Scorecard

Dwayne Smith and Corey Collymore were the heroes for Barbados as they beat Leeward Islands by 17 runs to register their third win in four matches in the KFC Cup.Smith, who has been included in the West Indian squad for the tour to Australia, made 75, easily the highest score for their side, to help Barbados to 229 at the Police Sports Cub Ground. Collymore then stole the show with a superb bowling performance, taking 5 for 27 from ten over to endure that Leeward Islands fell short despite two fine batting performances from Sylvester Joseph, who made 73, and Omari Banks, who remained undefeated on 55.Smith spanked eight fours and four sixes in his knock, which came off just 65 balls, an was involved in an excellent 99-run stand for the third wicket with Floyd Reifer, who made 25. However, Barbados lost their way momentarily after the pair was separated and slid to 143 to 6, before Alcindo Holder (31), Courtney Browne (25) and Ian Bradshaw (19 not out) chipped in with handy contributions towards the end of the innings.Leewards struggled at the start of their run-chase, collapsing to 27 for 4 before Joseph and Tonito Willett put the innings back on track with an 88-run stand for the fifth wicket. Once that partnership was broken, the innings crumbled again, and at 139 for 8, Leewards were staring at a huge defeat. However, Banks revived their hopes, adding 47 for the ninth wicket with Gavin Tonge, but it wasn’t enough to stave off defeat.The loss was the first one for Leewards in the competition, but at 11 points, they are third in the table, and are almost certain to make it to the semi-finals.

Tatenda Taibu, who turned his back on international cricket on Thursday, has revealed that he was again threatened by Zimbabwe Cricket’s loose canon Themba Mliswa, this time face-to-face, prompting his decision to retire.Taibu said he went to a Harare hotel for a meeting with Peter Chingoka, Zimbabwe Cricket’s chairman, and when he got there, Mliswa was also present. The two greeted each other and Mliswa said: “So this is the man in hiding.” Chingoka told him to stop it.Since he had never met Mliswa, Taibu only then realised this was the man who had threatened him and his wife on the phone. Taibu turned and walked away but Mliswa followed.The pair then briefly talked, and Taibu told Mliswa that he never had any respect for him. At that, Mliswa made a more threatening remark: “If you thought it is over it is not. Your time is coming and I will get you.” Taibu added that as he walked towards his car, Mliswa “continued saying things aloud, but I was not listening.”Asked why Chingoka and the board had taken more action following the original threat, Taibu replied: “We have said people like Mliswa are not good for the game of cricket. It appears to me that he is so close to Chingoka that there is nothing that will be done to him.”Mliswa is one of Zimbabwe’s more controversial figures. He was deported from the UK in 2002 in connection with an immigration scam and in 2003 was arrested after an assault on a farm which he had taken possession of under the country’s Land Reform Act. That same farm was the scene of more violence this week when a man died during a fight.Taibu, meanwhile, revealed that he has plans to play cricket in South Africa and then in England in 2006, possibly with a county side.Taibu’s wife, Loveness, who had been staying with friends ever since the threatening phone call, is now back home with their four-week old baby boy.Comment – Another step towards extinction

Dinesh Mongia has agreed to return to Leicestershire for another season in 2006, in a bid to reclaim his spot in the Indian one-day squad. Mongia joins Asif Mohammad, the Pakistani fast bowler, who signed for the club yesterday.”I was a part of India’s World Cup squad when we reached the final in 2003 and hope to be involved again next time,” Mongia, who is currently captaining Punjab back home in India, told BBC Sport. “Achieving consistency is undoubtedly my number one objective next summer, particularly in the Championship.”Mongia performed reasonably well last summer – averaging just over 40 and accumulating 684 first-class runs – but his best performances came in the Totesport League where he made significant contributions with bat and ball as Leicestershire fell agonisingly short in their bid for promotion from the second division.”There is no doubt that he is a very talented cricketer with considerable international experience,” said Leicestershire chairman Neil Davidson. “And he has made it very clear to us that he wants to make more of an impact next season.”

