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Armaan Jaffer, 13, is the new owner of the record for the highest individual score in Indian school cricket. Armaan, nephew of one-time India Test opener and Mumbai captain Wasim Jaffer, smashed 498 for Rizvi Springfield School against IES Raja Shivaji School in the Giles Shield tournament at Cross Maidan in Mumbai.Armaan first broke the record for the highest score in the Giles Shield, an Under-14 tournament, going past the previous record of 357 set by Parikshit Valsangkar of IES VN Sule Guruji, Dadar against Christ Church last year. He then surpassed Sarfaraz Khan’s 439 – scored in the Under-16 Harris Shield competition last year – to claim the record. His knock, brought to an end by a catch, came off 490 balls and included 77 fours.”I will thank my father who has always supported me and kept me going. I am little disappointed that I missed the 500-mark but as we say, ‘One mistake and you are back in pavilion’,” Armaan said.Armaan’s uncle, Wasim, once held the same record, scoring 403 in the Harris Shield. “I was not thinking about any record, nor about Sarfaraz’s 439 and not even about Wasim uncle’s 403. I was just following my coach’s instructions. I am thankful to him for his motivation,” Armaan said.His coach, Raju Pathak, was full of praise. “He is a very disciplined player. I had told him last evening I want you to play a long innings so go ahead and score as many runs you want. Based on your innings, we will declare the target. But he surprised me as well and created a record innings. I am very pleased with his game.”There were no surprises when Armaan was asked of his role model. “Sachin Tendulkar is my idol. His determination and focus are the things that stand out.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were outPragyan Ojha began India’s march towards victory•Associated Press

Finally the actors returned to the original script. The groundsman was the first person to get the revised lines: the ball turned and bounced, kicked and spat angrily, not from day one but the third evening onwards. With a big lead in the bag, the Indian bowlers got into character without wasting time. They were all over the New Zealand batsmen, who were surrounded by all kinds of close-in fieldsmen. The arm balls arrived too to trap the unsure, who crumbled under pressure, as almost everybody thought they were supposed to right through the series. The umpires felt the heat too, which is expected with the ball dancing and a gang of fielders around the bat.As the three spinners shared the wickets – Suresh Raina being the third – and Ishant cleared up the tail, the Test win that India had to wait for for longer than expected arrived remarkably quickly, half an hour after lunch on the fourth day. It was also India’s third-biggest win.Pragyan Ojha has spent most of his young career bowling on slow and low tracks, and has come across as restrictive and robotic. It might still be too early to call – given the buffer of runs and the assistance from the pitch – but Ojha showed today he can attack too. He started by outsmarting Brendon McCullum, who tried the old bullying tactic of hitting early boundaries and trying to get the fielders out of his face. Ojha kept pitching the ball up, flighting it, giving it the best chance to turn and bounce. McCullum played back, and Ojha did the thing to do on a turner, slip in the straighter one. Dead plumb.

Smart Stats

• India’s win was their third biggest in Tests and their second in home Tests, behind the innings-and-219-run win over Australia in Kolkata in 1998.

• India have not lost a single series since the 2-1 result in Sri Lanka in 2008.

• New Zealand lost seven wickets for 86 runs in the first session, collapsing from 38 for 1 to 124 for 8.

• The defeat was New Zealand’s fifth heaviest in Tests and their worst against India. Their previous defeat by an innings to India was in 1956 in Chennai.

• Harbhajan Singh went past Malcolm Marshall’s tally of 376 wickets and is now 13th on the all-time list of Test wicket-takers. He has 258 wickets in home Tests, which puts him fifth on the list of bowlers with most wickets in home Tests.

• The 51-run stand between Andy McKay and Tim Southee was New Zealand’s seventh half-century stand for the ninth wicket against India.

