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Orthodox and effective
India had just been buoyed with the early wicket of Lou Vincent, but Brendon McCullum pushed them right back with three outstanding shots in the very next over, from Sreesanth. The first one was a classical straight drive, with the bat making a clean, crisp sound as it hit the ball. Next was a mere push to the covers, but with such precise timing and placement that the ball sped to the boundary. The next one was full and slightly wide, and this time McCullum creamed it between cover and mid-off. Three balls, three glorious orthodox shots, 12 runs on the board. Who said Twenty20 cricket was only about slogging?Bull’s Eye
You know the India are really getting into stride when direct hits earn them wickets. They had missed a couple of opportunities earlier in New Zealand’s innings, but Yuvraj Singh got it just right when he charged in from midwicket, swooped down on the ball, and picked it up and threw down the non-striker’s stumps in one clean motion. Scott Styris was on his way, and the huge Indian contingent in the stands had another reason to celebrate.McMillan the mauler
After 15 overs, New Zealand badly needed someone to take charge of an innings that was going nowhere, and Craig McMillan was the man for the moment. He first turned his attention on Yuvraj, smashing a six and a four, before turning his attention on Sreesanth: a slower ball was clubbed straight over the bowler’s head for a 94-metre six, and in the next ball, with Sreesanth bowling from round the wicket, McMillan got his left leg out of the way and sent the ball soaring high over midwicket. A snarl, a pumped fist, and a roar followed.Clever Dhoni
Knowing that the batsmen would be dashing for a run even if they missed theball in the last over, Mahendra Singh Dhoni cleverly had the big wicketkeeping gloves off from his right hand even as the bowler was delivering the ball. When Mark Gillespie missed and McMillan dashed off towards the striker’s end, Dhoni was ready, without his glove, and his throw at the stumps was accurate. He repeated the act off the nextball and managed to win a run-out at the non-striker’s end.Bond dismantled…again
After going for just four in his first over, things fell apart again for ShaneBond, who had leaked 45 in four overs against Sri Lanka on Saturday. GautamGambhir started it off with an outstanding stroke, swinging a good-lengthdelivery high over midwicket for six. Two lovely cover-drives and aslashed four followed in the same over, which cost New Zealand 18 and putIndia on track.Canny Vettori
With Irfan Pathan looking for quick runs, Daniel Vettori knew exactly whatwould do the trick: varying his pace quite magnificently, Vettori slippedin the quick arm ball which completely befuddled Pathan, who backed awaybut was far too late on his stroke. The off stump knocked back and the was gamealmost in the bag for New Zealand.

Shahriar Nafees, the Bangladesh opener, has been fined 20% of his match-fees for dissent during the third one-day international against Australia at Fatullah.Nafees was found guilty by Jeff Crowe, the match referee, for breaching the ICC Code of Conduct that relates to “Showing dissent at an umpire’s decision by action or verbal abuse”.After he was given out leg before to Mitchell Johnson, Nafees shook his head and gestured with his bat in the direction of the Bangladesh dressing-room as he walked back. He was reported by Ian Howell and Nadir Shah, the on-field umpires, and AFM Akhtaruddin, the third umpire.”The player admitted what he had done was wrong and I took this, together with his previously exemplary conduct, into account,” said Crowe. “However, it is important to show that dissent of any sort at an umpire’s decision is unacceptable and the player’s punishment for his actions illustrates that fact.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out
The Indians dominated the first two days of their warm-up match but Andy Hodd led a stubborn fightback on the third as Sussex, and rain, ensured that the chance of a result was rather unlikely. Hodd scored his maiden first-class century and led Sussex to 300 for 6 before Michael Yardy declared, giving the Indians a lead of 88. After that solid batting effort, James Kirtley and Jason Lewry rattled the Indian batsmen during a short burst before stumps and reduced them to 21 for 2.After two days of sunny weather, it began raining minutes before the scheduled start at 11.00 am and conditions did not improve through the morning. Over four hours of play were lost when the players finally took the field at 3.15pm.Sreesanth continued where he left off last evening and bowled an outstanding opening spell. He consistently hit a good length, extracted sharp bounce and got the ball to swing considerably away from the right-handers. RP Singh wasn’t as controlled though. He tried bowling to a plan, angling the ball across the right-handers from over the wicket, trying to swing it back into them to hit the pad. His execution was poor for he often strayed down leg side. However, he was difficult to play when he got it right and unsettled the batsmen with sharp in-swing and well-directed bouncers. Ranadeb Bose, playing his first game on the tour, was the least impressive of the seamers. He also found swing but his line was too wide outside the off stump to trouble the batsmen. And when he made an effort to bowl straighter, he was unable to generate as much swing.