Sourav Ganguly, the former Indian captain, admits that he is unsure whether being relieved of the captaincy has helped him play better.”For the last five-six months, I have been making runs in both domestic and Test cricket. I also scored runs as the captain in Zimbabwe, so I don’t know whether I am playing better because I am no longer the Indian captain,” Ganguly said after compiling a well-made 88 in Bengal’s Ranji trophy loss to Tamil Nadu at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata yesterday. “But yes, it’s a different phase. The responsibility is less because as a captain you have to do many other things. But it is the same for all other captains.”Asked whether he was looking forward to the Test series in Pakistan, Ganguly said, “Not just me, but the entire team should do well there,” he said. “It will be a series between two good teams. Whoever plays well, will win.”Meanwhile, in an extraordinary attack on Ganguly, Raj Singh Dungarpur, manager of the touring Indian team, yesterday described him as the “laziest and possibly the worst fielder” of the side.”Sourav is not a student of the game. He is also not a role model of a captain. A captain cannot be the laziest and possibly the worst fielder of the side,” Dungarpur told television reporters in Lahore. He also claimed that John Wright, the former Indian cricket team coach, was frustated with the ways of Ganguly but could not get him removed as captain. “Wright was a little mild. He always had huge problems with Sourav.”

By choice, Trinidad and Tobago will go into their second match of the Carib Beer regional four-day tournament without their most senior player and bowler. Daren Ganga, the captain, said it was not an easy decision to make and he promised that the omission did not mark the end for the discarded West Indies pacer with the national team.”It was very difficult given the fact that Merv Dillon has the most experience on the team and has done well for West Indies and Trinidad and Tobago in the past. It was a tough call,” Ganga said. However, despite an eight-year regional career of 29 matches in which he has so far taken 98 wickets, Ganga and his fellow selectors decided to look beyond Dillon for the match against the Jamaicans starting tomorrow at the University of the West Indies ground in St Augustine in preference to all-rounder Richard Kelly and fellow seamer Rayad Emrit.Ganga said, “It’s a matter of choice based on form.” He also added in the case against Dillon that, “Dillon is nursing a finger injury that hampered in the first game [against the Leeward Islands] and the practice games as well and in the end, the decision was made to go with Emrit and Kelly.”The skipper said however, that Dillon, 31, a veteran of 38 Tests and 108 one-day Internationals for West Indies had not been left in the dark over his omission. “He is quite aware of the thinking,” Ganga said. “We had a good forum where we discussed the decision. It’s something that had to be done. It’s just unfortunate that Dillon had to be the one missing out. I personally know that he is going to bounce back and make an impact on the latter half of this Carib Beer Series.While Dillon’s absence is confirmed, the presence against Jamaica of Dave Mohammed is still in doubt. Mohammed, the left-arm wrist spinner, who missed T&T’s disastrous KFC Cup regional one-day campaign last October because of a finger injury, will have a fitness test this morning for another finger problem, this time to his right hand, suffered in the final warm-up last weekend. It is a test Ganga will be anxious for Mohammed to pass given his preference for playing two spinners against the defending champions at UWI.Should Mohammed fail to be fit however, Ganga still has the option of using steady offspinner Amit Jaggernauth and rookie leg-spinner Sanjiv Gooljar.

After the most absorbing day of cricket in this series so far, such has been the dominance of batsmen and the insipidity of the pitch, Bob Woolmer told reporters he still felt a draw was the most likely result. Although Pakistan were in the ascendancy for a brief period when Sachin Tendulkar was dismissed to leave India at 281 for 5, an unbroken stand of 160 (at a run-a-minute) between Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Irfan Pathan for the sixth wicket took India comfortably past the follow-on mark and their side, to a position of relative comfort 147 runs behind Pakistan’s first innings.Woolmer said, “I suppose we need to get five quick wickets and India need to think the other way. Those two batted really well. At the moment it’s looking like a draw and the pitch doesn’t look to be breaking up. Yesterday I thought the wicket was more uneven but today it looked pretty flat. There were periods where there were a rush of wickets but basically it looks very tough for one side to bowl another out.”Dhoni’s dazzling counterattack was helped initially, felt Woolmer, by some indisciplined bowling. “At 281 for 5, there was some turn there and we just needed to get two more wickets and we could have seen a possibility of a result. But I thought the two youngsters played very well. We didn’t bowl intelligently when they came in and we bowled really well at the end when they had settled. If the ball had gone to hand, we might have got both out. It’s on such little things that such matches turn.” But he was quick to laud the batting of Dhoni. “I think he’s a belligerent, hard-hitting cricketer. His innings has certainly changed the game for India. He took on Shoaib Akhtar which is a brave thing to do at any stage and he was ably supported by Pathan.”India’s collapse post-lunch, when they lost four wickets for 45 runs in just under 11 overs was due in some part to a blistering six-over spell by Shoaib Akhtar. But as he tired, Dhoni and Pathan both settled down and Woolmer rued the possibilities another two overs from Shoaib would have brought. “I don’t know why he didn’t bowl more. You have to ask him that question. I wasn’t out in the middle and I haven’t asked the captain. Maybe two more overs in that spell might have turned the game, but you never know. But as an ex-cricketer I wouldn’t have liked to be out there facing him. As a coach of the team, I would say it was a very good spell.”Woolmer also praised Younis Khan, standing in as captain for the injured Inzamam-ul-Haq. “I thought Younis did very well out there, he handled it very well. He was little bit unlucky in periods but like all captains, you learn as you go along and learn by experience. One of the hardest things in the world is to be able to put the fielders in the gap before the shot goes there.”By dismissing Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Asif picked up his first Test wicket and also capped another bright day with the ball. In a probing spell at the end of the day, he could have ended up with a couple more, but Woolmer said he was satisfied with his bowling. “I thought he bowled beautifully the whole day, it was an excellent performance. It’s just a shame that he didn’t get the two wickets in the evening. Both catches didn’t go to hand and one touched the end of Kamran’s fingers.”

