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West Ham currently find themselves between a rock and a hard place regarding star centre-back Winston Reid.

The New Zealand skipper is yet to extend his current contract past the end of the season and according to Hammers owner David Sullivan, wants European football.

That could be with the Irons come the end of the campaign, who are currently in 6th place,  but the impetus on Sam Allardyce’s part is to sell in January rather than risk losing Reid for free in the summer.

Either way, some replacements for the 26 year-old need to be considered and just in case Big Sam is surprisingly short on ideas, here’s FIVE courtesy of Football FanCast…

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DAN BURN

The West Ham boss was largely dismissive about reports linking the East Londoners with Fulham’s Dan Burn during last week’s press conference:

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But measuring in at a whopping 6 foot 7, everything about the young centre-back screams Sam Allardyce.

Not to suggest height is the only thing Big Sam looks for in a transfer target and the technical side of Burn’s game still requires some work. But the 22 year-old’s an unstoppable force in the air and at his best when sticking to the basics – headers, tackles, clearances – which fits perfectly into the defensive mantra West Ham have adopted since 2011.

Here’s a look at his stats over the last few campaigns:

Some sources have mooted a £4million bid in the New Year, but Cottagers gaffer Kit Symons has made his feelings abundantly clear, recently telling reporters; “I want to keep Dan. He’s a big part of how we play and he’s been excellent since he’s come in – he’s one of our leaders.”

CURTIS DAVIES

Curtis Davies has been in consistently exemplary form since Hull City returned to the Premier League in summer 2013. Last season, he captained the Tigers to within minutes of winning the FA Cup against Arsenal and this year Whoscored.com rate him as the best centre-back in the Premier League, alongside partner Michael Dawson:

The 6 foot 2 defender has spent the vast majority of his career bobbing between English football’s top two tiers and now 29 years of age, appears to be finally hitting his footballing peak. Here’s a look at Davies’ stats over the last two campaigns:

Currently, there’s not much noise suggesting the former West Brom, Aston Villa and Birmingham centre-back would be interested in a move away from the KC Stadium.

But there will be just a year left on Davies’ contract come the summer, which could give the Hammers a way in.

RON VLAAR

Much like Winston Reid, Ron Vlaar’s contract is up at the end of the season and he’s resultantly been linked to some top Premier League clubs:

The Netherlands international’s domineering World Cup performances verged upon talismanic, helping Louis van Gaal’s side win the third-place playoff. Here are Vlaar’s highlights from Brazil 2014:

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He’s never quite matched that form during 63 Premier League outings for the Villains, but the World Cup displays demonstrated Vlaar’s potential to play at a much higher level.

Furthermore, it appears a Villa Park departure is now inevitable, with boss Paul Lambert claiming Vlaar’s agent gave him a ‘thanks, but no thanks’ in regards to a new contract.

As previously mentioned however, West Ham will have to fend off some strong competition for the 6 foot 2 centre-back’s signature.

Virgil van Dijk

Certainly not someone you’d describe as a traditional Sam Allardyce centre-back, but recent reports claim the Hammers could be in for Celtic star Virgil van Dijk:

The Dutch youngster’s developed at a sensational rate since joining the Scottish champions last summer, winning the Bhoys’ Player of the Year award last season, and it now seems inevitable that he’ll swap Celtic Park for the Premier League at some point in the near future.

Unlike West Ham’s current centre-back mould, the 23 year-old is famed for his front-front style, technical quality and potency from long range – take this free kick against Hibernian for example:

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But the Hammers have undergone a mini-revolution under Allardyce this season and in that regard, the former Oranje U21 fits the bill perfectly.

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Once again however, the £7million-rated defender has attracted some major suitors over the last eighteen months, including Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United.

Aleksandar Dragovic

Most likely the priciest defender on this list, West Ham reportedly sent scouts to watch Austria centre-back Aleksandar Dragovic in action during the international break:

The 23 year-old is best famed from his time at FC Basel, where he won three consecutive Super League titles and continually earned rave reviews before joining Dynamo Kiev in summer 2013. Here’s a look at some of his highlights for Bebbi:

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He followed that up with a Ukrainian Cup last year, but it’s believed the 6 foot 1 centre-back is growing increasingly concerned with the political and military unrest in Ukraine.

A winter move could resultantly be on the cards and the Hammers are known suitors. But they’ll have to act quickly to land Dragovic, with reports last week claiming Spartak Moscow have already tabled a £12million offer.

