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Match Facts

Tuesday, May 4, Providence
Start time 1330 (1730 GMT)George Dockrell entered the tournament with a burgeoning reputation and enhanced it against West Indies•Getty Images

The Big Picture

England are perennial underachievers when it comes to global tournaments; Ireland, meanwhile, have punched above their weight in their past two appearances at the highest level. If ever a match-up was designed to cause an upset, it was this. On the evidence of their performances in the past week, however, the luck of the Irish ought really to be coming to an end in Guyana on Tuesday – although if they win the toss and bowl first with rain in the air, Messrs Duckworth and Lewis could yet assist in extending their Caribbean campaign into the second week. After all, they all but unseated England in the rain in Belfast last summer.It nevertheless seems unlikely. Whereas England cracked the West Indies attack for a hefty 191 for 5 in their Group D encounter on Monday, Ireland’s batsmen slunk to 68 all out against the same opponents on the same Providence surface, having been handed a sound beating by Afghanistan in their warm-up contest. And it is no doubt galling for the Gaelicmen that the star performer in England’s innings, Eoin Morgan, used to be the pride of their own middle-order.This is, after all, an elimination bout, and the victor is set to snaffle every crumb of the spoils. Ireland will not take to the field without hope, because their bowlers gave their team a chance on the first day of the tournament by limiting West Indies to a manageable 138 for 9. But for the first time in a long time, England appear to have entered a major event with a team and a mindset capable of taking them places. Even though they could yet be eliminated in double-quick time. Twenty20 is a funny old game.

Form guide (most recent first)

England LLWLW
Ireland LLWLL

Watch out for…

All eyes will inevitably be on Eoin Morgan, especially after the gem of an innings he produced in defeat on Monday. After a disappointing showing for Bangalore in the IPL, he’s resumed the graceful style of power-hitting that has transformed the fortunes of England’s one-day middle-order since his coming of age in the Champions Trophy last September. What would his former countrymen give to have him back in their ranks?Since the advent of Graeme Swann, England’s quest for a matchwinning spinner hasn’t been as frantic as it tended to be in the not-so-distant past. But who’s to say (other than the man himself, of course) that the young left-armer against whom they’ll be pitting their wits on Tuesday, George Dockrell, won’t be sporting the three lions within the next decade? He entered the tournament with a burgeoning reputation, and enhanced it with 3 for 16 in four overs against West Indies.

Team news

England sprang a surprise in their opening match by opting for Ryan Sidebottom over their attack leader, James Anderson, and he would be the obvious candidate to make way if England did feel the need to tinker with their line-up. More likely, however, is that England treat the situation as they would for a victory, and choose not to meddle with a winning formula.England (probable) 1 Michael Lumb, 2 Craig Kieswetter, 3 Kevin Pietersen, 4 Paul Collingwood (capt), 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 Luke Wright, 7 Michael Yardy, 8 Tim Bresnan, 9 Graeme Swann, 10 Stuart Broad, 11 Ryan Sidebottom.Ireland have batting issues to resolve after their capitulation against West Indies, although their best hope is to bank on their experienced players rediscovering their A-game. It’s not often that extras is the top scorer in an international innings.Ireland (possible) 1 William Porterfield (capt), 2 Paul Stirling, 3 Niall O’Brien (wk), 4 Alex Cusack, 5 Kevin O’Brien, 6 Gary Wilson, 7 John Mooney, 8 Trent Johnston, 9 Andre Botha, 10 Boyd Rankin, 11 George Dockrell.

Pitch and conditions

The Providence pitch will doubtless play into the hands of the slow bowlers once again, although it’s hard to describe the conditions as “sluggish” after the sort of the power-hitting that England and Gayle produced on Monday. Of greater concern will be the weather, especially for the team unfortunate enough to lose the toss.

Stats and trivia

• Ireland have never yet beaten England in three attempts, all in ODIs, although they got mighty close on the last occasion, in Belfast, when an interception on the boundary’s edge by none other than Morgan secured a three-run victory.
  

  Quotes

  “I guess it puts a little added pressure on us, but I think we can take a lot of positives out there. We know what we’ve got to do, if we win six games we win a World Cup.”
  

