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There were no tearful acceptance speeches, no talk of designer dresses and no paparazzi as the ECB handed out its annual Business of Cricket Awards on Thursday night, but perhaps the event held significance beyond the community of county cricket administration.With many of the counties making their bids for the next allocation of major matches at present, this was a last opportunity for them to enhance their cases and a final indication of the reputation of counties in the eyes of some of those closely involved in the game.The outcome of the bidding process is vital for many counties. With most having invested heavily to redevelop their grounds and some having sunk deep into debt as a consequence, the battle to host major matches has never been more fiercely contested or more important to the financial stability of clubs.The ECB is expected to allocate all major matches up until the end of 2019 before Christmas. That includes an Ashes series and World Cup in 2019, the 2017 Champions Trophy and a tour by India in 2018. They are then expected to hold another bidding process in the new year and allocate matches up until the end of 2022 before the end of April. The aim is that, by providing clarity to the grounds of what they can expect to earn over a longer period, they will be able to plan, attract sponsors and agree borrowing schedules with far greater ease.While the ECB has taken some of the risk out of the process – the days when games were allocated to the highest bidder are gone and there is now something approaching a profit-share arrangement – the fact remains that, despite the amount of international cricket, there are not enough attractive major matches to share around. It is also anticipated that the ECB will require lower ticket prices in the future, which should result in a smaller outlay for counties involved in the bidding process.

ECB Business of Cricket Awards 2014 winners

• County Marketing Award: Warwickshire

• Major Match Marketing Award: Warwickshire

• County Match Customer Experience Award: Nottinghamshire

• Major Match Customer Experience Award: MCC

• Business Change Award: Surrey

• Facilities Award: Lancashire

• Community Engagement Award: Warwickshire

• Innovation Award: MCC

• County Recognition Award: Worcestershire

So there will be winners and losers. The battle to host Ashes Tests appears especially fierce, with Lord’s, The Oval and Headingley all possessing hosting agreements that effectively guarantee them a Test each. That leaves traditional venues such as Trent Bridge, Old Trafford and Edgbaston battling Cardiff, Southampton and Chester-le-Street for the remaining two. Bristol and Taunton can be added to that list when it comes to considering ODI venues, while Trent Bridge is also expected to bid for a package with more focus on limited-overs cricket.It may prove relevant that Warwickshire scooped three of the nine prizes at the Business of Cricket Awards. Most pertinently, they won the Community Engagement Award. For when they gained an unfavourable allocation previously (they were allocated neither an Ashes Test in 2013 nor an India Test in 2014), they were informed that one of the reasons was due to their lack of community engagement.It could also be relevant that Lancashire won the Facilities Award and MCC won both the Major Match Customer Experience Award and the Innovation Award. Nottinghamshire, for so long the leader of the pack in many ways, won the County Match Customer Experience Award which, while prestigious, does not directly relate to major matches. The newer international venues went unrewarded while Worcestershire won the County Recognition Award for sterling work in redeveloping their ground and expanding their business model despite trying circumstances.There may be a wider significance to the allocation process. The result will go a long way to dictating the moods of several counties over the next few years and may define the future of Giles Clarke as ECB chairman. As things stand, Clarke has yet to confirm whether he will stand for re-election in March and has some work to do to appease counties concerned about the lack of cricket on free-to-air television, the ongoing failure to maximise the benefits of T20 cricket and falling participation numbers among other issues.Colin Graves, the current deputy chairman, has yet to make it clear whether he will stand as an alternative choice, but a major match allocation that leaves counties dissatisfied will leave fertile grounds for change.

ScorecardFile photo – Mohammad Kaif made his 19th first-class hundred•Sivaraman Kitta

