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Loots Bosman and Deon Kruis combined to play Griquas right back into contention on the third day of their SuperSport Series match against the North West Dragons at De Beers Oval.Bosman’s maiden first-class century and four wickets in succession for Kruis left the match situation intriguingly poised with one day’s play remaining.The Dragons will resume their second innings on 142 for six – an overall lead of 171 – and with both sides harbouring hopes of recording their first win of the campaign.Bosman’s innings had begun on Saturday with his side deep in trouble at 68 for four as he strode to the wicket. That quickly became 115 for seven as wickets tumbled around the unflappable number six.He resumed an unbroken 40-run partnership for the eighth wicket with Zahir Abrahim on Sunday and the pair added a 51 before the latter was caught at the wicket having made 57. He was the fifth victim for Mark Levine.Craig Tatton followed almost instantly, but then Bosman found another willing partner in number 11 Wayne Kidwell who made ten of a last wicket partnership of 73 before he was run out.Bosman upped the tempo with Kidwell, striking four sixes and ten fours in a five-hour stay, finally reaching three figures after falling just four runs short in his debut season against Free State in 1997/98.The Dragons built positively on their 29-run first innings lead, openers Andrew Lawson and Hendrik de Vos putting on 52 for the first wicket before De Vos was caught and bowled by Tatton.A second half century partnership – this time for the third wicket – between Lawson and Glen Hewitt (39) took the Dragons to 115 for two before Deon Kruis returned to the attack to take four wickets in the space of 25 runs to bowl Griquas right back into the match.He sent back both the partners and then followed up by trapping Levine and Craig Light lbw with the score on 140 to leave the game teetering on a knife edge.

Maharshtra by virtue of their first innings lead picked up five pointsin their Under-16 Vijay Merchant trophy match against Baroda at theMotibaug Palace Ground on Monday.The hosts had to be content withthree points as the match ended in a draw.Earlier, Baroda won the toss and decided to bat first. The openersgave a decent start scoring 56 runs off 12 overs. Most of the batsmenmade good starts but failed to convert it into long innings. R Solankiwas the top scorer with 84 off 141 balls laced with 14 hits to thefence. Baroda were bowled out for 263 in 90.1 overs. S Agarkar pickedup five for 80. Aditya Sharma picked up two for 21.In reply, Maharashtra batted cautiously. Openers S Puranik (38) andAditya Sharma (16) put on 62 runs off 35.2 overs. C Suryavanshi and SGaikwad added a 102 run partnership for the third wicket off 29 overs.Suryavanshi topscored with 68 off 126 balls, with eight boundaries. SChavan chipped in with a useful 58 off 116 balls, hitting nine to thefence. A Bochare, Y Pathan and J Naikwade picked up three wickets eachfor 50, 68 and 73 runs respectively. Maharashtra were bowled out for308 in 118.3 overs.In the second innings, Baroda declared at 238 for two off 64 overssetting Maharashtra a target of 283. R Solanki continued his good formscoring an unbeaten 114 off 197 balls, hitting 18 boundaries. YusufPathan was unbeaten on 50 off 48 balls with eight hits to the fence.Opener R Patel chipped in with 63 off 134 balls. Maharshtra battedthe day for 33 overs ending the day at 92 for two.

Railways earned two points from a six wicket victory over Rajasthan in the Ranji One-Day Central Zone League tournament at Karnail Singh Stadium, Delhi on Wednesday.Railways won the toss and put Rajasthan in to bat. Rajasthan had an early setback losing both openers for 18 runs. The batsmen never recovered from the blow and lost wickets at regular intervals before succumbing to 170 all out in 49.5 overs. RJ Kanwat (35), Gagan Khoda (33) and Sanjeev Sharma (33) hung around but could not hold the innings together. TP Singh and Zakir Hussian ran through the lineup picking up three wickets each for 23 and 36 runs respectively.In reply, Opener Amit Pagnis made a fluent 80 off 84 deliveries, studded with seven hits to the fence. TP Singh made a quickfire 34 off 22 balls with five boundaries. Railways scored the 172 in 32.1 overs. RJ Kanwat bagged three wickets for 47.

Pakistan “A” has replied with 192 for 8 on the second day of 4-day unofficial test against Sri Lanka “A” at Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium on Thursday.Hasan Raza, with fighting unbeaten knock of 89, kept the visitors’ innings together. Misbah scored 40 and Yasir Arafat with 17, who was last man out, Paskistan was struggling to avert the first innings lead to home team.


