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ScorecardThe final day of this game began with Hampshire’s batsmen hoping that the weather might save them only to find the Mancunian climate contributing to their slow doom. Overcast conditions and James Anderson with a fairly new cricket ball in his hand rarely make pleasant viewing for batsmen, let alone those aspiring to engineer a miraculous escape.That contention was made evident to Matt Salisbury as early as the fifth ball of the day when the nightwatchman prodded forward to Anderson but only edged to Dane Vilas at first slip. The tone of the day had been set and although it was not until 3.02 that Lancashire completed their innings-and-30-run victory there was really little doubt they would win this game at some stage.There was rain for almost an hour soon after Anderson took his only wicket of the day but in the pavilion terrace settled down to their knitting secure in the knowledge that the guillotine had been sharpened. The next neck upon which it descended belonged to Sean Ervine, who attempted to drive Kyle Jarvis but only inside-edged the ball onto his leg stump. Hampshire lunched with their score on 81 for 7 and their chances of making Lancashire bat again were slim at best; nothing to disturb the Château Lynch‑Bages and ripe reblochon in the 1864 suite at any rate.It was an indication of Lancashire’s comfort in the afternoon session that Anderson was not needed. Figures of 15-5-20-4 had offered clear proof of his form and on Sunday evening he will practise with a pink ball for the first time in his life. Next week he may be bowling under the Edgbaston floodlights and quite possibly in the early twilight of an English summer evening. One imagines that the Warwickshire batsmen cannot wait for the fun to start.In a week or two Anderson will probably be required by England. For the present he is clearly enjoying being part of a Lancashire team whose performance in this game mocked the pre-season pessimists. Steven Croft’s team are now second in the table after seven games; some folk thought they would be seventh or even cut adrift by now.”Not many people would have expected Essex and Lancashire to be first and second after seven games but we’re in a really strong position and we have a lot of competition for places,” said Anderson. “But we’re not going to get carried away. We have a big game against Warwickshire and if we get a result there it will put us in a great position before the back end of the summer.”Hampshire batted perfectly respectably in the afternoon session, albeit that they had not a hope in hell of saving the game. Lewis McManus, never one to give his wicket away, defended stoutly for 79 minutes before umpire Paul Baldwin finally acquiesced to Ryan McLaren’s fourth lbw shout in about two overs. A callow observer might imagine that he simply tired of being shouted at.The last two batsmen fell to leg-side catches by Alex Davies, whose century in Lancashire’s only innings is in danger of being overlooked amid the blitz from Vilas and McLaren which followed it. But it was McLaren who engineered the authentic dismissal of Kyle Abbott by bowling around the wicket and digging the ball in. The ex-Hampshire allrounder thus ended this game against his former employers with a catch, five wickets and a century to his credit. One hopes that chivalrous fellow Daniel Gidney has sent Rod Bransgrove a thank-you card.The game ended when Gareth Berg, having batted well for his 49 runs, was strangled down the leg side off Jarvis. Within ten minutes or so a net was put up on the square and Glen Chapple was conducting a pink-ball practice session. Soon after that, a group of happy Lancastrians were playing football on the boundary edge; contented, professional men, they were enjoying deserved relaxation at the end of one busy week and before the start of another.

