Lakshmipathy Balaji, the Indian fast bowler, is making encouraging progress with his recovery from a back injury, according to John Gloster, the Indian team physio. Balaji, who has now actively resumed his fitness training, said that his back had healed well and confirmed that he would attend the fitness camp in Bangalore starting on July 25 with the rest of the Indian squad.”Mr. Gloster was extremely happy with the progress I have made”, Balaji told . “He has given me a schedule to follow and asked me to approach the recovery process in a phased manner. He said there was no need to rush things.”Balaji has been out of competitive cricket since last November, missing almost the entire domestic season. He travelled to Australia in February to diagnose his injury, and doctors adviced him against surgery.He resumed bowling in the nets in May, and took a fitness test under the supervision of Gloster, hoping to make a comeback to the Indian Test squad for the tour of the West Indies. However, Gloster recently told Cricinfo that the purpose of the test was mainly to determine if he was ready to resume bowling, and that it was still early days in his rehabilitation. He added that Balaji is now in the final stages of his recovery from a lumbar spine stress fracture.When asked about his own assessment of his recovery, Balaji said that he is now bowling at 60-70% of his bowling speed. “The important thing is that I am feeling good”, he added. “I will be back.”

Darren Gough, the England fast bowler who is currently out of international cricket with a shin injury, is open to playing domestic cricket in India if a suitable opportunity arose. When contacted about the rumours linking him with a possible stint with Maharashtra, the state team that plays in the Ranji Trophy, he did not confirm that talks were on, but equally did not deny that he might be interested.For a while now, the Indian media has been flush with stories over who will or will not be recruited by Maharashtra for the forthcoming season. When Gough was queried on this through the media manager of the Essex County Cricket Club, he told Cricinfo, “I’ve heard the rumours too but until they develop into discussions there is no point in me commenting.””If it came along it would be a wonderful opportunity to help the youngsters out there, using my experience gained over the last 20 years,” Gough added. “India is a wonderful part of the world so I would definitely think hard about doing it.”Gough recently made a comeback to the England one-day international team, but it was to be short-lived. After two matches in the limited overs series against Pakistan, where some commentators suggested Gough had lost the pace that once made him such a tough bowler to negotiate, he suffered a shin injury and was ruled out of the remainder of the series, and also the forthcoming Champions Trophy in India.Maharashtra have been at the forefront of many changes in Indian domestic teams. Last season they hired Darren Holder, the Australian, as coaching director of the team, and for a while have expressed a keenness to take on foreign players to boost their chances of success in the Ranji Trophy. They have already hired professional cricketers from other states – notably Sairaj Bahutule from Mumbai, and more recently Sridharan Sriram from Tamil Nadu.

For the first time in its colourful history the Board of Control for Cricket in India is selling tickets online. Fans wishing to go to any match in the Champions Trophy – at Mumbai, Mohali, Jaipur or Ahmedabad – can now log on to www.bcci.tv, take a tour of the seating arrangements and pick the seats they want and pay by credit card.The limit per card is four tickets and only visa card holders can buy tickets online. Visa, which is a one of the sponsors of the Champions Trophy, has exclusivity on online ticketing for the first 15 days.The sale of tickets online began at approximately 8pm on Tuesday evening and within an hour huge numbers had been snapped up. “Rupees one lakh worth of tickets were sold, and that too without an advertisement or an announcement that the sales were live,” Lalit Modi, vice-president of the BCCI, told . “The initial buyers were mostly from overseas – America, the United Kingdom and even some from Australia,” he added.At present the only tickets you cannot buy online are the discounted student tickets and the president’s box. The student tickets require verification of an identification card from an educational institution and will be available at the venues. The tickets to the president’s box have been set aside for the ICC, its guests, and sponsors.To avoid a situation like the one Cricket Australia experienced over sales of the Ashes tickets where a large section of tickets got sold very quickly, servers crashed and disgruntled fans were left empty handed just hours after sales began, the BCCI has decided to stagger the sales of tickets. Initially about 10000 tickets of varying denominations will be available for each ground, and at a later date a further such lot will come up for sale.The back-end for the sales of the tickets is being handled by Ticketmaster, a company that has worked with the ICC in the past. “A team of people from Ticketmaster have been in India over the last two weeks working on the integration of their site and ours. Now that is complete,” said Modi. DHL and Blue Dart are the companies involved in the delivery of the tickets, and the BCCI suggested that orders placed now will be delivered from September 22 onwards.Modi was confident that the sales of tickets would yield substantial revenues, and was especially pleased with how things had gone at Jaipur, where he is the president of the state cricket association – Rajasthan. “We’ve already registered sales worth Rupees eight crore,” he said. “The three key areas that needed work were bathrooms, catering, and where applicable air-conditioning. We’ve spent a considerable amount of money on ensuring that the stadium at Jaipur is world class in these aspects. Since the last game we’ve spent about Rs. 25 crore on infrastructure.”

