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ScorecardSteven Davies’ run-out was one of a number of cheap dismissals as Surrey squandered winning the toss•Getty Images

Warwickshire went into this match top of Division One and with a game in hand over their two nearest rivals, Nottinghamshire and Somerset, so they probably didn’t need any favours. Surrey, however, turned out to be most accommodating hosts on a lazy, hazy day.As spectators sunned themselves in the stands, Surrey were taught a lesson in application and accumulation, after being dismissed for a below-par 223. At the close, Warwickshire had raised the hundred, with just one wicket down, off of 35 overs; at the same stage in their innings, Rory Hamilton-Brown’s side were 150 for 6, having effectively frittered away any advantage gained by winning the toss.And it looked to be some advantage too, judging by the rate of scoring early in the day. But while no one managed to go on to 40 in the Surrey innings, Warwickshire opener Varun Chopra eked out a half-century at a pace more attuned to the sweltering (at least by recent standards) heat. Ominously for Surrey, the two previous occasions on which Chopra has reached fifty this season, he has converted that into a three-figure score.The last time these two sides met in 2007, Warwickshire were on their way down to Division Two and Mark Ramprakash was closing in on 2,000 first-class runs for the second season running. How things change. Ramprakash was again left out of the side here, having injured himself playing second-XI cricket on Tuesday, with Jason Roy opening and Jacques Rudolph operating in the middle order.Having decided to bat under blazing sunshine, Surrey may have hoped to be still going come Thursday morning but a combination of reckless shot selection, feckless running and the odd good ball saw them hustled out by tea.With the cheers of enthusiastic schoolchildren, given free entry, echoing around the ground, Surrey cracked along as if it were the height of summer and the preceding weeks of swing and seam were a distant memory. They brought up the fifty in the 11th over and the hundred in the 21st but they ultimately ran out of batsmen with equal haste.Roy and Zander de Bruyn had both departed by the time that Steven Davies, who played solidly for 34, became the first of two avoidable run-out victims. He attempted an injudicious single to square leg only to be sent back by Rudolph, Tim Ambrose proving the call correct by scampering to his right and throwing down the stumps with Davies short of regaining his ground.Some of Surrey’s batsmen are not old enough to remember Myspace, let alone the leave outside off stump but Rudolph, who was caught behind driving, does not have that excuse. His dismissal, after a 50-run stand with Hamilton-Brown, precipitated a collapse from 134 for 3 at lunch to 164 for 7, as Warwickshire’s bowlers asked a few questions and Surrey’s batsmen proved there wasn’t a mastermind among them. Hamilton-Brown’s run-out, calling for a single to mid-on only for Tom Maynard to remain rubbernecking at the non-striker’s end, summed up their day.In fact, Surrey may not have made 200 if the umpires had sided with Jeetan Patel when he claimed a catch at cover-point off Jon Lewis, who went on add another 31 runs to his score. But by then, Warwickshire had already had their fair share of gifts.

ScorecardPhil Jaques scored 160 as Yorkshire’s gamble paid off in style at Bristol•Getty Images

