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Virat Kohli has said India batsman Rohit Sharma has the potential to captain the side one day. Kohli’s potential as a future captain of India received another tick with a 5-0 whitewash of Zimbabwe in the recently concluded ODI series and he cited Rohit as a contender to step into MS Dhoni’s shoes.Kohli and Suresh Raina have, in the recent past, captained India in Dhoni’s absence in certain tours. Rohit had enhanced his captaincy credentials when he led Mumbai Indians to the 2013 IPL title and is still establishing a permanent place in India’s limited-overs sides.”Rohit has a tremendous cricketing brain,” Kohli said at an event in Lucknow. “I often take his advice during matches. He has shown his capability while leading Mumbai Indians in the IPL.”Kohli, who was nominated for the Arjuna award on Tuesday, has amassed 332 runs in 8 matches as captain, including two centuries. The first, an attacking 102 off 83 balls, sparked a turnaround that helped India win the West Indies tri-series in July. He is second only to Shikhar Dhawan among India’s representatives in the top-five run scorers for ODIs this year.”I like to be a captain and take responsibility,” Kohli said. “As batsmen, we focus only on ourselves. But as a captain we have to look into every aspect. We have to deal with each and every player. Though the responsibility increases manifold it is a great challenge.”

The Pakistan Cricket Board’s interim chairman Najam Sethi has said cricket in the country has reached its lowest point because of the recent string of defeats and the various controversies that have plagued it recently.Pakistan lost all their three matches in the Champions Trophy last month, four of its cricketers have been banned on spot-fixing charges, teams have been refusing to tour Pakistan since the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team in 2009, one of its international umpires – Nadeem Ghauri – has been banned on corruption charges and board president Zaka Ashraf has been suspended by the Islamabad High Court on the grounds of a “dubious” election.”Our cricket has reached the lowest ground,” Sethi said. “We are not winning matches. We are facing allegations of cheating with our players and an umpire being banned, and teams are refusing to tour, so we need to address all that.”Pakistan last hosted a series in March 2009, when a terrorist attack cut the Test series against Sri Lanka short. All Full Member nations have refused to tour the country since then on security grounds. However, Sethi said he is in talks with a few cricket boards and the ICC, and is hopeful of a positive result.”Every country needs assurances on security, and until and unless we give them those they will not tour,” he said. “I have talked to the England and West Indies boards regarding [them] sending unofficial teams, so that we can make a beginning. I have assured the ICC and other countries that a new government has taken over and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is determined to root out terrorism. Based on that they agreed to review our situation, provided things really improve.”The maximum we can do is ask the ICC to review [the situation] after one year, but they demand assurances and demonstrable progress.”Four Test players – Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Amir and Danish Kaneria – are currently serving bans for their involvement in spot-fixing. Salman Butt apologised and confessed publicly recently, and a five-member ICC sub-committee has been formed to look into relaxing certain conditions of the five-year ban imposed on Amir. The committee was formed after the PCB had requested the ICC to consider a few concessions for the young, left-arm fast bowler. Sethi is hopeful that his ban will be relaxed.”I have discussed Amir’s ban with my colleagues in the PCB and we will soon hire a foreign lawyer in the UK to look at ways to get at least 20% relief for Amir,” Sethi said. “I stressed that the international community needed to review his case and I am hopeful that Amir will get the relaxation.”

