Perhaps fittingly, in the shadow of the Olympics, this Test looked to be heading towards a draw as heavy rain hit Headingley during the afternoon session

The Report by David Hopps05-Aug-2012
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsMorne Morkel struck with his second ball of the day•Getty Images

The favourite statistic at Headingley as the second Test endured a soggy fourth day was that if Yorkshire was a country – and to many people up here it is – it would be lying seventh in the Olympics medal table. The phrase “a strong Yorkshire is a strong England” used to be reserved exclusively for cricket, but the thought that it now had wider currency cheered up the cognoscenti as the rain tippled down.A Test that has been played out in the shadow of the Olympics has already had to contend with disruption by rain to the extent that it could become that rare thing: a Headingley draw. Leeds has witnessed a positive results in its last 12 Tests, but the 13th will have to provide quite a final day to extend the trend when South Africa begin with a lead of 33 and all ten second-innings wickets remaining.An exhilarating century from Kevin Pietersen apart, this has been at best a worthy Test – most admirable in the colossal show of dedication by Alviro Petersen whose own hundred came with a price, a grade one hamstring strain which will take a week to heal and which will leave him walking his runs if he is forced to bat.South Africa are under physical strain. Smith, their redoubtable captain, did field and bat on the fourth day, but with a knee heavily strapped after injuring himself on Saturday evening when he slid to prevent a boundary. Most disturbing of all for South Africa, Jacques Kallis had developed lower back spasms overnight that ruled him out of bowling or fielding for the rest of England’s innings. It might even rule him out of the rest of the series.South Africa’s injuries are bringing England hope. Given a dry day, they will imagine they still might dismiss a disrupted South Africa batting order for 150 within 50 overs if Headingley delivers one of its most bowler-friendly mornings. The situation is exacerbated by the ICC’s controversial change in playing regulations last year that will prevent any of the three injured players batting with a runner.England had gained a slender lead of six after Matt Prior hit a vigorous 68, a positive innings from a player who once again emphasised his qualities as a selfless team man, playing the situation never influenced by individual considerations, his contributions often underplayed.But but they could not separate Graeme Smith and Jacques Rudolph before the clouds rolled back for the final time and will have been disappointed with the lack of reward in the 17 overs possible on an thundery afternoon that looked blessed for bowling. The pitch remains sound and slow – there is nothing for short – and any mischief will have to come in the air.In their anxiety to make good use of a tiny bowling window before lunch, England conceded an umpiring review when Rod Tucker’s refusal of an optimistic James Anderson lbw appeal against Smith was upheld.Before the over could be completed, a flash of lightning sent the players scurrying for the pavilion. Rain began to fall seconds later, forcing lunch to be taken a few minutes early and restricting South Africa’s time at the crease to 2.3 overs. The new ball was swinging and South Africa were grateful to reach lunch unscathed in the hope of more settled weather ahead.After the interval there was a more sustained period of cricket and England passed – or found – the edge on a number of occasions without reward. Rudolph, opening in place of the injured Petersen, edged over the slips when a ball took the shoulder of the bat and also edged short of gully. To have a realistic chance of forcing a result, England needed early wickets but that has not looked likely from the attack at any stage in this series.Earlier, Kevin Pietersen’s outstanding Test century turned out to be only a Saturday spectacular. He fell to the second ball of the morning, lbw to Morne Morkel. After a quick glance at his batting partner, Prior, he strolled off with a broad smile and no thoughts of turning to DRS.The mood initially was very much that of the morning after the night before. The packed Headingley crowds of the first three days had not entirely been repeated in a patchy fourth-day attendance and Pietersen, advancing slightly to work Morkel into the leg side, found that another adrenalin rush was beyond him.England, 1-0 down in the series, needed the match to progress quickly, a situation that eminently suited Prior, who is a counter-attacking cricketer by nature. He despatched the quicks crisply through the off side, while the Yorkshireman, Tim Bresnan, resisted pawkily alongside him before he edged Vernon Philander to slip.It needed Imran Tahir to quell Prior by bowling his legspin around the wicket into the rough outside leg stump. Tahir also made inroads for South Africa with three wickets. Stuart Broad miscued a pull as he was defeated by a quicker delivery, leaving the substitute Faf du Plessis to take a slick catch running backwards at mid on and leaving Broad with only one Test half-century this calendar year.Prior was ninth out when he top-edged a sweep to long leg and Anderson, who steered Dale Steyn wide of the slips to put England into the lead, was then bowled by Tahir attempting a slog-sweep.

