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Hampshire recorded their fourth Clydesdale Bank 40 victory of the season after defeating fellow Group B strugglers Scotland by four runs on D/L

14-Aug-2011
ScorecardHampshire recorded their fourth Clydesdale Bank 40 victory of the season after defeating fellow Group B strugglers Scotland by four runs on the Duckworth-Lewis method in Aberdeen.After rain had forced the contest to be reduced to 23 overs a side, Scotland made 131 for 5 batting first, with opener Kyle Coetzer contributing a half-century. Hampshire had then reached 73 for one off 14 overs in their reply when more rain forced the teams off, and with no more play possible the county side had just done enough to be declared victors on Duckworth-Lewis.Scotland, who have now lost eight of their 11 matches as they continue to prop up Group B, saw their penultimate home fixture in the competition abandoned yesterday without a ball being bowled following heavy overnight rain and the weather affected today’s clash as well.Having won the toss and opted to bat in sunny conditions, Scotland lost Fraser Watts for a duck in the first over before the teams were forced off by rain for the first time with the hosts on 13 for one with four overs gone.When the teams returned after a lengthy break and the overs reduced, Coetzer helped his team recover from their poor start. The opener, who struck two fours and two sixes in his 54-ball 50, shared in stands of 41 for the second wicket with Calum MacLeod (20) and 52 for the third wicket with Josh Davey (19).However, Hampshire then hit back by taking three wickets for the addition of only 10 runs – including that of Coetzer – as Scotland slipped to 104 for 5 before eventually finishing their innings on 131.Hampshire looked on course to overhaul that total as captain Jimmy Adams and James Vince put on a steady 62 for the first wicket, before the latter fell for 45 in the 13th over, stumped by Gregor Maiden off the bowling of Preston Mommsen immediately after hitting the slow bowler for six.That brought Sean Ervine to the wicket and he and Adams had added 11 more runs before the players were forced off again. This time there was to be no more action as Hampshire claimed the win.

Tillakaratne Dilshan has admitted his side are finding it hard to deal with the retirement of Muttiah Muralitharan and said it would take time for them to groom bowlers who could win them Tests

Sa'adi Thawfeeq in Colombo20-Sep-2011Tillakaratne Dilshan, the Sri Lanka captain, has admitted his side are finding it hard to deal with the retirement of Muttiah Muralitharan and said it would take time for them to groom bowlers who could win them Tests. Dilshan also said he would continue batting at No. 5 in Tests, as he did in Colombo, since the additional responsibility of captaincy meant he had more to do in the field.”We’ve gone 11 Tests without a win but we have lost only two Tests; the other nine were drawn. After Murali’s retirement we are still trying to find a bowler to win matches for us,” Dilshan said after the Colombo Test was drawn giving Australia a 1-0 win in the series. “These are hard times for Sri Lankan cricket. The bowlers we have are inexperienced; they have played just 5 to 10 Tests and we have to persist with them for some time and give them the experience before we can start winning again.”If you take the last 10-15 years it was Murali and [Chaminda] Vaas who won Test matches for us. We need to groom bowlers who can at least get closer to that level. I am extremely happy that on this SSC wicket the young fast bowlers managed to dismiss a strong batting line-up for 316 and gave us an opportunity to press for a win.”Dilshan has opened the batting for Sri Lanka in Tests since the home series against New Zealand in August 2009, and averaged 47.20 at the top compared to the 41.75 he averages in the middle order. However, he struggled with the bat during the first two Tests against Australia and dropped down the order for the third, and said he would continue to bat in the middle order.”I am considering batting at No. 5 because I have to do a lot of things in the middle apart from captaining the team [Dilshan bowled 63 overs of offspin in the series]. After just a ten minute break it’s hard to open. I am going to stick to No. 5 in future Test matches. I have scored the majority of my runs in Test cricket as a middle-order batsman. I spoke with Marvan [Atapattu], the batting coach, and he told me that I had performed well with the bat in the middle order at no. 5 and 6. I thought I will bat lower down the order and give another batsman the opportunity to open.”One of the reasons for relinquishing the opening position could be that Dilshan foresees Sri Lanka going in to many of their Tests with just one specialist spinner, meaning he will have to bowl more. “We have spinners whom we can use like Suraj Randiv, Seekuge Prasanna and Ajantha Mendis but we need to give them more experience. Playing against a unit like Australia an inexperienced bowler cannot come and perform. If we are playing a 7-4 combination we can play only one spinner.”Dilshan coming down the order will mean it will be hard to find place for Thilan Samaraweera in the Test side, and 22-year-old Lahiru Thirimanne could become a permanent member of the XI, opening with Tharanga Paranavitana. “We have to discuss with Thilan and the selectors where he will fit in the batting order,” Dilshan said.After being outplayed for most of the first two Tests, Sri Lanka took a first-innings lead in the third, and Dilshan said they did have opportunities to level the series, pointing to the missed chance to run out Michael Clarke on the fifth day, when he was on just 13. Clarke got 112 in the end to help save the Test. “We missed a run out. If we had got that run out it would have been a different story today,” Dilshan said.While Clarke and Phillip Hughes scored centuries in the second innings in Colombo, Dilshan said it was Man-of-the-Series Michael Hussey who was the key man in Australia’s line-up. “He batted in Galle with the tailenders and got 95 and changed the complexion of the match. He did the same in Pallakele and got a hundred and in the third Test he got another hundred. He is the main guy in their batting line-up. They are very strong with him in the middle. They bat around him.”

