Sticky Wicket

Paul Horton gives County Championship leaders Lancashire a boost at Chester-le-Street

2011-05-30T02:54:00.000+01:00

The clash of the top two promised to test Lancashire’s resolve against a team who have been obliged to eke out victories on flat pitches.

Three of the leaders’ five wins have come at Liverpool and, despite their 590 at Hove, the average total of the side batting first in their previous six matches has been 299, compared with 474 for Durham. Nor have the pitches on which Durham have played deteriorated.

In six of their seven games the final innings has produced more than 300 runs, the exception being their 102 for two to beat Warwickshire at home.

There was a tinge of green in Sunday’s strip, so Durham put Lancashire in and for 30 minutes they threatened to wreak havoc.

Then the sun came out, the batsmen dug in and the seamers erred. Graham Onions and Callum Thorp took a wicket each in reducing Lancashire to nine for two, but dropped too short too often thereafter.

Watched by England selector James Whitaker, Onions did not enhance his chances of being called up for the second Test in place of James Anderson. Onions came under fire from Glen Chapple when the new ball was taken on 241 for seven.

Nine overs later it was 310 for seven, but Mitch Claydon had Chapple caught at third man for 46 and the last three wickets went down for one run.

Paul Horton’s 94 revived Lancashire, but when he was fourth out with the total on 158 the benefits of diligent application began to be dissipated, with Gareth Cross and Tom Smith both guilty of over-ambition against the spinners.

Although he gave no clear chance, Horton led something of a charmed life.

An edge on one brushed Gordon Muchall’s fingertips at first slip, a leading edge on 19 just evaded cover and a skied hook on 65 fell into space.

He showed good judgement of what to leave, however, and remained alert to the chance to dispatch poor balls, hitting 15 fours.

Three came in one over from Ben Stokes – a pull, a square drive and an on-drive – to take Horton into the 90s, only for Stokes to nip one back to hit the off stump and end a stand of 72 with Steve Croft.

Both batsmen had set out to leave whatever they didn’t need to play at in the post-lunch spell from Onions and Thorp. Durham’s hopes of reuniting Onions and Steve Harmison for the first time since August, 2009 were dashed by the back injury which afflicted Harmison at Edgbaston.

It seemed unlikely to matter, however, when Stephen Moore fell to the 12th ball of the day, guiding a head-high catch to third slip, then Keith Brown shaped to drive Onions and edged to Michael Di Venuto at second slip.

The Tasmanian also held a simple catch to end Mark Chilton’s 23-over vigil for 12 and a brilliant one to get rid of Croft and give Ian Blackwell the first of his three wickets.

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Worcestershire prosper thanks to excellence of Alan Richardson and Damien Wright

2011-05-30T02:16:00.000+01:00

Worcestershire chairman Martyn Price has excused the county’s chief executive David Leatherdale and director of cricket Steve Rhodes of any wrongdoing over the Adrian Shankar affair.

West Mercia Police are investigating whether batsman Shankar may have provided false information to obtain a two year contract with Worcestershire, who abruptly terminated the deal last week.

Price has backed his senior management team and asked the England and Wales Cricket Board to review its registration procedures.

“David and Steve have my full backing, they have done nothing wrong and have worked hard to sort this mess out.” Price said. “If there is any blame attached the ECB have to take a bit of it."

At least Worcestershire’s on-field performances diverted some of the attention from ‘Shankargate’ by making the champions struggle on a seamer-friendly pitch.

Worcestershire have lost all six matches since they returned to the top flight but they were spirited and competitive thanks to the excellence of Alan Richardson and Damien Wright.

The new ball pair shared six wickets between them and beat the bat on numerous occasions.

Riki Wessels, controversially registered after he obtained an obscure entrepreneur visa, the terms of which require him to be contracted through a company, marked his Nottinghamshire championship debut with an aggressive 67.

The champions scrambled their first batting point in three matches thanks to lower order resistance from Chris Read, Paul Franks and Andre Adams.

The most fluent innings of the day was played by Vikram Solanki who played beautifully for his 53-ball 52 before he went LBW to Adams.

Solanki’s stand of 65 with Matt Pardoe for Worcestershire’s second wicket was the only half century partnership of the day.

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Denly delivers as Kent dominate

2011-05-30T01:54:00.000+01:00

Joe Denly scored his first LV= County Championship hundred since 2009 as Kent’s batsmen enjoyed a prolific opening day in the bottom-of-the-table Division Two clash against Leicestershire at Tunbridge Wells.

Kent reached stumps on 376 for three, with Denly making 143 and receiving admirable support from Rob Key and Sam Northeast, who each fell narrowly short of three figures.

Key was dismissed for 91, also a season’s best for him, after putting on 198 for the first wicket with Denly, and Northeast scored 99 before being dismissed by what became the last ball of the day.

Northeast, trying to get to three figures before the close, attempted to flick Andrew McDonald wide of mid-on and was lbw to the fifth delivery of the 96th over.

Kent, anchored to the foot of Division Two after losing four of their first six championship games, have targeted this match against second-from-bottom Leicestershire to try to reverse their fortunes after an injury-ravaged opening seven weeks of the season.

Importantly, Key won the toss and first use of an excellent pitch and, on a blustery day, set about a Leicestershire attack missing England Lions fast bowler Nathan Buck, who has a stress fracture of the foot.

Kent were 134 without loss at the end of the morning session and it was almost an hour after lunch before the opening pair were split when Key drilled a return catch to seamer McDonald.

The Kent captain had faced 146 balls, hitting nine fours and a six over long-on off slow left-armer Claude Henderson.

Denly was then joined in an equally productive second-wicket partnership of 140 by Northeast, which saw the two young Kent-born batsmen keep up the pressure on the visitors.

There were 19 fours in Denly’s hundred, made from 147 balls, while Northeast found the boundary 10 times en route to his half-century, which came off 80 deliveries.

Denly has made three centuries and three ducks in his last six first-class innings at Tunbridge Wells and this was his 11th first-class hundred.

Last season he registered only 610 runs in championship cricket, at an average of 21, and this summer he had previously scored just 82 from eight innings and had also suffered a broken finger.

Northeast, who made 112 in the first match of the season at Essex, has also largely struggled for runs, but this fluent innings underlined his rich promise.

It was just a shame for him that he played across the line in the final over of the day – in search of what would have been a third championship hundred – instead of waiting to reach the landmark at the start of the second day.

Northeast’s 99 came from 157 balls, with 15 fours, and Denly faced 247 balls in all and hit 22 fours.

Denly and Key’s partnership was the first century stand for any Kent wicket this season, and was full of superlative shots.

A fast outfield meant that Denly, Key and Northeast gained full value for their strokeplay, and their fine batting has already given Kent a big advantage in this game.

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Wells and Goodwin flay Yorkshire

2011-05-30T01:45:00.000+01:00

Luke Wells and Murray Goodwin each compiled unbeaten centuries as Yorkshire’s decision to put Sussex in on the first day of their LV= County Championship Division One tussle at the PROBIZ County Ground badly backfired.

Wells enhanced his reputation as one of the best young batsmen in the country by batting through the day to reach 143 not out - his third hundred in only his eighth championship game - while Goodwin had 108 to his name at stumps as Sussex closed on 295 for two.

Yorkshire skipper Andrew Gale probably felt a pitch with an even covering of grass would assist his seam attack and Ajmal Shahzad, who is one of the contenders to replace James Anderson in England’s squad should the Lancashire paceman be ruled out of the Lord’s Test, did take the scalp of the in-form Chris Nash in the ninth over with one which nipped back.

Wells was only opening because Nash’s regular partner Ed Joyce is playing for Ireland.

Joyce is due back in time for the third day and his nominated substitute, Joe Gatting, struggled to take his chance.

Gatting failed to score off 40 of the 44 balls he faced before he drove loosely at Steven Patterson and was well caught by the diving Joe Sayers at cover, although that was as good as it got for Yorkshire.

Wells, briefly becalmed before lunch, brought up his fifty with a cover-driven boundary off Patterson and during the afternoon session he and Goodwin made serene progress.

Wells had one alarm on 79 when he was knocked off his feet by Ryan Sidebottom’s yorker but umpire Richard Kettleborough - recently promoted to the ICC’s elite panel - adjudged the ball was sliding down the leg side.

The 20-year-old left-hander reached his century off 198 balls with successive fours when leg-spinner Adil Rashid obligingly dropped short. In total he faced 286 deliveries and found the boundary on 23 occasions.

Goodwin lost little in comparison to his partner although he also had one moment of good fortune, on 49, when he edged between the two slips off Patterson.

Otherwise Sussex’s vice-captain looked in total control, taking every opportunity to play his favoured back-foot shots whenever the bowlers dropped short.

He reached his 46th hundred for the county, in 217 balls, with his 13th four in the final over of the day and so far the third-wicket pair have added 217 in 71 overs.

Sussex are giving championship debutants to two South Africans. Left-armer Wayne Parnell only arrived at 6.30am on an overnight flight from Johannesburg to replace Pakistan’s Rana Naved-ul-Hasan as overseas player, while all-rounder Kirk Wernars, who qualifies because of his Dutch passport, was also included.

