Hampshire Hawks lost out by a narrow margin to the Essex Eagles in the Twenty20 competition, as gloom descended over the Rose Bowl.John Crawley pulled out injured just before the start of the match, with Lawrence Prittipaul taking his place in the side. Wasim Akram taking over the roll of captain won the toss and invited the Eagles to bat.Man of the Match Zimbabwean Andy Flower dominated the early scoring hitting 8 fours and a six in his 44 ball stay, he found good support lower down the order from Mark Pettini, but the 155 did not seem a winnable total in their allocation. Wasim AKram was the pick of the bowlers taking 2-19 in his four over spell.James Hamblin fell for 22 with the score on 26, but Derek Kenway and Simon Katich put together 77 runs at a run a ball. Hampshire was always chasing the game, and despite only losing 3 wickets, struggled to catch up with some tight bowling.Requiring 12 to win off the last over, Wasim Akram and Katich could only muster 7 off Dakin, to send the visitors home happy, and the sizable Hampshire crowd sad.

All Today’s Yesterdays – July 14 down the yearsJuly 13| July 151984
At Headingley, the beginning of a swift and famous one-handed demolition job. With his left thumb in plaster, and having been advised not to play cricket for ten days, Malcolm Marshall came in at No. 11 to shepherd Larry Gomes to a century – he even swished one to third man for four – and then shattered England’s second innings. Marshall took 7 for 53, operating off a shorter run-up, as England subsided from 104 for 2 to 159 all out. Wisden Cricket Monthly described his performance as, “Fairytale or nightmare, take your choice.” For England, the nightmare was just beginning – they were two Tests away from being blackwashed for the first time.1967
A nuggety left-hander is born. Hashan Tillakaratne’s career at the highest levellooked to be over until he was recalled to the Sri Lankan side in 2001-02.Them came the purplest of patches. In five Tests against India, Bangladeshand West Indies, he made 549 runs and was only dismissed once. Anaccumulator who has acted as a complement to the likes of Aravinda de Silva and Mahela Jayawardene, Tillakaratne can be very hard to shift when set – over a fifth of his Test innings have been not out. His runs usually matter, though: he averages 74 when Sri Lanka win, 29 when they lose.1933
The slowest torture for Essex at Leyton, as Yorkshire’s Hedley Verity skittled them for 104 and 64 – in the same day. Verity took 8 for 47 and 9 for 44, and even though he took 15 wickets five times in his career, he never bettered his 17 for 91 here. The only man to reach 20 for Essex was Dudley Pope. He made 34 in the first innings – and was run out.1937
Birth of a teenage one-cap wonder. Khalid Hasan was only 16 years 352 days old when he lined up for Pakistan against at Trent Bridge in 1954. Four days later his Testcareer was over, after 17 runs, 2 for 116 – and an innings defeat. One ofhis wickets was Denis Compton – bowled for 278. In all Hassan only played 17 first-class matches, the last of them at the age of 21.1957
A two-Test wonder is born. New Zealand batsman Peter Webb didn’t havethe best career – 11 runs (off 86 balls) at an average of 3.66 – but hepicked a decent pair of Tests to appear in. At Dunedin in 1979-80, the Kiwis beat West Indies by one wicket, and in an ill-tempered second Test at Christchurch, Colin Croft had an infamous run-in with the umpire Fred Goodall. Webb was dropped for the last Test, but New Zealand drew the match and took the series – they were the last side to beat West Indies for 15 years.1873
An all-run 10. Lancashire’s Albert “Monkey” Hornby made 20 of hisside’s total of 100 against Surrey at The Oval – and half of them came inone fell swoop.Other birthdays
1982 Ranjan Das (Bangladesh)

Sunil Gavaskar renewed his verbal rivalry with Dennis Lillee, blaming him for an infamous walkout during the 1981 Melbourne Test “It was triggered by personal abuse on Lillee’s part,” said Gavaskar.After being adjudged dubiously lbw, Gavaskar said that he further faced abusive comments from Lillee. In protest, Gavaskar almost led his opening partner Chetan Shauhan off the field before being placated at the boundary by wing commander SA Durrani, the team manager.”If you look at the video, I am walking towards the pavilion. I turned backonly on hearing the abuse and then took Chauhan away,” Gavaskar told .”Had there been no abuse, I would have vented my anger out in the dressing-room. I expressed my regret about the incident then itself and againduring the Cowdrey lecture.”In the lecture, Gavaskar had accused Australia for harming the game’s image with their sledging. In response, Lillee had stated: “I think it’s funny coming from someone who took his bat and went home when an umpire’s decision went against him.”Sledging has gone on since WG Grace and it will go on as long as any sport is played, not just cricket,” Lillee had said. “If they think it’s too bad, the authorities are there to stop it.”Gavaskar warned that players may come to blows if personal abuse was not stopped immediately. “Those who are defending sledging are those who practice it,” said Gavaskar”If personal abuse is part of the game, then it’s a different game thatI’ve played. The West Indian players never did it. Courtney Walsh, the world’s highest wicket-taker, never uttered a word,” Gavaskar added. “They may have induldged in eyeball-to-eyeball tussles, but that’s not the same as personal abuse. That’s not what the fans want to see.”Gavaskar did, however, agree with Lillee that his brother-in-law Gundappa Viswanath was a better batsman than him. “I agree with Lillee that Vishy was better,” Gavaskar said. “In fact, I’m on record about this and I repeat that Vishy was the best batsman of my generation because of the quality of the bowling that he faced and the conditions under which he made runs.”

