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Robin Morris stroked his way to his second unbeaten half century ofthe season for Mumbai in the Ranji One-Day West Zone League againstGujarat at the GSFC ground, Baroda. Robin (67 not out) hit twoboundaries and five massive sixes in his unbeaten innings leadingMumbai to a 9 wicket victory. Mumbai openers Robin and Wasim Jaffer(61) put on a 118 run partnership for the first wicket. Mumbai lookedset for their second consecutive 10 wicket victory before Wasimcharged Tejas Varsani and was caught short of his ground by stumperPallav Vora. Mumbai raced away to 150 for one in the 24th over toregister their third win and earned two points.Earlier in the day, Gujurat batting first, succumbed to the Mumbaiattack of Paras Mhambrey (3/17) and Sairaj Bahutule (3/34) and crawledtheir way to 149 all out in 48 overs. Bhavin Mehta (28) was the topscorer.

While one senior player returned to the national squad, another made an exit when India’s squad for the women’s Asia Cup was announced today. Neetu David, who had retired from international cricket in 2006, was included in the 15-member squad after she decided to reverse her decision one and half months back. Meanwhile Anjum Chopra, who won India’s highest sporting achievement award last year, was dropped in favour of younger players.”I had retired for personal reasons,” David told Cricinfo. “But many people told me that I should return to play, that I was needed by the team. I thought as well that I still had enough cricket left in me, so I am back.”David’s inclusion means Priti Dimri, the left-arm spinner who David had stepped aside for two years ago, has been left out. But young legspinner Thirush Kamini has been retained in the squad while offspinner Nooshin Al Khadeer has been replaced by debutant Seema Pujare.Other newcomers include Under-21s Priyanka Roy, Snehal Pradhan, Gouher Sultana and Anagha Deshpande. Asha Rawat returns to the side after last playing in England in 2006.The Asia Cup includes four teams – India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh – this year and will be hosted by Sri Lanka.India squad:
Mithali Raj (capt), Jhulan Goswami, Jaya Sharma, Karuna Jain (wk), Amita Sharma, Devika Palshikar, Rumeli Dhar, Thirush Kamini, Neetu David, Seema Pujare, Snehal Pradhan, Gouher Sultana, Anagha Deshpande, Asha Rawat, Priyanka Roy.

The second ODI between Hong Kong and Scotland at Mission Road was abandoned without a ball bowled due to persistent rain across the city. The match had been pushed into a reserve day but that mattered little as wet weather continued from Thursday into Friday and with no chance of the field drying out, play was called off before the scheduled start time on Friday’s reserve day.The result meant each team got a point from the abandonment, which pushed Hong Kong above Netherlands into first place, though Netherlands has a chance to leapfrog Hong Kong when they play UAE on Friday in Abu Dhabi. Scotland is now in third place with seven points, one ahead of Kenya on the table.This was the third time in six scheduled WCL Championship matches during the current competition that Scotland has had to split points due to poor weather following a no result and a total abandonment in the Netherlands last September. Scotland also came close to missing out on maximum points in their opening two encounters at home in July against Nepal but managed to come away with two wins despite wet weather in Ayr.

Match facts

Sunday, May 11, 2008
Start time 20.00 (local), 14.30 (GMT)

The Big Picture

As the Indian Premier League enters its second half, the matches hold more importance for the teams in the bottom half of the points table. The Rajasthan Royals are at the top of the league, and know that another couple of wins will virtually cement a semi-final berth. Delhi, on the other hand, are fourth and a defeat in Jaipur will give Kolkata and Mumbai a chance to draw level with them.Shane Warne’s men haven’t lost a game at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium, winning all four of their matches there. They seem to have developed successful formula: win the toss and field, restrict the opposition with their versatile bowling attack, and chase down targets at a comfortable pace. Rajasthan won all three games in which Warne put the opposition in and also won the two matches in which they were asked to chase. Their only two defeats came when they batted first.These teams played each other in their first match of the tournament and Delhi won that game by a massive nine-wicket margin. Delhi also prefer chasing, and have successfully gunned down three out of four targets. Their strength lies in their opening combinations: Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir with the bat, and Glenn McGrath and Mohammad Asif with the new ball. Sehwag and Gambhir are among the top three run-scorers in the tournament and Shikhar Dhawan, the No. 3 batsman, complements them well with an average of 51. The weakness lies in their middle order, where their international stars, Shoaib Malik and AB de Villiers, are yet to make a significant contribution. Dismiss the openers cheaply and negotiate McGrath with the new ball and half the battle is won against Delhi.

