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Runs would be doubled in a designated “super-over” and spectators allowed to take home balls hit into the crowd under proposed rules for Australia’s new Big Bash League next summer.Cricket fans have been asked to comment on a range of possible tweaks to the rules governing Twenty20, many of which are designed to boost scoring rates in the eight-team competition, which is expected to kick off in December.Mike McKenna, Cricket Australia’s head of marketing and the BBL project owner, has made no secret of his desire to spice up the T20 tournament, which will feature city-based sides such as the Brisbane Heat, and two each in Melbourne and Sydney. One of the most unusual suggestions is for each team to be given one super-over, which would likely be nominated by the batting side before the start of the over.Cricket Australia’s survey states the idea, in which the runs from that over alone would be doubled, was intended “to provide both teams an opportunity to get back into the game”. The cricket statistician Ric Finlay, who runs the Tastats website, said introducing such a rule would cause some distortion in the record-books, but it was likely the games could still be designated official Twenty20 matches.”It is true to say that other interventions have distorted outcomes, including fielding restrictions and powerplays and penalties for no balls,” Finlay told , “but this innovation seems on the face of it to be departing more radically from what we know as traditional cricket than anything else that has gone on before. The factor that may allow these matches to be included in records of all T20 matches is the generally-accepted status of all T20 cricket to be a gimmicky form of the game where almost anything goes.”The advantages for the batsmen might not end there. “Based on increasing scoring and making the game more exciting”, as the survey says, the 12th man could be allowed to enter the batting order as a kind of pinch hitter, in a similar setup to the super-sub rule that was used in one-day internationals several years ago.There is also a proposal to allow only one fielder outside the circle in the first five overs of an innings, leaving bowlers little room for error. Two men could be used outside the circle from overs 6 to 10, three fielders from overs 11 to 15, and four men during the final five overs of an innings.And if those ideas don’t create enough of a challenge for bowlers, they may also need to get used to several changed balls throughout an innings. A baseball-style rule is being considered whereby fans would be able to keep a ball that clears the fence, meaning that with many sixes – and the Big Bash record is 14 in an innings – a new ball would be given to the bowler.However, it’s not all bad news for bowlers – allowing two bouncers per over is also a possibility, to allow bowlers a little extra room to attack. The Big Bash League is slowly taking shape, but several key steps remain to be resolved, including the recruitment of players to the eight sides and the part private ownership of two of the Melbourne and Sydney teams.To take the survey and comment on the proposed rules, click here.

Match facts

Wednesday, April 13
Start time 2000 (1430 GMT)Can Pune’s captain carry on the good start?•AFP

Big picture

Yuvraj Singh and Mahela Jayawardene, the captains of the two new IPL franchises, were satisfied with their sides’ performances in their opening games; Yuvraj with the demolition of his erstwhile team Kings XI Punjab and Jayawardene with the better-than-expected show against Royal Challengers Bangalore. Yuvraj looked pleased at the helm of an IPL side, something that hasn’t happened a lot in the previous three seasons.Pune’s fast bowlers used the bounce and zip in the DY Patil Stadium wicket so effectively against Punjab that their spinners, specialist and part-time, bowled only six overs in all. Alfonso Thomas, Wayne Parnell and Shrikant Wagh were unplayable at times, which will make the Kochi pace attack of RP Singh, Sreesanth and Vinay Kumar potentially tougher to handle.Till AB de Villiers’ assault on Raiphi Gomez in the 18th over, Kochi had a chance against Bangalore, but Jayawardene’s decision to hand the ball to Gomez turned the game. Kochi will go in to this game knowing that their batting has at least been tested against a quality Bangalore attack, and come good, while Pune’s bowlers did not leave much of a job for their batsmen to do.Both sides would also have looked at the way Punjab’s batsmen perished on the DY Patil wicket, continuing to play forcing strokes from the crease despite the steep bounce.

