At one stage, when Ajay Ratra and Dinesh Mongia were cantering alonguninhibitedly, Rest of India looked certain to overhaul Baroda’s totalcomfortably and establish a daunting first-innings lead. But then aBaroda left-arm orthodox spinner decided to leave his stamp on thematch. A Buch-mark, so to speak.Valmik Buch, who had found little success on Day Two, took four of thelast six wickets to fall, finishing with figures of 34.3-11-94-5. Hisperformance was significant; on a pitch that was hurriedly prepared inthree days, spin may decide the outcome of this match.Baroda broke the Mongia-Ratra partnership only at a score of 264 whenIrfan S Pathan had Ratra leg-before for his first wicket of the match.Sarandeep Singh offered a return catch to Buch to depart at 285 and,with Rahul Sanghvi falling and 299 and the tail dangerously exposed, acollapse looked imminent.Mongia, however, batted with assurance and a resolute Debasish Mohantyto register a century. His 125, when it ended, included 14 fours andthree sixes and, more importantly, helped Rest of India to hobble pastBaroda’s first innings total.When Mongia finally departed at 323, Buch snapped up Tinu Yohannan andShalabh Srivastava in rapid succession. The innings crumpled at 331,giving Rest of India an anaemically thin lead of 13 runs.Even though opener Satyajit Parab fell to Yohannan for 3, Barodamarched stridently forward in the second innings. Captain ConnorWilliams followed up his first-innings ton with another superlativeeffort; hitting 13 fours and a six, as he exploded to 83 off only 122balls. Williams found sedate support from Nayan Mongia, who scored anunbeaten 31.Day Three closed when Sarandeep Singh picked up Williams’ wicket.Baroda will thus start Day Four at 124 for two. On a badly preparedtrack that may crumble at any instant, every run that Baroda scoreswill count heavily against Rest of India in the final chase.

Queensland’s Andrew Symonds has a reputation for tormenting opposition bowlers at the Gabba but today he used an old red ball to bring New South Wales to its knees in a fast-moving Pura Cup match.The all-rounder claimed three wickets in 23 balls with his medium pace to leave the Blues in serious trouble at stumps on the second day.They were 7-180 in their second innings – leading Queensland by just 90 runs – and the match will be over early on the third day unless Brisbane turns on moreNovember rain.The clouds threatened all day but held off as Queensland (236) claimed first innings points on the back of captain Stuart Law (70) and Wade Seccombe (49), who added 109 for the sixth wicket.The Blues wiped off the last five Bulls batsmen for 18 runs but the hard work unravelled when young Queensland paceman Ashley Noffke (2-24) justified hisemerging reputation with an excellent spell.He knocked over former Test batsmen Michael Slater (41) and Michael Bevan (three) before Symonds (3-19) rattled the Blues for a second time in two days.The all-rounder again claimed dangermen Michael Clarke (36) and Mark Higgs (four) but his dismissal of opener Greg Mail for 56 turned the match to the hometeam.NSW had edged to 2-142 on a wicket still proving tough for the batsmen but the Blues’ hopes for a competitive second innings were blown away when Symondsclaimed his 100th first-class wicket in his 128th match.Some of those wickets had come with off-spin but Symonds had been warned last week to crank up his medium pace in anticipation of a Gabba greentop.”I got back into the nets and did some work with (injured swing bowler) Adam Dale and I was just trying to get my old stuff back,” Symonds said.”I bowled a bit of medium pace in club cricket earlier this year and I felt last night that I was starting to get it back.”Former Test quick Michael Kasprowicz (2-70) also figured in the Blues’ collapse of 5-31 when he claimed captain Shane Lee (seven) and Brad Haddin (zero) in thesame over.That completed a bad day for Lee, who was made pay for dropping Seccombe earlier in the day when the wicketkeeper had scored just 11.Lee spilled a relatively straight-forward catch at first slip from Nathan Bracken (3-71) and he watched as Seccombe and Law then added another 95 runs.They were like gold in the conditions and Queensland caved in once the partnership was broken.Lee also dropped Law on 66 from the bowling of Stuart Clark (4-61) but he did not have to wait long for his rival captain to fall.Clark was the pick of the NSW bowlers and his performance was the best of the match until Noffke found his range in front of national selector Trevor Hohns.The 24-year-old continually beat the bat of Mail, who did well to add a half-century to his defiant first innings knock of 42.