Relegated clubs often hold a sense of being better than Division Two, especially a county of the grandeur of Yorkshire, a club with a major chip on their shoulder this season. At Bristol the cheers from the balcony as Gary Ballance struck the second of consecutive sixes to win the match were the roars of a team determined to prove their belonging is far above the lower portion of the lower tier, which Gloucestershire represent.Last week’s match at Scarborough against Leicestershire was billed as a must-win, after no win in Yorkshire’s opening three games. They assumed a divine right to beat Leicestershire and duly did so. Like the Surrey swagger, the Yorkshire vaunt was returning. Now it’s back and quite possibly here to stay as they overhauled the highest-ever chase at Bristol; and the second-highest successful chase in Yorkshire history.”I always knew that if we got that first win it would give us a lot of confidence going forward and we would get on some sort of roll,” Andrew Gale, Yorkshire captain, said. “Today shows how much confidence we’ve got in the camp now.”It is a confidence bred by their new coach Jason Gillespie. “I said to Jason what do you think of the chase and he said go for it. He said we’ll chase anything. Being part of an Australian side like he was, they would have backed themselves to chase that and that’s rubbing off on us a little bit.”This was a very Australian victory. Very Adelaide 2006. Very Cape Town 2002: where Australia chased 331 at more than four an over to win, a game in which Gillespie played. He oversaw a chase of 400 here, in 108 overs. It was a tremendous effort but a challenge Gillespie expects his side to take on and expects them to succeed at.He certainly expected his countryman to carry his attitude. Phil Jaques did and played a wonderful innings, thumping the ball around and dominating Gloucestershire’s young attack in the manner of Matthew Hayden or David Warner, all powerful left-handers with a great eye for the ball.After passing a hundred (his ninth for Yorkshire) in 160 balls, Gloucestershire might have hoped he would try to win the match quickly and perhaps give them a chance – generosities were necessary on this slow wicket – but Jaques continued to grind the hosts down. Beside, Jaques had offered a sharp chance to Alex Gidman at first slip when on 14. Goodness, what a miss.But Jaques alone was not enough to reach the target. Two big innings were needed and Ballance, another from the southern hemisphere, provided the other. The pair shared 203 with sensible but positive batting at 3.35 runs an over. They were in complete control. The stand began when Andrew Gale chipped Ed Young to mid off during the morning session – an undeserved wicket, Young was the most expensive of the Gloucestershire attack – and lasted until the 15th over of the second new ball.Ballance made perhaps the better of the two centuries. The Zimbabwean’s was chanceless and offered a magnificent coup de grace: Young dispatched over mid on for four, then six and another maximum over midwicket won the game.There was little Gloucestershire could do. “Things could be a lot worse,” was captain Alex Gidman’s conclusion. “If you look at the way we’ve started, to have lost one, won one and been unbeaten in another three is a good effort. We’re young and inexperienced and setting out on a journey ourselves and to come across this challenge was really good for us and I was proud of the way we tried.”I’m pleased we took the task on; a year ago we wouldn’t have even thought of it. That we did is a good sign for the future.”Their seamers, including Graeme McCarter, a 19-year-old Ireland international on debut, bowled admirably but conditions made taking wickets with the older ball exceptionally difficult. Will Gidman took two with the second new ball – ending Jaques’ 256-ball stay, bowled trying to cut, and had Anthony McGrath, who played a major part in Yorkshire’s highest fourth-innings chase, against Leicestershire in 2005, very well held at second slip.But Yorkshire’s very talented line-up runs deep and out strode Tim Bresnan to punch six fours and a flicked six over square leg to take Yorkshire to the winning line. He was bowled before Ballance’s glorious ending.

Tickets for this year’s World Twenty20 will be as cheap as $0.25 for group games and between $2.50 and $45 for the final. The ICC has announced the global sale of tickets for the tournament, which will be held in Sri Lanka, from today. The tickets can be bought online from the ICC’s website. The low prices are in sync with those during the World Cup 2011, which drew large local audiences to the grounds.Eight percent of the tickets available to the public are on sale now, with the remaining ones becoming available on August 1 to ensure availability closer to the event. There is a limit of six tickets that any one person can purchase for the group stage matches, and four tickets from Super Eights onwards. The tournament kickstarts with hosts Sri Lanka taking on Zimbabwe on September 18.The attractive ticket pricing for the ICC event comes after Sri Lankan as well as visiting England supporters were angered by exorbitant prices for daily tickets during the ongoing England-Sri Lanka Test series.Attendance to the group games of the women’s World Twenty20 will be free of charge. The women’s semi-finals and finals are scheduled on the same day and ground as the men’s games and the tickets for the men’s games will be valid for both.Edited by Devashish Fuloria

Match facts

Tuesday, April 10, Bangalore
Start time 1600 (1030 GMT)So how’s your team treating you? Daniel Vettori and Brendon McCullum will be part of different teams on Tuesday•Getty Images

Big Picture

As the IPL awaits a few close, high-scoring games to justify the hype, the two teams that got it off to a celebrated start in 2008 come up against each other.Chances of any such repeat – despite the presence of Brendon McCullum, Gautam Gambhir and Jacques Kallis in the Kolkata Knight Riders side – are remote. Royal Challengers Bangalore,who started well with a win in their first match, will only get stronger with the arrival of Tillakaratne Dilshan, even as Chris Gayle gets closer to full fitness and is expected to play. Then there is the spin combination of Muttiah Muralitharan and Daniel Vettori, and it promises to be a handful. Knight Riders will have to play out of their skins to end what is becoming long enough to be called a losing streak.

