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Gujarat, overnight on 140 for 2, doubled that total on the third day to take a first-innings lead of 20 against Railways in final of the Ranji Plate League at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai. In reply, Railways were at 14 for 1, still trailing by six runs.Gujarat’s lead was due in large part to Nilesh Modi, who added 41 to his overnight 66. However, they were unable to build on that as their middle order – barring Hem Joshipura, who made 36 – failed to chip in with substantial scores.Niraj Patel and Modi added 45 for the fourth wicket after Mohnish Parmar fell early in the day. After Niraj fell, Modi went on score his seventh first-class hundred before he was snared by Harvinder Singh, the former India fast bowler. Modi’s 107 came off 317 deliveries, with 18 fours.Joshipura and Timil Patel combined to help Gujarat take the lead but Joshipura’s wicket, with the score on 255, triggered a collapse; Gujarat lost the last four wickets for 25 runs. Runs came at a trickle, with Gujarat’s run-rate 1.92 runs per over. Sanjay Bangar was the most impressive bowler, with 5 for 54 from his 42 overs in Gujarat’s innings, including 19 maidens.Railways then played out eight overs before close, losing Siddharth Joshi early to Ashraf Makda. Nightwatchman Murali Kartik and Bangar negotiated the remaining overs without further damage. Railways would be pleased with conceding a lead of 20, and a good batting display by them in the second innings could put pressure on Gujarat’s batsmen on the final day.

Inzamam-ul-Haq has said that Pakistan will concentrate on preserving wickets early in the innings as they bid to upset Australia in the first match of the VB Series finals at Melbourne on Friday. Having managed back-to-back victories over Australia and the West Indies in Perth, Pakistan go into the first final full of confidence, with Brian Lara declaring them a big threat to the home side.Pakistan piled up an imposing 307 in their final league game against the West Indies, with Inzamam making 74 and Yousuf Youhana contributing a classy 105, and the unheralded Rana Naved-ul-Hasan then grabbed 4 for 29 as the West Indies were edged out in a tense finale.According to Inzamam, the steady starts have been a major factor in the recent success. “If you look at the last couple of games, if you save wickets then in the last 20 or 30 overs you can score anything,” he was quoted as saying in . “The last game against the West Indies they had a couple of wickets in hand and they scored 340-odd runs so it is important that we apply that.”Pakistan won one and lost two of its round-robin matches against Australia, and Inzamam said, “I know it is tough opposition but if we really work hard then well, hopefully we will perform well in the finals.” He pronounced himself satisfied with his own form, and also pinpointed exceptional performances from the likes of Rana.”My form is good, that is why I am looking good,” he said. “The last two games he (Rana) has really done well — they (the bowlers) really feel hunger and I think he has set the example.”Away from the feel-good atmosphere in the Pakistan camp, Shaharyar Khan, the Pakistan cricket Board supreme, expressed the fear that Pakistan were losing ground as a Test-playing nation. With the tour of India now less than a month away, Shaharyar said, “It is obvious that the gap between our Test and one-day performances is big and this is something we remain concerned about even if we have made the one-day finals in Australia.”According to him, the lack of nous in the Test arena was easily explained. “The main reason for this is we are nurturing too many of our young players on one-day cricket and they just have not developed the mental strength and aptitude to play test cricket,” he said. “So we are working on a plan to balance the number of Tests and one-dayers our team plays in the next few years.”And the first step we have taken is to ask the Wales and English Cricket Board to consider playing four Tests and three ODIs in Pakistan later this year instead of three Tests and five ODIs.”For the moment though, Test matches will be far from Inzamam’s mind, as he and Bob Woolmer, the coach, aim to script an improbable victory that would set the team up for a challenging tour of India, and also erase some of the painful memories of a 3-0 drubbing in the Tests.

