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The Australians clearly haven’t been enamoured by the Twenty20 format but Tim Nielsen, their coach, believes they are getting their act together after a dismal start to the tournament. Australia were shocked by Zimbabwe in the opener, and then lost to Pakistan as well, but have still made it to the semi-final after a thumping ten-wicket win against Sri Lanka on Thursday.”I think coming off the break we were a little unsure about how the tournament was going to work,” Nielsen said on the eve of their semi-final clash against India in Durban. “Guys in our international team hadn’t had a lot of exposure to the Twenty20, and every time they played it was a lot of fun; it was a break between the Tests and ODIs. So probably losing to Zimbabwe was as good a tonic as we can hope for. We’re lucky in a way it happened. It is made us focus, and realise that if we did not get it right, we would be under real pressure. Most importantly, after that loss, we had time to practice and train, and to get the confidence back among the boys.”We now feel that we can meet the challenges a lot better. The more work we’ve done, the more comfortable the boys are with where they’re at. It’s been great that we’ve been able to find our way through to this stage of the tournament and ideally we’re getting better every time; we’ll hit the semi-final in as good a shape as we can be.”The Australians will be up against an in-form Indian team which is riding the momentum of two excellent wins against England and South Africa, and Nielsen admitted that his team would have to be focused from the start.”I think we’re getting to the stage in the tournament where we’ll have to play at our best to be competitive. If you’re not quite ready you can get caught out so quickly. That was shown over the last couple of days when teams got on a roll and it was for the opposition to stop the momentum. So we have to make sure tomorrow that we’re switched on right from ball one.”Was he surprised that India, one of the less fancied teams in the competition, had progressed to the semi-finals?”Certainly not. They’ve got a lot of young players who are relishing the opportunity to play for the country. We’ve seen two or three players in our cricket academy – RP Singh and Dinesh Karthik were there, while some of our guys played against Rohit Sharma a couple of years ago. We know these guys a little and we know they’re fine players so we’re not surprised at all.”When someone reminded him about Graeme Smith’s comment about South Africa being unlucky to go out of the tournament after just one defeat, Nielsen was quick with his retort: “That’s what this tournament is all about. It’s not about how many games you win, it’s about winning at the right times. If you’re in a crunch game, you’ve got to make sure you perform. That’s what this team [Australia] has done for so long. And they showed it again yesterday.”And as another crunch match comes up on Saturday, Nielsen will expect another similar performance from his team.

Scorecard

A five-wicket haul by West Indies fast bowler Jerome Taylor followed by a merciless assault by Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels helped Jamaica decimate Bermuda by nine wickets in their Stanford 20/20 match in Antigua. The West Indies trio proved too hot to handle for the World Cup qualifiers as Jamaica eased to their target of 75, getting there in only the sixth over.Taylor finished with fantastic figures of 5 for 10, which included a three-wicket burst in the space of four balls in his third over. Jermaine Lawson too kept the batsmen under check at the other end with some incisive seam bowling as Bermuda were tottering at 26 for 4. Oliver Pitcher and Delyone Borden made a recovery of sorts, adding 30 before another burst of wickets let them down. Pitcher top-scored with 19 as his side were bowled out for 74.Bermuda caused some early jitters, as George O’Brien bowled Xavier Marshall for a duck. Samuels earned a reprieve, skying his first delivery to extra cover, only to be dropped by Pitcher. From then on, it was Jamaica all the way with Gayle smashing four sixes in his unbeaten 40 off 22 balls. Samuels smacked five boundaries in his unbeaten 25, as Jamaica booked their place in the quarter finals.
ScorecardTravis Dowlin, the Guyana opener, hit an unbeaten half-century to guide his side to an easy eight-wicket win over Montserrat in their Stanford 20/20 match in Antigua. Dowlin and Narsingh Deonarine (31 not out) reached the target of 116 with 21 balls to spare in front of a capacity crowd which had a large Guyanese contingent.Choosing to bat first, Montserrat struggled to force the pace against the slow bowlers, led by former West Indies spinners Mahendra Nagamootoo and Neil McGarrell. Montserrat had an encouraging start, with their openers Nesta Piper and McPhearson Meade adding 46, picking runs of the seamers. The spinners then came into play, sharing five wickets between them to restrict Montserrat to 115 for 8. Guyana made a steady reply, with Dowlin opting to graft it out instead of going for the big shots.Guyana will now meet Jamaica in the quarter-finals next Friday.

