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In a surprising development, considering the intense competetion that has characterised previous bids involving the Indian board (BCCI), only one company has bid for three tenders issued on August 2.The last date for submission of tenders – for formal wear for the Indian team (2006-2010), for producing and executing ratings and award ceremony (2006-2011); and for ground rights for the tri-series in Singapore and Malaysia – was August 11 but only one company, Percept, met the deadline. The bids will be opened on Monday at Chennai during the BCCI’s marketing sub-committee meeting in Chennai.However, Lalit Modi, the chairman of BCCI’s marketing sub-committee, wasn’t alarmed. “The base price [for all three tenders] was around US$1million and whoever could afford have submitted,” he was quoted as saying in .Canali, the Italian-based company, had shown interest in the formal wear category but backed out once the bidding process began. “Canali’s proposal was an exchange offer and we had almost finalised things with them,” Modi continued. “But when others too came forward and offered to do the same we decided to go in for a bidding process.”And what of the ground rights of the Singapore-Malaysia tri-series? “Maybe they [bidders] felt the tournament comes in between Sri Lanka [Tri-series] and Champions Trophy,” Modi reasoned for the lukewarm response. “Anyone who fulfils the minimum criteria of $1m will get it. Those who can’t won’t put it.”

Queensland 9 for 264 (Maher 92, Symonds 73) defeated South Australia 195 by 69 runs
ScorecardQueensland extended South Australia’s horror run at the Gabba with an emphatic 69-run ING Cup victory. Unbeaten in two matches, Queensland charged four points clear of Tasmania at the top of the competition table by bowling the Redbacks out for 195 and earning a bonus point.The captain Jimmy Maher (92 from 123 balls) and Andrew Symonds (73 from 72) laid the foundations with a 132-run second-wicket stand to push the side to its 22nd win from 27 limited-overs matches against South Australia, who have won only twice at the Gabba.South Australia never appeared in the hunt chasing 265 after Andy Bichel continued his early-season purple patch by removing Ben Cameron and Callum Ferguson inside the first 10 overs. The offspinner Chris Simpson chimed in late to finish off the tail.Maher was Man of the Match but Symonds could easily have earned his second award after guiding the Bulls to a two-wicket win over New South Wales a fortnight ago. Symonds made an extremely cautious start, taking 10 balls to get off the mark, but peeled off 12 fours as his last 70 came from 52 balls.His wicket sparked a middle-order stumble and they lost 8 for 92 in the last 20 overs. Maher, the competition’s all-time leading run-scorer, looked set for his eighth domestic one-day century before being painfully run out in the 37th over.

It was billed as the contest between India’s batsmen and Pakistan’s pace attack. In the end, it turned out to be a fairly one-sided contest, as – save Umar Gul’s magnificent display at Lahore – the Indian top and middle order had the answer to almost everything that Pakistan’s fast bowlers threw at them.The spotlight has mostly been on Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid and co, but the surprise packets of the series were the raw and inexperienced Irfan Pathan and Lakshmipathy Balaji, who easily outshone their more famed counterparts from the Pakistan line-up. As the table below indicates, the Indian duo were runaway winners, taking ten more wickets at a considerably lower average and a far better strike rate.

Meanwhile, Anil Kumble took care of the spin department for India, but Danish Kaneria didn’t do too badly either, with seven wickets in two Tests at a reasonable average.

The key to the Indian batting was their ability to string together huge partnerships once they got starts. They had 12 stands of over 50, and on seven of those occasions they went to on convert those into century partnerships. Pakistan couldn’t even manage half that number. Interestingly, the third wicket stand was the most prolific for both teams, but there, as in partnerships for most other wickets, the Indians were a shade better.

One of the few contests where Pakistan did end up with the upper hand was the Shoaib v Tendulkar battle. Shoaib nailed his man twice in the one-dayers and once in the Test series, while Tendulkar only managed a total of 86 runs against him. That’s a stat which should give Shoaib license to gloat for the next couple of years.

Click here for the Test averages of both teams.S Rajesh is assistant editor of Wisden Cricinfo.

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Australia’s opening batsmen Matthew Hayden and Michael Slater both have injury worries ahead of Thursday’s Second Test against England at Lord’s.Neither player batted for the tourists on the third day of the Vodafone Challenge match against Somerset at Taunton today.Slater is nursing a wrist injury sustained while batting against Somersetguest player Shoaib Akhtar on Friday. However, both are said to be confident that they will be fit enough to play in the Lord’s Test.In a net session on the Taunton pitch this morning he batted one-handed with a strapping protecting his left wrist.Meanwhile, Hayden felt his right knee lock while fielding against Somerset yesterday and is not expected to bat or field in the remainder of the game.The pair opened the batting against England in the First Test at Edgbaston and put on 98 for the first wicket with Slater, in particular, looking in excellent form with a quickfire 77.In the first innings of the game against Somerset, Hayden managed only six runs and Slater 28. This morning Justin Langer and Simon Katich opened the batting for the Australians.

