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Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola has revealed that Jack Grealish, Bernardo Silva and Josko Gvardiol could be set for spells in the treatment room.

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Guardiola confirms triple injury blow for Man CityGrealish suffers muscular problem in CopenhagenSilva & Gvardiol sustain ankle injuriesWHAT HAPPENED?

City breezed to a 3-1 win in their Champions League last-16 first leg against Copenhagen on Tuesday but the result was marred by Grealish suffering a suspected groin injury midway through the first half. Guardiola confirmed that the midfielder had suffered a muscular problem and also revealed that Bernardo Silva, who also had to be taken off in the second half, had hurt his ankle. He also disclosed that Josko Gvardiol will be out for up to three weeks after injuring ligaments in his ankle.

AdvertisementWHAT GUARDIOLA SAID

"Bernardo has a big knock. Looks like a muscular [injury] for Jack Grealish," Guardiola told. "It is a pity. He helped us to play at the right tempo. He felt it when he rolled on the grass. They know."

Getty ImagesTHE BIGGER PICTURE

City were just approaching full strength again after suffering numerous injury setbacks throughout the season. They were without Kevin De Bruyne for five months, Erling Haaland for two months while John Stones has missed large parts of the campaign with separate issues. They all started at Parken Stadium on Tuesday night but now City have fresh injury concerns in midfield due to the likely absences of Silva and Grealish, while Gvardiol, who was not in the matchday squad against Copenhagen, leaves them with just one option at left-back.

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Getty ImagesWHAT NEXT FOR CITY?

The injuries come at a key moment in the season for City and ahead of a daunting run of fixtures. Guardiola's side face an improving Chelsea in the Premier League on Saturday before hosting Brentford the following Tuesday. They then travel to Bournemouth and Luton before facing Manchester United in the derby and visiting Liverpool in a potential title showdown.

A gritty 98 from Laurie Evans, coupled with a spirited lower-order onslaught from Jeetan Patel and Keith Barker, enabled Warwickshire to enjoy the better of another gloomy day at Lord’s

Andrew Miller at Lord's01-Jun-2015
ScorecardLaurie Evans fell two short of a century•PA PhotosA gritty 98 from Laurie Evans, coupled with a spirited lower-order onslaught from Jeetan Patel and Keith Barker, enabled Warwickshire to enjoy the better of another gloomy day at Lord’s. They converted their overnight 148 for 3 to a competitive 342 – not bad at all after being asked to bat first – before Chris Wright nipped in with the early wicket of Joe Burns as Middlesex weathered the new ball to reach 39 for 1 in reply.In what has so far been a stop-start contest, the true value of the runs that Warwickshire have put on the board will only be known when Middlesex’s own innings has developed further. However, the hostile reception that Wright and Barker doled out with the new ball suggests that life isn’t about to get too much easier for batting.”There’s a bit of variable bounce in places,” Evans said. “You don’t mind left to right [movement] so much but when it starts to go up and down, it’s a bit tricky and can get in your head. We realised it was tricky to score so we decided to be positive. I can’t see it getting any better to bat on, but we were looking at around 220 to 250 after being put in, so it’s a great effort by everyone on a scrap-hard wicket.”Both of Middlesex’s not-out batsmen, Sam Robson and Nick Compton, were rapped on the gloves by lifters from a good length in a final session that was twice interrupted by bad light before the weather closed in for good shortly after 5pm.Warwickshire had resumed in the morning with Evans and Jonathan Trott unbeaten in a 92-run stand for the fourth wicket. However, Trott managed to add just a single to his overnight 44, as he nibbled outside off to Toby Roland-Jones and feathered a thin edge to John Simpson behind the stumps.Tim Ambrose, the new batsman, had two moments of good fortune when he spliced a lifter from Roland-Jones over the slip cordon on 2 before edging inches short of Ollie Rayner at second slip on 10. But his luck ran out on 20 as Neil Dexter entered the attack for Rayner to hold on to an attempted uppercut over the cordon.However, Evans ground on undaunted, inching ever closer to what would have been his fifth first-class century with an innings that was never fluent but didn’t want for composure. He rode his luck outside off stump (or was it good judgement?) and seemed to have shrugged off his role in the run-out of Rikki Clarke for 15 when Steven Finn, returning from the Pavilion End, beat him with a nip-backer that flicked his pad and crashed into the stumps to leave him stranded two short of his hundred.”It was nice to spend a bit of time at a great ground. It was a shame not to get a couple of runs but I could have been out at any stage, it was that sort of wicket. I was just glad to get a score.”At 253 for 7, Middlesex sensed their chance to steal the ascendancy, but they reckoned without the obduracy of Barker and Patel, who saw off the seamers then took on the spin of Rayner, who was dumped over the leg side for four sixes in his first 13 balls before striking with his 15th to have Patel lbw for 37 and end a momentum-seizing eighth-wicket stand of 72.The end of Warwickshire’s innings came in a relative rush. Barker was trapped on the crease by Roland-Jones and bowled for 37 before Boyd Rankin departed in the same fashion five overs later, aiming a massive mow at Rayner.Robson, in reply, eased Barker through the covers for a second-ball four before Burns went one better with a spanking pull from Wright’s opening delivery. But Wright struck back in the same over, trapping Burns lbw for 4 to set up a testing evening session. Robson and Compton prevailed in the gloom, however, with Robson, in particular, finding some fluency to pick off five fours in his unbeaten 26 by the close.”There’s definitely enough still in the wicket,” Evans said. “We’ll be looking to pitch the ball up and get the slips in play.”

