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Stumps, Day 1
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

Contrasting centuries from Sahil Kukreja and Abhishek Nayar set up Mumbai’s comfortable position at the end of the first day of the Irani Trophy clash in Rajkot. Kukreja’s patient century, his third first-class ton and second in succession, was in direct contrast to Nayar’s counterattacking blitz and their 172-run stand in 31.2 overs was the highlight of a batsman-dominated day.Coming on the back of his 110 in the Mohammad Nissar Trophy against Karachi Urban, Kukreja’s hundred was filled with compact defense and correct strokeplay. Nayar, on the other hand, walking in at 164 for 4, improvised, and blazed his way to his second first-class century, the previous one coming in the same match against Karachi Urban.Kukreja was solid from the start after Mumbai won the toss and elected to bat. Together with the more flamboyant Ajinkya Rahane, he added 91 for the first wicket against the largely unimpressive medium-pace trio of Munaf Patel, Ranadeb Bose and Ishant Sharma. After a stroke-filled innings that spanned close to two hours, Rahane was unfortunate to be adjudged leg before to a Bose delivery that was sliding down the leg side. He scored a fine 52 to follow up on his debut century in Mohammad Nisar Trophy.Mumbai proceeded to lose three wickets at regular intervals, but Kukreja was rarely flustered. A couple of streaky boundaries before lunch were the only blemishes in a determined knock. He waited for the loose balls, which were plenty on offer, and punished them accordingly without having to go through air even once. Without being spectacular, he kept the runs ticking and never letting Mumbai’s rollicking run-rate drop.With Amol Muzumdar, Wasim Jaffer and Prashant Naik all back in the hut, Mumbai were in a tricky state on what looked a good batting track. But Nayar strode out and took the bowling apart as if he had been batting in an adjoining ground. He looked like he had already played himself in, trusted the pace and bounce of the pitch and his ability to find in the gaps. He started off by busting left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha’s rhythm just as he began to hit the same areas consistently. The first over Ojha bowled to Nayar went for three fours and his length was never the same again.ROI captain Mohammad Kaif’s tactics were surprising. He waited for 35 overs of innocuous pace bowling before introducing Ojha. The other spinner, Amit Mishra, had to wait another 18 overs to get to bowl his legspinners. But a warm welcome was not forthcoming, as Nayar hit his first ball over mid-off and then cut the next for another four.Kukreja and Nayar made a perfect pair – one batting solidly and the other plundering a run-a-ball. This was further illustrated in the manner they reached their hundreds: Kukreja just helping one to short fine leg for a single and Nayar reverse-sweeping a four when on 97 having just surviving getting bowled while attempting the same shot.”I think he [Kukreja] was doing well playing within his limitations and I was playing the shots I play well,” Nayar said. “I was lucky they kept letting me play those shots. We were playing our natural games well. He kept taking singles and I kept hitting the boundaries. The team benefited from our contrasting games.”The Kukreja-Nayar union thwarted the ROI bowlers but the medium-pacers never really found their rhythm all day, something that they could ill afford at their pace. Munaf Patel bowled around the mid-130 kph range, Sharma hovered in the early 130s and Bose settled at the mid-120s. In their first spells, Munaf and Bose bowled on both sides of the pitch giving away easy runs. Munaf also had a problem with overstepping, sending down nine no-balls in his 15.5 overs. Mishra chipped in with his share – three in eight overs, a high number for a spinner.Bose was more accurate in his second spell, in which he was rewarded with two wickets, but never looked threatening enough. Ojha looked promising before Nayar launched into him. Mishra was never allowed to settle.Mumbai threatened to squander the position of strength when they slid from 336 for 4 to 359 for 8. It began with an injudicious single as Nayar called Kukreja for a cheeky run to cover, but Subramaniam Badrinath hit the stumps down. Soon Nayar top-edged a sweep off Ojha and there wasn’t much of fight from the lower order as four wickets went down for 23 runs. Thankfully for Mumbai Ramesh Powar, who joined the squad just this morning, and Iqbal Abdulla got a 26-run partnership going to take them closer to a competitive 400.Powar, his flashy locks shorn in favour of a more sober look after being dropped from the national side, lived dangerously, trying every shot without much success, and somehow stumbled to 28 from 35 balls. Abdulla displayed the cheek of a spinner to squeeze out two fours through the slip cordon. With Mumbai closing in on 400, though, their team-mates wouldn’t have really have minded the quality of the strokeplay.

