All posts by csb10.top

Scorecard
Billy Godleman hit a career-best 130 as Essex moved into a commanding position at the end of the third day of the County Championship match against Leicestershire at Grace Road. Essex closed on 306 for 4 in their second innings to lead by 354 runs, leaving bottom of the table Leicestershire facing an uphill battle to save the game on the final day.Godleman and Tom Westley laid the foundations with an opening partnership of 104 and then Owais Shah hit an unbeaten 84, joining Godleman in another century stand for the second wicket.It completed a day totally dominated by Essex after seamer David Masters had claimed Leicestershire’s last three wickets in the morning session to finish with 5 for 67. The home side, who began the day on 245 for 7, were dismissed for 274 giving Essex a first-innings lead of 48.Masters made short work of the Leicestershire tail – having Claude Henderson caught at slip, trapping Tom New lbw and then dismissing last man Harry Gurney, who was caught behind by wicketkeeper James Foster.From that point on Essex took total charge as a lacklustre home attack failed to make any inroads into the visitors’ batting line-up. Godleman and Westley had cruised to a lunch score of 55 in the first 16 overs with very few alarms and soon after the interval Westley reached his half-century off 55 balls with nine boundaries.Westley was the dominant partner and when he and Godleman put on 100 it was the first century opening partnership for Essex for two years. But it was finally broken in the 34th over when Gurney breached Westley’s defences to bowl him as the batsman went onto the back foot. Westley was out for 67 off 95 balls having hit 11 fours.Shah then joined Godleman in another big stand with neither batsmen looking like being out against a toiling Leicestershire attack. Godleman reached his half-century off 139 balls and after the tea interval Essex looked to accelerate, with Nadeem Malik conceding 23 runs in his first three overs after the break.Shah, looking in confident form, went to his 50 off 76 balls and the next landmark was Godleman’s first century of the season, which arrived off 225 balls and contained 12 boundaries. He celebrated with a six off Jigar Naik but as Essex looked for quick runs in the closing overs the off-spinner claimed three quick wickets.He had Godleman lbw to end a stand of 177 off 43 overs, trapped Ravi Bopara lbw as he tried to sweep and then had Matt Walker caught at long on. But it was all too little, too late for Leicestershire, who now face a difficult final day as they try to save the game.

ScorecardJohan Botha’s best Twenty20 bowling figures helped Northamptonshire to a 40-run win which ended Warwickshire’s unbeaten start to their Friends Life t20 campaign at Edgbaston. The South Africa off-spinner took 4 for 16, including two wickets in his first over, as Warwickshire were dismissed for 110, their lowest Twenty20 total.Botha found a slow pitch, on which Warwickshire’s New Zealand off-spinner Jeetan Patel had taken three for 19, to his liking and he stifled Warwickshire’s chase as they tried to keep up with the Duckworth Lewis rate as steady rain threatened to curtail their innings.Botha may have taken the individual honours but the fact that Northamptonshire reached 150 for 8 and had a total to defend in the first place was due to Jack Brooks and David Willey, who shared a Twenty20 world record-equalling ninth-wicket stand of 59.Northamptonshire were in danger of being dismissed for under 100 when they limped to 91 for 8, but Brooks and Willey rode their luck to equal the record stand of Lancashire’s Glen Chapple and Peter Martin at Leicester in 2003.Brooks, who had made only seven runs in the competition before this innings, struck out boldly and lifted Neil Carter for a straight six in his breezy unbeaten 33 from just 19 balls.Left-hander Willey also lifted Carter for six over long on in making 22 from 15 balls which helped Northamptonshire recover after they had struggled against Patel and seamer Steffan Piolet, whose three for 25 constituted competition-best figures. Piolet took two wickets in his first four balls including Alex Wakely, who was lbw working to leg after he had clobbered six fours in his 35.Warwickshire’s response was timid and they ran into trouble against Botha after Carter was run out trying to take two to Chaminda Vaas at short third man. William Porterfield, who made half centuries in the wins over Durham and Yorkshire, carved to point and Warwickshire captain Jim Troughton went lbw in Botha’s first over.Botha then snared Darren Maddy and Varun Chopra playing across the line and Hall ended a mini-revival by bowling Keith Barker and Tim Ambrose, whose seventh-wicket partnership of 23 was the best of the innings, in the space of four balls.

