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The Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) has missed the WICB’s deadline to submit its squad list for the Caribbean Twenty20 that will be held in January 2013. The deadline was November 22, but the West Indies board issued a release stating it would approach the GCB once again and ask it to submit its list of players.”The board has directed the WICB management to again request the GCB to provide a Guyana team to participate in the Caribbean Twenty20 and for WICB Management to set a date by which the Guyana team is to be submitted,” the release said. “The WICB Management will set the date and once finalised will communicate same to the GCB and the public.”The issue is part of an ongoing conflict between the GCB and the Guyana government, which began when the Guyana government dissolved the GCB due to a dispute over its July 2011 elections. The elections were boycotted by some of the board’s constituent members, one of which, the Berbice Cricket Board, took the GCB to court, claiming the new administration was not properly established. The Chief Justice recommended that “there may be immediate need for the minister responsible for sports to impose his executive will in the national interest.”Following that ruling, Guyana’s sports minister Dr Frank Anthony appointed an Interim Management Committee (IMC), headed by ex-West Indies captain Clive Lloyd, to run cricket in Guyana. The WICB, however, refused to acknowledge the IMC, in keeping with the ICC’s stance against government intervention in cricket administration, and said the only authority it would recognise was the GCB.Guyana’s participation in this year’s Caribbean T20 had also been under a cloud due to the problem, but they eventually played.The WICB release also said the board’s directors were very concerned about the lack of a breakthrough in the Guyana impasse, and reiterated their backing of the GCB. “The WICB, at a meeting of the board of directors, on Saturday and Sunday, expressed grave concern at the length of time it is taking for a resolution to be had to the situation in Guyana. The board further implores all parties involved to use their best endeavours to ensure that the situation with regard to cricket in Guyana returns to a level of acceptability in the shortest possible period.”The board reiterates its position that it recognises the Guyana Cricket Board as the sole governing body responsible for the administration, management and development of cricket in Guyana.”

Sri Lanka fast bowler Nuwan Kulasekara has been ruled out of the five-ODI series against India, after injuring his groin during the first match in Hambantota on Saturday. While the extent of the injury was not specified, captain Mahela Jayawardene confirmed that he will take not further part in the series at the post-match press conference. A replacement had not yet been discussed, Jayawardene said.”Nuwan is out of the series. He has got a groin injury. We cannot get a scan here [in Hambantota]. Once we get back to Colombo, we will get a scan done and see the extent of the injury and how long he will have to be out,” Jayawardene said. “We will talk to the selectors [about a replacement].”The A team guys probably would have arrived today in Sri Lanka [after the Zimbabwe tri-series]. There was a selector on [that] tour, so we will get some advice from him [as to] who was in good form and try and come up with a replacement.”Kulasekara had injured himself while attempting a catch that would have got rid of Virender Sehwag: in the eleventh over, with Sehwag on 24, Kulasekara ran in from mid-off and dived forward to collect the ball the batsman had mistimed while trying to loft Thisara Perera over extra cover. He took the catch low down, but the effort was in vain as Sehwag escaped with replays proving inconclusive. He did not bowl after the incident, having completed only five overs in his spell, and only came out to bat at No. 11 with India in control of the match.

