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ScorecardShaun Tait, seen here in the IPL, fired through Sussex with 4 for 26•BCCI

Essex overcame a 12-run penalty to return to the winning ways in the Friends Life t20 with a six-wicket win over Sussex in front of a near-capacity crowd at Chelmsford.Even though they penalised because of their failure to bowl their overs in the permitted time – which boosted Sussex’s total – Essex still had enough in reserve as they chased down 171 for 9 with four deliveries to spare.After losing their openers Hamish Rutherford and Greg Smith, Ravi Bopara and Owais Shah seized the initiative for Essex with a partnership of 56 in six overs before the former was caught in the deep off Dwayne Smith.Bopara’s 35 came off 21 balls and contained three fours and two sixes, while Shah made 40 from 36 balls with four fours and two sixes before he holed out against the nagging spin of Mike Yardy.Essex arrived in the final five overs needing 51 but that did not prove a problem as Ryan ten Doeschate and James Foster struck a series of lusty blows in an unbeaten stand of 57 to see their side home. Ten Doeschate’s innings included two fours and two sixes while Foster helpedhimself to three fours and a six in his 15-ball cameo.Essex’s success was in complete contrast to their last Twenty20 outing when they were crushed by eight wickets against Middlesex after recording their lowest-ever total in the competition of 74.Sussex had looked set for better when they reached the halfway stage 95 for 1 but they lost their way when Matt Machan departed six runs later after contributing 57 from 30 balls with the help of eight fours and a six.He was removed lbw by left-arm spinner Tim Philips, paving the way for Australian pace bowler Shaun Tait to run through the middle order on his way to 4 for 26.Rory Hamilton-Brown did his best to keep the Sussex innings afloat before he succumbed to Reece Topley for 43. Even with the gift of 12 runs thanks to Essex’s slow pace, the visitors could only manage 53 from their final five overs and their failure to find momentum during that crucial stage was to cost them dearly.

Match facts

Friday, July 19, 2013
Start time 0900 local (1300 GMT)Pakistan’s batting worries haven’t ceased•WICB Media

Big Picture

The pitches served up for the one-dayers in the West Indies, starting from the tri-series, have largely produced scores of under 250. In the two 300-plus scores, the batsmen were aided more by poor bowling than favourable batting conditions. In the two ODIs so far in this series in Guyana, middle-of-the-road scores in the region of 220-230 have been matchwinning ones. With the series shifting to St Lucia for the three remaining one-dayers, the question is whether the trend of scores will change. Dwayne Bravo, the West Indies captain, is optimistic of higher scores but his team of power-hitters will be relieved only if they get conditions that suit their strengths.The West Indies batsmen did well to recover from their shocker of a collapse in the first ODI by posting 232. It was a laborious innings for most part till Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard provided the calorie boost towards the end. Darren Bravo and Marlon Samuels adopted a conservative approach, preserving wickets instead of taking off. Respecting the conditions, West Indies went with the strategy of setting a 235 target, knowing that would be enough to put pressure on Pakistan’s line-up, which hasn’t been in the best of touch either. Sunil Narine, who was pasted in the first match, bounced back to pick up four wickets.Pakistan’s batting worries haven’t eased since they set foot in England for the Champions Trophy. The pitches haven’t really helped a line-up low on confidence. Should Pakistan attack at the start or adopt West Indies’ approach of safety first before leaving the acceleration to Shahid Afridi and Umar Akmal? It’s a likely dilemma. That they have the bowling to defend a competitive total is beyond doubt.

Form guide

(most recent first, last five completed matches)
West Indies WLLLW
Pakistan LWLLL

In the spotlight

Ahmed Shehzad was recalled to the one-day squad after a gap of two years, but it hasn’t been a happy comeback, with scores of 5 and 19. His last five ODI scores make for poor reading – 0,6,9,5,19. He will have fond memories of St Lucia though, where he scored his second ODI century during the 2011 tour, before that slump began. He will be under pressure to perform, having taken Mohammad Hafeez’s place in the opening position.Since his 109 in the opening match of the tri-series, Chris Gayle has mysteriously tapered off, failing to go past 14 in his next five innings. His no-show at the top, coupled with Marlon Samuels’ struggle is partly responsible for West Indies failing to bat with the fluency they are associated with. In the first ODI, he set off for a single, then hesitated before falling short of a direct hit and in the second, pushed at a delivery outside off and edged to the keeper. If Gayle sets himself up to bat through the innings, it could lend greater stability at the top.

