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After having won all their group matches it looked like Guernsey would be denied the ICC World Cricket League Division Six title by Malaysia but wicketkeeper Tim Kimber rescued them from 65 for 7 to help them reach the target of 209 in the final over of the match, at the Kinrara Oval in Kuala Lumpur. Guernsey had beaten Malaysia at the same ground the day before the final by restricting them to 170. In the final, they allowed Malaysia to get 208 but would not have expected to lose so many wickets early on in their chase.Hammad Ullah Khan, who had top-scored for Malaysia with 53, picked up three early wickets with his seamers, and offspinner Nik Arifin got two. Kimber had only 11 runs to his name in the tournament up to the final but produced an unbeaten 82 off 92 balls to shock the hosts. He was assisted by David Hooper, who scored 45.”It feels simply brilliant to win today and to have been six or seven down and then see young Tom Kimber come out and guide us to victory with a fantastic knock of 82 not out,” Guernsey’s captain Stuart Le Prevost said after the win. Malaysia would not be too disappointed since by virtue of reaching the final they and Guernsey had already earned promotion to Division Five. “We need to work on our batting ahead of going to Singapore in February [for the Division Five tournament],” Malaysia captain Suhan Alagaratnam said. “We’ll take each game as it comes but I’d definitely like a chance to beat Guernsey next year in Division Five.

Kuwait and Jersey had both missed out on promotion because their net run-rate in the group stage was less than Malaysia’s. But they still had third-place to play for, and Kuwait beat Jersey by eight runs at the Selangor Turf Club. Jersey had looked on course to chase the target of 213 after Corey Bisson and Peter Gough had both reached half-centuries and put together 91 runs for the fourth wicket. But Gough’s dismissal sparked a collapse and Jersey went from 174 for 3 in the 45th over to being all out for 204. Seamer Mohammed Naseer ran through the tail and finished with 4 for 29.Kuwait’s innings had taken a different route: they had lost wickets early and were 63 for 6 before Mohammad Amin and Saad Khalid put together 70 for the seventh wicket with Khalid getting 50 off 38 balls. No. 10 Azmatullah Nazeer chipped in with 44 and though Kuwait were bowled out in 44.5 overs, their total of 212 proved enough.

Nigeria won their first match of the tournament, beating Fiji by 102 runs at the Bayuemas Oval to finish fifth. Nigeria’s spinners bowled Fiji out for 133 after their batsmen had managed a total of 235 through contributions from each of the top-order batsmen. Offspinner Varun Behani then picked up three wickets as just five Fiji batsmen made it to double figures.

Cricket Australia’s chief executive James Sutherland is confident that the new general manager of team performance will be appointed before Australia’s tour of South Africa next month. The creation of the new job was one of the key recommendations from the Argus review, and only after that position is finalised will CA move on to filling the coaching and selection roles.However, there is no guarantee the new general manager will have started the job before the squads for the South African series are selected. That could mean the touring party will be picked by Andrew Hilditch, Greg Chappell, Jamie Cox and the captain Michael Clarke and coach Tim Nielsen, who form the interim selection panel.”We’re significantly advanced in consideration of the general manager role,” Sutherland said in Melbourne on Wednesday. “Our priority is to identify and recruit a general manager to fulfil that important role of looking after the Australian team performance. Once that person is identified and appointed then the review of other positions and the appointment of other positions will flow very quickly from that.”I’d like to think it was a matter of weeks [not months] before we make an appointment and then it will depend on what job that person is doing at this time, and how quickly they may be able to make that transition. I’m certainly very confident that we’ll have an appointment before [the South Africa tour].”The Australians will depart for South Africa early next month before the first Twenty20 on October 13. However, the first Test is not until November, which gives Cricket Australia a little extra breathing space while they recruit selectors and decide on the head coach, a position that will involve more wide-ranging responsibilities than Nielsen currently holds.And while the early indications were that Cricket Australia would look elsewhere to find the new coach, Sutherland was impressed by the way Nielsen handled the release of the Argus review. He said he hoped Nielsen would throw his hat in the ring for the coaching job.”I was in Sri Lanka a week or so ago and met with Tim,” Sutherland said. “It’s really for Tim to talk about what he wants to do but what I made clear to him at the time is that we’re very keen for him to be a front-line applicant for the job and I don’t see any reason why he can’t be.”

