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MELBOURNE, Dec 15 AAP – Champion Australian leg spinner Shane Warne suffered a dislocated shoulder here tonight in the one-day cricket match against England.The joint was put back in the dressing room, but he had not yet gone to hospital.An Australian Cricket Board spokesman confirmed the nature of the injury.He added Warne would see a shoulder specialist and undergo diagnostic scans to determine the extent of the damage.”More will be known in due course,” the spokesman said.Warne hurt his right shoulder after diving to field a ball off his own bowling in the 28th over of England’s innings.Television footage showed him clutching his bowling shoulder in agony and he was stretchered from the field a few minutes later.There were immediate fears he could be ruled out for the World Cup tournament in six weeks in South Africa.He missed much of the 1998-99 season after needing a reconstruction of the shoulder.Warne also was out of action for several months during the 2000-01 season when he broke the spinning finger in his right hand in a fielding accident.Warne, Test cricket’s second-highest wicket taker with 491, underwent a strict fitness and diet regime this year to prolong his career.Australian team physiotherapist Errol Alcott said the best-case scenario for Warne was four to six weeks in the stands.”We know he’s actually dislocated his shoulder. He’s got what’s called an anterior dislocation,” Alcott said.”It was put back in by the ACB chief medical officer Trefor James. It went in really well, so we’re happy about.”Now we need to just wait a little bit to see if there’s any further damage.”First of all, we need to establish if there’s any boney injury, so we need to get some plain x-rays done on it.”And then he’ll be seen by a specialist, a shoulder specialist who has actually done his surgery before.”Our main concern is his prior history. He’s had surgery on that shoulder before so we need to have a look and see if there’s perhaps further damage done to that already damaged joint.”We’re looking four to six (weeks out) to start with. It might be more four than six but it depends if there’s anything else injured.”If there is something more, than we’d probably have to add on the weeks.”Warne’s injury is almost certain to rule the 33-year-old out of the remaining two Tests of the Ashes series against England.Ponting said he was not a medical person, but thought Warne would be out of action “for quite a while”, given it was a shoulder dislocation and his history of problems with the joint.”It was a sad thing to happen in a good game and we don’t know the full extent of it just yet,” Ponting said.”Obviously, it’s a shoulder dislocation and apparently it went back into (the) joint fairly easily.”He’s off tonight, X-rays and scans, and we probably won’t know until later tonight or early tomorrow morning just how bad it is.”It’s pretty safe to say he will be out for quite a while yet.”

Mahela Jayawardene, Sri Lanka’s serene middle order batsman, is bracinghimself for a pace onslaught against South Africa starting Friday.The 25-year-old right-hander, now firmly established as Sri Lanka’s finestbatsman in a richly talented line-up, has made adjustments to his game inanticipation of the expected battle with Shaun Pollock and company.A naturally modest and understated character he is nevertheless confident ofmaintaining a prolific run for form that has seen him average 55.50 in thelast two years, including five Test centuries.”We have no problems with facing fast bowlers. As long as we stick to ourgame plan and back ourselves to do well in these conditions we will be ok,”said Jayawardene.Jayawardene, possessed with a natural inclination to attack, vows to take onthe pace bowlers in what promises to be a mouth-watering contest.”In South Africa your defense has to be solid and you must be very compact,playing the ball in front of your eyes,” he reveals. “But you must alsoremain positive, looking to score whenever possible.Being an impulsive ‘hooker’ he can be expect to be targeted with shortdeliveries by the South Africans, who will hope that he holes out in thedeep.But Jayawardene will be taking on the challenge: “I will be pulling andcutting because I know that I am not going to get many opportunities todrive.”During his last tour to South Africa he started with a brilliant 98 atDurban but failed to pass fifty in his next five innings. This time he hopesfor greater success having tinkered with his technique during the past twoyears.”I have been making little adjustments to my game such as reducing mybacklift and trying to avoid moving my feet unnecessarily,” he reveals. “Onthe sub-continent we tend to walk into out shots but here you cannot affordto do that.”Although Sri Lanka have a woeful Test record outside the sub-continent withonly three victories in the past two decades, Jayawardene believes that hiscolleagues can surprise South Africa during the forthcoming series.”We have improved a lot during the last three years,” he says. “We may havelost our last series here but we learnt a great deal during that tour andhopefully we can put those things right in these two Test matches.””We had two good practice matches here so far. The batsmen have spent timein the middle and everyone is feeling pretty confident. However, the Testmatch is going to be totally different and we have to prepare ourselvesmentally.”He urges his colleagues to lift their games: “We cannot be one step belowthem just because we are not used to playing in these conditions. We have toraise our game in all three departments and compete with them on a levelpar.”And if they possess the required self belief then Jaywardene is hopeful: “Aslong as we have the confidence in ourselves we can be successful herebecause South Africa have traditionally not handled pressure well.”But he warns that the first two days will be crucial: “When they get on topit can be very difficult to pull them back. It’s imperative that we do letthem get away in the first two days of the Test match. If we can stay withthem to the 3rd and 4th day then we have a very good chance.”

