Hampshire born Billy Taylor “The one that got away” demolished the Hampshire batting with 7-39 to send the Second XI to an Innings defeat in the first match at the Hampshire Rose Bowl.Resuming overnight at 102-4, after rain had held up the match until mid-afternoon, Hampshire lost their last 6 wickets for a paltry 26 runs.The match watched over the four days by good crowds of 2-300, proved that Groundsman Nigel Gray’s hard efforts over four years passed the wicket test, with players umpires and officials all praising his efforts.Hampshire next test is when Hampshire 2ndXI take on their Glamorgan counterparts on 23-23 June, at the main cricket oval. Although the pavilion and cricket academy is still being built, the teams will use the nursery pavilion to change and a marquee will be set up for scorers and players.

It might only have been the first day of a new Test series between Australia and West Indies but it nevertheless illuminated several fundamental realities. Of these, the most transparent is that it will require a massive turnaround from the West Indians to make this series genuinely competitive. And then some.While there was much to celebrate for a very healthy Thursday crowd of 19878 here at the ‘Gabba ground in Brisbane, there was as much to mourn. For this was an occasion which highlighted the growing chasm that is beginning to emerge between some of the best and some of the worst teams in the contemporary Test arena.An overstatement of the position? An over-reaction to the events of a mere six hours? Well, maybe. But the portents of doom in the West Indians’ slide to a paltry first innings total of 82 – not to mention the concession, already, of a deficit to the Australians, who have reached 1/107 by stumps – were unmistakable.The West Indians had carried dismal batting form into this match after hidings at the hands of Western Australia and Victoria. Today, matters descended to truly disastrous proportions.On a pitch that seemed to offer far less in terms of pace and bounce than might have been anticipated by the Australians upon winning the toss, it was Glenn McGrath who was at the core of the tourists’ problems. Conceiving fast bowling that was high on quality and high on intelligence, he returned the extraordinary figures of 6/17 from twenty tight and disciplined overs. In the face of his onslaught, there was little that any of the West Indians – Brian Lara (0) included – seemed to be able to produce in the way of resistance.Depending on one’s perspective about the quality of Test cricket at present, the chain of events to which McGrath gave expression in the post-lunch session served as the cause of either incredulity or depression. Or maybe both. Whatever their exact nature, the basic facts were these. After reaching the mark of 2/53 fifteen minutes beyond the break, the West Indians surrendered their next seven wickets for fourteen runs. Another fifteen runs were somehow accrued from a contextually magnificent last wicket partnership between Jimmy Adams (16*) and Courtney Walsh (9). But by then, the damage in a phase that brought the overall clatter of eight wickets for a total of only thirty-seven runs had well and truly been inflicted.During a display through which the West Indians seemingly found the exercise of middling the ball a near-impossible assignment, the paceman claimed 4/0 in the space of ten deliveries at one stage as carnage reigned around him. He beat the bat relentlessly and, even when some form of willow was applied to ball, it seemed inevitably to come in the form of an edge into an increasingly heavily-packed slip cordon. Twice, he found himself on the verge of hat-tricks; twice, they were only narrowly averted.”I couldn’t have asked for a better day,” he enthused.”The West Indies haven’t really had a great start to their tour here, and we thought we could put the pressure straight on them. That was our game plan and it worked out pretty well.””My game plan whenever we’ve played against the West Indies has just been to remain patient, build the pressure up. It’s worked in the past so I thought why not stay on that track,” he said of his unerring line and length.That the tourists wedged the run out of Ramnaresh Sarwan (0) – as he ridiculously attempted a second run with Ricky Ponting in rapid pursuit of a ball to short fine leg – into the mess as well only underlined the parlous extent of the capitulation. With the exception of Shivnarine Chanderpaul (20), Daren Ganga (18) and Adams, the entire line-up was swept away in a fashion that defied belief.Vice-captain Sherwin Campbell (10) had been the first to depart, after a forty-five minute stay that, in hindsight, made his effort one of the more stoic performances of the innings. Along with Ganga, he weathered the opening spell of McGrath and Brett Lee (1/24) relatively painlessly, in fact. But, once he departed after edging a Stuart MacGill (1/10) leg break to slip, the foundation for the ensuing rot was in place. Australian captain Steve Waugh rapidly swung McGrath back into the attack and, with the very first ball of a new spell, he teased old sparring partner Lara (0) into issuing a loose, outside edged defensive shot at a ball that cut marginally away. The symbolism in the star’s brisk departure from the crease was unarguable.After the brief respite that came in the form of the luncheon interval, Ganga edged Andy Bichel (1/25) to slip and Chanderpaul fell to a lazy drive at McGrath. Sarwan departed next and then Ridley Jacobs (2), Nixon McLean (0), Mervyn Dillon (0) and Marlon Black (0) all joined the queue of McGrath victims shambling hastily back in the direction of the pavilion. Walsh showed that the job of defying the New South Welshman was not as impossible as it might have looked but could not hold out for long against the speed of Lee, fending a lifting delivery to short leg.It all left the visitors crashing to their third lowest score in history against Australia and a sub-one hundred total in a Test innings for the fourth time in less than two years. Compounded as it was by the sight of the Australians registering a century stand before Matthew Hayden (44) was run out, it also left the fate of this particular Test match seemingly already heading toward only one possible result.So grave had the state of affairs become that not even the fact that Australian openers Michael Slater (54*) and Hayden both narrowly escaped a series of close appeals early in their respective innings seemed worthy of comment by the end. Nor did the sight of Dillon sustaining a leg injury while slipping on a plastic bottle as he pursued a ball toward the square leg boundary. More than enough, in fact, had been said by then.

