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Cricket Australia and Hampshire Cricket have announced a partnership which will see some of Australia’s most talented young cricketers spend the next English summer at the newly-formed Ageas Bowl International Cricket Academy.The deal confirms Hampshire’s status as the host of one of the best-equipped cricket academies in the world and left Rod Bransgrove, the county’s cricket chairman and long-time driving force, purring with delight at another sign of progress for the project that has long been his life’s obsession.”Cricket Australia has been an admirer of the Ageas Bowl for some time and we are delighted that they are sending six high-performing young players to the Academy in its inaugural year,” Bransgrove said. “We are one of the few professional grounds in the world with two full-sized cricket pitches immediately adjacent to each other which means our outdoor facilities are available even when there is a match on. That is a great advantage. We are a genuine international cricket academy.”Lord’s will always have its tradition and a presence second to none, but our ambition is simply to create the finest ground in the country.”English players have long had the advantages of winter stints in Australia, South Africa and India as part of their overall development and now Hampshire’s academy offers an opportunity in reverse which Cricket Australia has been quick to grasp. Hampshire promise access to world-class coaching, sports science and medical staff.As part of the programme the Australian players will play in the Southern Electric Premier League for the duration of the English domestic cricket season. “That’s an extra benefit – that six league clubs get an overseas player free of charge for the whole of the season,” said Bransgrove. “I’m not in favour of clubs using their hard-earned funds for recreational players even if they commit to regular coaching and have the club at heart.”Bransgrove has reason to be satisfied. The launch of the academy follows Hampshire’s achievement in winning the Friends Life Twenty20 and CB40 tournaments last season and the securing of a £45m investment from Eastleigh Borough Council to secure the final stage in the development of the Ageas Bowl which will include the construction of a 4-star hotel, additional conferencing and hospitality facilities and a state-of-the-art media centre.Although he has handed over the chief executive role to David Mann after ceaselessly driving Hampshire forward for 12 years, Bransgrove is not the sort for for semi-retirement. “I have taken a back seat in the day-to-day running of the business,” he said. “After 12 years the club needed new energy. But I’ve got so much emotion – and money – wrapped up in it I can’t run away.”The partnership will form part of the 2013 Australian Institute of Sport men’s cricket programme and The Kerry Packer Foundation will provide scholarships to the selected players.Pat Howard, Cricket Australia’s team performance manager, said: “CA is very excited about this partnership and opportunity for our very best young players. The opportunity to experience cricket in a different country will grow them as players and as people. For those chosen it will be an important part of their development.”English counties have occasionally faced criticism for employing Australian players on short-term contracts ahead of Ashes series but Bransgrove is confident that within the cricket community at least the presence of some of Australia’s top young cricketers in Hampshire will be universally seen as a success story. Discussions are also underway with India and Sri Lanka for similar tie-ups.”The ECB fully recognises that we have a responsibility to maximise our income,” he said. “We are talking about the development of young players. Every country seeking to develop players wants to use the facilities of other countries in the off season. For England players not to have the chance to go abroad would be disastrous and it is only right that we reciprocate. I would like to think that cricket can be more high-minded about the development of young cricketers.”

ScorecardWith Atif Maqbool’s 13-wicket haul, Karachi Whites handed Abbottabad a crushing defeat by an innings and 145 runs in Karachi. Trailing by 313 in the first innings, Abbottabad lost all their wickets for 168 in the second innings, out of which seven were scalped by Maqbool.When Whites started the third day, they already led by 218 runs and Saeed Bin Nasir and Fawad Alam scored another 95 runs together before declaring the innings. Abbottabad openers put on 41 together, but once the opening partnership was broken, they lost their last eight wickets for 98 runs as Khalid Usman was reported absent hurt.Karachi Whites picked up nine points from the win which takes them to top of the table in Group II.

