Scorecard
Half-centuries by Justice Chibhabha and Trevor Gripper propped Zimbabwe A to 164 for 5 at close of play on the second day against Pakistan A at Harare. Gripper made 50 while Chibhabha remained unbeaten on 54, but the Zimbabweans ended the day still 147 behind Pakistan’s first-innings total of 311.Apart from Chibhabha and Gripper, none of the Zimbabwean batsmen made an impression. Neil Ferreira, who opened the batting with Gripper, and Stuart Carlisle made just 15 each, Brendan Taylor fell for a duck and Sean Williams was run out for 5.Earlier, Pakistan A added 55 to their overnight score of 256 for 6 before being bowled out. Zulqarnain Haider, their wicketkeeper, frustrated the Zimbabweans with a patient 43 off 189 balls. Blessing Mahwire and Tawanda Mupariwa were the pick of the bowlers, both taking three wickets apiece.

Samir Inamdar, a Mombasa-based solicitor, who waged a long war against the Kenya Cricket Association, was on Sunday elected the new chairman of the trouble-ridden national body.Inamdar, 46, defeated his sole challenger Salim Dhanji in a close-fought race during elections supervised by African Cricket Association officials. The former Kenya national captain Tom Tikolo withdrew after failing to get proposed for the seat.Inamdar, who also served as a member of the government-backed Cricket Kenya, set up to replace the disbanded KCA board in February, said his committee would work to correct the mess created by the outgoing officials.”Kenyan cricket has suffered greatly. We have seen so much split,” Inamdar said. “We allowed cricket to be taken hostage by people who did not have the mandate as representatives of the clubs. This is a new beginning,” he added.Percy Sonn, the ICC vice-president, who had assisted the ACA in seeking a resolution, said the crisis had resulted in a wasted opportunity for the country. “It’s a proud moment for African cricket,” said Sonn, the South African who is expected to take over from Ehsan Mani as the ICC president next year.

Baloo Gupte, the former Indian legspinner, has died this morning after a prolonged illness. The 70-year-old Baloo, the younger brother of Subash, the legendary Indian legspinner, was suffering from cancer for the last few years. He is survived by his wife, a son anddaughter.Born on August 30, 1934, Baloo played three Tests for India between 1961 and 1965, all at home, and managed to pick up only three wickets. He made his debut against Pakistan at Madras in 1960-61 – ironically replacing his brother Subash, who was dropped – but had a miserable baptism when he conceded 116 runs in 35 overs and finished wicketless. He played his third and last Test four years later against New Zealand.But he was a colossal presence in the domestic circuit, when he played for Mumbai, Bengal, and Railways, and one of the leading wicket-takers in the Ranji Trophy of his time (he finished with 255 Ranji wickets at 23.47). His 9 for 55 for West Zone against South Zone in the 1962-63 Duleep Trophy final is still the best in the competition. He ended with 417 wickets in 99 first-class games at an average of 24.88, including a staggering 26 five-wickets hauls and five ten-wicket hauls.

It is expected that the New Zealand government will ask Australia and Great Britain to support a call for the ICC to ban Zimbabwe from international cricket because of the Robert Mugabe regime’s rapidly deteriorating human-rights record.On Monday, the New Zealand cabinet meets, and one of the items high on the agenda will be whether to refuse to grant visas to the Zimbabwe team for their scheduled visit in December. Although New Zealand are due to travel to Zimbabwe in August, the government has ruled out a ban as it is not able to prevent its citizens from travelling abroad. But an entry ban would have the desired effect as well as enabling New Zealand Cricket to avoid any penalty from the ICC.Phil Goff, the foreign minister, who has been outspoken on the issue, said that he will ask Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, and Alexander Downer, his Australian counterpart, to back his call to have Zimbabwe banned altogether. He is also believed to be discussing the situation with Martin Snedden, the New Zealand board’s chief executive, who is in London for the annual ICC get together.”Most of us don’t want to see sport being used as a political weapon,” Goff told the Sunday Star-Times. “But in some cases you just can’t ignore sporting teams going to countries where this sort of thing is happening and pretend nothing is wrong. It is time the ICC showed some leadership on this issue.”We need to make an approach to the ICC, saying surely there must be circumstances in which your affiliate members can be excused from their contractual obligations. No human being can ignore the atrocities that are going on in Zimbabwe today.”What began as a little local difficulty is again threatening to escalate into something more serious, and the subject of Zimbabwe is once again becoming a hot potato for the game’s administrators.The ICC is unlikely to shift from its well-worn policy that it can only become involved in the security of teams and officials and not the internal politicals of any country. But if the crisis in Zimbabwe becomes an international affair – and Africa is a hot topic at the moment – then that could mean the heat on cricket’s administrators is racked up more than ever.Adam Parore, the former New Zealand wicketkeeper, gave a possible taste of things to come when he told reporters that the tour was “a disaster waiting to happen,” adding that the ICC was to blame for implementing a future tour programme “knowing damn well that half the countries involved in it are unsafe, involved in terrorism, harbouring terrorism, or have civil wars going on.”

