Vikram Solanki will celebrate his recall to the England side by opening the innings in the first NatWest Challenge match against India, with Michael Vaughan dropping down to bat at three. Solanki made a century in a losing cause in last Saturday’s C&G Trophy final, and sheer weight of runs has given him an opportunity to test himself against the country of his forefathers.”Once he got picked in the squad we earmarked him to come back and open the batting,” said Vaughan, quoted on the BBC Sport website. “I’ve played at three for Yorkshire throughout the summer and I don’t feel it being a huge change.”England’s one-day form, or lack of it – three wins in their last 10 – has been a major concern for the team management, and Vaughan suggested that a back-to-basics approach might suit England best. “We like to have three guys who can play their orthodox game at the top and score in a nice fashion,” he said. “I didn’t score many runs in the [NatWest Series] but I feel my form has come back in the Tests and I’m playing well again.”Glamorgan’s Alex Wharf is one of the newcomers in the squad, and there was also a recall for Gareth Batty, as England attemped to put the disappointment of the NatWest Series – New Zealand and West Indies contested the final – behind them.”In the summer we didn’t perform to the standard we would have expected,” said Vaughan. “We’ve made a few changes and in depth and in athleticism we feel a bit better going into this tournament.”India have won seven of the last 12 matches between the sides, but the teams haven’t met since the 2003 World Cup, where India won by 82 runs.

ScorecardScotland clinched their first victory over a Test-playing country with a thrilling last-ball triumph over Bangladesh at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh. Chasing Bangladesh’s total of 259 for 6, Scotland were indebted to Cedric English, who spanked a four off the last ball of the match.Ryan Watson, with a composed 83, and Fraser Watts, with 50, had set up the victory with a 109-run partnership for the third wicket, but there were late jitters that left the Scots needing 28 from the final three overs. But English, who finished on 49 not out, and Craig Wright, the captain, ensured that Bangladesh couldn’t quite escape to victory.Bangladesh’s total had been built around another fine innings from Aftab Ahmed, who eased to 80 before being stumped by Colin Smith off Gordon Goudie. For Goudie, it was a first international scalp.Scotland’s reply started poorly, with Dougie Lockhart being bowled by Nazmul Hossain, but Watson and Gregor Maiden wrested back the initiative with some punishing strokes before Maiden was castled by Mohammad Rafique. Watson and Watts then combined to set the game up for Scotland, before leaving it to English to apply the finishing touches.

Plate Group Points Table

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Pinninti Jayachandra’s fighting 130 was the only silver lining for Orissa as they crashed to a heavy defeat against Himachal Pradesh at Dharmasala. Orissa were playing catch up and a mauling was always on the cards after they had collapsed for just 80 in the first innings. But Rashmi Ranjan Parida and Jayachandra delayed the inevitable with a 106-run stand for the third wicket. However Vishal Bhatia and Ashok Thakur snapped up four wickets apiece as the Orissa lower order came apart in quick time. Himachal picked up the bonus point by virtue of winning by an innings and took a comfortable lead at the top of the table.
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Amit Mishra and Joginder Sharma picked up seven wickets between them and helped Haryana wrap up a comfortable victory, which earned them a bonus point as well, in Delhi. Services, who had been bowled out for 185 in the first innings, put up a better show while following on with their top four batsmen using up valuable time. But Mishra, the legspinner, and Sharma, who was recently picked in the Indian one-day squad, ripped through the middle order and the last seven batsmen didn’t even manage to reach double figures.
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Vidarbha lasted just 38.2 overs in their second innings and went down by 165 runs against Goa at Margao. Chasing 283 on the final day, Vidarbha were on their way to earning a draw when they were 103 for 4. But the last six wickets fell for just 14 as Avinash Aware and Sher Yadav, the left-arm spinner, broke through. Despite the defeat, Vidarbha share top spot along with Haryana in Group B of the Plate division.
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Kerala gained two points from their game at Jamshedpur as the game meandered to a dull draw on the final day. Having gained a slender six-run lead, Kerala ground their way to 161, with Sreekumar Nair making a dogged 57, and assured themselves the first-innings points. Jharkhand were 16 without loss when play was called off.

