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Australia 2 for 48 (Hayden 17*, Ponting 0*) trail England 159 (Strauss 50, Warne 5-39) by 111 runs
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details

Shane Warne’s greatest strength, as befits the greatest bowler of the modern era, is not his prodigious ability to spin a cricket ball or the phenomenal accuracy with which he goes about his work. It is his ability to impose his iron will on any given occasion. And today, on the occasion of his final Test on his home ground at Melbourne, and with 699 Test wickets to his name, Warne rose above the conditions, the emotion, and most of all, his abject English opponents, to deliver the perfect belated Christmas present to an adoring crowd of 89,155.For all that he is Melbourne’s favourite son, Warne had absolutely no right to lord it to quite the extent that he did. On a miserably cold and damp day, the start of which was delayed by half-an-hour by morning drizzle, Warne took 5 for 39 in 17.2 overs of pure mischief-making. It was his 37th five-wicket haul in 144 Tests, his third in 11 at the MCG, and he didn’t even enter the attack until the 41st over of the day, by which stage two wickets had already been lost and several more were threatening to topple in conditions perfect for seam and swing.But that mattered not a jot to Warne, who sensed his stage and toyed with England as well as the crowd. Two overs before he was finally thrown the ball, he made as if to go to his mark and the crowd roared as Justin Langer took his cap off his head only to return it seconds later, and, when he did finally enter the attack, he needed only four overs to deliver the moment that his entire country had been awaiting. At 3.18pm, he bowled Andrew Strauss for an even 50 to reach 700 in Tests.The delivery that did for Strauss was a classic Warne dismissal, a flighted ball that dipped into the rough, bit and crashed into middle stump as the batsman played loosely for an imagined half-volley. The timing was especially shattering for England, who had lost Paul Collingwood two balls earlier to end a third-wicket stand of 57 – the highest of their innings. After that the rest of the innings passed like a Jubilee procession.Admittedly, it took Warne a while to get back in on the act again, but it hardly seemed to matter. Australia were unusually inept in the field – Matthew Hayden missed a straightforward chance in the gully and Adam Gilchrist muffed two chances behind the stumps, including a howler of a stumping against Kevin Pietersen – but they correctly surmised that another chance would be along before long.Sure enough, Warne bagged his second when Chris Read – picked in place of the out-of-form Geraint Jones – slapped a schoolboyish drive to short cover for 3 and returned to face the icy glare of his unamused coach, Duncan Fletcher. Steve Harmison heaved a wide ball to mid-on and trudged off for 7 before Pietersen, who seemed to be past caring by this stage, hoisted a steepler to Andrew Symonds in front of the screen screen. Warne wrapped up the innings when Monty Panesar, newly promoted to No. 10, scuffed another heave across the line and picked out Symonds again at mid-on.It had been, as Ricky Ponting admitted, a good toss to lose – and it was Flintoff who, understandly enough, chose to bat first. Glenn McGrath, like Warne, was making his final appearance in Melbourne, and he set the tone for the day in his very first over with a series of 125kph offbreaks. It was Brett Lee, however, who made the initial breakthrough when Alastair Cook – England’s centurion at the WACA – under-edged an attempted leave to Adam Gilchrist behind the stumps.

Given the conditions, Australia’s star performers should have been the slower seamers – McGrath, Stuart Clark and Andrew Symonds, who managed just three wickets between them but should have had at least seven. Ian Bell, who almost ran himself out first ball, was trapped lbw for 7 by Clark, who also added the captain, Flintoff, for another uneasy innings of 13. McGrath, meanwhile, had to make do with the sole scalp of Sajid Mahmood. It was another unworthy swipe that earned the wicket, but it was at least McGrath’s 150th in Tests against England.When their turn came late in the day, England did bowl pluckily in the circumstances, but without luck as umpire Rudi Koertzen turned down numerous lbw shouts – with Hoggard staring incredulously into his eyes after one particularly marginal call against Matthew Hayden. Flintoff managed to pop up with two in two balls before the close, removing Justin Langer and the nightwatchman Lee, but Warne’s exploits had already sealed the day’s honours.

