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ScorecardAn all-round performance from Shaylin Pillay consigned Zimbabwe Under-19s to their third straight defeat in the tri-nation tournament in South Africa. South Africa Under-19s put Zimbabwe in to bat at Newlands, and skittled them for 176, with Pillay taking two wickets with his medium-pace. After an early stutter in the chase, Pillay guided the hosts to their second win of the tournament with his 91.Zimbabwe lost a wicket in their first over but contributions from the top order got them to 105 for 3 in 23.5 overs. Fast bowler Solo Nqweni, left-arm spinner Lesiba Ngoepe and Pillay affected the collapse. They finished with seven wickets between them as Zimbabwe’s innings lasted just 38.2 overs.South Africa were given a scare by medium-pacer Kyle Bowie, whose three strikes, along with one by his new-ball partner James Bruce, reduced the hosts to 39 for 4. Pillay began the recovery in the company of Murray Coetzee, and the 138-run stand they put together was enough to take South Africa home.

Samit Patel, the England allrounder, has withdrawn from next year’s IPL auction in a bid to boost his chances of earning a Test place. If he had been picked up for the IPL – and it was far from certain he would have gained a deal – it would have meant missing up to seven County Championship matches at the start of the English season.Patel returned to England’s one-day side against Sri Lanka during the 2011 season having missed out on a World Cup berth due to his fitness issues. He played every game during England’s recent tour of India, scoring 160 runs at 40.00 and took four wickets in the 5-0 whitewash to emerge as one of the few players with some credit.However, although Patel’s move will be noted by the England management, he faces a tough task to force his way into the Test reckoning as either a second spinner or frontline batsman but is hoping the weight of runs in the early domestic season will bring him into the selectors’ thinking for the series against West Indies and South Africa in 2012.”My biggest ambition is to play Test cricket,” Patel said. “I need to score a high volume of runs in the Championship to push my case. If I was selected for the IPL then I would miss several Championship matches and that won’t help me at a time when I need to do everything I can to impress the selectors.”I have listened to the advice from people that I trust and it is clear that this decision is the right one to have made for cricket reasons. The IPL is an exciting tournament and I would like to be involved in it in the future, but not to the detriment of my England ambitions.”Mick Newell, the Nottinghamshire coach, supported Patel’s move which will also strengthen the county during a crucial period of Championship cricket.”Samit has got himself back into England’s limited-overs teams but he feels that he can become a Test match regular and it goes without saying that scoring a high volume of runs for Nottinghamshire will help him to achieve his ambition,” said Newell. “Staying away from the IPL this year is a mature decision and one that we hope will benefit Samit’s career and improve our prospects in the Championship.”Patel’s decision mirrors that of Ravi Bopara who decided not to play in last season’s IPL, in an attempt to secure a place against Sri Lanka, while Stuart Broad has also resisted the the tournament’s lure. Yet, despite Bopara’s 408 runs in the opening five matches last season, the England selectors favoured Eoin Morgan for the first Test, who did play in the 2011 IPL, after he struck 193 for the Lions in the tour match against Sri Lanka at Derby.As ever with Patel, runs and wickets won’t be the only factor, either, as Andy Flower, the England team director, made clear in a recent interview with the when he said Patel “hasn’t properly addressed his fitness issues. He’d better, otherwise he’ll be out of the side.”Patel faces a challenge to dislodge one of England’s established top six batsmen, while Bopara and James Taylor are also ahead of him in the pecking order. The most likely route into the Test team remains as a second spinner, which England rarely require on home soil.Last season Patel took 33 first-class wickets at 30.81, together with over 1,000 runs at 47.56. Monty Panesar, England’s reserve spinner on the 2010-11 Ashes tour, was the highest wicket-taker in Division One of the County Championship in 2011 with 69 victims at 27.24 and also boasts 126 Test match wickets at 34.37.The England Test squad is set to be announced in the forthcoming weeks for the three-match series against Pakistan in Dubai.

