Scorecard

Is there a venue where you can get closer to your heroes than WhitgiftSchool? The question came to mind at lunch, as impromptu games took place infront of the hexagonal brick pavilion and Surrey players shoutedencouragement to the young players from their balcony. The kids soonreturned the favour. When Surrey returned to the pavilion having bowledLancashire out for a mere 210, the children lined up on the outfield to clapthem off. Gloriously, not a single steward told them to get off the pitch.By the end of the day you sensed that the Lancashire players would havehappily have given Surrey directions off the pitch, and added a few otherinstructions too. Surrey went to their beds with a deficit of only 64,thanks largely to a partnership of 102 between Mark Ramprakash and ScottNewman. It wasn’t always a barrel of laughs – there was a certain amount ofsheer grind after tea – but both played some classy drives. Newman inparticular delighted the crowd; so much so that when they applauded one fineshot he thought he’d reached 50 and celebrated a run early.The Whitgift ground is almost in miniature, with a pavilion so small that itcan hold only the home team – the Lancashire players have to change in tentsalongside. The bank that slopes down to the pitch teems with picnickers who,meander around the pitch at the intervals, rubbing shoulders with thebowlers as they do their stretches.Not that Martin Bicknell or Jimmy Ormond needed much warming up. Bicknelltook the first Lancashire wicket in only the third over of the day,straightening Mark Chilton up with a good length ball that carried to firstslip. Ormond followed up in the next over, sneaking the first ball backthrough Iain Sutcliffe’s defences.There is no doubt that the pitch here undulates – from one angle it lookslike a badly laid rug. But although the bounce was variable it never stayedparticularly low and it was the amount of lift that the Surrey bowlersgenerated that seemed to throw Lancashire into confusion. Jamie Haynes andDinesh Mongia were both out to poor shots and suddenly Lancashire were fourwickets down in only the ninth over.Only Chris Schofield prevented a total rout. After his false coming asEngland’s Messianic leg-spinner, Schofield is now re-defining himself as abatting allrounder. He rode his luck today, dropped in the covers on 7and in the slips on 8, but refused to let the team’s situation get himdown. He hit eight fours on his way to a half-century, more than a couplewith a powerfully swatted pull shot that the slip cordon mimicked himadmiringly.For a while Schofield had the company of Glen Chapple, who set about ruiningOrmond’s figures, including six boundaries from just two overs. TheSchofield/Chapple partnership doubled Lancashire’s total, but when Chapplewafted to second slip, Azhar Mahmood moved in and picked off the stragglers.

While the Australian board are concerned about the state of the new stadium in Hyderabad, where the team will play its only warm-up game of the Indian tour, confusion abounds about their opponents. The BCCI announced that Australia will play the Board President’s XI, but the Mumbai Cricket Association insist that the game was awarded to them. The final decision will be known tomorrow.SK Nair, the secretary of the board, confirmed that the selectors had put forward a proposal to allow the BP XI side to play against Australia. Mumbai will be playing against Rest of India in the Irani Trophy and the selectors thought that it would be a good idea to give more players a chance before selecting the Test squad. “It was originally Mumbai,” Nair told Wisden Cricinfo, “but the suggestion by the selection committee was also considered. There were a few players who missed out of the Rest of India side and so the selectors wanted to give them a chance. A decision will be taken tomorrow.”On the other end of the see-saw, Lalchand Rajput, the secretary of the MCA, insisted that Mumbai will play the game. Rajput said: “We received the letter about 15 days ago and the match between Mumbai and Australia is going to be a benefit match for Vijay Mohanraj, the former Hyderabad cricketer. We have even got letters from the Hyderabad Cricket Association and PMG, who are sponsoring the game.”There are valid arguments for the BP XI to play the game. Players like Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh, who have been rusty of late, can use it as a chance to get back into the groove. Also Zaheer Khan and Lakshmipathy Balaji can return after recovering from injuries. Without this opportunity, the Indian team will go into the first Test at Bangalore without any match practice.The bottom line, though, is that Mumbai were promised the game by virtue of being the Ranji Trophy champions.

