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Zaheer Khan, the India fast bowler, has said he is eager to reclaim his spot in the Indian team and that he will utilise the time after the IPL to work on his fitness and form. Zaheer was out of action for four-and-a-half months before playing two matches for Royal Challengers Bangalore earlier this week.”I’m definitely feeling much better but I know I’ve still got a long way to go,” Zaheer told the IPL website. “Post IPL I have to put in some serious work into my fitness and form to reclaim my place in the Indian team. That’s what’s on my mind right now – I want to use that period after the IPL to get stronger, fitter and improve in all the areas.”India will play the Champions Trophy after the IPL but Zaheer was not included in the squad of 15 for the tournament. Before the IPL, he last played for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy last December in a league game against Gujarat but sustained a calf injury which forced him out of the knockout stages and the Irani Cup.”I was itching to get back on the field but I always take my time to come back whenever I am injured,” Zaheer said. “This time too, I could have played a couple of matches earlier but it’s always good to be a game late than coming back too early. That was the thinking between the trainer, physio and me.”On grounds of form and fitness, he had been dropped during the home Test series against England late last year and for the ODIs against Pakistan.

Scorecard Bangladesh Under-19s levelled the five-match one-day series with a big win in the second game at Sylhet. They beat Sri Lanka Under-19s by 115 runs before moving to Dhaka for the final leg of the tour.Sent in to bat first, the home side made 255 runs in 48.4 overs, with opener Nazmul Hossain Shanto scoring a century. His 109 off 131 balls was the backbone of the innings as he batted till the 46th over to take the home side to a competitive total.He added 75 for the third wicket with Mehedy Hasan, who made 44 off 47 balls. With captain Mosaddek Hossain, Shanto added another 63 for the fourth wicket before putting together a further 43 for the sixth wicket with Abu Sayeem. For the visitors, Binura Fernando took three wickets while Roshan Anurudhda, Chamika Karunaratne and Sanjika Ridma picked up two each.In reply, the visitors were bowled out for 140 in 38.1 overs, with no real partnerships developing at any point during the innings. Captain Kusal Mendis made 37 while Sandun Weerakkody scored 30.Legspinner Jubair Hossain took four wickets, while Mehedy and Nehaduzzaman picking up two a piece.

South Africa’s Graeme Smith will miss the Champions Trophy in England next month, because of the flaring up of a long-term ankle injury that will require surgery*.Smith had scans in London on the ankle on Wednesday and Surrey announced that he would return home to South Africa immediately to undergo an operation. South Africa are set to feature in the opening fixture of the Champions Trophy, against India on June 6, in just over four weeks’ time.Cricket South Africa confirmed in a release on Thursday morning that Smith will miss the tournament. “Graeme has been troubled by left ankle pain over the last few months and despite extensive treatment and physiotherapy, it has recently deteriorated significantly while playing for Surrey in England. Surgery will be required, and he has been advised to follow a rest and rehabilitation programme over the next four to six months,” team manager Dr Mohammed Moosajee, was quoted as saying in the release. “This unfortunately rules him out of the upcoming ICC Champions Trophy in England and Wales and the Selectors will name a replacement in due course.”Smith said: “It’s a big blow for me personally to be missing out on the Champions Trophy next month. Our ODI squad is creating something special and I was looking forward to being part of that family.”Titans opening batsmen Henry Davids and Lions youngster Quinton de Kock are the likeliest candidates to replace Smith in the ODI squad. It is a second setback for South Africa, as they are also without Jacques Kallis for the tournament, after the allrounder had opted to skip it due to personal reasons.On having to cut his county stint short, Smith said: “To have to head home now, so early in my time at Surrey is very frustrating but I leave the team in a good place and hope to be back with them as soon as possible.”Smith is contracted for three years and, although Surrey are resigned to the fact that his brief tenure as captain is already at an end for this season, they are confident he will return in 2014. He will not play against Durham in the Championship match beginning at The Oval on Friday and leaves Surrey in the bottom two of the first division.Surrey’s team director, Chris Adams, said: “Graeme has made an impressive start as a leader and the squad have really responded to his leadership. It’s clearly disappointing for all, especially Graeme, but we wish him a speedy recovery.”Smith missed South Africa’s fifth ODI against Pakistan in Benoni at the end of March and at the time Moosajee had referred to a “chronic left ankle problem”.He added: “We have been trying to manage him but unfortunately the impingement syndrome slowed him down today and he is quite symptomatic. He has had surgery on this ankle a while ago and I think the load and the volume of cricket for the year, and particularly during this ODI series, has troubled him.”Nevertheless, Smith, who described his ankle problem as “an ongoing problem”, honoured his contract with Surrey, aware that he was regarded as a prestigious signing who could bring stability to the club following a traumatic period brought about by the death on the London underground of their England Lions batsman Tom Maynard.Ricky Ponting, the former Australia captain, has already been signed as Smith’s replacement, but he was not scheduled to arrive until the start of the Champions Trophy and will see out his IPL contract with Mumbai Indians.*05.50GMT, May 9: This article has been updated after CSA confirmed Graeme Smith will miss the Champions Trophy