Anamul Haque said he found a sea change between his previous hundreds and the one against West Indies in the second ODI, the most notable of which was the pressure to deliver under expectation.His century of 138 balls against West Indies was the tenth hundred in his short career. He has gained a habit of making big runs, one that is often missing in Bangladesh batsman.”There’s a lot of difference between scoring hundreds anywhere else and one for Bangladesh,” Anamul said. “I had fantasised of scoring a hundred in international cricket but never thought I would do it in my second game.”In domestic cricket he has scored seven centuries in the last 13 months: five in first-class cricket, two in the one-day competition plus a century in the Dhaka Premier League. The volume of runs last season had made him an automatic choice for back-up opener but he had a miserable time in an unofficial Twenty20 tournament in Zimbabwe which was his first brush with big time cricket. He was sent back to the Under-19s where he made two centuries against Sri Lanka and Pakistan in the Under-19 World Cup this year.”I have scored ten hundreds in the last year. The difference between the previous ones and today is the experience of the bowlers,” Haque said. “They bowl fewer loose deliveries and they have a lot of variations in the bounce and the lengths. There’s crowd pressure and I am playing for the country, so there’s a lot of difference.”The highlight of his innings was not just his footwork but the pace of the 145-ball knock. After reaching a half-century off 60 balls, Anamul took another 55 balls to move to 90 before waiting for another 24 balls to reach his century, off 138 balls. He then blasted 20 runs off the next six deliveries he faced, ending up with a 82.75 strike-rate. He would have attracted harsh words had he not made that final dash with two slogged sixes and a boundary off Andre Russell.He said he slowed down after getting to fifty because Mushfiqur Rahim was batting at a faster rate and finding the gaps, added that his constant encounter with the getting to a hundred eased him through the 24 deliveries between 90 and 100. “I am familiarised with the nervous nineties. When the fielders are outside, it is better to find gaps and just take singles. Mushfiqur was batting with me, so I didn’t have much to do.”Bad balls were available so ones, twos and the boundaries were coming. I didn’t need to go after the bowling; it would have been criminal if I tried something extravagant at that stage.”Mushfiqur and Anamul added 174 for the third wicket, just a run short of the all-time highest partnership for Bangladesh in ODIs. Mushfiqur scored 79 off 87 balls with the help of eight fours and a six, an innings that not only raised the run-rate but helped Anamul settle. He was also helped out by Tamim Iqbal in the first game when the more experienced opener went after the West Indies bowlers from the word go.”Tamim kept telling me to stay positive, be confident. If he bats in that manner, I don’t have to do anything. It was the same today because I was batting with the captain.”Mushfiqur told me to carry on till the 45th over, whether we are getting the runs in singles or doubles. We can go for the big hits from that point, we have batsman behind us.”Anamul’s century was the third by a teenager for Bangladesh after Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim but the early success has to be channelled through a proper approach which would iron out his footwork and reflex issues. The competitive age-group system through which he has come out of successfully would help him not to bask on the hundred too much and stay on the course of improvement.

Scorecard
Ankeet Chavan’s 4-61 is his best haul so far in first-class cricket•Fotocorp

