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The Indian Premier League may be cricket’s centrifugal force, pulling in eyes, money and attention, but Pakistan and Bangladesh will wait just a bit longer than others before they too are inevitably sucked in. A five-match ODI series awaits, hastily arranged and lacking glamour, but valuable for both nevertheless.Bangladesh were last in Pakistan, what their management called “a brotherly country”, five years ago. They were whitewashed in both the Tests and ODIs, though having pushed Pakistan in the Tests many thought a corner had been turned. That as many people still argue that the corner has yet to be reached indicates perhaps that due progress has not been made. The focus, still, is on what will be rather than what is.”We are playing well but we are a young side,” Mohammad Ashraful, one of the older members of the side, told reporters in Karachi. “We need time, we need a couple of years. If we play [with] the same team for the next 1-2 years we will have a good team.” There is merit in those words, especially if you take into account the scare they gave South Africa in a Test match a month ago and the occasional ODI wins they have chalked up in the last two years.The problem, as coach Jamie Siddons acknowledges, is that wins and performances are only occasional. South Africa recovered to fully wallop them in the remaining Test and ODI series. “Working with Australia, we had 11 world class players there. At Bangladesh have two to three right now and the rest all have the potential to be world class players, so we have a good mix. But I’m looking forward to the next few years. We will be a good side by then. We’re looking right now for consistency. Everyone says we are inconsistent but we would like to prove that wrong in this series.”Against Pakistan, they have been consistent, but consistently poor, as only one win in 18 ODIs emphatically asserts. That statistic, however, makes no difference to Siddons, though not in the way many might think. “We get beaten by most sides above us regularly. We have no illusions about ourselves. Pakistan are one of the better teams and every day we play against them we will learn.”Pakistan on the other hand will be pleased to do anything other than washing dirty linen in public, as they have been doing. A series against Uganda, you suspect, would be a welcome distraction from the current circus, as well as relief in an incredibly barren calendar.

The routine pre-series question asked of any visitor these days is what impact the absence of Shoaib Akhtar will have on the opponents. Graeme Smith answered it most perceptively last year, asking whether his absence would suit South Africa or Pakistan. Siddons and Ashraful chose the path of indifference, one that’s least likely to make another headline.”Pakistan are ranked 5th right now and we are 9th so the discrepancy is massive,” said Siddons. “We’ve got to stick to our gameplans. If Pakistan slip up, we’ll jump on them. So whoever plays for them, we’ll play our own game – it doesn’t really matter to us.” Ashraful was equally unperturbed. “He has not been in the side a lot for the last few years and they still have quality bowlers in the side. If we play good cricket we can beat any team.”Indeed they can, only they haven’t done it often enough. Pakistan is currently a nervy, jittery side, unsure of itself and its natural game. If there is a time for Bangladesh to disprove many a notion, this is as good as any, though the tourists’ mood is cautious. “Pakistan were looking for some competitive games,” Siddons ended, “and we are here. But results don’t matter that much to us, because we’ll get a lot out of the series anyway.”

The Kolkata Knight Riders, currently topping the points table in the Indian Premier League, will play their next home match at the Eden Gardens on a new pitch after the original playing surface was criticised by players as unfit for play.Kolkata’s next match on April 29 against the Mumbai Indians will go ahead as scheduled, confirmed a team spokesperson, who angrily dismissed reports that the team’s second home game may be postponed due to the pitch.”The match will be held on an adjacent pitch, which has been developed for the match,” Snehasish Ganguly, the joint secretary of the Cricket Association of Bengal, which is the host association for the Kolkata franchise, told Cricinfo. “The Eden has 10 pitches and this one is on the right of the surface that was used for the first game. There is no doubt that the game is going ahead as scheduled.”The historic Eden Gardens, which can seat around 90,000 spectators, has hosted only one IPL match, which was a low-scoring affair after the pitch began to crumble from the third over. Kolkata scored 112 for 5 in 19 overs to edge past Deccan Chargers, the visiting team, in that match on April 20. The pitch was later termed by VVS Laxman, the Hyderabad captain, as “shocking”, by Adam Gilchrist, Laxman’s deputy, as a “disgrace”, and by Sourav Ganguly, the home team’s skipper, as “bad”.The BCCI, which runs the IPL, has sent Daljit Singh, its pitches and grounds committee chairman, to Kolkata to help prepare the new surface in time for the match.