End of innings
Scorecard
How they were outA disciplined bowling performance and a rollicking start in the run chase saw Rest of India march inexorably towards victory by the end of the second day. ROI hustled out Uttar Pradesh for a meagre 166, before setting off in style in pursuit of the 114 runs needed for victory. Wasim Jaffer and Gautam Gambhir racked up 45 in no time and barring a minor miracle, ROI was all set to lift the Irani Trophy.UP’s collapse began after Zaheer Khan removed Praveen Kumar for a first-ball duck and Tanmay Srivastava committed hara-kiri by running himself out. Lakshmipathy Balaji prised out Shivakant Shukla, the first-innings top scorer, to rock the top order before VRV Singh harassed the lower-middle order with his pace and lift. ROI’s march was only briefly stymied by a late-orderresistance between Jyoti Yadav and Amir Khan. The duo stitched together a55-run partnership – third highest of the match, for the seventh wicket toput up a semblance of fight but that might have succeeded in only delaying theinevitable.Earlier, Subramaniam Badrinath was left stranded , twenty runs short of adeserved hundred, but his 46-run partnership for the last wicket withPragyan Ojha was enough to steer ROI to a vital 53-run lead. In thecontext of the low-scoring game and coupled with the fact that UttarPradesh’s strike bowler, Ashish Winston Zaidi was indisposed, it proved bea valuable lead.It was a day when ROI’s bowlers incessantly kept the pressureon, and the wickets came surprisingly quickly on a pitch that was stillnot unplayable. ROI’s attack was on the money and maintained a consistentline and length during the early passage of play, with Zaheer, inparticular, being nippy. With the UP batsmen almost eager to combust, Zaheer and Balaji kept it simple. Invariably, with three slipsand a gully prowling, the ball would land on a length in the channelaround the off stump, and push the edgy batsmen towards making the fatalwaft. After Kumar, who had dazzled with a 59-ball 42 in the first essay,perished, poking outside the off stump, and Tanmay was run out by a direct hit by Gautam Gambhir, Shivakant and Ravikant Shukla held firm. However, just afternoon, Ravikant was given out when he poked at a Zaheer delivery and Balajimoved one away to catch the outside edge of Shivakant to lift ROI’sspirits.Vikram Singh came on to his own in the second session, mixing his back-of- length deliveries with a few well-directed short-pitched balls. Hepushed Rizwan Shamshad – who promised much more than the meagre 10 hemanaged – back with a bumper and extracted a weak slash off the next onethat was pitched on a length.But his harassment of Gyanendra Pandey was the highlight of the secondsession. He repeatedly pinged Pandey, who looked to be perennially late inmost of his shots against the seamers, with bouncers at the body andslipped in slanted deliveries on a length that teased the outside edge.But to his credit, Pandey didn’t throw in the towel. He shrugged off threepainful hits to his chest, only calling for the physiotherapist afterSingh was taken off the attack after six incisive overs, and sought reliefand revenge at the other end where a spinner operated. He swung MuraliKartik twice over deep midwicket and square-cut Ojha. However, Kartik hadthe last word – which, in fact, was a shouted thank you to the batsman,when Pandey went for one heave too many and holed out at the deep.Then came the resistance by Jyoti and Amir which, however, might prove to be too little and toolate. While Amir, the slim and wristy wicketkeeper-batsman, took hischances, driving and flicking, Jyoti sewed one end up with a patient effort.He defended stoutly against the seamers – stole five hits to the fencewhen Balaji and Vikram Singh erred. But just when the partnership threatenedto grow into something more substantial, it ended under slightlycontroversial circumstances. Amir steered Balaji to second slip whereMurali Kartik stooped low and came up with a tumbling catch. Amir tarriedbriefly before walking off after getting confirmation from the umpire, whodidn’t refer it to the third eye. However, TV replays seemed to suggestthat the ball might have grazed the ground before settling into Kartik’s palms.Yadav joined his partner soon, when he fell to an acrobatic one-handedcatch by Robin Uthappa at gully. UP’s mutiny was over and Vikram Singh wenton to clean up the tail.ROI, overnight on 131 for 7, looked up to Badrinath to stretch their lead.He started off in a conservative manner, reposing trust in Balaji’sability with the bat. But when Balaji fell chasing a wide one and Singhcombusted on arrival, Badrinath went for the jugular. It was a lovelymixture of conventional and innovative shots, hooks and square-drivesdished out with dollops of cheeky lap shots and steers over slips.UP fell into the age-old quandary, whether to attack the main batsman or solelyconcentrate on taking out the last man. They chose the latter and paid forit. Badrinath not only farmed the strike – refusing to take singles in theearly parts of the over – but also hit out when the field closed in at theend. Ojha grew in confidence and chipped in with useful singles to helprotate the strike before he fell to the spinner Avinash Yadav. By then,however, he had done his bit to push UP on the back foot.