Team news

West Indies named an unchanged squad for the three remaining one-dayers, giving Johnson Charles an extended run as the wicketkeeper in Denesh Ramdin’s absence.

Quotes

“The energy and effort the guys put in the field [in the last match], and the outfield display, was fantastic. I think it reminds us how good we can actually be when we believe and get some self-confidence.”
West Indies: (probable) 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Johnson Charles (wk), 3 Darren Bravo, 4 Lendl Simmons, 5 Marlon Samuels, 6 Dwayne Bravo (capt), 7 Kieron Pollard, 8 Darren Sammy, 9 Kemar Roach, 10 Sunil Narine, 11 Jason HolderPakistan rested Junaid Khan for the first two ODIs but if he is included, it could potentially be a three-man left-arm seam attack.Pakistan: (probable) 1 Nasir Jamshed, 2 Ahmed Shehzad, 3 Mohammad Hafeez, 4 Misbah-ul-Haq (capt), 5 Asad Shafiq, 6 Umar Akmal (wk), 7 Shahid Afridi, 8 Wahab Riaz, 9 Asad Ali/Junaid Khan, 10 Saeed Ajmal, 11 Mohammad Irfan

Stats and trivia

• Shahid Afridi needs three more sixes for 400 international sixes
• Pakistan have an unbeaten record in ODIs at St Lucia, beating West Indies on all four occasions

The ICC has confirmed that the inventor of Hot Spot, Warren Brennan, raised concerns with them this week over the effect of bat coatings on the technology, which detects edges using thermal imaging, but that he was warned against suggesting players were deliberately trying to cheat the system.Although Brennan has not explicitly stated any such worries in public and has declined to comment, he sent a tweet on Monday to former England captain Michael Vaughan that said: “Michael, it’s time you investigate why players are using fibreglass tape on the edges of their bats.”Channel Nine also reported on Thursday that Brennan had raised his “serious concerns” with the ICC about flaws in the system. The Channel Nine report stated that Brennan feared silicone tape on bats could fool the technology by dulling the Hot Spot and ensuring no mark shows up on the edge even if a batsman has nicked the ball.Nine reported that testing was carried out, which showed that a second layer of tape had the dulling effect. Geoff Allardice, the ICC’s general manager of cricket operations, met with team management of both England and Australia in Durham on Thursday, and the ICC has announced Hot Spot will continue to be used for the rest of this series.Allardice confirmed that he and Brennan had met in Melbourne on Friday to discuss the series and Brennan afterwards sent an email raising concerns.”He followed up with an email to me on Monday suggesting that they’d looked at some clips and that coatings on the bat might have been dulling down the Hot Spot mark,” Allardice said. “He made us aware of that. On Tuesday, he did some testing and informed us of that. He also advised us that he was intending to make a media statement.”We talked about the timing of that. It’s his company, his product, he’s free to say whatever he likes in the media. We were expecting to see something either yesterday or today.”We didn’t really talk about the inference that players were doing it deliberately to try and beat the Hot Spot. I think we did warn him that if he made a statement along those lines, if the inference was that the players were trying to cheat the Hot Spot system he would need some strong evidence to support that. There is no evidence to support that assertion and certainly from the comments of the teams you can see that they don’t believe that that happens.”Both Michael Clarke and Alastair Cook have vehemently denied that any of their players have deliberately used tape in an effort to fool Hot Spot and the teams are happy for the technology to continue to be used throughout this series. When Allardice was asked if the ICC would consider changing its playing conditions to prevent the use of such tape on bats, he said “a lot more evidence” would be required before any such move was made.”I think it’s very early days, in that players have had coatings on bats, and manufacturers’ stickers on bats, and reinforcing tape on bats for forever and a day,” Allardice said. “We listened to Warren’s view and there may be something in it but I’d think we’d want to gain a lot more evidence before we’d look at rule changes or anything like that.”This was a theory that he put up on Monday this week. He did some tests that he felt supported that theory. We would like to see some more evidence from on the ground with players in action to support that. At this stage we’ve got no intention of changing the rules in the short term.”

