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Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

Mashrafe Mortaza’s career-best figures of 6 for 26 led Bangladesh to a convincing six-wicket win over Kenya to take the series 3-0. Dismissing Kenya for a lowly 118, Bangladesh knocked off the required runs in just 27 overs with Farhad Reza finishing unbeaten on 41, to hand Bangladesh their maiden series victory on foreign soil.After holding their nerve in Sunday’s cliffhanger to secure an unassailable 2-0 lead, it was Mortaza who made the difference between the two sides with a superb spell of economical bowling. Not only was it his first five-wicket haul, but recorded the best figures by a Bangladeshi bowler in one-dayers. He did, though, benefit from the cloudy, overcast conditions and his captain, Khaled Mashud, correctly decided to field. Syed Rasel responded immediately with a full-length inswinger that beat Kennedy Otieno’s floundering attempt to play across the line. After one ball, Kenya were 0 for 1.Maurice Ouma hung around for nearly 45 minutes, clobbering a four in his 14 and putting on a stabilising 35 for the second wicket with Malhar Patel before Mohammad Rafique crept one through his defences. It was the introduction of Mortaza, however, which turned the match Bangladesh’s way as he cut a swathe through Kenya’s middle-order, also snaffling the prize wicket of their captain, Steve Tikolo, for just 14.Tikolo was threatening to break free, too, lofting Mortaza over the covers for a confident four. But his poise got the better of him as Mortaza’s next delivery, angling down the legside, was lazily mistimed to midwicket. It was perhaps a stroke of fortune for Mortaza and he received a further slice of luck when Collins Obuya was adjudged lbw by the umpire, Krishna Hariharan; replays suggested otherwise but, by now, Mortaza was on a roll.With his side capitulating, Thomas Odoyo rightly went on the attack, slog-sweeping Saqibul Hasan over midwicket for a huge six, one of just two in the innings. And while Odoyo cleverly picked up singles to rotate the strike, something his team-mates failed to do, Mortaza enticed him into an injudicious drive, edging it to the wicketkeeper Mashud to hand the bowler his sixth wicket. It was a brilliant spell from Mortaza, bowling his 10 overs and conceding just 26 runs.Bangladesh set off in pursuit of 119 in a hurry with Shahriar Nafees belting four fours in his 18, but Thomas Odoyo removed him to begin a mini-slide. From 38 without loss Bangladesh slipped to 55 for 4. Peter Ongondo took two quick wickets and produced a cracking delivery to remove Mohammad Ashraful, jagging away and rising awkwardly to take the outside edge and hand Steve Tikolo his second comfortable catch at second slip.However, it was too little, too late. Saqibul Hasan and, in particular Reza, batted aggressively for his unbeaten 41 from 48 balls, clobbering seven fours and a six as Bangladesh sailed home with 23 overs to spare.

Western Province 276 for 7 dec lead North West 98 (Coetsee 50, de Stadler 5-18, Friend 3-37) and 84 for 8 (de Stadler 3-13, Magiet 3-0) by 94 runs
ScorecardRain in the morning session on the second day at Cape Town prevented Western Province from winning within two days as North West crumbled in abject fashion, losing 18 wickets in 86 overs. Werner Coetsee saved them from total humiliation, scoring 50 out of a total of 98 in the first innings. The only other player who got into double-figures was Marc Rosenberg, who scored 20. The main destroyer was Mark de Stadler, who took a career best of 5 for 18 from 14 overs He was assisted by Quentin Friend who took 3 for 37.Following on, North West faired no better as they collapsed to 84for 8 when bad light made sure that they would have to come back the next day. de Stadler was again among the wickets taking 3 for 13, but it was Achmat Magiet, making his debut appearance, who did the star turn, bowling three overs towards the end of the day and taking three wickets without conceding a run.Gauteng 228 and 90 for 3 lead KwaZulu-Natal 274 for 5 dec (Sanders 96, Gobind 77) by 44 runs
ScorecardGauteng fought back strongly at Durban to take a lead of 44 overKwaZulu-Natal at the end of the second day of their UCB Provincial Cup encounter. Natal ended the first day in a strong position, and consolidated further on the second morning, reaching 183 without loss in the 58th over. However, they lost the impetus and ended on 274for 5 when the forced declaration came in after 93 overs. The loss of Mark Sanders for 96 and Rivash Gobind, their captain, seemed to have a huge impact on the rest of the batsmen. In 35 overs they could only manage 91 runs allowing Gauteng right back into the game. When play was called off, Gauteng had moved to 90 for 3 in their second innings, and a decisive result was very much in doubt.

