Western Province Boland 431 for 7 dec and 27 for 0 drew with Titans 280 and 450 for 6 dec (JA Morkel 204*, Kemp 130, Bodi 55*)
ScorecardFor three days, Western Province Boland looked set to top the SuperSport Series table and waltz into a home final as they outplayed the Titans at Boland Park in Paarl. And then, enter the giants. The dictionary defines a Titan as “a person of great size” and two of them strode out to the middle to start the final day.Albie Morkel and Justin Kemp put together a 264-run fourth-wicket partnership in the Titans follow-on innings with the ball flashing away to all parts of the ground. Between them they struck 41 boundaries and three sixes as they took the attack back to WPBOL. Kemp was first to go on 130 after nearly five hours at the crease, caught behind off Dawson as the new ball made the breakthrough. Their partnership meant that the WPBOL season ended in disappointment and opened the back door for theDolphins to slip through to the final.Morkel continued towards his first double-hundred as a few wickets fell around him. Showing both patience and at times brute aggression he brought the milestone up off 315 balls having hit 22 fours and two massive sixes.Goolam Bodi decided to join in on the act and helped himself to a half-century as the WPBOL shoulders slumped, before a token declaration from the Titans at 450 for 6.A target of 300 in 14 overs was a touch optimistic, and the game petered out to a draw with WPBOL ending on 27 for 0.Dolphins 362 for 7 dec and 103 for 4 (Khan 40) beat Warriors 211 and 251 by six wickets
ScorecardThe Dolphins needed only six overs to score the 21 runs needed to complete a six-wicket win over the Warriors at Kingsmead in Durban on the fourth and final day. The win also allowed them to slip into the SuperSport final to be played at Goodyear Park against the Eagles in a week’s time.Lying in third spot before this round of matches, the Dolphins needed to win and also needed Western Province Boland or the Eagles to fail. The Eagles did not but WPBOL obliged as they drew with the Titans, allowing the Dolphins to go through.Eagles 418 for 9 dec and 74 for 0 (Jacobs 48*) beat Lions 190 and 299 (Ontong 58, van Jaarsveld 58, McKenzie 55, McLaren 5-87, Tshabalala 3-120) by 10 wickets
ScorecardThe Eagles progressed to their third consecutive final by beating the Lions by ten wickets at Sedgars Park in Potchefstroom. As holders of the PRO20 and Standard Bank crowns, the Eagles are in line for the triple when they face the Dolphins in Bloemfontein this weekend.The Lions started the day still six runs behind with three wickets in hand. Werner Coetsee and David Terbrugge made sure that the Eagles would have to bat again as they put on 34 runs, with Terbrugge making 25. Coetsee followed after scoring a valuable 34 with the Man-of-the-Match, Ryan McLaren cleaning up the tail to end with 5 for 87 as the Lions were bowled out for 299, a lead of 71.The Eagles’ opening pair of Davey Jacobs and Jonathan Beukes finished the game off in 15.5 overs, just three overs after the lunch break on the final day. Jacobs finished on 48, Beukes on 25 and the Eagles on 74 for 0.