South Africa’s first-class competition will start on Thursday with two of the franchises opening their campaigns with the Champions League T20 not far from their minds

Firdose Moonda19-Sep-2012South Africa’s first-class competition will start on Thursday with two of the franchises opening their campaigns with the Champions League T20 not far from their minds. The Lions and Titans will play two rounds each before beginning the lucrative multi-team tournament and both see the early start to the season as an advantage ahead of the 20-over championship.”It will be quite good for us and gives us a base going into the competition,” Lions captain, Alviro Petersen, said. Lions played in the last CLT20 to be hosted in South Africa, in 2010, and will again play most of their matches at their Johannesburg home ground, the Wanderers.Titans coach Matthew Maynard admitted his squad is “match shy” after their pre-season plans were rained on at their training camp in the country’s north-eastern Mpumalanga province. In order to get as much time in the nets as possible one of their quicks, Ethy Mbhalati, was married on Tuesday and resumed training shortly after the ceremony.Maynard said he is unconcerned with their lack of preparation and said he would rather the team “start undercooked than get overdone at the business end of the season”.Titans won last year’s first-class competition in exactly that fashion. After starting badly, they peaked in the mid-section of the tournament and sealed the title on the final weekend with a massive victory over Dolphins. Maynard said they have every intention of repeating their feats this summer. “We are not trying to defend our title, we are trying to win the competition – that’s a slightly different mindset,” he explained. “It’s all about how well you play in the last third of the season.”Titans start the campaign against Knights, who have prepared with two warm-up matches. They played North-West Dragons in a day-night first-class match, a pioneer of its kind in South Africa, where Morne van Wyk and Johan van der Wath scored hundreds in that game and van der Wath was among the wickets as well. “Our plans have gone quite well. Our bowlers were able to clock overs in the middle which they needed and the batters got plenty of runs,” Knights coach Sarel Cilliers said. “So at this stage, I’m quite happy.”Cobras, last season’s runners-up, will start their summer in Potchefstroom against Lions. Both teams have new coaches, who are each taking charge of a franchise for the first time. Paul Adams, Cobras coach, is in charge of a team who ended last season fractured after Richard Pybus resigned. Adams said he understands he has a “responsibility to provide an environment in which the players will thrive and keep growing,” and he also wants to ensure trophies end up at Newlands.Lions find themselves in the same position, having last secured silverware five seasons ago. Petersen thinks their development phase is over and that the squad of players they have are ready to blossom. “The guys have matured over the last couple of years,” he said. “We’ve spent time trying to build a team that can win and we think we have got there.”Under Geoffrey Toyana, who Petersen describes as “relaxed”, Lions will look to play a new brand of cricket. “The way we are going to play four-day cricket has probably changed a bit because we’re going to be playing two strike bowlers,” he said.A lack of firepower has been Lions, and at times the competitions’, main problem. That is set to change, especially as it is the place from where South Africa will have to produce players to help them retain their No. 1 Test ranking. Cricket South Africa are pouring resources into giving it a higher-profile, including securing the pay television broadcaster SuperSport to air hourly highlights and post-match interviews.

Sixteen players have started legal proceedings against the organisers of the Cricket All Star T20 Match claiming they have yet to be paid

ESPNcricinfo staff02-Nov-2012Sixteen players have started legal proceedings against the organisers of the Cricket All Star T20 Match which was held in Toronto in May claiming they have yet to be paid. Ontario-based Kat Rose Custom Designs Inc (Kat Rose), which organised the Cricket Canada-approved event, was served notices at the Toronto Small Claims Court on September 27 regarding unpaid match fees and expenses totalling $113,000 approximately.Affected players include Sanath Jayasariya, Saqlain Mushtaq, Kyle Mills, Jacob Oram, Mark Boucher, Devon Smith, Tino Best, Brendan Taylor and Bangladesh allrounder Nasir Hossain, who was supposed to be paid $10,000, ESPNcricinfo has learnt.”We are incredibly disappointed and distressed by the lack of professionalism of the Kat Rose organisation,” Tim May, the chief executive officer of FICA, said. “The players fulfilled their contractual obligations and are now each left out-of-pocket to the tune of several thousand dollars of their own money. How can anyone in good conscience conduct business this way?”It is unacceptable that the players have yet to be compensated and reimbursed for their time and costs.”May said Kat Rose contracted individually with all of the players to secure their attendance and participation in the match, held at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario. Additional events included a gala dinner, a practice, and a fan autograph session. Kat Rose has claimed the absence of some of the cricketers from Pakistan because of last minute visa issues meant the event was financially unsuccessful.

