New Zealand Cricket Academy (NZCA) and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation(ONGC) were slugging it out in a tense semifinal contest at the MAChidambaram Stadium at Chepauk today. The fall of opener Radhey ShyamGupte in the last over of the day may have just tilted the balance inNew Zealand’s way. The oilmen closed out at 171/4, still 158 adriftand with the cream of their batting back in the pavilion. Earlier acombative unbeaten hundred from allrounder James Franklin and his 52run last wicket association with Chris Martin lifted the visitors to329. India seamer Amit Bhandari was the pick of the bowlers mopping uptwo more wickets today to finish with a bag of six.Resuming at 252/6, the Academy boys lost three wickets for 25 runs inthe morning. Bhandari scalped two in two balls taking out wicketkeeperMartyn Sigley and Bruce Martin to leave NZCA at 270/8. Left armspinner Rahul Sanghvi then got into the act, upsetting Jeeten Patel’sstumps for four. Then came the 99 minute rearguard action fromFranklin, captain of the Kiwi side at the Under 19 World Cup inJanuary this year, and Martin. ONGC got rid of the latter in the 132ndover, when he directed Sanghvi into the hands of Gupte at sillypoint.The lefthanded Franklin was left high and dry on a magnificent 115(272 balls, 12 fours). Bhandari (6/45) and Sanghvi (4/122) shared allten wickets between them.ONGC commenced their reply shortly after lunch and with his fifthball, right arm quickie Chris Martin despatched Gagan Khoda for aduck. The Rajasthan captain flicked him straight into the hands of anagile Michael Papps at forward short leg. Radhey Shyam Gupte, whoreplaced Ravi Sehgal for this match, and captain Gautam Vadhera thensteadied the innings with a patient stand of 82. Vadehra looked themore enterprising of the two, tucking into left arm spinner BruceMartin with gusto. At the opposite end left arm quick Franklin wasgetting the ball to land on a relentless off stump line as well asdropping it on the perfect length to tempt the batsman into a recklesswaft outside off stump. Vadehra launched into one which went over thehead of point who stuck out his left hand but the ball refused tostick.Legspinner Aaron Redmond came on from the pavilion end and managed toget a leg break to kick up which Gupte gloved just over the slipcordon. It was Vadehra who departed first, slashing Martin straightinto James Marshall at gully for 32. Virender Shewag, the stockilybuilt Delhi strokemaker arrived in the middle and ondrove his firstball, a full toss, through the legs of mid on for four. Gupte took thecue from his partner, heaving Redmond over squareleg for the first sixoff the innings. NZCA captain Jacob Oram gave Chris Martin a welldeserved break after an extended spell and brought himself on from theIndian Oil end. Shewag set the innings alight with back to backboundaries. The first a flick to backward squareleg that brought upthe 100 and the second a delectable dab past gully to the backwardpoint fence.Oram decided enough was enough and introduced off spinner Jeeten Patelinto the firing line. It was Redmond though who broke through, Shewagrocking back and indiscreetly forcing him uppishly into the off side.Chris Martin completed the low catch at deep point to leave the oilmenat 117/3. Jeeten Patel may be a brilliant bowler but not on theevidence of his showing today. Oram kept him on a shade too long andboth Gupte and Rizwan Shamshad gleefully waded into him, taking theaerial route to midwicket and straight down the ground for boundaries.Gupte had settled down to play a disciplined knock after some earlyjitters but he let his guard down in the last over of the day fromRedmond. The second ball was sliced into second slip’s midriff but thefielder agonisingly failed to close his hands over the ball. Two ballslater Gupte went forward and tried to smother the spin. The ballpopped up into the safe hands of Lou Vincent at silly point to deal adefinitive blow to ONGC’s aspirations.