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Northamptonshire’s departing pace bowler David Lucas helped the county move closer to promotion as the Division Two leaders completed a 165-run victory over Derbyshire in the County Championship match at Chesterfield.Lucas took 4 for 75 in one of his last games for Northamptonshire before he joins Worcestershire next season to wrap up a sixth championship victory and a 21-point haul. James Middlebrook followed his second-innings unbeaten century by taking the last wicket to fall to end with 3 for 78.The result almost certainly puts paid to Derbyshire’s hopes of promotion but the home side can still round off a much-improved season by claiming third place. They continued to show fight on the fourth morning at Queen’s Park despite being in a hopeless position at the start of play on 289 for eight, 205 runs away from a highly unlikely victory.Conditions were good for batting and Jon Clare and Tony Palladino dug in for eight overs to frustrate the visitors who had tried to wrap up the game by claiming an extra half an hour the previous evening.Northamptonshire opened with the pace of Lucas from the Pavilion End and Middlebrook’s spin from the Lake End of the lovely tree-ringed ground and both batsmen took advantage of attacking fields to take the home side past 300.They had added 57 in 15 overs when Palladino missed a drive at Lucas and was bowled for 28 which came off 57 balls and contained three fours. It was now just a question of whether Clare could get to his half-century and Mark Footitt survived long enough to see him to a well-deserved 50.Clare nudged Middlebrook for the single that brought up his half-century which came off 78 balls and included nine fours but the game ended in the same over when Footitt pulled the spinner into the hands of Kyle Coetzer at deep midwicket.It completed a deserved victory for Northamptonshire, who now have 195 points and are firm favourites to win promotion to Division One.

Kevin O’Brien is targeting a repeat of his Bangalore heroics when Ireland take on England in Dubin on Thursday, but already has one eye on next year’s challenges which include the World Twenty20, in Sri Lanka, and hopes to secure further deals with overseas sides to further his reputation.O’Brien, who has released a book about the World Cup called Six after Six, produced one of the highlights of the tournament when he slammed 113 off 63 balls to take his country to a famous victory in a huge run chase. He has already benefited from that success, signing a one-day deal with Gloucestershire and a three-year contract with the Sri Lanka Premier League (SPL), although the first season of that has been delayed, but O’Brien has his sights set higher including the IPL and a possible stint in New Zealand.”Looking ahead, for me next year is a big year for Ireland in Twenty20 with the World Championship and I’m looking to play as much as I can in the next 12 months,” he told ESPNcricinfo. “I’d signed a deal with the SPL and hopefully that will take place next year, but the big one is the IPL. I’ve registered for next year’s tournament so hopefully someone will sign me up. I’d love to play in such a big tournament against the world’s best players. I’m also trying to get into the New Zealand Twenty20. I’ve put my name in the hat so hopefully something will come from that.”With the overseas Twenty20 leagues currently filling up their rosters ahead of the new season, this one-day international against England, which is being broadcast on TV unlike the 2009 game in Belfast, has come at a good time for O’Brien to remind everyone of his potential. However, they are also important matches for Ireland who were one of main forces behind successfully lobbying the ICC to overturn their decision to limit the 2015 World Cup to 10 teams”We have to keep performing as a team and improving as players,” he said. “We are used to these games now, we’ve played a lot against the big nations now and we enjoy it. There will hopefully be six or seven thousand at Clontarf and we can pull off another victory.”Ireland will face a new-look England side with a number of first-choice players, including one-day captain Alastair Cook, having been rested following the Test series against India. It will enable to them to assess the potential of Ben Stokes, James Taylor, Scott Borthwick and Jonny Bairstow plus a number of other fringe players but does mean that the Irish public won’t get a chance to watch Kevin Pietersen, Graeme Swann and Stuart Broad at first hand.Warren Deutrom, the chief executive of Cricket Ireland, has admitted it would have been pleasing to see England send a full-strength squad but is fully aware it is their prerogative what line-up they select.”Of course, we would like to host more of the stars that have propelled England to No. 1 in the Test rankings, but obviously the role of the England selectors is to satisfy the priorities of the England set-up, not ours,” Deutrom told ESPNcricinfo. “The RSA Challenge is an official ODI, and there are rankings points at stake, which means the match has context. Therefore, our guys will be highly motivated and, bearing in mind that this is more or less our 2011 World Cup squad, they will be drawing on recent history for confidence.”O’Brien also insisted that Ireland will not look at the England side any differently because they are without some household names. “We aren’t too fussed, whatever team they send over they are playing for England,” he said. “They are bringing over a young side, both in age and experience, but they are still a very good team full of promising players having good seasons in county cricket who are trying to prove their worth.”A couple of curious aspects to the match include Eoin Morgan, a former Ireland player, captaining England and that Boyd Rankin, the tall fast bowler, will be aiming to impress the visitors having been selected for England Lions last week.”Eoin’s been playing for England now two years so we’ve all come to terms that he’s an integral part of the one-day team and has now moved into the Test team,” O’Brien said. “I don’t think it’s going to be any different if he was just playing. Someone of Boyd’s talent, and after the season he’s had for Warwickshire, England will be looking at him. That’s for Boyd to decide if he wants to play for England in the future. But this is a big game for Ireland this week.”

