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ScorecardFile photo – Todd Astle scored an unbeaten 96 and finished with a match haul of eight wickets•Getty Images

Todd Astle’s all-round performance in the both innings set up Canterbury’s 161-run over Central Districts in Rangiora.Set a target of 386 in the fourth innings, Central Districts were reduced to 34 for 3 by Canterbury with Astle and Matt Henry taking the lead. Tom Bruce then combined with opener Dean Robinson to take Central Districts close to 100 before Robinson fell for 34. Central Districts soon slumped to 99 for 5 and Bruce then found an able partner in Adam Milne with whom he added 54 for the sixth wicket. Bruce and Milne were dismissed by Astle for 67 and 61, respectively, and the legspinner ran through Central Districts’ lower order to dismiss them for 224.Canterbury built on their 75-run lead from the first innings thanks to middle and lower-order contributions by Henry, Ken McClure , Astle (45) and Ryan McCone (46). Henry and McCone added 87 runs for Canterbury’s ninth wicket. Henry’s unbeaten 52-ball 75, which included 12 fours and two sixes lifted Canterbury to a second-innings score of 310.Canterbury were driven to 320 in their first innings by Leo Carter’s 101 and Astle’s unbeaten 96, after they were put in to bat. Astle then picked up three wickets to bowl Central Districts out for 245. Will Young, the Central Districts’ captain, top-scored in the first innings with 63, while Robinson and Bruce chipped in with 42 each.

While the entire Indian team may look back at the first session of this Test – during which they were bowled out for 76 – and cough up excuses, one man isn’t surprised by their capitulation. Dale Steyn, whose 5 for 23 played a pivotal role in an astonishing 109 minutes of mayhem in Ahmedabad, felt they had no game plan whatsoever.”That’s the vibe they’ve given off to us. Once one or two wickets fall and things kind of go wrong, they are pretty weak and the batsmen to follow didn’t look they knew what they wanted to do,” he said. “They didn’t have a strategy. They were bowled out for 76 and I guess that’s what happens when you don’t have a game-plan.”It’s tough for any team to settle when Steyn is in a certain groove, hostile and mixing up deliveries, but this was something else. It took him just 48 deliveries to help send the home side packing and he credited the surface for some assistance.”There was a little bit of movement which probably scared the Indians a bit once one or two wickets fell … it just looked like it sent a couple of shivers down the Indian line-up,” he said. “It looked like the guy that came in next didn’t really know how to approach it and how to play the game. We’re used to playing on wickets like this back in South Africa and knew what we had to do.”When you get a wicket like this, if you don’t bowl full you’re not going to find the edge of the bat so you’ve got to make a decision as to exactly where you’re going to bowl.”Bowling short is one thing, taking the batsmen’s feet away, but it’s that follow-up ball that always gets you a wicket. I think from reading in the papers they [India] weren’t going to come forward before the ball was bowled so maybe that helped us. Then we were able to bowl good-length balls. The ball hit the stumps a lot and there were a lot of inside-edges because nobody was really committed on the front foot.”Planned or not, it worked against a trigger-happy line-up, especially the follow-up balls. And it was Steyn’s first wicket that vindicated much of South Africa’s pre-game talk. Having just nearly dragged one onto his off stump via a cramped cut, Virender Sehwag attempted the same two deliveries later and succeeded – in dislodging the bails. “Sehwag tends to play skywards towards the slips or leave hit bat hanging out towards the slips so there’s always the possibility of an inside-edge,” he said. “His wicket was pretty decent as was that of [Rahul] Dravid. They are two good batsmen and that’s two wickets you definitely want to be getting before the game.”The ball to dismiss Dravid was excellent, breaching a master technician’s defence after he misread the movement. “That was probably the best ball of the day. Hopefully I can deliver a few more of those in the second innings.”Steyn, who now has three five-wicket hauls in the subcontinent, rated this the best and was quick to point out that had his second-last over not gone for 11 the figures would’ve been better. His tally, in his 22nd Test, reads 114 wickets with eight five-wicket hauls.India hit back with four wickets after South Africa’s openers took the lead but thanks to a fluent 106-run stand between Jacques Kallis and AB de Villiers, the visitors lead by 147. Steyn termed each run after wiping out the deficit as “gold” and was confident Kallis and de Villiers would come out on day two further South Africa’s advantage. “We saw the ball moving around so we thought if we get through the day without losing any more. We needed two nice partnerships,” he said. “On a pitch like this, especially against a team that just got bowled out for 76, you aim to get ahead of them and it hurts a lot.”Maybe we can play with a bit of freedom tomorrow and up that lead toquite a big total. Then the pressure’s all on them. They have to dosomething. You can’t go into the last Test match losing this game. I don’t think drawing the series at home it what India wants to do.”

