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Chris Martin, who claimed career-best figures of 6 for 26 against Zimbabwe in Napier, has said New Zealand’s success in the Test had much to do with a four-pronged pace attack. New Zealand’s bowlers combined to bowl Zimbabwe out twice on the same day – only the third such instance in history – propelling the hosts to an innings and 301-run victory.”It was [overwhelming for Zimbabwe] I think … four [fast] guys with the ball, they all do something a little bit different. We don’t probably get over-bowled, so there’s a little bit of venom in every spell.” New Zealand played four quicks in the match, with Trent Boult, Doug Bracewell and Tim Southee partnering Martin. In Zimbabwe’s first innings, each of the four fast bowlers picked up two wickets apiece to skittle the visitors for 51, while in the second Martin and Bracewell polished them off.”The pitch actually quickened up a wee bit over the course of the match. I’m definitely more of a bounce bowler, so I enjoyed the bounce and pace in it. Dougie just swings the ball very nicely to the right-handers, and is always going to be a threat. I think Boulty and Timmy were hungry, and definitely wanted the ball the whole day. So we were all competing for it, and it’s nice to get a win out of that kind of competitiveness within the bowling ranks.”With Daniel Vettori filling the spinner’s role, the New Zealand line-up comprised only five frontline batsmen, plus wicketkeeper BJ Watling. However, with some of the bowlers’ ability to contribute with the bat as well, the line-up isn’t unstable, Martin said. “I like to see it [five bowlers playing] happening. I think the ability of Doug and Timmy with the bat is going to get better and better, and with Dan batting at six – he’s out there to score runs every time he plays, he probably averages about 40 [with the bat] over the past five years – I think we’re going to have some success.”Chris Martin says there is a lot of healthy competition among New Zealand’s fast bowlers•Getty Images

Martin’s eight wickets in the match took him level with Chris Cairns on the list of New Zealand’s top wicket-takers. With 218, Martin is joint-third, behind Richard Hadlee and Vettori. “I had him [Cairns] on the radar, but perhaps not at the start of the day,” Martin said. “I’m stoked to have got that far, and hopefully I push on past him.”Tweaking his run-up has helped him be more effective, Martin said. “I tinkered with something last summer, just to get my stride patterns right with my run-up, so I wasn’t over-striding. Now I’m cruising in a little bit more, the angle with which I’m bowling now is helping me swing the ball more.”After the limited-overs series against Zimbabwe, New Zealand will face stronger opposition in South Africa and, according to Martin, they are up for the challenge. “I think the consistency with which we have attacked that off-stump line, with a little bit of movement, and the way we have drawn them [batsmen] into playing shots that perhaps they didn’t want to, I think against any side that is always going to be competitive.”The slip catching has been out of this world. I don’t think I have seen a better one than the one Dean Brownlie took today. All of those things we may have to do for longer periods against South Africa, but they definitely bode well for the ability of our boys to remain composed and get the results, which is something we have carried on from Hobart.”

ScorecardMosaddek Hossain made 81 to set up Bangladesh Under-19s’ comfortable win over England Under-19s in Chittagong. Bangladesh were asked to bat first and a partnership of 114 between Mosaddek and Al-Amin helped them to a total that England never looked like chasing.Mosaddek struck 11 fours in his innings, from 84 balls, and built what proved to be the match-winning stand with Al-Amin, whose 50 came from 41 balls before he became the first of three wickets for England seamer Shozair Ali. Ali then ran out Noor Hossain, without him facing a ball, as England fought back with four wickets for two runs and Ali finished with 3 for 58.England’s chase included contributions from Daniel Bell-Drummond, who made 55 at the top of the order, and Ben Foakes, who came in at three and made 32 from 22 balls. Both players fell to the legspin of Noor. He went on to take 4 for 31 as England lost too many cheap wickets; Aneesh Kapil’s 43, which included two sixes, came too late to save the innings.

England’s national selector, Geoff Miller, admitted England will be taking a step into the unknown in January when they travel to UAE to face Pakistan. England have never played at Test match in the Middle East and begin a three-match series on January 17.Pakistan can call on recent local knowledge having made UAE their second-home after being exiled from playing on home soil following the terrorist attacks of March 2009 when the Sri Lankan team bus was shot at travelling to a Test match in Lahore.They first played in UAE in 2002 and since their return to the region in 2010 have drawn 0-0 with South Africa before beating Sri Lanka 1-0 in October. England have only appeared in limited-overs matches, most recently drawing a Twenty20 series 1-1 in February 2010.”It’s something different for us,” Miller told . “Pakistan, who are playing very good cricket at the moment, are used to playing in the region,” he said. “We’ll do our preparation as we always do. We’ve watched cricket over there and there are a couple of matches before we go into the Test matches but [the players] can adapt, they’re good enough to adapt to all conditions and all surfaces.”Under team director Andy Flower and captain Andrew Strauss England’s preparation for Test series has been meticulous. They played three first-class matches ahead of the last Ashes series in Australia whereas India had one match before their four-Test series in England earlier this year and none before an earlier tour of South Africa.”Whatever the opposition you’ve still got to get used to the pitches and the conditions and that’s exactly what we’ll do,” said Miller, aware that Pakistan are unbeaten in Test series for 2011. “We’ll get our house in order,” he added. “We need to fly right from the word go.”England will have to carefully consider the make-up of their bowling attack. They have operated with four specialist bowlers in all but one Test – in Chittagong – since the 2009 Ashes series when Andrew Flintoff retired. Monty Panesar has been included in the squad if England require two spinners and Miller is confident there is the strength in depth to consolidate their position as the no. 1 Test side in the world.”The options are there for the two Andy’s to select the side they require. We’ve got variations in our seam attack for the different kind of bowlers we may need and we’ve got the variations in the spin as well,” said Miller. “We’ll wait and see what the surfaces are like. [Flower and Strauss] are pretty good judges of how wickets are going to play so we’ll just have to see how the pitches play in the warm up games and select accordingly.”

