Danish Kaneria, the Pakistan legspinner, will represent Essex during the 2007 season after gaining permission from the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). He will be available for Essex’s opening Championship match against Derbyshire, at Chelmsford, starting on April 18.The Essex chief executive, David East, confirmed Kaneria’s availability for the whole season and added that be would be free to honour his commitments with Pakistan at any point during the summer. There were doubts about whether certain Pakistan players would be able to fulfill their county commitments after the PCB raised concerns of player injuries, especially to the fast bowlers, during Pakistan’s off season. Umar Gul has already been prevented from joining Gloucestershire.”We are delighted that Danish Kaneria can now join Essex for the start of the 2007 season,” East told the county’s website. “It’s been a challenging few weeks for us in terms of trying to clarify his availability and our thanks go to the Pakistan Cricket Board for their understanding and agreement to release their player.”This will be Kaneria’s third season with Essex since his debut in 2004. He missed the 2006 campaign as Pakistan were on their tour of England. He took 95 first-class wickets in 18 matches at an average of 28.18 during his first two seasons. He also played a crucial role in Essex’s National League success in 2005.

At the precise moment Malcolm Speed, the ICC chief executive, was saying sorry for the bizarre ending of the World Cup final the ICC hoarding behind him came unstuck from the wall, and almost hit his head. Sitting alongside Speed as he admitted that the events in Barbados the day before amounted to the biggest farce in the game’s history was the ICC’s general manager, David Richardson.”David and I are here on behalf of ICC, to say to the wider stakeholders of the game that we too are very sorry this incident occurred at the end of what, on any view, had been an outstanding day of cricket,” he said. “We very sincerely apologise for the error that was made.”It was an unnecessary error, a fundamental error. It was made under difficult circumstances at the end of the match, and it’s not a good image for the game. We would have far preferred if news highlights had been some of the great cricket played and some of the great decisions made by the umpires. It was unfortunate, a very sad way to finish the World Cup.”It was, however, left to Richardson, who is in charge of the game’s elite officials, to try to find an explanation for the monumental breakdown in communications that led five senior officials to impose a phantom regulation on a dead contest. Unsurprisingly, he couldn’t.”They are at a loss to try to explain,” Richardson said. “I can only say it’s similar to the situation where you are sitting at home and the answer to a quiz question on TV looks very simple, but you just lose your train of thought when you are in that heated, pressure situation. It only takes one guy to sow a seed of doubt in the other people’s minds.”What worries me, as the guy ultimately responsible for how match officials perform, is that we get ourselves into a pressure situation and we are not able to cope with it. That’s what it’s about, whether you are playing or officiating. Malcolm has said we are not going to over-react, but we are certainly going to take it very seriously and look at how it could have happened.”There will be no sackings or resignations as a result of this fiasco, and Speed said he had not had any reason to reassess his own position as chief executive. But the tone of an otherwise humble press conference changed markedly when the name of Darrell Hair was thrown into the ring.After the ball-tampering row erupted at The Oval last September, Hair was hung out to dry by his employers. He was removed from the elite panel and further humiliated through the release of personal correspondence between himself and Doug Cowie, the ICC’s umpires and referees manager. Though other issues followed, his primary crime had been to stick dogmatically to the [correct] letter of the law. If only Rudi Koertzen and his fellow officials had been as diligent in their reading of the rules.”The Darrell Hair issue is and was quite complicated and will be ultimately resolved in an employment tribunal in London later this year,” Speed said, with a crocodilian stiffening of his sinews. “Darrell Hair is still employed by ICC, his contract is being honoured. To put the two together, I think it’s drawing a long bow and unfair to these five officials who were involved in the incident yesterday.”Inevitably, Speed felt obliged to accentuate the positives of the tournament. “We’ve had cricket on the back pages and, unfortunately, on the front pages for seven weeks,” he said, still believing in the old adage that any publicity is good publicity. “Lots of people who had not been exposed to cricket have seen cricket and been aware this World Cup has been in full swing.”The cricket grounds we now have in the West Indies are outstanding, as good as any in the world. They have been built by the governments of the respective countries and they’ve looked at it as a long-term investment. In places like Guyana and Grenada they are very proud of what they’ve done and they should be proud of what they’ve done because they’re small countries with small populations that wanted to be involved in a world event.”What comes next, however, for these islands? The world event has been and gone, and in most cases the stadia were not remotely full. Admittedly several thousand temporary seats will be removed from most venues, but the burden of constant maintenance and the scrap for future marquee events could stretch the island’s fragile allegiances to breaking point.Speed did not see it like that. “West Indies cricket now has a terrific problem,” he said. “It now has this collection of five-star cricket grounds so when Australia comes here next year they’re going to have an almighty argument about where Australia play their Test matches and one-day internationals.” An almighty argument. Only the ICC could see that sort of a legacy as a positive.

