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Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

A match that swung from one side to the other was decided by two exceptional overs from L Balaji, the India international: he first picked up two crucial wickets in the 13th over to seize the initiative for his side, then picked up the IPL’s first hat-trick in the final over to finish the match. Balaji’s performance, in front of an ecstatic home crowd, pushed Chennai Super Kings to second place in the points table and ended Kings XI Punjab’s streak of five successive wins.Chasing a stiff 182, Punjab lost two early wickets but Shaun Marsh stayed calm at the other end, working the Chennai bowlers into the gaps for runs while picking up the odd boundaries. As the asking-rate escalated to over ten, Marsh decided to step it up, punishing Palani Amarnath for two sixes over the straight boundary and bringing up his fifty with another clean straight hit, off Balaji.If Marsh appeared as if he’d just arrived after a stint at a driving range, Ramnaresh Sarwan, with whom he put on 66, was a touch slow with 20 off 22 balls and his inability to hit a boundary suggested why his Twenty20 strike-rate is less than a run-a-ball.Their partnership was looking threatening, though, before both fell in one match-turning over from Balaji. Ambling in from a shortened run and putting in the effort in his final stride, he varied his deliveries, mixing up slower balls with shorter ones, with some surprising the batsmen. He got Sarwan with the first ball, the batsman bowled while giving the charge. Four balls later Marsh followed, top-edging to Amarnath on the square-leg boundary.Amarnath tightened the screws in the next over, having Yuvraj Singh caught by Stephen Fleming at point, and the match was almost over as a contest. Not as a spectacle, though.The 15th over saw a mini-battle between Muttiah Muralitharan and his Sri Lanka team-mate Mahela Jayawardene, who got down on his knees and dispatched him over deep midwicket. Two balls later, though, a repeat effort resulted in a top edge to S Vidyut at short third man, and Jayawardene, normally accustomed to running to congratulate his leading bowler, had to head back to the dugout.And then there was the hat-trick, in the last over of the match. There were four balls to go and 19 runs to get when Balaji bowled to Irfan Pathan, who’d already hit him for a six off the first ball. This time, he holed out to a slower ball to deep square leg. Next, Piyush Chawla lofted one towards long-off for an easy catch, and the hat-trick was completed when VRV Singh managed to back away and top-edge one straight to Mahendra Singh Dhoni.Badrinath, a local boy like Balaji, and Dhoni had earlier threatened to take the game away as Michael Hussey had done in the previous encounter between Chennai Super Kings and Kings XI Punjab, but Punjab’s bowlers did well to restrict the flow of runs in the final five overs of the innings.Dhoni, Chennai’s adopted hero and captain, sent the crowd into raptures soon after his arrival by clobbering Chawla for three sixes; the first two sailed into the leg-side stands, while the third was hit flat over the bowler’s head. Yuvraj soon went in for damage control, bringing on Pathan, his side’s leading wicket-taker, for his second spell as early as the 13th over. Badrinath took two sixes off Pathan and brought up his fifty off 37 deliveries. The two had added 80 off 49 deliveries, and a final flourish was on the cards.Punjab came back well to rein in the rampaging batsmen. Sreesanth had bowled a good first spell in which he removed Chennai’s openers and his final one – the 16th of the innings – went for just five, James Hopes and VRV took the cue and targeted the blockhole, and the run-scoring abated. Chennai got 181, but would be disappointed at not having been able to go past the 200-run mark, which looked likely at one stage.