Venkatesh Prasad, the Uttar Pradesh coach, has criticised the Ranji Trophy scheduling after the second day’s play in Kanpur was entirely lost due to foggy conditions

Nagraj Gollapudi and Amol Karhadkar23-Dec-2013Venkatesh Prasad, the Uttar Pradesh coach, has criticised the Ranji Trophy scheduling after the second day’s play in Kanpur was entirely lost due to foggy conditions. Uttar Pradesh, currently second in Group B, are playing Madhya Pradesh at Green Park in their penultimate match of the league stage. Prasad was frustrated that his team stood to lose out on vital points necessary to make the knockouts.”I am not very sure about the thought process of the members on the concerned committee as far as Ranji Trophy scheduling goes,” Prasad, a former India fast bowler, told ESPNcricinfo. Prasad said it was a given that in northern parts of India from mid-December heavy fog settles in for virtually the entire day, and that the senior tournament committee, which chalks out domestic fixtures, needed to take heed of the situation.Former India offspinner Shivlal Yadav heads the committee. A member each from the cricket associations from Mumbai, Punjab, Kerala, Jharkhand and Vidarbha make up the rest of the panel, with BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel serving as convenor. The committee liaises with Ratnakar Shetty, the BCCI’s game development manager, before finalising the venues.According to Prasad there could have been “30-40 overs” bowled on Monday, but the umpires felt it was “slightly dark” and theirs was the final word. “The umpires are the best judge as far as bad light and fog are concerned. But to be realistic the conditions will be hazy in the northern part of the country at this point of time in the year,” he said. “It is not about being better prepared. It is just commonsense.”Prasad agreed points were crucial, but said it was more important to get a full match. “We want the matches to go on and the players to get decent time in the middle to help them perform. Every team aspires to make the knockouts,” he said.”I would like personally to get a full game. And that is not going to happen if you play at this time of the year in this part of the country. It is simple. The committee needs to know that. It is not about how anxious I am, how anxious the Railways team is or how anxious Services are. It is about playing the game. Playing all 90 overs. Playing all four days. The committee should look into this very seriously.”Even Railways, ahead of Uttar Pradesh by one point in Group B, have suffered due to the weather conditions. Against Tamil Nadu in the previous round and this week against Services, they have had to make do with delayed starts and bad visibility.Prasad reckoned the committee could look at playing more Ranji Trophy games in early November to avoid scheduling matches in the period between mid-December and January. “What should happen is the teams in north and central India should probably finish their home matches latest by December 15,” Prasad said.With Uttar Pradesh playing their final Group A match in Lucknow from December 30, a period notorious for heavy fog, Prasad was concerned that another fog-curtailed match would end his team’s chances of making the quarter-finals. “That is going to be even worse,” Prasad said.According to Prasad, Uttar Pradesh had played their final two rounds, during the group stages last year, away from home in late December and early January. He said he couldn’t understand why that didn’t happen this year, too. “Uttar Pradesh could have played Madhya Pradesh in November in the first round instead of Baroda (their first-round opponents). We could have gone and played Bardoa now,” Prasad said.Reacting to Prasad’s remarks, the BCCI said its aim was always to schedule matches accounting for all weather conditions. “We try and avoid extreme weather conditions while finalising the schedule. For instance, it rains a lot in the south in November and three of Tamil Nadu’s home games were affected last year. So what we try and do is to avoid scheduling matches in the south in November and in the northern and central parts from the end of December,” Shetty said.According to Shetty, it is a bigger challenge when there are more than two teams from one of these zones in the same group. “Then it becomes very difficult to avoid it, especially since it has been decided from last year to let each team play four home and four away games in the league stage,” he said. “The funny thing is the weather also is so unpredictable that in the last round – while Services’ game at Palam [in Delhi] was affected due to fog, Delhi’s match against Vidarbha started on time.”Shetty felt the only possible solution was if both teams agreed to play the match at a neutral venue. “But considering that the last couple of rounds are crucial for most teams when it comes to qualification for the knockouts, not many are forthcoming to lose out on the home advantage.”