Hunter S. Thompson observed that the truth in Washington is “never spoken over a desk or in daylight hours”. Those of us who report on cricket, terminally stricken as it is by that useless charade known as the press conference, can but nod in weary agreement.Except, that is, when Percy Sonn was at the podium. In fact, the International Cricket Council (ICC), which is so bent on squeezing the last buck out of the game, missed a trick by not selling tickets to its late president’s public appearances. There would have been many takers, this reporter included.Whether Sonn always spoke the truth will be disputed by those who did not share his politics and his drinking habits. He launched into both of those pursuits with an uncommon passion.But while Sonn invariably generated grumbling in cricket’s more reactionary quarters, much of it was muttered: his arguments were as watertight as the glasses from which he swigged his drink.Sonn, who died in Cape Town on May 27, was as sharp of mind as he was of tongue, and entirely entertaining besides. He was never boring, often inflammatory, and always quotable.When cricket reporters gathered in a pressbox it wasn’t difficult to see which of them had Sonn on the other end of a telephone line. They were the ones whose pens jerked into life across their notebooks as urgently as the needles of a Richter scale signalling a major seismic event.”Please, please, don’t call Percy,” became the bleated refrain of one United Cricket Board (UCB) media officer whenever a crisis erupted. Which, in Sonn’s time as UCB president, seemed to be every other day.”You’ve got my number – give it to him,” Sonn told a reporter who, in the aftermath of Hansie Cronje being banned for life, called to ask when last he had spoken to South Africa’s crooked captain.

It was Sonn who said that Cronje “won’t even be allowed to play beach cricket” after some of the latter’s dark dealings with cricket’s underworld were dragged into public view. It was also Sonn who was said to have been drunk enough to have “almost fallen out of his trousers” at a 2003 World Cup game in Paarl.Those familiar with the world according to Sonn were not a bit surprised when controversy followed him into the ICC president’s office. On who else but Sonn’s watch would a Test umpire offer to resign in exchange for a bung of $500,000? Sonn also melted perfectly into the mangle of events that surrounded Bob Woolmer’s death during the 2007 World Cup.The truth is that Sonn deserves a better legacy than he will no doubt be lumped with. He was one of the architects of unity in South African cricket, but the UCB he became president of in 2000 was, in large part, a clubby collection of recalcitrant reprobates who feared nothing so much as real change.So there was horror all round when Sonn had Justin Ontong inserted, at the expense of Jacques Rudolph, into the South African team to play Australia in the second Test at Sydney in 2002. Sonn’s argument, as usual, was irrefutable. Ontong was black, Rudolph was white, and the UCB policy held that black players were to be given preference over whites of similar ability in competition for places in the national team.In a world of grey suited little men who thought grey little thoughts and lived little grey lives, Sonn was a loud burst of the most garish neon. How terrified they must have been of him. As a South African, Sonn came from a country where the words “black” and “white” hold special significance. Perhaps that’s why he never dealt in shades of grey.Away from cricket, he lived in the entirely real world of crime fighting as a public prosecutor, an advocate, an acting judge, the deputy director of public prosecutions in South Africa, and as a legal advisor to the police.He was also the first head of the Directorate of Special Operations in South Africa – a police unit known as the Scorpions which is the country’s answer to the FBI. Sandra, Sonn’s wife, and the couple’s three children know that they are immensely poorer without him.Cricket doesn’t know that yet, but it will.

