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ScorecardAndrew Strauss gave England’s innings the perfect early momentum with a dashing 60•Getty Images

Mitchell Johnson did his best to keep Australia alive in the final Ashes Test with a vital half-century and two key wickets on an absorbing day, but England were handily placed on 3 for 167 in reply to 280. Andrew Strauss hit a sparkling 58-ball 60 to launch England’s reply following Johnson’s counterattacking 53, then Alastair Cook maintained his prolific form only to lose Kevin Pietersen shortly before the close.Strauss and Jonathan Trott fell in quick succession to leave England 2 for 99 and memories of Perth, where Johnson had sparked a dramatic England collapse, were not far away. Cook should have become Michael Beer’s first Test wicket on 46, but the delivery was called no-ball after Billy Bowden asked to check the front line when Cook lofted to mid-on. However, to Beer’s huge credit he remained focused on the game and was able to steady himself under Pietersen’s hook shot at fine leg in what could prove a pivotal wicket.Australia were struggling to make 200 before Johnson and Ben Hilfenhaus combined to add 76 for the ninth wicket but their momentum was eroded as Strauss raced out of the blocks against some shoddy bowling. Hilfenhaus was especially disappointing, dropping short at a friendly pace to allow Strauss free pull shots one of which cleared deep square-leg for sixMichael Clarke made an early mark as captain when he handed Johnson the new ball for the first time since the Lord’s Test in 2009, but his opening spell lasted three overs, during which he was cut by both batsmen, and Strauss was motoring along at more than a run-a-ball in a perfect tone-setting display. The England captain also drove with authority, a sign his game is in top order, as Clarke began to realise the challenges of captaincy in the current Australian era.Strauss went to fifty shortly after tea when he scythed a cut over the slips but Hilfenhaus provided relief for Australia when he went round the wicket and took off stump with one that shaped away from the left hander. That breakthrough sparked a lift in Australia’s bowling and Trott fell for his first Test duck when he dragged Johnson into his stumps.Cook had trailed in Strauss’s wake during the opening partnership but oozed the confidence that over 600 runs in the series has brought him. His fifty came from 113 balls and when he’d made 59 reached 5000 for his career with the promise of plenty more to come.Beer’s first ball in Test cricket was dispatched by Pietersen, but despite the sickening disappointing of seeing a wicket denied he held himself together well. Pietersen had taken a blow on the arm early in his innings, yet was desperate to impose himself and couldn’t resist taking on Johnson despite the close being four overs away which left James Anderson to survive a late bombardment.

Smart Stats

• The 76 run stand for the ninth wicket between Mitchell Johnson and Ben Hilfenhaus is the seventh highest at the SCG and the third highest for Australia against England in Tests at the SCG.

• James Anderson picked up four wickets to take his tally in the series to 21, the highest among both teams. He is followed by Chris Tremlett and Steve Finn, who have 14 wickets each.

• Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook put on 98 runs for the opening wicket, their second fifty partnership in the series. They also have two century stands in the four Tests. They have aggregated 549 runs at an average of 78.42 while the Australian openers have scored 323 runs at 35.88.

• Since January 2008, Australian batsmen average 31.47 in the team first innings at the SCG, the lowest among all home grounds.

• Strauss scored 60 off 58 balls at a strike rate of 103.44, his highest strike rate for a fifty plus score in Tests.

Despite the two periods where runs flowed from Australia’s tail and England’s openers it wasn’t easy when bowlers maintained consistency which is what the visitors did superbly for the first two hours. Brad Haddin set a poor tone for the home side in the fourth over of the day when he played a flat-footed waft outside off against Anderson, which wasn’t the best way to start his stint at No.6. There was still life on offer in the pitch for the pacemen and both Mike Hussey and Steve Smith had to concentrate on defence.After his double failure in Melbourne, Hussey was again looking solid but at no point did he get away from England as he had in Brisbane and Perth. Even taking into account bowler-friendly conditions and a sluggish outfield which kept boundaries to a minimum it was tough going by Australia. Paul Collingwood then claimed one of the biggest wickets of his Test career when a tight over to Hussey was rewarded with an inside edge into the pads and onto the stumps.More galling for Hussey was that the strike came with the last delivery before the new ball and Collingwood was promptly removed from the attack. Smith had played against his natural instincts but couldn’t resist flashing a drive at Anderson which went straight to third slip and it took just four balls to work over Peter Siddle who edged low to Strauss.Johnson drove the ball as sweetly as anyone and Strauss was too quick to set his men back which conceded the advantage to a No. 8 in favourable bowling conditions. Hilfenhaus played his part, flicking Tim Bresnan over midwicket for six, and Johnson was happy to milk the deep-set field to give his partner the strike.Johnson cut loose early in the afternoon as he launched Graeme Swann over midwicket for four followed by six then brought up his fifty with a nudge into the leg side which was greeted by huge roars. Bresnan broke through when Johnson missed an expansive drive and Anderson removed Hilfenhaus for his fourth wicket and 21st scalp of the series. However, those late-order runs could yet prove a vital factor in the final outcome.

