Scorecard
ING Cup points table

Mark Cosgrove smashed a brilliant hundred to give South Australia a crushing 108-run win over Western Australia at Perth. Cosgrove put on 54 for the opening wicket with Shane Deitz (22) and a fluent 161-run stand with Darren Lehmann to push the Redbacks to a healthy total. When Lehmann was caught behind for a slick 76 from 81 balls the home side hit back and South Australia lost 7 for 40 in their final ten overs.Cosgrove had done the damage though, and Western Australia were never in the hunt for 272. Shaun Tait, who is bidding to make a Test comeback, conceded 23 from four overs and picked up the wicket of Luke Ronchi. Only Chris Rogers (47) offered anything of substance, but by then it was too little too late as Western Australia crumbled to 163 allout in the 40th over. The convincing win placed South Australia third in the table, four points adrift of Victoria and ten behind the leaders New South Wales.

Otago beat Canterbury comprehensively by nine wickets in their State Championship encounter at Queenstown. After following on, Canterbury just about managed to stave off an innings defeat, leaving Otago to chase only seven. Chris Harris and Paul Wiseman were the only Canterbury batsmen to pass fifty as their side stayed on the defensive throughout, facing over 130 overs for their total of 276. Wiseman top-scored with an unbeaten 80. For Otago Bradley Scott, the left-arm fast bowler, was the most impressive, taking 5 for 48.Central Districts took command at the end of the third day at Palmerston North, leaving Auckland to chase a target of 456 with only three sessions left. Central were earlier bowled out for 390 in their second innings and Auckland, in reply, lost two wickets with 85 on board. Central rode on solid contributions by their middle order, with half-centuries by Jacob Oram (89) , Timothy Weston (70) and Bevan Griggs (50). Oram scored as many as 60 runs through boundaries alone while Griggs compiled a run-a-ball half-century with six fours. Auckland lost Richard Jones early with the score on 1. Tim Lythe and Matthew Horne were at the crease at stumps.Wellington and Northern Districts both made sporting declarations to set up a chance for a result in their State Championship match at Hamilton. Northern declared their first innings 98 behind Wellington, after Alun Evans scored 103. Wellington rode on Matthew Bell’s 109 at the top of the order, who shared a 141-run stand with Michael Parlane. Jesse Ryder made an aggressive half-century, scoring 55 off 51 balls. Wellington declared at 255 for 8, leaving Northerns to chase 354 in the last innings. Grant Robinson fell early as Northern ended the day at 3 for 1.

Scott Styris, the New Zealand allrounder, has accused the West Indies players of “laughing and joking” when he and three of his team-mates were hit on the helmet during the first Test in Auckland.Styris adopted the holier-than-thou attitude that the New Zealanders always show compassion in similar circumstances. “There was a little bit of disappointment when their guys were laughing and joking when our guys got hit,” Styris said during New Zealand’s practice session in Wellington yesterday. “I mentioned it to Fidel [Edwards] after I got hit [by him], just their lack of checking out to see if we are fine. You want to play the game hard, you want to play the game fair, but you always want to make sure the other bloke isn’t hurt,” he added.Styris claimed that the New Zealanders ensured Ramnaresh Sarwan was okay after he was felled by a bouncer from Shane Bond in the West Indies’ second innings. “That’s why we got pretty grumpy and disappointed with [Shivnarine] Chanderpaul and [Daren] Ganga when Jamie How got hit under the lid,” he explained, referring to the blow to the helmet to the short-leg fielder when Chanderpaul pulled a ball from Daniel Vettori.Brendon McCullum was heard through the television stump microphone telling Chanderpaul to move away when he approached to see if How was alright. “You didn’t show any concern before,” McCullum, the talkative wicketkeeper, said.Styris conceded that the West Indies players “finally showed a bit of concern for someone, but we thought it was a little too late. I don’t know if there is an international understanding but you expect natural consideration for someone who is hurt,” he said. “You want to get him out, you want to intimidate him to get him out, but you don’t want to see a guy carried off on a stretcher.” “We certainly don’t, and I know Bondy [Shane Bond] doesn’t, and he’s mentioned that,” Styris added. “He’s trying to hit him but he’s not trying to knock the guy out and if he does hit him then he is looking to see if he is okay.”The New Zealand media has picked up the theme with Jonothan Millmow citing the alleged “lack of remorse” shown by the West Indies as “probably a legacy of their upbringing”. “They will have been raised on stories of Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall and Joel Garner breaking bones as regularly as they broke stumps and of home crowds delighting in batsmen being carted off injured,” he wrote.

