Harbhajan Singh has said that he has a way to curb Sanath Jayasuriya’s murderous methods. He revealed a few strategies ahead of Sunday’s Asia Cup final at Colombo.”When Sanath sweeps,” a PTI report quoted Harbhajan as saying, “he turns his eyes away which is an encouraging sight to me. It is not the sweep of a Matthew Hayden who is looking at the ball while executing such strokes.”Harbhajan also revealed the field that he plans to have for Jayasuriya. “I will have five fielders on the on side for him — one at short fine leg, the other at deep fine leg, one fielder right in front of square leg umpire, the fourth one at deep midwicket and the fifth at mid-on, drawn a little inside the right.”All this was in the hope that he may induce Jayasuriya into an airy sweep. Apart from deciding to feed Jayasuriya on the leg side, he also has said he would bowl over the wicket and deny him the room to play the cut. “I would not bowl round-the-wicket to him. He has such a brilliant tap shot which is defensive in nature but still goes for a four. By bowling over the wicket, I would not be giving him room.”Harbhajan termed his ball to get Marvan Atapattu, in the do-or-die clash, as his best ball of the tournament. “He came forward to me, was beaten in the flight and picked up by Yuvraj Singh in front of the square-leg umpire.”Harbhajan said he felt extremely comfortable bowling after a long break and added, “I am now doing things which I never bothered about before. I give the finger ice-treatment after matches. I have three devices to strengthen my bowling fingers. One is sort of plaster-of-paris , which I squeeze to strengthen my fingers from the inside. There is a loop which I tie to two fingers and expand it to strengthen my fingers from the outside. Then there is a squeezing ball.”

Ricky Ponting was particularly happy with his bowlers during the two-Test series but was disappointed with the analysis of his declaration in the second innings at Adelaide.Ricky PontingOn the series win
We played some great Test cricket over the past two weeks. The way we started with the bat was outstanding here and we’ve done everything to ensure a win.On batting on for the declaration
It was deliberate. We wanted to keep them in the field as long as we could and keep them out of the game so they had no momentum whatsoever in their second innings. We worked things out really well and came away with another win.On the edginess of crowd as the declaration approached
I was out there copping most of it, but you’ve got to do certain things. It’s not the way I play my cricket most of the time, but it was the way we discussed it and there are different times when individual players are asked to do things different.On the criticism of the decision
I can understand the crowd, but I’m disappointed when I read about it because we’ve entertained a lot better than any other side in the history of the game. One two-hour period of the game and it’s all over the papers. We achieved what we wanted to achieve.On the bowlers
This group of bowlers is something very special and the way we were able to build and maintain pressure was something very special. They did a fantastic job. The batting was pretty relentless – to bat first and post that score meant New Zealand were never in the game.On where to next
We have to keep trying to improve, but for this team there are no boundaries and no limits.On not being challenged enough
We were challenged in the first two days at Brisbane and turned things around and had things pretty much our way here. Pakistan are a different side to New Zealand and they are another challenge for us.On rotating bowlers during the one-day series
We’ll rest a couple of them if we feel they need it. We hope to give the guys who have done a lot of bowling an opportunity to have a few days away from the game. Brett [Lee] will probably get a chance in a few of those games.Glenn McGrathOn the decision not to enforce the follow-on
You’ve got to look at the context of the game. It was pretty warm the first three days. All the bowlers were looking forward to a break for one, two or three sessions. Looking at the bowlers it was a good decision and we came out with early wickets.On bowlers being rotated for the one-dayers
With the amount of cricket coming up I think they should. I’m just a small fish in a big pool of cricket so I’ll just do what I’m told. If there’s an opportunity there it will be fine.

