ScorecardIndia A stuttered in their first innings after Piyush Chawla’s five-wicket haul helped restrict New Zealand A to 332 on the second day of their Top End Series encounter in Darwin. Craig McMillan played the lone hand for his side, scoring 108, while Chawla plugged away, as India took the last five wickets for only 20 runs.Resuming from their overnight score of 4 for 257, the New Zealanders lost an early wicket when the accurate Rudra Pratap Singh got Mark Orchard to edge to Parthiv Patel. Having lost a wicket without adding to their overnight score, McMillan and Gareth Hopkins fought back with 55 for the sixth wicket before Chawla started the collapse. He bowled Hopkins for 17, and accounted for Jeetan Patel and Hamish Bennett to bag his fifth five-wicket haul in first-class cricket.India suffered early setbacks as seamers Chris Martin and Orchard accounted for both openers. Parthiv showed some resistance with 35, before New Zealand struck with two wickets in quick succession to set India back further at 4 for 47. S Badrinath was the top scorer with 55, adding 53 for the fifth wicket with Reetinder Sodhi. India were in further trouble at 6 for 142, but Rohit Sharma and Tejinder Pal Singh combined to add an unbeaten 67, with both scoring 41 each.

Dav Whatmore, Bangladesh’s coach, has said that Bangladesh were not good enough to beat Zimbabwe. Bangladesh lost the five-match series with a game to play after losing the fourth match by seven wickets at Harare on Friday.”We simply were not good enough. We allowed them to win two matches as we could not sustain pressure,” Whatmore, who at the start of the series said Bangladesh were favourites, told tigercricket.com. This was Bangladesh’s fourth defeat in a bilateral series against Zimbabwe.Khaled Mashud, stand-in captain for the injured Habibul Bashar in the third and fourth ODIs, blamed the batsmen for the defeat. “There was little we could do with that sort of total. It was good batting conditions and our batters just failed to capitalize on a position tailor-made for us,” said Mashud. “The batting has let us down. If you look at the four matches I think we threw away 90 % of our wickets. In the first game we could have had 260 odd and in the third we should have really taken the game away from them after reaching 174 for 3 in the 32nd over. The fielding many would say was not up to the mark but I think we lost with the batting.””When they [Zimbabwe] won the first game that put the pressure back on us and when they came back from the dead to win the third match confidence-wise they were on top. They held a mental edge over us and we were the side under pressure. However, I still believe that we have more quality than Zimbabwe but sadly we were nowhere near our best in this series.”My message to the players is that they should try to perform individually in the next game and in the series against Kenya and that would in turn benefit the team. We just have to look ahead as we have lots of matches to come in the coming months.”Bangladesh play Kenya in three one-day internationals at Nairobi beginning on August 12.