Boyd Rankin has given Ireland a major boost ahead of next year’s World Twenty20, by officially giving up on his hopes of adding to his solitary Test cap with England and has instead pledged his allegiance once again to the country of his birth.Rankin, 31, met last week with Cricket Ireland to complete his return to the national team, for whom he made 82 international appearances between 2007 and 2012, including the last World Twenty20 in Bangladesh three years ago.In between whiles, he featured in seven ODIs and two T20Is for England in 2013-14, as well as his one-off Test appearance at Sydney in the final match of an ill-fated Ashes campaign. He claimed a solitary wicket in an injury-blighted performance and never looked likely to add to that tally.Instead, his future lies in his past, as Rankin follows the path taken by his Ireland team-mate, Ed Joyce, who qualified for England in time for the 2007 World Cup, but was back in Irish colours in India four years later, where he and Rankin both played in the famous victory over England at Bangalore.”I’m delighted to be returning to Irish cricket, where I was born and learned the game,” said Rankin. “I’ll always be grateful to England for the chance to play Test cricket, but with little opportunities in the last two years, I felt it was time to move on at this stage of my career.”There’s a real opportunity for Ireland to get Test status now, and that prospect was a real lure for me – I’d love to be part of history. Before that of course there’s a T20 World Cup in India – I’ve played in three before with Ireland and it’d be great to make it four.”I’ve also very happy memories of both the 2007 and 2011 50-over World Cups in the West Indies and India, and I’d like to make it a hat-trick of appearances in 2019 in England.”Rankin was approached for an Ireland recall earlier in the summer, but chose to wait until the make-up of this winter’s England tour parties was known. However, he was overlooked for both the senior squads and the England Lions trips to South Africa and the UAE, and will become officially available for Ireland on January 18, having played the last of his England matches, an ODI against Australia at Brisbane, on January 17, 2014.Cricket Ireland Performance Director Richard Holdsworth was delighted to have Rankin back in the Irish set-up. “It’s fantastic news for Irish cricket to have a bowler of his undoubted quality back in the fold.”We’ve had a number of retirements in recent times, losing quality and proven performers such as Trent Johnston and John Mooney. That has severely depleted our quick bowling stocks so to have Boyd returning gives everyone a tremendous boost.”His height and the extra bounce he generates makes him such a difficult proposition for opponents, and it gives skipper William Porterfield a fantastic extra option in his armoury.Rankin’s first assignment in Ireland’s colours will be an Intercontinental Cup fixture against Papua New Guinea in Townsville, Australia, from January 31-February 3. They are currently top of the table with a maximum 40 points from their wins against the UAE and Namibia.He can then expect to travel to India for the World Twenty20 in March and April, where Ireland have been drawn in Group A alongside The Netherlands, Oman and Bangladesh. If they win the group they will proceed to the Super Ten phase where they will face India, Pakistan, New Zealand and Australia.

