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Scorecard

	Iain Sutcliffe’s fifty gave Lancashire a platform © Getty Images

Lancashire perhaps had slightly the better of a bread-and-butter opening day at Old Trafford, thanks to a determined and invaluable opening partnership of 109 between Paul Horton and Iain Sutcliffe when conditions were the most testing. They did not quite build as they might have done on such a good foundation, with three batsmen getting out after scoring good fifties, but a fourth in Steven Croft is still there, and his team will be looking for him to play the leading role in building a daunting total tomorrow.Lancashire won a toss they might have preferred to lose, given that swing was likely under an overcast sky. The pitch itself played soundly enough on the whole, giving some help to the bowlers, even Graeme Swann’s offspin on the first day, but not enough to interest the ECB pitch inspector, Mike Denness, who arrived by train from his home in Essex, after the previous championship match on this ground, against Durham, had finished before lunch on the third day.A minor curiosity in this match is that the two captains are both wicketkeepers: Chris Read, the official captain of Nottinghamshire, and Luke Sutton, standing in for the injured Lancashire skipper Stuart Law. The ball did indeed swing copiously at times, especially early on and especially when the medium-pacer Mark Ealham was using it. Ealham came into the action early on, as Charlie Shreck had difficulty finding his line from the Brian Statham End, although later he came back with better results from the Stretford End.The Lancashire openers, Horton and Sutcliffe, did a superb job for their team as they saw off the difficult overs with the shine still on the ball, and survived until after lunch in their team’s first century opening stand of the season in any competition. Inevitably there were a few plays-and-misses, but on the whole remarkably few errors, and they also managed to take advantage of loose deliveries to keep the scoreboard ticking along.Ealham was the most difficult of the bowlers to face, swinging the ball considerably away from the right-hander and bowling a good line and length; with a little more pace, he may well have been lethal. Again, the openers handled him with great skill and judgement.Sutcliffe was the first to his fifty (91 balls), just after lunch, reaching it with one of his few errors, an edge that would have been a chance had third slip been in place, but instead flew between second slip and gully to the boundary. He then survived a very close lbw appeal against Ealham, before Horton reached his 50 (112 balls) – ironically also with a false stroke, an inside-edge that missed the off stump and shot to the left of the keeper to the boundary.Then came disaster for Lancashire, as Horton played a ball into the covers, called for a quick single, and a superb pick-up and direct hit from Adam Voges found the irate Sutcliffe just short of his crease. He made exactly 50 of the 109-run partnership. The balance of the match swung as Horton (64) fell to the swing of Ealham, well caught one-handed by Swann at slip, who then also caught a struggling Mal Loye (3) in the same position as he edged a rather desperate slash off Shreck. With Lou Vincent, clearly out of practice in his first first-class match of the year, bottom-edging a hook off Shreck to the keeper for 5, Lancashire slumped to 131 for 4 and the balance of the match had quite shifted.The situation did not faze ‘Faf’ du Plessis, the South African still undervalued by home supporters. He and Steven Croft began cautiously, but du Plessis grew in confidence and the pair gradually pulled their team out of the mire. They put on 84 together, but du Plessis was another whose valuable fifty (105 balls) was not converted into three figures; he flicked at an arm ball from Swann outside off stump and was caught by the keeper for 55.Croft appeared to be much slower, but in fact he had less of the strike. Just before the close he reached his fifty off 117 balls, and then survived a hard low catch to slip off the petulant Swann. Hard as the Notts bowlers tried, they could effect no further breakthroughs, and Croft survived to make an attempt tomorrow morning to reach the century he narrowly missed in his last match at Headingley.

