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Paul Collingwood has insisted he isn’t jetting around the world playing Twenty20 cricket just to inflate his bank account but has serious ambitions to regain the England place he lost after last year’s World Cup.On Monday he was unveiled as captain of a new franchise in South Africa’s Twenty20 competition, named Impi, where he will ply his trade before linking up with Rajasthan Royals in the IPL having recently completed his stint with Perth Scorchers in the Big Bash League. Then there is his county career with Durham which will resume in mid-May following the spell in India.Collingwood remains the only England captain to win a global one-day trophy with the 2010 World Twenty20 in the Caribbean. In September, England defend their title in Sri Lanka and, although chances of a recall are remote, Collingwood hasn’t given up hope of being there.”I am very ambitious and motivated to try and get back in. I know I will have to have six amazing months if I want to do that though,” Collingwood told ESPNcricinfo. “England know what I can do when I am in form and I know when I am out of form, I look pretty horrible.”Collingwood actually had a lean BBL, scoring 113 runs in seven innings and bowling three overs in nine matches, but believes his experience could play a part in turning around England’s one-day fortunes. They have struggled away from home, losing all five matches in their ODI series in India last October and going down 6-1 to Australia in January either side of the quarter-final exit at the World Cup.With a not-so-subtle hint towards England’s recent problems in India and UAE, Collingwood said he was “a decent player of spin” and admitted it wasn’t easy to see his former team-mates struggle.”They are still hunting for the right formula and it is a bit frustrating watching from the sidelines,” Collingwood said. “But it’s nice for players to have some security like I did when I was playing.”For now, though, he is concentrating on furthering his 20-over career in as many ways possible. “I see the IPL as a great learning curve because you get to play with against players from around the world, some of them who you have never even spoken to before,” he said. “You can take a lot of confidence from playing in a tournament like the IPL. I see it as a six-week crash course in 20-over cricket.”Although England did not get a single player sold in the recent IPL auction, Collingwood said he thought that was only as a result of schedule clashes and did not reflect the pedigree of English talent.Twenty-over leagues have mushroomed around the world with Zimbabwe and Bangladesh also launching marquee competitions but Collingwood does not think the franchise concept will work in England. “Cricket has a lot of tradition in England and the counties have been around for a long time. It’s very difficult to change traditions like that.”

Sind finished with a substantial first-innings total of 403 at the National Stadium in Karachi, despite adding only 87 more runs to their overnight score for the loss of seven wickets. Overnight centurion Aqeel Anjum (126) was dismissed without making a run on the second day. Captain Yasir Shah did most of the damage to the lower order for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province (KPP), taking four wickets to restrict Sind.Sind then came good with the ball, leaving KPP struggling on 160 for 6, to sign off day two in charge of proceedings. So far, no one had made more than Shoaib Khan’s 47 for KPP. Zulfiqar Jan (35) and Yasir Khan (1) will resume batting on the third day.Federal Areas (FA), at the Diamond Club Cricket Ground in Islamabad, were back in the middle with the bat by stumps on day two, with an overall lead of 32. They had bowled out Punjab for 226 – conceding a mere three-run first-innings lead – and finished the day on 29 for no loss.Earlier in the day, Punjab resumed on 31 for 2, and went on to play 79.1 overs in the innings with Haris Sohail (77) and Usman Salahuddin (43) being the top-scorers. Sohail Tanvir finished with six wickets, helping restrict Punjab to a negligible first-innings lead.

Maddy Green and Katie Perkins have made it to the New Zealand women’s squad that will take on Australia in the Rose Bowl series later this month. New Zealand Cricket announced the 14-player squad for the series in Australia, which will include five Twenty20s and three ODIs, starting from January 20.Suzie Bates, who has taken over from the retired Aimee Watkins as captain, will be assisted by Amy Satterthwaite. Rachel Candy, a medium pacer who last played for New Zealand in 2008, and Morna Nielsen, who was not in the squad that played the Natwest quadrangular series in England last summer, have made returns. The debutants, Green and Perkins, had done well in New Zealand’s domestic Twenty20 tournament.”The squad has been picked on the back of a hard-fought domestic competition,” national selection manager Kim Littlejohn said. “Top order batsman Maddy Green has been on the radar for some time and deserves her chance after impressing for the Auckland Hearts in the Action Cricket Twenty20 competition, where she has hit 150 runs at an average of 37.50.”Katie Perkins also demanded a spot in the squad with strong performances in the domestic competition. In seven Twenty20 innings Perkins has hit 126 runs and only been dismissed once. Her batting along with her world-class fielding has played a major part in the success of the Hearts this season.”Squad: Suzie Bates (capt), Amy Satterthwaite (vice-capt), Kate Broadmore, Rachel Candy, Lucy Doolan, Maddy Green, Frances Mackay, Katey Martin, Sara McGlashan, Morna Nielsen, Katie Perkins, Liz Perry, Lea Tahuhu, Sian Ruck