Sam Loxton, one of the last remaining members of Australia’s 1948 Invincibles, has died at the age of 90. Loxton passed away overnight in Queensland, leaving Neil Harvey and Arthur Morris as the only surviving members of Don Bradman’s great 1948 side that toured England without losing a match.Prior to his death, Loxton was Australia’s oldest living Test cricketer, after another Invincible, Ron Hamence, died last year at the age of 94. An allrounder who played 12 Tests, Loxton had a fine first-class record but missed out on greater opportunities at international level due to the presence of the great allrounder Keith Miller.He scored a Test century in Johannesburg but it was as a member of the 1948 squad that he was best remembered, especially for his batting in Leeds, where his 93 in the first innings helped keep Australia in touch before Bradman and Arthur Morris chased down 404 in the second innings. In 22 first-class games on the tour, Loxton averaged 57.23 with the bat and 21.71 with the ball.”It was a magnificent side, not only the ability of the players, but the fact that with the exception of Neil Harvey, who was only a baby, the rest of the fellows in one way or another had served in the war,” Loxton, who served in a tank division, said in the book . “Some in actual theatres, like Miller in the air force and Lindsay [Hassett] in the desert, and so forth. There was a tremendous bond and there was a tremendous desire to play the game. It was breaking new ground.”When we finally got on the ship, I think we had the one and only team meeting of the tour… [Bradman] gathered us all together and put on a little tea and nuts and a few drinks and so forth and just spelled it out. I mean, he never mentioned the opposition. Nor really did he mention the task ahead, he just said that he hoped that we would all enjoy the tour and that success would come from within. There would be outside influences of course, the press and so forth, but that if we all played as a united team then success was sure to come. And it did, it did.”Being away for eight months we were paid 600 pounds, but quite frankly the tour was such a joy that I think if they’d paid the rent at home and given us a few bob for a few drinks we would have gone over there for nothing.”Loxton and Harvey became firm friends, the elder man often acting as an intermediary between the teenager and Bradman during the tour. Loxton also enjoyed a close relationship with Bradman, permitted to refer to the greatest batsman of all by such familiar terms as his middle name “George” or sometimes “the little bloke”.A middle-order batsman renowned for his hard hitting, Loxton took the same aggression to the bowling crease and collected 232 wickets in his first-class career. He captained Victoria in his final two seasons of first-class cricket, until his retirement after the 1957-58 season, but he stayed involved in the game in his later years.He served as Australia’s team manager for the 1959-60 tour of the subcontinent and was a national selector for a decade during the 1970s and 80s. Choosing teams alongside Bradman and Harvey, Loxton was involved in decisions such as the sacking of Bill Lawry during the 1970-71 Ashes series and also the selection of Dennis Lillee, who Bradman had not seen bowl, for his debut that same summer.His cricket administration career ended after the 1981 underarm delivery at the MCG when, visibly upset, he told Greg Chappell: “Greg, you might have won the match but you’ve lost a lot of friends.””I left the ground and drove back to Red Hill, on the Mornington Peninsula, where I lived,” Loxton said. “I was teary all the way. I wasn’t proud. It was a very sad occasion.”A true allrounder away from the game, Loxton also played 41 games in the VFL for St Kilda as a full-forward, finishing second in the club’s best-and-fairest in 1944 and once kicking eight goals in a game. One of his team-mates in that St Kilda side was Miller, who might have outshone Loxton as a cricketer but was on a more level pegging with him as a footballer.Loxton also served as a member of the Victorian parliament, holding the seat of Prahran for the Liberal Party from 1955 to 1979.In 2000, he was devastated at the death of his wife Jo and on the same day the passing of his son, who was taken by a shark in Fiji. Loxton lived alone on the Gold Coast after the death of his wife, and he continued to attend Test cricket and past-player functions, although in more recent years his eyesight had failed significantly.

ScorecardNathan Coulter-Nile nabbed two vital wickets on a strong day for the Warriors•Getty Images

Western Australia wrapped up first innings points and engineered a strong position from which to push for outright victory as South Australia fell 110 short of the visitors’ 335 on day two of the Sheffield Shield match at Adelaide Oval.The Warriors’ tail crept up to their first innings total before harrying the Redbacks with the ball and ultimately enjoying a flood of wickets in the afternoon, taking 9 for 165 after lunch as the hosts were rounded up for 225.Nathan Coulter-Nile struck first, bowling Michael Klinger when he failed to offer a shot, and would later return to dismiss the dangerous allrounder Daniel Christian. Michael Hogan and Michael Beer also bowled with intelligence and economy to strangle an SA innings that had shown promise when Daniel Harris and Callum Ferguson were together.Among the rest only Tom Cooper offered much resistance, and his stay was ended by a legside catch from the bowling of Beer, who warmed up nicely for his looming trip to South Africa with the Australian Test team.Gary Putland had earlier collected his second five-wicket Shield haul for SA, though the Redbacks were frustrated somewhat by a stubborn innings from Beer against the second new ball.