Paul Harris, the South Africa left-arm spinner has been left out of the Titans line-up for the 2010-11 South African professional domestic season.”Paul has expressed a desire to participate in all formats of franchise cricket, including the MTN 40 and Standard Bank Pro20 competitions,” said Andy O’Connor, vice-chairman and head of the playing affairs portfolio of the Titans. “We understand Paul’s views, but given the personnel available to the Nashua Titans in the spin-bowling department, we are unfortunately unable to guarantee him a spot in our team in all versions of the game.”Harris has played 100 first-class matches for 333 wickets at an average of 30.81. He also has 47 List A wickets at 26.61 and 21 in the Twenty20 format at 21.19. In recent times, he has been South Africa’s first-choice Test spinner, with 87 wickets in 29 matches.”Although we are very sad to see Paul leave, we wish him both a fond farewell and all the very best for the future”, O’Connor said. “When Paul joined us a few seasons ago, he was participating in the Western Province B team and we are immensely proud to have played a part in his rise to selection at the Test level, where he has performed most admirably.”Harris thanked the Titans for their role in his career. “I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Titans, but feel that I should be competing in all available formats of the game. I wish the Nashua Titans every success in the future”, he said.

Half-centuries by Michael di Venuto and Dale Benkenstein helped Durham warm up for their four-day clash against the MCC in Abu Dhabi next week with a comfortable 33-run win over Sussex in the Emirates Airline Forty40 at the Zayed Stadium.Chasing Durham’s seemingly modest 224 for 6, built around Di Venuto’s 51 and 61 by Benkenstein, Sussex lost two wickets in the opening over of their reply and never seriously threatened the target thereafter, capitulating for 191 to lose with 11 balls in hand.Fresh from shock defeats to part-timers Fly Emirates and rookie South African side the Emerging Cape Cobras, Michael Yardy’s side made a poor start to their pursuit at 5.63 an over by losing both openers in the space of six balls. Michael Thornely fenced at a length ball from Mitchell Claydon to be caught behind by debutant keeper Michael Richardson, then five balls later Joe Gatting chanced a second run on an overthrow to mid off and lost the race against Will Smith’s throw to the strikers’ end.Ben Brown committed another costly blunder when he pushed one from Will Gidman and set off, only for Smith to take aim at the non-striker’s stumps and run Brown out with a direct hit. Sussex fought back through Yardy (37) and Ragheb Aga (18) with a determined fourth-wicket stand of 52 in 11 overs, but the introduction of spin at both ends sent Sussex tail-spinning toward defeat.Young legspinner Scott Borthwick pegged back Yardy’s off stump after the left-hander missed an attempted dab to third man then Aga’s reverse lap against Gareth Breese looped to short third man. The run-chase effectively ended when Robin Martin-Jenkins ran past another well-flighted delivery from Gareth Breese to gift Richardson a stumping.Sussex keeper Andrew Hodd, playing solely as a batsman, helped save face with a bright 48 at almost a run-a-ball as he and Ollie Rayner added 55 before, in the first over of their batting Powerplay, Hodd chipped a simple catch to deep square and then Chad Keegan slogged to cow corner as the last three Sussex wickets went down for 11.Durham’s workmanlike total relied heavily on the experience of di Venuto and Benkenstein, who took a no frills approach to scoring their first fifties of pre-season on a flat, yet sluggish pitch. Each hit six boundaries in helping their side lay solid, if unspectacular foundations.Captain Smith chipped in with a composed 31 from 41 balls while left-hander Mark Stoneman chanced his arm to add 43, but should have gone on 1, only to see slip fielder Rayner grass a dipping chance at off the luckless James Kirtley.Monty Panesar finished wicketless from a six-over stint that cost 38 leaving Keegan as the pick of the attack for a Sussex side who will spend their seven-hour flight home to the UK reflecting on three defeats in as many starts during their visit to the UAE.

