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No. 2 – Australasia Cup Final, Sharjah, 1985-86
Scorecard
Almost two decades later, Javed Miandad, the scrapper who knew not how to throw in the towel, would confess to having almost done just that. When Imran Khan departed with 37 runs still needed, Pakistan needed eight an over. “I thought then that we had no serious chance of victory,” wrote Miandad in his autobiography. “I just wanted to salvage some pride for Pakistan. I had no plan, other than to bat out the full fifty overs in the hope that we would at least lose with some dignity.”He managed far more. With 31 needed from the final three overs, Miandad whittled the target down to 18 with the aid of a superb six over long-on off Chetan Sharma. But despite the presence of the big-hitting Wasim Akram in the middle, Pakistan could manage just seven from Kapil Dev’s final over, leaving Sharma, a 20-year-old who had already earned 28 ODI caps, with the task of denying Miandad, who had cut his way to an imperious hundred in his previous over.But though Akram was run out going for a second run off the first ball, Miandad smashed the next to the mid-on fence to ease the pressure. The next delivery was fetched nonchalantly from outside off stump, but a splendid diving stop from Roger Binny kept the batsmen to just one. Zulqarnain’s swat at the ensuing ball saw the stumps rearranged, leaving Tauseef Ahmed, a man with no great batting pedigree, to conjure up five from the last two balls. With Miandad urging him to scamper a single at any cost, Tauseef tipped the ball to short-cover and set off. Mohammad Azharuddin, India’s premier fielder, pounced and picked up in one fluid motion but, crucially, his shy at the stumps missed with Tauseef still yards short.With four needed, it was merely a question of who would blink first. Miandad, with more than a decade of experience behind him, anticipated the yorker, and sure enough, Sharma attempted just that. But when the ball slipped out of the hand, the potentially lethal stump-wrecker metamorphosed into a woeful leg-side full toss. For those watching, time stood still as Miandad’s bat arced swiftly to send the ball soaring over the midwicket boundary. It was a heist that would have done Ronald Biggs and friends proud, and Miandad himself admitted: “Up until the final delivery, India’s dominance remained supreme.”That dominance had been built on a stolid 92 from Sunil Gavaskar, buttressed by half-centuries from Krishnamachari Srikkanth and Dilip Vengsarkar. And with Pakistan’s top order not doing enough to supplement Miandad’s courageous effort, it appeared that the Indian total of 245 would be more than enough, in an age when turbo-charged starts and pinch-hitting were almost unheard of.In retrospect, that one resounding stroke was to signify far more than a final won. For years afterwards, India were no match for Pakistan in the one-day arena, shell-shock victims unable to regain a sense of perspective. There may have been tears in the Pakistani dressing room that evening, but it was India that were to weep over the unimaginably deep Miandad-inflicted cuts for the best part of a decade.

Cricket in Viña del Mar was reintroduced by two teams of players from the local natural gas company, GasValpo. GasValpo is a very old Chilean business which was bought by the Australian Gas and Light Company AGL a few years ago. The idea of forming a cricket club came from the Australian influence (Martin Turner is to be thanked for that) but as GasValpo has a very active sporting club and the members were keen to learn a “new” sport cricket.So in early 2003 the interested players began practising after watching the most recent world cup highlights on video to enable them to understand the basics of the game. Practice sessions were initially held at a local school but more recently in the GasValpo grounds on Camino Internacional in Reñaca Alto. Numbers of players have grown gradually from 7 to about 18 since the sessions commenced.The first actual game was held on Saturday 23rd August 2003 at the Carinbineros (uniformed police) complex in Reñaca Alto. It is hoped that in addition to this venture some games can also be held at the Valparaiso Cricket Club where cricket was last played approximately 40 years ago.Interest has been generated already in Chile’s second largest city. A half page spread in the local newspaper and an interview on an important radio station is helping the public to become aware that cricket is once again being played in Viña del Mar, the spiritual home of cricket in Chile.The first official game is scheduled for the beginning of October this year and will be against a team of players from San Bernardo, a suburb in the southern outskits of Santiago. The Viña team is confident of winning this match!The San Bernardo Cricket Club was recently formed this year and they too have been training hard for their first match against Viña del Mar. Both clubs are creating history as they are 100% Chilean. The teams comprise both men and women and it is hoped to eventually have a mens and a womens team.This season San Bernardo and Viña will play not only each other but also a team comprised of Chilean born players from Santiago and the Chilean U/15 team. It is hoped that both clubs will progress to the main Chilean club competition which is centred around the four clubs in Santiago in a few years time.