Wayamba 174 for 9 (Kulatunga 78) beat Ruhuna 143 by 31 runs
Scorecard

Jeevantha Kulatunga played the stellar role, scoring a stroke-filled 78 off 45 balls and capturing 2 for 33, to steer Wayamba to a 31-run victory in the inaugural inter-provincial Twenty20 final against Ruhuna at the Welagedera Stadium in Kurunegala.Invited to bat first, Wayamba were 18 for 2 when Kulatunga arrived in the middle. He weathered the storm of Kosala Kulasekera, who had threatened to run through the batting, before starting to display his repertoire of strokes. He lifted his team to a fighting total of 174 for 9, hitting five sixes and as many fours in his fastidious knock.After losing their first two wickets for six runs, Ruhuna were pegged on the back foot by bowlers who maintained a tight line and reduced them to 96 for 7 by the end of the 14th over. A late rally by wicketkeeper Gihan de Silva, who slammed a quick 36 off 18 balls (two sixes, two fours), only delayed the inevitable as Ruhuna eventually folded up for 143 at the start of the final over.Wayamba skipper Jehan Mubarak attributed his team’s victory to Kulatunga’s all-round contribution. “He made the difference between the two sides,” Mubarak said.Kulatunga picked up the Player-of-the-Match award with Chintaka Jayasinghe of Kandurata taking the Player-of-the-Series prize.Sri Lanka Cricket were forced to cancel the Super Four round of matches due to bad weather and make it a straight knockout contest with the semi-finals and the final.Wayamba edged past Kandurata by seven runs and Ruhuna defeated Basnahira North by five wickets in the semi-finals.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsMashrafe Mortaza proved a matchwinner with the side of his game•Raton Gomes/BCB

Comilla Victorians needed their captain Mashrafe Mortaza to do the extraordinary – with the bat – to record their first win in the BPL. They beat Chittagong Vikings by seven wickets with Mohammad Amir unable to produce any heroics as Mashrafe and Marlon Samuels added 123 runs for the unbroken fourth wicket stand.When he struck the winning runs in the penultimate over with a boundary squeezed past third-man, Mashrafe ran in unbridled joy, the sort you would see from a bowler who has just done a match-winning job with the bat. After giving him the bear-hug, his team-mates helped him out of his helmet, pad and gloves too.Mashrafe ended with an unbeaten 56 off 32 balls with four fours and two sixes while Samuels remained with him to the end with 69 off 52 deliveries and helped return Mashrafe’s bat to him which had been thrown away in excitement. Samuels’ innings was always going to be crucial but the partnership was more important, especially because of how Comilla started with the bat.They started their chase by losing Imrul Kayes to the fourth ball and Liton Das in the third over, both falling to Amir. Suddenly it was Shuvagata Hom who took charge of the situation, going after Taskin Ahmed and Shafiul Islam for four boundaries and a couple of sixes over square leg and mid-off. His 16-ball 30 helped Comilla keep their initial thrust intact, but he fell in the eighth over, when Tillakaratne Dilshan ran back from point to take a superb catch.Then out came Mashrafe, promoting himself to No. 5 in a bid to keep up with the required run-rate which was nearing the 10-an-over mark at that time. His first attempt at a big shot was over midwicket in the tenth over. He found sixes over long-off and even over the cover boundary off Saeed Ajmal and one over midwicket. Ajmal conceded 20 in the 14th over as he also gifting away five wides.Having been dropped twice by Asif Ahmed and Chamara Kapugedera in the 12th and 15th over at long-off, Mashrafe reached his highest score in T20s in the 16th over with a straight driven four off Taskin, beating his previous best of 36 he made against Zimbabwe in Bangladesh’s first-ever T20 in 2006. The next ball, he tipped the ball past the keeper for his third four.Earlier, the exclamation point of the Chittagong innings was the 19th over in which Ziaur Rahman dispatched Abu Hider for three sixes and a four. He launched the first six over the bowler’s head, the next two over midwicket and square-leg. He struck just one boundary in the last over as he ended up on 39 off 16 balls. The final charge revived Chittagong after they slowed down following a fast start.Tamim Iqbal didn’t get a third consecutive fifty but he added 63 for the first wicket with Dilshan, who fell in the eighth over for 36 off 21 balls with a six and six fours, three of which came in the first over of the match. Tamim struck a couple of sixes in his 31-ball 33 before he holed out to long-off off Ashar Zaidi. Kapugedera fell in the 11th over for a duck before Yasir Ali was gone in the 16th, making it 123 for 4. Anamul was there at the other end, remaining unbeaten on 39 off 30 balls.