Michael Clarke has arrived in New Zealand to prepare for the two-Test series after taking a week off to deal with the breakdown of his engagement. Clarke did not speak to the media on his departure in Sydney on Monday morning or after landing in Wellington and was flanked by team officials and security at both ends of the trip.Clarke, the vice-captain, was given time off by Cricket Australia to deal with his personal life but his team-mates are confident he will be in Test mode by the start of Friday’s opening game at the Basin Reserve. After missing the final three one-day internationals in the 3-2 series win over New Zealand, Clarke’s next step is to train with the squad on Tuesday.Mark Greatbatch, the New Zealand coach, said Clarke would be treated as just another batsman during the series. “He’s a qualified and wonderful Test player, we’ll have plans to bowl to him like we have for the other guys,” he said. “He won’t be any different.”Phillip Hughes, Steven Smith, Marcus North and Simon Katich also touched down in New Zealand to join the outfit. Smith, the batsman-legspinner, is on a high after his selection in the squad and he also won the Steve Waugh Medal as New South Wales’ player of the year in Sydney on Sunday.

South Africa’s pace spearhead Dale Steyn has a thin smile on his face as he agrees South Africa have an edge going into the first Test in Nagpur, with the Indian team jolted by injuries to Rahul Dravid and Yuvraj Singh, and uncertainty over VVS Laxman’s participation as well.”Look, I guess you could say, yes, in the absence of guys like Yuvraj, Rahul and Laxman, all with massive experience,” Steyn said about pressure on India’s middle order, which could feature two first-timers in S Badrinath and Rohit Sharma. “If they play a couple of debutants, obviously that will play in our favour.”But Steyn is not getting carried away. According to him, even the replacements can rise to the occasion, inspired by the call of duty. “At the Test level, you never replace an experienced player with someone who is average or borderline. You always replace him with somebody that has got equal quality.”The world’s best Test spearhead is clear the Indian batting’s WMDs are located at the top of the order. He understands that Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir have the ability to cause damage to the South African fast bowling, which is thin on experience. On form, the visitors are likely to field a three-man pace attack comprising Steyn, Morne Morkel and left-armer Wayne Parnell, whose combined experience of 58 Tests is 12 short of the opposition strike bowler Zaheer Khan.Interestingly, Steyn could be a steely character charging in with ball in hand, but with just 48 hours left for the bell to ring on the world championship tussle, he refused to reveal his prime targets. “Sehwag is a challenge but I am not going to single out Sehwag because Tendulkar is also a marvelous player and he has shown what a record he has got and Gambhir too. So it’s not specifically Sehwag that we are afraid of – not to say that we are afraid of anybody.”Essentially, according to him, the Indian team has more than one key batsman but the South Africans were prepared exploit their biggest weaknesses based on their prior experience.Two years ago, Steyn partnered Makhaya Ntini and Morkel, and the trio were tested on a gamut of pitches across India: in Chennai they were man-handled and flattened by Sehwag’s triple-century on a slow Chepauk pitch; they bounced back on a green surface at Motera where the Indian first innings folded in a record 109 minutes; a dubious surface (according to Steyn a “bunsen burner”) allowed India to level the series in Kanpur and dent South Africa’s soaring journey.Steyn, the second-highest wicket-taker in the 2008 series, has mixed memories of the previous tour. “India was the only place where we came and wanted to win, and we fell so short over the last hurdle at Kanpur. It’s something that we remember. It hurt us because we were playing good cricket, and we definitely want to be able to try and fix that up again.”Even if South Africa’s captain Graeme Smith said he was impressed by India’s rapid progress over the nine years he has been visiting the country, he and his team would not have such high praise for the pitches which have drawn flak from the ICC on quite a few occasions in the recent past. The surface at the new VCA stadium is reportedly a bald plate, and to borrow a headline from one of the South African newspapers, Steyn and co. would have to spill blood on it to find any purchase.

AB de Villiers on Rahul Dravid’s absence

Batsman AB de Villiers feels the loss of Rahul Dravid to injury will affect India’s chances. “The No.3 spot is the biggest one according to me. People don’t realise how big a spot that is. A guy like Dravid has stood like a rock under pressure for the Indian side and to lose that is like us losing Jacques Kallis. You can’t replace a guy like that.”

