Kent had Sky Television pundits to thank for facing a fired-up Andrew Caddick on the opening day of the Championship match at Bath.After taking 6-57 to help dismiss the visitors for 261, Caddick admitted that criticism of his Test Match performance against Zimbabwe at Trent Bridge had stung him into a swift response.”Hopefully, that has shut a few Sky TV commentators up,” he said. “One minute you are God’s gift and the next it is back to normal as far as the media are concerned.”I didn’t bowl well in the Test, but it was mainly because the run-ups were so wet. I felt really uncomfortable running in and never got into any sort of rhythm.”A lot of rubbish was talked about the new policy of resting centrally contracted players in the build-up to international games. But everyone should be behind Duncan Fletcher and Nasser Hussain in what they are trying to achieve.”How I bowled at Trent Bridge had nothing to do with preparation. Everyone should be entitled to one bad game and it annoyed me to hear it being analysed to intently.”Kent’s batsmen suffered the backlash after Matthew Fleming had won the toss as Caddick bent his back and extracted far more life from the Recreation Ground wicket than any other bowler on either side.Only Indian Test batsman Rahul Dravid had the technique to cope for long. He needed one or two moments of good fortune, but displayed skill and courage in combating a succession of threatening deliveries during the morning session.Thanks largely to his world class ability, Caddick was frustrated at first, taking 1-26 from his initial nine-over spell. Robert Key helped add 62 for the second wicket and by lunch Kent were handily placed at 102-2.Caddick removed Alan Wells soon after the interval. But Dravid blossomed against the other bowlers, stroking 14 fours on his way to 90 before getting a faint leg-side deflection off Graham Rose to wicketkeeper Rob Turner.It was a high quality innings and particularly praiseworthy for the fact that Dravid had only arrived in England the previous morning having represented India in the Asia Cup.From 170-3 the Kent innings subsided in disappointing fashion. After tea Caddick took 4-22 from seven overs, sending back Mark Ealham and Min Patel in the space of three deliveries.Extra bounce undid most of his victims as he made use of a slight ridge in the Festival pitch. “I wasn’t looking for it, but it was apparent on occasions,” he admitted.The final total of 261 was made to look modest as Somerset openers Jamie Cox and Marcus Trescothick launched a confident reply. Cox set the tone by square cutting the opening delivery of the innings from Ealham for four and the Australian looked in ominous form.Left-hander Trescothick is gunning for England honours this summer and appeared equally untroubled as the home side posted 47 without loss from 20 overs in blustery conditions.

The Central Zone Under-14 match at the Sukhadia Stadium in Bhilwara onthe third and final day on Thursday ended in a draw with Uttar Pradeshtaking home five points on the basis of the first innings lead.Rajasthan had to be content with three points.Set to score 305 for a win, Rajasthan made a disastrous start losingopener Ravishankar (0) bowled by Pradeep. Rajasthan were in deepertrouble when Pradeep bowled Ankit Agarwal (0) with only 5 on theboard. Then Atul Puri (14) and Sanjay Bharti (86) added 45 runs forthe third wicket. After Atul’s fall, Punit Yadav joined Sanjay to takethe score on to 132 when Punit fell to Bharat. Thereafter, Rajasthanlost four quick wicket before stumps were drawn on the final day.In their second innings, Uttar Pradesh openers AG Murtaza (122) and RPandey (23) added a quick 42 off 8.5 overs. Then D Issrani (54) joinedMurtaza to forge a 117 run second wicket partnership in 34.1 overs.Thereafter, Murtaza found company in RK Shukla (50 not out) to put on96 runs for the third wicket in 19.1 overs. The fall of Murtazaprompted the UP skipper to declare the innings.Earlier on the opening day, Uttar Pradesh won the toss and put up afighting 245 on the board. The chief architect being AN Alam with aneatly compiled 108 off 165 balls. During his 218 minute stay Alamheld the UP innings together even as wickets kept falling at the otherend. In reply Rajasthan were all out for 196 runs giving a 49 runlead to UP.

