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Already 2-0 down in the three-Test series, Pakistan’s preparations for the Sydney Test, which starts on Sunday (January 2), were further hampered with news that Inzamam-ul-Haq and Abdul Razzaq were still not certainties for the match. Inzamam is struggling with a back injury, while Razzaq hasn’t recovered from a mystery ailment.Haroon Rashid, the team manager, indicated that both were doubtful starters for the Test. “He [Inzamam] is responding to treatment but we can’t say he’s 100% yet,” Rashid said, according to a report in The Sydney Morning Herald. “He’s been having physiotherapy, he’s doing gym work and pool work. He’s feeling much better but he is still not at his best. He needs more work to strengthen his back, and then hopefully he can play in the Sydney Test.” Inzamam made 1 and 0 at Perth, and then missed the Boxing Day Test at Melbourne.Razzaq, meanwhile, had been admitted to a hospital during the second Test after complaining of dizziness. Rashid said that Razzaq hadn’t joined training yet. “He’s still pretty weak. He’s been resting a lot. We haven’t been putting him on any medication, he’s just been resting a lot, taking food and drink and getting his strength back. We’re all training tomorrow and he’ll be expected to practise.”Mohammad Sami and Shoaib Malik have already been ruled out with injuries suffered during the Melbourne Test. Shahid Afridi is likely to replace Malik, while Mohammad Khalil or Mohammad Asif will come in for Sami. Khalil, a left-arm seamer, played in the first Test at Perth, but failed to take a wicket in the 25 overs he bowled.

Wellington’s frustration increased twofold when the third day of its Shell Trophy match with Canterbury at the Basin Reserve went the way of the second – abandoned today without a ball being bowled.Showers of varying intensity crossed the Basin throughout the day, driven by a building southerly wind, till umpires Evan Watkin and Ian Shine ruled at 2.30pm that no play would be possible.Wellington considered itself in a strong position when it reached 314-4 by stumps on the first day, responding to Canterbury’s invitation to bat. But with only one full day remaining and with no provision to make up lost time, the chance of any meaningful result from this match seems to have been lost.Wellington’s best hope tomorrow, when conditions are expected to be cloudly but dry, seems to be to achieve a first innings result unless Canterbury is prepared to enter an accomodation involving the forfeiture of innings.Wellington coach Vaughn Johnson has been demonstrably eager over the past two days to take advantage of any break in the weather to advance his team’s position. But the covers have remained on the pitch since Monday night and the persistence of the rain has made further play impossible.Play resumes at 10.30am tomorrow with Roger Twose 27 not out and Chris Nevin two not out.

A place in the semi-finals of the ECB Under-17 County Championships awaits Hampshire Young Cricketers – if they can beat Glamorgan in a two-day match starting at the Rose Bowl on Thursday, 11am.Hampshire are able to name a full strength squad, which includes New Milton pair Ben Neal and David Wheeler.Hampshire squad: Ed Brogan (Burridge)(Captain), Michael Barnes (Portsmouth), Paul Cass (Calmore Sports), Dave Griffiths (Shanklin), Matt Hooper (Andover), Chris Lyon (Guildford), Kevin Latouf (Flamingos), Mark Mitchell (Ventnor), Ben Neal (New Milton), John Richardson (Locks Heath), James Walters (Winchester College), David Wheeler (New Milton), Chris Wright (Liphook & Ripsley).

