Scorecard

The West Indians continued to search in vain for their first win on the Australia tour as they went down by four wickets in a twenty-over match against Victoria. The idea to stage the game came up when the West Indians were bowled out in the first innings of the second-Test warm-up at the Junction Oval with only a session left. The West Indians batted first and posted a challenging 172, thanks for an unbeaten 81 by Dwayne Smith, but Victoria got home with three balls to spare.Smith had done well in the three-day game as well, taking three wickets and scoring 40, and he continued in a similar manner, hitting three fours and a staggering six sixes in his 40-ball knock. None of the other batsmen lent him much support, though, till Denesh Ramdin slammed 30 off 21 balls, helping Smith add 82 for the seventh wicket.Unlike the West Indians, Victoria didn’t have a single big contributor, as all the batsmen chipped in. Lloyd Mash, a left-handed batsman who made his first-class debut in the tour game, gave the innings the impetus it needed, carting Dwayne Bravo for four sixes in an over en route to a 12-ball 32. Cameron White remained unbeaten on 27 as Victoria sealed the win with four wickets in hand.

Justin Langer is on course to play in next week’s third cricket Test against South Africa in Sydney, Cricket Australia said.Langer was forced out of the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne with a hamstring injury, but returned to batting practice on Wednesday after physio treatment.It was the first time Langer had batted since he strained his left hamstring in the first Perth Test 10 days ago. He has been in Melbourne since Christmas, undergoing treatment with Errol Alcott, the Australian team physiotherapist, to be fit for the last domestic Test of the southern summer.A Cricket Australia spokesman said, “He’s been progressing well and has been doing a bit of running and a lot of strength work and he’ll continue to work over the next couple of day. A decision on his availability for Sydney will be made at the end of the week.”If Langer plays in Sydney it will give him the chance to play his 100th Test during the tour of South Africa next March. Phil Jaques, who replaced Langer in the second Melbourne Test against the Proteas, made two and 28 in his Test debut.

Sourav Ganguly has been included in India’s squad for the forthcoming Test series against Pakistan, starting early next month. The selectors also decided to recall Zaheer Khan, the left-arm seamer, after a three-month absence while there was no place for Mohammad Kaif and Murali Kartik, the left-arm spinner, in the 16-man squad. Parthiv Patel was named as the second wicketkeeper while Wasim Jaffer retained his place as the third opener.Kiran More, the former Indian wicketkeeper and current chairman of selectors, said that Ganguly’s experience had been a factor in his inclusion. “Kaif has done well but he hasn’t had enough Test matches – he played after one-and-a-half years,” he said. “We got Sourav back because we needed some experience for the tough tour. The Pakistan team is well prepared and we needed to pick the best combination.”Sourav has experience and runs behind him. If you see the recent record and statistics, he hasn’t done well but we needed his experience on this tour. We wanted to give youngsters a chance on the Sri Lanka tour. I am not saying he will play in the XI. That will be selected by the team management and one selector who will accompany the team on the tour.”More, a wicketkeeper himself, added that Patel had improved his glovework recently and said Dinesh Karthik’s recent form had gone against him. “Dinesh has done very well in Tests earlier but hasn’t been having a good season,” he said. “All the selectors have been watching the Duleep Trophy and Ranji Trophy matches. He’s not in the best of form. Parthiv has done very well in the Challenger, Duleep and Ranji Trophy. Parthiv has also done well in Pakistan earlier and we needed a back-up for Dhoni. And Parthiv is good enough to get 35-40 runs in Test cricket.”Regarding Jaffer’s selection ahead of Dheeraj Jadhav, the Maharashtra opener who was in the squad when India toured Zimbabwe, More said it was a close call. “Dheeraj is young and we weren’t that satisfied with him in the nets or in the Duleep and Ranji games. It’s not only the runs scored, but the approach [that counts].”Squad for Test series
Virender Sehwag (vice-capt), Gautam Gambhir, Wasim Jaffer, Rahul Dravid (capt), Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Harbhajan Singh, Parthiv Patel (wk), Rudra Pratap Singh, Zaheer Khan, Anil Kumble.