Short cuts

Play of the day
Shane Warne’s 700th wicket was the moment most of the MCG wanted to see and Warne obliged his home fans by bowling Andrew Strauss in his fourth over. Figures of 5 for 39 provided an ideal start to his two-game farewell.Smart decision of the day
The umpires choosing to stay on the field for most of the first session. Misty rain hit the ground at times but it wasn’t until a heavy shower forced an early lunch that they gave in.Not so smart decisions of the day
It wasn’t a great day for Rudi Koertzen. Matthew Hayden should not have survived two lbw decisions to Matthew Hoggard and Paul Collingwood benefited when hit on the pads by Stuart Clark before he had scored.Surprise of the day
Was it the cold weather or slippery hands? The Australians had a sloppy day in the field, with Adam Gilchrist missing a stumping and a catch and Matthew Hayden dropping Andrew Strauss in the gully. The unusual set of mistakes didn’t matter in the end.Near miss of the day
According to Cricket Australia Boxing Day has been sold out since June 1, but a few thousands seats weren’t taken up. A world record to beat the 90,800 here in 1960-61 was predicted, but the 89,155 was still a new Ashes mark.Quote of the day
“I was going to keep running but I got puffed.” Shane Warne on his celebration for his 700th wicket

Lasith Malinga, the Sri Lankan fast bowler, says he is struggling to be fit for the start of next month’s Indian Premier League (IPL).A niggling knee injury ruled Malinga out of Sri Lanka’s Test and ODI series in the West Indies but he hoped to be a part of the Mumbai Indians’ squad.”I’ve had this injury in Australia and played with it,” Malinga said. “However as it got worse I couldn’t tour the West Indies too. I would have loved to be with the team and enjoy its success. I am still under treatment and working hard.”It is tough at this stage to be sure about IPL, but I am very hopeful I can make it.”Malinga, 24, was bought by Mumbai for US$350,000 in the Twenty20 competition that starts on April 18 and finishes on June 1. Mumbai – who have two other Sri Lankans in Sanath Jayasuriya and Dilhara Fernando – kick off their IPL campaign the against Bangalore Royal Challengers on April 20.

The West Indies Cricket Board is reportedly attempting to salvage the A-team tour to Zimbabwe despite being faced with players refusing to tour and confusion over the safety advice given regarding the wisdom of the trip even happening.Cricinfo has learned that Sylvester Joseph, who was originally named as captain last week, has declined the invitation to lead the side or take part. It now emerges that Daren Ganga was offered the role on Thursday and also turned it down. The latest name in the frame is Rawl Lewis.There is also increasing speculation that the West Indies Cricket Board is struggling to find enough players of a decent standard to fill the squad without it losing credibility. They are due to leave in a week and yet nobody has been named, despite daily assurances that an announcement is imminent.What is certain is that if the tour does happen, once again, as happened with the senior side before their tour of England, a West Indies team will set out with little preparation.Meanwhile, assurances from the West Indies board that CARICOM had given its blessing on player safety have been denied by Eddie Green, CARICOM’s assistant secretary general. He said that Tony Deyal, the WICB’s corporate services manager, had been told that “the Bureau of Heads the opinions were split and we need to send out a formal request to all Heads which we did two weeks ago. I have not spoken to him since and the official decison will be made on June 30.”Yesterday, Deyal told reporters that the WICB had “received a no-objection letter from … Greene”. That now seems to be incorrect, even though Bruce Aanensen, the WICB’s chief executive officer, said last weekend that a response from CARICOM had been delivered on June 13.The other documentation relied on by the WICB is from Zimbabwe Cricket and the Zimbabwe Republic Police. A source inside Zimbabwe told Cricinfo that any assurance from the police “was not only worthless but was a sick joke”. He added: “The police are the people to be afraid of, and the Zimbabwe board might not be the most objective party.”Deyal told Cricinfo that player safety was of paramount importance to the WICB and that nothing would ever be done to threaten that. He earlier said that unless WIPA passed over their documentary evidence that it would be unsafe to travel to Zimbabwe, then the tour would go ahead.”We want WIPA to send us what they have so we can make the best decision in the circumstances and that both parties can agree to it,” he said. “WIPA never sent us anything. We are anxious to get information. We have sought information from a variety of sources.”However, WIPA officials have told Cricinfo that much of the evidence they have has come from sources who do not wish to be identified as many of them fear for their own safety. In view of that, it will not be passed to the WICB for fear that it will find its way into the hands of the Zimbabwe authorities.”We are not in agreement with the tour as stated before because of concerns over players’ safety and the volatile situation in Zimbabwe,” Dinanath Ramnarine told The Nation. “That’s still our position. As far as we are concerned, the players’ safety is of paramount importance to us. We are a responsible organisation and we want to look after the interest of our members. We don’t see the benefits of the tour.””We are left to interpret the actions of WIPA to be nothing more than a play for power,” Deyal countered. That the two sides are again at loggerheads less than 24 hours after an arbitration panel, which yet again found in WIPA’s favour in a dispute with the board, stressed the need for the two parties to work together, does not bode well.