Match facts

Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Start time 2000 (1430 GMT)Kings XI Punjab were off to a flying start in IPL 2013•BCCI

Big Picture

Kings XI Punjab and Chennai Super Kings had contrasting starts to IPL 2013. While Kings XI thrashed Pune Warriors in an away game, Super Kings slipped up after a dominant beginning in Chennai, handing Mumbai Indians a victory. Going into their second matches, both teams are at opposite ends of the points table, ends neither is too familiar with.For Kings XI, it was a near-perfect display. They were disciplined with the ball, energetic with the bat and electric in the field. Parvinder Awana bowled possibly the delivery of the IPL so far, angling in and moving across Angelo Mathews to have him caught behind. Mandeep Singh, with a little help from Adam Gilchrist, accounted for Marlon Samuels with an inch-perfect throw from deep midwicket. Then there was Gurkeerat Singh’s spectacular, flying take in the long leg region, to get rid of Ross Taylor. Three special moments, which ripped the heart out of Warriors’ batting. Gilchrist and Manan Vohra then sealed things in style, knocking off the target of 100 with almost eight overs to spare.Super Kings, on the other hand, had Mumbai at 83 for 6 after 12 overs, before Kieron Pollard showed grit and gumption. Still, the target of 149 was hardly daunting for a line-up like Super Kings’. A series of poor shots though pushed them so far behind in the chase that even a MS Dhoni special could not rescue the team. But Super Kings have seen it all before, and one game is hardly a measure of how an IPL season could turn out. If the players’ tweets ribbing Ravindra Jadeja on the eve of the Mohali match are any indication, team morale is high. Plus, they have reinforcements in the form of South African allrounders, Albie Morkel and Chris Morris, who arrived following the conclusion of their domestic commitments. Morkel was an injury worry, turning an ankle during South Africa’s T20 final on Sunday, but he has since tweeted that his scans are clear.Kings XI are still without the services of injured Australian batsman Shaun Marsh – he tweeted on Saturday that he hoped to be with the team in a week’s time.

Players to watch

So far, this IPL has thrown up a number of unlikely heroes. Rahul Shukla impressed with his pace for Rajasthan Royals, and Hanuma Vihari with an all-round showing for Sunrisers Hyderabad. Then there was 19-year-old Manan Vohra for Kings XI. Admittedly, he was not really under any pressure against Warriors, with the target being a paltry 100, but the fact that it was his IPL debut compensated for that; it was his first real taste of the crowds, the TV cameras, the hype. How did he respond? By slamming five fours in his first seven balls, carving through the covers, flicking through the leg side and, most impressively, swiveling to pull. He eventually finished unbeaten on 43 off 28. Vohra continuing where he left off will go a long way in helping Kings XI build on their remarkable start to the tournament.Chris Morris set his base price at US$20,000 in February’s IPL auction. He was bought for US$625,000; Super Kings paid 31 times the base price for the allrounder, who can be expected to produce accurate, pacy spells, and get a few big hits away down the order. Morris first caught the eye at the 2012 Champions League where his team, Lions, finished runners-up. On Sunday, he took 2 for 18 at 5.68 as Lions triumphed in the Ram Slam T20 Challenge, claiming the big wickets of Herschelle Gibbs and Albie Morkel. With Morkel unlikely to be 100% fit after his ankle trouble, and Ben Laughlin having an average game against Mumbai, there’s a good chance Morris will get an IPL debut on Wednesday.