New Zealand will head to India next month armed with a three-pronged spin arsenal after offspinner Nathan McCullum, legspinner Ish Sodhi and left-arm orthodox allrounder Mitchell Santner were included in a 15-man squad for the World T20 announced on Monday. New Zealand had rotated through a series of spinners in their limited-overs squads during the recent pair of home series against Sri Lanka and Pakistan, though McCullum had not played for New Zealand since the tour to South Africa in August.

New Zealand WT20 squad

Kane Williamson (capt), Martin Guptill, Ross Taylor, Henry Nicholls, Grant Elliott, Corey Anderson, Colin Munro, Luke Ronchi (wk), Mitchell Santner, Nathan McCullum, Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Mitchell McClenaghan, Adam Milne, Ish Sodhi

“With the Indian conditions in mind, the plan has always been to take three front-line spinners and all three bring something different,” said New Zealand coach Mike Hesson in a statement at the unveiling of the squad. “It’s great to have Nathan available again and his experience in the foreign conditions will be invaluable. Both he and Mitch Santner have the ability to bowl in the first six overs, which gives Kane a number of options to work with.”Legspinner Todd Astle did not make the cut though after having been included for the three-match T20I series against Pakistan. Astle, who hadn’t played for New Zealand since making his Test debut in 2012 against Sri Lanka, was ineffective in the first two matches of the series. He went wicketless with figures of 0 for 41 spread across four overs in the two games and was left out for the final match of the series.Henry Nicholls, who is uncapped in T20Is for New Zealand, was chosen after impressing with 82 in a Man-of-the-Match performance against Pakistan in the first ODI at Basin Reserve last week. Nicholls will also serve as cover for wicketkeeper Luke Ronchi.”Henry has shown his talent and versatility with the bat this summer and has also been used as a wicketkeeper for New Zealand A,” said Hesson.As for the injured trio of Tim Southee, Mitchell McClenaghan and Ross Taylor, all three were picked and are expected to be fit by the start of the tournament. The return of Southee and McClenaghan meant there was no room for Matt Henry in the squad as Adam Milne was tabbed for the remaining fast bowling slot alongside Trent Boult and allrounders Corey Anderson and Grant Elliott.New Zealand is in a second-round pool alongside Australia, Pakistan, India and the winner of the qualifying pool played among Bangladesh, Ireland, Netherlands and Oman. New Zealand’s first match will be in Nagpur against India on March 15.

