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If England believed that their Ashes salvation lay in the miraculous pre-Christmas recovery of their injured captain, Michael Vaughan, then today’s events at the South Perth Oval will have dented their optimism just a touch. Playing for the Academy side against Western Australia 2nds – his first competitive fixture since undergoing a third bout of knee surgery in May – Vaughan was dismissed for a seventh-ball duck.News of his comeback had caused a sensation among the travelling English media, with several members making a 1300-mile detour to cover the match at an otherwise unassuming Grade Cricket ground in the suburbs of Perth. It proved an unrewarding trip. Play was held up for an hour by rain and then, after England’s fielding stint got underway, it was interrupted again after 20 overs.Vaughan did at least come through the day with his knee intact and said: “To be honest, today was all about getting back playing cricket, so it is a huge positive for me that I am back on the field.”It is [the] early stages of a comeback, but six months ago I never thought I would get to the stage of playing cricket again and it was a really tough time. For me, it is a good day.”During play he fielded for 11 overs of Western Australia’s innings, mostly at mid-on or in the slips. Western Australia were restricted to 218 in their innings, but that was soon put into context by England’s woeful reply. The Academy side – from whom all further replacements for the Ashes series will be drawn – slumped to a woeful 5 for 12. Vaughan himself was caught behind by Christian Moir off an outswinger from Darren Wates, a man who managed just four wickets in six matches in the Pura Cup last season.”Next week hopefully I’ll get a few runs and spend a little bit more time in the middle,” Vaughan added. “Over the next few weeks we’ll be having plenty of practice, plenty of middle practice and I hope to play a full part in next Wednesday’s [Academy] game.”The real test will be when I have to spend the whole day in the field or bat for five hours, to see how the knee responds to that.”

West Indies 191 for 6 (Ganga 77*) trail Pakistan 304 (Yousuf 102) by 113 runs
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
West Indies how they were out

A battling unbeaten 77 by Daren Ganga kept West Indies in the game as they closed the second day on 191 for 6, still 113 behind Pakistan’s first-innings total of 304. Ganga fought off an inspired spell of reverse-swing bowling by Umar Gul – who rocked West Indies with three wickets in two overs after smashing a crucial 26 earlier in the day – and the relentless accuracy of Danish Kaneria in an attritional 212-ball innings which ensured that Pakistan didn’t completely take the day’s honours.The lack of pace and bounce in the pitch were deterrents for the bowlers, but they had other factors going in their favour. The track was dry and abrasive, while the outfield was rough, and together they were perfect conditions for reverse-swing, an art in which Pakistan have long excelled. Gul led the way with two outstanding deliveries to get rid of Brian Lara and Ramnaresh Sarwan – both for ducks – while Abdul Razzaq and Shahid Nazir consistently asked questions of the batsmen with their ability to move the ball late. Danish Kaneria was hampered by the lack of bounce, but he varied his line and flight, turned the ball appreciably, and ensured that there were few scoring opportunities.In such testing conditions, Ganga’s innings was a gem. It contained few strokes to light up the ground or bring the crowd to their feet – Gayle and Shivnarine Chanderpaul took those honours – but for sheer technical excellence, poise, composure and powers of concentration, it was a top-class effort.Against the late swing from the fast bowlers, he displayed a compact defensive technique, getting a big front-foot stride and playing with bat right beside pad. The lack of pace also allowed him to adjust late, and he rarely committed to his shots early. Kaneria has troubled him in the past, but here even he struggled to breach Ganga’s rock-solid defence. Amid all the doggedness, Ganga also produced a few glorious strokes – when the ball was pitched up he unfurled a couple of copy-book correct off-drives, while a cut shot off Gul, played off the front foot, showed just how well he had adjusted to the surface.While he negotiated the swing and the spin five of his mates fell to a combination of outstanding bowling and bad luck. Gayle started off at a frenetic pace in the morning, driving superbly down the ground and getting to 40 in quick time before mistiming a long hop straight to mid-on. If that was a wicket gifted away, the next two certainly weren’t. Gul, bowling an inspired spell in the afternoon session, first took care of Lara with one that pitched on middle, moved away, beat Lara’s hesitant second-ball prod, and took off. In his next over Sarwan – back in the side after missing out at Multan – was clueless against the perfect inswinging yorker. Fifty-one without loss quickly became 51 for 3, before Shivnarine Chanderpaul produced the second fluent cameo of the day.Timing the ball as sublimely as Mohammad Yousuf had on the first day, Chanderpaul started off with two crisply timed clips off his legs for fours, and raced to 36 from 49 balls before Imran Farhat took the first of two slightly fortuitous catches at short leg as Chanderpaul flicked one from the middle of the bat.Runako Morton’s technique was severely tested by the ball swinging in to him, but he survived and managed to add 39 with Ganga, before Farhat plucked off another one – this time the ball hit Farhat’s shoulder, and perhaps grazed the visor, before lobbing into his hands. There was a moment of controversy too, as the third umpire was called in to check if the ball had indeed touched the helmet, in which case the batsman would have been ruled not out. Replays were inconclusive, and Kaneria had his second wicket of the day.Those wickets buoyed up Kaneria, who wheeled down 28.4 overs with unflagging enthusiasm throughout a long day, and he soon had another dismissal to celebrate, as the out-of-sorts Dwayne Bravo finally ran out of patience and bottom-edged a cut to the wicketkeeper. Ganga kept West Indies afloat, but with 113 in the arrears, West Indies still have plenty of work to do on the third day.

