A flare-up in the dressing room immediately after the Champions Trophy final may have been the final act of Anil Kumble’s tumultuous final weeks as India coach

Nagraj Gollapudi21-Jun-20171:06

How the Kohli-Kumble saga played out

A flare-up in the dressing room immediately after the Champions Trophy final may have been the last act of Anil Kumble’s tumultuous final weeks as India coach. According to insiders, Kumble, who stepped down as coach on Tuesday, gave a “dressing-down” to one of his players at The Oval on Sunday, moments after Pakistan had completed a 180-run win to seal the title.Debriefings are part of the coach’s job and it was natural for Kumble to have been disappointed after the crushing defeat. But a BCCI official said his timing was not right.”After the final he gave a big dressing-down to the player,” the official said. “There is a time for everything. Team has just lost. They are down. You come and [give the dressing down].”Kumble was unavailable to comment on developments since Tuesday.The morning after the final, when Kumble met the BCCI top brass, he was told of the reservations the players, including captain Virat Kohli, had with regards to his approach. In his parting note, which he released on Twitter on Tuesday, Kumble said it was the first time he had been told of these differences. Yet, others in the know insist that the relationship between Kohli and Kumble had become dysfunctional over the last few months.On Tuesday, when the India squad left for the Caribbean to play a limited-overs series against West Indies, Kumble stayed back in London to participate in the ICC’s chief executives committee meeting, where he sat as chairman of the cricket committee. Although Kumble’s year-long contract ended with the Champions Trophy, the BCCI had given him an extension until the end of the West Indies series.”Kumble had accepted to travel to the West Indies, but that was subject to resolving the differences,” the BCCI official said. The BCCI had even booked a room in his name in the team hotel in Trinidad, where India start the five-match ODI series on June 23. Kumble was meant to land on Thursday.Kumble had been recommended by the BCCI’s three-man cricket advisory panel comprising Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman. Despite not having any formal coaching experience, the CAC felt Kumble had the right credentials for the job, and offered it to him ahead of candidates such as Ravi Shastri, who had been the India team director for two years.Before the Champions Trophy, the BCCI decided to invite fresh applications instead of extending Kumble’s contract. The job was advertised the day India landed in England (May 25) to start their Champions Trophy campaign. Asked if he agreed with the BCCI’s decision, Kohli simply said the BCCI was following its usual processes. Later on, during the tournament, he denied any rift within the team, saying there were “no issues whatsoever”. BCCI secretary Amitabh Choudhary, meanwhile, said the friction between coach and players was solely in the “realms of imagination” of the media.According to one of its officials, the BCCI had booked a room in the team hotel for Anil Kumble in Trinidad, where India start their five-match ODI series against West Indies•Getty Images

Only six applicants put forward their resume, one of them being Kumble himself. The CAC informed the BCCI that Kumble remained the frontrunner as his track record as coach had no blemish. The CAC was then asked to patch up the differences between Kumble and Kohli. Although the CAC met Kohli, it did not meet with Kumble.In his meeting with the BCCI on Tuesday, Kumble said that since the CAC did not want to meet him he could not have been doing anything wrong. “Anil just did not budge,” the BCCI official said. “He said the CAC met Virat and did not meet me [Kumble], so I am the guy who is right.”Kumble has never been shy of expressing his opinion, but the official said the last word in the dressing room has always belonged to the captain. Kumble, according to the official, was trying to “overstep” and that caused problems. “In the cricket construct it is the captain who takes the credit and the flak. Everybody else plays the supporting role. But Kumble wanted due credit.”It is understood “multiple meetings” took place during the Champions Trophy to attempt to repair the relationship, but Kohli’s opinion had not changed when he met the BCCI separately on Monday. “There is no cricketing difference between the two. It has been a personality clash.”Kumble and Kohli not wanting to reach out to each other to mend their differences may have widened the chasm between the pair over the past few months, culminating in the former opting to leave the job. The board official felt Kumble, being the senior, could have tried a little harder to reach out to Kohli. The official said being a prominent personality himself and having been in cricket for a long time, Kumble could have drawn on that experience to “handle personalities” in the dressing room.In his statement, Kumble said he had made clear the distinction between the roles of coach and captain. “I was informed for the first time yesterday by the BCCI that the captain had reservations with my ‘style’ and about my continuing as the head coach,” he said. “I was surprised since I had always respected the role boundaries between captain and coach.”

