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LONDON – England’s floundering Ashes prospects were struck a body blowtoday when Graham Thorpe was ruled out of the third cricket Test justdays after returning from a six-week injury lay-off.The Surrey left-hander, regarded by Australia as England’s top batsman,fractured a bone in his right hand while batting in the second Test atLord’s on Saturday.An x-ray on Sunday failed to diagnose the problem after Thorpe was hitby a Brett Lee delivery.But a specialist today confirmed that Thorpe had an undisplaced fracturein the metacarpal bone of his right hand.Thorpe was rushed back into the England side at Lord’s because of aninjury crisis, not even managing a warm-up game with his county.He scored 20 and two as England were humiliated again to go 2-0 down inthe five-match series against the world’s top-ranked side.The injury means that England could go into the third Test at TrentBridge, Nottingham, without three of their top batsmen.Captain Nasser Hussain, who has suffered two fractures of the hand thisseason already, has not played again.England have yet to decide whether to give him the go-ahead to play in acomeback match for his county Essex starting on Friday.No.3 batsman Michael Vaughan, meanwhile, looks set to miss his thirdTest in a row following surgery on a knee cartilage.Pace bowler Matthew Hoggard also missed the second Test with a footinjury.Australia beat England by eight wickets at Lord’s, giving them 18 winsin their last 20 Tests.They won the first Test by an innings and 118 runs. Both games couldhave finished within three days if they had not been interrupted byrain.

It says something for Wade Cornelius’ attitude that he rated the advance in his batting average, minuscule as it may have been, almost as enjoyable as the career-best bowling figures of seven for 53 he achieved for Canterbury against Wellington at Rangiora today.The New Zealand Cricket Academy graduate this year helped rock Wellington to the point where they were 29/7 at one stage before a late recovery saw them reach 126.But Cornelius, bowling with fire and brimstone in not especially helpful conditions, provided an early example of his potential after only five first-class games.”They were my best figures in any form of cricket. I’ve had a couple of six-fors but just as important was the fact I was four not out when we batted and I moved my average from 0.2 to one, so I am on the right side of the ledger now,” he said.That was the immediate pay off for the Academy as a lot of work was put into his batting during his time at the centre of cricket learning at Lincoln University.But there was also plenty of attention paid to his bowling which was borne out today.”There was a bit of swing early on out there but it flattened out after a while.”But I always like playing out here, there’s always a bit of a crowd. I just decided to give it everything and bowl as fast and as intimidatingly as I could,” he said.Cornelius also acknowledged the support of the experienced Warren Wisneski at the other end.”I reckon he probably deserved a five-for more than I did. He is great to bowl with and there were stages when he would run up to me from slip and give me a hint. He’s good at pulling the reins in a bit when you are getting wound up and that is great.”He’s had so much experience and he is a bowling mentor for the guys,” he said.As Wellington tumbled to 29/7 Cornelius was surprised at the way they kept losing wickets in pairs. Both he and Wisneski were sitting on hat-tricks at different stages.It was the hope of every bowler that he could have such a haul of wickets early in his career, he said, but what it did show him was that he could go on and compete at first-class level.”I have to give a lot of credit to the Academy. I was averaging 62 with the ball before today and 0.2 with the bat.”I’ve got a long way to go but today’s performance was very satisfying.”The Academy had not resulted in any significant changes to his bowling action, rather fine tuning and the develop of an outswinger to the right-hander. That had worked well for him today while there was still shine on the ball.”I use it sparingly, if you let them see it too much they will work it out,” he said.”What the Academy did do was encourage me to know my action and it definitely helped my game,” he said.That was apparent to Wellington today as another name was launched onto the first-class scene in conditions that were not as helpful as bowlers generally like.And that bowling average of 60?It now stands at a much more respectable 30.25.

