Stokes wants to lock away anger

Ben Stokes has admitted he needs to mature if he is to fulfill his potential after missing the World T20 in Bangladesh when he broke his wrist punching his locker in frustration following his dismissal in the third T20I against West Indies.

While Stokes was a rare glimmer of gold amid the rubble of England's Ashes tour - he hit a century in his second Test in Perth and claimed a six-wicket haul in the first innings in Sydney - he has conceded that the occasional "moment of stupidity" has done him few favours.

Stokes was also sent home from an England Lions tour of Australia in early 2013 due to two "breaches of discipline" and has admitted that he also broke a bone in his hand in similar fashion a few years ago. On that occasion, when he was 15, Stokes lashed out at a fire door.

Stokes' frustration in Barbados was understandable. His first-ball duck meant he had scored just 18 runs in his previous seven international innings and England had already slid to a series defeat against West Indies.

"I was disappointed that things had not gone well personally and it got the better of me," Stokes told ESPNcricinfo. "I'm very passionate about cricket, but unfortunately it came out in a way I regret in Barbados. Looking back, it is a lesson learned. I need to show that passion on the pitch, but I need to keep it there and not bring it off the field.

"It's a matter of handling it a bit more maturely. Punching lockers isn't the way forward for anyone. There's only going to be one winner there.

"I did it when I was a lot younger and I thought I'd moved on from it. I broke a bone then as well. It wasn't a locker; it was a fire door and it was when I playing club cricket."

The England team management did not censure Stokes. Instead they appear to have viewed his self-inflicted absence from the World T20 and a certain amount of public embarrassment as punishment enough. No doubt his relative youth - he is only 22, after all - was taken into account.

"Ashley Giles didn't say much to me on the matter," Stokes said. "He didn't need to.

"He knew that the worst punishment was missing the World Cup. I was really looking forward to it. Nothing he could do could be as bad as anything he could have said. It would have been my first global event.

"The management were obviously disappointed and I let them know that I was disappointed with myself. I spoke to the team before I left and said I was sorry for letting them down."

But Stokes hopes that the ECB will not hold the incident against him. "I hope the ECB look at it as a moment of stupidity and know that I know I made a big mistake," he said. "I hope I don't give them an opportunity not to play me because of my attitude. That is something I make sure I'm on top of. It is a big thing, attitude. That was part of how I was brought up by my old man."

That 'old man' is Ged Stokes, the former New Zealand rugby league player and now a coach, who was as underwhelmed as anyone by his son's flash of temper.

"He wasn't best pleased," Stokes said. "He just called me a wally."

While no firm date has been set for his return, Stokes hopes it should be in mid-May, meaning he should be fit and firing ahead of the Test series against Sri Lanka which starts in mid-June.

He also hopes to feature in Durham's T20 season, which starts on May 16. The competition - the NatWest T20 Blast - has been re-launched this year, with matches to be held, predominantly, on Friday evenings across 12 weeks of the season, allowing spectators to plan their trips to matches.

"I'm really looking forward to being part of it," he said. "Hopefully the regular slot on Friday nights will help us see some big crowds and generate a great atmosphere. It should become more of an event.

"I'm probably a more consistent red ball cricketer than I am white ball at the minute. I haven't got a consistent role with one-day cricket at the moment, particularly with England, so I can't wait to get back on the pitch and be a part of it. I'd love the opportunity to show what I can do and bat higher up the order for Durham and England."

Ben Stokes was speaking ahead of the start of the NatWest T20 Blast season. Blast Off is Friday 16th May, tickets can be purchased from www.ecb.co.uk/natwestt20blast

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Bangladesh board keen on BPL third season

Despite a surfeit of controversies marring the first two seasons of the Bangladesh Premier League, the BCB is looking for a window in the coming season to host the league again. The second edition was held in January-February 2013, after which problems over player payment and a prolonged match-fixing investigation stalled the domestic T20 tournament.

At this stage, the November 2014 to January 2015 slot is being looked at by the BCB. Bangladesh are scheduled to take on Zimbabwe in a Test series in early November, while according to the Future Tours Programme (FTP), Pakistan are supposed to tour Bangladesh in January 2015.

