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The Board of Control for Cricket in India has appointed Ranjib Biswal, a national selector, and D Dongoankar as managers of India’s one-day and Test side managers for the series against West Indies starting May 12.Ravi Sawant, the Mumbai Cricket Association vice-president, has been appointed as assistant to Dongaonkar. The BCCI also appointed Arindam Ganguly as India A manager for their tour to Australia from June 28 to July 25.India play five one-day internationals and four Tests against West Indies.

Sreesanth gets lucky
Sreesanth and Ishant Sharma introduced the first bit of cheek to a match that has seen a lot of pluck on the first two days. Edges, half hits, catches off no-balls, all added to South Africa’s agony today in a 46-run last-wicket stand that could have decisively taken the match out of South Africa’s reach. Nothing would have frustrated them more than the edge off Sreesanth in the fourth over of the day. It flew through the six-inch space between first and second slip, where both Neil McKenzie and Jacques Kallis thought it was the other’s catch, before McKenzie dived as an afterthought. But by then the ball had already passed him for four crucial runs.New ball, what new ball?
It took a whole innings before Mahendra Singh Dhoni came up with a trademark surprise move in his first Test as captain. The South African batsmen would have expected spin pretty early on in the innings. They wouldn’t have been surprised had a spinner opened, but they wouldn’t have expected a short leg and a silly point from the first ball of the innings. Harbhajan has opened an innings four times before, but this time he was bowling the first over. To the South Africans’ credit, they handled him pretty well before he finally struck with Hashim Amla’s wicket in his seventh over.That’s all right, but where are the runs?
Graeme Smith played a determined innings, cutting down any strokes that would fall prey to a ball that bounces unevenly. So much so, he seemed to have forgotten about scoring for a while. Smith swept Piyush Chawla from outside leg in the 25th over of the innings to score his first boundary. It was 67 balls coming, which has to be one of the longest waits for his first four. Smith’s score then: 21.Sehwag rolls over dangerously
For more than 16 overs, Smith and Kallis ensured that there was no damage, scoring 38 runs and making sure no wickets fell. Given their 60-run lead, India hadn’t started feeling restless yet, but the third-wicket pairing were beginning to look comfortable. Dhoni then turned to Virender Sehwag. The first ball he bowled was a quick offbreak that kicked viciously and hurried Kallis into edging in onto his pad and then lobbing up for an easy catch for Wasim Jaffer. Sehwag was not done yet, he proceeded to bowl Smith round his legs off a fullish delivery, something he has a knack for doing.

Mumbai’s Abhishek Nayar did not get a chance to impress in an unofficial one-day series against South Africa A last month, what with two of the three games washed out, but pitted against his team-mates from that series, he showed his talent.Nayar, a left-hand middle-order batsman and right-arm medium-pace bowler, walked in when his side were threatening to collapse from 164 for 4 on a good batting surface. He didn’t curb his natural instincts, instead trusting his attacking method. Neither did he let the Rest of India bowlers hit with any sort of rhythm, taking Mumbai towards a competitive total with 118 off 108 balls, including 20 fours and a six.Nayar later said that his second first-class century, coming as it did against mostly the same team, was special. “At this level, at this point of my career, this innings is important. I was in the A side, but didn’t get to play. I had got a hundred before that, and to get another now is special.”That hundred was a 162-ball 152 against Karachi Urban last month which helped seal the Mohammad Nissar Trophy for Mumbai. But Nayar rates this a lot higher “because it came at a more crucial juncture”. “At that point I wasn’t thinking about India A and all, but now I am.”What satisfied him most, though, was that the situation was tough and he still managed with his natural game. “I rate it as a good knock because of the situation. We were on the back foot and I got my team into a better position. It’s not because of the quality of the opposition, but because the situation demanded a lot out of me. That’s why it was satisfactory.”If a situation demands something, it’s not necessary to change your game. And if I get out after changing my game, I would come back unhappy that I didn’t do what I do best. I did what I do best and it worked for me.”It is not usually that a team rattles up close to 400 on the first day of a big match in Indian domestic cricket, but thanks to Nayar’s aggressive batting Mumbai managed 385 in 86 overs. The pace at which the runs were scored will prevent this game from degenerating into a first-innings affair as happens with high-scoring domestic games. Being a five-day match and given the strength of ROI’s batting and the quality of the surface, Mumbai would have wanted more, as Nayar’s fellow centurion Sahil Kukreja agreed.

