The fairly-tale dream the West Indies have enjoyed for the last five weeks was transformed into a horrible nightmare in a mere 90 minutes at Kensington Oval yesterday evening

Haydn Gill

20-Apr-2000

The fairly-tale dream the West Indies have enjoyed for the last five weeks was transformed into a horrible nightmare in a mere 90 minutes at Kensington Oval yesterday evening.

Everyone who watched it would have awaken this morning trying to come to terms with the reality of a dreadful collapse after Jimmy Adams' previously unbeaten men lost a match they appeared to have a firm grip on.

The bare statistics cannot tell the story, but for the record, the West Indies, set 198 from the full quota of 50 overs, deteriorated dramatically from 99 for one to 180 all out to lose the first of the three One-Day finals to Pakistan by 17 runs.

The manner especially in which the cream of the batting perished in a dreadful period that saw seven wickets fall for 47, would have upset the almost packed ground of more than 11 000.

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Brave Start by Zimbabwe A'

In scorching heat the Zimbabwean captain won the toss and elected to bat on a damp wicket at P

Charlie Austin

19-Apr-2000

In scorching heat the Zimbabwean captain won the toss and elected to bat on a damp wicket at P. Saravamuttu Stadium in Colombo today. It was a brave and confident decision when one considers the watering of the wicket yesterday morning and the was heavy overnight rain. Gus Mackay's faith in his batsmen was paid off as Zimbabwe batted patiently in the morning, taking the score to 71-1 at the lunch interval.

As is traditionally the case at the P.Sara Stadium, the ball moved prodigiously for the first hour of play and all the BCCSL XI seamers looked dangerous. Prabath Nissanka, returning from an ankle injury that he sustained in the U19 World Cup, lacked direction in the early overs and took some time to find his rhythm. His opening partner, Charitha Buddhika, however bowled splendidly, moving the ball both ways off the seam whilst consistently maintaining a good length.

During the first hour the Zimbabwean openers, Neil Ferreira and Gavin Rennie, primarily looked to defend. Just when it seemed that that they were going to surface unscathed from the first hours play Kaushalya Weeraratne replaced Prabath Nissanka and immediately struck, dismissing an unlucky Gavin Rennie for 6 runs.

Gavin Rennie, one of Zimbabwe's main batsmen on this tour, was desperately disappointed to be given out, when the ball appeared to have just flicked his pads on the way to young wicket keeper, Prasana Jawardena. Nevertheless the wicket brought to crease, Mark Vermeulen, who changed the tempo of the Zimbabwean innings.

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Kambli stands tall as Mumbai make 303/6

With the flick of a coin, Hyderabad ruined Mumbai's best laid plans

Anand Vasu

19-Apr-2000

With the flick of a coin, Hyderabad ruined Mumbai's best laid plans. Mohammed Azharuddin began well, winning the toss and putting Mumbai in to bat. The preparation of the wicket and indeed their team composition banked on the fact that Mumbai would get the first go with the ball. Denying them this advantage, Hyderabad did well to restrict Mumbai to 303/6 on the opening day of the Ranji Trophy final at the Wankhede stadium on Wednesday, despite a fighting century from Vinod Kambli.

Nevertheless, Mumbai had the batting to set up a good platform. Sameer Dighe and Wasim Jaffer took on Narendrapal Singh and Fiaz Ahmed in an interesting first few overs. Though the two Hyderabad medium pacers generated good nip off the wicket, it took them six overs to break through.

Dighe left his bat hanging limply in the air outside the off stump and edged a Fiaz Ahmed delivery straight to Azharuddin at slip. Azhar has taken too many catches at that position to miss out.

Jatin Paranjpe joined an increasingly confident Jaffer out in the middle and pushed the scoring on. At the end of the 10th over, spin in the form of Venkatapathy Raju was introduced into the attack. Raju bowled a tidy little spell but was taken off after he had completed three overs conceding just four runs.

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Confident reply by Karnataka

Partab Ramchand

19-Apr-2000

An unbroken 78 run partnership for the third wicket between SK Sushanth and Prajwal Raj helped Karnataka to make a fitting reply at stumps on the second day of their Coca Cola Trophy South Zone (under-25) tournament match against Andhra at the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore on Tuesday. Replying to Andhra's first innings total of 385, Karnataka were 116 for two at close.

Karnataka started badly losing both their openers Shyam Ponappa (9) at 20 and then MS Vinay (18) at 38. However Prajwal Raj and Susanth played some positive strokes while adding 78 runs off 21.2 overs. At close Prajwal was batting with 41 and Susanth with 39. While Prajwal faced 76 balls and hit five fours and a six, Susanth faced 67 balls and hit nine fours. Play could not restart after tea because of rain.

Earlier, Andhra 324 for five overnight, were restricted to 385 thanks to some good bowling by medium pacer Aiyappa. He dismissed KA Fayaz with the third ball of the day. Fayaz did not add to his overnight score of 140. Aiyappa also got rid of the other overnight batsman Vatekar who made 48. He faced 98 balls and hit six fours and a six. The rest of the batting offered little resistance and Aiyappa finished with three for 91 off 23 overs. The other medium pacer Sunil Kumar took three for 70.

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Kenyan team lose opening match of Indian tour

The visiting Kenyan team lost the opening match of their fortnight long tour of India when they went down by two wickets to Tata Sports Club at ELF Vengsarkar Sports Club ground in Mumbai on Tuesday

Partab Ramchand

19-Apr-2000

The visiting Kenyan team lost the opening match of their fortnight long tour of India when they went down by two wickets to Tata Sports Club at ELF Vengsarkar Sports Club ground in Mumbai on Tuesday.