"BCB is willing to stage the BPL," Ismail Haider Mallick, BPL governing council's member secretary, said. "We have selected an approximate date to hold the tournament. We are looking to arrange the tournament between November 2014 and January 2015. However, we of course have to see the international and local cricket's schedule first."

Mallick also said that the tournament's event management company, Game On Sports, have paid Tk 10 crore ($1.3 million) of the 19 crore (approx $2.45 million) it owed to the BPL, albeit in three parts. "Game On Sports has given a cheque worth Tk 10 crore. We already received Tk 2.5 crore (approx $323,000) and we will get another 2.5 crore by April 20 while we will be receiving the remaining Tk 5 crore (approx $645,000) very soon," he said.

Whether this payment would be used to pay the players was left unsaid, but it is one of two major problems in the BPL. Even now, several players have remained unpaid. The last reported claim was on February 28 when Netherlands' Ryan ten Doeschate, West Indies' Kevon Cooper, Zimbabwe's Brendan Taylor and England players Ravi Bopara and Jason Roy said that they were still to get money from the Chittagong Kings.

The other major problem is the BPL corruption investigation and while the tribunal has given its short verdict, the BCB is planning to appeal against their judgment after only one individual among nine accused was found guilty of "being party to an effort to fix" a match in the 2013 BPL. The long verdict is still due, although it was to be announced shortly after the World T20 held in Bangladesh.

Last year, BCB president Nazmul Hassan had said that it would be difficult to hold the BPL without clearing it of the controversies.

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Bangalore's arsenal blazes to victory

Bangalore 146 for 2 (Yuvraj 52*, Kohli 49*) beat Delhi 145 for 4 (Duminy 67*, Taylor 43*) by eight wickets
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

Hattangadi - Delhi lost it in the first six overs

The Yuvraj Singh-Virat Kohli partnership didn't have a happy ending in the World T20 final, but less than two weeks after that night in Mirpur, their association in Sharjah followed a different script. Swapping India's blue for Bangalore's red, the pair made easy work of Delhi's 145, helping Bangalore stroll to a eight-wicket win. Yuvraj was circumspect to begin with but later on brought out his power game to not only outscore Kohli but help Bangalore march to the target with plenty to spare.

The bedrock of the chase was Kohli, who benefited from two let-offs in his 20s to remain unbeaten on 49. The pair added 84 in just 7.5 overs, nullifying the unbeaten 110-run association between Delhi's JP Duminy and Ross Taylor that helped Delhi recover from a wobbly 35 for 4.

Bangalore were never under serious pressure during the chase, especially after opener Parthiv Patel gave the innings a push with a positive 35, in the absence of Chris Gayle to injury. He charged down the track to the seamers, forcing the ball down the ground and pulling a six, off the left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem, out of the ground. After he was bowled in the ninth over, Bangalore were at a comfortable 62 for 2, giving Yuvraj the platform to play himself into form, with the security of Kohli at the other end.

Yuvraj didn't look secure initially, taking his eyes off a short ball and hooking a boundary to fine leg. He found his groove with a flat six over long-on off the legspinner Rahul Sharma and some wayward bowling by Nadeem gave Yuvraj the chance to pepper the leg-side boundaries with his favourite slogs.

Delhi needed wickets but when the chances came their way, they fluffed them. Jimmy Neesham fluffed the simplest of catches at short fine leg when Kohli was on 23, and when the batsman had added one more, he was put down by Mayank Agarwal at deep cover. Against arguably the best chaser in the world, regulation drops will come back to hurt. It was clearly Bangalore's night as Yuvraj and Kohli closed out the chase with more blows over the boundary. Yuvraj managed his first Indian T20 fifty in 20 innings and the smile was back on his face.

Delhi found it tough on a two-paced Sharjah pitch, struggling to get the run rate above five in the first ten overs. The loss of early wickets slowed them down. Agarwal fell top-edging a pull to square leg as the frustration to score began to build, and Delhi were pegged back further when Dinesh Karthik and Manoj Tiwary fell for 0 and 1 respectively.

The strategic timeout didn't change Delhi's fortunes as M Vijay, who had made a start with 18, was bamboozled by the legspinner Yuzvendra Chahal. Vijay was playing for the turn but the ball straightened and shaved the off stump. At 35 for 4 in the eighth over, Delhi desperately needed a big partnership at a good clip to compensate for the sluggish scoring in the first half.

