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Scorecard
Eimear Richardson’s brilliant all-round display ensured Ireland cruised to a comprehensive victory against Scotland in the opening game of the European Women’s Championships at the Clontarf Cricket Ground Club in Dublin. Chasing a relatively modest 86 to win, the Irish opening pair of Richardson and Cecelia Joyce knocked off the runs in just 14.3 overs.Put in to bat, Scotland battled against a tight and impressive Irish bowling display, with captain Kari Anderson top scoring with 29. But her dismissal with the total on 62 for 4, heralded a dramatic collapse. Anderson leg glanced Amy Kenealy to wicketkeeper Valmai Gee, who took a superb catch standing up to the stumps. The same combination accounted for Fiona Urquhartfor just a single, before Richardson took centrestage.The offspinner accounted for Catherine Smaill, Caroline Sweetman, Lynne Dixon and Lorna Jack in quick succession, to finish with the excellent figures of 4 for 10 off her eight overs. Leigh Kasperek (10), was the only other Scottish batsman to reach double figures, before being brilliantly run out by a direct hit from Jill Whelan.During the chase, Joyce struck some lovely cover drives, and was particularly severe on anything remotely short, striking seven boundaries in her unbeaten 43-ball innings. Richardson was equally impressive, favouring the midwicket areas and finding the ropes regularly as too often the Scotland attack strayed in length and line. Richardson struck six boundaries during her 50-ball stay.

There’s a significant buzz within the local media given that Sri Lanka, after England’s stirring reclaiming of the Ashes, sit pretty at the second spot in the Test world. But Kumar Sangakkara, the Sri Lankan captain, is having none of it.When asked the question whether Sri Lanka’s possible ascent was an added incentive, Sangakkara had the look of a man who was fed up of the question but he hid it well. “The easiest thing is to get somewhere; the harder is to stay there,” he said. “The No. 2 position probably reflects how well we are playing but also says that we are second best, and that means we have a lot more to achieve to get where we want to be.”His comments come with Australia slipping to No. 4 in the ICC rankings and their rivals fighting to climb all over them. The situation, based on form and the success the hosts have at the fortress known as the SSC, favours of Sri Lanka celebrating their promotion with another home series win. Leading the series and in search of 2-0, Sangakkara said there was no need to motivate the side.”We’re a good self-motivating team. The players take a lot of individual pride in their performances. Not just winning, but playing in the right spirit. We have been very good examples over the years and we’re continuing to do that.”While admitting his team wears the ”favourites” tag comfortably, Sangakkara expected a tough response from New Zealand. “I think they are going to come back very strongly and try to win this Test, so that they have something to take back home. We are going all out to win this game and win the series.”Replying to criticism of the inclusion of Ajantha Mendis over Rangana Herath in Galle, Sangakarra said Mendis did his job perfectly well. “I think Ajantha bowled very well in Galle. The perception is that he might not have looked as dangerous as he could be but I think he put an enormous amount of pressure on the batsmen not to play strokes. The one stroke that Jacob Oram played got him out and the rest had to hang in there and wait, defending Mendis, and that put a lot of pressure on each other.”Sri Lanka are not risking Angelo Mathews, who sustained a hamstring strain in Galle, which leaves a very significant No 6 void to be filled. Sangakkara said the man to step in would be Chamara Kapugedera, who’d play his eighth Test. Sri Lanka would prefer three spinners but without Mathews that doesn’t really give them the option.”Kapugedera is going to be a variable player coming in after runs in the warm-up games, plus the good nick he’s been in recently [in ODIs]. We’d like him to get an opportunity after the 96 he got against Bangladesh [in his most recent Test in January].”

ScorecardOver the past two years, Ireland have replaced Kenya as the best Associate, and again today in the third ODI at Clontarf, the home side proved their worth with a tense four-run win.Ireland compiled a competitive 256 for 7 thanks to young Paul Stirling’s composed and perfectly paced 84, made from 92 balls and including six fours and two sixes. There was little else, however, from a middle-order that stumbled to spin, but these days Ireland bat long and deep, and Stirling found good support from John Mooney (42 from 80), and pairs of twenties from Kyle McCallan (26 from 21) and a typically muscular 29 from 14 balls by Regan West.West and McCallan exposed Kenya’s death bowlers, smashing 51 in four overs and two balls of power-hitting. And it appeared that the rain which affected yesterday’s match would curtail today’s too, when the Irish summer came pouring down after just four overs of Kenya’s reply. But the weather relented, and Duckworth-Lewis’s intervention meant Kenya were to chase 245 from 46.They made a good start, Maurice Ouma stroking 61 from 80 and Alex Obanda a cultured 41 from 65. But Ireland continued to pick up wickets, and it wasn’t until Ouma’s deputy, Collins Obuya, teed off that Kenya really scented a win. In 69 balls he scythed, drove and pummelled 78 with five fours and three sixes, reducing the asking rate to leave Kenya chasing a gettable 13 from the last two overs.Kyle McCallan bowled a superb penultimate over, however – full, straight and offering Obuya and Nehemia Odhiambo neither width or driveable deliveries. Well supported in the field, McCallan conceded just three, and Kenya needed 10 from the last over, bowled by Kevin O’Brien. He too bowled an impressively full length, and though Obuya and Odhiambo scampered singles, they couldn’t find the big shots that West and McCallan had earlier managed in their innings.

