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Khulna Division became National Cricket League champions by beating Rajshahi Division by 33 runs in a low-scoring game in Bogra. The win put them on 40 points, ten ahead of Dhaka Division, who can’t catch up even though they are poised to thrash Barisal Division in Rajshahi. It is Khulna’s third NCL triumph after winning the tournament in 2002-03 and 2007-08.Rajshahi had a shot at victory after they bowled out Khulna for 180 in the second innings; they needed to chase only 187. However the pace and spin combination of Robiul Islam and Nizamuddin took eight wickets and Rajshahi were bowled out for 153.In the first innings, Khulna had made 228 after being put into bat. Imrul Kayes’ 60 was the only major contribution as the Rajshahi bowlers Farhad Reza and Saqlain Sajib took control, picking up three wickets each.Rajshahi, however, batted poorly in their first innings and conceded a six-run lead. Maisuqur Rahman made 64 but the rest failed to support him. Robiul and left-arm spinner Murad Khan took three wickets each for Khulna.Dhaka Division finished as runners-up in this season’s National Cricket League after crushing Barisal Division by an innings and 105 runs in Rajshahi. The win gave them eight points taking them to 38, two short of Khulna Division’s 40 points at the top of the table.Batting first, Barisal scored 256 runs with only Iftekhar Nayem and Zakaria Masud making half-centuries. Mohammad Sharif and Shuvagata Hom took three wickets each for Dhaka.They replied with 474 runs at a run rate of 3.48, with Raqibul Hasan finally getting some runs with a solid 160. Rony Talukder, Hom and Sharif also got half-centuries as they took a 218-run lead.Barisal surrendered meekly on the final day, getting bowled out for 113 runs. Left-arm spinner Mosharraf Hossain took five wickets while pace bowler Shahadat Hossain took three.Dhaka Metropolis finished third in the competition with a nine-wicket win over Sylhet Division in Rangpur. They banked on centuries from Marshall Ayub and Mehrab Hossain jnr to make 345 runs after the top-order fell cheaply. Marshall made 116 while the left-handed Mehrab struck 110.Mohammad Ashraful’s five-wicket haul helped Dhaka Metro bowl out Sylhet for just 155 runs in the first innings, and following on, they made 265 runs. Offspinner Sharifullah took five wickets for Dhaka Metro in the second innings.Set 76 to win, Dhaka Metro completed the chase in the fourth morning, taking only 11 overs to complete the win.Rangpur Division and Chittagong Division drew their last match of this season in Sylhet. Heavy fog disrupted the game on all four days.Batting first, Chittagong made 350 runs with Aftab Ahmed narrowly missing out on a first-class hundred. He was dismissed for 97 runs while Yasir Ali and Sadid Hossain also scored half centuries. Hundreds from Litton Das and Tanveer Haider led Rangpur’s reply as they made 487 runs.Chittagong batted out 52 overs to make 187 for 6 before stumps were drawn.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsMichael Lumb’s 28 wasn’t fluent but it gave Sydney Sixers a satisfactory start•Getty Images

Sydney Sixers, with Shane Watson, were the most impressive side of the Champions League Twenty20, winning three out of three matches. Today they were without Watson for the first time, and though they weren’t as powerful with the bat, their bowling and fielding skills were sharp enough to win their fourth consecutive game comprehensively, and send the defending champions Mumbai Indians home without a victory.Sydney’s batsmen weren’t able to impose themselves on a pitch with bounce that was steep and spongy. Only three of the top seven batsmen made it out of single digits for Sydney: Michael Lumb’s 28 was full of mis-timed pulls but gave the innings a satisfactory start, Nic Maddinson’s 27 was at breakneck speed and attempted to blaze his team out of trouble, and Steve Smith’s run-a-ball 41 was a repair job that did not grow into more.A target of 137 might have been easier to achieve against most other teams but Sydney’s pace attack and their exceptional fielding never let Mumbai stage a breakaway. The margin of victory was only 12 in the end, but the game was lost long before that. Mumbai scored 20 futile runs off the final over.Mumbai opened with Dwayne Smith and Sachin Tendulkar and they struggled to get going against Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins. The ball seamed and bounced under lights and Mumbai cobbled together 30 for 0 after six overs. Just when they had begun to gain momentum, with Smith and Tendulkar clearing the boundary, Moises Henriques removed both within four balls in the ninth over, leaving Mumbai 53 for 2.Rohit Sharma began to repair the chase but he was run out by a direct hit from Cummins. Rohit vented anger at being sent back by Dinesh Karthik, who had dropped the ball at his feet and taken a few steps down the pitch. Karthik was also run out later, as he was forced to run around a back-pedaling Henriques and was caught short by McCullum’s direct hit. Thereafter, Mumbai simply went through the motions.Sydney’s innings had a start that was worse than Mumbai’s after Brad Haddin chose to bat. They had been 33 for 0 but slumped to 40 for 3.Maddinson began an audacious counterattack by upper cutting his first ball, off Lasith Malinga no less, over the keeper for six. He swept the left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha twice to the leg-side boundary and then smashed the ball into the second tier beyond long-on. While Smith was steadying the innings, Maddinson went about giving it momentum, until he was caught short by a direct hit from Malinga at point. Henriques was done in by a Harbhajan Singh arm-ball, and Sydney had lost two wickets for one run.Their hopes for a Smith-propelled finish ended in the 18th over, when Malinga beat a cheeky paddle and hit the stumps. McCullum, playing for Watson, was the fourth person to make a double-digit score and he led them to 136. It was below-par for this surface, but enough for Sydney’s crack bowling attack.

