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The Netherlands may only have one player at the ICC’s Winter Training Camp (WTC) but top order batsman Tom de Grooth has no complaints about being lonely. On the contrary, the 26 year-old has thoroughly enjoyed meeting players he has only previously seen as members of opposing teams and, more importantly, believes he has taken his game forward.”It’s not been difficult at all for me,” said de Grooth. “Within the first couple of days I was mixing in with the other players, I’ve made some good friends and had a good time. It has definitely helped my game too. I’m playing in different conditions, working with players and coaches from different countries and just the act of talking cricket every day makes you think more about what you are doing.”The fact the Netherlands are so sparsely represented at the WTC is down to a combination of factors. By the time the camp was confirmed, in September, several players in the frame for inclusion had made other commitments. Those commitments included playing overseas – one player is in New Zealand and another is in Cape Town, South Africa – permanent jobs and studies. But although de Grooth was committed to starting studies himself, he was still able to attend.”I’ve just begun a four-year course in Commercial Sports Economics in Amsterdam,” he said.”I have had to do some work for the course while I have been here but the good thing about it is that it is designed for sports people so they allow you to fit your sporting commitments around the studies.”So, how has the 11-week residential camp helped de Grooth improve? “Overall I think that I now know my game a lot better and I am clearer about my gameplans against certain types of bowlers,” he said. “There are one or two little technical things that I have tried to bring into my game like standing more upright in my stance so I am more balanced. We have had sessions with sports psychologists and I have talked a lot about cricket with (WTC head coach) Andy Moles, (bowling coach) Bob Cottam and (spin bowling coach) John Davison.”I’m sure the fitness work I have done has also been of benefit and I am keen to keep it up. It has become easier to concentrate for long periods and keep going when I bat and when I am in the field. The things I am doing are all relatively small but put together hopefully they will help make me a better player.”Part of de Grooth’s work in Pretoria has also involved sessions with Davison trying to improve his offspin, something that he has neglected for several seasons ahead of the camp. “I had not really done much bowling for the past three or four years because of shoulder surgery,” he said.”It’s definitely the area I can improve most because the ideal is to make myself into another bowling option in a match, a sixth or seventh bowler in a one-day game. My bowling is not where it should be yet but hopefully the work I have put in here will mean that I will only improve with more bowling in game situations.”Those game situations may come as early as next March with the Dutch planning a tour of South Africa ahead of likely ICC Intercontinental Cup and possible ODI commitments in Kenya. And even though de Grooth has his studies to think about he said he still intends to be part of that touring squad, if selected.”Cricket is number one for me until the World Cup,” he said. “I want to make as much time for it as I can and I would love to be on that tour.”His Dutch team mates, who have been training indoors for the past month, start their World Cup build-up in earnest this weekend with a meeting to map out their preparations. And after what he has seen at the WTC, de Grooth has a clear message for that meeting.”We are going to have to put in a lot of hard work from hereon,” he said. “I have seen lots of commitment here from players and we have to match that. We have to put in extra work where we can, breaking into small groups if necessary, but the other countries with players here are all pushing forward and we must match that in order to keep up.”Realistically the Dutch will struggle to qualify for the Super Eight stage of the 2007 event given their group also includes World Champions Australia and South Africa, currently in first and second places in the LG ICC ODI Championship table respectively. But also in their group is fellow Associate country Scotland and that is the game the Dutch are already targeting.WTC head coach Moles offered his assessment of the progress made by the Dutch batsman in Pretoria:Tom’s probably the most experienced player here and is older than most others at the WTC. As a senior player we have used him to captain one of our sides when we have played games. He has done a good job. In those matches he has made one good score but has also found ways of getting out, which is frustrating. He’s got experience and ability and we have emphasised it is now time for him to come to the party and get big scores on a regular basis. Tom’s biggest challenge is to make sure he is not happy with mediocrity. He has got the game and his attitude is excellent but now he must go on and make the most of the talent he has.

Match facts

Saturday, April 26, 2008
Start time 16.00 (local), 10.30 (GMT)

The Big Picture

The top-of-the-table Kolkata Knight Riders have made a rousing start to their IPL campaign, but they will face a stiff challenge from the Chennai Super Kings, who, like them, are unbeaten after two rounds of matches. The feature match of the weekend assumes added significance as both teams stand to lose out on their trans-Tasman recruits at the end of the month as commitments to their respective national teams bring their Indian sojourn to an end.