Tournament position

Rajasthan Royals P8, W6, L2, NRR +0.605
Delhi Daredevils P7, W4, L3, NRR +0.654

IPL form (last five matches)

Rajasthan Royals: WLWWW
Delhi Daredevils: LLWWL

Watch out for …

Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan may have formed a solid opening combination at the top of India’s batting order, but Rohit feels that comparisons with the prolific Sachin Tendulkar-Sourav Ganguly duo are premature.Rohit and Dhawan have put up 2763 runs from 63 innings across formats at an average of 44.56, with eight centuries and 10 fifties between them. While that is still a fair bit away from the 6609 runs Tendulkar and Ganguly put up together, Rohit has “immense satisfaction” that people are already drawing comparisons between the two pairs.”Comparisons with India’s most successful opening pairing [Ganguly-Tendulkar] gives you immense satisfaction. Comparisons are a piece of joy,” Rohit told . “It would be great if me and Shikhar as an opening pair can achieve the success that these two accomplished in their illustrious careers.”We are still not there but both of us would like to entertain the fans and win as many matches as they have won for India.”Rohit, who was named Player of the Series in the recent ODIs against Australia for his 441 runs from five matches, also felt that even his personal best was yet to come.”This is not the best. Whatever I achieve, I would always tell myself that my best is yet to come. I have scored 441 runs in the ODI series in Australia. In the next big series, my target will be to score more than 441 runs. If I am satisfied with my past achievements, I will never be able to set higher benchmarks.”It is a fact that you need to get the basics right. The straight six over fast bowlers’ head is a shot which I play with my batswing being the extension of my arm. It is about timing and position of the body negligible power element in it. But when MS Dhoni bats in the 45th over with the ball going soft, you need those wrists and brute power to clear ropes. That’s why MS is special.”Despite Rohit’s heroics in the ODI series, India went on to lose 4-1, though the visitors sealed a historic 3-0 whitewash in the T20Is that followed. However, Rohit said that the T20 win could not be put on the same pedestal as India’s victory in the 2007-08 tri-series, owing to the quality of Australia’s bowling attack back then.”I agree that their bowling attack is not same as it used to be but does one expect that Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath would have played on forever? You can only score runs off the bowlers that you play against,” Rohit said. “Every win counts as that’s what you are supposed to do while playing for the country.”[2008] was so different. I was a 20-year-old on my second or third tour. The new captain [Dhoni] was just settling down. Imagine their bowling attack. Brett Lee, Nathan Bracken and a far younger Mitchell Johnson. The batting line- up was Hayden, Gilchrist, Ponting and Clarke. So that tournament win can’t be compared to this win but this is also special in its own way.”