However, because the pitch was offering so much turn, the decision to give Martin Guptill lbw was ordinary. Being Ojha’s regulation offbreak, it could either have pitched within the stumps or hit the stumps. As the replays showed, it was hitting the stumps all right, but after having pitched outside leg.Harbhajan, who set the template of mixing in the straighter ones yesterday, came to get nightwatchman Gareth Hopkins with a flighted, dipping offbreak. Gautam Gambhir, who showed signs of return to form with the bat during this match, made the lunging bat-pad catch to his right, two balls after he was hit a by a full-blooded sweep from Ross Taylor.Taylor, who was troubled by the outswing from Sreesanth in the morning, decided there was no point in hanging around and waiting for the one that jumps at him and takes the edge. So he started moving across and throwing his bat around, along the way surviving one plumb lbw when he missed a sweep right in front of the stumps. As it turned out, he didn’t have to wait for the one that jumps and takes the edge: he was given caught bat-pad off the pad.Taylor was so bemused he laughed all the way back to the pavilion, and Guptill, Jesse Ryder’s runner, was so stunned he found it tough to close his gaping mouth. Ryder was the only batsman who looked at ease against the turning ball, but he got out trying to dominate the part-time spin of Raina, the second time he has fallen to the bowler.Raina was not done yet. In his second over, he bowled the straighter one too, trapping Daniel Vettori in front, the third time he has taken the New Zealand captain.Tim Southee swung the bat a little bit, hitting three sixes, but he only delayed the inevitable. This game will also be remembered for Chris Martin’s first duck against India in six Tests.With the breaking of New Zealand’s resistance complete, India have not lost any of their last nine series. However, given the big difference in the two teams’ rankings, the 1-0 result earned India a two-point penalty in the ICC Test rankings.

Pakistan Television fought back on the second day to gain a slight edge over Hyderabad at the Niaz Stadium in Hyderabad. Left-arm seamer Saad Altaf helped Pakistan Television turn the tables with 7 for 85, his 13th haul of five or more wickets in an innings. Hyderabad had been in an uncomfortable position at 101 for 5 at the start of the day but Lal Kumar’s unbeaten 63, with support from the lower order, took them past 200. They managed a lead of 86, but Pakistan Television’s batsmen responded strongly in the second innings. Captain Raheel Majeed, who opened, was not out on 83 and was aided in a 134-run unbeaten second-wicket stand with Ammar Mahmood as Pakistan Television finished the day with a lead of 59 with nine wickets in hand.It was a day of fightbacks at the National Bank of Pakistan Sports Complex as Karachi Whites put in a spirited bowling effort against State Bank of Pakistan before losing two wickets in their second innings to finish slightly behind at stumps. Part-time offspinner Wajihuddin, who just had one first-class wicket before this game, grabbed 4 for 14 to help bowl out SBP for 208 and limit their lead to just 21. SBP, however, will regret not capitalising on starts. Wicketkeeper Gulraiz Sadaf made 39, Mohtashim Ali chipped in with 30 while Naved Yasin top-scored and remained unbeaten 57 as the lower order crumbled at the other end. Left-arm seamer Rizwan Haider hit back in the second innings though, dismissing the Karachi Whites openers to leave the hosts at 33 for 2, a lead of 12.Abbottabad held the advantage against Peshawar at the Gohati Cricket Stadium in Swabi. The Abbottabad bowlers nipped out the last two Peshawar wickets in the morning, bowling the opposition out for 290 before opener Waqar Orakzai anchored their reply. He helped overcome the loss of two early wickets in a 158-run third-wicket stand with captain Wajid Ali. Orakzai top-scored with an unbeaten 87, Wajid supported him with 83 before medium-pacer rounded off the day with two wickets, adding to two earlier in the innings, and leave Abbottabad at 205 for 5 at stumps, still 85 adrift. Wajid had been the more aggressive of the two during his stand with Orakzai, striking 11 fours and a six.Honours were even between Lahore Ravi and Quetta at the end of the second day at the Lahore City Cricket Association Ground. A third five-wicket haul in four games for legspinner Tanzeel Altaf helped bowl out Quetta for 234, which gave the hosts a lead of 68. Altaf was supported by seamer Asif Raza, who bagged three wickets, as Quetta’s batsmen failed to convert starts. Nasrullah Khan’s 49 was the top score for them, followed by Taimur Khan’s 43. However, Lahore Ravi were dealt two early setbacks in their second innings, losing wicketkeeper and opener Zeeshan Ali and Imran Haider to end the day on 14 for 2, 82 ahead.Khan Research Laboratories got themselves into a strong position at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore against Lahore Shalimar. Former Pakistan player Bazid Khan, on 94 overnight, reached his 14th first-class century and, amid useful contributions from Ali Khan and Jaffaz Nazir down the order, helped propel KRL to 446 for 9. He lost his partner Mohammad Wasim, who had reached a century on the opening day, early on the second morning but built important partnerships with the rest. Medium-pacer Aamer Hayat picked up six wickets before the declaration came. In response, Lahore Shalimar lost their openers to seamer Jaffar Nazir but Asif Khan and Ali Haider built an unbeaten 60-run stand to take their team to 105 for 2 at stumps.

