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Division One

Points Table
Tight bowling by Essex’s Danish Kaneria, and an innings of 88 by Will Jefferson allowed Essex through to a 12-run win over Hampshire, and the National League title. Jefferson aside, there was little of much substance from the rest of Essex’s innings, with both Grant and Andy Flower falling for single-figures. John Crawley got Hampshire off to an excellent start – he and Nic Pothas put on 95 for the first wicket. But wickets tumbled at regular intervals, and Danish Kaneria stemmed the flow of runs to take 4 for 26 from 9 overs to seal a win for Essex.Northamptonshire overcame a stuttering run-chase to beat Nottinghamshire by four wickets, with five balls to spare. Nottinghamshire failed to bat out their 40 overs, falling to 207 all out thanks to a five wicket-haul from Damien Wright. Chris Read top-scored with 45 from 50 balls, but Nottinghamshire’s eventual score of 207 was never likely to trouble Northamtonshire. A partnership of 83 between Usman Afzaal and Martin Love set them up nicely, but wickets continued to fall and Love was dismissed for 59 by Younis Khan, one of three wickets for the Pakistani. Despite losing their sixth wicket, Riki Wessels and Ben Phillips saw the home-side through by four wickets.

Division Two

Points TableA brilliant, destructive innings of 88 by Ian Blackwell saw Somerset through to a comfortable five-wicket victory over Surrey. Surrey’s innings started promisingly, with a 65 from James Benning and a pair of forties from Jon Batty and Mark Butcher. Arul Suppiah took three wickets with his left-arm spin, but Surrey ended with a useful score of 237 for 7. In reply, losing Matthew Wood for a duck and both John Francis and Arul Suppiah cheaply. This brought Blackwell to the crease, who smashed 88 from just 53 balls. Combined with James Hildreth, whose unbeaten innings of 75 was equally excellent, albeit less destructive, the pair took Somerset home by five wickets, with more than five overs to spare.A hundred partnership between Ant Botha and Graeme Welch was the catalyst for Derbyshire who defeated Yorkshire at Scarborough. Yorkshire set Derbyshire 220 to win, but only Michael Lumb, with 69, and Joe Sayers with 41 made significant contributions. Derbyshire, too, struggled early on in their reply, with Deon Kruis taking two quick wickets to reduce the visitors to 85 for 4. When Luke Sutton was run out for 27, Derbyshire still needed 102 to win, and did so comfortably thanks to Welch and Botha, both of whom hit half centuries.Durham easily defeated Scotland by 93 runs through a professional all round performance. Gordon Muchall and Gareth Breese were the key run-makers, Muchall’s 79 including eight fours and a six. Ryan Watson took 4 for 36 then provided the only real resistance to Durham’s attack with an impressive 86. Breese, Brad Williams and Liam Plunkett took two wickets each.

ScorecardAfter a day of fluctuating fortunes for each side, the match ended up poised just about evenly at the end of the second day of England Under-19’s first Test against Bangladesh at Headingley. After Luke Wright rescued England to 269 with an accomplished 78, Bangladesh closed at 126 for 4, with a lead of 87.The remainder of England’s innings was a stop-start affair, with handy stands interspersed with mini-collapses. First Ravi Bopara and James Hildreth added another 50 runs in the morning with Bopara reaching his half-century. However, then Nadif Chowdhury, the left-arm spinner, struck four times in quick succession to peg back England’s progress.Hildreth was the first to go, caught by Dhiman Ghosh for 27, then Samit Patel was also caught for a nine-ball duck. Bopara went shortly after for 59, and Tom New didn’t last long, becoming Chowdhury’s fifth victim of the innings for nought. England had lost four wickets for only three runs and Bangladesh had the momentum.Mark Lawson was shortly caught and bowled by Enamul Haque jnr for 3, but Wright and Adam Harrison resuscitated the innings and gave England a lead with a stand of 114. Wright, from Leicestershire, scored 78, including 15 fours. Harrison, on the other hand, was more watchful, grounding out 33 from 103 balls. In keeping with the nature of the innings, though, after Harrison was finally dislodged, the remaining two wickets did not add any more runs, with last man David Stiff run out for nought.England had a slender lead of 39, and Simon Cusden struck early on with the scalp of Shahriar Nafees, lbw for 3. Nafis Iqbal raced to 44 before Stiff had him caught by Patel, and Bopara removed Shamsur Rahman for a handy 23. Patel then trapped Mushfiqur Rahim leg-before for 1 towards the close, but Aftab Ahmed kept his cool to be 45 not out at the end of play with the match finely balanced going into tomorrow.

