Abhijit Kale, the batsman from Mahatrashtra, who was accused of bribing two India selectors to get himself selected to the national team, reportedly broke down and cried as witnesses testified against him in a marathon meeting of the Indian board’s disciplinary committee. The meeting, which lasted almost nine hours, was held to probe allegations that Kale had tried to bribe Kiran More and Pranob Roy, for a place on India’s tour to Australia last winter.Jagmohan Dalmiya, the board president, said that the committee would announce its final decision in a week’s time, since Kamal Morarka, a member of the committee, was absent from the proceedings due to personal reasons. But to assuage the fears of those who might claim that these investigations have already taken long enough, Dalmiya said, “The hearing has been concluded, and there will be no further hearing.”Both More and Roy produced witnesses to back up their allegations. Rajiv Gupta, a friend of Roy from Mumbai, testified that he was present at Mumbai’s domestic airport when Kale tried to bribe Roy. More’s witness, meanwhile, was his wife, Raavi, who related that Kale’s parents had visited her residence in Vadodara. “They told me to tell Kiran to select Abhijit,” she said, “[or] else he will commit suicide.”Kale, who had been given a chance to cross-examine the witnesses, later said: “I am satisfied with what happened today. I am still confident that I will come out clean.”

England won by seven wickets
ScorecardPreview – England line up the knockout punchDay 1
Bulletin – Chanderpaul and Bravo boost West Indies
Verdict – West Indies swing and miss their chanceDay 2
Bulletin – Rain washes out the second day
Roving Reporter – Moving talk amid the showers
Day 3
Bulletin – Strauss and Thorpe steady the ship
Verdict – A bar-room brawl of a day
Day 4
Bulletin – Windies build lead after Bravo’s burst
Roving Reporter – The strange case of the unresumed innings
Verdict – Flintoff approaching true greatness
Day 5
Bulletin – Key and Flintoff seal the series
Verdict – Brimful of confidence

After being ruled out of the Champions Trophy with a bout of tennis elbow, Sachin Tendulkar is facing a race against time if he is to be passed fit for the first Test against Australia, starting in Bangalore on October 6.Though he no longer carries his team’s batting single-handed, Tendulkar’s absence has been keenly felt by India, who have been a shadow of their dominant selves in their recent one-day outings. They failed to qualify for the latter stages of either the Videocon Cup in Amstelveen or the Champions Trophy, and lost 2-1 to England in the NatWest Challenge.Australia would have a huge psychological advantage if he was not fit for the Test next month, and Tendulkar knows it. “I really want to play,” he told Mumbai’s Mid Day newspaper, after returning home from England, where he has been undergoing extensive treatment. “I am hoping and praying that I am fit for the series, but it is important to be in good shape for that challenge.”Tendulkar has received strict instructions from Anant Joshi, a sports medicine expert, about how best to speed his recovery. “Any untoward movement of the wrist or elbow will be a setback,” said Joshi, who added that the recovery has been slow, but positive. “I have asked him not to drive his car and lift anything.””I am pretty conscious of what I do with my left hand,” admitted Tendulkar. “I have to guard against even remote aggravation, and I even have to be careful while playing with my kids.”Even if he does recover fitness in time for Bangalore – which is a long shot – his form would be a worry. Tendulkar has not picked up a bat for six weeks, and his last first-class fixture was the third Test against Pakistan at Rawalpindi, which ended on April 18. He has missed just one Test series in a 15-year career, when a leg injury forced him out of the Sri Lanka tour in 2001.

On Andrew Hall as his opening partner
We thought we would go in a different partner, someone whom they wouldn’t expect and he [Hall] had already batted in the top order in one-day [cricket]. He has played a really good knock – he’s been patient and stroked the ball well. We took a risk but it’s paid off.What he felt generally
I’m happy; the guys have had a solid day. Forget the run-rate as the runs haven’t been scored that quickly [in the past] at this venue. [But] there were a couple of soft dismissals in the last two sessions.How pitch plays
There was [either] moisture early in the morning or there was a lot of overnight dew, but the wicket played pretty well all day.On wining the toss
It was a good toss [for us] to win. We knew that they wanted to win the toss and bat first considering they were going in with three spinners.Team selection
We thought about the batting order first and we needed a batter at seven, which Zan der Bruyn can do and [he can] also provide a lot of overs. With Jacques [Kallis] carrying a side strain, we are not too sure how much we’ll get from him with the ball, so it was important that we carried that extra bowler.And Hashim Amla
At this stage, he’s purely a batter – at three or six – and we saw him more as an allrounder in India.On the Indian spinners
All of them bowled tightly, bowled with a lot of pressure.