Lancashire‘s hopes of their first outright Championship title since 1934 are fading with every passing day at The Oval. Surrey declined to enforce the follow-on after dismissing them for 234 before extending their lead to 214.Surrey bowled tidily as a collective, with Matt Nicholson and Chris Jordan particularly impressing. Nicholson exploited the early swinging conditions, and a lifting pitch, to remove Steven Croft for a duck and to trap Mark Chilton for 4. Stuart Law and Paul Horton rallied with 45 and 48 respectively, and it was left to VVS Laxman (53) and latterly Dominic Cork (46 not out) to limit the first-innings deficit.Laxman batted with his customary authority until he fell, pulling hard to long leg off the rapidly emerging talent Jordan, who has slotted right into first-team cricket. Those in the know are already tipping him as Young Cricketer of the Year for 2008.Like Nicholson, Jordan used the conditions to bowl with pace and hostility; his last two victims – Oliver Newby (0) and Gary Keedy (2) – were both beaten for pace and fended through to the keeper, although replays showed the ball had brushed Newby’s arm. Cork was the lone battler and he enjoyed the challenge, even smacking an audacious six for good measure. But not for fun: Lancashire badly want this title.It’s not of their reach yet, however, although if they do prosper it will be in spite of Mark Ramprakash’s gleaming best efforts. He fell short of his double-hundred, making 196. Still, it could prove ultimately costly, given he could have been run out on nought, and was also dropped on 4.Sussex had another excellent day against Worcestershire at Hove as they continued to press their own title claims. They gained maximum batting points thanks to Robin Martin-Jenkins, who will at once rue, and be delighted with, his 99 and Chris Liddle, who demonstrated an eye for the big occasion with his maiden first-class half-century.Following Mushtaq Ahmed’s dismissal (382 for 8), Sussex needed a further 118 for five points; Martin-Jenkins and Liddle duly delivered, with a ninth-wicket partnership of 120. Worcestershire showed heart with an opening stand of 79 and they had reached 93 for 2 by stumps; Moeen Ali (1) soon following Stephen Moore (48) to the hutch.Michael Carberry’s unbeaten century for Hampshire was the highlight against Yorkshire on day two at Headingley. After finishing off Yorkshire’s first innings for 195, Hampshire drew level with four wickets down. John Crawley also contributed a fifty.Dale Benkenstein struck a century to hand Durham the lead following another tidy day against Kent at Canterbury. By the close, Kent had come close to erasing the deficit in their second innings; they now trail by ten with seven wickets left.

The Ashes have gone and the Melbourne Test went in three days, but the England coach Duncan Fletcher does not believe it was the worst performance of his coaching reign. Fletcher rated Michael Vaughan’s first Test in charge as a lower point than the innings-and-99-run defeat at the MCG on Thursday, which gave Australia a 4-0 advantage.England won the toss and batted but could cobble together only 159 and managed another 161 in the second innings. “I wouldn’t say that’s the worst we’ve played,” Fletcher said as his team should have been starting the fourth day. “We haven’t played as well as in previous Tests and series, but from our point of view we just didn’t make enough runs on that first day. It was crucial to put in a better performance.”England have been speaking about improving since the first Test and they have only one more opportunity to avoid being the second side to lose an Ashes series 5-0. Despite the predicament Fletcher had no problems saying he was happy with the team. “They are trying their hardest,” he said. “I’ve seen how disappointed they are.”Fletcher said England’s innings-and-92-run loss to South Africa when Vaughan replaced Nasser Hussain in 2003 was his worst result as coach. “We really felt down after that,” he said. “I can remember that very clearly.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