A career-best 7 for 95 for Burton de Wett was not enough for Border to avoid a first-innings deficit of 157 in Durban. Resuming on 183 for 3, KwaZulu-Natal stumbled to 326 as de Wett mesmerised the Natal batsmen with only Kyle Smit scoring 46 and Rob Frylinck adding 37 making worthwhile contributions after the hundred from Mark Sanders. De Wett then followed up his bowling performance by scoring 63 as he and Laden Gamiet put on 76 to give Border a slight lead. At the close Gamiet had moved to 101 not out, his first hundred of the season, and Border 264 for 6, a 107-run lead going into the final day.Rain in Cape Town brought an early end to the day’s proceedings with Western Province in a very strong position to record an early win on Saturday morning. An undefeated hundred for Warren Wyngaard and a career-best 72 for Ryan Canning allowed Province to declare at 298 for 6, setting Boland a formidable target of 473. A disastrous start to the Boland innings had them struggling at 10 for 4 but 36 not out from Peter Laing saw them move to 55 for 4 when bad light and rain ended the second day’s play.A career-best 69 not out from Frikkie Holtzhausen and 110 from Juan le Roux allowed North West to take a 50-run lead into the second innings against Free State in Potchefstroom. Jacob Malao used all his experience to take 3 for 112 and help restrict North West to 290 for 8 declared. Jonathan Beukes, scoring 47, got the Free State second innings off on a good foot while Benjamin Hector (24*) and Petrus Koortzen (33*) took them to 137 for 2 at the close.In Johannesburg a disciplined bowling display by Northerns, where noextras were given in 81 overs, allowed them to take a 162-run lead intothe second innings over Gauteng. Douglas Gain mdae 64 and Dumisa Makalima made 61 to allow Gauteng to reach 235 all out with Aaron Phangisotaking a career-best 5 for 76 with his left-arm spin. The 93-run fourthwicket partnership between Gain and Makalima has kept Gauteng in thegame that will end on Saturday.

Mumbai was the setting for some memorable scenes on Wednesday and there was another notable occasion today. Hafti Gulabid, a fast bowler from Jalalabad, claimed the prize wicket of Mike Gatting for a duck as an Afghanistan side won their first ever match against MCC at Mumbai.Gulabid, 22, induced an edge from Gatting’s bat, and his brother Karim Khan Sadiq, 20, took the catch behind the stumps. “I am so happy, he’s a senior player.” said Gulabid. “I’m 22 – and he has probably been playing for longer than that.”Gatting was philosophical about his dismissal. “I got a decent ball,” he said. “This isn’t a game you just go out and play. If you don’t have practice you don’t do as well as you should.”The Afghanistan side posted a formidable 356-7 from their 40 overs against a team predominantly made up of minor counties cricketers from England. Mohammed Nabi top scored with 116. In reply, the MCC were all out for 185.The match was played at a club ground in Mumbai as part of MCC’s mission to popularise the game. Most of the Afghan team learned their cricket in Pakistan in refugee camps after fleeing the invasion by the then Soviet Union in the early 1980s before returning to organise tournaments at home.

