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ScorecardIt may not have looked a particularly demanding target on paper but, with a wretched batting record and their top division status at stake, Warwickshire produced one of their best performances of the summer to revive their hopes of avoiding relegation.A seven-wicket victory over Essex leaves Warwickshire equal on points with Kent and seventh in the table. Kent, who have a game in hand, are the next visitors to Edgbaston in an encounter that could well decide which team goes down. The financial pressure under which Kent are under, with just about their entire squad made available for transfer to other counties, can hardly help them.This defeat all but condemns Essex to relegation, however. They are now bottom of the table and have just one game – against Durham – left to play. Essex need not only to win, but for other results to go their way. On the evidence of this performance, it would be a major surprise if they were to avoid the drop. They look ill-disciplined, with brittle batting and, the reliable David Masters apart, anodyne bowling.Indeed, for much of the afternoon, it looked as if only the weather could deny Warwickshire. While the rain intervened twice, the showers were never severe enough to keep the players off the field for long.Darren Maddy, with just his second Championship half-century of the summer, led the way for Warwickshire, though there were also useful contributions from Ian Westwood and Varun Chopra.To many teams, a target of 153 in 70 might not look have looked too demanding. For Warwickshire, however, who have been dismissed for 155 or fewer 11 times in this Championship campaign, it could have proved daunting.Crucially, however, they made a decent start. For just the third time in 28 attempts this summer, the openers compiled a half-century partnership, with Westwood and Chopra watchful but positive.Westwood was particularly impressive. Though the pitch continued to provide assistance to the seamers, Westwood drove neatly through the covers and square cut with power. He has been the victim of a large amount of criticism from Warwickshire supporters this season but, in such situations, he is just the sort of dogged fighter his team require. He is also the team’s highest run-scorer. It was some surprise when he missed an attempted sweep in Danish Kaneria’s first over.Though Jim Troughton’s grim run showed no sign of abating – he’s passed 50 just once this season, and that was in April – when he was leg-before playing across a straight one, Maddy looked nerveless and feasted on a surfeit of short bowling.The end came in a rush. Maddy punished Tony Palladino for four successive boundaries to reach his first half-century since May and, when Rikki Clarke drove Chambers through the covers. It was, oddly, the fourth time in this championship campaign that Warwickshire have made 155 against Essex.Earlier, a sustained spell of fast bowling from Rikki Clarke helped bowl out Essex for 193 in their second innings. Clarke, who has already taken more first-class wickets than in any previous summer, reaped the rewards for bowling an excellent line and length at an unusually brisk pace.Both Mark Pettini and Ryan ten Doeschate were bowled off their inside edges, prodding indeterminately, unsure whether to play forward or back, before Masters edged a loose drive.Perhaps the key wicket, however, was gifted to Warwickshire. Pettini called Matt Walker through for a high-risk single only to see Chopra swoop in from extra-cover and throw down the stumps with a direct hit. James Foster was deceived by Chris Woakes’ inswinger, before Palladino completed his pair by missing a straight one and Kaneria failed in his attempts to slog one out of Birmingham.”If we can stay up it will be a miraculous effort,” Ashley Giles, Warwickshire’s director of cricket, said afterwards. “We know this win doesn’t suddenly make everything rosy, but we’ve some signs of improvement with the bat and some glimpses of confidence. It makes next week’s game against Kent, in effect, a double-pointer. We’ve some massive days coming up.”But, so far, we’ve done what we needed to do. We’ve showed a lot of spirit and we’ve made sure our fate remains in our hands. To win a game where we’ve lost the best part of a day and two-thirds to the opposition, is a great effort.”We were clearly the team that wanted to win this game more. We were fighting the weather more than the opposition and it’s nice to see the guys relaxing and enjoying the win. We’ve had enough tears this summer.”

