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ScorecardArundel has boosted Sussex’s promotion hopes•Getty Images

Sussex will go into the break from Championship action still in the hunt for promotion from Division Two after completing a 231-run win over bottom of the table Leicestershire at Arundel to claim their third win in four games.After Danny Briggs took a wicket in the first over on the final day Sussex had to be patient, but once skipper Mark Cosgrove was fourth out at 124 Leicestershire folded, losing their last seven wickets in 23 overs for 70 runs to leave them still searching for their first win of the season.The wickets were shared around but the match-defining spell was bowled after lunch by Chris Jordan, who took 2-14 in a five-over burst where he got the ball to reverse swing expertly to remove Cosgrove and Ned Eckersley.With an end opened up, Jofra Archer and leg-spinner Will Beer piled through. Archer, who took 11 wickets when Sussex won at Grace Road last month, picked up seven more in the match including 4 for 30 in the second innings. Only wicketkeeper Lewis Hill, who made 35, offered much resistance as Leicestershire were dismissed for 193 in 69.1 overs.Leicestershire began the day on 36 for 0 needing an improbable 425 and they suffered an immediate setback when Arun Harinath was caught off a top edge for 17.Paul Horton and Colin Ackermann dug in to put on 52 with Ackermann twice lofting Briggs over the top for six. But Archer returned to the attack before lunch to pick up both batsmen. Horton was leg before in the second over of his spell and Ackermann, who top scored with 43, nicked off.With only three wickets down Leicestershire might have harboured hopes of saving the game at lunch but Jordan produced a decisive burst. Cosgrove was beaten by late movement then Eckersley lost his off stump playing no shot.The gutsy Hill apart, the rest came quietly. Will Fazakerley endured a pair on his first-class debut when he gave a catch to Chris Nash at short leg. Nash had earlier spent time off the field when he was hit on the knee by Cosgrove.Rob Sayer was leg before to a ball which kept low and Matt Pillans gloved Archer’s bouncer to the keeper before Clint McKay drove Beer to short midwicket.Last man Richard Jones helped Hill but on 26 for the last wicket but they were futile blows and Abi Sakande wrapped up victory on the stroke of tea when he had Hill leg before for 35.

Oman avenged twin defeats at last year’s WCL Division Four in Los Angeles with a four-wicket win via D/L Method over United States of America in Entebbe. On an overcast morning with wet weather expected, Oman won a key toss and sent USA in.USA made it to 31 for 0 when rain interrupted play after 7.4 overs, causing nearly a two-hour delay. Seven overs were shaved off and Oman struck a major blow on the first ball after the restart when medium pacer Mohammad Nadeem pinned USA captain Steven Taylor on the crease with a good length ball ball that kept low. Ibrahim Khaleel arrived and helped construct two half-century stands on his USA debut but his wicket in the 33rd over, lofting legspinner Khawar Ali to long off for 48, was the catalyst for Oman to take control of the game.Jamaica Tallawahs allrounder Timroy Allen was promoted to No. 5 at the fall of Khaleel and Oman responded by bringing back left-arm swing bowler Bilal Khan, whose took 0 for 15 in his opening four-over spell. Oman’s counter worked to perfection as Bilal troubled Allen before a thin edge was snapped up by Sultan Ahmed behind the stumps on the final ball of the 34th over for a six-ball duck to complete a wicket maiden. Alex Amsterdam slogged Khawar to deep midwicket for 25 to complete a ten-ball collapse of 3 for 0 to make it 137 for 5 and from there USA scratched their way to end on 180 for 7. Khawar claimed innings best figures of 3 for 27 in nine overs.A D/L adjusted target of 184 in 43 overs was set and USA got an early breakthrough when Allen had Khawar caught at backward point for 5 in the third over. But the afternoon sun helped flatten out the pitch and next man Aqib Ilyas took the wind out of USA’s sails, striking his second ball for four in a harbinger of the assault to come.Ilyas seized on anything overpitched and regularly drove USA’s bowlers over the infield in the Powerplay, scooping legspinner Timil Patel for six over wide mid-on to bring up his half-century off 26 balls. Ilyas, who collected the Man-of-the-Match award, eventually fell for 55, caught at extra cover off Taylor, but by that stage Oman needed 100 off 27 overs and they cantered the rest of the way before clinching victory with 20 balls to spare.File photo – Rizwan Cheema clattered 10 sixes and three fours in his 44-ball 91 as Canada trounced Uganda by 66 runs•Associated Press

