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Simon Katich, the Australia opening batsman, has broken his silence over not receiving a central contract, telling the that he has not been treated fairly

ESPNcricinfo staff09-Jun-2011Simon Katich, the Australia opening batsman, has broken his silence over not receiving a central contract, telling the that he has not been treated fairly. Katich believes he was judged solely on his performances in his last four Tests, which he played despite being injured, and not on his overall form since returning to the side in 2008.Since his comeback, Katich has made 2928 runs at 50.48 and has been not only Australia’s most reliable batsman but among the most bankable in the world. In that time only Alastair Cook has scored more runs.”Do I think I have been treated fairly? Not at all, not at all,” Katich said. “From my point of view I have had to play through injuries in the last four Test matches, two with a broken thumb and two with a torn achilles. I didn’t want to play Test cricket like that although I know that is what they have judged me on.”In India they kept telling me it was a bruised thumb and I could hardly hold the bat but they kept telling me it was bruised so I thought ‘Well I can’t not play Test cricket if it’s a bruise’.”Katich revealed that his recovery program began the night after the Adelaide Ashes Test ended. A fellow player offered him a beer at the airport but Katich turned him down, saying, “No thanks mate. Recovery starts now.”He has been undergoing rehabilitation since then and it was at the SCG on Tuesday that he received the phone call from Andrew Hilditch about being left out of the list of contracted players.”I was in the middle of a fitness test, saw the phone ringing and saw who it was and thought ‘Damn, I better answer this’,” Katich said. “I knew full well what it was, I didn’t want him to have the luxury of leaving a message, so I grabbed it. It’s funny, I have been treated like this before by them. I have been down this path a number of times.”I spoke my mind, I certainly didn’t hold back. There was no shirking the issue, but there was nothing said that was personal, it was just about the decision. I vented my spleen about the decision and explained why. There was no name-calling or anything like that.”Katich believes he still has much more to give Australia and that if he didn’t, there was no way he would have undergone such a rigorous rehabilitation program.”Put it this way I don’t think I would have wasted our physio and our fitness trainers’ time over the past six months or my time doing this rehab every second day for the sake of it. That is not how I operate. It’s not just my time, it is the staff’s time as well and I am always respectful of that.”Up to Tuesday I had done three weeks’ training ahead of the rest of the squad starting and I did that because I wanted to be ready and firing in Sri Lanka.”Katich is scheduled to hold a press conference on June 10 to announce his future plans.

ESPNcricinfo previews the Champions League Twenty20 qualifier between Kolkata Knight Riders and Auckland in Hyderabad

The Preview by Nikita Bastian18-Sep-2011Match factsAuckland v Kolkata Knight Riders, September 19
Start time 20.00 (14.30 GMT)
Yusuf Pathan poses a threat for Auckland with bat and ball•AFPBig PictureKolkata Knight Riders finished fourth in IPL 2011 and, having come to the qualifiers with the least favourable result in their domestic league among the participating teams, will be eager to prove they belong with the Twenty20 elite. Injuries to their captain Gautam Gambhir and Eoin Morgan, and Brad Haddin’s unavailability – he’s with the Australia Test squad in Sri Lanka – will affect the quality and balance of the side. Even so, a team featuring the likes of Jacques Kallis, Yusuf Pathan and Brett Lee should post a stiff challenge.Auckland, New Zealand’s champions, have reached the finals of the domestic Twenty20 competition in four seasons out of six. Batsmen Jimmy Adams, Colin Munro, Lou Vincent and Colin de Grandhomme were solid in this year’s HRV Cup campaign. In Chris Martin, Kyle Mills, Daryl Tuffey and Andre Adams the team enjoys vast international experience on the pace front. Areas of concern would be a lack of match practice – it’s the winter offseason in New Zealand – and minor shoulder and dental issues for Martin and Tuffey.The format of the qualifiers – two pools of three teams each, with the top three overall going through – demands the sides win two out of two to ensure they make the main-draw.Team newsJimmy Adams and de Grandhomme are likely to open, with Martin Guptill at No. 3. Auckland were flexible in the HRV Cup, with Vincent, Anaru Kitchen and Munro floating up and down the order. Here, Munro’s HRV form and Robert Quiney’s power-hitting should put them ahead of Kitchen for middle-order spots. With Indian conditions in mind, they might consider going against a traditional strength and playing two spinners, bringing Bruce Martin in to partner Ronnie Hira.