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Maharoof admits Sri Lanka struggled

2011-05-30T01:35:00.000+01:00

Farveez Maharoof was left to reflect on a "tough day at the office" as Sri Lanka again toiled in the field on the fourth day of the first npower Test in Cardiff.

Jonathan Trott led the way for England with a superb 203, the highest Test score by an England player against Sri Lanka, with Alastair Cook and Ian Bell contributing 133 and 98 not out respectively as the home side reached 491 for five in their first innings, a lead of 91, by stumps.

The tourists have gained little reward from the 153 overs sent down over the past two days and, while he was quick to praise the performance of the England batsmen, Maharoof believes he and his team-mates needed to keep things a bit tighter.

The 26-year-old seamer said: "It was a tough day at the office, but credit to the English batsmen; they batted really well. Personally I am coming back into the side after a three-and-a-half year period and it was tough, but that is what Test cricket is all about.

"To be honest Trott batted really well, but we could have bowled much better to him.

"We could have been more consistent with our line and length, but you should not take anything away from his innings; he batted really well."

Maharoof, recalled to the Test side this week after his impressive recent form for Lancashire, had got rid of Cook, who edged a cut behind, not long after play began at 2:30pm following more rain in the Welsh capital.

Soon after, Rangana Herath trapped Kevin Pietersen in front for three - the 19th time in Tests he has fallen to a left-arm spinner.

While Maharoof admitted Sri Lanka had discussed that record, the seamer believes that it was the tactic of denying Pietersen easy scoring opportunities that ultimately paid dividends.

"It's normal with any batsman on a pitch where bowlers don't get much help that you want to keep the run scoring dry," he said. "That's what we did with him, we tried to stop him getting easy runs and he got out so it worked very well.

"It (left-arm spin) is something we talked about. Herath had bowled a massive spell of about 20 overs or something like that and he bowled very well.

"Most of our bowlers bowled very well and the only thing to work on is to be more consistent in the coming days."

The prospects of there being a result in Cardiff appear slim with three of the four days being blighted by rain.

More rain is forecast for tomorrow and the docile nature of the pitch would suggest that Sri Lanka will have little difficulty in securing a draw should they be asked to bat again, particularly as England will be down to three frontline bowlers due to James Anderson's side strain.

And Maharoof believes there is little that either side can take from this game ahead of next week's second Test at Lord's.

"A lot of time has been lost in this Test, there are two innings not completed, so you can't take much out of this Test because more than 100 overs have been lost," he added.

"As a team we batted really well to get 400 on that wicket in the first couple of days, we just need to be more disciplined and bowl in the right areas."

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Trott doubles up as Bell shines

2011-05-30T01:33:00.000+01:00

Jonathan Trott - again - and Ian Bell were the biggest beneficiaries as England condemned Sri Lanka to another chastening day in the field at Cardiff.

Trott converted his overnight 125 into a sterling 203, the second double century of his Test career but one which perhaps serves as the greatest example of his apparently unquenchable thirst for runs.

Bell, meanwhile, helped himself to a sprightly unbeaten 98 on a truncated day that ended with England 491 for five and boasting a lead of 91.

Although this game is seemingly destined to end in a draw, the positive manner in which Bell - and, late on, Eoin Morgan - batted suggested England have not entirely ruled out the prospect of mounting an improbable victory push tomorrow.

The hundred that Bell’s pleasing strokeplay warranted may have to wait until the morning, but he, Trott and Alastair Cook, who finally fell for 133 today, have done much to demonstrate the scale of the task facing Sri Lanka this summer.

Today followed much the same pattern as yesterday, with initial success for the tourists after a rain-delayed start merely heralding another sizeable England partnership.

While Cook and Trott’s 251-run stand for the third wicket was finally broken shortly after the resumption today, Trott and Bell joined forces to add 160 for the fifth once Kevin Pietersen had fallen cheaply.

Sri Lanka have mustered just five wickets in 153 overs in this match - 63 of which were bowled today - yet it is the benign nature of the pitch which is likely to ensure the teams head to Lord’s on Friday with the series all square.

Trott’s occupation of the crease was, therefore, more remarkable. His approach to batting borders on monastic, and it was only after he breached 200 did he allow any element of risk to enter his thinking.

England resumed at 2.30pm on 287 for two, following the loss of the morning session for the third time in four days.

Stymied by a combination of Cook and Pietersen’s downfall in quick succession, Sri Lanka’s accuracy and their containing tactics, Trott was becalmed but in control for much of the afternoon.

Cook had added just four to his overnight score when he was caught behind via outside edge as he chased a short, wide one from Farveez Maharoof six overs in.

It represented Sri Lanka’s first success in almost 74 overs, and Maharoof’s obvious relief was no doubt shared by his colleagues.

Pietersen fell lbw to Rangana Herath, the left-arm spinner, moments later. Attempting to cut one that kept low, he was afforded the benefit of the doubt by umpire Billy Doctrove given that there was plenty of bat involved, but the decision was overturned on the basis of video evidence that suggested, but did not prove, the ball clipped his back pad first.

Bell marked his arrival at the crease with a towering straight six out of the ground at Herath’s expense, although he saw Kumar Sangakkara spill a sharp chance to his left at gully off the persevering Maharoof on 20.

He continued to mix good fortune with typically immaculate drives and cuts, and was in confident enough mood to unfurl a couple of reverse-sweep-cum-switch-hits after registering an 88-ball half-century.

Trott, who struck a solitary boundary in a 23-over afternoon session, pressed on unerringly, punching Suranga Lakmal past mid-on to usurp Graham Gooch’s 172 as the highest score by an Englishman against Sri Lanka.

The double century was never in doubt - fittingly, a single into the leg side took him to the milestone - and he had faced 409 balls and struck 17 fours during the best part of two days when he was finally bowled making room to Tillakaratne Dilshan.

Sri Lanka’s reward: the sight of Morgan, who made 193 for England Lions against Sri Lanka last week, on his way to the middle.

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Pakistan thrash Ireland

2011-05-29T22:28:00.000+01:00

Ireland's hopes of convincing the International Cricket Council they are deserving of a World Cup place were undermined by a thumping seven-wicket defeat to Pakistan in a rain-affected first one-day international in Belfast.

Ireland were bowled out for just 96, with young left-armer Junaid Khan claiming career-best figures of 4-12, before the tourists eased past the total with 51 balls to spare.

The defeat was as one-sided as it was untimely for the Irish just a month before an ICC chief executive committee is due to discuss the possibility of overturning a decision to omit the associate countries from the next World Cup in 2015.

They were bowled out for their lowest total since Australia skittled them for 91 at the 2007 World Cup, may have left them with some convincing left to do in Monday's final game of the short series.

Ireland could, however, claim they lost an important toss after 21-year-old Junaid, who had only taken three wickets in his young international career before today, revelled on a Stormont wicket that offered the seamers plenty of assistance after rain had delayed the start by just over three hours.

The home batsmen hardly helped their own cause, though, as they surprisingly opted to play their shots despite the conditions.

That strategy initially paid dividends when nuggety opener Paul Stirling thrashed 39 from 22 balls, but when he became Junaid's first victim the wickets fell at regular intervals thereafter.

Junaid next skittled Alex Cusack's stumps before he had scored, while Umar Gul found skipper William Porterfield's edge.

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Ireland's star man at the World Cup Kevin O'Brien showed signs he was intent on following Stirling's lead with a couple of muscled strikes, but his stumps were also sent cartwheeling by Junaid before he found full flow.

And when Junaid then located Andrew White's edge next ball Ireland found themselves deep in trouble at 66 for six before the rain arrived again.

That offered the hosts a 20-minute reprieve, but with their top order having already succumbed in the hour beforehand, the wickets continued to fall and Saeed Ajmal cleaned up the tail to finish with three for seven as Ireland last only 20 of the rain-reduced 36 overs.

Pakistan's openers Taufeeq Umar and Mohammad Hafeez took a cautious approach to the chase, which straddled the lunch break after Ireland's early demise.

The pair took until the 15th over to bring up the 50 with their only moment of concern before when Taufeeq edged Trent Johnston to Stirling at first slip, only for a no-ball to be called.

Ireland did finally get a breakthrough, albeit with just 22 required, when Taufeeq again offered a low chance to Stirling at slip off Cusack to depart for a laboured 23 from 62 balls.

Hafeez brought up his half-century soon after, with his seventh four, but fell next ball bowled by Cusack who then also picked up Asad Shafiq to finish with three for 13.

That left it to skipper Misbah-ul-Haq and veteran Younus Khan to guide the tourists home with plenty of time to spare.

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Mental strength key for Cook and Trott

2011-05-29T15:47:00.000+01:00

England opener Alastair Cook believes stubbornness is the key to the phenomenal weight of runs scored by himself and Jonathan Trott in recent months.

Cook and Trott were the mainstays of England’s batting line-up during the triumphant Ashes campaign, scoring a combined 1,211 runs in five matches Down Under, and the pair shared another unbroken stand of 240 on day three of the first Test against Sri Lanka.

Cook reached stumps on 129 not out, with Trott only four runs behind following a superb partnership in Cardiff in reply to Sri Lanka’s 400 all out.