Gary Kirsten has made some startling revelations about Hansie Cronje which offer insights into his obsession with money and his involvement with match-fixing.A report in Brisbane’s Courier-Mail newspaper says that according to his new autobiography Gazza, which was co-written by the South African-based journalist Neil Manthorp, Kirsten got a hint of Cronje’s fixation with the folding stuff during a visit to Dubai in 1999, when both players had gone out separately to dine with their wives. Kirsten went to one of the best restaurants in the city, while Cronje chose Burger King.Talking about his reaction to Cronje’s choice, Kirsten writes: “I smiled back and shrugged my shoulders. He continued the conversation by asking why I would want to waste money on an expensive restaurant when you could get perfectly adequate food for a quarter of the price in a cheap restaurant.”It was a small example, but it was the moment I knew something had gone very wrong and it disturbed me. I couldn’t get the idea out of my head he would rather eat a burger than have a very pleasant meal. He was very wealthy but far too driven by it. I think our relationship changed a bit that day.”Kirsten also provided a detailed account of the famous incident in Mumbai in 1996-97, when Cronje asked the whole team deliberately to underperform in a one-day match against India. Kirsten said that Cronje addressed the entire squad, with only Bob Woolmer, the coach, not around.”We have been offered a lot of money to throw a game, he [Cronje] said. I swear you could have heard a pin drop at that moment,” writes Kirsten. “Nobody moved a muscle. In retrospect I think I had gone into instant shock. Even if I had wanted to speak I would have been unable to. Hansie carried on talking slowly but clearly.”I listened but it was out of respect for the captain and a strange fascination with what he was saying rather than any intention to carry out instructions. I knew within a few seconds I could not be involved … but I listened. He had been asked to create the perfect fix. He spelt out the details of how the match had to pan out, with a spread of scores we needed to be within every five overs.

“I started sweating. It was a bad dream. I kept thinking, ‘How do batsmen get out deliberately?’ It was ridiculous. After eight overs we needed to be one wicket down – me – and we needed to have under 25 runs on the board. The idea was absurd. I have never got out deliberately in my life. He mentioned a couple of times it would be worth 60 or 70 thousand rand [about $15,000] each.”The whole talk lasted about ten minutes but it felt a lot longer. Eventually Daryll Cullinan and Andrew Hudson spoke out. They both spoke along similar lines and they represented all our views. Hudders said we were ridiculous to even think about it, let alone talk about it. The same feeling filtered through the room and the meeting was clearly over. There were no waverers or doubters.”Kirsten also says that he increasingly became uncomfortable with the repeated references to match-fixing that Cronje kept making. “There was just a bit too much banter about the subject around the team. The captain of six years’ standing was talking about match-fixing a lot and joking to his players about being involved. It wasn’t really possible to know whether he was being serious or not.”In retrospect he appeared to be handing out invitations all the time in the form of silly little comments like, ‘If you make nought today someone will get very rich.’ The power of wealth and the greed for money were his weaknesses, and he was more heavily addicted than any of us knew. Perhaps as a senior player I should have acted but hindsight is a perfect science and life isn’t.”Cronje was banned for life after being found guilty of match-fixing, and died in a plane crash in June 2002.

The caravan moved east, from Dhaka to the port city of Chittagong, and as it rolled into town, to a backdrop of ship-breaking activities, with tones of metal, life vests, boilers and other seafaring miscellany being sold on the roadside, it became clear that for some in this Indian squad, this trip would be merely an exercise in tourism.Sourav Ganguly, at the end of the first Test, which India won comfortably by an innings and 140 runs, hadsuggested that some of the main members of the squad may be rested to give the fringe players a chance. However, it’s becoming increasingly clear that this is highly unlikely. Zaheer Khan is on 99 Test wickets, and he will be desperately keen to bring up three figures. Irfan Pathan has just taken ten, and he can’t be rested. This means that for Shib Sankar Paul – who has proudly worn his India training gear even well after practice at the team hotel – and Gagandeep Singh, the dream of playing for India must be put on hold for the moment.Anil Kumble picked up only three wickets in the first Test, and Harbhajan Singh two, and both will be eager for richer pickings. This means that Murali Kartik will probably have to warm the bench a little longer.The strongest indication that India would play the same team, however, came from John Wright, the Indian coach, as the Indians went through a full net session at the MA Aziz Stadium in Chittagong on Wednesday. "I had a chat with Sourav, but we haven’t decided on the team," said Wright. "But you have to value the Indian cap, it is not something to be shared around just for the sake of sharing around."But Wright did concede that this made for an awkward situation for the reserves. "You feel for those players, particularly Mohammad Kaif and Murali Kartik, who put up outstanding performances against tougher opposition – it is tough on them," he conceded. "The other new boys look good prospects, have a good attitude. I’ve been very pleased with the way they’ve come on – they are learning what it is to tour with the Indian team. Players can learn a lot from each other."But if a team is going to have a problem, then having to leave out players who have performed well is not the worst one. India put in a strong showing in the first Test, which put the smile back on Wright’s face. "Bangladesh have probably learnt a lot from that game, so it may be tougher here," he said. Everyone is keen to play – I don’t think there will be major changes, everyone is actually eager to play. We will concentrate on playing good cricket. We will take nothing for granted."Bangladesh’s coach Dav Whatmore, on the other hand, was certainly not best pleased with the way things went at Dhaka. His side dropped so many catches – including two off Sachin Tendulkar – that it was heartbreaking to watch for their supporters. "The ground fielding was OK, it was the catching that was not acceptable," said Whatmore. "The last game is over, it is finished and done and it is history now – we have to learn our lessons from that game. Our ground fielding is much better than that. The more you look backwards you don’t cover much ground, and for us this match can’t come quick enough."

