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Scorecard
India bounced back to level the series in the second one-dayer at Lucknow, but they made hard work of their run-chase after cruising in the early stages. Anjum Chopra was the star of the slow, surviving an injury scare to hit 71 and set up the four-wicket victory after England set them 163.Under gloomy skies, there was nothing miserable about Chopra’s bright knock even though play was held up at one stage for ten minutes after she flicked a leading edge into her face. But she carried on without further ado in her matchwinning innings. She was indeed the backbone, and with Monica Sumra she eased India to 95 before the first wicket fell. India were rolling along, but some tight bowling pegged them back before they finally edged home in the final over.The bowling wasn’t always on the button, though; sometimes it threatened to be more on the noggin. Rosalie Birch was particularly culpable, the ball twice slipped out of her hand and she delivered two no-balls which resulted in the rare indignity of a slow bowler being taken off for dangerous bowling.But if it was hard work for the bowlers, it was equally difficult for the batsmen on a dull pitch with low bounce. Nevertheless, England’s coach Richard Bates expected his charges to score 220 after opting to bat first. But their going was slow and it got tough early on when Amita Sharma knocked the stuffing out of the top order with three quick wickets. The middle order proved similarly wobbly.”We should have been able to bounce back from there, though,” said Bates, “our batting is full of depth.” Still, partnerships were hard to come by and wickets were given away, puncturing any momentum until Caroline Atkins, at No 6, and Beth Morgan at No 8 stitched the innings back up. Together they put on 62 for the eighth wicket.Jane Smit helped to rally the score, too – “the last three played sensibly, how the others should have done” Bates fumed – but even so, a total of 162 for 8 from 50 overs should never have posed too much of a problem. India weren’t helped by a pitch which broke up during their innings, but they paced their innings well.”We didn’t deserve to win,” said Bates, a sentiment echoed by England’s captain Charlotte Edwards. “Electing to bat first was OK,” she said, “but we did not play good shots. At 1-1 the series is nicely set up.”Mithali Raj, India’s captain, was relieved that her team had recovered from defeat in the opener to bring themselves back into the series. While Bates was left to rue England’s below-par performance, Raj was delighted that her side were firing on all cylinders. “It’s good that we did well in all departments of the game,” she said. The teams come together again on Sunday for the third of a five-match series which is wide open and up for the taking.

Scorecard

Aaron Redmond completed an impressive build-up to the first Test against England with 64 to go alongside his first-innings 146 as the New Zealanders secured a draw against England Lions at The Rose Bowl. Redmond added 150 with Jamie How before Adil Rashid caused a brief flutter with three quick wickets.Robert Key declared to leave a target of 368 off 75 overs, but that was never really in the equation. Unlike in the first innings the Lions attack couldn’t make any inroads with the new ball as Matthew Hoggard went wicketless in a six-over spell the day he was recalled to the England squad.Redmond and How made steady progress on an easy-paced pitch and the Lions quickly turned to the spin pair of Rashid and Graeme Swann. How’s 74 was an important innings after a duck in the first innings and two single-figure scores against Essex last week. Redmond, however, is striking form at just the right time with New Zealand’s top order set for a testing time at Lord’s.He reached his fifty with a slog-swept six off Swann and had time to complete a second century when he lofted Rashid to Hoggard. His wicket prompted a small stumble by the New Zealanders as Rashid enjoyed his most productive spell of the match. Rashid had How stumped before trapping Ross Taylor for a fourth-ball duck; Taylor’s four innings since arriving for the tour from the IPL have been 17, 4, 5 and 0.Despite the flurry of wickets there wasn’t time for the Lions to make a serious charge at victory, even though Chris Tremlett trapped James Marshall lbw shortly before the match ended. Key could have given his bowlers a few more overs to dismiss the tourists on a surface where runs only flowed quickly when Luke Wright was at the crease on the first day, and briefly on the final day when the Lions flung the bat. However, except when New Zealand took five wickets between lunch and tea on the opening day, wickets hadn’t fallen in a rush. With the England squad already named, the pace bowlers won’t have wanted to over-exert themselves with more Championship matches next week for their counties.Michael Carberry was able to resume his century following the early departure of Rashid in the morning session. He had to retire hurt on the third day after pulling up with severe cramp during the celebrations for his hundred, but he only added a further eight before being caught behind off Tim Southee. Swann flung the bat with good effect in his 41-ball 51 while Tremlett also added quick runs.The major positive to come out of the match for the New Zealanders is the performance of Redmond. The opening position has been a long-standing problem, but Redmond’s resilience suggests he won’t be pushover come the first Test and he has a good chance of surpassing his father’s one cap. Chris Martin also found some useful rhythm in both innings, but some of the other batsmen, notably Taylor, Daniel Flynn and Jacob Oram are short of time in the middle. There are also lingering concerns over Daniel Vettori’s finger, although the motivation of leading his team at Lord’s should allow him to overcome the pain barrier.

