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Glamorgan 149 (Brook 3-13, Patterson 3-27) and 108 for 3 (Carlson 44*, Lloyd 40*) lead Yorkshire 230 (Root 99, Patterson 47*, Neser 5-39) by 28 runs Joe Root moved inexorably towards his hundred with the precision of a ticking clock. An old-time image for an old-time innings. The world could do much as it pleased, nothing would change his tempo. Then, on 99, the clock stopped.Root has 31 first-class hundreds, but only eight of them have come for Yorkshire. Even as a feted international player, one who bears an onerous responsibility as England’s Test captain, his desire to succeed for his county remains implanted. He would surely yearn for more.Medium-pacer Dan Douthwaite, who seamed the ball back sharply between bat and pad, was the bowler who stopped time. What’s more, Douthwaite revealed, his teammate, Kiran Carlson, predicted it.”It was weird how it happened,” Douthwaite said. “Kiran Carlson stood at mid-off two balls before and said I was going to get him out trying to dab it down to third man and he would chop it on to the stumps and he did. I was telling him at the time to go away and let me focus on my bowling. That is the first time I have had someone predict a wicket and it has actually happened.”If Root didn’t quite manage the century that had seemed inevitable, he looked in good trim ahead of the New Zealand Test series. His superbly controlled innings gave Yorkshire a chance of victory. That’s if you don’t believe in weather forecasts – Sunday’s analysis suggests that these sides will be collecting draw points.England’s IPL contingent have spent much of the past fortnight in quarantine while the likes of Root have benefited from an extensive programme of Championship cricket, albeit played in empty stadiums and in largely cheerless conditions. It has not been a cakewalk. Remove his century against Kent at Canterbury and he had made 114 runs in seven innings. That rediscovered rhythm had been hard-won.That Root’s success has been far from automatic illustrates that bowlers have held sway and also points to the difficulties that even the most driven world-class player encounters when the prestige of a fixture diminishes and the pressure relents. Nevertheless, it also tells that this season’s Conference structure has not been a succession of mismatches that many anticipated. It is a format that is gaining popularity and makes the structure for 2022 a debate still to be won and lost.Related

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Glamorgan, down 81 on first innings, and seeded fifth out of six in Group One, might have capitulated when the Australian, Marnus Labuschagne, was bowled for a duck in an awkward 26-over finish to the day, but David Lloyd and Carlson played with typical freedom in slightly easing conditions in giving them a lead of 27 runs with seven wickets remaining at the close. Carlson’s batting approach does not suffer from modesty and, with his 23rd birthday hours away, he looked to be a player worth keeping an eye on.Not that Root defied Glamorgan single-handedly in giving Yorkshire that 81-run lead. At 111 for 8, they were imperilled, still 39 behind in seamer-friendly conditions. For a top-order batsman, eight-down often demands a rethink. Root observed his captain, Steven Patterson, and recognised a mulishness that demanded respect. Between them, another 118 were added in 33 overs. The match shifted.Root was accomplished, his innings stripped down to basics and all risks against the moving ball kept to a minimum. Patterson existed on defiance and an occasional square cut that he delivered with a flourish. He was far from rhythmic: if he had been a ticking clock, nobody would have had a clue what time it was. He survived a tough chance to backward point before he had scored, took several blows to the body and stubbornly insisted on his right to stick around. But his commitment was exemplary and he also deserved – and missed – his own statistical landmark, a fifth first-class 50, when he was left stranded on 47.Glamorgan’s tactics were strange. The Australian, Michael Neser, who had 3 for 15 overnight, soon had a five-for, including the frisky debutant wicketkeeper, Harry Duke, who was treated to a bouncer first ball, took it on, and spliced a catch to square leg. (First-ball duck or not, we will hear more of Duke). But Neser only bowled eight overs all day and must surely have a niggle.Michael Hogan, the other senior strike bowler, spent the day bowling into the wind. The next bouncer of note to the ninth-wicket pair was delivered by Labuschagne, a part-time legspinner, and it disappeared for four byes. Andrew Salter had a spell of off-spin more out of respect than logic. Like Dom Bess, an England offspinner in Yorkshire’s side, he would have been better rendered idle.Root survived a strong leg-before appeal from Timm van der Gugten on 87, but otherwise picked out singles at will. His late cut to third man – the one where he might be picking his own pocket – would have had Fagin singing with delight. But, with Root on 99, Douthwaite cut Patterson in half with a big break-back that went for four byes. The warning was there. Root did not play the shot, but he might have anticipated it. His stumps were disturbed and Douthwaite gestured in triumph towards Carlson at mid off as if he had known the plan would work all along.

