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Group B

Bermuda’s loss to Kenya at Potchefstroom, coupled with UAE’s win over Denmark, has left them on the brink of elimination from the competition and the loss of their ODI status. They need to beat the in-form Dutch in their final game and hope Afghanistan lose to UAE to remain in the tournament.David Hemp’s unbeaten century carried them to 259 for 5 but it was no match for Kenya, who won by seven wickets with five overs remaining. Maurice Ouma (57) and Kennedy Otieno (63) put on 98 for the first wicket, after which the captain Steve Tikolo hit an unbeaten 60 and added 88 with Collins Obuya, who made 43 not out. Kenya faced few difficulties in their chase and sit at the top of their group with three wins from four games.At Potchefstroom, the UAE completed a 112-run win over Denmark, who suffered their fourth straight loss. The opener Amjad Javed hit a blistering 164 from 117 balls, laced with 17 fours and eight sixes, and there were handy contributions from Khurram Khan (56 from 37 balls) and Nithin Gopal (35) to go with a clutch of smaller scores. From 233 for 4 in the 37th over – thanks to Michael Pedersen (60), his older brother Carsten (58), and Freddie Klokker (77) – Denmark were all out for 267 in 44.4 overs. It was a dramatic collapse and Denmark had only themselves to blame for there were four run-outs along the way.Netherlands won their third match by defeating Afghanistan by five wickets at Vanderbijlpark. Having chosen to field Netherlands kept Afghanistan to 204 for 9, with Ryan ten Doeschate and Mudassar Bukhari sharing six wickets. Only one Afghanistan batsman crossed fifty, the opener Karim Khan with 72. Netherlands stumbled a bit at the top of the order before Daan van Bunge took them home with an unbeaten 65 from 87 balls, aided by two key stands for the fifth and sixth wickets.

Group A

Scotland registered their third win of the tournament, beating Uganda by 45 runs in Johannesburg, and booked a spot in the Super Eights. They were boosted by a collective bowling display – five of their bowlers took two wickets each – as they managed to defend a competitive, yet chaseable, score of 209. Uganda faltered in their run-chase from the outset as John Blain and Dewald Nel provided their team the early breakthroughs, restricting the opposition to 56 for 4. The Uganda batsmen failed to measure up to the Namibian bowling – only their captain Junior Kwebiha offered any resistance. After Blain and Nel had their done their job the others stepped in to complete the formalities and skittle Uganda out for 164. Scotland had earlier squandered a dominant position at 164 for 3 to lose their last seven wickets for just 46. Neil McCallum, however, held one end together with a defiant 101 to help his team salvage a defendable score, which, as his bowlers proved, was adequate.Namibia picked up their first win after beating last-placed Oman at Krugersdorp. Put in to bat, Namibia made 291 with Craig Williams, Gerrie Snyman and Nicholaas Scholtz posting fifties. Oman’s chase faltered from the start when they slipped to 6 for 3, and there were hardly any notable stands thereafter. Awal Khan’s 62 was the only half-century as Oman struggled to counter Sarel Burger’s tidy medium-pace. Burger finished with figures of 10-1-44-5 and Oman were bowled out for 172 in 43.4 overs.