It was a scratchy innings from Taylor as he cursed himself when he played and missed, in an effort to push the scoring. Chahal got it to turn and grip and the googlies were a handful for Taylor. The boundaries had dried up for seven overs before Taylor broke the shackles with a flick to fine leg off Ashok Dinda.

The momentum in the latter half was provided by Duminy, who unlike Taylor found the middle of the bat regularly. He lofted Yuvraj for a six to the sightscreen before scooping Dinda to the same area. Dinda was ineffective at the death yet again as he leaked 51 off his four overs. Delhi took 30 off the last two overs and 63 off the last five but in the end, 145 wasn't enough.

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Trott stands down after relapse

Jonathan Trott is to take an extended break from cricket having suffered a recurrence of the problems that forced him to leave the Ashes tour after the first Test in Brisbane.

Trott left Australia in November with what was described at the time as a "stress related illness" by the ECB. While he hoped that a period of rest ahead of the English domestic season would prove the cure for what he believed to be "burnout," he experienced a recurrence of the symptoms of anxiety and mental exhaustion that plagued him in Australia while representing Warwickshire in recent days. The ECB, who remain Trott's employers as he still holds a central contract, are expected to make a statement on Friday.

No time-frame has been placed upon his return. Indeed, it is quite possible there will be no return, even at county level.

Certainly this decision is highly likely to signal the end of Trott's international career. Not only may Trott be reluctant to put himself back into an environment that causes him such difficulties, but it seems unlikely that the ECB would want to burden him with such pressure or risk the possibility of a recurrence on the eve of a big game.

It may also raise questions about the ECB's handling of the affair. While Trott was full of praise for the compassion shown by Andy Flower, his team-mates and Hugh Morris at the time of his breakdown in Australia, the ECB's support has been less obvious since Trott returned to England.

It is understood that there has been little communication with the ECB and, in particular, the England team management and instead of the support that was promised, Trott has at times cut an isolated and forgotten figure.

Trott has also been stung by criticism in some sections of the media. While dealing with media scrutiny comes with the territory for professional sportsmen, for a man recovering from a stress related illness to have his motives doubted and explanations questioned has not helped the process.

Whether the strong criticism of former England captain, Michael Vaughan, proved particularly damaging to Trott's fragile recovery and was a contributory factor in this decision is hard to say, but the level of scrutiny - inevitable and natural though it is - has proved unbearable. Photographers have been found lurking in his garden and outside his daughter's school since his return from Australia.

The combination of a perceived lack of support and some harsh criticism resulted in Trott feeling on trial every time he has taken the field. He has now concluded he no longer wants to put himself, or his family, through the pain. The relaxed and happy Trott, freed of the concerns of cricket, bears little resemblance to the careworn Trott seen in Australia or around Edgbaston in recent days.

He informed his Warwickshire team-mates of his decision at the end of the Championship game against Sussex on Wednesday. It is understood he thanked them for their support but explained that he did not feel he could serve them if he was unable to concentrate or focus as he had been in the past.

While Trott batted particularly well in the first innings of the match - he top-scored with 37 as Warwickshire were bowled out for 87 - he was less impressive as the game wore on. He was struck twice by short balls from Chris Jordan in the second innings and then fell to a pull stroke off the same bowler. It was an innings that did nothing to refute those who suggest his problems have been born largely out of a struggle to play the short ball.

However, the key moment came when he dropped a catch. Standing at slip to the offspin of Jeetan Patel, Trott put down Ed Joyce on 91. Joyce went on to score an unbeaten 151 and win the game for his team. Trott appears to have blamed himself and his inability to concentrate as he once could. Three other players dropped catches in the same innings, but Trott has always been harder on himself than most. At one time, that self-demanding character drove him to levels of achievement of which most cricketers can only dream. For now, it appears to have become burdensome and destructive.

Aged 32, there is still time for a comeback. But if this is the final chapter, Trott will leave the game with a record of which to take pride. He scored a century in the first of his 49 Tests, against an attack that included Mitchell Johnson, was a part of three Ashes-winning sides and the Test and ODI teams that reached No.1 in the world rankings.

