ScorecardChris Rushworth reduced Warwickshire to 12 for 3•Getty Images

Sam Hain cannot have failed to impress watching England selector James Whitaker as he top-scored with 57 on a ground where he struck a century last season. He was the only batsman not out lbw, four of the victims going to Chris Rushworth, who moved one ahead of Middlesex’s James Harris as the leading wicket taker in Division One of the Championship.In difficult conditions that required them to counter a typical Riverside pitch after a delayed start and stoppages for rain that resulted in the 43.3 overs possible being played over five sessions, it is perhaps no surprise that Warwickshire are in a bit of a spot.They lost six of their seven wickets lbw, four of them to the admirable Rushworth as the ball jagged around and sometimes kept low. Rushworth broke the half-century mark for the third successive season. Of those, 23 have been leg before, remarkably, although before anyone suggests his success is all down to the pitches here it should be pointed out that he has taken more wickets (27) away from the Riverside this year than on his home turf.In the circumstances, then, the half century scored by Hain in a 98-run partnership with Tim Ambrose that towered above the wreckage of the rest of the Warwickshire innings is all the more outstanding.Hain is in only his second season as part of the senior squad at Edgbaston but has made such an impact that Warwickshire already feel his absences keenly, particularly now, with several top-order batsmen finding runs hard to come by. A shoulder injury suffered in the field against Worcestershire in May ruled him out for two months and he was badly missed.Still a teenager – at least until this Thursday – Hain is the former Australia Under-19 batsman who pledged his future to England in 2013 and raised exciting possibilities last season by becoming his county’s youngest first-class centurion – taking the record held by Ian Bell — and later the youngest double centurion among four hundreds scored during his debut season.There were two more half-centuries in the first three matches of this season before his injury. On his comeback against Yorkshire last week, when Warwickshire suffered a crushing defeat, his second-innings hundred set him apart as the only batsman able to counter a Yorkshire attack led by a rampant Ryan Sidebottom.Again here, with batting conditions such a challenge, he seemed to have the composure and technical qualities that deserted others. He had the chief England selector, James Whitaker, among those looking on, although Hain’s name remains one solely for the notebook for now. Although he avoided the new requirement for someone of his status to undergo a seven-year qualification term, he does not become eligible still until the winter of 2016-17.As it is, Warwickshire will do well to finish anywhere close to Durham’s 314 and much will depend on Chris Woakes, who reports that both ankle and knee stood up well to his comeback with the ball on Sunday, being able to reproduce the form with the bat that enabled him to make 93 on his guest appearance for Nottinghamshire’s Second XI last week.If day three begins in any way resembling day two he might not add many to his overnight 12. After a delayed noon start, Rushworth struck with his second ball, adding another disappointment to a string of low scores troubling Varun Chopra, the Warwickshire captain, who has been out for 16 or fewer in 13 of his 16 Championship innings. He seemed unimpressed with decision by David Millns, as Paul Collingwood had the day before, although he might have felt less unhappy had it come off the back of a run of fifties and hundreds.It was not long, in any case, before he had Jonathan Webb and Laurie Evans back in the dressing room with him, the two falling to Rushworth in consecutive, similar balls before Hain survived the hat-trick attempt, only just as it happens, his bat coming down just soon enough to flick the ball off his pads and divert it to the long-leg boundary.Ian Westwood became Rushworth’s fourth victim, at which point Warwickshire were 40 for 4. The Sunderland-born seamer’s propensity for lbws is the direct consequence, he said afterwards, of trying to bowl straight, at the stumps, rather than looking for swing.Thereafter, though, he was made to wait for more gains as Hain batted with the precocious maturity that has been the feature of performances since he announced himself last season. With Ambrose encouraging him, as well as keeping the scoreboard moving, he settled to his work and his confidence grew, to the extent that his dismissal on 57 was slightly unexpected. It was not Rushworth this time but John Hastings who found the way, posting Keaton Jennings as a short leg positioned deeper than is conventional, and reaping the reward as Hain turned a ball off his hip cleanly but could not get it past Jennings, who moved sharply to his right to take a fine catch.From Warwickshire’s point of view, the benefits of that partnership were undermined somewhat by the loss of three more wickets for 21. Ambrose departed four balls after Hain, lbw this time to Collingwood, before Rushworth returned to bag another one in Rikki Clarke. Then came the fourth and last stoppage of the day.

