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ScorecardJacob Martin, Baroda’s captain, crafted a responsible 69 and steered them to a fine four-wicket win against Haryana at Vadodara. Resuming on 129 for 5, Baroda lost the wicket of Ajit Bhoite early but Martin and Pinal Shah, the wicketkeeper, added 79 for the unbroken seventh-wicket stand to take Baroda home. With 13 points from five games, Baroda now stand a great chance of qualifying for the knockout stage.
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On course for a win Uttar Pradesh came calamitously close to defeat, eventually forcing a draw and earning just two points against Tamil Nadu at Chennai. Chasing 129 for victory, in 25 overs, UP were motoring along at 72 for 2 in 13.1 overs when Ravichandran Ashwin, the offspinner, triggered a collapse. UP lost five wickets for the addition of just 17 – all to Ashwin who finished with 5 for 23 – and ended up battling for a draw in the final moments. Earlier Praveen Kumar, the medium-pacer, snared five wickets and restricted Tamil Nadu to 223 in the second dig. Anirudha Srikkanth top-scored with 86 but it was the crucial 33-run partnership between Vijayakumar Yo Mahesh and Ashwin that ate up valuable time. Eventually it proved to be the difference between a UP win and draw and the two teams may now have to battle relegation in the final rounds.
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Saurashtra wrapped up a thumping ten-wicket win, with a bonus point to boot, in their encounter against Delhi at Rajkot. Delhi, following on in the second innings, didn’t fare much better with the bat, with only captain Mithun Manhas’s 86 helping them to avert an innings defeat. Rakesh Dhruv, the left-arm spinner, ended with impressive figures of 5 for 67. Saurashtra were left with a meager target of 10 and their openers duly knocked it off without the loss of any wickets.
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Uday Kaul’s maiden first-class hundred ensured that Punjab gained two points from a drawn encounter against Rajasthan at Jaipur. Kaul, on 71 overnight, ground his way to his century, in an innings that spanned close to eight hours and included seven fours and a six. His captain Pankaj Dharmani, on 151 last evening, added another 16 to his score before Rajesh Sharma and Luv Ablish provided Kaul with valuable support. Rajasthan pottered around for 42 overs in the second innings as the game meandered to a draw.
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Hrishikesh Kanitkar managed an unbeaten 151 but Maharashtra had already conceded two first-innings points to Bengal at Kolkata. With the fate of the match decided, Maharashtra gained some batting practice on the final day with Kanitkar leading the way with a 266-ball knock. Yogesh Takawale supported him with a dogged 75 as the game petered out to a tame draw.
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Half-centuries from Robin Uthappa and Thilak Naidu, complemented by a plucky 42 from captain Yere Goud, helped Karnataka stave off defeat on the final day against Andhra at Anantpur. Karnataka were struggling at 94 for 5 before Naidu led the repair operation. His 49-run stand with Goud started the fightback before his obdurate stands with Stuart Binny and Sunil Joshi sealed the issue. Joshi spent 104 minutes in the middle for his 11 as Karnataka kept their semi-final chances alive.

