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The rain arrived about an hour too late to save Victoria here today as New South Wales scored outright points in their Pura Cup cricket match at Punt Rd.The Blues finished on 3-117, chasing 115, thanks to a brisk 76-run stand between Test opener Michael Slater (58no) and Mark Higgs (32no) which rescued themfrom a shaky 3-41.Higgs scored the winning boundary under grey skies, about an hour before steady showers again returned.It was NSW’s second outright win of the summer, while the result left Victoria with no wins from three four-day and four one-day games so far this season andbottom place on the two competition tables.”I thought it (the weather) might have played a bit more of a part this afternoon, I was expecting a couple more showers,” said NSW captain Shane Lee.”We just had to go out there and try to play positively, but not too aggressively and throw too many wickets away – I was happy with the way it turned out.”More than an hour’s play was lost earlier today because of the rain, which caused several stoppages through the weekend.The grey weather matched the mood in the Victorian changerooms, where captain Matthew Elliott offered no excuses for his side’s poor form.He praised NSW, saying the Blues had out-bowled and out-batted his lineup, and added “you don’t need to be Einstein” to work out the Bushrangers needed somematch points quickly.But Elliott also stressed there was no point in last season’s Pura Cup runner-up panicking, saying the side had to concentrate on ball-by-ball play rather than trying to win again.In particular, he said Victoria had to hold more catches – Slater’s let-off when he was three today was a particularly costly miss.”I don’t know how much longer you can keep saying you’re on the verge of it (good form) if it doesn’t happen for you,” he said.”We have played a bit of cricket (this season) and guys have really got to stand up….we just don’t seem to have the spark we had in past years.”Victoria resumed on 4-69 this morning and reached 193, with Ian Harvey making 48 and Elliott, batting at No.7 because of a stomach virus over the last three days, reaching a top score of 50.Once again, no Victorian could build a big score after making a start.Opening bowler Stuart Clark snared 5-47, his second five-wicket bag of the season, while Stuart MacGill’s 4-54 gave him 8-125 for the match.Damien Fleming (3-34) gave Victoria a sniff of at least holding NSW until the rain returned when he picked up first-innings century makers Michael Bevan (10) and man-of-the-match Michael Clarke (second-ball duck) within three balls of his ninth over.But Slater and Higgs then combined to take the match to the fairest conclusion, given the Blues’ domination over the four days.

ScorecardA day after he was included in the Test squad for the tour of Australia as a replacement for the injured Corey Anderson, allrounder Mitchell Santner blitzed an unbeaten 70 off 43 balls to set up a match-winning total for New Zealand A against Sri Lanka A at the Bert Sutcliffe Oval. After Santner led his team to 299, the New Zealand A attack routed the visitors in 25.4 overs to sweep the series 4-0 with a 172-run victory.New Zealand A made a rapid start after choosing to bat, their openers adding 76 in ten overs, when Michael Pollard was out for 32 off 30 balls. They then lost wickets before they could get a sizeable partnership going and their position had eroded to 168 for 4 in the 32nd over. That was when Santner began his game-changing innings, smashing five fours and four sixes. He added 98 with Henry Nicholls, and then put on 33 off 11 balls with Tom Blundell, who made 18 off 9.Sri Lanka A were never in the chase. Danushka Gunathilaka was the top-scorer with 39, and Ashan Priyanjan was the only other batsman to make it past 20. Neil Wagner, Matthew Quinn and Jacob Duffy took two wickets each to dismiss the visitors for 127.

