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Hyderabad romped home to a facile 10 wicket win over visitors Goa onthe third and final day of the Cooch Behar Trophy South Zone Leaguematch at the Gymkhana Ground in Secunderabad on Thursday. Hyderabadcantered home after a superb spell of medium pace bowling by skipperArjun Yadav (5 for 39) in the Goan second innings to pick up overallmatch figures of 9 for 79 off 39.3 overs. Set a meagre 58 runs forvictory, Hyderabad reached the target safely thanks to a unbrokenstand between openers Avinash Pai (19) and T Suman (30).Goa in their second innings, started shakily when they lost both theiropeners S Asnodkar (7) and A Kolambkar (5) cheaply with only 19 on theboard. Then a 42 run fourth wicket stand ensued between S Panashkar(25) and S Kamat (26) taking the score on to 80. Stumps were drawnsoon after the fall of S Panashkar. Resuming the innings on the thirdday, Goa lost H Raza (0) to the third ball of the day. The Goaninnings then prolonged till lunch thanks to fighting half century bySuraj Kamat (59). Arjun Yadav who had figures 1 for 11 overnightcontinued the good work and ran through the Goan middle and lowerorder to leave the visitors at 163, a lead of just 57 runs.

MRF suffered a heartbreaking seven wicket defeat to IndianAirlines in the quarter finals of the KSCA Diamond JubileeTournament for the Coromandel Cement Trophy at the MChinnaswamy stadium on Tuesday despite piling up an imposing321/3. Their calculations were upset by a rain interruptionwhich revised their opponents’ target to 167 from 26 overs.Hemang Badani (man of the match) and Rajat Bhatia had putAirlines to the sword in the morning session but the latterhad the last laugh, cantering home with nine balls to spare onthe back of a classy knock from VVS Laxman.After MRF were put in to bat by Airlines skipper Vijay Dahiya,opener Aashish Kapoor stroked a rapid 25 from 23 balls beforehe fell to Javagal Srinath. Vineet Jain then sent backVenugopala Rao and Hrishikesh Kanitkar to leave MRF at 82/3 inthe 17th over. Tamil Nadu team mates Badani and Bhatia thenblasted an unbroken 239-run stand from 270 balls in two and aquarter hours. Badani helped himself to 143 (112 balls, 8fours, 5 sixes) while Bhatia galloped to 107 (113 balls, 6fours, 4 sixes).Chasing 322, Airlines began disastrously as Sriram Kannancastled Munish Sharma for a first ball duck. Arun Kumar andRavneet Ricky also flattered to deceive and IA foundthemselves in a pickle at 29/3 in the seventh over. Howeverjust over an hour into the chase, the heavens opened upleading to a stoppage for an hour and a quarter. When playresumed at 4.05 pm, Airlines were presented with a morecomfortable equation. Laxman and Dahiya extended theirassociation to an unbroken 138 and the victory was posted inthe penultimate over. Laxman remained undefeated on 95 (75balls, 4 fours, 6 sixes). Indian Airlines will square offagainst India Pistons in a three day semifinal at theChinnaswamy Stadium beginning August 11.

Darren Lehmann today became the greatest run-scorer in Australian domestic first-class cricket but what should have been a memorable day for the South Australian skipper turned out to be a day of disappointment.While Lehmann was surpassing his former skipper Jamie Siddons’ record of 10,643 Pura Cup/Sheffield Shield runs, his team was crashing to an outright defeatinside three days against a Victorian side which coming into this match had failed to collect a point all season.Despite having use of the best batting conditions of the match, South Australia could only make 303 in its second innings today as every batsman failed to convert their start into a big score, including Lehmann.That left Victoria needing only 128 to claim the six points to lift itself off the bottom of the table which it easily achieved with nine wickets to spare thanks to 70 not out from Jason Arnberger and 45 from Matthew Elliott.Lehmann and Greg Blewett were always going to be the key wickets for the Bushrangers today but like so many of their teammates both got out just as theyappeared set to produce big innings.Blewett was the first victim of the day, brilliantly taken one-handed by Elliott at first slip off the bowling of Ian Harvey for 41 in the first of what would be three catches for the day for the Bushrangers vice-captain.That brought Lehmann to the crease with the left-hander needing just 17 runs to break Siddons’ record.But after reaching the mark effortlessly, which he acknowledged by raising his bat to a small but appreciative MCG crowd, he departed just nine runs later on 26 when he cut Mick Lewis straight to the safe hands of Elliott at gully.And for Lehmann that took some of the gloss of his record-breaking day.”It was nice to get it (the record) out of the way but I was one of the batters that just didn’t score enough runs,” he said.With Lehmann and Blewett gone and the Redbacks still 17 runs short of making Victoria bat again, the Redbacks had little chance of batting their way back into the match even though stubborn resistance was provided by Ben Higgins, Nathan Adcock and bowlers Brad Young and Mike Smith.But crucially all four were dismissed between 40 and 60 when the Redbacks desperately needed at least one batsman to go and make a big hundred and put some pressure back on the Victorians.For Victorian skipper Paul Reiffel the victory was a major relief after a disastrous start to the season.”We have been copping a fair bit of criticism which is never good,” he said.”But I felt that performance has been coming, we’ve been slowly working towards it.”The win lifted Victoria above Tasmania on the points table and into fifth position on six points with South Australia now in fourth place and only two points ahead of the Bushrangers.