A crowd of 11,057 people watched history in the making as Australia ripped through West Indies to take out the Second Test by an innings and twenty-seven runs here at the WACA ground in Perth.The win, its twelfth in a row in Tests, has capped off an amazing fourteen month period for Australia – a period during which it has conquered all before it to create a new world record for consecutive victories.”It’s nice to get it; a long road to get there. I mean, I said to Jason Gillespie as we were walking off the field that it was pretty amazing . . . sixteen or eighteen months ago we were both sitting in a hospital bed in Kandy having just come out of the operating theatre in plaster (after suffering a sickening collision in the field). We turned on the TV and Australia were 7/49 in the second innings in Kandy. Since then, we’ve gone on this amazing winning streak,” said Australian captain Steve Waugh.As for the West Indians, who have suffered fifteen losses from their past seventeen overseas Tests, today’s defeat provided a double blow – the home team has just broken the eleven Test winning streak created by a Windies team between 1983 and 1985 and this is the first time the team was beatenin a Test match at the WACA.”It’s very disappointing. When you hold a record for a period of time, it means something to you. This record meant a lot to us and it is not something that we were happy to see go. But give credit where credit is due. The Australians have played well in the last two Test matches,” said West Indian captain Jimmy Adams.Both captains agreed that the first hour of the first session on day one was when the match was won and lost. Five West Indian wickets fell in that one hour; five top order batsmen dismissed for just twenty-two runs amid a devastating display from Glenn McGrath (4/74 for the match) and Brett Lee(7/113). McGrath snared the wicket of star batsman Brian Lara (0) for the third time in this series in that spell to reach the 300-wicket mark. Number 300 came in the middle leg of a hat-trick – Australia’s tenth in 137 years of Test history.Although the visitors ended up making 196 in the innings thanks to valuable contributions from Ridley Jacobs (96*) and Wavell Hinds (50), they never quite recovered. To be fair, they were deprived of the services of one of their best batsmen when Shivnarine Chanderpaul was lost to injury. However, with only three of their batsmen reaching double figures, they were always going to be in trouble.It was a similar story for the bowlers on day two. They bowled some good deliveries but not with enough consistency to contain a side whose batting line-up is eight deep. Mark Waugh (119) provided the backbone of the Australian innings, striking a majestic century and starring in a ninety-five run partnership with Adam Gilchrist (50).Between fielding calls to withdraw from this Test series due to the advent of fresh bribery allegations against him and batting with something of a question mark hanging over his right to a spot in the national team, Waugh, 35, has been under intense scrutiny over the past twelve months. To come out and bat with an elegance and guile reminiscent of his heyday represented a great effort – one that eventually won him the man-of-the-match award.The home team declared at 396 in that innings, after Lee slogged a huge six off Merv Dillon (2/130), having established a lead of exactly two hundred runs by that stage. Needless to say, the West Indians again found matters with the bat tough, managing just 173 the second time around.Again, Lara (17) fell cheaply, this time to Stuart MacGill (4/84 for the match). Again, Hinds (41) showed resistance, this time with help from Adams (40*). Again, a number of batsmen got themselves out to silly shots that they know not to play with their team in such grave trouble.MacGill, who was deemed to be unsuited to the fast WACA pitch in the corresponding Test against England two years ago and was relegated to drinks duties instead, claimed four wickets for the match, dismissing Hinds twice.McGrath bowled eighteen typically miserly overs for twenty-six runs and Gillespie completed a fine comeback to Test cricket with four wickets for the match.In the end though, it was Lee who stole the thunder from his more experienced colleagues, snaring three wickets in six balls to finish it off.So it was that, at 3:47 on a hot Perth afternoon, a journey that began fourteen months ago with a ten-wicket victory against Zimbabwe in Harare was completed. Now for more records … .”I think everyone’s aware of what we can achieve. We’re not going to take our foot off the accelerator. As I said in New Zealand, it was just the start of something special and you get a feeling amongst the side that we can go places. I think it’s still the beginning and we can get better. And we get so much joy out of playing well and winning that we don’t want to lose that feeling. We can still improve from here,” said captain Waugh.

