ScorecardRain proved to be a spoiler in what could have been an exciting finish to the 129th Battle of the Blues schools-cricket encounter between Royal College and St. Thomas’ College played at the SSC grounds on Saturday.A sporting declaration by Royal left the Thomians a target of 244 to chase in a minimum of 71 overs in the fourth innings. After a cautious start, the Thomians took up the challenge with their openers Jehan Thahir and Fahim Saleem posting an unbroken stand of 59 off 20.1 overs before rain put an end to what would have been an exciting run-chase.The spectators, in true Royal-Thomian spirit, hung around hoping the rain would cease and the match would resume like it did on the first day but the contest was doomed to end in the 62nd draw of this time-honoured series. The game was stopped 20 minutes before tea on the third and final day and was never resumed.The Thomian last pair, Dinesh Walpita and Nilshan Fernando, added 17 runs off 59 balls before being separated when play resumed on the third day. The Thomian innings, which stood at a precarious 141 for 9 with the threat of a follow on, was eventually terminated at 198, giving Royal a first-innings lead of 102.Walpita was the last man out for 36, the top-scorer of the Thomian innings. The last-wicket stand was worth 57 runs in 76 minutes. Right-arm medium-pacer Bhanuka Rajapakse was the pick of the Royal bowlers with 3 for 32.Batting in their second innings, Royal suffered an early set back, losing opener Chalaka Bogoda for a duck, and slumped to 60 for 3 before they were rescued by Kusal Perera, who scored 41 and first-innings centurion Fernando, who took the total to 141 off 26 overs before declaring at the fall of the sixth wicket.

Sussex have confirmed Ryan Harris has terminated his contract with the club with immediate effect. The county was forced to withdraw Harris from their Championship opener against Hampshire at The Rose Bowl on Wednesday after he signed a three-year deal with Queensland.Harris, who grew up in and appeared for South Australia, was originally picked up as a Kolpak player and joined on the basis he held a British passport and met current ECB regulations. However, the conditions also stipulate players cannot perform in another country as a local.”This has been a very difficult decision for Ryan but the only decision he could make after it was announced on Wednesday that he had signed a three-year contract with Queensland to play as a local player and not as an overseas player,” Gus Mackay, Sussex’s chief executive, said.”This is extremely disappointing for the club given that Ryan is an exciting cricketer who we were looking forward to being part of our title defence.” Harris played in the season’s traditional curtain raiser – Sussex, the County Champions, against MCC – and bowled swiftly at Lord’s last week, picking up 4 for 36.

David Hussey enjoyed a cleansweep of Victoria’s state awards on Tuesday, just hours after he was chosen in Australia’s ODI squad to tour the West Indies in June. It will be Hussey’s first trip with the national team and it comes after a prolific season that resulted in him being named as Victoria’s best player in the Pura Cup, FR Cup and KFC Twenty20.Hussey was the state’s leading run scorer in all three competitions and was an integral part in them reaching every final in 2007-08. He took home the Bill Lawry Medal as the Pura Cup Player of the Year after recording his best tally in a season, 1008 runs at 56, which was second only to Simon Katich across the country.He added the Dean Jones Medal to his stack of prizes thanks to an FR Cup campaign that brought 484 runs at 44, including the second-fastest century in Australian domestic one-day history. The Twenty20 honour was a formality after he scored 237 runs at 47.40 and was named as the tournament’s Player of the Year at last month’s Australian Cricketers’ Association awards.The Ryder Medal, awarded to the best player in Melbourne’s premier grade cricket competition, went to Steven Spoljaric, a Hawthorn-Monash University allrounder who has been the runner-up twice in the past three years. He beat the sometime Victoria one-day player Grant Lindsay by one vote, while Sarah Edwards was named the top women’s cricketer having scored 214 runs at 30.57 in the WNCL.