FULL NAME: Dirk Peter Viljoen
BORN: 11 March 1977, at Harare
MAJOR TEAMS: Young Mashonaland (1994/95-1995/96); Mashonaland (1996/971999/2000); Mashonaland A (2000/01); Midlands (2001/02 to date);
present club team Old Hararians.
KNOWN AS: Dirk Viljoen
BATTING STYLE: Left Hand Bat
BOWLING STYLE: Slow Left Arm
OCCUPATION: Professional cricketer (formerly draughtsman)
FIRST-CLASS DEBUT: Young Mashonaland v Mashonaland Country Districts,
at Alexandra Sports Club (Harare), 15 September 1995
TEST DEBUT: 14 March 1998, v Pakistan, at Queens Sports Club, Bulawayo
ODI DEBUT: 3 April 1997, v Sri Lanka, at Sharjah
BIOGRAPHY (revised September 2002)Late in the 1996/97 season, Zimbabwe’s selectors caused a surprise by introducing a very promising left-handed batsman, Dirk Viljoen, who had just turned 20 when he went to Sharjah as part of the national side. Neither was this the end of his overseas trips for the season, as on 24 May he travelled to Australia on a month-long scholarship to the Australian Academy, an annual award to a promising young Zimbabwean cricketer jointly sponsored by the Australian High Commission and Qantas.Since then, though, this promising all-rounder has had a mixed career. He has frequently been on the fringes of the international team, although he was given a long and moderately successful run in the one-day team. He has still played only two Test matches and at the start of the 2002/03 season did not seem close to the national selectors’ minds.For a long time Dirk promised much but failed to achieve, and even today he still has only one first-class century to his credit. It took him until the 1999/2000 season to record his maiden fifty in first-class cricket, by which time he had already played in a Test match and nine one-day internationals. It was his promise and his positive, determined attitude more than anything else that kept him in the selectors’ eyes for several years, until they quietly put him aside during the 2001/02 season.Dirk was first introduced to the game at a very young age by his father, who was a Mashonaland Country Districts player; Dirk names him as his major inspiration and remembers with gratitude all the help and coaching he was given. It was by no means plain sailing from the beginning, though, as he confesses to having been a very weak player at colts level in his junior school, Eaglesvale, a non-bowler who batted at number ten. It was at this stage that his father stepped up the coaching and encouragement, and he has never looked back.He improved enough to be scoring fifties and sixties, and was chosen to play for the Mashonaland team in the national primary schools week; he also attended the Under-13 trials, captaining his team, and was made a reserve for the national team. At Under-15 level he was selected for the Fawns, the national side, having attended the trials at Plumtree and playing a match against Matabeleland Under-16 side. In his second-last year at high school, he came on in leaps and bounds, scoring four centuries and averaging about 60. His `gentle’ left-arm spin was also developing well, and he averaged about 11 with the ball. He was twice chosen for the national schools team to attend the South African Schools Weeks, in 1994 and 1995, at Durban and East London respectively. He did well enough to average about 50 at Durban, and at East London scored a fifty against Griqualand West.Following this, he went overseas for a year and played a season for a team in Coventry, averaging about 60 and recording a century in one match. On his return, he was selected to captain the Zimbabwe Under-19 team to South Africa over New Year 1997, beginning with 89 and 50 in the first three-day game against Easterns, and 200 not out and 22 in the second match against North-Western Transvaal. His bowling was less conspicuous, but he worked hard at his ambitions to become an all-rounder at international level. He practised seriously against national players, which he said forced him to improve his line a lot. He was given a spell in the spinners’ camp while at the Australian Academy in Adelaide in 1997 and learned more there. Gradually his bowling improved, and in fact during his two seasons as a semi-regular in the national one-day side he featured more as a bowler than a batsman, a left-arm spinner who pushed the ball through and kept a brake on the scoring.Dirk enjoyed a good league season in 1996/97, scoring two centuries, and such was his potential that he was chosen for the powerful Mashonaland side in the Logan Cup ahead of such players as Glen Bruk-Jackson and Danie Erasmus. Early in his career he used at times to open the batting in his first-class games; while he prefers the middle order, he was willing to open if necessary, and this was actually his role when he made his Test debut, although it appeared to have been a wrong decision by the selectors. Dirk first read in the newspaper that he was a possible candidate for the scholarship to the Australian Academy, before he was approached by Ian Robinson, in his role as ZCU administration manager, and told that he had received the vote.He was naturally very much in the selectors’ minds at the start of the 1997/98 season, and a candidate as Grant Flower’s opening partner for the Tests against New Zealand. But fine early form saw Gavin Rennie take the position and make it his own. Dirk had still not yet produced high enough scores at first-class level, although it was not for want of trying and hard work. Unfortunately, with such a restricted Logan Cup programme, opportunities were limited.Dirk spent several years working as a draughtsman in Southerton, Harare, before accepting an offer from ZCU for a professional contract. His company was very good to him and gave him time off to play whenever he needed it. At club level he has continued to play for Old Hararians, after his school had been approached by the club which was looking for good young players. He played a season in the second team, with the odd senior game when the national players were away, and did well enough to retain his place when they returned.Dirk pays tribute to the Test players, most of whom he says were very helpful to him during his early years. Dave Houghton, also an Old Hararians player, gave him a great deal of help when not on national team duties, while Paul Strang was also a great help, especially on the mental side of the game.As a batsman, Dirk is a strong driver off the front foot, although short balls do not bother him. Remarkably, he played for Zimbabwe in Sharjah in 1996/97 