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Prime Bank Cricket Club joined Gazi Group Cricketers at the top of the Dhaka Premier League points table after crushing Victoria Sporting Club by 130 runs at the BKSP-4 ground in Savar. Victoria are one of two teams who are still without a win in the league so far.Mehedi Maruf’s third List-A century propped up Prime Bank to 283 after they elected to bat. He struck 12 boundaries and two sixes in his 103-ball 101. He added three 50-plus stands with fellow opener Nahidul Islam, their new Indian recruit Abhimanyu Easwaran and Zakir Hasan for the first, second and third wicket stands respectively, before falling in the 34th over.Victoria captain Monir Hossain took three wickets while Moinul Islam, Islamul Ahsan and Rubel Mia took two each. Victoria’s 284-chase didn’t take off, though. They lasted just 33.5 overs, with Shafiul Hayat’s 42 being the highest in the team’s 153 all out. Ariful Haque took three wickets while Al-Amin finished with two.Brothers Union took only three hours and 27 minutes to dismantle Partex Sporting Club and romp to a seven-wicket win at the BKSP-3 ground in Savar. It was their first win of the season, while Partex slumped to their fourth defeat in a row.Batting first, Brothers Union took only 30.5 overs to dismiss Partex for 102, with Sazzadul Haque, the No. 8 batsman, top-scoring with 42. Left-arm spinner Nihaduzzaman took four wickets while Nayeem Hasan and Kazi Kamrul Islam, who turned himself into a left-arm spinner from being a left-arm quick midway through his career, took two wickets each.Brothers Union then took only 17.5 overs to complete the win. Farhad Hossain remained unbeaten on 35 off 36 balls with two fours and three sixes.Mohammedan Sporting Club went back to winning ways by beating Khelaghar Samaj Kallyan Samity by four wickets inFatullah.Batting first, Khelaghar were bowled out for 189 runs in 45.4 overs, with Robiul Islam Robi and Amit Majumder scoring a bulk of the runs . Robiul struck seven fours and a six in his 73-ball 63 while Majumder made 53 off 62 balls. Enamul Haque jnr took three wickets while there was two each for Kamrul Islam Rabbi, Mohammad Azim and Taijul Islam.Mohammedan finished up the chase in 44.5 overs with captain Raqibul Hasan anchoring a faltering chase with an unbeaten 76. They had slipped to 94 for five in the 21st over but Raqibul struck six fours and three sixes in his 92-ball innings, and shared a crucial 64-run unbroken seventh-wicket stand with Taijul – who contributed 14 important runs – to take his team to victory. Robiul took three wickets.

A century from David Miller and three new-ball wickets from Marchant de Lange overshadowed a quickfire hundred from Titans captain Albie Morkel to help Knights climb their way to fourth place from the bottom, with a resounding bonus-point victory of 111 runs in Kimberley. Both teams now have 14 points each.Chasing 303, Titans were in tatters when de Lange ran through their top order with an opening spell of 5-3-4-3 that left them on 8 for 3 in the seventh over. To add to Titans’ miseries, Farhaan Behardien and Tony de Zorzi were run-out, slipping them further to 22 for 5 in the 11th over. Once David Wiese also fell three overs later, Morkel combined with Shaun von Berg who scored only 29 in their partnership of 120 in just 17.1 overs. The duo took the score past 150 but fell within the space of four overs after Morkel scored a century off 69 balls and was eventually dismissed for 117 off 84 that featured 13 fours and four sixes. Titans lasted another 15 balls and were wrapped up for 191 in 37.2 overs.When Knights were asked to bat, Grant Mokoena retired hurt for 36 after an opening stand of 57 with Rudi Second. Once they were 90 for 2 in the 20th over, Miller, on debut for Knights, and captain Pite van Biljon stitched a dominating partnership of 185 runs in under 26 overs to charge them to 275 with 27 balls left. Miller ended with 104 off 100, his seventh List A hundred with eight fours and two sixes, while Biljon’s 90 off 76 included nine fours and two sixes that helped the lower order post 302 for 8.File photo – JJ Smuts, the Warriors captain, surpassed his previous best of 132 with an unbeaten 173 against Cape Cobras•AFP