ScorecardFile photo: Robin Bist led a chase of 264 to perfection with his 109 not out•Sivaraman Kitta

Robin Bist’s unbeaten century to beat Punjab in Alur was a good primer of how to overcome top-order trouble as it led Himachal Pradesh to the Vijay Hazare Trophy semi-final. Two wickets lost inside the first six overs against a spirited pace attack, with the ball buzzing around both ways, was reason enough to create a few flutters for Himachal. Eventually, they got to the target of 264 with four balls to spare.A chase that was meandering at 77 for 3 in the 22nd over was turned around admirably when Bist found an ally in Rishi Dhawan, who played risk-free cricket through tactful strike rotation. It would be the hallmark of their 102-run fourth-wicket stand that came at a run-a-ball to bring a chase headed nowhere into the realms of possibility.Having the target within striking distance, however, brought a minor mishap. Dhawan mistimed a pull off Siddharth Kaul on 41 and Harbhajan Singh, running backwards from mid-on, held on to a pressure catch. Himachal needed 85 to win off 66 balls, and that was when Bist took over. Having been in accumulator mode early in his innings, he seamlessly brought out the big hitter in him to bring up a maiden List A century and puncture Punjab.The effervescence of Nikhil Gangta, who made a 28-ball 39, further fuelled Himachal’s dream run as victory was achieved with five wickets in hand in the final over. That not only meant a semi-final berth but also consigned Mandeep Singh’s carefully crafted 119 to second best on the day.Things had looked quite different when play started. Punjab lost Pargat Singh in the first over after being sent in on a slightly damp surface. But that was negated by Mandeep; his first boundary came off the seventh ball he faced – an on-the-up extra cover drive – and set the tone for a knock that featured the entire array of his strokes from point to square leg.The unusually harsh mid-morning sun had people ducking for shade and Mandeep too was not spared. He couldn’t hit over the top in front of the wicket, so he brought out the paddles and the delicate dabs to prove he was a multi-dimensional batsman. When he walked back for a 145-ball 119 in the final over, he had put Punjab in a commanding position. Such was his composure that even the loss of Yuvraj Singh (5) to a mistimed pull and Gurkeerat Singh (35) after a steady stand seemed to have no effect on him. He was helped later in the innings by Gitansh Khera (23) and Harbhajan Singh (25).Himachal began like a team that wasn’t sure how to approach the chase in a knockout game. Barinder Sran, the left-arm seamer, who is due to tour Australia in January, bowled a tight first spell of 4-1-11-0. While pace wasn’t his forte, minute deviation off the surface and precision was. The rewards, however, were reaped by Kaul, the other new-ball bowler, who removed Ankush Bains and Prashant Chopra inside six overs. When Paras Dogra skipped down the track, only to bowled after being deceived by Harbhajan’s slider, Himachal were in dire need of momentum at 77 for 3 in the 22nd over.An asking rate that was hovering over seven moved to eight and beyond. Dhawan and Bist milked the bowling but took great care against the slow bowlers, who seemed the bigger threat. The strategy was a sound one and worked quite well until Dhawan’s mistake in the 39th over. Though he couldn’t convert his start into a half-century and beyond, his contribution in a vital stand to go along with his three wickets threw light on the kind of role he could possibly play in Australia.Bist brought up his century in the 47th over, having overcome two close run-out calls. He took it to the last six balls and sealed the deal with some authority, lofting the ball over cover. So it was that Himachal Pradesh took down Punjab, a giant in the Indian domestic circuit, and go into their semi-final clash against Delhi with fresh energy and strong hopes.