Most of the South African squad are enjoying some down time at the London Olympics but Imran Tahir, the legspinner, would be advised to use the opportunity to work on his no-ball problem with South African women’s’ javelin finalist Sunette Viljoen. Like bowlers, javelin throwers are not allowed to step outside their throwing area, something Tahir has been doing with unusual regularity.He bowled nine no-balls in the Headingley Test match, eight of them in the first innings and four on the fourth morning, when South Africa were going after England’s last five wickets. To add to the eight no-balls he bowled at the Oval, Tahir has sent down almost three extra overs in the series and developed an area of concern that did not affect him previously.”That is the main issue for me at the moment, because I don’t want to carry on like this,” Tahir said with a distressed expression. “I have never been a bowler who bowls so many no-balls in a game. I just don’t know what happened. I need to go and check my action.”Despite the overstepping, Tahir has been among the wickets and has recorded his best results after two Tests in a series. He is South Africa’s joint second-highest wicket-taker, with seven scalps, the same number as Morne Morkel and three behind Dale Steyn, and wrapped up the England tail at Leeds with three wickets in 13 balls.Combine that with the overall numbers: Tahir also has a slightly better average than Morkel and a lower economy rate than Steyn and you may see a sign that he is learning to blend defensive tactics with aggressive ones.”I am trying to be as patient as I can,” Tahir said. “I have always been an attacking bowler but I am trying my best to learn every day.”Failing to rein in over-eager instincts is something Tahir has been criticised for, particularly when he used his variations indiscriminately. He has since become shrewder in deciding when to bowl his googly and he has seen the results. Many of England’s batsmen were unable to pick the delivery as Tahir disguised it cleverly.But he erred by mixing up threatening balls with a assortment of freebies – full tosses and long hops – that he admitted were a poor reflection on his own ability. “I didn’t bowl well the first day. It was hard for me in the first innings,” Tahir said. “I think two or three balls turned in the whole five days. The cracks are very hard, not like at The Oval.”Unhelpful surfaces have been the norm for Tahir, since he made his Test debut for South Africa against Australia in November last year. Although he has seasons of experience in England, on tracks that offer turn, wet weather has prevented them from behaving similarly this time around. Tahir is hopeful that the third Test, at Lord’s, will present him with the opportunity to come into this own.”It has always been a flat wicket at Lord’s and I think it will turn more than at Headingley,” Tahir said. London is forecast to remain dry for the rest of the weekend but rain is predicted for the first few days of next week, before it clears in time for the Test.

Virender Sehwag and Zaheer Khan have returned to the Indian team for the limited-overs tour of Sri Lanka; both were rested for the Asia Cup in March. Sachin Tendulkar, who played in the CB series in 2011-12 and the Asia Cup, will be skipping the tour that includes five ODIs and one T20 game.”It is a long season ahead and I think we will come back to winning ways. Sachin wants to extend his career,” the BCCI’s chairman of selectors Kris Srikkanth told reporters. “He is spacing it out very well.”

India’s squad for the tour of Sri Lanka

MS Dhoni (capt & wk), Virat Kohli (vice-capt), Gautam Gambhir, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Manoj Tiwary, R Ashwin, Vinay Kumar, Rahul Sharma, Ashok Dinda, Pragyan Ojha, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Umesh Yadav, Ajinkya Rahane
Out: Ravindra Jadeja, Irfan Pathan, Yusuf Pathan, Praveen Kumar
In: Ajinkya Rahane, Pragyan Ojha, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Umesh Yadav