Shane Warne and Rajasthan Cricket Association secretary Sanjay Dixit, the protagonists of an argument over the changing of pitches in Jaipur during the IPL, are waiting for the BCCI’s judgement on the issue after a hearing in Mumbai. They appeared before a panel comprising IPL chairman Chirayu Amin, Ravi Shastri and IMG’s legal counsel John Loffhagen, and gave their versions of the incident, which took place after Rajasthan Royals lost to Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium.”We had a long meeting and the judgement is awaited,” Dixit said. “Our views have been heard by the panel and the hearing was conducted in a very good atmosphere. The proceedings of the hearing are confidential. I am not at liberty to reveal the proceedings.”Dixit said the hearing was only about the complaint he lodged with the IPL regarding Warne’s alleged misbehaviour. When asked if the RCA was considering filing a criminal complaint against Warne, Dixit said he would wait for the judgement before making a decision. Warne attended the hearing with Sean Morris, Rajasthan’s chief executive, and they left immediately after without speaking to the media.The RCA had complained to the BCCI and IPL that Warne reportedly abused Dixit after his team’s loss to Bangalore in Jaipur. The pitch used for that game, and the previous one against Chennai Super Kings, was different from the one Warne’s team had enjoyed a strong home advantage on. The reported that RCA venue director Narendra Joshi had written to IPL’s chief operating officer Sundar Raman, alleging that Warne had publicly abused Dixit by calling him “a liar and egoistic,” and demanded action against Warne.Since the pitch was changed on May 9, Warne and Dixit have engaged in a war of words that has been fought in public, private and through the media. The hearing in Mumbai followed RCA’s rejection of an apology offered by the Rajasthan franchise, with the state board also threatening further action if the matter was not resolved to its satisfaction.

Stuart Clark never retired from Australian duty, and he has not retired from first-class cricket either. Instead he is prioritising a new administrative job at the head of the Sydney Sixers Twenty20 team, only to be called on by New South Wales in times of crisis.The decision to step back from the Blues arrived exactly a week after Clark had been appointed general manager of the Sixers, the sort of role he had envisaged for himself in the future, but not as soon as now. Having weighed up the various scenarios, Clark chose to help establish one of the eight new Big Bash franchises, while keeping his sharp eye on the progress of the Australian game.He will be observed from above as a prospective addition to Cricket Australia’s board or management, having occupied a position on the executive of the Australian Cricketers Association.Before the home summer, Clark is available to take part in the Blues’ last T20 Champions League campaign, at least partly because Brett Lee and Doug Bollinger may yet be tied to their Indian Premier League teams at the tournament. Club cricket will also remain part of Clark’s life, as he seeks to maintain a traditionally tough school against the notion that grass-roots standards have slackened off in recent years.”I couldn’t keep playing cricket fulltime and doing the job, it would just not be fair to the job or to the cricket,” Clark told . “I thought I’d always have an involvement in the game. Obviously I’d done quite a bit of study and all the rest of it, which has given me an idea about doing something in sport.”I never thought I’d end up doing it straight away I thought I’d probably get out of cricket, but this is just such a good opportunity that I thought I’d be silly not to take it. I’m really focused on this one and trying to get as much out of this job and seeing where it takes me. I’m not quite sure whether it (the future) is in cricket or out of cricket, wherever it may be I don’t know.”Clark’s career for NSW was speckled with tight spells and trophies, with his rich four years in the Australian team hanging neatly as the centrepiece of a career that had looked decidedly nondescript until his 30th year. Chosen for his first Test in South Africa in 2006, Clark took nine wickets and the match award on debut. In all he played 24 Tests and took his 94 wickets at the parsimonious average of 23.86, but after the 2009 Ashes the selectors decided to go with a younger batch of bowlers. He has claimed 393 first-class victims at 27.52, and captained New South Wales for much of last summer in the absence of Simon Katich.”At the age of 29 or 30 I thought I’d never play for Australia,” said Clark. “I had four years of playing cricket for Australia, I played Test cricket and achieved prettymuch everything I could. So I’ve got no grudges against anyone.”Clark’s firm relationships with many in Australian cricket has afforded him a handy start to the task of recruiting players for the Sixers. Less familiar are the commercial concerns of a team that may yet be 49 per cent the property of a private investor, opening up plenty of posers for team management.”It’s really demanding, I was in Melbourne yesterday with CA, I’ve got plenty of stuff to organise,” said Clark. “The easier stuff to organise at the moment is the playing stuff because I know the guys, I can speak to the guys, I know their managers. It’s the commercial part of it that’s taking a lot of time because from my understanding this is going to be a big event that takes a lot of planning.”As for the lack of melodramatic farewells, Clark assumed the posture of a dedicated numbers man.”It’s just not me mate, to be fair, I’m just not that sort of person,” he said. “I don’t want the big speech with the big farewell or anything like that. It’s not my style, not what my personality is. Cricket’s been good to me and I don’t need to do one of those speeches.”

