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Jacob Oram, the New Zealand allrounder, has termed his side’s performance in the fifth ODI against Pakistan at Hamilton as “dumb cricket”, and said captain Daniel Vettori gave the team an appropriately harsh talk after the match

ESPNcricinfo staff04-Feb-2011Jacob Oram, the New Zealand allrounder, has termed his side’s performance in the fifth ODI against Pakistan in Hamilton as “dumb cricket”, and said captain Daniel Vettori gave the team an appropriately harsh talk after the match.Vettori missed the match with a hamstring injury but called a team meeting under the Seddon Park grandstand straight after the match. “Basically Dan kicked the management and support staff out, or maybe they just chose not to come and look us in the eye,” Oram said. “For an hour-and-a-half it was just the players in the dressing room and we didn’t get back to the hotel till 12.30am.”New Zealand’s loss in Hamilton was their 14th in their last 15 completed ODIs, and they have just one more match to play, against Pakistan in Auckland on Saturday, before the World Cup. Ross Taylor had said, after the fifth ODI, that the team was not far away from a win but individuals had to take more responsibility, and Oram said similar themes were discussed in the post-match meeting.”We’re just trying to get to the bottom of what is going on. We’re not far away but it’s happened too often for it to be just a coincidence. As we said, talent isn’t the issue. We all know how good the individuals in this team are. We’re not gelling and we’re not taking responsibility for winning the match for New Zealand.”Coach John Wright and his assistants Allan Donald and Trent Woodhill were absent from the meeting. Wright took over the coach’s job from Mark Greatbatch in December last year, and Donald, the former South Africa fast bowler, joined the team as bowling coach just before the start of the ODI series against Pakistan.Vettori announced after the Test series he would step down from captaincy after the World Cup, but Oram said he was still very much in charge of the current team. “Dan ran the show. He’s captain and he’s hurting more than anyone else because this team is his baby. Everyone had their say and there were a lot of home truths spoken.”There were conversations and it led to debates and arguments but we needed to get a lot of things out in the open. There was some serious honesty. But it will mean nothing if we don’t win tomorrow [Saturday] or do well at the World Cup. It will just be another chat. We’ve got to make sure this big chat means something.”Oram also expressed his disappointment with the apparent lack of composure his team showed in failing to reach Pakistan’s 268 in Hamilton – a gettable total on a flat track. New Zealand had two needless run-outs of Jesse Ryder and Scott Styris, and were eventually bowled out for just 227.Prior to the on-going six-match series, Oram had not played international cricket since August last year, when he had to return home from New Zealand’s tri-series in Sri Lanka because of the recurrence of a tendon injury in his knee. He had later said he would consider retirement if he wasn’t named in the World Cup squad. He was included for the World Cup and has played in four of the five games in the current series, impressing with his end-over bowling in the fifth match.

Cameron Mirza entered the record books by becoming the first USA Under-19 batsman to score a century

Peter Della Penna10-Feb-2011Cameron Mirza, a 17-year-old born and raised in the suburbs of northern New Jersey, created history on Monday by getting the highest score by a USA Under-19 player. Mirza carried his bat in USA’s 285-run win against Argentina on the first day of the ICC Americas U-19 Division One in Florida. He went on to score 118, only the second ton by a USA U-19 player, after Amer Afzaluddin’s ton against Argentina U-19 in 2001. The third highest score by a USA U-19 player is Andy Mohammed’s 90 against Afghanistan in the 2009 Youth World Cup qualifier, in Toronto.”It felt great, it was a relief,” Mirza said. “I was really excited when the coach told me I was going to open and I just couldn’t wait.” Mirza scored his century in 125 balls with 10 boundaries before finishing with 12 fours in his knock. It was his first game playing for USA at the U-19 level after previously playing in the U-15 squad at an ICC regional event in Bermuda in 2008.”I think he [Mirza] fits the bill,” Robin Singh, USA’s U-19 coach, said. “He’s somebody who takes his time and in 50 overs you have a lot of time to play and he fits that role pretty well.”Mirza’s mother, who travelled to Florida for the game, is Irish-American while his father immigrated to America from Pakistan. Mirza only started playing cricket four years ago after he saw his father watching a game on TV. Two years later, he became one of the first junior players in America to secure a bat sponsorship deal. He is one of only six American-born players in the current USA U-19 squad.Mirza is highly rated by current Bangladesh bowling coach Ian Pont. In the last few years, he has travelled to Potchefstroom in South Africa and Mumbai to take part in camps run by Pont.”[The camps in] India really helped with batting for long periods of time,” Mirza said. “[The camps in] South Africa helped me a lot with playing quick bowlers and India was great for spin. They all just chipped in little parts that came together.” Mirza has also spent extensive time training in New Jersey at DreamCricket Academy and Indoor Cricket USA, two places that have a fast growing reputation for producing USA U-19 representative players over the last three years.Mirza had set a personal goal before the start of the tournament to be the highest run-scorer at the end of the week. After the first day, he’s in the driver’s seat on the leaderboard and could very well achieve that goal. “I’d like to do that every game and I feel like because I did that in the first game, there’s expectations now for me to do it again,” Mirza said. “I’m confident but I realize its cricket. Anything can happen.”