The ongoing sponsorship dispute between the West Indian players and the board failed to reach a conclusion, with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) taking the firm stand that seven players, including Brian Lara, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle, would not be considered for selection until their individual contracts with Cable and Wireless were properly inspected.”In the board’s view, the basis of discussion has to be to field the best team in the circumstances and not the best team at all costs,” the board said in a statement. The confrontation between the two mobile companies, Cable and Wireless and Digicel, worsened with each blaming the other for a crisis which has been unresolved since last December. Digicel also rejected the proposals put forth by Keith Mitchell, the Prime Minister of Grenada.”The board has noted various comments and recommendations made on behalf of the CARICOM prime ministerial sub-committee on cricket issued in a statement by the chairman of that sub-committee on the evening of March 11, 2005,” stated the board. “The board also noted public statements issued by the parties involved. From these statements, it is the understanding of the board that the recommendations outlined in the prime minister’s statement have not been agreed to by all of the parties.”The WICB did not mention when the inspection of contracts would be completed. However, the West Indies Players Association has indicated that it has been successful in getting the players to waive the confidentiality clauses in their contracts, thereby making it easier for the board to scrutinize these documents.The board stated, however, that the home series against South Africa and Pakistan would proceed as planned, and that the West Indian squad for the first Test against South Africa would be named on March 17. It also stated that the board would commence inspection of the Cable and Wireless contracts of those seven players. “The purpose of the Board’s inspection of the contracts is to ensure that the contracts do not impose on the players any obligations which could cause them or the WICB to be in breach of the sponsorship contract which has been executed between the WICB and Digicel.”The players who hold personal endorsement contracts with Cable and Wireless – [Dwayne] Bravo, [Fidel] Edwards, [Chris] Gayle, Lara, [Ravi] Rampaul, Sarwan and Dwayne Smith – will not be considered for selection to the West Indies team until the board satisfies itself as to the nature of those contracts.”

For the second time in as many Tests, Graeme Smith, the South African captain, was surprised at the West Indian approach while bowling and felt that “they gave up too early”. Smith and his opening partner, AB de Villiers, rattled up an undefeated 214-run opening stand on the first day of the fourth Test at Antigua and gave South Africa a great chance to end a triumphant series on a high.”I didn’t think twice about batting after I won the toss and I was surprised when I found out that the West Indies were going to bowl first if they had the choice,” Smith was reported as saying in Reuters. “It was also surprising that they took [Tino] Best off after he started to reverse-swing the ball and that they started with Wavell Hinds after tea.”Smith had commented on the West Indian tactics in the earlier Test at Barbados as well when he felt that they didn’t allow their medium pacers to make full use of the new ball and reverted to part-timers instead. Just like then, both him and de Villiers cashed in with hundreds on a day when West Indies were left chasing shadows. “We never allowed them to settle, he added, “but I think the West Indies gave up too early.”Speaking about the fantastic opening partnership, Smith said that they had taken the weather forecast into account. “Our plan was to get a decent start,” he continued, “especially with the rain coming, and the rate we scored at helped to make up for the rain stoppages.”This was Smith’s third consecutive hundred of the series and he had to overcome an edgy start before the bludgeoning strokes began to flow. “I started iffishly,” he said, “but the wicket is really good and it saved me in the early stages of my innings.” He also admitted that de Villiers had played the more fluent knock: “AB was superb, you can’t get much better than 63 not out off 60 balls, which is what he had scored when we went off for rain the first time.”de Villiers said that he backed his positive instincts throughout the innings and was pleased that he had made a big score for the second consecutive Test. “I proved in Barbados that I can bat for a long time and my strokes will always be there,” he said. “They bowled a bit tighter at me when I reached the 80s but if the ball is there to be hit I will hit it. “Despite the series being sealed, Smith was eager that South Africa finish on a high. “If we win here it’s 100 Test victories for our country and three in a row on tour, which South Africa has never done before.”In what turned out to be a bizzarre end to the press conference, Smith, de Villiers and a group of journalists were accidentally locked into the room where the session took place. The players and two of the reporters escaped by climbing over a slippery rail and onto a neighbouring stand and the door was eventually forced open by ground staff some 15 minutes after the press conference ended.

June 8-11 – Frizzell County Championship

ScorecardThe contest between two of India’s brightest young talents fizzled out as Middlesex and Surrey played out a tame draw at Lord’s. Pathan sparkled with the bat in the first innings, smashing 68 from just 93 balls before being bowled while giving Harbhajan Singh the charge. With the ball, he failed to make anything like the same impact, going wicketless over 23 overs.June 5 – National League

ScorecardPathan’s three-wicket haul wasn’t enough as Middlesex were nudged out in a thrilling contest at Lord’s. Chasing 244 for a win, Essex were in early trouble when Pathan removed William Jefferson and Ravinder Bopara. But some good middle-order contributions helped Essex sneak through. Earlier Pathan was promoted to No.3 in the batting order but failed to make an impact and was out for just 3.May 30 – National League