On the upcoming series in Malaysia
“It’s going to be a very good challenging series. Australia are obviously the best team in the world and I think it is exciting to play against them. We have not done well against the West Indies in the last one-day series and this gives us a good chance to correct that. I think we are very confident and if we play some good cricket, we will get results. The preparation we’ve had has been very good and it’s a question of implementing the lessons in the matches so that we play some good, tough cricket.”On not playing Australia for nearly two years? “We have played them a lot before. But I guess all these things happen in cycles and depend on the schedules. There will be times when you play the same teams very quickly again and sometimes there is a break. We seem to be playing the West Indies a lot now. Australia have been very busy over the last 18 months and we have also been busy. It is a bit of a surprisebecause with the amount of cricket you play, you tend to bump into someone over a period of two years.”On the boot camp in Australia, and a different sort of camp here?“People keep telling me it’s unusual. I don’t know what’s unusual about hitting a ball with a bat. Nothing has been unusual. It is just about giving different experiences to the players. I am so glad that we did it before Australia because if they had done it before us, then they wouldhave said we are just copying Australia. I think it’s just a chance to give people some new experiences. If you keep following the same routine, sometimes it does get stale. You just provide them with a different challenge for the same set of benefits. If you are trying physicaltraining, one day you might run around the ground, but if you do that every day you know it will become boring.So one day, you can run around the ground, one day you can run in Cubbon Park, one day you can run in Lal Bagh. It makes it a little interesting though you are doing the same things. I think the boys have really enjoyed this camp as well as the last one, and I give credit to the support staff. Greg Chappell, Ian Frazer and Greg King have really worked hard in these nine days.”On the practice matches to be played in Chennai? “We felt that we needed a couple of games to lead into the series. Normally when we go abroad, you get a couple of matches against local teams, but in Malaysia we didn’t feel that we would get that. A couple of games in Chennai tomorrow and day after will help the group to get some sort of match practice. Both the bowlers and batsmen have been practising a lot in the nets and it is just a question of implementing in a match. A couple of practice matches with the weather holding will be good to fine-tune the boys. Also, fielding for 50 overs is something that wehaven’t done for a while, so that would also help before we play the West Indies and Australia.”On whether such a camp will be a one-off or will it be a regular feature?“The rain and the called-off series in Sri Lanka gave us an opportunity to have some time off which we certainly hadn’t anticipated. It sort of came out of the blue, so we saw it as a great opportunity to give the boys some individual training. We keep discussing with the players where they would like to improve, what they would like to improve and we constantly get feedback. The coaching staff also have ideas on what they would like the boys to improve on. This was a great opportunity for the boys to get some individual and focussed training. I think the coaching staff did a fantastic job all through this camp. The boys came in batches for sessions of three days each, but the coaching staff were here for nine days, right from 7 in the morning to 5 in the evening. I think some very good things were achieved and it’s just a start. It’s something that we will constantly keep working on as the season goes on.”

On confidence levels after the camp? “We have spoken quite a bit with the boys through this camp. We discuss how the team is evolving and progressing, which direction it is going, and we also talk about how the players can help the team get better. After these discussions, the boys had thrown up some ideas, which helped the coaching staff identify areas of improvement. In this camp, the players got a lot of individual attention. Obviously, it’s important that they implement what they learnt and practised in match conditions.”On batting against a bowling machine, and batting with stumps“The focus is always on the basics. One of the things that Greg talks a lot about is not getting away from the basics. Some of these methods are just innovative ways of staying focussed on the basics. For example, if you are a batsman you are always talking about watching the ball closely, which is what you need to do if you’re going to hit a golf ball with a stump. Some of the drills we did for fielding were about staying low and keeping the body weight low, while the bowling machine was a way of ensuring that you get fully forward or fully back. In all the discussions with all the boys, everyone felt that the area that they wanted to improve most was in the fielding department. They were very happy with the fielding they had in the Sri Lanka and England series but in the West Indies we were not very happy. All the three groups did a lot of fielding drills here and hopefully there will be some results.”On being nominated for the ICC awards?“It’s nice to be nominated. I guess in the end it is probably a reflection of the performances of the year. There are great players in that list, people who have performed really well in the current year, and to be among them is a nice feeling.”On whether he was surprised that Dhoni didn’t figure in the list? “I am not really sure what the criteria is. Being nominated or not being nominated for awards is not what really excites me or motivates me. To be honest with you, this is a question you can ask Dhoni, whether it really matters to him.”On whether the team has problems with the opening combination“There is no problem as such. If you look at recent history, you would see that Sachin and Sehwag have performed excellently as openers. Unfortunately, Sachin got injured and because of that we had to make some changes. It’s not really important who bats where, what’s important is how we can get the right results. We will see how we can maximise the potential of each player and based on that, we will decide the batting order.”On the bowlers practising batting drills“See just because the lower order practised hard for two or three days, it doesn’t necessarily mean that all of them would become great batsmen overnight. It doesn’t happen like that. We keep discussing how we need more contributions from the lower order and one of the things that we found is that it’s not easy to always give the lower-order batsmen a lot of batting.