despite not yet having scored a first-class fifty, as the selectors continue their enterprising policy of identifying and exposing gifted players early on. He remembers being phoned at work by Dave Houghton and told he was in the national squad for training and should attend net practice; after about three weeks, he heard that he was in the side for Sharjah. It was not the first time he had trained with the national players, as he had also done so before the England tour, but this was the first time he had been included in a specific small group with a tour in mind.In Sharjah he filled the place vacated by Dave Houghton, absent coaching Worcestershire, and his scores of 17, 22 and 25 showed great skill under rather difficult and unfamiliar conditions. "It’s a big jump from facing bowlers here who bowl you two half-volleys and a short ball every over to guys like Mushtaq Ahmed and Chaminda Vaas who don’t give you any width or any free balls," he said. He named Mushtaq Ahmed as the most difficult bowler he had to face, especially on the Sharjah pitch where the ball was turning sharply, especially from the rough – but Mushtaq did not get his wicket while he scored 25.He toured Sri Lanka and New Zealand with the national side during 1997/98, but only played in one first-class game altogether, a warm-up match in New Zealand. He did play four one-day internationals in that country, though, and his 36 in his first opportunity was the highest score of the innings. But batting at number seven or eight in one-day cricket is to be virtually on a hiding to nothing, with little or no chance of a big innings and plenty of room for failure, and he did not succeed again.He won a surprise Test debut on his return to Zimbabwe. Gavin Rennie had failed in New Zealand, as had the team as a whole, and the selectors appeared to be desperate when they dropped him for the First Test against Pakistan and asked Dirk to open with Grant Flower. Again the likelihood of failure was too great; he had to open against bowlers of the quality of Waqar Younis and Shoaib Akhtar armed with the new ball and without a first-class fifty behind him, and he failed to score in either innings. He was promptly dropped for the Second Test and Rennie reinstated.That was his only Test appearance for some time, although the 1998/99 season brought him greater success than before with the bat. He had spent a season in England, when he had gone over to visit relatives and ended up playing for Barnt Green, thanks to the help of Andy Flower. He was learning to play straighter and to concentrate on spending time at the crease. At last the elusive fifty came, fore Mashonaland A against Matabeleland in Bulawayo, and with 92 he almost turned it into a century. Later in the season he recorded two more against England A, from whom he learned a great deal more about batting. He had played larger innings in the past for the Zimbabwe Board XI, in non-first-class fixtures; now he recorded 155 against Namibia and 100 against Border B. Promise was gradually turning into productivity.He was selected for the World Cup in England in 1999, although many considered him fortunate to get the vote ahead of Craig Wishart, who had begun the season most impressively while opening the innings. He played in only one match, that against Australia at Lord’s, scoring 5 before being given out stumped in controversial circumstances; many felt that there was insufficient evidence on the camera replay for the third umpire to rule him out.On his return he was overlooked for the national team until England visited for a one-day series in February 2000. He failed with the bat, but his tight flat bowling did its job and he took three cheap wickets in the final match. This persuaded the selectors to persevere with him throughout the tours of West Indies and England; in fact, for a further eighteen months.As a batsman he always went in between numbers six and nine, and more often at eight or nine, when either quick runs were needed or the side was in trouble. It actually took him 18 matches since he reappeared against England before he even reached double figures; then runs could not have returned at a more valuable time. Zimbabwe were struggling against Sri Lanka in Sharjah when Dirk at number six contributed 63 not out, which remains his highest international score; in the return match against the same team he scored 60.However this did not earn him promotion, and he continued to go in at seven or eight. Ironically it was another home one-day series against England that cost him his place at the start of the 2001/02 season; little success with the bat low down and some more expensive bowling, together with a team failure that left the selectors looking for new faces, saw him lose his place and to date he has not returned.He has played one more Test match, in India in 2001/02, and must have been relieved to score some runs this time. After 19 in the first innings, batting at number seven and playing as an all-rounder, he made a valuable 38 in the second, sharing a partnership of 113 with Andy Flower that helped to save the match. But the thought obviously was that he was a one-day specialist, as he has not been given a further chance.On the domestic scene he has still not fulfilled his potential and his career batting average remains under 30. He has recorded just one century, a dominating 173 not out for Mashonaland against Matabeleland in Bulawayo during the 1999/2000, during which he shared a massive 330-run partnership with Craig Evans (who scored 153), and was not overshadowed by his powerful partner. But since then his highest first-class score has only been 79.With the strength of the Mashonaland team at this time, he was signed up by Midlands for the 2001/02 season, and took over the captaincy when regular captain Doug Marillier was on international duties. Probably with Marillier’s expected absences in mind, he was confirmed as official provincial captain for 2002/03 – but he would no doubt prefer to be back in the international side, and especially in the Test team.Back home Dirk’s family suffered disaster during 2002 when they were evicted from their farm under the `land resettlement’ programme. At the age of 25 and having lost his place in the national side, his own future is very much in the balance. He will need to make more of an impact in future and do enough to force his way back into contention, or he may well fade out with promise unfulfilled. He has enough years left in him and enough skill to be able to succeed even now.