North ZoneAakash Chopra’s 89-ball 101 propelled Delhi to an emphatic nine-wicket win over Jammu & Kashmir at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi. Ian Dev Singh’s gritty 90 lent some respectability to the J&K total, once they chose to bat, but a total of 168 was never going to be too challenging for a strong batting line-up and Delhi cruised to victory with 22.1 overs to spare, gaining the bonus point in the process.Karan Goel’s century set up Punjab’s win over Haryana at the Harbax Singh Stadium in Delhi. Punjab made the most of a flat batting pitch, rattling up 297 in their 50 overs, before new-ball bowler Gagandeep Singh triggered a collapse with three wickets. Sumit Sharma’s 54 allowed Haryana to limp to 174 but it couldn’t prevent them from conceding the bonus point.Half-centuries from Manvinder Bisla and Paras Dogra steered Himachal Pradesh to a five-wicket win over Services at the Palam A Stadium in Delhi. Services had been propped up by fifties from Yashpal Singh and P Rao, the debutant, but 243 proved inadequate in the final analysis.East ZoneIn just his second one-day game, Sajan Mohanty grabbed four important wickets to lead Orissa to a thrilling four-run win over Assam at the Nehru Stadium in Guwahati. Debutant Payas Ranjan Sinha had propped up Orissa with a patient fifty and their bowlers did a fine job to defend 243. Half-centuries from S Suresh and Sarupam Purkayastha, a debutant, went in vain as Orissa held their nerve in the climactic stages.Sharing six wickets between them, Vineet Jain and Jayanta Debnath bowled out Jharkhand for 179 before the Tripura batsmen knocked off the target with 3.3 overs to spare at the Railway Stadium in Guwahati. Jharkhand’s decision to bat backfired, with Tripura’s bowlers not allowing partnerships to flourish. A target of 180 was always going to be a tricky one and it required good allround contributions from all batsmen to seal the victory.Central ZoneMurtaza Ali picked up three wickets as Railways collapsed to a 65-run defeat against Madhya Pradesh at the Kamla Club Sports Ground in Kanpur. MP reached a competitive 217 in their 50 overs as opener Naman Ojha carved out a patient 75 and added 61 with Shadab Khan (42). But after Ojha fell in the 46th over, the lower order couldn’t push towards a big score and the last five wickets fell for just 20 runs. It didn’t matter in the end though with Railways bowled out in 44 overs. Deepak Yadav scored an unbeaten 57, but with virtually no support from the rest of the side – four batsmen being dismissed for ducks – he couldn’t take them the distance.Rohit G Sharma hit an unbeaten 147 and led Rajasthan’s successful chase of 260 against Uttar Pradesh at Green Park in Kanpur. He added 171 with Manish Sharma (73) and took Rajasthan to an eight-wicket win with 33 balls to spare. Anshul Kapoor (69) and Parvinder Singh (69) had revived UP’s innings with a 104-run partnership for the sixth wicket. But it wasn’t going to be enough. Rohit and Manish hammered UP’s bowlers, especially medium-pacer Bhuvnesh Kumar, who went for 53 runs in five overs.South ZoneS Vidyut’s cracking 120 set up Tamil Nadu’s convincing five-wicket win over Goa at the Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. C Ganapathy, the new-ball bowler, nabbed three wickets to restrict Goa to 198 before Vidyut outshone the rest during the run-chase, allowing Tamil Nadu to collect a bonus point as well.

Nic Pothas provided the sort of innings that was once a regular feature ofhis repertoire, but has been missing for the last couple of seasons, to takethe Highveld Strikers to a thrilling five-wicket victory with two balls oftheir 45 overs to spare.Pothas belted 79 off just 77 balls, the last 26 coming offjust 18 deliveries, to see his side through to their victory target of 226in 44.4 overs, after they had faced an asking rate of eight to the over inthe latter stages. Forty-eight were needed off the last six, then 31 off thelast four and 18 off the last two. That was when Pothas really came into hisown as Kenny Benjamin’s last over went for 14, taking the match away fromthe visitors.It was a bitter pill to swallow for the team from Benoni, just 35km away, asthey suffered their third defeat in six days to see their chances ofreaching the semi-finals diminish even further. Prior to their match againstBoland on January 5, Easterns had been sitting pretty with four wins fromfive matches. Now, despite gaining a bonus point in each of those threematches, they find themselves outside the top four with two difficultmatches, away to Eastern Province and at home to Free State, to come.In truth, the visitor’s defeat was partly of their own making. Having wonthe toss and chosen to bat, Easterns got off to a great start as Mike Rindeland new recruit Andre Seymore put on 120 for the first wicket, before beingseparated at the halfway mark of the innings, in the 23rd over, when Seymorewas bowled by Clive Eksteen for 46.At that point, they were looking good for a total beyond 250, but Rindel ranhimself out just 12 runs later for 60, made off just 63 balls, including 22off Eksteen’s first two overs, and after that, Easterns were never able tosustain the same scoring rate. It fell below five to the over, only gettingup to that mark again through some good late hitting and running by captainDeon Jordaan and Aldo van den Berg. That enabled them to reach 225 forseven, which proved to be just short of what they needed.For the Strikers, after a woeful season, the victory over a team includingmany former Strikers players salvaged some much-needed pride, given thatthey can no longer qualify for the semi-finals.

