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Karen Rolton, the Australia Women’s captain, will undergo an MRI scan on her twisted left knee tomorrow. Rolton, 31, injured herself while fielding in Australia’s last-wicket win over New Zealand in Brisbane.The injury occurred in the 18th over of New Zealand’s innings as Rolton turned to walk back to her fielding position.”I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but I felt a twinge in my left knee as I was walking back to my fielding mark,” Rolton told reporters. “I moved myself to another fielding position to see if it would settle down before coming off the field. I will have some scans on the knee tomorrow and get some further advice from a specialist.”Kirsten Pike, Australia’s 12th player, replaced Rolton on the field. Rolton returned to bat at No. 9, however, and scored a valuable unbeaten 16 to take Australia to a penultimate-ball win.Australia lead the battle for the Rose Bowl 2-0.

5th place play-off
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Rain had the final word at the Royal Selangor Club in Kuala Lumpur, washing out the play-off for fifth place between arch rivals Australia and England. In a curtailed game – 24 overs a side – Kirk Pascoe’s 55 led an impressive recovery for Australia after they were in a precarious position at 7 for 4.England exploited the damp conditions after putting Australia in, with the new-ball bowlers – Steven Finn and James Harris – snaring four victims in just 4.1 overs. A wicket didn’t fall for the next 12.2 overs, as David King provided support to Pascoe with a patient 45-ball 19.Tom Westley, the offspinner, picked up two wickets in his five overs, but Pascoe ensured Australia played out their overs for a fighting total of 106 for 7. Pascoe kept the scoring-rate ticking along with five fours and a six in his 67-ball innings.When the match was called off, England were at 47 for 2 off 10.5 overs, needing another 60 off 79 deliveries.

Plate Championship final
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An fine all-round performance from Darren Bravo helped West Indies clinch the Plate Championship – contested for ninth place – at the Bayuemas Oval in Kuala Lumpur. Rain resulted in the match being reduced to 27 overs a side, and the Nepal captain Paras Khadka, playing the last match of his third and final U-19 World Cup, opted to bat.However, the move backfired with the West Indies seamers striking early blows. Jason Dawes, the right-arm fast bowler, collected three wickets, and his new-ball partner Delorn Johnson picked up one as Nepal were reduced to 17 for 4.Bravo then came and chipped away at the middle order, taking three wickets, and Dawes took his fourth as Nepal crashed to 74 all out in 25.3 overs. Extras made the highest contribution to Nepal’s total; Sagar Khadka was next with an unbeaten 17 in an innings where the best partnership managed 15.Kieran Powell and Adrian Barath got West Indies off to a steady start, before Bravo steered them to victory with an unbeaten 24. Amrit Bhattarai scalped two consolation wickets, but a paltry total meant holders Nepal couldn’t avoid losing the trophy that they famously won in 2006.

13th place play-off

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Ireland completed back-to-back wins in Johor to secure 13th place with their first victory over a Full Member nation at U-19 level. On Friday, Greg Thompson, the captain, spun a web with his legspin against Bermuda, but it was opening bowler Andrew Britton who wrecked Zimbabwe in the 13th place play-off final.Thompson’s decision to field in a match reduced to 27 overs a side soon paid dividends. Britton accounted for Zimbabwe’s top four as they were reduced to 34 for 6, Shane Getkate picking up the other two wickets. Reginald Nehonde, the No. 7, struck 43 as Zimbabwe batted out their overs and scored 99.A 40-run second-wicket stand between Ben Ackland and James Hall set up the platform for Ireland’s chase. Stewart Matsika dismissed them both, but the remaining batsmen completed the win with six wickets and 22 balls to spare.

West Indies 124 for 7 (Smith 62*, Tapash Baisya 4-16) beat Bangladesh 101 for 8 (Bradshaw 3-15) by 23 runs
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The lack of confidence which almost pulled the rug from under West Indies yesterday threatened to return again in the second one-dayer at a soggy Kingstown. After being put in to bat by Bangladesh in a match reduced to 25 overs a side, they limped to 124 for 7. But then their fast bowlers got them out of jail with quick wickets, and in the end the margin of victory was a comfortable 23 runs.The outfield was wet and slow – the start was delayed by rain for almost four hours – and the ball did not come on to the bat. Dwayne Smith’s well-made 62 held West Indies together as all their front-line batsmen – with the exception of Chris Gayle – got in but failed to press home their starts. The manner of their dismissals was also rather subdued, with only Sylvester Joseph caught on the boundary. The rest all fell to half-hearted jabs and swishes. Smith, however, looked assured, sweep-pulling two lovely sixes in an assured innings.Bangladesh’s hero was Tapash Baisya who ended with 4 for 16, all his wickets coming in his last two overs as West Indies tried too late to inject some pace.Bangladesh’s confidence facing a below-par target lasted two overs. In the third, Fidel Edwards struck twice, and from 10 for 2 the brittle middle order never threatened an upset. West Indies didn’t bowl particularly well, but against such a fragile line-up they didn’t need to. Two of the top order – Habibul Bashar and Alok Kapali – were strangled down the leg side, and two fell to superb catches from Man-of-the-Match Smith. With the exception of Hannan Sarkar (36) and Manjural Islam Rana (33*), Bangladesh had little else to offer.But the large crowd who rushed to the ground once play started cared little, and were celebrating victory long before the end. At the moment, they will take what they can get.

