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Scorecard
Rain ended any hope of a result at Blacktown Oval in Sydney, where only ten overs were bowled on the final day between New South Wales and Western Australia. The Blues finished the third day needing two wickets to end the Warriors’ second innings and set up a potentially small chase, but their hopes were thwarted by the weather and they had to settle for first-innings points.When play finally began, Western Australia added only eight runs to their overnight total and finished on 8 for 219 when the match was called off, with debutant Ashton Agar unbeaten on 34 and Jason Behrendorff on 7. Steve O’Keefe ended up with 4 for 47 in the second innings and match figures of 8 for 102, a career-best analysis.

ScorecardAround noon, during their lunch break, Railways came to know Saurashtra had won their match. That meant Railways would not qualify for the knockouts even if they won. Around that time, Sanjay Bangar, one of the most respected domestic workhorses, made up his mind it was time to end his 20-year first-class career.Bangar’s team-mates were stunned at the decision, but they delivered him and Railways a consolatory win. One for the road. Or track, in the case of the team made up for Indian Railways’ employees.Bangar himself took two important wickets, those of opener Arindam Saha and captain Wriddhiman Saha. It went into the final session, though, and towards the end Anureet Singh began Bengal’s final slide with the wicket of Debabrata Das, who scored 44 off 55.
ScorecardRajasthan had taken the lead on the third day, sending Hyderabad into relegation, and day four was pretty academic. However, Vineet Saxena used the day well to sign off the season with an unbeaten 146.
ScorecardAlong with the paucity of quality spinners in India, probably as big an issue could be the inadequacy of domestic batsmen against good spin bowling. Madhya Pradesh provided the latest example of that, losing eight wickets for 45 runs in 22.1 overs to hand the remaining quarter-final spot in Group A to hosts Saurashtra. And it wasn’t even an experienced slow bowler who did the damage. It was 22-year old debutant left-arm spinner Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, bowling with a classical pivot, who ran through MP to finish with six wickets in the innings and nine in the match.Click here for the full report.
ScorecardMumbai aborted a chase of 135 off a minimum of 41 overs and instead settledfor three points for the first innings lead against Gujarat in their lastRanji Trophy Group A game at the Dr DY Patil Sports Stadium.Click here for the full report.

While captain Misbah-ul-Haq was happy Pakistan managed to get off to a winning start in the three-match ODI series against India, he believes the team still has a lot to work on, especially in the field. Pakistan, he said, were fortunate to walk away with the six-wicket win in Chennai.”Today we were lucky, India gave us a tough time in this situation. They lost five wickets early but still went on to make 227,” Misbah was quoted as saying by . “To win the next match, we will have to work hard and improve a fair bit. We have to really improve our fielding, and our death-over and Powerplay bowling. After these [changes to the] ODI rules especially, we have to improve the bowling.”Also, we have to improve our batting performances; we couldn’t chase the target down easily.”While Pakistan’s victory-margin was ultimately comfortable, they lost a wicket off the first ball of their innings when Mohammad Hafeez shouldered arms to a Bhuvneshwar Kumar inswinger. From there on, it was slow and edgy progress for Pakistan, who were 21 for 2 in the 11th over when Azhar Ali lobbed a catch to midwicket. Opener Nasir Jamshed was firm though, batting through the innings for 101 not out, and Younis Khan was relatively positive for his 58, ensuring victory.The hosts’ top order too had struggled in this, one of the rare day ODIs in India. Junaid Khan had India reeling with a remarkable spell of swing bowling, in which he bowled Virender Sehwag, Virat Kohli and Yuvraj Singh in the space of eight balls.Both Misbah and India captain MS Dhoni said that while it was outstanding bowling, the toss too was important. “It was a good toss to win, but it was an excellent spell by Junaid. There was something for the bowlers but of you don’t bowl in the right areas when the ball is seaming, you don’t get results,” Misbah said. Dhoni agreed: “I think it was the toss to start with. After that they bowled well. When the ball is seaming or swinging, if you pitch it in the right areas it works.”If you see their bowlers, they bowled up which was good. Generally on these kind of wickets there will be temptation to bowl short because there will be bounce and carry, but they made sure they bowled up and left the batsmen in trouble.”With India tottering at 29 for 5 in the 10th, Suresh Raina and Dhoni began the rebuilding, adding 73 runs. Raina was out short of a half-century but Dhoni, in extremely humid conditions, paced his innings and finished unbeaten. He was 34 off 78 balls without a boundary, got to 50 off 86 and was battling dehydration when he launched, finishing with 113 off 125. The innings won him the Man of the Match award ahead of Jamshed.Misbah had high praise for Dhoni: “At one stage, it looked as if India would be getting out for 125 but Dhoni’s was a brilliant innings. It was more difficult to play in the first half. There was lot of moisture but very well played by Dhoni. He single-handedly took the game away from us, but in the end Nasir too played an extremely good knock.”Dhoni said he would have preferred to have India’s top order clicking: “Overall quite happy that I got a century. But going down the order, batting at six or seven, and if you get a 100 … actually you don’t want an opportunity like that because you want your top order to perform.”One of the big concerns for India was the fitness of Kohli, whose ankle gave way under him while he was bowling, resulting in him over-extending his knee. Dhoni said the team would know the details of the injury in “some time”. Later, a BCCI release confirmed that while an MRI scan revealed no serious damage, whether Kohli will play the next ODI – on January 3 in Kolkata – is yet to be determined. “All his major ligaments are fine. There is minimal injury fluid in his knee,” the release said. “His condition will be monitored, and a decision on whether he will play the second ODI will be taken over the next couple of days.”