Canterbury has batted itself into a position of dominance at the completion of the first day’s play at the Village Green, scoring 301 for the loss of only three wickets.Centuries to captain Gary Stead (100) and Chris Harris (122 not out) have put Canterbury in a position that Stead hopes will see it bat only once in the match.”That’s always the plan whatever game we go into. But I think we’ll be looking to post a big first innings total and then hopefully bat only the once. But it’s going to be hard work out there. Auckland have toiled away all day and I don’t think that wicket is going to change much,” said Stead.Opening the Canterbury innings and scoring a century Stead was in a good position to assess the pitch. He said it moved sideways off the seam early on and swung throughout most of the day. The good sole of grass on the pitch would hopefully result in swing for the bowlers throughout the entire match.Auckland toiled away in the hot Canterbury sun largely without reward and a lack of success saw the fielders wilt late in the day. The Aces played without luck; two sharp chances went down in the gully and umpire Bowden’s usual reticence in giving decisions may have cost Auckland on two further occasions.Andre Adams was the pick of the Aces bowlers picking up the wickets of Doody and Englefield during a fiery spell in the first session. But Adams was perhaps the victim of a lack of variety in the Auckland attack which allowed Chris Harris to comfortably get his eye in, the result being a two over demolition of Adams late in the first session which cost the bowler 28 runs.Auckland must be regretting the decision to leave a spinner out of its squad and it faces the prospect of another long day in the field tomorrow.Stead said achieving a result on the batter friendly pitch would depend on Canterbury’s ability to “grind Auckland into the dirt”, by posting a big first innings score.On a personal note Stead was happy to have scored his fifth first-class hundred but disappointed not to have gone on with the job. “It’s great to get a hundred and I was conscious of trying to go on and score a big one. But it was my day today. I got one low on the bat and missed out but that’s cricket.”

The last time New Zealand were in South Africa, they were a mess. Against the backdrop of a captaincy controversy, which saw Ross Taylor step down after a spat with Mike Hesson and Brendon McCullum take over in difficult circumstances, they cracked down the middle and crashed to innings defeats in both Tests. They teetered on the point of crisis, Hesson appeared a man condemned and their ODI series win was completely clouded over.Two years later, neither Taylor nor McCullum has returned with New Zealand – the former has a groin injury, the latter is being rested, but Hesson is back and has plenty to show for it. He is still in charge, for a start, and his charges have come good. As he put, it they have had “pretty big two years” after plunging the depths in South Africa, which proved a turning point for their cricket.”The one-day series win the last time we were over here was a big start for us,” Hesson said in Durban. “We hadn’t won a series in SA and we were under-strength, so to win that was a big achievement for us. That was the start of a pretty big two years culminating in a World Cup final and the Test team moving up the rankings steadily. We are improving.”New Zealand have not lost a Test series in two years, since they last visited England in 2013. They have since played seven series, won four and drawn three. In the same period, they have played ten bilateral ODI series, won five, drawn two and lost three.They have done all of that with a similar group of players to the bunch that visited South Africa two years ago; similar but different because some of them have grown up. Kane Williamson, who was but a promising kid back then, is now the stand-in ODI captain; Martin Guptill has become more dangerous; he has an ODI double-hundred to his name and Nathan McCullum remains a consistent presence. The same youngsters who made the trip then are making the trip now: Colin Munro, Jimmy Neesham, Doug Bracewell and Mitchell McClenaghan, this time with the promise of more game time.With good results, they could establish themselves as part of the core that Hesson believes is getting stronger, but that is only half the secret to New Zealand’s success. “A true test of a side is how well they go away from home. Just about every side performs well at home because that’s what they have grown up doing. We have started to win series away from home on a relatively consistent basis and that’s a sign that we are making progress.”Among New Zealand’s recent victories was a Test series win in the West Indies and ODI series victory in the UAE , two places where unfamiliar territory was as much a challenge to them as the opposition. New Zealand conquered the conditions through careful planning, which most teams regard as a luxury in the modern schedule. “We’ve been able to extend our prep time by four or five days. We plan a long time in advance in terms of the series we are likely to be confronted with. You tend to do that when you get rolled over,” Hesson explained. “It doesn’t always guarantee success but it gives you the best chance. We like to be as diligent as we can about those kinds of things.”For this trip to South Africa, New Zealand prepared with two warm-up games in Pretoria before heading to Zimbabwe. Apart from one defeat in Harare, the rest of their recce was successful and they were able to come to terms with winter conditions in Africa. They are not unlike summer conditions in New Zealand – slower surfaces with not much bounce, which may be less conducive to the attacking cricket that New Zealand enjoy playing. “The wickets will be conducive to good cricket, possible not as aggressive as the cricket as we saw in England due to the nature of the surfaces,” Hesson said.But that won’t change New Zealand’s approach too much. They are confident in their blueprint and ready to show they have come full circle: from a mess into a mature outfit with the same man, Hesson, manning the ship.”We’ve identified the way we want to play our cricket, the way we want to be known and respected by our own fans and we’re proud of the way we play the game, ” Hesson said. “As a group we’ve looked at our strengths and weaknesses and tried and work out how you can generate some consistency. It looks great when it works and when it doesn’t, occasionally, it doesn’t look so good but if you accept that’s the way you want to play, you can cope with the outcomes.