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.”

Phil Jaques raised his fifth first-class double-century and passed 1000 runs for the season as he provided the brightest Australian note during a rain-troubled round of the County Championship. Batting at No. 4 for Yorkshire, Jaques piled on 219 from 261 balls as he shared a county-record partnership for the third wicket against Derbyshire with Anthony McGrath, who made 134.The pair’s 310-run stand at Headingley put Yorkshire in a strong position before they lost 7 for 24 to close the innings at 570 after Ian Harvey chipped in with 83. Surviving chances on 21 and 94, Jaques, who last summer became the first New South Wales batsman since Bob Simpson to score two double centuries in a season, reached 217 by the end of day one, but was part of the collapse on the second morning and now has 1039 Championship runs at 64.94.After watching their Australian counterparts plunder, Michael Di Venuto and John Moss both picked up half-centuries before the third day was washed out. Yorkshire then enforced the follow-on and Moss’s second half-century, his fourth of the season, helped his side to a draw. Derbyshire remain at the bottom of the Division Two table while Yorkshire are second, 15 points behind Durham.As Paul Collingwood was pushing for England selection with twin hundreds, Mike Hussey stepped in with 63 and 27 as Durham avoided the rain in their 207-run win over Somerset at Taunton. Mick Lewis, the short-term replacement for the injured Ashley Noffke, was wicket-less in the first innings but cleaned up the second time round with three late victims. The victory was Durham’s sixth of the season.In Division One, David Hussey added 29 and 30 as Nottinghamshire, who top the table, held on for a close draw against Surrey at The Oval. Notts have a six-point buffer over Kent while Hampshire, who also didn’t play this week, are 19 points adrift.Stuart Law struck 59 off 45 balls in the final of the Twenty20 Cup at The Oval on Saturday, but it was the highlight of a dismal innings of 112 as Lancashire easily gave up the trophy to Somerset. Andrew Symonds, who made 52 from 30 deliveries in the semi-final against Surrey, collected 12 before he was run out and then watched Graeme Smith, the South Africa captain, sweep Somerset to victory.

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.”

The South Africa A squad were left increasingly frustrated in Kandy where they were supposed to play the second four-day match against Sri Lanka A starting on Tuesday. The match has now been moved to Dambulla because of the incessant rain in Kandy. It will commence on Wednesday and will be played as a three-day contest.”We are really out of sorts because of the inclement weather, here,” said Vincent Barnes, who is coaching the South Africa A side. “It’s been raining since our arrival and reports say the ground has been waterlogged for over a week. The lack of facilities is also compounding our frustrations.”The South Africans will travel to Dambulla for practice on Tuesday and return to Kandy overnight before returning to Dambulla on the morning of the match. The bus trip is estimated to be between two and three hours.”We have been told that there was no accommodation in Dambulla and wouldnot be available before Wednesday, so we need to bite the bullet,” said Barnes, whose side lost the first match after Sajeewa Weerakoon turned in a stellar display to take 13 wickets.

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.

An elated VVS Laxman, the India A captain, praised his team’s ability to “play as a unit” after they sneaked a humdinger of a contest against India Senior at Mohali. His counterpart, Mohammad Kaif, was expectedly downcast but was happy to have been part of a “fantastic match”, one that was wrenched from their grasp in the final moments.”We had spoken about the importance of playing as a unit,” said Laxman, whose side triumphed in a high-scoring contest despite none of their batsmen managing a half-century. “It’s easy for players to concentrate on individual performances in these games and we were keen that all focus to contribute towards a team cause. We were always in contention during the chase.” He felt that Dinesh Karthik and Niraj Patel had provided the momentum during the chase and felt that their partnership “set it up” for them.He added that his bowlers had been guilty of conceding too many extras, but was appreciative of both the Singhs, VRV and Rudra Pratap, who he termed as “amazing talents”. “VRV is probably the fastest bowler in India,” he said, “and RP Singh is definitely one for the future. The tour of Zimbabwe seems to have helped him.”Kaif wasn’t too critical of his players and spoke about the positives from the game. He said he didn’t expect VRV Singh to play so well towards the end and defended his profligate bowlers when he said, “It was a good wicket and they had a strong batting line-up. Both Murali Kartik and Harbhajan Singh bowled well and the game could have gone either way.”He also hinted that the experiment of Irfan Pathan opening the batting was only meant for this tournament as “we wanted Mahendra Singh Dhoni to continue batting in the middle order. There is no point in trying out new things against Sri Lanka or South Africa so we thought we will use this opportunity to experiment.” He also added that captaining the side had been a “learning experience” and looked forward to facing an inexperienced India B tomorrow.