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Hong Kong booked their place in the semi-final of the ACC women’s tournament with a six-wicket victory over Thailand at Johor.Thailand put up a gutsy performance, but Hong Kong’s class and composure saw them through.Winning the toss, Hong Kong captain Neisha Pratt put Thailand in under cloudy conditions. The Thai top order confidently negotiated the new ball and scored runs against one of the best attacks in the competition. Hong Kong were guilty of bowling short on the rather slow ‘moonchong clay’ surface.Pratt got an early breakthrough for Hong Kong, after which Chan Sau Har picked up the critical second wicket in the 14th over, of opener Arissa. From then on, the Hong Kong bowlers dominated, with the last eight Thai wickets accounting for only 12 runs. Fifteen-year old Godiva Li bagged three wickets in her second spell, all three deliveries being yorkers.In reply, Hong Kong had a jittery start, losing an early wicket. The Thailand team, marshalled by captain Sornnarin Tippoch, were enthusiastic in the field as they defended their total of 40. The shuffled Hong Kong batting line-up looked wobbly against the Thai attack, and wickets tumbled.At the fall of the fourth wicket came Pratt – who had to change in a hurry after opting not to open – and she steadied the chase with Keenu Gill to eventually take them home.Lal Jayasinghe, the Hong Kong coach, said after the win: “All of our bowlers with the exception of Neisha Pratt are under 18 and their lack of experience of bowling on turf showed at the beginning but once they worked things out, they made things happen.”

Ricky Ponting, the Australia captain and batsman has been named ICC Player of the Year at the ICC Awards in Mumbai. It capped a prolific evening for Ponting who was also earlier named Test Player of the Year and was included in both the ODI and Test Teams of the Year.”It has been a satisfying year personally and also for the rest of the team,” Ponting said. “For me to be a part of that success has been great for me. To see Mike [Hussey] win an award and so many other Australians to be nominated indicates that the team is doing well at the moment. It’s a great night for Australian cricket.”To captain Australia is something I love and never take for granted. We had to show a lot of character immediately after [losing] the Ashes,” Ponting admitted. “And since then we have managed to do that. We have set a new standard for ourselves, we’ve worked hard and thankfully it’s paying off for us at the moment… I think we learned a lot from that Ashes series and we are a better team for that so I think we will be a very difficult side to beat this summer.”The challenge for us now is to try to win the ICC Champions Trophy final on Sunday and then head back to Australia and try to win the Ashes back. It’s going to be a busy time but we are really looking forward to it.”During the voting period of August 1 2005 to August 8 2006, Ponting played 16 Tests and 20 one-dayers. In Tests he scored a phenomenal 1,791 runs at an average of 68.88, including two centuries in his 100th Test match, against South Africa in Durban.”It’s a great thrill, even to be nominated on the short-list but to walk away with two awards is something out of this world, something very special,” he said. “It’s the sort of thing that is very satisfying when you look back on your career in years to come. I’ll be able to spend more time enjoying it then.””On behalf of the ICC I would like to pass on my congratulations to Ricky for winning this award,” Percy Sonn, the ICC president said. “He has shown over the last year that he is the best and it is great that we have this opportunity to recognise that. He is a credit to his team and his country and through his talent and hard work, he is a role model for all aspiring cricketers and sportspeople of all descriptions.”Ponting beat off competition from his team-mate Michael Hussey, and Mohammad Yousuf (Pakistan) and Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka). Last year, the award was shared by Andrew Flintoff and Jacques Kallis while in 2004 the award went to Rahul Dravid.

Derbyshire and Essex have progressed through to the final of the Twenty20 Floodlit competition.The second leg of the semi final between Derbyshire and Glamorgan at Derby produced a first for cricket as it was decided in extra-time after Glamorgan had won the full match to make it one leg each. The four-over-per-side decider went the way of Derbyshire as they defend 43, with Tom Lungley and Jake Needham producing tight overs, and restricted Glamorgan to six off the final when 11 were needed. Glamorgan had sealed the full match with five balls to spare after Richard Grant’s 50 and a rapid 34 from Ryan Watkins enabled them to chase down 157. Derbyshire’s innings was based around Travis Birt’s 51 and although it wasn’t enough, they held their nerve in extra time.Essex were left waiting for news of their final opponents after a comfortable six-wicket victory over Sussex at Chelmsford. Sussex failed to capitalise on an excellent start given to them by Chris Adams (51 off 23 balls) and Mike Yardy (36 off 33 balls) as they lost wickets regularly in the closing stages. Ryan ten Doeschate picked up wickets in each of his four overs to claim 4 for 24 as Sussex were pegged back to 181 for 8. Alastair Cook, drafted into the Essex side ahead of England’s ODI series, gave his side a rollicking start with 38 off 20 balls. After a flurry of wickets, Ravinder Bopara (58 off 35 balls) and ten Doeschate (38 off 20 balls) hurried their team to victory with 10 balls to spare.Essex meet Derbyshire in a two-legged final on September 13 and 15, with the first leg at Chelmsford. Sussex and Glamorgan feature in a third-place play-off over the same nights.

