Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

Australia’s growing charge was again stalled by rain just as Ricky Ponting enforced the follow-on with a massive lead of 326. Michael Kasprowicz reignited Australia’s hunt for victory as New Zealand were dismissed for 244 at tea, but the players did not return on a day when it wasn’t only the pitch that wanted to stay under the covers.Two sessions were wiped off by rain and mist hugging the Basin Reserve, and more is forecast for tomorrow. Any lost time on day five will probably ensure an Australia victory is sucked down the drain. If clear skies reappear – it’s a big if – New Zealand must show greater application than they did in the first innings against an in-form attack that dealt the wickets around.Australia’s bowlers are fresh after delivering 81.1 overs – only 42.1 were possible today – and finishing off their opponents in a session that lasted almost three hours. Through Lou Vincent and James Franklin New Zealand made a reasonable attempt at crease occupation in their unlikely bid to pass the follow-on target of 421.Once Vincent, who posted his seventh Test half-century, and James Franklin added 58 Kasprowicz struck twice with two edges, Shane Warne followed it up with Brendon McCullum and Craig McMillan, and New Zealand were all out after some clever Daniel Vettori aggression. Australian hands that were warming in pockets were suddenly preparing for a second bowl. Dwarfed by Australia’s mammoth 570 for 8 declared, New Zealand started 448 runs behind and reduced the damage by 122 when the covers went back on for good.Kasprowicz, running in under ghostly fog suiting his `Kasper’ nickname, homed in on both Vincent and Franklin with carefully constructed plans over a couple of overs that produced nicked attempted drives and easy catches for Adam Gilchrist. The naggingly accurate and slippery bowling again showed why he has kept Brett Lee cleaning shoes and wondering when he’ll get his next first-class game.Intent on a long stay, Vincent was happy to front-foot pull the fast bowlers and sweep Warne, and he offered a small acknowledgement for his 115-ball fifty. His partnership with Franklin, the nightwatchman, became irritating for the experimenting Australians. Gilchrist crouched outside leg stump for a couple of deliveries to Warne, who sometimes employed five close-in catchers to Franklin. All were avoided and he played a couple of smart drives on his way to a Test-best 26.The pair’s resistance started talk of time running out for Australia, but then Kasprowicz popped up, giving himself three victims for the innings and 99 in his career. When McCullum arrived in a hurry and pushed his third ball to Michael Clarke at midwicket three wickets had fallen for 18 runs. The boost revived Warne and life was breathed into a dreary session.McMillan has lost some embarrassing battles to Australia over the summer and was fighting to retain his place. He began under control and then snapped, slogging Warne for a large six over mid-on. He can’t help it. From there he was confused and soon left head-down to a horrible swipe on bended knee off Warne.Jason Gillespie upset Iain O’Brien before Vettori and Chris Martin provided two stumbling blocks. Farming the strike, Vettori crashed eight boundaries in making 45 and Martin successfully tried not to get out. The tactic worked until Vettori picked out Damien Martyn, and more thoughtful batting will be necessary to see off Australia on the final day. Unless it rains.How They Were Out
Franklin c Gilchrist b Kasprowicz 26 (166 for 5)
Feet stayed planted as he eyed a drive but edged instead.Vincent c Gilchrist b Kasprowicz 63 (180 for 6)
Ball angled in to Vincent, who tried to push through cover but his weight wasn’t all the way forward.McCullum c Clarke b Warne 3 (184 for 7)
Playing outside leg stump, he pushed a catch to a diving Clarke at midwicket.McMillan b Warne 20 (201 for 8)
Lost his head again, slogging across the line to a ball that hit off stump.O’Brien b Gillespie 5 (212 for 9)
Yorker brushed pad on the way to leg stump.Vettori c Martyn b Warne 45 (244)
Caught in the deep hitting to midwicket.

Graham Thorpe, the England batsman, has urged his team not to be intimidated by Australia’s reputation when the Ashes begin at Lord’s on July 21. Thorpe, who has missed the last two Ashes series, came back to the Test arena in September 2003 against South Africa, and has been in good touch since then.”I can visualise towards July and think what it’s going to be like,” Thorpe told AFP. “It will be a massive occasion and the lads have to relax and enjoy what is going on. If we play the men rather than statistics and figures it will be our best way of playing against them. We won’t do well being tense and worrying about their record or who we are playing against. You have to have a certain amount of belief regardless.”England, who are currently the No.2 team in Tests, have been in terrific form in the last 12 months, having won their last four series. “Come what may it is important not to beat yourself up if you have a bad day. Being realistic we will have some bad days against Australia and you have to get out of bed the next day with a smile on your face and enjoy it.”Australia have dominated the Ashes since 1989, but a resurgent England side would be confident of a better performance this time around.Having missed the last two series, Thorpe was hopeful of playing this year’s Ashes. “I would love to be fit because it would be great to have an opportunity to play against them with this England team,” said Thorpe, who made a hundred on debut against Australia in 1993. “We have a lot of good performers and I know we are going to have to play as a team and to our highest potential against them.”This summer I have not got a great deal to lose, it has been a pretty good journey in the past 18 months, probably the best period I have played for England.”

