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Following on from the success of the previous two years the 2002 End of Season Presentation Dinner and Players Awards is on Thursday 26 September at the Holiday Inn, Hambrook. Whilst enjoying a meal with the Players, Staff and Committee Members, there will be a review of the season by John Bracewell and Mark Alleyne among other events.There are opportunities to sponsor and present an award of your choice, takea table of 10 to bring along friends and valued clients, or make a donationtowards the raffle prizes.Tickets are priced at £27 per person or £250 for a table of 10.To book tickets and for further information please contact Anne Pope on 01179108025 or [email protected]

Marcus Trecothick continued his impressive early-season form with hissecond hundred against Glamorgan in the space of five days.The England opener followed up his 147 in the CricInfo Championship match with a 118-ball hundred today that was the backbone of his side’s six-wicket victory in the opening Benson & Hedges Cup zonal match.Trescothick’s performance was all the more impressive as he wasSomerset’s captain for the day in the absence of the injured Jamie Cox.And the left-hander’s form will have given the England management great encouragement with the Test series against Pakistan starting in just over a fortnight.Replying to Glamorgan’s 233-6, Somerset reached the winning line withthree overs to spare.Trescothick, who won the Gold Award, was given fine support by KeithDutch who supplied a Benson-best of 55 in a second-wicket stand of 121in 25 overs.Glamorgan, last season’s B&H finalists, won the toss but a solidstart was marred by three unnecessary run-outs of top-order batsmen.Steve James was run out by 10 yards in a mix-up with Mike Powell, whowas also involved in the dismissals of Adrian Dale and Matthew Maynard.Powell and Maynard looked to have rescued the Glamorgan innings with 84in 15 overs before the former county captain was out of his groundattempting a third run.Darren Thomas and Adrian Shaw added 43 in six overs to post acompetitive total on a slowish Cardiff pitch.But Glamorgan’s bowling was too wayward at the start of the Somersetinnings and Trescothick punished anything with width until he was outfour overs from the end.

An intriguing battle looms when PIA clash with Habib Bank Limited (HBL) in the final of the National One-day Cricket Championship at Gaddafi Stadium here Thursday.The day-night fixture pits together no less than eight of the nine members of Sharjah-bound Pakistan squad.The odd man out is PIA’s Yousuf Youhana. The Test right-hander is nursing a groin injury. There are also doubts on the participation of opener Ghulam Ali. Ghulam injured his hand while attempting to catch Imran Khan Tuesday. Initial reports said Ghulam had a hairline fracture.PIA and HBL scored contrasting victories in their respective semifinals against National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) and Wapda Tuesday night to set up a repeat of their Group-I final round tie. Last Thursday, HBL were comfortable winners over a depleted PIA side, who were without seven key players.HBL, who trounced Wapda by 139 runs in the Karachi semifinal, have been national one-day champions on eight previous occasions.Shahid Afridi, the explosive one-day specialist, and the in-form Taufiq Umer make a formidable opening pair who tore apart Wapda’s feeble attack Tuesday in spectacular fashion by scoring 90 and 86 respectively. Their stand was worth 153 off 129 deliveries. But they will expect a stern test against PIA’s equally formidable pace trio of Wasim Akram, Azhar Mahmood and Abdul Razzaq, backed up by spinners Saqlain Mushtaq, Shoaib Malik and Asif Mujtaba.It was the PIA’s bowlers who tilted the semifinal against NBP in their favour. The seven-time champions won by nine runs after taking the last seven wickets for 44 runs.The match, which begins at 2:30pm, brings down curtains on a hectic domestic season which began as long ago as Sept last year.The winners will be richer by a cash award of Rs 100,000 while the runners-up get Rs 50,000.Teams (from):PIA: Moin Khan (captain), Ghulam Ali, Faisal Iqbal, Yasir Hameed, Asif Mujtaba, Abdul Razzaq, Azhar Mahmood, Shoaib Malik, Wasim Akram, Saqlain Mushtaq, Fazle Akbar, Sohail Jaffar, Mahmood Hamid, Nadeem Khan.HBL: Ijaz Ahmed (captain), Taufiq Umer, Shahid Afridi, Saleem Elahi, Imran Farhat, Younis Khan, Atiq-uz-Zaman, Abdul Rehman, Sajid Shah, Kabir Khan, Danish Kaneria, Hasan Raza, Farhan Adil, Shahid Nazir, Irfan Fazil.Umpires: Salim Badar and Mian Aslam.Match referee: Sultan Rana.