Australia’s coach Darren Lehmann has denied that the ongoing pay dispute involving Cricket Australia and the nation’s cricketers played any role in his team’s early exit from the Champions Trophy. Having had their first two group matches washed out, Australia needed to win against England on Saturday to progress, but instead suffered a 40-run defeat via the DLS method.Australia will now head home to begin preparations for their tour of Bangladesh later this year, but they will do so against the backdrop of employment uncertainty. CA and the Australian Cricketers’ Association have until the end of this month to reach a consensus on a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) or risk an ugly situation in which players may find themselves uncontracted.The pay standoff has been going on for many months now and Australia’s vice-captain David Warner last week expressed his disappointment that CA had distributed an information video stating their case for MoU changes while Australia’s players should have been focusing on the Champions Trophy.Warner said at the time: “If CA were trying to help us win, I don’t think they’d be trying to release videos like that”. However, after the loss to England in Birmingham on Saturday, Lehmann said he did not believe the pay dispute had played any part in Australia failing to progress to the Champions Trophy semi-finals.”No excuses from our point of view on the MoU,” Lehmann said. “That’s going on behind the scenes – it can probably come to the forefront now that we’ve finished. They’ll get down to that and sort that out. No excuses from our end on the MoU.”It’s always there. It’s the elephant in the room. It’s always going to be talked about. But from a playing point of view, you’re out there, surely you’re not thinking about the MoU when you’re batting or bowling. I wouldn’t think that would have affected the players’ performance at all.”Australia’s preparation for the tournament was not helped by a washed out warm-up game, and their first two matches against New Zealand and Bangladesh were also rained out – they were on track to beat Bangladesh in the second game when it started pouring heavily, but New Zealand had the upper hand in the first match. Lehmann said Australia’s preparation had been adequate, but they had not been up to the task in the critical match.”We were just outplayed,” Lehmann said. “We were probably 30 or so short with the bat. We needed some of those guys to go on and get hundreds. [Aaron] Finch and [Steven] Smith played well, but we needed the top four to get a hundred. And then we bowled pretty poorly after the rain break. Disappointing result.”Just disappointing, I think we lost 5 for 15 at one stage. Credit to England, they bowled well, but I think we helped them a bit in the back end of our innings. We were sitting reasonably well at one stage but once you lose wickets you’re always in a bit of trouble. I think it was 4 for 240 odd when Maxi got out. You’d hope to get close to 300, but we didn’t.”Australia’s cause was not helped by a let-off for England captain Eoin Morgan, who was dropped down the leg side by Matthew Wade early in the chase. Morgan was on 12 at the time, and pressed on to make 87.”It was disappointing. He should grab them, but nobody means to drop them, either,” Lehmann said. “Disappointing part of the game, especially at that time. But again, they played really well. Morgan and Stokes were very good today.”Australia’s own batting set-up did not work as they hoped, with the addition of Moises Henriques at No.4 proving ineffective. Henriques scored 18 and 17 in his two innings in the tournament, and his presence in the side meant there was no room for fellow allrounder Marcus Stoinis, who struck a stunning 146 not out in an ODI in Auckland earlier this year.”We’ll have to sit back and have a look at that, moving forward, what we do there,” Lehmann said. “Marcus was very good in New Zealand so it’s a tough selection call. You take advice from everyone and you make a call and the skipper was quite keen for him to bat four. He [Henriques] looked good but probably didn’t capitalise.”Lehmann said Australia would need to find a way to return to the “brave” style of play that they displayed at the 2015 World Cup. It is an approach that he believes England and New Zealand have now adopted, and Lehmann bristled somewhat at the suggestion that Australia could learn something from the way England and New Zealand were currently playing in the ODI format.”I think England and New Zealand took the way we played in the last World Cup,” he said. “We played with bravery and we smashed every side, bar obviously New Zealand in Auckland. They’re starting to take the way we played, not vice-versa. When they win a World Cup, then we can take the way they play.”We certainly want to get back to playing brave cricket. I don’t think we were brave enough or smart enough in this tournament. I would have liked us to play with a lot more freedom or bravery.”