To listen to Virender Sehwag is to realise that perhaps we take our game too seriously. That, after all is said and done, it is just a sport. Two matches in a row he has thrown away his wicket with the bowlers at his mercy. One of them became part of the reason why India find themselves 1-0 down in the series, the other hasn’t been as fatal, thanks to Sachin Tendulkar. At least that’s what it looks like now.In the second of those instances, Sehwag had shown remarkable patience and application in giving India a superb start, but threw it away when he tried to go from 99 to 105 – off the first ball he faced from Suraj Randiv today. The mind was made up to charge at the bowler, he saw a shortish delivery that he couldn’t reach, made a last-ditch effort to fetch it and drag it to the on side, and missed the straighter one. He just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Yes I read it. I knew it was the doosra, but I went for the shot.”It is not as if he is irresponsible or mindless. To suggest any of those would be unfair, and disrespectful to one of the sharper brains around. Still he gets really annoyed when all the opposition is trying to do is to contain. He fought his instinct for long durations today, and when he saw a new bowler, he perhaps saw an opportunity for a boundary: he had scored only one in the 16 previous overs.”I am disappointed,” he said. “Not because I was out on 99, but because today’s day could have been very good for us if we were one or two down. We had a great opportunity to post a big total. But thanks to Sachin Tendulkar we are back in a good situation. If we play well tomorrow then we can avoid the follow-on and also bat the whole day.”Sehwag didn’t quite panic then, at the mammoth Sri Lankan total. “Not really because the wicket is so good to bat on,” he said. “I knew somebody will make a big one. I was expecting from VVS [Laxman] and Sachin to complete the hundreds, unfortunately Laxman got out. Full praise to Suresh Raina, he batted really well and scored his fifty. I am hoping that tomorrow morning he will come and complete his hundred.”Sehwag deserves praise for the way he began yesterday himself. It wasn’t an easy job to play as aggressively as he did after having spent so much time in the field, and the debacle of the first match. “There was an opportunity if you bat for 18 overs,” he said. “You have a chance to score 50. I grabbed the opportunity and scored 60 not out, and I came today morning and tried to score a big one but unfortunately I got out.”Asked if anybody was waiting in the dressing room to pull him up after that dismissal, Sehwag said, “Probably, I have played (too) many Test matches for anybody to come and tell me I have missed a hundred. It is written there in big letters that I made 99.”Thankfully for Sehwag and India, there was Tendulkar to cover up for his error today. Asked if there was anything new to learn from Tendulkar’s batting, Sehwag is honest. “It is difficult to say what we have learned from watching him,” he says. “Everyday we listen to him in the dressing room, and that is as good as learning.”Looking at Suresh Raina batting and Tendulkar, it is difficult to say who is making debut. The big plus point is about Sachin is that whenever he gets down to play it is as if he is playing his first game.”

Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara has reposed faith in his depleted bowling attack for the second Test. The hosts are without the two bowlers who won them the first Test in Galle by sharing 15 wickets: Muttiah Muralitharan has retired, while Lasith Malinga has been rested due to a stiff knee. Sri Lanka will bank on the services of Ajantha Mendis, who replaces Murali, and could bring in Dilhara Fernando for Malinga.”Malinga is a big loss to be honest,” Sangakkara said in a pre-match press conference in Colombo. “He troubled all the batsmen. With Malinga everyone was trying to survive rather than score off him because they know how dangerous he is.”Malinga is effective with both the old and the new ball it doesn’t matter whether the wicket is flat, with bounce or is slow; he is equally threatening on all surfaces. When a player like that goes out it’s a huge blow. We are looking forward to having him in the third Test. He’s going to take this game off, get fit and get back into the fold.”Apart from Fernando, Sri Lanka have two other pace options in Dammika Prasad and Nuwan Pradeep who didn’t feature in Galle. “Dilhara, Prasad and Pradeep have all been quality bowlers for us over the years,” Sangakkara said. “Pradeep has just finished an A team tour of Australia where he’s troubled all the Aussie batsmen who have grown up on quick bouncy tracks. He’s got a lot