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First Division

Click here to read John Ward’s report of the clash between Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire at Headingley, where Jacques Rudolph posted a century.Click here for the full report of Sussex against Surrey at Hove, where Carl Hopkinson and Murray Goodwin both fell just short of centuries.

Second Division

3rd dayGloucestershire are hoping for a gettable final-day run chase after they declared behind on the third day of their rain-affected match against Glamorgan at Bristol. Glamorgan will enter the fourth morning with a lead of 243 and with more showers possible, David Hemp will be left with an interesting call on when to let Gloucestershire have a bat. Matthew Wood picked up a half-century in the second innings as the hosts gave their part-time bowlers a run. They conceded the first-innings advantage when they closed their innings at 141 for 4, still trailing by 136 on a day that was, like the first two, interrupted by rain. Gloucestershire began the morning hoping to quickly wrap up Glamorgan’s tail but Robert Croft frustrated them with 45 as the visitors moved along to 277.Tim Ambrose showed his readiness for the international season with an unbeaten 156 as Warwickshire collected a full hand of batting points against Leicestershire at Edgbaston. He built two significant stands, 152 with Jonathan Trott (82) and 157 with Neil Carter who clubbed 82 off 94 balls. Ambrose needed 162 deliveries for his sixth first-class century, but when Garnett Kruger bowled Ian Salisbury it looked as though Warwickshire may fall short of 300. However, Carter put bat to ball as he does in one-day cricket while Ambrose moved onto the second highest score of his career, behind the unbeaten 251 he made against Worcestershire last season. But with so much time lost to the weather forcing a victory remains unlikely without some agreement between captains. Leicestershire reached 124 for 1 at the close, although both Matt Boyce and HD Ackerman were both dropped at slip by Ian Salisbury.2nd dayStephen Moore’s second century of the season put Worcestershire in charge against Northamptonshire at Northampton but a couple of late wickets to David Lucas kept the hosts in the hunt. After only 10.2 overs were possible on the first day, Moore’s 109 ensured the visitors took a comfortable first-innings lead on day two. Moore and Vikram Solanki (64) compiled a 130-run stand before Lucas removed them both late in the day to leave Worcestershire 216 for 3 at stumps. It had been a struggle for the Northamptonshire quicks until then, unlike their visiting counterparts Steve Magoffin and Kabir Ali. Kabir had Rob White lbw from the first ball of the day before Magoffin added two more with no addition to the score. The hosts were 33 for 4 when David Sales led a rally of sorts with 50 but once he and Lance Klusener (30) fell to Magoffin the rest dropped away quickly. Magoffin, the Western Australia import, finished with 4 for 49 and Kabir grabbed 3 for 44.

Only 20 minutes were possible in today’s scheduled second day of the Otago-Northern Districts Shell Trophy match at Carisbrook in Dunedin today.Steady overnight rain turned to drizzle for much of the day and it wasn’t until four hours after the usual start time of 10.30am that play started.In the time available, Northern Districts added nine runs without the loss of their last wicket to go into the third day tomorrow on 232/9.

Kent captain Matthew Fleming claimed four wickets to inspire a late Kent comeback against Yorkshire.Bad light stopped play five overs prior to the scheduled first day close with the Tykes on 365 for seven – yet the visitors had been in fine shape on 327 for two just 73 minutes earlier.After winning the toss, the white rose county took advantage of a sublime St Lawrence pitch and a short leg-side boundary on the lime tree side of the ground to punish Kent’s injury-hit attack.After the early loss of Simon Widdup, Vaughan – the only one on Yorkshire’s three representatives appearing in this game to have also played in last week’s series winning Test against The West Indies, started the run glut with a stylish 69 in almost three hours.He finally went to an excellent catch by Rahul Dravid at second slip to give Fleming the first of his four for 77 return, leaving Anthony McGrath to add a further 195 for the third wicket in partnership with Australian Darren Lehmann.Scoring at almost five an over McGrath notched 14 fours and a six on his way to a 181-ball hundred.Lehmann, who has past 50 in his last six championship innings, was even quicker to three figures needing just 89 balls to reach his fourth century of the championship summer.With the Yorkshire score on 330, Fleming removed McGrath to a catch at the wicket and then ended Lehmann’s stay to a leg-side catch also by Nixon.Gary Fellows followed in similar fashion in Fleming’s next over, then David Byas and Simon Guy both went cheaply to Martin Saggers and David Masters respectively to give Kent a second valuable bowling bonus point in their quest to stay out of the relegation zone.

