The South Africa A squad for the Zimbabwe tour in August has been announced. The 13-man team contains several internationals, including Ashwell Prince – who captains the side – Paul Adams, Neil McKenzie and Charl Willoughby. After the two four-day matches are played, four players will be replaced by specialists for the four one-day games to follow.The squad is expected to pose stiff opposition to a Zimbabwean side set back by the absence of their senior players, and who were beaten badly in the Test series against Sri Lanka. Omar Henry, the chairman of selectors, was confident that the side would perform well with a new coach, Ray Jennings, in charge. “This is a very good squad with every player vying for a place in the National Team. And under Ray, they are in good hands.”Squad for four-day games Ashwell Prince (capt), Paul Adams, Hashim Amla, Loots Bosman, Zander de Bruyn, AB de Villiers, Garnett Kruger, Charl Langeveldt,Neil McKenzie, Albie Morkel, Alfonso Thomas, Thami Tsolekile (wk), Charl Willoughby.Itinerary

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ScorecardDay 1
Bulletin – Jayawardene plays a lone hand
Quotes – Pollock – ‘It wasn’t easy out there’Day 2
Bulletin – Jayawardene’s 237 boosts Sri Lanka to 486
Quotes – Dyson – ‘It was a magnificent innings’Day 3
Bulletin – Rudolph wages a lone battle
Quotes – ‘I thought I handled Murali OK’ – Rudolph
Day 4
Bulletin – Declaration sets up thrilling finish
Quotes – Jayasuriya – ‘We have a good chance’

A finance administrator at Northamptonshire has been jailed for 20 months after being found guilty of stealing £82,000 from the county.Northampton Crown Court heard how Susan Woodward abused her position to fund a lavish lifestyle. Despite earning only £14,000 a year, Woodward took her family on expensive holidays and also bought a property in Marbella, Spain.”She was an utterly trusted employee,” the prosecutor told the court. “She had access to all the club’s accounts. She kept the books. She was the accounting system.” She pleaded guilty to 19 charges of theft and asked for 58 other offences to be taken into consideration.Woodward had worked for the county for seven years but resigned suddenly in February. The fraud squad was called in after irregularities were found in the annual accounts.The court heard how she forged 77 fake cheques in a five-month period starting in November 2002. The county are considering instigating proceedings against her to recover the money.

Plate Group Points Table

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Joginder Sharma tore the Vidarbha batting line-up apart and his six-wicket haul, and 14 in the match, helped Haryana triumph by 41 runs at Nagpur and post their third win of the season. Vidarbha were within striking range of the 328 needed for victory with Faiz Fazal, the opener, anchoring the chase with a fighting half-century. But Fazal’s wicket, at 176 for 5, pegged them back and Joginder seized the moment immediately. He snapped up four of the next five wickets to fall and Harshal Shitoot’s fighting 53 and baburao Yadav’s breezy 33 wasn’t enough to reach the target. Joginder finished with 6 for 92.
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Rajiv Kumar weathered the storm and steered Jharkhand to 137 on the final day at Jamshedpur. Rajiv helped Jharkhand recover from a perilous 24 for 3 with help from Nikhilesh Ranjan and Sunil Kumar. Rajiv was unbeaten on 61, off 142 balls, when the target was reached. With this win, Jharkhand moved to second place in Group A while Orissa’s semi-final ambitions suffered a setback.
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Vineet Saxena made 105 as the game between Goa and Rajasthan finished in a draw. Goa’s only chance lay in forcing an outright victory but Rajasthan thwarted their bid, making 214 for 5, and collected two points by virtue of the first-innings lead. Saxena, who cracked seven fours and a six, received good support from Dishant Yagnik (55) and the two shared a 137-run stand. Four quick wickets fell in the end of the day, including three to run-outs, but Rajasthan held on to get the better of the stalemate and moved to fourth place in Group B.
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Arun Sharma spun Services to a comfortable ten-wicket win over Tripura at Agartala. Sharma, the left-arm spinner, finished with 11 wickets in the match, five of those came in the second innings, as Services leapfrogged to the second spot in Group B. Resuming on 65 for 1 Tripura lost wickets to Sharma and Yashpal Singh (3 for 26) with only Rajashekhar Shanbal, the import from Karnataka, managing a half-century. The Services openers then knocked off the 12 required for victory in just one over.
ScorecardJammu & Kashmir collapsed for just 158 in their second innings as Himachal Pradesh romped to a massive victory at Dharamasala. After crumbling for 93 in the first innings, J&K were given a solid start by their openers, with a 58-run partnership, the second time around. But once they were separated, wickets tumbled at regular intervals and only Manzoor Dar’s defiant 43 delayed the inevitable. Vishal Bhatia, the left-arm spinner, snapped up four of the wickets as Himachal cruised into the semi-finals with three rounds still to go.
ScorecardKerala suffered a humiliating innings-and-29-run defeat after being bowled out for 114 in their second innings at Palghat. Having collapsed for 117 on the first day, Kerala conceded a 143-run lead as all the Saurashtra batsmen chipped in with valuable contributions. S Jobanputra’s breezy 44 was one of the highlights before he accounted for both the Kerala openers with the ball. His partner with the new ball, S Maniar, finished with 4 for 33 as Kerala were shot out in 41.5 overs.

