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Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma has admitted leading his team was “tough” after Ricky Ponting stepped aside from captaincy in the initial stages of the tournament. Rohit was quick to add that he “really enjoyed” the role as well and knew he was next-in-line being the vice-captain for the past two years.”It was tough when we changed our captain,” Rohit told the IPL website. “It was not easy to come in suddenly to do the job. But I have really enjoyed this role since the moment Ricky stepped down and I was handed the captaincy. I knew the responsibility would fall on my shoulders since I was vice-captain for two years.”It is simply amazing to win the IPL title with Mumbai, my hometown. The way we performed shows the character of the team. It was not an easy victory and I am really happy. I have no words to describe this feeling.”Rohit was handed the captaincy once Ponting dropped himself after the game against Delhi Daredevils on April 21, which they lost by nine wickets. Of the six matches Mumbai played under Ponting, Mumbai won three but Ponting made only 52 runs from five innings.According to Rohit, Ponting’s presence in the dugout and the dressing room also made a big difference and other former international players from the support staff also chipped in with their contributions.”The support from Ponting from beyond the boundary was superb,” Rohit said. “And it was not just him, but everybody else as well. Right from John Wright to our masseur, they were really fantastic. I would like to mention Robin Singh as he has been working day in and day out with all of us. Anil Kumble was brilliant and so was our support staff. We just stuck together as a team, which is really important in this format.”He was not perturbed by his own form in the playoffs in which he couldn’t get to double-digit scores even once. But in the 16 innings before that, he amassed 526 runs at an average of 47.81.”I am happy with my overall form, but I am a little bit disappointed with my performance in the playoffs. But it happens sometimes. I was focusing on getting my team in shape for this challenge.”Mumbai beat Super Kings three times this season and the venue for the final, Kolkata, proved to be lucky for the champions. They first beat Kolkata Knight Riders by five wickets in the league stage, then Rajasthan Royals by four wickets in the second qualifier, before meeting Super Kings in the final. Overall, Mumbai have played seven matches in Kolkata and have lost only one.”We have always done well in Kolkata,” Rohit said. “We have had an outstanding record here over the last six years. Plus, the people of Kolkata are really amazing. They have been supporting us. Even when we play against KKR, we get some support.”

Tino Mawoyo remembers when people used to laugh at him just because he was practising patience.”I was in the nets with the bowling machine practising [against] away swingers. Most of the balls were too good. I think I hit three out of 45 and left the rest of them,” he told ESPNcricinfo. “Ian Kemp, who was the groundsman at Harare Sports Club at the time, came and told me that some people were making fun of me because I was leaving so many balls. I just said I was practising [leaving] good balls, so if they want to laugh that’s fine.”Zimbabwe may need someone of his patience at the top of the order if they get the pitch Brendan Taylor is hoping for in the second Test against Bangladesh, which starts on Thursday. “Exactly the same as the one we had for the first Test would be great,” Taylor said. That would mean assistance for the bowlers and a tricky time for batsmen, which may not play into the hosts’ hands entirely.As much as Bangladesh struggled on the surface, Zimbabwe’s top-order also battled against pace and movement. Their opening pair was under particular scrutiny against Robiul Islam, and they are on even closer watch now that Bangladesh have called in bowling reinforcements.”They were at the ground early this morning and [have done] an hour of extra practice themselves for the last two days, and they also put in time on Sunday after the match,” Taylor said. “They are very determined and take their batting seriously. They’re definitely due some runs and they deserve to get some.”With Zimbabwe set to field an unchanged XI, the opening pair of Vusi Sibanda and Timycen Maruma will be followed by Hamilton Masakadza, and all three have shown the technique and temperament required at this level. Taylor is hopeful Sibanda and Masakadza’s experience will come through, while interim coach Stephen Mangongo expects big things of Maruma who, he said, “deserves his chance”.Maruma is not an opener by trade, having usually batted in the middle-order, and may not have played had Mawoyo been fit. A groin injury, sustained in late December and exacerbated in the West Indies, has ruled Mawoyo out for up to six weeks after he has surgery.He hopes to go under the knife this week and recover in time to play club cricket in the UK to stake a claim for a comeback. Mawoyo is due to turn out for Wickford in Essex, where he hopes to play second-team cricket for the county.His main mission abroad is to get the kind of experience Zimbabwe lack in the batting department: the ability to adjust to conditions overseas. Mawoyo was part of the group that were humiliated on their last two away tours and admitted he found it “hurtful” to suffer so many dramatic batting collapses.”The Test matches were very tough for us and I hope we learnt lessons. I want to play on different surfaces and in foreign conditions. We had the New Zealand tour, which we struggled in, and the West Indies, where I had never been before, so it will be good