Harbhajan Singh, the Indian offspinner, has taken credit for triggering Matthew Hayden’s batting slump while maintaining that the cricketing world has missed Hayden’s attacking batting this season. Hayden, who was dropped for the first final of the VB Series, has averaged 14.28 in his last seven one-dayers and only 10.5 in the VB Series.”I am disappointed because I love watching him against other teams,” Harbhajan told . “We had very good plans against him, about where to place our fielders and how to bowl to him and we were successful, but I do miss watching him bat now.”Hayden, who was expected to dominate the series like he had in 2001 with a staggering average of 109.8, managed just 244 runs at an average of 30.5 in the four Tests. Harbhajan dismissed him three times in the series, including luring him into the sweep-trap in the first Test at Bangalore. “He is a stroke-player, and we tried to take away his boundary shots. I bowled to him a lot of the time. We all learned our lesson from his last tour here. But now I am disappointed because he is one of the best batsmen I have ever bowled to, and you love watching someone like that in good form – when it’s not against you.”Harbhajan also felt that other teams had taken India’s cue and learnt to tackle Hayden effectively. “Maybe those teams watched us and have their own plans against him now,” Harbhajan continued. “Now maybe everyone knows where to bowl to him. But at the end of the day, he is a great player and I hope he comes out of this stronger. I would like to watch him score over 350 again in a Test – just not against us.”

Mudassar Nazar has arrived back in Kenya and is set to resume his coaching duties despite reports that he was about to turn his back on the country.Mudassar was the Kenya Cricket Association coach, but given the deep-rooted problems blighting the board, it was thought that he would not return from a break in Pakistan, and he had been linked with a vacancy at Pakistan’sa academy in Lahore.But Mudassar reportedly resumed his coaching duties at the Aga Khan Sports Centre earlier in the week, with Alfred Boi Njuguna, the man named as Cricket Kenya’s coach, working as his assistant.The pair have less than three weeks to get the side ready for the ICC Intercontinental Cup match against Uganda on April 22 to 24 at Kampala.At least they will have a full side to pick from. At the weekend the striking players said they were willing to play again following an agreement by the KCA to hold elections in May.

Scorecard
Khuram Khan and Syed Maqsood took just eight overs to knock off the 41 runs needed as UAE completed a comprehensive seven-wicket win over Hong Kong in the Intercontinental Cup at Sharjah. Resuming at 144 for 3, UAE reached the target without the loss of further wickets with both Khuram and Maqsood managing half-centuries.Khuram, who had made a crucial 56 in the first innings, carried on his fine form with a breezy 55, which contained seven fours and a six. Maqsood was more patient during his 51 but managed to strike six fours and a six.Both teams had fallen for 127 in their first innings before Hong Kong appeared to be seizing the initiative on the second day. But Ali Asad, who ended with four wickets, and Khuram Khan triggered a collapse and Hong Kong mustered only 184, a target that UAE easily surpassed.

Division One

Sussex and Nottinghamshire squeezed in just seven overs on a heavily rain-affected second day at Arundel, but it was enough time for Chris Harris to dismiss Robin Martin-Jenkins. Jenkins added 12 to his overnight score of 25. Sussex ended the day on 274 for6.Harbhajan Singh ripped through the Hampshire middle-order, taking 6 for 36 as Surrey grabbed thesecond-day honours at The Rose Bowl. Surrey added 35to their overnight score to finish on 361 all out.Dominic Thornely was eventually dismissed for 73, thefourth of Chris Tremlett’s victims. Tremlett returnedfigures of 4 for 106. Harbhajan also chipped in withthe bat, posting a useful 25 before he was bowled bySean Ervine. Then came the bowling onslaught. MartinBicknell struck first, removing Jimmy Adams. MichaelBrown was the next to fall, to Mohammad Akram. ButHarhbajan did the bulk of the damage. And Hampshirewere in dire straits at 146 for 8 by the close.Daniel Cherry struck a sweet double century – thefirst of his career – as Glamorgan strode to animposing 584 for 3 declared. There were centuries toofor David Hemp (103) and Jonathan Hughes, who wasunbeaten on 134. Hughes shared an impressivepartnership of 239 for the third wicket as Glamorgansteered themselves into a very solid position. BenHutton turned to nine bowlers in all in a bid to gainbreakthroughs, but wickets were few and far between.And he failed to cash in on a belter of a pitch,making 16 before falling to Dean Cosker. Middlesexended the day at 96 for 1, with Ed Smith unbeaten on57, but the home side still have much work to do atSouthgate.Kent wrested control at Edgbaston through Robert Key(75) and Martin van Jaarsveld (62). At the end of theday Kent were 270 for 3, a lead of 18 with sevenwickets in hand.

