Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

Riding on a first-innings total of 531, Habib Bank Limited (HBL) dismissed Punjab for 259 and 215 to complete a rousing innings and 57-run victory at the National Stadium.Having reduced Punjab to 185 for 6 at stumps on day two, HBL bowled them out for 259 and gladly enforced the follow-on. Irfan Fazil, the right-arm fast medium with two international appearances, picked up 3 for 50, Danish Kaneria 3 for 90, and captain Shahid Afridi backed his 54-ball 86 with 2 for 35.In their second innings, Punjab fared worse. Only Mohammad Hafeez (40) and Kamran Akmal (37) managed decent scores out of a total of 215, as Pakistan hopeful Abdur Rehman, the left-arm spinner, finished with 5 for 72. Afridi was again in form, with figures of 2 for 32 from ten overs.* * * * * * *Having taken a first-innings lead of 131 on day two, Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) extended it to 300 with a total of 521 for 7 on day three against the combined b>North West Frontier Province (NWFP)-Balochistan at the United Bank Limited (UBL) Sports Complex. Saeed Bin Nasir extended his overnight 101 to 142 and captain and former international Mohammad Wasim made an unbeaten 108. Before stumps, KRL had nipped out three wickets to leave NWFP on 133 for 3, still 167 runs adrift.Bin Nasir and Wasim added 121 for the sixth wicket to extend their side’s lead. The duo had been in form last week, with half-centuries in a hard-fought draw against Habib Bank Limited. Jannisar Khan, the fight-arm medium-pacer, had the best figures of 2 for 56 from 16 overs.Yasir Arafat, the Pakistan allrounder, dismissed NWFP opener Shoaib Khan jnr for 0, but Yasir Hameed (65) and Umar Javed (38*) added 85 for the second wicket. Hameed was dismissed by Saeed Ajmal’s right-arm offspin, before Ajmal picked up Shoaib Khan snr for 15. NWFP have plenty to do to save this match.

Michael Vaughan will return to county action on April 29, the ECB has announced in a release which listed when centrally contracted players can turn out ahead of the first Test against West Indies. Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen will face each other at The Rose Bowl from May 9 after being given one Championship match before the international summer begins.Vaughan, who was desperately short of runs during the World Cup until his 79 against West Indies in England’s final match, will take on Scotland in the Friends Provident Trophy before his first Championship match on May 2 against Hampshire at The Rose Bowl. He will have a maximum of two four-day games and two Friends Provident outings before leading England in the first Test at Lord’s on May 17.Flintoff and Pietersen have less action with a single one-day match alongside their Championship head-to-head. It will be Pietersen’s first first-class match for Hampshire since 2005 and Flintoff only made one appearance for Lancashire last summer.Of the other centrally contracted players who were at the World Cup, Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood are available for their counties from May 7 until the end of the Championship matches on May 12. Andrew Strauss can turn out for Middlesex from May 6, while Monty Panesar has been given two Championship matches – against Essex and Somerset – but no one-day cricket before the first Test.Alastair Cook, Steve Harmison, Matthew Hoggard, Simon Jones and Marcus Trescothick have already begun their seasons, after not being part of the World Cup, although Jones has been left out of Glamorgan’s squad to face Essex as he manages his return from injury.Lancashire pace bowlers James Anderson and Sajid Mahmood have been given two weeks rest despite not being contracted. They are both available to feature against Hampshire alongside Flintoff, while Mahmood can also play against Northamptonshire on May 6 and Anderson against Durham on May 7.

The non-centrally contracted England players’ availability is as follows:Ed Joyce, Jamie Dalrymple, Paul Nixon and Ravi Bopara will all be free for the Friends Provident ties this Sunday. If Stuart Broad passes a fitness test on a minor injury he will also be available for Leicestershire, alongside Nixon.Lancashire will have Saj Mahmood from May 6, when they play Northants in the Friends Provident, and James Anderson will be free the very next day, against Durham in the same competition. Liam Plunkett also makes his county return in that match.