Match facts

Wednesday, July 15
Start time 1500 local (0900 GMT)1:51

Are South Africa missing AB de Villiers?

Big picture

Two one-sided matches, with the teams batting first folding for similar scores and losing by big margins, have given the third ODI at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium the status of a final. After their seven-wicket win in the second game, Bangladesh could not have found a better time to discover a way to beat South Africa.Sunday at the Shere Bangla National Stadium was only the second time Bangladesh defeated South Africa at the international stage. It was a clinical performance from the home bowlers, who teamed up well under Mashrafe Mortaza to bowl out South Africa under 200. The visitors had dished out a similar meal in the first ODI when Kagiso Rabada took a hat-trick in his six-for on ODI debut.With both teams getting bowled out in the 160s in the first two games, the pitch in Mirpur was questioned. Some players said it was two-paced, but it was actually not any different from how it usually is. In Chittagong, however, the wicket is likely to be flatter and better for batting, which would mean a lot of the onus will be on the side batting first.South Africa chased well in the first game but looked slightly directionless in the second, partly due to AB de Villiers’ absence. The visitors had eight partnerships between 16 and 29 on Sunday, but none of them kicked on to define the innings. Three batsmen – Faf du Plessis, David Miller and JP Duminy – got out softly in their attempt to chip the bowler.Bangladesh had their own batting troubles, but Soumya Sarkar and Mahmudullah calmly guiding them to the win that gave Mashrafe and Chandika Hathurusingha momentary relief. The decider could go either way as the visitors have lost some of the momentum and lustre from the first three games on this tour.

Form guide

Bangladesh: WLLWW
South Africa: LWLWW

Players to watch

Soumya Sarkar batted with ease after battling an initial rough period in the second ODI. With constant talk about his irregularity in converting good starts, he will have a big role to play in the decider.Hashim Amla has not had a longer fifty-less streak in ODIs in the last seven years than his current run of six games. Wednesday could be the occasion to break the streak.

Team news

The win on Sunday could keep Bangladesh unchanged, but a more positive mentality could bring the discussion of an extra bowler into the fray.Bangladesh (possible): 1 Tamim Iqbal, 2 Soumya Sarkar, 3 Litton Das, 4 Mahmudullah, 5 Mushfiqur Rahim, 6 Shakib Al Hasan, 7 Sabbir Rahman, 8 Nasir Hossain, 9 Mashrafe Mortaza 10 Rubel Hossain, 11 Mustafizur RahmanSouth Africa do not have a spare batsman, so their current top seven will have to make amends for Sunday’s failure. They are likely to trust the same bowling attack.South Africa (possible): 1 Hashim Amla (capt), 2 Quinton de Kock (wk), 3 Faf du Plessis, 4 Rilee Rossouw, 5 David Miller, 6 JP Duminy 7 Farhaan Behardien, 8 Chris Morris, 9 Kyle Abbott, 10 Kagiso Rabada, 11 Imran Tahir

Pitch and conditions

There is not much a difference between the pitches across Bangladesh, so the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium will be expected to favour batsmen and spinners. The average score batting first is 260-plus. There is a 50% chance of shower on match day.

Stats and trivia

• Hashim Amla, JP Duminy and bowling coach Charl Langeveldt played South Africa’s only game at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium.
• Hometown boy Tamim Iqbal has the most runs (391) at this ground, while Shakib Al Hasan has the most wickets (27).