John Davision, the Canada batsman, has said the team is “pretty down” after its two losses but greater self-belief was key to a better performance

Osman Samiuddin in Colombo02-Mar-2011If every player was as honest as Canada’s John Davison, sportsmen might not be ‘professional’ anymore. So couched are most reactions to wins, individual performances, highs and lows, in cliché-built nothings of professionalism, they can be scripted without actually speaking to a player. And if they were as self-deprecating as Davison, then press conferences might become a popular pastime.Davison is soon to be at an age when men start worrying about life ahead of them and buy a flash car to smooth those brows. Perhaps that’s unkind on a 40-year-old but doubts, as he so candidly admits, are creeping in. He has a grand total of zero runs from two innings and nine balls faced as an opener in this World Cup. He first thinks it might be “a little bit of a lack of technique” in his case, though admittedly the ball Thisara Perera did him with at Hambantota wasn’t half-bad.”Personally for me, it’s probably more a mental game,” he said. “I’m 40 years old and probably have those self-doubts that do I have the ability to perform at this level? I’ve been hitting the ball pretty well in the nets and I just need to give myself a little time to get in. I got a good ball against Sri Lanka, I’ll give hats off to the bowler there. But against Zimbabwe I had a game-plan and I wanted to hit [Ray] Price over mid-off early but probably could’ve given myself a few more balls to get in. I don’t think it’s too far away.”He was asked about tomorrow’s likely team and if he had known it he would’ve given it. There is talk, he said, of him moving away from the new ball, as if he was a reporter reporting on his own troubles. “I’m not a 100% sure what the team is tomorrow but there is talk of me shuffling down the order…I haven’t got a leg to stand on so I’ll bat wherever they tell me to right now.”The problem for him, John Davison says, is the mind•AFP

Canada might need Davison version 2003 to bat through positions 1-10 given the kind of form their other batsmen have been in. Their top score is Rizwan Cheema’s 37 in the opening game of the group against Sri Lanka and collectively have crumbled for 122 and 123. There is genuine talent in the squad – in the young slip of a boy Nitish Kumar – and other, rougher delights in Cheema and Hiral Patel, but such is the Associate’s plight. Pakistan’s attack, whatever shape it takes, will not make life any easier.”If you look at the scoreboard you’d probably say yes [the top order has been a problem],” Davison said. “I don’t think necessarily the bowling has been getting us out, possibly in my own case probably a little bit of a lack of technique and a couple of younger guys lacking a bit of self-belief. If you come to watch them in the nets you’ll see they’ve got talent. If they can clear their heads in a certain way to perform in the middle, it’ll give them the best chance to being successful.”This campaign is Davison’s third and “not so great compared to the others.” Canada have on occasion been competitive in the past, at the very least their batting; in 2007 they made 228 and 249 against England and New Zealand respectively, performances they want to repeat. But the side is “pretty down” at the moment.The one, admittedly small, consolation is that they are up against a side tomorrow that Associates must allow themselves to dream against. Pakistan is the ultimate Associate lottery, a game against them the day one man writes his own legend. It has happened twice at the World Cup.”We have to have our best day and they have to have their worst day,” Davison said when asked to rate the chances of an upset. “You always go into the game with some hope of winning it otherwise you don’t turn up. We’ll go into the ground hoping to deliver a good performance and hopefully Pakistan have a poor day which they have done in the past on many occasions.”We haven’t played them before. They’re a great team and a very varied attack. For example we have our challenges in reading their spinners. One of the biggest challenges in the subcontinent is to play reverse-swing in later overs.”The bad news is they haven’t got much help from their two Pakistan-origin players, Cheema and Khurram Chohan. “It’s quite interesting that the two Pakistani guys are quite shy,” Davison said. “It takes a lot of prodding to get a lot of information out of them. Maybe if we sit them down tonight and we prod them they might be able to give us some more information.”