The BCCI has roped in Ravi Sawani, the former head of the ICC’s anti-corruption and security unit (ACSU), to head their domestic anti-corruption bureau

Nagraj Gollapudi12-May-2012The BCCI has roped in Ravi Sawani, the former head of the ICC’s anti-corruption and security unit (ACSU), to head their new domestic anti-corruption bureau. India will be the fourth country after Pakistan, Australia and England to have an independent ACU unit.”We want our own ACU unit because at the moment, for tournaments like the IPL, we need to hire people from the ICC and then there is also a lot more domestic cricket played in India,” Rajiv Shukla, the BCCI vice-president, told ESPNcricinfo. “So the BCCI felt we should have our own watchdog.”Sawani moved on to become a consultant at the ICC after retiring as ACSU head last year, but his term comes to an end at the end of May this year. The terms and conditions, the exact nature of his job, the kind of structure the BCCI’s ACU will have and other details are yet to be worked out. It is understood that Sawani would be given complete authority to set up the unit. It is expected that Sawani will hand pick his team and it will probably comprise of very few people.The BCCI, an official pointed out, was only following the rule laid down by the ICC executive board, which made it mandatory that all member boards must have a domestic anti-corruption code of their own. “But to enforce the code, you need an agency to do that. That is what the BCCI are doing now,” the board official said.Sawani was not available for comments but a BCCI official said its ACU would keep a close eye on the exhaustive domestic set-up, which was also in the eye-line of the illegal betting industry and made players “vulnerable”. “We have a large number of domestic tournaments in India that attract an equal number of bets, which are unknown to the outside world. So players are vulnerable in these tournaments.”In addition to their domestic and IPL duties, Sawani and his team will also educate young players at the various BCCI state academies about the anti-corruption code, and largely extend the work done by the ACSU for the international players.Asked specifically about the IPL, whether there was any hint of corruption so far in the league, the BCCI official said nothing of that nature had been established. He said that having an exclusive ACU wing would only tighten the existing cracks in the anti-corruption programme, with the IPL in focus because it “needs more eyes than any other team in the world today”. “It is not that anything wrong is going on [in the IPL], but because the vulnerability is so much,” he said.In the past the BCCI has turned a deaf ear towards putting a security mechanism in place, typified by its response to security in the first two editions of the IPL. In its inaugural year, 2008, the IPL gave the ACSU a very short notice – just about a week – to come on board. When the IPL was played in South Africa the following year, the Indian board did not have ACSU services for the entire tournament, saying the cost of $1.2m charged by the ICC for the services of their ASCU was too high. In the last three years though the ACSU has been given free reign during the IPL, even though some sections of the board were defensive about paying big money to retain them.The BCCI official said that by having its own ACU wing in place, they could now breathe easy. The official said that board president N Srinivasan had been very keen to have a domestic ACU. This new anti-corruption venture, the official said was the “initiative of N Srinivasan” because “India is a too big a country to risk anything”.

