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England allrounder Ben Stokes has been reprimanded for making “an inappropriate comment” during the second day’s play in Headingley. He received one demerit point for the offence, taking his total up to three; if he gets to four demerit points, he faces a suspension on disciplinary grounds.The news that Stokes is one more intemperate outburst away from a ban adds to England’s growing list of potential issues ahead of the Ashes. As a key cog in the side, as well as Joe Root’s vice-captain, his potential absence for a Test against Australia would be hard felt.Stokes received one demerit point apiece in October and November 2016 for similar verbal offences. Each demerit point remains on a player’s record for 24 months, meaning one more offence before the end of October 2018 will result in suspension for Stokes from one Test or two ODIs or two T20Is, whichever comes first – except in the case of more grave offences, which could attract longer suspensions.The incident occurred after the fifth ball off the 101st over of the West Indies innings, when Shai Hope hit Stokes through the cordon for four. Stokes’ subsequent expletive was “clearly audible through the stump mic and also heard by the match officials”, according to an ICC release, and amounted to a breach of Article 2.1.4 of the ICC Code of Conduct which deals with “using language or a gesture that is obscene, offensive or insulting during an international match”.The charge was brought against Stokes by the match umpires, and the penalty levied by match referee David Boon. Stokes accepted the offence, so there was no hearing required.Stokes has been one of England’s most consistent batsmen this summer, scoring hundreds against South Africa and during the ongoing match at Headingley. With questions over the top five, England could ill afford to be without him in Australia.While there have been some suggestions he could try to “tactically” pick up another demerit point and serve a ban during a less high-profile series – the limited-overs matches against West Indies, for example – that would carry further risk. Points remain on a player’s record for a two-year period and suspensions become cumulative, meaning Stokes would face a ban of two Tests or four ODIs if he were to reach eight before October 2018.

With 82 ODI wickets in 48 matches, he stands a chance to be the fastest New Zealander to 100 ODI scalps, but it is possible Mitchell McClenaghan may not even take a shot. His request to be released from a central contract to pursue a future in overseas T20 leagues has been accepted by New Zealand Cricket. This was almost a formality after McClenaghan had been picked up by Durban Qalandars in the new Global T20 league in South Africa. McClenaghan expects to play in the Big Bash League, which begins three days after the South African league ends on December 16.While McClenaghan, 31, stays eligible for selection for New Zealand whenever available in the future, it is hard to envisage a time when he won’t be busy playing in the T20 leagues. He has been an integral part of Mumbai Indians in the IPL, St Lucia Stars in the CPL and Middlesex in county cricket. Add two more leagues to his commitments, and the only time he might have left to play for New Zealand is in world events. A precedent of such a return is Daniel Vettori’s participation in the 2015 World Cup.Lockie Ferguson picked up the contract vacated by McClenaghan. New Zealand, top-ranked in T20Is and on No. 5 in ODIs, have a big limited-overs home summer lined up with Test series being cut to two each to make space for more limited-overs cricket. New Zealand are supposed to play 13 bilateral ODIs, six bilateral T20 internationals and a triangular series of T20Is with Australia and England. They will play only four Tests.”Some new playing opportunities have arisen in the past few weeks, which mean my circumstances have changed,” McClenaghan said. “I’m very grateful for the respect, understanding and goodwill which has underpinned my request to be released from my NZC contract. I’ve worked closely with NZC throughout the process, while also making it clear I still harbour ambitions of playing for New Zealand in the future.”The general manager of NZC High Performance, Bryan Stronach, suggested more releases are not unimaginable. “We have to recognise that, as the T20 game matures, specialists will want to explore the different opportunities that become available – and I think Mitch’s case is symptomatic of that,” Stronach said. “This agreement has been reached amicably and mutually; all parties understand the change in Mitch’s circumstances, and he is released from his contract with our best wishes.”Unable to match the offers made by the global leagues, NZC remains flexible in its contracts when a player wants to choose leagues over international cricket. It means McClenaghan could have stuck with his national contract and obtained no-objection certificates whenever he wanted to play in other leagues, but that would mean being available for New Zealand in every small break between his leagues commitment.