In the end, the result didn’t matter. It was never meant to. What is cricket after all before life? In the sporting sense, it was odd watching the match which was billed as a one-day international, and it’s difficult to say if the players felt the same intensity as they do while turning out in national colours. But they surely knew what was at stake: it wasn’t a trophy or national pride, it was about rebuilding lives, giving hope, it was about standing up and being counted. It turned out to be a mismatch, but over 70,000 people who filled the massive MCG got what they really wanted.The magic moment of the match came after it was over, when Bob Merriman, Cricket Australia’s chairman, strode across to present a cheque for in excess of A$14million to World Vision. It was nearly as much as Cricket Australia’s accumulated losses last year, and it was, by a distance, cricket’s finest stand in many years. All it had taken was 12 days. It demonstrated, if any proof was needed, what good intentions could achieve. It was a game without losers.It would be cynical to wonder if the World XI shouldn’t have helped the Asian XI to score a few more runs and hit a few more sixes, because each run earned US$760 for the cause and each six US$38,000. But that would have turned the match into a charade. It was played as intended: in an honest competitive spirit. There’s nothing, after all, to prevent the sponsors, Toyota and 3 Mobile, from pitching in with a few more thousand dollars if they want to.Cricketers have turned out for charity matches before. Often it is for one of their own, and sometimes to support a larger cause. In 1996, a combined team of Indian and Pakistan players travelled to Colombo to play a solidarity match after a couple of teams had pulled out from their World Cup engagements in Sri Lanka citing security reasons. And the last time an Asian XI squared up against a Rest of the World XI, at Dhaka in 2000, it was for the “promotion of cricket”. Today, the cause overwhelmed all else. Humanity hasn’t known a natural calamity greater than last month’s tsunamis, and it was appropriate that cricket should respond in the best possible way. It was a grand affair for a grand cause.

