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Mohsin Khan, Pakistan’s interim coach, has dropped a veiled hint that he would like to be formally considered for the coaching job on a permanent basis after Pakistan beat England by 72 runs in Abu Dhabi and took an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-Test series.Moshin and his captain, Misbah-ul-Haq, have been widely acclaimed for bringing stability and contentment to a Pakistan dressing room so often riven by conflict, but while Pakistan have added England to their list of scalps in their adopted home in the UAE, the PCB has been openly engaged in finding Mohsin’s successor.Dav Whatmore is widely viewed as the favourite for the job. He met with board officials in Lahore a fortnight ago immediately after Mohsin left for the UAE with the Pakistan squad. He was taken to the National Cricket Academy and held talks with the PCB chairman Zaka Ashraf. An appointment is predicted at the end of the one-day series.Mohsin, asked directly whether he wanted the job full-time after adding a series win against England to successes against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, gave a cryptic reply. “What Mohsin Khan is today is because of Pakistan and Pakistan cricket,” he said. “My services are always there for my country but I don’t want anybody to take me for granted.”People were saying that performing well against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh was nothing great, okay agreed, but to perform against England, whether they are No. 1 or not, is always creditable.”If Mohsin does not gain the job full time, he at least expects his candidature to be taken seriously. He took temporary charge earlier this year after Waqar Younis stood down for health reasons. He was among the 30 people who applied for the job, but Ashraf reportedly said he was not qualified to assume the role on a full-time basis.Mohsin also said he had been the chief advocate of the selection of Asad Shafiq and Azhar Ali, two young players whose maturity in Pakistan’s second innings set up their platform for victory in Abu Dhabi.”I was the one who selected them because a year and a half back when I became chairman of the selection committee we picked up these two youngsters and I felt they were very talented,” he said. “All the credit goes to the boys because they played well under tough conditions.”We were hoping for a lead around 225 or 230 but we finished up with much less than that. But I have a lot of belief in these players of mine. I said to my boys if we play proper and disciplined cricket we can get them for 100. It was to give a morale-booster to the boys. I think England went a little bit on the defence, though I am not telling them what they should have done.”Pakistan yearn for the time when they can stage home Tests again but in a curious way perhaps neutral territory has suited them. Had they gone 1-0 up in Pakistan the temptation would have been to try and create two dead pitches to escape with draws in the last two Tests. Instead, the Sheikh Zayed pitch provided a compelling contest and Pakistan emerged victorious.”Whenever you play in conditions you are not used to, you face some difficulties,” Misbah said. “When we go to England there are difficulties for us. The confidence our team has gained in the last 18 months is also a big factory. They now believe in themselves.”Any team batting last on this surface would find it difficult. The way the ball was turning it was hard to play the spinners, so we thought ‘we can put pressure on England, let’s have a try.’ Just bowl wicket to wicket, that is the key here. Some balls were turning, some skidding on and it was really difficult for the batsmen to guess what was happening.”Pakistan used to be forever asked about spot-fixing. Now they are forever asked if it time to stop talking about spot-fixing. Cricket will not forget so easily but Misbah is convinced that it is time to move on. “It should be,” he said. “Just concentrate on what is happening now. Both teams are playing good cricket in a good atmosphere. Nothing is happening. That’s really good for cricket.”