He is the only England player (to have played more than 20 innings) with an ODI average in the 50s - indeed his ODI average is 20% higher than any regular England player in history - and at domestic level he helped Warwickshire win two County Championship titles. He also has the highest T20 average of any England qualified player and, in 2011, he won the ICC Player of the Year award; arguably the highest accolade in cricket.

Stress and anxiety do not discriminate, however, and Trott appears to have decided that the man bent of out shape by cricket is not the man he wants to be. With a young family to consider, he seems to have come to the conclusion that on-field success in no longer worth the sacrifices required.

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Tuskers mauled by Sibanda double ton

Vusi Sibanda's fluid 217, his highest first-class score, set he base for Mid West Rhinos thrashing Matabeleland Tuskers by an innings and 299 runs. Bradley Wadlan's left-arm spin scythed through Tuskers in the second innings picking up 7 for 30 to seal the game in two days.

Rhinos lost the toss but their bowlers ensured no ground was yielded by dismissing the Tuskers openers quickly and then sparking a middle-order collapse. Six wickets fell for 46 runs and Tuskers were polished off for 128. Sean Williams top-scored with 48, while six of his team-mates were dismissed for single-figures.

Sibanda and his captain Brendan Taylor took Rhinos into the lead during a partnership of 204 runs for the second wicket. Sibanda belted 27 fours and five sixes during his 256-ball innings. Taylor's count was 11 fours and three sixes when he fell for 106. The respite gained when in the 47th over when their stand was broken proved temporary as Steven Trenchard struck 120 off 145 balls to push the total beyond 500.

Tuskers provided another sorry display in the second innings. Wadlan ensured a steady bleed of wickets and his double-strike in the 10th over began the downward spiral that lead to Tuskers being all out for 79.

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Carberry ton nudges selectors

Hampshire 422 (Vince 144, Wheater 82) and 215 for 2 (Carberry 100*, Vince 58*) beat Gloucestershire 304 (Tavare 139, Tomlinson 4-68, Abbot 5-67) and 332 (Marshall 94, Gidman 72) by eight wickets
Scorecard

Michael Carberry offered a timely reminder to the England selectors with an unbeaten century to lift Hampshire to their first win of the new Championship Division Two season at Gloucestershire. The 33-year-old opener completed the eight-wicket win by lifting part-timer Chris Dent for back-to-back sixes and reach an even hundred from 131 balls.

Carberry is currently the man in possession of England's opening role alongside captain Alastair Cook, although he faces competition from the likes of Joe Root and Middlesex's Sam Robson ahead of the first Test of the summer. Robson stated his case this week with a 163 in Middlesex's Division One success over Nottinghamshire at Lord's - where England will begin their new Test era against Sri Lanka on June 12.

After Carberry had managed just 33 runs in three innings to start the season, his match-winning hundred therefore came at just the right time, as Hampshire chased down a victory target of 215 on the final day at Bristol.

The left-hander was England's second top scorer during the winter's Ashes whitewash - behind the already discarded Kevin Pietersen - but the emergence of Robson, as well as Carberry's frank assessment of how he was treated by the England hierarchy Down Under in a pre-season interview, could threaten his position on the pecking order.

That will be a decision for England's new coach to consult over after this week's interview process is completed. Until then Carberry will have done his hopes no harm as he and James Vince completed the run chase in quick time. Together they put on a 101-run stand in 10.2 overs after Hampshire's captain, Jimmy Adams, and Liam Dawson both made starts.

Carberry's failure to build on a platform in Australia was regarded as one of his failings - he also made just one century in county ranks last term - but was able to match that mark in his second game of the new campaign with the aid of 16 fours and three sixes.

Earlier, Hamish Marshall fell six runs short of a century as Gloucestershire were bowled out for 332. Marshall and last man Matt Taylor added 24 runs to the overnight score before the veteran was bowled by South Africa seamer Kyle Abbott, who finished with seven wickets in the match.

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Worcs bowlers complete big win

Worcestershire 224 (Kervezee 54) and 270 (Cox 89, Bollinger 5-43) beat Kent 229 (Bell-Drummond 61, Andrew 4-42) and 140 (Andrew 4-43) by 125 runs
Scorecard

Kent lost seven wickets for 89 on the final morning as Worcestershire wrapped up a 125-run win in their Championship Division Two match at New Road. Charles Morris took three of the remaining wickets to fall as Kent slumped from their overnight 51 for 3 to 140 all out.