ScorecardRory Burns fell 15 short of a century but did enough to stave off defeat•PA Photos

Surrey awoke from the inexplicably ghastly nightmare of losing seven first-innings wickets for 12 runs in 11 overs to secure the draw that at least buys them a bit of breathing space. But with only Derbyshire below them and the halfway stage of the Championship programme almost reached, it is hard to predict anything other than a fight against relegation.Signings continue to be made. Australia’s Glenn Maxwell will arrive for at least part of the T20 programme while Surrey expect to confirm the capture of South Africa’s JP Duminy for the last two months of the four-day campaign early next week.What they need above all else, though, is a Championship victory after seven matches without success. That spirit-lifting outcome was an impossibility here once Warwickshire ploughed on beyond 600. And but for a more disciplined second-innings effort, built around Rory Burns’ three-hour occupation, a desperately embarrassing defeat might have ensued.As it was, the pitch proved simply too bland for Warwickshire to pressurise Surrey into another implosion. The defending champions were further hampered by the absence of fast bowler Chris Wright, who sat out the final day with a flu-like illness, and they could also point to the potentially crucial loss of 37 overs to rain on the third morning.But unlike Surrey, who were left thanking the heavens for small mercies, the visitors can rightly claim to have taken a good step forward at Woodbridge Road. Their injury list is starting to shorten, with opener Ian Westwood and allrounder Keith Barker not only returning to action here but also making excellent contributions.Even better, Warwickshire have produced just the batting response coach Dougie Brown wanted after they were routed for 128 and 140, by Yorkshire, on their last outing. Retaining the title looks a tall order right now (they have only one victory from seven matches, compared to four at the same stage last season) but it is not an impossible task by any means.The Bears were growling all right this morning, having stunned Surrey through the previous evening’s Boyd Rankin-inspired burst. And it took them less than half an hour to claim the final three wickets, which left the hosts to follow-on an almighty 357 behind.Chris Tremlett, defending tentatively on the crease, edged Rankin before Ricky Ponting – deciding he might as well go on the offensive – and Jade Dernbach perished to Barker’s left-arm quicks.On a pitch which had yielded 863 runs for the first 11 wickets, Surrey’s last seven had gone down for an undistinguished dozen. No wonder their followers were less than happy and no doubt wishing that next month’s forum could be brought forward a few weeks.At least there was a bit of cheer for the faithful second time around. With nothing more than slow turn to encourage spinners Jeetan Patel and Ateeq Javid, Warwickshire could only prod and probe for weaknesses during lengthy spells.It was Rikki Clarke, though, who denied opener Burns what would have been a worthy century, finding the outside edge with a real ‘effort’ ball just before tea. And when Patel claimed a second victim during the early stages of the final session, via Zander de Bruyn’s bat-pad catch to silly point, the visitors rightly extended their victory bid well into the final hour.There was no shifting Ponting a second time, however, and he at least is earning his corn.As for that elusive first win, Surrey’s director of cricket, Chris Adams, insisted: “We’ve competed in every game without managing to pull it together with both bat and ball for an entire four days. But I don’t think we are far away. I feel we are really close to bringing it together and putting in that performance.”

ScorecardKyle Coetzer struck 26 fours and a six in his unbeaten innings•ICC/Helge Schutz

Kyle Coetzer hit an unbeaten 150 to put Northamptonshire into a strong position at the end of the first day of their Championship Division Two game against Leicestershire at Grace Road. The knock was a Championship-best for the 29-year-old opening batsman, who had scored only 133 runs in his previous nine innings.Andrew Hall also made an unbeaten half-century as top-of-the-table Northants reached the close on a healthy 320 for 4 after being put into bat.The century was the seventh of Coetzer’s career and his second for Northants, who he joined two years ago. The first also came against Leicestershire, last season. But the bottom-of-the-table hosts had only themselves to blame for allowing Northants to take such an early grip on the game. The bowlers failed to make the most of a green-tinged pitch and were not helped by dropped catches.A total of five went down in the day, the most costly proving to be Coetzer, who was dropped on 25 when Nathan Buck failed to hold on to a sharp return catch off his own bowling.Another major problem for Leicestershire was the number of boundaries they conceded. Coetzer took 120 balls to reach 50 – but hit 11 fours. And when he brought up his century he had struck 19 boundaries in a 191-ball innings. In all Leicestershire conceded a total of 202 runs in boundaries in the shape of 49 fours and a six.After the early departure of Matthew Spriegel, trapped lbw by Alex Wyatt for 7, Coetzer and David Sales shared a stand of 65 in 24 overs. Sales was dropped on 21, but had his off stump knocked back with Wyatt’s first ball after lunch and was out for 32. The impressive Coetzer then dominated a third-wicket partnership with Alex Wakely, who was dropped at slip off Ollie Freckingham early in his innings. But he hung around to share a stand of 74 before edging to slip off Buck for 18.Robert Keogh was caught at mid-on for the same score off Michael Thornely with the total 200. But Hall then joined forces with Coetzer to punish the Leicestershire attack in the final session. The fifth-wicket pair hammered 120 runs in 34 overs with Coetzer reaching his 150 off 277 balls with a six and 26 fours and Hall unbeaten on 65 off 112 balls with 10 boundaries.