When we have 15 players, the bowlers keep bowling to the batsmen at practice and when the bowlers finally come to bat, there’s no real quality bowling around. They have to usually play the net bowlers or they are not getting enough batting. A short camp like this gave an opportunity forsome of the bowlers to get some practice in and we are expecting our bowlers to make some critical contributions in the lower order. Sometimes, they may not get a chance to bat for five or six matches and when they do, they are always under pressure. We have given a lot of emphasis to skills, like batting for bowlers. Those like Yuvraj, Viru [Sehwag], Dinesh Mongia and Suresh Raina are batsmen who can also bowl, so they have also got to do a lot of hard work on their bowling and bring different skills to the team.”How helpful is the focus-trainer gadget for the players?“I have used it a little bit. Greg King got it from South Africa. We have experimented with it, but things like these are very individual and players might find some benefits from it. We personally feel that to make a good player, you need to develop allround skills and the mind, relaxation and visualisation are very important parts of that.”On the ball-tampering furore“It’s hard for me to make a comment on something that happened when I wasn’t actually part of it. Sitting here and watching, or reading about it in newspapers, it’s hard for me to comment on that. It was sad and disappointing. Nobody wants a match to be forfeited but I think we have got to move on. England and Pakistan are playing a good one-day series and the game of cricket goes on. The authorities will find the right conclusion to the matter.”

The $5 million winner-takes-all Stanford 20/20 SuperStar game between West Indies and South Africa due to be played on November 10 is unlikely to be resurrected despite comments from Shaharyar Khan, chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), that his board would be willing to “bend over backwards” to accommodate the match.The 20/20 game was officially cancelled earlier this week after it emerged that the PCB were unable to shift dates of the West Indies’ tour to Pakistan, which begins with the tourists’ arrival on November 7, two days after the end of the Champions Trophy in India. The first Test is scheduled to begin on November 11.But according to the Barbados-based The Nation, Shaharyar is willing to adjust the schedule by a few days to accommodate the match. Shaharyar revealed that he learned on Monday that the PCB had informed the WICB it was unable to shift the original dates, as requested.The WICB subsequently released a statement announcing their pleasure at the PCB’s stance to accommodate the WICB and shift the dates for the tour. Ken Gordon, the board president, said, “This is very good news to me as we have tried to keep our commitment to do all within our power to shift the tour dates. In fact, I wrote several letters to the PCB and clearly these have finally swayed the Pakistan board in our favour. As soon as I get formal confirmation of the PCB’s decision, I will convey it to Mr. Stanford. I hope it is not too late to reinstate the game against South Africa.”However, Allen Stanford, the businessman who conceived the SuperStar game, released a statement soon making clear his displeasure with the way the matter had been handled by the WICB and stating that the game was definitely off.”The cancellation of the Super Star match was based on a letter written by the president of the WICB, dated August 25, in which it was conveyed that there was absolutely nothing that could be done with the dates for Pakistan and that Ken Gordon, as quoted in his letter, had conveyed his disappointment to the PCB Chairman, Shaharyar Khan.”After receiving this communication from Gordon and realising the level it had gone to with the PCB and much contemplation on the issue, the extremely difficult decision was made to cancel the match. Subsequent to this, South Africa was informed, agreements with suppliers were cancelled and the Super Star squad that were training in Antigua were informed and the camp was discontinued because of the irresolvable issue with the Pakistan tour dates.”At this stage it would be unprofessional to reinstate all of this to accommodate what appears to be a lack of efficiency and miscommunication on the part of the WICB, the very organisation who assured us the dates could be accommodated.”As things stand at this stage, the match is off; a PCB official confirmed to Cricinfo that the tour is scheduled to go ahead as per the original itinerary. But Shaharyar was due to contact Gordon from London to discuss the matter further and we may not have heard the last of this.