After having embarrassed the West Zone batsmen, who were coming off a prolific run in the Ranji one-dayers, in the Deodhar Trophy opener, the Central Zone attack will come up against their toughest test of the tournament tomorrow at the Chinnaswamy Stadium when they take on an even stronger North Zone batting line-up.If a domestic team can leave out Mithun Manhas, it has to be spoilt for choices, and when you have Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Shikhar Dhawan, Aakash Chopra, and Virat Kohli as your top five you really are spoilt. If Sehwag, Gambhir and Kohli make it on the back of being India and India Under-19 players, Dhawan and Chopra have slayed domestic attacks in the Ranji one-dayers. Chopra has scored three unbeaten centuries in scoring 332 runs in four innings, and Dhawan two centuries in scoring 342 from five innings. Even more impressive was the fact that both scored at more than a run a ball. To add to that, North have the best allrounder of the season in Rajat Bhatia, who would like to carry the form from the longer version into the one-dayers.This batting line-up, though, will be up against perhaps their toughest test of the domestic season. Praveen Kumar and RP Singh sound more like an India opening combination, and the pressure they create makes the job easier for the bowlers to follow. It showed in the way Sandeep Singh bowled in the previous game, bowling seven tight overs for 21 runs and getting Rohit Sharma’s wicket. And if things do go wrong, they have two quality spinners to fall back upon: Piyush Chawla and Murali Kartik.That is where the positives ends for Central Zone. They look far too much like an Uttar Pradesh team, and the batting line-up suggests an over-reliance on Mohammad Kaif and Suresh Raina for their runs. They lost four wickets chasing 99 against West; Raina scored 18 and Kaif 8. While chasing a bigger target or while setting one, the two might not be allowed the luxury of failure. To add to their troubles, Tanmay Srivastava has been ruled out of the tournament with a hand injury he picked up at the U-19 World Cup.Their coach Abhay Sharma, though, wasn’t very worried by the unconvincing batting display in the first match, choosing to look at it as complacency that accompanies a low target. The consolation for them is that they are not up against the best attack North Zone could have had: Ishant Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, and VRV Singh won’t be playing as they are yet to prove their fitness. Ishant and VRV took the fitness tests today at the National Cricket Academy, but the results are not yet known.VRV was North’s striking force in their Duleep Trophy success earlier this year, with back-to-back ten-wicket match hauls. In his absence, Pradeep Sangwan will be an essential reinforcement. He will be supported by the steady medium-pace of Vikramjeet Malik and the legspin of Amit Mishra. If the wicket is like it was in the previous match here, when the seamers got plenty of assistance, North will want to go with a third fast bowler in Punjab’s Manpreet Gony.A seaming pitch could make this game an enticing contest between the Central bowlers and the North batsmen. Those who thought domestic cricket was boring could be in for a shock.Teams (from)
Central Zone: Mohammad Kaif (capt.), Praveen Kumar, Suresh Raina, RP Singh, Piyush Chawla, Murali Kartik, Praveen Gupta, Naman Ojha, Sandeep Singh, Faiz Fazal, Rajesh Kanojia, Himalaya Sagar, Rohit Sharma, Deepak YadavNorth Zone: Virender Sehwag (capt.), Gautam Gambhir, Uday Kaul, Aakash Chopra, Shikhar Dhawan, Vikramjit Malik, Yashpal Singh, Rajat Bhatia, Paras Dogra, Pradeep Sangwan, Amit Mishra, Manpreet Gony, Vishal Bhatia

