Scotland survive Jonkman scare for victory

ScorecardMark Jonkman’s opening burst stunned Scotland and raised visions of an unlikely fourth-innings heist before Neil McCallum and Majid Haq ground out victory for the visitors in Deventer. Beginning the last day 13 runs behind, with two wickets standing, Netherlands dominated almost all passages of play on the final day but they had fallen too far behind on the previous days to make it count.Peter Borren continued his defiance in the first session and progressed from 52 to 109 in aggressive fashion, striking 11 fours and five sixes in all. No. 10 Pieter Seelaar held up the other end to frustrate Scotland, raising 67 with Borren to erase the deficit. After Borren’s fall, 22 more were added with Seelaar taking over scoring duties. The innings finally folded with Netherlands 76 ahead, and Scotland had enough time to walk to victory. Jonkman had other ideas though.He began his handiwork by dismissing Douglas Lockhart first ball, and intervened again in his second over to castle Qasim Sheikh. The panic button was pressed when Berend Westdijk got the better of Preston Mommsen to leave the score reading 4 for 3. The pressure was squarely on Scotland’s middle order and Netherlands cashed in with miserly and incisive bowling. Richie Berrington and Gregor Maiden had no answers to Jonkman, and the innings was in tatters with half the side gone for six runs after 11 overs. McCallum stayed put at the other end as he kept losing partners, the next being Matthew Parker after the addition of 12 runs. That gave Jonkman a special five-for and, at 18 for 6, it was Netherlands’ game to win.However, they were worn down by a determined partnership from McCallum and Haq, with the former taking most of the strike to blunt the Netherlands’ attack. Haq slowly grew in confidence and struck several fours, and the pair added 59 in fewer than 10 overs to take their side home.

Rizwan Cheema helps Canada steamroll Bahamas

An all-round performance by Gary Savage helped Argentina beat Cayman Islands by 13 runs at the Sea Breeze Oval and secure their first win in the tournament. Batting first, Argentina were in trouble initially at 33 for 3 before Savage walked in and set about building important partnerships with the middle order. He added 81 with Grant Dugmore for the fourth wicket and 82 for the sixth with Alec Ferguson. Ferguson went ballistic, smashing five sixes and six fours in his unbeaten 62 off only 22 balls. Savage also made the same score, but he focused on dropping anchor and faced 123 balls. He was dismissed by Marlon Bryan, who took four wickets. Cayman Islands were off to a terrible start, losing four wickets for 21 as Lucas Parterlini and Savage made early inroads. The lower order started showing some resistance when Kevin Bazil and Ronald Ebanks added 60 for the seventh wicket. A last-ditch effort by Conroy Wright wasn’t enough as Argentina sneaked through by 13 runs. Wright scored 58 while Savage rounded off a good day with 3 for 28.Continuing with all-round performances, Bahamas had no answer to Hiral Patel and Rizwan Cheema, who starred for Canada at the St George’s Cricket Club. Hiral Patel took 3 for 15 to bundle out Bahamas for a paltry 98, and Cheema smashed a 43-ball 85 to seal the game in nine overs. Only three Bahamas batsmen went past double figures, with Narendra Ekanayake top scoring with 31. A combined effort helped Canada end the innings within 37 overs. The chase lasted just 47 minutes as Cheema pounded eight sixes and eight fours to seal the game by ten wickets.The hosts Bermuda suffered their first loss of the tournament, going down by six wickets to their neighbours United States of America at the National Stadium. Lennox Cush and captain Steve Massiah set up the victory, sharing six wickets between them to restrict Bermuda to 188. Bermuda had set the foundation for a bigger score when Steven Outerbridge and Jekon Edness added 76 for the second wicket but lost their way after that. Massiah started the collapse before Cush took four wickets to restrict them to a score under 200. Sushil Nadkarni led the chase with 57, which included four sixes, before Massiah took over. His 67 came off 103 balls with seven fours.

