Pakistan v/s Bangladesh T20 Match 25th September 2012 (HIGHLIGHTS )

Watch Pakistan v/s Bangladesh T20 Match 25th September 2012 (HIGHLIGHTS )

Pakistan in Super 8.

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Watch Full Highlights Pakistan vs Australia 3rd T20 September 10, 2012 PAK vs AUS HQ

Australia crush Pakistan by 94 runs
Australia 168 for 7 (Warner 59, Watson 47, Ajmal 2-19) beat Pakistan 74 (Starc 3-11, Cummins 3-15) by 94 runs

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Pakistan vs Australia 2nd T20 Highlights 2012 | Pak v Aus Highlights 7-9-2012

Watch Pakistan vs Australia 2nd T20 Highlights 7 September 2012 at Dubai. Australia tour of UAE 2nd T20 Cricket Highlights of Pakistan vs Australia

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Pakistan vs Australia 1st T20 Highlights 2012 | 5-9-2012

Watch Pakistan vs Australia 1st T20 Highlights 2012 online played at Dubai Sports Complex UAE on 5th September 2012 in Australia tour of UAE 2012.

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6th over: South Africa 22-0 (Petersen 20, Smith 2) These are not great signs for England I’m afraid. We’re all doomed. Petersen drives Broad handsomely for four, works another boundary off the pads – and again keeps the strike with a single off the final ball. It’s England v Petersen at the moment, and they’re not even winning that battle.

“Why shouldn’t we be critical of the two Andys?” says Tom Collins. “I’ve always thought England’s recent success has been in spite of, not because of, their negative field placings. Can’t understand how Jimmy and co put up with having just two slips for their opening spells.” I didn’t say we couldn’t be critical. It’s just that I’m personally loath to be too critical of two men whose obvious brilliance has produced unprecedented success for English cricket. I’d also strongly dispute the suggestion that England’s success has been in spite of those fields. There are times when I’d like them to be more attacking – this morning is one of them – but to suggest that should have four slips most of the time ignores the enormous changes in the nature of batsmanship in the last 15 years. Those 1980s fields are about as relevant today as fingerless gloves and Wet Wet Wet.

5th over: South Africa 13-0 (Petersen 11, Smith 2) A big outswinger from Anderson, on a straighter line, turns Petersen round again. That’s the line. There’s an inside edge onto the pads later in the over, and England clearly fancy Petersen as a latter-day Liebenberg. But getting him out is not really the issue. They need to get Smith on strike while the ball is new; he has faced only four of the 30 deliveries so far and won’t be on strike at the start of the next over.

“Finally some decent sport to watch (well listen to, well read about, but you know what I mean),” says Chris Drew. “It seems to have been ages since the last Test finished, and we’ve had nothing to fill our days. Or have I missed something???” Er, hello? Phil Taylor beating James Wade 18-15 in a brilliant World Matchplay final? I actually watched the darts last Friday rather than the opening ceremony. This makes me a despicable human being, I know.

4th over: South Africa 10-0 (Petersen 8, Smith 2) Michael Holding, it’s fair to say, is not entirely enamoured with England’s field for Graeme Smith, with five on the leg side. It’s been a fairly quiet start, perhaps quieter than you’d like when you win the toss and bowl. South Africa will be happy enough with this start. You could argue that England’s policy of bowling dry isn’t conducive to winning the toss and bowling first. Then again they did that and bowled Australia out in double figures at Melbourne two years ago. Nobody knows anything.

“Black Thought might have one of the worst emcee pseudonyms of all time,” says Daniel Harris, “but he had this one right.”

3rd over: South Africa 8-0 (Petersen 7, Smith 1) Petersen looks a little jittery, as you would be if you contributed the square root of eff all to a total of 94 million in the previous Test. I’d like to see a slightly more aggressive field here, with the drive invited, but it’s hard to be too critical of the Andys. Petersen, groping awkwardly, is beaten by the last delivery of a decent Anderson over.

“Can I put myself up immediately for pillory and abuse by saying that leaving Swann out is the right decision,” writes Rupert Hawksley. “Maybe publish this now and then ignore it for ever more if we lose but herald me as the new CMJ if we win.”

