Against a side that contains close to half of the nation’s modern-day Test team, Tasmania’s two finest modern-day batsmen constructed a remarkable partnership to lead their side out of trouble on the opening day of the Pura Cup clash with New South Wales in Hobart. On a glorious spring day at the Bellerive Oval, Ricky Ponting (144*) and Jamie Cox (106) added a dazzling 242 run stand for the third wicket to pilot the Tigers to a mark of 5/279 by stumps.There has been enough talk of betting in cricket circles of late, certainly. But, on Melbourne Cup Day, it was probably fair to observe that, at a score of 2/0 early in the piece, the Tasmanians were at long odds of finishing in such a position. Set within that context, then, the stand between the two stylish right handers was significant in itself. The fact that the quality of the strokeplayembedded within it was of the highest class therefore only added to its appeal.Although Ponting was held scoreless for a relatively lengthy period on his arrival at the crease and again in mid-afternoon, his chanceless innings provided a more than ample demonstration of his talents. There was barely a false stroke in a hand in which shots were timed with almost complete perfection and despatched to virtually all parts of the ground.”It was hard work early,” said Ponting of the circumstances that confronted him when he walked to the crease a little over ten minutes into the day’s play.”The ball swung most of the day; even with the old ball, there was quite a lot of swing there.”Cox, still surely not out of the reckoning in the clamour for Test opening spots at present, also played a typically attractive innings. His driving through the off side was a particular highlight and his judgement of when to play and when to leave deliveries on and outside the line of off stump was impeccable.After weathering the pair’s onslaught, the Blues, and more particularly left arm speedster Nathan Bracken (3/85), did eventually strike back sharply in the last hour. Bracken beat a driving Cox with a yorker forty-five minutes before stumps. Five balls later, he wrought similar damage upon the castle of Daniel Marsh (0). And then, from the first delivery of his next over, he attracted a thickedge from the bat of the sadly out of form Shaun Young (5) as the all-rounder forced at one seaming away.Notwithstanding the complete absence of cloud cover, conditions were especially difficult for batting early, with the ball seaming and swinging noticeably. This was underlined when Dene Hills (0) and Michael DiVenuto (0) lost their wickets inside the opening three overs of the match. Both players were caught behind off the bowling of Brett Lee (2/68) – wicketkeeper Brad Haddin snaring a brilliant catch low and to his left to remove a defending Hills and then effecting a regulation dismissal as DiVenuto launched a loose slash at a shorter, wider delivery. At that stage, it looked as though the visitors had backed a winner bydeciding to insert the Tasmanians on the chocolate-coloured pitch.For the Blues, Bracken and Don Nash (0/30) were clearly the pick of the bowlers on a day when their more illustrious teammates in Lee and leg spinner Stuart MacGill (0/53) both struggled to impress. The luckless Nash’s line, in particular, was tight and unerring all day. He was unlucky not to finish with a wicket – indeed, a dropped catch by Steve Waugh at slip off hisbowling (when Cox had only 41 alongside his name) proved very expensive.