The BCB could hold back Mustafizur Rahman from playing in the forthcoming PSL. While the board has mentioned Mustafizur’s workload as the major worry, ESPNcricinfo has learned there is also concern within the Bangladesh team management of overexposing the left-arm pace bowler too soon.Mustafizur was picked up by the Lahore Qalandars franchise for $50,000 for Pakistan’s domestic T20 tournament to be held in the UAE from February 4. It is understood that there have been discussions within the BCB over compensating Mustafizur if he misses the tournament, thought it is not yet confirmed whether he will be stopped from playing in it.The BCB’s chief executive Nizamuddin Chowdhury said the board would take the advice of their doctors before taking a decision on Mustafizur, considering Bangladesh’s busy schedule, which includes the Asia Cup T20 in Dhaka from February 24 and the World T20 in India from March 9. Before the PSL, Bangladesh are also scheduled to play four T20s against Zimbabwe from January 15 to 22.”Basically we will take the observation of our physician before giving him the NOC,” Chowdhury told the Dhaka-based . “He [Mustafizur] is a young prospect, so we don’t want to take any risk with him. We must consider his age and see whether he can take the load as there are other T20 assignments coming up after the PSL.”There is also talk that playing in the PSL would mean Pakistan’s players gaining a familiarity with Mustafizur’s bowling and his variations, which have been a significant factor in his early success, before they meet Bangladesh in the Asia Cup and potentially in the World T20.Mustafizur, who in 2015 became the first Bangladesh cricketer to feature in the ICC’s ODI team of the year, is among four Bangladesh players picked in the PSL’s draft, alongside Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal and Mushfiqur Rahim.

David Hussey, the Victoria batsman, may have been purchased for US$625,000 by the Kolkata franchise in the Indian Premier League’s auction, but his county side Nottinghamshire have insisted he is contracted to play for them this season. Hussey’s participation in the IPL, which runs from April 18 to June 1, would mean he misses the first five County Championship matches and eight games in the Friends Provident Trophy.Mike Newell, Nottinghamshire’s director of cricket, said: “We are currently talking to David and his advisors, so I would prefer not to comment at this stage other than to say that he signed a new two-year contract with us after the end of last season.”Hussey was one of the surprise buys at the IPL auction, being picked up well above his initial base price of $125,000. He even outdid his more famous brother, the Test player Michael, who went for $350,000. Unlike Michael, David was reportedly available for the entire tournament, which perhaps was one of the reasons why he sold for a higher price than the likes of Ricky Ponting and Matthew HaydenMeanwhile, Justin Langer, the former Australian Test opener, has indicated he will play for Somerset and won’t turn out for the Jaipur franchise. Langer collected his base price of $200,000, but Jaipur paid only $75,000 for him, with the Indian board covering the difference.”I have made a commitment to Somerset and I intend to honour it,” Langer told the . “I made that clear when I first signed with IPL and I have no hesitation sticking to it.”Langer fears the IPL will damage the game. “When you go to your grave,” he said, “people will remember what you did with your life rather than how much money you made.”The newspaper also reported Luke Ronchi, the Western Australia wicketkeeper, is considering an A$100,000 (approx US$92,000) offer to join the Mumbai franchise, while his team-mate Luke Pomersbach, who earned a car park call-up to play a Twenty20 international for Australia, is also set to join an IPL team. The Mumbai franchise failed to buy a wicketkeeper-batsman at the auction held on Wednesday.