Imran Khan, the former Pakistan captain, has blamed the team management’s “atrocious” strategies for the side’s recent slump in one-dayers. He also criticised the decision to appoint Jonty Rhodes as fielding coach and their decision not to play Mohammad Sami in the recently concluded tour of Sri Lanka.Although Pakistan enjoyed a successful ODI season last year – which included away victories in West Indies (3-0) and India (4-2) – they have appeared a little inconsistent since then. Though they beat England at home, they were thumped by India in February 2006. Including the series against England, Pakistan’s success rate has dropped considerably, and they have lost as many matches as they won (seven out of 15 with one winning as one no-result. “In one-day cricket, other teams put their best batsmen at No. 2, 3, 4 and 5. But Pakistan keeps its best batsman at No.6 and 7,” Imran told the Press Trust of India. “Inzamam-ul-Haq ran out of partners in Abu Dhabi because he was batting lower down the order. I don’t know who is behind these atrocious decisions.”While criticising the Pakistan board’s decision to keep Mohammad Sami out of the Sri Lanka tour, Imran said that, Pakistan will need fast bowlers like Sami, Mohammad Asif and Shoaib Akhtar to be fit, to maintain their winning streak against England. Pakistan has not lost a series in England since 1982, when Imran side was beaten 2-1 by David Gower’s men.When asked about the team’s need for a fielding coach, Imran said, “The Pakistan cricket team has a bowling coach. Now they have a fielding coach and the skipper himself is a batsman. I don’t understand what will Bob Woolmer do.” Rhodes is set to spend two weeks with the Pakistan cricket team and work on their fielding skills before their departure for the tour of England in July.”Fielding cannot be improved by appointing coaches”, he continued. “The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has to understand that Australia and South Africa are good fielding sides because their players play [domestic cricket] on good grounds and in near perfect structure.”

Returning from South Africa after corrective surgery to his elbow, Shoaib Mailk, the Pakistan allrounder, hopes to make it to the team’s tour to England beginning July 1.Malik underwent surgery in Cape Town to improve his bowling action, which had been first declared suspect in October 2004 during the Paktel Cup one-day tournament at home. His doctors in South Africa termed the surgery a success after extracting a `piece of floating bone from his elbow. They were confident that physiotherapy and exercise would help Malik, who complained of pain in his elbow while batting and bowling, recover within four to six weeks.Malik had been in a car accident in 2003 causing the tendons in his arms to loosen. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) claimed that it was because of this accident that his elbow straightens when he bowls.Meanwhile, Shoaib Akhtar, recovering from a stress fracture to his heel began bowling at the nets in Lahore. His doctor, Tauseef Razzaq, said that Shoaib will begin full training in a month’s time. The PCB expects both bowlers to be fit for the tour to England in July.

Andy Roberts, the former West Indies fast bowler, has expressed concern over the criteria for selecting teams as well the power entrusted to Bennett King, the West Indies coach. Wary not only of West Indies confusing themselves with the roles of chairman and convenor of selectors, Roberts felt that the system was shifting to unfamiliar terrain.”I do not know how we choose teams. I don’t know what criteria we use,” Roberts told the . “I don’t know whether we just look for players who are currently playing or players who have played a couple months ago but for one reason or another, they are not actually involved in one form of cricket or another.”Roberts, who has also served as a regional team selector, coach and manager, felt that King, who has served as coach for 19 months, had too much say on selection matters. “Being a former coach we never had a quarter or one tenth of the amount of power Bennett has,” he said. “He negotiated that, so be it. But if he wants that and I know what I want for my cricketers, I am not going to go along with that. I think that the coach needs to have the power to drop a player but he mustn’t have absolute power over the chairman of selectors.”Critical of West Indies heading towards an Australian method of handling selection – Joey Carew has been referred to as convenor of selectors instead of chairman, which has been handed over to King – Roberts felt that the method would prove counterproductive.”I don’t know who arrived at that [the system]. To be honest I don’t. A system may work well in Australia but not necessarily work in the West Indies,” he said. “We have our own culture. We did not get to the top of world cricket by not knowing what we were doing. But it seems to me that our administrators believe that we do not know what we are doing.”If I have a chairman [now convenor] of selectors, the chairman of selectors must be involved in picking one to 11, not 14, and he must be chairman. Otherwise why do we have him? What is he there for – just to convene meetings?”