Batsmen are supposed to win State Max matches but somebody forgot to tell the Wellington attack, especially left-arm fast-medium bowler James Franklin.He was at the core of Wellington’s third successive Max success in three years in the preliminary season tournament at North Harbour’s Stadium at Albany today when the defending champions beat Auckland by eight runs.Franklin showed that bowlers do have a role to play in this reduced form of cricket and, in fact, the whole weekend showed that bowlers have learned how to adapt their games. But his was the best of the performances and earned him the player of the tournament title.Whereas in earlier years scores of 120-140 were much more common, a good score in this year’s series was around 90-100.Andre Adams, Andrew Hore and Richard Petrie were the only big-hitters to really have an impact on matches.But for Franklin it was an especially pleasant tournament after the disappointments of missing international selection.”It was good fun. I think the extra game may have benefited us and we were lucky enough to get up over Otago,” Franklin said.”What helped a lot was that the ball held up off a length. We had different plans for different batsmen and I got a few lucky wickets. They seemed to find the fieldsmen on most occasions,” he said.Franklin said he felt he bowled with good rhythm even while bowling within himself and he took the view that every batsman had to be respected and he wanted to keep his runs to about eight or 10 an over, a goal he certainly achieved.”It was a great way to start the year. We won the Max last year and that proved a good start and now we’re looking forward to playing Canterbury in the State Championship in Rangiora,” he said.Wellington beat Auckland by eight runs in a final that turned out to be more exciting than seemed possible, especially after Auckland were 17/5 in the fifth over of the first innings.Wellington hadn’t exactly set the world on fire with 98/6 but it proved a welcome advantage when Auckland were 74/8 at the end of their 10 overs, thanks largely to a hard-hit 25 off 13 balls by Tane Topia.Auckland bowled much more tidily in their second innings and restricted Wellington to 83/7. Adams took two for 19 from three overs.That left Auckland with a target of 110 runs to win.It made the mistake of promoting its big hitters to the top of the order. And while some change was required, the wholesale nature of it didn’t seem to help Auckland in the larger scheme of things. They were three wickets down for 15 runs in the second over.Franklin was irresistible with the ball. In the first innings he took four for 13 from three overs and then in the second innings conceded a six but gained a fourth wicket and saw a run out in his only over. He had five for 21 off four overs in the match and eight wickets for 68 runs off 11 overs in the whole weekend, an outstanding effort at Max level.There were some moments when Adams threatened to steal the win from nowhere for Auckland by bringing up his half century from 14 balls. But Wellington captain Richard Jones said the superb catch taken at square leg by Shane Battock diving forward to snare the chance from Topia just off the grass had galvanised the side.”The whole thing about Max is that it can turn so quickly on just one thing. It can be a couple of Max hits, a couple of wickets or something like Shane Battock’s catch.”We knew we had the bowlers to finish the job and we had to have Matthew Walker bowling when Andre was hitting out.”Having Matthew and Paul Hitchcock at the end was great while having Jimmy Franklin and Andrew Penn to open our attack was a key because they take wickets,” he said.Auckland did recover their second innings to the point where with two overs remaining they only needed 18 runs. But they lost captain Matt Horne caught and bowled to Hitchcock while only four runs were conceded.And then Walker bowled an outstanding last over which cost only five singles.Wellington got home by eight runs.Jones said afterwards that yesterday’s loss to Auckland had been a blow to the team and they were very disappointed.”But it was a good wake-up call for the lads and it was a case of how we would come back against Otago,” he said.They knew Hore was a key man and once they removed him in both innings they felt more in charge.”Hore can make or break a game, both of Max and one-day games and it will be the same for us in the State Shield,” he said.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details1:09

‘Tempo the stand-out feature of Malik’s innings’