Fast bowler Tim Southee will lead New Zealand against the Prime Minister’s XI in Canberra on Friday. Captain Brendon McCullum’s preparation for the three-Test tour was interrupted by his having to travel to England last week to give testimony in the Chris Cairns trial, and while he has rejoined his team he will be rested from the first match of the tour.New Zealand coach Mike Hesson on Wednesday confirmed that BJ Watling would also sit out of the match and Kane Williamson would likely be rested as well, leaving Southee to step up as captain. The 50-over pink-ball match against the Prime Minister’s XI on Friday will be followed by a two-day match with a red ball against a Cricket Australia XI on Saturday and Sunday.”It will be a good opportunity for him, part of his role in the leadership group is to take a little bit more responsibility,” Hesson said of Southee. “I think he’s looking forward to it.”McCullum is likely to take some part in the match against the CA XI, and Hesson said he was confident the captain would be well prepared for the first Test starting at the Gabba on November 5.”He’ll play a part, but Brendon has been away from training for a little while,” Hesson said. “He’s looking forward to getting back into that. We’ll ease him back in, make sure he’s ready to go by Brisbane … We’ve known the timelines for a long time, so we’ve put plans in place and Brendon will be ready by Brisbane. He’s very much on track.”The matches in Canberra will also provide New Zealand with a look at potential Test opponents including Cameron Bancroft, Joe Burns and Usman Khawaja. The changing nature of Australia’s Test team after the retirements of Michael Clarke, Shane Watson, Chris Rogers, Ryan Harris and Brad Haddin give New Zealand hope of their first series win in Australia for 30 years.”There’s been some good New Zealand sides come over here in the past and I think it’s shown how formidable Australia are in their own backyard,” Hesson said. “1985 is a long time ago. A lot of us still remember that quite fondly. We’ve had the odd Test win, in 2011, but to win a series over here you know you have to play very well. We won’t get too far ahead of ourselves.”It cannot have escaped the attention of the New Zealanders that Australia struggled against the swinging ball on this year’s Ashes tour, as they had against Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Doug Bracewell in Hobart in 2011. Since then, Boult and Southee especially have continued to trouble batsmen with their ability to move the ball.”Anyone in the world struggles against the swinging ball,” Hesson said. “That’s shown over the last few years, and Tim and Trent are pretty good exponents. I think if those two get it right and it does swing, they can put any side under pressure. Australia is no exception to that.”However, Australia’s own swing weapon could be Mitchell Starc, who was Player of the Tournament in their successful World Cup campaign earlier in the year and has dominated the Matador Cup one-day series so far, with a remarkable 23 wickets at 7.47 from five games. Although the white ball has been his specialty in recent times, Starc has got the New Zealanders thinking ahead of the Tests.”We’ve asked for some big, tall left-arm bowlers to bowl to us in the nets,” Hesson said. “He’s a high quality bowler, especially in white ball. In Test cricket he’s obviously very good as well, but probably doesn’t have quite the record that he has got with the white ball. The key thing with any bowler is to take them a bit deeper, and if the ball stops swinging it’s a little bit easier. Plenty of hard work to go into that beforehand.”However, the third Test of the series will be played with neither the red ball nor the white ball, with the inaugural day-night Test to be contested in Adelaide with a pink ball. New Zealand will have a hit-out against the pink ball in the PM’s XI game, having already worked with pink balls at a two-day training camp in Hamilton earlier this month.”That removed an element of the unknown,” Hesson said. “I think the guys enjoyed that. A one-day game with white clothing and pink ball will be a little bit of a novelty in itself, a nice way to start the tour.”

Trevor Barsby, the former opening batsman, will begin coaching Queensland immediately following a restructure that pushed Terry Oliver into the new position of high performance manager. Oliver has looked after the Bulls for six years, but the team has struggled in the Pura Cup over the past two seasons, finishing fourth and last, and has lost some long-term players in Jimmy Maher and Michael Kasprowicz.Queensland Cricket completed a two-month review of its major teams before settling on the revamped structure. Oliver departs for the West Indies on Saturday as an assistant with the national team and when he returns he will oversee all of the state’s elite programmes.Barsby, a level three coach, played 111 first-class games for Queensland and will step up from his post at the Queensland Academy of Sport, where he has worked since 2005. “I’ll be looking to use the experience I had as a player with Queensland, through the good times and the bad, to work with the current group,” Barsby said. “This decision allows the Bulls to focus on playing and the coaches to focus on coaching.”After starting his state career in 1984-85, Barsby experienced some painful near-misses in the Sheffield Shield before scoring 151 in the breakthrough win in 1994-95. He retired after the 1996-97 success in Perth.Damien Mullins, the Queensland Cricket chairman, said Oliver’s role was the most significant appointment since John Buchanan was hired in 1994. “It comes after some intensive scrutiny of how we have managed our elite programmes in the past,” Mullins said. “Terry takes on this position after following a pathway through Queensland Cricket that has seen him progress through our system, first as a player and then as a coach, so that he has a deep understanding of all of our processes.”Oliver was in charge when the Bulls won the 2005-06 Pura Cup and the 2006-07 FR Cup. “I’m excited about taking Queensland in a new direction,” he said, “while also maintaining contact with the Bulls and working closely with Trevor.”