Players to watch

Between them in their last game, Murali and Vettori went for 53 runs in eight overs and took out four recognised batsmen. If the two can keep producing similar results, Royal Challengers will be a tough side to beat.Yusuf Pathan scored 1011 runs for Rajasthan Royals at an average of 26.6 and strike-rate of 161.2, to go with 20 wickets. For Knight Riders, though, he is yet to score a fifty after 23 games, which have yielded him just 366 runs. Is there something Shane Warne did right but Gambhir hasn’t?

2011 head-to-head

Royal Challengers beat Knight Riders twice last year, comfortably in the away clash and after struggling in the return clash at home.

Stats and trivia

• Jacques Kallis has more scores of 50 and over – 14 – than anyone else in IPL.
• Kallis, McCullum and Gambhir have scored 36 runs in six innings between them in this season.

Quotes

“It’s a tough one because Andrew [McDonald] performed so well in the last game, so there is going to be pressure on all the overseas players to keep performing and hold on to their spots.”

“It was a good job by the bowlers but with this kind of batting we don’t deserve to win.”

Italy captain Alessandro Bonora believes Michael Di Venuto can transom his amateur Italian side and help them make an impression in the World T20 qualifier, which begins on March 13 in the UAE. The squad will come together for an extended camp in Dubai ahead of their first game against Oman.Di Venuto, 38, played nine ODIs for Australia and Bonora is looking to his international experience to help guide Italy, the fourth-lowest ranked side in the tournament.”We are hugely excited about Michael joining up with the team,” Bonora said. “The Di Venuto’s have had a long standing relationship with Italian cricket, with Michael’s brother Peter having played for Italy in the recent past. Just the opportunity to see how a true professional goes about his job will have an immeasurable influence on the guys.”The squad is very similar to the one we have had over past tournaments. The coaching structure is unchanged too, so the guys know what to expect and what is expected of them. The difficulty, as with many of these tournaments, will be for the guys coming out of the northern hemisphere winter to have their skills and games honed by the time we start.”Di Venuto also brings a wealth of first-class experience. He spent 17 years playing for Tasmania before becoming a British-qualified player for Durham, after a stint as overseas player for Derbyshire. He is one of a number of new faces in the Italian squad that Bonora is excited about.”Middlesex allrounder Gareth Berg will also be joining us and offers some exciting variation with his right-arm swing bowling and strong batting,” Bonora said. “He’s featured strongly in the Middlesex T20 team over the last few seasons and will also bring great experience and lessons for us from the county circuit.”The other exciting addition is the off-spinning allrounder Carl Sandri who has been working towards joining up with Italian cricket for a number of years now and it’s great for us that he will be on this tour. Carl has been playing grade cricket in Melbourne for many years and will certainly bolster our ranks tremendously.”A place in the final of the qualifying tournament and a berth at the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka is likely to prove beyond Italy, but Bonora believes his side demonstrates what is great about amateur cricket.”We have limited resources and spend a limited time together as a squad, but when we get together for these tournaments we play with passion and a strong desire to do well for one another,” Bonora said. “We play with discipline and structure and always look to implement the key skills of the game. If you give us a sniff of a win, we love nothing better than a team song to celebrate victory.”Italy have been drawn in group B, with Ireland, Scotland, Uganda, Oman, USA, Kenya and Namibia.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsVirat Kohli’s authoritative 77 set up India’s chase•Getty Images