When this series began, there were questions hanging over South Africa’s bowling attack. Few, however, were concerned about their ability to take 20 wickets

Firdose Moonda in Perth29-Nov-2012When this series began, there were questions hanging over South Africa’s bowling attack. Had they missed a trick by not sending an additional paceman with the touring party? Did they lack a bowler who could hold one end up? Few, however, were concerned about their ability to take 20 wickets.It’s what the South African attack has become known for. In seven of their previous ten Tests before this tour, they bowled teams out twice. They won six of those games with the same attack. Their five-men stronghold comprised Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Vernon Philander, Imran Tahir and Jacques Kallis and the variation they offered was thought of as unmatched. Allan Donald called it the strongest attack South Africa had ever fielded.South Africa have not used that combination once on this tour of Australia. Injuries and conditions necessitated changes and the swapping seems to have taken its toll. “That was always going to be a challenge along the way,” Graeme Smith said. “All of us were hoping that it wouldn’t come on one of the toughest Tests away from home.” His biggest concern ahead of the Perth Test is “having the bowlers, the armoury to win a Test.”One way of ensuring the arsenal is sufficient is to throw it all in, and that’s what South Africa are certain to do at the WACA ground. On a pitch that will be seamer-friendly upfront, all four frontline quicks are likely to play, as well as a holding bowler in Robin Peterson, in case the conditions turn out like they did in Brisbane. There too, South Africa bought into the hype about a paceman’s paradise but found themselves in a barren land, with no one to stem the flow of runs.For a while, not having a designated donkey bowler worked for South Africa. Instead of someone in the Paul Harris mould tying up an end, under Gary Kirsten the attack reformed to become one where every bowler was a wicket-taker. When that works, it works well, but when it doesn’t, Brisbane and Adelaide happen.Australia’s scoring-rate in both Tests was high as South Africa searched for wickets but gave away runs instead. “We haven’t been able to string together good performances for long enough. Australia have attacked us at the right times,” Smith said. “We’ve had Australia under pressure and they have countered really well. In every over we’ve bowled a bad ball and when you do that, it doesn’t really allow you to control the game.”Now South Africa need that discipline again, and will look to Peterson to provide it. It does not mean the road for Imran Tahir has closed. He will be looked after by team management so that he can “come back to performing at his best,” according to Smith, but he will have to rebuild his confidence before anything else.However, it isn’t just Tahir who needs to improve. A no-ball problem affected all but Dale Steyn and a lack of imagination seems to have gripped the bowlers. It is as though they had grown accustomed to batsmen not resisting, and when the likes of Michael Clarke and Michael Hussey did, they aren’t quite sure what to do to remove them.What Smith is hoping for is that South Africa will come up with new plans for Perth but that Australia have already given their all and don’t have too many more ideas. “We’re quite confident that Australia have played really well and we haven’t been at our best but we are still here,” he said.But Australia do have something else, even if it has been forced on them by circumstance. They will field a completely new attack after both Peter Siddle and Ben Hilfenhaus were left out of the 12 because they were fatigued after Adelaide and didn’t recover quickly enough. It presents a depth South Africa don’t have and a newness to the line-up that Smith is wary of. “How these guys react to their roles so quickly with so many changes, that might be the interesting thing for them,” he said. “How they can string that together as a unit will be interesting to see.”