Morris finished with 3 for 31 while Gareth Andrew and Jack Shantry claimed another two apiece to end with 4 for 43 and 3 for 26 respectively.

Kent needed to make a solid start to the day to lift hopes of reaching their 266-run target but Ben Harmison was trapped leg before by Shantry having added just one run to his overnight 9. That ended a 30-run stand with former West Indies batsman Brendan Nash, who followed when he flashed at a wide Shantry delivery and was well caught behind by Ben Cox, stood up, for 28.

Shaaiq Choudhry produced an even better catch to remove Darren Stevens, diving full length at midwicket to grasp a difficult chance off the bowling of Andrew.

Morris then struck twice in two overs, bowling James Tredwell off-stump and having Sam Billings lbw, as all Kent hope evaporated. Morris and Andrew then accounted for Mitchell Claydon and Doug Bollinger respectively to end proceedings before lunch.

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Essex complete thrilling recovery

Essex94 (Cook 35, Footitt 5-29, Groenewald 5-44) and 425 (Cook 181, Foster 55*, Groenewald 3-62) beat Derbyshire 154 and 312 (Chanderpaul 52, Groenewald 52, Napier 3-49, Mills 3-49) by 53 runs
Scorecard

With Ravi Bopara strolling out to the middle around an hour after the scheduled lunch interval to practise his bowling, the match already won, you could imagine that Essex did not have to work too hard for victory on the final morning against Derbyshire. The margin of 53 runs ultimately was comfortable enough but a game that swung like the pendulum on a grandfather clock had life in it still, as long as Tim Groenewald's 33-ball fifty threatened further mischief for the home side.

Analogue timepieces are not so common in the digital world but four-day cricket remains a compelling spectacle, particularly when two teams scrap as gamely as Essex and Derbyshire did here.

Graham Napier, who claimed two key wickets in the first hour before Groenewald threatened to run amok, expressed the satisfaction of winning after "four days of hard graft", a result that looked unlikely after Essex's flaccid batting display on Sunday.

"Being bowled out for 94 on the first day after lunch, you don't think you're going to win games from there," he said. "You might be able save them but to win them is not even in your thought process initially. To get ourselves back into the game, bowling well and then with Cookie's knock setting us up to have the possibility of victory, that sums up four-day cricket, really. You savour these wins more than any T20 win.

Essex have a squad that looks princely on paper but whose performances have not always been so regal. This will be their fourth season back in Division Two and, even though England will deprive them of Alastair Cook - whose second-innings 181 underwrote victory over Derbyshire - as well as Ravi Bopara and possibly one or two others, talk will turn to underachievement once again if they are not involved in the promotion shake-up come September.

In 2013, Napier scored 796 Championship runs at a touch under 50 and took 48 wickets, though his team-mates lagged too far behind for his returns to be gilded with significance. This victory, built (or rebuilt) around seven wickets for David Masters and Cook's hundred, was a more even team effort, with Napier taking three of the five wickets to fall on the final morning.

After Richard Johnson lost his off stump playing no stroke, Shivnarine Chanderpaul was persuaded into a rare indiscretion to be caught behind, a dismissal that left Derbyshire seven down with 170 still required.

Groenewald, who also had a fine match, then thrashed a belligerent 52 to go with his eight wickets, taking a particular shine to Monty Panesar. Groenewald hit him for four dismissive sixes as Panesar's six overs on the final day cost 44 runs, though the spinner would have been slightly more gruntled by having his aggressor stumped after an 89-run stand for the eighth wicket. On this showing, Essex will not have to worry too much about Panesar being another England absentee.

Napier was not being immodest when he described Chanderpaul's wicket as "the crucial one" and had the barnacle-like West Indian been around to accompany Groenewald, an even more dramatic denouement might have ensued. "He came out and played a hell of an innings and took the attack back to us," Napier said of Groenewald. "That's pretty much mirrored the whole of this game, how the momentum chopped and changed, and picking up his wicket was a happy moment for us all."