These are just more symptoms of an incurable illness.Not a terminal ailment, mind you, because West Indies cricket is not going to die just so. Yet as painful as it is to comprehend, the overwhelming evidence of more than a decade of struggle on the field and incessant turbulence off it virtually ensures that West Indies will continue to languish among the ranks of the mediocre for the foreseeable future.As per usual whenever some controversy erupts, as it invariably does almost every Monday morning, the public and media alike are obsessed with the personality clashes, so ignoring the greater reality that all of these convulsions are merely confirming that the slide from the summit shows no sign of slowing down and, in fact, may be accelerating to the level where the trials, travails and infrequent triumphs of the former champions will become increasingly irrelevant to a disillusioned populace.The responses to this latest episode are no different to ones of the past weeks and months, yet every time we seem to react with shock and disbelief, as if this was totally out of the blue and that all we need to do is make a really concerted effort to solve this particular problem and all will be well again. How short our memories are.Chris Gayle is either hailed for speaking out against the gross incompetence of the West Indies Cricket Board or dismissed as just another boldfaced Jamaican troublemaker who should never have gotten the captaincy job ahead of our boy Daren Ganga in the first place.Mike Findlay, the tour manager, is pilloried for his role in sanctioning the new captain’s tour diary entry, while everyone comes off the long run in hurling every conceivable insult in the direction of the WICB.It’s really true what they say about the more things change, the more they remain the same. The personalities and embarrassing fiascos may be different, but the theme remains steady: players and administrators at odds, nurturing a poisonous cloud of suspicion and mistrust that shows no signs of lifting anytime soon.How is it possible for any meaningful progress to be made in this environment? Yet millions, obsessed as they are with the cult of the personality that is so evident in almost every aspect of public life in these tiny territories, will hold fast to their belief that once this crop of incompetents is dispensed with and Ken Gordon is replaced by a favourite cricketing legend or a highly-touted visionary leader then, sooner rather than later, we’ll be well on our way back up to the top.Gordon is a failure, of course, while the integrity of some members of his inner circle at the board must be open to question given the ease, speed and regularity with which information from confidential meetings are leaked into the public domain.This betrays a house divided unto itself, with grown men pretending to accept collective responsibility only to be sneaking around like rats trying to undermine each other for their own parochial purposes.On principle alone they should all go, but that would still leave the same complex, archaic structure that is unworkable in a flourishing culture of selfishness and shortsightedness.Everyone keeps saying it is impractical to consider shutting down the whole thing for a couple months and developing an administrative system that is less cumbersome and more transparent. It is too radical, too impractical and, in truth, will not happen because enough influential people like things just the way they are.But have any of the many changes in personnel made any difference over the past 12 years? From former greats to successful businessmen, all have failed in various capacities, yet we keep waiting for that anointed one to lead us out of the valley of mediocrity.All of which makes the players and the Players Association look like valiant heroes battling the many world-class opponents out there on the field and the evil empire that would seek to enslave and humiliate them.Yet it is only against the backdrop of the gross incompetence of the WICB that WIPA and its membership have any substance. By any other metre rule they have been a consistent source of embarrassment at home and abroad, the four-Test series in England being just the latest of the many sound whippings administered to the Caribbean squad since 1995.Long before the Cable and Wireless-Digicel dispute and the agitation of Dinanath Ramnarine, the West Indies were being pummeled from pillar to post. The Brian Lara fanatics who would have us believe that it wasn’t so bad before the unexpected departure of the “Prince” are either deliberately dishonest or really know nothing of even the recent history of West Indies cricket. Conversely, the early evidence suggests that those convinced that his exit would herald a new, brighter era are way off the mark.Even if we were to wake up tomorrow to find the WICB and WIPA happy like pappy and everything settled once and for all, who really believes that a stable, united West Indies team will fare significantly better in South Africa at the end of the year and then at home to Sri Lanka and Australia in 2008? WIPA only looks good or has a bargaining leg to stand on because the WICB is just so consistently, unbelievably bad.This long, steep drop has been quite distressing. More disheartening, though, is the realisation that the bottom is nowhere in sight.