Shane Watson is surplus to Australia’s requirements for the Test series against South Africa unless he can prove himself fit enough to bowl

Daniel Brettig14-Nov-2012Shane Watson is an increasingly doubtful starter for the second Test in Adelaide after the team performance manager Pat Howard stated he would be surplus to Australia’s requirements against South Africa unless he can prove himself fit enough to bowl.In the most blunt declaration yet that Watson needs to retain his allrounder status in order to remain an integral part of Australia’s planning, Howard stated that John Inverarity’s selection panel had placed great store in the ability of batsmen to bowl, particularly when faced with a batting line-up as deep as South Africa’s.The selectors are currently discussing the composition of their squad for the Adelaide Test ahead of a likely announcement on Friday, and Watson cannot be expected to be considered unless he proves himself capable of bowling plenty of overs in the second match of the series.Watson is understood to be thinking conservatively about returning to the bowling crease, making the Perth Test or even the Sri Lanka series that follows the South Africa Tests more likely avenues for his international return.”Shane is progressing, if the Test match was tomorrow he wouldn’t be playing, but he’s progressing and I think when the team goes in on Sunday we’ll have a far better indication of where he’s at,” Howard said in Brisbane.”For different series there are different policies, there’s a position the selection panel take. There are times over the past 12 months where he has been considered in both roles and sometimes as a batsman only, but very much at Adelaide they’re looking to his bowling and his fitness around bowling, to see if he’s capable of doing both.”As you saw during the Test match the other day, a fair few bowlers were called on, and Shane’s value to be able to do both is pretty strong. It would go against him significantly [if he can’t bowl].”In seeking to assess Watson’s fitness, Cricket Australia had considered making him available to play for New South Wales in a domestic limited overs match against Victoria at North Sydney Oval on Sunday, but that possibility now appears remote. Instead Watson will need to show his ability to bowl in the nets, before following up with further training spells in Adelaide.”The value and the balance of the team is what the selection panel talk about, it’s the panel’s call on how they come together on this,” Howard said. “They assess all of that, the value of it, I know John Inverarity looks very much at what is our ability to bowl lots and lots of overs.”We were in a pretty unique position the other day when Rob Quiney bowled for us and doesn’t bowl for Victoria, so the ability for people to take up some bowling slack credibly is important. Without making it a Shane Watson conversation, the ability to take overs up was pretty well demonstrated in the first Test.”Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood can again be expected to be part of the team in Adelaide, even if the selectors choose not to change the bowling line-up that looked far more threatening in the second innings of the Brisbane Test than the first. Starc and Hazlewood are currently bowling for NSW against the Bushrangers in a Sheffield Shield fixture at the SCG.”We had a fair few bowlers around the squad in the lead-up to the Test,” Howard said. “Josh Hazlewood was there as well as Mitchell, so we’re very much making sure guys are ingrained in the squad. We did that all last year, so we want that extra bowler around to get involved in the culture, and to make sure they’re ready to do the job required.”

Stunning allround displays from James Faulkner and Evan Gulbis lifted Tasmania to a comprehensive defeat of Western Australia in Burnie

ESPNcricinfo staff01-Dec-2012
Scorecard
Stunning allround displays from James Faulkner and Evan Gulbis lifted Tasmania to a comprehensive defeat of Western Australia in a low-scoring domestic limited overs match in Burnie.Batting first after winning the toss, the Tigers slid quickly to 6 for 51 before Faulkner and Gulbis united for a stand of 114 that helped take the hosts to what proved a more than adequate 8 for 192.WA’s pursuit was in trouble from the moment Gulbis burst through Shaun Marsh’s defences with the tally at 17. Gulbis and Faulkner shared eight wickets between them to reel in a bonus point for Tasmania and consign the Warriors’ new coach Justin Langer to his third consecutive loss since taking the job.

Muttiah Muralitharan ripped through the Adelaide Strikers to send the Melbourne Renegades back to the top of the Big Bash ladder with a crushing 48-run win at Etihad Stadium

The Report by Andrew Fuss02-Jan-2013
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Muttiah Muralitharan and Marlon Samuels took three wickets each•Getty Images

