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Scorecard

Tamil Nadu lost nine wickets for 123 runs at the Chepauk as Delhi made a spirited fightback after the openers had added 127. Chetanya Nanda triggered the collapse with three wickets in 13 deliveries, while Rajat Bhatia and Pradeep Sangwan followed up on the act with two wickets apiece.Earlier M Vijay and Abhinav Mukund had given Tamil Nadu yet another good start as they made Delhi wait for 39 overs for the first breakthrough. The half-centuries the two scored were Vijay’s third and Mukund’s fourth score in excess of 50 this season. But after the first wicket, the highest partnership Tamil Nadu managed was 28 runs for the sixth wicket.
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Piyush Chawla and Tanmay Srivastava missed maiden centuries as Uttar Pradesh finished the first day in Hyderabad at 293 for 6. After Tanmay lost his opening partner Rohit Prakash in the first over, he anchored the first half of UP’s innings. He shared stands worth 61 and 80 with Suresh Raina and Mohammad Kaif respectively and then became part of a mini middle-order collapse as 141 for 2 became 168 for 5. He scored 81, three less than his previous best.Chawla and Amir Khan stemmed the collapse and added 112 for the sixth wicket, Chawla taking charge and scoring a career-best 82 off 130 balls. Amir, the sedate partner, ended the day unbeaten on 44 off 119 deliveries.
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Bengal bowled Andhra out for 121 at Eden Gardens to give themselves a hope of getting a bonus point and avoiding relegation. They ended the day at 46 for 1, 75 behind Andhra. Rana Chowdhary, the left-arm medium bowler playing his second match, took four wickets in 6.2 overs to rattle the Andhra batsmen. Ranadeb Bose took three wickets and SS Paul chipped in with two.Andhra’s batting never got going as the 39-run eighth-wicket stand was the highest partnership, and B Sumanth, the No. 7, was the top-scorer with 30.
ScorecardIn a relegation face-off match, Himachal Pradesh wasted a good start to lose nine wickets for 121 runs and get bowled out for 280 against Rajasthan in Dharamsala. Before the collapse, Mukesh Sharma and Hemant Dogra had kept Rajasthan completely out of the game with a 127-run second-wicket stand. Mukesh went on to score his first first-class century, but saw the rest of the batsmen fall at the other end. Mukhesh, 101, was the ninth wicket to fall. Dogra scored his personal best with 71.Shamsher Singh dismissed the two of them, while Mohammad Aslam and Sumit Mathur took three wickets apiece for Rajasthan.Karnataka 2 for 0 trail Maharashtra 276 (Khadiwale 96, Mohan 51, Vinay Kumar 4-66) by 274 runs
Scorecard Maharashtra, who looked well placed for a big total against Karnataka, collapsed to be bowled out for 276 in Ratnagiri. From 210 for 3, they lost the last seven wickets for 66, as Harshad Khadiwale missed out on his second century of the season. A quick half-century by Dhruv Mohan took Maharashtra to the eventual 276.Maharashtra had made six changes to their side; three of the in-coming players being debutants, while Hrishikesh Kanitkar, Sairaj Bahutule, Salil Agharkar and Kedar Jadhav were dropped.For Karnataka, D Vinay Kumar and NC Aiyappa did most of the damage, taking four and three wickets respectively.
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Led by the dour Shitanshu Kotak and fluent Cheteshwar Pujara, Saurashtra ground the Mumbai bowlers and lost only two wickets for 202 on the first day at the Wankhede Stadium. To make matters worse for Mumbai, none of the two was done with by stumps: Kotak was unbeaten on 73, Pujara on 61.Kotak came in to bat in the fourth over of the day and spent an even six hours in the middle. Pujara, the leading run-getter in Ranji trophy so far, crossed fifty for sixth time in the season and is six short of 800 runs from the season.Mumbai employed seven bowlers, but only Murtuza Hussain met success, ending the day with figures of 2 for 32 from 19 overs.
ScorecardThe Baroda lower order recovered well after Orissa, led by Basanth Mohanty, had reduced them to 81 for 6. They ended the day at 241 for 9, thanks to useful contributions from Pinal Shah, Abhimanyu Chauhan, Sankalp Vohra and Sumit Singh.Shah and Chauhan started the comeback with a 55-run seventh-wicket partnership. After Chauhan fell for 35, Rajesh Pawar fell quickly too, but Shah and Vohra added 27 for the ninth wicket. Shah got out for 44. The unbeaten last-wicket partnership of 71 between Vohra and Sumit was Baroda’s highest. Vohra ended the day on 45, and Singh, the No. 11, on 29. These are career-best scores for Chauhan, Vohra and Sumit.For Orissa Basanth Mohanty continued his impressive first season with 4 for 55.