India’s feted openers did not cause significant damage and the inexperienced middle order succumbed to old failings, but their bowling allrounders Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin showed admirable poise to steer a wobbly chase home. Virat Kohli’s authoritative 77 set the agenda, but India began to falter when he had cramps around the mid-point of the innings. His exit, run out while attempting a hopeless single, left India’s lower order 53 tricky runs to get. Ashwin and Jadeja did the rest, braving the Lasith Malinga threat and the epidemic of nerves that had blighted the middle order.For some reason Sri Lanka did not go hard enough at India after Kohli’s fall. Malinga, who yorked the stumps with a slingshot throw from mid-on to catch a diving Kohli short in the 36th over, had four overs left. Mahela Jayawardene brought his trump card on quickly, but didn’t provide him with the attacking fields the situation demanded. Malinga was off after two quick overs that were handled well, and by the time he returned for the 45th over, India needed only 17 more. It was too late – Ashwin and Jadeja had played themselves in, and ticked the runs away with composure.

Smart stats

• Sachin Tendulkar went past 3000 runs against Sri Lanka in ODIs. He is the only player to pass that mark against two teams (Australia and Sri Lanka). His century tally of nine and eight against these two teams is also the highest for a batsman against a particular opposition.

• Virat Kohli’s half-century is his 19th in ODIs to go with eight centuries. He now has 2968 runs in 76 matches at an average of 47.11. It is also his sixth half-century against Sri Lanka.

• Sri Lanka’s score of 233 equalled their highest total in Perth. The previous one was in a defeat against Australia in 2006. The target chased by India is the fifth highest they have achieved in ODIs in Australia.

• The 234-run target is also the joint fifth-highest chased by any team in Perth. Three of those have come against Australia.

• R Ashwin picked up three wickets in an innings for the seventh time, and for the first time against Sri Lanka. The 3 for 32 is also his third-best performance and second three-wicket haul outside India.

• The 53-run stand between Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja is the sixth fifty-plus stand for the seventh wicket for India against Sri Lanka. It is also the second half-century stand against Sri Lanka for the pair, after their 51-run partnership in Harare in 2010.

• Dinesh Chandimal’s half-century is his first against India and fourth overall in ODIs. He also has two centuries in 23 matches at an average of 37.63.

The only moment of indiscretion came when India needed one to win. Ashwin tried to loft Angelo Mathews down the ground and hit it straight up in the air. Three men converged, and mid-off, who should have taken it easily, backed off following some miscommunication, as India scrambled through for the win. The fielder at mid-off was Malinga.The batting effort capped Ashwin’s best day on tour, when he reduced his pace, tossed the ball up, and extracted a lot more spin than is the norm in Perth. He came into the attack at an ideal moment, soon after Zaheer Khan had dismissed Kumar Sangakkara in the 17th over with an away seamer. That was Zaheer’s second moment of excellence against a left-hand batsman, after he took just 10 balls in his opening spell to work over Upul Tharanga. Thereafter, Ashwin suffocated Sri Lanka’s momentum in partnership with Zaheer. Between them, they reaped combined returns of 20-2-76-5. That included 14 of the 20 Powerplay overs, which yielded 4 for 42.Tillakaratne Dilshan fought through Zaheer’s opening burst, and was primed to take off after beavering to 48, but gifted his wicket away. Dinesh Chandimal took charge, walking across his stumps to clip Praveen fine, steering with soft hands into the covers and setting himself up early for swings to the leg side. He had added 52 in 11.2 overs with Jayawardene, at which point Ashwin began to wield his influence.The carom ball was scarcely used, as Ashwin focused on loop, drift and traditional turn to good effect. He first induced Jayawardene to top-edge a sweep to fine leg in the batting Powerplay. He then dented hopes of a quick recovery by weaving a sharp offbreak past Thisara Perera, before dismissing Chandimal in the 44th over. That put paid to Sri Lanka’s prospects of a flying finish, though Mathews slogged hard and ran harder to provide some late succour.Sri Lanka’s all-seam attack, in contrast to their opponents earlier in the day, attempted to use pace and bounce to unsettle India. Virender Sehwag perished attempting his patent upper cut, which did not carry beyond third man. Sachin Tendulkar’s fans enjoyed 48 runs of sublime batting, before he once again succumbed without completing the most eagerly anticipated century in cricket history. Until he played on to Mathews, attempting a cheeky dab to third man, Tendulkar lined up a bunch of pleasing shots, with head stationary and feet moving well. A firm front-foot push off Malinga was as good as any stroke played through the day, until Kohli began to dazzle.Kohli imperiously flicked his second ball through square leg for four. The extra pace on the pitch seemed to play into Kohli’s hands, as he pranced into position early to play attacking shots on either side of the pitch. His control was epitomised by the ease with which he pulled a pacy Dhammika Prasad bumper through square leg. Rohit Sharma’s lethargic movements at the other end were only accentuated by Kohli’s quick feet and hands.India were coasting when Rohit played a loose cut to be caught at point. Suresh Raina kept the flag aflutter with a couple of pleasing cover drives, but the threat of the short ball was imminently around the corner. With Kohli cramping, Raina took it upon himself to go for the boundaries, and holed out while trying to pull Mathews. MS Dhoni too returned without making a dent, late on a pull that spiralled to mid-on. When Kohli ran himself out, India had lost three big wickets for 24 in 3.5 overs. Unfortunately for Sri Lanka, that was the last time Malinga hit the stumps.

