All posts by csb10.top

Scorecard and ball-by-ball commentary
Photo gallery
Bulletin – Butt and Naved script crushing win
Verdict – The perfect one-day performance
On the Ball – Butt cashes in
Commentary – Police hospitality
Roving Reporter – A wicketkeeper in the steel city
Plays of the day – Sami and the spitting cobra
Quotes – Dhoni: ‘The boys are not shattered
Quotes – Inzamam: ‘The toss was important’
Preview package
Preview – Expect a Pakistan counter-attack
Quotes – Dravid and Younis quotes
News – Agarkar replaces injured Balaji
News – Younis and Kaneria back for third ODI
News – Inzamam reprimanded for equipment abuse

Scorecard

Jamie How and James Marshall helped themselves to some important time in the middle as New Zealand reached 92 for 1 shortly after tea on a rain-interrupted second day against Kent at Canterbury. The prospects of any play at all had seemed bleak at the start of the day, when torrential rain wiped out the first three hours of play, but eventually the clouds lifted as Kent, sitting pretty after Rob Key’s 178 not out, declared on their overnight 324 for 1.New Zealand’s star players are starting to dribble into the country after their stints with the Indian Premier League. Kyle Mills and Jacob Oram arrived this afternoon, ready for this week’s second warm-up against Essex at Chelmsford, while Brendon McCullum, Daniel Vettori and Ross Taylor will all have landed by Thursday. Until then it’s all about the second-stringers, in particular the battle for batting places ahead of the first Test at Lord’s on May 15.How, the stand-in captain, opened up with Aaron Redmond, the son of the former Kiwi opener, Rodney, who scored a Test century in his solitary appearance against Pakistan at Auckland in 1972-73. Redmond Jr impressed during New Zealand’s one-day curtain-raiser at Arundel on Sunday, scoring 72 in a rain-curtailed encounter with MCC, but he was less effective in this outing.Redmond should have been dismissed on 11, with the score on 23, when he edged an off-stump lifter from Martin Saggers low to Matthew Walker’s right at second slip. But he had added only three runs to his total when he waved his bat limply at Ryan McLaren, and feathered the simplest of chances through to Geraint Jones.How was the most effective of New Zealand’s brittle openers during the recent Test series, and he picked up where he had left off with a comfortable half-century that he completed with a flourish of boundaries in a brief resumption after tea. Kent’s bowlers toiled with limited impact on a pitch that their New Zealand counterparts had also found to be unresponsive, as Marshall eased along to 20 not out.

South Africa, who have slipped down to third spot in the ICC Test Championship table, could regain their second spot if they win the ongoing series against Sri Lanka.England’s strong performances over the last few months have helped them slide into the No. 2 slot, but currently only one point separates the two – South Africa have 106 to England’s 107. If South Africa win both Tests, their rating will go up to 110 points, while a 1-0 victory will take them to 108. If they draw the series, however, they will slip to 105. England, meanwhile, can only move up to 109 even if they complete a 4-0 whitewash of West Indies.Sri Lanka are currently struggling in sixth place with 99 points, but they would move up two places if they manage to win both Tests in the current series. And what of the once-mighty Windies? Languishing at No. 8 – ahead of just Zimbabwe and Bangladesh – with 76 points, they will slide further to 73 if they lose their last two Tests in England. Given the way that series has gone so far, not many would bet against it.

