ScorecardAshish Nehra ripped through West Zone to give North Zone the edge in teir Duleep Trophy match at the KD Singh Babu Stadium in Lucknow. After North lost the toss and were asked to filed Nehra first provided the early breakthrough and then ran through the lower order to end with figures of 6 for 57 from 19 overs. Only Parthiv Patel, batting at No. 6, resisted the bowling, scoring 55 of a total of 201.Having bowled the opposition out in just 65.1 overs, North Zone had to play out a minimum of 24 overs on the first day. They started badly, losing Gautam Gambhir on 16. Soon after Virender Sehwag, the real dangerman, was caught behind by Patel off Rajesh Pawar on a 30-ball 33. Fortunately for North Aakash Chopra (44 not out) and Ravneet Ricky (19 not out) managed to take the score to 177 for 2 at stumps, without further loss. North still trail by 87 runs.
ScorecardEast Zone, minus the services of Sourav Ganguly, struggled to 194 all out on the first day of their match against Central Zone at the Captain Roop Singh Stadium in Gwalior. East had no answer to the mediumpace of Jai Prakash Yadav, who took 5 for 29 from 15.3 overs. Sanjib Sanyal (66) was the only batsman to score a half-century.When it was their turn to bowl East found some solace as Shib Sankar Paul dismissed both openers before there were 10 runs on the board. Faiz Fazal and Sanjay Bangar were both back in the pavilion and it fell to Mohammad Kaif (31), who is leading Central, and Abbas Ali, to shore up the innings. They resisted for a period, but Paul, assisted by Ranadeb Bose, struck again, reducing Central to 74 for 4 when bad light stopped play on the first day. Paul had the remarkable figures of 10-4-11-3.

St Thomas College 340 (Peiris 125) beat Royal College 94 (Peiris 3-16) and 218 (Senaratne 92) by an innings and 28 runs
Scorecard

St Thomas College needed just eight overs on the third morning at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo to wrap up a thumping innings-and-28-run victory over their arch-rivals, Royal College, to secure their first victory in the “Battle of the Blues” since 1999.A St Thomas victory was always on the cards after rolling Royal College over for 94 in the first innings, but they had been held up on the second evening by a dogged 102-run stand between D Wijeratne and Sukitha Senaratne, who had compiled a fine unbeaten 92. Senaratne, however, could not add to his overnight score, and with his departure, the end was swift.Wijeratne added nine more runs to his overnight 39, but appropriately enough, it was St Thomas’s captain, Videsh Balasubramaniam, who applied the coup de grace, sweeping through the tail for figures of 4 for 54 from 15 overs.St Thomas’s victory takes them ahead of Royal in the overall record between the two sides. In their 126 encounters, St Thomas have now won 33 matches to Royal’s 32, with 61 draws.

Arran Brindle may miss England’s World Cup match against India on Monday after suffering from an undisclosed illness. Brindle, 23, received medical attention and England will have to wait to see if she is ready for the top-of-the-table clash.She and captain Clare Connor lifted England to success against Ireland with a 128-run partnership after they had been in some trouble. England now lead the table after three rounds: they and India are both undefeated and they each have 15 points, but England have the superior run rate.Mithali Raj believes the key to India’s success would be taking early wickets.”Our bowlers will target the England openers," India’s captain Raj told BBC Sport, "as we’ve seen they give them a good start.”The main aim is to get early wickets and put pressure on their batting order. Our pace bowlers are getting us early breakthroughs, but the spinners are definitely our trump card.”

Titans 125 for 2 (Petersen 78*) beat Warriors 121 (Henderson 50) by 8 wickets
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsFour suicidal run-outs from the Warriors cost them dearly as they collapsed from 99 for 2 after 14 overs to be bowled out for 121 with an over to spare, and the Titans cruised to an eight-wicket win in the final of the PRO20 Series at Centurion.Jonathan Kreusch and Burton de Wett had started the innings off well with a partnership of 34, before de Wett was caught for 15. Kreusch followed for 21 while Tyron Henderson continued hitting the ball to all parts of the ground. Three fours and four sixes enabled him to go to 50 off 25 balls before holing out at cover.Having just past the 100 mark, the Warriors lost the critical wicket of Arno Jacobs for 11, and a major collapse followed. In four overs they lost a further six wickets for the addition of only 19 runs.A target of 122 was never going to be enough against the strong Titans batting line-up. A good start was all that was needed and Alviro Petersen, later named as Master Blaster, and Goolam Bodi provided it by adding 81 in nine overs.Bodi, the silent partner, was bowled for 17 before Daryll Cullinan, in his final innings before retirement, was applauded off the field after making 7. That left Petersen and Justin Kemp to finish the match off with three overs to spare.Petersen, batting with a lot of maturity, rampaged to his half-century from 29 balls. With the victory in sight he reined himself in to finish not out on 78 from 62 balls. Kemp finished not out on 14.For Pieter Strydom, also announcing his retirement, the loss meant a career of six finals without winning a trophy.