Four run outs in 19 balls ended Sri Lanka’s hopes of being able to bat through 50 overs against New Zealand today in the CricInfo Women’s World Cup and the home team took a 122-run win.Sri Lanka showed remarkable resilience to battle all the way both with ball and bat after a 200-run thumping at Australia’s hands two days earlier.New Zealand’s batting was put through more of a test than might have been reasonably envisaged before the game.If the home team had done their homework they should have been prepared for tight Sri Lankan bowling at the start of the innings.Instead of playing out the two opening bowlers, New Zealand allowed themselves to get distracted and after 15 overs were 30/2 with no more satisfying moment for Sri Lanka than when Indika Kankanange caught and bowled the first lady of New Zealand cricket, Debbie Hockley, for 18 runs.It was left to younger players Anna O’Leary and Haidee Tiffen to turn the innings around. In the longer term it should have been a useful experience for the players and for the side.The lasting lesson for O’Leary and Tiffen to take from the 137-run stand they created was that positive running between the wickets can break up the field while keeping the score ticking over.”It was a bit nerve-wracking to start with but once we got going it was great,” O’Leary said.”We had some trouble to start with because we hadn’t batted together before. It is a hard balance, you want to get runs but not be too crazy about it. We had to be patient.”We set ourselves 210 once we were out there so we were quite thrilled to get it.”Sri Lanka bowled really well, but the difference for them is that their bowlers sling the ball so it goes along the track where our bowlers bowl into the track.”The ball was coming on so slow you had to make the pace yourself,” she said.The final total could have been greater but the Sri Lankans were not put under as much pressure as might have been the case had quicker running between the wickets, both for singles and for twos, been applied.At the same time it has to be acknowledged that the Sri Lankans lifted their game considerably after their first round loss to Australia. They were supportive of each other in the field and made more use of sweepers to protect the mid-wicket and cover boundaries.Both Tiffen (58) and O’Leary (91no) achieved their highest scores in ODIs. O’Leary batted for 137 balls for her runs while the innings was given a boost by Rachel Pullar and Nicola Payne who marked her recall to the New Zealand team with 19 runs from 12 balls, including a last ball six.Sri Lanka chose the tactic of moving its bowlers around and used eight bowlers with India Kankanange taking 1-27 from her 10 overs. The only other bowler to complete 10 was Chamani Seneviratne.When bowling, New Zealand was always in control. Katrina Keenan took 2-17 from her 10 overs while Haidee Tiffen took 2-21. And some sharp fielding absolutely destroyed the Sri Lankan lower order with the four run outs.Catherine Campbell, who led the team for the second time, was delighted with the batting recovery.”We got ourselves out of a tight situation. It was a great partnership between Anna and Haidee. They both scored their first 50s. Sri Lanka had some excellent fielders and I thought our batters weighted the ball and placed it quite well.”We bowled much better than we did in the Ireland game, it was a better all-round performance.”Our priority was to get two points for the win,” she said.

Saurashtra scored 287 for seven in 99.1 overs in reply toMaharashtra’s mammoth 539 for six declared in the West Zone Ranjitrophy match at Rajkot on Monday.Saurashtra began the third day on 41 for no loss. Prashant Joshiscored a fluent 107 off 250 deliveries, laced with 15 hits to thefence. Joshi and Veteran Shitanshu Kotak shared a 168 run partnershipfor the second wicket off 64.5 overs. Kotak made 61 and Sudhir Tannachipped in with 48. The middle order could not capitalise on the goodscores by the top order batsmen. Paceman Iqbal Siddiqui bagged two for72 and Sachin Aradhye bagged three for 62.

ACC has full confidence in India’s visit to PakistanThe Asian Cricket Council has expressed its ‘fullest confidence’ that India will take part in the Asian Test Championship match against its neighbour scheduled to be played in Karachi in September this year. “We have no doubt the Indian tour to Pakistan this September will take place as scheduled and we are going ahead with the preparations for the grand event,” ACC general secretary Zakir Hussain Sayeed told PTI from Islamabad.Sayeed said “We are fairly certain about the visit as the Indian Government’s letter to the BCCI, which was shown to us at the ACC meeting clearly said India could play against Pakistan in all multilateral tournaments.” According to the schedule announced by the ACC, India is to play the Asian Test Championship match against Pakistan from September 13 to 17 in Karachi.Sahara Group bags cricket sponsorship rightsThe Sahara Group will sponsor the Indian cricket team for the next three years. They bagged the sponsorship rights by paying Rs. 100 crore and have also bought the rights to display the logo on the sleeves of the players, kit bags and track suits of the cricketers. The company can use up to six players to advertise their products, according to reports on Friday.Reports added that a formal announcement about the sponsorship rights will be made in Mumbai on Saturday. Sahara’s bid was 49 percent more than ITC Limited, the previous sponsors of Indian cricket, and the highest ever to be paid a sporting team in the sub-continent. The Indian Cricket Board has been on the look out for new sponsors following the withdrawal of ITC as a result of a Government ban on smoking advertisements.High Court refuses to grant stay on BCCI’s decisionThe Mumbai High Court on Friday refused to grant a stay on the application filed by the proprietor of Gayatri Arts, Shyam Dhumatkar. The ad interim order was delivered by Justice DK Deshmukh, who heard the application filed by Gayatri Arts, a Mumbai-based company, which had sought an injunction from it on the BCCI signing a contract with IMG-TWI or any other group.Dhumatkar claimed the three-year contract was awarded to his company which had made the highest bid of Rs 90 crore through a legal tender advertised by BCCI in a newspaper. On May 22, however, BCCI’s marketing committee held a second meeting in New Delhi where the contract awarded to Gayatri Arts was rescinded and instead awarded to IMG-TWI after open bidding and revelation of prices. However, the BCCI claimed that its communication to Gayatri Arts was not a confirmation letter of the contract but a mere ‘query’. Dhumatkar’s counsel Ashok Paranjpe said he would be challenging the ad interim order of thecourt.Star Sports to telecast India-Zimbabwe series liveStar Sports will telecast the India-Zimbabwe series live starting June 7. The first Test in Bulawayo is to be played from June 7 to 11. It will also telecast live the second Test to be played at Harare from June 15 to 19, a release from Star Sports said on Friday.The telecast timings are from 12.30 pm to 3 pm and 3.40 pm to 8.30 pm, it said and added that highlights of the day’s play will be telecast the following day from 6 am to 8 am.