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Paul Collingwood shrugged off his Twenty20 struggles with the bat to prove a match-winner with the ball as Durham beat Worcestershire by 28 runs at Chester-le-Street.Durham leapfrogged their visitors into third place in the Friends Life t20 North Group after Collingwood took 4 for 19. Chasing Durham’s 161 for 6, in which Ian Blackwell made 77, Worcestershire were 60 for 1 after seven overs when Collingwood struck twice in two balls in his first over.Moeen Ali was stumped for 29 and the former England T20 captain then stuck up his left hand to hold a return catch offered by Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan. Collingwood’s success prompted Dale Benkenstein to try his own medium pace swingers and Alexei Kervezee hit his first ball over midwicket for six, but then holed out at long-on for 26.No-one else threatened an innings of substance and Worcestershire were all out for 133 with five balls remaining. After choosing to bat under cloudless skies, Durham’s total looked a little below par, despite Blackwell hitting four sixes in his 59-ball innings.He came to the crease to face the third ball of the match after Phil Mustard was bowled off his pads by Jack Shantry. When Pakistan off-spinner Saeed Ajmal came on for the sixth over, Gordon Muchall lofted the second ball straight to deep midwicket to bring in Collingwood with 30 runs from six Twenty20 innings behind him.The next ball brushed Blackwell’s pad and passed just over the stumps as only one run came off the over, and Ajmal continued to pose problems on his way to figures of 3 for 22. Collingwood made 29 off 23 balls and Durham were in need of acceleration with the score on 106 after 15 overs.Collingwood was bowled going for a big hit off Gareth Andrew, but Benkenstein helped Blackwell take 30 runs off the next 10 balls before Blackwell chipped the last ball of the 17th over straight back to Al Hasan. The ex-Somerset man’s score has been beaten only twice by Durham in Twenty20 cricket; by himself with 79 and New Zealander Ross Taylor with 80 in successive matches last year.