With the English women’s team suffering the embarrassment of losing to the NSW first XI and then the NSW second XI this week, the Australian team has also had its hiccups in the leadup to tomorrow’s one-day international at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Australia – whose commercially-correct title is The Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars – were beaten by their own second-eleven yesterday, the Australia “A” triumphant by 27 runs.The match, at Old King’s Oval, Parramatta, was intended to give the Southern Stars some valuable practice before entering into their four-game encounter with the English tourists. At first, it looked straightforward enough. Australia A scored 8/156 in their fifty overs. Melanie Jones, whose omission from the Australian squad was a surprise, top scored for the A-team with 47, while Victorian duo Cathryn Fitzpatrick and Charmaine Mason took three wickets each.The chase for 157, however, was too much for the Southern Stars, who were bundled out for 129 in 48.3 overs, the last seven wickets falling for 25 runs. Joanne Broadbent (48) was the only Australian batsman to put together a total of note, with ex-Australian seamers Bronwyn Calver (3/19) and Zoe Goss (3/20) doing the damage.News of the Australian loss at Parramatta would have belated solace for the English camp, beaten at the same time about 15 kilometres away by a New South Wales second eleven at Bankstown Oval. The English media, taking a breather from rubbishing the England men’s team in South Africa or the Under-19’s in Sri Lanka, today quoted team manager Paul Farbrace as saying “I can’t say I am approaching Saturday with apprehension… I am approaching the whole of the next month with apprehension.”Today’s Daily Telegraph (London) goes on to quote Farbrace as saying “At the moment I know what team I’d pick – none of them.”Australia has won its last six one-day internationals against England, including a 5-0 clean-sweep in England in 1998. England’s last victory over Australia was in the 1993 World Cup. In 27 meetings dating back to 1973, Australia has won 19 and England 6, with one tied and one abandoned.Play begins at the Sydney Cricket Ground in the first of the four-match series tomorrow Saturday at 10am local time (2300GMT Friday). CricInfo will provide live ball-by-ball coverage.

In a thrilling and controversial match between two of the top three sides in Division One of the NCL the Notts Outlaws successfully chased a revised (D/L) victory target of 228 to win by six wickets with four balls to spare. Paul Johnson led the run–chase scoring 88 not out. Earlier, the reigning champions had posted a total of 228-8 with Jeremy Snape hitting his first competitive century.Greg Blewett’s first innings as an opener for Notts lasted until the third over when Michael Cawdron trapped him lbw. In another attacking change of order Paul Johnson was promoted to number three but it was Notts skipper Darren Bicknell who gave the innings early impetus, sweetly timing seven boundaries in a classy half-century (70 mins 72 bails).On a good batting track runs flowed as easily as they had for the Gladiators lower order and the 100 was posted in the 22nd over. Johnson began to monopolise the strike and moved within 5 of his partner as he brought up his own 50 (74 mins 53 bails 6×4)The stand had reached 118 when Bicknell, in trying to work Mark Hardinges to leg, played all round the ball and was bowled. Usman Afzaal then came to the crease and was shortly the innocent party of a controversial incident.Johnson pulled Snape high to midwicket, towards Martyn Ball. The fielder, leaping high, completed a brilliant catch but clearly appeared to come down adjacent to the boundary rope, his ankle seeming to twist as he landed. Ball, presumably realising that he couldn’t complete the catch fairly, dropped the ball but recovered to hurl it in towards Jack Russell. Johnson had wandered down the wicket after his shot and both batsmen were at the same end – although they had made a token crossing.Russell removed the bails and despite a hostile crowd screaming that the rope had been touched the umpires gave Afzaal out, much to the anger of the spectatorsGloucs may well have rued the emergence from the pavilion of Kevin Pietersen, who for the second day running flayed the bowling to all, parts. A quite scintillating half century came up in just 34 minutes (35 balls 6×4 1×6). When he departed only 2 runs were needed for victory and Johnson completed the formalities.Earlier the Gladiators had recovered from 33-5 to reach 228–8 from a rain– reduced 44 overs. The final total was indebted to a domestic one–day seventh wicket record of 164 between Jeremy Snape and Mark Hardinges; Snape hitting an unbeaten 104 and Hardinges weighing in with 65 on his competition debut.