Imran Javed, the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) allrounder, celebrated his 31st birthday in style as he compiled an unbeaten century to take his side to victory against Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) on the final day of their fourth-round Pentangular Cup Cricket Championship match at the Multan Cricket Stadium.The win over PIA gave NBP only six points instead of the full nine, as they had surrendered the first-innings lead earlier, but it took their points tally after three matches to 24. PIA have now been eliminated from the race to the Pentangular Cup title.Yasir Hameed, the PIA captain, had declared his team’s second innings at 339 for 8, setting NBP a stiff target of 375 for victory. At stumps on the third day, PNB were 58 for 2 but yesterday their batsmen brought them an improbable win as they inched home by two wickets. The overnight pair of Nasir Jamshed and Faisal Athar then took the score to 91 for 2. After Nasir departed for 46, Faisal found an able partner in Shahid Yousuf and the fourth-wicket pair added 79. Faisal’s 61 came off 93 balls and included 12 hits to the ropes. Shahid made 32 off 64 deliveries with the help of five boundaries. But six NBP wickets went down with just 187 on the board and the objective still 188 away.Imran then changed the entire complexion of the match. With fellow all-rounder Yasir Arafat, he helped post 117 for the seventh-wicket partnership, bringing his team to within 71 of the target.Yasir missed his half-century by a solitary run, scoring 49 off 75 balls with five fours and a six. But Imran, who scored his third century after more than four years, remained unbeaten at 102, having batted for 10 minutes short of four hours and making his runs off 170 balls with 11 fours and two sixes. Playing in the 31st first-class match, Imran had earlier completed 50 wickets with the ball. Mohammad Sami, the rejected Pakistan fast bowler, chipped in with a useful 20 off 48 balls with two fours and added 61 for the eighth wicket with Imran.With only the fifth and final round matches remaining, starting from Sunday, NBP have a great opportunity to win the competition. While table leaders Faisalabad have ended their programme of four matches with a total of 27 points, NBP must not be defeated by Karachi Harbour in their last match. to be played at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. In case their match ends as a draw, NBP will take their points tally to 27, the same as Faisalabad if they take the first-innings lead. Even if they emerge triumphant after losing the first-innings advantage, six more points will give them the championship title.PIA, three-time winners of the Pentangular Cup in the past, will now play a rather inconsequential fifth-round match against Sialkot, here at the same venue from Sunday. Victory for neither side will make a difference to the final outcome on April 26, when the tournament comes to an end.

Look out for a stand-in West Indies captain very soon. That’s because Brian Lara doesn’t plan to play the entire seven-match ODI series against Zimbabwe.Lara, who turns 37 today, made the revelation when pressed on the thinking that led to the West Indies going into the first two matches without an appointed vice-captain, a move which he tried to downplay.”I sense that you’re going to see a [deputy] captain on the field before the series is over because I don’t think I have intentions of playing all seven [matches],” Lara said. “By then you would know who the vice-captain is. If you just hold strain a bit . . . it should not be a great topic at this present time. It will solve itself.”Lara, the multiple world record holder who is in his third reign as West Indies captain, compared the situation to when he first came into the team in 1991 when he said there was no appointed second-in-command. In the circumstances that currently exist, if Lara has to leave the field, he will appoint someone to take over.His decision to skip a few matches is a continuation of recent trends in which he has cut back on his appearances in the more physically demanding limited-overs game.”I’m 37 years of age. I want to play both forms of the game. I want to play in the World Cup, but I would also like to play Test cricket against India, Pakistan and whoever else,” he said. “The main thing is if we can rotate a bit and not necessarily before a series is decided. If we play against India and we happened to be three up, you are going to see a chance where guys are given a rest.”Lara also defended his decision to bat at No. 6 in both matches over the weekend at the Antigua Recreation Ground. “Even if we are playing against Australia, the top four should dominate any batting line-up,” he said. “I want to see the likes of Ramdin, Bravo, Smith, Samuels get the opportunity. It is about making sure that everybody gets a couple hits and no one is hogging the batting.”This West Indies team is not going to play names anymore. We’re going to play to a plan. We’re going to have positions, we’re going to have requirements for those positions it doesn’t matter who it is.”Asked how he would respond to those who feel that as the leading batsman in the team, his place in the order should be among the top four, Lara said it was time others in the team took on more responsibility.”I’m going to have my responsibility, if it’s batting, at whatever position in the order,” Lara said. “But I still feel we are playing with 11 guys. You might have one player who is supposed to be the premier batsman in the team but one of the main things this team is lacking is in-house competition.”Whoever we consider to be the best batsman, I want to see people competing with him. In my early days in the 1990s, there was Desmond Haynes, Richie Richardson, but at the end of any series I wanted to be counted as the top batsman in that series. That’s what has to be created here.”