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Agarkar: The gulf between both sides stood exposed

R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja took three wickets each as India wrapped up a 304-run win – their biggest runs margin away – halfway through the final session of day four. With finger injuries leaving Rangana Herath and Asela Gunaratne unavailable to bat, India only needed to take eight second-innings wickets. They completed the task in 76.5 overs, with Dimuth Karunaratne and Niroshan Dickwella proving their only real roadblocks.Karunaratne enhanced his reputation as a specialist in the second innings – where he now averages 42.14 as against 27.32 in the first – with 97, while Dickwella contributed a skittish 67 to a fifth-wicket stand of 101.Otherwise, India didn’t have to work too hard for wickets on a firmer-than-usual Galle pitch that offered consistent bounce and only occasionally sharp turn, after setting Sri Lanka the task of surviving the best part of two full days or chasing an improbable 550.The fifth-wicket partnership looked unlikely to last too long when it began, with Dickwella playing a series of risky shots – sweeps off the stumps, inside-out drives, dabs with an open face – while new to the crease. But he survived and eventually settled, and Sri Lanka could breathe a little easier, particularly with Karunaratne looking calm and secure at the other end, taking the singles afforded him by Virat Kohli’s puzzlingly defensive fields and picking up the odd boundary with the square-cut or flick.But danger was never too far away. As tea approached, Hardik Pandya found both batsmen’s outside edges in a seven-over spell of reverse-swing. Karunaratne’s uncertain jab flew through a mostly vacant cordon – one wide slip and no gully – and Dickwella’s was shelled by Ajinkya Rahane, who flew to his left from gully for a difficult one-hander.Eventually, both batsmen were out sweeping Ashwin. Dickwella fell in the fifth over after tea, undone by bounce and sending a thin edge to the keeper, and Karunaratne followed him 11.3 overs later, dragging a bottom-edge onto his stumps when he was in sight of a sixth Test hundred. Nuwan Pradeep then fell for a two-ball duck, stretching out and failing to get to the pitch of an Ashwin offbreak that grabbed inside-edge on its way to a diving catch at leg slip. Lahiru Kumara was last to go, top-edging a slog-sweep off Jadeja and holing out to mid-off.The new-ball bowlers took an early wicket each after India declared early in the morning. Mohammed Shami struck the first blow, going around the wicket, hitting the seam, and getting the ball to bounce disconcertingly at Upul Tharanga. First, the ball seamed away just a touch after angling in, and Tharanga, poking away from his body, edged to second slip, where Kohli shelled a sitter. No worries for Shami. One ball later, he produced another peach, this one coming back in, lifting, and cramping the left-hander for room. All he could do was chop the ball on to his stumps.Then, in the sixth over of Sri Lanka’s innings, Danushka Gunathilaka fell to a loose shot for the second time on Test debut. Umesh Yadav had Cheteshwar Pujara stationed at square leg, just in front of square. It was either a routine field placement or India had sussed out a tendency to flick in the air. In either case, he failed to keep that shot down against a full ball that swung into his pads, and Pujara took a simple, low catch.Karunaratne and Kusal Mendis took Sri Lanka to lunch with a half-century stand for the third wicket. They weren’t especially tight with their defence, every now and then playing and missing when they could have left alone. One loose drive from Mendis, off Umesh, resulted in an edge that didn’t quite carry to second slip. That apart, though, both batsmen looked comfortable, Karunaratne strong off his pads and Mendis fluent while driving and cutting.The spinners, who hadn’t yet settled in their 10 overs before lunch, began finding more turn and bounce after the break. In the seventh over after the break, a tendency to play away from his body at Jadeja consumed Mendis. Having just punched Jadeja to cover off the back foot, he tried the same shot off the next ball. This one, though, was fired in quicker, and bounced higher to take the edge.Three-and-a-half-overs later, Angelo Mathews fell to an ill-advised shot, jumping out and looking to hit over mid-on. To give the bowler credit, though, Jadeja beat the batsman in the air, and found sharp turn. Nowhere near the pitch, Mathews sent a leading edge ballooning to backward point.India declared 6.3 overs into the morning, having clattered 51 in that time, with Virat Kohli, who resumed on 76, bringing up his 17th Test hundred and 10th as captain. Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane hit only two fours and a six in that time, but scored off all but seven balls they faced, against Sri Lanka’s deep-set fields.