Match facts

Tuesday, April 26, Delhi
Start time 2000 (1430 GMT)Virender Sehwag found the quicker surface at the Kotla more to his liking•AFP

Big picture

After lacklustre starts to the tournament, both Delhi Daredevils and Royal Challengers Bangalore have taken bold steps to try to improve their fortunes; for each of them, the moves worked in their last games. The newly-prepared green top at the Feroz Shah Kotla allowed Virender Sehwag and David Warner to play their strokes, as the ball came on to the bat, and the Delhi fast bowlers enjoyed the bounce they got from the track.For Bangalore, the shot in the arm came in the form of new signing Chris Gayle, whose century helped turn around a trend that had seen Bangalore not manage an opening stand of more than seven in their previous four matches.The switch from the traditional slow-and-low Kotla wicket to a livelier one makes sense for Delhi, since all their foreign players are either Australian or South African – and therefore used to bouncy tracks – while their most-expensive player, Irfan Pathan, is a seamer. Tuesday’s match will be a test of whether the win against Kings XI Punjab was a one-off or whether their strategy to pack the side with seamers for home games can be a consistently successful one.From Bangalore’s point of view, they will want to make as much use of their new opening partnership before Tillakaratne Dilshan leaves for England, which could be as early as May 10.Adding further interest is the fact that Bangalore snapped up four of Delhi’s foreign stars from last year in the January auction. “Old Delhi v New Delhi,” Delhi coach Greg Shipperd dubbed the contest, though with several players changing teams in the rejigging, former team-mates clashing is not uncommon.Apart from the fluidity of players’ loyalties, the other salient feature of the IPL tomorrow’s match exposes is its innate forgivingness. In many other sporting leagues Delhi and Bangalore’s starts of three losses in their first four games may have seen heads roll at the franchises. But because of the congested nature of the IPL table, both teams find themselves in a position where a single win will put them right back in contention for the knockout stages.

Form guide (most recent first)

Delhi: WLWLL (ninth in points table)
Bangalore: WLLLW (seventh in points table)

Team talk

Bangalore’s batting has a settled look, but the problems in the bowling department are perhaps illustrated by the fact that Virat Kohli, who has an IPL bowling average of 93.00, has been one of their more economical options this season. They might want to include an extra seamer to make use of the Kotla pitch, but with Dirk Nannes injured there aren’t too many options; both S Aravind and Abhimanyu Mithun have gone for more than 10 an over so far, while Johan van der Wath has gone at 9.87. So they may give left-arm spinner J Syed Mohammad, who impressed in the last game, another go.Delhi went in with five seamers in their last game, and may stick with that strategy since they don’t have any established international spinners in their squad. Ajit Agarkar went for 47 runs in four overs in the last game, but the man who could replace him, Ashok Dinda, hasn’t exactly set the tournament on fire either.Predict the playing XIs for this match. Play ESPNcricinfo Team selector.

In the spotlight

Aaron Finch entered the tournament with a big reputation, after his match-winning innings in a Twenty20 international against England, and his impressive performance for Victoria in the 2011 Big Bash. However, he has struggled on the slow Indian wickets, only managing 47 runs from five innings. The grass cover at the Kotla makes it a more familiar habitat and Tuesday is a chance for Finch to justify his billing.Bangalore would have been pleased with the 123-run partnership between Gayle and Dilshan against Kolkata Knight Riders, and will now be looking for the middle order to give AB de Villiers some more support. Saurabh Tiwary will be key in achieving that end. He hasn’t had the same impact since joining Bangalore as he did for Mumbai Indians last season, and will be looking to turn things around.

Prime numbers

• Out of all the bowlers who have bowled more than five overs in IPL 2011, Bangalore captain Daniel Vettori has the best economy rate. He has gone at 5.75 in 20 overs so far.
• David Warner has got the joint-highest number of half-centuries in this IPL, with three in five innings. He is fourth in the list of leading run-getters.