England is currently on a heatwave alert, but far from making the Australians feel at home Kevin Pietersen believes it can help the home side win the Ashes. The predicted hot, dry summer would aid the bowlers in getting the ball to reverse swing, a factor that proved crucial during the 2005 Ashes series, and Pietersen said it can work again.Four years ago England’s four quicks – Steve Harmison, Matthew Hoggard, Simon Jones and Andrew Flintoff – caused no end of problems with reverse swing, while the Australian bowlers found little in return. Of that attack only Flintoff remains from the current generation, but James Anderson and Stuart Broad have developed rapidly over the last 12 months.There has been much speculation around the make-up of England’s five-pronged attack for the series. A balance of three quicks and two spinners is looking increasingly likely, but while England’s advantage in the slow-bowling department is being stoked up Pietersen reckons the fast bowlers can also have a decisive impact.”I’m sure the Australians are probably hoping that the weather doesn’t stay like this, because Anderson, Broad, Flintoff bowling reverse swing – I wouldn’t want to be facing that,” he said. “We’re going to be really tough to play against. If batters do conquer our reverse-swing, I look forward to watching them. It will take some serious batting against those bowlers, all at 90mph, reverse-swinging it both ways.”Anderson is especially threatening with the older ball and Pietersen believes he will be a huge handful for the visitors. “When I saw Anderson doing it at Durham against the West Indies, I said ‘how do you face that?’ I know as a batsman who goes okay against swing bowling, to face that is the biggest test of all.”Pietersen has been doing plenty of homework on the Australians ahead of the series with regular phone calls to his friends in the South Africa team who faced them earlier this year. Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher, who Pietersen played alongside for Royal Challengers Bangalore at the IPL, have been on speed dial in recent weeks as Pietersen builds up his dossier on the opposition.”I have had a lot of communication with [Jacques] Kallis and [Mark] Boucher. A lot of it was very, very useful,” Pietersen said. “They told me about the new bowlers we haven’t seen much of, like [Peter] Siddle, and how to dismiss quite a few of their top batsmen. I speak to Kallis and Boucher almost daily about stuff.”It will be a very different Australia side that faces England on July 8 than the one that completed the 5-0 Ashes whitewash in Sydney in early 2007. Gone are Justin Langer, Matthew Hayden, Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and, the man Pietersen is most glad to see the back of, Adam Gilchrist.”The big one that we don’t see is Gilchrist coming in at seven,” he said. “In Perth [during the 06-07 series] when he came in and hit one of the quickest hundreds in history, that was just demoralising. That’s one of the guys we’re very, very happy not to see.”We’ve got to make sure we capitalise on whatever weaknesses we think they’ve got.”Pietersen was less forthcoming about the absence of Warne who, as expected, has had plenty to say in recent days including claiming that without Pietersen England would have no chance in the Ashes. “He’ll be in the commentary box, so will certainly still be there. That’s Warney, I’m not going to get anything,” he said, but couldn’t help having a little dig back. “We are certainly not a one-man team.”We’ve got Strauss who scored so many hundreds recently; Alastair Cook has also scored hundreds in the last six months, Collingwood the same and Bopara three in his last three Test innings. I’ve scored a few, Flintoff has come back into the team and Matty Prior’s batting has been outstanding and that’s before we get to our bowlers.”It is clear that Pietersen isn’t going to take a backward step over the next six weeks. Any concerns about his Achilles are being brushed aside and he said that a player can’t enter a contest against Australia with a single negative thought.”As soon as you try to play against Australia thinking you’re injured that’s when they’ll pounce on you and crucify you. You have to go out there in a challenging fashion. That’s how I like to play – and that’s what I will be doing.” This summer is heating up in more ways than one.

Gloucestershire have signed 26-year-old fast bowler Gemaal Hussain on a two-year contract.Originally from Nottingham, Hussain played club cricket in the Bradford League for four years and studied Sports Science at Leeds University. In recent years he has been involved with London County Cricket Club, run by Neil Burns, which included two tours to Cape Town, South Africa.Since then Gemaal has played in the Birmingham League. He was spotted by Jack Russell and Stuart Barnes during the winter and was invited for a trial with Gloucestershire earlier this season.”I am very grateful that Gloucestershire have given me this opportunity,” Gemaal said. “It’s something that I have been working towards very hard for the last four or five years. I am very keen to embrace the challenge and perform to the best of my ability.”