Chris Cairns, Chris Harris, Nathan Astle, Hamish Marshall, Darren Maddy and Azhar Mahmood have become the latest international cricketers to sign with the Indian Cricket League. Of these six cricketers only Maddy is still actively playing cricket at the highest level, with the others having either retired or fallen out of favour with their respective selectors.Marshall refused a contract from New Zealand Cricket recently as he wished to pursue a career playing county cricket in England, qualifying as a Kolpak player. Cairns, Harris and Astle have not been in the New Zealand team for some time now, while Mahmood has figured in just four matches for Pakistan since 2004.Announcing their latest signings, Kapil Dev, the chairman of the executive board of the ICL, said, “We are extremely pleased to welcome these players to the ICL family. These talented experienced cricketers will definitely be a great source of learning for the youngsters who will play with them. Under their guidance, the Indian Cricket League players will develop skills comparable to the best of international cricketing talent.””These signings are in line with our objective of providing the best platform for young cricketers from all corners of India to play alongside the superstars of international cricket, learn the tricks of the trade from them and gain confidence to excel.”The ICL also officially announced the signing of twelve Indian domestic cricketers. Although some of these names were already on the ICL radar and in the news, it was announced on Friday that Abu Nachem, Amit Uniyal, Aniruddh Singh, Gaurav Gupta, Love Ablish, Mihir Diwakar, Rakesh Patel, Abid Nabi, Kiran Powar, Pritam Das and former India internationals S Sriram and Nilesh Kulkarni, had signed on the dotted line.The domestic players who have already signed with the ICL are currently participating in a training camp in Chennai at the Mayajaal ground on the outskirts of the city. It has been suggested that the ICL is targeting to play its first Twenty20 matches in mid-November although it is as yet unclear where these matches will be held.

Mahela Jayawardene, Sri Lanka’s captain for the tour of England, has expressed his pleasure at his side’s impressive start to the English summer. Though Sri Lanka failed to press for a win against the British Universities at Fenner’s yesterday, Jayawardene said he was determined to build on the experience later this week.Speaking to PA Sport, he said he expected his young side to benefit from their early exposure to English conditions. “Two guys got hundreds, and the bowlers all had a decent outing and kept asking questions by putting it in the right place. A couple of the other guys got starts and didn’t finish off,” he said. “But that is the main thing you must do in England, because you definitely can get a good ball any time. The guys learned that here, and it was a good lesson for them. It was seaming, and the weather was typically English – so it was the best practice we could get.”Jayawardene, who failed to get going in the match, said he would put in the hard yards. “I was feeling pretty good out there in the middle when I went in, but it was one of those things – sometimes you get a really good ball. If it gets you out you just have to forget about it and make sure you do the hard work out there next time you get in.”He also hoped that Muttiah Muralitharan, one of a few key players to be rationed ahead of the bigger games, would play in Sri Lanka’s next match against Derbyshire, beginning on Saturday. “Guys like Murali have been playing a lot of cricket, so it is always good to give them a break,” Jayawardene said. “We just need to be very sensible in how we manage the players.”Sri Lanka play three Tests and five one-day internationals against England.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

On a cold and overcast day at Southampton, England turned in a heart-warming performance with both bat and ball to thrash India by 104 runs – their third-biggest margin of victory against them – in the first of seven one-day internationals. Alastair Cook and Ian Bell set up the comprehensive victory with outstanding maiden centuries and a 178-run second-wicket stand to push England to 288 for 2, while James Anderson shut off all escape routes for the Indians with a decisive new-ball spell of 3 for 19 in eight magnificent overs – he eventually finished with career-best figures of 4 for 23.India had started the ODI series as favourites, but the only thing that went right for them today was the toss – Rahul Dravid won it and chose to field, deciding that the overcast conditions would help his fast bowlers, and that the ball would come nicely on to the bat later in the evening.Neither hunch turned out to be correct: there was little swing or seam on offer in the afternoon, while the extra zip later in the evening proved too much for India’s batsmen to handle as Anderson nailed both Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh in one over to effectively seal the contest.England’s decision to play both Cook and Bell – and drop Owais Shah – was a bit of a surprise, but it turned out to be an inspired move. India did reasonably well in the early part of the innings, allowing England just 40 in the first ten overs and 88 in the first 20, but that was when Cook and Bell decided to turn it on, putting together the second-highest partnership for England in all ODIs against India.