New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori has admitted that his side was outplayed by Bangladesh in conceding the five-match ODI series 0-3 with one game to go. Bangladesh strung three wins on the trot against top opposition for the first time in their history to clinch the series, leaving New Zealand with some serious questions to address ahead of the World Cup on the subcontinent.”Bangladesh have played better cricket than us and deserved the victory,”Vettori said after the nine-run defeat in the fourth match. “They have shown us how to play in these conditions.”New Zealand began the must-win game well, reducing the hosts to 44 for 3, before Man-of-the-Match Shakib Al Hasan turned the tables with a century, setting a target of 242 in slow and low conditions. Bangladesh’s bowlers kept the chase under control and it was down to Kane Williamson, who became the youngest centurion for New Zealand, to give his side a chance. His effort, however, was not enough to take them past the line.”Kane’s hundred is the positive to take out from this game,” Vettori said. “We should have adapted quicker than we have. We put ourselves in tough positions with the bat. One game left, must win for us. We must restore some pride in the last game.”

Match facts

Friday, September 10
Start time 17.30 (15.30 GMT)Kieron Pollard’s career took off during the previous Champions League•Indian Premier League

Big Picture

Cricket is not known to ask itself the question whether and why the show must go on. The show just keeps going on. The last two weeks have been serious scandal: players have looked back suspiciously at certain events in certain matches, fans have wondered if they actually follow a sport, cricket writers have asked themselves if the great strategic moves they wrote about were indeed strategic moves and not “spot-fixes”, and the ICC has deemed three men unfit to represent cricket until they are cleared.The show perhaps has no choice but to go on. Sponsors have paid the monies, broadcasters have set up the cameras and the stump microphones, the teams have flown in and the second season of Champions League Twenty20 is upon us, though once again without teams from the country that holds the World Twenty20 crown.On then to Highveld Lions v Mumbai Indians, which seems a hopeless mismatch on paper. It’s Tendulkar, Pollard, Malinga, Zaheer, Bravo, Harbhajan v Alviro Petersen and lesser-known friends. It’s also the classic tussle between the powerful and the underdog. One team is the triumph of money, a rich, powerful ensemble, most of them bought in an auction, but also a unit that has learned to play well enough as a team to have dominated the IPL. The other team is largely a collection of homegrown talent, who have stayed together through good times and bad, winning the inaugural domestic Twenty20 competition in South Africa, then struggling for three years before finishing runners-up last year.The Lions play as a team day in and day out, across formats; Mumbai’s superstars gather for a month or so every year just for Twenty20s, and their being together next year depends on another auction. This is the first time Mumbai are coming across a team that is not similarly acquired at an auction. At the same time Mumbai are one of the IPL teams to have invested wholeheartedly in domestic talent, in the likes of Ambati Rayudu, R Sathish and Saurabh Tiwary. Lions don’t have much else other than domestic talent to work with. Petersen is the only current international in the squad, Neil McKenzie the most experienced, and Zander be Bruyn and Vaughn van Jaarsveld the nearly men. A clash of Twenty20 philosophies is a good way to start the Champions League with.