India batsman Rohit Sharma has railed against the popular perception that he isn’t making best use of his abundant natural talent, saying that he has got where he is through sheer hard work. Rohit said that the widespread opinion about him was “unfair and wrong.””People say, ‘Boss, this guy is gifted and he can do this and he can do that.’ But nobody knows what happens behind the scenes,” Rohit told . “Nobody knows about the hard work that’s been put in.”This ‘talent’ talk has messed things up for me. I started my career as a bowler. I was never a batsman. All this natural talent, god’s gift that you guys in the media talk and write about is unfair and wrong. I have worked on my batting to get here. I used to bat at No. 8. From there, I made my way up. Ask my coach, Mr Dinesh Lad, and he will tell you that I was an offspinner.”Whatever I have achieved is because of my hard work. All these terms like ‘lazy elegance’ have been coined by you guys. Maybe on TV it comes across like that, but that’s not the right way to judge anyone. One must get to the root of the matter. I became a serious batsman during my under-17 days. I broke the middle finger of my right hand during a 50-over match against the visiting Sri Lankans in 2005. It was difficult for me to grip the ball after that injury. That’s how I became a regular batsman.”Rohit made his Test debut in the home series against West Indies in November 2013, having already played 108 ODIs since June 2007. He began with two hundreds in his first two innings, but has not scored one in 23 innings since. Rohit has 870 runs at an average of 37 in 14 Tests so far.”Honestly, as a batsman, there is a lot more I have to do,” he said. “That’s very, very clear to me. Fourteen Test matches is nothing. I have nothing great in Test cricket. This is just the start. In ODI cricket, yes, I know have done well, especially after becoming an opener.”Rohit made 202 runs in six innings during India’s recent 2-1 Test series win in Sri Lanka, their first victory in the country since 1993. He was their second-highest runscorer, though only four specialist batsmen played all three matches. Rohit was out for 9 and 4 in the defeat in Galle, but contributed 79, 34, 26 and 50 to India’s wins in the next two Tests. The 79 was Rohit’s highest score since his debut series, but his push for a third hundred was cut short in the final over of the first day at the P Sara Oval, when he was lbw to Angelo Mathews.Elaborating on that dismissal, Rohit said it had come about because he had not played his natural game. “Just before I got out on 79, I told [Wriddhiman] Saha, ‘Partner, you know what, the light is fading and I think this is going to be the last over. Let’s just play out this over and come back tomorrow.’ The idea was to just to block those six balls and get back into the dressing room. But I ended up making a big mistake. I thought hard about survival. And what did I do by doing that? I forgot about my natural game, which is anything but blocking the ball. So, I got out because I did something completely different.”I was thinking of stumps, staying not out and going to the dressing room. I was over-cautious instead of being just me. The moral of the story is: Do not tweak your natural game.”One aspect of his game that Rohit said he had been born with, however, was his temperament. “Now, that’s a natural gift. That’s something I was born with. Actually, I have never had to work on staying relaxed or calm. Even in the middle, I take my mind off cricket in between deliveries and overs. I don’t think about the swing, the wicket or the bowler. I look at the scoreboard, I look at the fans sitting in the stands, I look at the guy playing the drums. I divert my mind.”India’s next Test series is at home against South Africa in November and December, and there is stiff competition for place in a shortened batting line-up. If India continue to use the five-bowler plan that worked for them in Sri Lanka – and if all batsmen are fit – then M Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara and Rohit will be competing for five spots.”Let the people who are in charge of the team take that call,” Rohit said. “I am a team man. It doesn’t matter if I am in the XI or not. I still represent India. I am still part of the team. And I will do whatever is expected of me.”