The jury in the Chris Cairns perjury trial has retired to consider its verdict and will reconvene at Southwark Crown Court on Friday to continue its deliberations.The presiding Judge, Mr Justice Sweeney, concluded his two-and-a-half days of summing-up at 1.02pm this afternoon, at which point he advised the jury that they should feel under no time pressure to return a verdict in a case that is already into its eighth week.Cairns denies two counts of perjury and perverting the course of justice, relating to his successful libel action against Lalit Modi, the founder of the IPL, at the High Court in 2012. His co-defendant and former legal advisor, Andrew Fitch-Holland, denies one count of perverting the course of justice, after allegedly attempting to secure a false witness statement from Lou Vincent to support Cairns’ case against Modi.If the jury finds Cairns guilty of perjury, in relation to his statement at the High Court that he had “never” cheated at cricket and would not contemplate doing so, then they can move onto the charge of perverting the course of justice, in which Fitch-Holland is considered the primary perpetrator. If Fitch-Holland is found not guilty, then Cairns must also be acquitted of that charge. If he is found guilty, the jury can then consider whether Cairns had conspired with Fitch-Holland in a “joint enterprise” to obtain the statement.In his final day of summing-up, Mr Justice Sweeney took the jury through the evidence provided by Brendon McCullum, the New Zealand captain who, along with Vincent and Vincent’s ex-wife, Eleanor Riley, is considered one of the three key witnesses to the perjury charge. The judge reminded the jury that at least two of those testimonies must be considered true for the charge to be upheld.Revisiting McCullum’s evidence, Mr Justice Sweeney reminded the jury that McCullum had claimed to have been approached three times by Cairns to match-fix, firstly on the eve of the inaugural Indian Premier League in Kolkata in April 2008, then by phone a few days later, and finally in person in Worcester on June 11, during New Zealand’s Test tour of England.The details of these approaches, which Cairns denies, only came to light after an ICC anti-corruption briefing in Bangladesh in February 2011, on the eve of the World Cup. McCullum, who had previously confided in two team-mates, Daniel Vettori and Kyle Mills, was encouraged to come clean and did so in the course of three interviews with the ICC Anti-Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU) briefings between 2011 and 2014.John Rhodes, the ACSU officer who conducted the interviews, said in his evidence that McCullum had come across as a “very nervous young man” who was “struggling in relation to his relationship to Chris Cairns”.”The inference was clear”, Rhodes had added, that McCullum had been approached to underperform, but it was not his role, as the interviewer, to put words in McCullum’s mouth. However, the ICC did not go on to investigate Cairns in the wake of McCullum’s statement, even though, in the words of Sir Ronnie Flanagan, the ACSU chairman, it was added to a file on Cairns which contained other information that went “beyond rumour”.In each of his three interviews with Rhodes, the transcripts of which were available to the jury in a Q&A format, McCullum added extra details, including the name of Ricky Ponting, who had been present in the hotel bar in Kolkata when Cairns had phoned to make his first approach, and who also gave evidence earlier in the trial.Mr Justice Sweeney told the jury that “it is a matter for you” whether McCullum had deliberately altered his account to serve his own interests, as the defence have suggested, or whether the extra details were innocently provided on account of more careful questioning in each of the three interviews.