Team talk

Given the pace-friendly nature of the track, both sides might want to take a look at the composition of their attacks, having played two specialist spinners in their opening matches. Pune have the option of playing West Indies fast bowler Jerome Taylor but coach Geoff Marsh hinted that they could go in with the same XI that beat Punjab. Kochi might want to push Parthiv Patel up the batting order where he proved to be successful for Chennai Super Kings.
Predict the playing XIs for this match. Play ESPNcricinfo Team selector.

In the spotlight

The experienced Alfonso Thomas was instrumental in pegging Punjab back upfront with pacy deliveries, taking two of the first three wickets, including that of Adam Gichrist with a bouncer. How will he fare against the strong Kochi top order?Sreesanth has found support from Jayawardene, who has said that the fast bowler needs to keep up his aggression as it helps him to perform. He was expensive against Bangalore, but will like the help that the DY Patil pitch offers. Will he be able to channel the hostility in to getting wickets?

Prime numbers

• Yuvraj Singh is the only bowler to take two hat-tricks in the IPL
• After his unbeaten 158 off 73 deliveries in the first game of the IPL in 2008, Brendon McCullum averages 24 in 22 IPL games at an underwhelming strike-rate of 118.50
  

  The chatter

  “When he wants to bowl a yorker, he can nail that yorker. Similarly, whatever he wants to do he can do. He’s got skills with the ball like you talk about Zaheer Khan.”

Ricky Ponting arrived in India in early February, confident that his team could win a fourth consecutive World Cup. Less than a week ago, Australia remained the only undefeated team in the tournament, and his hopes remained high. He will fly home a bitterly disappointed man, after Australia were knocked out in the quarter-finals by India in Ahmedabad.”I’m devastated,” Ponting said after the five-wicket defeat. “We came here with high expectations; we had a well organised group that had come off a good series of one-day cricket against England. We found it difficult at times getting a bit of momentum and continuity with the way our programme was set out, but that was no excuse.”We had plenty of time to train and we got to a stage where we thought we could win a game today [Thursday]. We weren’t far off, but just little critical moments are what cost us the game. We didn’t have enough high-quality partnerships and not enough pressure with the ball. It only takes a couple of those little moments for things to change.”Ponting certainly did his part with a captain’s hundred, but wickets kept falling throughout the Australian innings. There were only two half-century stands in the innings, between Ponting and Brad Haddin and later Ponting and David Hussey, and the visitors never quite got on top of the Indian attack. R Ashwin opened the bowling and immediately found some sharp spin, and the Australians knew they were in for a tough day.Ricky Ponting was “devastated” his team had failed to live up to his high expectations at the World Cup•AFP

“I thought we were 15 or 20 runs short with the bat,” Ponting said. “After we saw the first over Ashwin bowled and how much it spun, we said to ourselves than 250 or 260 looked like it would be a good total out there. As it turned out, we got that, but we probably could have got more. We couldn’t get a partnership going, we’d lose a wicket at a really bad time; we probably were one or two wickets too many down to be able to accelerate when we wanted to at about the 35-over mark.”They played well as a team today. You’ve just got to look through their batting card. [Gautam] Gambhir, [Sachin] Tendulkar, Yuvraj [Singh] all got fifties, and got them at a reasonable rate. Their bowling was steady. Zaheer [Khan] was good again today, especially right at the end of the innings in the Powerplay overs. I thought we played their spin pretty well today. It was a good combined effort by the Indian team and I think they’re going to be pretty hard to beat as this tournament wears on.”India head to Mohali to take on Pakistan in a semi-final, a match that Ponting believes the hosts will win, while the Australians will fly home. They will spend some time with their families before returning to the subcontinent in early April for their three-match one-day series against Bangladesh.

