Mumbai face a quarter-final situation when they take on group leaders Saurashtra in their last Group stage match on Tuesday. While a loss will most likely eliminate them, an outright win will ensure a place in the semi-finals. If they draw, they will have to hope Delhi do worse than them. The two teams are currently tied in second place with 18 points each.Mumbai are cornered, but they have scripted successful escape acts in the past. Last season, they were without any points going into the fourth game, but won five in a row to lift the Ranji Trophy. “Been there, done that” is the fuel behind their confidence and Amol Muzumdar, the captain, is banking on it. “We have been in this situation before and everybody knows the importance of the game. We can do it.”But even Muzumdar admits the situation this year is precarious. The bowling has been severely depleted with injuries to Ajit Agarkar, Aavishkar Salvi and Rajesh Verma. Meanwhile, Ramesh Powar’s recent form has been a cause of worry. He has picked up just nine wickets from the last four games, after grabbing 15 in the first two. The inexperienced Murtuza Hussain leads the seam attack and Mumbai will hope that Powar, along with Nilesh Kulkarni, the replacement for Iqbal Abdulla, can raise their game when it matters the most.Muzumdar knows where the problem lies. “It has been an up and down season. Obviously the injuries have not helped. The replacements are very young; Murtuza is playing his third game, [Mondeep] Mangela has just played one. [Usman] Malvi has been around but he has been in and out. We have been struggling to get 20 wickets and that’s why we have not been able to finish games.”That has been the story of their season. In their opening game, Mumbai had Karnataka reeling with a 142-run lead, but Rahul Dravid imposed himself in the second innings with a double century. In the third game, against Delhi, they came back from an 85-run deficit to set a target of 387, but could only pick up three wickets as Gautam Gambhir and Akash Chopra put up an 188-run opening stand.And in the next match, they fell 15 runs short of Maharashtra’s 451 to give away the lead and three points. From a wobbly 197 for 6, they were steadied by a 185-run partnership between Powar (107) and Agarkar (95), but both fell in quick succession to leave Mumbai just short of the line.Mumbai picked up five points next time out, but it was only because Rajasthan chose to go for a win and lost three wickets in the last over. Again the bowlers had not done a great deal as Rajasthan lost five wickets in the second innings to run-outs. In their last outing, Hossain picked up a six-wicket haul to force Himachal Pradesh to follow on, but injury to Agarkar – who limped off after just 5.2 overs – and Powar’s indifferent form meant they couldn’t kill the contest and Himachal batted their way to a draw.The batting too has been a bit up and down. Abhishek Nayar and Sahil Kukreja, the opener, tapered off after a good start, Muzumdar has gone the other way – coming into form after an indifferent beginning, Ajinkya Rahane has been steady, but not spectacular while Rohit Sharma has been struggling for runs with just 150 from four games.Pravin Amre, who helped in Muzumdar’s revival by rectifying problems with his footwork and head position, has been working a lot on Sharma. “The change of format [from Twenty20 to ODIs to first-class] has been a reason for his loss of form. A few errors have crept in. We are working hard on his pick up and his down swing and he is improving rapidly. I am hoping he scores a big one in this game to set up things for us.”Hope is the operative word in the Mumbai camp – they hope Powar and Kulkarni will perform, they hope the batsmen will raise their games and they must be hoping Tamil Nadu can help their cause by upsetting Delhi – but they are also waiting to see how Saurashtra handle pressure. And that could be the real factor in this game.As Muzumdar put it, “The pressure is on them. They are leading the table. We just want to treat this game as a quarterfinal and we need to play good aggressive cricket. We know how to play that kind of cricket and we are focussed.”And a national selector said, “Mumbai have this knack of getting out of trouble, they will somehow make it.” Time will tell.