Watch out for…

Kieron Pollard is the ultimate modern T20 freelancer. Played for Trinidad & Tobago in last Champions League, is representing Mumbai now, could be wearing the South Australian Redbacks shirt next year. Recently had his face busted open by a Dominic Cork bouncer in the English domestic Twenty20. The last time he played for Mumbai, he was held back for too long, potentially costing them the IPL crown. Do Mumbai now know how best to use him?Robert Frylick topped the wicket charts in the South African domestic Twenty20 competition, and also managed to bowl two maiden overs. His 14 wickets in eight matches, at 16.21 per, carried Lions into the final. He is known to be a deceptive medium-pacer.

Key contests

Sachin Tendulkar v Ethan O’Reilly Tendulkar is known to make young unknown bowlers famous. O’Reilly fits the bill perfectly: a young, quick bowler, drawing attention for his deceptive pace, against the master who has seen it all. A bit of trivia: most unknown bowlers who have dismissed Tendulkar bowled have gone on to represent their national side. Ask Piyush Chawla, Sreesanth and R Vinay Kumar.

Stats and trivia

• Between them, Pollard and Bravo have played T20 cricket for eight teams at a serious level: West Indies, T&T, Mumbai Indians (both of them), Essex, Victoria, Kent (Bravo), South Australia and Somerset (Pollard). Between them, they have taken 151 T20 wickets. Pollard, with 81 of those, is No. 13 on the all-time list.
• van Jaarsveld has scored the most runs at the Wanderers, the venue for the tournament-opener. His 405 runs in Johannesburg have come at an average of 50.62 and a strike-rate of 142.60.

Quotes

“After having played for such a long time, I’m playing in South Africa in September for the first time in my career, so conditions are slightly different.”
Sachin Tendulkar finds himself in a situation he hasn’t been before in more than two decades of playing international cricket“Nerves are a funny thing – it’s always good to have some heading into a game. Just being totally laidback is not a good thing.”

ScorecardChris Woakes registered career-best match figures of 11 for 97 to bowl Warwickshire to a 95-run win at Edgbaston•Getty Images