Individual statistics for Tests played in 2004

Individual statistics for ODIs played in 2004

Shane Warne announced his voluntary withdrawal from any official training until the end of his 12-month ban in February, saying that he did not want to “place any team-mates or anyone else in an awkward position”.The Australian Sports Commission (ASC) recently told Cricket Australia that it was unacceptable for Warne to train at any level of the game, including club cricket, under the Australian board’s anti-drug policy. Warne is serving his ban after testing positive for a banned diuretic just before the World Cup earlier this year.”I think it’s ridiculous that six months after the event to now say Ican’t train. [It] just seems there are too many agendas with too many people,”Warne said, reading from a statement. “I have come to the decision that I am going to remove myself from all official training.”He continued: “I will continue to work on my fitness and my cricket skills by myself and with some friends. I know I still have a lot to offer cricket; at what level that is, is out of my control. All I can do is to present myself in the best possible way and hope that the powers that be will enjoy my return [to cricket].”Anticipating queries on a raunchy text-message issue involving a South African woman, Warne refused to take any questions from the media at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, where he held the press conference. He began his address by saying that any allegations concerning his private life would remain private.Over two weeks ago Helen Cohen Alon, a South African mother of three, accused Warne of sending her lewd text messages. Since then, a Melbourne stripper has also approached the media with allegations of an affair with Warne.Despite the controversy, Warne has received some support from various quarters. His wife Simone has said that she will “stand by my husband 100%. I always have and will continue to, especially through this unnecessary heartache. Certain individuals are trying to destroy our family. This will not happen.”Merv Hughes, a former Test team-mate, said that Warne was adversely affected by events. “I saw him a couple of days ago and he’s not the Shane Warne that you know, he’s really flat and it just seems to have really gotten hold of him,” said Hughes. “Shane Warne is a close friend of mine and you’ve got to feel for him with what he’s going through. It would be great if they came out and said ‘Yeah, Shane can train and prepare himself’, because he is going to be the first Australian cricketer to take 500 Test wickets.”

Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, has made his pitch for the resumption of cricketing ties with India, which he said would benefit both countries and also cricket in the region.Speaking at a reception to honour the surviving members of the Pakistan cricket team that went on the country’s first Test tour to India in 1952, he said: “It’s very unfortunate that India has not played us for a long time, we need to leave the past aside, India should start playing us for the mutual benefits and for cricket in South Asia.”

Since that inaugural series, bilateral cricket ties have been intermittent at best. There were no matches between 1961 and 1978, and it’s now 14 years since India played a Test match in Pakistan. Pakistan’s last Test tour of India was in 1999, months before the Kargil conflict led to a further deterioration in relations.”Cricket is a passion in South Asia which is so very rich in talent, andteams will improve if we play each other and sports can add interaction,” saidMusharraf.The late Abdul Hafeez Kardar led that 1952 side, and those team-mates who have outlived him were presented with medallions, Pakistan blazers and Rs 200,000 (US$4200) each. The survivors are Fazal Mahmood, Hanif Mohammad, Imtiaz Ahmed, Israr Ali, Khan Mohammad, Waqar Hasan, Wazir Mohammad, Rusi Dinshaw, Zulfiqar Ahmed, Khalid Ibadullah, Khursheed Ahmad and Khalid Qureshi.

The ICC has refused a request from the Canadian Cricket Association for their Intercontinental Cup match against the USA to be postponed. The three-day game is due to take place in Florida between May 28 and 30.The CCA made the request at the beginning of April, arguing that it had not had enough time to prepare. “We have proposed that the fixture be pushed back to the end of July or possibly September because we will not be ready in May,” explained Ben Sennik, the CCA’s president. “We need some time to breathe and give our team the best possible chance to compete and win.”Sennik had been keen for the national trials – scheduled for early June – to take place before the match, explaining that they would then be in a better position to select their strongest team. The ICC expressed their disappointment at the request, but agreed to look into it nonetheless.”There is a legitimate reason to consider postponing the games because both countries season would have just started by the time May month end comes around,” said Martin Vieira, the ICC’s regional development manager for the Americas.Canada met the USA in the Six Nations Cup in Sharjah in March, and lost by six wickets. And while the fortunes of the USA are on the up – they won that tournament and so qualified for September’s ICC Champions Trophy in England – those of Canada are in decline. They lost every game in Sharjah, and their Under-19 side returned from the World Cup in Bangladesh without a win.