England v South Africa, NatWest Series, Match Five, Old Trafford

Jacques Kallis: a serene innings

One of the greatest mysteries of the recent World Cup, along with the devastating losses of form of Mahela Jayawardene and Inzamam-ul-Haq, was the utter anonymity of Jacques Kallis. In front of his home fans and at the peak of his career, it was inconceivable that Kallis would finish the tournament with a paltry 63 runs at 15.75, and that he would fail to take a single wicket until that fateful evening against Sri Lanka at Newlands – by which stage, of course, it was all too late.Amid all the upheaval that followed – Shaun Pollock’s sacking and Graeme Smith’s careless choices of words – Kallis slipped quietly into the background. He pulled out of the subsequent tour to Bangladesh (a most unKallis-like decision, given the cheap runs on offer) and at the age of 27, there were more than a few rumours flying around that he had lost his appetite for the daily grind of international cricket.What we now know, of course, puts everything into perspective. Kallis’s father, Henry, has been diagnosed with lung cancer. His uncle, Denge, was claimed by the disease on the very day that South Africa flew into the country. And Kallis’s batting in this series has been at once moving and immoveable.England simply had no response to his iron will, and not even the vagaries of the Manchester floodlights could unsettle him. His form this series has been so effortless, he has not once felt the need to hurry – today’s half-century came off 73 balls, but that was his quickest effort so far. On 68, he passed 300 runs for the series, and had it not been for Andrew Hall’s appearance at No. 3, Kallis would surely have been celebrating his third one-day century in consecutive innings – a feat last achieved by his team-mate Herschelle Gibbs.Hall, a bullying striker of the ball, played a hit-and-mostly-miss innings that underlined the serenity of Kallis’s approach. Hall’s 29 from 39 balls came at a comfortably slower strike-rate than Kallis’s 82 from 105, and involved more risks than Kallis has taken all series. Instead, it was the more prosaic Jacques Rudolph who flourished in the conditions.Rudolph’s second half-century in ODIs was a compact affair, the likes of which only Anthony McGrath and Marcus Trescothick had been able to produce earlier in the day. Quite simply, England’s middle-order once again failed to make enough runs, a problem compounded by Michael Vaughan’s continued struggle for form. Although his failure today is forgivable, as Shaun Pollock had slipped a gear or three and found the perfect range and the most immaculate legcutter.Smith, South Africa’s captain, may have run-worries of his own, but with Pollock and Kallis coming to form at precisely the right time, the gradient of his learning curve has been reduced by a degree or ten. South Africa have earned their pre-eminence in the NatWest Series, and they are now playing with a solidity that augurs well for the Test series as well.Click here for the Wisden Bulletin