John Bracewell, New Zealand’s coach, has hinted that the fast bowler Tim Southee, who starred in the recent Under-19 World Cup in Malaysia, could be in line for a Test debut against England in Napier this week, as New Zealand look to bounce back from Monday’s 126-run defeat in the second Test at Wellington.Southee took 17 wickets at 6.64 to take his New Zealand team to the semi-finals in Malaysia, a performance that earned him the Man-of-the-Tournament award. Prior to that, he had impressed with his pace, control and temperament during his Twenty20 debut against England at Auckland, where he finished with 1 for 38 from four overs.Though he is still nine months short of his 20th birthday, Southee was added to New Zealand’s third Test squad as cover for Kyle Mills, who reported soreness behind the left knee after the Wellington defeat. Bracewell, however, suggested he was not simply there to make up the numbers.”He’s a class bowler and the selectors have been watching him for some time,” said Bracewell. “They believe he’s ready for the job. If the surface is as predicted at Napier, there will be something in it in the first session, then after that it will be reasonably flat. The defining factor will probably be swing bowling, and at the moment England have the edge on us in that department.”All of England’s bowlers, apart from [Steve] Harmison, swing it, and swing it reasonably late,” he added. “We really have only got Kyle Mills who swings it on a consistent basis. Therefore, having that extra option of genuine swing might put the balance back on an even keel.”After their exertions on a flat track in Hamilton, New Zealand’s senior bowlers were visibly off the pace at Wellington, in particular Chris Martin, whose three wickets came at more than 50 apiece. “We are happy with our bowling depth but we are looking for an extra day in terms of recovery,” said Bracewell. “There’s a bit of wear and tear, from the consistent cricket that Chris and Kyle have had over last season. We’ve got options around the squad, but there’s time to get these two close for the next Test.”Bracewell’s temptation to tinker with his attack was no doubt prompted by the success of England’s revamped line-up. Out went the two stalwarts, Matthew Hoggard and Steve Harmison, and into the fray came James Anderson and Stuart Broad. Both suffered at the hands of New Zealand’s strokeplayers during the one-day internationals, but bounced back to play major roles in England’s victory.Peter Moores, England’s coach, was delighted with the impact his new attack had made, and gave a clear signal that Anderson, Broad and Ryan Sidebottom would take some shifting now that they’d earned their places in the starting eleven. “The lads who have got possession, that’s always a strong place to be,” he said. “If they keep playing well they’re going to give themselves a great chance of carrying on.”It was quite a tough decision to make that change, especially on Matthew Hoggard,” said Moores. “He’s at an age where he’s still got a lot of bowling left in him, which is good for us because we’ve got to make a squad which is very competitive. I don’t think there was any complacency in the squad before the changes, but the thing about competitiveness in any job is that it’s good because it keeps everyone pushing forward.”Bracewell was also impressed with what he saw from England, and claimed he hadn’t been surprised by the impact of the new incumbents. “I felt that Anderson is a class bowler, a genuine swing bowler, and this was a ground for swing bowling. He got taken to in the last two one-dayers, but that’s the nature of one-day cricket. Broad has bowled a heavy length throughout the one-dayers, and once again he went a little square in the last one. But both of them are good bowlers. They bowled well as a unit.”New Zealand’s captain, Daniel Vettori, had been openly critical of the Wellington pitch prior to the second Test, feeling that the extra pace and bounce it provided would play into the hands of England’s bowlers. But Bracewell took a slightly different stance. “To tip the balance in our favour, we would have liked to play two spinners, but it was an excellent pitch,” he said. “The defining moment in the match was we didn’t bowl well to Tim Ambrose.”Ambrose is England’s only centurion in the series to date, while New Zealand have only Ross Taylor’s 120 at Hamilton to look back on. “Both sides would have liked to have seen more hundreds in the matches,” said Bracewell. “But that’s a testament to the bowlers on both sides, not necessarily the wickets. They bowled magnificently throughout the series. It’s not all about going out there and getting double hundreds. The intriguing cricket comes when a bowler scalps the opposition and probes their weaknesses.”One player who has been unexpectedly well probed is Kevin Pietersen, who is in the midst of the worst run of form of his career. He hasn’t reached fifty for 10 consecutive innings, and Bracewell believed that England were suffering as a result. “He’s a class player, and a point of difference player. He scores at a rate that generates results, and every Test team needs one of those players. We’re really pleased with how we’ve bowled to him, and cut him down in terms of strike-rate and put pressure on him.”Even so, Bracewell accepted that, following the Wellington defeat, the pressure had now shifted to New Zealand ahead of the Napier decider. “England didn’t come over to draw against New Zealand, they expected to win,” he said. “They were odds-on favourites, heavily so, and if we can knock them over, we’ll be delighted.”