The BCCI has summoned Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan, Harmeet Singh, Siddharth Trivedi and Amit Singh to present their case at the meeting of its disciplinary committee on Friday in New Delhi. Names of all these players were involved in the controversy surrounding the alleged spot-fixing in the IPL.Ajit Chandila, another accused, hasn’t been summoned because Ravi Sawani, BCCI’s anti-corruption unit chief who has been carrying on the internal investigation, hasn’t yet had the opportunity to question Chandila, who was released on bail only on September 9. ESPNcricinfo understands that a player has to be given seven days’ notice to appear before Sawani. It hasn’t yet been established if Chandila has been notified already.The disciplinary committee consists of N Srinivasan, the BCCI president who has recused himself from the board’s day-to-day affairs, and the vice-presidents, Arun Jaitley and Niranjan Shah. Srinivasan is expected to attend the meeting.Since the disciplinary committee is a statutory body, it is not binding on it to forward their recommendations to the board’s AGM later this month. If the committee feels some of the sanctions can be announced in Delhi, it is free to do so. Bans between five years and life are expected for Sreesanth, Chavan and Amit. The other two are likely to serve lesser time.

When it comes to sport, the Welsh tend to sing whether they are winning or not. Glamorgan supporters have not had too much to fill their lungs about in recent times but, on Saturday, they will make their first trip to Lord’s for a domestic one-day final in more than a decade. The home of cricket may need soundproofing.Nottinghamshire are favourites to win the Yorkshire Bank 40, having cruised through the group stage and thrashed perennial nearly men Somerset in their semi-final, but Glamorgan are quite happy to be overlooked by the . In truth, this is unfamiliar territory for both sides – it will be the third Lord’s final appearance in Glamorgan’s history and only Nottinghamshire’s fifth, their most recent coming in 1989 – but while Notts have a surfeit of England internationals to call upon, their opponents are largely unsung outside of Cardiff.There will surely be an ode or two composed to Michael Hogan – the tournament’s leading wicket-taker – or Jim Allenby if Glamorgan manage an upset. The starting XI may be a little light on homegrown players (Allenby and Hogan are Australian) but Simon Jones will always be a household name in Wales. It is eight years since he last played for England, eight years since he became an Ashes winner, yet there are still those who whisper reverentially about his piston right shoulder and powers of reverse swing.Jones could be about to pull on a Glamorgan shirt for the final time – he announced his retirement from first-class and List A cricket last week, though hopes to maintain the club as part of a T20 portfolio – and he says they are happy to accept the underdog tag. “That’s just the way it is but we relish that, we love a challenge and hopefully we’ll surprise a few people,” he said.”It’s a bit of a Welsh trait, isn’t it – we’re tigers, as a nation. Welsh sport is really looking up, with the rugby, with the football and now we’re in a Lord’s final. We’re obviously the only Welsh team in the County Championship and it’s something we’re very proud of, once you put on a Glamorgan shirt it’s something that you treasure. We play cricket with passion and I think that’s a big key for us.”The focus at Glamorgan over the last few years has been on making their ground a credible international venue but while the faithful require their churches, it is silver rather than glass and steel that they worship. Beaten finalists in the Benson & Hedges Cup in 2000, Glamorgan won the National League in 2002 and 2004 before a lean spell, pock-marked by upheaval on and off the pitch. The YB40 campaign, building on some encouraging form in the Friends Life t20, hints at the green (and yellow) shoots of making the county competitive again.”It’s been a tough time,” Jones said. “We had a lot of success in the early 2000s, the last time we won a major cup was in 2004, so it’s been a long time coming. We’ve had to rebuild, we lost a lot of senior players in the early 2000s – Matt Maynard, Steve James, Adrian Dale, Steve Watkin, Robert Croft, Tony Cottey. These guys are huge for Glamorgan, so we were in the process of rebuilding and it is flourishing now. It has taken that time to find a settled team and have the squad of players that play the brand of cricket that we like playing.”A recognition that a successful Glamorgan, incorporating local talent, was needed to maintain public interest in the sport in Wales has driven the current strategy, which involves balancing experienced signings like Allenby, Hogan and Murray Goodwin with promising young players such as Ben Wright, Mike Reed and Andrew Salter. Jones, who counts himself among the “old buggers”, believes that the team in one-day cricket has just “clicked”, but they won’t be getting ahead of themselves, despite an impressive semi-final victory over the holders, Hampshire.”We’ve got the blend of youth and experience right in the team. We’re not going to get giddy and go to Lord’s with our heads swelling because that’s the wrong way to approach a final. We’re going to go in there level-headed, prepare like we have and see where that takes us. We’ve got a lot of self-belief but we have the utmost respect for Nottinghamshire.”Should he make the starting XI as expected, this will be Jones first Lord’s final appearance. To achieve that with Glamorgan, the county that made him and where he returned two years ago after spells with Worcestershire and Hampshire, is a “special, special feeling”. He says of the current team: “We’re a great bunch of lads, we’ve worked hard for each other all year and it’s nice to get a bit of credibility back. Hopefully we can go there and express ourselves and keep on playing the way we have.”Would victory be a new career high? Jones isn’t ruling it out. “The Ashes is history, but the feeling I think I’d have if we can win will be up there with the Ashes, maybe bigger. Because when you play with England you’ve got the cream of the crop from around the county circuit and are expected to win. Glamorgan have put out a Welsh team who fight hard and work hard and, yes, we have a lot of talent but people have always doubted us and I think that’s the key for us. We’ve proved a lot of people wrong and that’s why I’m so happy.”Simon Jones was speaking ahead of the Yorkshire Bank 40 final at Lord’s on Saturday, September 21. Tickets are available from tickets.lords.org