Concerned at the manner in which Australia lost the last three one-day internationals in the West Indies, Ricky Ponting has indicated that he won’t take anything for granted in the three-match ODI series against Bangladesh.”That hurt a little bit,” Ponting said of the losses in the West Indies. “I was particularly disappointed with the way we played those last three games and that was one thing we addressed this morning in the team meeting.”We made mistakes in those three games that you haven’t seen this team make for a long time. We didn’t respect the basics of the game and if you don’t do that in one-day cricket it’s going to come back and bite you every time.”We dropped a lot of catches we didn’t have batting partnerships, therewere a lot of misfields, those sort of things. Looking back we felt we’d let ourselves down big time.”Ponting indicated that Bangladesh’s batsmen would find the going difficult in the ODIs. Hannan Sarkar’s half-centuries in both innings of the Cairns Test didn’t go unnoticed, but Ponting reckoned that Sarkar would have to change his style of batting to score runs in the one-dayers.”He played Brett Lee as well as any top-class batsman in the past couple of years. He left anything that was short and if it was fuller he drove it through the covers.”But it won’t be easy to take that into the one-dayers. He played at his own pace in the Test and left a lot of balls – in the shorter version of the game he’ll have to come at us a bit more … if our bowlers can be patient and make them come at us I think we’ll get enough chances through the day."Australia have comprehensively won all three one-day internationals between the two teams, always bowling first and never needing more than 26 overs to overhaul Bangladesh’s total.

Ian Ward has been offered the chance to captain Somerset in 2004, after announcing his intention to part company with Surrey at the end of the season.Ward has scored nearly 7000 first-class runs in his career, as well as representing England in five Tests in 2001. During his time at The Oval, he helped Surrey to win three County Championship titles in four seasons from 1999 to 2002, and was a key member of the team that won this year’s Twenty20 Cup and National League.Somerset, who endured a frustrating season and at once stage threatened a large portion of their playing staff with the sack, are keen to mount a stronger challenge next season, and a player of Ward’s calibre is central to their plans. “We have offered the captaincy [to a new signing] before,” said chief executive Peter Anderson. “Chris Tavare, Peter Bowler and Andy Hayhurst being examples.”Anderson acknowleged that Somerset faced competition for a number of other counties for Ward’s signature. “To get someone of his seniority to move counties there has to be an objective for him, and if his ambition is to captain then it seems he has to leave Surrey.”Anderson also confirmed that Australia’s one-day captain Ricky Ponting is being lined up as a possible signing. “He can’t give us an answer either way,” said Anderson. “He wants to come to England at some stage in his career but he has to have the permission of the Australian cricket board.”

Lancashire have reappointed Warren Hegg as their captain for the 2004 season. Hegg, 35, made his debut for Lancashire in 1986, and has skippered them for the last two years. In 2003 Lancashire finished as runners-up in the County Championship, and won the Second Division of the one-day National League.Next year Hegg, who kept wicket for England in two Tests in Australia in 1998-99, will lead a team bolstered by the recruitment of the England allrounder Dominic Cork from Derbyshire. Hegg said today: “I’m thrilled that the club have decided to award me the captaincy again. It’s a huge honour to lead the team and I’m looking forward to a successful season next year.”