Heyhoe-Flint and Stichbury join ECB board

The England and Wales Cricket Board has announced that its board has been expanded in size from twelve to fourteen members – and will for the first time include two women directors.The former England women’s captain Rachael Heyhoe-Flint has been appointed as the women’s game representative while Jane Stichbury, former Chief Constable of Dorset, will be an independent director.In addition, Yorkshire Chairman Colin Graves will join the board after his nomination was unopposed. He will fill a position which was made vacant by the retirement of the Surrey Chairman David Stewart.”I am delighted that Jane and Rachael have been nominated to serve on our Board,” said ECB Chairman Giles Clarke. “Rachael was an outstanding captain of England women and has worked tirelessly on behalf of cricket for many years – particularly for the Lady Taverners.”Jane was the first woman to be appointed as one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Constabulary and her knowledge and experience will be invaluable.”Heyhoe-Flint epitomised English women’s cricket during her playing career, and continued to promote the sport through her strong media presence and personality after her retirement. One of the first women admitted to the MCC, in 2004 she became the first woman elected to the full committee.”It’s an enormous honour for us both to be the first women to be nominated to serve on the ECB’s Board,” added Heyhoe-Flint. “I am very keen to continue my involvement in the administration of the game and to help maintain the very significant progress the women’s game has made in recent years.”

Kolkata clinch hard-fought victory

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsVirender Sehwag’s half-century was his slowest in the IPL•Indian Premier League

In stark contrast to the silence that accompanied the listless defence against Kings XI Punjab, the Eden Gardens faithful responded passionately to a charged performance from Kolkata Knight Riders, which derailed Delhi Daredevils’ chase to secure an invaluable 14-run victory. At the heart of the turnaround was Sourav Ganguly, who scored a half-century to build a challenging total, after which he fielded like few believed he could: the direct hit that ran out Gautam Gambhir ended a threatening 99-run partnership and turned the game Kolkata’s way.The result took them level on 10 points with Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore, the fourth-placed team.It nearly didn’t happen for Kolkata though. Virender Sehwag, who was reprieved on 7 when the umpire failed to hear or see an edge, threatened to deliver Delhi their seventh win. His partnership with Gambhir put Delhi on course and he completed a 34-ball half-century, his slowest in the IPL. It was greeted with silence by Eden Gardens. Delhi needed 48 off 32 balls with seven wickets in hand when Ajit Agarkar’s inswinger crashed into Sehwag’s stumps, and the slide had begun.Ajantha Mendis, chosen ahead of Shane Bond because of a dry pitch, had Kedar Jadhav caught at cover – Ganguly jumping to intercept a hard drive – in the 17th over. The next, from left-arm spinner Iqbal Abdulla, was pivotal. He bowled Farveez Maharoof with one that pitched middle and hit off, before reacting athletically to run out Rajat Bhatia three balls later.The decisive blow was struck by Ashok Dinda in the penultimate over when Dinesh Karthik, Kolkata’s last threat, pulled to Brendon McCullum at midwicket. His exit left Delhi needing 30 off 10 balls, a task too hard for Daniel Vettori and Amit Mishra. It was fitting that Dinda landed the last blow, for he had struck the first during an astonishing opening over. He hurried David Warner with four skiddy deliveries, cramping him for room, before beating him with the fifth – a quick one that uprooted offstump before Warner had brought his bat down. Delhi knew then that they were in for a scrap.Unlike Ganguly, who used the pace of Dinda, Agarkar and Angelo Mathews, Gambhir instructed his bowlers – from Maharoof to Rajat Bhatia – to take the pace of the ball. It didn’t work immediately for Kolkata made their best score at the end of ten overs this season – 88 – and had all wickets intact.Chris Gayle, who had scored 40 off 21, fell soon after though, missing a swipe against Bhatia, and Ganguly followed in similar fashion against Vettori. Brendon McCullum was run out cheaply too and Kolkata scored only 30 runs between overs 12 and 16 to reach 130 for 3.The innings needed acceleration and it was provided by Mathews and Tiwary. Mathews had been dropped Bhatia on 10 – a caught and bowled opportunity – and he made Delhi pay with two well-aimed blows over long-on. Tiwary joined in the hitting right at the end, and they boosted the innings by taking 18 runs off Mishra’s last over. Their partnership was worth 70 in 6.5 overs, and it helped set Delhi a testing target in a match vital to Kolkata’s semi-final chances.

