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Canterbury 215 (Fulton 90, Wiseman 65, Orchard 5-10) and 136 for 3 (Stewart 78) trail Northern Districts 434 by 83 runs
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The weather may turn out to be be Canterbury’s ally in the race for a place in the State Championship final. While nearly a full day was possible at Gisborne, Wellington and New Plymouth were subjected to the heavy rain that hit most of the North Island. If no further play is possible in the other two games, Canterbury will hang on by their finger nails, with the knowledge that they will have to beat Wellington outright to claim the title.Canterbury will also need to put up a better show than they produced after being asked to follow on. Peter Fulton’s innings ended on 90, soon after the resumption, while Paul Wiseman scored 65 after 231 minutes of graft. But he became the first of the victims who were involved in a hat-trick by Mark Orchard. It was only the fourth occasion in ND’s 51-year history that a hat-trick had been achieved, as Orchard finished with superb figures of 5 for 10.In their second innings, Canterbury lost two early wickets, including Fulton for a duck, but then recovered to reach 136 for 3 at stumps. Shanan Stewart (78) fell towards the end of the day after a 111-run partnership with Gary Stead (39 not out). However, Canterbury were still 83 runs behind ND’s first innings total.Otago 154 for 2 (Gaffaney 69) trail Wellington 482 for 9 dec (Walker 126, Nevin 124*) by 328 runs
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Canterbury 145 for 5 (Fulton 74*) trail Northern Districts 434 (Hatwell 68, Yovish 65, Hart 64) by 289 runs
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A rapid century from Australian opener Liam Davis ensured a hard day in the field for England as the hosts took a first-innings lead after day two of the first Test in Adelaide.Australia, 18 for one overnight, soon lost their captain, Greg Hunt, bowled by Liam Plunkett, who also accounted for Mark Cosgrove. Davis was then joined by Theo Doropoulos, who made 44 to take Australia past the 200 mark before he was bowled by Samit Patel.Davis was eventually bowled by Shafayat for 132 (187 balls, 17 fours) to leave Australia at 225 for five. But Michael Bright continued to attack, with a 106-ball 97 (one six, 14 fours) which took Australia into the lead.Aaron Bird finished unbeaten on 65 as the hosts were eventually dismissed for 414. Plunkett returned figures of four for 72 from 16 overs, while Patel took three for 89.At stumps England were 15 for no wicket off five overs, 68 runs behind.

Undefeated Hampshire Cricket League leaders Ventnor travelled across to the mainland – only to find Eastleigh & Otterborne’s Doncaster Farm pitch had not been cut or rolled.The creases and boundary had been marked out, but both clubs agreed the pitch was unsafe to play on.Winchester KS turned up with only seven players and were forced to concede their County Division 1 game against Sarisbury Athletic.

Steven Smith, the Australia batsman, regained his number one spot in ICC’s Test batsmen rankings after a strong performance in the recently concluded fifth Ashes Test. Joe Root had overtaken Smith on the rankings after the fourth Test, but a 143 in the first innings of the fifth Test helped Smith reclaim the top spot with 910 ranking points. Root managed scores of 6 and 11 in that Test and subsequently moved to third, one point behind second-placed AB de Villiers.Kumar Sangakkara finished his Test career in the seventh spot after a match tally of 50 runs in his final Test against India in Colombo. Sangakkara held the top spot for 812 days in his Test career before being displaced last by de Villiers in December 2014.Michael Clarke, who also retired from Test cricket after the final Ashes Test, concluded at No. 25. He too was the top-ranked Test batsman, for a period spanning 70 days. Chris Rogers, who also called time on his international career after the last Ashes Test, scored 480 runs in the series, behind only Smith’s 508. As a result, he leapfrogged into the top ten – moving from the 23rd spot to the tenth.In the team rankings, if India win 2-1 against Sri Lanka, they will overtake New Zealand and move into fifth place. However, a Sri Lanka series victory would see them overtake India into sixth place. In the event of a drawn series, India will remain in sixth place, four points clear of Sri Lanka.

