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Mohammad Amir is expected to be named in Essex’s squad for Thursday night’s game against Hampshire, after his application for a UK sporting visa was belatedly approved.Amir had signed for the majority of the Vitality Blast group stage, but his paperwork was delayed, leaving the club “extremely frustrated” as he missed two fixtures he had been expected to play.John Faragher, the club’s chairman, said the hold-up was an “unforeseen circumstance”, and that Essex were in close contact with the Home Office.And ESPNcricinfo understands his application has now been approved. Amir tweeted a picture of himself at Chelmsford on Tuesday, with the caption “Back to work”.Amir has regularly been left frustrated by hold-ups to his visas when playing in the UK, with several factors complicating the process.Ahead of Pakistan’s Test series in England in 2016, there had been concerns as to whether he would be granted a UK visa, on account of his six-month jail sentence relating to the 2010 spot-fixing case.In the same year, Amir married a British citizen of Pakistani origin, and has since had an application approved for a spousal visa – though this alone is not sufficient to make a holder eligible to play professional sport in the country.In 2018, Amir’s departure ahead of the Test series against Ireland and England was again delayed by a week, though he did arrive in time to play in the first game of the tour.Last week, Amir announced his retirement from Test cricket at the age of 27, in order to focus on white-ball cricket and ultimately prolong his international career.Essex have started underwhelmingly in the Vitality Blast, with a win against Surrey, defeats at Middlesex and Kent, and a no-result again Gloucestershire.They will also hope to bring Jamie Porter into their squad for Thursday, who played a Second XI game on Tuesday as part of his return from a back spasm suffered on England Lions duty.

Over the little more than 16 months since the Australian Test captaincy was thrust upon him, Tim Paine has dealt with a myriad of issues, most of them better than many others might have done.In achieving his dream of taking part in an Ashes tour, with the additional responsibilities of captaincy that would not have appeared in those childhood fantasies, Paine is confronted by one of the oldest problems to confront any leader of an Australian team – though no less challenging for its familiarity. That conundrum, of course, is tackling the moving ball in such a way that series-deciding collapses do not occur.It’s been a recurring theme of Australian tours to England ever since their most recent Ashes success here in 2001. Even that trip was pockmarked by a couple such instances at Lord’s and Trent Bridge, only counterbalanced by England’s contrivance to lose wickets in even more of a rush, and the subsequent tours have created a strong sense that in hosting Australia, England need only wait for the inevitable surrender of five or more wickets in a session, and take advantage when it arrives.At Canterbury, on an otherwise docile pitch, there was one such instance of the sort of passage of play commonly associated with spells by Stuart Broad (The Oval 2009, Durham 2013, Trent Bridge 2015), James Anderson (Lord’s 2009, Trent Bridge 2013) or even Steven Finn (Edgbaston 2015). Sam Curran’s inspired burst on the second morning, claiming five wickets amid the loss of Australia’s last six for 17 runs, was exactly what Australia will fear and England anticipate. Paine was adamant that it cannot be allowed to happen often, if at all.”It’s something you discuss all the time whether you’re in England or Australia or in India against the spin, you want to avoid losing wickets in clusters,” Paine said. “We batted pretty poorly, we thought.”Full credit to Sam Curran he put the ball in the right area and challenged us. But we thought we missed a trick with some things we could be doing and things that guys have been working on to get better at that. But sometimes you have a little setback and that was one of those. But I thought the way we played him in the second innings showed that we’re getting better.”Something that should help Paine’s men avoid further instances of session-defining collapses wrecking their hard-earned gains in a match is the fact that, with the exception of those batsmen taking part in the World Cup, the remainder of Australia’s top six will be entering the Ashes with months of red ball-specific practice behind them. Bowlers, too, have grown ever more comfortable with the vagaries of the Dukes ball, something that has also contributed to recurring eclipses of Australian teams in this part of the world.”Certainly guys like James Pattinson and Josh Hazlewood in particular and some of our batters in this group have had an extended prep in red ball cricket, which we think will do them the world of good,” Paine said. “So we’re looking forward to next week and having another good hit out and then getting cracking in the first Test.”It’s very valuable. Any game we can get over here in English conditions is good for our group, so it’s good to get four hard days’ cricket in and obviously we’ve got a game next week with 25 players and all those guys’ hats are in the ring.”One player conspicuously eager is Mitchell Marsh. It was his contentious caught behind dismissal that gave Curran the first of his wickets, not that Marsh seemed to think he got anywhere near the ball deemed to have found an edge through to Ben Foakes. More encouraging in Paine’s mind was the sight of Marsh hitting the stumps at pace on the final day of the draw with England Lions, demonstrating that time away from international cricket has aided him physically.”Mitch has been out of our set up for a while, he’s got himself a bit fitter than he has been,” Paine said. “I think with his bowling in particular I think you can see that, he’s getting through the crease a lot better, he’s running in a bit harder and his pace was up from what we probably saw last summer, which is really exciting.”In a tight race for one of 16 spots in the squad to be finalised by Trevor Hohns, Justin Langer and Paine after the internal practice match in Southampton next week, Marsh will be pressing hard to have an influence on proceedings, much as he did with percussive runs at home during the 2017-18 Ashes.”We think it’s going to be really intense, that’s what we’re after, we wanted to come over here and have a game,” Paine said. “Sometimes, this was a good practice game, but I think sometimes touring teams, you can have tour games that just sort of peter out into pretty ordinary games of cricket at times, so we were lucky we had a great hit out here. We’ll certainly have a good one amongst ourselves next week.”We’ve got guys playing for Ashes spots and we expect it to be of an extremely high, competitive intensity. We’re looking forward to it. I don’t think the game in Southampton is going to be an out and out trial game and everyone’s on red alert. But we know the players we’ve got in this squad, we know potentially what the make up of our team looks like, but we want to make sure we’ve got all bases covered and next week’s another opportunity to make sure we’ve got a squad that ticks all boxes for all conditions.”The biggest box to tick will be to keep wickets from falling in those wearingly familiar clusters, and Paine knows it.