for me to go to the UK, with the ball swinging around a bit, and get used to it and try to further myself.”Mawoyo is aiming for a comeback for the series against Sri Lanka and Pakistan. He also wants to play a part in keeping the game going in his home town of Mutare, where the Mountaineers franchise he captains are based.”We are struggling a little bit for numbers in the league there. We had four teams, but we had to cut them down to three because we had a lot of schoolboys and so on,” he said. “But one of the positives was that the team which won the league, West Side, is where Tendai Chatara plays, and he has emerged with real promise.”Chatara was left out of the first Test against Bangladesh in favour of Shingi Masakadza, but remains part of the squad. Mawoyo is certain his “enthusiasm” will continue to create competition among the pace pack. When Mawoyo returns to match readiness, he hopes his presence will have an impact on the tussle for Test spots for the batsmen.For now, he is happy to admire the progress. “We made a bit of a difference in the first Test and it showed that we can put into practice what we learn,” he said. “Now, we need to repeat it in the second. The batters have to look at Brendan and the way he constructed his innings. He gave himself a fair chance. It’s good to see the captain lead from the front and for someone like Malcolm Waller to follow. Those are the guys that reap the rewards for the hard work.”Zimbabwe’s efforts have put them on the brink of their first series win, other than one-off Tests, since 2000-01 when they beat Bangladesh 2-0 at home. If they win the second Test, it will be the first time in 12 years they have triumphed in consecutive matches, which would be a massive feat for a side that has struggled in the longest format since then.Taylor knows how important that is for their development, and was carefully mixing caution with anticipation in the lead-up. “We don’t want to look too far ahead, and we expect Bangladesh to bounce back strongly,” he said. “There will be some nerves, but [everyone] understands [their] roles.” If the opening batsmen can turn that understanding into application, Zimbabwe could prove tough to beat at home.

Former India captain Rahul Dravid has said Cheteshwar Pujara, who succeeded him at No. 3 in India’s Test side, could have what it takes to perform in ODIs as well. He was speaking at ‘A Day with Dravid’, an ESPNcricinfo event in which nine cricket fans got the chance to interact with him from across the world.Pujara has an average of 65 after 13 Tests, having scored four hundreds and three half-centuries, and has drawn comparisons with Dravid. He hasn’t made his ODI debut yet, but in 61 domestic one-day matches Pujara averages 56.97, with eight hundreds and 17 fifties.”He’s had a great start to his international career, in fact a much better start than I did,” Dravid said. “I think he has been brought up in the old school of batsmanship. He is developing more shots and he approaches Test cricket in the same way as I did.”He’s got some good basics in place,” Dravid said. “You can see that he is constantly improving and he is someone who will find answers to questions. He is going to have his ups and downs and face a lot of challenges adapting to different forms of the game and conditions. With his attitude and the way he is going about playing his cricket, I think he will find answers to a lot of these questions and one of them will be one-day cricket.”Dravid also said, during the event, that Test cricket needed needed better scheduling, and more matches for all teams, in order to survive. “One thing I’d like to see definitely is scheduling to be a lot better, and the ability for most countries to play a lot more Test cricket,” he said. “I’d love to see all the teams get the opportunity to play a lot more cricket against each other. I think it will really see Test cricket come up and improve, and the only way for it to survive is to play it as often as possible.”He spoke in length about his desire to perform well abroad when he had started playing international cricket. He played first-class cricket in India for four years before making his Test debut in England, where he scored 95 at Lord’s in 1996.”I wanted to do well abroad in conditions that I wasn’t used to,” he said. “When I was growing up, one of my coaches stressed that you have to do well outside India to be judged a very good player. One of the things I found difficult adjusting to was bounce early on in my international career.”When I went to Australia, South Africa or England for the first time, I would see some of the foreign top-order batsmen leave balls on length. As soon as the ball pitched on a particular area, they would leave it. Indian batsmen’s instinct was to play at those balls because if you left those balls in India, they would probably hit the top of off or middle stump. That ability to adjust to that bounce and know which ball to leave instinctively on length, especially early on in your innings, was one of the most difficult adjustments to play.”Answering fans’ questions on the contemporary game and the changes it has seen over the years, Dravid expressed his admiration for the players who can play the switch hit, but also said he wanted the rule to be fair for the bowlers.”I can’t imagine the way some guys pull that off,” he said. “When I see someone like a [Kevin] Pietersen or [David] Warner pull it off, you can see the value of the shot like that. If you were to play the switch hit, then the wide rule should change as well. You should allow the bowler to bowl outside the off stump. I think it’s an incredibly skilful and difficult shot to play and I’m all for it as long as you give the bowler protection as well.”