Shortly after Pakistan had declared their formidable first innings of the first Test on 523 for 8, with Shoaib Malik having marked the end of his five-year Test exile with an innings of Burj Khalifa proportions, a falcon was spotted on the outfield at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium, greedily disembowelling the luckless prey in its talons.Happily for any squeamish onlookers among the smattering of fans in the vicinity, Adil Rashid quickly allayed concerns about his whereabouts by taking his place on the England dressing-room balcony. He too had displayed guts on the second day of the first Test – of the blood and gore variety, alas – as Malik’s career-best 245, the majority compiled in a fifth-wicket stand of 248 with Asad Shafiq, condemned him to a cruel slice of Test history.Rashid’s debut innings figures of 34-0-163-0 were the worst by any bowler in the 138-year history of Test cricket. What is more, his efforts usurped those of another legspinner, Bryce McGain, who was tormented to the tune of 0 for 149 by South Africa’s batsmen in his one and only appearance for Australia at Cape Town in March 2009.For AB de Villiers, read Malik, whose 10-and-a-half hour masterclass marked an astonishing return for a man who might not have got a look in had Azhar Ali been fit. Shafiq alongside him chipped in with a century of his own, and though both men survived notable moments of good fortune on the first day of the contest, neither offered another sniff of an opportunity until an improbable clatter of wickets after tea, when fatigue and the impending declaration enabled England’s toiling seamers to massage their stats, in particular Ben Stokes who emerged with the oddly respectable figures of 4 for 57.Shoaib Malik celebrates his maiden Test double-century•Getty Images

The Malik-Shafiq partnership was a fifth-wicket record for Pakistan in Tests against England, beating the 197-run stand at Lord’s between Javed Burki and Nasim-ul-Ghani that had stood since 1962. It continued their run of staggering batting form in Tests in Abu Dhabi, where they have never yet lost a match and where they have now recorded 11 hundreds in their last two-and-a-half Tests, dating back to the visit of Australia last October.Pakistan are past masters of batting in the UAE, having developed an innings tempo that is perfectly suited to the brutal conditions. They were content to wear England’s bowlers down for hours on end before latching on to the opportunities to make their dominance count. Between them, Malik and Shafiq struck 34 fours and four sixes, 160 runs in boundaries, a testament to their patience and ability to cash in.Malik, in particular, batted with the insouciance of a man in utter command of the attack and the conditions, and Rashid bore the brunt of his aggression, not least when he opened his shoulders with his double-century in the bag, first to wallop him over extra cover for four before pumping his next delivery clean down the ground for the third of his four sixes.Rashid, in truth, did not bowl especially badly, having been re-introduced to the attack in the seventh over of the day. By that stage, the seamers – armed with a ball that was just three overs old at the start of play – had been effortlessly repelled, and there was never an opportunity to get a toe-hold in the game. Rashid will cling on to the belief that his debut can be less like McGain’s and more like that of a certain SK Warne, whose debut figures of 1 for 150 at Sydney in 1992 included the maiden wicket of Ravi Shastri, but not before he had made 206.Despite having six front-line bowlers to call upon, Alastair Cook was forced reluctantly to turn to a seventh after 124 overs of fruitless toil when Joe Root was tossed the ball for an exploratory spell of allsorts, and they effectively used an eighth when Stokes entered the attack with his hitherto unseen offbreaks in the final over before the break.That over included, England’s spin attack mustered the combined figures of 70-3-302-0 and, ominously, they scarcely managed to hit the pads at any stage of the innings, let alone pass the edge.The one man to do so, in the whole of the first two sessions, was Stuart Broad, whose optimistic leg-side appeal against Shafiq, on 66 at the time, was going so far down leg that it was almost impertinent to ask. Nevertheless, Mark Wood, with a jig of delight, seemed pleased enough that his team-mate had managed even to breach one line of Pakistan’s formidable defence.Asad Shafiq helped Pakistan put on a record score against England for the fifth wicket•Getty Images

