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Lalchand Rajput, the former Indian opener who recently coached the Under-19 side on their successful England tour, was pleased with the way some young players developed and was optimistic of a few of them stepping up to the higher grade.”It was a very good trip and a successful one too as we won both the series,” Rajput told the Press Trust of India. “We should have won the first Test too after having swept the one-day series, but England managed to bat out the final day and earn a draw.”Singling out a few players as the most impressive ones on the trip, Rajput said they all needed to keep working hard on their game. “The batsmen to impress the most were Delhi’s Viraj Kohli, captain Tanmay Srivastava of Uttar Pradesh, opener Parvez Aziz of Assam and Bodapati Sumanth of Andhra. In bowling, the medium-pace trio of Vijaykumar Yo Mahesh (TN), Abu Nacheem (Assam) and Ishan Sharma (Delhi), along with left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem caught the eye.”Rajput, 44, who played two Tests and four ODIs for India in the mid-eighties, spoke about the strengths of some of the young batsmen on tour. He described Aziz as an attacking opening batsman who provided the team with brisk starts. “He used to stroke his way to quick 60s and 70s and batted aggressively in the Tests too,” he added. “Kohli showed strong technical skills against both pace and spin while captain Srivastava impressed with his sound temperament and willingness to play long innings. Sumanth could hit the spinners out of the attack easily and showed fine finishing instincts in the one dayers by making a very impressive 97 not out in the last match.”He had special praise for his medium-pacers. “I was very impressed with medium pacer Ishant Sharma who, at 17, worked up good pace in excess of 135 kph. I see him improving much more in two years’ time,” he continued. “Both Yo Mahesh, who got a hat-trick in one of the one-dayers, and Nacheem also bowled well, keeping a good line and length.”The Under-19 side are scheduled to tour Pakistan next month. They are also set to visit New Zealand in the end of the year.

Hooray for helmets
The selection of Farveez Maharoof created a headache for the team before the first Test and the bowler finished the match with one. Brett Lee’s bouncer is mean most of the time, but it is even more dangerous on a murky morning and Maharoof was unable to avoid it. He turned his head as he ducked and the ball thudded into the back of his helmet, ballooning to Adam Gilchrist. It was the second helmet Lee had struck in the game after finding Marvan Atapattu’s in the first innings.Not yet safe hands
Phil Jaques staged a verbal defence of his fielding before returning to the Test team on Thursday and he has spent much of the match at short leg, a position he has been working hard to master. His efforts in close have been fine but he made a mistake at square leg in the second over of the morning. Lunging to intercept Chamara Silva’s flick off Stuart Clark, he was unable to grab the chance that was comfortable by Test standards.Nifty fifty
After Stuart MacGill’s speedy achievement of 200 wickets in 41 Tests comes Stuart Clark’s acceleration to 50. Clark recovered quickly from Jaques’ spill to trap Prasanna Jayawardene lbw in his next over and bring up his half-century in 10 games. Charlie Turner reached the mark in a record six matches while other Australians to beat Clark included Fred Spofforth, Rodney Hogg and Terry Alderman (eight matches) and MacGill, Arthur Mailey and JJ Ferris (nine).The immoveable feast
Tea times have permission to switch due to rain or a team being nine wickets down, but the lunch reservation is always the same. Sri Lanka lost four wickets in the 18.5 overs allowed by the rain and regulations in the first session, with Lee making the penultimate breakthrough two minutes after the food was due. The 40-minute break was taken and the players returned for 15 balls before Muttiah Muralitharan was bowled by Clark.

