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Scorecard and ball-by-ball details5:13

An outstanding innings by Tim McIntosh ensured that Auckland came away with an honourable draw at the Eden Park Outer Oval today. And McIntosh added his own touch of honour to the proceedings when he walked, after being caught by Chris Nevin, the Wellington wicketkeeper, after making a splendid 104. McIntosh batted for 329 minutes and hit 13 fours, in an innings that proved crucial to the final outcome. Rob Nicol scored 45 in 160 minutes, but it still required Reece Young and Paul Hitchcock to hold out for more than an hour to secure the draw that saw Auckland move back to the head of the points table. For Wellington, Mathew Walker picked up 3 for 55 in a fine display of controlled medium-pace. Luke Woodcock’s steady 86 in the third day had given Wellington the advantage.A determined batting performance by Northern Districts paid off in the rain-affected match against Otago at Carisbrook in Dunedin. Nick Horsley scored a useful 69, spread over 229 minutes, while Hamish Marshall and Bruce Martin shut up shop and added 97. Marshall, who had a great one-day series in Pakistan, was unbeaten on 65, while Martin chipped in with an undefeated 54. For Otago, Brad Scott was the most impressive bowler on show, and finished with 3 for 50.Palmerston North doesn’t enjoy the greatest reputation with regard to its weather, but Canterbury won’t be complaining after this match – they were better off for the wet weather that disrupted play on the last day. Some defiant batting from Gary Stead (44) and Aaron Redmond (29) kept the Central Districts bowlers at bay, before weather came to the Cantabs’ aid. Regan West, the left-arm spinner, snapped up three victims, but Paul Wiseman and Brendon Donkers defied them until play was called off. The draw left Canterbury in second place on the State Championship table behind Auckland. The next round of matches begin on December 27.

While the cricket world concentrated on the first Test at Lord’s, a few miles to the south, one of domestic cricket’s oldest rivalries was attracting an unforeseen outbreak of handbags at two paces.Middlesex against Surrey does not come close to being in the top flight of sporting rivalries. Often spectators have to pinch themselves to remember that what they are watching is an all-London battle rather than just another county game.Fred Titmus’s move from Lord’s to The Oval at the end of the 1976 season was greeted with a few tuts and general surprise (he redeemed himself by returning home in 1979). But Mark Ramprakash’s defection at the end of 2000 was far more acrimonious, and on his return to Lord’s he was booed to the wicket. The rancour persists. When he reached his fifty at Lord’s earlier this month one member turned to another and asked if Ramprakash had been forgiven. A cry of “bastard” aimed in Ramprakash’s direction from nearby in the pavilion seconds later answered that.After that match – which Surrey lost – Middlesex reported what they viewed as suspicious treatment of the ball by Surrey’s bowlers to the ECB. The authorities ruled that there was no evidence to support the claim, but the ill-feeling was there for all to see when they meet last week at The Oval.Tempers spilt over in public on Friday. Play had been delayed by a combination of heavy overnight rain, a broken water super-sopper, and then in the penultimate over of the day words were exchanged between Jon Batty, Surrey’s captain, and David Nash, the Middlesex wicketkeeper. As the pair squared up, the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation was ended by the swift intervention of Jeff Evans, the umpire, who zoomed in from square leg.The match ended in a draw, and the ramifications of the standoff will no doubt become clear in due course. But there will be an added element of spice when the two sides meet again in front of around 15,000 at Lord’s in July 15 in the Twenty20 Cup.

Shane Warne will not take legal action against a South African woman who attempted to extort money from him last year.Helen Cohen Alon was jailed this week for her discredited claim that she was offered R200,000 ($A43,400) by an associate of Warne’s to maintain her silence over a supposed relationship with Warne during Australia’s tour of South Africa in 2002. Cohen Alon, a 47-year-old divorced mother of three, must pay a fine of $A10,800 or she will serve 18 months in prison.But Warne’s brother and manager Jason ruled out any further action. He said: “We closed the book on this quite a while ago now.”

John Dyson, Sri Lanka’s coach, has praised his team for their growing mental resilience after they turned around a first-innings deficit to complete an emphatic victory in the opening Test against Pakistan at Faisalabad last weekend.Earlier in the year, Sri Lanka had watched in frustration as Australia showed off their legendary mental toughness by overcoming first-innings deficits in three consecutive Tests to complete a series whitewash, the first by any team in Sri Lanka.Dyson sensed that those defeats had made the team tougher. An AFP report quoted him as saying, “We have learnt from our defeats against Australia as we were in an awkward position at Faisalabad and we fought our way out of it. We had a good series against Australia and they beat us. I think we played very good cricket but they are a good enough team to fight out of awkward positions and win the match. I am pleased that the boys have shown they are able to do that too.”I think we fought back well from the position of 9 for 3 and our batsmen, led by [Thilan] Samaraweera, fought well to give us a chance to set up the rest of the match,” he said. “Sanath Jayasuriya’s innings was absolutely fantastic and is the sort of innings you look for from your champion player.”Dyson was now hopeful that the winning momentum will be continued in the final Test at Karachi which starts on Thursday. Sri Lanka are now looking for a hat-trick of series wins in Pakistan after victories on their previous tours in 1995 and 1999.A series win in Pakistan would be memorable, but Dyson was anxious for the team to prove itself outside the subcontinent. “We have identified that winning outside Sri Lanka is necessary to raise the profile of Sri Lankan cricket and we must also play well in England, Australia and South Africa.”