The lawyer of Salman Butt told a jury on Tuesday that his client did not need to be in on the fix for pre-determined no-balls to have been delivered in the Lord’s Test last year

Richard Sydenham at Southwark Crown Court25-Oct-2011The lawyer of former Pakistan Test captain Salman Butt told a jury on Tuesday that his client did not need to be in on the fix for pre-determined no-balls to have been delivered in the Lord’s Test last year.In continuing his closing speech on the 15th morning of the alleged spot-fixing trial at Southwark Crown Court, Ali Bajwa QC suggested that teenage fast bowler Mohammad Amir had been heavily involved in the fixing and possibly Mohammad Asif was also – though not Butt.Bajwa attempted to shoot down the prosecution’s allegations that for the infamous fix of three no-balls to have occurred either a crystal ball was needed or that captain Butt had to have orchestrated the cheating, knowing which bowler would be on and when.It was “just part of Majeed’s embellishment to the (undercover) journalist to say ‘the captain is involved’,” Bajwa told the jury, in his efforts to distance his client from the fixing.The lawyer presented evidence to the jury that showed Asif had bowled the tenth over in all the first innings in the previous five Tests on the tour up to that point so Bajwa suggested that Majeed only had to do his research on the bowling order patterns.The lawyer also told of how, even if there was a bowling change, because of live betting trends, bets could be staked (or not) up until ten seconds of an actual event occurring, in this case the start of an over. He cited a comment from prosecution witness Ravi Sawani, a prominent anti-corruption officer who works for the ICC.Bajwa, as he has alluded to in previous presentations to the court, again implicated Amir strongly to the fix and suggested Asif may also have been part of it. The fixed no-balls were the first ball of the third over by Amir, the sixth ball of the tenth over by Asif and, next day after a rain curtailment, the third ball of Amir’s third full over.”Of course Majeed could say that Asif would bowl the tenth over,” Bajwa said. “Since he knows that, it is for him and Asif to arrange the no-ball. That’s for Asif to explain, not Salman Butt. If Asif was involved with Majeed with regards to that tenth over, if Butt was going to replace him Asif would only have to say ‘Please give me one more captain’.He added: “The prosecution say that there was no way the no-balls at Lord’s could have happened without Butt being in on it. We disagree…To say Salman Butt had some influence over Amir is far from the truth. It is possible that Majeed set up the no-balls directly with Amir…This isn’t some naïve and holy innocent teenager. We have seen his messages to a Pakistani number (discussing fixing).”Bajwa went on: “The prosecution doesn’t want the truth to get in the way of a jolly good theory but you have to go on evidence, not suspicion. Guess work cannot play a part in your deliberations.”Bajwa also labelled Asif’s primary excuse for bowling the no-ball “ludicrous”. Asif told the court he was pressured before the delivery because his captain had told him, “run faster f*****, have you slept”.Bajwa explained that of the 8,849 calls and text messages in the evidence bundle handed to the jury, the prosecution have only picked up on three potentially incriminating calls and two texts, which they sought to answer. Most of the those corresponded to conversations over the batting out of a maiden at The Oval Test which did not happen in the event. Bajwa argued that Butt was then just “fobbing Majeed off”.Butt and swing bowler Asif are facing charges of conspiracy to cheat, and conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments, following the Lord’s test in August last year when they allegedly conspired with agent Mazhar Majeed, Amir and other people unknown to bowl pre-planned no-balls. Butt and Asif deny the charges.The case continues.