Rahul Dravid has admitted that India’s frailties against the new ball were probably what cost them the Test. He added that India’s bowling hadn’t been up to scratch in the second innings, allowing Pakistan to amass a big total and run away with the game.While defending the strategy to omit India’s two specialist openers from the side, he added that the team might need to alter their tactic in the future. “We had regular openers but we also had couple of openers who had a 410-run partnership in the first Test and had done pretty well in the second,” he added. “We went into the series with what we thought was the best batting combination. In the future we might have to look at playing not just the best batsmen but the best batsmen in certain positions.”Not for the first time, India’s batting line-up was exposed on bowler-friendly conditions and Dravid acknowledged that it was a concern. “We could have batted better, especially against the new ball,” he continued. “If some of the top two or three had gone on, things might have been different. We have guys who have the ability to play big innings but they got out early and unfortunately it put a lot of pressure on us. We’ve done well in the past and had success in England and Australia. On this day, we weren’t good enough. They bowled better than us and we didn’t play as much as we should have.”Dravid wasn’t too critical of his bowlers, talking about the effects of the previous two games: “They had bowled a lot of overs leading into this game. We lost a couple of tosses on two flat decks and lobbed a lot of overs before we got here. I think it was around 500 overs. By the time the second innings came, there wasn’t much recovery time since we got out pretty quickly. We could have bowled better in the second innings but we couldn’t exert much pressure.”However, Dravid did mention that picking three left-arm seamers for the game had probably robbed the side of a bit of variety. “You can probably say it wasn’t a varied attack. All our bowlers tend to pitch it up. It worked well in the first morning but after that it was more a hit-the-deck, up-and-down wicket. Asif and Razzaq showed that. We started the game picking our three best bowlers. We didn’t want to risk losing Ajit [Agarkar] to injury and wanted to make sure we had the fit combination.”Mohammad Asif, according to Dravid, had been the best bowler on either side and he lauded him for his impressive spells in just his third Test. “I think he used the conditions well. To remove the kind of quality batsmen he did in both the innings tells you something about how he bowled. For someone playing his third Test he put the ball in the right areas, especially with the new one. It was his wickets that made the difference in both the innings with the new ball.”

Shoaib Malik, the Pakistan allrounder, has gone back to Sialkot following the death of his father on Tuesday night. Malik had rejoined the team last night, in case he was required to bat on the final day, but left after being informed that his father’s condition had started to deteriorate.Malik’s father, Malik Faqir Hussain, had been diagnosed with Hepatitis C and his deteriorating health had led Malik to join him and his family two days into the Test. He passed away at 4am this morning.Both teams and officials held a minute’s silence before start of play on the fifth day of the Faisalabad Test. It is not yet clear whether Malik will be available for the third Test at Karachi, beginning on January 29. Malik is the third current Pakistani player to lose his father in the last year, following Rana Naved-ul-Hasan and Younis Khan who endured similar tragedies.

With criticism at home gradually increasing, Shaharyar Khan has publicly defended Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq, insisting he is still the right man for the job. Following the 4-1 thumping Pakistan received at India’s hands recently, Inzamam’s captaincy and position in the team has come under scrutiny from local media as well as ex-players. Some have called for Inzamam’s removal as captain, to be replaced by Younis Khan, while others maintain his poor fitness and fielding is reason enough to drop him from the team altogether.In an interview to PTI, however, Shaharyar backed Inzamam till the World Cup next year. “I have personally no doubt that he will lead. What has happened is that Inzamam has lost the series and in losing, he has taken a lot of criticism over his fitness, fielding and other things. He has taken a lot of flak. But I have no doubt that Inzamam is a superb captain.”The criticism comes at the end of a season in which Inzamam led Pakistan to Test wins over England and India (as well as an ODI win against England). As captain over the last two years, Inzamam has been widely praised for unifying a traditionally fractious team, as Shaharyar acknowledged. “He has brought the team to a level that has been unprecedented. We have had great cricketers in the past but never such a united team. And much of the credit for this must go to Inzamam. I think it would be extremely foolish to start thinking of alternatives when we have a man who has brought the team to this level. Yes, you may lose a series here and there, but it does not mean that you will change the skipper midstream. Just after the series loss to India, we appointed him as captain for another 11 months.”Pakistan dressing rooms have been volatile. At the moment it is not. I often visit the changing room, the players are very calm and it is partly due to Inzamam’s influence. He is a low key and modest person. His example is followed by others. There is no insistence, but the players sit down together and pray. Bob Woolmer, who first felt that there was too much religious strain, now feels it is a good binding influence.”There was praise too for the other big-name attraction in Pakistan cricket – Shoaib Akhtar – although it was tinged with some concern over his latest injury. Having missed the ODIs against India with what was later discovered to be a stress fracture in his ankle, Shoaib has recently been diagnosed with a degenerative knee disease, which could, in the worst case, end his career. Shoaib, who took 17 wickets in the series win over England, has gone to Australia for treatment.Shaharyar said, “It has been recognised now that he turned a new leaf as far as his attitude, training and discipline is concerned. It was very evident during the series against England. We knew his injury was genuine. What we now fear is that his injury could be worse from what we initially thought. As a very fast bowler, he needs his body to be working 100 per cent which at the moment it is not. He has fractured his ankle but it is not his ankle but the knee which is causing us more anxiety. He is now in Australia, if he undergoes an operation and gets it cleared, well he may play against England but if does not happen like that, we do not know really know, I mean we will have to cross the bridge when it comes.”Shoaib will miss Pakistan’s upcoming series against Sri Lanka and the knee problem now means his position for the England tour later in the summer is also uncertain.