Misbah-ul-Haq has raised concerns over Pakistan’s batting woes as the team lost its last six wickets for 38 runs during the first ODI against Australia in Sharjah. Pakistan played seven batsmen followed by allrounder Shahid Afridi at No. 8 but a late collapse during the second batting Powerplay dashed Pakistan’s hopes of achieving 230 on a sluggish pitch.”Our lower order is not contributing,” Misbah said. “Had anyone scored 30-40 in the lower order we would have scored much more. We are losing matches because we are not scoring runs in the lower order and that is why we had Shahid [Afridi] and Kamran.”Kamran, who made a comeback to the side after more than a year, scored four off 14 balls while Afridi edged his first ball to the slips. Afridi has been in poor form in ODIs recently – 0, 9, 0, 17 and 0* being his last five scores.”We have experienced players in the lower order,” Misbah said. “The only need is to bat the full 50 overs, because if we score 230-240, our bowling is so good that we can defend that.””We struggled in our batting against England and then in Sri Lanka, and that is why we played seven batsmen but we couldn’t score much,” Misbah said after the match. “We were sure about the target today but we lost the way. We committed mistakes, mistakes we have been repeating in the last two or three series but we can’t win matches if we continue to do that.”Misbah conceded that Pakistan were 30 runs short of a competitive total. Fast bowler Mitchell Starc was the chief destroyer as he accounted for well-set batsmen Asad Shafiq and Umar Akmal and then the big wickets of Kamran Akmal and Afridi.He also gave full credit to Australia’s batsmen for the way they handled Pakistan’s spinners. The spinners had given Pakistan the upper hand as they reduced Australia to 121-5 at one stage – Saeed Ajmal taking 3-30 and Mohammad Hafeez, 2-29. But George Bailey (57) and Glenn Maxwell (38) added an invaluable 63 for the sixth wicket to all but close the match.”We tried everything, kept attacking fields, but credit must be given to them,” Misbah said. “The way Bailey and Glenn Maxwell batted, it showed maturity although they were playing [their] third or fourth match.”