A career-best, unbeaten 80 from 24-year-old allrounder Ben Wheeler helped Central Districts seal a tight chase of 295 against Canterbury, and confirm their place in the final of the Ford Trophy 2015-16. Wheeler’s knock came from No. 8, and egging him on from the other end was the brutal force of Jesse Ryder – he made 136 off 114 from No. 3, smoking seven sixes and 13 fours. The pair added 163 in 21 overs, at close to eight an over, rescuing Central Districts from the pits of 105 for 6 to help them home with two wickets and three balls to spare.It was right-arm pacer Kyle Jamieson who had done a large chunk of the damage to Central Districts’ top order, and he threatened to derail them once again with the massive wicket of Ryder in 44th over, with the team still 27 runs short of their target. Wheeler kept his head though, and finished the job.Canterbury’s 294 was built around a brisk century from opener Tom Latham – he scored 126 off 135. The rest of the top order made 20- and 30-somethings around him to ensure the team got within range of 300. Medium-pacer Seth Rance was the most incisive of the Central Districts bowlers, with three middle-order wickets, and Doug Bracewell made sure Canterbury did not get past 300 by polishing off the tail.Canterbury will have a second shot at the final when they take on Otago in the third preliminary final on Wednesday – they get a second chance since they finished the league stage in the top two on the points table, along with Central Districts. Central Districts, meanwhile, will have a week to prepare for the title game, which is scheduled for next Saturday.Otago had finished the league stage third on the points table and therefore have twice the work to do: they took the first step successfully, beating Auckland in the second preliminary final (effectively a quarter-final, with the loser going out and the winner needing to win one more game to get into the final).Otago batted first and piled up 312, led by 109 from Neil Broom. Batting at No. 3, Broom put on 158 with Michael Bracewell (69), after the other opener Anaru Kitchen was out off second legal ball of the game. Jimmy Neesham also chipped in with 59 off 54, before Derek de Boorder’s late cameo of 24 lifted them past 300.By the eighth over of the chase, 21-year-old pacer Jacob Duffy had Otago firmly on top. He took three early wickets, reducing Auckland to 40 for 3. Neil Wagner and Neesham struck soon after, and the game was as good as done. Unlike Central Districts’ case, there was no Auckland revival. Rain did end things early and Duckworth/Lewis came into play, but by then Auckland were already spluttering at 159 for 8 in 34, deemed to be 126 short of a winning score.

Central Zone were 417/8 at the close of the second day of the Duleep Trophy match against East Zone at the Green Park Oval, Kanpur on Friday. The start of day two was again delayed due to heavy fog and in the 63 overs bowled in the day, Central added 186 more runs to the overnight score of 231/3 losing five wickets in the day.The loss of Gagan Khoda, leg before to Zaman for 6, soon after the start was a heavy let down for Central. Raja Ali Joined Kaif and tried to build the faltering innings. But Ali was caught and bowled by Sukhbinder Singh for 16. Central were 280/5 at that stage. Kaif played rock steady and steadied the boat a little with a 71-run partnership for the sixth wicket with Abhay Sharma who was dismissed by Singh for 31 (4 fours). Kaif meanwhile reached his fifty off 107 balls striking ten fours in the process.Soon Central were 375/7 losing the man in form, Kaif for 83 caught by Dasgupta off Zaman. Kaif decorated his crafty innings with 14 boundaries. Southpaw Murali Kartik then played a little cameo. Kartik was severe on the bowling hitting six boundaries to make 45 runs off just 50 balls. Kartik fell leg before to Singh in the 114th over and Central were 409/8. At close of play Kulamani Parida and Winston Zaidi were unbeaten on 9 and 3 respectively. Zaman with 4/95 and Sukhbinder Singh with 3/89 have been the mainstay of the bowling.