The roars that greeted the moment of victory spoke volumes: Warwickshire knew that had struck a telling blow in the battle to avoid relegation. The 95-run win sees Warwickshire move 18 points ahead of Kent and out of the reach of Essex. Hampshire, too, are now in the thick of the fight.Warwickhire are not assured of safety but, with one game remaining, they have their fate in their own hands. They’ve won three of their last five championship games and will be strengthened by the return of Ian Bell for their final championship game at The Rose Bowl.”We’ve given ourselves a great chance,” Ashley Giles, Warwickshire’s director of cricket, said after the game. “It’s not a done deal, but we’re getting there. It’s getting towards being miraculous.”But, if we do stay up, we’re not going to let it paper over any cracks. We still know that we have to recruit and develop and I want to see more competition for places in the batting department.”But one thing I am pleased about is that we haven’t just died. We’ve shown a lot of fight and, in the last couple of games [against Essex and Kent] I’d say the difference has been that we’ve been the side who wanted it more.”I know some people have compared this team to one we had here in 2007 [that suffered relegation under the leadership of Mark Greatbatch]. But there’s a big difference. In 2007 the side rolled over. This time we’ve showing some fight.” It’s worth noting, too, that Warwickshire have now won as many games this season as they did in 2004, the year they won the championship.It was entirely typical of this extraordinary game that Kent’s tenth-wicket pair should have thwarted Warwickshire for an hour on the final morning. A century from Martin van Jaarsveld showed, once and for all, that this pitch holds no particular demons, while for the second time in the match, Matt Coles showed a well organised technique.Their colleagues showed far less fight. Darren Stevens clipped to midwicket, Azhar Mahmood tried to work an outswinger to the leg side and edged to slip, while Simon Cook became the eighth Kent ‘duck’ of the game when he was utterly bamboozled by a swinging delivery that struck the batsman on the boot.While Kent’s batting – the admirable van Jaarsveld apart – was surprisingly brittle, the bowling of Chris Woakes and Neil Carter was simply irrepressible. The pair took 19 wickets between them, with Woakes finishing with career-best match figures of 11 for 97 and Carter taking his fourth five-wicket haul of the summer and to finish with 8 for 106 in the game.It’s been a remarkable summer for Carter. The final wicket, that of Coles, who spooned a catch to cover when he changed his mind about pulling, gave Carter the fourth five-wicket haul of the season while the wicket of Alex Blake, drawn into edging a perfect delivery that swung away from him, gave Carter his 50th wicket of the campaign.It was the first time in his ten-year county career that the 35-year-old has achieved such a feat and the first time a Warwickshire seamer had taken 50 championshiph wickets in a summer since Tim Munton did so in 1999.For Woakes, however, this performance may prove well timed. He has shown rare class with bat and ball in this match and, aged 21, underlined the impression that he has the skill and temperament to go far. That may well include a trip to Australia in the Academy squad this winter.If England are looking for back-up for James Anderson, they need not look much further than Woakes. He may not quite have Anderson’s pace – though Woakes has certainly added a yard this season – but he’ll swing the ball in most conditions and has the ability to score vital runs at Test level.Kent, meanwhile, have to regroup quickly if they are to avoid relegation. They have two games left – against Hampshire and Yorkshire – but, on this form, will struggle to alter the momentum of their season.Their batsmen would do well to follow the example of Van Jaarsveld. His century (147 balls, 14 fours) was not littered with glorious strokes or outrageous moments, but rather showed up the merits of playing straight and remaining patient. They are qualities which any batsmen, regardless of talent, should be able to replicate. The ease with which he recorded his second championship century of the season showed what might have been if only his colleagues could have matched his resilience and determination. Kent will need such qualities in abundance if they are to escape relegation.

The PCB has yet to submit to the ICC an incident report on the terror attacks on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore last year, after which there has been no international cricket in the country.The attacks took place in March 2009 as the tourists were on their way to Gaddafi Stadium and eight people were killed. Seven Sri Lankan players and the coach were also injured. Since then there has been no international cricket in Pakistan and the national side has been forced to rejig its home commitments to various neutral venues. They have just played a ‘home’ Test series against Australia in England; they played a ‘home’ Test series against New Zealand in New Zealand last year and are due to take on South Africa in the UAE later this year.The ICC had requested an incident report from the PCB in the days after the attack and has repeated the request several times since but has not yet received any information. “We asked the PCB to send the security report into the Lahore incident,” Haroon Lorgat, chief executive of the ICC, told recently. “We have asked them and we haven’t received it.” That was denied, in the same report, by Ijaz Butt, the PCB chairman, who said that claims that the report had not been sent were “absolutely incorrect”.Butt told a local channel that the report was complete and was awaiting approval. “The inquiry report into the incident was prepared by a Lahore High Court panel and the copies of the report have already been given to both PCB and the government,” Butt told .`”It’s a sensitive issue and we can’t bypass the government. We will surely send the copy of the report to the ICC as soon as the government permits us to do so.”Because of the nature of the attack, Pakistan’s interior ministry, the provincial government (of Punjab, where the attacks took place) and other security agencies have been involved in the compiling of the report and given the slow pace of such investigations here, it may take some time before approval is granted. One official familiar with the investigations said only that the report was being worked on and would be completed soon. The ICC confirmed to Cricinfo that no report has been received yet.Any such report will clearly play a role in determining the return of international cricket to Pakistan. “By not submitting the report, the PCB has not been able to form a strategy with the ICC and until the member boards analyse that report they will continue to hesitate when it comes to touring Pakistan,” Ehsan Mani, former ICC president, told .Lorgat and the ICC are keen to look at ways of bringing touring sides back to Pakistan though they acknowledge that a real push will probably be made after the 2011 World Cup. Lorgat recently suggested that it might be possible to send a “hand-picked” side to Pakistan soon, though he steered clear of putting a timeline to it.

