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Claire Taylor and Laura Newton registered the top batting scores of the day as they joined together to ensure The Super Strikers beat The V Team by 9 wickets at King’s College, Taunton in the opening round of Super Fours, the competition for elite women’s cricketers.Taylor raced to an unbeaten 85, from as many balls, and Newton finished on 80 not out in an unbeaten partnership of 157 with both England batters hitting twelve fours.Laura Spragg, the young England and Yorkshire bowler, returned the best figures of the day, also for The Super Strikers, taking 4-24 despite early resistance from England opener Kathryn Leng.Over the hill at King’s College and under the watchful gaze of Marcus Trescothick, youngsters Lydia Greenway and Caroline Atkins impressed with an unbeaten partnership of 67 – finishing on 54 and 31 respectively – as Knight Riders beat last year’s Super Fours champions, The Braves.The Braves and England Captain, Clare Connor, was dismissed early by England’s record-breaking wicket-taker and Vodafone Player of the Year, Lucy Pearson. Connor was caught at slip by Helen Wardlaw and was the first of Pearson’s four victims in her first spell of bowling since cutting down Australia in Sydney in February.Speaking after the opening round of matches, England Head Coach, John Harmer said Perhaps the fiercest competition will be for the place of England’s ‘keeper with Taylor adding a competent performance behind the stumps to her stylish innings and Jane Cassar (Knight Riders) showing a sharpness of old as both attempt to push Mandie Godliman (The Braves).

Michael Atherton today announced he is to retire from both international andfirst class cricket at the end of this season.The Lancashire batsman, who led England 54 times and played in 115 Tests, said: “The Oval Test Match was my last for England and I now intend to fulfil my commitments with Lancashire before retiring from cricket at the end of the current season.”I have enjoyed 15 wonderful years in cricket and would like to thank all the players and staff I have been involved with at Lancashire and England since I first came into the professional game.”

ScorecardMichael Hogan saw Glamorgan through the final over [file picture]•Getty Images

Glamorgan kept their slim NatWest T20 Blast qualification hopes alive with a nerve-jangling one run win over South Group leaders Kent Spitfires in Tunbridge Wells.With the hosts needing 15 off the final over to secure their sixth successive short-form win, Michael Hogan held his nerve to dismiss dangerman Darren Stevens to a running catch at long-off. Then, with three required off the final delivery, Calum Haggett was run out risking a second run to deep point that would have tied the game, leaving Glamorgan’s squad to dance a celebratory jig on the square after stealing their seventh win in 13 starts.Toby Radford, the delighted Glamorgan coach, said “We’ve shown that bit of fight in our cricket this season, be it T20 or championship, where we’ve faced adversity but ended up winning. Tonight was a perfect example of that.”It’s a massive game for us next Friday now, at home against Gloucestershire, and we’ll hope we can do well then and that the other results go our way. That would be massive for the club to get to the knockout stages. We’ve played in patches in this generally, but Hogan and Wagg were superb for us tonight.”

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Glamorgan’s victory ensures that with Kent already qualified six teams are battling for four spots heading into the final week. It could hardly be scripted better as Glamorgan will host quarter-final rivals Gloucestershire on the final night of the league stage. Gloucestershire’s chances took a big hit as a result of this win for Glamorgan, they can only sneak in if they win and receive a net run-rate boost and hope other results go their way. A win should be enough for Glamorgan.

A disappointed Stevens questioned his side’s tactics, saying: “I thought we should have sent Alex Blake in earlier than we did. He’s won two or three games for us when chasing of late and there was a chance to send him in with six overs to go. For whatever reason, we didn’t.”We know we’re through to the quarter finals and, after five wins on the spin, have to look at this as a wake-up call.”In pursuit of 180, Kent made a stunning start through Daniel Bell-Drummond and Joe Denly who raced to 50 within five overs. Playing an array of straight back-foot and front foot drives, Denly cantered to a stylish 27-ball 50.Bell-Drummond chipped a low full-toss to long on and, with his score on a season’s best 70, Denly followed suit to long off and stormed off feeling he had tossed his wicket away. He was the first of many.Sam Northeast skied to the keeper, Sam Billings top edged a sweep and Fabian Cowdrey waltzed across his stumps to go leg before to heap pressure on the home tail.Stevens threatened to reverse the trend with a couple of mighty blows, but ultimately it was Glamorgan who secured their first ever Twenty20 win over Kent.Batting first after winning the toss, Glamorgan lost Colin Ingram in the second over of the night from Mitch Claydon when the left-hander chipped a catch to Northeast diving to his right at extra cover.Jacques Rudolph and Ben Wright went on to add 52 in the powerplay overs before Rudolph departed for 37 off 35 balls. Aiming a heave over midwicket against Matt Hunn – on his T20 debut – the South African dragged the ball onto his stumps.Wright was next to go, for 20, when he slog swept a low full-toss from James Tredwell to Matt Hunn at deep square leg then Craig Meschede miscued when attempting to force across the line to Cowdrey to slice a simple catch to Claydon at short third man.Mark Wallace was bamboozled by a Hunn slow yorker and, after getting off the mark with a huge six out of the ground, Chris Cooke holed out to cow corner of Hunn’s next delivery.Wagg upped the tempo in the 18th over with two consecutive sixes off Calum Haggett, who won hasty revenge by bowling David Lloyd in the final over, only to leak two more maximums in his final four deliveries as Wagg posted a 28-ball 50 as Glamorgan set Kent an asking rate of nine an over.