Auckland: (probable) 1 Jimmy Adams, 2 Colin de Grandhomme, 3 Martin Guptill, 4 Colin Munro, 5 Robert Quiney/Anaru Kitchen, 6 Gareth Hopkins (capt & wk), 7 Lou Vincent, 8 Ronnie Hira, 9 Andre Adams, 10 Kyle Mills/Daryl Tuffey/Bruce Martin, 11 Chris Martin.Kallis will lead Kolkata in Gambhir’s absence and partner Manvinder Bisla at the top. Manoj Tiwary could be forced to move up a spot to No. 3, unless they promote a bit-hitter up like Yusuf or Ryan ten Doeschate instead. Shakib Al Hasan, whose left-arm spin proved handy in the IPL, will fill the fourth foreign player’s spot.Kolkata Knight Riders: (probable) 1 Jacques Kallis (capt), 2 Manvinder Bisla (wk), 3 Manoj Tiwary, 4 Ryan ten Doeschate, 5 Shakib Al Hasan, 6 Yusuf Pathan, 7 Rajat Bhatia, 8 Brett Lee, 9 Iqbal Abdulla, 10 L Balaji, 11 Jaidev Unadkat.Watch out for …Andre Adams is coming off a fine English county season and HRV Cup, where he topped the bowling charts for Nottinghamshire and Auckland. Can he reproduce that form at the batting paradise that is the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad?Yusuf Pathan will be smarting after being overlooked for India’s tour of England. Brutal batting aside, he could pose problems with his offspin – Yusuf conceded a miserly 6.10 runs an over in IPL 2011, while claiming 13 wickets to finish second on Kolkata’s wickets table.Key contestIqbal Abdulla v Auckland batsmen: A side from New Zealand might not be completely at ease against spin. Left-armer Iqbal Abdulla proved he could rein in and get past several international batsmen in IPL 2011. The Auckland power-hitters’ response to Abdulla’s wiles promises to be an intriguing battle.Stats & trivia Kolkata were the only team in IPL 2011 to have four bowlers – Abdulla, Yusuf, Rajat Bhatia and Shakib – with an economy rate below 7.00 (25 overs minimum). Colin Munro hit the most sixes (17) in the HRV Cup 2010-11. Quotes”Nothing actually beats playing in India. For some young players, it can be a great experience, [maybe even] a frightening one. The experienced players will help them.”

Gautam Gambhir has called for “rank turners” when teams visit India after India have lost seven consecutive away Tests on pitches that he reckons had lot of grass on them