Far from being cricketing weather at Taunton, there is sleet in the air at the County Ground and Marcus Trescothick, glowing after a workout with his personal trainer, is eager to board Tuesday’s plane to Mumbai and get back to warm weather and his chosen profession.Less than 18 months after he was first picked for England, Somerset’s burly left-hander has made phenomenal progress through the ranks. Michael Atherton’s retirement has left him as England’s senior opening batsman, and such is his standing that, at 25, he was captaining England in Bulawayo last month after Nasser Hussain decided not to risk aggravating a calf injury. It went well too -the toss won, a rapid 50 and an England win.”Playing for England was my main thing, but to be captain was something different,” Trescothick recalls. “It was a fantastic chance for me. England 3-0 up in the series, with the team playing really well. You couldn’t have asked for much more than that.”It was also a boost to morale after a desperately difficult summer for England. “This was our chance to turn it around completely. Zimbabwe have had a difficult time of late – we almost understood how they were going, and how they were thinking. That’s the time you’ve got to nail teams down – when they’re in that situation.”Amid England’s traumas during the Ashes series, it went almost unnoticed that Trescothick was their second-highest run scorer. And although his appearances with Somerset were strictly limited, his team finished as runners-up in the CricInfo Championship – their highest-ever position – and Trescothick was in the side at Lord’s for the Cheltenham & Gloucester triumph.”If you win one trophy in a summer you class it as a good year,” Trescothick said. “But to be runners-up in the Championship is quite an achievement. It’s going to take a lot more hard work to get to first – it’s going to mean strengthening the squad, and the existing players improving their performance by another ten per cent.”As he prepares to put on his England shirt again, Trescothick is particularly wary of India, whom he rates as the best of the sub-continental sides on their own patch. “Their batting is so strong. They can dominate games, as they did when they beat Australia 2-1 last year – a great series to watch. We’ll obviously have videos, and try to read situations before they arise, but it’s going to be very tough, and we’ll have to play at our best to beat them.”

And the batting challenges? Spin and heat come high on the list. “There are good spinners throughout that part of the world. You’ve got Murali, Saqlain, Harbhajan and Kumble. I’ve faced Kumble a bit in county cricket, but Harbhajan is obviously different. He’s a bit like Saqlain, but with a tricky action – one of those who can be difficult to pick up. He’s had a good time of late, so hopefully the tables will turn and we’ll be able to dominate him.”Trescothick scored his first international century on the sub-continent, in the Galle Test against Sri Lanka at the start of the year. His first at home followed against Pakistan at Old Trafford, but on both occasions he ended up on the losing side. A match-winning ton in Mohali next month? That would set up a series to savour.

All things considered, South Africa could not have asked a great deal more of Shaun Pollock and his overhauled team than has been forthcoming in Sri Lanka over the past five to six weeks.The first post-Hansiegate tour has to be regarded as a success, – not an entirely unqualified success perhaps, but a campaign that produced more good than bad. At the risk of pre-empting history, South Africa’s 2000 tour of Sri Lanka is likely to prove a watershed moment as the game in this country grows into the millenium.The rain-ravaged third Test ended in a draw on Thursday, leaving the series tied at 1-1. A few weeks ago South Africa reached the final of the Singer Cup, but lost to Sri Lanka. On the face of it, these might seem average results, but they bear a closer look.The current rule of thumb for Test cricket is this: win your home series and do your damndest to avoid defeat when you travel. To this can be added the rider: especially when travelling to the sub-continent. With this in mind, South Africa have already had a terrific year, beating India in India and drawing with Sri Lanka. If you’d offered this to Australia at the start of the year, they’d have taken it.As far as the Singer Cup is concerned, South Africa beat Pakistan twice and lost three times to Sri Lanka. Given that the South Africans were coming off a winter break, these results are probably no better and no worse than might have been expected. Had the one-day tournament been played after the Test series, the outcome might well have been different.The tour also threw up two notable individual successes – Lance Klusener and Nicky Boje. Klusener has had an amazing 18 months with the bat. The seeds of his World Cup form last year were sewn in New Zealand, but now he has kicked up a level, adapting and adjusting his approach to Test match cricket on turning pitches against one of the world’s best spinners.Klusener’s secret, if it is one, is his simplicity: he blocks the good balls and hits the bad ones and when this approach is underpinned with complete self-belief, it can prove well nigh irresistible. Sri Lanka couldn’t work out a reliable method of dismissing him so they settled for trying to contain him. It was an admission that the South African had the wood on them but it served mainly only to persuade Klusener that he wasn’t ever going to get out.Batting at six, he organised the lower order to bat around him, convincing even the likes of Paul Adams and Nantie Hayward that it was worth their while to stick around for as long as they were able. All this, together with a new-found ability to bowl slowish off-cutters, made him South Africa’s man of the series.Boje, too, had a wonderful tour. After floating around the fringes of the side for the past four years, he finally established himself as the first-choice spinner, leapfrogging Paul Adams in the process. Boje bowled with control and intelligence and his progress since being brought into the squad for India as a late replacement for Adams gives South Africa a left-arm orthodox spinner able to tie up an end for hours.Adams, on the other hand, will be glad to see the last of Sri Lanka. Any number of explanations have been offered for his poor form on this tour – he had been out of cricket since January, the pitches were too slow for him, the batting never gave him big enough totals to bowl to and so on and so on. The truth is, though, that Sri Lanka targetted him and Adams was unable to find a counter.South Africa will clearly have to rethink Adams: how, where and when to use him. It is all very to argue that he is an attacking bowler, but that is to miss the point. In an attack that is usually likely to contain three or four attacking seamers, balance is provided by someone able to close up an end. Boje can do it. Adams, on all available evidence, can’t.The greatest strides forward, however, were taken by Pollock as the captain. There is still an argument that fast bowlers shouldn’t captain Test teams. History throws up very few bowlers who have successfully captained – either their bowling or their captaincy suffers. It is still to soon to see whether Pollock gets caught up in this double bind. Perhaps by the end of the coming domestic season a clearer assessment of his abilities will emerge.At the same time, though, he grew as a tactician and strategist by the day, almost by the session in some instances. More than this, he (and coaches Graham Ford and Corrie van Zyl), lifted the side back up again after the Singer Cup final and a dismal first Test. That took personality. There may be more to this particular management team than anyone had the right to expect.