Delhi middle-order batsman Virat Kohli will lead India Under-19 in their tour to South Africa early next year. He will have Saurashtra’s Ravinder Jadeja as the vice-captain, in a tour that includes two three-day games and a tri-series with Bangladesh as the third side.The squad included familiar names who have been hitting the right notes in the ongoing Ranji Trophy. Tamil Nadu’s Abhinav Mukund and Maharashtra’s Harshad Khadiwale were rewarded for a string of good scores and Pradeep Sangwan, the left-arm seamer from Delhi, picked himself with a fine season so far.KP Appanna and Iqbal Abdulla, left-arm spinners from Karnataka and Mumbai respectively, made the cut. There was also space for batsmen shining in the age-group levels like Manish Pandey, and Siva Kumar Duvarapu.The junior selection committee also chose 30 probables for the Under-19 World Cup, set for Malaysia in February next year.U-19 squad for tour to South Africa
Virat Kohli, (capt, Delhi) P Sangwan (Delhi) Ravinder Jadeja (vice-capt, Saurashtra), Abhinav Mukund (TN), Tanmay Srivastava (UP) Saurabh Tiwari (Jharkhand), KP Appanna, (Karnataka), Manish Pandey (Karnataka) Taruwar Kohli (Punjab), Amanpreet Singh (Punjab), Sreevats Goswami (Bengal) Siva Kumar Duvarapu, GVS Prasad (AP), Mohammad Arif (Rajasthan), Iqbal Abdullah (Mumbai), Harshad Khadiwale (Maharashtra).Stand-byes: Ajitesh Argal (Baroda) Perry Goel (Punjab) D Prabhu Kiran (AP) N Einstein (TN).Probables for the U-19 World Cup
Abhinav Mukund (Tamil Nadu), Harshad Khadiwale (Maharashtra), Manish Sharma (Rajasthan), Rohan Banerjee (Bengal), Virat Kohli (Delhi), Manish Pandey (Karnataka), Taruwar Kohli (Punjab), D. Parabhu Kiran (Andhra Pardesh), N Einstein (Tamil Nadu), Saurabh Tiwari (Delhi), Manprit Juneja (Gujarat), Ankit Tiwari (Uttar Pradesh), Tanmay Srivastava (Uttar Pradesh), Sreevats Goswami (Bengal), Rubin Dalwadi (Baroda), Perry Goyal (Punjab), Amanpreet Singh (Punjab), Pardeep Sangwan (Delhi), Mohammed Arif (Rajasthan), Dhawal Kulkarni (Mumbai), Ajitesh Argal (Baroda), Siddarth Kaul (Punjab), Siva Kumar Duvarapu (Andhra Pardesh), Ravinder Jadeja (Saurashtra), Sumit Khatri (Rajasthan), Yogesh Nagar (Delhi), GVS. Parsad (Andhra Pardesh), KP Appanna (Karnataka), Iqbal Abdullah (Mumbai) and Swapnil Singh (Baroda).

The shock at Ramnaresh Sarwan’s omission from the eleven for the second Test yesterday was surpassed only by Brian Lara’s frank explanation for the decision.”It’s a time for Sarwan to reflect and come back strong,” Lara told the world at the toss. “He is one of our main players. We know that. There’s no doubt about it. It’s an opportunity for him to spend some time off the field and see what it’s like and come out back into the middle maybe more energetic and more purposeful.”It marked an unmistakable change in a policy that readily accommodated deceptively talented underachievers in the West Indies team in recent times. The names Carl Hooper and Marlon Samuels spring readily to mind. Lara’s message was loud, clear and long overdue. It would have registered large, not only with Sarwan but with everyone vying for selection.It was that, from now on, no one is guaranteed a place, not even the vice-captain, not even a quality batsman with 64 Tests and over 4,000 runs to his name recently ranked No 2 at ODI level. Sarwan’s character will be sternly tested by this development.Only a few days before the Test, he was acknowledging his slump in form and saying that he was “more determined than at any other time…to put together a score in this Test match”. Now he must wait, perhaps even until next summer’s tour of England, for his next Test.He has come through adversity of different kinds before – the death of a cherished girlfriend midway through his first overseas tour, several blows to the helmet from unsympathetic fast bowlers, the initial loss of the vice-captaincy – and ought to come through this as well. But it is a unique experience for him, watching a Test match from the pavilion. It is the first time he has been dropped since his difficult period in Australia in 2001.A Test average of 38 – and falling – after six years in international cricket is unworthy of a batsman blessed with the special touch. Most irritating, after all this time, is his failure to eliminate the errors that have repeatedly brought his downfall. He has been caught 13 times in Tests off the hook or pull. His square-on position early in his innings has exposed him to slip catches and lbws. Repeatedly, rank carelessness has cost his wicket at crucial times, most recently in the second innings of the first Test and the first innings of the last against India last season.All of this would have been noted on coach Bennett King’s laptop and in Lara’s consciousness. There is a lesson to be learned from the player who took Sarwan’s place in Multan. Runako Morton is short on genuine class, big on heart and determination. There is no certain selection for him. He has had to depend on the shortcomings of a batsman with twice his ability and his own hard work to squeeze in.