South African allrounder Albie Morkel has been withdrawn from the South Africa A squad for the tour match against the New Zealanders in Potchefstroom after sustaining a minor injury during the tour of Pakistan.Morkel has been replaced by Cape Cobras allrounder Rory Kleinveldt. The selection committee made another change, drafting in allrounder Blake Snijman for fellow Highveld Lions team-mate Werner Coetsee.”Werner hasn’t played any first-class cricket for four weeks and in the circumstances he has been granted permission to play in the amateur competition for North West this weekend,” said Joubert Strydom, the chief selector.The four-day match begins on November 1 at Sedgars Park.South Africa A (revised): Boeta Dippenaar (capt), Morne van Wyk (wk), Alviro Petersen, Neil McKenzie, Jean-Paul Duminy, Gulam Bodi, Rory Kleinveldt, Thandi Tshabalala, Lonwabo Tsotsobe, Friedel de Wet, Charl Langeveldt. 12th man: Blake Snijman

South Division

A magnificent 44-ball hundred from Luke Wright took Sussex to their first Twenty20 win of the season, beating Kent by seven wickets at Canterbury. After losing Chris Nash for 1, Murray Goodwin (30) and Wright put on 82 for the second wicket, but it was Wright’s partnership of 85 with his captain, Chris Adams, which propelled Sussex’s chase of 182. Wright fell immediately after reaching his hundred, which contained 11 fours and six sixes, but Adams’ slick 38 saw his side home with 17 balls to spare.

Midlands-West-Wales Division

Warwickshire kept up their unbroken record in the Twenty20 Cup with a 12-run win over Northamptonshire at Edgbaston. It was the ever-youthful Darren Maddy who anchored their victory with another fine allround performance. His 51 from 37 balls took Warwickshire to 174 for 7 from their 20 overs – aided by a bristling 20 from Dougie Brown, playing his first game of the season – before Maddy took 2 for 30 in Northamptonshire’s unsuccessful chase. Johan van der Wath was left stranded and unbeaten on 48 as the visitors ran out of overs.Mark Wallace and Ben Wright guided Glamorgan to a five-run victory at Sophia Gardens over Somerset, the pair’s unbeaten partnership of 47 taking Glamorgan home with four balls to spare. The home side were in difficulty when they lost Damien Wright at 96 for 5, but Wallace took command in his 30-ball 35 to settle any nerves. Somerset’s dauntingly powerful lineup were cut apart by Andrew Davies’ 2 for 12, Ryan Watkins’ 2 for 26 and three wickets for Dean Cosker.

In a departure from hundreds of years of cricket tradition, there will be no mandatory toss in either division of the English County Championship in the 2016 season, after the ECB confirmed they were implementing an experiment to try to encourage the development of spin bowling.Instead of the toss, something that was recorded as taking place as far back as the 1700s, the visiting team will first have the choice of whether they want to field first. If they don’t wish to take up that option the toss will take place as it always has.There has been growing concern that the standard of pitches in county cricket – particularly in Division Two – is compromising the development of players. Specifically, the role of spinners has become marginalised on surfaces that sometimes provide extravagant help to medium-pace seamers while batsmen, fearful that they will receive an unplayable delivery sooner rather than later, have responded by playing more aggressively. As a result, some of the skills required to succeed in Test cricket – patience, discipline and consistency – have been lost.Initial reports about the move had centred on the trial being used only in Division Two of the Championship but, after a meeting of the ECB cricket committee at Lord’s on Thursday, it was decided to implement it across the board in four-day cricket.”By giving the away team the option of bowling first, we hope the home side will be encouraged to produce the best possible four-day pitch,” Peter Wright, the chairman of the cricket committee, said. “That will be good for cricket in general, and not only for spinners: batsmen should also benefit, from better pitches which will lead to them facing more spin bowling; and if pitches start drier, the ball may scuff up a bit more and produce more reverse swing.

Who is the ECB cricket committee?

Peter Wright (Chairman)
Alan Fordham (ECB Head of Cricket Operations)
Tom Harrison (ECB Chief Executive Officer)
Andrew Strauss (Director, England Cricket)
Angus Porter (Chief Executive – Professional Cricketers’ Association)
Rob Key (Kent captain)
David Leatherdale (Chief Executive – Worcestershire)
Mark Robinson (formerly Sussex’s Cricket Manager – recently appointed head coach of England Women)
Steve Garrett (First-Class umpire)
Andy Flower (ECB’s Technical Director of Elite Coaching) also attended at the committee’s invitation.