Former Test opener Michael Slater has fallen for a duck as New Zealand beat New South Wales by 30 runs today to complete an unbeaten four-match tour of Australia.After New Zealand was bowled out in the 45th over for 199, last year’s ING Cup one day champions got off to a bad start with opener Brad Haddin out for two.First drop Slater then flurried at a wide shot in his typical aggressive fashion, nicking Shane Bond into the safe hands of Chris Harris.Fast bowler Bond led the way for the Kiwis capturing 5-32 as NSW was bowled out for 169 with four overs left.After spending time in the off-season commentating in England, Slater was looking forward to the season ahead today despite the bad start.”The focus will be a lot easier given the Australian side is well out of the picture,” he told Channel 10.”My number one focus is firstly scoring runs for the Uni of NSW and carrying that over to state cricket.”When I was at my worst I felt `Is this what I want to be doing now’, but then having a little bit of time away from the game in England there is no doubt I knew within a few weeks of being over there commentating that I still wanted to out there playing and I didn’t want to be talking about it.”Captain Stephen Fleming top scored with 59 for the Kiwis while Mathew Sinclair made 43, with NSW’s top scorer Dominic Thornely making 48 while Philip Jaques got 43.”It was a good week to get back into the swing of things and we’ve learnt about combinations we want to use,” Fleming told New Zealand Press Association.”Rightly or wrongly we put ourselves in positions where we had to fight out of it and we achieved that.”The match was the Kiwis’ final build-up match to next week’s ICC Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka.The New Zealanders are scheduled to fly out of Sydney to Sri Lanka tomorrow to defend their Champions Trophy title.They will play another two practice matches in Colombo before taking on Australia in their opening match of the tournament.

Hampshire 2nd XI kicked off their One-Day Trophy campaign with an incredible 100-run victory over Glamorgan on the Nursery Ground of the Rose Bowl yesterday.After 45 minutes play, it didn’t look as though Hampshire would even make it to treble figures as they were left reeling at 17-5.Glamorgan’s chief destroyer was Alex Wharf, who took three quick wickets, and ex-Dorset bowler Owen Parkin took a couple.This crisis called for some serious character. Alex Morris started the rearguard with some sensible batting, but the star of the show was Irfan Shah, as he took the attack to the Welsh lads. The pair took the score past the hundred mark, with Shah driving and pulling any loose deliveries to the boundary.Morris was run out for 35. His partner continued with Damien Shirazi in another vaulable stand. Shah’s 62 and Shirazi’s 42 helped Hampshire to 201.James Schofield and James Hamblin then took up the task.Schofield ripped out 5-35, and Hamblin 3-36, as they completed the turn around with some brilliant seam bowling. That left a wicket apiece for Shah and Lawrie Prittipaul to wrap up the Glamorgan innings for just 92.

The Ces Dacre Files: Part OneCes Dacre was a pioneer in New Zealand cricket, the first professional to make his mark after playing for New Zealand, he qualified for the Gloucestershire club in 1930. Upon his return to New Zealand, he wrote a series of articles on his career for the long defunct New Zealand Observer. CricInfo New Zealand editor Lynn McConnell has used these articles as the basis of this feature series on one of the legends of the New Zealand game.

