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Scorecard

Netherlands sneaked past Canada by one wicket in the rain-affected fifth one-dayer at Benoni to take the ICC Tri-Series on Thursday.Set a revised 205 from 42 overs, Netherlands made good progress thanks to a counterattacking partnership between Ryan ten Doeschate (38) and Luuk van Troost (34). And when Daan van Bunge passed fifty from 52 balls, Netherlands appeared to be cruising home before they stumbled from from 142 for 6 to 178 for 9, with Billy Stelling the last of the recognised batsmen. However, he held his nerve – crashing two fours and lofting two sixes – in his 34-ball 39 as Netherlands crept home with just two balls to spare.Earlier Canada’s innings was a stuttering affair with Ashish Bagai (23) and Abdool Samad (44) sharing a promising second-wicket stand of 52. But the innings foundered somewhat, with Tim de Leede picking up two cheap wickets, before a huge thunderstorm during the lunch interval delayed the start of Netherlands’ innings, causing the intervention of Duckworth and Lewis.The final game of the series between Canada and Bermuda will be played on Saturday.

Click here for a list of all events awarded by the ICCEngland have been awarded the rights to host the 2019 World Cup as well as the 2009 Twenty20 World Championships. The announcement was made after the ICC board meeting in Dubai this weekend.”The ECB should be very pleased with the outcome of these negotiations,” said Ehsan Mani, the ICC president. “It produced an excellent submission to host both the World Cup and the Twenty20 World Championship and have earned the right to host both events.”A lot of credit must go to David Morgan for the astute manner in which he handled some very complex discussions. England will be a fitting venue for the Twenty20 World Championships at the climax of our centenary year in 2009.”Morgan, the ECB chairman, was clearly delighted: “We entered into this process with the goal of being awarded a Twenty20 event and a World Cup,” he said. “It’s great news for cricket in England and Wales that these two major events have been secured and we have a wonderful opportunity to build our international calendar around these showpiece occasions.”The full support of the ICC board for the staging of these two important events in England is a clear indication of the prominent role that the ECB continues to hold in international cricket.”England hosted the first three World Cups in 1975, 1979 and 1983 (when Wales also hosted games) as well as the 1999 tournament when matches were also played in Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

Luke Ronchi, the big-hitting wicketkeeper-batsman, will join Mumbai for next month’s Indian Premier League after signing a three-year deal with the franchise. Ronchi owns a 56-ball century with Western Australia, a domestic one-day record, and his all-round skills are perfectly suited to the Twenty20 format.Mumbai have Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya, Harbhajan Singh and Shaun Pollock in their squad and Ronchi, who has a strike-rate of 176.97 in his 12 abbreviated matches, is looking forward to joining them. “I can’t wait to get over there and start training with the likes of Tendulkar and Jayasuriya and try to gain as much as I can from the wealth of experience they possess,” Ronchi said.”It will be a tremendous learning experience for me, not just in how to play Twenty20, but in all aspects of my game because I will be surrounded by so many champions. And there may be an opportunity to open the batting with Sachin in front of his home crowd in Mumbai – that would be the stuff dreams are made of.”While Ronchi has joined the IPL’s playing ranks, Matthew Mott, the New South Wales coach, has accepted an offer from John Buchanan to be an assistant with Kolkata. Mott guided New South Wales’ Pura Cup final victory last week and he will be in India for Kolkata’s first game against Bangalore on April 18.”It’s going to be a great experience for him,” Dave Gilbert, the New South Wales chief executive, told the Sydney Morning Herald. “They have a terrific side, and the opportunity to work with Buchanan will be beneficial for him.”To be honest, our limited-overs form has been pretty ordinary in the last couple of seasons, and this is a great chance for Matt to go there and observe first-hand some of the game’s innovations. There will obviously be some pretty interesting cricket being played, and he will be able to take note of it all and plan for our assault on the title next season.”

18.1 Broad to Yuvraj Singh, SIX, that’s out the ground, super shot over cow corner and it just kept going up.18.2 Broad to Yuvraj Singh, SIX, now that really is sweet, no more than a dismissive flick off his legs, swatting a fly, and the ball arcs deep into the crowd beyond backward square leg. The dodgy TV measurement says that’s 111 yards but as it landed outside the ground how do they know? They guess that’s how.18.3 Broad to Yuvraj Singh, SIX, he’s hitting them everywhere, he steps to leg and smashes the ball over extra cover and it keeps on traveling. The fireworks start on top of the scoreboard and they’ve been going off in the middle for some time.18.4 Broad to Yuvraj Singh, SIX, Shiver me timbers! Broad goes round the wicket, bowls a filthy wide full toss and Yuvraj steers it over backward point and it clears the rope again.18.5 Broad to Yuvraj Singh, SIX, down on one knee and larruped over midwicket, that one was more nine iron, it went into the night sky and dropped with a thud in the jubilant crowd. England have a team meeting.Broad looks quizzical and miserable. Can he, can Yuvraj do it. Broad looks like a man who knows he is about to be mauled again.18.6 Broad to Yuvraj Singh, SIX, and he has, Yuvraj leans back and smacks that over wide mid-on. It was the maximum from the moment it left that bat and the crowd was roaring as it flew.