“It isn’t all about spin. There has been concern for some years about some Championship pitches. But it is fair to say that the plight of spin bowling in this country brought things into focus.”Of course counties want to win matches, and that generally means taking 20 wickets. That has to be a reason we have seen a lot of pitches that start a bit green and damp, and get better as the game goes on, rather than deteriorating to help the spinners. But another main function of the County Championship is to develop players for England. We don’t think it has been serving that purpose for spinners.”We did originally consider introducing this as a trial in one division only but, after further discussion and debate today, we have decided to extend this to both divisions of the County Championship. We believe this is an innovation which will be watched closely well beyond the County Championship. We will then need to assess how successful the trial has been at the end of the 2016 season before deciding whether to continue with this.”Peter Such, the ECB’s lead spin bowling coach, recently told ESPNcricinfo: “In overseas Test cricket somewhere between 46-48% of overs are bowled by spinners, but in county cricket that figure is around 20%.” At a couple of division two counties, that figure drops below 10% at home games.”The pitches tend to start damp, which makes them seam-bowler dominated and makes it very hard for spin bowlers to break through. We need to do more to encourage spin bowling.”

Lance Klusener, the former South African allrounder, has been left out of the Dolphins squad set to play the Eagles in the season-opener at Kingsmead from Thursday.Cassim Docrat, CEO of the KZN Cricket Union, said there was a “hitch” regarding Klusener’s eligibility to play, the Natal-based reported. This comes in the wake of Cricket South Africa’s decision to ban players involved with the Indian Cricket League (ICL). Cricket South Africa’s chief executive officer Gerald Majola had said anyone who joined the ICL would not be allowed to play in matches organised by the board.Klusener, who signed for the ICL, an unofficial league that intends to stage Twenty20 games across India, had lashed out at the board’s stand. Tony Irish, the CEO of the SA Cricketers’ Association, has taken up the matter with the board on Klusener’s behalf.Another star Dolphins cricketer, Dale Benkenstein, will also miss the four-day match. Docrat said Benkenstein is still in England but will be available for the second round of the competition.Meanwhile, the Inland selectors have named the squad from which the XI will be chosen for the opening SA Airways Challenge round against Boland at the Maritzburg Oval from Thursday. The Durban-based KZN Coastal side was also selected for their match in East London.TeamsKZN Dolphins Imraan Khan, Doug Watson, Wayne Madsen, Ahmed Amla (capt), Jon Kent, Daryn Smit, Johann Louw, Morné van Vuuren, Yusuf Abdullah, Quinton Friend, Saidi Mhlongo, Mafinki Serame. Coach: Yashin Ebrahim.KZN Inland André van Vuuren (capt), Ross McMillan, Clint Bowyer, Brad Moses, Lyndon Brown, Kivershan Padayachee, Michael Matika, Sashen Dorasamy, Garry Hampson, Murray Hampson, Lennox Lwana, Qasim Khurshid, Olly Humphries, Mbasa Gqadushe, Glen Addicott. Coach: Robbie Coutts.KZN Coastal Rivash Gobind (capt), Kyle Smit, Fabian Lazarus, Martin Bekker, Calvin Flowers, Cedric Mabuya, Chad Hauptfleisch, Viyaash Gobind, Andrew Tweedie, Dan Horsfall, Tyron Pillay, Keegan Africa. Coach: Sakele Simon.

Bangladesh have called up Abdur Razzak, the young left-arm spinner, for the upcoming tours of Zimbabwe and Kenya. Impressive performances for Bangladesh A in Zimbabwe recently were the main reason for his selection, said Faruk Ahmed, Bangladesh’s chairman of selectors.Razzak, 24, has played 14 one-day internationals for the senior side. He has taken 18 wickets at an average of 26.77 with best bowling figures of 3 for 17 against Sri Lanka in 2004.Bangladesh are due to play five one-day internationals in Zimbabwe starting on July 29 followed by three one-day internationals in Kenya starting on August 12. Habibul Bashar, the national captain, remained confident of picking up a first overseas victory. “We have displayed a lot of improvement in recent times, so it is fair to say we are favourites for both series,” he told reporters. “We know it won’t be as easy as when we played at home. But we still believe we have enough fire power to beat them under their conditions.”Added Dav Whatmore, the coach: “We are very confident that we can win the series, but we do need to adjust [to the conditions] as quickly as possible.”Last year, Bangladesh defeated Zimbabwe 3-2 in a one-day series before going on to rout Kenya 4-0 in March to register their two home series victories to date.