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In a country which has produced some notable big-hitters, Nathan Astle, Chris and Lance Cairns, John Reid, Bert Sutcliffe, Bruce Taylor, Ken Wadsworth, Jock Edwards and Craig McMillan, Ces Dacre was head of the queue, and by New Zealand standards, well ahead of his time.After touring England as vice-captain of the 1927 team, a tour on which he became the first New Zealander to score a century at Lord’s, he returned to England to play for Gloucestershire, for whom he qualified in 1930. During his first season he repaid the English county’s support by scoring 233, his highest score in a career which included 24 centuries.Thriving in the county scene, he became regarded as one of the bigger hitters in the game, and in 1931 led the country for the most sixes hit over the summer, 32 of them. It wasn’t just a fluke, as on the 1927 tour he hit 21 sixes and in the season of 1932 he hit 16.Although Dacre never played Test cricket, he did fashion an outstanding record and scored 12,230 runs at 29.18 during a 21-season career.A product of Auckland’s North Shore, his Devonport school team won the Auckland primary schools’ championship for seven years in succession. It was in these first years in cricket that he developed his taste for the big hit.”During my school career, we had some big hitters in the sides I played with, and it gave me great delight to see some of the senior players pepper the roofs of houses or even break a few windows. But in a year or so my turn to do the same came along, and many a ball I hit into a fowl yard and scattered the hens in all directions,” he recalled in his reminiscences in the New Zealand Observer.”I remember one old lady giving me a little advice when I became a nuisance to her garden. It was my first year as captain of the school eleven, and that year I had a great year with the bat. I had batted ten times and made seven centuries, including a 200 not out at Victoria Park, and every run run out.”This Saturday morning I was well on my way to three figures when the dear old lady came and asked me to take the school team to town every match as, much as she admired my cricket, she hated to see a dozen or so young boys sitting on the fence ready to retrieve any lost ball and so destroy her vegetable garden.”While at primary school, Dacre was coached by four different English professionals, A E Relf, Frank Shacklock, Dick Pearson and George Thompson. He regarded Shacklock as the pick of them.”The Notts player was a very thorough coach with boys, and I have seen him stand beside a boy for at least a couple of minutes until he was satisfied you had played the shot correctly.”Dacre’s march through the grades was impressive and he played his first senior match at the age of 14 and scored his first century for the North Shore side, against Waitemata, at Victoria Park.”The late Ted Sale was my captain, and I remember to this day how he came to me and congratulated me on my performance. I was very thrilled at the time, as I knew every word he said to me came from the bottom of his heart. He was one of nature’s gentlemen.”That same season, after scoring 184 in another senior game, he was invited to travel to Napier and Gisborne to play for E C Beale’s XI, and scored 83 and 48 at Napier.It is a reflection of the pre-World War One times Dacre grew up in, that the notion of playing at home on the back lawn was frowned upon by his mother.”Just before tea the whole family would arrive in the backyard ready for the fray. The only other dissenting voice would be raised by my mother, who would tell us we ought to feel ashamed of ourselves for playing on the Sabbath. But we generally made amends by escorting her to church.”Dacre said that while he was always playing cricket he didn’t take it that seriously during his youth, except when playing against his brothers and sisters. But he did remember one other occasion on the way home from a game for his North Shore fourth grade side.”I was strolling home and stopped to look at a match that was being played between two soft goods houses. One side had batted and the other team, one man short, had about 35 runs to get. Suddenly a gentleman came up to me and asked me if I played at all, so I said I played a bit. ‘Well son,’ he said, ‘will you be our last man in?’ I accepted his offer, donned a pair of big pads (they were nearly as big as myself) and in I went. I got the required runs and a few more as well, winning the match by one wicket. Delighted at beating their rivals, the winning eleven carried me off the field shoulder high, and could not do enough for me. They tried to persuade my father to let me go to the Masonic Hotel for dinner, but there was nothing doing.”During the winter months after dabbling in hockey at school, he took to soccer where he found he was not only a natural left-footed player, but also good off his right foot. His progress was notable and once making senior grade, again as a young player, he became a permanent fixture in the Auckland team. Selection for New Zealand followed in 1923 when the side toured Australia.”We had a very successful tour that year, as we beat the Aussies in two Tests out of three … There was no love lost between the New Zealand team and Australia. It was only a season before that an Australian team visited New Zealand, and in some of the games some hard words were used, so when we sallied forth to Australia the following winter we knew we would have to take some of the same medicine. We got some good gruellings up in the mining towns, but we never took it lying down, and what we got we gave back.”The last test match the Aussies were really after our blood, but we won a great game by 4 to 3.”But Dacre, who acknowledged he played the game hard – hard enough to have the nickname ‘Dirty Dacre’, was not a great one for practice and he recalled that several times selectors asked him when he was going to turn up for practice. “I was always deaf to such inquiries … But somehow I always managed to crawl into a side.”On another occasion he was approached by a selector: “I remember one poor selector giving me a good shake-up and telling me about all the other poor fellows doing their training in earnest, so he came to the conclusion that he must leave me out for the next rep match. I only smiled and started to walk away, but on the spur of the moment I turned and said: ‘You can’t leave me out of the side, as you must have someone who can put in the boot.’ He had to laugh and called me a few harsh names, but I was still in the side for the next game.”