In a jovial press conference in his hometown of Ranchi, MS Dhoni joked about retirement questions, the absence of the helicopter shot, and perceived lack of batting opportunities for Yuvraj Singh, but on a serious note promised more of batting experiments like the promotion of Hardik Pandya. India beat Sri Lanka comfortably by 69 runs to square the three-match series, and Pandya hit 27 off 12 balls when sent in to bat at the score of 127 for 3 in the 15th over.Dhoni was at his best when trying to explain the absence of the helicopter shot through analogies. First, he said a helicopter cannot fly in a submarine under water. The point was he was not getting the ball to hit that helicopter shot.”If they bowl me bouncers, the only way I can play the helicopter shot is if I stand on a stool,” Dhoni said.Dhoni was more serious with Pandya’s batting slot in this match. “It was an opportunity for him to see international cricket closely,” Dhoni said. “This is what he is known for. He can go in and play the big shots straightaway. So in the coming games whenever we give some opportunity, we would like to give every player some kind of batting so that going into the T20 World Cup, everyone has some kind of exposure when it comes to batting.”Bowling, everyone gets a chance to bowl. A lot of times you always experiment with bowling. What happens with batting is that you want to win games and you also want to give an individual a fair amount of time in the middle. It does not always go with the plan. Definitely in the coming games, if there is a chance of exposing someone to this kind of an exposure so that going into the T20 World Cup they know what their roles and responsibilities are.”Dhoni was back to joking momentarily when asked why Yuvraj was not getting a permanent slot. “Nobody thinks about me,” he said. “I also keep going up and down.”It is a sensitive topic with Indian fans so Dhoni immediately went back to being serious. “But yes you are right,” he said. “When a match starts, Yuvi is slotted in at No 5. It is difficult to get him to bat at a higher position than that. Because the top four – the openers, No. 3 is Virat Kohli, No. 4 is Suresh Raina. If you look at these four, their record in India and overseas is extraordinary. It becomes slightly difficult.”Yes Yuvraj Singh is back in the team. We wish to give him more batting. But at the same time, since I have played with Yuvi a lot, I know it is difficult for him to go and straightaway start hitting in the 17th or 18th over. He’s like a proper batsman who can hit.”Okay, he can start early. Whenever he bats in the slog, he has found it difficult. We’ll see how it goes. I will try to give him more opportunity in the upcoming games. But again we want to win games. That will also be our priority. We will see how it goes.”

Ishant Sharma is set to undergo a fitness test at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore on Sunday in order to determine his availability for the third Test against South Africa in Kanpur, which starts on April 11. The team for the final match is expected to be selected at the end of the Ahmedabad Test.Ishant, who starred in the Tests and the ODIs on the Australia tour, was advised complete rest for three weeks by the then physio, John Gloster. He had a problem in the big toe of his landing foot as well as an inflammation in the right forefinger.He underwent some tests at the NCA before the start of the South Africa series but had not attained full fitness. He was with the team at both Chennai and Ahmedabad, and has been monitored by Paul Close, the physio. Anil Kumble hoped Ishant would be fully fit for the Ahmedabad Test but the team decided to give him a bit more time.Murali Kartik, the left-arm spinner, is also expected to be tested in Bangalore on Sunday. Kartik was included in the squad for the first two Tests but an ankle sprain sustained on the day of the selection ruled him out for three weeks.Joginder Sharma, VRV Singh and Sudeep Tyagi are the others currently undergoing rehabilitation at the NCA.