Scorecard

Last week, England won a series in the West Indies for the first time since 1968. But that success has not quelled debate about whether to reform the County Championship, which began today. The Brit Oval hosted the tie of the round, the champions Sussex versus the biggest club Surrey. Sussex ended the day on top, 75 for no wicket after bowling Surrey out for 304. But was it, as some reformers claim, just pie-chuckers bowling to South Africans on dodgy passports, watched by what Ally Brown once called “a few dogs and some coffin-dodgers”?No. A mixed crowd of nearly 2000 saw good, hard-fought cricket. In the morning, the Sussex seamers zipped the ball around, which has been happening in English Aprils for a long time. In the afternoon Surrey’s tailenders batted doggedly and well, which has been happening for not very long at all.It was a big match in the county calendar. Surrey ended last year with two one-day trophies, a £400,000 profit, and yet a feeling of disappointment. A squad full of internationals was difficult to keep happy. Plus there were England call-ups. Part of Sussex’s success was in producing players good enough to win a first-ever Championship, but not quite good enough to play for England. So it was the established top dogs, Surrey, against the young pretenders.Sussex’s seamers grabbed hold of the morning session. By lunch Surrey had fenced their way to 84 for 5. James Benning and Mark Ramprakash both spooned forcing shots and were caught. The rest were undone by aggressive and disciplined seam and swing bowling.Last year it was spin, particularly Mushtaq Ahmed’s 103 wickets, which transformed Sussex from contenders to champions. That netted him £10,000 in bonuses. (Winning the Championship proved pricey for Sussex, who recorded a loss after paying out promised win bonuses.) But today the accountants could rest easy: Mushy took only one wicket and went for more than five an over.The pitch eased after lunch, and Surrey were saved by their late order. They punished Mushtaq and added 220 for the last five wickets. Azhar Mahmood of Pakistan hit 16 rifle-crack boundaries in his 84, and put on a brisk 106 with tailender Martin Bicknell. He survived both a big lbw shout and an attempted run-out by the keeper from the same ball in the 57th over. The ninth-wicket pair kept up the jaunty tempo, adding 59. Surrey finally reached 304, with Sussex replying with 75 without loss in the evening sunshine.During the Surrey fightback, Ian Salisbury launched a straight six which disappeared into the foundations of the space-age £22million stand being built at the Vauxhall end. The debate about the County Championship still rages. The ECB is considering proposals and it might look very different by 2006. But one long-established part of English cricket is definitely on its way out. The new Vauxhall Stand will house the Test Match Special box. And from that angle Blowers definitely won’t be able to spot the double-deckers on the Harleyford Road.Paul Coupar is assistant editor of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack.

