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Close of play Australia A 57 for 3 (Clarke 22*, Hodge 11*) and 311 for 5 dec lead Indians 245 (Patel 49, Chopra 46, Tendulkar 36, Nicholson 4-25) by 123 runs
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The second day of the three-day match wasn’t one for batsmen, with the Australian bowlers restricting the Indian total to 245, and the Indians striking back with three quick wickets, as Australia A ended the evening session at 57 for 3.Superb bowling performances by Matthew Nicholson and Shaun Tait gave Australia A a 66-run lead over the Indians, who threw away their wickets and wasted a chance to bat themselves into form, inadvertently making the game a competitive one.It became even more so when Lakshmipathy Balaji and Irfan Pathan dismissed Chris Rogers, Michael Hussey, and Martin Love – all of whom made fifties in the first innings – in quick succession.Tait lived up to his reputation of being a bowler with mean pace, as he regularly beat the bat, making the batsmen’s stay an unenjoyable one. Though Deep Dasgupta (21) started the day with a degree of caution, he couldn’t bring his bat down soon enough on an inswinger by Tait that struck him on the pads (51 for 2).The dismissal brought Sachin Tendulkar to the wicket. Gone were the nerves of the previous Tests, as was the hesitation. There was complete authority in his strokeplay, as he cut, pulled and flicked the ball off his legs for boundaries. Damien Wright, whose first five overs cost him two runs, found his fifth going for 12, with Tendulkar dispatching the first two balls of the over to the square-leg fence, and then cover-driving the next to the fence.Paul Rofe, who was impressive in his recent first-class matches, bowled a delivery two feet outside off stump, destined for the wicketkeeper’s gloves. Tendulkar intercepted it, and with a twirl of the wrists, pulled it to midwicket. And then came the dismissal. A well-directed bouncer by Wright was hooked straight to fine leg, where Tait took a well-judged catch(104 for 3).

All along, Chopra stood firm, growing in stature and assurance, playing with a discipline the Indians lacked for a large part of the game. Boundaries were taken when offered. Otherwise, he was content to play dead-bat shots. Sehwag (30) came out and toyed with the bowling, cutting a Tait delivery over slips for four, and then lofting another to the cover boundary. But the adrenaline rush led to his dismissal, and he edged an intended back-foot punch off Tait to the keeper (139 for 4). Sourav Ganguly came in, and with him came the inevitable rising ball angled across off stump by Nicholson. On cue, Ganguly played it straight to gully (149 for 5).The next over, Chopra (46) took off for a run off a misfield, and a brilliant off-balance throw from Michael Hussey hit the stumps, with the batsman short of the white line (150 for 6). Balaji’s batting hopes lasted all of 10 balls, for Tait delivered a toe-crushing inswinger to trap him in front (162 for 7).Patel and Murali Kartik came together and played it safe, nudging the ball around for runs. The introduction of Cameron White to the attack changed that. Bowling quick, flat legbreaks, White was cover-driven and swept for boundaries, Patel displaying a tenacity and inventiveness that was sorely absent in his more experienced colleagues. He was poised to take the Indians close to the Australia A total, when Kartik (26) was run out taking a sharp single.Patel departed one short of a half-century in the next over, attempting a drive off Nicholson, which instead went to Martin Love at first slip (233 for 9). Soon after, Nicholson dismissed Irfan Pathan (11), picking up his fourth wicket in the process.And just when it seemed that the second day too belonged to the Australians, a delivery by Balaji was edged by Rogers to slip (5 for 1). Hussey (7) was next to go, cutting a delivery too close to his body straight to Tendulkar at first slip, giving Pathan his second wicket of the match.Love (11) continued his first innings form with a flowing cover-drive to open his account, but in a moment of indecision, he moved neither front, nor back, and was bowled by a straight ball from Balaji (28 for 3).

Aggressive top order batsman Chris Gaffaney will lead the Otago A side at next month’s provincial series at Lincoln University.Gaffaney, the veteran of 49 first-class matches, lost his place in the State Otago Volts after poor form in the first two games but has a chance to fight back into contention with a good second XI series.He will be joined by several other players with first-class experience, that number including David Sewell, Nathan McCullum, Jordan Sheed, Simon Beare and Daryll Reddington.The A competition, starting on January 2, comprises six two-day games with the six major association teams being joined by the New Zealand Under-19 selection.The Otago A side is: Chris Gaffaney (captain), Robert King, Simon Beare, Jordan Sheed, Darin Smith, Jarrod Waldron, Grant Bilcliff, Tim Weston, Nathan McCullum, Hayden Finch, David Sewell, Daryl Reddington.

