Air India, powered by an allround performance by captain Purnima Rau, won their second match by nine wickets against East Zone in the CricInfo Rani Jhansi Trophy women’s cricket tournament at the Southern Railway ground in Chennai on Monday.After restricting East Zone to a score of 148, Air India coasted to victory with Anju Jain (32 runs of 61 balls) and Purnima Rau (82 not out off 73 balls with 12 fours) putting on 84 runs for the first wicket. Promoting herself up the order, Purnima opened her account with a scorching cover drive off Rumeli’s first over which raced to the boundary. Then Anju joined the act with two fine flicks for fours in the next over of Rumeli. The breezy start that Air India got prompted the East Zone captain to bring in Babusha in the sixth over of the innings. But even that move backfired as Purnima took three fours off Babusha’s first over. By the end of the tenth over Air India were 56 for no loss.Both Purnima and Anju displayed keenness in going for their shots. Purnima in particular played all round the wicket and was never afraid of going down the track against the spinners. Of the 12 boundaries that she hit, the cover drive, the off drive and the sweep were a treat to watch. Both the openers guided Air India to 84 in the 17th over, when Anju gave a return catch to Madhusmitha when she tried to loft one past the bowler.Anjum Chopra (23 runs off 40 balls) then joined Purnima and the two thrashed the East bowlers in an unbeaten partnership worth 65 runs in 11.1 overs to seal the victory.Earlier East Zone won the toss and elected to bat and the match started as scheduled even after one of the umpires failed to turn up. This prompted East Zone’s Mitu Mukerjee to stand in as a leg umpire with the other official changing ends after every over. Opening the batting, East Zone’s Neetu Singh and Saswati Mukerjee were circumspect against the accurate Air India opening attack of Smita Harikrishna and Kusumlatha.In the fifth over, Saswathi tried to get on with the proceedings and slashed the second ball from kusumlatha past point for the first boundary of the innings. The very next delivary was dispatched to the backward square leg boundary. But two balls later Saswati dabbed the ball to mid wicket and in trying to sneak a single, was beaten by the throw from Mamta Ranade. The first wicket fell at 19 and Chandrabarti Paul was promoted up the order to joined Neetu. Chandrabarti opened her account immediately with a screaming cover drive off Kusumlatha and the very next ball repeated the stroke for three runs.She then sent Smita to the fence over mid wicket in the 13th over. This prompted Purnima to go for a double change in the bowling. Left arm spinner Usha Bogade came in for Smita and Purnima brought herself on at the other end.The first drinks break gave the Air India captain the time to re-arrange her strategies and soon after, Usha drew Neetu out of the crease and had her stumped for 27. At 67 for two in 18.5 overs, Gita Samantrai joined Chandrabarti. Bowling a nagging line and length, both Usha and Purnima kept the batswomen on a leash all through the middle overs. The three Air India spinners Purnima, Usha and Seema bowled tidily and restricted the scoring rate.East progessed ever so slowly to a score of 117 for the loss of six wickets at the end of the 40th over. The start of the last stretch saw East lose Pratima (11) and Seema Singh in the 42nd over. At the end of their 50 overs East managed to score 148 for the loss of nine wickets.

An innings of immense power by Justin Langer gave Middlesex the upper hand on the opening day of their Championship match at Trent Bridge. Surplus to requirements by Australia, the Middlesex captain rushed to his third hundred of the season against Notts, off just 117 deliveries.His dismissal, soon after lunch, followed that of Mark Ramprakash and Notts hoped for a swift passage to the visitors’ tail. That didn’t materialise as Ed Joyce and David Nash took Middlesex to tea on 277-4 with an impressive stand.The pair continued after the resumption and took their partnership for the fifth wicket past 100. Wicket-keeper Nash was then desperately unlucky not to reach his half-century. On 48 he straight drove Paul Franks powerfully into the stumps at the other end. Two balls later, with a delivery that nipped back off the seam, the England one-day player had picked up his second wicket of the innings, getting his man lbw.Joyce though, did get his reward – in only his third championship game he reached his maiden half century, coming off 112 balls, with 8x4s. His inexperience showed immediately afterwards however, as he went after Franks and dolleyed up the first catch of Matt Whiley’s senior career at mid-off.Simon Cook found himself robbed of a couple of runs when he drove down the ground. The ball would have certainly have reached the boundary but children playing on the perimeter hit a tennis ball onto the ground which collided with the match ball and stopped it dead just short of the rope. John Morris, the relieved, pursuing fielder just grinned as he returned both balls from whence they’d came. Fortune switched next ball as Gallian dropped Cook at slip.Ben Hutton, playing in front of his father Richard, the former Yorkshire and England player, was the next man out, courtesy of a fine juggling catch by Morris. Hutton’s attempted pull off Lucas ballooned over mid-wicket but running towards the ropes Morris took the ball as it came over his shoulder – admittedly with several nervy grasps before clutching it fully under control.Another damaging partnership developed taking Middlesex to a fourth batting point before Jason Gallian became the first bowler of the day to hit the stumps, mopping up Richard Johnson for 23.Simon Cook and Angus Fraser saw it through to stumps with Middlesex, having enjoyed the better of the opening day, in a commanding position on 377-8.