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.

The BCCI has, on Thursday, sought the opinion of the Supreme Court over whether N Srinivasan could attend the meetings of the board as the authorised representative of Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA). The matter is likely to be listed next week.Srinivasan has been told to stay away from BCCI meetings before, owing to conflict of interest issues, and had even been made to apologise to the Supreme Court for doing otherwise.Yet Srinivasan came to the working committee meeting in Kolkata last week, at his own risk, and BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya called it to an end mere minutes after it had begun. Dalmiya said he would seek a court directive with regards to Srinivasan’s eligibility to participate in board matters. It would be interesting to see if the court decides to intervene in the BCCI’s internal affairs.Since Srinivasan has technically attended the meeting before it was adjourned “sine die”, the Cricket Association of Bihar, the petitioner in the IPL corruption scandal, is likely to move a contempt plea to the court. The legal muddle is likely to result in the postponement of the BCCI’s AGM, which needs to be held before September 30, for the second year in succession.During an informal discussion after the working committee meeting was called off, secretary Anurag Thakur was understood to have told BCCI members that the AGM will be convened on September 27. However, that will be virtually impossible. The BCCI cannot proceed further until it receives the court directive. After that, the BCCI will require at least 24 days – three days’ notice to convene an emergent working committee meeting and then 21 days’ notice for the AGM – before calling the AGM.If they are to postpone the AGM again, the BCCI will have to seek permission from the registrar of societies since the board is registered as a society under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act.Last year, the BCCI had kept postponing its AGM, hoping for then president Srinivasan to be cleared by the court to contest the election. After a prolonged delay of five months, the AGM was finally held on March 2, with Srinivasan having been kept away from the election.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details1:43

‘Template’ Cook leads the way

Alastair Cook, the England captain, responded to the challenge laid down by Pakistan’s run-hungry batsmen with a totemic unbeaten 168 to show his team the way to survive, and then thrive, in the harsh desert conditions at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi.On Cook’s watch, England ground along to 290 for 3 by the close, a position of relative serenity given their travails in the field on the first two days. The bulk of his work was split between two century partnerships, first with Moeen Ali, who was a qualified success in his first outing as a Test opening batsman, and then with a hard-grafting Ian Bell, who eventually found his feet, and his footwork, after a horrifically jittery start before slashing at a wide one from Wahab Riaz in the closing overs of the day.Pakistan’s total of 523 for 8 declared remains several sessions from being equalled, but this was a day for the grand gesture, and Cook duly delivered in spades. His iron-willed feat of endurance, spanning 329 balls and more than eight hours to date, is a direct descendant of his trio of centuries on the tour of India in 2012-13. At Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Kolkata, his efforts first turned the tide of a losing cause, then eventually paved the way for his greatest captaincy triumph to date. It’s not a bad memory to fall back on.Batting with the bloodless resolve that has been the hallmark of his greatest feats in an England shirt, Cook built serenely on his overnight score of 39, as Pakistan’s bowlers took their turn to toil in the heat. Without the services of the legspinner, Yasir Shah, and with Shoaib Malik’s offspin a subdued option following his sapping double-century on the first two days, their four frontline bowlers managed a solitary strike between them in 105 overs, before Wahab bagged Bell then bowled the nightwatchman, Mark Wood, to double his tally shortly before stumps.It was a lively finish to a tough day’s work from Wahab, whose ability to start a spell at full tilt made him Pakistan’s go-to man, albeit he served up nine no-balls and three wides in an occasionally erratic display. But his fellow seamers, Imran Khan and Rahat Ali, were a disappointment, their apparently economical figures a testament more to their lack of threat with either new ball than to any excellence on their part. There was, however, no mitigation for the murderously flat conditions.Either way, Cook’s equilibrium could not be disturbed. With a judicious use of the cut, pull and sweep, allied to his usual caution outside off stump and his eye for a nurdle off the pads, the England captain notched up the 28th hundred of his Test career, and the third of a renaissance 2015 in which he has now gone past 1000 runs for the calendar year. At the age of 30, he is closing in inexorably on 10,000 career runs – he is currently 502 runs adrift – while his first century in the UAE completed a full set in all nine of the regions in which he has played Test cricket.Only Pakistan itself eludes him as a venue – England’s last Test there, at Lahore in 2005-06, came one match before his memorable century on debut in Nagpur. But it is fair to say he would thrive in his opponents’ real home as well. He has now scored eight of his centuries in Asia, a tally that has been matched only by Jacques Kallis among overseas batsmen. And Kallis’ tally of 2058 runs is also under threat.Alastair Cook didn’t offer a genuine chance until he had made 147•Getty Images

