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Windward Islands got their season back on track after two heavy defeats against Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago. The points gained from the seven-wicket victory over Combined Campuses & Colleges (CCC) in Barbados pushed them up from fifth to third on the points table. Windwards chased 91 for victory after they ended CCC’s second innings at 186 about five minutes before tea, and they got there with about five minutes left for scheduled close.CCC, comfortably placed at 101 for 1 just before lunch, completely lost the plot as the last six wickets fell for 28 runs. Nekoli Parris top scored with 57, while Omar Phillips managed 47. For Windwards, Shane Shillingford picked up 4 for 47, while Rawl Lewis and Liam Sebastien finished with two wickets apiece. Andre Fletcher, again led the way for Windwards with an unbeaten 42, putting on 47 for the fourth wicket with Lewis to take the visitors home after stumbling early during the chase.Legspinner Davendra Bishoo starred with 6 for 64 for Guyana against Leeward Islands on a tense third day in Nevis. With a slender four-run first-innings advantage, the 23-year-old Bishoo and former West Indies Under-19 left-arm spinner Veerasammy Permaul combined for nine wickets and tormented the Leewards’ batsmen, bowling them out for 245 in 80 overs in their second innings. Resuming on 63 for 1, Montcin Hodge, returning to the Leewards side after being omitted for the third-round match against Barbados, played well and got to his second first-class fifty, which came off 121 balls with six boundaries. His half-century partnership for the third wicket with Tonito Willett took Leewards to 137 for 2 at lunch, but he was trapped leg-before by Bishoo on 78 soon after resumption. Though the rest of the batsmen did get starts, they failed to convert them, and the last five wickets fell for 22 runs. Leewards though, landed two important late-afternoon blows to leave Guyana on 36 for 2 at stumps, still needing 206 for the win.Defending champions and table-toppers Jamaica were left to chase an easy 201 after the Barbados batsmen failed to put up a challenging total in Jamaica. They were shot out for a disappointing 221. Legspinner Odean Brown led Jamaica’s attack with 3 for 40 and Wavell Hinds supported him well with 2 for 14. Rashidi Boucher scored 48 at the top of the order while wicketkeeper Patrick Browne struck an unbeaten 57 to lead a fightback after Barbados had slipped to 150 for 7 by mid-afternoon. But despite a 66-run stand with debutant allrounder Barrington Yearwood (24), Browne received no real support from the lower order: the visitors lost their last three wickets for five runs.

Zimbabwe Cricket’s executive will meet early next week to consider applications for the post of national coach and, according to the Zimbabwe Independent, there are four names who stand out from what is believed to be a small number of those who have expressed interest.The newspaper says that the four are Colin Siller, Kevin Curran, Stephen Mangongo, and incumbent Walter Chawaguta.Chawaguta, who was given a short-term contract when Robin Brown was unceremoniously ditched in August, is believed to be the favourite despite vocal criticism of his handling of the side in the series whitewash by Sri Lanka.Curran is a known quantity but he was far from successful when he previously had the job, often preferring to ensure the side were not disgraced rather than trying to score victories. His popularity with the players was also questionable. However, of the four he has the best coaching and playing credentials.Siller, 38, who is Scottish, currently coaches Fiji and has had spells helping out with Canada, and has previously been headhunted by ZC in connection with coaching posts. However, his experience at senior level is very limited and he has not played first-class cricket either.The same can be said for Mangongo, whose main claim appears to be based on his association with the notoriously-political Takashinga club (of which Chawaguta is also connected). He has held coaching and selection posts but has little experience and is also far from popular because of his fiery temperament.If these are the only realistic candidates for a job to coach a country that remains an ICC Full Member, then it does show how far Zimbabwe have sunk. Up and coming coaches, who might be expected to use the role as a launching pad to greater things, appear to have been put off by the state of the country and the quality of the national side.There is also no embarrassment of riches for the A-team post, with only two applications believed to be under consideration. One is Douglas Hondo, who has recently been fast-tracked into a post of bowling coach, and the other is women’s coach Emmanuel Dube.

