Scorecard

If Surrey are relegated, will the public mourn the decline of a side that played exhilarating cricket and finished in the top five every season for the past six years, or rejoice at the fall of English cricket’s dominant force? If Surrey’s footballing equivalent, Manchester United, were to be dumped from the Premiership at the end of the forthcoming campaign, it would send many happy fans to bed with smiles on their faces. But the country’s attitude to Surrey is less clear, and they may yet escape finding out if they push home the advantage their bowlers gained on the second day at The Brit Oval.Worcestershire closed on 281 for 8, 94 runs adrift of Surrey’s first-innings 375. It’s a winning position for Surrey, and a position they must take advantage of. They have four more games to save themselves, and their coach, Steve Rixon, said before this contest that they needed to win three of their remaining fixtures, all of which are against quality sides also somehow caught up in the fight against relegation – two against Lancashire, and one apiece against Kent and Sussex. Rixon’s statement puts pressure on Surrey, who have been strangely incapable of coping with the slightest whiff of a problem. They have gone from a team which, like the Australians, seemed to take a perverse pleasure from seeing opponents squirm, to a team who don’t want to upset anyone. From Margaret Thatcher to Thora Hird.This time, however, they are responding well. Alex Tudor, in his first start of the season, has probably been unaffected by Surrey’s dire form, because he has been so wrapped up in his long road back from injury. If he had something to prove, he didn’t let himself down. It was his devastating spell in the afternoon that accounted for three Worcestershire batsmen, and began to make Surrey believe that Division Two is no place for them.At 159 for 1, with Stephen Moore back in the dressing-room retired hurt and Stephen Peters the only loss after a swaggering 75-ball 74, Surrey were on the ropes, and several of their players might have spent the tea break swapping CVs with the builders in charge of modernising the Vauxhall end of the ground. But Tudor ripped out Graeme Hick, Vikram Solanki and Andrew Hall for the addition of only eight runs. Jimmy Ormond also accounted for Ben Smith in the middle of Tudor’s 15 minutes of catharsis.Later, Tudor snaffled the vital wicket of Moore, who had been forced to leave the field in the rather rosy position of 144 for 1, and then required to return in the weedy predicament of 189 for 6. He had added an important 50 for the eighth wicket with Steven Rhodes before falling for a watchful 76 with only six overs remaining.At 299 for 4 overnight, Surrey had been wonderfully well placed to put the game out of Worcestershire’s reach. But the morning session summed up their season. In the previous six years they would have punished sides, battering them into submission and picking on their fragile confidence and spirit; but now they are too cautious, unsure of how to push home the advantage. Only one Championship win this season tells its own story, and that story must have been replaying itself over and over again in the minds of the incoming batsmen. They lost their remaining wickets with the addition of only 76 runs in just under 30 overs. No signs of asserting any kind of dominance, then. Worse still, their last four wickets melted away for just a single run.Only Mark Ramprakash’s fifth century of the season allowed Surrey to set a competitive target against a side who have the rather fortunate habit of making big scores. They have reached 400 on six occasions this season, once going on to make 500 and another time they passed 600. With scores like these, Worcestershire are hard to beat, and a draw just isn’t good enough for Surrey. They had better hope Tudor’s efforts aren’t wasted by the rest of the attack.

