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Inexperience weighed heavily against Hursley Park on their NatWest Hampshire Under-16 Indoor Cricket Championship debut at the Rose Bowl.They went home pointless after suffering heavy defeats by last year’s winners Fair Oak and South Wilts, who collected a 24-point maximum after two handsome wins.Dean Robertson (25) and Richard Conway (17) provided a sound enough start against Fair Oak, but with last winter’s champions bowling a much tighter line than in their first games, progress was slow.Hursley’s eventual 74-3 proved easy meat for Fair Oak, with openers James Scutt (27) and Ed Kemp (22) polishing off the target.Both Hursley and Fair Oak were soundly thrashed by South Wilts, who are clearing going to be among the leading clubs in the 12-team NatWest backed competition.The experience the Bemerton youngsters gained at the Rose Bowl last winter proved the key as South Wilts bettered their formidable 146-5 against Fair Oak by scoring 147-3 in 12 overs off Hursley Park.Eddie Abel (39) and the emerging Lysander Wolf (36) led the way as South Wilts rattled up 146 against Fair Oak, who were dismissed for 76, with Chris Denning taking 2-22.James Hayward hit an unbeaten 43 and received able support from Abel (30) and Wolf (27) in the South Wilts run spree against Hursley Park, who were dismissed for 78 (Kapoor 23).Ventnor make their debut in the NatWestBank sponsored competition on Sunday against Andover and Sarisbury Athletic.

After four rounds of two-day games in the Christchurch senior men’s competition it is the experienced players who are once again coming to the fore.Generally speaking ball has dominated bat, which is the norm at this time of year when outfields are traditionally slow and pitches favouring the seam bowlers.There have, however, been a few exceptions to this rule, which is not surprising given the fact that TelstraClear Black Caps have had their most extended run playing club cricket for quite a number of years.With the bat, East Shirley’s Craig McMillan is the top two-day run scorer, amassing 222 runs at an average of 76. He also tops the averages. Shanan Stewart of Riccarton is the only other batsman to score over 200 runs. He has 202 at a 40.40 average.Other leading two-day run scorers include Michael Papps of East Shirley (188 runs at 47), Andy McDowell (188 at 37.60), Paul Wiseman of HSOB (180 at 45), Steven Knox of St Albans (166 at 27.67) and Gary Stead of Riccarton (147 at 73.50).With the ball, Stephen Cunis of St Albans tops the two-day aggregates with 22 wickets at 7.82. His team-mate Chris Harris is second on the list and also heads the averages with 20 wickets at a traditionally miserly 4.85 per wicket. Wade Cornelius of Lancaster Park/Woolston is close behind Cunis and Harris with 19 wickets at 9.37.Other leading players include: Chris Martin of St Albans (16 wickets at 11.63), Bobby Chilton of Marist (15 at 12.47), Ryan Burson of East Shirley (14 at 13.07) and Shane Bond of HSOB (12 at 8.37).With the gloves it is Aaron Johnstone of St Albans who leads the way. He has a total of 17 dismissals, made up of 15 catches and two stumpings. Carl Solomons of Lancaster Park/Woolston, who has moved to Christchurch from Blenheim, has 14 dismissals, all of which have been catches.

As Frizzell County Championship matches go, this encounter between relegation threatened Hampshire and Yorkshire was a vital win or bust for both teams. After the first day, honours are even, and all to play for.Robin Smith won Hampshire’s first championship home toss since May, and elected to have first use of a wicket still under scrutiny from the authorities. Despite the presence all day of pitch inspector Raman Subba Row, the groundsman should have been satisfied, that only twelve wickets fell on a mixed day of mugginess and sunshine.Yorkshire lost Chris Silverwood after bowling just 5 overs, when he sustained a knee injury, and did not field for the rest of the day.Neil Johnson and Jason Laney gave the home side a good start posting a half century opening stand (a rare event this season for Hampshire), before both were dismissed to the nagging pace of Ryan Sidebottom with his bushy hair flowing in his run up.John Crawley playing in his first championship match since July flattered briefly before finding his middle stump up-ended by swing of McGrath. Francis went without scoring after attempting to pull the same bowler to square leg and was well caught by the substitute fielder Matthew Wood.Robin Smith and his vice captain Will Kendall set up a useful stand until the latter edged to slip, then Smith himself was palpably lbw falling over to Kirby. The red headed fiery Yorkshireman giving the skipper his trade mark send off.Another late partnership gave the total some respectability when Shaun Udal and James Hamblin held up Yorkshire’s progress, but the final tally of 269 was perhaps short by some 50 runs in the end.Dimitri Mascarenhas got a ball to rear to have Vic Craven caught at mid-wicket, and Chris Taylor snapped up by Laney off Udal, to give the balance of the game an even look.