Few sports teams are as enigmatic as the Pakistan cricket team. Over the last twelve month the captaincy has changed hands so many times it is enough to make fans dizzy, and the side has been at the centre of a spot-fixing scandal that has cost them their two premier fast bowlers. Yet, somehow, they continue to impress on the field. Where other teams might falter as all around them crumbled, Pakistan perform in spite of the shambles. They are are still to name a captain just two-and-a-half weeks shy of the World Cup, another sign of their dysfunction, but the manner in which they’ve rolled New Zealand in the one-day series sends out a message that none of the more fancied teams can afford to ignore them.Three victories on the trot have allowed many players find their roles within the team. Unable to trouble batsmen with extravagant pace or movement, Abdul Razzak has taken up the task of tying down one end with the new ball while the likes of Shoaib Akhtar and Umar Gul attack from the other. In Napier, his seven-over opening spell included three maidens and cost 16 runs. In Hamilton, he was only required to bowl four overs, but a tight spell from him meant New Zealand’s explosive top order couldn’t get ahead of the required run rate early. Shahid Afridi’s canny legspin has not only kept things quiet during the middle overs, but has broken vital partnerships that have threatened to take the game away. Mohammed Hafeez meanwhile, has chipped in with a few miserly spells of his own in Saeed Ajmal’s absence. In Umar Gul, Pakistan have one of the finest merchants of reverse swing, and as Wahab Riaz proved today with a terrific late-swinging toe crusher to uproot James Franklin’s stumps, he’s no picnic with the old ball either.”Anything over 90 miles is hard to play, especially on a pitch like this when the ball wasn’t exactly coming on the bat in the second innings,” Waqar Younis said after the win in Hamilton. With Gul Wahab and Akhtar in the World Cup squad, Pakistan have three bowlers who are constantly pushing the 145 kph mark, with ample high quality spin options in their ranks as well. “Maybe we were about twenty runs short today, but the bowlers covered it beautifully. Mohammad Hafeez and Afridi bowled well and they picked up wickets at the right time.”The batting too has begun to fall into place for Pakistan. In the last three games, each of the openers has made a hundred. Misbah-ul-Haq, in the form of his life, has provided stability and sense to the innings alongside Younis Khan. And as New Zealand found out twice in Christchurch, first in the Twenty20, and more recently in the one dayer – Pakistan’s middle order allrounders are capable of slamming an attack helpless within the space of a few deliveries. Whether by design or not, some semblance of a gameplan seems to be developing for Pakistan – the openers set off rapidly before Younis and Misbah use their experience in the middle overs to provide a platform for the likes of Afridi and his cohorts do their best to bring down the stands by repeatedly launching six ounces of leather at them.Despite the uncertainty over the captaincy issue and the ignominious distractions that have preceded it, Pakistan seems surprisingly settled and focused. Waqar Younis thinks that it may actually be because of the public embroilment that the team has endured over the past few months that it is performing so well as a unit.”I think [the controversy surrounding the team] has had a positive effect,” Waqar said. “Not only in this series but in the last series against South Africa we played positive cricket in both the Test matches and one -dayers. In a way you could say it geed us up an pulled us together because reading all that rubbish in the newspapers every morning gives you a bit of togetherness. With the amount of controversy we’ve had in the last year, it’s good see guys making a comeback and scoring runs. It’s good to see the unit really getting together and putting up a good show. “It’s difficult to gauge just how much momentum Pakistan will take into the World Cup, primarily because they are not a side that sustains winning impetus over a long period of time. They are instead a team that turns things around in a single innings or a sparkling spell. But the format of this World Cup could play to their strengths. Several major upsets aside, Pakistan are almost guaranteed a place in the quarter finals, and from that point it’s three victories to the title. They may not be a side that dominates an entire six-week tournament, but few would put it past a rampant Pakistan to win three games in a row in the final stages.Waqar remained hopeful ahead of the tournament. “It’s every team’s dream [to win the World Cup] and we are on the right track at the moment. If we can deliver similar goods over the six weeks, you never know. We’re positive.”