Muttiah Muralitharan described his performance of taking a century of wickets at Asgiriya International Stadium as ‘a tremendous achievement in a long career’.”I have already taken a hundred wickets in two other venues at Galle and SSC this is the third. It is not easy to take 100 wickets in each venue. Not many people have done it,” said Muralitharan who finished off the Bangladesh first innings for 131 by taking his 59th five-for in an innings with figures of 6 for 28.Murali started the Test requiring four wickets to reach a hundred wickets at this venue. He had taken two wickets overnight and when play resumed after a delay of 30 minutes Murali quickly finished off the Bangladesh innings capturing four of the remaining six wickets for 18 runs in 5.5 overs.When questioned about the opposition he was bowling against Murali retorted: “A Test wicket is a Test wicket. The ICC has given Bangladesh Test status. They have some good players. Although I have been getting a lot of wickets against them the majority of them are not bad players against spin.””Bangladesh cricket in on a learning curve. They are taking longer than any other country. We have to give them the opportunity. Then only can they improve. Otherwise if they stop playing Test cricket and play one-day cricket they won’t adjust to the system. They should play more four-day cricket with ‘A’ teams against other nations. When you get beaten so often very badly it also demoralizes them,” he said.Murali edged closer to Shane Warne’s world record-tally of 708 Test wickets with his six-wicket haul today taking his overall tally to 694 Test wickets, leaving him 15 wickets shy of Warne’s mark.Murali expressed doubts when he would pass Warne’s figure. There is a lot of expectation that he may do it in Australia when Sri Lanka tour there in November, but Murali said: “With the present weather conditions I don’t know whether I will get a bowl in the second innings. It’s never going to be easy to get 15 wickets in two Test matches in Australia. They won’t have Warne so it’s going to be seamer-friendly wickets. Maybe I will achieve the world record against Australia or against England. Sooner or later I will pass him. I have a few more years left in cricket so definitely I will reach the record and go beyond that.”Murali has 20 wickets in the on-going Test series against Bangladesh and will be expected to play a big role if Sri Lanka is to win the third and final Test and make a clean 3-0 sweep of the series. “We can pull off a win here because the score Bangladesh achieved in their first innings is too less. It’s a very poor score for a Test match. If we have good weather in the next three days we can make a good score and I expect the pitch to do something here than at the SSC and the Sara Stadium. The pitch helps a little bit more for seamers and spinners,” he said.Sri Lanka finished a rain ruined second day at 30 without loss and trail Bangladesh by 101 runs.dium.

Division One

Michael Lumb and Sean Ervine hit rapid half-centuries as Hampshire gained a thrilling two-run win against Essex in a match reduced to 25 overs per side at The Rose Bowl. Lumb ensured Hampshire gained a flyer to their innings, taking 40 balls over his 62, and Ervine built on his work with a 38-ball 57. The hard hitting continued all the way down the order and when Essex lost three early wickets against James Bruce and Daren Powell the task became enough tougher. But James Foster (61) and Grant Flower (54) managed to keep up with an escalating run rate and strong striking from Ryan ten Doeschate and Andy Bichel kept the game alive. However, Powell came back to grab two vital wickets and Shaun Udal kept Essex down in the final over.Worcestershire gave their suffering supporters something to smile about with a seven-wicket win against Sussex in their relocated match at Edgbaston. Vikram Solanki hit a 51-ball 55 then Ben Smith and Graeme Hick calmly completed the chase with a stand of 110 and four overs to spare. Sussex had wasted a strong platform after Richard Montgomerie (65) and Murray Goodwin (52) added 106 for the second wicket as Ray Price and Gareth Batty shared six wickets. Sussex’s spin pair of Mushtaq Ahmed and Saqlain Mushtaq couldn’t produce a repeat.Gloucestershire held their nerve to secure a three-run win against Warwickshire in a tight encounter at Bristol. Darren Maddy (71) and Kumar Sangakkara (55), only recently back from Sri Lanka, gave Warwickshire a chance and Tim Ambrose kept them in touch. But Ben Edmondson pulled out a fine last over and removed Tim Groenewald with six still needed. Gloucestershire had Alex Gidman’s 88 off 74 balls to thank for their total of 212, after a delayed started reduced the match to 35 overs per side.