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsFor Australia, The Oval has so far staged the Alternative Ashes. If Australia prosper here, it will not be just a consolation victory, it will be the Ashes as they imagined at the airport check-in that might unfold: Steven Smith striking a Test hundred to belie his air of innocence, Michael Clarke directing affairs with an air of contentment and Peter Siddle producing threatening seam-bowling spells fuelled only, cricket folklore will have it, by a steady diet of bananas.Instead, as Australia know only too painfully, it has not turned out like that. England, they will grouse, have rigged the pitches. After all, how can you trust a nation that just across town at the Barbican toyed with having Benedict Cumberbatch speak Hamlet’s soliloquy at the beginning of the play? Something is rotten in the state of England, they will say and, if it had not been, the Ashes would have been theirs. Friday at The Oval proved it.There has not been anything approaching a close match in this unpredictable series and, with England still 175 runs short of avoiding the follow-on with only two wickets remaining, there is unlikely to be one here. Neither side has been able to fight back when under pressure. Some will blame one-day cricket. Non-stop schedules might also have a bit to do with it. It has been a series of exciting cricket and tired minds.Everything witnessed at The Oval – indeed, in London once Australia’s victory at Lord’s is taken into account – has made England’s imaginings that they might force a 4-1 Ashes win impossible to credit. Faced by a daunting Australia total of 481, England’s assembling of 107 for 8 was feeble in the extreme, the captain Alastair Cook still left with one half-century in the series, Jos Buttler destroyed by a routine offspinner and Adam Lyth, Jonny Bairstow and Ben Stokes all surrendering to disorganised hooks and pulls.Lyth’s Ashes series sees him 105 for 8. He has looked overawed at this level. His maladroit pull to mid-on from Siddle’s second ball was one of his worst dismissals of the series. His Test chance might have come and gone.This is not a quick pitch, quite the opposite, but it has dried fast, the Australians have enjoyed the sun on their back and it will be warmer still on Saturday, approaching a stultifying 30C. Storms, though, are threatening later in the Test – if there still is a Test. There probably won’t be.Australia, in hindsight, will rue selection decisions during the series. Siddle, so routinely overlooked that he feared he might never play another Test, gave them control; Mitchell Marsh, illogically left out at Trent Bridge as Australia relied on only four bowlers, took 3 for 18 and would have taken four had he not overstepped when having Mark Wood caught at the wicket shortly before the close. There is a no-ball epidemic in Test cricket and umpiring attitudes have caused it.Steven Smith brought up his 11th Test century•Getty Images

Smith, an Australia captain-in-waiting, had prepared for his elevation to the job in satisfying fashion as his 11th Test match hundred helped Australia to a first-innings total of 481. It felt like a position of authority even before Smith and his eighth-wicket partner Mitchell Starc embarked upon a stand of 91 in 16 overs, Starc’s clean-hitting half-century coming with perfunctory shrugs at the ease of it all. When Smith dragged on a wide one from Steven Finn, ending a stay of 143 from 226 balls, England, it turned out, were broken, as doomed as Hamlet in the face of his sea of troubles.Series over? Can’t win the match? Faced by such truths, England collapsed. From 60 for 2, they lost six wickets for 32 in 11 overs; good bowling combated by witless batting. That after much talk before play of: “Bowled well first day, sunny day for batting, happy with how things have gone.”Cook, the one England wicket to fall before tea, will point to the sharp turn immediately found by Nathan Lyon, an offspinner of gathering reputation, pitching leg and hitting off. Lyth followed, no ryhtym to his batting, a shadow of the batsman Yorkshire know.It was Ian Bell’s departure, off bail removed as Siddle seamed one away, that first communicated to England the challenge they faced. It was the loss of Joe Root, freshly installed as the No. 1 batsman in the world, the player who has had the happy knack of disguising their deficiencies, that probably caused them to lose heart: 6 in 39 balls, most un-Root-like these days, ended with Australia’s successful review when Snicko revealed a faint edge.Bairstow and Stokes opted for attack and both fell to cross-batted aggression against short balls; in between, Buttler was unhinged by both dip and turn as Lyon crashed one through the gate. Moeen Ali survived but was struck on the helmet by Johnson. Broad’s duck, a third for Marsh, added to the melee, unsurprisingly so because he had only bowled five laborious overs in the day and looked like a man whose Ashes work was as good as done. He blows hot and cold but considering his workload he can be forgiven for that.How quaint seemed England’s ambitions for the second new ball, only two balls away when Australia resumed at 287 for 3. They took four wickets in the morning, but two fell to Moeen in the last over of the session, Peter Nevill to a sharp leg-side catch by Buttler, and there was to be no kick-on after lunch as Moeen and Stokes were struck around by Starc and fleeting thoughts of dragging themselves back into the Test floated into the London skyline.Smith’s 11th Test hundred came 20 minutes before lunch when he hurried through for a single to mid-on off Moeen. It was a far cry from the confident manner in which he reached his first Test hundred on this ground two years before – a six over long-off against, would you believe it, Jonathan Trott.Strikingly, all 11 of Smith’s hundreds have come in the first innings, his average surpassing 70, twice as high as in the second innings. He has scored them home and abroad and with this century, more so than on his debut hundred, he will feel he has begun to address the challenge of English conditions.Voges, as ever, looked confident through the leg side, but Stokes trapped him lbw for 76 with a decent inswinger. It might have been two wickets in two balls, as Smith, on 92, flayed at a short, wide one from Finn, only for the bowler to find that his feet had been as inaccurate as the delivery, landing the wrong side of the line by about six inches.Many do these days, the umpires entirely oblivious until a wicket falls. Umpiring standards have been high in this series – justification enough, the ICC will say, to concentrate on the business end, but it has gone far enough. Draw the line – preferably where it is drawn already.