A gallant unbeaten 136 by Mithun Minhas helped Delhi to post a reasonable total of 256 on the opening day of their North Zone Ranji Trophy league match against Services at the Ferozeshah Kotla grounds in New Delhi on Monday.Put in to bat, Delhi lost three wickets for 31 before a fourth wicket partnership of 52 runs off 11.1 overs between Minhas and Virender Sehwag (29) enabled them to make a recovery of sorts. Then after six wickets had fallen for 165, Manhas and skipper Rahul Sanghvi (17) added 72 runs off 18.2 overs. While wickets continued to fall at regular intervals, Manhas came in unconquered.He batted 4-1/2 hours, faced 197 balls and hit 14 fours and two sixes. Arun Sharma was the most successful bowler with four for 45. At close, Services were 24 for one.

Steve Waugh today called for the Australian cricket team to visit the Gallipoli battlefields prior to every Ashes tour.The Australian captain, clearly moved by the team’s tour of the battlefields today, suggested that the Ashes squad do the sameevery four years as a stop-over to London.”I’d like to think this could be a traditional start to every tour by an Australian side to the UK,” he said from the Gallipolipeninsula.”It’s so peaceful and beautiful now the hardest part is to realise what it was like in 1915.”In that year more than 8,000 ANZACS were killed and a further 18,000 wounded during the ill-fated eight month campaign.Today the Australian cricketers visited memorial sites such as Lone Pine, The Nek, Johnston’s Jolly and Chunuk Bair, thehighest ground at Gallipoli which was briefly held by New Zealand forces.Waugh, who described the visit as a once in a lifetime experience, praised the courage and determination of the ANZACS.”It puts things into perspective for us because people call us heroes but we just play sport and we’re good at it,” the36-year-old said.”But realistically those who fought are far more deserving of the accolade of heroes than any of us.”As for the other players, everyone is taking it in and is very interested but it’s hard to comprehend the scale of what happenedhere with half a million casualties.”Waugh said he and his teammates were thinking about the young soldiers who went off looking for adventure only to findthemselves facing a determined Turkish enemy and punishing conditions.”For all those who ended up dying, it’s hard to comprehend the numbers dying and fighting and all the commotion andconfusion. It must have been terrifying,” he said.Waugh explained the idea of seeing the battlefields was formulated about 12 months ago when he had dinner with Australian ofthe Year Lieutenant-General Peter Cosgrove.They discussed the common features of the armed forces and cricket – namely that both required careful planning andcamaraderie – before putting the idea to the Australian Cricket Board.ACB executive chairman Malcolm Speed agreed and the Gallipoli visit was made part of the tour itinerary.During the five-hour bus trip from Istanbul to Gelibolu, the team watched the Four Corners documentary “The Fatal Shore” andthe 1981 Peter Weir film “Gallipoli”, starring a young Mel Gibson.The movie records an attack on the narrow ridge called The Nek on August 7, 1915, when more than 300 Australians weregunned down in a futile but courageous attack on an area no bigger than the size of two tennis courts.Four lines of men were sent to almost certain death before the attack was halted.Today, the Australians planned a game of cricket on the beach at Anzac Cove, re-enacting a match played by diggers on afamous section of the battlefield called Shell Green during the final days of the campaign.On December 8, 1915, Britain’s General Kitchener ordered the evacuation of the ANZAC forces.The Turks must have been literally stumped when they watched a group of soldiers from the NSW 4th Battalion stage a cricketmatch at Shell Green on December 17, 1915.By this stage of the campaign the Turks and the ANZACS had developed a mutual respect and often exchanged presents.The Turks held their fire to watch the cricket but after two hours they’d had enough and started shelling the Australians.According to the diary of one ANZAC, Granville Ryrie, the match continued anyway until the Turks doubled their firepowerand the Aussies reluctantly called it a draw.