Meg Lanning has achieved plenty in her career so far but over the next couple of months, captaining Australia to a Women’s World Cup title is foremost on her list of goals

ESPNcricinfo staff29-May-2017Meg Lanning has achieved plenty in her career so far but over the next couple of months, captaining Australia to a Women’s World Cup title is foremost on her list of goals. Australia have a remarkable record at the Women’s World Cup, having won six of the 10 tournaments (England have won three and New Zealand one), but this is Lanning’s first World Cup as skipper.Jodie Fields led Australia to triumph in the 2013 final against West Indies, and Lanning is one of seven players from this year’s World Cup squad who was also part of the previous winning squad. The Australians are this week training on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast in preparation for heading to England for the tournament, and Lanning’s players will this week spend some time with Australia’s previous World Cup winners.”It’s a great chance to learn from those players who have been there and done it before, and probably under some difficult circumstances at times,” Lanning said. “It definitely wasn’t anywhere near professional when we were winning those World Cups a while ago. We’re very excited as a group to be able to meet the players who have been successful in the past, because World Cups are very special and different to what we’re used to.”Our team has been very successful over a long period of time. We’re looking forward to forging our own way as a team, and trying to deliver as best we can. We know it’s going to be really tough. We know it’s going to be a very open tournament. But we’re all excited about the opportunity and looking forward to making the most of the last couple of weeks in Australia and then getting over to England and preparing as well as we can.”Australia’s squad this year features several players new to international cricket, including Ashleigh Gardner and Amanda-Jade Wellington, both of whom have made their debuts over the past few months. Teenage fast bowler Belinda Vakarewa is in line for her international debut at the World Cup, and Lanning said she was an exciting talent.”She’s coming out of her shell a little bit,” Lanning said. “She was pretty quiet early on, but she mainly let her actions do the talking in the first [practice] game. She was really enthusiastic, she really impressed us with her attitude towards the team. She’s come in really nicely and she’s improving all the time. She’s still very young, but we’re really excited about what she can bring to the team through this World Cup and into the future as well.”I think that’s really exciting for the group, to be able to bring in some younger players who bring different skill sets and really add to the group. That’s the really good thing about our side, is we’ve been able to evolve over the last couple of years and we feel like we’ve got a lot of bases covered in terms of different skill sets.”

Dinesh Chandimal has been named Sri Lanka’s new Test captain, after Angelo Mathews stepped down from the role in all formats on Tuesday

Andrew Fidel Fernando12-Jul-2017Dinesh Chandimal has been named Sri Lanka’s new Test captain, after Angelo Mathews stepped down from the role in all formats on Tuesday. Upul Tharanga will take over in ODIs and T20s.Chandimal had served as Mathews’ deputy and led the T20 team in the past, while Tharanga led the ODI team when Mathews had been injured.Speaking at the press conference to announce the new captains, Mathews, who quit following the 3-2 ODI defeat at home to Zimbabwe, said: “Yes, there have been significant poor performances, and I’m humble enough to accept it. In the past also there were instances where I wanted to step down but I didn’t want to let the team down at that time, mainly because there were no replacements. The team’s interests supercede my personal interests.”There were two things working in my mind. The first is whether this was the right time considering the team. My honest opinion is that there are candidates who can take over the reins. I’m pretty sure that they will be more successful and better captains than me. I also wanted to give my successor enough time until the World Cup, to build up a team. Those were the main reasons for me to step down.”Mathews said that although he was disappointed with Sri Lanka’s results in 2017, he resigns having given his best to the job.”I have at all times played in the exclusive interest of Sri Lankan cricket, and have not at any time compromised my national duties for any personal gain,” he said, reading a portion of his letter of resignation to the board. “I have at all times given utmost priority to making myself available over any franchise commitment, and have at times pre-terminated franchise commitments in order to fulfill national obligations. Subject to me being selected for national duty, I would ensure my fullest commitment to the national cricket team. Moreover, I would at all times support and guide our profusely talented young team, as well as my successor, in every way.”Chandimal was always a top contender to take over from Mathews, particularly because he had been groomed as a leader in the past. Though Chandimal’s patchy form in ODIs led to his exclusion from the recent squad to play Zimbabwe, he has matured as a Test batsman – most recently making a difficult ton against Bangladesh at the P Sara Oval. He averages 41.17 since the start of 2015, and has scored 2540 runs at an average of 42.33 all told. Chandimal had also been a successful captain at school level, leading Ananda College to record number of outright victories in his senior year.”I want to take this team and Sri Lanka forward, so I will put my heart and soul into the job,” Chandimal said after the announcement. “I’m very thankful to the job that Angie [Mathews] has done for us. Captaincy is not an easy job and he was an excellent leader for us over four-and-a-half years. He’s also a terrific batsman and a match-winner for us, and I have huge hopes that he will continue to be one in the coming years as well.”Tharanga’s rise to the limited-overs captaincy has been sharper. He had been dropped from Sri Lanka’s limited-overs sides as recently as the first half of 2016, but has since led the team in 14 ODIs, as acting captain in Mathews’ absence. He has been in excellent form in recent months, however, averaging 49 in ODIs since November. He has been moved around the batting order during that time, sometimes opening the batting, and batting in the middle order at others. Sri Lanka have won four and lost eight of the ODIs Tharanga has captained – six of those losses coming against South Africa.Tharanga also thanked Mathews for his leadership, and the selectors for giving him the opportunity to lead. He acknowledged that Sri Lanka’s recent performances had been modest.”I don’t want to say that as a team we’ve done poorly in the recent past, but we have had some ups and downs,” Tharanga said. “Some matches we do well, and others we don’t. In future we have to be more consistent. We all want to take Sri Lanka forward.”