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Last week James Lawton wrote a piece in the Independent, entitled ‘What the NFL can teach the Premier League about financial fair play.’ Taking Arsenal’s letter to Richard Scudamore as a chance to reflect on the way other sports – namely the NFL – organise themselves to create a league based on fair play. Lawton hinted at how the Premier League could be a more level playing field, eulogising the unity seen in American Football.

I want to look at the notion of a draft system and consider whether it could be implemented and if it were, how it might play out over here.

The draft system is a recruitment process where the worst team in any given year is given the first pick of that year’s talented crop of college stars. The Super Bowl winners obviously have less of a recruitment need and are accordingly given the last pick. In this instance, the Premier League champions would pick last and the 20th placed team get a chance to sign up the next Wayne Rooney. If the worst team in the league can make the right choice, the potential for success is huge.

Firstly, the Premier League is not a closed league like the NFL, where 32 teams compete against one another each and every year. A closed league makes it easy to spread the wealth of talented nascent superstars coming through college level and onto the professional scene. I don’t have to tell anyone of the many falls from grace experienced by countless managers, players and fans after relegation from an open league, never to reach the top flight again. Although, the relegation rule renders a draft system a pretty difficult idea to bring about.

Lets look at Andrew Luck, drafted by last year’s worst team – Indianapolis Colts – with a win/loss record of 2-14. With Luck they managed to finish the 2012/13 regular season with a record of 11-5, qualifying for the postseason and a chance to compete for the Super Bowl. The same applies to the Washington Redskins and RGIII, another bad team who made the postseason after picking the second overall pick behind Luck. These guys could potentially dominate the league for years to come. Although, there are a few anomalies in the draft, like Mr-Ugg-himself-Tom-Brady who was the 199th overall pick in the 6th round of the 2000 draft. He’s kind of like the greatest quarterback of all time (discounting the fact that he lost in the AFC Championship on Sunday night to the Ravens). Some people get overlooked and drafting isn’t a key to success – it just helps to level the field.

But imagine the Premier League is a closed league, and that young players are recruited for college teams (managed by more than capable coaches) before being drafted to the Premier League according to league position. We’re not going to come up with a solution here and the results of this fantasy game won’t exactly result in hard-hitting evidence, but it’s fun to make believe now and then. So we walk through the wardrobe and are transported to the land of drafting and fairness. Lets imagine again that when Rooney was 21, and performing pretty amazingly I might add (he scored 20 goals in all competitions and United won the league), that at 21, Rooney was picked up by last place Derby in 2007/08. Plus, he was accompanied through the doors of Pride Park by a few other key players in the 2007/08 draft, players who might compliment him in the 2008/09 season (a season where Rooney and United won the league again, by the way). Think of the difference it would make on both Derby’s season and United’s. Lets not forget that Derby finished 18th in the Championship after relegation. I feel pretty confident in saying that Rooney could’ve helped them back into the top flight if the relegation rule was still in place. Otherwise in a closed league I’m sure Rooney would help Derby compete, and consequently help to attract better players who might be at the end of their contract. What would that mean for a team like Derby? If the same theory were to be applied throughout the league do you think things would be a little more competitive? Unfortunately, it’s not possible. Why would the Premier League’s top six or seven teams agree to send the country’s top talent to the worst team? And if the relegation rule is still in place in our crazy world of fairness, would they want to see the best players go to the Championship? They wouldn’t. We haven’t even factored in UEFA, a European footballing organization with regulatory powers over Europe –but you knew that. All of the top leagues around Europe would have to agree to a draft system, leaving a lot of empty trophy cabinets and perhaps even a few empty pockets. We haven’t even brought up the EU, with the freedom of movement for workers opening up the draft to a potentially bigger market. The issue gets muddied, politicized and a little more complex the deeper you get into it.