Trent Boult has said playing in the first two rounds of the Plunket Shield has helped his preparation ahead of New Zealand’s two-Test series in Australia in December

ESPNcricinfo staff18-Nov-2011Trent Boult has said playing in the first two rounds of the Plunket Shield has helped his preparation ahead of New Zealand’s two-Test series in Australia in December. Boult, a 22-year-old left-arm quick, was the new face in New Zealand’s 13-man Test squad that was announced on November 16.”[I was] pretty disappointed that I didn’t get selected in that squad [that played a one-off Test in Zimbabwe earlier this month],” Boult told . “But looking back it’s been a good opportunity to get a bit more game-time and get my season underway with Northern Districts and obviously [I’ve] enjoyed a little bit of success there in those first couple of Plunket Shield rounds.”Boult picked up a career-best match haul of 8 for 74 against Auckland in the opening round, and then claimed three wickets in Northern Districts’ win over Wellington.This is not the first time he has been named in the national squad. Following a strong showing at the 2008 Under-19 World Cup, he made it to the squad for the Chappell-Hadlee series in 2009 but did not get into the playing XI. A stress fracture of the back then put him out of cricket. He returned to the domestic circuit last year and finished third on the Plunket Shield’s wicket-takers’ table, with 32 scalps at 25.34. In July of this year, he was awarded a central contract by New Zealand Cricket.”I took a lot of confidence out of completing a full first-class season with Northern Districts last year,” Boult said. “The back’s fine. I’ve come out of that.”I was pretty young, pretty naive three years ago [when he was first picked for New Zealand]. Obviously playing cricket, and just getting that opportunity to play pretty decent cricket here in New Zealand and learn from that [has helped develop my game].”Grant Bradburn, who coaches Boult at Northern Districts, said Boult is ready for international cricket. “He’ll keep bustling in,” Bradburn said. “He’s very fit. He’s very strong now and just grown a lot over the last couple of years; just filled out and grown a lot in terms of physical size.”He’s quick. He swings the ball. And the understanding of his own processes and his own bowling … He’s extremely professional and leads our [Northern Districts] guys in terms of that professionalism of just knowing how to look after himself and keeping himself in good tune.”

Tasmania had regathered some of the ground lost to the South Australia seamer Peter George when rain forced an early close to day one of the Sheffield Shield match in Hobart

ESPNcricinfo staff15-Nov-2011Tasmania 5 for 210 (Bailey 69, Faulkner 61*, George 3-60) v
ScorecardTasmania had regathered some of the ground lost to the South Australia seamer Peter George when rain forced an early close to day one of the Sheffield Shield match in Hobart.George claimed both openers and later returned to defeat George Bailey, who with James Faulkner had lifted the hosts to 5 for 210 from a struggling 4 for 98 when the former Redback Mark Cosgrove was dismissed.Bailey’s innings was more circumspect, but Faulkner played his shots boldly in another indicator of the allround talent that has seen him represent Australia A.Dan Christian and the recalled Trent Kelly claimed the other two wickets to fall.