It was in their fourth game of the World Cup 1996 that West Indies surrendered to Kenya by 73 runs at Poona.Talking to the media on the eve of their ICC Champions Trophy tie against Kenya, the West Indies skipper Carl Hooper indicated that they have put that shocking defeat in the past and are moving on.Hooper said, “I haven’t got the World Cup of 1996 in my mind. But I can remember a number of games where shocks have taken place; like Bangladesh beating Pakistan in 1999, and if we turn up on the day not focused and play poorly we will get beaten.”We have to be a bit more consistent than our last game. Obviously it is a game of cricket; if you turn up on a day not focused and play poorly then you’ll get beaten. It is a One-Day International and you have to take it seriously. I don’t think we are in a position to be complacent,” he said.”We are in a situation that everybody expects us to win, so they will come out and give it a good shot. We have to be ready to play some good cricket.”We hope for a crushing defeat of Kenya and then hope that Kenya beat South Africa. It is a big hope; but it is a game of cricket, and we are going to do what we can. We are thinking long term, using the ICC Champions trophy as a stepping tournament for the World Cup,” Hooper added.The Kenyan skipper Steve Tikolo was also asked about the 1996 World Cup win over West Indies.”That was six years ago,” he said, “The teams have changed, and we are looking forward to the game. We do take positives from 1996, but now we want to concentrate on the game here. We have got better since then, our batting and bowling has come through, and our fielding has improved by leaps and bounds.”Tikolo also lamented that the Kenyans don’t get to play cricket at the highest level that often, which is proving a hindrance to the development of Kenyan cricket.The Kenyan skipper is happy to be the underdogs going into their first game.”They are the ones under pressure to try and bowl us out cheaply or get a lot of runs. In the process they might make mistakes and that might work in our favour.”We still have two games left and they have already played one and lost one and the pressure is back on them,” Tikolo added.The Kenyans were in Sri Lanka a few months ago, when they played a series against Sri Lanka A. Tikolo has also spotted that the pitches in Sri Lanka tend to slow down and keep low as the game progresses.”I’ve watched the few games so far and the wickets have played pretty well in the first session but then get slower and turn as the match goes on. With our bowling line-up that could work in our favour.”After tomorrow’s game, the West Indies team will stay on in Sri Lanka and continue their preparation for the forthcoming series against India. The team is scheduled to leave for India only on October 1.

