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Railways defended a target of 94, skittling Uttar Pradesh out for 72 on the third day in a come-from-behind win in their first-round match in Lucknow. It was the second-lowest fourth-innings defence in Ranji Trophy history.Anureet Singh and slow left-arm spinner Avinash Yadav reduced UP to 28 for 6 inside 11 overs, and left-arm pacer Deepak Bansal joined in to pick up two wickets – including that of UP captain Suresh Raina – as Railways wrapped up a sensational 21-run win.Railways began the third day 27 for 3 in their second innings, still trailing UP by 46 runs. Overnight batsmen Arindam Ghosh (57) and Vidhyadhar Kamath (30) added a further 69 runs in the morning, before Kartik Tyagi dismissed Kamath to end an 86-run fourth-wicket partnership. Abhishek Yadav (20) scored crucial runs after that, but the recovery was ended by Ankit Rajpoot and legspinner Zeeshan Ansari. Railways eventually folded for 161.UP’s top order faltered in their chase, with Avinash and Anureet removing both openers inside three overs. Himanshu Asnora fell in the fifth over, before Anureet trapped the next two batsmen lbw. By then UP were 28 for 6, staring at defeat. Raina top-scored with 29, and was seventh out with 45 still to get. Rinku Singh remained unbeaten on 23, but received no support from the tail, and UP were all out in the 26th over. Avinash finished with a match tally of seven wickets, while Anureet ended the game with six. Barring Rinku and Raina, the other nine UP batsmen scored 15 between them, including four ducks.Delhi increased their advantage over Assam at Feroz Shah Kotla after fifties from Anuj Rawat (71) and Manan Sharma (69) helped the home side finish their first innings on 435 from an overnight score of 269 for 4. Delhi bowlers, led by Navdeep Saini’s brace, then took three top-order wickets before stumps as Assam were struggling at 60 for 3 at the end of day’s play. They trail by 117 runs.Gautam Gambhir could add only one run to his overnight score of 136 before he was bowled by Abu Nechim in the day’s second over. Pulkit Narang was the next man to go, but Rawat and Manan then put together 122 runs for the seventh wicket to take Delhi past the 400-run mark. Nechim returned once again to break the partnership, and then cleaned up the tail to finish with figures of 7 for 68, but by then Delhi had already taken a 177-run lead.Assam looked to wipe out that deficit in their second innings, but both openers fell cheaply to Saini. Kulwant Khejrolia then dismissed Assam captain Gokul Sharma – with the visitors at 26 for 3 – but Sibsankar Roy (28*) and Tarjinder Singh (8*) saw the day off with no further casualties.Meanwhile, for the third day in a row, there was no play possible in the match between Hyderabad and Maharashtra in Hyderabad.

ScorecardFile photo – Adnan Mufti’s first-innings 110 laid the groundwork for UAE’s win•Getty Images

Left-arm spinner Ahmed Raza’s match haul of eight wickets helped UAE wrap up a 34-run victory over Namibia, inside three days, at the Wanderers Cricket Ground in Windhoek.Chasing 215, Namibia were bowled out for 180 with Raza dismissing top scorer Craig Williams (48) and opener Stephan Baard (12). Rohan Mustafa and Imran Haider took care of the middle order and lower, picking up five wickets between them.The win was set up by Adnan Mufti’s maiden first-class hundred – 110 off 186 balls – which guided the side to a 57-run first-innings lead. His knock came after UAE were reduced to 74 for 4 after they had opted to bat. He added 94 with Rameez Shahzad to revive the side before marshalling the tail. He hit 13 fours before he was the ninth UAE batsman to be dismissed. JJ Smit was the pick of the bowlers for Namibia, returning 4 for 37 in the first innings. Petrus Burger, the debutant, complemented him with 3 for 44.In reply, Namibia started positively with Baard and Lohan Louwrens adding 65 for the first wicket. Raza then sparked a collapse of 44 for 6 to leave Namibia on the ropes. Gerhard Erasmus, the No. 6 batsman, though, mounted a fightback, scoring 78 off 112 balls to cut the deficit. Raza finished with 6 for 61 in the second innings – his fourth five-wicket haul in his 19th first-class game.UAE suffered a collapse of their own in their second innings – courtesy Williams’ five-for – falling from 57 for 1 to 157 all out, but their bowlers stepped up again in defence of 214 – and handed their team 20 points.

