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ScorecardNicky Boje produced a fine all-round display, following three wickets with an unbeaten 74 as Northamptonshire eased to a six-wicket win, continuing Warwickshire’s alarming slump in form. Boje was well supported by Riki Wessels and David Sales as they chased down 231 with four overs to spare.Warwickshire looked like making a game of it when they removed both Northamptonshire openers early, but Boje and Wessels, who clubbed 52 off 29 balls, added 77 to put the chase on course.Boje then combined with Sales, who faced 52 balls for his runs and hit seven fours and a six. Ant Botha claimed two wickets on his Warwickshire debut, but it wasn’t enough.None of Warwickshire’s batsmen went on to produce a major innings, six of them falling between 24 and 41. Jonathon Trott top scored and some late hitting from Nick James and Alex Loudon boosted the total, although Northamptonshire made it appear well under par.

New Zealand’s constantly changing squad will welcome Scott Styris when they arrive in Melbourne on Wednesday. Styris joins Kyle Mills, Jacob Oram and Lou Vincent as late additions to the squad following recoveries from injury and the retirement of Nathan Astle.Styris, the allrounder, has been troubled by back problems since the Champions Trophy in October and he also picked up a calf injury. However, he has proved his fitness on the domestic scene and will now attempt to show he is ready for a spot at the World Cup.”Scott needs to be reacquainted with the squad systems, which have moved on significantly since he was last in the team,” Lindsay Crocker, the New Zealand Cricket general manager, said. “It is also an opportunity for him to get back on to the international stage and the extra pressures that it brings.”Hamish Marshall has been dropped from the squad and will return to New Zealand on Wednesday. He played only one match against Australia and was dismissed third ball for zero.

England are increasingly confident that Andrew Flintoff will be available for the second Test against Pakistan at Old Trafford which gets underway on July 27. Flintoff missed out on England’s calamitous one-day series against Sri Lanka and has undergone extensive rehabilitation on his injured ankle, spending time at Bovey Castle in Dartmoor with the England physio Dave Roberts.He will make his return to competitive cricket this afternoon in a Twenty20 clash for Lancashire against Nottinghamshire, one of two Twenty20 matches he will play. It was confirmed by England’s chairman of selectors, David Graveney, that he will also take part in a Championship match against Kent on July 18.”Everything is on course. It is very positive,” Graveney told BBC Radio 5 Live. “All things being equal, he will be available for the second Test.”He is going to play in two Twenty20 games for Lancashire and then a county championship game.”Last week, Flintoff was named as the official stand-in to Michael Vaughan who was ruled out of the Ashes this winter; while Flintoff continues to recover from his injury, Andrew Strauss will lead the side at Lord’s on Thursday.

New Zealand have announced winter contracts for the first time with seven players, including Grant Elliott, on the list. The deals run from May to September and cover the Emerging Players Tournament in Queensland in July and the New Zealand A tour of India in September.”All players contracted will be under consideration for winter tours by the New Zealand A or Emerging Players Tournament sides, or even the Blackcaps,” a New Zealand spokesman confirmed to Cricinfo.”These contracts have been awarded in recognition of their performance in the last domestic season,” Glenn Turner, one of New Zealand’s selectors, said. “We have identified them as possible future Blackcaps, or as players who we expect to build on existing international experience. There is an expectation that they will keep working on their game during the winter.”The allrounder Elliott, 29, made his Test debut against England last month but was overlooked for a full contract two weeks ago. However, the winter deal gives him hope his international career will not stall at one match.Nathan McCullum is one step closer to joining his brother Brendon in the national set-up again after receiving one of the seven contracts. His only match in New Zealand colours came at the World Twenty20 last year, when he made 1 and was not required to bowl against South Africa.Neil Broom, Martin Guptill, Greg Hay, Bradley Scott and BJ Watling were also included in the list. McCullum, Broom and Scott have played together for New Zealand A in 2007, the trio appearing in the Emerging Players Tournament final in Australia where they lost to South Africa.Guptill, 21, is a former New Zealand Under-19 player who made his first-class debut two years ago while Watling, 22, played his initial first-class match in the 2004-05 season. The deals begin on May 19 and continue until the end of September, before the resumption of major association contracts.