For the past three months Canada’s squad has been hard at work preparing for their country’s fourth appearance at the World Cup.In squad are five players aged 20 or younger – Nitish Kumar, Ruvindu Gunasekera, Hamza Tariq, Hiral Patel and Parth Desai – all five of whom played in the 2010 Under-19 World Cup team, and are now looking ahead to their first outing on the main stage.”The Under-19 World Cup experience really helped me [become] knowledgeable of what level the other Under-19 players in the [ICC] member countries are at and how to fine tune my game to become a better cricketer,” said stand-out batsman Gunasekera.”A lot of players came through the Under-19 World Cup [team], so it was a good experience and I got to know what international cricket is going to be [like],” added fellow batsman Patel.With such a young group, it’s understandable to think the long road training for the World Cup would grow tiresome, but they see it as an experience they’ve been waiting for their entire lives. “My goal was to play in this World Cup in 2011 and I’ve been preparing for a much longer time than the three months,” said Gunasekera. “From the day I picked up a bat my dream was to play at a World Cup and I think all of the players here that’s what they dreamt of when they picked up a bat or a ball.”Since beginning their World Cup training process in India back in November, Canada have participated in a number of tours and the youngsters have been able to stay concerned with the task at hand to overcome the gruelling regime en route to the World Cup. “We don’t think that far ahead when we’re on other tours, so that’s how we stay focused every time we go on tour,” said Patel. “Yeah we’re away from families but it’s World Cup time.”Though it’s a privilege for the young group to play on the world stage, participating amongst the elite is not the ultimate goal. Rather, producing results that have never been seen for Canada is on the minds of the youthful core.”Make a name for Canada at the World Cup, since we’ve only won one game [at the World Cup]. The first thing that comes to my mind is Ireland reaching the Super 8 [at the] last World Cup, so I think we have to at least repeat that,” said Gunasekera.With such lofty goals the youngsters understand what it will take for the team to reach the quarter-finals. “We know what we have to do, what the team has to do to succeed, we all know our roles and goals, so it’s hard to lose focus as long as we stick with the team,” said backup wicketkeeper Tariq.There’s no shortage of experience on the Canadian roster and the younger members have used all the experience available to improve their own games, inheriting the enthusiastic work ethic the elder players demonstrate.”Looking at all the senior players and how you get [there] pushes you when you’re practising. You want to do what they’ve done to get to where they are right now,” said Tariq. “They share their experiences with me so that’s helped me a lot and they’ve gone through the system as well, so their experience I use as my guidelines to help me survive at this level,” added Patel.Though the older players are there to assist their younger counterparts, Gunasekera says it’s ultimately up to the players themselves to improve. “I think all their experience [will] help you transition to the national system and once you’re there I think it’s up to you how you handle the situation and how to improve from there.”

Baluchistan slipped to an 83-run defeat against Punjab at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. In an exciting contest, Baluchistan fought hard in their chase of 413 but were deprived of a major contribution from their batsmen, none of whom were able to convert their starts into three-figures. Baluchistan began their day on 145 for 2, and overnight batsman Saeed Anwar jnr progressed to reach his half-century.But the Punjab bowlers struck early to make it 183 for 4. Anwar then put together a 72-run stand with Imranullah Aslam that revived Baluchistan’s chances, but the chase lost steam once the pair was separated. Aslam managed a half-century but the last six wickets fell for 75 and Baluchistan were eventually bowled out for 330. The seamers set up the win for Punjab, with Sarmad Anwar grabbing four wickets and the opening bowling pair of Mohammad Khalil and Asad Ali sharing five.Baluchistan retain their position at the top of the table but are only three points behind Federal Areas, who have a game in hand just as the other teams.