It is still not certain whether Justin Langer will bat on the final day of the Johannesburg Test, even though the match itself looks like going down to the wire. At the close of the fourth day Australia still needed 44 runs to complete a clean sweep with four wickets in hand.But whether Langer, who was poleaxed by Makhaya Ntini in Australia’s first innings, will bat if needed remained a doubt.”He (Langer) wasn’t going to bat tonight if it came down to that,” said Mike Hussey. “I’m not sure how he will pull up tomorrow. As we all know he’s a pretty tough sort of character but at the end of the day it is just a game of cricket, and he’s got a lovely wife and four children at home.He will be monitored again in the morning but we will have to see how we go and see how he feels about it.”Philip Pope, the Australians’ media manager, was less optimistic, telling reporters that Langer was “more unlikely than likely to bat”.And Mark Boucher upped the already heated atmosphere by stating that if Langer was needed, he would be shown no mercy. “We’ve got a Test match to win … so if that means bowling short balls at him, so be it,” he said. “We can’t lay off, and I don’t think he’d expect us to lay off.”If I get hit on the head and expect half-volleys after that then I shouldn’t be playing the game. If there’s a Test match up for grabs, we’ve got to win it.”

Andy Roberts, the former West Indies fast bowler who is now a pitch consultant for the World Cup, has predicted that the pitches in the tournament may not necessarily be slow turners, contrary to general expectations. With several pitches being relaid and a few new surfaces being tried out, Roberts expects the pitches to offer enough assistance to both batsmen and bowlers.”A lot of people will be surprised by the 22 yards on offer,” Roberts told . “We won’t get the slow pitches that people are anticipating.” Roberts, also the chief curator of the Antigua Recreation Ground, cited the India-West Indies practice match at the Trelawny Stadium last week as an example. West Indies were bundled out for just 85 on a pitch which offered plenty of seam movement.”What you will find is a lot of brand new pitches,” he said. “For the first game or so they may be slow. That will not be the case right through. At some venues it will have even bounce, some will also have a lot of carry.”Roberts has been busy supervising the preparation of pitches all over the Caribbean for the World Cup, coordinating with Andy Atkinson, the ICC’s pitch consultant. When asked for his impression of the relaid wickets, Roberts said that the surfaces in the Kensington Oval in Barbados and the Sir Viv Richards Stadium in Antigua were sporting in nature. However, he expressed caution over the new surface in Guyana, given its location in the South American mainland.”The wicket in Barbados has been playing fairly well in the practice games,” he said. “There have been lots of runs. The bounce and carry has been good. Antigua too has a new pitch and if it has been prepared according to the specifications then you might see the same thing there. The only one I am worried about is Guyana. It doesn’t have the same type of clay as other countries. It may surprise us because it is a new pitch.”Pitches in the West Indies have slowed down over the years, offering plenty of assistance to the slower bowlers as India observed last year during their tour. However, Roberts felt that the region had come for some unfair criticism. “In the Champions Trophy too you had some bad pitches,” Roberts said. “Most pitches around the world have slowed down.”But Kent Crafton, the groundsman at Beausejour Stadium in St Lucia, said teams should not expect the pitch there to be overly slow. “One thing we’ve tried to do is put more compaction into the clay to increase the pace and bounce,” Crafton told . “That will aid in the ball probably coming in with some more pace, not expressly, but just a little bit more than normal, which will aid in more runs being scored.”It will be good wicket, I would not say it will be an exceptionally fast pitch but the ball will come off nicely. We’ve had very good opening partnerships here. The wicket will not change much from during the morning until the afternoon. I don’t believe the toss will matter so much. If it’s cloudy, maybe you’d want to bowl first.”