When Bob Woolmer met Javed Miandad for dinner soon after arriving in Pakistan, the man he replaced probably brought him up to date on the problems that afflict the Pakistan cricket team. Given Woolmer’s reputedly meticulous nature, he was probably au fait with them anyway. But, in his third game in charge – and his first real one – it will have come as a relief of sorts for Woolmer, that he witnessed the true scale of the unpredictability that he has been hired to resolve at first hand, and that it happened sooner rather than later during his tenure.The comprehensive defeat Sri Lanka handed to them, on paper, is disheartening. But it may come as small, even perverse, consolation that Pakistan’s complicity in instigating their downfall equalled that of an increasingly ruthless Sri Lankan side. Woolmer will know, for example, Pakistan’s batting – the architects of today’s demise – over the last nine months or so has had more good days than bad, and that days like today are slowly – very slowly – becoming the exception rather than the rule. Against India in March, in fact, there were enough good days for it to divert criticism on to the bowling. But one of Woolmer’s first tasks will be to ensure that the occasions where Pakistan implodes as they did today, and thus become more difficult to beat, are kept to the barest minimum.He still won’t be happy that a batsman with Youhana’s experience and class can embarrass himself the way he did today. And he will now know why – to this day almost five years after his debut – Imran Nazir’s capacity to succeed at international level is still questionable. He will also admit, maybe, that the Shoaib Malik experiment might not work and that it affects, adversely, the combustible nature of the lower order. And he will justifiably squirm at the schoolboy nature of the running between the wickets, if it wasn’t an insult to schoolboys around the world.But he is level-headed enough to know that not every day in the office will be a bad one. He will know that in Yasir Hameed, and to a lesser extent, the likes of Imran Farhat, Taufeeq Umar and Asim Kamal, he has something tangible to work with. He will also take note of the uncustomary spirit and resistance with which Pakistan bowled and hope that this, unlike the batting, is not a one-off. They have in the past crumbled when defending small totals – Lords in 1999 and 2001 against Australia come to mind immediately – but to take this game beyond thirty overs, and to pick up three wickets will have lessened the pain a touch. But importantly he will have spent another day familiarising himself with Team Pakistan.But if Pakistan’s problems are familiar, then the same cannot be said of Sri Lanka’s form. Sometimes a loss can be good for the soul, and Sri Lanka’s fighting defeat in Australia appears to have re-ignited in them a previously absent clinical competence. Their batting, at home at least, has never been their main concern. It is their bowling that, Murali and Vaas apart, has often looked toothless. But with Nuwan Zoysa and Upal Chandana continuing to build on the spirit they showed in Australia, the bowling has assumed a more incisive guise.Both bowlers have been notoriously inconsistent and Zoysa, in particular, has been prone to injury. How well Sri Lanka do here and in the future depends in large part on these two prolonging their good run. And if it is backed up by the type of electric fielding they displayed today, their victories over the two traditional subcontinent powerhouses might assume a more significant hue than many would admit to.Ultimately, perhaps, to infer too much from either team’s performances is inconsequential. The Asia Cup has been strangely bereft of atmosphere, significance and, worryingly, of consequence. Perhaps, the format is too bloated, and there are too many non-competitive matches. Perhaps it is because tougher one-day challenges lie in wait later in the year for most teams. Perhaps it is because that for some of the participants, winning the Asia Cup, although a pleasant bonus, isn’t the only goal. For some, like India, it is about a little tinkering to find the right balance. For Woolmer and Pakistan, it is more about discovering each other, about accommodating and adjusting to foreign ideas and culture. For Sri Lanka, it is perhaps to build on their combative display against the Australians. In which case, both the hosts and Pakistan will have gone one step further today to reaching their objectives.

Scorecard

Dion Ebrahim and Brendon Taylor made patient half-centuries as Zimbabwe A inched towards the first-innings lead in their game against South Africa A at Bulawayo. Ebrahim’s unbeaten 84 off 213 balls held the innings together and Zimbabwe A finished the second day on 263 for 7, just nine adrift of the South African total.After Douglas Hondo had helped restrict the South Africans to 272, the top-order batsmen stitched together some useful partnerships. The 72-run stand between Taylor (68) and Ebrahim put them in a comfortable position, but Paul Adams picked up the wickets of Taylor and Tatenda Taibu to peg them back.Zimbabwe A lost two more wickets soon after, and were in trouble at 172 for 6, before Mluleki Nkala helped revive the innings. Nkala, who smashed five fours in his 44-ball 33, added 54 with Ebrahim and the pair helped Zimbabwe A to wrest the initiative by the end of the second day.