ScorecardJames Anderson troubled the Kent batsmen but ended up wicketless•Getty Images

On the evidence of this match, both Lancashire and Kent are going to struggle to take 20 wickets on a regular basis this season. Even if rain had not taken out two sessions a draw would still have been the likely result and Kent played out the final day with Brendan Nash continuing his strong early season form with an unbeaten hundred, although he had to work hard against James Anderson.Kent were on the edge of a wobble when Robert Key was given caught behind off Glen Chapple although the former captain was clearly unhappy with the decision and stomped off the field hitting his pad with his bat. Another quick wicket, with the deficit still more than 100, would have opened a door for Lancashire but it never came despite Anderson’s efforts.Last season, his first for Kent, Nash averaged over 47 – no mean feat in a wet summer – and his hundred in this innings followed three consecutive fifties to start the season. Nash innings rarely stick in the mind and there is more than a hint of Kent’s coach, Jimmy Adams, in the way he plays. There will not be much flamboyance, but he is providing plenty of substance to the top-order.James Tredwell, in his second game as Kent captain, knows his team can improve but he praised their resolve. “We faced a few challenges in this game and have come through them pretty well,” he said. “The first day was probably ideal bowling conditions in the end, having won the toss and had a bat, but we came through that with real fight, then again on this last day. Lancashire have a high-class bowling attack. It was really tough at times on the first day but the resolve was great.”The pitch was on the sluggish side, which did not help attempts to force the pace, but the way Lancashire batted late on the third day and into the final morning showed that brisk run-scoring was possible. Simon Katich, who fell to the first ball he faced today, Steven Croft and Chapple were able to play with freedom because of the platform they were given – so it is difficult to be too critical – but the bowling attack is going to need as much time as possible to force results.However, Gary Yates, Lancashire’s assistant coach, was delighted with the team’s approach. “We are pleased how we are playing, and frustrated that we lost quite a bit of time to the weather,” he said. “Maybe if we had more time we may have been able to force a result. But fair play to Kent, they batted well and we never really got into a position to force a victory.”We would like to have had at least one win, but we have played good disciplined cricket and if we continue to do that we will get rewarded with victories sooner rather than later.”Momentum can be picked up throughout the season and we have played really, really solid cricket. We have set up first-innings leads in both games and without the rain I think we would have set up victory in at least one of those games.”Most of Lancashire’s threat with the ball on the final day came from Anderson, who was outstanding, looking a class above the other bowlers (although Kyle Hogg and Matt Coles were excellent), as an England bowler should when he returns to county cricket. He conceded one run in his first seven overs, had Sam Northeast – a talented young opener – playing and missing at four balls in one over, hammered Michael Powell’s foot with a rapid yorker and had a high-quality contest with Nash yet still ended wicketless.Simon Kerrigan, the left-arm spinner, was Lancashire’s other main hope on the final day after the declaration following a heavy shower, which left 79 overs remaining in the game. He made the first breakthrough, taking Northeast’s off stump with a lovely delivery, but there was not a huge amount of assistance from the pitch and Nash played him excellently.