Sidharth Monga at the Adelaide Oval22-Jan-2012Gautam Gambhir has called for “rank turners” when teams visit India after India have lost seven consecutive away Tests on pitches that he reckons had lot of grass on them. He said the real test of a team was to win overseas, and that Indian curators shouldn’t hesitate to make it as tough as possible for visiting teams.”We need to realise that when we go overseas every country prepares wickets to their own strengths,” Gambhir said. “So once the other teams come home we need to prepare tracks to our advantage as well. So there should not be a lot of talk when Australia or South Africa or England come home that we should not be preparing turners. I think we should be playing to our strengths, and if we can prepare rank turners, that’s where their technique and their temperament will be tested.”Gambhir said there was a lot of movement available to seam bowlers in all of their seven defeats starting from the English summer onwards. “We have seen in last three Tests matches and even in England, there was a lot of grass and that helped their seamers,” he said. “Once these people come to India we should not be hesitant in making turners, and that’s where we would get to know whether they are mentally strong, and [what happens to] the kind of chit chat do they do when we go overseas and they talk about our techniques.”That’s where they will be tested, and we’ll see how good they are against spin bowling. So we shouldn’t be hesitant in preparing turners to our advantage, and that has been our strength and if we can do that people should support us rather than saying we should not be preparing turners. We should always be preparing something which is to our advantage.”Gambhir was asked what progress he saw in Peter Siddle’s bowling from the time he debuted against India in 2008-09 to now being the leader of the Australian bowling attack. “The only difference is the conditions,” Gambhir said. “He made his debut in Mohali. He played really well in that Test series. It’s [these are] his own conditions, it’s his own backyard. The important thing is once you start doing well in subcontinent, that’s when you are rated as a very good bowler.”He has bowled really well in this series – no doubt about that – he has been their main bowler who has always taken wickets whenever he has got into his spell. The important thing is, how he bowls well in the subcontinent. Here he has bowled well, but let’s see what he does in other conditions as well.”That didn’t stop Gambhir from praising the Australian bowling unit, whose performance he rated higher than the English bowlers last summer. “When you see the results both have been at par,” Gambhir said. “England had a lot of lateral movement, but over here a lot of credit goes to them [the Australian bowlers]. They had a very inexperienced attack. England have far more experience than the Australian fast bowlers. The way they have bowled in this series is tremendous.”They have never let us off the hook, they have always kept us under pressure though they were playing with just three seamers and a spinner. They kept coming at us, which is important, because there are times in Test cricket where you can get easy runs, especially in middle sessions. A lot of credit has to go to them.”Even in the middle sessions they kept hitting those areas, and never let us score freely. As we all know Indians are known to score runs freely. Most of our middle order has been boundary hitters. They never let us score those boundaries. Never gave us balls where we can score freely. Especially in that middle session.”COMMENT – A frustrated reactionGambhir’s comments about the pitches seem to be a combination of many factors. At worst they could be indicative of the defensive attitude of a team that has lost seven away Tests in a row. They can easily be seen as an extension of the response of Ishant Sharma and Virat Kohli to sledging by Australian players about the Indian batsmen’s technique and average. You would expect better from a team that wants to be the best in the world.There also seems to be a lack of awareness that India’s recent wins outside the subcontinent have all come on seaming tracks that make it easier for their bowlers to take 20 wickets. Also the pitches in Sydney and Perth were hardly the monsters they are being made out to be.However, at such times, it is easy to miss the deep-rooted frustration at the kind of pitches the Indian curators have been rolling out over the recent years: slow, low, devoid of life and excitement. The last time India actually got a pitch that turned and bounced was in Kanpur in 2007-08. Otherwise the pitches in India are all designed to last the longest possible distance. Gambhir is also understandably annoyed at how easily the turning tracks are labelled “disgraceful” by the media and the ICC. Sidharth Monga

Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir will on Tuesday receive full written judgments on the verdicts and sanctions they were handed on Saturday but whether the judgment becomes public is not yet clear

Osman Samiuddin 07-Feb-2011Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir will on Tuesday receive full written judgments on the verdicts and sanctions they were handed by a three-man tribunal on Saturday. Whether the judgment becomes public is, however, still not clear; the ICC is keen to publish it the same day, but complications have arisen in the wake of the decision of the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to press charges against the three.Butt was banned for ten years, Asif for seven and Amir for five after they were found guilty by a tribunal headed by Michael Beloff QC, on charges the ICC had brought against them for being involved in the bowling of deliberate no-balls during the fourth Test against England last year. Amir plans to appeal against the decision in the Court of Arbitration for Sport, while Butt has also said he disagrees with the verdict.On Saturday, a short statement was read out by Beloff, flanked by the other two tribunal members Justice Albie Sachs and Sharad Rao, in which they also urged the ICC to publish the report as soon as possible. The report has become a keenly-awaited document, because it is expected to expand on the reasons given for the verdicts – and, equally importantly, the evidence, put together by the ICC’s legal team, that it was based on.The length of the sanctions has attracted support and criticism alike. But the most intriguing development was the tribunal’s recommendation to the ICC to make “certain changes to the code with a view to providing flexibility in relation to minimum sentences in exceptional circumstances.” On this point, Amir and Butt have suggested – the former more directly than the latter – that it indicates that the tribunal was willing to give lower sanctions but was bound by the ICC code. The nature of any potential appeals, as well as the feasibility, will become clearer once the report has been seen.There remains uncertainty over whether the wider public will be able to see how such a landmark case in the game’s history unfolded. One day before the tribunal gave its verdict, the CPS announced that the three players, as well as player agent Mazhar Majeed, will face criminal charges in a British court of conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments, and also conspiracy to cheat. All four have been summoned to appear for a first hearing at the City of Westminster Magistrate’s court on March 17.The ICC wants to publish on Tuesday but has been seeking legal advice from Jonathon Caplin QC, a media law specialist, because, as ESPNcricinfo understands, the CPS has “strongly advised” the ICC not to publish the full judgment. The CPS noted in its statement that “particular care needs to be taken to not publish material” which may prejudice a criminal trial.

