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Martin Guptill’s scintillating innings made light work of a challenging chase as Auckland cruised to a five-wicket win over Canterbury in Christchurch. Canterbury’s start was thwarted by the loss of their openers before Peter Fulton and Johann Myburgh steadied the ship with a 93-run stand. Scott Styris accounted for Fulton when he was a shot away from his half-century, but Myburgh had set his sights on a big innings. Craig McMillan provided the impetus with a typically belligerent 57 that included five fours and two sixes. The fifth wicket raised 90 in 73 balls before McMillan’s dismissal triggered a flurry of wickets that denied Canterbury the finishing flourish. Myburgh was run out off the penultimate ball of the innings for 112, setting Auckland a steep chase of 283. Guptill, however, was intent on making it a no-contest and took charge of the match with a calculated assault from which only Rob Nicol and Chris Martin escaped. Striking 20 fours and three sixes off 137 balls, Guptill put Auckland in sight of victory through useful stands with Richard Jones, Ravi Bopara and Styris, before falling for 156.While Guptill’s effort scuppered Canterbury’s chances, Central Districts faced no such problems from Otago, easing to a 59-run victory in Dunedin. The toss was one of the few things that went right for Otago, who were immediately on the back foot with Central Districts’ rapid start to the innings. Neil Wagner and Yasir Arafat engineered a strong comeback, getting three wickets for seven runs to stifle the momentum. However, their joy was short-lived as Timothy Weston and Jacob Oram rebuilt the innings with a 121-run stand that set Central Districts up for a strong finish. While both batsmen missed hundreds, the lower middle-order ensured that their work did not go to waste as Kieran Noema-Barnett, Graham Napier and George Worker pushed Central Districts to 297 before a late spark from Ian Butler bowled them out in the last over. Despite getting starts, none of the Otago batsmen were able to play the anchor role and they floundered to 125 for 5 just after the halfway mark. Butler was again in the thick of action, trying to spark a lower order revival, but steady spells by Central Districts’ back-up bowlers ensured that the script ended in their favour. Oram picked up 3 for 48 as Otago’s innings folded in the 45th over.Wellington completed a 22-run win against Northern Districts in a rain-affected encounter at Seddon Park. Kane Williamson’s 70 was the mainstay of Northern District’s innings, while Michael Parlane and Anton Devcich chipped in with useful contributions. Dewayne Bowden, Andy McKay and Paul Hitchcock took two wickets apiece to keep the score down to 223. Wellington’s chase looked to be on course when the heavens opened in the 35th over of the chase with the score on 156 for 4. Mathew Bell’s responsible 40 had taken charge of the chase when the D/L method adjudged Wellington the victor.

While much of the focus ahead of the second Test in Kanpur is on the nature of the pitch, the Indian legspinner Amit Mishra has defended his disappointing outing in Ahmedabad. Mishra finished with figures of 1 for 203 from 58 overs, adding pressure to his chances of playing in Kanpur, but he has put the blame on a dead track and a lack of match practice.”You cannot do much on a dead track like the one at Motera. The pitch there had nothing for the bowlers,” he told the . “As everyone saw even a world class bowler like Muttiah Muralitharan was struggling to pick up wickets there.”Although I have been travelling with the team, I haven’t had a long bowl in a match over the last month. I lacked a bit of match practice but after bowling 58 overs in the last Test I am starting to find my rhythm.”Mishra made his Test debut last year, and impressed right away with a five-for against Australia in Mohali. However, he has not replicated that success in five Tests since. The third spinner behind Mishra and Harbhajan Singh is the left-armer Pragyan Ojha, though it is not certain whether Indian will pick him due to the absence of many left-hand batsmen in Sri Lanka’s line-up.Mishra, 26, felt the team management was confident in his ability. “I am not worried about my position in the team,” he said. “I don’t believe that I am doing anything wrong with my bowling and the team backs me to bounce back soon.”The venue for the second Test is Kanpur’s Green Park, where the last Test played there was over inside three days on a shocking pitch, prompting a warning from the ICC. It has since been relaid, which has prompted speculation of spin playing a key role after a run fest on a pancake track in Ahmedabad. “I haven’t played a first-class match at this venue in the last two years, so I don’t know much about the surface,” said Mishra. “The team had a look at the pitch in the morning and believe it looks completely different from the Motera track. I can only hope that it will provide more assistance to the bowlers on the fourth and fifth days at least.”