Brett Lee has completed an outstanding year by winning his first Allan Border Medal despite missing the entire World Cup with an ankle injury. Fittingly, in a season when he took over from Glenn McGrath as the spearhead of Australia’s attack, Lee became the first bowler since McGrath in 2000 to claim the major award.He also took home the Test Player of the Year title, while Matthew Hayden was named the One-Day International Player of the Year. Lee finished with 125 votes in the Allan Border Medal count, ahead of Hayden on 107 and last year’s champion Ricky Ponting on 64.It was Lee’s first time on the stage at the medal ceremony since 2000, when he was named the Bradman Young Cricketer of the Year. He said it was a thrill to be taking such an important role in the side following the disappointment of missing the World Cup triumph.”I’m really enjoying that leadership role,” Lee said. “It sits a bit funny with me being called the strike bowler or the main bowler because it’s a team effort. I actually thought missing 19 matches I was absolutely no chance. That was a very hard time missing the World Cup, watching it on TV was very hard.Lee said the medal was a pinnacle after the low of his lengthy spell out of the team leading up to the 2005 Ashes. “I spent 19 months on the sideline carrying the drinks,” he said. “But to appreciate the good times you have to go through the bad times.”In a year that was dominated by coloured clothing – Australia only played six Tests during the voting period – Lee polled in all but one Test. His 12 votes in the Test count put him five ahead of Hayden (7), while there was a traffic jam for third, with five players grabbing three votes.There was no question that Lee was the star in the longer form of the game during a summer when Australia equalled their own world record of 16 consecutive Test victories. He was named Man of the Series in both the Sri Lanka and India contests and finished with 40 wickets during the voting period, at the average of 20.58.Against Sri Lanka he collected 16 wickets at 17.56 in two Tests, while in the four India games he grabbed 24 victims at 22.58. Lee’s success was not limited to Tests and he picked up 30 ODI wickets at 21.70, however his injury meant it was not surprising that he finished 11th in the one-day count.Hayden ended up with 24 votes, ahead of Ricky Ponting on 19, and there was a three-way tie for third, with Michael Clarke, Adam Gilchrist and McGrath all on 14. Hayden’s award capped a terrific return to the one-day arena after he lost his spot following the 2005 tour of England.In his first series during the voting period, Hayden belted an Australian-record unbeaten 181 in the Chappell-Hadlee Series in New Zealand, and things improved from there. He was the leading scorer at the World Cup in the Caribbean, making 659 runs at 73.22, and a blistering 66-ball century against South Africa was a highlight.A productive ODI tour of India followed and Hayden finished the 12-month period with 1462 runs at 56.23. He made four centuries and six fifties and he said he was “fully stoked” to win the award after he was not part of the one-day team in mid-2006. His World Cup began with serious injuries to both feet but he said that was never going to stop him help Australia defend their title.”Fifteen months out from the tournament I looked to be in deep trouble, not looking to play one-day cricket again,” he said. “I had a deep fire in my belly. A couple of broken feet at the start of a tournament is perhaps not the way you want to start. It was just a lot of work getting back into that side, and from that moment on I don’t think broken feet were going to stop me.”

The secret to understanding sport is examining a series of moments which explain how a game is won or lost. Take the first six overs of the T20 between South Africa and New Zealand, for example.In that period, the hosts were barely hanging on. They were still sussing out the early-season surface, which was not sprinkled with the usual spice of a South African strip. Their seamers steered away from a short-ball barrage and pitched it up instead. Martin Guptill and Kane Williamson took advantage of the fielding restrictions and the width on offer, and found the boundary 10 times in the Powerplay. New Zealand were stringing together what they thought would be the foundation of their success and AB de Villiers was unhappy with the lack of bite from his bowlers.

August pitch earns praise

South Africa had never played an international in August before Friday and they will be pleased to know pre-season is actually a perfect time to host cricket, at least in Durban where summer rainfall often pours a wet blanket on the action in the peak period. Both captains described the Kingsmead pitch as a “good wicket” with enough in it for both batsmen and bowlers. Kane Williamson went as far as to say it was “probably a 180 wicket” even though his team could only muster 151. AB de Villiers agreed but added that there was also some spice for the seamers and surprisingly, turn for the spinner, Aaron Phangiso, who also expressed surprise at the assistance he got. “I got value for shots,” de Villiers said. “But then the ball also beat the bat and that’s the kind of cricket you want to see: high scoring games but always something in it for the bowlers.”

“It’s an area we will discuss again – the first six overs because we are not as good as we wanted to be there. We wanted to be a little more aggressive,” de Villiers said. “A couple balls were maybe a little bit too full, which is not a bad thing, but you also want to see the aggression.”The game changed, however, in the moments after that. Immediately after the Powerplay, de Villiers gave the ball to left-arm spinner Aaron Phangiso, his last hope in stemming the flow. Phangiso’s first over ended with the wicket of Williamson, who admitted he was hoping to take on the spinner but could not. “Phangiso bowled nicely and changed his pace. With the short boundaries, you think you can go after the spin but he controlled his length,” Williamson said.Phangiso, who finished with 2 for 29 in four overs, was also pleased with the show of confidence from his captain. “It was great to see the captain give me the ball under pressure,” Phangiso said. “All players want to succeed under pressure. I enjoyed the pressure and I enjoyed the confidence of the captain giving me the ball at that time.”The sequence of events that followed explain how South Africa went on to win the game. David Wiese took pace off the ball, Kagiso Rabada and Morne Morkel held back the lengths and Kyle Abbott mixed it up to keep New Zealand guessing, prompting de Villiers to call the team’s bowling comeback “near perfect”.”We slowed the game down and turned the momentum around and then ran with it,” de Villiers said. “All the seamers who came back for their second spells bowled really well. We mixed it up exceptionally well. The last 15 overs of our bowling performance was near perfect.The guys had really smart plans. When I spoke to them between balls, the guys knew exactly what they wanted to do. I saw all the variations from them: yorkers, good length balls and bouncers.”As much as South Africa applied the chokehold, New Zealand allowed themselves to be cornered. “We weren’t quite at our best in the last 10 overs. We know we have the firepower in that lower middle order to cash in on situations like that and we weren’t quite on top of things,” Williamson said.The collapse of 7 for 40 was partly due to no one in the middle order taking responsibility of the latter part of the innings and Williamson has challenged his team-mates to change that in the next match. “It’s a fine line when you lose wickets, and we lost two wickets in a row a couple of times which never helps but it takes one other bloke or two other blokes to get going and get the score moving.”