An Indian fan was taken into custody in connection with an assault in oneof the hospitality boxes adjoining the Indian dressing-room at SuperSportPark in Centurion. The man, who is also alleged to have thrown a bottle atZaheer Khan, apparently manhandled a woman when she tried to prevent himfrom gaining access to the dressing-room.The Indian players had been subjected to vile abuse throughout the day,with even stalwarts like Rahul Dravid singled out forintensely personal barbs. Towards the end of the Indian innings, some fansasked Munaf Patel and Irfan Pathan to come down and sign autographs. Theplayers are not allowed to do so, and the mood then turned ugly.As South Africa breezed towards the target, the abuse in both Hindi andGujarati became much more strident. And when the players came down for thepresentation ceremony, there was further heckling. According to a sourcewithin the Indian team, the same group had derided the players’ efforts atDurban and Cape Town as well.Following the presentation, Zaheer is said to have asked the securitystaff to bring the man to him. When confronted with him, Zaheer apparentlyasked him why he had thrown the bottle. He then walked away, but theindividual wasn’t prepared to let it go at that.He went around to the hospitality box and tried to force his way into thedressing-room through there. When he started manhandling the lady, herdaughter raised the alarm, and security staff apprehended him and took himinto custody. The authorities are currently trying to locate the womaninvolved in the incident to get her version of events.Corne Meyer, who handles security for the event sponsors, said that a manhad indeed been found trespassing in the dressing-room area, but declinedto comment till he had further investigated the matter.”Nothing untoward happened inside the dressing-room, and the securitypersonnel quickly got the man out of there,” said Rajan Nair, the Indianteam’s media manager when quizzed about the incident. The NorthernsCricket Union is also investigating the matter which, if true, involves aserious security breach.

Mathew Sinclair has been named as Michael Papps’s replacement in New Zealand’s Test squad which is currently in Bangladesh. Papps dislocated his shoulder during a training session at Lincoln, an injury that will keep him out of action for four to six weeks.While it has yet to be determined whether Sinclair will open the innings or bat at No. 3, it is an overdue opportunity for him to re-stake his claim in the New Zealand side. He has been on the fringes far too long for a player with his run-scoring potential. He has had random chances in recent times to establish a more permanent place, but has not enjoyed the consistency of selection that others in the side have been given.The only player in the New Zealand Test squad to have scored two Test double-centuries, Sinclair had been told that he had matters of technique to sort out before earning more opportunities at the highest level. As a result he sought top-flight assistance with Glenn Turner, the former national captain and coach. Yet, too often those who have been preferred to Sinclair have been guilty of squandering their opportunities, and somehow managing to survive the selectorial axe.In naming the Test side for Bangladesh, Craig McMillan was left out, although he was still named in the one-day squad that was announced today. McMillan, Sinclair, Lou Vincent and Scott Styris have been the most obvious contenders for the two middle-order spaces available when Mark Richardson, Stephen Fleming and Nathan Astle have been included.Vincent, who scored a Test century on debut, like Sinclair and Styris, has also been sent away to work on his game, and is yet to convince those in control that he is worth calling back. The situation of having players who can be put under pressure in this area of the game is uncommon in New Zealand cricket history, and is the result of intensified development work to create this very problem.Sinclair has an outstanding opportunity, especially before the tour of Australia, to make the most of his chance and to keep the pressure on McMillan. Aiding his cause was his selection as the player of the series after New Zealand A’s tour to South Africa. With cricket of a highly competitive level to bank on, Sinclair has it all in front of him, and the battle for places in the side promises to be one of the more appealing contests in New Zealand this summer.Another prospect was thrown into the mix today, albeit in a one-day sense, with the inclusion of yet another middle-order contender in Peter Fulton, the Canterbury Country left-hand batsman. He has made a significant impact on the domestic scene, and is the most recent New Zealander to have scored a first-class triple-century. Another tall player, he stands just short of two metres (6ft 6ins), so he can lookJacob Oram in the eye.

Fulton, like Sinclair, had a promising tour of South Africa, and was probably the most consistent of the New Zealand A batsmen, without ever cracking the sort of big score that Sinclair managed. But after injuring his shoulder in the last four-day match, he was rested from the first two one-dayers, only to return and top-score with 98 in New Zealand A’s thrilling attempt at chasing 297 in the third and final game. In the end the South Africans won by just four runs.Fulton said today that, like most players, reaching the international stage had been his goal and he was very excited to learn that he had been included in the side. He said he had thoroughly enjoyed the A system that New Zealand has embraced this year, with a series against Sri Lanka A earlier in the year being followed by the trip to South Africa, from which the players only returned home yesterday.”It’s good to play this standard of cricket, and I feel pretty well prepared. South Africa A were a really strong team, and it was the strongest standard of cricket that I have played,” said Fulton. “Hopefully, I will get a game or two over there but I am taking nothing for granted, I just want to make the most of it.”Fulton spent most of the New Zealand winter in England, playing forLowerhouse in the Lancashire League, and helped them to win the Worsley Cup. It was the first time in their 140-year history that Lowerhouse had won anything.”It was quite odd playing a club game and having 3000 people there when we won the final,” said Fulton, who scored around 1100 runs and took 60 wickets in regular club matches and one-day games during the season.The other feature of the one-day selection was the recall of Andre Adams, who impressed with the level of vitality that had returned to his game after experience with Essex in the County Championship this year.As expected, Stephen Fleming was not included in the one-day side, and along with Jacob Oram, will be rested in preparation for the tour of Australia that follows the Bangladesh trip. Daniel Vettori will captain New Zealand’s one-day outfit in his absence. John Bracewell, the coach, explained that the selectors were looking to broaden the captaincy experience available in the side, especially now that Chris Cairns is unavailable for Test selection.