India clinched a four-wicket win in the final over of the rain-curtailed third ODI of the multi-format series against England in Worcester courtesy Mithali Raj’s unbeaten 75, Smriti Mandhana’s 49 and Sneh Rana’s cameo, after Deepti Sharma’s three-for helped bowl the hosts out for 219.Needing six of the final over, Raj, who earlier in the day became the leading run-scorer in women’s international cricket surpassing Charlotte Edwards, hit the winning four after she and No. 8 Jhulan Goswami scored two off the first two deliveries. Piercing the off side with a square drive off Katherine Brunt, Raj helped overhaul the 220 target with three balls to spare, becoming the most successful captain in women’s ODIs with an 84th win in the format leading the side.India needed 38 off the last 30 balls in the 47-overs-a-side contest, with Raj and Rana in the middle. No. 7 Rana, making a vital 22-ball 24, kept Raj company as the duo accelerated with two fours in a 12-run 44th over, delivered by Natalie Sciver.Related

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Brunt conceded six singles in the next over, leaving India 14 to get off the final 12 balls. With Sciver taken off the attack, Sophie Ecclestone, bowling her 10th over having given away just 28 up to that point, was hoicked for four by Rana off the fourth ball just inches past Kate Cross at the midwicket rope. However, with four runs coming in the over – off two singles and a two prior to that boundary – and the equation down to six required off eight, Rana’s failed attempt to go big over deep square saw her being bowled.Raj, though, ensured the chase was sealed without any further drama, her third straight fifty helping India add two points to take their tally to four against England’s six, the teams having split the four points on offer for the one-off Test in Bristol last month.Playing her usual anchor role at No. 4, Raj struck eight fours, pivoting fifty stands with No. 5 Harmanpreet Kaur and Rana, and a 33-run fifth-wicket stand with Sharma. Veering from her typical reluctance to take the aerial route, though, Raj lofted Cross off just the fourth ball of her innings. Exuding similar intent, she unleashed a second pick-up drive en route to 16 off 32 balls, the shot – a four down the ground off Sciver in the 24th over of the run-chase – lifting her to the top of the run charts in women’s international cricket.Though India started their pursuit promisingly, Raj’s arrival at the crease came about after the visitors lost opener Shafali Verma and No. 3 Jemimah Rodrigues inside 16 overs with 154 still required to avert a 0-3 clean sweep in the ODI leg of the tour.Verma’s laboured 29-ball 19 culminated in her trying to clear Cross over the in-field on the off side, instead spooning it to Knight at cover, off the last ball of the reduced nine-over powerplay. India scored 46 for 1 in that period, Mandhana making 25 of that tally at a run a ball.Rodrigues chewed up 21 balls for her four runs on the day, half her tally from her previous innings. She had two lbw dismissals – off Ecclestone – overturned by the DRS. Following the second instance, though, she chopped on the very next delivery while trying to cut crouching low.By the time Rodrigues fell, Mandhana had marched to 40 off 45 balls, riding on an eye-pleasing array of drives, cuts to the third rope, short-arm swipes, and full-blooded pulls. A failed swipe off legspinner Sarah Glenn, however, cut short her innings as she was adjudged lbw one shy of a fifty.The departure of Kaur, who, too, was given out lbw, was in part down to India not reviewing the umpire’s call. Struck on her pad trying to reverse-sweep Knight, replays showed the impact to have been outside off. Raj was at the non-striker’s end at the time.Deepti Sharma and India celebrate the wicket of Amy Jones•Getty Images

Earlier, Sciver’s 49 and Heather Knight’s 46 headlined England’s performance with the bat. No. 11 Cross’s unbeaten 9-ball 16 somewhat rained down on India’s parade after their six-bowler attack, each of whom picked up at least a wicket, threatened to restrict the hosts to a less formidable score.Seamer Shikha Pandey made early inroads after India opted to bowl at New Road following a rain delay of over an hour and half. Opener Tammy Beaumont, playing across the line to an incoming delivery from outside the off stump that also kept low, was trapped in front in the second over.Conditions remained overcast and a touch windy as Lauren Winfield-Hill and Knight, who took her 50th ODI wicket in Kaur and reached the 3000-ODI-runs milestone on the day, steadied England after the in-form Beaumont’s departure. The duck was Beaumont’s her first scoreless innings in ODIs since November 2016 and fourth overall in the format.After surviving a soft lbw appeal in the first over and later a stumping opportunity off a wide ball in the third over – both off Goswami – Winfield-Hill carted Pandey for three fours in the eighth over, the costliest in the innings, clubbing drives square of the wicket and down the ground.Raj introduced a double change after the completion of the powerplay that saw England make 44 for 1. Sharma and Poonam Yadav’s spin replaced the pace of the Goswami-Pandey tandem and gave away 23 runs for a combined seven overs leading up to the 17th.In Knight’s company, Winfield-Hill brought up the team fifty in the 13th over and strung together a second-wicket partnership worth 67. Rana’s introduction as the third spinner, though, saw Winfield-Hill, reprieved on 24, sweep down Pandey’s throat at deep midwicket for 36 as India’s tactful field placements bore fruit.Knight then steered the rebuild, helped in no small part by Sciver’s brisk scoring. Sciver’s belligerence forced Pandey’s second spell to last only one over as Raj turned to spin again. It took Kaur five balls to break the 42-run third-wicket stand as she forced a rare mistake from Knight, who swept hard only to find Pandey at midwicket.Sciver scored nearly at a-run-a-ball for the most part of her stay. Goswami then returned for her second spell, having gone for just 15 of her five-over first spell. By keeping a tight leash on the scoring, commendably supported by Yadav and Sharma for the most part, she stopped England from scoring a boundary between overs 28 and 43.Amy Jones, playing her 50th ODI, fell victim to the mounting pressure. Coming down the track, cramped for space, she swung half-heartedly, at a loopy Sharma delivery only for substitute Radha Yadav, on for Kaur, to gobble it up at short midwicket.Kaur took at least two trips off the field, limping in the second of those instances after having jagged her knee into the ground while fielding, and was kept company by the physio in the Indian dugout for some time. She returned 1 for 24 in her three overs.While Sophia Dunkley kept the scoreboard ticking with her laps and scoops, Poonam’s googly had her partner Katherine Brunt stumped in the 41st over. Dunkley, coming off unbeaten scores of 74 and 73 in her last two innings, added 14 and 15 with Brunt and No. 9 Sophie Ecclestone respectively before Goswami had Ecclestone pinged on her front pad.Dunkley’s 35-ball 28 ended with Sharma picking up her third wicket as the ball took the leg stump in the 45th over. A tenth-wicket 13-ball 22 stand between Cross and Glenn then injected some final-overs impetus in England’s innings, with Cross hitting 4, 6, 2, 1 off Sharma’s 10th, and the innings’, last over.