Mike Denness, the former Kent and England captain, has died at the age of 72 after a battle with cancer.Born in Scotland, he played 28 Tests and 12 one-day internationals in a career that spanned 22 years. He later became an ICC match referee.Denness led the team in 19 of his 28 Tests although it was a controversial tenure, especially in his strained relationship with Geoff Boycott. During the 1974-75 tour of Australia, Denness dropped himself for the fourth Test in Sydney although he later returned, after an injury to John Edrich, to score 188 at the MCG which, at the time, was the highest score by an England captain in Australia.In his first-class career, where he played for Kent and Essex, he scored more than 25,000 runs. He was awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours list for services to cricket. He remains the only Scottish-born captain of England, although Douglas Jardine, the scourge of Australia in the infamous Bodyline series, was born in Mumbai of Scottish parents.George Kennedy, the Kent chairman, said: “This is an extremely sad day for the Club. We have lost one of our great players, a very successful captain and a good friend. It is particularly sad that this has happened during his year as president – a period when the club had two Scotsman at the helm. Our thoughts are with Mike’s family and friends at this time.”Matthew Fleming, the former Kent captain, called Denness part of the “fabric” of Kent. “While I never saw him play, to me, Mike represented so much that is great about Kent Cricket and its history and its place in the game,” he said. “There are so many great men of cricket who have represented Kent: Colin Cowdrey, Les Ames, Derek Underwood, Brian Luckhurst, John Shepherd to name just a few, and Mike Denness stands alongside the likes of those men in terms of the true greats of Kent cricket history.”Mike was part of the fabric of Kent cricket, despite being a Scotsman, and as someone with Scottish blood too, I would have no hesitation in saying that the game of cricket in general has lost a very significant figure.”Denness made his Test debut in 1969 against New Zealand, at The Oval, but it was not until 1974 that he scored his maiden hundred against India. By then he was England captain and had led the team to a drawn series in West Indies after a 26-run victory in the final Test at Port-of-Spain.He was in his final week as Kent president when he passed away and his successor, Bob Bevan, remembered a close friend. “Michael Henry Denness was the finest cricketer ever born in Scotland by a considerable distance. Both on and off the field, he epitomised the cricketing term “playing a straight bat”.”He was a man of the utmost honesty and integrity. The cricketing counties of Kent and Essex, the whole world of cricket and my wife and I, personally, have lost one of our greatest friends.”David Collier, the ECB chief executive, said: “Mike was a man who gave so much to our game in so many different ways as a player, captain, match referee and administrator. I had the honour of working with Mike in my first role in cricket administration at Essex and Mike was a wonderful source of advice and knowledge. He will be sorely missed by all – especially by everyone at Kent.”On the county scene, Denness led Kent to great success early in the one-day era. He secured six domestic trophies as captain between 1972 and 1976 – the John Player League three times, the Benson and Hedges Cup twice, and the Gillette Cup in 1974.His time as an ICC match referee was hit with controversy when, at Port Elizabeth in 2001-02, his decision to sanction six Indian players, including Sachin Tendulkar, caused such a furore that the Indian and South African boards barred Denness from officiating in the next match, at Centurion. The ICC responded by withdrawing Test status from the game.

