Sohal's ton saves day for Punjab

The first day of the Delhi-Punjab Ranji Trophy Super League match started on an exciting note but ended with a yawn at the Roshanara Club here on Monday.

The players of both sides must have walked away with a feeling that this might just be a 'first innings pitch' - the team that scores more number of runs in their first innings is most likely to walk away with the spoils (in this case three points). Scoring an outright victory on this pitch could be an uphill task.

After being put into bat by Delhi, Punjab finished Day 1 at 237 for the loss of five wickets with a desire of "adding atleast 150 more on Day 2", as their new coach Arun Kumar put it. Both teams went home equally happy but if one goes compares the sessions, then Delhi won the first, second was even-steven while Punjab took the honours in the third session, with Sunny Sohal hitting his maiden ton.

The comeback man Ashish Nehra, who was in and out of the team due to his lack of fitness the last two seasons, was the pick of the Delhi bowlers. However, it was his pace partner Pradeep Sangwan who lured Yuvraj Singh with a bait outside the off-stump to send him back for a blob at the stroke of lunch. The score read 92/3.

It was just one of those days for Nehra when you could not discount his contribution and effort. Like when he was outguessing the opposition captain Pankaj Dharmani (16) and the highest scorer Sunny Sohal (110) over after over, continously from around the wicket, making the ball swing away accurately. Nehra failed to get the reward for his ahard work but it helped leggie Chaitnya Nanda (2-36) in scalping Dharmani with an average ball.

"For a bowler, who bowled really well, I thought Nehra was unlucky and should have returned with much more wickets. He caught the edge of the opposition batsmen a number of times but unfortunately it all fell short of either the slips or the wicketkeeper," said Vijay Dahiya, who is in his second season as a coach of Delhi.

Delhi elected to field expecting the pitch to offer movement. It did. But the juice, it seemed, dried up after the first two hours of the match. Asked whether they overestimated the pace of the pitch, a bit, Dahiya said: "It's not a ground we play on regularly. There was just a match against Saurashtra last season. Hence we are a little unfamiliar with the circumstances. We had played a couple of warm-up games at the Jamia ground and we didn't like the wicket there. Therefore, the best bet was the Roshnara Club. Ideally, we would have liked to pick up more wickets with the help of our quality pacers but the wicket started playing easy," stated Dahiya.

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Dhaka Warriors thrash Chandigarh Lions by eight wickets

Chasing a modest target of 138, Dhaka Warriors opener Shahriar Nafees played a brilliant 73 run knock to guide his team to an easy eight wicket win over Chandigarh Lions in the Indian Cricket League (ICL) match at the Tau devi Lal Stadium on Friday night.

The left handed 22-year-old batted with perfection and hit ten boundaries and a six in his match-winning knock that came of just 60 balls.

Nafees and his right-handed opening partner Nazimuddin were involved in a 53 run partnership for the Warriors before a brilliant catch in the deep by Amit Uniyal of the bowling of left arm slow Bipul Sharma brought Nazimmudin's (23)innings to an end.

Bipul had the Warriors in a spot of bother for a while as he struck again removing Aftab Ahmed (5). However, Nafees and Alok Kapali (32) batted with patience and achieved the target in the 18th over.

Earlier, put into bat first, the Lions playing before a thin home crowd started on a confident note, but soon started losing the plot. After Mohammed Sharif took the first Lions wicket sending TP Singh back to pavilion (1-25), they lost three more of their top order batsman in quick succession and were in deep trouble at one stage on 4-45 in the seventh over.

With the pitch favouring slow bowlers, Warriors slow left arm bowlers Mohammed Rafique (4-0-28-3) and Moshraff Hossain (4-0-17-2) were the pick of their side.

Hossain had Lions skipper Andrew Hall (29) bowled when the latter was looking well set, but Bipul Sharma (30) made useful contribution holding the forte till the end before being the ninth batsman to fall getting stump out of Rafique's bowling.

The Warriors have three wins from six matches they played while the Lions have won three from their five outings, with both still keeping themselves in the reckoning for a semi-final berth.

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England claim or drop the booty in T$20 Match

England play their "winner-takes-all" Twenty20 fixture against a Caribbean all-star side for a record prize pot of $20m on Saturday at the Stanford Cricket Ground in Antigua. Antigua-based billionaire Allen Stanford has put up $100m for five annual clashes between England and the Stanford Super Stars.

The 11 active players on the winning side will walk away with $1m each with a further two million going to squad players and coaching and management staff.

The timing of Saturday's match in Antigua hasn't helped Stanford's bid to boost cricket's global status. Amid a looming recession, fans struggling financially could watch the 11 England players each pocket a million.

"To have these huge rewards for one match is, to my mind, just stupid," said Lord McLaurin, former chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board. "My view as a traditionalist is that Twenty20 has a place, but this sort of pantomime cricket doesn't. This sort of thing is just obscene, especially with the financial state the country is in." Stanford batted away the criticism before insisting "it's a spectacle, it's not a farce."

Perhaps there were warning signs in June at Lord's when the Texan billionaire, who has lived in the Caribbean for 26 years, outlined his five-year plan for Twenty20 cricket to take over the sport in front of a crateload of bills amounting to $20m.

Amidst the controversies, Sean Morris, chief executive of the Professional Cricketers' Association, said that the event can be compared to a garden party. "The England players feel sensitive that they might be exposed; very concerned about how they will be perceived."

England allrounder Andrew Flintoff sought to take the sting out of the row by highlighting the positive impact of the event. West Indies cricket will receive $3.5m annually over the five-year deal. "When you look at the money that is up for it then, yeah, it is all about the money," Flintoff said. "One of the good things to come from it is West Indies cricket and seeing people come and watch.

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