Uganda’s women will host their counterparts from Rwanda between October 12 and 14 in a series of warm-up games at Lugogo Cricket Oval.The matches are aimed at preparing the sides for the ICC Eastern Africa Regional women’s tournament which takes place in Nairobi this December. Four countries will participate – Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.Uganda and Rwanda were due to meet this weekend but the games were postponed. “Most of the Rwandese players are doing exams and their coach Eric Mbanga has requested us to postpone the series to next weekend,” a Uganda Cricket Association official told The Monitor.Uganda are the defending champions of the ICC Eastern Africa women’s regional tournament.

Brian Lara suggested that he would continue to bat low down the order if the situation demanded it, when he spoke to the media in a pre-match press conference ahead of their crunch semi-final against South Africa. “Things have worked well for us in the three games we played. First we set a target that Australia couldn’t get. Then in the last game we got 272 which people might say was 15-20 runs too few,” he said. “We had two centurions in that game and so we’re quite happy with the way the guys are expressing themselves irrespective of the batting order. We don’t know what’s the settled order, we’ve been unorthodox in this tournament and I can never say we’re going to have a fixed order.”Lara’s back continues to improve, and although it has not forced him out of a game in the tournament yet, he admitted he was not totally fit. “I’m a lot better. I’ve had a couple of days rest,” he said. “I didn’t bat too long in the last two games. I feel ok. I felt ok after those games. I’mnot 100% but getting over those games has given me the confidence to go on.”Lara looked back at the previous edition of the Champions Trophy, which his team won, and underscored its significance in West Indies’ development as a team. “Winning that tournament after the losses against England in the Tests home and away seven-nil,” he said. “The guys really wanted to win. We knew every day that we could be on a flight home the next day andwere desperate for a win. Beating England in the final did us a lot of good. Unfortunately we didn’t kick on from there.”Like Graeme Smith had done earlier in the day, Lara sought to underplay the bad blood between the two sides which has manifested itself in ugly on-field confrontations. “I just want to surround myself with the fact that we’re playing good cricket, and executing the tasks we need to reallywell,” he said. “We have dissected the South African cricket team and we know exactly what we want to do against them. In terms of bad blood and all that sort of fickle stuff I think it is unnecessary. We just need to take one game at a time.”Smith had talked in some detail about the cracks and fissures in the pitch, and the fact that his fast bowlers might get something from this, but Lara’s take was a bit different. “It’s a good pitch if you get set. Teams playing here have got good starts and then folded later on,” he said. “We have to take that into consideration. It’s hard to nail down any particular preference about the pitch, the surface or the surroundings. I still feel the team that plays better on the day is going to win, whoever bats first or bowls first is of little relevance.”The West Indies come into this game knowing they emerged from a group which was thought to be the tougher of the two, comprising teams like Australia. But Lara said there wasn’t anything to take from the fact that they had beaten the World Champions earlier in the tournament. “That is dead and buried now. What’s happened has happened and we have a different tournament ahead of us,” he said. “We have two matches left and we just have to take on the opposition in front of us. It’s good to have been in a tough group, and I know that Australia and India were the favourites to come out of it. But we were quietly confident of our ability to qualify.”In the last two times these teams have faced each other in big tournaments – the World Cup and the Champions Trophy – West Indies have come out on top. But Lara did not feel this gave them an advantage. “There’s no edge. I just feel that we’re playing good cricket. Beating South Africa in the opening match of the World Cup was a big game for us,” he said. “Then we were underdogs, in the Champions Trophy in 2004 we were underdogs, and here as well. Tomorrow, South Africa being a higher ranked team will start as favourites. But we know our game so much better now than at any other time of the year and even before.”

