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ScorecardSteven Davies made an important 80 to give England Lions a lead of 74•Getty Images

Steven Davies delivered a timely demonstration of his quality with an impressive batting display as the England Lions pushed Bangladesh to the brink of a crushing defeat at Derby.The 23-year-old wicketkeeper top-scored with 81 from 88 balls to earn the Lions a lead of 76 in front of the England selectors and then took five catches as the tourists folded feebly to 139 for 9.Liam Plunkett and Ravi Bopara each took three wickets to leave the tourists only 63 runs ahead and staring at a demoralising defeat ahead of next week’s first Test. Davies toured Bangladesh with England earlier this year and endorsed his international credentials in front of national team director Andy Flower and the other selectors who were meeting at the County Ground ahead of next week’s Lord’s Test.The Lions were in trouble at 148 for 5, still 72 runs adrift, two overs after Davies came in, but the Surrey gloveman batted confidently to take his side past the tourists’ first-innings total of 220.He hit nine fours to reach his fifty from 65 balls, and the Lions were 61 in front when he was superbly caught at wide long-on. The Lions had started the second day 95 runs behind and should have lost Andrew Gale before he added to his overnight 63 in the second over of a sunny morning but Rubel Hossain spilled an easy chance.However only 22 runs had been added in 13 overs when James Taylor was caught behind down the leg side when hooking after struggling for 82 balls for 12. Gale went two overs later for 74 when he pulled unconvincingly at Shafiul Islam and was caught at long leg, but Davies and Chris Woakes then shared what turned out to be a valuable stand.They added 84 for the sixth wicket before Woakes got a leading edge straight after lunch but Davies and James Harris put on 43 to give the Lions a decent lead that was turned into a match-winning one by their bowlers.Tamim Iqbal carved Steve Kirby for six off the hands off Gale at deep point but he started the slide when a skied pull landed in the gloves of Davies. Junaed Siddique was caught behind off Woakes for a duck and the Warwickshire seamer than had Imrul Kayes pouched low at second slip before tea.The collapse continued with Mohammad Ashraful caught down the leg side off a glove for one and Mushfiqur Rahim gave Davies another victim when he pushed at Plunkett with no foot movement.The weakness of the Bangladesh side was shown again when Mahmudullah fell to a wild hook at Plunkett with his team only 10 runs in front, and a two-day finish was on when Bopara took three wickets in an over. But Jahural Islam battled for an unbeaten 44 and Rubel Hossain resisted for seven overs to at least take the game into the third day.

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Mark Cosgrove and Tom Maynard powered Glamorgan to a superb seven-wicket victory over Essex in their Friends Provident t20 match at Chelmsford. The duo combined in a thrilling partnership of 97 in only 50 balls to set up victory with 14 deliveries to spare after Essex had posted a total of 191 for 6.Cosgrove plundered 89 from 55 balls, with the help of 13 fours and two sixes, although he had one slice of good fortune when he was put down at short third man by David Masters when 44. Maynard finished with an unbeaten 66 from 30 balls, with four fours and six sixes, the last of which saw the Welsh county to their third win in the competition in as many matches.No-one escaped the carnage as the third-wicket pair cut loose. Pakistan legspinner Danish Kaneria conceded 43 from three overs while New Zealand allrounder Scott Styriss’ two overs cost 29. The Essex bowlers hardly helped their cause with some woeful bowling as they gifted their opponents a dozen wides.Essex made a stuttering start to their innings when captain Mark Pettini provided a simple return catch from Robert Croft’s first ball of the match. Ravi Bopara (29) and Ryan ten Doeschate (37) did manage to keep the scoreboard ticking over but the only real momentum was provided by James Foster.He thrashed an unbeaten 54 from 25 balls, the high point of which was three successive sixes in the 18th over sent down by Jamie Dalrymple. All of them came as he stood at least two foot outside his off stump and each ball was dispatched over midwicket.Foster also helped himself to five fours and he could be forgiven for thinking that he had done enough to give Essex a total that should have been defended. But Cosgrove and Maynard had other ideas as they both gathered their personal bests in this competition. Veteran offspinner Croft also shared the honours for Glamorgan as he sent down four teasing overs that brought him 3 for 22.