He is not a batsman who generally relies on power to make his point, but when Cook clanged Shan Masood, at short leg, flush on the helmet in the closing moments of the afternoon session, he showcased the timing that he brings to his best performances. Masood was deemed fit to resume after leaving the field for treatment, but he wasn’t the only fielder to look a bit dizzy in the heat. Midway through the evening session, Cook offered the only genuine chance of his entire innings, a top-edged slog-sweep on 147 that flew to Fawad Alam, at deep midwicket.Fawad made good ground but let the chance slip through his fingers, and one over later Zulfiqar Babar, the luckless bowler, had taken temporary custody of an unwanted record. If this game continues as it has started, with 70 wicketless overs already in the bank from England’s spinners, it will go down in history as the most overs of spin ever bowled in a Test match without reward.Aside from a sprinkling of plays-and-misses outside off, Cook’s only other moment of alarm came on 101, when he stretched to sweep Zulfiqar and was struck on the pad perilously adjacent to off stump. Umpire Paul Reiffel turned down the initial appeal, and though replays showed he had been struck inside the line, Hawk-Eye suggested the ball was missing leg stump. The naked eye argued otherwise.At the opposite end, in every sense, during their second-wicket stand of 165 was Bell, whose place in the team had been under scrutiny even before his crucial pair of dropped catches on the first day. Though he showed immense determination to survive 199 deliveries for his gritty innings of 63, he was never remotely as comfortable as his captain, right from the moment he edged his first delivery, from Imran, inches short of Mohammad Hafeez in the slip cordon.Though Bell got off the mark with a single from his third ball, he was unable to add to that tally from a further 24 deliveries before lunch, and was particularly troubled by the spin of Zulfiqar, his conventional technique seemingly unsuited to the flat skiddy conditions.Whereas Cook and Moeen, who made 35 in an opening stand of 116, had emulated Pakistan’s batsmen in playing the spinners with their bats well in front of the front leg, Bell’s preferred method was to press forward with bat and pad together. It made him a prime candidate both for lbw – two early appeals might well have been sent to the third umpire for reviews – as well as an inside-edge which eluded the grasp of silly mid-off.After tea, Bell discovered a degree of fluency, initially by unfurling his rarely used sweep-shot to keep the strike rotating, and latterly by bringing his favoured glide to third man into play. The best of his strokes was arguably a calm cover-drive for three as Wahab over-pitched outside off stump, but the most gratefully played was his conventional pull through backward square to bring up his half-century from 134 balls. It was one of the few balls all day that allowed him to play to one of his strengths.As the shadows began to lengthen, Bell reached once too often for his cover-drive and edged into the hands of gully. Sixty-five arduous overs had elapsed since the fall of Moeen, whose promotion from No. 8 to opening batsman was a qualified success. After 30 overs of hard toil with the ball over the course of the preceding two days, he was never at his most fluent – not that it mattered in the conditions – and was comfortably outscored by his captain throughout their opening stand.However, he played his part nonetheless, and helped to post only England’s sixth 100-run opening partnership since the retirement of Andrew Strauss in 2012. Two of those came earlier this year – Cook’s stands with Jonathan Trott in Grenada in April, and with Adam Lyth at Headingley in June.Moeen was untroubled aside from an awkward moment in the first hour when he was struck on the shoulder by a Wahab bouncer, but just when it seemed he might be able to press on to the sort of substantial score that might seal his audition, he was undone by one of the better balls of the day, a good-length delivery from Imran that nipped away by half-a-bat’s width and took the edge through to the keeper. But the agenda had been set and Cook remained on hand to take the minutes with typical diligence.