The row between Clive Lloyd and Michael Holding over the reasons for Holding’s resignation from the West Indies board’s cricket committee shows no sign of letting up.On Wednesday, Lloyd, who is chairman of the committee, issued at statement in which he said he had no issues with his former team-mate and that he saw “nothing to be gained by continuing this matter”. He added: “I believe we should now focus on what each of us can do individually to take West Indies cricket forward.”Holding, however, told Cricinfo that his resignation had nothing to do with the cancellation of the Stanford Super Star match, as has been implied. “My resignation letter was dated August 26 and it’s on record that the match was cancelled some time after this date. All one has to do is go back and read my resignation letter and they will find the reason.””It’s unfortunate that Mr Lloyd can’t remember my reason. It seems he continues to have memory lapses, since the letter was written to him and he surely must still have a copy.”His statement says he wishes to move on,” Holding continued. “Well, that is easy for him to say, but since he contributed to Ken Gordon and the WICB’s first press release with his erroneous quote that he never resigned from the original cricket committee, as it was never accepted by the WICB directors, and only I resigned, he needs to correct his utterings first. If the committee members were never accepted by the WICB directors, why was it necessary for me to resign?”Those are your words Clive, not mine. Be man enough to admit you were wrong or mistaken or forgot the incident, whichever you choose, and then we can move on. Don’t be afraid to offend anyone with your admission. If anyone is offended by the truth, then we know where they stand.”

Cricket Kenya has named a 14-man squad for the Intercontinental Cup tie against Bermuda which starts this Sunday at the Nairobi Gymkhana.The main surprise is the recall of 33-year-old Lameck Onyango who has been sidelined by a knee injury. His international record hardly warrants another chance – in five ODIs he has made 30 runs and taken one wicket, and his last appearance was four years ago when he batted at No. 11 and was not asked to bowl.Morris Ouma and David Obuya are likely to open the innings in place of Kennedy Otieno, who is playing club cricket in Australia.There is a youthful look to the side, however. Tanmay Mishra, Nehemiah Odhiambo, Maurice Ouma and Hiren Varaiya will return from South Africa, where they have been attending a four-week Winter Training Camp in Durban, in time for the match.Nairobi has been hit by heavy storms and flooding all week, but the groundsman at the Gymkhana said the match was not in doubt. “It’s been very dry underground and that is why the outfield is still dry. I will only be worried if there is heavy rain for five days. As for the square, we have enough covers to protect it.”

Brian Lara has given Ramnaresh Sarwan a vote of confidence ahead of the final Test in Karachi from November 27, but stopped short of saying whether he would be recalled into the playing XI.Sarwan, 26, was replaced for the Multan Test with Runako Morton. Lara insisted that the move wasn’t “designed as a drop,” and that Sarwan still had a key role to play in the future of West Indian cricket. However, it was the first time in his six-year career that Sarwan missed out due to poor form.”First of all, let me say that Sarwan is one of the best talents of his generation, my generation and even the one before,” Lara said. “He is someone we look forward to having in the team. He is a leader, he is the vice-captain of the team and we expect a lot of him. The West Indies did not invest 64 Tests in him for him to be sitting on the side.”He will come back from this and come back stronger. It wasn’t designed as a drop. We just wanted to make him aware of the situation and come back stronger. We need him and we need him to take control.”Lara wasn’t willing, however, to disclose whether Sarwan would return for the final Test. As he’d said before the start at Multan, Lara maintained that the best combination would be selected. “We have to see what the surface in Karachi will be like and then decide,” he said. “Most importantly, we are 1-0 down and we want to level the series. The team out there will be the one that can do that. We want to play good cricket. We have to come out of this game against a team that beat us in four days and put them under pressure throughout.”

The Zimbabwe cricket board has backed Sharad Pawar’s nomination for the post of ICC president. Pawar, the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, had filed his nomination on Friday after the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) met in Singapore and agreed on his nomination.Pawar now has the backing of five member boards, including the Asian bloc of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The last date for filing nominations is January 1, and the BCCI was hopeful of getting the support of the West Indies board as well. The ICC will send the nominations received from Pawar and David Morgan, Chairman of the England Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to AC Muthiah, Chairman of the ICC Nomination Committee.The ICC will announce its successor to Percy Sonn in its annual meeting in London in July for a term of two years beginning 2008.