MS Dhoni, the India captain, has said India still need to improve in the bowling department after their 5-0 series victory over England at home. He expressed concern at the fact that India’s seamers did not complete their allocated ten overs in many of the matches because they had given away too many runs. Both Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron impressed with their pace during the series but Dhoni said control was as important as bowling quick.”Of course it’s a great series win,” he said after the fifth ODI in Kolkata. “But our fast bowlers could not bowl 10 overs in many of the matches and we have to realise that’s where we have to get better. It’s good to have guys bowling quick but they also need to be able to keep the runs down and not give away a boundary an over.”Even though we’ve won at home, we need to realise that when we go abroad there may not be as much turn for our spinners and so we will not be able to win if our fast bowlers don’t bowl well. In other countries our part-timers may not be as effective as they are here.”The series win comes just a month after India were thumped in both the Tests and one-dayers in England. Dhoni said the criticism his side received after that tour did not worry him as he knew Indians were passionate about cricket and bound to react to a loss.”It happens: you are appreciated when you do well and that should be taken with an open heart. I was not too worried about criticism. We know cricket is big in India. It’s a part of our life.”India went into the ODI series against England with several senior players missing through injury, and Dhoni said while the influx of young players helped sharpen the fielding, the seniors were still needed. “It’s difficult to replace the seniors talent-wise. But these youngsters have clicked as a unit. They are slightly better fielders. They may save 8-10 runs which matter in ODIs. They have reacted in the right way and been patient in waiting for opportunities to turn things their way. But we really can’t really replace Sachin [Tendulkar], [Virender] Sehwag and Yuvraj [Singh].”Dhoni was named Man of the Series after scoring 212 runs without being dismissed in the five games. He said that he would not be moving up the order, though, since he had adjusted his game to batting in the middle order. “The format of the game has changed. Now, with the Powerplays split, the situations are different. We have to be good at the slog overs and rotate strike as well. I have changed my style of batting. At No. 3 you can be flamboyant but at 5 and 6 you have to be careful.”India will play a Twenty20 international against England in Kolkata on October 29 and the organisers will be hoping for a larger crowd after disappointing turnouts over the one-dayers. An overdose of cricket and the absence of some star players were the reasons Dhoni pointed out for the empty rows in the stands at Eden Gardens. “We have played a lot of cricket in India: the World Cup, IPL and then the Champions League T20 were held here. Big stars like Sachin were missing from this series. This is also one of the biggest stadia in India so it’s not easy to get a jam-packed crowd every time.”

The BCCI president-elect, N Srinivasan, has admitted that the board was not vigilant in tackling financial irregularities in the IPL under Lalit Modi’s watch, the has reported. Srinivasan, testifying before a parliamentary standing committee investigation into the IPL’s finances, said that pleading ignorance of Modi’s ways could not be an excuse – a significant change from the board’s earlier stand on the issue.The says it has a copy of the standing committee’s report, which has Srinivasan stating on record: “We were taken for a ride. I know we cannot plead before you that we did not know all this was happening. Your question would be, were you not vigilant? What did you do? I am sorry, sir, there is no defence for me. No defence in front of you. So, I am not pleading that [ignorance] at all. We just put our heads down.”The newspaper also reports that the board president Shashank Manohar admitted that the cheques for all IPL deals were signed by Srinivasan, the then BCCI treasurer, and subsequently MP Pandove who replaced him, and not by Modi. The board had previously put the blame on Modi’s shoulders, claiming that he had enjoyed a free hand in running the league.The revelations add a new layer to the board’s ongoing tussle against the Indian government’s efforts to bring the body under the transparency-enhancing Right to Information (RTI) Act, and a proposed bill to regulate Indian sports bodies. The BCCI’s argument against the RTI is that it doesn’t rely on government grants. The standing committee has, however, reportedly noted that a “coherent and consistent policy should be devised for the future whereby high-profile money-spinning events such as the IPL are not kept out of the ambit of law and taxability”.The committee also reportedly noted that the BCCI “meekly endorsed and approved decisions that were taken by the chairman [Modi] and all those responsible in breaching the law should be investigated and punished without further loss of time”.”When we questioned them [Srinivasan and Manohar], they had absolutely no answers,” Vijay Darda, member of the standing committee and a Rajya Sabha (the parliament’s council of states) MP, told the . “With folded hands they just stood there and admitted they had no explanations to offer. The problem with BCCI is too much money and too many big names involved in the administration. Sharad Pawar [ICC president], Farooq Abdullah, Arun Jaitley and all politicians want to be part of it.”Darda also raised the issue of the IPL’s dubious money trails, which was revealed by the committee’s investigations. “It was harrowing when we went through the records,” he said. “Money transferred from some tax haven to some other tax haven finally ends up with some connection in IPL. The committee wants to know what has been going on. We will have to ensure that they are brought to account.”Monopoly is an issue too. If the board is brought under RTI, the ordinary cricket fan will at least know what he’s paying for. Far too much is either unaccountable or being swept under the carpet.”