Whatever became of Plan A? At the beginning of the series, Brian Lara confidently asserted that England’s attack was over-reliant on Steve Harmison, and that the back-up bowlers were there for the taking. Two Tests and one retained Wisden Trophy later, England have made Lara eat his words, and the much-maligned Ashley Giles has been right at the forefront of the effort, with 18 wickets in the back-to-back fortnight of matches.Harmison, in the meantime, has been a virtual spectator, with just three wickets in the two games, at an average of 81. Giles, however, is in no doubt that Harmison is merely biding his time, and believes that “someone is going to pay the price” for his lean spell.Giles warned that Lara would come to regret his pre-series optimism, before adding that there were no concerns in the England camp about the sudden down-turn in form of Harmison, who had swept all before him in the Caribbean and against New Zealand earlier in the summer. He was Man of the Series on both occasions, and with 45 wickets in the seven Tests, he was the world’s leading wicket-taker for 2004.”I don’t think we are worried about any burn-out factor with Steve," said Giles. "I just don’t think the wickets have been particularly suited to him. They have not been quick and bouncy. He has probably been easier to play because of his extra pace. It comes onto the bat on slower wickets a bit easier.”With Steve’s record recently, I am sure he will be keen to get a few more wickets under his belt," added Giles, "and I think someone is going to pay the price. If we get a quick wicket at Old Trafford, it might be this lot."

It has been a heady week for Giles, who began the season contemplating his retirement after managing two wickets in the entire Caribbean tour, but has now been catapulted into the top ten of the PwC ratings for the first time in his career. “It is nice to be making a contribution," he admitted. "I didn’t have much success in the West Indies, but two wickets have come up at Lord’s and Edgbaston that I’ve been able to bowl a lot on and I’ve got a few scalps.”Suddenly my confidence is very high, I’m bowling well, and getting the pitches I want. I’ve got my 100 Test wickets and I’m kicking on from there and I hope that continues." The signs for next week’s third Test at Old Trafford are promising to say the least. "Warwickshire played at Old Trafford on Saturday," he added, "and apparently it turned square so I don’t mind that at all!"England’s other key performer with the ball has been Matthew Hoggard, who took 10 wickets in the two matches, with a match haul at Edgbaston of 6 for 153 – his best in a home Test since India came to Lord’s in 2002. Hoggard, for one, will be quite content for Harmison to reclaim the limelight at Old Trafford. "Everybody has settled down into their roles," he explained. "We’ve got Harmison the quick bowler, I’m the swing bowler and Freddie [Flintoff] is the allrounder – everyone knows their role well and knows how to bowl and bat in their role.""Back-to-back Tests are very stressful on your body so it’s important to take time out," added Hoggard. "I’ll completely forget about cricket for a couple of days. I’ll be at home walking my dogs and keeping away from all and sundry – I like staying at home and doing nothing."”We don’t feel unstoppable, but there’s a lot of confidence in the side,” added Hoggard. “We focus on one game at a time, we take small steps and small strides and we’re finding it’s working for us. If we do that the rest will take care of itself. Australia are still the best in the world and they’re the benchmark. They’ve set the standards and we’re just trying to creep up slowly – by concentrating on playing good, solid cricket.”

Australia 5 for 316 (Katich 81, Clarke 76*, Kumble 3-86) v India
Live scorecard

Simon Katich and Michael Clarke gave Australia the edge with some attractive strokeplay in the final session, after Anil Kumble – who became only the ninth player in history to reach 400 wickets – had caused a jitter midway through the afternoon on the opening day of one of the most eagerly anticipated series in recent times. Backed by a vociferous home crowd, Kumble helped reduce Australia to 4 for 149, but with India leaking 139 runs in the final session, it was the Aussies that walked off with the day’s honours.Clarke used his feet beautifully to combat India’s slow bowlers, and showed tremendous maturity and flair on his Test debut. He often came down the track to Kumble, lofting him for one mighty six straight down the ground, and also dismissed anything pitched short with ease. With Adam Gilchrist for company, he took the bowling apart as the bowlers wilted in the final hour.The revival, though, had come earlier in the afternoon, with Katich’s splendid 81 leading the way. He was like a master at the snooker table, the angle at which the ball was hit as important as the power imparted. There were no crashing shots that singed the grass but just gentle, silken strokes played with lithe wrists.Katich came in after Matthew Hayden fell for 26, lofting a sweep straight to Yuvraj Singh at square leg (1 for 52). He got going by creaming Kumble through the covers, but soon after lunch, he was completely flummoxed by an offbreak from Harbhajan Singh. Unfortunately for India, Parthiv Patel couldn’t get his gloves around the ball. There was another semi-reprieve when he edged Zaheer Khan behind the stumps, but the replays of Patel’s collection were inconclusive, and Katich was given the benefit of the doubt.Despite losing wickets at the other end, as batsmen struggled against Kumble, Katich didn’t retreat into a shell. His placement fetched him twos and threes, and he brought up 50 in 104 balls, and, along with Clarke, pulled Australia out of a tricky situation. When he got to 81, Katich misjudged the bounce of a short one, which managed to wriggle through his defences to crash into the stumps. The crowd erupted instantly as the team huddled around Kumble, who had toiled for much of the afternoon without success after a double strike an hour after lunch.