West Indies have left out Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan, their three senior-most players, from the squad for the first two ODIs of the five-match series against Pakistan that begins on April 21

ESPNcricinfo staff14-Apr-2011West Indies have left out Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan, their three senior-most players, from the squad for the first two ODIs of the five-match series against Pakistan that begins on April 21. Dwayne Bravo, whose World Cup was cut short by a knee injury, returns to the squad and will serve as captain Darren Sammy’s deputy, while Antigua-born legspinner Anthony Martin remains the only uncapped player in the list of 13.Kieron Pollard will miss the five-match series to play for Mumbai Indians in the IPL, while Bravo, who, like Pollard, had opted out of a retainer contract with the West Indies Cricket Board, will skip the two-match Test series that follows the ODIs to join Chennai Super Kings.The exclusion of Gayle, Chanderpaul and Sarwan following West Indies’ quarter-final exit from the World Cup marks a significant step and underlines the selectors’ intention to move on and start afresh with an emphasis on youth. “Consistent with the policy to expose young players, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Chris Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan were not selected,” a West Indies Cricket Board release stated.West Indies also left out left-arm spinners Sulieman Benn and Nikita Miller; Legspinners Devendra Bishoo – who picked up three wickets on his international debut against England in Chennai in the World Cup – and Martin, along with Marlon Samuels, will comprise the spin attack. In the previous edition of the WICB Regional 50-over tournament, Martin picked up eight wickets for Leeward Islands from five games and had the best economy rate of 2.82 an over. He finished with 16 wickets in six games in the Caribbean’s domestic first-class competition.Samuels, who is also part of the squad for the one-off Twenty20 international against Pakistan, won a recall after serving a two-year ban for alleged involvement with illegal bookmakers. Lendl Simmons, the Trinidad and Tobago batsman – and nephew of Phil Simmons – was also picked while batsman Kirk Edwards and allrounder Andre Russell, who were part of the World Cup squad, kept their places.”We have looked at a mix of players who will take us through the next five to ten years, and with this squad we have put together a youthful but exciting combination of exceptionally talented cricketers who we believe can win matches,” WICB chairman of selectors Clyde Butts said.”There are some familiar faces who have not been included on this occasion, but we have already identified the core of players who we will build the team around. The time has come for us to introduce a fresh crop of players who we believe have a deep desire to excel and who can be tested at the international level.”In another decision, the WICB agreed to consider Bravo and Pollard for selection across all formats even if their IPL commitments meant they would miss national duty. The board had adopted a policy of tying national selection to participation in regional tournaments in the corresponding format – the reason behind Pollard and Bravo not being picked for the Twenty20 game against Pakistan.”It was mutually determined that Pollard would be best served by being allowed to hone his T20 skills in the Indian Premier League, which will bring future benefit to West Indies cricket,” the release stated. “He will not play in the series against Pakistan, but remains committed to West Indies cricket and will be available for future selection to the West Indies team in all formats.”About Bravo, the release said: “Dwayne Bravo, who is also contracted to an IPL franchise, will play in the one-day series against Pakistan but will miss the two Tests in order to participate in the IPL. Like Pollard, Bravo also remains committed to West Indies cricket and will be available for future selection to the West Indies team in all formats.”Squad for first two ODIs: Darren Sammy (capt), Dwayne Bravo (vice-captain), Devendra Bishoo, Darren Bravo, Kirk Edwards, Anthony Martin, Ravi Rampaul, Kemar Roach , Andre Russell, Marlon Samuels, Lendl Simmons, Devon Smith, Devon Thomas (wk).