Watch out for …

… another highly productive day for the batsmen. Kolkata’s thrust will be led by Brendon McCullum, who will want to wrest the ‘orange cap’ – worn by the highest cumulative run-scorer in the tournament, from Kumar Sangakkara. Ricky Ponting is yet to fire, and his probable duel with Muttiah Muralitharan will be one to watch. Ishant Sharma has lived up to his US$950,000 billing but he faces his first real test against a formidable batting line-up. Chennai’s captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, will be keen to match the batting exploits of his peers. Matthew Hayden, after his masterly 81 against the Mumbai Indians, is another potential match-winner.

Team news

This will be Kolkata’s penultimate match where they can use the services of McCullum and Ponting, but David Hussey will stay on as he is not part of Australia’s Test squad. While Kolkata have the option of using Umar Gul, the Pakistan seamer, Mohammad Hafeez’s all-round abilities may ensure he retains his place.Kolkata: 1 Sourav Ganguly (capt) 2 Brendon McCullum 3 Ricky Ponting 4 David Hussey 5 Mohammad Hafeez 6 Laxmi Ratan Shukla 7 Wriddhiman Saha (wk)8 Ajit Agarkar 9 Ashok Dinda 10 Murali Kartik 11 Ishant SharmaMichael Hussey and Hayden, along with Ponting, will leave India on May 1 for a preparatory camp ahead of the West Indies series. Chennai’s batsmen have clicked in both matches, but their bowlers have been on the expensive side. P Amarnath, the right-arm seamer, was taken for a record 57 runs in his four overs by Mumbai, and he may be benched in favour of the offspinner, R Ashwin.Chennai: (probable)1 Parthiv Patel 2 Matthew Hayden 3 Michael Hussey 4 Suresh Raina 5 Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt and wk) 6 Jacob Oram 7 S Badrinath 8 Joginder Sharma 9 R Ashwin 10 Manpreet Gony 11 Muttiah Muralitharan

Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jaywardene has said that his side will look to capitalise on Andrew Flintoff’s absence when they take on England in the five-match one-day series starting at the Rangiri Dambulla Stadium on October 1.Flintoff was forced to pull-out of the series due to a troublesome left ankle. He also missed the last bilateral one-day series between the two teams in 2006 where England were walloped 5-0 at home.”Andrew is a top-class allrounder,” Jayawardene told , a Colombo-based daily. “England have a more balanced attack with him in their side because he is a batting allrounder who bowls really well. He is a matchwinner and his absence is obviously an advantage for us.”Jayawardene indicated that the England one-day side was stronger than the one they faced last year. “They have got some really good allrounders coming through,” he said. “We met them in the World Cup and it was a very close game. England will be a good challenge for us. It’s a big season ahead and we need to make sure we start on a very good note.”They also have some quality batsmen who play different roles, some we haven’t seen. We need to understand what those are and try to counter-attack them.”Commenting on the Sri Lankan squad, Jayawardene said it was a tough call for the selectors to pick allrounder Kaushal Lokuarachchi ahead of fellow legspinner Malinga Bandara.”Loku’s been performing really well in one-day internationals. We know what Bandara is capable of doing. Thinking of the future, you never know how long Sanath [Jayasuriya] is going to continue playing. We might have to fit in a spinning allrounder in the middle of our batting line-up. It’s good for us to try a few things right now, see what Loku has to offer and how we can have different combinations going forward.”On Muttiah Muralitharan, Jayawardene doubted whether he would be fit for the series. Muralitharan is recovering from a strained right bicep which he sustained while bowling long spells during his county stint with Lancashire.”It’s good to have Murali around but the reality is that he won’t be around for a long time. He won’t be playing all the matches. We need to give him adequate rest. Even the workload on [Chaminda] Vaas must be limited. When opportunities arise we have to try out new blood. There are a few guys we have earmarked. We will them bring slowly into the system.”Chanaka Welagedera, Mahela Udawatte and Dilruwan Perera are some of the players in the short list.

