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Scorecard

Andrew Flintoff’s 85-ball 100, with strong support from Owais Shah, set up a comfortable 122-run victory for England over a second-string Mumbai side in their first practice game of the tour. There were more gains for England’s batsmen than their bowlers, who, except for James Anderson, had to toil without much impact.Flintoff was a little scratchy to begin with and survived three chances. On 7 he hit a full toss from Dinesh Salunkhe, the legspinner, hard towards cover where Nilesh Kulkarni failed to hold it. Then, on 25, a sweep went flying straight to Abhijit Shetye at deep square leg but a simple chance went down. A third nervous moment came when he got a thin edge off Salunkhe, but the keeper couldn’t hold on.He made Mumbai pay dearly for those lapses as he bludgeoned his way to a century with strokes all around the ground, especially back over the bowler’s head. He hit three sixes over long-on against Salunkhe to get to 99, then pushed a single to record his first century in any form of cricket since the fourth Test against Australia, at Trent Bridge, in 2005. “We will play against better teams on this tour, obviously, but a hundred is a hundred and I’ve not scored one for ages so I’ll take it,” he said after the day’s play.Kulkarni, the Mumbai captain, offered England the chance to bat first on a pitch that had enough bounce to keep the batsmen on their toes and enough moisture for the new ball to move. Vineet Sinha found early success when Matt Prior played across the line and lost his middle stump. Prior’s opening partner, Ian Bell, also looked edgy and he was lucky when an edge flew wide of the slips. However, as the ball started to lose its shine both Bell and Shah found their feet and were quick to pick up singles.Bell was sharp to react to anything loose and Sinha was dispatched with a pull through midwicket; a couple of balls later a wristy flick brought another boundary. His half-century came up with a paddle-sweep off the first ball from Kulkarni. However, in his bid to press on, Bell failed to read the flight of Vikrant Yeligati and was stumped.England suffered another blow when they lost Kevin Pietersen, who was undone by a ball that bounced and took the outside edge. Shah concentrated on working the ball around as he bedded in and his first boundary didn’t come until the 77th ball of his innings. However, as the final 10 overs began he and Flintoff increased the tempo and the third-wicket stand was worth 133 in 20 overs when Shah pulled to midwicket.While most of their batsmen looked in useful touch England didn’t find the same momentum with the ball. Only Anderson was able to find much swing and moved the ball both ways during an impressive opening burst, which included the wicket of Rohan Bagade with a perfect outswinger.Barring Anderson, who ended his first spell with figures of 5-2-7-1, England’s bowling failed to trouble the batsmen. Flintoff, Stuart Broad and Steve Harmison eased into their duties and it took 18.2 overs to break the second-wicket partnership between Shetye and Sushant Marathe.Samit Patel and Graeme Swann, the two frontline spinners, were the only bowlers handed their full complement of overs and, on this evidence, will have to work on their loop and flight to make an impression on India’s line-up. They tried to push the ball through quickly, instead of slowing the pace and gaining purchase off the surface. The wickets Patel earned were more a case of batsman’s error than deception on his part. The main focus of this game, though, was giving key players a workout and Pietersen used eight bowlers including himself.England have one more warm-up match, again against a Mumbai XI, on Tuesday before heading to Rajkot for the first ODI on November 14.

ScorecardGrant Lambert’s first five-wicket haul in first-class cricket was not enough to stop Western Australia securing a handy first-innings lead of 88. After bowling the Warriors out for 265, New South Wales lost a couple of wickets but their batsmen fared comparatively better than they did in the first innings, ending at 2 for 62 with Greg Mail on 24 and the nightwatchman Beau Casson on 1.Resuming their overnight score of 3 for 106, the Warriors lost their captain Marcus North first thing in the morning, trapped lbw to his opposing number Dominic Thornely. Adam Voges was Lambert’s first victim of the day, edging to Daniel Smith and the side was in a spot of bother at 5 for 128.However, Trent Kelly and Theo Doropoulos added a crucial 76 to help the Warriors past the Blues’ 177 and secure first-innings points before both were dismissed within four runs of each other after crossing 200. Doropoulos fell within sight of his half-century and his 41, which included eight fours, was the highest score of the innings. Lambert then cleaned up the tail to finish with 5 for 82.It didn’t take long for the Warriors to strike, as Steve Magoffin sent back Phillip Hughes for a duck in the first over. Peter Forrest and Mail showed a lot of patience in constructing a half-century stand for the second wicket and the Warriors had to wait until the 30th over for their second breakthrough, when Forrest edged one to Luke Ronchi off North.