Australia have enhanced their Ashes options while reducing the tourists’ chances of closing out the ODI series against India by choosing to send Mitchell Johnson home early from the subcontinent, with the intention of aiding his preparation for the first Test against England in Brisbane.Johnson’s early departure from India will allow him the chance to play in two Sheffield Shield fixtures before the Gabba Test, and one match before the national selectors name their squad on November 12. “Mitch has performed very well in India,” the team performance manager Pat Howard said. “However, we believe it is best for his preparation ahead of a busy summer to have him return home to increase his bowling loads in preparation for the Ashes Test window.”Though Johnson has impressed consistently in limited-overs fixtures for Australia in England and India since he missed selection for the last Ashes bout, it remains to be seen whether he can replicate white-ball form with the red. The reinstated Test bowling coach Craig McDermott can be expected to spend plenty of time with Johnson upon his arrival home from India, working to make sure he has a chance of bowling consistently well in Brisbane and beyond.Australia’s pace bowling order of preference has been shuffled due to injuries suffered by James Pattinson, Mitchell Starc and Jackson Bird, but there remains some scepticism about Johnson’s ability to bowl with the sustained intensity and accuracy demanded by the diligent approach of Australia’s pacemen in England. To that end, he will now be available for the Shield match for Western Australia against South Australia at the WACA ground from November 6.That match will allow McDermott and the selectors to gauge Johnson’s first-class bowling before finalising the Brisbane squad. If selected, he will then be able to build further into form against the Redbacks in the return fixture at Adelaide Oval the week before the Gabba Test.If Australia’s Ashes prospects have been enhanced by a better lead-in for Johnson, their odds of winning the ODI series in India have now lengthened appreciably. Johnson has been Australia’s most dangerous bowler across the series by a distance, even during Wednesday night’s rousing Indian chase of 351 to win in Nagpur. Nathan Coulter-Nile can be expected to come in to the team for the series decider in Bangalore.