After being bowled out for less than one hundred twice in its 1-3 series loss to England earlier this year, it was always argued that it was West Indies’ batting that was likely to shape as its biggest problem on this Australian tour.Come next week and the first Test meeting between them and Australia, though, batting may well constitute only so much as half of the tourists’ dilemmas.At least, that is what their performance suggested today in the first-class match against Victoria at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.After keeping the tourists to an inadequate 167 in the first innings yesterday – a total that could have been significantly smaller had number eight batsman Mahendra Nagamootoo not shown the resistance that allowed him to score a defiant forty-eight – the Victorian batsmen today did it easily, ending the day 137 runs ahead with seven wickets in hand. At stumps on day two, Victoria is very comfortably placed at 3/304.Led by Brad Hodge (134*) and Jason Arnberger (99), the Bushrangers performed in a manner that belied their bottom placing on the domestic first-class competition ladder. Here was a team that had lost each of its first two Pura Cup matches of the season by huge margins. Yet today, it managed to make its international opposition look completely underdone. With due credit to the Victorians, this arguably says more about the standard of West Indian cricket than about Australia’s own national competition.Following their forgettable batting performance yesterday, vice-captain Sherwin Campbell had hoped a solid showing with the ball would be the confidence builder from which the West Indians could draw inspiration in the second innings. Unfortunately, his bowlers, for the most part, were disappointing.Nixon McLean, tipped to be Courtney Walsh’s opening bowling partner in next week’s Test in Brisbane, was punished heavily. In the last session of the day, by way of example, the tall right armer went for twenty-three runs off four overs.Nevertheless, it has to be said that he was a little unlucky. After capturing the early wicket of Shawn Craig (1), he should have had the scalp of Matthew Mott (18) alongside his name as well, but a cut shot from the nuggety right hander was dropped by Daren Ganga at gully with his score on a mere three.This was not the only chance missed by the West Indian fielders. Michael Klinger (38*) would have been out at sixteen but for a miss at slip by Campbell. Instead, Klinger and Hodge made light work of their opponents, hitting them to all parts of the ground with ease in a fluent display.Before Klinger, it was Arnberger who had aided Hodge in the task of overtaking the Windies’ first innings total. The pair added 121 runs for the third wicket in 132 minutes, sailing past the tourists’ score when Hodge lofted leg-spinner Nagamootoo (0/61 off fourteen overs) over the long-off fence. Clearly, it had been that sort of a day for them.Walsh was the best of the West Indian attack, with 1/44 off 23 overs. Today’s wicket-takers, McLean and Merv Dillon, returned 1/78 off twenty-one overs and 1/75 off twenty-three respectively.At the end of the day, Windies’ coach Roger Harper said it had been a difficult one for his team. “Tough is an understatement. Three hundred runs in a day is a lot more than we would’ve liked, a lot more than we wanted, a lot more than the goal we set ourselves in allowing them to score. And wecould have done a lot, lot better. We weren’t consistent, we weren’t accurate enough, we bowled both sides of the wicket and they just took advantage of it,” he said.”In the context of the way the game is played these days, you expect teams to score somewhere in the region of two and a half runs an over. But to score over three runs an over, especially against our attack, which is a Test attack, is much too many. It’s simple, the consistency wasn’t there and thepatience wasn’t there and that was about it. We never really got the ball in the right place,” he said.Compounding the West Indians’ problems is an injury to captain Jimmy Adams, who was hit on the nose by a Marlon Black delivery this morning in the nets. Adams, who was on and off the field today, will hopefully be fit to fully resume tomorrow.If he is, he will be captaining a team which, in Harper’s words, has “no choice but to come out and play good cricket.”Harper admitted the team is under-prepared for the Test series. “We may have wanted another match to prepare ourselves but this is the itinerary we’ve been set and we have to make the most of it and be as well prepared as we can. And I don’t think we gave the performance in this match so far thatwould say to anyone that we are a team fully prepared to go into a Test match,” he said.

