Report
West Indies bat first at Headingley
After the rain beat the teams at Old Trafford, this enthralling series between England and West Indies remains wide open at one victory to each side and two matches to play
John Ward
17-Aug-2000
After the rain beat the teams at Old Trafford, this enthralling series
between England and West Indies remains wide open at one victory to each
side and two matches to play. The Headingley pitch is renowned for its help
to seam bowlers, although this does not always prove to be the case, and
this is a series in which the batting of both teams has frequently been
found wanting. The team that wins this match, should there be a result,
cannot lose the series.
The morning dawned bright and sunny, although rain is possible this
afternoon and more is forecast in the near future. Once again the veterans
hold the key to both teams. England have Atherton and Stewart to lead their
batting, which is very strong on paper with Hick coming in at number seven,
but reality has not always lived up to expectations. Lara and Adams remain
the backbone of the West Indian batting, while Ambrose and Walsh still
appear utterly irreplaceable in their bowling. England have more depth in
their attack, with Gough, Caddick and Cork backed up by White. Neither side
will play a specialist spinner.
West Indies won the toss and decided to bat. The teams are as follows:
Full postGrim start for Warwickshire as Langer stars again
Justin Langer became a thorn in Warwickshire's side for the second day running at Edgbaston
Mike Beddow
17-Aug-2000
Justin Langer became a thorn in Warwickshire's side for the second day running at Edgbaston. The Middlesex captain followed up his matchwinning 93 in Wednesday's floodlit National League match with a good first morning in the Championship fixture.
Langer won the toss and shared in a second-wicket century partnership with Mike Roseberry as the southern county reached 135 for 1 from 36 overs by lunch.
The signs were grim for Warwickshire when opener Andrew Strauss clipped three leg-side boundaries off Dougie Brown in the second over, but Brown and Alan Richardson regained some control with four consecutive maidens.
Richardson conceded only eight runs before Strauss was lbw for 19 and then gave away 10 from the next five balls to the fast-starting Langer.
Full postAlleyne's wisdom questioned
Mark Alleyne, the Gloucestershire skipper must be ruing his decision not to enforce the follow on as they finished the day at 11 for 2 when bad light curtailed play with 10 overs to go
Staff and agencies
17-Aug-2000
Mark Alleyne, the Gloucestershire skipper must be ruing his decision not to
enforce the follow on as they finished the day at 11 for 2 when bad light
curtailed play with 10 overs to go. Earlier in the day, Essex were bowled
out for 174 with a deficit of exact 150 in a reckless diplay by its batsmen
except opener Paul Grayson and Tim Mason who scored 56 and 24 not out
respectively.Michael Ball took 3 for 32 while Ben Gannon took 3 for 61 for
Gloucestershire.
Earlier Gannon partnered with Jeremy snape to make 58 to carry
Gloucestershire to 324 in their first innings. Ronnie Irani and Ashley
Cowan took one wicket each in the Gloucestershire's second innings by
claiming Windows and Dominic Hewson repectively.
Full postWest Indies bowled out for 172
A rampant England team shattered the West Indian batting in a superb performance in the field on the first day of the crucial Fourth Test at Headingley
John Ward
17-Aug-2000
A rampant England team shattered the West Indian batting in a superb
performance in the field on the first day of the crucial Fourth Test at
Headingley. The top five in the list, Brian Lara and all, were bundled back
to the pavilion with only 60 runs on the board, and despite a fighting fifty
by Sarwan the team was dismissed for 172 at tea.
Campbell began positively but had only 8 runs to his credit when he was first to go, driving overenthusiastically at a swinging ball from Gough and slicing a neck-high catch straight to Trescothick in the gully. Caddick beat the bat frequently, but perhaps pitched a little too short to take wickets; Gough was more expensive but more dangerous, although he did not break through again. Hinds had made 16 when he drove at a ball from White that moved in, found the gate and apparently the inside edge, and was caught by wicketkeeper Stewart, the latter's 150th Test catch behind the stumps.
Lara's first ball was short and he whipped it easily to the midwicket boundary. It was to be his only scoring stroke, though, as he padded up to
a ball from White that moved back and hit him at the top of the knee roll,
to be given out lbw. Griffith (22) was next to go, slashing recklessly at a
ball from Gough well outside off stump and, to his obvious fury, edging
another catch to Stewart. Adams, so often the one to hold the innings
together, failed this time, having only two runs to his credit when he drove
at White outside the off stump and played the ball on to his stumps off the
inside edge. West Indies were reeling at 60 for five, and White had taken
three wickets in 17 balls.
Full postLeicestershire attack keep up pressure on Yorkshire
Even though the wicket at Grace Road is very placid, the Leicestershire attack, notably Jimmy Ormond, are putting everything into their bowling
Steve Wright
17-Aug-2000
Even though the wicket at Grace Road is very placid, the Leicestershire attack, notably Jimmy Ormond, are putting everything into their bowling. Ormond, just back from injury, bowled aggressively extracting pace and lift from the pitch. He continually got the batsman playing and missing and was very unlucky not to pick up more than just the one wicket.
At 61-4 Yorkshire were in trouble and it was only the 62 run partnership of
Widdup and Hamilton that put some respectability back into their innings.
At one stage, both spinners Kumble and Crowe operated in tandem, but it was
only Anil Kumble who posed the questions to umpire Benson. Two shouts of
L.B.W and a catch at short leg were all turned down until Widdup was finally
dismissed by Kumble for 38.
Yorkshire at tea are 133-5 with Darren Lehmann newly arrived at the crease.
