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ScorecardRachel Priest scored her maiden ODI ton•Getty Images

Opener Rachel Priest’s maiden century set up New Zealand’s 96-run win over Sri Lanka in the first Women’s ODI in Lincoln. Besides going 1-0 up in the five-match series, New Zealand have moved up to fourth on the ICC women’s championship points table.Asked to bat, New Zealand ran up a big score thanks to their top-three batsmen. After captain Suzie Bates (38) and Priest added 84 runs for the first wicket, Priest raised 131 runs in the company of Amy Satterthwaite, who made 69 off 72 balls.While there weren’t any major contributions after Priest and Satterthwaite departed in the space of three overs, the hosts made enough to stifle their opponents. Left-arm spinner Inoka Ranaweera cleaned up the lower order and finished with four wickets.Sri Lanka’s reply had a good beginning, as Chamari Atapattu put on 54 runs with Prasadini Weerakkody, but once Weerakkody was run out, wickets began to fall at regular intervals. Only Atapattu resisted for the visitors, but with little support from the other batsmen, the chase was never on. Offspinner Leigh Kasperek accounted for four wickets, including those of Atapattu and captain Shashikala Siriwardene.

The match between Knights and Cape Cobras in Kimberley was tied after rain ended play with the scores level on the D/L method during the chase. Pursuing 182, Rilee Rossouw made an explosive start, scoring 29 at a strike-rate of 241 to lead Knights to 40 in 2.5 overs, when he was dismissed. Wickets began to fall before partnerships could be built after that, and though they maintained a run-rate of close to 10, Knights had slipped to 119 for 5 when rain ended play after the 13th over. As it turned out, they were on par with the D-L score. In their innings, the Cape Cobras top three produced quick and substantial contributions to lead their team to 181 for 4. Andrew Puttick made 51, Stiaan van Zyl 48 and Owais Shah 45.Half-centuries from Martin van Jaarsveld and Farhaan Berhadien helped set up Titans‘ 29-run victory against Warriors in East London. The pair lifted Titans from 45 for 3 in the sixth over, after they had decided to bat, with a 94-run partnership. van Jaarsveld made 77 off 46 balls and Behardien an unbeaten 54 off 37. Both batsmen hit three sixes, and Titans finished with 174 for 5 from 20 overs. Titans’ decision to open the defense with Roelof van der Merwe’s spin paid off as JJ Smuts was dismissed in the first over. van der Merwe went on to have figures of 2 for 21 in four overs. Left-arm spinner Paul Harris also had a good outing, taking 3 for 22, his wickets being those of the Warriors’ top-scorer Ashwell Price, for 49, and middle-order batsmen Justin Kreusch and Kelly Smuts. The Warriors lost wickets at regular intervals and were restricted to 145 for 7 in their 20 overs.Impi made their debut against Lions in Potchefstroom and it was not a happy one. They were restricted and dismissed for 92 in 19.5 overs in pursuit of 154. Only two Impi batsmen – Cobus Pienaar and Ryan Canning – made double-figure scores. Ethan O’Reilly had figures of 4-1-4-2 for Lions, and Aaron Phangsio and Dwaine Pretorius also took two wickets apiece. Lions did not perform impressively with the bat either, slumping from 89 for 2 to 108 for 7 in 16.3 overs, before Chris Morris blasted 31 off 13 balls to lead them to 153.

There will be a tendency to dismiss as inconsequential India’s2-0 Test series victory over Zimbabwe. After all, it was a winachieved against the ninth-ranked Test nation – out of 10, it maybe added. Also, as I stated in an earlier column, it does notmatter that India is rated number seven or eight in the currentTest rankings. In home conditions, the Indian team makes forrather formidable opposition, borne out by the fact that only oneteam has won a Test series here in the last 15 years. Even topranked Australia came a cropper in their bid to cross the “finalfrontier” a year ago.That said, it must not be forgotten that India won both thematches in the series, something they were unable to achieveagainst the same team in their last series played here some 15months ago. Andy Flower thwarted India from registering a secondvictory on that occasion, and the left-hander’s failure this timewas certainly one reason why India made a sweep of the seriesfairly comfortably, the rather unconvincing achievement of theNew Delhi win notwithstanding. With all the huffing and puffingat the Feroz Shah Kotla, one must remember that the victorymargin in the first Test was an innings and 101 runs.