Bangladesh’s new skipper Mushfiqur Rahim has spoken of his ambitions as a captain, and the realistic goals he has set ahead of the series against West Indies

ESPNcricinfo staff10-Oct-2011Mushfiqur Rahim had to break a long-held superstition after being appointed Bangladesh’s captain. For the past six years, he has made it a point not to speak to anyone in the media on the eve of an international match. Though he stuck to it on every occasion, that all changed on Monday when he spoke of his ambitions as a captain, and the realistic goals he has set ahead of the series against West Indies; he even admitted to prepping himself mentally before he betrayed his routine.Bangladesh take on West Indies in the solitary Twenty20 on October 10, marking Mushfiqur’s debut as captain. He hardly resembles one; the towering Darren Sammy even jokingly crouched as they posed with the trophies. But Mushfiqur wasn’t asking the West Indians to bend down as yet, the 23-year-old instead wishing for a good start and a lockdown by the spinners.”The start is very important,” said Mushfiqur. “Like it was against New Zealand who were well prepared last year, it is going to be the same with West Indies. We need to believe that we can win against them and that will come when we make a good start.”In international cricket, whether you’re a captain or not, there’s a lot of pressure. We’ll get home support and help from the wicket, so I think sometimes it’s better to look at the positives,” he added.He wants to mark his ascent as the leader of the pack with change in Bangladesh’s fortunes. “We couldn’t find the results as expected during the last tour. I want the team to perform as a unit. The difference that I want to create is by finding positive results,” said Mushfiqur.Coach Stuart Law, in his first home series in charge, believed that the new skipper is the sort of character everyone wants in a team. “Mushy is very much his own man,” said Law. “He’s very driven and knows what he needs to do to get the best out of himself.”He’s one of those players you love having in your team. He works very hard and hopefully that ethic comes into the team now. He’s a great example to the younger players.”I believe we can win the series. West Indies are a good outfit. We have to play well to beat them. They’re ranked higher than us, I believe we go into this as the underdog.”As long as we play smart cricket, we are a force at home,” he said, adding that he wanted some international teams taking part in the BCB Cup though he regarded the preparatory one-day tournament as satisfactorily “competitive”.

New Zealand’s triumph over Pakistan might have come at considerable cost as they sweat on the fitness of their captain Daniel Vettori, who hurt his right knee during the victory

Brydon Coverdale in Pallekele08-Mar-2011New Zealand’s triumph over Pakistan might have come at considerable cost as they sweat on the fitness of their captain Daniel Vettori, who hurt his right knee during the victory. Vettori appeared seriously restricted in his movement after diving for an attempted catch at mid-on in the sixth over of Pakistan’s innings, and two balls later he limped slowly from the field.He struggled to walk around the boundary with the help of the support staff and had ice treatment in the rooms while the vice-captain Ross Taylor oversaw the 110-run win. A New Zealand spokesman said the extent of Vettori’s injury would not be known until the team arrives in Mumbai ahead of their fifth group match, Sunday’s clash with Canada.”We’ll just have to wait and see,” Taylor said. “Obviously he’s a key part of our team and we need him to go further in this competition. But he didn’t bowl a ball today and we won, so we just have to give it a couple of days and see where he’s at. Hopefully he’s all right come two or three days’ time.”Vettori is not only a key player due to his bowling on the spin-friendly surfaces of the subcontinent, but he is also a canny leader whose on-field nous would be missed if he is sidelined. If that is the case, New Zealand would look to Taylor, 27, to captain the side, as he has done in nine one-day internationals for three victories.”I’ve captained the team in quite a few matches now,” Taylor said. “We’ve got a lot of senior players in the team for me to look to, to get help and to bounce ideas off. We’ll have to wait and see, but if it did come about it would be something that would be an honour to do. There’s still a long way to go in this competition, but if that comes about then I’d grab it with both hands.”

