India’s national selection panel is likely to ponder over the composition of the team’s spin attack when they sit down on Thursday in Delhi to finalise the squad for the three-Test series in Sri Lanka.Harbhajan Singh has seemingly justified his recall with decent outings in the Bangladesh and Zimbabwe ODIs, and is set to be given a full series, while R Ashwin, too, is ready to roll in what would be his maiden Test series in Sri Lanka. With two spots locked in the XI, the selectors will have to decide on the back-up spinners.Karn Sharma, who was the third spinner in the Test squad in Bangladesh, got injured ahead of the Zimbabwe tour. It is understood, however, that he has recovered from his finger injury and is available for selection. Still, Karn is not assured of a spot, with three other players competing for the third spinner’s position, even though Ravindra Jadeja has fallen out of the radar in recent months.Axar Patel, considered to be a like-for-like replacement for Jadeja, has put in consistent performances in limited overs. Also, the fact that Amit Mishra and Pragyan Ojha have been rewarded with India A call-ups indicates that Sandeep Patil’s panel has not written the pair off completely. Interestingly, it was Mishra and Pragyan who shouldered the responsibility in India’s last Test series in Sri Lanka, in 2010, when Harbhajan returned home after the first Test.With opening batsman KL Rahul also returning to top-flight cricket after recovering from a bout of dengue fever, 14 of the 15 members, barring Karn, who were originally selected for the lone Test in June are likely to be persisted with.The other point of discussion would be whether to add a reserve keeper in the squad. MS Dhoni’s Test retirement will give Wriddhiman Saha, who was Dhoni’s understudy in Sri Lanka in 2010, his first full series behind the wickets. Considering that it is a three-Test series, if the selectors decide to include a reserve keeper and expand the squad to 16 members, Naman Ojha will be the frontrunner for the position. Naman, who was in the Test squad for the final match against England last year, was also with the squad in Australia till the first Test as Dhoni had missed out with injury.While the seven batsmen select themselves, the selectors are likely to persist with captain Kohli’s demand for an aggressive pace attack.

They don’t make them like Chris Rogers any more, batsmen who can dig in, bat ugly, occupy the crease for hours upon hours, days upon days. So went the prevailing wisdom when Rogers retired last month. But was it right? Cameron Bancroft’s record suggests that he boasts more than a little bit of the Rogers mentality. Sixty-nine fewer first-class hundreds, yes, but a hint of the dogged Rogers patience.At 22, Bancroft could become Australia’s newest Test opener after being named in the squad to tour Bangladesh next month. He is certainly more Rogers than David Warner, with only one Twenty20 match to his name. Four times over the past year, Bancroft has played first-class innings of around the six-hour mark, including a 150 against India A in Chennai in July.If your weakness is losing focus as you approach six hours at the crease, that’s no bad thing. But he can go longer – much longer – as he displayed in an epic 13-hour innings of 211 against New South Wales at the WACA, an immense feat of concentration that helped secure Western Australia a place in the Sheffield Shield final.”I think it was really, really big,” Bancroft said of that innings after being picked in the Test squad on Monday. “We had to win that game to make it into a Shield final. So I think the belief I’ve got in myself that I was able to concentrate and stay sharp for as long as I did in that innings was probably the biggest belief I got out of that.”I think it’s important that if I do get an opportunity that you absolutely take it and believe that you have what it takes and do everything in your power and in your own game to be successful. That’s all you can do.”National selector Rod Marsh said Bancroft’s 150 against an India A attack featuring Test bowlers Varun Aaron and Pragyan Ojha was a key reason he was chosen for a Test series in Asia. Asked whether Bancroft’s youth had also played a part when he was weighed against older candidates such as the in-form Michael Klinger, Marsh said it