Scorecard

On a rollercoaster second day at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai began promisingly, allowed their position to slip slightly against a spirited Karnakata, but regrouped to finish 107 runs ahead with three wickets in hand at close of play. The hosts dominated the first session, thanks to a 110-run opening stand between Wasim Jaffer and Sahil Kukreja, only to stumble as Karnataka grabbed five quick wickets in the second session to force their way back into the game. But a composed 78 from Prashant Naik on his Ranji Trophy debut allowed Mumbai to soak up the pressure and reach a healthy 302 for 7 by stumps.Karnataka had thrown away the advantage of winning the toss on the opening day, but they would have been confident of fighting back through Anil Kumble and Sunil Joshi on a pitch which was offering assistance to spinners. Kumble, though, was a huge disappointment, taking just one wicket in 22 overs and going at nearly four runs per over. Joshi managed three scalps with his left-arm spin, but the effectiveness with which Mumbai thwarted Kumble meant half their battle had been won.The foundation of their reply was built by Jaffer and Kukreja, who put Karnataka on the back foot after they had been bowled out for 195. The new-ball bowlers, Vinay Kumar and NC Aiyappa, had the openers in trouble whenever they hit the fuller length but an initially circumspect Jaffer shrugged aside his nerves. Kukreja, also cautious, was the more assured of the two, leaning forward to get behind the line. And as the bowlers erred in length at the end of their spells, both openers cashed in with drives and pulls.Kumble brought himself on in the 13th over, with the score on 32. With a short leg and a silly point in place, he floated his first few deliveries but there was no sign of any bite off the pitch. The short cover disappeared and Kukreja skipped down the track to whip an on-drive through wide mid-on while Jaffer punched one crisply through cover point and drove through the covers. Sunil Joshi appeared in the 23rd over and Jaffer, now having found his groove, welcomed him with two boundaries. He raised his fifty soon after and Kukreja followed, top-edging Joshi in the over before lunch.After the interval, Karnataka swung back with three wickets in ten balls. Jaffer, late in leaning forward, played on to an incutter from Aiyappa and Joshi snapped up Ajinkya Rahane, offering no stroke to a delivery on the stumps. Aiyappa got Kukreja to edge one to Thilak Naidu, the wicketkeeper, and Kumble returned with fielders hovering around the bat.He didn’t strike immediately, as Amol Muzumdar and Naik put on 48 in 70 minutes, but at 173 for 3 Kumble trapped Muzumdar as he played across the line. Abhishek Nayar, who has already hit two breezy centuries this season, opened with three consecutive boundaries off Kumble and gave Mumbai the lead with a fourth in Kumble’s next over. But in the last over before tea, Nayar missed a reverse-sweep against Joshi and was out for an 18-ball 24. He added 44 in just 39 balls, but paid for his impetuosity.When Ramesh Powar lofted Joshi to mid-on for 10 off seven balls, the score read 231 for 6. Naik, who struck C Raghu over long-on for the first six of the game, found an able ally in Agarkar and proceeded to stretch the lead. He didn’t take any undue risks, pushing the ball into the gaps for singles and twos and inspired Agarkar to do the same. Naik punished the loose deliveries, lofting Kumble over mid-off before sweeping really fine when Kumble went round the stumps.Then, against the run of play, Naik – who hit a hundred in his first-class debut in the Mohammad Nissar Trophy recently – fell to a sharp fielding effort from Yere Gowd: Agarkar had set off for a quick run after tapping the ball close on the off side when Gowd swooped down on the ball to fire in an accurate throw to the keeper to find Naik short of the crease.Kumble took the new ball in the last over of the day but Agarkar and Vinayak Samant, who came to bat lower than usual, held on as Mumbai ended the day on a strong position, thanks in no small part to Naik’s level-headed approach.Vijay Bharadwaj, Karnataka’s coach, wore a rueful expression at the end of the day but refused to criticise the bowlers, saying that the pitch had eased up considerably. “It has gone flatter. I won’t blame my bowlers.” The lack of pace in the track certainly made Kumble a far lesser weapon, and with a deficit in excess of 100 Karnataka have left themselves with plenty to do over the next two days.