Shoaib Akhtar has scarcely been able to stay out of the limelight for a day in the lead-up to Pakistan’s forthcoming tour of India – and now newspapers have reported that he failed to report to the doctor appointed by the Pakistan Cricket Board to assess his fitness. In the absence of their foreign support staff, who are on holiday, the PCB appointed Meesaq Rizwi, a sports physician, to look into Shoaib’s fitness.Rizwi apparently asked Mohammed Sami, Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammad Khalil, as well as Shoaib, to report for fitness tests. But Shoaib failed to turn up, and this could have spurred the latest reaction of the board. Saleem Altaf, the PCB’s new director of cricket operations, has instructed Shoaib to take part in the ongoing Patron’s Trophy to prove his fitness. reports that Altaf told Shoaib he had to play for his team, KRL, in the next round of four-day Patron’s Trophy matches, which begin on February 14, in order to be eligible for selection for Pakistan’s forthcoming tour of India. Shoaib was originally called back from the Australian tour in order to give him time to rest a troublesome hamstring and be fit in time for the Indian series.On return to Pakistan Shoaib was assessed by Grant Compton, the Pakistan team’s physiotherapist, and a two-week rest was prescribed. Following this examination Compton left Pakistan on vacation.”Compton outlined a rehabilitation programme to Shoaib to recover from his hamstring strain, and then left for South Africa,” said a source. “But even before leaving he was working with Shoaib as it was confirmed he had a hamstring problem that needed two-week recovery period. It is in this background that Altaf’s directives to Shoaib come as a total surprise. How does he expect Shoaib to resume playing in the next round of Patron’s Trophy to prove his fitness when he has been told he required a two-week period to recover from the hamstring?”

Royal College 94 (Peiris 3-16) v St Thomas College 152 for 2 (Peiris 64*, Silva 35*)
ScorecardOn the day that England A wrapped up a comprehensive 197-run victory over their Sri Lankan counterparts at the Colombo Cricket Club, not many of the city’s cricket fans were paying attention. They were instead gathered half-a-mile down the road at the Sinhalese Sports Club, where Royal College and St Thomas’s – two of Sri Lanka’s most illustrious schools – were engaged in their annual "Battle of the Blues".This was the 126th meeting between the two school teams whose annual fixture puts even Eton and Harrow to shame. And, judging by the first day’s events, it was shaping up as one of the most one-sided as well, as St Thomas’s took the game by the throat, bowling Royal College out for 94 after winning the toss, and then easing to 152 for 2 in reply.St Thomas’s hero was their opening bowler and No. 3 batsman, A Peiris. He rocked Royal College back on their heels in his very first over, by trapping their opener, S Senaratne, lbw for a second-ball duck, and later returned to sweep up the tail, for figures of 3 for 16 from 11.4 overs. None of the Royal batsmen could come to terms with the probing St Thomas attack, and only two batsmen made it into double figures.St Thomas had a moment of anxiety when N Perera was removed for 4 in the third over of their reply, but Peiris returned to the fray to calm the nerves. By the close, he was unbeaten on 64, with the wicketkeeper, K Silva, alongside him on 35, and with a lead already standing at 58, the stage was set for a day of dominance when play resumes tomorrow.

For the third day in a row, one batting performance shone through at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore. After Inzamam-ul-Haq and Younis Khan, it was Virender Sehwag’s turn to delight, scoring 201 from just 262 balls.A break-up of Sehwag’s most productive strokes makes for interesting analysis. The on-drive contributed the maximum number of runs – more than a fifth of his runs came via that stroke (41 runs from 29 shots) – followed by the cover-drive (28 from 10). However, there were other strokes which he played more selectively, but which fetched him excellent value: he only played three late-cuts, but each one was executed with precise timing and placement, and brought a four on every occasion. Also, of the 262 balls faced, he offered a defensive bat 117 times, fairly high by his usually aggressive standard.Against most batsmen, a good-length delivery would have a high probability of being a dot ball. Not with Sehwag, though. As the graphic below shows, his scoring rate off those deliveries was nearly 70; against anything which was too full or too short, he scored at around a run a ball.