After a month in Colombo, the Australian cricket team heads to Sharjahtoday for an historic first Test in the United Arab Emirates.Australian and Pakistan will arrive Dubai this afternoon and will havejust one full day of practice before the second Test of the neutralseries gets under way in Sharjah.It will mark the first time Australia has played a Test in non-Testcountry.Pakistan played two matches there earlier this year, scoring resoundingwins over West Indies in both.Australian coach John Buchanan said the quick turnaround and withconditions more extreme than Colombo, it would be arduous for bothsides.”But that’s the way the schedule is and we have to deal with it,”Buchanan said.”They’ll be more aware of what it’s going to be like than us but it willbe pretty bloody hot and humid, worse than here.”Sharjah has has been recording temperatures of around 40 degrees withthe humidity around 80 per cent.”I do believe the team which can adjust to the conditions more quicklywill have the advantage in the first game,” Buchanan added.The Australians, one-nil up in the series, won’t make a decision ontheir team until they’ve seen the pitch conditions but Buchanan said itwas traditionally a “flat” deck offering reverse swing and a little bitof spin.Injured fast bowler Jason Gillespie will travel with team but won’t playin either Test after tearing his calf muscle on the last day of thefirst day.West Australian quick Brad Williams will join the team in Sharjah tocover for Gillespie.

A new player will win the honour of being the winner of the FICA international player of the year in the 2002 awards when they are announced on July 10.Zimbabwe’s Andy Flower won the PricewaterhouseCoopers-sponsored title last year, the fourth occasion on which it has been presented.Up for the honour this time are: Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka), Sachin Tendulkar (India), Jacques Kallis (South Africa), Adam Gilchrist (Australia), Mahela Jayawardene (Sri Lanka), Matthew Hayden (Australia).The previous winners were: 1998, Steve Waugh (Australia), 1999, Brian Lara (West Indies), 2000 Glenn McGrath (Australia) and Flower last year.The nominees for the International Young Player of the Year are: Virender Sehwag (India), Matthew Hoggard (England), Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka) and Ramnaresh Sarwan (West Indies).The FICA Wisden Cricket Monthly Place in History contenders are, the Australian opening pair of Justin Langer and Hayden for their four double-century opening partnerships; Nathan Astle for the fastest double century in Test cricket and Shane Warne who took six for 161 in his 100th Test match.A FICA Slazenger award will be made for International Sheer Instinct.The nominees are: Mark Butcher (England) for his 173 not out against Australia; Waqar Younis for his seven for 36 against England in last year’s NatWest Series; Andrew Flintoff for the close of play victory in an ODI against India, and Waugh for his comeback 100 against England.The nominees for the International team of the year are: the Australian and Sri Lankan Test teams and the Australian One-Day International team.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has confirmed that white bails(instead of black) will be used on the normal black stumps for the remainingthree matches of the NatWest Series.Discussions between the ECB, the umpires and match referee resulted in thechange of colour to assist the umpires in their decision-making for run-outsand stumpings.In a further development, it is confirmed that three individuals who encroached on to the playing surface during the npower Test Match at Edgbaston earlier this season have all been successfully prosecuted. As a result they all now have a criminal record and their DNA profile has been added to the national database.