The fate of Chris Cairns will remain in the balance over the weekend after the jury in his perjury trial at Southwark Crown Court were unable to reach a majority verdict before the week’s proceedings were adjourned at 4.30pm on Friday.Cairns, who could face a maximum of seven years in prison if found guilty, must now wait until Monday at the earliest to learn his fate, with more than eight hours of deliberation from the jury having yet to produce an outcome.The defendants, Cairns and Andrew Fitch-Holland, whose charge of perverting the course can only be considered once the principal perjury charge has been resolved, were called back into the dock at 11.44am, but only so that the jury could request that the original requirement of a unanimous verdict be reassessed.Mr Justice Sweeney, the judge, granted the jury permission to return verdicts on which at least 10 of the 12 members agreed after consultation with Sasha Wass QC, the crown prosecutor, and Orlando Pownall QC and Jonathan Laidlaw QC, the respective defence counsels for Cairns and Fitch-Holland.The perjury charge relates to Cairns’ successful 2012 libel action against Lalit Modi at the High Court in London, which arose as a result of a tweet sent by Modi in 2010 accusing Cairns of match-fixing during the now defunct Indian Cricket League.In the course of the libel trial, Cairns stated that he had “never” cheated at cricket, and would never contemplate doing so, a statement that attracted the interests of the Crown Prosecution Service in the wake of leaked testimony given by his former team-mates, Lou Vincent and Brendon McCullum, to the ICC’s anti-corruption and security unit (ACSU).Of the nine witnesses called to give evidence on that count, Mr Justice Sweeney stated that the evidence of two of the three “key” witnesses – Vincent, McCullum and Eleanor Riley, Vincent’s ex-wife – needed to be accepted as true in order for the perjury charge to be upheld.However, he advised caution over the testimony of the first of the witnesses, Vincent, who has already been banned from cricket after admitting to accepting money to under-perform.Although the judge stressed that the jury was under no time pressure to reach a verdict, the prospect of a retrial cannot be ruled out if there is no progress next week.

‘Merlin’, the spin-bowling machine, had a part to play in England combating Shane Warne during the 2005 Ashes; now, stick cricket seems to be aiding England’s batsmen against India.In the nets, Ian Bell – England’s top scorer in each of the three games so far – has been using a bat two-and-a-half-inches wide and the rest of the team has gradually started trying this innovation. Manufactured by , it weighs as much as a regular bat but is no wider than a baseball bat, square rather than round.James Cornford, the director of the company – a one-man team as of now – provided the England team with a few samples during the Test series. During the Oval Test, Bell sought one that was customised for his needs.”Ian seemed to like it and he wanted one made for him,” Conford told Cricinfo. “It’s made of the normal wood, the still wood, and we made sure the bat was the same weight as his usual bat. All I do is saw the edges off and add more weight from the back.”After Ian, Matt [Prior] got interested and now you have Owais Shah and Monty Panesar trying it out too. In fact Peter Moores is keen to have everyone use them. Andy Flower was talking about making some that were even smaller.”Bell used this bat for most of his nets session. Facing Moores’s throw-downs, he didn’t have many problems middling the ball and even smashed a few straight down the ground. “It’s a small bat but you can get some meaty blows from it,” said Cornford, whose company is based just a few miles away in Stoke-on-Trent.Cornford deals in other cricket equipment as well. He’s provided the English and Indian teams with special stumps to practice yorkers. There have also been orange rubber bats, used to hit high balls for catches, net covers, to help in training for run-outs, and ‘snickers’, an instrument to help wicketkeepers practice sharp catches.

Wasim Jaffer will lead the Rest of India team in the Zal Irani Trophy match against Uttar Pradesh, who won the Ranji Trophy last year, from October 9-13. Y Venugopala Rao, who led India Red in the Challenger Series, will be the vice-captain. Sourav Ganguly, who only managed 24 and 3 in his comeback bid, does not find a place in the team.Of those who starred in the Challenger Series Gautam Gambhir, Rohit Sharma and S Badrinath make it to the squad, while there’s no place for Parthiv Patel, whose batting has been a revelation. Patel batted energetically and sensibly, scoring in both the opportunities he got, but has been eclipsed by Dinesh Karthik, who has also impressed, both behind and in front of the stumps.An interesting selection is that of the 20-year-old chinaman bowler from Hyderabad, Pragyan Ojha. He has taken 33 wickets from 7 Ranji Trophy matches at an average of 26, and if the pitch at Nagpur takes turn Ojha may well find himself partnering Murali Kartik, who is another cricketer who performed well in the Challenger Series, bowling with control and accuracy.Another cricketer whose name has been doing the rounds, and who gets a look in, is Vijaykumar Yomahesh, the young mediumpacer from Tamil Nadu. Yomahesh has picked up wickets in various age-group tournaments, and people in the know suggest that he could well be destined for bigger things.VRV Singh, who bowled with good pace and rhythm in the Challenger Series, will lead the Rest of India pace attack. It came as no surprise that neither Ashish Nehra nor Lakshmipathy Balaji, who both blew more cold than hot in comeback attempts, found a place in the side.Rest of India Wasim Jaffer (capt), Y Venugopala Rao (vice-capt), Robin Uthappa, S Badrinath, Gautam Gambhir, Dinesh Karthik (wk), VRV Singh, Sreesanth, Zaheer Khan, Murali Kartik, Pragyan Ojha, Rohit Sharma, Sourashish Lahiri, V Yomahesh.