ScorecardGary Ballance and Azeem Rafiq spared Yorkshire’s blushes at Headingley after Unicorns had threatened to pull off a shock victory in the CB40 League Group C encounter.Chasing a modest revised target of 162 in 37 overs, Yorkshire appeared to be cruising at 34 without loss but then four wickets fell for seven runs in the space of 22 deliveries, and when rain caused a brief interruption at 78 for 5 in 18.4 overs they were well behind the required rate.Fortunately for the home side, Ballance kept his nerve with a fine unbeaten 69 and he was well supported by Rafiq, who made 34, the pair putting on an unbroken 91 for the sixth wicket to haul Yorkshire back into the match and they went on to win by five wickets with three overs remaining.The slide began when paceman, Bob Woolley, came into the attack and his first ball sent captain Andrew Gale’s off-stump flying. In the next over, Adam Lyth edged Glen Querl to wicketkeeper, Tom New, and it became four wickets in as many overs as Woolley had Phil Jaques taken at first slip and David Miller was caught behind off Querl without scoring.Ballance and Adil Rashid appeared to be getting on top of the situation until Rashid fell lbw to Paul Hindmarch the delivery after flicking him over backward square leg for six.The short rain break seemed to settle Yorkshire’s nerves and the batsmen began to take control, Ballance reverse sweeping Luke Beaven for four and Rafiq driving Bradley Wadlan to the cover boundary.Ballance off-drove Beaven for a mighty six to reach his half-century off 76 balls and when he hit the winning boundary he had received 83 balls and struck six fours and a six. Against the same opponents at Scarborough earlier in the season, Ballance plundered 103 not out.Put in to bat, Unicorns were never able to break free from the stranglehold imposed on them by Ryan Sidebottom and Rashid and they would not have reached 150 for 6 off their 37 overs but for an unbroken seventh wicket stand of 56 between skipper, Keith Parsons, and Woolley.Making his first appearance in just over six weeks after recovering from a calf injury, Sidebottom swung the ball appreciably in the humid conditions and he struck in his opening over when Wadlan offered no stroke and had his leg stump flattened.Vishal Tripathi and New tried hard to settle the innings down but at 32 in the ninth over Sidebottom struck again by dismissing New, the left-hander nibbling outside off-stump to give a catch to 22-year-old debutant wicketkeeper, Dan Hodgson, from Northallerton.Moin Ashraf held on to a return catch from Jayden Levitt before Rashid joined the attack in the 15th over and began with two wickets in his first over, bowling the patient Tripathi with a googly and trapping James Ord lbw with a similar delivery.He went on to bowl Luis Reece for 25, his only boundary shot being a big six off Rafiq, and Rashid’s final figures of 3 for 24 followed hot on the heels of his career-best 4 for 38 against Northamptonshire in the previous match.At 94 for 6 in 27 overs, a complete slump was prevented by Parsons and Woolley, but a sudden break for rain at 141 for 6 in 36.1 overs brought about a reduction in the overs.With only five balls remaining on the resumption, Parsons immediately belted Sidebottom for six over mid-wicket. His unbeaten 48 came off 60 deliveries with two fours and a six while Woolley made 28 not out with three fours.

ScorecardCraig Kieswetter’s explosive half-century helped unbeaten Somerset to an easy seven-wicket win over a desperate Northamptonshire side in the Friends Life t20 at Wantage Road.After being made to bat, the winless Steelbacks made a feeble 115 for 6 – at one point going 62 balls without hitting a boundary – with Steve Kirby, George Dockrell and Arul Suppiah taking two wickets each.Somerset reached their target with 38 deliveries to spare as England’s limited-overs wicketkeeper-batsman, Kieswetter, smashed 51 off 35 balls and South Africa international Richard Levi hammered 35 off just 18 deliveries.Somerset did not have to wait long for a breakthrough after taking to the field when Kirby bowled Kyle Coetzer for nine in the second over. Chaminda Vaas then departed for the same score when he gifted Kirby his second wicket by launching him high into the air and Nick Compton waited underneath it at point to take the catch.The in-form Cameron White fell on 14 when he smashed Ireland spinner Dockrell to Jos Buttler at deep extra cover. Rob White then threw his wicket away by chipping Dockrell straight to Somerset captain Alfonso Thomas at short extra cover.Steelbacks captain Alex Wakely eventually perished after crawling to 34 off 43 balls when he was stumped by Kieswetter off Suppiah. Kieswetter then repeated the trick two Suppiah deliveries later to dismiss David Willey as it took the hosts until the penultimate over to reach 100.Chasing a meagre 116, Somerset got off to a terrific start as Levi bludgeoned four huge sixes during the Powerplay, with the visitors halfway towards their target by the end of it.Levi had departed by then, however, when he smashed fellow South African Con de Lange to Coetzer at deep midwicket to end an opening partnership with Kieswetter of 61. Kieswetter hung around to go past 50 off just 33 balls with a four through extra cover off Oliver Stone but he walked when he was bowled by de Lange in the 11th over.De Lange, who finished with figures of 3 for 22 then trapped Peter Trego lbw for 8 before the match came to a underwhelming end with the winning run coming from a James Middlebrook wide.

Former West Indies opener Adrian Griffith has taken over the role of umpires and referees administration manager at the ICC. He has joined the the ICC’s operations department, currently headed by Dave Richardson, who is the governing body’s general manager of cricket. The department also includes Vince van der Bilj, a former Natal and Middlesex fast bowler.Griffth played 14 Tests and nine ODIs between 1996 and 2000. He’s also an experienced administrator. He was cricket operations manager during the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies, and has also been on the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) match referees’ panel. As the ICC’s regional referee, he was involved in several development events such as the World Cricket League Division One and the World Twenty20 Qualifier.”It is indeed a great honour for me to be working with the International Cricket Council in the role of Umpires and Referees Administration Manager,” Griffith said. “I am hoping that my experience, both as a player and match official, will come in handy during my stint.”