Kevin Pietersen, the England captain, has insisted his team cannot use the difficult situation they find themselves in, after resuming their tour of India, as an excuse for failing to deliver when the first Test starts in Chennai on Thursday.England only arrived from Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, where they spent three days practising while the final decision was made to travel back to India, and have just two days in the build-up to Test. The first of those has already been disrupted by rain, and with more forecast England are going into the match severely undercooked.The squad has been widely applauded for resuming the tour – and have said they will give half their match fees to help the Mumbai victims – leading to the suggestion that the result of the series doesn’t matter. That doesn’t stand with Pietersen, though, who said that once play starts his team need to be fully focused on beating India.”You could say we can’t lose in this situation, but that’s also a way of looking at things negatively and finding excuses – I don’t want any excuses about what has happened,” Pietersen told the . “There is to be no nonsense said about what has happened. I told the boys this morning that it’s a case of coming to this Test match series like it would be in England.”What has happened has happened and we can’t control it, but we’re in a very privileged position to be playing Test match cricket in India and we’ve got to deal with it in a professional manner.”After having such a positive start to his captaincy career against South Africa, Pietersen’s record has come crashing down. First there was the Stanford Super Series where England were thrashed in the final, and off-field events made more news than the cricket, then the one-day side was beaten 5-0 before the Mumbai terror attacks turned Pietersen from a cricketer into a diplomat. At least now he can get back to his main job.”The main focus now is definitely on the Test series,” Pietersen said. “It hasn’t been a great start to the winter, there’s been so much that’s happened in the last six weeks and it’s now a case of getting on and concentrating on the cricket.”We need to chuck everything away that’s happened in that six weeks to make sure that now our primary goal and focus is to try and win this Test match series.”The first of Pietersen’s major decisions will be the composition of the final XI in Chennai. Before the team returned the prospect of fielding two spinners – and handing a debut to Graeme Swann – was gathering speed, but with the damp weather around Chennai the temptation will be there to field an extra fast bowler.Amjad Khan, the Kent fast bowler, is part of the squad in place of the injured Ryan Sidebottom and would be in line for a Test debut as Stuart Broad is ruled out by a hamstring strain.”There are a lot of cricket issues to think through,” Pietersen said. “My head has been given a full working over during the last few days. It’s been emotional trying to work out what players are going to do and what team we were going to bring and now we’ve got a full squad it means we can choose from that. The cricket brain has switched on and decisions have to be made.”

Middlesex are still hopeful of having Owais Shah available for the Champions League next month if he isn’t involved in England’s warm-up match in Baroda, while Andrew Strauss has not been entirely ruled out either.Middlesex’s chief executive, Vinny Codrington, said he was getting “positive noises” from the ECB regarding Shah, who is currently involved in the one-day series against India, but it still seems unlikely that Strauss will be released from his England duties as he is a certainty to open the batting in the Test series.”The ECB have been fabulous, we have had close dialogue with them throughout and continue to do so with relation to the two of them,” Codrington said. “We are optimistic that they will be made available to play for us. It clearly depends on a number of things in the run-up to the first Test, for example if Owais was to get into the squad, but we’re very optimistic they will be available to us, if not required in the Test.”We would not wish to stand in way of either individual playing for England. Owais has had positive conversations with Peter Moores and if he isn’t needed for the warm-up he’ll join us. They [the ECB] are very keen as English representatives for us to do well in the tournament.”The proximity of the Champions League to the first Test, which starts on December 11, the day after the final, has already provided difficulties. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who will play for Chennai Super Kings, won’t be able available for the final if his team makes it, although for a while it looked as though the Test would be pushed back a day.Depending on how far Middlesex progress, a similar situation could occur with Shah and, even if he isn’t part of the first Test plans, the England management would have to decide if they wanted a squad member to be absent from the touring party so close to a major match.The UK-based Middlesex players will leave for India next Thursday, a couple of days ahead of schedule, to spend time acclimatising before the tournament starts on December 3. They will be joined by Tyron Henderson, who will fly in from South Africa, Murali Kartik who is already in India and England Academy pair Dawid Malan and Eoin Morgan from their stay in Bangalore.Strauss also flew out with the Academy party on Friday and is due to have talks with the England management tomorrow about his chances of playing for Middlesex. “It’s a moveable feast and something we won’t know for certain until we get out there,” added Codrington. “But we are getting positive noises from the ECB.”It’s no wonder, given the logistics of getting the squad together, that Codrington became slightly confused at the press conference, as he was listing the whereabouts of all the players, by stating “Shaun Udal is already in India,” when the Middlesex captain was sat next to him.The build-up to the tournament has not been simple for Middlesex, who have been hamstrung by the ruling that the squad they take can only include players who helped them win the domestic event in July. That prevented them including new signing Neil Dexter, who officially joined the club on October 1, and was part of the Stanford Super Series squad.”As has been documented we didn’t think we’d have Andrew [Strauss] so we tried to get Neil Dexter to replace him,” Codrington said. “We appealed to the technical committee and they rejected it as they are very keen that the side that goes to the Champions League was the same side that represented us in the domestic.”The untried world of domestic sides playing on a global stage has thrown up a number of interesting scenarios. Already, Mike Hussey has confirmed he will play for Chennai rather than Western Australia and Middlesex also have the chance of facing one of their own with left-arm quick Dirk Nannes turning out for Victoria.The ruling is that, unless a transfer fee is paid, as has been the case with Hussey and Albie Morkel, that a player who has qualified with two clubs must represent the side they first had success with.Most intriguingly, though, is a potential meeting with the Rajasthan Royals if Middlesex qualify for the later stages of the event. That would bring Udal head-to-head with Shane Warne, his former captain at Hampshire. “We’ll see him in the final,” Udal said confidently. Middlesex start as outsiders in India, but as Udal added, that was how they were seen throughout the Twenty20 Cup last summer. “It suits us just fine,” he said.

