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Allied Bank (ABL) have paid one million US dollars to become one of the co-sponsors of the Pakistan-India series, a top bank official said here on Saturday. Naveed Masud, ABL’s Senior Executive Vice President, told reporters that ABL has signed an agreement with Nimbus Sports, a move that marks the bank’s arrival as a sponsor of a major international sports event.ABL has come under the microscope for closing down its sports department last year but Naveed said that the move does not mean that the bank has stopped supporting sports. “We have changed our policy and now rather than supporting individuals, we are spending our sports funds to sponsor events.” Naveed said that sponsoring sports events like the Pakistan-India series would give “us a lot of mileage”. He asserted that ABL would continue investing funds in the sponsorship of sports in the coming years.Meanwhile, after signing the contract, ABL has joined Allianz, Hutch and Grassim Cement as sponsors of the Pakistan-India series. Allianz are the title sponsors for the three-match Test series while Hutch are the lead sponsors for the five-match ODI contest.”The decision to sponsor the India-Pakistan 2006 series was taken with the knowledge of the passion of the game shared by both the nations and our intention to be an active part of the same,” said Khalid Sherwani, ABL President, in a media statement. A Nimbus official welcomed ABL’s entry as one of the series sponsors. “Allied Bank has beaten Indian banking sponsors to the line on this series — one of most important events in the cricket calendar in 2006,” said the official.

ScorecardFile photo: Sulieman Benn’s six-wicket haul in the second innings dismantled Windward Islands•Associated Press

A second-innings half-century from the captain Paul Palmer helped Jamaica chase down 150 for a three-wicket win against Leeward Islands in Kingston. Jamaica made the early running in the game, as Leeward Islands, after opting to bat, were dismissed for 164 in 63 overs, thanks to a five-wicket haul from the seamer Sheldon Cottrell (5 for 38). The hosts fell to 68 for 6 in their reply and looked in danger of missing out on an innings lead, but Carlton Baugh (73) and Nikita Miller (51) counterattacked by putting up a 110-run stand. Rahkeem Cornwall picked up four wickets for Leeward Islands, but Jamaica managed to compile 243 to earn a lead of 79 runs.Leeward Islands showed more fight in their second dig, scoring 228 on the back of Shane Jeffers’ 61 and Orlando Peters’ 52. However, no other batsman was able to produce a score of note, as Miller collected 4 for 71 to run through the line-up. As was the case in their first innings, Jamaica found themselves on the back foot even in the second, precariously placed at 84 for 5. Cornwall was once again the pick of the bowlers, taking 5 for 39, but Palmer helped weather the storm, stroking six fours for his 127-ball 51, as Jamaica held on for victory.
ScorecardLeft-arm spinner Sulieman Benn’s second-innings six-for fired Barbados to a 181-run win against Windward Islands in Grenada. Barbados, opting to bat, were guided by handy knocks from their top-order batsmen as the team posted a total of 296; Kyle Corbin and Sharmarh Brooks chipped in with fifties. Fast bowler Kevin Stoute ensured Windward Islands remained on the defensive by collecting 4 for 30 to wreck the team’s line-up, as the hosts folded for 179, with no batsman managing a half-century.Brooks then compiled his second half-century of the game – a 183-ball 66 – and added 130 for the fourth wicket with Roston Chase (71), as Barbados eventually declared at 261 for 7, setting Windward Islands a target of 397. Despite starts from their top three batsmen – Tyrone Theophile, Miles Bascombe and Johnson Charles all made forties – the hosts did not get anywhere close to the target. Benn took 6 for 55 in 26.2 overs as Windward Islands were bowled out for 197.
ScorecardA century from Assad Fudadin, and an eight-wicket match haul from Veerasammy Permaul were the cornerstones behind Guyana’s innings and 49-run win against Trinidad & Tobago in Port of Spain.T&T, batting first, were wrecked by Chris Barnwell’s five-wicket haul, and only a fighting partnership of 108 for the ninth wicket between Marlon Richards (53) and Uthman Muhammad (53) got the team above 200. Guyana, though, remained unfazed and collected a massive first-innings lead, as Fudadin, Leon Johnson (92), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (82), Raymon Reifer (64) and Barnwell (79) all got in among the runs. Their efforts lifted Guyana to 475, with a lead of 265 runs.Kyle Hope (74) and Narsingh Deonarine (47) put up a 104-run partnership for the third wicket in T&T’s second innings, but once Permaul (5 for 62) got the breakthrough by dismissing Deonarine, the team subsequently folded. Gudakesh Motie provided support to the attack by taking 4 for 43, as T&T were dismissed for 216, falling to their second defeat of the season.