Chris Mpofu, the pace bowler, has been ruled out of Zimbabwe’s tour of New Zealand with a lower back injury.He pulled out of the Stanbic Bank T20 series in November and has failed to recover in time for the trip which begins on January 17. Mpofu was initially named in Zimbabwe’s 20-man training squad for a two-week camp in Harare ahead of the tour.”Unfortunately Chris’s lower back pain has recurred on the eve of the start of the camp,” said national team physiotherapist Amato Machikicho. “He had an MRI scan and an opinion from a specialist sports physician. As a result Chris will no longer be a part of the camp and will miss the tour.”The national selectors have called up right-arm bowler Tendai Chatara of Mountaineers to replace Mpofu in the squad. Four other players also return including left-arm bowler Brian Vitori who missed the home series against New Zealand with a shin injury. Fellow bowler Shingi Masakadza is included having not played since the World Cup, legspinner Graeme Cremer has had a long absence with a serious knee injury but is now fit again and Stuart Matsikenyeri also makes a comeback.Batsman Vusi Sibanda has also been named after a stint playing grade cricket in Australia. Captain Brendan Taylor will not be at the training camp because he is currently playing for Wellington in the HRV T20.Head coach Alan Butcher is hoping his side can build on their performances against New Zealand in their recent home series. They lost the only Test match after losing the three-match ODI series 2-1.”I hope our performance in the last Test will give us the belief that we can beat New Zealand,” said Butcher. “We will be underdogs, yes, but we will not be inferior to our opponents.”Not having Chris Mpofu is quite a blow – he has been consistent in the last couple of months,” he added. “We have [Brian] Vitori back and look to compete at a level footing so are not a depleted side at all.” Squad Brendan Taylor, Regis Chakabva, Tendai Chatara, Chamunorwa Chibhabha, Elton Chigumbura, Graeme Cremer, Kyle Jarvis, Hamilton Masakadza, Shingirai Masakadza, Stuart Matsikenyeri, Tinotenda Mawoyo, Keegan Meth, Forster Mutizwa, Njabulo Ncube, Raymond Price, Vusimuzi Sibanda, Tatenda Taibu, Prosper Utseya, Brian Vitori, Malcolm Waller.

Peter Siddle, Australia’s rejuvenated fast bowler who’s taken 11 wickets in this series at an average of 22.18, has said his being dropped in Sri Lanka turned things around for him. That snub in Sri Lanka last year, he says, made him work harder and come back a better, and more importantly a fitter, bowler.”I’d like to think so [the fittest he has been],” he said. “I’m feeling good. It’s a good change I guess, probably over the last five or six years I’ve been up and down with injury and had some tough times, but I think the disappointment of getting dropped in Sri Lanka sort of did hit a bit of a spot in me, and I knew I had to work on a few things.”Ever since then I’ve been a bit stronger, and bowling well and injury-free. Everything I’m doing at training and in preparation for games is working, so I’ll stick to that and hopefully I can keep going well for my team and we keep winning Test matches.”Last week Siddle picked up his 100th Test wicket, into the fourth year of an up-and-down, in-and-out career. “It’s obviously a big achievement but I don’t want to stop there,” he said. “I want to keep taking wickets and whether that’s a 110 or a 150 or 300, you never know but at the moment I just want to keep playing Test matches, staying on the park and keep performing well for my team.”Whenever I retire down, I’ll look back on it but at the moment it’s all about just keep moving forward each game and hopefully doing enough to keep winning Test matches for Australia.”Sachin Tendulkar – whom he famously described as “Peter Siddle’s first wicket” – has been dismissed by Siddle thrice. Two of those dismissals came when Tendulkar looked good for a century. One of them was on Siddle’s debut, the other two in the first Test of this series. “I think it’s just a plan I’m going with,” Siddle said of bowling to Tendulkar. “I’m being a lot more consistent than I have been in the past.”I’m probably lucky enough I’ve got him two times in Melbourne, but obviously in Sydney a couple of other blokes got him. We’re building the pressure, and whether it’s against Sachin or against [Rahul] Dravid, any of their batters, if I can build the pressure and it happens from the other end, we’re going to get the breakthrough. There’s no big plans in the way we go about it, it’s just about all three or four quicks or five bowlers bowling together in those partnerships to create the wickets.”One of the important men of that partnership, James Pattinson, is now out with a foot injury. That shouldn’t change things too much, Siddle feels. “Rhino [Ryan Harris] is pretty much an exact replacement,” Siddle said. “He’s a little bit smaller than Patto, but yeah 145k outswingers isn’t a bad bloke to come in and replace him. He’s definitely a player that can fill that role perfectly.”Siddle said that even though Harris has not got much first-class cricket under his belt after the injury, he is ready and has been bowling enough overs in the nets “against our batters in a fierce rivalry”.Siddle didn’t commit as to whether Australia will play four fast bowlers on this green pitch. “You never know with the wicket,” he said. “At the moment it does look good, but we’re still a fair few days out. It [four quicks] worked last year for us, but the wicket was pretty green. It was a nice wicket and we were lucky that we batted well enough to give us enough chance with the ball.”Siddle spoke of how tough it can be to face four fast bowlers. “On this ground sometimes, obviously [with] the pace and bounce, if the wicket does suit that it is very tough work,” he said. “It’s hard, you got the quicks coming at you hard and fast non-stop all day, which does build a lot of pressure. I think if we go that way, and we stick to obviously the consistency and patience that we’ve had out in the middle, the way we’ve been building the pressure, I think it can be obviously an exciting time to watch us go about it.”