Compared to Katich and Clarke, Justin Langer was edgy throughout his stay. After surviving a huge appeal for lbw off the first ball of the match, he misread a few short ones and copped blows on the back and chest. He was nearly run out in the 16th over when he danced down the pitch to Harbhajan and deflected the ball straight to short leg, where Aakash Chopra failed to complete the flick back on to the stumps. After lunch, Langer edged both Harbhajan and Kumble wide of the first slip.In between these strokes of fortune, there were some crisp sweeps and pushes straight down the ground. He brought up his 50 from 116 balls, but couldn’t keep out Irfan Pathan when he came back for his second spell, and a searing yorker deflected off his pads to uproot the off stump (2 for 124).The crank was revved up in that spell from Pathan as he consistently clocked 85mph while intelligently varying both swing and length. After an economical first spell, when he prevented the customary Australian flyer, this was the much-needed tourniquet that helped Kumble thrive. And Kumble pounced instantly as Damien Martyn was undone by extra bounce as he danced down the track. The ball popped from bat onto pad for Chopra to complete a simple catch (3 for 129).Darren Lehmann’s cameo of 17 was a nervous innings, as several uppish shots fell beyond the fielders’ grasp. A skyer over mid-on fell inches from Pathan’s grasp, and three cracking fours soon after added insult to injury. But an ugly heave at Kumble took the edge and Dravid lapped up the catch at first slip (4 for 149).Katich’s wicket, after he and Clarke had added 107, gave India a boost, but Gilchrist and Clarke wrested back the initiative with a dashing partnership. Gilchrist cut the very first ball he faced from Harbhajan for four, as if putting to rest all the nightmares of 2001. He raced to 35 at more than a run a ball as the fielders were left to chase shadows in every direction.Australia ended the day slightly better off, but they will know, better than anyone else, that Kumble still retains the ability to wreck even the most sturdy of fortresses.

Australia’s Top End Tour -­ the experiment of trying Test matches in the far north of the country in what is technically their winter ­- has moved on to Cairns, in far north Queensland and the main jumpoff for the Great Barrier Reef. The place has changed completely over the last dozen years or so, from a sleepy coastal port to a fully fledged tourist trap.Cairns’s Bundaberg Rum Oval has become the 90th ground to stage Test cricket ­ and the third in Queensland after Brisbane’s Gabba and Exhibition grounds. No other state in Australia has had more than one, as any Queensland cricket-lover is very quick to inform you.Cairns has only staged a couple of first-class matches before. John Crawley has painful memories of one of those games;­ during England’s 1998-99 tour, he was set upon in town and beaten up. Bangladesh, crushed by an innings and 132 runs in the first Test in Darwin last week, must have felt rather like Crawley the morning after when they first clapped eyes on the ground here.Three weeks of persistent rain had hindered the preparation, the pitch was greener than expected, and the practice nets were unusable. Brett Lee tried not to get too excited before the match, but couldn’t resist saying: “I haven’t really seen a nice fast green wicket for a while, but this looks [as] close to a greentop as possible.” In the end, the pitch played much better than expected, and Bangladesh enjoyed one of their better days at the Test level as the pleas of Dav Whatmore, their Australian coach, for more patience began to sink in.Cairns, encircled by the dark satanic hills of Australia’s Great Dividing Range -­ not for nothing is it known as the place where the rainforest meets the reef ­- is bigger and brasher than Darwin, but the crowds were expected to be roughly the same. Early ticket sales for this spot of history were promising, but the first-day attendance of 5238 was a little disappointing. It included several busloads of schoolkids, whose shrill shrieks exhorting Lee to give ’em a wave enlivened the morning.The ground, usually a football oval, has one big grandstand but is open on the other side, and if temperatures rise it might yet prove a trial for the press, who are bivouacked in an open tent at wide mid-on. Until the recent sponsorship deal with Bundy Rum was distilled, the place was known as Cazaly’s Oval, after the local sporting legend Roy Cazaly, who is immortalised in the Australian Rules football anthem “Up There Cazaly” -­ the equivalent of baseball’s “Take Me Out to the Old Ball Game” or the Premiership’s latest dirty ditty about David and Victoria Beckham.If there are any devils left in the pitch, they might do Bangladesh’s captain Khaled Mahmud one favour. He trundles down low-slung medium-pacers which skid on to the batsmen a little. But before this match, he boasted the worst bowling average -­ 331.00 -­ of anyone who has ever played Test cricket. Three fours in his first over here didn’t improve it much.Steven Lynch is editor of Wisden CricInfo.

