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Two summers ago in Perth, South Africa changed Australia’s perception about gettable fourth-innings targets. When Graeme Smith’s men cruised to 414 with four wickets down, it seemed that no aim was out of reach anymore, provided the pitch was true and the batting strong. Fast forward 18 months and the Lord’s surface is excellent, but Australia remain confident that Pakistan’s batting group boasts no JP Duminy or AB de Villiers clones.Pakistan will enter what will likely be the final day full of hope, needing 326 with nine wickets in hand and two batsmen well set, although Azhar Ali survived a perilously close lbw shout on the final ball of the day. Much will depend on the weather – when the clouds disappeared on the third day so did the swing – but given Pakistan’s first-innings capitulation for 148, Australia are certain they can complete their task, even under sunny skies.”We’ve got plenty of runs on the board,” the wicketkeeper Tim Paine said. “Right up until the last ball tonight we showed that we’re going to be creating chances. If we bowl well there’s enough there for us to keep them under pressure and create those chances to win the game. If we can get a couple of early wickets tomorrow and get stuck in to their middle and lower order, as we showed in the first innings if we put them under pressure we can take wickets pretty quickly.”While Pakistan will rely heavily on Salman Butt, who has been their most composed batsman in the Test, their two debutants Umar Amin and Azhar will be keen to make a name for themselves. In Perth, Australia were surprised by the poise of a newcomer, Duminy, and the similarities don’t end there.Back then, Australia’s bowling group featured a highly attacking spinner who leaked runs as he tossed the ball up to entice drives. Jason Krejza is gone from the side but in his place is Steven Smith, who is equally aggressive, and collected his first Test wicket when Imran Farhat pulled a long hop straight to midwicket.However, Smith’s first spell of Test bowling was far from poor; he aimed at the footmarks outside the left-hander’s off stump and gave the ball plenty of opportunity to spin. “For his first Test match there’s a lot to like,” Shane Warne said from the commentary box, and Smith’s fellow debutant Paine expects the spinner to play a key role on the fourth day.”He looked really good,” Paine said. “He started very well. As his spell got on, he got more dangerous. When he went around the wicket he started to spin a few quite a long way. He’ll definitely play a role at some stage tomorrow. I think early tomorrow if our pace attack get those early breakthroughs, I’m sure Smithy will cause the lower and middle order some trouble later on.”But the work begins with the seamers in the first session. And if there are clouds in the sky, there may be no silver lining for Pakistan.

Chirayu Amin, the interim IPL chairman, has said he was part of a consortium that bid unsuccessfully for a Pune franchise earlier this year and also said he had kept the BCCI president informed of his role in the auction. Also included in the group as a technical partner was the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA), whose president said it was only involved in the bid to try and increase the usage of a stadium being built in Pune.The news comes on a day when ICC president elect Sharad Pawar, his wife and daughter were revealed to have a stake in a company that was allegedly a member of the bidding consortium. Pawar is a senior minister in the federal government and his daughter an MP; both have come under severe criticism through the day for not revealing their stake in the company when the controversy first broke in April.The controversy surrounds the potential for conflict of interest; it has already claimed the job of Pawar’s former cabinet colleague Shashi Tharoor, and questions have been raised over the dual roles of the BCCI secretary N Srinivasan, whose company India Cements owns the Chennai Super Kings franchise.Amin’s statement came in response to a statement by Lalit Modi, the suspended IPL chairman, that Amin had been involved in an attempt to acquire a new IPL franchise. Amin, who was appointed interim chairman on Modi’s suspension, said he would not have invested without the Indian board’s permission had he been successful at the auction.”I was approached by a group of businessmen to join them in the consortium to bid for the Pune franchise,” Amin said. “I agreed to invest upto 10% from one of our associate companies.”Before participating in the bid I wrote a letter to Manohar in this regard and also stated in my letter that further clearance would be taken from BCCI before investing in case the bid was successful. There was therefore total transparency at every step.”The consortium was headed by Aniruddha Deshpande, managing director of City Corporation, a company in which Pawar, his wife, and his daughter Supriya Sule together have a 16% stake. “We received letters of interest from quite a few prospective investors and Glycodin [one of Amin’s companies] was one of them,” Deshpande told Cricinfo. “The letters were merely to ascertain if the investor would be serious in case the bid was successful.”One of the entities that had sent a letter of interest to Deshpande was the MCA. Ajay Shirke, the MCA’s president, explained its involvement in the bid: “We wanted a team for Pune at any cost because we are building a modern stadium which has a huge capital outlay,” he said. “The utilisation of the stadium on a sustainable basis would improve if we had an IPL team .”Mr Deshpande approached us to utilise the MCA stadium which would also help him reduce the costs. We were willing to give it to anyone as long as the person won the bid. In the letter to the City Corporation, we said that the letter was being issued on a non-exclusive basis.”

The BCCI has appointed Bharat Patel, a senior member of India’s corporate world, as advisor to Chirayu Amin, the IPL’s interim chairman. Patel is a former chairman of the MNC Procter & Gamble and, according to a BCCI statement, was associated in the setting up of the IPL in 2008 in an advisory capacity to Lalit Modi, the then chairman.An IPL governing council member indicated that it was Amin who suggested Patel’s name. The source also noted that any appointment would need the approval of the governing council. which is scheduled to meet in June.Patel did not confirm or deny the news when Cricinfo contacted him, saying he would leave it to the BCCI to make any announcement. If Patel’s appointment gets confirmed he is likely to take up a more permanent role with the IPL once the current crisis blows over. The current COO is Sundar Raman, who has held the post since the league’s inception.Following Modi’s spectacular and swift downfall, culminating in his suspension two weeks ago, the work of the IPL has been divided. While Amin is on the disciplinary committee that is handling the Modi case, the cricket-related work – specifically planning the next season – has been entrusted to the three cricketers on the governing council, Sunil Gavaskar, MAK Pataudi and Ravi Shastri.Like Amin, Patel – who was P&G chairman till March 2009 – enjoys a certain standing in the Indian corporate world. He is currently is the chairman of the Indian Society of Advertisers and serves on the brand protection committee of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, a top lobby group that Amin headed a few years ago.