The IPL’s average first-week viewership has marginally dropped compared to the corresponding figures from 2012, according to Tam Media Research, the leading television ratings agency in India. The television viewer ratings* (TVR) for the first week slipped from 3.9 in 2012 to 3.8 this year, however there were only five games in the first week (till Saturday) as opposed to six in 2012.The tournament’s broadcaster, Multi Screen Media, put the drop down to the ongoing digitisation of cable television across dozens of Indian cities. “With digitisation, there is a chaos, uncertainty. We have opened right in the middle of all of that,” Neeraj Vyas, executive vice-president and business head of Max (the entertainment channel that telecasts the matches), told . “The LC1 markets (towns with population exceeding one million) hold 25% of the weightage. If you discount the LC1 markets, there has actually been a growth and the ratings show a 4.5, which is higher than last year.”The TVR figures also include the viewership on the broadcasters’ sports channel, Six, which is showing the IPL for the first time, alongside Max, which has telecast the league every season. The ratings have also fallen for the IPL opening ceremony, down to 1.2 from 1.8 in 2012.While the league’s television ratings have dipped consistently, the numbers are relatively still healthy; typically, if a television programme on a general entertainment channel posts an average TVR of 4.00, it is considered to be a success.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsHamish Rutherford hauled one into the sponsors’ area and almost felled a couple of stilt walkers•Getty Images

England have never successfully chased a target of such magnitude to win a Twenty20 international and they certainly did not chase this one. They foundered from the start under the lights at Seddon Park, enabling New Zealand to inflict a 55-run trouncing. After all the talk of small boundaries, for England they seemed to be expanding by the moment.The ICC rankings system certainly knows how to lose faith with a side after a bad night’s cricket. England, third at the start of the night, were sixth by the end of it. T20 is a volatile business. The series will be settled in Wellington on Friday.Brendon McCullum had carried the fight for New Zealand, striking 74 from 38 balls and manfully thrusting a daunting total into English faces after they had gained control in mid-innings. England conceded 38 off the last two overs, Stuart Broad and Jade Dernbach the bowlers to suffer, and even though Dernbach silenced McCullum’s belligerence at deep cover on the penultimate ball of the innings, England had nothing to show for some tigerish fielding.Just as striking was the degree to which New Zealand’s fast bowlers outdid their England counterparts. They found movement under the lights never imagined by England earlier in the innings as they preferred the back-of-a-length approach that had served them so well in the opening T20I in Auckland.England, victors in the opening T20I in Auckland when they batted first and made their highest total in this format, opted to chase when Stuart Broad won the toss on a dry, lightly cloudy evening in Hamilton. “Probably should have batted first,” Broad accepted.Ian Butler stood out with an impeccable spell of 2 for 9 in four overs as England’s innings never found any impetus. Butler has had some discouraging times in a career and almost abandoned New Zealand cricket to play county cricket in England but he has had a good season with Otago Volts and this was a night that told of a bowler with appetite restored. James Franklin bowled well, but his four-for largely fell upon him.England never recovered from losing three wickets for 24 by the fifth over. Alex Hales was bowled by Mitchell McClenaghan as he tried to work to leg, Luke Wright edged his sighter to gully, and Jonny Bairstow, cramped as he pulled Butler, got it no further than short-fine leg. When Michael Lumb was bowled off his pads, charging Nathan McCullum’s off spin, England limped to the mid-point at 47 for 4.It all left Morgan facing circumstances that he did not naturally relish, a batsman with too much time on his hands. Morgan likes games to be set up for him, but this one felt more like a set up favoured in American gangster movies.It is not often that Morgan seems overpowered by a situation, but it was the case here. He reached 13 from 22 before he fell to Butler. He needed good fortune to get that far, surviving a stumping chance – a McCullum brotherly combination that went amiss – and was badly dropped off Butler at deep midwicket when Hamish Rutherford battered one to the floor off his