JJ Smuts’ unbeaten 173 led Warriors to a 90-run victory over Cape Cobras in Cape Town, despite a brisk century by Richard Levi.In what was their third bonus-point victory, and as many wins from seven matches, Warriors posted 305 for 6 after Smuts strung an opening partnership of 119 runs with Gihahn Cloete, who struck 70 off 75 balls. The two Colins – Ingram and Ackermann – then chipped in with twenties each to help Smuts, the Warriors captain, surpass his previous best of 132 against Dolphins in 2011-12. While it took Smuts 134 balls to bring up his ton, he amassed his next 73 runs in only 30 balls, clobbering nine fours and eight sixes overall to register the third-highest one-day score in South African domestic cricket after Reeza Hendricks’ 181 and Morne van Wyk’s 175*.Cobras’ decision to field found little validation, as only Eddie Leie and Rory Kleinveldt offered any sort of resistance with returns of 4 for 56 and 2 for 48 respectively. Richard Levi, however, provided Cobras’ chase a rapid start, plundering 94 off 53 balls before retiring hurt in the 18th over, his side having made 128 for 2. Cobras’ subsequent loss of four wickets for 32 runs prompted Levi’s return in the 26th over but he ran out of partners and his 70-ball 106 went in vain. No Cobras batsman, barring Levi, scored more than 20 and Ingram and Ayabulela Gqamane returned combined figures of 5 for 78 to skittle Cobras for 215 in 37.3 overs, the last wicket having fallen to the Player-of-the-Match, Smuts.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details1:35

Tahir’s party tricks sink New Zealand

It won’t come close to making up for losing that World Cup semi-final but South Africa emerged the victors at Eden Park this time, and in convincing style. In turn it ended New Zealand’s unbeaten home season as they slumped to 107 in the chase, set back by two early wickets for Chris Morris and finished off by Imran Tahir’s career-best 5 for 24.

Tahir second fastest to 50 T20I wickets

• 31 Number of T20Is Imran Tahir has taken to get 50 wickets; he is the second quickest to the mark after Ajantha Mendis. Click here for a list of quickest bowlers to 50 wickets in T20Is.

• 1 South Africa bowlers to take 50 wickets in T20Is before Tahir. Dale Steyn has taken 58 wickets from 42 T20Is. He took 35 matches to get to 50 wickets.

• 2 Number of five-fors by South Africa bowlers in T20Is before Tahir’s 5 for 24 in this match. Ryan McLaren had got 5 for 19 and David Wiese 5 for 23, both against West Indies.

• 78 runs New Zealand’s margin of defeat – their second worst in T20Is while chasing.

• 1 Innings returns for New Zealand that are more economical than Trent Boult’s 2 for 8 from four overs in T20Is. Daniel Vettori had returned figures of 3 for 6 against Bangladesh in 2010.