Makhaya Ntini feels he is uncertain of his standing in South Africa’s plans, having not heard from the selectors since he was dropped from the national side for the last two Tests of the England series in January.After being dropped he bounced back immediately, helping the Warriors win the MTN40 and the Standard Bank Pro20 and recently starring for Kent in the first division of the County Championship with 24 wickets in five games at 19.75.Ntini was hoping that a good outing in county cricket could prod the South Africa selectors into rethinking their decision but he told the Kent website that he is unclear of his position.”My main reason for coming was to show that I am still capable of doing a good job and was not going downhill,” he said.”I’m slightly disappointed because I’ve never been told by Cricket South Africa that they don’t need me – yet they didn’t come to watch me with Kent. I would like them to tell me what I should be working on and to help me get back in.”Ntini, 32, is a giant of South African cricket, having taken 390 Test wickets in 101 games, but there was a feeling that his best days were behind him after he was unable to finish the England tail off in the drawn first Test at Centurion in December and he performed badly the game after, which South Africa lost by an innings and 98 runs. Over the last two years Ntini has played 14 Tests and taken just 46 wickets at 36.02, which compares unfavourably with his overall average of 28.82.Yet Ntini insists the decision was harsh, saying “it is unfair to drop someone for failing in one Test match.” It was thought, at the time he was left out, that he would retire and join Middlesex but he instead vowed to earn back a place in the national side. He did not feature, however, in South Africa’s following series, against India, and was not included in their squad to tour West Indies.Instead South Africa opted for three inexperienced pacemen – Ryan McLaren, Wayne Parnell and Lonwabo Tsotsobe – to back up the two new-ball bowlers Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel in the Test squad.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were outBrendon McCullum starred with an unbeaten 57•Indian Premier League

As soon as Dwayne Bravo, leading Mumbai Indians in the absence of a resting Sachin Tendulkar, chose to bat Kolkata Knight Riders were officially knocked out, the only team to have not made the semi-finals in any of the IPLs. If they had batted first and beaten Mumbai by around 175 runs, Kolkata could have improved their net run-rate and entered the last four. In their last league match, with little to play for, Kolkata produced their biggest win of the season, smartly using the slow pitch to keep Mumbai to a below-par target. Sourav Ganguly then played the cleanest innings on the tricky surface to take them home without hiccups.In the only dead rubber of the 56-match league, Mumbai rested five first-choice players, and their second-rung side struggled right from the first over. Shane Bond removed the openers for not much, and the back-up bowlers assumed control with clever variations of pace. Saurabh Tiwary’s 37-ball 46 and Ambati Rayudu’s 15-ball 27 were exceptions in the general go-slow innings that struggled to stay above six runs an over.Bond’s extra bounce consumed Aditya Tare and Shikhar Dhawan in the first three overs, both batsmen edging while going for the upper-cut. In partnership with JP Duminy, who struggled against the slower cutters, Tiwary provided some momentum. Yet Duminy’s struggle meant only 63 runs came in 10 overs while Tiwary was at the wicket. After Murali Kartik’s spin, Jaydev Unadkat and Ashok Dinda harassed Duminy with slower ones. Finally in the 13th over, with the score on 77, Duminy swung wildly and was cleaned up by Unadkat.Saurabh, though, managed to get power and timing behind his shots and had adjusted to the pace of the pitch. But with the run-rate still hovering at six, he tried to go for the big hit, and hit Kartik straight to midwicket. The score was still 77. Bravo didn’t make much of the opportunity, and was stumped soon.The way Rayudu responded to 89 for 5 after 15.4 overs belied the way other batsmen, except for Saurabh, had made the pitch look difficult. He clipped, cut, chipped and lofted with ease, but the lower order struggled around him, and Mumbai were still defending a below-par total.It was Ganguly, though, who played the ideal innings on the sluggish surface. He committed early to few shots, and made sure all poor deliveries were scored off. And Ali Murtaza helped him with one in the first over of the chase: a long hop that Ganguly hoisted for six. With Harbhajan Singh absent, Mumbai went to quicker bowlers in the Powerplay overs. In the fourth over, Ganguly played his trademark inside-out lofts off Dilhara Fernando, one for a four over extra cover, the next for six over mid-off.Ganguly was once again at his best when he chipped Duminy for two inside-out fours over extra cover in the 10th over, moving to 38 off 27, taking Kolkata to 71. Brendon McCullum, 30 off 29 by then, hadn’t looked comfortable, struggling to get the timing right. Yet he slugged it out, never mind an inconsequential match, and after Ganguly got out in the 14th over, McCullum made sure he was there till the end, getting only his third IPL fifty since that 158 in the first-ever IPL match.Ganguly may have not seen Kolkata all the way, but it was his positive innings that set up the tricky chase, and he got a healthy applause when he walked back. He took a moment to raise his bat to his beloved crowd. Could this be his last innings for Kolkata Knight Riders?