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The idea, as Lawton implies, is something that the NFL can teach us. His headline exaggerates things a little, but the implication is that we could learn from American sports. Simply put, this isn’t something that the NFL can teach us. Such drastic changes are unworkable, but it doesn’t stop a few people from paying homage to an American sport with impractical ideas. I can’t see Barcelona training up the best of the best at La Masia, only to give them up to Deportivo. We can only learn from North America on a commercial basis. But perhaps there’s another solution to make the game fairer. To start with, how about a salary cap to stop teams like Manchester City and Chelsea from stockpiling players to warm their benches. It’s a waste of talent with wider repercussions – both financially and competitively – for the rest of the teams. City wouldn’t be able to bench a player on £200,000 a week if there was a salary cap in place. Instead, you’d have to start using cheaper, younger players hungry for an opportunity.  Personally, I’d like to see a little more fairness – spreading the talent around – for teams and fans who deserve to enjoy good football and the glory attached to winning silverware.

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Stoneman top-scores with 63 in low-scoring final-day nerve-shredder in Cardiff

ECB Reporters Network20-May-2024Middlesex secured a two-wicket victory over Glamorgan in their Vitality County Championship match in Cardiff with Mark Stoneman top-scoring in a win that came right down to the last few overs on the fourth day.Glamorgan were miles behind in this match before 48 runs and five wickets from Mason Crane took them close to victory in a thrilling finish on the final evening.Middlesex looked to be cruising to victory before a collapse of four for 15 put them in real danger of defeat but they managed to sneak home to claim the win thanks to a 52-run stand for the penultimate wicket between Tom Helm and Jack Davies. This win gives Middlesex 21 points from this game with Glamorgan securing just two bowling bonus points.As was the case in the first innings, runs from Zain-ul-Hassan and Crane kept Glamorgan in the hunt in this match. The pair had been the top-scorers in Glamorgan’s under-par batting efforts on day one, and here they put on a stand of 61 to take the lead past 200.Zain was the first to go when he turned a ball into the leg side for an easy catch for Ryan Higgins off the bowling of Ethan Bamber for 34, the same score he managed in the first innings.Crane looked to take the fight to Middlesex as he batted with Andy Gorvin. The pair had put on another 17 runs when Gorvin gave a catch to point off the bowling of Luke Hollman. It was also Hollman who claimed the final wicket when he dismissed Crane for 48 with a thick edge that was well taken by wicket-keeper, Davies.Middlesex started their chase brightly with Sam Robson and Stoneman putting on a stand worth 65. Robson was the first wicket to fall when he was dismissed by Andy Gorvin for 31. He chopped the ball on to his stumps, the sixth time this had happened in this match as the two-paced nature of this Cardiff surface continued to make an impact.Crane got the ball to turn big once he was introduced to the attack and he made the next breakthrough when he spun one past an attempted sweep from Max Holman to bowl him for 28.Crane had a huge shout for lbw against Leus du Plooy which was turned down, but Harris got him in the very next over when he struck his pads in front and the umpire gave the decision in the bowler’s favour.Crane had Higgins caught behind for 1 and as the game headed into the final session the match it was nicely poised with Glamorgan needing six wickets on a pitch that was getting increasingly hard to bat on and Middlesex still 93 runs short of their victory target.Crane made another breakthrough when he had Nathan Fernandes caught at slip but the moment that created this thrilling finish was when Gorvin got Stoneman caught by Cooke for 63.Two wickets in two balls from Crane to dismiss both Toby Roland-Jones and Luke Hollman without scoring left this game on a knife edge before the ninth wicket stand between Davies and Helm took Middlesex to victory with just five overs left in the match.

Brothers Union and City Club remain winless after playing three matches each

Mohammad Isam22-Mar-2023Defending champions Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club are among the four clubs who have claimed full points with wins in all of their respective matches in the first week of this season’s Dhaka Premier League. The other teams who have gone unscathed are Abahani Limited, Prime Bank and Legends of Rupganj.Abahani climbed to second place after their six-wicket win over old rivals Mohammedan Sporting Club at the Shere Bangla National Stadium on Wednesday.Brothers Union and City Club remain winless after playing three matches each.

Best batters of the week – Mohammad Naim and Irfan Sukkur

Left-hand batters Mohammad Naim and Irfan Sukkur are currently on top of the batters’ charts. Naim’s unbeaten 110 was decisive in Abahani’s big win over Mohammedan. Brothers Union’s Tanzid Hasan made a run-a-ball 142 against Legends of Rupganj.Mominul Haque, playing for Rupganj Tigers, smacked a 41-ball 74 against Mohammedan.

Best bowlers – Elias Sunny and Alauddin Babu

Left-arm spinner Elias Sunny took a five-wicket haul against newcomers Dhaka Leopards, while Alauddin Babu took his five-for, which included a hat-trick, against Gazi Group Cricketers. Fast bowlers have had a good run so far – four other four-wicket hauls have all been by quick bowlers.