• It was the 1727th ODI in cricket history.
• It was West Indies’ 425th and Zimbabwe’s 185th match.
• It was the 16th match between these two sides. The record now reads:West Indies 12,Zimbabwe 4.
• West Indies was playing for the first time on Zimbabwean soil.
• Umpires Kevin Barbour and Russell Tiffin were officiating in theirseventh and 31st match respectively.
• Zimbabwe was without the services of Andy Flower for the first timesince 1991-92 World Cup game against Sri Lanka at New Plymouth. Andyhad played in all the 172 one-day internationals and 52 Tests — everymatch that Zimbabwe played since he made his international debut. Hissequence of 172 consecutive matches is second only to India’s SachinTendulkar who played 185 matches without a break in between 1989 and1998. Former South African captain Hansie Cronje is third on this listplaying in 162 successive matches before his career ended in disgracein March last year. The accompanying table lists the players with mostconsecutive matches in a career :

• Tatenda Taibu, while becoming 64th player to represent Zimbabwein shorter form of the game,also became the second youngestZimbabwean to make ODI Debut at the age of 18 years and 40 days.Only Mluleki Nkala has played ODI cricket at a younger age thanTaibu for Zimbabwe. Nkala was 17 years 179 days old on debut (vIndia at Bulawayo QC on September 27,1998).
• Taibu also became the youngest wicketkeeper in all ODIs. Theprevious record was on the name of Pakistani Javed Qadeer whowas 18 years and 229 days old on his debut against Sri Lanka atSharjah on April 11,1995.
• Grant Flower was captaining Zimbabwe for the first time in hiscareer. He became seventh player to captain Zimbabwe in One-DayInternationals.
• Grant Flower’s chance to captain Zimbabwe time came in his 155thmatch. Only two players- Australia’s Steve Waugh and West IndianDesmond Haynes – have appeared in more matches than Grantwithout captaining their respective sides. The accompanyingtable lists the players who captained their sides very late intheir careers :

• The partnership of 113 runs between Darren Ganga and Chris Gayle wasthe first for West Indies for the opening wicket in 35 matches. Thelast century partnership for the first wicket for West Indies had comeagainst New Zealand at Auckland on January 2,2000 when SherwinCampbell and Ridley Jacobs added 111 runs.
• Alistair Campbell now has an aggregate of 362 runs from 13 matchesagainst West Indiesmaximum for Zimbabwe. Campbell surpassed AndyFlower’s tally of 329 runs from 13 matches.
• Cameron Cuffy was winning his second Man of the Match award in 27thmatch. Interestingly his only other award had come in the previousgame for West Indies (v South Africa at Arnos Vale on May 16,2001).

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File photo – Vijay Shankar displayed both sides of his game in a fluent 110-ball 86•K Sivaraman