Elite Group
ScorecardShikhar Dhawan, who turned 19 a week ago, struck an unbeaten 121 to guide Delhi to 205 for 4 at the Jamia Millia Cricket Ground in New Delhi. His maiden hundred contained 10 fours and two sixes, and held the Delhi innings together. However, the batsmen maintained a dour rate of scoring: Aakash Chopra’s 15 came in 95 minutes, while Abhinav Bali required 186 balls for his 43. Sunil Joshi was Karnataka’s most successful bowler, taking 3 for 48. He created a flutter by dismissing Mithun Manhas and Sarandeep Singh in the space of three balls towards the end of the day.
ScorecardParthiv Patel’s 87 off 221 balls was the saving grace for Gujarat at the Wankhede Stadium today as Ramesh Powar bundled out half the side to end with 5 for 66. He took over after Usman Malvi, a right-arm seamer, had dismissed both openers with only 21 on the board. Parthiv shared useful partnerships with Niraj Patel and Kirat Damani, but the rest of the support cast did not stay long enough. Gujarat survived the whole day and ended with 210 for 8, but it was Mumbai’s day all the way.
ScorecardAmit Pagnis (93) narrowly missed out on a hundred, but with Sanjay Bangar (63), he did enough to put Railways in a commanding position. Their opening stand of 163 took the team to 255 for 5, and helped later batsmen ride over a three-wicket burst by Yogesh Golwalkar that gave Madhya Pradesh some hope in Indore.
ScorecardAndhra Pradesh pressed ten bowlers into action and had something to show for it as they restricted Bengal to 206 for 6 at Visakhapatnam. After Arindam Das (59) and Deep Dasgupta (48) put on 82 for the first wicket, Bengal lost the plot quickly and found themselves at 133 for 5. Laxmi Ratan Shukla steadied the innings with an unbeaten 51 to frustrate Andhra in the final session.
ScorecardHyderabad reached 236 for 8 primarily due to the efforts of Vinay Kumar (66) and Arjun Yadav (55), who put on 91 for the fifth wicket after Uttar Pradesh had reduced them to 82 for 4 at the Gymkhana Ground in Hyderabad. Shalabh Srivastava claimed 3 for 63 while Praveen Gupta ended with 3 for 40 – all middle-order victims.
ScorecardVikram Singh struck with the sixth ball of the morning to remove Sivaramakrishnan Vidyut, and Tamil Nadu struggled after that, ending the day on 191 for 7 against Punjab at Chennai. Singh and Amit Uniyal did most of the damage, taking three wickets each. Tamil Nadu were reduced to 100 for 7, but Kuthethurshri Vasudevdas (59 not out) and Mumbai Srinivas (36 not out) put on 91 runs to avert immediate disaster.
ScorecardIqbal Siddiqui ran through Assam at Aurangabad, claiming 5 for 68 in 22 overs to bundle them out for 201. Maharashtra reached 22 for 0 by the day’s end, still 179 runs behind. At one stage, Assam were 27 for 5 and then 40 for 6, before fighting efforts from the lower order, led by Gokul Sharma, who made 77 in only his second game, took them to respectability.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

A fourth-wicket stand of 169 between Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen guided an England XI to a six-wicket win over South Africa A with almost eight overs to spare under the lights at Kimberley. The margin was comfortable, but until the last third of the match, England often looked anything but.Pietersen and Bell came together with the innings tottering at 57 for 3, and 40 of those had come from the stand-in captain Marcus Trescothick after Vikram Solanki (6) and Kabir Ali (0) had both failed. At that stage, England, who rested all but two of the side which had played in the last Test – Trescothick and Geraint Jones – were in trouble on a slow and low pitch. But Pietersen and Bell led a gutsy counter-attack at more than six an over with none of the bowlers able to contain them. By the time Pietersen fell three short of a deserved hundred, the game was decided.The day had started badly for England as Morne van Wyk and Boeta Dippenaar cracked 110 for the second wicket, which seemed to put South Africa A on target for a big total. After 31 overs they were 158 for 1, but a good containing performance by the bowlers pegged them back after that.

van Wyk, who made an excellent 104, was especially brutal on James Anderson, whose first three overs were smashed for 28, and when he was replaced by Ali it hardly stemmed the flow as his first two overs yielded another 16.Dippenaar clattered 66 from just 68 balls, including nine fours, but when he perished trying to loft Gareth Batty back over his head, some of the momentum went with him. The experiment of trying Adam Bacher at No. 5 failed, as he was bowled by Ali, stuck on the crease after making only 3.This heralded a great containing effort by England, as the ball softened and the bounce became lower and lower. South Africa A might have expected to post around 300 after that jet-propelled start, but England took wickets at regular intervals to slow them down. Ali finished with 4 for 40 and Batty 2 for 42, including van Wyk who was well caught by a diving Alex Wharf three balls from the end.