Quotes

“This (decider) is big no doubt because we haven’t achieved such things before. Whenever you go to achieve something you haven’t then it will obviously seem big. We haven’t beaten South Africa in a series before so this is a big deal.”

If Peter Nevill’s Ashes record of seven catches on debut were an indicator of his skills behind the stumps, it was his reaction to the one he was denied that showed the Test match temperament of a far more seasoned gloveman.All of Australia’s players and many around Lord’s felt that the low edge offered by Jos Buttler on the third afternoon had whirred straight into Nevill’s outstretched right glove, and that it was glove, not ball, that had scraped the turf as his momentum carried him downwards.When the third umpire Chris Gaffaney’s verdict of not out was relayed via the big screen, the Australians looked notably annoyed, and the captain Michael Clarke was seen to remonstrate with the on-field officials. Such moments can throw a fielding team off the scent, much as Brad Haddin’s drop of Joe Root in Cardiff was followed by a critical half-hour of profligate bowling.Nevill, however, was equanimity personified. As the huddle dispersed, he bore not a grimace or a snarl but the studious look of a man intent on ensuring that a moment’s frustration would not linger. Sure enough, Buttler soon gave another chance, this time a thin edge from a Nathan Lyon off-break that ran across him down the slope. Had he been lost in a fog of what might have been, Nevill might easily have grassed it. Instead he hung onto the best of his snaffles for the match. It was a model display of focus.”With those catches it felt it went straight in and those things just happen in such a short amount of time,” Nevill said of the catch that wasn’t. “It’s a split second type of thing and I felt it go in, but unfortunately it’s just taken a bit of grass.”Especially when you’re diving like that and the ball is coming as fast as it was it tends to if you catch it there, even though you’ve felt it go in, the pace tends to turn your hand a touch and you saw on the replay when you saw it brush a bit of grass but it was great to be able to get that wicket shortly after.”I don’t think anybody did worry about it for too long. I suppose guys are used to refocusing especially in cricket. Any sort of thing can happen on the field. You can play a bad shot, you can get hit for a boundary you cannot bowl the ball where you want to bowl it. All that matters is the next ball and re-focusing and everyone was able to do that quite well.”Nevill had thought his duties on this tour would extend only as far as a couple of tour matches, plenty of training and still more drinks duty – the lot of a reserve wicketkeeper. But family concerns for Haddin pitched him into the midst of the Ashes, and from behind the stumps he had an ideal vantage point to witness the destruction wrought by Mitchell Johnson and company.”The nerves were fine leading up until the day before,” Nevill said, “And then I think Michael Clarke asked me if I was nervous and I said I wasn’t and then he goes ‘well don’t worry mate that’ll come this afternoon’. He was right.”Seeing Mitchell Johnson in full flight, wicketkeeping is a great place to be when he’s got his tail up. I’m sure it’s a lot more fun than batting against him. I think him and Starcy both at times bowled very quick and when Jono was bowling and really had his tail up, he was hitting the gloves very hard.”Having experienced the emotional highs of Lord’s, Nevill will now turn out alongside Haddin in the tour match against Derbyshire. The pair are the friendliest of rivals, demonstrated by the fact that Haddin and his wife Karina had a bottle of champagne sent to Nevill’s hotel room by way of congratulations.”Brad has always been really supportive of me and even this week he’s been great when you completely understand if his mind was elsewhere,” Nevill said. “He and Karina sent a bottle of champagne to my room just to say congratulations on making your Test debut. He’s just a genuinely lovely person.”And should Nevill find himself back in the drink runners’ seats for the third Test at Edgbaston, the way he handled the Buttler catch may come in handy again. There will be no cussing over losing his place, just calm acceptance of events and a resolve to make the next chance count.”I was picked on this tour as Brad’s back up,” he said. “I don’t think anything has changed in that respect.”