Steyn had no illusions about finding the same movement and bounce the hosts got at the Wanderers recently, where they overcame England to level a drama-filled series 1-1.”The biggest thing about India is that you have to hit the deck,” he said. “However, the aggression and the way that we bowl does not change. The bowler himself, his attitude towards the game, towards each and every delivery he bowls doesn’t change at all, regardless of the pitch. It’s the skill and the planning behind the delivery that counts at the end of the day.”Morkel is in a much more positive frame of mind after the harsh lessons learnt two years back. Fresh from having finished second in the wickets tally in the England series, he reckoned the best way to prosper in India would be to register maximum clicks with the ball. “The wickets can be up and down, and with the ball reversing, if you can hit the deck hard and get inconsistent bounce, you can be just as dangerous as the spinners,” Morkel said. “You have got to bowl fast. It’s a matter of trying to bowl at the stumps, with the ball either bouncing or keeping low, if you bowl fast.”Steyn pointed out that if India had ideas of preparing spin-friendly tracks, it could prove detrimental to Zaheer, who he reckoned was India’s best bowler with his ability to get both conventional and reverse swing. “For them to prepare a wicket where it is ripping square and turning square would be – I don’t want to use the word ‘foolish’ because I know these are the conditions that work well for spinners – but their in-form bowler is definitely Zak. If they want to take somebody like him out of the game just to try and beat us, then that’s a feather in our cap already.”

The truth, at last
For 10 years Justin Langer has denied he edged Wasim Akram during hisamazing escape with Adam Gilchrist in Hobart in 1999-2000. Needing 369, Australiawere 5 for 126 when the pair came together and orchestrated a stand of238 that was brave, unbelievable and controversial. Until now Langer hassworn, even to his father (his Dad, not the Almighty), that his bat handlebroke when he aimed a drive at Akram and survived a caught-behind appeal.But a decade on he has changed his plea. “I absolutely smashed it,” Langertold Nine at tea on the first day.That was also the match of the”can’t bowl, can’t throw” jibe at Scott Muller, which was eventuallyclaimed by “Joe the Cameraman”. The finger was also pointed at ShaneWarne, but Nine’s Joe didn’t do a Langer, and still maintains it washim.To pull or not to pull?
The debate over Ricky Ponting’s favourite shot has run through much of the summer. He hasinsisted all along he would continue pulling, despite questions overwhether he is as good at it as he once was. After a first-ball dismissalto the stroke in Sydney, he went for it again here, off his fourth ball, only topop it straight up in the air to Mohammad Aamer at deep fine leg. Itlooked more difficult to drop than it did to catch it and yet somehow itwas spilled. Ponting went on to his first hundred of the summer and a few less questions about the pull.A genuine headache
Ponting also copped a blow to the helmet when he misjudged a hook and it required some paracetemol to deal with “a pretty bad headache”. There have been few times when Ponting has been hit in the head, and he thinks the last time was in the 2005 Ashes series when Steve Harmison struck him. “I was talking to Mohammad Yousuf out there today just after it happened and he said ‘that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you get hit’,” Ponting said. “Mohammad Sami actually hit me on the cheek in Sharjah without a helmet on years ago, I actually ducked into one without a helmet on. I’ve been hit a few times but luckily no real bad ones.”On the crest of something new
Ponting has scored 39 Test centuries but today he did something new: kissed the crest of his helmet in celebration. “I haven’t done it before,” he said. “It’s the first time today, because it meant a lot to me today, to battle away the way that I did and then get through and make a hundred in front of my home crowd. My parents and my sister and everyone is down here as well, watching the game, so they would’ve had some anxious and nervous moments early on through my innings today.”He’s caught it!
It was only a thin edge from Michael Hussey’s bat and a straightforwardtake, but given the events of Sydney, relief would have descended overall of Pakistan when Sarfraz Ahmed, the man who replaced Kamran Akmal, held on to hisfirst Test catch behind the stumps.Missing man of the moment
Aamer was Pakistan’s stand-out bowler in Melbourne and though hewasn’t missed so much in Sydney, he was eagerly welcomed back for thisTest. Pakistan were on top in the first session and Aamer had juststarted getting his lines right. More pressure was expected to be appliedstraight after lunch, but Mohammad Yousuf chose to open with DanishKaneria instead. Michael Clarke, a champion against spin, settled ineasily and Aamer, Pakistan’s rising star and their quickest bowler, wasn’tseen at all between lunch and tea as Australia took the game away.He wasn’t injured and the Pakistan camp, at one stage, mumbled somethingfeeble about over-rates. It was most likely just another sign of the lackof intent that has cost them the series.Ponting knows the score
The Australian players have had such trouble getting from the nineties totriple-figures this summer that Ponting’s path to a century seemed somehowappropriate. On 94, he launched Danish Kaneria over long-off and theumpire Asoka de Silva signalled six. But Ponting, ever astute, wasn’tconvinced and instead of celebrating, stood there waiting for confirmationfrom the third umpire. His judgment was correct: the ball bounced insidethe boundary and his 100 became 98. Three balls later, he swept and madethe extra two.