Delhi Daredevils conceded 15 runs off the final over in their last-ball defeat to the Chennai Super Kings, but instead of faulting Shoaib Malik, the bowler, his captain Virender Sehwag blamed the defeat on the lack of a specialist spinner in the side.Sehwag said it was a choice between him and Malik for the final over. “I consulted my team-mates and they said either me or Malik should bowl [the last over]. I thought he would do a better job than me, so I gave it to him,” Sehwag said. “Such things happen in Twenty20, sometimes you are hit and sometimes you are not.” .Delhi had posted a formidable 187, but Sehwag felt they lost the plot in the end stages of the match. “187 is not a small score. [Gautam] Gambhir and [Shikhar] Dhawan batted superbly and then [Vijaykumar] Yo Mahesh and Pradeep Sangwan did their job while bowling. Everything was going to our plan till the 15th over [of Chennai’s innings]. At the end we lost at the last over.”If we had a specialist fifth bowler, we would have saved 30-40 runs, we missed a fifth bowler,” Sehwag said. Together he and Malik gave away 58 runs off their four overs, and Sehwag suggested a change for the next game. “We are including a specialist spinner in the next match.”That means legspinner Amit Mishra might get a game, as Daniel Vettori is away on New Zealand duty. Following the match, Delhi were fourth in the points table, but Sehwag wasn’t too perturbed. “We lost a match today but it happens in cricket we will bounce back,” he said. “Our top order was batting beautifully and bowlers bowled well, it so happened that we lost in the last over.”

After several delays and uncertainties, the arrangements for possibly the biggest weekend of the US cricket season are now set for Los Angeles in early October.Both the finals of the third annual USA Cricket Association’s national championships and the first annual USACA Under-19 tournament will be held at the Woodley Cricket Fields (Leo Magnus Cricket Complex) in Los Angeles over the Columbus Day weekend – October 8, 9 and 10.For the National Championship Finals, the four contending teams are: the New York Region, the Atlantic Region (DC, Maryland and North Carolina), the Central West Region (Texas and Colorado), and the North-west Region (Northern California, Oregon, and Washington State). The New York and Atlantic Regions were the winners and runners-up, respectively, in the US Eastern Conference, while Central West and Northwest are the finalists from the Western Conference. New York are favoured to retain their national title, but both Western teams impressed with their excellent play and are capable of springing a few surprises on their Eastern rivals.The National Under-19 tournament is being held for the first time in the United States, and is intended to showcase the youthful talent that exists around the country. It will feature players born after September 1, 1985, divided into four zones: New York/North East, Atlantic/South East, Central East/ Central West, and South West/North West. Selections for these zonal teams are already under way, and will be finalised after zonal trials are completed during September.With an eye to ICC’s rules for determining player-eligibility for ICC-sponsored international tournaments, the USACA has set up the following rules for the Under-19 tournament: five players in each team must be citizens, four can be residents who have stayed in the USA for more than four years, and two can be residents who have been in the USA for more than two years. How this will affect participation in the tournament remains an open question. There are some who argue that most youth cricketers from immigrant communities along the eastern seaboard are likely to be non-citizens who do not meet the residency criteria. On the other hand, the US rule, which confers citizenship to anyone born in the USA, might qualify many youngsters whose parents are non-citizens. Only time will show how this plays out in US junior cricket, and who gets included or excluded under these regulations.Meanwhile, many US cricketers are looking forward to the Columbus Day weekend as a grand finale to their season, where both the present and the future of American cricket will be showcased in one of the best-maintained cricket-ground complexes in North America.