Alastair Cook admitted England would have to reflect on the selection of their side after succumbing to a nine-wicket loss against India in the first Test in Ahmedabad.England’s bowling attack, with three frontline seamers and one specialist spinner, looked ill-suited for a Test played on a low, slow wicket, with the seamers claiming 1 for 254 in the match.Their batsmen also struggled and, in eight innings between them, England’s middle-order of Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell and Samit Patel contributed just 68 runs. By contrast, Cheteshwar Pujara scored 247 runs in the match without being dismissed and India’s two spinners claimed 13 wickets between them.While Cook admitted the problem, in part, was simply that several players had underperformed, he also conceded that the team management would have to reconsider the make-up and balance of the side ahead of the second Test which begins in Mumbai on Friday.”Clearly we’re going to have to look at our selection,” Cook said. “There are some good people making decisions in this England team and we thought we were doing the right thing for the side. The result showed we might have got it wrong. When you get beaten by nine wickets, you have a look at a lot of areas and we have to look at what we could have done better. There will be a lot to ponder. We’ll have to look at our squad for the next game.”The omission of left-arm spinner Monty Panesar has been highlighted as a key error by many critics but Cook felt the failure of England’s batting line-up in the first innings was more of an issue. He refuted any suggestion that England had been underprepared, but accepted that they would require far more of the team to contribute if they were to fight their way back in the series.”Our batting, especially in the first innings, didn’t deliver enough runs,” Cook said. “I thought it was a very good cricket wicket. There was a little bit in it for the spinners, but if you applied yourself with the bat it held together probably better than we thought it would. It was turning, yes. But runs were able to be had out there, as we showed in our second innings.”If we’re going to win out here, everyone in the game has to contribute. We need everyone to stick their hands up at certain times. The lads who haven’t performed as well as they would have liked in this game will be very disappointed. We showed a lot of character in that second half of the game. There are a lot of quality players in that dressing-room, with very good records who have scored hundreds against every attack in the world. They didn’t deliver in this game, and they know that. The middle order didn’t score enough runs. Everyone has to have a look at themselves if we want to take something out of this series.”The defeat means England have lost five out of six Tests in Asian conditions this year, leaving Cook to agree that mental scars might be as large an impediment to progress as technical deficiencies. “I’d say it’s a bit of both. Clearly, there are always technical issues before the mental ones kick in. We’re doing the right things. It’s now getting it right out in the middle and trusting our method there. We can only continue working as hard as we are doing, and I can’t fault the lads for that. It’s a case of working as hard as we can in the nets, and trusting our method out in the middle.”Cook also said the result had soured the memory of one of his finest innings. “I’m very happy with the way I batted,” he said. “To score any hundred for England is very special and to score one in that situation probably made it even more special for me.”Technically, it might have been a good innings. But you always get more satisfaction when you do it in a winning cause or to save a game. Maybe the 230 in Brisbane, in a similar match situation, is a better innings. But the result is what really matters and we weren’t good enough over the five days to win. I’d have been even prouder if I’d survived and dragged a draw out of it. I’m bitterly disappointed.”