Trent Copeland has emerged as a telling reminder of Test cricket’s lowered place in Australian cricket’s pay structure

Daniel Brettig26-Jul-2011Trent Copeland emerged as a telling reminder of Test cricket’s lowered place in Australian cricket’s pay structure as the selection chairman Andrew Hilditch complained the central contracts system was “not ideal”.Like Michael Beer and Nathan Lyon, Copeland earned Test selection for next month’s tour of Sri Lanka from outside the list of 25 contracted players named by Hilditch last month. However as a medium-pace bowler equipped far better for the long forms of the game than the shorter ones, Copeland has been unable to join them in securing a Big Bash League Twenty20 contract.This means he will fly to Sri Lanka on a middling state contract of around $75,000 a year plus his tour fees, a pittance next to some of the wages being earned by team-mates blessed with Cricket Australia, BBL and Indian Premier League deals.Should he play in the series and the South African tour that follows it, Copeland will be upgraded to a CA deal, but his relatively modest means have provided an instant reminder of how little financial incentive there is left to aspire to a Test career, for all the talk about the lure of the baggy green not being diluted by T20 money.None of Beer, Copeland and Lyon were completely lateral choices, but their “ranking” under CA’s pay scales is severely weakened by the weighting given to limited-overs and T20 cricket. As such, none were deemed worthy of a contract, and Hilditch conceded the system was less than optimal for Test aspirants.”Our priority is Test cricket and I’m sure the players’ priority is Test cricket,” Hilditch said. “That’s the area where we’ve obviously fallen pretty poorly in the rankings and we’ve had the Ashes disappointment, so we’re very much of the view that we have to get back to where we want to be in Test cricket.”Because we rank three forms of the game… that’s just the way the contracts came out. Copeland and Beer were very much in line for Test-match selection. It’s really a totally different issue, the contract list, compared to the squad that we’ve picked for Sri Lanka.”When pressed to suggest a better system, Hilditch said it was not for him to decide, and reiterated that the limitations of the contract structure would not preclude the selectors from picking the teams they felt were the best to represent Australia in Tests.”It’s the system at the moment, but when we come down to pick the Test squad for Sri Lanka, I always knew there would be people from outside the system to be picked in that squad,” Hilditch said. “It doesn’t really affect the selection process at all.”It is obviously difficult when you have three forms of the game. There’s the potential to give 60 players a ranking in one form of the game. Obviously there’s a lot of overlap and it doesn’t work that way in reality, but the reality is a lot of players will get a ranking in one form of the game that won’t get a contract, but when we come to pick the Australian side we’ll pick the best team we can.”Australia’s Test selections may not be clouded by the lack of money seemingly available for Test-match specialists, but the future of the Test team certainly will be if all the money open to aspirants is funnelled into T20. The Australian captain, Michael Clarke, observed as much on the occasion of the 2000th Test, contested between England and India at Lord’s.”Governing bodies must prioritise player performance and payment in Test cricket,” Clarke told the . “The future of Test cricket relies on the investment in continuing to make it the pinnacle of the sport. “It is the toughest form of the game. It requires all the skills of the other two forms of the game, but over five days. The physical and mental intensity of a five-day Test makes Test cricket far and away the pinnacle of the game.”

Having postponed talks on a new deal until next month, Anthony McGrath is putting up a strong case to continue a county career already spanning 17 years.