Mohammad Kaif made his 19th first-class century to give Andhra a 159-run first-innings lead over Tripura in Ongole. The hosts began the day on 97 for 4 in pursuit of Tripura’s 151 and Kaif and Ricky Bhui stretched their fifth-wicket partnership to 194. Manisankar Murasingh broke the stand in the 85th over, removing India Under-19 batsman Bhui for 87, his maiden first-class fifty. The seamer had Kaif dismissed leg-before in his next over as Andhra collapsed, losing their last six wickets for 48 to be bowled out for 301. However, Kaif’s 109 off 240 had already taken the hosts into a strong position. Kaif hit 16 fours and a six in his innings. Murasingh finished with 5 for 70 while Rana Dutta picked up three wickets. The Andhra opening bowlers DP Vijaykumar and Siva Kumar rocked Tripura, reducing them to 13 for 3 in 9.1 overs in the second innings.
ScorecardFifties from Dheeraj Jadhav and Tarjinder Singh took Assam to 393 in their first innings against Hyderabad. Jadhav and Tarjinder put on 109 for the fifth wicket and pushed the score past 300 before the latter fell in the 124th over. While Tarjinder made his 66 in 129 balls, Jadhav crawled to 74 off 259, and was ninth man out in the 155th over, stumped off legspinner Akash Bhandari. Syed Mohammad contributed 31 at No. 7 but there was little from the tail. Bhandari finished with three wickets, after which the hosts’ openers plodded to 35 in 19 overs.
ScorecardOnly about a third of the day’s play was possible in Delhi, during which Goa collapsed to 304 all out from 267 for 5. Services seamer Suraj Yadav took three of those five wickets. He started by having Darshan Misal caught behind for 76 after Goa resumed on 253 for 5 and ended the innings by dismissing Saurabh Bandekar for 84. Deepak Punia took care of the tail to finish with 3 for 62 while Suraj had 4 for 92. Gauresh Gawas hit back to remove the Services openers cheaply as the hosts ended on 28 for 2 in ten overs.
ScorecardNo play was possible due to rain on the second day in Dharamsala between Himachal Pradesh and Jharkhand.

Darren Berry is stepping aside from his role as coach of South Australia for family reasons, with no time-frame put on his return to the position.Assistant coach Jeff Vaughan will act as the state’s caretaker coach while Berry is on personal leave. The South Australian Cricket Association said in a statement on Wednesday that Berry had asked for privacy in relation to the reasons for his leave.”Darren has asked SACA for an extended period of personal leave and we have respected his wishes to do so,” Tim Nielsen, the SACA general manager of high performance, said. “There has been no time limit put on Darren’s leave and the SACA will give him as much time as he needs.”I would like to stress that Darren remains the coach of the Redbacks and Jeff Vaughan will step into the role in a caretaker position.”We have fantastic support staff in our high performance department and have every confidence in our coaching team and our senior players to lead the team through the second half of the Sheffield Shield season.”The Sheffield Shield season resumes in a week and a half, with South Australia sitting in second-last position with one win from five games. They begin the back end of the campaign with a match against Western Australia in Perth, starting on February 7.

ScorecardFile Photo – Peter Nevill brought up his sixth first-class ton from 248 deliveries•Getty Images

Peter Nevill and Gurinder Sandhu starred with the bat to help New South Wales to 345 in their first innings. Nevill made 112 from 248 deliveries and shared a 116-run eighth wicket stand with the No. 9 Sandhu, who made 77 from 90, striking five fours and three sixes.Western Australia’s 19-year old seamer David Moody picked up four wickets for 60 runs getting four of NSW’s top six batsmen.Sandhu then broke Western Australia’s opening stand of 21 when he had Cameron Bancroft caught behind for 13, and Marcus Harris (46) and Micheal Klinger (38) were both run out by Kurtis Patterson soon after sharing 79-run, second-wicket stand.Spinners Nathan Lyon and Steven O’Keefe removed Shaun Marsh and Nathan Rimmington within a space of four deliveries to leave the visitors at 5 for 150. Captain Adam Voges and wicketkeeper Sam Whiteman were unbeaten on 35 and 2 respectively when stumps were drawn on the second day.

James Taylor was denied a maiden international century by an umpiring error as Australia opened their World Cup campaign with a crushing defeat of England.”Following Australia’s 111-run win over England in the Group A ICC Cricket World Cup clash at Melbourne Cricket Ground on Saturday night, the Playing Control Team (PCT) met and reviewed the final ball of the game which resulted in James Anderson being given run out,” an ICC statement said.”Article 3.6a of Appendix 6 of the Decision Review System Playing Conditions states that the ball should have been deemed dead when the batsman (James Taylor) was given out LBW. No further runs or dismissals were possible.”The PCT spoke to the England team management and acknowledges that the game ended incorrectly and that an error was made.”The confusion arose when Taylor was given out by umpire Aleem Dar following a leg before appeal from Josh Hazlewood. However, Taylor called for a review which suggested the ball was passing down the leg side. Dar’s original decision was therefore overturned. But as England attempted a single from the same delivery, Glenn Maxwell hit the stumps before Anderson could make his ground. After some confusion and a number of replays, the square leg umpire, Kumar Dharmasena gave Anderson out.But the playing conditions suggest the ball should have been declared dead at the time and Anderson should have been reprieved. While the decision had no bearing on the result – Australia were in a position of overwhelming dominance – it did deny Taylor the chance to register a century on World Cup debut.Aaron Finch, the Australian opener who was awarded the Man-of-the-Match award for his century, admitted the players had “no idea” what the playing conditions were.”We had no idea what was going on,” he said. “We appealed for an lbw, we appealed for a run out. We would have taken anything at the time.”I honestly still don’t know the rule. Maybe it was a dead ball, but I still haven’t seen a rule.”