Ravindra Jadeja, the allrounder, has been dropped for the tour after poor returns in the CB series in Australia. He had a mixed IPL, averaging 15.91 with the bat in 19 matches and taking 12 wickets at 22.75. Pragyan Ojha, the left-arm spinner, who wasn’t picked for the Asia Cup has made it to the 15-man squad. Ojha picked up nine wickets in nine IPL games, at 24.44. There was no place for seamer Praveen Kumar either; Praveen collected nine wickets in 16 games at 48.22 in the IPL.Ajinkya Rahane, who last played for India in December 2011, has been named in the squad, following a good IPL in which he finished as the fourth-highest run-getter. He made 560 runs at an average of 40 and also scored a couple of half-centuries in the limited-overs leg of the India A tour of the West Indies last month.Fast bowler Umesh Yadav, who was rested for the Asia Cup, returned to the squad. Batsman Manoj Tiwary and legspinner Rahul Sharma were retained but the Pathan brothers, Yusuf and Irfan, who played the Asia Cup were left out.Sehwag missed the Asia Cup due to back spasms and Zaheer, following a full tour of Australia, was also advised rest for that tournament in Bangladesh. Virat Kohli will remain vice-captain for the upcoming tour. “The idea is continuity,” Srikkanth said. “Virat got brilliant hundreds after becoming vice-captain which shows that he likes responsibility.”Among the seamers, Ashok Dinda and Vinay Kumar will support Zaheer and they’ll be part of a bowling line-up that includes three specialist spinners, Rahul, R Ashwin and Ojha. Harbhajan Singh, who recently signed a deal with Essex for the second half of the county season, was not selected.The lack of an allrounder is the major surprise in the 15-man India squad for the limited-overs tour of Sri Lanka. It has been quite some time since there has been an India squad without at least one of Ravindra Jadeja and the Pathan brothers, all three of whom have been the chief contenders for the allrounder’s position at No. 7. Jadeja’s debut game in February 2009, against Sri Lanka, had also proved to be Irfan’s last for close to three years, before he made a comeback in December 2011 against West Indies. The comeback has lasted eight games spread over three series. A disappointing Jadeja was surprisingly persisted with throughout the CB series in Australia earlier this year, while Irfan was restricted to four games. Jadeja’s run has finally come to a halt now, but so has Irfan’s. Yusuf’s return has lasted all of one Asia Cup game, but his terrible IPL season seems to have gone against him.No allrounder in the squad means it is increasingly unclear as to whether anyone is ahead in the latest round in the fight for the allrounder’s slot. It seems that the fight itself has been called off for the moment, which is startling for a side that has often lacked balance due to the absence of a genuine allrounder. With four specialist fast bowlers picked, it would appear as though there was at least a case for picking Irfan ahead of Vinay Kumar.The emphasis is on specialists for the series, with three spinners chosen. But that seems a luxury, given Dhoni’s usual reliance on his part-time options such as Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma. Unless India play five specialist bowlers, something Dhoni is not a fan of, the bowling resources will be under-utilised.Again, Sachin Tendulkar’s pick-and-choose policy does not help the long-term balance of the squad, but when the chairman of selectors says that “Sachin is spacing it out very well”, there is not much left to be said.
Abhishek Purohit

A remarkable last-minute court order obtained by disgraced former board chief executive Tom Tikolo prevented Sunday’s already delayed Cricket Kenya elections being held.Tikolo’s action prevented most of the the country’s largest body, the Nairobi Provincial Cricket Association (NCPA), from participating in the elections. The NPCA has yet again been mired in in-house bickering over the past few months.”It’s very disappointing that the whole process keeps being frustrated by people who don’t want to see elections being held,” said outgoing chairman Samir Inamdar. “We didn’t want to go against the court ruling. But we will keep an eye on Nairobi and we plan to take legal action against the branch for delaying the election process.”It is unclear who Tikolo was representing by his action. His own club has already distanced itself from the move.That Tikolo threw the spanner in the works raised more than a few eyebrows as he was considered a peripheral figure following his dismissal for stealing funds from the board at the end of 2010. He withheld a payment of around $10,000 due to Cricket Kenya in respect of a tournament in the West Indies, an act that was only discovered when his email was hacked into and details revealed to the press.

Match facts

Sunday, April 22, Mumbai
Start time 1600 (1030 GMT)Azhar Mahmood can be dangerous with both bat and ball•AFP

Big Picture

Mumbai Indians have had a five-day break since their capitulation to Delhi Daredevils in front of their home crowd. Their much vaunted batting line-up collapsed for 92, their second lowest total in IPL and without Harbhajan Singh’s 33, the story could have been even worse. Since then, they have had good and bad news. Good news: Sachin Tendulkar will make a comeback after missing the previous four games. That should bring some confidence back in an otherwise inconsistent batting line-up.But then there is the bad news. Lasith Malinga, who didn’t play that game against Daredevils, is back in Sri Lanka with a troublesome back. In his absence, Mumbai Indians’ bowling could lose its sting. Clint McKay, even with his regular changes of pace, doesn’t pose the same threat, while RP Singh could be erratic. Harbhajan Singh is in a similar position to what Sourav Ganguly, his only victim in the tournament so far, had been – struggling to make an impact with his bowling. Ganguly acquitted himself with an all-round performance in Delhi. How will Harbhajan react?Kings XI Punjab have problems of their own. Their team is overly dependent on their imports. They would hope to conjure some surprise in a match where the stakes are heavily in Mumbai Indians’ favour. Azhar Mahmood has been a welcome addition and Parvinder Awana worked up decent pace against Royal Challengers Bangalore. However, Adam Gilchrist’s availability remains uncertain.