CAPE TOWN, Dec 27 – Western Province’s newfound ability to defend a totalsaw them edge ever closer to a Standard Bank Cup semi-final place with a50-run victory over Free State although their ultimate fate rests in thehands of others.Their 244 for five was too much for Free State and once opener Kosie Venterwas fourth out for a well made 80, the visitors’ Christmas goose was welland truly cooked.Province’s success in claiming the last Free State wicket with two balls tospare also gave them the bonus point that may yet prove crucial.Mind you, Province were prepared to give Free State a life or two to make itmore entertaining for a 5 000-strong crowd which was quite as healthy asthat for the Durban Test match.Herschelle Gibbs, Lloyd Ferreira and HD Ackerman all dropped catches (Gibbs’by far the hardest, Ackerman’s the easiest) but some sparkling glove workfrom Andrew Puttick made up for those lapses.Thami Tsolekile’s promoted understudy produced two stumpings and a catch offthe slow left arm bowling of Claude Henderson to vitally assist the FreeState innings losing its way in mid-innings.His first as the most important. Wiaan Smit – dropped by Ferreira before hereached double figures – was threatening to help the visitors to theirtarget in a 75-run second-wicket partnership withVenter.But his attempt to go down the track to the Henderson in tears and whenMorne van Wyk was brilliantly caught by the diving Graham Smith on the deepmidwicket boundary for 21 it was the cue for four Free State wickets to fallfor 16 runs. There was no way back from there.Western Province’s 244 was founded around the efforts of the prolific NeilJohnson and Ashwell Prince.Johnson thumped his third score of 90 or more in the competition thisseason – 91 this time – and shared a 97-run partnership with Prince (67) in118-ball to give the innings real impetus after it threatened to losedirection at 68 for three when they came together.Johnson made his runs from 115 balls and thundered 11 fours while thefleet-footed Prince scampered to his runs in 75 balls with four fours andone six.With Lloyd Ferreira back to lash 18 in nine balls at the death, Province hadgiven themselves the kind of total that is expected to be defensible as thedew sets in at Newlands.Many of the crowd had probably turned out to see Herschelle Gibbs continuehis rich vein of form. he didn’t. After three balls the prolific openerstepped away in an attempt to cut Bakkes and was caught behind.

Ashish Nehra, who was very much the best Indian bowler on the openingday of the first Test against Zimbabwe on Thursday, has said that hisimmediate objective was to cement his place in the Indian squad.Since the tour of Zimbabwe began, skipper Sourav Ganguly and coachJohn Wright have been singing Nehra’s praises. The left-arm fastbowler from Delhi has performed so well on the tour that the thinktank of the Indian team did not think twice about including him in theteam in place of a seasoned campaigner like Ajit Agarkar. And Nehra,who worked steadily to improve his bowling, did not disappoint them.In an interview to a vernacular daily in Kolkata, Nehra has said,"for the last two years, I have worked very hard. Probably I made myinternational debut a bit to early. But then, I realized whatinternational cricket was all about. Since then, I have worked quietlyin Delhi to increase my pace and, at the same time, my length andline. I can definitely say that I am a better bowler than what I wastwo years ago."Nehra attributes his success to coach John Wright saying, "the lasttime that I was at the conditioning camp with Wright at Bangalore, Ilearnt quite a lot. I learnt that in international cricket there wasno scope for error. The coach has given a number of tips which havecome in very handy."Nehra also said that he was determined to put up a good show atZimbabwe. "When I left home, I had only one aim – to work very hardand to fight. I knew that nothing would come easy. I told myself thatI would be better than everyone at the nets. It seems that my hardwork has finally paid off."Nehra is also thankful to Ganguly for his help. "From the first dayof the tour, he has really backed me and inspired me. A bowler, needsthe confidence of his captain. I’ve got that."

Harbhajan Singh’s recent marvelous feats against Australia, claiming 13 for 196 at Calcutta and 15 for 217 at Chennai, prompted me to take a look at instances of 11 or more wickets in a Test by Pakistani bowlers. The results of this study are:Eleven or more wickets in a Test Match

Notes:

1. Imran Khan claimed 11 or more wickets on 5 occasions
2. Fazal Mahmood on 4 occasions
3. Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis on 3 occasions
4. Abdul Qadir on 2 occasions
5. Mohammad Zahid achieved the feat on his debut
6. Pakistan bowlers have claimed 11 or more wickets on 6 occasions against Australia, 5 times against New Zealand, 4 times against India, 3 times against West Indies, twice against England and Sri Lanka and once against Zimbabwe.