The close match – Legends of Rupganj vs Brothers Union

Legends of Rupganj beat Brothers Union by three wickets in a high-scoring match at the BKSP-3 ground. Rupganj chased down the target of 300 with eight balls to spare, with Chirag Jani top scoring with 94. Earlier, Tanzid scored 142 to take Brothers Union to 299 for 5.

Players to watch

Akbar Ali, the much-talked-about Under-19 World Cup-winning captain, started this DPL season with a fifty for Gazi Group Cricketers. He is the only big name from that 2020 batch to have not made it to the Bangladesh senior side yet, so Akbar will be looking at maximising his opportunities this season.

Gloucestershire secure victory despite Varun Chopra’s 154 but miss out on knockout spot thanks to NRR

ECB Reporters Network07-May-2019James Bracey scored his maiden one-day century to hand Gloucestershire victory over Essex, but it was in vain as his side exited the Royal London Cup.Batsman Bracey, who only made his format debut earlier in the competition, crashed a classy hundred from 86 balls to see Gloucestershire to a four-wicket victory. But wins for Middlesex and Somerset elsewhere meant the west country men failed to go through due to their lower net run rate.Essex, who were knocked out before the match having only managed two victories in the tournament, had posted 293 thanks to Varun Chopra’s third ton of this year’s competition.Gloucestershire began their reply confidently, although Miles Hammond rode his luck when he was dropped on 20 by Dan Lawrence on the square-leg boundary. Hammond, on the back of 95 against Sussex, only scored one more run before he was caught behind off Simon Harmer while aiming down the track, before Aaron Beard demolished Gareth Roderick’s stumps.Chris Dent and Bracey then settled the innings down and put Gloucestershire on track with the required run rate during an 117-run stand. Neither came across as overly aggressive but both accumulated with skill, both posting half centuries – Dent from 67 balls and Bracey from 51 balls, which included a firmly struck six down the ground.The partnership was broken when Dent walked following a low catch to Harmer at short midwicket and Graeme van Buuren and Jack Taylor followed in quick succession, skewing to mid-on and lbw respectively.Beard, on just his second List A outing, ended with figures of 3 for 51 as he had Ryan Higgins well caught by Harmer running around to cover.
Gloucestershire still needed 86 from 9.5 after that wicket but Bracey maturely ticked the runs off along with Benny Howell, who had a runner after injuring his hamstring in the field. Bracey ended with an unbeaten 113 but it was Howell who ended the game by carting Matt Coles for six over midwicket.Earlier, stand-in Essex captain Harmer won the toss and elected to bat on a good-looking wicket, which proved a tad sluggish as the match went on.Chopra enjoyed stands of 42 and 66 for the first and second wickets with Alastair Cook and Tom Westley but both partnerships were ended by run outs. Cook was called through for a quick single after flicking to square leg, before Westley greedily attempted a third run – both comfortably short of their ground after van Buuren’s throws.Lawrence and Ravi Bopara both departed quickly, the former handing Bracey his maiden professional wicket and the latter bowled through the gate by Tom Smith.Essex looked below par at 147 for 4 but they still had Chopra, who owed his team-mates, and he carried the innings – bringing up his half-century in 70 balls. The opener continued his sluggish pace as he ticked over three figures in 129 deliveries during an 83-run stand with Rishi Patel, who scored 26 before edging behind when trying to whoosh down the ground.That wicket saw Chopra kick on with power – demonstrated with sixes down the ground and over deep square-leg – and deftness with paddle sweeps, as he passed through 150 in 163 deliveries. He fell a few balls later, finishing his season with 421 runs from five innings.The hosts looked set for a push for 300 but Essex lost five wickets in the last six-and-a-half overs to stutter to the innings break, and Gloucestershire maintained the momentum to complete their chase with seven balls to spare.