India A lost out on two-and-a-half hours to overnight and mid-afternoon rain, but Bangladesh A were left needing more rain on the final day after more injudicious shots. In the field they were hampered by injuries to both the quicks, Rubel Hossain and Shafiul Islam, who bowled only 6.1 overs between them. Against innocuous spin every Indian batsman flourished: overnight centurion Shikhar Dhawan raced away to 150, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu allrounders Karun Nair and Vijay Shankar scored fluent half-centuries to set up a declaration, and the bowlers enjoyed the trigger-happy Bangladesh top order to take two wickets in the 11 overs possible before bad light took off some more time from India.Dhawan began the day where he left off, resuming on 116 he kept playing with the field through nifty foot movement and a wide array of shots. In such form and mood, he can make captains look silly and guilty of following the ball. Against error-prone spinners it seemed he could have accumulated for however long he desired, but his sense of adventure got the better of him. Just after reaching 150, he fell lbw while reverse-sweeping. It wasn’t going to slow India down. Shreyas Iyer kept attacking, often going over cover in his 38 off 55 balls, and he fell just after putting India into the lead, again trying to force the pace, looking to go over midwicket.Nair and Shankar then began a fruitful association. Nair’s driving through covers was pretty and precise, and Shankar began solidly. They added 108 in under 30 overs. Nair – 71 off 97 – dominated that stand, piercing the gap between short cover and extra cover repeatedly, hitting 12 fours, before falling to a Jubair Hossain legbreak that stayed low. Shankar had just started to build a partnership with Naman Ojha when heavy rain sent the players off. At that time India were 131 ahead, and Shankar had scored 48 runs off 93 balls.After the rain, followed a storm. With declaration on his mind Shankar showed the other side of his game. At will he launched spinners into the stands effortlessly. In 17 balls after the rain break he looted 38 runs to give India a possible day and 16 overs to bowl Bangladesh out and knock off whatever might be necessary.”I never thought about going for the hundred,” Shankar said. “After the break we just wanted to get as many runs for the team. I could have taken ones and twos but I was thinking of getting boundaries.”The openers didn’t seem in the mood to make India work hard. They kept playing at wide balls regularly. Soon enough and sure enough, Anamul Haque became the first one to edge Ishwar Pandey through. That Soumya Sarkar fell to a vicious offbreak from Jayant Yadav shouldn’t take away from the shots he played against the quicks before that. Varun Aaron didn’t even bowl, perhaps because of the fading light.”We have been playing bad shots,” Haque agreed. “We are not that used to playing longer formats of the game. We will need to work hard to force a draw in this game.”

Punjab completely dominated the first day’s play of their three day North Zone Cooch Behar Trophy (under-19) match against Jammu & Kashmir at the Dhruv Pandove stadium in Patiala on Tuesday. At stumps they were 140 for two in reply to J & K’s first innings total of 126.Winning the toss, J & K ran into trouble against A Uniyal and G Mandora and lost six wickets for 51 runs. A seventh wicket partnership of 64 runs off 24.4 overs between V Kaw (38) and A Mongotra (28) produced a recovery of sorts. But then three wickets fell with the total on 115 and J & K were all out for a highly adequate score. Uniyal (3 for 19) and Mandora (3 for 23) were the wreckers-in-chief while SP Singh hastened the end of the innings by taking two wickets for two runs off 3.4 overs, of which two were maidens.When Punjab batted, SP Singh (60 not out) and opener Binwant Singh (41) with a second wicket stand of 77 runs off 14 overs steered the side to a strong position by close. While Binwant faced 51 balls and hit five fours, the more aggressive SP Singh faced 69 balls and hit five fours and three sixes.

Uttar Pradesh 292 for 7 (Srivastava 105, Shukla 80*, Sangwan 3-73, Narwal 3-66) v Delhi
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

Tanmay Srivastava, who cut short his under-19 tour of South Africa toplay the Ranji final, chose the occasion to script his maidenfirst-class hundred and pushed Uttar Pradesh to 292 for 7 by close ofplay on the opening day at the Wankhede Stadium. Ravikant Shukla, dropped when on 13, made an unbeaten 80but Delhi clawed back into the game with late wickets to justify theirdecision to bowl first and, with the wicket promising to be at its best forbatting over the next two days, will reckon they have a slightedge.As the curator promised, the track was firm and offered some movementand good carry in the initial hour, andthere were a few plays and misses by the batsmen.Tanmay announced his refreshingly positive intent with a clippedfirst-ball boundary off his legs, followed by a steer to third man,before he settled down to play a fluent innings. He took a full strideforward at every opportunity and played as close to the body aspossible. Though beaten on a few occasions like the others, he didn’tpush his bat away from the body. Instead, he was quick to go on the attack, slashing to the cover boundary each time the bowlers gavewidth, and cutting when they dragged back the length. The techniquewas quite simple: he stood still at the crease, had a slightforward trigger movement but took care never to press that foot toomuch across his stumps.Rohit Srivastava, his fellow opener, and Suresh Raina failedto do that and were trapped in front. Rohit was a touch unlucky, as the ballappeared to be sliding down leg side but the technique did exposehim to the lbw threat. Mohammad Kaif was edgy throughout his shortstay before he cut the legspinner Chetanya Nanda’s first delivery toslip for Aakash Chopra to hold a sharp catch.Tanmay found an able ally in Shukla and the two led the recovery act witha 101-run partnership. Shulka was to get a slice of luck early in hisinnings. Nanda had placed his midwicket fielder slightly deeper thannormal and lured Shukla to play the slog-sweep but Narwal failed tohold on. Shukla settled down after that, showing good judgmentoutside off stump and grew in confidence as his innings progressed. Heplayed his cuts and pulls whenever offered the opportunity.As the partnership blossomed, Gautam Gambhir, the Delhi captain, might have worried over hisdecision at the toss but Tanmay’s wicket opened the door for Delhi tofight back. He had just pulled Nanda for six to bring up his century butfell a ball later, steering Sangwan to third slip. Piyush Chawlafollowed, slashing a wide one from Narwal to gully, Amir Khan fell toa diving catch by Chopra at first slip and Praveen Kumar pulledto deep midwicket.Delhi’s desperation had begun to pay off but their bowlers could havebeen more disciplined earlier in the day. Gambhir, who kept at leasttwo slips through most of the day, was seen on occasiongesticulating to the bowlers to hit the channel outside off stump.Sangwan found that line more often than the others but he toowas guilty of bowling a touch short.Amit Bhandari failed to find his outswinger with the new ball and struggledto hit the right line when he went round the stumps later, while Narwal offered the batsman width throughout the day. When the bowlershit the right areas, they had the batsmenin trouble. Delhi will feel confident of prising out the remainingthree wickets early on Thursday and then expect their strong top order todo the job with the bat.