Mickey Arthur, the former South Africa coach, has been appointed the new coach of Australia, a role with wide-ranging responsibilities after its redefinition under the recommendations of the Argus review.Arthur is the first foreign-born coach to be appointed to oversee Australia’s fortunes, and will be in place in time for the first Test between Australia and New Zealand in Brisbane from December 1 to 5. Arthur’s contract will run until the end of the 2015 World Cup.”I am honoured and privileged to have another chance to coach an international team, particularly a team of the ilk of Australia,” Arthur said. “I think I bring a fresh, unblinkered eye to the role after plotting against Australia when coaching South Africa, and having now worked within the Australian system with the Warriors.”Australia has an abundance of cricket talent and I am confident the talent is there to ensure Australia is successful.”Following a thorough search that included entreaties to the England coach Andy Flower, among others, Arthur was confirmed in the job after a final round of interviews last week. Steve Rixon, Tom Moody and Justin Langer were among the other contenders for the job.Since resigning from the South Africa job, Arthur worked as coach of Western Australia, familiarising himself with the Australian game and also showing his capability for tough decisions as he worked to revitalise a state that had developed, in his words, “too many comfort zones”.Arthur had kept one eye on events at Cricket Australia since his arrival to coach WA, but said he became seriously interested in the role only after Tim Nielsen’s position was opened up to new candidates and the incumbent chose not to reapply.”Once Tim vacated the role [at the end of the Sri Lanka series] then it got serious,” Arthur said. “It was too good an opportunity not to have a look at, so I think I became interested once the advertisement went out for the post. I was really happy at Western Australia and really happy that we were trying to build something, but this job was just too good not to have a look at.”In addition to coaching Australia, Arthur will be a selector, and also the man responsible for ensuring the coaching philosophy and structure across all state sides will be consistent with and helpful to the progress of the national team. It is a commission similarly powerful to that held by Flower in England, and not dissimilar to Arthur’s in his time with South Africa between 2005 and 2010.During that tenure, Arthur formed a strong relationship with the captain, Graeme Smith, as the team rose from mediocrity to a peak that included in 2008-09 the first Test series win in Australia by any side for 15 years. Arthur acknowledged that his formation of a strong bond with Clarke, who was known to be a backer of Rixon, would be crucial to the team’s success.”I think the relationship between your captain and coach is one of the most important relationships there is in the game. It is almost like a marriage,” Arthur said. “The captain and the coach feed off each other and there can be no discrepancies. Certainly the captain and the coach need to have consistent messages they’re continually giving to the players.”But it doesn’t mean the captain and the coach can’t challenge each other, that’s all part of it and that’s done behind closed doors. I’m really excited to work with Michael Clarke, he’s an incredible talent and I’ve been very excited by the way he’s gone about his captaincy. I think since he’s taken over he’s been innovative, he’s captained with a lot of flair, and I’m really looking forward to supporting him, so he can be the best he possibly can and get the most runs he possibly can as well.”Shaun Pollock, the former South Africa captain and fast bowler, described Arthur’s role with South Africa, and his qualities as a coach. “He’s got a good understanding for the game and he will challenge the players,” Pollock said. “He’s not scared to take on and confront issues, but I think he would be defined more as a man manager.”Arthur’s appointment concluded a momentous round of changes to the structure around the Australian team, including the appointment of Pat Howard as team performance manager, the induction of a new selection panel that will now comprise the national selector John Inverarity, Clarke, selectors Rod Marsh and Andy Bichel and Arthur.The Western Australia coaching position Arthur departed from, also responsible for the Perth Scorchers in the BBL, will be taken over by his assistant Lachlan Stevens.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsTillakaratne Dilshan was the first of many Sri Lankan batsmen to perish attempting careless shots•AFP