It does not take much to get fans excited about a possible return to form for the Lancashire prodigy

ESPNcricinfo staff06-Apr-2019It may have been against a bunch of students, and in a match lacking first-class status, but it does not take much to get England fans excited about a possible return to form for Haseeb Hameed. Having reaching his double-hundred on Friday, Hameed was finally dismissed on the second morning of Lancashire’s warm-up match against Loughborough MCCU for 218.The Loughborough attack had a grand total of 11 first-class wickets between them, but Hameed showed the commitment to ruthless accumulation that marked him out as a teenager, batting for more than six hours and facing 336 deliveries after coming in at No. 3.Picked by England at 19, Hameed’s form subsequently fell away dramatically. After a dreadful 2018 summer, when he averaged 9.70 from 17 innings for Lancashire – with a top score of 31 – his efforts at the university ground in Loughborough will encourage the hope that he can interest the selectors again.England’s Test team remains unsettled, with little certainty around the likely top three to face Australia during the Ashes later this summer. Keaton Jennings, Hameed’s Lancashire team-mate, was dropped in the Caribbean, before making an unsuccessful return in the third Test against West Indies, while Rory Burns averages 25.00 and Joe Denly has only played two Tests. Any signs that Hameed could push his case would doubtless be welcomed.Hameed was seemingly destined for great things when he broke into the Test team in 2016, becoming the fifth-youngest man to debut for England. He scored two half-centuries in six innings against India before a hand injury ended his tour early, but then suffered a prolonged slump that saw him slip out of contention as Jennings and then Mark Stoneman stepped in to partner the now-retired Alastair Cook.Lancashire are due to open their Championship campaign against Middlesex at Lord’s next week, when Jennings will also be looking to hit the ground running against an attack that could feature a pair of potential Ashes candidates in Steven Finn and Toby Roland-Jones.

Conscious of the need to compete with other T20 leagues, Cricket Australia will explore having separate funds to encourage the biggest names to sign up

Daniel Brettig18-Feb-2019A ring-fenced marquee fund to attract overseas players to the Big Bash League is under strong consideration by Cricket Australia as the governing body begins its debrief of a tournament that expanded enormously in 2018-19 while also raising numerous red flags in terms of crowds, broadcast audiences and scheduling.BBL clubs and broadcasters are both adamant that more needs to be done to bring in major names such as AB de Villiers, Eoin Morgan and Andre Russell in an increasingly competitive global T20 marketplace, with each group raising the issue in recent weeks.ESPNcricinfo understands that CA will explore the option of creating a separate marquee fund for overseas players, outside the general BBL salary cap of AUD1.77 million and similar to that used by the A-League in concert with Fox Sports. This would serve to close the yawning gap that has opened up in terms of potential remuneration for players coming to Australia relative to the Bangladesh Premier League and Pakistan Super League, to name but two of the competitions on the circuit.ALSO READ: Big Bash team of the tournamentWhile any such fund is unlikely to be large enough as to compete dollar for dollar with other leagues that are defined by privately-run franchises and the deep pockets of many of their owners, the ability to offer international marquee names a contractual figure somewhat closer to those available elsewhere will bring in other pull factors such as Australia’s weather and lifestyle that had attracted numerous high profile players in the past.The questions of how the marquee fund would work, and how players would be distributed among the clubs – perhaps via the use of a draft based on finishing positions from the previous tournament – remain to be answered. CA’s previous use of extra marketing funds to sweeten deals for the likes of Shane Warne and Kevin Pietersen has been raised by clubs, with the qualification that any new fund must apply more equitably to all.

The BBL debrief

How to attract more of the best overseas players
Length of the tournament
The best structure for the finals
Ensure high-quality pitches