Ernest Hilaire has written to Chris Gayle saying he could not ask for unconditional no-objection certificates (NOCs) and simultaneously make himself available for West Indies selection

ESPNcricinfo staff21-Feb-2012WICB responds to Jamaica Prime Minister

The WICB has said it regrets the comments made by Jamaica prime minister Portia Simpson-Miller that Chris Gayle had been treated unjustly by the board and kept out of the West Indies team. The WICB said Simpson-Miller was not privy to all the information when she made her statement at the Jamaica Cricket Association Awards dinner.
“Had the Honourable Prime Minister been briefed she would have been informed that Mr. Chris Gayle has been written to by the WICB, clearly outlining the full details of what is required of him,” the board said. “The WICB is awaiting a response from Mr. Gayle.”
The WICB requested Simpson-Miller to ask Gayle to respond quickly to the board and end the dispute. “The WICB implores the Prime Minister to use her good office to urge Mr. Gayle to respond favourably in an effort to put this issue in the past,” the WICB statement said.
Simpson-Miller had said “justice delayed is justice denied” and demanded that “a resolution be found as quickly as possible” regarding the Gayle issue. The WICB, however, said it would not select Gayle until he retracted the comments he made criticising the board and the coach Ottis Gibson, and responded to their previous letter about NOCs.

The WICB has asked Chris Gayle to make up his mind about his future with the West Indies team. In an email to the batsman, the WICB chief executive Ernest Hilaire wrote that Gayle could not ask for unconditional no-objection certificates (NOCs) to play domestic Twenty20 tournaments around the world and simultaneously make himself available for West Indies selection.The email was dated January 30 but made public in the past 24 hours.Hilaire said the WICB rules conformed to the ICC’s operating manual and that a player would be granted an NOC to play a domestic tournament in another country on the condition that he be available for selection if an international series clashed with the tournament.”So, Chris, it is your choice, whether you receive a conditional or unconditional NOC. But you cannot have an unconditional NOC and be considered for selection to play for the West Indies,” Hilaire wrote in the email dated January 30. “Either you wish to make yourself available to play for the West Indies, in which case you must accept that NOCs will be granted to you on the same conditional terms as other international players, or you do not, in which case you can have your unconditional NOC. All that is required from you is a clear statement, one way or the other.””If a player has no contractual obligation to WICB, and does not wish to make himself available to play in international matches for which he may be selected, then he has the option of ceasing to be a FTS (first team squad) Player, by retiring from international cricket, or otherwise declaring himself ineligible and/or unavailable for selection for the foreseeable future. In that event, WICB would not consider it necessary or appropriate to issue a player with anything but anunconditional NOC.”Gayle has not played for West Indies since the 2011 World Cup because of comments he made against the board and the coach Ottis Gibson during a radio interview. The WICB asked Gayle to retract his comments and the batsman has refused to do so. Gayle has just arrived in South Africa to be part of Dolphins’ domestic Twenty20 campaign after playing for Barisal Burners in the Bangladesh Premier League.In his email, Hilaire told Gayle he was “ineligible for selection pending resolution of certain matters.””The Board requires you to provide a general public retraction of the comments made in the interview in question and the effect it has had on the team, Coach, Captain and Management and to express a commitment to team and management. If the terms of that retraction can be agreed, WICB will be happy to consider you eligible once again for selection.”Edited by George Binoy

Graeme Swann has backed Stuart Broad to break records after taking his match haul against West Indies to 11 wickets and becoming only the fourth player to score a hundred, take five in an innings and 10 in a match at Lord’s.