Players to watch

Azhar Mahmood is a veteran of Twenty20 cricket. He has scored 2390 runs at a strike-rate of 143.97 and has 118 wickets against his name. The quality of his shot-making was on display against Royal Challengers as he slammed a 14-ball 33. A good all-round day for Mahmood could easily translate to a good day for Kings XI.Munaf Patel will have the responsibility of leading Mumbai Indians’ bowling attack. Munaf has picked up wickets, while being economical, and he would fancy his chances against Kings XI in a bid to get the purple cap back.

2011 head-to-head

Mumbai Indians played Kings XI twice in 2011. They won the home game by 23 runs after fifties from Tendulkar and Ambati Rayudu but lost the away game by 76 runs as they were bowled out for 87, their lowest score in IPL.

Stats and trivia

• Sachin Tendulkar is the top boundary-hitter in IPL. He has hit 219 fours in 52 innings.
• Praveen Kumar has bowled 208.2 overs in IPL, which is only second to Irfan Pathan’s 212.3. Praveen tops the list for runs conceded with 1653.
• Mumbai Indians’ overall win-loss record is 3-5 against Kings XI
  

  Quotes

  “He’s fine to play and is playing tomorrow.”

  “He has played a lot of Twenty20 cricket all over the world. You just saw, in the very first game, the way he batted for our team and the way he bowled.”

Australia’s Test wicketkeeper Brad Haddin is returning home from the Caribbean for personal reasons, casting doubt over his place in the team for three matches against the West Indies next month.Mindful of the distance between Australia and the West Indies, the selectors have named Haddin’s New South Wales understudy Peter Nevill as his replacement.”Brad Haddin is in transit returning to Australia for personal reasons and has the full support of Cricket Australia, the National Selection Panel and his team mates in so doing. We hope that Brad will be able to re-join the squad in the West Indies in the not too distant future,” the national selector John Inverarity said.”The NSP has selected Peter Nevill as Brad’s replacement and Peter will head to the West Indies as soon as possible. Peter has just completed an outstanding season with New South Wales, both with the gloves and the bat. He was the overwhelming choice of his fellow Sheffield Shield cricketers as wicket-keeper in the Australian Cricketers’ Association All Star Team of the Year announced at the State Cricket Awards this week.”Haddin travelled with the ODI squad as the back-up to Matthew Wade, who had usurped the more senior gloveman as Australia’s limited overs wicketkeeper this summer.However Haddin is now on his way back from the West Indies to be with his pregnant wife Karina, their son Zac and daughter Mia. His departure was arranged so swiftly that Haddin is flying home via London, a longer trip than returning via the United States. His management has said that more will be made clear in coming days.”Yes, Brad Haddin is returning from WIndies for personal reasons. There will no further comment from or on his behalf,” the Cricket Australia public affairs manager, Peter Young, tweeted this morning.It is not yet clear how long Haddin will be at home, or whether he will return to the squad in the Caribbean.When announcing the Test squad in Adelaide on Wednesday, the selector Rod Marsh had indicated that Haddin remained the Test wicketkeeper of choice.”At this point of time, obviously the first Test team will be selected after the one-dayers, a lot will depend on what happens in the one-dayers, no doubt,” Marsh said. “But if I wanted to place a punt on it, I would have Haddin will play in the first Test match, as he should, and we’ll wait and see what happens after that.”Wade had said that he had enjoyed the first week of the tour, working alongside Haddin as the pair competed for one spot in the team.”It’s started really well. Obviously we’ve had a couple of sessions working together leading up to the one-day series,” Wade said this week. “He’s really good, he’s got a lot of knowledge obviously in these conditions and he’s played a lot of international cricket.”I’m just opening my ears and listening to everything he’s got to say.”