A round-up of the third day’s play from the Ranji Trophy Plate semi-finals

ESPNcricinfo staff23-Dec-2011Maharashtra have virtually booked a spot in the Ranji Elite quarter-finals after the ending the penultimate day with a 215-run lead and ten wickets in hand in Pune. The day started with Himachal Pradesh failing to overhaul Maharashtra’s 415, conceding a 179-run lead. Apart from Paras Dogra, who made 81, none of HP’s specialist batsmen showed the grit to hang around. For Maharashtra, Domnic Joseph finished with 4 for 42, his best figures in his maiden season.Dogra provided steady momentum to the HP innings despite losing his captain Ajay Ratra, who was run out by a direct hit from Kedar Jahav at midwicket. Dogra found support in the 22-year-old Amit Kumar, but when the seventh-wicket partnership was worth 36, Joseph caught Dogra plumb in front of the wickets. At that point HP were 153 for 6.Rishi Dhawan shared Dogra’s resolve and had a 62-run partnership for the seventh wicket with Kumar. Maharashtra were on 36 for 0 at stumps, and will look to bat out the final day, having all but progressed to the quarters.With the chance of a result almost impossible, Hyderabad set about trying to match Vidarbha‘s 531 on the penultimate day in Nagpur. Arjun Yadav scored an unbeaten 91 to help Hyderabad make steady progress towards a first-innings lead, though they still have to score another 316 on the final day, with six wickets in hand. If that wasn’t daunting enough, Hyderabad would need to accelerate and better Vidarbha’s run-rate, should they fail to take the first innings lead and remain not out.At the start of the day, Vidarbha’s tailenders resisted more than Hyderabad’s bowlers might have expected them to, pushing the score past the 500-run mark. Amol Jungade, who had a career-best score of 32, scored his maiden century. Akshay Wakhare, Vidarbha’s No. 10 batsman, scored his second first-class fifty, finishing with 72.The day got worse for Hyderabad, who stumbled early on, losing two wickets for 28. Ravi Teja fell after making a start, run out for 39 while attempting a risky run. At 84 for 3, Vidarbha were in high spirits. But Yadav and BP Sandeep went about stabilising Hyderabad’s innings with an unbeaten fourth-wicket stand of 132. Yadav, who had managed only 43 runs in the previous five rounds this season, was watchful and found an able partner in Sandeep, who remained unbeaten on 60.If Hyderabad’s first innings is not completed on the final day, the team with the better run-rate will make it through to the Ranji Elite quarter-finals.

Zimbabwe Under-19 sank to their second successive drubbing in the tri-series, losing to Pakistan by 129 runs in Somerset West

ESPNcricinfo staff12-Jan-2012
ScorecardZimbabwe Under-19 sank to their second successive drubbing in the tri-series, losing to Pakistan by 129 runs in Somerset West.Batting first, Pakistan were steered towards a formidable total by their captain Babar Azam who made 85. Umar Waheed contributed a quick 63 off 49 balls in the middle overs to keep up the momentum, as Pakistan surged to 265 for 9. They could have finished with even more, but for Luke Jongwe’s restrictive and incisive spell of 3 for 46.Zimbabwe’s chase began in solid, if somewhat sluggish fashion, with the openers adding 43 in 16.1 overs. Thereafter, the wheels gradually came off, with opening bowler Zia-ul-Haq taking three wickets, and Usman Qadir chipping in with two. Luke Masasire finished with a half-century, but no one else went past 22 as Zimbabwe subsided to 136 all out in the 37th over.