The chatter

“I prefer it when there is some bounce and carry on the pitch … and I’m definitely in favour of this wicket.”
“Half of their [Bangalore] side played for Delhi. They were our valued players. We tried to keep them in the auction but at last couldn’t afford them.”

Match Facts

March 29, Colombo
Start time 1430 hours (0900 GMT)Muttiah Muralitharan needed treatment during the quarter-final. Will he be fit enough to play the semi?•Getty Images

The Big Picture

In the months leading up to the World Cup, New Zealand had traipsed through the subcontinent, copping defeat after defeat: they failed to make the final of a tri-series in Sri Lanka, were hammered 5-0 in India, and between those two beatings they were humiliated in Bangladesh, where they lost 4-0. “We played like d****, really,” Mark Greatbatch had fumed. They then lost a one-day series 3-2 at home to Pakistan. New Zealand were fortunate, it was said, to be pooled in Group A, from which qualification for the quarter-finals was straightforward. And after the hammerings they suffered against Australia and Sri Lanka, almost no one gave Daniel Vettori’s working-class boys a chance in the first knockout against well-oiled, on-top-of-their-game South Africa.Here they are, though, the only non-Asian team in the final four: a country with a population about a third of Mumbai’s making the World Cup semi-finals for the sixth time, aiming to reach its maiden final. To get there, however, New Zealand will need to discover a higher gear than the one they used to upset South Africa. Their bowling will need to be as disciplined, their fielding as tenacious, their catching as game-changing, but their batsmen will have to do more. They laboured to 221 against South Africa. Sri Lanka possess cannier bowlers, experts at exploiting the home advantage, and their openers chased down England’s 229, inside 40 overs. New Zealand have struggled against spin and they are unlikely to receive from Sri Lanka the generosity Pakistan showed in Pallekele. When New Zealand played their group match against Sri Lanka in Mumbai, they lost by 112 runs. That Wankhede pitch didn’t turn that much either. Their batsmen will have to find a method to score more abundantly against a quality spin-heavy attack, and negotiate Lasith Malinga as well. The odds are heavily against them once again. Very few expect them to win. It is perhaps when New Zealand are most dangerous.Sri Lanka will have prepared for the worst and hoped for the best. They would have prepared to face South Africa and hoped to play New Zealand instead. It is a semi-final, though, with no room for large errors, and having watched New Zealand intimidate and hustle South Africa out of the tournament, Sri Lanka will not expect anything less than all-out assault from their opponents. Mahela Jayawardene said as much.On paper, Sri Lanka have this covered: a bowling attack with three specialist spinners and one part-timer (they bowled 35 overs against England), a fast bowler who is virtually unhittable when he bowls with the old ball, and an in-form top order. They, however, need to guard against two dangers. The openers, along with Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene, must ensure that the untested middle order doesn’t have too much to do, and their fielding needs significant improvement. Sri Lanka uncharacteristically dropped three catches during their quarter-final. Perhaps it was the pressure, and there will be plenty of that on Tuesday.

Form guide

(completed matches, most recent first)New Zealand WLWWW
Sri Lanka WWWWL

Watch out for…

New Zealand’s fielding: Jacob Oram took a catch perhaps only he could have, and Martin Guptill ran out one of the fastest men in cricket, to swing the quarter-final against South Africa. New Zealand’s fielders were incredible in that game, diving to cut off singles in the infield, chasing balls at furious pace, and performing tag-team saves on the boundary to allow two, where ordinarily there might have been three or four. They made their bowlers look better than they were. It’s one discipline at which New Zealand will look to maximize their advantage over Sri Lanka.Sri Lanka’s top order: Tillakaratne Dilshan has 394 runs in this World Cup. His opening partner Upul Tharanga has 363. So does Kumar Sangakkara. They are among the top five run-scorers of the tournament and have done most of the batting for Sri Lanka. Mahela Jayawardene, who bats at No. 4, has 200 runs. No one else has even a 100. That’s how little the middle-order batsmen have had to do, largely because of a lack of substantial opportunity but also because it is Sri Lanka’s biggest weakness. New Zealand will go extremely hard at the top four, for exposing the middle order early is their best chance of making the final.