ScorecardDavid Willey swung the match Northamptonshire’s way with a triple-wicket maiden•Getty Images

Three wickets in four balls from David Willey helped Northamptonshire set up a healthy lead over Gloucestershire after day two at Wantage Road. Northants, with eight second innings wickets remaining, are 105 in front.The visitors lost their last four wickets for no runs to finish on 296 all out but that seemed scarcely possible, when Geraint Jones’ team moved serenely if cautiously through the morning. Having resumed on 18 for no wicket, Chris Dent and Will Tavaré had little cause for alarm as both looked comfortable on a pitch which was expected to be best for batting on the second day.Northamptonshire’s bowlers were largely ineffective early on but Azharullah was more probing in beating the bat. It was the 31-year-old Pakistani who induced Dent to edge behind to Rossington for 40 to end an opening partnership of 85. Four overs later, he trapped Tavaré lbw for 34, but at 112 for 2 at lunch, Gloucestershire would have been the happier.Runs flowed after the interval, but Northants were more threatening with the ball in a closely fought afternoon. When Azharullah yorked Gareth Roderick for an impressive 56, Alex Wakely’s team looked set for a healthy first innings lead with Gloucestershire 185 for 5. But Jones in his first game as Gloucestershire captain counter-attacked first with support from Kieran Noema-Barnett and then from James Fuller. Spectators may have been reminded of his exploits for England 10 years ago in their famous Ashes win over Australia as several punches through the covers contributed to a valuable half-century.Jones and Fuller added 82 for the seventh wicket before Willey intervened via his second over with the second new ball.First Fuller was caught in front of the crease, lbw. Two balls later, Miles chipped to short midwicket without scoring, only to watch Liam Norwell’s off stump clipped on the very next ball. While Taylor survived the hat-trick ball, Jones was castled by Rory Kleinveldt for 80 in the next over, meaning that Gloucestershire were all out for 296. Four wickets having fallen for no runs in six balls.Despite Miles removing Levi and Peters inside five balls, Northamptonshire lead by 101 with eight wickets intact and they can thank Willey for his remarkable over that has put them in front at the halfway stage.”To be honest, it didn’t swing with the old ball,” Willey said. “I thought it might swing and pitched it up. I knew we were always going to be in the game with the way that Jones and Fuller batted, both going for their shots. I was lucky to hit the right area at the right time.”The first hour tomorrow is going to be massive. If we can get through that, we will be a in a really strong position.”Meanwhile, Jones was full of praise for the Northants allrounder, who took a hat-trick to clinch Northants’ famous T20 Final win over Surrey. “Although we’re disappointed to lose four wickets at the end in quick succession, make no mistake – Willey’s bowling at the death was top-class,” he said. “There’s still something in the pitch and if we can get some early wickets tomorrow morning, we’ve got a chance to still win this. I was pleased by my own batting performance.”

USA opening batsman Fahad Babar was named Best Batsman and Tournament MVP as USA collected all of the hardware handed out to individual players at the ICC Americas Division One T20 post-tournament awards presentation in Indianapolis.Babar, 23, was the tournament’s leading scorer with 242 runs in six games at an average of 121. The only two times he was dismissed were against Canada, for 31 and 33, and he made a high score of 78 not out leading USA to a tense five-wicket win on the first day of the tournament chasing Bermuda’s 123.”I think the key to my success was the team,” Babar said. “The management, the staff, the captain, the coach, they have faith in me. They always give me confidence and all the guys were supporting me throughout, which was nice to see. That really helped me and really motivated me.”Legspinner Timil Patel received the tournament’s Best Bowler award after finishing with 15 wickets at an average of 7.66, both the best marks for any bowler in the tournament. His best haul came in Friday’s win over Suriname with 4 for 13. Most batsmen had trouble picking him as evidenced by four of his dismissals effected through stumpings.Steven Taylor rounded off the honors list after being named the Best Wicketkeeper at the tournament. Taylor finished third overall in runs with 167 at an average of 27.83. His best score was 60 off 39 balls against Bermuda on Thursday. Behind the stumps, Taylor took two catches and completed three stumpings.Canada’s Hamza Tariq actually had the most total dismissals of any keeper with three catches and four stumpings for the undefeated tournament champions. However, he managed just 44 runs at 11.00 with the bat. Taylor was rewarded for both his batting and glovework while playing for the 4-2 runner-up squad.