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

On the same day when he equalled Sunil Gavaskar’s tally of 125 Test appearances and on the same ground where Gavaskar equalled Don Bradman’s record 29 hundreds, Sachin Tendulkar blended solid defiance with controlled aggression and reached a much-anticipated landmark, putting India in firm control of the second Test at Delhi. Contrasting knocks from VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly – one effortless, the other gritty – shored India up from a dicey situation but on such a day, everything was bound to be overshadowed with one little man and one mighty world record.Come tomorrow, and it would have been exactly one year since his last century, against Bangladesh at Dhaka, and Tendulkar had often admitted that century No.35 was a bogey which he wanted off his back. He began his innings with the game on an even keel but by overcoming Muttiah Muralitharan’s craft and Chaminda Vaas’s nous, by ruthlessly cashing in after surviving two perilous lbw appeals, and by showing glimpses of his glorious youth he ensured India were in a position to dictate terms for the rest of the game.It was an innings that sported a rich array of strokes – a classical flick off Dilhara Fernando, a full-throttle cover-drive off Vaas – completing his follow-through while on his knees – three successive fours off Murali – feet twinkling, bat flourishing – a lofted six off Malinga Bandara, and a back-foot slap with a Caribbean touch. When on 24, he was trapped in front by a Fernando incutter; when on 38, he stretched forward to an offbreak from Murali and got away with a touch-and-go call but once he completed his half-century, he methodically dismantled the attack. The moment he reached the 90s, every run was greeted with a volcanic reaction and at precisely 16:44:19pm, he rocked back and turned one from Vaas to backward square leg, took off for a single and punched the air with delight as the entire stadium erupted with joy.The focus was firmly on Tendulkar but there was a hugely important innings panning out at the other end as well. Ganguly, who was fortunate on 11 when Kumar Sangakkara fluffed a stumping, ground his way to a crucial 39 not out by the end of the day. A couple of cover-drives, eased with finesse, promised much and he found the gaps with ease. Delhi has been a lucky venue for Ganguly – with four scores of more than 50 – and he will get a chance to re-establish himself in the Test side.Both these were vital innings but what had really set India up was 69 golden runs from Laxman, who had lit up the overcast Feroz Shah Kotla when India ran the risk of being derailed. Laxman, batting at No.3 after a little more than a year, was fortunate at the top of his innings, with a close lbw shout turned down and a flashy inside edge eluding the stumps, but soon opened out with some delicious strokeplay. Wafting the bat like an artist’s brush, he effortlessly wrenched India out of a wobbly situation with languid strokes all around the ground. Seam movement from Vaas was countered with grace, Murali was thwarted and the inexperienced Bandara was simply dismissed. Laxman appeared in complete control, and all set for one of his massive hauls, before he nicked a superb Murali doosra.Play had begun half-an-hour late, owing to excessive dew on the ground, and Vaas gave Sri Lanka a near-perfect start by dismissing Gautam Gambhir, the local boy playing his first Test on his homeground, cheaply. Dravid, who opened the batting for the first time since November 2001, was immaculate in reading the movement of the ball, punctuating his knock with five fours, but he was occasionally hassled by the variety that Murali, who came on as early as the eighth over, displayed. Murali unfurled his entire range and would surely rue a few umpiring calls, but destiny, as he would know, is a strange animal and there is little one can do when certain events are written in the stars.