Playing New Zealand’s postponed games with Pakistan on neutral territory would not concern New Zealand Cricket chief executive Martin Snedden.New Zealand pulled out of its tour to Pakistan last month in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the United States. It has said it will honour its commitment to play the games in the future.One of the items on the International Cricket Council’s agenda at its meeting in Kuala Lumpur next week is the penalties to be imposed when countries don’t meet their commitments under the ICC’s Future Tours programme.”There will be a considerable amount of sympathy at the meeting for Pakistan’s position,” Snedden said.Recent talk of playing at neutral venues, possibly Sharjah or Morocco, would not worry Snedden. Use of neutral venues was an unfortunate thing and he saw it as only a short term option.”As long as the facilities are safe and up to standard, and as long as the country was accessible, we would play.”The key thing for Pakistan is that they have lost television rights for their series, not only against us, but India, which was probably more significant than ours.”Obviously, television rights at neutral venues would be theirs,” he said.Snedden also threw in Northern Australia as a potential site for future cricket, especially during the southern hemisphere winter.He said that New Zealand A coach Ashley Ross flew home from the New Zealand A team’s aborted tour of India via Darwin and had been most impressed by the facilities there.New Zealand’s main interest was for A team or New Zealand Academy cricket.The ICC are looking at instituting a financial penalty of $US2 million, or if the budgeted gross revenue was greater, the higher amount for non-complying countries. Two ICC Test championship points would also be awarded to the host country.However, the ICC was clear that countries would be exempt from penalties where fixtures were cancelled due to force majeure, natural disaster, war or where the safety of players and officials was proven to be at risk.Snedden said he is happy with his decision to postpone the tour. The ICC had acknowledged its concerns by moving next weekend’s meeting, which was originally to have been held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, to Lahore, Pakistan and finally, after the terrorist attacks, to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.Sri Lanka had decided not to go ahead with a brief tour.”Everything I would thought would happen, has happened, and now there are protests in the streets,” he said.The introduction of recommendations of the Condon report on corruption would result from the meeting although Snedden felt there would be considerable discussion about the enormous costs involved in providing the required security for players at grounds and in hotels.”The ICC have really made some progress in implementing education of international players. A generic video is being produced and it will be tailored to each country.”I believe it will become part of the Academy process here and part of the induction of players into the international game,” he said.Snedden also believed the prospect of introducing a One-Day International World Championship would achieve one of Condon’s requirements that ODIs have more meaning.The meeting will also receive an update on the move towards the naming of the elite panel of eight umpires and the back-up international panel. There will also be five full-time match referees and their availability would be based on their ability to be full-time in the position.There will also be discussion on a suggested compulsory retirement age of 55. There is a feeling that the appropriate age should be 60.Snedden said he was still evaluating the ICC strategic plan but it was clear that new ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed had quickly immersed himself in the job and the body was going in a very clear direction on a number of issues.The executive board of the ICC meets on Thursday and Friday while there will be meetings earlier in the week of the finance and marketing committee and the cricket committee-management.

Crystal Palace have joined West Ham in the race to sign Marseille midfielder Boubacar Kamara, according to The Sun’s Alan Nixon.

The Lowdown: Kamara profiled

Primarily a defensive midfielder, the Frenchman is into the final four months of his contract at the Ligue 1 club.

Valued at £22.5m by Transfermarkt, the 22-year-old can also play at centre-back and has made 153 appearances for his current employers.

However, it looks as if he may leave Marseille on a free transfer ahead of the 2022/23 campaign. He has already held talks with Newcastle United and West Ham, with Palace the latest Premier League club to show an interest.

The Latest: Palace links with Kamara

According to reliable journalist Nixon, Palace backer John Textor is ready to splash the cash in the summer to back Patrick Vieira.

It is thought that the Eagles have now entered the race for Kamara’s services, and it doesn’t appear they are put off by the player’s substantial wage demands.

The Verdict: Smart target

Vieira appears to be building for the future at Selhurst Park with a number of exciting additions during his first season as manager, and Kamara could be an ideal signing ahead of the 45-year-old’s second year in charge, looking to take the Eagles to the next level.

Kamara already has plenty of Ligue 1 experience and has played in the Champions League and Europa League, being hailed as a ‘phenomenon’ by former Marseille teammate Rolando.

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With no transfer fee required, Palace could offer the player a lucrative salary, but they may need to pip some Premier League rivals in the race for the Frenchman’s services.

In other news: Journalist claims Palace are leading the race to sign energetic ace who ‘ticks a lot of boxes’

	Morne Morkel’s stint with Yorkshire has come to a premature end © AFP

Morne Morkel, Yorkshire’s overseas player, will return home to South Africa after sustaining a hamstring injury.Morkel, who was signed until June 1 as a short-term fill-in for Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, broke down during last week’s Championship match against Nottinghamshire. He was diagnosed as having a grade 2 hamstring tear which usually takes between three and six weeks to heal.”I am really upset that an injury is forcing me to return home,” Morkel said. “Everyone at Yorkshire has made me very welcome and I was desperate to take some wickets and get Yorkshire off to the best possible start.””We are all sad to see Morne depart so soon after his arrival,” Martyn Moxon, the county’s director of cricket, said. “He was fitting in well, provided our bowling attack with some variety as he is a genuinely quick bowler.”We have a strong squad and as Rana Naved will be unable to be registered as a Yorkshire player before May 19, there is now a chance for one of our other seamers to grab an unexpected first-team opportunity.”Morkel will travel with the squad for their Friends Provident Trophy match against Lancashire on Sunday before flying back home. He should be fit again in time to return to England with the South African squad at the end of June.