In the ultimate analysis, the series victory, besides underliningthe fact that India continues to be awe-inspiring opposition athome, also served to confirm the strengths and weaknesses of thehosts. Touching upon the former, one must first mention theHarbhajan Singh – Anil Kumble duo. The two look well on coursefor taking their place in the honoured list of the great Indianspinning pairs of the past ­ Subhash Gupte and Vinoo Mankad, BSChandrasekhar and Bishan Singh Bedi, and Erapalli Prasanna andBedi. The two complement each other perfectly, and notunexpectedly, they have showered praise on one another.In his 32nd year, Kumble, with over 300 wickets in the bag, is atthe peak of his powers, while his partner, 10 years younger,obviously has his better days ahead of him. Indian cricket’sstrongest point, for some years now, has been its middle-orderbatting, but the time is not far off, I venture to guess, whenthis accolade passes on to the spin duo, who shared 28 wickets inthe two Tests.Speaking of the middle-order batting, the series against Zimbabwesaw this mighty aspect lose nothing of the aura surrounding itfor some time now. Sachin Tendulkar made his customary hundred,while Rahul Dravid used the opportunity to get into his groovefollowing treatment to a shoulder injury. If there is a suddenquestion mark over VVS Laxman, who only a year ago had scaled newpeaks and was hailed as a Messiah, it is heartening to know thatVirender Sehwag and Sanjay Bangar are around to fill that vitalnumber six slot in the middle order.But what was most encouraging was Sourav Ganguly finally strikingform. The Indian captain has always been a classy player, but hisextended bad run saw some critics baying for his blood. I, forone, did not join the growing list of detractors. To me,Ganguly’s case will always be paralleled with that of GundappaViswanath who too, more than once during his 91-Test career, wentthrough a bad patch that led to the “experts” calling for hisremoval. The selectors, however, displayed more wisdom than thedetractors, and the Karnataka stylist repaid this confidencehandsomely. Similarly, I can only see Ganguly getting better andbetter from here on.Shiv Sunder Das, I have always believed, is on course toovertaking Navjot Singh Sidhu as the finest Indian openingbatsman in the post-Gavaskar period. The just-concluded seriesconfirmed this view. It can also be taken as confirmed that DeepDasgupta has played his last Test match. The doors are now wideopen for Ajay Ratra, who can grab this opportunity to cement hisplace in the side as a specialist wicket-keeper whose batting isa bonus. Bangar, who opens the batting for Railways, could be asuitable contender to become Das’ partner at the top of theorder.

There was little wrong with the new ball attack, with JavagalSrinath and Zaheer Khan capable of making the earlybreakthroughs. The latter was particularly impressive, his speed,swing, line and length all having the Zimbabwe batsmen hopping.As far as home conditions go, I emphasise, there seems to be noproblem with the Indian attack, and it is to be hoped that Bangarwill work on his bowling skills to become the kind of all-rounderthat Indian cricket has needed for so long.A word about the visitors. In a nutshell, they proved to begallant losers. They were badly outplayed at Nagpur, but within afew days, they were able to raise the level of their game severalnotches to run India pretty close at the Kotla. Overall, however,their batsmen found Kumble and Harbhajan too hot to handle, whilethe bowlers were no match for the run-hungry Indian batsmen.But a bright future surely awaits Ray Price. The 25-year-oldleft-arm spinner displayed tenacity of purpose, a tantalisinglength and line, besides biting turn on a pitch that was onlyslightly helpful. Even the reputation of being the best playersof spin did not aid the Indian batsmen in overcoming the guilesof Price, and however long he plays the game, the fact that hedismissed Tendulkar three times running ­ twice for scores lessthan 50 ­ could remain his proudest achievement.