Hashim Amla’s classy 62 formed the centrepiece of South Africa’s 185 for 6 and if that felt a little underwhelming after a sticky final five overs, a double-wicket maiden by Morris soon had New Zealand on the back foot. He was followed Andile Phehlukwayo, who took three wickets, but the finishing touches belonged to Tahir, the No. 1 T20 and ODI bowler, as he became the second-quickest to 50 T20I wickets and was the second man on a hat-trick for the innings. It may not have been the hardest of five-fors for him, but that didn’t dim the celebrations.For all Tahir’s success to end the match, the Powerplay difference was telling: South Africa made 56 for 1 – as Amla scooted away – while New Zealand sat at 34 for 2 on the back of losing debutant Glenn Phillips and Colin Munro in consecutive balls to Morris whose second over was also a maiden. Phillips could be forgiven for his nervy innings, but Munro’s swing across the line of a full delivery was ugly for a more experienced player.Dane Paterson, who played ahead of the rested Kagiso Rabada, helped set the tone with just seven runs coming off his first 11 deliveries – like Morris, hitting a back-of-a-length area and getting a bit of zip under the lights – before Tom Bruce took him for six.But New Zealand couldn’t break free and Phehlukwayo strengthened South Africa’s position when he had Kane Williamson taken at deep square-leg. It was soon a full-fledged collapse as Corey Anderson and Bruce fell swinging and Luke Ronchi nicked his first ball from Tahir who became the third South Africa bowler to take five wickets in a T20I.It was a little remarkable that there was a match at all given the volume of rain which had fallen in two days. There was some early swing but Amla, one of the South Africa players rested from the T20 series against Sri Lanka, batted serenely. He took a liking to Ben Wheeler’s first two overs, collecting six boundaries in all including four in a row at the start of the fifth over. He zipped to his half-century off 32 balls, was given a life on 61 when Ronchi missed a stumping but fell shortly afterwards when he hoicked into the deep.Faf du Plessis, who enjoyed a productive home season, added 87 off 51 balls for the second wicket with Amla and he twice deposited Mitchell Santner into the stands straight down the ground. He was given a life on 34, when Santner made a mess of a skier at point, but fell the next over. By then, however, the platform had been set for South Africa to press for 200.After Amla fell, AB de Villiers was just threatening to go through the gears when he lofted Colin de Grandhomme to mid-off midway through the 16th over and South Africa couldn’t quite summon the finish that had been on the cards despite JP Duminy’s best efforts.The final five overs brought 46 runs and included the completion of an outstanding four overs from Trent Boult. Earlier he had removed Quinton de Kock for a duck, during an opening two-over spell which cost two runs, then returned to bowl the 11th for just four (and was the bowler to suffer from Santner’s drop) then finished his quota with a two-run 19th over. It gave him the second-most economical return by a New Zealand paceman in T20Is. But that was the only bright spot for them.

Fifties from Aditya Tare and Siddhesh Lad helped Mumbai recover from 85 for 4 and post 273, a total that proved 98 too many for Gujarat at Chepauk. Asked to bat, Mumbai lost wickets at regular intervals before a 117-run fifth-wicket stand between Tare and Lad put them back on course. Tare’s 83 came off 81 balls and included 13 fours, and Lad struck 64 off 60 balls with two fours and five sixes. Chirag Parmar, on List A debut, took 4 for 42. In reply, Gujarat slid after an opening stand of 30 as they were bowled out for 175 in the 42nd over. Shivam Malhotra took three wickets.Shreevats Goswami anchored Bengal‘s successful chase of 226 with a 110-ball 66 against Andhra. Bengal won by four wickets with seven balls remaining. When Goswami was dismissed, Bengal still required 74 off 15 overs. They knocked off the runs with valuable contributions from Anustup Majumdar (46) and captain Monoj Tiwary (38). Bengal’s win, though, was set up by a strong bowling performance, as they restricted Andhra to 225 for 8. Dwaraka Ravi Teja top-scored with 43 off 69. Ashoke Dinda, Pragyan Ojha and Majumdar chipped in with two wickets each.Harpreet Singh’s unbeaten 45 steered Madhya Pradesh’s chase of 213 against Rajasthan. MP chased down the target with three wickets in hand and 60 balls to spare. After being asked to bat, Rajasthan slid to 212 all out as their batsmen could not convert their starts. Opening batsman Ashok Bhudania top-scored with 38, but ate up 87 balls in doing so. Pacers Puneet Datey and Chandrakant Sakure picked up three wickets each, with the former giving away just 25 runs in his 10 overs for his career-best returns. MP lost Mukul Raghav early in the chase, but partnerships of 89 between Rajat Patidar (38) and Naman Ojha (33) for the second wicket, and Harpreet and Anand Bais (20) for the fourth revived them. They lost wickets frequently after the two partnerships, but Harpreet held up his end, and in the company of Datey, saw the team through.

