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ScorecardBengal held their nerve and staved off a spirited Orissa onslaught to sneak to a ten-run win, their second victory of the Ranji One-Day Trophy. In a match restricted to just 22 overs per side, Bengal powered their way to 175, thanks to a 44-ball 55 by opener Wriddhiman Saha, plus useful contributions by Subhomoy Das (36 off 35) and a late blitz by Laxmi Ratan Shukla. Needing to score at exactly eight an over, Orissa mounted a superb charge despite losing Biswa Mohapatra to the second ball of the innings. Bikas Pati, the other opener, hammered 51 off just 41 balls, while Pinninti Jayachandra’s 28-ball 38 and Subit Biswal’s 24 kept them in the hunt. At 127 for 4 in the 17th over Orissa had a fair chance, but Bengal struck at regular intervals, with Ranadeb Bose getting two late wickets to finish with impressive figures of 3 for 33. Orissa needed 23 off the last two, but with just a couple of wickets in hand that proved to be too stiff a target.
ScorecardIn a match dominated by the openers of both teams, Assam’s support cast performed just a little better to help them sneak to a 13-run win. Sauran Bhagawati and Parvez Aziz put together an opening stand of 86 in just 17.2 overs to provide the perfect launching pad after Assam chose to bat first. Bhagawati made 60 while Aziz missed his half-century by just one run, but the rest of the batsmen frittered away that start, with no-one getting more than 27 as Assam finished on 224. If that was a poor middle-order display, then Jharkhand went one better during their run-chase. Subroto Ghosh (52) and Manish Vardhan (84) added 111 for the opening wicket in 25.4 overs, only to see the rest of the batsmen fluff their lines completely. Of the nine remaining batsmen, seven managed single-digit scores as Jharkhand added exactly 100 more runs before losing all ten wickets, with Vardhan being the last man to be dismissed. This was Jharkhand’s second loss in three games, while Assam have now won two out of three.

Trinidad and Tobago lacked fight in the Carib Beer Challenge final and the nine-wicket loss to Jamaica was a “real blot” on their season, according to their board president Deryck Murray. The team was skittled for 121 in the first innings and their second effort of 241 left Jamaica a target of just 70 to secure the title.”It’s easy to say this from 100 miles away but it didn’t look as though there was any real fight,” Murray told the . “That was the disappointing aspect.”You look back at the whole season and, yes, from the KFC Cup, the Carib Beer Series, the Stanford 20/20, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica dominated those series but they [Trinidad and Tobago] just didn’t look like that in the final. The final itself was the real blot.”However, Murray said the team’s season should be viewed in context and reaching the decider was a promising sign. But there was still significant work to do for Trinidad and Tobago to be consistently competitive, he said.”We played some very good games throughout. We in Trinidad and Tobago are enjoying success but that must not be allowed to mar the fact that there is still a big gap between the highest standard of Trinidad and Tobago’s cricket and what is expected at international level. We are aware of it. We need to keep working with the players.”

Mike Atherton will replace Christopher Martin-Jenkins as cricket correspondent of after England’s tour of New Zealand early next year.Atherton, who has made his name as a journalist on , and is considered one of the major successes of a player becoming a writer, will continue with his Sky Sports commentary alongside his new brief. Martin-Jenkins, who was handed the Peter Smith memorial award at the Cricket Writers’ Dinner in September, will take a role as senior cricket columnist.It is the first major reshuffle of the broadsheet newspapers since 2002 when Angus Fraser retired from playing to take up the main role at and Derek Pringle moved to .