Australia’s vanquished tournament favourites will return home to the uncertainty of unemployment and the searching questions of a nation that expected them to be lifting the World Cup trophy at Lord’s, rather then losing a semi-final to a supercharged India in Derby.Meg Lanning’s team signed short-term contracts to ensure they were paid throughout the tournament amid the pay war between Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers Association back home, but now join their male and domestic counterparts in awaiting the resolution of a dispute that is fast running out of time to avoid major commercial and competitive dislocation in the game.At the same time, Lanning and the coach Matthew Mott are expecting to face a concerted inquisition from CA’s team performance manager, Pat Howard, as to why the Australians failed to produce their best at the pointy end of the Cup. Defeat to India means Australia hold neither of the game’s two major trophies for the first time since 2009.”Normally there’s a pretty exhaustive review, Pat Howard, the boss, will certainly ask some questions,” Mott said. “So when we get home we’ll have to face the music I guess. [We’ll] go through what went right and what went wrong, and there’ll be a lot of questions asked because we came here with the expectation to win, we had the team that could have won the competition and we didn’t. So we’ve got to ask ourselves some tough questions. We’re hurting a fair bit at the moment but there’s certainly a lot of areas we have to work on.”We’ve got a culture where we throw things around and brainstorm a lot. We should have been blown off the park today and the fact we hung in there and kept it alive – we take that away. A bit of that Aussie spirit to the end there – Alex Blackwell’s innings was pretty special I think. So those sort of things, but we’ve come here to win and we go away losing semi-finalists. We’re very disappointed.”On a day when she was unable to lead with the bat, bowled by a superb swinging delivery from Jhulan Goswami, Lanning said her team had been unable to find the consistency to play the “perfect game” when both bat and ball were in sync. This was underlined by how Harmanpreet Kaur dominated Australia’s bowlers with an innings of rare ferocity, leaving too much to be done in the chase after early wickets fell to the moving ball.”We came here to win, so there’s not a whole lot of positives. I thought we played good cricket in patches, we weren’t really able to put the perfect game together,” Lanning said. “There were glimpses there but, to win a World Cup, you’ve got to be consistent and put performances together.”It’s definitely a very disappointing finish to the tournament. We came here to win, and we’re not going to get the chance to play off in the final. India were too good today; they outplayed us in all the facets of the game, so we’re going to have to look at a few things and see what we need to do, because all the teams around the world now are improving all the time.”The standard of this World Cup’s been as good as it’s ever been. So there’s a lot more teams competing up the top now, so we’re very aware of that and and given the result today we’ve got a fair bit of work to do to make sure we keep getting better and are able to beat sides like England and India who are in the final.”Mott said that in the field the Australians had not adapted quickly enough to Harmanpreet’s aggression, echoing the match against Sri Lanka when Chamari Atapattu hammered an unbeaten 178. On that occasion, Lanning had been able to respond in kind with a domineering innings of her own, but this time she could not, leaving deputy Alex Blackwell to mount a brave but ultimately fruitless rearguard.”We ran into someone who was red hot and just didn’t adapt quickly enough,” Mott said. “[It was] possibly the innings of her life but that’s two we’ve had in this competition that we haven’t reacted well to, so very disappointing. It was a good cricket wicket but they scored 40-50 too many. We needed to stop the hemorrhaging there when they were going; just needed some discipline there, and it just went to custard to be honest … they got far too many.”We just wanted a nice platform, but I think they bowled extremely well to knock a few of us over early. The ball was swinging and they hit the stumps, which is what we talk about doing, so that put us behind, and we always needed a platform I think. A couple of special innings by Villani and Alex was brilliant, but we just left too much, too late.”As for the prospect of returning home to unemployment, Lanning did not yet want to think about it. “We haven’t even thought about that to be honest,” she said. “We know CA and the ACA have been working in the background there, so that’ll all play out over the next couple of weeks but I don’t think any of the playing group or the staff have given it much thought.”

