Report

Peshawar lost two early wickets but Jannisar and Rifatullah Mohmand, who top-scored with 68 runs, put on 84 for the third wicket to take them to 185 for five. Younis added 35 off 20 balls. In reply, Faisalabad were bowled out for 151 runs with four batsmen failing to score. Only one partnership of any value was constructed, 63 runs for the fifth wicket, and only the opener Asif Hussain who hit 61 runs off 44 balls with five fours and four sixes and Ijaz Ahmed Junior with 44 made any real contributions.

Sialkot Stallions, with sizeable contributions from Pakistan stars Shoaib Malik and Mohammad Asif, defeated Lahore Eagles at the United Bank Limited (UBL) ground in Karachi by just eight runs. Malik's violent 60 - with seven fours and two sixes - took advantage of a good start from Imran Nazir and led his side to an imposing 203. Asif then took over, taking three middle-order wickets as Lahore fell to 140 for eight, Imran Farhat, another Pakistan player, top-scoring for Lahore with 62, made from only 37 balls. But a rousing ninth-wicket stand of 55 - in only four overs - between Arsalan Mir and Mohammad Khalil almost took Lahore to victory before, fittingly, Asif returned to dismiss Khalil for his fourth and final wicket.

Australia walloped India by six wickets in the first one-day international at the St Peter's College in Adelaide. Cathryn Fitzpatrick took a five-wicket haul as India, after being asked to bat first, struggled right from the start. Fitzpatrick's three-wicket opening burst left India reeling at 4 for 19, a position from which they never really recovered.

India briefly were in the game with a 20-run partnership for the fifth-wicket that lifted them to 4 for 39 before losing their way again. Lisa Sthalekar joined the fun, grabbing two wickets before Fitzpatrick came back to add two more to her tally.

In reply, Australia stuttered briefly after a double strike from Jhulan Goswami reduced them to 2 for 16 before Karen Rolton, the captain, took charge, with a 72-ball 47 with eight hits to the fence, to power Australia home.

An incisive spell of fast bowling from Munaf Patel paved the way for the Indian Board President's XI's eight-wicket victory over England on the final day at the IPCL Cricket Stadium in Vadodara. The defeat could considerably dampen the morale of the tourists ahead of the first Test at Nagpur in four days' time, with news filtering in that stand-in captain Marcus Trescothick would be flying home for personal reasons.

Set just 55 to win after Munaf's 5 for 32 dismissed England for 158, Gautam Gambhir and Suresh Raina - Wasim Jaffer and Dheeraj Jadhav fell to prods to the slips - saw the Indians home with 14 overs left in the day.

The celebratory mood of Bogra gave way to an introspective calm at Chittagong as Bangladesh, just coming off their first-ever one-day win against Sri Lanka, were brought hurtling down to earth. A superbly-paced century from Kumar Sangakkara inspired a rampaging Sri Lankan performance, helping them post a tall score and coast to a 78-run win.

Sangakkara, who executed the sheet-anchor role, helped Sri Lanka overcome a sluggish start, strengthened their position in the middle overs and stepped it up gradually. Counterattacking bursts from Mahela Jayawardene and Kaushal Lokuarachchi beefed up the total as Sri Lanka, who had staggered to 212 in the previous game, rattled up an imposing 309 for 7. Mohammad Ashraful's dashing half-century was nothing more than a consolation as Bangladesh limped to a big defeat, ending the series with a whimper.

Nathan Astle showed he was worth his weight in gold to this New Zealand team, crafting a superb century to take them to a total of 276 and then pulling off one of the most stunning catches you will see in a long time as West Indies lost a thriller by 21 runs. Ramnaresh Sarwan and Ian Bradshaw did their utmost in a tight situation at the death but the task was just beyond them.

Again West Indies created many chances, and routinely squandered them. That they had two wickets off no-balls - one caught at slip and another bowled - was a perfect summation of their day's play. When Stephen Fleming won the toss and chose to bat his biggest worry was how the top-order would fare, and those concerns proved to be well founded.

The match was abandoned at Paarl between Boland and KwaZulu-Natal due to cracks in the pitch. Martin Bekker and Tahir Essack both brought up their fifties for KwaZulu-Natal before falling in quick succession. Robert Frylinck struck a run-a-ball fifty and remained unbeaten when the umpires called the match off at lunch.

Graeme Smith hits out - and then some © Getty Images

South Africa dressed like butchers for this Twenty20 match, wearing bottle-green tops, lined with a thin yellow pinstripe at inch-wide sections. They batted like butchers, too, Graeme Smith and Herschelle Gibbs carving out a brutal 201 for 4 in their 20 overs - which proved too much for Australia. At last, some relief for the home side against a team who has had the upper hand for a while.

Brett Lee and Brad Hogg put together a spirited seventh-wicket stand of 57 but although they took Australia towards some respectability, the visitors' necks were always on the block the instant Andrew Hall delivered an early double blow. The same bowler held his nerve in the penultimate over before Makhaya Ntini finished things off with a cool final six balls.

Victory was sweet for Smith, who had declared before this match that he was going to take this game seriously. He did, too, bludgeoning an unbeaten 89 from 58 balls of mayhem; his score including 11 fours and a six. He and Gibbs took just 69 balls to put on 111 for their second wicket, with the ever-classy Gibbs making 56 from 34 balls. It was a statement of intent - and execution - from the pair, who didn't have the best of times in Australia.

Gautam Gambhir, the discarded Indian opener, made an emphatic statement with a fluent hundred that powered the Board President's XI to a handy lead against England at Vadodara. England fought back through its lead fast bowlers - Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff - with the second new ball, but suffered a setback losing Andrew Strauss in the dying moments of the day.

The day, however, belonged to Gambhir, who had been overlooked on Thursday by the Indian selectors who favoured Wasim Jaffer, his opening partner in this match. Gambhir led the Indian charge right from the start - his 62-run association with Dheeraj Jadhav (20) having blunted the attack - and in the company of Suresh Raina he marched on with authoritative drives and unflinching defense. In his career so far, Gambhir has shown himself to be a clean striker of the cricket ball, but when partnered with Virender Sehwag he has found himself playing second fiddle. It is a situation where impetuosity can creep in - the result being a tendency to get out prematurely - but today he played in a manner that would have given his critics considerable pause. Watchful against the quicks and confident against spin, Gambhir paced his innings well. Matthew Hoggard was driven with class, Flintoff was negated, and when Ian Blackwell tossed it up, Gambhir drove down the ground. When the bowler dropped it short, he cut and pulled.

At Paarl, Boland chose to bat after winning the toss against KwaZulu-Natal but were dismissed for 209 in 73 overs. Warren Hayward top scored with 47 and Lee Walters made 40, but Walters was to fall in a unique manner. Hitting the ball to the boundary, one of the ground staff, acting as a sub, returned the ball to the wicketkeeper, leaving Walters short of his crease. At the close Natal were 101 for 4 with Martin Bekker unbeaten on 40. Bardo Fransman took 3 for 14 in seven overs.

In another rain-affected day, Canterbury took their overnight score of 244 for 3 through to 362 for 7 before declaring and leaving Central Districts 293 to win and virtually no chance of an outright victory. Mathew Sinclair scored an unbeaten 59 as Central went to 115 for 4 at stumps. Central took first innings points.