Cook has now scored five hundreds in his last eight Test outings, with Trott striking four in his last seven appearances.

Explaining what has made the duo so unflappable at the crease in that period, Cook said: “We’re very similar in terms of our mental approach, I think we’re both quite stubborn guys and it seems to suit our style playing together.

“We’re quite happy just to bat in fives. We just try and get five more runs and we always remind ourselves of that. I think ’just another five’ is going to be stuck in my head all night.”

With 17 centuries to his name at the age of 26, Cook is already just five shy of the England record of 22 held jointly by Geoffrey Boycott, Wally Hammond and Colin Cowdrey.

Reflecting on the fine recent run that has taken him to those lofty heights, he added: “You never master it (batting), but you can improve on it and that’s certainly one of those things I was talking to people about before I went out to Australia.

“I’d never really gone on and got big 150-plus scores, daddy hundreds, but the last couple of hundreds I have done that so the method I’m using seems to be working.

“You never say you’ve mastered it but it is certainly improvable. A double hundred would be nice tomorrow but it’s easier said than done.”

With plenty of time lost from the game to rain, forecasts uncertain for the final two days and seamer James Anderson unfit to bowl in the second innings, England may struggle to force victory at Cardiff. But this was a time to revel in the efforts of two men in the form of their careers.

Trott’s average stood at over 66 by the close of play, a figure that puts him above most of the game’s greats bar Sir Donald Bradman.

It will take something special if he is to maintain that mark but Cook was full of praise for his partner.

“He’s been a revelation for us since he came in in the 2009 Ashes. He’s been fantastic,” he said.

“His stats are phenomenal. Having that rock at number three means our batting order is very settled. We have every base covered at the moment.”

Looking ahead to England’s prospects of doing enough to set up a final-day tilt for victory, Cook added: “Our only real way of winning this game with the weather around is to bat once and bat really big. We’ve laid a platform to do that and there’s still 200 overs left in this game which is a hell of a lot of cricket to be played.”

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Harmison out of Lancashire clash

2011-05-29T09:34:00.000+01:00

Steve Harmison has been ruled out of Durham's top-of-the-table clash with Lancashire after he suffered a spinal joint sprain at Warwickshire

Steve Harmison has not been included in Durham’s squad for their top-of-the-table clash with LV= County Championship leaders Lancashire at the Emirates Durham ICG.

The former England paceman suffered a spinal joint sprain in the innings-and-103-run victory against Warwickshire yesterday, when he was unable to bowl in the final two sessions.

The quick turnaround has meant that Harmison has been unable to overcome the problem and he has not been risked.

However, Graham Onions returns after being rested at Edgbaston, while Liam Plunkett is included following his recovery from a torn quad muscle.

Durham will be looking for their third consecutive win, having also claimed an innings victory at Worcestershire, but they come up against a Lancashire side who have won five and drawn one of their opening six championship fixtures.

The Red Rose go into the fixture three points ahead of Durham and captain Glen Chapple is expected to return to duty after sitting out the 10-wicket thrashing of Hampshire inside three days at the Rose Bowl this week.

Nottinghamshire have included Riki Wessels in their squad as they look to end a three-game winless run against rock-bottom Worcestershire at New Road.

The defending champions last tasted victory in the championship against Worcestershire last month at Trent Bridge, but they have drawn with Yorkshire and suffered nine-wicket defeats to Sussex and Warwickshire since then.

Wessels impressed in Wednesday’s Clydesdale Bank 40 victory over Gloucestershire and is named alongside the returning Samit Patel and Darren Pattinson. Ali Brown makes way, and Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann remain on international duty with England.

Adam Voges will make his final four-day appearance of the season against Worcestershire, who have lost all six of their championship fixtures, following the arrival of David Hussey from the Indian Premier League.

Yorkshire will be looking for their first win the championship since the opening game of the season but they will come up against a resurgent Sussex at the PROBIZ County Ground.

Andrew Gale’s men have drawn two and lost four four-day matches following their success against Worcestershire last month, while Sussex will be looking for their third consecutive victory following triumphs against Nottinghamshire and Somerset.

First and second also play each other in Division Two as leaders Northamptonshire face Glamorgan at Wantage Road.

Northamptonshire are undefeated in both the County Championship and the Clydesdale Bank 40 but they look set to be without wicketkeeper-batsman Niall O’Brien, who is still recovering from a hairline fracture to his left hand sustained during their CB40 win over Hampshire.

Glamorgan lie just three points behind Northants and they have included seamer James Harris in their squad after he missed their last championship encounter at Surrey with a sore foot.

Graham Wagg and Jim Allenby also return after recovering from a hamstring injury and a side strain respectively.

Ryan ten Doeschate is expected to make his first appearance of the season for Essex against Gloucestershire at Bristol.

The Netherlands all-rounder returns after representing the Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL and will replace Graham Napier, who is being rested, while Chris Wright and Maurice Chambers come back in after missing the draw against Middlesex earlier this week.

Gloucestershire will move up to third if they can defeat Essex and should be able to welcome back pace duo Liam Norwell and David Payne, both of whom missed the draw with Leicestershire two weeks ago.

New Zealand batsman Martin Guptill is in line to make his Derbyshire debut against Surrey following the early departure of Usman Khawaja due to Australia A commitments.

Azeem Rafiq’s loan spell from Yorkshire has been ended one game early by a suspected fractured finger, Tim Groenewald is rested, and Steffan Jones, Mark Turner, Ross Whiteley and Paul Borrington are added to the squad.

Kent, who could move off the bottom of the table if they overcome fellow strugglers Leicestershire at Tunbridge Wells, will be buoyed after ending a four-game losing streak in the championship following their draw with Derbyshire.

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England v Sri Lanka: first Test, day three report

2011-05-29T01:35:00.000+01:00

"You wonder what will happen after a couple of months off," Cook said. "I got bogged down a bit but I was pleased with the patience I showed to get through.

"It’s an opportunity for Trotty and I to get big ones. There are still 200 overs left in this game, which is a hell of a lot of cricket to be played."

Trott did not begin his England career until he was older than Cook is now (26), so he has little hope of that slice of immortality: this century was his sixth. But Trott further cemented his second place in the all-time Test batting averages behind Sir Donald Bradman, lifting his 61 to 66 by the close.

At the outset, however, their partnership was hum-drum because the pitch demanded patience: it was fancy-dress day but not one for fancy batting. While Chennai powered along at ten runs per over in the final of the Indian Premier League, Cook and Trott brought up England’s 50 at exactly two an over.

But too many England teams of the past would have gone out, played big shots, and landed themselves in trouble. Neither Cook nor Trott was too proud or complacent, even after their heroics in Australia, to go back to the basics of blocking or leaving the accurate balls and dispatching the inaccurate ones.

Ajantha Mendis imposed most of the early restrictions, until the batsmen worked him out. His one wicket - Sri Lanka’s only wicket in the 70 overs that followed morning rain - was that of James Anderson who, although he has been declared unfit to bowl for the rest of this game, was able to visit the crease: ‘bat’ might be too strong a term, but he had done his duty as nightwatchman yet again by surviving overnight, the 16th time out of 16.

Anderson was caught by the finest slip-fielder Asia has produced. Well might Graeme Swann envy Mendis for having Mahela Jayawardene at slip, for among the nuts and bolts that England need to tighten before the Lord’s Test is their slip-fielding to spin.

Anderson is still unproven as England’s slip for Swann, and Andrew Strauss even more so: he got a wrist, not a hand, on the edge that Prasanna Jayawardena sent his way off Swann’s quicker ball.

Strauss had tasted the job in the Mohali Test of five years ago, dropped one off Monty Panesar and abandoned it. Such a specialist position is slip to a spinner - and such is England’s dearth - that Jayawardene should be invited to give a master-class at the Loughborough academy after this tour.

England’s acceleration was impressively smooth. Cook was first to put his foot down, after Mendis’s first six overs had cost three runs. As in Australia, he never contemplated the outside lane, or even fourth gear, just content to move from second to third and tootle along the whole day.

Human weakness surfaced momentarily. Two successive balls however from the slow left-armer Rangana Herath served to illustrate Cook’s great strength as well. First he missed an ambitious sweep, then he missed out on a full toss, driving straight to a fielder.

But thereafter it was like winter returning to the Northwest Passage. There was no way through Cook’s defence; and the dispatching of inaccurate balls was resumed.

Trott was no less patient and no less unflustered. Ordinary mortals would have become upset at such a slow start: after 30 balls the Master of Melbourne, and Baronet of Brisbane, had reached five. In one over from Mendis he had missed out on three short balls to the extent of scoring only a single.

It is Graham Gooch, England’s batting coach, who preaches from the ancient text saying only the next ball matters, and he could not have asked for two more ardent devotees than England’s second-wicket pair.

Trott cover-drove his 31st ball for four, and was away, beaver-busy, as insatiable for runs as Cook - no mean appetite - and almost caught his partner up.

Sri Lanka rang the changes but had no extreme pace to call on, and no extreme spin in the absence of Muttiah Muralitharan, and no extreme foxiness in the absence of Chaminda Vaas. After tea Herath resorted to bowling over the wicket outside the righthander’s legs: unspoken condemnation of the pitch’s lifelessness.