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

A new-look Pakistan, without a handful of senior players, drove Zimbabwe into the ground with a comprehensive seven-wicket victory in the final one-dayer in Sheikhupura to clean sweep the Mobilink Cup 5-0. The overcast and bitterly cold conditions didn’t faze debutant Khurram Manzoor and Younis Khan as they chased down a meagre target of 182 with 19 overs to spare.The win was set up by Pakistan’s sprightly young bunch – which included four debutants – who showed exemplary commitment in the field to keep Zimbabwe in check for much of their innings. The overcast conditions were tailor-made, it seemed, even for Pakistan’s untested seam-bowling attack, and Hamilton Masakadza’s decision to bat first was perplexing. After a top order wobble, Zimbabwe were lifted by a rearguard from Elton Chigumbura and Brendan Taylor, but couldn’t sustain the momentum as Pakistan quickly clawed back to shoot them out for a woefully inadequate score.Sharp reflexes – a refreshing change from earlier games – handed Pakistan their early wickets as Abdur Rauf managed to hang on to a low return catch, literally off his toes. Debutant Rizwan Ahmed’s athleticism contributed to the next two wickets, first running out Vusi Sibanda with a fiery throw to the wicketkeeper from deep backward square-leg, and then holding onto a stunner to his left at cover to send back Tatenda Taibu. Wahab Riaz, one among an assembly line of left-arm quicks in this series, was the beneficiary for the second, a wicket in his first international over.As the sun disappeared behind the clouds and the mercury dipped in Sheikhupura’s first international match for nearly a decade, the situation got worse as Zimbabwe lost half their side before the halfway stage. Chigumbura and Taylor, however, buckled down and produced a stand of 85, against the run of play. Pakistan allowed the game to drift a little as bowlers were made to pay each time they erred. The boundaries were interspersed with intelligent running and before anyone knew it, the pair had added fifty.Taylor, who’s had an inconsistent series with the bat, punished anything on full while Chigumbura, a proven allrounder, took on Fawad Alam’s left-arm spin and punished anything full and wide outside off stump, unfurling forceful drives. Rizwan, the legspinner, excelled in the field but had a forgettable debut with the ball as the pair feasted on his half-trackers.

But just when a lower-order revival threatened to push the score over 200, the spinners struck back, breaking up the stand. Thereafter Rauf returned to clean up the last two wickets with inswinging yorkers to end the innings with over four overs to spare.Zimbabwe’s attack lacked the sting and pace to cause Pakistan any trouble. Nasir Jamshed threw his wicket away early when the going was good, but Younis and Manzoor were determined not to miss out.Manzoor was impressive, the bridge between domestic and international cricket seemingly invisible as he sized up his first ball with a firm backfoot punch to the cover point boundary. Busy at the crease, he was particularly strong with his bottom hand, unfurling another punch on the hop, this time beating the covers.But Manzoor soon took a backseat as Younis arrived and the chase progressed at pace. Chigumbura suffered as Younis announced himself with a punchy square drive and then blazed three consecutive boundaries in his next over, immediately after the second Powerplay began. Each was classic improvisation, beginning with a scorching square drive, following it up with a straight six after exposing all stumps on the walk, and then ending with a biff over midwicket.Younis didn’t slow down once the spinners came on. Ray Price was welcomed with a reverse sweep and Keith Dabengwa’s long hops were bludgeoned to the on side. He soon brought up his fifty with a sweep to fine leg. Manzoor, meanwhile, was providing solid support.Both looked set to see Pakistan through, before recklessness set in. Younis fell slogging, while Manzoor was cleaned up sweeping across the line, just after reaching his half-century. By that stage, however, the deal had been sealed as Pakistan, after four unconvincing victories, ended on a high before taking on the Australians.

Bowler of the day“I don’t have too many secrets,” claimed Daniel Vettori on the eve of the match, and it’s true, he’s not a bowler of the mysterious variety, a la Warne, Murali or even Harbhajan. Even so, England struggled to make head or tail of his subtle variations of pace and flight, and he conceded his runs at less than one-and-a-half an over, while ripping out two priceless wickets in Andrew Strauss and Kevin Pietersen. He allowed himself a good look at the track during his second-day 88, and demonstrated a knowhow that none of England’s bowlers came close to matching. All in all, he’s having a pretty good game.Crass dismissal of the daySo many to choose from, but Strauss’s has to take the biscuit, seeing as it came just three balls after lunch, at a time when he had done the hard graft and could look forward to a lengthy afternoon of accumulation. Strauss was recalled to bolster a batting line-up that mustered a solitary century in their last series in Sri Lanka, but he himself has now failed to reach three figures in 26 attempts. Vettori floated one up into the blockhole, Strauss launched himself into a reckless drive, and the ball dipped, bit and span into the stumps.False dawn of the dayWhen Kevin Pietersen launched his third delivery, from Jeetan Patel, straight back over the bowler’s head for six, it was easy to assume that the tempo of his innings had been set. Not a bit of it. That shot was entirely out of keeping with what followed. Pietersen didn’t reach the boundary again for another 90 deliveries, and only three times in all in a 131-ball stay that was his slowest ever for any score above 30.Debut of the dayTim Ambrose has been anonymous in this match so far, which in wicketkeeping terms is a very good thing. He kept flawlessly for 138.3 overs of New Zealand’s innings, then finally appeared for his first Test innings with England precariously placed on 245 for 6. By the close he was still sitting pretty on 23 not out, an innings of compact certainty that bodes well for his future. He endured an agonising first 18 deliveries, as Patel and Vettori denied him that cathartic maiden run, but in the end he tucked Vettori off his hips for one, then celebrated with boundaries from each of his next two deliveries.Scoreline of the dayEngland reached the close on 286 for 6, which was almost identical to New Zealand’s first-day 282 for 6. Paul Collingwood will have to convert his overnight 41 into a rare England century, and Ambrose will have to emulate New Zealand’s No. 8, Daniel Vettori, if they intend reaching parity before the second innings gets underway. Because the men to come, with all due respect to the obdurate Ryan Sidebottom, are not in the class of New Zealand’s lower order.Hymn of the dayThe Barmy Army were pretty subdued for most of England’s travails, but they had clearly put their down time to good use when they finally burst into voice after tea. “Ambrose. We’ve got Tim Ambrose,” they declared. “Just like Ambrosia. They made good custard. When we were kids.”