BRISBANE, Oct 18 AAP – New South Wales dug in for the long haul towards first innings points against Queensland on the third day of the Pura Cup match at the Gabba today.At tea, the Blues were 2-218 in their first innings – still trailing the Bulls by 289 runs in a match which needs a rush of wickets to have any chance of a result.That won’t happen if the match maintains a pattern which has yielded just two wickets in the last five sessions, but it hasn’t been a batting paradise.Matthew Phelps has taken 258 balls for his 80 not out, while Michael Clarke, who joined Phelps at the crease in the 37th over, was unbeaten on 75 at the break.Michael Bevan was the only batsman out today when he was softened up by consecutive short balls from Michael Kasprowicz (1-45) before edging a pull shot from the next delivery to wicketkeeper Wade Seccombe.Bevan failed to add to his overnight score of 23 despite facing 25 balls today.Phelps and Clarke struggled for runs against some tight bowling, taking 16 runs from one 15-over stretch dominated by Bulls paceman Ashley Noffke (0-46), who went 44 deliveries without conceding a run.But Clarke still showed why he is rated as one of the most promising batsmen in the country, playing some delightful shots mixed with some streaky swings as he tried to increase the run-rate.

COLOMBO – Australian vice-captain Adam Gilchrist feels he’s close to abig score and would love to get one against cricket minnow Bangladeshhere on Thursday.Gilchrist has been hammering rapid-fire 20s, 30s and 40s over the pastfew weeks, including an excellent 44 off 30 balls against New Zealand onSunday, which set up Australia’s massive 164-run win.But the man labelled “The Destroyer” by Champions Trophy promoters,feels he’s only taking pot-shots at bowlers at the moment.”I’ve been happy with the way I’ve been hitting them,” Gilchrist toldAAP.”It was good to get to 40 again the other day but it’s stilldisappointing to have got out.”In the context of the game it provided a good start, it was a launchingplatform to get a massive total [7-296] … but it would still be niceto get a big score.”Since making a half-century against Pakistan in the three-match winterseries, Gilchrist has been averaging a shade over 20. Even though he’sstill scoring quickly, he hasn’t been able to get a really big score -but that may come against the inexperienced Bangladesh outfit.Australia has played the newest Test nation just once, in the 1999 WorldCup.In that match the Aussies needed a big win to boost their run rate inorder to make sure of their place in the next round of the tournament.After Bangladesh made 7-178, Australia rattled off the runs in 19.5overs with Gilchrist making a stunning 63 off 39 balls to ensureAustralia won easily.Gilchrist also needs just one more catch behind the wicket to become thefirst keeper to record 200 catches in one-dayers.