An inspired recovery from Chennai’s faltering bowlers and a controlled approach to the chase from Suresh Raina and Michael Hussey lay at the heart of a comfortable win

The Bulletin by Siddhartha Talya04-May-2011
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsMr. Cricket took charge in typically assured style•AFP

Chennai Super Kings continued their dominance at home and eased to a fourth-successive win in conditions where power play took a backseat to opportunistic strokemaking, and stamina and steady consolidation were more crucial than short outbursts of runs. The sweltering Chennai heat and a slow pitch made it a tiring ordeal for batsmen, and it seemed at one stage that Rajasthan Royals, riding on the back of Rahul Dravid’s fluent half-century, would have the better of the contest. But an inspired recovery from Chennai’s faltering bowlers and a controlled approach to the chase from Suresh Raina and Michael Hussey set up a comfortable win – their fifth in five games at home this season.The Rajasthan openers, Dravid and Shane Watson, had displayed excellent determination to occupy the crease and set a strong foundation to their team’s innings. The pair ran well between wickets, rotated the strike, picked the gaps to scramble back for the twos, before Dravid took charge against the spinners. He pulled R Ashwin twice in an over to the midwicket fence, reverse-swept and punched Suraj Randiv for three fours in an over to different parts of the ground. The highlight of the first ten overs was his inside-out drive over extra cover off Shadab Jakati, as Rajasthan coasted to 86 in the first ten overs.The trigger for the fightback was a brilliant return catch from Jakati off Watson, as he put his hands up and intercepted a ferocious thwack back towards him in the 11th over. Despite an encouraging run-rate, and with plenty of ammunition left in the batting for a surge at the death, the desire for clearing the ropes overrode any thought of building the innings for a few more overs. Ashok Menaria holed out needlessly against Ashwin, and Johan Botha, who had picked a cheeky boundary, succumbed when he tried to use force against Jakati. Dravid was swimming in sweat in the Chennai heat and fell to a tiring shot, and not long after, the seamers returned to contain the flow further. A couple of fours from Ross Taylor was offset by a double-strike from Albie Morkel in the penultimate over, and Rajasthan only managed 61 in the last ten, losing six wickets.The wicket of M Vijay was an early boost for Rajasthan but some sloppy fielding, a difficult opportunity that was grassed, and the maturity of the Raina-Hussey combine put paid to Rajasthan’s hopes. Stuart Binny conceded eight runs in the field, through a misfield and an overthrow, and was listless with the ball. Raina was let off by Watson diving full stretch in the deep, but otherwise there weren’t any opportunities.Like the Chennai bowlers had done in the first ten overs, Rajasthan’s attack erred in line and length, giving the batsmen timely opportunities to pierce the field. Siddharth Trivedi bowled too often down the leg side, and the more accurate Watson and Botha were worked around. With both batsmen settling in well, left-arm spinner Nayan Doshi was carted for two sixes in the 11th over – the same passage in the Rajasthan innings had marked a decisive turn of events. As the shoulders drooped, Binny doled freebies outside off which Hussey cut for successive fours before delivering the same treatment to Menaria on the leg side. Raina’s dismissal was against the run of play, but his knock, along with Hussey’s, had made a relatively one-sided contest out of a potential cracker.

The three Pakistan players accused of spot-fixing in the Lord’s Test got off lightly, according to the majority of players polled in a recent survey

