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Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsJonathan Carter and Ryan Hinds stitched together their second successive match-winning partnership to help Barbados book their place in the semi-finals with a 54-run win against Grenada in Coolidge. The pair added 105 for the third wicket to take Barbados to 152 before the spinners sent Grenada crashing to 98.Barbados lost their openers early after being put into bat and the decision to promote Hinds to No. 3 and Carter to No. 4, after their previous match against Dominica, worked as the pair batted sensibly to lead the recovery. Carter was the more aggressive of the two, hitting four fours and four sixes in his knock, including one over midwicket off Rawl Lewis to bring up the fifty partnership. He was eventually dismissed for 61, caught at long-on off Ronald Ettienne. Hinds stood firm till the end with an unbeaten 45 off 48 balls and watched as Alcino Holder added some late fireworks with a 10-ball 22 to take the score past 150.Barbados’ left-arm spinning pair of Derrick Bishop and Sulieman Benn then inflicted a top-order wobble, reducing Grenada to 27 for 5, a position from which they never recovered. Benn finished with economical figures of 2 for 4 from four overs while Bishop finished with 3 for 19. The highest stand was 29 for the eighth wicket between Camilus Alexander and Dennis George but it wasn’t enough as Grenada failed to keep pace with the asking rate.Speaking after the match, Lewis, the Grenada captain, said: “We made too many mistakes in the field. They probably made about 30 or 35 runs too much, but saying that I think 150 was good. “We needed a good start and we did not get that, the wickets just kept falling, thus making it hard for you to play your normal game.”

Best and worst
Sourav Ganguly was asked about Brad Hogg’s bowling during the Sydney Test and said “he’s not the worst”. By then he was already on top of Hogg’s dismissal list, and today he fell to the wrist-spinner for the fifth time in his career and the fourth occasion in the series. Hogg, who is playing his sixth Test, has struggled to remove any other Indian, but has Ganguly’s measure.More slip-ups
Australia’s slip catching woes were supposed to be fixed by the return of Matthew Hayden at first slip. Things looked good when Hayden accepted a comfortable take off Virender Sehwag, but late in the day he spilled one that went straight to him from Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s edge. Dhoni was 3 and survived until stumps.Rauf justice
Umpires can’t escape the extra scrutiny since Sydney and Asad Rauf had a troubled start to the Test. Two lbws should have gone the Australians’ way – Mitchell Johnson’s shouts to Rahul Dravid on 3 and Sehwag on 53 were adjacent – but they were not complaining when Hogg picked up Ganguly. Although the ball was spinning away from off stump when it hit Ganguly, Rauf was convinced and added it to his growing list of errors. Fortunately there was not much for him to judge over the final third of the day.Tweak at the top
India’s decision to play five bowlers and leave out Wasim Jaffer meant another change at the top. Dravid had filled the breach in the opening two games but it was Irfan Pathan who walked out here. It was only the third occasion he had opened in a Test, but he seemed comfortable, pushing his first ball for four through square leg. He was beaten a few times, especially against Johnson, and fell nicking to one that moved slightly away.Three in three
It took him 18 balls to get off the mark but Sachin Tendulkar quickly made up for lost time. He announced himself with a glorious front-foot drive off Brett Lee before smashing three consecutive fours off Johnson: the first was drilled to the mid-off fence, the next sliced past gully and the third, the icing on the cake, bulleted through cover. Suddenly he was 16 and motoring towards his 39th century.Perfect set-up, clumsy drop
Lee should have had VVS Laxman on 37, especially given the way he set it all up. Returning for his third spell, he was lashed for four behind gully before slipping in an inswinger that had Laxman pushing and thundering a quick outswinger that produced the edge. Fired in at 145kph, it flew to Adam Gilchrist’s right, but he was too late to take off and could only parry the ball in front of the slips.