Till the 19th over of the chase, the highest Rajasthan Royals let the asking rate rise to in a 202 chase was 10.88, which was at the end of the first over. And yet, Sunrisers Hyderabad won by one run. Pat Cummins bowled a superb 19th over followed by Bhuvneshwar Kumar successfully defending 12 in the final over despite the over-rate penalty giving them one fewer boundary rider.Even until the last ball, RR remained the favourites, needing two to win, but Rovman Powell missed a calf-high full toss to be out lbw. It was Bhuvneshwar who got their defence to a great start, removing Jos Buttler and Sanju Samson in the first over, but Yashasvi Jaiswal and Riyan Parag made the chase look easy with their fifties. When Jaiswal fell, they needed 67 off 39; when Parag left, they needed 43 off 25. Shimron Hetmyer and Powell looked like cruising it, and then two hits went straight to the fielders, and Cummins swooped in.This was SRH’s fifth score of 200 or more this IPL, but they took the scenic route to get there after choosing to bat. By all accounts, it was a decision informed by their ordinary chasing record and not the conditions. They found themselves having to start off on a sluggish track, which got better as the evening wore off. In fact they themselves scored 153 in their last 12 overs. For the 18 overs of the RR chase, it seemed those first eight overs had cost SRH the game, who now sit among the top four on the points table.

RR spot on with the new ball

Two left-hand batters as openers was the ideal match-up for RR. Trent Boult is anyway a new-ball ace, but now they could bowl R Ashwin too. Boult was denied a wicket first ball as Parag dropped Travis Head at backward point, but the two combined to bowl four overs for just 25 runs. After CSK had shut the SRH openers down with a sweeper on the off side in the powerplay, Boult went the other way, placing two men deep on the leg side and denying them any room. Ashwin was particularly unlucky he didn’t have a wicket as he kept beating the bat.Avesh Khan and Sandeep Sharma reaped the harvest as they got Abhishek Sharma and Anmolpreet Singh with the first ball each of them bowled, resulting in the slowest powerplay for SRH this year: 37 runs.

Head leads, Reddy follows

After the first time-out, SRH seemed to have decided the pitch had improved. The intent changed visibly. Yuzvendra Chahal was at the receiving end of it as Head pulled and drove him for sixes. He went from 27 off 27 to get to his fifty in 37 balls. Nitish Kumar Reddy followed suit, converting his 5 off 10 into a 30-ball fifty. Even he was ruthless against Chahal, resulting in the second-worst analysis for a spinner in the IPL and also Chahal’s second-worst figures in all T20 cricket: 4-0-62-0.