West Indies were left fuming on Sunday night following the controversialdismissal of batting superstar Brian Lara which paved the way for Sri Lanka’s series winning victory in Kandy.Lara, who played expertly for his 45 and looked set to save the game forWest Indies, was wrongly adjudged to have been caught at short leg offleft-arm spinner Niroshan Bandaratillake two balls after tea.The ball had come off the full face of the bat into the hands of HashanTillakaratne, who completed a brilliant reflex catch. But televisionreplays clearly indicated that the ball had been hit straight into theground.Coach Roger Harper, speaking straight after his sides 131 defeat, said:”Naturally we are very, very disappointed. Not only in losing but also inthe manner in which we though the game was taken away from us.”He added: “The dismissal of Brian Lara was clearly the pivotal moment. Theoutcome could have been totally different.”I have no explanation for it,” he said. “All I can say is that all the SriLankans in the match contributed to it.”According present ICC regulations the match referee are unable to recallplayers when a clear mistake has been made.Likewise the on-field umpires are only allowed to call for the third umpireto verify whether the catch itself was taken cleanly, not whether it was abump ball.The dismissal opened up the tail Muttiah Muralitharan, who despite a valiant59 run stand for the seventh wicket between Marlon Samuels and MervynDillon, took four wickets in the final hour to win the game.Captain Carl Hooper, whose honeymoon period as captain is officially over,pointed the finger of blame at the batting but admitted that Muralitharanwas a tough adversary.”We didn’t bat properly,” he said. “It’s not new that we are prone tocollapses. It has been difficult here in Sri Lanka. Conditions have not beenexactly good for batting and we are up against a world-class bowler.”Muralitharan is the difference between the two sides and is undoubtedly thebest spinner in the world. He has been putting us under a lot of pressure.With have to come up with a solution in Colombo.”The defeat leaves West Indies two-nil down in the series, facing thehumiliation of a series whitewash.”We can’t be thinking about the whitewash,” warned Hooper. “The importantthing is that we play better in Colombo. There is no overnight fix. We haveto keep working hard and keep the faith. We can’t afford to give up or we’lljust keep going down further.”

A decision whether the West Indies cricket team will tourPakistan or the series will be shifted to a neutral venue islikely to be confirmed in a couple of days.A Pakistan Cricket Board spokesman said onWednesday that thedecision could be taken at any moment in the next two orthree days.According to tentative programme, the West Indies team is toarrive here on Jan 25 to play Test and One-Day matches.The West Indies cricketing authorities were reluctant tosend their team to Pakistan due to security reasons in thewake of US led attacks on Afghanistan.Earlier, New Zealand had called off their tour to Pakistanin Sept due to the same reason. But recently, Sri Lankanunder-19 cricket team had toured Pakistan safely for a fiveone-day series which the host won 4-1.However, the ICC, in order to save its 10 year activityprogramme from further disturbance had decided that underspecial cirmustances a series could be shifted to anyneutral venue with the consent of both the countries.

Andhra Pradesh sent off their coach Syed Abid Ali in fine style, steamrolling Karnataka in their Ranji one-day match at Visakhapatnam on Tuesday.Winning the toss, Karnataka skipper J Arunkumar opted to bat. But, barring a steady 58 from Barrington Rowland, none of the other batsmen could really get going. Only minor contributions from B Akhil (25) and SN Shinde (29) helped Karnataka achieve a total of any substance. They were bowled out for 174 in 44.3 overs.Chasing 175, Andhra Pradesh suffered few hiccups in their effort. Y Venugopal Rao and MSK Prasad used all their experience to good effect, piloting their side to a win within 46.4 overs. Rao scored 51 off 97 balls, while Prasad made 46 off 57 balls.