Match facts

January 29, 2017
Start time 1900 local (1330 GMT)England dominated the first T20 on the back of a clinical bowling performance•Getty Images

Big picture

England took the weak link that cost them the Test and ODI series and used it effectively to turn things around for a comprehensive win in the first T20. It was their bowling that could not win them a Test in the five-match series, it could not keep the pressure on in the middle and end overs in the 2-1 ODI series loss, but all that turned around in the first T20 to set up a comprehensive seven-wicket win in Kanpur.With Tymal Mills and Chris Jordan, England displayed a fresh look and attitude on the tour, it looked like they were not carrying any baggage from the two series losses, and “were playing more freely,” Virat Kohli said in Kanpur. They already have their batting line-up retained from the ODIs, and Sam Billings’ destructive form at the top augurs well for a 2-0 lead in Nagpur. All those put together are dangerous signs for India who could neither score freely nor contain the England batsmen on Thursday.India’s main problem was back to where it has been very often – the end overs – although more with the batsmen this time. A lack of partnerships hurt them, and England’s clever and accurate bowling saw India struggle to collect boundaries. India’s fast bowlers weren’t effective either, and lacked the one-on-one plans that England’s bowlers seemed to have for India’s batsmen.

Form guide

(completed matches, most recent first)
India LLWWL
England WLWLW

In the spotlight

India’s opening stands in the limited-overs matches of the tour have read 34, 13, 14 and 13. The partnership of 34 in Kanpur was dominated by Kohli, which means increased pressure on KL Rahul, who totalled 24 runs in the ODI series. Rahul will be itching to get some more runs under his belt before the Champions Trophy.England’s death-overs specialist Chris Jordan came into the T20 XI with a fine performance despite playing his first match of the tour. India will have to come up with solid plans to score off him at the end of the innings given his accuracy of the wide yorkers and variations in pace.

Team news

India may bring in a new opener to solve their woes at the top, but are more likely to change the bowling attack to contain the England batsmen. Amit Mishra will be more useful on the big ground in Nagpur compared to Kanpur, which could mean two legspinners in the XI given Yuzvendra Chahal’s 2 for 27 in the first T20. Bhuvneshwar Kumar may also get a look in with his form in the ODI series.India (probable): 1 Virat Kohli (capt), 2 KL Rahul/Rishabh Pant, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5, MS Dhoni (wk), 6 Manish Pandey, 7 Hardik Pandya, 8 Parvez Rasool/Amit Mishra, 9 Yuzvendra Chahal, 10 & 11 Bhuvneshwar Kumar/Ashish Nehra/Jasprit BumrahEngland have no reason to change the winning XI that earned them the “complete performance”, according to Eoin Morgan. Adil Rashid will probably get some overs, if not all four, especially if India’s batsmen come back harder.England (probable): 1 Sam Billings, 2 Jason Roy, 3 Joe Root, 4 Eoin Morgan (capt), 5 Ben Stokes, 6 Jos Buttler, 7 Moeen Ali, 8 Chris Jordan, 9 Liam Plunkett, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Tymal Mills

Pitch and conditions

It’s a much bigger ground but the pitch is likely to be flat which means there will be something for both batsmen and bowlers. Sunday, like the last few days, is expected to see temperatures in late twenties when the match begins.

Stats and trivia

• Amit Mishra is one wicket short of reaching the landmark of 200 T20 wickets
• India have played two T20I games at the VCA Stadium in Nagpur and lost both while chasing. They lost to Sri Lanka in 2009 by 29 runs and to New Zealand in the 2016 World T20 by 47 runs.
• The VCA Stadium has hosted 10 T20I matches so far. Seven of those have been won by teams batting first and three while chasing.

Quotes

“He tries to lead from the front in his body language and the way he plays his cricket. We try to follow suit.”
.”My aim is to bowl stump-to-stump. It will be based on situation and the wicket when I come to bowl, which side of the ground is bigger.”