Lightning and bad light ended batting practice for the touring West Indies who emerged second-best from their three-day draw with a makeshift Kent XI in Canterbury

ECB Reporters Network08-Aug-2017
Shimron Hetmyer enjoyed some time in the middle•Sarah Ansell / Stringer

Lightning and bad light ended batting practice for the touring West Indies who emerged second-best from their three-day draw with a makeshift Kent XI in Canterbury. The game ended just before 5pm when lightning and heavy cloud took the players from the field with the West Indies on 132 for 4 – representing a modest overall lead in the match of 66 runs.Toby Radford, West Indies’ batting coach, was pleased with the workout his players had received. Shai Hope and Jermaine Blackwood made first-innings centuries and Shimron Hetmyer added an unbeaten 43 on day three.”Kent bowled in good areas and kept coming at us,” he said. “They swung it away to the right-handers and whenever we batted in this match there was cloud cover and a little bit of juice around. It was nipping around throughout, perfect English bowling conditions for when we batted and we talked about that, playing late and knowing where your off stump is. They’re finding out for themselves now that’s how you have to play here.”Jermaine has been in good form since we landed and Hetmyer has scored a lot of runs in the Under-19s and is making the big jump up a couple of levels. These guys are young, but they’re learning quickly.”We’re getting a lot of 30s and 40s, we need to convert them to bigger scores and make sure we post big first-innings total because if we’re to truly push England then we must get big scores up on the board first time around. Players batting for two-and-a-half hours won’t be enough, they have to be prepared to battle it out for a whole day or more.”The final day’s play finally got underway at 12.20pm after an 80-minute delay for rain, but once again the visiting top-order soon found the overcast conditions tricky against Kent’s rookie attack of seam and swing-bowlers.Facing a 66-run first innings deficit, West Indies lost their acting skipper Kraigg Brathwaite to Charlie Hartley’s fourth ball of the day. Prodding forward, Brathwaite feathered a legcutter through to keeper Adam Rouse to go without scoring and give Hartley his fifth wicket of the match. Then, with 24 on the board, Matt Hunn got one to hold its line against the slope and take the outside edge of Kyle Hope’s bat for Rouse to snaffle his second catch and send Hope packing for 9 as the tourists lunched on 24 for 2 – still 44 in arrears.After the interval Kieran Powell and Shai Hope made a watchful return, both surviving lbw appeals before drizzle again took the players from the field with the tourists on 45 for 2. Play resumed at 3.05pm with the loss of nine more overs and Rouse was soon celebrating a third catch after Powell tickled one from Adam Ball to depart for 23.Hope and Hetmyer made good their side’s 66-run first-innings arrears before Hartley bagged his sixth wicket of the match, having Hope well held at short extra cover by Zak Crawley as the tourists took tea with a modest lead of 22 runs. In fading light Hetmyer showed his steel with a battling 43 before the sides shook hands on the draw.