The PCB will wait on an ICC reaction to the MCC’s recommendation that the game’s governing body reverse the result of the controversial Oval Test of 2006 between England and Pakistan.The Test was initially forfeited by Pakistan but the ICC changed the result to a draw at an executive board meeting in July following pressure from the PCB. The series result was hence changed from 3-0 to 2-0 in favour of England.”It is an issue between the ICC and the MCC and we are not a direct party in this case,” Saleem Altaf, the PCB’s director-general, told the . “We will see how the ICC reacts to the MCC ruling and then decide our course of action.”Earlier, Tony Lewis, the chairman of the MCC’s cricket committee, said the ICC’s decision to alter the result of the game would set a “dangerous precedent and cricket would only be worse off for this decision”. He challenged the ruling, claiming the ICC had “no power under the laws of cricket to decide that results should be altered, whether it feels it’s ‘inappropriate’ or otherwise.”Pakistan were accused of ball-tampering by umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove, leading then captain Inzamam-ul-Haq to stage a protest and refusing to play after tea on the fourth day. Hair and Doctrove, under the laws, correctly ruled the no-show as a forfeit. Inzamam was later cleared of the ball-tampering charges but was banned for four matches for bringing the game into disrepute.Hair was voted off the ICC’s elite panel of umpires in November 2006 and tried to subsequently sue the ICC for racial discrimination. He eventually dropped the charge and was reinstated to top-level umpiring earlier this year. However, soon after, he resigned from the ICC’s elite panel.

Shakib Al Hasan, the Bangladesh allrounder, is confident his team can give New Zealand a fight in the upcoming home series and possibly win a game or two. Shakib summed up the positive mood in the camp, saying that the players had put the poor tour of Australia behind them and were determined to make a fresh start.”Our performance was really bad in the last series in Australia but I believe it would be a different story against New Zealand,” Shakib said after a practice session at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium in Mirpur. “The players are charged up to play good cricket but I don’t know why.”Bangladesh have been ravaged by a mass exodus of 14 players to the unofficial ICL and the list includes the names of current players like Aftab Ahmed and Nazimuddin. Their departure, Shakib assured, wouldn’t throw the national team off balance. “We can even win a match in the series,” he said.Shakib said the 3-0 defeat in the one-dayers in Australia was because the batsmen failed to give a good account of themselves. Bangladesh were in with a chance to pull off an upset win in the third one-dayer, but the batting collapsed in the chase of 199.”We must bat to our potential to put behind a series of bad performances,” he said. “The main problem of our batting lies in our mindset. If our top order batsmen can bat responsibly, anything can happen as we are going to play in our own (home) conditions. We are training hard and I believe we will get the results soon.”New Zealand begin their tour on October 9 with the first of three one-dayers, followed by two Tests. New Zealand swept the two Tests and three ODIs at home when the teams last met in December-January.

Cricket Wellington is offering young Sri Lankan players the opportunity to train and play in New Zealand as part of its Wellington School of Cricket programme. Asoka Weerasundra, the business manager of Wellington School of Cricket, was in Colombo to recruit players, who will have to pay NZ$ 7500 (US$ 5000) for the chance to train at the Westpac Stadium.Depending on their performance, players – 15 years and above – could get a chance to play in the Wellington League. “It’s a great opportunity for cricket players,” Weerasundra told the Colombo-based . “For those who join us for the annual course, we’ll give them the opportunity to play cricket during the summer and they can follow the Level I coaching course during winter.”The Westpac Stadium has five full-size bowling nets, two bowling machines, two-way simultaneous video and full changing facilities. The Basin Reserve ground, where Sri Lanka beat New Zealand by 217 runs in 2006, is also in Wellington.

After surrendering the series to a clinical Sri Lankan outfit, India have to face up to and deal with the harsh truth that they only won one session of this game. Left to rummage through the remains of yet another overseas series squandered after a memorable comeback, Anil Kumble, India’s captain, had few positives to pick out.”We missed out on a good opportunity to beat Sri Lanka,” Kumble said. “We did really well in Galle to come back and we did not capitalise on the winning of the toss here. You cannot lose five wickets in the first 40 overs of a Test. That happened to us quite regularly in this series, which is something we need to think about.”With a hundred more runs in the first innings, India could have changed the outcome of this match. However, their famed middle order failed again – twice. Dammika Prasad and Ajantha Mendis bowled with guile and accuracy to spell the death knell for India. Kumar Sangakkara’s match-winning hundred boarded up the coffin, and Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan returned to hammer in the nails.”For a new batsman to go in straight away and face two spinners is never easy,” Kumble said. “People got starts, if they had converted it would have been a different story. I do not want to give excuses. Overall we did not play quality cricket to win the series.”This was also arguably the worst series for India’s famed middle order. Sachin Tendulkar looked a shadow of himself in scratching 95 runs at 15.83 and Sourav Ganguly, who batted so brilliantly against South Africa at Ahmedabad and Kanpur in his last series, was a phantom in Sri Lanka, making 96 runs. Rahul Dravid’s tentativeness at the crease this series has betrayed a tinge of insecurity, and VVS Laxman managed just two fifties, out five times to Mendis.”It is not just one or two players [who we should blame],” Kumble said. “It is important that everyone contributes. I do not think there was enough contribution throughout the series from the middle order consistently. Even the lower order did not contribute consistently except one game here. That is obviously something that let us down.”Harbhajan Singh and Ishant Sharma turned in match-winning performances in Galle but otherwise there was little to speak of in the bowling department. Except for Harbhajan, who took 16 wickets, no bowler averaged less than 30. Kumble, India’s highest wicket-taker ever, had a series to forget. His eight wickets at 50.00 was his worst three-match series since India played Pakistan in 2006. “I take responsibility,” he said, before quickly opting to take the clichéd route, “but the bowlers put their hearts in.”The saving grace of defeat is that it invariably brings lessons. As Kumble pointed out, India have a month and a half to think about what needs to be done before a four-Test series against Australia. “That’s still a lot of time for us to reflect on what went wrong,” Kumble said. India’s time starts now.