Sri Lanka’s batsmen betrayed a shocking lack of stomach in moderately helpful conditions for the bowlers, to crash to an eight-wicket humbling in the first ODI in Dubai. After losing the toss, Pakistan rolled the years back with a vintage bowling display – their fast bowlers softened the prey, before the allrounders and spinners came on to make incisions. Sri Lanka responded with indecisive prods, and a rash of strokes each uglier than the previous. They were bowled out for 131 with 57 balls to spare, and Pakistan strolled home in the 22nd over of their chase to put an early end to the weekend crowd’s evening.Sri Lanka’s train-wreck of an innings featured only five fours, all of which were hit within the first 20 overs, and three sixes. The last of those – a heave against hope hopen from Lasith Malinga – broke a boundary drought that had lasted nearly 20 overs. Such was the stranglehold Pakistan wielded in the middle overs, and their spin spearhead Saeed Ajmal had almost no role to play in it.Only one man stood between Pakistan and the paltry chase, but Lasith Malinga wasn’t at his best on his return to action. He overstepped twice in his first over, and went on to send down two more no-balls – one of them for height. His lines were inconsistent, and his famed yorker did not make an appearance at all. Suranga Lakmal’s dismissal of Mohammad Hafeez gave Sri Lanka some hope, but Imran Farhat’s free-scoring more than made up for the loss. Younis Khan too purred along smoothly with a series of typical whips and glances as Pakistan bolted to a 1-0 lead.The felicity with which Pakistan made their runs put the conditions, and the earlier efforts of their bowling colleagues, in perspective. The strip had a wee bit in it for every kind of quick – Umar Gul’s seam, Aizaz Cheema’s swing and Abdul Razzaq’s legcutters – and the Pakistan trio exploited it right from the get-go. Gul lay down the marker in the first over of the game, with a big swinging wide down the leg side, and an away seamer that bounced explosively past Tillakaratne Dilshan’s attempted slash. Dilshan perfected the shot in first ball of the the next over, but perished four balls later when Cheema got one to buzz in sharply onto the stumps off the inside edge.Despite being in prime form, Kumar Sangakkara could barely lay bat on ball. A rare couple of boundaries suggested a release, but they were promptly followed by a string of 19 successive dots. The returning Razzaq put Sangakkara out of his misery in his first over, coaxing an outside edge with a ball that angled across.Hafeez then settled into a typically asphyxiating rhythm, mixing up arm balls with darts that straightened. Dinesh Chandimal counterpunched by launching Razzaq over long-on for six, before scything him through cover for four. The aggression wore off on Upul Tharanga, who had pottered around to 21 off 52 balls before slicing Hafeez for a boundary over the off side. He perished three balls later, hoicking rashly to mid-on, and sadly for Sri Lanka, the poor shot selection set in like an epidemic.Shahid Afridi came on, his appetite for the limelight undiminished by his brief retirement. He tossed up four balls, the fourth of which Chandimal clattered over long-on for six. Afridi removed him with the next ball – the patent quicker one catching the batsman on the crease, followed by the trademark arms-aloft celebration. He then rapped Mahela Jayawardene on the pads, and had his vociferous appeal turned down. When he was captain, Afridi would have signalled the referral immediately, almost as an extension of the appeal. This time, he turned to Misbah-ul-Haq in the covers, nodding his head vigorously to convince him, before asking for a review. The referral went Sri Lanka’s way, but little else did.Angelo Mathews spent 31 balls at the crease without adjusting to Hafeez’s lack of turn before running himself out. Kosala Kulaseakara, yet to open his account in his debut innings, chose to chip a full ball straight to mid-off. Jayawardene watched aghast as he kept losing partners, before contributing his bit to the madness by lapping Ajmal from outside off stump to short fine-leg. Sri Lanka’s misery was complete soon after, with Afridi and Ajmal producing enough variety to brush aside the tail. Dilshan’s men will need a drastic change in approach before the second game on November 14.