Batsmen Nadia Gruny and Shebani Bhaskar anchor a USA batting unit ready to resume international competition for the first time in more than five years after they were named in a 14-player squad for the ICC Europe T20 Qualifier this August. The squad was picked after the conclusion of a series of trials held in Indianapolis from June 9-11, organized by ICC Americas staff, as they continue to oversee USA’s cricket operations while the USA Cricket Association is under suspension.Gruny was USA’s leading scorer at their last international competition in 2012 when they finished runner-up to Canada by virtue of the net-run-rate tiebreaker at that year’s ICC Americas T20 Championship in the Cayman Islands. Gruny, 33, most recently captained a USA Women’s XI last September in Philadelphia against a touring MCC Women’s side featuring former England players Charlotte Edwards and Claire Taylor.Bhaskar was also part of the USA Women’s XI that played against the MCC in Philadelphia, though this will be her first time playing for USA since the 2011 Women’s World Cup Qualifier in Bangladesh. Only 17-years-old at the time, Bhaskar was USA’s leading scorer at that event with 139 runs in six matches, including a top-score of 72 for USA’s only victory, a one-run win over Zimbabwe in which Bhaskar’s direct hit from cover resulted in the game-ending wicket.

USA Women’s T20 squad

Neha Anand, Candacy Atkins, Claudine Beckford, Shebani Bhaskar (wk), Sugetha Chandhrasekar, Nadia Gruny, Uzma Iftikhar, Triholder Marshall, Samantha Ramautar, Akshatha Rao, Erica Rendler, Sindhuja Salguti, Sindhu Sriharsha (wk), Onika Wallerson

The other big name to return for USA is former West Indies Test player Candacy Atkins. The 33-year-old starred for USA in the buildup to the 2011 Women’s World Cup Qualifier but ultimately boycotted the team’s participation, along with several of her team-mates, for what they claimed was discriminatory treatment from the USA Cricket Association by way of tour stipends that were far less than those provided to men’s touring squads. However, Atkins came back to captain USA less than six months later at the 2012 ICC Americas Women’s tournament.One other player with international pedigree, but still relatively new to the squad is former India A and India U-21 batsman Sindhu Sriharsha. The opener played for a USA team captained by Gruny against Pakistan in a two-match bilateral series in November 2015 held in Florida.Of the five players yet to play a full-fledged international for USA, three of them – Sindhuja Salguti, Sugetha Chandhrasekar and Onika Wallerson – played as part of the USA XI that took on the MCC Women last year. Wallerson formerly represented Guyana in the West Indies domestic women’s competition before migrating to the USA. The other two, Neha Anand and Uzma Iftikhar, have a chance to play for USA for the first time against any competition.USA will face Netherlands and Scotland in the double-round robin Europe T20 Qualifier scheduled to be held in Scotland from August 14-19. The ICC announced last year that USA would be given a wildcard entry to the tournament since there is no Americas qualifier. The top two teams will advance to the global qualifier for a chance to go to the 2018 Women’s World T20 in the West Indies.

ScorecardPaul Horton scored a half-century as Leicestershire batted on•Getty Images

Derbyshire ended a run of three consecutive defeats in the County Championship as their Division Two match against Leicestershire at Derby ended in a tame draw.Leicestershire batted on in their second innings for 57 overs before declaring on 217 for 3, which included half centuries for openers Paul Horton and Harry Dearden. A target of 304 in 33 overs was never realistic and the inevitable draw was agreed with Derbyshire 42 without loss from 10 overs.There was always a chance the game would end in stalemate on such a lifeless pitch but the day began promisingly for Leicestershire, who took the last two Derbyshire wickets in 11 balls. Clint McKay struck with the third delivery of the day, which moved away just enough to take the edge of Rob Hemmings bat, and Tony Palladino gloved a pull to give Zak Chappell his fourth wicket.A lead of 86 was increased to 183 at lunch by Horton and Dearden, although Horton was given a life on 8 when he was dropped at first slip by Wayne Madsen off Tom Taylor.Horton completed his first fifty of the season before he was caught behind off Taylor and Dearden fell to a stunning piece of fielding by Billy Godleman, who threw the ball up at long-on to avoid taking it over the rope before completing the catch.He took a more straightforward one to dismiss Mark Cosgrove and give Jeevan Mendis his eighth wicket in the game but the Sri Lankan’s match figures of 8 for 283 were the most expensive in Derbyshire’s history.The game almost ground to a halt after Cosgrove’s departure with Colin Ackermann and Ned Eckersley scoring only 43 runs in 13 overs while Derbyshire slowed down the over rate.Leicestershire finally declared three overs after tea leaving Derbyshire to score at more than nine an over to pull off what would have been an astonishing victory and the players shook hands with 23 overs still to bowl.