could not be ignored.”He was preferred because we are looking for a young player,” Marsh said. “He had a very good season last year. He got a very good 150 against a strong India A attack, which contained two or three very good spinners. That in itself probably got him chosen ahead of some more senior players, shall we say.”In Bangladesh, Bancroft will be vying for Test selection with Joe Burns, who played two Tests against India last summer, and Usman Khawaja, who last played Test cricket on the 2013 Ashes tour of England. Marsh said the departure of Rogers and Michael Clarke meant that it was time for some of the younger batsmen in Australia to grab their opportunities.”We’ve got to develop a young batsman or two,” Marsh said. “Now it’s time these young blokes grab hold of their opportunity, take it up and do well. That’s what we’re after. Rogers has retired, we have to find someone else at the top of the order. Whether [Steven] Smith will bat at 3 or 4 going forward, that’s his decision, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he bats at No.4. So there could be two spots we have to fill at the top.”Should Bancroft win a chance in Bangladesh, it will come largely as the result of a breakthrough 2014-15 in which he was the third leading run scorer in the Sheffield Shield with 896 runs at 47.15. It was quite a turnaround from the 2013-14 summer in which he struggled and managed only 450 runs at 22.50 without a century, despite playing all 11 Shield games of the year.”I’m actually kind of glad and kind of blessed that I was able to go through something like that,” Bancroft said. “I probably felt that I was depressed at that stage. It’s certainly not nice to go through things like that, but that’s cricket, that’s the ups and downs and things you deal with in elite sport.”So to go through that and work out for myself what I needed to work on to get better and work with mentors and coaches and things like that, is something I am really glad I went through. It can only make you a better player.”

Michael Holding has described Brian Close, who died on Sunday, as one of the “toughest people in the game”. Holding was one of the West Indies bowlers who peppered Close in his final series in 1976, when the Yorkshireman was recalled by England at the age of 45.Close stood up to Holding, Andy Roberts and Wayne Daniel, often taking the ball on the body and all without a helmet. The Old Trafford Test, Close’s last, left him covered in bruises but the lasting result was a close friendship with Holding.”His toughness was legendary,” Holding said. “The mere fact that England thought that Brian Close at the age of 45 was the right man to be coming back to face the West Indies in 1976, with their four-pronged pace attack, just shows what they thought of him.”But even before that time, everyone knew of his toughness. There were famous pictures of him with all those bruises on his body when he batted against Wes Hall, when he just stood there and took the blows.”He was never one to shirk an issue, he was never one to back down, when they called him back at 45 to face West Indies he didn’t say to anyone ‘No, I am too old’, he went out there and tried to do his best, and gave everything for his country.”Not just the toughest batsman, he was one of the toughest people around in the game.”Tales of Close’s courage are commonplace and Holding described him as “hard but fair”. They went on to become good friends, although their discussions in later life tended to be more about horse racing than cricket.”I heard a story, in same Test match, to get rid of Alvin Kallicharran, who loved to sweep, Pat Pocock was told to bowl on leg stump, ‘I’ll field at short leg, I’ll block the shot with my chest and Knotty you take the catch.’ He played hard but fair. Never gave an inch and was a very fair man.”Closey and myself were very good friends throughout. We never spoke much cricket, Closey and myself are big fans of horse racing so spoke a lot about that, and on the phone. I went to benefit functions at Yorkshire, that sort of thing, and we got on well.”His wife Viv called me when we went up to the Test at Leeds and said, ‘Come and see Closey, not sure how much longer he is going to be with us’. I went and visited him during the New Zealand Test and I am glad I did because now he is gone.”