The pyrotechnics briefly disturbed the tranquillity by the River Can but could not prevent Essex from recording victory after being bowled out for less than 100 in their first innings for the first time since 1992, also against Derbyshire. Wayne Madsen, the visiting captain, said he would be encouraging Groenewald to continue batting with such abandon but conceded that it was on the second morning, when Derbyshire's tail folded rather more readily, that the game was lost. Five wickets fell for 13 runs to limit their lead to 60 and Cook's appetite left Derbyshire with little more than crumbs.

"It's disappointing from our side because we were in a strong-ish position after the first day but we threw the momentum back in the first two sessions of the second day and that's pretty much where we lost it," Madsen said.

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Collingwood faces tricky decision

Durham 452 (Mustard 91, Richardson 80) and 178 for 5 (Richardson 53*, Middlebrook 4-39) lead Northamptonshire 378 (Spriegel 97) by 252 runs
Scorecard

Paul Collingwood is faced with picking the right moment to declare 12 months on from a decision that almost had a significant bearing on the title. He may have been unlucky in seeing his side lose to Yorkshire last April but that result with doubtless affect his thinking here.

Durham, who have bolstered a thin squad by signing Kumar Sangakkara for a month before he joins Sri Lanka's tour of England, secured a handy first-innings advantage of 74 and then rolled along at above four-an-over on the third afternoon to give themselves an outside chance of victory.

The wicket remains in good shape and the forecast for day four is again excellent but they took seven wickets in a session-and-a-half earlier in the day and some signs of indifferent bounce suggest Northamptonshire could have to work hard to save this game.

In their third match of last season, Collingwood set Yorkshire 336 to win on the final day at Chester-le-Street and was left to curse the decision as Joe Root made 182 to steer his side to a record chase on the ground. But Root might have been out twice well before his match-winning total and to make over 300 in the final innings at Durham was a statistical anomaly.

Collingwood's decision here will factor in far better conditions for batting than could be envisaged in April, as well as the fact that Northants are not likely to be title rivals later in the season, and that the teams with Championship ambitions will see victory over the regelation favourites as a necessity. Quick runs on the fourth morning should put Durham in a safe position but last April they were seemingly well in the clear too.

"It could be difficult to judge the declaration," Durham's head coach Jon Lewis said. "We'll learn a little about how Northants went about their first innings so we've got a bit more of an idea about their batters and the way they go about scoring. It is quite short in the one corner as well so that's makes it more difficult to judge what runs per over is gettable. We'll need a few more because they scored quite quickly in the first innings."

Collingwood showed a positive intent by helping Durham to press on late in the day. His innings featured consecutive pulls for four off Steven Crook and a six over long-on off James Middlebrook, who had initially stemmed Durham's progress with three wickets and a catch at slip. He added Collingwood's wicket shortly before the close.

Middlebrook's catch gave Northants an early strike and a wicket for Maurice Chambers, who bounded up the hill in a quick opening five over spell where he went for only 13 and removed Mark Stoneman for 1; a rare double failure for Stoneman, Durham's second-leading run scorer in 2013.

Their leading run scorer last year was Scott Borthwick. If he has an international future, his batting is most likely to earn him selection. His provided some further evidence why that is likely on the third day at Wantage Road with an indifferent spell with the ball and an effective innings with the bat.

Borthwick's Test debut came almost by default in Sydney after Graeme Swann had abdicated and all confidence in Monty Panesar was lost but he was given a role he could be asked to fulfil against Sri Lanka in June as a slow option alongside four seamers. Moeen Ali is his greatest rival.

In such a position, Borthwick's batting would need to justify selection. He made over 1000 runs in the Championship last season at No. 3 with two of his three centuries coming at Chester-le-Street. He also topped the Durham averages. For England Lions in Sri Lanka, he was back down the order and had some success with the bat and a handful of wickets.

Here he played a punchy innings of 47 in 68 balls as Durham achieved a healthy scoring rate. He struck four boundaries in seven balls shortly after tea but to the second ball he faced of Middlebrook's new spell, rocked back to cut and edged behind.

His earlier spell with the ball featured, like the first innings, a full toss outside off to start, and two other long hops which were cut for four by Steven Crook. But in-between he flighted the ball nicely, lured Rob Newton to drive off an edge to slip and had Matt Spriegel dropped at short leg. He can certainly take wickets and could yet help Durham to victory on day four.