Sourav Ganguly, the Pune Warriors captain, has defended his offspinner Marlon Samuels, saying there were bowlers with worse actions in the IPL who hadn’t been warned. Samuels was reported by the umpires for a suspect action after the match against Chennai Super Kings on April 14.Ganguly said he was surprised by on-field umpires Aleem Dar and Bruce Oxenford’s decision. “If you go around the IPL, you will see worse actions,” he said. “I should not be saying it because we are all part of a competition. But if Marlon gets warned for his action, then there are probably a few around who are worse.”Ganguly questioned the decision to report Samuels, who has been bowling for West Indies in international matches without being warned. “Whoever has done it has got to be careful because Marlon has bowled for the West Indies for two years and he hasn’t been warned,” Ganguly said. “He has bowled in the first three games of the IPL and he hasn’t been warned. And I don’t know what he did different in his fourth game to be warned.”As per IPL policy, Samuels will be allowed to bowl for the Warriors but should he be reported again, he will be suspended from bowling for the remainder of the season.Samuels had problems with his action in the past. He was reported for a suspect action after the third Test between West Indies and South Africa in 2008 in Durban, when the on-field umpires raised doubts especially with regards to his quicker deliveries. He underwent remedial work, and an independent test found his action to be legal. In 2011, he was cleared for bowling in international cricket by the ICC.

Cricket Australia is expected to move to a smaller board featuring some independent directors in October, despite objections from the South Australian Cricket Association (SACA). A fully independent board is likely to be introduced in 2015, meaning that within three years the state associations will almost certainly have no representation at CA board level.The plan is part of CA’s response to the Crawford-Carter review into the organisation’s governance. A new financial model that would see CA take control of all internationals played in Australia has also been proposed. Board reform was one of the key recommendations from the governance review, which suggested the end to the archaic system in which some states held greater power than others.The two-stage plan, discussed at a CA board meeting in Melbourne on Tuesday, is based around introducing three independent directors to work alongside six state-appointed directors – one from each state – at the annual general meeting in October. In 2015, barring any unforeseen hurdles, the six state-appointed directors would be phased out and all nine board members would be independent of official state affiliation, although there would need to be at least one residing in each state.The existing board structure features 14 directors, all appointed by state boards, with three each from New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, two each from Western Australia and Queensland, and one from Tasmania. CA chairman Wally Edwards said South Australia remained reluctant to give up its voice on the board, but approval from five of the six states was enough for the moves to go ahead.”We didn’t get a unanimous position because of this issue of the independent director,” Edwards said. “One state is pretty well locked in on wanting to have their own delegated director for all time. That’s the one sticking point there, from SACA.”SACA are against it, I don’t want to hide that fact. They’re very positive on everything except that the director who would be located in South Australia, they want to be able to appoint him and they want him to be on their board.”In the end, if five out of the six states agree then it moves forward and Cricket Australia’s constitution will be changed to say that directors can’t be a member of their state board… it’s an issue that SACA will have to come to grips with as well.”The move needs to be approved at a special CA meeting in July, and South Australia’s objections would not be enough to prevent it. Should the proposal succeed, a nomination committee consisting of Edwards, two state chairmen and two people who are not part of a board will choose the three independent directors who would take office in October.The new CA chairman would then be elected at the AGM from those three independent directors and the six directors nominated by the state boards. Edwards said he was confident the changes would be approved and would lead to the total overhaul of the board in 2015 – CA says the two-stage process is a legal obligation – despite the failure of several attempts in past years to revolutionise the unwieldy and inequitable board structure.”If this goes through in July, we will have achieved a lot,” Edwards said. “We will still have one more phase to go and we will still have six appointed directors, but we’ll have moved from 14 to nine, all states will be put on an equal footing… there’s been a lot of grumpiness about some states being more equal than others. This first step gets rid of all that.”Edwards also said the states had agreed to a new financial model in which each state association would give up the management of international matches in its territory, and in return would be paid a minimum guarantee grant by CA. Edwards said no state would be worse off under the new plan, which he said would “untangle a lot of the very, very complicated… ways of running our business”.