Stats and trivia

• Kings XI have won four of their last five IPL matches against Super Kings. Before that, they’d lost five in a row against them.
• Suresh Raina needs three sixes to become the second player, after Chris Gayle, to get to 100 sixes in the IPL. Gilchrist is third on the list, with 87 sixes.
• MS Dhoni has scored three fifties in eight innings against Kings XI, averaging 44.80 at a strike rate of 155.55

Quotes

“Kings XI Punjab have never won their opening match in the IPL earlier. That is the hoodoo we have got rid of. Every team hopes to start a tournament with a win and so we are going towards the right direction.”

The coach Mickey Arthur has conceded that in hindsight Australia might have made a mistake by not picking two spinners on a Chennai pitch that crumbled as the Test wore on. However, Arthur said that even after the match, it was difficult to assess what difference a twin spin attack would really have made, given that most of Australia’s wickets came from pace and Nathan Lyon ended up with match figures of 4 for 244.The question of whether to include Xavier Doherty as a second spin option for the Hyderabad Test will be one of the major discussion points for Australia’s selectors over the next three days. Another will surround the workload of James Pattinson, the most dangerous of the fast bowlers in Chennai, where he finished with six wickets for the match, the first time an Australian fast man had claimed so many in a Test in India since 2004.The team management are conscious of Pattinson’s propensity to break down and having bowled 33 overs in hot conditions in Chennai in his return to international cricket after suffering a rib injury, they will consider the best way to handle him over the four-Test series. Regardless of whether Pattinson plays in Hyderabad, there will be debate over the makeup of the attack, and Arthur said the spin question would not be easy to answer.”That’s going to be the million dollar question,” Arthur said. “It’s easy in hindsight having a look at how the wicket ended up, you probably would have liked two spinners on there, however, our quicks took most wickets. We didn’t get a massive return from spin in this game. I thought James Pattinson was outstanding, so it’s a difficult dilemma.”I think going to Hyderabad we’ll have to look at conditions before we make a proper decision. Looking at the way it ended up probably two spinners [would have been good] but our quicks were the most likely out there, so I am not sure which way really.”One thing Doherty would provide if selected is the ability to turn the ball away from the six right-handers that make up India’s top and middle order. Monty Panesar was effective in that regard during the Test series in India late last year, although with 596 first-class wickets at 30.22, Panesar has a vastly superior record in the long form to Doherty, who has 122 victims at 44.56 and is not renowned as a big spinner of the ball.But the vast majority of Lyon’s Test wickets have been right-handers – 47 as compared to 18 left-handers – and Arthur said that on difficult pitches turning the ball in to the batsman and making him play was not a bad thing. It remains to be seen whether the Australians decide they need spinners turning the ball both ways.”I think on wickets like this balls turning into you are just as effective, because you’ve actually got to play,” Arthur said. “You can’t leave balls alone. Balls coming into the bat on wickets that have crumbled are almost as tough to play. Ideally you want both, and I did a lot of looking at the England series and they used Panesar a lot.”You use the left-armer a lot more in the first innings here because you get a lot more control from your left-armer. But when the wickets start breaking up, your off-spinner to the right handers becomes dangerous because you’ve got to keep playing him all the time. Ideally, it would be nice to have the pigeon pair.”Lyon, Doherty, Arthur and the captain Michael Clarke were all part of a conference on the field after the loss in Chennai where Shane Warne, who is commentating on the series, discussed spin with the group. Some words of advice from Warne would have been especially useful for Lyon, given that Warne also struggled in India during his career. Arthur said the first Test had been a steep learning experience for Lyon.”I think he has learnt from this game that you have got to be really consistent in conditions like this in order to put the batsmen under any sort of pressure, but I think he will grow and he will learn from this game,” Arthur said. “It will be interesting to see how he pulls up after this Test match and in terms of information and preparation and everything he worked extremely hard coming into this Test match. Only he knows how he will approach things if he plays in the next Test match and how that is going to go.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsAfghanistan wrapped up the Twenty20 series against Scotland 2-0 with another thumping win in Sharjah. Hamid Hassan picked up four wickets to restrict Scotland to 139, then Mohammad Shahzad produced another impactful innings to help the team achieve the target with 15 balls to spare.Scotland chose to bat and lost opener Richie Berrington in the first over. They produced a better batting performance than the first match as Matt Machan and Calum McLeod steered the team to 74 for 2 in the 11th over. But once Machan was out to Samiullah Shenwari, regular wickets kept tumbling. Only Moneeb Iqbal’s late runs helped them to 139, before Hassan collected two wickets off the last two balls.Afghanistan started their chase at a frenetic pace with Karim Sadiq taking 15 runs off the second over. Sadiq put up a half-century stand with Nawroz Mangal, and once they were out, Shahzad continued his form from the previous match by scoring 46 off 25 balls. his innings included three boundaries and two sixes and though he was out in the 15th over, he had taken the team only 15 runs short of the win, which the other batsmen completed easily.The two teams are now scheduled to play two ODIs in Sharjah followed by an ICC Intercontinental Cup match in Abu Dhabi.