Khalid Butt
Media Manager
14 June 2001

With some diligent batting in the final session, Sussex reached 301 for nine on the first day of their Cricinfo Championship match against Middlesex at Lord’s.The 56-run stand between Michael Yardy and Matthew Prior for the sixth wicket, in an hour and a half, may not have provided much entertainment, but it helped to give some solidity to the innings.The partnership ended with James Hewitt bowling Yardy for 46, compiled with some application, from 133 balls and three runs later, in his next over, Hewitt uprooted Prior’s middle stump. His 28 was also slow, coming in 97 minutes and it took Sussex to 251 for seven.With Mark Davis’ quick scoring the total went to 282 for eight and finally, with the second new ball, Angus Fraser took the ninth wicket on 294.Sussex, in the first hour after lunch, had lost two wickets when Phil Tufnell was brought into the attack. In his third over he had Chris Adams top-edging to slip and ten overs later he was fortunate to see a shot from Bastiaan Zuiderent hit Michael Roseberry at silly mid-off and rebound to the wicket-keeper for a catch. Sussex were 142 for three and Tufnell had taken two wickets for twelve.Just as Murray Goodwin and Yardy were consolidating the innings with a 50-run stand, off-spinner Paul Weekes struck twice with successive balls. Goodwin’s solid knock of 69 which spanned four and a quarter hours, ended as he pushed forward and missed. He had hit eight fours from the 185 balls.Weekes then had Umer Rashid caught at slip and half of the Sussex wickets had gone for 192.Earlier, having decided to bat first, Sussex seemed to be going well with 46 on the board when Middlesex claimed their first wicket this morning. Hewitt, having replaced Tim Bloomfield, whose five overs went for 25, got one to move away slightly from Richard Montgomerie to have him caught behind for 22.Bowling in overcast conditions and on a pitch with a little grass on it, Middlesex had no further success before lunch which was taken on 113 for one.Adams was in excellent form, reaching a sparkling half-century in the penultimate over before the break. It came from just 49 balls and included eight boundaries.Along with Goodwin, he kept the scoreboard moving with fine strokeplay, although the shot of the morning came from Goodwin when he square-cut Richard Hutton for four to reach 34.The hundred came from 161 balls, the second fifty was much quicker from only 65. But with Adams’ dismissal after lunch the more cautious Goodwin had slowed the scoring. After being down to 220 for five at tea, Sussex added 81 in the last session, losing four further wickets. Hewitt finished with three for 59.

The BCCI is yet to respond to the request of Asian Cricket Foundation(ACF) to recommend development officers for taking up coaching jobs indifferent Asian nations to promote the game in the continent.The Chairman of the ACF, Jagmohan Dalmiya, told PTI in Kolkata onSunday that ACF had sought names of three candidates each fromPakistan, Sri Lanka and India with the former two already despatchingthe list.The Screening Committee, he said, would meet on August 1 to choose oneamong the three names submitted by each of these nations to depute ascoach to countries like Hong Kong, Nepal, Maldives, Singapore andQatar where cricket is still in its nascent stage.”Though Pakistan and Sri Lanka have submitted three names each, we arestill awaiting a response from the BCCI. We will send them a remindersoon and if no response comes by July 30, the ACF will announce namesfrom among the former players in its list,” said Dalmiya. Dalmiya,however, expressed the hope that the BCCI would send the names soon.While Pakistan has sent a list comprising former skippers MushtaqMohammed and Zaheer Abbas and medium pacer Iqbal Sikander, Sri Lankarecommended classic batsman Roy Dias, former pacer Rumesh Ratnayekeand wicketkeeper-batsman Brendon Kuruppu.Asked why the ACF did not send a similar despatch to Bangladesh,Dalmiya quipped Bangladesh itself needed a development officer. “But Ihope within two or three years Bangladesh can send coaches.”He also said Sri Lanka Sports Minister Lakshman Kiriella, accompaniedby former medium pacer Asantha De Mel, would visit India on July 22 todiscuss the development of the game.

BCCI nominates 4 former players as Development OfficersThe Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has nominated fourformer Test players for the post of Development Officers of the AsianCricket Foundation (ACF). National selectors Ashok Malhotra and MadanLal, allrounder Roger Binny and left handed batsman Woorkheri Ramanwere the four BCCI nominees, according to ACF chairman JagmohanDalmiya.The ACF will meet in Kolkata on July 31 and August 1 to finalise thepanel of development officers. The two-day meeting will also discussvarious other issues pertaining to development of cricket in theregion.Pakistan and Sri Lanka had already sent their nominations for the postof Development Officers. While Pakistan’s list comprised formerskippers Mushtaq Mohammed and Zaheer Abbas and medium pacer IqbalSikander, Sri Lanka recommended stylish batsman Roy Dias, former pacerRumesh Ratnayeke and wicketkeeper-batsman Brendon Kuruppu.* CBFS wins defamation caseThe London High Court has passed a judgement in favour of theCricketers’ Benefit Fund Series, Sharjah (CBFS) with regard to theirdefamation case against the “Asian Age” daily newspaper for publishingcertain “libellous statements”, a CBFS release said on Saturday.”The judgement allowed for damages for an amount to be assessed at alater date as well as legal costs for the plaintiff. An injunction nowprevents the Asian Age from publishing similar libels in future. TheAsian Age did not defend the case against it,” the CBFS said in thepress release.The court heard the CBFS case on July 12 regarding the publication ofthe alleged offending matter on February 14, and passed its judgement.When contacted, MJ Akbar, Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director ofAsian Age, said they have not received any notice in this regard.