With his third ball after tea, and Pakistan already sated on 499 for 4, Wood finally breached their defences for real, as Shafiq aimed an expansive pull across the line and was trapped in front of middle and leg for 107. That breakthrough set in motion a harum-scarum 15 minutes in which three more wickets tumbled to loose prods and mows – all three to Stokes, including two lollipop catches for none other than Ian Bell, whose lapses in the slips had set Mohammad Hafeez and Shafiq on their way on day one.And so the declaration left England needing to bat out 23 overs in the day, a task that put a particular spotlight on Moeen Ali, whose 30 wicketless overs weren’t exactly the ideal way to focus his mind for the task ahead.But to his and Cook’s credit, they made it to the close with the minimum of fuss. Pakistan’s seamers found as little in the conditions as England had extracted, and arguably were even less effective given their slightly erratic lines of attack.The only real alarm came from the second ball of the innings when Cook jabbed down in the crease at Rahat Ali and all but emulated his mentor Graham Gooch in punching the ball away from his stumps as it bounced up alarmingly. Gooch, at Old Trafford in 1993, couldn’t help himself; Cook managed to resist his urges and lived to fight another day.Zulfiqar Babar, meanwhile, twirled away for seven broadly ineffective overs. There is plenty time for him to come into the game on days three, four and five, but in the absence of the prolific legspinner Yasir Shah, there was a cutting edge lacking from Pakistan’s initial forays. But their weight of runs remains overwhelming.

The Ranji season has reached the stage at which teams have to keep an eye on other results in their respective pools. Karnataka, sitting in fifth place in the Super League Group A with eight points from three games, will want to make the most of this match against Rajasthan. Already thrashed three times this season, the young Rajasthan team are under intense pressure to avoid relegation.Rahul Dravid’s role in Karnataka’s first two games was crucial, but he and Anil Kumble are back in the Indian side and won’t be returning this Ranji season and Karnataka will have to rely on their core strength going forward. The star is Robin Uthappa, but he is yet to ignite this domestic season as he did last season with his exciting hundred here at the Gangothri Glades. Thilak Naidu, the wicketkeeper-batsman, and C Raghu, the offspinning allrounder, are key players and have done well this season.The bowling will again be led by Vinay Kumar and NC Aiyappa, the right-arm medium-pace duo, and Sunil Joshi, the veteran left-arm spinner. There’s little to speak of in terms of back-up, but with Rajasthan’s batting struggling so far that could well prove enough.Gagan Khoda, who played two one-day internationals for India in 1998, is the only Rajasthan batsman in form. His 244 runs are the high for the team by some distance, and highlight his side’s plight this year: they just haven’t been able to put up big totals. Pankaj Singh, the 22-year-old fast bowler, has done well in the last two seasons and has India A experience. That aside, the cupboard looks fairly bare this year. Rajasthan appeared to show a bit of fight in their last game, against Maharashtra, but the bowlers need runs to defend.A cursory palm across the surface showed it was hard, but there’s a tinge of green too. Vijay Bhardwaj, Karnataka’s coach, and Nagaraja, the curator, concurred in their readings of the wicket. “We’ve tried to make a sporting pitch,” Nagaraja said. “It is definitely looking like a four-day surface, with lots of bounce for the quick bowlers. That said, it will also assist the spinners late on the second day.” Bowling first may seem like an option, but it might still be better to bat first and see out the first session.This is only the second match at Gangothri Glades since the Ranji Trophy returned to Mysore last season after 18 years. Karnataka won that match against Haryana by 253 runs, with Uthappa and Barrington Rowland lighting up the third day with a stunning 213-run opening stand. Rowland has been dropped for this game following a string of average performances following that innings.Situated on the scenic University of Mysore campus, with the Chamundi Hills in the background, the large, tree-ringed ground bore a festive look. (tents) were being set up, as were loudspeakers and an array of coloured chairs. A good amount of sponsorship has been generated for this match, the sponsors including Reid & Taylor.A good weekend crowd is expected, made up primarily of university students. Spreading cricket into the smaller parts of the country is important and a rollicking innings from the likes of Uthappa or a stellar spell from the likes of Pankaj would be apt advertisement for a town where top-level cricket seldom rolls through.Teams:Karnataka (probable): 1 Robin Uthappa, 2 KB Pawan, 3 Sudhindra Shinde, 4 C Raghu, 5 Yere Goud (capt), Thilak Naidu (wk), 7 B Akhil, 8 Sunil Joshi, 9 R Vinay Kumar, 10 KP Apanna, 11 NC Aiyappa.Rajasthan (probable): 1 Rohit Jhalani (wk), 2 Gagan Khoda, 3 Nikhil Doru, 4 Vineet Saxena, 5 Robin Bist, 6 Rajesh Bishnoi, 7 Afroz Khan, 8 Shamsher Singh, 9 Pankaj Singh, 10 Mohammad Aslam (capt), 11 Nishan Singh.