Pakistan 314 for 7 (Farhat 91, Youhana 64) beat New Zealand 263 for 7 (Marshall 101*, Sami 3 for 22) by 51 runs, and lead five-match series 3-0
Scorecard

Hamish Marshall’s courageous century notwithstanding, a mismanaged New Zealand run-chase of an admittedly steep target resulted in a 51-­run win for Pakistan at Faisalabad, sealing the five-match series in their favour with two games still to come.New Zealand charged far too late at the target, and Marshall’s 101, made off 109 deliveries, came largely after the game was obviously lost. Pakistan’s bowling, for its part, capitalised on a professional batting performance to deny the New Zealanders even a slim chance of keeping the series alive.Faced with inspired bowling from Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Sami, who induced numerous false strokes, New Zealand’s top order failed to take off. Neither opener lasted long: Akhtar first removed Craig Cummings (10) with a snorter (12 for 1), and Abdul Razzaq then had Richard Jones mis-hitting to square leg (58 for 2). Mathew Sinclair’s quest for quick runs ended soon afterwards, with a direct run-out courtesy of Yousuf Youhana (81 for 3).Chris Harris, who replaced Sinclair, then proceeded to up the run rate with a range of strokes not to be found in any coaching manual. One particular shot – a four to midwicket, dug out off a searing Razzaq yorker – characterised the innovation that Harris brought to the chase, just when his side needed it most.Unfortunately for New Zealand, Harris could not ride his luck long enough. After sharing a plucky 107-run stand with Marshall, he played over a Sami inswinger that smashed into his stumps (188 for 4). With only eight overs remaining to score 127, the target proved to be beyond even Chris Cairns, who swung Sami to midwicket (206 for 5) after making just 9. Marshall meanwhile hung on gamely at the other end, watching the wickets tumble, and he needed no second invitation to reach three figures when Imran Farhat, Saleem Elahi and Yasir Hameed came on to bowl at the end of the innings.Earlier, the assault on New Zealand’s underpowered line-up continued as Pakistan rattled up 314 for 7, demolishing the bowling for the third time in as many games. It was a perfect innings on a good batting pitch – a solid start that built on Farhat’s sparkling 91, sprightly partnerships in the middle, and a phenomenal last ten overs. No matter where the ball was bowled, Pakistan’s batsmen seemed to find the fence.

The 113 runs scored during the slog overs flowed mainly to Youhana and Razzaq, whose lower-order hitting has bruised New Zealand in each match of this series so far. Their 53-run partnership in just 19 balls was an exhibition of destructive batting. The raw medium-pacer Matthew Walker ended with four wickets, all of which came in the final push for quick runs.The big total was built largely on a solid start. Farhat and Hameed played out the first ten overs, when the opening bowlers exploited a pitch with some bounce. Michael Mason and Kerry Walmsley were impressive in their first spells, giving nothing away in terms of line and length. But towards the end of the first 15 overs, both batsmen milked the medium-pace of Cairns and Walker. While Hameed was all power, Farhat was all grace, and both were equally effective.Hameed scored his third successive fifty before gifting his wicket in an effort to clear the boundary (142 for 1). Farhat went on to score a half-century as well, but missed out on three figures by nine runs. Attempting a big hit off Daniel Vettori, he was brilliantly caught by Marshall at midwicket (183 for 2). Vettori was unlucky, though, going for runs even as he appeared to be the bowler most likely to make a breakthrough.Farhat’s dismissal brought Inzamam-ul-Haq to the crease, and he scored a quickfire 25 in his 300th one-day international to set the tone for the late-innings savagery. Youhana’s 53-ball 64 and Razzaq’s 34 off just 16 balls merely drove the nails more thunderously into the coffin of this depleted New Zealand outfit.

Close
ScorecardPakistan provided another example of their great capacity for unearthing newbatting talent on the opening day of their tour of New Zealand against Auckland. They won the toss, batted first and made 318, with fine half-centuries from Imran Farhat and Yasir Hameed.Farhat continued from where he left off in the recent one-day series against New Zealand in Pakistan, scoring 73 off 70 balls. He added 74 for the second wicket with Hameed, before being dismissed by Brooke Walker, Auckland’s legspinning captain, who ended the day with 5 for 55.Hameed went on to score 96, being caught on the backward-square-legboundary by Kerry Walmsley, off Paul Hitchcock’s bowling, after the trap hadbeen set for him. Auckland’s fielding helped to break down the strength inthe Pakistanis batting, with Inzamam-ul-Haq smartly run out by Matt Horne as heattempted to take a second run.Walmsley’s catch was outstanding while Horne also took a fine catch later inthe innings. After the lightning start by the Pakistani batsmen, it wasAsim Kamal who held up the later stages of the innings, scoring 43 off107 balls. Shoaib Akhtar made 32 off 50 balls.Auckland suffered a blow when Kyle Mills damaged his shoulder in the field, forcing him out of the rest of the match. He had taken 1 for 20 off seven overs when that happened.Auckland, when stumps was taken early due to bad light, had reached 35for 1, with Mark Richardson and Tim McIntosh both on 13 – McIntosh havingtaken three boundaries from one over by Mohammad Sami.