After being bowled out for just 161 and losing to Sri Lanka by seven wickets in the Champions Trophy semi-final, Australian skipper Ricky Ponting was a very disappointed man.”That was the worst performance by us for some time. The wicket turned a lot more than we expected and we were put under a lot of pressure by their spin bowlers.”The wicket was too slow and turned too much for a one-day wicket. But we didn’t play the spinners well and that was the turning point, we simply weren’t good enough on the day,” said the skipper.When asked pointedly if he blamed the wicket for the defeat Ponting replied: “We were out-fielded, out-batted and out-bowled. It’s as simple as that.”He added: “It was a surprise how well Aravinda de Silva bowled but they also fielded really well with two direct hits.”Talking about the fact that Australia had lost to Sri Lanka in a few one-dayers in the recent past, Ponting admitted, “They have the wood over us at the moment but we have to see how well they do when they come to Australia this summer. We had played exceptionally well in the last two games coming up to today but were not good enough on the day.”When asked whether the Australians would have been better off with off-spinner Nathan Hauritz instead of Shane Watson, Ponting said: “Hindsight is a wonderful thing. We thought there would be more life in the wicket and also believed that the Sri Lankan batsmen would play our spinners well.”He added: “If we had even 225 on the board we could have given Sri Lanka a tough game. Warnie bowled really well and would have been tough to deal with had we got a decent score on the board.”Ponting’s counterpart, Sanath Jayasuriya did not quite share the view that the wicket was not a good one to play one-day cricket on.”I don’t think it was a bad wicket. It was a bit slow but that is how wickets at the Premadasa stadium are,” said Jaysuriya.Talking about the strategy of using spinners early on, Jayasuriya said: “I actually wanted to start with our spinners and in the end though Chaminda and Pulasthi could have a few overs in the start. We knew the Australians were not so good against our spinners at home”Calling this performance, “One of our best ever,” Jayasuriya reserved special praise for Aravinda de Silva. “I think we started off quite badly, letting Australia get off to such a strong start in the first five overs, but the spinners came in and bowled well. Especially Aravinda de Silva, who came in at a crucial time and changed things.”While all the spinners bowled well, Murali, Dharmasena, Chandana… it was really Aravinda’s spell that made all the difference,” stressed Jayasuriya.Having bowled the Aussies out for a low score, the Sri Lankans then knocked off the runs with care. Marvan Atapattu was steady as ever, making 51 as Sri Lanka coasted to victory with 10 overs to spare.”We didn’t want to lose any early wickets,” explained Jayasuriya.”We knew that Australia are a dangerous side and can always come back if you give them a chance. As always I wanted Marvan (Atapattu) to occupy the crease and bat out the full 50 overs,” he added.

It’s a sign of the times that a total of 130 in 20 overs is a described as below par. But, Twenty20 cricket has produced attitudes that think anything less than eight runs an over, or thereabouts, is not competitive enough, and Sialkot showed why that way of thinking persists as their below-par total was chased with ease.Sialkot’s score resulted from a combination of a start that was too slow for them to make up and conditions that favoured Auckland’s attack. Kyle Mills and Michael Bates gave away only 11 runs in the first five overs and both got the ball to nip away off the seam against tentative Sialkot openers.”Having a good start is something we target. Kyle Mills prides himself on using that first over to set the momentum,” Gareth Hopkins, the Auckland captain, said. “But it was also a tricky wicket to bat on, especially with the new ball.”Mills was Man of the Match for his spell of 4-1-6-2, an effort he aid was due to a disciplined line. “I was conscious of not giving away any width and bowling on off stump,” he said. “We built pressure from both ends and they were always on the back foot.”Shoaib Malik thought the use of the heavy roller during the break between matches could have brought up moisture from the morning rain – Johannesburg’s first showers in over two weeks – to the surface and added to his side’s difficulty. To get 130 on that surface and after that start was something Malik was proud of. “It was very tough when we were batting and the Auckland bowlers used the conditions well, but Shahid Yousuf batted brilliantly in the end. I thought it was enough.”Hopkins, however, suspected it was not and half the job was done. “When I looked at the first game [Yorkshire v Uva Next], I thought 150 was a little light,” he said. “I actually thought something around 160 would be par.” Andrew McDonald, the Uva allrounder who played in the day’s first match, said his team thought a score of around 170 was par.Taking those estimations into account, Sialkot were well short of a defendable total but Hopkins thought his team could have restricted them further. “If we had been better with certain areas of our game we think we could have had them for less, especially because there was a lot of sideways movement,” he said. “We still saw them get under the length balls and hit us for six.”Sialkot scored 60 runs in sixes, almost half of their eventual total, and that number pointed to the lapses Hopkins spoke about. Those were not the only signs of rustiness among teams on the first day of the Champions League qualifiers. Both matches did not produce cricket of the highest quality. In particular, the fielding fumbles and soft dismissals from all four sides made it groan-worthy at times.The poor turnout was also disappointing, although not much more could have been expected at this stage of the event. Little is known about the teams trying to qualify and few people have time to make new sporting discoveries in a busy city on a weekday. What they will know is that Yorkshire and Auckland are one step closer to the tournament and to playing in front of bigger crowds in South Africa.