Had Spriegel been taken on 33, Northants could have been following on before the close but instead he took advantage of the miss to make only his second first-class fifty for Northants, the county he joined from Surrey at the end of the 2012 season.

He has mainly been used in one-day cricket and would not have played in this match but for injuries to David Sales and Rob Keogh but he proved his ability against the red ball and steered his side to a fourth batting point, reduced the deficit below a hundred and took some more overs out of the game.

But Spriegel too suffered from centuryphobia - being the eighth player to pass fifty in the match and the eighth player not to make three figures. Michael Richardson could have another go on day four after going to an 85-ball half-century in the last hour of play.

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Ojha stifles Dhoni and another Kohli century

105 - The most runs scored by a batsman off a bowler in the tournament - Virat Kohli holds the record against Umesh Yadav, scoring 105 off 53 balls, and being dismissed once. Adam Gilchrist is the only other batsman to hit three-figures or more against a bowler - he has taken exactly 100 off Ashish Nehra, also off 53 balls.

40 - The number of dot balls Pragyan Ojha has bowled to MS Dhoni, the most by any bowler against a batsman in the competition. Ojha has dismissed Dhoni six times - also a record in the tournament - in 96 balls, conceding 98 runs. The next in the dot-ball list is Praveen Kumar against Sachin Tendulkar (34 dots).

3 - The least runs defended successfully in the 20th over by any team in the competition's history, by Rajasthan against Mumbai in 2009. Mumbai needed four to win in the last over - which was bowled by Munaf Patel - with three wickets in hand, but managed only one run and lost all three remaining wickets.

21 - The most runs that teams have failed to defend in the last over. It has happened three times, with Kolkata being on the receiving end twice: against Deccan in 2009 (Mashrafe Mortaza was the bowler) and Mumbai in 2011 (L Balaji being the bowler). The third instance was by Bangalore versus Pune in 2012, when Ashish Nehra was taken to the cleaners by AB de Villiers and Saurabh Tiwary.

10 - The number of players retained this year by Rajasthan from their 2013 squad, the highest by any team. The next-highest is eight, by Mumbai.

1105 - Runs scored in the league by Ravindra Jadeja, which is the highest by any batsman who hasn't scored a half-century yet. The next in line is Abhishek Nayar, with 629. Overall in all T20s, Jadeja has 1281 runs without scoring a fifty. Yasir Arafat is the only other player to score 1000-plus T20 runs without a fifty.

55 - Balls taken for the slowest fifty in the tournament, by JP Duminy, for Mumbai against Punjab in 2009. The next-slowest is Parthiv Patel's 53-ball 50 for Chennai, also against Punjab, in 2010.

85 - Ojha's wicket tally so far, the highest by a bowler who doesn't have a single haul of four or more wickets in the tournament. Dale Steyn is the next bowler in the list, with 78 wickets.

1181 - Runs scored by Dhoni in the last five overs, the most by any batsman. He has scored them off 648 balls, a run rate of 10.93 per over. The next-best is Rohit Sharma with 886 off 483 balls, a rate of 11, while AB de Villiers has 671 off 318 (12.66).

91 - Sixes that have been hit off Piyush Chawla's bowling, the most off a single bowler. Amit Mishra has gone for 86 sixes, followed by Praveen Kumar with 74.

37 - Runs scored by Bangalore in the third over of their match against Kochi, the most runs scored in a single over. P Parameswaran was the bowler, and Chris Gayle the batsman. The sequence read: 6, 6(nb), 4, 4, 6, 6, 4.

87 - Runs scored by Kochi in the Powerplay overs against Rajasthan in 2011, the highest by a team in the first six overs of a match. The next-highest is 84 by Deccan against Delhi in 2009.

87 - Runs scored by Chennai in the last five overs against Hyderabad in 2013, the highest by any team in the last five. The next-best is 86, by Kolkata against Deccan in 2008.

5 - The number of wicket-maiden overs bowled by Dale Steyn and Praveen Kumar, the most by any bowler in the competition. Two of Praveen's instances were double-wicket maidens.

2 - The number of maidens bowled in the 20th over of an innings - by Lasith Malinga against Deccan in 2009, and by Irfan Pathan against Mumbai in 2008. On both occasions the bowler bowling the maiden conceded 19 runs in his four overs.

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