Muttiah Muralitharan ripped through the Adelaide Strikers to send the Melbourne Renegades back to the top of the Big Bash ladder with a crushing 48-run win at Etihad Stadium.Murali was virtually unplayable as he skittled the visitors’ middle order on his way to 3 for 18 off four overs. He clean-bowled the dangerous Nathan Reardon – beating him in flight – before catching Kieron Pollard and Theo Doropolous plumb off front in consecutive deliveries to end any hopes the Strikers had of a middle-order revival.Nathan Rimmington helped build the pressure early for the Renegades removing both openers and going for just seven runs in his first two overs. The visitors never got going after that and only Johan Botha (31 off 31) and Michael Neser (29 not out off 24) offered any real resistance as they crumbled to 107 all out. Marlon Samuels helped clean up the tail to finish with 3 for 16 off three overs.Earlier, Tom Cooper revived the hosts following a sluggish start with a hard-fought 59 off just 46 balls. Cooper combined with Ben Rohrer (35 off 27) for a 46-run partnership in the middle overs to set the hosts up for a late onslaught in which they produced 37 runs from the final three overs.The visitors will be left to rue some poor death bowling as Neser, Putland and Richardson all struggled to bowl to their fields when it mattered most as the Renegades posted a more than competitive total of 155 on a low and slow drop-in deck.Perhaps the highlights of the match came in the field, with Pollard taking a spectacular one-handed catch running back with the flight off his own bowling and Will Sheridan and Aaron O’Brien holding sharp chances inside the circle.The Renegades are now virtually assured of a top four finish while the Strikers are right back in the pack, sitting at fourth for the moment ahead of the Scorchers and the Heat, who have game in hand against the Stars on Thursday night.The result sets up some tantalising fixtures over the final games of the tournament, with the Strikers set to play the Hurricanes and the Scorchers in matches that will shape the top four.

Moises Henriques will make his Test debut in Chennai after beating Glenn Maxwell for the allrounder’s position in Australia’s line-up

Brydon Coverdale20-Feb-2013

Australia team for first Test

David Warner, Ed Cowan, Phillip Hughes, Shane Watson, Michael Clarke (capt), Matthew Wade (wk), Moises Henriques, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, James Pattinson, Nathan Lyon.

Moises Henriques leapfrogged Glenn Maxwell for the allrounder’s position in Australia’s squad for the first Test in Chennai.•Getty Images