Canada upended hosts Uganda by 66 runs at Lugogo Stadium courtesy a vintage blitz from Rizwan Cheema. In a 42-over match delayed by two hours at the start, Canada made reasonable progress after choosing to bat, reaching 74 for 1 before left-arm spinner Henry Ssenyondo sparked a collapse of three wickets in four balls, which included the run-out of captain Nitish Kumar for 43.Cheema arrived in the 29th over at 105 for 5 and immediately released all the pressure built up by Uganda’s spinners, clattering 91 off 44 balls, including 10 sixes over the short boundaries at Lugogo, making Uganda pay dearly for dropping him three times along the way. Canada ended on 234 for 8 and Uganda never threatened to chase the runs after Cecil Pervez wiped out the top order with three wickets in his opening spell. Pervez finished with 4 for 44 as Uganda was bowled out for 168.Singapore thrashed Malaysia by seven wickets via D/L Method at Kyambogo Oval. In a match reduced to 45 overs, Anish Paraam put on an all-round show, spinning out the Malaysia tail to take 4 for 10 in 4.3 overs before striking an unbeaten 50 to chase down an adjusted target of 123 with 13.4 overs to spare.Allrounder Khizar Hayat top-scored with 32 in Malaysia’s total of 121 but they were bowled out in 35.3 overs. Selladore Vijayakumar fell on the third ball of Singapore’s reply, but Paraam and Chaminda Ruwan added 51 for the second wicket to get the chase back on course.Oman faces Canada on Wednesday at Lugogo in an early battle of unbeatens. USA takes on Malaysia at Kyambogo Oval with both teams seeking to bounce back after first-day losses while Uganda takes on Singapore at Entebbe.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details4:14

Highlights – Smith 74 helps Lions ease to win

Hashim Amla scored his second century of the tournament, only the third player to do so in an IPL season, but Kings XI Punjab’s playoff chances were dented with their sixth loss in 11 matches. Staying fifth on the table, the gap between them and fourth-placed Sunrisers Hyderabad remained three points. Amla’s first century – against Mumbai Indians – had also gone in vain when Kings XI could not defend 198, and on Sunday night, they failed to defend 189 against Gujarat Lions.Not in contention for the playoffs, Lions were depleted without international recruits Andrew Tye, Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Bravo and Jason Roy (on national duty), and played only three against Kings XI – Dwayne Smith, Aaron Finch and James Faulkner. Smith’s power-packed 74 off 39 balls gave their chase a rollicking start and threw Kings XI’s plans off track: none of their first three bowlers – Sandeep Sharma, Mohit Sharma and Varun Aaron – struck in their first spells. When Smith departed in the 12th over, they needed 70 off 52 balls, and even though Suresh Raina and Dinesh Karthik did not finish it off smoothly, Karthik stayed till the end to seal a nervy last-over win.

Sandeep penalised

Sandeep Sharma was fined 50% of his match fees for showing dissent against an umpire’s decision. There were no details of the incident in the press release sent out by the IPL, but it is likely the penalty was in response to an incident that occurred in the fifth over of Kings XI’s bowling innings. Sandeep was issued a no-ball for going around the wicket to the left-handed Ishan Kishan without informing the on-field official Nand Kishore. He admitted to the Level 1 offence and accepted the sanction.