ESPNcricinfo staff02-Jun-2011The three Pakistan players accused of spot-fixing in the Lord’s Test got off lightly, according to the majority of players polled in a recent survey. The Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations (FICA) has revealed the results of its player survey, and 77% of respondents believed the penalties handed to the Pakistan trio were too lenient.An ICC tribunal found Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif guilty of orchestrating deliberate pre-planned no-balls during the Test against England last August, and they received bans ranging from five to ten years. All three men could be free to play officially-sanctioned cricket again in five years, due to part of the penalties for Asif and Butt involving suspended sentences. None of the 45 players surveyed believed the penalties were too harsh, while 23% considered the bans “fair”.The process by which the three Pakistanis were punished was more complex than a simple ICC edict. Under the anti-corruption code, the decision must be deliberated over by an independent tribunal, with the verdict and penalties handed down from those arbiters. Provisions for far harsher punishments are included in the code.Although the ICC has achieved its goal of making players aware of the Anti-Corruption Code – 100% of players said they were given education on the code before the World Cup – it’s not all good news for the game’s governing body. While 100% of players said they would report any suspicious approach they received, 20% did not have confidence in the ICC’s anti-corruption unit treating that information confidentially.Two-thirds of the players said they would be more comfortable reporting any approach to their team manager than to the anti-corruption unit, despite their obligation to do so. Tim May, the chief executive of FICA, said the responses from the players surveyed was an indication that they wanted a tougher stance on corruption.”This sends a strong signal to stakeholders that the vast number of players want significant penalties to be invoked against those who are found guilty of serious corruption offences,” May said.FICA co-ordinates the activities of players’ associations in seven countries: Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Bangladesh. Notably, Pakistan and India are the two major Test-playing nations – along with Zimbabwe – who are not affiliated with FICA.In addition to being found guilty of spot-fixing by the ICC, Butt, Asif and Amir are now facing criminal charges in the UK. Under Britain’s Prevention of Corruption Act 1906, penalties of up to seven years in prison can be meted out for accepting corrupt payments. The trio also face charges under the Gambling Act 2005.The players were questioned by Scotland Yard detectives after the tabloid newspaper made accusations that they had orchestrated deliberate no-balls in the Lord’s Test.

ESPNcricinfo previews the IPL match between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Chennai Super Kings in Bangalore

The Preview by Nikita Bastian21-May-2011

Match facts

Sunday, May 22, Bangalore
Start time 1600 (1030 GMT)Will Bangalore risk playing Daniel Vettori with his dodgy knee ahead of the play-offs?•AFP

Big Picture

The IPL has had its share of low-key games, and the top four teams are already decided, but the final day of the round-robin stage will decide who takes on whom in the play-offs. Chennai Super Kings square off against Royal Challengers Bangalore in the first of two metropolitan battles, and the equation is simple: win the game and go to the top of the table. Defeat, on the other hand, will impact the teams differently.If Bangalore lose, they will most likely finish third in the league, and lose the luxury of a second chance at making the final, which the loser of the play-off between No. 1 and 2 will enjoy. Chennai, though, could finish in the top two even if they lose to Bangalore, on the basis of their strong net run-rate.Chennai and Bangalore are the IPL’s form teams at present with four wins in their last five matches. Both teams, however, still have something to prove in this high-stakes game. Bangalore were humbled by an Adam Gilchrist blitz in their previous match and have almost been a one-man show, ten men playing support roles to lead actor Chris Gayle. Chennai have not been the best travellers this season, losing four of six away games.There is one other factor to consider in this race to the No. 1 spot – the weather. Rain has washed out one game in Bangalore and shortened another, and there are light showers forecast for Sunday. A washed-out match will keep Chennai on top, but leave Bangalore’s final standing dependent on the outcome of the Kolkata-Mumbai tie.

Form guide (most recent first)

Chennai Super Kings: WWWLW (first in points table)
Royal Challengers Bangalore: LWWWW (second in points table)

Team talk

Chennai have had an unchanged XI in their previous three games, with Dwayne Bravo pushing out offspinner Suraj Randiv since his arrival from the Caribbean. If they decide to play only one spinner on the batsman-friendly Bangalore pitch, Shadab Jakati could sit out, making way for Joginder Sharma.Bangalore’s captain Daniel Vettori is back in India after going to New Zealand to have his injured knee examined. Vettori had some light practice in the nets on Friday and is likely to play against Chennai, unless the management decides not to risk him before the play-offs. If Vettori plays, Johan van der Wath will sit out. Bangalore tried Luke Pomersbach and Saurabh Tiwary in the opener’s slot left vacant by Tillakaratne Dilshan, but neither have come off. Expect a bit of shuffling at the top. Zaheer Khan, who was rested against Kings XI Punjab, should return.Predict the playing XIs for this match. Play ESPNcricinfo Team Selector.

In the spotlight

Dwayne Bravo could be a vital cog for Chennai, especially with Albie Morkel not quite living up to his billing in this season. Apart from his batting down the order, Bravo’s slower bouncers could come in handy, provided he gets his lines right, unlike in his spell against Kochi Tuskers Kerala on Wednesday.With Bangalore’s top three, Gayle, Dilshan and Virat Kohli, firing most of the time, AB de Villiers has not had much to do. He has a couple of half-centuries – his season’s top score being 65 in a losing cause against Chennai the previous time these teams met – but he’s yet to produce a game-changing knock. Will this be the match? Also, fitness permitting, he might be asked to resume wicketkeeping duties, after makeshift keeper Arun Karthik struggled in the game against Punjab.

