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Tasmania 9 for 131 (Birt 37*) beat Victoria 158 (Hussey 50, Doherty 4-18) by one wicket on D/L method
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

Tasmania crept home to end Victoria’s plans for domestic domination as they lifted the FR Cup after a mostly wet and extremely tense afternoon in Hobart. The one-wicket victory earned the home team’s third limited-overs trophy and it was sealed following a gripping chase, which was originally 159 before being cut to 131 by the weather.Bryce McGain almost snatched the game from Tasmania with 3 for 11 from five immaculate overs, but the legspinner’s cool was matched by Travis Birt’s calm. Birt’s glide for three off the first ball of the final over ensured a great escape and sparked celebrations of relief at Bellerive Oval.After a rain break at 19.4 overs the sunshine of the morning returned and a comfortable Tasmania assignment of 42 off 68 balls became more difficult when Mark Divin cut McGain to point and Xavier Doherty charged unsuccessfully two balls later with 22 still needed. Brett Geeves added to the stress – he thought he was out lbw twice – and after a useful stand he departed with four to win before Brendan Drew edged twice in two balls to Adam Crosthwaite, who pouched the second attempt to the roars of his team-mates.Victoria wanted only one wicket but Ben Hilfenhaus navigated the two balls necessary to give Birt the strike for the final over. Throughout the crisis Birt kept his head and his 37 off 37 was the best innings of a see-sawing contest.”We’ve been fantastic all year, although this was not our best game,” Dan Marsh, the Tasmania captain, said before accepting the FR Cup and a cheque for $96,000. “But we bowled magnificently, and fantastic batting at the end got us over the line. Thanks, Birty.”Irritating rain, which caused three breaks in the second innings, and an afternoon temperature around 13C did not help the approach of Tasmania, who originally appeared desperate to conquer the small total quickly. As hosts they had the advantage if the match was abandoned before 20 overs, but they wanted to win it properly and the attitude kept Victoria’s interest as regular breakthroughs came.Dane Anderson thrashed 15 from a Dirk Nannes over, which included a pulled six, and then fell in the next trying to loft Clint McKay on 25. Michael Dighton (19) and George Bailey (7) also slipped to aggressive miscalculations against McKay, who gained 3 for 42. Things started to get exceptionally tight for the first time when Marsh jumped across his stumps and was lbw to Shane Harwood, leaving the Tigers at 5 for 76.A superb all-round bowling performance from Tasmania limited the powerful Victoria to 158 in 37.3 overs after Cameron White won the toss. Geeves started the problems with three early wickets and Hilfenhaus and Doherty cleaned up once the dangerous stand between David Hussey and Andrew McDonald was extinguished.Despite the early dominance, the Tigers were fearful with Hussey at the crease and he was the main reason the Bushrangers were able to stay for so long on a pitch the fast men enjoyed. Hussey, who belted a 60-ball century on Wednesday, waited ten balls before opening with a six over midwicket, one of two in his 69-ball innings, and remained in control despite some tricky patches.However, when he cut Doherty behind point to Hilfenhaus on 50 any hope of a big total was gone. McDonald had already departed to Hilfenhaus for 35, slicing to third man after a fortunate escape from a catch in the slips on 8, and Crosthwaite became the first of Doherty’s four victims when ruled to have edged behind.After Hussey and Harwood fell in consecutive overs Victoria had lost 4 for 19 and the innings closed with Nannes failing to offer a shot to Doherty. He captured 4 for 18 off 6.3 overs while Geeves had 3 for 28 and Hilfenhaus 3 for 32.”They were outstanding, especially Geeves early,” Marsh said. “Then for Ben to come back and get us those two wickets, it showed he’s back to his best form.”The home team started strongly as Hilfenhaus wobbled the ball and his partner Geeves caused problems with his short deliveries. Brad Hodge (9) was a key wicket for the Tigers and when he pushed away from his body to Birt in the gully Geeves and his team-mates were ecstatic.Tasmania’s mood improved further next ball with White nicking a fierce lifting delivery, leaving the Bushrangers at 4 for 47. McDonald survived the hat-trick and then started the recovery work in an 80-run stand with Hussey that was not enough. White, who admitted the better team won, will have to wait until next month’s Pura Cup for another opportunity to earn a second trophy for the season.

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.”

Match abandoned due to rain

The rain has returned to put an end to what would have been, in effect, the first Twenty20 international. Following a major mopping-up operation at Hampshire’s Rose Bowl ground, the game between West Indies and New Zealand had been reduced to a bare-minimum 20-overs-a-side affair. But, no sooner had Brian Lara won the toss and decided to field, the heavens opened and the match had to be called off.It was rather a surprise that any match at all had been in prospect. After several failed inspections, umpire Daryl Harper finally announced at 3pm that there was time for a 20-overs game, but that 4.32pm was the latest possible start time. As if on cue, heavy rain drenched the outfield at 4.30pm, and that was effectively that.In a surprise selection, New Zealand had called Andre Adams into the squad for this game. Adams had been playing club cricket in the Lancashire leagues, and was called in as bowling cover ahead of the Lord’s final, after an injury had sidelined Daryl Tuffey. But the rain gods have forced the postponement of his comeback.

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.