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Nathan Adcock shone with bat and ball as he carried South Australia to a rare victory with five balls to spare against Western Australia. A 95-run stand for the second wicket between Daniel Harris and Mark Cosgrove put the Redbacks on top but a familiar middle-order slump left the game in the balance.After a late rally from the Warriors’ lower order boosted them to 7 for 200, Harris and Cosgrove carried South Australia to 1 for 101 in the 22nd over. But Marcus North removed Cosgrove, after his first FR Cup fifty of the season, and Adam Voges shifted Harris with a return catch, starting a slide which left the Redbacks on 7 for 169. Steve Magoffin’s ten-over spell cost just 19 runs and brought two wickets.Adcock was joined by Ryan Harris with 32 needed from 27 balls and with the side so low on confidence Western Australia were favourites. But Adcock swung the balance with a six off Ben Edmondson before 13 runs off the 49th over settled the result.South Australia had started in positive fashion with Jason Gillespie and Mark Cleary reducing the Warriors to 4 for 62 before Adcock’s chipped in with his offspin. However, from 6 for 98 David Bandy and Brad Hogg added 61 and Brett Dorey supplied a valuable 22 to give them something to defend.

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Nepal produced one of the major upsets of the tournament when they defeated South Africa by two runs in the semi-final of the Plate competition. Their reward is a place in Saturday’s final against Ireland.Nepal scored 214 for 8 with captain Kanishka Chaugai (59) leading the way before restricting South Africa to 212 for 5, despite Dean Elgar’s 66 not out from 65 balls.South Africa required 16 from the final two overs, 10 from the last six deliveries and three off the last ball but Basanti Regmi and Paras Khadka bowled superbly to earn their side a famous win. It is the second time in successive U-19 World Cups that Nepal have beaten South Africa – the last time by one wicket in Bangladesh.Roy Dias, Nepal’s coach, said: “That finish today was really tense but the boys handled it well and I am very proud of them. I told them beforehand that South Africa would be under pressure after looking at that last result and with our spinners bowling well it was a great win.”Elgar, the South Africa captain, was gracious in defeat: “Our fielding let us down and they got 20 or 30 more runs than they should have but there are no excuses. They were the better side today.”Chaugai’s contribution, his second fifty of the tournament, was crucial in ensuring Nepal more than held their own against their more illustrious opponents. Playing in his third and final U-19 World Cup, he faced 81 balls in a stay of 106 minutes, hitting six fours and a six during his innings. He added 67 for the first wicket with Mahesh Chhetri (15) and 38 for the second wicket with Sarad Vesawkar (19) and at 105 for 1 Nepal looked well placed. They were also helped by an injury to South Africa fast bowler Craig Alexander, who was only able to bowl 3.1 overs before breaking down with a suspected cartilage tear.But Nepal’s innings was checked with the appearance of spinners Jean Symes and Richard Das Neves in the attack as both applied the brakes in remarkable fashion. Left-armer Symes bowled his ten-overs at a cost of just 15 runs and also picked up three wickets including Chaugai, while offspinner Das Neves was almost as economical, delivering his ten overs at a cost of just 25 runs.No one went on to play a major innings for Nepal and it was left to Gyanendra Malla, whose 64 in the previous match against Uganda was vital in helping his side to a defendable score, to once again hold the middle order together. He made an responsible unbeaten 46 in 71 balls with six fours, but Malusi Siboto ensured Nepal were unable to break freeing the latter stages of their innings. He picked up 4 for 47 while the other wicket-taker for South Africa was Brett Thompson with 1 for 38 and their contributions were vital after Alexander left the field.Having got runs on the board, Nepal gradually squeezed the life out of the South Africa innings through their spinners and from 92 for 1 the Proteas slipped to 99 for 4. Basant Regmi led the way with the ball for Nepal. The left-armer bowled superbly to take 3 for 31 and the other bowlers responded to his lead.Khadka, who opened the bowling alongside Amrit Bhattarai, was equally impressive and although he did not take any wickets, his 0 for 36 in a full compliment of ten overs, including the last of the match, was priceless.”Our batsmen in the middle period played very slowly and by the time I was with Romano (Ramoo) we were wanting eight an over,” said Elgar. “They put us under pressure and although we got 15 from the 48th over we could not get there in the end.”Ramoo made 38 before he was dismissed in the penultimate over by Regmi but those runs took him 64 balls and his inability to score more quickly turned out to be a key difference.