Chris Read has been given hope of another international opportunity after Geoff Miller, the national selector, said he was discussed during the six-hour selection meeting last week.Read last played for England on the 2006-07 Ashes tour when he replaced Geraint Jones for the Melbourne and Sydney Tests, but he never found favour during the Duncan Fletcher era. However, he is now captain of Nottinghamshire and has started the season in fine style with 283 runs at 70.75 in three matches.”The Notts public might have to watch this space. We will keep our options open.” Miller told BBC Radio Nottingham. “Yes, he was discussed, and he will continue to be discussed.”Chris knows we’re around the grounds all the time, and will keep in touch with how we’re feeling. From his point of view, it’s a matter of consistently putting in the performances.”England have been through a batch of keepers over the past 12 months, starting with Matt Prior this time last year before he was dropped in favour of Tim Ambrose and Phil Mustard has been given a one-day run. Meanwhile, James Foster was selected for the England Lions tour of India although Prior kept for the Lions against New Zealand last week.With a new selection panel in place there is a feeling that there is a second chance for some players to impress and earn international honours. Read’s Nottinghamshire team-mate Ryan Sidebottom, named England Player of the Year on Monday, benefited from such a move last summer. Although David Graveney was still the chairman of selectors at the time, Peter Moores had a significant say in his recall.”With this new regime it’s an open door,” said Sidebottom. “If you are performing then you could get selected at any minute. Injuries come along and the more competition for places there is the stronger England will be.”

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.

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.

James Pattinson’s mentor Craig McDermott has moved to clarify assumptions about his pupil’s bowling action, including the contention that the 25-year-old abandoned two years of adjustments in order to claim five wickets in the second innings of the Hobart Test against the West Indies.While Pattinson did struggle for rhythm in the first innings and found himself delivering the ball from an arm position that reduced his chances of gaining any movement through the air or off the wicket, McDermott said there was still plenty of evidence of the adjustments they had made together during his 5 for 27 on the third and final day.Changes to Pattinson’s action had been devised to ease pressure on his back, which has been the subject of multiple stress fractures over his five years around the Australian team, and were as much about foot position as arm and wrist. McDermott noted that Pattinson’s back foot is now much more side on at the point of delivery and thus in sync with his waist, back and shoulders. The adjustments to his arm path made for a much more rhythmic performance on day three.”In a transition from an old action to a new action, sometimes in competition your body will want to go back a little bit to the way it was,” McDermott told ESPNcricinfo. “That happened in the second innings a little bit, but it was more about Patto jumping in a straight line through the crease and going towards the target with his body and getting his arm path down a little bit below the perpendicular and his wrist behind the ball all the time.”The bottom half is still different. Sometimes his back foot gets a bit more front on down the wicket, but generally he’s travelling pretty well. We tried to get his back foot as far towards 90 degrees as we possibly could to start with, knowing that when you get back into competition mode it’s always going to creep back the other way. He’s anywhere between 30 and 45 degrees at any one stage so it’s not too bad.”Pattinson had stated that he hoped to find a middle ground between his old ways and new ones, with the added benefit of now having an older, more mature body to cope. However, McDermott counselled that given a history of multiple stress injuries, Pattinson needed to be aware of the risks inherent in his former methods – the pair will continue their work together when McDermott travels to Melbourne ahead of the rest of the team on Monday.”Every bowler is different, but Patto’s had a number of stress fractures and even at the age of 25 he’s probably had more than someone like Mitchell Starc who’s had one,” McDermott said. “He’s got to be careful, old stress fractures sometimes don’t heal 100%, a bit like with Pat Cummins at the moment, after about a month his were still not healing that well, so he’s put in a brace just to make sure that does restrict his movement.”Patto’s still got to be careful even at his age, just because of the amount of stress fractures he has had in the past that he may not get a new one but you can always open an old one, which may not have healed as strong as some of the other bone matter has. I don’t think it’s right to compare Patto’s body with Mitchell Johnson’s body or with Mitchell Starc’s body, everybody’s differently made up.”Nevertheless, McDermott agreed that once a player is in the Test team, the last thing they should be doing is thinking too intricately about their bowling action. For this reason, he kept his advice simple and to the point between innings, much as the captain Steven Smith also did.”There were a couple of things I spoke to Patto about the night after the first innings,” McDermott said. “One was ‘don’t think too much about it, just really bowl the ball’, and the other thing was ‘try to get your arm path down a little bit, because if it’s up too high it is very hard to get your wrist behind the ball’. They were the only two things I spoke to him about the night before.”His first wicket in the second innings if you look at the slo-mo, it’s very good as far as the seam position and all of that sort of stuff goes. There’s still some variation in that with him, but everything’s coming along pretty well. There’s still a lot of room for improvement, as we’ve discussed since then. But some wickets will give him confidence.”In the absence of Starc, who underwent his ankle surgery on Tuesday night, McDermott said that Pattinson and Nathan Coulter-Nile were both well equipped to be Australia’s impact bowlers over the next four Tests against the West Indies and New Zealand, with Josh Hazlewood and Peter Siddle providing the steady counterpoint.”I think Patto’s one of those and Nathan Coulter-Nile’s got the ability to do that as well,” he said. “Josh is really starting to hone his skills with his lengths, Sidds does what Sidds does, nothing changing there. Certainly leading into the next two Test matches and New Zealand, those guys stand us in pretty good stead.”