Brendon McCullum was full of praise for his bowling attack’s “phenomenal” attempts to force victory against England after chipping away during the final day to ensure the visitors were not completely safe until midway through the final session.It took New Zealand more than an hour to break through, removing Nick Compton for 117, but a fiery eight-over spell from Neil Wagner, to claim the scalps of Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen, gave New Zealand a glimmer which flickered a little brighter shortly after tea when Steven Finn, the nightwatchman, was finally dismissed and Joe Root was run out without scoring.”I thought even up until the last couple of overs we were a red hot crack, if we could get into those bowlers with the ball still new,” McCullum said. “I think we gave it everything we possibly could. I thought the bowlers were huge today to stand up and bowl as well as they did and for as long as what they did on a pretty unresponsive pitch, which was obviously still only a day four pitch, it was a phenomenal effort.”They will be stiff and sore tonight but they will know they were standing up trying to bowl us to a win and you know that’s exactly what you want from your bowling line-up.”The quick men had a tremendous workload in the fourth innings. Wagner, who was impressive throughout the match to finish with seven wickets, sent down 43 overs which was the most by a New Zealand fast bowler in an innings since Daryl Tuffey delivered 49 against Pakistan in 2001 while Trent Boult ended with 35 and Tim Southee 36.”Neil was huge today, 40-something overs as a quick,” McCullum said. “He kept running in, bowling nine or 10-over spells at times and I thought he was phenomenal.”The other main star for New Zealand was Hamish Rutherford who made 171 on his debut to suggest that there may be a long-term option to what has been a very problematic position for the team. In the previous series, against South Africa, McCullum took the responsibility to open on his shoulders but feels his role his better suited to the middle-order.”It’s a dream debut and not just for him and everyone else who was at the ground and also in the changing room,” McCullum said. “It was an amazing effort to turn up on debut and in an area where we’ve struggled in the past. And not just make runs but the way he made then runs.”To have someone who scores at such a clip put us in a position in a four-day Test match where we able to try and push for a result. He was outstanding and he never changed his mood from before the Test match till after it, so that’s a good sign for the future.”After a nightmare Test series in South Africa, where they never held any position of strength in either match, this contest gave McCullum the opportunity to pull the strings himself. He is only three matches into his captaincy tenure, after the difficult transition from Ross Taylor, and while he realises this was still only a draw it he believes it has given them a base to build from.”We know the public’s crying out for the Test game to improve, and we’re crying out for our Test game to improve as well,” he said. “This is a big step for us to look at where we were and where we are now and show ourselves and also our fans what we’re capable of achieving against good teams too.”The challenge now is to back it up for Test two and Test three and continue to put yourself in positions where you’re dominating and dictating the test match. That’s what we were able to do in this Test and the game’s a lot easier when you’re dictating rather than being dictated to.”

Virender Sehwag saw the Test batsman in David Warner before he realised it himself. Drawn towards a Twenty20 career before his methods matured, Warner was in Delhi when Sehwag helpfully suggested the man synonymous with cricket’s shortest form would make a better player in its longest.The conversation startled Warner, at that stage still yet to receive a baggy blue cap for New South Wales. But Sehwag was prescient, for little more than two years later, Warner is about to open the batting for Australia in a Test match against New Zealand. It has helped that others, Greg Chappell among them, also saw the potential for far more than 20 overs’ racy batting.”Two years ago when I went to Dehli, Sehwag watched me a couple of times and said to me, ‘You’ll be a better Test cricketer than what you will be a Twenty20 player’,” Warner recalled. “I basically looked at him and said, ‘mate, I haven’t even played a first-class game yet’. But he said, ‘All the fielders are around the bat, if the ball is there in your zone you’re still going to hit it. You’re going to have ample opportunity to score runs. You’ve always got to respect the good ball, but you’ve always got to punish the ball you always punish’.”The conversation with Sehwag may have been the start of Warner’s drive towards batsmanship worthy of a Test match, but it was also helped along by Chappell. On the Australia A tour of Zimbabwe, Cricket Australia’s national talent manager told Warner his brief sessions in the nets were not going to prepare him for lengthier innings, and encouraged a more longwinded