ScorecardAn unbroken 73-run stand between Jimmy Maher and Stuart Binny saw the Hyderabad Heroes clinch an unlikely win at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium.Strikes from Sujay Tarafdar and Nantie Hayward had reduced the Heroes, chasing 166, to 28 for 3, before a 54-run stand between Justin Kemp and opener Jimmy Maher. Tarafdar’s wicket of Kemp triggered another collapse and at 95 for 6, the Heroes were staring down the barrel.However, then came the whirlwind 73-run stand off just 6.1 overs, with which the Heroes sealed the game with four balls and four wickets to spare. Stuart Binny, the son of former India allrounder Roger Binny, was the chief architect of the chase, smashing 44 off just 19 at No. 8. Maher stayed right till the end; his 59-ball 65 anchored the innings, but even his Man-of-the-Match effort would have been in vain had it not been for Binny’s heroic knock.In all, Binny hit five four and two sixes, and finished his innings with a strike-rate of 231.57. Both Andre Adams and Lance Klusener went at more than ten an over.At the toss, the Heroes’ Chris Harris choose to field, and the move didn’t seeming to be working when Klusener blazed away. He biffed his way to 73 off 42 balls, with seven fours and five sixes. Twenty-one runs were taken of a Syed Sahabuddin over.Harris struck twice for the Heroes, also removing Klusener during his 3-0-16-2. Once Klusener fell in the 15th over, the Tigers were unable to keep up the momentum and they scored 165 for 5, at least 10-15 runs short of they would have expected in the first place, and what perhaps was the key difference in the final equation.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsSabbir Rahman became only the second Bangladesh cricketer to score 40 runs and take three wickets in a T20I•AFP

Sabbir Rahman gave an account of his all-round abilities in Bangladesh’s 42-run win over Zimbabwe in the second T20 in Khulna. He smacked an unbeaten 43 before picking up the vital wicket of Hamilton Masakadza, one of his three scalps, as the wind was taken out of the visitors’ 168-run chase in the ninth over.Soumya Sarkar also made 43, but missed out on a bigger score after he threw his wicket away in the 10th over. Yet, Bangladesh kept hitting the boundaries – they managed 11 fours and eight sixes to equal their own record of most sixes in a T20 innings. Zimbabwe’s reply was nearly a mirror image of Bangladesh’s first half, until Sabbir came along to seal a victory that gave Bangladesh a 2-0 lead in the four-match series.Bangladesh started well, but the real push came when Tamim Iqbal hammered Neville Madziva for a four and six in the fifth over. By getting into his hitting zone, he then smacked Taurai Muzarabani through cover in the next over. But just as he started to rev up his engine, he also found a top edge that was easily taken by Brian Vitori at fine leg in the sixth over.Sarkar also looked authoritative by striking three fours and a six before Tamim fell and he then built the base further with Sabbir. He was particularly harsh on Graeme Cremer, the legspinner, who was hit for sixes over deep midwicket and long-on. But just like Tamim had done, Sarkar threw it away in the 10th over as Malcolm Waller took an easy catch at deep midwicket to end his promising innings of 43.Zimbabwe were further boosted by the wicket of Mahmudullah, who fell to a superb catch by wicketkeeper Richmond Mutumbami. That meant Mushfiqur Rahim had to bat through the second half of the innings to give Bangladesh a solid total to defend. That he did, despite his hamstring pulling up in the 16th over, by adding 52 for the fourth wicket with Sabbir.Sabbir made the most of a reprieve on 7 by Mutumbami as he lined up the straight boundaries well, even as Mushfiqur used the bowler’s pace well in his 20-ball 24 before hobbling off the field. Shakib then finished off the innings with a cameo as Bangladesh took 50 off the last five overs. Yet, they would have perhaps felt 10-15 short.Masakadza came out all guns blazing, hitting two fours and two sixes in 2.2 overs, while Vusi Sibanda also soon got into the act. Zimbabwe were reprieved twice in the fourth over bowled by Mashrafe Mortaza. First, the substitute Imrul Kayes dropped Masakadza at cover, before Shuvagata couldn’t reach a chance at midwicket.But Mashrafe soon had a wicket to show as Sibanda was bowled off the inside edge for 21 off 17. It was then that Sabbir was thrown the ball, and he delivered by having Masakadza caught at long-on for a 28-ball 30 that had three fours and two sixes. Sean Williams fell soon after to give Shuvagata his first T20I wicket and leave Zimbabwe needing a further 103 runs from the last ten overs. Sabbir then had the wicket of Mutumbami, who holed out to Sarkar at deep midwicket.Malcolm Waller briefly kept Zimbabwe in it by striking a four each in the 13th, 14th and 15th over, but an already escalating rate was compounded by Bangladesh’s spinners, who used the slowness of the surface well, and the chase spiralled out of control. Waller was eventually dismissed for a 21-ball 29 by Al-Amin Hossain in the 16th over.With the game all but over, Mustafizur Rahman then came to the party to dismiss Madziva and Peter Moor in the 17th over to puncture Zimbabwe. The eighth wicket was fittingly taken by Sabbir, who became the second Bangladesh cricketer to score at least 40 and take two wickets in T20.With a series win out of the equation, Zimbabwe have two more matches to potentially get their combinations right leading to the World T20.