Stuart Law has said that his love for influencing a young player’s technique has brought him to Bangladesh for a second time. On this occasion he will work as the technical advisor to the Bangladesh Under-19 team who are preparing for the World Cup in early next year.Appointed earlier this month, Law will be with the programme for a total of 16 weeks, which he will complete in three phases. He arrived in Dhaka on Monday evening and will accompany the team for the first phase of training from August 29 to September 10 and will stay on for a duration of four weeks. The team will play some practice matches but the focus will be more on training at the Sheikh Abu Naser Stadium.Law was the head coach of Bangladesh’s senior side for nine months from June 2011 to the end of March 2012. He also worked with Sri Lanka and Australia, and also had stints with Australia’s Under-19 side after leaving the Bangladesh job.”I loved working with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Australia national teams,” Law said. “It is a different challenge to get a player who is around 16 to 19, offer them advice, see them take it on board and put it into practice. It gives me more of a buzz than I used to get hundreds. Bangladesh Under-19 is my team. I don’t like losing, so I want to see them be the best I can be. If by chance, with good hard work and some luck, we can lift the trophy at the end of February, I will be very happy.”Since leaving Bangladesh, I worked with Australia’s burgeoning young players. They aren’t as physically matured. You have to take a different approach. You need to be having fun to play the best cricket. It seems some of these young guys have worked that out already. I am not here to change anything. I am here to help the system the way it is at the moment. They have got the plan in place. I am just here to add value to the plan.”The age-group side has been doing well since the last World Cup that was held in January 2014 in the UAE. Under the coaching of Mizanur Rahman Babul, the Bangladesh Under-19s have won three one-day series against Sri Lanka and South Africa. They recently beat South Africa 5-2 in South Africa. The results prompted the BCB into appointing Law as the technical advisor, but he believes that the pressure of playing the World Cup at home can be contained by doing the basics well.”There is always pressure when you are playing at home,” Law said. “They have to learn to deal with the pressure if they choose to play cricket as their profession. It is nothing compared to the pressure they have to face in international cricket. It is nice that the Bangladesh public expect the Bangladeshi teams to do really well. It is a credit to the team that they have done well in the recent past. We have to forget about winning the thing and worry about the basics.”Bangladesh have won the Plate championship in the Under-19 World Cup in 1998, 2004, 2010 and 2014 but have never reached the semifinals of the Cup phase. Expectations this time around, especially playing at home, will be of them to lift the main title for the first time.Law said that it can’t be done overnight but the progress of the current team has been encouraging enough for him to not change anything. “To make a champion team is a difficult challenge. It is not all down to one person either. As long as the players continue to work hard and coaches continue to nurture the talent and not try to make it too difficult and try not to change too many things.”There’s no magic formula that can be used to make a world champion team. It all comes down to good, honest hard work and performing well on each day. The game is not about winning. It is about turning up and doing your best every day.”

Australia’s team performance manager Pat Howard concedes it is a “fair question” to ask whether the Ashes tourists underestimated England ahead of and during a series Michael Clarke’s side were widely expected to win. That they have not, despite dominating the Lord’s and Oval Tests, will cause Howard to review events closely.However Howard defended the selectors Rod Marsh and Darren Lehmann for a range of decisions including the omission of Brad Haddin after he withdrew from Lord’s for personal reasons. He also backed up the choice to give Haddin and Shane Watson only one Test in England before being discarded while ignoring Peter Siddle’s English expertise until the Ashes urn had gone.Even so, Howard was unable to say that the players fully understood and accepted the various contentious selection decisions that had been made across the tour. The public utterances of Mitchell Johnson and Chris Rogers, among others, strongly suggested they have not, while on the third evening of the Oval Test Peter Siddle expanded on his own dismay at being left out in conditions he has always thrived in.

Pat Howard on:

The Haddin decision: “I was part of conversation, the lead up, I absolutely 100% support what the selection panel did. I understand the emotion involved, I understand to a certain extent. Hadds is a great bloke. There is an emotional attachment there but they have also got to make decisions in the best interests of the team and Lord’s the team played really, really well and as a consequence they decided to keep that team together. I am very comfortable with that.”
Dropping Watson and Haddin after one Test: “They were given a chance. Over a period of time, and I back exactly, I know all the conversations had with selectors, we had all the contract meetings leading up to this, so those conversations were had about the expectations. Lets take that last six months in context. It was pretty tumultuous, into the World Cup, into there, the opportunity to lead guys through and talk to them a lot was had. I can guarantee you that I was aware of some meetings, I was in other meetings that happened where ‘here is the expectation, you need to deliver, here are your chances’ so I absolutely support exactly what the selectors did.”
No allrounder at Trent Bridge: “They [the selectors] made a decision collectively that they needed an extra batsman and to be fair to them it was tough batting conditions so you understand the decision. If you go down to each individual decision everyone has a view but you can’t ever go and argue the other side because you never know if you would have been better or worse without the other person. The reality is when we’ve scored big runs, we’ve had something to defend, we’ve bowled well together and the team has worked well.”
Being bowled out for 60: “Funnily enough, my first game involved with Cricket Australia was at Cape Town and at nine for 21… One of the things you learn from that is you don’t panic, you can turn it around very quickly if you’ve got the capability and talent. We do have the capability and the talent and I’m really excited about what this team is capable of, not only here – they’re showing that – but also in the future.”

