Craig McMillan has dismissed fears over his disappointing form on the tour of England so far. Two failures in the seven-wicket defeat at Lord’s, as well as a duck and 12 in the warm-up game at Kent, hasn’t done his confidence much good, but he insisted he is in the right frame of mind to get back in the runs.Talking yesterday at Grace Road, where the New Zealanders are playing Leicestershire, McMillan said, “It was a disappointing Test from my point of view, but I’ve had those before and bounced back so I’m not going to go searching.” He continued, “I felt fine. You can miss out in two knocks easily and it’s not the end of the world. It’s important to stay positive and not change too much, because then things can fall apart.”It’s simple, I missed a straight one then got a little bottom edge. You can over analyse about why those things happened and get down on yourself, but that’s not doing anyone any good.”McMillan was out lbw to Matthew Hoggard in the first innings, and then played a loose sweep shot to Ashley Giles to be caught by Nasser Hussain second ball. At the stage of the match, it wasn’t the most sensible choice of shot.McMillan, 27, averages over 40 in Tests, and he insisted the current match against Leicestershire was important to get him back in some sort of form for the second Test at Headingley next Thursday. “A few of us missed out and we didn’t score the runs we wanted from our middle order. England did, and that’s an area where they outshone us,” he said. “It was a hurt dressing room to be honest. Rightly so, we were pretty confident at the start of the day and thinking 280 was going to be enough to put them under real pressure. We didn’t put them under any real pressure at all. We didn’t bowl as well as we would have liked.”However, McMillan refused to write off their chances in the rest of the series. “Quite often this team performs best when our backs are against the wall. I’m sure the guys will come out swinging, even though it’s not an ideal position.”

Lunch Scotland 314 for 7 and 250 for 8 lead Netherlands 257 (Zuiderent 78, Watson 5-74) by 307 runs
Scorecard
Day 2 Bulletin
Holland’s bowlers kept Scotland in check on the third and final day at Aberdeen, with Scotland going to lunch at 250 for 8, a lead of 307 with 61 overs left in the game. Half-centuries from Fraser Watts and Bruce Patterson gave Scotland the advantage yesterday, but some accurate bowling by Holland and four wickets to Sebastiaan Gokke means that they are still very much in the game.Scotland lost Steve Knox early in their second innings yesterday, bowled by Schiferli in the first over for a fifth-ball duck (1 for 1), but Patterson and Watts added 115 for the second wicket to cement Scotland’s advantage. Patterson fell just before the close for a patient 51 (116 for 2) with Watts unbeaten on 60 and Ryan Watson on 9 not out. Watson was first to fall this morning, lofting a catch to Daan van Bunge at extra cover off the bowling of Schiferli (164 for 3). His wicket triggered something of a collapse, with Colin Smith out second ball for 1, caught by Luuk van Troost off Sebastiaan Gokke (168 for 4), and Watts trapped lbw by the same bowler for 79 (174 for 5).Cedric English failed to match his first-innings form, unluckily stumped off an inside-edge by Jeroen Smits for 17 to give Gokke his third wicket of the morning (209 for 6). Almost immediately after, Craig Wright was run out attempting a suicidal second run (210 for 7). Holland’s bowling was economical, and with a very defensive field runs were hard to come by. Greig Williamson was caught at long on for 21, trying to increase the run rate (234 for 8), but Ian Stanger (27*) and Majid Haq (5*) took the score to 250 at lunch without further loss.

Salman Butt, the young left-handed batsman, and Shahid Afridi, the mercurial allrounder, have been included in Pakistan’s squad for the Videocon Cup and the ICC Champions Trophy. Afridi replaces Danish Kaneria, the legspinner, while Butt comes in for the out-of-sorts Imran Nazir.”Basically these 14 players will play in both tournaments because we want to give continuity to the captain and coach. The squad has been finalized after consulting both of them,” Wasim Bari, the chairman of selectors, is reported as saying in The News.Both Afridi and Butt are making comebacks to the Pakistan team. Afridi was dropped after playing in four of the five one-day internationals against India in March, while Butt last year played for Pakistan against Bangladesh in Multan but has since been in the Pakistan A team.Squad Yasir Hameed, Imran Farhat, Salman Butt, Yousuf Youhana, Inzamam-ul-Haq (capt), Younis Khan, Moin Khan (wk), Shoaib Malik, Abdur Razzaq, Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Sami, Shabbir Ahmed, Naved-ul-Hasan.