Welcoming the support from the International Cricket Council (ICC),CBI on Sunday said it would soon send a team to London to gatherinformation from the world body on the cricket telecast rights caseand other matters arising out of the match-fixing scandal.”We would be soon sending a team to London and the support from ICC isimportant for us as some of their officials have also been named intwo of the cases,” CBI spokesman S M Khan told reporters in NewDelhi.He said the agency was always in touch with the anti-corruptionbranch of ICC and looked forward to any support from them which wasvery crucial to the investigation into the telecast rights case.CBI on November 8 registered five cases against some Doordarshanofficials for allegedly cheating the Prasar Bharti of crores of rupeesin award of telecast rights for cricket matches. The five cases relateto alleged bunglings in telecast rights for 1997 Independence Cup, ICCKnockOut tournament in 1998 played in Dhaka and the World Cup in 1999.CBI alleged that some officials of Doordarshan had entered into acriminal conspiracy with the Bangalorebased WorldTel and Delhi-basedStracon India and dishonestly enhanced the bid for the telecast of thetournament.Referring to the alleged nexus between betting syndicates andunderworld, the spokesman said “we are still looking into whetherthere is any link between match-fixing syndicate and organised crimesyndicate in the country and abroad.”Former Director of CBI R K Raghavan had sought help from other statepolice departments and central intelligence agencies in this matter.The ICC report on match-fixing, unveiled in London on May 23, hadvoiced grave concern over corrupt practices in international cricketand pledged its support to CBI in probing the links between organisedcrime and match-fixers.The CBI on May 4 last year registered a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) oninstruction from the Union Sports Ministry. The agency later submitteda 164-page report to the then Sports Minister S S Dhindsa on October31. The CBI hopes that the ICC’s efforts would lead to further probeinto the role of nine foreign players, who were not investigated bythe agency.

Sri Lanka’s selectors recalled all-rounder Chandika Hathurusinghe andincluded three more players to their squad of 22 to face India and NewZealand in a one-day triangular cricket series from mid-July and Indiain a three-Test series in August.Left-handed batsman Avishka Gunawardena and fast bowlers RuchiraPerera and Dinusha Fernando were the other three named in the listthat has now swollen to 26 players. They are undergoing training undercoach Dav Whatmore in Colombo.Hathurusinghe’s inclusion is seen more as an attempt to bolster themiddle-order, which already includes Hashan Tillekeratne and Aravindade Silva, than for his gentle medium pace.The 32-year-old Hathurusinghe has played 26 Tests in his internationalcareer that began in 1993 and has been in and out of the nationalsquad, and earns his fourth recall after a successful domestictournament.

Sports Minister Richard Caborn has stepped in to attempt to prevent any repetition of the events that have marred the NatWest Series games at Edgbaston and Headingley.”I will be speaking to the Home Secretary David Blunkett, and I have asked my officials to look to see what can be done immediately,” Caborn told the Press Association. “It is not just an English issue – it is an international one and we will have to work with the ICC.”We have to make sure we have good protection for both the players and officials,” Caborn said, reacting to a plea for help from Notts chief executive David Collier.In Australia spectators can receive fines of several thousand dollars for running onto the pitch and in South Africa police patrol the boundary with dogs. Unlike the situation at football matches in Britain, spectators running onto the field of play during cricket matches can expect to remain unpunished, often because it has been perceived as harmless over-exuberance. But in the aftermath of a steward receiving serious injuries during the Headingley debacle this view is being reappraised.”One hoped this would never happen in English cricket,” Lord MacLaurin commented, “but we’ve got it and it has happened twice now. We’ve got to do something about these mindless people otherwise we could do what they do in South Africa, where they have stewards every 10 metres with snarling dogs and if anyone goes on the field they let the dogs go.”

