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Based on the 96-run first innings lead overPunjab, Madhya Pradesh qualified for thesemifinals of the Cooch Behar Trophy Tournament onThursday. On the final day at the Pune Club, theMP skipper SM Dholepure who lead the team from thefront with a fine 113, declared the first inningsat the overnight score of 341 for 9.Punjab scored 267 for nine declared in the secondinnings. The score was helped on its way by a 130-run third wicket stand between SP Singh (87) andBinwant Singh (63). Thereafter wickets fell inquick succession as OP Yadav (5 for 70) ran thoughthe middle order.Needing 172 runs for victory, MP in their secondinnings were 107 for 2 when stumps were drawn.After Sachin Dholpure (0) and Mohanish Mishra (15)fell early, N Ojha (44) and Jatin Saxena (48)ensured no further hiccups for MP with an unbrokenthird wicket stand of 63.

England Captain Clare Connor will lead Brighton & Hove LCC againstWakefield WCC in the ECB Women’s Cup Final tomorrow at Campbell Park, MiltonKeynes, starting at 12 noon. The final will see Clare, who opens the batting,face her England vice-captain Clare Taylor opening the bowling forWakefield.Included in the Brighton & Hove team are Caroline Atkins, England’s openingbat and Kate Oakenfold, who enjoyed victory over an Australian XI in Julywhen England U-17 defeated New South Wales U-17 by 93 runs, with Kate taking3-27.The Sussex club is boosted by Heidee Tiffen, the New Zealand all-rounder andWorld Cup winner.Wakefield contain five of the players who secured Yorkshire their tenthCounty Championship title in 11 years earlier this summer, including theyoung all-rounder Helen Wardlaw who will partner Clare Taylor in the bowlingattack.The Yorkshire side also field Kathryn Leng, the first woman to play in auniversity match when she was selected for Leeds/Braford UCCE this summer.In the last competitive match before England selectors name the wintertraining squads and subsequent touring England squad to India, the finalprovides players with an opportunity to secure their England places.Admission to Campbell Park is free.

ScorecardVirender Sehwag scored a half-century against his former team-mates•PTI

Manan Sharma harbours no illusion about being a deceptive left-arm spinner, but he can be pretty accurate even with a slightly round-arm action. His five wickets in the first innings were the result of staying wicket-to-wicket, he said, and not letting batsmen score easy runs on a slow Feroz Shah Kotla pitch with no disconcerting bounce. The odd ball stayed low, but defence-minded batsmen were not easy to dislodge. In the second innings, led by Virender Sehwag’s 51, Haryana, who had fallen behind by 42 in the first innings, brought resolute defence to play. But Manan was more persistent and patient, and kept bowling wicket-to-wicket until he had six of them to leave Delhi a manageable target of 224.This was an important effort from Manan with Ishant Sharma off the field with an injury he acquired during the warm-ups before the start of the day’s play. Parvinder Awana was reduced to bowling round-arm on a pitch with little bounce to work with, and Pradeep Sangwan’s aggression brought only two wickets. Manan, though, bowled 40.4 overs out of 93.4, including 30.4 that were non-stop except for a change of ends. He delivered the first over of Haryana’s innings, took the wicket of Sehwag among his six, and ended up with his maiden 10-wicket match haul.Delhi’s batting is uncertain after the openers, but their openers – Gautam Gambhir and Unmukt Chand – managed to give another brisk start to a chase after knocking off 95 in 14 overs in the last match. Chand hit Harshal Patel for two fours in the first over here, Gambhir repeated the treatment to offspinner Jayant Yadav, who opened the bowling, and Delhi were on their way again.The last time runs were scored so easily in this match was when Sehwag and Sachin Rana batted in the first session of the day. Haryana, effectively at 26 for 2, must have been buoyed by the absence of Ishant, but lost Himanshu Rana in the first over of the day to Awana. Sehwag and Sachin, names that might make fans go nostalgic, added 50 for the fourth wicket. As has become the habit with Sehwag nowadays he turned back the clock briefly, punching through cover, cutting hard, driving through mid-on, and offering solid defence when not doing so. Sachin stepped out and hit Manan for two sixes over long-on.Manan, though, soldiered on and got Sehwag eventually. After the first innings he said his plan when bowling to Sehwag was to not provide any room. This time, Sehwag went back to a ball not short enough, and crucially, with no room and edged the intended late-cut to slip. Gambhir took the catch. Sachin then repeated the mistake; he stayed back to Manan and was caught right in front.The rest of the Haryana batting line-up offered resistance. The partnership for the fifth wicket was worth 61, the seventh wicket 23, and the eighth 31, suggesting a pitch that had got easier to bat on, but Manan kept pegging away and ended the innings. There were three dropped catches, but none of them cost too much. That the surface had become easier to bat on was confirmed when Chand came out hitting hard, ending the day with a six over long-on.