The openers’ muscleThe top order of both sides came to the fore to score over 380 runs on a slowish Mohali pitch. When Kings XI were asked to bat, their innings was set up by a second-wicket century stand between Amla and Shaun Marsh. Amla was the more aggressive of the two, after he took off against Pradeep Sangwan in the third over with consecutive fours and relied on boundaries towards the end for the late surge his team needed. He used his supple wrists and crisp drives to mainly score in front of square, bringing up his half-century off 35 balls. His partnership of 125 with Marsh set the tone for a brisk finish, which included 66 runs off the last five overs.Smith, Amla’s counterpart, had not scored a fifty in 10 IPL innings and, before this game, had managed only 103 runs in nine innings this season, with single-digit scores in his last six innings. This time, he used his powerful arms to smash eight fours in the Powerplay, scoring 43 out of the team’s 58. He targeted the region in the ‘V’ down the ground and was even more aggressive once the spinners, Axar Patel and Glenn Maxwell, came on. He had lost his partner Ishan Kishan at the halfway mark but had brought the equation down to 87 from 60 with his 28-ball half-century.Left-handed second fiddles In the first innings, Marsh had been middling strokes from his first ball but was unable to find gaps. His role, since Amla was scoring easily, was merely to stick around and rotate the strike. Marsh’s cue to score briskly came when he faced two spinners – Ravindra Jadeja and Ankit Soni – as both brought the ball into him. He milked runs on the leg side, showcased his trademark cuts square of the pitch and scored a useful 58 off 43.During the chase, Kishan had a similar role to play. Once Smith started using his flashy bat-swings to collect boundaries, Kishan made sure he took those singles, scored at more than run-a-ball and saw off the opening bowlers. A left-hander just like Marsh, he also took off once the spinners came on. Facing Maxwell in the eighth over, Kishan pulled and cut to collect 12 from the over with Smith’s help. Kishan’s 29 off 24 was not quite a match-winning knock but did the job the team needed with Smith firing.Dropping those sittersWhether you spot any other trend in this IPL or not, the spate of dropped catches is unmissable. The first catch that went down on Sunday was the toughest – Jadeja’s leaping attempt from backward point with Amla on 12 – but the ones that followed made only one team look shabby: Kings XI.The simplest of those proved the costliest. David Miller had enough time to circle the ground and still get under a Smith skier in the sixth over but he put it down with the batsman on 42. Two overs later, Smith smashed one down the ground towards Gurkeerat, who did well to dive forward but could not hold on. Smith was on 51. Lions were soon cruising with Raina and Karthik in a stable partnership, but the Lions captain offered Kings XI a chance too, in the 17th over. He miscued a drive to Gurkeerat’s right at long-off and the fielder got his hands under the ball this time but out it popped again. “The bowlers and fielders let us down, we dropped three crucial catches,” Maxwell bluntly stated later.

Before the start of the Border-Gavaskar series, KL Rahul had four Test centuries and only one fifty. Now, halfway into the fourth and final Test, he has added five more half-centuries to his tally but hasn’t converted any of them into a hundred. On Sunday, having scored 60 and laid the platform for India’s reply to Australia’s 300, he was out to a short ball from Pat Cummins.”Quite honestly, not regretting anything,” Rahul said when asked about the series he has had so far. “Obviously, a little disappointed that I have not been able to convert the starts and get big runs for the team. As an opening batsman, my responsibility is to spend as much time in the middle as I can, try and get big scores in the first innings so that we don’t have to bat in the second innings.”On a personal front, [it] hasn’t been the worst series for me. Got starts, batted really well, enjoyed batting in the middle, and the Aussie bowlers haven’t made it easy. They have challenged us in all the games. Thoroughly enjoyed batting and hopefully [I can play] one good knock in the second innings. Might be the knock I have been waiting for the whole series.”Not for the first time in the series, Rahul was out playing an aggressive shot. This time, he tried to hook Cummins – having earlier either swayed away from or fended at his other short balls – and toe-ended it to cover. Rahul said he had bungled the execution of the shot rather than the thinking behind it.”Horrible execution for sure,” he said. “But having batted out there in the middle for a long time, I thought I could have taken him on as there were no fielders at the back. Like I said, horrible execution, the intent was right.”But I can always sit here and question intent and a hundred things. But then in the middle, I thought I could take him on but [it was] unfortunate it didn’t go my way. Hopefully, in the second innings, I can get him away. So I will go out with a positive intent in the second innings again.”Rahul said the conditions had given some assistance to all of Australia’s bowlers, the spinners and the quicks, and that they had kept India under pressure right through the day.”It has been a fantastic cricket wicket,” he said. “Something in it for everybody. [Nathan] Lyon and [Steve] O’Keefe spun it and of course, [facing] Josh [Hazlewood] and Cummins in the first session, I can say, is the toughest session I have faced in Test cricket so far.”They put the ball in the right areas and they swung the ball, bowled with a lot of pace and venom. There is something in it for bowlers and it will keep us interested in the second innings when we go out there to bowl.”Given the control Australia exerted, Rahul said India had done well to end the day where they did – six down and trailing by 52. He said India’s pace of scoring – they have made their runs at 2.72 per over so far as compared to Australia’s 3.38 in their first innings – was a reflection of how well Australia bowled.”I think we played really well,” he said. “They did put a lot of pressure. They put the ball in the right areas. It’s not like we missed out on any boundary balls. These are the sessions in Test cricket that you have to grind it out and play these off.”You tell yourself that the runs will come, maybe after tea in the last hour. When I was batting in the first session, my intent was to give the ball and the bowlers the respect and I can come out in the second session and make some runs.”One prominent feature of the Dharamsala pitch has been the cracks on its surface. In the morning session, Hazlewood, in particular, got the ball to misbehave frequently off them, though this tendency died down as the ball grew older. Rahul said the cracks would continue to play an influential role in the match.”I think the ball will do things off the cracks,” he said. “Even when we bowled the first day, a few balls did do something funny off the cracks. The conditions are really good for the fast bowlers like I was mentioning. The conditions aren’t too hot. There is some swing out there and the fast bowlers out there are enjoying bowling on this wicket.”