Ross Taylor has said he was surprised by the timing of his losing the New Zealand captaincy but not by the decision itself, declaring he felt he never had the support of the coach Mike Hesson. Taylor, who on Friday was replaced as leader by Brendon McCullum, was told after the ODI series in Sri Lanka that there would be a change of captaincy after the end of the Sri Lanka tour.On Friday, Hesson stressed that what he meant at that meeting, which was also attended by assistant coach Bob Carter and team manager Mike Sandle, was that there would be a change to the limited-overs captaincy, not the Test leadership. However, Taylor said he had been told his captaincy was not good enough and it felt clear to him that Hesson and the team management did not want him in charge at all.”They told me I wasn’t good enough as a captain, wasn’t good enough for this team,” Taylor told the . “To hear I wasn’t good enough was disappointing. It was interesting … I was offered the Test captaincy a couple of weeks [after the Sri Lanka meeting], when it was clear to me from conversations, they didn’t want me at all.”Taylor said he was not surprised by the course of events after Hesson took over from John Wright as head coach in July. “It wasn’t huge shock,” Taylor said. “Hesson never supported me through the whole time I’d been captain, but I was surprised by the timing.”Since taking on the captaincy full-time last year, Taylor led New Zealand to four Test wins from 13 matches, including rare victories in Australia and Sri Lanka, two wins from eight ODIs, and four victories from nine Twenty20 internationals. He conceded that he was still developing as a captain but said he had learnt a lot under Wright’s coaching.”I know I had areas to work on,” Taylor said. “I was far from the finished product, but I lacked a lot of support from the management in a lot of areas, which was disappointing. Under Wrighty I was learning a lot; under Hesson, the relationship was pretty poor. I didn’t think he supported me in that role.”After declining the Test captaincy this week, Taylor declared that he offered his full support to his replacement McCullum, but intended to take a break from the game. Taylor said he did not believe he could put in a complete effort under the circumstances and would return when the time was right.”It’s still fresh and raw,” Taylor said. “It’s been a pretty difficult five months for me. It’s a chance to get away from it, spend some time with the family and have a Christmas. I don’t believe I can give 100% to the game at this time. Cricket is my life and my passion. I love the game and I love playing for my country. But taking a break is the right thing for me right now.”