ScorecardFile photo – Akhil Herwadkar shared a 124-run alliance with Nikhil Patil for the seventh wicket•ACC

Akhil Herwadkar’s second first-class ton rescued Mumbai from a shaky position and helped them secure the first-innings lead against Railways at the Wankhede Stadium.Resuming on 4 for 2, Mumbai recovered well in the morning, and appeared comfortably placed to surpass Railways’ first innings total of 217, as Herwadkar and Shreyas Iyer (57 off 62 balls) added 127 runs in 27.5 overs.However, legspinner Karn Sharma had Iyer caught behind in the 32nd over and that triggered a collapse. From 131 for 2, the hosts slipped to 147 for 6 in the space of four overs, Karn picking up three of the four wickets to fall.Herwadkar and No.8 batsman Nikhil Patil then put on 124 runs to take Mumbai past Railways’ total. Despite Herwadkar’s dismissal, Patil helped enhance his team’s lead and remained unbeaten at stumps. Karn had six wickets to show for his efforts.
ScorecardTamil Nadu lost ground in their pursuit for first-innings points against Uttar Pradesh in Kanpur, falling to 174 for 6 by the end of day two. UP, who were 277 for 4 when the day began, were buoyed by handy knocks from the captain Suresh Raina (61), and Saurabh Kumar (41) and ended with 348. Ashwin Crist and Malolan Rangarajan picked up three wickets apiece for Tamil Nadu. The visitors began their reply poorly, falling to 6 for 3 after Praveen Kumar and Bhuvneshwar Kumar removed B Aparajith, Abhinav Mukund and Dinesh Karthik inside four overs. Vijay Shankar, though, led a recovery, putting up important stands with B Indrajith and R Prasanna. However, Tamil Nadu suffered another big blow towards the end of the day, when Shankar was dismissed for 92.
ScorecardBaroda’s lower order stuttered but their tail fought back against Punjab to put on a formidable total of 475 on the second day in Vadodara. Punjab were also reduced to 19 for 3 by Irfan Pathan before Uday Kaul (47*) and Yuvraj Singh (43*) steered them to 112 for 3 at stumps, still trailing by 363 runs.Baroda’s strong position of 344 for 3 was squandered when they lost Swapnil Singh, Hardik Pandya (59), Deepak Hooda and Yusuf Pathan in 7.3 overs for 24 runs, to be 387 for 7. However, Irfan chipped in with 18 runs and Pinal Shah counterattacked with an unbeaten 55 off 67, with eight fours and a six, to lead them past 400. Irfan was bowled by Deepak Bansal, who finished with 3 for 57, and Baroda were bowled out in 130.5 overs.Punjab were rocked early on as Munaf Patel struck in his first over and Irfan soon removed Jiwanjot Singh (7) and Mandeep Singh (0) in consecutive overs, leaving them three down in the seventh over. Uday and Yuvraj then combined for an unbroken stand of 93 runs to avoid further stutters.
ScorecardGujarat closed in on securing an innings lead in Surat after reducing Madhya Pradesh to 187 for 7. Starting the day at 252 for 6, Gujarat rode on a handy half-century from Axar Patel (55) as well as a 38 from Rush Kalaria. Jalaj Saxena picked up three scalps, while Puneet Datey and Ankit Kushwah chipped in with two each, but Gujarat still managed a healthy first-innings total of 311. Madhya Pradesh, in reply, lost wickets at regular intervals right from the off. A lot of batsmen made starts, but only Naman Ojha could muster a fifty, as the visitors were left with a massive task in hand to get back into the match.