Greg Chappell has called for the swiftest possible introduction of a Test Championship to aid the health of the game’s longest form. Graeme Smith, the South Africa captain, has said the postponement of the event from 2013 to 2017 was “not the right decision for cricket”, and Chappell argued staunchly for its benefits.”I like the concept, I’m sorry that it has been postponed because I think it is a fabulous concept and one which I would endorse and I think Test cricket would benefit from it,” Chappell told ESPNcricinfo after launching his autobiography . “It is a shame it isn’t going ahead, the sooner it can happen the better, as far as I’m concerned.”It is one thing to have a ranking system, but to have a final set-up would be good for Test cricket. It elevates the brand of Test cricket and that can’t be a bad thing. I just think to have a finals series like that every four years would just heighten the interest and also make each series also meaning something extra as well.”Australia can play England in the Ashes, but if you know that the series also could be the difference between qualifying for the finals series and not would add a bit to it.”Meanwhile Ryan Harris, the Australia fast bowler, has decried the proliferation of unsatisfying two-Test match series as “pointless”, and stressed the game’s governors needed to get their priorities right.Australia’s series in South Africa produced some startling cricket, but was over too swiftly as only two matches could be played due to the inclusion of Twenty20 competitions, namely the Champions League, into the schedule. New Zealand have arrived in Australia for another series of only two matches in December. Harris added his name to the likes of Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith, each critical of scheduling decisions, including the shelving of the Test Championship until 2017, as hurtful to the game.”Two-Test series, personally in my point of view, are pointless,” Harris told AAP. “If it’s 1-1 at the end of the series you walk away with an empty feeling. Three-Test series have to be a minimum, if not more. It’s crucial. I’m not sure how they do it with the amount of cricket there is – cut-backs from Twenty20 – but Test cricket is the one.”I’m not knocking Twenty20, it’s great for the game, but you have to get your priorities right. Jacques Kallis made the perfect point that if it’s going to cut series between South Africa and the big nations he doesn’t want to be a part of T20 stuff because he wants Test cricket to keep going as it is.”I’m exactly the same way. It’s hard because of timing. Champions League takes up a lot of time and IPL takes up a lot. [But] for two of the best Test cricket nations not being able to play a three-Test series is very disappointing. It was terrible.”

Namibia continued their domination over Kenya in the Twenty20 series, making it three wins in a row, at Windhoek High School. Chasing a modest 109, Kenya managed just two double-digit scores as they collapsed to 63. Namibia’s opening bowlers, Hendrik Geldenhuys and Gerrie Snyman took three wickets apiece to ensure that the visitors had no chance from the start of the chase. Only Nehemiah Odhiambo and Alex Obanda managed double figures.Earlier, Namibia too got off to a poor start with the bat, losing three wickets to seamer Lucas Oluoch. Criag Williams then led a middle-order recovery with a 16-ball 27.

ScorecardA marathon unbeaten half-century from Pikky Ya France and Gerrie Snyman’s 88 helped Namibia save their Intercontinental Cup match against Scotland in Windhoek. Scotland added 36 runs to their overnight total, leaving Namibia 384 to win in a little less than a day. It was always going to be a case of batting out the day for Namibia and Ya France stuck it out for 225 balls on his way to 63 not out. Snyman played a more aggressive knock, hitting 14 fours and three sixes, and the two took Namibia to safety.Offspinner Majid Haq, who had taken six wickets in Namibia’s first innings, caused a flutter of nerves in the Namibia camp when he dismissed Christi Viljoen and Sarel Burger within eight overs. Seamer Richie Berrington then bowled Craig Williams to leave Namibia 99 for 3. But Ya France and Snyman ensured there was no collapse.Scotland had led by 87 runs after the first innings but, perhaps, did not leave their bowlers enough time to bowl Namibia out.