It would have been a nice way to finish. A century from the last ball of theday on your home ground in an Ashes Test but why retire for the sake of anice finish?That innings was to save Steve Waugh’s Test career, not to make a hundred sohe could pull the curtain down in style. He plays his best cricket when hecomes to the wicket at three-for not many and when hehas most on the line.First of all, he had to make runs in Sharjah against Pakistan just so hewould be picked for the Ashes. When Glenn McGrath came to the crease he wason 80. Two sixes and two fours later he had notched his century. Next over,McGrath was out.Waugh had a patchy start to the Ashes series and batted awfully inMelbourne. With everything to play for in Sydney, he played the innings ofhis life.He returned to captain his beloved Blues. On going back to the MCG, hebatted with more style this time round in posting 204. He made his firsthundred at the SCG against Queensland and then led NSW to the Pura Cup,their first four-day title in nine years.Waugh still has a lot to achieve in the game. Four years ago, he took overthe reins of the Australian captaincy from Mark Taylor. His first tour of duty asleader was to the Caribbean. After winning the first Test, Australia lostthe next two in nail-biters. They rallied to win the last and tie it at 2-2.This time round, Waugh wants the series win.He may even make it for his Waterloo; another tour of India, but that isstill a long way off.On a personal note, Waugh is on 10,039 Test runs, just 1136 behind SunilGavaskar. He also needs five hundreds to have the most Test centuriesalthough Sachin Tendulkar would most certainly overtake him in bothstatistical categories.Waugh has 91 wickets and just needs another nine to be the first player totake 100 wickets and score 10,000 runs. His wicket-taking has slowed downwith him taking just two in his last 40 Tests. He took 58 Tests to reach 50wickets and 81 in total to reach 75 wickets.Other milestones Waugh would want to achieve are a century at the WACA, theonly Test ground in Australia upon which he has not scored one. He may thenalso wish to score one against Bangladesh in Darwin and Cairns when theyplay each other in July.If Waugh scores that hundred in the fourth innings of the match, it will bethe first time he has scored a hundred in that innings of the game.He also needs just four more Test wins as captain to overtake Clive Lloyd asthe most successful captain in terms of the number of wins.So as soon as Steve Waugh declared himself available for the tour of theWest Indies, the selectors did the only thing possible and chose him. Andwhy wouldn’t Waugh have made himself available when he still has so much toachieve and has so much to offer.

Lymington’s prospects of winning the Southern Electric Premier League Division 2 championship and progressing into the “Gold” League next season suffered a serious setback with a two-wicket defeat by Portsmouth.Despite scoring only 141 themselves, Lymington appeared to hold all the aces as they reduced Portsmouth to 84-8.But for the second time this season, they were foiled by former Hampshire left-arm spinner, Raj Maru, who hauled his erratic side from the brink of defeat and set up an improbable victory.Maru’s undefeated 47, aided by Academy prospect Ben Nolan, guided Portsmouth from a perilous 84-8 to 144-8 and an absorbing two-wicket victory over Lymington, who are now very much outsiders in the promotion hunt.But Portsmouth are still marginally behind table-topping Cove, whose match with United Services was washed out with the Farnborough club in a powerful position at 277-9.Cove play Portsmouth at Grasmere Road on Saturday week, August 18 and then receive Lymington on the final day of the season.Portsmouth’s Farnborough visit looked purely academic after Lymington, defending a modest 141, ripped out the visitors’ top eight at the Sports Ground.But Maru got his head down on a spinner-friendly surface and, with splendid support from the relatively inexperienced Nolan in an unbroken 60-run ninth-wicket partnership, turned the match on its head.Until then, the medium-pace away-swing of Australian Brian Clemow (4-23) and lift and turn extracted by Daniel Peacock (2-38) and Glyn Treagus (1-19) looked likely to bring Lymington a second major prize of the week.The club had crushed Andover by nine wickets to win the Southern Electric Contracting Cup four days earlier.But there was to be no repeat of the cup final celebrations of midweek.Lymington might have guessed it wasn’t to be their day when Clemow fell to a bizarre catch in only the second over of the day.Naqeeb Ali Mohammed dropped a juicy-looking long-hop short outside the Australian’s off stump.Clemow rocketed the ball towards gully, where Matt Keech leapt to palm a dolly catch into the grateful hands of Paul Dew at backward cover.When Treagus misread Nolan’s line at 19-2, Lymington were in early trouble, but Peacock (24) and Ben Craft (19) righted the ship – until the telling left-arm spin of Maru (3-20) accounted for both batsmen in quick succession.Neil Trestrail (21) and Chris Warde (16) took the score just above the 100-mark – only for Lymington to lose five wickets for 13 runs to Nolan (3-41) and the impressive Lee Savident (2-30).The pair proved that, if the ball was pitched in the right place, there was plenty in the dry surface for the bowler.But Portsmouth found themselves frustrated as the left-handed Neil Jenkin and Wayne Smith added a vital 25 runs for the tenth wicket and lift Lymington’s total to 141.Defending a moderate total, Lymington knew they had to take early wickets and immediately threw Peacock’s biting off-breaks into the equation.Stephen Cook (37) saw three team-mates depart in quick succession before nicking Clemow to slip at 51-4.Indeed, when the teenage Cook was joined in the pavilion some time later by fellow South African Paul Dew (23), Portsmouth were in desperate trouble at 81-7.But Maru punished anything loose and got some thoughtful support from the teenage Nolan as Portsmouth gradually clawed their back into the contest.To Lymington’s disappointment, change bowler Jason Carr couldn’t get his line right when he was thrown the ball with the game in the balance.Maru saw and seized his chance and, with the loyal Nolan alongside, twice hoisted sixes into the adjoining tennis courts to ease Portsmouth to a crucial two-wicket victory.