England batting sensation Kevin Pietersen has admitted that he is not ready for Test match cricket.Despite a record-breaking start to his ODI career and praise from Michael Vaughan and Duncan Fletcher, Pietersen says he’s “nowhere near Tests yet”, in an interview in the April issue of The Wisden Cricketer magazine.While playing down his readiness for an Ashes match-up with world champions Australia, Pietersen does admit that time spent playing with Shane Warne at Hampshire could prove to be a useful learning curve. Speaking of Warne, he says: “He’s a genius, and to have a bloke like that wanting me in his cupboard to play alongside him was most definitely flattering. I’m nowhere near Tests yet, I’ve only played a few ODIs, but playing with Warney will definitely smooth out a possible confrontation if I do happen to come up against him in the summer.”Pietersen’s reluctance to put himself in the Test frame is not shared by the nation’s cricket-lovers. 83% of 1,000 respondents to a Wisden Cricketer poll on Cricinfo.com said he should definitely be in the Test side. And four out of ten said they would prefer to watch him bat rather than Andrew Flintoff, a staggering result for the novice compared to the country’s established destroyer of bowling attacks.Reflecting on his baptism of fire against South Africa in Johannesburg, where he shepherded England to victory, Pietersen says: “I think that innings was one of the biggest I’ll probably play in international cricket, that 22 not out. It just helped me settle down, helped me enjoy international cricket. And after that I realised that it will never be as bad as that – 35,000 people are booing you, every single person wants you out, every single person hates you.”He also has an answer for the doubters who have suggested that his leg-side bias could yet be exposed. “In one-day cricket you have to be able to hit a ball into three different areas at once. You’ve got to know that if the ball’s there, you’ve got three different areas where you could score. That’s how I go about it. I open up the off-side, I go down the ground, I open up the leg-side and I try to make sure I get a run a ball.

“I play differently in first-class cricket in England. My style doesn’t change, I’m a positive player who likes to hit boundaries and score quickly, but in first-class cricket your technique changes, you can become a lot more patient. So in Test match or first-class cricket I won’t have to hit the ball through the leg-side all the time. There’ll be more scoring options all over.”His admiration for one-day team-mate and mentor Darren Gough is unstinting: “I respect every single thing he says and I love his approach to a game. It helped me a lot to have a senior bloke like that right by my side all the time. In terms of lifestyle, in terms of cricket, everything. He was instrumental in getting me to relax.”And his passion for living in England is equally enthusiastic: “I love the country, I love the people, I love all the players, I love the management,” he says.Tony Greig, the former England captain who was also born and learnt his cricket in South Africa, offers Pietersen some worldly advice: “The only advice I’d give him is that the one thing you can’t change is you’re South African. The fact that you’re lucky enough to be eligible to play for England is like a business decision.”People who have played for England have always been born all over the place. I guess the only issue now is the timing. The England team is just getting good and people probably want the team to be Anglo-Saxon to its boots,” says Greig, interviewed in the same issue of the magazine.The April issue of The Wisden Cricketer, the world’s largest-selling cricket magazine, is on sale from Friday 18 March priced at £3.40 for 100 pages of news, features, interviews, match reports and competitions.