India will remain without a coach for some time longer as the scheduled meeting of the committee appointed to select the next coach, has been postponed indefinitely.The committee, comprising three former captains in Sunil Gavaskar, S Venkataraghavan and Ravi Shastri, and other board functionaries, was to meet in Mumbai on November 3. This is the second time the coach committee meeting had to be deferred after they failed to convene in Bangalore on September 28 when they were originally schedule to discuss the applications.However, as Gavaskar is unavailable on the day, the board will now look for a convenient date for the committee to meet. “Sunil [Gavaskar] is not available on that day and we had to postpone the meeting until further notice,” said Niranjan Shah, secretary of the Indian board.In any case it was unclear exactly what the committee would achieve in its proposed meeting as the BCCI is yet to receive any applications that it considers “suitable”. “We’ve received about 20 applications but the committee is not completely happy.” Shah said it was possible the board would wait for more applications. He was also confident that the team would have a coach for the tour to Australia in December. “We should be meeting in the next two weeks and since it’s an important tour there could be a name picked up.”The Indian board has been on the lookout for a coach ever since Greg Chappell, the last coach of the Indian team, did not seek to extend his contract after India’s dismal showing in the World Cup in March 2007. The closest they came to appointing a coach was in June just before India’s tour of England when Graham Ford, the former South Africa coach, was selected for the job. However Ford turned down the offer, deciding to stay with Kent, where he was the director of cricket.Shah confirmed that the National Cricket Academy (NCA) committee meeting to chart out a new structure for the academy, also scheduled for November 3 in Mumbai, will go on as planned. “We will be looking at the new structure that the director [Dav Whatmore] has in mind.”One important point on the agenda is the approval of the support staff for Whatmore who is likely to pick a physiotherapist and a physical trainer to assist him at the NCA.

Not too long ago, it was a well known fact that the team most likely to challenge Mumbai – the dominant force in domestic cricket – was Tamil Nadu. The two faced off in consecutive Ranji Trophy finals, in 2002-03 and the following season. Though Mumbai won both, it was a testimony to their respective strengths – Mumbai the nursery of Indian cricket and Tamil Nadu, with its competitive league in Chennai.The story today reflects a change in fortune for one team. While Mumbai still boast of a handful of internationals in their current set-up, the seismic changes in Tamil Nadu cannot be understated, with the nucleus of the side that finished runners-up shifting allegiances either to other states or to the Indian Cricket League. As both teams practised on Wednesday at the Guru Nanak College Ground in Chennai, the question uppermost on everybody’s mind was whether a young Tamil Nadu side could hold its own against the defending champions.”Man-to-man we are just as strong as them,” a confident Tamil Nadu coach, WV Raman, said when asked if Mumbai were the stronger team on paper. “We have challenged them several times in the past and it’s up to the players to go out there and execute all the plans.”Currently, the only player in the squad with international experience is Dinesh Karthik, ready for domestic duties after being left out of the Indian one-day squad. It must be emphasised here that Karthik was one of the success stories in England, establishing himself as a technically adept opener at the Test level. Despite those credentials, Raman said the opening combination of M Vijay and S Anirudha would not be disturbed, leaving Karthik to bolster the middle order.With Tamil Nadu set to retain the same XI that took on Maharashtra in the previous match, promising Under-19 batsman Abhinav Mukund will have to wait a little longer to play his maiden first-class match at home. Mukund, a left-handed opening batsman, was one of the batting stars of the U-19 tour to Sri Lanka, finishing as the top scorer with a double-century and a century to boot.”Abhinav has been named in the squad primarily on the back of his performances there [in Sri Lanka] and he will get his chance soon,” Raman said. “With Karthik filling in as the back-up opener, we don’t feel the need to have four openers in the line-up.”The bowling combination, Raman said, didn’t need any changes yet. “The surface we played on at Chepauk [against Maharashtra] had nothing in it for the seamers, so it wasn’t ideal to analyse their performance. R Ashwin [the off spinner] bowled well so that was a plus point.”While Tamil Nadu have their line-up intact, injury permitting, Mumbai will pick theirs on the morning of the match. Pravin Amre, the Mumbai coach, was non-committal about team changes, though he indicated they would continue with the policy of playing two specialist spinners in Ramesh Powar and Iqbal Abdulla.”Our combination will depend on the state of the wicket in the morning,” Amre said. “It looks a good wicket to bat on as of now, and our practice session today was primarily on the batting and we talked about piling up a good score first up.”Raman, more familiar with the conditions, agreed it appeared a good wicket but said it would be interesting to see if it held up for four full days. The pitch has a layer of grass on it and Amre expected a considerable portion of that to be shaved off.If the batsmen do rule on this surface, it could be the continuation of the trend of drawn games which marked the first round. Being a college ground, there’s just a thin boundary rope separating the on-field players from the spectators so the media persons in the makeshift enclosure could have some additional responsibilities each time the ball heads there.