Japan have qualified for next year’s ICC Under-19 World Cup in South Africa – the first time the country has qualified for a cricket World Cup at men’s, women’s or junior level – in bizarre circumstances. They secured their place in the tournament after Papua New Guinea – their opponents for Saturday’s final group match in ICC Under-19 East Asia-Pacific Regional Qualifier – forfeited the game in Sano. The forfeit occurred when PNG could not field a team for the final day’s play after Cricket PNG suspended 11 of its 14 squad members “for internal disciplinary reasons and failing to adhere to our strict codes of conduct,” according to a statement issued over Facebook by Cricket PNG.Japan, who were the hosts, and PNG were both undefeated, with three victories each heading into Saturday’s final day of group play at the Sano International Cricket Ground, a turf facility located 100 km north of Tokyo. Both teams had defeated Samoa, Fiji and Vanuatu in their opening three encounters and had a scheduled off-day on Friday June 7, ahead of their de facto final on Saturday, before a statement was issued by the ICC announcing that PNG had forfeited due to the suspensions en masse.Japan participated in the East Asia-Pacific Regional Under-19 Qualifier for the first time since 2011. In their three prior appearances – 2007, 2009 and 2011 – Japan had only won one of 11 matches, a 24-run win over Fiji. This year’s squad is a cosmopolitan mix of Japanese players, along with several players of other ethnicities.PNG had won the East Asia-Pacific Under-19 championship seven consecutive times from 2002 through 2014. But this is the second time in the last three tournaments that they have failed to take the regional berth to secure a spot in the Under-19 World Cup, having finished runner-up to Fiji four years ago albeit under more traditional circumstances.The Japan Cricket Association was first established in 1984 before the country became an ICC Associate Member in 1995. The closest the Japan men’s team came to reaching the World Cup was their participation in 2008 WCL Division Five in Jersey, a tournament more famous for being the start of Afghanistan’s journey up the world rankings. Japan were relegated to Division Seven after that event, and after they lost a semi-final to Ghana in 2012 WCL Division Eight in Samoa they were dumped out of the World Cricket League for good, effectively closing the door on a pathway to qualify for a men’s World Cup.The Japan women’s team has also struggled competitively over the years. Most recently, they finished fifth out of six teams in the Women’s East Asia-Pacific T20 World Cup Qualifier held last month in Vanuatu. Their only win came by 31 runs over Fiji.