With the one-day series safely in the bag, Pakistan are now eyeing victory in the Test series against West Indies. Speaking to the media after Pakistan’s comfortable 40-run win the second match in St Lucia, Younis Khan, who led the team in the field after Inzmam-ul-Haq was injured during batting, said: “We’ve never won a Test series here, so it’s my golden chance. We are playing our best cricket for a while.” Younis will captain the side in the first Test, as Inzamam will be serving a one-match suspension.Younis also said that the tours of Australia and India had helped toughen the team. “I think the tough tours to Australia and India have helped us gel as a team and believe in ourselves,” the BBC website quoted him as saying. “Those tours were a turning point for us.”Shoaib Malik, who won the Man-of-the-Match award for scoring 51 and bowling ten overs of tidy offspin, reckoned that Pakistan’s total of 258 was below par. “In my opinion, the score was a little short – it was a 270-plus [wicket] – but if you work hard in bowling, then you can manage.” Pakistan, who came back from a 2-0 deficit to beat India 4-2 in the ODI series last month, have now won six one-dayers in a row.For West Indies, on the other hand, it was another disappointing defeat, their eighth consecutive one, which equalled their worst run – they had been beaten eight times in a row in 1999-2000, when they lost three matches in Sharjah and then five in New Zealand. (click here for more details.) Shivnarine Chanderpaul, their captain, blamed the defeat on the batsmen. “Obviously the batting has been letting us down in most of the games and we need to pick it up,” he said. “Our experienced batsmen need to take on the responsibility and do the job.”He was encouraged, though, by the presence of David Scott, the performance-enhancement specialist who has come down to see the last two matches of the series. “It gives us an opportunity to talk to him and see if there is anything he can provide to help us approach the mental side of cricket.”West Indies play the last match of the series at the same venue today (Sunday, May 22), after which the two teams will be involved in a two-Test series.

Brad Williams has been called up to replace Jason Gillespie in Australia’s one-day squad for the tri-series in India. Gillespie, who missed the second Test against Zimbabwe due to a side strain, was ruled out of the series after he attempted to bowl in the nets at Sydney today. Gillespie suffered the injury during the first Test against Zimbabwe at Perth last week.Gillespie’s withdrawal further hampers a line-up which is already missing Glenn McGrath and Darren Lehmann. Lehmann is suffering from soreness in his left Achilles tendon. He has been overlooked for the Indian tour following medical advice.Trevor Hohns, the chairman of the national selection panel, said: “We have accepted the view that the demands placed on the body are sufficiently different in a one-off Test match compared to the intensity of a one-day tournament. The Cricket Australia medical team believes that although Darren might be able to get through this Test match, he will not be able to endure the rigours of a one-day tournament without suffering further damage. Darren is fully accepting of that view. From a team perspective it’s disappointing because he has been a key member of Australia’s success at one-day level.”Nathan Bracken, Gillespie’s replacement during the World Cup, returns to India, where he first played ODIs in 2001. He will be accompanied by Michael Clarke, also from New South Wales, who made his ODI debut during the tour to the West Indies earlier this year.The squad leaves for India on Oct 22.Squad
Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist (wk), Jimmy Maher, Ricky Ponting (capt), Damien Martyn, Andrew Symonds, Michael Bevan, Michael Clarke, Ian Harvey, Brad Hogg, Andrew Bichel, Brett Lee, Brad Williams, Nathan Bracken.

As if the USA Cricket Association (USACA) did not already have enough troubles to deal with, its executive and some of its board members have become embroiled in a nasty brouhaha over which players should be allowed to play in the upcoming Under-19 nationals.The trouble began when two cricket administrators, Laks Sampath from the Northwest and Clifford Hinds in New York, suggested that they be given more leeway in selecting players for the U-19 National tournament to be held in Los Angeles in October.Although coming at the issue from different directions, New York and the West regions concurred on an essential point. They wanted to include players for the U-19 Nationals who did not meet the ICC’s player-eligibility requirements as they stand now, but who would be expected to qualify in time for the ICC World Cup in 2007. This would give promising youngsters who, because of their age, had not been in the USA long enough to qualify as long-standing permanent residents, but who could be identified early for possible selection for Team USA in 2007.If that seems a reasonable position, it certainly did not appear that way to Gladstone Dainty, the USACA’s president. In an extraordinary letter, he accused both Hinds and Sampath for undermining the USACA and indeed, US cricket. Hinds was spared a personal censure, but was warned about the dangers of including “illegal aliens” in their teams–something that neither Hinds nor Sampath had suggested.With Sampath, Dainty was far more brutal. He accused him of undermining the USACA, its board and the executive; singled him out as a troublemaker and traitor to US cricket interests, and warned him to behave.Sampath replied in an open letter to the USACA president, and the entire sordid affair was all over the internet, once more exposing the inner workings of the USACA behind its bland public image.Several key issues were highlighted by this dispute.First, it is not clear that the USACA president has the right to discipline a regional director, let alone put him on notice on any point. Directors are elected by their region’s member clubs, and answer to them; they appoint the USACA executive, not the other way round. At the very least, Dainty was overstepping his bounds, and he should have known better.Second, Dainty justified his actions with an oblique reference to the organization that was sponsoring the U-19 Championship and might run into trouble with US homeland security if the USACA was to be too permissive in selecting its U-19 player participants. Just who is this sponsoring organization? Why has it not been named so far? Why was its identity not disclosed to board members who are supposed to approve all USACA contracts? Why would U-19 player selections prejudice the organization in its dealings with US homeland security? Invoking the spectre of 9/11 is a facile way to get around these essential questions, and Dainty and the USACA have a great deal to answer for.Finally, it is high time for USACA’s officers to cease and desist from personal attacks (private or public) as a way to deflect reasonable critiques of the way it does business. The positions taken by Hinds and Sampath over the U-19 national selections are reasonable ones, and could be argued on their merits. There is no need for the USACA Executive to try to silence debate by citing “concerns of national security”. That has not worked too well in the US body politic, and should not used in US cricket.