Dav Whatmore knows a thing or two about coaching struggling sides, and coaxing success out of whatever resources are at hand. He masterminded Sri Lanka’s World Cup win in 1996, and sparked a change in Bangladesh’s trajectory when he took over the coaching role there in 2003.He moved into his current position with Zimbabwe less than six weeks before the World Cup earlier this year, and was able to bring enjoyment and cohesion back into the team environment in remarkably quick time. Yet positive results haven’t been forthcoming, and on Tuesday Zimbabwe slipped to a 3-0 series defeat to India despite putting themselves into positions of dominance in all three matches.”That was a hugely disappointing effort in that first game. We honestly thought we should have won that. When you get so close, and you don’t, I think psychologically it becomes a little bit greater when you play the next one. We’ve got the potential, as you can see, we just need to transform our ability into performance, and that comes from here,” Whatmore said, pointing at his head.Though Whatmore prompted “a total 180 in the players’ mindsets” very quickly, according to former captain Brendan Taylor, he insists there is no quick fix for Zimbabwe’s issues.”It doesn’t happen like that,” Whatmore says, clicking his fingers to emphasise the point. “It never does. It takes a bit of time. If you look at the history of Zimbabwe cricket over the last four years, if you’ve done your research you’ll know that we’ve only played a handful of games. And to improve you need to go through certain situations more often. So hopefully boys will learn as quickly as possible, because we are now playing competition which we haven’t had in the past.”It’s okay to say ‘be patient with us’, it’s a cliche but I’m very pleased to have played these three games and we look forward very much to the future matches coming in this calendar year. And we look to improve. So please bear with us, we are trying really hard to get it right and we will need a bit more time. As other sides do.”Zimbabwe have been slightly surprised by the way these pitches have played, as ordinarily Harare Sports Club tracks ease out during the course of the day, particularly in winter. In this series, there has always been something on offer for the bowlers. They “briefly” considered batting first after Elton Chigumbura won his third toss in a row, Whatmore explained, “but this wicket generally gets a lot better than this. It’s sort of misbehaving a little more than what most of us thought. Generally speaking this wicket flattens out a little bit more, but it’s had some life in it right throughout.”India haven’t had it all their way in this series, slipping to 87 for 5 in the first match, losing 6 for 77 in the last 10 overs on Sunday, and wobbling at 82 for 4 today, but Zimbabwe were never able to land the killer blow and, as Whatmore admitted, “we’ve let them off the hook a couple of times”.The problem, for Chigumbura, is a lack of ruthlessness.”It’s just about being ruthless,” he said. “You tend to relax when you are on top, or sometimes some guys realise we’re on top. And also because of not playing many games regularly. I think the more we play the more we could quickly learn from these mistakes.”We need to dig deep when we get into these situations. I think that’s where we’re lacking. We always get into a good position, in almost every series that we play we’ll get one or two chances that we can take with both hands and win the game, but we don’t.”Zimbabwe have a quick turnaround in which to try to set things right before the Twenty20 series starts on Friday, but they can also look forward to an unusually full schedule in the months to come. With a little luck and a lot of hard work, particularly on the psychological aspect of their game, Zimbabwe could yet be another of Whatmore’s success stories.