Ian Bell, the England and Warwickshire batsman, has spoken of his hunger to rectify his disappointing series against Australia last year and insists he has nothing to prove.Bell enjoyed a superb second half of the summer with England, with three hundreds in successive Tests against Pakistan and 375 runs in four Tests after missing the Sri Lanka series. This followed a consistent run of scores in the winter against India and Pakistan; it has been a marked contrast to the nervous figure who appeared against Australia last summer.”I’ve got 18 Test matches under my belt now compared to three last time I faced Australia. I’ve played a winter on the sub-continent,” said Bell. “I’ve got some experience of playing against the top players in the world and can go to Australia with that in the bank and I’ve also got three hundreds in the last four Tests.”Have I anything to prove in Australia? I don’t feel as if I have to prove anything to myself. I would like to score runs against Australia. But I don’t think I need to go and prove too much to anyone. They would have seen I’ve scored three hundreds in the last four Tests. They will know that. A lot of Australians play county cricket as well so I don’t think I have to prove too much to anyone.”But it would be nice to go out there and score some runs. I was chuffed to bits to be a part of the Ashes side but would like to do more with the bat this time,” he said. “To be part of England retaining the Ashes would be pretty special, especially in their own back yard. That would be great.”I feel I belong more in the Test side now and am mentally stronger. That has come with a bit of experience. I’ve had some ups and downs. I’ve been left out a little bit and then got back in.”In what was generally a disappointing one-day summer for England, Bell’s batting was a lone highlight and, next month, he travels to India for the Champions Trophy.”A lot of cricket is about momentum and, if we can take what we’ve done in the Test matches and the one-dayers at the end of the summer, it will stand us in good stead for the ICC.”If we can win the games well in the ICC, it will also give us some good momentum for going into the World Cup. That’s important and every game for the one-day side, which is sort of emerging with young players, is important.”

ScorecardJust like the full England side, the under-19s are finding life on the subcontinent tough this winter. After being whitewashed in the five-match series against a BCB High Perfomance Side, their poor start to the triangular tournament got poorer with a second defeat, this time to Sri Lanka.Angelo Mathews was the star for Sri Lanka, smashing 70 not out from 74 balls to boost their total to 225 after Dimuth Karunaratne and Sameera de Zoysa put on 54 for the first wicket to set a solid platform.Rory Hamilton-Brown fared the best for England’s bowlers, taking 3 for 44 and playing a part in causing a mid-innings wobble and give Sri Lanka the jitters at 156 for 8. But Mathews stood firm to help lift the score with two fruitful stands with Muthumudalige Pushpakumara and Rajeeva Weerasinghe which yielded 69 runs.England lost early wickets which set them on the backfoot from the off. Varun Chopra stood firm to add a quick 34 from as many balls, but when he fell to Hans Fernando and Woodman went for 40, the momentum fell away from the innings (83 for 3). There was no way back for England and when they lost three quick wickets for six runs late on – Weerasinghe struck twice and there was a run out – the writing was on the wall (180 for 8).They folded not long after, with Ben Wright left stranded on 40 not out, as Sri Lanka recorded victory by 13 runs.