Australia remain confident that Peter Siddle will be fit for the third Test despite the selectors calling for the Tasmania fast bowler Brett Geeves as a backup. Siddle bowled at full speed in the WACA nets on Monday and did not show any signs of the hamstring strain that troubled him in Adelaide, but much will depend on how he recovers after training.Following his bowling session, Siddle walked laps of the WACA with the team physio Alex Kountouris, who has spent much of the week working with Siddle in an effort to ensure he is fit for the Test starting on Wednesday. The wicketkeeper Brad Haddin said while Siddle was not yet a certain starter, the signs were positive.”There’s still a little bit of doubt around Peter,” Haddin said. “He bowled today, by all accounts he’s pulled up pretty well but with all these sort of injuries it’s not so much the first day, it’s how you pull up the next day. So he will have to be reassessed tomorrow but by all reports he pulled up pretty well after his spell today.”If Siddle does not prove his fitness before the Test, it would mean a likely debut for his Victorian team-mate Clint McKay, who was the 12th man in Adelaide and stayed with the squad for the Perth Test. The chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch said that while Siddle was expected to be cleared, they were covering their bases by calling for Geeves, who was due to join the team in Perth on Monday night ahead of the series-deciding third game.”In order to ensure there is sufficient cover, a decision has been made to have Brett Geeves available as a standby player in Perth,” Hilditch said. “Brett gets his opportunity on the back of his recent strong performances in Sheffield Shield cricket and because the panel feels he will be well-suited to the conditions at the WACA should an opportunity present itself.”Geeves, a 27-year-old right armer, toured with the limited-overs team to South Africa earlier in the year, and has appeared in two ODIs and a Twenty20 international. However, his prospects seemed to suffer when he was not called up for the injury-hit visit to India in October and November.Five wickets in Tasmania’s Sheffield Shield win over Western Australia last week helped remind the selectors of his worth. In 39 first-class games he has taken 134 wickets at 34.41 and is well-known in Australian cricket circles for his lively blog. The country’s fast-bowling stocks are being tested with the contract holders Ben Hilfenhaus, Brett Lee and Stuart Clark on the injured list.