Pat Cummins’ loss is Josh Hazlewood’s gain. The back stress fracture that will keep Cummins out of the home summer has in turn elevated Hazlewood to Australia’s mandatory five-man pace battery ahead of the Gabba Test against South Africa, and may yet see him make his debut in Perth.Already in Brisbane for New South Wales’ Sheffield Shield match against Queensland, Hazlewood was told to remain in town instead of flying home with the rest of the Blues’ non-Test players on Sunday evening.Australia’s hierarchy have been keen to have five fast bowlers on hand at each Test match this summer, not only in case of injury but also to allow the youngest paceman the chance to learn from the others. The national coach Mickey Arthur said Hazlewood’s presence emulated Mitchell Starc’s in-squad education last summer.”It could be [that he plays] at some point in the series,” Arthur said. “The theory around Josh is exactly what we did last year with Mitchell Starc. We thought that was a real good case study. Mitchell Starc was around us, he was ready to go when we needed him. Josh is very much in that role. Josh will be with us until the end of day one.”We see a very bright future for Josh. We want Josh to feel what it’s like around the Australian cricket set-up. We want him to train with us. We want him to feel the intensity and feel the build-up, so hopefully when he comes into the environment he knows what to expect and is ready to go from the first time we pick him.”Though his week with the squad in Brisbane is likely to be largely developmental in purpose, Hazlewood is likely to play for NSW in their Shield encounter with Victoria in Sydney from November 13 to 16, and may then be a chance to debut for Australia in the third Test against South Africa in Perth.Hazlewood’s probable schedule was that originally intended for Cummins, mapped out some weeks ago before the glut of Twenty20 matches for country and club that ended with the 19-year-old nursing a major injury in November for the second time in as many summers.First glimpsed in Australian colours in 2010 when he played a single ODI against England at Southampton as a teenager, Hazlewood has wrestled with a series of injuries since, but at 21 appears to be maturing into the sort of dependable seam and bounce merchant who could balance the speed of James Pattinson and the swing of Mitchell Starc in a future bowling attack.He was consistently the most impressive Sydney Sixers bowler during the Champions League, plucking seven wickets at 16.17 while conceding a miserly 4.70 run an over.

Virat Kohli’s emergence as a permanent occupant of the batting slot left vacant by Sourav Ganguly was perhaps the only plus for India from the embarrassing Australia tour last season. Kohli has already grown to become India’s leading one-day batsmen, and with two hundreds and two half-centuries in his last five Test innings, he is slowly cracking the five-day game as well.Kohli has experienced several highs at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, though most have come during IPL and Champions League Twenty20 campaigns.On Sunday, he completed his second Test century, which allowed India to virtually level the game against New Zealand at the end of the first innings, leaving Kohli more thrilled than after his Twenty20 hijinks.”It’s always satisfying to get a Test hundred,” he said. “People asked me this earlier as well, which hundred is most special to you and I said the hundred in Adelaide against Australia. I didn’t have that feeling ever in my life, before or after – and I felt it today again. I think that is the most satisfying, when you’re being tested and your patience is being tested, your technique is tested and you manage to score a hundred – it always pleases a batsman.”Soon after reaching triple-digits, though, Kohli shouldered arms to an indipper from Tim Southee, which cut off his innings at 103. “That was the only ball in my innings in which I didn’t look at the bowler’s hand. That ball he bowled crossed seam and I didn’t look. That was a lapse in concentration and you just need one to get out in international cricket. Again, it’s a lesson for me to be learnt and hopefully when I cross that 100 mark next time I can make it a big one.”One of the features of Kohli’s century was the patience he showed early in his innings, displaying a willingness to leave the ball – an aspect of his cricket that he said he was working on. “In the first Test I thought I played too many attacking shots because we hadn’t played any practice match and we were playing a Test after seven months,” he said.”Personally, I thought it was difficult to adapt suddenly. And then we batted first too. Unless you have played some practice games and are in that mindset – that makes a difference. In the first Test, my bat went instinctively for some shots, but it wasn’t my intention to play the ball. So I worked on that for this game. I thought that they would bowl in the areas that I have got out before and try to get me hitting in the gaps. So like I did in Australia where I let the bowler come to me, I thought I’ll leave the ball more and defend more.”India’s bowlers backed up his effort by wheedling out nine second-innings wickets, leaving India facing a target of around 250. It will be one of India’s highest successful chases if they pull it off, but Kohli was confident the home side had the edge entering the fourth day. “We’d like to think so (that the match is tilted towards India),” he said. “The morning session was really nice for them. But now that we look back after taking nine wickets, it played in our favour, because there are still two more days to go. And as a side setting a total, you always have that in mind – that if you lose wickets, the other side has two days to score the runs. Tomorrow if we take an early wicket, we have a lot of time to chase down that score.”One of the reasons for Kohli’s optimism was the benign pitch. “The wicket doesn’t have that much,” he said. “Their seam bowlers bowled well in the morning. I think the morning freshness of the wicket that stays for about an hour is the only factor, and they used that well. Apart from that, if we apply ourselves, I think we’ll be in a good position.”India no longer have the services of their fourth-innings specialist VVS Laxman, and the tricky target they face on Monday will be another examination for Kohli and the other youngsters in the rebuilt middle-order, testing their readiness for a long run in the Test side.