The ICC’s Executive Board which meets in Dubai on March 21 and 22 has a number of crucial issues on its agenda. “This meeting is an important opportunity for the directors from across our membership base to guide the direction of international cricket on a range of major issues,” ICC President Ehsan Mani said.A new six-year Future Tours Programme is likely to replace the current five-year programme for the ICC’s 10 Full Members. The new proposal, a culmination of two years and 10 drafts, would require all the Full Member-sides to play home and away series against each other within the six -year period, each series comprising a minimum of two Test matches and three ODIs.The draft FTP also provides opportunities for several series to take place on a more frequent basis including Australia v England, Australia v India, Bangladesh v Zimbabwe and England v India among others.The board will also evaluate Zimbabwe’s readiness to resume Test cricket when it approaches the end of its 12-month voluntary withdrawal from Test commitments early in 2007. It will be apprised by Peter Chingoka, the chairman of the Interim Committee of Zimbabwe Cricket, regarding financial mismanagement, the composition of the Interim Board and on improving relations with players.The board will receive an independent written report from India’s Solicitor General Goolam Vahanvati on incidents of racist crowd behaviour in Australia during the home series against South Africa. The meeting will also consider a request from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to increase the number of venues from three to four for the Champions Trophy. The ICC had previously indicated that should the BCCI seek to increase the number of venues, the extra costs would be borne by the BCCI. The change would require amendments to the schedule but the tournament duration would remain the same.The meeting will take a decision on whether to prematurely end the experimental Supersub rule after feedback from stakeholders, including current and former players, in February had recommended its scrapping.The introduction of a formal pitch-monitoring process, which would include potential sanctions ranging from a formal warning to suspension of international status for venues that produce substandard pitches, and making an anti-doping code mandatory for all ICC events beginning with October’s ICC Champions Trophy in India are also on the anvil.

The England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has tightened its grip on the future and direction of English cricket, thanks to an agreement by the First-Class Forum (FCF) to channel its efforts towards the improvement of the national side.At its October meeting last week, the FCF agreed to introduce an element of performance-related pay to its fee-payment structure, which will ensure that those counties that are producing more England-qualified players will receive a greater cut of the ECB budget.The move has come in response to concerns that English first-class cricket has become flooded with non-England-qualified players, in particular an influx of EU-passport-holders from South Africa, who have taken advantage of the controversial Kolpak ruling to ply their trade in England. There is nothing that the ECB can do to prevent the influx, although these monetary incentives may help to persuade the sides of the benefits of buying British.The key criteria that will be taken into consideration include the number of players that have played for England or other representative sides; the number of Under-23-qualified players on the staff; the number of England-qualified players who have been awarded contracts; and the level of qualification of the coaching staff, and the success of the county academy.In addition, the FCF has approved the implementation of an England development squad (EDS) of up to 25 players. This pool will be announced some time before the start of next summer, and though it stops short of being an extension of the central-contracts system, the players will fall under Duncan Fletcher’s control.And, as from the 2006 season, there will be a curb on the use of overseas players. Counties will still be allowed two signings, although substitutes will only be permitted in the event of a request from the player’s home board. There will be no substitutes for injury; or for substitute cricketers, and all stand-ins will have to be nominated before July 1.