2nd over: South Africa 6-0 (Petersen 5, Smith 1) Stuart Broad will share the new ball, with only two slips and a gully for Graeme Smith and a 4/5 field. That means a very straight line to Smith, who works his first ball off the pads for a single. Smith became a father between Tests; many congratulations to him. His new daughter is called Cadence Smith. Maybe Mr and Mrs Smith like the third American Pie film, or cycling. Anyway, Petersen chases a very full, very wide delivery from Broad that whistles past the outside edge, and then he gets a late inside edge for a single. It’s swinging a little, if not lavishly. This first hour is so important, psychologically as much as anything.

“Do they really think James Taylor is going to help them win the game more than Swann?” says Andrew Hurley. “That is what it comes down to. I would probably only expect a further 15 runs from him than Swann could provide, and is that worth sacrificing a potential match winner? Of course not. All because they are too rigid with their decision to stick with 4 bowlers. Prior is more than good enough to bat at 6, and their tail would still be better than South Africa’s. Madness, and a lack of bravery, to really go for it. Delighted Finn plays though.” If they were ever going to drop a batsman, it certainly wouldn’t be at Headingley – their last Test here, in 2009, was the one that put them off leaving a batsman out.

1st over: South Africa 4-0 (Petersen 4, Smith 0) Jimmy Anderson will of course take the first over. I’d be tempted to give the second over to Steven Finn – partly because he’s a potential monster and partly to give Stuart Broad a slight boot up the derriere after his listless performance at The Oval. Anderson gets some swing straight away, and Petersen is turned right round by the third ball, which flies off the edge and through the vacant fourth-slip area for four. It was all along the ground, although Mikey Holding on Sky feels strongly that England need another man in the cordon.

“I’ll try and stay cool,” says Steven Pye, “although I recently asked my eight-year-old daughter if she thought I was cool, and she gave me a look of utter contempt and walked off. So I may struggle I’m afraid. I’m also a little concerned about leaving Swann out, but I’m guessing only time will tell if it is a wise decision or not. I’m really trying my best here to stay cool….”

“Every day is a gift – that’s why the call it the present.” That’s what the man said. So today, 2 August 2012, I’d like the gift of swing please. That’s all. No lottery wins or Hollywood seductions in stuck elevators. Just a swinging ball please. England must take early wickets here.

England also took a lot of stick for omitting the spinner against South Africa at The Oval in 1994. And looky what happened then. Is it the right decision this time? I have no idea. But I’m sure we’ll all have very strong opinions on the matter in five days’ time. It certainly has a whiff of desperation but then, as anyone who was still in JJs nightclub in the 1990s as the slow songs came on at 1.45am (“My mind’s tellin’ me no…”) will tell you, desperation isn’t always a bad thing.

The last time England went into a Test without a proper spinner was at Headingley in 2003. They picked five seamers then – and were stuffed by South Africa. English spinners tend not to do well on this ground (the third last English spinner to take a Test wicket here was Mike Atherton), but it’s still a huge call.

England left the spinner out at Headingley a lot in the 1980s and 1990s – usually with disastrous consequences. Australia made 600 in 1989 and 1993; Pakistan made 500 in 1996. Then again, England left out the spinner in 2000 and bowled West Indies out for 61. And when they did pick a spinner in 1997 and 2008, Australia and South Africa got 500. They also picked a spinner in 2002 when India got 600. Nobody knows anything, not at Headingley. Although bowling well is always a good place to start.

England have won the toss and will bowl first. They’ve omitted Graeme Swann and will play four seamers, with Steven Finn coming into the team. That’s a fascinating and risky decision. James Taylor makes his Test debut. South Africa, unbelievably after that performance at The Oval, are unchanged. The sun is out at Headingley, and Graeme Smith says he would probably have batted.

England Strauss (c), Cook, Trott, Pietersen, Bell, Taylor, Prior (wk), Bresnan, Broad, Anderson, Finn.

South Africa Smith (c), Petersen, Amla, Kallis, de Villiers (wk), Rudolph, Duminy, Philander, Steyn, Morkel, Tahir.