Pakistan know that defeat to South Africa on Sunday is virtually not an option if they are to stem the backlash the team are facing at home after their defeat to India. Ever since the loss, speculation in Pakistan has been rife once again of factionalism within the side and of deteriorating support for the captain Sarfaraz Ahmed.That was rubbished by Mohammad Hafeez on Thursday and on Friday one of their most resolute World Cup performers, left-arm paceman Wahab Riaz, turned up at Lord’s to remind fans that, “none of us like the fact that we lost to India, we feel very strongly at having disappointed people, I’d say we are more hurt and disappointed than people back at home.”When asked whether the public disappointment to the defeat had affected the team, Wahab said “there is demoralisation when they are personal attacks on us in the media. Criticise us, criticise our performances and we will accept it because we want to do perform better.” He said that what bothered players was when the criticism of the players involved their families as it has in the case of Shoaib Malik. “I think if people stay away from getting our families into it and focus on our game, that’s more important.”Wahab is in his third World Cup, one of the team’s more experienced players, and said that the team has found a way to band together to prepare for the South Africa match. “The players are each other’s strength. When we speak to people at home, they tell us why did you do this, if you’d done that, you’d have done better. So as a team we know we can lift each other up more than what even our families can do.”He reminded the public back home that “Pakistan plays better under pressure and inshallah, we will quality for the finals and semi-finals.” Accepting that the team’s progress in the competition was beyond their direct results, Wahab said, “Our focus is on beating South Africa, and we know we shouldn’t get ahead or think about the future. We need to go one by one on what do every day. On what we do in the now and not what is happening elsewhere. We shouldn’t be thinking about the future beyond the one by one. Everything one by one.”He did say that he thought the Pakistan team had “more talent” than the South Africans despite the quality of the opposition bowling. “But execution of skills is everything,” he added. “They have failed in that aspect as well like we did, we had matches we could have won. In this match it depends on who handles pressure better and plays better. They will win.”The team had spoken about their cricket and their mistakes in past matches “openly.” “Good teams are those that discuss and talk about their mistakes openly to each other and we’ve done that. Inshallah we will make up for our mistakes.”The “small things”, Wahab said, was keeping control of their innings with the bat and taking early wickets with the ball. Pakistan conceded more than 130 runs before taking a wicket in their defeats to Australia and India. Against Australia, he said, “it was a 260-270 wicket [Australia scored 307] and we didn’t bowl well at the start. In England it is important to strike with the new ball. If you take wickets up front it affects that batting team. If you don’t…this a high scoring World Cup.”The match against India, where Pakistan conceded 336 he said was “a pressure game and every player feels it. But we didn’t play as well as we can. We didn’t play as good as we are. And we need to play better. We were in very good positions with our batting against Australia and then we gave it away. We did the same against India. We will need to do the small things better and we need to be in control of those. We need to play our A game throughout.”