of pace and he is averaging in the high 140s. Dilhara is in the mid 140s and Dammika is one of the quickest bowlers we have.”These guys are around to do a job for us and whenever they are selected if they are mentally prepared to go and do the hard work in a Test match and bowl in the right areas, they are going to be effective as well. Let’s see how they share the workload. The competition is pretty high for fast bowlers.”Sri Lanka have Mendis, Suraj Randiv and Rangana Herath, who also starred with the bat, to pick among the spinners, and Sangakkara said the final XI would comprise those who were best suited for the conditions on offer at the SSC. “These guys [the spinners] will have to share the wickets and make sure it’s a partnership effort in bowling rather than depending on just Murali or Lasith. We’ll look at all three spinners and pick the most effective ones. With a batting line up like India you need to pick wickets.”Rangana bowled very steady with the ball and he was always there or thereabouts right throughout the game. He didn’t do anything wrong but we just have to make sure we make the right decision for the conditions we have and the batsmen we face,” Sangakkara said.Mendis proved successful in the tour game, grabbing a six-for, and tormented India during their previous series in Sri Lanka, grabbing 26 wickets. However, since then, he has been handled relatively easily by the Indian batsmen. “Unfortunately for him he took about 26 wickets in his first Test series and in his first big final he took 6-13 so people have been expecting him to do the same over and over again. It doesn’t work that way,” Sangakkara said. “Also he’s played a lot of cricket especially against India, the more you play the players get more used to you. He did very well for us in the warm-up game so taking the field tomorrow I am sure he is going to do a great job for us.”Despite the absence of key bowlers, Sangakkara admitted testing the Indian batsmen would be a challenge. “Test cricket is about being consistent – length and line and making sure you put a lot of pressure on the batsmen continuously not for just over one session but over four to five sessions. It’s going to be a challenge but I am sure it is something which the boys are going to enjoy.”

New Zealand wicketkeeper Brendon McCullum has said he nearly turned his back on his country to commit to an entire season of the IPL, before he changed his mind while on holiday in Fiji. McCullum made the revelations in his book , co-authored by journalist Dylan Cleaver, in which he talks about the impact of the lucrative Twenty20 tournament.”I felt I had unfinished business from IPL II. The fact that the tournament did not pan out the way I envisaged had not sat well with me. I desperately wanted to turn it around,” McCullum wrote. “I must admit I came bloody close to not signing with New Zealand Cricket. I took a plane to Fiji with my wife, Elissa, for a holiday and to think about what cricket meant to me.”I had started to question how important cricket was to me … This issue of signing, or not signing, my NZC contract brought it to a head. I needed to give something up to understand it and in the end what I did not want to give up was my full and utter commitment to New Zealand.”McCullum was one of several star picks of the Kolkata Knight Riders and he set the tournament alight in 2008 with a blazing 158 in Bangalore. The team underperformed under Sourav Ganguly in that season, and McCullum was handed the captaincy in 2009 after coach John Buchanan introduced the controversial multiple-captain theory. It was a rather forgettable season in charge for McCullum as the team finished at the bottom of the table and was the butt of jokes through a popular blog written by an unidentified ‘Fake IPL blogger’, claiming to be an insider in the team. Kolkata won just three out of 14 games and Ganguly took back the captaincy for the 2010 season.McCullum, who has a New Zealand record of 208 consecutive ODI appearances, said he began to change his mind after people questioned his commitment to New Zealand cricket. “I get a bit disappointed when I read that I don’t give a rat’s a*** about playing for my country. The only reason the inference disappoints me is that I know the sacrifice I made to play for New Zealand,” he wrote.”In what other industry would you be expected to take options that cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars?”The criticism wasn’t just directed at him. He also writes about the negative press he and four other New Zealand players received after missing the first ten days of the tour of England in 2008 due to IPL commitments. “Doing something new is not always popular, is it?” he wrote.