The Twenty20 revolution apparently knows no boundaries. Now cricket’s hottest craze is poised to make inroads into one of the sport’s most elusive frontiers, the United States.Mohammad Azharuddin, Javed Miandad and Richie Richardson are the former Test captains who have agreed to take part in a privately-run, All-Star weekend in southern Florida in late May. The MAQ T20 International Cricket Tournament will combine three days of matches with ethnic musical concerts during the Memorial Day long weekend, May 23rd to 25th. It aims to attract 30,000 fans over three days to Central Broward Regional Park, a new cricket stadium, near Fort Lauderdale.The event will be funded by Cricket Council USA (CCUSA), a non-sanctioned organisation with no affiliation to the United States of America Cricket Association (USACA), which was reinstated as an Associate Member of the ICC on April 1st after a one-year suspension.CCUSA, with a couple of former USACA officials among a full-time staff of 12, is backed by Florida-based, Pakistani-born businessman, Mahammad “MAQ” Qureshi. With an office in Boca Raton, it says its aim is trying to spread the gospel of Twenty20 across America.Tickets will range between just US$10 and $20, with free general admission for children on two of the three days. “Our ultimate goal is to get the local youngsters at high school level to try cricket as an alternative to baseball, basketball or American football,” said Nino DiLoreto, Director of Media for CCUSA. “We’re looking beyond the expatriate element to take Twenty20 to mainstream Americans.”With four teams competing for $75,000 in prize money, the Memorial Day tournament has attracted an impressive list of names from cricket’s past and present.The West Indies All-Star Team is managed by Lawrence Rowe – who, like one of his former international team-mates, Lance Gibbs – now lives in southern Florida. Richardson will have ex-Windies internationals Ricardo Powell, Stuart Williams, Franklyn Rose and Courtney Browne amongst his team-mates. Joining Miandad, 51, in the Pakistani All-Star side will be 20-somethings Mohammad Sami, Faisal Iqbal, Imran Nazir and Imran Farhat.The timing of the IPL rules out a significant Indian contingent, so Mohammad Azharuddin will captain an International All-Star team that includes former Australian spinner Nathan Hauritz, Ireland’s 2007 World Cup captain Trent Johnston and Brighton Watambwa, who played six Test matches for Zimbabwe in 2001-2002.Canada will provide players for the fourth side and intends using the tournament as a warm-up for an upcoming qualifying round in Ireland for the 2011 Twenty20 World Cup.”A Cricket Night to Remember” is the name of the concerts that will follow the first two days, featuring Caribbean and south Asian artists. The event is the first of four Twenty20 tournaments planned by CCUSA for 2008. On August 16th, the Azadi Cup will mark Indo-Pak Independence Day and will aim to attract some high profile subcontinental players to Central Broward Regional Park, recently completed and funded by public money at a cost of $71 million.”It’s the first purpose-built cricket stadium in the United States or Canada,” declared Nino DiLoreto of CCUSA.The diverse Broward County, a 30 minute drive north of Miami, is a unique, diverse pocket of the United States where cricket actually registers on the radar. Almost 4% of an estimated population of almost 2 million was born in Jamaica while there are also sizeable south Asian and British communities, many of whom subscribe to pay-per-view television to regularly watch international cricket. Broward County is the home to about 50 of the United States’ 750 registered cricket clubs, who play in two leagues. It’s estimated that the US has around 50,000 active players, making it the ninth largest cricket-playing country.CCUSA is still recruiting for the tournament and hasn’t given up hope of bringing another recent former Test captain to the impressive Central Broward Regional Park. “If he agrees to come, he’d be by far the tournament’s biggest name,” said Syed ‘Bobby’ Refaie, its president.Refaie, a former USACA secretary, added that CCUSA wasn’t trying to compete with the sport’s official body. “But we’re not waiting for USACA to bring the beautiful game of Twenty20 cricket to the American audience,” he said. “We’re hoping that we perhaps can join hands with USACA and work together in the future.”

Pentasoft ousted Canara Bank by two wickets to enter the semifinals of the Moin-ud-Dowlah Cup in Hyderabad on Friday. With ONGC having withdrawn from the tournament, this Group D encounter was a cut throat game at the ECIL ground, both protagonists having beaten Hyderabad Districts, the only other team in the group. Brothers S Ramesh and S Mahesh were the leading participants in the Pentasoft run-chase as the Chennai based software company reached their target of 200 with seven balls to spare.In the morning session, the bankmen after being put in to bat, made 199/9. This was a palpable recovery for they had been lost four wickets for 30 at one stage, including the important scalp of Vijay Bharadwaj for 11. But the lower order applied themselves to the task of batting out the full 50 overs. Sunil Joshi (29) and Somasekhar Shiraguppi (31) commenced the rearguard action. And it was completed with gusto by Srinivas Murthy who remained undefeated on 46 (53 balls, 4 fours) and skipper Venkatesh Prasad who revealed some hitherto unrevealed flair with the bat with a run-a-ball 24. S Mahesh and S Satish both had identical figures of 2/30.In reply, Openers M Arvind and S Ramesh added 62 for the first wicket and skipper Ramesh in the company of SS Das compiled another 58 for the second. At 134/2 Pentasoft were sitting pretty but the loss of three wickets (Ramesh, Kanitkar and Jaffer Ashiq) in the space of four overs left them slightly perturbed at 139/5. Ramesh’s 59 was a quickfire effort, coming off 71 balls and inclusive of eight boundaries. Although C Raghu (4/30) kept Pentasoft on their toes, Mahesh (43 not out, 60 balls, 4 fours) retained his composure to see Pentasoft home from the last ball of the penultimate over and round off a good match for him.