chest.By the time Samit Patel was run out by yards, failing to negotiate a single to Trent Boult who hit direct from mid off, England’s innings had entered the realms of black comedy. The only consolation came from Jos Buttler’s maiden T20I fifty. Buttler has been favoured with the gloves ahead of Bairstow as a statement that England wish to keep him in the side. His reputation is built on short, explosive innings, and his 54 from 30 balls in a hopeless task did him no harm.After the somewhat unnatural six-hitting extravaganza in Eden Park, Seddon Park had a more satisfying cricketing feel. It is another compact ground, with straight boundaries around 65m, but a few extra metres and a more logical shape provided a more gratifying setting for another packed house. Even so, after England gave the first over to the offspinner, James Tredwell, it took all of four balls before Martin Guptill smashed him for six into the sightscreen. There were ten sixes in all for New Zealand, five of them to McCullum, their jaw-jutting captain. England, so supreme in Auckland, managed two in reply.Finn had placed a marker a few paces from the stumps in an effort to control his occasional habit of colliding with them. Stay left of that, and you will be okay, seemed to be the message. His thoughts soon strayed elsewhere as Rutherford hauled him into the sponsors’ area and almost felled a couple of stilt walkers.New Zealand rattled along at around ten an over from the outset. Jade Dernbach was wearing a strapping on his heavily-tattooed left arm after being accidentally spiked in practice, presumably denying onlookers the chance to read several ancient Tibetan dictums.Wright, who looks too perky to sit down in a tattoo parlour, came up trumps for the second successive match, his medium pace bringing 2 for 24 to follow his 2 for 29 in Auckland. He arrested an opening stand of 75 in 8.2 overs when Rutherford tried to fiddle one to third man and was caught at the wicket. There was the wicket of Ross Taylor, too, who hauled him to Bairstow at deep midwicket. Acclaimed as the returning hero since ending his self-imposed exile, Taylor has so far amassed more ovations than runs.When Dernbach’s slower balls began to make an impact – Colin Munro hauling to Bairstow at deep midwicket and Grant Elliott having his bails trimmed by a back-of-the-hand delivery, the judder in New Zealand’s innings had become pronounced. But it was nothing like the judder England were about to experience.

A decision on Pakistan’s participation in the Women’s World Cup is likely to be taken on Friday, with the addition of a second venue in India the most likely solution. There has been uncertainty over India’s willingness to host Pakistan in Mumbai – as of now the sole venue – following recent political tensions and the threats of a regional party to disrupt the tournament; staging Pakistan’s matches in another city in the same country could bypass that problem.Both the BCCI, the hosting country, and the ICC were tight-lipped amid growing media speculation about whether Pakistan would play the tournament but late in the day the organisers confirmed that the tournament – from January 28 to February 14 – would be played in India.”The World Cup will happen in India. It will take place at two venues. As for the Pakistan team, the BCCI and ICC are trying to work on an alternate venue. It will be finalised tomorrow,” a BCCI official told ESPNcricnfo.The ICC, too, dismissed reports that Pakistan would not be playing in the tournament. “A decision should be taken by the weekend, latest. We are working with the BCCI about the logistics,” an ICC spokesperson said.According to the existing schedule, all matches will be played in four venues across Mumbai: Wankhede Stadium, Brabourne Stadium, the Bandra-Kurla Complex Cricket ground and the Middle Income Group ground, Pakistan, in Group B, are scheduled to play their league matches against Australia (January 31), New Zealand (February 3) and South Africa (February 5).However with the Shiv Sena remaining adamant about disallowing Pakistan to play in Mumbai, the organisers have been forced to go hunting for an additional venue. Though Kolkata and Bangalore have been reported by the media as being open to hosting Pakistan, officials from both associations denied any knowledge. “We have no information,” Jagmohan Dalmiya, Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) president, said. A Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) official, too, said that he was unaware about any such development.Meanwhile, the England squad lands in Mumbai tomorrow morning before heading to Pune where they will hold a preparatory camp.