The mystery about India’s missing World Cup tickets is solved: most of the tickets are still lying with the host associations who have spent the months in the run-up to the World Cup trying to perfect their balancing act due to their varied means of ticket distribution.Of eight Indian venues, the first few games have finally been put out for sale but elsewhere, there is a lack of order. Chennai, venue for the first of the Cup matches in India, New Zealand v Kenya on Sunday, began selling tickets early while Motera began selling tickets for Monday’s Australia v Zimbabwe game on February 15. Officials in Delhi said tickets for the South Africa v West Indies game on Thursday would go up for sale “in a day or two.”Mumbai’s first match, Canada v New Zealand, will be held on March 13, with Mumbai Cricket Association’s honorary secretary Lalchand Rajput saying that public sale of tickets would begin a week before the game.In Kolkata, the focus at the moment is on accepting the fact that the India v England match has actually been shifted out of the Eden Gardens. Ticket distribution is now focussed on handing out the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB)’s large share of their quota tickets amongst members and affiliate clubs, a practice which is also common in Mumbai. “There is no panic now,” said an official in Kolkata, “because there aren’t going to be fist-fights at the counter.” And Punjab Cricket Association said tickets for matches in Mohali would go on sale from February 21, “including for the semi-final.”Vindarbha Cricket Assocation officials said that the only match of significance that will be held in Nagpur is India v South Africa, and the ticket counters will open on March 5. “There is hardly any takers for the first match between England and Netherlands on February 22 except probably for the Barmy Army,” a VCA official said. According to him the contest between Australia and New Zealand has found more attention.This lopsidedness in ticket sales had been caused, an ICC event organiser said, “because the World Cup has been treated like a bilateral series with the local associations controlling everything.” He said there was “no single central leadership” or organisation in the World Cup ticketing. “It is why there are so many complaints about tickets not being distributed, not enough information given about when they are up for sale or where.”The ICC’s own quota for tickets per match is specific: it receives 1270 free tickets of which 1000 are given to sponsors, with the remaining 270 divided between the two teams (125 each) and match officials. The ICC said it could then also avail of an additional 250 hospitality seats but pay for its own catering and then had access to 2450 tickets that it could purchase for distribution amongst sponsors (2000) and member boards (450). The ICC’s maximum quota per match equalls just under 4000 tickets.A certain percentage of tickets have also gone on sale online at the Kyazoonga website. The website had access to tickets that ranged from the minimum of five percent of ground capacity to 50 percent of ground capacity, as in Bangalore. The ‘ground capacity’ also includes all the quotas by the state associations and not just those up for public sale.Of these, tickets booked online for games in Delhi, Mohali and Mumbai have not yet been received by the website, which has therefore been unable to ship them out. A Kyazoonga spokesperson said they are now waiting for a green signal from the ICC to put the tickets for the knock out round for sale online.The demands for tickets, Kyazoonga says, has centred around India’s three main matches – versus England, South Africa and the West Indies – and the knock-out matches. The rest of the ticket sales have been poor with Gujarat Cricket Association treasurer Dhiraj Jogani saying that only 2000-3000 tickets had been sold for its first two group matches – Australia v Zimbabwe and New Zealand v Zimbabwe.”We are optimistic that on match day morning, people will buy tickets at the gate and walk in because that’s what usually happens in Motera,” he said. For the first two games, he said there would be as many as 25,000 tickets sold in the cheaper denominations between Rs 100, Rs 150 and Rs 800.In complete contrast to the lack of order of India’s World Cup ticketing, is the Bangladesh example. Tickets for every single game in Bangladesh, which were available online, are already sold out.

ScorecardLaura Marsh, the Player of the Match, top scored for England with 45•Getty Images