Other areas in which the BBL will be the subject of plenty of review discussion will include its 60-day running time, a stretch that many players and coaches thought too long relative to the number of matches, not least the coach of the champion Melbourne Renegades team, Andrew McDonald.”I think I have formed some strong views around it,” McDonald told Radio. “I think it went too long in terms of time frame. We saw it sort of peter out coming to the business end. I think it lifted again for the Grand Final but the semi-finals I think were sort of somehow lost. If you weren’t probably working in the industry you didn’t realise that they were on.”I think the 14 games was magnificent. I think the opportunity that creates for the younger players, we see it in the IPL as well, where younger Indian players get an opportunity throughout a 14-game season, I think we saw that with the younger Australian players coming in, the Sam Harpers, the Mackenzie Harveys for us, and I think that’s great that those guys are getting opportunities and that will accelerate their development and fast track them where they need to get to.ALSO READ: Renegade Boyce atones for unceremonious Hurricanes exit“I think there’s a lot of positives that go with 14 games. We had a couple of seven, eight-day breaks that didn’t make a lot of sense at the back end and made it difficult really to be fair. We sent players home, guys were going back to their home states for three or four days and coming back in. So we would have liked that accelerated a little bit at the back end.”Kim McConnie, the head of the BBL, said ahead of a final watched by 40,816 spectators and a combined average broadcast audience of 1.14 million that the Sydney and Melbourne markets both needed more attention. “The reason we shifted to a full home and away season was to make sure we are a sport for all Australians, and in order to be a sport for all Australians, you need to play in all parts of Australia,” McConnie told .”We also knew that it wasn’t going to be about average attendances. We also knew that it was going to take fans a while to catch up…that we’d end up with smaller crowds at some games. And we’re OK with that. It’s going to take us a couple of seasons to push that back up. Because this is only our eighth year, we’ve got the luxury of time.”The challenges we see are in our two-team markets. As we look at it, there are a couple of isolated areas where in big major cities, we’re just competing against so much more, it’s a little bit harder for us to pick up that momentum. There’s a little bit more work to do in Sydney and Melbourne to build the fan base back up again.”There is also a strong lobby by numerous clubs to change the finals series format from two semis and a final to a system whereby the top two teams get a double chance. “The finals is one of the things that we’re going to review first,” McConnie said. “We’re going to see if this finals structure is the best structure. There’s definitely momentum for the top team getting a second chance.”

A majority of county chairmen want the Blast to be expanded as part of the changes to English professional cricket from 2020

Matt Roller21-Aug-2018The Vitality Blast group stage could be extended from 14 to 16 games because county chairmen are lobbying to rid the competition of its existing uneven format and maximise revenue in the process.Since 2014, each side has played seven home games in the group stages, meaning that they miss out on hosting one team, and counties are pushing for change both for competitive and commercial reasons.The change would likely come into effect for the 2020 season, when the Blast will become the secondary short-form competition in English domestic cricket after the introduction of The Hundred.ESPNCricinfo understands that the vast majority of counties would support a change to eight home games per season, with a majority of 12 required.For commercial reasons, the game counties miss is not identified as one of their most lucrative with derby matches gaining particular protection.For example, Middlesex play their London derby against Surrey home and away every year, but have missed a home fixture against Glamorgan and Kent every other year since the current format’s introduction.Other traditional rivalries – Lancashire v Yorkshire, Gloucestershire v Somerset, and Sussex v Hampshire – are also played twice every season.The group stage of the domestic twenty-over competition did last 16 games in its previous guise as the Friends Life T20 in 2010 and 2011, when the schedule was widely criticised for being too long. Some games were played in front of extremely sparse midweek crowds in those seasons.However, attendances have continued to rise in recent seasons – over 900,000 people went to a domestic T20 game in 2017 – and counties are keen to host an additional game each.There had been suggestions that the Blast’s group stage would be cut to 10 games, with three groups of six instead of two groups of nine, from 2020 onwards, but it is unlikely that such a change would find support among counties for whom T20 cricket is a vital source of income.The Blast would start in mid-May – around six weeks earlier than it did this year – and run through to mid-July, with the One Day Cup expected to follow, running alongside the Hundred.One competition must suffer a fall in standard when The Hundred raids the country’s best players for the eight-team format and the working party set up to make proposals as to the structure of the game, under the chairmanship of Leicestershire chief executive Wasim Khan, seems poised to conclude that the 50-over competition should take the hit.Meanwhile, the prospect of a conference format being introduced for the County Championship is understood to have diminished sharply.It had previously been reported that counties backed the idea of removing the current system of promotion and relegation in favour of three groups of six followed by play-offs between teams in different groups, but support for the idea has waned.