ScorecardA magical nine-wicket haul from Simon Kerrigan, the 22-year-old left-arm spinner, inspired Lancashire to a vital 222-run victory against Hampshire, with just four minutes remaining in an extraordinary final session, to move them to within three points of leaders Warwickshire heading into the final round of Championship matches which start on Monday.It looked as though Lancashire would be denied in heart-breaking fashion at Aigburth as Neil McKenzie and James Tomlinson survived 21 overs to take Hampshire to within touching distance of safety. However, in what would have been his final over of the match, Kerrigan found the edge of McKenzie’s bat and Tom Smith held the catch at second slip which prompted a mini pitch evasion and chants of “Oh Lanky, Lanky.”Glen Chapple, the Lancashire captain, said it was the worse few minutes of his career as he feared the final wicket wouldn’t fall. “They were 10 awful minutes,” he said. “I was struggling to keep calm to be honest. From 45 minutes to get the last wicket and thinking it’s going to happen reasonably easily, to becoming a little anxious it when to just praying at the end. But we did keep beliving and there was a great catch to finish it.”Kerrigan’s final figures of 9 for 51 – in just his third Championship game of the season – were the best for Lancashire since 1953 when Roy Tattersall took 9 for 40 and included seven victims after he had changed to the River End for the first time in the match shortly before tea. There had been extra bounce from that end throughout the game – for pace and spin – and Kerrigan exploited it superbly to finish with 12 in the match as alert close catchers held onto the chances that came their way.Midway through the final session Hampshire were 53 for 1 and time was ticking away for Lancashire. They had batted for most of the morning session to leave a minimum of 67 overs for Hampshire who were never interested in the run chase. In the end Lancashire delivered plenty more as Kerrigan and Gary Keedy bowled 70.2 of the overs sent down, but if that final, crucial, wicket hadn’t come their way – and with the visitors so far from the target – questions would, no doubt, have been asked. Instead, though, a quarter of an hour after the final wicket Lancashire’s players could be heard belting out their victory song.”Midway through the day I think we’d have taken [a draw] on the chin and thought we still hand a chance of the title,” Chapple said. “But with 45 minutes to go and one wicket needed it would have been gutting. It’s a damn good job we got over the line.”It was County Championship cricket at its most intense and enthralling. The domestic game gets bad press at times, but throughout the four days here the action has been engrossing and of a high class. And, yet again, the title will go down to the final week of the season with three counties in with a strong chase. Hampshire, meanwhile, need Durham to do them a huge favour against Worcestershire to have any chance to staying in Division One.Lancashire began the day 203 ahead and batted for a further 27 overs at a healthy rate. Stephen Moore’s unbeaten 169 was his highest score for Lancashire and also the team’s best individual innings for the season. Hampshire reached lunch without alarm but it soon became clear they had no intention of having a dip at the target despite being rooted to the foot of the table. As it was in the first innings spin made the inroads for Lancashire, the first coming straight after a brief 15-minute rain break when Liam Dawson charged at Kerrigan and was beaten by turn.It took 10 overs before the next breakthrough arrived when Kerrigan struck again, continuing his impressive match, to have Jimmy Adams lbw on the back foot. Then, in a crucial period leading into tea, they claimed two more top-order scalps when Michael Carberry clipped lazily to mid-on and James Vince was pinned lbw by Kerrigan with his first ball from the River End.However, the real drama started in the first hour of the final session as Kerrigan produced a spell that, if Lancashire go on to claim their first title in 77 years, will go down in the club’s folklore. Continuing from the River End he claimed three wickets in eight deliveries as he found bounce and bite. Sean Ervine was caught at slip then Michael Bates was yorked second ball and in Kerrigan’s next over Dimirti Mascarenhas gloved an unplayable delivery to Paul Horton.Eight more overs went by then Kerrigan made another one bounce to have Chris Wood caught behind as Gareth Cross juggled the catch and he soon added his eighth to remove opposite number Danny Briggs. Time, at that point, was on Lancashire’s side but, as so often is the case, the final push for victory was the hardest. Expect a few more twists before the Championship trophy is handed over.