Another day of the Pura Cup match between Tasmania and Victoria, another bizarre turn of events here at the Bellerive Oval in Hobart.It was novel enough that Tasmania secured its first outright win – by six wickets and with fifteen deliveries to spare – in more than a year and successfully pursued a fourth innings total in excess of 200 for the first time in more than three years. But drama and tension pervaded matters as well, the Victorians leaving the ground with their heads still spinning about a pair of incidents which they felt cost them their own chance to win.In the end, it was another day to savour for star Tasmanian opener Jamie Cox (139*). On a tense afternoon, his coolness under pressure was the difference between the teams and the rock around which the possibility of any kind of batting collapse from the home team was averted. After a slow start to the day – the Tasmanians conceded as many as forty-four runs to the last wicket pairing of Paul Reiffel (70) and Mathew Inness (3*) and then lost opener Dene Hills (2) early in the run chase – Cox joined with Michael DiVenuto (60), Daniel Marsh (35) and Shaun Young (29*) to see his team home.The innings also brought Cox the reward of 1000 first-class runs for the summer, a fact which surely can’t be lost on the Australian selectors as they weigh up the contenders for Ashes spots this winter.Having failed to score less than 860 runs in each of his last five Australian first-class seasons in a team which has often been struggling – and having added into the mix two fine seasons as captain of English county side Somerset – there is surely simply no more that the Tasmanian skipper can do to prove he is ready for a tour with the national team.”It’s quite a special one,” said Cox of the 1000 run milestone.”It’s my goal every year and it’s nice to get there again.”Of the victory itself, Cox said that the team could take several positives away from it.”It’s too little too late but it’s still nice to get wins at this time of year. Hopefully, we can crawl our way up the table a bit now.””The most satisfying thing is that we’ve finally remembered how to win again. It’s been a testing year. We played some horrible cricket in the middle of it – good at the start, horrible in the middle – and hopefully we can finish off with a bang and salvage something.”But, where Cox and Tasmania walked away rightfully satisfied with the result, their opponents walked away probably as nonplussed as at any time during a spell of unsatisfying first-class results in Tasmania that extends all the way back to 1981.In the wake of the Tasmanians’ heady display, the Victorians were left to rue the impact of what they had felt to be two highly dubious umpiring decisions. Both incidents provoked rancour from the visitors on the field and threatened to spill over into ugly scenes. Aware that they might have represented the difference between defeat and a four point lead at the head of the competition standings, the Bushrangers were seething by late afternoon.The denial, by Umpire Gus Jones, of a caught and bowled chance against Marsh, as Brad Hodge (1/39) ran and tumbled athletically to his right, raised the considerable ire of the Victorians. Marsh’s score was on 20 and the total at 3/176 (as the locals chased a target of 286 off a minimum eighty-three overs to win) as he pushed forward to a Hodge off break and ballooned the ball – exclusively off pad in Jones’ estimation – back toward the bowler.Tempers then verged close to boiling point when Umpire John Smeaton ruled invalid a beseeching leg side stumping appeal to him from wicketkeeper Darren Berry on the grounds that the Victorian gloveman had taken the ball in front of the stumps. The visitors weren’t only livid with that decision though: they believed that the delivery from Matthew Mott (0/38) had been edged by Cox (on 114 at the time) on its way into Berry’s gloves in the first place and later claimed that their appeal was for caught behind.Captain Reiffel and several of his players appeared to be spoken to by both umpires on a number of occasions throughout the remainder of the afternoon. Given that Michael Lewis had also squandered a half-chance to run Cox out early in his innings and that Michael Klinger and Matthew Elliott had missed catches with his score at 91 and 117 respectively, the Victorian skipper confirmed that his team’s sense of frustration hadn’t diminished by the end of the day.”Confusion, I think, is the word,” commented Reiffel. “I’m not allowed to comment on umpires but we certainly were confused.””The umpire at square leg said that the ‘keeper took it in front of the stumps. But if he (Cox) had hit it, then it doesn’t matter,” he said of the judgement that his opposite number had neither been stumped nor caught by Berry.”The umpire (at the bowler’s end) said he couldn’t give it out because it was a no-ball and so I said ‘Hang on, how does that work?'”, he added.Just to complicate matters, Reiffel said that Umpire Jones had indicated that he thought the ball had been edged. Cox, for his part, strenuously denied that he had hit the delivery.Had the ball been edged, then Smeaton’s decision about the placement of Berry’s gloves would have been irrelevant.”I thought the umpires might have (wanted to) discuss it. I’ve let them know my opinion on it.”In the end, it was a remarkable day’s cricket but one that took us no closer to establishing which two teams will play in the Final of this competition nor in which city.Tasmania’s win, while heartily welcome in a state starved of first-class successes over recent years, has little impact on the complexion of the Pura Cup standings. The Tigers remain last on the table. The second-placed Victorians, meanwhile, continue to be separated from ladder leader Queensland by quotient and remain ahead of third-placed New South Wales by six points with two rounds of matches still to be played.