Moises Henriques has been given free rein to bat in his natural aggressive style when he becomes Australia’s 432nd Test cricketer on Friday in Chennai. Henriques won the battle for the allrounder’s position for the first Test against India, beating offspinner Glenn Maxwell for the role after impressive performances with both bat and ball during Australia’s two warm-up games over the past eight days.Australia on Wednesday confirmed their XI and whereas India are expected to play as many as three slow bowlers, Australia included only one specialist spinner, Nathan Lyon, alongside a four-man pace group made up of Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, James Pattinson and Henriques. Maxwell will be the 12th man while Xavier Doherty, Mitchell Johnson, Jackson Bird, Usman Khawaja and Steven Smith were also overlooked.Australia’s selectors are hoping Henriques can have the same effect on the dry pitch at the MA Chidambaram Stadium that he did at the Guru Nanak Ground for the tour matches, where he found reverse swing and hit the right lengths better than any of his fellow pace bowlers. Henriques, 26, collected 4 for 12 in the first game, including two of the top four batsmen.Against India A in the second outing he took 1 for 30 and scored 33 from 41 balls including three sixes, an innings that followed the aggressive approach the Australians intend to use against India’s spinners. His efforts impressed the coach Mickey Arthur, who told Henriques of his impending baggy green on Tuesday night, with a message to keep up his attacking method.”I’m a fairly aggressive batsman by nature and Mickey just said if you want to do something out there in the middle just back your strengths,” Henriques said. “If you want to do it, go for it and you won’t be told you’ve done the wrong thing back here in the sheds, as long as it’s your strengths. Play to what you’re good at. If it doesn’t come off, it doesn’t come off, but we want you playing fearless cricket rather than going out and playing the way you haven’t played before.”It’s a good boost of confidence to know you can go out there with your own twist on things. You don’t want to be bogged down for too long against these spinners with those attacking fields, it’s almost an accident waiting to happen. At some stage you do have to try to put the pressure back on the opposition bowlers. I felt like the night before [against India A] they built that pressure up. I think I faced something like 15 dots without scoring. I thought I would try to make a bit of an impression first thing in the morning.”It’s not the first time this summer Henriques has made an impression. Six years after he made his first-class debut as a teenager who had starred as Australia’s captain at the Under-19 World Cup, Henriques finally scored his maiden first-class century, an unbeaten 161 against Tasmania in Sydney in September. By the time he was called into the Test squad for this tour, Henriques had managed 385 runs at an average of 77 and 14 wickets at the average of 18 this Shield season.It was a case of perfect timing, for Shane Watson’s decision to avoid bowling on this tour in an effort to prevent further injuries left the Australians in need of an allrounder to balance the side. Andrew McDonald might have been the first picked had he not been sidelined by a serious hamstring injury, and Mitchell Marsh was also out injured at the time, although he came back strongly with a Ryobi Cup hundred this week.That meant Henriques was the man, and he will have Watson to turn to for advice in the lead-up to his first Test. Like Watson, Henriques has suffered numerous injury setbacks over the course of his career – he tore his side twice last season, had both groin muscles operated on the previous summer, and has also suffered hamstring troubles – but this season he has stayed fit.”There’s been a lot of injuries and in amongst those injuries there has been some inconsistent form as well,” Henriques said. “The one thing you lose first is your match touch and some little one per cent things when you don’t play consistently. Being able to stay on the park for the last six months has really helped my performances and helped some consistency come into my game.”Shane Watson is someone who has gone through some similar sort of injury woes early on in his career, in similar parts of the body. He has had some hamstring problems as I did, and a lot of similar injuries as well. And we’re both a similar sort of weight and size. Someone like that is someone who, I wouldn’t say I’ve modelled myself on, but I have looked up to in terms of rehabilitation, preparation and recovery.”Watson, who will bat at No.4 in Chennai, said he was happy to mentor Henriques, his New South Wales team-mate. Watson said he had been impressed by the length Henriques targeted in the tour matches, and said he could play a big part with the ball throughout the series.”I can certainly help him in a number of different ways,” Watson said. “I can see an amazing amount of similarities between how Mo plays the game and how his career has evolved over the last six or seven years as well. The way he bowls is quite similar to the way I bowl. His length throughout the first tour games was outstanding. He looked as good as any bowler we had, because he knew the length to bowl.”His batting has improved a massive amount and he’s had quite a bit of success this summer. Playing in the last tour match, he certainly has the techinque and game to have success over here. It’s really exciting. It’s great to see a younger guy coming through who has similar traits to how I play and I’m going to help out in any way I can.”Henriques will have to use his team-mates as his support network in preparation for his debut, for his late inclusion meant it was too late for his family to fly over to watch him play. His parents Alvaro and Anabela, both from Portugal, moved to Australia when Portuguese-born Moises was one and a half, and he said his father had embraced the sport.”My dad is all of a sudden a professional on cricket,” he said. “Mum just likes it because I like it. But Dad is always trying to give me advice.”

Australia’s captain Michael Clarke has said that a defensive, time-wasting mindset never entered his thinking as India slowly cruised to a six-wicket victory that won them the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Mohali

Brydon Coverdale18-Mar-2013Australia’s captain Michael Clarke has said that a defensive, time-wasting mindset never entered his thinking as India slowly cruised to a six-wicket victory that won them the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Mohali. After Australia were bowled out in the second session on day five, it left India chasing 133 in a minimum of 27 overs and while Clarke could have employed delaying tactics to ensure Australia did not give India any extra time, his focus was firmly on pushing for victory himself.India’s innings began approximately half an hour before tea, meaning that even if Australia had used only their fast bowlers it would have been a struggle to bowl only the minimum 12 overs before the start of the final hour. Instead, Clarke rotated his bowlers quite normally and got through an extra nine overs, which meant that in the end India had 36 overs to chase their target. They got there in the 34th.A draw would have been nothing but a consolation for Clarke’s men, who needed a victory in order to stay alive in the series and retain any hope of keeping the Border-Gavaskar Trophy following their losses in Chennai and Hyderabad. Although India never looked in serious trouble, they did lose four wickets along the way and Clarke said breakthroughs were not only Australia’s only path to victory but the best way of restricting the runs.”We still believed that we could win the Test,” Clarke said. “We thought there were going to be opportunities to take wickets, knowing that India were going to have to score at a decent pace. In that first hour when we went out and bowled we could have taken as much time as possible, wasted time to slow the scoring and not bowl many overs because I knew once 3.30 came around, we had to bowl 15 overs in the last hour.”But I don’t think that’s the way we play our cricket. We try to win and unfortunately that wasn’t the case. We couldn’t get a draw, so we deal with a loss. But I think our players deserve a lot of credit for the way they tried their best. Our fast bowlers worked their absolute backsides off and we were very close to hanging on for a draw.”It was all about taking wickets. We had to try to win the Test match and even if you defend, the best form of defence is taking wickets. If you want to slow scoring whether it be in T20, one-day cricket or Tests taking wickets is the best way to slow the scoring and that was our goal, with 130 on the board you never know what can happen in this game but I think the boys showed a lot of fight and deserve credit for that.”Australia’s fight with the ball was worthy of credit but the lack of a big hundred from any of their batsmen in either innings was again costly. Australia’s first innings of 408 looked good until India posted 499, and the difference was that Shikhar Dhawan and M Vijay both passed 150 and put on a 289-run stand, while Australia’s innings featured four scores above 70 but none of them turned into triple-figures.Australia kept trying hard for wickets in India’s chase•BCCI