A day after premier news agencies voiced their concern about the IPL’s media guidelines, the Editors Guild of India – an influential lobby group – has criticised what it calls “prohibitive conditions” that are “unprecedented and unacceptable to the Indian media.” The criticism, in a letter from the Guild to Sharad Pawar, the BCCI president, and Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, comes on a day the league confirmed that websites would not be given accreditation for the tournament.The Sports Journalists’ Federation of India also issued a statement expressing “alarm and concern” over the IPL’s conditions and asked that the “unfair and unethical restrictions being placed on the media be withdrawn unconditionally”.The contentious conditions include the IPL’s right to use all pictures taken at its grounds for free and without restrictions; the commitment by news organisations to upload on the IPL site, within 24 hours, all images taken at the ground; and the restriction of web portals’ access to images without prior permission from the IPL.”The conditions described in the form stipulate, among other things, that the media cannot use any image or photograph in any other publication, even if it belongs to the same organisation. Indirectly, it is making a claim on the images taken by the media organisations as a property of the IPL,” the Guild’s letter said.”To say the least, this is a ridiculous claim, unheard of in the annals of free India’s media tradition. The IPL is even making a claim on the said property for future use. The rules also stipulate that still images, taken by accredited photographers cannot be used for online editions of the newspapers for which the photographers may be working. In an age when most newspapers are also available to online readers, this stipulation is extremelyuntenable.”On Thursday, the IPL had indicated it was open to negotiations on the contentious conditions. However, it came out with another condition on Friday: those working for websites will not be granted accreditation for the event. “We will not be granting accreditation to websites as we will be having a site of our own for IPL,” Ratnakar Shetty, the BCCI’s chief administrative officer and an ex-officio member of the IPL board, said.It is believed that a decision to this effect was taken during a meeting involving media accreditation officials on Thursday night. IS Bindra, a member of the IPL’s governing council, told Cricinfo on Thursday that the portal rights for the event had been sold to a US company for US$50 million.

Sachin Tendulkar admitted that he hadn’t looked at the scoreboard when he was in the nineties, not wanting to think of missing out on a hundred yet again. Tendulkar endured seven scores in the nineties in the last year and said he would savour this hundred as a special one.”It was a little different this time because in 2007 I missed a lot of hundreds and I didn’t want that to continue,” he said referring to his string of dismissals in the nineties, including three on 99. “I wanted to move on and the beginning of the new year is extremely important. It came at the right time so I am happy about that.”I didn’t look at the scoreboard, to be honest. I was just sharing my opinion with Harbhajan about how to go on with the innings and build our partnership and continue and that was the prime focus. That kept my mind pre-occupied with a lot of things.”Harbhajan joined Tendulkar after a mini-collapse, when India lost four wickets for 52 runs in 14.5 overs. “I had to re-think the strategy as we lost four wickets in that period. We had to plan little different. One big partnership was important.”The striking feature of this innings was Tendulkar’s decision to trust the tailenders, even if it was No. 11 Ishant Sharma, who’s previous 13 first-class innings had produced just 15 runs. “It was our strategy,” he said. “For me there was just one fielder at gully saving one otherwise all were virtually on the boundary line or half-way down. To try something stupid and get out would have been unwise.”I thought if runs had come earlier with Harbhajan and RP Singh, the same strategy should be applied. Ishant scored some important 23-24 runs. What eventually matters is the partnership and not who takes the initiative. We had these calculations going our way.”Tendulkar’s innings was greeted with such a tremendous response that it often appeared he was the home batsman. “I am very happy with the way the crowd have supported us. Australians are known for that, they enjoy good cricket, they enjoy competitive cricket and it makes the players feel it’s worthwhile to have the spectators to enjoy the game in the right spirit. They know and understand the game very well. It was truly a pleasure to be out there in the middle and get runs in front of the Australian crowd.”Was the SCG, where he now averages 326, his favourite ground? “It is one of my favourite grounds,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed batting here and it has truly been a memorable one. Sometimes you walk on the field and it gives you good feelings. It is one of those grounds.”