Stuart MacGill has been buoyed by the message from Australia’s selectors that his career is not over if he misses the series against India. MacGill, who will have surgery on his right hand on Thursday, will be out for up to six weeks due to carpal tunnel syndrome and is looking to return for Australia’s tours to Pakistan and the West Indies.For two weeks MacGill has endured speculation over his future and he has held on to the thoughts of Andrew Hilditch, the chairman of selectors, who spoke to him before the Sri Lanka series when he was struggling to recover from a second knee operation. “Andrew Hilditch said to me: ‘If you don’t come up for the first Test I want you to know it’s not the end. We want you around for the next couple of years.’ That’s pretty important to me, really,” MacGill said in the .MacGill bowled badly in the second Test against Sri Lanka – he experienced severe numbness in his arm – but he does not want to retire. “At the moment my focus is on the tours,” he told the paper. “I don’t want to finish like this. I know that I can bowl well. Mentally I’m in a good spot. Unfortunately my body is not quite where it should be.”The absence of MacGill creates an opening for Brad Hogg, who has not played a Test since 2003. Hogg is the most likely contender for the spot in the Boxing Day Test, although talk remains of playing four fast bowlers in an attempt to unsettle the Indian batsmen.Hogg has performed strongly in one-day internationals and on the domestic circuit but is trying not to worry about a potential promotion. “I feel like I’m bowling the best I’ve ever bowled, but it’s just one of those things – if you get the nod you get the nod,” Hogg told . “If I think about [Test selection] I’m going to go downhill, so basically I can only keep doing what I’m doing and not worry about it.”Both slow bowlers, who are 36, were picked in the squad for the first Test against Sri Lanka, but Hogg was let go two days before the match began. The pair is set to jostle for a place if MacGill can recover from the operation.”I might miss out on playing India now, but I’ve got the chance of playing Test matches in India [later next year], which is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” MacGill said. “There is lots of cricket in front of me.” While the Australian medical staff said MacGill was out of the first two Tests against India, it is expected he will miss the entire series and come back for New South Wales in late January.MacGill has been waking up with numb hands, but was surprised when the condition continued into the day in Hobart. During the Test he bowled a series of full-tosses because he was struggling with his grip.”It was like the ends of my fingers were dead,” he said. “It was like you had to prick your fingers to see if they were still there.”

Chris Gayle, the West Indies captain, is optimistic that his hamstring injury will heal in time ahead of the first Test against South Africa starting December 26.”It’s improved a lot the last couple of days,” Gayle said. “The physio has been doing a terrific job and hopefully it improve over the next couple of days. I’ve been feeling pretty good, batting in the nets, but there’s still uncertainty. We’ll assess it finally on match day. It’s coming on pretty good.”Gayle, who was named captain in Ramnaresh Sarwan’s absence, will be replaced by Dwayne Bravo if he misses out. Bravo, who, like Gayle, has never captained West Indies in a Test match, has an unbeaten record in ODIs – leading them to victory in his first three ODIs in charge against Zimbabwe.West Indies’ main area of concern is their batting, after they lost a warm-up game against South Africa A in East London inside three days. “We have to put that behind us and try and get into the right frame of mind ahead of a very important game,” Gayle said.”We know where went wrong and we know there’s a lot of work to do. We know what we’re capable of. We just have to play basic cricket and get the job done, and if we get a start, we have to capitalise on it. You can’t allow the South Africans in, because once they get an opportunity then definitely we’re going to be up against it.”John Dyson, the West Indies coach, also remained positive. “I’ve been very impressed with the professionalism and enthusiasm the players have shown in the nets,” he said. “If we can take that forward to the middle we’ll be very competitive.”Meanwhile, Graeme Smith, the South Africa captain, said that he had fully recovered from a virus that ruled him out of the recent ODI series against New Zealand. “I started training about a week ago and I am feeling energised again.”South Africa go into the match at St George’s Park as strong favourites on the back of consistent performances in their recent matches. They have won three out of their four Tests this season – one against Pakistan and a brace against New Zealand, and have the likes of Dale Steyn, the right-arm fast bowler who took 20 wickets in the series against New Zealand, as well as Jacques Kallis, one of only two batsmen to score 1000 runs this calendar year, in their ranks.

