Scorecard
Himachal Pradesh were within touching distance of the Plate Group title, shooting out Orissa for 202 for 8 in their second innings at Cuttack. Having amassed 477 in their first innings, thanks to Sarandeep Singh and Ashok Thakur cracking half-centuries, HP’s bowlers left Orissa struggling by the end of the fourth day.Resuming on 405 for 8, HP rode on fifties from the overnight pair. Sarandeep and Thakur smashed 16 fours between them and thwarted Orissa for 26.2 overs. A lead of 160 was always going to be vital and HP’s bowlers chipped away at the Orissa innings for the rest of the day. Vikramjeet Malik, Vishal Bhatia and Sandeep Sharma snared two wickets apiece and didn’t allow any big partnerships to develop.Several Orissa batsmen got starts – Halhadar Das top-scored with an unbeaten 47 – but none kicked on to a big score. With only two wickets in hand, and a slender lead of 42, it may just be a matter of time before Orissa are vanquished on the final day.

Troy Cooley, Australia’s bowling coach, has been made a permanent part of their World Cup plans after an initial decision that he’d only be involved in the preparation period.Following Australia’s slump in form, including the 3-0 Chappell-Hadlee defeat, it has been decided that there is a need to have a bowling coach on hand throughout the World Cup. Australia twice failed to defend 300-plus totals in against New Zealand and in the other match New Zealand recorded a 10-wicket win.”At one point I was only going over for the set up but now it’s the full tour, which is great,” Cooley told the . “In the original plans, no I wasn’t going, but in light of proceedings in New Zealand it’s probably a smart move to be with the guys full-time and provide some input. It’s not a knee-jerk reaction.”Australia’s bowling ranks have been hit with the loss of Brett Lee through injury while Andrew Symonds’ mixture of medium-pace and offspin will also be missing for at least the early matches.

Ricky Ponting might have been 20,000 kilometres away in St Kitts, but he kept up to date with Tasmania’s maiden Pura Cup win at Hobart. And it could have been a suggestion from Ponting back in November that helped them to their 421-run victory – he advised Tim Coyle, Tasmania’s coach, to give Luke Butterworth more opportunities.Ponting played a one-day game with Butterworth for Tasmania against Victoria at Melbourne and was impressed with what he saw. Butterworth was Man of the Match in the Pura Cup final, scoring 66 and 106 and taking 4 for 33.”I said to the coach then [in November] that I thought he should play him for the rest of the Pura Cup season,” Ponting told . “I watched the way he bowled and he looked pretty capable with the bat and I thought he could slot into our side really nicely, especially on a wicket at Bellerive that might have assisted the seamers.”He has got a hundred in the final and he got 60 in the first innings as well. More importantly he has taken a lot of wickets in the last five games. He’s only a young bloke as well. He’s got a very bright future.”Ponting said the 15-hour time difference did not keep him from getting regular updates on Tasmania’s progress. “I’ve had a chat to the boys and I’ve been speaking to Michael Di Venuto who is a good mate of mine,” he said. “I haven’t had my phone off for the last two nights, especially last night when we were racking up all those runs.”Ponting, who is technically the Tasmania captain although he rarely plays for them, said Coyle had done well to get the most out of his young squad. “Full credit to the coach and what he has done down there,” he said. “He has stuck by a lot of the young blokes and given them opportunities. They have been the best team all year.”

Ed Joyce has hailed Ireland’s “brilliant” performances at the World Cup and admits the prospect of them playing England, his adopted nation, in the Super Eight stage, would be “quite a spectacle”.Joyce was born in Dublin but made his one-day debut for England against Ireland in 2006. He had played an important role in Ireland’s qualifying for the World Cup by scoring two hundreds and two fifities in the 2005 ICC Trophy, but an ambition to play at the highest possible level led Joyce to qualify for England because Ireland did not have Test-match status.After Ireland’s tie against Zimbabwe in their first match of the World Cup and the shock three-wicket victory over Pakistan, they are on the brink of qualification for the Super Eights. “It was brilliant,” Joyce said. “My big hope for Ireland coming into this tournament was that they would do themselves justice.”It’s hard, your first tournament, you might get a bit over-awed by it. Trent Johnston, their captain has been brilliant. He’s told them what to expect and how to go about things. They’ve done that really well. They’d never have thought they beat Pakistan, they knew they had a chance.”They’ve beaten the West Indies in the last few years. The Zimbabwe game was their big one. Now they’ve got three points and look like going through to the Super Eights which is brilliant.”Should both England and Ireland make it through to the second stage they will start their Super Eight campaign against one another in Guyana on March 30. “That was my first game,” Joyce said, recalling his England debut.”It was a bit of a strange one for me. It will be an interesting contest if they [Ireland] get through to that stage. It will be a big day. A lot of Irish people have travelled over. I don’t think they expected to get through to the Super Eights. They’ll probably all have to take another month off and get out there. It will be a good day.”The English fans and Irish fans will get on pretty well. It will be quite a spectacle. My brother is in Jamaica watching them and he’d said they’d taken over Kingston and the Jamaicans love them which is typical of Irish fans.”