It was a day of hat-tricks in Isle of Man, as two bowlers picked three in three, while Italy and the hosts completed their third consecutive wins to stay on top of their respective group.Italy’s batsmen struggled to get going in Tromode and sputtered to 146 for 9 in their 40 overs. Tail-enders Atikur Rehman and Mohammad Adnan struck crucial 20s to lift their side from a troublesome 50 for 6 as Gibraltar’s bowlers shared the wickets around. Gibraltar were then blown away by Adnan and Abdur Bhuiyan, with the latter removing Jeremy Perez, Simon Dumas and Dylan Casciaro off successive balls. Gibraltar were eventually shot out for 52 in the 29th over.Rowan Bird’s patient 50 off 80 balls held Isle of Man’s innings together in St John’s as they made 165 for 6 in 40 overs. Spain’s reply was scuppered by an all-round bowling effort from the hosts, led by Sebastian Aycock’s 3 for 20.Midhun Sandhya produced the best individual performance of the tournament so far when he took four wickets, including a hat-trick, and followed it up with an undefeated 68 as Switzerland trounced Austria by six wickets in Castletown. Sandhya’s effort was supported well by George Gaillet as Austria folded for 113. Switzerland’s reply was rocked early as the openers could manage just one run between them, but Sandhya came to their rescue again.France blew away Greece en route the quickest finish of the tournament in a match that lasted under 30 overs in Crosby. Zain Zahir picked 5 for 11 as Greece were bowled out for 49 in the 18th over. France lost a couple of wickets but had no problems in sealing the match in the 12th over of the chase.

Younis Khan, the Pakistan vice-captain, is unavailable for selection for the final one-day international against West Indies at Karachi on Saturday because of his brother’s death last week. Younis had missed the third and fourth ODIs as well. However, Mohammad Yousuf, who also missed the fourth ODI at Multan to be with his sick wife, is certain to play at Karachi.”Younis doesn’t feel he is in the right frame of mind presently. At the same time we felt it would be an unwise move to ask him to play after this latest bereavement in his family. Our sympathies are with him,” Wasim Bari the chairman of selectors, told . “Yousuf is a definite starter for the Karachi match.”Bari was hopeful that Inzamam-ul-Haq, the Pakistan captain, would recover from a finger injury in time for Saturday’s encounter. Inzamam had injured the little-finger in the field during the third ODI and needed three stitches on his left hand.Pakistan were leading 2-0 in the series after the first match was washed out but West Indies pulled one back at Multan where Pakistan were without Inzamam, Younis and Yousuf to keep the series alive.Shahid Afridi, whose poor form continued at Multan, could get another opportunity to come good at Karachi and Mohammad Sami was also likely to play. Bari hoped that Pakistan would be able to field their strongest team and said that no drastic changes were necessary at this stage of the series.Probable squad: Inzamam-ul-Haq (captain), Mohammad Yousuf, Imran Farhat, Mohammad Hafeez, Yasir Hameed, Shahid Afridi, Abdul Razzaq, Kamran Akmal, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Umar Gul, Mohammad Sami, Rao Iftikhar, Abdur Rehman, Faisal Iqbal, Shoaib Malik, Danish Kaneria.

The Sri Lankan legspinner, Kaushal Lokuarachchi, is expected to be out of action for two months after undergoing an operation on his dislocated right index finger.Lokuarchchi sustained the injury while attempting a return catch off Ravi Bopara during England’s first innings of their match against a Sri Lanka Board President’s XI in Colombo.Initially it was feared he had sustained a break, but his coach, Chandika Hathurusinghe, confirmed that the blow had dislocated a knuckle without severing the surrounding tendons. Nevertheless, he is expected to spend three weeks in plaster, and it will be a further month before he is fit to bowl again.Though Lokuarachchi was not in contention for the forthcoming Test series against England, he was very much in the selectors’ thoughts for the CB Series in Australia in January and February. He played in the final two matches of England’s recent ODI series in September and October, and has taken 31 wickets at 23.38 in 31 matches to date.

Marvan Atapattu has admitted that his ten-day stint as Zimbabwe’s batting consultant will not be enough to bring about major change, but said he was looking forward to working closely with the team’s head coach Dav Whatmore. Atapattu arrived in Khulna on January 14, the day before the first T20 against Bangladesh, after being appointed in his new position on January 12 for the Bangladesh series.