Australia’s wicketkeeper Brad Haddin has been ruled out of the five-ODI series against England starting later this month due to an elbow injury that prevents him from picking up a bat. Tim Paine, the Tasmania gloveman, will take Haddin’s place in the one-dayers and will be in line for a Test debut if Haddin fails to recover in time for the two Tests against Pakistan in July.Haddin said the problem flared up three months ago when he smashed a century against New Zealand in a one-dayer, but didn’t have enough time off the game to give his elbow sufficient rest.”It’s like having tennis elbow,” Haddin told the . ”It has gradually deteriorated to the point where I can’t hold a bat. The frustrating thing about it is I can still wicketkeep – everything else is fine – but I can’t pick up a cricket bat and to play cricket you have to be able to bat.”I had to wait a bit after the [Twenty20] World Cup to allow it calm down, it [the tendon] was pretty angry because we played constant cricket. I have to basically get the strength back into it [the tendon] and see how it responds.”Australia play England between June 22 and July 3 before taking on Pakistan for two Twenty20s and two Tests. Though Haddin was confident of recovering in time to take on Pakistan, he was keen not to rush back too soon and would be focusing largely on the Ashes at home in November-December.”I’m hopeful I can be ready for Pakistan, but if I’m not I’ll have eight weeks to get the strength back [in time for the Australian summer],” Haddin said. ”I have a series of exercises that are designed to do that.”Australia’s physio Alex Kountouris added: “Brad has been struggling with tendon elbow pain (tennis elbow) while batting during the ICC Twenty20 World Cup. As with most tendon injuries, time is required to allow the pain to settle and gradually increase the tendon load.”As such, Brad will not be taking part in the ODI matches against Ireland and England. His availability for the Twenty20 internationals and Tests matches against Pakistan in the UK will be dependent on his progress over the next few weeks.”Paine’s call-up to the one-day team has also allowed Matthew Wade, the Victoria wicketkeeper, to take his place in the Australia A squad to take on Sri Lanka A later this month. The promotion of Wade, 22, is a strong indication that Graham Manou has fallen down the pecking order despite making his Test debut in the Ashes last year.

Liam Norwell, an 18-year-old right-arm seamer, has been signed on a two-year contract by Gloucestershire. Norwell has played cricket locally for Redruth CC since the age of 11, and was recently selected in the national Elite Player Development squad, who will play Sri Lanka Under-19 July 18 and 19 at Loughborough.”I am very excited and grateful for the opportunity to play for Gloucestershire County Cricket Club as a professional cricketer,” said Norwell. “I have enjoyed being part of the Academy, it has given me great confidence and supported my development. I now look forward to being part of the GCCC squad to play Essex in the FP t20 tonight and working on improving my skills in the coming seasons.”I would like to thank my parents for their continued support and encouragement and also Pete Bolland, my coach at Redruth CC and teacher at Redruth Technology College, for his hard work and support.””It is tremendous news that Liam has agreed to a two-year contract as he is a young man with great physical attributes,” added John Bracewell, Gloucestershire’s director of cricket.”Our specialist coaching and physical development department will spend valuable time with Liam over the next two years which will allow him to put these attributes into practice. We see great long term potential in Liam’s ability to bowl a heavy ball.”