Former New Zealand cricket captain Martin Crowe’s interview with the enquiry panel looking into allegations made against Crowe has been postponed.Crowe was to have been interviewed tomorrow by the panel headed by chairman Sir Ian Barker and Nick Davidson QC.However, the interview has been postponed until a date after July 1, which is the date a deadline for Indian bookmaker Mukesh Gupta to substantiate his allegations against Crowe was imposed on him by Anti-Corruption Unit head Sir Paul Condon.If nothing is heard from Gupta by July 1, the New Zealand panel will interview Crowe, but the time and location of the interview will not be released to the media.

Going by their current form, and the inconsistency of the opposition,India look runaway favourites for tomorrow’s final of the triangularone-day series against West Indies, as they aim to set recent historyright.India registered comprehensive victories in all their four leaguematches with both Zimbabwe and West Indies hardly posing anychallenge. All their players look to be in fine form and are bubblingwith confidence.But, they have lost the last three finals they have featured in, andin at least two of those tournaments, they had performed exceedinglywell in the league matches. Captain Saurav Ganguly had exactly this inmind even as he expressed confidence with the team’s preparation forthe final.”We have lost three finals in the recent past,” he said referring tothe ICC KnockOut tournament in Nairobi last year, the subsequentSharjah triangular series and the recent home series againstAustralia.”We don’t want to lose one more final this time,” he said. On form andrecord, India seem to have a strong case this time. In both battingand bowling, they have outperformed their opposition by miles. And thefielding has seen tremendous improvement with the youngsters bringingin a lot of energy and vitality on the field.On the other hand, West Indies continue to look a poor imitation oftheir former self. The absence of Brian Lara has seen a shakyperformance by the batsmen while the bowling is hardly formidable.With the captain having regained his batting form, the famous troikacomprising Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid is all set tofire on all cylinders in the final tomorrow. Tendulkar and Dravid havebeen in ominous touch in this tournament though the latter has had acouple of soft dismissals for small scores.V V S Laxman is ready to be included in the side having recovered fromhis finger injury and that would give a boost to the batting orderconsidering that his replacement Dinesh Mongia, though he got someruns, hasn’t looked very comfortable at the number three slot.Laxman, in all probability, will play tomorrow and that makes Mongia’sinclusion doubtful. Hemang Badani, who has shown much promise, hasbeen dismissed cheaply a couple of times and the team will need ahandsome contribution from him on the big stage.The bowlers have done an admirable job on this tour with all the fiveseamers competing with each other in giving an impressive performance.After another good show in the last game, Debasish Mohanty lookscertain to be included for tomorrow’s game along with Ashish Nehra,surely the best bowler for India on this tour.The third seamer’s slot is up for grabs between Zaheer Khan, AjitAgarkar and Harvinder Singh but Zaheer looks to be the favouriteconsidering his consistency in recent times.The West Indies pace department has suffered a setback followingCameroon Cuffy being sidelined for four weeks due to a fracture on hisleft foot. Mervyn Dillon and Reon King have performed only in patchesand it is their spinners Mahendra Nagamootoo and Neil McGarrell whohave comparatively better performances to their credit.Among the batsmen, the bulk of the scoring in this tournament has beendone by openers Darren Ganga and Chris Gayle and wicketkeeper RidleyJacobs.Shivnarine Chanderpaul, the most experienced member of the team apartfrom captain Carl Hooper, has been unable to lend the solidity to themiddle order that was expected of him and has got out cheaply tillnow. It will be important from West Indies’ point of view that hecomes good tomorrow and ensures a good total.Hooper himself has looked good though he has come in pressuresituations where all he was required to do was to go for the bigshots. He will once again be the key to his team putting up animpressive score.Despite the absence of hosts Zimbabwe from the final, tomorrow’s matchis a sold-out affair. The wicket looks favourable to batsmen though itremains to be seen whether the side winning the toss likes to batfirst or not.Ganguly has won the toss on all four ocassions and every time he hassent in the opposition to bat. He would like to do it again, if onlyfor continuity’s sake, but it would be interesting to see how Indiafare if they are forced to bat first tomorrow.Teams (from): India: Saurav Ganguly (capt), Sachin Tendulkar, RahulDravid, V V S Laxman, Hemang Badani, Virendra Sehwag, Dinesh Mongia,Reetinder Singh Sodhi, Samir Dighe, Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan,Harbhajan Singh, Ashish Nehra, Debasish Mohanty, Harvinder Singh.West Indies: Carl Hooper (capt), Darren Ganga, Chris Gayle, WavellHinds, Marlon Samuels, Ridley Jacobs, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, MahendraNagamootoo, Neil McGarrell, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Reon King, MervynDillon, Colin Stuart, Corey Collymore.Umpires: Ian Robinson and Russel Tiffin.