Pakistan’s players have been ruled out as suspects in the murder of Bob Woolmer, according to the deputy commissioner of Jamaican police. Mark Shields, the detective in charge, said: “It’s fair to say they are now being treated as witnesses.”I have got no evidence to suggest it was anybody in the squad,” he said in Australia’s Herald Sun. “There is still a very strong possibility that [Woolmer] knew the person or persons.”Shields said the players could be ordered back to the West Indies if the situation changed, but there were two diplomats from Pakistan’s Washington embassy representing the squad in Jamaica. “[The diplomats] were taken to the crime scene for the first time today,” Shields said. Pakistan left the Caribbean on Saturday and stopped over in London on their way home after exiting the World Cup in the first round.Shields said investigators were “nowhere near” being able to pinpoint potential suspects or name names and said reports of three fans who were wanted for questioning were “unhelpful”. The British press “are totally wrong with all due respect on this occasion,” Shields told a news conference. “The reality, as I’ve said before, is that there are many potential suspects in this investigation and even more potential witnesses, and we are nowhere near the stage of being able to start naming names in terms of suspects.”Shields was earlier quoted by saying detectives were trying to trace three Pakistani fans who socialised with players at Kingston’s Pegasus Hotel where Woolmer was strangled. The report said the three were believed to have left Jamaica shortly after Woolmer was found dead on March 18.CCTV footage from the 12th floor of the Pegasus Hotel is expected to help the investigators, who have started viewing the tapes of the day Woolmer was strangled. They have also begun to go through Woolmer’s laptop to see if anything on the hard drive can help their inquiries.Jeff Rees, the ICC anti-corruption chief investigator, is due to look at the report of Chris Broad, the ICC match referee, from the Ireland-Pakistan match to determine whether there is any link between the result and Woolmer’s death a day later. Shields said he was looking at the possibility the killing was connected to match-fixing, but stressed he was keeping all lines of inquiry open.

Rahul Dravid will watch from the sidelines as the Indians take on Rest ofSouth Africa in a four-day game at Potchefstroom that starts on Thursday, and he’ll haveplenty to assess from beyond the boundary as his team bids to inject somelife into a tour that has been an utter nightmare so far. Speaking to themedia ahead of the game, Dravid made no attempt to play down theimportance of the game, and expressed his disappointment at having to missout.”It’s good that it’s a four-day game,” he said. “Hopefully, there’ll betwo chances for us to bat, and the guys will get some time in the middle.The bowlers will also need to show intensity during long spells, and getinto Test-match mode.”I can’t fault the effort. As a group, we just haven’t played the bouncewell. It has a lot to do with the fact that we’ve come here with guys whoare out of form. That has accentuated the struggle.”Despite the heavy defeats in the one-day games – three drubbings by morethan 80 runs, and one nine-wicket defeat – Dravid insisted that the tourwas far from a lost cause. “We’ve got to remain positive,” he said. “Wehope this game will be the start of that. We know we can play much bettercricket than we showed in the ODIs. We won our last Test series in theWest Indies, and we’ll take some confidence from that. If the experiencedplayers get runs, we can put pressure on them and take 20 wickets.”Along with Dravid, Anil Kumble, Dinesh Karthik and Munaf Patel are restedfor the game, and the team management will choose between Gautam Gambhirand Irfan Pathan on the morning of the game. Sachin Tendulkar hasrecovered fairly well after Andre Nel caused bruising in a forearm boneduring the last ODI at Centurion, but there’s understandable concern atMunaf’s failure to recover in time from his ankle troubles.”It wasn’t progressing as well as it should,” said Dravid, when askedabout Munaf. “The surgeon in Cape Town had suggested that he might beready to play this game, but now we’ve sent him to Johannesburg foranother check-up. Anil [Kumble] has gone with him since he’s been herebefore for treatment. Hopefully, he’ll be ready for the first Test.There’s a whole week to go.”There were no worries about his own broken finger. “I’ve been knockingaround a little in the nets,” he said, “and I’m hopeful that I’ll play thefirst Test. Fielding in the slips will be a challenge, but Sachin’s beencatching beautifully there, and [VVS] Laxman will take his usual place at secondslip. I’ll start batting in the nets in a couple of days.”According to Dravid, the final composition of the XI for the tour gamewould be decided by the captain for the game, Laxman. “Wasim Jaffer and[Virender] Sehwag will open,” he said, when pressed about the opening positions. Andwhen asked where that left Gambhir, Dravid said: “If we play theextra batsman, he may play at No.3, unless Laxman wants to bat there.We’ll take a look tomorrow morning and then decide.”Dravid didn’t read too much into Sehwag being replaced as vice-captain,but talked of how he and Laxman would gel well together. “He has a goodhead on his shoulders,” he said. “We go back a long way. We can be frankwith each other, and he won’t be shy of telling me what to do.”Though the debate continues to rage on the subject, Dravid flat-batted away aquestion on the need for a bowling coach or consultant. “The batsmen wehave here have played in these conditions before. We know what lengths andlines to bowl. We’re clear about that. Zaheer [Khan] has been here before, andwe’ll tap into his experience. Anil has bowled all around the world, andwe’ll make use of his knowledge too.”India last sent an Under-19 or A team to these parts nearly five yearsago, and Dravid admitted that other international sides had stolen a marchover India in that regard. “Even if they don’t send A teams, mostcountries send players to MRF [Pace Foundation, Chennai] or to the CCI-runWorld Cricket Academy. Alastair Cook is a good example of a guy who hadplayed in India before coming out for the last Test tour. They’ve gotacclimatised to the conditions in the subcontinent, and there’s a case forlooking into such tours for young players. You can work up tie-ups withteams. Even a Ranji Trophy side could work out a reciprocal arrangementwith local associations elsewhere.”As expected, he was asked a question about Sourav Ganguly’s return to thefold. “We hope he’ll make runs for us,” said Dravid. “He has theexperience of these conditions to play match-winning innings for us.”It will take more than one man though to halt India’s slide on this tour.