Sri Lanka-based International College of Business and Technology beat pre-competition favourites Assupol TUKS, by a narrow two-wicket margin, in their Group B opener played at the Abhimanyu Cricket Academy, Dehradun on Monday.The South African side won the toss and elected to bat first, but the decision back fired, as they were reduced to 15 for five in four overs.Malshan Mendis troubled TUKS batsmen with a disciplined spell that yielded five wickets for just 22 runs in four overs.Murray Coetzee helped rebuild TUKS’ innings with a 19-ball 28. His fourth-wicket forty-run stand with Matome Modiba helped TUKS recover from their early set back.Ruben Classen then added 39 runs with Corbin Bosch to help their side post a respectable 134 in their 20 overs.ICBT, in reply, refused to hand TUKS the early advantage. Their top-five batsmen found runs and took their team close-in on a win.It was down to nine needed off four balls. Uralakalasi de Silva smacked a four and a six off consecutive deliveries thereafter to pull off a narrow win.In the first Group A encounter, Delhi-based Shraddhanand College thrashed European University of Bangladesh by seven wickets.Fast bowler Abhishek Vats made the most of a lively surface and pegged the team from Mirpur on the back-foot early, with two quick wickets.They failed to recover from the early set back and were at one stage reeling at six for 27 in eleven overs. Vats added another wicket to his tally, as the opponents managed just 46 in their innings.Shraddhanand College lost just three wickets in the chase and reached the target in just seven overs.In the last match of the day, Loughborough MCCU out classed University of Technology Sydney by a convincing six wickets.The side from Australia scored at a brisk seven-runs per over and managed 140 in their innings. Harry Dalton top-scored with a quick fire 41 off just 30 balls.Loughborough were reduced to three for 43 in six overs, but a 90-run fourth-wicket stand between Michael Burgess and Timothy le Breton helped their side reach the total in just 15 overs.

Well before Mitchell Johnson chose to tell team-mates of his decision to retire, Australia’s fast bowling mentor Craig McDermott felt the changing of the guard had already taken place.Mitchell Starc’s terrifying and sustained spell with the second new ball on the third afternoon, challenging a well entrenched New Zealand batting line-up and defying the exceedingly docile nature of the WACA Ground pitch, told McDermott that he was ready to take over as the new spearhead of the Australian attack.Combined with Johnson’s fading force, the maturing of Starc as a Test bowler has left Australia more at ease about Johnson’s decision to retire than they might otherwise have been. With the likes of James Pattinson waiting in the wings, Australia are well stocked for speed.”If anything we saw the changing of the guard here two days ago, with Mitchell Starc bowling consistently 150-odd kilometres an hour,” McDermott said. “And for me sitting back and watching that it was like the changing of the guard for me and hopefully Mitchell Starc can have as an illustrious a career as Mitchell Johnson has.”I think he [Starc] has been building towards that. It has taken some time. He has brought that control and that speed through the shorter format of the game. He has now proven he can do that on a very docile wicket which is more than heartening for us as a team and certainly probably for Mitchell to give him some really good confidence going forward as well. I look forward to watching him over the next 10 years.”The way Starc made New Zealand’s batsmen hop about on a pitch offering him only the scantest of assistance is something else McDermott was happy to see, for it seems increasingly likely that such beige surfaces are the lot of fast bowlers, even in Australia. McDermott was careful with his words, but agreed the pitches in Brisbane and Perth were nothing like the swift strips they had once been.”I am just trying not to lose my job … the wickets been reasonably friendly,” McDermott said. “The balls haven’t been the best, I think we’ve only changed 11. That’s not too bad is it, hopefully they have got the design right for the pink one come next week. Different series bring different wickets. We go back to 1994-95 when we had Warnie, our wickets were pretty dry and spin friendly, it is one of those things.”We have got the best pace attack in the world and we come to our first two wickets and they are not really what they should be. It’s one of those things you’ve got to deal with as a player, we won in Brisbane on a wicket that wasn’t as good as it has been in the past and this wicket has been more like a one day wicket than a Test wicket, I think there’s been 184 fours I saw on the TV, that’s astronomical as far as any bowler’s concerned.”As Australia wrestled with New Zealand on the final day, Pattinson was producing a spell of pace and wickets for Victoria in the concurrent Sheffield Shield match at the MCG. McDermott has worked closely with Pattinson down the years, and said he felt the 25-year-old was ready to return, while also mentioning Peter Siddle and Nathan Coulter-Nile.”Obviously Sidds is still in the 12 for these Tests so he comes back into contention, and he’s been bowling beautifully with good pace and swing in the ball,” McDermott said. “You’ve got other younger guys, there’s James Pattinson and Nathan Coulter-Nile who’s back bowling again and I was involved with him here the other day and he bowled quite quick and with good swing with the ball.”Patto’s one of the best bowlers in the country. We just have to make sure certainly from a workload point of view, if you are going to go the technical side, he has got enough numbers up there to play Test cricket, from that side of it. We just have to make sure he is bowling well, first and foremost, which I think he has in this last Shield game by all reports.”