'IPL won't grow beyond seven weeks' – Modi

Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, has said there are no plans to extend the tournament’s season beyond the current six-to-seven week duration, as that would affect other forms of the game and the regular cricket season in India. Speaking on Cricinfo’s fortnightly discussion show Time Out, Modi also defended the $225 million base price for the new franchises, rejecting the notion that it would create a football-style debt trap for the investors.”We are going to have the current limitation (in the IPL’s duration), and we are happy to live with that,” Modi said. “Then (if we make it a longer tournament) you are going to starting to hurt the other forms of the game. We chose the window specifically to be off-season in India, April-May are typically off season in India … I don’t think we are going to be able to change that.”Even with 94 games scheduled in the 2011 season, Modi said the season will only be 51 days long. “It’s (next season) only over seven weeks instead of six, it’s over 51 days instead of 46, we have done the scheduling, we just have to announce it.”While the IPL had packed houses in its inaugural year, several Test matches in India, including the one in which Sachin Tendulkar overtook Brian Lara’s run-aggregate, have attracted disappointingly small crowds over the past few years, leading to fears of a dip in popularity in the game’s oldest format. However, Modi strongly disagreed with that notion, stating that viewership ratings were continuing to rise and even suggested that Test cricket was the highest revenue-earner for the Indian board.”Test cricket is our bread and butter which people don’t understand, we are never going to compromise on Test cricket,” he said. “When I talked about, you know, (how) we have to do something about Test cricket, it’s in the other countries that Test cricket is going down. In India, our ratings are going up, we have been tracking that year by year, in fact, we get paid highest for Test cricket.”He rejected the charge that the glamour and the money associated with the IPL will make today’s children grow up thinking of Twenty20 as the only format that matters. “The younger generation was mostly moving away from the game of cricket, we have brought them back into the game,” he said. “They were diverting their attention towards football and other sports, we have not only been able to retain them, we have been able to add more people to it, I think the size of the pie is only going to increase.”The IPL has been an enormous success in its first two seasons, giving the tournament’s organisers the confidence to quadruple the base price for two new franchises from the US$50m it was for the original eight franchises in 2007. Modi said he had no fears that the high valuation would lead to a repeat of the scenario in the English Premier League, where many of the leading clubs are perennially in debt.”We wouldn’t want that (clubs getting into a debt trap). When we did the 50m numbers, we projected certain revenue going forward, 80% of the revenue (we earn) goes back to the franchises,” he said. “When we did our numbers, it was on a business plan. Our business plan is already four times of what we had planned then.”The value of the Rajasthan Royals, who won the inaugural season of the IPL, shot up to more than twice the US$67m it was brought for in just a year, but Modi said he had no regrets over the base price of US$50m for the original franchises. “No, no, the idea is that everybody should survive and make money on it, then only can somebody grow, because of the confidence, whatever we have done, we have no regrets.”Last month, there was talk that Modi was planning to take the IPL to the US, but he said the idea was to play some exhibition matches or a short tournament there, and not to move the main competition. “The US is a big market, a growing market, we definitely want to tap that market,” he said. “I don’t think we will go with the IPL, but what you’ll do is take the IPL teams, play a shorter tournament or exhibition games to start with, you’ll play within the gaps in the calendar in the year and try and build a fanbase”When asked whether he was concerned over the perception that the IPL starts and ends with Lalit Modi and over what would happen if he was not associated with the IPL he said, “I do, I think about it all the time, that’s why we are trying to put in a professional organization. We are only two years old, we have some very, very good people in there, and whether I’m there or not, they have learnt very well and I’m sure they will be able to take it on.”

Gilchrist joins chorus for IPL window

Adam Gilchrist, the Deccan Chargers captain, has become the latest to talk of the need for an IPL window. While players were interested in avoiding a clash between the Twenty20 tournament and international fixture list because of the money they stand to earn, he said, the window would also help build the IPL brand.”The ICC and IPL need to really sit down at the table and look closer (at the window),” he said, a day ahead of his team’s opening match against Kolkata Knight Riders. “I am beginning to believe that the players across the globe would like a window to be available because of the glaringly obvious part of a good financial return for players.”But along with that it is premier club competition in the world. If the players feel part of that and are desperate to be part of it is only going to help the brand and there is great benefit for the game of cricket.”Deccan are one of the teams least affected by the lack of a window, with only Australian fast bowler Ryan Harris expected to miss a chunk of the IPL due to international commitments. West Indian fast bowler Kemar Roach could also miss the first couple of IPL matches since he will be busy wrapping up the one-day series against Zimbabwe.A surfeit of Twenty20 matches are scheduled over the next couple of months, with the World Twenty20 starting less than a week after the end of the IPL. Gilchrist said he was happy the IPL was not looking to expand beyond the current six-to seven-week timeframe though new teams were joining the competition next season.”The IPL needs to be aware of not getting too big to the detriment of the game,” he said. “I read with interest Lalit Modi’s very pleasing comments that the commissioner and the committee are aware of that as they look to expand the competition but they are not looking to take too much more time.”