Rest of India
Lakshimipathy Balaji c Shamshad b Srivastava 15 (155 for 8)
Vikram Singh b Srivastava 0 (155 for 9)
Pragyan Ojha c Shukla b Avinash Yadav 3 (201)
Uttar Pradesh
P Kumar c Kartik b Khan 0 (0 for 1)
Tanmay Srivastava run out 0 (4 for 2)
Ravikant Shukla c Karthik b Khan 8 (39 for 3)
Shivakant Shukla c Jaffer b Balaji 33 (54 for 4)
Rizwan Shamshad c Karthik b VRV Singh 10 (55 for 5)
Gyanendra Pandey c Zaheer b Kartik 32 (90 for 6)
Amir Khan c Kartik b Balaji 26 (145 for 7)
Avinash Yadav c Karthik b VRV Singh 0 (159 for 8)
Jyoti Yadav c Uthappa b VRV Singh 38 (159 for 9)
Ashish Winston Zaidi b VRV Singh 1 (166)

Nathan Bracken has bowled himself back into contention for the first Ashes Test with a solid performance in the Champions Trophy. Bracken has seven wickets in the tournament – second only to Glenn McGrath for Australia – and has thrown his name into the mix for the third Ashes fast-bowling place, which many believed was down to Mitchell Johnson and Stuart Clark.Bracken took 2 for 36 in the semi-final against New Zealand including the vital wicket of Stephen Fleming and earned praise from Ricky Ponting. “I’m sure his name will come up,” Ponting told . “We all know the ball is going to swing a bit in Brisbane, and he took his best Test figures in that game up there last year. He’s bowling well. He certainly hasn’t been pigeon-holed as a one-day player.”The former fast bowler Geoff Lawson said Bracken had shown enough at the Champions Trophy to suggest Johnson was not the only left-armer who could offer Australia variety. “Johnson is supposedly an express quick, but he’s been bowling at around 135kph. He’s not quick,” Lawson said in . “Bracken was bowling at 125-130kph and getting it to swing considerably. I thought Bracken bowled very well and should definitely be in the mix for the Test.”The first Ashes Test will start on November 23 at the Gabba, the only ground where Bracken has played two Tests. Last year at Brisbane, Bracken claimed 4 for 48 including the key wickets of Brian Lara and Shivnarine Chanderpaul. In 2003-04 he dismissed Virender Sehwag in each innings of the Gabba Test.Ian Chappell has also pushed for the selectors to consider Bracken.