Shakib Al Hasan will retain the Bangladesh captaincy for the five-match ODI series against Zimbabwe at home with Mashrafe Mortaza failing to prove his fitness following knee surgery. The Bangladesh Cricket Board has announced a 14-member squad for the first three ODIs starting October 27 and the most notable inclusion is that of the left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak, who missed the recent tour of Zimbabwe after pulling a hamstring.Mortaza underwent arthroscopic surgery on both knees in Melbourne after injuring his right knee during the tour of West Indies in July. He was confident of returning after six-weeks’ rehabilitation but chief selector Rafiqul Alam said that Mortaza would not be able to resume bowling until the second week of November. The ODI series ends on November 5.”He (Mortaza) is definitely not playing against Zimbabwe,” Alam told reporters.The selectors left out four players who toured Zimbabwe for five ODIs in August – opener Imrul Kayes, allrounder Mehrab Hossain Jnr and seamers Syed Rasel and Mahbubul Alam. Returning to the squad is fast bowler Rubel Hossain, who left the Zimbabwe tour midway after suffering a side strain. His replacement, Dolar Mahmud, retains his place.Bangladesh comprehensively beat Zimbabwe 4-1 in the ODIs in August and before that, swept the ODIs 3-0 against an understrength West Indies.Squad: Shakib Al Hasan (capt), Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), Tamim Iqbal, Junaid Siddique, Mohammad Ashraful, Raqibul Hasan, Mahmudullah, Naeem Islam, Enamul Haque Jr, Rubel Hossain, Dolar Mahmud, Shahadat Hossain, Abdur Razzak, Nazmul Hossain

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were outNone of the New Zealand batsmen stuck around long enough to challenge Pakistan•Associated Press

A clinical Pakistan maintained their perfect Twenty20 record against an injury-ravaged New Zealand by strolling to a 49-run victory. Imran Nazir smashed his first half-century in limited-overs since returning from the ICL and some swinging from the lower order pushed the target to a tough 162. The spin pair of Shahid Afridi and Saeed Ajmal had confounded New Zealand’s batsmen in the one-dayers, but the match was settled even before they came into the attack today.Against the Twenty20 world champions, New Zealand’s chances were slim, given the long list of unfit players. The biggest blow was the loss of captain Daniel Vettori to a head injury picked up during the one-dayers; the list also included James Franklin and fast bowler Kyle Mills. Key allrounder Jacob Oram had also rushed back home, on paternity leave. New Zealand were actually forced to bring on a half-fit Franklin as a substitute when Aaron Redmond (who didn’t come out to bat) picked up a groin strain while bowling.The difference between the two teams was the top-order batting. The worms couldn’t have looked more different after two overs: Pakistan were 3 for 0, New Zealand were 29 for 1. After seven, it read: Pakistan 53 for 1, New Zealand 44 for 4. Pakistan kept their wickets intact till the 12th over, which enabled them to overcome a middle-order collapse and keep the runs flowing. New Zealand, on the other hand, lost four quick wickets, leaving the lower order to flail against the spinners.The early overs of the chase also showcased the outstanding temperament of Mohammad Aamer. He was taken for 17 in the first over – four runs to overthrows, four off an inside edge, four more to a poor piece of fielding from Sohail Tanvir – but came back to take out the dangermen, Brendon McCullum and Ross Taylor, in his next two overs. After three overs, Aamer’s figures were 3-1-21-2. Abdul Razzaq complemented Aamer’s work with two wickets of his own, of Scott Styris and Neil Broom to put Pakistan on track for a sixth straight Twenty20 victory.New Zealand lacked the sort of effort that Nazir turned in earlier in the evening. After Pakistan were sent in by stand-in captain McCullum, Nazir was the engine in the first half of the innings. He didn’t blast the boundaries from the get go, having to survive a testing first over from Shane Bond, who was getting the ball to jag in sharply. Nazir was even content to shoulder arms to a couple of deliveries initially, and it was Kamran Akmal who got the innings going with a couple of boundaries off Bond in the third over.It was only in the fifth over, when the slightly slower Ian Butler was brought on for Bond, that Nazir switched to Mad-Max mode. He welcomed Butler with a couple of flat-batted sixes off his first two deliveries. Kamran fell in the next over but Nazir was undeterred. Butler watched the ball fly over his head off the first ball of the seventh, his mood worsened two deliveries later when a top-edge flashed over the keeper’s head for another four. A high full-toss followed, which Nazir promptly cracked beyond the point boundary; the cheergirls there having an anxious moment as the ball homed in on them.That had the crowds cheering but the biggest roar came a minute after debutant wicketkeeper BJ Watling pulling off a smart catch off a top-edge to send back Umar Akmal in the eighth over. Afridi walked out. He played a couple of streaky shots early on, but gave his fans something to savour, slamming a slower ball from Scott Styris over long-on. A similar stroke from Nazir two deliveries later brought up his half-century, and Pakistan looked set for a massive score.McCullum turned to his main man, Bond, for help. He delivered by ending the stand, getting Nazir to slice the ball to third man. McCullum then relied on his part-timer Redmond to get through some quiet overs with his flighted legspinners. Redmond exceeded expectations by dismissing the experienced middle-order pair of Afridi and Shoaib Malik.Pakistan had lost some of the impetus, but Razzaq showed some of the big-hitting he was famous for several years ago to muscle Pakistan past 160, which proved more than sufficient.New Zealand have less than a day to regroup and find XI fit players before the second Twenty20 on Friday.