Five unnamed Australian cricketers did not meet the original Sunday deadline to register for the Indian Premier League (IPL) player auction, however they were given a one-day extension as they sought clarification on contract details. The reported the players were all likely to register after receiving approval from Cricket Australia.Neil Maxwell, the agent who has been liaising between the IPL and Australia’s players, said there was no reason to expect any surprise absences at Wednesday’s bidding war. “There is always a chance [of a player not signing] but at this point we have alleviated any issues they have had,” Maxwell told the paper.The Australians only received a revised version of the IPL’s long-form contract on Thursday, which Maxwell conceded gave them little time to digest the details. But apart from the five expected to register on Monday, the remaining players returned their signed contracts by the Sunday deadline.The agreements came after Lalit Modi, the IPL chairman, said the issues regarding Cricket Australia’s sponsorship concerns had been resolved. Cricket Australia had been intent on receiving global protection for its major supporters – it did not want to risk its players promoting rival companies – but Modi said the Australian board had acquiesced.The rush of Australian signatures coincided with reports that another former Test player, Michael Kasprowicz, was poised to join the Indian Cricket League (ICL). The said the newly-retired Kasprowicz, who played his last game for Queensland on Saturday, was ready to agree to a three-year ICL deal.

ScorecardMichael Yardy leaves the field for the final time in first-class cricket•Getty Images

Since this match was played during the university term, the large press box at Headingley, which is situated in a complex owned by Leeds Beckett University, was being used for lectures on the final day of this game.Thus, while the mighty Yorkshire bowling attack sent Sussex’s rather stunned cricketers down to the Second Division, students sat in serried rows with the blinds firmly down in the Kilner Auditorium and listened to no doubt worthy lectures on important subjects such as thermodynamics or computer science.Quite right too, perhaps, but for the undergraduates, many of whom were keen cricket fans, it must have been frustration itself. Jack Brooks removed the top three in Sussex’s order in one of the finer new-ball spells you will see and all they could hear were muffled cheers amid the theorems. “There’s music in the names I used to know / And magic when I heard them long ago”, wrote Thomas Moult in “The Names”, a golden age poem written in the persona of a cricket-loving adult remembering his schooldays.Certainly drama students might have learned something from watching the cricket on this last day of the season. Sussex began their innings needing to bat out 92 overs for the draw or score 309 runs to win. The achievement of either goal would have prolonged their five-year stay in the First Division, but they never looked like reaching either objective. Yorkshire’s bowlers saw to that.First it was Brooks, cruising in as smoothly as a sports car from the Kirkstall Lane. First he bowled a swinging full toss at the dreadfully out-of-form Ed Joyce and the Sussex skipper inside-edged it onto his stumps; then makeshift opener Chris Jordan was leg before on the back foot for 20; and in what was only Brooks’s sixth over, Matt Machan chased a wideish ball and feathered a catch to Jonny Bairstow. Sussex were 39 for 3 in the 12th over and there was already a horrid gash below their waterline.The crowd at Headingley enjoyed it all hugely, of course, but the students in their lecture theatre, whatever they were thinking, saw none of it. “Drone on, O teacher, you can’t trouble me,” Moult’s poem continues. “If you choose to keep us here while cricket’s in the air, / You must expect our minds to wander down the roads to Leicester, Lord’s and Leeds …”And at Leeds this final morning, things got rapidly worse for Sussex as Tim Bresnan joined in the fun. He bowled Chris Nash through the gate for 17 and induced Luke Wright to drive most unwisely at a wider delivery of full length. Sussex were 63 for 5 at lunch and the writing was as clear upon the walls as the equations were on the flip-charts. When you only win one of your final 11 games, as Sussex have done, you are going to struggle; and when your seam bowlers – James Anyon, Ajmal Shahzad, Chris Jordan – are not fit for most or all of the season, while your batsmen are not in form, you are going to find it desperately hard.Hampshire may have produced a great escape worthy of Steve McQueen on his motorbike but Sussex’s relegation is hardly an enormous surprise.There was some resistance, though, and it came from Michael Yardy, who was batting for the final time in his career, and Ben Brown, who passed a thousand runs for the season during his innings of 42. The pair added 79 in 20 overs that offered some hope that a defence worthy of mythology might be mounted. Their partnership stretched deep into the afternoon, by which time a party of schoolchildren had joined the crowd, a splash of purple amid the dark anoraks and fleeces.Indeed, many spectators at Headingley probably had mixed feelings this final afternoon. They were watching their team achieve a record 11th Championship victory and win the First Division by 68 points, which is greater than the margin between runners-up Middlesex and bottom-placed Worcestershire. This is a great Yorkshire team and it must be a wonderful time to follow the White Rose.At the same time there were many who might empathise with the phrase , the evocative title chosen by the John Arlott for one of his books. For it connotes not just a physical presence but a deeper commitment. “Where’s John?” friends would ask Arlott’s mother, only to receive the answer: “Oh, he’s gone with the cricketers.” And so he was, for much of the rest of his life.And so they were at Headingley when they stood to applaud Yardy as he left first-class cricket after gloving an attempted hook to Alex Lees at first slip. There was no more touching sight than the Yorkshire team queueing up to shake the hand of the player they had just dismissed.Yardy’s dismissal by Bresnan for 41 was followed twelve balls later by that of Brown, the Sussex wicketkeeper clipping Adil Rashid straight to short leg, where Jack Leaning grabbed a brilliant catch. That left Sussex on 142 for 7 and, although the last three wickets took a shade under an hour to fall, there was now no doubt which way the river was flowing. Rashid helped himself to a couple more scalps and Adam Lyth, on his 28th birthday, had Ashar Zaidi leg before for 47.At ten past three Chris Liddle was plumb enough to Rashid and the celebrations began on the outfield even as the dull realisation sunk in among the Sussex players. Dickie Bird presented the County Championship trophy to Andrew Gale, who has now received it three times in successive games. Mark Robinson, the Sussex coach, offered dignified congratulations to both Yorkshire and Hampshire; he refused to make elaborate excuses; he is a cricket man.The supporters gathered on the outfield and watched their players begin the latest of what have already been many celebrations. And, as is often the case at this time of year, the spectators were slow to leave, reluctant, perhaps, to leave one home for another. Eventually they drifted away, though, and soon they must follow the different rhythms of autumn. But it will not be long before they are thinking of next April when there will be music in the names once again and we shall be gone with the cricketers.

