All posts by csb10.top

MCC’s controversial new debenture scheme, which offers the right for punters to buy tickets at Lord’s for eight seasons at costs of up to £12,000, has been strongly defended by its chairman, Charles Fry, as part of a recognition that the ground’s venerable status is not enough to guarantee international cricket.The scheme has prompted moves for the club to hold a Special General Meeting, but Fry insists that the money the debentures will generate – over £13 million – is “essential” if Lord’s is to “retain both its world-class status and its current share of major matches”.Without a further series of ground improvements, including a higher capacity, Lord’s runs the risk, according to Fry, of losing both its premier status and its ability to attract major fixtures – such as Test matches, one-day internationals and domestic finals. This was a risk that MCC’s Committee “is simply not willing to take”.While understanding the concerns of current debenture-holders, who are being asked to pay significantly more than before for their ticketing and dining privileges, Mr Fry emphasised that MCC’s Committee was “duty-bound” to take decisions which, however controversial among a minority of Members, were “in the interests of the game, the ground and the Club as a whole.”Acknowledging that the new Lord’s debentures – priced at between £8,000 and £12,000 each – are far more expensive than their predecessors, he argued that their costs were broadly similar to those charged in respect of other comparable sports venues, such as rugby union’s Twickenham headquarters.There are currently 18,000 full members and 4,000 associate members of the MCC. The current maximum annual subscription, entitling the member to enter the ground on every matchday, is £344. And, in addition to their anger about the increase in costs, members also expressed concerns that only corporate customers would buy the new schemes.But Fry said: “The debentures in the Mound Stand are currently all owned by MCC Members. Indeed, they have priority status when it comes to buying the new issue, and I would be delighted if they bought every seat that it covers.”But if they don’t, we need to ensure that all the debentures are still sold. Only then can we maximise our investment in Lord’s and, in the process, maximise its chances of retaining its current share of major matches – as all our Members would wish.”The current Mound Stand debenture-holders, all of whom are MCC members, will still have access to the pavilion and other areas at Lord’s, a privilege not afforded to corporate customers or the general public.

England 286 for 6 (Vaughan 63, Strauss 43, Pietersen 42, Collingwood 41*, Martin 2-53, Vettori 2-60) trail New Zealand 470 by 184 runs
Scorecard and ball-by-ball commentary
How they were out

On a day that was the antithesis of Twenty20’s thrill-a-minute cricket, England’s progress was, at its most exciting, pedestrian and at times they almost ground to a halt. They closed on 286 for 6 with Paul Collingwood and Tim Ambrose well set, still 184 in arrears, and in 93 overs they managed only 199 runs. Is it any wonder that crowds for Tests in New Zealand are so poor?While England got dogged defence down to a fine art, they forgot that to defend successfully, you need to score runs as well. For almost an hour in the afternoon the run-rate hovered at around one an over. Incredibly, that was while Kevin Pietersen was at the crease. The result was that although New Zealand only took four wickets, their lead remains large enough that if they can bowl England out cheaply tomorrow and score quick runs, they will have at least a day for their bowlers to win the match.New Zealand bowled superbly until weariness took hold in the last hour. The seamers offered little, the spinners tormented the batsmen, and Daniel Vettori tightened the noose with intelligent field placing that choked England’s usually aggressive middle order.Resuming on 87 for 2, England pressed on for much of the morning as Michael Vaughan and Andrew Strauss made slow, steady and untroubled progress, and when Vaughan brought up his half-century with a deliberate steer to third man off Vettori, the chatter was all about how a draw was almost inevitable.Even when the breakthrough came from Jeetan Patel, it seemed only a brief hiccup. Patel, who visibly grew in confidence as the day progressed, found a modicum of turn outside off stump and Vaughan feathered a sharp chance through to Brendon McCullum behind the stumps. Three balls after lunch and Strauss fell, undone by a sublimely-flighted ball from Vettori which fizzed out of the footmarks outside off and ripped through a loose drive.Vettori then turned the screw. When not bowling himself, he placed his field to choke the batsmen’s strengths, especially when Pietersen was on strike, reducing one of the game’s great strokemakers to a plodding grafter. Pietersen thumped the third ball of his innings before lunch for a towering straight six; in the entire afternoon he managed 26 runs, and eight of those came off the last two overs of the session. It wasn’t until the brink of tea that he hit his second boundary.

