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The in-form Mahela Jayawardene is confident that, in the limited amount of time they have had on tour, Sri Lanka have more or less stamped their authority on India for the rest of Test series. The first Test at Chennai ended in a draw with rain eventually turning out to be the winner. But Sri Lanka did well to dismiss India for their lowest ever total against them of 167, and then replied with 168 for 4 before the match ended.Jayawardene said a positive start was vital: “When you start a three Test series the first most important thing is how you play, how you approach the game and how you stamp your authority. We did that pretty well in the first Test.”We showed them that we can definitely bowl them out, which is very important in a Test match. Once you do that there is going to be hesitancy in the next game. We want to hit them as hard as possible so that they can’t make a comeback”We have nothing to lose in India. We haven’t won a Test match nor have we done all that well here. For India, it’s a lot of pressure, playing on home territory they have to do well. Every time the Indians came to Sri Lanka we have beaten them and won the series. That’s a reverse psychology. We just need to put pressure on them.”Jayawardene explained the break the team had between the one-day series – which they lost 6-1 – and the Tests helped them to learn from their mistakes. “When we came to Bangalore, even though it wasn’t the best of pitches, we learnt a lot. That is the most important thing.”What we realised is that in India every venue offers us something different,” he added. “In Chennai we got the advantage over the Indians. By excelling in all three departments it psychologically gave us the upper hand. We just need to focus on what we did well and continue.”Although there was much talk of the Chennai pitch, Jayawardene, who made 71 with 66 runs in boundaries on the final day, said it was not the worst pitch he had played on. “You just needed to apply yourself and try and get the exact pace of the pitch. Once you get into that rhythm it wasn’t hard.”I found that you didn’t have to hit the ball that hard to get through the field. The pitch did turn a bit but it was not the turn that you couldn’t play. You have to give credit to our bowlers. They bowled exceptionally well. Vaasy, Dilhara [Fernando], Murali and especially Malinga [Bandara] who came back into the team after seven years and bowled really well. We put a lot of pressure on the Indians and we didn’t give them any easy runs.”For Jayawardene, who has the strokes to enrapture the spectators as he did during his near two-hour stay at the wicket at Chennai, the on-going Test series has got off on the right note for him to make a mountain of runs.”I had a good start and I just went with the flow. I was very positive in whatever I did. I wanted to use my feet against Harbhajan [Singh] so that he didn’t dominate me and it paid off. I was on top of most of the bowlers which I wanted to be at the start of a series. Everything went for me and I felt good, the timing was there. For me the wicket didn’t look that hard to bat on.””Every time before a series I have certain plans against certain bowlers which I want to apply out there. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. During the last year I have been playing really well and getting a lot of runs. My plans and my approach have been good.”Jayawardene also realises that this tour is a good opportunity for him to improve his record overseas. He says that everyone had been telling him that his track record overseas wasn’t all that good, but offers a defence: “I haven’t played many matches abroad. I have played a lot of my cricket at home.”The second Test starts in Delhi on Saturday.

Despite his excellent performance in the Sydney Test, Stuart MacGill could find himself out of the squad for the tour to New Zealand. MacGill took 8 for 170 in the game and was named the Man of the Match in Australia’s comprehensive nine-wicket win, but Ricky Ponting indicated in the post-match press conference that MacGill might not find himself on the flight to New Zealand.”Going to New Zealand, the wickets will probably be flatter and won’t turn as much as this one, so the event of playing two legspinners there will probably be unlikely. We’ll probably go back to a more structured sort of line-up over there.”Ponting admitted, though, that MacGill and Shane Warne had shared an excellent rapport during the Test: “They work really closely in the nets leading up to games. They talk a lot out in the middle about how they’re bowling, what they’re trying to do and how they’re trying to get batsmen out. At different times in this game, when they were on together, they were trying to work in a partnership, which is obviously as important with the ball as it is with the bat." Between them, McGill and Warne took 13 of the 20 Pakistani wickets.If MacGill doesn’t make it to New Zealand, he is likely to play an important role for New South Wales, his state team, who have important engagements coming up which coincide with the matches in New Zealand – the Blues, currently second in the table, play a Pura Cup game on March 10, the same day as the first Test begins in Christchurch, while the finals will start on March 18, the same day as the second Test in Wellington. Considering that New Zealand is only a three-hour flight, the selectors may feel that it’s better for MacGill to keep playing state cricket and fly him for the Tests only if necessary.However, MacGill has an excellent chance of making his first Ashes tour, given that the five Tests will be played late in the season in England when the pitches should have dried out and become more conducive to spin.