Scorecard It was very much Ryan ten Doeschate’s day as the Netherlands established a commanding position after day one of their ICC Intercontinental Cup match against Canada in Pretoria. ten Doeschate took a career-best 6 for 20 as Canada were routed for 103 in only 36.2 overs before backing that up with another flamboyant century.The other notable feature of the innings was a hat-trick for the young left-arm spinner Mohammad Kashif, who finished with 4 for 39 in only his third first-class match. Canada had been handily placed on 76 for 2 before Kashif wrecked the middle order. They never recovered as ten Doeschate added the tail to his three top-order wickets with the new ball.ten Doeschate was not finished there however, as he scored a century off 116 balls to stabilise a Netherlands innings that had wobbled from the prosperity of 118 for 1 to 159 for 6, with Henry Osinde claiming three wickets. By the close they had advanced to 239, a lead of 136, with ten Doeschate unbeaten on 135.It was 26-year-old ten Doeshate’s sixth first-class century, and he has now reached three figures in four successive innings in the ICC Intercontinental Cup.

Scorecard
Despite a solid batting effort, Central Districts went down to Wellington in a Duckworth-Lewis ruled thriller at Nelson’s Trafalgar Park. Matthew Sinclair (69), Greg Hay (55) and Ewen Thompson (50 not-out from 33 balls) powered CD to 241 before Michael Mason and Thompson reduced Wellington to 32 for 3. Rain intervened with Wellington on 100 for 4 in the 23rd over, and when play resumed the target was reduced to 232 from 46 overs. Grant Elliot (78) and Stu Mills (49) added 123 to take their side close to victory, and though they fell in quick succession, a 42-run stand for the seventh wicket between Luke Woodcock (21 not-out) and Dewayne Bowden (24 not-out) took them home with one ball to spare.
Scorecard
Powered by half-centuries from Mal Loye and Richard Jones, Auckland overhauled their target of 240 for the loss of just five wickets and with 15 balls to spare against Northern Districts. Having restricted ND to 239 for 9 – only Alun Evans and Hamish Marshall crossed 50 – Loye’s 79-ball 90, with 13 fours and a six, and Jones’s 56 carried the hosts to an easy win. Paul Hitchcock (39) and Rob Nicol (39) played crucial hands in supporting Auckland’s two half-centurions.
Scorecard
Following a Craig McMillan-led batting effort, a combined bowling display from Canterbury kept their control over Otago’s innings en route to a 23-run win at the Mainpower Oval in Rangiora. Put in to bat, Canterbury owed much to McMillans’s 52-ball 69 and an unbeaten 35 from captain Chris Harris in a total of 238. Hamish Bennett, Canterbury’s opening bowler, then reduced Otago to 28 for 3 before Aaron Redmond (53) and Greg Todd (43) added 88. A lower order collapse at the hands of Harris and the support bowlers ensured Otago lost their way and were bowled out for 215.