Yuvraj Singh has the temperament, the mental strength, and the brains to match his power and skill – a deadly combination according to captain Rahul Dravid © AFP

Rahul Dravid, the India captain, hailed Yuvraj Singh, who played a vital role win India’s come-from-behind series win over South Africa in the Future Cup at Belfast, as among the best one-day players in the world.”He [Yuvraj] has been a fantastic finisher for us,” Dravid said at the post-match conference. “It’s not an easy job to do under pressure and he does it really well.” Apart from making an unbeaten half-century and leading India to a six-wicket win in the third ODI, Yuvraj was also unbeaten in the second ODI when he made 49 and along with Dinesh Karthik (32 off 37 balls) took India to a six-wicket win after Sachin Tendulkar had fallen for 93 in the 32nd over.”He’s got the power, he’s got the skill and he’s matching that power and skill with temperament, mental strength and brains,” said Dravid. “That’s a deadly combination. He is up there among the best one-day players in the world without a doubt.”Yuvraj said that what kept him going during pressure situations was knowing that he had previously done well in similar situations. After the World Cup, it was a bad time for all the players,” Yuvraj said. “But beating a tough side outside of India gives us a lot of pride.”This was India’s first series-win outside the subcontinent since 2002 when they beat England in the Natwest Series. In fact Yuvraj played a major role in India’s winning that series, especially in the final at Lord’s.”It was nice to win this,” said Dravid. “Away from home, we haven’t won a lot. It meant a lot to the team. We’ve had a few disappointments lately.” The Indian team had been criticised for their early exit from the World Cup after their shock defeat against Bangladesh in the group stage of the tournament.”To win a one-day series, against the No. 2 side in the world, away from home, in conditions that suited them rather than us, in three close games, we acquitted ourselves very well,” Dravid said. He added that the Indian fast bowlers had managed to make use of the seaming conditions, pitch the ball up, and execute the team’s plans successfully.Jacques Kallis wasn’t too disappointed by his side’s performance. “We came here with a young side, and I don’t think we’ve performed badly against a very strong Indian side,” said Kallis, who was leading South Africa in the absence of Graeme Smith, recovering from knee surgery.The purpose of bringing in younger players for the series, Kallis said, was to try and create variety in the bowling attack. “We’d given Thandi [Tshabalala] couple of games and needed to have a look at Dale Steyn as well. We came on this tour wanting to give a lot of guys opportunities.”While India will now travel to Glasgow to play a one-off ODI against Pakistan on July 3 before going to England for three Tests and seven ODIs, South Africa are scheduled to host the Twenty20 World Championship in September.

Mahela Jayawardene got close to toppling Brian Lara from the summit, sending shivers down the spine of the Caribbean fans © AFP