Price downs Mountaineers

Ray Price scythed through Mountaineers’ strong batting line-up, taking five wickets in less than three overs to bowl Mashonaland Eagles to a resounding 82-run win at Harare Sports Club. Chasing a target of 142, which had been built around Greg Lamb’s 40, Mountaineers surrendered for a dismal 59 all out to hand Eagles the bragging rights ahead of the tournament final tomorrow.Mountaineers were in trouble right from the start of their chase and Eagles quickly had the match in the bag. Hamilton Masakadza, after surviving a close lbw appeal, showed good form again, scoring 16 off 11 balls. But the crucial dismissal of the innings came when he tried to sweep Price, who bowled the second over, and misread an arm ball which went straight on and trapped him lbw.Prince Masvaure then produced an absolute jaffa that came back off the pitch and bowled Tatenda Taibu first ball, and after that Mountaineers showed little fight. Stuart Matsikenyeri briefly tried to rally the team, scoring 10 before driving a catch to mid-off. When he fell the match was as good as over at 41 for 5 in the seventh over.The tail certainly did themselves little credit, hitting out indiscriminately, and the side crumbled for 59 in less than 12 overs. Even allowing for the difficult pitch, it was the poorest batting display of the tournament. Price, the main beneficiary, had Natsai Mushangwe stumped to wrap up the game, and finished the remarkable figures of 5 for 12 off just 17 deliveries.There had been heavy rains overnight, and when Mountaineers won the toss they decided to field, believing the pitch would have retained enough moisture to make batting first a trial. Eagles did lose early wickets, the first being Doug Marillier for 2, skying an attempted pull. Cephas Zhuwawo and Forster Mutizwa were both out to brilliant boundary catches by Shingi Masakadza, but Masvaure and Lamb soon had the score galloping along, with the fifty coming up in the seventh over.Masvaure was stumped on 24, carelessly running down the wicket to Mushangwe, and for once Elton Chigumbura failed, making only 7 before he was out to a third brilliant catch by Masakadza, leaping high at long on to catch what had appeared to be a certain six. With his wicket Eagles were tottering at 82 for 5 in the 13th over.Lamb and Regis Chakabva put the innings back on track with a useful partnership, before Lamb went for 40 off 34 balls, slicing a drive to extra cover. Chakabva fell to a sharp run out for 24, and Trevor Garwe to another brilliant catch near the boundary. With the ball was not coming on to the bat reliably after the rain, Greg Smith picked up 5 for 27 with his medium pacers as Eagles totalled 141 for 9, which seemed a good effort under the conditions, and proved to be a match-winning one. With this result, Eagles overtake Mountaineers in the log for the first time, and the same two teams will meet in the final tomorrow – weather permitting.The chance to play Matabeleland Tuskers for third place in the tournament was at stake in the second match of the day between Desert Vipers and Mid West Rhinos. A dashing finish to the Vipers’ innings took them to 141 for 7 and gave Rhinos a target to chase. They looked likely to achieve it at the halfway stage of their innings, but then began a fatal middle-order slide, allowing Vipers to take control of the match and eventually win by 8 runs.Rhinos won the toss and took the cautious route after this morning’s match, deciding to field. Vipers, equally uncertain of the pitch, were wary at first, scoring just 4 runs in the first two overs. They were also pegged back by the loss of Raymond van Schoor, caught short by a fine throw from Vusi Sibanda. His partner, Gerrit Rudolph, soon followed in the same way. Tobias Verwey, promoted to number three, hit a valuable 21 off 17 balls, while Craig Williams played a restrained innings of 15 before holing out at deep midwicket. After 15 overs, the score was a mediocre 83 for 5.It was the rather unlikely pairing of opening bowlers Christi Viljoen and Louis Klazinga that finally did the trick for the Vipers, hammering 45 runs together in just over four overs. Both hit two sixes, Viljoen’s in successive balls off Graeme Cremer.Riki Wessels got Rhinos’ chase off to a blazing start, as 16 came off Klazinga’s opening over – with 12 of those runs from Wessels. He hammered 32 off 15 balls, with six fours, before being yorked by Viljoen with the first ball of the fourth over. He had already lost Sibanda, who hammered a catch straight to extra cover, but Darren Stevens and Brendan Taylor consolidated for a while before Stevens broke free with two driven sixes in an over off Bernard Scholtz, the first clearing the pavilion. After ten overs Rhinos were well on course for victory at 79 for 2.It all changed when first Taylor and then Stevens lofted catches to the deep in quick succession. Malcolm Waller soon followed suit for 16 and Ollie Rayner was dismissed lbw without scoring, hitting across the line. Suddenly, with five overs left, Rhinos’ last four wickets needed to score 35 to win. Hard as Friday Kasteni tried, he could not reach the boundary, and with wickets continuing to tumble, Vipers sealed a comfortable consolatory win.