Uttar Pradesh were 197/3 in relply to the Bengal first innings score of 207 all out, on the second day of the Vijay Merchant under-16 knock-out quarterfinal match at Narendrapur, near Kolkata on Sunday.Tahir Abbas with an unbeaten 71 off 157 balls with the help of seven boundaries and opening batsman Ravi Kant Shukla who made 64 (9 fours) in 129 balls were the arhcitects of the UP reply. Shiva Kant Shukla made 35 and Aris Alam 21 in the UP innings. Earlier in the day Bengal resumed at 176/6 and were bowled out for 207 in the 116th over. Praveen Gupta picked up two more wickets in the morning to finish with the figures of 39.4-23-44-5 to take the bowling honours.

Australia may have a 100 per cent record in the NatWest Series against England and Pakistan but, worryingly for their opponents, skipper Steve Waugh says his side are still some way off their best.Tomorrow at Old Trafford, Australia take on an England side who must win all their remaining games to have any chance of qualifying for the final at Lord’s.But Waugh’s words warning that the best is yet to come from his side could disconcert a few English hearts and minds.”I don’t think we have peaked at all yet – we are a long way from that,” hesaid.”The batting has been pretty good, and the fielding has too. But the bowlinghas just been satisfactory.”We are probably playing about 70 per cent as well as we can play – so thereis a long way to go.”However, the Australian skipper did offer some crumbs of comfort to an England side that have just lost their eighth One-Day International in a row – an unwanted record for the host nation.”They will be encouraged by the way they have come back in the last couple ofgames,” said Waugh. “They have improved but they just have not been finishingmatches off.”They probably panicked in the last ten overs, but that sort of thing comeswith experience and confidence.”There is no doubt they have the talent there. They will make thebreakthrough sooner rather than later.”It has not been all bad news for England. Marcus Trescothick has discovered a rich vein of form while Middlesex’s Owais Shah has burst on to the scene with an unbeaten 28 and a determined 62 in his appearances so far.Middlesex coach Mike Gatting said: “He has always had ability, it was just a question of bringing it through and he’s always had a good head on his shoulders which helps in pressure situations.”When I first came across him he had a bit of growing up to do, but the greattalent was always there. He had all the shots but his shot selection wassometimes not good – he’d be playing like God and all of a sudden wallop, one upin the air.”I got very frustrated with him at times because I knew he had the abilityand I may not have handled it well at times, but it’s great to see him reap therewards now.”It was wonderful to see him bat with Ben Hollioake at Bristol. He seemed sosensible and mature and he performed well under pressure against Pakistan to getEngland close.”As for Shah himself, he’s just relishing the moment. “I think I’m just an average 22-year-old really,” he said. “I don’t think you can play for England just on potential – you have to perform and put runs on the board and that’s what I’ve been trying to do for Middlesex.”I had a terrible year last year and scored only about 400 runs, which isterrible for a professional batsman, and I’ve had other bad years, but I want toscore 1,000 runs this year because I’ve never done that before.”If I don’t enjoy batting at the moment, I’m never going to enjoy it, am I?I’ve had a reasonable start to the season that I am enjoying personally andeveryone at Middlesex is enjoying the start we’ve had.”Shah is almost certain to play at Old Trafford, particularly as Graham Thorpe has been ruled out for another week because of a calf injury.As for Australia, who will be without injured paceman Nathan Bracken and are waiting on the fitness of Jason Gillespie and Damien Fleming, they will continue their squad rotation policy. It is likely that one of Mark Waugh, Ricky Ponting or Damien Martyn will be rested.England (from): AJ Stewart (Surrey, wkt & capt), ME Trescothick (Somerset), NVKnight (Warwickshire), MP Vaughan (Yorkshire), OA Shah (Middlesex), BC Hollioake(Surrey), DG Cork (Derbyshire), MA Ealham (Kent), D Gough (Yorkshire), ARCaddick (Somerset), AD Mullally (Hampshire), AD Brown (Surrey), RDB Croft(Glamorgan).Australia (from): SR Waugh (capt), ME Waugh, AC Gilchrist (wkt), RT Ponting,DR Martyn, MG Bevan, A Symonds, ML Hayden, IJ Harvey, SK Warne, B Lee, GDMcGrath, J Gillespie, D Fleming.