International news agencies have suspended coverage of Pakistan’s cricket tour of India – the first in five years – over the BCCI’s decision to bar some of their photo counterparts.The blackout continued a stand-off with the BCCI that first began during England’s Test series in India in November and which shows no signs of being resolved.News outlets said they would not be filing any text or pictures after the BCCI again refused to accredit the international picture agencies Getty Images and Action Images as well as two Indian agencies. Some news organisations, including ESPNcricinfo, that have depended on these agencies have used the pictures made available on the BCCI website.The BCCI’s stance is based upon the belief that it has a monopolistic right to all commercial revenue from photographic coverage of the games it stages, immediate news coverage apart. Support is coming from behind the scenes from key commercial figures in Cricket Australia.”It is regrettable that the politically-charged Pakistan tour will be affected by the BCCI’s failure to recognise the long-standing importance of photographic news agencies in the flow of sport and news images every day,” said the News Media Coalition, which represents a group of media organisations.International agencies who are members of the coalition, such as AFP, Thomson Reuters and the Associated Press, will halt text and photo coverage.English newspapers and some websites refused to use images supplied by the BCCI during the England tour and instead used file pictures, cartoons or hurried paintings by the cricket artist Jocelyn Galsworthy.Great moments in England cricket history, such as the 19 wickets shared by the spinners Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar in the Mumbai Test, have only scant photographic record. Getty Images’ Gareth Copley and freelance photographers such as Phil Brown and Graham Morris have a worldwide reputation for the quality of their cricket photos and all were either barred or supported the dispute during the England tour.”As a direct result of the BCCI stance, great sporting moments from the cricket tours to India are going unrecorded and therefore lost forever. England’s games were the hidden series and the Pakistan tour is heading for the same fate,” said Andrew Moger, executive director of the NMC.The World Association of Newspapers is backing the suspension, saying the BCCI was “denying the ability of editors to select from the best of photography for the benefit of readers”.A BCCI spokesman declined to comment but did refer reporters to a statement issued for the England tour, which said there was “no intention to censor or limit bona fide news reporting” and emphasised that news agencies had been accredited.The photo agencies however had been refused as the BCCI deemed “their primary businesses involved the commercial sale and licensing of images rather than the supply of images to news publications for bona fide editorial purposes”.The BCCI has refused to draw up specific agreements with these photo agencies so that they can cover the tour under new terms and conditions.Pakistan’s tour begins with a Twenty20 fixture in Bangalore on Tuesday.