ScorecardA career-best innings of 184 by Chris Nash and some hostile bowling from CoreyCollymore and Yasir Arafat put Sussex in sight of their sixth win of the seasonat the end of the second day of the County Championship clash withLeicestershire at Grace Road.Nash, dropped on 59, made the hosts pay as he steered Sussex to a total of 379and a first-innings lead of 175, despite Matthew Hoggard’s first five-wickethaul since he joined Leicestershire from Yorkshire at the start of the season.Then Collymore and Arafat ripped through Leicestershire’s top order picking uptwo wickets apiece before bad light and rain brought an early end to the daywith the home side struggling at 59 for 4, still 116 runs behind.Collymore trapped openers Will Jefferson and Paul Nixon lbw in his first threeovers before Arafat removed James Taylor and Andrew McDonald to leaveLeicestershire in disarray after a disappointing day with both bat and ball.The tone was set in the second over of the morning when Hoggard found the edgeas Nash looked to drive, only for Jefferson to spill the catch at second slipwith only seven runs added to the overnigh score of 128 for 4. It was to prove an expensive error as Nash and wicketkeeper Ben Brown, deputising for England man Matt Prior, put Sussex in command.They shared a stand of 109 in 31 overs for the sixth wicket following the earlydeparture of nightwatchman Lewis Hatchett who was bowled by Hoggard. Nash, who had gone past 50 only once before this season, reached his century with a square cut to the ropes off Wayne White. Brown provided solid support in the partnership, scoring 38 before being brilliantly caught at square leg by White off the bowling of left-arm spinner Claude Henderson shortly after lunch.Nash, however, continued to dominate and, joined by an equally aggressiveArafat, punished some loose and wayward Leicestershire bowling. Even the newball, taken at 292 for 6, did not help the home side’s cause with Nash pullingand cutting Nathan Buck for three fours and a six in his first over.The Sussex opener looked well set for the first double century of his careeruntil he spooned a catch to fine leg to give Hoggard his fifth wicket. Arafat continued to throw the bat, hitting five fours and three sixes in an entertaining knock of 58 and adding another 51 runs for the last wicket withCollymore. Hoggard, easily Leicestershire’s best bowler, finished with five for 81 but Buck’s three wickets cost him 110 runs in 20 overs.Sussex wasted no time in pressing home their advantage with Arafat andCollymore making serious inroads into the Leicestershire batting in the 11.4overs possible before the weather brought an early finish. Arafat claimed 2 for 27 in six overs and Collymore took two for 21 in his four overs.

Matthew Mott will have to choose between coaching New South Wales or Kochi if he gets a job with the new IPL franchise. Mott went to India “five or six weeks ago” but said he was still waiting to hear back from the organisation.”It’s just wait and see,” he said in the Sydney Morning Herald. “But it’s getting close to the season [starting in Australia] and you have to draw the line somewhere.”Mott spent two seasons as an assistant to John Buchanan at Kolkata, but the demands of the IPL sides have changed and he has been told by New South Wales he won’t be able to juggle both roles. The Australian domestic campaign starts in October and the Blues are already deep into pre-season training.”Motty has indicated to me that he wants to go through the interview process with Kochi,” David Gilbert, New South Wales’ chief executive, said. “I respect that. But if he is offered the job and decides to accept it, then he would have to resign from the role here. Motty realises that something has to give. This is a full-time job here at Cricket NSW.”Mott has one year remaining on his deal with the Blues, who he has coached for three years. He was interviewed for the New Zealand job last year but stayed in Sydney.

Yawar Saeed has stepped down as manager of the Pakistan team, as had been widely expected. The PCB announced in a brief statement that Saeed had asked the board chairman to be relieved of his duties and that Ijaz Butt had agreed.Saeed had indicated several times that Pakistan’s long tour of England would be his last. During the tour the team played two Twenty20s and two Tests against Australia, and four Tests, two Twenty20s and five ODIs against England.The tour began well, with Pakistan splitting the Tests against Australia, but became troubled following accusations of spot-fixing against Pakistan captain Salman Butt, and fast bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif, on the last day the Lord’s Test. All three have been provisionally suspended by the ICC while it investigates the allegations.The relationship between the PCB and the ECB deteriorated over the course of the tour, culminating in the ECB threatening to take legal action over comments made by Ijaz Butt that appeared to accuse the England side of fixing as well.Saeed, whose father Mian Mohammad Saeed was Pakistan’s first-ever captain in their unofficial matches before they received Test status, has been manager of several Pakistan sides over the years, most recently last year, when he stepped down after the Champions Trophy. At the time there was speculation of differences between him and the then captain Younis Khan. But eventually, after the disastrous tour of Australia earlier this year, Saeed was convinced to return at Ijaz Butt’s request. Normally, managerial appointments are made by the PCB on a tour by tour basis and no longer than that.