‘Start matters a lot in T20s’ – Sabbir

Bangladesh batsman Sabbir Rahman has stressed on the importance of racing out of the blocks in T20 cricket, saying he will keep trying to start well in the rest of the series. Sabbir made 46 off 36 balls in the first match, with four fours and a six, batting at No. 3.
“The start matters a lot in T20s,” Sabbir said. “I can finish well if I can start well. The first six ball I face depends on the match situation. Whatever I need, a four, a six or even a single. I always try to start well so that I can make up later on. I think a difference of 15-20 between balls faced and runs scored is quite good.”
“I have done well at No 3 in the past. I am trying to take on the pace bowlers and be free by the time the spinners come to bowl in the middle-overs. I have no regrets about the half-century. I want the team to win and I want to make a contribution.”

“It is a challenge to start with,” Atapattu said. “I will be here with these guys till the end of this series, and try to work with Dav [Whatmore] who I have known for years. I have to see if I can help them tactically and technically in the coming days. We are playing a very good side who are on top of their game. They have played a lot of T20 cricket in the past.”There’s not a lot you can do in ten days. But as I said, I will be working very closely with Dav who has been with them for the last one year. It is a privilege to work with him. I will have to see what I can do as a coaching unit. I think I have been in the circuit for quite some time in the sub-continent and I have bit of an idea of what’s going on. How individuals play their game overall. The experience helps.”There is a chance Atapattu could succeed Andy Waller as Zimbabwe’s batting coach. Currently, Atapattu is only a consultant, but according to a Zimbabwe Cricket report, his “contract will be reviewed after the Zimbabwe tour of Bangladesh, with a view to entering into a longer relationship”. Atapattu, however, did not comment on his future with the Zimbabwe team, saying he was happy with the current deal.”I resigned from Sri Lanka thinking that I need to give time for my family, which I haven’t done for the last 25 years. It is my priority now so I am happy with what I am doing. I don’t want to be away from the game for too long. This is the game that I love and know best.”Atapattu felt Zimbabwe had lost the first T20I in the penultimate over of their innings, bowled by Mustafizur Rahman, who removed the big hitters Elton Chigumbura and Luke Jongwe in consecutive deliveries. Zimbabwe took just one run in that over, and it ruined their final push as they had to settle for 163 for 7 in 20 overs.”[A total of 163 runs] was certainly not enough,” he said. “We were beaten in the 19th over. Obviously we were in a position to probably have at least 20 runs more in our total. But unfortunately we didn’t get that due to good bowling and not so much when it comes to smart batting. We will try to rectify it and we will try to do better in the next game.”

Cricketers from seven ICC Associate countries have arrived in Chennai to be part of the MRF-Asian Cricket Council (ACC) High Performance programme at the MRF Pace Foundation from June 25 to July 4.The purpose of the programme, which coincides with Dennis Lillee’s annual visit as a coach to the pace academy, is to improve the fitness of players from UAE, Oman, Malaysia, Singapore, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Hong Kong.”Teams from the Asian countries need to work on fitness,” said Roger Binny, the former Indian allrounder and currently a development officer with the ACC. “We are working on them so that they can effectively compete to make it to the World Cup in a few years.” The focus at the camp, Binny said, would be on batting, bowling, and fitness.Meanwhile, the ACC has decided to give a total of $1.5 million to all non-Test playing Asian countries so that they can carry on with their specific development programmes. The funds were not allocated last year, as planned, because of the postponement of the 2006 Asia Cup due to the packed international schedule of the participating teams.Each Associate member will be given a base amount of $42,000, with Hong Kong, Kuwait, Malaysia, Nepal, Singapore, Thailand, UAE receiving an extra $30,000. According to the ACC website, subsequent amounts will be awarded on the basis of ACC tournament performance and the meeting of governance criteria.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
2:02