Chris Martin, the New Zealand seamer, has expressed surprise at being selected for the Twenty20 World Championship but hoped he would excel in the tournament. “I’d scheduled this time of the year to do a few university studies,” Martin told the .Martin, who will share the new ball with Shane Bond, was picked as John Bracewell, New Zealand’s coach, wanted specialists to play in the tournament. “The likelihood of me having to bat is quite minimal and you need to have specialists at either end, I think,” Martin said.Martin said the Twenty20 format would be harsh on the bowlers. “I’m leaving the country without my ego, I think,” he said. “If I can go at under ten an over then I’ll be happy, so it’s not usual for any type of cricket I’ve played in the past.”Martin said he had only played about half a dozen games of Twenty20, but had enjoyed them. “It’s got a nice speed to it, which you sort of get used to – performing under quite intense pressure,” he said. “And the crowds come along to watch as well which is quite a bonus.”People are still learning how to play it and there are some countries around the world that have played it a lot more than New Zealand. So for us to arrive with the right game plan and the right philosophy will be quite important to us doing well. It’s also one that I’ll hopefully look back on as being a highlight.”Meanwhile, Brendon McCullum, the wicketkeeper, hopes to bat up the order and take charge of the innings with some big-hitting. McCullum started his international career as an opener before dropping down the order.”I have a little bit of responsibility to try to score a big innings somewhere along the line,” he said. McCullum was looking forward to play with his brother Nathan McCullum, who was picked for the tournament for his all-round skills. “It’ll be good,” Brendon said. “I caught up with him last week and I know he’s pretty excited.”The offspinner Jeetan Patel, who is suffering from flu, has been working on pitching the ball in the blockhole at the indoor nets. “Being able to hit the hole is a big part of Twenty20 so I’ve been working on that, but it seems a little bit fake doing it indoors so I can’t wait to get away and start doing some real work,” Patel said.

Younis Khan, the Pakistan vice-captain, believes that the possible comeback of three key fast bowlers including Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif would make Pakistan the best bowling team in the world, even ahead of world champions Australia.Younis said that his team would gain a huge pace advantage once Shoaib, Asif and Shabbir Ahmed – whose action has been cleared by the ICC – return to international cricket during next month’s tour of South Africa. The trio have been included in a list of 25 probables invited for a conditioning camp starting in Lahore from tomorrow in preparation for the tour of South Africa.”We would have a bowling attack stronger than Australia’s if Shoaib, Asif and Shabbir return to the squad,” Younis told at the National Stadium in Karachi. “We are already equipped with some good bowlers but once these three are back our attack would be awesome. All these three are valuable bowlers for their wicket-taking abilities and you need such players to win Tests against strong opponents.”Shoaib and Asif are available for selection for the tour of South Africa starting from January 4 after being cleared of doping offences by a Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) appeals committee earlier this month.Pakistan rode on a good showing from pacers Umar Gul, Shahid Nazir, Abdul Razzaq and legspinner Danish Kaneria to beat West Indies 2-0 in a home Test series this season.”The one thing that makes me very optimistic about our team’s future is that bowlers like Umar Gul, Shahid Nazir and Mohammad Sami have been performing impressively in recent times and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan is also regaining good form,” he remarked. “I must say that once we have all our pacers ready for national duty we would be better off than even Australia in this department of the game.”Younis, who led Peshawar Panthers into the semifinals of the ongoing Twenty20 Cup believes Pakistan would be in a good position to win the series in South Africa but was quick to add that the players will have to really apply themselves in what would be demanding playing conditions in South Africa. He played down fears that the Pakistan batsmen would flop on bouncy South African wickets.”The South Africans are a top side but we are good enough to beat them. By applying ourselves and showing self belief we can do it. The going would be tough but I am confident we would be ready for the challenge.”