Indian skipper, Saurav Ganguly, blamed the wicket for his team’s poorperformance after they suffered a crushing 84-run defeat at the handsof New Zealand in the second match of the Coca Cola Cup at R.Premadasa Stadium on Friday.”That was not the best one-day wicket to bat on” said a disappointedGanguly “The ball was not coming onto the bat and that’s going to makethings difficult for the side batting second.”New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat, but struggled to get 211.However, in return they came out with a stellar performance in thefield by bowling out the opposition for 127. Ganguly’s poor formcontinued and he managed only five in 17 balls, but looked not overlyworried about the defeat.”This is just the beginning of the tournament” said the Indianskipper. “We’ve got five more games to go and hopefully we can turnthings around in the matches to come.”Man of the Match Nathan Astle agreed with Ganguly’s remarks on thewicket. “I think the wicket behaved a little better when we batted butwas a little idle when they batted. It went up and down a bit andbecame a little bit slower. So I suppose we had the better of thebatting conditions” remarked the opener.Despite Astle’s hundred New Zealand only managed 211 at the end of theday. “Their bowlers bowled particularly well throughout the day,especially Harbhajan Singh with a lot of turn and variation” saidAstle. Harbhajan finished up with impressive figures of 2/25 in hisquota of 10 overs.”We were going to go for the kill in the last ten overs. But theybowled even better at the death, specially the two left-handers,” headded.New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming was delighted with his side’sbowling performance. “Nathan’s hundred was obviously a good one. Butmore important was the way all the bowlers bowled.”The New Zealand new ball bowlers Darryl Tuffey and Kyle Mills set thetune by bowling impressive spells. Especially Tuffey who had figuresof 7-2-7-1 in his first spell, which put the Indians on the backfoot. “Both of them bowled really well and set the stage for theothers” remarked the captain. “This is the best performance I haveseen them involved in.”Summing up the side’s performance Fleming said, “We have improved alot from the last game. But we still want to improve on things likeplaying the spinners better.”

John Reid is in the wars again.The tough-talking, and acting, International Cricket Council referee, and former New Zealand cricket captain and all-rounder has drawn the continuing ire of the Pakistan Cricket Board who have taken exception to his appointment as match referee to the Pakistan-Bangladesh Asian Test Championship match.As soon as the appointment was announced, the PCB announced it would be protesting against Reid.In the past, in his role as match referee Reid has been involved in fining and suspending Pakistan fast bowler Waqar Younis for ball tampering while Azhar Mahmood had been fined and warned on similar charges.Reid was also involved in acting on the reports of umpires concerned at fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar’s bowling action. He sent the umpires report to the ICC for action by the ICC’s bowling committee which agreed with the umpire.Reid said today he had no comment to make on the Pakistan protest although he did say he was disappointed by it.Reid said that despite the protest he was still available to go to the match and do the job he had been appointed to.The issue is an important one for the ICC and raises questions on its administration of the world game.The Pakistan view is that the ICC created a precedent for an official being challenged after Sri Lanka successfully sought the removal of Australian umpire Darrell Hair from their games in the 1999 World Cup. Hair had been involved in calling Sri Lankan off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan for throwing on a tour of Australia.Since that time however, the ICC has toughened up its governance in order to seek more control of its member countries, especially in the wake of match-fixing controversies.ICC president Malcolm Gray said from Melbourne today that all he knew about the Pakistan complaint was what he had seen on CricInfo on the Internet and would be talking with ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed tonight to see if a protest had been received.

Just minutes after seeing his side cruise to a nine wicket victory over wooden spoonists Essex, Somerset Coach told me, “We were very very good. On a flat wicket at Chelmsford the boys did well to bowl them out twice.”He went on, “Jamie Cox’s innings was the best that I have seen him bat, and he received good support from Rob Turner, with Richard Johnson and Jason Kerr bludgeoning important runs at the end.”What was the situation regarding the Championship runner’s up position I asked him.The coach said, “It looks like the Kent game will end in a draw, which means that we need six points from our final match next week to be certain of second place. This will leave Kent needing twenty points from their last match at Old Trafford, which is a tall order.”