Yorkshire would have slipped into the bottom two if they had lost after following-on against Surrey but hundreds by Shaun Marsh and Alex Lees guarded against calamity

ECB Reporters Network15-Sep-2017Determined hundreds from both Shaun Marsh and Alex Lees ensured Yorkshire’s escape with a hard-earned draw against Surrey at the Kia Oval despite having been being forced to follow-on in their Specsavers County Championship match.Marsh finished unbeaten on 125, from 263 balls, in a dedicated demonstration of crease occupation across five and a half hours, and he had guided Yorkshire to safety at 281 for 2 in their second innings – an overall lead of 83 – when bad light prevented the last 31 overs of the match from being bowled. There was just one over sent down after tea before umpires Michael Burns and Neil Mallender took the players off, never to return.It was a fine effort from Marsh and Lees, with the five draw points highly valuable to a Yorkshire team who are facing a fight to avoid relegation from Division One in the upcoming last fortnight of the season. The 10 points they take from this match leaves them on 124, just one point ahead of both Somerset and Middlesex and with one of those three counties seemingly destined to join already relegated Warwickshire in the second division next season.

So many could go down – Gale

Andrew Gale (Yorkshire head coach): “There are so many teams down there who can go down. Surrey aren’t out of it just yet, either. We’ve got two massive games, but for me the key is not to look at the table. We just need to perform like we have done with the bat here. Our home form has been good for a number of years, and we back ourselves at home.”
Michael Di Venuto (Surrey head coach): “We thought the pitch was going to break up a bit more than it did. The guts of the wicket was still very good for batting. There was a bit of rough there for the spinners to work with, but it was only slow turn.”

Marsh and fellow left-hander Lees put on 215 in 67 overs, a Yorkshire second wicket record against Surrey. The previous record, of 196 between Herbert Sutcliffe and Edgar Oldroyd, dated back to 1922 and was also at the Oval.The 24-year-old Lees, having completed his first century of what has been a difficult, low-scoring season for him, reached 102 from201 balls before chopping on attempting to cut slow left-arm spinner Freddie van den Bergh. It was the 12th first-class hundred of Lees’ career.Yorkshire resumed on 59 for one, still 139 runs adrift, and Marsh was largely untroubled as he moved on from his overnight 27. Lees, however, who started the day on 19, was close to being leg-before to Sam Curran’s left-arm seam and swing when on 24 and, after being beaten by the same bowler on 32, he survived a confident appeal for a catch behind off Curran on 33.On a last day pitch still good for batting, and against a Surrey bowling attack surely growing weary on a third successive day in the field, Marsh took the opportunity to underline his claims for inclusion in Australia’s Ashes Test plans.This was his 22nd first-class hundred, four of which have been made in his 23 Test appearances to date. Next week, his place as overseas batsman in Yorkshire’s team passes to Kraigg Brathwaite, the West Indies opener signed for the last two games of the championship season with a view to an extended stint going into next summer. Gary Ballance kept Marsh company with 28 not out before the bad light brought a premature finish to the game.Surrey, who take 12 points from the game and now have 136 in total, are not yet totally out of the relegation picture themselves – even third-placed Hampshire could yet be sucked in. Surrey host Somerset at the Kia Oval next week, before a visit in the last week of the season to play Lancashire at Old Trafford.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s 3 for 45, followed by fifties from Shikhar Dhawan and Dinesh Karthik, led India to a series-levelling six-wicket win in Pune

The Report by Karthik Krishnaswamy25-Oct-2017
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details2:08