ScorecardFile photo – Cameron Bancroft scored his fifth first-class hundred•Getty Images

Cameron Bancroft and Shaun Marsh rebounded from their Test team omissions with a stand of 172 for Western Australia before South Australia wrapped up the rest of the Warriors’ innings to give themselves a feasible fourth-innings target of 316 in the Sheffield Shield match at Adelaide Oval.WA lost the nightwatchman Jason Behrendorff early on day three, but Bancroft and the stand-in captain Marsh then frustrated the Redbacks while composing the most substantial scores of the match. Bancroft’s 111 was further evidence of his ability to craft lengthy, sensible innings.At 2 for 217 the Warriors looked capable of batting SA right out of the match, but when Kane Richardson had Marsh caught behind with the second new ball, the day took on a different tone. All the Redbacks bowlers contributed to the fightback, which saw the visitors lose their last eight wickets for just 78.Mark Cosgrove and Kelvin Smith then negotiated the last five overs of the day for the addition of 17 runs, to leave the match finely poised entering the final day on a surface that has not shown signs of deterioration.

The “disproportionate publicity” and the “soft imagery” that an association with the IPL brings is expected to negate any financial losses the two new franchise owners, New Rising and Intex Mobiles, may suffer in the short run. Despite New Rising and Intex Mobiles having to pay Rs 16 crore and Rs 10 crore per year respectively to the BCCI after bidding in negative, brand experts feel the franchises will have multiple advantages.”In this world of hard business you need a soft face as well. Sport gives that soft imagery to a hard company,” Harish Bijoor, a brand consultant, told ESPNcricinfo. “At the end of the day, sport is also a tool to manage HR internally pretty well. It softens the companies altogether, and to an extent it tells people that ‘we are not only about this, we are also sport.'”Former Kolkata Knight Riders team director Joy Bhattacharya said the visibility generated by the tournament opened up new markets for the companies. “One thing that sport does give you is a disproportionate publicity for your brand as compared to almost any other enterprise,” he said. “So, if Sanjeev Goenka is looking to be a global enterprise and Intex wants to make its mark in the world, getting involved in the IPL is a great starting move.”I can name 500 companies which are [Rs] 1000 crore companies, [and yet] nobody knows of them. But name an IPL team and everyone knows the person. I think that’s what is driving them.”According to Bijoor, there were fresh commercial possibilities for franchises following the penetration of the game in smaller centres. “A lot of people are saying that IPL is a reasonably matured game in India, because it has gone through so many seasons, so many losses,” he said.”There are numerous revenue streams [now]. It is not only what they get through the common streams, but in terms of merchandising, local activation, in terms of developing micro-cricket within the hinterland. These are all possibilities because cricket is becoming more and more micro rather than macro.”From being a country game, it became a city game, from a city game it became a town game, now from a town game can it become a smaller town game and eventually a village game. The moment you percolate deeper you provide for media vehicles which did not exist for others.” Bijoor, however, added that such gains were more pronounced in the longer run where brand involvement would be greater. “Even Mumbai Indians took more than three years to settle down, with the kind of proprietor attention that was given.”Bhattacharya said the teams would not absorb heavy losses given the absence of the franchise fee. Drawing a comparison with the Indian Super League, the professional football tournament, where every team, according to him, was making losses, he said it was worth taking a punt in the IPL. “The price is not a very big thing if you consider the price collection that happened in 2011 when Pune came in with Sahara for $332 [370] million,” he said. “[The increase in franchise fee] was a jump of about eight or nine times. They were talking about potentially losing about Rs 150 crore a year for 10 years.”Here you will have to tackle [your expenses] without any central revenue, with just sponsorship and gate [receipts]. They will be losing about [Rs] 40 crore a year; every team in the ISL is losing about the same number. Hell, I will take a chance [with the IPL].”