Myles Hodgson at Headingley16-Aug-2012
ScorecardAnthony McGrath reminded the Yorkshire management of his ability•PA PhotosAs a negotiating tactic to try and secure another contract, scoring a century to guide Yorkshire to maximum batting points against one of their main promotion rivals is probably as good as any. Having postponed talks on a new deal until next month, Anthony McGrath is putting up a strong case to continue a county career already spanning 17 years.Expected to be the player most under threat by the emergence of Joe Root at the start of the summer, McGrath has responded to the challenge impressively. He scored his first century in a year earlier this summer against Hampshire and has now followed that with 104 against Derbyshire, the Division Two leaders, to put Yorkshire in command of a rain-affected match.His innings, which included 10 fours and a six, helped secure maximum batting points with three balls of their allocated 110 overs remaining with McGrath bringing up the landmark in conjunction with his century by on-driving Tim Groenewald. It laid the platform for Yorkshire to either declare immediately to give themselves more time to bowl at Derbyshire, or advance quickly towards a major first innings total.In the event they did neither, losing five wickets for nine runs in the next 15 balls to a succession of ill-conceived shots and were dismissed for 420. They only recovered their momentum when Tim Bresnan, who raced up the M1 to join the match after being overlooked by England for the final Test, won an lbw decision against Wayne Madsen with the final delivery of the day.”The bonus points system always keeps it interesting at the end,” McGrath admitted. “Derbyshire probably did us a bit of a favour by sticking people on the fence, which made it a bit easier. Three, four or five runs were available every over from 98 overs, so we were confident of getting there. We wanted to bowl at them, but we also wanted to try and get as many as possible.”Yorkshire’s equation was complicated by the 26-point lead Derbyshire had secured at the top of Division Two, ensuring they have little to gain in engineering a finish should more time be lost in the match. It put the onus on quick run-scoring when Yorkshire resumed on 127 for 2 having lost the final two sessions of the opening day to rain.Adam Lyth and Gary Ballance provided that impetus, scoring at nearly four an over throughout the morning session during a 116-run partnership. Lyth fell seven short of his century and Ballance followed shortly after lunch for an eye-catching 79, both perishing to loose shots attempting to push the scoreboard along.Restricted to only two runs an over for the first half hour after lunch, McGrath teamed up with Andrew Hodd, making his debut as a loan signing from Sussex and also hoping to secure a new contract at the end of the summer. They were both frustrated by Derbyshire’s initial accuracy, but needing 24 off the final four overs of allocated bonus point overs, they accelerated to reach their objective during a 131-run stand.They fell in quick succession with Wes Durston, Derbyshire’s off-spinner, exploiting Yorkshire’s desire for rapid runs to finish with career-best figures of 5 for 34, although Hodd must also have gone a long way towards securing a permanent contract by scoring 58 precious runs on debut.”It’s probably different to what he’s used to down in Sussex because the wickets are different up here, especially this one because there’s more grass on this pitch than there has been for a long time,” McGrath explained. “If you bowl straight with pace it’s difficult to score. He found it tough during that period, but got through that and played really well and was integral towards us getting full batting points.”Having given themselves only 11 overs to bowl at Derbyshire, Yorkshire looked likely to be frustrated until Bresnan struck with the final ball, but it will take fair weather and an exceptional performance on an easy-paced wicket to contrive the victory they require to close the gap on the leaders.

The BCCI has lost its appeal against the stay issued on its terimination of the King’s XI franchise with the Mumbai High Court terming the board’s action as “erroneous”