If, when Russell Domingo started coaching, he had been told he would inherit a Test team at the top of the rankings and limited-overs sides that had suffered because of it, he would have taken it. When such riches rain on you, you do not consider the subsequent drain even if you know that in any functioning sporting system, there has to be one.Player pools change every few years so no matter whether you jump in at the shallow or the deep end, you are joining a cycle. From the shallow side, things will improve as the younger swimmers are schooled, a community is formed and they find their preferred stoke. From the deep end, the seas get rough, not everybody slips into the same stream and the waters begin to empty.What has made Domingo’s tenure so topsy-turvy is that these two processes have happened at the same time. “When I took over, there was a little bit of instability in the T20 and ODI teams and the Test side was very stable. Now, roles have reversed,” he said during his assessment of South Africa’s tour of India on their return home.South Africa came back with a perfect illustration of that. They T20 and ODI trophies were part of their luggage, which will boost their confidence ahead of next year’s World T20, but their nine-year unbeaten run on the road in Test series was broken. The gains of the former may not outweigh the disappointment of the latter, which is why so much focus has fallen on the longer format.”There is a lot of work to do with the Test side,” Domingo admitted. “Let’s not be naive about that. There are a lot of spots that people have questions about.”Some of those questions were answered a day later, when the selectors named their 13 to face England in the first two Tests. They stuck with opener Stiaan van Zyl despite the difficulties he faced in India, but deposed gloveman Dane Vilas. Their reasoning was that van Zyl needs to be tested in home conditions, having only opened in the subcontinent – he was promoted to the job in July for the Bangladesh series – but Vilas, who has also only played on the subcontinent, was superfluous to requirements that actually called for an extra batsman.That Vilas and his nearest rival Quinton de Kock are also batsmen was not part of the thinking because Temba Bavuma, the middle-order man who impressed when thrust into a role at the top, is more of a batsman and batsmen are in the spotlight. Domingo wants them to know their sails have not been ripped off, they have merely been blown a little off course.”As far as I’m concerned, India was a very tough tour for any batter to go on. We’ve got quality in our batting line-up that wasn’t able to showcase their skills under those conditions against those bowlers but that doesn’t make them bad players,” he said. “Those conditions were really extreme as it shows with the stats of the Indian batters as well.”India struggled only a little less than South Africa until Ajinkya Rahane’s twin tons in the Delhi Test. But the reality remains that no South African scored a hundred and only AB de Villiers managed to pass 50. Hashim Amla and Faf du Plessis stonewalled impressively later in the series but balls faced and time batted do not count as much as runs. Bavuma showed some promise, Dean Elgar was caught and released a few times but eventually caught and the rest all took the bait the India spinners put out.In general, South Africa approached spin like a fish out of water but Domingo does not think they could have prepared any differently. Their batting consultant Mike Hussey was with them for a week before the first Test but could not stay. There is no word on if he will back before the England series. “We would have loved to have him longer but he had some other commitments so he wasn’t able to stay through the series but he did add a lot of value prior to the series,” Domingo said.Even when he had left, the team used any extra time as productively as they could. “We kept complimenting the players about the extra work they were putting in and the meticulous way they were trying to work on how to play against the Indian spinners,” Domingo said.Their floundering took place in the mind where the constant threat posed by both pitch and opposition players took its toll. “We were always under pressure and that can wear you down, whether it’s physically or mentally,” Domingo said. “I’m sure players’ confidence would have been knocked because we pride ourselves on being good players of spin but the fight that was shown on the last day [in Delhi], shows there’s still some fight left there. It shows that they can do it and these next 10 days will be important to make sure they freshen up and get themselves in the right frame of mind of England.”The quick turnaround has been cited by Domingo and captain Amla as the best way to recover. “We’ve got the ideal break,” Amla said. “Everybody will take a couple of days to rest up and get back into the nets and face the new ball on wickets with a bit of nip.”Home conditions are going to cast a different net over batsmen who will have to prepare for the ball flying past their noses instead of reaching down to smell it but Amla is not worried about how his team will tackle that. “I don’t think it’s a huge adjustment because these are the conditions we are accustomed to,” he said. So, in their own waters, Domingo and Amla are hopeful South Africa’s Test team will become big fish again.

ScorecardChris Read’s century put Notts into the lead•Getty Images

Chris Read helped himself to a second century of the season as Nottinghamshire dominated day three against Middlesex at Trent Bridge. Having passed three figures for the first time this summer in the four-day game between the sides at Lord’s back in April, the Notts captain was at it again, this time on home soil.Having been dropped on 54, Read, the 36-year-old former England wicketkeeper, went on to score 108 from 206 balls as Notts built a useful first innings lead.Resuming on their overnight score of 180 for 4, Notts found themselves in a spot of trouble when Samit Patel was bowled, in the third over of the day, at 184 for 5 and Steven Mullaney holed out to Tim Murtagh off Ollie Rayner 45 runs later. At that stage, they still trailed Middlesex by 145. But despite losing 15 overs to rain, Notts pushed on after lunch with Read and Brett Hutton adding 157 for the seventh wicket.Read, who missed six weeks of the season from the middle of May due to a hamstring injury, struck eight fours in reaching his half century, off 101 balls, and posted three figures for the first time since mid-April, off 190 balls. Having been dropped at slip by Ollie Rayner on 54 – a sharp chance to Rayner’s right hand – he eventually fell to Toby Roland-Jones, at 386 for 7.The captain’s job was made all the more easy by Hutton, who batted beautifully to post his highest first class score of 72. The 22-year-old bowling allrounder brought up his own half-century off 121 balls, with seven fours, and looked comfortable throughout against a Middlesex attack that offered precious little as the day wore on.Hutton continued to bat with due care and attention after his skipper’s departure and with Luke Wood, who was dropped on 0 off the bowling of Dawid Malan, he added 25 for the eighth wicket. But he finally departed at 419 for 9 and at that juncture Notts declared with a first innings lead of 45. Middlesex opener Sam Robson and nightwatchman James Harris successfully negotiated the final two overs of the evening and trail Notts by 38 runs with all 10 second innings wickets in hand.

