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Division One (Time games)Burridge 82 (0pts) (Francis 23, Taylor 5-11, Goldstraw 3-15)
B.A.T.Sports 94-0 (22pts) (Banks 69*)
B.A.T.Sports won by 10 wicketsHungerford 131 (1pt) (Maier 42, Pope 29, Williams 25, Motchall 4-31)
Calmore Sports 134-2 (21pts) (Cass 51, Goode 31, Pegler 28)
Calmore Sports won by 8 wicketsLiphook and Riplsey 156-9 (0pts) (Brown 45, Berry 30, Woodhouse 3-37)
Andover 157-1 (21pts) (M Miller 100)
Andover won by 9 wicketsSouth Wilts 199 (5pts) (Cranch 55, Woodhouse 34, Lamb 29, King 3-42, Taylor 3-45)
Bashley (Rydal) 202-7 (21pts) (Sexton 52, Knowles 40, Loader 34, Neal 32, Tomlinson 3-37)
Bashley (Rydal) won by 3 wicketsBournemouth v Havant – Match abandoned without a ball bowledDivision Two (50 overs)Cove 377-3 (22pts) (Benham 161, Randall 90, Tomsett 48, Smith 45)
Old Basing 75 (1pt) (Docis 3-13, Audsley 3-17)
Cove won by 302 runsEaston and Martyr Worthy 98 (1pt) (Steve Green 38, Neave 24, Prittipaul 3-18)
Portsmouth 99-2 (21pts) (Prittipaul 42)
Portsmouth won by 8 wicketsSparsholt 218-9 (21pts) (Richings 91, Kelly 34, Shotton 5-29)
Hambledon 162 (6pts) (Turner 59, Norris 26)
Sparsholt won by 56 runsTrojans 209 (20pts) (Williams 73, Lancaster 39, Subnaik 31, Ord 4-45)
Old Tauntonians and Romsey 180-9 (8pts) (Smith 45, M Trodd 34, Donaldson 3-41
Trojans won by 29 runsU.S.Portsmouth 204 (21pts) (Geoghegan 67, Ainsley 52, Allen 3-42)
Lymington 160 (7pts) (Craft 70, Lewis 3-22, Barsby 3-38)
U.S.Portsmouth won by 44 runsDivision Three (50 oversFlamingo 198-9 (20pts) (Fenigan 85)
Leckford 87 (4pts) (Bulpitt 26, McMurray 5-23)
Flamingo won by 111 runsAlton 159 (3pts)
Gosport Borough 162-2 (22pts)
Gosport Borough won by 8 wicketsHavant II 103 (0pts) (Ward 27, Cambray 4-30, Burns 3-30)
Hursley Park 105-1 (21pts) (Harris 31, Marks 27, Edwards 24)
Hursley Park won by 9 wicketsPortsmouth II 203 (21pts) (Joy 50, Mitchell 42, M Scott 30, Marsh 3-31)
Bashley (Rydal) II 110 (4pts) (Herbert 31, M Scott 4-20, Mitchell 3-31)
Portsmouth II won by 93 runsPurbrook 197-5 (20pts) (Repsold 85)
Hook and Newnham Basics 170 (4pts) (O’Kelly 54, Kaminski 33, McCoy 3-30, Stanley 3-34, Brewer 3-35)
Rowledge won by 38 runsSt.Cross Symondians 213 (21pts) (Rees 49, Francis 36, Parker 31, L Beck 4-59)
New Milton 183 (7pts) (Watts 38, Lipscombe 4-29, Padwick 3-35)
St.Cross Symondians won by 30 runsWaterlooville 217-9 (21pts) (Over 48, Baumann 39, Carr 3-45)
Lymington II 151 (6pts) (Carr 31, Phillips 29, Shephard 6-34)
Winchester KS 257-3 (22pts)
U.S.Portsmouth II 123 (1pt)
Winchester K.S. won by 134 runs