English cricket is set for a massive shake-up, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph.Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman, is preparing to push for sweeping changes that include the splitting of the County Championship into three divisions, a move whose main objective is to clear room for more Twenty20 cricket. This is despite growing worries from some counties that crowds at matches this season have been down, something many attribute to the increase in the number of games.This will upset many, but he also wants to end promotion and relegation between divisions, so the three conferences will be randomly drawn at the start of the season. It is unclear quite what this will leave them playing for, and a number of county chairmen are known to be opposed to tinkering to this degree.Clarke is also likely to recommend salary caps to try to balance the gulf between the counties, as well as a more controversial plan to loan foreign players to less well-off counties.The ultimate aim is to create an English Premier League to rival the IPL, with teams drawn from outside the traditional county structure. Part of the agreement with Allen Stanford might well have included provision for him to field a side in such a competition.Clarke’s proposal will be further discussed at the next county chief executives’ meeting in July.

The Andhra Cricket Association (ACA) has hired Australian curator Ricky Aitken to relay the pitch at the ACA-VDCA Stadium in Visakhapatnam. Aitken and his team will stay in the city for a month to relay all the turf wickets as per ICC specifications, V Chamundeswaranath, the association secretary.Aitken, who prepared wickets for the Deccan Chargers home games during the IPL, is the grounds manager with the Hong Kong and Kowloon Cricket Club, and he also re-laid the Lord’s pitch. Work has been going on in Visakhapatnam since last month and Aitken is arriving to supervise the laying of the final layer of soil on the pitch.Chamundeswaranath said he was also planning to appoint a former Australian Test player to run the association’s cricket academy in Visakhapatnam for a period of three years. Andhra are looking for a new coach for next season and the secretary said four former players – Syed Abid Ali, Bobjee Narasimha Rao, Rajinder Singh Hans and Bhaskar Pillai – had been shorlisted for the post.”Before the Ranji season begins, we will be hosting a tournament of four-day matches involving Sri Lankan ‘A’ team. Andhra, Karnataka and Hyderabad are the other teams. The matches will be held in different grounds in the districts under ACA jurisdiction. The Andhra-Tamil Nadu Ranji Trophy match will be held at Vijayawada,” Chamundeswaranath told the . “ACA is also keen to introduce inter-schools tournament with prize money of Rs 25,000 this season.”

Last Sunday, Shaheen Shah Afridi did the star turn in Dubai, his (in)swing and seam ripping out India’s top order. New Zealand’s left-arm swing bowler Trent Boult is now licking his lips at the prospect of doing an Afridi on India this Sunday in Dubai.Boult comes in armed with 71 wickets in 26 games against India across formats. In particular, he has a strong head-to-head against opening batter Rohit Sharma, having taken him out three times in seven T20 innings while giving up only 29 runs off 24 balls.Related