Match facts

Sunday, May 11, 2008
Start time 16.00 (local), 10.30 (GMT)

The Big Picture

The last time these two teams played each other, the pitch at Eden Gardens took centrestage as the ball kicked up, scooted low, jagged around, and in general made life miserable for the batsmen. VVS Laxman hit out at the surface after his team was at the wrong end of the result, but here his team have a chance to avenge that defeat, and more importantly, inject some momentum into what has so far been a disastrous campaign – with two wins in eight games, they are sitting at the bottom of the table and each of their last six matches are virtually must-win games for them.Kolkata arrested a worrying four-match slide with a thrilling five-run win against Bangalore, but the fact that the worst team in the tournament pushed them all the way remains a cause for worry, as does the fact that the batting hasn’t yet inspired any confidence yet. They have played one less game than Deccan, though, and a win on Sunday will put them on eight points from as many games, and in a good position to push for a semi-final spot.Both teams will also have to battle their unfavourable home and away records. Deccan have lost all three games at home, while Kolkata have lost three out of four away matches. Deccan also have a huge problem when batting first: they have lost all five games when setting a target, and most of those defeats have been convincing ones.

Tournament position

Deccan Chargers P8, W2, L6, NRR -0.240
Kolkata Knight Riders P7, W3, L4, NRR +0.461

IPL form (last five matches)

Deccan Chargers: LWLLW
Kolkata Knight Riders: WLLLL

Watch out for …

Three former Australian Test players, Damien Martyn, Michael Kasprowicz and Matthew Elliott, have signed up with the unofficial Indian Cricket League (ICL). Kasprowicz, the fast bowler, and Elliott, the opening batsman, retired from the game in Australia earlier this month while Martyn has not played since walking away during the 2006-07 Ashes.Martyn had reportedly joined the ICL ahead of its inaugural tournament, but didn’t take part when it was held late last year. “These high-stature Australian cricketers will definitely boost the quality of cricket and strengthen the teams, making the league showcase competitive cricket,” Kapil Dev, the chairman of the ICL, said. “It will provide our young domestic players the challenge to test their skills with some of the best exponents of the game, thus fulfilling one of the key objectives of ICL.”Elliott had indicated he would join the ICL when deciding to stand down at South Australia. “I’m thinking about it,” Elliott said. “It’s more about what’s best for me after my cricket career.”The three will join fellow Australians Stuart Law and Ian Harvey in the league, while Michael Bevan and Steve Rixon are in charge of the Chennai and Hyderabad teams. Jimmy Maher, who will play his last game for Queensland from Friday, and Jason Gillespie, who is expected to retire in the next couple of weeks, are also expected to be chased by the ICL. Any Australians who play in the unofficial Twenty20 event are banned from taking part in domestic competitions at home.