Chris Cairns and Craig McMillan blasted hundreds as New Zealand cruised to an easy 127-run win over a Queensland XI in the first of two one-day practice matches at Allan Border Field, Brisbane, today.The matches have been arranged as preparation for the New Zealanders before they embark on a triangular one-day series against Pakistan and South Africa in Singapore starting next Sunday. Queensland have already played host to the Australian team for two matches over the past three days.While New Zealand had a comfortable win in today’s match, they suffered a blow with wicketkeeper Chris Nevin being unable to take his place behind the stumps after injuring a tendon. Nevin is being flown back to New Zealand and is out of the Singapore series. Adam Parore is replacing Nevin and will fly into Brisbane to join the New Zealand squad tomorrow morning.NZ captain Stephen Fleming won the toss and elected to bat first. Daniel Vettori opened the batting with Chris Nevin. Usual opening batsman Nathan Astle is playing for Accrington in the Lancashire League and will join the NZ camp in Singapore later this week.By the end of the third over both openers were back in the pavilion. Nevin made seven, while the Vettori experiment ended with his score on four, becoming Scott Muller’s first victim of the day.Muller claimed his second wicket and Queensland’s third with the score on 49, Stephen Fleming (15) hitting a catch to the waiting hands of Jimmy Maher. This brought Cairns to the crease, and in Muller’s next over Cairns moved into full cry with a four, a six and a six off successive deliveries. Twenty-two runs off the over saw Muller (2/56 from seven overs) removed from the attack, the second day in a row that he had taken a mauling.The scoring was in excess of a run a ball when Roger Twose (24) was the next wicket to fall, caught behind off the bowling of Matthew Pascoe. McMillan joined Cairns and after a brief settling in period the onslaught resumed.Cairns brought up his half-century in the 23rd over with a boundary off Lee Carseldine, having faced just 36 balls. He was severe on off-spinner Scott O’Leary, lofting him for sixes in consecutive overs.Cairns’ 100 came up on his 87th ball faced in the innings, but he failed to add to that score when he lofted O’Leary to a waiting Scott Muller. He hit seven fours and five sixes in his even hundred.McMillan brought up his half-century off 84 deliveries in the 43rd over of the innings, but with Chris Harris as his new partner, the scoring rate simply accelerated. The final eight overs of the New Zealand innings yielded 108 runs, McMillan bringing up his hundred on the second last ball of the fiftieth over from 108 deliveries. That’s 24 balls for his second fifty.McMillan was out off the final ball of the innings for 103 (nine fours, three sixes), while Harris (38* from 23 balls, three fours, two sixes) played one of the innings that has made his reputation as one of the finest late-overs batsmen in the world.New Zealand finished their fifty overs with a total of 7/321. Muller was the only bowler to take two wickets. Scott O’Leary (1/76 from ten overs) has yet to play for Queensland in a Pura Cup or Mercantile Mutual Cup match, and is unlikely to experience the same baptism of fire when the day of his competition debut does arrive.From the moment that Jimmy Maher (14) was given out lbw to Geoff Allott in the seventh over, Queensland were never in the hunt. Jerry Cassell made a fine 58, and Scott Prestwidge (31, including two sixes off Vettori) played a lively innings, but at the thirty-over mark the required run rate per over was already more than 10.Eight New Zealanders were giving bowling practice, and at least the Queenslanders can say that they lasted the full fifty overs, their score at the end of the innings being 9/194. Shayne O’Connor (3/24 from seven overs), Chris Harris (3/23 from eight) and Geoff Allott (2/26 from seven) were the best of the NZ bowlers.With Nevin unable to keep wicket, Roger Twose donned the gloves until Queensland Second XI keeper Gavin Fitness had been summoned to take over. Fitness, in his role as New Zealand substitute keeper, found himself in the unusual situation of stumping fellow Queenslander Brendan Creevey off the bowling of Vettori.New Zealand have one more practice match against Queensland tomorrow Tuesday. Parore is expected to keep wicket for the visitors, almost immediately after hopping off the plane.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsDan Christian smacked four sixes, including one onto the roof of the Gabba, during his 24-ball 56•Getty Images