ScorecardBipul Sharma’s 91 gave Himachal Pradesh the lead against Hyderabad•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

With Tripura all out for 136 on the first day, it was imperative for Assam that they continued to build their first innings total to gain a healthy lead. Resuming on 85 for 1, both Dheeraj Jadhav and Sibsankar Roy took the score past 100 but Roy could not kick on, falling for 19 off the bowling of seamer Manisankar Murasingh. This brought Tarjinder Singh to the crease, and with Jadhav, the pair put on a substantial 222-run partnership that all but put Tripura out of the game. Unfortunately for Tarjinder, he fell just one run short of what would have been his fourth first-class century. Jadhav then added 59 with new batsman, Niraj Patel, before he was dismissed six short of a double ton as Assam racked up 335 runs on the day to finish on 420 for 4.
ScorecardAndhra’s chances of securing a first-innings lead against Jammu & Kashmir rest solely on their bowlers, after the side finished the second day at 191 for 8 in Anantapur, still trailing by 34.Andhra began their reply to J&K’s first-innings total of 225 on a solid note as openers Prasanth Kumar and Srikar Bharat added 38, before Mohammed Mudhasir broke the stand. Regular wickets fell thereafter, including in two successive overs, ensuring that the Andhra batsmen failed to get partnerships going. For J&K, Ram Dayal, Owaish Shah, Mohammed Mudhasir and Parvez Rasool picked up two wickets apiece.Earlier, a late rally from No. 10 batsman Waseem Raza, who finished unbeaten on 27, pushed J&K’s total to 225 after a poor start to the morning. J&K lost two quick wickets, including that of overnight batsman Bandeep Singh, on the second morning and were struggling at 174 for 8 before Raza stitched useful stands with Dayal and Mudhasir. Paidikalva Vijaykumar was the most successful Andhra bowler, finishing with figures of 3 for 63 off 33 overs.
ScorecardBipul Sharma’s knock of 91 and contributions from Prashant Chopra, Sangram Singh, Rishi Dhawan and Vikramjeet Malik helped Himachal Pradesh secure a first-innings lead of 59 runs over Hyderabad in Dharamsala.Having bowled out Hyderabad for 237, Himachal’s innings proceeded in a stop-start fashion as quick wickets often followed substantial partnerships. Openers Chopra and Sangram added 79 before a flurry of wickets reduced the hosts to 100 for 5. Dhawan and Bipul then staged a recovery, adding 65 runs for the sixth wicket before Pagadala Naidu dismissed Dhawan and Aatish Bhalaik in quick succession.Bipul remained steady, however, and his 113-run, eighth-wicket stand with Vikramjeet Malik helped Himachal take the lead. Pacer Alfred Absolem, who finished with figures of 4 for 88, took two wickets in the 73rd over and the Himachal innings folded soon after with Bipul being dismissed for 91.Hyderabad reached stumps without the loss of a wicket but still trail the hosts by 19 runs.
ScorecardMaharashtra continued their trend of putting up a big first-innings total to pressurise their opponents as they piled on a colossal 635 against Goa – their second successive 600-plus total – on the second day at the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium.Read the full report here.

ScorecardChadd Sayers finished the match with seven wickets•Getty Images

Chadd Sayers bowled South Australia to victory over Western Australia with a spell of 3 for 1 from seven overs on the final day in Perth. Set 319 to win, the Warriors had made a solid start and were 2 for 109 when Sayers began to cause problems, removing John Rogers for 31, Will Bosisto for a duck and Cameron Bancroft for 35 in his pre-lunch spell.That left Western Australia wobbling at 5 for 114 and although Sam Whiteman added an unbeaten 47 from 40 deliveries, the Warriors never recovered from the mini-collapse. Sayers returned to claim the final wicket, that of Michael Hogan for 15, to dismiss Western Australia for 210 and wrap up a 108-run South Australian victory.Sayers, who played for Australia A during the year and could be an outside chance for a call-up at some point during the Ashes, finished the innings with 4 for 34 and seven wickets for the match. The debutant fast bowler Trent Lawford collected 3 for 41 to add to his two wickets from the first innings.