Clive Lloyd threw his weight behind West Indies, saying they are capable of playing better than they have done in the Super Eights.”This West Indies team can play much better than they have done. They played well in India and advanced to the final, something no one had expected them to do so,” said Lloyd, referring to West Indies’ runners-up finish in the Champions Trophy last year.After three successive defeats in the Super Eights, the hosts face an early exit from the World Cup and need to win all three remaining matches against South Africa, Bangladesh and England to have any hope of reaching the semi-finals. After an all-win record in the group stages, Brian Lara’s men suffered a 103-run defeat against the defending champions Australia, a seven-wicket thrashing by New Zealand and a crushing 113-run loss to Sri Lanka.Those defeats have left millions of Caribbean fans disappointed, former players looking for scapegoats and organisers fearing for the financial implications if seeing even emptier stadiums for the remaining matches.Lloyd, the most successful West Indies captain of all time who led them to victory in the 1975 and 1979 World Cup finals and a runners-up spot in 1983, said he would do his utmost to lift morale. “I hope to motivate the players by making them realise the pride of representing the West Indies at cricket,” said Lloyd, who was also a former coach, manager and is now an adviser.Lloyd said the West Indies team lacked experienced players. “We have a lot of young and inexperienced players, who have not been exposed to much international cricket and they need backing,” said Lloyd.Brian Lara has been singled out as the main culprit for the team’s demise, with former fast bowler Michael Holding demanding his removal as captain.Even a ten-day break, for which some players headed home to rest, has not been met with enthusiasm by some former players. “We are hearing they need time to go home and relax and that’s unbelievable in the middle of the tournament when they should be representing their people. Aren’t other teams tired?” questioned former captain Richie Richardson. Another former fast bowling great Joel Garner asked: “Going home, for what? “You can’t walk off in the middle of the battle. We have to be together and correct the errors,” said Garner.

Jamaica coasted to a seven-wicket win against Guyana at Kensington Park, chasing down the target of 63 in just under two hours. Fast bowler Andrew Richardson picked up the last two Guyana wickets as the visitors were dismissed for 232. Darwin Christian, the overnight batsman, was bowled by Richardson for 37 and Veerasammy Permaul drove Richardson straight to Danza Hyatt at mid-on.Jamaica got off to a shaky start, as Esuan Crandon bowled Brenton Parchment off the inside edge and had Hyatt caught at slip to leave them at 9 for 2. Wavell Hinds hung around to polish off the remaining runs and seal the victory.Amit Jaggernauth’s five-wicket haul helped Trinidad & Tobago register a comfortable 215-run victory against Leeward Islands at Couva. Chasing 403, Leewards were dismissed for 187, with offspinner Jaggernauth finishing with 5 for 48.Leewards, resuming at their overnight score of 118 for 4 showed little resistance as they lost their last six wickets for just 69 runs. Jaggernauth sliced through the middle and lower order and was supported by left-arm spinner Dave Mohammed, who took two wickets. This was T&T’s maiden victory in the tournament year’s Carib Beer Series, and they now have 20 points from three games.Windward Islands crashed to 91 all out to give Barbados a 141-run victory on the final day at Portsmouth. Set to chase 233 in a minimum of 60 overs, the home side crumbled, losing their last six wickets for just 10 runs. Earlier, Barbados declared their second innings on 183 for 9 shortly after lunch, giving either side a shot at registering an outright victory.Barbados offspinner Ryan Austin was the most impressive bowler, taking 4 for 26 in 12 overs to engineer the collapse. Liam Sebastian, who retired hurt in the first innings, resisted with 32 in the second while the rest faltered. The strong Barbados seam attack of Corey Collymore, Tino Best and Pedro Collins shared the first three wickets, before the spinners took over. Windwards paid the price for some rash strokes.Barbados, in their second innings showed a lot of urgency to push the scoring but lost wickets at regular intervals in the process. After an opening stand of 81, they were suddenly caught off guard, losing five wickets for 33 runs, with Kenroy Peters, the left-arm seamer, claimed four top-order wickets. Kevin Edwards and Patrick Browne consolidated, adding 40 for the sixth wicket, before Ryan Hinds declared the innings.With this victory, Barbados now have 30 points, ahead of Jamaica while Windwards are languishing at the bottom of the table with seven points.