Before this game Cook had only played five ODIs, while Bell was more experienced only in relative terms, but both batsmen paced their innings as if they were veterans in this form of the game. On a big ground and a slow outfield, they placed the ball in the gaps, ran hard to take all the twos and threes on offer, and thoroughly exposed the woefully sluggish Indian effort in the field.Cook’s was the more deliberate innings, but his calm and unflappable approach at the start was just what England needed after Matt Prior’s dismissal in the 11th over. He never strayed far from the orthodox approach, worked hard for his runs – there were only eight fours in his knock – and paced his innings quite superbly: his first 50 took 74 deliveries, but his next 52 came at a run a ball, and included a couple of meaty blows to the midwicket boundary off the fast bowlers late in the innings.Bell, on the other hand, was all silken touch right from the get-go: his third scoring stroke was an on-the-rise drive through the covers off RP Singh, and that set the tone for the rest of his innings. Against the fast bowlers, he cut, drove and flicked with exquisite timing, while Piyush Chawla was dismantled with twinkle-toed footwork, one straight six over the bowler’s head being the stand-out shot.Both batsmen took full toll of the fifth bowler’s quota – Tendulkar, Yuvraj and Sourav Ganguly leaked 79 in 13 overs – and built the momentum perfectly. Kevin Pietersen chipped in with a cameo effort at the end as England finished just 12 short of 300.A daunting target of 289 needed a solid start from Tendulkar and Ganguly, but they lasted just 15 deliveries before Ganguly threw it away with a sloppy piece of cricket that typified India’s performance today: Tendulkar drove Stuart Broad for a single to mid-off, but Ganguly set off for a second run that was never on, and failed to beat a flighted but accurate throw from Monty Panesar.

With the breakthrough gifted away by India, Anderson charged in and shut out any chance of an Indian fightback with three quick strikes. Bowling at around 140 kph, he varied his length cleverly and asked questions of all the Indian batsmen. Gautam Gambhir flashed a drive and nicked to the keeper, while Tendulkar and Yuvraj fell within five deliveries of each other.Tendulkar might have fallen even earlier, but escaped being bowled when the ball brushed the stumps off his pads but failed to dislodge the bails. His luck ran out, though, when he flicked a half-volley on leg stump straight to short midwicket. Four balls later, when Yuvraj poked outside off and edged to gully, India had slumped to 34 for 4.From there, it was only a matter of damage control for India. Dravid hung around to score 46 without ever suggesting that the knock would do anything other than delay the inevitable. With Mahendra Singh Dhoni, he added 68 for the fifth wicket before Dhoni fell to an inspired Andrew Flintoff. Playing his first international match in exactly four months, he charged in, bowled consistently at around 145 kph, beat the bat, induced edges, and finally got Dhoni to glove a pull to the wicketkeeper for a painstaking 60-ball 19. Dinesh Karthik added a spunky unbeaten 44, but was also involved in two shambolic run-outs as England completed an utter rout.

The annual one-day international tri-series in Australia, traditionally following the summer’s Test series, is set to get a new sponsor.The Commonwealth Bank is expected to take over from Foster’s Australia, which sponsored the series for five seasons through its brand VB, for this summer’s series, also featuring England and New Zealand. In the past, Benson & Hedges and Carlton & United have also been successful sponsors.According to a report in , Commonwealth Bank – one of the largest financial institutions in Australia – is likely to sign a deal with Cricket Australia (CA) worth upto Aus$7 million a year. The bank has been one of the long-time sponsors of Cricket Australia’s Centre of Excellence in Brisbane and junior men’s and women’s national teams. The report added that Mastercard will also be a minor sponsor of the tri-series.The domestic one-day tournament is also set to get a new sponsor starting this season, with ING, the main sponsor for 14 years, reportedly pulling out. Peter Young, Cricket Australia’s public affairs manager, confirmed that the deals would be finalised sometime in October. Foster’s Australia will remain a major financial partner with Cricket Australia.