In relaxed yet sporty clothes, shy grin plastered across his face, under the glare of numerous television-camera spotlights, Sachin Tendulkar was calm and collected, but you could sense the excitement and sheer joy as he answered a volley of questions after reaching his 35th Test hundred. “Landmarks happen. You just go and bat because you want to bat well and get runs for your team. If you chase landmarks then it becomes a problem,” said Tendulkar. “The wait was more for the people than for me. After the Bangladesh hundred we have played only four Test matches. It was not that it was 25 Tests and everyone had run out of patience.”More emotional than most people have ever seen him on a cricket field, Tendulkar reacted with a long look up to the heavens when he reached hundred, and admitted it was different from what he had felt before. “That was for my father. I miss my father very much. I’m sure he would have enjoyed every moment of this if he were here. There have been very few moments in my life when I have got emotional. But this time I felt very different.”Soon after, though, Tendulkar raised his bat a second time. “It was for the team. This was a special occasion for me. They appreciated it so I acknowledged them. Everyone came downstairs [from the dressing-room] to congratulate me. I didn’t say anything, I was finding it difficult to talk. I was feeling shy.”From his first Test century in Manchester, way back in 1990, it has been a long journey. “The first century I made when we had to save a Test match. This one was played in a very different situation,” said Tendulkar. “It was a very emotional one for me. It is difficult to say whether the first one is important or the last one is important but if I didn’t get the ones in the middle I wouldn’t have got to this stage.” Some batsmen insist that picking a favourite out of centuries is like choosing between your children, but Tendulkar was able to put his finger on his best. “Every century is important. But the hundred against Australia at Perth in 1992 was probably my best.”This was a very important hundred for me, four-and-a-half months after elbow surgery. Mentally it [the break because of injury] was very tough on me but physically I could cope. I got frustrated and impatient, so getting out of it was not a singular effort – my family, physio, trainer … they all helped.”There was a time in the day when it seemed unlikely that Tendulkar would reach his century before stumps were drawn. But a sudden spurt of runs, spurred on by three consecutive boundaries off Muttiah Muralitharan, ensured that he got the monkey off his back. But getting it over with was never on his mind. “No I did not think of that. But when they changed the ball, the new one was harder,” he said. “I could hit it easier because it came onto the bat well.” Yet he did admit that he had, in his mind’s eye, lived out this moment already. “One visualises before every Test the moment of getting a hundred. Similarly I did last night. It is part of my pre-match preparation.”On the eve of the match there was plenty of advice for Tendulkar. What did the coach have to say to him? “All we were discussing was not thinking about No. 35 – that it was just another innings, just another century. Coincidentally I got the same advice from my wife. It’s to listen to words like these. It helps.”And even though he was the man of the moment, Tendulkar still had time to remember an approaching milestone for another giant in Indian cricket. “It [This ground] was always remembered for Anil Kumble’s ten wickets, now there are two reasons to remember it. We hope there will be similar reason to remember the Ahmedabad Test, where Anil is playing his 100th match.”With No. 35 out of the way, the question of where to next popped up, and Tendulkar’s reply was spontaneous. “Back to the hotel!” On a more serious note, when asked what could be expected of him, Tendulkar said, “I can’t say what heights I am going to achieve. But what you can expect from me, what is in my hands, is 100% commitment and sincerity and playing for the cause of the team.”In all the adulation, Tendulkar has somehow managed to remain remarkably humble. On the day when he broke Gavaskar’s 22-year-old record, he said, referring to the little man with the title Mr, “Heroes will always be heroes. Mr. Gavaskar will always be a hero of mine. I would say to him, `Thank you for the support you have given us. Not only me but other batsmen as well. It really helps to have senior cricketers who can speak to you about your game.’ I have often gone to him for advice and he has set such benchmarks and standards for us that you needed to have a disciplined and dedicated life to get to a landmark like this.”And in that moment there was a hint of how Tendulkar had managed to stay on the straight an narrow path through 20,000-plus international runs, virtually every batting record in the book, the adulation of millions, multi-crore sponsorship deals … Because at the end of it all, when he goes out to bat, Tendulkar is still just that curly-haired little boy who loves to bat.