The recently deposed No. 1 side in the world, and one of the many pretenders to the crown. This four-match series has the ingredients to be a cracking contest. Test cricket has enjoyed a mini-boost in recent weeks with West Indies’ vastly improved showing at Adelaide and an absorbing, if largely overlooked, series between New Zealand and Pakistan – not to mention Virender Sehwag’s bar-raising exploits in Mumbai. Although this forthcoming battle between South Africa and England is one match short of the ideal length for an ‘icon’ series, the history between the two teams suggests that there will be plenty of drama.Since South Africa’s re-admission, the two sides have gone head-to-head in seven Test series. South Africa have won three (including the most recent in 2008), England have won two, and there have been two drawn contests (both on English soil). Although South Africa’s home victories have given them the edge overall, there has never been more than a single result splitting the final scoreline.”I haven’t played a Test series against England that hasn’t been tough,” said South Africa’s captain, Graeme Smith. “Every series I’ve played against England has been hard-fought, and have always come down to little moments within each game. We’ve had the edge of late; we played the better cricket in the last series in England and deserved our victory there.”Not always, though, has the result reflected the superiority of the winning side. In 1999-2000, South Africa were far stronger and both their victories came by innings margins, while England’s consolation was all down to Hansie Cronje and a leather jacket. In 2004-05, meanwhile, the 2-1 margin didn’t do justice to England, who bossed four out of the five Tests and in the end Matthew Hoggard’s 12 wickets at the Wanderers proved to be the deciding factor.In the most recent meeting between the two teams it was another outstanding solo effort that regained the Basil D’Oliveira trophy. Smith played one of the finest captains’ innings seen in a run-chase – perhaps second only to Brian Lara’s effort against Australia in Barbados – as his unbeaten 154 guided South Africa home at Edgbaston. Smith’s innings came in the middle of South Africa’s golden run of results, which culminated in their away victory against Australia last year and the No. 1 Test ranking.However, that famous match in Melbourne, where Australia were finally conquered on home soil by a combination of JP Duminy and Dale Steyn, now feels a long time ago. South Africa lost the return series earlier this year and haven’t played a Test match since, while India have since usurped them at the top of the ladder. A little bit of the strut has disappeared from South Africa’s cricket (their one-day form in the last few months has been instructively poor) and this offers England a window of opportunity.In England’s last Test outing, they regained the Ashes at The Oval, a result that came despite, not because of, events during the past year. It’s a huge credit to Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower that they have gelled the team after those fractious days in January when Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores lost their jobs on the same day. England genuinely look a happy team – to the extent that the BBC Sports Personality trophy that they picked up on Sunday night was aptly awarded.”I think we are all eager to return to Test cricket, it allows us to reconnect with what happened in the Ashes and think about what went well and what didn’t,” Strauss said. “That’s a healthy thing for us, but it’s a very different set of circumstances. We can’t afford to look back too much.”Their build-up hasn’t been ideal, but that is a common situation for touring teams these days. When the rain cleared in East London, all the batsmen made runs, with Pietersen showing significant improvement in his form, and the bowlers managed a few decent spells even though they would have liked more. Either way, it is still far in excess of what the South Africans have managed. During their three-day camp in Potchefstroom they tried to simulate match conditions but it’s never the same. England’s opposition may have been friendly, but at least they were an opposition.Normally, during a team’s home season, the lack of time the team spends together isn’t a major issue because players are immersed in domestic cricket. However, five of South Africa’s squad haven’t played first-class cricket since March. Ashwell Prince and Paul Harris have the most four-day practice under their belts after not being involved in the one-day squad. The one advantage South Africa have had was the chance to prepare at altitude while England were at sea level, but the visitors have spent considerable time in the Highveld over the last five weeks, so they know what to expect.For both teams, though, there have been a number of similarities in the issues facing them during the lead-up to this series. Injuries to key players have been a concern with James Anderson and Jacques Kallis top of the list, while the latter’s likely inability to bowl and the retirement of Andrew Flintoff has left both camps searching for balance.South Africa have opted to stick with their specialists, using Kallis as a batsman and putting the bowling workload in the hands of a four-man unit. This is an opportunity England need to seize before Kallis returns to full health and the hosts have all their options available to them again.England are keeping their cards close to their chest and it’s still tough to call which way they will go; Luke Wright as the uncapped allrounder, Ian Bell at No. 6, or Stuart Broad at No. 7. Whoever is named in England’s XI, the focus will be on the men at first- and second-drop. Smith has warned Pietersen to expect a tough reception (“I suppose Kevin’s carrying the burden for comments he’s made over a period of time,” he said), but Jonathan Trott has so far escaped fairly lightly. Nothing much has fazed Trott in the early days of his international career and a bit of booing won’t cause him to lose much sleep. Pietersen, meanwhile, loves nothing more than a baying audience.”KP found himself in quite an unfamiliar situation at the start of this tour,” Strauss said. “I think that has taken some adjusting to and you have to build up through the gears. I’m very happy with the way he’s been going about things and he looked better and better through the warm-up game. KP being the type of person he is, he will want to have a massive impact on this series. When you combine that motivation with his obvious skills, it’s a pretty good recipe.”If splitting the teams on paper is tough, the head-to-head at Centurion Park adds little to the picture. On the three occasions the teams have met here, rain has played a deciding part. In 1995-96 it ruined the event after tea on the second day; in 1999-2000 it prompted Cronje’s generosity, and in 2004-05 it helped England to a draw that secured a famous series win. A dry game is overdue and after all the recent rain the forecast is promising. If either side can break the run of stalemates they will have made a significant step towards the major prize. Still, don’t expect more than one game between them at the end.