England have reiterated their commitment to their current tour of Sri Lanka and will continue as planned with Sunday’s second Test despite another terrorist attack in the north of the country.According to Sri Lankan authorities, at least 15 people were killedand 38 injured when a Tamil Tiger landmine detonated beneath a crowdedbus one and a half hours away from Anuradhapura, 165 miles north of Colombo.Last week, two bombs exploded within ten hours of each other inColombo itself, killing at least 17 people including the personalsecretary of a government minister. England returned to thecapital on Wednesday night, hours after slipping to an 88-run defeatin the first Test at Kandy.”Reg Dickerson [England’s security advisor] has been in touch with theBritish High Commission,” Andrew Walpole, the team’s medialiaison officer, said. “Their travel advice has not changed. The players areable to leave the team hotel although, as is normal in this situation, they must inform the security manager of where they are going.”Security in Sri Lanka has been on high alert for several months, eversince the fragile peace between the government and the separatistTamil Tigers began to crumble in early 2006. In August of that year,South Africa’s one-day squad pulled out of a triangular tournament inthe country following a blast that killed seven and injured 17.”It definitely caused concern, but we’ve got to concentrate on thecricket,” Kevin Pietersen said after last week’s attacks. “It’s never nice to hear of casualties, and our hearts go out to those people and their families, but we’ve been told that our circle is pretty secure, hopefully. We’ve just been told to get on with the cricket and concentrate on what we’ve been paid to do.”

The South African fast bowler, Monde Zondeki, has signed as Warwickshire’s overseas player for the 2008 season.Zondeki, 25, has represented South Africa in five Tests and 11 one-day Internationals, having made his Test debut on South Africa’s last tour of England in 2003.His ODI debut came six months earlier, at Bloemfontein in December 2002, where he made an immediate impact with his first-ball dismissal of Sri Lanka’s Marvan Atapattu. To date he has taken 201 first-class wickets in 63 appearances at an average of 27.81, as well as 78 limited-overs wickets at 28.67.Zondeki will be available for all of Warwickshire’s competitions next season, except when Sanath Jayasuriya comes across for the Twenty20 Cup in June.”I am hugely excited about signing for Warwickshire,” said Zondeki. “The opportunity to work under Ashley Giles and bowling coach Allan Donald is one that was too good to refuse. This promises to be a huge year for the Bears and I am looking forward to playing an important role in the upcoming season.”Warwickshire’s director of cricket, Ashley Giles, said: “Monde comes highly recommended from South Africa. Myself and AD have had many discussions about world-class bowlers and he rates him as one of the quickest bowlers in South Africa.”Monde will add pace and experience to our bowling attack and will be a good addition to the squad. I look forward to welcoming to Edgbaston in March.”

Delhi were quickly in command on the opening day of their North ZoneRanji Trophy league match against Jammu & Kashmir at the Maulana Azadstadium in Jammu on Friday. After dismissing the hosts for 198 runs,Delhi replied with 79 for no loss before play was stopped at 4.07 pmbecause of bad light.J&K, opting to bat, lost two wickets for 44 runs but Kanwaljeet Singh(53) and Ashwani Gupta (32) steadied the innings by adding 58 runs forthe third wicket off 15 overs to push the score to 102. Thereafterwickets fell at regular intervals thanks in the main to the formerIndian fast bowler Ashish Nehra who finished with four wickets for 39.Of the later batsmen, only Vijay Sharma with an unbeaten 30 put up asemblance of a fight.Delhi openers Akash Chopra (51) and Ashu Dani (21) batted at a briskrate scoring 79 runs off 13 overs to come through unbeaten at stumps.Chopra was easily the more aggressive of the two hitting his runs off53 balls with ten hits to the ropes.