In May this year, Dan Christian traded the Brisbane Heat for the Hobart Hurricanes. One week ago, as the Heat batted against the Hurricanes, he made a nuisance of himself, taking two vital wickets and four catches, one a spectacular effort to dismiss Chris Lynn. This time, he played a key role again, but with the bat, providing his old side (and their 30,000 partisan and noisy fans) with a third uncomfortable reminder of what they are missing. Christian’s 56 not out helped the Hurricanes to 4 for 194, setting up a 15-run win that propelled them to fourth place on the points table.The Heat, with the exception of their outstanding captain Lynn, who scored a brilliant 101 to take his tournament tally to 212 runs from 132 balls, looked callow and raw in losing their fourth consecutive game. The loss cemented their place at the bottom of the BBL ladder. No team in the competition is as inexperienced (Hurricanes had a combined total of 969 T20 appearances to the Heat’s 512) and no team is more reliant on one player. Unsurprisingly, their tournament is all but over.Even after losing their openers in the first eight balls for a combined total of 1, the Heat never looked out of it when Lynn was at the crease. Chasing 194, Lendl Simmons was bowled by a hooping full toss, before Jimmy Peirson sent Jake Reed straight to square leg.Lynn beat a diving mid-on with a perfectly timed, checked drive first ball and struck it stunningly until he fell in the 18th over. Twice he sent Shaun Tait – who he took for 46 runs in 14 balls – for consecutive sixes, as he peppered the boundary from long-off to deep square-leg. Lynn, the first player to score a BBL century in a losing cause, did his international prospects no harm ahead of the World T20. National selector Mark Waugh said on Channel Ten later that “he’s got to be in the top six [Australian T20 batsmen]”.He was joined for a productive partnership of 79 by the composed 20-year-old debutant Sam Heazlett, who got off the mark with a stylish six over long-on and followed it with a sliced slog for four. When Heazlett faintly edged Darren Sammy behind and walked, Lynn continued the Heat’s charge, but was short on fluent partners. Nathan Reardon became the superb Cameron Boyce’s first victim, pulling a short ball to Clive Rose in the deep, and when Lynn charged the same bowler and feathered through to Tim Paine, the game was up. The Heat unravelled, losing four wickets in the final eight balls, including a pair of run-outs.Earlier, coming in to bat in the 14th over, after a series of fast top-order starts for the Hurricanes were curtailed, Christian bludgeoned three fours and four sixes in his 24-ball 56. Mark Steketee was bunted over point for six, then ramped for four. Christian sent the second ball of the penultimate over of the innings, bowled by Luke Feldman, 117 metres over cow corner and onto the Gabba roof. Christian’s partner Sammy, who suffered a bad night with the bat (7 off 14 balls), could only laugh, offer a high-five and inspect his partner’s bat. Christian’s mouth was momentarily agape, but he recovered his composure to take two more sixes – one over backward square-leg (this one travelling 112 metres) and the other straight down the ground – from Feldman’s torrid 25-run over. In large part due to Christian, both Feldman and Steketee conceded more than 50 from their four overs.After Tim Paine and Ben Dunk, who appeared to re-find his touch after a sluggish start to the competition, made fine starts to the match, the introduction of Samuel Badree’s leg-breaks for the final over of the Powerplay slowed the Hurricanes. Badree had Dunk caught at deep midwicket in his first over, then Paine stumped with the last ball of his second.Kumar Sangakkara and George Bailey came together with the score on 58 and doubled it, the former flat-batting Steketee and tracking Badree for sixes before a Feldman yorker bowled him. Bailey ran hard and manipulated the field for 31, but miscued a pull off Feldman just as he looked set to motor. Never mind, Christian would take care of that.