A tale of two keepers

Haddin takes off
Brad Haddin’s keeping often comes under the scanner – although it is far better than Kamran Akmal’s – but he can be extremely proud of his flying take to remove Salman Butt. Butt glanced and Haddin launched himself to right, intercepting the ball while airborne with his right arm at full stretch. It was a stunning effort and a photo of it should hang on his wall.Lob for a yob
Doug Bollinger doesn’t mind the pick-up-and-return-throw in his follow-through, but he tempered his approach after collecting a defensive shot from Imran Farhat. Bollinger wanted to have a fling at the stumps but Farhat was in the way, so he decided on a lob that cleared the batsman on the way to the keeper. He was less restrained after dismissing Farhat for 22, doing a modest impersonation of Shane Watson’s infamous Perth send-off. Bollinger clenched his fist as Farhat walked off close by, and roared in the batsman’s direction as he left the ground.Anyone for tennis?
Michael Hussey was in survival mode when he padded up to Kaneria, only to see the ball balloon and threaten to hit the stumps. Hussey was taking no chances and swotted the ball down like he was playing a smash at the Australian Open. In the end, nothing but a lack of partners could stop Hussey as he brought up his 11th Test century – a match-winning effort.Divided loyalties?
Geoff Lawson, the former Pakistan coach, has remained the most knowledgeable and sympathetic supporter for the visitors in the broadcast media here. Lawson has lived every moment of this series so far for his former charges, whether exulting in Mohammad Aamer’s successes, defending their dropped chances or waxing eloquent about Umar Akmal. Today at the SCG, perhaps anticipating a famous win, he turned up wearing a PCB National Cricket Academy top. Not bad for a man the present board chairman called “useless.”Akmal-watch
After dropping three catches yesterday, Kamran Akmal walked on to the team bus, sad and forlorn, hoping that “tomorrow will be a new day.” It was, though not for him, as he dropped his fourth catch of the Test, another sitter and this time from Peter Siddle.

Ponting declares change in policy

On the second morning at the MCG, Cricket Australia launched a “Know When to Declare” campaign aimed at responsible drinking and understanding when you’ve had enough. The message was flashed up on the big screen throughout the day and the wording was appropriate for Ricky Ponting, who is starting to recognise the limitations of his team and realises that pushing on too long can result in a nasty hangover.Ponting closed Australia’s effort at 5 for 454, which was the smallest total he had ever declared on in the first innings of a Test and the lowest for any Australian team in nearly 30 years, excluding rain-affected matches. A flat, unhelpful surface labelled as Faisalabad-like by Mohammad Asif certainly affected Ponting’s decision to declare earlier than most onlookers expected.But it has also started to dawn on the captain that he can no longer rely on his bowlers to skittle a side in a matter of hours, as he could during the Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath years. Australia’s young attack has potential but for now needs time to bowl teams out, although they started well with four wickets before stumps on the second day.Since the retirement of Warne and McGrath, Australia have played 29 Tests and they’ve dismissed teams in fewer than 70 overs on nine occasions. In the same number of matches leading up to the stars’ farewell, Australia achieved that 19 times. During the West Indies series, Ponting said that he sometimes expects too much of his bowlers and gets grumpy when they fail to deliver the wickets that he demands.That contributed to his decision here, as did his dislike of enforcing the follow-on. When he did it at the Gabba last month his strike bowler Ben Hilfenhaus was ruled out for the rest of the summer and Australia’s long list of fast-bowling injuries will discourage him from doing it again in the near future. His bold, attacking move was commended by many at the MCG, including the Pakistan coach Intikhab Alam.”I thought it was a very positive declaration,” Intikhab said. “I think it was very wise that he declared. He needed more time. Those days have gone of getting other people to follow-on. You need to give some rest to your bowlers also. I think it was a very positive, very exciting declaration.”Ponting has had plenty of learning opportunities. In Cardiff, he let Australia’s innings drag on for 181 overs. It gave Australia just over a day to dismiss England and win the match, but they couldn’t do it. Two summers ago, only a last-minute gamble on Michael Clarke rescued Australia from a similar result against India at the SCG.Australia’s prime minister Kevin Rudd was at the MCG to help launch the Know When to Declare campaign and during a stint in the commentary box he told Warne that it was his national duty to make a comeback. Ponting’s responsibility is to have realistic expectations of a Warne-less attack still learning about Test cricket.