Mohinder Amarnath and Sandeep Patil, two of the heroes of India’s World Cup-winning side in 1983, are among those shortlisted to succeed John Wright as India’s coach. Greg Chappell and Tom Moody, who both wore the Australian cap with distinction, are the two other candidates in the running after a six-member committee formed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India held deliberations on the issue in Kolkata on Sunday.After the meeting, a BCCI media release said that depending on their availability for the job, the candidates would be called for an interview. Ranbir Singh Mahendra, the president, and SK Nair, the secretary, represented the board on the committee, which also comprised Jagmohan Dalmiya, former ICC chief. The other half of the panel comprised Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and Srinivas Venkataraghavan, who represented India in over 200 Test matches between them.Patil inspired a Kenyan charge to the semi-finals of the World Cup in 2003, and had also enjoyed success in charge of the India A team. Amarnath’s coaching resume includes a stint in Bangladesh.

Shane Warne knocked over the final wicket as Hampshire returned to the top of the County Championship’s Division One on Saturday after a stunning Nottinghamshire collapse. Apparently easing to the victory target of 276, Notts dropped from 4 for 250 to 261 all out.Striking twice in the dramatic conclusion, Warne, the captain who made 46 in the first innings after the opening day was washed out, dismissed Chris Read and the last man Ryan Sidebottom, his 35th victim of the season. David Hussey has 591 runs at 73.88 after a strong match on the losing side, adding 64 in the failed chase to his 42 and four second-innings wickets as Hampshire set up the declaration.Warne was in the action early in the National League Division One match against Lancashire yesterday when he promoted himself to No. 3 as a pinch hitter. Taking 15 from 10 balls, he was run out as Hampshire scrambled to 200, which was enough to secure a 79-run win after Stuart Law and Brad Hodge both collected 2. Warne finished with 1 for 22 off seven to give Hampshire their second win in six matches.Matthew Elliott saved Glamorgan from a follow-on defeat with 162 against Sussex at Swansea. The century, which came from 171 balls with 19 fours and two sixes, continued a fine game for Elliott, who collected 85 in the first innings of another rain disrupted game. Sussex skipped to 5 for 497 declared thanks to Murray Goodwin’s 158, but Elliott dragged his side out of a hole and he sits at fifth on the Division One run-scoring chart. Glamorgan’s position isn’t as lofty – they are camped on the bottom, 18.5 points behind Gloucestershire.There were draws all round in the Championship Division Two as the bad weather influenced the fixtures. Michael Di Venuto completed an amazing week of two hundreds, but he couldn’t push Derbyshire to a win against Essex at Chelmsford. Di Venuto started with 23 as his side piled up 462, but he arrived in a hurry in the second inning to pounce on 110 from 154 deliveries.However, Derbyshire’s delayed declaration hindered their efforts to move from the cellar by dismissing Essex, who reached 5 for 245 in search of 379. Jon Moss, who has a top score of 75 and a bowling best of 2 for 38 in six matches, scored 38 and 29 and added a second-innings wicket.The following day Di Venuto blasted a match-winning century as Derbyshire cruised past Kent by 90 runs at Maidstone. Opening the Division Two encounter, Di Venuto belted 15 fours and a six as he raced to 116 off 90 balls. Moss also enjoyed himself with 47 off 44 as Derbyshire eased to 3 for 304 in 45 overs, and he followed up with 2 for 33 from eight as they lifted from the bottom of the table.Martin Love had a rare poor game as Northamptonshire had the best of the Championship match against Lancashire at Old Trafford. Love opened with 0 and 8 – his competition record still stands at an impressive 603 runs at 67 – while Damien Wright pocketed 11 and 30 to go with his four wickets in a contest dominated by the bowlers. Lancashire’s Australians, Law and Hodge, also found batting difficult. Hodge made 7 and 23 while Law scratched 14 and 7.Ashley Noffke showed the back injury that delayed his arrival at Durham has healed as he was the pick with 4 for 75 in 25 overs against Worcestershire at Worcester. Denting the top order with two wickets, Noffke came back to remove Chaminda Vaas and Ben Smith as the first-innings deficit was restricted to 11. Noffke collected 18 runs but didn’t get an opportunity in the second dig as Durham comfortably batted out time and stayed on top of the Division Two table.