The Deputy Premier, Treasurer and Minister for Sport, the Honorable Terry Mackenroth, will launch Queensland Cricket’s latest coaching innovation tomorrow in the Ian Healy Room at QCHQ.”1st Innings” is a CD-Rom based coaching resource that will be distributed to all schools in Queensland to assist teachers and students with learning more about cricket and how to play the game.The free CD-Rom was created by Queensland Cricket’s Game Development Department in conjunction with Go-Print and Cutting Edge Interactive.The interactive CD-Rom features segments by current Queensland and Australian players including Jimmy Maher, Andrew Symonds, Ashley Noffke, Nathan Hauritz, Wade Seccombe, James Hopes, Brendan Nash, Australia women’s youth player Belinda Matheson and Konica Queensland Fire coach Joanne Broadbent.The CD-Rom is a first for cricket in Australia.

Central Districts’ all-rounder Glen Sulzberger impressed at the right time during New Zealand A’s tour of India and has won a trip to Pakistan as a result.Off-spinner Sulzberger and Wellington wicket-keeper Chris Nevin were today named as the final two players to be included in the New Zealand team for the three-match One-Day International series with Pakistan starting on October 19.They replace Grant Bradburn and Adam Parore from the side which played in Sri Lanka last month.New Zealand selection chairman Sir Richard Hadlee said today: “Chris Nevin offers more versatility to the batting lineup.”He is capable of opening with Nathan Astle and he may also be trialled lower down the order where we would expect him to maintain a high strike rate and add impetus to the run-scoring.”Nevin has played 13 ODIs and has scored 291 runs at an average of 24.25 with his best score 74 against Australia two summers ago.Last summer he set a record for wicket-keeping dismissals in New Zealand domestic cricket with 47.Hadlee had earlier hinted at Parore’s exclusion from the one-day programme on the Pakistan tour saying New Zealand wanted to ensure Parore was not over-used in the latter part of his career.”While Adam Parore’s recent Test form has been good, his ‘keeping in the one-dayers has not been as sharp as it should be and he has been too inconsistent with the bat,” Hadlee said.Hadlee has not ruled out the longer term development of one of the side’s best close-to-the-wicket fieldsmen, Lou Vincent, as a wicket-keeper in ODIs.Vincent kept for the State Auckland Aces last summer and in one match when Nevin was injured in India he kept wickets for New Zealand A and took four catches.Sulzberger has impressed selector Ross Dykes in India where Dykes has been managing the New Zealand A team.Suzlberger made his New Zealand debut last summer in Zimbabwe when called into the side as a replacement player. He came back into consideration in India where he took a five-wicket bag in one of New Zealand A’s Buchi Babu tournament victories and on the tour over he had shown enough form to be given another opportunity at international level, Hadlee said.The full CLEAR Black Caps squad is: Stephen Fleming (captain), Nathan Astle, James Franklin, Chris Harris, Craig McMillan, Kyle Mills, Chris Nevin, Dion Nash, Jacob Oram, Mathew Sinclair, Glen Sulzberger, Daryl Tuffey, Daniel Vettori, Lou Vincent.The squad for the Test leg of the tour will be named in Christchurch next week.

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It’s official. Saurashtra have clinched a place in the Ranji Trophy semi-finals at the expense of the defending champions Mumbai and, as Group A runners-up, will play Uttar Pradesh in Baroda next week.Once news came in that Delhi had also made the last four, shutting out Mumbai in the process, this match lost any significance and the captains had no hesitation in calling it off before the mandatory overs. By then Amol Muzumdar had celebrated his 100th Ranji game with an aggressive 187 and Ajinkya Rahane compiled 149 but it was Saurashtra who took the honours with the first-innings lead.Muzumdar, Mumbai’s captain, who yesterday said he wanted to go out and enjoy the last day, played a refreshingly positive innings with shots around the ground but will be disappointed with what followed his exit. Rohit Sharma survived a confident appeal for caught behind off Sandeep Jobanputra before playing a casual shot to the covers. Ramesh Powar attempted an atrocious pull off his first ball and Vinayak Samant fell in a similar manner. When Abhishek Nayar (41) fell edging a cut and Mun Mangela top-edged a pull to Jaydev Shah, Mumbai had folded up and denied themselves some consolation points as they left the tournament.Jobanputra turned in a tidy spell in the late afternoon to pick up a deserving five-for as Mumbai’s recent woes against left-arm seamers continued. He got the ball to straighten off a length and sent down a few short ones as Mumbai’s batsmen committed hara-kiri.The seam bowlers, barring an incisive Jobanputra, were guilty of bowling short and Muzumdar made them pay with some powerful cut shots. He brought up his hundred with one such stroke and the ensuing celebration – the wind-up of the fist, a hop of joy, the bat raised high to the dressing room and to the sparse crowd – showed how important the occasion was in his 14-year first-class career.His joy, however, was nothing compared to the elation expressed by at stumps by the Saurashtra players, who got into a huddle before shaking hands with the opposition. Their dream season continues.