Veteran Hyderabad off spinner Kanwaljit Singh helped restrict UttarPradesh on the third day of their Ranji Trophy quarterfinal at GreenPark in Kanpur on Saturday. UP, 206 for three overnight in reply toHyderabad’s first innings total of 291, were all out for362. Hyderabad in their second innings had just about wiped off thefirst innings deficit by scoring 72 for one by close of play.The in form NP Singh struck an early vital blow when he bowled MdKaif. The India batsman was out without adding to his overnight scoreof 66. The other overnight batsman skipper Gyanendra Pandey went on tomake 47 before he was bowled by Kanwaljit Singh. Pandey faced 98 ballsand hit seven fours. The innings was kept going by a seventh wicketpartnership of 46 runs off 22 overs between wicketkeeper Pradip Yadav(20) and Ashish Winston Zaidi (52). But the persistent Kanwaljit Singhthen took three wickets late in the innings to keep the UP lead downto manageable proportions. Zaidi faced 96 balls and hit six foursbefore he was also one of Kanwaljit’s victims. He finished with sixfor 97 off 48.2 overs.When Hyderabad batted a second time, they lost Manohar (14) at 29. ButA Nandakishore (35) and VVS Laxman (20) by watchful batting added 43runs off 18.3 overs and were unbeaten at stumps with the matchtantalisingly poised.

The Sinhalese Sports Club defeated Police Sports Club by eight wickets to secure their place in the semi-finals next weekend. SSC won the match with ease. They bowled out Police SC for just 112 in 36.2 overs before knocking off a Duckworth Lewis adjusted target of 111 in just 16 overs.The start of the match was delayed due to overnight rain. Play finally began at 11.15am and the scheduled overs were then reduced to 44. However, Duckworth Lewis was introduced after a bizarre interruption in play. Not because of rain or bad light, but because at 1am, a Sri Lankan army helicopter landed on the outfield and held up play for 60 minutes.SSC won the toss and had no hesitation in putting the Police into bat. There batsmen never settled against the SSC bowling attacking. Dilhara Fernando continued his impressive early season form with two for 14, the erstwhile campaigner, Pramodya Wickramasinghe, chipped in with two wickets for 10 runs and Tilan Samaraweera picked up two wickets with his off spin.The only Police batsmen to linger long at the crease were Thamara Aberathne, who scored 22, and Nihal Zoysa, who top scored with 27.SSC began their run chase in attacking fashion. Once again Avishka Gunawardene was in swashbuckling form. He added 46 runs for the first wicket with Upeka Fernando, his contribution being 26 from just 21 balls, including one six and three fours.Marvan Attapattu joined Fernando at the fall of Gunawardene’s wicket. It was Upeka Fernando though who stole the show. He was a delight to watch and scored 40 runs from only 33 balls. When he was dismissed Mahela Jayawardene (19) and Attapattu (22) guided SSC to the victory target.

Somerset skipper Jamie Cox is keen to take advantage of the fact that Yorkshire and Surrey are not playing in the fresh round of the CricInfo Championship.Somerset are currently third in the Championship and hope to close the gap on the two pace setters when they meet bottom club Northants at Wantage Road.”It’ll be good if we can get closer to them,” Cox explained. “We managed to get 10 points last week (against Yorkshire), and we batted well. We’re going okay and sitting where we need to be sitting. It’s about getting steady points.”Cox will miss the next two or three weeks with his broken thumb, leaving Somerset without several first team players to a mixture of England calls and injury, but rival captain, David Ripley, is taking nothing for granted.”Somerset are a good side. They have quite a small squad but always seem very together and close-knit. Obviously they’ll be missing (Andy) Caddick and (Marcus) Trescothick, but they’ve got guys to come in and take their chances.”Kent are level on points with Somerset, and entertain Leicestershire at Canterbury.”Leicestershire are playing good cricket and I expect them to come down here full of confidence,” Kent captain Matthew Fleming said. “They have shown they’ve got great strength in depth and they’ve got good match-winners with the bat and the ball.”Aftab Habib returns to strengthen the visitors’ squad.Middlesex and Warwickshire meet at Edgbaston in a top of the table Second Division clash, with Mohammed Sheikh’s medium pace expected to be preferred to the off-spin of former captain, Neil Smith, for the hosts.Middlesex’s coach, John Emburey, is expecting a tight encounter. “It’s a top-of-the-table clash and it’s not going to be easy,” he said. “They play some positive cricket and try to get their runs quickly. I’d imagine it’ll be a very close match between two evenly-matched sides.”Meanwhile Durham travel to West End to play Hampshire. Stephen Harmison is hoping to be fit for the visitors, but Nick Hatch has been included in the squad as cover. James Brinkley is away with the Scottish squad in Canada for the 2001 ICC Trophy.”Durham have been playing very well in the one-day championship and they are far more consistent in the championship this year,” Tim Tremlett, Hampshire’s director of cricket, said.Gloucestershire will have to cope without Jon Lewis who has a bad back, but Ben Gannon is expected to play as they travel to Derby. The home side welcome back Paul Aldred and Nathan Dumelow.Kevin Pietersen will miss Nottinghamshire’s home match with Sussex suffering from a pinched nerve in his back. Ex-Test player, 37-year-old John Morris is the man likely to replace him.