UAE 231 for 9 dec and 162 for 3 (Arshad Ali 74*) lead Malaysia 173 (Selvaratnam 53, Mohammad Tauqir 4-34) by 220 runs
ScorecardOn the second day of the Intercontinental Cup match at the Royal Selangor Club in Kuala Lumpur, an astonishing collapse by Malaysia’s lower order, in which seven wickets tumbled for 48, handed the initiative back to the United Arab Emirates. The main destroyers on day two were Ali Asad and Khuram Khan, the former UAE captain, who took five wickets between them. The UAE finished the day on 162 for 3 in their second innings, an overall lead of 220.Three wickets fell in three overs this morning, as the UAE came out swinging. Suresh Navaratnam was the first to go, trapped lbw without adding to his overnight score by Asad. Ariffin Ramly and Sarath Jayawardene then followed in quick succession, and after Rohan Suppiah and Shankar Retinam put on 27, the tail was quickly skittled. Khan wrapped up the innings when Retinam, who had played a defiant innings in the middle order as the batting fell to pieces, was caught behind by Mohammad Taskeen, the wicketkeeper.The UAE lost Ramveer Rai in the second over for just a single, but Arshad Ali kept the advantage gained by the bowlers with an unbeaten 74. With a more-than-useful lead already gained, the UAE now stand a good chance of gaining the maximum points necessary to take them through to the semi-final against Canada.

Zee Telefilms has rejected the suggestion made by the Mumbai High Court last week, that they should go in for a fresh bidding process for the rights of international cricket in India for the next four years. Zee had earlier won the rights from ESPN-Star Sports (ESS), who then filed a petition alleging that Zee were ineligible to bid as per the terms of the Indian board’s tender.Zee’s contention, of course, is that the bidding process was fair and transparent to begin with, and there is no reason for them to enter it again. ESS’s original contention, about Zee’s ineligibility for the rights, will now be heard on September 16.The Board of Control for Cricket in India, for its part, wants the fracas to be resolved as soon as possible. Speaking to Indiantelevision.com, Jagmohan Dalmiya, the BCCI’s president, said, “Forget the money, we would lose face if the matches are not televised as we are obliged to provide replays, etc to the third umpire, and ICC may even penalise us heavily, apart from the likelihood of the Australian board demanding compensation.”

After the 491-run hammering that Pakistan were subjected to in Perth, Bob Woolmer suggested that mental fragility had been the reason for the debacle. And the former Australian captain Greg Chappell, for one, believes that Pakistan need to adopt a far more postive approach if they are even to contemplate competing on an even keel with Australia.A report in the newspaper quoted Chappell as saying: “I think Pakistan has a similar problem that New Zealand had and many other sides have had against Australia in recent times. They [the Pakistanis] are going out there with the wrong mindset. They are going out there to survive, rather than prosper. The survival mentality is a negative mentality.”Chappell reckoned that Pakistan would do well to learn from India’s performances in Australia a year ago, when they ruined Steve Waugh’s farewell with a 1-1 draw. “The only team that have played Australia positively in recent times has been India and they actually performed quite well,” he said, before mentioning the famous case of Daryll Cullinan, an otherwise fine batsman who was reduced to an inept wreck by Shane Warne.”Cullinan was a very good player but he was reduced to looking like a schoolboy every time he batted against Warne because of what he was thinking about.”The technical frailties of the Pakistani batsmen were ruthlessly exposed by Glenn McGrath, who picked up the eye-popping figures of 8 for 24 as Pakistan subsided for just 72 in a truly abysmal second-innings display. Chappell, though, was of the opinion that excising fear from their minds would go a long way towards combatting a formidable bowling line-up.”If they go out with a positive approach to actually trying to score some runs, then they may find improvement in their techniques,” he said. “If they are thinking positively, they are more likely to move positively.”Pakistan haven’t won a Test match against Australia for nine years, and have now lost seven on the bounce to them. Even if they heed Chappell’s advice, it will take a minor miracle to prevent that unwelcome run stretching to eight.