Both Hodd and Martin-Jenkins were tested by some terrific deliveries in the afternoon but MS Dhoni had an equally torrid time behind the stumps. Sreesanth and RP Singh sent down deliveries that swung prodigiously after passing the batsmen and Dhoni frequently struggled to collect them cleanly. Sreesanth could have had a wicket early on but Dhoni was late in moving towards an outside edge from Martin-Jenkins, on 6, and dropped what would have been a comfortable catch for Yuvraj Singh at first slip.Sussex began the day trailing by 242 runs with just five wickets in hand with Hodd on 21 and Martin-Jenkins yet to score. Hodd was the more aggressive of the two, cutting and driving through cover point whenever offered width outside the off stump. A couple of his boundaries were streaky edges over slips and gully but, in all fairness, he would have had more had the wet outfield not thwarted several well-timed drives through the off side.Martin-Jenkins overcame a nervous start and grew in confidence as the session progressed. His first boundary was a crisp drive through covers off Sreesanth and by the time tea approached he was settled enough to use his feet and loft Anil Kumble over mid-on.The Indians could have had a wicket soon after tea but Kumble, running backwards to catch a top-edged pull from Martin-Jenkins off his own bowling, lost balance when he collided with the stumps at the non-striker’s end and messed up a simple catch. Martin-Jenkins went on to make 42, his highest first-class score of the season. He added 125 for the sixth wicket with Hodd before he was stumped down the leg side off Kumble.Hodd played Kumble confidently, driving him twice to the midwicket boundary. He calmly moved into the nineties before suffering several nervous moments on the verge of his century. Laxman, standing in for Rahul Dravid who was nursing a calf strain, took the second new ball with Hodd on 99 and Sreesanth backed up the decision with an outstanding maiden over, beating Hodd’s outside edge several times. Hodd played out 13 dot balls on 99 before RP Singh offered a loose delivery on the pads that he flicked to the square leg fence and raised his arms in triumph. Sussex declared shortly afterwards, and tested the Indians with a few awkward overs before stumps.Wasim Jaffer never looked comfortable and failed for the second time in the match when he was hit on the pad by one that swung back into him from Lewry. Dhoni, who also failed in the first innings, began aggressively by cutting Lewry twice through point for four. It didn’t last though and Lewry had his second wicket when Dhoni tried to pull a short ball that got big on him and top-edged it to Chris Nash at long leg. Dinesh Karthik and Yuvraj, promoted to No 3, took India through to stumps without further damage.

South Africa’s convincing 4-0 series win against India has pushed them up to within five points of the Australians, while the Indians slid back to sixth place in the latest ICC team rankings for one-day internationals.India were third on the table as recently as April this year, but since then they have fallen after a sharp drop in form which has resulted in just three wins in their last 17 matches. South Africa, on the other hand, have reached their highest rating since January 2003. If they continue their form against Pakistan early next year, and if Australia slip up in the VB Series against England and New Zealand, South Africa could even be the top team going into the 2007 World Cup.India, meanwhile, are in danger of slipping to seventh place – where they were in October 2005 – if West Indies snatch a series win against Pakistan in the five-match series which starts on December 5. West Indies are currently only marginally behind India.Among the individual ratings, Shaun Pollock had plenty of reason to celebrate after his outstanding display against India. Pollock, who won the Man-of-the-Series award with ten wickets at 8.30 apiece, moved up to 910 points in the bowlers’ ratings, an astonishing 111 points ahead of the second-placed Glenn McGrath. In fact, Pollock’s rating is the fourth-highest in the all-time list for ODI bowlers. Only Joel Garner (940 points in April 1985), Richard Hadlee (923 in June 1983) and Muttiah Muralitharan (913 in April 2002) have ever had more points.Click here for more details.

In the 1975 World Cup, West Indies clashed with Sri Lanka for the first time in an ODI. The Sri Lankans were greenhorns then, and they played according to the script, being bundled out 86 in 37.2 overs as West Indies romped home by nine wickets with 236 balls to spare. Thirty-one years later, the Sri Lankans returned the favour in spectacular fashion at the Brabourne Stadium, clinching victory by an identical margin with 220 balls remaining.The advent of so many minnows into one-day cricket has meant many more one-sided games, but taking into account only matches involving the top eight teams (excluding Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and the other non-Test-playing teams), today’s margin of victory – in terms of balls remaining – was the third-highest ever in ODIs. Only England and Pakistan have suffered more crushing defeats, and incidentally, West Indies were the side that inflicted that Cape Town hammering to Pakistan in 1992-93.