Scorecard and ball by-ball detailsMichael Clarke led from the front with 101•Associated Press

Michael Clarke passed his first test as Australia’s full-time captain, leading from the front with a century before his bowlers backed up the effort to complete a 60-run win over Bangladesh. Australia have a 1-0 lead in the three-match series and while the results might seem inconsequential after the World Cup, the subplot of Clarke taking over the leadership from Ricky Ponting has created some interest.Clarke’s 101 suggested that the responsibility could sit well with him, and he needed to anchor the innings after Australia lost three wickets in their first 14 overs having been sent in on a good batting pitch. He helped get the Australians to a strong total of 270 for 7 and Bangladesh, who only twice in their ODI history have successfully chased totals of that size, were not up to the task.They stumbled to 9 for 2 in the fourth over of their pursuit and although Tamim Iqbal and Shakib Al Hasan both made half-centuries, the result was all but certain by the halfway point of their chase. It was a strong all-round performance by Australia in the field, seven bowlers being used, including the rediscovered legspinner Cameron White, and five men claimed a wicket each.Brett Lee got things started when he had Imrul Kayes caught behind in the third over and in the next over, Shahriar Nafees fell for a golden duck when he got his pad in the way of a Mitchell Johnson delivery that would have hit the stumps. Raqibul Hasan followed for 7 when he drove John Hastings to short cover, where Shane Watson took an Aussie rules-style mark, leaping high to his left, and the hosts were in trouble.Tamim grew more cautious, Shakib steadied without scoring quickly, and the required run-rate started to expand. Although Bangladesh retained a glimmer of hope while that pair remained at the crease, the match was firmly in Australia’s control when Tamim (62) tried to clear midwicket off Xavier Doherty, only to pick out the fielder in the deep.Shakib also holed out for 51, but by that stage Bangladesh needed to score nearly 14 an over, which was as likely to happen as Australia calling on the commentator Greg Matthews for a few overs of offspin. The crowd cheered a few late boundaries from Mushfiqur Rahim (44 not out) and Mahmudullah (28 not out), but it was too little too late.Not that Australia’s victory was flawless. There remains a major concern over White’s batting form after he laboured for 50 deliveries to score 20, and continued a lean patch that stretches back to the start of the Australian summer. He was dropped at midwicket on 18 and two runs later rolled his eyes in disgust at his own miscue when he failed to clear mid-on and saw Kayes take an outstanding catch, diving to his right.Nor would Brad Haddin want to see any replays of his dismissal for 10. He wandered aimlessly down the pitch and wafted well away from his body, playing the wrong line to a Mashrafe Mortaza ball that rattled his stumps, and for a batsman capable of beautiful strokeplay, it was a horrid shot.That those lapses didn’t affect the result was thanks to the new captain Clarke, who brought up his sixth one-day hundred with a six pulled over midwicket in the 50th over. Clarke and Michael Hussey didn’t rush things through the middle overs, and at one stage played out 65 deliveries without a boundary, but their 84-run stand built a platform from which late runs could be added.Australia amassed 31 in the final two overs of the innings, and what looked like being just a competitive total was suddenly a very strong one. Clarke skied a catch from the second-last ball of the innings, but his 101 was extremely valuable after his side looked like underperforming when Haddin, Shane Watson and Ricky Ponting all departed early.He used his feet well against the spinners and struck six fours and two sixes, and his tempo was just right for the circumstances – keep things steady early and attack later. His partnership with Hussey ended when Hussey (33) tried to clear the boundary but was taken at long-off from the bowling of the left-arm spinner Suhrawadi Shuvo, who took 3 for 44.Bangladesh were generally sharp in the field and backed up their bowlers, including the captain Shakib Al Hasan, who didn’t take a wicket but helped build the pressure with 0 for 34 coming off his ten overs. An excellent piece of fielding accounted for Ricky Ponting, who swept Shuvo and saw the ball saved on the fine-leg boundary by a diving Shafiul Islam.His throw to the wicketkeeper was relayed to the bowler’s end where Ponting, who had hesitated before taking off for the third run, was caught short for 34. It was a disappointing end to a very promising innings, Ponting’s first in an ODI under another captain in nine years. He collected three consecutive boundaries off Mortaza, who was in his first match back having missed the World Cup due to a knee injury; the first a brilliant cut, the second a sweetly-timed straight drive and the third a punch through point.Ponting and Watson had looked ominous during a 65-run third-wicket stand that ended with the run-out, and soon afterwards Watson was lbw for 37, trapped by an Abdur Razzak delivery that skidded on and struck him in front. But Australia’s new leader engineered a recovery, and if his team puts in another solid all-round performance on Monday, he’ll begin his full-time captaincy era with a series win.