Division Two

Dale Benkenstein and Phil Mustard each struck 80 asDurham added 200 to their overnight score to reach334. Johannes Wright was Northamptonshire’s mostsuccessful bowler, with 4 for 71. Northants’ reply gotoff to a steady start, with Martin Love and BilalShafayat sharing an opening stand of 54. But RobertWhite fell just before the close to leave Northants on98 for 2 and the match in the balance.Lancashire will feel the happier of the two sides,just, as they ended the second day against Derbyshirewith a lead of 51 and one wicket remaining. DominicCork chipped out the last two wickets for Derbyshireearly, to end with 4 for 40. Lancashire’s reply gotoff to a bad start, as they lost Mark Chilton and MalLoye with the score just 12. They were going along nicely, but a further threewickets fell for just eight runs to leave them in somedisarray at 128 for 6. Cork again came to the rescueand was unbeaten on 63 by the close, with some stronglower-order support from Muttiah Muralitharan (24 notout).Zander de Bruyn struck an unbeaten half-century asWorcestershire shaded the day at Grace Road. NadeemMalik took 5 for 71 as Leicestershire wickets fellsteadily – they ended on 225. In reply, Worcestershirewere in some difficulty at 27 for 2 – with SimonDavies and Graeme Hick back in the pavilion courtesyof Ottis Gibson, but Ben Smith (45), Stephen Moore(41) and de Bruyn all batted well to add stability.

Children are taught to walk before they run, but it’s a lesson Australia’s cricketers quickly forgot. A couple of extra runs were always more important than truth when it came to taking the thick edge with the thin.Until Adam Gilchrist, the country’s most famous walker was Jane Saville, an athlete disqualified at the Sydney Olympics within a Brett Lee run-up of a gold medal. There will now be more uproar after Gilchrist took the decision into his own index finger for the second time in two Tests. Jason Gillespie also joined his stand-in captain, Michael Kasprowicz volunteered himself at 8 for 228, and then Yuvraj Singh burst off without a glimpse towards the umpire. Australia’s delicate tummies expect 24-hour bugs in India, but this dead-man walking is becoming an epidemic.English gentlemen will insist it’s always been the right thing to do, but uncouth Australian club cricketers will sit in their pubs yelling them down. The international game has become breathlessly entertaining but ethically unconscious. Helped by the television cameras, Steve Waugh recognised the problem, started the repairs by instilling a good-behaviour bond with his team and downscaled the sledging. Gilchrist is continuing the crusade. He started the charity walk in the World Cup semi-final against Sri Lanka in 2003 and brought the same boots to India.For Gilchrist it is clearly not a fad. Anil Kumble was the beneficiary both times today, and he didn’t look half as confused as the poor umpire David Shepherd when Kasprowicz, a genuinely honest man, drifted off to the dressing-room despite a “not out”. Shepherd is getting close to the pension, but he’s got a few sound judgments left and was still shaking his head – in disbelief rather than decision – as Kasprowicz neared the boundary. He was not the only one asking ethical and trivial questions.Would they walk if the first series win in India since 1969-70 rested on it? Imagine the text messages from Waugh, Ricky Ponting and Ian Chappell then.Is it disrespectful to ignore the umpire in the same way a bowler does when running down the pitch appealing to the wicketkeeper? Will a batsman be allowed to stay if he swears he didn’t touch it? And could a walking coach one day sit next to the team’s physio and security officer?Honesty has a place in the game, and it should be applauded. Nobody thought it possible to score consistently at four runs an over, win 16 Tests in a row or have a wicketkeeper belting 11 centuries either. Gilchrist has helped bring many fine habits to the game. This one might take the longest to get used to.Peter English is Australasian editor of Wisden Cricinfo.

South Australia have contracted four rookies for the 2005-06 domestic season.In addition to their prize recruit, Matthew Elliott, who has transferred from Victoria, the Redbacks have signed Tom Plant, Ken Skewes, Gary Putland and Shannon Hurn on rookie deals for next season. Four players who were contracted last season – Chris Duval, Jack Smith, Shannon Tubb and Luke Williams – weren’t offered new deals.SA have signed 25 players, including the Cricket Australia-contracted trio of Jason Gillespie, Shaun Tait and Daniel Cullen.Contracted players
Darren Lehmann (capt), Graham Manou (v-c), Jason Gillespie, Shaun Tait, Daniel Cullen, Greg Blewett, Matthew Elliott, Nathan Adcock, Cullen Bailey, Cameron Borgas, Ben Cameron, Mark Cleary, Mark Cosgrove, Shane Dietz, Callum Ferguson, Daniel Harris, Ryan Harris, Mark Higgs, Paul Rofe, Matthew Weeks, Trent Kelly, Tom Plant (rookie), Gary Putland (rookie), Shannon Hurn (rookie), Ken Skewes (rookie).

All those who have classified Virender Sehwag as an exciting one-day strokeplayer who does nothave the temperament for the longer game had better think again. Sehwag showed today, as hehas in the past in Tests at Bloemfontein, Trent Bridge and Mumbai, that playing strokes andbeing judicious are not contradictory qualities. He played with the discretion of a quintessential Test player today, while hitting everything that was hittable.His 128 came off 212 balls at a strike-rate of 60% – not quite as belligerent as his one-dayperformances, but pretty much the rate the dominating Australians play at most of the time.Consider where his runs came. Sehwag is normally a fluent strokeplayer in the point region andjust behind – while he gets a lot of his runs there, he had also got out on occasion slashingto gully. Stephen Fleming played to this tendency of his: in the first Test, Fleming sometimeshad three gullies and a third man for Sehwag, and he followed a similar policy this time.Sehwag’s response: to eschew all shots in that region. Only three of Sehwag’s 128 runscame in the point region – so much for all of Fleming’s gullies. This is an astonishingstatistic that indicates the thought that Sehwag has put into the game, and his capacity forself-denial – an essential characteristic in any Test player.