Bengal have never beaten Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy, and at stumps on the second day it seemed they may have squandered another opportunity to end that winless run since 1949. Bengal have had a frustrating tournament so far, and the current game is threatening to head the way of their low-scoring encounter against Madhya Pradesh in the previous round, which they had lost. Having bowled Mumbai out for 297, Bengal should have got themselves into a position to take a lead, but their batsmen, barring opener Arindam Das, who stayed through to the finish to be stranded on 98, let them down. Ankeet Chavan, the left-arm spinner, picked up four for 61, his best haul in first-class cricket.The Brabourne Stadium track continued to offer assistance to the seamers, and helped the spinners derive extra bounce and sharp turn. But Bengal’s performance had less to do with the conditions than failing to seize on a second chance offered through slip-ups in the field from Mumbai. Three senior Bengal players, including their captain, were guilty of that. Manoj Tiwary, who did better than his counterpart Rohit Sharma, was given a life on 23 when Wasim Jaffer dropped a simple chance at slip. Wriddhiman Saha, the vice-captain, was bowled off a no-ball on nought and Subhomoy Das was put down at first slip on 19. Tiwary added just 16 more after his reprieve, and the other two fell the very next delivery.Mumbai came hard at Bengal. They rarely stationed more than two fielders in the deep, and showed the urgency in their approach, if not their fielding, to defend a gettable total. They began with four slips and a gully for Dhawal Kulkarni and the steady flow of wickets that followed enabled them to retain packed close-in fields against the seamers as well as the two specialist spinners. The first wicket, of Rohan Banerjee, was a slice of luck, however, as he was run out after being sent back while attempting a third run. Shortly after, the first ball Kulkarni bowled round the wicket got him the wicket of Writam Porel, who was caught at third slip.Tiwary is not one to look completely settled but he’s got a prolific record in domestic cricket to back up his style. His brief innings today had its fair share of plays and misses. It included a leading edge that wasn’t far from extra cover, an edge over the slips, an airy shot into the off side that almost carried, and a missed chance by Jaffer at slip off Chavan’s next ball. Tiwary counter-attacked, lofting Chavan for successive boundaries that over, one being a six over long-on. He added 72 with Arindam but loosely chipped a flighted delivery from Chavan to mid-off immediately after punching a short ball through cover for four.Chavan bowled consistently from the Club House end, and round the wicket, targeting some rough areas on the track. He averaged 63.5 for his four wickets on flat tracks in the two games before this, and his captain Rohit Sharma had an extended conversation with him on the eve of this game. “It was a pep talk. On my part, in the previous games my bowling wasn’t that good as such so I had to do well getting this game. Fortunately, the wicket favoured me and it happened,” Chavan said. “On that [flat] wicket, we needed patience and [were required to] just keep bowling, and if the batsman made a mistake, you could get him out. Here, you had chances of getting him out.”Saha was bowled by a flighted delivery from Ramesh Powar, only for the umpire to double-check for a no-ball and rule that Pawar had overstepped. But the next ball was even better, as Pawar got it to jump off a good length and rap Saha on the glove, resulting in a catch at short leg. Subhomoy looked promising during his innings, smashing Pawar over his head and welcoming Kulkarni in his new spell with an imperious drive down the ground. He, too, was put down, by Hiken Shah at second slip, but prodded again at one of Chavan’s deliveries that turned away to be caught at first slip. Bengal had slid to 132 for 5.There was still depth in Bengal’s batting, but Abhishek Jhunjhunwala nicked Avishkar Salvi after looking good with a couple of boundaries and Chavan trapped Laxmi Shukla in front while he tried to sweep. All this time, as wickets kept crushing Bengal’s hopes raised by partnerships that had looked encouraging, Arindam’s solidity and assuredness stood out at the other end.Arindam, playing his first game in this Ranji season, cashed in on the width provided by seamers to pierce the off-side field. He used his feet well against spin, though he, too, had some nervous moments when he edged to slip, but the ball had bounced before reaching the fielder as he had played it down with soft hands. As Mumbai spread the field to give him the single when Bengal were eight down, he still managed to find the ropes, once pulling Kulkarni handsomely past two men in the deep. But he was to be deprived of a ninth first-class ton, as Kshemal Waingankar nipped out the last two wickets and robbed Bengal of greater consolation.

Fast-medium bowler Nicola Browne is set to make a return to international cricket after she was named in the New Zealand squad for the ICC Women’s World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka. Browne, who played her first ODI ten years ago, announced her retirement from international cricket last year in August. She is the top wicket-taker for New Zealand in T20 internationals.”We are pleased to have Nicola Browne back,” New Zealand selector Kim Littlejohn said. “She was the player of the tournament in the last ICC World T20 and offers the group a great deal of experience and leadership.”Allrounder Sophie Devine, who also represents New Zealand in hockey, has also been included in the squad. Devine is making a return to cricket after missing out on the selection for the hockey team that played in the recent London Olympics.”Sophie Devine also returns to the side having made a fast return to cricket from her time with NZ Hockey. She is a quality allrounder and we expect she will play a key role in Sri Lanka,” Littlejohn said.Suzie Bates will continue as the captain of the side in the tournament that will run parallel to the men’s T20 tournament. New Zealand have been placed in Group B alongside West Indies, South Africa and Sri Lanka. They play their first match against West Indies on September 26.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsMushfiqur Rahim powered Nagenahira Nagas’ chase•Ron Gaunt/SPORTZPICS/SLPL