Seeing that the air has been filled recently by the utterances of politicians and lawyers, I thought we should take the process of lies and damn lies a step further today.Statistics don’t ever tell the whole story, yet they can still be quite useful, especially in sporting conversations, even those not fuelled by bets in the nearby rum shop. Probably the most significant statistic for the Trinidad & Tobago sports fan is the number 400, Brian Lara’s world record Test innings score against England two years ago in Antigua.Well, for a nervous few hours on Saturday morning, it seemed that the national hero would be losing the revered status of the scorer of the highest individual innings in Test cricket history for the second time. Mahela Jayawardene, Sri Lankan captain, was getting ever closer to that historic number in Colombo, having already established another world record with a 624-run third-wicket partnership – the highest for any wicket in Test or first-class cricket – with Kumar Sangakkara in the first Test against South Africa.It looked to be only a matter of time before he scaled the summit, but all it takes is one lapse in concentration to bring the dreams of glory to an end, and when Andre Nel bowled Jayawardene for 374, the groans of disappointment throughout Sri Lanka would have been counter-balanced by the relieved exhalations of fans in West Indies.We’ve seen this all before of course in the 12 years since Lara first claimed the record that was held by Sir Garfield Sobers for 36 years. Following that 375 – also against England in Antigua – Sanath Jayasuriya (340), another Sri Lankan, came close against India, while Mark Taylor, the Australian captain then, chose to declare in Pakistan with his personal score on 334, drawing him level with the legendary Sir Donald Bradman for what was then the highest Test innings by an Australian.Matthew Hayden eventually surpassed them, and Lara, in getting to 380 against Zimbabwe in November, 2003. Yet it only served to motivate the Trinidadian to lift his game another notch and, five months later, he ended a run of low scores in a lost series against England with that unbeaten 400, making him the first to reclaim the record.It seems that someone is on the verge of getting the really big one almost every other series these days. In fact, of the 21 scores of 300 or more (we used to be able to just say triple-centuries until Lara’s quadruple) in the 1,810 Tests played to date, eight have been compiled since the left-handed maestro’s first world-beating effort at the ARG. The others who have flirted with the record in that time, apart from those already mentioned, are Inzamam-ul-Haq (329) against New Zealand; Virender Sehwag (309) against Pakistan; and Chris Gayle (317) against South Africa last year.Given the general rarity of such monumental individual scores, it would seem obvious that this has been the most prolific period in that regard in the history of the game. But it isn’t, at least not in terms of frequency on the basis of matches played. Lara’s 375 included, the nine scores of 300 and over have come in a 12-year period during which 551 Test matches have been played, giving an average of a 300-plus score roughly every 61 Tests. You have to go back to the 1930s to find the really prolific period, however, when the first five triple-hundreds in Tests were scored at the rate of one every 15 matches.When Englishman Andrew Sandham, at the age of 39, scored 325 at Sabina Park against the West Indies (amazingly, it was his last Test) in the final match of the 1930 series, it set off a sequence that saw Bradman setting a new standard of 334 just a few months later against England at Headingly; Wally Hammond bettering that with 336 not out for England against New Zealand in Auckland in 1932-33; Bradman getting to 304, again at Leeds, in 1934; and then Len Hutton taking the mark to a new height with 364 for England against Australia at The Oval in 1938.In terms of time, it was a span of more than eight years, yet only 74 Test matches were played in that period when there were just five Test nations. It would be another 20 years before someone got to 300-plus, Sobers turning his maiden Test hundred at the age of 21 into a world record 365 not out against Pakistan in Kingston.Interestingly, given that the period coincided with an era of unprecedented West Indian dominance, there was only one triple-hundred scored in the 25 years between John Edrich’s 310 not out for England against New Zealand in 1965 and Graham Gooch’s 333, also for England, against India at Lord’s in 1990. That was a knock of 302 by Lawrence Rowe against the English in Barbados in 1974.Seeing that none of the great names that graced West Indies batting line-ups for the 20 years after Rowe’s innings managed to get to 300 (Viv Richards was closest with 291 against the English in his phenomenal year of 1976), it merely reinforces the point, as we have seen with our own eyes, that cricket, for all of its focus on individuals, relies on team effort more than virtuoso performances for long-term success.Still, we’re drawn to the big numbers, aren’t we? No wonder there are so many gamblers around.

Surrey’s cricket manager, Steve Rixon, will be parting company with the county at the end of the season, after failing to agree terms for a new contract. Rixon signed a two-year contract when he joined Surrey from New South Wales in 2004, but was unable to ignite their glory years of the early 2000s.”I’d like to thank Steve for all of his hard work over the past two seasons,” said Paul Sheldon, Surrey’s chief executive. “We wish him all the best in the future.”Rixon stated: “I have enjoyed my two years at Surrey and hope that I have begun to instil a new culture within the dressing-room. I hope that whoever Surrey appoint as the next manager can continue to progress the side and further develop the talented young players at the club.”

Umar Gul was one of the players who broke down with injury during the series against India© AFP

Keen to find a solution to the injury problems which had become such a huge issue for their team last season, the Pakistan board is looking for a full-time physiotherapist for the players.Apart from looking after the fitness of the cricketers during the busy months, he will also be expected to draw up a training schedule for the players during the off season and prepare a diet chart for them. He will report directly to the PCB chief executive – or the manager during tours – and will receive an attractive remuneration package.The board’s search for a physiotherapist comes in the wake of serious concerns being raised about the fitness levels of the players following Pakistan’s defeat in the Tests and the one-day series against India. The tendency of their fast bowlers to break down was particularly worrying: Shoaib Akhtar missed a crucial part of the final Test due to injury, while Umar Gul, Shabbir Ahmed and Abdul Razzaq were all unavailable during various times in the series.The move to hire a physiotherapist is also the latest in a series of decisions taken by the Pakistan board to make their set-up a more professional one: Greg Chappell, Daryl Foster and Barry Richards have all been hired as consultants to help budding players at the National Cricket Academy, and also to advice the senior team.