As everything is measured nowadays, perhaps pitches should also be. If more than two edges fail to carry off pace bowling to the wicketkeeper - as here - let a ground be banned from staging international cricket for a year: that would activate administrators intent on five-day blandness.

Test cricket is bringing its own extinction closer by being staged on such pitches. Or stage it at night, without floodlights.

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Anderson satisfied with England start

2011-05-28T00:59:00.000+01:00

James Anderson was pleased with the way England got back to business on day one of the first npower Test against Sri Lanka.

After the highs of the Ashes and the rigours of the World Cup, England’s homecoming was delayed by rain until 3.30pm.

Having lost the toss they were asked to bowl first against a talented touring batting order and stuck to their task diligently as Sri Lanka reached stumps on 133 for two from 48 overs.

Captain Tillakaratne Dilshan and Tharanga Paranavitana both impressed in reaching 50 and 58 not out respectively, but England’s bowlers beat the bat on several occasions to keep them interested.

Reflecting on the hosts’ efforts in circumstances that could not have been more different to their last Test match in Sydney, Anderson said: “We’ve got to move on from the winter. We had a great winter and we enjoyed it but it’s the start of a new summer, the start of a new series and we’ve got to try and put that to one side and concentrate on the challenge ahead.

“I thought we started pretty well considering we spent most of the day in the dressing room, it sometimes can be quite hard to get yourself up for that kind of start time.

“But I thought we did brilliantly in the first hour. We could have got a few wickets, we beat the bat a couple of times but they played pretty well too and left well.

“I thought we got some deserved wickets in the evening.”

England’s day would have been significantly worse had Anderson not removed Kumar Sangakkara for 11 in the evening session, a decision that initially needed a referral and even then appeared controversial until technology suggested a thin edge.

England were confident they had their man when they went upstairs but on a handful of other occasions opted not to use the UDRS

They have been criticised in the past for using their allocated referrals wastefully in the past and Anderson acknowledges it is something they have been attempting to improve.

“We’ve tried to shut Swanny up so he doesn’t waste them,” he joked. “But because it’s quite a new thing it was always going to take a bit of time getting used to them. I thought we used them pretty well today and hopefully we can continue to do that.

“The slips were convinced (about Sangakkara’s dismissal). With the strong breeze across, the guys in front of the wicket didn’t hear anything but the slips were convinced so we had no hesitation in asking.”

The Lancashire seamer was also pleased with the pitch at Cardiff, adding: “There’s more life than we thought here. We were delighted that there is some movement there and a little bit of bounce for the taller guys.

“If you bend your back you can get something out of the pitch so it’s a good cricket wicket. It’s going to be a hard contest tomorrow I think and further on in the game.”

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Middlesex edge ahead

2011-05-27T18:18:00.000+01:00

Middlesex established a first-innings lead over Essex on day three of their LV= County Championship Division Two clash but only 31.5 overs were possible in between stoppages for rain at Chelmsford.

Tim Murtagh picked up his first five-wicket haul of the season as Essex were bowled out for 291 - 94 runs shy of Middlesex’s first-innings total.

Chris Rogers then pummelled 32 from 25 deliveries as Middlesex added a further 39 for the loss of Sam Robson.

Essex had resumed on an overnight 235 for seven and the first two wickets were picked up by fast bowler Murtagh.

First he produced a delivery that nipped back to trap Essex captain James Foster lbw without offering a stroke, but not before the batsman had advanced from 44 to 58 to register his fourth half-century of the summer.

Foster's fine effort contained six boundaries and his dismissal effectively ended Essex’s hopes of getting within touching distance of Middlesex's 385 total.

David Masters provided Murtagh with his second success. He stayed long enough to find the boundary with his only scoring stroke before putting up an easy catch to Dawid Malan at short extra cover.

Tim Phillips produced a few aggressive strokes with Reece Topley as his partner but was unable to take Essex to a third batting point.

They were still nine short when Anthony Ireland removed Phillips for 28 as wicketkeeper John Simpson claimed his third catch of the innings.

Murtagh finished with figures of 5-82 as Middlesex established their useful advantage.

When they went in again they had moved to 34 when Ravi Bopara struck in his opening over by bowling Robson, a century-maker in the first innings, with a ball that kept low.

But Chris Rogers had moved to 32, containing six fours, as he and Ireland reached the close without further mishap.

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Red Rose race ahead

2011-05-27T12:05:00.000+01:00

Lancashire extended their lead at the top of the LV= County Championship Division One to 27 points by hurrying to a 10-wicket demolition of Hampshire on the third morning at the Rose Bowl.

Kyle Hogg, who took seven first-innings wickets, claimed four more today as the hosts’ remaining five fell in 15 overs, leaving the Red Rose seven for victory.

Resuming on 163 for five - 32 behind - Hampshire lost Nic Pothas for nought, opener Benny Howell bowled for three more than his overnight 68, Dimitri Mascarenhas lbw and Dominic Cork - all to Hogg, who finished with 4-31 and match figures of 11-59 in 31 overs. Gary Keedy ended the innings by bowling David Griffiths with the total 201.

Paul Horton twice struck Cork for four in the only three further balls faced by unbeaten Lancashire, who have now won five out of six games this season.

Durham, who sat joint-second heading into this round of fixtures, have already claimed eight bonus points from their match against Warwickshire and would move to within three points of Lancashire should they claim victory at Edgbaston.

The north-east county were held up by rain today but still managed to make significant strides towards claiming a fourth win of the season.

Warwickshire failed to add to their overnight score of 186 for nine and trailed by a whopping 416 runs on first-innings.

Only 14 overs were possible thereafter, during which the hosts, following on, slumped to 35 for three. All-rounder Ben Stokes added two wickets, including the scalp of Mohammad Yousuf for a king pair, to his four in the first innings.

Somerset came up against determined resistance from Yorkshire on the third day of their match at Taunton, although two late wickets for Arul Suppiah left the visitors in a position of peril.

After a delayed start, Marcus Trescothick’s side resumed on 389 for six, a lead of 31, and added a further 63 before being dismissed.

James Hildreth was the last man to fall, having struck 87 from 125 deliveries, while Adil Rashid finished with 4-100 for Yorkshire.

Joe Root moves past 50 as Yorkshire look to fight back at Taunton. Two late wickets for Arul Suppiah dented the visitors' progress

Joe Root and Andrew Gale both registered half-centuries in Yorkshire’s second-innings and the in-form Bairstow reached stumps on 80 not out.

However, Suppiah struck twice in the penultimate over of the day to remove Gary Ballance and Steven Patterson as the White Rose stumbled to 249 for six, a lead of 155.

Each of the four Division Two fixtures were affected by rain to varying degrees.

The weather came to Surrey’s rescue at the Kia Oval after they conceded a first-innings lead of 135 to Glamorgan.

Surrey were bowled out for 284 on a rain-interrupted third morning, having started the day on 240 for six, with Chris Ashling claiming career-best figures of 4-47.

However, Glamorgan could only reach 46 without loss in their second innings before further showers brought play to a premature halt.

Derbyshire were also frustrated by showers at Canterbury as they looked to set Kent a challenging final-day target.

The visitors ended day three on 85 for one, leading by 193, with first-innings centurions Wayne Madsen and Usman Khawaja unbeaten on 43 and 32.

Kent had earlier progressed from 198 for four to 352 all out, thanks to a series of useful contributions from the tail. Tim Groenewald was the pick of Derbyshire’s attack with figures of 4-64.

Only 31.5 overs were possible at Chelmsford, where Middlesex dismissed Essex for 291 to claim a first-innings advantage of 94.

The visitors then moved on to 39 for one, thanks largely to a quickfire unbeaten 32 from Chris Rogers, but appear to be running out of time in their bid to force victory.

Not a single ball was bowled at Wantage Road, where Leicestershire are 53 ahead of leaders Northamptonshire with all 10 second-innings wickets still intact.

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New Web Site

2011-05-27T11:02:00.001+01:00

Just a wee post to let you know I've got a new site Learn Guitar 365.

England v Sri Lanka: first Test, day one report

2011-05-27T04:06:00.000+01:00

Ashes holders or not, English cricket can ill-afford to treat its patrons so shabbily. A large section of this ground has been closed off because the lack of ticket sales for this Test could not justify its opening, due to the extra stewarding costs that would incur.

You’d think therefore, that ensuring a fulsome experience for those that do turn up, would be a given, but while that was certainly the case here for the Ashes Test two years ago, it wasn’t yesterday.

Not that England gave the 7,000 spectators present much to be grateful for either after Sri Lanka ended the day 133-2, after winning the toss and electing to bat. With the covers in place until just before the start, they probably expected a seaming pitch and England’s Ashes winning bowlers to run rampant on it.

If the first transpired, to a degree, the devastating bowling did not, as evidenced by the 93-run opening partnership between Dilshan and Tharanga Paranavitana.

England’s pace bowlers failure to fire with the new ball was partly due to the blustery conditions, which make it devilishly difficult to find a rhythm, and partly because they have not bowled much in first-class cricket since the end of the Sydney Test last January.