After a losing day one due to a soggy outfield, play finally got underway at the Allan Border Field and Queensland had the good fortune to the win the toss and elected to bat. When the players left the field for the bad light they were4 for 208 in a shortened day off 80 overs.Andrew Symonds innings of 98 off just 99 balls with ten fours and four big sixeswas the highlight of the days play following a slow start where the run rate barely crept above two runs an over. However Symonds had his luck, being dropped by Jeff Vaughan off Paul Wilson before he had scored.Mind you the rain over the preceding days had an impact on the outfield which was mainly to blame for the run rate but nonetheless the visitors did bowl well in the early stages.In the first session Jimmy Maher and Troy Dixon scored at a slow rate in the early stages and was Maher first to go, edging Swain to Bradley Young at first slip after taking nearly two hours over his 18.After lunch, Dixon’s slow knock came to an end after over two and a half hours of resistance when he edged Wilson to Manou for 30 and the Bulls were 2/62.Tall right hander Martin Love lost his wicket in the following over to Young and suddenly South Australia had a real sniff at 3/62.Stuart Law was joined by Symonds and they progressed to tea with Queensland 3/115 from 56 overs, Law was on 15 and Symonds 36.After tea and scones Law missed one from Swain but then Symonds went on the attack hitting Young for 20 off an over and doing likewise to Ben Johnson. At the close he needs just one for a century and how theSouthern Redbacks must be ruing that dropped chance

