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Scorecard
Sri Lanka A offspinner Sachithra Senanayake picked up the five Pakistan A wickets to fall on the fourth and final day of the drawn first unofficial Test in Galle.Pakistan A had started strongly, with Test batsman Khurram Manzoor and Under-19 World Cup captain Azeem Ghumman adding 91 runs. Senanayake dismissed the duo in successive overs, setting off a mini-collapse and suddenly, Pakistan A were stuttering at 124 for 5. However, Aamer Sajjad and wicketkeeper Naeem Anjum ensured there were no further wobbles, sharing an unbroken 98-run partnership. After both batsmen reached their half-centuries, the match was called off. Senanayake finished with 5 for 40, his 17th first-class five-wicket haul.Sri Lanka A declared their innings once captain Thilina Kandamby completed his 12th first-class century. After play over the first three days was marred by rain – only 87 overs were bowled – 70 overs were possible on the last day.The second and final unofficial Test starts in Hambantota from September 15.

ScorecardDawid Malan finished on 84 not out as Middlesex duly wrapped up their fourth victory of the season beating Division Two leaders Glamorgan by six wickets on the final morning at Cardiff. It took the batsmen, Malan and Gareth Berg, only 10.4 overs and 38 minutes to knock off the 50 runs they required for victory.That was after Middlesex had ended the third day in a dominant position at 200 for 4. Middlesex took 19 points from the contest to Glamorgan’s three, with the Welsh county set to lose top spot to Sussex.But with three games remaining Glamorgan are still 17 points ahead of third-placed Gloucestershire in the promotion race. Glamorgan opened with spin from both ends at the start of the final day but it proved ineffectual as the fifth-wicket pair added 34 from the first seven overs.Malan, 52 overnight, pulled Dean Cosker for four and in the next over Berg cover drove Robert Croft to the boundary. Stand-in skipper Mark Wallace turned to seam after the first seven overs, but when he decided to take the second new ball Middlesex only required 10 more to win.Victory arrived with Malan driving David Harrison over cover for four. Glamorgan will now have to regroup before they play Sussex at Hove next week, a match that will almost certainly see them without their captain Jamie Dalrymple, who broke his right thumb when he was hit by seamer Pedro Collins while batting during the first innings.

The BCCI’s three-member disciplinary committee has sent a letter to Lalit Modi asking him to appear before it on July 16 to defend himself against the charges made by the board. Modi’s demand to remove interim IPL chairman Chirayu Amin from the committee will also be considered at the hearing.”You are requested to be present in person to address the disciplinary committee on the said issues after which the disciplinary committee/its members shall decide the issues raised,” the letter said.However, Modi’s lawyer Mehmood Abdi would not commit to his client’s presence at the meeting as the Bombay High Court is due to hear Modi’s petition asking it to quash the BCCI’s proceedings against him on July 14. “Many things can come to pass between now and July 16,” Abdi told Cricinfo.The BCCI voted to ratify the charges against Modi and refer the case to its disciplinary committee at a special general body meeting held in Mumbai last week. At the same meeting, Jyotiraditya Scindia was added to the three-member disciplinary panel to replace BCCI president Shashank Manohar, who had recused himself from the case. Modi had accused Manohar and board secretary N Srinivasan of harbouring personal grudges against him and insisted neither of them should be involved in deciding his case. The third member of the committee is board vice-president Arun Jaitley.Following the decision, Modi’s lawyers sent a legal notice to the BCCI, claiming that Amin may have a grudge against their client, and should therefore be replaced on the panel, as Modi was the person who disclosed publicly that Amin was part of a consortium led by Pune-based construction company City Corporation that made an unsuccessful bid for the two new franchises this year. Modi has also asked the court to appoint an independent person or panel to judge his case.