The Cricket Reform Group, the collection of former players and enthusiasts who announced at the end of the summer their belief that English cricket needed revolution rather than reform, is set to meet with the England & Wales Cricket Board next week to discuss its proposals for the future of the game.The CRG are headed by Michael Atherton, and include another former England captain, Bob Willis, as well as the journalist Michael Parkinson, businessman Nigel Wray, and Willis’s brother David.The CRG’s proposals are nothing if not radical, calling for a dramatic reduction in the number of counties (and with it professionals) as the most visible measure of a plan which aims to revamp the game at every level. The original manifesto had the feel of being the result of a long lunch during the Oval Test – it was presented on a single sheet of A4 paper. By the time of next week’s meeting the CRG will have prepared a far more detailed document.”Our manifesto for change is now in its final stages,” David Willis told the Independent on Sunday. “Michael Atherton has undertaken discussions with a whole range of people in the game, and a number of very important people as well as players.”Not too much is known about the detail of the CRG’s plan, but it will include a reduction in the amount of first-class cricket, an end to Minor Counties cricket, and more emphasis on the top tiers of club cricket.John Carr, the ECB’s deputy chief executive and one of those who will attend the meeting, was keen to underline that while new proposals were always welcome, there was much to be commended with the game as it is. “Of course we will be taking them [the CRG] seriously. We have to achieve a balance between being prepared to be honest and review our procedures, and reinforcing the fact that there is a lot that is good about the game at the moment. If there has been some concern about what the CRG have said, it is that.”The CRG’s founders don’t see the meeting with the ECB as the end of their attempts at radical reform, rather the beginning. Whatever the outcome, they will continue their fight for change, and if the ECB are not wholly enthusiastic then the CRG hope that they can win support by going directly to the public. This one will run and run.

Justin Langer admits Australia’s batsmen haven’t cracked the troubling reverse-swing puzzle, but Ricky Ponting has confirmed the side has developed strategies to nullify its damaging effects. England’s pace bowlers have mastered the movement of the older ball and have embarrassed Michael Clarke and Simon Katich into leaving deliveries hitting their stumps, and confused the rest.Langer said the movement caused the batsmen to change from instinctive play to using a shorter back-lift as they coped with the restricted scoring options. “We definitely haven’t cracked it,” Langer said in the . “There is a lot of discussion going on. This is like a new little puzzle we have to solve. When we do crack it, it will be a very satisfying feeling. I think we are getting close.”Writing in his column in , Ponting said his players were working hard in the nets to improve. “We’ve already come up with some strategies to make sure we practise against it as much as we can,” he wrote. “If you look at when most of the wickets have fallen, it’s been between overs ten and 30 which is just after the lacquer comes of the ball and it starts reversing.”Ponting said it was important to survive the early stages because after that “it’s not so bad”. “The hardest thing about facing reverse-swing bowling is the pace it’s delivered at because then it tends to swing a lot later,” he said. “When it’s swinging late at 145kph it’s pretty difficult to play and we’ve only got one guy – Brett Lee – who can do that. We have to make sure we’re bowling him at the right times.”

As the dust settles on the Super Series, the world’s media have had a chance to assess what has gone on. And by and large, their assessment won’t go down too well in the hallowed halls of the ICC HQ in Dubai. After all, even the tournament’s official website wrote that the Super Test became a “Super Farce” – but this was the same site that steadfastly referred to Muttiah Muralidaran and Nathan Wade (Nathan Bracken to his close family) throughout.In the Daily Telegraph, Simon Briggs wasted no time in slamming what he saw as little more than a money-making exercise. “The original theory was that the Super Series could run alongside the World Cup (quadrennial) and Champions Trophy (biennial), so filling in the one year in every cycle that does not feature an ICC cash cow. But as the scale of the World XI’s latest defeat sank in, ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed did everything he could to distance himself from this pledge. “There is no commitment to play every four years,” he said last night. As the ICC are reluctant to let a single year go past without a money-making opportunity, the latest theory is that the Super Series will be replaced by a ‘Grand Final’, in which the top two teams in the Test and one-day rankings play off in a pair of winner-takes-all contests.”Gideon Haigh in the Guardian continued the theme. “The ICC’s decision making looks as though it might bear some scrutiny, too. Speed reminded everyone yesterday that the Super Series had been “profitable” for member nations, and that he was “very happy with the things under our control”, even though he “shared the disappointment” of the World XI players. Disappointment, however, will not do: Super Series Returns will need to leap a big credibility gap in a single bound.”Some solace came from Peter Roebuck in the Independent. “No harm has been done, though,” he wrote. “No one can be blamed for trying something. Much the same applies to the referring of appeals. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”But Roebuck’s views were not shared by too many others in Australia. In the Sydney Morning Herald, Will Swanton was less than welcoming. “Waiting for another Super Series? Don’t hold your breath. Speed has done a backflip over the concept in the aftermath to the hopelessly lopsided contests between a resurgent Australian team and the badly misfiring Rest of the World. In all likelihood, this is the end of the World XI as we know it.” He concluded: “It might not have been do or die for the players, but it was for the concept. No need to go to the video umpire. It’s out.”Waleed Aly, writing in Melbourne’s Age admitted that he was a supporter of the concept … until now. “The cliche runs that in sport it is best to play like there is no tomorrow. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the World XI did.”