Saurav Ganguly described the strip used for Friday’s ICC KnockOut semi-finalas the worst of the three strips played on by India during the tournament.This was probably just as well for South Africa. Had the match been playedon a good pitch by the Indian captain’s standards, the winning margin mighthave been even more than 95 runs to India.Ganguly’s 141, off no more than 142 balls, was the outstanding innings ofthe tournament and it carried India to a formidable 295 for six in their 50overs. They might have gone beyond 300 but for a final over from AllanDonald from which only two were scored as three wickets fell.Ganguly said that the pitch “stopped a bit” and South African captain ShaunPollock confirmed that it had been a little slower than the tracks used inthe early matches. You wouldn’t have noticed it as India stormed to 293before their third wicket fell to the last ball of the 49th over.On the day India earned their place in Sunday’s final against New Zealand bybatting, bowling and fielding better than South Africa. Neither side reachedthe standards set during their respective quarter-final matches, but Indiawere a good deal closer to the pace than the South Africans.Sachin Tendulkar was the senior partner in a 66-run opening stand, but afterhe had gone for 39, Ganguly gradually started to shift through the gears. Upto the halfway point, the South Africans had more or less been able to keepIndia in check, but the introduction of left-arm spinner Nicky Boje into theattack in the 25th over was the signal for Ganguly to move into overdrive.Ganguly carted Boje for three sixes during two overs that cost South Africa26 and the tone of the innings – and the match – had changed. With RahulDravid a willing ally, India were able to add 74 between the 25th and 35thovers and set themselves up for the highest total of the tournament.Dravid eventually went for 58, but his departure served only to bring YuvrajSingh, the find of the competition, to the wicket. Boje should have caughtSingh when he had one, but the fielder lost the ball in the sun and he wenton to crash 41 off 35 balls.Ganguly, meanwhile, had his slice of luck on 75 when he chopped a LanceKlusener no ball into the hands of Jonty Rhodes at point, but when it’s yourday, it’s your day and only the fact that he couldn’t get on strike duringDonald’s last over probably kept him under 150.Throughout the tournament captains have been talking about 280 to 300 as parfor the pitch and the ground and South Africa didn’t believe themselves outof it. They needed a start, though, and they didn’t get one.Andrew Hall was yorked in the third over, Gary Kirsten run out in thefourth, Boeta Dippenaar caught behind in the fifth and Jacques Kallis caughtoff a leading edge in the eighth. Runs had been coming, but at a price. Thescore was 50 for four.There was a 56-run stand for the fifth wicket between Rhodes and MarkBoucher and 55 were added for the sixth by Boucher and Klusener, but theSouth Africans did not have enough wickets in hand and each Indian successwas a further nail in South Africa’s coffin.Ganguly found time to bring himself on to claim Boucher’s wicket for 60 andthen dropped two successive dolly catches at slip off Nicky Boje who simplycouldn’t fathom which way Anil Kumble was turning it.But the match had long since shifted India’s way and Tendulkar wrapped it upwith the last two wickets in three balls.There was talk beforehand that India might field an additional spinner,Sunil Joshi, on Sunday, but a virgin strip is to be used in the field and itmight have just a little more pace. Changes are not expected in the Indianteam while New Zealand are again likely to be without allrounder ChrisCairns in the field.India will start the final as favourites, but New Zealand were able to weardown Pakistan and they won’t mind being seen as underdogs. They’re quiteused to it, in fact.

ScorecardRikki Clarke got Warwickshire back into the match•Getty Images