ScorecardMichael Swart scored a half-century in Netherlands’ thrilling win•Daan Rhijnsburger

Netherlands snatched a tense one-wicket victory over Bangladesh to tie the T20I series 1-1, as No. 11 Ahsan Malik hit the last ball of the match – and the first delivery he had faced – for four.Ahsan Malik came to the wicket with Netherlands needing two for victory, after Abdur Razzak had removed Timm van der Gugten, who had just hit six, with the penultimate ball. The tailender coolly cut Razzak behind point to condemn Bangladesh to a second defeat to an Associate nation in the last three days.Opener Michael Swart had guided the Netherlands chase but when he fell for 61 from 49 balls, to leave his side 112 for 7, still 17 short of victory with 13 balls to go, it looked like the hosts would fail. Two runs and three balls later they were eight down and come the final over, ten runs were still required. Razzak had only conceded 11 from his previous three but van der Gugten’s blow over mid-off was decisive, even though he fell lbw to the next delivery.Bangladesh succumbed despite winning the toss and choosing to bat, with Tamim Iqbal scoring his second successive T20 international fifty. Mahmudullah was one of the few batsmen to score fluently, adding 41 from 31 balls in a 62-run partnership with Tamim, but Ziaur Rahman was the only other Bangladeshi to reach double figures.Van der Gugten preceded his intervention with the bat by taking three wickets, as Bangladesh lost their last five batsmen for eight runs off ten balls. Swart and Mudassar Bukhari also claimed two wickets apiece.Though Bangladesh took wickets at regular intervals and none of the bowlers conceded more than seven runs an over, Netherlands judged their chase to perfection … just.

ScorecardHamish Marshall made 66 as Gloucestershire produced a shock win•Getty Images

Hamish Marshall led from the front with 66 as Gloucestershire romped to a shock nine-wicket win over Somerset with 5.2 overs to spare in the Friends Life t20 clash at Taunton.A packed crowd of more than 7,000 saw the hosts fall to their first T20 defeat this season, having been restricted to 140 for 8 after winning the toss, Albie Morkel top-scoring with 33. Spinners Muttiah Muralitharan (2 for 20) and Ed Young (1 for 18) bowled their eight overs for a combined total of 38 runs, while Ian Saxelby and James Fuller claimed two wickets each.Marshall and Benny Howell (55 not out) then made the total look even more inadequate, with an opening stand of 115 in 12.1 overs. Marshall raced to a half-century off 35 balls – with seven fours – before pulling a catch to midwicket, having added two sixes. By then the game won.Howell looked equally at ease as the pair scored at will against an off-colour Somerset attack, reaching his 50 off 36 balls, with eight fours and a six.Skipper Marshall had earlier set the tone for Somerset’s unusually poor batting effort by taking a fine running catch to dismiss Richard Levi for seven off the first ball of the second over. Kevin O’Brien holed out to deep square off James Fuller and it was 39 for 3 when Nick Compton was caught behind off an inside edge to give Saxelby a wicket.Jos Buttler was dropped on 1 by wicketkeeper Jon Batty off Liam Norwell, but James Hildreth was caught behind sweeping at Muralitharan to make it 47 for 4. Buttler (23) could not find any fluency and lost his patience to be stumped by Batty advancing to Young after a stand of 33 with Morkel. Arul Suppiah was bowled by the wily Murali and at 83 for 6 Somerset were in deep trouble.Morkel hit two big sixes before lofting a catch to long-off and only a poor 18th over from Fuller, in which he was warned for a beamer and conceded 18 runs, gave the home side even the faintest hope.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has sold various sponsorship rights for $14 million for four years to Aamby Valley, an affiliate of Sahara India Parivar, and Axiom Technologies. It is the biggest sponsorship deal in Bangladesh cricket.Sahara’s winning bid ended Grameenphone’s eight-year association between 2003 and 2011 as Bangladesh’s sponsors. They bid approximately $9.4 million, substantially more than the $ 3.4 million from Grameenphone and $4 million from Robi, another telecom company. Sahara won branding rights for the national team and the national cricket academy, and title sponsorship and in-stadia sponsorship for 2012-13, among other rights.Apart from the national team sponsorship, Sahara was the only company to bid for the sponsorship rights of the academy at a price of $130,000 per year.Axiom was awarded title sponsorship and in-stadia sponsorship for 2014 and 2015, and beverage and ticketing rights from 2012 to 2015.