As many as 53 of Sehwag’s runs came in the cover region, 23 came in the midwicket region and32 in the V between mid-on and mid-off. The 22 full-length deliveries bowled to him went for37 runs and the 18 short balls he received went for 17 – Sehwag, with his superb range ofshots, took full toll of the loose balls he received. Fleming might have plugged the pointregion – but what about the rest of the field.

John Buchanan, the Australia coach, has no qualms about seeing his side’s ageing attack involved in back-to-back Tests against England. Australia are 1-0 up after Lord’s, but there is just a two-day gap scheduled between the second Test, which starts at Edgbaston on Thursday, and the third Test at Old Trafford.Before this Ashes campaign got underway Matthew Hoggard, the England seamer, questioned whether the 35-year-olds Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne could stand up to the rigours of back-to-back games. The pair took 15 wickets between them at Lord’s, a match where McGrath joined Warne as one of only four bowlers with 500 Test wickets.McGrath’s long-time new-ball partner Jason Gillespie is also the “wrong” side of 30, as is Michael Kasprowicz, his rival for a Test place, while Brett Lee is 28. By contrast the left-arm spinner Ashley Giles is the only frontline England bowler over 30.”These next 14 days are pretty crucial to the whole tour,” Buchanan said. “One of the aspects of playing back-to-back Test matches is the fitness and mental toughness of individuals in both teams. It’s a pretty big issue. The weather will dictate that a bit. There’s no doubt that a team that is fit and mentally strong will have some advantage by the end of these two games.”Everybody will be tested if that’s the case, particularly bowlers. But one of the strengths of our side has been we are able to front up game after game. I don’t see at this point in time it being any different. If you’re in a winning frame of mind, a confident frame of mind or you are playing well, that confidence aids your physical recovery and therefore also your mental strength.”If England play as well as they can play, potentially I see a little bit of a rollercoaster ride. But if we play the way we know we can play over this period of time, and there are good signs that we will, then I would expect to come out certainly in front by the end of this 14-day period.”Buchanan refused to be drawn too deeply into commenting on the media storm surrounding Giles. The spinner hit back at his critics on Monday with a bizarre newspaper column where he demanded “more respect”. “I’m not here to tell England how to cook their eggs,” Buchanan said. “I don’t know Ashley Giles and obviously there’s been a lot of talk about him and from him in the lead-up to this Test match. We look at the way England unfold their strategy and he’s one part of that.”

Scorecard
Tasmania survived a late onslaught from the tailender Shane Harwood to remain unbeaten in the ING Cup with a 43-run victory over Victoria at Bellerive Oval today. Harwood, batting at No. 10, hit an unbeaten 50 off 31 balls, and put on 75 for the ninth wicket with Andrew McDonald.Sent into bat, the Tasmania openers Michael DiVenuto, who was Man of the Match, and Michael Dighton put on 160 off 152 balls while the push towards 300 was continued by Michael Bevan. Xavier Doherty, the left-arm orthodox spinner, then inflicted the damage for Tasmania in collecting 4 for 41, including the important wicket of Cameron White for 31. Brad Hodge, who returned from the India tour with White to play in the match, managed 51 off 56 balls before being caught by George Bailey off Brett Geeves.White, the Victoria captain, wrote off the result as “a bad day”. “Hopefully it’s just a one-off thing and we’ll be right,” he said.

Michael Vaughan has dismissed suggestions Australia have gained a psychological advantage having staved off defeat at Old Trafford. Only a tenth-wicket stand lasting four overs between Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath kept the series at 1-1 at Manchester on Monday.”We’ve been talking about psychological advantages and disadvantages throughout the whole summer,” Vaughan said. “We will arrive at Trent Bridge next week fully focused and hoping to go 2-1 up. What we do know is we can take a lot out of this last game because we dominated four days of Test cricket against the number one team in the world.”However, Shane Warne told the England missed a big chance at Old Trafford and would have been disappointed not to be beat Australia in the final over. “They’ll be thinking, ‘should we have declared earlier?’,” he said. “Ashley Giles won’t be happy with his performance getting 0 for 90-odd on a spinner’s paradise on the last day of a Test to win a game. There’s a few individuals that aren’t performing.”Vaughan said the team had bounced back and shown a lot of character since Lord’s. “It can be hard to produce two performances on the trot of such high-intensity and high-pressure cricket but we have,” he said. “I really do hope the two final games are as good as the last two because the series deserves that.”Since inheriting the Test captaincy from Steve Waugh 18 months ago, Ricky Ponting has not faced anything like the extended challenge of the past fortnight. “There are only two Tests to go so we better start getting things happening pretty quickly,” he said. “I don’t think there will be any personnel changes as far as the batting goes because all the guys are in good form and we have just made errors in judgment at times.”