Australia inflicted another crushing defeat over England in the firstCricinfo One-Day International at Derby today, winning by 99 runs with morethan three overs remaining.Set 239 to win after an entertaining batting performance from Australia’sKaren Rolton (79) and Lisa Keightley (75), England’s early overs were full ofpromise as debutante Hannah Lloyd and Arran Thompson set off confidentlyagainst Australia’s experienced opening attack.Lloyd survived an appeal to the third umpire for a run out in the fifth overafter the athletic Lisa Sthalekar produced a forward dive at square leg toget the ball in sharply to the stumps.The 21-year-old University student took her time to settle, while at theother end Thompson quickly got down to business striking three boundaries insix overs.But in the eighth over of the innings, Lloyd was leg before pushing forwardto pace bowler Therese McGregor and Australia had made their firstbreakthrough with the total on 22.The next three wickets all fell in quick succession as McGregor, anothermember of the Waugh twins cricket club in Bankstown, capitalised on theEnglish women’s fragile confidence and tentative stroke play.Thompson was brilliantly caught at cover for 17, having faced 37 balls, andcaptain Clare Connor was another lbw victim playing across the line toMcGregor.A drinks break rapidly turned into a 50-minute interval as the cloudslowered and the heavens opened, forcing scorers to bring out their sheets ofDuckworth-Lewis calculations but play resumed at 5.00pm making the full 50overs permissible.With the score on 48 for five, after Jackie Hawker was caught behind offLisa Sthalekar, the chances of England pulling things back looked unlikelyand while Sarah Collyer and Clare Taylor kept hopes alive with a seventhwicket partnership of 41, the requirement for 109 runs to be scored off thelast ten overs was too much for England’s young side.Taylor was bowled by a full toss from Sthalekar for 39 after hitting sixboundaries from 89 balls and Collyer was adjudged run out by the thirdumpire having made an impressive 20, with runs all round the wicket.”We are disappointed to lose by 100 runs, give or take a couple,” saidTaylor, who was voted Vodafone’s Man of the Match for England.”There are key areas to tighten up on. We bowled too many loose balls todayallowing them to get off to a quick start. We have to attack their top orderbatsmen and get them out as cheaply as possible and we need to startstriking the ball more cleanly.”We need to work out where our strongest scoring opportunities are and makethe most of them before the next match. Losing is always a disappointingexperience but we need to take as many positives away from this as possibleand learn as much as we can from the way Australia play their cricket.Exposure to this standard of cricket is the only way to toughen us up.”

Champion off-spinner, Muttiah Muralitharan, has now finished his secondsuccessful stint with Lancashire, but there are concerns that his long-termfitness may have been jeopardised by non-stop cricket.Murali signed off in style by claiming nine wickets in his last appearancefor Lancashire against Kent. He ended the season claiming 45 wickets in justsix games at an average of 18.48 per wicket. Only former English testbowler, Devon Malcolm, has more wickets so far in the CricInfo Championship,and he has taken his 46 in nine matches.Murali’s figures for the Lancashire make impressive reading: he has bowled446 overs, 158 of which were maidens and the English batsmen have only beenable to score an average of 1.88 runs per over. He’s also grabbed fourfive-wicket hauls in an innings and one 10-wicket match bag.He reaped greater rewards two years ago, taking 66 wickets from just sixgames, including an amazing eight five-wicket hauls and 10 wickets on fiveout of the seven occasions he played.This time playing in soggy April and May possibly handicapped him. In 1999he played in dryer conditions towards the end of the season. His noveltyvalue has also worn off and batsmen have developed strategies for keepinghim at bay, most famously Nasser Hussain’s successful policy of ‘kicking himor hitting him.’In 1999 Murali may also have benefited from the comforting presence of DavWhatmore. This time he played under Bob Simpson, the former Australiancaptain, who was the Australian coach during the controversial 1995-96 Testseries when Murali was first called for throwing.Muralitharan certainly worked hard for his wickets, bowling 50 over marathonspells on more than one occasion, and they are fears that he could sufferfrom fatigue, as Sri Lanka embarks on a busy international schedule.He broke down last year in South Africa with a groin injury before the finalTest, ending a 25 run of consecutive Test Matches. Another groin injurysustained in New Zealand left him ‘undercooked’ for the First Test Matchagainst England in Galle.His sudden injury problems led to the Sri Lankan physiotherapist AlexKontouri calling for his workload to be reduced to protect his long termfuture. He has now been playing for five months on the trot and will not beable to put his feet up until October.