Paul Mooney, the Ireland allrounder who played 84 times for his country including four one-dayers, has announced his retirement.”I have been fortunate to have represented Ireland for ten years now,” he said in a statement, “and during that period I have had some of the best times and experiences of my life.”Mooney – older brother of John, the Ireland bowler – played a single match in the World Cup against South Africa, a match Ireland lost. But Ireland showed immense promise, in spite of the burdening tag of minnows, and Mooney is confident that Irish cricket’s future is bright.”It’s a special squad of players that we have at the minute,” he said, “and I believe greater things can be achieved. [The World Cup] has been an amazing experience, and hopefully has changed the face of cricket in Ireland forever.”

Michael Vaughan is confident he will be back to lead England in the second Test against West Indies next week after opting to miss the series opener to ensure he recovers fully from a broken finger. Vaughan had set his heart on making his first Test appearance since December 2005 at Lord’s on Thursday after finally overcoming a string of injuries, mainly to his knee.A broken middle finger on his right hand put paid to that, although Vaughan admits he was sorely tempted to declare himself ready to play. “My heart was saying ‘just go out and play’ – but my head overruled the heart,” Vaughan said.”I knew I could probably just about get through a game. But I might have struggled a bit in the field. I just thought it might be too big a risk. I was told if I get one more hit on it I could be out for two months.”In the meantime, Vaughan will be part of Team England at Lord’s and he makes no apologies for his intended presence, while his stand-in Andrew Strauss is directing affairs on the field. Vaughan wants to establish a successful working relationship with new coach Peter Moores, himself preparing for his first Test after replacing Duncan Fletcher.”I’m going to be around this week,” Vaughan said. “I know it’s a magnificent talking point for many – but I am the England cricket captain, looking like missing just one game.”Andrew will take the team out and make the decisions on the pitch, but I have to have a huge say in and around the team because of the fact it’s a new regime. Peter and I are working together for the first time – and a week later I hope I’ll be back as England captain.”

ScorecardAhead of their two Twenty20 matches against England next week, West Indies slipped to a humiliating 51-run defeat at the hands of Derbyshire at the County Ground, with Ant Botha and Tom Lungley each picking up four wickets.To further compound West Indian woes, their team today was far stronger than the mishmash they put out against the England Lions last week, when five players from English league cricket were drafted in. Dwayne Smith, Austin Richards and Lendl Simmons were all included today, but it had little positive effect as their batsmen capitulated to 84 all out in the 16th over, chasing a modest 136.Chris Gayle was first to go, bowled by Lungley for 4 and the same bowler trapped Marlon Samuels, the very next ball, for a duck. Simmons only lasted nine balls, but Richards at least held one end up in his fighting 25, cracking three fours and a six. He received encouraging support from Dwayne Bravo (12 from 12) and Smith (13 from 15) but, neither could partner him for a lengthy period. From a precarious 67 for 4, West Indies lost their last six wickets for 17 runs.The defeat is all the more concerning, not simply because the team they fielded was so much stronger, but for their brittle batting after a promising effort with the ball. Only Derbyshire’s captain, Simon Katich, with an industrious 31 from 28 balls, threatened to take the attack to West Indies’ bowlers, their spinners – Samuels and Gayle – taking three wickets in six overs between them. Chris Taylor, who ended unbeaten on 28 (from 25) also provided good support, but the restrictions West Indies imposed on Derbyshire’s first 10 overs hampered their progress.In the end, 135 was more than enough. Their next and final warm-up match, another Twenty20 against a PCA Masters XI on Tuesday, now takes on an even greater significance.David Moore, the West Indies coach, slammed the team’s batting performance after the game. “It is very disappointing,” Moore said. “We committed the cardinal sin to not bat our 20 overs out. We lost six wickets in four overs, played poor shots, it was very poor batting.”