ScorecardSamit Patel’s second half-century in three days secured a third straight Friends Provident t20 win for Nottinghamshire Outlaws as they swept aside Worcestershire Royals by six wickets with 23 balls to spare.After limiting the visitors to 150 for 7, with Dirk Nannes and Graeme White both picking up two wickets, Patel hit 63 from 34 balls with five fours and three sixes while David Hussey was unbeaten on 34, finishing off the match with a straight six.Moeen Ali top-scored for Worcestershire with 67 from 48 balls, supported by stand-in captain Daryl Mitchell (34 not out), but with Vikram Solanki missing with a pelvic injury, the visitors were always short of batting power. In particular, they were unable to deal with the pace and hostility of Nannes and England pair Stuart Broad and Ryan Sidebottom, with the trio conceding only nine boundaries from their 12 overs.Mitchell chose to bat in this Trent Bridge contest after winning the toss but saw openers Jack Manuel and Phil Jaques both depart cheaply in the powerplay overs. Alexei Kervezee and Steve Smith also contributed little but a partnership of 64 for the fifth wicket between Ali and Mitchell gave Worcestershire a score closer to par, with Ali hitting three sixes in the 13th and 14th overs to boost the run-rate.He then hit White for a further maximum with a slog-sweep before perishing with the same shot to the next ball, while Nannes yorked James Cameron and ran out Gareth Andrew in the final over. The pedigree of Nottinghamshire’s international pace trio was amply demonstrated in the first two overs of their innings, as openers Alex Hales and Ali Brown took 26 off bowlers Imran Arif and Richard Jones.That set the tone for the chase and while Hales, Brown and Matt Wood all departed in the powerplay overs, the hosts were well ahead of the run-rate and Patel ensured they only pulled further ahead with a succession of sweet boundaries over extra cover. He was one of two wickets for leg-spinner Smith but Hussey and Chris Read completed the win to leave the Outlaws sitting pretty at the top of the North Group.

ScorecardJonathan Trott reminded the England selectors that he can play Twenty20 cricket as well as the longer form of the game as Warwickshire claimed a five-wicket Friends Provident t20 win over Nottinghamshire at Edgbaston.David Hussey top-scored with 81 not out in Nottinghamshire’s 176 for 6. But Trott hit an aggressive 46 at the top of the order as the hosts inflict a first defeat on Notts in this season’s competition.Trott made a double century in the first Test against Bangladesh last month but missed out on a place in the World Twenty20 squad and has also been omitted from England’s squad for the forthcoming one-day internationals against Scotland and Australia.He faced 30 balls for his highest Twenty20 score of the season and his opening stand of 74 in 40 balls with Neil Carter set Warwickshire on course for their third win in the competition – a result which moved them into second place in the North group, a point adrift of Nottinghamshire.The pitch, which was used for the third time in six days, was still full of runs but Nottinghamshire were plunged into early trouble before Hussey came to the rescue. The visitors were 35 for 3, which quickly became 40 for 4, when Hussey came to the crease.But the Australian steered them to a strong total with an innings of superb placement. There were two sixes – both straight driven off Imran Tahir and Rikki Clarke – and eight fours in Hussey’s 42-ball innings but he also expertly found the gaps on the long Rea Bank boundary to scamper twos and singles. His 81 was his highest Twenty20 score in England.Chris Read, who has handed over the captaincy to Hussey for this competition, gave excellent support in a fifth wicket stand of 78 in nine overs and Paul Franks sustained the assault with 23 from 12 balls after Read drove to Trott at deep backward point.In reply, Warwickshire stuttered after Trott was caught behind carving at slow left-armer Graeme White and they lost three wickets for eight runs in three overs. However, Clarke and Ant Botha saw them home with seven balls to spare with a unbroken sixth wicket stand of 54 from 29 balls.Clarke atoned for bowling four overs for 48 by rattling to 34 from 22 balls which included three sixes, the most decisive a leg-side flick off Dirk Nannes in what proved to be the final over.

