Cricket News

Essex beat Derbyshire by five wickets with nearly 14 overs to spare at Chelmsford to ensure that they would avoid the wooden spoon in the Norwich Union Second Division

A seemingly impressive Notts Outlaws total of 277-7 was made to look very inadequate as a typically explosive knock from Ally Brown lifted an under strength Surrey Lions to an improbable five-wicket win

Sussex appeared to have made promotion a formality by batting Warwickshire out of realistic contention on a low-key third day out at Edgbaston

Kent claimed a share of the Norwich Union League first division lead after defeating relegated visitors Northamptonshire Steelbacks by 26 runs in the final match of the season in Canterbury

Middlesex batsmen Simon Cook and James Dalrymple fashioned an unlikely Middlesex victory with a vicious late assault on the Hampshire bowling at the Rose Bowl

Durham clinched promotion in the Norwich Union League when they beat Worcestershire by nine runs under the Duckworth/Lewis method at Chester-le-Street

Stubborn batting by Steve Rhodes and Chris Liptrot denied Durham a championship double at Chester-le-Street

Northamptonshire skipper David Ripley hit a stubborn, unbeaten half-century to deny Kent a last day win and throw his side a relegation lifeline after drawing this their penultimate CricInfo Championship match of the season

Leicestershire were on course for victory after forcing Glamorgan to follow-on on the second day of their CricInfo Championship Division One match at Grace Road

Sussex emerged from the second day with a lead of 85 and the guarantee that a draw would put them in the First Division next season

Pakistan cricket coach Richard Pybus was hopeful of Pakistan's victory in the three-match one-day series against New Zealand beginning at the National Stadium, Karachi on Sept 19

Hampshire Under 16s end of season report

'Blonde Bombshell' Shane Warne might have his backers

Bangladesh may have lost by an innings for the second time in a fortnight, but they left Sri Lanka on a high after a scintillating hundred from a teenage prodigy, who booked himself a place in the record books as the youngest ever player to score a

Man-of-the-match Muttiah Muralitharan, playing in his 66th Test, who donated his winning cheque to Ashraful after the youngster's astonishing 114, became the fastest bowler to reach 350 Test wickets when he caught and bowled last man Mohammad Sharif

For most teenagers a Test century on debut remains a distant dream, but for Mohammad Ashraful it was a dream come true

With a comfortable innings and 46-run defeat of Yorkshire at The AMP Oval, Surrey have made their position safe from relegation in the CricInfo Championship barring any extraordinary turn of events in the last round of matches next week

Jacques Kallis starred with bat and ball as South Africa built up an impregnable position against Zimbabwe on the second day of the First Test at Harare Sports Club

With some formality, Somerset completed their fifth win of the season, beating relegated Essex by nine wickets to take 19 points and enhance their quest for runners-up position in the Cricinfo Championship

New Zealand A finally got on the winning side of the scoreboard in the Coromandel King Moin-ud-Dowlah Gold Cup tournament in Hyderabad yesterday