Yuvraj Singh’s response to chemotherapy has left his medical team “fairly confident” that the mediastinal seminoma he had been diagnosed with “will not come back.” Dr Nitesh Rohatgi, a key member of Yuvraj’s medical team, told ESPNcricinfo that according to their assessment, Yuvraj could “get back to normal activity in about a couple of month’s time.” Yuvraj underwent three cycles of chemotherapy, the last one in hospital before being discharged, and is expected to return to India in the first half of April.Rohatgi, senior medical oncologist at Delhi’s Max Cancer Centre, said Yuvraj, diagnosed with a mediastinal seminoma, a germ-cell tumour between his lungs, had responded well to therapy. “He has had the standard treatment for such tumours, which is three cycles of chemotherapy followed by a strict protocol based follow-up and we are cautiously confident that it will not come back.”The doctors’ progressive assessment over the period of almost two months of chemotherapy had indicated that the “tumour mass” detected earlier “has now shrunk significantly. The cancer protein (tumour marker) has come down faster than expected and both the signs together are reassuring of the fact that the cancer should be on the way out of his system.”Yuvraj has been in the United States for treatment since end January. He underwent chemotherapy in Indianapolis at the Indiana University’s IU Simon Cancer Center under the supervision of Rohatgi and Lawrence H Einhorn, who had headed the treatment of cycling champion Lance Armstrong in 1996.Following the three cycles of chemotherapy, Rohatgi said that while Yuvraj’s tumour markers had “normalised”, his readings of the liver and kidney test remain “robust”, indicating that the chemotherapy has not irreversibly damaged his body. “All the side-effects he has had so far are reversible and we’ve seen signs of quick recovery between cycles of chemotherapy.”When asked about a specific time frame for Yuvraj’s return to full fitness, Rohatgi said it was, “variable.” “In our experience, mine from cases in the UK and Dr Einhorn’s from the US, patients get back to good normal activity in a month’s time. Whether that also amounts to excellent training capabilities we will only find out in time. Yuvraj is very strong-minded, he shows a sign of desperation to out-perform himself.”Yuvraj will remain in the US for between two to three weeks due to what Rohatgi called a “safety period” that had to be observed following chemotherapy. His next step would now primarily be to get back to fitness and go through a follow-up and check-up routine through blood tests and CT scans, “none of which would interrupt any of Yuvraj’s schedules.”Along with physical recovery, Rohatgi said Yuvraj had mentally handled the chemotherapy very well. “The common psychological effect on patients of cancer and chemotherapy can be depression, but Yuvraj has tackled it very well. He came across to us as someone who said when this gets over, let me get back on track.”On Sunday, Yuvraj had tweeted about his chemotherapy sessions being complete.While in the US, where he’s been since the last week of January, Yuvraj has done as much gym work as was physically possible during his treatment, played pool, watched the Superbowl game between the New York Giants and New England Patriots and interacted with a few hundred Indian-origin students from the Indiana University after he was recognised when on one of his walks along the Indianapolis canal.

Ireland enter the World T20 qualifiers with a sizeable weight of expectation upon them. They have positioned themselves at the head of the chasing pack of Associate nations, with plans in place for a push to Test cricket. For Ireland, qualification for the World T20 is essential.Ireland’s stock rose significantly after their famous win over England in March. That result heightened interest in cricket from the Emerald Isle and the team has responded. They ran England close again in August and since September, they have played 15 matches and won 12. More than enough encouragement for their captain, William Porterfield, to believe his side are moving closer to the Test nations.”It will be a massive tournament because we want to be competing with the best teams,” Porterfield said. “It is part of our long-term goals so all our effort will be channeled towards achieving that dream.”We have played a lot more cricket against the major teams and have shown that we belong. In addition, our lads have played a lot of T20 cricket for counties in England so all that experience is going to help the side in the tournament.”Ireland were last in action against Kenya in Mombasa, winning the T20 series 3-0. They will remain in southern Africa until five days before the tournament begins on March 13 in the UAE.”The camp in Port Elizabeth has been about fine tuning our T20 skills,” Porterfield said. “The past few weeks have been a good reminder about our abilities. We are confident that we have covered all aspects of our game.” Ireland’s preparations included a warm-up T20 against Eastern Province which they lost by 21 runs. Chasing 148, they were 75 for 2 before collapsing to 127 all out.Ireland have already made progress in their climb up the cricketing ladder, becoming the first Associate nation to earn a place in the ICC T20 Championship table – that England currently top – after completing the criterion of having played in eight or more T20 matches since August 2009.Drawn against Kenya, Scotland, Namibia, Oman, Italy, Uganda and USA in Group B, Ireland hope to their rise can continue and they can earn their place at the World T20 in September, where they feel they belong.