One of cricket’s most famous paintings – Albert Chevallier Tayler’s picture of the Kent v Lancashire match at Canterbury in 1906 – has been sold at auction for £600,000.I was purchased by Andrew Brownsword, whose Charitable Foundation buys selected works of art in order that they can be retained for public viewing.The painting, which was commissioned by the county to commemorate their first Championship in 1906, hung in the pavilion at Canterbury until 1999 when it became too expensive to insure. It was then loaned to MCC and displayed at Lord’s.”The decision to sell the painting was a difficult one, but the finances of county cricket clubs are becoming increasingly fragile and, since it was no longer possible to display it at Canterbury, we took the view that the proceeds should be used to help to ensure the longer-term future of the club,” Carl Openshaw, Kent’s chairman explained. “From Kent’s point of view, this is the ideal outcome, since I understand that this unique painting will in the short-term at least continue to hang at Lord’s where it can be seen by future generations of cricket lovers.”Click here for the story of the painting’s origins.

Japan claimed their first ICC cricket title with a six-run victory over the Cook Islands in the final of the East Asia-Pacific (EAP) Cricket Cup tournament in Vanuatu.Japan, sent into bat, scored 161 off 48 overs with opening batsmen Tetsuro Chino top scoring with 51 off 120 balls and Cooks’ wicketkeeper Ioane Tangimetua claiming five catches. The Cook Islands fell just short, dismissed for 155 with Tuakana Marukore top scoring with 55 and Chris Brown chipping in with 45. Japan’s paceman Patrick Giles-Jones finished with 3 for 31 off 10 overs.Japan and the Cook Islands, by finishing first and second, qualified for the EAP Cricket Trophy to be played in mid-2006 to claim a place in the World Cricket League in early 2007.Final placings 1 Japan, 2 Cook Islands, 3 Vanuatu, 4 Tonga, 5 Indonesia, 6 Samoa.

A report in today’s Times newspaper has highlighted that while tickets for this summer’s Ashes series are more scarce than a George Galloway climbdown, sales for the latter stages of the two Bangladesh Tests can be politely described as sluggish.With eight days to go before Bangladesh make their Lord’s debut, around than 15,000 tickets have been shifted for each of the first three days, but few seem to expect the match to go into a fourth day, with only 3484 seats sold for the Sunday. While those figures would be healthy for any other country, Lord’s, with a capacity of almost 30,000, is usually close to capacity for at least four days.The MCC, who run Lord’s, have pulled out all the stops to market the match to London’s sizeable Bangladeshi community, and ticket prices have been reduced to between £20 and £35 as a further incentive. MCC has been running advertisements on UK satellite station Bangla TV as well as selling tickets through Sonali Bank. But the Bangladeshis’ performance at Hove this week will hardly have led to queues at the box office.”We have targeted our efforts at the Bangladeshi communities in London, recognising both that this is the country’s first Test match here and that they may not be familiar with how to get tickets,” said an MCC spokesman. “We have been working on this match for months and months and taken out adverts in Curry House, the restaurant-trade magazine.”Riverside, the venue for the second Test, reports brisk sales for the first two days, but a spokesman admitted that concerns about whether Bangladesh will last much longer made Saturday and Sunday hard to market.MCC have handed out 5,000 complimentary tickets to schools on each of the first three days, while Durham have reserved 300 seats for children aged between five and 12 to watch the first day’s play. The initiative is part of npower’s drive to get more young people interested in cricket, with tickets priced at just £5 and free adult tickets for every eight children.Click here for Lord’s ticket sales