ScorecardOpeners Steven Davies and Rory Hamilton-Brown blasted 107 in just 10.1 overs as Surrey started their Friends Life t20 campaign in style by overwhelming Gloucestershire by eight wickets under The Oval lights.Victory came with three overs in hand as Davies, with 92 not out from 55 balls, and Hamilton-Brown, who made 45 from 27 balls before being stumped off a wide, thrashed the Gloucestershire bowling to all parts. Muttiah Muralitharan, making his debut for Gloucestershire, was hit for 14 by Davies from his first over – including a six over long on.There were three sixes and 13 fours in all for left-hander Davies, who thrilled a 8,249-strong crowd with some exquisite as well as powerful strokeplay. Gloucestershire’s 155 for 8 always looked like being an inadequate total on a true Oval surface, but the power of Surrey’s reply was still quite astonishing.Hamilton-Brown took three fours from David Payne’s opening over, and Davies did the same to Jon Lewis in the second over. Surrey were 28 for no wicket after those two new-ball overs and 54 without loss after five.Then came Muralitharan’s expensive first over and Davies’ half-century arrived in only the ninth over. By the end of that, Surrey were 95 and Gloucestershire just did not know where to bowl at the rampant opening pair.It was a great start to the Twenty20 competition for Surrey, who are also top of their Clydesdale Bank 40 group and have lost just one match in all competitions.They also saw a fine debut from fast bowler Dirk Nannes, the Australian and former Holland Twenty20 specialist, who took three wickets. Nannes made two early inroads into the Gloucestershire batting, striking in each of his first two overs for his new club to remove Alex Gidman to a catch at the wicket and Chris Taylor, who miscued an attempted hook to short fine-leg.Kevin O’Brien and Kane Williamson, with sixes over long on and long off respectively from the bowling of Yasir Arafat and Chris Schofield, briefly put the pressure back on Surrey’s bowlers.But Ireland’s World Cup star O’Brien was then well caught by Zander de Bruyn in the deep for a 19-ball 24 and – later in the same over – Hamish Marshall edged to wicketkeeper Davies, who took a smart catch standing up to seamer Tim Linley.Williamson was badly dropped on 25 by Gareth Batty at long off, as he tried to clear the ropes off Schofield, and with the fielder knocking the ball over the boundary for four to compound his error.The young New Zealander was, however, run out shortly afterwards for 32 and Gloucestershire were 94 for 6 in the 15th over when Richard Coughtrie was lbw trying to reverse-sweep off spinner Batty.A stand of 45 in 4.2 overs between Will Gidman, who improvised superbly in an innings of 40 not out from 37 balls that contained only two fours, and Ed Young revitalised the Gloucestershire innings.Young swung a ball from Matt Spriegel high over mid-wicket for six and also belted four fours in his 28. Young was lbw aiming a paddle-sweep at Arafat, but Jon Lewis then came in to hit his first two balls, from Arafat, for four and six. Nannes, however, trapped Lewis lbw with the final ball of the innings to give himself excellent figures of 3 for 25.

A lengthy rehabilitation awaits Bangladesh fast bowler Mashrafe Mortaza as he underwent surgery on his knee after injuring it during a domestic game in December last year and missing the World Cup. Mortaza was successfully operated upon by Australian orthopaedic surgeon Dr David Young in Melbourne earlier this month but might not be able to bowl before October.”I’m now fine. Dr Young checked me this morning and he was really happy with the improvement and what he told me is that he will be surprised if I miss the Pakistan series in December this year,” Mortaza told the .Mortaza said that at the moment, there was no swelling on his operated knee and he could walk with the support of a crutch. His rehabilitation programme will commence soon. “It is too early to say anything about when I will get back my full fitness as only two weeks have gone after the operation but right at this moment I am feeling good.”Generally it needs four weeks from the operation to start the rehabilitation. If everything goes well, it will be possible to start bowling from October, so I’m hopeful that I can gain full fitness before the Pakistan series.”Dr Debashish Chowdhury, the Bangladesh Cricket Board physician, said that the decision on when to start the rehabilitation program will be taken only after a detailed assessment of the case papers.Mortaza had earlier been advised to undergo surgery after the World Cup, but he was selected to play in the ODI series against Australia just after the tournament despite concerns that he was not fully fit. He played two games in the three-match series.