Graeme Smith has voiced concerns about the exodus of leading players from South African cricket. Several cricketers including Jacques Rudolph and Vaughn van Jaarsveld have signed Kolpak contracts while others such as Andrew Hall have recently quit international cricket.”The main concern is that players who can still mean a lot to the national team are turning their back on South African cricket,” Smith told news24.com, a South African news website. “Those are the ones we have to keep and whom the administrators should think about.”Guys of 21 and 22 years are leaving because they just do not have the patience to play their way into the national team,” Smith said. “Some players who are near the end of their career are also taking that route.”It is hard to stop them because the money they will earn in the Indian Cricket League (ICL) is a major consideration. But it does prove that there are other problems in our cricket that have to be solved. The administrators have a major task and I just hope they take it seriously.”Lance Klusener and Nicky Boje have signed with the ICL while Hall is almost certain to join once his contract with Cricket South Africa comes to an end in April next year.Though Jacques Kallis, who resigned from the vice-captaincy after being dropped for the ICC World Twenty20, is back in the side for the Pakistan tour, his replacement as vice-captain has not been announced. “I wish I knew. I’ll let you know when I find out,” said Smith. “But it seems that sort of information is not meant for me.”The South African team is currently in Pakistan on a two-Test and five-ODI tour.

Victoria have signed Matthew Wade, the Tasmanian wicketkeeper-batsman, in a move Wade hopes will increase his chances of playing state cricket next season. Wade, 19, made his limited-overs debut for the Tigers in 2006-07 as a specialist batsman but managed only one match.With Sean Clingeleffer re-establishing his place in the Tasmania Pura Cup team and Tim Paine looking settled behind the stumps in the one-day competition, Wade believed his opportunities in his home state would be limited. “Tasmania has a strong squad and I’m really grateful for the time I spent there, but the reality for me was that I was third in line as far as the keeping position was concerned,” Wade said.”I’m hoping that with a fresh start with Victoria and more hard work, I can create greater opportunities to play state cricket. I’m really looking forward to joining the Bushrangers.” Wade, a left-hand batsman and former Australia Under-19 representative, could pose a serious threat to Adam Crosthwaite, who has established himself as Victoria’s first-choice wicketkeeper over the past two seasons.Greg Shipperd, the Victoria coach who has also led Tasmania, saw Wade’s development as a young player and was thoroughly impressed. “He’s a pocket rocket,” Shipperd told the . “What he does do is score hundreds, and he has consistently done that since his junior days. He’s got a good technique, really solid. He could really challenge as a batter and a keeper. And it will present Adam with a serious challenge with healthy competition for a place in the side coming into the group.”Tim Coyle, the Tasmania coach, said Wade was a talented player and the Tigers had offered him a two-year senior contract to entice him to stay. “We understand that Victoria guaranteed him selection in its Pura Cup team to win his signature,” Coyle said.”We are not in a position to guarantee any player a game of first-class cricket as we prefer to see people earn the right to represent Tasmania at this level. But in saying this, we wish Matthew all the best for the future.” Wade, who was named Tasmania’s Young Player of the Year in March for the second consecutive season, is part of the 16-man Australian Institute of Sport intake for this year.