Against the backdrop of Chris Gayle’s continued omission from the West Indies side, the coach Ottis Gibson has said the team needed “committed” senior players as they begin the tour of Bangladesh.With the captain Darren Sammy not in a position to answer questions related to Gayle, Gibson stepped in, refusing to believe that it was difficult for his side without senior players like Gayle.”Do we need our senior players? I think we need everybody who is committed to us,” Gibson said in Mirpur. “Some people will think we need them. We are building a team and of course we need senior players that are committed to mix with the youngsters.”The youngsters have taken the opportunity and done very well for us. As we are looking at the future, we will build a team around the younger guys.”Gayle’s 12-year international career came to a halt this year because of a breakdown in his relationship with the WICB after West Indies’ quarter-final exit from the 2011 World Cup.West Indies’ previous match against Bangladesh was also in the World Cup, when they routed the hosts for 58. It was revenge two years in the making after Bangladesh had beaten a weakened West Indies side in Tests and ODIs in the Caribbean in 2009. Sammy played down that World Cup match as a one-off, but the memories of March 4 are fresh in the minds of every Bangladesh fan.”The last time we played, we got the better of them,” Sammy said. “We’ll try to repeat such a performance, but you can’t bowl out teams under 100 every game.”They are a good side at home, winning quite comfortably against New Zealand last year. We never took them for granted and we won’t do it here. We want to focus on us and on what we could do. They say that you’re as good as your last performance. Hopefully it’ll play very much on their mind. It’s never about revenge. It’s about making full use of the opportunity.”Sammy was not happy about the absence of the Decision Review System for the series. “For us the DRS has been a very good inclusion in the game,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that we don’t have it in this series. Whatever could be made possible to eliminate errors in the game, we’d welcome it.”West Indies play one Twenty20 international, two Tests and three ODIs on their tour of Bangladesh starting from October 11.

ScorecardIan Westwood laid a solid platform for Warwickshire•Getty Images

Warwickshire were indebted to a gritty unbeaten 144 from their former captain Ian Westwood for sustaining their County Championship title challenge against defending champions Nottinghamshire at Edgbaston.The left-handed opener batted through an attritional day to help Warwickshire to 235 for 3 and collect a batting bonus point which nibbled away at the seven-point gap leaders Durham, who sit out this round of matches, enjoyed at the start of play.It was hard going against an accurate seam attack and the batsmen also found timing difficult when the ball went soft. But Westwood applied himself diligently and his patient innings stabilised the innings with support from Jim Troughton after Warwickshire had made uncertain progress to 114 for 3.Westwood’s century was the ninth of his career and his second of a season that was disrupted by a broken finger last month. He resigned last winter after two years as captain so that he could concentrate on his batting and found form in mid-season after a spell of second-team cricket.Westwood dominated a second-wicket stand of 56 with William Porterfield, of which the Ireland captain’s contribution was only 14, and then shared a more fluent unbroken fourth-wicket stand of 121 with Troughton, who succeeded him as captain.Warwickshire’s innings almost shuddered to a halt during a tedious afternoon session when they were pegged back by the accuracy of Andre Adams and they managed only 54 runs in 29 overs. Shivnarine Chanderpaul batted 46 balls for eight runs but then edged a low catch to Chris Read off Darren Pattinson.Chanderpaul and Westwood had chiselled out 19 from 17 overs in a strokeless third-wicket stand but Westwood then played with greater fluency and turned a 106-ball 50 into a 205-ball century. The majority of his 16 fours were cut or off driven. There was a moment of alarm for Westwood as he neared his century with a top-edged hook for four off Adams, who was again the pick of Nottinghamshire’s attack.Westwood outscored Troughton in their unbroken stand of 121 but Troughton, without a championship century in two years, buckled down and played a disciplined innings in support of his fellow left-hander.Both attacked against slow left-armer Graeme White with Westwood bringing up the 200 when he went down the pitch and straight drove the spinner. Westwood had just struck his 20th boundary of the day when umpires Nick Cook and Steve O’Shaughnessy took the players off for bad light 40 minutes before the scheduled close.