Ashes Test series in Australia are set to be rescheduled so they don’t take place just before the World Cup, the chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board has announced.David Collier said he was in discussion with his Cricket Australia counterpart, James Sutherland, and they would soon be putting forward proposals to their respective boards. Collier insisted England were “locked in” to their current programme until 2011 because of agreements already in place with other boards.England are due to host an Ashes series in 2013. Breaking the cycle so the next Ashes in Australia didn’t lead up to the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand could see them played in 2012. But Collier said clashing with the London Olympics in 2012 would be “suicide” and that the series would be shifted forward instead to 2014.England have never won the World Cup and there is a feeling within English cricket their chances were being hampered by a lead-in of a busy home programme followed by an Ashes tour. Australia’s hectic summer of cricket in 2006-07 did not seem to affect their World Cup efforts, however, as they went through the tournament undefeated.

Many of Australia’s World Cup-winning cricketers are thankful for their four-month break from the game – Shane Watson is cursing it. Watson’s summer was so dominated by injuries that until his return late in the CB Series his season was almost a write-off. He finally got fit only to spend his winter in training, waiting to prove himself in a hectic 2007-08.On a dark, drizzly June day in Melbourne, Watson appeared out of place helping to launch Cricket Australia’s ticketing program for next season. He looks like a man built for action, one who should never be kept indoors. But just like a muscular, blond He-Man figurine, when he’s tested too vigorously in real-world conditions his limbs have a habit of falling apart.He eventually overcame his persistent hamstring problems and began finding form in the Caribbean only to be sidelined again, this time with a calf injury. When he played there were glimpses of brilliance – his 32-ball 65 against New Zealand at Grenada won over many unconvinced fans – but his winter lay-off has been awkward.”The way it worked out personally it’s not really ideal because I didn’t play too much cricket this summer,” Watson said. “But in a way it’s been excellent because I’ve been able to sit down with a few guys and work out the best way to train over this winter, to work out the reasons why things have been happening and then proceed to get them right.”It seemed there were almost daily updates on his hamstring last season and it was a lot of hype for a player who still has only three Tests to his name. Although his first-class batting average of 49.22 is attractive, Watson knows the time has come to justify the selectors’ faith in him with an extended and productive run in the team. He has set his sights on 18 months of injury-free cricket.”The [training] techniques that I’m doing will just be changed moderately,” he said. “It’s more just the resting between when I’m doing weights and things, which does make a big difference. The big goal for me is to get through 18 months. What I do, being an allrounder, definitely puts my body under a fair bit more pressure, bowling and batting.”His target would mean staying on the field from Australia’s opening tournament of 2007-08, the Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa in September, through home series against Sri Lanka and India and a busy 2008 that will feature more than 20 Tests. Watson was in Australia’s Ashes plans last summer but his hamstring dramas allowed Andrew Symonds to grasp his chance at No. 6.Watson is therefore deadly serious about his aim to replace Justin Langer as Matthew Hayden’s opening partner, although much will hinge on where he bats with Queensland at the start of the domestic season. “There’s big opportunities there this summer,” Watson said. “Like anything you need to be performing at the right time and be fit at the right time to make the most of those opportunities.”I had a bit of a chat to Queensland at the end of last summer about the prospects of batting in the top order so they’re really keen to try and get the best out of me as well as the team. Hopefully that opportunity will come at the start of the year and I’ll be able to press my claims.”Watson has opened in Australia’s ODI line-up and has spent time at No. 3 and 4 in Pura Cup matches. He believes he is technically and mentally ready for the Australian top-order. “I batted high up in the order, No. 3, for Tasmania and did really well [making four centuries in 2003-04],” he said. “Opening and No. 3 can be – as everyone’s seen with David Boon, with Justin Langer – interchangeable.”Wherever he fits into Australia’s side, Watson is unquestionably in their long-term blueprint for success. For now, all he wants is 18 injury-free months to prove, to himself as much as anyone, that he deserves to be there. “To be able to have a good crack at it would be awesome,” he said, “for me to be able to see how good I can be at international level.”