Preamble In 1819, when the self-educated mill-worker William Collins began to dream of knowledge for all and chose to devote his life to creating a dictionary, he probably did not envisage a day when it would include words and phrases such as chavtastic, brand Nazi, soz, busty, beer o’clock, Smythchic and LOL. Yet they are all there. As is bouncebackability, a strange and ugly word which sounds like it was invented by Timmy Mallett. It is the word on the tip of many fingers (nobody communicates verbally any more, grandad) ahead of the second Test between England and South Africa at Headingley. Stuart Broad even put it on a hashtag.

There has been so much talk about the bouncebackability of this England
side, who will lose their No1 ranking to South Africa if they are beaten
here, that we have forgotten something equally important: South Africa’s,
er, pushonability. They have form for taking a series lead in
impressive-to-awesome circumstances only to struggle a little thereafter. As brilliant a side as they unquestionably are, there is a reason why they have won only three of their last nine series – and one of the main ones is that they have the lost the second Test in six of those series. There are still questions over their self-belief under pressure, especially with the bat, as
well as their subconscious ambition. They will be nervous too, especially
with the promised land in sight. This game is almost too important to
function.

In hindsight, it was always going to be like this. South Africa have taken
the lead in all five series in England since they returned to international
cricket in the 1990s, each time with a numbingly emphatic victory. Yet they
have won only one of those series, in 2008; even then they almost let a poor England side back in to the series. It took an innings of monumental mental strength from Graeme Smith to finish the job.

England are no longer a poor side. Such an assertion of the bleedin’ obvious should not be necessary, yet it feels like there has been a slightly excessive downer on the team since The Oval. Some people have even been saying they weren’t good in the first place. Of course they have problems – Andrew Strauss’s long-term form, Stuart Broad’s short-term form, Graeme Swann’s elbow, Kevin Pietersen’s mental state, the No6 position – but none are insurmountable. If the ball does a bit, and if both sides get an even share of conditions, I think England will win this game. (This is not your cue to
send gloating emails if South Africa stuff them again; we are all grown-ups,
even if this may not always be apparent.)

They may well lose, and if they do history will record their Test Championship reign as distressingly hapless. With England struggling to cope with being No1 and South Africa having struggled to cope with taking a series lead, you could argue that this is a match between two sides who are subconsciously uneasy with success. Chuck in the venue for this Test – Headingley, a hospice for logic – and it’s clear we have a deliciously unpredictable contest ahead. (Writes the eejit who just predicted an England win.) What we probably can predict is a positive result. There have been only two draws in the last 25 Tests here and none since 1996

For now everyone just needs to relax a bit, have faith in this England team
and enjoy what should be a storming Test match. I need you cool. Are you
cool?

British cyclist uses the winners’ platform to speak out for equality for sportswomen, an issue we should have tackled long ago

Life is full of surprises and, for non-sporting me at least, one of this week’s has been the sound of Lizzie Armitstead using the platform provided by her Olympic silver medal in Sunday’s thrilling women’s road race to complain about “overwhelming sexism” that persists in sport. Gosh, I didn’t think it was still allowed.

Rapidly emerging evidence of sponsorship and facilities confirm that British women may well outshine the men despite meagre support, not because of it. Just look at the money poured into men’s cycling – Team Sky won the Tour de France this month – and compare that with the training facilities, cash and media coverage afforded to their female colleagues, Armitstead suggested after her dramatic tussle with the Dutch cyclist Marianne Vos.

It not just a problem in Britain. Times columnist Rachel Sylvester has a terrific piece (subscribers only) on how Japanese women footballers and the Australian women’s basketball team had to travel to London in economy seats while the lads were in the business section.

As in other fields of human endeavour, business, politics and academia, the situation is patchy, quirky even. All those south Asian women prime ministers, yet none in the uber-feminist US. And we should acknowledge that the Saudis have finally allowed two women to compete in London and that Tahmina Kohistani will run for Afghanistan in the 100 metres, albeit in a headscarf and long sleeves.