Ian Bell, seemingly untroubled by the injury to his hand sustained on the first morning, never really settled, and with Pietersen rendered almost impotent, runs almost totally dried up – 56 came off 31 overs in the afternoon session. So effective were the spinners than Vettori delayed taking the new ball for almost an hour. When it did arrive, Kyle Mills nipped one back between bat and pad to bowl Bell, and the possibility of a follow-on, until then at the back of the mind, became a real possibility. Whether Vettori would have enforced it is another matter.Pietersen’s uncharacteristic vigil – he was at one stage given an ironic cheer for a single – ended soon after tea when a thin edge into his pads carried back to a diving Vettori, but as the shadows lengthened Collingwood and Ambrose finally started to hit out, their unbeaten seventh-wicket stand of 41 coming at heady two an over. The diminutive Ambrose showed no sign of nerves in his debut innings.England should have done enough to ensure that unless this pluperfect surface suddenly falls apart, this game will end in nothing other than stalemate. But watching the way Vettori and Patel whirled away in the afternoon, and imagining how many more questions they will ask on a wearing fifth-day pitch, it would be foolish to write New Zealand off quite yet.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details1:40

Unbelievable that modern batsmen can play like this

In their final innings of a long and wretched series, South Africa’s batsmen produced their most unyielding display, responding with dour defence in the face of a mountainous fourth-innings task. Hashim Amla was at the forefront of their defiance, playing the slowest innings of 200 balls or more in the history of Test cricket*, but South Africa’s job, notwithstanding their captain’s monumental effort, was less than half done.India declared half an hour from lunch, after Ajinkya Rahane had become the fifth Indian batsman to score twin tons in a Test match, setting a target of 481 with just over five sessions remaining. At stumps on day four, South Africa had only lost two wickets while eating up 72 overs. They only scored 72 in that time, but it hardly mattered to them: South Africa were batting time, and runs were simply not on their minds.At stumps, Amla was batting on 23 off 207 balls and with him was AB de Villiers, on 11 off 91. Their third-wicket partnership was worth 23 off 29.2 overs. Before that, Amla and Temba Bavuma had put on 44 in 38.4 overs.South Africa began their fourth innings with a possible 158 overs remaining in the match. Given the sheer amount of time left, a draw seemed out of question, but South Africa have shown themselves capable – in Adelaide three years ago and in Colombo last year – of defying that sort of logic. South Africa’s batting has been far from its best during this series, but they kept faith in their ability – unique in this era – to bat long without thinking of runs.They had five overs to see out before lunch, and did not survive that period unscathed. R Ashwin looped one up to Dean Elgar from around the wicket, drifting it into the left-hander and getting it to leave him from a middle-stump line. Elgar didn’t reach the pitch while trying to drive straight, and Rahane took a comfortable catch at slip.In walked Amla. It took him 46 balls to get off the mark, and the first runs were unintentional, his back-foot defensive stroke off Ravindra Jadeja squirting away into the fine leg region. Bavuma, blocking with comparable single-mindedness at the other end was on 8 off 50 balls when Ashwin sent down a rare half-tracker – possibly slipped in deliberately to break the batsman’s rhythm – that left him with almost no option but to pull for six.The overs ran by quickly, hypnotically, and the close-in cordon grew in strength. It was fascinating to watch. South Africa, perhaps, were making things more difficult for themselves by contributing to India’s rapid over rate and leaving themselves more overs to face. When their innings began, 68 overs remained from the 90 scheduled for the day; India bowled 72.And while neither batsman was making too many mistakes – their control percentages hovered in the low-to-mid-90s – every little mistake was amplified by the presence of four, sometimes five, fielders around the bat at all times.Between lunch and tea, the edges weren’t finding fielders