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Unseasonably atrocious weather disrupted the latest round of the Twenty20 Cup, with the matches between Middlesex and Sussex at Richmond, and the floodlit affair between Essex and Surrey both called off.Elsewhere, however, the show went on unscathed. A remarkable spell of bowling from Neil Killeen sent Leicestershire crashing to a 41-run defeat at Grace Road. After Durham set a fairly mediocre total of 138 for 4, Killeen ripped through Leicester’s top order to pick up 4 for 7 from four overs.At Trent Bridge, Matthew Wood narrowly missed out on a century, finishing unbeaten on 96 as Yorkshire set a very competitive 207 for 7. Nottinghamshire’s reply stumbled to 56 for 4, before the arrival of Mark Ealham at the crease. He went ballistic, smashing nine sixes on his way to a 31-ball 91, but when he fell with 21 needed off two overs, the game swung back into Yorkshire’s favour. However, with cool heads, Samit Patel (14*) and Richard Logan (11*) batted Notts to victory with one ball to spare.
Match abandoned due to rain

Scorecard
Scorecard
Match abandoned due to rain

Pakistan police have registered a case against Wasim Akram after he was accused of defaulting on the payment for a jeep he had purchased from a friend.Saadat Hayat, the friend in question, claimed that Akram had taken the vehicle on the pretext of buying it, but had not paid for it. Akram’s wife, Huma, countered this allegation and said that the jeep had been a gift which the Akrams had wanted to return, but which Hayat had allegedly demanded money for.

West Indies Under-19s won the three-Test series against their English counterparts after rain forced the final day’s play in the Third Test to be abandoned at the Riverside.The draw meant West Indies won the series 1-0 after triumphing in the First Test.Yesterday a century by Tonito Willett had put West Indies into a virtually unassailable position.Already holding a 29-run first innings lead, they had resumed the third day on a promising 193 for three, with Narsingh Deonarine and Willett linking up impressively.Bad weather held up the visitors’ progress but once play resumed Willett went on to make 103 before he was caught by Nicky Peng after being lured into a rash stroke by James Tredwell. The Kent youngster finished with two for 48 and was the pick of the English bowlers.Together with Deonarine, 89 not out at the close, Willet added 170 for the fourth wicket to put West Indies firmly in the driving seat.Omari Banks joined Deonarine at the crease and added three before stumps, with West Indies on 322 for four.

Brad Haddin flew home to Australia on Tuesday evening for family reasons, ending an unhappy Ashes tour early to be with his wife, Karina, and children.After a poor display in the first Test of the Ashes series in Cardiff, Haddin withdrew from the team for the Lord’s match to spend time in hospital with his ill daughter Mia, and was then not re-selected for the third Test at Edgbaston, a decision that not all members of the touring party agreed with.Haddin took the decision with good grace, and provided plentiful support to Peter Nevill, the gloveman who replaced him, while playing a more peripheral role around the squad.There have been signs that Haddin’s mind has been on other things the longer the tour has gone on, as his net sessions in particular became more perfunctory.He was unlikely to be chosen for the final Test of the series at The Oval, and a Cricket Australia spokesperson confirmed he had now flown home while also asking that the family’s privacy be respected.