approach. It worked.”In Zimbabwe he sat down with me and said ‘what are you going to do when you bat today’. I said I’d bat for the 20 minutes we normally get and try to get myself in,” Warner said. “He said ‘if you’re going to get yourself in, how are you going to play your shots then, you’ll just work on getting yourself in and that’s it’. I said we don’t really have that much time, and he replied ‘you’ve got as much time as you want, you’re a professional cricketer, we’ve got net bowlers here’, so I batted for two hours, three hours and it all made sense to me.”If you’re going to score hundreds you’ve got to put time in the nets. Troy Cooley [the tour coach] would say to me a few times ‘you’ve got to get out [of the net] then go back in’, so I did that a few times, prepared like it was lunchtime or a bit of a break for 30-40 minutes, then went back in for another hour or two. I was always conscious of not getting out. In a couple of those sessions I only got out once, and that was to a loose shot from one of the spinners. I really knuckled down there.”On that same tour Warner coshed 211 against the Zimbabweans, batting for eight hours to do it. Like a young adult developing a taste for vegetables after a youth spent avoiding them, he found that first-class runs could feel more rewarding, and that the compressed nature of T20 had made him yearn for the wide open batting expanses of a match played over four or five days. Lately, Warner’s newfound judgment has been noticeable in his T20 innings too, resulting in a consistency of scores he never managed in 2008-09, the summer that had Warner thrust into the national team.”I enjoy it, I wouldn’t actually say it’s easier than Twenty20 cricket or one-day cricket but you’ve got so much time. You’re not rushed at all. You don’t have to score runs,” Warner said. “The wide ones you usually go after in one-day or Twenty20 cricket and they’re the chances that you give, you’re getting yourself out. In four-day cricket, you shouldn’t be getting yourself out at all like that.”A good ball is going to get you out, but a lazy shot you shouldn’t get out like that, you should be kicking yourself. That’s one thing I pride myself on, if I’m getting out I’m not playing a loose shot. It tends to happen a bit with spinners, you think ‘oh I can get some easy runs here’ but you’ve got to have your footwork switched on and be able to play back or forward and not get carried away.”I’ve adapted my game in four-day cricket to be as technical as I can and make sure my defence is as good as can be. That’s the most important thing in four-day cricket, if your defence is good, the runs will come. As people have probably noticed in my one-day and T20 stuff, I’ve started to do that as well, I get myself in, my first 50 is coming off probably 40 balls, instead of 21 or 22 and that’s a reason why I’ve been so consistent in my last few innings, because I’m not going after every ball straight away.”Warner’s difficulty in obtaining a New South Wales cap made him hungry for runs, but also forced him to find the right way to get them. “When I got my baggy blue I was very happy and proud,” Warner said. “It is amazing how in 18 months how everything can turn around, whether it is playing one-dayers or Twenty20 cricket for Australia, how close you can be to the baggy green.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsMarlon Samuels took his best international figures of 4 for 13•WICB Media Photo/Randy Brooks

For a side playing its first Test in over a year, Zimbabwe began promisingly in the morning against searing pace bowling, but completely lost their way after lunch, with a solid 100 for 2 turning into 211 all out. Having battled hard against the onslaught from Kemar Roach and Tino Best, they came up short against the offspin of Shane Shillingford and part-timer Marlon Samuels.Roach and Best bowled with so much intensity they might have run through Zimbabwe by themselves on a luckier day. But, led by the plucky Tino Mawoyo, Zimbabwe took blows, got beaten, edged and stonewalled their way through the first hour before frittering away hard-earned starts on a largely harmless Kensington Oval pitch.Mawoyo started the downfall soon after lunch when he lunged forward to defend a Shillingford offbreak that spun and bounced to take the inside edge onto pad and straight to short leg. Brendan Taylor tried to turn a Shannon Gabriel delivery with the angle to leg but it moved away late and flattened his off stump. Minutes before tea, Craig Ervine pushed forward to a straight Samuels delivery, and left a fatally big gap between bat and pad.After trying to rebuild the innings from 158 for 6, Graeme Cremer slashed a wide Samuels delivery to point. Regis Chakabva blocked, ducked and left to plod to 15 off 92, before pushing Shillingford to short leg. All these batsmen promised a lot, and barring Mawoyo to an extent, delivered little.Zimbabwe had fared much better against a sterner examination in the first session. First ball of the match, Roach hit Mawoyo on the chest with a short ball, showing immediately what awaited Zimbabwe. However, Mawoyo showed there were runs to be