Shakib, Rashid star as Sunrisers defend another low total

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Sunrisers Hyderabad 132 for 6 (Pandey 54, Shakib 28, Rajpoot 5-14) beat Kings XI Punjab 119 (Rahul 32, Rashid 3-19, Shakib 2-18) by 13 runs
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Shaun Tait, Ajit Agarkar and the ESPNcricinfo team discuss Kings XI's failure to chase 132 in Hyderabad

No Billy Stanlake and Bhuvneshwar Kumar? No problem, again. Two nights after pulling off the second-lowest successful defence in the IPL, Sunrisers Hyderabad defended 132 to snap Kings XI Punjab's four-match winning streak. That they could pull off another coup seemed improbable when Ankit Rajpoot's 5 for 14 - the best figures in IPL 2018 and the sixth best overall - pinned Sunrisers down to 132 for 6. It seemed as improbable when KL Rahul and Chris Gayle, the most prolific opening pair this season, raised their fourth fifty-plus stand in as many innings opening together.

Enter Rashid Khan, the No.1 T20 bowler right now, and the experienced Shakib Al Hasan. They ran rings around Kings XI's line-up and threatened both edges. Sandeep Sharma did his bit with knuckle balls. And, just like that, there was a slip breathing down the batsman's neck. Just like that, Kings XI's chase unravelled: from 55 for 0 they imploded to 101 for 9. Mujeeb Ur Rahman then hacked and reverse-swept his way to 10 off five balls - his first runs in T20 cricket - and reduced the equation to 15 off the last over. The first ball of that from Basil Thampi was a sharp inswinging yorker, which thudded into the pads of Mujeeb, who sneaked in a leg bye. Thampi then nailed the base of Rajpoot's middle stump to cap Sunrisers' comeback and move them to second on the points table.

Bouncing 'em out

The ball was bursting off a length and zipping through to the keeper in Hyderabad. The conditions here might have reminded Rajpoot of his stint in South Africa earlier this year as a net bowler. He bounced out Kane Williamson and Shikhar Dhawan in the Powerplay before returning in the last over of the innings to floor Manish Pandey's middle stump with an inch-perfect yorker from wide of the crease.

Rajpoot had shown signs of his hit-the-deck bustle against Delhi Daredevils on Monday, when he claimed 4-0-23-2 in an uninterrupted four-over spell with the new ball. But this pitch had more grass and offered more bounce. Rajpoot exploited it in his first over and had Williamson splicing a catch to mid-off for a duck. This was the reason why he was picked ahead of the more experienced Mohit Sharma.

Barinder Sran, at the other end, also found extra bounce but lacked enough discipline. He had Shakib top-edging a cut to third man, but replays indicated that Sran's front foot had strayed. At that point, Shakib was on 0. Sran came close to a wicket on another occasion, when he had Pandey skewing one over mid-off. R Ashwin ran back but he could not cling on.

Squeezing 'em out

Pandey had two more lives, but he could not break out of the funk. Ashwin and Mujeeb did not make his life easier with their bag of tricks. They kept batsmen guessing with offbreaks, legbreaks, googlies, carom balls, and front-of-the-hand sliders. Andrew Tye's knuckle balls ensured there was no escape against him either. The three bowlers had combined figures of 12-0-79-1. The 52-run partnership between Shakib Al Hasan and Pandey, which came at just 5.88 runs an over, was the slowest stand of 50 or more this season. Pandey's fifty, off 48 balls, was the slowest this season, but it hauled Sunrisers past 130 and gave their bowlers a sniff.

Sunrisers' attack bosses it, again

A sniff was all that they needed. Rahul and Gayle had just seen off Sandeep's opening spell and shaved 53 runs off the target in seven overs. Rashid, though, provided the breakthrough in his first over, with a perfectly pitched legbreak, which turned just enough to beat the outside edge and clatter into off stump. Rahul did not read it: he was playing inside the line, searching for a googly. In the next over, Thampi rushed Gayle for pace and pouched a return catch. Two set batsmen gone in four balls.