Lydia Greenway continued her impressive tour by leading England to the brink of a victory that set up a record-breaking Twenty20 series win over Australia in Canberra. Greenway, who was a crucial figure in the first two successes, was dismissed for 23 in a frenetic last over that ended in a four-wicket win for the tourists with a ball to spare.England now lead the five-game contest 3-0 – it’s their first limited-overs series triumph in Australia – and the final two matches will be played over the next two days. The visitors’ reply started extremely well when Charlotte Edwards, the captain, and Laura Marsh put on 71 in the first 10 overs before Edwards went for 36. Marsh, the Player of the Match, was third out for 45 off 44 balls and England were a wobbly 4 for 114 when Suzie Rowe became Sarah Coyte’s second wicket.Greenway and Jenny Gunn rescued the situation with a stand of 29 in 3.1 overs and had cut the assignment to five from six balls before an action-packed conclusion. Rene Farrell started the final over with a wide that cost two, but picked up Greenway when she hit to midwicket, and Heather Knight was run-out from the next delivery. Three singles took England to victory, with Gunn walking off unbeaten on 10.The opener Meg Lanning provided Australia with a swift start as she raced to 34 off 22 balls, including a six and four fours, while her partner Shelley Nitschke registered 22. Leah Poulton (25), Alex Blackwell (29) and Jess Cameron (15) all made quick contributions before each fell to Isa Guha, who collected 3 for 24 off four overs.”I’m absolutely over the moon to win today and to win our first limited-over series in Australia is very special,” Edwards said. “We upped our game on a very good pitch and again batted exceptionally well. I’m very proud of the whole squad. Everyone has contributed throughout the last three games and thoroughly deserve this series victory.”Coyte said the confidence in Australia’s squad was still “good” despite the defeats. “There have been some key moments in the last few matches that we haven’t been winning and we need to change that,” she said. “But we now have two more games to turn things around ahead of the Ashes Test.”

Cameron White believes he is ideally suited to the Australia Twenty20 captaincy as he prepares to lead his country for the first time against England, in Adelaide, on Wednesday. White has taken over from Michael Clarke who announced his retirement from Twenty20 cricket after the fifth Ashes Test in a bid to improve his Test and one-day form.White has an impressive Twenty20 record as a player and averages 36.64 from 23 matches with a strike-rate of 144.50. In all Twenty20 cricket, which includes playing for Somerset and Royal Challengers Bangalore, he has managed two hundreds with a best of 141. Now, though, it is about more than just the runs he scores but how he leads his team and White has no doubt he’s capable of meeting the challenge.”I think I have a really good understanding of how Twenty20 cricket works on the field for a start; tactically I hope I’m as good as there is, and I guess that is what the selectors have seen,” he said. “I hope I’m successful as a captain but I can’t control where that takes me.”For the time being, White doesn’t have any designs on making a push for further captaincy honours in Australian cricket. There is extensive debate about the future of Ricky Ponting and whether Clarke, who has been earmarked for the Test and one-day captaincy for much of his career, is the right man to take over.White, though, isn’t near the Test side at the moment and hasn’t been since playing four Tests in India in 2008. “I don’t think that I need to worry about or think about being captain of those other formats because it’s probably not something that is going to happen in the near future,” he said.A tough first assignment awaits White, as he attempts to stop a rampant England side who are brimming with confidence after their Ashes success. The last time the two sides met in a Twenty20 international was in Barbados when England won by seven wickets to secure the World Twenty20 title. England have now strung together seven victories on the bounce and one more will give them a new world record although the team have not been concentrating too hard on the landmark.”It’s been discussed but I don’t think it is something that has always been spoken about,” Michael Yardy, the England left-arm spinner and middle-order batsman said. “Obviously, you want to achieve world records and it is an opportunity to achieve that, but it is not the main focus. It is very much about continuing the tour in a successful mode.”Yardy is one of the new faces to join the tour for the limited-overs matches. He had been playing Twenty20 cricket in New Zealand for Central Districts prior to his international duty and prepared with 3 for 33 against the Prime Minister’s XI in Canberra. And even though the Ashes are finished he can feel the positive after-effects.”The boys are buzzing, obviously. After winning a series like that they are going to be,” he said. “It’s nice to be a part of it. You fit in very well, it’s a good environment to come into. There is a lot of love in the group at the moment and whether that brings results or it’s the results that bring the team closer together I am not too sure. But certainly everyone is happy.”But the tone from the Australian camp, understandably, is very much to move on from what has happened over the last six weeks and start afresh in coloured clothes. There are a number of players, including express quicks Brett Lee and Shaun Tait, in the side who weren’t part of the Tests and White is looking forward rather than back.”Twenty20 and Test cricket couldn’t be further apart. I think there are only three or four guys that have been involved in the Test matches,” he said. “So it’s really a fresh start for this team. Hopefully a change of format will bring a change of luck.”Australia was late to embrace Twenty20 cricket and now is looking towards the shortest format for salvation.