Zimbabwe will tour Pakistan after the host country’s general elections which are set for January 8. The Zimbabwe tour will comprise five ODIs and two first-class matches and was confirmed by a Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) official on Tuesday.The tour request was made by Zimbabwe Cricket, according to the news agency.The two first-class matches, which will be played before the one-dayers, will assist Zimbabwe in rejoining the Test fold after their self-imposed exile which began back in 2005. The PCB official said: “They want their players to get exposure in the longer duration of the game as they are not playing Tests at the moment.”The venues for the first-class matches have not yet been confirmed. The one-day internationals will be staged in Karachi, Hyderabad, Multan, Faisalabad and Sheikhupura.

Scorecard
Madhya Pradesh bowled out Gujarat for 192, with offspinner Sunil Dhoplure and right-arm medium-pacer Sanjay Pandey taking three wickets apiece, to take control of their Ranji Trophy Plate League semi-final in Delhi. It could have been much worse for Gujarat but for Timil Patel’s unbeaten 71, much of which came in the company of the lower oder.Gujarat, who were asked to bat, were in trouble in the first over when Nilesh Modi edged to wicketkeeper Naman Ojha off Pandey. Rajesh Tabiar and Parthiv Patel then adopted a defensive approach to see off the new ball.Parthiv, who had made his way to 20, fell immediately after spin was introduced when he edged Dholpure to Ojha. Dholpure soon claimed his second wicket when he bowled Neeraj Patel. Seamer Anand Rajan then took two wickets in quick time, ending Tabiar’s dour 12-run knock off 82 balls by having him caught behind before cleanbowling Bhavin Thaker. At that time, Gujarat were 51 for 5, and lost three more quick wickets to reach 92 for 8.Timil then found support from Ashraf Makda at the other end as the two added 86 for the ninth wicket.MP lost Ojha just before stumps were drawn when he edged Makda to Parthiv.
Scorecard
Railways, led by economical bowling from Sanjay Bangar and captain Murali Kartik, managed to put the screws on the Kerala batsman, who scored 207 runs for the loss of six wickets in their Ranji Trophy Plate League semi-final in Nagpur.Earlier Kartik’s decision to send Kerala in was vindicated when Santosh Saxena dismissed Raiphi Gomez in the eight over. But Antony Sebastian and captain Sony Cheruvathur set about consolidating the innings by adding 61 runs.Harvinder Singh struck just before lunch when he got Cheruvathur’s wicket for 26. Sebastian fell to Bangar soon after completing his half-century.Preambhastn Prem and Sreekumar Nair then added 54 runs for the fourth wicket in 29.2 overs before Prem was cleaned up by Kartik. Kartik claimed his second wicket when he had VA Jagadeesh caught by Amit Pagnis for 17.Nair, who scored a painstaking 44 at a strike rate of below 25, fell on the last ball of the day to Bangar. Railways managed to bowl 35 maiden overs in the day.

Scorecard

Chennai Superstars completed a double in the Indian Cricket League, adding the 50-over competition crown to their Twenty20 championship win in December last year.The final of the 50-over tournament, involving only the Indian players recruited for the league, turned out to be a close contest, with the Superstars thrillingly upstaging the Delhi Jets by one wicket.Jets opted to bat and managed 240 runs before being bowled out in 49 overs. Monish Mishra top scored for the Jets with 64 off 69 balls, with six fours and a six. JP Yadav’s 42 off 54 deliveries, Abbas Ali’s 45 and Abhinav Bali’s 29-ball 33 ensured the Jets posted a competitive total. The standout performance for the Chennai Superstars came from Tamil Kumaran, who took 5 for 39. T Kumaran finished with figures of 2 for 36.Superstars faltered in their pursuit, and were soon down to 33 for 3. V Devendran and Hemang Badani led a recovery, before Devendran was out for 43. Badani then combined with J Hariesh to put the chase on track. Both batsmen scored fifties but were unable to go on to make a big score, leaving their team in trouble.Two run-outs in the lower order left Superstars at 208 for 9, and a win seemed improbable. With their hopes hanging on the last-wicket pair, Superstars’ T Kumaran blasted 38 from 25 deliveries, with two sixes and three fours, to power his team to a unlikely win. The victory was sealed with four balls to spare.Tamil Kumaran was named the Man of the Match for his five-wicket haul, while Yadav was declared the Player of the Tournament with 387 runs, eight wickets and five catches from eight matches.The ICL’s next tournament is a proposed Twenty20 championship in March-April, with eight teams expected to participate, up from the current number of six.