The three nominees appointed by the government of Delhi last year to look into Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA) matters have proposed a selection committee to end the controversy around three different squads named by Delhi officials, and have also proposed and approved Ajay Jadeja’s name as the coach of the Ranji Trophy team for 2015-16.In the last week Delhi cricket has been mired in controversy, with nobody to oversee the preliminary nets at Feroz Shah Kotla and nobody sure of who is to run the team. Virender Sehwag has already left Delhi for Haryana. Kotla has already given up South Africa’s practice Twenty20 match it was scheduled to host because it won’t be ready in time.In a letter sent to the DDCA executive board, the government nominees have asked all parties concerned to get around their problems and approve the selection committee named by them, which includes former India cricketer Rahul Sanghvi. If the committee is approved by the board, Vinay Lamba and Hari Gidwani will join Sanghvi on the committee. Sunil Dev will be the convenor with no voting powers, and the captain and the coach will be invitees to selection meetings.Captaincy has been a thorny issue with different factions in the DDCA preferring Unmukt Chand and Gautam Gambhir. While Chand is away playing for India A against Bangladesh A in Bangalore, Gambhir has attended only one of the first three days of preliminary nets.The first list, issued by DDCA vice-president Chetan Chauhan, included 45 players. The next list, released by Anil Jain, joint secretary (sports), named 53 players, included the 45 originally named. A third list, this one named by Ashok Sharma, a DDCA director, added three more names. One of the lists named Chand as captain, the other two didn’t have a captain. Two lists nominated Madan Lal as chief mentor, the third had Surinder Khanna.The first three days of the nets have been a shambles according to reports, with no one to co-ordinate what goes on. The pitches were wet, and it was said even basic facilities were missing. There weren’t enough cricket balls, the reported. Former Delhi medium-pacer Amit Bhandari, assistant coach last year, attended the camp on day two on DDCA’s request, but he too stayed away on the third day. Gambhir, being the senior-most member in the squad, and almost forced to supervise the nets on day one, has stayed away since.Chauhan has said Jadeja’s appointment is more or less final, but there is resistance to his nomination in certain quarters.

The heavy rain which left the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo awash on Thursday continued throughout this morning and put pay to the second ODI between Sri Lanka and England, which was called off at 6.05pm local time without a ball being bowled.The umpires made three inspections throughout the day, but play never looked likely due to the sodden outfield and boggy wicket. Even though the rain stayed away in the afternoon, Daryl Hair described the pitch as “not up to scratch” and after consulting both captains, called the game off.Marvan Atapattu was the happier of the two captains, as it now means Sri Lanka can’t lose the three-match series. Michael Vaughan, on the other hand, expressed his frustration, but insisted England would be well prepared for the final match on Sunday – assuming it’s not washed out.”It would have been wrong to have played in these conditions, and they weren’t going to improve,” Vaughan said. “It’s like a bog out there, the covering obviously hasn’t worked, but I just hope the rain stays off and we can get a game on Sunday.”It’s very frustrating, but you can only control what’s put in front of you. We’ll practise tomorrow and make sure we’re fully prepared for the last game.” However, those who have experienced the late monsoon before warn that Sunday’s game is also under threat.

Foot in mouth:
The decision after winning the toss on a flat pitch during a Twenty20 match should be a no-brainer: bat first and put the opposition under pressure during the chase. Even a cheerleader said she would bat first when Robin Jackman asked her the question moments before the toss. However, Harbhajan Singh decided to field, his rationale being that his team preferred to chase given that they fell narrowly short of the target against the Chennai Super Kings. As it turned out, the Mumbai Indians were restricted to 116 for 9 in 20 overs, the 66-run margin being the second largest of the tournament in terms of runs.Smack, smack:
Watching the Kings XI Punjab opener Karan Goel and Kumar Sangakkara batting together presented a sharp contrast: Sangakkara was reeling powerful drives off his bat while Goel struggled to find his timing. He even got hit flush on the helmet by a shirt ball from Dwayne Bravo that was far too quick for him and discovered that he had a bleeding lip. When he was ready to bat again, Bravo ran in and dished out another bouncer but this time Goel was ready. He used the width outside off stump to get under the ball and upper cut it high and far over the third-man boundary, drawing applause from Sangakkara at the other end.Pure intensity:
Time was running out for Brett Lee to make a lasting impact in this season’s IPL for he, along with the other Australians in the Test squad, will head home soon for a training camp ahead of their tour of West Indies. His first delivery to Sanath Jayasuriya – a searing yorker at close to 150 kmh – signaled the start of something special. Sure enough, he exhibited sublime reflexes when he slid low to his left to take a sharp caught and bowled catch off Jayasuriya and then showed off his fitness by swooping on the ball, and diving during the release to hit the stumps direct to run out Luke Ronchi at the striker’s end.Chawla turns the corner:
The first two matches in the IPL were a torrid examination for Piyush Chawla. He went for 19 off one over against Chennai Super Kings and 27 off two overs against Rajasthan Royals. He came on to bowl against Mumbai Indians when Bravo and Robin Uthappa were in the middle of a brisk partnership. He immediately caused problems, mixing up googlies with orthodox legbreaks and also varied his pace. The pressure built up to a crescendo when he bowled three consecutive dot balls to Bravo in the ninth over. With the required run-rate escalating, Bravo tried a rash hoick across the line to the fourth ball and lost middle stump. Chawla finished with fantastic figures of 2 for 16 off four overs.