Interest in the Twenty20 Championships were piqued when Gujarat pulled off an upset of sorts, beating Punjab by 11 runs on a still, warm humid evening at the Brabourne Stadium. Powered by a sensible knock from Niraj Patel, who was unlucky not to becoming the second batsman to score a century in this tournament, falling short by seven runs, Gujarat posted a decent score and then bowled well enough to defend it.When they finished on 153 for 8 Gujarat probably had just enough on the board to make a fight of it. Punjab’s bowling attack had done well early on, but both the spinners and the medium-pacers failed to prise out Patel, who concentrated on running hard between the wickets, only going for the big shots when he had the room to free his arms and time the ball.Patel, who has been on the domestic scene for a while now, has always been an industrious sort of player. Small and not especially powerfully built, he has relied on working the ball into the gaps and picking up the ones and twos to keep the score ticking over. He did that especially well on the day, and perhaps the Punjab bowlers did not see him as a major threat because he doesn’t possess the really big shots.He was still good enough to his 12 fours and two sixes in his 65-ball 93. And when he was dismissed, in the first ball of the last over, it was through a bit of bad luck. Mohnish Parmar hit a return catch to Dinesh Mongia, who cleverly realised that Patel was backing up too much. Mongia made to drop the ball and effected the run out at the non-striker’s end. With no player appealing for the catch the umpires had no choice but to rule Patel out.There was a bit of confusion over who was dismissed – as per the laws of the game if a catch is taken cleanly the ball is then dead and there’s strictly no need for an appeal from the bowling side. However, the umpires reckoned that Mongia was not fully in control with of the ball soon after taking the catch, and that he had not held the catch, but in fact effected the run out. At any rate, it only dented Patel’s personal score, not Gujarat, who mustered 153.With a strong batting line-up and more than one international with some Twenty20 experience in the mix, Punjab should have had no difficulty chasing down the target. However, they did not, at any point, really get going, and with the highest partnership of the Punjab innings only amounting to 37, unbroken for the last wicket, there was never a time when they were ahead of the required rate.Parthiv Patel pulled off a terrific stumping off the medium pace of Hitesh Majmudar to account for Yuvraj Singh. Dinesh Mongia, who made 32, was bowled by Ashraf Makda. Harbhajan Singh tonked three sixes, but that only got the sparse crowd excited in vain as Punjab fell well short.

Graeme Smith, the South African captain, heaped praise on his bowlers for decimating Pakistan and setting up a ten-wicket win at Cape Town. “It’s one of the best bowling performances I’ve seen from this team,” he told reporters. “The bowling unit took a bit of flak after Durban [where Pakistan scored 351 for 4 to win by 141 runs] but they’ve been superb for the past few years and today they were fantastic.”Put into bat, Pakistan were bundled out for 107 in the 46th over before Smith and AB de Villiers knocked off the target in just 14 overs. “Every bowler hit fantastic lengths,” added Smith. “I don’t think the wicket did that much after eight overs, but the pressure we built on them and the way we fielded was an incredible effort.”Shaun Pollock, who bowled brilliantly for his 2 for 13 off ten overs, said a responsive pitch helped South Africa, and singled out a classy fielding unit. “It definitely did a bit for us this morning, but once the heavy roller came on it flattened things out. Every bowler kept the pressure on and gave them nothing for free, and the fielders were also superb.”Inzamam-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s captain, said he hoped his team would prove more competitive in the final match on Wednesday: “Credit goes to the South African bowlers, but we definitely played poor cricket. I would have said 230 or 240 would have been a good total on this track, then we could have put some pressure on the South Africans.But we’re confident that we can play hard cricket in Johannesburg to level the series.”South Africa have an unassailable 2-1 lead in the series ahead of the final match.

Less than a week after arriving in Bangladesh, Zimbabwe’s selectors have drafted two more players into the squad, calling up fast bowler Ed Rainsford and legspinner Graeme Cremer. The pair are expected to arrive in Dhaka on Friday.Rainsford was left out of the original squad that left last week after he cracked his thumb taking a catch during a practice match. Sources say the doctor’s note stated that he was going to be fit two hours before the team’s scheduled flight, prompting the selectors to leave him out.It appears Rainsford, the only genuine quick bowler among the current crop of Zimbabwe bowlers has high chances of playing in the five-match one-day series but will miss the series opener scheduled for Khulna on Thursday. His return puts pressure on Anthony Ireland and Christopher Mpofu who are likely to take the new ball for Zimbabwe. Ireland did duty with Rainsford during the Champions Trophy in India while Mpofu was recently handed an international recall after more than a year on the sidelines.Cremer, a legspinner with an ability to bowl long spells, has been called up for the additional two first-class matches that have been added to Zimbabwe’s tour.