The attack was swift and brazen, the gunmen appeared well-trained but, though eight people were killed – including six policemen – a greater calamity seems to have been averted by providence, unexploded bombs and the bus driver’s presence of mind. Mahela Jayawardene later credited him with “saving our lives”.The attack began as the 42-seater bus approached the upmarket Liberty Square, towards the end of its 10-kilometre journey to the stadium. The driver, Mohammad Khalil, says he was intercepted by a white car as he was about to turn at the roundabout and the gunmen – a dozen, say officials – emerged from behind trees and opened fire in a sophisticated, coordinated attack. Television footage showed several gunmen creeping through trees, crouching to aim their weapons and then running onto the next target.First, they aimed at the bus tyres; at the sound of the shooting, the Sri Lankan players and staff hit the floor of the bus to escape the sniper fire. Khalil followed his instinct and jammed hard on the accelerator. “When the firing started one of the players shouted ‘go, go’ and somehow I kept my cool, ducked and sped the bus towards the stadium.”The momentum probably saved those on board, because though the bus was hit by 25 bullets, it avoided the heavier ammunition – a rocket, which landed on the road, and several grenades, which failed to explode.Mahela Jayawaredene said later: “We owe the team bus driver our lives for his remarkable bravery in the face of direct gunfire. Had he not had the courage and presence of mind to get the bus moving after the initial attack then we’d have been a far easier target for the terrorists.”The area then turned into a battlefield as security forces returned fire. The commandos travelling in front of and behind the team bus got into action, drawing the terrorists’ fire and allowing the bus to head for the stadium.Australian freelance cameraman Tony Bennett said people inside the stadium heard explosions followed by bursts of machine gun fire. “Next thing we knew, the Sri Lankan team bus rolls up being sprayed by bullets. Players were getting carried into the dressing room.”Once at the stadium, most of the Sri Lankan players stayed inside the dressing-room. A few tried to get on with normality; Dilhara Fernando strayed onto the the balcony, talking on his cell phone and Muttiah Muralitharan calmed himself down with a cup of tea.As senior PCB officials planned the team’s evacuation, the former Pakistan wicketkeeper Wasim Bari, now the PCB’s Human Resource officer, rushed Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavitana to the Services Hospital.Back at the ambush site, the gunmen had, incredibly, all managed to escape but had left behind evidence of the scale of their attack. Security experts defused two car bombs and recovered a stash of weapons including grenades, three kilograms of explosives, a pistol and a detonating cable. Broken glass littered the road next to a gun cartridge and an empty rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Blood stained the front seats of a vehicle used by Pakistan’s elite force, the van raked with gunfire with its wheels shot up and radio system disabled.Soon after, the players were on the move again – this time by helicopter, to a military air base and then onward to Abu Dhabi and Colombo.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