Champaka Ramanayake, former Sri Lanka fast bowler and the new head coach of BCB’s High Performance Unit, hopes to widen the search for fast bowlers across Bangladesh in his second coaching stint in the country. He previously worked as the bowling coach of the national team from 2008 to 2010.”The coaching will be the same but maybe I will look into the youngsters who have never been seen before,” Ramanayake said. “I am thinking of going around the country to find raw talent. Definitely there is talent, because cricket is big in the country. There should be lot of players with natural talent, so I am looking forward to finding them.”Ramanayake, the second high-profile appointment after Courtney Walsh, the bowling coach of the national team, underlined the importance of having a comfort factor in working with young bowlers to be successful at the job.”I have worked for SLC for 14 years as a bowling coach. Early on I was working on the development side; working day to day with the youngsters helped me build a relationship and their confidence level,” he said. “The biggest thing you can give them is confidence, that they can do the job. The biggest satisfaction you can get as a coach is when you develop someone.”In his first stint in Bangladesh, Ramanayake focused on working with natural actions, Rubel Hossain and Shafiul Islam being the most-notable names to come up around the time. “You shouldn’t make too many changes to natural ability. That’s my philosophy,” he said. “In Sri Lanka, we produced lot of freaks from nowhere because of their natural talent.”Sometimes, people try to change too many things and then you lose the natural ability. Everyone is different in this world, so you have to treat them differently. Actions are different so as long as they produce results and are effective, that’s the main thing.”

All players of category A-plus in the Bangladesh Premier League – including the local talent – have been given the right to choose the franchises they will play for in the upcoming season. The decision was announced by the league’s secretary Ismail Haider Mallick, ending speculation among many cricketers wondering about whom they would play for in 2017.The seven teams have been asked to submit the players they want to retain by the next week with the BPL governing council building towards the draft on September 16.”We have asked the franchises for their list of retained players,” Mallick said. “They can retain any four of their players, which could include their A-plus category player from last season. But it has to be done with consultation with those players, who have a choice of whether to leave or stay in the franchise. July 24 is not a deadline, but we expect the franchises to give us their retention list.”Khulna Titans have already announced Mahmudullah, their captain and A-plus category player from last season, as one of their retained players this season. The 2017 season may also see the introduction of an eighth franchise. Early indications are that the team will be based in Sylhet.The BPL governing council will also have to decide whether to allow five foreign players in a playing XI or let it remain at four. In 2012 and 2013 – the first two editions of the tournament – franchises could field five overseas players, but the rule was changed for the 2015 and 2016 editions. It is learnt the call came from one of the franchises, and the matter will be up for discussion soon.”If it will be four or five [overseas players in the playing XI], we will ask the opinion of the franchises,” Mallick said. “Then we will decide on it.”

ScorecardFile photo – Partex captain Irfan Sukkur was one of only three batsmen to reach double figures•BCB

Khelaghar Samaj Kallyan Samity confirmed their stay in next season’s Dhaka Premier League with an eight-wicket win over Partex Sporting Club in the first relegation play-off game at the Fatullah Cricket Stadium. Khelaghar moved to eight points, meaning both Victoria Sporting Club and Partex, who are on two points each, were relegated to the Dhaka First Division Cricket League. The remaining relegation playoffs will now be formalities.Left-arm spinner Tanvir Islam took six wickets for just 18 runs from his 9.1 overs as Partex were shot out for just 73 runs in 25.1 overs. Tanvir’s figures were the best by a bowler in this year’s DPL, which also saw Rubel Hossain, Taijul Islam, Abu Hider and Arafat Sunny take six-wicket hauls.Only three batsmen – captain Irfan Sukkur, Jubair Ahmed and Nuruzzaman Masum – reached double figures for Partex who had elected to bat. Khelaghar only needed three batsmen to reach double-figures as they completed the second-shortest chase in Bangladesh’s List A history; Robiul Islam Robi’s 34 led the chase which they completed in 15.1 overs, with 209 balls to spare.