It was interesting to note the state of the pitch this morning as a resultof concerted effort by Mr. T. Savoury, the Midlands groundsman, to recoverthe quality after the heavy season prior to the end of the National One-DayLeague. The new patches of grass are growing very nicely and the square looks in superb condition. The pitch was the usual Kwekwe wicket, with the exception of a slight damp patch at the edge of the square. This was easily rectified when some grass cuttings were spread over the damp area.Midlands won the toss and Dirk Viljoen had absolutely no hesitation in putting Mashonaland A into bat. The Midlands bowlers settled into their stride by bowling a good line and length.Mashonaland A scored 209 runs all out in 97.5 overs with the last wicket falling off the penultimate ball of the last over of the day, when Ray Pricemanaged to squeeze a ball through the defences of Amos Maungwa. Highlightsof the Mashonaland A innings included a charmed 45 off 130 balls by MarkVermeulen, who survived two early chances. Firstly he edged a ball throughthe slip cordon and later he drove uppishly into the covers. Both of thesechances came off the bowling of Campbell Macmillan. Vermeulen was finallybowled by Ed Rainsford in the 66th over. Brendon Taylor made 32 off 78 balls, Elton Chikumbura made 34 off 53 balls, and Rangarirai Manyande made 22 off 60 balls.The partnership between Mark Vermeulen and Elton Chikumbura was the onlypartnership to exceed 50 runs. They added 63 runs off 112 balls and stayedtogether for 74 minutes.All ten of the Mashonaland A wickets were shared amongst the Midlands bowlers. Campbell Macmillan took three for 54 off 30 overs and Ray Price took two for 24 off 26.5 overs. They were the pick of the Midlands bowlers. Ed Rainsford was fairly expensive, conceding 58 runs off 13 overs, but this was easily forgiven when he cleaned bowled Mark Vermeulen. Sean Ervine who was returning from injury took one for 8 in 7 overs, while John Vaughan-Davies was also fairly expensive, conceding 37 runs off 12 overs while taking one wicket. James Cornford and Dirk Viljoen both took one for 8 off four and five overs respectively.Colin Delport was exceptional behind the stumps today, taking four catches.Midlands will come out in the morning hoping to emulate their recent battingform against Matabeleland.

When Allan Border went almost four years without a Test century between 1988 and 1992, the phrase “not since Faisalabad” became an increasingly weary staple for radio commentators and touring correspondents. South Africa’s Test tourists in Australia are similarly accompanied by the words “not since Colombo”, but for altogether more auspicious reasons.Six long years have passed since the South Africans were last beaten in a series away from home, a 2-0 reverse in Sri Lanka in 2006. To quantify this achievement, it must be noted that in more than a decade of dominance between 1995 and 2008, the longest stretch of years Australia could manage between Test series defeats on the road was four, between 2001 and 2005.Given the garlands laid out for that Australian side, the South Africans deserve a certain level of reverence for their ability to keep confounding opponents in their own territory, most recently England during the northern summer. They may not be the Invincibles, but the squad that arrived in Australia on Sunday can most definitely be termed the Road Warriors.Their captain, Graeme Smith, believes the team’s ability to prosper overseas developed out of maturity and stability. In keeping a team together, the players learned to work with each other, becoming friends as well as team-mates, and going past any sense of fear or uncertainty about the unknowns of foreign climes to develop a sense of confidence and anticipation about any and every challenge that might be presented, whether it be a sharply turning pitch in Kanpur or the green-tinged seamer that is likely to greet them in Brisbane next week.”We started to get a team together that could adapt to conditions,” Smith said. “The maturity of the team in terms of growing as we’ve gone on … and the players are settled and able to adapt to conditions not only on the pitch but off the field. All the different challenges that you face on a tour now, I think we’re able to meet them. I think the team handles being away from home in a good space and in a mature way.Graeme Smith and Gary Kirsten are in charge of a side that is not only No.1 in the world but has a reputation for winning away from home•Getty Images

“It’s about understanding how you’re going to be successful in the environment that you’re playing. We’ve got a few experienced guys around now that have toured a fair bit and hopefully we use that experience well. Certainly I think it’s the challenge that we look forward to, of winning in someone else’s backyard. It’s a tough thing to do and I think that challenge is something that excites us.”That excitement was never more palpable than during South Africa’s last visit to Australia in 2008-09. Helmed by the captain/coach duo of Smith and Mickey Arthur, the tourists wriggled out of dire positions in each of the first two Tests to secure a dramatic series victory, inflicting Australia’s first defeat at home since the West Indies in 1993. Those memories provide Smith with confidence about the matches ahead.”To beat Australia in those stadiums and those environments is something that I don’t think South Africans had dreamt of for a very long time,” Smith said. “For us to be able to achieve that and be there in those moments was incredible. It probably took us a little bit of time to recover from those highs but since that return leg from Australia we’ve been pretty steady and consistent in our performances and maybe that was the stepping stone for the success that we’ve had.”Winning here four years ago is something that you know you’ve done before. Certainly it does help in the self-belief factor knowing that you’ve overcome a hurdle before. I think the achievements the team has put together the last few years, with England just gone by, we obviously do arrive here with a self-belief that we can perform well.”While Arthur now mentors the opposition, South Africa have in Gary Kirsten a calm character and a calming influence, happy to inherit a team that was already well advanced in its quest to build a record that will stand alongside those of other great teams. His challenge is to go one better than Arthur had done, by keeping South Africa at No. 1 in the ICC’s rankings for a sustained period. That quest, and the maintenance of such an imposing record overseas, are both at stake over these three Tests in Australia.”It’s a well set team, it’s a well balanced team, there’s a lot of experience in it and I think they are hardened Test cricketers in the team so they’re familiar with the different conditions that they’re confronted with,” Kirsten said. “I was particularly proud of the guys the way they went about our business in England. There were some pressure moments throughout that series and we responded well to that.”