West Indies’ 80 all out was their second-lowest total in ODIs, next only to their 54 against South Africa, again at Cape Town. Click here for a list of West Indies’ lowest totals in ODIs.While it was day of dismal lows for West Indies, Sri Lanka, and Farveez Maharoof, had plenty to celebrate. It was their 17th ODI win against West Indies in 42 matches, and while they have lost 24 times, the gap is gradually narrowing – in the last nine matches, they have won seven.Maharoof, meanwhile, recorded his best figures in ODIs, and became only the fourth Sri Lankan bowler to take six wickets in a one-day international. (Click here for the best bowling performances by Sri Lankan bowlers in ODIs.) Only Anil Kumble has conceded fewer runs while taking six wickets in an ODI – Kumble took 6 for 12 against West Indies in the final of the Hero Cup in Kolkata in 1993-94. The table below lists the five most economical six-fors.

Australia 254 for 4 (Clarke 80*, Ponting 66, Symonds 42*) beat Bangladesh 250 for 8 (Shahriar 75, Mashud 71*) by six wickets
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

In their final match of the NatWest Series, Bangladesh demonstrated all the lessons they have accumulated on an arduous tour, as Australia were forced to fight for every scrap in an unconvincing six-wicket victory at Canterbury. After losing the toss and being asked to bat first, Bangladesh recovered from a dreadful start to post an impressive total of 250 for 8, and it wasn’t until Andrew Symonds entered the fray in the final 15 overs of Australia’s run-chase that the gulf between the sides was finally exposed.In the end the margin of victory was comfortable enough, but for the departing Bangladeshis, it was very much their day. Their heroes were the young left-handed opener, Shahriar Nafees, who kept his head while the top-order crumbled to reach a career-best 75, and their veteran wicketkeeper-batsman and crisis-manager, Khaled Mashud, who consolidated at first, and then spanked 24 runs from the final two overs, bowled by Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie, to post his seventh and highest one-day half-century.In their previous encounters with Australia this summer, Bangladesh had won gloriously at Cardiff and lost emphatically at Old Trafford, and when they slumped to 19 for 3 in the seventh over, it seemed apparent which direction this particular match was headed. Javed Omar and Tushar Imran both fell for ducks in a hostile start from Lee and Gillespie, and Mohammad Ashraful was yorked by Lee one delivery after hoisting him, Gordon Greenidge-style, into the midwicket stands for six.Ashraful’s example suggested that Bangladesh were demob-happy, although with Shahriar entrenched and guarding his wicket for all he was worth, there was a solidity to their performance that had been absent during the Test series. Habibul, whose form has flickered only briefly on this tour, strode out with a purpose and clobbered 30 from 24 balls, including three fours in a row off Lee, and when he eventually fell to a leaping delivery from Shane Watson, Mashud was on hand to add 94 in 20 overs for the sixth wicket.Shahriar’s fifty came from 82 balls and was celebrated with a twirl of the bat to all corners of the ground. His vigil was finally ended by a fine offcutter from Watson, but Mashud had set himself up for an explosive finish, as Bangladesh helped themselves to 72 runs from the final ten overs. It was a shock to Australia’s system, but a tonic to a huge contingent of Bangladesh’s flag-waving fans, as their team equalled the total that they had successfully chased at Cardiff.

Bangladesh were aided by another ragged fielding display from the Aussies, which included 23 extras and a bad miss at slip from Matthew Hayden, whose day ended as badly as the rest of his week when he was caught behind for 1 in the run-chase. His dismissal brought Ricky Ponting to the crease, whose habit of falling across his front pad made him a candidate for lbw at every available opportunity, as Mashrafe Mortaza proved a particular handful.In the absence of any fluency from Ponting, it was left to Gilchrist to keep the score ticking over. He clobbered his first delivery, from Mortaza, for four, followed up with a six over long leg and had rattled along to 45 when his innings ended in bizarre fashion. Gilchrist aimed a full-blooded stroke through the covers off Tapash Baisya, only for the ball to lob into the hands of Khaled Mahmud at first slip. He walked off in bemusement, assuming that he had hit it, but replays showed that the ball had exploded out of a foothole at the same time as he had struck the ground with his bat.Bangladesh’s mood improved even further when Mahmud himself entered the attack. His previous outing in the series had not been auspicious – a first-ball duck and three overs for 39 against England – but with his 11th delivery he found the perfect length to draw Damien Martyn into his stroke and Mashud claimed his second catch of the innings. Australia went into the drinks break at 83 for 3, and with one or two troubling thoughts in their minds.But while Ponting was off-colour, Michael Clarke was merely keeping his head down, and together they added 85 vital runs for the fourth wicket. There was time for one more alarm, when Ponting holed out to Tushar Imran at deep midwicket off the persevering Mortaza, but Symonds’ arrival added a long-overdue sense of certainty to the proceedings. His unbeaten 42 included a massive six off the final ball of Mahmud’s spell, as he and Clarke sealed the win with 11 balls to spare.