England’s chances of retaining the Ashes later this year depend largely on the performance of their strike bowler Steve Harmison, feels Ian Chappell, the former Australian captain, now a leading television commentator. England defend the Ashes they won at home last year against Australia in the first of five Tests in Brisbane, starting on November 23.”So much depends on how Steve Harmison bowls. It may be a reason why they gave Andrew Flintoff the captaincy – apparently he’s very matey with Harmison,” Chappell told . “Some of the stuff I saw from him against Pakistan (in the recent Test series) was absolute crap. But if he bowls as well as he can, England will be right in it.”Chappell said England’s decision to opt for Flintoff as captain over Andrew Strauss has reflected a change in attitude with England, Australia’s traditional rivals.”They could have gone the safe route and made Strauss captain. But they won the Ashes by taking the aggressive route and picking someone like Kevin Pietersen. Logic says that to retain the Ashes, they’ve got to keep taking risks and they’ve done that by making Flintoff captain.”Chappell felt it also makes sense that Flintoff was preferred as captain as he understands the tactical side of bowling better than opening batsman Strauss.”What does a captain do with batting? He basically just picks the order. The important side is out on the field. Who better to understand bowling than a bowler? There haven’t been many bowling captains and that’s probably been a mistake. There’s no reason why Flintoff can’t do it. The danger is that he’s coming back from a serious injury and needs to find his form as a bowler. He might overbowl himself in a bid to lift the team.”They’ll miss Michael Vaughan’s captaincy but Flintoff is a bit of a Shane Warne: he loves competing. When the heat’s on, Flintoff will want to bowl, but he can’t do it all the time. That’s when Strauss will have to know when to step in and say, ‘Not now, save it for later’. If everything goes right for England, it will be very competitive. But it could easily turn bad for them.”

Northerns Titans paceman David Townsend exploited a disappointing batting performance from the Highveld Strikers to earn his side a 186-run lead on the second day of their Supersport Series match at the Wanderers on Saturday.Townsend took three wickets as the Strikers limped to the close on 170 for eight in response to the Titans’ first innings total of 356 all out.Earlier in the day, the Titans resumed on 306 for seven and with Steve Elworthy on 39 not out. Elworthy unleashed a hard-hitting and unbeaten 75 to further bolster the Titans’ innings.The veteran of Northerns cricket hit 10 fours and three sixes off the 115 balls he faced, and carried his bat when Northerns were bowled out for 356.Andrew Hall led the Strikers’ bowling attack, taking 5-93 as both he and Clive Eksteen wrapped up the Titans tail in the morning.Having done themselves little justice with ball in hand, the Strikers then failed in their attempt to prove themselves as a batting side. Only Adam Bacher stood out with 61.Sven Koenig was the first to make the long Wanderers walk back to the changeroom, dismissed for 16 by a catch at mid-wicket from Greg Smith off a ball from Elworthy that was pitched wide outside the off-stump.David Townsend then stepped into the attack for Northerns, and made the most vital breakthrough of the day shortly after lunch.Having just returned to the Titans side after a previous season where he was plagued by injury, Townsend had settled into an excellent rhythm.Bowling a good line and length, Townsend had Andre Seymore caught behind and then took Daryll Cullinan for a duck with his very next ball, lifting out the latter’s off-stump with embarrassing ease.Bacher was left to fend for himself, although he was given some support by Zander de Bruyn.The duo shared in a fourth-wicket stand of 61 runs before a horrendous run-out. It was sparked by some excellent fielding from Allahudien Paleker, who did well to stop a boundary off Bacher’s bat.The batsmen were busy on the third run when, despite being three-quarters of the way down the pitch, Bacher suddenly stopped and joined De Bruyn running to the same end. De Bruyn paid the price for the mistake.The weight of the innings eventually proved to great for the shoulders of Bacher to bear. With a much-needed century certainly beckoning, Bacher went out to the tamest of deliveries from Townsend, caught at point by Neil McKenzie.There was little resistance after that. But it has to be said that the Strikers’ batting did not make it very hard for the Titans to take wickets.