Baroda are the current Ranji Trophy champions after they beat Railwaysin a cliffhanger at Gujarat State Fertilizer Corporation Ground,Baroda. Last year it was Mumbai who took the glory, defeatingHyderabad by 297 runs at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, on the 23rdApril.Mumbai and Hyderabad were at full strength, given the fact that allthe leading batsmen had got amongst the runs in the semi-finals.Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman were in brilliant form and it seemedthat the final match would be a high scoring one.Mohd. Azharuddin won the toss for Hyderabad and asked Mumbai to batfirst. It is not a practice in Indian domestic cricket to put theopposition in, given the nature of the wickets and the fact that mostmatches are decided on the virtue of the first innings lead.Mumbai did not have an ideal start, losing their captain Sameer Dighe(3). Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli got together at 72/3 and added104 runs for the fourth wicket. Tendulkar made 53 runs striking sevenboundaries and a six. Kambli (108) went on to reach his century withthe help of 15 fours. And, in the meanwhile he added 82 runs for thesixth wicket with Paras Mhambhrey.Ajit Agarkar (30) gave good support to Mhambrey and added 60 runs forthe seventh wicket. Mhambrey (75) played a crucial innings for Mumbai,punctuating his knock with seven boundaries. Mumbai were bowled outfor 376, with Venkatapathy Raju claiming 4/110.Hyderabad were bowled out for 195 in 64.4 overs, Ajit Agarkar (3/26)and Rajesh Pawar (3/44) doing most of the damage. VVS Laxman (46)riding on a triple hundred he made in the semi-finals was run out in atragic mix-up with Azharuddin (76). The two batsmen added 89 valuableruns for the third wicket. P Satwalkar (30) gave good support toAzharuddin, but the rest of the batting just caved in.Mumbai had a cracking start, scoring 103 runs for the first wicket.Wasim Jaffer (55), Dighe (46) and Jatin Paranjpe (42) all got amongstruns. The pitch was taking a lot of turn as the two Mumbai championbatsmen got together. Tendulkar and Kambli went on a run riot. Sixesand fours flowed in a hurry amongst a deluge of runs. Kambli (56) hitfive boundaries and three sixes as he went on to add 105 runs in just18.1 overs with Tendulkar.Tendulkar was not going to miss out on a big score in the secondinnings. He had the measure of the Hyderabad attack and went on doingwhat he does best, annihilating the bowling. He scored 128 runs off124 balls with the help of 13 strokes past the ropes and three hugeones over the fence. Mhambrey (30) again made a good contribution withthe bat. Mumbai scored 409 all out in the second innings, VenkatapathyRaju (5/123) and Kanwaljit Singh (4/136) toiled hard with the ball forHyderabad.Set an impossible target of 591 runs for an outright win in the finalinnings, Hyderabad had a mountain to climb. They lost an early wicketof Nandakishore (9) when the score was just ten. VVS Laxman and DanielManohar added 188 runs for the second wicket, as Mumbai struggled tomake a breakthrough. Laxman (111) was looking good for yet anothermassive score, but fell to the guiles of the left-arm spinner Pawar.His innings was decorated with two sixes and 13 boundaries off 192balls. Four overs later, Pawar bowled Manohar (71). He had struck 11boundaries in his patient knock.The young Mumbai spinner Pawar, spun a web with his left-arm orthodoxspin to pick up 7/103 to take his match tally to ten wickets. Agarkarbowled well to finish with three wickets giving away 46 runs.Hyderabad were bowled out for 293 runs in 98.2 overs. Mumbaicelebrated their 34th Ranji Trophy victory, adding one more triumph totheir glorious history.