The hearing over the alleged ball tampering incident that led to the forfeiture of the fourth Test between England and Pakistan Test at The Oval will take place on September 27 and 28. Malcolm Speed, chief executive of the International Cricket Council, announced this in Mumbai on Thursday at a function to launch the Champions Trophy.Speed, who had earlier addressed a similar function in New Delhi, said that Ranjan Madugalle would be able to chair the hearing at the end of the month. He also clarified that it was not entirely accurate to say that Pakistan would be cleared of charges of tampering simply because there was no evidence on videotape. “If video evidence was the only criteria, taking the analogy of crime, we would not be able to prove a lot of murders and half the jails would be empty,” said Speed. “I cannot say much, except that there are other forms of evidence, and all will unfold at the hearing.”When pressed to explain what he meant by other forms of evidence, Speed said, “There is the ball, [the accounts of] other people who were present, and there’s the umpires’ version, which is the most important.” This means that the testimony of Darrell Hair, the man in the centre of all the controversy, and Billy Doctrove, his colleague, could prove crucial should there be no evidence on tape. Mike Procter, the match referee, will also be a key player in the proceedings.”The whole issue has gotten out of hand a bit,” Speed added. “It should have been dealt with then and there by the match referee.”The pre-launch function for the Champions Trophy, due to be played in India next month, was held at the Cricket Club of India and was attended by several functionaries of the Board of Control for Cricket in India including Niranjan Shah, the board secretary, and Ratnakar Shetty, an executive secretary of the board. Milind Rege and Suru Nayak, former Mumbai cricketers, were also present.

The USA’s Under-19 cricketers got an opportunity at last in Los Angeles to display the skills that had carried them through unbeaten in the Americas U-19 tournament in Canada five months ago.The 2005 U-19 tournament had been postponed, and then relocated from Florida to Los Angeles a month ago. Given the uncertainties caused by the assorted hurricanes in Florida, this was probably an expedient move – southern California is one of the few places that can promise an equable cricket climate in mid-November, and Los Angeles has certainly proved that it has the facilities to organize and hold major tournaments – after all, it was also the default location last year for the delayed US national finals.The tournament format was a somewhat truncated form of the 2004 version. Instead of three days of cricket during with each Zone played the other three, there were only two days of cricket with the first-day winners automatically placed in the second-day finals and the losers playing for third and fourth places.Judging by the results, the new format definitely worked to the disadvantage of last year’s finalist, the Atantic/SE Zone. They were beaten handily by the West (NW/SW) Zone, with their U-19 USA players Ravi Timbawala and Abhimanyu Rajp among the runs and the wickets respectively. This automatically put them out of the finals. Had there been a third match for them to play, they might have had a chance to break back into the tournament with a possible victory over New York who they had defeated in 2004. As it was, they showed what they were capable of in their decisive win over the Central Zone (CE and CW) for third place.Meanwhile, New York/NE faced few problems in their march to the tournament victory. Having skittled out the Central Zone with almost as much ease as the Atlantic/SE Zone were to do the following day, they eked out a closer but comfortable victory over West Zone in the finals and captured the 2006 National tournament. Again, the New York/NE stars in the USA national team, Akeem Dodson and Hemant Punoo (USA U-19 captain), were credited with their batting for the New York victory.Compared with the 2004 tournament, fewer runs were scored in 2005. There were no centuries this time (there were two in 2004); Akeem Dodson’s 76 and unbeaten 71 for New York were by far the highest scores in the tournament, and established him as the best batsmen for the weekend; he was followed by Timbawala’s unbeaten 60 against Atlantic /SE. On the bowling side, there was one five-wicket haul by Dominc Auden for NY/NE against Central Zone, and one four-wicket haul, by Nisarg Patel (West) against Atlantic SE.Atlantic/SE 117 in 34.3 overs ( Romero Deane 22, Renardo Francis 19; Nisarg Patel 4-29, Nadir Malik 2-23, Abhemanyu Rajp 2-10) lost to West (NW/SW) 118 for 3 in 24.4 overs (Ravi Timbawala 60*, Mrunal Patel 19*; Tim Allen 2-30) by seven wicketsNew York/NE 242 in 44.3 overs (A Dodson 76, K Ramsabad, D. Audain, N Hay, T Walters 16, K Ganesh 14; S Singh 3-46, J Makwana 3-60, R. Siddiqi 2-49, Wakas Khan 1-37, Shaham Mumtaz 1-33) beat Central West/Central East 64 (D Audain 5-19, F Mughal 2-15, T Walter 2-19) by 178 runsChamionship Game : West (NW/SW) 159 for 9 in 45 overs lost to New York/ NE 160 for 3 ( Akeem Dodson 71*, H Punoo 34*, K Ganesh 30 ) by seven wicketsThird & Fourth Place Game Atlantic/SE 322 for 9 in 45 overs (Bhatt 52, Francis 42, Allen 41,Nathaniel 58*) beat Central (CW/CE) 121 (Allen 3-45, Nathaniel 3-24) by 201 runs