Prime numbers

• Bangalore’s bowlers feature three times in the list of this season’s most expensive spells. Zaheer is second on the list, for conceding 53 runs in four overs against Kolkata at Eden Gardens. van der Wath appears two times. There is no Chennai bowler on the list.
• Gayle, whose 38 off 12 balls against Kolkata came at a strike rate of 316.66, tops IPL 2011’s best strike-rates in an innings. He appears two more times in the list, while MS Dhoni, at No. 11 for his 41 off 19 balls at 215.78 against Rajasthan Royals, is the highest-ranked Chennai player.
  

  The chatter

  “The confidence of a bowler in the wicketkeeper is important. If a bowler is worried about the ‘keeper’s skills, that will restrict the former’s options, particularly the variations.”
  .”The swift manner in which he [Dhoni] reads the game is to be appreciated. Besides his abilities in captaincy, it helps in his batting as well.”
  .

04-Jul-2011
Scorecard
Surrey held their nerve in a high-scoring contest before a 5,500 sell-out crowd at Whitgift School to beat Sussex by 18 runs in the Friends Life t20 South Group.Steve Davies top-scored with a brilliant 99 not out from just 56 balls in Surrey’s 203 for two, adding 105 with captain Rory Hamilton-Brown, who hit a 36-ball 51. Davies hit two sixes and 15 fours in his man-of-the-match performance.The Sussex reply was launched thrillingly by Luke Wright, who smashed five sixes and eight fours in a cavalier 72 from a mere 31 balls. However, when he was caught at long-on off the bowling of Chris Schofield in the 10th over the Sussex chase lost its spark.Ben Brown made a valiant 68 from 52 balls, with four sixes of his own, after adding a Sussex record 109 for the first wicket with Wright. However, Matt Prior was out for just 4, top-edging a sweep to deep square leg, and Lou Vincent laboured 19 balls for his 14 as Sussex fell short despite reaching the 15th over all but level with where Surrey were at that stage.Chris Nash hit both the fifth and sixth balls of the 19th over for six, but even that late burst off Chris Tremlett still left Sussex needing 23 from the last over and it proved too much. Spinners Schofield and Zafar Ansari were both impressive for Surrey, who also fielded tigerishly in defence of their total on a compact ground which made almost any target achievable.Surrey’s innings began in spectacular fashion with Jason Roy clubbing the first ball, bowled by off-spinner Ollie Rayner, over long-on for six. Roy also hit the fifth ball for six, with an even bigger hit, but on 18 he was foxed by a slower delivery from Chris Liddle and lobbed up a catch to Rayner at mid-on.Davies was also away quickly, leg-glancing the first ball he faced, from Wayne Parnell, to the long leg boundary, and a beautiful extra cover four off Liddle showed Davies was in excellent form despite a relatively quiet record so far in the competition.After five overs Surrey were 44 for one and Hamilton-Brown, after taking a while to get going, swung a slower ball from Luke Wright over wide midwicket and onto the tiled roof of the striking brick pavilion. Davies’ half-century arrived from 29 balls and a six off Liddle was later followed by another maximum, this time over extra cover off Umar Gul.Hamilton-Brown had helped Davies to put on 105 in 11 overs for the second wicket when he drove over a ball from Nash and was bowled after advancing down the pitch. Davies, on 94 when the last over started with Maynard on strike, heaved Parnell’s third ball wide of long-on for four but, having taken a single off the next ball, failed to get the strike back as Tom Maynard flicked the penultimate delivery over square leg for six.Maynard, who finished unbeaten on 29 from 18 balls, led a charmed life as he was dropped three times – on three, 13 and 14 – as another 66 runs were added for the third wicket in just over six overs.Gul and Parnell, Sussex’s two overseas fast bowlers, conceded 85 runs between them from their four-over stints as Surrey sealed an important victory as the battle for a quarter-final place hots up.