Punjab captain Vikram Rathour led a gallant Punjab fightback onthe penultimate day of their Ranji Trophy quarterfinal tieagainst Tamil Nadu at the MA Chidambaram stadium on Sunday. Butthe hosts were still poised for a berth in the semifinal by closeof play. Punjab, 203 runs in arrears on the first innings, scored366 the second time around thanks in the main to Rathour’smarathon 127 which lasted 505 minutes. Requiring 164 runs forvictory, Tamil Nadu at stumps were 30 for one. And even thoughthe batsmen out is the in form Sridharam Sriram, they shouldfancy their chances of getting the remaining 134 runs with ninewickets in hand on the final day on Monday on a wicket thatis still playing reasonably well.Punjab, 127 for two overnight, lost two more wickets fairly earlyin the morning. Pankaj Dharmani was caught behind by Reuben Pauloff Kumaran for 15 and then Youraj Singh after a bright 24 off 35balls with four boundaries and a six. He dominated a fourthwicket stand of 41 runs off 10.2 overs with Rathour.Punjab’s hopes were lifted with Rathour and Dinesh Mongia (35)adding 64 runs for the fifth wicket off 25.5 overs. Mongia, whofaced 94 balls and hit five of them to the ropes, was then caughtby Reuben Paul off Badani. A little later, Sanjay Sharma wasbowled middle stump by Sriram for a duck and Punjab were downin the dumps at six down for 278 – lead of only 75.But Rathour soldiered on and with Sandeep Sharma again revivedPunjab’s hopes. Rathour reached his century with a boundary andthe two added 55 runs for the seventh wicket off 16 overs.Rathour, who had played the sheet anchor role to perfection nowwas a bit more aggressive before he was caught by Gokulakrishnanoff Mahesh. Opening the innings, Rathour was out at 333 in the105th over. His 262-ball knock was embellished by 14 hits to theropes.The captain had shown the way and now Sandeep Sharma andSharandeep Singh got entrenched without much difficulty in aneighth wicket partnership which realised 29 runs off 7.4 overs.At 362 for seven, Punjab had a lead of 159 and a fourth inningstarget of around 200 loomed ahead for Tamil Nadu. HoweverRajath Bhatia, with a spell of three for two off 15deliveries, hastened the end of the innings. The last twobatsmen Harbhajan Singh and RP Singh both fell for ducksleaving Sandeep Sharma high and dry on 51 not out. He faced 90balls and hit six fours. Bhatia’s lucrative spell saw him finishas the most successful bowler of the innings – three for 18 offeight overs. Wicketkeeper Reuben Paul also had something to smileabout – he finished with five catches.In the Tamil Nadu second innings Sriram was caught behind for 13with the score 22. But Sadagoppan Ramesh (11) and Hemang Badani(4) remained unbeaten at stumps.