ScorecardShannan Stewart and Michael Papps guided Canterbury to a thumping nine-wicket win against Wellington in their Twenty20 match at Christchurch. Both made 66 – although Stewart’s was unbeaten – as Canterbury chased down the required 170 with a minimum of fuss.Neal Parlane piloted Wellington with 63, sharing a second-wicket stand of 71 with Chris Nevin. Stu Mills took charge after Parlane was dismissed in the 17th over, as his unbeaten 37 lifted them to 169. Stewart and Papps made easy work of the target with an opening stand of 136. Captain Chris Harris and Stewart guided the team home with two overs to spare. ScorecardNathan McCullum’s allround performance steered Otago to a 14-run win over Auckland in their Twenty20 match at Eden Park. McCullum’s late-innings 20 lifted Otago to a competitive 181, but his contribution in the field was more crucial, picking up two wickets and affecting three run-outs.Richard Jones, the Auckland captain, was the only batsman to carry on after getting a start, but the steady fall of wickets increased the pressure and consequently the asking rate. Two early run-outs, courtesy of McCullum, reduced Auckland to 42 for 4. Jones and Dave Houpapa led the recovery adding a quick 55 in just over five overs. However, the rate slackened after Houpapa was dismissed. Mayo Pasupathi made a breezy 28 off 14 balls but both him and Jones were dismissed in the final over to McCullum. Jones top-scored with 75 off 57 balls with eight fours and a six.Earlier, Otago were boosted by contributions by Chris Gaffaney and and Gareth Hopkins, who made 43 and 47 respectively. Opener Gaffaney got the team off to a good start, and once he was dismissed, Hopkins and Greg Todd added 56 for the fourth wicket to lay the platform for a good score.
ScorecardNarsingh Deonarine struck a defiant unbeaten century to earn Guyana a fighting draw against Barbados on the final day of their Carib Beer Series match at the Everest Cricket Club.Deonarine frustrated Barbados for the entire fourth day to hit an undefeated 136 as Guyana, facing a first innings deficit of 153, closed on 309 for 9 when the match was called off at 4.34 pm with 15 overs remaining. Showing fine powers of concentration, he held up Barbados for exactly eight hours, faced 366 balls and counted 14 fours on the way to his fourth first-class century which earned him the Man of the Match award. He resumed on 37, with Guyana on 105 for 2, and batted solidly for the entire day despite steadily losing partners. Deonarine reached his 50 off 136 balls with an off-drive for his sixth four and although he spent 50 minutes in the 90s, he raised his century in 20 minutes after tea from 256 balls.Deonarine was well supported by Neil McGarell in an eighth wicket stand of 72 after Barbados had put themselves in a position to win by reducing Guyana to 203 for 7 half way into the day. He stayed with Deonarine for an hour-and-half and made 48 off 60 balls with five fours and two sixes, but the match was still in Barbados’ favour when he was dismissed 38 minutes after tea.In the pre-lunch session, Guyana lost two wickets for 63 runs, Travis Dowlin was run out for 25 and Assad Fudadin was well caught low at point by Wayne Blackman. After lunch, Andre Percival, Derwin Christian and Mahendra Nagamotoo all fell cheaply before Deonarine found a useful partner in McGarrell, who was eventually run out by a direct throw from Kurt Wilkinson at mid on.At 279 for 9, Reon King joined Deonarine to put the contest out of Barbados’ reach by batting for 39 minutes after which the two captains agreed to end the match. Barbados’ bowlers, backed up by outstanding fielding, manfully stuck to the task in spite of Deonarine’s obdurate effort. Ian Bradshaw finished with 3 for 76 off 24 overs and Ryan Nurse and Antonio Thomas took two wickets each.Both teams have a brief break before playing their second match, starting on December 9, when Guyana meet Windward Islands at the Albion Community Development Centre in Berbice, while Barbados play Trinidad and Tobago at the Carlton Club, just outside Bridgetown
A facial cut has ruled Shane Harwood, the Victoria bowler, out of the first interstate Twenty20 match against Western Australia at the WACA tomorrow. Harwood received six stitches near his right eye following a training injury yesterday and has been replaced by Andrew McDonald, who is returning from thumb surgery.Shane Warne will also play in the 20-over match and has been named in the ING Cup squad for the clash on Friday night and the Pura Cup game starting on Sunday. The domestic appearances will be the first of the season for Warne, who replaces Ian Hewett in the ING Cup and Mathew Inness in the Pura Cup.Victoria ING Cup Cameron White (capt), Adam Crosthwaite (wk), Matthew Elliott, Ian Harvey, Brad Hodge, David Hussey, Brad Knowles, Michael Lewis, Jonathan Moss, Graeme Rummans, Shane Warne, Tim Welsford.Victoria Pura Cup Cameron White (capt), Jason Arnberger, Matthew Elliott, Ian Harvey, Brad Hodge, David Hussey, Michael Lewis, Jonathan Moss, Peter Roach (wk), Graeme Rummans, Shane Warne, Allan Wise.Victoria Twenty20 Liam Buchanan, Adam Crosthwaite, Matthew Elliott, Ian Harvey, Andrew McDonald, Ian Hewett, Nick Jewell, Brad Knowles, Jonathan Moss, Graeme Rummans, Shane Warne, Tim Welsford.