South Africa 251 for 3 (Smith 72) beat City Nazim XI 250 for 4 (Farhat 64) by eight wickets (12 men per team)
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South Africa dusted off the cobwebs and applied themselves to some much-needed batting practice under the lights at the Gadaffi Stadium in Lahore. After losing the toss and being asked to bowl first, South Africa saw off a strong City Nazim XI by eight wickets, in a match that was arranged as a 12-a-side affair to ensure maximum time in the middle ahead of Friday’s first ODI.Graeme Smith continued his happy habit of leading from the front. His 72 underpinned South Africa’s pursuit of a handy total of 250 for 4, and he was ably supported by all his batsmen. Jacques Kallis was the second-highest scorer with 55, while Herschelle Gibbs, Neil McKenzie and Mark Boucher each chipped in with timely 30s.The basis of City Nazim’s total came from an eyecatching innings by Imran Farhat, whose impressive 64 contained seven fours and three sixes, and only came to an end when he skied Andrew Hall to Herschelle Gibbs at point. Gibbs also accounted for the captain Misbah-ul-Haq, who was turned down for a quick single and run out by a smart pick-up-and-throw to Mark Boucher behind the stumps.About 2,000 police, outnumbering a handful of spectators, were deployed in and outside the ground as part of tough security measures in place for the South Africans.

After a disappointingly lacklustre season, Somerset are already plotting their bid for a return to the first division of the County Championship. Ricky Ponting and Rahul Dravid are both being earmarked as possible overseas players in 2004.”Somerset are talking with Dravid and Ponting with a view to them joining the county for 2004,” said Peter Anderson, Somerset’s chief executive. Two batsmen of the highest class are precisely what Somerset need at the moment – several of their first-team players were threatened with the sack earlier in the season, after a terrible run of results.One of those was the England one-day allrounder, Ian Blackwell. But he is once again the flavour of the month after a stunning 247 not out in Somerset’s latest championship victory, over Derbyshire, and Anderson is keen for him to stay at Taunton.”Ian still has one more year of his contract to run," said Anderson. "He is very happy here, and we are currently in negotiation to extend his contract.”

Daan van Bunge, who was the youngest member of the Holland side at the 2003 World Cup, entered the record books earlier this week when he hit the fastest century in the history of MCC’s Young Cricketers.van Bunge, 21, smashed a 38-ball hundred, including 14 fours and nine sixes, against the Surrey Under-19 team at Weybridge on Monday. His innings of 121 eclipsed Surrey’s total of 119, and helped his side to a 258-run victory. His record-breaking knock was made all the more impressive considering the other players who have passed through the young cricketers programme, including Ian Botham, Martin Crowe and Mark Waugh.”It’s a tremendous achievement for Daan to have scored a faster century than any previous MCC Young Cricketer,” said John Stephenson, MCC’s new Head of Cricket. “He is a player of enormous promise and, ever since he joined MCC, he has been a great credit to the club – on and off the pitch.”van Bunge, who is in his second year on the MCC staff, has been part of the Dutch international side since 2002, and had an impressive World Cup last year. He scored 62, his highest score in an international, against India in a losing cause, and then took 3 for 16 against England, taking the wickets of Nick Knight, Michael Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff.Darren Sammy, who is part of West Indies’ squad for this summer’s NatWest Series, is also a current MCC Young Cricketer, while England’s Rikki Clarke and Hamish Marshall of New Zealand are recent graduates of the scheme.

South Australia 254 & 6 for 289 dec beat Victoria 223 & 202 (Moss 50, Tait 4-34) by 118 runs
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A young South Australian side has upstaged Pura Cup champions Victoria by grabbing an outright victory in their Pura Cup match at Adelaide.Victoria were bowled out for 202 after being set 321 to win on the final day. Shaun Tait and Paul Rofe shared the honours with four wickets and three respectively, while Victoria’s captain Jonathan Moss hit 50.Full report to follow.

Travis Friend, the sacked Zimbabwe allrounder, has fallen from Test status to second-tier club cricket in six months and will play in the Sydney Shires competition this weekend.Like exiled countrymen Sean Irvine and Andy Blignaut, Friend will spend the summer in Australia. But unlike his higher-profile team-mates, he struggled to attract any first-class interest and accepted an offer with the South Sydney club, which plays in a competition one step lower than grade cricket and includes the former Bangladesh captain Aminul Islam.Friend, who bowled in the last of his 13 Tests in March against Bangladesh, was part of a group of 15 white players who accused the Zimbabwe Cricket Union of racist selection policies.”I did realise it would be a lot harder for me [playing overseas] than some of the other guys,” Friend told . “I was looking to go anywhere. I was prepared to start from the bottom and work my way up.”