On a warm day in Karachi, when Test cricket returned to Pakistan after 16 months, the Sri Lankan top order indulged themselves to reach a strong position by the end of the opening day. Mahela Jayawardene presented a visual treat, Thilan Samaraweera and Kumar Sangakkara accumulated steadily, and Malinda Warnapura thrilled with a breezy knock as the visitors cashed in after winning the toss on a perfect batting pitch.There is something extremely graceful about Jayawardene’s batting. Perhaps, it’s the economy of movement, his ease, and the languid flow of his bat’s movement that catches the eye. There was a delicious straight drive on the up off Umar Gul today that captured his innings in a nutshell. The ball landed short of a length outside the off stump. Sachin Tendulkar, or even Sangakkara, imparts velocity to such deliveries with a fierce thump at the point of impact, whereas Virender Sehwag would rely on tremendous bat speed. Jayawardene seems to just caress his shots. Today, he waved his bat forward to meet the ball with the middle and it sped away. Just like that. And he did it repeatedly through his innings to compile his first Test hundred against Pakistan, the only country missing from his list of centuries.Jayawardene was reprieved on 43 and 123 off the debutant Sohail Khan. On both occasions he played away from his body but Misbah-ul-Haq, who held three sharp catches including a diving effort to dismiss Warnapura, spilled the first and Shoaib Malik dropped the second. Those two errors apart, Jayawardene was compact in defence. He might have struggled in recent ODIs but he has revelled in Tests, averaging over 55 in the last 12 months.Jayawardene’s innings built on the platform laid by Sangakkara, who played an assured innings after coming in to face the fifth ball of the day after the debutant Tharanga Paranavitana was out for a first-ball duck. Sangakkara utilised every run-scoring opportunity, playing an upper cut against Sohail Khan, a punchy drive on one knee off Yasir Arafat, and a straight drive against Gul. He even lofted Danish Kaneria over the infield but holed out to midwicket while trying to repeat the shot.Sangakkara’s wicket was a vital moment for Kaneria. He began to test the batsmen – Thilan Samaraweera in particular – with series of legbreaks, occasional googlies, and the odd slider delivered from the front of the hand. Samaraweera, however, was up to the task and grew in confidence, producing a whippy on-drive against Kaneria and another drive through cover off Arafat. As Samaraweera grew in composure, Kaneria started losing his and began to deliver a boundary ball every over.Kaneria changed tack in the last session, going round the stumps in an effort to frustrate the batsmen. It nearly worked as Samaraweera skied a slog-sweep and then edged between the wicketkeeper and a wide first slip. Samaraweera, nicknamed Mr Glue for a Test strike-rate of 43.96, put those lapses past him and began playing straight again. The pitch and the match situation demanded he raise his game and he did so, allowing Jayawardene to drop anchor. He reached his hundred with a lofted stroke over mid-off against Shoaib Malik.Among the Pakistan seamers, Arafat stood out for his consistently tight line and length. He repeatedly got the new ball to cut in and also to hold its line and combination almost worked. In the first session, he hit Sangakkara’s back leg with a delivery that cut from leg stump towards off but the appeal was turned down by the umpire. Sangakkara, on 43 then, was lucky to get away. Arafat also found reverse-swing with the older ball, though his lack of pace made it hard to breach the batsman’s defences.Gul and Sohail were guilty of erring in length. They overused the tactic of peppering Warnapura with bouncers initially and then tried to compensate by pitching too full. Warnapura took advantage, and kept driving them to set up Sri Lanka’s innings.Despite the run-fest, Younis Khan set attacking fields through the day, conceding plenty of runs in the vacant third-man region. The two slips for Danish Kaneria seemed a luxury at times but you could sense he wanted to be aggressive on the first day of his captaincy. He perhaps took the conventional means of attack to an extreme and the ploy failed to work.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Daniel Vettori believe a major part of the upcoming tour will come down to the conditions, which is alien to most of the Indian team. Vettori said that though the pitches had improved a lot, the weather could play a part in deciding many of the games.”India have come with a formidable reputation, and they’ve earned it over the last couple of years with the way they’ve played cricket,” Vettori said. “But I suppose we enjoy playing at home, we feel a lot more comfortable here and we’ve got a pretty good record. Hopefully those things play in our favour, but we also understand this is one of our biggest challenges.”I think it comes back to our conditions, and hopefully we know those and we can perform in them. I think the wickets are going to be very good, the weather may play a small part in it, but the ability to contain the Indian top order, with the likes of Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir in it, is probably going to be crucial to our success.”India have been trying to make the best of whatever time they have got to train here in their first week in New Zealand. “Usually we practise for two to two-and-half hours. Since we had four days here we wanted to make the most out of it,” Dhoni said. “Especially when we are practising outdoors, maybe the next day it may rain and we won’t get the same facilities so we were practising for three-and-a-half to four hours.”Dhoni said while New Zealand were a young side, their team work meantthey could never be written off. “New Zealand is known for the kind ofcricket they play as a team. They don’t really depend on one individual.That’s what is good about us too. We have the kind of players who canreally make you win games on their own, but we are always looking for thewhole team to perform.”Vettori was happy to play with a young side which hasjust started winning. “There are a lot of guys who have played under 10games, but a lot of those were won,” Vettori said. “So when you have thatfeeling within the team coupled with some experienced players, it makesfor confidence about their performances. We’re hoping to continue on that,the likes of Martin Guptills and Neil Brooms being fantastic in the shorttime they’ve been there. We’re hoping they can capitalise on what they’vedone in a short period of time.”But the youngsters are pitted against a star-studded Indian line-up andVettori is particularly worried about Sehwag and Gambhir, his DelhiDaredevil team-mates. “A lot of our emphasis is on Sehwag, and probablyGambhir, with their opening partnership,” Vettori said. “If we can put somepressure on India early then maybe it gives us a chance, but when theseguys get away, it’s always hard to pull back in.”We are not underestimating how good a player and how destructive he[Yuvraj Singh] can be. We’re just hoping we get to him early by ourplans for Gambhir and Sehwag because if we can do that, hopefully he’smore vulnerable than when he comes in with a bit of platform.”

South Africa will rest Dale Steyn and Makhaya Ntini for the final ODI of the series in Perth despite the fact that a victory would hand them the No. 1 one-day ranking ahead of Australia. With the series already won, the visitors will call on their two left-arm fast bowlers Lonwabo Tsotsobe and Wayne Parnell to make their one-day international debuts.The batsman Vaughn van Jaarsveld is also likely to play his first game since debuting in Melbourne, provided he proves his fitness as he is battling an ankle problem. South Africa’s bowling coach Vinnie Barnes said Steyn and Ntini would have played Friday’s game had the series been alive but now they had an opportunity to take a well-earned break.”It’s just part of our rotation policy,” Barnes told . “We are looking long-term. We have to rest players, we are committed to that. We are not going to go into Friday’s game thinking about losing or taking it as an ordinary game”There’s a huge commitment from everybody. We’ve got a couple of young players coming in who want to make an impact and secure their future so Friday night’s game is as important as the game we’ve just played.”Parnell, 19, and Tsotsobe, who each played one of the Twenty20 internationals on this tour, will be especially keen to impress ahead of the return series in South Africa starting next month. Tsotsobe, 24, has had little to do but bowl in the nets for the past month and a half, having been part of the squad since the beginning of the Test series.Ntini has taken Tsotsobe under his wing during the trip and he said he would be thrilled to see Tsotsobe make his debut at the WACA, where Ntini himself made his first ODI appearance 11 years ago. “I don’t know which of the two of us is more excited,” Ntini said.”I have told ‘Lopsy’ [Tsotsobe] that this is the place where it all started for me. I still remember having Craig McMillan caught by Jonty Rhodes at point and then I got Stephen Fleming as well. I can’t remember who my third wicket was. This is where he must make his mark. He must put down a big box and put all his eggs into it.”The youthful South Africa side will provide an extra confidence boost to Australia, who have regained Michael Clarke and Nathan Bracken for Friday’s game. The Australians just managed to avoid losing their No. 1 Test ranking by taking the dead rubber in Sydney and Barnes said claiming the top ODI spot was not as important to South Africa as keeping Australia down.”There’s a bigger picture,” Barnes said. “We don’t want to give the Australians any breathing space. We’ve got them down 3-1 at the moment and we want to make sure that’s 4-1. We want to give them absolutely nothing to bring to South Africa.”