Zimbabwe came back more than once, if not actuallyfrom the dead, then as nearly so as makes nodifference, to pull back a one wicket victory andreduce the series margin to 2-1. It was aremarkable game of cricket with several twists,not least the final one when Zimbabwe lost twowickets in two balls after tying the scores. HenryOlonga calmly tapped the penultimate delivery, byAjit Agarkar, over mid on to seal a triumph thatshould certainly shoot down the theory that theZimbabweans are chokers non pareil. Being theirfirst victory against India in India in twelvetries, it would have been a particularly choicemoment to savour.”Obviously its fantastic for our guys to get theirfirst victory in India. Its a big confidencebooster. We’re overjoyed”, said skipper HeathStreak. “Although we lost a few wickets, our runrate was still up there. Grant and Andy ranparticularly well between the wickets and we neverlet the run rate get too far away from us.” GrantFlower wore an impassive look after the game butit was clear that the Man of the Match award herewas close to his heart. Asked what he and Andydecided when they came together, he said, “Just tokeep our heads. The important thing was to keepwickets in hand since we were playing one lessbatsman”. He said that his batting slump had goneon for longer than he would have liked. “I’m happythe way things have gone. You just have to takeeach game as it comes but obviously the confidenceis there at the moment.”It had looked curtains for the visitors after theFlower brothers and Gavin Rennie had tumbled inthe space of seven balls to leave Zimbabwe at214/6 after 41 overs. Andy Flower (77) and GrantFlower (70) had played sensibly to rescue Zimbabwefrom a precarious 52/3. There was hardly a sign ofrisk as they rattled up the runs and the change ofgears, when it came, was barely perceptible. Thepartnership was worth 158 before it was brokenwhen Grant was fooled by a well disguised slowerdelivery from Prasad. Rennie was run out firstball and in the same over Andy Flower was caughtbehind off Tendulkar. Heath Streak and MlulekiNkala kept them in the game with a 44 run standand far from being perturbed by his skipper’sdeparture, Nkala struck the next ball from Joshifor a straight six, one bounce into thesightscreen, to send an unambiguous statement ofintent to the Indians. He was run out scamperingfor the winning run and Agarkar bowled TravisFriend next ball to add to the drama but Olongakept his nerve to hand Zimbabwe a most deservingvictory.Chasing 284 at 5.68 an over, Zimbabwe beganbrightly with Alistair Campbell looking inexcellent touch. He stroked the ball around in thefirst four overs with an array of sound cricketingshots. There was not the slightest hint ofcrudeness as he procured five boundaries, four offVenkatesh Prasad. It was Zaheer Khan who made thefirst breach, producing a rising delivery whichkissed the edge of Campbell’s bat through toDahiya. Both Guy Whittall and Stuart Carlislebarely troubled the scorers, bringing the Flowerstogether with Gavin Rennie the only specialist batto follow ahead of a lengthy tail. After playingthemselves in, the shackles were broken in a Joshiover which went for 16 runs, including a sixapiece by both batsmen to bring up the hundred ofthe innings. Soon afterwards, Yuvraj Singh misseda direct hit at the bowlers end which would sentAndy Flower on his way and that was just the sliceof luck which Heath Streak said later was abouttime went Zimbabwe’s way.Earlier a masterful innings, even by his own loftystandards, from Sachin Tendulkar helped India offto a flyer of a start against Zimbabwe in Jodhpur.The gamble of going into the match with fiveseamers, and only the spin of Grant Flower asbackup didnt seem to have worked as the ball keptdisappearing into the wide open spaces in the fastoutfield off Tendulkar’s blade. The lashingreceived by the spinners in the previous game fromSourav Ganguly probably led to the drasticoverhauling of the attack but as it turned outGanguly did not last long, departing in the fourthover for just five after left armer Bryan Stranggot one to sneak in between bat and pad and uproothis offstump.Having begun with a succession of pulls off TravisFriend that fetched three fours and a six across awide arc from fine leg to midwicket, Tendulkar’sbelligerence was not becalmed by Ganguly’sdismissal. His cover driving was quite exquisite,played with a short backlift and minimum followthrough, with the ball through the field in aflash. A delicate glide off Strang went betweenthe wicketkeeper and slip with clockworkprecision. When he struck Olonga over long off forhis second six, Tendulkar had reached his halfcentury in just 37 balls and 39 minutes ofexhilarating batting. He was now giving anexemplary demonstration of all the strokes in thebook: a straight drive that shaved the stumps atthe bowler’s end, the turn of the wrists fromoutside off stump to the midwicket fence and thecut off the backfoot between point and cover.India were 102/1 after 15 overs, seemingly on theway to batting Zimbabwe out of the game.Hereupon