Division Two

Jacques Rudolph’s powerful 127 was key to Yorkshire’s nine-run win against Somerset at Scarborough, under the Duckworth-Lewis calculations, but it was nearly snatched away by Ian Blackwell’s brilliant 97. Rudolph faced 114 balls against an attack missing the rested Andy Caddick and Charl Willoughby. He added 72 with Craig White for the first wicket and a key 111 with Andrew Gale for the fifth. Gale and Tim Bresnan finished with a flurry of boundaries and when Somerset floundered to 98 for 6 the game appeared over. However, Blackwell cut loose and launched seven sixes while adding 115 with Craig Kieswetter. Richard Pyrah eventually had Blackwell stumped after 73 balls and Yorkshire held on at the death. Read John Ward’s full report here.Robert Key led from the front with 104 as Kent continued their impressive one-day form with a 10-run win against Derbyshire at Derby. Key took 96 balls to reach his hundred, adding 111 with Joe Denly who made 52 off 44 balls. Martin van Jaarsveld added 62 as the second wicket added 110. Derbyshire chased hard with Greg Smith hitting 88 off 68 deliveries, but Kent collected wickets at regular intervals and had breathing space at the end.Shivnarine Chanderpaul began his Durham stint in match-winning style as he stroked an unbeaten 80 in their seven-wicket win against Surrey at Guildford. Chanderpaul added 120 with Kyle Coetzer (76) and Chanderpaul remained to see the job home alongside captain Dale Benkenstein. Phil Mustard provided another view of his tremendous hitting power with a 42-ball 63 to make major inroads into the target. Chris Schofield was taken to the cleaners, his three overs costing 40. Surrey’s 247, under par on a small ground, was based around 84 from Scott Newman and well-paced 59 from Ali Brown.Middlesex’s seamers brushed aside Glamorgan in a 21-over game at Ebbw Vale. Chaminda Vaas and Chad Keegan took the first five wickets for 18 runs and Glamorgan were out of the game before Murali Kartik chipped in with three. Middlesex’s 183 was based around stylish half-centuries from Owais Shah and Ed Joyce. Shah took 34 balls over 59 and Joyce’s 55 needed just 33 deliveries as he hammered four sixes. Ed Smith provided early momentum, adding 101 for the second wicket with Shah.