Enamul Haque Jnr has been fined 25% of his match fee for arguing with the batsman Brendan Taylor during Bangladesh’s one-day international with Zimbabwe at Chittagong.Taylor was officially reprimanded by the match referee for his part in the incident which arose as the pair collided when the 18-year-old spinner Haque tried to field off his own bowling. It was just Haque’s second one-day international for Bangladesh. He took no wickets in this match, but had taken 2 for 37 on his ODI debut in the previous match, which was also held at Chittagong.Bangladesh went on to win the game by 40 runs, a result which brought them right back into the five-match series: they now trail 2-1. The fourth match will be played this Saturday (Jan 29) at Dhaka.

John Dyson will be back on March 1 to continue his role as the coach of the Sri Lankan team before their Test tour to New Zealand in April. Mohan de Silva, the president of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), said that Dyson had agreed to return to Sri Lanka and complete his contract which ends on March 31 and prepare the team for the two Tests against New Zealand.Dyson angered a section of the SLC top brass when he back to Sydney straight after the cancellation of the New Zealand tour, following the tsunami disaster, without informing them. The SLC’s ExCo was divided on whether they should retain Dyson and give him a fresh contract or look for someone else to replace him.However the issue appears to have thinned out following Dyson’s talks with de Silva and Duleep Mendis in Australia recently. de Silva said that SLC have offered new terms in the contract which Dyson hopes to discuss with SLC officials when he is here. Depending on the outcome of the discussions Dyson’s contract could be extended to anything from one year to until the 2007 World Cup in West Indies.Dyson, the former Australian opener, had succeeded Dav Whatmore after signing a 19-month contract in September 1, 2003. Within that period of time Sri Lanka improved their rankings in both forms of the game, moving from seventh to fifth in Tests and leaped from seventh to second place in the one-dayers.Sri Lanka are due to play New Zealand in two Tests at Napier and Wellington, apart from a three-day warm-up game from March 26. The national cricket selectors named a pool of 24 players for training from which the final squad will be selected. These players will be involved in SLC’s provincial tournament which gets underway tomorrow and ends with the final at Dambulla on March 6.

Pakistan’s joy at reaching the final of the VB Series has been tempered by the news that Rana Naved-ul-Hasan’s father has died. Rana Mehdi Hasan, 60, had been suffering from a lung infection and passed away during the match.It is the second time in as many matches for Pakistan that one of the squad has suffered in this way – after Sunday’s victory over Australia, Younis Khan flew home to attend the funeral of his father, and was said to be “shattered” as he departed from Perth Airport.A spokesman for the Pakistan Cricket Board expressed his condolences in a statement. “We realize that you were far away on national duty on the tragic day and fully share your grief. May Allah Almighty bless the departed soul and give you and your family the strength to bear this loss.”The burial will take place on Wednesday in his home town of Sheikhupura. Naved’s mother has asked her son not to return home, but to continue on the tour and take part in the finals.