ESPNcricinfo is set to start the County Championship Cricket season with a bang as it sets off on a cross-country road trip which aims to take in action from every match on the opening day of the season.Dan Norcross and Ebony Rainford-Brent will be taking on the ESPN #CountyCricketLive Road Trip as they try to see a ball of cricket at each match on Friday, April 7. The pair will attempt to visit six grounds, witnessing cricket in three Division One matches and three Division Two contests on the day.To mark their arrival at each venue, the pair will reprise their familiar roles as radio broadcasters by attempting to commentate on at least one delivery of the BBC’s local radio coverage.The challenge starts at 11am in Leeds at Headingley with Yorkshire v Hampshire, then Norcross and Rainford-Brent will travel down the M1 to Grace Road for Leicestershire v Nottinghamshire, followed by Northampton where Northamptonshire host Glamorgan at the County Ground.After navigating the M25, Chelmsford will be their next stop, for Essex v Lancashire at the County Ground, before they head down the M2 to visit the St Lawrence Ground in Canterbury as Kent face Gloucestershire. The final leg of the journey will see the duo race down to London and The Oval, where Surrey are playing Warwickshire, trying to catch some action before play ends at around 6pm.The journey will see the pair competing against traffic as well as the clock, and they will keep cricket fans up to date using ESPNcricinfo’s #CountyCricketLive, sharing live updates, pictures and video throughout the day. The hashtag is an extension of the site’s comprehensive county coverage and live county cricket blog, which in October 2016 won “Online Publication of the Year” for the fifth year running in the ECB’s County Journalism Awards.”The first day of the county cricket season is one of the great days in the British sporting calendar,” said Andrew Miller, ESPNcricinfo’s UK editor. “We’re very excited to start the campaign with this celebration of the game. Dan and Ebony are a great pairing and they are looking forward to the challenge. It’s the perfect complement to ESPNcricinfo’s in-depth coverage of the day, which includes writers covering the matches at all three of the Division One venues.”You can track our progress throughout the day on ESPNcricinfo’s social media channels across Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.

Victoria have recalled legspinner Fawad Ahmed for the Sheffield Shield final against South Australia, to be played in Alice Springs from Sunday. Ahmed has replaced fast bowler Jackson Coleman in Victoria’s 12-man squad for the decider as they aim to win the Shield title for the third consecutive summer.Ahmed has played only one match in this year’s Shield campaign, taking five wickets against Western Australia at the same ground earlier this month. However, the conditions at Traeger Park could favour slow bowling, in which case Ahmed could form a twin spin attack with Jon Holland, who is third on the wicket tally this summer with 42 Shield wickets at 21.11.The Victoria side will be captained by Cameron White in the continued absence of regular skipper Matthew Wade, who is with the Test squad in India.”It’s an amazing achievement to be involved in a third straight Sheffield Shield final, and it’s also a golden opportunity to make history as the first Victorian side to go back-to-back-to-back,” Victoria chairman of selectors Andrew Lynch said.”Everyone from the players to the coaches have worked incredibly hard to get to this point again, and we also can’t wait to take the final to Alice Springs for the first time. The squad we’ve named will thrive in the conditions at Traeger Park, and hopefully can bring home another title to Victoria.”Victoria squad Travis Dean, Marcus Harris, Rob Quiney, Aaron Finch, Cameron White (capt), Daniel Christian, Seb Gotch (wk), James Pattinson, Chris Tremain, Scott Boland, Jon Holland, Fawad Ahmed.