Big Picture

Constant revival is the historical motif of the Daredevils’ home city, but a more contemporary representation of Delhi would include high speed and road rage. Season five of IPL for the Daredevils will then naturally require not only brazen overtaking over hairpin bends, but navigational acumen to arrive at their destination.To finish at the bottom in 2011 after topping the table two years ago is evidence that what was previously fixed, had been broken. The Daredevils ended up with only four wins from 14 matches, trailing even the season’s two new teams. Maybe rejigging of the team after the auction caused the imbalance or maybe it was a brittle top order.Regardless of the explosive pair of Virender Sehwag and David Warner, the Daredevils’ opening partnership crossed 50 only three times in 14 innings, and it lacked an energetic middle order to carry on after repeated early setbacks. Their season opened with a home game in which the Daredevils were all out for 95 and of their four victories, only one was to come at home. By the end of the season, the Daredevils were left in shambles.The repair work for the new season has come in the form of the arrival of two quality middle-order men, Kevin Pietersen, who was brought in from Deccan Chargers, and Mahela Jayawardene, to follow the openers.Had Morne Morkel not broken Ross Taylor’s arm in Wellington, the Daredevils’ middle order would have had the perfect mix: batsmen of calibre combining with the game’s leading entertainers. Morkel himself leads a quick bowling attack with several options, and the presence of Indians among them gives the Daredevils room for flexibility. Along with New Zealand’s Doug Bracewell, who will get his first taste of Indian conditions, and West Indian allrounder Andre Russell, the Daredevils will also field a genuinely quick and now toughened Umesh Yadav. The experience of Irfan Pathan and Ajit Agarkar is valuable and Varun Aaron is said to be recovering from the injury that he picked up last year.Team mentor T A Sekhar who has been signed on again, after a couple of years with the Mumbai Indians, believes that the general gloom about the Daredevils’ lack of slow-bowling options is largely baseless. Twenty20 specialist spinning allrounder Roelof van der Merwe comes with more than useful promise.Along with its eye-catching star cast, a surprise performance from the Daredevils’ second line will be a bonus: whether through Australian allrounder Glen Maxwell, who scored a fifty off 17 balls, a record in Australia’s List-A or teenager Unmukt Chand, who is leading the India under-19 team in Australia during a two-week tour. The formula of a successful team, says Sekhar, comes from a high-profile core of performers and a handy supporting cast arranged around them.

Key players

Virender Sehwag: He was the only player the Daredevils wanted to retain in 2010, he is the captain from the 2008 ‘icon’ bunch still standing and he remains the team’s centrifugal force. He will be energised not only by the presence of many shot-makers around him, but by the quality all the way down to No. 6. Still, it will be Sehwag who will need to set the tone for how the Daredevils’ campaign turns out, especially, if he can get them to better starts than last year.Mahela Jayawardene: After Pietersen, the highest signing by the Daredevils from the 2012 auction, Jayawardene finds himself in his third IPL team in five years after being an asset for any franchise and a tough man to let go of. He found himself in the auction only because Kochi Tuskers Kerala got booted out of the IPL and will arrive into a set up that can do with his reassuring presence in the midst of extravagant talents. If he’s not worn out by Sri Lanka’s unending travels, Jayawardene can be the improvisational middle-order man who keeps his head when the big hitters go into turbo mode. His calmness at the crease belies his strike rate. His nous on the field will be of assistance to Sehwag’s leadership and he was quickly named as the vice-captain.