New Zealand Cricket (NZC) has appointed former batsman Mark Greatbatch as an advisor to the national selection panel. Greatbatch, who also coaches the elite emerging players of the domestic side Central Districts, will monitor the progress of players in domestic cricket.Glenn Turner, the current selection panel manager, said Greatbatch’s inputs would help the selectors maintain a comprehensive view of players across the country.”Mark has wide experience of playing and coaching at home and abroad,” he said. “He will be getting around the grounds to keep an eye on the form of players coming through – his advice will be a huge asset to the selection process.”Greatbatch, who played for New Zealand between 1988 and 1996, has also had stints as coach and academy director at Warwickshire. He said he was was excited about the new role and was keen to help build depth in the top levels of the game.”There’s a lot of young, exciting talent coming through the state competitions right now,” he said. “Part of my role will be to help identify and develop that talent so that there’s a strong pool of players knocking hard on the door for national selection.”In a similar development, Central Districts coach Dermot Reeve will be joining the New Zealand squad as bowling coach for the two Twenty20 matches against West Indies, the first of which will be played on Friday.Team coach Andy Moles said Reeve’s reputation for flair and innovation, coupled with his experience in international limited-overs competitions, would add strength to the team. “Dermot’s experience as a coach and as a top level bowler will bring extra depth and focus to our preparation for these games,” said Moles. “He is a good example of us bringing in talented coaches to broaden and stimulate new thinking with our players.”Reeve played for England as an allrounder between 1991 and 1996, including three Tests – all against New Zealand – and 29 one day internationals.He has experience in New Zealand’s domestic circuit as well after being appointed Central Districts coach in July this year. The team is currently at the top of the State Championship rankings at the halfway point of the 2008-09 season.

Scorecard

Phillip Hughes led New South Wales’ batting efforts for the second day in a row and made up for narrowly missing a century in the first innings by posting 108 as New South Wales increased their hold over Tasmania. Rain interrupted proceedings a couple of times, but the Blues had a crucial 211-run advantage at stumps after being dismissed for 173.Hughes, who scored 93 out of 172 in the first innings, stood firm again as the Blues repeated their collapse on the opening day by falling to 4 for 51. This time Hughes found help from Steven Smith and the two 19-year-olds guided the team away from trouble during a partnership of 101. The third best score was Nathan Bracken’s 7.Nobody has come close to matching Hughes’ batting in the game – he has 58% of his side’s runs in the match – and he hit 14 fours and a six during his 152-ball stay. His innings ended when he pulled Dan Marsh to midwicket and was caught by Dane Anderson, becoming part of the collapse of 6 for 21 that ended the innings.Smith was bowled on 42 by Ben Hilfenhaus, who followed up three balls later to remove Moises Henriques when he hit to cover on 0. Hilfenhaus captured 3 for 35 in an encouraging performance while Marsh collected 3 for 33. At stumps the Tigers were 1 for 7, having lost Rhett Lockyear to Bracken, and need another 212 runs to win a frenetic match.After an action-packed opening day, which included 17 wickets, Gerard Denton calmed things down on the second morning with 48, but it was not enough to drag the Tigers close to New South Wales’ total. Marsh departed without adding to his overnight 21 and Henriques finished things off with two breakthroughs to secure the first-innings points. Bracken delivered another nine overs but could not capture another wicket and finished with 5 for 28 from 20.