Aiden Markram produced a stunning all-round performance as Hampshire made it three wins from three in the Royal London Cup with a 119-run victory over Middlesex.South African opener Markram, who is warming up for this summer’s World Cup, crashed 88 with the bat off 90 balls to help Hampshire to 301 for 9 before his part-time off-spin gathered 3 for 39.Liam Dawson and Kyle Abbott also posted excellent figures of 3 for 37 and 3 for 36 respectively, as Hampshire won with 80 balls to spare.One-day champions Hampshire have defeated Kent, Glamorgan and Middlesex to leap to the top of the South Group.Middlesex had won the toss and elected to field first under grey skies.In response, Markram’s compatriot Abbott broke through twice in the first five overs of the chase as he had Paul Sterling leg before and then Dawid Malan caught at point by James Fuller.John Simpson and Eoin Morgan rebuilt with a free-flowing 65-run stand for the third wicket. But Markram entered fresh from his fifty earlier on to forge a collapse – with Simpson, Morgan and Nick Gubbins all falling within six overs.Simpson was stumped after some fantastic glovework from Tom Alsop. England one-day skipper Morgan was given extra lives when he offered two difficult chances to Rilee Rossouw on the boundary, before picking out Abbott at short fine leg. Gubbins then cut to Sam Northeast and George Scott was castled by Dawson – leaving Middlesex 121 for 6.Left arm spinner Dawson found Tom Helm skying to Gareth Berg in the ring and then Nathan Sowter caught behind.Abbott claimed his third wicket when Steve Eskinazi picked out Northeast at mid-wicket before Mason Crane wrapped up the win when Tim Murtagh was bowled.Middlesex seamer Helm had led the visitors’ attack with a five-wicket haul on a used pitch – which had played slightly slower than against Glamorgan on FridayAlsop went out at a rate of knots, following his 130 not out against Glamorgan, with three sumptuous cut shots to the boundary. But he fell soon after as he chased a wide delivery from Murtagh and was caught behind, before James Vince handed Helm his first with a steepling top edge.Markram scored a stylish run-a-ball half century in a 58-run stand with Northeast. But Markram and Northeast fell within an over of each other, the former frustratingly misjudging a pull to mid-on and the latter lbw to Nathan Sowter – leaving Hampshire looking below par at 145 for 4.Rossouw and Dawson steadied and accelerated with an 81-run partnership for the fifth wicket, the South African collected his 32nd List A fifty – from 49 balls.Dawson was well caught by Murtagh running around to short fine leg off a top edge before Helm returned to cause carnage. The 24-year-old fast bowler ripped through Rossouw and Berg in consecutive balls before completing a stunning four wickets in eight balls with the scalps of Abbott and James Fuller – the latter having smashed a quick-fire 26.Chris Wood took Hampshire past 300 with a sweetly struck six over square-leg to set their opposition 302 to win.

Half-centuries from New South Wales openers Daniel Hughes and Nick Larkin helped the Blues push beyond 300 on a vital opening day against Tasmania in Hobart.Needing a victory to all-but assure a spot in the Shield final against Victoria the Blues were sent in on a Bellerive pitch that has been brutally tough to bat first on all season, but Hughes and Larkin weathered the incessant swing and seam movement to post a 99-run opening partnership.Hughes was particularly fluent, striking 11 boundaries as he passed 50 for the sixth time this season. He fell to an incredible reflex catch from Matthew Wade at first slip. Hughes edged a ball off the back foot from Jackson Bird straight to Alex Doolan at second slip, Doolan spilt the chance but Wade’s stunning reflexes scooped the rebound inches above the turf.Larkin’s vigil last much longer. He absorbed 153 balls for his 67 and lost his stand-in skipper Kurtis Patterson in the process before he guided an outside edge straight to Doolan at second slip off Simon Milenko.The allrounder also picked Moises Henriques in the same spell before Bird returned to remove debutant Nick Bertus to leave the Blues vulnerable at 5 for 189.But youngsters Jason Sangha and Jack Edwards steadied with a 74-run stand before both fell to the second new ball.Sangha was trapped lbw by Bird for a patient 37 to give him three wickets for the day and do his Ashes hopes no harm. Edwards struck six boundaries in a brisk 44 before edging Riley Meredith to first slip.That would be Tasmania’s last wicket of the day as debutant wicketkeeper Baxter Holt and Trent Copeland added an unbeaten 46 in less than 10 overs to take the Blues past 300 at stumps. Copeland reached 30 not out from just 31 balls with five boundaries and will have a licence to press further on day two.