Somerset obtained the fifth batting point – their maximum for thefirst time this season – and secured their First Division status atthe end of the third day of their County Championship Division Twomatch against Leicestershire at Taunton.Somerset resumed on 273 for 6 and declared their innings at lunch at411 for 7 in 103 overs with Ian Blackwell scoring 109. Having startedthe day at 40, Blackwell shared a seventh wicket stand of 124 withPeter Bowler (38 not out). Jason Kerr (19 not out) and Bowler battedon for Somerset to get the fifth batting point.Leicestershire started off poorly having lost Ian Sutcliffe early.Then Darren Maddy (102) and Ben Smith (69) put on 148 for the secondwicket when Smith was out to Graham Rose. Maddy got out after scoringhis century and Darren Stevens quickly followed for a duck while AftabHabib was 34 not out at the close. Leicestershire ended the day at 233for 4 in 69 overs.

The day before the First Test at the Chittagong Divisional Stadium, the one thing more uncertain than the weather is the Indian team composition. Much of it surrounds the batting line-up, from the opening pair down to the middle order, possibly even the choice of keeper.Their squad of 15 has only one specialist opener, Wasim Jaffer; partnering him could be any one of the experienced Indian middle order – Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Sourav Ganguly, and Yuvraj Singh [making a Test comeback after his knee injury kept him out of Tests in South Africa] – or Dinesh Karthik. And if Karthik opens, only Jaffer and Dravid are the other certainties.Asked about the opening pair, Dravid said he would like to keep it a bit of a surprise.The bowling attack is similarly unknown, save the fact that Dravid may go in with five bowlers, given that it is going to be difficult to get 20 wickets on a flat wicket in the hot and muggy weather. “We do have the option of playing five bowlers in these conditions considering the weather, the wicket and what we are trying to achieve in this game,” Dravid said. Zaheer Khan and Anil Kumble look the certainties with the ball, while any two or three of the other bowlers might play.Bangladesh look more certain and announced their 12, the choice made easier by the elimination of Tushar Imran who is ruled out with fever. The selection could very easily have become difficult had Habibul Bashar not recovered well from the fever he had yesterday. Bashar said today he was confident of playing in the Test.One out of Saqibul Hasan and Mehrab Hossain jnr is set to make his debut. If they play two pacers, it will be the sturdier Shahadat Hossain and not the accurate Syed Rasel who will open the bowling with Mashrafe Mortaza.Dravid said that the conditions will be the same for both the teams. Yet, that does not take away the significance of the conditions in the build-up. “The wicket looks pretty bare. It should hold together for the first two- and-a-half or three days,” Dravid said, “It might break up as the game goes on. But initially I expect it to be pretty good and hold firm for a few days at least.”It may prove difficult to get 20 wickets here, and thunderstorms are never too far away either. India, on paper by far the stronger of the two sides, will probably attack the game from the off; therein lies Bangladesh’s chance. The longer Bangladesh deny them and stay in the game, the more likely India are to get frustrated and Bangladesh’s chances of causing a big upset will only get stronger. In Dav Whatmore’s last series as the coach, Bangladesh will need the one virtue they have lacked, one that Whatmore has been demanding all through his tenure: patience.Whatmore has been in the news in his own right, of course, having reportedly shown an interest in coaching India. Would such talk, even as the series is on, have any negative impact on Bangladesh? No, says Bashar. “We have never had such problems. He [Whatmore] is a professional; whenever he is on the field, he never lets his coaching suffer,” he said. “We are doing the same thing as a professional team.”The last time Bangladesh played India, their batsmen kept at bay the Indian bowling attack, which wasn’t weaker than the current one. But from 239 for 4, they collapsed to 333, even as Mohammad Ashraful, now the vice-captain, played the innings of that series, scoring an unbeaten 158. They ended up losing that match by an innings. That was three years ago, but the story was the same last year. At Fatullah, Shahriar Nafees had scored another breathtaking century and Bangladesh got 355 for 5 in the first day, but their next 15 wickets fell for 220 runs.This Test will most likely be a battle between the persistence of Indian bowlers and the will of the Bangladesh batsmen. There could be a twist in the tale: if Bangladesh manage to put up a considerable total, they can become the aggressors as they did against Australia at Fatullah.Squads
Bangladesh: Javed Omar, Shahriar Nafees, Habibul Bahsar (capt.), Mohammad Ashraful, Rajin Saleh, Saqibul Hasan, Khaled Mashud (wk), Mashrafe Mortaza, Mohammad Rafique, Enamul Haque jnr, Shahadat Hossain, Mehrab Hossain jnrIndia: Wasim Jaffer, Dinesh Karthik, Rahul Dravid (capt.), Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Ramesh Powar, Anil Kumble, Rajesh Pawar, Zaheer Khan, Munaf Patel, VRV Singh, RP Singh