Scorecard
Charlotte Edwards anchored England’s innings with 46•Getty Images

England’s women completed a clinical victory over World Twenty20 finalists New Zealand at Chelmsford, wrapping the visitors up for 113 to win the opening Twenty20 international of the tour by 37 runs.The victory was set up by a solid performance from England’s batting line-up, with captain Charlotte Edwards’ patient 46 anchoring the innings after she won the toss and opted to bat first, and the middle order chipping in for a total of 150 for 5. Edwards then used her slow bowlers extensively, with spin accounting for seven wickets.Despite the early loss of Suzie Bates – who was superbly caught by Lydia Greenway at straight midwicket – New Zealand had looked well set to challenge England’s effort with the bat when captain Aimee Watkins and Sara McGlashan combined in a 47-run stand for the second wicket. But once Watkins departed for 24, caught by Greenway as she tried to clear the deep midwicket boundary, England had their opening and continued to pick up regular wickets.Laura Marsh had opened the bowling, and it was Danielle Hazell’s offspin that accounted for Watkins. she got rid of McGlashan two overs later to spark New Zealand’s demise, as they lost eight wickets for 54 runs.After a subdued Sophie Devine had been bowled by Holly Colvin for 9 from 15 balls, Liz Perry and Nicola Browne briefly threatened a fightback as they both cleared the boundary in a stand of 28 in under four overs. But after they were removed in consecutive balls by impressive youngster Danielle Wyatt with the score on 100, New Zealand quickly crumbled.Anya Shrubsole picked up two wickets in three balls, dismissing Rachel Priest and Lucy Doolan, and Greenway then capped an outstanding day in the field with the run-out of Kate Broadmore to go with her four catches. With the match already lost, Maria Fahey charged down the track at Wyatt only to miss the ball completely, Sarah Taylor whipping the bails off in a flash to end the game.England’s innings had been well set-up by a 68-run stand between Claire Taylor and Edwards at the top of the innings. With Edwards anchoring the innings, Taylor played her shots in an aggressive 32-ball 34.Marsh picked up where Taylor left off, improvising with gusto in a cameo that included a Dilscoop over the ‘keeper’s head and a flat-batted swipe over square leg. Despite the loss of Edwards four runs short of a deserved half-century, Greenway and Wyatt kept up the momentum to boost England’s match-winning total.

The Sahara Group will continue as sponsors of the Indian team after they won the contract by bidding Rs. 3.34 crores ($719,000) per match, a marketing committee official has told Cricinfo. The current sponsorship contract ends on June 30 and the new one runs until December 31, 2013. A top Sahara official also confirmed the development. Bharti Airtel, the only other company in the fray, put in a bid for Rs 2.89 crore ($628, 260) per match.”We take pride in sponsoring the Indian national team,” Abhijit Sarkar, corporate affairs head at Sahara, said.Sahara’s winning bid comes as something of a surprise as chairman Subrata Roy had said the company would re-evaluate its sponsorship of the Indian team after it bagged the Pune IPL franchise. According to market sources, Sahara decided to bid again because an analysis of the numbers turned out positive. It paid Rs 407 crores ($88 million) over the last four years, so the new deal requires roughly Rs 85 crores ($18.5 million) more, which doesn’t hurt the group much.Sahara waited until the last minute before entering the bidding because it was worried about the response from its competitors. It feared the price of the deal could rise over Rs 500 crores if its interest was publicly known. The deal is solely to sponsor the Indian men’s team, as the group was not interested in spending an extra Rs 10-15 crore on the other three squads (women’s, India A and Under-19).The BCCI is not bothered by the failure to attract a sponsor for the three other teams, and will not attempt to find one, a board official who is a member of the marketing committee, told Cricinfo. As it stands, these teams don’t play a lot of matches anyway, and when they do, the matches aren’t always televised. Occasionally, the matches even clash with those of the Indian team, robbing them of any value, the official said.The board had set a base price of Rs 2.5 crores ($ 541,000) per match for the three-and-a-half-year period, during which India will play between 144 and 167 matches, depending on how far the team progresses in ICC tournaments. At Rs 3.34 crores a match, the Sahara deal is worth between Rs 481 crores ($104 million) and Rs 558 crores ($121 million). A member of the BCCI marketing committee told Cricinfo that the board is very happy with the new deal, as it represents a 50% increase per match over the previous deal (in actuality, the increase is much higher).Under the terms of the previous deal, Sahara paid Rs 1.91 crores ($ 412,000) per Test, Rs 2.09 crores ($ 455,000) per ODI and Rs 1.57 crores ($ 340,000) per Twenty20. The new price is the same across all three formats, and more than doubles the price of a Twenty20 game, highlighting its appeal and popularity.The board had originally issued a tender late last year with a base price of Rs 3 crores ($ 650,000) per match, but failed to attract a single bid. As a stop gap measure, the Sahara Group agreed to extend its sponsorship of the Indian team for a further six months.The Indian board issued the tender on Monday inviting companies to bid for the rights and the bidding period closed on Saturday.