With the end result of a modest first innings lead secured, Sussex spentmuch of this day doing little more than trying to grind and claw its way ontop of Middlesex in the teams’ willing County Championship struggle atSouthgate. Their slightly more resourceful opponents, meanwhile, used theoccasion first to prevent this deficit from extending to hefty proportionsand then to launch a spirited second innings assault on the back of theefforts of its best two batsmen.Aside from three forceful cuts from Michael Bevan in the opening over ofthe day, this was predominantly an occasion for the steady accumulation ofruns. The ray of hope offered by the Australian was dimmed in the secondover when Phil Tufnell (4/88) lured him out of his crease to have himstumped; ended with Middlesex grimly preserving its remaining seven secondinnings wickets; and generally offered little in the way of attackingshotmaking in between.For an action-filled day to have eventuated, the best prospects lay in theemergence of substantial contributions to the Sussex first innings fromeither of their two premier batsmen, Bevan and Chris Adams. That pairscored just thirty runs between them though, they were both gone early inproceedings, and the die was cast. The pitch, and the probing turn andflight extracted by Tufnell in foty tight overs, rendered scoring difficultand Sussex’s batsmen in particular exhibited little willingness to dominateat any stage. Robin Martin-Jenkins (44) and Tony Cottey (42) emerged astheir mainstays in a generally disappointing performance.When Middlesex’s turn came, strokeplay was slightly more abundant, and itwas their captain, Justin Langer (48), who was chiefly responsible for theturnaround. Before playing one lofted on drive too many, he gained goodsupport first from Mike Roseberry (28) and then his team’s other main starwith the bat, Mark Ramprakash (27*), as they worked hard to overcome theearly departure of Andrew Strauss (3) and lift the score to 125/3 by theclose. As for Tufnell, the reward for his control today came in the formof the wickets of James Kirtley (21), Bevan (30) and Adams (0). It was aheartening exhibition and one which breathed some life into the home team’sambitions of clawing its way off the bottom of the Division Two table. Inits favour too, of course, is the fact that the Southgate pitch is showingmarked signs of increasingly yielding to spin. Chasing a decent fourthinnings target – no matter its exact dimension – is unlikely to be an easyproposition.

Karachi, Nov 16: A century partnership between Faisal Iqbal and FarhanAdil lifted Karachi Blues to 238 for six in their first inningsagainst Peshawar on the opening day of the Quaid-i-Azam TrophyNational Grade-I Cricket Championship match at the UBL Sports Complexhere on Thursday.Faisal and Farhan put on exactly 100 for the fifth-wicket in 111minutes after the Blues had lost four wickets for 98 runs.Faisal, the 18-year-old nephew of former Pakistan captain and presentcoach Javed Miandad, played some exquisite shots in making 71 off 159balls. His 191-minute included nine fours. He was the sixth man outwhen he was caught in the covers.Farhan also posted his fifty but after making 53 off 99 balls in 111minutes, he was bowled by slow left-armer Mohammad Aslam Qureshi.Farhan’s innings was laced with five hits to the fence.Aslam, in fact, turned out to be the most successful bowler afterKarachi Blues skipper and Test discard Rashid Latif elected to batfirst upon winning the toss. Aslam has so far captured four for 60while Test off-spinner Arshad Khan has claimed two for 89.Openers Maisam Hasnain and Afsar Nawaz were out in identical fashionafter making 17 each.But Nomanullah (11) and the left-handed Asim Kamal (32 off 50 ballswith four fours) were extremely unhappy at being adjudged out toPeshawar captain Arshad Khan. Noman was caught behind by Shoaib Khanwhile Asim was ‘caught’ at silly-point by Riffatullah.

Jennings Ribblesdale League club Padiham have withdrawn their offer of a new contract to disgraced Indian Test star Ajay Sharma.

Padiham Secretary Ann Hall said, “This is Padiham’s decision. We didn’t want to have a professional who had been banned by his country, so we have withdrawn the offer of a new contract to him.”

Sharma received a life ban on Tuesday along with former Indian captain Mohammed Azharuddin. Two other players, Ajay Jadeja and Manoj Prabhaker were also banned for five years by the Indian Board of Control for Cricket.

Last season, 36 year old Sharma topped the league bowling averages, taking 53 wickets at an average of 10.6. His 841 league runs came at an average of 49.5, Padiham finishing in fifth place in the league, after winning the championship the previous two seasons.

Sharma’s career in First Class Cricket has been outstanding in India. He has scored over 10,000 runs at an average of 68.5 and is behind only the great Don Bradman (95.1) and Vijay Merchant (71.2) in the list of batsmen who have passed that landmark in terms of batting averages.

It is therefore quite hardto believe that Sharma only played one Test Match, against the West Indies in1987 – 88, scoring 30 and 23, hardly failures that warrant being discarded. He also toured the Caribbean in 1989 and Pakistan and New Zealand the followingyear. Sharma did play 31 One Day Tests, scoring 424 runs at 26.5 and taking 15 wickets with his slow left arm orthodox spin.