Marcus Stoinis did not get to play a single game for Delhi Daredevils after the franchise signed him for the 2015 IPL season, but the time he spent with the team enabled him to work on his batting against spin. More particularly – and unusually, given the IPL is a Twenty20 competition – his defence against spin.Stoinis displayed that facet of his game admirably during his 179-ball 77 in Australia A’s first four-day match against India A last week, against a spin attack comprising Amit Mishra and Pragyan Ojha on a slow turner at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.”I was pretty lucky to go to the IPL and spend seven or eight weeks with Delhi,” Stoinis said during a media interaction on Monday. “We had a great set-up, and Gary Kirsten was a great coach there. He helped me a lot, and speaking to JP Duminy and those South African players, and then had Yuvraj [Singh] help me a lot as well.”Sri [Sridharan Sriram], who’s involved with us now [as Australia A’s batting consultant during the tour] – he’s from Delhi Daredevils too. I spent a lot of time with him, one-on-one, and he talked to me a lot, not just the conditions and the wickets, but the different types of bowlers you come across and the different plans, probably more of an Indian style of approaching the game than an Australian style.”So my stance is a little bit lower than it has been, and I worked a lot – even though it might be the IPL – I worked a lot on my defence against the spinners. I found, once I could defend, I could understand the flight path of the ball, what’s happening off the wicket a little bit better, and before you know you can attack a lot easier. I’m sure it will help with Twenty20 as well as the longer format.”Recently, in a development that will no doubt please his IPL franchise, Stoinis struck six sixes in an over during a practice match against the National Indigenous Squad in Brisbane, in an over bowled by the medium-pacer Brendan Smith. Stoinis was quick to downplay the feat.”It was a short boundary and it wasn’t probably as good as someone like Yuvraj hitting six sixes,” he said. “There were two pull shots early on and a couple over long-on and one over midwicket, that sort of thing. Bit of a slog.”Stoinis made his first-class debut six years ago, when he was 19, but only got to play three games for Western Australia before he lost his contract. That prompted Stoinis to move to Victoria in a bid to rejuvenate his career; it worked, but not before a four-year wait for his Sheffield Shield return.”At that stage, [losing my Western Australia contract] was sort of, it was probably the best thing that could have happened,” Stoinis said. “It can come pretty quickly when you’re young, you move into the system and you go from the Under-19s Australian team and it moves quickly, but I wasn’t ready to play, I don’t think.”After that, I sat down with my family and that sort of thing and said, look, if I want to play cricket for the rest of my life, where do I want to live, and I picked Melbourne. They were the strongest state at the time, some great players there, so yes, I moved there, it took me a couple of years to get in, but that’s how I made my decision.”Stoinis knew it would be harder for him to break into a strong side. “But the thinking behind my decision was more that I believed I was going to get there, and may as well do it in a place that I feel comfortable in. I’ve had a few great coaches that have been involved with me over those two years to get me into the team, with Greg Shipperd who was the coach there, Kim Hughes is my batting coach in Perth and he flies to Melbourne to see me, and the sports psychologist Dave Diggle, who’s helped me a lot as well.”Stoinis picked up two wickets in India A’s second innings with his medium-pace, and though his 13 first-class wickets so far have come at an underwhelming average of 55.69, he has been working hard on his bowling in order to become a genuine allrounder.”I’ve always been a batter, since I started, so that’s a change of mindset for me, really,” he said. “I can see how important it is, because as much as I love my batting, the bowling might be what separates me from a lot of batters, so it could be a lot more important than I have given it credit in the past.”But yes, that’s the plan. I want to be a genuine allrounder, been working hard on my bowling, spent four or five weeks in Brisbane before we came here, just bowling, pretty much. Batting was the side note to that. So it will be an important string, I think.”There were no speedguns at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, but Stoinis thinks he clocks around 130kph. “130 to 150,” he said, deadpan. “My bouncer is 150, I think.”