Javed Miandad has lauded the Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) intention to appoint paid selectors. The board decided, after a meeting of its ad-hoc committee last month, to treat selectors as full-time paid employees instead of appointing them, as is done currently, on an honorary basis.The former Pakistan captain told he backed the move. “It is a good concept. Nowadays cricket is an industry and you need full-time paid professionals to do certain jobs. The days of having honorary selectors are over.”Meanwhile, the selection committee, headed by chief selector Wasim Bari, met in Lahore to announce squads for the series against Australia `A’ and practice games for the England tour. Bari, along with other selectors like Iqbal Qasim and Ehteshamuddin, are paid employees of different organizations. This has led to concerns at the PCB that due to their professional constraints, they are unable to spend as much time scouring talent on the domestic circuit as they should.The grapevine has it that the composition of the committee might undergo change, but the PCB insist that, if possible, they would like to retain the current selectors and make them full-time employees of the board. However, Miandad also stressed it is equally important to invest selectors with more authority over choice of the final XI. Traditionally, the selectors pick a squad but the composition of the playing XI remains the prerogative of the team captain and coach.Miandad, himself a three-time coach of Pakistan, argued, “We need to follow the example of other countries doing well at present. We need to give the selectors the authority to select the playing teams — obviously with the feedback of the captain and the coach. But the final decision should be made by the selectors.” By letting selectors pick the final XI, Miandad contended that the coach and captain are left free to concentrate on getting the best out of each player on the field.In recent months, there have been murmurs both within the board and outside it that the coach and captain have too much authority over the playing XI and that a stronger selection committee was needed. Former players and journalists have criticized the selection committee’s role as superfluous, a charge that wasn’t helped by reports at the end of Pakistan’s tour to India that some senior PCB officials were unhappy at a perceived lack of gumption within the committee.

Inzamam-ul-Haq cannot take any part in the Champions Trophy even if Pakistan reached the final. Although he would have served outthe four-match ban that he was handed in late September, the ParticipatingNations Agreement (PNA) clearly states that a player who is replaced in a squadcannot be reinstated.Every team that takes part in the Champions Trophy has signed the PNA, andit comes as a bit of a surprise that Younis Khan, now leading Pakistan wasnot aware of this clause, when he said, at a pre-tournament media session,on arriving in India, “It will be really good if we win our first fourgames in the Champions Trophy and then Inzy [Inzamam] comes back and I will be ready to stand down as captain. I will be really happy to see him lift thetrophy while I am standing behind him. He has been one of my heroes rightfrom the 1992 World Cup.”Clause 6.9 of the PNA deals with the issue of replacements, and it says quiteunequivocally that once a player is replaced he cannot be reinstatedlater in the tournament. Inzamam was replaced by Faisal Iqbal after beinghanded the ban by Ranjan Madugalle at a hearing in London in lateSeptember. Inzamam was found guilty of bringing the game into disreputeafter his team forfeited the Oval Test against England. The forfeiturecame after Darrell Hair docked the Pakistan team five runs for ball-tampering and changed the ball that was being used at the time. Pakistanstayed off the field in protest after a break, and the match wasforfeited, despite attempts to get it going. Inzamam was subsequentlycleared of the charge of ball tampering.Younis Khan was then appointed captain in place of Inzamam, refusing to take the job, saying he did not want to be “a dummycaptain”. Mohammad Yousuf was given the job of leading the side, while Younis would continue as an ordinary member of the team. However, after Shaharyar Khan resigned as the Pakistan Cricket Board chairman, and Mushtaq Ahmed sacked as assistant coach, Younis was persuaded to take the job back, and he agreed. Perhaps, in all this confusion, he was neverhanded a copy of the PNA to read.