The Jamaican authorities have ordered an inquest to be held into the murder of Bob Woolmer, the Pakistan coach. Woolmer’s family was informed that his body would remain in Jamaica till the inquest was over.Coroner’s inquests are held in cases of sudden or unexplained deaths.The reported that according to the Commissioner of Police, Lucius Thomas, the coroner had directed the inquest be held “as soon as possible”.According to Les Green, the police officer heading the Major Investigation Task Force, no date has yet been set for the inquest. “We don’t know when it will begin at this point,” Green told the on Friday.But a release from the government’s public relations arm, the Jamaica Information Service, stated that the coroner gave an assurance that the inquest, which is to be held with a jury, would be conducted “as soon as practical”.The police also denied reports appearing in the foreign press that a man was arrested in connection with the case in Jamaica on Thursday night and that phone numbers of Pakistan and Indian team members were found in a cellular phone taken from the man.TVJ, a local television channel, reported that Darren Lifsun, the Pakistan team physiotherapist, and Murray Stevenson, the trainer, would stay back in Jamaica till the inquest is completed. “We promised the family to stay until everything is sorted out,” Lifsun told AFP. “The police informed the family first, then us, with everything, and then we told the team.”Woolmer died on March 18 in his hotel room in Kingston and five days later the cause of his death was confirmed to be asphyxia as a result of manual strangulation. The Pakistan team were fingerprinted and asked to provide DNA samples as part of the investigations.

“You can’t take any team lightly these days. You don’t know which bush will throw up what snake.” These words, by Vijay Bharadwaj, the Karnataka coach, indicates how cautiously they are approaching the Ranji Trophy game against Himachal Pradesh. Karnataka will start as clear favourites, though: the team has Anil Kumble, who has just become the national captain, and Rahul Dravid, fresh from a double-hundred. Plus, they are playing at home.Both teams are carrying just one point from their previous games, as the batting let them down in the first innings. Karnataka collapsed against the spin of Ramesh Powar on a tricky first-day wicket against Mumbai while HP struggled against the Saurashtra spinners – Kamlesh Makvana and Rakesh Dhurv – and collapsed sensationally from 131 for 1 to 181.”It was one bad session of batting that cost us dearly,” Sandeep Sharma, HP’s captain, said. “But we are confident of a better show against Karnataka. Our bowling is in very good shape and I am sure the batsmen will come to the party.”Sharma has reason to believe that his team won’t be embarrassed. In Vikramjeet Singh Malik and Ashok Thakur, the left-arm seamer who took 11 wickets in the last game, they have a decent pace attack. And spin is their main strike weapon as they have the in-form left-arm spinner Vishal Bhatia and Sarandeep Singh, the former India offspinner who moved from Punjab to HP last season. Bhatia, who was the highest wicket-taker in the Plate league with 38 victims, and Sarandeep, who took 28 wickets last season, ensured that HP didn’t lose a single game en route to becoming the Plate champions.Their batting will be led by the captain himself and he will look to the young players like Paras Dogra, wicketkeeper Maninder Bisla, and Manish Gupta to get the runs on the board. Dogra was the top scorer last season with 528 runs at 48, while Sharma, too, enjoyed a good season.They have a fairly unchanged nucleus for the last three years. “We all know each other pretty well, there are quite a few talented youngsters, and it’s a very healthy attitude that prevails in our camp,” Sharma said. How these youngsters adapt to the challenge of playing against the experienced Karnataka players on an untested wicket will be the key.

The pitch is of some concern as it was recently re-laid, and just a couple of games have been played on the new surface. The top layer has been changed, with soil brought in from Kakinada, a district in Andhra Pradesh. It’s anybody’s guess how the track will play; some players from both teams think it will assist spinners fairly early in the game as they reckoned the top surface is quite powdery. The curator, however, is confident it will hold up for the game.”We have left a sprinkling of grass on the track and it should hold up. It should be a sporting wicket,” Narayan Raju, the chief curator, told Cricinfo. “Of course it will take spin, perhaps from the end of the second day or by the third day.”Both teams have said that they will bat first if the coin falls in their favour. “Since it’s a newly laid track, we would look to bat first,” Bharadwaj said.Dravid practised for nearly a couple of hours in the morning on the practice wickets and he would be itching to have another big knock under his belt before the Tests against Pakistan. Kumble, who was in Mumbai for the selection meeting, is expected to fly back tonight and will pair up with Sunil Joshi as Karnataka’s spin weapons. The fast bowlers, Kumble will hope his fast bowlers – Vinay Kumar and NC Aiyappa, who was restricted to just one game due to an injury in the last season and bowled well only in patches in the last game – can put up a good show. Karnataka is likely to go with the same team that drew against Mumbai, while HP will finalise their playing XI tomorrow.