Team news

Muttiah Muralitharan is striving to recover from two injuries. He hurt his knee during the group match against New Zealand on March 18 and strained his quadriceps in the quarter-final two days ago. If he is fit to play the semi-final, Sri Lanka will not think ahead to the final and rest him.Sri Lanka (probable): 1 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 2 Upul Tharanga, 3 Kumar Sangakkara (capt & wk), 4 Mahela Jayawardene, 5 Chamara Silva, 6 Thilan Samaraweera, 7 Angelo Mathews, 8 Lasith Malinga, 9 Muttiah Muralitharan / Nuwan Kulasekara, 10 Rangana Herath, 11 Ajantha MendisNew Zealand are mulling over their spinners. To play three or not to play three, because Sri Lanka are far more skilled at playing the slow men than South Africa were. If they decide to go with only two then Luke Woodcock will miss out, and one of Daryl Tuffey and Andy McKay would come into the XI. Or perhaps James Franklin, though his inclusion ahead of a specialist bowler would significantly weaken the attack.New Zealand (probable): 1 Brendom McCullum (wk), 2 Martin Guptill, 3 Jesse Ryder, 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Scott Styris, 6 Kane Williamson, 7 Nathan McCullum, 8 Jacob Oram, 9 Daniel Vettori, 10 Tim Southee, 11 Luke Woodcock / Daryl Tuffey / Andy McKay.

Vettori was surprised and upset that the surface being used for the semi-final is the same one on which Sri Lanka and England played the quarter-final on March 26. The pitch played slow during that game and it’s likely to getter slower and harder to score on with repeated use. Chasing under lights used to be difficult at the Premadasa but Sri Lanka beat England without the loss of a wicket. The weather forecast is fair, with only chances of light rain.

Stats and trivia

• New Zealand’s batsmen played out 171 dot balls in the quarter-final against South Africa. They played out 120 dot balls in 35 overs during their group match against Sri Lanka.
• Sri Lanka have won their previous four World Cup games against New Zealand. The overall head-to-head record is 35-33 in New Zealand’s favour but since 2000 it is 20-11 in Sri Lanka’s favour. In Sri Lanka, since 2000, the head-to-head record is 6-1 against New Zealand.
• Ross Taylor has hit more sixes (14) in this World Cup than the entire Sri Lankan team (12).

For more stats click here

Quotes

“We need to move on pretty quickly from the South Africa game. We are proud of our achievement but we have to concentrate on this game now.”
.”The expectations are always there, that’s not something that we can control. What we really want to do is to make sure that when we go out, we stay in the moment and we concentrate on what we have to do and make sure our focus is 100%.”
.

As Mohammad Amir left the Qatar Financial Centre in Doha Saturday evening, having just been banned for five years, he was surrounded by a small, but scarily enthusiastic group of Pakistan fans. They had waited most of the day outside and when he appeared, they flooded around him, chanting his name, slamming the ICC, telling him to be strong and when they had nothing else, shouting ‘Pakistan Zindabad’. But they were so intense that Amir eventually had to go back inside, like he was Justin Bieber and the fans, 13-year-old girls.They did the same with the two other two players, Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt, who were part of this hearing and who have been given harsher punishments, but the love just didn’t feel the same. Inside the building, as Amir’s articulate lawyer Shahid Karim picked through the verdict, Amir stood away, alone. An early-morning kind of daze seemed to have taken him over.All through the hearings it has been this way. Amir’s youth, Amir’s innocence, Amir’s talent, Amir’s outswing, Amir’s hair, Amir’s T-shirt, Amir’s background: he’s the only one of the three who has spoken to the press through the actual hearing. At once he’s become the focus of the Lord’s Three as well as an entirely separate entity removed from it.Later in the evening, on closer inspection, it became apparent Amir had been crying. “Today was the worst day of my life,” he said. “Cricket has given me everything and it has been everything and if I don’t play it I have nothing. I left education to play cricket and I have nothing other than cricket.”Naturally not much was said on the case itself. Throughout he veered between tenuous hope and despair, with nothing in between. “For a cricketer whose life is cricket, this is like destroying their life,” he said. Immediately he added, “One shouldn’t lose hope because in life if Allah closes one door, he opens hundred others.”He couldn’t say what he had learnt from it all. One question he’d be down, the next not up, but not so down. “It just seems that everything is finished and that my career never happened. Who knows what is written for me now?” And then, “These things happen in life and I haven’t lost my courage yet. Who knows that lies ahead for me?” Only this time, he spoke of the future as if there might be one.Like Butt, he disagreed with the verdicts and sanctions. The players maintained their innocence through the last day. He did repeat what seems to have emerged as the most intriguing point of the whole affair: that the tribunal was keen on giving lower sentences, to at least two players if not all three. That seemed strangely at odds – perhaps even a little disconnected – with what the rest of the cricket world was thinking and from all the speculation about sanctions beforehand, not once did this particular permutation appear.”Two no-balls should not be five years punishment, they have said this themselves,” Amir said. “I will also say it is too much and I wasn’t expecting it. I can’t think clearly right now.”An appeal will be filed with the Court of Arbitration Sports now though it will not be as straightforward perhaps as Amir’s reading of it. “We will file an appeal there and hope to get something. The law there is different to ICC law.”He ends the only way he, or anyone in the situation really, could, with a proclamation that he will be back and an acknowledgment of the support around him.”The pain goes away a little with this kind of feeling around you. Whenever one starts a business, there are losses and successes. This is the way, when I started my career I had successes. Now this is a bad patch, but you don’t wind up the business. I will work doubly hard. There are lots of grounds in Pakistan and I won’t stop practicing and keeping fit. I will work doubly hard and I will be back.”