Harris: New Zealand were short of runs

New Zealand won the first ODI at the Wankhede Stadium courtesy their preparedness against India’s spinners, and the success of a key tactical move – swapping the batting positions of Colin Munro and Tom Latham. Three days later, following a trip down the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, India turned the tables with their own counter-tactics, on a pitch with just enough grass on it to allow their fast bowlers to bowl a traditional good length.Bhuvneshwar Kumar finished with three wickets and Jasprit Bumrah with two, the pair conceding only 83 in their 20 overs as New Zealand set India a target of 231 to level the series. The chase proved straightforward, with Shikhar Dhawan and Dinesh Karthik scoring half-centuries to lead India home with four overs remaining.New Zealand’s fast bowlers didn’t begin half as well as their Indian counterparts, with Trent Boult and Tim Southee routinely pitching short in their new-ball spells. India hit seven fours in the first seven overs, and five of them came off the back foot, via pulls and punches and slashes over the slips. Rohit Sharma fell early, flicking Boult in the air, but the easy flow of boundaries meant New Zealand never put any pressure on the second-wicket pair of Dhawan and Virat Kohli, who added 57 off 56 balls.Kohli fell in the 14th over, driving away from his body at one that wasn’t full enough from Colin de Grandhomme, and Karthik walked in at No. 4, joining the endless carousel of batsmen to audition for the role in recent months. He began his innings with a boundary, guiding de Grandhomme between backward point and short third man, and ended the match with another – a sweetly timed on-the-up drive through the covers – but endured a bit of a struggle in between, never entirely fluent but always serving the interests of the chase.New Zealand never managed two wickets in quick succession, with Karthik a constant thorn at one end: he added 66 with Dhawan for the third wicket, 59 with Hardik Pandya for the fourth, and an unbroken 28 with MS Dhoni for the fifth. The pitch wasn’t a belter, but it was still batting-friendly, and New Zealand hadn’t set a big enough target to force India into taking any real risks.For that India will thank their bowlers, particularly Bhuvneshwar and Bumrah. Bowling a mix of slower balls and bouncers, India’s new-ball pair exposed Munro’s leaden-footed technique, and he plodded his way to 10 off 16 balls before Bhuvneshwar slipped a knuckleball through his defences. Before that, seam movement from a good length took out Martin Guptill and Kane Williamson, both stuck on the crease, the former nicking an away-seamer, the latter lbw to an inducker, and New Zealand were 27 for 3.It was here that Latham came to the crease. During his unbeaten hundred in Mumbai, the sweep had been his most productive stroke, fetching him 26 runs off 16 balls and putting India’s pair of wristspinners off their lengths. India had responded by leaving out one of their wristspinners and bringing in the left-arm orthodox of Axar Patel – a flat, stump-to-stump, and therefore harder-to-sweep bowler. But before bringing Axar on, and as soon as the first Powerplay ended, India brought on Kedar Jadhav, who hadn’t bowled at all in Mumbai.With his round-the-wicket angle and low-arm release, Jadhav either angled the ball into Latham’s stumps or occasionally fired one wide of off stump, neither line conducive to the sweep, particularly given Jadhav’s lack of bounce. He bowled seven straight overs in his first spell, and only conceded 24, and in that time Latham played him with a studiously straight bat, only sweeping twice while scoring 11 off 23 balls.Jadhav’s spell kept Latham in check, and in the time he was at the crease – in the company of Ross Taylor and then Henry Nicholls – New Zealand only managed 91 runs in 22.1 overs. The sweep appeared more frequently once Jadhav went out of the attack, but eventually the shot cost Latham his wicket, for 38 off 62 balls, as he failed to cover for Axar Patel’s switch to left-arm around.The arrival of de Grandhomme perked up New Zealand’s scoring, the allrounder playing a number of eye-catching flicks and on-drives while adding 47 for the sixth wicket at 5.42 per over with the more prosaic Nicholls. But just when the partnership was looking threatening, Bhuvneshwar broke it in the 38th over, when he returned for a two-over second spell. Again he hit that perfect length to prompt Nicholls to drive without getting a full stride forward, and again he found just enough movement to beat the inside edge and peg back leg stump.Bhuvneshwar and Bumrah only conceded 12 in the last four overs of the second Powerplay, and perhaps this built extra pressure on de Grandhomme, who fell while trying to push the pace in the last over of spin, the 44th. Yuzvendra Chahal tossed one up wide of off stump, and de Grandhomme, reaching out for the big one, sliced a catch to short third man. Chahal’s next ball was a slider, which caught Adam Milne plumb in front.New Zealand were 188 for 8 at this point. Mitchell Santner and Tim Southee ensured they would end up with a fighting total, courtesy a ninth-wicket stand of 32, but 230 was still decidedly below par.

The opener added 142 with PJ Moor, who made 52, to help Zimbabwe recover from the depths of 14 for 3

The Report by Liam Brickhill in Bulawayo29-Oct-2017
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsHamilton Masakadza pierces the off side•AFP