Take a look at the scorecard from West Indies’ tour match in Geelong at the weekend and you’d be forgiven for thinking it was as meaningless as warm-up games get. A two-day match against a Victorian XI featuring only two players – neither of them bowlers – with first-class experience. But Darren Bravo hopes that if his fellow batsmen gained just one thing from the game it is this: confidence.West Indies have been sorely lacking it of late. In Sri Lanka in October they were roundly defeated and none of the batsmen scored centuries in the two Tests; in fact, only Bravo and Jermaine Blackwood managed so much as a fifty. That was followed by a tour game in Brisbane that the team lost to a rookie Cricket Australia XI, which in turn was followed by a crushing three-day loss in the first Test.But as poor as West Indies were in Hobart, there were a couple of encouraging signs. Bravo himself scored a classy 108 in the first innings, but was let down by the complete lack of support from the rest of the batting order. In the second, Kraigg Brathwaite found himself in a similar position, posting 94 out of a total of 148. A bit more back-up in either innings and it could have been a much tighter contest.So, as weak as the Victorian attack was in Geelong, West Indies were still pleased that Blackwood, after making a pair in the Hobart Test, managed 69, that Brathwaite backed up from his Test effort with 78, and that Marlon Samuels and Denesh Ramdin at least spent some time in the middle. Bravo did not bat in Geelong but was pleased with what he saw, and hopes that the batsmen will be better for it come Boxing Day.”It’s just a matter of confidence,” Bravo said. “Coming in to this series most of our batsmen didn’t really have that confidence. We lost the series in Sri Lanka, we lost the practice game as well in Brisbane. It’s a matter of confidence.”It’s important that whenever we go to bat we spend some time out in the middle. If we spend time we’re definitely going to score runs. Naturally we play aggressive cricket where batting is concerned. It’s just a matter of us spending time out in the middle and putting up a very good fight.”It’s very important we look at the positives. In the practice game young Blackwood played pretty well, as well as Kraigg Brathwaite. The bowlers had a very good run, including Jerome Taylor. The guys are putting in the work, it’s just a matter of us going out there and executing.”West Indies trained at the MCG on Tuesday for the first time ahead of the Test, which starts on Saturday, while the Australians will begin training on Wednesday. The Victorian fast bowler Scott Boland has been added to Australia’s squad as an injury replacement for Nathan Coulter-Nile, and while Josh Hazlewood, Peter Siddle and James Pattinson remain the likely attack, Bravo knows from his Hobart ton that scoring opportunities will present themselves.”The Australian bowlers, they have a plan exactly how they want to get us out,” he said. “You respect the good balls and put away the bad balls. Yes they are a very good team but at the end of the day they are still humans. They’re going to present bad balls and it’s just a matter of putting it away. I don’t think you should be bogged down too much. Don’t be intimidated by the Australian bowlers. Just back yourself and your ability.”When you’re not scoring runs it is difficult to pick yourself up. I believe the guys have that sort of resilience in them. Most of us have scored international hundreds. We have proven that we are definitely capable of playing at this level. It is just a matter of going out there and spending some time.”It was also easy to forget after the three-day result in Hobart that at lunch on day one, West Indies were arguably in the stronger position, having picked up three wickets after Australia chose to bat. However, they then allowed Adam Voges and Shaun Marsh to compile a record fourth-wicket partnership that batted West Indies out of the match.”It’s very important that whenever we’re in the driver’s seat we try and stay there,” Bravo said. “I remember in the first Test match we had Australia three for 100 or something like that. We were in the driver’s seat and we let loose. We need to maintain the momentum in the game.”

Jersey followed up their victory at the European Under-19 Division 2 Championship, with a win over France in the final of the Under-23 tournament in Guernsey on Thursday.They were not troubled by France, winning by seven wickets. Put into bat, the French were bowled out for 80 with only one batsman, Ali Sarfraz, reaching double figures with 18. Jersey then needed just 16.2 overs to knock off the runs.The tournament hosts, Guernsey, missed out on a place in the final to eventual runners-up France. In the group stages, both sides produced victories over Italy, but the deciding fixture between the two sides did not produce a result due to bad weather. France qualified for the final against Jersey on run-rate, leaving a disappointed Guernsey to play off for third place against Gibraltar.Guernsey won the play-off at College Field by seven wickets, with 12 balls to spare as 15-year-old Tim Ravenscroft enjoyed a good all-round game, following up his three wickets with an undefeated 58.

Lou Vincent’s 72 and a steady 43 from Vikram Solanki helped Worcestershire fell Yorkshire by four wickets in their Pro40 encounter at Leeds. Yorkshire reached the rather paltry total of 191 for 9 in their 40 overs after winning the toss, with Matt Mason taking 3 for 26. But Worcestershire got off to a terrific start with Vincent smashing 10 fours and a six in his 74-ball knock. And though he fell, the tail edged them over the line with 11 balls to spare.