Once again bowlers across Australia will have pinpointed Queensland as the most likely place for Shield wickets this season. But not only is the Gabba a fun ground for the quicks, the Bulls’ line-up is missing the class that it carried over the past decade and will call on lesser names to beef up their totals.The off-season exit has been busy in Queensland, with Martin Love taking his 10,132 Shield runs into retirement, Shane Watson moving to New South Wales and Ashley Noffke flying to Western Australia. Andrew Symonds is now a Twenty20 bat for hire. Without four major players the Bulls have been forced into a premature regeneration and if they match their FR Cup win and Shield runner-up place of 2008-09 it should turn Trevor Barsby and his coaching staff into state heroes.During their first four-day game, which starts at the WACA on Tuesday, the top six is expected to read Ryan Broad, Nick Kruger, Greg Moller, Lee Carseldine, Glen Batticciotto and Chris Hartley. There is not much fear for interstate bowlers there and it is something Barsby acknowledges.”You look and go wow, where’s the 1000-run player? We don’t have a 1000-run player,” he said. “If our top six can combine and put good performances on the board we’ll win games. If we don’t bat well, this year it’s very important to bat well, because if we don’t the likes of [the legspinner] Daniel Doran can’t play. He’s started some real good improvement with his bowling and I’d like to play him as much as possible, but it really hinges on our batting. If we don’t score enough runs and he’s in the side, it’s going to be history repeating itself, where he’s a specialist batsman at No. 10.”Barsby knows the limitations in his ranks and during the off-season spoke to Mark Thompson, the premiership-winning Geelong AFL coach, about how he rebuilt his squad. “I just like the story of the Geelong football team,” he said. “When Mark took over in 2001, he sort of cleaned the decks, which we did as well. We’ve moved on Clinton Perren, Aaron Nye and Scott Brant.

“He went in with a blueprint and started working with all the young kids. For me, it was just sitting and watching and learning about how he coaches his team. He seems unflappable, he’s got confidence in his players, and I just like the style.”There are few stand-out players in Queensland’s squad, especially when James Hopes, Australia’s one-day allrounder, is away, but they will forage in every competition. “All 20 in the squad have to become a champion team, because we’re not a team of champions,” Barsby said. “We don’t have the Borders, Laws, Mahers, Loves, all those sorts of guys. This group here is a group that everyone needs to work together and contribute.”The beauty of this season is everyone is going to have an opportunity. There are no more excuses, like Martin Love stopping me from getting a game, or Andy Bichel or Ashley Noffke. Sullivan, Cutting, McDermott, everyone has got an opportunity in all forms.”Next week there is also a remote possibility the Western Australia attack will be full of Queensland-raised bowlers. Steve Magoffin and Ben Edmondson, who is no longer quite as potent, crossed the country to escape the long line of pace men in their home state and started productive Shield careers while Mitchell Johnson is still waiting for his first match with the Warriors after moving to be closer to his fiancée.”It’s quite funny really, there’s talk Mitch is going to be playing the four-day game,” Barsby said. “It could be Noffke, Johnson, Edmondson, Magoffin: Queensland A versus Queensland B.” He doesn’t say which outfit is which, but the Warriors have the more enviable pool. Barsby’s fast-bowling squad includes Ryan Harris, Alister McDermott, Ben Laughlin, Nathan Rimmington, Grant Sullivan, Ben Cutting, Chris Swan and Scott Walter.Queensland’s chances of success are better in the one-day and Twenty20 competitions and they will hope the batsman Lee Carseldine can repeat his form of last summer, when he excelled in all three formats. For success in the Shield the players will have to reach new peaks of performance.”This team has got very good skills in the shorter versions, if not better than the other states,” Barsby said. “In four-day cricket we need to close the gap between our good days and our bad days. Last year it hurt us a couple of times when we had a bad hour and the game got taken away from us. We have to improve so we can have a bad day and it doesn’t hurt too badly. Then we’ll become a good side.”