England coach Peter Moores has defended Michael Vaughan’s tactics on the final day of the first Test against India after rain forced a draw with India nine down. There has been criticism that England weren’t quick enough between overs even though they knew about the poor forecast.An over-rate of 15 per hour is meant to be maintained in Tests, although this is rarely managed by any team unless two spinners are bowling. During the morning session on Monday England bowled 28 overs and in nearly two sessions before the weather closed in sent down 55, despite 26 overs from Monty Panesar.However, often Vaughan’s meticulous field settings bring results, such as the pressure created by a man at silly mid-on or Wasim Jaffer’s clip in the second innings that found Kevin Pietersen at a specially placed midwicket.”We have to look at the bigger picture,” said Moores. “If we’re a couple of overs short in a session because the captain has moved the field and it’s gone towards getting a wicket then it’s great.”We try to bowl our overs at a good rate and we’ve shown that we have done that over the summer against teams who sometimes haven’t. Over the course of a game we’ve been able to maintain that without being fined and have done it the right way.”England’s inexperienced attack was expected to struggle against a powerful Indian batting line-up. However, James Anderson, Ryan Sidebottom and Chris Tremlett excelled to such an extent that Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman made a top score of 40 between them.”At certain stages of the game it sometimes takes time to set things up and get things right and get people in the right places,” said Moores. “I thought Michael Vaughan was outstanding in his captaincy and trying to winkle out some of the batsmen who were intent on staying there and trying to save a Test match.”Could we have saved a minute here or 30 seconds there, could we have run a bit harder to retrieve that ball? You could go on forever. They key thing for me is that we look at areas and the way we performed and we’ll review it like we review everything good and bad because we need to make sure we move forward next time.”There are arguments either way, but I don’t really think it was that influential to the outcome of the match and whether we’d have got another over – it was all about the momentum of the game and we just managed to swing it really strongly towards us before it rained.”As with Vaughan, Moores was fulsome in his praise of the young bowlers who nearly managed to force victory. “As a coach you’re always really pleased when people go out there and relax on the big stage and make sure they perform,” he said. “We all know they’ve got to do that over a longer period of time, but it’s great because someone like Jimmy, has worked really hard.”We also saw one man just miss out in Stuart Broad and it would have been good to have a look at that as well. It’s exciting times and when people perform as a unit like that it can create the sort of pressure that they did.

Yorkshire have formally appealed to the ECB regarding the decision to reschedule Worcestershire and Kent’s match which was washed out last week. The club has sent a letter asking the ECB to revoke its decision.Their chief executive Stewart Regan said: “We have made a submission to the ECB, on behalf of 10 first-class counties, appealing against the decision. Two other counties have expressed their opposition independently.”This decision challenges the integrity of the competition and could affect the outcome of the championship and relegation. We are all convinced that the ECB must reconsider.”Even though the ECB stressed the extraordinary situation regarding the events at New Road over the past week, Yorkshire believe it sets a dangerous precedent and their coach Martyn Moxon called the decision “an absolute disgrace”.Yorkshire’s recent Championship match, against Lancashire at Old Trafford, lost the first two days to a flooded outfield and Moxon added: “We had a flooded ground here after the rain on Monday. Is that exceptional circumstances?”He received backing from Lancashire’s chairman Jack Simmons who signed the letter “on the basis the Club believes it was a flawed decision”.In a statement on their website, Lancashire said: “Whilst Lancashire County Cricket Club sympathise with Worcestershire CCC and Kent, in these circumstances we are of the view that the board has made an incorrect decision in this instance and we therefore urge the ECB to reconsider this decision.”The Worcestershire match will now be replayed on July 30-August 3 with a one-day break on August 2 because Worcestershire have a Pro40 match at Chelmsford.

After risking their careers by joining the Indian Cricket League, a few Hyderabad cricketers defended their decision – citing selection flaws and the increased opportunities – to turn their backs on their home state. Hyderabad had a mass exodus of players including Ambati Rayudu, Alfred Absolem, Inder Shekar Reddy, Ibrahim Khaleel, Shashank Nag, D Vinay Kumar, Kaushik Reddy and Anirudh Singh.”I’m a professional cricketer and it doesn’t really matter where I play, but with ICL now my standard will only improve,” Absolem told reporters in Hyderabad. A right-arm seamer, he has played just one full season for Hyderabad and made an instant impact, picking up 30 wickets from six matches at under 20.Seamer Kaushik Reddy said that they had no choice but to take such a drastic step, citing anomalies in team selection where deserving players weren’t allowed to progress. “There are many private grounds and we need not depend on Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) facilities to train and practice,”said Reddy. “We have not lost hope but we had no choice.”Perhaps the biggest loss for the side was Ambati Rayudu, the promising top-order batsman who has been on the fringes of national selection since his days as a junior cricketer. He said it was a “reality check” and, when asked about his future, said that his employers had assured him of help.The BCCI has taken a firm stance by banning all players from associating themselves with the ICL, denying them use of its facilities and privileges. The HCA said none of the players had consulted them before joining and new talent would be recruited, hinting that all the ICL players were not eligible for selection.