Scorecard

Federal Areas had an impressive first day against top-placed Sind in Islamabad, bundling them out for 222 and then scoring 119 for the loss of three wickets.With his 5 for 58, Sohail Tanvir ensured Federal Areas made good first use of the pitch. Sind lost wickets at regular intervals, Tanvir removed two of the top four, while Yasir Arafat and Shehzad Azam took one apiece. A 71-ball 53 from Naumanullah held up one end for a while, but the knock of the innings came from Shahid Afridi, the Sind captain.Coming in at No. 6, Afridi blasted 70 off 49 balls, with eight fours and three sixes. At 194 for 5, Sind were in with a chance to reach 300, but Saeed Ajmal and Tanvir triggered a collapse. Ajmal got rid of the dangerous Afridi, out caught-and-bowled, while Tanvir scalped Sarfraz Ahmed, Danish Kaneria and Sohail Khan. Ajmal, an offbreak bowler, took another wicket as well, but figures of 2 for 64 off six overs indicate he suffered the most during Afridi’s onslaught.Federal Areas made a strong reply with an 82-run opening stand, before Afridi removed Umair Khan for 19. Umair’s partner Raheel Majeed did the bulk of the scoring, with 72 off 93 balls. Sohail Khan, who scythed the Baluchistan top order in the previous game, picked up two wickets before stumps to reduce Federal Areas from 114 for 1 to 119 for 3.ScorecardAfter being shot out for 42 against Sind last week, Baluchistan’s batsmen did better against Punjab, managing 298 for 7 on the first day at the Jinnah Stadium in Sialkot.However, Baluchistan frittered away the advantage, they were at 208 for 2 at one stage, but lost five wickets for 90 runs as Punjab fought back. A 121-run second-wicket stand between Yasir Arafat and Rameez Alam laid the platform for Baluchistan. Arafat made 62, while Alam scored 84 before he was bowled by Mohammad Hafeez.Saeed Bin Nasir chipped in with 46, and wicketkeeper Gulraiz Sadaf ended the day unbeaten on 36. For Punjab, opening bowler Wahab Riaz was the pick of the bowlers with 2 for 53.

Kevin Curran, the former Zimbabwe coach, has been appointed head of the country’s cricket academy. Curran’s coaching tenure began in September 2005 and ended with the recently concluded home ODI series against South Africa, after which he was replaced by Robin Brown, the former Zimbabwe captain.In an interview to , a Zimbabwe daily, Curran reflected on his years in charge of the side and what the new role meant for him.”When my contract ended, Zimbabwe Cricket asked me to rebuild and restructure the academy,” Curran said. “It was a new venture and new challenge for me and one that would allow me to spend more time with my young family – something I have not managed to do of late because of all the travelling of international cricket.”Curran coached Zimbabwe for 42 one-dayers since taking over from Phil Simmons; in that period, the team won nine games and lost 28. Disputes between the board and its players led to the exodus of seniors like Heath Streak and the vacuum created by their departure saw the team plunge in world rankings. A self-imposed one-year suspension from Test cricket followed.Despite the lows, Curran reflected on the positives and said he’d observed a genuine improvement in performance over the last two years.”Everyone who has played for the country since I took over has improved in the true sense of the word,” he said. “I am not one who looks at negatives. Coaching a young and inexperienced side, as I was doing, demanded constantly looking at the positives. I was presented with the youngest international squad in the history of the game and I am very proud of the way they have all developed.”Curran dismissed reports of a rift with Tatenda Taibu, the former captain who returned to the side after a premature retirement in November 2005. Taibu made an immediate impact on his return and made a fighting century in the third one-dayer against South Africa as Zimbabwe made a fist of the target of 324.”Tatenda was not my player for very long because he left after I had just taken over. However, he came back a month ago and since then he has played his best cricket. His averages have more than doubled, his work ethic been outstanding, and he is one of the fittest in the team. He is always the last in the nets and is an excellent role model for our young team.”If he can maintain this rich vein of form, he will develop into one of the finest cricketers Zimbabwe has produced. I cannot afford to have clashes or differences come between me and a player because I need all players to perform well for my team as that is what I am judged on.”Curran said that his last series in charge was one of the best moments in his coaching career. Zimbabwe recovered from a dismal 72 for 7 to post 206 in the first match in Bulawayo and then posted 247 and 323 in the next two.”During the last series against South Africa, ranked second in the world, all the players showed their class. They showed character and passion – something for which I have been working for some time. These players were really at the top of their game. Their future is bright as results will follow if they continue in this vein.”