Pakistan prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani says he has been told by Sri Lanka’s president that the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore on March 3 earlier this year may have been masterminded by terrorists from the island. Gilani said he was informed about this by president Mahinda Rajapakse during a recent visit to Libya.”The Sri Lankan president told me that they have clues that the attack on the team was funded from Sri Lanka and that some finances had been made from Sri Lanka to Pakistan,” Gilani said. “We are sending interior ministry officials to Sri Lanka to get the clues that could help us to get to the attack on the cricket team.”While making their way to the Gaddafi Stadium, five cricketers, including Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, were injured in the attack that also killed six security men and two civilians. Sri Lanka were in Pakistan for a two-Test tour which, as a result of the attack, was terminated abruptly. The attack had immediate repercussions for cricket in Pakistan, as its status as an international sporting venue came under doubt. The ICC subsequently decided to strip the country of its right to host the 2011 World Cup.

Michael Clarke believes talk of splitting the Australian captaincy is premature and Ricky Ponting remains the best man to take the team forward from their Ashes defeat. Ponting landed in Sydney after his second consecutive series loss in England and indicated he would be open to the idea of playing in the side without leading it, although he has no plans to step down.Clarke, who is in charge as Ponting rests for the next two weeks, would not consider the idea as a realistic option. “No,” he said firmly when asked whether the captaincy should be split. As the Test vice-captain, Clarke would be next in line, but he is not in a hurry for promotion.”At this stage, we only have one leader and, in my opinion, ‘Punter’ is my captain,” Clarke said. “I’ve only had one captain in my career. Ricky is my leader.”Ponting is back in Australia on a two-week break and has come under fire for his role in the 2-1 result. “It’s very unfair for one guy to be criticised,” Clarke said. “Yes, he’s our captain, he’s our leader, but one of Punter’s greatest strengths is he never complains about that. The reality is the whole team lost the series. Every player in the squad takes some sort of responsibility. It’s not one guy’s fault.”The pain of Sunday’s defeat lingers for Clarke and his Test team-mates, but they have their first chance to start again with Friday’s one-day game against Scotland in Edinburgh. An influx of reinforcements has arrived to warm-up for the two Twenty20s and the seven one-day games against England.”The feeling is looking forward to moving on,” Clarke said. “No doubt the Ashes loss will stay in the guys’ minds for a long time, the ones involved.”Andrew Hilditch, the chairman of selectors, joined the team on Wednesday and will monitor the progress of the newer recruits as he starts to look ahead to the 2011 World Cup. Australia will field a new wicketkeeper in Tim Paine over the next month, with Brad Haddin undergoing surgery on his injured left ring finger. Dirk Nannes, David Warner and Adam Voges, who are picked in the Twenty20 outfit, will also be hoping to impress.Another player wanting to catch Hilditch’s eye is Brett Lee, who will appear in his first international match since the World Twenty20 after suffering an untimely side injury in July. Lee was not required for the final two games of the Ashes series as he regained fitness and will be desperate to show he is still a force. It won’t be much fun for the hosts if he gets it right.”Brett will be keen as mustard,” Clarke said. “He’s disappointed not to have taken part in the Test series, but has contributed a lot throughout the series. He’s itching to go.”Gavin Hamilton, the Scotland captain, has played Australia before but won’t be briefing his batsmen on what to do with Lee. “We’ve watched these guys on telly, we know exactly what they can do,” he said. “We’re not going to build them up. The last thing our batsmen need is to sit around and watch Brett Lee bowl at x miles an hour.”They say there is no plan to remind the Australians of their horror week in south London, although Hamilton won’t stop his younger players if they get a bit chirpy. One good thing for Scotland is the tourists’ ranking has dropped to three on the one-day table, bringing them closer towards the unranked hosts.”It’s one way of looking at it, but is there ever a good time to come across them?” Hamilton said. “It’s been a tough week for those guys, but looking from the outside, I have no doubts they will come back hard.”

Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara praised his fast bowlers and singled out the unbeaten 95-run partnership between Thilan Samaraweera and Chamara Kapugedera as the key factor in the team’s victory over Pakistan in the second ODI at Dambulla.”It did not go as we hoped it would, but I will give credit to the bowlers for doing a wonderful job with the new ball. They did exactly what we wanted them to do on a fresh wicket,” Sangakkara said. “It was mature knocks from Kapugedera and Samaraweera that really sealed the deal for us.”Kapugedera, who was named Man of the Match, came to the crease with Sri Lanka in trouble at 44 for 3, chasing 168. His steady knock of 67 in 97 balls in the company of Samaraweera ensured Sri Lanka suffered no further setbacks and the hosts coasted to victory in the 45th over.He has had a stop-start career, failing to cement his place in the side since his debut in 2006. “Kapugedera is a very special player who has had a few good years and a few bad years,” Sangakkara said. “As long as he is working hard, is disciplined and shows the commitment that we want from him, he will be an asset to Sri Lanka cricket.”Pakistan’s tour of Sri Lanka began with the first Test on July 4, and will see the teams compete in three Tests, five ODIs and one Twenty20 match in less than 40 days. Sangakkara made a case for reducing the work load on his fast bowlers, but said the team has the bench strength to cope with the load. “It is very difficult playing the Test series with almost back to back ODIs. That is a reality we’ve got to deal with,” he said. “It will be tough physically and mentally, but we have the bench strength and reserve bowlers who can share the load.”Chamara Kapugedera said his knock was special because he was making a comeback to the Sri Lankan team. “Any score of over fifty is very important, but this is a very special one because I’ve been out of the side and I came back and scored a fifty,” Kapugedera said. “It was also an important innings for the team because we needed to win this match.”I haven’t been in the side for 2-3 months and I wanted to do well. I’ve been training hard in the last few months and it worked out today. I’ve been working with my coaches really hard to come back to the side. I hope I can continue this run.”Pakistan coach Intikhab Alam blamed his team’s poor batting for the defeat. “I don’t think it’s a lack of confidence but it’s just bad batting that cost us the match. Probably we were short by 30 odd runs. If we had scored 200 runs we had a chance, but some of the shot selection from our batsmen was not right,” he said.

Auckland batsman Rob Nicol has transferred to Canterbury on a one-year contract. Nicol, who missed most of last season due to personal reasons, will be named in Canterbury’s list of 12 contracted player on Friday.”I am really looking forward to making a fresh start in a new province this season,” said Nicol. “Canterbury will provide me with the opportunity to further my game as well as push for New Zealand selection.”Canterbury have been searching for an opening partner for Michael Papps and Lee Germon, Canterbury Cricket’s chief executive, believed Nicol was the right man. “Rob is an outstanding player capable of batting in the top order as well as bowling effective off spin and we are very pleased to welcome him to Canterbury,” he said.Canterbury coach Bob Carter agreed with Germon. “I see him [Nicol] as an opening batsman who offers something with his offspin and someone who has a good record in all forms of the game,” he said. “It [opening] is an area where he sees his future and I do too. He’s got two types of game; he has a power game as well as having stickability at the top of the order in the longer game and hopefully he can do that for us.”Nicol, 26, debuted for Auckland in 2001-02 and has scored 3278 first-class runs at 36.02, with seven centuries and 17 half-centuries. In 18 domestic Twenty20 games he averages 52 with the bat and has taken 12 wickets at 23.83.

Kris Srikkanth, India’s chairman of selectors, has said he believes the team is capable of bouncing back from its relatively early exit from the ICC Twenty20 World Cup but agrees the Indian batsmen need to work on facing short-pitched bowling,.”Winning and losing are a part of the game. I have also been in teams that have won a World Cup and lost badly immediately afterwards, and then come back. I’m sure this team will come back,” Srikkanth said in an interview to the Indian news channel .India’s batsmen were found out by consistent short-pitched bowling by the English pacemen, and Srikkanth said that that was one area which needed work. “There were probably a few areas where we’ll probably have to rework, correct ourselves and then come back in the game. Like playing short-pitched bowling, practising more on that. That will help.”He also admitted that India missed the services of Virender Sehwag, with the aggressive opener returning home from England due to an injury.”Virender Sehwag is a devastating batsman. He can just hit any bowler to any part of the ground in any form of cricket. The whole world missed Virender Sehwag. (A good) start is very important in Twenty20 cricket, and Sehwag and Gambhir form a fantastic opening pair.”Though he said that Dhoni’s lack of form “probably” contributed to the exit, he did not seem unduly worried and termed it just a “bad time” for the captain. “Every player goes through good times and bad times. So we can’t really blame him for it. I’m sure he will come out of it, he’s a master player and I’m sure he knows how to bounce back, and he will do a good job.”Srikkanth said the unpredictable nature of Twenty20 cricket was the reason for India’s exit, and pointed to the recently concluded IPL where the underdogs – Royal Challengers Bangalore and Deccan Chargers, the bottom two teams in last year’s competition – reached the final.