Gautam Gambhir will not play in the upcoming Champions League Twenty20 qualifying tournament for Kolkata Knight Riders as he has not recovered sufficiently from the concussion he sustained during India’s fourth Test against England at The Oval. Jacques Kallis will lead the team in Gambhir’s absence.A Kolkata official told ESPNcricinfo that Gambhir, who is the captain of the side, may still recover in time for the main tournament, should the team make it through the qualifier, which will be played from September 19 to 21.Gambhir was sent home from the tour of England earlier this month after hitting his head on the ground while attempting to catch Kevin Pietersen on the third day of the final Test at The Oval. He was advised complete rest for ten days along with medication.Since his return, Gambhir has been consulting a leading neurologist in New Delhi, and while the doctor has been happy with the progress he has made – Gambhir can perform day-to-day tasks with no trouble – the player has been advised to start physical training gradually. Kolkata are hopeful that if they go through to the main tournament, Gambhir would then have had another week to recover and be ready for their potential first game in the main stage on September 25.Venky Mysore, Kolkata’s chief executive, said in a statement that “the decision to play was completely left to Gautam and his doctors and hoped he would make a quick return to the game”.Kolkata will also be without the services of Eoin Morgan – who is due to have shoulder surgery – and potentially, Brad Haddin, who will be playing in Australia’s third Test against Sri Lanka which begins in Colombo on September 16.

Yorkshire’s hopes of avoiding relegation in the County Championship have been dealt a blow after their captain, Andrew Gale, was ruled out for the rest of the season with a broken wrist.Gale was hit in the nets by Oliver Hannon-Dalby and x-rays confirmed the severity of the injury which means he’ll be sidelined as Yorkshire try to retain their Division One status. They are currently eighth, four points behind Worcestershire who have a game in hand, and play Sussex this week in a vital game.”It hurt badly at the time but not for one minute did I think it was a break. I was happy to keep on batting,” Gale told the . “But Sunday morning I woke up and it had stiffened and I knew then something was seriously wrong.”Before this injury I’ve only ever missed one game through my career. When you look at it like that, I’ve been lucky to have got to the age of 27 without any serious injury. Given the situation we are in, though, this is awful timing.”Gale is Yorkshire’s second-highest Championship run-scorer with 769 at 40.47 in a season where their top-order has struggled. The loss of the captain has also been compounded by the absence of Jacques Rudolph who has been called away to a South Africa training camp.