While all the speculation over Tuesday’s selection committee meeting surrounds the appointment of a new captain for the seven-match home ODI series against Australia, the day’s agenda goes beyond that. They have to answer some tricky questions when they pick the one-day squad, the foremost being whether Harbhajan Singh and Virender Sehwag have done enough to make a comeback. They will also have to see how to find room for Irfan Pathan.In the recent past the selectors have resisted the temptation to make wholesale changes to the limited-overs team, chopping and changing only when fitness issues arose. And there is one in front of them: Munaf Patel, who was drafted into the team in place of Sreesanth for the ODI series in England, fell well short of expectations. He managed no more than a handful of overs at decent pace and Venkatesh Prasad, the bowling coach, questioned the “intensity level” with which he was operating. The timing and manner of Prasad’s statements – openly to the media, midway through the series – were surprising but it’s indicative that the team may have run out of patience with Munaf.Munaf’s exit will likely afford Ajit Agarkar another chance in the one-day team, something that might otherwise have been in doubt.Irfan Pathan has rediscovered the swing that made him such a potent force when he arrived in international cricket and has made telling contributions with the bat and on the field for India A. Though he is far from back to his best – the rhythm and pace still need plenty of work – he is clearly on the road to rehabilitation. When Pathan was axed from the team his bowling had fallen apart, with no swing and no real pace making him cannon fodder for the batsmen.If the Pathan question is easily answered by Munaf’s exit, the selectors have a slightly more tricky task deciding on what to do with Sehwag and Harbhajan. Neither has performed exceptionally well in the ICC World Twenty20 but Harbhajan has been on the ball. He has bowled with control and good rhythm, and would surely have been pushing for a place had the two incumbent spinners, Piyush Chawla and Ramesh Powar, not done so outstandingly well in the last series.While the medium-pacers came in for some tap, both Powar and Chawla exerted great control over England’s batsmen. Even Kevin Pietersen, who has dominated spinners of the quality of Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan, found it hard to get both Powar and Chawla away. Powar slowed things down cleverly while Chawla had the advantage of being able to bowl his legbreak and googly from the same line. The fact that both spinners held their own might just make it hard for Harbhajan to force his way back in.The question of Sehwag is more tricky. The fact that he doesn’t find a place in either the Test or one-day team makes things a bit difficult for Dilip Vengsarkar and company. It’s no secret that Sehwag was being groomed for the captaincy, the thinking being that he was the link between the Tendulkar-Ganguly-Dravid generation and the one that would succeed it. This fact kept Sehwag in the team longer than many expected, even after he lost form, but now the case for Sehwag might build again, with Dravid giving up the reins.This could spell the end for Rohit Sharma, who was in the squad but did not get a game in the seven-match series in England and is yet to find a place in the eleven in the ICC World Twenty20.Vengsarkar is tight-lipped about the selection, and it seems his colleagues aren’t fully in the loop when it comes to the captaincy question. All will be revealed on Tuesday, and though there is room for surprises, don’t be surprised if Vengsarkar doesn’t ring in too much change.

Nottinghamshire have moved quickly to recruit Matthew Wood from Somerset as a replacement opener for Jason Gallian. Wood, 26, has joined on a three-year deal following Gallian’s departure to Essex.Wood is hoping for more regular first-team cricket than he found this year at Somerset – he played just two first-class matches before losing his place to Marcus Trescothick.”It’s been quite frustrating for me as there have been limited opportunities to play,” Wood admitted, “and I can’t wait for the challenge of moving to Trent Bridge. I’m signing for a club on the up, who are in Division One in both competitions and play at a Test venue.”Wood has scored 4375 first-class runs from 76 matches at an average of 34.72 with nine hundreds. His career-best of 297 came in a marathon nine-hour innings against Yorkshire at Taunton and helped him to 1000 runs in 2005.Mick Newell, Notts’ director of cricket, said: “Matthew is a quality player who has been unable to get into a very strong batting line-up. He’s a nice lad, an intelligent cricketer and at the right kind of age to be able to play in all competitions for us.”