Cricket Australia has defended Kevin Mitchell, the Gabba curator, after John Bracewell questioned his decision to switch pitches for the final match of the Chappell-Hadlee Series because of heavy rain.Bracewell, the New Zealand coach, said yesterday they were unsure what the wicket would do because it had “been changed two or three times depending on the results of the last two games”. Bracewell also said a pitch switch could negate Daniel Vettori’s impact.James Sutherland, Cricket Australia chief executive, said a “month’s worth of rain in two days” forced Mitchell to abandon his original choice of pitch because of insufficient preparation time. Mitchell instead decided to re-use the one from Queensland’s ING Cup victory over Tasmania last Saturday.”Australian curators are among the best in the world, and Kevin Mitchell junior is right up there at the top,” Sutherland said. “We have utmost faith that his decision is the right one, and is made in the best interests of cricket.”Sutherland, who complained to the ICC this week about the condition of the Test pitch at Mumbai last month, said Cricket Australia did not give orders to curators and they worked on the principle of preparing the best possible wickets.

ScorecardAt 13 for 2, Baroda were in deep trouble as the second day came to a close at Vadodara. They had been bowled out for 69 – their overnight score – in the morning, and then Tamil Nadu bettered their own first innings total by putting on 183. With a target of 272 facing them, and two days to get there, Baroda’s batsmen attempted to stay at the crease for a long period. While Connor Williams survived to reach nine, two others played out 41 minutes between them and added only 3 runs before being dismissed. Tomorrow, they will require 259 more on a pitch where only one batsman out of 32 dismissed has managed to score a fifty.
ScorecardAfter Mumbai reached 292 at Wankhede, Nilesh Kulkarni went to work on Karnataka’s batsmen, and prised out 5 for 39. Karnataka were dismissed for 166, losing all ten wickets for the addition 84 runs after Robin Uthappa (39) and Barrington Rowland (43) put on 82. Romesh Powar also had a hand in Karnataka’s capitulation with 4 for 70. But before the day was out, Karnataka had their own back, dismissing Wasim Jaffer in the first over. Mumbai ended on 2 for 1, with an overall lead of 128.
ScorecardKirat Damani led Gujarat to 353 with his marathon innings of 142, before becoming the second of Sunil Dholpure’s five victims. After Damani’s departure, S Yadav shepherded the tail past 350. Madhya Pradesh then found the going hard, and were reduced to 62 for 3, with the top three gone. The sole performer for the team was Dholpure, who ended with figures of 5 for 70.
ScorecardDelhi were on the verge of overtaking Bengal’s total of 240 at Kolkata by the end of the second day. At 184 for 3, they were only 56 runs behind, with the two batsmen, Mithun Manhas and Vijay Dahiya, well-set at the crease. Manhas was on 79 and Dahiya on 68. They came together after Delhi tottered at 51 for 3, and slowly turned the tide their way. In the morning, Amit Bhandari added three more wickets to his overnight tally of two to finish with 5 for 55.
ScorecardAt Anatapur, Andhra found themselves with a big task ahead. They were 120 for 6, still 143 runs behind Railways, who had made 263. While no batsman scored a fifty for Railways, small partnerships ensured they reached a total that would cause Andhra trouble. Venugopal Rao took four wickets for 34 – including three yesterday – to end Railways’ innings.
ScorecardHyderabad took what could very well be a decisive lead after bowling out Punjab for 105 on the second day at The Gymkhana Ground in Hyderabad. Hyderabad’s bowlers shared the wickets, dismissing everyone but Ankur Kakkar (48) cheaply. Punjab’s bowlers then struck back, reducing their opponents to 54 for 4. But VVS Laxman once again kept things together, and was still at the crease with 59 off only 78 balls.
ScorecardAt Karad, the day was all Ranjit Khirid’s. After scoring 80, he picked up 5 for 45 to have Uttar Pradesh in deep trouble. UP could only manage 229 for 8 in reply to Maharashtra’s total of 394. Suresh Raina, who hit three half-centuries for India earlier this year in the under-19 World Cup, struck 67 off 101 balls and was involved in a 125-run stand with R Shamshad, who scored 60. But UP were on course to conceding the first-innings lead and the points that went with it.

Zimbabwe Cricket has announced that it is setting up an independent committee to look into the possibility of the players who were at the centre of last year’s strike returning to the fold.Some of the rebels – Gavin Ewing and Barney Rogers for example – have already resumed playing, but others, led by Heath Streak, remain on the outside.ZC issued a statement saying that Addington Chinake, a legal advisor, would chair the committee and he will be joined by Jackie du Preez, the former Rhodesia and South Africa allrounder, and George Makings, a labour consultant.The stumbling block to a settlement would appear to the recent election of Ozias Bvute as ZC managing director, and Max Ebrahim’s role as chairman of selectors. Both men are deeply distrusted and were at the centre of many of the rebels’ grievances.It was an unhappy coincidence that ZC announced the forming of the committee at the same time the national side was slipping to defeat in Bangladesh.