reaped on the pitch following self-denial.For the first ten overs, though, there wasn’t much to be done apart from denying oneself, playing with soft hands and hoping for survival. There was movement in the air, but most of it only gave the wicketkeeper a rough time. There was some seam movement, but it was sheer, raw pace and testing lines and lengths that bothered Zimbabwe. Roach began with a barrage of short deliveries and Best, as always, held nothing back in terms of effort.The last ball of Roach’s fourth over proved too quick for Sibanda, and he had his leg stump uprooted through the gate. Best was running in so hard he soon appeared to pull something, and sat on his haunches a couple of times during his fifth over. That didn’t deter him from smacking Hamilton Masakadza on the back edge of his helmet.That was to be the last of Best in the session, with the third specialist quick bowler Gabriel and the captain Darren Sammy taking over. While Gabriel was not lacking in pace in comparison to Best and Roach, he got next to no movement, and also offered width.Sammy did what he does best, settling on a good length outside off stump, but Mawoyo and Masakadza were disciplined enough not to be tempted. It took Roach, returning in the 21st over, to break the growing second-wicket stand, although Samuels’ diving effort at gully deserved as much, if not more credit, for getting rid of Masakadza.Sammy persisted with himself from the other end after the breakthrough, and it allowed Mawoyo and Taylor some breathing space. Mawoyo started opening up as lunch approached, driving confidently off the front foot and even slashing Roach over the slip cordon. Zimbabwe had exceeded expectations with a first-session return of 91 for 2, but were to disappoint later on.Shillingford found bounce right away, and in his second over after lunch, took out Mawoyo. Gabriel hadn’t been able to get the new ball to do much, but started getting some reverse as it got older, and surprised Taylor in the first over of his second spell.Malcolm Waller never looked comfortable and was beaten repeatedly by Gabriel, before being given leg-before trying to paddle Shillingford. Chakabva and Cremer hung around for a while, before Samuels ran through the lower order to take his best figures in international cricket. Zimbabwe had two specialist spinners in their XI, and Samuels’ and Shillingford’s showing would have given them hope of containing West Indies.It was the pace and swing of Kyle Jarvis, though, that gave them a couple of early wickets. West Indies had 11 overs to get through. Chris Gayle and Kieran Powell had nearly got through seven of them without any alarms, before Jarvis moved one in to catch Powell in front of leg, and the batsman had to walk back after a failed review. That was to have been the last ball of the over, but Jarvis was allowed to bowl a seventh, and trapped nightwatchman Roach plumb in front with a full, away-swinging delivery. After not making Gayle and Powell play much, Jarvis had suddenly found the right line. Zimbabwe would want more of that on day two.

Less than a day before they play their opening match in the BPL, Khulna Royal Bengals have only eleven players to choose their line-up from, after they lost seven Pakistani players due to the fallout between the PCB and BCB.ESPNcricinfo has learned that the franchise has asked the BPL governing council to allow them to bring in more local cricketers than the allotted ten. Khulna is trying to replace Shoaib Malik, Umar Akmal, Awaiz Zia, Umar Amin, Ahmed Shehzad, Haris Sohail and Bilawal Bhatti.”We exactly have 11 players with just one foreigner,” Khulna captain Shahriar Nafees told ESPNcricinfo. “Riki Wessels has arrived, but I am not sure whether more will arrive. The management is aware of this information.”The prospect is similar for Rangpur Riders, who have lost three Pakistani players – Anwar Ali, Raja Ali Dar and Sharjil Khan. They now have only 12 players left, having picked 15 in the auction. Former Bangladesh captain Faruque Ahmed has been working overtime to find players, but so far, none have confirmed. “We only have Kevin O’Brien arriving on time, but I am still trying to find some more to replace our Pakistani players,” he said.Dhaka Gladiators, who have confirmed the signing of Kieron Pollard, and Chittagong Kings are in better shape as they have lost one and two players respectively.Duronto Rajshahi have added Simon Katich, Moeen Ali, Ben Edmonson, Jehan Mubarak, Dilshan Munaweera and Rizwan Cheema in their list of foreign players to fill in for the Pakistani players.Among the other players likely to replace them are Brett Lee, Lahiru Thirimanne, Dilshan Munaweera and Sachitra Senanayake. Mohammad Nabi is understood to be signed up by the BPL governing council to be distributed to one of the franchises.The pullout of the Pakistani players has resulted in chaotic last-minute changes for the organisers, with posters containing images of Shahid Afridi and Umar Gul already out in the streets. The future of the tournament will be at stake if proper replacements are not found, and if on-field performances do not veil the mess.