One player has leapt to the defence of the England team currently being mauled in the Ashes series – Australian skipper Steve Waugh.Despite the tourists’ two comprehensive victories in the opening matches of the series, Waugh says they don’t reflect the closeness of the contests. He adds that he has been made to battle for his runs.Speaking at the Trafalgar Square launch of the year-long countdown tothe Commonwealth Games, which begin in Manchester on 25 July next year, Waugh said: “It’s hard work. I’ve had to bat very well to get runs here, and I’d like to think people respect us for that.”England aren’t playing that badly. The results look very one-sided but weknow it’s a good contest out in the middle. There’s certainly no easy runs andno easy wickets so we’ve got to work hard.”It hasn’t happened (for England) because we’re a good cricket side and weput pressure on the opposition.”Speaking at the same event, Australian master spinner Shane Warne echoed his skipper’s thoughts and felt that England’s dropped catches had cost them dear.Warne said: “I don’t think we’ve allowed England to play as well as they’dhave liked. We haven’t actually let them into the game.”We’ve played pretty well and played some very good cricket, and as we’ve notallowed them to get into the game, they’ve always been behind.”We’ve got to be careful we don’t get too carried away. I don’t think we will;we’re a very professional team and go about our business and try to just worryabout ourselves, not the opposition.”I think that’s one thing that’s been very important to us and one of thereasons we’ve been successful.”Having said that, although the scorelines look like we’ve won quiteconvincingly, it’s actually been a lot closer than people think. They’ve hadtheir chances, and unfortunately from England’s point of view they haven’t heldonto their catches, and that’s probably cost them.”It doesn’t matter who’s batting; you can’t give a guy three or fourchances. No one means to drop a catch, and I think it’s probably the worstfeeling in cricket. No one likes to do it and no one means to do it – butsometimes at those moments you’ve just got to take it.”England have been fielding very well over the last 12 or 18 months, so Idon’t know what you can put it down to. I’m just hoping they keep doing it!”

• Hamilton Masakadza became second Zimbabwean and 68th batsman in Testcricket history to score a century on Test debut when he notched up abrilliant 115* on the third day of second Test against Zimbabwe atHarare. More significant is the fact that Masakadza, at 17 years 354days, became the youngest ever batsman to score a century on Testdebut . Pakistan’s Salim Malik was the previous holder of this record.
• Masakadza also became the third youngest to score a Test century inall matches after Pakistan’s Mushtaq Mohammad and India’s SachinTendulkar. Only Dave Houghton has scored a century on Test debut forZimbabwe before Masadazka and at 35 years 119 days Houghton was almosttwice the age of Masadazka !!
• On the opening day of the match Masakadza had achieved the dictinctionof becoming the youngest player to represent Zimbabwe in Test cricketbeating Tatenda Taibu’s record who was 18 years 66 days old whilemaking his debut in the first Test of this series.