Hampshire select from the same 12 that travelled to Taunton for a one day friendly, for their opening Division I, Frizzell County Championship match against Kent at Canterbury on Friday-Monday 19th-22nd April 2002.Both John Crawley and Nic Pothas are expected to make their debuts for their new county.Hampshire Twelve: Robin Smith (captain), Will Kendall, Derek Kenway, John Crawley, Neil Johnson, Nic Pothas, Adi Aymes (wicket-keeper), Shaun Udal, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Alex Morris, Alan Mullally and Chris Tremlett.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
The margins of defeat for the Ranji champions in five of the previous six years in the Irani Cup: 404 runs, 361 runs, 187 runs, nine wickets and nine wickets. This season was just as comprehensive, as Rest of India completed a comfortable innings-and-79-run victory on the fourth day at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.Rajasthan’s batting and bowling were both not at the level of Rest of India’s, but what really hurt them as they tried to at least take the match to the fifth day was their appalling running between the wickets.There was an early alarm when Hrishkesh Kanitkar and Vineet Saxena had a communication breakdown, but both had the time to return to their creases. That wasn’t the case in the 26th over when Saxena nudged the ball towards square leg and took off, but Kanitkar didn’t respond and a sprawling Ishant Sharma fired in the throw to end the overnight partnership.Till then they had been largely untroubled by the pace of Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav, and a wicket had looked unlikely. Kanitkar and the batsman who had his reputation most enhanced in this the game, Robin Bist, were then comfortable against everything Rest of India threw at them. A few overs before lunch, Rest of India had resorted to having three men deep on the leg side when the left-arm spinners were operating, allowing Kanitkar to push the ball around and accumulate. Bist was more aggressive, unleashing some powerful drives and the partnership swelled towards a hundred.That stand also ended through a mix-up. Kanitkar pushed the ball towards point and wanted the single, but Bist didn’t. Though the return from Badrinath was a tough take for wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik, there was enough time for the bails to be taken off and two of Rajasthan’s most adhesive batsmen had given away their wickets recklessly.Bist wasn’t as solid as in the first innings, edging several past the keeper in the middle of some crisp striking. With Pragyan Ojha getting the odd ball to turn and bounce, much depended on Bist if Rajasthan were to avoid an innings defeat. His footwork had been precise in much of the match, but on 67, he was caught on the crease to a delivery from Ojha that neither jumped nor turned dramatically, but still managed to sneak between bat and pad.That brought together the last pair of recognised batsmen, RR Parida and Dishant Yagnik. That pair, too, was separated by a run-out. Parida played the ball out towards sweeper cover; Yagnik ambled through the first run, assuming there was only an easy two to be taken before Umesh Yadav fielded; Parida pushed for the third but Umesh, who unlike most Indian fast bowlers has a strong arm, rifled in a throw that caught Yagnik short.Rajasthan were soon down to 226 for 8, on a track which was still not spiteful, against an attack which was not exactly fearsome. Ishant was disciplined, keeping the ball around off but wasn’t able to regularly clock above 130kph, Umesh continued to bowl too wide to worry batsmen consistently and the spinners were steady though not menacing.Even without Rest of India’s bowlers being at their best, Rajasthan were overwhelmed in the match, again highlighting the vast difference in between the two sides.