Duncan Fletcher’s achievements as England coach have been recognised with his induction into Britain’s Coaching Hall of Fame.Fletcher, 56, was honoured on Thursday for his part over the last five years in lifting England off the bottom of the world rankings to second – just behind Australia.”I am very honoured,” he told the BBC Sport website. “It has been a great year for the England team and I would really like to thank all the players and the management team for their contributions.”Fletcher has overseen more Tests than any of his predecessors in the England set-up, and he is second only to Bob Simpson in the all-time list. Having followed up a stint as Western Province coach between 1993 and 1997, with a position at Glamorgan, he came into the job with trusted contacts around the county circuit, who helped him unearth Michael Vaughan, Craig White, Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Flintoff for the international side.

New Zealand’s opening batsman, Mark Richardson, has laid into the standardof opposition provided by Bangladesh during their recent tour, and warns that a “slap in the face” awaits his team when they arrive in Australia for a two-Test series later this month.As befits one of the most attritional openers in the game, Richardson hasspent most of the tour advocating a patient approach to the Bangladeshichallenge, but in his latest column for the New Zealand Herald, he finally let rip. “It’s time to get the hell out of Bangladesh,” he declared, after watching his side squeak to a nervy three-wicket win in the second one-day international. “You can only maintain your standards for so long … [we have slipped] right back to club level.”It was a measure of the New Zealanders’ lack of enthusiasm at the end ofthe series that Richardson – a notoriously sluggish runner – couldn’t evenbring himself to compete in his now-traditional sprint-off against theslowest member of the opposition. “I could have won,” he reflected, “givenmy length-of-stride advantage.” Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, he added that the only positive he could take out of the four-week visit was the chance to stock up on pirated DVDs from the local markets.The first Test against Australia starts at Brisbane on November 18, andRichardson is genuinely concerned for the competitiveness of his team,after their recent uninspired efforts. “Your time in the middle againsttwo dribbly seamers and three left-arm spinners will mean spit againstfour quicks and a leggy,” he stressed. “And average bowling will not bagyou four wickets for bugger all.”Richardson, who did not play in the one-day series, endured a lean time with the bat in the Tests, scoring just 43 runs in two innings. “The only way you can view this Bangladesh series is as the launching pad into a challenging summer of cricket,” he added. “[But it’s been] made only more challenging by the lack of quality of the launching pad.”It is not only New Zealand whose performances have suffered after a tripto Bangladesh. This time last year, England were the visitors, but afterfive trouble-free victories out of five, they flew across the Bay ofBengal to Sri Lanka … where they were bundled out for 88 in the firstone-day game at Dambulla.”For those who have scored runs or taken wickets there will be the satisfying feeling of having boosted the averages, but I doubt how many will feel they have gained much as a cricketer,” added Richardson. “You can bet your bottom dollar that the boys are itching to get on the plane to Oz.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

Bangladesh pulled off a historic first victory at home and also their first-ever win against India in the hothouse atmosphere of a jampacked Banghabandhu Stadium at Dhaka, bowling India out for 214 to prevail by 15 runs and thereby level the one-day series. Bangladesh’s victory was a real team effort, featuring inspired contributions from several players. They fully deserved their victory, first converting a score of 88 for 5 to a competitive total of 229, and then bowling tightly and excelling in the field to keep India shackled and just behind the game from the very first over of the chase.It looked like a familiar story for Bangladesh midway through their innings, as their top order once again wastefully gave away their wickets to leave the team in limbo. But Aftab Ahmed, a 20-year-old playing only his sixth game, stabilised the innings with a strokeful and assured 67 compiled over nearly 30 overs. Aftab helped put together partnerships of 44, 44 and 36 for the fourth, sixth, and seventh wickets, and he followed his crucial performance with the bat with a superlative display in the field.If it was Aftab who laid the base for Bangladesh’s total, then much of the remainder of the game belonged to Mashrafe Mortaza. Mortaza first hustled a crucial unbeaten 31, his highest ODI score, in the slog overs, taking Bangladesh to 229 when at one point it seemed they might not reach 200. After this it proved impossible to keep him out of the game. He opened the bowling and gave his side the perfect start by striking with his third ball, beating Virender Sehwag all ends up with a breakback and knocking back his middle stump.A while later, as Sourav Ganguly and Sridharan Sriram began to put together a partnership, Mortaza picked up a catch at point to dismiss Ganguly (51 for 3). Then, when Mohammad Kaif and Mahendra Dhoni began to put together a threatening partnership for the sixth wicket, it was Mortaza who was given the ball by Habibul Bashar, and he responded by striking immediately, getting Dhoni caught by Bashar at midwicket (157 for 6). Mortaza then returned for a third spell in the final overs, keeping one end tight, and took a crucial diving catch on the long-on boundary to dismiss Zaheer Khan and bring his team to within one step of victory. Returning to one-day cricket after a 15-month lay-off to injury, Mortaza was the deserving recipient of the Man-of-the-Match award.India were missing four key players, including Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, and once Bangladesh had made 229 there was a feeling that it was going to be a close game, given the inexperience of India’s middle order. But then Bangladesh gave themselves the best possible shot at victory by winkling Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh out early, and India took so long over rebuilding the innings that the asking-rate, not really a factor at the beginning of the chase, had begun to assume threatening proportions.