Big names in

Kevin Pietersen: Who else? The Daredevils were willing to spend up to half of their auction purse – $2.3m in fact – on signing Pietersen from Deccan Chargers in the January transfer window. The signing comes with the hope that Pietersen will become the Daredevils’ talisman like Chris Gayle for Bangalore. In theory, Pietersen and the IPL are made for each other – the attention-grabbing performer and the big-ticket stage. His record in the tournament though, is most unlike the man: modest. There’s far too few runs – 329 with two half-centuries – in 13 matches, despite having belonged to the bling-filled environment of Royal Challengers Bangalore. But Pietersen will arrive into the IPL after three weeks of acclimatising in Sri Lanka. What awaits him is a team looking for performers in cricket’s biggest showboat. It’s a match made in heaven.Andre Russell: Russell has pace, aggression, athleticism and star quality. Yet to prove himself internationally in the shortest form of the game, he has fitted well into the West Indies ODI squad and caught the eye when playing India in eight ODIs last year just after the World Cup. At the domestic level though, he has come to terms with the curious demands of Twenty20, churning out runs at a strike rate of 148. He has played in the Bangladesh Premier League for the Khulna Royal Bengals*, but now comes the big stuff. Over the next six weeks, Russell will have a chance to prove that he is cut out for cricket’s most lucrative event, the IPL, and therefore, worthy of a $450,000 pay cheque.

Big names out

James Hopes brought optimism when he was inducted into the Daredevils side. He was every inch an allrounder needed by a Twenty20 franchise – a bustling batsman anywhere in the order with handy medium-pace. Last season for the Daredevils though, Hopes played in ten games without producing the high-impact returns expected from him. In exchange for Hopes and Ashok Dinda, both players traded in with the Pune Warriors, the Daredevils had enough cash in hand to sign Pietersen onto their rolls.

Below the radar

Irfan Pathan: Irfan Pathan will always have his days, like his bigger hitting elder brother Yusuf. Now that injuries are behind him and he has had a satisfactory domestic season for Baroda, the Daredevils will hope for bigger performances from him. If things are going for Irfan with the bat, he can unleash a late charge or a recovery. When the ball is swinging, he has what is needed to disturb batsmen and check the flood of runs. If a player is only as good as his last game, then Irfan’s produced quite a signal: an allround performance in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy final against Punjab that helped Baroda win the title.

Availability

David Warner will turn up in May after the end of Australia’s tour of the West Indies and Ross Taylor, when he has recuperated from his injury. Varun Aaron is building up towards recovery and should be ready by the third week. Unmukt Chand will be back from Australia in the second week but if he gets a game, he will have to make it count.

2011 in a tweet

Two semi-finals and a fifth-place finish followed by a crash landing. Law of averages be damned.* April 3, 2012, 16:05 GMT: The article earlier said that Andre Russell played for the Chittagong Kings. This has been corrected