Scorecard

One of the most abused clichés in sport is the one about the game, ratherthan a team or individual, being the winner. For those on the losing side,especially after a contest decided by the length of a fingernail, such aglib phrase is no more than a slap in the face, another reminder of fallingagonisingly short. But sometimes, maybe once every decade or so, sport hasthe ability to transcend itself and render the result immaterial. So it waswith this one-day international at Karachi.Years from now, those present will still marvel at the vivid memories, whilethose who watch archival footage will stare in awe at the splendour of thesporting theatre on offer. For India, the victory erased bitter memoriesthat went back almost two decades, but ultimately the result mattered littlewhen compared to the atmosphere that enveloped the ground as the afternoonslid into night.It had been seven years since an Indian team played in Pakistan, and therehad been no full tour since 1989. With Karachi being denied a Test match,the opening one-day match carried additional resonance, and there was asecurity phalanx in place by the time the two captains walked out to toss.Inzamam-ul-Haq won the toss to thunderous applause, and then befuddledeveryone by sending India in. The expected Sachin Tendulkar-Shoaib Akhtarsideshow didn¹t disappoint, but after the master had played some gloriousshots, it was Shoaib who wheeled away in celebration. By then though, withVirender Sehwag blazing away in all directions the run-rate had reachedastronomic proportions.By the time Sehwag was outfoxed by a slow yorker from Rana Naved-ul-Hasan ­tarred, feathered and hung out to dry by some scintillating shotmaking ­India were rattling along at ten an over, with the fielding restrictionsstill in place. Though Pakistan hauled it back in the second half of theinnings, a majestic 99 from Rahul Dravid gave India the impetus to reach349, leaving Pakistan to make 20 more than any team had ever done to win amatch batting second. And while the batting had been dazzling, it wasovershadowed by the effervescence and sense of fairness of a capacity crowdthat accorded a surprised Dravid a standing ovation.Pakistan¹s run chase, for the most part, seemed to consist of chasingshadows. The openers barely made a dent, and even though both Inzamam andYousuf Youhana batted with refreshing positivity and class, the requiredrun-rate refused to climb below eight. Youhana¹s was a coruscating hand, ajoyful amalgam of drives, cuts, languid flicks and outrageous hoicks thatappeared to give Inzamam heartburn. After he departed for a brilliant 73,the stage was all Inzamam¹s.He had eased into the cricketing consciousness with imperious shotmaking ina World Cup semi-final 12 years earlier, and faced with near-impossibleodds, he delved into his treasure chest of experience to unveil an inningsof intelligence and beauty. Paced to perfection, it had both bludgeon andcaress and strokes timed so magnificently that the fielders were made tolook clumsy and second-rate. With Younis Khan providing inventive support atthe other end, the 350-run oasis suddenly appeared to be more than achimera.It was Murali Kartik, playing only because both Harbhajan Singh and AnilKumble were out injured, who gave Ganguly respite, coaxing the faintest ofnicks from Inzamam¹s bat after he had stomped to 122 from just 104 balls.Suddenly, the equation ­ 72 from 47 balls ­ didn¹t seem as easily solvable.Younis and Abdul Razzaq though wouldn¹t entertain negative thoughts,thumping some fine boundaries as the target was whittled down. But Kartikthen bowled Younis, and Zaheer Khan pegged back Razzaq¹s off stump to leavethe burden to Moin Khan, an impudent and aggressive shotmaker in his heyday,and Shoaib Malik.With only 10 needed from eight balls came another defining moment in a matchthat was full of them. Malik¹s mighty heave had both Hemang Badani andMohammad Kaif running for it, and it required stunning concentration andspectacular agility from Kaif to prevent a sickening collision and hold onto a catch that gave the Indians fresh spring in weary stride.Nine were needed when Ganguly tossed the ball to Ashish Nehra, the mostinfuriatingly inconsistent element of India¹s pace attack. But Naved wasnervous, and Moin not quite the batsmen he was, as Nehra managed five ballsfor just three runs. After close to eight hours of compelling action, it hadcome to this ­ a six off the last ball.Up on the players¹ balcony, Javed Miandad played out the stroke which woulddo it, desperately wishing to transmit the thought and action to Moin.Almost 18 years earlier, Miandad had picked up a legside full-toss fromChetan Sharma and slammed it over midwicket to stab a gaping hole in India¹scricket psyche, and he must have watched in amazement as Nehra came up witha waist-high offering.Moin, though, was no Miandad, and this full toss hastened on to his batbefore he could complete the cleaving motion that would send the ball intoorbit. As the ball looped up to Zaheer at midwicket, there were yells oftriumph from the Indian fielders. After a moment of stunned resignation, thecrowd responded with a chorus that no Indian present there will ever forget.In a rivalry characterised by mindless posturing and hatred on both sides,it was an epochal moment, that once-in-a-lifetime occasion when a tiredcliché about triumph and defeat being irrelevant made perfect sense.