This match is so intriguingly set with a day remaining that is hard to decide who has the upper hand. The 265 needed by Warwickshire to retain an outside chance of staying in contention for the Championship looked a tall order but a composed half-century by Laurie Evans has given them an opportunity. Scoring a further 140 with seven wickets still intact looks much less daunting.Success may depend on how long the partnership with Sam Hain survives in the morning session but Hain batted exceptionally well in the first innings and there is a depth of batting to come, with the possibility that Chris Woakes might complete a highly satisfactory comeback by scoring the winning runs.Woakes, in his first competitive action since suffering a foot injury during the World Cup and subsequently damaging his left knee during his rehab, has already shown that he is in good order with ball in hand. Having spoken of his hunger to play a part in England’s Ashes summer, he took three wickets in the space of 10 balls as Warwickshire scythed through Durham’s top order. It was only the enterprise of another bowler who clearly knows what to do with a bat that kept Durham in the match at all.Durham had earlier appeared to be well in control, claiming the last three of Warwickshire’s first-innings wickets in the first 45 minutes for a lead of 116.But then came carnage. In a muggy atmosphere with a threat of showers, they lost their own first four second innings wickets for just nine runs. Conditions were ideal for Woakes, who posed a threat from his first ball and drew first blood with the second ball of his third over, finding the edge of Mark Stoneman’s bat with a delivery the first-innings century-maker was obliged to play.In his next over he struck twice, the first ball clipping Paul Collingwood’s back pad and persuading umpire Graham Lloyd to raise the finger. For the second time in the match, the Durham captain, already facing a dissent charge for his reaction to his first-innings dismissal, appeared to react with incredulity. Four balls later, Scott Borthwick, Durham’s other in-form left-hander, was drawn into a tentative push and was caught behind.Meanwhile, Rikki Clarke, impressive as the senior bowler in the first innings as Woakes eased his way back in, was giving staunch support, running in with purpose at the other end. He flattened two of Keaton Jennings’ stumps and struck again when Michael Richardson, who had pulled Woakes for six as he counter-attacked vigorously, flashed hard and fell to an excellent catch by Evans at third slip. Durham went to lunch, teeteringly, on 34 for five.The mayhem continued into the afternoon as Gordon Muchall, with a wild an injudicious swing, became Clarke’s eighth wicket of the match. Surprisingly, this was new territory for the former England all-rounder, a reliable chipper-in for much of his Warwickshire career but seldom the main man. His biggest match haul previously was seven.When a fine ball from Oliver Hannon-Dalby had John Hastings caught at slip, Durham were 55 for 7, desperately hoping they could at least finish 200 in front. In fact, they exceeded that handsomely. The ball began to lose its venom and runs began to come less hazardously and they did manage a recovery of sorts. Jamie Harrison, the left-arm seamer, completed his second first-class half-century, adding 40 in company with Ryan Pringle and 48 for the ninth wicket with Chris Rushworth.Varun Chopra and Ian Westwood made a decent start to the chase, scoring at five an over, but then both were out. Chopra, with no end in sight to his wretched run, was strangled down the leg side, then Jonathan Webb was out without scoring for the second time in the match, his middle stump plucked out as Rushworth, another five-wicket haul under his belt from the first innings, claimed his 52nd victim of the season.Another glut of wickets might have followed, but Warwickshire applied themselves doggedly. Evans had gone first ball in the first innings but by now the surface was offering Rushworth fewer favours. He and Ian Westwood were determined to keep mistakes to a minimum but nonetheless kept the scoreboard moving. They added 65 for the third wicket before Westwood edged a decent ball from John Hastings and raised the possibility of a win.Woakes was pleased with his comeback. “I’m still feeling a little bit sore of an evening,” he said, with reference to the aftermath of surgery to repair a torn meniscus. “But I’ll take that. Pulling up in the morning is fine.”I’ve never been out for a significant amount of time before so it has been frustrating. It’s been one thing after another starting with the ankle at the World Cup and leading on to my knee.”In terms of timing, it was a bad moment to pick up an injury being in the England squad for all formats. It’s great to see the boys doing well but I want to be part of it.”I’ve got to get myself back to my best fight my way back in. It is not going to be easy but I’m looking forward to it. It is great to see the Ashes summer start so well for and I want to be back in it.”