Reddy, Klaasen close things off

Nitish Kumar Reddy mixed the orthodox with the unorthodox in an unbeaten 76 off 42•BCCI

Head again hit a bit of a rut after reaching his fifty, which ended with him playing on while trying to ramp a wide yorker. Not before he was reprieved again, this time by the third umpire when his bat was clearly in the air when the wicket was broken.However, the real damage to RR came from Reddy and Heinrich Klaasen. Reddy ruined Ashwin’s neat figures by taking two sixes off his final over. Then Klaasen got stuck into Chahal in the 17th over. The RR bowlers were on point with their plans and execution, and it took improvisation and exceptional hitting from Klaasen to take SRH past 200.

Vintage Bhuvneshwar

Bhuvneshwar got the new ball moving, drawing the outside edge from Buttler first ball and going past Samson’s inside edge in the same over. These were his 45th and 46th wickets in the first over in T20 cricket, now only one behind Shaheen Shah Afridi’s 47 and level on joint-top at the IPL with 27.

What seemed the perfect chase

Bhuvneshwar found swing in the second over too, but it met the broad swinging bat of Parag, who hit him for two fours and a six. This was nonchalant, disdainful hitting. Jaiswal was more respectful but just as powerful. His shot at the start of the fourth over went straight into Cummins’ midriff at mid-off, but the SRH captain dropped it. Then Cummins brought himself on to be hit for two fours and monstrous six over long leg. In the next over, Abhishek Sharma dropped Parag at extra cover. It speaks to the consistency in their hitting that the highest the asking rate hovered around 10.

The chaos

Like Head, Jaiswal played on a low full toss as he tried to ramp it. Parag pulled the momentum back by hitting a six two balls later. Small things happened in the 16th over that look huge in hindsight. Parag hit a full toss from Cummins straight to short fine leg. Then he got too close to a half-volley, and holed out to long-on. SRH had a wicket and a rare over without a boundary.Powell, though, settled RR’s nerves with 15 off the 17th, bowled by Marco Jansen. Hetmyer started the 18th with a huge six. Two dot balls later, he mis-hit a full toss and the game was refusing to die. Dhruv Jurel nailed a leg-side half-volley from Cummins straight down the throat of deep square leg following which Cummins bowled three straight dots at Powell, who hit the last ball for six to tilt the balance again.After Ashwin handed over the strike to Powell, he used the fielding penalty to take a boundary through the vacant fine-leg region. Poor throws from the outfield allowed Powell take three couples. One more, and it would be over. Perhaps Powell was expecting something close to a yorker because Bhuvneshwar had been nailing them. The full toss took him by surprise, handing RR their first defeat this IPL while chasing.

Chris Cooke led from the front with a relentless captain’s innings of 205 not out as Glamorgan spent day two of their LV= Insurance County Championship second division match against Surrey constructing a mammoth total of 672 for 6 declared, the home side responding with 45 for no wicket in the final hour.It was the first double-hundred of 35-year-old Cooke’s 12-year first-class career, beating a previous best of 171 scored seven years ago, and also the highest individual innings by a Glamorgan wicketkeeper, eclipsing Eifion Jones’ unbeaten 146 against Sussex at Hove in 1968.Cooke was joined by Dan Douthwaite in a 51-over sixth wicket stand of 189, and that followed a slightly more urgent partnership of 140 in 37 overs with Kiran Carlson, who was on 45 overnight and reached 69 before being quite brilliantly caught by a diving Dan Moriarty at square leg as he swept hard at Will Jacks’ offbreak.Douthwaite was eventually caught at long-on by Jacks soon after tea, for a curiously restrained 146-ball 59 that contained only two fours, giving offspinner Amar Virdi a hard-won third wicket.Related