Youngest Centurions on Test Debut

# not the final score

There was some encouragement for England rejects Craig White and Ian Ward as they pondered on their omission from this week’s fourth Ashes Test at Headingley.Neither Ward nor White made much impression in the first three Tests of the series, and both men were left out of the 13-man squad announced yesterday by the England selectors.Ward made way for captain Nasser Hussain, while White’s place is likely to go to Nottinghamshire batsman Usman Afzaal. England are planning to name seven batsmen and four seamers as they try to halt Australia’s winning bandwagon.Graham Thorpe and Michael Vaughan are both expected to have recovered from injury in time for the final Test at the Oval starting on August 23rd, which could add to the pressure on White and Ward for their places on this winter’s tours of India and New Zealand.But there was encouragement for the two men from Michael Atherton, England’s stand-in captain in Hussain’s absence at Lord’s and Trent Bridge. Atherton believes both players will come back better equipped to deal with the pressure of international cricket.”Ian Ward has had a little bit of a struggle against the Australians, butthat sometimes happens when you start your Test career,” said Atherton.”You come in and the opposition find you out a little bit and you just haveto go back and work hard at your game and try and put those technical faults orfrailties to right.”I remember it happened to me. I played two games against Australia in 1989and wasn’t really up to the mark, but I went away, worked really hard in thewinter and came back the next summer.”Atherton’s winter absence from Test cricket was followed by an innings of 151 against New Zealand at Trent Bridge the following summer. He believes Ward will be able to make similar improvements.”I think Ian Ward is that type of character,” he said. “He’ll go away and look at things that haven’t gone quite right this summer – I’m sure he’ll work hard to put them right and there’s no reason why he can’t bounce back.”He ought to gain from his experiences this summer if he looks at what’shappened carefully and looks at the areas the Australians have bowled at him andhe goes away and tries to put those things right.”He’ll come back a stronger person and better player and there’s no reasonwhy he can’t relaunch his Test career in the future.”White, more experienced than Ward with 21 Test caps, was left out more because of struggles with the ball than his batting disappointments.”He’s had a little bit of a confidence problem with the ball this summer,” said Atherton. “Although he hasn’t scored runs in the Tests, he’s been confident with the bat as we saw in the Roses match when he smashed 180 last week.”His confidence is high with the bat. I don’t think it has been quite so withthe ball and the injury at the start of the season really put him back a littlebit, but I’m sure when the team go to India he’ll be part of that thiswinter.”England have recalled Alan Mullally 18 months after his last appearance in South Africa, and Somerset fast bowler Richard Johnson is also in the squad.Mullally has performed impressively for Hampshire against Australia and Warwickshire. Johnson’s recall comes six years after he was forced to withdraw from England’s tour of South Africa with back trouble.The two players will compete with Andrew Caddick, Alex Tudor and Darren Gough for four places in a likely all-seam attack.

Western Province cricket selectors today recalled former Protea opening bowler Aubrey Martyn for the pre-season tour of North West and Northerns which starts next week.Martyn, who was selected for the SA tour of England in 1994 but failed to play a match after injurying his back, was a steady performer in club cricket last season ending fifth on the 1A bowling averages. Western Province who to date have been unable to have an outdoor practice due to inclement weather in Cape Town, have lost several players to the national team. Added to thisAshwell Prince and Antonio Mullins will be representing Victoria in the National Club Championships during the first week of the Western Province tour.The full squad is;Graeme Smith, Andrew Puttick, Rashaad Magiet, HD Ackerman, Jonathan MaClean, Renier Munnik, Thami Tsolekile, Roger Telemachus, Paul Adams, Paul harris, Charl Willoughby, Alan Dawson and Aubrey Martyn.Ashwell Prince and Antonio Mullins will join the team for the Northerns Titans match.The pre-season program is;20,21,22 September vs North West and25,26,27 September vs Northerns Titans