Kenya’s players met with board officials at Cricket Kenya’s headquarters on Thursday after expressing unhappiness at not receiving their match fees for the abandoned tri-series match against Canada at Mombasa last month.The game was called off after Canada informed match officials that they were unable to field a side because of illness in their squad. Under ICC regulations, that means the game was deemed never to have started and, as such, Cricket Kenya did not pay its players appearance fees of between $60 and $90 each. The players, however, believed that this money should have been forthcoming even though the game was scrapped the day before and they never even left their hotel. They still received their $30 daily allowance on the day concerned.”We were concerned about our allowances for the Canada match,” Thomas Odoyo, the Kenya allrounder, told Kenya’s , “but that matter has now been resolved. With that issue now behind us, we can now focus all our attention on training.”Cricinfo has learned that the board agreed to pay the fees as a one-off, on the understanding that this did not set a precedent.The news comes days after Cricket Kenya announced its players would each receive $5000 bonuses for their success in the World Cricket League last week.”We will pay them this appearance fee soon and they have agreed to resume training,” Tom Tikolo, Cricket Kenya’s chief executive said. “They are now settled and we don’t anticipate any more issues. They [the players] also expressed concern regarding the issue of World Cup bonuses and we assured them they would get paid on time.”

Australia will ditch their light-hearted Twenty20 outlook as they prepare to treat the inaugural World Championship as seriously as the successful Caribbean campaign earlier in the year. In its previous five matches the team has looked at the game as entertainment, but Ricky Ponting outlined the changes as he chases a hat-trick of global limited-overs trophies in South Africa next month.When asked if Australia would tackle the tournament with the same intensity as the 2007 World Cup Ponting said: “We will, definitely. It’s cricket for us, and we’ve got to prepare as best as we can. We’re preparing trying to win the Twenty20 World Championship.”The mood change since the first international in 2005 is significant and Ponting seemed disappointed the status had been upgraded from exhibition to must-win contests. In New Zealand the opening game was a retro tribute with the players sporting big hair and sweaty headbands, and since then matches were played as a warm-up to the main one-day internationals.In South Africa, Australia’s first match is against Zimbabwe on September 12 and Ponting expects some of the smiles to disappear. “One of the best things about the game was it was fun and you play your best cricket when you are getting out there and having fun,” he said. “Now we’re playing a World Cup the players will be worried about stats and that might lose a bit of the beauty about the game.”Australia, who also hold the Champions Trophy, have won three of their Twenty20 matches and the fringe players in the squad will be in a better position than their senior team-mates. “It’s a young game for us, especially for the international guys who only played a few games,” Ponting said. “The guys in the states and the counties have played more than we have.”Being tactically unaware is a strange position for the squad and it will be working on methods to conquer the condensed game during its week-long camp in Queensland. In an unusual pre-season training move Ponting’s batting over the next week will involve “hitting every ball as hard as I can, as far as I can”.The 25 contracted players arrived at the Sunshine Coast town of Coolum on Sunday and will be involved in detailed planning sessions during the week before practice matches in Brisbane at the weekend. While the Twenty20 tournament is the immediate high-profile priority, the squad will also be building for a one-day tour to India, Test series against Sri Lanka and India and an Australia A trip to Pakistan.The six home Tests form part of a rescheduled summer for Australia – Sri Lanka play two games in November and India open the four-match series in Melbourne on Boxing Day – and Ponting felt India would form the greater challenge. “Sri Lanka probably rely on Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene with the bat and Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas with the ball,” he said. “India probably have more depth than Sri Lanka in Test cricket, but India have historically been very poor travellers.”Ponting said India’s series win over England earlier this month would give them confidence but he expected his team to prevail even without the retired Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer. “With both those sides, if we perform at our best, we should be able to win pretty easily in Australia.”