Collins Obuya, the 29-year-old batsman, has been named Kenya’s new captain in the latest of a series of moves aimed at revitalising Kenyan cricket

ESPNcricinfo staff20-Jul-2011Collins Obuya, the 29-year-old batsman, has been named Kenya’s new captain in the latest of a series of moves aimed at revitalising Kenyan cricket. Jimmy Kamande was removed from the captaincy after Kenya’s woeful performance in the 2011 World Cup, after which a performance review was conducted by Cricket Kenya.They then excluded four of their senior players – Kamande, Peter Ongondo, Thomas Odoyo and former captain Maurice Ouma – from the list of contracted players for the next year. Obuya was one of the few seniors to survive the shake-up and was named captain a day after Kenya announced New Zealander Mike Hesson as their new coach.Obuya was one of the few bright sparks for Kenya during the World Cup, during which they lost all their six group-stage matches. He scored a half-century against Sri Lanka and a 98 not out against Australia, and was Kenya’s leading run-getter in the tournament. Obuya originally hit the headlines for his legspin bowling with which he picked up 13 wickets during Kenya’s run to the semi-final of the 2003 World Cup. After struggling with his bowling thereafter, he has turned himself into a top-order batsman who bowls a bit.Hesson and Obuya’s first assignment as the new leaders of the Kenya team will be two limited-overs games and a four-day Intercontinental Cup game against United Arab Emirates. The first 50-over match is on July 25.Kenya Cricket chief-executive Tom Sears said Obuya’s performances at the World Cup were one of the reasons for his being named captain. “Collins is now an extremely experienced and accomplished player who can set the standards on and off the field,” Sears said. “He has demonstrated at the World Cup what can be achieved by Kenyan players on the international stage, and as captain he has a big role to play in taking the national team forward.”Kenya’s new list of contracted players includes several young players and Obuya said he was looking forward to leading them. “We have some very good players and some very talented ones coming through our system,” he said. “It is an exciting time to captain a developing team, and work with our new coach Mike Hesson and chairman of selectors Alpesh Vadher.”

Dawid Malan struck a brilliant century as Middlesex took control on the third day of their top-of-the-table clash against Northamptonshire

25-Aug-2011
ScorecardDawid Malan struck a brilliant century as Middlesex took control on the third day of their top-of-the-table clash against Northamptonshire in Division Two of the County Championship at Wantage Road. Malan made a fantastic 113 off 170 balls including 17 fours and Ollie Rayner
blasted 57 off 48 deliveries as Middlesex declared on 479 for 8 – their highest total this season.James Middlebrook took 5 for 123 for Northants, who then survived nine overs in the evening to close on 22 without loss with a deficit of 181 runs to make up.Middlesex began the day on 149 for 2, 127 runs behind their opponents, with their captain Chris Rogers and nightwatchman Toby Roland-Jones both resuming on 3. Rogers was to go past 50 off 82 balls with a four through mid-wicket off Lee Daggett and Roland-Jones was to make his highest score for Middlesex.He went past his previous best total of 26, but he was to perish on 28 when he dragged Middlebrook’s first delivery, in the 64th over, onto his stumps. Middlebrook was to strike again when Rogers, who had moved on to 55, was well caught by Northants captain Andrew Hall at slip.There was a flashpoint before lunch when David Lucas gestured towards a group of spectators who sarcastically applauded him for stopping a Malan drive at mid-off after he had previously misfielded in the same position.The visitors were on 244 for 4 at the interval, but they lost Jamie Dalrymple for 40 when he was caught by Daggett, running from long leg, off Chaminda Vaas. However, by this point they had already passed Northants’ total to take the lead before Malan reached 50 off 110 balls.Resuming after tea on 371 for 5, Middlesex wicketkeeper John Simpson went cheaply for 24 in the fifth over of the evening when he launched Vaas to Alex Wakely at deep square leg. Malan then kicked on to complete the seventh first-class century of his career and his second of this season off 165 balls with a four through third man off Daggett.But he finally had to walk when he feathered Middlebrook him to Northants wicketkeeper David Murphy. Rayner then smashed an explosive half-century off just 43 balls but Middlebrook
had his 10th first-class five-wicket haul when he was caught behind by Murphy just before the visitors declared.A rain delay meant the loss of three overs but Rob Newton and Stephen Peters survived until the close and will resume tomorrow on 14 and six respectively.