Bangladesh’s fielders as a unit could take a great deal of credit for this victory. Not only did they throw themselves about left and right, cutting off a number of certain boundaries, they also hit the stumps when it mattered. No Indian wicket had a more decisive bearing on the match than the one of Mohammad Kaif, run out by a direct hit by Rajin Saleh after threatening to take the game away with a half-century made at nearly run-a-ball (170 for 7). Kaif at this stage was the last recognised batsman, and once he was out Bangladesh were the ones controlling the game. A valiant 29 not out from Joginder Sharma was not enough to bail India out of the mess they had landed themselves in. Fittingly, it was a direct hit from Aftab, throwing down the stumps from point to dismiss Murali Kartik, that ended the game to spark off scenes of wild jubilation.At the end of the day, there was not a player in the Bangladesh line-up who did not contribute in some way to the win, only their sixth in 100 matches. Though Aftab and Mortaza stood out, seven of the batsmen made double-figure scores, and four bowlers took two wickets each (the one who took none, the rookie Nazmul Hossain, bowled with splendid control and gave away only 26 in 7 overs). The veteran Khaled Mahmud, whose international career nearly came to an end last year after he was sacked as captain, bowled some nerveless overs as the game drew to its climax, and Bashar marshalled his troops adeptly and made all the right decisions with his bowlers.India’s loss, their 16th in 2004, made it a miserable year in one-day cricket for them, one that can still get worse if they lose the series decider tomorrow. As for Bangladesh, tonight, as they celebrate, they must also be asking themselves the question after the high of this victory: can we do this again tomorrow?

Dolphins 325 (Brown 107*, Watson 61, Dawson 5-46) lead WesternProvince Boland 233 and 2 for 0 by 90 runs
ScorecardAt Cape Town the Dolphins added just one run to their overnight 99 beforeCon de Lange trapped Imraan Khan leg-before for 49. Alan Dawson then struck twice, to get rid of Doug Watson for 61 and Hashim Amla, released from his national duties, without scoring. Ashraf Mall contributed 17 before falling to Paul Adams to leave the Dolphins on 140 for 4. An 80-run partnership between Jon Kent and Duncan Brown came to an end when Kent was caught behind for 48, giving Dawson his third wicket of the innings. Dawson picked up a further two wickets to finish with 5 for 46 as the Dolphins were bowled out for 325, a lead of 92. Brown was left stranded on 107, his hundred coming off 210 balls and including 14 fours. Western Province Boland reduced the deficit by two before the close.Warriors 422 for 9 dec (Pope 156*, Kreusch 76, Bruyns 55, Bradfield 51, Malao 4-80) lead Eagles 110 for 3 (Jacobs 51, Kops 3-43) by 312 runs
ScorecardAfter the loss of 38 overs on the first day the Warriors increased the rate at East London, with Steven Pope notching up his highest first-class score of 156 as they reached 422 before declaring at the fall of the ninth wicket. Pope put on 175 with Justin Kreusch, who made 76, and 57 with Tyron Henderson (31). Jacob Malao was the most successful Eagles bowler, with 4 for 80 in 20 overs. In reply the Eagles made a quick start, with Davey Jacobs reaching 50 off just 37 balls. He put on 74 for the first wicket before James Henderson fell to Brent Kops for 23. Jacobs also fell to Kops, just after reaching his half-century, while Ryan Bailey gave Kops his third wicket when he had made 13. By the close the Eagles had moved to 110 for 3, still 312 behind with seven wickets in hand.Lions 346 for 8 (Ontong 98, Ackerman 129, Nel 4-86) v Titans
ScorecardHeavy overnight and early-morning rain at Benoni left the outfield waterlogged, resulting in no play being possible on the second day.Keith Lane works for Cricinfo in South Africa.