This season James Anderson and Stuart Broad, who shared the new ball yesterday, have bowled 71 and 59 overs this season respectively, enough to get rid of any rust but not to find a good sheen.

As a result, they gave the impression that they were suffering from the tension from expectation that sometimes overcomes bowlers after their captain has won the toss and put a side in. Broad, especially, was off beam, and everyone who has seen him bowl for Nottinghamshire this season reckon he was undercooked for this Test.

How much his recent injuries contributed to that impression is not clear, but the vigour of youth is quickly replaced by something more circumspect once the knocks mount up.

Anderson did not leak as many runs in his opening salvo, he was equally guilty in allowing the left-handed Paranavitana leave more than he had to play.

Dilshan doesn’t leave many alone, however wide of off-stump they are. Judging from the unfettered way he reached fifty, his attacking philosophy has not been dulled by captaincy or the early season pitches in England.

Over the years the impression in some circles, false as it happens, has grown that he is little more than a dasher. But yesterday he passed 4,000 Test runs, becoming only the ninth Sri Lankan batsmen to reach the milestone.

Aggressive instincts can work against you though and no sooner had he acknowledged his fifty, than was bowled by Graeme Swann after bottom-edging a cut shot that would have been less risky had it limited its ambition to two runs rather than four.

The breakthrough achieved after Swann having give Andrew Strauss some belated control, England got the prized wicket of Kumar Sangakkara, though it needed some sharp eyes by the Rod Tucker, the TV umpire, after Aleem Dar had initially turned down Anderson’s appeal for an edge.

From every replay angle it looked as if Dar’s judgment had been right until Hotspot registered the merest dot of heat as the ball brushed against a few microns of bat.

Although Snicko, not yet used a as tool for such decisions, later confirmed it, Sangakkara has a big sponsor’s label on his bat that overlaps the edges. It wouldn’t be too far fetched, given the faintness of the contact, that he might have enjoyed a different outcome had it not been there.

His fall brought Mahela Jayawardene to join Paranavitana, now applying himself with resolve of an old hand on the sluggish pitch.

But Jayawardene, Sri Lanka’s finest batsman of all time, did not look as assured as the tall left-hander, who passed 1000 Test runs en route to a watchful fifty made off 145 balls.

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England must prove themselves in India and Sri Lanka before laying claim to No1 spot says Muttiah Muralitharan

2011-05-26T21:53:00.000+01:00

England return to the five-day game for the first time since their glorious Ashes tour, determined to earn the right to be called the best Test-playing nation on the planet.

But Muralitharan, who took 800 Test wickets before his retirement last year - and removed an English batsman 112 times - believes Andrew Strauss' men need to prove themselves in countries such as Sri Lanka and India before they can claim to be the best.

''I think they are good in England, but on the sub-continent they are not that good,'' he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

''They had a brilliant win in the Ashes but other than that they haven't done many great things in the sub-continent.

''They have to improve on the sub-continent, beating sides from the sub-continent in the sub-continent. They have to beat Sri Lanka and India in their conditions.''

Muralitharan has acknowledged the brilliance of England spinner Graeme Swann, but feels they will be unable to conquer the Asian sides on their own patch unless they can find a spin twin to go alongside the Nottinghamshire man.

''At the moment they have a lovely spinner in Graeme Swann, but they need one more spinner to be fighting in the sub-continent because it's difficult with one,'' he said.

''In the sub-continent you need two good spinners. I think Graeme Swann is world class but they need another one.''

Sri Lanka's attack is somewhat different to the one that last toured England in 2006, with Muralitharan having retired completely, and the dangerous Lasith Malinga also calling time on his Test career.

Malinga cited a need to preserve his fitness as the reason why he will only play one-day cricket in future, and Muralitharan has backed his former team-mate's decision.

He said: ''I think he was struggling for the last two or three years with his knee. He only played one match last year.

''He thinks his career is over in Test cricket and he can play one-day cricket until the next World Cup and I feel it's a wise choice for him to do that.

''I think his body would not take it because he had a very bad knee.''

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Chris Gayle in brutal form again as Bangalore make short work of Kochi

2011-05-08T20:47:00.000+01:00

Chris Gayle was in blistering form again as the Bangalore Royal Challengers consolidated their top-four position in the Indian Premier League table with a nine-wicket win over Kochi Tuskers Kerala.

Gayle, who struck 107 from 49 balls on Friday against Kings XI Punjab, this time powered his way to 44 in 16 balls as Bangalore chased 126 for victory, with Tillakaratne Dilshan (52 from 31 balls) and Virat Kohli (27) leading them home in just 13.1 overs.

Brendon McCullum (22) led a profitable opening period for visitors Kochi, as he and Michael Klinger built a solid 43 together but their promising start was halted by two wickets apiece for the Bangalore captain, Daniel Vettori, and Sreenath Aravind.

McCullum was then caught off Vettori, while Klinger (24) was bowled by Gayle and Kochi were in trouble at 73 for four as Vettori dispatched Mahela Jayawardene and the wicketkeeper AB de Villiers' acrobatics ran out Parthiv Patel for 19.

It slowed the run rate considerably and allowed Aravind to remove Brad Hodge and Raiphi Gomez as Ravindra Jadeja's fighting 23 helped Kochi reach 125 before losing two more wickets in the final over.

Bangalore's batting was once again dominated by Gayle, who smashed five sixes and three fours off the hapless Kochi attack alongside Dilshan.

Gayle's departure to Vinay Kumar only delayed the inevitable for Kochi, as Dilshan picked up his pace to reach 50 in 30 deliveries while Kohli provided able support in the 61-run stand, hitting the winning boundary off Prasanth Parameswaran.

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Sri Lanka police to investigate match-fixing allegations levelled by former captain Hashan Tillakaratne

2011-05-02T23:34:00.001+01:00

Tillakaratne, who played 83 Tests and 200 one-dayers, claimed last week that Sri Lankan players had been involved in match-fixing since 1992.

“I have asked the inspector-general of police to investigate these claims and give a report to me,” Mahindananda Aluthgamage said on Monday.

“Match fixing is something which has been in this country over a period of time. This has spread like a cancer today,” Tillakaratne was quoted as saying by Sri Lanka’s Daily Mirror newspaper on Friday.

“There were threats of this issue being exposed at various times. But it was kept quiet by giving money to various people.

“If the people who were responsible for that are listening to this, I state this today with great responsibility, I will shortly reveal the names of those responsible,” he said.

However on Sunday, Sri Lanka's World Cup captain Kumar Sangakkara challenged Tillakaratne to prove his allegations.

“Hashan has played the game for years and he’s captained Sri Lanka as well. So it’s interesting to see what he has to say and if he has anything more than allegations,” Sangakkara said.

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Pakistan police arrest gang linked to threats against Zulqarnain Haider

2011-04-28T03:00:00.000+01:00

Pakistani police say they have arrested a gang of bookmakers who were allegedly behind death threats sent to wicketkeeper Zulqarnain Haider.

Haider fled the Pakistan team hotel in Dubai last November hours before a one-day international against South Africa. He flew to London where he applied for asylum after saying that an unknown person had threatened him for not co-operating in fixing the one-day series.

"We arrested eight bookmakers yesterday and some of them have confessed they had the threatening calls made to Zulqarnain," said Nasir Qureshi, a senior investigating officer.

The bookmakers were from the Sambrial area near Sialkot in the eastern province of Punjab.

Haider has now returned to Islamabad after receiving reassurances from Pakistan's interior minister, Rehman Malik, about his safety and security. Qureshi said the arrested men appeared to be well-connected and deeply involved in gambling on international matches.

"We have recovered around 250 mobile and landline sets from them, some ammunition, records and computers," he said.

Haider is still in Islamabad and is awaiting security clearance from authorities to go to his hometown of Lahore.

The 25-year old wicketkeeper has been told to appear before the Pakistan Cricket Board disciplinary committee to respond to charges that he left the team without informing the team management, which was a violation of his contract.

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Duncan Fletcher's last hurrah with India will be a different challenge | Mike Selvey

2011-04-27T19:01:00.001+01:00

It looks as if the succession was in hand all along. Gary Kirsten had an enduring relationship with Duncan Fletcher as a young player for Western Province so is as familiar with his ethos and methods as any and, of course, in the primary position to make a judgment on who may be most suited to take on the unique task of coaching India, perhaps the most challenging role in the game outside actually playing.

Kirsten's success as national coach gave him absolute credibility with the players, administrators and supporters alike and his recommendation, which Fletcher's appointment appears to be, would carry consequent weight.

For Fletcher, this will be one last grand coaching hurrah. His failings with the England side in Australia in 2006-07 and in the 2007 World Cup, disasters both, should in no way camouflage the debt owed by England cricket, which even now is reaping the benefits of the structures he put in place.

His success in regaining the Ashes in 2005 from one of the most powerful teams ever to take the field remains one of the outstanding England achievements in any era. But there was success in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, in the sort of conditions in which England traditionally struggled to compete, and in South Africa, too. He also drew a Test series in India. So he brings with him a considerable CV, more substantial in fact than that of the man he succeeds.