England’s victorious Twenty20 captain, Paul Collingwood, believes that his team’s triumph in the Caribbean is on a par with last summer’s Ashes win, but insists that there will be no problem whatsoever as he prepares to hand the England captaincy back to Andrew Strauss, who has been taking a break since the end of the tour of South Africa in January.England’s seven-wicket win over Australia in Barbados ended the country’s run of 35 years without a major ICC trophy, and was made possible by an exciting new brand of attacking cricket which was entirely at odds with the diffident displays England have shown in previous limited-overs campaigns. But the focus now returns to Test cricket, with the series against Bangladesh looming next week, and with that in mind, Collingwood was very happy to relinquish the leadership.”Andrew Strauss is obviously our captain in the one-day format and in the Test format,” Collingwood told reporters at Gatwick Airport. “This was solely my job as Twenty20 captain, to go out and win the World Cup, which is exactly what we’ve done. There’s no pressure on him coming back in.”He’s a fantastic leader, and a lot of this kind of success we’ve had over the last few weeks can go down to a lot of the values he and Andy Flower have installed in us over the past year. The team ethic has certainly helped the team gel together and become a strong unit.”With his return to the ranks imminent, Collingwood was able to reflect with satisfaction on his moment of glory. “We went over there to win a World Cup and we achieved that,” he told Radio 5 Live. “It’s a massive achievement. We’ve had a monkey on backs having not won an ICC trophy and put that right. It’s right up there with last year’s Ashes win.”We had a team with plenty of belief and a team with plenty of skill. The brand of cricket we played was exciting, and we really took it to the opposition. Really it was about consistent performances right the way through and we built on that momentum right the way through to final.”

Wasim Akram, the former Pakistan fast bowler and current bowling coach of the Kolkata Knight Riders, has said players in the IPL have been actively tampering with the ball, making it difficult for batsmen to sight it in the later stages of the innings. Akram said he has spotted bowlers rubbing red soil on the ball in places like Mumbai, Rajasthan and Ahmedabad once the floodlights take effect, thereby reducing its visibility when the batsmen are looking to accelerate.”I won’t name anyone but I have seen quite a few cricketers who have been rubbing mud on the ball and that is also tampering,” Akram told espnstar.com. ” If umpires are not watching then I don’t know who is. In this IPL, umpires should look for players who are putting mud on the ball because you can’t alter the state of the ball with anything.”Around the 18th, 19th over in places like Rajasthan, Mumbai or Ahmedabad where there is red soil it is difficult to see the ball under lights and by putting the mud on the ball these players are trying to contain the batsmen or get wickets.”However, Akram denied that rubbing mud on the ball would result in reverse swing. He added that the practice of spinners vigorously running their hands over mud before bowling does not amount to tampering. “That is different, that is just to get some grip on the ball but here someone is just going berserk rubbing the mud on the ball,” he said.Akram’s claims have been denied by Shane Warne, the Rajasthan Royals captain. “I don’t agree with it. I have been hearing this for the first time. You better ask Akram. Maybe he is an expert on this,” Warne said.Akram took over his position with the franchise at the start of this season and is the only Pakistani involved in the IPL. One of the team’s strike bowlers, Ishant Sharma, has struggled in the tournament, picking seven wickets from as many games at an expensive economy rate of 9.44 and conceding 33 runs per wicket. Akram admitted that the fast bowler was struggling to find his rhythm but backed him to bounce back.”He is out of rhythm but is working extremely hard. He just needs a couple of good games and the rhythm will be back,” Akram said. “Ishant feels his run-up is not smooth and the rhythm is not there. He just needs to bowl in the nets, which he is doing, and which will help him get the rhythm back. He is getting wickets but in T20 it is difficult to regain form because, unlike Test matches and ODIs, there are just four overs bowled here and that too on dead tracks.”He said a county stint would help Ishant immensely. ” I think he will be playing for Hampshire this season. And that will improve his bowling and organisational skills because in England he will be alone,” Akram said. “When I was 21, I used to get up at one o’ clock because at this age you tend to sleep late and he does the same which is fine with me. But in county cricket, he won’t get time to rest so much because he will be traveling and bowling everyday. In the process his bowling muscles will get stronger which will help increase his pace.”When asked about up and coming fast bowlers who have impressed him in his coaching stint, Akram singled out the Under-19 left-arm seamer Jaidev Unadkat. “This young kid in our side, Jaidev Unadkat, is the one to watch out for. He is lean like I was when I was 17-18, he can swing the ball both ways and he is hard working. I think we will hear about him in about a couple of years.”