Najam Sethi, the head of PCB’s executive committee, has said he is looking to invite Indian players to participate in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) in the UAE. The idea, he said, was to try and convince India to go ahead with the scheduled bilateral series in December and, as the next step, discuss Pakistan players returning to the IPL and Indians playing in the inaugural edition of Pakistan’s T20 league next February.India’s players do not participate in any of the other T20 leagues apart from the IPL, as the BCCI does not provide them with No Objection Certificates for the same.Sethi, who had in August ruled out inviting Indian players to the PSL, now told the : “We are going to try to persuade the Indians to play us in December. If that happens, we will also be talking about a reciprocal arrangement – and I have had preliminary talks with people in Delhi on this – about Pakistani players being allowed to play in IPL and Indian players being allowed to play in PSL.”If the series takes place in December, the ground will be fertile. If you don’t want our players to play in your league, okay, but at least let your players play in ours. It will be difficult for them to refuse that. There will be pressure from the players. If Indian players do come in, then I think PSL will become the biggest thing in cricket after IPL.”Pakistani players featured in the first edition of the IPL in 2008 but then, following the terror attacks in Mumbai that year, the Indian government suspended all bilateral sporting ties with Pakistan. Since then Pakistan players have remained unsold at the IPL auctions. Recently, the PCB, in a letter to the BCCI, had sought clarity on the mooted bilateral series for December, pointing out that it was part of a memorandum of understanding signed last year by the two boards. But political events in the recent past have cast doubts over such a revival, with BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur himself having scotched the possibility of cricket resuming till political equations had stabilised.The PCB has already announced that it has over 100 players ready to be part of the PSL drafting process – including big draws like Kevin Pietersen, Shakib Al Hasan and Dwayne Bravo – which is set to take place between November and December. The PSL is scheduled to take place between February 4 and 24, in Dubai and Sharjah, with franchise-based teams from Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta and Islamabad competing for prize money of $1 million.

ScorecardRobin Bist was one of the 11 batsmen to fall to a left-arm spinner in Malappuram•PTI

Malappuram gave tough competition to Dindigul by seeing the fall of 20 wickets, which ended with Himachal Pradesh taking a 60-run lead against Kerala, thanks to six wickets from left-arm spinner Rahul Singh. That dented the hosts’ chances of topping the Group C table, as they are placed second right now, behind Saurashtra, and HP are fourth.Opting to bat, Kerala started losing wickets from the fifth over as Rishi Dhawan dismissed their top three batsmen for 32 runs. Sanju Samson (25) resisted by surviving for nearly two hours but wickets fell around him as Rahul ran through the middle and lower order, that included two wickets in the 20th over and two off consecutive deliveries in the 34th over. Kerala lost seven wickets for 29 runs before K Monish’s unbeaten 16 off 40 balls helped them cross 100 and they were bowled out for 103. Rahul finished with 6 for 19, his second five-for in first-class cricket, and Dhawan ended with 3 for 24.HP took a lead with rather ease, being 123 for 3 at one point as opener Prashant Chopra led the way with 40 runs. But Monish’s left-arm spin dismissed the openers and HP started losing wickets in a heap after they crossed 150. Monish and Akshay Chandran, also a left-arm spinner, hurt the visitors’ middle order before offspinner Fabid Ahmed took the last two wickets to end with 3 for 12 from 4.5 overs, and Monish ended with 3 for 60 to end the innings on 163. HP lost their last six wickets for 12 runs.
ScorecardJharkhand looked set to take first-innings lead by bowling out Hyderabad for 145 on the first day at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. Three wickets each from Jaskaran Singh, Kaushal Singh and Shahbaz Nadeem helped Jharkhand in taking the last six wickets for 30 runs, and they finished the day on 31 for 1, trailing by 114 runs.Put in to bat, Hyderabad saw their top three batsmen getting starts before Jharkhand’s pacers struck. Bavanaka Sandeep (39) and Himalay Agarwal (20) forged a stand of 31 runs to take the score past 100 for the loss of four wickets only to see a lower-order collapse. Once Himalay was dismissed by Kaushal, Hyderabad saw their last five batsmen score only 13 runs together to squander the start they had.Jharkhand lost Sumit Kumar for 13 in the 11 overs they faced, and Shiv Gautam and Anand Singh were unbeaten on 14 and 4 respectively. Earlier, Jharkhand medium-pacer Rahul Shukla injured himself while bowling the 44th over and his over was completed by Jaskaran. Shukla came back later on to bowl.