ScorecardTasmania began under pressure before they pulled ahead with a state-record ninth-wicket partnership and then dominated South Australia with five wickets in the hour before stumps at Bellerive Oval.Resuming in trouble at 7 for 240, Michael Di Venuto, who was last out nine short of his century, and Xavier Doherty added an invaluable 119 before Doherty departed. While Shaun Tait was attacked after his four wickets on day one, Paul Rofe returned the economical figures of 3 for 50 from 38 overs.South Australia were travelling comfortably in reply until they lost 5 for 37, with Damien Wright and Doherty each picking up two wickets. Callum Ferguson was the last to fall in the final over when he edged Brett Geeves.Dan Marsh, the Tasmania captain, said their plan was to put pressure on South Australia’s young batsmen. “You just want to keep it as tight as you can,” he said. “Especially when there’s two of them in together you can build up a lot of pressure that way.”

Rajin Saleh will lead the Bangladesh Cricket Board XI in their three-day warm-up match against Zimbabwe. The game will be played at the new Bir Shreshtha Shahid Ruhul Amin Stadium in Chittagong from January 1 to 3.Saleh led Bangladesh in the ICC Champions Trophy in England when Habibul Bashar was sidelined by injury. Saleh played a lone hand in the final one-dayer against India, top-scoring with 82 in their crushing defeat. Apart from Saleh, Al Shahriar, Tushar Imran, Alok Kapali, Tareq Aziz Khan and Mohammad Sharif are the other players with Test experience.Chittagong will also host the first Test between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, at the MA Aziz Stadium starting on January 6.BCB squad
Rajin Saleh (capt), Shamsur Rahman, Nafees Ahmed, Al Shahriar, Tushar Imran, Alok Kapali, Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), Tareq Aziz Khan, Shafaq al-Jabir, Shahadat Hossain Rajib, Mohammad Sharif, Saqib al-Hasan, Shahjahan Selim.

Otago 127 for 9 (Todd 46*) v Wellington. Match abandoned
ScorecardCentral Districts v Canterbury. Match abandonedNorthern Districts v Auckland. Match abandonedThe last matches of the calendar year in New Zealand cricket should have been the time when the record books were being sought for relevant happenings in the calendar year. But the more likely consultation going on is seeking when there might ever have been a worse summer than that which is masquerading as the current cricket season in New Zealand.More appalling weather cut out all but one game in the domestic one-day competition, the State Shield, and even the holiday dry spot of Alexandra in the Otago hinterland could not provide a match that went its full duration.Not that the Otago side minded too much. Having chosen to bat first against Wellington at Molyneux Park, they were in deep trouble with only 127 runs on the board and one wicket standing when the last shower of the day put paid to the match.The only shining light was a career-best score of 46 not out for Greg Todd, who has transferred to Otago from Central Districts in a bid to get himself more cricket. All of Wellington’s bowlers managed a slice of the action, but the most successful in personal and team terms was Jayesh Patel, the offspinner. He took 3 for 19, his career-best figures, while James Franklin looked to be regaining some of his best bowling touch with 10 overs that cost him 23 runs and brought him one wicket.Another round of games is scheduled for New Year’s Day, but – you guessed it – the weather forecast is not great then either.

Jacob Oram has injured a bone in his back and will be unable to play for the immediate future, New Zealand Cricket revealed on Wednesday. Oram, the Central Districts allrounder, had a scan on Tuesday which showed he had damaged the bone, but he will need to undergo further tests to determine the exact nature of the injury. There are fears that he has a stress fracture and, if so, this would rule him out of facing Australia when they visit in February and March. He could also miss the two Tests against Sri Lanka in April.”The extent of the injury is yet to be determined,” said a statement from NZC, “but will become clearer in a few days after he has a CT scan.”Oram, 26, is an influential member of New Zealand’s team: he has 35 Test wickets to his name, and averages more than 40 with the bat.His team-mate, the left-arm spinner Daniel Vettori, could undergo tests on injured back if the pain does not subside. Vettori missed Wednesday’s final charity match against the World XI at Hamilton after leaving the field in pain during the second match.

