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Scorecard

India A cruised to a nine-wicket win against Zimbabwe Select on thefinal day of the opening four-day match at Harare Sports Club. Zimbabwe were dismissed for 216 in the second innings, leaving India with a target of 65, which they rattled off for the loss of just one wicket.The equation was simple at the start of the day: Zimbabwe needed to bat out the entire day to force a draw. Resuming on 15 for 1, Zimbabwe lost Hamilton Masakadza early but rallied through a 108-run partnership between Vusi Sibanda (69) and Tatenda Taibu (40) before Piyush Chawla got into the act.He grabbed four wickets that included Sibanda, Taibu, and Elton Chigumbura (30) to propel India towards victory. Irfan Pathan, who opened in the second innings, hit a breezy 30-ball 39 to take India home.”We started very well in the morning with Sibanda and Taibu getting quick runs but everything crumbled once Taibu fell,” Zimbabwe Cricket spokesman Blessing Maulgue told VOA. “The experienced guys need to pull up the socks. Only Taibu performed in the first innings. The guys like Masakadza, Sibanda and Chigumbura need to perform consistently and our batsman have to give something for our bowlers to defend.”The two sides will meet in the second and final four-day game at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo starting on Tuesday. .

BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah has questioned the need for the ICC to get involved in the controversy over Indian offspinner Harbhajan Singh’s alleged remarks about Australian players Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist. The Australian media have reported that the ICC is investigating Harbhajan’s comments.”I’m surprised that with the correspondence between two boards, how the ICC has interfered in this?” Shah told the . “How is the ICC involved without knowing anything? There is nothing to investigate and we maintain that we totally support ICC on zero tolerance of abusive language or any sledging on the ground.”Shah also told the paper that he considered the issue of Harbhajan’s alleged outburst closed. Cricket Australia had written a letter to the BCCI expressing its discontent after it was reported that Harbhajan had called the Australian team “arrogant”, labelled Hayden a “big liar” and said that Gilchrist was “no saint”.”The whole thing has been settled and I don’t want to get into it any more,” Shah said. “Harbhajan Singh has totally denied what he has (been alleged to have) said.” This comes a day after the Indian board gagged Harbhajan from talking to the media in a bid to avoid any more controversies after an ill-tempered series between India and Australia.Shah also denied that the BCCI had asked CA to take action against Hayden after he called Harbhajan an “obnoxious weed”. CA had reprimanded Hayden for breaching its Code of Conduct after that incident. “I never complained about what Hayden said. I just took what appeared in the newspapers and forwarded it to James [Sutherland, Cricket Australia’s CEO],” Shah said. “I had always maintained that it was up to CA to do anything with Hayden.”

Siphatisiwe Moyo, the Zimbabwe allrounder, has pulled out of next week’s Women’s World Cup qualifier in South Africa with appendicitis.Moyo, 22, learnt of her condition in December and is to undergo surgery in South Africa.The qualifying series was originally due to be held in Pakistan in November last year but was moved to South Africa, following the political upheaval which ensued after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Scorecard

Victoria remained the Twenty20 kings with a third consecutive title as Western Australia were hit by a Blizzard and a Cyclone at the WACA. Aiden Blizzard’s blitz of 47 from 20 balls helped the Bushrangers reach 203 and despite an exciting 86 from Shaun Marsh, the Warriors fell 32 short in their chase.The major problem for Western Australia, apart from the hefty target, was the fast, accurate bowling from Dirk Nannes. The nickname on his back read “Cyclone” and he lived up to the moniker, sweeping up four wickets and pushing into the high 140kph region as the Warriors spiralled to defeat.He struck two early blows to derail the chase and returned at the end for two more, including Marsh, who had combined with Theo Doropoulos to give the Warriors a sniff after they had crashed to 5 for 59. Marsh belted four sixes in his 55-ball innings but was running out of time when he cracked a Nannes full toss to Cameron White at midwicket.He had already lost his key partner, Doropoulos, who was on 43 when he chipped back to the bowler David Hussey. Victoria’s spinners Hussey and Bryce McGain troubled the middle order but it was Nannes’ early strikes that set the scene.In what Perth fans will hope is not an omen for the WACA Test, which starts on Wednesday, the home side’s reply began with a contentious catch first ball. Luke Ronchi tried to evade a shortish Nannes delivery that flicked his gloves and might have fallen just short of the wicketkeeper Adam Crosthwaite, who claimed the take.It was a disappointing start to a challenging chase after Victoria worked their way to 8 for 203. They started brilliantly, reaching 0 for 65 from five overs, an effort that was largely thanks to Blizzard, who took 28 off one Danny McLauchlan over. Four sixes featured in those six balls, and one was flat-batted wide of midwicket so lethally that it ended up in the practice nets adjacent to the ground.Twice in their innings Victoria lost 3 for 5 but around those mini-collapses they were able to build a healthy score. Hussey added 38 and finished the tournament as the second leading run scorer behind only Marsh. One of the few Victorians who did not contribute was Rob Quiney, who fell to one of the most remarkable catches in recent memory.Quiney pulled Ben Edmondson to deep midwicket and David Bandy, hard up on the rope and with the sun in his eyes, jumped, stretched his right-hand above his head and pulled in the grab with both feet off the ground, baseball-style. He then had the challenge of landing back in the field of play and managed the feat with the grace of an Olympic gymnast, finishing with a pivot and swivel to acknowledge the crowd’s cheers.But his team-mates could not match his perfect ten and the title slipped away from Western Australia. Victoria, who have lost only one match in the three seasons of the domestic Twenty20 tournament, will head to the Champions Twenty20 league in October as arguably the world’s most in-form side in the shortest format.