Greg Maybury, a promising 14-year-old swing bowler, has become the second young Bermuda player to enrol at Oakham School near Peterborough in England, and is to further his cricketing career by attending a University Centre of Cricketing Excellence (UCCE).”I am really looking for to this challenge,” Maybury told . “They [Oakham] have great coaches with good philosophies and excellent facilities. I can only get better in the sport as well as in academics, so there is no better place to do these two than in England.”Like Stefan Kelly, who joined Oakham in 2003 and is now studying for his A-Levels, Maybury’s further education in England is sponsored by the Bank of Bermuda Foundation, and he was given financial support by the government last week who pledged $4,000 to aid his training and development.”I would like to thank the Bank of Bermuda and the Bermuda Cricket Board for giving me this opportunity and I want to tell players behind me that there are great opportunities out there for them and they can succeed and do even better then me,” he said. “There is no pressure from the expectations placed on me. I am looking forward to the challenge and the experience I will gain from this exposure.”I can end up at one of the UCCEs and continue to be a professional cricketer or succeed in the office, whichever I chose.”

Peter Chingoka may have eased his way past the potential problems posed by the Zimbabwe Cricket Union’s AGM, where the board’s hardline majority retained control, but according to a report in a local paper, his troubles are far from over.An article in The Zimbabwe Independent claims that while Chingoka retains control, he stands accused of intimidation and manipulation in his attempts to stay in charge.Chingoka blithely dismissed the claims – little else could really be expected from a man who described the last year in Zimbabwe cricket as “exciting and challenging” – and claimed that there was a “third force working to destroy Zimbabwe’s cricket, which has an external element”.Ray Gripper, until recently a leading administrator in the game, accused Chingoka of manipulating the system to safeguard not only his own position but also those of his associates. He added that Chingoka had used intimidation and manipulation to block constitutional amendments from the provinces.”I feel it is now time for this to come out,” Gripper told The Independent. “I have been keeping quiet all along because I feared it could affect the career of my son, Trevor. We, as a group calling itself Concerned Cricket Lovers, had challenged the board on the constitution. However, a man who claimed to have been sent from the president’s office came to us and said that he had come to deliver President Mugabe’s message that Chingoka had to remain in power and that we had to stop our actions. It however later emerged that the person didn’t work for the president’s office but had been hired to perform this duty.”Gripper’s allegation was supported by Wellington Marowa, the chairman of the Zimbabwe Cricket Pioneers Association. “We met this guy and Chingoka was also in attendance. The guy claimed that he was coming from the president’s office but failed to produce his credentials. We later tried to check with the president’s office but it later emerged that he wasn’t a genuine government official.”The guy said to us that he was strictly instructed by President Mugabe that Chingoka had to remain in office. He said that we had to stop our calls for leadership renewal as well as challenges to the constitution.”Chingoka denied the accusations, claiming that the police had investigated the incident and that it was not “worth commenting about now”.Further criticism came from Charley Robertson, the chairman of Mashonaland Country Districts, who said that Chingoka and his board made an amendment to a clause in the ZCU constitution that effectively ensured the existing board could not be challenged. “Clause 18 of the constitution used to give powers to provincial chairmen to change the board,” he told the newspaper. “But it was changed two years ago to give the powers to the board only. Some of us only learnt about the change recently. This means that the current board has entrenched itself such that no one can challenge it. The system has been manipulated to retain the same people on the board but nobody on the current board has first-class cricket experience.”Again, Chingoka dismissed the charges. “There is no manipulating the whole system,” he said. “You have to understand the whole process from provincial structures. The seven provincial structures all asked me to stand. How can you have seven provinces nominating you when there is an intention to pass a vote of no-confidence in you?”But despite Chingoka’s insistence that he has the full backing of the provinces, the article reports that three of them – Mashonaland Country Districts, Midlands and Matebeleland – have discussed tabling a formal challenge to the constitution.