When Richard Levi’s name was called out at the IPL auction in February, there was silence. Despite a base price of just $50,000, there were no takers for the 24-year-old South African. But all that changed a little over two weeks later, after Levi bludgeoned his way into the record books for South Africa against New Zealand in Hamilton. He hit 13 sixes – the most ever in a Twenty20 innings – on his way to a hundred from 45 balls, also a record for men’s cricket. He would finish with an unbeaten 117 from 51 balls in just his second international innings. It was an assault so brutal that South Africa’s run-rate rarely dropped below 10 after the first over.Levi said he wasn’t disappointed at not being picked in the auction because he only had “one or two good seasons of Twenty20″. In fact, he was surprised he made it to the final auction list at all. Following his assault on the hapless New Zealand bowlers though, it was no surprise that he became a hot commodity, with Mumbai Indians and Pune Warriors, the two teams with vacant spots in their squad, chasing his signature. In the end, he opted for Mumbai Indians and the chance to open the batting with Sachin Tendulkar.”I think it is going to be amazing,” Levi told ESPNcricinfo. “They [the crowd] won’t be cheering for me, they will be cheering for their ‘little master’, but I think it’s going to be amazing … I think the first time I do it, it could be a bit of a shock. I might have big eyes and that sort of stuff but it is going to be amazing to walk out and see a crowd that passionate and wanting you to do well.”Mumbai Indians have struggled to find an opening partner for Tendulkar in the IPL, with a number of contenders being rotated in and out of the side over the past four years. The potential impact of a destructive opener was plain to see in 2011, when Chris Gayle almost single-handedly turned Royal Challengers Bangalore’s season around and marched them into the finals. It was one of Gayle’s specials in the second play-off game that knocked Mumbai out of the tournament as well.Levi’s hundred drew comparisons to Gayle and he is confident he can be the attacking opener his team needs. The key, he said, will be how fast he can adapt to playing in Indian conditions, though he already has an edge in that regard, having played in last year’s Champions League Twenty20 with the Cape Cobras. That event taught Levi to be more patient on wickets that are slower than the ones in South Africa and where the ball doesn’t bounce as much. Leaning how to train in hot conditions and managing his body for the rigours of the seven-week tournament will also be crucial to his chances of succeeding in the IPL.”I spoke to a couple of guys [in the South African team] and they said if you can master [Indian] conditions, you can play anywhere in the world.”Levi has always had the ability to hit the ball a long way and said none of his coaches through the years have ever tried to change the way he played. “In the longer format of the game you are told ‘don’t be stupid’ and that sort of stuff,” he said. “In Twenty20 and the one-day game, you can get away with it. But in general, it has just been you have got to where you are playing the way you have. You need to refine it, but don’t lose it.”He credits his Cobras coach Richard Pybus in particular with helping him develop a clearer understanding of his strengths and weakness, while his Cobras team-mate Owais Shah has been another positive influence on his development as batsman. As a result, Levi went from averaging below 30 in the 2009-10 season in first-class cricket to over 50 in 2010-11. His List A average in 2011-12 was 49.44.”You are not going to score a 100 over 40 balls very time in T20 cricket,” Levi said. “The trick is to keep everything as simple as possible and play to your strengths and just watch the ball.”Anybody who watched Levi that day in Hamilton would have left with indelible memories of an astonishing innings. Yet the man himself remembers little from the innings that put him on the international map and led to high-profile IPL contract. There are memories of his captain, AB de Villiers, standing at the other end and clapping and he remembers getting to personal milestones, but not much else.”I watched the highlights once or twice and I still don’t believe some of the shots I played,” Levi said. “They were a bit messy and a bit freakish at times. Luckily, they came off on that day and I kept going and the ball kept landing over the ropes.”If he can keep sending the ball over the ropes in the IPL, Mumbai Indians aren’t going to mind if he can’t remember doing so.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsEngland capitulated to one of the most unsung spinners in the international game•AFP