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Matthew Hayden continued from where he had left off in the 2001 series, muscling his way to 67, as the Australians gained some valuable batting practice on the first day of their tour opener in Mumbai. After overnight showers had delayed play by more than four hours, all the batsmen in the Australian top order used the chance to get into their groove. Mumbai did manage to pick up three wickets in the final session, and the Australians finished on 159 for 3.Hayden was like a bulldog on a leash – always threatening, and at times ferocious. He took an excessively long time preparing himself to face the first delivery, with Ramesh Powar surprisingly sharing the new ball, as he cleared huge amounts of dust from the pitch, squatted several times and checked the field placement twice. Powar got away unscathed in his first spell but suffered when he returned in the 11th over, being clattered for 16 runs, including a six that crashed into the sight-screen.Ajit Agarkar and Avishkar Salvi were also carted around – one four off Salvi was close to the mid-off fielder, but it screamed past so fast that he didn’t move. The only bowler who he wasn’t taken apart by Hayden was Sairaj Bahutule, the legspinner. Though Hayden lofted him over long-off for six, and came down the track almost every ball, Bahutule induced a few iffy moments. He finally got his wicket in the 33rd over, as Hayden converted a full-length ball into a low full-toss and patted it back to give Bahutule a simple return catch (108 for 2).Hayden and Justin Langer had given Australia a confident start, and added 69 in the ninety minutes before the tea-break. Langer’s innings was characterised by a number of balls that he drove straight to the fielders. He preferred to rotate the strike and watch the show at the other end, but just before the tea break he capitalised on some wayward bowling, and helped himself to a few fours as well. However, he fell to the second ball after the break as he tried to drive Agarkar through the off side, but edged through to Vinayak Samant, the wicketkeeper (69 for 1).Simon Katich (30) was promoted to No. 3, which is where he will probably bat in the first Test, and milked the bowling around in his 80-ball innings. He survived a run-out chance when he was on 3 as he danced down the track and played a shot straight to the short-leg fielder, who failed to hit the stumps with a return throw. Damien Martyn (28 not out) then gave a sneak preview of his silken touch, and there was a gentler ending to the day’s play after Hayden had torn everyone apart earlier.Due to heavy showers last night, the first half of the day was spent waiting for the field to dry up. Polly Umrigar, the chief curator, was in the centre of all the action, enthusiastically handing out instructions to the ground staff while constantly muttering: “It’s all OK”. Fittingly, it was Umrigar who walked out to the toss with Ian Johnson way back in October 1956, when Australia played their first-ever Test match on Indian soil.

Northamptonshire have awarded David Sales a benefit for next season. He is the captain and the club’s longest-serving player of the current staff. Sales, 28, joined in 1994 and has been captain since 2004.”I am very grateful to the club for offering me a benefit next year,” said Sales. “2006 has been a year of change and I am sure together we can help the club build on the foundations currently being laid”.So far in his first-class career he has amassed 8640 runs, at 39.81, with a highest score of 303 not out.

Though disappointed that the winning streak was brought to an end in Bangalore, Graeme Smith, the South Africa captain, said his team still hopes to become the first South African squad to win a one-day international series on Indian soil.”We were disappointed to lose after 20 games,” Smith said on the eve of the fourth one-dayer at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Friday. “But our main target is to win the series. We want to be the first South African team to win a ODI series here.”Undeterred by India’s valiant comeback into the series at Bangalore, Smith said, “I don’t think the momentum is with India. Tomorrow’s game is a fresh call. Our confidence is still way up there. Hopefully, we will be able to win the match.”He added that “winning the toss would be crucial” at Kolkata. The pitch, he said, looked different from that of Bangalore, where the ball turned too much and the pitch was not conducive for an international one-dayer. “The wicket looks good. There is a little more grass than expected. If the wicket behaves well, it will be a really good game.”Asked if there would be any special strategy for in-form youngsters Irfan Pathan and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Smith replied: “In a team of 12, you can’t take anyone for granted. No one is more important than others. For us, every guy is equally important. We are just going to concentrate on our own game.”The super-substitute rule, he felt, gave additional advantage to the team winning the toss. “You need to rethink on that so that the super-sub can be chosen after the toss to balance the advantage to either side.”With Kolkata holding a special place for South Africa as it marked a re-birth of their cricket in the post-apartheid era in the 1991 series, Smith said, “It’s always a good occasion to play here. It’s going to be a massive experience for our youngsters. This is a rainbow team, part of a new culture. Hopefully we will be able to win here tomorrow.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
5:09