Glenn McGrath has not revealed whether he plans to stay after the Ashes series, but he insists he still relishes bowling at the highest level. McGrath played down a report in the that he would bow out of the Test scene in Sydney but continue to appear in one-day internationals.McGrath said Shane Warne’s resignation from the Australian team didn’t mean he would be doing the same. “To be honest, I haven’t said anything [about retiring],” he told commercial radio. “It’s funny where it all comes from.”To me, I’m just preparing for another game. Nothing’s changed since the end of the Perth Test, apart from the fact that Shane Warne’s retiring at the end of the Sydney Test. So it’s funny how Warney decides that and … whether it’s in his wake and I’m being pulled along as well or whether the media think it’s time for me to go, I don’t know.”Asked whether this series would be his last, McGrath was non-committal. “All I’m saying is that, to me, it’s business as usual,” he said. “I’m just preparing for these next two Test matches, then it’s the one-day series and then I’ll take it from there.”The reported McGrath would fly to Melbourne today for the fourth Test carrying his resignation letter after discussing his departure with his wife Jane, who has endured a lengthy battle with cancer.”All I did was finish in Perth, come home and I’ve done nothing since and I’ve had journalists camped on the front door and hassling me at home and everything,” he said. “For me, it’s just another day at the office.”I guess we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we, [whether I will play on]. I don’t look that far ahead. In previous years, I haven’t said I’m looking forward to the Test in eight months or 12 months so, for me, it’s just another day at the office. I’m still enjoying it. I’m still loving playing and I’ve still got a lot of cricket in me.”

Like many of Glamorgan’s grounds’ The Gnoll is the home to bothNeath Rugby and Cricket Club. The name of the ground is likelyto have been a derivation from the word ‘knoll’, meaning a smallround hill, as the first building in the area was situated on thecircular mound at the western end of the hill known as CefnMorfydd to the north of the twon.By the 17th century a castle and country house had been built onthe hillside, and from 1710 onwards it became the home of theMackworth family, who were wealthy industrialists and owned thetown’s copper works. In 1811 the Gnoll Estate was bought byHenry Grant, who later became the first mayor of the town. Grantsold off some of the land for building purposes, and allowed ballgames to be played on the fields below Gnoll House.The first record of cricket being played in Neath dates back tothe mid 1840’s, and in 1848 a cricket club was formed, with TheGnoll being its base. During the middle of the 19th century,more housebuilding took place on Grant’s land, but he refused tosell the cricket field, and the club went from strength tostrength. A number of quite prestigious fixtures were held overthe next few years as Alex Cuthbertson, a local soloicitor,helped to arrange three-day fixtures in 1855 and 1856 between anEleven of All-England and a XXII of Neath and District.However, the Neath club encountered money problems, and in theearly 1860’s looked like going out of existence. They werethrown a lifeline in 1863 as J.T.D.Llewelyn, the cricket-lovingindustrialist and landowner of Penllegaer House, paid off theirdebts, agreed to personally pay for the use of the Gnoll andreformed the club under the name of Cadoxton Cricket Club. The’new’ side took its name from a small hamlet to the north of thetown, yet there was nothing small about Llewelyn’s ambitions, asCadoxton C.C. became the M.C.C. of South Wales.Indeed, in September 1864 he was instrumnetal in arranging acricket week which had as its highlight a challenge match betweena Glamorganshire XI and a side representing Carmarthenshire.However, perhaps the most famous of these early games took placein May 1868 when a XXII of Cadoxton challenged the United Southof England. W.G. Grace was in the English side, yet for once inhis career, he bagged a pair, dismissed in both innings by GeorgeHowitt, Cadoxton’s guest professional.In 1871 Neath RFC was formed and the south-western part of thesports field was devoted to rugby, with cricket being played inthe north-eastern half. A rugby grandstand was built and seatingwas also provided alongside the cricket pavilion as the Cadoxtonclub continued to be the premier gentleman’s side in South Wales,and played with success in the