The major airlines based in the Caribbean have landed a major contract for the 2007 Cricket World Cup (CWC) to be played in the region. The consortium of Caribbean Star, BWIA West Indies Airlines, LIAT and Air Jamaica have been awarded the contract to be the official carrier during the March 5 to April 28 event.Stephen Price, the tournament’s commercial manager, made the announcement late on Wednesday after a series of high-level meetings at the Royal Antigua Hotel. He said, “I can announce that we contracted the Caribbean consortium of airlines to be the official carrier for the teams, VIPs, media, sponsors and officials during the duration of the tournament.”They will provide chartered airlift. It’s a humongous achievement and it shows there is faith in the regional air carriers. It will link all the carriers of the region under one roof. It says a lot too about the steps they are willing to take in terms of ensuring that the transportation for the tournament is successful.”Price was among several executives from the regional and international travel industry who joined officials from the World Cup, customs, immigration, security, land and air traffic management, visitor experience, and logistics in trying to come up with a framework to ease worries over airlift and congestion for the tournament.

Mark Ramprakash has said he has sympathy for the player who picked the seam during a match against Nottinghamshire in the early stages of last season.The player, who refused to own up and whose identity has yet to be revealed despite an internal enquiry, cost Surrey eight points – ultimately sending the county down to the second division.”I have a lot of sympathy for the person who did it because it was naivety,” Ramprakash told the BBC. “Whoever it was did it for the right reasons.”During the game at The Oval, Nottinghamshire had amassed an enormous total of 692 for 7 declared, with the captain Stephen Fleming making 238. Ramprakash, captaining Surrey in Mark Butcher’s absence, takes up the story:”We were bowling, Notts were about 200-0, the umpires came over and said: ‘Look we feel this ball doesn’t look right and we feel something is wrong with the quarter-seam.'”This time they said we are not happy with this, somebody has obviously tampered with the ball. I had never come across someone picking the quarter-seam before.”Obviously somebody was trying to gain an advantage for Surrey and quite rightly we were penalised and punished. To this day we don’t know who did it, and of course people say those were the eight points that cost us and ensured we were relegated.”

ScorecardWith Charl Langeveldt injuring his back, David Terbrugge gave the South African selectors a timely reminder of his form as his 5 for 42 bowled the Titans into submission at Potchefstroom. Batting first after winning the toss, Daryl Cullinan (70) and Justin Kemp (42) briefly stopped the Titans’ slide with a 83-run fourth-wicket partnership, but the Lions were evntually bowled out for 204 – Werner Coetsee and Garth Roe shared the remaining wickets. The Lions were 9 for 0 when bad light ended play 11 overs early.
ScorecardAt Newlands, the Warriors pace duo of Mornantau Hayward and Monde Zondeki proved too good for Western Province-Boland, with only Herschelle Gibbs and Derrin Bassage coming to terms with a difficult pitch. Batting at No. 4, Gibbs joined Bassage at 0 for 2, and they added 123 runs before Bassage was caught behind for 45. Gibbs followed soon for 76, an innings that included 52 runs in sparkling boundaries. A further 50-run partnership between Conde Lange (37) and Rory Kleinveldt (24) assisted in getting the home team to 206. At the close, Warriors had progressed to 40 for 2 with Klienveldt bagging both wickets.
ScorecardAt Durban, the Dolphins’ bowlers were made to work hard as the Eagles crawled to 254 for 7 when bad light stopped play three overs early. The hard-hitting pair of Davey Jacobs (83) and Loots Bosman (65) proved troublesome, stroking 25 fours between them. Klusener and Russell Symcox each picked up two wickets with Mfuneko Ngam improving with every outing.

Scorecard

Anil Kumble triggered South Zone’s fightback and Vinay Kumar mopped up West’s tailenders as the Duleep Trophy game at Hyderabad was intruigingly poised at the end of the second day. After conceding a slender 20-run lead, West hit back through Irfan Pathan and reduced South to 141 for 5.Resuming on 71 for 3, West received a major jolt early in the day with Kumble bowling Sachin Tendulkar for just 4. Lakshmipathy Balaji snapped up two more quick wickets and had West reeling at 75 for 5. Niraj Patel, the Gujarat batsman who topped the Ranji Trophy charts, resisted for a while, making a gritty 43, and stitched together some useful partnerships with the lower order. Ramesh Powar, the star with the ball yesterday, chipped in with 31 but Kumar didn’t allow the tail to wag for too long and finished with impressive figures of 4 for 22.South lost wickets at regular intervals when they batted for the second time with Pathan removing both the openers. Zaheer Khan got through VVS Laxman’s defences while Powar dismissed Rahul Dravid for the second time in the game, with Niraj Patel taking the catch on both occasions. Venugopal Rao, a classy batsman from Andhra, prevented a further slump and remained unbeaten when stumps were drawn.With 25 wickets falling on the first two days the much-awaited encounter, played in a packed stadium, the match was set for an early finish. West still held the advantage they gained on the first day but they will know that facing Kumble on a bowler-friendly pitch in the final innings can be a deadly proposition.