New Zealand Cricket is monitoring the situation in Christchurch ahead of the second one-day international against South Africa next Wednesday as bush fires continue to rage in the Port Hills area close to the city.The fires, which started on Monday, have destroyed homes, caused large evacuations, and led to a state of civil emergency being called in Christchurch.Currently, the ODI at Hagley Oval is expected to go ahead but NZC will be taking advice as required. Health warnings have been issued about the smoke from the fires.”We are monitoring the situation and taking note of the advisories,” an NZC spokesman told ESPNcricinfo.Kane Williamson, the New Zealand captain, offered his thoughts to the people of Christchurch. “It’s pretty devastating, the Cantabs have had a very tough time of it recently and to see the fires, we certainly hope they are out or under control very quickly. It’s obviously a tough time for them.”The fourth ODI of the series on March was moved from Napier to Hamilton earlier this week due to the concerns about the outfield at McLean Park following the abandoned match against Australia.

Four players from the Zimbabwe squad currently playing the ODI series against Afghanistan – Ryan Burl, Tarisai Musakanda, Carl Mumba and Richard Ngarava – have been picked in the Zimbabwe Academy side that will tour England this summer.

Zimbabwe Academy squad

Ryan Burl, Tinashe Kamunhukamwe, Taffy Mupariwa (wk), Tafadzwa Tsiga (wk), Tarisai Musukanda, Tylor Trenoweth, William Mashinge, Faraz Akram, Carl Mumba, Blessing Muzarabani, Tendai Nyamayaro, Mkhului Nyathi, Richard Ngarava, Kuziva Ziwira, Thamsanqa Nunu, Brandon Mavuta

The tour will be overseen by Zimbabwe Cricket’s selection convener Tatenda Taibu and coach Stuart Matsikenyeri, and Taibu hoped the challenging games on tour would help the players grow further in the future.While left-handed batsman Burl – who has an average of above 40 in both first class and List A cricket – and left-arm pacer Ngarava made their ODI debut in the first match against Afghanistan on Thursday, Carl Mumba and Tarisai Musakanda have been part of the international set-up since Sri Lanka’s tour of Zimbabwe in October 2016. Mumba is the most experienced of the four, having played two Tests and one ODI, taking 8 wickets in his short international career.ZC have not appointed a captain in the 16-member squad, and the responsibility will be shared between players during the tour to allow the selectors to gauge potential leaders. Fixtures against second XIs from Northamptonshire and Worcestershire have already been confirmed while the team is also expected to play against a few ECB Premier League representative sides.”Getting the squad down to just 16 players was an incredibly hard task and there are several players who were very unlucky not to make the cut,” Taibu said. “We have selected a strong group of players, with an excellent mix of youth and relative experience.”These 16 players have demonstrated their cricketing ability but also show potential to become great ambassadors for Zimbabwe cricket in the future. The aim of the tour, which will include some challenging matches, is to help them realise these ambitions.”