newly-formed South Wales ChallengeCup.In 1897 the Neath Football Club and Athletic Association tookover the affairs of CadoxtonC.C., but this proved to be ashort-lived organisation, as in 1904 the cricket club re-formedunder the name of Gnoll Park C.C. However, there were severalfinancial problems, caused by internal friction within the nowdefunct Association. Fortunately, these problems were overcomeby the staging of a series of exhibition games on The Gnoll by aside called The Gentlemen of Glamorgan. The instigator behindthese games was a young solicitor called T.A.L.Whittington, whohimself was a fine batsman and had represented Glamorgan in theMinor County Championship.As a result of his efforts, the financial problems disappeared,and the club reverted back to being known as Neath C.C in 1906.The success of these games also led to Whittington becoming oneof Glamorgan’s administrators and it was the young solicitor whowas instrumental in the decision by the county club to stage someof their minor county matches at Neath. The first took place inJune 1908 as Carmarthenshire visited The Gnoll, and either sideof the Great War, the Neath ground staged an annual Minor Countyfixture.In 1923 the Neath Corporation became the new owners of the GnollEstate and despite the temptation to sell the land for building,they decided that the ruins of the Gnoll House should be thetown’s War Memorial , and that the rugby and cricket groundshould be preserved for sporting activities. The Corporationwere also responsible for attracting first-class cricket to TheGnoll, as in the 1930’s they offered various financial incentivesif Glamorgan agreed to play a Championship fixture at the ground.The inaugural game took place in 1934 as Essex visited The Gnolland following the success of the game Neath was added to theclub’s fixture list. The annual fixtures proved very popular,with 12,000 people watching the match with Warwickshire in 1948,and in the early 1950’s the club also decided to build an IndoorSchool at Neath. The idea was that a purpose-built complex wouldact as their winter coaching base in the West of the county andon October 28th, 1954 the Indoor School was opened byR.E.S.Wyatt. Over the past 40 years, a host of young Glamorgancricketers have been groomed in the nets during the winter monthsand the facilities have also been used by the club in theirpre-season activities.However, there were a few problems at the ground, especially whenit rained, as the area around The Gnoll has a high water table.Indeed, some people believe that the area was once the formercourse of the River Neath, and there are several small springs onthe hillside below the remains of mackworth’s old mansion. Thersult as far as cricket was concerned was that the ground took along time to dry out after rain, and in the late 1960’s theground became used just for one day matches rather than three dayChampionship games. Indeed, in 1969 The Gnoll staged thecounty’s first-ever home game in the Sunday League, but eventhese one day games were often rain affected, and after theBenson and Hedges Cup fixture with Gloucestershire had takenthree days to complete in 1974, The Gnoll was dropped from thecounty’s 1st XI fixture list.During the early 1980’s various industrial regeneration schemesbegan in the area, and the Neath Development Partnership began topromote tourism and recreation in the area. They viewed countycricket as the perfect vehicle for promoting their activities andthe area as well, so in 1984 Neath Borough Council offeredGlamorgan a substantial sponsorship package if the Australianmatch in 1985 was staged at Neath. The offer of around =A320,000resulted in the tourist match being staged at The Gnoll, and thesuccess of the game, and the off-field arrangements led toGlamorgan playing further first class and limited overs cricketat the ground. Indeed, the 1993 match with the Australians aswell as the 1995 fixture with their ‘A’ side have taken place atNeath.The Neath Cricket Club, quite rightly, have a proud tradition andtheir splendid pavilion houses many items celebrating the deedsof their players, including two English Test captains – TonyLewis and Cyril Walters, as well as Barry Lloyd, the currentcaptain of the Wales Minor County side, and the late John Bevan,the former Welsh rugby international and coach. Many otherGlamorgan have turned out for the Neath club, including StanTrick and Geoff Holmes, whilst their overseas stars have includedtwo from the 1996 World Cup – Richie Richardson of the WestIndies and Kenyan Maurice Odumbe.