There will be a new name on the Twenty20 Cup come Saturday night at Edgbaston after none of the previous winners made it to this year’s Final Day. Partly that has been down to the weather playing havoc with many campaigns – notably that of defending champions Leicestershire – but it also shows how more and more teams are adapting to the shortest form of the game.Twenty20 has come a long way in five years and in a little over a month’s time the first World Championship will take place in South Africa. However, the game at international level is still struggling for allround acclaim, with captains concerned about workload and debating its value, and this English season has also proved to be the toughest for the domestic tournament that had, until this year, enjoyed a virtually faultless run.The qualifying stage was savaged by the weather and a number of counties will be reporting losses but the four semi-finalists – Lancashire, Gloucestershire, Kent and Sussex – are at least in a position to boost the coffers. The rain, though, has been out of anyone’s control and the more concerning issue has been a rise in poor behaviour at grounds. Middlesex players had belongings stolen from the Uxbridge dressing room, Hampshire’s team coach was pelted with gravel and there have been reports of a general increase in unruly scenes.Now’s the time for Finals Day to arrest any slide in the image of Twenty20. And Edgbaston’s second chance of staging the event has all the ingredients to be a classic day. Andrew Flintoff’s availability has added an extra touch of spice and strengthens a formidable-looking Lancashire side. They have been to this stage twice before, losing in the semi-final against Surrey in 2004 and the final against Somerset in 2005.As is often the case with Lancashire, on paper they seem to have everything. Never mind Flintoff, there’s also Muttiah Muralitharan, Brad Hodge, Stuart Law and Mal Loye. But they keep failing to win trophies. Their Championship campaign took a major hit with the 108-run defeat against Sussex, who they could meet again in the final on Saturday evening, and it is shaping as a make-or-break weekend for Mark Chilton’s team.Sussex are one of the new success stories in Twenty20 this season. Not that they are new to success. Last year there was the Championship and C&G double and with them back on top in the four-day competition another double is still on the cards. Luke Wright has been the catalyst for their strong campaign and he leads the run-scoring table with 343 at a strike-rate of 184. In terms of his scoring rate he is second only behind Andrew Symonds among batsmen worldwide. One more strong outing could propel him from England’s preliminary 30-man squad to the final 15 for South Africa. But even in Twenty20 you can’t beat seasoned match-winning quality and Mushtaq Ahmed remains a trump card.

Of the nine representatives from England’s squad who could play a part on Finals Day, Sussex and Lancashire have four apiece, which would suggest they are the favourites to contest the final. However, in Twenty20 appearances can be deceptive.Kent have also rejuvenated their one-day cricket this season after an admission from Robert Key that it sometimes took a back-seat to Championship ambitions. Their strength is a long batting order and occasionally James Tredwell has been going in at No.11. Now, though, that spot is reserved for new signing Lasith Malinga, who has joined to replace Andrew Hall, and is a player capable – as he showed at the World Cup – of changing a match in one over. With Key and Joe Denly also firing in the top order they can certainly take on Sussex’s big-hitters head-to-head.Gloucestershire, who play the first semi against Lancashire, are beginning to rekindle memories of their one-day glory years under Mark Alleyne and John Bracewell. Alex Gidman is maturing into an impressive allrounder – he was unlucky not to make the England 30 – while in Hamish Marshall they have a destructive batsman. The return of Jon Lewis from injury provides the bowling attack with a steady influence and they are always sharp in the field.Off the field, too, there will be the usual entertainment including the mascot race (where Chris Lewis and Jason Gallian will don the sponsors’ costumes) and the musical star is former Sugerbabe, Mutya. However, increasingly Twenty20 is moving away from the sideshow attractions and standing alone through the quality of play. On cricket’s longest day, there should be more than enough on offer.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