Lasith Malinga began Bangladesh’s slide towards their lowest total in Test cricket in his first over and proceeded to blow away the top four batsmen to finish with 4 for 25 in nine overs on the first day at the P Saravanamuttu Stadium in Colombo.”For me the first over is the best. I put in a lot of effort in that over to capture as many wickets as possible,” said Malinga after the day’s play. “My fast bowling coach, Champaka Ramanayake, has instilled in me that the first ball of the match is the most important. I begin every match with that attitude. I give the ball 100%.”Malinga said Bangladesh’s dismal batting was not due to poor technique but because Sri Lanka made use of the conditions and bowled well. He said the ball swung more here than at the SSC on the first day probably due to the overnight rain. When questioned whether playing against a weak side like Bangladesh brought him easy wickets, Malinga replied: “I try to obtain wickets with variations. I don’t’ think any side gives you wickets easily. It’s a challenge for me to take wickets. There are a lot of fast bowlers on the fringe waiting to get into the side. So it’s a challenge to perform well to be in the team.”Malinga said there was intense competition for places in the team. “With Murali going for [Shane] Warne’s record, [Chaminda] Vaas having taken over 300 Test wickets and two other fast bowlers supporting them, there is competition in our bowling line-up to take wickets. Murali doesn’t have the pressure he used to have because every one of us is taking wickets.”

The interim executive of Zimbabwe Cricket has announced that it has dissolved the existing five provinces and replaced them with ten new boards.The move, which had been planned for some time, further weakens opposition to Peter Chingoka, the ZC chairman, and his executive as many of the existing provincial board members are now to all intents and purposes redundant.A statement issued by ZC said that it had received applications for affiliation from five provinces around the country – Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland East, Mashonaland West, Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South – and that it had “affiliated them in line with the policy of the country’s sports regulatory authority, the Sports and Recreation Commission, for national sporting associations to devolve along the country’s 10 administrative provinces.””In affiliating the five, we have not only implemented one of the Interim Committee’s terms of reference but also continued with the ZC mission of spreading the game to all the corners of the country without regard to race or creed,” Chingoka explained. “We will continue working with the new affiliates to create provincial cricket administrative structures.”Three of the five – Manicaland, Masvingo and Midlands – were dissolved because they did not “conform with the new geographical limitations of their central government administrative namesakes”. The other two – the more infulential Mashonaland and Matabeleland – have effectively been split in smaller units.Much of the opposition to Chingoka has centred on the old established provinces, and their demise and division will ease the pressure on the board. Furthermore, ZC, which has effectively cleansed itself of any dissenters in recent months, will appoint interim committees to run the new entities pending the drawing up of new constitutions and fresh elections.The new ZC affiliates are as follows:
Harare Metropole Provincial Cricket Association
Bulawayo Metropole Provincial Cricket Association
Matabeleland North Provincial Cricket Association
Matabeleland South Provincial Cricket Association
Mashonaland Central Provincial Cricket Association
Mashonaland East Provincial Cricket Association
Mashonaland West Provincial Cricket Association
Manicaland Provincial Cricket Association
Masvingo Provincial Cricket Association
Midlands Provincial Cricket Association

Scorecard

Middlesex and Surrey played out a draw on a slow final day at Lord’s. Surrey’s bowlers failed to make inroads as Middlesex kept their Eds – Smith and Joyce – long enough to put the result beyond doubt. Smith posted 88 and Joyce made 60 and, with Surrey’s bowlers failing to find any penetration on a flattish pitch, the game petered out into a tame draw.The final day started with Surrey in a position to go for the win and Graham Thorpe – Surrey’s stand-in captain in the absence of the injured Mark Ramprakash – kept the catchers in but his bowlers lacked the venom to force the issue. Thorpe turned to Dominic Thornely to try for the breakthrough. It was a sound decision: Thornely removed Smith 12 short of what would have been only the third championship century for Middlesex this season. But by that time, Smith and Joyce had posted a stand of 100 and the result was a foregone conclusion.Smith played well for his 88 while Joyce again showed why he is England class with his 60, which included nine fours, before Harbhajan Singh eventually trapped him lbw. Singh bowled consistently but, as with the rest of the attack, rarely was he threatening. Not that he had much opportunity: he was given only ten overs on the final day.The game meandered on – and even the commentators on Sky Sports began to question whether this was a great advertisement for the county game. Scott Styris helped himself to a stylish 55, while Ben Scott added 61 not out from lower down the order and by the close Middlesex were 353 for 6.The pitch didn’t help the search for a result, neither did the loss of 30 overs last night through bad light. “We wanted to try to get a lead [on the third day] and there were some tired bowlers out there,” Ramprakash told Sky Sports after the match. “But then the bad light came and we can’t control that.”Nevertheless, he was in bullish mood, as Surrey recorded yet another draw. “We are very happy with how we are playing at the moment. Twice in this match we had Middlesex under pressure. If we keep putting ourselves in those positions, I think those wins will come.”He confirmed that he has a hairline fracture of his thumb and is not anticipating a return to action for at least three weeks.