The retiring Brad Hogg believes Dan Cullen and Nathan Hauritz will vie to be Australia’s No. 1 limited-overs spinner in his absence, but he has no idea who should take the spot in Tests. Hogg, who is the incumbent after appearing in the series against India, would like a younger man to be given the chance in the five-day format.”It’s hard to say,” he said when asked about his replacement. “There’s young talent around. If a young fella gets a go and he knows he’s going to get a real decent crack at it, anything can happen. Sometimes you perform better at international level than your state level. Just rising to occasions, some people love that bigger occasion.”The only slow bowler regularly troubling batsmen in the Pura Cup is Victoria’s Bryce McGain, who turns 36 next month, while Stuart MacGill will be in contention when he fully recovers from his wrist problem. Cullen is in and out of South Australia’s four-day squad, the Cricket Australia-contracted Cullen Bailey can’t get a game for the Redbacks, and Beau Casson is preferred over Hauritz in the New South Wales Pura Cup team.”At the end of the day, I leave, Warney left, you just have to make do with the stocks that you’ve got,” Hogg said at the MCG. “Someone might come out like a Shane Warne and blitz international cricket. You never know what’s around the corner.”While Hogg’s position in the Test side was never permanent, he was the first choice in one-day internationals since his elevation in 2003 when Warne was suspended for drug use. He thinks it will be an offspinner who takes that role in the immediate future and hopes the selectors do not chop and change too much.”Dan Cullen’s bowling pretty well, and I think Nathan Hauritz from New South Wales has had a particularly good couple of years in one-day cricket,” he said. “He was around at the time when Warney was having his injuries and so forth and it was between me and him at the time.”It would be nice for him to get a run because he missed out back then. The selectors are going to have to bite the bullet and give someone a real good crack at it.”

Half-centuries by Sean Williams and Keith Dabengwa helped Zimbabwe Select avert the follow-on in their four-day game against Sri Lanka A in Harare. With a day left in the match, the Sri Lankans were at 106 for 4, with a lead of 219 runs.Zimbabwe started the day needing 74 to avoid the follow-on with four wickets in hand. Williams, a former Zimbabwe Under-19 captain, put on 51 with Dabengwa before being bowled by offspinner Dilruwan Perera for 52.Captain Prosper Utseya then supported Dabengwa before being caught in the slips off the bowling of Perera. Gary Brent managed only 3 before being dismissed leg-before to bring in last man Christopher Mpofu. The Zimbabwe innings folded at 313, a deficit of 113 runs, when Mpofu edged a Chamara Kapugedara delivery to first slip leaving Dabengwa stranded on 62. Perera, who top scored in the first innings, was the most successful bowler, picking up four wickets.Zimbabwe took four second-innings wickets, including that of the in-form Kaushal Silva and didn’t allow any partnerships to develop. As in the first innings, Utseya was the most effective bowler – bagging two wickets.A draw should boost the Zimbabweans as they have lost all their games against the visiting India A and South Africa A teams earlier this year.