ScorecardQueensland made a steady start in reply to Western Australia’s 331 but rain ruined much of the second day at the Gabba. The Bulls were 1 for 72 with Wade Townsend on 43 and Craig Philipson on 27 when the wet weather arrived and with further showers expected over the next two days, the game could be reduced to a battle for first-innings points.If that is the case, the Warriors will be grateful to David Bandy and Michael Beer for their 53-run ninth-wicket stand, which carried into the second morning. Bandy made 66 before he was caught behind off the bowling of Luke Feldman and Beer remained unbeaten on 24, while Cameron Gannon collected the final wicket.Michael Hogan gave Western Australia a strong start in the field with Ryan Broad caught for a duck in the first over, before Townsend and Philipson steadied. Beer, fresh from his shock call-up into Australia’s Test squad, bowled two tidy overs for two runs before the rain came.

Group A

Abhinav Mukund tormented Saurashtra with a double-century•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Laxmi Shukla marked his 100th first-class game with a maiden double-century that has left Assam staring at an intimidating first-innings score from Bengal at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.The contest had been pretty even at the end of day one when Bengal had finished on 257 for 5. But the game was firmly in Bengal’s control by stumps on the second as they piled up 562 for 6, thanks to a record 417-run stand between overnight batsmen Shukla and Wriddhiman Saha, who is also Bengal’s wicketkeeper. Their stand is the third-highest for the sixth wicket in all first-class cricket and the highest for that wicket in the Ranji Trophy. Shukla’s 250, his fifth 100-plus score in first-class cricket, was laced with 35 fours and three sixes while Saha was more patient in his unbeaten 178 off 355 balls, striking 15 fours and three sixes. In reply, Assam had reached 10 without loss but have a mammoth task ahead of them.Mumbai bounced back into a favourable position against Railways at the Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai, and now can even fancy their first outright win of the season. In the absence of any centurion for the first time in three matches, the defending champions could manage only a slender 18-run first-innings lead. The man responsible for their quick downfall was seamer Anureet Singh, who picked up his second five-for of his three-season old Ranji career. But by stumps Mumbai had retained the control as Railways lost three wickets. Offspinner Ramesh Powar tested Railways’ patience and temperament, picking two wickets, including set opener Marripuri Suresh for 28.In the morning the overnight pair of Ajinkya Rahane and Sahil Kukreja started comfortably and looked set to raise a big partnership. But an erroneous decision to go for the pull against Anureet by Kukreja resulted in an easy catch. The very next ball, Rahane saw his off stump disturbed, defeated by a combination of movement and pace. Kukreja’s 50 was the highest score for Mumbai, and his partnership with Rahane was the best pairing (67 runs). Mumbai’s strong middle order floundered and the last four wickets fell without any addition to the score.But on a pitch that has enough for both the seamers and the spinners, Mumbai hold the edge.Shikhar Dhawan, the left-handed opener, consolidated Delhi‘s dominant position against Gujarat at the Feroz Shah Kotla with an unbeaten century which gave his team a 177-run lead with seven wickets in hand at the end of the second day. Delhi’s bowlers had done their bit on day one, skittling out Gujarat for 71, and the batsmen took over on the second. Dhawan added 99 with opening partner Unmukt Chand before Gujarat hit back, grabbing three wickets for 25. But their hopes of limiting Delhi’s lead were thwarted by an unbeaten fourth-wicket stand between Dhawan, who scored his tenth first-class ton, and Yogesh Nagar that has yielded 124 and put Delhi on track to achieve their first win of the competition this year.