ScorecardCharlotte Edwards was the key to England’s victory with 70•Getty Images

England’s women squeaked home to a one-wicket victory in the final over of the first one-day international against New Zealand at Taunton. After half-centuries from Maria Fahey and Sophie Devine had taken New Zealand to 231 for 8, Charlotte Edwards anchored England’s chase with 70 before she was dismissed in the midst of a late collapse. But Katherine Brunt sealed the game when she cracked a boundary off Devine with three balls remaining.England had stumbled at the beginning of their chase too, slipping from 72 for 1 to 79 for 4 in the space of three overs before Edwards and Jenny Gunn combined in a 48-run fifth wicket stand. After Gunn departed for a run-a-ball 31, Laura Marsh picked up the mantle and she and Edwards took England past 200 with a rapid 81-run partnership.But after Amy Satterthwaite snared Marsh, Nicola Browne steamed in to bowl Danielle Hazell in the 47th over. England were 224 for 8 when Edwards was run out in the next over, and Browne then had Holly Colvin caught by Aimee Watkins with just five runs still needed from the last seven balls. Crucially, Brunt snatched a single from the final delivery of the 49th over to keep the strike, and then pushed Devine for two before sealing the win with a boundary.England’s bowling effort was built around the good work of Brunt and and Jenny Gunn. New Zealand had worked themselves into a good position with Fahey and Satterthwaite sticking together to reach 104 for 2 by the 25th over but two wickets fell in quick succession as England clawed back. Satterthwaite offered Gunn a chance off Colvin before Sara McGlashan fell one over later run out with Gunn again in the thick of the action.It brought Devine to the crease and together with Fahey the pair added 42 over the next 10 overs. Needing a breakthrough Edwards turned to her strike bowler Brunt, who duly delivered by castling Fahey for a patient 61. Brunt struck again three balls later, rattling the stumps of Browne to leave New Zealand wobbling on 148 for 6.Thereafter Devine took control hammering four fours and two sixes to reach her fifty of 62 balls before falling to Laura Marsh. The tail rallied, with Lucy Doolan and Rachel Priest pushing the score up to 231 but it wasn’t enough.”I’m really pleased to get the series off to a winning start,” said Edwards. “Katherine put in a fantastic bowling performance and there were some good contributions from the batters. I always enjoy batting here, I was pleased to get a good score today, I’m looking forward to coming back on Monday.”

Sajid Mahmood has been reprimanded under the ECB discipline code for an incident during the England Lions match against West Indies A at Wantage Road on Tuesday.Mahmood, who conceded 79 runs in his 10 overs, was reported by umpires Rob Bailey and Peter Willey for a level one breach which relates to abuse of cricket ground, equipment or fixtures and fittings.Meanwhile, Brad Hodge has also been reprimanded for a similar breach during Leicestershire’s Friends Provident t20 match against Lancashire on June 25.The penalties will remain on both player’s records for two years and another level one breach during that period will result in an automatic three-point penalty.