Duncan Fletcher, the England coach, believes the way his batsmen countered Shane Warne at the Gabba will be a big boost for the remainder of the series. Warne went wicketless during nine overs in the first innings, but picked up four victims in the second, including Paul Collingwood and Andrew Flintoff.”I thought it was quite important we played Shane Warne very well,” Fletcher said in the . “We were pretty confident the way we played him there. The only thing is we gave him two soft wickets, and outside of that we played him very, very well and positively, so that was a big positive which came out of there.”Collingwood, who was stumped for 96, was the first of Warne’s “soft” dismissals and was quickly followed by Andrew Flintoff’s confusing punch to Justin Langer at deep mid-on. Only at The Oval on the past two tours has Warne, who finished with 4 for 124 from 34 overs, given up as many runs in an innings against England. Collingwood and Kevin Pietersen were particularly comfortable in a 153-run stand on day four until Collingwood charged Warne to end his brave resistance.Despite the 277-run defeat, Fletcher was also pleased with England’s work against the fast men in the second innings. “I thought we played the other bowlers pretty confidently as well,” he said. England will have another chance to prove themselves in the second Test starting on Friday.

Rahul DravidOn sealing the series 4-0
I am really happy for the team and the whole squad, the management. We have been a great group over the last ten days, and we are winning a series at home after a long time. It feels real nice to sew up a series with three matches to go. The youngsters showed today what they can do. Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Suresh Raina’s was a fantastic partnership, two young boys doing the job in a pressure situation. It showed that our batting future is quite bright. It is great for Indian cricket that we have so many options.On whether he thought the series would have been wrapped up so early
I was confident that if we played good cricket, we could win. I knew we would have to play well and honestly, we have played really well. You can’t take credit away from the Indian team, it isn’t as if the Lankans have played badly.On whether it was a gamble to play Suresh Raina late in the order
We thought since he hadn’t played in a while, since Murali was bowling and since Irfan had played Murali in Nagpur, we would keep Suresh for later. But as he showed, we needn’t have done that at all. He played a superb innings under great pressure, but yes, it was a bit of a gamble. It gives the team great confidence when, two games in a row, you successfullychase 250-plus against the side that is probably the second best team in the world. It also tells us that some of the things which we are doing are working.Ajit AgarkarOn how this five-for compares with his 6 for 42 against Australia
I’d rate this higher than my career-best (6-42) against Australia inMelbourne last year, because this has come in a winning cause. It won usthe match, and we won the series as well today. Nothing can be moresatisfying.On the pitch
It was a good wicket to bowl on in the morning, there was a little moreassistance than you get in Indian tracks for one-day cricket. Even so, youhad to get the ball in the right areas. I got two key wickets first-up,and that definitely helped.On whether he had cemented his place in the one-day side
I would like to hope so. [Laughs] But I honestly don’t look at it thatway at all. The idea is to always give 100% when you areselected to play for the country. Today was my day, everything worked outwell. The bottom line, however, is that we won the series 4-0.Tom MoodyOn the series loss
It is not an ideal situation to be in, but India played very well. We have to accept that, and we will have to continue to make improvements like we have done over the last two games. I thought we were about 15-20 runs light after having recovered so well from being exposed to the conditions in the morning. We should have got 280-290, which would have made the game a lot more interesting. Also, a couple of our bowlers have struggled with the conditions here. India is a very tough country for fast bowlers, it is a graveyard for the quicks, and in a way, it is therefore awonderful opportunity for some of the younger guys to be exposed to bowling in India. They will grow and improve as cricketers in time to come.On dropping catches against batsmen like Virender Sehwag
Against a batsman like Sehwag, against India in India when they are on a run as they are now, you must take every opportunity that comes your way. If we had taken Sehwag the first time, it would have been 50 for three, and a different game altogether. I thought we let ourselves down with our catching.On the mood in the team
We are very disappointed, no team likes to lose a match, let alone a series. We need to focus on the areas where we need to improve. The batting is falling into place, but we have to improve our bowling, and the fielding isn’t sharp enough. Over the next three games, we will be playingnot merely for pride but also to get something out of the experience of playing in India. We have made mistakes in all departments, and India have played exceptionally well. They have come out punching from the first game, and taken us on. They have played their shots, taken their chancesand that has been their downfall at times, like Tendulkar’s off-stump being uprooted today after an uncharacteristic shot. But they have done most things right, many of their gambles have paid off, and we must give them credit for that.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details