Graeme Hick scored the seven runs he needed to complete his 130th first-class hundred on the second day of Worcestershire’s Championship game against Northamptonshire at New Road. He now sits in eighth place in the list of all-time century makers, moving ahead of Sir Len Hutton. It was also his 100th hundred for his county.It didn’t take long for Hick, who finished on 93 not out last night, to add the seven required runs to his overnight total. As he flicked the ball off his legs to take a single from Nicholson, he lifted his bat to the players’ balcony and was greeted by rapturous applause and a standing ovation. He went on to make 139.Less than a month ago Hick, who turned 40 in April, was being all-but written off after a poor start to the season. On June 4, Steve James in The Sunday Telegraph wrote: “I am worried about Graeme Hick. Worried that a glorious career might be heading for a less-than-glorious ending.” That same week Hick bounced back with 182 against Somerset at Taunton.”It was a special day for me,” Hick admitted. “There’s quite a lot of people who have sat here for many years and hopefully enjoyed my batting and it’s been a good day for them as well. “To get the hundredth hundred for Worcestershire here at New Road adds a bit to it.””I’m enjoying my cricket at the moment,” he replied when asked the inevitable question about how long he plans to go on. “I’ve always said I’ll make a decision about my future at the end of the season. At the same time, the club have got to do the same thing. The club is obviously bigger than the player.””Graeme has achieved something that not many people can dream of doing,” said Steve Rhodes, Worcestershire’s director of cricket. “His 100th hundred is a true reflection of what he has done for Worcestershire over the course of his career. I consider myself extremely fortunate to be amongst those who have watched Graeme’s successes unfold and it has been fantastic to watch him score many of his hundreds over the years.”We all have great memories. Perhaps the thing I most remember from his heyday was his strength. We would watch from the balcony as, time after time, he would hit a yorker straight back past the bowler for four: something incredibly difficult to do and which gave rise to the dressing room saying “You can’t bowl there to Hicky!”

Scorecard

Trinidad and Tobago secured a berth in the semi-finals of the Stanford 20/20 tournament with a comprehensive 46-run win against Barbados. In a match postponed by a day because of rain, T&T eased to victory as Barbados folded up for 96 chasing a target of 143. The Trinidad duo of Nicholas Ramjass, the left-arm spinner, and Keiron Pollard, the medium pacer, shared six wickets between them and skittled out the last five Barbados wickets for only 17 runs.Earlier, Barbados sent Trinidad in to bat and the openers William Perkins and Mario Belcon got off to a good start, adding 69. However, they were pegged back by a double strike by West Indies fast bowler Ian Bradshaw, who got the important wickets of Perkins and Daren Ganga. With the score at 79 for 4, Shazam Babwah resurrected the innings with 25, taking his side to 142 for 9. Bradshaw was the pick of the bowlers with three wickets while Fidel Edwards chipped in with two.Barbados stumbled early, losing both openers by the fourth over, before Jason Haynes and Floyd Reifer got things going with a 28-run stand for the third wicket. However, they succumbed to some tight bowling and fielding, with Haynes edging a wide delivery to the wicketkeeper. Ramjass and Pollard then took over to dismiss Barbados cheaply, with the last seven batsmen failing to get into double figures.Trinidad will meet Nevis in the semi-final on August 11.
Scorecard