Whitewashing visiting cricket sides is becoming quite a common feature withSri Lankan national teams and Sri Lanka A are looking for a three-nil cleansweep when they take on Kenya in the final unofficial Test at Dambulla onThursday.Jayasuriya and Co. completed 3-0 whitewashes against West Indies andZimbabwe in recently concluded series. Chandana’s boys have taken astranglehold in the series against Kenya with two convincing wins in thefirst two Tests which has given them an unassailable 2-0 lead.”I think it is very important for us that we win against Kenya here,” saidSri Lanka ‘A’ senior coach and manager Roshan Mahanama.”Kenya are a better one-day side and if we can thrash them like we did inthe first two Tests it will boost our morale and give us a psychologicaladvantage over them for the one-day series,” he said.The disappointing aspect from Kenya’s viewpoint is that there is nocontinuity in their batting line up which has seen only one individualperform in each innnings.In the first Test, it was Ravindu Shah’s knock of 94 that held their firstinnings together, while Steve Tikolo stood out in the second innings makinga bright 65.The story was very much the same at Matara, where Shah once again top scoredin the first innings with 106, and Tikolo followed in the second inningswith 117.None of the other recognised batsmen have been able to build bigpartnerships with Shah and Tikolo.To get down to the cold statistics, Kenya’s highest partnership in theseries so far is 59 for the fourth wicket between Shah and Hitesh Modi inthe first innings of the first ‘Test’.In contrast, Sri Lanka ‘A’s success has largely been on their ability tobuild on big partnerships which has seen them run up totals of 414 and 574-6declared.The other factor, which weighs heavily against Kenya is the inability shownby their batsmen to cope with spin on surfaces, which encourage turn. Elevenwickets fell to spin at the Sara Stadium and 17 at Matara.To add to their woes Kenya are leaving their options of picking their finalsquad until the morning of the match because of injuries to key playersThomas Odoyo, an all-rounder of repute and Mohammad Sheikh, their left-armorthodox slow bowler.Odoyo is still recovering from a right hamstring injury, which prevented himfrom batting in both innings at Matara. Indications are that he may berested for this ‘Test’ in order to have him fully fit for the three-matchone-day series starting on February 20.Sheikh dislocated a finger in his left-hand at fielding practice on Tuesdayand is receiving treatment for it.Kenya’s manager said that because of the injuries the team will not befinalised until the morning and that all 16 players in the squad wereavailable for selection.Sri Lanka ‘A’ on the other hand have less worries with hard-hitting openerAvishka Gunawardana having recovered from the ‘flu that laid him low atMatara and likely to play here.Upekha Fernando who stepped in for Gunawardana and scored an impressive 86off 98 balls is expected to open with Gunawardana relegating Ian Daniel tothe reserves.The selectors have brought in fast bowler Dulip Liyanage to replace PrabathNissanka in the 14 for Dambulla, but the final choice of whether to go withseam or spin will only be decided on the morning because of the pitchgetting damp due to some rain falling over in the past two days.Ruchira Perera and Pulasthi Gunaratne are likely to be the two in therunning for the seamer’s berth and skipper Chandana and left-armer RanganaHerath for the spinners.Liyanage and off-spinner Muthumudalige Pushpakumara will have to await theirfate until the morning of the match.SRI LANKA ‘A’ (from):Upul Chandana (captain), Avishka Gunawardana, Upekha Fernando, MichaelVandort, Tillekeratne Dilshan, Chamara Silva, Prasanna Jayawardene,Muthumudalige Pushpakumara, Ruchira Perera, Rangana Herath, PulasthiGunaratne, Dulip Liyanage, Ian Daniel, Gayan Wijekoon.KENYA (from):Maurice Odumbe (captain), Kennedy Otieno, Ravindu Shah, Steve Tikolo, HiteshModi, Otieno Suji, Collins Obuya, Lamech Onyango, Martin Suji, Brijal Patel,Joseph Angara, Josephat Sorengo, David Obuya, Thomas Odoyo, Mohammad Sheikh.UMPIRES:Gamini Silva and D.A.S. Dissanayake, Match Referee : RanjithMadurasinghe.