Brad Hogg has no intention of giving up the mantle of Australia’s leading one-day spinner to Dan Cullen, the rookie offspinner, before next year’s World Cup. However, he believes Cullen is the man to take over the role of leading Australian spinner in the future.Hogg, 35, said that the hunger to compete in the World Cup was greater than it had ever been for him. “As things get closer I think it was halfway through last year [it became] one of those goals where I wanted to defend something that I have done before,” he told the . “It is good that Dan has got a crack and he has a little taste of international cricket. He is probably going to be our main spinner once Warne and MacGill go in the Test arena and hopefully he can play a big part in the one-dayers as well from now on.”Following Shane Warne’s retirement from one-day cricket, Hogg has carved out a handy role for himself and picked up his 100th wicket during the first match against Bangladesh at Chittagong on Sunday. His tally rests at 101 wickets at 28.88 – with an economy rate of 4.52 – in 83 one-day matches, and he averages just over 20 with his late-order hitting. Cullen conceded just 36 from his ten overs on debut, but it was Hogg, with 3 for 37, who was the stand-out bowler on a spin-friendly pitch in Chittagong.Hogg believed he was in the form of his career and expected himself and Cullen to both make the squad for the World Cup in the Caribbean. “They took two spinners to the last World Cup and I can’t see why they won’t this time,” he said. “It looks like it is going to be Dan or myself or either one of us, but we have to keep performing to keep our spots. As they say you don’t give a sucker an even chance.”Both bowlers are set for another crack at Bangladesh at Fatullah tomorrow with Australia naming an unchanged side for the second game of the three-match series.

ScorecardNorthamptonshire survived an awkward second innings to claim a draw against Nottinghamshire after a three-wicket burst from AJ Harris threatened to open up a final-afternoon result. Facing a deficit of 160, Northamptonshire slumped to 18 for 3 before Chris Rogers and Rob White added 134.Nottinghamshire batted aggressively during the morning session, Mark Wagh taking his century to 152 until being caught behind of Johann van der Wath. The middle order all contributed useful runs at a decent pace, but Mark Ealham was forced to retire hurt for 25.Harris then struck with the new ball, having Stephen Peters edging to Chris Read and both David Sales and Alex Wakely taken at slip by Stephen Fleming. However, Rogers found his touch after a lean run and White struck 12 boundaries before everyone shuck hands on a draw.

After lasting 205 balls and not having played a shot in anger, S Badrinathdanced down the pitch to Rahul Sanghvi and hit him straight back over hishead, clean as anything, and the ball thudded into the sightscreen,signalling the only six on a day where the scoring rate was just in excessof two runs per over. It was an amazing moment not because Badrinath isincapable of the big hits, but simply because it was a startling shot on aday when batsmen had to shelve their shots.Indian cricket these days is full of cricketers who want to make aninstant impact – and the best way to do that is to be a strokemaker. ButBadrinath is different, and is proud of the fact that he began as a grafterand from that solid base has grown into something more. “I started off asa grafter,” he told Cricinfo at the end of the day’s play. “My range of strokes hasincreased over time, has become broader. Now I think I’ve got all theshots. It’s basically a question of shot selection – which shots to playon which wickets, that’s important.”Badrinath has made eight first-class centuries, and some of them have beeninvaluable to Tamil Nadu’s cause, but this was perhaps the most critical,and he acknowledged that. “Given the circumstances I went out to bat in,11 for 2, and the fact that this was not the easiest wicket to bat on, Iwould rate this innings among the best I’ve played,” he said. “Perhapsthis isn’t my best-ever, but I’d rate it very highly.”There was another grafter on display on the day, in M Vijay, the debutant,who played almost five hours for his 59 and shared in a critical 127-runpartnership for the third wicket after an early wobble. “He looks a goodplayer, and has made plenty of runs in league cricket in Chennai,” saidBadrinath of Vijay. “He’s a bit inexperienced in that he’s playing hisfirst Ranji match, but he’s definitely a player for the future.”There is plenty of experience the team, though, with the likes of SSharath and Ashish Kapoor having played domestic cricket for years, andBadrinath is not ignorant of this. “There are times when I can talk tothese guys and get some inputs,” he said. “I’ve played a bit of cricketmyself, but you must remember this is just my third match as captain. Soit certainly helps to have the right blend of guys, like we do.”Badrinath was also not especially concerned that his team had only managed184 after winning the toss and choosing to bat. “The wicket was reallyslow and the ball was just not coming onto the bat,” he said. “Consideringthat you had to be patient and look to play long. The runs will eventuallycome. Losing only three wickets in the whole day was a good effort, evenif we only made 184 runs.”With the bounce not being consistent, it was hard work for the batsmen allround, and it’s only going to get tougher as the pitch wears down. “It washard to play both the spinners and the fast bowlers,” he said, refusing tobe drawn out on what was the easiest type of bowling to make runs againston this pitch. “The bounce isn’t true, so the horizontal bat shots arecompletely ruled out. This makes it hard to get boundaries. In suchsituations you just have to work, work, work and try and pick up the onesand twos wherever you can.”The hundred was a timely one for Badrinath, with Dilip Vengsarkar, thechairman of selectors, watching the game from near the players’ enclosure.When asked if Vengasarkar’s presence put any added pressure on him,Badrinath laughed off the suggestion. “It wasn’t a distraction,” he said”I’m just going to go out there and play my game, whoever is watching orisn’t. It wasn’t any added pressure on me.”