Overall, the major question confronting Howard is whether Australia’s players, coaches, selectors and planners underestimated the difficulty of winning in England and the degree of adaptation required. The shot selection of the batsmen and the composition of the bowling attack seemed to suggest an attitude that the Australian way would prosper, something utterly repudiated by the scores in Birmingham and Nottingham.”That’s a really fair question,” Howard said when asked if Australia became complacent about England due to recent success. “Last time we won here was 2001. There’s some pretty good teams that have come here that haven’t won. We’ve won the World Cup many times since we’ve actually been here and won.””You have to play your best against the big teams away. In South Africa we’ve had some success, because I think it’s similar conditions, but particularly in the subcontinent and in England we have to adapt and adjust. When we haven’t done it… we haven’t got the results.”Ultimately, in the first Test, third Test and fourth Test when we had opportunities to put some good runs on or fight harder or score even a reasonable total we didn’t. When you get down to the core of that, that becomes our capability issue – and we didn’t turn up.”We definitely have capability. That is why we run Australia A – and we saw some good success from those guys in there – to try and build capability to adapt, and rewarding that ‘adaptability’ for want of a better term. We don’t want to underestimate anyone in foreign conditions, because we’ve obviously got to be able to turn up and adapt to playing in Chittagong and Dhaka, because we’ve seen other countries go there and Bangladesh are improving.”Australia have been trying to work on adapting to foreign climes ever since the changes wrought by the Argus review in 2011, and as part of that the Australia A team’s touring schedule has been ramped up. They were in England in 2012 and the following year, and this year have been in India. Howard said Australia’s Ashes pratfalls had to be addressed quickly, given the likelihood of similar conditions in New Zealand next year.”We know we’re going to get these same wickets in New Zealand come the end of the summer, so they’re going to come again,” he said. “We’re going to have to play better against them, and we’re going to have to continue to improve. It’s about getting opportunities to improve, because in between those two Tests we’ve got eight in between, and getting yourself prepared during that whole time to be able to focus on different formats and different conditions.”Our adaptability is something we genuinely acknowledge that no matter where we are in the world we’ve got to get better at, and that’s something that all countries need to deal with. The teams that adapt best away are highest in the rankings. We’re second in the world, but that’s not acceptable and we accept the criticisms that go with it.”Howard denied that Australian cricket now needed a repeat review on the scale of that conducted by Don Argus four years ago, but acknowledged that coaching, support staff and selection all needed to be reviewed, as they were following a heavy defeat against Pakistan in the UAE late last year.”I don’t think a wholesale review, but we do need to critically analyse because we need to have done some things better, we didn’t adapt well enough,” he said. “I will have to review and report on this series and work with the team to do that. Considering where we are ranked in the world in all formats , we’ve won a World Cup, I think you’d have to say that the overall system is in good shape, we play well at home but we do not play well enough away and that is where we have to adapt and improve.”Ultimately if the board decides to go for a big review that’s fine but the first bit is we review internally we have got some external guys we use to add to that and then we make decisions. Ultimately the next time we come back here is 2019 and that’s off the back of a World Cup and we will have to put things in place for that.”Howard, Lehmann, his support staff and the selection panel are all under contracts of various lengths, most concluding in either 2016 or 2017. Most were awarded extensions in the wake of Australia’s 5-0 home Ashes sweep two summers ago, but Howard must now consider whether different staff and approaches are needed to generate success on shores both familiar and foreign.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsSikandar Raza struck five fours and a six in a determined 113-ball 86•Zimbabwe Cricket