ESPNcricinfo staff15-Dec-2010The BCCI has suffered its second legal setback in consecutive days with a division bench of the Bombay High Court dismissing its appeal against the court’s order staying the termination of Kings XI Punjab. The order, which comes a day after a similar High Court decision favouring Rajasthan Royals, allows Punjab to continue being part of the tournament and to participate in next month’s player auction.In its ruling, the bench – comprising Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice Anoop Mohata – said the entire basis of the letter of termination issued by the BCCI to the Mohali franchise was “erroneous and flawed”.”It is abundantly clear that BCCI wanted to terminate the contract on the basis of what was factually incorrect,” it observed. “Termination was anything but fair and was wholly arbitrary.”The order was welcomed by Kings XI Punjab. “We have been on the right side since 2008,” co-owner Ness Wadia, said. “We have declared everything.” Another co-owner, the Bollywood actress Preity Zinta, called it a vindication of the franchise’s stand. “I feel happy. It’s good that things worked in our favour.”The BCCI had appealed against the interim stay issued by the High Court on December 8, which allowed the team back into the IPL subject to certain conditions, including retaining its shareholding pattern, fulfilling pending player payments and paying the BCCI guarantee money in case the final judgement goes against them.Justice S Vajifdar, who had issued the interim stay, said at the time that “prima facie” Punjab had a strong case against the expulsion and the “interim injunction” was only just. As part of his conditions for the stay, he also said that the four main owners – Wadia, Zinta, Mohit Burman and Karan Paul – needed to hold no less than 51% of the shares in KPH Dream Cricket Pvt. Ltd – the rights-holding company of the franchise – until the final judgement.Punjab will also have to clear its pending payments to its players, an amount running up to Rs.35 crore ($7.77 million), guarantee an amount of $18 million over the next two years (at the rate of $9 million per year) to protect player payments in case the franchise participates in the league, and $3.5 million to the BCCI as security towards any damage incurred by the board in case the final verdict goes against Punjab.The verdict comes a day after the High Court upheld the arbitrator’s stay on Rajasthan’s expulsion from the IPL, with the judge stating clearly that the facts were in the franchise’s favour. The decisions continue the trend of setbacks suffered by the BCCI in the courts as they attempt to block the two teams from being part of the 2011 tournament. The board still has the option of appealing the verdict to the Supreme Court.In October the BCCI had terminated Punjab and Rajasthan, holding the franchises guilty for violating the franchise agreement on three counts, including changes of ownership that went unreported to the board.

India broke their run of defeats by beating New Zealand by three wickets in the 3rd-place playoff of the NatWest Women’s T20 Quadrangular Series at the Rose Bowl

ESPNcricinfo staff27-Jun-2011
ScorecardJhulan Goswami was the key to India’s victory•Getty ImagesIndia Women broke their run of defeats by beating New Zealand Women by three wickets in the third-place playoff of the NatWest Women’s T20 Quadrangular Series at Aldershot.Having suffered three straight losses during the group stage, India chased down New Zealand’s 95 with a ball to spare. India’s captain Jhulan Goswami was the star, guiding her side home with a cool 33 not out from 28 balls. In a low-scoring encounter, New Zealand were left to rue the 10 wides and three no balls they sent down.The chase was by no means certain when India were reduced to 24 for 3 but Harmanpreet Kaur (14) and Veda Krishnamurthy (15) helped them recover and laid the foundations for Goswami to finish the job.It was an unhappy farewell to Twenty20 cricket for New Zealand’s captain Aimee Watkins. She retires after the upcoming ODIs and had started well at the top of the order, making 15, before becoming the second of two wickets for Amita Sharma.At one stage, when they were 61 for 3, New Zealand looked capable of posting a threatening score but Liz Perry fell for 18 and the lower order couldn’t carry on. Amy Satterthwaite top-scored with 35 but it wasn’t enough.”We needed this win very badly before the start of the ODI series,” Goswami said. “This win will give us much needed momentum because we did not have any so far. I hope we carry this into the ODI series. You must remember that we beat a good side like New Zealand. All four sides are evenly matched, but we had not got up on the victory column as yet.”I told my coach (Anju Jain) that I need to bat up the order and she agreed. If I had not taken the responsibility, the result may have been different. The win came at the right time. You must remember that we were playing for the third place in a world tournament.”Watkins said: “Everyone’s really disappointed. I think the wicket was the reason. We obviously we did not get a big score on the board. While bowling, we were all over the place and we bowled both sides of the wicket. We also gave away too many extras I think.”