Australia’s desire to preserve Ryan Harris’ battered body for as long as possible was sharply illustrated by his resting from the Trinidad match following a Man-of-the-Match display in Bridgetown. Harris ended the first match of the West Indies series stating his desire to play all three Tests, but the selectors on tour decided otherwise in leaving him out for a fresher James Pattinson on a Port-of-Spain pitch likely to play lower and lower as the second Test develops.Having performed heroically at Kensington Oval with bat and ball to give Australia a 1-0 series lead, Harris was sore but not under any particular injury cloud in Trinidad. He was left out with an eye to his chequered injury history in the hope that he will be fresh by the time the third Test of the series is played in Dominica. His omission was a significant moment in the development of a squad mentality for Australia’s fast bowlers, for there could be no doubt about Harris’ performance meriting his retention.Yet instead of playing, Harris found himself taking part in lunch-time training with other non-playing members of the Test squad, in contrast to the injured Peter Siddle who also missed selection for Queen’s Park Oval. Their absence created room for the left-arm spinner Michael Beer to play his first Test since he debuted in the fifth match of the 2010-11 Ashes series.”There was no doubt with the history for Ryan but also the amount that he batted and bowled throughout that game the selectors must have thought it was good to bring a fresh James Pattinson in,” the vice-captain Shane Watson said. “To make sure that Ryan is absolutely fresh and ready to go for the third Test is going to be very important. There is no doubt Ryan had an absolutely brilliant game in the last Test match so I’ve got no doubt it would have been a very tough decision for the selectors either way.”I think it’s the way our group is continuing to go. It’s just managing individuals as well as the term can possibly manage them. It continues to be a big step forward to make sure that we get the best out of every individual. And some guys pull up differently from big bowling workloads and obviously I’ve been a part of that at times throughout my career. So I think personally it’s a really big step forward in managing players’ workloads when we are playing so much and playing back-to-back Tests consistently as well.”It also works out well that playing two spinners in these conditions is going to be very important. This wicket is quite similar in many ways to some Indian wickets that I have batted on so it’s only going to get worse. The footmarks are only going to dust up and get worse so it was a perfect opportunity to play two spinners and see how they are able to handle it.”Watson revealed that Siddle had complained of developing back soreness during the first Test, and scans had confirmed inflammation that ruled him out of the second match. Siddle now has only a narrow window of time in which to prove his fitness ahead of the final match of the series, having been kept out of limited-overs series both at home and in the West Indies in order to be at his peak for the Tests.”In the end his back had started to get sore through the last Test match and he ended up getting a few scans to be able to find out what that back pain was,” Watson said. “At the moment it’s shown it’s a little bit sore and there’s a little bit of swelling there. Through experience I know when your back gets sore it’s never a great thing.”Hopefully in Peter’s case they’ve been able to get it early enough that even if it’s just a few days rest from bowling it settles down in a quick period of time. The one thing you don’t want to do is continue to push through it … sometimes as a bowler if you do that it can put you back a fair way with stress fractures. Fingers crossed that won’t be the case and a few days’ rest will mean that he’s able to be right for the third Test.”