Sachin Tendulkar has been discharged from hospital after making a good recovery from his shoulder surgery in London.”The operation was a complete success and when I visited Sachin yesterday afternoon I was pleased to see that he has made a good recovery,” Dr Andrew Wallace told PTI.Tendulkar underwent arthroscopic surgery on Monday to stabilise his shoulder joint and reattach a damaged bicep tendon to his upper arm bone. According to Wallace, Tendulkar’s shoulder injury is not as serious as the tennis elbow that struck a year and a half ago. He said Tendulkar was beginning to be more comfortable wearing a sling and was discharged from the hospital on Tuesday evening.

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

Powered by Andrew Symonds’s confidence-coated hundred, Australia cruised to a 67-run win at Fatullah and with it the series. Habibul Bashar stuck around for 70 but the weighty expectations of usurping Australia for the second time in a season got to him as Bangladesh fell apart under a spiralling run rate. With a much-improved performance from Sunday, Australia can let out a sigh of relief as their winning ways returned with another series in the kitty.In truth, this contest was over from the time Bangladesh were left haemorrhaging at 8 for 3 as Brett Lee and Nathan Bracken worked wonders with the new ball. At this point, Bashar and Javed Omar would have done well to take a leaf out of Symonds’s famed journal of comeback acts. Instead, as is the Bangladeshi wont, Javed undid the hard work of a 62-run stand when he slogged Michael Hussey’s slow military medium to Lee at mid-on at the end of 20 overs.Bashar, who oddly came in at No.5, struggled initially to work the ball past the prowling infield but his presence in the middle gave Bangladesh heart. A further 76 was added with fellow veteran Khaled Mashud as Bashar moved on to his third consecutive fifty, but it all came crashing down as the run rate soared to ten an over at the death.Mashud chanced his arm with some miscued shots over mid-off, was given a shocking reprieve by the third umpire when replays showed him short of his ground, and eventually undid himself with a reverse sweep to Michael Clarke. Bashar fell soon after when he miscued the same bowler to deep midwicket. It was all the home crowd needed to see, and the swift lines forming towards the exit gates was unequivocal in its statement.If Bangladesh had looked to adopt the same tactic as at Cardiff last year -work the field, knock off the singles and wait for the bad deliveries – then they were grossly let down by their running. Rarely were the doubles looked for, and the calling left much to be desired. When the need of the hour was acceleration, Bashar and Mashud were seen picking ones against Clarke’s innocuous left-arm spin. Bashar’s inability to find the boundaries added to Bangladesh’s problems, and without Aftab Ahmed, a key finisher in Bangladesh’s two big wins recently, the rest fell like nine pins. Compare their efforts, for instance, with Hussey’s brilliant effort on the ropes in the 44th over: sprinting, covering yards, and stopping a certain four with an outstretched hand.All this was after Andrew Symonds produced a confidence-coated hundred as Australia recovered from a three-wicket burst from Mashrafe Mortaza to get to 250, one more than what they set Bangladesh in that stunning match less than a year ago at Cardiff. Symonds’s fantastic fourth-wicket stand with Clarke was exactly what Australia needed after Mortaza had dismissed Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting and Simon Katich. The duo came together with Australia on 65 for 3, and when they were separated, 32.3 overs later, Australia were 140 runs richer. In a cool, calculated manner, Clarke and Symonds read the dormant pitch perfectly and set about the resurrection act. With the ball keeping low and not coming onto the bat easily, both were forced to be that much more careful against the spinners. The two were imposing for the manner in which they worked the field and slowly put the pressure back on Bangladesh. Runs only came in singles early on but critically that passage allowed Clarke and Symonds to get set in and then open up in the slog.