ScorecardMiddlesex completed an easy 32-run victory over Worcestershire at New Road and Pathan chipped in with 2 for 38 as he mopped up the tail. He also made a rapid six-ball 15 with the bat, including two fours and a six.May 30 – Frizzell County Championship

ScorecardPathan’s debut for Middlesex turned out to be a satisfying outing as he made a plucky 41 and snapped up 4 for 81 in the first innings against Sussex at Hove. Pathan’s knock with the bat helped take the score past 400, as he eked out some valuable runs with the rest of the tail. While bowing, he made an instant impact by removing both the Sussex openers before returning later to pick up two more. He wasn’t as impressive in the second innings though and finished with only one wicket as the game ended in a thrilling draw with Sussex falling 28 runs short of the target with nine wickets down.May 22 – National League
– No result
ScorecardIt was a damp start to Pathan’s county stint as Middlesex’s one-day game against Gloucestershire ended without a result. Only 28 overs were possible at the County Ground at Bristol and Pathan’s only two overs couldn’t produce any wickets.

Two of Yorkshire’s finest, Dickie Bird and Geoff Boycott, have pledged their support to the Chance to Shine campaign, a new ECB initiative that aims to regenerate interest in cricket in schools.The campaign, which was launched in Bethnal Green, East London, at the start of England’s Test series against Bangladesh, aims to raise £50 million to fund cricket programmes and competitions over the next 10 years. Bird and Boycott have carried the project further north, to Barnsley, the town where they both grew up and learnt their game.Barnsley Cricket Club, where they both opened the batting, is one of twelve grounds in England and Wales participating in the pilot scheme. Bird, who has never been short of an anecdote, remembered growing up in an area that has not often had a chance to shine. “I went to school in the rough part of town,” he told The Daily Telegraph, “where the pitches were bumpy and the outfields worse.”The initiative aims to work closely with 38 counties across England and Wales, where each coaching team will work with an average of six local schools, providing children the chance to play the game regularly. Their aim is to reach a third of all schools in England over the next ten years.”Cricket has almost disappeared from the schools,” commented Bird. “We need to get the lads and lasses back playing in good facilities with top-class coaches so that they can get as much enjoyment and success out of the game as I have. Who knows what potential there is lying untapped in our schools.”Despite enjoying superior facilities at his grammar school as a boy, Boycott was similarly enthused about the scheme. “This is not political but it needs to be addressed at national level because the game teaches self-discipline and builds character,” he said. “This scheme goes a long way to redressing the balance.”

The Australian pressure came from all angles, and India could not cope. As the only team consistently to repel the world champions over the past three years, India are now expected to absorb it and move on towards a win or a draw. But after the top order’s second surrender of the match, reaching stumps on the final day would rate alongside the 2001 Kolkata miracle.While the Border-Gavaskar Trophy remains in Cricket Australia’s Melbourne headquarters, it has not really belonged Down Under since the 3-0 whitewash in 1999-2000. Under Sachin Tendulkar’s captaincy, a young side was outclassed by a blend of bounce, line and impatience. Lessons learned, they rebounded and twice held the Australians’ gaze. But in dropping to 2 for 4 in the first innings and 4 for 19 in the second here, they suffered a relapse that could take matches to recover from.A line change – from outside off to zeroing in on the stumps – has worked immediately for Australia’s bowlers. While eight of Australia’s second-innings batsmen went to close-in catches, four of India’s top six fell lbw. The tumble began with a terrible decision for Virender Sehwag, but the bowling was superb as both openers cut the ball viciously across the maze of cracks … thinkHarbhajan Singh nearing 140kph.Glenn McGrath’s first spell of five overs contained four maidens and leaked one miserly run. While Sehwag was still shaking his head McGrath almost trapped Rahul Dravid with a similarly sharp mover. This time the edge was heard before it hit the pads. The relentless accuracy continued, puncturing the batsmen’s confidence and opening wounds to exploit through theremainder of the series.Out of sorts until the end of the first innings, Jason Gillespie charged through Aakash Chopra, and softened up Sourav Ganguly’s stomach before his awful run-out. Shane Warne whirled closer to Muttiah Muralitharan’s world record as McGrath was pastured, and the vice did not loosen as Michael Kasprowicz began, Gillespie returned, and the pressure increased.Following his first-innings relaxing of the gap between bat and pad, Dravid played as he could – and how the others should. He dragged Yuvraj Singh along with him until McGrath scratched him out in his first over back. Another offcutter, another Indian lapse and another Gilchrist catch. As a reward McGrath ran in for seven overs, his longest spell of the match, and his 12 overs brought eight maidens and cost only nine runs. Once again India had been well and truly Scrooged.Peter English is Australasian editor of Wisden Cricinfo.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