ScorecardHalf centuries from Moeen Ali, Daryl Mitchell and Gareth Andrew helped Worcestershire edge the honours on the first day of their County Championship game against Leicestershire at Grace Road.Moeen and Mitchell shared a third-wicket stand of 145 to lead the fightback after Worcestershire slumped to 15 for 2 and some late order resistance saw them through to a total of 308. Leicestershire captain Matthew Hoggard claimed 3 for 69 and 19-year-old Nathan Buck 3 for 64 and the home side then survived two awkward overs to reach stumps on 9 without loss.There was a degree of surprise when Worcestershire captain Vikram Solanki batted first on a green-looking pitch after winning the toss. And when two wickets fell – including Solanki’s – for 15 runs in the first six overs the decision was looking even more questionable.But Solanki, who popped an easy catch off Hoggard, was able to breath much easier after the partnership between Mitchell and Moeen had launched the recovery. The third wicket pair rode their luck at times but also profited from some erratic bowling from the home attack who failed to make the most of the conditions.Moeen was severe on anything loose and raced to 50 by hitting left-arm spinner Claude Henderson for 18 off one over. He struck a six and three fours to reach a half century from 60 balls. Mitchell was more circumspect but he too reached 50 off 93 balls shortly after lunch.But the partnership was broken by Hoggard who trapped Moeen lbw as he tried to work the ball on the leg side after making 80 off 127 balls. His departure triggered a middle-order collapse as Leicestershire regained the initiative. Hoggard snapped up his third wicket by trapping Mitchell lbw, Ben Smith was out in the same fashion to Henderson and Ben Scott edged Andrew McDonald to wicketkeeper Tom New.It meant four wickets had fallen for 39 runs with Hoggard taking 2 for 16 in an impressive nine-over spell. But a fluctuating day swung back in Worcestershire’s favour as Alexei Kervezee and Andrew led another recovery with a stand of 51.It needed a magnificent one-handed slip catch by Will Jefferson to removeKervezee off the bowling of McDonald with the total at 250. Andrew, however, reached his half century with a six off Hoggard before carvinga catch to point. Last man Jack Shantry ended a run of four consecutive ducks with a boundary off Hoggard but then fell lbw to Wayne White at 308.

Adam Gilchrist, the Deccan Chargers captain, believes that success in the Twenty20 format – and especially in the multi-cultural IPL – depends heavily on the ability of every single player to believe in, and work towards the team’s cause.”Whatever the group, you need complete buy-in into the team,” Gilchrist said, speaking to Harsha Bhogle on Cricinfo’s Time Out talk show. “You need everyone on board and it only takes one chink in the armour who doesn’t take up the slack or maintain the standards that you as leader and the rest of the team want to be part of, to make it fall down.””That is something we were impressed with in the Chargers in the turnaround. We have had our ups and downs this year but I feel confident with the buy-in from our players and their believing in our culture. But once you are struggling, particularly if it is a high-profile player, where others may lead or follow, it makes it difficult,” Gilchrist said.Gilchrist was reacting to a point raised by former India opener Aakash Chopra, who also participated in the show. Chopra drew from his experience playing for Kolkata Knight Riders in the 2009 edition of the IPL, to stress on the importance of work ethic in the Twenty20 format. While Gilchrist led Deccan Chargers to the title, Kolkata Knight Riders finished at the bottom of the table.”Talent has to be mixed with the work ethic and youngsters don’t have a problem absorbing work ethics if they work for people who are extremely successful at the international level,” Chopra said.”The problem starts where there is a bigger player who doesn’t adhere to those work ethics and that is where it is difficult for a leader to put things in perspectives. Coming from Kolkata I know how the system works there and John Buchanan had a rough time dealing with certain individuals,” Chopra said.Click here to access the talk show.