Karun Nair and Mayank Agarwal nervously knocked the ball into the gaps to leave Kings XI needing 56 off 48 balls. Then, instead of continuing to find the gaps, Agarwal hared down the track to Shakib, but did not meet the pitch of the ball and holed out to wide long-on. That set in motion a terminal collapse.

Mujeeb gave Sunrisers a late scare but the spinners and Sandeep had done enough to help them survive it. Rashid and Shakib combined for figures of 7-0-37-5. Then there was the reserve quick Thampi providing the finishing touches and highlighting the depth in the attack. He had been named the emerging player of the year last season, but could not break into the team in 2018 until Stanlake and Bhuvneshwar sustained injuries. That's how good this attack is.

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Rubio tries to defend tax law stance, only manages to insult an intern and further muddy waters – ThinkProgress

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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is once again defending the Republican tax law, just days after he said there’s no evidence it has helped American workers.

On Wednesday, Rubio tried to indignantly correct a Politico story that said he is “walking back” his earlier criticisms of the recently-passed Republican tax overhaul, insulting an intern and failing to make his point any clearer in the process.

The tax overhaul, passed and signed into law last December, raises taxes on middle class people making between $40,000 and $50,000 a year by more than $5 billion, cuts taxes by more than $5.5 billion for people making more than $1 million a year, punishes wage-earning employees, and repeals the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. The changes will likely force billions of dollars in cuts to safety net programs and kill — by conservative estimates — 10,000 people every year.

It was an interview with The Economist last week, Rubio acknowledged some of the bill’s failures, as well as the failure of trickle down economics in general.

“There is still a lot of thinking on the right that if big corporations are happy, they’re going to take the money they’re saving and reinvest it in American workers,” Rubio said in the interview. “In fact they bought back shares, a few gave out bonuses; there’s no evidence whatsoever that the money’s been massively poured back into the American worker.”

Politico compared that quote from his interview released last Thursday to a quote from an op-ed he published in The National Review Wednesday where he said, “On the whole, the tax cut bill helps workers. It’s just not massive tax cuts to multinational corporations that do it.”

He goes on, saying, “Overall, the Republican tax-cut bill has been good for Americans. That is why I voted for it. But it could have been even better for American workers and their families.”

His Wednesday article, Politico speculated, “may be seen as act of political damage control following blowback from some conservatives over his less than glowing review of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.”

Rubio responded to Politico’s assessment on Twitter, first noting pointlessly that the article had been written by an intern.

Although written by intern at Politico, this article is a reminder of how difficult it can be to discuss public policy in political press. Not only did I not back down on tax cut, I doubled down & added detail for rationale https://t.co/4NTDOxcEju

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) May 2, 2018

“Not only did I not back down on tax cut, I doubled down and added detail for rationale,” Rubio tweeted.

Perhaps that was Rubio’s intention, but that isn’t actually what his vague opinion piece published Wednesday does. The piece is literally headlined, “Two Cheers for Corporate Tax Cuts,” while the subhead of his Economist interview released two days earlier proclaimed, “The Florida senator thinks that reheating Reaganomics is a dead end.”

In his National Review piece, Rubio does attempt to explain some of his thinking, but he ultimately only ends up waffling on whether stock buy-backs can benefit workers.

“Stock buybacks, by increasing the share value of foreign shareholders and driving new investment to its most productive use regardless of where or what that use might be, isn’t guaranteed to go fully to Americans’ paychecks,” he writes. “When this happens, it can encourage arbitrage, not American productivity.”

And while Rubio derided corporate tax cuts last week, on Wednesday, he said the cuts can be positive if geared to benefit Americans, writing, “We need an internationally competitive corporate tax rate, but the gains from corporate tax cuts should be geared to benefit Americans as much as possible.”

Rubio also cheered the conservative Reaganomic principles he was much less certain of just days earlier, adding that they just need to be reassessed in this new economy.

“Conservative principles still work,” he wrote. “But they need to be applied to the characteristics of a new and very different economy.”

Ultimately, Politco’s assessment seems right: After criticizing the party’s central achievement during the Trump administration, Rubio appears to be trying to clean up his mess a little bit, the latest in a long line of incidents wherein Rubio wants to have his cake and eat it, too.

Also, insulting an intern is rude.