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Australia’s depth is being closely analysed in the wake of another international retirement and the next tier did not do much to ease the immediate worries as the Sri Lankans defeated the Prime Minister’s XI by four wickets. The visiting bowlers floored some of Australia’s best emerging talent for 152 in 38 overs on a springy pitch before Tillakaratne Dilshan guided them past a handful of mid-innings setbacks.The Sri Lankans were easing towards the target until Sanath Jayasuriya fell for 43 and they became slightly anxious about the small total when they lost six wickets by the time they reached 134. Jayasuriya, who struck six boundaries in his 48-ball stay, survived two tight lbw decisions off Ashley Noffke before scooping Doug Bollinger to Phillip Hughes at point.Ben Hilfenhaus will join Noffke in Australia’s Twenty20 side on Friday and he worked himself into form with the wickets of Kumar Sangakkara, who was lbw to a fine inswinger, and Mahela Jayawardene. Jayawardene also fell for 1 and edged another moving delivery to Cameron White at wide first slip. White, the captain, stepped in to take care of Chamara Silva (7) and Chamara Kapugedera (3) before Dilshan secured the victory in the 32nd over.Dilshan’s unbeaten 75 was well paced and his 83-ball contribution contained eight fours and a six that finished the match. The innings continued the strong work done by his bowling team-mates against an order that was desperate to impress the national selectors.The Prime Minister’s XI started well when Shaun Marsh and Luke Ronchi combined for a 49-run opening stand, but they lost 8 for 66 and had to rely on a late rally from Noffke and Bollinger. Marsh, who scored 25, started the slide by edging to the cordon, a similar dismissal to those of Luke Pomersbach and Hughes, before Ronchi misjudged a drive to mid-off on 26.White missed a searing full delivery from Lasith Malinga and David Hussey had cruised to 23 when he played on to Farveez Maharoof, leaving the team at 6 for 97. A minor recovery was started by Noffke and Bollinger (11), but wickets continued to fall regularly and Noffke was the last out when yorked by Malinga for 30.Malinga, the Man of the Match, finished with 3 for 33 off nine overs while Maharoof picked up 3 for 37 off eight. The Sri Lankans have another warm-up against Tasmania on Saturday before opening their CB Series campaign against India in Brisbane on Tuesday.

S Vidyut scored an unbeaten century to help Haryana to a draw againstPunjab in their Ranji Trophy league match at Gurgaon on Tuesday.Unbeaten on 23 overnight, Vidyut made 105 off 143 balls with littlesupport from other batsmen, spurring his side to an unforseen secondinnings total of 309. For Punjab, Sandeep Sanwal picked 3-67.Set a target of 196 runs to win, Punjab lost quick wickets in themiddle to put all thoughts of an outright win right out of theirminds. Although Ravneet Ricky made unbeaten 41 off 62 and Yuvraj Singhslammed 24 off 27, three wickets fell within the space of 12 runs,forcing the batsmen to opt for a draw. 108/5 at the close of play,Punjab picked up five points from this encounter, while Haryana pickedup three.

Usman Khawaja has been confirmed as the new captain of Queensland for the 2015-16 season. Khawaja will replace allrounder James Hopes, who stepped down from the captaincy at the end of last summer, and will form a fresh leadership combination for the state with coach Phil Jaques, who was appointed in May.”Usman has shown his class and ability on numerous occasions on the field since moving to Queensland a few seasons ago, but he has also demonstrated his maturity and vision to many of us away from the playing arena,” Queensland Cricket chairman Jim Holding said. “He is an impressive thinker about the game and we feel that he commands the respect of the group through his words and deeds.”Khawaja, now 28, moved to Queensland from New South Wales during the 2012 off-season, and has played nine Tests and three ODIs for Australia. He is currently captaining Australia A on their tour of India. He said he was happy that his predecessor, Hopes, would stay on at Queensland.”Hopesy has been a legend for Queensland and I’m pleased he is playing on,” Khawaja said. “One of the things I will be looking forward to this summer is walking out with him when he plays his 100th game for the Bulls this season as I know how much he has devoted to the game here.”I’m greatly honoured to be appointed Queensland captain, as I know how much the Bulls mean to the fans around the state. I will be out to do my best to continue to work with the rest of the players to make us successful. We have a lot of guys in the squad who are poised to make a big impact in Australian cricket and one of our collective goals will be to work hard to ensure we are ready when opportunities arise.”