In his 21st year of international cricket, Sachin Tendulkar has been in superb form – runs have flowed in Tests and ODIs and now the Twenty20 format. His innings at the Kotla on Wednesday encompassed all that is brilliant about the man – not just in the manner of his own batting but in how it influenced Mumbai Indians, both necessary traits if they aspire to reach the IPL semi-finals.Mind over body
That Tendulkar can score 200 in an ODI and continue to drag a cricket ball from outside off stump and hit it through midwicket at the age of 37 instead of 27, Geoffrey Boycott wrote recently, will continue to astonish many. Yet it should not, he added, come as a surprise: though a player’s fitness starts to slip a bit when he hits the mid-30s, the vast experience gained allows him to play smart cricket. The result, as Tendulkar so aptly showed this evening, was that he can perform just as well as he did at 27 without stretching his body to breaking point.Tendulkar is clearly enjoying his cricket, and it was evident in his body language throughout the game. After losing the toss and being asked to bat, a calm Tendulkar said he would have chosen to do so anyway. You could sense he was eager to get out and bat on what he called “a venue that has never been bouncy and tends to play slow and low”. His mind was running, and the body caught up soon after in a thrilling display of what experience and form can produce.Touch and thwack
Tendulkar has often been more of a touch artist than a bludgeoner but today he showed the gamut from subtle to sledgehammer. His first four boundaries were delicate, tapping the ball lightly with deft wristwork and helping it on its way square of the wicket on both sides. Then, after he scooped a thick edge just over the cover fielder for four, Tendulkar brought out the thump: he stepped out to the legspinner Sarabjit Ladda, made room and produced a big straight hit that bounced just in front of the sightscreen. He repeated the dosage for Amit Mishra. First he played a delicate caress to a fullish ball, hanging back and opening the face of the bat to get four between short third man and point, and next ball smashed it back past the bowler who smartly got out of the way. This trend continued until Tendulkar was dismissed by Mishra for a 32-ball 63.Setting the tone
Getting a start is critical in Twenty20 and Tendulkar delivered in the manner that suits him best. He didn’t give the bowlers a chance and made sure to keep the ball along the ground. His aggressive intent and the success it yielded, allowed the remaining batsmen to play around him. Aditya Tare slammed 17 from ten balls before he missed a slog, and the pair that followed built on a run rate that was over 10.50. The platform had been set, and Saurabh Tiwary and Ambati Rayudu were able to come out and ride on the wave, ultimately setting up a 200-plus total.Big Brother
Aside from his role as batsman, what Tendulkar offers as a thinktank is massive. Two days ago, in the build-up to this massive clash, Tendulkar spent extra time with Tiwary in the nets at the Feroz Shah Kotla, feeding him with balls to fine-tune his sweep shots, which were going wayward. Clearly there has been a thought process behind elevating Tiwary to the first-choice playing XI this season. This season, Tiwary has played some sparkling innings for Jharkhand, the state he captains on the domestic front, and it has not been lost on the Mumbai management. Having someone of Tendulkar’s stature give you additional time before a match can work wonders and the result was Tiwary’s second belligerent half-century in a row. Under him the Indian players seem to have found the confidence to do well, and how Tendulkar continues to nurture the likes of Tare, Tiwary and Rayudu could be the decisive chapter in Mumbai’s season.Sachin the strategist
Today, Tendulkar held back the star West Indian duo of Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard, who had only reached India late last night, until the innings was almost done. Given the big bucks doled out for Pollard and Bravo, it would have been tempting to throw them in early but Tendulkar resisted and the move paid off richly.During Delhi’s chase he turned to Sanath Jayasuriya after Harbhajan Singh got a wicket in his first over, and the Sri Lankan allrounder struck in successive overs. Again, it would have been easy to keep Bravo and Pollard on but Tendulkar read the track and knew spin was going to be crucial. These are but small instances that allude to how he thinks.Talisman effect
A Mumbai victory over Delhi in the Ranji Trophy always merits quite a few columns of newspaper space, and so should this win in the IPL. The playing field is vastly different, but given the form Delhi have been in and the all-round weight they boast of, this certainly qualified as an upset. They had won two in a row, and Mumbai can take fantastic encouragement from the fact that they’ve hit some form themselves.Watching Mumbai’s first two games this season, it is evident that this is a team that has the firepower to do well, but what they need to inspire them is Tendulkar. His injury in 2008 and patchy form in 2009 were undoubtedly factors in Mumbai’s ordinary displays. But after two disappointing seasons the team may just have found the man in the right frame of mind. Captaincy has never been Tendulkar’s strong point, as two disastrous stints in charge of India attest to, but in the Twenty20 format, and in such rich form, he may just be on the right path.