Division Two

Points TableIan Bell struck a record-breaking 137, the highest score in the National League by a Warwickshire player, to help his side beat Yorkshire by a commanding 102 runs. Bell, not known for his powerful strokeplay, struck seven sixes and 11 fours in an 84-ball hundred, as Warwickshire rattled up 309 for 3 in their 45 overs. Jonathan Trott was also in the runs, hitting 94 in a stand worth 216 with Bell. Yorkshire’s target was inevitably too daunting, and they crumbled to 209 for 9, with England’s new promising spinner Alex Loudon taking 3 for 26. This convincing win makes Warwickshire near certainties for promotion to Division One, subject to Derbyshire winning by a substantial margin to increase their net run-rate.

Karachi, Nov 13: Karachi Whites overwhelmed Sheikhupura by an inningsand 13 runs to record their fifth victory in the Quaid-i-Azam TrophyNational Grade-I Cricket Championship at the UBL Sports Complex hereon Monday.Sheikhupura, who needed to bat throughout the fourth and final day,were bowled out for 218 in their second innings in the 11th mandatoryover.Earlier, Karachi Whites had declared their first innings at theirovernight score of 543 for four. The highlight being the mammothunfinished record fifth-wicket partnership of 361 between skipper AsifMujtaba (202) and Mohammad Masroor (171).Mujtaba’s timely declaration proved decisive in the end as the KarachiWhites bowlers stuck to their task to condemn Sheikhupura to theirfifth defeat in six matches.The only resistance offered was a stubborn stand of 78 in 103 minutesby the third-wicket pair of Mohammad Javed and Usman Akram.The left-handed Javed made exactly 50 off 129 balls in 134 minuteswith the help of 10 boundaries. His partner, Usman contributed 38 in103 minutes off 104 deliveries with four hits to the fence.At one stage, Sheikhupura looked like saving the match when they were137 for four in mid-afternoon. However, fine bowling by pace bowlerAthar Laeeq and the young spin duo of Tahir Khan and Adnan Malik putpaid to that notion.Athar drew the first blood when he clean bowled Majid Majeed, who made88 in the first innings, for a duck in the third over of the innings.Later he claimed two more wickets at crucial moments.Off-spinner Tahir Khan got rid of the other opener, Tahir Usman, withthe very first ball of his opening over.Adnan Malik, the slow left-armer, then dismissed Javed and Usman Akramin quick successions after lunch. The latter was out to a magnificentreturn catch.The last four wickets crashed in the final session after tea was takenwith Sheikhupura on 156 for six. Tahir was was responsible for abrilliant direct hit at the bowler’s end from square leg to run outMohammad Islam.In between, Tahir removed Asif Raza for 35, caught at backward shortleg by Athar Laeeq.The final wicket fell to Adnan Malik who had Sheikhupura captainJaffer Nazir caught behind for the innings’ third duck.Athar Laeeq finished with impressive analysis of three for 28 in 16overs while Tahir claimed three for 67 in 32 overs for a match haul ofseven for 160 in 69 overs.Adnan was at last rewarded for some excellent bowling with figures ofthree for 63 in 26.4 overs.The unbeaten Karachi Whites move out of the city for two matchesbefore the six-week Ramazan and Eid-ul-Fitr break with a tally of 63points. They face Lahore Blues in Lahore from Thursday (Nov 16) andthen take on Sargodha from Nov 22.