It was a day of mixed fortunes for Bangladesh at the Bangabandhu Stadium, but the end result was all too familiar. A bad start was followed by stirring defiance, but New Zealand were back on top as the day came to a close. Bangladesh reached 165 for 6 after making batting look both easy and unbearably hard, as they lost three early wickets, after which Mohammad Ashraful (67) and Rajin Saleh (41) put on a century partnership. After they departed, runs came sparingly against a New Zealand attack that gave very little away throughout the day.The 115-run stand between Ashraful and Saleh came when Bangladesh were hobbling at 5 for 3. Jacob Oram removed Hannan Sarkar and Nafis Iqbal – both edged the ball – and James Franklin took care of Javed Omar. There was swing, the pitch had bounce, and Daniel Vettori made the ball turn uncomfortably. Weathering the conditions, both blocked and dodged and pulled away, and, barring the odd moment of indecision, did their best to survive. Just before lunch, Ashraful upped the ante as he swivelled to pull Ian Butler, New Zealand’s fastest bowler, for a six. Two more came after lunch, and both were off Paul Wiseman.Ashraful judged the length early while cutting and driving with assurance. Fielders were left ball-watching, their dives were often futile, and Ashraful and Saleh even shared laughs as the ball crossed the rope. Wiseman’s bowling, in particular, was played like it was a lark. Pitched up? No problem, turn around the corner. Slightly short? No problem there, either as it was whacked out of park or cut hard. Saleh lofted Wiseman over long-on, and used the cut profitably besides driving down the ground. His outlook was not as aggressive as Ashraful’s, though, who was on a different plane. Both had their luck, though: a cover-drive by Ashraful was dropped by Scott Styris, and Saleh was adjudged not out on a close run-out call.

New Zealand finally broke through with the score on 120, as Saleh edged a drive off Franklin to Oram at gully. Vettori struck shortly after, inducing a false shot from Ashraful, and then claimed Alok Kapali, who inner-edged an attempted sweep to the wicketkeeper (136 for 6). Vettori had bowled a flat line throughout the day, occasionally giving the ball air to extract bite from the pitch. It worked, and the batsmen were overly cautious when he bowled. Less than two runs an over were scored through the day. The cheers from spectators in the morning were gone and replaced by the odd clap when singles were taken.At the close of play, Khaled Mashud and Manjural Islam Rana had added 28, and played out 129 balls. Their watchfulness bordered on paranoia, and for a while it looked like the only way they’d get a run was if the fielders fell asleep.