Afghanistan leveled the series against Zimbabwe with a three-wicket win in the fourth one-day international at Queens Sports Club, with Mohammad Shahzad’s 80 setting up their pursuit of Zimbabwe’s 184 for 8. Afghanistan appeared to be cruising to the win while Shahzad was at the crease, but in spin-friendly conditions they laboured over the latter stages of their chase, slipping from 119 for 1 to 178 for 7 before 17-year-old legspinner Rashid Khan sealed the match with a six over long-off.They might have been chasing an even lower total had it not been for Sikandar Raza’s gritty 86. Only two other Zimbabwe batsmen crossed 20 as Afghanistan’s disciplined approach with the ball stifled the top order. Zimbabwe had stumbled to 82 for 6 before Raza and Luke Jongwe cobbled together a recovery with their 65-run partnership, which was the highest of the innings. Raza battled cramp and a withering blow to the groin as he hobbled through his knock, boosting Zimbabwe to a total that was never quite defendable.It looked woefully under par when Afghanistan’s openers, Shahzad and Noor Ali Zadran, cruised past fifty without offering the bowlers a chance. The opening stand was only broken at 72, in the 18th over, when Noor Ali cut left-arm spinner Chisoro to Elton Chigumbura. But it was Shahzad who had led the early charge, as he usually does, and he brought up a 60-ball fifty in the 20th over. He had also marched past 1000 ODI runs for Afghanistan in the process, and continued merrily on his way, swiping fours and sixes off Chisoro and Wellington Masakadza, Zimbabwe’s other left-arm spinner.At the other end, Mohammad Nabi got going in a similarly aggressive mode, and his first boundary was a straight six down the ground off legspinner Tino Mutombodzi. Afghanistan raced past 100, with well over half of the innings still to go, and in desperation Chigumbura turned back to opening bowler Luke Jongwe. He duly picked up a wicket with his third ball back into the attack, Nabi top-edging to mid-on, where Masakadza held onto a catch despite colliding with Tinashe Panyangara.When Shahzad skied a catch to Raza, running back from midwicket in the next over, Afghanistan were 119 for 3 and wobbling slightly. Suddenly Zimbabwe buzzed with energy in the field, and reinvigorated bowlers repeatedly beat the outside edge. Chisoro was the pick of the bunch, and relentless pressure from his end eventually resulted in the dismissal of Nawroz Mangal, who gloved a sweep to Craig Ervine at slip.Afghanistan were 133 for 4 then, needing only 52 to win, and Asghar Stanikzai hurried them closer by attacking the leg-side boundary off both the spinners and the quicks. Again, victory appeared a formality but when Samiullah Shenwari and Shafiqullah fell in consecutive overs, nerves began to set in. Zimbabwe scrapped for every run, and with seven needed Stanikzai was bowled by Sean Williams for 32 to reduce the visitors to 178 for 7. Zimbabwe were into the tail, but Afghanistan’s tailenders hit the ball as hard as their top order and Rashid sealed the match with a huge blow off Williams.Shahzad later said that the side took heart from the presence of allrounders in the side to recover from batting collapses. “It’s a part of the game. Sometimes, the middle order collapses and sometimes the top order collapses,” Shahzad said after the match. “We’ve had batting collapses in the last two matches, so it’s no problem because we have a lot of batting allrounders. We never feel like the match is getting out of hand because we know that one more batsman is there in the pavilion.”Had Zimbabwe been able to scrape themselves past 200, they might have been able to apply greater pressure but their top order was scuppered by Afghanistan’s committed effort. Their top four were all back in the pavilion inside the first 15 overs, and there was relentless pressure as Raza and Chigumbura were able to score just 24 off the next ten overs. A ball-watching Chigumbura was then run out for 15, and an over later Mutombodzi’s stumping left Zimbabwe in serious trouble at 82 for 6.Raza and Jongwe carried the side slowly past 100 in the 35th over, and Raza began to open up as he approached his fifty. He reached the mark with a six and a four off Shenwari in the 39th over, but he was already limping by then and the physio had been called out to attend to a problem in his right leg during the drinks break. He lost Jongwe in the 45th over, caught in the deep for 22, and was then left writhing on the ground when he was struck by a quick delivery from Dawlat Zadran in the 48th over. He bravely weathered the blow, and his own fatigue, to run five twos and a three before he was eventually dismissed by the penultimate ball of the innings for 86. Unfortunately for Zimbabwe, his efforts were all in vain.