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Denmark defend 179 to strengthen promotion hopes | Cricket

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Denmark 179 (Zameer 44, Hamid 37, Pavandeep 3-24, Wafiq 3-32) beat Malaysia 146 (Bashir 3-24, Hamid 2-18) by 33 runs

Captain Hamid Shah roars after Denmark clinches victory © Peter Della Penna

Denmark captain Hamid Shah stood out with both bat and ball as his team defended 179 to remain unbeaten and hand Malaysia their first defeat of the WCL Division Four. He struck 37 off 78 balls, anchoring the innings after they chose to bat on a difficult pitch and also picked up a couple of wickets to seal a 33-run victory at UKM-YSD Oval in Bangi.

The timing of those breakthroughs were very crucial. Malaysia were 39 runs away from winning the game, and with nine overs still left, the required rate wasn't really a challenge. However, they were six down, Hamid made it seven, breaking a feisty 53-run partnership between Suharril Fetri and Muhamad Syahadat and paved the way to a stunning victory. The last four Malaysian wickets fell for only five runs.

Hamid was also an important contributor with the bat. building on a good start provided by opener Zameer Khan's 44 off 72 balls even as the Malaysian bowlers made good use of a surface that had plenty of cracks. With boundaries hard to come by - there were only 11 in the entire 49 overs that Denmark batted - he ran aggressively throughout his innings and was very nearly run out on several occasions.

Denmark were 108 for 3 in the 33rd over when left-arm spinner Pavandeep Singh rallied Malaysia back into the match by inducing Hamid into a drive that was caught at cover. He then trapped Rizwan Mahmood lbw and induced another ill-advised drive, this time from Taranjit Bharaj, to finish with 3 for 24 from his 10 overs.

Momentum swung back Denmark's way thanks to a brilliant late cameo by Mads Henriksen, who swatted a series of boundaries over the leg side as he raced to 32 off 28 balls taking the score to 170 on a pitch where 160 looked par. Denmark were eventually bowled out in the 49th over with new-ball bowler Muhammad Wafiq wiping out the tail with his 3 for 32.

Malaysia's chase got off to a disastrous start when captain Anwar Arudin was run out off the second ball trying to run off a misfield at midwicket. After Bashir Shah struck another key blow to remove Ahmed Faiz, Suhan Alagaratnam and Shafiq Sharif teamed up for a 40-run partnership for the fourth wicket.

But just as Malaysia were pulling away, debutant left-arm spinner Nicolaj Laegsgaard beat Alagaratnam's back foot prod to bowl the middle-order star for 26. Offspinner Saif Ahmad had Sharif caught at mid-off and suddenly the score was 88 for 6 with Denmark in firm possession of the game. They had to weather unexpected resistance assault from the tail but now are looking at a scenario where a win over Uganda on Thursday will clinch them promotion with a match to spare in the group stage.

Peter Della Penna is ESPNcricinfo's USA correspondent @PeterDellaPenna

©
ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

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Mumbai almost out as RCB finally defend a total

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Royal Challengers Bangalore 167 for 7 (Vohra 45, Pandya 3-28) beat Mumbai Indians 153 for 7 (Pandya 50, Southee 2-25, Umesh 2-29, Siraj 2-8) by 14 runs

Virat Kohli doesn't hold his emotions back BCCI

Umesh Yadav took two wickets off consecutive deliveries with the new ball, Ishan Kishan fell for a golden duck and Royal Challengers Bangalore lost to Mumbai Indians by 46 runs. Two weeks later, Umesh was on a hat-trick with the new ball against Mumbai again, Kishan bagged another golden duck, his third in four innings, but this time Umesh's opening burst also included Rohit Sharma's first-ball duck and the Royal Challengers bowling line-up sustained the pressure throughout for once to defend 167 on their home ground and move up to fifth place after only their third win from eight matches.

The defending champions, meanwhile, are back in seventh place and need to win all their remaining six matches lest they wish to rely on other teams to help them stay in playoff contention. Rohit opted to bowl and a combined bowling show from the spinners and Hardik Pandya in the death overs was restricting Royal Challengers to under 150 until Colin de Grandhomme's 10-ball 23 lifted them in the last over. Eventually, the early loss of wickets hurt Mumbai this time and even though the Pandya brothers seemed up to the task of scoring 62 runs from the last five overs, some pin-point bowling with pace variations sealed it for the hosts.