Having been played right out of the second National Bank Test by England with both ball and bat, New Zealand face a big task to save the match at the Basin Reserve tomorrow.England have gone to a 246-run lead with nine second innings wickets intact and 105 overs to play with tomorrow.New Zealand have already been frustrated by umpiring decisions not going their way, including a big appeal for a catch at the wicket by Adam Parore off Marcus Trescothick from Nathan Astle’s bowling when the batsman was 77 not out.It has not been one of the great Test matches for the umpires, Steve Dunne of New Zealand and Darrell Hair of Australia, and that last one this evening was one of their toughest denials.England ended on 184/1 with Mark Butcher 57 not out off 99 balls, and Trescothick having batted 118 balls for his 77.The New Zealand side which had a poor first innings as the preamble to its first Test loss in Christchurch, learnt nothing when falling into the same hole in Wellington today.What was frustrating for the New Zealanders scattered among the crowd of around 8000 today, was the absence of applied batting technique and execution.It was difficult to believe that the New Zealand batsmen who performed so abysmally in attempting to hold out left-arm spinner Ashley Giles and fast-medium Andy Caddick, were the same batsmen who performed so well against Australia earlier in the summer.Giles was a markedly inferior bowler to Australian spinner Shane Warne while Caddick is a notch below Glenn McGrath’s class, both players who were almost played out of the Australian series.Conditions may have been different, and clearly attitudes were, because the competitive fire seemed to be absent among the New Zealanders.It was as if they were prepared to play in remote control mode until members of their frontline attack return to the side, and although the players might refute that, it was the impression they gave.At the outset of the day Mark Richardson and Lou Vincent had worked their way from 70 to 135 when Vincent’s departure, caught at a deep leg slip from Giles, signalled the start of a five-wicket swathe that was cut through the New Zealand batting for only 14 runs.Caddick conspired with Giles to effect the demise of the home side, almost taunting those who had claimed after his second innings haul of six for 122 in the first Test in Christchurch that he wasn’t a first innings bowler.Figures of six for 59 would suggest otherwise and he goes into the second innings all fired up with a goal in sight of 200 Test wickets, which is only four wickets away.It doesn’t bode well for the home team.Coach Denis Aberhart acknowledged as much.”It was not a good day today.”I think the pitch is playing fine. I think if you work hard at it, if you’re bowling you get something out of it but batting wise the English have shown they can bat out there pretty well and early on this morning I thought we played pretty well on it too as well,” he said.It was a combination of bad batting and good bowling that put New Zealand in the position they now face.They had set things up well by the drinks break where they were 130/1.”The English bowlers kept the pressure on, they bowled well, they kept good line and good length. They haven’t let us get away at all, and then some poor application, poor shot selection combined with some good bowling,” he said.Aberhart added that it would be hard to chase a score on the wicket but it was possible to see what could happen if batsmen got in and got some partnerships established.New Zealand had managed to create some opportunities for wickets, one of which was dropped, but they had to get on with the game and bowl the next ball.The method for New Zealand’s survival was simple.”We need to show the willingness to do the hard work. When the Englishmen bowl good lines, good lengths we have to work through that. I think for long periods of time we did that but we just didn’t finish it off.”We need to address that, it’s more of a mental thing than a technical thing and that needs to be addressed for tomorrow and for the Test in Auckland,” he said.

Test discard Ijaz Ahmad slammed the dismal performance of the Pakistancricket team in first Test against England at Lord’s. Talking to Dawn,Ijaz said that Pakistan displayed depressing performance in the Testas they were forced on follow-on while facing not too imposing totalof 391.Ijaz suggested the team’s management to either prepare Inzamam-ul-Haqor Yousuf Youhana to bat at one-down.He said that though Abdur Razzaq scored at No. 3 position but he wasnot a specialist batsman.