ScorecardFile photo: Arun Karthik struck two fifties in the game to be named Man of the Match as Assam thumped Delhi•PTI

Assam continued their excellent run, having earned promotion this year, by beating table-toppers Delhi by five wickets in Guwahati. There were only 95 runs away overnight and most of those were knocked over by Arun Karthik (55*), who struck his second fifty of the match. Opener Rahul Hazarika (59) joined him, and those two were the only batsmen to reach the mark in the entire match. Delhi lost all 10 wickets for fewer than 200 in both innings, which proved their undoing. Assam have now vaulted into second place in Group A. With three wins in six games, they are on 22 points, only two behind Delhi’s 24.Vidarbha 247 (Sarwate 50, Tanveer ul Haq 4-60) and 199 for 2 (Badrinath 70*, Satish 61*) beat Rajasthan 216 (Puneed 67, Dobal 51, Umesh 4-45) and 226 (Menaria 76, Saxena 54, Sarwate 5-58) by eight wickets
ScorecardAditya Sarwate, the 25-year old left-arm spinner, is having a fabulous debut season in the Ranji Trophy. His second first-class five-for now takes him to 25 wickets in four games and has also set up Vidarbha’s third win of the season. A target of 199 became a formality with Ganesh Satish (61*) and captain S Badrinath (70*) and hitting unbeaten half-centuries.Sarwate needed only one ball on the fifth day to wrap up Rajasthan’s second innings on their overnight score of 226. He finished with 5 for 58, to finish with seven wickets in the match. Besides him, Umesh Yadav had taken a hat-trick in the first innings.Early wickets were necessary for Rajasthan to pose a challenge to a line-up that features three of the best professionals in the Ranji circuit. Although Wasim Jaffer did not bat, Satish and Badrinath combined for an unbeaten 127 runs for the third wicket to seal the game and consolidate Vidarbha’s place at three on the Group A points table. They have 22 points from seven, same as Assam, who have played only six.
ScorecardHaryana held on for 103 overs in Lahli thanks to Chaitanya Bishnoi’s unbeaten 86 off 259 balls, but the 250 for 4 that they ended up with while following-on was still not enough to match match Odisha’s 529 for 6 declared. Chances of an outright win were high for the visitors, especially after a Virender Sehwag-less Haryana were bowled out for 216 in the first innings in 85.5 overs. But their batting was able to show greater resolve to deny Odisha a second win of the season. Haryana themselves have not had any victories so far and both teams are stuck in the bottom half of the table.Bishnoi, the 21-year old playing his first season of Ranji Trophy, was the common thread that connected three solid partnerships. He added 86 runs in 36.5 overs with Nitin Saini (64), 75 runs with Rohit Sharma (42) in 30.5 overs, 44 runs with Sachin Rana in 18.5 overs and an unbeaten 30 runs with Priyank Tehlan in 11.5 overs to guide his team to relative safety. And clearly, Odisha’s bowlers could not summon the finishing blow: Dhiraj Singh, Suryakant Pradhan and Basant Mohanty bowled 73 overs for only four wickets.
ScorecardThe game eventually petered out into a race for the first innings lead, and Maharashtra who had come into the final day on 290 for 3 did have an opportunity to run down Bengal’s 528 for 9 declared, but were unable to do so. They were reliant on the overnight pair of Rahul Tripathi’s (132 off275 balls) and Ankit Bawne (65 off 143 balls) but once that 156-run partnership for the fourth wicket was broken, Bengal took control.Bawne was bowled by Veer Pratap Singh and the score became 313 for 4. Tripathi fell 16 runs later, then Maharashtra lost their sixth, seventh and eighth wickets for only 11 runs and finally were eventually all out for 406. Pragyan Ojha took 3 for 71. Ashok Dinda, Mukesh Kumar and Aamir Gani picked up two wickets each. Bengal then played out 33 overs with Abhimanyu Easwaran securing his second fifty of the match.