It was Steve Waugh who said, famously, that there are no fairytales in sport, but Leicestershire veteran Paul Nixon was granted a dream finale as he ended his time in English county cricket with a Twenty20 win that was “written in the stars”.”It’s been a great journey,” Nixon said, whose county career has now spanned four decades. “Thankfully today it was written in the stars. The timing was right, everything was right.”Nixon, 40, announced his retirement at the beginning of this month, suggesting that he would finish after Leicestershire’s Friends Life t20 quarter-final against Kent, ending a 22-year long first-class career.”The quarter-final was very special for me,” he said. “I felt like that was my send-off and that mentally, this was business time. That day was for me, this was for everybody else. This was for Leicestershire as a club.”In a jovial post-match press conference, Nixon made special mention of the team ethic that he believed had taken Leicestershire this far. “Every single person in our team has won a game for us in this competition,” he said. “Andrew McDonald has been world class all the way through. Abdul Razzaq is a born winner. Claude Henderson is in a different class. He should’ve played 130 Tests for South Africa. James Taylor should have been playing for England weeks ago.”I know all the players at Leicestershire inside out but I held [Man of the Match] Joshua Cobb in my arms when he was born, which is scary. Luckily I didn’t drop him but I did hurt his head when I took the bails off.”Nixon also made a vital contribution of his own in Leicestershire’s 18-run win over Somerset – dismissing the dangerous Kieron Pollard with a salmon leap of a catch that defied the years. “Mr. Pollard is a serious player. I was at Trent Bridge when he hit one over the stand. I’ve never seen a six like it. To catch him was a nice moment.”But we have a small squad so everybody has to come to the party and that’s what we’ve done.” Tellingly, however, it was Nixon’s name that Leicestershire’s fans chanted as the team was presented with the trophy on an autumnal evening in Birmingham.While Nixon has played his last county match on English soil, he insisted he would make the trip to India for the Champions League Qualifier at the end of September, now that Leicestershire have qualified. “I’ll be 100% there. My passport is about to run out so I might have to pay a bit to get a new one, but thats my first job Monday morning.”

In November 2010 news emerged that Michael Carberry was unable to tour Australia with the England Performance Programme due to a blood clot in his lung. Nine months on he has posted 300 not out, a career-best, sharing a mammoth 523-run stand with Neil McKenzie for Hampshire against Yorkshire.The career-threatening illness was treated last winter but he was unable to take long-haul flights and began the 2011 county summer uncertain whether he will be able to play regularly for Hampshire.Having not played any cricket since last September he returned for Hampshire 2nd XI though on July 6 and made his first Championship appearance of the season a week later at Hove.That alone was a remarkable comeback and a display of the tenacity that Carberry has shown throughout his career. He has fought back from frustrating periods early in his career at Kent and Surrey before making Hampshire his home in 2007. Since that move he has been a consistent run-scorer and impressed enough to earn an England Test cap against Bangladesh in March last year.His triple hundred here is a career-best and was constructed fluently over Thursday and Friday on an admittedly benign Rose Bowl track. The innings lasted 427 balls and he struck 43 fours and two sixes in all.”This was only my third match back in the team and I cannot believe it has gone so well,” he said afterwards. “It has been well documented that I had blood clots on the lung and it has taken nine months out of my life. I am lucky just to be playing again so to get 300 exceeded all my expectations.”With McKenzie making 237 himself, the pair looked set to beat the all-time best partnership in England of 555 between Yorkshire’s Percy Holmes and Herbert Sutcliffe against Essex at Leyton. McKenzie, though, fell shortly after tea on the fourth day and the pair had to settle for the record for best 3rd-wicket stand in Championship history.