Philo Wallace is not happy with the performance of the young Barbados fast bowlers who have failed to make an impression in the second round Busta Cup match against the Windward Islands.As Barbados battle to avoid defeat against opponents who have not beaten them in a first-class match since 1983, the skipper could not hide his feelings over the inconsistency and a lack of support for spearhead Ian Bradshaw.I am very disappointed in the support bowlers. They are just not coming up to scratch, Wallace said after yesterday’s third day in which Barbados closed on 89 for five in pursuit of 314 for victory.It seems that once `Braddie’ is off, the younger bowlers are not stepping up and taking up responsibility.We always have to go back to Bradshaw all the time. He is tired. I can’t seem to understand why the younger bowlers would not recognise that they have an important part to play in bowling the ball in the right areas.In the absence of West Indies selectees Pedro Collins and Corey Collymore and following the decision to discard the experienced Hendy Bryan, Barbados have entrusted their fast bowling duties to Bradshaw, along with the previously uncapped trio of Tino Best, 20, Fidel Edwards, 19, and Antonio Thomas, 19.Best bowled impressively in his debut innings when raw pace earned him four wickets against Guyana, but could not match the performance in the other three innings.As the Windwards tried to build their advantage yesterday, Wallace gave him only two overs that cost 16, while Edwards was used for four overs in which he conceded 22 runs.In the end, Barbados dismissed the Windwards for 295 following their first innings effort of 327.We are all about excitement, yes, but at the end of the day, you could only be exciting if you do the right things, Wallace said.If you don’t do the right things,excitement just leaves you. It only goes to show that the guys will hopefully learn from their mistakes in this game and will improve in the next couple of games.The Barbados captain said, however, it was important that the young fast bowlers learn quickly.We are fast-tracking young people into this cricket. If we get rid of senior players, the younger players who we think are going to carry us into the future must learn quickly, he said.You can’t keep saying they are inexperienced and they are young. How long are they going to stay young?In another five years, are you still going to tell me they are young? At the end of the day, they have to learn fast. At the end of the day, Barbados is a winning nation. They have walked into a winning side. We are defending the Busta Cup and they have to come up to mark.

When you win there can often be different kinds of emotion.When we beat Australia in the first VB Series game in Melbourne in the beginning of this period of 15 successive one-day matches there was pure euphoria. Beating South Africa in Brisbane was disbelief and huge joy at a surprising victory.When we won the game on Tuesday night the feeling was relief.Sure there was happiness at what we had achieved but we all knew that the season would be judged on what happened in Dunedin.Wrongly or rightly this happens in sport often.Just ask the All Blacks in last year’s Tri-Nations.If they had won that game in Sydney and not lost it in the last second, would there have been as big a public examination resulting in pressure for the coach to stand down?If we had lost on Tuesday night what would have been the headlines?As it is we won the series and have achieved a satisfactory outcome. But are there things that we need to address even though we have won?Yes there are.Too often we win games through an individual performance. While this may sound strange, to be a complete side capable of winning next year’s World Cup we need to put more performances together as a unit, to get everyone chipping in with their efforts.Then we will still have brilliant individual efforts to win games but hopefully in between these times we can lift our winning percentages with team performances.Before the game in Dunedin, the batters focused their efforts into batting, real batting. Not the traditional hitting over the top stuff normally reserved for the one-day game. No balls were hit in the air at net practice and batsmanship was the goal.This was personified in the match by Craig McMillan. He got in and then played a great supporting role to Nathan Astle.And what an innings from Nathan!He loves playing in Dunedin and after getting a few dodgy decisions in two of the one-dayers, the English felt the full brunt of his talent.Nath is a bloke who doesn’t say too much and prefers to let his batting do the talking. I have played a lot of cricket with him and the innings the other night was just awesome and right up there with his best.The game itself revealed to the English that they have areas to work on.One of them is off-the-field where last week Andy Caddick stated that this English team was better man for man than us and that they would win the series.Now, he may have been trying to get some confidence back in his side by saying these things but to do it publicly can often backfire on you.Maybe he should just focus on getting in the England team first.Now to the Test series and to the whites! I am really looking forward to this series as I think we are playing very good Test cricket.It will be important for the guys to get back into Test mode but having a week or so off, and a game before the Test, will definitely help.

Former Sri Lanka captain Arjuna Ranatunga has overturned a proposed sportslaw preventing politicians from holding office in sports bodies.Sports Minister Johnston Fernando introduced the proposed law in parliamentin February 2002 with the specific objective of de-politicising sportsadministrations, particularly the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka(BCCSL).However, the Supreme Court in Colombo upheld a petition by Ranatunga, amember of parliament, clearing the way for his participation in theforthcoming cricket board elections.Ranatunga had complained that the proposed sports law which preventedpoliticians from holding office in sports bodies was a “violation of hisfundamental rights”.He was convinced that Fernando was trying to prevent him from holdingoffice: “When I heard about the policy, I felt that someone was trying todrag me out of sports, an area in which I wanted to help."Ranatunga is likely to contest against former board president ThilangaSumathipala in cricket board elections at the end of March.