As the Big Bash League wallows in praise after another successful year, the financial challenge facing English professional cricket remains as stark as ever as it seeks to increase the capacities of its stadia with an eye to the crowd potential of Twenty20 cricket.That challenge is illustrated by Warwickshire’s financial results for 2015-16, which have just been announced.Edgbaston has become the accepted home of Twenty20 Finals Day and a once unimpressive ground has been transformed into an appealing 24,000-capacity stadium but it has not been without financial pain.Warwickshire have reported turnover of £14.3m and an operating profit of £785,761 for 2015-16. That county cricket has the potential to prosper – admittedly thanks to a hefty central contribution from international revenue – is therefore apparent.But once the paying off of debts, interest, tax and depreciation is taken into account – most of them arising from the £32 million redevelopment of Edgbaston, which was completed in 2011 – the situation is more challenging.Factor in a payment of £1.1 million to Birmingham City Council to service a loan and the situation worsens. Add depreciation charges of £1.4 million, tax and other costs and the bottom line loss is £2.26m. Quite a difference.Warwickshire’s story is far from unique. Durham needed an ECB bail-out. Yorkshire are desperate to fund the replacement of a dilapidated main stand at Headingley and already have debts of £23m.The 18 English counties are indebted to a total of £150m-plus and the ECB is sitting on offshore reserves which rose as high as £73m before falling last summer because Test series against Sri Lanka and Pakistan did not attract particularly lucrative TV deals.Those reserves are jealously guarded. The former ECB chief executive, David Collier, justified the stockpiling as a contingency should the death of the Queen, and a resulting 12 days of mourning, cause heavy financial losses.Even more disturbing for English cricket would be a shift of the balance between international and club cricket. Should that occur, the English counties would have to become more self-sufficient and only a lucrative T20 tournament can deliver that.Warwickshire had a relatively successful year in 2016 season. They won the Royal London Cup and attracted more than 80,000 spectators across five days of England’s Test victory over Pakistan.The club also achieved ticket and hospitality sell-outs for its one-day international – England versus Sri Lanka – and NatWest T20 Blast Finals Day.Off the field, Edgbaston increased its share of the West Midlands’ conference and events market by developing year-on-year sales from £2.2 million to a record £2.5 million. Revenue from commercial advertising also increased.Twenty20 cricket, however, has yet to set Birmingham alight – attendances at Birmingham Bears’ home matches in the NatWest Blast are growing but not spectacularly.That makes it no surprise that the club is strongly in favour of a move to a more marketable new T20 competition based upon the biggest grounds in the country. A 25,000-seater stadium needs to be filled not just for international cricket but for T20, too.Craig Flindall, Warwickshire’s chief operating officer, said: “The 2015-16 financial year was always forecast to be the most challenging in our 2016-2019 financial cycle, and the results are in line with our budgets set at the start of the year.”The quality and volume of our major match days remains the primary driver of revenue and profit and a significant fall in both was expected in 2016 because of the comparative demand for the Investec Test match against Pakistan.”However, the transformation in the business since 2010, when England last hosted Pakistan in a Test at Edgbaston, is reflected in the comparison in the results, with turnover and EBITDA [earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation] in 2016 being £6.5m and £2.4m higher than 2010 respectively.”English cricket is pinning hopes over the next few years on a major financial inflow from the Champions Trophy in 2017 and from the 2019 World Cup. If 50-over cricket is conceding ground to T20, the process is slower at international level where T20 international fixtures are deliberately underplayed. The ECB are desperate that this trend persists for a few years yet.Flindall captured that mood. “We expect to see EBITDA and bottom line revenues grow significantly over the next three years as Edgbaston hosts up to 28 days of major match cricket,” he said. “We have an 11-day programme in 2017, which includes five matches in the ICC Champions Trophy, England’s first day/night Investec Test match and NatWest T20 Blast Finals Day.”Beyond the coming season, Edgbaston’s major match allocation includes a Test against India, a T20I and T20 Blast Finals Day in 2018, and an Ashes Test match and five matches in the World Cup in 2019.Financial pressures at Sky TV, however, where Premier League football viewing figures have dropped markedly, will leave the ECB nervous as they conduct negotiations for the next TV rights deal.Measured against the value of those rights is the recognition that cricket’s popularity has waned in the UK as it has disappeared from State schools and free-to-air TV and there has been a shrinking of the amateur game.Filling Edgbaston for a domestic NatWest Blast fixture will remain a challenge unless there is a major jolt to the system.At a time of flux in the broadcasting market, there are new markets to be explored, but until that flux settles, and a new TV rights deal is delivered that can sustain the future of English cricket, disquiet will remain.Warwickshire are an example of that. Most of the 18 first-class counties know the feeling.