ScorecardGuyana beat Trinidad and Tobago by 148 runs in the round-six Carib Beer match at Albion. Guyana, who dominated the game throughout, were made to struggle until the final hour of play, thanks to a maiden first-class century from Denesh Ramdin and middleand lowerorder resistance from T&T. Guyana moved to joint 2nd position with Windward Islands on 34 points amd T&T were left in 5th position with 24. Reon King, the pick of the bowlers, snapped the last wicket to end with four for 78. T&T were boosted by a strong performance from Ramdhin, who hit 107, and the injured opener, Imran Khan, who batted at No. 8, chipped in with 46. Dwayne Bravo, the T&T allrounder, only added 12 to his overnight 28. Damodar Daesrath, the Guyana vice-captain, picked up three for 38.Jamaica 448 (Bernard 102, Pagon 84, Jeremy 5-77) drew with Leeward Islands 510 for 9d by 62 runs
ScorecardPlay was abandoned on the fourth day without a single ball being bowled due to heavy overnight and morning showers.

ScorecardLeeward Islands continued to build a lead after dismissing Windward Islands for 268. The Windwards, who resumed on 171 for 4, made their way to 251 before another wicket fell. It was the beginning of a severe collapse, with Carl Simon and Omari Banks sharing dismissing six batsmen for only 17. Leewards’ lead surged to 323 by the end of the day. Stuart Williams led the way in their second innings with his boundary-filled 76. He shared a stand of 107 with Sylvester Joseph (49). However, wickets fell regularly and the Leewards found themselves at 214 for 7, but in a position to take control of the match.
ScorecardAfter conceding the first innnings lead to Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago rode on the back of a double-hundred by Lendl Simmons. Simmons scored his 200 off 290 balls and hit 19 fours and four sixes as T&T reached 392 for 9 in their second innings, gaining a lead of 359. It was a monumental effort, especially as batsmen fell around him cheaply at the start. After T&T stuttered to 103 for 4, Simmons and Denesh Ramdin put up 168 for the fifth wicket. Ramdin’s 60 was a patient effort, in contrast to the innings by Richard Kelly, whose 62 came off 76 balls and dominated a stand of 94 with Simmons. Jerome Taylor was the bowler of the day for Jamaica with 3 for 62.
ScorecardAfter two days of rain effectively put paid to any chances of a result favourable to either team, Ryan Ramdass lit up the third day at Guyana with 142 – his third hundred of the season – as Guyana scored 367 for 7 in 104 overs. Ramdas and Sewnarine Chattergoon (77) made Courtney Browne repent his decision to put Guyana in, for the two openers put on 185 as the sun beat down and dried the moisture in the pitch. After the quick loss of Chattergoon and Ramnaresh Sarwan, Narsingh Deonarine added 96 with Ramdass and watched as Ramdass became the first of four batsmen to fall to Ryan Hinds (4 for 143).

Shoaib Akhtar has given the Pakistan management something fresh to think about by making himself available for the remainder of the Indian tour. He has recovered from the hamstring injury which had kept him out of the Test series against India, and curtailed his Australian tour.Akhtar played in a Twenty20 match between Pakistan board XI and Leicestershire in Lahore. “It was a great feeling to return to competitive cricket and bowl the allotted four overs with full run-up,” said Akhtar to the Press Trust of India. “I think I bowled fast but the important thing was there was no pain in my hamstring.””Yes, I am a bit stiff but that’s natural as I am playing after a long lay-off,” said Akhtar, who conceded 21 runs in his four overs. Akhtar is currently training with Grant Compton. Bob Woolmer, the Pakistan coach, had admitted that Pakistan was missing Akhtar’s ability to run through a side. “It is disappointing he is not in the team. But there is nothing we can do about it,” Bob Woolmer was quoted as saying by . “There is no doubt at all in my mind or that of Inzamam that he is our main strike bowler and we want him in the team.”However Inzamam only recently told , “Yes there have been occasions when I told the selectors and the Board [that] I don’t want him in the team because his behaviour has a bad influence on the youngsters.” Inzamam went on to add, “Pick up his record of the last two years and see for yourself how many matches he has missed due to some ‘fitness problem’ immediately after taking wickets in a game. What I feel is he wants to perform in one match and rest on its laurels for the next two. He is not there when the team needs him most. I have nothing personal against him. But he lacks cricketing discipline. He wants to play on his own terms which is unacceptable to me.”