India’s cricketers enjoyed a “rest” day today, warming down after theirsecond tour game at Chelmsford, but one or two minds might have just beenworking overtime. Rahul Dravid and Co. would have wished for the twopractice games to provide a few answers; instead there seem to be morequestions on hand with three days to go until the first Test at Lord’s.Wasim Jaffer or Gautam Gambhir? VVS Laxman or Yuvraj Singh? Mahendra Singh Dhoni aswicketkeeper? The first two aren’t new instances – Jaffer is prone to a string of failures while Laxman’s spot is never certain. But what of Dhoni? In Bangladesh he kept his Test spot thanks toa Man-of-the-Series performance in the preceding one-dayers, but he’s donelittle of note to be sure of a place here. One can point to his 76 atChelmsford, or even his buccaneering 139 not out against Africa XI atChennai, but the conditions were nowhere near as demanding as they will be atLord’s.What’s more worrying is Dhoni’s decline behind the stumps. He was never a naturalwicketkeeper, starting off as a football goalie, and it was mainly thanksto his persistence that he improved in that department. There was a periodearly in his career when he gave up batting for one whole year just to getbetter with the gloves. He showed considerable improvement last season butthe fumbles have reappeared recently. He has struggled so far in the tour games, often parrying the ball rather than waiting for it, and his grassedchances off Andy Hodd and Robin Martin-Jenkins at Hove and Stuart Broad atChelmsford, all straightforward ones at international level, woulddefinitely get the team management thinking.Making his job harder is Dinesh Karthik’s presence in the team as aspecialist batsman. Karthik is the more agile wicketkeeper and is betterstanding up to Anil Kumble’s bouncy offerings. There will surely be a temptation to ask him to keep as well as bat. It would no doubt add to his burden – squatting all daybefore opening the batting can’t be easy – but it would also allow theteam a chance to play the extra batsman in Yuvraj.India’s batting is awesome on paper but, as was shown at Chelmsford, it justtakes a persistent bowling attack to open up the cracks. The top order is weak,the middle is inconsistent and the tail is mostly redundant. Lord’s isusually good to the batsmen and India’s batting galacticos, as theGuardian newspaper called them, will need to stand up. If they needsome expert advice about batting on the ground they just need to lookaround the dressing room and spot a man who managed three hundreds on thetrot here.For Dilip Vengsarkar, the current chairman of selectors, Lord’s, where he cracked centuries in 1979, 1982 and 1986, was his backyard. He downplayed the achievement, when Cricinfo asked him about it, butexplained why the ground was special.”Every player has his favourite grounds. I’ve got four hundreds at the Feroz Shah Kotla but nobody remembers that. And they were against better teams – three againstWest Indies and one against Asif Iqbal’s Pakistan. Everybody only talksabout the three hundred at Lord’s. Of course it was a great feeling. It’sspecial playing at Lord’s. Walking through the long room you have a heavyfeeling in the heart. You see the honours board, the pictures on the wall,the packed atmosphere. It’s electrifying. But once you hit the grass, it’sjust another ground.”Did he have to make any special adjustment to counter the famous Lord’sslope? “Too much is made of the slope at Lord’s,” he said nonchalantly. “Every ground has some slope – go to Leeds you have a slope,at Chelmsford there’s also a slope. You need to adjust to different conditions and the slope is just one part of it. It’s not as tough to adjust as it’s made out to be.”But which of the three hundreds will he most cherish? “I think the centuryin 1986 was my best. We won at Lord’s for the first time and went on towin the series. The bowlers won the game for us – Chetan Sharma bowledsuperbly, Kapil Dev was equally good, Maninder Singh too. To finish on thewinning side after making your third successive hundred was verysatisfying.”India had never won a Lord’s Test before 1986, they’ve yet to win onesince. As much as he’s proud of being part of that side, Vengsarkar willhope that India double that victory tally in the coming days.