Ravi Rampaul, the Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) and West Indies fast bowler, has been awarded a cricket scholarship by John Michell, Australia’s High Commissioner to T&T. The nomination for Rampaul, who has played seventeen one-day internationals for West Indies, follows consultation between the Australia High Commission and the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).Rampaul, 21, will spend four weeks at Cricket Australia’s Commonwealth Bank Centre of Excellence in Brisbane, and will be taught the intricate nuances of fast bowling under the guidance of Australia’s top cricket coaches.The scholarship is being funded by the Australian Sports Outreach Programme (ASOP), which Michell launched in the Caribbean on June 23. The Australian High Commission believes the awarding of a young Caribbean cricketers’ scholarship is an important step in building stronger relations between Australia and the Caribbean region. The ASOP is a five-year programme running from July 2006 to June 2011.Rampaul made his international debut against Zimbabwe at Bulawayo in 2003, and has taken 11 wickets at 49.45. He has not represented West Indies for two seasons.

Sachin Tendulkar has been all but ruled out of the first Test between Indiaand Australia starting in Bangalore tomorrow. Tendulkar, recovering from apainful tennis elbow which has kept him out of cricket since August, arrivedin Bangalore on Wednesday morning, but Andrew Leipus, the Indian team’s physio, said that he was “very doubtful” for the Test.Tendulkar has been included in the Indian squad for the first two Testsdespite not having had a net session for six weeks. Leipus, who checked himyesterday, said there had been much improvement. Sourav Ganguly, the Indiancaptain, however, was hoping against hope. “You, me, all of us are hopeful,”he was quoted as saying in the Times of India, “that¹s what I can say.”Tendulkar¹s absence clears one issue for the Indian team, though. Barring drastic measures, it is now almost certain that Aakash Chopra, whose stolidresistance laid the foundation for many huge Indian totals in Australia,will open with Virender Sehwag, and Yuvraj Singh, who scored an electrifyingcentury against Pakistan at Lahore, will bat at No. 6. VVS Laxman, who the Australians fear even more than Tendulkar, is likely to take the No. 4 position.

Chandu Sarwate, a former Indian Test player and national selector, has died in Indore following a protracted illness. Sarwate, 83, represented India in nine Tests, scoring 208 runs and taking three wickets.His international record was modest, but Sarwate’s first-class record was superb: over a career spanning 32 years and 171 matches – most of them for Holkar – he took 494 wickets with his mix of offspin and legspin bowling at an average of 23, while scoring 7430 runs at a shade under 33.Sarwate’s best moments came when the Indians toured England in 1946. Playing a match against Surrey at The Oval, Sarwate, who normally batted in the middle order, came in at No. 10 and added 249 for the last wicket with Shute Banerjee, the No. 11. Both batsmen hit centuries – the only instance in first-class cricket when the No. 10 and No. 11 scored hundreds – as India recovered from 205 for 9 to 454. Not satisfied with that effort, Sarwate went on to take 5 for 54 in Surrey’s second innings as the Indians wrapped up a nine-wicket win.A fingerprint expert by profession, Sarwate was also a national selector for three seasons, from 1980-81 to 1982-83.

The 2003 edition of the Deodhar Trophy kicks off on January 3, with West Zone and East Zone facing off in Chennai, while South Zone and Central Zone take the field at Hyderabad.West Zone, led by Hrishikesh Kanitkar, boast a potentially explosive batting line-up, but the likes of Vinayak Mane will only be helped by the steady batting of Connor Williams and Abhijit Kale at the other end. Figuring importantly in their plans will be Mumbai leggie Sairaj Bahutule, both for his abilities with the ball as well as his batting skills lower down the order.East Zone, however, are no pushovers. Led by Bengal skipper Rohan Gavaskar, they seem solid rather than flashy. Steady bats like Shiv Sunder Das and Sanjay Raul are complemented nicely by the experienced Utpal Chatterjee and Debashish Mohanty.West Zone Squad: HH Kanitkar (captain), SV Bahutule, NA Godbole, CC Williams, VR Mane, AV Kale, KD Damani, SK Trivedi, IK Pathan, JP Jobanputra, RF Morris, RR Powar, AA Merchant, MP Mewada, RV DhurvEast Zone Squad: RS Gavaskar (captain), DS Mohanty, U Chatterjee, SS Das, SG Das, PM Mullick, SD Chowdhury, MS Dhoni, Javed Zaman, DJ Gandhi, PR Mohapatra, RR Parida, SS Raul, AA Ranade