Luke Ronchi did not register for the Indian Premier League (IPL) auctions for fear of looking like “a tool”, but when Mumbai made him a late offer he jumped at the chance. The Western Australia wicketkeeper, who has not yet represented his country, this week understood just how massive the IPL is when he attended a dinner party at the home of the world’s fifth richest man.Mukesh Ambani has a net worth of $43 billion and is the head of Reliance Industries, and he also owns the Mumbai IPL franchise that Ronchi is representing. At Ambani’s mansion this week Ronchi chatted with his captain, Sachin Tendulkar, and other members of his team including Shaun Pollock, and later said he was thrilled to get the offer from Mumbai.”It was an amazing call to get, because when you see all the big names putting themselves in the first auction, you think you’ll steer clear of all this sort of stuff because it was more for the international players,” Ronchi told the . “Once I got that phone call, I got fairly excited about it; what it’s going to do for world cricket and how it could possibly change my life as well.”It was an amazing experience to meet [Ambani]. He is one of the richest men in the world, I think. He’s got a massive house. We sat on a grassed area near his pool, he had a big screen set up to show some stuff and we all just sat around at tables chatting to each other and meeting some important people, I guess, from Reliance and from the Mumbai Indians.”It was quite an experience for Ronchi, who does not hold a Cricket Australia contract but is almost certainly the country’s No. 2 wicketkeeper behind Brad Haddin. His explosive batting is the main reason Mumbai chased him – Ronchi owns the fastest century in Australia’s domestic one-day history, a 56-ball effort – but his glovework to the likes of Harbhajan Singh and Lasith Malinga will also be important.In his first game on Sunday his Bangalore opponents could include big names such as Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble, as well as familiar faces like Cameron White and Ashley Noffke. “Playing with and against amazing players, and we’re going to be on TV in front of millions of people, they are the main things,” Ronchi said. “There is a massive buzz around the place.”

The dozen remaining Zimbabwe rebel cricketers have filed their official letter of complaint against the Zimbabwe board (ZCU) with Malcolm Speed, the ICC’s chief executive. The findings of the aborted hearing in Harare are expected to be announced during the ICC’s meeting which starts on October 16.The letter highlights their concerns at the way the hearing was conducted. They say that they were assured that its remit was to listen to “questions of fact” and that there would not be “excessive cross-examination”. However, it became clear from the start that Norman Arendse, the ZCU’s laywer, intended to adopt a confrontational approach and proceedings were doomed to fail thereafter.Two of the main objects of accusations of racism – Ozias Bvute, the ZCU’s acting managing-director, and Max Ebrahim, the chief selector – were in the hearing and despite being asked to leave by the two-man ICC panel, refused to do so. With witnesses unwilling to speak in front of the pair, the hearing ended almost as soon as it started.”We had 12 witnesses waiting, some who had travelled great distances,” the letter to Speed stated. “The inquiry could still have proceeded with certain witnesses giving evidence in front of all the directors. They were never given the chance.”One Harare-based reporter told Wisden Cricinfo the feeling was that the ZCU had deliberately set out to scupper the hearing, fearing that the evidence against it would be overwhelming. He added that by holding the hearing in Harare, the ICC had unwittingly played into the ZCU’s hands. “It would, ” he said, “have been far harder for it to intimidate witnesses outside Zimbabwe.”Several newspapers over the weekend reported that the ICC would rule that it found no evidence of racism within the ZCU. “The ICC have often been a fragile alliance of the major cricketing nations,” wrote Stephen Brenkley in The Independent on Sunday, “but any upheld suggestions of racism could undermine the way the game is run.”

Graeme Hick, who celebrates his 40th birthday on Tuesday, has told the Press Association that he has no immediate plans to retire. He is in the final year of his contract with Worcestershire, but said that when he finally quits depends on his form and hunger for the game.”I’m not putting any date on things,” he said. “It’s not down to match by match but hopefully I’ll have a good enough year for the club to want me to come back. If I’m still playing well enough, that’s fine. If I have a bad season, then obviously it is time to go.”One day I’ll just get out of bed and come down to the ground and think ‘I’ve had enough’. Whether that comes in July, August, September or while in a gym in October, who knows, but I’ve always hoped that’s the way it will happen. Then I will feel that I’ve no regrets about giving up.”People always say ‘you are a long time retired’ so I do hope it comes that way and I think ‘I’ve had enough’. That way I’ll find it easier to pack in and enjoy the moment of packing in and count myself fortunate for what I’ve had from over 20 years in the game.””I’m an emotional person and I am sure it would be more difficult to enjoy my cricket if I knew this was going to be my last season. That would be in my mind. But I’ve approached this season as if there are still years left for me.”Although Hick never fulfilled his potential as a Test player, he has continued to score heavily in first-class cricket. He has, however, had a low-key start to the 2006 season with only 70 runs at 11.66 in three matches.In 65 Tests, Hick scored 3383 runs at 31.32, but in first-class cricket he has a much better record, with his 38,507 runs coming at 52.46 each, inlcuding 128 centuries. He has also picked up 232 wickets with his gentle – and often underused – offspin.