Scorecard

South Australia’s season hit rock bottom as they capitulated to the Queensland pace attack and lost within three days at Adelaide Oval. A professional all-round performance from James Hopes and a gutsy half-century from the injured Shane Watson sparked the Bulls but the story of the day was the hosts’ inability to even be competitive, despite a ten-wicket match from Jason Gillespie.After both sides struggled in the first innings, Queensland showed why they are on top of the Pura Cup table, posting a second-innings 363. In reply, the Redbacks were all out for 104. Their top-order batting is a major concern, with Matthew Elliott, Cameron Borgas and Callum Ferguson continuing their poor form. The trio each average less than 30 in 2006-07.Andy Bichel did the damage early, taking 3 for 13, before Hopes rattled the middle order with 4 for 25. South Australia’s best partnership was the 24 added by the last-wicket pair Paul Rofe and Dan Cullen. So dominant were the Queensland fast bowlers that the legspinner Daniel Doran was not required to bowl throughout the match.Hopes had made 77 in the second innings and together with Watson, built a valuable 139-run partnership. Watson batted with a runner and scored 68 a day after sustaining a 5cm tear to his left hamstring. Clinton Perren was out for 80 early in the day, helping Gillespie snare 5 for 69 after taking 5 for 41 in the first innings. His match tally of 10 for 110 was his best in first-class cricket.

Scorecard

Conventional wisdom dictated that Karnataka, having won the toss, would opt to field first on a seaming Eden Gardens wicket. Instead they chose to face the in-form Bengal seamers and paid heavily on a day that saw Ranadeb Bose (6 for 38) and Sourav Sarkar (4 for 24) wreak havoc with the new ball as Karnataka, which has relied largely on its batting strength this season, crashed to 89 all out in 38.5 overs.At stumps, Bengal were 121 for 4, holding a slender 32-run lead with Arindam Das and Laxmi Ratan Shukla (7) at the crease.Today’s effort saw Bose leapfrog to the top of the wicket-takers’ list in the tournament, with 44 this season, and Bengal’s steady reply gives them one foot inside the Ranji final.Yet it wasn’t easy; if Yere Goud & co succumbed to the nagging line and length and the pronounced lateral movement that is so characteristic of the Eden wicket, Bengal were staring down the barrel at 16 for 3. It took an adventurous, counter-attacking 63 from Rohan Gavaskar and a dogged unbeaten 45 from opener Das – and a fourth-wicket stand of 83 – to offset the efforts of Vinay Kumar (2 for 36) and debutant Srinivasa Dhananjaya (2 for 27).The day belonged to the Bengal pacers; this isn’t the first time this season that the Bose-Sarkar duo has run through stalwart batting sides. Yet, today’s carnage topped it all as Karnataka were in complete disarray on 18 for 6 at one point of time.Ignored for the World Cup probables, Bose couldn’t have chosen a better platform to prove a point to the selectors. His exploits began with the fifth ball of the opening over, the pitched-up incoming delivery squaring up Barrington Rowland (0), who nicked the ball to the keeper. It was, the bowler later said, the pick of his wickets.Over the next hour, the duo kept attacking relentlessly – Bose foxing the batsmen with sharp away-going balls, Sarkar making them sweat with darting inswingers. Had Thilak Naidu not freed the shackles with some lofted strokes square of the wicket en route to a 33-run cameo, Deep Dasgupta’s team would have dismissed Karnataka for far below 89.Speaking after the day’s play, Dasgupta was full of praise for his bowlers. “Honestly, I feel we exceeded expectations. It shows how good we’ve been this season.”For his part, Bose could barely conceal his delight and surprise at being asked to bowl first on such a juicy wicket – and also at the routcome. “We were confident of doing well with the new ball, but we never imagined that we will dismiss them for 89,” he said.He explained that he relied on the lateral movement to do all the damage. “I just stuck to line and length, and left it to the movement to do the rest. It worked because, firstly, we were relentless and piling up the pressure on the batsmen by not giving away easy runs. And Sourav also kept the pressure on from the other end.”