Kevin Pietersen has backed Andy Flower as England coach and is confident he has the necessary attributes to lead England through a hugely busy summer of international cricket, despite earlier this year calling for his sacking.Pietersen and Flower’s relationship has been turbulent ever since Pietersen’s brief foray into captaincy. In January, an ECB board official revealed that Pietersen “wanted half of them out and certainly Andy Flower” while Flower was batting coach and the favourite to replace Peter Moores. Now, however, Pietersen has come out in support of the man.”My opinion of Andy has shifted hugely over the past few months,” he told the . “On the West Indies tour he was an absolute superstar. I loved working with him. He’s been able to be his own man and give his own thoughts. He’s done it his way and he’s got his message across to the players about the direction he wants the team to go in.”I know I made some comments about him when I was captain but it hasn’t surprised me how my opinion of him has changed.”The pair’s relationship, Pietersen says, is now stronger than ever. “Sometimes people make comments they shouldn’t do,” he said. “We were man enough to sit down and talk over a few of the issues and I think our relationship is really, really good. We felt we made a lot of progress under Andy during the winter and now we’ve got a massive summer.”With the Ashes just two months away, Pietersen also took the opportunity to fire the opening verbal salvo to Australia whose famed sledging, he feels, only spurs him on as a cricketer.”They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and I know the experiences I’ve had in Australia and South Africa over the years have made me a far tougher person,” he told the newspaper. “I have never heard abuse like the last time we were in Australia playing in the Ashes.”My first England tour to South Africa in 2005 was probably the worst I have ever got, personally, but I expected that because I was playing against the country of my birth. However, Australia took me by surprise with the sheer levels of stick we got as a team. It was pretty relentless.”Everywhere you go, you are going to get a small minority of a crowd who will come to the ground to heckle and chuck abuse. Australian crowds are really bad, though. Unfortunately it is there in sport and I can’t see it going away. So long as it doesn’t get racial or personal, then you have just got to deal with it as a sportsman. You have to accept that abuse from the terraces is an occupational hazard.”In Australia, even some of their former players get involved with the abuse. I remember in 2007 when I’d broken my rib and had to fly home, Allan Border accused me of getting out of the country too quickly. He inferred I wasn’t badly hurt and I considered that a massive insult. It was a cheap shot.”But fans are passionate about their sport, it means a hell of a lot to people and they pay good money to come and watch.”

The ICC report into the state of Zimbabwe cricket highlighted that there was a “rather poor existing relationship between the board and players [past and present]” and that this matter was raised repeatedly with the fact-finding group led by West Indies board president Julian Hunte.Between 2004 and 2007, the board repeatedly clashed with stakeholders and players. The net result was that more than two dozens cricketers turned their back on the game, and most senior regional and provincial administrators were replaced.There were increasingly bitter disputes, and the board abolished the players’ union, removing the one body who were in a position to negotiate with it. This meant that young and often inexperienced players were left to deal individually with the board, and there have been claims made that on occasions bullying tactics were used in those meetings.The situation has improved, and several players have returned to the fold. However, the report noted that “at the time of writing, legal proceedings relating to an assault charge brought by ZC against one of its centrally contracted players were ongoing”. This was a reference to the legal case being heard against Tatenda Taibu.Many connected with Zimbabwe cricket believe that attracting many of the disaffected players back into the fold is the quickest way to rebuilding the game. But some remain disinclined to help out while some high-profile individuals remain in senior positions within Zimbabwe Cricket.”I have offered my services to cricket if needed,” one former Test player told Cricinfo.”However, certain people cannot remain in power before anything positive happens.”

Match facts

Wayne Parnell was a surprise success story in Centurion•Associated Press

April 9, 2009
Start time 2.30pm (12.30GMT)

Big Picture

Two one-sided contests in the first two matches, one to Australia and one to South Africa, means it’s impossible to predict what will happen from game to game. With each alternating result the No. 1 ODI ranking has switched hands and it’s starting to look like a booby prize that neither side wants to hold on to. But the individual matches mean little in terms of the ranking – whichever team wins the series finishes on top.The most notable feature of the results has been the way the series in South Africa has mirrored the contest in Australia. On both tours the visitors won the first two Tests before losing the third; on both tours the hosts triumphed in the two Twenty20 internationals; and on both tours the visiting team won the opening ODI and then lost the second. If the trend continues, Australia are destined to round out their trip with three more ODI wins just as Johan Botha’s men did in Australia in January.