England have suffered a blow ahead of the Women’s World Cup with the news that their captain, Heather Knight, has suffered a stress fracture in her left foot and is expected to be out for five-to-six weeks.Knight should be fit to return for the tournament, which starts in seven weeks’ time on June 24 with England playing India, but the injury could hamper her preparations. She will wear a protective boot for the first stage of her recovery, before returning to light training, with a goal of being ready for England’s World Cup warm-up match against Sri Lanka on June 19.England have been focused on this tournament since Knight was appointed as Charlotte Edwards’ replacement at the start of last summer. Speaking at the unveiling of England’s new kit on Tuesday, she was excited about the challenge of trying to win a global trophy for the first time since the 2009 Women’s World T20.”It’s been a long time coming, but it’s going to come round pretty quick now, and what a summer it’s hopefully going to be,” Knight said. “There’s nothing better than a home World Cup and being able to captain in it, so as a team we are pretty excited.”Knight and the coach, Mark Robinson, have enjoyed a successful 12 months working together, with four limited-overs series wins from four, and England will go into the Women’s World Cup ranked as the No. 2 ODI side in the world, behind reigning champions, Australia.However, England’s recent record in global tournaments has not been impressive, despite the advent of professionalism in 2014, and Robinson has suggested they still have improvements to make. The injury to Knight – whose all-round importance is emphasised by her averaging 38.75 with the bat and 19.00 with the ball as captain – is particularly unwelcome ahead of a competition she believes will be the “most scrutinised ever” for the women’s game.Heather Knight has led England to four series wins from four since being appointed captain•Getty Images

“It’s a massive opportunity for women’s cricket to put the sport out there and show how far the game’s come, and I think it’s going to be the most publicised and scrutinised World Cup ever,” she said. “As a team we are in a good place for that. It’s going to be slightly alien I think, the things we’ll come across, but we’ve worked hard in the last year to be ready for that added pressure and expectation, [and] that’s a good thing for our sport.”A positive for England in recent days has been the return to action of wicketkeeper-batsman Sarah Taylor, after almost a year away from the game, and Knight was encouraged by her progress and potential World Cup availability.”She’s done massively well to make that trip to Abu Dhabi and was involved in a lot more than we thought she would be. Seeing her back on a cricket pitch was really brilliant. She would still walk into any team in the world and we’d love to have her. She’s taking it one step at a time. The signs are positive, and we’ll see how it goes leading up to the World Cup”It’s brilliant that it is becoming easier to talk about [mental health], it’s made it a lot easier for a number of people. To see Sarah addressing those issues is good to see, it puts cricket in perspective a little bit. Mental health, and health in general, is a lot more important.”

Bertie Wijesinghe, the former Ceylon-representative cricketer and coach, died on Saturday aged 96. Wijesinghe, an allrounder who bowled offspin and medium pace, represented S Thomas’ College Mt Lavinia from 1936 to 1939. He then moved to SSC, and played for Ceylon in the pre-Test era.Wijesinghe’s greatest contribution, though, was as a coach. The Wettimuny brothers – Sunil, Mithra and Sidath – who all played for the Sri Lanka were coached by Wijesinghe.”Whatever skills we learnt from cricket we owe it to him,” Sidath Wettimuny said. “He was a fabulous coach, the best in the business. His knowledge and the way he transferred that knowledge to us was fantastic. Bertie lived a full life and was one of the greatest cricketers produced by SSC and one of the best coaches the country has produced.”Former Sri Lanka and SSC captain Anura Tennekoon also paid tribute to Wijesinghe: “He helped me to brush up my technique from school to club level. He was very good at putting the basics right of a cricketer whether it be batting or bowling, that was his main strength.”Wijesinghe had also worked as the sports editor of the from 1953 to 1972 and, alongside another SSC stalwart Lucien de Zoysa, provided ball-by-ball commentary on radio.