Another stellar bowling performance underpinned a third consecutive victory for Nagenahira Nagas, as they breezed past Basnahira Cricket Dundee’s 146 with six wickets and one over to spare. Shaminda Eranga’s three for 20 from four overs and an economical spell from Sachith Pathirana ensured Cricket Dundee could not launch a sustained surge at any stage, and Mushfiqur Rahim’s cool unbeaten 54 guided the Nagas unfussily to the modest target.Once again Eranga troubled batsmen with seam, on a pitch that retained enough spice to accommodate movement in both directions despite one match already having been played on it earlier in the evening. An away-swinger caught the outside of Dhanushka Gunathilleke’s bat, his drive going to mid off, and Cameron Borgas fell in similar fashion to Eranga much later in the innings. Sachithra Serasinghe’s bottom edge completed Eranga’s haul, but the dot balls amid the breakthroughs were almost as crucial to his side’s cause.Dilshan was forced into reticence once again through early wickets and tight bowling, and his 35 took 31 deliveries. Dimuth Karunaratne and Borgas also got starts, but neither were able to spur the run rate to any great extent as the Nagas continued to get regular breakthroughs.Imran Nazir retured hurt early for the Nagas, after he pulled a muscled playing a pull stroke, but Angelo Mathews and Mushfiqur combined to provide substance to the chase, with a measured third-wicket stand of 57. Both batsmen collected the runs on offer from the spinners, and scored heavily square of the wicket off the seam bowlers, while striking the odd boundary to keep up with the required rate.Mathews’ demise for 30 did not deter Mushfiqur, who found another solid partner in Angelo Perera, and the pair set about closing the game out quickly with a spate of boundaries. A six to Mushfiqur, off the last ball of the penultimate over, took him past fifty and secured the tournament top-spot for the Nagas, who appear to be the form side of the early stages.

ScorecardAustralia’s veteran batsman Marcus North rescued Glamorgan from another batting failure with a defiant half-century against one of his former employers on the opening day of the Division Two match against Derbyshire in Cardiff.North, 32, the first overseas player to play for six counties, top-scored with 75 and led a recovery that earned Glamorgan a first batting point of the season after they had been in trouble at 111 for 5. He batted for nearly four hours and was well supported by skipper Mark Wallace, who made 45 out of a team total of 236, with Tim Groenewald ending with excellent figures of 3 for 34 from 22 overs.Glamorgan would have expected more after electing to bat first but at least it gave former England fast bowler Simon Jones something to bowl at in his first Championship match for Glamorgan since August 2007, and he sent down four overs as Derbyshire closed on 22 without loss.It was also more than the visitors looked like making when a series of poor shots handed the initiative to Derbyshire, who rested strike bowler Tony Palladino but then lost paceman Mark Footitt in only the eighth over of the morning.Footitt pulled up in obvious distress holding his right hip and, after treatment on the field, played no further part in the day’s action and will undergo a scan on Thursday to discover the extent of the damage.Despite that setback, Derbyshire had the better of the morning session with Jon Clare following his 11 for 57 in the match at Cardiff last month by striking twice in the 13th over. Nick James started the slide when he steered a short ball into the hands of third slip and then Will Bragg obligingly slapped Clare to point. It was another soft dismissal but at least Gareth Rees was defeated by a good ball from Ross Whiteley which moved away to find the edge and was taken by Martin Guptill at second slip.North soon looked in control in his first innings for Glamorgan and, with Ben Wright, guided the visitors to 93 for 3 at lunch. But more loose shots left them in trouble shortly after the interval. Wright launched a firm-footed drive at a wide ball from Groenewald and then Jim Allenby pulled Whiteley into the hands of mid-wicket, leaving North and Wallace to rebuild the innings.They added 77 in 25 overs before Groenewald bowled Wallace and David Wainwright trapped North lbw on the back foot, leaving enough time for Jones to work up some pace as Derbyshire ended 214 runs behind.

Mohammad Yousuf, the Pakistan batsman, has said that he’s still passionate about playing cricket and would relish the chance to play Test cricket again. He took a fitness test under Pakistan coach Dav Whatmore on Tuesday in a bid to stage a comeback to international cricket.Yousuf, 37, last played a Test in 2010, when Pakistan took on England in the controversial Lord’s Test that was marred by spot-fixing. Yousuf has not featured in international or domestic tournaments in more than nine months due to personal reasons. “I never lost my passion for cricket,” Yousuf told ESPNcricinfo. “There were certain commitments in my life that got higher priority for a while, but now I am hungry to play.”He made his debut 14 years ago and has played 90 Tests (scoring 7530 runs at an average of 52.29) and 288 ODIs (scoring 9720 at 41.71). He says he wants to focus only on Test cricket in the future. “I am least concerned about ODIs. My focus [right now] is Test cricket, I want to play it. My basics are right and I have lots of experience under my belt.”Yousuf, whose career has been plagued by controversy in the past, was banned by the PCB twice in 2010. First, for his poor performance on a winless tour of Australia and then for differences with Younis Khan, which the PCB said was a bad influence on the team. “I don’t want to live in past, people learn from mistakes. I have always tried to do my best, but sometimes things go wrong,” he said. “I can’t change the past, but I can only hope to revive my career.”With younger players like Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq now featuring regularly in the side, some feel Yousuf will find it difficult to break into the team again. “I am not against new blood being inducted in the side – it’s good,” Yousuf said. “No one plays forever, but I still have cricket left [in me] and I have a role to play.”Pakistan are slated to tour Sri Lanka soon after the IPL to play two Twenty20s, five ODIs and three Tests. PCB’s chief selector Iqbal Qasim said that the board would discuss Yousuf’s future during their next meeting in May. “He is training and that’s what all players must do, but that doesn’t mean he will be selected in the team,” Qasim said. “If a coach is interested in a player he must convince the selection committee [first].”