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On a soporific surface showing little sign of predicted turn, Glamorgan resumed on 379 for 4 and accumulated ruthlessly, if perhaps over-cautiously, in warm sunshine before declaring at what is the third highest first-class total in the Welsh county’s history. The highest remains 718 for 3 declared, against Sussex at Colwyn Bay in 2000, while their highest score against Surrey is still the 702 for 8 declared made at the Oval in 2009.The declaration, greeted by some ironic cheers, left Surrey 15 overs to bat before stumps, and openers Jamie Smith and Ryan Patel reached 23 and 22 not out respectively, although Smith could have been stumped on 13 in offspinner Andrew Salter’s first over if Cooke had gathered the ball cleanly behind the stumps.Cooke, who began the day on 44, batted for five minutes short of six hours, facing 299 balls and hitting a six and 18 fours. Five of his previous six Championship innings were single-figure scores but – strong particularly through square cover – Cooke looked largely untroubled throughout and closed Glamorgan’s 177-over batting marathon five minutes after he reached his double-century by slicing slow left-armer Moriarty just over mid-off for two, attempting on 199 to go past 200 in the grand manner.It was his eighth first-class score of 100 or more and, as Surrey manfully and quite successfully kept as tight a control as they could on Glamorgan’s scoring rate, Cooke added an unbeaten 54 for the seventh wicket with Callum Taylor, who swept Jacks for six and also in the same over cover drove and cut him for fours in a breezy 57-ball 38 not out.Glamorgan scored 87 in 34 overs before lunch, hitting just two boundaries in a turgid opening session, and then 145 in 32 overs between lunch and tea. It was unspectacular stuff though overall, especially given a flat pitch and summer-like conditions, but Cooke will argue the ends justify the means if Glamorgan can put Surrey under scoreboard pressure during the last two days of this second division match.

England and India have been fined two World Test Championship points each for their slow over-rates during the first Test in Nottingham, which ended as a rain-affected draw on Sunday. Both teams were also fined 40% of their match fee by match referee Chris Broad.The teams now take two points each out of the Test match, instead of the four they would normally get for a draw under the new points system for the 2021-23 WTC cycle.Related

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• ICC confirms altered points system for World Test Championship

“As a team we were not pleased we lost two points because of factors that were definitely in our control,” India captain Virat Kohli said on Wednesday. “We were short by two overs, but we made up quite a few overs in that second innings. we basically have to keep up to speed with the pace of the game – small little things where we can save 10-15 seconds, that really matters, we practised that in the second innings and we were able to cover up three to four overs. You don’t want to be that far behind in the game that you are not able then to not to catch up and cover your overs in time, as the points are very, very crucial.”A major factor behind the slow over rates was both teams opting for pace-heavy attacks owing to the seam-and-swing-friendly pitch and overhead conditions at Trent Bridge. England picked four fast bowlers and no spinners, and India four fast bowlers and one spinner, Ravindra Jadeja. In the end, the quicks sent down all but 16 of the 250.2 overs bowled during the Test match.The match was also beset by frequent rain interruptions, while the completion of overs was also delayed by batters not being ready to face. As light worsened on the second afternoon, KL Rahul took his time to get into his position against James Anderson. England’s batters, meanwhile, also made Mohammed Siraj wait on more than one occasion.Over-rate-related points deductions could prove costly to teams during the WTC. In the inaugural 2019-21 cycle, Australia were docked four points for their slow over rate during the 2020 Boxing Day Test against India in Melbourne. It ultimately cost them a place in the final, which instead went to eventual champions New Zealand.