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Stuart Broad came back from a poor first spell to claim Marcus Trescothick’s wicket•Getty Images

Say what you like about Stuart Broad, but rarely does he bowl a spell in which nothing happens. This was a day on which Alex Hales extended his second-day century to a magnificent 184 and Andre Adams won a hugely entertaining duel with combustible fast bowler Steve Kirby with by swelling his tally of sixes to the season to 27 as Nottinghamshire carved out an unlikely 106-run lead.But Broad somehow made himself the talking point by bowling two spells of such contrast that he could have been Steve Harmison wearing a blond wig. The first was absolutely dreadful, with both line and length all over the place. From 24 balls bowled, he conceded 30 runs, the bulk of them to a properly grateful Marcus Trescothick, who helped himself to four boundaries from the first two overs, all pinged away effortlessly backward of square on the off-side. Chris Read, who had supportively talked up Broad’s bowling at stumps on Tuesday, sent his man into the outfield to reflect.As Broad contemplated the elusiveness of his form, Trescothick went about his business in his customary, imperious style and Nottinghamshire’s lead began to vanish at an alarming rate. Trescothick reached 50 for the ninth time this season, having turned four of the previous eight into hundreds. Read took a brilliant leg-side catch to dismiss Arul Suppiah, fending off a lifting ball from Andre Adams that swung into his body, but otherwise Notts seemed powerless to halt the traffic in runs.The lead was all but wiped out when Broad came back after tea. Disgruntled Nottinghamshire fans contemplated more carnage. Yet what happened? Quite the opposite – eight overs bowled, this time with pace, bounce and, crucially, full control of length and direction. And, for more than good measure, the wicket that mattered, too – of Trescothick on 86 – from a ball that climbed unplayably and unavoidably on the former England opener, brushing glove or bat handle on its way into Read’s reliable grasp. This was brilliant bowling and how Broad celebrated, having stepped into the spotlight again when really it belonged to others, most notably Hales.Although the pitch looked much less green than it had at the start of the match, batting on the third morning had been scarcely more comfortable than the first two, amply illustrated when Alex Hales, 130 overnight, took 45 minutes to add the seven runs he needed to pass his previous highest score, the 136 he made against Hampshire here last season.Nonetheless, 117 were added in the morning session. Chris Read, a batsman seldom willingly pinned down, pulled Adam Dibble for six over mid-wicket before a full, straight ball from Peter Trego trapped him in the crease, denying him a half-century in a stand of 106 with Hales. Read’s departure merely ushered in Paul Franks, who has few peers among specialist number eights, as he demonstrated in a 32-ball 28 before a tickle to Craig Kieswetter off Murali Kartik stopped him in his tracks.It was all hugely frustrating to Steve Kirby and Charl Willoughby, who had bowled well with the second new ball without an ounce of luck. Kirby, not for the first time, donned his pantomime villain’s demeanour after lunch. The crowd here enjoy a bit of banter and played their part only too willingly as Kirby stomped and scowled, guffawing loudly at his spurious appeal for a catch when Hales played a ball to cover that so plainly did not not carry than even James Hildreth, the fielder, showed no interest.Had he been Dominic Cork, the next few minutes would have been spiced by several return volleys, but the interaction instead seemed to tickle Kirby’s sense of humour. Shortly afterwards, bowling to Andre Adams, he gripped the ball as if he were about to propel it like a javelin, shaking it in his right hand as he ran in, and could only laugh at himself as the umpires ticked him off.As it happens, though, it was Adams who had the last laugh, hooking the next ball for six, with a couple more maximums in Kirby’s next over, which went for 21. Adams, whose batting methodology rarely offers any surprises, has hit 27 sixes in the Championship this season, representing 41.2 per cent of his total runs scored. The next highest tally is Graham Napier’s 16.Meanwhile, Willoughby earned some belated reward after Broad had chipped in a cameo 21, dismissing the England bowler when Kieswetter, atoning for a missed stumping when Hales was on 180, produced an astonishing piece of levitation and a stunning catch.Hales, whose century had been only his second, must have had visions of making it a double but as Willoughby conjured up another delivery that lifted and moved away off a pitch still offering good bounce and carry, Hales nibbled and was caught behind. The left-armer claimed his third success, placing eight fielders on the boundary for Adams, who had hit 33 off 14 balls, only to surprise him with a leg-stump Yorker.Trescothick’s departure raised expectations for Nottinghamshire but in truth the requirement was to have Somerset four or five down before the lead was overturned and the script has not gone to plan.Nick Compton is unbeaten on 46, having survived a couple more overs from Broad at the close, and Somerset are 91 in front, making a draw the likeliest outcome.