An Ashes debut for Perth’s new stadium remains in Cricket Australia’s sights, with the chief executive James Sutherland to head west this week for meetings aimed at getting the 60,000 capacity Burswood development up and running in time for the third match of next summer’s five-Test series.On the day tickets went on sale to the general public for all venues but Perth, Sutherland said he was in continuing talks with stadium management – helmed by former CA executive Mike McKenna – the West Australian government and the builders to see if the precinct can be ready in time for the Ashes.This is despite reports out of Perth last month indicating the state government had all but ruled out the possibility of the Test being played in the new stadium, which features drop-in pitches. A January ODI between Australia and England appears the more likely time for the unveiling.”Either way we’re very optimistic that we’ll be playing cricket at the new stadium in 2017-18, but we’re hopeful it will be a Test match because I think people will come from everywhere to be a part of the event,” Sutherland said. “We know there’s latent demand in the UK just waiting for an announcement and they’re ready to go, because Perth’s just that little bit closer to the UK and I know it’s a place that English travellers love to get to.”We’re looking towards the end of this month to make a decision. We want to get tickets on sale as soon as possible, give everyone plenty of notice of what needs to get in order, but certainly we’ll continue to have conversations, I’m in Perth this week to have some conversations with relevant people and we’ll hopefully, by the end of this month, be able to make announcements about when tickets go on sale.”The stadium’s management – which also includes CA’s former head of events Chris Loftus-Hills – has remained steadfast that the venue is intended only to be ready in time for next year’s AFL season. Australia have hosted Ashes Tests at incomplete stadiums before, most recently during the Adelaide Oval redevelopment, when the majority of the ground was available for play.File photo: The new stadium in Burswood is expected to hold a capacity of 60,000 people and will feature drop-in pitches•Getty Images

“From what I understand the stadium will be fully complete and ready to go [when it hosts its first match],” Sutherland said. “It’s very much about the logistics and planning. The completion dates for the stadium actually work pretty well for us, but at the same time a Test match in Perth at the new stadium would be a huge event, and there’s little room for things to go wrong in terms of teething problems that are in some ways perhaps inevitable.”We’re really optimistic about the way in which the event could be staged in the new stadium, we’ve got great confidence in that, but we also understand that through government, through the stadium manager and also the builders, there are a lot of logistics we’re not necessarily across that need to be worked through.”We’d love to see the Test match be the opening event for the new stadium, but to some extent that’s out of our control. We’ll just put our best foot forward and try to impress that upon the powers that be in Perth.”CA recently named Antonia Beggs as the governing body’s new head of match operations and events, after she had previously served at the head of client relations for the European PGA tour and as Championship director of the Ryder Cup. After relocating from Britain, Beggs is expected to start in her new role in mid-July.

Tom Harrison, the ECB chief executive, has defended the introduction of a new T20 tournament, slated to get underway in 2020, by insisting that the concept will “future-proof” the game in England and Wales.Harrison also stated he would like “as much cricket as possible” to be broadcast free to air, and insisted that a key aim of the new competition would be to underpin the future of Test cricket.Speaking in between presentations with all members of the ECB – the first-class counties, the MCC and representatives from the recreational game – Harrison confirmed the organisational details of the new competition, as published by ESPNcricinfo earlier this month – and expressed his confidence that he will receive a mandate to progress plans for the tournament within the next few weeks.To further those plans, the ECB’s executive board will meet on Tuesday to agree a ground-breaking amendment to the constitution of the ECB that will allow them, for the first time, to run a competition that excludes some of the 18 first-class counties. After that, a letter will be sent to all 41 members of the ECB (the 18 first-class counties, the MCC, the 21 recreational boards and the Minor Counties Cricket Association) asking them to approve those constitutional changes. The ECB requires 31 positive responses within 28 days of the date on the letter for the changes to be passed. A non-response is effectively a no-vote.Realistically, it is most unlikely that the ECB’s plans will be derailed at this stage. All 18 counties and the MCC have now signed media deeds assigning their broadcast rights to the ECB – the final county signed a couple of days ago – after the ECB threatened to withhold funding (£1.3m per county per year for five years, starting in 2020) if they delayed further.Several counties are deeply unhappy – one complained of being “co-coerced” while another stated that “Devon and Dorset are telling the Test grounds how to run their business” – but those grumbles are now likely to remain below the surface. Depending on your point of view, the non-first-class counties have been won over by the ECB’s plans, or won over by the ECB’s offers of extra money.One or two concessions have been won by recalcitrant counties. The ECB have confirmed that the change to the constitution will apply only to the new-team T20 competition – meaning all three existing competitions will continue to feature 18 teams – and they have confirmed that are aiming for eight of the 36 games in the new-team competition to be broadcast free to air. After what will have been a decade-and-a-half behind a paywall, that might yet prove to be the most significant development of all.Most of all, though, Harrison sought to explain the motivation behind the advent of the new competition. Accompanied by England’s limited-overs captain, Eoin Morgan, who attended the meetings to add his support, he drew on research that suggests that the imprisoned spend more time outside than many of today’s children in the UK, and that only 2% of British kids list cricket as their