In an exclusive interview for the first edition of The Wisden Cricketer magazine, which goes on sale on Friday, September 19, Michael Vaughan has called for a restructuring of county cricket, in which the number of Championship games in a season would be cut by a half.”You only have to watch county cricket to see the enthusiasm levels drained out of players,” Vaughan told The Wisden Cricketer. “Jon Lewis, of Gloucestershire, said after the Headingley Test that he had played 21 out of 24 days – that simply can’t be right.”Vaughan has proposed that the number of first-class counties be reduced by two to 16, to be divided into two divisions of eight teams. Then, instead of the current home-and-away fixture pile-up, each side would then play the others in their division only once in the course of a season, leaving a two-week gap between matches.”I love the county game but the structure is not working and I feel sorry for the young guys coming into the England side,” Vaughan added. “As a step up it is massive. I made my Test debut at 25 and had played county cricket for seven years … but it still took 18 months to get used to Test cricket.”Vaughan’s comments will cause outrage among many county stalwarts, including the Worcestershire chairman, John Elliott, who recently accused Vaughan of biting the hand that fed him. But his sentiments have also been echoed in influential circles. Prior to the Oval Test, the former ECB chairman Lord MacLaurin called for the first-class structure to be limited to 12 teams, a proposal that found favour with the Cricket Reform Group, which includes the former England captains Mike Atherton and Bob Willis among their members.Martyn Ball, the chairman of the Professional Cricketers’ Association, however, was less enthusiastic. “Michael Vaughan is entitled to his opinion but I would question the grounds for his criticism,” he told The Wisden Cricketer as part of a major debate on the future of county cricket. “Steve Waugh has said in the past that county cricket is a strong environment and in all probability is the second-toughest domestic game in the world. Poor results [should be] the fault of the guys out on the field and not down to weaknesses of the club structure.”But England’s coach Duncan Fletcher, with whom the ECB are keen to secure a new deal, is no fan of the county structure. “When you lose, you should hurt for three weeks and really think about it,” he said after the Oval Test. “You should assess what happened and why. Instead, you’ve got the coach and the captain saying to you: ‘Forget about it because we’ve got another game today.'”Click here to subscribe to The Wisden Cricketer
A responsible hundred from Baroda skipper Connor Williams brought Ranji champions Baroda within shouting distance of Maharashtra’s first innings score of 321 on the second day of the Ranji Trophy tie between the two sides at the Nehru Stadium, Pune on Sunday.Baroda, who finished the day on 294 for five, were given a strong foundation by Williams and his opening partner Satyajit Parab (74). The two put on 184 runs for the first wicket before Parab departed after having faced 142 balls and hit nine fours.Former India `keeper Nayan Mongia, who followed, kept his skipper company for a good while as the two put on 51 runs for the second wicket. But Mongia’s departure for a patient 22 saw Maharashtra stage a minor fightback; the visitors lost three more top-order wickets, including that of Williams for 137 off 199 balls with 21 fours, for the addition of just 30 runs. But veteran middle-order bat Tushar Arothe and Himanshu Jadhav ensured that Baroda ended the day without any further mishaps by putting on 28 runs for the unbroken sixth wicket.
At the scheduled start time of this match – 10.45 BST – there appeared little chance of any cricket taking place in Sophia Gardens after heavy overnight rain and further showers had left the outfield sodden and a vast acreage of covering over the square. However, the weather cleared and a 42 over-a-side match was possible starting at 1.15.England won the toss and got off to a good start. After John Sadler had fallen with 58 on the board, Nicky Peng and acting captain Ian Bell put on 108 for the second wicket from 20 overs. Peng’s fine innings came to an end when he played on to Akalanka Ganegama and Bell went on to reach 62 before he became the first of 5 run out victims in the match in the 35th over.Useful runs were garnered by the lower order in reaching 238 for 6 from the allocation of 42 overs, with Ranil Dhammika the pick of the Sri Lankan bowlers, his 9 overs producing 1 for 28.The Sri Lankans got off to a good start themselves, putting 51 on the board before the fall of the first wicket in 9 overs. Ian Daniels had been particularly effective off his legs and driving straight before he was out for 43 from 33 balls including 7 fours, and although Thilina Kandambi reached a fluent 50, Sri Lanka began to lose their way.As the required rate rose to difficult proportions and wickets fell at regular intervals, England began to assert themselves. Despite some occasionally wayward bowling and indifferent fielding, England kept their nerve and finished winning a splendidly fought contest by 15 runs.The second match in the NatWest Series of Under 19 internationals takes place at Cardiff again on Saturday, with the third match at Hove –a day/nighter – on Monday.