Ed Cowan wants to force Shane Watson down the Australian batting order on his return to the Test team by making himself indispensable at the top.Appointed vice-captain to Michael Clarke in April last year, Watson has missed every Test match of the home summer due to hamstring and calf problems.Before his injury Watson, 30, had been Australia’s senior opening batsman, but the promotion of Cowan and David Warner has opened an avenue for him to be shuffled down the order into a position more favourable to an allrounder. Cowan, 29, said he wanted to dissuade any lingering thoughts of Watson resuming at the top with a hefty score in the fourth Test against India at Adelaide Oval.”He (Watson) is probably the best player in the country so they certainly do have to fit him in,” Cowan said in Sydney. “It’s no different to any other team, when guys are coming back you’ve got to hold your place in the team through weight of runs.”How I see my job is to make it so difficult for the selectors that Shane Watson has to bat somewhere else in the batting order. That’s simply done by me going out and making runs and the rest takes care of itself. If they’re having a discussion ‘should Shane Watson be opening the batting’, then I’m not doing my job.”Successful as he has been as an opening batsman and change bowler since his Test match recall in 2009, Watson may still be capable of more. A tendency to be dismissed between 50 and 100 means he has never been able to make the truly match-shaping scores expected of the best openers, while he has admitted to struggling with the mental demands of walking off the park a bowler and zipping straight back out after the change of innings as a batsman.Moved out of the top three, Watson would have more time to re-train his sights. Such a demotion would also sharpen the focus on Watson’s bowling, a skill he has wrestled with jettisoning entirely at times during a career more speckled with injury than anyone would have liked.Cowan’s focus is entirely devoted to blunting the new ball then prospering aftewards, and he has already formed a partnership of ideal contrasts with the combative and aggressive Warner. However Cowan admitted that his scores so far had not yet made him safe in his position, as the selectors cast an eye ahead towards Test matches in the West Indies in April.”Two fifties in three games … that’s okay, that’s a pass, but it’s not brilliant,” Cowan said. “The only disappointing thing for me is to have two 50s rather than two 100s. I pride myself on being able to score the big score once I’m set so that’s been a disappointing aspect but I am trying to rectify that this week.”That’s why there’s excitement for this Test as well, to really cement that spot and make that a really difficult conversation for the tour of the West Indies.”There was an admission from Cowan that he had perhaps diverted his focus from the narrow objective of the next ball when he had advanced to 68 in Melbourne and 74 in Perth. Thoughts of a century had clouded his thinking, leading to his dismissal in each case.”I have probably thought about it too much once I am in,” he said. “There was that moment in Perth where I looked up and thought ‘I am flying again this morning, if I keep going like this I will be 100 by lunch’ and all of a sudden I was sitting on my bum back in the change room.”The key to those big scores [in the lead-up to his Test debut] has been to continue with my rhythms and mental routines and maybe not look at the scoreboard too much.”Australia’s players flew into Adelaide from home ports on Friday afternoon, reconvening for the chance to inflict a second 4-0 drubbing on India in as many away series for the world’s No. 2-ranked Test team. Cowan said he detected no trace of relaxation among the hosts despite the series being won conclusively in Perth.”It’s exciting that we’re on the verge of something special as a team,” he said. “Four-nil would be an absolute drubbing of the second best team in the world.”