When the recent competition winner’s name was announced as Maddy Ferrari, Somerset Cricket Development Officer Andrew Moulding contacted the club website to say that he knew the winner and he felt that reader’s of the site would be interested to hear it.In his office at the Centre of Excellence at the County Ground Andrew Moulding told me at, “Maddy Ferrari made contact with me in my official capacity, from her home at Witham Friary last summer to say that she had a group of youngsters who wanted to play cricket.”Andrew continued, “I went up to meet her and half a dozen Mums in the village which is in the north east of the county not far from Frome.They told me that they were determined to set something up.”The Cricket Development Officer went on, “The local parish has given them some ground, and we are trying to get a new Flicx pitch to help them out and give them a start. We have also put them in touch with the Lord’s Taverner’s who will hopefully be able to help them.”Well done Maddy on winning the prize, and well done to all the Mums in Witham Friary. If any of you read this please contact the site so that we can report any progress that has been made in recent months.

The Indian board (BCCI) has told Cricinfo that it will be lodging a complaint with the ECB following confirmation that the PCB has issued No Objection Certificates to Mushtaq Ahmed and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, allowing them to play county cricket in 2008.The two players are involved with the unauthorised Indian Cricket League and Niranjan Shah, the BCCI’s secretary, told Cricinfo that “we have an understanding with the other countries’ boards that they can’t allow players who are associated with the ICL to be allowed to play at any level, regardless of the reason the player has a contract with his board or not.”If the news is true that the two players have been given NOCs by the PCB then we will take up the issue with the ECB since the two counties – Sussex and Yorkshire – come under the jurisdiction of the England board.”The ECB, however, is legally powerless to take any action in the light of the NOCs being granted and is likely to pass the matter back to the Indian board to sort out directly with its Pakistan counterparts.The situation is further muddied by confusion within the PCB about the issuing of an NOC to Naved-ul-Hasan. On Thursday, Shafqat Naghmi, the PCB’s chief operating officer, told Reuters that “the factual position is that some counties had asked the PCB to issue NOC’s for these players. But we’ve now informed them very clearly that since these players are not contracted to us nor eligible to play in Pakistan we don’t come anywhere into this issue at all.”But less than a day later, Naghmi gave Cricinfo an altogether different picture. “Our board’s policy on the ICL remains as it has always been and these players cannot play in Pakistan,” he said. “But the board also felt that there is no legal or moral reason in stopping someone from playing cricket in another country. That is subject to their laws. So, on this basis, we have sent an NOC, which maybe wasn’t as well-worded as planned, but the intention was made clear.”Stewart Regan, the Yorkshire chief executive, told Cricinfo that the NOC had in fact been received last week and was dated March 17. “We have a signed letter that is very clear in confirming they [the PCB] have no objection,” he said. This was then sent to the ECB, along with the player’s registration form, and was accepted by the board.Today’s news follows the revelations last week that the ECB had refused registrations for five players because of their participation in the ICL. But with Pakistan approving Mushtaq and Naved-ul-Hasan, and in so doing leaving the England board with no room for manoeuvre, there are certain to be some terse exchanges between the PCB and the BCCI in the coming days.