ScorecardDhaka Gladiators returned on top of the points table after posting their seventh win in the competition. They crushed Barisal Burners by eight wickets and with 44 balls to spare as the Burners’ hopes of a final four finish took a beating.Shakib Al Hasan’s half-century hastened the victory and ended the night game early. Shakib struck 54 off 31 balls with seven boundaries and a six, and was helped on the way by Tillakaratne Dilshan who made an unbeaten 49 off 39 balls. The pair came together after Mohammad Ashraful fell to a pull shot off Azhar Mahmood in the second over of the small chase, and added 92 runs for the second wicket.Shakib was particularly attacking and played some splendid shots off the four-pronged seam attack of the Burners. Afghanistan fast bowler Hamid Hassan’s debut match at the BPL ended without a wicket as he went for 28 off his four overs.But batting seemed more difficult when the Burners batted first after they were stifled to 114 for 9 in 20 overs. Mahmood made 30 off 33 balls but found no support as Brad Hodge fell for 12 and Sabbir Rahman, the other in-form batsman in the Burners line-up, made only 18 off 14 balls.Mashrafe Mortaza, Alfonso Thomas, Shakib Al Hasan and Chris Liddle took two wickets each.

A knee injury has ruled West Indies fast bowler Ravi Rampaul out of the Caribbean Twenty20 starting this weekend. Rampaul is expected to be sidelined for two to three weeks, and his place in the Trinidad & Tobago squad has been taken by quick bowler Rayad Emrit.”After a medical assessment and an MRI scan, it was decided that he would not be fully fit for the tournament,” T&T manager Omar Khan said, “and the recommendation is to rest him rather than taking a risk and playing him and he breaks down during the tournament which could put him out for a longer period of time.”T&T are defending champions of the Caribbean T20, and have a squad full of renowned players, including Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard and Sunil Narine. Still, Khan said the absence of Rampaul will be a big loss. “It is a disappointment because Ravi is a West Indies bowler and he is one of our main bowlers in terms of opening the bowling and bowling at the death. We obviously have to make some adjustments and the technical staff will be looking at different strategies having lost Ravi as an option.”T&T open their campaign on Sunday against Jamaica, another of the frontrunners for the tournament.