Five players from each of the two suspended teams, Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals, will be allowed to be picked by the two new franchises for the next two years of the IPL, which will continue to remain an eight-team tournament until 2017. The ten players will be picked through a draft system from a pool of 50, with the remaining names going into the auction. The original retention rule of allowing the franchises to pick a maximum of four capped Indian players will be applicable to the two new teams, too.The IPL franchises were told about the decisions on Wednesday during a meeting with the BCCI in Delhi. The BCCI, franchises were informed, will finalise the terms and conditions for the bid document at the annual general meeting in Mumbai on November 9, and by the first half of December the two new franchises will be unveiled. At its working committee meeting on October 18, the BCCI had decided to invite bids for two new franchises after the Lodha committee, investigating the 2013 IPL corruption scandal, had suspended the owners of Super Kings and Royals in July.Rajiv Shukla (IPL chairman), Anurag Thakur (BCCI secretary) and Sundar Raman (IPL chief operating officer) represented the BCCI while the franchises mostly sent their chief executives, with the exception of Kings XI Punjab, which was represented by Mohit Burman, one of the co-owners.The BCCI also revealed that all major cities, barring the home cities of the six franchises, will be available for the successful bidders to choose from as their home venue.According to a franchise official who attended the meeting, Chennai and Jaipur still remained firm favourites and that will be an advantage for the two new franchises. “It is logical [to include Chennai and Jaipur] because this arrangement is only for two years. It is a bit of the incentive for the two new temporary teams because the fan base is already established in these two cities.”Some of the franchises had expressed strong concerns over the league expanding into a ten-team event as that would automatically impact their valuation. “If somebody buys the new team for $100 million then that becomes the benchmark. In IPL there has never been a benchmark. So if in 2018 the IPL decides to stick to ten teams, then the new benchmark would be $100 million, around which the rest of us would need to hover,” a franchise official said.Another issue, the official pointed out, based on the experience in 2011 when the IPL was a ten-team event, was that the schedule went haywire with 74 matches, including several double-headers, leaving not just the franchises, but also the broadcasters and the BCCI in a lot of distress.Franchises were also told that the two new franchise owners will be picked from the reverse bidding process, which means the investor who bids for the lowest share of the IPL’s central revenue will get the ownership rights.

Calcutta, March 15: Mumbai, took a stranglehold in their match againstBengal on the third day of their Ranji Trophy encounter here today.Chasing a victory target of 380 in their second innings, Bengal were67 for the loss of four wickets at stumps. It would now take a superhuman effort on the part of the remaining batsmen to bat out theentire day tomorrow on a pitch that is helping the bowlers.Bengal have themselves to blame for such a position now. Losing thematch outright would mean the failure to add anything to their tallyof 13 points. A situation they are facing because of a decision toplay on an under-prepared wicket. It means that Karnataka who have 11points will be able to make it to last eight stage even if they failto get the first innings lead against Delhi. They would get threepoints which would be sufficient enough to take their tally to 14 andpip Bengal to the second spot in the group. The Bengal think tankshould have realised that on a pitch that would help bowlers, theMumbai team would be better off as they have more variety in theirattack.It was the day of Romesh Powar. The 21-year old playing in his secondRanji Trophy match blasted the Bengal attack after they had done wellto reduce Mumbai to 172 for six at lunch. Powar, in a 77-ball blitz,raced to 92 then finally put the match out of Bengal’s reach. He hit14 boundaries and six over midwicket of Sourashis Lahiri and lookeda strong player of the back foot. In the process he added 104 runs forthe eighth wicket with Rajesh Pawar who scored 30. The latter wasfinally dismissed by Lakshmi Ratan Shukla who had the batsman caughtbehind. Powar on the other hand fell trying to force the pace. Hetried to cut the other Bengal medium pacer Abdul Masood only to becaught by Chatterjee at point.For Bengal Vishal Yadav finished with four wickets, while Shukla,Masood and off-spinner Sourashis Lahiri finished with two apiece. WhenBengal batted, it was Powar’s turn to strike with the ball. Hedismissed the first three Bengal batsmen mixing up his off-spin withthe one that straightens up. Deep Dasgupta and Devang Gandhi bothfailed to read it and were caught plumb in front. Bothe however, madethe cardinal sin of going on to the back foot on a pitch where theball kept low. Powar then tempted Shukla into a drive. The batsmanfailed to keep the ball down and was caught by the bowler himself. Atthe period, Powar spell was 8-2-15-3. The other wicket went to RajeshPawar, who had Srikkanth Kalyani leg before. At stumps Saba karim andRohan Gavaskar on seven apiece were trying to save a match that hadalready slipped from their grasp.