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Scorecard

Last-placed South Australia are on the verge of taking first-innings points against the competition leaders Tasmania despite a seven-wicket haul from Ben Hilfenhaus. The Tigers lost three batsmen in the last four overs of the day to finish at 7 for 196 in reply to South Australia’s 349.Tasmania’s chase started poorly when Shaun Tait (3 for 41) and Jason Gillespie made two breakthroughs each to leave the home side at 4 for 79. A 112-run partnership between Travis Birt and Daniel Marsh (57 not out) gave the Tigers hope but Dan Cullen trapped Birt lbw for 71 late in the day, sparking a mini-collapse.Cullen had Sean Clingeleffer caught by Daniel Harris for 1 before Tait finished on a high, claiming Brett Geeves lbw for 1 with the last ball of the day.The Redbacks resumed at 5 for 288 and Darren Lehmann (57) quickly brought up his half-century before he became Hilfenhaus’s first victim of the day. Hilfenhaus, who had claimed three wickets on day one, finished with 7 for 79 – the best figures by any bowler in the Pura Cup this season. He and the in-form Andy Bichel now lead the competition with 19 dismissals each.

The Barmy Army is considering cancelling its tour of Australia after members were “treated like schoolchildren” by security staff at the Gabba. The group’s founder Paul Burnham said if things continued in the same vein the tour could be abandoned.”Absolutely. We are waiting to see how it develops before giving advice to people coming over [from England] for the Sydney and Melbourne Tests,” Burnham told . He said he was infuriated that the Barmy Army’s official trumpet player Billy Cooper was escorted from the ground on Thursday, given that Cooper had been given permission to play.”I flew over to Melbourne in May and talked to Cricket Australia about the trumpet,” Burnham said. “We were told he would be able to play at the ground and he was quite good for stopping the Mexican wave. We were getting some pretty positive vibes back and then all of a sudden he’s been ejected.”He played his trumpet in the morning and it was fine. We got our third wicket [in the second session] and suddenly he was asked to leave the ground. Everyone was having a really good time, there was a great atmosphere in the ground, we sat next to the Boony Army guys and there was some great banter. Now the whole thing is ruined.”

Burnham said it was also disappointing that seat allocations meant thousands of England supporters were scattered all around the Gabba, which made them feel “not very welcome at all”. He said “an awful lot” of Barmy Army members had not bothered to attend the second day, instead watching the match from their hotel.Burnham, who came up with the idea of the Barmy Army during the 1994-95 Ashes tour, said Cricket Australia were ruining the spirit of the game. “They believe the Barmy Army will help England win so it just seems everything is geared to try and make sure there is no fun in the game,” he said. “We just want to come over and have a good time … not to be treated like schoolchildren.”We’ve come back to the country where the Barmy Army started 12 years ago. We are a group that has supported the sport over the last three tours, spent millions of pounds and we are treated like this.”

A top Indian board (BCCI) official today refuted allegations that the Asian bloc had entered into an understanding with the West Indies to bag the rights to host the 2011 World Cup at a recent ICC meeting.The West Indies voted for India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh but in return the BCCI agreed to play a triangular series at a neutral venue to help raise funds for the Caribbean islands in the lead up to the 2007 World Cup, media reports had said.IS Bindra, a BCCI Marketing Committee member and a former president, rebutted the charges. “We playing the West Indies in North America or the Caribbean had nothing to do with the World Cup bid,” Bindra said. “It was part of the ongoing scheme of playing 25 matches against top teams at neutral venues over a period of five years. Playing in North America would benefit the Caribbean because there is a considerable expatriate population there [North America].”There was no quid pro quo for their support. They voted for us because they thought it was in the best interest of world cricket, and it was morally right, that the 2011 World Cup be held in the subcontinent. We had jointly fought in 1987 when we got the World Cup moved out of England.”Bindra also denied former ICC president Malcolm Gray’s allegation that the subcontinent won the bid by flexing its money muscle. “It was they who had the veto, from 1909 when the ICC was formed to 1993,” Bindra said. “We have always acted like equal partners.”Bindra said he was questioned by the ICC members at the executive board meeting in Dubai earlier this week “for half an hour” when he told them the 2011 World Cup, if held in the subcontinent, would generate USD 400 million more. “I told them that the ICC makes USD two million from a match day whereas we make USD 8.77 million, which is more than four times. The ICC sold the television rights [of 2003 WC] to India for USD 250 million and for seven-eight million USD to Australia.”Asia won the bid to host the 2011 World Cup overcoming a joint bid by Australia and New Zealand by ten votes to three.