Why he feels he needs the challenge at 62 is another matter. Since leaving the England job he has filled his time with consultancy positions, at Hampshire, and with the South Africa and New Zealand sides. It has helped to keep him in the loop. Has he missed the more permanent contact and influence that he could bring to bear?

Presumably the Indian authorities made him a financial offer he would find hard to refuse, although clearly he took the job strictly on his terms rather than be required to fit into a system that did not meet with his approval. The retention of Eric Simons, the bowling coach who also worked with Fletcher at Western Province, is testament to that.

Fletcher may give the impression of being a curmudgeon, and at times an autocrat, but Kirsten and of course MS Dhoni will recognise and appreciate someone whose qualities tend to involve working in the background. He has never craved attention, believing that as it is the players ultimately who win or lose games, then it should be they who have the profile.

He was always keen to set up a business-style structure – whether it was at England or Western Province, or Glamorgan before that – in which the captain was viewed as the chief executive and himself as managing director. If there were ever any doubts that whoever was appointed it would be Dhoni, along with Sachin Tendulkar, who ran the show, then they have been dispelled by Fletcher's advancement.

His first task will be to form a relationship with Dhoni. With England his bond with Nasser Hussain was immense, but those who believed that Hussain's departure would preclude a similar relationship in the future, underestimated Fletcher's pragmatism: that with Hussain was seamlessly replaced with an equally strong relationship, with Michael Vaughan.

Whatever it was to the two England captains, to Fletcher it was always business. He will, no doubt, operate on a similar basis to Kirsten which, given the nature and stature of the players he had, was consultative. He did not reside in India for any length of time, but commuted as and when necessary. It is unlikely, then, that Fletcher will uproot from his Cape Town home.

Now he faces a challenge of a different kind to that he faced when he took over England more than a decade ago. They had reached the bottom of the heap and it was by instilling the team values, with the aid of a determined captain who sought respect before popularity, that he gradually helped drag them up. This is different for, as it stands, India are the top-ranked Test side and World Cup holders.

There is an analogy, of sorts, with the situation in Australia when Steve Waugh handed on the captaincy to Ricky Ponting. Waugh chose his moment well for, although Ponting would enjoy great success with an established side, it was always going to fragment. Fletcher will enjoy being associated with one of the finest of all batting line-ups, but will do so in the knowledge that it is rapidly ageing.

So he may see his main role not as maintaining the performance of the star players, but of bringing on the next generation, not just batsmen but bowlers, where there appears to be a dearth of emerging talent.

He will do so knowing that, as with West Indies fast bowlers, things in all probability will never again be the same. He will also know that a decline during his tenure is almost inevitable.

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Reece Topley tells Essex: Sorry I can't play today - I've got to revise for my exams

2011-04-27T02:26:00.000+01:00

“The biggest thing is not to get too ahead of myself,” he says. “I read something on the internet last night that said I could be an England Lions player this winter. That’s too much. I’m still 17. I’ve only played three championship games.” Sorry, Reece.

But while Essex take the field on Tuesday, Topley is preparing to take AS Levels in media studies, sport studies and PE.

You might mischievously point out that they sound very much like the subject choices of a young man with his career already lined up. But there will be no slacking in lessons, no wistful staring out of the window at the playing fields. Not while his father is a teacher there.

Don Topley was an Essex player for a decade, as well as the coach of Zimbabwe, before retiring in 1994 and moving into education. Now, though, he is the very embodiment of a proud parent.

“Oh, he’s very able,” Don says. “From the age of dot, he’s always played sport. He represented Essex under nines, captained them. He’s a very talented rugby player, football player...”

“Shhh,” says Reece, sighing at his dad’s immodesty.“He won’t say, but he is.”

Standing at 6ft 7in with size 13 feet, Reece’s progress has not gone unnoticed.

The England and Wales Cricket Board snapped him up for its fast bowling programme at the age of 13, and for the past two years the England team have invited him to Loughborough so they can practise batting against left-arm pace.

You might remember, a couple of years ago, a 15-year-old lad being conked on the head and being taken to hospital as a result of a flying Kevin Pietersen straight drive. That kid was Reece Topley.

“He ended up in Leicester Hospital,” Don remembers. “He was about 6ft 5in and he was in a children’s ward. The beds were too small.”

But Reece has never been one to be cowed by distinguished company.

His first Test net wicket, at the age of 14, was Alastair Cook, clean bowled at the Essex indoor school. Cook responded by breaking the bowler’s finger with a crunching drive the very next over. Now the two share a dressing room.

“I just try and pick his brains now and then,” Reece says. “But to be honest, I do that with all of them. People like Matt Walker and Dave Masters are very experienced county players.”

After the game against Northamptonshire at the weekend, Reece sought out Chaminda Vaas, one of the great left-arm fast bowlers, to ask for advice.

That, if anything, is the most exciting thing about Topley.

It is not just his talent, which is considerable, but the fact that despite his tender years, he has already developed the mentality of an elite sportsman — the ambition, the hunger, the surpassing desire for improvement, for new tricks.

Don reveals that Reece is working on an away-swinger as well, although he will not be unveiling it for Essex just yet. Instead, it is quivering school batsmen who will be facing England’s brightest young fast bowling hope for now.

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The story of Billy the Kid, down but not yet out on the county circuit | Andy Bull

2011-04-26T18:27:00.001+01:00

In sport talent alone is not enough. Even when it is coupled with character there is no guarantee that a player will make it. If you don't believe me, turn to page 158 of the new Wisden Almanack.

RETIREMENTS it reads CAREER FIGURES – Players not expected to appear in county cricket in 2011. Run your finger down through the fine print to 'S'.

B.M. Shafayat M 119 Runs 5,828 HS 161 100s 9 Avge 30.04. There was a time when they used to call Bilal Shafayat 'Billy Sapphire' around the County Ground at Trent Bridge because he was such a gem of a player. And it wasn't all that long ago. He is only 26 now. He should be in the prime of his career. He could have been playing for England. But last Saturday the man who was once described by the Daily Telegraph as "the most naturally talented English batsman since David Gower" was batting at first drop for the Birmingham club Wellington against Knowle and Dorridge in the first round of the Williamson Trophy.

How did it come to this?

"I have natural talent," Shafayat says. "But that only takes you so far. It is really a mental game, and I suppose that is what I am going through at the moment. What's happened over the years, it has been tough. It has been a period of maturing, growing up and, to be honest with you, of becoming an adult." They say this could be a golden age for English cricket, that there have rarely been so many talented young players coming through around the circuit. Everywhere you look there are young twentysomethings scoring runs and teenagers taking wickets. They would all have a lot to learn from Shafayat's story.

"I sort of knew that Notts were going to let me go halfway through last season," Shafayat says. "I had a very good start [he made 159 against Durham MCCU], and some of the senior players were coming up to me saying 'you could get 10 first-class hundreds this year'. That's no word of a lie. I was feeling brilliant. But I had six games where I wasn't able to get a big score. Then I was left out.

"In the second team I did very well, I got three big hundreds straight away," Shafayat remembers. "There was a chance to get back in to the first team but the manager overlooked me and picked a youngster. And then I thought, 'Yeah, maybe I've just missed the boat. I think I know where this is heading.'" Where it was heading was the manager's office, and one of the most difficult conversations of Shafayat's career. "I hope things work out, Billy, and all the best for your future career."

Shafayat is a good guy. As the Notts coach Mick Newell said when the club let him go, "his attitude and approach have been exemplary". Shafayat is honest enough to admit the truth. "If I had scored enough runs in the last two years Notts would have kept me. It was black and white with them. 'If you perform you stay, and if you don't you go'. There was no real flexibility or any leniency in it. And in the last two years I did not score enough runs."

That did not make it any easier to accept. "Me being me, I had always been the first pick of every side from a very young age," Shafayat says. "But this was like being left against the wall as the last boy to be picked for a school football team. Hearing those words, 'All the best for your career', that's not nice."

If you know your cricket, you will know that Shafayat is not just another county pro who could not quite cut it. Eight years ago he was the captain of England Under-19s, and, as the BBC said at the time, "one of the most exciting talents in English cricket". There were a lot of good players in his Under-19 team: Alastair Cook, Tim Bresnan, Luke Wright, Samit Patel, Ravi Bopara, Liam Plunkett. Shafayat was the star.

In 2001 he became the youngest Championship player in Nottinghamshire's history when he played against Middlesex. Aged only 16 he came in at No5, just after some whippersnapper called Kevin Pietersen had been trapped lbw by Phil Tufnell. 177 balls later he was bending down to kiss the turf to celebrate his fifty. It was an ostentatious flourish, typical of a young man who had every right to be cocksure about his talent.

In 2002 his star grew brighter still. He made 118 and 201 not out in a single U-19 Test against India. In 2003 he led England U-19s to Australia. In the first Test at Adelaide produced an all-round performance for the ages. In the first innings he scored 108 out of 331. In the second he added 66 out of 366. And in the fourth he took six for 54 with his brisk medium pace. "He stood head-and-shoulders above his team-mates" said Wisden. "He won the Test almost single-handedly, driving like a dream." A nation which had been starved of success against Australia for over a decade had seen the future.