The rescheduling of the one-day international series against the West Indies from December to late January has resulted in a loss of US$125,000 to Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC). The series had to be postponed due to persistent bad weather across the island, and the number of matches was also curtailed from five to three.Ajith Jayasekera, the SLC acting CEO, stated that the board had incurred a loss of approximately US$25,000 on each of the five matches that was to be televised by their broadcast partner Ten Sports. “We couldn’t play the five matches and we didn’t get the fee per match,” Jayasekara said.”The three-match series which is due to begin on January 31 is not a planned tour according to the agreement signed with the television broadcasting company. We have obtained legal advice and they say it should be considered a separate tour. It is not in the tour program according to the contract.”Ten Sports had not planned for the postponement of the tour which occurred due to unforeseen circumstances and they were unable to meet those conditions. They also had no obligations for the current series.”In the absence of the regular broadcaster, the matches will be shown by Sri Lanka’s national television station Rupavahini but will not be broadcast to the international audience.The venues for the matches have also undergone changes with all three of them scheduled to be played at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo. The first match is to be played on January 31 followed by the second and third on February 3 and 6.Originally the matches were to be played at two World Cup venues, the first at Hambantota and the second and third at the R Premadasa Stadium. “At this point of time, there is no point in us being concerned about being unable to play at the World Cup venues,” Kumar Sangakkara, the Sri Lanka captain, said.”Our mental approach has to be regardless of getting experience on the wickets, there is a World Cup to be played, and played well. So our preparation is going to be the same. We are strong enough and we have the character to deal with whatever comes our way.”The series will be played in aid of the flood victims who lost their homes, belongings and loved ones during the recent floods in the country. Proceeds of all ticket sales will go to the flood victims, according to SLC.

In a ruling that is likely to have widespread repercussions for cricket administration inIndia, the Supreme Court has upheld a Kerala High Court decision that theofficials of the Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) are public servants. Thecourt’s decision means that officials who are part of a private body, butperform what can be considered a public function, can now be tried under thePrevention of Corruption Act, 1988, which applies only to public servants.It is the first time the courts have taken such a view of sportsadministrators in India.A two-justice bench comprising Justice VS Sirpurkar and TS Thakur dismissedan appeal filed by the KCA president, TR Balakrishanan, and secretary, TCMatthew, who had challenged the High Court’s decision allowing them to beprosecuted under the act. The judges first heard the case on January 3,before adjourning it for three weeks as the association wanted more time tofile additional documents. The case was finally dismissed yesterday, withthe judges calling the High Court’s decision a ‘beautifully craftedjudgement’.Justice M Shashidharan Nambiar, who passed the High Court order, sought toestablish whether the officials fall under the definition of public servantas laid out in the act. The KCA had argued that it was a private bodysimilar to a club, and therefore did not come under the purview of the act.In its order, the High Court observed that the KCA had a monopoly on cricketin the state and performed a public duty and a public service, and so wasliable to be prosecuted under the act.”It [the decision] has far reaching consequences,” Matthew toldESPNcricinfo. “In sports associations, people may fight, and those who aredefeated may go to court. It opens a Pandora’s Box. People can takevengeance in vigilance courts. Nothing will progress. Honest people will notcome to work for associations like this.”One such association is the BCCI, of which the KCA is a member. The Indianboard has consistently held it is a private organisation and not accountableto the public, but the ruling opens the door for anyone to challenge itsofficials and those of other cricket associations around the country.The complainant, Balaji Iyengar , a chartered accountant and former Keralajunior cricketer, had filed the original complaint against the KCA in theVigilance Court two years ago. The court ruled in favour of the KCA, sayingits officials were not public servants, but Iyengar challenged the rulingin the High Court.”So far sports associations in India have had responsibility withoutaccountability,” Iyengar said. “Hopefully this will usher in an era ofresponsibility with accountability.”