Michael Clarke has led Australia to a Test series victory in Sri Lanka. He has since ushered the side through a tumultuous South African tour that plunged to rare depths but ended in a result that Peter Siddle has instructively termed a “good one-all series win”. Yet Clarke and his team are still to register as an emerging unit with the Australian public, burdened as it is with memories of a humiliating Ashes defeat last summer. A modest but settled New Zealand side provides the first chance for Clarke’s XI to prove itself worthy in the eyes of a country that has been losing interest in what is meant to be Australia’s favourite sport.Though many of Australian cricket’s greatest exploits have taken place overseas, it is at home that reputations are made and broken. Kim Hughes’ tear-stained exit was that much more painful for taking place in Brisbane rather than Barbados, Steve Waugh’s most indelible innings was made that way by a teeming SCG as much as its last-gasp circumstances. Mark Taylor lost his first series as captain to Pakistan, but had the advantage of doing so on the subcontinent without any television coverage back home. Michael Bevan was a most accomplished debutant then, but later in 1994 against England’s bowlers his mistakes were magnified by Channel Nine and he soon fell out of the team. Clarke has judged the network’s audience so important he is speaking separately to Nine on match eve to preview each Test of the summer.Damien Martyn, the former batsman, played many of his most outstanding innings on foreign soil, and endured some higher profile struggles at home. For this he felt under-appreciated, and is adamant that while there is greater cricketing difficulty in making runs overseas, an Australian cricketer’s reputation must be made at home.”Definitely [runs mean more at home], because people watch it at home in the summer,” Martyn said in a 2009 interview. “If you make runs on primetime Channel Nine it’s just more in people’s faces. That’s just the way it is, touring is much harder than playing in your home country. Every professional side loves playing at home. As individuals and groups we enjoy going away and playing well, whereas we feel some comfy at home and know all the wickets. It just worked out for me that way that I made most of those hundreds when I was away.”Clarke knows the importance of establishing his captaincy via success in Australia, not least to vindicate the many changes made to the structure around the team in the wake of the Argus review. Pat Howard, John Inverarity, Rod Marsh, Andy Bichel and Mickey Arthur all need time to settle into newly-minted roles, and further wins for Clarke against New Zealand would offer it to them. Given all the newness that surrounds him, Clarke must be grateful that Ricky Ponting stepped aside from the captaincy in April, allowing the new man time to get himself established – so few others are this week.”I’ve been hearing it’s the start of a new era for eight months now,” Clarke said. “To me it will be no different, my captaincy will be no different to what it’s been since I’ve taken over for the Bangladesh one-day tour. My goal is to win every game we play no matter what form of the game it is, at times the way I captain, I like to be attacking and positive but there’s time throughout the game where you have to pull the reins in so I will do that to the best of my ability.”I think I have to use the talent we have around the group in regards to our bowlers and our batting as well. We have a really good mix here of youth and experience and the experienced guys will need to stand up, me included, and make sure we lead from the front. The advice of some of the senior players is going to be very helpful throughout this Australian summer, as it has been in my brief captaincy stint. I’m looking forward to starting the summer, I’d love to get off to a flyer against the Kiwis and build this momentum we have since Bangladesh.”Since Bangladesh, Clarke’s natural aptitude for tactical decisions has become clear. He wrong-footed Tillakaratne Dilshan plenty of times in Sri Lanka, and emerged with plenty of credit next to the more sturdy leadership of Graeme Smith in South Africa. Adept at managing a bowling attack, Clarke will have his hands full at the Gabba to extract the best from his country’s least accomplished ensemble for 23 years. While Peter Siddle and Nathan Lyon provide a modicum of experience and skill, half Clarke’s attack will be lacking entirely in Test match pedigree, and there will be no Shane Watson to plug whatever gaps develop.”That’s something we have had to think about as a selection panel as well, without Watto, we lose his bowling, so the bowlers have a big job to do,” Clarke said. “They all have their individual roles, and like I’ve said before I don’t expect them to do anything more than what they’ve done for their states. The key to having success in these conditions against good opposition is discipline and execution.”We as an attack need to have that, as a batting unit exactly the same, if our shot selection is not spot on, if we’re not disciplined, we’ve seen in the past what can happen. Our training and preparation has been outstanding and I’m confident we will have the discipline throughout this Test match to win the game.”Ultimately Australia’s best attribute in Brisbane may not be any one bowler or batsman but the Gabba itself. The hosts have not lost a Test at the ground since 1988 against the West Indies, and have been promised a pitch far livelier than the surface that died a slow and painful death at the hands of Alastair Cook during the first Ashes Test last summer.”The reason we’ve had so much success is because we know the conditions and know how different the Gabba is to anywhere in Australia,” Clarke said. “In times gone by, probably even before my time, the Gabba and WACA were the two standout wickets that had a lot of pace and bounce but in my time it’s been the Gabba that does have good pace and bounce and it’s quite a tough place to start your innings on.”So far under Clarke, Australia have yet to lose a series of any kind. He will not want to do so against New Zealand, at a time when the nation cannot help but take notice.