Winning the toss and opting to bat, Kenya were restricted to 196 for seven in 50 overs. They actually lost five wickets for 75 runs before Steve Tikolo, with the help of the later order batsmen, effected a recovery. Tikolo added 41 runs for the sixth wicket off nine overs with skipper Maurice Odumbe (22). Then with wicketkeeper David Obuya (20) he increased the score by 52 runs during a seventh wicket association that lasted 11.3 overs. Finally with Martin Suji (21 not out off 14 balls) Tikolo added 28 runs for the unbroken eighth wicket off only three overs. Tikolo remained unbeaten with 66 off 80 balls with the help of six fours and two sixes. For Tata SC, SP Hazare took two wickets for 37 runs off eight overs. There were three run outs.

Martin Suji rocked Tata SC on their heels by removing openers VR Mane and skipper MV Joglekar in successive overs with only two runs on the board. But Kiran Powar (62) and Susanth Manjrekar (51) initiated a recovery process by adding 104 runs off 21 overs for the third wicket. While Powar played 79 balls and hit ten of them to the ropes, Manjrekar was equally aggressive hitting five fours and three sixes off 74 balls.

Shreyas Khanolkar (30) and NS Shetty (17) carried on the good work and Tata SC seemed to be cruising along at 155 for four in the 37th over. But Kenya put up a last ditch fight. Odumbe dismissed both Khanolkar and Shetty while Suji came back to get rid of SB Dahad for a duck. Tikolo then removed YV Kaudhare (8) at 187 to give Kenya a chance of victory. However wicketkeeper Abhijit Shetye (8) and S Kannan (6) steered Tata SC home with ten deliveries to spare. Suji finished with three for 29 from ten overs.

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South Zone u-25 tournament: Unbeaten 140 by Fayaz

An unbeaten 140 by Ranji player KA Fayaz helped Andhra to score 324 for five wickets at close of play on the opening day of the three day KSCA Coca Cola South Zone (under-25) cricket tournament in Bangalore on Monday

Partab Ramchand

18-Apr-2000

Winning the toss, Andhra lost LNP Reddy (14) at 23. He edged medium pacer Sunil Kumar to wicketkeeper Rajasekhar Shanbal in the sixth over of the innings. But the other opening batsman KNV Krishna Mohan (40) and Fayaz added 74 runs for the second wicket off 21 overs. Krishna Mohan then edged a ball from Karnataka captain T Aditya to Shanbal. Balaji K Singh (4) did not last long and when Gnaneswara Rao (10) fell, Andhra were shakily placed at 124 for four.

Fayaz and skipper I Srinivas (68) however set Andhra on the road to recovery with a fifth wicket association of 164 runs off 37.3 overs. Before Srinivas was caught by Shanbal off Ashwath, he had faced 120 balls and hit ten fours.

The recovery process was maintained with Fayaz and H Vatekar (22 not out) adding 36 runs in an unbroken sixth wicket partnership of 36 runs off 11.4 overs before play was called off, about an hour before the scheduled close due to bad light. By close, Fayaz, who had batted 271 minutes and faced 210 balls had hit 14 fours and two sixes, both off spinner N Aswath. For Karnataka, Sunil Kumar took two for 49 while Ashwath, who was expensive, captured two for 104 off 21 overs.

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West Indies score 17-run victory over Pakistan

St George's (Grenada), April 17: Pakistan made a valiant attempt to reach a difficult target of 249 but failed by 17 runs to beat West Indies in the last preliminary round fixture of the triangular series at the Queen's Park Stadium here on Sunday

Qamar Ahmed

18-Apr-2000

Pakistan were all out for 231 in 48.1 overs as West Indies finished the league rounds with four victories in as many matches. The defeat, however, does not affect Pakistan's position in the series as they had already booked their place n the best-of-three finals against the West Indies. The finals get underway from Wednesday at Bridgetown, followed by two more ties in Port-of-Spain next Saturday and, if required, Sunday.

Pakistan will have to perform a lot better with the bat than they have done so far. There seems to be an eternal weakness in their batting approach and unless they are able to apply themselves with much more purpose and determination they may struggle against the West Indian bowling which has suddenly started to show its old dominance. Reon King, Franklyn Rose and Nixon McLean are looking quite dangerous and with Curtly Ambrose coming to join them in the finals things could be even more formidable for Pakistan.

King picked up three wickets for 38 on Sunday, followed by McLean two for 47 and off-spinner Nehemiah Perry two for 54. Pakistan, having lost three for 24, were well served by Inzamam-ul-Haq and Yousuf Youhana, who between them put on a sizeable stand of 123 for the fourth wicket, to offer some hope. Inzamam made 69 off 95 balls with five fours while Youhana hit 56 off 77 balls with three boundaries.

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Cable and Wireless ODIs: West Indies Making It A Habit

Haydn Gill

17-Apr-2000

St. George's - To a cacophony of sounds reverberating from almost every single corner of a packed stadium, the West Indies' resounding resurgence continued here yesterday with another victory over Pakistan.

For eight non-stop hours, the impressive Queen's Park generated noise from sound systems, drums, horns, bells, cymbals, triangles, shangos, trombones and countless other sources.

But it was at its most deafening at 5:17 p.m. when West Indies captain Jimmy Adams calmly accepted the match-winning catch that ended a contest that could have gone either way.