Shane Bond ripped through Sri Lanka during an extraordinary day’s cricket to leave New Zealand on the verge of victory in the opening Test. Sri Lanka made a promising start with the ball, dismissing New Zealand for 206 to restrict the lead to 52, but then collapsed to 125 for 8 at stumps.Bond’s demolition job started with the fortuitous run-out of Sanath Jayasuriya as he deflected a firm straight drive from Upul Tharanga onto the stumps at the non-striker’s end. Despite this cruel blow, Sri Lanka were very much in the game on 44 for 1 an hour after tea, just eight runs adrift of New Zealand.But just when Bond appeared to be nearing the end of his opening spell, Stephen Fleming pulled off a brilliant one-handed catch at first slip. Tharanga played a slashing drive, Fleming parried the ball up and deftly pouched it between his fingers on the turn. The catch turned the match emphatically towards New Zealand.Sri Lanka then folded with a succession of soft strokes. The bowling was good but the pitch was far from treacherous and Sri Lanka’s middle order will have to shoulder the blame for what should be – barring some heroic batting from Kumar Sangakkara, the last remaining specialist, tomorrow – a heavy defeat.Mahela Jayawardene erred with a wide drive, edging a James Franklin delivery to slip, Chamara Kapugedera failed to get behind a back-foot drive to be caught at point and Chamara Silva completed a pair on debut as he spooned a slower ball to mid-off. Sri Lanka had lost four wickets for two runs in the space of 24 balls.Sangakkara did provide some resistance with a gutsy 63 from 97 balls, an innings that grew more belligerent as Sri Lanka’s cause became more desperate. However, with the allrounders – Prasanna Jayawardene, Chaminda Vaas, Farveez Maharoof – unable to give him substantial support, his efforts are likely to be unrewarded.The lead now stands at 73 with only Muttiah Muralitharan still to bat. If Lasith Malinga, who looked uncomfortable at the crease before the close, and Muralitharan can stay with Sangakkara to engineer a target of 150 plus then there could still be a remarkable twist to the game. Such a lead, however, seems fanciful.Sri Lanka will have been bitterly disappointed by their predicament after such a spirited display from their bowlers, especially the two senior pros, Muralitharan and Vaas, but also Malinga who bowled with aggression and discipline. Maharoof chipped in with the key wicket of Stephen Fleming, the breakthrough that prompted a late collapse.Like Sri Lanka later in the day, New Zealand sacrificed their wickets in a mad flurry. They stumbled from the relative comfort of 106 for 2 to a parlous 113 for 6. Muralitharan snared Craig Cumming and Nathan Astle in the same over and Vaas dismissed Jacob Oram and Brendon McCullum in similar fashion.Daniel Vettori helped steady the innings with a characteristically industrious 63, adding a crucial 75 with Fleming either side of lunch. While Fleming focused on survival, batting 158 balls for his gritty 48, Vettori frustrated the Sri Lankans as he survived several strong appeals early on and then ticked along at a steady rate.When the afternoon drinks break arrived, New Zealand were 188 for 6. Sri Lanka, though, clawed themselves back again, claiming the last four wickets for 20 runs to give them a chance of building a decent target for Muralitharan to defend – the main justification for Jayawardene’s gamble at the toss. Alas, for Sri Lanka, all the hard work was wasted with another flimsy batting display.

Tradition may have been a big deal for the Fiddler on the Roof but for Steve Waugh and his Australian side it doesn’t mean much. Many of the game’s old habits have gone by the wayside in their relentless pursuit of excellence.Nightwatchman. Gone. Although Andy Bichel came out to bat against England in Sydney recently with 18 overs left in the day.Six batsmen, one wicket-keeper and four bowlers. Gone. The key is Adam Gilchrist who allows the side the luxury of picking him as a batsman. This allows the team a fifth bowler. The psychology of it should suit the Australians fine. If their six batsmen don’t score enough runs, the quintet of bowlers will look after it.If the bowlers allow the opposition batsmen off the leash, the Australian batsmen will make up for it. If that doesn’t work, Steve Waugh will throw the ball to someone unlikely such as Darren Lehmann or Ricky Ponting and they will take a wicket. In the case of an Australian collapse, the Australian tail will invariably wag.But the biggest change the Australian side has brought to the game is the pace of play. With them, Test matches are frenetic and so much seems to happen in a short period of time. One is convinced that it must be the fourth day and it turns out it’s only the third.Notwithstanding poor weather, it’s now a rarity that the Australian side plays on the fifth day. In days gone by, around three days were needed for both sides to have their first innings. From there it was up to the side batting third whether or not there was going to be a result.For the most part, unless there were collapses, at least some part of the fifth was needed. More often than not, the fifth day would meander into a dull and meaningless draw.Not with Steve Waugh and his team. In the 46 Tests he has captained, only 16 have gone into the fifth day on their own accord (as opposed to the presence of inclement weather). That is a staggering statistic.It also places incredible heat on the opposition side to be able to last the distance. The option to hold out for a draw due to lack of time is removed from them. There are now only two possible results – victory or defeat.Steve Waugh has captained Australia to only five draws and all of them were due to the Test being affected by rain.This is the way cricket should be played. Positive and entertaining for the spectators and most of all the players. What is the point of playing for five days for no result? Now Waugh and his side are illustrating the folly of it because there is no reason whatsoever why five days should be insufficient time.No matter what the sport, whether it’s the Dutch soccer side of the 1970s and their total football, Australia II and their winged keel, the Chicago Bulls of the early 1990s and their triangle offense or the current Australian cricket side, the hallmark of a great team is one which first revolutionises and then evolutionises the way it’s sport is played and leaves it the better for it.