Champaka Ramanayake, the former Sri Lankan fast bowler, has been appointed the fast bowling coach of Bangladesh for the next two years. Bangladesh have also roped in the services of former Sri Lankan offspinner Ruwan Kalpage as their high performance head coach to run their National Cricket Academy, which will be set up shortly in Mirpur, Dhaka.Speaking about his switch in allegiance, Ramanayake, who also headed Sri Lanka’s Fast Bowling Academy for the past seven years said, “I would have loved to continue to help my country produce more fast bowlers, but at the same time I also had to look after myself financially. The offer from the Bangladesh Cricket Board was too attractive to turn down.”Ramanayake, 43, said he had no regrets in leaving his present job as he felt there were enough fast bowlers in the queue to serve Sri Lanka for the next two to three years. During his tenure at the academy, he had the privilege of working with many of the current crop of fast bowlers, the most notable being Lasith Malinga. He predicted that two young fast bowlers, Madura Lakmal Perera from Kalutara and Tamil Union’s Suranga Lakmal, could be playing in the national team shortly.”In the seventies and eighties the country depended to a large extent on spin,” Ramanayake said. “The scenario has completely changed now with the national side sometimes fielding as many as three to four fast bowlers in a match.”He hasn’t ruled out returning to his role in Sri Lanka once his contract with Bangladesh finishes. His assistant, Anusha Samaranayake, is expected to take over the role as head coach of the academy.A Level I (English) and Level II (Australian) qualified coach, Ramanayake played first-class cricket for 20 years for Tamil Union and Galle CC, taking 480 wickets. He played 18 Tests (44 wickets) and 62 ODIs (68 wickets) for Sri Lanka between 1988 and 1995.Kalpage’s wealth of experience in coaching, including his work with junior Sri Lankan teams, helped him clinch the job in Bangladesh. Another former spinner Piyal Wijetunga, who has been assisting Kalpage, is expected to take on the role of spin bowling coach.”It was too good an opportunity to miss,” Kalpage said. “I had to think of my future. I thought here was a good opportunity for me to extend my experience and one day come back and be national coach of Sri Lanka.”Kalpage stated it was a new challenge for him to be invited to head an academy of a Test-playing nation and hoped his appointment would spark more opportunities for coaches in Sri Lanka.”No Test playing country has made such an offer to Sri Lankans before and I consider it an honour. The experience I will gain is good for my future. It also opens the door for other Sri Lanka coaches as well. Several foreign coaches come to Sri Lanka with lucrative salaries and gain experience at different levels. This is an opportunity for us to show that we are also equally capable as the foreign coaches.”At present we are not recognised on par with the foreign coaches in our own country. We don’t have a proper salary structure in place and there is no proper grading of coaches. Thereby our coaches have no future here.”Kalpage’s role as high performance head coach also involves setting up a proper A squad for Bangladesh and assisting their national team in spin bowling and fielding whenever required.Kalpage played 11 Tests and 86 ODIs for Sri Lanka between 1992 and 1999, and is best remembered for his fielding. He assisted Trevor Chappell as Sri Lanka’s fielding coach in 1999 before taking over his role in 2001. He fulfilled the task till 2005, but in 2004 he played a dual role when he was also appointed as the computer analyst of the team. He became the head coach of the Spinners Clinic in April 2006 and also coached the A team, and Under-19 and U-15 teams.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsAhmed Shehzad applauds Umar Akmal following his 40-ball 93•PSL

Umar Akmal bludgeoned the highest score of the Pakistan Super League, his 40-ball 93 guiding Lahore Qalandars to their first win of the season, against Quetta Gladiators in Dubai. The 63-run defeat was Quetta’s first of the tournament, after they had set the early pace with three consecutive wins.Not many could have seen Akmal’s blast coming when Lahore crawled to 62 for 1 in 10 overs. But with Cameron Delport providing the initial spark and Akmal the finishing punch, Lahore cruised to 194 for 3 at the end of 20 overs. The pair added 95 runs in only 42 balls, with Delport smoking a 55-ball 73, an innings that featured eight fours and three sixes. Although the carnage could have been cut short – Akmal survived a close lbw shout off the third ball he faced and Zulfiqar Babar was visibly distraught when it was given not out.Babar eventually trapped Delport lbw when the batsman attempted an extravagant reverse flick, but any hope Quetta had of drying up the runs were quickly dashed by Akmal, who treated himself to six fours and eight sixes, including 18 runs off the penultimate over, bowled by Umar Gul. Akmal could not reach his maiden T20 ton, but he made sure Quetta needed to score at nearly 10 an over right from the off. They could not.Lahore’s spinners took wickets at regular intervals and only Mohammad Nawaz (42) and Sarfraz Ahmed (31) offered any resistance. Once Sarfraz was dismissed in the 13th over, Quetta lost their next six wickets for 13 runs and folded for 131. Zafar Gohar was the pick of the bowlers, collecting 4 for 14, while Ajantha Mendis chipped in with 3 for 17.