Michael Lewis, the fast bowler from Victoria, has been investigated for alleged ball-tampering during the Pura Cup game against Queensland at the Gabba. In what was the first such video review in the history of Australian domestic cricket, Lewis was found to have applied his thumbnail to the ball but the umpires, stating that he hadn’t done anything illegal, let him off with a warning.Lewis was caught in suspicious circumstances on camera on two occasions: first, applying his thumbnail to the ball; and second, in the way he was holding the ball, with both hands over the top. Norm McNamara and Dave Orchard, the on-field umpires, reviewed the footage with Greg Shipperd, Victoria’s coach, and Cameron White, the captain, at the end of the day’s play and decided Lewis had no case to answer, saying the matter had been “dealt with” on the field.However, when Lewis and White were asked to comment by the media, they denied being addressed by the umpires, claiming that their on-field discussions with McNamara and Orchard were in regard to a different incident. Lewis had earlier hurled the ball at Clinton Perren, the Queensland batsman whose second-innings 90 had set his team up for a win, and this forced the umpires to intervene. “We wouldn’t be so stupid as to do something illegal when we know the cameras are on us,” Lewis has been reported as saying by the , a Melbourne-based daily.During the second day’s play, Lewis had requested McNamara and Orchard to clean the ball after it had been soiled by sand and dirt when retrieved from the boundary. Both umpires consented, and Lewis apparently cleaned the ball with his thumb. Later in the day’s proceedings, Lewis was seen to have applied his thumbnail to the ball. After being shown the footage, Graham Dixon, Queensland’s cricket chief executive, brought the matter to the attention of the umpires, adding that he was suspicious over the manner in which Lewis held the ball during delivery. The umpires watched the video and decided Lewis had done nothing illegal, and a warning was issued to Lewis that such instances were not permissable without the umpires’ consent.Despite Victoria’s claims of being scrutinised because of the intense rivalry between both teams, this incident has been taken seriously owing to another case earlier this year. An investigation into a ball-tampering episode involving an assistant coach during a Victorian second XI game was dismissed due to lack of evidence, but the vigilance with which such cases have been approached has put players under pressure. Further, Victoria’s bowlers have a reputation of generating reverse-swing, and Lewis – who maintained that he along with Rodney Hogg, the former Test bowler, had devised a legal method – has been recognised as one of the chief exponents of the craft.