Click here for Riverside ticket sales

ScorecardIn Port Elizabeth Eastern Province took a first-innings lead of just one run, thanks to Michael Price, who fell just three short his falling maiden first-class hundred. Ettienne Potgieter had a near-perfect debut as he ended on an undefeated 70, while Ruan Nel scored 58.Jason Brooker will resume on 51 for Griquas, who lead by 99 runs. The game seems destined for a draw, and only a sporting declaration from Griquas can give this match any hope of a decisive result.
ScorecardIn East London Border recovered well from being 31 for 3 overnight toend just five runs short of the Northerns first-innings total of 240.Warwick Hinkel (78) and Bevan Bennett (53) led the recovery and kept Border in the game.The Northerns’ second innings received the impetus it needed from MauriceAronstam (37) and Johann Myburgh (46), who will continue the innings onthe third and final day.
ScorecardIn Benoni Gauteng took a 109-run first-innings lead over Easternsas Vaughn van Jaarsveld anchored Gauteng with a patient two-hour 54. Pierre de Bruyn mixed his pace well and was the most successful bowler for Easterns, taking 3 for 74.Andre Seymore, scoring at better than a run a ball, kept Easterns in thegame with an aggressive 63 which came off only 58 balls and included 19boundaries. When stumps were drawn Easterns were still 31 runs behindwith eight second-innings wickets in hand.

Andhra ran out easy victors by an innings and 20 runs on the final day of their South Zone Ranji Trophy match against Goa at Margao on Sunday. The win, worth eight points, takes them to joint second place in the zonal table at 11 points from two games. Goa are languishing at the bottom without a point.The hosts resumed at 249/5, needing to post a total of 351 if they wanted to make Andhra bat again. But a double strike in the fourth over of the day dealt a fatal blow to Goa’s hopes. Skipper Pravin Amre was run out for 11 and three balls later, seamer N Madhukar scalped the other overnight batsman Ananth Bhagwat for 41.From 277/8, Avinash Avare and Nitin Kalekar extended the proceedings with a 51 run ninth wicket partnership but Andhra finally cut short the resistance of the tail one minute before lunch. Goa finished at 331 with off spinner YS Ranganath bagging 4/59. Andhra next play Karnataka at Bangalore while Goa take on Kerala at Ernakulam, both from November 15-18.

Ray Jennings, the South Africa coach, is looking to inflict a 4-0 whitewash on the West Indies when the first Test begins on March 31 in Guyana. South Africa, who arrive this week in the Caribbean, were likely to face a West Indies side minus their leading players, including Brian Lara, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle, after the sponsorship dispute failed to reach a resolution.”With or without their best players I want to come back with wins in the Tests and ODIs,” Jennings, who is looking for a long term position as coach, told Reuters. “It’s the most crucial series of my career. I’m looking for a whitewash.”West Indies selectors omitted the leading players from the side due to their personal endorsement contracts with Cable and Wireless, a rival of the current team sponsor Digicel. Shivnarine Chanderpaul was named the captain after Brian Lara gave a non-committal response to an invitation sent by the West Indies Cricket Board asking him to join the team.However, South Africa was hoping that the matter was resolved before the team arrived later this week. “I’m sure they’ll work something out before the first Test,” said Shaun Pollock to . “The missing guys form the core of their side and it would be silly if they missed out. From a personal point of view, I would be disappointed if we didn’t play against their strongest team.””People need to understand that the West Indies are unique in that, strictly speaking, they’re not playing for their country; they’re playing for a collective entity made up of different independent islands,” said Pollock, who also led the side during the 2001 tour of the West Indies when they won the Test series 2-1 and the ODI series 5-2. “That makes a big difference to their outlook and can lead to complications.”Pollock, who has not yet recovered from his ankle injury, said that he could miss the first two Tests if his injury persisted. “It’s still niggling me. I can run okay, although there’s a little bit of pain, but it’s slamming the left foot down that is the problem. It’s basically a wear and tear injury that’s been equated to patella tendonitis [tennis elbow] that’s difficult to get rid of unless you rest it.”South Africa enjoys an overall impressive record against the West Indies. In the 15 Tests played between these teams, South Africa have won 10 and lost only two.