Michael Atherton believes Australia will be accused of double standards if their walking phase continues alongside appealing for doubtful decisions.Atherton, who is commentating on the series, said the move opened the team up for “accusations they have been far from consistent on this tour”. “It is worse to be a selective walker than a non-walker,” Atherton was reported in the Courier-Mail. “After all, selective walking is really just about conning the umpire into believing you are an honest man and so benefiting from such a reputation.”In the second Test Adam Gilchrist, Michael Kasprowicz and Jason Gillespie walked for Australia while Sourav Ganguly and Yuvraj Singh did the same for India.But Atherton was concerned by the appeal of players in front of the wicket against Virender Sehwag, who was given out lbw despite a clear edge, and questioned why he was not recalled under their fair play agreement. “How far are they prepared to go?” Atherton said. “Or, as Ian Chappell said when I asked him for his reaction, ‘Hypocrisy is alive and well.’ I was a confirmed non-walker and could easily live with the fact that I was asking an umpire to perform a job he is paid to do. I didn’t, and still don’t, regard that as cheating.”Ricky Ponting, Steve Waugh and Allan Border believe the decisions even themselves out over a player’s career. But David Shepherd praised Kasprowicz, encouraged others to follow and denied the honesty-first policy could make a mockery of an umpire’s decision.Shepherd was about to give Kasprowicz not out after he edged a ball on to his pads and was caught by VVS Laxman. His departure left Shepherd stunned. “I saw Michael Kasprowicz straight after stumps and congratulated him on what he did,” Shepherd said. “It’s a tremendous thing when a batsman walks. Any batsman who doesn’t walk, he knows he is doing the wrong thing.”Shepherd said Test cricketers had an obligation to behave themselves because millions of youngsters were copying them.

Frank Shipston, the world’s oldest first-class cricketer and former batsman for Nottinghamshire, has died on the eve of his 99th birthday. He passed away earlier this month at his son’s home on July 6.Shipston, who was born in 1906, joined Nottinghamshire’s groundstaff at the start of 1925 and made his debut the same season. He went on to play 49 matches for Nottinghamshire, scoring 1183 runs at 18.48. His best season was in 1932 when he made 461 runs at 35.46, primarily as an opener, although his two first-class hundreds – both made that season and both unbeaten – came from the middle order.At the end of that summer he decided to join the Nottinghamshire police, with the support of his Chief Constable, Captain Popkess, a fanatical cricket fan. Popkess was keen to employ former county professionals, such as Shipston, to strengthen the police squads and he gave his name to the amateur police league: the Popkess Cup is still contested to this day.Shipston returned to professional cricket in 1956, this time as a first-class umpire. He completed one full season before becoming Nottinghamshire’s coach, a position which he held from 1957 to 1966.Shipston became the oldest cricketer on the death of Western Australia’s Ted Martin in 2002.

ScorecardKent recovered from another wobbly batting performance to secure a three-wicket win against Bangladesh A on the second day at Canterbury. Led by a half-century from Neil Dexter and 47 from Michael Carberry, Kent overcame another menacing performance from Bangladesh’s new-ball pairing of Shadahat Hossain and Syed Rasel, who shared three wickets apiece, with Rasel completing the impressive match figures of 10 for 91.Kent were indebted to their lower-order in each innings of the match. Resuming on a shaky 123 for 8, Kent stretched their score to 153, thanks to Martin Saggers’ 44, then set about denting Bangladesh’s hopes of a decisive lead by bowling them out for 155 in reply. Shahriar Nafees opened and top-scored with 58, but no-one else could pass 15, as Robert Joseph whipped through the innings with 5 for 19.Chasing 188 for victory, Kent were shaken by two early blows from Shadahat, and then lost four for 29 as the middle-order imploded. But the 17-year-old wicketkeeper, Paul Dixey, combined with David Stiff to secure the win with three wickets standing.