In what has been an extraordinary season for Brian Lara, another magnificent performance was always on the cards. Lara brought up his maiden century against Pakistan on the first day of the first Test in Barbados – his previous-best being 96 in Trinidad in 1993.His 29th hundred makes him only the sixth batsman to score a century against all nine-Test-playing nations – after Gary Kirsten, Steve Waugh, Marvan Atapattu, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. However, Lara hasn’t managed to score a hundred in all Test-playing countries – he has missed out in India and Pakistan – and still needs some catching up to do before he can equal Dravid’s feat.Lara has now scored 523 runs in his last six innings at 87, which include three hundreds. He also equalled Don Bradman’s total number of hundreds, and stands fourth in the list of Test centurions behind only Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar and Steve Waugh.The following table shows Lara’s performance against all Test-playing countries:

Dilmah Tea, Sri Lanka’s leading high-value tea exporters, are poised to sign a renewal of their team sponsorship deal with Sri Lanka Cricket after winning a formal bid process. Interim cricket officials are expected to meet this week to finalise a contract that will last for four years.Several other companies, including Hero Honda, LG and Kia, had formally expressed a desire to bid for the team sponsorship rights, the most major sponsorship available with Sri Lanka’s team, but in the end Dilmah were the only company to table a bid by the official deadline last Friday.Dilmah’s bid was less than their record-breaking $3.1 million offer back in 2001 when they first won the team sponsorship rights, but that contract included branding rights for the ICC World Cup in South Africa and two ICC Champions Trophy tournaments. The new deal does not include major ICC events.Dilmah are a family-run company that has now established itself as the innovative market leader for one of Sri Lanka’s most important export earners. While most Sri Lanka tea companies ship loose tea leaf in bulk to wholesalers overseas, Dilmah’s success revolved around packaging andbranding its own tea before selling overseas.

Alan Dawson’s contribution to South African cricket over the years was rewarded yesterday when he was named one of five cricketers of the year by the Mutual & Federal South African cricket annual. Jacques Kallis, Herschelle Gibbs, Andre Nel and Makhaya Ntini were the other four cricketers honoured at a banquet in Johannesburg on October 4.Kallis was an obvious choice after scoring five centuries in successive Tests against the West Indies and New Zealand last season. Gibbs, Nel and Ntini did well against the West Indies and this swung things in their favour. Gibbs made centuries in three successive Tests against the West Indies, while Nel and Ntini were South Africa’s main strike bowlers against the tourists.Nel gave an extra dimension to the South African attack by taking 22 wickets in the series including the key wicket of West Indian captain Brian Lara five times. Ntini was the leading wicket-taker in the series with 29, a record for a South African bowler in a four-Test series. Ntini was also the leading Test wicket-taker in the world during the calendar year 2003, taking 59 wickets.Colin Bryden, the editor of the annual, said: “South Africa played some dominant cricket in the home series against the West Indies and there were several outstanding individual achievements.”

Marvan Atapattu has admitted that the critical comments made by Ashantha de Mel, Sri Lanka¹s selection chief, spurred his team on during their Paktel Cup final victory against Pakistan.”That can be one reason for our performance. It was a big motivation factor for us to show everyone what we are capable off,” Atapattu said after his team¹s emphatic 119-run victory. “But the guys were very keen to do well and we play to win anything around the world. We don’t go on the park to lose.” But Atapattu refused to be drawn into a public slanging match with de Mel although obviously angered by the comments.de Mel had earlier launched surprise attack in the media last week, accusing Sri Lanka¹s team management of holding back the development of young players and labelling the senior players as selfish, suggesting they were more concerned about their own averages than the team’s long-term health.”It has come to a stage that the selection committee felt that we have to reduce some of the options in order to get the team management to play them,” said de Mel, referring to the lack of chances for the young players. “We send the youngsters saying that we are going to groom them, but they are never given a chance to play on the tour. They come back and by the next tour they are left out.”We sent [Thilina] Kandamby on the Pakistan tour to get some sort of exposure internationally, but unfortunately he has not been given a chance to play even against a weak opposition like Zimbabwe.”If Kandamby, for instance, was promoted up in the order and was given to bat at No. 3 like they did with [Tillakaratne] Dilshan against Zimbabwe, we may have got a chance to see what his potential is. He has shown potential at A-team level and in the domestic tournaments but we need to find out for ourselves whether he actually has it in him to make it to the top. Whether he is worth investing for the future. The same applies to the other young players as well.”de Mel insisted that the inexperienced players needed to be given opportunities against lesser teams to allow them to gain exposure. Otherwise, he warned, Sri Lankan cricket would go the way of the West Indian team, with the senior players retiring, and the next lot not being good enough to fill in.

Inzamam-ul-Haq, the Pakistan captain, has asked the ECB to review their decision not to play a Test in Karachi during their tour later this year. England are due to arrive in Pakistan on October 26 for three Tests and five one-day internationals. But, they will play only one game, a one-dayer, in Karachi on December 15 for security reasons.The other matches are in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan and Faisalabad, which has disappointed the passionate supporters and the cricket association of Karachi. Inzamam told . “When India played last year in Karachi no untoward incident took place and everything went well. I think Karachi being a major centre deserves to host a test.”Inzamam feels that the England board and players need to realise that possible threats from terrorists could happen anywhere in the world today. He said: “The London bombings are an example. If England do revise their decision of not playing a test in Karachi it would earn them a lot of goodwill in Pakistan and elsewhere.”Inzamam is the latest person to say that England should reconsider their decision. The former Pakistan captains Javed Miandad and Wasim Akram have also criticised England’s stance.

Chris Rogers, the Western Australia opening batsman, will replace Martin Love as an overseas professional at Northamptonshire next season. A familiar face in England, Rogers has had stints with Derbyshire and earlier this season made a double-century for Leicestershire against the touring Australians.”I am very excited about a full season in England,” Rogers said. “There is some excellent young talent at the club and with the senior pro’s experience I am looking forward to being a part of the continuing good work that has already been achieved.”Rogers, who has played 52 first-class matches, made his highest score of 209 from 274 balls in the drawn game against Australia at Grace Road, but was unable to secure a full-time place with the county. After 11 Championship games Love has scored 1114 runs with four centuries at 58.63, while Northamptonshire are third last in Division Two.