England suffered one of their most disastrous batting collapses in Test history as they disintegrated against Pakistan’s spinners to lose the second Test in Abu Dhabi and with it the series. Pakistan went 2-0 up with one to play as Abdur Rehman, their left-arm spinner, took most of the plaudits with a Test-best 6 for 25.England had only lost on four occasions in Test history when presented with a victory target of 145 or fewer, evoking memories of when they were run ragged by Richard Hadlee and made 64 against New Zealand in Wellington.They did not even get halfway, dismissed for 72 in only 36.1 overs, their lowest total since the debacle against West Indies in Kingston three years ago which became the catalyst for their transformation under the stewardship of the coach, Andy Flower, and captain, Andrew Strauss.England were never in the hunt at the Sheikh Zayed stadium after Monty Panesar’s triumphant return to Test cricket – 6 for 62, the second best figures of his Test career — left them chasing only 145 for victory. The pitch offered prodigious turn at times but it was England’s inability to read the length of Pakistan’s spinners that cost them just as dearly.Rehman fell to his knees and kissed the turf after taking five wickets in a Test innings for the first time. England had come to Dubai fearing Saeed Ajmal’s devilish mix of offspinners and doosras and they had fallen instead to one of the most unsung spinners in the international game.Not that Ajmal could be entirely excluded. He became the quickest Pakistan player to reach 100 Test wickets when Matt Prior became the ninth England batsman to fall, and his serene presence was a counterpoint to the excitability all around him.For a Pakistan side that was so recently embroiled in controversy after three players were jailed for their part in the spot-fixing scandal, this was a striking restatement of their talent. The captain, Misbah-ul-Haq, has brought stability where too often there has been near anarchy and more and more people will look upon Mohsin Khan’s position as interim coach and wonder why the word “interim” still remains.England’s horrors in Asia go on, their status as the No. 1 team in the Test rankings already under threat. Another calamitous top-order collapse saw them lose four wickets for 16 runs in 37 balls as what little confidence they had was shaken by a debilitating stomach bug for Jonathan Trott, the bedrock of their batting, who came in at No. 7.England, as if shaken by Trott’s illness, crawled to 21 in nearly 15 overs before Alastair Cook tried to work Mohammad Hafeez into the legside against the spin and chipped a gentle return catch off a leading edge. It was the least that Pakistan deserved because he should have been out leg before three balls earlier. Only Adnan Akmal, the wicketkeeper, was convinced that it was out and by then his incessant appealing had started to wash over everybody, his team-mates included.Ian Bell’s woes against Ajmal’s doosra have wrecked his series. This time he got out to a trick shot, trying to dead bat a doosra but contriving to pop it through his own legs onto the stumps. He left looking to the heavens, an accomplished batsman suddenly Little Boy Lost again.Aficionados of Kevin Pietersen’s supposed fallibility against left-arm spin of any quality will find fresh evidence in the way he played outside Rehman’s arm ball. Pietersen’s recourse to DRS was overturned, the ball shown to be clipping the top of middle, and he trudged off with the air of a man about to fashion an excuse first and a technique later.That left Eoin Morgan, reputedly one of England’s best players of spin, a reputation that owes everything to adventurous innings in one-day cricket. The pressure of Test cricket demanded a reassessment as he edged onto the back foot as Rehman turned one back slightly and was bowled past a horribly angled blade.England’s plight could have been worse if Strauss had been given out caught off bat and pad at short leg by Azhar Ali off Rehman. Strauss, on 16, was blessed as the umpires turned to the third umpire, Billy Bowden, to check if the ball had carried and Bowden, in a pernickety decision that defied common sense, responded that he could not be certain. It was impossible to see where his doubt had arisen.But Strauss was unable to organise prolonged resistance. He made 32, more than half England’s runs, produced virtually England’s only moment of authority when he swept Rehman for four and then fell to the next ball as he was lbw, caught on the back foot. England challenged the decision and lost their second review.If Trott had produced heroics, the Test would have forever been dubbed Trott’s Trots. Perhaps it was just as well he did not. He might have been run out on nought when he angled Rehman to backward point and was late setting off for a run and soon fell to one from Rehman that straightened, another England batsman pinned on the back foot.Rehman bowled Broad through the gate two balls later to quell thoughts that he might repeat his first-innings adventure and the mopping up of the England tail was a formality.Panesar had promised so much more. He has watched Graeme Swann’s reputation grow apace in his two-and-a-half year absence but England’s decision to field both of them for the first time since they faced Australia in Cardiff in the 2009 Ashes series has brought his Test career out of hibernation in style.He took three wickets on the fourth day as Pakistan, who resumed on 125 for 4, were dismissed 25 minutes into the afternoon session. Asad Shafiq, who had resisted so determinedly alongside Azhar on the previous day, was well caught low at first slip by James Anderson as Panesar found sharp turn. He completed the job after lunch, Ajmal edging another turning ball to slip and Junaid Khan slogging recklessly. Panesar’s 6 for 62 was outdone only by his 6 for 37 against New Zealand at Old Trafford three years ago.Azhar fell to the second new ball, failing to withdraw from a lifting delivery from Anderson. His 68 had spanned four-and-a-quarter hours and had served Pakistan proud.A cool and misty morning in Abu Dhabi was more akin to Manchester in October and, although such climatic conditions are not universally hailed as salubrious, they perked up England’s bowlers. But for England’s batsmen the demands of Asia were soon all too apparent.