Carl Hooper is sticking by the old adage that if it’s working, don’t fix it.The West Indies captain influenced chief selector Sir Viv Richards into maintaining the combination of seven batsmen, wicket-keeper Ridley Jacobs and only three fast bowlers they have used since last June’s one-day home series against New Zealand for Sunday night’s World Cup opener against South Africa."It’s often best to let the captain have his way," Richards acknowledged on radio as the West Indies, built their total of 278 for five that proved just enough for victory by three-runs.Batting first on a true pitch in clear, warm sunshine, the team rallied from 49 for two after 20 overs behind Brian Lara’s expert 116, successive partnerships with Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Hooper and a blistering finale of 63 off 28 balls between Ricardo Powell and Ramnaresh Sarwan, batting No.6 and No. 7.And Hooper made it clear afterwards that it would be the continuing policy "until we get ourselves into serious trouble"."This is the make-up we’ve been using for the past six to eight months and it’s been working for us, three front-line bowlers and Chris (Gayle), Marlon Samuels, Ricardo Powell, Wavell Hinds and myself doing the rest," he said.It was the balance that would continue to be used, he added, with one proviso."If, for argument’s sake, we see the pitch is a green seamer, we’d probably contemplate playing the extra bowler but, all things being equal, that is the way we will go," he stated.The problem for Hooper and his co-selectors at present is an embarrassment of batting riches.Samuels’ clearcut class and recent record should make him an automatic choice in the batting order. But Powell’s breathtaking, unbeaten 40 off 18 deliveries on Sunday and his athletic fielding in the key positions behind point and square-leg have guaranteed him his place.Lara was simply Lara, in a class by himself, against South Africa. But Powell and Sarwan lost nothing by comparison.Two straight drives by Powell, the first straight as an arrow off Pollock that landed on the blackened sightboard for six and the other off Makhaya Ntini that passed bowler Makhaya Ntini as a white blur on its way to the boundary, were two of the most fiercely struck strokes of the match, Lara’s and South African Lance Klusener’s included.Discarded by the previous selectors for his inconsistency, Powell was recalled by the Richards panel last September and has responded by tempering his extravagant strokeplay.In India and Bangladesh and now here, his methods have become more orthodox but no less effective.Sarwan has developed into the West Indies equivalent of Michael Bevan, regarded as the best "finisher" over the closing overs in the limiting overs game. In India, he was unbeaten 83, 39 and 88 in three of his seven innings and 102 in his second of three.But his 32 off 15 balls, with a couple of thumping sixes, was more reminscent of his unbeaten 72 off 54 balls at No.6 against Australia in a practice match prior to the Champions Trophy in Colombo last September.The only likely change in Thursday’s eleven would involve Pedro Collins who, apart from the major wicket of Jacques Kallis to a perfectly pitched delivery angled away from it, had an indifferent match Sunday.He was taken for 54 from nine overs and his carelessness in catching the rampant Klusener at long-leg off Gayle and then stepping back onto the ropes prevented a more comfortable victory – created hundreds of thousands of heart palpitations throughout the CaribbeanThere are five more group matches and five after that if the West Indies advance to the final, the odds on which have dropped as rapidly as the stock exchange.Their next encounter in Port Elizabeth on Thursday against New Zealand whose chances diminished with defeat to Sri Lanka in Blomfontein yesterday.The New Zealanders have already declared they will not fulfil their fixture against Kenya in Nairobi because of fears over security following the terrorist bomb that killed 14 in a hotel in the second city of Mombasa late last year.It basically means the New Zealanders would have to win all their remaining matches against South Africa, the West Indies, Bangladesh and Canada – or depend on an unusual sequence of results – to advance.As far as Hooper is concerned, Sunday’s victory over South Africa was just what was needed."It sets up the tournament for us in that we’re off to a good start," he said. "The manner in which we came back after the start we had to make 270-odd was really great. Its brought a lot of confidence in the side."And confidence is a commodity is short supply in West Indies teams in the recent past.