Shane Bond, the New Zealand fast bowler, has been ruled out of his team’s opening match of the Champions Trophy, against South Africa, in Mumbai on Monday with a “stiffness and restriction” in the back. This is the latest setback in a long line of back trouble that Bond has suffered.”Shane Bond won’t be considered for tomorrow’s match,” said Linsay Crocker, the New Zealand manager, at a pre-match press conference. “Shane suffered some stiffness and restriction of movement in his back in the warm-up match against Baroda at MIG Club on Friday.”He was keen to bowl today in preparation for tomorrow but we’ve taken a long-term view with Shane and decided it’s best he doesn’t bowl today or tomorrow and begins preparations for the next match on Tuesday.”The news came as a blow to New Zealand ahead of their crucial match against South Africa, but Stephen Fleming, the captain, was as unruffled as ever, and took the news in his stride. “It’s disappointing. It’s not good news before a big game, but it’s news we’ve had in the pastand we’ve been able to deal with before,” said Fleming. “While the team is extremely disappointed for Shane, we still think that, given the nature of the pitch, we have opportunities with our bowlers to still be competitive.”Fleming underscored the need to take a long-term view in the case of recurring injuries with key players, and explained New Zealand’s stance on Bond. “When you have a player who has long-term back problems it is always a concern when that back problem gives restrictions. What we’ve tried to do with Shane is be conservative,” he said. “We’re not looking at just this tournament, we’re looking at ones after this, especially the World Cup. If we can get him through to that, that would be nice. That is the long-term aim which is part of the reason why we’re not playing him tomorrow.”With Scott Styris also not 100 % fit – he suffered a hamstring twinge during a warm-up match – New Zealand have not got off to the start they wanted off the field. However, Styris was still in contention for a place in the final eleven, and depending on how his fitness held up in practiceon the day before the match, he could still make the cut and play a part.

Anil Kumble, India’s leading Test wicket-taker, will soon face a rare milestone – his 100th Test. He is set to don the Indian cap for the 99th time when the second Test against Sri Lanka begins at Delhi on Saturday.A smile, a rare expression of happiness, broke through the usually stony facade of Kumble at the mention of the milestone. “It is a great feeling. To think back, I started in 1990 and to have got this far,” he said. “It definitely helps your confidence. It shows your sustained kind of performance at international level. It acts as a motivational factor.”Of current Indian cricketers, only Sachin Tendulkar with 124 Tests has played more matches than Kumble. Tendulkar himself will be equalling Sunil Gavaskar’s tally of 125 matches. Kapil Dev, the former allrounder, has the most matches for an Indian, 131.When he steps on to the Feroze Shah Kotla ground this weekend, Kumble will be on par with Mohammad Azharuddin, his former captain, who played in 99 Tests. “The team knows what I am capable of,” he added during a team practice at the Palam ground on Thursday. “I have the respect of the team and the opponents as well, and the adulation I have received has been tremendous. So I have no qualms.”Kumble typically played down any suggestion of disappointment at having remained backstage throughout his long career. “I think it has got to do with the media. As a cricketer I have to perform, I have a job to do,” said Kumble, 35. “I look at it as a profession and try to do best what I can. People writing and speaking about it is not in my control.”Kumble will have happy memories of this ground. The Kotla is the venue where he became only the second bowler in the history of the game to claim all 10 wickets in an innings, against Pakistan in 1999. However, Kumble politely dismissed any talk about attempting a repeat of the feat over the next five days. “It is the people who have been talking about the 10 wickets. Not myself or the team. As a cricketer we know it happens once in a lifetime,” he said. “I don’t think I have gone with that in my mind into any match. It is a good feeling, I don’t deny that. And I know that the expectations are high and hopefully I will live upto that.”Kumble also said that a combination of factors have made things difficult for the slow bowler in modern cricket. “No matter what you do, there is lot of pressure at the international level. Even before you bowl the first ball, a debutant knows what you are going to do. He has studied your leg spinner, top spinner, what angle you are going to bowl. There is so much one gets to know from the media. The challenge is to adapt.”He added that it was not correct to say the present lot were better than those of the past merely because they have pushed the benchmark higher. “I don’t think you can judge different eras. There have been better performers before. What you have to look at is the standards in that scenario, we have to judge them on the standards of that era.” Kumble felt that whatever change that Indian cricket has gone through in recent times was for the good.”You need different ideas and different people if you need to change. Change has been good. Having been there for 15 years, whatever happens, I have learnt to take it positively and focus on improving my game and better my performance.”Commenting on the rain-marred first Test at Chennai that lasted less than a day and a half, Kumble said Sri Lanka deserved credit for the way they played on the last day. He did add, however, that it was not a true indicator of the strengths of the two teams. “You should not read too much into what happened in Chennai. The groundsmen did a great job to get the match started. The whole city was under water, and to have a match in that situation takes a lot of hard work.”