All the same, I didn’t have more than a vague inkling, did you? Perhaps we should have done. There was a row over the absence of a woman on the shortlist for BBC Sports Personality of the Year. England’s women cricketers often do very well, but usually at the tail-end of the TV news. Ditto women’s football. It’s all a bit of a larf, isn’t it? Well, no, it isn’t, not even the women’s beach volleyball, which I hope to catch in Whitehall later this week.

Armitstead admitted that she’d been tempted to raise the issue when being introduced to Pat McQuaid, the bloke who presides over the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), but “didn’t want to come across as negative and moaning” – a fear that has not always inhibited good sisters with a lot less grounds for complaint than women cyclists seem to have.

As soon as you start to look, of course, it’s all there. Tanni Grey-Thompson, the Paraolympic champion, confined to a wheelchair by spina bifida, wrote an official report last year – here’s a summary – which revealed that 0.5% of sponsorship in this country went to elite women’s sports in an 18-month period of 2010-11. Men’s sport gets 61%, team sports the rest.

Ministers wrung their hands, as ministers do, and the report claimed some signs of progress. It’s a problem of media interest as well as sponsorship, though they reinforce each other. It’s a wider problem in the sense that report after report confirms that 80% of British women and girls don’t get enough exercise through sport. It’s bad for them and bad for Danny Boyle’s saintly NHS.

Why is this still happening? Women won a lot of strategic battles in the 20th century, as Boyle’s pageant also acknowledged, more than I sometimes feel they realise. They live longer too but, like the rest of humankind in any negotiation, take their pluses for granted and concentrate their attention on the bits they still haven’t achieved. A 2% share of mainstream media coverage for women’s sport is one of them.

Physical strength must be part of the explanation, except in sports that don’t rely on it. Men are generally bigger and stronger, their superior sporting achievements reflect that, so when a 16-year-old Chinese girl outperforms a 27-year-old American in the Olympic pool – I name no names – a controversy rapidly emerges suggesting she “must” have been using banned substances. True or false? We’ll find out in due course, but it illustrates the problem.

Once you start to look, the internet is littered with tentative debates on it. Here’s one, here’s another. Here’s a bit of encouragement for more media coverage from the Australian government, headed by Welsh-born Julia Gillard, I seem to recall. And here’s an upcoming conference on the issue.

One theory floated is that being sporty makes women feel less feminine. It doesn’t square with what we hear about goings-on in successive Olympic villages, but if people feel it then it must be an inhibition to other potential sports women. Today’s Guardian carries a brilliant series of photos of Olympic women weightlifters. It’s a study in concentrated effort, but they’re wonderful faces.

Ah, faces. Last year the organisers of Wimbledon admitted that “good looks are a factor” in deciding who gets to play on which court. The Mail’s sports writer Laura Williamson examines the factor here and her newspaper’s website spells it out with the brutally illustrated clarity that has helped make it the world’s No 1 news website. Yes, it’s the women’s looks we’re talking about here, not Andy Murray’s winning smile.

So, these are the most gender-equal games, we are assured, but there’s still a way to go. Baroness Grey-Thompson, whom you may have seen reporting for the BBC from outside the road race finish on The Mall this week, says she suffers anti-disability abuse online. And the Mail’s Williamson recalls that BBC2 actually showed last year’s quarter final match between England and France in the women’s World Cup, the event which Japanese women won by unexpectedly beating the US. They still travelled economy to London last week. Oh and incidentally, England’s women lost their game with France on the penalty shoot-out. So some things are equal already.

• Spinner may need further surgery if problem persists
• Break after first Test ‘humiliation’ against South Africa helped

Graeme Swann will play his 44th consecutive Test at Headingley this week but he concedes that any further deterioration in his troublesome right elbow would force him to have a second operation –his “worst fear”.

Swann was given a fortnight’s rest and a cortisone injection in his elbow before the first Test against South Africa at The Oval, in which he failed to take a wicket in 52 overs as the Proteas piled up 637 for two and crushed England by an innings and 12 runs.

The 33-year-old dismissed fears that he might struggle to see out the series, claiming that his bowling is not being affected, and backed England to bounce back in the second Test which starts on Thursday from what he described as their “public humiliation”.

But the revelation that even a lengthy conversation on his mobile phone can immobilise Swann’s bowling arm was hardly designed to reassure at a time when there are major question marks over the international future of another of England’s senior men, Kevin Pietersen, and when their position at the top of the official Test rankings is on the line.