Elections to the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA), due on September 8, could see changes at the top with Vijay Mallya, the Bangalore-based industrialist, offering his support to a campaign against the ruling faction. The campaign, headed by Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar, seeks to remove the bloc led by Brijesh Patel.Mallya, whose businesses include Kingfisher Airlines and United Breweries, takes the first step towards his direct involvement with cricket by being made president of the Select Cricket Club, of which AV Jayaprakash, the former international umpire, is secretary. Mallya has used his financial clout in other sports, including horse racing and football.At the moment it is unclear if Mallya can hold office but, should he wish to make an entry into cricket, his home state of Karnataka – and the Select club – would be an obvious starting ground.Mallya’s declaration of support for Wadiyar has been welcomed by former cricketers Erapalli Prasanna and Syed Kirmani, who have been pushing for a change of guard saying the present administration lacked transparency. Wadiyar, in a statement where he also referred to having received Mallya’s backing, promised to better the administration of the association in all aspects and spoke about delinking team selection from private cricket academies or coaching camps.Patel, KSCA secretary and a former Indian Test batsman, has been part of the board’s ruling bloc for nine years. He refused to comment on Mallya’s stand.

Graeme Smith, the South African captain, slammed the pitch at the Brabourne Stadium after his team folded for just 108 and lost to New Zealand by 87 runs, suggesting that the wicket was not up to the mark for an international tournament. “Batting second was very, very difficult,” he said. “It’s always tough to sit and moan about a wicket when you’ve lost, but in terms of an international tournament I don’t think the wicket was of a good standard today.”Interestingly it was Smith who won the toss and chose to put New Zealand in. He pointed to the much-talked-about dew factor when explaining this decision. “Last year we were here in November and there was a lot of dew,” he said. “Dew was a big factor. The wickets played quite well then. This wicket was going through the top, it was turning almost square.”Smith also suggested that his decision to put New Zealand in, one that backfired on him in the end, was based on what he saw of the early matches played in this tournament. “In the first two games the sides which batted first really struggled. In those games it seemed like the ball came on better in the second innings,” he said. “Today it was the total opposite. It just deteriorated from 10 overs onwards. The pitch broke up, the ball turned a hell of a lot.” He added that captains might need to assess things differently in the rest of the tournament. “We’re just going to have to read a pitch, go by the gut feeling on the day and stick by that. I don’t think the pitches are going to provide a 100 overs of good cricket.”When Smith was done criticising the pitch he trained his sights on the ICC for the scheduling of matches in this tournament. “It’s a bit tough to work that out. You have eight days to the next game and then two games in three days. It could have been spaced a lot better,” he said. “Who knows what the ICC’s thinking was when they scheduled the games this way. The gap gives us a chance to regroup but ideally we would have liked to be playing a lot sooner than we are.”When asked if his team’s shot selection could have been better, Smith said there was little wrong with the way his batsmen played. “I don’t think the shot selection was that bad. Some guys could have waited for the ball longer, others went after balls that were there to cut and ended up nicking.” he said. “When a wicket’s like this you end up changing your whole gameplan and end up missing out on something. I think our shot selection was fine, we just needed to grind a bit more.”In contrast, Stephen Fleming did not slam the pitch as Smith did. “Yes, the pitches are a bit different this time around, from what we usually experience in India. As the tournament progresses, it is going to be tough on the viewers and in this respect I can understand Graeme’s complaints. But our job is to play in whatever pitches given to us and play accordingly.” And he certainly adapted better than anyone else on the day.Fleming also conceded that he was not entirely sure that his team had enough runs on the board, but grew more comfortable after seeing how the pitch behaved as the second innings progressed. “I was afraid a bit as we lost nearly five overs in our innings,” he said. “We were aiming 220 to 230, which we thought was really competent in this pitch. It was a bit tough to concentrate as wickets were tumbling at regular intervals at the other end. Once we saw the ball stopping a bit off the wicket, we realised that we are in with a chance in this game.”