ScorecardAn unbeaten century by Middlesex allrounder Jamie Dalrymple lit up a grey day in Guildford as hosts Surrey lost their way in the second division derby clash. Having reduced the visitors to 51 for 4 on a rain-affected opening day, Surrey failed to capitalise on their enterprising start by allowing Dalrymple to blast a 164-ball hundred and steer the visitors through to a respectable 308 all out.Having rejoined Middlesex in the off season following a three-year stint with Glamorgan, Dalrymple collected 16 fours and a brace of sixes in his 122 not out – the 11th first-class ton of his career and his first since re-joining the county. After a 45-minute delay for drizzle at the start of the day, Dalrymple – 10 not out overnight – set about frustrating the Surrey seam attack with a sensible blend of tenacious defence and bludgeoning attacking strokes.He and Chris Rogers combined to add 101 for the fifth wicket before the latter fell for 59, leg before on the back foot to a Zander de Bruyn off-cutter. Surrey initially appeared to rally after the lunch break when John Simpson also went leg before to De Bruyn for 15, but heads appeared to drop when Gareth Batty downed two slip chances in successive overs, including Dalrymple on 51.Batty made it third time lucky by snaffling another chance off Tim Linley to account for Steven Crook and then Tim Murtagh, who got the toe end of the bat on a wide one from Jade Dernbach and again diverted it to first slip. Steven Finn chipped a comfortable return catch to Batty to make it 237 for 9 and bring in Middlesex’s last man, Corry Collymore, but still Surrey struggled to finish the job off.At one point Dalrymple and Collymore stood virtually side by side at one end of the pitch, only for Surrey to make a hash of the run-out attempt, and Dalrymple again made them pay. While Collymore stubbornly held up one end, Dalrymple went for his shots. He slog swept, cover drove and then flat-batted a long hop to the ropes to move into the 90s as Batty conceded 15 in one over, including three Dalrymple boundaries.The right-hander went down on one knee to hoist a glorious off drive for six against De Bruyn and, having broken his bat, changed blades to hook a Stuart Meaker bouncer for six over long leg as Middlesex posted a third batting point after reaching 300.Having added 71 for the last wicket, their fun finally came to an end when, under leaden skies, Collymore (7) steered a short one into the hands of Tom Maynard at gully to give Linley, the pick of a misfiring attack, figures of 3 for 60. The innings closed just after 4pm, but rain arrived soon after to prevent the start of Surrey’s reply.

Match-fixing in any sport in Australia will be made an offence, perhaps punishable by a 10-year jail term, under proposed legislation to be considered by the federal and state governments this week.The Coalition of Major Professional and Participation Sports (COMPPS), of which the former ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed is executive director, will present a working party paper on corruption to the federal minister for sport, senator Mark Arbib, on Wednesday.State government sports ministers will then meet with Arbib on Friday with a view towards introducing uniform regulations across each state to govern the integrity of sport.Penalties would be a matter for each state, but Arbib has already suggested the possibility of 10 years in jail as an appropriate punishment.Other measures will include the outlawing of information being passed on from sportsmen or support staff that could be used to make bets, the equivalent of insider trading. It was exchanges of this kind that saw Mark Waugh and Shane Warne under the spotlight in 1998.Also likely to be brought under tighter control is the range of exotic or spot bets that can be placed on various elements of a match – such as the bowling of no-balls, the order of bowlers or the number of runs to be scored off an over. This would render meaningless to the betting market any questionable acts by complicit players, like the deliberate no-balls bowled by Mohammad Amir at Lord’s last year.World cricket is watching the progress of possible legislation in Australia, as other countries will be more likely to consider similar measures once a precedent has been set.Cricket’s long and pained history of match-fixing, and the involvement of bookmakers and their go-betweens, has meant that Australia’s administrators are playing a lead role in the push for government intervention in the issue. James Sutherland, the Cricket Australia chief executive, is chairman of COMPPS, while CA’s chief legal counsel Dean Kino has been instrumental in the drafting of the proposal.”There’s a meeting on Wednesday of sporting CEOs in Melbourne, they have a regular CEOs meeting, but at this meeting the working party paper on corruption in sport will be tabled,” a CA spokesman said. “The federal minister for sport Mark Arbib will also be present.”There’s been quite a lot of discussion between James Sutherland and Mark Arbib and the other CEOs, and a meeting will follow on Friday between government ministers.”