ScorecardJimmy Maher, the captain, controlled Queensland’s push for a big lead with a blazing 170 on day three against Tasmania at Bellerive Oval. Maher, who was 29 at lunch, dominated in moving to 115 at tea and finished on 170 in a stunning lone hand.Maher’s performance was so outstanding that sundries was the second top-scorer with 22 while Brendan Nash, the opener, chipped in with 20. Adam Griffith, who took 5 for 128 in the first innings, and Brett Geeves both captured four wickets to give their side a chance of chasing 340 in 106 overs on the final day.Tasmania added 39 to their overnight total as Andy Bichel picked up his fourth victim and Queensland earned two first-innings points. However, the Tigers suffered another blow when Damien Wright limped off the field with a lower leg injury.

Wasim Jaffer and Gautam Gambhir starred for India A against the South Africans at Arundel. Jaffer scored 90 and Gambhir 64 in their 319 all out, in which Shaun Pollock came back strongly.Gambhir’s sparkling innings came from only 69 balls and Jaffer consolidated India A’s good start by batting for over three hours for a solid 90, including 12 fours, after Shiv Sunder Das chose to bat.Das himself dug in for 33 and Ambati Rayudu, who lofted Robin Peterson for two sixes over long-on off successive balls, was Dewalt Pretorious’s first victim, lbw for 32, after a stand of 56 from 86 balls with Jaffer.Pollock, who only arrived back in England on Friday after visiting his pregnant wife in South Africa, took 4 for 46, including a second new-ball spell of three wickets for one run in seven balls that ended the innings.In what is South Africa’s last match before Thursday’s first Test againstEngland, Pretorious did his chances of selection no harm by taking 3 for 41.He had a post-tea purple patch of 3 for 9 in 18 balls, boosting his chances of adding to the solitary Test cap he won against Australia at Newlands in March 2002.Pretorious, coming around the wicket, then bowled Parthiv Patel (8) after he shouldered arms. Meanwhile, Jaffer spent an uncomfortable half-hour in the 80s before breaking loose with a glorious cover drive off Pretorious. But, trying to repeat the stroke, he failed to keep the ball down and was caught low down by Graeme Smith.Wickets then fell cheaply before Pollock wrapped up the innings by havingIrfan Pathan junior caught in the slips by Smith before clean-bowling last manAavishkar Salvi for nought. But the day belonged to India A.

The Hampshire County Cricket Club undergoes a major change today (1 November 2001), becoming the first county club to change to a Limited Company. With effect the new board of Directors will take control of the business, Hampshire County Cricket and Sports Club Limited, with a new Chief Executive Officer taking over the running of the business.A new corporate structure has been put into place, but the interest of members is still preserved. The Board will consist of Rod Bransgrove (Chairman), Graham Walker (Chief Executive Officer), Tim Tremlett (Director of Cricket), and three Non-Executive Directors: Mark Nicholas, Feroze (“Jan”) Janmohamed and Nick Pike.As a result of the new corporate structure a newly constituted Members Club will operate on behalf of the members.Much work needs to be done in the completion of the Hampshire Rose Bowl, particularly the opening of the main pavilion, and all being well it is hoped that this will be complete for the start of the next (2002) cricket season.More news on this, and future plans both on the cricket front and the stadium will be published soon.