NZ A make quarter-finals of Indian tournament

New Zealand A's successes continued yesterday in the Coromandel King Moin-ud-Dowlah Gold Cup cricket tournament in Hyderabad.

New Zealand A qualified for the tournament quarter-finals by beating Associated Banks by 105 runs at the Lal Bahadur Stadium.

Making first use of what was described as a perfect batting strip, New Zealand scored 275/9 in their 50 overs. Dominating the innings to show the national selectors, who announce their Test team for Pakistan tomorrow, that he was not out of the frame was opener Matthew Horne.

He scored 78 runs off 98 balls. Playing quality cricket shots he also improvised and used his feet well to the Associated Banks' slower bowlers.

Providing him with good support was Hamish Marshall whose 47 was scored from 51 balls. Opening the innings with Horne, Chris Nevin scored 21. Matthew Bell continued the good pace of scoring when hitting 36 from 40 balls.

Kyle Mills made early roads into the ABs batting and ended with three for 22. He and Shane Bond used their pace to good effect on what was regarded as a good batting track.

Spin bowlers Paul Wiseman and Brooke Walker created indecision among the Indian batsmen to finish with 1-32 and 2-22 respectively and leaving the way clear for Jacob Oram to complete the 40.5 over dismissal for 170 runs. Oram, another contender for the Test side, took three for 13.