With Karamoko Dembele’s Celtic contract set to expire at the end of the season – and, as yet, the winger being yet to sign a new deal with the Bhoys – there is a growing level of uncertainty surrounding the 19-year-old’s immediate future at Parkhead.
Indeed, the England U18 international is yet to play a competitive fixture under the management of Ange Postecoglou – something that has largely been down to the forward fracturing his ankle in pre-season – and questions are starting to be asked as to whether the teenager is a part of the 56-year-old’s long-term plans at Celtic Park.
This exact question was put to the Greek-Australian coach prior to Wednesday’s Premiership clash against St. Mirren, to which Postecoglou replied: “I hope so. With Karamoko, he’s just been really unlucky with injuries.
“In pre-season, I really was looking forward to working with him. People will remember he was on the end of a pretty unordinary tackle which really set him back. But he’s worked really hard to get his fitness back. He’s now available, we just haven’t found the right game to give him an opportunity, but he will get an opportunity between now and the end of the year – absolutely.
“It’s also about futures and where they see their futures. I’ve said all along, for me, this football club is everything that a young player should want. Particularly at the moment – I really want to bring young players into the first team and give them an opportunity. But they’ve got to be invested in our football club. I’m going to invest time in and give opportunities to people who want to stay at our football club.
“With Karamoko, he’s been in the squad the last couple of games. He’ll be in the squad tomorrow night. He’s obviously missed a lot of football as well so I’m really careful about when I want to put him in. But he’ll get an opportunity. He’s an exciting young player and the way we play should suit him, so, hopefully, he has an impact and helps us.”
As such, with Postecoglou himself suggesting he is waiting for the perfect opportunity to let Dembele loose in the first team, it would very much appear as if tonight’s home fixture against eighth-place St. Mirren could well be the ideal game to do so.
Indeed, with James Forrest having failed to find any real level of form so far this season, in addition to Liel Abada having had a game to forget against Hibernian last time out, now would seem to be the ideal time to unleash a fresh pair of legs on the right-wing.
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And, should the £2k-per-week forward who Ruud Gullit claimed is an “exceptionally good” talent who “looks pretty special” impress against the Saints, he could well go on to stake a claim as being a starter for Postecoglou over the remainder of the season – an outcome that would undoubtedly delight everyone involved with the club.
In other news: Ange can unearth Celtic’s new Rogic in “talented” 17 y/o who “knows where the goal is”
Bangladesh’s players’ association, the Cricketers’ Welfare Association of Bangladesh (CWAB), has been given full membership of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Association ( FICA).The CWAB was established in 2004 with a primary objective of promoting and protecting the general welfare of cricketers within the country, and it also engages in numerous projects for the benefit of the wider community.All first-class cricketers registered with the Bangladesh board are entitled to be members of CWAB. It currently has around 170 players on its books.”I am delighted to welcome CWAB as a member of FICA,” Tim May, FICA’s chief executive, said. “Bangladesh are young in International cricketing experience and have much to offer the world of cricket. FICA believe it is imperative that the players’ positions and concerns of all countries are represented with equal vigor to the ICC and the addition of CWAB to our membership obviously is a significant step to achieving this objective.”
Chris Rogers continued his remarkable season with 152 to give Western Australia a lead of 298 after Tasmania’s disastrous first innings. A six-wicket haul from Brendan Drew – his best first-class bowling performance – gave the Tigers a sliver of hope before Michael Di Venuto (69 not out) reduced the deficit to 191 at stumps.Rogers resumed on 93 and took only five overs to raise his second century in 2006-07. The majority of his score came in boundaries – he hit 26 fours – as he pushed himself close to 800 runs in five matches this season and gave himself a buffer of nearly 250 from the second-highest run-scorer in the competiton, Brad Hodge.Rogers and the debutant Luke Pomersbach, who impressed ten days ago by scoring a century in the tour match against the England XI, proved Tasmania’s first-innings 94 was well below par. Pomersbach made 74 before giving Tim Paine his only catch in his first match as wicketkeeper for the home side.Drew, whose bowling action bears an uncanny resemblance to Glenn McGrath, produced a quality spell towards the end of the innings. He put a stop to Rogers’ fine effort and then picked up four late wickets to minimise the damage from the Western Australia lower order and finished with 6 for 94.