Zimbabweans 206 and 193 for 8 (Williams 53*, Morkel 5-47) lead Combined Easterns/Northerns XI 275 by 124 runs
ScorecardOnly a combination of poor weather and dogged batting from Sean Williams took this match into a fourth day as the Zimbabweans ended the third day of their tour match against the Easterns/Northerns XI at Willowmoore Park in Benoni facing probable defeat.Play did not start until midway through the afternoon session, and even then only 21.1 overs were bowled before bad light came to the Zimbabweans rescue. In that time they took their total from an overnight 138 for 6 to 193 for 8, a lead of 124, thanks to Williams’s unbeaten 53.Much depended on Tatenda Taibu, but he had added just two to his overnight 21 in almost an hour when he became Morne Morkel’s fifth victim of the innings. Prosper Utseya hung around to give Williams support, but in the over before the premature finish he fell to slow left-armer Paul Harris for 9.

Former Pakistan allrounder Mudassar Nazar is the favourite to take over as director of the National Cricket Academy in Lahore.Although he is currently in temporary charge of Kenya following the resignation of Andy Moles last month, the situation in Nairobi in chaotic and it is not clear who Mudassar has to train given that most players have opted to play for the government-backed Cricket Kenya side rather than the official Kenyan Cricket Association. It is also reported that the KCA has no money and it is likely that Mudassar has not been paid. He flew back to Pakistan earlier in the week.”Once the offer is made to Mudassar officially we don’t think there should be aproblem for him to join the national academy," A Pakistan board spokesman said. "He is more keen on doing some work in Pakistan cricket and also the situation in Kenyan cricket is very fluid."Mudassar coached the Pakistan side in 2002 but was removed in the build-up to the 2003 World Cup. It is thought his appointment will be confirmed in the next few days and other coaching roles in the academy will be identified soon after.

Indian fans know all about hoping for the best and preparing for the worst when it comes to entrusting someone to lead the bowling attack in the absence of the main striker. In Zaheer Khan’s absence, Ajit Agarkar has often failed to rise to the challenge of spearheading the attack. And Mohammad Sami, save for a brief passage of play after lunch on the third day, has gone the Agarkar way in Shoaib Akhtar’s absence.The similarities do not end there. Sami is a short man for a fast bowler, and relies on the ball skidding off the pitch, rather than hitting the deck hard. He swings the ball enough to trouble batsmen, but not enough to be a force when the pitch is slow and the ball is holding up. He steams in off a long run, and can’t bowl long spells on a hot, humid day.Yet when India began their second innings, Sami showed what he was capable of. He gave the captain exactly what was needed, getting the ball in the right spot from the word go, in stark contrast to the first innings, where he began with a trademark no-ball. For a change, he was not attempting to burst through batsmen’s defenses. Instead he settled into a good rhythm, and attempted to ask questions of the batsmen.The first thing he did right was keep the ball full and straight to Gautam Gambhir, who had got off the mark with a streaky edge. Gambhir got a delivery that was too good for him so early in his innings. It shaped in a touch, and late, and was on a perfect yorker length. Before he could move across to cover the swing, or bring the bat down in defence, the ball had snuck through.The early dismissal meant that Sami, who rarely looked like taking a wicket before that passage of play, had something in the bank to show. And, when Inzamam-ul-Haq set attacking fields, packing the off-side for Sehwag, Sami was able to bowl confidently, in the full knowledge that there was protection at hand. Once again, Sami’s composure – he did not get overly excited – allowed him to land the ball in areas that Sehwag could not resist. And duly, one meaty heave found its way to the stumps via the bottom edge.This was a far-cry from his performance in the first innings, when he bowled on both sides of the wicket, short and full, and offered every manner of goody to the greedy Indian batsmen. At one stage in the second innings he had figures of 3-2-3-2, and looked the part. The spearhead, it seemed, was not so blunt that it could not do damage.But even Sami would agree that he has done too little, in too many chances, to take his place in the team for granted. Had it not been for the injuries to Shoaib, Umar Gul and Shabbir Ahmed, Sami might have been at home, watching the game on television, wondering what he needed to do to make that transition from potential to performance, trying to unravel the enigma that he is. That is what Agarkar is probably doing at the moment.