Andhra, who were in a position of considerable strength at stumps on thefirst day of their South Zone (under-19) Cooch Behar Trophy match againstKerala, set the seal on their overwhelming superiority by winning by aninnings and 66 runs with more than a day to spare on the second day at theUkku stadium in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday.After dismissing Kerala for 56 runs and replying with 164 for one at closeof play, Andhra declared their first innings on Tuesday at 206 for fourwickets. The declaration was made shortly after opening batsman andwicketkeeper Md Tahir Hussain got his century. Resuming at 79, Hussainremained unbeaten with exactly 100 at the declaration. He faced 207 ballsand hit 10 fours. The other overnight batsman Gnaneswara Rao fell withoutadding to his score of 61.In arrears by 150 runs on the first innings, Kerala hardly fared any betterin their second innings and were shot out for 84 runs in 39.1 overs. Thewrecker-in-chief this time was opening bowler PAVN Raju who finished withsix wickets for 17. Md Faiq, who took five wickets in the first innings,captured three for 20. Tahir Hussain, besides his unbeaten hundred, alsotook four catches and made one stumping.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsShahid Afridi’s first match in charge of Sylhet was memorable as they brushed aside Barisal by nine wickets to record their second win in BPL 2015•BCB

Sylhet Super Stars made an unbelievable turnaround in the BPL by bowling out the red-hot Barisal Bulls for 58, the lowest-ever total in the BPL and then chasing it with ease to win by nine wickets. The massive swing in fortune – Sylhet lost five of their six matches previously – coincided with Shahid Afridi replacing Mushfiqur Rahim as captain for the remainder of the tournament.This was also the second time in the competition that Barisal were bowled out for a sub-100 score and the fourth instance in this year’s competition for the team batting first. Sylhet also completed the fastest chase, closing out the game with 51 balls to spare, overtaking the previous record help by Comilla Victorians, who beat Rangpur Riders with 49 balls to spare.It was all so different before the game started. The whole focus was on what damages would be done by the returning Chris Gayle and Evin Lewis for Barisal.But the dream opening partnership lasted just three overs as Evin Lewis dragged a pull to be caught at mid-on off Sohail Tanvir, for 12. Gayle struck Mohammad Shahid for a six over cover but departed next ball, well caught at long-on by Nazmul Hossain Milon. Afridi dropped Rony Talukdar at cover but was caught and bowled by Rubel off the next ball.Mahmudullah was the first of Ravi Bopara’s three wickets in the tenth over, after the Barisal captain holed out to mid-on. Seekugge Prasanna, shaping to cut a ball that was coming in, missed it to be bowled before Mehedi Maruf edged one to wicketkeeper Mushfiqur to cap off the three-wicket over. Afridi had the number of Taijul Islam and Sajedul Islam before Mohammad Sami was the last wicket to fall, in the 16th over.The previous lowest total was Khulna’s 67 all out in the 2013 edition. Ravi Bopara’s three wickets apart, Afridi bowled the most economical four-over spell in the BPL, giving away just five runs to take two wickets while Shahid and Rubel also finished with two wickets each.Dilshan Munaweera ramped a catch to third-man in the first over before Junaid Siddique and Nurul Hasan took control of the shortest chase quickly. Junaid was unbeaten on 34 off 37 balls with six fours while Hasan was 23 not out. The speed at which they knocked off the target would have pleased the Sylhet’s fans.