Matthew Hayden’s 46-ball 81 earned him the Man-of-the-Match award but he believes it was Suresh Raina’s knock that made the difference in the Chennai Super Kings’ first home game, one that they sneaked by six runs.Chennai lost two early wickets but Hayden and Raina (53) put on a century stand to lay the foundation for a 200-plus score. “He really played a better innings than me,” Hayden said. “Lot of effort and skill are needed to play like that.”Kepler Wessels, the coach, also felt Raina had made a mark on the tournament. “He has played two good innings in our matches so far,” he said. “He also has big responsibility on his shoulders when both Hayden and Michael Hussey would be going back to Australia to fulfill their national commitments.”Chennai’s win wasn’t without jitters, with Harbhajan Singh and Abhishek Nayar threatening to pull off an upset, but Hayden wasn’t surprised with the way the game ebbed and flowed. “In this format of the game, one is never secured and they came too close to our total. Such situations cannot be avoided.”Nayar said Mumbai were eagerly awaiting the return of Sachin Tendulkar, who is nursing a groin injury. “Irrespective of winning or losing, we will be cutting a cake to celebrate Sachin’s birthday tomorrow. We really hope that he comes back early.”

The Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA) has refused to rule out the possibility of England’s leading players joining the Indian Premier League (IPL). Only Dimitri Mascarenhas has so far signed up to the IPL, while the likes of Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen have poured water on suggestions that they and their team-mates could be lured to the IPL by money.Currently, the IPL clashes with England’s county season but Lalit Modi, its chairman, maintains his willingness to shift the dates of future tournaments in order to accommodate English players. The ECB chairman, Giles Clarke, strongly believes that England’s players would rather play for their country than an Indian franchise, but Sean Morris, the PCA chief executive, is aware of the need for a balance.”We will ask the players how they feel,” he said. “We need to sit them down and ask their personal views – some might have different opinions to others. But I would like to think on behalf of the players we would be able to take advantage of this concept and allow them to reap the benefits.”There may be a very strong collective view but there may also be different circumstances for each individual which would affect their decision. We have a very open dialogue with the ECB right now, we met this week and will be meeting with them again next week, so there is a strong channel of communication.”Mr Modi is saying that he’s prepared to move his tournament to accommodate English players and that is music to everyone’s ears in this country.”The issue the PCA are trying to address with the ECB is the potential restriction of employment.”Their priority is England, they’ve all said that,” Morris said. “But I just hope we can come to a point where they’re comfortable with their arrangement with the ECB as their employers and take advantage of the increase in income into the game, because you’re a long time retired.”Restricting employees anywhere will cause friction in a relationship – over a period of time that will break it down.”Meanwhile Dougie Brown, the PCA chairman, insisted that for all the players’ loyalty to England, “IPL is not something that is going to go away – it’s going to be around for 10 years” and the ECB need to act sharply.”So we have to compartmentalise it within our own calendar, create a window of opportunity, or it will be a precarious situation that the ECB will find themselves in. You might find guys coming to the end of their careers will not sign a central contract, they will go and sign with the IPL instead. Suddenly you will be losing people a couple of years earlier than you might have.”

Scorecard

At 127 for 3 off 16.3 overs, needing 20 more off 21 deliveries to triumph in a Twenty20, most would have gone with the Mumbai Champs to cruise to a convincing win. But two quick wickets from Andre Adams sparked the Tigers back into the hunt; another five fell in the space of three overs, and even if No. 11 Avinash Yadav’s attempt for the third run off the final ball had been successful, the Champs would have fallen short by the one run instead of the two.If it was his bowling at the death that snatched the win, Adams had earlier provided the much-needed thrust at the end during his team’s innings to set up a competitive target. Kolkata Tigers choose to bat, and got the momentum going with openers Subhomoy Das and Lance Klusener hitting four fours in the first two overs.But after West Indian Tino Best removed Klusener in the fourth over, things went quiet for the Tigers. Subhomoy fell to Ranjit Khirid, and when Michael Kasprowicz dismissed Craig McMillan for 8, the side were 62 for 3 at almost the halfway stage of their innings.Abhishek Jhunjhunwala made a 29-ball 33 but at 93 for 4 after 14 overs, the Tigers needed at least ten an over from then on to post a challenging total. Rohan Gavaskar kept the score ticking during his unbeaten 41 off 36, and it was Adam’s cameo 12-ball 21 that ensured the Tigers reached 146. Sixteen of those runs came off the final over by Best, in which Adams struck two sixes.Soon after Adams struck again, with the ball, removing former Sri Lanka international Saman Jayantha for a duck. But the next partnership, and a blazing fifty from Raviraj Patil, set up the platform for the chase. Patil smacked 52 off 31 deliveries, with eight fours and two sixes, and by the time his fusillade was over, the Champs looked on course, needing 71 more with a little over half the overs remaining.Nathan Astle, the Champs captain, almost put the Tigers out of the game when he began the final flourish with two sixes off Adams in the 17th over, but another run down the track only saw him being bowled by his fellow New Zealander, and opened the door for the Tigers to fight back.Johan van der Wath fell in the same over, and the remainder of the Champs batting line-up couldn’t keep their head to get a run a ball in the final three overs, bowled by Nantie Hayward and Adams. They panicked, three perished to run-outs – although the last being an optimistic try – as they fell prey to the pressure applied by the Tigers.