England’s likely Test attack was forced to work hard by an impressive Queensland batting performance on day one of their final warm-up match before the first Ashes Test in Brisbane. At stumps Queensland had reached 333 for four, with Martin Love capitalising on his two successful seasons at Durham to finish unbeaten on 124.Although England were heartened by the return from injury of both Andrew Flintoff and Michael Vaughan, both of whom were making their first appearances of the tour, they found wickets hard to come by after Queensland, one of Australia’s strongest state sides, won the toss and decided to bat.Andrew Caddick was the pick of England’s bowlers in the early stages, accounting for openers Jimmy Maher and Brendan Nash after they had put on 60 runs for the first wicket. Nash was brilliantly caught in the gully by Marcus Trescothick as he tried to cut, and Maher after making 41 from just 46 balls, guided a lifting delivery in Caddick’s next over to Mark Butcher at third slip.But it was 36 overs before England made their next breakthrough, as two players with extensive English experience, Stuart Law and Martin Love, added 133 runs Flintoff took the first of two wickets. Law, on 68, got an inside edge on to his pad as he tried to drive, for Flintoff to take a straightforward catch.Andrew Symonds then joined Love to forge another century partnership, with Symonds contributing 47 off 65 balls before Symonds, cutting at a lifting ball, edged behind to Alec Stewart. Love’s unbeaten 124 included 16 boundaries and came off 233 balls on a pitch that is ideal for batting.

George Bailey believes Australia’s spin bowlers must find a way to be more effective on the subcontinent if the team is to have any chance of winning the next World Twenty20, to be held in Bangladesh in 2014. After returning home Monday Bailey also defended the form of the middle-order batsmen, who besides his own 63 in the semi-final loss to West Indies had little impact in the tournament as the top three carried the bulk of the workload.Three days after Australia’s tournament ended their exit might not have looked so bad, coming as it did against the eventual champions. However, one notable feature of the final was that both sides had outstanding finger-spinners with a mystery element: Sri Lanka’s Ajantha Mendis was the tournament’s leading wicket taker with 15 at 9.80 and the West Indian Sunil Narine was equal fourth with nine victims, including five in the semi-final and the decider.Another bowler of similar ilk, Pakistan’s Saeed Ajmal, was also equal fourth on the wicket tally and all three were miserly as well. In contrast, Xavier Doherty leaked 8.63 runs an over – his 1 for 48 from three overs in the semi-final seriously dented Australia’s hopes – while Brad Hogg managed only two wickets in his six games and the allrounder Glenn Maxwell was equally ineffective. Bailey knows it will be almost impossible to win in Bangladesh in 2014 with a similar slow-bowling output.”One of the things we need to look at is the way we bowl our spin,” Bailey said. “I don’t know any other way to describe it than as a Western-type way of bowling, which tends to be to try and draw the batsman out of the crease, whereas all the teams who have had success at the World Cup, their spinners are bowling into the wicket, quite fast, hitting the stumps every ball, making it very hard.”We need to find a way to develop spinners like that, and the tough thing is maybe bowling like that doesn’t really suit conditions in Australia. But I think if you look at all the stats from the tournament that was probably one of the areas that if we’re serious about winning the tournament we’re going to have to find a way to improve come Bangladesh.”During the World Twenty20, Muttiah Muralitharan said he believed one of the reasons Australia would not produce such a spinner was that unorthodox bowlers would be encouraged at junior levels to change their style. Bailey said it was important that young spinners with potential were identified regardless of whether they fit the Australian idea of what makes a good slow bowler.”As a nation we still talk about whether guys have legitimate actions or not and at the end of the day that’s really not for us to be arguing about,” Bailey said. “If that’s the rules and that’s how bowlers are bowling now and having success in international cricket then we’ve got to start developing those players and developing them at 10-11 years of age and we start to have some bowlers who do bowl like Murali or Ajmal or Narine.”You’re hoping that a few of our spinners are watching the tournament [World T20] and seeing the type of spinners that are having success. I think the way our coaching system is set up it’s going to be tough for some spinners to get through because the way a lot of the spinners who have had success bowl in the subcontinent, you’re probably not going to be playing much cricket in Australia if you bowl like that. There’s a balancing act there.”A lack of impact from the spinners cost Australia but there were also concerns about the imbalance in the batting order, with most of the runs coming from the openers Shane Watson and David Warner, and the No.3 Michael Hussey. Although opportunities were limited because of the success of the top three, there were still times when Australia needed runs from the middle order, notably in the semi-final.Chasing 206, Australia were 29 for 3 and it was the perfect time for the rest of the batsmen to step up and back the work of Watson, Warner and Hussey from earlier in the tournament. Batting at No.5, Bailey blasted 63 from 29 balls but had no real support – Cameron White was caught down leg side for 5, David Hussey chipped a return catch for a duck and Matthew Wade top-edged a sweep.”It’s a tough one. If you’re talking about winning the tournament, I think if you’re winning a World Cup you’re not talking about how well your four, five and six batted,” Bailey said. “Your one, two and three need to get you the runs. Four, five and six come in and either get you to a reasonable total or save your bacon. But if you’re winning the games it’s your top three you need to rely on.”I think whenever we’re progressing through to the back end of one of these tournaments we’re not going to be seeing much of the middle order. The challenge of the format is when you do get a chance you’ve got to be prepared to step up and make it your day.”Australia’s exit before the final was a disappointing way for Bailey to end his first tournament in charge, but he said the memories wouldn’t be all bad.”To knock out South Africa and India as we did was really pleasing,” he said. “I thought we played some really good cricket there. It’s just a matter of when you do get to the knockout stages you’ve got to be able to play your best cricket.”