While many of the BBL’s watchers this season draw interest from online betting shenanigans, there is also a way of spending money on the tournament that will go in a rather different direction.Season six of the tournament is also season four of Batting for Change, a cause put together by the Sydney Sixers’ Ryan Carters and the LBW Trust in an effort to further the cause of education for women around the world. Put simply, BBL watchers have the chance to pledge money to the charity via its website, with a set amount pledged for every ball struck over the rope by the Sixers.As the BBL has grown, so too has Carters’ enterprise, from raising $30,000 to fund the building of classrooms in Nepal in 2013-14 to a far loftier target this year – $150,000 to support projects in India, Sri Lanka and, for the first time, Kenya. This year Carters has been joined by a bevy of other ambassadors – Moises Henriques, Steve O’Keefe, Nic Maddinson, Alyssa Healy, Kurtis Patterson and Ed Cowan.”It’s interesting, they’ve both grown together,” Carters said of the two ventures. “There’s a reason the BBL has become so popular in Australia and it’s because Cricket Australia and Ten have done a wonderful job designing and managing the tournament. The standard of cricket itself is going up every year and the spectators love to see high quality clashes played out in the T20 format.”The WBBL has added a new dimension and expanded the fanbase again, and from Batting for Change’s point of view we offer a fun way to engage with the BBL, and as more people are watching matches live and on their TV screens, more people are signing up to become a donor, follow along and enjoy the thrill of seeing a six smashed out of the stadium and also knowing that’s another $1-2,000 that’s going to women’s education.”The Kenyan project marks a particular progression for Carters, as it not only supports education but branches further into social activism – namely the fight against female genital mutilation and child marriage in Kenya. “It is a really amazing story,” Carters said. “A woman called Kekenya Ntaiya, who grew up in a Maasai village called Enoosaen in Kenya. She was set to follow the traditional path, engaged to be married at the age of five.”But she struck up this horrible bargain with her father where she agreed to undergo female genital mutilation as long as she could stay in school until the end of high school. That was very unusual for girls to attain even that much education, but her father kept his word, she was allowed to finish high school, and then she was allowed to go on and complete university and ended up going all the way to a PhD in the US. With her newfound knowledge and networks she started her own foundation to educate girls from her own village.”Where we come in is that Batting for Change and the LBW Trust are providing the first ever tertiary education scholarships for women from this village. So for the girls who’ve gone through Kekenya’s school for girls and now completed high school, the first of them are ready to start university in 2018 at the University of Nairobi, so we’re excited about launching that.”Carters, who has pursued interests far more diverse than cricket throughout his life, hopes that this latest project can lead to others of a similar, transformational nature. “There are tricky decisions like geographically what do you want to support,” he said, “because there are worthy projects all around the cricket world and we’ve looked at a number of them.”But Kekenya really stood out because it’s such a moving story from the founder, and we know that as well as supporting women’s education, by doing so we’re also preventing female genital mutilation and child marriage. It’s about education but also preventing a harmful and oppressive practice. I think we do stand for social progress, above all with the focus on women’s education, which is a huge step forward in many parts of the cricket-playing world.”In that sense it’s already a very progressive vision for change to encourage women’s education. With Kekenya, the policy for girls to go to her school is that the parents must agree that the child will not be genitally mutilated or married before they finish high school. That further helps extend the social progress and the search for women to have the same rights as men.”When the Sixers meet the Sydney Thunder in the BBL opener on Tuesday night, they will compete to hoist the Batting for Change Cup. In doing so they will hope the symbolism can lead to further progress, via the pledges of the many thousands watching at home or in the stands.

ScorecardAlex Doolan scored just his second first-class century in three years•Getty Images

Amid all the talk about batsmen competing for a Test call-up, Alex Doolan’s name was never mentioned. And there was good reason: he entered this Sheffield Shield round with 1315 runs at 24.81 from his past three years of first-class cricket. But on the second day at the WACA, Doolan bounced spectacularly back to form with an unbeaten 202 that put Tasmania in a strong position at stumps.Of course, in order to add to the four Test caps Doolan won in 2014, he would likely need a lengthy run of good form to make up for his long lean patch. But he did have a productive Matador Cup, and his runs on the second day in Perth stood out on a Tasmania scorecard on which no other player passed fifty. The in-form George Bailey was lbw for 24 and was one of four Tasmanians out in the 20s.The Tigers had resumed on 2 for 60, with Doolan and nightwatchman Jackson Bird at the crease, and they put on 56 for the third wicket before Bird was out for 22. Bailey, Beau Webster (27), James Faulkner (13) and Jake Doran (41) all made starts, but Doolan was the only one able to go on with it, and finished the day with 33 fours, two sixes, and a new highest first-class score. His 202 had come from 311 balls.Jason Behrendorff picked up 3 for 73 and Simon Mackin collected two wickets for the Warriors. At the close of play, Simon Milenko was the crease on 5, alongside Doolan.