The allrounder John Hastings could be set for an ODI debut after he was called up to replace his Victoria team-mate James Pattinson in Australia’s squad in India. Pattinson, who was already on tour with the Test side, will fly home due to a back injury that has ended his immediate hopes of joining his brother Darren in the ranks of international cricketers.”During the past week, James has complained of some back stiffness during preparation for the second Test of the VB tour of India in Bangalore,” Australia’s physio Kevin Sims said. “James’ symptoms were consistent with a low back-bone stress injury and scans have confirmed the early stages of a low back stress fracture.”He has therefore been withdrawn from the one-day squad as he will require a period of rest from bowling. He will be closely monitored by Victorian and Cricket Australia medical staff to determine his return to cricket.”The injury is a major blow for Pattinson, 20, who had jumped into Test contention when he was called in to cover for the injured New South Wales fast man Josh Hazlewood in India. However, it has opened the door for Hastings, 24, who was Victoria’s leading wicket taker in all three formats last season.A tall right-arm fast-medium bowler, Hastings is also a powerful striker of the ball in the lower order and has thrived since moving from New South Wales three years ago. The chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch said Hastings, who won last summer’s Bradman Young Cricketer of the Year award, was “a very exciting prospect”.”John Hastings performed very well at interstate level last year across all formats of the game,” Hilditch said. “It is disappointing for James Pattinson to suffer an injury at this stage however it does present a great opportunity for John to show his potential at international level prior to selection for the 2010-11 ICC Cricket World Cup on the sub-continent.”Australia play three one-day internationals following the ongoing Test in Bangalore. The series begins on October 17 and the squad is already without several first-choice players after the selectors decided to rest Ricky Ponting, Mitchell Johnson and Shane Watson ahead of their busy summer.

Greg Chappell, the Australian selector, has encouraged Michael Hussey to play with freedom so he can continue to be a force at international level. Hussey has gained the support of Andrew Hilditch and Chappell this week, but has been battling for form over the past two years, averaging 37 in his past 35 Tests.With the Australian squad for the first Ashes Test due to be named on Monday, Chappell offered Hussey some advice. “As you get older, the difficulty is that you are aware of the things that can go wrong and you’re aware of how hard it is to make runs at that level consistently,” Chappell told AAP. “Before you have all that experience, you tend to go out and you can play with a little bit more freedom.”Chappell said finding that freedom was harder as you got older. “The only way you can achieve is to get into the same state of mind that you were in as a younger player,” he said. “That’s the hardest part of being an older player, having that freedom to go out and take some risks.”You’ve got to risk getting out to score runs and that’s the hardest thing to do. We all become more conservative. I haven’t seen anyone who hasn’t suffered from that.”Hussey is now 35, the same age as Simon Katich and Ricky Ponting. The aging line-up has created concerns about the present and fears for the future, with it highly unlikely two of the trio will be playing for their country in a year.Chappell is a believer in young talent but the next rung of batting contenders did not perform well during the week. There were no big scores from Phillip Hughes, Usman Khawaja or Callum Ferguson in the first few days of their ongoing matches, easing the pressure on the incumbents.Hussey is not playing this week but scored 71 not out, 15 and 6 not out in the ODI series against Sri Lanka. Hilditch said it was important to regard batsmen who average 50 in Test cricket highly. “He’s been a great player for Australia, but he will be looking to get runs to stay in the squad, like everyone else,” Hilditch said. Hussey’s mean is currently 49.75 from 54 Tests.