A senior Indian politician, Digvijay Singh, has requested Sharad Pawar, the Indian board president, to stop opposing the Indian Cricket League and help promote it.”Instead of taking a confrontationist stand you should act as a facilitator for the ICL to succeed. I am sure the objective of the BCCI is not to make millions but to popularise the game of cricket,” wrote Singh, a general secretary of the ruling Congress party. “I am sure you will prevail upon the hardliners in the Board and make them understand sentiments of millions of cricket lovers in India.””I don’t know why he is pre-empting this. It’s almost like apartheid. The BCCI is there for cricket and cricketers and not to look after [its own] members only,” he told .Singh also stressed there was no hidden agenda in his letter, which was written in his personal capacity; he had, he said, written it as a cricket lover and not with the intention of taking on Pawar. He said he felt Pawar was being pressurised by his colleagues to take a confrontational stand towards the ICL.

Scotland have signed Ian Moran, an allrounder from New South Wales, to strengthen their squad ahead of their C&G Trophy campaign, which starts against Warwickshire on April 30.Moran joins Corey Richards, the NSW batsman, in the squad after a productive season playing grade cricket in Sydney. He scored 742 and took 38 wickets, finishing as the leading player, and although he has yet to feature in first-class he was part of the NSW Twenty20 squad.Peter Drinnen, the Scotland coach, said: “We need to give World Cup-qualified players every chance to perform. But we also need to be able to compete effectively in this first year of the new C&G Trophy format.”

Eleven first-class players have been named in the Australian Academy squad that is aiming to win the Emerging Players Tournament for the first time. The 17-man outfit, which begins its campaign with two Twenty20 games on the Sunshine Coast on Monday, has been boosted by the inclusion of Mark Cosgrove, the former one-day international, and Luke Ronchi and Brendan Drew, who are in Australia’s 30-man preliminary squad for the Twenty20 World Championships in South Africa.Cullen Bailey, the Cricket Australia-contracted legspinner, has been selected with New South Wales’ opening batsman Ed Cowan and the Western Australians Luke Pomersbach and Aaron Heal. The coaching contingent is also impressive with the national bowling mentor Troy Cooley working alongside the fielding expert Mike Young and assistant Dene Hills to back up the head coach Brian McFadyen.The World Cup winner Darren Lehmann is also part of the squad’s management and he will help prepare the players for the three Twenty20 and seven one-day fixtures against teams from South Africa, New Zealand and Karnataka in India. McFadyen said the tournament would test his men after they completed a 12-week preparation phase at the Centre of Excellence in Brisbane.”Many players have looked to expand their skill sets during the high-density training programme and we are excited about the prospect of improvement,” he said. “There is no doubt that they are all fitter and more advanced in all areas of their games than last year, so they enter this tournament with great confidence.”A side from India won the inaugural Emerging Players Tournament in 2005 while South Africa were successful last year. The event begins on Monday and finishes with the finals in Brisbane on July 28.Australian Academy squad Craig Philipson (Qld), Matthew Wade (Vic), Ben Cutting (Qld), Brendan Drew (Tas), Aaron Finch (Vic), Shawn Gillies (WA), Aaron Heal (WA), Luke Pomersbach (WA), Luke Ronchi (WA), Grant Sullivan (Qld), David Warner (NSW), Ed Cowan (NSW), Moises Henriques (NSW), Cullen Bailey (SA), Mark Cosgrove (SA), Michael Hill (Vic), Phillip Hughes (NSW).

Kenya 237 (Odoyo 53) beat Zimbabwe A 152 and 73 (Odoyo 5-31) by an innings and 12 runsKenya’s tour of Zimbabwe got off to an excellent start when they beat Zimbabwe A by an innings and 12 runs with more than a day to spare in the opening match of their brief visit.The first day ended with honours just about even. Zimbabwe won the toss and batted, but were almost immediately in trouble, slipping to 66 for 6 at lunch before recovering to 152 thanks to a last-wicket stand of 55 between Allan Mwayenga and Christopher Mpofu. Kenya found the going equally hard, sliding to 111 for 6 by the close.But on the second day, Kenya established an 85-run lead, thanks largely to Thomas Odoyo’s 53, and then skittled Zimbabwe A out for only 73, Odoyo leading the rout with five wickets. Zimbabwe A’s top order was again found wanting as they slumped to 29 for 5, with Dion Ebrahim, the most expereinced player in the side, collecting a pair.