RCB and the death overs

Virat Kohli had bowled Umesh and Yuzvendra Chahal by the 15th over yet again and the Pandya brothers had the cushion of Ben Cutting to follow in the chase. Among the quicks, only Tim Southee and Mohammed Siraj had two overs left each so Kohli decided to give the 16th to de Grandhomme. He conceded 17, and Mumbai needed 45 from 24 only to see a different story unfold this time. Siraj and Southee bowled a stirring mix of length deliveries, pace variations and wide yorkers to prevent the Pandyas from hitting down the ground. Siraj conceded only one boundary in his last two overs, Southee allowed Mumbai five little singles in the 18th over and Siraj also had Krunal caught at point for 23 to give the visitors a stiff equation of 25 from six. Hardik then hit Southee's offcutter to long-on and Cutting connected well with only two of the remaining five deliveries. Southee finished with 2 for 25 and a Man of the Match award.

Even though their bowling contingent turned the story around, the death overs stung Royal Challengers' batting line-up this time. They were 123 for 3 with Kohli on 29 and five overs to go, easily set for 175. However, Jasprit Bumrah had two overs left, and Hardik bowled offcutters and slower ones consistently to remove Mandeep Singh, Kohli and Washington Sundar in the 18th over for only two runs. Bumrah didn't get all his yorkers right but the batsman couldn't middle many either. Only one of his final 12 deliveries went to the boundary and there were five dots among them as well. So, Royal Challengers found themselves 143 for 7 with one over to go. Fortunately and decisively for them, de Grandhomme smacked three sixes off the last four balls, including a free hit, for a competitive total.

The costly Mumbai overs

Barring three expensive overs, Mumbai conceded only 101 runs in 17 overs on Tuesday night. Most of the Mumbai bowlers strangled the batsmen, not letting any of them, except de Grandhomme, finish with a strike rate of over 150. It was the remaining three overs that Royal Challengers cashed in on to hammer 66 runs.

The first of those was the fourth over, by JP Duminy. Opener Manan Vohra smacked the part-time spinner for 20 runs off the first four balls with two sixes and as many fours in the 22-run over. Duminy was probably used in the Powerplay because of a left-handed opener - Quinton de Kock - but bowled only one ball to him out of 12. The second expensive over was Hardik's after Brendon McCullum had scratched his way to nine off six balls. In the 10th over, he dispatched two full-tosses for consecutive sixes, the first of them a no-ball, and then struck the fourth legitimate delivery, a knuckleball, through the covers for four. Twenty off the over. It shot their run rate above eight an over but there was more to come, right at the end.

Mitchell McClenaghan started the last over impressively with three singles before de Grandhomme launched an offcutter over midwicket, collected two down the ground, hit a six off a no-ball and ended the innings with a free hit he smoked over long-off. Royal Challengers had gone from 146 to 167 in only three legitimate deliveries.

Mumbai's spinners stifle RCB early on

Rohit surprisingly decided to open the bowling with Duminy in a spin-heavy first nine overs and the move worked brilliantly except in that fourth over. Duminy extracted sharp turn and bounce in the first over with five dot balls and almost had Vohra caught at midwicket for 6. McClenaghan used a mix of back-of-length and slower deliveries to concede only seven in his first two overs and had de Kock caught at midwicket for a 13-ball 7. Seeing the turn on offer, Rohit bowled Krunal and Mayank Markande from overs six to nine to see them beat the bat, bowl stifling lines and concede only 24 runs, including Vohra's wicket for 45.

Mumbai were similarly shackled in the middle overs but that was down to the early wickets and even though Hardik batted before his brother for a slightly brisk fifty, he and Duminy had to do a lot of consolidation after they were 47 for 4 in the eighth over. Umesh brought two in sharply to trap Suryakumar lbw for 9 and had Rohit inside edge one next ball to de Kock diving full-length behind the stumps. Kishan was bowled by Southee in the first over.

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