And it looked glorious. The next year he was picked for an England 'A' tour. The test started right after he got back from that 'A' Tour. Notts gave him a single first-class game that year, at the fag end of the season. "I was 20. They wanted me to be patient. I was told to be patient and my chance would come." Things are different now. The circuit is full of younger players being given early opportunities, simply because the ECB now gives extra funds to the counties to pick players who are under 25. Shafayat is 26. Sides who claim to be adhering to noble ideals by fostering young talent are not being entirely honest about their motivations. "Now it seems slightly different. It's the wrong time to be over 25 because there is a financial incentive for counties to play under-25s."

If that system had been in place in 2004, Shafayat's career might not have taken the twist it did. Frustrated by the lack of opportunity at Notts, he moved to Northamptonshire to work with Keppler Wessels. After two solid seasons there, ("1,000 runs in my first year, and just under 1,000 in the second when I was doubling up as wicketkeeper") he was lured back to his old club after being promised a shot at nailing down the No4 slot in the order. That never really materialised.

Instead he was pushed up to open, a tough job at Trent Bridge, where the ball moves about so much early on. Even then he was being talked about as a future England player, frequently tipped as the one to watch in the season previews. But two sound seasons were followed by two lean ones. He scored in stutters and splurts, his form slumped. The journalists found new players to fete.

All these thoughts are still fresh in his mind. When I called him he seemed almost to second-guess why I wanted to talk to him. For the first time in nine years he is starting a season without any kind of county contract. And he has been asking himself the same questions that I wanted to put to him.

"I'm still figuring out what I struggled with," Shafayat admits. "I think I'll learn over the next 12 to 18 months. From what I can gather at the moment, it was doing it over and over again under the immense pressure that I felt was on myself in every game. That was it more than anything. It felt as if every game was so important, and as though I was playing for my spot. When you're young you compete with others without knowing it, but you're certainly not put under any extra pressure by the management or by people around you. But the expectations grow as you get older. People expect you to perform day-in, day-out."

That may sound a legitimate explanation to you and me, but Shafayat's self-diagnosis is more complicated. If this reads like he is feeling sorry for himself, it should not, because he does not. "Sportsmen thrive under pressure. I enjoyed that pressure. But it also takes a toll, especially if you are not performing. It is a domino effect. You go from one innings to another thinking 'oh, there's another performance that I have missed out on.' You don't get time to step away from it all and try and correct the mistakes you are making."

Right now, Shafayat seems a little lonely. Not in his family life; he has a wife and three children, the youngest of them two weeks old. But lonely professionally. "There are times in county cricket at certain counties when there are not enough helping hands there to teach you, to show you where you are going wrong. Up to 19 I felt I was fearless and had all the talent in the world. Things came very easy. But then there is a point where you do become an adult and people expect you to perform at that level all the time. There is no manual that anyone gives you. Sometimes you have to work things out for yourself. And sometimes that takes a while. The support outside cricket has been brilliant. Within the circuit, that's where you find out who your friends are."

Nobody loves you when you're down and out. All of a sudden a lot of the things he took for granted as a pro, such as his kit sponsors, have gone. "I understand that. Everything is a business. They are only with you while it benefits them. And I guess the same goes for some journalists as well. That's the way the world works. But you see friends leaving you, or the people you thought were friends at that time when you were doing well. I guess that's the way it works in sport and in life generally, and those are the times when you have to stay strong. And you realise who your friends are."

High up among those friends is the Professional Cricketers' Association. "I can't speak out enough for them. They have been phenomenal, telling me where to go, who to speak to, what to do, getting things back on the road, how to start earning again. And they give me hope, they remind me that I am only 26, so if I can get another place now, there's eight to 10 years of cricket left in me, and within that I still think I can play international cricket. That keeps me going."

This winter Shafayat was playing for Habib Bank in Pakistan, playing alongside the likes of Azhar Mahmood, Younis Khan and Shahid Afridi. "It has given me a different angle, a different view of my career. I feel as if I have moved forward in my own game." He is a devout Muslim, always has been, and along with the players' union and his family, it is his faith that has helped him stay strong. He also loves boxing, and has taken inspiration from his heroes there. "Look at Ali, at Tyson. I read books about them, and they motivate me. If you go down it is a matter of coming back.

"Everything is a blessing in disguise, I really believe that. What I am going through now is for the better. It will become part of me. I am 26. I'm not exactly where I wanted to be, or where I was heading to be with my career when I was young. But this has sure made me a lot hungrier to succeed." His optimism is impressive. But bubbling underneath it there seems to be some self doubt. There is bound to be.

But he is battling it, keeping it at bay. "If I had signed another contract at Notts maybe I would have carried on making the same mistakes." With county finances as they are, it is going to be hard to find a new club. Shafayat knows that. "I used to have offers coming left, right and centre, but it is not exactly the same now." But in a way he is one of the luckier ones. He is fit, and has his family, his faith and his talent. A lot of good cricketers get released and don't have those things to fall back on. This week he is playing a trial match for the Sussex second XI against Middlesex. He has played one game for them already this season, making 51 and 141 against the Somerset seconds.

"They've called me for a second look, which is positive", he says. "It will be fine. It will be fine." I sense he is telling himself that as much as he is telling me. "God willing, everything will work out if I keep working hard. God is watching and he does reward you for your efforts. Whatever happens over the years, hopefully my claim to fame won't just be my Under-19s career. I am sure there is a lot more to come."

Wish him luck. He will need it. Because in sport talent alone is not enough.

The following is an extract from our free weekly cricket email, the Spin. To subscribe click here.

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England's Michael Yardy close to making comeback from depression for Sussex

2011-04-25T23:06:00.001+01:00

Yardy will step up his recovery today when he has a nets session with first-team colleagues and while unlikely to figure in the County Championship home game against Lancashire that starts on Tuesday, he could return to front line action at Hampshire next week.

That would represent the passing of a major milestone in the 30-year-old’s fight against depression that saw him return home just before England’s World Cup quarter-final last month and Robinson is certainly bullish about his skipper’s recovery.

“He is going well. Every week he has practised more. The first time he came in once and last week he came in three times and this week he was in every day, including Saturday, and so he is getting close,” Robinson told Telegraph Sport.

“I think this week will be too early. Whether he is in a situation to play the week after we will just have to wait and see. At the moment he hasn’t practised with the group but he is due to on Monday.

“We would love to have him back because he is a quality player and he gives character and backbone for a team that has that anyway but he has got experience and so we miss him, of course we do.

“But it is just like anybody being injured. You have to give them time to heal properly and what you don’t want to do is rush them back so that they have a recurrence of the injury. It’s the same for Yards.

“So we have just got to keep talking to him and keep giving him time. He is increasingly his workload and he is doing more and more as he feels stronger and more able to do it.”

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Sri Lanka cave in over idea of asking IPL to release players by 5 May

2011-04-21T21:46:00.001+01:00

Sri Lanka's resolve to make a stand against the Indian Premier League and demand the return of their players by 5 May to prepare for the England tour has lasted all of 48 hours. The country's sports minister, Mahindananda Aluthgamage, adamant that the players must return, has now said he will "ask" the selectors to allow the Sri Lanka players in the IPL not to join the squad in London until 18 May.

In Sri Lanka, where what the government says goes, that is "ask" as in "tell". Sri Lanka's selectors will politely accede and Sri Lanka's IPL players will now join the rest of the squad about a week before the first Test. Speculation will abound over what threats, or indeed favours, have been discussed for such an about-turn. Aluthgamage is now quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying: "We have excellent relations with the government of India and the Indian cricket board. We don't want to upset or embarrass India."

Sri Lanka's opening tour game against Middlesex on 14 May will now have minimal purpose, but it is the final warm-up game against England Lions, which begins in Derby on 19 May, that Sri Lanka's top stars including Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene are now likely to be plunged into a day after reaching the UK. That match is only a week before the first Test starts in Cardiff.

Presumably the Sri Lankan selectors' threat to summon back Lasith Malinga from the IPL on 5 May so his fitness can be assessed for Test cricket, even though he has not been named in the Test squad to tour England, will now also be quietly dropped.

Aluthgamage denied that Indian pressure had influenced the change of heart. The decision to call back the players early was made by a new selection panel, headed by Duleep Mendis, in order to give the players time to prepare for the series. In a matter of days, Mendis has overstretched his hand.

The England and Wales Cricket Board has no intention of getting involved. If Sangakkara and company turn up in Cardiff half an hour before the start they will probably blame the traffic on the Severn Bridge.

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County Championship: match previews

2011-04-21T07:07:00.000+01:00

Lancashire v Somerset, Liverpool

Sri Lanka all-rounder Farveez Maharoof is set to make his delayed debut as Lancashire’s overseas player. Slow left-armer Simon Kerrigan is also added to the side that beat Sussex in the season opener at Aigburth..

Somerset have kept faith with an unchanged squad despite suffering the second heaviest innings defeat in their history and being dismissed for their lowest total since 1968 against Warwickshire.

Yorkshire v Nottinghamshire, Headingley

England seamer Ajmal Shahzad is still recovering from a hamstring injury that forced him to return early from the World Cup so Yorkshire have named an unchanged squad, which includes slow left-armer David Wainwright and seamer Oliver Hannon-Dalby.