Both teams need to learn to assess conditions better

In his first three overs, bowled at the start of the match, R Ashwin bowled India to their first bilateral T20I series win at home. India bowled Sri Lanka out for their lowest total, 82, to retain their No. 1 ranking, which was on the line in the series decider. Ashwin’s 4 for 8 was the best figures for an Indian in T20Is, beating his own 4 for 11.Ashwin’s immediate impact was crucial because the pitch turned square, and India might have unwittingly given Sri Lanka the second use of such a track. You couldn’t have faulted MS Dhoni, though: the pitch looked white, had zero moisture, and no big cracks. Given the dew expected later in the day, it seemed a prudent decision to ask Sri Lanka to bat because the pitch didn’t look like it would help spin anyway.Just like in Pune where India were left thinking they would have been in the game had they scored 130 or so as opposed to the 101 all out, Sri Lanka could have given India a fight with a half-decent total because the ball turned square even for Ravindra Jadeja and Suresh Raina. Ashwin left them in no position to get a fighting total, though.Ashwin, given the new ball, was happy to give it a rip and some flight, mixing in the seam-up delivery that swings away from the right-hand batsmen. Sri Lanka, though, came out with a plan to try to hit Ashwin out of the attack. Tillakaratne Dilshan faced the second ball of the match, got a single, and immediately signaled to his partner, Niroshan Dickwella that the ball was turning already. It didn’t have any impact on Dickwella, who left his crease early and walked past an offbreak that Ashwin bowled deliberately short.In the same over, Dilshan was done in by a sharp offbreak from round the wicket, turning enough to beat the inside edge and hit his pad inside the line, but not turning too much to be given out lbw. If Dickwella played a headless shot, Dilshan’s was purely a bowler’s wicket: beaten on the forward defensive by the dip and the turn. Captain Dinesh Chandimal looked to counterattack, hit two fours off Ashish Nehra, but skied Ashwin in his second over. In his third over, Ashwin enjoyed some luck as debutant Asela Gunaratne was given out caught at leg slip off his pad. Ashwin had now reduced Sri Lanka to 20 for 4 in the fifth over. In a format not as versatile as the traditional ones, the damage had already been done.The problem with the rest of Sri Lanka innings was twofold: the ball was turning, and the batsmen kept trying the big hits as opposed to looking for a partnership. This was quite similar to what happened with India even as the ball seamed in Pune. Milinda Siriwardana faced only two balls even though he spent three overs in the middle. The first one he pulled Jasprit Bumrah for four, but when he tried the pull second ball he chose a Nehra delivery that was not short enough and also skidded through to bowl him.Only a high full toss from Yuvraj that went for six, and the free hit that was given repeat treatment by Dasun Shanaka gave Sri Lanka’s innings some momentum. Ashwin came awfully close to registering the first international five-for for India, but Jadeja and Raina kept the pressure up and the wickets kept falling. Jadeja’s brilliance showed in the field too, with a delicate back-hand flick to run Seekkuge Prasanna out and catch Thisara Perera in the deep.Under hardly any pressure, India walked away to their target with 37 balls remaining even though the turning pitch made stroke-play difficult. Shikhar Dhawan again displayed his improved leg-side play in his run-a-ball 46 whereas question marks over Ajinkya Rahane’s hitting ability on slower surfaces remained as he mis-hit a few attempted big hits in his unbeaten 22 off 24.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