Full postLeicestershire end day two with upper hand
With 18 overs lost during the day, Leicestershire just remain with the upper hand in this fixture
Steve Wright
17-Aug-2000
With 18 overs lost during the day, Leicestershire just remain with the upper
hand in this fixture.
Leicestershire finishing their innings on 351 made early breakthroughs into
the Yorkshire batting line up. It was Vince Wells that finished with the
best figures for the day but it was the bowling of Jimmy Ormond that left
the biggest impression.
Gavin Hamilton played sensibly for his 58 not out and was very patient in
waiting for the rare bad balls bowled by this well disciplined and varied
Leicestershire attack.
Hamilton was joined by the acting Yorkshire Captain, Darren Lehmann, was the
score was 123 and together they have put on 71 for the sixth wicket. Lehmann
had one lucky escape when he was dropped at square leg off the bowling of
Wells. His score at that time was 41.
Full postSussex escape pitch penalty
Sussex have escaped punishment over the condition of the Saffrons pitch even though 19 wickets fell on the first day of the Championship match against Northamptonshire yesterday
Bruce Talbot
17-Aug-2000
Sussex have escaped punishment over the condition of the Saffrons pitch even though 19 wickets fell on the first day of the Championship match against Northamptonshire yesterday.
ECB pitches inspector Mike Denness has marked the wicket "below average" after consultation with the umpires at the end of yesterday's play, but no further action will be taken unless it deteriorates as the match progresses.
Sussex added two more runs this morning before Chris Adams fell lbw to Darren Cousins for 84, giving the hosts a first innings lead of 43. Northants lost both openers in establishing an advantage of just three runs.
Full postWarwickshire drubbed by Langer
Alan Richardson enabled Warwickshire to retrieve two bonus points after another drubbing by Middlesex captain Justin Langer at Edgbaston
Mike Beddow
17-Aug-2000
Alan Richardson enabled Warwickshire to retrieve two bonus points after another drubbing by Middlesex captain Justin Langer at Edgbaston.
The Australian left hander followed up his matchwinning 93 in Wednesday's floodlit National League fixture by making 109 on the first day of the Championship clash.
Langer's fourth century of the summer took him past 1,000 runs for the season before the hard-working Richardson revived Warwickshire with three late wickets to peg the total at 292 for six.
Full postTest evenly poised after Ambrose reaches milestone
For over twelve years now Curtly Ambrose has been putting the fear of God up batsmen all over the world
Andy Jalil
17-Aug-2000
For over twelve years now Curtly Ambrose has been putting the fear of God up
batsmen all over the world. But that will not happen for much longer as this
supreme fast bowler insists on bowing out of international cricket at the end
of this series. It is of no surprise that this exceptional man does so having
today joined that exclusive, elite group of just four who have reached four
hundred Test wickets.
Such illustrous cricketers as Sir Richard Hadlee, Wasim Akram and Kapil Dev
are in that group but leading it with 475 wickets is Courtney Walsh, the man
who has formed a most formidable bowling partnership with Ambrose. Between
them they have accumulated a staggering 875 Test wickets as they went about
demolishing the strongest batting line-ups over the years.
Today they shared the five wickets that England lost for 105 by stumps and
once again, as is usually the case, the runs came more easily when these two
stalwarts were replaced. For England, Graham Thorpe's innings of 46 was the
only one of any note, but with 67 runs behind and five wickets remaining in
the first innings the match is evenly poised after the first day.
Full postIndia Pistons coast to title triumph
With India Pistons having taken a stranglehold on the final of the KSCA Diamond Jubilee tournament for the Coromandel Cement Trophy at stumps on the second day at the M Chinnaswamy stadium on Wednesday, the final day held out little interest
Partab Ramchand
17-Aug-2000
With India Pistons having taken a stranglehold on the final of
the KSCA Diamond Jubilee tournament for the Coromandel Cement
Trophy at stumps on the second day at the M Chinnaswamy stadium
on Wednesday, the final day held out little interest. The only
interest was whether Chemplast would at least put up a fight
before bowing to the inevitable.
But it turned out to be abject surrender on the part of
Chemplast. With the indisposed skipper Diwakar Vasu not in a
position to bat, Chemplast were all out for 125 in just 29.5
overs. Left with the simple task of getting 53 runs in 40 overs
for victory, India Pistons raced home for the loss of two wickets
in 9.5 overs.
The start of the Chemplast second innings was quite encouraging
with openers S Badrinath (24) and Ganesh Kumar (22) putting on 39
runs in 7.5 overs. But the rest of the innings was a fair
disaster as medium pacer Shahbuddin and leg spinner WD Balaji Rao
picked up the wickets at regular intervals. Only Jacob Martin put
up some defiance by scoring 28 off 76 balls. The rest of the
batsmen succumbed meekly and the best partnership after the
opening stand was 22 runs for the seventh wicket off 6.5 overs
between Martin and R Ramkumar (16). Sahabuddin (4 for 67) and
Balaji Rao (3 for 29) helped bring the Chemplast innings to a
swift end.
Left with a token task, India Pistons lost Satyajit Medappa (1)
early but Vikram Rathour (27) and Hemant Kumar (14 not out) added
40 runs for the second wicket off six overs. Rathour, who faced
38 balls and hit three boundaries, fell with only two runs
required and Hemanth Kumar and Pankaj Dharmani (1) applied the
finishing touches to a game which promised much but turned out to
be hopelessly one sided. Tinu Yohannan picked up both the wickets
in five overs for 29 runs.
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