ScorecardSri Lanka held their nerve to quell the plucky resistance of Canada, whose opener, Rizwan Cheema, struck an entertaining 43-ball 68 which so nearly caused an unlikely upset. Sri Lanka now face Pakistan, who earlier eased past Zimbabwe, in tomorrow’s final.Cheema’s fireworks gave Sri Lanka plenty to be concerned about as Canada chased a challenging 154 for victory. However, as is the trend among Associate nations facing the likes of Sri Lanka and Pakistan, one man does not make a team. The rest of Canada folded with Ajantha Mendis grabbing four as Sri Lanka won by 15 runs.Nevertheless, Cheema made sure Canada didn’t go down without a fight. Striking some of the biggest sixes in the tournament, he went some way in proving that anyone with a good eye (and a heavy bat) can take on the giants, particular in this format of the game. And what made his riposte so entertaining was that Dilhara Fernando had reduced Canada to 14 for 3. Fernando was carved for four over midwicket before Cheema whacked the first of his six sixes out of the ground. Again, he swung at Kaushalya Weeraratne to crack another before slog-sweeping Sanath Jayasuriya into the deep midwicket stand.Weeraratne was clubbed for two more fours and Cheema raced to 34-ball fifty with the biggest of the lot: a nonchalant flick off his toes over midwicket. At the halfway point, Canada were 80 for 3 and beginning to believe the unbelievable. However, Sri Lanka’s class spinner, Mendis, returned in the 11th over and had Sunil Dhaniram trapped lbw, effectively ending Canada’s worthy resistance by now exposing the tail. Cheema went on to scorch six sixes and four fours in an innings that, although it was in vain, at least held up Sri Lanka’s stroll to victory.The difference between the two sides is highlighted in their scorecards. Sri Lanka’s top scorer was Mahela Jayawardene with 35, and though they lost seven wickets, there were only two single-digit scores in what was a reasonable all-round batting performance. Jayawardene looked in particularly elegant touch, pulling Eion Katchay effortlessly for six before stepping onto the front foot to drive classily through the covers. He fell lbw to Balaji Rao, Canada’s legspinner, who returned admirable figures of 3 for 21.There were late-order fireworks from Dilhara Lokuhettige and Nuwan Kulasekara that helped Sri Lanka set Canada an unlikely 154. If only they had one or two more like Cheema in their squad, Canada might have stood a genuine chance of an upset.

Scorecard