After playing in all 30 of Bangladesh’s Tests until now, Habibul Bashar has been forced to miss the first Test against New Zealand, which starts at Dhaka’s Bangabandhu Stadium on Tuesday. Bashar, who had been to Melbourne to undergo surgery on his broken right thumb in September, injured it again during practice last Thursday. Though X-rays indicated that the blow hadn’t worsened the injury, a report in The Daily Star, a Bangladesh newspaper, said that Bashar didn’t participate in the nets afterwards.Bashar’s absence is a huge blow to Bangladesh’s hopes of making a match of it against New Zealand. By far their most successful Test batsman, Bashar has an aggregate of 2079 runs at a respectable average of 35.84, and has scored three of his team’s eight Test hundreds.The selectors have decided to reappoint Khaled Mashud as captain in Bashar’s absence. Mashud stood down after Bangladesh’s disastrous World Cup campaign in 2003, while the captaincy went to Rajin Saleh for the recent Champions Trophy. But this time, Saleh has been left to concentrate on his batting, and Alok Kapali looks set to replace Bashar in the middle-order.For New Zealand, meanwhile, the two-Test series is an opportunity to break their horrible recent run in Tests: in their last 12 matches, they have lost five, drawn six, and won just one. Stephen Fleming admitted that it was a record he wanted to rectify: “Bangladesh haven’t performed well in Tests and they’re looking for their first win – it’s our job to not let them do that and win this series comprehensively, but we have to play good cricket and that’s what we’ve come here to do,” Fleming told the New Zealand Press Association. “The first three days are status quo. Play good percentage cricket, build up some runs on the board and then we can take it to them. It’s a simple game plan, but the key thing is not getting impatient, and giving them respect.”Fleming will certainly be satisfied with his team’s display in the warm-up match against a Bangladesh Cricket Board XI. The only player who missed out in both innings was Mark Richardson, but given his outstanding record in Tests, Fleming won’t be too worried about a rare failure in a practice match. The bowlers had a pretty good workout too, with all five who are likely to play in the Test getting among the wickets.Regardless of the kind of pitch on offer, New Zealand have enough weapons in their bowling ranks to worry Bangladesh. If a turner is on offer, Daniel Vettori and Paul Wiseman could be as much of a force as Mohammad Rafique, Bangladesh’s left-arm spinner and by far their most effective bowler.Rafique himself was in high spirits after a practice session on the eve of the match: “They have very good batsmen but it will be tough for them to cope with the conditions here. Yet I cannot say whether this wicket will help the pacers or the slow bowlers, because we will be playing here after a long time [away]. My target is to take wickets and I am confident I’ll do that.”New Zealand have also announced a short-list of 12 for the Test, omitting Chris Martin and Kyle Mills from their original 14-man squad. If they decide to go ahead with five bowlers, Hamish Marshall is the player who will almost certainly miss out.Bangladesh (from) Javed Omar, Hannan Sarkar, Nafis Iqbal, Alamgir Kabir, Mohammad Ashraful, Rajin Saleh, Alok Kapali, Mushfiqur Rahman, Khaled Mashud (capt and wk), Manjurul Islam, Tapash Baisya, Mohammad Rafique, Tareq Aziz.New Zealand (from) Mark Richardson, Mathew Sinclair, Stephen Fleming (capt), Scott Styris, Nathan Astle, Hamish Marshall, Jacob Oram, Brendon McCullum (wk), Daniel Vettori, James Franklin, Paul Wiseman, Ian Butler.

Brilliant centuries from Ramnaresh Sarwan and Ricardo Powell were the highlight as Round seven of the Carib Beer Cup continued.
Points tableClose 2nd day Barbados 285 and 138 for 3 (Wilkinson 48*, Hinds 40*) lead Trinidad and Tobago 265 (Powell 115, S Ganga 56; Hinds 4-51) by 158 runs
ScorecardRicardo Powell slammed a thrilling 115 – off only 113 balls – but it wasn’t enough to give Trinidad and Tobago first innings points against Barbados at Guaracara Park. Trinidad and Tobago made 265 in response to Barbados’s 285, and the Bajans finished the second day on 138 for 3, an overall lead of 158, with Ryan Hinds (40 not out) and Kurt Wilkinson (48 not out) at the crease.Powell smashed 14 fours and four sixes in his innings, but with Sherwin Ganga (56) the only other major contributor, Trinidad and Tobago couldn’t manage a first innings lead. For Barbados, Hinds took the bowling honours with 4 for 51.Close 1st day Leeward Islands 39 for 5 (Powell 4-18) trail Jamaica 200 (Baugh 86; Sandford 3-57) by 161 runs
ScorecardJamaica lost Gareth Breese, their captain, to a broken left forearm, but still dominated proceedings on the opening day against Leeward Islands at the Alpart Sports Club. Carlton Baugh stroked a brilliant 86 in their total of 200, and Darren Powell, having his first bowl of the Carib Beer season after a back injury, picked up 4 for 18 to leave Leewards shipping water at 39 for 5 by close of play.Jamaica slumped to 79 for 5 after having won the toss and were indebted to Baugh after Adam Sandford – who finished with 3 for 57 – had made early inroads and shattered Breese’s ulna. Luckily for Jamaica, Powell ensured that a meek Leewards batting line-up wouldn’t be able to post an adequate response to a modest total.Close 1st day Guyana 319 for 3 (Sarwan 151*, Chanderpaul 63*, Chattergoon 60) v Kenya
ScorecardRamnaresh Sarwan stroked his highest first-class score as Guyana inflicted heavy punishment on Kenya on the opening day at the Bourda Oval. Choosing to bat first on a placid wicket, Guyana finished on 319 for 3, with Sarwan unbeaten on 151.Shivnarine Chanderpaul was keeping him company, having got to 63 by stumps, and there was also a fine little cameo from Sewnarine Chattergoon (60). Kenya tried nine bowlers but could do nothing right on a day where their Carib Beer season went from bad to dreadful.Close 1st day Windward Islands 36 for 0 trail West Indies B 197 (Richards 74; Shillingford 4-50) by 161 runs
ScorecardShane Shillingford (4 for 50) and Deighton Butler (3 for 40) were the bowling heroes as Windward Islands bowled out West Indies B for 197 on the first day at the National Cricket Stadium in Grenada. Austin Richards (74) and Kenroy Williams (40) gave the total some respectability after West Indies B had collapsed to 14 for 3 in the morning.Windward Islands were 36 for 0 at the close, handily placed for a big first innings lead.