Michael Vaughan, the former England batsman and captain, will travel with the England Performance Programme squad in India this month in a bid to be considered for the Ashes next year.Vaughan has held talks with Geoff Miller, the head of selectors, and will fly out to India on November 21. Crucially, the Performance squad will then link up with England for training on December 17. It will be Vaughan’s first involvement with England under the new regime of Kevin Pietersen.Vaughan stepped down as England captain in the summer and had intimated that he needed a break from the game, but has never hid his ambitions to return to Test cricket as a batsman, particularly for the Ashes next year. He missed out on selection with the full England squad to India because “his place in the Test squad cannot be justified based on recent form”. His brief visit to India with the Performance Programme represents a crucial opportunity for him to prove that he has the desire to return as a fully-fledged Test batsman.The Performance Programme squad are due to play a three-day game in Bangalore on November 30 before a four-day match in Mumbai.

It was complete annihilation. Lahore Badshahs gained retribution for last season’s defeat and Saturday’scontroversy by drubbing Hyderabad Heroes in style tolift the trophy. Hyderabad were restricted to 158 and Imran Nazirsizzled with a 44-ball 111 to end the chase in a blink.The cheerleaders, who were supposed to dance aftereach boundary, were severely tested by Nazir’s fury and could notmatch him in the end. When their dancing stopped, Lahore’s players celebrated their triumph.Faced with the same target on Saturday night, Lahore were strangely subdued at the start and were always behind the eight-ball. Not tonight. Nazir indulged himself, Imran Farhat watched, and the crowd roared as the white ball kept sailing into the sky. He didn’t wait a ball to launch hisassault. The first one, sent down by Abdul Razzaq, disappeared over extra-cover boundary for a six, the fifth flashed over long-off and the sixth screamed over deep midwicket. Twenty-four runs had come in the first over, Razzaq disappeared from the attack and Nazir went from strength to strength.Hyderabad tried spin as early as the third over but it didn’t matter a jot. Nazir didn’t let any thing affect his style of play. He didn’t mind the injury that forced him to get a runner, nor the dropped catch by Nicky Boje at long-on when he was on 58. He simply carried on walloping. He brought up the hundred with a fierce heave over long-on but by then Hyderabad had long surrendered.Nothing went right for Hyderabad from the beginning. They recycled their first two finals’ script: start well, slow down in the middle and disintegrate at the end to finish on a par score. To be fair they did try some thing different; they promoted Anirudh Singh to No. 3 and sent the in-form Bojeahead of Justin Kemp, who didn’t find his mojo in this tournament with the bat, but they couldn’t sizzle. Only opener Ibrahim Khaleel sparkled tonight. He started off with two streaky fours off Mohammad Sami before using the long handle effectively against all bowlers. He repeatedly backed away to free his arms. He smoked a back-of-length delivery from Shahid Nazir over themidwicket boundary for his shot of the night. But it was not a patch on Nazir’s scorching effort.It has been an interesting ride for Lahore. Winless after the first two games, the poker-faced Inzamam-ul-Haq was asked by the press, “Inzy bhai, you have lost both the games.” Inzamam fixed his eye on the questioner and with a dead-panned look said, “I know.” Nervous silence paved way for laughter in the room and ever so slowly Inzamam smiled. He hasn’t stopped since then, though it has been punctuated with streak of anger. A streak of five wins in a row was halted in the second final that saw some controversy but regular programming continued tonight. And what a fun show it was.

Nottinghamshire bowlers Paul Franks and Luke Fletcher have signed new deals that commit them to the club until the end of the 2010 season.Franks played in seven County Championship matches last season and was a key member of the one-day side while Fletcher showed great promise in his first season in county cricket.”There was never any doubt that I wanted to sign a new contract and the only way I will leave Trent Bridge is if I’m ever told that the club doesn’t want me,” said Franks. “I’m still only 29 and I’m striving to improve and raise my standards. The club and the supporters have shown a lot of faith in me over the years I want to repay that. Everyone knows that I wear my heart on my sleeve and I will do everything I can to help the team until the very last ball of the very last game.”Fletcher made his debut against Northamptonshire in the Friends Provident Trophy in May and capped a solid season with selection for England Under-19s. He will spend time at the Darren Lehmann Cricket Academy in Adelaide in January.”I’m very happy to have secured my future at Nottinghamshire and now it’s up to me to put pressure on the players that are being selected and earn a regular place in the side,” he said. “I’ve found that I’m becoming more consistent but I want to add extra pace and improve my stamina. I’m a Nottingham lad, I’ve always lived and played cricket in the area and it makes it extra special for me to represent my home town club.”