Form guide (last five ODIs, most recent first)

South Africa WLWWW
Australia LWNWW

Watch out for

The biggest surprise out of the Centurion match was how dangerous Wayne Parnell can be with the new ball. His early swing and accuracy was the key reason Australia’s top order collapsed and he was named the Man of the Match in his second one-day international. As a left-armer he adds variety to an already dangerous South African attack and he has the potential to be a useful allrounder, although his batting is yet to be seen at international level.Another fresh face in this series is Callum Ferguson, who is only six matches into his ODI career but already is building a reputation as Australia’s middle-order stabiliser. He was the only one of the specialist batsmen to shine in Centurion, where his 50 saved Australia from an even more embarrassing result, and he performed a similar steadying role against New Zealand at the Gabba. The mature, level-headed approach is a positive sign as Australia go through some enforced restructuring of their batting line-up.

Team news

Given his powerful record in Cape Town, Makhaya Ntini will come into the calculations for South Africa but it’s hard to see where he can fit into a side whose attack was so dominant in the previous game. The South Africans also sprung a surprise in Centurion by dropping Hashim Amla despite his recent strong one-day form. But again, it’s difficult to justify changes to a team that has just won a match with nearly half its overs remaining.South Africa squad Graeme Smith (capt), Herschelle Gibbs, Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, Jacques Kallis, JP Duminy, Vaughn van Jaarsveld, Mark Boucher (wk), Roelof van der Merwe, Albie Morkel, Morne Morkel, Johan Botha, Dale Steyn, Wayne Parnell, Makhaya Ntini.Australia were considering changes to the side that went down by seven wickets in Centurion, although they were waiting until seeing the Newlands pitch on the morning of the game before making a decision. The bowlers didn’t disgrace themselves in the second match – they barely had a chance to – so Brett Geeves could struggle to force his way in. But after such a dismal batting display Marcus North and Cameron White will be mentioned as potential middle-order replacements.Australia squad Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin (wk), Ricky Ponting (capt), Michael Hussey, David Hussey, Callum Ferguson, Marcus North, James Hopes, Cameron White, Mitchell Johnson, Nathan Hauritz, Brett Geeves, Nathan Bracken, Ben Laughlin.

Stats and Trivia

• On Australia’s last tour of South Africa in 2005-06 they were routed for 93 in the ODI at Newlands, where Makhaya Ntini took 6 for 22
• Ricky Ponting didn’t play that match and only three of Australia’s current touring party took part: Michael Clarke, Michael Hussey and Nathan Bracken
• Ntini, who may or may not play, has featured in 10 ODIs at Newlands and has a remarkable record of 27 wickets at 10.14 at the venue

Quotes

“It’s been a hard three or four months against Australia and it’s been really competitive. Hopefully, starting tomorrow, we can turn things around and change the hoodoo.”
“There are not many of us who have that memory. I won’t mention that game around the squad before tomorrow.”

New Zealand Cricket has denied that it has definitely decided to cancel its proposed tour of Pakistan in November after the deadly attack targeting Sri Lanka’s team there, despite comments to that effect from chief executive Justin Vaughan.Speaking on local television, Vaughan said: “We’re not going and I think that’s pretty clear. I don’t think any international team will be going to Pakistan in the foreseeable future.”It’s very frightening that for the first time a cricket team appears to be the specific target of terrorist action. That’s never happened before. All previous incidents have been about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is a very different proposition and I think just a very frightening one for world cricket.”But within hours an official statement from the board contained less definite comments from Vaughan. “Staging our tour in Pakistan in November-December would appear very unlikely, but there is no final decision as yet. We will discuss the security issue with the Pakistan Cricket Board at the next ICC meeting, and we are likely to look at options such as the use of neutral venues.”Player safety and security is of paramount importance,” he added. “We will work closely with the New Zealand Cricket Players Association as we work through arrangements.”

Pakistan women’s coach Umer Rashid was pleased with the team’s performance in the recently-concluded tri-nation series and said it was better than in the Asia Cup last year where they lost to Bangladesh.”We beat Bangladesh both times on this tour, first by seven wickets and then by nine,” Rashid told the Pakistan daily . “So we have proved ourselves above them at least and find ourselves somewhat at par with the series winners Sri Lanka.”Pakistan were finalists in the tri-series in Bangladesh and Rashid said playing Sri Lanka twice had helped his side pick the opposition’s weaknesses. “We know ourselves better too and have a definite plan for the coming eight to 10 days. Bowling tightly with line and length and avoiding getting bogged down while batting will be one of our aims.”Rashid was particularly happy with his spinners – Javeria Khan and Naila Nazir – who he believed would be useful on Australian pitches during the World Cup. Javeria was the joint highest wicket-taker for the series with nine at 12.22 from five games, while Naila took three wickets in her first game. “Openers Nain Abidi and Bismah Maroof batted well [and] … Almas Akram came out as a fine allrounder.”The squad will meet in Karachi on February 23 for a four-day camp before leaving for Australia on February 28.