South Africa will displace them at the summit if they can clinch the series at Headingley and England would then be in danger of slipping to third behind Australia even before a daunting four-Test tour of India this winter.

“If it keeps deteriorating, I will undoubtedly have to miss some cricket,” said Swann, whose position in the Test bowling ratings has slumped from second to 12th over the last year.

“But it has not really deteriorated in the last three or four weeks – it feels better than it did. I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it. I don’t want to have another operation if I can help it because it’s horrendous. That is my worst fear at the minute.”

He has already had one major operation on the elbow, in Connecticut before the 2009 Ashes series. The surgeon removed 26 pieces of floating bone but had to leave three because they were too close to a nerve.

“There are bits of floating bone in there,” he continued. “He said they may cause a bit of grief now and then. It is little things, like if I hold the phone too long with my right hand I can’t use my arm for a couple of minutes – it just goes dead. During the one-day series it was really starting to ache.

“The break we had since really helped. I don’t think the [cortisone] jab has done anything to be honest. I reckon it was more a hope-for-the-best jab because nothing else seemed to work. The rest from bowling for a couple of weeks did it good. It felt great out of my hand and the body felt fine.”

Swann was speaking before England’s first practice session of the week at Headingley on Monday afternoon, and he made the surprising revelation that he had only just discovered that James Taylor, his Nottinghamshire team-mate, had been called into the squad for a probable Test debut following the withdrawal of Ravi Bopara for personal reasons.

“I don’t know anything about the Rav situation,” he said. “It is sad for him because he’s been in brilliant nick – until the Test match, obviously. I was backing him to score heavily this summer because of the way he’d been playing in those one-dayers.”

“He just seemed to have found something. He will be back, this won’t be it for him – I’d put my mortgage on it.”

But hSwann compared the task facing Taylor, the diminutive 23-year-old who joined Notts from Leicestershire last winter, against the formidable South Africa attack to the baptism of fire in which Michael Vaughan made his name in Johannesburg in 1999, when England were reduced to two for four.

“It’s all about taking your opportunities, and I’d back him to do it,” said Swann. “I’m absolutely delighted for him because he is a genuinely good bloke. And I think he’s good player, a serious player.”

The South Africa captain and opening batsman, Graeme Smith, rejoined the squad in Yorkshire after they had practised at Headingley morning, having returned home to Cape Town immediately after the first Test to attend the birth of his first child.

• Andy Flower insisted on ‘honest’ first Test post-mortem
• ‘I still think we can win series,’ says England spinner

Graeme Swann has never been one to mince his words, but even by his standards, the verdict the dressing-room joker delivered on England’s performance in the first Test against South Africa – and for most of the last 11 months – was excoriating.

“It was a sort of public humiliation by the end of it,” Swann said of the defeat at The Oval, in which England took two South Africa wickets in 189 overs, and lost 20 of their own in only 33 more. Moreover the team’s record of five defeats in nine Tests since they ascended to the top of the official world rankings after last summer’s whitewash of India had been “dismal”.

Perhaps he felt liberated to go public with such frank admissions after the playing and coaching staff had let rip themselves in a post-match debrief last Monday afternoon that was heated in more ways than one.

“Normally you can’t wait to see the back of each other after a loss and we disperse quickly,” Swann, who failed to take a wicket in 52 overs as South Africa won by innings and 12 runs, explained. “But the two Andys [the captain Strauss and the team director Flower] were quite keen to make sure we focused on it. So we sat down and got quite a bit of honesty from the group.

“It was a horrible two hours as it was about 300 degrees in that hot, sweaty changing-room. But I think it brought the best out of the situation as there was a lot of honesty, a lot of people raising their hands saying we should have done this better and that better.”

However Swann backed away from blithely predicting a fightback of the type that England produced after previous heavy defeats, by Australia at Headingley three years ago and Perth on the last Ashes tour.

“I said that in the winter against Pakistan and we were beaten 3-0, so I won’t be making any grandiose comments,” he added. “But historically we’ve played well after falling behind in a series. After one Test in this series we’re a very long way behind because of the nature of the loss, which was certainly the biggest I’ve been involved in.