Sourav Ganguly wanted to celebrate his 10,000 runs with an Indian victory, but unfortunately for him he could celebrate only one thing – becoming the third man to get to the milestone after Sachin Tendulkar and Inzamam-ul-Haq. “I still don’t understand how we could lose a game after having them at 95 for 6,” he said, “Chasing 220 on a wicket which is not easy to bat on, so it’s a huge disappointment.”Ganguly didn’t agree that India were scoring at a slow rate in the early part of their innings. “It is not an easy wicket to bat on straightaway with the new ball as the ball stops and we had lost a few early wickets in the early part of the tournament. It was disappointing to not get a big score as when I open I look to do that and I was all set for today as it was a good platform to go and get a big score and push the team up.”Rahul Dravid, India’s new captain, thought that the failure to convert good starts into big knocks was the biggest impediment facing the Indian batting order. “We weren’t defensive, it’s just that we weren’t able to convert the starts,” he said. “People who were set couldn’t take it further. We fell a few runs short and it was due to Irfan’s [Pathan] knock that we at least managed 220. But we need to convert our starts especially in the middle overs and some of the batsmen need to bat in the end overs.”Dravid didn’t see anything wrong by bowling the in-form Nehra for his full quota because he had to break the Jayawardene-Upul Chandana partnership before it was too late. “We had to go for the killer punch and since Nehra had bowled well and had two overs left, I decided to bowl him at a trot. We needed the seventh wicket but that didn’t happen.”In the end the difference was Jayawardene’s cool and calculated strategy. “We believe that we bat down to No. 10,” said Jayawardene. “When Upul came in I told him that we needed to set small targets like five-over blocks and score at four or five runs an over. And whenever they got a wicket-taking bowler like Harbhajan [Singh] and Irfan we made sure we don’t lose a wicket. We were lucky to get good runs against Harbhajan and then we saw that we had hit off with our plan successfully.”At the 40-over mark we wanted to get to 160 but we were 176 after which it was just a run-a-ball for us. It was just a matter of taking singles from there and not lose wickets and we were lucky.”While Jayawardene’s was the innings of the day, earlier it was all about another under pressure batsman as Ganguly passed 10,000 ODI runs. “It was a big milestone. When I started my Test career in 1996 I was thought to be more of a Test player and in the next nine years to get 10,000 runs is obviously satisfying.”

Muttiah Muralitharan has joined the United Nations World Food Program as an ambassador to fight hunger among school children. According to an AFP report, Muralitharan will also take part in a walk in Colombo on Sunday to help raise money to feed children in the remote areas of Sri Lanka.”I already have a foundation of my own helping the needy,” Muralitharan said, “but I am also very happy to associate myself with the World Food Program.”Speaking to reporters at the function, Murali hit out at comments made by some Australians after he announced his decision not to tour there for the Test series next month. Shane Warne called Murali “thin-skinned”, while Dennis Lillee termed the decision a “real cop-out”.”It is easy for them to say that. Only I know what I have gone through,” Murali responded. “Cricketers can say anything. Whatever I have achieved today, it has been with great difficulty.”

The Twenty20 Cup is the most exciting new feature of the 2003 county cricket season which starts tomorrow (Friday 18 April) with the first round of Frizzell County Championship fixtures.The Twenty20 Cup replaces the old Benson and Hedges Cup and is the first brand new competition in county cricket for 30 years – since the Benson & Hedges Cup began in 1973. Matches will be 20-overs-a-side but the action on the pitch will be matched by enhanced off-the pitch entertainment. Barbeque zones, beer tents, music bands, karaoke, fancy dress and interactive games for children are some of the activities planned to ensure a fun evening out for all spectators.Tim Lamb, ECB chief executive, said: “This is the most ambitious and revolutionary step county cricket has taken since 1963, when the first one-day domestic competition, the Gillette Cup, was born. The Twenty20 Cup is unashamedly aimed at getting new and younger audiences to watch county cricket matches – whilst also, we hope, retaining existing spectators. Before this year, the shortest county match lasted over five hours; Twenty20 Cup games will be over in two hours 45 minutes with matches played at convenient late afternoon times to make cricket watching more accessible for both school children and office workers alike.”The 18 first class counties are divided into three groups of six teams each with the group winners and the best runner-up progressing to a finals day on Saturday 19th July. The competition starts at 5.30pm on Friday 13th June, when five late-afternoon group matches are scheduled, and all the 45 group matches will be played over a 12-day period – thus intentionally scheduling the competition around the longest days of the year.Other significant changes for the domestic season include Scotland’s entry into division two of the National Cricket League, while the number of points gained for a win in Frizzell County Championship matches increases to 14. For the first time, penalties have also been implemented to punish sub-standard one-day pitches.There are 367 matches, or 797 days of cricket in total, scheduled for firstclass counties across four different competitions in the 2003 season. The Frizzell County Championship season starts on Friday 18th April, the National Cricket League begins on Sunday 27th April, while the third round of the Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy takes place on Wednesday 7th May.The women’s domestic season will include the Super Fours trophy, now in its second year. The 48 best women cricketers in the country will be divided into four teams and will compete against each other in six one-day matches ahead of the international season. Super Fours will run each weekend from Saturday 17th May to Sunday 15th June.Yorkshire, meanwhile, will aim to retain their title in the Frizzell Women’s County Championship which will run from Saturday 26th – Wednesday 30th July at Cambridge University grounds.

Winners in 2002Frizzell County Championship Division One SurreyFrizzell County Championship Division Two EssexNorwich Union National League Division One Glamorgan DragonsNorwich Union National League Division Two Gloucestershire GladiatorsCheltenham & Gloucester Trophy YorkshireBenson and Hedges Cup WarwickshireWomen’s County Championship Yorkshire