Form Guide

Tracking ESPNcricinfo’s players to watch this season
Piyush Chawla: Went wicketless in 19 overs against Baroda who gained a 119-run first innings lead
Ravindra Jadeja: Bowled 35 overs for 99 runs and no wickets against Tamil Nadu
Virat Kohli: Fell cheaply against Gujarat, making just 6 in the first innings
Abhinav Mukund: Smacked a double-century against Saurashtra, batting through the first two days
Ajinkya Rahane: Made 43 for Mumbai against Railways, helping his team gain a slender first-innings lead
Rohit Sharma: Made just 1 in Mumbai’s reply against Railways

Saurashtra had to bear a wicketless second day against Tamil Nadu at the Khandheri Cricket Stadium in Rajkot as opener Abhinav Mukund and S Badrinath piled it on. The progress was steady as Tamil Nadu got themselves into a virtually impregnable position. Mukund smacked 25 fours and a six in his unbeaten 217, his tenth first-class score of a hundred or more, while Badrinath, the more attacking of the two, moved to 142 off 219, his 24th century in the format. The pair have added 280 – TN ended the day on 483 for 2 – and will look to bat Saurashtra out of the game and strengthen their position in the group standings where they are currently second.

Group B

Ambati Rayudu’s 91 off 130 balls gave Baroda a 119-run first innings lead against Uttar Pradesh in Vadodara. Yusuf Pathan and Munaf Patel had done the job for Baroda on day one, bowling UP out for 190, and on Thursday it was Rayudu’s turn as he took the table-toppers from a precarious position at 113 for 4 to a substantial first-innings total.Rayudu has made his name as an aggressive batsman in Twenty20 cricket, after making the transition from the Indian Cricket League (ICL) to the Mumbai Indians, and is now Baroda’s leading run-getter this season. He was well supported in a 147-run stand by Kedar Devdhar, who played the sheet anchor role, taking 212 balls to get to 66.UP fast bowler Sudeep Tyagi was not afraid to use the short ball early on and got the crucial wicket of Yusuf Pathan in his 2 for 80. Rayudu’s knock should have ended on 80, when Tanmay Srivastava appeared to have held a low catch at leg gully off RP Singh, but the third umpire decided there wasn’t enough evidence to declare the catch clean. Singh got his man 11 runs later, though, and then Bhuvneshwar Kumar took three of the last five wickets, which Baroda lost for 49 runs, to finish with figures of 4 for 51. UP ended the day at 25 for 0, as openers Srivastava and Digvijay Singh batted out ten overs.Haryana surprised Karnataka at the Bansi Lal Cricket Stadium in Rohtak and put themselves in a position of control at the end of the second day. Karnataka would have hoped to compile a challenging first-innings score with two of their star batsmen, Robin Uthappa and Manish Pandey, at the crease at the start of the day. But the batting failed to measure up against Haryana’s new-ball bowlers Joginder Sharma and Sanjay Budhwar who split five wickets each.Once the overnight batsmen had been dismissed after getting starts, the main resistance to Haryana’s seam-and-swing charge came from captain R Vinay Kumar, who, along with Abhimanyu Mithun, who had showed plenty of determination with the bat when India toured Sri Lanka earlier in the year, helped Karnataka reach 222. In response, half-centuries from Sunny Singh and opener Nitin Saini, who is still unbeaten, pushed Haryana to 146 for 3, leaving them confident of gaining a first-innings lead against last year’s runners-up.A collective batting effort propelled Himachal Pradesh to 473 against Punjab at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharmasala. Though there were no centuries, the lower order batted determinedly to ensure the advantage gained on the first day remained with Himachal. Overnight batsmen Manvinder Bisla and Mukesh Kumar helped themselves to half-centuries and added 100 for the fifth wicket. Both fell in quick succession but Kuldeep Diwan (61) and Rishi Dhawan (41) took on the mantle, putting together 89 and taking their team past 400. Vikramjit Malik and Ashok Thakur, who made for an excellent fast-bowling combination last season, chipped in with 19 and 21 respectively to frustrate Punjab. And if it wasn’t enough, they picked up a wicket each to leave their opponents at 54 for 2 at stumps.