Pakistan’s spinners gave their team a chance of avoiding a whitewash by taking advantage of a wearing surface to leave England’s pursuit of 238 in the balance

The Report by Andrew McGlashan21-Feb-2012
ScorecardKevin Pietersen scored his second consecutive hundred as England wrapped a 4-0 series win•Associated Press

What a difference a few days makes. It was suggested that Kevin Pietersen had the last two matches of this series to save his one-day international career and less than week later he has back-to-back hundreds to his name – the second a career-best 130 – a spring in his step and a strut at the crease as he guided England to a whitewash against Pakistan with four balls to spare.Pietersen became the second England batsman in the series, following captain Alastair Cook, to hit consecutive hundreds and it was the second time Pietersen had achieved the feat, following the South Africa series in 2004-05 at the start of his career. It’s long been a criticism of England’s one-day game that there aren’t enough individual three-figure innings so it will provide huge satisfaction for Andy Flower and Graham Gooch, shortly to become the full-time batting coach.The series, too, is a huge feather in the caps of Flower and Cook. The 4-0 scoreline is England’s first whitewash against anyone other than Bangladesh or Zimbabwe since they beat Australia before the 1997 Ashes. That was one of many false dawns for England’s one-day side and there needs to be more evidence to find out how this unit develops, but having lost 5-0 in India last October this has been the ideal response.This was a better display from Pietersen than his hundred on Saturday and it was also his longest ODI innings. Early on his lost regular partners – Cook fell second ball of the innings – and the pitch, used for the second time in three days, was worn and a touch slower. Pakistan packed their side with five spinners and just one quick but only Saeed Ajmal, who removed Eoin Morgan and the debutant Jos Buttler in the space of three balls to leave England wobbling on 68 for 4, posed a significant threat.Pietersen’s main moment of concern came when he was saved by the DRS on 80 after getting into a horrid tangle trying to scoop Abdur Rehman over his shoulder. He was given out lbw by umpire Zameer Haider but replays showed he’d been struck outside off stump. Last week Pietersen spoke about DRS being his biggest challenge; here it was his biggest saviour. The review system made an important intervention when Samit Patel, on 5 and with England needing 44 off 40 balls, was given lbw by Haider but had also been struck outside the line. It wasn’t a great evening for the umpires with Cook earlier given not out before Pakistan reviewed.

Smart stats

• Kevin Pietersen’s century is his second in consecutive matches. This is the first time he scored two consecutive centuries since his debut series in 2004-05 against South Africa.

• Pietersen’s hundred is his ninth in ODIs and is also his highest score. He is now second behind Marcus Trescothick on the list of England batsmen with the most ODI centuries.

• Pietersen’s 130 is the fourth-highest score by an England batsman against Pakistan and the third-highest outside England after Graham Gooch’s 142 in Karachi in 1987 and Alastair Cook’s 137 in this series.

• England’s 4-0 series win is their first ever series whitewash in ODI series of four or more matches against top teams (Zimbabwe and Bangladesh excluded). Their only previous such series results have come against Zimbabwein 2001-02 and 2004-05.

• The 109-run stand between Pietersen and Craig Kieswetter is the second-highest fifth-wicket stand for England against Pakistan after the 138 between Andrew Flintoff and Graham Thorpe in 2000. It is also joint seventh on the list of highest fifth-wicket stands in the UAE.

• Jade Dernbach returned his career best bowling figures of 4 for 45 in his 14th match surpassing his previous best of 3 for 30. It is also the sixth-best bowling figures by an England bowler against Pakistan outside England.

• The 111-run stand between Asad Shafiq and Azhar Ali is the third-highest second-wicket stand for Pakistan against England in ODIs. The highest is 167 between Rameez Raja and Saleem Malik in Karachi in 1987.