The PCB coach hunt committee has decided on its choice for head coach and specialised coaches, but will make a formal announcement after the Bangladesh tour, with the incumbent in place for next January’s series against England. Dav Whatmore is seen as the front-runner for the top job with Mohsin Khan, Aaqib Javed and Julien Fountain tipped to get the batting, bowling and fielding roles.Col Naushad Ali, a member of the committee and currently assistant manager of the national team, said the committee had made its decision. “The person we have picked as head coach is very well suited to Pakistan,” Ali said. “He is the one who suits the temperament of Pakistan cricket and [that] of its team.”Whatmore, currently coach of the IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders, was linked with the post on an earlier occasion, when the PCB eventually picked Geoff Lawson. This time, his name is believed to be favoured by the committee members – Ali, Intikhab Alam, Zaheer Abbas and Ramiz Raja (though the last-named has been out of loop while on tour as a commentator).When contacted by ESPNcricinfo, Whatmore refused to shed any light on the issue. “I can’t say anything,” he said. “I am in no position to say anything.”The committee – which is believed to favour home-grown batting and bowling coaches, given Pakistan’s traditional strengths in those disciplines – is yet to conduct a formal interview with any of the candidates, but is understood to have been in touch through mail and phone. It is believed the PCB had set up a meeting between Alam and Whatmore under the Ijaz Butt regime but it was cancelled following the change in administration.The appointment of a coach will fill a slot that’s been lying vacant for the past five months, since Waqar Younis stepped down on health grounds. Mohsin Khan was named interim coach and it’s understood he wants to continue in some coaching capacity rather than return to a selectorial role.”I think I have done fairly a good job,” Khan told ESPNcricinfo last month. “I haven’t applied for the coaching job but if they [the PCB] ask me to carry on, I’d love to do so.”

ScorecardCullen Bailey helped rescue South Australia from what looked like certain defeat•Getty Images

South Australia’s last pair, Cullen Bailey and Peter George, survived for 22 overs to avoid defeat at Adelaide Oval, where rain and that final stand thwarted Western Australia. The Warriors began the day with victory theirs for the taking: they led by 329 runs and the Redbacks were wobbling at 3 for 23.However, wet weather washed out 35 overs, which proved to be costly for the visitors. Nathan Coulter-Nile collected 4 for 46, while Michael Beer and Michael Hogan each picked up two wickets in an over to leave South Australia in major trouble at 9 for 106.At that point, the Redbacks had lost 5 for 28 in 12 overs, which left George and Bailey with a major task to see out the rest of the afternoon. In the final 22 overs they scored only 13 runs – the last 10 overs were maidens – and Bailey finished unbeaten on 19 from 109 balls with George on 5 from 60 deliveries as Marcus North rotated his bowlers to no avail.The Warriors took first-innings points from the match and sit second on the Sheffield Shield table, having won their opening game. The Redbacks are still searching for their first win.