Justin Langer has been cleared by the match referee, Chris Broad, of a possible breach of the ICC’s code of conduct, after being reported by umpiresSteve Bucknor and David Orchard for an on-field incident during the third day of the Colombo Test between Sri Lanka and Australia.Langer attended a disciplinary inquiry after the close of play on Friday night, following a bizarre incident during the morning session, when Australia belatedly appealed for a hit-wicket decision against Hashan Tillakaratne. The umpires referred the decision to the third umpire to verify how Tillakaratne’s bail had been dislodged.The television pictures showed that Langer dislodged the bail with his hand while he crossed over the pitch to take up a new fielding position for the right-handed Thilan Samaraweera. Langer insisted that he did not intentionally flick off the bail.”Justin was disappointed that the charge was brought and explained his position in a very honest and succinct way,” said Broad, following a hearing attended by Langer, Ricky Ponting, Steve Bernard (Australia’s team manager), and the three match umpires. “He was, however, reminded that in future to steer clear of any instances such as this.”

The remarkable surge in public interest resulting from this summer’s Ashes series has been a double-edged sword for the ECB. While revenues are up and the public cannot get enough of the game, it has also served to highlight the decision to sign away all TV rights to satellite broadcaster Sky Sports.On Tuesday, David Collier, the ECB’s chairman, spoke of his hopes that terrestrial broadcasters will bid for the rights when they next come up for grabs, but that drew an angry response from Luke Johnson, the chairman of Channel 4, who lose the rights after the final Test at The Oval.In an interview with Mihir Bose in the Daily Telegraph, Johnson was quite clear what had been behind the ECB’s decision. “Our view is that the ECB did a very bad deal for the sport. They didn’t handle the negotiations well. They were short-term. They went for the money.”We tried to bring it to the attention of the relevant people at the ECB,” he continued. “But what happened is that there are certain factions in the ECB and they took charge of the negotiations and they are very commercially minded.”The ECB stance is unequivocal. TV money finances the game, and so it was honour-bound to take the best deal. Had it not, so the argument goes, then funding for the England team right down to grass roots cricket would have had to be slashed.While Johnson admitted that Channel 4 could never match the money Sky had available, he said he believed that going for the highest sum was not in the game’s best interests. “The ECB went for the money and they will find they have made a terrible mistake, with cricket disappearing from terrestrial television the level of interest in the sport will decline sharply,” he told Bose. “Cricket is not like football, it needs visibility. How will they get 20,000 people outside a Test ground?”A number of MPs have called on the government to make Test cricket one of the so-called “crown jewel”, events, such as Wimbledon and the FA Cup final, which have to be available on free-to-air terrestrial TV. Test cricket had such status until 1998 when it was taken off the list.Don Foster, the Liberal Democrats’ sports spokesman, told The Guardian: “It is frankly appalling that cricket is not on the list. I wrote to the secretary of state before the Old Trafford Test urging a review and the latest success demonstrates the need for a rethink even more clearly.”

ScorecardAvishka Gunawardene survived a nasty blow to the face to anchor Sri Lanka A’s second innings, but by the close of the second day at Dambulla, South Africa A were enjoying the better of the match, needing another four quick wickets to limit themselves to an obtainable target in the fourth innings of the match.Having bowled Sri Lanka A out for 206 in their first innings, the South Africans resumed on 71 for 1 and quickly lost Hashim Amla for 21, the first of six deserved wickets for the left-arm spinner, Sajeewa Weerakoon. But Jacques Rudolph anchored the innings with a composed 83, and though the middle-order collapsed to leave them on a wobbly 148 for 6, Tyron Henderson was on hand with a blistering 32-ball 50, which included four sixes.With a useful 48-run lead in the bag, South Africa turned the screw in Sri Lanka’s second innings, with Monde Zondeki striking twice in his first spell before forcing Gunawardene to retire hurt on 34. Henderson and Johan Botha grabbed two middle-order wickets apiece, including Kaushal Lokuarachchi in the final over of the day, to leave South Africa in the driving seat by the close.