Diamond duck
Simon Katich joined an exclusive list of Australian batsmen run out without facing a ball when he was left high and dry by Shane Watson four balls into the game. Watson survived an lbw appeal but took off for a risky single without consulting Katich and Jonathan Trott’s superb direct hit from square leg left Katich a couple of metres short. He was so angry at his dismissal that almost two hours later he was still stewing as he sat on his own below the dressing room. Scorers recording balls-faced is a relatively modern measurement, but in the past 40 years only two other Australians have had so little to do before being dismissed. The opener Wayne Phillips lasted four minutes at Port of Spain in 1983-84 while Rodney Hogg was caught short at Edgbaston in 1981.150 and a duck
At the Gabba, Andrew Strauss’s bid to set the tone for England ended in catastrophe with a third-ball steer to gully; now, down at Adelaide, it was Ricky Ponting’s turn to register an untimely blob. Unlike his opposite number, Ponting was offered not a hint of width as Jimmy Anderson racked in the good fortune that had eluded him in the first Test, and grazed his outside edge for Graeme Swann to scoop low at second slip. There was an uncanny symmetry in the dismissal as well, for Ponting is playing in his 150th Test. The last Australian captain to reach that milestone was Steve Waugh, who also picked up a first-baller at Sharjah in 2002. In the final analysis of that match it scarcely mattered, however. Pakistan were shot out for 59 and 53.Flukey Finn
The talk before the Test was that Steven Finn might miss out despite his six-wicket haul at the Gabba last week. On a legendarily flat deck, and with fearsome temperatures predicted for the coming days, the temptation to include the reverse-swing specialist Ajmal Shahzad was genuine. But in the end, England stuck to their first-choice attack and while Finn was once again slow to locate the ideal length, his ability to make something of nothing remains an undeniable asset. Australia were regrouping and Marcus North had moved into the 20s, an achievement that promised riches of the highest order. But then, with less than three overs to go until tea, he poked at a short wide one and snicked through to the keeper.Swann comes to the party
Swann was not at his best throughout the first Test. Instead of an early wicket, his first one-off over went for 10, his first three for 26, and thereafter he was never allowed to settle as Mike Hussey got on his case and clobbered the short ball with unyielding power and accuracy. Today was different, right from the word go. Though he had to wait for his wickets, the incredible dominance of England’s first-hour performance meant he could attack from the word go and keep the Cathedral End tied up while the seamers rotating from the City. He had to wait 25 overs to strike, but when it came it was crucial, as his nemesis Hussey poked to slip, before Ryan Harris, on his home debut, was adjudged lbw for the second first-baller of the day.Technically out
Harris, however, was convinced he inside-edged his first ball, an offspinner from Swann, and immediately called for a review as umpire Marais Erasmus’s finger went up. The benefits of technology have been a regular issue during the first six days of the series and though the ball would have done little more than graze the outside of leg stump, this debate was over whether Hotspot showed a small spot on the side of Harris’ bat. Billy Doctrove, the third umpire, wasn’t convinced by the tiny mark that was visible on the replays, so Harris had to walk.Chappell’s near missA few people are grumpy at Greg Chappell and his fellow selectors after they dropped Ben Hilfenhaus and Mitchell Johnson, but are they disgruntled enough to take aim at his car? Chappell was on the phone when he opened the door of his taxi and it was ripped off by a passing vehicle. Eyewitnesses couldn’t confirm whether the car that caused the damage was steered by a supporter of two unhappy fast men. Chappell was fine and at tea was in the back of a ute, being paraded around the ground with his brother Ian and Greg Blewett.