ScorecardFile photo – Daniel Bell-Drummond made his second Lions List A century•Getty Images

“Carbs’ boys,” they called themselves with the broadest of smiles, and for Michael Carberry, back in training with Hampshire after treatment for cancer, their matchwinning combination will be an uplifting moment. Throughout his personal fight against illness, his support for the up-and-coming generation has never wavered. More than 5000 miles away, Daniel Bell-Drummond and Tom Alsop assembled a partnership to give him cause for celebration.Alsop is a Hampshire team-mate of Carberry’s; Bell-Drummond received coaching and encouragement in London schools cricket and still turns occasionally to him for advice. A double-century stand and, finally, a Lions one-day victory at the end of it, meant that Carbs’ boys were riding high. Their partnership of exactly 200 was a new third-wicket record for the Lions in all their guises over the past 25 years and more. James Taylor held it, with Ravi Bopara, which is a reminder to Alsop and Bell-Drummond to treasure every moment.But something divided them. It was as if Donald Trump had suddenly glanced at the scoreboard as they entered the nineties and decided to build a wall. Bell-Drummond had a century to his name at the end of it all, Alsop fell just short. Sometimes the smallest margins can bring a cruel separation.The Lions were 12 for 2 in search of 244 when Bell-Drummond and Alsop joined forces. “Wobbly,” Alsop agreed, considering the one-day tour they had endured. For the next 35 overs, they methodically charted a course to victory. Alsop’s first run fell uncomfortably close to square leg and Bell-Drummond had to stave off a delivery early in his innings that came through unnaturally low, but from that point their association possessed admirable tranquillity. Neither gave a chance.They fell within seven balls of each other, but it is their respective runs tally they will most remember; Alsop fell four runs short of what would have been his second List A century when he was stumped off the offspinner Charith Asalanka. Bell-Drummond, on 99 when Alsop departed, did negotiate the single he needed for what was his second List A hundred – both for the Lions – before he was bowled by Chaturanga de Silva. Joe Clarke then failed before a five-wicket win was secured in fading light with 16 balls to spare.Alsop was a bit of a punt on this tour, a 21-year-old with one strong 50-over season behind him. Things have only come good in the closing days of the tour, a satisfying finale for the England selectors who determinedly push youth at A-team level, especially now when their 50-over batting at senior level is so strong. “It is my first time on a subcontinent wicket and it has been a hard learning curve,” Alsop said. “It was disappointing not to get a hundred but after the tour I’ve had I’ll take that.””I wasn’t that surprised when he got picked for this tour,” Bell-Drummond said, with impressive grace. “The talent is there to see. I am glad he transferred it to the middle today and showed what a good player he can become in the future.”Sri Lanka had made sweeping changes after taking the five-match series with three victories in the cultural triangle, but they still fielded seven players with international experience.With Sri Lanka engaged in a Test down in Galle against Bangladesh, the Lions would readily concede that their victory against Sri Lanka A was not the biggest cricketing story on the island.In fact, it was not even the biggest story in town. Down the road from Colombo Cricket Club, at the Sinhalese Sports Club, old boys of Royal and St Thomas Colleges were engaging in an annual ritual – the 138th Battle of the Blues, a three-day school game that can be expected to attract 10,000 spectators by the final day on Saturday. History suggests that old memories will be retold to the backdrop of young cricketers desperate to avoid the embarrassment of defeat.No matter. The Lions were desperate for consolation on one of Colombo’s most historic grounds – as old as Yorkshire, having marked its 150th anniversary in 2014 – with large portraits of Harold Larwood and Don Bradman on the walls and ancient ceiling fans whirring above timeworn wooden floors in the Members’ Pavilion. It is a wonderful spot.The portrait of Larwood in delivery stride marks his appearance on the ground three years before the infamous Bodyline tour. As the picture fades, with every passing year, Larwood’s whites seem dirtier than ever, even his forearms now look thick with grime. It somehow seems entirely appropriate, whereas to discover Bradman’s whites are no longer pristine might almost seem heretical.There were those, however, who only had eyes for the Lions. Two Northants supporters from Kettering had journeyed up from the beach resort of Bentota to see Graeme White, at 29, make a Lions debut and receive his cap from Mick Newell, the England selector, who as Notts director of cricket had seen him make an amicable departure to his first county, Northants, in 2015 in search of regular Championship cricket.White had a satisfying day, following a slightly nervous first spell with something more considered upon switching to the pavilion end, his 3 for 53 including Asalanka, caught in the deep, Angelo Perera, who pulled a short ball to mid-on, and Sri Lanka A’s new captain, Ashan Priyanjan, who was neatly stumped by Ben Foakes after White turned one past the outside edge.For the first half of Sri Lanka A’s innings, the series continued in familiar vein, with the home side firmly in control at 172 for 2 in the 30th over with heady visions of 320-plus. They made only 242. Liam Livingstone produced a steady-as-she-goes spell of offspin when the assault was at its height, bowling both openers, Danushka Gunathilaka and Ron Chandraguptha. This time, there was no switch to legspin when faced by the right-handers, just a certainty under pressure which once again spoke of a cricketer of strong character.White’s intervention turned the game. Toby Roland-Jones, a late replacement on tour, picked up three wickets in a borrowed shirt emblazoned with the name of his Middlesex team-mate Tom Helm. There was a first wicket of the series, too, for Sam Curran, Ramith Rambukwella’s stumps demolished with a full-length ball, a meaningful celebration bringing consolation on a tough tour in which he has found little swing and his elder brother, Tom, has decamped to the Caribbean for his first call-up with the senior squad.