New Zealand Cricket (NZC) has appointed former New Zealand player and first-class coach Dipak Patel as New Zealand Under-19 coach. The position is until the end of the Under-19 World Cup in Sri Lanka in February 2006.Announcing Patel’s appointment, Gary Stead, NZC High Performance Centre coach, said: “We are very pleased to be able to appoint Dipak to this position. He has had a distinguished career as a first-class and international player and more recently a successful coaching career across many levels including coaching the State Central Stags at first-class level”.The build up prior to the World Cup will see Patel being involved in junior academy and academy programmes, attendance at the national Under-19 tournament and a week’s intensive build up at High Performance Centre prior to attending the tournament in Sri Lanka.

Western Australian left handers Adam Gilchrist (109*) and Simon Katich (105*) have scored twin centuries to help avert outright defeat for their team on the final day of the Pura Cup match against Queensland in Perth. Displaying icy-cool temperaments on a warm afternoon, the duo forged a vital, unbroken sixth wicket partnership of 166 against a tiring Bulls attack after they had been joined with their side deep in trouble twenty minutes before lunch.Having been part of a side that had been out-thought, out-batted and out-bowled for the majority of this match, the sterling efforts of Gilchrist and Katich effected quite a transformation. Indeed, in defying the near-inevitable, the pair probably ensured that it will be the Warriors rather than the Bulls who will be leaving the WACA tonight in the happier frame of mind.In short, this was a day which featured some excellent, iron-willed batting from the two highly regarded Western Australians. Katich dropped anchor and was content to act as the mainstay of the innings, displaying an impeccable understanding of which deliveries to play and which to leave. In the way of attractive strokemaking, there was nothing particularly appealing in itself about his ninth first-class century. But the twenty-five year old’s concentration and discipline were without fault. In an unusually dour exhibition, Gilchrist matched his partner – initially at least – for circumspection before exploding into scoring life late in the post-lunch session with a flurry of boundaries.By contrast, it was a lacklustre finish to the match from the Bulls who, strangely enough, not only looked listless but also delayed taking the second new ball for as long as eighty minutes. Before finally electing to do this, they had attempted to prise the Western Australians out with a succession of overs of spin from Matthew Anderson (0/90) and Andrew Symonds (0/38) at the Members End. But, although they were able to almost completely dry up the flow of runs, neither of the two slow bowlers genuinely beat the bat very often.On the lifeless pitch, amid the enervating conditions, and with their energy levels continuing to be sapped by their long unbroken stint in the field, the Bulls’ predicament was exacerbated as Gilchrist slammed the normally miserly Adam Dale (0/65) down the ground for four stunning boundaries in succession twenty-five minutes before tea. To add insult to the havoc wreaked upon the medium pacer’s figures, he then repeated the dose with another three consecutive shots to the fence two Dale overs later. It was a measure of the extent to which the wicketkeeper-batsman had assumed command of the situation – not to mention the differing styles of the two players’ innings – that he ultimately beat Katich to his century despite having conceded more than a three hour long start.In many ways, the two points that were achieved for a first innings win seemed like an inadequate reward for close to three days of sheer domination from the Bulls. Inspired by a pair of centuries of their own from Jimmy Maher (175) and Stuart Law (128), they had been able to establish domination from early on the first day as they racked up 442 with the bat before dismissing the Western Australians for 195 and then reducing them quickly to 3/43 a second time around.From there, though, it has to be said that they uncharacteristically squandered their opportunity – something which they barely even looked like doing at any stage of a record-breaking run last summer. Martin Love’s dropped catch at slip on the stroke of tea yesterday – when he allowed Damien Martyn (then at 25 on his way to 78) to escape a tightening Queensland noose – assumed very expensive proportions. Law’s tactics in frequently setting defensive fields today and resisting the chance to take the new ball immediately also provoked some consternation. Paceman Andy Bichel (4/54) continued to bowl excellently, gaining the only two wickets to fall on the final day, but did not receive quite enough support in conditions that continued to favour batting. In the final analysis, the Queenslanders left themselves the arduous task of snaring five wickets in the final session and, by then, even the presence of some more attacking field settings had the whiff of bolting horses and open stable doors about it.