The biggest obstacle in New Zealand’s path to a first ever Test series win over South Africa is the opposition’s pace pack, according to coach Mike Hesson.”From a seam bowling point of view, they are strong, they have got a lot of variety,” Hesson said in Durban. “They have some bounce bowlers, some good swing bowlers, some seam bowlers so that will provide it’s own challenges.”New Zealand are fresh off a 2-0 sweep over Zimbabwe, where their batsmen profited from time in the middle but were not always challenged by a hardworking but tame attack. Donald Tiripano, Michael Chinouya, Chamu Chibhabha and Prince Masvaure all bowled around 130kphs and slower, did not find movement or bounce and offered regular freebies. Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander, Kagiso Rabada, Kyle Abbott, Wayne Parnell or Chris Morris are not expected to be as generous.South Africa’s six seamers, of which three are likely to play, are known for swing, seam movement and speed. Even though they have not competed in a Test match in nearly seven months and two of the three first-choice picks – Philander and Steyn – missed most of last summer with injuries, Hesson expects them to pose a serious threat to his line-up.”Vernon has played a lot of cricket recently so he has got loads of overs under his belt. He is a high quality bowler. We saw him at his best a few years ago. He hits lovely lengths and we know he is going to provide a challenge there, most likely with the new ball,” Hesson said, referring to Philander’s outings with the South African A team. Philander travelled to Zimbabwe and Australia where he was his usual miserly self, although he did not lead the wicket-takers’ list.Philander’s hauls in the last two years have decreased significantly from when his career began. But New Zealand will remember his 21 against them in the series in 2012, of which 10 came in the Hamilton Test South Africa won, and his seven in the Newlands match a year later. They will be wary of his ability to tempt batsmen outside the off stump, to create uncertainty with subtle movement and if nothing else, to hold his end while his team-mates attack.It is most likely those team-mates will be Steyn and Rabada, and Hesson mentioned both as men New Zealand would watching out for. “In terms of Kagiso Rabada, he has got pace, bounce and skill and he is fresh so he keeps running in at you hard. He is someone we are going to have to spend a bit of time on. We know he is a quality bowler. And then when you’ve got Dale Steyn at the other end, there is no let off.”New Zealand will draw inspiration from their recent form – they batted three times in the two-match series in Zimbabwe, registered six centuries and were not bowled out in any of their innings – but remain cautious that run-scoring won’t be as simple in South Africa as it was in Bulawayo. “We recognise that the surfaces there (Zimbabwe) are significantly different than they are here,” Hesson said.What they don’t know is exactly how different. There has never been a first-class match played at Kingsmead in August before so nobody knows what to expect from early season conditions. Durban does not get as cold as the rest of South Africa in winter, neither does it get as dry as the inland of the country, so it is unlikely to be too fresh a pitch. It may even take some turn, as it did during a limited-overs series played last August, which New Zealand were part of. If it does, they have come prepared.”It depends how dry the wicket is. If we think it’s going to turn – it turned during the one-dayers last year – we might play two spinners,” Hesson said. “We wouldn’t be afraid playing two spinners, if we felt that it was going to be dry and turn.”That was New Zealand’s strategy in Zimbabwe where they fielded both Ish Sodhi and Mitchell Santner to back up a three-pronged pace pack comprising Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Neil Wagner. Wickets were spread among them with Wagner topping the charts with 11 scalps and Sodhi (eight), Boult and Santner and Southee (six each) not far behind. On unresponsive surfaces, the five-man attack combined to take 20 wickets twice and win the series.With that in mind, it may turn out that the biggest obstacle between South Africa defending an unbeaten record that has stretched back 14 series from 1931, and New Zealand, is the opposition’s pace pack.