Andrew McGlashan at Lord's20-May-2012Graeme Swann has backed Stuart Broad to break records after taking his match haul against West Indies to 11 wickets and becoming only the fourth player to score a hundred, take five in an innings and 10 in a match at Lord’s. However, it is far from certain that Broad’s career-best performances will secure England a victory after a day of resilience from West Indies’ batsmen before two late strikes by Kemar Roach set pulses racing.When Broad removed Darren Sammy, who played a key part in extending West Indies’ lead to testing proportions, he became the first England bowler to take 10 on this ground since Ian Botham against New Zealand in 1978.”Hats off to him he’s on all three honours boards which is almost unique,” Swann said. “He’s going to be a guy who breaks record after record in his career and I’m just glad he’s in my team. He admitted he’s not been in the greatest of form for Nottinghamshire but he’s a big match player and as soon as he got his first spell out of the way in this match he’s bowled superbly.”However, it was Swann himself who claimed the wicket England most cherished when he finally trapped Shivnarine Chanderpaul lbw to end his 250-ball 91 which took his match occupation of the crease to 425 deliveries.”It’s always nice to get him out. It would have been nicer if he’d missed a sweep on 10 or 11 rather than 91,” he said. “His partnership with [Marlon] Samuels showed if you bat with application on that pitch you become difficult to shift.”Application is something England will need plenty of on the final day after closing on 10 for 2 following the late dismissals of Andrew Strauss and nightwatchman Jimmy Anderson. During the winter they failed to chase 145 in Abu Dhabi, collapsing to 72 all out albeit on a very different surface, but Swann, always a glass-half-full cricketer, said the task was still well within hand.”It’s unfortunate to lose the skipper but it was always going to be a tricky 15 minutes batting in the gloom against a world-class bowler like Kemar Roach. Luckily we’ve got through relatively unscathed, we’ve got Trotty and Cooky at the crease so we’ll very confident that they can see us through.”We know the wicket is very good for batting, if anything it’s better than the first two days. That tends to happen at Lord’s. Hopefully the ball won’t talk much like it didn’t for us today. Once it gets to 30-35 overs old it seems to go a bit out of shape and not be very responsive. We beat the outside edge a lot but couldn’t pick up the edges we did in the first innings. That was frustrating to say the least but I thought we stuck at our guns very well and to get a chase of less than 200 we’re happy with.”Ottis Gibson, West Indies’ coach, took great heart from his team’s performance especially that of the batsmen who kept England in the field for most of the day. Regardless of the result on Monday he knows that the visitors have already surpassed many of the expectations surrounding them when they arrived.”I haven’t seen any fifth-day tickets so I’m not sure they expected it to go five days,” he said. “We are coming back to make them fight for the rest of the runs. If we do well enough to win then great, we’ll celebrate, but whatever happens when we get off that bus tomorrow we are coming here to fight. It will be a battle but we are up for that.”If we can make some early inroads, like Trott and Kevin Pietersen who can take the game away from you, we’ve always felt we have an attack that can cause quite a few problems. It will be a good opportunity for them tomorrow.”

Gabby Agbonlahor has issued a positive verdict on Everton’s squad despite the latest injury sustained by striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin.

The Lowdown: Calvert-Lewin’s injuries

Ahead of the 2022/23 Premier League campaign, news emerged from the Merseyside club that the 20-year-old had suffered a knee injury which would keep him out for the start of the season. However, his return to action has since been delayed, meaning that the England international is yet to play a single game this term.

Despite getting close to a return to full fitness, the Liverpool Echo recently reported that Calvert-Lewin had felt a tightness in his leg and had consequently been withdrawn from training, with his absence documented the following day by his omission from images taken at Finch Farm.

The Latest: Agbonlahor’s comments

Agbonlahor, who now works as a pundit for Sky Sports, has said that he was nervous for the Toffees going into the season due to their various injuries, but a strong summer in the transfer market has put him at ease.

Speaking with Football Insider about the strength of the Blues’ transfer window, the former Aston Villa attacker claimed: “I was very worried at the start of the season for Everton. The transfers they’ve made I’ve been very impressed with. In midfield, two new signings look rock solid in there.

“Neal Maupay will score goals, he adds to that attacking threat and you’ve got Calvert-Lewin to come back.

“With Calvert-Lewin coming back, it will be competition for that striker spot and that’s what you need as a manager. They will be absolutely fine, Everton, they will beat their fair share of teams.”

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The Verdict: Calvert-Lewin getting too injury prone?

Just last season, Calvert-Lewin only managed 17 Premier League appearances as he was out of action for 125 days with a fractured toe and quadricep issues.

Having failed to make a single appearance so far this season due to various problems, his lack of availability is starting to become a nuisance at Goodison Park.

Having bagged 58 goals in 191 appearances for the club, the striker’s talent and value to the team is beyond doubt.