Bond and O'Brien outdo Umar's heroics

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were outUmar Akmal stood between New Zealand and victory for close to two sessions•Getty Images

Umar Akmal was seven years old when Shane Bond made his first-class debut. Twelve years later they met – Bond returning to Test cricket after a two-year exile, and Umar playing his first Test – and tried their darnedest to lead their teams to victory in one of the best Tests of 2009. In the end the 34-year-old fast bowler ended the 19-year-old batsman’s dream and set up New Zealand’s first win in more than a year.With Pakistan chasing 251, Umar came in to bat at 24 for 3, and belied a man making his debut. Having already scored a counterattacking century in the first innings, he stood between New Zealand and victory for close to two sessions before Bond came up with one last desperate piece of brilliance. Walking back with his team 56 away from victory, Umar could not belie a broken heart.Pakistan started the final session needing 86 runs with five wickets in hand and both the Akmals in the middle. Kamran knocked off three quick boundaries and it started to look like an easy home stretch before Bond and Iain O’Brien, reversing the ball appreciably, dried up the runs. During a eight-over spell, Bond kept taking the ball away from the batsmen and beat them outside off. In the sixth over of that spell, he brought one in to Umar, one of the few that came in, and latched onto his second caught-and-bowled of the match.O’Brien, having endured an ordinary Test and playing almost for his place, had an equal part in the turnaround. He followed up Umar’s wicket with those of Kamran, with a sharp in-ducker, and Umar Gul. Three wickets had fallen for eight runs, and Pakistan still needed 48 runs and there were 24 overs to survive.The last three batsmen fought determinedly for nine overs, but the difficult task was made harder by smart bowling from Daniel Vettori, O’Brien and Chris Martin.It was Martin who had started New Zealand’s first comeback, in the middle session. Umar and Mohammad Yousuf had serenely added 71 for the fourth wicket, Bond’s second spell had been seen off without trouble, and New Zealand were on the defensive and waiting for mistakes. Then Martin bowled a ripper out of nowhere. From short of a length, the ball kicked up and jagged in towards Yousuf, who did everything right – took his head out of the way and dropped his wrists – but the ball tailed in and kissed the glove.By then Umar had reached 40 and was playing a completely different innings from his first. This half-century was no runaway blitz; he was a man who seemed to have grown years in age over the last two days. In the first innings, Umar didn’t have time to contemplate consequences. This time Vettori gave him all the time in the world to think. Evidently smarting from the first innings, Vettori looked to play on the kid’s patience and temperament. There was a deep point in place soon as he walked out. The support seamers bowled length and didn’t go looking desperately for wickets. When Vettori brought himself on just before lunch, he bowled with five men on the boundary, just giving away free singles.Umar wasn’t fazed by this ploy to dry up the boundaries. By lunch, quietly but surely he moved to 15 off 62 balls. Bond came back post lunch for another dig. For the first time Umar was challenged to go for the pull, the shot that scarred all the three seamers in the first innings. This time he weighed in the situation, and started ducking into them. Bond couldn’t find the pace of the first innings, and Umar just waited for him to finish his spell, by which time both batsmen had sauntered into their 40s.There was brief drama between Yousuf’s wicket and Umar’s. An uneasy partnership between Umar and Shoaib Malik kept the game on the edge. Malik scratched around for six runs, but by then Umar had become the 14th batsman to score a century and a fifty on debut. Vettori looked innocuous at that time, and went to Grant Elliott.Elliott came within one clean grab of being a truly inspirational bowling change. In his first over, he dropped an easy offering from Malik, after which a floodgate opened. Malik drove handsomely and guided purposefully through the third-man area. Vettori came back and started bowling over the wicket to Umar. Forty-three runs came in the next 8.5 overs before O’Brien produced a lifter that followed Malik and took an edge, in the last over before tea.The hard work that New Zealand had to put in for the last seven wickets was in complete contrast to how easily the first five wickets fell in the morning session. Gul took out the last two New Zealanders for just six runs. And Khurram Manzoor, Imran Farhat and Fawad Alam showed they were too loose to form the top order of a Test side.

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