Hamilton Masakadza’s fifth Test century carried Zimbabwe back into the match on a rainy first day at Queens Sports Club. Masakadza shared a 142-run partnership with PJ Moor to help the hosts recover from the depths of 14 for 3, Kemar Roach and Shannon Gabriel having scythed through the top order under gunmetal grey skies after Graeme Cremer had opted to bat. Moor fell for 52, but Masakadza was unbeaten and unbowed on 101 when rain brought the day to a premature end after tea.As is often his wont, and possibly as an effect of the unseasonal cold that has descended on Bulawayo, Masakadza took some time to get going this morning. He did not score until his 17th delivery, and then did so in trademark style: thrashing a full ball through the covers with a solid crunch.At 34, Masakadza is the senior statesman of the side and he displayed the class and patience befitting his position. His knock wasn’t perfect, but he did enough to survive the edges and misses and was also granted the odd slice of luck. An edge off Roach fell short of the wicketkeeper, and a Gabriel no-ball granted a further reprieve.Beaten by the pace of a bouncer in the 11th over, Masakadza seemed to have inside edged a pull onto his own shoulder, the rebound being caught at gully. Umpire Simon Fry turned down the appeal, West Indies reviewed and Masakadza started walking off. But Gabriel had overstepped, and the no-ball allowed Masakadza to bat on. The opener remained particularly fluent through the covers.He found an obdurate partner in Moor, and gradually they helped Zimbabwe restore parity, the score creeping past 50 in the 21st over. Other teams have tested Moor with the short ball, and though the West Indies certainly have the personnel to do so their main line of attack was outside the off stump. Moor had the gumption to pick which ball to leave, and which to hit, and his patience barely faltered: his first boundary was a rasping cut off Holder in the 18th over, his second came more than 28 overs later and was no less well executed.At the other end, Masakadza continued to gain momentum, passing fifty from 96 deliveries. He celebrated that milestone with his first six of the day, rocking back to thump a Bishoo long-hop over deep midwicket. Gabriel was driven whenever he overpitched, while the introduction of Roston Chase was greeted with yet another crunching drive. The same bowler was dispatched over midwicket for Masakadza’s second six, the shot taking him past 2000 Test runs for Zimbabwe.Moor reached a dogged fifty, from 148 deliveries soon after tea, and Masakadza then brought up his own milestone with a confident drive down to long-on in the 60th over, just before the rain arrived. This was Masakadza’s fifth Test century, and his first since 2014.His runs were sorely needed by Zimbabwe. In polar conditions this morning, Gabriel and Roach had cut the hosts’ top order down to 14 for 3. The temperature was up to 38 degrees earlier this week, but plummeted ahead of this game and there were hands in pockets for the slips in the very cold weather. They stayed there for much of the morning with the sun nowhere to be seen, but Zimbabwe’s feet were even more leaden in the cold, and the opening stand lasted just four overs.Roach used the angle of his delivery stride and a touch of seam and swing to masterful effect to remove Solomon Mire, while the dismissal of Craig Ervine resulted more from fast bowling brawn than brain. Coming round the wicket from the Airport End, Gabriel speared a length delivery at the left-hander’s middle stump, beating him for pace. Such was the speed of the delivery the stump snapped in half, and Zimbabwe were 11 for 2.West Indies smelled blood, and Roach had three slips and a gully for the incoming Brendan Taylor. In the event, he needed no fielders at all as his testing lines and cunning changes of angle soon paid dividends. Neither forward nor back, and unsure whether to even play at a delivery whipping through the channel outside off, Taylor succeeded only in deflecting the ball onto his own stumps to leave Zimbabwe reeling at 14 for 3.West Indies might have had a fourth wicket in the first hour, but Gabriel’s front foot boo-boo gave Masakadza a second life. So far, he has made excellent use of it.

South Australia wicketkeeper Alex Carey scored his maiden first-class hundred as the Redbacks built a hefty total of 485 before reducing Queensland to 4 for 123 by stumps

ESPNcricinfo staff04-Dec-2017
ScorecardGetty Images

South Australia wicketkeeper Alex Carey scored his maiden first-class hundred as the Redbacks built a hefty total of 485 on the second day against Queensland in Cairns. In reply, Queensland had wobbled to 4 for 123 by stumps, with only former Test opener Joe Burns showing significant resistance, finishing the day unbeaten on 67 alongside Jack Wildermuth on 10.Swing bowler Chadd Sayers, released from the Test squad after being overlooked for a home-ground debut at Adelaide Oval, struck in the third over of the innings when he trapped discarded Test opener Matt Renshaw lbw for 4. David Grant, Adam Zampa and Joe Mennie each picked up a wicket as the Queensland batsmen struggled to establish their innings, with the exception of Burns, who struck five fours and two sixes.But there was a long way to go for the Bulls after the strong batting display from Carey and the South Australia lower order. The Redbacks had resumed on 8 for 328, but any hopes the home team had of quickly running through the tail were dashed by the 117-run stand compiled by Carey and Sayers, who made a career-best 46.Carey had enjoyed a remarkable debut Shield season last summer with a tournament record number of wicketkeeping dismissals as well as 594 runs, but a century was the one thing missing. He ticked that box and was the last man out, caught off the spin of Marnus Labuschagne for 139 after building a 45-run tenth-wicket stand with Grant.