Patel, on the day he was given an ECB incremental contract, played a calm hand after Craig Kieswetter – who produced his first substantial innings in the middle order – had been run out to end the crucial stand of 109 that turned the chase around. Pietersen went to 99 with a pulled six off Junaid Khan but the hundred was celebrated in far more subdued style than the first. He was aware the victory hadn’t been sealed and proceeded to rubber-stamp the result with a flurry of boundaries off Junaid and a straight six off Ajmal. He couldn’t quite finish the game, skewing a drive to point with two needed, but the process of restoring a reputation was well advanced.Again, England had shown the value of one player getting a hundred. In contrast Pakistan’s brittle batting line-up again cost them the game, failing to make the most of a solid base provided by Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq, the future of Pakistan’s batting, who added 111 for the second wicket. England’s reshuffled bowling attack, including debutant Danny Briggs and the recalled Jade Dernbach, stifled the middle order with Misbah-ul-Haq left to gather what he could.It was another tale of Pakistan’s batsmen failing to build on starts as four of them passed 20 but none bettered Shafiq’s confident 65. On a surface being used for the second time in three days it was difficult for new batsmen to force the pace straight away, demonstrated by the way the innings fell away. England rested James Anderson and Stuart Broad while Graeme Swann had a minor calf strain, which gave the chance to Briggs claim a commendable 2 for 39 and Dernbach 4 for 45. The latter cleaned up the lower order with Pakistan losing their last six wickets for 35 runs.Dernbach had a difficult tour of India, where his obsession with variation worked against him, and then had a tough experience in Australia’s Big Bash League where he was dropped after two games for Melbourne Stars. Consistency still proved an occasional problem for Dernbach but he also maintained the happy knack of picking up wickets, including Mohammad Hafeez second and Azhar for a stubborn 58.Shafiq had the perfect opportunity, against a weakened attack, to score his maiden ODI hundred but chopped on against Bresnan in the 23rd over. From there life became much tougher for Pakistan. Umar Akmal was promoted to No. 4 with the chance to build an innings couldn’t gathered momentum and provided Briggs with his first international wicket when he lofted a catch to long-off. Briggs showed calmness and control in his first appearance, quickly recovering himself from a couple of loose deliveries against Azhar.The scoring rate had seized up as Azhar approached his maiden ODI fifty and Shoaib Malik struggled to time the ball. The sense with Azhar, albeit in the very early stages of his career, is that he doesn’t have a range of gears to move through in the one-day game. Malik does not have the excuse of inexperience to fall back on and his return to Pakistan colours has not been a happy one in this series. Having used up 33 deliveries for 23 he missed a sweep against Briggs in the spinner’s last over. When a team can win without three of their main bowlers it bodes well for the future.Edited by Alan Gardner

Brad Haddin has the endorsement of the national selectors to keep wicket for Australia in the first Test against the West Indies in Barbados – but will have to perform immediately

Daniel Brettig14-Mar-2012Brad Haddin has the endorsement of the national selectors to keep wicket for Australia in the first Test against the West Indies in Barbados – but will have to perform immediately to stay there.On the day the Test match touring party for the Caribbean was named, the selector and former wicketkeeper Rod Marsh said Haddin remained ahead of Matthew Wade in the order of preference for the Test side, though the younger man had claimed ownership of the ODI gloves.However Marsh made it plain that Haddin would need to show himself immediately worthy of a spot in the side as a ‘keeper batsman, otherwise Wade would be more than capable of stepping into the team. Haddin endured an indifferent home summer, though his glovework improved towards the latter part of the 4-0 series win over India. He is also valued as a leader within the team.”At this point of time, obviously the first Test team will be selected after the one-dayers, a lot will depend on what happens in the one-dayers, no doubt,” Marsh said in Adelaide. “But if I wanted to place a punt on it, I would have Haddin will play in the first Test match, as he should, and we’ll wait and see what happens after that.”Assessing Haddin’s summer, Marsh was not overly critical, and could empathise with an older wicketkeeper scoring fewer runs than he would have liked – Marsh’s own batting returns dropped away drastically in the latter part of his career, a syndrome that also befell Ian Healy and Adam Gilchrist.”I didn’t think he performed badly at all,” Marsh said. “He didn’t make as many runs as he would have liked and probably as we would have liked. I can recall him dropping one or two catches, which over a summer of six Test matches, that happens.”He’s probably not been at the peak of his form but he’s a hell of a good cricketer. I have known Brad for a long, long time and he’s just been a good cricketer and he’s got very a good record for Australia. I just hope he performs really well in the West Indies because if he performs well, we’re going to be a better side, that is the thing.”As for the emphasis on wicketkeepers scoring runs, Marsh said it was an undeniable fact that lower order runs, from bowlers as well as glovemen, were a marker for successful teams.”It’s a fact of life. Whether I’m happy with it or not doesn’t matter. The fact is, you expect your keeper to make runs, in fact you expect everyone now to make runs I think,” he said. “We made some handy runs in the back half [in] our summer and that is very important, it gives people confidence, it gives the team confidence when you see your bowlers making runs, when you see your wicketkeeper making runs.”