The Sri Lankan sports minister, Jeewan Kumaratunga, has filed a series of proposed amendments to the island’s sports law before parliament in an apparent attempt to strengthen his hand in the ongoing cricket board crisis.The new laws would prohibit anyone with “direct” or “indirect” links with the betting industry from holding office in a national sports association and will give any government-appointed committee control over all property, including bank accounts, and full decision-making power in the event of a national association’s suspension. Kumaratunga told the Daily Mirror: “We hope that the new amendments will help us rid sports of all unsavoury elements.”The minister’s gazette has prompted Sri Lanka Cricket to file another writ petition in the courts, claiming in a media release that “the minister has now abused his powers by making regulations to do exactly what he failed to persuade the court to permit”, and that the new regulation is “over-broad in its scope” and “has been made in an ad-hoc manner to deal with the present situation that has arisen with regard to Sri Lanka Cricket”.The anti-gambling amendments appear designed to prevent Thilanga Sumathipala, whose family runs a betting business, from holding any official position within the cricket board. The decision also follows an ongoing ICC Code of Ethics inquiry into Sumathipala’s alleged gambling links.However, while Sumathipala was once a director of the family betting business according to a sworn affidavit filed in a British High Court, he has long since maintained that he no longer has any relationship with the business. Indeed, his executive committee has welcomed the minister’s move, claiming that they are planning to introduce similar restrictions in Sri Lanka Cricket’s constitution that will ban those with links with gambling, liquor and tobacco industries from holding office.

Slowly through the first day of the Chennai Test, the years peeled back. Before lunch it was October 2004, with Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer pummelling a hapless India, much as the Australians had done in Bangalore just days ago. Score: 111 for no loss. After lunch Harbhajan Singh got his groove back, made the ball spin and bounce, and picked up the openers as Australia’s advance halted. Was it 2001, perhaps? Score: 189 for 3. In the last session, it was the 1990s all over again, as Anil Kumble dismissed batsman after mystified batsman, evoking a series of tired cricket cliches borrowed, tellingly, from warfare: destruction, annihilation, demolition. Score: 235 all out. All ten of Australia’s wickets had fallen for 99 runs, their last eight for 46 – and this was a first-day pitch.There is one crucial difference between Sourav Ganguly’s team and Indian sides of days gone by – this one may falter, but they do not wilt. In the Bangalore Test, India’s lower order batted with an application that sides of the past would never have shown, and even when defeat was certain, after the eighth wicket fell on the fifth day, they hung in there grimly, refusing to succumb to the customary collapse. They displayed those qualities here as well – Ganguly did not panic, and his bowlers played with fire and self-belief. With the ball a little older than when he first got it in the tenth over, Harbhajan dismissed the openers from his presence. Irfan Pathan and Zaheer Khan, never threatening in the morning session, came back with sharper spells. And then a lion in winter shook Chennai in the autumn.Anil Kumble has won more matches than any other Indian bowler, and for much of his career, he’s been the sole strike bowler in the team. Fast bowlers performed sporadically for India in the ’90s, and the spinners who bowled with Kumble were support acts, worthy apprentices like Venkatapathy Raju and Rajesh Chauhan, but none of them was a matchwinner on his own. Harbhajan unquestionably is.Kumble and Harbhajan have hardly played together at their best. Kumble was out of the side with a shoulder injury when Harbhajan began to blossom, and many of their series together have been overseas ones, where India mostly baulked at playing two spinners in the XI. During the home series against New Zealand last year, Harbhajan carried a finger injury, though that wasn’t known at the time. They showed today what they are capable of achieving in tandem, with almost all their wickets – barring those of Hayden and the strangely over-aggressive Darren Lehmann – being earned. The prospect of what they can achieve together adds a fascinating dimension to a series which is already engrossing enough.It wasn’t a typical first-day pitch that they bowled on, though it seemed like that when the day began. When Hayden and Langer were bringing up their 12th hundred partnership – among opening combinations second only to the formidable firms of Greenidge/Haynes (16) and Hobbs/Sutcliffe (15) – the pitch seemed not to have much in it for the bowlers. But as the day went on, what seemed a harmless little frog was revealed to be the prince of darkness. The ball turned as if two or three days of the Test were already over, and there was plenty of bounce as well, one of Kumble’s main weapons.Having said that, it was no fifth-day crumbler, and Simon Katich showed that the Indians, well as they bowled, were not unplayable. Watching him, you wondered what the fuss was all about, and why these spinners were such a big deal. If you need a textbook lesson on how to play spin in India, get some tapes of Katich’s innings in this series. He either played late on the back foot, watching the ball onto his bat, or got to the pitch of it, and was never in trouble at all. The way Damien Martyn was out to Kumble was instructive as a contrast to this approach – Martyn prodded forward to a good-length ball that bounced a bit more than expected and popped up off his bat to forward short leg.Of course, Shane Warne will also enjoy the turn and bounce on this pitch, and the Australian fast bowlers are capable of running through sides regardless of the conditions. In Bangalore, despite having a weak link in the lackluster Zaheer Khan, India’s bowling attack had done quite well. Their batsmen had let them down. How would they perform in this Test?How far can faith go?How much faith do you need to move a mountain? A heck of a lot, you’d think, and Ganguly certainly has plenty of it. When Australia came to India last, in 2001, he staked his captaincy on getting Harbhajan back into the Indian team, in place of that other turbanned offspinner, Sarandeep Singh. It worked spectacularly. When Yuvraj Singh was discarded from the one-day side after his first stint in blue pyjamas, Ganguly brought him back and nurtured his talent. Ganguly made Sehwag open in one-dayers, and later, he made Sehwag open in Tests as well.He has shown the same kind of faith in this series, by asking Yuvraj to open the batting, and by not discarding Zaheer, who bowled well below his best at Bangalore. Zaheer was largely unimpressive here as well, especially while fielding on the boundary, and Yuvraj was out early, albeit to spin and not the new ball, as his detractors had prophesied. Will these men justify Ganguly’s faith in them?If self-belief is one prerequisite for success for an individual, a good team must have a captain who believes in his players, though Ganguly is selective, as he is entitled to be, in the players he backs. Aakash Chopra is out of the side after performing to his brief all through the tour of Australia, and after being the victim of umpiring errors in two of his last three innings. It hasn’t evened out for him.A final thoughtA number of players walked today, and Michael Kasprowicz did so even though it appeared that David Shepherd, the umpire who must have been hopping all through the lunch break because the score was 111, would not have given him out. Is that dissent? Should he be fined?

Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) have signed a new four-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that will result in both national and state players receiving pay rises and increased career and welfare support. In April this year, the players had finally ended months of negotiation and avoided a potential repeat of the sponsorship crisis that afflicted West Indies.The agreement meant that retainers of players contracted to the Australian board will grow at an annual rate of 5.78% and those of state-contracted players will increase at an annual rate of 5.53% over the term of the agreement. Test players, who will earn a minimum retainer of Au$145,000 in the 2005-06 season, will see their base income rise to Au$160,000 by the end of the deal in 2008-09. State players receive a maximum of Au$95,000 and a minimum of Au$34,000 next season, rising to a maximum of Au$110,000 in 2008-09. However, match fees for each Test (Au$12,250) and Pura Cup game (Au$3300) will not change yet.James Sutherland, the CEO of the Australian board, said the new agreement will allow the game to reward Australian and state players with increased payments, balanced with the ability to continue investing heavily in the game at grassroots level.”Cricket Australia is pleased that it has been able to continue the partnership with the Australian Cricketers’ Association,” Sutherland said. “Our starting point in negotiating this new agreement was to ensure that we can continue paying our players well, allowing them to share in the financial success of the game, without compromising the game at grassroots level. Results of a recent review into Australian cricket suggest it is in good shape, but can’t afford to rest on its laurels and expect to maintain its privileged place in the Australian way of life. We need to nurture the game, both at the elite level and the grassroots and due to the co-operation of the ACA we are now in a better position than ever to do this.Tim May, the chief executive of the Australian Cricketers’ Association, said the new agreement was an acknowledgement of the players’ contribution to the success of Australian cricket both off and on the field. “Our players have worked hard and achieved great things for Australian cricket and they deserve to be rewarded for this success and the revenue growth that this success has created,” May said. “By maintaining a 25 per cent share of Australian Cricket Revenue, players have an incentive to grow the game’s revenues and satisfy and support sponsor initiatives. An important platform of the new agreement is the significant increase to funding for the players’ Career and Welfare Program.May added that The Career and Welfare Program, coordinated by the ACA in conjunction with the state cricket associations, will enjoy an injection of a further Au$2million over the term of the agreement. The amount will assist the appointment of C&W specific resources in each state, subsidies to assist and encourage players to commit to higher education and development of their after cricketing careers, together with an expanded base of welfare resources off the field.The new MOU will also see:* Players receive 25 per cent of a redefined Australian Cricket Revenue pool, known as the Player Payments Pool (PPP). Cricket Australia-contracted players will receive 55 per cent of the PPP, while state-contracted players will receive 45 per cent of the PPP;* The ability for state teams to offer up to three extra rookie contracts per season (now eight); and* Au$2.8 million invested in career and welfare programs over the life of the agreement, including a set fund designed to encourage players to take up tertiary study. This is up from $800,000 in the previous MOU.