though. Amla came forward to defend Jadeja, and nicked him between first and second slip. Ishant Sharma, replacing Ashwin in the 28th over, found Bavuma’s edge twice in the second over of his spell, and the ball streaked through the slips on both occasions.By tea, India had bowled 22 maidens in 39 overs, and had only one wicket to show for it. It took a ball of great beauty from their best bowler, Ashwin, to finally break the stand in the fourth over of the final session. It drifted away slightly from Bavuma’s off stump, and hit it as he played for more turn than there was. The length was key, punishing the batsman for his lack of a front-foot stride.The pitch seemed to have slowed down slightly, but the batsmen were still being tested, forced to stay vigilant every ball. Ashwin continued to confound with his flight, and slipped in the odd legbreak for variety. Jadeja got a couple to turn sharply past de Villiers’ edge. Umesh Yadav got one to lift from a length and smack Amla’s left glove. It was, perhaps, the moment that best summed up Amla’s impregnability: his hands were as close to his body as possible, and they cushioned the impact of the ball to make it drop right next to his feet.Amla and de Villiers had been at the crease for 62 balls without scoring a run, when Kohli decided to shake things up by bringing on his part-timers. Shikhar Dhawan sent down two wide full-tosses in his first over, and Amla had no option but to smash them to the cover-point boundary, but in between he got one to spit up from a length. Amla was fully stretched out in defence, his head over the ball and his bat face almost parallel with the ground, when the ball popped up off his glove and over Cheteshwar Pujara at silly point. Pujara spun around and dived full-length, but could only get his fingertips to the ball. It was barely a half-chance, but also the only chance India would get during the partnership.In the morning, Rahane shifted gears effortlessly as India resumed 403 ahead, looking for quick runs. On day three, he had scored 52 off 152 balls, shutting South Africa out of the contest in a display of cool professionalism in the company of Virat Kohli. On the fourth morning, Rahane made 48 off 54 balls.The only major change in his batting was a willingness to go after anything remotely wide of the stumps. He picked up two fours and a six in the first four overs of the morning, all in the arc between third man and deep cover, the pick of them a perfectly timed ramp over the slips off Morne Morkel.Kohli, who began the day on 83, only added five to his overnight score before he was lbw to a ball from Kyle Abbott that crept through at shin height. It didn’t hamper India’s scoring rate as Rahane and Wriddhiman Saha kept playing their shots. Rahane raced through the 80s with sixes in successive overs off Imran Tahir and Dean Elgar, and Saha used his bottom hand to telling effect in swiping three fours in two overs.The declaration was just around the corner. Tahir bowled one full at Rahane’s pads, and he clipped it away through the leg side to bring up a hundred that he barely celebrated, raising his arms momentarily before walking off towards the dressing room. It was an understated reaction to an outstanding achievement. Among Indian batsmen, only Vijay Hazare, Sunil Gavaskar (three times), Rahul Dravid (twice) and Kohli had made hundreds in both innings of a Test match before Rahane.*

ScorecardRiding on a 104 by opener Shreevats Goswami, India Under-19 scored 280 for 6 and restricted Bangladesh U-19 to 150 for 7 to register their second win of the tournament.Goswami, who had scored 97 in the previous match against South Africa, hit nine fours in his 134-ball knock and allowed India to post a second successive 250-plus total. He was ably supported by the middle order, especially Virat Kohli, India’s captain, who scored a 34-ball 54 with the help of three fours and four sixes. Of the eight bowlers tried by Bangladesh, only Rubel Hossain was able to trouble the batsmen and was duly rewarded with three wickets.Bangladesh’s task of overhauling India’s total was made stiffer with the revised target of 217 from 33 overs. Losing Rony Takulder in the first over, Bangladesh recovered to reach 86 for 1 by the 17th over. A flurry of wickets from then onwards saw them fall behind the asking rate and they finished 67 runs behind the target at the end of the 33rd over.