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“It depends when I get to bowl,” Boult said on the eve of the match against India. “Not too sure what the plan is with what overs certain bowlers are bowling, but yeah the way Shaheen bowled the other night was… from a left-armer watching on I thought it was amazing. But, yeah, there’s qualify batsmen in that Indian line-up. Early wickets are definitely the focus for us as a bowling group. But, here, we just need to be nice and clear and nice and accurate where we are trying to put the ball. But, hopefully from my point of view, it swings around a little bit and I can mirror what Shaheen did the other night (laughs).”Toss has been a significant factor in this T20 World Cup, with the teams chasing winning all but two games in the Super 12s so far in the UAE. Boult was wary of it, and the threat posed by dew, but backed New Zealand to find a way, if they are asked to defend a total in Dubai.Tearaway Lockie Ferguson has been sidelined from the rest of the tournament with a calf tear, but New Zealand have had a ready-made replacement in Adam Milne who has been upgraded from the reserves. Milne could well be one of New Zealand’s options to counter India in the middle and end overs.”Whatever we do first, we need to do it extremely well,” Bout said. “India brings a lot of challenges – quality batting line-up, but with the ball we just need to be clear about the options on how to shut these guys down and obviously give them a bigger chase as possible, but it’s going to be a good challenge. Our first game in Dubai, but the wicket looks pretty good there. Yeah, really look forward to taking them on.”It’s a hard one to understand how much dew is going to come in. But, from the one game we’ve experienced so far [in Sharjah], there hasn’t been too much of it. The overhead conditions have cooled down a lot nicely, so yeah just got to take your time and make sure you got a good grip on the ball and try to be as accurate as you can.”New Zealand have won seven of their ten World Cup matches against India and more recently they toppled them in the inaugural World Test Championship final in Southampton. Boult, however, denied that New Zealand had the wood over India in the lead-up to Sunday’s clash.”I wouldn’t say we have an extra edge,” Boult said. “Both sides are stacked with quality players. In terms of our team, we’re definitely excited about the opportunity that lies ahead for us. Few guys have been here in the UAE, playing the IPL, have relationships and have played with a lot of these Indian guys a lot. Here’s hoping we can put it all together tomorrow afternoon and get our ball rolling.”Boult was hopeful of New Zealand having a fit-again Martin Guptill at their disposal against India after Pakistan quick Haris Rauf smacked his toe with a near-150-kph yorker on Tuesday. Guptill’s left toe was badly bruised after that blow, but he has since returned to training.”Gup is pretty good,” Boult said. “He trained fully yesterday and didn’t see too many issues with him. So, he’s definitely a big piece of puzzle for us at the top of the innings. So, from what I know, he’s good to go.”

Imran Tahir has said it is “very special” to be ranked the No. 1 bowler in both ODI and T20 cricket. He completed the double when he went top of the one-day table after South Africa’s 5-0 victory over Sri Lanka where he claimed 10 wickets.Tahir began that series with a Man-of-the-Match performance of 3 for 26 at Port Elizabeth and only in the high-scoring Cape Town match, where Sri Lanka replied with 327 to South Africa’s 367, was he punished as he conceded 76 off his 10 overs. Even then he claimed two wickets to snuff out Sri Lanka’s brave chase.It’s that skill of taking wickets, alongside his control, that makes him such a valuable asset to South Africa’s white-ball sides. In recent times he has rarely failed to deliver a breakthrough for his captain – whether that is Faf du Plessis, AB de Villiers or Farhaan Behardien – and his last wicketless ODI was 10 games ago. He has been integral to South Africa’s winning run which stands at 11 ODIs.Tahir was twice previously ranked No. 1 in ODIs, when he briefly held the top spot during the 2015 World Cup before being leapfrogged at the end of the tournament by Mitchell Starc, then again in October 2015, and there is a chance of a bowl-off for the position in this series against New Zealand with Trent Boult, the No. 2-ranked bowler.”When I started cricket I never thought I’d be No. 1 bowler, it’s all the hard work I’ve done and I’m very excited,” Tahir said. “There are a lot of good players in world cricket and coming top of that is a really good achievement and I’m really grateful.”It’s an absolute honour playing for South Africa, the boys have helped me over the years and made me the bowler I am today. Credit goes to them as well. I’ll try and stay in the spot as long as I can but there are some other brilliant cricketers.”Tahir has not been able to produce the same success at Test level. His 20 appearances, the last of which came against India in Delhi, have brought 57 wickets at 40.24 and South Africa have moved on from him in that format.However, with the white ball he has certainly grown older gracefully. “He doesn’t bowl bad balls anymore,” AB de Villiers said last month. “He always used to take wickets but now you don’t see bad balls, which makes him really difficult to play.”When Tahir was asked what advice he would give Ish Sodhi, the New Zealand legspinner he could go up against over the next few weeks, he gave an insight into what had made him such a successful bowler.”If I was him I’d work harder, I’m not saying he isn’t but that’s my advice because when I started like him I didn’t know my game or use my variations,” Tahir said. “I just bowled leggies, but then I worked hard to try to find how what would work for me in international cricket. Coming from South Africa is not easy because the pitches aren’t spin-friendly, so I had to work out how to adjust.”They are skills that will serve him well in New Zealand, too, where – as Sodhi could no doubt attest to – conditions are not what legspinners dream of. Tahir has previously played three ODIs against the hosts in the country, the most recent of them the 2015 World Cup semi-final where he was wicketless but conceded just 40 in nine overs in the high-scoring contest, and New Zealand are aware of the impact he could have.”He’s a great operator for South Africa, and any team he plays for,” Kane Williamson said. “We’ve played a lot against each other. It’s important we play him well.”A few batting line-ups of late have found that easier said than done.