Musical chairs at the top
“We have many openers in our team,” Shoaib Malik said at the toss. “Today we’ll go with Salman Butt and Imran Nazir.” With that Malik confirmed Pakistan were giving Butt his fourth opening partner in five one-dayers; Kamran Akmal, Shahid Afridi and Malik being the first three. It was Nazir’s first opportunity of the series and he shelved his reckless approach and scored a subdued 20 off 40 balls. The end result was an opening stand of 65: Pakistan’s highest of the series.Maiden maiden-over
If Praveen Kumar had any nerves when Mahendra Singh Dhoni gave him the new ball on his ODI debut, he did a spectacular job of concealing them. His first two balls were left alone by Butt; the third beat the bat with a hint of swing away from the left-hander; the fourth should have been put away but Rohit Sharma’s sharp fielding at midwicket prevented any runs; the fifth was defended back to the bowler; and Butt left the final ball alone to allow Kumar to complete a maiden maiden-over.Done in by legspin
Sreesanth had bowled a poor opening spell, conceding 20 off his first three overs. Dhoni changed his end for his second spell and Sreesanth looked a different bowler. He picked up Butt and Yasir Hameed in consecutive overs to top up his confidence levels and then slipped in a clever legcutter to Nazir, who wound up to give it an almighty thump. He played the shot too early and although he made firm contact, the ball went straight to Sreesanth who took a sharp return catch. It was his 50th wicket in ODIs.Generous with extras
Perhaps it was because three leading bowlers – Zaheer Khan, RP Singh and Harbhajan Singh – were missing, or due to the lack of intensity in a dead rubber, but India’s bowlers gave away 18 runs in wides after conceding only two in Gwalior. Yuvraj and Sreesanth were the most lax, bowling four wides each, and one of Yuvraj’s leg-side indiscretions beat Dhoni and went to the boundary.An exercise in futility … and marketing
The drinks trolley for this series is shaped like an oversized soft-drink can and you can’t help but feel for the people lugging it on to the field at every drinks break. They wheel it to the middle and open it up to reveal the refreshments inside only to be ignored by both sets of players. The Pakistan batsmen had their own drinks brought to them by the reserves while a golf cart sped out, carrying the Indians’ energy drinks and supplements. The drinks trolley was a futile exercise … unless you’re an marketing person.An endangered species
The introduction of the free-hit has made it a criminal offence to bowl a front foot no-ball. Bowlers are extra careful about measuring their run-ups and the no-ball has become so rare – there were none in Gwalior – that, when it occurs, you sit up and wait in anticipation for the free-hit that follows. Kumar overstepped the crease for the first time today in the 48th over. The umpire called no-ball and then twirled his hand above his head signalling the free-hit. Fawad Alam took his time, eyeing the vacant spots in the outfield. The crowd waited eagerly as Kumar ran in and bowled a full ball. Alam connected well and sent the ball racing towards long-off for a double. It was a bit of an anti-climax.First time lucky, second time …
Robin Uthappa was promoted up the order because he had hardly got an opportunity to play a substantial innings in the first four games. He scored one run off seven balls before edging his eighth, off Rao Iftikhar Anjum, straight to Misbah-ul-Haq at first slip. It was a simple chance but the ball went right in, and out, of Misbah’s hands. Two balls later Uthappa gave Misbah a chance to redeem himself, edging another regulation catch in his directionp. This time he was headed to the dressing room while all was forgiven between Anjum and Misbah. A few overs later, Misbah watched an edge from Tendulkar fly past him at gully, before taking the next one that flew to him the very next ball.Hey Mr DJ
The spectators at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium were kept entertained by the Hindi dance numbers that played over the PA system. They got to their feet between every over to move to the beats of popular Bollywood music. The procession of Hindi songs was suddenly interrupted by a remixed version of Pink Floyd’s . The crowd fell relatively silent but perked up once again after normal service quickly resumed.

Alex Obanda, the 19-year old Kenyan batsman, has injured his right ankle and will miss the four-day ICC Intercontinental Cup match against Bermuda starting tomorrow.Obanda, who scored an 82-ball 79 in the first ODI against Bermuda, sustained the injury while fielding in the second match and was unable to bat as a result. The injury also forced Obanda to sit out of the final ODI against Bermuda on Sunday.It was earlier thought that Obanda would be fit to play the four-day match but the doctor treating him warned that the injury was likely to be aggravated in the event of Obanda returning anytime soon.Obanda was instrumental in Kenya’s nine-wicket victory over Canada in Nairobi earlier this month, scoring 83 while putting on a 122-run third-wicket partnership with David Obuya that laid the foundation for a first-innings score of 393.The victory earned Kenya a maximum of 20 points and a fifth place going into the second game with Bermuda. Their opponents, meanwhile, are still seeking a win after two matches in the first-class tournament.

Sri Lanka A 377 ( Silva 122, Charumbira 4-84) drew with Zimbabwe Provinces 247 for 7 (Matsikenyeri 45, Zhuwawo 44, Mutizwa 42)
Scorecard</aSri Lanka A started their tour of Zimbabwe with a draw in a two-day game against Zimbabwe Provinces at the Harare Sports Club. Kaushal Silva starred for the visitors with a hundred while Patiant Charumbira led the hosts' attack with a four-wicket haul.Silva, the wicketkeeper, hit an unbeaten 194-ball 122 while Mahela Udawatte and Dammika Prasad scored fifties as Sri Lanka scored at 4.24 runs per over to compile 377 in their first innings. Charumbira, the right-arm fast-medium bowler, grabbed his first four-wicket haul of his career as Sri Lanka were bowled out by the end of the first day.In their reply, Zimbabwe lost wickets regularly and were stuttering at 131 for 6 before Forster Mutizwa, with a patient 105-ball 42, and Cephas Zhuwawo, with a 61-ball 44, lifted their side to 247 for 7 by the end of the second and the final day.The first four-day game between Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka A will start on October 14 in Harare while the second will be played at the Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo from October 20.