the visitors did a simply commendable jobof containing India from thereon. Heath Streak hademphasised the virtues of discipline in his prematch briefing and that was exactly what thebowlers strove to achieve. The fifth seamerMluleki Nkala did a good job of keeping thebatsmen tight and all the others bowled well intheir second spells. However it was the spinnerGrant Flower who almost singlehandedly put thefetters on the Indian innings, bowling ten overson the trot for returns of 3/43. Rahul Dravid’s(30 in 53 balls) 114 run stand with Tendulkar wasbroken when Grant Flower had him caught at shortfine leg in his first over and he followed it upby collecting a return catch to dispatch thedisappointing Yuvraj Singh. After that stunning 84on debut his honeymoon seems to be well and trulyover. Two balls later Hemang Badani was run out,trying to scamper for what would have Tendulkar’s100th run, and being rightly sent back.Tendulkar’s 27th ODI hundred duly arrived, off 93balls, the second fifty being much heavier goingthen the first. When Reetinder Sodhi was caught atpoint off Strang, the brittleness of the Indianmiddle order had been thoroughly exposed and theZimbabweans had surged back brilliantly into thematch.Sunil Joshi joined Tendulkar at 163/5 to begin therebuilding process and in a brief knock thelefthander exhibited his favourite pull to deepmidwicket on bended knee more than once beforebeing stumped in Grant Flower’s last over with thepartnership worth 57. The lefthander’s 25 in 24balls had been vital in restoring the momentum ofthe innings aborted by the middle order collapse.The responsibility was Tendulkar’s to marshal thetail through to a competitive total but he wascaught at short fine leg as he tried to improvisea shot over fine leg for 146 (153 balls, 15 foursand 2 sixes). At 235/8, Zimbabwe skipper HeathStreak would have had illusions of restrictingIndia to 250. The last over started with India on256/8 but that last over and more precisely thelast four balls altered the equationsdramatically. A quite sensational display of cleanhitting by Zaheer Khan overshadowed, if that ispossible, even Tendulkar and lift India to asubstantive 283/8. Khan smote four successivesixes, interrupted by a wide, off a hapless HenryOlonga and as the ball disappeared for the fourthtime, so one thought did Zimbabwe’s chances. Wewere wrong.

Richard Johnson is undergoing tests on Monday and Tuesday and if he comes though these then he will play at The Oval on Wednesday.Keith Parsons is still suffering with his knee, and played in the second XI match against Surrey at The County Ground last week. However he has still not recovered and he is now having tests for a torn cartilage.Graham Rose is also still suffering with his knee.

Loughborough are the inaugural Champions of the Inter-UCCE Championship.Durham were second, remaining unbeaten and enjoying outright victories over Cambridge and Bradford/Leeds but suffering at the hands of the weather on several occasions.Loughborough secured four first innings victories and were indebted to the batting of Steven Selwood who hit 128, 82, 64 and 126 in consecutive innings. They will be particularly keen to have beaten the three first-class sides in the competition – Cambridge, Oxford and Durham.Loudon was equally impressive for Durham; 42 against Durham was followed by 85 against Cambridge and 131* against Bradford/Leeds.Loughborough and second placed Durham will contest the One-Day Challenge at Lord’s on Wednesday 27th June.

Having proved his credentials as a deadly off-spinner, Harbhajan Singhis now concentrating his energies on improving his batting too inorder to become a potent all-rounder.Harbhajan, who earned a record 32-wicket haul in the home Test seriesagainst Australia, has made the headlines on the Zimbabwe tour fordifferent reasons.Despite being the second highest wicket-taker for India in the Testseries, it was his gutsy contribution with the bat in both the Teststhat was more acknowledged. And Harbhajan, who turns 21 on July 3,himself knows his batting only too well.”I think my footwork is not very good but my eyesight is very good. Ican spot it (the ball) early,” he told PTI in an interview inBulawayo. He said his crucial knock in the Chennai Test againstAustralia had given him the confidence that he can get some runs too.”The point is if you bat well in an international series once, youhave the confidence to do it again. (After the knock againstAustralia) I said to myself: ‘If you can get it against Australia, youcan get it against any team’.””In the Ranji Trophy too this year, I have made good scores. Sowhenever I got a chance to go in the middle, I always felt I couldcontribute 30-40 runs,” he said.”But there are a lot of improvements needed in my batting and I willtry to improve more and more as the next few series are going to beonly tougher,” he said.The emphasis on batting is in no way at the cost of his bowling andHarbhajan continues to be as impressive as he was during theAustralian series though the number of his victims has certainly comedown.