ScorecardChris Rushworth claimed four wickets as Lancashire were bowled out for 204•Getty Images

Had James Anderson’s stress fracture healed a trifle more quickly, he would have been playing against Pakistan in the Test match at Lord’s. Instead of that, however, he spent his Saturday at the home of cricket. That, at any rate, is probably how Chris Firth sees it.On most weekends in the summer Firth captains Southport and Birkdale’s first team but at around 5.30am on the first morning of this game, he began tipping up around a thousand seats to remove the overnight rain from them. This is county week at Trafalgar Road and that matters to folk round here.Southport is not alone, of course. By a lunacy of the fixture list likely to make even the most tranquil Buddhist scream in frustration, the coming week sees Lancashire play at Southport at the same time as Glamorgan are playing at Colwyn Bay and Kent at Tunbridge Wells. And yes, it is the Cheltenham Festival, too. It is as though someone had decided to hold a beauty contest for England’s cricketing Elysiums.At all of these great grounds members have taken unpaid holidays in order to welcome first-class cricket. Sightscreens have been painted, hospitality sold and patios brushed to within a cubit of their stony lives. Wickets have been rolled and weather forecasts studied with more than jocular cynicism. Outground cricket is not some indulgent Betjemanesque whimsy; it could be near the heart of the English four-day season if only some counties and a few ECB officials loved it a little more and saw the long-term value of spending a few bob taking the game to the people.Rarely, though, does the composition of the teams in an outground match contain such delightful contrasts as was on offer at Trafalgar Road. In the Lancashire team, for the first two innings anyway, was Anderson, who will almost certainly open England’s bowling against Pakistan on Friday, but also Tom Moores, who was making his first-class debut. Moores, indeed, was watched by his father, Peter, not so long ago an England coach himself, but today, was simply a dad watching his lad.In the Durham side was Ben Stokes, who may line up alongside Anderson on Friday, and Adam Hickey, who had never played in the County Championship before. Of the four players, Moores had just about the better day. His 54-minute 25 helped Lancashire recover a smidgeon from 105 for 5 when Karl Brown was out for nought.Moores added 41 with Steven Croft but was dropped twice, receiving the first generosity when he nicked his first ball to Stokes at third slip, who thus dropped his second catch of the day and hurled the ball into the ground in Vizigothic fury. Merseyside cricket fans are generally unimpressed by such histrionics. “Hey, Stokesy-la! Butterfingers!” one yelled.Moores eventually nicked a catch to Michael Richardson off the medium pace of Keaton Jennings and the same bowler removed Kyle Jarvis, caught and bowled for 2, but it was not these later batsmen’s fault that Lancashire were 188 for 7 at tea or bowled out for 204 shortly after the resumption.Chris Rushworth, bowling on a surface which offered him pace and bounce but which both he and Lancashire’s Alviro Petersen described as a “good cricket wicket”, dismissed the last three batsmen in 11 balls early in the evening session to end the Lancashire innings. Rushworth finished with 4 for 30 from 17 overs while the Lancashire skipper, Croft, was the last man dismissed, caught and bowled by Sunderland’s finest beard for a valiant 54.How Croft must have regretted the profligacy of his colleagues, who had managed to turn a very respectable 91 for 2 into a very dodgy 105 for 5 in just three careless post-prandial overs. This decline began when Luke Procter, having got his nut down in characteristic fashion to make 30 in 135 minutes, flashed at Paul Coughlin but only edged a catch to Richardson.Then Petersen, perhaps surfing the contentment that comes when you make a half-century against a decent attack, called Croft for a second run but was well beaten by Jack Burnham’s throw from deep midwicket. Two overs later, Brown’s horribly flat-footed slash only nicked a catch to Jennings off Graham Onions. In less than the time it took the corporate hospitality boys to move from the claret to the port, Lancashire had gone from gentle prosperity to genteel poverty.But even after they had been bowled out 60 runs short of acceptability, Lancashire cricketers could still console themselves that they had Anderson in their attack during Durham’s first innings. This consolation appeared especially significant when Anderson removed Jennings in the third over of the day but Mark Stoneman and Scott Borthwick then added 69 for the second wicket in a manner that ranged from the confident to the vulnerable. The former was shown by the boundaries the pair stroked off Jarvis; the latter, by the over in which Borthwick played and missed five times to Anderson.Still, though, the pair survived and it looked as though Durham’s cricketers were heading for a position of strength when Procter removed both Stoneman and Burnham in the last five overs of a day that had begun at noon. Catches were edged to Moores and Croft and the Lancashire pair made no mistake. Rushworth considered the game evenly poised and few in the happy crowd on Saturday seemed keen to dispute the contention.And in many respects that final session was the best of the day. A fed and watered crowd watched the cricket in bubbling contentment and the Southport and Birkdale chairman, Tony Elwood, even sported his Bertie Wooster blazer. For the club’s volunteers, all their work was utterly worthwhile as the evening warmed. The sun shone, too, although if the tireless Lindsey Bridge could have found a ladder long enough, she would have sent someone up with a duster to give it a polish.