Hyderabad were within touching distance of table-toppers Andhra after securing a 44-run win over Chhattisgarh in Valsad. Hyderabad, who wobbled in the in the second innings to be bowled out for 122, left their opponents a tantalising prospect of having to chase down 286 in little under three sessions to secure an outright win. Chhattisgarh fought, but were eventually bowled out for 241 in 84.1 overs to slump to their third loss this season.There was a ray of hope when Ashutosh Singh (67) and Amandeep Khare (44) resisted in the middle session, but their dismissal hastened Chhattisgarh’s collapse. Ravi Kiran, the medium pacer, took four wickets while Akash Bhandari, the legspinner, took three. This was Hyderabad’s third win in six matches.Services took three points from the draw against Himachal Pradesh, who ended the match with a score of 145 for 2 in pursuit of 401 in Surat. They started the last day on 197 for 4, with a lead of 302, and batted for another 27.1 overs during which Rahul Singh scored a half-century to help them score 295 for 9.Services lost Vikas Hathwala on the third ball of the day before Rahul scored 58 and Mayank Dagar finished with 4 for 61. Himachal saw an opening stand of 71 between Prashant Chopra (66) and Ankit Kalsi (23). While the openers fell by the 27th over, Himachal saw no more stutters and collected one point.Jammu & Kashmir were left to rue a delayed declaration as Tripura hung on to draw and salvage one point in Mumbai. Resuming on 198 for 3 after securing an 18-run lead, J&K were driven by Ian Dev Chauhan’s unbeaten 129 that swelled their lead past 300. Parvez Rasool, the captain, made 67 and Aditya Partap contributed 51 not out in the team’s total of 318 for 4. Chasing 337 in 59 overs, Tripura slipped and slid before finishing on 168 for 8 when play ended. That they starved off defeat was largely due to Rajat Dey’s unbeaten 53.Nitin Saini’s double century and sprightly lower-order contributions from Sanjay Pahal (58) and Harshal Patel (53) helped Haryana take the first-innings honours against Goa in Ghaziabad. After conceding a 155-run lead, Goa edged towards parity for the loss of five wickets when play ended. Amit Mishra, released from the Indian team during the second Test to feature in this game, picked up three second-innings wickets. Sumiran Amonkar, the opener, was unbeaten on 57 when both captains shook hands.Andhra, who took the first-innings lead, starved off Kerala’s challenge in Guwahati to walk away with three points and retain the top spot in the group standings. Set a target of 296 overs in 80 overs, they were well placed at 193 for 4 when both captains decided a result wouldn’t be possible. Hanuma Vihari, the captain, defied Kerala’s bowlers for 224 deliveries in his 53. Opener Srikar Bharat contributed 73. That Kerala, who conceded a six-run lead, were in a position to declare on 302 for 6 was thanks to Rohan Prem’s 89. Kerala, yet to record a win this season, are currently placed fifth in the nine-team pool.