Scorecard Australia Women’s complete domination of India Women continued with another one-sided victory in the fourth Twenty20. Medium-pacer Julie Hunter had India on the back foot in the very first over with two strikes, and the hosts were eventually bundled out for 85, a total that did not pose the slightest challenge to Australia.Hunter’s twin strikes were followed by a wicket in the next over, after which Harmanpreet Kaur and Anjum Chopra crawled to 47 for 3 in 10.5 overs. Once the pair were dismissed, the rest of the batsmen surrendered tamely, with Hunter picking up two more wickets and Ellyse Perry helping herself to two.Australia’s openers took care of the modest target, with Alyssa Healy playing the aggressor and hitting six fours and a six in her 54 off 44 balls, and Meg Lanning trotting to a run-a-ball 30.

Jonathan Trott has described England’s batting during the first innings in the Galle Test as “a sin” but has struggled to pin down a reason why a batting line-up that was so prolific only a few months ago is now consistently faltering.England, who must now win in Colombo to draw the series, were bowled out for 192 in 46.4 overs to concede a crucial first-innings advantage of 125 to Sri Lanka as their batting failed for the fourth time in a row.Criticised for being too defensive at times during the series against Pakistan in the UAE, this time the strokes of some England batsmen in Galle bordered on the reckless as they continued to struggle to find a suitable tempo for batting in Asia.It has been a rapid fall from grace for a batting line-up that had become accustomed to making 500-plus regularly while the individual batsmen were gaining a reputation for the ‘daddy’ hundreds that Graham Gooch used to have cause to talk about. From the start of the 2010-11 Ashes to end of the home series against India last summer they had scored six double hundreds and another four scores in excess of 150.By comparison in 2012, Trott’s 112 in the second innings in Galle was England’s first hundred of the year. “We’ve lost a lot of wickets in clusters,” Trott said. “In the past if we’ve lost two early wickets then guys have been able to steady the ship and we’ve been able to get through sessions pretty unscathed.”But we’ve had bad sessions with the bat and getting bowled out in 40-odd overs was a bit of a sin. The wicket was pretty good and we should have capitalised. It’s no lack of effort on any par, it just hasn’t worked out for us.”Defeat meant that Trott was not able to savour his hundred – one of the finest of his career – despite him showing England that run-scoring was possible with patience and shrewd shot selection.”To get a hundred is satisfying, but to get one and win always makes it sweeter,” he said. “I was pleased by how I felt, I wasn’t all that tired at the end of the innings, I just wish I could have batted a bit more. If I’d have got 140, 150 who knows what might have happened.”And, according to Trott, there was no magic formula to his success. “I just played normally. I didn’t try going in with any pre-conceived conceptions. I had a bit of luck early on and rode it. You certainly need a bit of luck in these conditions with a lot of catchers round the bat… you need the ball to bounce in the right areas.”Trott also took a swipe at the media for, as he saw it, fuelling an unnecessary debate about Andrew Strauss’ position in the team. Strauss has averaged 25.50 since the start of the previous home season and has just two hundreds since July 2009.”When someone is not scoring as may runs as they would like or expect of themselves it is highlighted by you guys [the media]. I’m sure it will have a similar impact as it did when Alastair Cook came through his little slump. I’m surprised you guys haven’t learned from that.”Steven Finn, Strauss’ Middlesex teammate, hoping for a place in England’s attack in the second Test, was equally supportive on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Sportsweek programme.”I don’t think there’s any question that he won’t be in charge throughout the summer and beyond,” he said. “He’s a great captain, everyone here’s backing him and this is something that just hasn’t come up within the team because no one in the team believes it’s valid. Straussy will score runs and that’s that.””Straussy leads from the front. He’s an exceptional leader, he’s a levelling person. When we have our highs we don’t ride them too high and when we have our lows we don’t ride them too low. And that’s what a great captain does, I think.”