Trent Boult is prepared for more toil in Wellington during a season that has seen some back-breaking work for the New Zealand quicks.In December, New Zealand went wicketless during the fourth day against Sri Lanka as Kusal Mendis and Angelo Mathews added 276 in 109 overs before rain helped the visitors come out with a draw.The New Zealand bowlers have become used to having to put in the hard yards during second innings on home soil. Although they won the second Test against Sri Lanka by a handsome 423 runs in Christchurch it took them 106 overs to claim the ten wickets then last week in Hamilton saw Bangladesh make 429 in 103 overs before New Zealand wrapped up an innings win.New Zealand may not play as much Test cricket is some other nations, but overs still stack up and Boult is expecting another Basin Reserve wicket that will challenge the bowlers as the match progresses.Anyone for spin?•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

“There have been a lot of batting records here for a reason, it’s a very solid wicket and it only gets better. I’m sure they’ll leave a touch of green for the seamers to enjoy but we just need to focus on what we do well as a bowling unit,” Boult said. “I’m expecting similar conditions [to the Sri Lanka Test]. Hopefully we don’t experience a day four where it was chanceless and wicketless. If so, we need to find a way to take wickets and we feel we have the ability in the group to do it.”And, so far this season, it has been exclusively the quick bowlers who have done the damage with them claiming 52 wickets to zero for the spinners.With the New Zealand bowlers preparing for conditions which become more benign as the match progresses they are focused on making a strong start to take advantage of any life on the pitch over the first couple of days. Although their victory in Hamilton was handsome they struggled for early inroads: in the first innings Bangladesh were 121 for 1 before collapsing and in the second Tamim Iqbal and Shadman Islam added 88 for the first wicket.”There are few areas we need to work on from how we turned up in Hamilton,” Boult said. “We’d like to start a lot better, put more pressure on their top order and take a lot more early wickets because I guess they’ll have gained a lot of confidence of being able to put [nearly] 700 runs on us. We are definitely looking to rectify that.”One thing Bangladesh can expect plenty more of is short bowling, led by Neil Wagner. “I’m pretty sure they’ll be expecting it,” Boult said. “In my opinion it’s a tactic which works well when there’s not in the wicket, there’s no swing, and you not left with many other options. We have Wags who is an expert at being able to execute that plan but it’s been pretty effective for us so expect it will be more of the same.”

With the five-match ODI series against India already lost after three games, James Neesham and Todd Astle have been brought back into the New Zealand fold, and will be available for selection for the fourth and fifth games in Hamilton (January 31) and Wellington (February 3).Neesham replaced fellow fast-bowling allrounder Doug Bracewell, while Astle came in as the premier legspinner in place of Ish Sodhi.

NZ squad for last two ODIs

Kane Williamson (capt), Todd Astle, Trent Boult, Colin de Grandhomme, Lockie Ferguson, Martin Guptill, Matt Henry, Tom Latham (wk), Colin Munro, James Neesham, Henry Nicholls, Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee, Ross Taylor

Neesham was a part of the three-ODI series against Sri Lanka in early January before suffering a grade-one hamstring strain. He has since returned to the field, turning out for Wellington in the Super Smash and proving his fitness.Astle had been out of action since November last year with a knee injury, but, like Neesham, returned in the Super smash, where he played four games for Canterbury in January.Picking Neesham, who has played 44 ODIs, and Astle, who has appeared in only six games in the format, were in line with the team’s plans in the run-up to the World Cup, said Gavin Larsen, the New Zealand selector.”Doug and Ish have been two of the brighter spots of the ODI series so far and we’ve been encouraged by their performances against a quality Indian side,” he said. “It’s great to welcome back the all-round skills of Jimmy and Todd and we’re looking forward to seeing what they can bring to the series.”We’re still looking to keep our options open with selections at this stage and ensure we continue to learn as much as we can about our players.”