Conceding huge partnerships and failing to build their own have both been ongoing issues for the Australians in this series. In Chennai, MS Dhoni scored a double-century and put on 140 for the ninth wicket with Bhuvneshwar Kumar, which turned the match, and in Hyderabad Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara compiled 370 together. Australia’s highest stand of the series is 151 by Clarke and Moises Henriques in Chennai, and Clarke’s hundred there is Australia’s only one of the trip. India’s batsmen have made six tons.”Credit needs to go to the India batters, that’s for sure, and as a batting unit that’s what we’re trying to do as well,” Clarke said. “We’re making just as many fifties as India but nowhere near as many hundreds. We have to be more disciplined once we get to fifty, to stay nice and patient, swim between the flags I guess and go on and make a big score.”But I think their batters throughout this series have made the most of conditions. Again in their first innings they are making big scores. I think in the last two Test matches we’ve shown if we can break that partnership, we’ve bowled really well. Apart from the first partnership the other nine wickets fell for 210 runs for us, which was a really good sign for us. And it was similar in the second innings. It’s just breaking that big partnership that we need to keep working on.”This was the sixth consecutive Test Australia have lost in India and at 3-0 with one match remaining, the series has been by far the worst under Clarke’s leadership. Australia won 3-0 at home to Sri Lanka this summer after fighting hard against South Africa but losing 1-0, and Clarke said the team would need to find ways of handling foreign conditions and not just being a threat at home.”I think it’s probably a very fair indication of where both teams are at,” Clarke said of the 3-0 scoreline. “I don’t want to talk for India. But for the Australian team it’s probably a fair indication. We’re playing some really good, consistent cricket at home back in Australia, in conditions we’re very used to, very accustomed to, but we’re not performing as well as we’d like when we go overseas in conditions we’re not used to.”That’s an area we’ve spoken about as a group for a while now, over the past 12 months. We continue to work hard on that. As disappointing as it is that we can’t level the series now that we’re 3-0 down, I think the players individually and the team have learnt a lot over the first three Test matches. We’d love to go home with a win in this last Test in Delhi.”

The fast bowler Jackson Bird will not rejoin Australia’s squad in India after scans in Melbourne confirmed he has a bone stress injury in his back

Brydon Coverdale27-Feb-2013The fast bowler Jackson Bird will not rejoin Australia’s squad in India after scans in Melbourne confirmed he has a bone stress injury in his back. Bird is likely to be out of action for up to two months, which is a worrying development for Australia in an Ashes year, given how well Bird’s accurate seam-bowling style could translate to English conditions.Bird took 0 for 10 from 10 overs in the warm-up match against the Indian Board President’s XI two weeks ago but was not picked for the first Test in Chennai. He flew home after the Test to have his back injury assessed and Australia’s team doctor Peter Brukner said the results had shown a problem with his lower back.”Initial tests performed in Melbourne have confirmed that Jackson Bird has a bone stress injury of the low back,” Brukner said. “He will undergo further tests tomorrow [Thursday]. He will not be re-joining the team in India.”The loss of Bird leaves Australia with a 16-man squad ahead of the second Test, which starts in Hyderabad on Saturday. At this stage, the selectors have not decided on whether to send a replacement player to join the group, leaving Mitchell Johnson as the only extra fast bowler in the group besides those who played in the first Test.