Daryl Tuffey’s first-class comeback has hit the buffers after he broke down during Northern District’s match against Canterbury in the State Championship.Tuffey, 28, has been out of the New Zealand side since February 2005 because of a long-standing bicep injury. He bowled 24 overs in the first innings against Canterbury, but could only manage five second time around before limping off with an Achilles tendon strain.Andy Moles, the Northern Districts coach, told the : “His body has got to get used to the workloads after his long layoff. We’ve got to manage him for the whole season so there’s no point risking it.”Tuffey has played 22 Tests and 76 one-day internationals but has struggled with a series of injuries over the past couple of years.

Ashley Mallett, the former Australia offspinner, has been hired as a consultant spin coach for Sri Lanka. Mallet is the third foreign expert to be hired by Sri Lanka following the appointments of the Australian Tom Moody as coach and the Zimbabwean Trevor Penney as assistant coach.In fact it was Moody, a fellow Australian, who recommended the appointment.Mallett, 60, has signed a three-year contract that will commit him to four two-week visits each year, with the first stint scheduled to start next week at the Max Cricket Academy in Colombo. His duties include coaching spinners from all levels in Sri Lanka and training other coaches, Sri Lanka Cricket explained.In 38 Tests for Australia, Mallett picked up 132 wickets at 29.84 and in a 183-match first-class career he claimed 693 wickets at 26.27.

The Vanuatu Cricket Association (VCA) has been given an excellent report card for its ICC East Asia Pacific Under-19 World Cup qualifying tournament preparations, following an inspection by the ICC. The tournament will be hosted in Port Vila from July 17 to 24.Competing countries include Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Japan and Vanuatu. The winner will earn direct entry to the 2008 U-19 World Cup which will be held in Malaysia.”Vanuatu Cricket Association’s logistical preparations are already well underway,” said Bron Madigan, the ICC EAP regional project officer. “I have inspected the grounds which will be used for the tournament and am very impressed with the quality of the facilities. Having staged the successful 2005 EAP Cricket Cup tournament, the VCA staff have used their experience to their advantage. They have also been working very hard at getting corporate sponsorship from the local Port Vila community.”The tournament has the backing of the Vanuatu government and local businesses have also been quick to get involved.

Scorecard

New South Wales’ top order all chipped in with useful contributions, helping them pip South Australia by three wickets with just one ball to spare in an ING Cup match at the Bankstown Oval in Sydney. Needing 246 for victory, no-one scored more than Michael Clarke’s 55, but all the batsmen made handy additions to the score, ensuring that New South Wales walked away with four points.Simon Katich, the NSW captain, won the toss and chose to field, and his decision immediately paid off when Matthew Elliott was dismissed by Brett Lee for a fourth-ball duck. Graham Manou, though, held firm, scoring a useful 52, while Darren Lehmann propped up the innings with an enterprising 75, scored from just 83 balls. Lee finished up with 2 for 61, and also struck Jason Gillespie on the ribs, forcing him to go for a precautionary e-ray, while Glenn McGrath was at his stingy best, conceding just 30 from ten overs.New South Wales’ run chase got off to a fine start, with Phil Jacques and Simon Katich adding 80 for the opening wicket in less than 15 overs. Both were dismissed in quick succession, but Clarke kept the chase going with his half-century, while the rest of the batsmen all added vital contributions. Clarke hit six fours in his knock, but got two lucky reprieves – on 17 he was put down by Gary Putland at long-on, while Manou, the wicketkeeper, dropped him on 49. Things got uncomfortable for NSW when Jason Gillespie bowled a superb 49th over, conceding just two runs and taking the wicket of Lee. That left the team needing seven for victory off the final over, and after the first four balls produced five, Nathan Bracken finished it off with an edged four off Mark Cleary.After the game, Clarke expressed his delight at his innings, but expressed his disappointment at the manner of his dismissal, a hoick down to long-off. “I definitely enjoyed yesterday and I enjoyed today, but I was disappointed with the way I got out today,” Clarke said. “I would have liked a few more today, but I feel like I’m hitting the ball pretty well. I’m working as hard as I can.”Lehmann, the South Australian captain, put the defeat down to poor fielding. “They played very well [but] we missed a couple of chances, and dropped Clarke. If we had held our chances and fielded a bit better we would have won the game quite comfortably.”The win was the second one for NSW in as many games, and took their points tally up to ten.