If AB de Villiers was less experienced, South Africa might have lost the series to England on Sunday. If AB de Villiers was less experienced, 22 for 3 would have been a hole too deep for him to dig his team out of. If AB de Villiers was less experienced, 237 would have been too much to chase. But AB de Villiers was playing in his 200th ODI and knew exactly what to do: embrace the situation and then overcome it.”You live for those pressure moments,” de Villiers said. “Through an international career, you have ups and down but you always feel you are gong to be tested in moments like that. It has taken me years to feel comfortable and to feel like I have good composure in those situations.”De Villiers knew that after a top-order tumble South Africa needed cool heads. Luckily, he had his calmest team-mate, Hashim Amla, on hand to provide that.”The chat between us was not to worry about the runs and to make sure we get in and not lose another wicket,” he explained. “We’ve done it before. I felt it was really important to take it 10 runs at a time and get to a fifty-run partnership.”After 58 balls together, de Villiers and Amla had that. They’d also survived a squeeze, punished some poor balls and given themselves some breathing room. After another 48 balls, that stand had doubled and South Africa were safe. The captain’s decision to drop himself one lower than the No.4 position he usually bats looked like a stroke of genius and the victory target was well within reach.”I like to push myself a little bit down when we are chasing. I feel I handle the pressure situations well and that’s why I want to be there at the end,” de Villiers said. And if he is there at the end, the South Africans always feel they have a chance.More than his ability and audacious strokeplay, it’s de Villiers’ attitude that keeps his countrymen and, in the space of the last week, his team-mates hopeful. With South Africa 2-0 down, de Villiers rallied his troops and asked them “to keep believing”.He admitted that in facing the prospect of a second series defeat at home in the same summer, they were in a “really dark space”, but that he wanted them to snap out of it.”I asked them to keep spirits up. I asked them to keep believing and have the faith we can come back,” he said. “We showed inspirational videos here and there but we tried to focus on the basics and do the small things right and well, and created more pressure than England and then things went our way.”South Africa also made key personnel changes when they realised the precariousness of their position. They stopped relying on JP Duminy and Farhaan Behardien, to operate as the fifth bowler and brought in an allrounder to give them 10 overs. They shortened their batting line-up from a specialist point of view but added two genuine finishers and seemed to find a better balance, even if it’s not something they will stick with long-term.”I like to think we haven’t moved away from that seven-batsmen option,” de Villiers said. “But David (Wiese) and Chris (Morris) brought a different dynamic. Change was needed after the first two ODIs and they breathed an air of confidence into the side.”Wiese has been the more consistent of the two but Morris will be remembered as the hero after his match-winning innings of 62 at the Wanderers. His knock there kept South Africa alive. It gave them the belief de Villiers sought but they still could have drowned in the wave of emotion that match swept over them. That they didn’t only shows how desperate they were to finish the job.”We took a lot of confidence from that but after an emotional game like that, it’s easy to lose your fighting spirit,” de Villiers said. “We were just maybe a bit more hungry than England to really nail it down.”Even so, he praised the opposition for giving South Africa a wake-up call and a warning for what they will offer in tournaments to come. “They are a fantastic one-day team,” he said. “To come back from rock bottom in that 2015 World Cup. The talent was always there but mentally they had to get through a few obstacles.”Morgs played a big part in that. Even though he didn’t have a great series with the bat, he still had the right body language. He is the right man to take England forward. They will be a team to deal with in the next few years, especially at the 2017 Champions Trophy and 2019 World Cup.”If de Villiers keeps performing like he did at Newlands, so might South Africa.

Four women umpires will officiate in the Women’s World T20 Qualifier in Bangkok from November 28 to December 5. The ICC said in a release that New Zealand’s Kathy Cross, Australia’s Claire Polosak, England’s Sue Redfern and West Indies’ Jacqueline Williams have been picked for the tournament, in which Bangladesh, China, Ireland, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Scotland, Thailand and Zimbabwe’s women teams will compete for two spots in the 2016 World T20.Cross, the most experienced of the four, had become the first woman to be named in an ICC umpires’ panel in 2014, having been added to the Associate and Affiliate panel. She umpired in the Women’s World Cup in 2000, 2009 and 2013, the Women’s World Cup Qualifier in 2011 and the Women’s World T20 Qualifier in 2013.Polosak is the youngest of the four at 27, and recently carried out the duties of third umpire in the Matador One-Day Cup, becoming the first woman to officiate in Australian List A cricket. Redfern has played cricket for England, bowling left-arm spin in six Tests and 15 ODI’s from 1995 to 1999, after which she took up umpiring. Williams, who is from Jamaica, recently made her international debut, standing in the first ODI and T20 between West Indies Women and Pakistan Women in the Caribbean. She is set to become the first woman to officiate West Indies’ first-class tournament, the WICB Regional Four-Day tournament, once she returns home from Thailand.Cross said she was happy to finally get the opportunity to officiate with other women, a big step for women in the game. “Each tournament brings something new for women’s cricket, and this latest development hopefully shows that the quality of [women’s] umpiring is getting better and better, as the calibre of [women’s] teams is certainly improving,” Cross said. “I have enjoyed the experience of officiating in different parts of the world, but I have been alone, as a woman, in the middle for quite some time.”So, it’s great for all of us to have this opportunity in Thailand this week at such an important tournament. I think that the selection of four females can set down a pathway for more people to come through the system.”Also officiating in the tournament will be umpires Allan Haggo and Nigel Morrison, and match referee Graeme Labrooy.