It wasn’t just that it was a century. Or that it was only the third three-figure score of the 2001 ICC Trophy tournament. Or even that it came at a ground that has tended to offer good encouragement to both fast and slow bowlers through most of the warmup and tournament matches to date.Instead, there were many things that were extraordinary about Kenneth Kamyuka’s score of 100 for Uganda in the crucial Division Two contest against Malaysia at Eglinton Flats today.When the powerfully built fast bowler took up his role as a number ten batsman thirty-five overs into the match, his team was in more than just an idle spot of bother. Eight wickets had just crashed for thirty-five runs and a great start from their upper order was being squandered by the Africans. Moreover, their dream of translating excellent lead-up form into a victory over the side expected to provide them with the main opposition in their group was rapidly turning sour.But, by the time that he left the crease just over an hour later, another 124 runs had been thunderously added in a liaison with Richard Mwami that completely changed the complexion of the game … and quite possibly Uganda’s entire tournament as well."I definitely had to go after the bowlers," said Kamyuka with a smile after his heroics."It wouldn’t have made any sense for me just to have stuck around for another fifteen overs just to score thirty runs or so."Defending 150 against such opposition would have been very very risky but 200-plus always gave us a good chance.By any measure, Kamyuka’s century was sensational. Achieved from only fifty-four deliveries – the fifty-fourth being the very last of the Ugandan innings itself – it was based on a phenomenal display of controlled hitting. Although the majority of his runs came from shots powered down the ground, his blows were littered to almost all of its parts. Just for good measure, several carried well out of the field of play itself, eight sixes complementing a quartet of fours."I’m not always comfortable against the medium pacers but I’m very happy looking the spinners."Although Richard is a senior player in our team, I asked him to give me the strike against the slow bowlers. He refused me initially but I insisted!"For his home club in Uganda, Kamyuka is used as a number six batsman in something of an all-rounder’s role. The presence within this current national team of an excellent array of strokemakers has, by necessity, forced him down the order for much of his representative career. But don’t expect him to be batting so low for too much longer.

A cricket stadium at par with international standards will come up in Jaipur, the Rajashtan local Self-Government Minister Shanti Dhariwal said on Thursday. The Jaipur Development Authority had agreed in principle to provide land to the Rajasthan Cricket Association for construction of the stadium after the BCCI made a request for this, he told reporters.The proposed stadium would host only international cricket matches, he said, adding that the RCA would spend Rs six crore for its construction.

There has been no shortage of advice for David Graveney and the other England selectors since the eight-wicket defeat by Australia at Lord’s.Drop Stewart says Dennis Lillee. Pick Tufnell demands the CricInfo poll. Drop yourself, Geoff Lawson urged Graveney.And as well as all the conflicting advice, the selectors have the odd injury problem to take into account. Unavailable are Graham Thorpe, Michael Vaughan, Matthew Hoggard and now Ashley Giles, who will have an operation on his bothersome Achilles tendon on Monday and will be out of action for four to six months.And it seems increasingly unlikely that skipper Nasser Hussain will miss his second consecutive Test because of a fractured finger. Hussain said yesterday: “It started feeling better two or three days ago, but themoment it goes in a glove or around a bat, it’s in a lot of pain. The physiotells me that will die down in a week or so, then I’ve got to get in the netsand get playing. Ten days maybe, I don’t know.”Which means Michael Atherton will step into the breach again and lead England out at Trent Bridge on Thursday. But who will be the other ten behind him?The batting needs bolstering but it is unlikely that the selectors will follow Lillee’s advice; instead it seems that Ian Ward will be the player whose place is threatened when the squad is announced tomorrow.Graveney has been to Lord’s for the Middlesex-Durham game to view two contenders – Owais Shah and Paul Collingwood. And Usman Afzaal, who played in the First Test but made way for Thorpe at Lord’s, sent a timely reminder to the selectors yesterday with a hundred, albeit against Derbyshire. However, the fact that the Third Test is at his home ground and the current England philosophy rails against picking people for only one Test might work in his favour.On the bowling front, Darren Gough and Andy Caddick are in desperate need of support and the whole attack has lacked variety so a spinner could appear at Nottingham. Now Giles is out of the equation it looks like a toss-up between Robert Croft and Phil Tuffnell. The latter would be the people’s choice – although Tufnell himself might not exactly relish bowling on a Trent Bridge shirtfront – but Croft is probably the likelier to get the selectors’ nod.Hussain said: “Tufnell is a fine bowler, has played a lot of Test matchesfor England. We’ve got to show consistency in selection. There are people whohave done us proud in the last year or two, and we’ve got to make sure they arefit and we’ve got to select the best side available for Trent Bridge.”We have three Test matches left; none of us have given up, people might havegiven up on us, but none of us have given up. We’ve got to show both theAustralian side and our own public that we are better than we are playing at themoment and we’ve got three Tests matches to do that.”After Dominic Cork failed to work his magic at Lord’s, the Derbyshire captain will probably be left out of the squad, making way for either Alex Tudor or Chris Silverwood. Tudor made an excellent comeback from injury in the Benson and Hedges Cup final while Silverwood is not even in the Yorkshire side at the moment so the Surrey man will probably get the vote.But another paceman in with a chance is Alan Mullally who did his case no harm at all with his performance against the Australians for Hampshire; a left-armer would also add more variety to the attack.Possible squad: Hussain (captain), Atherton, Trescothick, Butcher, Ramprakash,Afzaal, Stewart (wicket-keeper), White, Tudor, Croft, Caddick, Gough, Mullally.