Scorecard
Seamer Tonito Willett took a career-best 5 for 31 to help Leeward Islands to a 34-run victory against Windward Islands in St Georges. Overnight on 183 for 6, chasing 289, Windwards were dismissed for 254 shortly after lunch. Allrounder Liam Sebastien scored a defiant unbeaten 54 but ran short of partners. His stand of 43 with captain Deighton Butler for the eighth wicket took Windwards closer, before Willet ran through the tail. The victory was sealed when Willet trapped Nelson Pascal lbw, swinging across the line. It was the second loss for Windwards after their nine-wicket defeat against Barbados. Leewards are now tied at third spot with Trinidad & Tobago on 12 points.
Scorecard
Suleiman Benn and Dwayne Smith shared seven wickets between them to help Barbados to a comprehensive innings-and-57-run victory against Guyana at the Kensington Oval. Captain Ramnaresh Sarwan found form with a half-century and his 87-run partnership with Assad Fudadin defied Barbados till lunch, but it wasn’t enough to make Barbados bat again.The overnight pair of Sarwan and Leon Johnson buckled down and took the overnight score of 85 for 3 to 122 before Benn dismissed Johnson. Sarwan survived a very confident appeal for a catch on 36 off Kemar Roach and proceeded to his half-century. Fudadin, who provided solid support to Sarwan in his 33, fell shortly after lunch, caught by wicketkeeper Carlo Morris after the ball rebounded off Jason Haynes at short leg. Benn returned to dismiss Sarwan for 82, caught at forward short-leg while Smith cleaned up the lower order to finish with figures of 3 for 66. Benn, who bowled 36 overs, ended with 4 for 96. The defeat left Guyana at the bottom of the table with the Combined Campuses & Colleges and Windward Islands.Points table