The hype, as Ricky Ponting remarked, gets bigger every year, but the action somehow keeps living up to its billing. In a slaughterhouse atmosphere that throbbed like a 21st-Century Sabina Park, England diced with disaster on the opening day of the Ashes and on two astounding occasions suffered moments of meltdown that would have scuppered any one of their predecessors of the past 20 years. It remains to be seen whether the same fate awaits the class of 2010, but by the close England were bloodied and chastened, living up to their own pre-series assertions that their serene start to the tour would count for diddly-squat.England’s aim on this first day of the series was to drain the occasion of its emotion, to confront the ghastly Gabbatoir with a shrug in their shoulders and a spring in their steps, in precisely the manner that Steve Harmison, and before him Nasser Hussain, had failed to do on their previous two visits. Unfortunately for them, they were confronted by an Australian side who had mainlined their adrenalin straight from their defeat of 2009, and in the man of the moment, Peter Siddle, they confronted a bowler who knows no other way but up and at ’em.Siddle’s intercession, on his 26th birthday and in his first Test appearance since a back injury in January, was the stand-out performance of a pulsating day, as he justified the omission of Australia’s form bowler Doug Bollinger with a cut-throat display of pace, aggression, and wicket-to-wicket skill. He, like every one of the ten Australians who had played in the decisive Oval Test in 2009, sucked up the pain of that defeat and blew it back into the fray at the earliest opportunity.”[That defeat] was a massive part of it,” said Siddle. “You never want to lose any game, let alone the Ashes. I can remember it now, the last wicket falling of the Oval test, going out on the field for the presentations, seeing the boys going up onto the stand, yahooing and cheering and getting handed the urn, it’s something you don’t want to see, and it’s definitely something you don’t want to see again. It’s played a big part, and obviously this is a good start, but there’s still 24 days to go and anything can happen in that time.”Despite Australia’s enviable position at the close, Siddle’s caution was justified, because there were signs amid the mayhem that England aren’t dead yet. In terms of the cut-and-thrust on display, this first day’s action was the spiritual successor to Lord’s 2005, another game which started with first-over dramatics, when Harmison’s second-ball snorter clattered into Justin Langer’s elbow. Then as now, England finished the day on the canvas after being stunned by a spectacular full-length spell from Glenn McGrath, and on that occasion, they couldn’t get back up before the bell.Nevertheless, the agenda of the series was set there and then, and while England’s aim on that occasion had been to pump themselves up rather than calm themselves down, there were enough moments of serenity in their performance today to believe they can fare considerably better further down the line. Alastair Cook’s vigil was invaluable to the cause, as he blocked up an end for four-and-three-quarter hours and let his time at the crease act as a sponge for the excess atmospherics, while Kevin Pietersen’s strut was back in evidence before he got a fine delivery from Siddle that nipped half-a-bat’s width and was snicked through to Ponting at second slip.No-one, however, looked more assured in their performance than the under-estimated Ian Bell, who oozed composure throughout his stay, and whose 76 might, in the circumstances, qualify as his finest Test innings yet.”I want to get stuck in through this series, and get some knocks under some real pressure,” said Bell. “I’m full of confidence, and I feel in good form, and it was nice to go out and play fluently. I’d much prefer to be 120 not out, but these are the days you enjoy playing Test cricket. Going out in front of a full house at the Gabba is pretty special, and the noise that can be generated out here is incredible. If we can get some wickets it’ll be buzzing again tomorrow.”In the not-so-distant past, this was precisely the sort of occasion on which Bell would surely have crumbled – a fervent, baying atmosphere, and England’s innings on the line after the back-to-back dismissals of Pietersen and Paul Collingwood. But something about his cricket has clicked into place in the past 12 months, starting with his starring role on the tour of South Africa, and to watch him talking to the media afterwards, with a steely resolve in his otherwise relaxed demeanour, was sufficient confirmation that his time has finally come.”It was a nice day,” he said, without a trace of irony, before responding to a question about whether England’s fans should start panicking just yet. “Of course not,” he added. “This is probably a better first day than we had last time we were here, and we’re going to come out scrapping tomorrow morning. We know we’re under-par, but we’re not a million miles away from a par score.”It could well be true. Up in the Channel Nine commentary box, Shane Warne couldn’t resist revisiting his old “Sherminator” jibe, but Bell has grown beyond recognition since 2006. Whether England as a unit can claim likewise will depend entirely on how they react with the ball, but if they are half the side that their recent record would claim them to be, they’ll not let the lessons of a dramatic first day go unheeded.