Close Australia 400 for 5 (Ponting 176*, Katich 75, Langer 58) v India
Scorecard

A scintillating unbeaten 176 by Ricky Ponting was the outstanding performance of the day as Australia made full use of winning the toss at the Adelaide Oval. At close of play on the opening day, they had raced to 400 for 5 – the highest total in a day at this venue, beating Australia’s 387 on the second day against West Indies in 1968-69 – with useful contributions from Justin Langer (58) and Simon Katich (75).Apart from Matthew Hayden, all the Australian batsmen got starts, but Ponting capitalised on it, racing to his hundred off just 117 balls. He slowed down noticeably after reaching 150, despite which Australia finished the day with a run-rate of nearly four-and-a-half an over. All the Indian bowlers toiled – rather unsuccessfully – to beat the daunting combination of a flat pitch, a fast outfield with short square boundaries, and an awesome opposition batting line-up.Coming in at the fall of an early wicket, Ponting started off with an all-run four down the ground, before peppering the square boundaries on the off side with some sumptuous drives off either foot. He had a couple of reprieves early in his innings: on 12, a close lbw shout off Ajit Agarkar was turned down, while Virender Sehwag dropped a head-high chance at third slip off Irfan Pathan when Ponting had added just six. Once past those early jitters, though, Ponting didn’t give the Indians much respite.The tone for the day was set early when both the Australian openers drove through the line of the ball, trusting the even bounce and the lack of movement off the pitch. Sourav Ganguly packed the off side, and his bowlers largely stuck to an off-stump line, but the batsmen still threaded the gaps – in fact, every single one of the 16 fours Ponting struck in his first 100 runs were on the off side. Ganguly didn’t help the Indian cause by keeping the third-man region vacant for most of the day.These were ideal conditions for Hayden’s plonk-the-front-foot-and-drive-through-the-line style of batting, but Pathan – making his debut after Zaheer Khan missed out due to a strained hamstring – nailed him with one in the corridor which shaped away and kissed the edge of the bat (22 for 1).The dream start for Pathan and India soon went sour as Ponting and Langer went about their merry ways, cashing in on all the bad balls and sometimes putting away the good ones as well. Anil Kumble was soon pressed into service, but that only inspired Langer to go into overdrive – in one over he smote Kumble for two sixes and two fours. Kumble struck back in his next over, though, when Langer miscued a sweep to Sehwag at midwicket (135 for 2).That dismissal, which came at the stroke of lunch, was some respite for the Indians, but it only meant that one effective run-scorer was replaced by another, more graceful one. Martyn was in fantastic touch from ball one, stroking some gorgeous drives through the covers off Agarkar and Pathan, who, after an impressive first spell, fell away, struggling to find the movement he had obtained with the new ball. A big score was there for the taking, when Martyn (30) threw it away, steering a wide one from Nehra – the first ball of a new spell – to VVS Laxman at second slip (200 for 3).Steve Waugh smote a few through the off side in his 30, but was sorted out by a clever piece of bowling by Nehra. Bowling from round the wicket, he dug a few in short, then slipped in a full-length ball on middle. Waugh, weight on the back foot and probably expecting another short one, played all over the ball as it crashed into his stumps (252 for 4).A feature of this innings was the partnerships that the Australians put together for every wicket, and Simon Katich now joined Ponting to add the biggest one for the day. Katich first dug in, then showed that he could play a few strokes too, the most emphatic of them being a pulled six off Nehra, who came in armed with the second new ball. Galvanised by that shot, Katich raced along, even as Ponting quietened down and seemed to set his sights on his double-century.The 138-run partnership was finally broken off the penultimate over of the day, when Katich top-edged a pull and was caught spectacularly by Sehwag, diving full length and coming up with the ball in both hands (390 for 5). In walked Adam Gilchrist, and promptly dispatched the second ball he faced to the cover fence, and then pulled Kumble for another boundary before bringing up the 400 with the last ball of the day. In four Tests at the Adelaide Oval, Gilchrist has scored a mere 145 runs at 24.16. Time to set the record straight?