Sourav Ganguly clearly has more pressing matters on his mind at present, but according to an interview in the launch edition of Spin magazine, which is published today, once the India-Pakistan Test and one-day series is out of the way, he is contemplating a return to county cricket.One can only assume that Lancashire is not among Ganguly’s favoured destinations, for he endured a memorably miserable stint there in the 2000 season, when he scored just 644 runs in 13 matches at an average of 33.89, and fell out with key members of the dressing-room on account of an attitude that has earned him the sobriquet “Lord Snooty” in some quarters. On one occasion in a floodlit one-day game at Old Trafford, he raised his bat towards the team balcony upon reaching a half-century, only to discover there was nobody there.And yet, that experience has not dented his enthusiasm for county cricket. “I’ll play anywhere and for anybody, I’m not fussed where, I just want to play a season of county cricket again,” he told Spin. “The last time I played county cricket, I didn’t do as well as I do in international cricket, so I’ve got something to prove.”For the time being, Ganguly, 32, is fully focused on Pakistan’s visit to India, their first for six years. The series, which will consist of three Tests and five one-day internationals, gets underway on March 4.Thereafter, he will be on the lookout for a vacancy on the county circuit, although at this late stage, it will probably have to be a short-term berth. According the The Times newspaper, Somerset were interested in the possibility of him being their captain for 2005, but eventually plumped for Graeme Smith.International call-ups are sure to impinge upon the overseas players that have already been named, so Ganguly was keen to emphasise that India’s commitments this coming season are light. “We have a one-day tournament in Sri Lanka for two weeks [in August], but apart from that I’m available all season.”

Through one day of fiercely determined cricket the Pakistan team have gone from being ‘the worst of its kind to tour India’ to being regarded as a serious contender. Inzamam-ul-Haq has pleaded, time and again, for a show of character, for someone to put their hand up and rise to the occasion. Often his pleas have fallen on deaf ears, but in Mohali Kamran Akmal and Abdul Razzaq showed that this team believe in themselves. And it is this spirit that make them a dangerous side when the second Test begins in Kolkata.Sourav Ganguly has insisted all along that the underdog title should not be bestowed lightly on Pakistan. Despite being unable to close out the last Test, Ganguly knows that his team played better cricket on four of five days. He has the benefit of having a settled side, and the option of a great spinner waiting in the wings in Harbhajan Singh, should the need arise. India still remain the better team on paper but, as we are constantly reminded, this game is played out in the middle, not on paper.The groundThe Pakistanis certainly won’t get the same kind of warmth and hospitality from the Bengalis as they did from their Punjabi brethren, but they will not complain about playing at Eden Gardens. In five Tests here they have never lost to India, drawing on four occasions, and pulling off a stunning come-from-behind win in 1999, when they were reduced to 26 for 6 on the first day, and still managed to claw their way back.The pitchThe early clamour over the grass on the pitch seems to be settling as the time for the match draws close. From afar, it appears that there is still some grass on the pitch, but those who have seen the pitch over the last week insist that there has been less grass with every passing day. Kolkata is famous for producing slow turners, and though this strip may not quite be that dead, it is unlikely to be as quick as the one in Mohali, or seam as much as the one on which India played Australia in Nagpur.The teamsPakistan have a real hassle on their hands when it comes down to picking eleven players for this match. There’s still enough doubt about how the wicket will be when the umpires call ‘play’, for Pakistan to consider all options. The top order has been a problem, and it is certain that either Yasir Hameed or Shahid Afridi willfind a place, with either Salman Butt or Taufeeq Umar making way.Naved-ul-Hasan is suffering from a shoulder injury, and this could well rule him out of the game. He did not bowl at all in the nets when Pakistan practised, and a local doctor who treated him recommended a week’s rest. This opens a door for Arshad Khan, if Pakistan choose to gamble and leave Mohammad Sami and Razzaq to share the new ball. In the event that Afridi plays, this looks a serious possibility.