The County Championship looks set to be curtailed so that more emphasis can be placed on the limited-overs game with the ECB having agreed in principle to cut the number of games played by each team a season.Emphasis will be placed instead on the financial potential of Twenty20 cricket and the desire to promote the 50-over game ahead of England’s staging of the 2019 World Cup.In a bid to ease fixture congestion and improve the value of the domestic T20 tournament, in particular, the ECB is attempting to devise a schedule where counties play just 12 Championship matches per season. At present they play 16.The last time such a move was proposed – as part of David Morgan’s report in 2011-12 – a backlash from county members prompted a last-minute rethink. But this time there appears to be something close to a consensus within the counties and no intention of further consultation with county members or other spectators.Key to the changes is an attempt to maximise revenues from T20 cricket. While the 2015 season is likely to see record attendances for the NatWest Blast competition – for the first time, over one million tickets could be sold – the ECB still believes further progress is possible and necessary.The exact shape of a future T20 competition remains unclear, with discussions ongoing, but it currently appears likely that attempts to introduce franchise cricket will be resisted and that the tournament will be played in two leagues, with a system of promotion and relegation as yet open to debate.Such a solution would see the top league gain nearly all the TV coverage and the salary cap might be relaxed for the competition to allow the recruitment of more big-name overseas players. It is also likely to be played in an eight to 10 week window in the school holidays.The availability of England players for at least a sizeable portion of the tournament remains under debate.The ECB also hopes to change the schedule for 50-over cricket. With a view to the next Champions Trophy and World Cup – both scheduled to be played in England in relatively early season, in 2017 and 2019 respectively – the aim is to play more 50-over cricket in the first couple of months of the season (the competition currently starts on July 25) and make room for a showpiece Lord’s final in July or August.But it is the changes to the County Championship that will prove most controversial. While the Professional Cricketers’ Association favours a conference system to arrive at a 12-game season, others favour one division of 10 (with teams not necessarily playing each other twice) and another of eight.There are also suggestions of adding three teams to create a 21-team, three-division tournament. An additional three teams could be drawn either from the Associate nations or the leading minor counties, with the chairman, Colin Graves, eager at least to explore the end of the 18-team closed shop. It is understood, however, that Cricket Scotland have yet to be approached about such a possibility and may be reluctant to compromise their international status and the prospect of playing Test cricket.While many of these alterations have been mooted for years, this time the ECB is determined to drive them through. Change appears inevitable and the County Championship looks certain to bear the brunt.

Kent have signed New Zealand opening batsman Tom Latham for the 2016 English season and he will be available for all formats.Latham, 23, is Kent’s second significant recent signing after they brought Kagiso Rabada to the club for a month in mid-season.

New Zealand internationals in county cricket

Matt Henry and Mitchell Santner (Worcestershire), Brendon McCullum and Mitchell McClenaghan, Hamish Rutherford (Derbyshire), Jesse Ryder, Adam Milne (Essex), Ross Taylor (Sussex), Neil Wagner (Lancashire), Kane Williamson (Yorkshire), Tom Latham (Kent)

Latham currently averages close to 40 in Test cricket with three centuries and also provides an extra wicketkeeping option should the need arise. In first-class cricket he has a career-best of 261.”I’m delighted to have joined Kent for the season. Playing county cricket has always been a goal of mine,” he said. “I’ve heard great things about the playing group and coaching staff, so I can’t wait to get started and help the boys push for some silverware.”Kent’s head coach Jimmy Adams said: “We’re delighted to have Tom playing with us this season. He brings valuable experience gained from playing at the international level across all formats.”We are confident that he will play a big role as the club pushes for County Championship promotion and white-ball success.”

ScorecardFile photo: Cameron Bancroft stroked his sixth first-class hundred•Getty Images

Opener Cameron Bancroft scored his sixth first-class century to give Western Australia a 195-run first-innings lead in Perth. New South Wales, however, hit back, courtesy an unbroken 86-run partnership between Daniel Hughes and Kurtis Patterson. The steady stand had come after Nick Larkin was dismissed by Joel Paris for 11.The hosts remained in control for most of the day, Bancroft leading the way and pushing for an Australia berth with 144 off 340 balls, spanning 444 minutes. He was assisted by Ashton Turner and Hilton Cartwright who stroked fifties each. Western Australia eventually declared at 8 for 511 in 136 overs.New South Wales were crippled by left-arm spinner Steve O’Keefe’s finger injury, which he had sustained while batting. Gurinder Sandhu ditched his medium-pace for offspin, something he had done during the A tour to India last year, and removed Sam Whiteman and Ashton Agar in successive balls. Sandhu finished with figures of 3 for 110, one of the three bowlers to concede more than 100 runs.Hughes and Curtis then combined well in New South Wales’ second innings to trim the deficit to 88 runs.