Guyana held their nerve in a tense encounter against Jamaica to reach the semi-finals of the Stanford 20/20 tournament with a three-wicket win. Requiring 38 with three wickets in hand, Imran Khan and Andre Percival guided Guyana home with an over to spare.Jamaica opted to bat first in a match postponed from Friday due to rain, and posted a challenging 163 for 6, with contributions by Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels and Wavell Hinds. Esuan Crandon led the reply with 71, an innings which contained 12 fours and a six. Guyana were going along well before Jermaine Lawson pegged them back with three quick wickets. Crandon kept his side in the game but Jamaica sensed an opportunity after his dismissal, with the score at 126 for 7. However, Khan and Percival played positively to take their side homeGuyana will meet Grenada in their semi-final on August 10.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) experts will review a new construction schedule before announcing a final decision in about two weeks as to whether the Brian Lara Stadium in Tarouba will be used for the World Cup next year.That was the statement coming from Don Lockerbie, the ICC venue development director, as he and his team of inspectors from the ICC and Global Cricket Corporation completed their sixth tour since 2004 of the local facilities to be used in the build-up and during the World Cup that starts in March.Plagued by inclement weather and delays in the delivery of steel, the Tarouba ground is in danger of losing its status as a pre-tournament venue that will host warm-up matches including Pakistan, South Africa, Canada and Scotland in January and February.On Wednesday, Anand Daniel, the Local Organising Committee (LOC) chief executive officer, claimed it would be “unlikely” that the “Lara”, part of the Government’s planned $850-million elite sports complex at Tarouba, would be ready to be handed over to the ICC by the deadline date of November 30.Lockerbie concurred with that assessment. “The Brian Lara Stadium is certainly behind schedule and Cricket World Cup (CWC) does have to make a decision about where we go,” he stated. “We were there today and received a positive report from the technical team on site that they re-arranged their schedule. But there is no doubt that a full and complete Brian Lara Stadium will not be finished 100 per cent for CWC.”Doubt was also cast on whether the first temporary plan-the use of France-based firm GL Events-would be able to get the job done with temporary seating, the kind which they have utilised in the past at the FIFA World Cup and IOC Olympic events. “What we have to do is determine whether or not enough of the stadium is going be finished so that we can come in with our temporary measures, which we have looked at as an option,” Lockerbie explained. “If GL events, which is supplying temporary overlay throughout the region for the World Cup, can do anything at the Lara Stadium to make it ready.”Lockerbie added that he would take the the revised schedule back to the ICC expert team to review and “determine if it is something we still feel that, construction-wise, we can get to a level of play.”Not only we have to build the stadium by temporary means or permanent, we also have to make sure that seven to ten thousand people can park and can use the services to be entertained in that space. We’re gonna make that decision probably in two weeks,” he continued. “We will look at whether or not the options we have been given in the new schedule about the stadium will allow it to keep the matches at ‘Brian Lara’ or if we need to look at another contingency plan.”Lockerbie believed that whether or not the Tarouba venue was ready for CWC, it would still be a “wonderful legacy” to the people and sportsmen of Trinidad and Tobago.

Mushtaq Ahmed, the former Pakistan legspinner, has been named as assistant coach of Pakistan for the Champions Trophy according to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).Abbas Zaidi, a PCB director, confirmed to Cricinfo that Mushtaq had been appointed. “Yes, we have hired him for the Champions Trophy as assistant coach. For the moment the appointment is only for that assignment.”Despite playing his last international for Pakistan nearly three years ago, Mushtaq’s high-profile successes with Sussex have ensured that he has never remained far from the Pakistan set-up, or the selectors’ thoughts. Last winter, he was recalled as one of five spinners for the squad against England; he wasn’t eventually used and by the end of the tour he was helping Pakistan out as an unofficial bowling coach. Eventually, Waqar Younis was hired as a full-time bowling coach later in the winter.And though Mushtaq wasn’t selected for the squad to tour England in the summer, speculation was rife that he would be picked once Pakistan arrived, especially after the spate of crippling injuries their bowlers suffered. To many people’s surprise, he wasn’t chosen for any of the Tests, even though Danish Kaneria struggled throughout the summer. Instead, Mushtaq continued in his attempts to land Sussex a second County Championship title.For now, Mushtaq is back in the set-up, if only for the solitary assignment. The PCB is not yet ruling out involvement beyond that and Zaidi added that the decision will be reviewed again after the tournament. “The appointment will be reviewed on a tour-by-tour basis after that.”