Close India 329 for 4 (Sehwag 195) v Australia
Scorecard

A scintillating 195 from Virender Sehwag propelled India to a position of strength on a riveting first day’s play at the MCG. India posted 329 for 4, though once again without any contribution from Sachin Tendulkar, whose horror run with the bat continued. Sehwag dominated the first two sessions and much of the third, putting on 141 for the first wicket with Akash Chopra and 137 for the second with Rahul Dravid, but Australia fought back strongly in the last session, taking three wickets for 33 to check India’s progress.Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman weathered a hostile spell from Brett Lee at the end of the day’s play with the second new ball, and Australia could have actually had a fifth wicket when Ganguly spooned a catch back at Lee, only for the bowler to put it down. India would be satisfied with their position at stumps, and delighted with Sehwag’s majestic effort, a contribution that went beyond anybody’s expectations.Sehwag’s innings was one utterly characteristic of him, but on a scale much larger than anything seen from him in international cricket thus far. It included, on the credit side, 25 fours and five bludgeoned sixes, and on the debit side, two hits on the helmet, a reprieve off a run-out chance in the fifth over of the day, and further escapes just before lunch when the third umpire gave him not out off a close line decision, and just after the break when Simon Katich at point put down a chance off Nathan Bracken.Sehwag made the best of his good fortune, and batted with greater patience and discipline than he had previously in the series. His batting early in the morning was watchful, and marked by a number of excellent leaves against Bracken, his tormentor of the last few months. He played the quick bowlers almost exclusively off the back foot, cutting past point or over the heads of the slips, and driving down the ground when the ball was pitched up to him. The pick of his shots was a soaring six off Stuart MacGill’s second ball of the day, played inside-out over extra cover with a free and easy swing of the bat.His fifty came right on the stroke of lunch, with a flashing cut off Lee, and by the time he brought up his hundred, powering Brad Williams through midwicket, he had hit 16 fours and a six. After getting to the landmark, he upped the tempo without doing anything excessive – by his standards – hitting another six off MacGill and clubbing Steve Waugh into the stands in the last over before tea.The Indian batsmen followed the basic rule of giving the first hour of the day to the bowlers and then imposing themselves on the opposition. They made less than 30 runs in a testing first hour after Ganguly had won the toss and elected to bat, but they were 89 for no loss by lunch, and added another 130 runs in the post-lunch session, as Sehwag ran amok against some increasingly ragged bowling. Even though they lost three wickets in the last session, they added another 110 to the score. Sehwag made more than half the runs scored in each of these sessions.The only wicket to fall in the first two sessions was that of Chopra, popping a catch off bat and pad to Katich off MacGill when just three short of a well-deserved fifty. A sentry at the gates of a city under siege could not have been more watchful than Chopra, who took the sting out of the Australian attack with his three-hour long vigil, mixing patient defence with nudges and deflections.The Australians wasted a number of chances and half-chances through the day, most notably in the fifth over of the morning with Sehwag on just 4, when Lee missed the easiest of chances to run him out at the striker’s end, with both batsmen stranded on the other half of the pitch.If Australia were still in the game at the end of the day, it was partly due to luck, but also to a crucial breakthrough made by Waugh, playing his penultimate Test on the ground where he made his debut against India in the Boxing Day Test in 1985.Waugh gave himself an extended spell after tea, but India progressed to 278 for 1, with Sehwag the cynosure of all attention as he rattled along merrily and Dravid, coming off his two splendid knocks at Adelaide, having worked his way unfussily to 49. Then, against the run of play, Dravid was suckered by Waugh into aiming a shot at a ball well outside leg stump, and chipped a catch to a fielder precisely positioned for that stroke just in front of square leg (278 for 2). Since Waugh had spent a good part of his spell bowling short balls at the two batsmen with a fielder on the square-leg boundary, Dravid possibly failed to note, and adjust his play for, the fielder coming up.Waugh wasted no time in taking himself off and bringing on Lee to attack Tendulkar. Lee’s first ball to Tendulkar was a loosener down the leg side. Trying instinctively to work it to fine leg, Tendulkar appeared to get the faintest of touches with the bat as the ball brushed his pad, and was caught down the leg side by a diving Gilchrist (286 for 3). The only Tendulkar-like stroke seen during hisbrief stay at the crease came from Sehwag, who whipped a Williams delivery to the square-leg boundary with the distinctive flourish common to him and Tendulkar.Sehwag’s response to the loss of two quick wickets was to swing the first ball of a new spell from MacGill over midwicket for six. Waugh was now prompted into bringing on the left-arm spin of Katich, bowling with several fielders on the boundary. Sehwag, on 189, lashed a full toss beyond the boundary for his fifth six, and moved to within one stroke of his double-hundred. The next ball was another full toss, and in trying to repeat the stroke, Sehwag holed out toBracken at the long-on boundary (311 for 4). It was an utterly captivating innings, the highest score ever by an Indian batsman at the MCG.Wisden Asia Cricket