ScorecardDavid Willey struck his maiden first-class hundred•Getty Images

First with the ball, and now with the bat. For the second day in a row at Wantage Road, a staggering burst of acceleration from David Willey transformed an otherwise well-matched contest to leave Northamptonshire in sight of their first first-class victory since their in 2013.Willey’s three wickets in four balls to dock Gloucestershire’s tail on Monday afternoon were matched for dramatic effect by a brutal 79-ball century. At the age of 25, it was the first first-class hundred of a career that has been plagued by injury for the past 18 months, and it laid waste to a diligent day’s work from a Gloucestershire attack that, while never quite dominating, had held their opponents in check for the first session and a half.As well as seven fours, Willey cracked six sixes in his onslaught, four of which came in the space of eight balls after tea, as he turned up the heat against a demoralised Gloucestershire, whose fielders wilted in the bright spring sunshine.A rash of fielding errors were compounded in the late-innings frenzy when Rory Kleinveldt, who made 48 from 52 balls, was dropped twice in as many overs by Will Tavare in the deep. Willey needed no such lives, however, and had hurtled to 104 not out from 83 balls when the declaration came from Alex Wakely.It might be an affront to suggest to Willey that the gulf between first- and second-division cricket is widening by the year, but then again, as the son of one of the county’s most hard-bitten campaigners, he’s nobody’s fool either. The team that failed to win a match all last season and lost by an innings on eight occasions, has played with a combination of flair and resolve that they were unable to produce in the top flight last summer. Today’s outing is surely a harbinger of better times ahead.With that in mind, the day’s unsung heroes were the sixth-wicket pair of Josh Cobb and Rob Keogh, who added 101 to shore up an innings that was in distinct jeopardy in the day’s early exchanges. After resuming on 68 for 2 overnight, Northants lost Rob Newton to a loose cut to point for 19 before Wakely attempted to work Liam Norwell off his pads and lobbed a simple return catch to the bowler.Adam Rossington then flashed at Norwood before he was set and top-edged a miscued pull to point for 4. At 110 for 5, a major renovation was required by the home team. Cobb, his allegiances newly transferred from Leicestershire, dug in while Keogh made the early running, but having waited 64 balls for his first boundary, he celebrated in style with four more in a row off the toiling James Fuller, whose 19 overs were dispatched for 114 runs.Cobb was the first to reach his fifty, from exactly 100 balls, before attempting to up the ante against Kieran Noema-Barnett and holing out to mid-on for 58. And Keogh was denied what would have been a hugely deserved hundred when, on 81, he was trapped lbw by the left-arm spin of Dent.By that stage, however, Willey was firmly in the zone and all Gloucestershire’s players could do was sit tight and wait for the inevitable. The declaration duly came with a tricky 15-over spell to negotiate, which Dent and Tavare managed with few alarms. By the close they had reached 35 for 0, still trailing by a hefty 419.

ScorecardFast bowler Jhye Richardson continued his outstanding form to set up a comfortable series-sealing victory for Australia Under-19s against England Under-19s in Perth. The Australians took a 3-1 lead with one match to play after Richardson collected 4 for 33 to restrict England to 138, bowled out in the 50th over after being sent in.Richardson claimed two wickets in the first over of the match and England never really recovered, although Aaron Thomason was a stand-out for them with 70 in an innings where no other player reached 20. Richardson, from Western Australia, is comfortably the leading wicket taker in the series with 12 victims at 13.16 from four games.Australia had little trouble in their chase as Jake Carder and Sam Heazlett put on 78 for the opening wicket. Heazlett was bowled for 47 off 46 balls but Carder had plenty of support and was still at the crease on 52 not out when the winning runs arrived, with seven wickets in hand and 132 balls to spare.