However, if he is so frequently going to be out injured, at which point will Frank Lampard move on to looking for alternative options up top?

Jordan Silk and Ed Cowan struck their second successive fifties in the game to give Tasmania a 35-run lead after left-arm spinner Xavier Doherty’s five-for restricted South Australia to 397.

ESPNcricinfo staff24-Nov-2013
ScorecardEd Cowan struck ten fours during his unbeaten 66•Getty ImagesJordan Silk and Ed Cowan struck their second successive fifties in the game to give Tasmania a 35-run lead after left-arm spinner Xavier Doherty’s five-for restricted South Australia to 397.South Australia began the day at a solid 191 for 4 and consolidated with half-centuries from captain Johan Botha and wicketkeeper Tim Ludeman. Botha and Ludeman added 60 runs for the seventh wicket after the former’s 54-run stand with Callum Ferguson was broken by Luke Butterworth.After Botha fell for 65, the middle and lower order added useful partnerships that pushed South Australia into the lead. Kane Richardson, batting at No. 9, added 62 runs with Ludeman with a quick 29-ball 49, but became Doherty’s third victim as the left-arm spinner cleaned up the South Australia tail to finish with figures of 5 for 96.Tasmania’s second innings had a poor start, as they lost opener Mark Cosgrove in the third over. That was the only success South Australia would enjoy for the day, however, as Silk and Cowan added an unbeaten 139 for the second wicket. Silk finished the day at 70 off 148 with eight fours and a six, while Cowan was 66 not out off 110 balls with ten fours.

West Indies withstood a late surge from Sri Lanka’s tailenders to triumph by 17 runs, in the warm-up encounter in Birmingham

The Report by Andrew Fidel Fernando in Birmingham04-Jun-2013
ScorecardFile photo: Dwayne Bravo saved West Indies’ blushes by taking the final two wickets• WICB Media/Randy Brooks PhotoWest Indies withstood a late surge from Sri Lanka’s tailenders to triumph by 17 runs, in the warm-up encounter in Birmingham. Fifties by Johnson Charles, Darren Bravo and Ramnaresh Sarwan, propelled West Indies to 297 for 6. Sri Lanka were unable to exert sustained control over the run chase as they lost wickets regularly. A 73-run ninth-wicket stand between Dilhara Lokuhettige and Nuwan Kulasekara put Sri Lanka in sight of victory, but Dwayne Bravo mopped up the remaining wickets, and finished with a match-best 3 for 26 from his five overs. Aside from him, the West Indies batsmen will take the most confidence from the match.The result, as in many other warm-up matches, is largely irrelevant. West Indies would not have had the service of Tino Best with the ball had they fielded eleven batsmen. Sri Lanka meanwhile, could not have used Lokuhettige, or one of either Jeevan Mendis or Lahiru Thirimanne. Moreover, neither team plays a group match in Edgbaston. Though the warm-ups recreate match conditions to some extent, both teams are likely to encounter more lively pitches in London and Cardiff.Charles dominated the early overs, while Gayle was reticent at the other end. As it became clear his partner was striking it well, as he had against Australia, Gayle was content to give Charles the lion share of the strike. Sri Lanka’s fast bowling was not devoid of discipline in the opening overs, but the pitch – another lifeless batting paradise – did not offer them much room for error. Charles cut with particular ferocity, often when the ball was not more than a foot outside off stump, and he drove balls equally undeserving of punishment, almost as well. With no lateral movement on offer, in the air or off the pitch, Kulasekara’s gentle pace became fodder for Charles, who took ten runs off his first over, and rarely let up after. Gayle eventually departed for 22, having hit no boundaries, and Charles followed eight balls later, having made his second successive fifty of the warm-ups.Darren Bravo achieved the same feat during the middle overs, though his strike-rate was 74 in comparison to Charles’ 116. Tillakaratne Dilshan bowled the tightest overs of West Indies innings, and having seen Marlon Samuels perish on the fence to Dilshan’s second ball, Bravo and Sarwan played him with utmost prudence. Dilshan’s economy rate of 2.71 was substantially superior to what the front line operators achieved in either warm-up match.As West Indies approached 250 with only three wickets lost, captain Dwayne Bravo retired both batsmen out after the 44th over, leaving their 126-run stand unbroken. Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard then began hitting out, but only Pollard succeeded in that regard. His 21-ball 29 featured two sixes off near-yorkers, in Lasith Malinga’s final over, which went for 16.With a large total to chase, Sri Lanka’s explosive openers might have set them on course, but their assault was too short-lived to fire their side to a substantial advantage, and the remaining batsmen were left with plenty to do. Kusal Perera’s defensive technique has not faltered so far in international cricket, but as he has tended to do in the past, he threw away a promising start by playing one shot too many – this time into the hands of the fielder at deep square leg.Kumar Sangakkara, Sri Lanka’s most secure batsman on fast, bouncy pitches, will take the most from this match. His 62-ball 56 is exactly the sort of innings that is required of him in the middle order if Sri Lanka are to go far in this tournament, and having also made a decent score at a fair clip in the first warm-up match, he has seemingly left his IPL woes in India.His 62-run partnership with Mahela Jayawardene promised greater things, as the pair struck several serene boundaries between them. But when Jayawardene was run out for 29, the middle order mustered little resistance. As in recent major tournaments, it is the ability of Nos. 5, 6 and 7 to overcome early losses that is the area of largest concern for Sri Lanka going forward into the tournament.