Scorecard
Joe Sayers has all but conceded that Yorkshire will be relegation•Getty Images

Yorkshire look all but doomed to relegation after bad light ultimately put paid to their slim hopes of forcing the win against Warwickshire that would have kept them in with a realistic chance of escaping from the bottom two with only one match remaining.After the two camps had hatched an agreement under which Warwickshire, who needed 349 to win from 78 overs when Yorkshire declared at midday, would commit themselves to chasing runs in the final session, umpires Peter Hartley and Jeff Evans had little option but to call a halt just before five o’clock in conditions so gloomy that fielding was becoming a problem, let alone facing quick bowling.Given that they finished only 11 points behind champions Nottinghamshire last year, it is a huge disappointment not least for their stricken captain, Andrew Gale, who has been unable to play any part since breaking an arm almost three weeks ago.Worcestershire’s two-day win over Lancashire at New Road, while ensuring that the race for the title remains intriguingly tight, also opened up a gap between themselves and Yorkshire that now stands at 14 points.With Jacques Rudolph unavailable because of international commitments, Joe Sayers led Yorkshire here and he conceded that the result means that effectively they have one foot in the Second Division already, with survival unlikely even if the match against Somerset at Headingley next week goes their way.”Mathematically it is still possible for us to stay up but it is going to be very difficult now to pull it out of the bag,” Sayers said. “All we can do is apply ourselves against Somerset in the same way we applied ourselves in this match.”It was a sorry end to what had been a good game of four-day cricket in which we had played well, all the more disappointing because if we had played as well for the duration of the summer we would have been in a decent position in the table.”The one positive we can take is that the way we have played in this game establishes a template for the way we want to play cricket in terms of style and attitude.”Sayers said that Yorkshire had no quibble with the umpires’ decision to take the players off, despite the consequences for the county’s future of denying them even the opportunity to secure a potentially vital win.”It was the right decision,” he said. “The light was not good, especially for batting and indeed even for fielding. It was becoming difficult to pick up the ball.”Warwickshire were satisfied ultimately with three points for a draw, despite Durham’s win at Hove, given that they have two matches left in which to overturn a seven-point deficit, while the new leaders have only one.Yet Ashley Giles, the county’s director of cricket, was slightly more outspoken about the circumstances in which the game ended. “The umpires have to go with what the regulations say and today I feel they were right to come off but there are issues that need to be looked at,” he said.”Not using light meters, using the naked eye — this is a professional game and surely there has to be a system that says that the light is too bad, this what the reading is, and you don’t go out again until it improves.”However, regardless of how the contest fizzled out, there was a feeling perhaps that Yorkshire had set Warwickshire a target that was too high anyway on a day when they would have been no worse off losing.The target of 349 meant that Warwickshire were almost certain to be chasing runs at five or six an over for a long period even if it went well for them, while 78 overs on a pitch that had flattened out was not a long span in which to take 10 wickets, especially given that one of them would almost certainly have to be that of Shivnarine Chanderpaul, the same Shivnarine Chanderpaul who they had taken seven-and-a-quarter hours to get out at Headingley last week and a further four-and-a-half to see off in the first innings here.Yet even after Gary Ballance had completed a fine maiden Championship century, Yorkshire batted on until noon, adding 66 to their overnight 319 for 5. Ballance eventually chipped a ball from Chris Woakes to mid-on where Jim Troughton took a considerably easier catch than the one he was to bring off shortly afterwards, one-handed on the run on the long-off boundary as Adil Rashid fell after making an attractive and important 82.What followed next was immaterial in the broader scheme and merely denied the bowlers time to get at the Warwickshire batting. In the event, they got through 12 overs to lunch for the loss of only one wicket, when Varun Chopra was caught behind driving at Ajmal Shahzad.In the afternoon, it became increasingly clear that Warwickshire’s first priority was not to lose. They lost Ian Westwood, leg before on the back foot to Rashid, and Will Porterfield, who wasted a chance for a half-century by edging the deserving Steve Patterson to be caught behind. Chanderpaul, never in a particular hurry, should have been out on three, but Adam Lyth missed a sharp chance at slip off Patterson.At tea, Warwickshire were 134 for 3, needing a further 215 for victory from 34 overs, and behind the scenes it emerged that Giles and his opposite number, Martyn Moxon, were cooking up a plan, one which became evident to the paying public when, at 173 for three, Sayers and Anthony McGrath engaged Troughton and Chanderpaul in conversation at the crease, after which Lyth and Joe Root tossed up a succession of easy deliveries, which were despatched with little fuss to bring the target down to 150 from 23 overs.By now, however, the light was fading fast and while the Yorkshire players got together for a team meeting on the field — a game-stopping move that would have demanded the captain called ‘time out’ had it been basketball or American football — the umpires were exchanging opinions on matters of safety.Indeed, it took only a couple of overs from Ryan Sidebottom for them to make up their minds and bring proceedings to an end that, for Yorkshire at any rate, will probably be somewhat momentous.