England today named Michael Atherton as their stand-in captain for the Second Ashes Test starting next Thursday at Lord’s.He replaces Nasser Hussain after the skipper broke his finger during the defeat against Australia in the First Test at Edgbaston.It had appeared that it was a two-horse race for the captaincy between Atherton and opener Marcus Trescothick.England initially drew up a shortlist comprising Atherton, Trescothick and Alec Stewart. But Stewart and Mark Butcher ruled themselves out of the race, although opening bowler Darren Gough said he would be interested in leading the side for a one-off match.It will be the first time that Atherton has captained England since heresigned from the position in Antigua more than three years ago.Chairman of slectors David Graveney said: “We believe that Michael’s previous experience of Test captaincy makes him the right person to stand in for Nasser.”He fully understands the predicament the team finds itself in and was veryhappy to take on the responsibility.”We looked at all our options within the team, in particular MarcusTrescothick who continues to play a central role in decision-making, but at thisstage of his career, the selectors felt the captaincy was an unnecessary burdenfor Marcus to undertake.”Atherton said: “I had no intention of doing it again but these are exceptionalcircumstances and when David Graveney asked me if I would do it I said yes.”Clearly there were not too many candidates because of the injury listand I obviously thought there was a chance of being asked to do the job.”I didn’t push myself forward. I just kept quiet and went away after thelast Test for a fishing trip and thought things through for myself but Ispoke to Duncan (Fletcher) and didn’t want to turn my back on him in thisinstance.”Atherton can at least take comfort from the fact that his last AshesTest as captain resulted in a narrow 19-run victory for England at The Oval.He said: “You never stop learning from the game and being a distance away from the captaincy will help. I’ll go out there and give it my best and theteam will give it a good go.”Each individual has to step up to the mark – it’s a great challenge becausewe’ve had a bad four or five weeks with injuries and the Test matches againstPakistan and Australia and it’s up to the team to turn it around.”All good teams have a bad patch and we’ve proved in the last 18 months thatwe’re a good team.”He added: “I’ll speak to Nasser in the next day or two to sound out how hewants to play it. He’s still captain of England and I’m happy to have him atLord’s.”Australian skipper Steve Waugh said: “I’ve never actually captained a Test against Michael, but I’m looking forward to locking horns with an old adversary.”Michael is a respected opponent and I’m sure his experience will be valuablefor England at this time.”Atherton will take over his duties next week when the squad assembles inLondon on Tuesday.

Well it’s me again, writing from the bustling city of Bulawayo. The two-Test series against West Indies gets under way amid a new round of political wrangling within the Zimbabwe Cricket Union.Cricket has now made the front page of our newspapers, with stories pertaining to racism that exists in cricket in this country. Certain lobby groups have engaged the media to fight their corner and seem intent on taking full advantage of the political climate of this country, even if it means the destruction of Zimbabwe cricket. It is a sad day when politics takes centre stage in sport, but I suppose when this happens we just have to soldier on and hope that sanity prevails and a solution is found – cricket needs to be the winner.As professional cricketers, though, we have to put what is going on behind the scenes, out of our minds and concentrate on the business of playing cricket and playing well. It is going to be a very tough series as the West Indies are very confident and playing good cricket. After winning the Coca-Cola triangular series, they have played well in their warm-up games and look to be getting their house in order.Their batsmen have scored lots of runs, which is a good sign for them as it has been a bit brittle in the recent past. Although they have had some injuries in the bowling department with Dillion and Cuffy having to go home, their reserves have been impressive. All in all they seem to have got a very good unit together, even without Lara, and we will have to pull out all the stops if we are to produce some of the cricket we played to win in the last Test against India.Without Andrew Flower we have a big hole in our batting line-up; this was proved in the recent tri-series. However, we are going to have to raise our game another notch to make up for his absence and get competitive totals on the board.Tatenda Taibu is set to make his Test debut which will be a real test for him, but he is a confident young man and should pull through with flying colours. The selectors have asked yours truly to open the batting after scoring 140 against the tourists in the just concluded war-up game this will be a different but great challenge.All in all it is set up to be a great series, even though the best players on either side are out of action. It will be nice to get back into the swing of things after a two-week break from international cricket. I only hope that everyone can focus on the cricket and clear their minds of these other very real issues – we owe it to ourselves and to the game of cricket.

New Zealand are not likely to be over-worked on their tour of the West Indies in June.A preliminary tour draft only includes three One-Day Internationals, two Tests, and a possible three or four day game as a warm-up match between the ODIs and the Tests.New Zealand Cricket is in negotiation with the West Indies board on the itinerary seeking more matches, especially at least one more ODI and at least two confirmed first-class matches before the Tests.On the draft itinerary, the first two ODIs would be played in Grenada on June 1 and 2, and the third in Trinidad on June 5.The first Test would start in Barbados on June 13 while the second Test would be in Jamaica starting on June 21.NZC administration manager Tim Murdoch told CricInfo that the itinerary was only a draft at the moment.”We haven’t considered it yet, nor have we had time to consider it.”It would appear there is some work to be done on it yet,” he said.India is also touring the West Indies around the same time and has a five Test, seven ODI programme.