Adam Gilchrist ignited the DY Patil Stadium with the fastest century of the tournament as the Deccan Chargers raced to their first win. The battle between the two bottom-ranked teams was a no-contest once Gilchrist teed off, and Deccan charged to an emphatic ten-wicket victory in the first major game at the stadium.Andrew Symonds had got a century off 47 deliveries the previous game but Gilchrist needed only 42 as he decimated the weak Mumbai Indians’ attack on a small ground. The intent was aggressive right from the word go, and Gilchrist made use of short deliveries in the first over from Ashish Nehra, dispatching one over square leg and the other through cover point.Pulls and cuts were played with ease as Mumbai’s quicker bowlers erred in their length, and after six fours, Gilchrist hit his first six, lofting Sanath Jayasuriya over deep midwicket. Siddharth Chitnis, the off-break bowler making his Twenty20 debut, was spared by going only for 12 in the last Powerplay over, but Shaun Pollock, leading Mumbai in Harbhajan Singh’s absence, was taken apart once the field restrictions were off.Gilchrist savagely pulled Pollock over the deep backward square-leg boundary for consecutive sixes, the first bringing up his first Twenty20 fifty. The shot that followed pierced the off-side boundary, and Gilchrist then nonchalantly moved across the stumps to launch one over long leg, making it 23 for the over.Abhishek Nayar’s arrival was greeted with three sixes, the third over midwicket brought up the hundred, and more astonishing was the fact that he had reached the mark as early as on the stroke of the tenth over. From then on, victory was just a formality, and Deccan reached their target with 48 balls to spare, both indication of the fury that had been unleashed. At the other end, VVS Laxman scored just 37 in a stand of 155, easily the highest of the tournament. Mumbai might have been at the receiving end, but the home crowd too cheered what had been an enthralling innings. Ninety-six of Gilchrist’s 109 came through boundaries, making it a busy day for the Deccan cheerleaders, who were sporting a new outfit.A new home ground and a new captain surely didn’t bring about a turn of fortunes for Mumbai, and Deccan justified Laxman’s decision to field first by restricting them to 154. Laxman’s captaincy had come under the hammer after three consecutive losses, but on Sunday he was right on the ball. He was quick to shuffle around his bowlers, who to their credit, backed up their captain’s decision with some good bowling.It was only the string of 30s from the middle order that helped Mumbai reach 154. Pollock made a run-a-ball 31 to revive the innings, but it was the quickfire 34s from Nayar and Dwayne Bravo that ensured the Mumbai bowlers had a decent total to defend.Jayasuriya and Luke Ronchi had failed to make an impression in earlier games, and they were kept quiet once again, despite the short boundaries, by RP Singh and Nuwan Zoysa. Ronchi hit three fours, but fell attempting to slash a wide delivery angled across from RP, edging straight to Laxman at slip.Sanjay Bangar was brought on in the fourth over, perhaps to help Zoysa change ends, and Ajinkya Rahane, another Twenty20 debutant, pulled straight into the hands of Pragyan Ojha at deep square leg. The next move from Laxman though was a masterstroke. Shahid Afridi was brought on in the final over of the Powerplay, and he had Robin Uthappa caught behind. At the end of six overs, Mumbai were tottering at 27 for 3.Jayasuriya had made only 4 off his first ten deliveries, and one pitched short from Zoysa fetched him his first boundary, which came off his 14th. But, once again Afridi did the damage, Jayasuriya got a top edge as he tried to power a googly through the leg side. The onus was then on Pollock to hold the innings together, but he too couldn’t stay till the end.Nayar smashed three sixes in his 19-ball innings, as 45 runs came in the overs 14 to 16. But he top-edged to Gilchrist while trying to hook Zoysa. Bravo too managed to find the gaps, and was out for 34 off the last ball of the innings as Mumbai finished on 154. However, with the form Gilchrist was in, even 254 would have been tough to defend for Mumbai, who now have four losses after four games, and sorely need Sachin Tendulkar to return.