The IPL Governing Council will meet in Mumbai on Friday to discuss an agenda that includes the format of the 2011 tournament. While the meeting’s main purpose is to approve the 2010 IPL financials, it is also scheduled to discuss the number of matches to be played next season, with the focus on reducing the players’ workload.”They will discuss the number of matches,” a franchise official told Cricinfo. “But mostly, it will be dominated by the closing of accounts.”The rules and regulations for the 2011 tournament have been up in the air since the suspension of IPL chairman Lalit Modi. The league added two new teams for next year, increasing the total number of matches to be played on a home and away basis from 60 to 94. The greater workload for the players became a contentious issue after India’s poor performance in the World Twenty20 this year, with some suggesting their exit from the tournament was a consequence of a hectic IPL schedule.At the time, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, a member of the Governing Council, said they could consider reviewing the number of matches for the league next season. However, the franchises are opposed to a shorter tournament not only because playing fewer matches means the tournament will generate less revenue, but also because the original eight franchises only agreed to add the two new teams on the basis of more matches and a larger share of the pie.”If they roll back on the number of matches but the number of teams remains 10, it is unfair to all,” a franchise official said.The board and the teams met in June this year to discuss their respective concerns and the BCCI set up a three-man committee consisting of Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi to make recommendations to the board based on their discussions with team owners. Gavaskar, Shastri and Pataudi are all members of the IPL Governing Council. The committee is expected to present is recommendations to the Governing Council tomorrow. The rules for player regulations, however, are, unlikely to be determined until after the Champions League in September.The BCCI’s finance and marketing committees are also meeting. For the first time in its history, the board has solicited bids for corporate sponsorship of all international cricket played by India in India for the next three years. The previous period’s sponsorship rights were with World Sport Group, who sold the sponsorships on an individual tournament basis. Under the latest proposal, one company will become the exclusive sponsor of Indian cricket for the next three years.The board has received bids from ten companies, including Airtel, Idea Cellular, Karbonn Mobile and MicroMax, according to a BCCI statement. The bids will be opened at the marketing committee meeting in front of the bidders.”The reserve price has been fixed as Rs 2 crore ($428,815) per match.” BCCI chief-executive Ratnakar Shetty told

By the close of play in Barbados today, Ian Ward had batted for 32 hours for a total of 575 runs in the Busta Cup after his outstanding run of form continued with a third century in three matches.The England A opener put on 224 runs for the first wicket with Michael Powell and finished with an unbeaten 131 to put his side into a commanding position at the end of the first day’s play in the fourth round match against Barbados.He completed his century in just under four and a half hours making this third hundred of the tour his quickest so far. His previous two hundreds in Trinidad and Grenada took a total of 16 hours and but he has clocked up the equivalent of a day and a half at the crease since he arrived on tour.”It went very well and I feel really good,” said the weary Ward at stumps.”The runs seem to be coming easily at the moment but it helps when you have someone like Michael Powell at the other end. He played really well and it was unfortunate that he got out when he did. He plays the reverse sweep really well and had eyed up the field so he knew it was a shot that might work. But sometimes things don’t go to plan and I felt for him.”The Warwickshire captain, who learned the reverse sweep from his county coach Bob Woolmer, made a rash decision to play the shot when he was four runs short of his century but the ball rapped him on his pads, giving Barbados their first wicket of the day.Powell was upset at his failure to reach the hundred but said he was in good form and already looking forward to his next innings.”The reverse sweep is a shot I play a lot and although it was the first time I had played it in this game, I felt the way the field was set gave me an opportunity. I was not looking for four runs, just to get bat on ball but it didn’t work.”Three weeks ago I was in South Africa but now I am with England A with a 75 and 96 under my belt so I am confident the big one is just round the corner,” he commented attempting to contain his disappointment.

Earlier, England A skipper Mark Alleyne won the toss and chose to bat first on a pitch that offered opportunities for big scores. Without Aftab Habib and Graeme Swann who were both ruled out with injury, selectors decided to recall Nottinghamshire’s Usman Afzaal with Jonathan Lewis preferred to Ryan Sidebottom and Paul Franks as third seamer to Chris Silverwood and Alex Tudor.The opening pair got off to a blistering start making 63 runs in the first hour, helped by some expensive bowling from Barbados captain Ian Bradshaw, whose four overs went for 11 runs a piece.But the introduction of 19 year-old off spinner Ryan Austin into the attack saw England A slow their scoring rate and at lunch they were 97 without loss though Powell had survived a chance while on 33 when he was dropped at short leg off Austin.Both openers completed their half-centuries soon after the interval and Ward finally lost his partner after they had recorded the highest ever opening stand since England A started touring in 1989/90 with Darren Maddy and Michael Vaughan establishing a record of 151 against South Africa in Johannesburg in 1998/99.By the close, Vikram Solanki batting ahead of John Crawley, had added 25 runs to the total leaving England A in a strong position at the end of the first day at 266 .Manager James Whitaker paid tribute to Ward and said it had been a good day for England A.”It was a pretty good day – fantastic for Ian to get another hundred. Three games in between with an 86 sandwiched in between which is outstanding and Vikram did well to go in there at the end having waited around all day. We would have settled for 266 for one going into the second day.”His powers of concentration is the thing that stands out and the discipline and solidity he provides in the opening slot has injected a lot of confidence and determination in the rest of the guys in following suit.”