According to Glenn McGrath, Shoaib Akhtar’s king-size run-up has more to do with his love of playing to the gallery than a desire to bowl fast. McGrath weighed into the issue after Bob Woolmer, Pakistan’s coach, had earlier pleaded with Shoaib to cut down on his approach, which slowed the game down and also drastically reduced the chances of him bowling long spells.And while McGrath accepted the fact that Shoaib, on his good days, could run through a side, he pointedly suggested that he was also capable of bowling “a heap of rubbish”. McGrath took 8-24 in the second innings at the WACA in Perth, demolishing Pakistan with the steepling bounce and accuracy that has underpinned his charge to 472 wickets in just 104 Tests.And while Shoaib laughed off suggestions that he pare down a run-up that starts in the shadow of the sightscreen – “Can a plane take off without a run-up?” he asked enigmatically – McGrath told the that the response was typical of Pakistan’s premier bowler. “He’s a showman, and that’s what he loves,” said McGrath. “Cutting that run-up down might take a bit away from that and take a bit away from who he is. Maybe that’s why he’s holding on.”I don’t know what I can say I am, a jump-jet or a helicopter or something. I think he could bowl just as quick off a shorter run. They say it’s [Akhtar’s run-up] 33 metres. Mine’s 23 metres and he looks a good 17 or 20 metres behind me, so I’d say it’s 40-plus. When you’re bowling 6-minute overs it puts pressure on the other guys to get through their overs, plus you can only get through three or four overs at top pace before you really start feeling the pinch.”McGrath also reckoned that Shoaib needed to take fresh stock of his priorities, given how much the team relied on him. “From a personal point of view, my goal was always to be the best bowler, not so much the quickest, whereas I’m sure Shoaib’s major and only goal is to be the quickest bowler in the world, if not of all time,” he said. “He’s the type of bowler that can just rip through sides. He’s got that potential there but then he’s got the potential to bowl a heap of rubbish as well.”But having gone through a none-too-subtle sledge ahead of the Boxing Day Test,McGrath admitted that, ultimately, run-ups were dictated by a bowler’s sense of well-being. “At the end of the day, a run-up has got to feel good for the bowler. I shortened my run-up and it felt ordinary, so I had to go back to my old one. Shoaib might be the same.”