Twenty20 began as a giggle for Australia, who treated it as a third-rate concept and preferred to save their focus for Tests and ODIs. It was an approach that resulted in them quickly becoming also-rans in the format, something that hurt them more than they expected. Eventually the lack of results forced a regeneration that has led to Michael Clarke’s men making the World Twenty20 final against England in Barbados on Sunday.A gimmicky new format
17 February, 2005
New Zealand and Australia turned up to a retro costume party to christen the new fad in Auckland and Ricky Ponting summed up the affair. “I think it is difficult to play seriously,” he said. Ponting was the star with 98 off 55 balls, including five sixes, but never matched the performance again, or warmed to the style of play.In modern terms he was a traditionalist, like most of his team-mates at the time, and Twenty20 was a popular gimmick. Still, Australia have beaten their initial total of 214 only once since then and Ponting wasn’t totally dismissive of the concept. “If it does become an international game then I’m sure the novelty won’t be there all the time.”Heading south at Southampton
13 June, 2005
Australia didn’t realise it then, but the start of their Ashes defeat began at Southampton during the second Twenty20 international. They scored only 79 after being 31 for 7, and misread the mood of England. Damien Martyn outlined the outlook of the coach John Buchanan, who was focussing instead on the opening Test.”Buck was saying: ‘It’s only a muck-around game, don’t worry about it’,” Martyn said. “We trained for four hours on the morning. So we went from the nets next door, busting a gut, into a T20 game where they rolled up playing it like a Test match and flogged us.”Ricky Ponting wonders where it all went wrong in the 2009 World Twenty20•Getty Images

A World Cup isn’t a big deal
September 2007
A global trophy was crafted quickly for the shortest game, but Adam Gilchrist and his team-mates were more concerned with the upcoming tour of India than the matches in South Africa. “It was no secret that our attitude to Twenty20 cricket was undeveloped,” Gilchrist wrote in his autobiography. “As a group, we didn’t think this tournament was that big a deal.”An opening loss to Zimbabwe embarrassed them and they recovered to reach the semi-final, when they were knocked out by India. “It dawned on us that maybe Twenty20 would be the big revolution that some were predicting,” Gilchrist wrote. Not winning a global tournament changed their thinking a little, but it was still more novelty than necessary.First-round losers
6-8 June, 2009
It took three days and two defeats for Australia to drop from the 2009 World Twenty20, delivering more red faces and leaving them unranked for this year’s event. Once again it was the first lapse on a trip that ended in Ashes defeat. “I’d like to be able to tell you that I knew what was going wrong,” Ponting said after losing to Sri Lanka and exiting the tournament.Australia had started to pick some specialists, but didn’t have the batting fire power or bowling nous to counter West Indies or Kumar Sangakkara’s outfit. Ponting had joked the side wouldn’t lose its final group match because it would mean having to spend two weeks in Leicester. It wasn’t so funny when it happened. At that point Australia had lost five Twenty20 internationals in a row and Ponting was soon announcing his retirement from the format.Twenty20 has provided a career highlight for Michael Hussey•Getty Images

Team overhaul
16 October, 2009
Michael Clarke became the full-time captain and Cameron White, a bits-and-pieces player until now, was a surprise choice as his deputy. After years of trying to mix a couple of specialists with the Test and ODI stars, the Australian selectors show they are serious about putting together a side made for Twenty20.”We’ve got a young and enthusiastic group, but we must recognise that we’ve got a lot of work to do in Twenty20 cricket and our recent form hasn’t been good,” Clarke said. “Naturally, we’ll target the World Twenty20 in the Caribbean next year and I feel we have plenty of talent to genuinely mount a challenge in that tournament.” It sounded more like hopeful PR talk at the time.New team, old focus
May 2010
Following a warm-up loss to Zimbabwe, Australia were experiencing déjà vu. Even though the results hadn’t yet changed, the demeanour had. Clarke even said Twenty20 had “become exactly the same as one-day and Test cricket”. His men quickly displayed the same steel that has driven them in the other formats through most of the 2000s, and from the moment the tournament started they were a familiar foe to the rest of the world.In the aftermath of the unbelievable semi-final victory against Pakistan, which took their streak to six, Michael Hussey rated the winning feeling better than his 2006-07 Ashes moment in Adelaide. The comparisons may seem unreasonable to traditional cricket followers, but they prove the team is no longer treating Twenty20 like a toy.