“After a few days it doesn’t get any prettier. After the first day that went as swimmingly as it could have done, the wheels fell off the wagon – it was awful. I can’t really describe it in any other way. It was a sort of public humiliation by the end of it, fielding that long and then getting skittled afterwards.

“But I do still think we can win the series, I honestly do. I am an eternal optimist. If we viewed last week in black and white then we’re screwed and we have got no chance. But I don’t see it like that, I see it as we can’t possibly play as badly again.

“The wicket is going to be different. As individuals we have sat down and had a look at what we did last week and realised well, we’re not going to that again. That meeting was very good, it brought a lot of things to the surface.”

Swann was prepared to concede the scale of the latest defeat has affected England’s confidence. “Our self-belief will have taken a dent last week, because to get bowled out twice on that pitch was pretty inexcusable and to take two wickets in 190 overs was equally inexcusable,” he added. “But having had that meeting afterwards and everyone switching their focus to this game hopefully it will be water under the bridge. We’re behind now and people will come out fighting.”

The question of England’s long-term deterioration is, he conceded, more of a puzzle. “I can’t deny the fact that since we’ve been No1 we’ve got a dismal record. Whether that goes hand in hand with being No1 I don’t really know – you need someone more qualified with the workings of the human mind.

“We’re not doing anything differently. Perhaps that’s it, perhaps we’re not evolving quickly enough. Perhaps teams are hunting us down more, seeing us as a real threat now rather than maybe underestimating us before, I don’t know.

“Maybe we carried on evolving at the same speed as we always have done when we were chasing,” he continued. “Maybe there’s another level after going to No1 that we haven’t reached yet. I don’t think we have sat still, I don’t think we’re resting on our laurels.

“When you do lose and are in a bad run like we are people will inevitably start looking for reasons. I think it’s probably a whole collection of reasons that have come to a head and led to this poor form. But again if anyone could put my finger on why I’m sure they would, and they’d have done it after that first horrific Test in the UAE, and we wouldn’t have this problem. We just can’t seem to string together those huge innings and those dominant bowling performances that we did in Australia and for two years before that. We need to learn to do that again.”

Investec, the specialist bank and asset manager, is the title sponsor of Test Match cricket in England. Visit the Investec Cricket Zone at investec.co.uk/cricket for player analysis, stats, test match info and games

Warwickshire 571, Surrey 286 & 38-0

Rikki Clarke will surely never add to the two Test caps he won against Bangladesh nine years ago but at 30 he is playing the finest cricket of his life.

He produced his best bowling figures of the season , four for 46, to help bowl out his old county, Surrey, for 286; following on 285 behind, they are 38 without loss. Clarke always had pace but his direction, like a balloon caught in a buffeting wind, was erratic. Now he is one quarter of an effective four-man pace attack and a lower order striker capable of batting higher.

The essence of this championship-challenging Warwickshire side can be found in their all-rounders, Clarke, Chris Woakes, Keith Barker and Tim Ambrose, the wicketkeeper, who is injured.

Surrey resumed on Sunday on 109 for one and lost Arun Harinath, caught behind, as he hesitated over a back-foot drive, to the second ball of the morning from Keith Barker. Zander de Bruyn, on three, was lbw as he attempted to play Woakes to midwicket and then Jason Roy drilled the same bowler to mid-off before he had scored, a poor stroke.

Steve Davies nudged a catch to gully, the opener Rory Burns was caught behind off Clarke, and then the same bowler had Chris Jordan lbw, stuck on the crease. When Gareth Batty was also lbw, falling over against the third delivery with the new ball, it looked as if it was all over for Surrey until Stuart Meaker then hit a belligerent 41.

When Surrey batted again, Warwickshire were incensed when Zafar Ansari, apparently caught at second slip, was given not out.

Surrey were wearing black armbands in memory of David Thomas, their former fast bowler whose death was announced on Saturday. But there was some good news for the visiting county. Their captain, Rory Hamilton-Brown, who has been out of the side since the death of his friend Tom Maynard, appeared at the ground and had a net.