Gautam Gambhir lbw b Vaas 2 (2 for 1)
Rahul Dravid c Mubarak b Muralitharan 24 (56 for 2)
VVS Laxman c Sangakkara b Muralitharan 69 (133 for 3)

Australia’s women’s cricket team, the Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars, will play seven one-dayers and a one-day practice game in a three-week long tour of India.This will be Australia’s first tour of India in over 20 years, notwithstanding the World Cup in 1997-98. Australia emerged victorious in the World Cup, beating New Zealand by five wickets in the finals at Eden Gardens.Australia begin with a game against India A at Mysore on December 9, and will then play the first two games of the series at the same venue.After the tour, Australia will take on New Zealand at Perth before embarking on a World Cup campaign to South Africa, which will be followed by the Ashes in August 2005.Itinerary of India tour
December 9 Australians v India `A’
December 11 Australia v India
December 13 Australia v India
December 16 Australia v India
December 19 Australia v India
December 22 Australia v India
December 24 Australia v India
December 28 Australia v India Australia squad 1 Belinda Clark (captain), 2 Karen Rolton, 3 Alex Blackwell, 4 Kate Blackwell, 5 Leonie Coleman, 6 Shelley Nitschke, 7 Cathryn Fitzpatrick, 8 Julie Hayes, 9 Melanie Jones, 10 Lisa Keightley, 11 Clea Smith, 12 Lisa Sthalekar, 13 Emma Twining

National League Division TwoDivision Two Table Hampshire 216 for 8 (Kenway 78) beat Northamptonshire 162 (Mascarenhas 4 for 22, Udal 4 for 40) by 54 runs
ScorecardDimitri Mascarenhas and Shaun Udal took advantage of The Rose Bowl lights as Hampshire bowled out the league leaders Northamptonshire for a meagre 162 and won by a comfortable 54 runs.While the Northants bowlers struggled to extract life from the pitch, Mascarenhas darted the ball around at will, and took the two big wickets of Mike Hussey and Phil Jaques early on, both trapped lbw with the ball swinging in to their pads. That left Northants on a stuttering 19 for 3 and two more wickets from Mascarenhas sank them in to further trouble at 50 for 5.David Sales provided some resistance with 73 from 115 balls, but while his team-mates continued to perish at regular intervals, he was fighting a lost cause. He was eventually last man out, bowled by Udal, who wrapped up the tail with 4 for 40 as Northants crashed to 162.For Hampshire, Derek Kenway held the innings together with 78 from 112 balls, and put on 75 for the second wicket with James Hamblin, who scored 32. It was Hampshire’s seventh win of the season and pushed them up to third spot of the second division.

With the upcoming tour to Sri Lanka by the West Indies cricket teamless than two weeks away, and with concerns in the Caribbean high overthe safety of the West Indian players, assurances have been receivedby the sport’s governing body in the West Indies. These assuranceshave come from the Chairman of the Board of Control for Cricket in SriLanka (BCCSL), the Chairman of BCCSL Mr. Vijaya Malalasekera.The BCCSL Chairman gave those assurances to the president of the WestIndies Cricket Board (WICB), Rev Wes Hall. The officials of bothcricket boards held bilateral discussions while attending the recentlyconcluded International Cricket Council (ICC) meeting in Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia. As a result of these discussions, the BCCSL chairman saidthat the BCCSL and the people of Sri Lanka will undertake measures toguarantee the safety and comfort of the West Indies cricket teamduring its tour to Sri Lanka scheduled for November to December 2001.The BCCSL officials have also informed the WICB that nationalelections have been announced for 5 December,2001, and, if required,match fixtures will be adjusted marginally to avoid interference withthe elections.Meanwhile, during joint discussions, President of the Zimbabwe CricketUnion (ZCU), Mr. Peter Chingoka, has assured the WICB that the ZCU issatisfied with the arrangements in place for team safety and the ZCUwill be participating in the Tri Nations One-Day Internationaltournament between Zimbabwe, West Indies and host country Sri Lanka,scheduled for December.The three countries will continue to liaise with each other to ensurethat player safety remains assured.