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.”

The Asian Test Championship final at the Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore starting 6 March is an occasion to celebrate for Pakistani cricket lovers more so, because they have starved long for a chance to enjoy international cricket on their own soil. The drought started when India backed out of a regular tour on political grounds two years back. Then came the fateful 11 September 2001 disaster that struck a further blow to hosting international cricket in Pakistan.Pakistan, which happens to be Afghanistan’s next door neighbour had to bear the brunt of the security concerns expressed by scheduled touring sides. The foreign teams cancelled their tours, not only causing the PCB a colossal loss of funds but also depriving the cricket loving public of the fun of watching international cricket live. Another fall out from the crisis boiled down to the Pakistan Cricket Team losing vital match practice.While New Zealand cancelled their tour, a compromise was struck with the West Indies Team to play the scheduled series at Sharjah instead of in Pakistan. Despite being out of practice, it was fortunate for Pakistan team to win both tests as well as the one-day encounters.The situation having eased up considerably, it is nice to see Sri Lanka coming over to play final of the Asian Test Championship at Lahore. This match is in fact the unfinished agenda of the championship that commenced last year. India having declined to participate, only three teams Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were left in the contest. Both Pakistan and Sri Lanka having thrashed Bangladesh by an inning’s margin, the two teams jumped into the finals. It may be recalled that Pakistan won the first Asian Championship in 1999 also participated by India. Pakistan shall thus be defending their honour. Let us see who becomes the new Asian Champs?The two sides have not only been announced but have had also net practice sessions at Gaddafi. The Pakistan team has two major omissions. The prolific opener Saeed Anwar is either not recovered from his injury or is away on personal business. Former skipper Wasim Akram has been sidelined for doubtful physical fitness, an assessment of the selectors that he has refuted in the press. Out of those selected, Inzamam remains pathetically out of his elements. Surprisingly, a batsman of a very high caliber, the Pakistan vice-captain was seen struggling with the bat against Bangladesh, a rare phenomena for the big man who had never faced such a crisis in his career. He is, however, quite capable of striking back at any time or can even be a match winner on his own.Two youngsters who gave remarkable performances against the West Indies at Sharjah could not possibly be ignored. The budding all-rounder Shoaib Malik who played a match winning innings in the second one-day game at Sharjah fully justified his inclusion in the side. Same was the case with Mohammad Sami, who not only bowled Pakistan to victory but also joined the ranks of bowlers to perform a hat trick in one-day games.Sri Lanka also has a very balanced side. Giving Pakistan due credit, skipper Jayasuriya visualizes a tough battle between the two teams. He is of the view that his team is now on the right track and direction and with some excellent performance in the recent past, he expects his boys to do well in the final. With Marvan Atapattu, Mahela Jayawardene, Russel Arnold, Tillekeratne and Jayasuriya himself, the Sri Lanka team has quite a depth in its batting line up. They, however, feel the pinch of not having played any cricket in the last 10 weeks compared to Pakistan who recently won the two Test series against the West Indies at Sharjah. One should not, however, lose sight of trump card Muttiah Muralitharan who can take Sri Lanka to the vistory stand single-handedly on his day. Both sides look determined to win which indicates that it will be an excitingly tough battle to watch.The teams were given a joint reception by PCB and the match sponsors at a local hotel last evening in which brief speeches were made. In a battle of wits, the two managers expressed their desire ‘to turn the tables on the other’, the whole thing ending up in good humour.The nature of the pitch would only be known just before the match starts but it is expected to be sporting. The weather is clear with excellent daylight required for good cricket. Athar Zaidi and Darrel Harper will be the field umpires while Saleem Badar will act as TV umpire and the ICC match referee will be AM Ebrahim (Zim).