When declarations backfire
Services, languishing somewhere at the bottom of the Group A of the Plate League, after having attained a first-innings lead against Assam, went for the jugular on the final day. They set Assam, who had a highest score of 259 this season, 306 runs to get in 78 overs. Assam got them in a quite a matter-of-fact way, with S Ramesh and S Sharath scoring nineties.It was not such a bad move, though, because a win here could have taken Services up to seven points and given them an outside chance to reach the semi-finals.In Agartala, Kerala who had fallen behind in the first innings, went for a similar gamble, but set a way easier target for Tripura to get. It might have had to do with the low-scoring nature of the match till then, but a target of 270 in 99 overs smelt of over-confidence. Tripura had more than 20 overs to spare when they reached the target with four wickets to spare.None was a great advertisement for sporting declarations, but what difference does it make if you are No. 4 or No. 5 in the Plate League?Parental pressure
One wonders how those 18-year-old blondes win Grandslams with their mums and dads watching from the VIP box. Look at our cricketers who develop sweaty palms when playing in front of home crowds. Wriddhiman Saha, Bengal’s wicketkeeper who scored a century on debut, just couldn’t take the pressure of having to perform in front of his parents. Bharat Arun, the Bengal coach, told the Statesman that Saha perhaps wilted under the pressure. He dropped a sitter, gave away nine byes, and get out for only eight. Unforgivable in passionate Bengal. Not even Daddy had encouraging words for Wriddhi. “The pressure to perform on home soil is always very high. But it is sad that Wriddhi couldn’t cope with the pressure,” said Prasanta Saha, who allegedly didn’t miss a single ball of the match till then.It is sad, indeed, that when Saha was letting the nerves get the better of him, Bengal’s very own Sourav Ganguly was burying the home-pressure ghost. In his 99th Test, Ganguly finally scored a century at the Eden Gardens, and there was Saha mucking up in Siliguri.Hard yards
During the current Test series against Pakistan, India have been following the creditable practice of sending the reserves to play Ranji Trophy. Ishant Sharma, who suddenly came into the Indian equation after injuries to RP Singh and Sreesanth, has been travelling to the Test venue first and after not being selected in the final XI, to wherever Delhi are playing. He was at the Delhi airport, with the Ranji team team going to Mumbai, when he was asked to stay back for the first Test and then sent back to Mumbai a day later. Then he travelled to Kolkata and trained with the Indian team, from there went all the way to Dharamsala to play against Himachal Pradesh. Now, that’s what they mean by doing the hard yards, literally.Yuvraj Singh, in Kolkata with the Indian team, tried the same, as his state side – Punjab – were playing Bengal not too far in Siliguri. Yuvraj, keen to play there, reached the venue, but came down with dysentery and had to be sent back to Kolkata. Yuvraj’s absence, though, gave Avik Chowdhury, who is yet to represent Bengal in a first-class game, the thrill of his life: Chowdhury it was who fielded for India in the Kolkata Test when Ganguly went out for an over. He got to share the dressing room and wear the India whites.Most glorious day for Mumbai selections
Never has a Mumbai selection meeting generated more interest than it did yesterday. And there wasn’t a crucial decision, on which hung Mumbai’s fate, to be made. Yet as soon as Dilip Vengsarkar, the chairman of selectors, came out of the Mumbai dressing room, he was mobbed by the media, the cup in his hand spilled, and he had to somehow escape.Now, the Mumbai Cricket Association doesn’t have any problems with Dilip Vengsarkar, an honorary selector, writing columns in newspapers. And Vengsarkar doesn’t have any issues with being present at the Mumbai selection meetings. The hoopla had all to do with his other job, and whether he would go to Bangalore to select the Indian team for the Australia tour. All the selection meetings could do with a superstar or two, one feels.Quotehanger
“I just wanted to get it done with,” said Robin Bist, after ending his innings against Karnataka with a rash pull shot, on 99. “It was a silly shot, but batting in the nineties is so very tough that it seems like you’re stuck there for ages and you just want to get past the hundred.”

Scorecard
Taposh Ghosh and Mahmudul Hasan put in all-round performances and ensured a 43-run win for the Bangladesh Under-19 side against their Sri Lanka counterparts in the Tri-nation U-19 tournament in Colombo. The two made useful contributions to Bangladesh’s total of 204 and then picked up five wickets between themselves as Sri Lanka were bowled out with 28 balls to spare.Hasan, the Bangladesh captain and middle-order batsman, kept the scoreboard ticking with a 47-ball 32 after Ashraful Aziz and Nasir Hossain had added 53 for the fourth wicket. Ghosh, coming in at No. 9, threw his bat around for a 20-ball 27 which included two fours and a six. Tissara Perera, Sri Lanka’s right-arm medium-fast bowler, took 3 for 38.Fifteen-year old Ghosh, bowling legbreaks, then proceeded to put a dent in Sri Lanka’s run-chase by removing opener and top-scorer Dinesh Chandimal for 36. Ghosh ended with figures 2 for 21 from his 10 overs. Hasan, 16, picked up 3 for 20 with his offbreaks. Along with Hossain and Ghosh, Hasan ensured that there was no possibility of the middle order staging any sort of recovery. Sri Lanka were bowled out for 161.The previous encounter between the two was washed out and while Bangladesh now have a win from two games, Sri Lanka have none. India won both their matches and are leading the table with six points. Sri Lanka next play India on Wednesday, July 25, at the Nondescripts Cricket Club Ground.