Saurashtra’s loss to Vidarbha briefly reopened talks of the team not able to get past the final hurdle – this was their third straight loss in a Ranji Trophy final – but Jaydev Unadkat, their captain, felt there were enough encouraging signs to bank on in the future.”I think any loss would be disappointing, but I don’t think it’s more painful than the last two [finals],” he said. “The brand of cricket we played and developed this year has been special. The difference between what we lost when we lost the last couple of finals and this final was obviously the fight we put up. This special bunch of players that have really done so well and have the capability of winning the title. So, I would say it’s not really painful this time around. I am really happy and proud with the way the guys put up this fight throughout this season, not just this match.”Sitanshu Kotak, Saurashtra’s coach, said the biggest turning point in the final came when Vidarbha’s lower order rescued them from a precarious 139 for 6 in the first innings and went on to more than double the score.”To get to 312 on such a wicket where batting first was an advantage was a big thing,” Kotak said. “If we could have restricted them to 250, it could have made a difference. [After] losing the toss on that kind of wicket we knew that it would become a difficult pitch to bat on in both second and fourth innings, so it was important to restrict them. At 139 for 6 we had the opportunity. If we had restricted them to 50-60 runs less then we would have also got to bat earlier than when we batted on a pitch which was deteriorating gradually from day two. “Kotak said despite that setback 200 was chaseable. “For me 200 was still on. It wasn’t a score that you can’t chase. I thought we had a 50-50 chance. We could have done with one good partnership.”Kotak has been part of Saurashtra’s all three losses in a Ranji final – first as a player in 2012-13 and then as coach in 2015-16 and now – but still he remained positive.”In the last four years Saurashtra have contested three major finals – two Ranji and once in Vijay Hazare Trophy,” he said. “So I cannot be more critical of my players.”In a contest that went into the fifth day, Unadkat singled out Vidarbha’s spinners, particularly Aditya Sarwate, for making the difference. His twin strikes of Cheteshwar Pujara for 1 and 0 in both innings left Saurashtra’s middle order with a tall task on a challenging VCA surface. Sarwate took a match haul of 11 for 157 to finish the season as the third-highest wicket-taker, with 55 wickets in 11 matches at an average of 19.67.”It’s all down to a couple of mistakes together, that said, their spinners bowled better than ours,” Unadkat conceded. “Even to Cheteshwar [Pujara], the way he bowled, credit has to go to Aditya. The way he kept bowling at him, if Pujara would’ve settled on that wicket, he could have defined the game. To get him out early in both innings is creditable, that’s why they came out on top of us.”Unadkat repeatedly pointed towards Saurashtra’s new brand of cricket. He underlined this by explaining how a young batting line-up punched above its weight at different times this season, none more significant than in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, where they chased down 372 and 279 against Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka respectively.Unadkat also spent considerable time explaining why the loss – as hard at it was to swallow – also gave hope of a brighter future. He was asked point blank if the team froze at the finish line, he was asked if they were “soft”, but the captain countered it calmly and went the extra mile to put his views across.Cheteshwar Pujara during a practice session•Ekana Cricket Media/ Randhir Dev

“I don’t think so, the way we have played, if you’ve seen us play in the quarters or semis, the intensity we showed, it didn’t come across as soft at all,” he said. “We play to win, we will play to win, this is the spirit. Desperation arises from the fact that when you lose, you start the blame game, and want to take credit when the team wins. That isn’t the case with our team. Even when we lose, we learn from our mistakes, when we win, it’s not about me or Cheteshwar. We weren’t desperate. Yes, we were eager.Unadkat refused to be drawn into Pujara’s fourth-innings dismissal as a major reason for their inability to chase down 207. “I always believe in a fourth-innings chase, a couple of guys have to step up, either the openers or the guys batting at No. 3 or 4 to really chase it down. Because pressure takes toll on anyone, be it any player,” he said. “In a game like this, the pressure would be high on players. I still feel they put up a fight; we fought till the end, till the last wicket was lost. It’s just about one bad innings, one collapse. That was the difference between both sides.”As someone coming in to play the knockouts after a successful tour of Australia, Pujara’s words to the team in the dressing room, after they had lost, spoke of the character and spirit this Saurashtra side stood for.”Cheteshwar himself said, whatever teams he’s played in, the kind of team spirit we’ve shown this season is unmatchable,” Unadkat revealed. “We really don’t have too many players who are playing for India or India A, so it has to be the team that has to do well and that’s what we have been doing.