ScorecardSouth Africa A eased to an eight-wicket win over Zimbabwe Select at the Harare Sports Club, taking a little over an hour to score the 88 runs they needed to take a 1-0 lead in the two-match series.Zimbabwe’s only hope was to make early breakthroughs, and those did not come as Morne van Wyk and Paul Harris extended their second-innings stand to 82 before Harris holed out in the deep off Stuart Matsikenyeri. But van Wyk and Hashim Amla knocked off the remaining 14 needed with no alarms.Zimbabwe will take heart from this performance in which they held their own in the first innings, but they are still struggling in terms of technique with their batting and consistency in their bowling. It should also be noted that despite the team’s name, this is almost a full Zimbabwe XI and almost all of the side will face a full-strength South Africa in three ODIs later this month.Brendan Taylor should return from his self-imposed exile for the second match with starts at Bulawayo on Monday, and Terry Duffin may also get his chance after yet another failure at the top of the order by Tino Mawoyo.

Supersubs may be an extinct phenomenon but it’s the Powerplays that came to the fore in the low-scoring dogfight at the Feroz Shah Kotla. Both batting line-ups suffered jolts with the effect of the second Powerplay and, in a coincidence of sorts, both scored exactly 24 runs and lost three wickets in the ten specified overs.While Andrew Flintoff preferred to enforce the two Powerplays immediately after the 10th over, when India were motoring along at a run-rate of 5.6, Rahul Dravid, defending a modest target, chose to hold it back. While England fought back through the nagging accuracy of their unheralded medium-pacers – Kabir Ali and Liam Plunkett – India turned it around with a thrilling spell of spin.It would have no doubt been a tough decision to take: India didn’t have too many runs to play with, the ball had lost much of it’s early shine, and Kevin Pietersen was toying with the medium-pacers with some brash swipes to leg. Dravid, who’s usually favoured wicket-taking to restriction, revealed the rationale behind the move.”It was a tough one as a captain and it’s not easy with players of the calibre of Pietersen and Flintoff to come. We had only 203 to defend and needed wickets. At that stage, Pietersen was going really well. We thought we’ll just break things up a bit and delay it by two or three overs. We got another wicket but Flintoff came in and that posed some more problems.”Flintoff had joined Pietersen in the 12th over and the duo hushed up the jam-packed Kotla by carting 60 in the next eight. To compound matters, Dravid hadn’t yet used his fifth bowler yet. That was when dust started turning into gold. Yuvraj came on and delivered, of all things, a full toss. Pietersen swept it straight to deep midwicket.Dravid needed to act, swiftly. “Once we’d got Pietersen, we had the opportunity to use the second Powerplay. For me it was the last throw of the dice. If Pietersen hadn’t got out in three or four overs, we would have had to use it anyway.” As it turned out, the dice landed magically. Flintoff swept to his doom and heralded a manic passage of play when the stadium erupted back to life. Within the next ten overs the game was as good as over (when England crumbled to 141 for 8) and chants of “Bring back Sourav” (that were heard during the lunch break) were a distant memory.

Geoff Lawson delivered a strong message to the Pakistan squad about the hard work needed to make the team successful when he was interviewed for the coach’s job. Lawson believes Dav Whatmore, the former Bangladesh mentor, is the favouite for the position, which is also being chased by Richard Done.”I won’t be surprised if I get it, I won’t be surprised if I miss out,” Lawson said in the Sydney Morning Herald. “I wouldn’t have gone for the interview if I wasn’t keen. It would be a terrific challenge. Dav is obviously the front-runner, but I told [the players] about the hard work that has to be done to make the team successful.”I think they appreciate how the Australian approach to playing cricket is a successful one and that’s what they’re trying to tap into. I didn’t chase the job, so there isn’t much to lose if I don’t get it.”Lawson said he was waiting to hear from the Pakistan Cricket Board about the appointment. When he went for the interview last month the players were at a training camp and Lawson was impressed with what he saw.”Those internal games can sometimes be played at, how would you say, less than full intensity, but they were having a go,” he said. “My impressions were very good. They were playing hard and they were playing with attitude. There’s a lot of talent there to work with. It’s an exciting prospect.”