Shabbir Ahmed, the Pakistan fast bowler, is showing improvement as he works with Bob Woolmer, the national coach, to remodel his bowling action, which was declared illegal by the International Cricket Council recently. Instead of being sent to Australia for remedial work, Shabbir has worked with Woolmer on reducing the degree of straightening in his bowling arm.”Woolmer has reported back that Shabbir has responded well to the work done on his action so far,” said Saleem Altaf, the director cricket operations, to . “He has reported that there is a definite improvement in Shabbir’s action and hopefully the need to send him abroad for rectifying his action will not arise.”Shabbir was called for the third time in his career during the first Test against West Indies in Barbados two months ago. Further tests on his action in England confirmed that his elbow extension exceeded the 15-degree limit set by the ICC, and subsequently, he was suspended from international and domestic cricket for an indefinite period.”It’s not right to take any decision to send Shabbir abroad in a hurry; first we want to see how things go after his sessions with Woolmer and then if there is still a need to send him to Australia we’ll do it,” Altaf continued. “Woolmer is confident as he has watched Shabbir’s action closely and feels that it can be improved.”The position is that if we play Shabbir today and his action is reported again it means he’ll be suspended from international cricket and we don’t want such a situation so we are taking it step by step.”

Tim May, the CEO of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Association, has said that following a full briefing by the West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA) and informal discussions with members of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) he was confident that the ongoing dispute between the two would be resolved in the short term.The dispute has led to a number of players being unavailable for selection for the West Indies, including high profile names such as Brian Lara, Chris Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan. The essence of the major dispute surrounds the commercial use of player attributes and restrictions that WICB seek to impose on players’ personal endorsement ability.While May was confident that the matters could be solved, he supported the players’ position on the matter, stating that the existing terms and conditions on the table were simply unacceptable and represented terms that no player association could accept.May believed that the recent election of Ken Gordon to the WICB presidency would have a positive effect upon the stalemate and that the mood of negotiation would change from impasse to one where all parties would work together to find a solution that would satisfy all parties. “At present the interests of all of the key parties are not being served,” he said. “Whether it be WICB, the players, the sponsor, the West Indies’ cricketing public or world cricket, all parties are suffering as a result of this dispute.”After discussions with key personnel from both sides of the dispute, I am confident that the mood of the negotiations will be conducted with a more positive and respectful manner and a solution will brokered in the short term.”

John Wright, the former Indian coach, has said that the row between Greg Chappell and Sourav Ganguly should have remained confidential and never have left the dressing-room.Wright said that the issue would have been handled differently had he been coach. “I was very fortunate from the point of view that we always believed what goes on in the changing-room stays in the changing-room,” he was quoted as saying by AFP. “Sometimes as soon as things come into the public area they can take on a momentum all of their own.”In his controversial email to the BCCI, Chappell had accused Wright of allowing Ganguly to practice “deceit”, “rumour-mongering” and “divide and rule”. “John Wright obviously allowed this [Ganguly’s behaviour] to go on to the detriment of the team,” wrote Chappell. “I am not prepared to sit back and allow this to continue.”Wright refused to take sides in the ongoing fracas but defended his approach during his five-year stint as the Indian coach. He said that his success at team building was one of Chappell’s alleged weaknesses. “I stand by my record,” said Wright. “I worked with the team I was given by the selectors. I worked as hard as I could with the whole team to try and get the performances that the Indian people wanted.”Greg [Chappell] has only been in the job five months and at the moment it doesn’t look like (he and Ganguly) would go on holiday together. It looks like they’re having some teething problems at the moment and it will be interesting to see how it goes,” Wright was quoted as saying by, the Melbourne-based, . “I always looked at it this way – the team was selected for me, whoever that was, with a captain, with a player. You didn’t get a vote on selection but my job was to ensure that as coach they were prepared and performed to the best of their ability. It was almost like performance coaching and I hope we made some progress over the four years I was there.””I had criticism from all quarters during, after and before my tenure, it’s part of the role of being coach,” said Wright. “The only thing that I tried to do was ensure that we played well as a team and we got results as a team, that was it. I’ve moved on, I’m no longer the coach, I believe we made progress during my time with the team, I thoroughly enjoyed it.”Wright added that he hoped that Chappell would succeed in his mission to take India to the next level. “In any team situation there are always issues – sometimes personal, sometimes performance. You want Greg to come on and hopefully he’ll take it that little bit further. He’ll obviously do it in his own style and that may be different from the methods I used. It’s a process. I’ve always tried to be very honest with the players. At times the players don’t appreciate that.”