The New Zealand Players’ Association chief, Heath Mills, has hit out at the organisers of the 2010 Champions League Twenty20 for not having paid the share of prize money due to the New Zealand franchise that participated in the tournament. While the Central Districts players, who failed to win a match during the tournament, received their participation fee, they have not yet received the prize money owed to them eight months after the tournament ended.The amount owed is understood to be around $200,000 and the payment has apparently been held up due to red tape associated with making significant foreign currency payments out of India. However, Mills said there was no excuse for what had become “a disgraceful situation”. He also warned that players would be reluctant to take part in future tournaments – including this year’s, scheduled for October – if the pay issue wasn’t addressed immediately.”It’s not acceptable when people complete a job and honour all their obligations under a contract to the person they are working for, yet they aren’t compensated for completing that work,” Mills told the . “That wouldn’t be accepted in any other workplace environment. Players now don’t have a lot of faith or confidence in the boards running this event given their treatment of players so I expect there will be quite a few questions before guys want to commit to something this year.”Having won last season’s HRV Cup, Auckland are eligible to play the Champions League, though with the tournament potentially adding a qualifier, it is not certain whether they will make it to the main event.Mills cast aspersion on the excuse about government regulations blocking payments. “We hear a lot of excuses around government processes in India and the like but that doesn’t seem to impact on similar payments from other events like the recent World Cup where all payments were made on time,” he said. “I would be interested to see if the same delays have been encountered by the three boards who own the event when they distribute their profits to each other.”The last Champions League Twenty20 was played in South Africa and was run as a joint venture between the national cricket boards of Australia, South Africa and India. The South African franchises did in fact also experience a delay in receiving their prize money, and in January the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations’ (FICA) chief Tim May had criticised the boards organising the tournament for paying the players on time. The South African players have been paid since, but the New Zealand players are still waiting.May said FICA would advise players not to participate in the tournament in future without some assurances regarding remuneration.New Zealand Cricket boss Justin Vaughan said payments out of India were often delayed but conceded the wait had been too long. “We’ve seen this in the past with sponsorship payments so it’s not unexpected in a way,” Vaughan said. “That said, it is dragging on too long and it’s very hard to argue when the distribution of funds is being held up by a government process.”

Scorecard
Tim Bresnan provided vital runs for Yorkshire after the top order struggled•PA Photos

England bowler Tim Bresnan and in-form batsman Jonny Bairstow helped Yorkshire claw their way out of deep trouble on the first day of the County Championship match against Hampshire at Headingley.Bairstow held things together earlier in the day with a fluent 83 and then Bresnan, in his first Championship appearance of the season, weighed in with a defiant unbeaten 82 as Yorkshire reached a respectable 304 for 7.It was a far better effort than appeared likely after Yorkshire had lost both their openers inside the first three overs for just six runs after winning the toss. Joe Sayers fell leg before to David Griffiths and Adam Lyth was comprehensively bowled by Hampshire captain Dominic Cork, who picked up three wickets.Joe Root and skipper Andrew Gale worked hard to stage a recovery on a pitch with some assistance in it for the seamers but it became 48 for three when Sean Ervine came on and immediately had Gale flicking a loose legside delivery into the gloves of Nic Pothas.Watchful batting, allied to a sound technique, enabled Root to move efficiently to 35 before he was unluckily dismissed at the non-striker’s end, Ervine moving swiftly to cut off Bairstow’s return drive with the ball ricocheting into the stumps.Yorkshire were a shaky 96 for 4 at lunch and three runs into the afternoon session they lost Gerard Brophy who shaped to play Cork on the legside and was lbw to continue his run of low scores. There was brief support from Adil Rashid for Bairstow who pulled Cork for his ninth boundary to complete a half-century but soon afterwards Rashid was held at second slip by James Vince off Kabir Ali.There was a scare for Bairstow on 60 when a mistimed legside shot at Ali ballooned to Vince at backward point but umpire Jeremy Lloyds was already signalling no-ball. Hampshire turned to the left-arm spin of Danny Briggs at 180 for 6 and he bowled a tidy 15-over spell from the football end but Bresnan managed to settle in well with Bairstow.They added a valuable 62 together in 17 overs and Bairstow looked set for his first century in a home match until he attempted an inelegant stroke through the off side against Cork and got an inside edge into his stumps to depart for 83 from 130 deliveries with 13 boundaries.Bresnan continued Yorkshire’s recovery in an unbroken eighth-wicket stand of 99 with Ajmal Shahzad who also blossomed after a careful start. Bresnan swept Briggs handsomely for six to go to his 50 from 96 balls with six boundaries and Shahzad also cleared the rope by hooking Griffiths into the crowd at long leg.At 72, Bresnan had reached his highest Championship score for Yorkshire since hitting 97 against Worcestershire in June 2009 and there was just time before the close for Shahzad to cut a boundary which took his side to 300 and a third batting bonus point, Shahzad ending the day on 42 with four fours and a six.