Symonds, impressively, cut down on his backlift and made sure to play very straight initially. He moved along a tad quicker than Clarke and appeared keener on the twos, and was quick to cash in on the part-time spin of Alok Kapali. Kapali, striving for the wrong `un, nearly lost his nose as Symonds charged and smashed him down the ground for four; when he tried the flipper, Symonds swiped him over mid-on; and when he opted for the common half-tracker, Symonds swatted him, tennis style, down the ground for another four. Before Bangladesh could say `comeback’, Symonds had moved past 50 and turned the heat back on the hosts. Having got his eye in he then launched Saleh’s offspin for two sixes in the space of three deliveries. He reached his century in the last over, which Abdur Razzak was forced to complete after Mortaza limped off after bowling just one ball.Bangladesh were left to rue letting Clarke off early. On just 8, he went back to cut Razzak’s left-arm spin, but Mashud failed to hold onto the thin edge. Clarke never looked back, and marched on to a fine fifty – full of those trademark cuts and glances – that had been just what Australia needed. Hussey chipped in with 18 from 15, but was cleaned up by Razzak off the final ball of the innings to give Bangladesh some further cheer.Of the bowlers, only Mortaza troubled Australia. Unlike on Sunday, where Gilchrist dug into his wayward offerings, Mortaza kept the guns firmly in the saddle and kept the opener guessing with his well-disguised slower ones and wicket-to-wicket line. Gilchrist and Ponting were denied the room to cut or pull, while Katich was kept in check and was undone when he freed his arms. Mohammad Rafique and Razzak, the prime spinners, had little effect while the stop-gap trio of Kapali, Saleh and Tushar failed to do anything at all.How they were outAustralia
Adam Gilchrist lbw b Mortaza 32 (55 for 1)
Ricky Ponting b Mortaza 5 (64 for 2)
Simon Katich c Shahriar Nafees b Mortaza 26 (65 for 3)
Michael Clarke c Alok Kapali b Rafique 54 (205 for 4)
Michael Hussey b Razzak 18 (250 for 5)
Bangladesh
Shahriar Nafees lbw b Lee 0 (0 for 1)
Rajin Saleh c Gilchrist b Bracken 0 (4 for 2)
Tushar Imran b Bracken 2 (8 for 3)
Javed Omar c Lee b Hussey 34 (70 for 4)
Khaled Mashud b Clarke 37 (146 for 5)
Habibul Bashar c Hussey b Clarke 70 (157 for 6)
Mohammad Rafique c & b Lee 0 (159 for 7)
Alok Kapali c Hussey b Hogg 10 (168 for 8)
Mashrafe Mortaza c Clarke b Hogg 14 (182 for 9)
Abdur Razzak b Hogg 3 (183 for 10)

The Pakistan Cricket Board has announced that it will take a hardline approach with any bowler whose action is called into question before they reach the top level.”We are taking this very seriously,” Saleem Altaf, the PCB’s director of cricket operations, told Reuters. “We want to identify bowlers who have flawed actions before they graduate to the top.”New measures, being implemented from next week, means that any bowler reported by umpires would immediately be suspended and made to undergo a rehabilitation process before being allowed to resumePakistan have had several bowlers cited by the ICC – Shoaib Akhtar, Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Hafeez and Shahid Afridi have all been reported – and Shabbir Ahmed was recently banned for 12 months.The PCB’s move came after it was revealed that as many as 50 bowlers were reported to them by umpires during domestic matches in 2005-06. “These bowlers have played at different levels including junior competitions and first class tournaments,” Altaf explained.

Pedro Collins, the left-arm fast bowler, has replaced the injured Fidel Edwards in a 13-man West Indies squad for the second Test against India beginning at St. Lucia on Saturday. Edwards suffered a hamstring strain during the first Test and it is doubtful whether he would be able to take any further part in the series.The West Indies Cricket Board confirmed Edwards’ unavailability: “Edwards suffered a strain to his right hamstring during the first Test match and has been ruled out of the second game. He will return to his native Barbados while Collins will join the squad in St. Lucia tomorrow.”Bennett King, the coach of West Indies, voiced concerns over Edwards’ availability. “He is not playing in the second Test but we are hopeful of the third,” he said. “It’s going to be touch and go, and even in the fourth, it’s still going to be touch and go. It’s not great news but we’ll see how it goes.”Collins, with 96 wickets from 29 Tests, last played against South Africa in April 2005.West Indies squad: Brian Lara (capt), Chris Gayle, Daren Ganga, Ramnaresh Sarwan (vice-capt), Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Runako Morton, Dwayne Bravo, Denesh Ramdin (wk), Ian Bradshaw, Jerome Taylor, Corey Collymore, Pedro Collins, Dave Mohammed.