Close West Indies 178 for 1 (Gayle 112*) trail South Africa 532 (Boucher 122*) by 354 runs
Scorecard

A whirlwind century from Chris Gayle, the ninth-fastest in Tests, led West Indies’ fight back against South Africa on the second day of the third Test at Cape Town. After Mark Boucher had guided his side to a dominating 532 with an unbeaten 122*, Gayle blitzed 112 not out from 105 balls as West Indies closed on 178 for 1, but still 354 behind.It wasn’t a day for the bowlers. In all, 402 runs were plundered on a beautiful batting track for the loss only five wickets. The first batsman to shine was Boucher, who scored his fourth Test century to give South Africa the early advantage. However, some of that supremacy was then taken away by Gayle, who’s dynamic innings took the polish off what was otherwise a good day for Graeme Smith and his team.Whatever plans the South African bowlers had of taking early wickets, Gayle blew them out the window with an astonishing assault. Still feeling the effects of his sore hamstring, Gayle simply decided to cut down the running and hit the boundaries – and he did just that in devastating style. He smashed 20 fours and a six in all, laying into anything slightly off line – he was a man on a mission.He gave a taster of what was to come with a flick for six over square leg in Makhaya Ntini’s first over. He then crunched Shaun Pollock off the back-foot through the covers, but he saved most of the treatment for Andre Nel. Gayle bludgeoned two consecutive pulls and the next ball he cut Nel to race to his half-century off only 37 balls. Nel then disappeared over mid-off twice in a row and before anyone had noticed, the West Indies hundred was up – and Gayle had scored 77 of them. It was a case of blink and you missed another booming boundary. It was pure carnage.Jacques Kallis couldn’t keep him quiet either. Gayle cut him to the boundary, and then drove him through the covers on one knee. He had already rocketed into the nineties, and, by his standards, he took a while to get to three figures – about ten minutes. He pushed Kallis into the leg side to record a memorable century off only 79 balls Oh, and he passed 2000 Test runs at the same time.It was easy to forget that Daren Ganga was at the other end. He was his usual studied self and while he wasn’t watching and admiring Gayle’s fireworks, he gave his partner good support until he lost his patience and edged Nel onto the stumps (126 for 1). While Gayle then calmed down, Ramnaresh Sarwan took over the wheel, belting eight boundaries in his 39 not out, as West Indies put their poor bowling performance earlier in the day behind them.After their late fightback yesterday evening, West Indies began the day in a competitive position, but Boucher, along with Kallis, quickly dampened their spirits with an excellent display of attacking, aggressive batting. Boucher added an authoritative and, at times, effortless stand of 146 with Kallis before putting his foot down after the lunch break. Boucher smashed 21 boundaries in all and gave the innings its impetus.Fidel Edwards started brightly, and he made an early breakthrough with the wicket of Pollock, who edged Edwards behind to Ridley Jacobs for 9 (315 for 7). After that, though, it was a horror show for the bowlers, who completely wasted the new ball.

Boucher was in his element. Initially letting Kallis take the majority of the strike, he rolled up his sleeves and kept up the run rate with ones and twos on both sides of the wicket, as well the odd boundary. He did, however, have two strokes of fortune. He was bowled off a no ball by Edwards on 15, and was dropped on 59 by Carlton Baugh, but Boucher deserved his luck as he continued to tuck in to the frequent loose balls.Adam Sanford gave the fielders some cheer when he rather fortunately trapped Kallis lbw for a classy 73 (461 for 8). Boucher, meanwhile, continued unfazed and he soon brought up a well-deserved century. The packed crowd at Newlands rose to applaud his first hundred in 47 Tests, his last was against England at Durban in 1999. And he wasn’t finished there. He carried on the fun, smacking anything wide or short, including three eye-catching pulls off Edwards.Ntini got in the act too when he twice walloped Dave Mohammed high down the ground for a four and a six. Mohammed got his revenge, though, when Ntini tickled him behind to Jacobs (513 for 9), and Nel gave Jacobs his fourth catch of the innings when he nicked Sanford behind. South Africa’s total represented an impressive effort from their overnight 308 for 6, and it was mainly thanks to Boucher. Even though his sparkling innings was later overshadowed by Gayle’s knock, South Africa are still in a strong position.

Durham’s captain Jon Lewis has been awarded a benefit year in 2004. He joined Durham in 1997 after seven years with Essex.”It’s been great to be involved with Durham for the last eight seasons and watch how the club has developed,” he said. “Hopefully I will be around for a few more years to see the continued expansion of cricket in Durham.”