Bob Woolmer, Pakistan’s coach, believes that Shabbir Ahmed’s suspect bowling action has improved sufficiently since he was reported to the International Cricket Council (ICC) during Pakistan’s tour of West Indies in May. Woolmer has been working with Shabbir over the last two weeks after the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) decided to seek assistance at home rather than abroad to rectify his action.According to the Karachi-based daily, , Woolmer told Saleem Altaf, the PCB Director, that he was now satisfied that the bowler’s action was within ICC regulations. But the PCB will wait before sending videos of his remodeled action to the ICC Bowling Review Group for final clearance.Board officials are eager for his action to be checked one last time by Dr Paul Hurrion, the ICC-appointed bio-mechanics expert, before they send the videos to the ICC. This is due to new ICC regulations introduced in March this year, which state that a bowler who is reported twice within two years will face a one-year suspension from all forms of cricket.Understandably, the PCB are keen to avoid such a scenario and are prepared to wait until they are certain his action is rectified before they go to the ICC. A final decision on when to send him to Dr Hurrion will be taken by the ad-hoc committee which meets on September 12.Shabbir was reported for the third time in his career during the Barbados test against the West Indies in May this year. The two previous occasions were after his first ODI in 1999 and on the tour to New Zealand in January 2004.

Jehan Mubarak, the Sri Lanka A team captain during their recent successfultour of England, has been appointed captain of the Sri Lanka CricketPresident’s XI that will play a one-day warm-up match against South Africa atMoratuwa on Aug 18. The team also includes Russel Arnold, a controversialomission from Sri Lanka’s Champions Trophy squad.Team 1 Saman Jayantha, 2 Avishka Gunawardena, 3 Jehan Mubarak (capt), 4 Russel Arnold, 5 Thilina Kandamby, 6 Chamara Silva, 7 Prasanna Jayawardena (wk), 8 Gayan Wijekoon, 9 Dilruwan Perera, 10 Nuwan Kulasekara, 11 Dilhara Fernando.Reserves Tilina Tushara, Gihan de Silva, Chanaka Wijesinghe

An emotional Sri Lanka skipper Sanath Jayasuriya couldn’t hide his disappointment as Sri Lanka lost their last game under his leadership and were knocked out of the Sharjah Cup.Sri Lanka were clear favourites to qualify having not lost to Zimbabwe for two and a half years but were defeated by four wickets after a lacklustre batting display."It is obviously a very disappointing end on my last tour as Sri Lanka captain," said Jayasuriya afterwards, who was playing his 300th one-day game."We didn’t bat well at all and it was never going to be easy to defend such a total. The wicket was slow but there should be no excuses – five of the top order made starts but no-one went on."The 33-year-old confirmed on Sunday that he would be standing down after this tournament and he took the opportunity to thank coach Dav Whatmore and his players."I would like to thank Dav and all the players who have supported me during the past four years. I have really enjoyed my captaincy and will to continue giving my 100% as a player."Zimbabwean captain Heath Streak hailed the performance of his bowlers, who restricted Sri Lanka to 193, and middle order batsman Grant Flower, who guided the side home with an unbeaten 61."This was a great performance today," said Streak. "We had got one or two departments working beforehand but today we pulled it all together.""We knew it would be very hard chasing four or five runs per over against their spinners and we always needed to contain them in the first innings."He now believes his side having nothing to fear in the final against Pakistan: "We should play with confidence. We have nothing to lose as underdogs and should just go out there and do our best."

The Selection Committee of the BCCSL, met on the 09th August 2001 at the Board Headquarters, and the following Sri Lankan Squad of 16 players and 03 Team Management Members were selected to represent Sri Lanka at the 1st Test Match to be played from the 14th to the 18th of August 2001 at the Galle International Cricket Stadium.Squad

1 Sanath Jayasuriya (Captain)2 Marvan Atapattu (Vice Captain)3 Mahela Jayawardene4 Russel Arnold5 Hashan Tillakaratne6 Kumar Sangakkara7 Michael Vandort8 Romesh Kaluwitharana9 Muttiah Muralitharan10 Thilan Samaraweera11 Dulip Liyanage12 Caminda Vaas13 Dilhara Fernando14 Ruchira Perera15 Avishka Gunawardene16 Suresh Perera

Team Management

1 Manager Air Commodore Ajith Jayasekara2 Coach Mr. Dav Whatmore3 Physiotherapist Mr. Alex Kountouri