Ireland muscled their way past Namibia to take the last remaining place in the ICC World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka, showing the all-round game that has made them the leading Associate side for the past five years

The Report by Gerard Siggins in Dubai24-Mar-2012
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsPaul Stirling brutalised the Namibia bowling•Getty Images

Ireland muscled their way past Namibia to take the last remaining place in the ICC World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka later this year, showing the disciplined all-round game that has made them the leading Associate side for the past five years.Namibia had caused a surprise on day one of the tournament by defeating Ireland by four runs, but despite finishing the group stage unbeaten, they fly home to Windhoek with nothing to show. “It was a great experience for us, especially for the younger guys,” Sarel Burger, the Namibia captain, said, straining to find positives as his team were outclassed in their two final-phase games. Their top order was blown away by Afghanistan, and again today by Trent Johnston. Raymond van Schoor had been leading scorer in the group stage with 323 runs, but failed miserably in the big games, making 1 and 0.Burger’s decision to bat first was perplexing, as Ireland have built on Johnston and Rankin’s blitzkrieg in the opening overs. And so it was today, with the extra pace and movement confounding the Namibian batters. van Schoor played across the line and was out lbw to Johnston. In Johnston’s next over, Louis van der Westhuizen hit a six over extra cover before getting his feet all wrong in trying a pull and lobbing the ball to Andrew White. Johnston ended with a maiden over, his sixth in Twenty20s.The runless over is rarer than a fifty in this format, but Max Sorensen bowled two maidens in a stunning spell of 4-2-8-2. In his brief career – which started only last month – he has now bowled four maidens. The South-Africa born fast bowler, who plays with The Hills in Dublin, has come good in the knockout phase, showing great character as the clamour to replace him with Middlesex’s Tim Murtagh became insistent. “I’m just glad today was my day,” he said. “Today my rhythm was at its best, but it’s great to do it in an important game.”Namibia had no answer to William Porterfield’s stranglehold and their response was typified by the usually fluent Gerrie Snyman. He took nine balls to get off the mark and took 39 deliveries to score just 17. Ireland bowled as a unit and it was only the final over when Kevin O’Brien went for 12 that they slipped. Such are the riches at Porterfield’s disposal that his ace left-arm spinner George Dockrell was not required to bowl for the first time in his 68 caps.Namibia had only hit three sixes and five fours in their entire innings, but Ireland struck scored five fours within two overs. Porterfield and Paul Stirling went at ten runs an over until the captain clipped a ball to midwicket off Louis Klazinga, but his departure didn’t faze Stirling who continued to brutalise the bowling.His fifty came up in 26 balls, with eight fours and a six, and the innings had just crept one delivery into the 11th over when he reverse-swept Ian Oppermann for four to bring up victory.The Irish team danced and sang as they celebrated qualifying for their third consecutive ICC World Twenty20, but you have to feel for the Namibians who have been the least deserving victims of the Full Members’ vindictive decision to cut Associate participation from six teams to two.Ireland went back to their hotel to rest for two hours before they return to play their second game of the day – and 11th in 12 days – against Afghanistan in the tournament final. At stake is a smart trophy, but also a dilemma.The winners face Australia and West Indies in Sri Lanka, the losers take on England and India. It’s arguable which is the most desirable fate, and has echoes of the 2005 ICC Trophy final when Scotland beat Ireland knowing that in the 2007 World Cup the winners would face Australia, South Africa and Netherlands. Defeat meant a group with Pakistan, Zimbabwe and West Indies. Ireland qualified for the Super Eights with a win and a tie, while the Scots were hammered in all three games. Their respective paths have diverged ever since.Edited by Abhishek Purohit