Justin Langer will announce today whether he is to join Shane Warne, Damien Martyn and Glenn McGrath in retiring from Test cricket. He will reveal his plans in a press conference at Sydney at noon local time amid growing speculation he’s going to quit.”I can’t say categorically that I won’t make an announcement before the start of the Test,” Langer told newspaper, “but at the same time, I can’t say categorically that I will. I haven’t spoken about it with anyone. I haven’t even spoken about it with Sue.”If Langer does bring the curtain down on his playing days it will end Australia’s most prolific opening partnership in Test history with Matthew Hayden.His father, Colin, told his son wasn’t going to outstay his welcome. “He’s been privileged to play for his country for 104 Test matches,” he said. “The way he’s gone about his career has been a thrill for his family.”It’s likely that if Langer does go after the final Test at Sydney which starts on Tuesday, then he will carry on playing at state level, as captain of Western Australia.

Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson have been ruled out of the Twenty20 International against England tonight at the SCG due to illness and injury. Lee is suffering from a chest infection while Johnson, who partnered Andrew Symonds in hitting balls from a driving range in a public relations exercise on Monday, has a stomach strain.Shane Harwood, the Victoria bowler, and James Hopes, the allrounder who has played nine ODIs and two Twenty20 games, have been called into the squad. Alex Kountouris, the team physiotherapist, said Lee’s illness had developed over the past 24 hours.”He will be assessed by a doctor later today,” Kountouris said. “Mitchell has a minor abdominal strain which occurred late yesterday and as a precautionary measure we have decided it best for him not to play.” Both players will be monitored over the next couple of days in the lead-up to the first game of the tri-series against England at the MCG on Friday.Australia (from) Adam Gilchrist (wk), Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting (capt), Michael Hussey, Michael Clarke, Andrew Symonds, Cameron White, Brad Hogg, James Hopes, Ben Hilfenhaus, Nathan Bracken, Shane Harwood.England (from) Michael Vaughan (capt), Andrew Strauss, Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Flintoff, Paul Collingwood, Ed Joyce, Jamie Dalrymple, Paul Nixon, Chris Read, Liam Plunkett, Sajid Mahmood, Jon Lewis, Chris Tremlett, James Anderson, Monty Panesar.

Warwickshire have pulled off a major signing after agreeing terms to bring Kumar Sangakkara to Edgbaston. The club have recently lost the services of Martin Love, the Queensland batsman, after he sustained a serious knee injury. Dale Steyn and Paul Harris, the South African bowlers, will share the second overseas spot.Sangakkara will be available for most of the summer, with only the Afro-Asia cup on the horizon for Sri Lanka at the World Cup and he said: “I am absolutely thrilled to have been offered an opportunity with Warwickshire. They are a great club with a long history and it will be a privilege to join them.”During previous visits to England I have really enjoyed playing at Edgbaston and staying in Birmingham. I hope I can make a really significant contribution to a successful season.”Mark Greatbach, Warwickshire’s director of coaching, added: “We are delighted to have secured one of the top players in the world so quickly after Martin Love’s injury.”Kumar Sangakkara has had an outstanding 12 months and is ranked in the top 10 batsmen in the world in both forms of international cricket. He is looking forward to taking that sort of form into our domestic season”.Sangakkara enjoyed an impressive 2006 where he averaged 69 in Test cricket including two centuries against New Zealand in Sri Lanka’s final Tests of the year. He also scored 1208 runs at 43 in ODIs. However, his move to England is subject to ratification by the Sri Lankan board on February 6.Steyn has also now agreed terms with Warwickshire and will be available from the start of the season until June 3. “We have a good crop of young bowlers at the club but we feel that Dale’s extra pace can add something to our attack and hopefully help us to build some early season momentum,” explained Greatbach.The club are hoping to confirm that Harris, who was a Kolpak signing last summer, will replace Steyn from early June. Harris’s recent Test selection means he now has to play as an overseas signing, but Warwickshire say they will be happy to have him back.”Paul’s selection for South Africa over recent weeks posed a bit of a problem but provided we are able to juggle our resources within the new regulations regarding overseas players we are keen to have him back,” said chief executive Colin Povey. “Last summer he performed exceptionally well and his confidence is high after his international selection. We hope he will carry on where he left off last season”.