A round-up of the Ranji Trophy Group B matches on October 30, 2015

ESPNcricinfo staff30-Oct-2015
ScorecardFile photo – Jiwanjot Singh was the only batsman to pass 50 on either side•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Seventeen wickets fell on the opening day in Patiala even as Punjab secured the first-innings lead.Electing to bat, Andhra were shot out for 80 in 45 overs, with only opener DB Prasanth (33) passing 20. The visitors slumped to 22 for 3 and never recovered from the poor start, as Punjab’s spin trio of captain Gurkeerat Singh (11-5-14-4), legspinner Sarabjit Ladda, who took five wickets in the last game, and left-armer Rajwinder Singh picked up eight wickets between them. Seamer Siddarth Kaul claimed the other wickets to fall.Punjab started well in their reply with opener Jiwanjot Singh and Uday Kaul putting on 58 runs for the second wicket. But after Uday was trapped lbw by Prasanth, who took three wickets with his leg breaks, Punjab slid from 73 for 1 to 119 for 7. Jiwanjot resisted for more than two and a half hours before being bowled by Prasanth with less than four overs to go for stumps.Andhra vice-captain Prasanth said the surface was “underprepared”, but wasn’t particularly difficult to bat on. “It’s rank turner obviously, but if you have confidence on your defence you can easily negotiate,” Prasanth told ESPNcricinfo. What the pitch did today it will do the same thing tomorrow. There is not much cracks… it is not opening at all. We will fight hard tomorrow to get into the game.”
ScorecardB Indrajith’s second first-class hundred held Tamil Nadu’s innings together after they were inserted in Delhi.Tamil Nadu didn’t have the best of starts, as opener B Aparajith was bowled by seamer Anureet Singh in the seventh over with the team’s score on 6. But, captain Abhinav Mukund and Dinesh Karthik put on 61 runs before seamer Ranjit Mali dismised him
Abhinav fell one short of his 50 and then Vijay Shankar was dismissed by Anureet to reduce the visitors to 101 for 4.Indrajith, coming in at No.5, first put on 79 runs for the fifth wicket with R Prasanna before raising 78 runs in the company of J Kousik. Indrajith remained unbeaten at stumps while Anureet picked up three wickets.Tamil Nadu vice-captain Indrajith said the pitch was even-paced and good to bat on despite some movement off the surface throughout the day. “It tends to ease out once you settle down and is good for the batsmen. [A total of] 350 is ideal, but we would like to get more than 400,” he said. “Whenever they bowled short, the run-scoring opportunities opened up and it made things easy for me.”Indrajith said there were a couple of “soft dismissals”, but credited Anureet with bowling consistently well through the day.
ScorecardUttar Pradesh recovered from a wobbly beginning to post a decent total after electing to bat in Valsad.After the visitors were reduced to 87 with 4, with Umang Sharma and Mohammad Saif being dismissed in the space of two overs, Himanshu Asnora and captain Eklavya Dwivedi added 61 runs. After Dwivedi and Ali Murtaza were removed by Jasprit Bumrah, Asnora put on 58 runs. Asnora then went on to raise 43 runs for the ninth wicket in the company of Saurabh Kumar, and remained unbeaten.Rush Kalaria picked up three wickets for Gujarat.
ScorecardBaroda’s bowlers stifled Madhya Pradesh after the visitors opted to bat in Vadodara. Madhya Pradesh were reduced to 4 for 2 in the fourth over after both the openers, Aditya Shrivastava and Jalaj Saxena, were dismissed for ducks.Captain Devendra Bundela and Rajat Patidar, however, added 73 before Bhargav Bhatt had Bundela lbw. Patidar and Harpreet Singh added 50 runs for the fourth wicket. Swapnil Singh then struck twice to reduce Madhya Pradesh to 127 for 5 before the middle-order showed some resistance.

Mumbai Indians have not ruled out Sachin Tendulkar’s participation in the second Qualifier on May 24

ESPNcricinfo staff22-May-2013Mumbai Indians have not ruled out Sachin Tendulkar’s participation in the second qualifier on May 24, despite the batsman suffering a wrist injury for which the normal recovery time is around three weeks.Medium-pacer Dhawal Kulkarni, however, will not play further part in Mumbai’s campaign because of a side strain, the franchise said.Tendulkar hurt his hand while batting during Mumbai’s home game against Sunrisers Hyderabad on May 13 and retired hurt. He then missed Mumbai’s last two league games as well as the first qualifier against Chennai Super Kings in Delhi. The second qualifier is their last shot at making the final of IPL 2013.”On investigation we have found that there is some swelling in the wrist and around one of the tendons of his left hand,” the franchise said in a statement. “We have addressed this with an injection in his hand by a hand-and-wrist specialist. He is currently under rehab and is progressing well.”The normal recovery time for this injury is around three weeks, however rehab results in the past nine days have shown reasonable improvement and we are hopeful to get him back in action as soon as possible.”Kulkarni was injured on May 18, during Mumbai’s final league game, and missed the qualifier against Super Kings. His recovery period was estimated to be six weeks.