Described as “shocking and embarrassing” by the Tasmania captain George Bailey, the system of third umpire interventions currently used in the domestic limited overs competition and the Twenty20 Big Bash League may be on the way to being scrapped at season’s end.While Cricket Australia remains officially in favour of the system, the players’ collective discontent with its inconsistent application and confusing outcomes has risen to such a level that the issue is likely to be a point of considerable debate at the influential CA cricket committee meeting next year.The committee adjudicates on matters including playing conditions, and in recent seasons has dealt with issues such as the short-lived split innings experiment in limited overs matches during the 2010-11 season, and the changing of rules governing player eligibility for the Futures League second XI competition to allow more players over the age of 23.

Third umpire interventions clause in CA playing conditions

• “The third umpire may intervene and stop play to allow the investigation of any out or not out decision where, based on all available evidence, it appears to the third umpire that the original decision may have been incorrect and/or warrants such investigation. The intervention shall be communicated to the on-field umpires as soon as possible, but must be done before the next delivery becomes live or the outgoing batsman has left the field of play.”

Bailey made his discontent with third umpire interventions plain following the Tigers’ five-wicket loss to Queensland on Wednesday night, despite it aiding his side’s cause when Peter Forrest was ruled LBW via the third umpire Paul Wilson. After the on-field umpire Geoff Joshua had rejected Queensland’s appeal.”It’s just shocking, it’s embarrassing, it needs to worked out,” said Bailey, also Australia’s Twenty20 captain. “I think it confuses the players, I think it confuses the umpires. I think leave it in the hands of the players. You get two, if you use them with bad reviews then so be it.”Paul Marsh, the chief executive of the Australian Cricketers Association and a member of the cricket committee, said the problems encountered with the system had not been envisaged at the time it was devised, and would force a close look at its faults at the end of the summer.”Certainly when it was talked about conceptually we didn’t see the problems that would come up,” Marsh told ESPNcricinfo. “There are issues with broadcaster actually showing replays, and I don’t think anyone saw that, and it just seems to be inconsistent the way that it is working. It definitely is something we need to put on our agenda for the coming year.”We haven’t specifically polled them on this issue but anecdotally the players are having an issue with the inconsistency, they find it confusing, they find it too slow. Overall the comments we’re getting from players is they don’t think it’s a great system.”While there is some support for Bailey’s preference for the implementation of a DRS-style system in the manner of that used at international level, it appears more likely that televised domestic matches would revert to the former style of third umpires being involved with line calls like run-outs and stumpings, unless the money can be found to replicate the Hot-Spot and ball-tracking aids available for internationals.”The feedback we’ve got from the players is they’d prefer a DRS style system than the current interventions,” Marsh said. “But the problem is if the technology isn’t good enough there’s no guarantee you’re going to get a replay that will answer the question. If Australian cricket wants to go that way it needs to invest in the technology to aid these decisions.”CA’s cricket operations manager Sean Cary is presently comfortable with the system in place, and through a spokesman indicated that in their first season in 2011-12 third umpire interventions were responsible for 12 incorrect decisions being overturned with the help of video evidence.