Manjrekar: The way de Villiers plays spin is remarkable

Virat Kohli’s India showed they were not one-trick ponies, choosing to field on what turned out to be a proper Test-match first-day pitch and bowling out South Africa for 214 in a little over two sessions. The show of intent was clear: on a pitch that looked damp they went in with just the five batsmen, brought in an extra seamer and when they found no help for the quicks, the spinners ran through the hapless visitors. India were on in the field too: every ball was chased down with intent, and there were at least three excellent catches taken.Playing his 100th Test, AB de Villiers put up a workshop to show his team-mates that it was possible to bat in India – scoring 85 off 105 out of the 132 runs that came while he was at the wicket – but R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja took four wickets each. Ashwin removed Stiaan van Zyl and Faf du Plessis in his first over, the eighth of the day, and Jadeja was responsible for the big wicket of de Villiers. Only some poor running by Imran Tahir and Kyle Abbott denied one of them a five-for.India might have misread the conditions a little, but they certainly did not have enough time to fret over it. This was only the 20th time in 246 Tests in India that a side had decided to field. Bangalore had taken a lot of rain in the week leading up to the Test. Kohli felt there was moisture underneath the surface, and overheads in such weather in Bangalore generally assist movement in the air. Accordingly Kohli brought in Binny ahead of Amit Mishra, retaining Varun Aaron ahead of Umesh Yadav, who had to make way for the returning Ishant Sharma.It will be fair to assume from the first few overs that India expected more from the pitch. Ishant and Binny – opening the bowling – found little bounce or seam movement in what was a comfortable start for the South Africa openers. Before unease could set in, though, Kohli had the luxury of going to Ashwin, who is in such imperious form that South Africa have been playing the man and not the ball.The first ball Ashwin bowled was short of a length and into the pads. As Dean Elgar took an easy single, Ashwin held his hand up in apology to his captain. The standards are high for what is expected of Ashwin nowadays. Immediately he corrected both the line and the length, and for the second time this series van Zyl played a new-ball offbreak from Ashwin for the turn, and was trapped plumb lbw by the actual ball, which only straightened marginally.In came du Plessis, unsure of his defence, and jumped out of his crease, hoping for something in his reach. Ashwin refused to oblige, the dip on the ball taking it away from du Plessis, who flicked at it hopelessly. Cheteshwar Pujara, at forward short leg, plucked a low one. Du Plessis’ scores in the Tests now read 0, 1 and 0 after 62, 51, 60, 17 and 133 in the ODIs.Aaron went for 12 in his first two overs, but Kohli persisted with him. In his third over, he bowled a length that hit top of the stumps, and then got it to hold the line to square Hashim Amla up and send the off stump cartwheeling. Had Amla been slightly forward, he would have covered the movement, which was slight, but it is quite possible it was Aaron’s pace that kept Amla from pressing forward. The seam on this delivery pointed to fine leg, and yet it moved away.An encouragingly bigger crowd than the one in Mohali gave a warm welcome to de Villiers, and India offered him four overthrows early on. That was pretty much the last freebie he would get. His team-mates, who just needed to be there with him, were just as uncharitable. Just after lunch, Elgar swept Jadeja from his improvised guard of off stump, possibly slightly outside. He had managed a good connection on a similar shot before lunch, but this time he tickled it fine, and onto his own stumps. JP Duminy struggled for 15 in a 42-run partnership before edging Ashwin to slip when playing back: had he pressed forward he would have struggled to get to the pitch anyway because this turned from an in-between length.De Villiers, 44 off 54 now, looked sublime amid chaos. Almost every ball that was slightly loose was put away. The pick of the shots came when he danced down to a 90kmph Jadeja delivery, and managed to drive it through extra cover for four. It is difficult to score runs alone, though. Dane Vilas provided him company for 15 runs in a 39-run partnership, but much like Dale Steyn in Mohali, Vilas lost his head here, stepping out and chipping Jadeja back for a return catch.De Villiers took up the scoring duties exclusively now, manipulating fields that were spread out for him. When he danced down the wicket to Jadeja in the last over before tea, he too was found taking defensive action. The ball lobbed up from around the pad area, and Wriddhiman Saha flew to where the forward short leg would have been to take a stunner. The third umpire confirmed that the low catch was clean, but did not contemplate whether de Villiers had hit the ball. No more replays were shown. Morne Morkel and Kyle Abbott added 37 for the ninth wicket to take South Africa to their first 200 in the series, but Binny ended that stand with a brilliant catch running behind and over his shoulder.Just the right time for India openers then to drive the screw in. The first target was for Shikhar Dhawan to get off the mark in the series, and then for the first wicket to reach 20 for the first time in nine Test innings. Then they batted fluently and without pressure, which has been a rare event, with a long time spent on the road. Imran Tahir provided the exclamation mark to South Africa’s day of horror, dropping M Vijay on 21. Dhawan raced away to 45 off 62, the time saved might come in handy should forecasts for rain materialise during the rest of the Test. A word of warning for South Africa: all of Dhawan’s scores of more than 37 have been 81 and upwards.