Surrey have signed Rao Iftikhar Anjum, the Pakistan paceman, as their overseas player to cover for Piyush Chawla, who will be playing in the IPL during the early part of the season.Iftikhar, 29, has an impressive first-class record, with 388 wickets at 23.87 but has only played one Test for Pakistan, against Sri Lanka almost four years ago. He has featured more regularly in the one-day side, taking 77 wickets from 62 games at an average over 31.He will join up with Surrey at the start of the 2010 season and be available for the first three County Championship matches of the year against Derbyshire at The Oval; away at Hove against Sussex and the festival match against Worcestershire at Whitgift School.Surrey have a new captain, 22-year-old Rory Hamilton-Brown, and are looking to bounce back from a difficult season last year that saw them win just one game in Division Two of the Championship. Chris Adams, the Surrey coach, thinks Iftikhar will bring important experience to the early season.”Signing someone with the experience and proven wicket-taking abilities of Rao Iftikhar will allow us to add a bit of quality to the squad and is very much in line with the signings that we have already made since the end of the 2009 season,” said Adams.”Along with his impressive stats I believe Rao is the type of bowler who will perform well in English conditions and with Pakistan touring later in the year, he has a terrific opportunity to lay down a marker for selection. He can swing the ball well, has a very repeatable action and consistently bowls in the mid to high eighties. We look forward to his arrival.”Surrey have a rich tradition of Pakistani bowlers, with Saqlain Mushtaq and Waqar Younis among the many who have featured at The Oval, and Iftikhar is looking forward to adding him name to that pantheon. “Playing for an English county has long been an ambition of mine and am I very much looking forward to joining Surrey in the coming weeks. Some of the greatest Pakistani bowlers of recent times have played for Surrey and I am honoured to be following in their footsteps.”

Except for the omission of fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar, there were no major surprises in Pakistan’s preliminary 30-man squad for the defence of their World Twenty20 title in the Caribbean in two months’ time. Injured fast bowler Sohail Tanvir, who has not played any cricket since November, was also overlooked.Ijaz Butt, the PCB chairman, said Shoaib had been overlooked because he had hardly played any cricket in the past ten months. Though Shoaib has only taken part in a couple of List A matches since the series against Australia in UAE last May, he had said last week that he was still confident of making an international comeback. He will lead Islamabad Leopards in the upcoming RBS Twenty20 Cup.Butt said Tanvir would undergo knee surgery in Australia. “The doctors are not sure when he will regain the fitness,” he told .Another fast bowler who was missing from the probables was Mohammad Talha, who had been part of the squad for the two Twenty20s against England last weekend.The PCB also announced a list of 30 probables for the ICC Women’s World Twenty20 which will run parallel to the men’s tournament in the West Indies.Men’s squad: Imran Nazir, Imran Farhat, Khalid Latif, Mohammad Hafeez, Salman Butt, Shahzaib Hassan, Shoaib Malik, Umar Akmal, Naveed Yasin, Hasan Raza, Kamran Younis, Misbah-ul-Haq, Babar Azam, Fawad Alam, Abdul Razzaq, Shahid Afridi, Yasir Arafat, Hammad Azam, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Umar Gul, Mohammad Aamer, Mohammad Asif, Wahab Riaz, Mohammad Sami, Saeed Ajmal, Raza Hasan, Abdul Rehman, Kamran Akmal, Sarfraz Ahmed, Zulqarnain Haider.Women’s squad: Sana Mir, Bismah Maroof, Nain Abidi, Sajjida Shah, Javeria Khan, Almas Akram, Nida Dar, Zeba Manzoor, Kainat Imtiaz, Faryal Awan, Armaan Khan, Sumaiya Siddiqi, Urooj Mumtaz, Nazia Sadiq, Sabeen Abdul Samad, Masooma Junaid, Qanita Jalil, Sadia Yousuf, Sania Khan, Marina Iqbal, Sana Gulzar, Ayesha Qazi, Sukhan Faiz, Rabia Batool, Saima Jamil, Batool Fatima, Asmavia Iqbal, Rabia Shah, Sidra Amin, Sidra Nawaz.