ScorecardWestern Australia fell short of a target of 497 after a heroic run-chase engineered by Justin Langer and Murray Goodwin and nearly pulled off by Shaun Marsh. They fell short of the target set by South Australia by only 42 runs at the WACA.Beginning the day with his team at 1 for 41, Langer attacked the bowling fiercely and was supported by Goodwin. At lunch, WA were 1 for 171. They were seperated with the score on 202, when Langer top-edged a sweep off Daniel Cullin. Goodwin fell a little later, edging to the wicketkeeper (4 for 273). Marsh and Adam Voges prevented further damage until tea. However, when Darren Lehmann took the new ball after tea, Voges fell, beginning a steady procession of batsmen who came and went. Marsh soldiered to a century which contained 15 fours – and was fortunate to be granted a life on 97 – but even the heroic chase cannot shroud that fact that a Pura Cup finals place might be out of reach for the Warriors.

Close
ScorecardStuart Law admitted a “brain fade” prevented him from breaking a recent drought of centuries on a mixed opening day for Queensland in their Pura Cup match against South Australia at the Adelaide Oval.Queensland finished the day on 9 for 298, with Wade Seccombe having made a fighting unbeaten 67 and Michael Kasprowicz a lusty 36 not out from 35 balls.The pair put on an unbeaten 46-run last-wicket stand in 55 balls to make first-day honours even, after SA had been on top when the ninth wicket fell at 252.Six of Queensland’s top seven batsmen reached double figures, but only Law, who top-scored with 75 from 135 balls, with 12 boundaries, and Seccombe capitalised with half-centuries. They put on an 88-run stand for the sixth-wicket, which rescued Queensland from trouble at 5 for 110.The pair threatened to take control of the match until Law, who had looked very comfortable, gave away his wicket by pulling a slow, short ball from offspinner John Davison straight to Mark Cosgrove at mid-wicket.”I was in two minds whether to hit it over the top or along the ground, so you compromise and hit it straight at his gut,” Law said. “I was disappointed. I was pleased in a way that I scored some runs, but disappointed that I’ve got a 70 and an 80 so far this season and I just want to make someone hurt.”It meant Law’s century drought continued, with his last ton in domestic four-day cricket coming against SA here in March, 2001, almost three seasons ago. He said, “you always think about getting hundreds, you just worry about what you have to do to get there, and unfortunately I had a brain fade and hit one straight at midwicket,”.Davison finished with 3 for 48, his first wickets in the Pura Cup this season, with his haul also including Martin Love (32) and Andy Bichel (14). Greg Blewett, SA’s captain, said he felt they had slightly the better of the opening day.”To have them nearly all out for 300, I probably would have taken that at the start of the day,” he said. “Certainly we can’t complain about the position we’re in at the moment.”