ScorecardWayne Madsen made 37 before taking three wickets•PA Photos

Durham’s hopes of reaching the Yorkshire Bank 40 semi-finals were all but ended when Derbyshire skipper Wayne Madsen inspired his team to a crushing 107-run victory in Group B under the County Ground floodlights.Madsen made 37 and shared a century stand with Richard Johnson as Derbyshire made 217 for 8 before he ambushed Durham with his off-spin to take 3 for 27 – his best figures in any form of cricket – as the visitors collapsed on a slow, turning Derby pitch.Durham never recovered after Madsen reduced them to 62 for 4 and David Wainwright took a limited-overs career-best 4 for 11 to send the visitors crashing to 110 all out in the 29th over as Derbyshire ended a run of four defeats to Durham this season.Durham had to win and started well against a weakened Derbyshire team missing Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Wes Durston, leaving their hosts in trouble on 36 for 3 in the ninth over. Mark Wood nibbled one away to have Ben Slater caught behind for six in the fourth over and after Chesney Hughes pulled Wood for six, he tried to repeat the shot against Chris Rushworth and holed out to deep midwicket for 24.Derbyshire were struggling when Wood had Paul Borrington caught at gully but Madsen joined Johnson in a stand that put the Falcons back in the match. Johnson had a lucky escape when he was caught behind for 17 with the total on 61 but Ben Stokes had overstepped and that proved costly as the fourth-wicket pair worked the ball around to add 103 from 114 balls.Madsen straight drove Gareth Breese for six and Johnson hit four fours in a 58-ball 50 before Paul Collingwood switched ends to remove them both in the 27th over. Madsen mistimed a pull and was caught at mid-on and three balls later, Collingwood cut one back to bowl Johnson but 22 from 15 balls by Tony Palladino and 25 extras lifted Derbyshire to a challenging total on a slow pitch.It looked an even better when Madsen surprisingly opened with his occasional off-breaks and struck twice in a five-over spell that cost only 13 runs. Phil Mustard tried to cut a straight one and was bowled for a duck and Scott Borthwick pulled to deep-midwicket to put Durham on the back foot at 14 for 2.Collingwood and Mark Stoneman added 46 in nine overs but it was not easy to force the pace and when Madsen returned at the Grandstand End, Stoneman was caught at long off for 25 when he tried to hit down the ground. It was impossible to keep Madsen out of the game and he took a simple catch in the next over when Collingwood pushed Tom Knight’s left-arm spin to short extra-cover.Knight struck another huge blow when he bowled the dangerous Stokes for nine and celebrated his best List A figures of 3 for 36 before Wainwright sealed victory with 11.4 overs remaining.