Yorkshire’s chairman has demanded a full and public apology after Terry Rooney, the Labour MP for Bradford North, said in Parliament that there was “deep-rooted embedded racism in Yorkshire County Cricket Club”.Rooney, 53, told the House of Commons: “Virtually every Test player fromYorkshire started in the Bradford League. About 60% of cricketers in the Bradford League are from the Indian subcontinent. Not one of them, despite their skills and abilities, has ever been adopted by the Yorkshire County Cricket Club, even at trainee level.”They have gone to other counties. Those have taken them on and they have gone into the first team. One or two have played at international level. There is only one name for that: deep-rooted, embedded racism in Yorkshire County Cricket Club. If we bear in mind that the club has not been particularly successful in the past 10 or 20 years, it is not a right good policy either.”Yorkshire won 29 County Championships between 1890 and 1968, but sincewinning in 2001 have been relegated from Division One and last summerfinished seventh in Division Two.Rooney spoke out strongly after the Bradford race riots in July 2001,and had asked whether the time had come to track and control movements of right-wing organisations like the National Front and the British National Party.But Robin Smith, Yorkshire’s chairman, told the that the comments were “incredibly hurtful and totally without foundation”. Heinsisted that the MP retract his comments and make a comprehensiveapology. “To say that I am livid about Mr Rooney’s comments is anunderstatement.”He went on: “The thing that annoys me most about his remarks is that they arefactually incorrect. Had Rooney made his comments outside of Parliament … we would have been able to consider the option of suing him.”To also suggest that no-one of Asian origin has come through theYorkshire system is similarly untrue: eight of our 22 academy playersare Asian and we’ve also had two represent the first team this year, inwicketkeeper Ismail Dawood and the right-arm seam bowler Ajmal Shahzad.So where exactly is he getting his facts from?”Shahzad, 19, plays for Windhill in the Bradford League, andhe became the first British-born Asian to represent Yorkshire’s first team, when he played against Worcestershire in a National Leaguematch at Headingley in May this year.”Yorkshire have been fantastic to me from day one,” Shahzad told theYorkshire Post. “Not once have I experienced any type of racismduring my time at Headingley. I really can’t understand why Yorkshirehave been accused.”Smith added: “If he [Rooney] wants to come to Headingley and see allthe work we have done and are doing with Asian players, he is most welcome.”

The Indian squad’s departure to Bangladesh has been delayed by at least one day after a radical Islamic group issued death threats to the players. The Indian cricket board received a letter from government agencies instructing them not to leave until at least December 8.A five-man security team, including officials from the home ministry, foreign ministry and the cricket board, rushed to Dhaka on Monday to assess the situation. “The threat could be a hoax,” KVS Katoch, an official of India’s home ministry, explained to reporters.The letter, from a hitherto unknown Islamic group, Harkat-ul-Jihad, threatened to kill players in revenge for riots in Gujarat three years ago. It was delivered to the Indian embassy in Dhaka last week.A spokesman at the Bangladesh high commission said the threats were a hoax and the Bangladesh Cricket Board insisted the tour would go ahead. “The so-called Harkat-ul-Jihad does not exist in Bangladesh,” explained Lutfuzzaman Babar, Bangladesh’s minister for home affairs. “Someone has sent the letter to tarnish Bangladesh’s image … no-one should worry about the security of the Indian team.”Newspapers in Bangladesh were equally dismissive of the threat.India are scheduled to play two Tests and three one-day internationals in Bangladesh. The first Test, at Dhaka, begins on December 9, although unless India leave on Tuesday it is unlikely that the game would start on time.

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