The allrounder Glenn Maxwell is in line for his Test debut after being named to replace the injured Shane Watson for the Sydney Test against Sri Lanka starting January 2. Watson has been ruled out due to the calf injury he suffered while bowling on the first day at the MCG and the captain Michael Clarke is also in some doubt due to the hamstring injury he sustained in Hobart. While Clarke expects he will be fit to play at the SCG, Usman Khawaja will remain on standby as Australia assess Clarke’s recovery.Maxwell is almost certain to play as the Australians look ahead to the tour of India, where they will require a second spinner, although Clarke also raised the possibility of bringing Mitchell Starc back in for Watson, to bowl alongside Mitchell Johnson, Peter Siddle and Jackson Bird. Whatever happens, Clarke has declared Starc a certain starter, but a four-man pace attack along with Lyon appears unnecessary in Sydney conditions.”Shane is out of the Sydney Test and Glenn Maxwell comes into the squad as a replacement for Watto [Watson], being the allrounder,” Clarke said after Australia’s win in Melbourne. “The other person on standby is Usman Khawaja for me once again. I have got a bit of extra time now, winning this game in three days, to give myself every chance to be right for Sydney and I’m really confident I’ll be fit for Sydney. But Usman is on standby just in case.”Maxwell comes into the squad as the allrounder, so it is a squad of 13 and then we wait and see what the conditions are like in Sydney. I think the other allrounder sits beside me right here [Mitchell Johnson] as he showed with the bat in this game. So we’ve got options. If you think the wicket is going to spin you’ve got the option of Maxy [Maxwell], if you think there’s enough in there to play four fast bowlers and a spinner, you’ve got [Johnson].”The uncertainty over Clarke’s fitness and the absence of the vice-captain, Watson, also means Australia’s selectors will need to decide who would be captain in the event that Clarke is ruled out. The logical replacement for a one-off Test would be the veteran Michael Hussey, although David Warner would be another option after the selectors indicated his leadership potential last summer by briefly naming him vice-captain of the one-day side.”I haven’t had that conversation with the selectors, not to say they haven’t thought about it, I’m sure they have,” Clarke said when asked about the captaincy if he was to sit out. “But I haven’t. I don’t know the answer to that question.””I don’t think [my hamstring has] got worse, that’s for sure. The thing with my injury, it’s about how you pull up as well. Yesterday I batted for a fair bit of time and made a hundred. I really need to assess over the next 24-48 hours how I pull up, continue with my strength programme, continue with my maintenance work to make sure I’m 100% right for Sydney. I think it’s more precaution than anything else.”The most likely scenario is that Clarke will play and Maxwell will come in for Watson, to bat at No.7, with Matthew Wade to move up to No.6. Clarke confirmed that if he was declared fit he himself would bat at No.4 in Sydney, with Hussey at No.5. The inclusion of Maxwell would give Australia two offspinners, but Clarke was confident both Maxwell and Nathan Lyon could work in the same side.”They’re two very different bowlers,” Clarke said. “Glenn brings that allrounder package. He’s scored plenty of runs for Victoria with the bat, I think he averages over 40 with the bat in first-class cricket, and he’s had success with the ball. He’s the full package and he has that X-factor about him. It’s now about assessing conditions and making sure we pick the best XI.”Maxwell, 24, has played 15 first-class matches and collected 27 wickets at 33.81, and has scored 924 runs at an average of 42. He made his ODI and Twenty20 international debuts earlier this year and is viewed as a player of enormous potential by John Inverarity’s selection panel.The absence of Watson will also raise further questions about his ability to perform the dual roles of batting in the top four and bowling in Test cricket, after calf and hamstring injuries ruled him out of the whole of last summer and the first two Tests against South Africa this season. Clarke said there were times when he held Watson back from bowling too much due to his batting commitments, but he said any decision to give up bowling would have to be made by Watson alone.”That’s really decided by Watto,” Clarke said. “He wants to be an allrounder. If you’re an allrounder you’ve got to be able to bat and bowl. Unless that changes in his mind, it won’t change in mine. We speak about it often. We’re very lucky to have such a good player who can do both, he could be in the team as a bowler, he could be in the team as a batter.”Squad: Michael Clarke (capt), David Warner, Ed Cowan, Phillip Hughes, Michael Hussey, Usman Khawaja, Matthew Wade (wk), Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Johnson, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Jackson Bird

India have retained 15 players from the squad that lost to England in Mumbai for the third Test at Eden Gardens, beginning in Kolkata on December 5. Fast bowler Umesh Yadav, who did not play the second Test because of a back injury, was not fit and hence left out.The BCCI had on Monday said the selectors would pick the squad for the two remaining Tests and the two Twenty20 internationals that follow, but today’s release said the selection for the fourth Test, in Nagpur, and the Twenty20 games will be made later.Yadav, the most effective of India’s pace bowlers in the series-opener in Ahmedabad, was advised “at least 10 days’ rest” by a specialist in Mumbai, and was not expected to recover in time despite the lengthy break ahead of the Test. “The injury is more serious than it was thought to be, so the team will have to make do without him for at least another Test,” a source told ESPNcricinfo.The India squad will assemble in Kolkata on December 2, after a few days’ break, while England will remain in Mumbai before leaving for Kolkata on November 30.Squad: MS Dhoni (capt), Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Cheteshwar Pujara, R Ashwin, Ashok Dinda, Pragyan Ojha, Ajinkya Rahane, Harbhajan Singh, Ishant Sharma, M Vijay, Zaheer Khan.