It was minnow bashing at its best as Sri Lanka, led by Sanath Jayasuriya, pulverized Kenya, beating them by 172 runs at the Wanderers. Jayasuriya’s whirlwind 88 and Jehan Mubarak’s late fireworks lifted Sri Lanka to a record team score of 260 for 6, a target way out of reach for the opposition as Kenya managed just 88.Records tumbled as the victory margin of 172 set the record for the biggest ever in Twenty20 internationals. Mubarak and Mahela Jayawardene – who made 65 – came within striking distance of recording the fastest fifties and the score of 260 foretold the result of the match even before the Kenya openers took guard.Steve Tikolo’s decision to insert the opposition proved costly as Sri Lanka began with the intent of scoring over 200. The openers – Jayasuriya and Upul Tharanga, flayed at just about everything in the opening overs. Tharanga was the only one to miss out, owing to a lapse in concentration as he played across the line to a Thomas Odoyo delivery which hit the middle stump. While Odoyo bowled with control in his opening spell, the support bowlers suffered.Jayasuriya batted with characteristic freedom, shuffling across his stumps and disturbing the bowler’s rhythm at the delivery stride. Despite a few hits and misses early in the innings, it didn’t take long for him to find the meat of the bat. He set the ball rolling with the first six of the match, pulling a good length delivery drifting in over square leg and through his innings, he kept the fielders in the arc between square leg and long-leg on their toes.Sangakkara’s brief knock of 30 was characterised by technically correct strokes along the ground and his stand of 75 with Jayasuriya ensured that a record score was on the cards. Wicketkeeper Maurice Ouma stood up to the stumps to curb the batsmen from using their feet but it was to no avail. Jayasuriya unfurled the shot of the match, a short-arm jab across the line off Nehemiah Odhiambo which just landed over the square-leg rope.Sangakkara fell sweeping to Jimmy Kamande and the passage of play following his dismissal was forgettable at best for the Kenyans. Jayawardene announced his arrival with a slog-sweep six and batting never looked easier as swept and scooped while staying rooted to the crease.The carnage played on the minds of the fielders and a series of comical errors in the field followed. Fielders at the deep midwicket region struggled to time their jumps and a collision between Lameck Onyango and Odoyo gave Jayawardene a life as the catch was spilled.Jayawardene fell trying to sweep Jimmy Kamande and that brought Mubarak to the middle. Mubarak took to Onyango, carting three consecutive sixes and then a four over deep extra cover and the over was worth a whopping 29. He fell short of beating Mohammad Ashraful’s record for the fastest fifty but that record hardly mattered as the target seemed unassailable.

The Kenyans showed no semblance of a fight as half the side was back in the pavilion with the score on 50. Chaminda Vaas demonstrated the right line and length to bowl on the pitch and bagged the first two wickets with his nagging line at the stumps.Tanmay Mishra broke the shackles with a thundering six over long-on against the run of play. However, boundaries were few and far between and at the end of the 10th over, Kenya struggled to push the run-rate up to six an over, let alone match Sri Lanka’s.Lasith Malinga, brought in as the second change bowler, prised out a couple of wickets. Captain Steve Tikolo failed to inspire his side as he was caught in the slips for four while Collins Obuya fell to a tame loft, giving Malinga one of the easier return catches.Jayasuriya, Tillakaratne Dilshan and Gayan Wijekoon took a wicket each as the Kenyans struggled to get close to 100. The innings was wrapped up after the fall of the ninth wicket as Odoyo was unfit to bat owing to the collision earlier on.

It looks like the days of rumblings and grumbling are over. At least for the time being.The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA) appear to be on the same page when it comes to contracts for players. In a brief conversation yesterday, Dinanath Ramnarine, president of the WIPA, told SunSport his organisation was satisfied with the pace of negotiations with the WICB as they look towards new retainer contracts. The last contracts expired at the end of last month.”We are working on new retainers and I can report that at the moment there are no major issues,” Ramnarine said. “We are satisfied with the way things are going and we remain optimistic.” Efforts to get a reaction from Barry Thomas, the WICB’s acting chief executive, were unsuccessful.In recent years, the players and their employer have been embroiled in a number of embarrassing public stand-offs which led on some occasions to the players withdrawing their services.However, since assuming the post of WICB president, Julian Hunte has struck a conciliatory note with WIPA. He appointed Ramnarine as a non-executive member of the board, so that WIPA, according to him, “can now be part of the solution instead of continuing to be perceived as part of the problem”. Hunte has also gone beyond Ramnarine’s formal appointment to bonding with the players themselves.The West Indies have a long list of assignments in the coming months. Next month they are expected in Zimbabwe for a series of one-day matches. They will play three Tests and three ODIs in South Africa between December and February. The Tests will be at Port Elizabeth (December 26 to 30), Cape Town (January 2 to 6) and Durban (January 10 to 14).The West Indies will host Australia and Sri Lanka between March and June, but the various boards have not outlined the itineraries as yet.