Shamim Hossain, in his second T20I, is under pressure. Three fruitless slogs in the 18th over later, Bangladesh need 25 off 15 balls. The game has wildly swung both ways until this point. Dion Myers had conceded just three off his first three balls; Sikandar Raza’s move to bowl him seemed a gamble that could pay off.Shamim is possibly thinking of his dismissal in the second T20I after he gave Bangladesh hope through his 13-ball 29. Here he was again, in a situation that was even more tricky. There was a series to be won. He simply had to strike.And strike he did. He thumped Myers for three fours: a forehand smash through covers, a reverse bunt past a diving short third man and a fierce pull over midwicket. Then, he kept his head through Blessing Muzarabani’s penultimate over to all but seal the contest. He then finished the game off by hitting the winning runs. He remained unbeaten on 31 off just 15 balls, hitting six fours, five of which came in the last three overs.”I was hungry to finish the game after being unable to do so in the previous game,” Shamim said. “I was looking for that opportunity. I am feeling really well having done that. I am happy that we won the T20I series, which happened to be my first international series. When Soumya (Sarkar) bhai and (Mahmudullah) Riyad were batting together, things were in our favour. While sitting in the dressing room, I told myself that we must win this game.”The match had already started to turn in Bangladesh’s favour during the third-wicket stand between Mahmudullah and Soumya Sarkar, but it needed a final push from the Mahmudullah-Hossain partnership, after Afif Hossain’s dismissal.”Riyad told me that we can get ten an over if we can hit a six or a four every over,” he said. “It will get us close to their target. I maintained my process during this situation.”Soumya Sarkar, whose 68 set up Bangladesh’s push towards the big chase, was impressed with Shamim’s desire. “He played an important innings,” the senior batter said. “He was very positive. I really liked how hungry he was to win the game. This was only his second international match, but finished the game very well.”Shamim made a mark during Bangladesh’s victorious Under-19 World Cup campaign last year. The senior team’s selectors and team management had a better look during this season’s Dhaka Premier League T20s. But despite doing well at these levels, Shamim said that his short crash course of international cricket during these T20Is told him what is needed at this level.”I have figured out how tough international cricket is, playing here,” he said. “I have so far played Under-19 cricket and the Dhaka Premier League, but this is different. One gets fewer bad balls. One has to hit the good balls for boundaries, but at the same time, keep sticking to your process. One has to play with more responsibility at this level.”An altogether different challenge awaits Shamim when Bangladesh take on Australia in the five T20Is from August 3 in Dhaka. The hunger can easily be replaced by a sense of accomplishment, and that’s one very critical area that Shamim needs to guard himself against.

Marnus Labuschagne emerged from isolation and cracked a massive double century with a record score for Glamorgan’s 2nd XI ahead of his final few weeks in county cricket.Labuschagne and his Queensland team-mate Michael Neser had been forced into ten days isolation having been deemed a close contact of Glamorgan batter Nick Selman who tested positive for Covid-19.The period did not expire soon enough for either to feature in the current County Championship match against Sussex, but Labuschagne found himself a spot for the seconds against Northamptonshire where he cracked 276 off 268 balls with 32 fours and four sixes – beating the previous Glamorgan 2nd XI record of 267 held by Ian Thomas from 2003. For good measure he had also taken three wickets in the first innings.