Northamptonshire have insisted that they are still expecting Phil Jaques to return for duty next season as a non-overseas player, even though he is currently playing for New South Wales in Australia’s domestic season.Under the ECB’s current regulations, appearing for NSW means that Jaques will be reclassified as an overseas player, as even those holding British or European passports are classified as overseas players if they appear in first-class cricket in their homeland in the preceding 12 months. But Northants are keen to challenge that regulation, thinking that Jaques should still qualify, and a legal battle is looming.John Scopes, Northants’ chairman, was confident of winning the wrangle, saying that he expected Jaques to sign a new three-year contract as early as next week. “We’re proceeding as if Phil will be returning to us next season. I am convinced that the European Union laws are on our side,” Scopes said. “Our lawyers believe it will be illegal if the ECB do not allow us to register Phil as a player for next season. We’re in conversation with them at the moment. We shall fight our corner.”Scopes added: “If he is British, which was accepted by the ECB last season, he can’t suddenly be a non-British player this season.”Jaques was born in Australia but has English parents and thus holds a British passport. He smashed over 1000 runs at an average of 58.70 last season for Northants, and helped them to promotion in both the Championship and National League, so they are understandably keen to keep him.The ECB’s registration committee is due to meet at the end of the month to discuss the matter, but if the rules stand, Jaques will be forced to find another club that will take him on as one of their foreign players, as Northants have already secured their two overseas players.Talking in the last week, Jaques confirmed he was keen to return to Wantage Road, and is confident of doing so. “We think we’ve got a pretty strong case for restraint of trade,” he said. “Since I am a British passport-holder, we feel I should be allowed to play county cricket, even if I do play first-class cricket out here [Australia].”It would be a different story if I was playing for Australia over here and then wanted to play as a local player over there. European law states that anyone holding a passport from an EU member country can work freely within the EU. With England being a part of the EU we feel I should be able to work over there. This is my job, it’s my career, and I feel it’s harsh that I can’t go and work in a place where I do have a passport.”

Little-known opening batsman Brendan Nash pushed Queensland into a promising position against NSW on the opening day of the Pura Cup cricket match at the Gabba today.At tea, the Bulls were 2-176 with Nash batting through both sessions for 91 not out after Queensland had been sent in by new Blues skipper Simon Katich.Nash was the anchor for the Bulls, outlasting captain Jimmy Maher (39) and Martin Love (27) and showing some aggression against leg-spinner Stuart MacGill (1-49 from 16 overs).The 24-year-old left-hander raced past 50 with three boundaries, hitting against the spin, from one MacGill over before hitting two fours from the next over sent down by Nathan Bracken (0-20).Nash was following his excellent 96 against Tasmania in the Bulls’ Pura Cup final victory last season.Stuart Law was unbeaten on nine at tea, playing a record-breaking 124th interstate match for Queensland.The Bulls did not give a chance until Maher edged Don Nash (1-26) down the legside to wicketkeeper Brad Haddin in the second over after lunch.Nash and Love then added 79 runs in a stylish partnership before MacGill was rewarded by claiming Love to a sharp catch at first slip by Michael Clarke.

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.”

On October 6, it was announced that the dispute between Kenya’s striking players and the board (KCA) had been resolved. The two bones of contention – outstanding salaries and contract renewals – would be resolved and all was well.At the time we voiced suspicions that the deal might be more of a cease-fire than an armistice, and it is beginning to appear that has turned out to be the case. Critics who accused the KCA of offering little more than words without substance appear to have been proved right.What is not disputed is that the KCA are strapped for cash, and critics claimed that the settlement brokered by the Kenya National Sports Council was little more than an attempt to pour cold water on what was becoming an increasingly bitter stand-off. Questions were raised as to how the board would pay the cash.Sources have told us that the players have not been paid the money owed to them in back-pay, nor have bonuses still outstanding from the 2003 World Cup – the major irritant to the players – been handed over. Even the monies owed from September’s Champions Trophy – for which the KCA received a one-off payment of $165,000 from the ICC – are still owing. It is also rumoured that the current coaching staff have not been paid their September salaries.The biggest sign that the KCA did not intend honouring the truce came when the selectors left all the striking players out of the squad for the Intercontinental Cup finals in Sharjah. Had they said that they wanted to stick with the same players who had seen off Namibia, and in doing so got them through, then that would have been understandable. Instead, it was claimed that the players had not re-applied to be selected. That excuse was unbelievable and wholly transparent.Last Wednesday, the players concerned publicly accused the KCA of reneging on its agreement and referred their grievances to Ochillo Ayacko, the minister for sport. Ayacko’s frustration with events had led to the KNSC’s intervention in the first place.Until recently, the KCA had been using money received from the ICC earmarked for development to pay salaries. But the ICC stepped in and put a stop to that, prompting the current cash-crisis.

The green Nagpur pitch is likely to be shaved bare before the start of the third Test, has reported. Kishore Pradhan, the curator at the ground, said that Ganguly convinced him that a grassless pitch would give India a better chance.”He explained to me the difference between the Indian and Australian teams and their respective strengths and weaknesses, as also the position of the series. And he requested me to shave off the grass one last time,” said Pradhan. “I would have done one last mowing in any case, but his request convinced me. Till the mud beneath doesn’t get caught in the machine, we will continue. I will not let the wicket break. It will remain a sporting wicket.”This was a come-down from Pradhan’s earlier stance of not shaving the wicket. The green look of the track had forced John Wright to state that his expectations from the Indian batsmen would be fairly modest if they were asked to bat first. “It will be similar to jute wickets and help pace bowlers and the batsmen,” Wright had said. “I would be most happy with a score of 250 for 6 or 8 on day one.” However, if most of the grass is shaved off before the game gets underway, chances are that neither captain will be happy with such a score after the first day.

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.”