The proposed series of matches between an Asian XI and a World XI in Houston have hit another snag as several Pakistani players have said they have yet to receive visas to travel. “I still haven’t got a visa to fly to Houston so I don’t know whether they are having the matches or not,” Shoaib Akhtar, who is currently playing for Worcestershire, told .Shoaib and several others were originally slated to turn out for the Asian XI. Inzamam-ul-Haq, Younis Khan, Shahid Afridi and Abdul Razzaq were also awaiting visas that would allow them to travel to Houston and play in this series. However, the report indicates that the players were likely to be issued visas in Islamabad over the next few days and that they would fly to America on the 13th or 14th. The one person who has no problems in this case is Yousuf Youhana, who already has a five-year multiple-entry visa to America.Meanwhile, several promising Pakistani fast bowlers are set to travel to India to train at the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai. The Foundation has been a finishing school to cricketers from around the world, and has been preferred to other similar schools thanks to Dennis Lillee’s active involvement over the years.”There is no doubt that when it comes to talent, Pakistan pacers are much higher placed than that of India,” a Pakistan Cricket Board official is quoted as saying in . “However, what they need is proper coaching and guidance from a renowned coach and expert in the field. If we consider this aspect then there is no better place around than the academy run by Lillee in India.” The report names Mohammad Asif, Najaf Shah, Mohammad Irshad, Mohammad Khalil and Wahab Riaz as likely candidates to be selected for the training programme.

The story of the collar-grabbing incident, when John Wright confronted Virender Sehwag during the NatWest Trophy in 2002, has been doing the rounds again, courtesy extracts from Wright’s recently-launched book, . It has raised quite a few eyebrows, some even accusing Wright of leaking dressing-room stories. But the incident was revealed by Rahul Dravid as far back as May 2005 in .Dravid talks about Wright’s mood before that Sehwag dismissal, how the coach felt frustrated by Sehwag’s “silly shots” and how he intended to “have a go” at Sehwag if he got out in the same manner again. “This happened at The Oval during the NatWest Trophy. John [Wright] had been talking to us about how Viru [Virender Sehwag] was batting really well, playing great shots, but also playing silly shots and getting out. That was getting to John. He said to me, ‘If that guy gets out to one more bad shot I’m going to really have a go at him.’ In the next match Viru went out and played a silly shot and got out. And when he walked back into the dressing-room, John actually grabbed him by the collar and shook him. It created a bit of stir in the dressing room. The thing was the incident was quickly forgotten and neither Viru nor anyone else took offense. We knew how badly he wanted Viru and the team to do well. We knew it frustrated him when people did not play up to their potential. It was an incident that showed us just how badly he wanted us to win. There were absolutely no hard feeling after the incident; and perhaps he and Viru got on much better after that, if anything.”In the same issue of WAC, Virender Sehwag also heaped praise on Wright, saying how “he was more of a friend”. “Our culture teaches us to respect our elders and with someone like a coach you need to be particular about your behaviour. But with John it was different: he was more of a friend. We could laugh at him, plays pranks. But he was also a thorough professional, very demanding, and very passionate about what he did. More than anything, he was very good at understanding the character of a player. When people doubted my abilities, John was aware of my mental strengths and never talked about altering my batting technique. In fact, on playing days our interaction was minimal. He has a back problem and he knows that my mom has a bad back too. On match days he would ask me, ‘How are you? How’s your mom’s back? How are we going to play today?’ I will never forget one thing he told us: the difference between a good player and a great player is performance. Great ones perform consistently and good ones do it off and on. And I will miss looking at John’s face when somebody plays a bad shot during a tight match. It was something.”

The Asian Cricket Council looks set to take control of organising an international match to raise money for victims of the Asian earthquake.Although the plans are in the embryo stage, Shaharyar Khan, chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), said: “During a recent conversation with Jagmohan Dalmiya [ACC president], an ACC-sponsored relief match was considered. We agreed to examine possible dates for an international match in the next few days.”The ICC had considered organising a relief match for the Super Series in Sydney, but players from South Africa and New Zealand were unavailable and there wasn’t enough time to organise sponsorship and TV rights.The PCB and the England & Wales Cricket Board recently agreed to dedicate the entire gate receipts of the first ODI between the two countries at Lahore on December 10 to the relief fund.