England Masters 140 for 3 (Hick 77*, Ramprakash 29) beat West Indies Masters 136 for 6 (Greenidge 61*, Headley 2-18) by seven wickets
Scorecard
Graeme Hick struck an unbeaten 77•Getty Images

Graeme Hick’s stroke-filled, unbeaten 77 guided England Masters to a comprehensive seven-wicket win with five balls to spare over West Indies Masters in the Cricket Legends of Barbados International Cup.Needing 137 to win, England sealed victory when Paul Nixon reserve-swept Jimmy Adams for a boundary. Nixon made 23 and added 66 with Hick for the unbroken fourth wicket in 7.1 overs. Hick faced 51 balls and set up the run-chase through a 69-run stand with Mark Ramprakash, after openers Mark Alleyne and Craig White were dismissed cheaply, both caught-behind by Courtney Browne. Ramprakash made 29 with two fours from 37 balls before he was also caught by Browne, attempting to pull.Hick batted like a man possessed, playing lovely strokes on both sides of the wicket. He struck five fours and four sixes, one of which raised the hundred in the 16th over off Ian Bradshaw. He smashed the next ball straight down the ground for another six at the Joel Garner end.West Indies Masters were earlier restricted to 136 for seven, a disappointing effort after an opening stand of 41 in 5.2 overs between Gordon Greenidge, who made an unbeaten 61, and Stuart Williams.Williams looked in good nick striking 25 with four boundaries before he was caught-behind off Dean Headley’s second ball. Headley took two for 18 from four overs to choke the run rate as West Indies suffered a middle-order slump, losing four wickets for 47 runs in 9.2 overs.Greenidge, who always relished batting against England in his playing days, hit a number of fine strokes including his trademark square cut off Darren Gough that raced to the backward-point boundary.Towards the end, he found a useful partner in Vasbert Drakes and they put on 48 in 32 deliveries for the seventh wicket. Greenidge upped the tempo in the death overs, hitting the first two sixes of the match off John Emburey in the 18th over that produced 23 runs. The first was dispatched over wide long-on and the next went over square-leg into a crowd of around 6000.At the half-way mark of both innings, the scores were identical at 60 for 2. England managed to keep wickets in hand in the second half of their innings and that proved to be the difference between victory and defeat.

Scorecard
Abul Hasan, in a superb all-round display, guided Bangladesh to a thrilling one-wicket win against Zimbabwe in Khulna, giving the hosts a 2-0 lead in the five-match ODI series. The game was settled in the 47th over, but Bangladesh, it appeared, were out of contention when they lost their ninth wicket for 170, still 24 short of victory. However Abul approached the task at hand with aggression, striking five fours in his unbeaten 22, to ease the pressure off his partner Kamrul Islam, who faced just two deliveries in the 25-run stand. The target of 194 was achieved also due to a lower-order recovery led by Noor Hossain’s 65 and Alauddin Babu’s 34-ball 30.The win undid a fine effort from Zimbabwe’s opening bowler Tendai Chitara, who grabbed 4 for 35, to blow away the Bangladesh top order. Offspinner Simon Mugava supported him with 3 for 31, and left the home team reeling at 47 for 6. But Noor added 76 with Tasamul Haque (26) and a further 31 with Babu. In a see-saw game, Zimbabwe were favourites when the ninth wicket fell but Abul crushed their hopes.Abul was also the chief wrecker in the Zimbabwe innings, grabbing 5 for 26 to bowl out the opposition for a below-par score. Not that Zimbabwe were spineless; each of their top five got to double-digits but were unable their scores into anything substantial. Dean Mazhawidza (42) and Mazvita Zambuko (39) added 67 for the third wicket and helped take their team to a comfortable position at 171 for 4. But the rest of the line-up crumbled; Zimbabwe lost their last six wickets for 22, proving crucial in the outcome.