favourite sport. In short: cricket needs to act if it is to remain relevant.”It is very clear we are not currently talking to as big an audience as we should be, because our tournaments are not as relevant as they should be,” Harrison said from the Royal Institute of British Architects, where the meetings were held as the offices at Lord’s are currently being refurbished. “We have to think differently if we’re going to be successful at attracting family audiences to our competitions. We need to change our thinking on that to be relevant to a new generation that responds to big box-office occasions.”This is about creating something different. If we’re successful at that, we’ll be successful at boosting our existing tournaments as well as creating something dramatically different for English cricket and for a thriving new audience for English cricket.”Arguing that plans to play the new-team competition at the same time as the 50-over competition and Test cricket did not risk “cannibalising” the existing audience, Harrison insisted that the aim was to find an entirely new and different audience for the game.”We don’t see the audiences for Test cricket being impacted by the new T20 competition,” he said. “We’ve done an awful lot of work in understanding our county championship audience, our Blast audience, our 50-over audience. What this is designed to do is complement that with a whole new audience that we’re currently not talking to.”This is about growth. This is a fantastic opportunity for us to create something that appeals to an entirely new audience, grows cricket’s overall audience, and enable us to control something that has real value for the long term.”Key to that will be the ECB’s ability to strike a better balance between subscription and free-to-air broadcasting. While Harrison can make no guarantees – it is, after all, up to the broadcasters to decide what they show – he confirmed that discussions with free-to-air providers were positive and on-going.”In an ideal world, I’d like to maximise revenue and reach,” he said. “I would love to have as much cricket as we could [on free to air]. But we’re a pay-TV business. We’re underwritten by pay TV. Right now, there aren’t too many alternatives to that, so we have to be smart about how we package and work with our commercial partners to make sure we get that balance right between reach and revenue.”We’ve a great opportunity. There’s a desire from free-to-air to partner with us on new T20. They’re excited about where we’re taking the game. These are not conversations you can have if you’re not presenting something very clear, very exciting and very different to the market. So we’re in a very strong place.”Defending the accusation that the 50-over tournament would be diminished by being played in the shadow of the new T20 competition, Harrison said: “The 50-over tournament will be where county members can see young players coming through. It will give young players a chance to showcase their abilities earlier in their career than they would otherwise get. There’s reason to be very cheerful about the 50-over tournament.”In theory, it is just about possible that individual counties could lobby their chairmen and chief executives over the next couple of weeks and demand they reject the constitutional amendment. Realistically, though, from the moment the counties voted to pursue the new-team competition as their only option from 2020 onwards this was an inevitable outcome.

Ashish Nehra has expressed a strong desire to make a comeback to India’s ODI team. Though he last played in the format in the 2011 World Cup, Nehra has said he retains hopes of playing fifty-over cricket for India again when they land in England in June for the Champions Trophy.”I would love to play in the Champions Trophy,” Nehra told ESPNcricinfo. “When you go to England you will take at least four fast bowlers in addition to two spinners. I know I can bowl anywhere: up front, in the middle overs and at death. I can also share the experience I have with the other young fast bowlers.”Nehra’s last competitive fifty-over match – the recent practice game against England notwithstanding – was in December 2015. But that doesn’t deter him. He says he has worked out a detailed plan for his comeback, which includes playing at least half of Delhi’s six matches in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, India’s premier one-day tournament.”I aim to play at least three matches to build up my match-fitness. Fifty-overs is a different challenge and Vijay Hazare is a good platform to test myself,” Nehra said. “I bowl about eight overs even in the nets while preparing for a T20 match. It is not about fitness. It is about the feel of playing in a 50-over match.”It was Nehra’s success in the IPL, initially at Chennai Super Kings and then with the Sunrisers Hyderabad, that brought him back in contention for India in T20 cricket. The selectors could not ignore the key role he played for those teams, keeping it tight with the new ball and bowling yorkers at the death. The confidence gained from a successful reintegration to international cricket is apparent in Nehra. “Once I play these Vijay Hazare matches I will be fit enough to play and good to go for the Champions Trophy.”During his time out of the ODI team, Nehra has maintained form through the IPL•BCCI

Nehra’s original timeline had him working towards returning to one-day cricket with the New Zealand series last October but he fell ill and was forced to spend a couple of months on the sidelines.A match-winning 3 for 28 against England in the second T20I and more recently hauls of 2 for 35 and 3 for 26 for North Zone in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy suggest Nehra has regained his fitness. At 38, he is the oldest active player in the Indian team but that does little to diminish his value. Nehra still bowls at speeds of 135 to 140 kph and his experience – he will complete 18 years in international cricket at the end of February – makes him sort of a father figure for the young fast bowlers like Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya. Chairman of selectors MSK Prasad, too, has acknowledged Nehra’s importance, saying he can be handy in English conditions.Nehra is hopeful these assets help make him an attractive pick for the Champions Trophy but felt it premature to think as far as the next ICC tournament. “The 2019 World Cup is still two-and-a-half years away. We are going to play at least 50 one-dayers in between. For me every tournament is important. I will try to play as much as I can.”