Saurashtra and Maharashtra played out a draw on Friday in a CoochBehar Trophy contest in the West Zone league, with the latter gainingfive points by virtue of their first innings lead.At Rajkot’s Municipal Stadium, Maharashtra won the toss and werebowled out for 273 late on the opening day. The top ten batters allreached double figures, AS Bhosale top scoring with 58. Saurashtra’sskipper Uday Karavadra, a National Cricket Academy graduate, picked up5/73 with his off spinners.Saurashtra fell away to 200 all out, notwithstanding opener and wicketkeeper AK Dawda’s 75. Maharashta’s own offie, Kashinath Khadkikarbested Karavadra’s figures with a haul of 6/69. The visitors showedno inclination to force an outright result, batting out the third dayto finish on 289/7.

Identifying the increasing workload on cricketers as one of the biggest challenges for cricket administrators, Ehsan Mani, the outgoing ICC president, has pointed to a lack communication between boards eager to fill gaps in the Future Tours Programmes (FTP) and their players as a major problem.In an exclusive interview with Cricinfo, due to be published tomorrow, Mani said that the real worry from the increase in matches in offshore venues was the demands they were making on players. “The real worry from this development is player workload. We’ve got to make sure boards balance the amount of cricket players are playing with the money they are making. That is going to be the bigger challenge from this development.””When captains and senior players – and this has happened in India, Australia, England and Pakistan – are saying we need balance, we need more space between tours, that tells me there is a lack of communication between players and their boards. That is a worry.”When we talk to boards, they tell us they do not fix tours without consulting their players. That happened recently in Pakistan where they pulled out of a possible triangular in India after the England tour – and quite sensibly too because they are going to the Champions Trophy in October. So boards are taking player wishes into account but it remains a concern so long as players complain. Countries try to fill gaps to generate money, but they’ve got to take into account the workload they are putting on their players.”In a wide-ranging interview as his tenure draws to a close, Mani also spoke about an achievement he has often said he is most proud of – bringing India and Pakistan back onto the cricket field. “Security concerns about Pakistan were a big issue. Within weeks of taking over, South Africa almost pulled out of a tour and I had to get them back. That was a huge challenge and the turning point of it was the South Africa tour.”Once that was back on track, it also gave the Indians the confidence to tour Pakistan. I think Pakistan had always been willing to play but there were huge reservations in India, huge perceptions about what they would find if they came to Pakistan. Fortunately, as I always expected, once the crowds turned up they would find that reality was totally different to what they were led to believe. That has done a huge amount, far beyond the game, in putting the relationship between the two countries back on track.”Having taken over with the reputation of a keen expansionist – he once said he would like to see the USA participating in the 2007 World Cup – much of Mani’s time was also spent dealing with crises in various existing members, foremost among them Zimbabwe and Kenya.While he praised the Kenya has handled its administrative crisis, he warned that there would be no fast-track for Zimbabwe back into Test cricket. “They lost 15-20 of their top cricketers. No country can sustain a loss like that. These things go in cycles and yes, obviously Zimbabwe needs a lot of time before they return to Tests. That is going to be the challenge in coming years.”But he reiterated that, despite the criticism the ICC received for their handling of the situation in Zimbabwe, there was little else they could have done. “We are governed very much by our constitution. We have the responsibility to manage affairs at international level. It is only when things start impacting the international game that we move in. This is what we have done each time.”The ICC will move and I didn’t hesitate to move when I thought the integrity of Test cricket was at stake. I’m sure that is what will happen in the future. Whether I could have done anything differently, I don’t think constitutionally I could have.”Mani also bemoaned the failure of players today to walk at decisions and cited this as one of the reasons why the role of umpires with regards to technology is constantly questioned. “I don¹t believe umpires will ever become redundant if you look at the use of technology as a way of assisting umpires rather than working against or undermining them. It would help a great deal, for me personally, if players walk when they know they are out. That doesn’t happen anymore which is sad. I would urge any player around the world to walk, if they know they are out. They don¹t do that and it creates a lot of pressure on the umpire.”Mani is due to step down from his post on July 7 and give way to South African Percy Sonn.