A round-up of all the games played in Group B of the 2013-14 Ranji Trophy on October 29, 2013

ESPNcricinfo staff29-Oct-2013
ScorecardSix wickets from left-arm spinner Dharmendrasinh Jadeja on day three put Saurashtra on the verge of a big win as Rajasthan, forced to follow on, were left precariously placed at 147 for 4 in their second innings, still 192 runs behind.Saurashtra, who had declared at 475 for 7, were on top throughout the day, as Jadeja, Kamlesh Makvana and Vishal Joshi picked up three wickets each in the first innings to run through Rajasthan’s batting and bundle them out for 136 in 43.1 overs. Robin Bist and Ashok Menaria made 29 and 26 respectively, but none of the other batsmen managed more than 17, and Rajasthan, trailing by 339, were predictably asked to bat again.They fared better in their second attempt, as opener Vineet Saxena put up stands of 59 and 70 for the first and second wickets with Sourabh Chouhan and Robin Bist. Saxena hit 11 fours and a six during his innings. Rajasthan were stable at 129 for 1, but two wickets in the space of five deliveries helped Saurashtra establish a firm grip on the game.First, Bist was trapped lbw by Makvana in the 37th over and in the next, Jadeja bowled Saxena out for 70. Rajasthan were dealt another late blow, as Menaria also fell victim to Jadeja, leaving the team in a dire position.
ScorecardYashpal Singh’s unbeaten 87 helped Services slowly eat away at Tamil Nadu’s first-innings score of 456, as they finished the day at 245 for 5.Services, who were 17 for 0 at the start of play, were buoyed by a 62-run second-wicket partnership between Soumik Chatterjee and Anshul Gupta, who made 47 and 37 respectively. But Tamil Nadu allrounder Malolan Rangarajan dismissed Anshul and Vishnu Tiwari in quick succession to leave Services struggling at 98 for 3 in the 44th over.Yashpal and Soumik added 61 for the fourth wicket, hitting 21 fours and one six in total, before Chatterjee eventually departed for 47. Rajat Paliwal was soon dismissed too – caught behind by Dinesh Karthik off Aushik Srinivas- but Sarabjit Singh, coming in at No. 7, contributed 54 along with Yashpal to finish the day solidly.ScorecardMadhya Pradesh medium-pacer Ishwar Pandey ended the day with figures of 7 for 84 to almost ascertain a huge first-innings lead against Railways and set up the final day for a possible result.Railways, propelled by centuries from Shivakant Shukla and Mahesh Rawat, and their 118-run fifth-wicket stand, were comfortable at 249 for 4, but Shukla’s dismissal off Pandey in the 73rd over triggered a collapse, as the team lost all but one of their remaining wickets, for just 57 runs.Shukla’s 113 included 16 fours and a six, while Rawat smashed 13 fours and three sixes during his 103.For the third successive day, no play was possible in the game between Bengal and Baroda in Kolkata, due to a wet outfield.