After trying more than a dozen times on Wednesday Australian captain Ricky Ponting finally got the opportuntiy to apologise to BCCI chief Sharad Pawar on the phone on Thursday over the incident during the presentation of the Champions Trophy last Sunday.Peter Young, Cricket Australia spokesperson told that Pawar has now accepted Ponting’s assurance that no disrespect was intended. “It was a very amicable telephone call and the two of them decided they would take a sporting approach and move on, ” he said.”Ricky offered an apology on behalf of himself and the team and it was accepted in good spirit.” Ponting’s apology comes close on the heels of Martyn’s who, on Thursday, had said that he was sorry for any misconduct.On Friday Indian media had quoted top BCCI officials saying that Pawar had indeed spoken to Ponting, and as far as the BCCI was concerned the matter was closed.Ponting and his team-mate Damien’s Martyn’s conduct, where they were seen trying to usher Pawar off the victory podium in their eagerness to celebrate, drew ire from the Indian officials and media. Pawar, himself had called the Australians’ attitude as “totally uncivilised”.Ponting, who arrived back home on Tuesday, said there was no offence intended and he was unaware there was a problem until he saw the television footage of the incident on Thursday morning. “It doesn’t look great on television, but I think the more times you look at it, you probably realise that there’s no intent to offend anybody,” he said.”We all probably got a little bit caught up in the excitement of the moment. That’s why I think it’s so important for me to be in personal contact (with Pawar) and if there is anything lingering on, to get it sorted out as quickly as we can.”James Sutherland, Cricket Australia’s chief executive, admitted the episode had the potential to damage the image of the Australian team.”I think it’s definitely a concern about how this has been perceived in India,” he said. “I think everyone in Australia sees and understands that it was certainly an unfortunate incident and can perhaps understand to some extent how it may have happened.”The disrespect that people have gathered from this is obviously more heartfelt in India and that’s something that we need to accept and obviously deal with.”Sutherland said Cricket Australia chairman Creagh O’Connor had spoken to BCCI senior vice-president I.S. Bindra on Thursday to pass on Australia’s concern.Since Australia and India had recently signed an agreement where both teams would play Test and/or one-day matches against each other annually for the next four years, Sutherland felt there will be plent of opportunities for his team to make amends.”There’ll be plenty of opportunity for them to make amends and to show the Indian public what they really think about India and its people.”

Holland 56 for 3 trail Ireland 407 for 4 dec (Bray 135, Botha 97, Joyce 54, Molins 53, Gillespie 50*) by 351 runs
ScorecardIreland eased into the semi-finals of the Intercontinental Cup after their match with Holland petered out into a tame draw, with the poor weather which had washed out the first day returning to bring a premature end to a game which had long since ceased to have any meaning.Ireland’s powerful batting performance yesterday had ended any hopes Holland had of reaching the last four, and they had to be content with some gentle batting practice. Resuming at 56 for 3, they soon lost Eric Szwarczynski but then Ryan ten Doeschate (84) and Alexei Kervezee (46*) put on 115 for the fifth wicket to ensure that at least they were saved the embarrassment of having to follow on. By the time ten Doeschate was caught behind off Andre Botha, the game had meandered into insignificance, and the return of the rain was not unwelcome.Holland have suffered appallingly from the weather. Their first match at home to Scotland was washed out, and almost half of this game fell victim to the elements, making it almost impossible for them to mount any serious challenge for a semi-final berth. What was, on paper, the strongest of the four zonal groups in the tournament was reduced to a meteorological lottery.But that does not ignore the fact that Ireland rallied superbly to defeat the fancied Scots, and then clinically batted Holland out of this game knowing that a draw was all they needed to book a place in Namibia. They will face the United Arab Emirates at Windhoek in a three-day game starting on October 23.