Stuart Broad has hailed this summer’s victory over Australia as “the most special Ashes win I’ve been involved with”, but says that England know from bitter previous experience not to let their focus slip when they return to Test action against Pakistan in the UAE next month.Broad, whose career-best haul of 8 for 15 on the first morning at Trent Bridge was the defining moment of the summer, is one of four survivors from the England team that travelled to the Emirates in January 2012 as the No.1-ranked Test team in the world, but finished up on the wrong end of a 3-0 whitewash.Despite competing with the ball on that trip, with Broad himself topping the averages with 13 wickets at 20.46, England struggled with the bat in each of the three Tests, being dismissed for fewer than 200 in four of their six innings. In the second Test in Abu Dhabi, they were set 145 for a series-levelling victory but were shot out for 72 by Pakistan’s spinners, Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Rehman.”[It’s a] really tough [challenge],” Broad told ESPNcricinfo. “But we have got guys of experience who have toured there before. Myself, Jimmy [Anderson], Belly, Cooky, we know the challenges we’ll face there, we know we’ll have to spend long times in the field to create pressure to take wickets and bat a long time.”In addition to winning the Ashes, England have won plaudits this summer for the approach they have taken to their cricket, with a new positive attitude reaping dividends across all three formats.Nevertheless, England’s Test record remains erratic, with four defeats in their last nine outings against West Indies, New Zealand and Australia. In particular, the nature of their two crushing defeats in the Ashes – on the slower, less seam-friendly surfaces at Lord’s and The Oval – doesn’t bode well for the challenges to come.”The biggest skill as an international cricketer is adapting to conditions,” said Broad. “Not every wicket you can go out and play hugely positively on.”I’ve not played at Sharjah [the venue for the third Test], but the wickets in Dubai and [Abu Dhabi] offered a tiny bit of seam but very slowly so we just bowled really straight.”But as a batting unit I remember we just got bowled and lbw a huge amount, which is not what you’d expect from world-class players. So that’s something we’ll have to learn from as a batting unit, to make sure we are playing straight, and look to get big runs because that’s what will determine the UAE trip, big runs on the board.”Broad is mindful of England’s tendency in recent years of following notable series wins with disappointing follow-ups – a pattern that was set in motion with a 2-0 defeat against Pakistan in 2005 following the euphoria of that summer’s Ashes, and continued two winters ago with the 5-0 whitewash that followed straight on from England’s successful home campaign against Australia in 2013.However, he believes that the current England team is at a different stage of its development to previous outfits, and credits Andrew Strauss, the team director, with instilling a new ethic that will help them to retain their focus throughout a tough winter that also includes a Test series against South Africa in December and January.”I think when Straussy came into the job, he had a long-term vision,” said Broad. “Obviously we had a huge goal to win the Ashes this summer but it’s further than that. We want to be a team that the fans enjoy watching, our style of cricket has changed, we are playing a style that people will want to tune in and watch and come to the ground and see.”We want a style of play that will take us a long way with the fans but also get us to the top of the world, and I think we are developing that. Obviously our inconsistencies have been well documented – win, lose, win, lose – but that keeps you on your toes and makes you want to improve when you are training.””There’s a huge goal this winter,” he added. “I’ve not been involved in a Test series win against South Africa, and we got beaten heavily in the UAE last time. There are a lot of goals and a lot of motivation for a lot of success this winter, and when you have a young squad and guys who are desperate to succeed, you can take the team a long way.”Broad, who was not involved in the one-day series against Australia, has been enjoying a rare period of down-time since the Ashes, with a chance to reflect on a remarkable summer in which England’s success was closely linked to his personal achievement. His 21 wickets at 20.90 enabled him to become only the fifth England bowler to claim 300 in Tests.”It was extra special because we weren’t expected to win,” said Broad. “Australia came into the series with such form and dominated the World Cup. If you read all the newspapers and saw all the predictions before it started it was Australia, Australia, Australia.”It was a whole team effort, a group of guys who threw themselves in the series. That’s why it felt so special. We have an end goal to be the best in the world in Test match cricket. That might be a few years away but we know we have the talent in changing room to reach that.”