Australia are almost certain to tour Bangladesh for two Tests later this year unless further security issues arise in the meantime, Cricket Australia’s chief executive James Sutherland has said. Australia postponed their Test tour in October 2015 after receiving advice from the Australian government that there were “high risks” if they went ahead with the tour, and Australia also did not send a team to the Under-19 World Cup in Bangladesh in early 2016.At the time that the Test tour was postponed, the Australian government’s official travel warning stated that there was “reliable information to suggest that militants may be planning to target Australian interests in Bangladesh”. The wording of the official advice is now different, with a more general warning that militants may be planning to target “Western interests” rather than “Australian interests” specifically.”I think they’re quite high,” Sutherland said on ABC radio when asked what were the chances of Australia touring Bangladesh in 2017. “What we saw at the end of last year was the England team tour Bangladesh. We certainly saw very strong security around the team. We actually sent our head of security, Sean Carroll, over to observe for seven or ten days, just to get a little bit of comfort on the systems and processes that were in place.”Anything can happen between now and then, and we continue to monitor what’s happening in Bangladesh, but we work on the assumption that we’re going to play and we start to plan accordingly. But we certainly get a good deal of comfort from the way in which the security measures were put in place by the Bangladesh government, in conjunction with the cricket board over there. At the moment I would assume that we would be playing two Tests over there.”Sutherland said that while no dates had yet be fixed for the tour, the likely time was in August or September. Australia have not played a Test series in or against Bangladesh since 2006, when Jason Gillespie famously made a double-century in Chittagong, although they did travel there for a three-match ODI series in April 2011, shortly after the World Cup.”I think it is important for us,” Sutherland said of the tour. “The fundamental for us is that safety comes first, the safety of our players and officials, and all of that. We’ll make those judgments accordingly. At the same time, we have made decisions in the past to postpone a tour of Bangladesh. We were also the only team not to send a team to the Under-19 World Cup, which was held in Bangladesh not long afterwards.”Whilst there’s pressure for us to get back on the horse, so to speak, and to travel to Bangladesh, we won’t be compromising anything in our reviews and understanding, and getting to a level of satisfaction that the security measures are appropriate and at the level we need and want.”

Phillip Hughes’ batting partner Tom Cooper denied his team-mate and former house-mate was subjected to an “ungentlemanly” number of bouncers on the afternoon he was fatally injured in a Sheffield Shield match, the New South Wales Coronial inquest has heard.On the day Australia’s vice-captain David Warner also gave evidence via video link from Cape Town in South Africa, Cooper was subjected to hard questioning by the Hughes family’s legal representative, Greg Melick SC, and left the witness stand in tears.Apart from the question of how many bouncers Hughes was subjected to before he was struck on the side of the neck by a short ball from Sean Abbott on November 25, 2014, causing the arterial injury that led to his death at St Vincent’s Hospital two days later, Cooper was also pressed on a subsequent conversation he had with Hughes’ brother Jason.It is from that exchange that Doug Bollinger’s alleged sledge of “I’m going to kill you” was meant to have emerged. However, Cooper was emphatic in his denial of ever having heard or relayed such a phrase. Cooper did acknowledge that Hughes faced a “noticeable” increase in the number of short balls after the lunch break, but did not feel it was an excessive amount.”Yes, he was on top and they were trying to stop him from scoring,” Cooper said under questioning from counsel assisting the coroner, Kristina Stern SC. “He handled it with relative ease. There were no worries. I guess he was targeted, but I wouldn’t say it was in an ungentlemanly way. The tactic was used against him but it wasn’t for any other reason than to stop the run rate.”Melick turned his attention to the alleged words used by Bollinger. Cooper said the phrase had not been used. “I’m confident it didn’t happen,” he said. “If it had of happened I would have remembered it. It’s quite personal, it would stick in your mind.”The Melick cross-examination was exceptionally tense, including a refusal from the Coroner, Michael Barnes QC, to subject Cooper to footage of the over leading up to the fatal blow. Cooper recalled speaking to Jason Hughes, and of telling him that it had been “a tough period of play, with plenty of short stuff”.However Cooper strongly denied relaying Bollinger’s alleged sledge to Jason Hughes despite repeated questioning by Melick, responding “no”, more than once.The officiating umpires Mike Graham-Smith and Ash Barrow, plus the long-time international umpire and ICC training manager Simon Taufel, were also questioned. Graham-Smith reported that there had been no sledging out of the ordinary during the match, and also that he did not feel the need to caution the NSW bowlers for intimidatory bowling.Taufel had reviewed footage of the match, and said there had been “nothing to indicate the umpires should have done anything differently on the day”.Warner’s evidence, which closed proceedings for the day, focused largely on Hughes’ level of comfort against short bowling. “It looked like he was in control of everything he was doing,” Warner said of Hughes. “He was playing quite comfortably.” Warner added that the ball that struck Hughes had simply done so as the result of an “error of judgement”.The conclusion of Warner’s testimony also ended the involvement of players in the inquest. Abbott has not been required to appear. The inquest continues until Friday.