Ross Taylor, the former New Zealand captain, has openly disputed the coach Mike Hesson’s depiction of his exit from the leadership of the national side.Hesson has maintained that in a meeting ahead of the recently completed Test series in Sri Lanka he informed Taylor that he should step aside as captain of the ODI and Twenty20 sides while retaining the Test captaincy.However Taylor, who is missing the forthcoming South Africa tour in order to take a break from the game after the job was handed to Brendon McCullum, said that Hesson’s version of events does not match his own recollection of what took place.”He said I wasn’t a good enough leader, that this team needs a strong leader and that I wasn’t a strong leader. If I wasn’t a strong leader why would he give me the Test captaincy?” Taylor told .”He said ‘Ross, I am going to recommend to [NZC director of cricket] John Buchanan that we have a new captain for South Africa’. There was nothing in there about anything to do with a split captaincy.”Taylor has maintained the first he heard about the possibility of his retaining the Test captaincy was following the conclusion of the Sri Lanka series, which was tied 1-1 after New Zealand won the final Test. Asked directly whether or not someone was lying about the episode, Taylor replied: “Definitely.”Since his replacement by McCullum, Taylor has stated that he was not supported by Hesson after he replaced John Wright as the national team coach in July.Taylor also reiterated his reasons for not joining the South Africa tour. “I don’t think I could have given 100%,” he said. “It has been a pretty stressful time for me, especially the last two or three weeks but the last five months have been pretty tough on myself.”It’s still pretty fresh in my mind. I think I got straight back on the horse by not turning down the captaincy in Galle and leading the team to that victory … It would have been easy for a person in my position to just give it up there and then, but I decided that the best thing for the team was to carry on.”The team will be better without me and all the distractions that have happened in the last couple of weeks.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsKane Williamson was five short of his third Test century before rain arrived•Associated Press

In an otherwise one-sided tour, New Zealand finally took ownership of an entire day. Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor showed refreshing patience and application to wear down the Sri Lanka bowlers for the better part of three sessions to set a solid platform for a big score. All talk of a bouncy pitch and seaming conditions were put to rest as the bowlers struggled to create chances, with both batsmen adding an unbeaten 209.One of the main reasons for New Zealand’s slump in Test form was the inability of their batsmen to occupy the crease and build partnerships. New Zealand have only five century stands this year, the highest being 124 between Martin Guptill and Brendon McCullum against Zimbabwe in Napier, until Taylor and Williamson overtook it, against a far superior bowling attack in foreign conditions.Taylor, himself struggling for consistency, had spoken about taking an aggressive approach to help his side compete better. However, unlike his blistering century in the Bangalore Test, Taylor was more watchful and with Williamson focused on wearing down the bowlers. New Zealand were more watchful from the second session, offered no chances and that was largely because their defence was more watertight. Both progressed at similar pace, and while Taylor brought up his eighth Test century, Williamson was five short of his third century before rain forced an early finish.The pair came together at 14 for 2 and it was an opportunity for New Zealand to put to practice all talk of showing better application with the bat. Taylor survived a few nervy moments, edging a drive wide of the slips on 14 and getting a thick inside edge off a square drive that went for four. A controlled upper cut over the slips got him going and it helped that Williamson got a measure of the conditions early and looked to be positive.While Taylor looked edgy at the start, Williamson didn’t. He began with a neat punch off Nuwan Kulasekara past the covers and once spin was introduced in the 15th over, he used his feet well. Rangana Herath posed questions straightaway when he got one to turn and grip from middle stump and nearly shave the off stump, one that had Williamson foxed. There weren’t too many such unplayable deliveries as the day wore on. Williamson didn’t let that trouble him as he charged Herath and lofted over mid-on and followed it up with a neat extra-cover drive.Taylor reached his fifty in the first over after lunch with a glance to fine leg off Shaminda Eranga and Williamson approached his milestone with two boundaries off the same bowler. Sri Lanka bowled 14 consecutive overs of spin, with no success. Suraj Randiv operated with a slip and a backward short leg and managed turn and bounce but the batsmen managed to smother the turn. He even bowled to a 6-3 on-side field from round the wicket, with a deep backward square leg for the sweep but the batsmen didn’t oblige. At one point, Herath had a short extra cover and a silly mid-off, but none of those field sets induced false strokes.Only five boundaries were scored in the second session, as the pair focused on rotating the strike, with the field getting more defensive. Kulasekara, who was brought back into the attack after a long spell of spin, couldn’t get the old ball to swing. An edged boundary to third man took Taylor into the 90s, but he wasn’t in any hurry to reach his century, ensuring New Zealand went to tea unbeaten.Taylor reached his century with a clip to deep square leg off Eranga and carried on with some pleasing drives off the fast bowlers. There was reverse swing after tea, but the batsmen negated it well. Williamson, who showed a lot of patience against the spinners, punched Herath against the turn to find the boundary that took him to the 90s.The only time Sri Lanka tasted success was in the first half an hour. Guptill, already struggling for runs, managed a thick outside edge to Angelo Mathews at slip to give the hosts a breakthrough in the first over.McCullum went forward to defend close to the pads but unfortunately, the umpire failed to spot a thick inside edge and sent him on his way. A peeved McCullum didn’t hold back his glare at the umpire as he walked off at 14 for 2 in the fourth over. From then on, it was all New Zealand.