The Indian Premier League’s Mumbai-based franchise has been named their team ‘Mumbai Indians’. Sachin Tendulkar, the team’s icon player, will captain the side, which also includes Sanath Jayasuriya and Shaun Pollock.”Mumbai Indians is a nice combination of senior players and youngsters, so I think we all will be looking forward to go out there, put up a perfect unit and perform well,” Tendulkar said after unveiling the team’s logo at a promotional event in Mumbai. “Twenty20 cricket is hugely popular everywhere and I have no doubt the IPL will be a hit.”Tendulkar said he was looking forward to open the batting with Jayasuriya: the last time he did so was back in 1998, while playing for the Rest of the World XI against MCC at Lord’s in a charity match held in memory of Princess Diana.The team logo for the Mumbai Indians has the Sudarshan Chakra with the team’s name engraved in it. The team’s colour – blue – is the same as that of the Indian national side.The franchise, owned by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd, was bought for US$ 111.9 million, making it the most expensive of the eight franchises. The team has three Sri Lankans in Jayasuriya, Lasith Malinga and Dilhara Fernando, while Pollock and Loots Bosman are the other overseas recruits. Robin Uthappa and Harbhajan Singh are the other India nationals in the side, which has promising local players in Abhishek Nayar and Ajinkya Rahane.

Steven Smith has been ruled out of the third Ashes Test on the morning of the match in extraordinary circumstances with Usman Khawaja earning a recall just a day after it seemed unlikely that he would play another Test for Australia.Cricket Australia (CA) confirmed just before the start of play that Smith was suffering vertigo type symptoms, something he has battled with in the past. He left the ground during the warm-up after he had batted in the nets and had a conversation with coach and selector Andrew McDonald.Related

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Smith missed training on Monday due to illness but had trained on Sunday at Adelaide and then played golf with his team-mates at Kooyonga on Sunday afternoon.He returned to training on Tuesday and was first in the nets. But he did not look in full health during the net session and was also hit in the groin at one point which felled him and caused him to take a lengthy break.”Over the past few days he has been feeling unwell, with symptoms including nausea and dizziness,” a CA spokesperson said.”He was assessed and monitored closely and was close to being available to play. However, given the persistence of symptoms, a decision was made not to proceed.Steven Smith came down will illness ahead of the Test•Getty Images

“He is being treated for a potential vestibular issue. This is something Steve has experienced intermittently in the past and is being managed accordingly. He is expected to be available for the Boxing Day test in Melbourne.”Pat Cummins, who returned as captain after Smith had led the first two Tests, confirmed after winning the toss that Khawaja would replace him.”Steve’s been feeling a bit unwell the last couple of days,” Cummins said. “He came and gave it a crack this morning but didn’t think he was going to get up for this one. So he’s headed off home. But pretty lucky we’ve got someone like Usman who can step right in. Usman will bat No. 4″Khawaja has been recalled after Australia had elected to leave him out despite returning to full fitness from a back injury, with the success of the Travis Head-Jake Weatherald opening partnership in the first two Tests forcing the selectors’ hand. Even with Khawaja’s last-minute return, the selectors have decided to keep Head and Weatherald at the top. Khawaja will slot in at No. 4 with the rest of the order remaining the same.Khawaja has only twice batted at No. 4 in Test cricket, including in the first innings of the first Test in Perth when he was unable to open due to back spasms. It has been his preferred spot to bat in first-class cricket, averaging 53.15 with 10 centuries. He batted at No .4 in Sheffield Shield cricket for Queensland for several years while he was Australia’s Test opener.Khawaja will turn 39 on Thursday, and become the first 39-year-old to play for Australia in 40 years.Smith has missed two of Australia’s last six Tests through injury or illness. He missed Australia’s first Test of the West Indies tour in June due to a finger injury he suffered in the WTC final. Josh Inglis batted at No. 4 on that occasion.Prior to that he had not missed a Test since the third Test of the 2019 Ashes series when he was ruled out with concussion. He has suffered several bouts of vertigo in the intervening years but none that have kept him out of a Test match.