Almost two years ago, when Maharashtra were facing Goa at the Maharashtra Cricket Association’s stadium at Gahunje, on the outskirts of Pune, the home team’s coach Surendra Bhave was throwing instructions to his wards, while David Andrews, then Maharashtra U-19 coach, watched the proceedings from the stands.Cut to Tuesday, and both Bhave and Andrews were in charge of opposing teams at the MCA Stadium, on the eve of the 82nd edition of the Ranji Trophy. While Andrews was overlooking Maharashtra’s preparations, Bhave kept a close eye on the Haryana nets on the other side of the pitch.After his prolonged association with Maharashtra cricket ended on a bitter note last year, Bhave took up the role of Haryana’s coach. Bhave’s return to the home ground of his former team, however, is not the main talking point ahead of tomorrow’s match. Neither is the history between these two teams, who squared off against each other in a low-scoring match in Lahli last year.Instead it was the presence of Virender Sehwag in the Haryana camp that created a buzz. Sehwag switched allegiance to Haryana after playing for Delhi all through his career and was at the centre of attention all through the teams’ four-hour training session.After batting for well over half an hour, Sehwag, who will also lead the side, did a few stretching exercises with his personal yoga trainer. He then had a long chat with Bhave before joining the rest of his team-mates for a long slip-catching session and then headed to the mandatory meeting of match officials and captains.Sehwag has barely spent a fortnight with his adopted team but has brought hope to an otherwise inconsistent Haryana unit. While Haryana’s bowling attack, led by Mohit Sharma and Amit Mishra [both players will miss this season’s opening game], was impressive last year, their batsmen let them down. Sehwag’s addition has given them much-needed hope that they can sort out their batting woes this season.”He is a huge impact man. I don’t have to say what sort of an impact he has on any cricket team but he has been wonderful so far,” Bhave said. “He has been thoroughly involved. Every player he has spoken to personally and from what it seems, he is a very good mentor. Coming from him makes a huge difference [for players].”Maharashtra’s training was just as thorough. While Andrews was confident of Maharashtra’s goal to “go one step further” than last year’s semi-final appearance with “Karnataka having set the benchmark of consistency”, his only concern was the lack of ideal preparations.With the Ranji Trophy starting as early as October 1, all teams have seen their preparations marred by the monsoons at some stage over the last two months. Naturally, the first half of the tournament’s league stage will see teams struggling to cope as much with rustiness as with the October heat.With showers predicted for Thursday in Pune, Maharashtra and Haryana will hope to shed their rustiness and find their groove right away.