New Zealand‘s bowlers overcame a spirited resistance from Afghanistan‘s lower order to seal a thrilling nine-run win at the Kev Hackney Oval in Buderim. This win puts New Zealand at No. 2 in Group B, behind Pakistan, on run-rate, while Afghanistan are at the bottom.New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat, but struggled against the opening bowling duo of Aftab Alam and Sayed Shirzad as they slumped to 20 for 3 in the eighth over. Robert O’Donnell and Henry Walsh then set about rebuilding the innings as both stroked half-centuries. Their 108-run stand for the fourth wicket lifted New Zealand to 128 before Yamin Ahmadzai dismissed Walsh to pick up the first of his four wickets. New Zealand then lost wickets in a heap as Ahmadzai (4 for 35) and Shirzad (4 for 34) combined to restrict them to 198.Afghanistan’s chase started disastrously as New Zealand’s opening bowlers Jacob Duffy and Matthew Quinn reduced them to 26 for 5. However, Afghanistan’s lower order put up a fight – Najibullah Zadran (69) was involved in two half-century stands for the sixth and seventh wicket to lift Afghanistan to 139 for 6 before he was dismissed. No. 8 Afsar Khan (42) held firm as Afghanistan inched closer to the target. They needed 22 runs off the last two overs with three wickets in hand but Quinn and Duffy picked up a wicket each including that of Afsar in the final over as Afghanistan fell nine runs short to give New Zealand a close win.Australia ensured they would finish on top of the table in Group A thanks to a dominant performance against Ireland in Townsville. Ireland captain George Dockrell won the toss and chose to bat, but things didn’t go to plan with the 33-run opening stand between Robin Kelly and Ryan Hunter being the highest partnership of the innings. Fast bowler Alex Gregory got rid of both the openers and the No. 3, Jason van der Merwe. Shane Cassell (3 for 24) and the rest of the attack then ran through the middle order to bowl Ireland out for 129 in the 43rd over. Hunter was the top-scorer for Ireland with 31.It turned out to be a relatively straightforward chase for the hosts, although they were reduced to 45 for 3 at one stage. Captain Will Bosisto (36 not out) combined with Travis Head, who scored a quick 25, and then Sam Hain (26 not out) as the Australians cruised to the target in the 41st over.South Africa completed their second victory in as many games, comprehensively beating Namibia in Brisbane. The 209-run victory was set up by a double-century opening stand between Quinton de Kock and Chad Bowes, both scoring centuries in the process.South Africa chose to bat and the match was taken away from Namibia’s reach in the first 31.5 overs. De Kock and Bowes put on 212 in 191 balls, smacking 24 fours and three sixes between them. Once the stand was broken, none of the other batsmen could get an extended partnership going – Zhivago Groenewald struck with regularity to finish with three wickets, despite going for 85 in nine overs – but quick cameos made sure South Africa powered past 350.Chasing 360, Namibia were never in the match. No one in the line-up managed to get past Pelham Myburgh’s 37, and they could not score at a quick rate either. Namibia were bowled out for 150 in 46 overs – the lower order being cleaned up by offspinner Theunis de Bruyn, who finished with figures of 5-0-20-4.”Chad and I got off to a good start but it was difficult in the morning with a sticky and bouncy wicket,” de Kock said. “We had to work hard for our runs and I’m proud of our achievements today, they were well fought for.”Bowes said his side had gained good momentum ahead of their next game against Sri Lanka tomorrow. The confidence is up and the spirit within the side is high,” Bowes said. “We have a good net run-rate so it will take a little bit of the pressure off going into the game, but we’re ready to give it our best shot.”