The England & Wales Cricket Board has confirmed that it will be staging two extra Twenty20 fixtures against West Indies at The Oval in September, in order to fulfil their contractual obligations to Sky following the demise of the Stanford Super Series.The matches, which were first proposed in June, will take place on Friday, September 23 and Sunday, September 25, with the first starting at 6.15pm and the second at 6.30pm – a week after the conclusion of the fifth and final ODI against India.Surrey chief executive Richard Gould said: “Surrey CCC is really pleased to be able to host these games at the Kia Oval in what will be a colourful and exciting end to the international summer.”We want both games to be played in a friendly party atmosphere with a large turn-out from local residents in Lambeth and London, which is why tickets have been priced from only £25, with under-16s tickets on sale for £1.”England’s players were understood to be angered by the addition to their summer’s workload, especially in light of Andy Flower’s pre-season plea for more consultation over itineraries. However, the only player who is sure to be involved at this stage is the Twenty20 captain, Stuart Broad, with many senior players expected to be rested ahead of the winter tour to India in October.The matches were squeezed into the schedule because the ECB has already budgeted for the £360million it receives in TV revenue from Sky, and is unable to repay the money owed for failing to deliver the Stanford tournament. The West Indies matches are likely to be an annual event until the broadcasting rights deal expires in 2013.

ScorecardDerbyshire moved into a match-winning performance at the midway point of their County Championship clash against Glamorgan thanks to Jon Clare’s figures of 5 for 29 and Dan Redfern’s 88 with the bat.Derbyshire made 367 all out in their first innings in Cardiff before the hosts limped to 174 for 8 in reply at the close of the second day of the Division Two match. They were 193 behind, needing a further 44 to avoid the follow-on.Only Glamorgan captain Alviro Petersen, with 83 not out, showed any real resistance. In only the second over of the day Redfern brought up his fourth 50 of the summer in 92 balls with five fours before Glamorgan hit back with the new ball.Graham Wagg struck with the fourth delivery, trapping Ross Whiteley lbw. Glamorgan continued to take wickets at regular intervals. Luke Sutton was dismissed when he top-edged a James Harris delivery to wicketkeeper Mark Wallace.Redfern perished for 88 when he played on to Jim Allenby, failing to convert a 12th first-class 50 into his maiden century as Derbyshire reached lunch at 338 for 7. Allenby hit form in the afternoon session as he took the remaining three wickets to claim career-best figures of five for 44 from 20 overs. It was Allenby’s third five-wicket haul of his career and his second for Glamorgan.But batting points proved harder to come by as opener Gareth Rees began Glamorgan’s procession of wickets before tea, falling leg before to Tim Groenewald, who also accounted for Will Bragg in a similar manner.From 36 for two the home side sank further into trouble at 59 for three when Mike Powell was caught behind off Whiteley. Ben Wright followed in the next over when he top-edged a pull to Knight running back at square leg off Clare, who also struck three balls later when Allenby was bowled by a full delivery for a duck. Glamorgan lost three wickets for one run in 10 balls as 59 for two became 60 for 5.Petersen, who reached his 50 from 105 balls, put on 68 with Wallace before the wicketkeeper, Harris and Wagg were all caught behind off Clare in the space of three balls. On 74, Petersen did survive a chance at short leg off Knight, the slow left-armer.