Trent Bridge:
Lancashire 2nd XI 287-3 (GD Lloyd 148*, MJ Chilton 66)
Nottinghamshire 2nd XI 147-7 (CJ Hewison 47)
Lancashire 2nd XI won the match on run rate.1st day of 3Hinckley:
Leicestershire 1st innings: 247-6 (AS Wright 76, SJ Adshead 52)
YorkshireCoggeshall:
Derbyshire 244-6 (RM Khan 91)
EssexWest End:
Hampshire 136 (M Bulbeck 4-34)
Somerset 25-1

Richard Johnson, the man pulled out of this Canterbury Cricket Week fixture on Wednesday to answer England’s Trent Bridge SOS, was the Somerset batting hero as the second-placed visitors held out for a draw against third-placed Kent.Having avoided the follow-on by scrambling two leg-byes from the second ball of the fourth and final day, Somerset were finally dismissed for 336 to concede a first innings deficit of 115.Kent batted again for just 36.4 overs in adding a further 205 for three, with in-form opening batsman David Fulton scoring an unbeaten 104 for his seventh first-class century of a prolific summer.The 29-year-old right-hander scored an unbeaten 208 in the first innings, making his the first Kent batsman since Aravinda de Silva in 1995 to score a century in each innings of a match – but the county’s first to be not out in each innings.Matthew Fleming’s declaration left Somerset an unlikely victory target of 321 from 41 overs, but with left-armer Min Patel and off-spinner Andrew Symonds bowling in tandem Kent were able to crowd the bat and apply the pressure.Only captain Jamie Cox and Peter Bowler made it past 20 for Somerset as Patel followed his first innings haul of eight for 119, with four victims second time around to finish with career-best match figures of 12 for 144.Symonds chipped in with three for 28 from the Nackington Road End, but it was Johnson and his ninth wicket partner Steffan Jones who batted out the final six overs of the match to prevent Kent from pulling off their fourth consecutive championship win.Fulton, who now boasts a season’s first-class run tally to 1,465 at an average of 73.25, also claimed seven catches in the match – but Kent were left to rue their six missed chances of day three.

Bermuda, Canada, Argentina, the Caymans, USA, and a Combined team (from Belize, the Bahamas and Panama) are contesting the Americas Under 19 championships in Bermuda this week. Halfway through the competition, Bermuda lead the table with two wins and a draw, closely followed by Canada and the Caymans.The first day of play was washed out completely, and Canada’s second match against the Caymans was also abandoned due to a wet pitch, although two other matches were completed on the second day. Bermuda scored a massive victory over the Combined squad in a match reduced to 32 overs. Bermuda totalled 286/3 with Dion Stovell making 122*, and the Combined squad (playing with kit loaned to them by the BCBC) could only muster 48 all out. Argentina beat the USA.Yesterday Canada beat Argentina by 136 runs. G. Roberts was top scorer with 31 but five others had scores of 24 or more. The Caymans defeated the Combined XI, and Bermuda had another convincing win this time over the USA squad.Friday’s matches pitted Canada against the Combined team, Bermuda took on Argentina, and the USA plays the Caymans. The final day of the tournament on Saturday will see what may be the tournament decider between Bermuda and Canada.The standings as of Thursday’s games

GP  W  L  D  PTBermuda   3  2  0  1  10Canada    3  1  0  2   8Caymans   3  1  0  2   8Argentina 3  1  1  1   6USA       3  0  2  1   2Combined  3  0  2  1   2

BAT Sports are within touching distance of the Southern Electric ECB Premier League crown.A crushing nine-wicket win over Andover means they require a maximum of five points from next Saturday’s final match at Calmore to lift the championship.But Havant, last season’s champions, don’t intend letting go of the title lightly.They took a 22-point maximum from a six-wicket win at South Wilts and predict more of the same in the final match against Burridge.At the opposite end of the table, Liphook & Ripsley confirmed Hungerford’s relegation with a four-wicket victory.Bashley (Rydal) trimmed Calmore Sports by 13 runs, while Bournemouth ran up 241-7 before skittling Burridge for a dismal 73.Champions-elect BAT took on Andover without the injured Richard Taylor and had key left-armer Dan Goldstraw nursing an inter-costal (side) injury.But they made relatively short work of the visitors – off-spinner Richard Dibden (5-15) and Goldstraw (3-27), bowling off a short run-up, shooting Andover out for 125.Only Mark Miller (55) put up much of a fight as Andover’s batting collapsed all around him.BAT skipper Dave Banks, a near certainty to win the SPL wicketkeeping award after taking his season’s tally to 33 victims, praised his side’s out-cricket.”Our fielding was outstanding,” he said. “We must have saved 40 or 50 runs in the field – even the bad balls we bowled weren’t allowed to be punished.”BAT polished off the target in just 28 overs – Damian Shirazi (33) the only batsman to be dismissed after taking his season’s individual run tally past the 600-mark.Richard Kenway (48) and Dave Carson (43) steered BAT to the target – and to within five points of the championship.Havant aren’t completely out of the race – mathematically, at least – after notching a comfortable six-wicket win over South Wilts at Lower Bemerton.But skipper Paul Gover acknowledges that Havant need Calmore Sports to do them a massive favour at Loperwood Park on Saturday, if the title race is to be turned on its head.”It’s out of our hands now,” Gover said. “But we’ll be giving it our best shot – you never know what might happen in this game.”Havant were certainly too good for South Wilts – only 791-run opener Russell Rowe (61) getting to grips with things as the defending champions continued to make inroads amongst his team-mates.Shawn Gillies (3-32) struck the early blows, while Jo Cranch (21) and Rob Wade (37) were the only batsmen to offer Rowe much support.A total of 177 was never likely to be enough as South Wilts struggled to contain Andy Perry (67), who got Havant off to a fine start.Perry eventually became one of three victims for Rowe (3-32), but Paul Gover (40 not out) and Gillies (35) were able to guide Havant to a comfortable win.Neil Thurgood arguably suffered the SPL’s most bizarre dismissal of the season when he was run out in the early stages of Bashley-Rydal’s 13-run win over third-placed Calmore Sports.Thurgood departed after Hampshire’s Andrew Sexton, his opening partner, over-hit an intended straight drive on to the overhead electricity cables which straddle the Bashley ground.The ball dropped down just behind the stumps at the non-striker’s end – by which time Thurgood was already two-thirds of the way down the pitch, looking for what appeared an easy single.Sexton saw what had happened and stayed his ground … leaving Thurgood stranded and run out by some 20 yards !”I’ve seen the ball hit the wires before, but never drop down just by the stumps. Neil didn’t have a prayer,” chuckled Bashley captain Neil Taylor.Sexton (57) held things together as Bashley fell to 147-8 (Andy Neal 27) against spin duo Mark Boston (3-26) and Paul Draper (2-23).Last pair Shaun Lilley (17) and Matt King (17 not out) added crucial runs before Bashley were dismissed for 189.When Draper (22), Paul Cass (22) and Jez Goode (24) steered Calmore to 108-3, the visitors were in the box seat.But Dale Middleton (3-21), Neal (2-28) and Taylor (2-28) got amongst the wickets – six batsmen being dismissed for 36 runs – to put Calmore in trouble at 144-9 (Stu Bailey 22).Allan Hurst (17) and John Shepherd (15) rallied, but Calmore were eventually all out for 176.Kristian Wilson (4-25) snapped up a late hat-trick as Bournemouth waltzed to a thumping 168-run victory at Burridge.He removed the last four batsmen without conceding a run as Burridge collapsed to 73 all out (Jo Dixon 34) after Bournemouth had piled up an impressive 241-7.South Perth bound Tom Webley (86) led the way, sharing an aggressive 70-run opening partnership with Matt Swarbrick (47) before Julian Cassell (37) joined in.Paul Jenkins (3-52) created inroads into Bournemouth’s middle-order, while Dorset left-armer Dave Kidner (3-13) triggered off the Burridge collapse after tea.Hungerford, who won back-to-back Southern League championships in the late 1990s, are certain to be relegated after suffering a four-wicket defeat at Liphook.Only stand-in skipper Neil Rider (70) as first Tim Wheatley (3-34) and later off-spinner Duncan Berry (5-28) carved through the brittle Hungerford batting.Hungerford’s 165 was overhauled in 42 overs – Chris Wright (30) top scoring in Liphook’s win.