Rain washed away any hopes of a positive finish to the CricInfo Championship second division match between Gloucestershire and Hampshire at Cheltenham.The visitors had reached 40-1 from 22 overs, after being set 350 to win, when wet weather arrived to rule out any play after 3pm.A draw was already looking likely with Hampshire having shown no interest in the stiff target set by Gloucestershire captain Mark Alleyne.Promotion-chasing Hampshire were initially given a minimum of 67 overs in which to record their sixth win of the campaign, but this was reduced by two overs when a shower delayed the resumption after lunch.Ian Harvey provided Gloucestershire’s sole success when, in the ninth over, he had Derek Kenway caught at long leg by Alastair Bressington.Earlier, Gloucestershire had advanced their overnight 104-1 on to 245-6 declared.Kim Barnett missed out on his second championship hundred of the season when, on 93, he swept Shaun Udal to Jason Laney at deep midwicket. His 161-ball innings contained 11 fours.The search for quick runs then resulted in the loss of three wickets in four overs as Chris Taylor and Harvey gave further catches to Laney, off Neil Johnson and Udal respectively, and Jeremy Snape was caught by Will Kendall at short midwicket off Udal.Alleyne and Jack Russell responded with an unbroken seventh wicket stand of 49 in eight overs before the declaration came a few minutes before lunch.Udal finished as Hampshire’s most successful bowler with 3-85 and a match return of 7-161.Gloucestershire took ten points from the match, while Hampshire claimed eight to remain in the third promotion place.

Russell Warren hit 194 to allow his Northamptonshire captain David Ripley tomake a challenging declaration on the third day at Old Trafford.Warren’s innings ensured that Northants cruised past a target of 451 toavoid the follow-on with five wickets to spare, although he missed out onthe second double century of the match – and his career – when a defensivepush at Chris Schofield trickled back on to his stumps.Ripley, who had supported Warren in a sixth-wicket stand of 116 until hewas bowled by Gary Yates for 43, then declared 105 runs behind on 495 foreight, to throw the ball back into Lancashire’s court.They reached 64 without loss at the close, leaving them 169 ahead, but areunlikely to take any chances today on such a good batting pitch, especiallyagainst one of their relegation rivals.Andy Flintoff had given Lancashire the early breakthrough they were lookingfor, having Tobin Bailey caught at slip to leave Northants 248 for four -still 203 short of that follow-on target.But Graeme Swann joined Warren to add 104 for the fifth wicket, reaching anentertaining half-century from 69 balls with his second six.Even when Swann went caught behind off John Wood for 54, Northants were notout of the woods but Ripley and Warren steered them sensibly to safety.Warren reached his second century of the season from 166 balls and wasclosing in on his career best of 201 not out against Glamorgan in 1996 untilhe was bowled by Schofield. His 194 came from 316 balls with 26 fours and asix.Schofield ended with two for 72 from 21 overs and there were also twowickets each for Lancashire’s other spinners, Gary Keedy and Yates,although none of them was particularly impressive.Crawley then added an unbeaten 41 to the 280 he had scored in the firstinnings, surviving 23 overs with Mark Chilton with no serious alarms.

Somerset fast bowler Richard Johnson took his 50th wicket of the season as the Championship match at Taunton against Surrey ended in a draw.Minutes after the game ended Somerset coach Kevin Shine: "It was always hard work out there on a flat pitch, but the boys stuck well to their task. We now have another bowler who has taken fifty wickets, and many congratulations to, hopefully both ‘Johnno’ and Steffan will now get the recognition that they deserve."He went on: "We are now four points clear in second place, with two championship matches to play, away at Essex and our last match of the season at home to Northants.We are excited at the prospect of Andy Caddick being available for either or both of those games. If he doesn’t play then we’ll just have to get on without him."