Four-fors from Varun Aaron (4-20) and medium-pacer Rahul Shukla (4-32) helped Jharkhand defend a total of 125 to beat Saurashtra by 42 runs at Eden Gardens. Saurashtra’s chase lasted only 25.1 overs with all ten wickets falling to pace. Aaron prised out key wickets in the middle order, before Shukla and left-arm seamer Jaskaran Singh cleaned up the tail.Like Saurashtra, Jharkhand, too, lost all their wickets to pace. Kushang Patel carved up the top order, first getting the early wicket of opener Anand Singh and then breaking a 43-run, second-wicket stand to trigger a Jharkhand slump in which they lost nine wickets for 64. Kushang, who was on a hat-trick in the 10th over, finished with 4 for 39, while Shaurya Sanandia cleaned up the lower order for career-best returns of 5 for 47. Jharkhand were propped up by a 40-ball 53 from Ishan Kishan and MS Dhoni’s 24-ball 23.Ashutosh Singh’s 98-ball 65 was in vain as Chhattisgarh suffered a four-run defeat against Hyderabad in Kolkata. Ashutosh’s wicket off the first ball of the final over left Chhattisgarh needing eight runs from five balls, of which they could only manage three. His half-century, however, had helped them rally after they were struggling at 78 for 5 in the 20th over. Ravi Kiran, Chama Milind and Mehdi Hassan and Mohammad Siraj took two wickets each for Hyderabad.Bavanaka Sandeep’s unbeaten 70 off 99 balls was the top score in Hyderabad’s innings as they were bowled out for 197 despite starts from the top order. Three run-outs and a slump in the middle overs – they lost four wickets for eight runs between the 25th and 28th overs – limited Hyderabad’s total.Jammu & Kashmir suffered a 24-run defeat against Services. Chasing 215, J&K were bowled out for 190, having lost their middle order during a four-wicket slide for only 20 runs between the 21st and 27th overs. Puneet Bisht and Ram Dayal resisted for J&K but once Bisht was dismissed for 45, J&K collapsed quickly and were out in the 46th over. Ahmed Bandy top-scored for them with 59 off 65 balls, having contributed heavily at the start. Left-arm spinner Vipin Singh took 3 for 41.Services, too, crumbled in the middle overs, after their top order, particularly Nakul Verma (68) and Shamsher Yadav (52), had done the hard work of establishing a platform with a 99-run partnership for the third wicket. They lost five wickets for only one run between the 37th and 40th overs, collapsing from 164 for 2 to 169 for 7, before eventually being bowled out for 214. Parvez Rasool took 3 for 36 while Mohammed Mudhasir and Manzoor Dar took two wickets each.