Moin Khan has revealed his hopes of returning to the Pakistan side after regaining full fitness. Moin last played a Test in 2004 against Sri Lanka."I am making all these untiring efforts to represent my country again," said Moin after scoring a century for Pakistan International Airlines. "There has been nothing wrong with my performance as a wicketkeeper and a batsman during the current season. I am doing quite well and deserve to play again in the national team."A veteran of 69 Tests, Khan has scored 2741 runs at 28.55 and taken 128 catches besides 20 stumpings. He reckons that the forthcoming series with India will be challenging. "As I think both the teams’ chances would be even during the series and the team which plays better will win." He added that if Pakistan’s batting clicked, it would give them an edge over the Indians.Khan disagreed with the recent statements made by Sarfraz Nawaz, the former Test cricketer, suggesting that India’s spinners would whitewash Pakistan in the Test series. "Only Anil Kumble in the Indian team has more than 300 wickets while the rest of the bowlers are no more than average – like Harbhajan Singh and the other spinners haven’t got more than 100 to 150 wickets to their credit."He remarked that Danish Kaneria and Arshad Khan, who played well in the domestic first-class cricket, could play a vital role in the series. "I know the Indian batsman play the spinners with considerable ease but so could our batsmen."

Pakistan begin their tour game on a `ganja’ wicket. That’s how their coach Bob Woolmer described the pitch at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association ground in Dharamsala, where the tourists play a three-day game with the Indian Board President’s XI being led by Mohammad Kaif. Kaif went straight to the point, without saying much about the pitch: “There can’t be a result in a game of this sort.” “It’s completely bald” was Woolmer’s assessment.Both men were right with their assessments. However, if nature had behaved true to form, their opinions might have been different. In the ongoing domestic season, the ground had hosted six first-class games – four Ranji Trophy and two Duleep Trophy – and all the six produced results.The chief reason behind the results was the grassy pitch. “The speciality of this wicket was the abundant grass cover,” says Himachal Pradesh Ranji Trophy coach, Rajdeep Kalsi, who acted as the curator for the ground under the guidance of the BCCI grounds committee member Daljit Singh. However, in the last one month, inclement weather and drizzle has denuded the pitch of its lush green tinge.The altitude and the heavy air will assist the fast bowlers who rely on movement, but the ball will not zip off the pitch as it had during the domestic games. As for the bounce, that will be normal. That should be good news for the Pakistan pace brigade of Naved-ul-Hasan Rana, Mohammad Sami and Abdur Razzaq. Mohammad Khalil, the left-armer, is still recovering from the injury he suffered during the Australia series and didn’t bowl in the nets.Kalsi felt that the wicket could take turn as the match wore on. “There are good chances of the wicket breaking midway into the third day,” he said. That might happen if the frequent clouds that keep appearing take a break.Both teams were quiet on the team-composition front, but it should be quite a tussle. Kaif said that his team would make sure that they don’t allow Pakistan to gain any momentum before the main event starts in Mohali in six days’ time. Hopefully, the weather Gods will relent long enough for both teams to make an impression.Board President’s XI (from): Satyajit Parab, Dheeraj Jadhav, Shikhir Dhawan, Venugopala Rao, Mohammad Kaif (capt), Suresh Raina, Neeraj Patel, Parthiv Patel (wk), Ramesh Powar, Shib Shankar Paul, Rudra Pratap Singh, Gagandeep Singh, Ranadeb Bose, Ram Kumar.Pakistan (from): Salman Butt, Yasir Hameed, Younis Khan, Inzamam-ul-Haq (capt), Yousuf Youhana, Shoaib Malik, Abdul Razzaq, Kamran Akmal (wk), Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Mohammad Sami, Danish Kaneria, Mohammad Khalil, Asim Kamal, Taufeeq Umar, Shahid Afridi, Arshad Khan.

The success of England’s Test cricket team has been recognised by one of their major sponsors, the national energy provider, npower, who today announced a two-year extension to their title sponsorship of home Test matches. The current deal, which was due to expire at the end of this year’s Ashes series, has now been extended to 2007.”Cricket has been a fantastic vehicle for gaining new customers and increasing customer loyalty to the npower brand over the last four seasons,” said Kevin Miles, npower’s managing director residential. “We are delighted to extend our agreement for a further two years – especially given the buoyant state of the current English cricket team.The new deal includes a marketing fund of £300,000 each year, which will be directly spent on giving greater access to the sport for fans. In recent years, npower has sponsored cricket’s feline mascots, The Pride Side, which has encouraged children between the ages of 5 to 11 to experience a day at a Test. Npower are also major sponsors of the Twenty20 Cup, women’s domestic Test series, and the npower Village Cup.”Once the new television agreement was signed with Sky and Channel 5, we had no hesitation in agreeing our continued backing of the sport but it was important to us that we ensured that a substantial portion of our money would go directly into giving fans greater access to the sport.”England might regard the company as something of a lucky charm – they won seven npower Tests out of seven in the 2004 season – and David Collier, the chief executive of the England & Wales Cricket Board, was delighted at the news.”With the England team having enjoyed four successive Test series wins, Test cricket is proving to be a more attractive vehicle than ever for sponsors and business partners,” said Collier. “npower has made a significant investment in our game since 2001 and I am delighted that our partnership with them is to continue for a further two years.”Michael Vaughan, the England captain, added: “npower have been strong supporters of English cricket and the England team and we welcome the renewal of their sponsorship. It’s excellent news.”