ScorecardTable-toppers of Group C, Saurashtra, got into the lead with eight wickets in hand after bowling out Jammu & Kashmir for 138 in Jammu. Medium-pacer Saurya Sanandiya’s five wickets were responsible for rocking J&K’s top order as they survived less than 50 overs before Saurashtra ended the day on a comfortable 150 for 2.Once J&K were put in to bat, they lost their top three wickets to Sanandiya in the first 12 overs. The next three batsmen – Ian Dev Singh (29), Parvez Rassool (21) and Aamir Aziz (32) – helped the team but they lost three quick wickets to be reduced to 66 for 6. Aziz led them past 100 but they were soon bowled out because of regular fall of wickets. Sanandiya finished with 5 for 53, his first five-for in first-class cricket, and Dharmendrasinh Jadeja and Kamlesh Makvana took two each.Saurashtra got a strong start with an opening stand of 84 between Abi Barot (36) and Sagar Jogiyani (41). Both fell within the space of six runs before Arpit Vasavada (31*) and Sheldon Jackson (35*) steered them with an unbroken stand of 60 runs.
ScorecardRajat Paliwal’s fourth century of the season – 147* – steered Services to a respectable 282 for 5 against Tripura in Agartala. Medium-pacer Rana Dutta put Services in a spot of bother at 33 for 3 before Paliwal’s hundred helped the visitors build partnerships to lead them to a comfortable position.Dutta first broke the opening stand, after Services were asked to bat, and then struck twice in the 14th over with the wickets of Anshul Gupta and Amit Pachhara. That brought together Vikas Hathwala (38) and Paliwal who put on 72 runs to stall the fall of wickets. Hathwala was also removed by Dutta, on the score of 105, and Paliwal then stitched a useful stand of 53 runs with YashPal Singh (18). Paliwal brought up his 12th first-class hundred as Yashpal fell too, and Paliwal and Devender Lochab took them towards 300 with an unborken partnership of 124 runs before bad light cut the day short by 14 overs. Paliwal struck 19 fours and three sixes during the day, and Dutta took 4 for 53.

The semi final played at the National Stadium was more exciting than expected.Hopeful of a victory they succumbed to Sri Lanka’s pressure and lost by 43 runs.Invited by Bangladesh to bat first Sri Lanka got a terrific start losing the 1st wicket at 71. Harish Ratnayke (32) and Ehsan Mutalip (36) provided the team a solid foundation hoisting 50 of the innings in 15 overs. To continue with the run spree Ehsan Abeysinghe (25) in partnership with other batsmen, raised the score to 100 for 3 in 29 overs. The batsmen who followed kept the score board moving. In 40 overs Sri Lanka was thus able to pile up 173 runs for the loss of 5 wickets.With only 5 overs remaining, slogging was need of the hour. In the process 2 more wicket were lost. Jeevan Mendis was out after playing a valiant innings of 30 while Ranawaka played an equally valuable innings of 28. The batsmen having been out on the consecutive balls, Shariful Islam was on hat-trick but the next ball that he bowled was wide off the mark. Sri Lanka was now 185 for 7.The batsmen at the crease Niroshan (18) and Wijesiriwarkdena (6) raised Sri Lanka to 214 for 7 in the full quota of 45 overs. It was however, delightful to see Niroshan closing the innings with a mighty six.Facing a challenging target of 215 runs Bangladesh started poorly losing 2 wickets for only 20 runs on the board. Naseer ud Din Farukh and Ashraful holding the crease, however, raised the score to 73 in 20 overs. Ashraful who was the back bone of the innings was out after playing a splendid innings of 49. His partner Farrukh was out for an invaluable 30.In 32 overs, Bangladesh was 125 needing 90 runs in 13 overs, which looked a difficult task. Unfortunate for Bangladesh, their mad race to the target did not work.They lost wickets in quick succession losing 8 batsmen for 149. The tail-enders not able to sustain the pressure, the whole team was out for 171 runs. With a 43 runs victory over Bangladesh, Sri Lanka jumps into the final.