Afghanistan will look to strengthen their chances of qualifying for the 2015 World Cup on their tour of Namibia, which begins on August 4.The team, which departed for Namibia today, is scheduled to play one Intercontinental Cup match and two World Cricket League Championship matches on August 9 and 11. Victory in both matches will take Afghanistan to 15 points, alongside Netherlands and Scotland, bettering their chances of a place in the World Cup. For Namibia, who are currently seventh in the league, the matches are a chance to better their ranking before their last league round matches against UAE.The last time these teams met was in March 2012, when Afghanistan beat Namibia by 28 runs in the World Twenty20 qualifiers to secure a place in the World T20 in Sri Lanka. Afghanistan’s next series will be the Asian Cricket Council’s Emerging Teams Cup in Singapore, where they will play their first match against Nepal on August 17.The CEO of the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB), Dr Noor Mohammad Murad, said: “We wish our national team well for their Namibia tour. We are looking forward to a top-class performance by the players, and are confident in their ability, which has shown in their performances so far in this journey to qualify for the 2015 World Cup. They have also had the benefit of a 14-day training camp in the lead up to this tour. We know they will do everything they can to make our country proud.”Fixtures:
August 4-7: Intercontinental Cup match v Namibia
August 9: WCL Championship match v Namibia
August 11: WCL Championship match v Namibia

Worcestershire 120-5 (Kervezee 42*) beat Gloucestershire 119-8 (Mitchell 3-21) by five wicketsAlexei Kervezee had found runs hard to come by since wearing Netherlands colours for the last time•ICC/Ian Jacobs

Worcestershire overpowered Gloucestershire to register their first Friends Life t20 win of the season by five wickets at New Road.Gloucestershire’s dismal batting performance on a slow, dry pitch mustered only 119 for nine and that proved to be plain sailing for Worcestershire, who won with five overs to spare thanks to a flash of form for Alexei Kervezee, who has had a difficult summer since he retired from international cricket with the Netherlands.Kervezee went into the match with one half-century in 26 previous innings in all formats – that arriving in a Yorkshire Bank 40 meeting with his former Dutch team-mates – but he held his focus in cruising to an unbeaten 42 from 32 balls.Worcestershire dominated the game from the outset but created some pressure inthe way they lost wickets at key times.Moeen Ali, following a successful spell of 2 for 14 with his off-breaks, was going well on 22 when he swept Tom Smith to deep square leg.But there was no more careless dismissal that that of Andre Russell, who hit a rapid 18 before he was run out in mind-numbing fashion, ambling towards the bowlers’ end with his bat off the ground when looking for a single off a no ball from Dan Christian and beaten by a trundling direct hit.When Gareth Andrew chipped Smith to mid-wicket, giving the left-arm spinner two for 22, the home side were on 93 for five but Ben Cox completed the job with a straight six off Benny Howell.Comprehensively beaten in their first two group games, Worcestershire selected three spinners in an attempt to take advantage of a dry, sparsely-grassed surface.The slow surface meant there was scant entertainment for the New Road crowd as Gloucestershire foundered but the plan worked to perfection in the case of Moeen, who delivered 14 dot balls in four overs. Daryl Mitchell later turned in a spell of three for 21.Six batsmen got into double figures but no one could break free as Worcestershire backed up their bowlers with slick catching, none better than Kervezee’s overhead take from Howell in front of the rope at mid-wicket.