Just minutes after seeing Somerset Sabres beat Surrey Lions in front of a full house at The County Ground Somerset Coach Kevin Shine told me: “After that sort of performance of course we can still stay up. Before tonight our target was to win four out of the five matches left, now it is to win three out of the four.”As he looked over the balcony at the large number of supporters on the pitch below he said: “It was good to entertain a packed house, there was a lovely family atmosphere in the ground, and this year we produced the goods to send them home happy.”What were the highlights of the game? “It was a fabulous effort all round. Ian Blackwell brought us back into the game with his good spell of bowling. One of the features was that we put a good squeeze on them, because at one stage they were looking at 270-plus. We have become better at doing that. We then had a great batting start, ‘Blacky’ came in and went for it from the start, whilst Peter Bowler batted the way that we wanted, and then Mike Burns came in and took it on for us.”

Gloucestershire completed a resounding victory by an innings and 59 runs at Lord’s with Middlesex being all out for just 119 in their second innings.Having been dismissed for 222 shortly after lunch on the fourth day, Middlesex were made to follow-on 178 runs behind.It took Gloucestershire less than three and-a-half hours to wrap up the home side’s second innings having claimed their first four wickets within twenty overs. Andy Strauss went in the third over and Owais Shah in the fifth, both scoring one.Ian Harvey, who did not bowl in the first innings then claimed the next two wickets. He had Stephen Fleming caught at short leg with the total on 23 and two runs later, ten minutes before tea, Paul Weekes was held low at first slip without scoring.Middlesex had a glimmer of hope of saving the match when Robin Weston and David Alleyne put on 80 for the fifth wicket. But with Weston being bowled by Mark Alleyne for 40, off 101 balls an hour into the final session, and David Alleyne also going on the total of 105, for an adventurous 44 from 58 balls which included five boundaries and a six, there was little resistance left.Chad Keegan and Angus Fraser both fell on 109 followed by Ben Hutton, without scoring. He had earlier gone off injured while batting and came out again at the fall of the seventh wicket.Finally, Harvey, who finished with 4-20 from 14.2 overs, completed the task for the west country side having Tim Bloomfield caught behind for two.Earlier this morning, Middlesex, having resumed on 141 for four and needing a further 110 runs with six wickets standing, to avoid the follow-on, made it difficult for themselves losing four wickets in a space of an hour.Mark Alleyne struck the first blow for Gloucestershire having Ben Hutton caught behind after the left-hander had added only six – in half-an-hour – to his overnight 29.The first bowling change proved most effective with Alleyne replacing himself with James Averis who responded with two wickets off successive balls. He had Stephen Fleming caught behind off the last ball of his first over and then claimed Chad Keegan’s wicket in the same manner, both falling on 169.After a 30-run partnership for the eighth wicket, Middlesex lost two more wickets to the medium pace of Averis. Angus Fraser, 16, in attempting to flick to leg was snapped up at short mid-wicket and on the penultimate ball before lunch Tim Bloomfield fell as he skied his drive to extra cover.Averis’ excellent effort had given him 4-11 before lunch to which he added the last Middlesex wicket after the break.