Geoff Miller, England’s chairman of selectors, has had a meeting with Michael Vaughan to dispel differences over the selection of the team for the second Test against South Africa. Vaughan, England’s captain, had earlier said that the inclusion of Darren Pattinson had unsettled the team.”We have analysed everything,” Miller said. “We have cleared the issues that supposedly were involved in the last Test. I’ve had a chat to Michael Vaughan and I sat down with the selectors and there are no more problems.”We are trying to make every decision on a sensible basis. We are responsible for selecting the side and people who know me well know there is a logic and a reason behind all the selections made.”Miller had stated before the meeting that he wanted to hear Vaughan’s side after Pattinson’s selection was made into a “massive issue by the media.”After Vaughan called Pattinson “a confused selection”, Miller defended the inclusion of the 29-year-old fast bowler who had played only 11 first-class matches prior to his Test debut. “We garner opinion by talking to umpires, county coaches and other players and then we go and monitor the players that those chats throw up,” Miller told the . “Once we’ve got a rounded picture, and if they’re the kind of player Peter and Michael are looking for, we’ll consider them for selection.”Pattinson’s presence in the XI meant England went in with only five specialist batsmen with wicketkeeper Tim Ambrose batting at No. 6. After the ten-wicket defeat to South Africa, Vaughan said: “The whole Friday morning (the first morning of the Test) unsettled the team. You change the team by two players, there are players playing out of position and you leave out a player like Paul Collingwood, who is a huge player in the side, of course it has an effect.”Vaughan also said the team spirit was lacking during the second Test. “We didn’t feel as much of a unit this week. I have a huge belief that we need to be a unit in Test cricket.”However, he defended Pattinson’s performance (match figures of 2 for 96) and was unhappy with the severe criticism the fast bowler faced. “He tried his guts out and bowled some good spells. I felt sorry for him. He’s not been in the set-up and didn’t know anyone. We didn’t know him, so it was difficult for him.”

Pakistan have stuck largely with the tried and tested in a 16-man squad for what will effectively be their toughest assignment of the year so far, the tri-series in Bangladesh involving India as the third side.Disappointingly perhaps, of the many new faces trialled against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh earlier this year, only opener Nasir Jamshed and left-arm bowler Wahab Riaz find space on the plane to Dhaka.Promising youngsters, such as openers Khurram Manzoor and Khalid Latif, fast bowler Sohail Khan and wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed have been left behind. The last three are on the reserves list and will instead form part of a camp in Lahore for a pool of players to be considered for the Asia Cup and the ICC Champions Trophy later in the year. The trio, in particular Sohail, remain in contention for the Asia Cup, say the selectors..”It is the best available team and a well-balanced squad,” Salahuddin Ahmed, chief selector, told Cricinfo. “We are aiming for some continuity in selection and that shows with the selection of players such as Nasir Jamshed and Wahab Riaz.”The team was chosen after extensive discussions between the selection committee and Shoaib Malik, the Pakistan captain. The coach Geoff Lawson, however, wasn’t present, having not arrived in time from Sydney. Lawson has had, at times, a testy relationship with the selection committee and his absence, it is believed, has not gone down particularly well with the PCB.Though the squad was largely agreed upon, certain positions and players will be under the scanner during the tri-series, with the selectors keen to plan ahead for the Asia Cup and ICC Champions Trophy later in the year.It is learnt that Kamran Akmal will open the innings with Salman Butt, a combination that Malik has publicly backed. But it has also been made clear, according to one of the selectors, that this is the last chance for Akmal to make an impact as an opener and failure could mean ouster from the team.Shahid Afridi’s form with the bat will also come under scrutiny during the tournament, one source close to the meeting suggesting that the captain was keen on Mansoor Amjad replacing the veteran all-rounder.Bazid Khan, who made a fifty in his last ODI against Bangladesh is retained in the squad, as is Naumanullah, the middle-order batsman who made his debut against Bangladesh in the last ODI of the series in Karachi. Naumanullah has been among Pakistan’s leading domestic run-scorers in the last five seasons, though at 32, an international debut appeared to have passed him by. It was felt he deserved another chance, having batted lower down the order on his debut.Pakistan will be pleased that they can at least call on the services of their three premier fast bowlers in Umar Gul, Sohail Tanvir and Mohammad Asif, who has seemingly recovered from an injury to his bowling hand, sustained during the IPL.Pakistan squad: Shoaib Malik (capt), Salman Butt, Nasir Jamshed, Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, Misbah-ul-Haq, Shahid Afridi, Kamran Akmal (wk), Mohammad Asif, Umar Gul, Sohail Tanvir, Rao Iftikhar, Wahab Riaz, Fawad Alam, Bazid Khan, Naumanullah