AB de Villiers has become the first big-name player to throw his weight behind South Africa’s new T20 competition, which is set to launch in the 2017-18 summer. The tournament will comprise of eight privately-owned franchises and will aim to attract high-profile internationals in a model similar to the Indian Premier League, the Big Bash League and the Caribbean Premier League.”I am so excited about it. It’s going to be great. Lots of credit to Cricket South Africa for coming up with that. It’s vital for our cricket. It will motivate some of the youngsters to stick around, to fight it through and to play for South Africa,” de Villiers said.”The domestic tournament is going to do wonders for our cricket and I think it can definitely come up [] an IPL when it comes to entertainment and quality of cricket. With some of the names that I have heard who are interested in coming over, it’s going to be fantastic.”Cricket South Africa (CSA) put out a tender notice to invite bids for franchise ownership on Saturday and is in the process of securing sponsors – some international – to fund the event. Should foreign currency be behind the tournament, CSA will be able to match or even rival payments in leagues around the world – something that was identified as a major hurdle in luring internationals to the current domestic tournament, where they are paid in Rands.The benefits will also extend to locally-based players. More money will mean big pay-days for South African cricketers too, which Haroon Lorgat explained was a consideration when the event was conceptualised.Complete details of South Africa’s tournament are yet to be revealed but CSA have identified a window in November-December for the competition, with a final pencilled in for December 16, a public holiday. The proposed dates are in the middle of the South African summer, which also means they will clash with the Australian summer – and potentially the BBL – and the Indian home season, and could create scheduling conflicts.De Villiers, though, is hopeful South Africa will attract some of the best players from all over the world. “I think there are quite a few countries already available. I am not sure about India. I haven’t heard anything from them yet,” he said.South Africa’s current domestic T20 has had a smattering of internationals taking part. This season Kevin Pietersen (Dolphins) and Kieron Pollard (Cobras) were involved while in the past Andre Russell (Knights), Owais Shah (Cobras),Darren Sammy (Titans), Dwayne Bravo (Dolphins) , Sohail Tanvir (Lions), Craig Kieswetter (Warriors) and Chris Gayle (Dolphins and then Lions) had brief stints at the tournament. South Africa’s internationals have only been briefly available for their franchises but with the new event, that is set to change.

Former India captain Mohammad Azharuddin has been disqualified from contesting for the post of HCA president after his nomination papers were rejected by returning officer K Rajiv Reddy on Saturday.Uncertainty over whether Azharuddin’s life ban imposed by the BCCI had been lifted, and whether he was classified as an HCA voter, resulted in his disqualification.”(He had not given) a satisfactory explanation whether the BCCI ban on him in the wake of the match-fixing scandal was not lifted and that he failed to provide adequate proof that he was enrolled as a voter,” Reddy told the .Azharuddin said he wasn’t given a reason for the decision. “Right from the beginning, I think the process looked to me a little bit fraud. I gave them the court order also,” Azharuddin said. “People are misinformed. I think things should be put to rest. Court has given an order which has cleared me of everything.”The returning officer should answer my questions, but he is not present. I will go for a legal case. I think the Lodha Committee rules and orders are not followed at the HCA.”Azharuddin was banned for life after being found guilty of fixing matches in an investigation conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation. Azharuddin’s initial attempts of challenging the ban were unsuccessful, but in 2012, a division bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court ruled the BCCI ban illegal.Azharuddin, who filed his nomination papers representing the National Cricket Club on Tuesday morning, had said he didn’t “foresee any issue” with the BCCI ban.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details1:23