ScorecardSam Billings•Getty Images

Unbeaten centuries from Kent’s Sam Billings and Joe Denly counted for nothing as Colin Ingram’s ice-cool unbeaten 95 steered Glamorgan to a thrilling three-wicket win over Kent in a rain-affected Royal London One-Day Cup south group clash in Canterbury.In a game reduced to 42 overs per side following the loss of 90 minutes to drizzle mid-way through Kent’s innings, Ingram proved the immovable bedrock of the Welsh reply, hitting four fours and six sixes to clinch victory with seven balls to spare.Chasing a revised target of 293 from their 42 overs, Glamorgan openers Jacques Rudolph and David Lloyd took a sensible and pragmatic approach as they pursued at an asking rate of almost seven-an-over.With the floodlights on in relative gloom, the pair played themselves in before pressing the run-rate accelerator toward the end of their nine-over powerplay.Lloyd, the right-hander with an unfeasibly wide stance, was quick to straight-drive Matt Coles, then pulled viciously for another boundary when the Kent paceman dropped short.Rudolph (24) was caught on the sweep at deep square leg from James Tredwell’s second delivery of the day to make it 63 for 1and Tredwell should also have removed Will Bragg without scoring, only for Billings to miss a sharp stumping chance.Lloyd moved to a 48-ball 50 with a pulled four off David Griffiths and Bragg upped the tempo further with a 56-ball half-century with five fours and a six.The pair added 86 before Lloyd (65), in attempting a flat-bat pull against Coles picked out Latham at square leg then, two balls later Bragg (52) was caught at mid-wicket when attempting a reverse lap against Tredwell.Tredwell took a third wicket having Aneurin Donald (9) caught at long-off but Glamorgan’s fifth-wicket partners Ingram and Chris Cooke combined to rekindle the run chase and, with 10 overs required, had reduced their victory target to 86 runs.Ingram, the elegant left-hander, continued to show consummate timing in reaching a 30-ball 50 with three sixes but, with 55 needed Cooke (21) needlessly heaved across the line to be bowled by Coles then, with the target reduced to 36, Graham Wagg (8) was run out by Coles’s under-arm shy to the non-striker’s end after Ingram demanded a single.With three overs remaining Craig Meschede (8) ran himself out attempting two to deep cover, but Griffiths’s over ended with Ingram clubbing four over point and a six into the building site.In the penultimate over, Ingram steered another brace of boundaries to third man leaving Timm van der Gugten to win it.Batting first on a slow pitch that had had the sting taken out of it by Saturday’s thunderstorms, Kent’s openers Tom Latham (9) and Daniel Bell-Drummond posted a half-century first-wicket stand, only for both to fall in quick successionLatham flicked lazily off Wagg to be caught at long leg then Bell-Drummond nicked to the keeper after Michael Hogan got one to seam away using the Canterbury slope.Denly might have joined them back in the hutch when, with his score on 11, he sliced to point where Dean Cosker downed a tough overhead chance.Sam Northeast (26) pulled a length-ball from Van der Gugten straight into the hands of deep mid-wicket just before Denly posted a 64-ball 50 with four fours and a six.Rain arrived just before 1pm, leading to the loss of eight overs, forcing Kent to up their tempo after the 2.30pm re-start.Billings also enjoyed a let off when, on 27, Hogan dropped a skier at mid-off off the bowling off Meschede and took advantage by scampering to a 36-ball 50 with a six off Cosker that flew onto the Kent players’ balcony.The milestones continued when Denly moved to the fifth List A hundred of his career with eight fours and a brace of sixes.Billings continued to show why the Delhi Daredevils invested in his services in the 2016 IPL with a stunning display of clean, inventive hitting. His 53-ball 100 came with a the biggest six of the day off Hogan and took just over an hour.The pair went on to add 170 off 92 deliveries coasting past Kent’s previous List A fourth-wicket record against Glamorgan of 146 set by Alan Ealham and Chris Tavare at Swansea in 1980 as the hosts scored at 14 an over from the final five overs. In the end though, it all proved to no avail.