-off game against Afghanistan on Monday, then the two against Sri Lanka, and finally the three against India, is essentially uncharted territory.Kane Williamson acknowledged it when speaking to the media on Saturday. “You know such a volume of Test cricket that we don’t usually get, and obviously in this part of the world,” he said in Greater Noida.New Zealand’s record in Asia is underwhelming, with 16 wins from 90 Tests. They have found it even harder to succeed in India – 2 wins in 36 Tests. Lots of effort is being made to improve on this. Domestic teams have been touring the country for a good while now. The next generation of New Zealand batters and bowlers have put in a lot of time trying to expand their game to succeed in conditions where spin plays a huge role. Allrounder Rachin Ravindra and fast bowler Ben Sears joined the Test squad in Uttar Pradesh after a four-day training camp in Chennai with their Wellington team-mates.Related

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Williamson highlighted the importance of New Zealand learning to play differently in Asia and touched on the difficulty of playing long-form cricket in just staccato bursts.”I think it’s absolutely about trying to adjust your game,” he said, “because we’re not here consistently in this format. We go through quite long intervals of not playing here. So you know it is trying to sort of familiarise yourself again and for us, our last Test match was sort of six or eight months ago. So you know, as a team it’s really connecting with that again as a red-ball group and looking to apply our skills, our plans as well as we can.”0:32

Williamson: Root has been something else for a period of time

Williamson, himself, a veteran of over 100 Tests and a leading member of the Fab Four, is yet to fully crack batting in India and Sri Lanka. In 22 innings, he averages 31.36 and has managed only five fifty-plus scores. One of them was his debut innings, back in 2010, when he was at the crease for 299 balls to score 131. Since then, however, only five of his knocks have lasted 100 balls or more. The defensive skill which sets him apart, and enables him to shape so much of New Zealand’s fortunes on their own turf, is severely tested by the quality of the bowling and the nature of the conditions here.Williamson was looking forward, though, to facing that challenge again, starting with New Zealand’s first ever Test match against Afghanistan. “It’s really important that we look to grow as a unit,” he said. “It’s nice and clear on how we want to play over here. We always know that it’s a tough challenge whenever you play in these parts of the world, slightly different from back home. But you know always a great experience and playing against a really, really strong side.”New Zealand have bolstered their support staff, on a short-term basis, with the additions of Sri Lankan spin legend Rangana Herath and former India batting coach Vikram Rathour as they push for a better result in the 2023-25 cycle of the World Test Championship. They finished sixth out of nine teams last time. This time, they occupy third place, behind India and Australia.”In some ways it’s like tournament sport, isn’t it?” Williamson said. “Even though it’s over a longer period of time in the Test Championship, but the value of games is high. The context around Test cricket with the Test Championship is really key and it’s brought out a lot of really exciting games. And so naturally having six Test matches together is a big part of our Test Championship calendar and one that we’re excited about.”

Dion Myers has said that time away from cricket has given him a broader perspective on his game and renewed energy for his second stint. The 22-year-old Zimbabwe batter had taken a break from cricket to pursue his university studies in the UK before returning to the international fold in the ongoing five-match T20I series at home against India.”Over the last few years, there’s been a lot of self-introspection, seeing how my first stint went and things like I did well… things I can improve upon,” Myers said at his post-match press conference on Wednesday. “And watching a lot of cricket, honestly, along with my own training. It just helps sometimes when you’re out of the system or set-up to be able to look from a panoramic view and see what you can achieve or what you can do better to give to the team. The time away from the game [was] a blessing in disguise and it helped me realise a few more things about myself and also I needed to grow up.”Myers had captained Zimbabwe in the 2020 Under-19 World Cup and, in just over a year’s time, he made the step-up to the senior team in a one-off Test against Bangladesh in Harare. He subsequently featured in ODIs and T20Is for Zimbabwe before pausing his cricketing career for academics. In his third international innings upon return to action, Myers struck an unbeaten 65 off 49 balls, his maiden international half-century, against an India side that had three T20 World Cup champions in their ranks.Related

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• Fielding makes the difference as India go 2-1 up against Zimbabwe

“It’s surreal, honestly,” Myers said. “It’s something that you dream about as a young boy, and I really thank my team-mates and my family for the support and above all, I thank God. Lots of times were tough in the past few years, but [I] managed to find a way, so very proud of it.”Being back in the team…it’s such a nice vibe, wonderful coaching staff as well and they’re there to support us, so I expect a lot more from this team going forward and very excited for the future.”With Zimbabwe moving on from the likes of Sean Williams and Craig Ervine, the young pair of Myers and Clive Madande offered a glimpse into that future with a counterattacking 77-run sixth-wicket stand off 57 balls after they had been reduced to 39 for 5 in seven overs. Myers was particularly fluent against spin, taking Ravi Bishnoi, Player-of-the-Match Washington Sundar and Abhishek Sharma for a combined 44 off 31 balls. Madande, at the other end, lined up seam-bowling allrounder Dube for a pair of sixes.Dion Myers returned to international cricket in this series•Associated Press

“It was the sort of wicket where you couldn’t really come in straightaway and start going at 150-200 strike rate,” Myers said. “I just tried to play it my way, hitting it on the ground early on, get into the game and as the innings goes on, you pick more areas of the ground. But from the others, the intent was great. You can’t fault that and I think if a couple of guys do well, it’s crazy what this team can achieve. It’s just a matter of time, I can assure you that.”Myers had a rust-ridden restart to his career – he had laboured to 23 off 22 balls in the first T20I before holing out for a duck in the second. Also in that second game, Abhishek Sharma whacked him for 4, 6, 4, 6, 4 in a 28-run over. However, that didn’t dent Myers’ confidence going into the third T20I.”It’s brilliant to learn and it’s brilliant to be in the firing line, and I’m a big believer that if a situation presents a tough circumstance, you’re going to stand up or just let it go,” he said. “So, it was a great experience for me, personally, I didn’t take it in a confidence-down sort of a way and I thought there are some things that I need to work on much like they’re trying to improve. That’s how I’m taking it and the rest of the boys are taking it.”After being particularly sharp in the field in the series opener, Zimbabwe were guilty of a number of lapses in the second and third games. Myers summed it up thus: “It was just different phases throughout the game. Maybe we just bowled a touch too straight and a touch too short [with the ball] on the odd occasion and the mis-fields didn’t help us. So, it was just minute differences [between the two teams] but I thought India played very well.”