Paul Farbrace, the England assistant coach, believes the cultural evolution of one-day cricket as an equal to the Test game in England is almost complete, after a summer where the national side has found a new lease of life with the white ball.

England’s shift in mindset

England are increasingly viewing cricket as a squad rather than team game, so both physical and mental workloads on the players can be managed.
Steven Finn was rested at Headingley despite it being a must-win game, with Mark Wood recalled, and the notion of there being a ‘best XI’ at any one time is being replaced by an interchangeable model seen in other team sports. Joe Root has missed this whole series, Jos Buttler was left out after the first two matches and Stuart Broad has had a Test-only season.
“It was nice to see Woody, after two games off, saying ‘I feel really fresh and excited about playing,'” Farbrace said. “That’s a great place to be, yes you want players to be excited for every game – if you are playing club cricket you think they should be excited to play every game for England, of course they should – but it’s hard work and relentless. So to hear a young bloke say I’m really excited after two matches off, that’s a great place to be.
“That’s one of the reasons we looked at Rooty, Finny now. I think it’s important we look after people. Ben Stokes is another who at some stage is going to have to miss a series. Moeen Ali is another. The lads who play all forms of the game – it’s going to be impossible for them to play every series.”

One of Andrew Strauss’ first decisions on being named director of England cricket – after ending Kevin Pietersen’s career – was to reappoint Eoin Morgan as limited-overs captain and make abundantly clear that Test results were not the be-all and end-all. Farbrace has now suggested that focusing purely on a limited-overs career would not be seen as a lesser option.Farbrace even supported the notion that in the near future, a player could shelve red-ball cricket in its entirety earlier in a career to focus on the shorter versions of the game. “The way the game is moving forward that could easily happen, couldn’t it?,” he said.It would not be an entirely new concept. Some West Indies players, such as Dwayne Bravo who has not played a first-class game since 2013, are heading that way. Chris Gayle could be next, but the decisions of these players have have been based around either money, politics or injury. For an English cricketer, especially, to go solely the white-ball route would be a considerable sea-change.It is not beyond the realms of possibility that Morgan becomes such a man. Only once in the last four seasons has he had first-class returns of any strength – 2014 when he averaged 45.84 – and his first-class average of 34.97 is lower than his List A figure of 37.20.”He would have said previously: ‘Yes, I want to play Test cricket for England.’ But it might just be that we are saying for the first time in England that it’s okay to be seen as a specialist one-day player and you haven’t got to always be pushing to play Test cricket,” Farbrace said.”If so, Straussy should take the credit for this. Test cricket might not be suited to you. There will be others in the same boat. Now, I am not saying that Morgs wouldn’t play Test cricket for England again but at the moment the way he is playing one-day cricket and the freshness that he then brings into series is working really well.”On Sunday at Old Trafford, England have the chance to secure a series victory against world champions Australia, having been 2-0 down. England have also beaten New Zealand 3-2, and won the two one-off T20s against both teams, meaning they could be unbeaten across all formats this summer come the end of the weekend.Long seen as the poor relation to the five-day game in a country where Test cricket has continued to be held aloft, England’s diabolical World Cup – their sixth failure in the event since reaching the final in 1992 – brought the latest attempt to haul the one-day game into greater focus. That desire was not new. Each World Cup exit promoted a review and a host of new ideas, but this time, there is the belief that the changes are for real and will have a sustained effect.”What will happen is that some people will come into one-day cricket and do really well and might get themselves into the Test side. But we’re not using one-day cricket as a vehicle for Test cricket,” Farbrace said. “One-day cricket is being treated in isolation to Test cricket. If you have the skills to play one-day cricket, you can have a great career for England without ever playing a Test match. There’s nothing wrong with that.”Perhaps a few years ago, it was perhaps seen as a bit of a stepping stone to play Test cricket. I think that is where Strauss has been really clever, he has been very upfront and honest about it.”It has been England’s limited-overs resurgence that has been the success story of the summer despite the Test side regaining the Ashes. England’s Test fortunes had not slumped to the depths of the one-day game, despite the inconsistency which saw them throw away series leads against West Indies and New Zealand, and remained on show in the Ashes. Farbrace admitted the collective success had exceeded expectations.”If at the start of this summer somebody would have said that we would draw the New Zealand Tests, beat New Zealand in the one-dayers, win the Ashes and be going into the last game locked at 2-2, we would have snapped their hand off – and probably walked away saying ‘whatever they’re drinking, I’ll have a pint of that.'”Let’s be fair. I know people have said they want England players to play with a smile on their face, playing this positive cricket, but the most important thing to any national team, in any international sport, is winning. Winning series is what it’s about.”To win a match chasing down 300 like on Friday gives you huge confidence. We want to win on Sunday, and we want to play well, but I would take a scrappy win. It’s about winning and teams develop quickly when they’re winning. You don’t want to be a developing team that keeps losing. We all want to see the team win, don’t we?”

The England team management today announced that Darren Gough is to fly tothe ECB National Academy in Adelaide tonight to continue his rehabilitationfrom a long-term knee injury.Gough will undergo intensive treatment at the Academy and also see a kneespecialist later this week for a further assessment of the injury that haskept him out of competitive cricket since mid-July.The 32-year-old Yorkshire pace-bowler reported swelling and discomfort inhis knee yesterday after bowling two separate spells in the nets at BorderField on Saturday.With the Durham pace bowler, Stephen Harmison, also suffering fromshin-splints, England have decided to call-up Surrey’s Alex Tudor from theECB National Academy Squad and he will join up with the Test Squad inBrisbane later tonight.England Coach, Duncan Fletcher, said: “Darren had been making good progressin his recovery from injury and it’s very frustrating for him and the teamthat he should suffer a setback at this stage.”He has done everything that we have asked in terms of conditioning andstrengthening work and we were hoping that he could play grade cricket thisweekend. But our priority now is to ensure that he gets intensive 1-1treatment for his injury and expert medical advice.”At this stage, we can’t put a time-frame on Darren’s recovery and we willhave to wait for further guidance from the specialist as to the extent ofhis involvement in the rest of the winter tour programme.”Darren Gough said: “It’s very disappointing as I felt that I was nearlythere with my recovery and ready to start playing again. What I want to donow is work hard at the Academy and give myself the best possible chance ofgetting myself fit again for the remainder of the winter.”