Having complained privately over the last year about playing crucial matches on lively, green pitches, Pakistan are now hoping more of the same will be on offer in South Africa for the Twenty20 World Championship in September.Pakistan were poleaxed by South Africa in the Champions Trophy in Mohali last year on an unusually lively pitch. In the first round of the World Cup earlier this year, they were outfoxed by Ireland on a grassy surface. Both results led to some players and officials complaining of a conspiracy of sorts against Pakistan by the ICC but with their pace attack likely to be back at full strength, they are keen for similar tracks.”We want to play on fast tracks,” Talat Ali, Pakistan manager, told . “All our top pacers are back and available for selection and we are confident that we will go to South Africa with a pace attack second to none.”Instead of worrying about their batsmen’s traditional inability to play on such surfaces, Talat believes Pakistan will look forward to letting their fast bowlers loose. “We have some of the best fast bowlers in the world in Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Sami and Umar Gul. If they make fast tracks I believe it will help us more than other teams.The batsmen are finding some form too; Salman Butt led the way with a century in one of the practice games that saw 371 runs scored in 40 overs. Shoaib Malik and Mohammad Hafeez have also been scoring runs in the practice games.It is likely now, however, that there will be only one practice match every other day during the camp, and not two, as was originally planned. Malik said players found it tough to maintain intensity levels after the first match in such difficult weather conditions.”We are planning to talk to officials about it and hope they will ease the schedule a bit. We were in full flow in the opening match of the day but by the time the second began most of us were feeling tired which is why the effort wasn’t the same.”

“I want to be a part of that resurgence. I want to see us get back to the top… It’s so important everyone is involved – the selectors, the public, the administrators, the cricketers – have all got to be moving in the same direction and not fighting each other if we want to move forward…. Who leads the team is not of major importance as long as everybody puts in 100 per cent in a positive manner.”What a difference a week makes.The message from Brian Lara is essentially the same, but how much more encouraging and hopeful were his words in London on Monday compared to the frustration-laced outburst in Kingston mere minutes after his West Indies team had lost the Test and the series to India at Sabina Park.Yet, if the intention was first to violently rock the boat before making it clear he had no intention yet of jumping ship, then the West Indies captain has made his point. The issue now is, will any of it make any difference at the critical decision-making level of the regional administration?As with any other meeting of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), tomorrow’s gathering of members and directors in Barbados is generating considerable speculation as to what visionary, controversial or altogether foolish decisions will be made, especially in the almost immediate aftermath of Lara’s unbridled disaffection with officialdom for their apparent reluctance to give him more direct influence in matters relating to the senior team.Indeed, it is true to say that any one decision by the WICB can generate reactions that are good, bad and indifferent all at the same time, simply because there are so many people with so many different views about what is right, what is wrong and, most importantly it seems, who is to blame for the state of West Indies cricket both on and off the field.The next time you are in the company of cricket fans, just throw out the issue of what is wrong with West Indies cricket and see how many different and highly emotive responses you get, each advocate of whatever issue thoroughly convinced that once so-and-so is done, then it’s only a matter of time before we get back up to the top where we belong.If only it were that easy.

