Related items

• IPL: Royals extend lead at the top after Samson and Jurel see off LSG

  Sanju Samson and Dhruv Jurel combined for an unbeaten partnership of 121 as Indian Premier League leaders Rajasthan Royals defeated Lucknow Super Giants on Saturday.

  The Royals have now won eight of their nine matches in the 2024 campaign and are almost certain to be involved in the playoffs after chasing down their victory target of 197 with an over to spare in a seven-wicket triumph.

  Another Royals win had looked unlikely when they fell to 78-3 in their run chase after Jos Buttler (34), Yashasvi Jaiswal (24) and Riyan Parag (14) all fell in quick succession shortly before the halfway mark.

  But Rajasthan captain Samson fought back as he blasted 71 runs from 33 balls including seven fours and four maximums, while Jurel bounced back from a poor period of form to finish unbeaten on 52 from 34.

  LSG reached 196-5 from their innings courtesy of a fine knock from their own skipper, KL Rahul. He reached 76 from 48 before eventually falling to Avesh Khan (1-42) in the 18th over.

  Deepak Hooda made it to 50 as LSG rallied from 11-2, but ultimately their competitive total was within reach of the visiting Royals.

  Data Debrief

  This is the second time in as many home games Rahul has passed fifty, after he scored 82 against Chennai Super Kings last week.

  Samson (385) and Rahul (378) are second and third respectively in the race to win this season’s orange cap, although RCB’s Virat Kohli continues to set the pace with 430 runs.

  They also narrowly trail Kohli (40) when it comes to the most fours hit in this season’s competition, with Samson on 36 and Rahul just behind with 34.

• Tape ball programme can help England find unorthodox talent – Richard Gould

  The England and Wales Cricket Board hopes to unearth a new seam of talent beyond the game’s traditional league structure with a national tape ball scheme that allows players to thrive without “whites, willow and leather”.

  The practice of using a soft ball wrapped in electrical tape to aid swing and variable bounce is a common one in Asia, where it has helped produce express pace bowlers like Haris Rauf, Shaheen Afridi and spinners such as Rashid Khan and Shakib-al-Hasan, but has been slow to enter the mainstream conversation in the United Kingdom.

  The Chance to Shine charity has long pioneered tape ball cricket as part of its engagement hubs and now, with the ECB keen to live up to its lofty aspiration of becoming the most inclusive team sport in the country, it is at the heart of a new core cities programme designed to engage ‘diverse communities in urban areas’.

  Speaking at a launch event where games were hosted in a warehouse space in Birmingham, ECB chief executive Richard Gould was optimistic about reaching out to those with an interest in cricket but limited access to the pavilions and prepared pitches in the club setup.

  “We talk about clubs with picket fences around them. In the past that has been seen as the preserve of the ECB. We’ve missed a complete trick on that,” he said.

  “When we talk about the recreational game we’re not just talking about Premier League clubs and village cricket clubs now. We’re talking about all forms of cricket that take place.

  “You can play the game anywhere, any time, with anybody, in any environment you want. You don’t have to have whites, willow and leather to do it. You can just pick up a bat and a ball and have some fun.”

  As well as fulfilling its remit of reaching out to all comers at a grassroots level, Gould also believes there are benefits to finding cricketers with different styles who have learned the game outside the traditional, private-school heavy pathways.

  “Without doubt there are,” he said. “We have to get out and try to find the talent. More to the point, we have to try and find talent in areas that we haven’t normally looked for it.

  “I do think county pathways will be looking to make sure they don’t miss out on this talent. It’s just about punching through all of our normal procedures and finding ways to both get people in the game and unearthing that talent which may be unorthodox and great.”

• Meg Lanning: Exercise obsession and not enough fuel led to Australia retirement

  Former Australia captain Meg Lanning revealed her “obsession” with exercise and not eating enough precipitated her surprise international retirement late last year.

  Lanning was at the helm of one of the most dominant eras the sport has ever seen but she missed last year’s Ashes for medical reasons and pulled the plug on her Australia career in November.

  She opened up about her hidden health issues on the Howie Games podcast, explaining that running up to 90 kilometres a week coupled with eating two small meals a day led to her dropping from 64kg to 57kg.

  View this post on Instagram

  A post shared by Meg Lanning (@meglanning7)

  “I was over-exercising and under-fuelling,” the 32-year-old said. “It wasn’t a physical thing. I’ve always been really physically active and liked that side of it, but it became a bit of an obsession.

  “I’d maybe eat a couple of meals a day if I was lucky but they weren’t significant. Initially it didn’t start off as a deliberate thing, it just became a bit of a new normal.

  “But it slowly crept into conscious decisions because essentially I felt good.

  “I wasn’t getting injured like everybody was telling me I was going to do. It sort of just spiralled and I was in denial, even though everybody kept telling me something wasn’t quite right.

  “I was not in a place to be able to go on tour and play cricket and give the commitment levels that were required for that Ashes series, mentally and physically.”

  Lanning, who led Australia to five World Cup titles in total and Commonwealth Games glory in 2022, said her struggle was not officially diagnosed as an eating disorder.

  “It wasn’t labelled as that but I was exercising a lot and I wasn’t eating enough to fuel that – it was a bit out of whack,” Lanning said.

  “It was a bit of control because I felt very out of control with what my future looked like. I felt like I was in control of that and that made me feel better.”

  Lanning sought help from medical professionals after also struggling with insomnia and continues to play domestically, while she has been signed for London Spirit for The Hundred this year.

  “I dreaded night time because I knew I would go to bed and not be able to sleep,” she said. “That would make me so mad. I would just get more angry with myself. If you can’t sleep, you can’t do anything.

  “I feel like I’m in a good spot now. Cricket is still part of what I do. But I wasn’t cut out for the international touring schedule and what came with all of that.”