Scorecard

South Australia’s batting held together long enough – but only just – to take a tight five-wicket victory off the last ball against New South Wales under the lights in Adelaide.They needed 20 off the last 30 balls, but Andy Delmont and Graham Manou edged closer to leave themselves needing three off the last over, bowled by Doug Bollinger. Somehow they contrived to take the game to the last delivery, an aerial swish behind point completing the job.Matthew Elliott and Mark Cosgrove eased the Redbacks’ top-order concerns with a 76-run stand for the second wicket, and the side were building towards their 243-run target but they, and their long-suffering fans, have learned to take nothing for granted where their batting is concerned.Indeed, Nathan Bracken prompted a few last-minute jitters by removing Darren Lehmann late on, leaving the batsmen to cling on and make hard work of getting home. “It probably should have been a bit easier than that,” admitted Nathan Adcock afterwards with understatement.Elliott and Cosgrove’s fifties, along with Dan Cullen’s smooth spin spell, finally proved the difference in a close-fought encounter which also featured some poor fielding from both sides.Cullen’s 3 for 47 helped to calm the nerves during a lamentable display of three dropped catches and a howler of a missed run-out. New South Wales capitalised to make 7 for 233 – Dominic Thornely cashing in with 68 after being spilled on 26 – and their total, on a green and lively wicket, had looked challenging.It looked far short, though, as soon as South Australia came in. Elliott and Dan Harris put on a solid opening stand of 60 before Harris holed out to Steve O’Keefe at deep square, then Cosgrove combined with Elliott to up the ante and add an entertaining 76 in quick time.Cosgrove (51) played forcefully off the back foot, putting in another fire-cracking performance reminiscent of his 92 on the Redbacks’ opening night against Victoria, although both he and Elliott had a let-off in the same Mark Cameron over.Cameron had softened up Cosgrove earlier with a blow to the elbow, before O’Keefe fluffed in the leg gully trap on 12, then Elliott fired a hard chance to Nathan Hauritz at mid-off on 42. Cameron, though, didn’t let O’Keefe down when it was his turn to catch, snapping up Cosgrove’s high mis-hit.Elliott played with some class, climbing into the pace bowlers with some sweet shots and sound timing until he flapped at a wide one, Haddin taking the edge tidily. By this stage Nathan Adcock had already come and gone, with Lehmann taking over. He played with his usual authority until holing out at deep square off Bracken in the 46th over.Earlier, South Australia had Cullen to thank for rescuing their errors. But while he snapped up Katich (50) and Cowan (37) soon after they had given chances to patch up some of the fielding damage, Thornely went on to make 68 with some electric driving late on, punishing Lehmann in particular to apply the salt.Cullen ended with 3 for 47, his best figures against the Blues, and he also had Haddin for a duck. Haddin, who arrived on the back of a thumping century, had grounds to feel hard done by after he was deemed to have pressed to Adcock at first slip, though the ball may have come off the pad.Katich used his feet well to reach 50 but should have been run out on 45, when he slipped after cutting Cullen to gully but Delmont threw wide of Manou’s desperate right hand and he scrambled back. He finally fell sending a leading edge to the off-side. Cowan (37) was dropped on 18 – by Lehmann at short midwicket off Jason Gillespie, who had bowled tightly and with good movement – and 23, Elliott putting down a sitter off Cosgrove’s first over.The drops allowed Cowan to put on his first opening stand of fifty with Grant Lambert since the first match of last year, also against the Redbacks, but he was finally stumped off Cullen, deceived in the flight. Lambert then made 41 before driving at one outside off, much to Mark Cleary’s fist-pumping delight.South Australia picked up their fielding late on, Cosgrove standing firm to hold Peter Forrest’s skier off Lehmann for 19 and then Dan Harris’s direct throw removed O’Keefe for a sacrificial 2. But then Thornely took hold, though his efforts weren’t enough.So, the Blues’ blues continue: they have now lost three of four one-dayers, with the other washed out. The Redbacks, meanwhile, return here for the Pura Cup game on Friday on something of a rare high but with some question marks remaining.