ScorecardAntigua and Barbuda cruised into the quarter-finals of the Stanford 20/20 with an easy 24-run win against United States Virgin Islands in Coolidge. Chasing 154, Virgin Islands had the wickets in hand but couldn’t quite match the asking rate as they ended at 131 for 6 in the allotted 20 overs.Opting to bat first, Antigua found it difficult to push the scoring early on as the opening bowlers Dane Weston and Hamish Anthony were on target for most part. Windel Cornwall, who came in at the fall of captain Sylvester Joseph’s wicket at 34, began aggressively and added 29 for the fourth wicket with Gavin Williams, the highest stand of the innings.However, a double-strike by Virgin Islands pegged the opposition back as the pair fell in quick succession with no addition to the score. Williams was bowled by the offspinner Calvin Lewis and two balls later, Cornwall was run-out by Sherville Huggins for 31. A lower order revival – including stands of 25 and 30 for the seventh and eighth wickets respectively – pushed Antigua to a competitive 153. Lewis was the most penetrative among the bowlers, finishing with 3 for 16.In reply, Virgin Islands recovered from the early loss of their openers courtesy a 66-run third-wicket stand between Huggins and Junie Anthony. Huggins found the boundary on a more regular basis, hitting seven fours and a six before falling to a top-edge, playing across the line to the legspinner Anthony Martin. He struck again soon after to send back Hamish Anthony and the pressure began to tell on the Virgin Islands as the required run-rate climbed over 12. Junie Anthony remained unbeaten on 32 as his side failed to push on in the middle orders, in the process conceding the match.

Kris Britt and Melissa Bulow have been dropped from Australia’s 14-player squad as the side bid to retain the Rose Bowl in New Zealand next month. After a drawn one-day international series and a Test loss against England, selectors have made two changes, with Western Australia’s Renee Chappell and Queensland’s Delissa Kimmince set to earn their first international caps.Jodie Purves has also regained her place and has been selected in the 14-player squad as a specialist batter after a broken thumb forced her to miss the series against England. Leonie Coleman will continue the keeping role.Australia is the current holder of the Rose Bowl having won last year’s series 3-2. The series comprises five one-day matches, with a Twenty20 international to be played in the lead-up. All matches will be played at Bert Sutcliffe Oval in Christchurch.Chair of selectors Margaret Jennings said: “The Rose Bowl Series provides us with an opportunity to bring in new players and see what they can add to the squad in the lead-up to the World Cup next year. Both Delissa and Renee have been selected to fill positions we feel need improving.”The players excluded from the squad are not out of World Cup calculations by any means but they will need to go away and work hard to earn another opportunity.”The selectors are looking for a consistency of performance from the team and to maintain that standard. We’re looking to find players that are capable of producing those performances.”Squad Karen Rolton (capt), Lisa Sthalekar, Sarah Andrews, Alex Blackwell, Kate Blackwell, Renee Chappell, Leonie Coleman (wk), Sarah Edwards, Delissa Kimmince, Shelley Nitschke, Ellyse Perry, Jodie Purves, Emma Sampson, Kirsten Pike.

Sunil Gavaskar, who polarised opinion with outspoken comments during the recent Australia-India series, has hit out at England and Australia, describing their approach to the global game as being akin to “dinosaurs”.Gavaskar has a foot in two camps, working as a journalist and also as chairman of the ICC’s cricket committee. In his syndicated newspaper column at the weekend, he said that England and Australia needed to come to terms with the new world order.”Gone are the days when two countries, England and Australia, had the veto power in international cricket, even though the dinosaurs may not open their eyes and see the reality,” he wrote. “The cricketing world has found that India has no longer a diffident voice but a confident one that knows what is good for its cricket, and will strive to get it.”What may have worried these people was the manner in which India defended Harbhajan Singh on the ‘racist allegation made against him [in Australia in January]. When all the technology in the world was unable to prove that he had indeed said anything, these guys, especially those in Australia, were unable to stomach it.”Those worried of the prospect of India’s hegemony were conveniently forgetting that only a few years back, there were two Australians at the top of the ICC. It is a misplaced belief that they are the only ones with honesty, integrity and have the welfare of the game at heart, while the ‘subcontinentals’ do not.”In January, Gavaskar’s remarks about Mike Procter, the ICC match referee during the infamous Sydney Test, were commented on by David Morgan, the ICC’s president-elect. “Conflicts of interests pervade our sport,” Morgan said. “In terms of Gavaskar, within the ICC, there is a concern now that he’s chairman of the cricket committee and a journalist who has expressed some fairly outspoken comments.”