Truth is, as most us really know deep down, there is no quick fix to a very complex and wide-ranging problem, not a foreign coach, not a new captain, not two tearaway fast bowlers, not even the Stanford 20/20.Those diehard believers in the overnight turnaround have now been waiting 11 years since Mark Taylor’s Australians shattered the West Indies aura of invincibility. That’s a long time to be sleeping.Well, it’s about time the Rip van Winkles – from the boardroom to the dressing room to the lunchroom – open their eyes and take in a Caribbean cricket landscape that, in keeping with our general preoccupation with things irrelevant, has only changed superficially in terms of impressive new structures, constant noise and endless partying.If all of this is intended to maximise global exposure and tourist revenue in the aftermath of next year’s World Cup, fine. But what difference will it make to the long-term viability of the game?It is almost impossible not to believe that too many people are directly involved in West Indies cricket primarily for what they can get out of it. No one is suggesting that only generous benefactors and selfless philanthropists should be involved, but unless the key personnel see the bigger picture, all of the selectorial changes here, and grassier pitches there, will make no fundamental difference.Part of that bigger picture is appreciating that they are all parts of the same whole. From the evidence of the wildly inconsistent performances on the field to occasional administrative bungling to the still unsettled relationship between the WICB and the Players’ Association, it is clear that very few are prepared to step out of their own shoes and consider the challenges from different perspectives.Lara’s comments about everyone moving in the same direction and giving a wholehearted effort in a positive manner essentially sums up what should really be done, except that, again, it all comes down to sometimes sacrificing personal ambition for collective gain.The captain is in the fortunate and, to some, enviable position of having achieved almost all that he has ever wanted to on a personal level as a cricketer. Now, with the western horizon drawing ever closer, he feels no sense of real loss in putting a greater focus on being both a mentor to his players and the globally-recognised spokesman on West Indies cricket.But the same cannot be said of so many others in key positions in the regional game who still have axes to grind, people to cut down to size and points to prove, all for the sake of leaving no one in doubt as to really has the power in their hands.That is why, after all the speculation and heated reaction, nothing meaningful will come out of tomorrow’s meeting in Barbados, never mind who has been jettisoned and who is now on board. Like the performances in the recent series, which fuelled hope only to end in disappointment, the to-ing and fro-ing over selectors and directors are just different waves in the same turbulent ocean.It takes real leadership to chart a course to calmer waters.

On going past Murali as Test cricket’s highest wicket-taker
I’m obviously proud of that achievement. It’s been a few years since I made my debut against India in Sydney, and back then I was happy to get one wicket, forget 500. It’s something to tell the grandchildren.On the day’s play
We toiled hard, created a lot of chances, even took a wicket off a no-ball. I think it’s the best I’ve ever bowled in India. I troubled all their batsmen, and there were a few chances that didn’t go to hand. If I continue to bowl like that, hopefully I can play a big part in this series.On the dropped catches, and whether the conditions might have contributed
None were really easy. We’re usually renowned for turning games by taking such chances, but not one stuck today. To mention heat and humidity would be an excuse. Hopefully, this won’t happen again during the rest of the series.On Australia’s chances of winning the match
If we can make what India make in their first innings when we bat, I think it’ll be a great game. We’re going to fight back. On the prospect of Murali taking back the record
Let me just bathe in it for a while, OK [laughs]? Look, Murali will probably end up with 1000 wickets. But whether I hold the record for two weeks or a month, it can’t be taken away from me. It’s something to hang your hat on.On when he plans to call it quits
I don’t want to stop yet. The key thing is enjoyment. I’ve retired from one-day cricket, but I think I can play Tests for a while yet. You have guys like Anil Kumble, Harbhajan [Singh], Murali and Saqlain [Mushtaq] who have shown that spinner can play both forms of the game. They’ve proved that the guys who reckoned that there wasn’t even a place for spinners in first-class cricket didn’t have any idea what they were on about.On the response from his opponents and team-mates
Rahul Dravid came in and shook my hand even before he’d faced a ball. I thought that was a great moment, and it said a lot about the spirit in which this series is being played. Sehwag shook my hand too, and Kumble and Yuvraj (Singh) came in to the room later. Also John Wright. I’d like to thank all those guys.My team-mates? Well, you could see that they were really happy for me.On the extra aggression when he bowled to Sehwag
I wanted his wicket [smiles]. He was the man to get today the way he was smacking us across the park. He has an eye like a dead fish [laughs]. If you bowl anything half-loose, he’ll smack it. It’s great entertainment.He got away with a few as well. But he was just too good for us today. Hopefully in the second innings, we’ll be too good for him.On how he’s soldiered on despite several rough patches
Oh look, I’ve had some great times too. Been really lucky to do something I really enjoy – not many people get that chance. I’ve made a few bad choices, and I’ve learnt my lessons. I’m 35 years old now, got three kids. It’s great that my wife is here to see me go past the record. But if we lose this game, the world record itself will be a bit of a downer.On how he accounts for his comparatively poor record against India, given his outstanding figures against other subcontinental teams
I’ve been inconsistent against India, mainly when I’ve been over here. The first two times I came here, I was carrying injuries – the shoulder the first time and trouble with my spinning finger on the last tour. But I also think they play me really well. I just hope I can carry on like I bowled today and cause them a few more hassles.