Ricky Ponting will miss Australia’s first one-day international against Sri Lanka in Melbourne on Wednesday after the death of his grandmother in Tasmania. Michael Clarke will captain the side in the first of this week’s three ODIs but Ponting will be available for the second match at the SCG on Friday.”I won’t be playing tomorrow’s game,” Ponting said at the MCG on Tuesday. “My grandmother down in Launceston has passed away on the weekend. The funeral is down in Launceston tomorrow. I’ll be flying out tomorrow morning to attend the funeral and then flying straight back to the ground tomorrow afternoon.”Ponting sat out of Australia’s recent one-dayers in India and has not played an ODI since the series against England finished in July. Last time Clarke captained Australia in a home ODI, he made 98 opening the batting in a loss to New Zealand at the MCG.The Australians have not confirmed a starting line-up for the first ODI after their training session on Tuesday was interrupted by rain. However, the Tasmanian spinner Xavier Doherty is set to make his international debut, a week after taking a five-wicket haul in the Sheffield Shield on the same ground.”There’s no doubt that he’s been probably the best-performed spinner in Australia in the shorter forms of the game for the last few years now,” Ponting said of his state team-mate Doherty. “He’s become a match-winner for Tassie in that period of time. He’s someone that I do know quite well.”He’s a boy from Launceston, the same as me, and it’s great reward for someone like him having put in the hard yards for a long time, to finally get an opportunity to play. With Hauritz being away and having played that Shield game, Hauritz won’t play the game tomorrow, so Doherty will play if the weather is not too inclement for the spinners.”Australia have regained several first-choice players including Mitchell Johnson and Michael Hussey, who sat out of Sunday’s Twenty20 loss at the WACA. The hosts are aiming to turn around their losing streak across all formats, having not won an international match since the Lord’s Test against Pakistan in July.

ScorecardAjinkya Rahane impressed as the match meandered to a draw•AFP

The Australians like to mentally disintegrate the visiting captains, while the Indians – lesser known domestic batsmen, that is – go after visiting spinners. For the third season in a row now, the Board President’s XI batsmen have done the job of softening up the opposition’s spinners ahead of a Test series.Two years ago, when Australia visited India, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Yuvraj Singh took Jason Krejza’s 31 wicketless overs for 199 runs. Last season South Africa’s Paul Harris was unsuccessful as Manish Pandey and Abhishek Nayar hit him for 71 runs in 12 overs. Over the last three days, which have been almost ideal preparation for Australia for the upcoming two-Test series, Nathan Hauritz has emerged as a concern.In the first innings, Piyush Chawla, known more for his legspin, repeatedly danced down the pitch and either pushed him for singles or lofted him over his head. In the second, Ajinkya Rahane, the Mumbai batsman, scored a stroke-filled century in two hours. Hauritz’s figures over the two innings: 24 overs, 93 runs, and one wicket. Steven Smith’s flat legbreaks at the other end extracted even less respect. Chawla hit him for a six in his first over in India, and he went for 55 in his 10 overs.Before Rahane entertained the small crowd at the Sector 16 Stadium, though, the Australians had had another good day of practice. They took the remaining four BP XI wickets for 34 runs, and Shane Watson went onto score a second century in the match, hitting 18 boundaries in his unbeaten 104 off 121 deliveries.Gautam Gambhir, Simon Katich and Marcus North chose to go easy on mild injury scares. Gambhir, who was hit in his right hand by a rising delivery from Ben Hilfenhaus on day 2, chose to stay away from action. Katich, who has a bruised thumb, opted out of batting but came on to field. North, who has a mild back strain, stayed away too.The match was always going to be a draw when the Australians gave BP XI just a session to bat. Rahane’s strokeplay, however, made sure it was an entertaining draw. His hook off Peter George, which went for six, and punches through the covers stood out.While it could be argued that this session was just low-key practice, and not much should be read into it, Hauritz would have desperately wanted to improve on his first-innings effort.