Nottinghamshire, who are unchanged after starting their title defence by beating Hampshire, will face former England left arm seamer Ryan Sidebottom who left them during the winter.

Worcestershire v Warwickshire, Worcester

Worcestershire, who have secured the services of batsman Moeen Ali for two more years, have named the same side trounced by Yorkshire two weeks ago.

Former Pakistan batsman Mohammad Yousuf will make his Warwickshire debut as their locum overseas player. Richard Johnson stands by in case former England wicketkeeper Tim Ambrose fails to recover from a buttock muscle injury.

----------------

Division Two

Derbyshire v Middlesex, Derby

Australia left-hander Usman Khawaja is expected to make his Derbyshire debut having missed two matches with a thigh injury sustained playing club cricket the day before he flew to England. Garry Park is likely to make way.

Middlesex’s former Australia opener, Chris Rogers, who captained Derbyshire last season, will play against his old county after X-rays showed that his finger was not broken while fielding against Essex.

Glamorgan v Surrey, Cardiff

Former Glamorgan batsman Tom Maynard makes a quick return to the Swalec Stadium following his acrimonious departure during the winter. Paceman Jade Dernbach has recovered from a calf strain and joins a Surrey squad again comprised entirely of uncapped players.

Batsman Stewart Walters, released by Surrey during the winter, has been added to the Glamorgan side that beat Gloucestershire along with seamer Huw Waters and former England off-spinner Robert Croft.

Northamptonshire v Essex, Northampton

Essex have called up former captain Mark Pettini because Tom Westley has commitments at Durham University. South Africa paceman Lonwabo Tsotsobe will make his debut but 17-year-old Reece Topley will return to the Royal Hospital School in Holbrook after this match having taken a five-wicket haul in each of his first two Championship matches.

Northamptonshire, fresh from an innings victory over Kent, are expected to field an unchanged side.

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Ireland could get World Cup 2015 reprieve after ICC president calls for executive board to reconsider changes

2011-04-21T00:54:00.000+01:00

At the end of the recent World Cup, the ICC announced the next tournament in New Zealand and Australia would feature just ten teams, made up entirely of the world governing body’s full member nations. The associate teams such as Ireland and Holland were told they would not be able to take part in the World Cup until 2019 at the earliest when a qualification system would be put in place.

The decision was heavily criticised and the ICC has reacted by announcing it will look again at the structure of the next competition with the option of expanding the tournament to 12 teams, which would include two associates, a strong possibility.

“It is encouraging that the president has reopened this issue but there is still a way to go,” said Warren Deurtom, chief executive of Cricket Ireland.

“This is a positive step but we're cautious about it because it is the same 10 people having the same debate about the same issues. We (the 95 associate and affiliate members) have asked to assist in that process and requested for our elected representatives to meet the ICC president and/or the vice-president to put our case, so that they can see the strength of our resolve on this matter.

"There is a long way to go and it is down to how much momentum can be kept up, either through the media or through the public, who have been strong and unanimous in their views."

The decision will be discussed at the ICC’s annual general meeting in Hong Kong at the end of June but the associate nations were given hope when Sharad Pawar, the president of the ICC, said, “I have given this matter further serious thought and will request the board to consider this topic once more. I can understand the views of the Associates and Affiliates and ICC will seek to deal with this issue in the best way possible.”

Ireland spearheaded a campaign for the ICC to overturn the decision after producing the shock result of the last World Cup when they beat England in Bangalore by recording the highest ever run chase in the tournament’s history.

Cricket Ireland has grown significantly over the past four years since the team made its first big impression by beating Pakistan at the 2007 World Cup.

There have been significant moves in recent months to cut the 50 over World Cup from its recent level of 14 teams. That move was expected by the associate nations but what caused anger and resentment was the decision not to include a qualification process for the 2015 competition, which would have at least given them a glimmer of a chance of reaching the tournament proper.

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Sri Lanka name Tillakaratne Dilshan as captain for England tour

2011-04-20T16:55:00.000+01:00

Tillakaratne Dilshan will take over from Kumar Sangakkara as the captain of Sri Lanka for next month's tour of England. Sangakkara decided to step down after the team lost to India in the World Cup final.

"We are proud to announce the appointment of Dilshan as the national captain in all three formats of the game for the tour of England," Sri Lanka Cricket said in a statement. "The national selectors have postponed the appointment of a vice-captain since the prospective candidates are nursing injuries and their availability for the forthcoming tour is still in question."

The 34-year-old Dilshan, who is an opening batsman, was the leading run-scorer in the World Cup with 500 at an average of 62.50. He has led Sri Lanka once before, on a tour of Zimbabwe in June last year, when his team won a one-day tri-series which also featured India, but this is the first time Dilshan has been picked to lead his country in a Test series.

The chairman of selectors, Duleep Mendis, said the tour squad would be selected after Dilshan returns from the Indian Premier League where he is representing Royal Challengers Bangalore. Sri Lanka have told all their IPL players to return home by 5 May to prepare for the tour.

The squad are due to leave for England on 10 May for a series of three Tests, five one-day internationals and one Twenty20 international. The first Test in Cardiff starts on 26 May.

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Moeen extends Worcestershire stay

2011-04-20T08:13:00.000+01:00

Worcestershire batsman Moeen Ali has signed a two-year contract extension to keep him at New Road until the end of the 2013 campaign.

The 23-year-old left-hander, whose current deal was due to run out at the end of this summer, scored more than 2,000 runs in all competitions last season when he represented England Lions.

New Road director of cricket Steve Rhodes said: “Moeen played exceptionally well during 2010 and was a major part of our four-day promotion push.

“The development of younger players is paramount to the club’s future and I am delighted to have a talented all-round cricketer, such as Moeen, commit his future to the club.

“At Worcestershire, it can be difficult to hang on to our good, young players. However, we have signed up Richard Jones, Alexei Kervezee and others on long contracts, so getting Moeen to agree as the final piece of the jigsaw was crucial.

“We now have a nucleus of talented youngsters who will be playing together for the next few years - that can only be a good thing for Worcestershire.

“Moeen told me very clearly that he is happy here and he has been given the opportunity to bat up the order, develop his bowling and field in the positions he prefers.”

Rhodes added: “The deadline in the final year of his contract when other counties could put in 28-day approaches has only just been reached, so it never got to the stage where teams came in for him.

“We have been working all winter to reach a positive decision for us at Worcestershire and for Moeen himself. It has taken a while, but everyone is happy to have finalised it.”

Moeen, who moved to New Road from Warwickshire, said: “I have been at the club since 2007 and have thoroughly enjoyed my time here. I have been looked after very well.

“I am grateful for the opportunities I have had, which have allowed me to develop both my batting and bowling in all forms of the game, and I hope to progress over the coming years and help the club achieve future success.”

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Amjad eyes England recall

2011-04-20T04:23:00.000+01:00

Find out how the counties are shaping up for the new season - check out our exclusive interviews and features from around the country

Amjad Khan hopes some eye-catching performances for Sussex could lead to an England recall

Sussex new boy Amjad Khan has no regrets about moving from Kent and hopes it will be the springboard he needs to return to the international set-up.

The pace bowler’s solitary Test came in 2009 during England’s tour of the West Indies at the Queen’s Park Oval, where he failed to shine with match figures of 1-122.

He played an international Twenty20 soon after but has not been called upon since. However, Amjad has not been deterred and believes that a change of scenery will improve his chances of regaining an England place.

The 30-year-old, who spent 10 years with Kent, is also confident that his move to Hove, where he will lead the attack, will help to fulfil another ambition of winning domestic titles.

He told ecb.co.uk: “I think it was the right time to leave. I’m desperate to win trophies and I’m equally as desperate to get back into the England set-up.

“If you look at Sussex’s history, they’ve won God knows how many trophies in the last 10 years and they’ve produced a lot of England players, so it was a no-brainer to come here.

“There’s some new challenges here that there definitely wouldn’t have been at Kent and, as a person, that develops you, so it really is exciting.”

Amjad is at a loss to explain the reasons for Sussex’s innings-and-55-run defeat to Lancashire in the first match of their LV= County Championship campaign, but he is determined to see improvements when they take on Durham this week.

“I think we’re looking to win and can challenge in all forms of the game,” he said. “We’ve had a perfect start to pre-season, couldn’t have done anything differently, so there’s no excuse. I think we have to re-evaluate, figure out where it went wrong and then look forward."

Amjad is also full of praise for Sussex cricket manager Mark Robinson, who wants the Denmark-born bowler to show his pedigree in the sorter formats of the game as well as act as a mentor to the up-and-coming youngsters.

Amjad added: “Mark Robinson has been brilliant this winter and sort of said, ‘We want you to play all forms and we want you to lead the attack. Some of the younger guys, you’ve got to take under your wing and share your experience'. I’ve tried to do that and I think I’ve done pretty well.

“It shows that he backs you really and we worked on a lot of specific stuff this winter. I worked very closely with Mark Robinson, especially with the white ball stuff, bowling up front, bowling at the death, gameplans - so hopefully that can translate to good performances in one-day performances especially.”

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Michael Yardy's battle with depression should act as a warning to administrators, says England's Matt Prior

2011-04-20T00:40:00.000+01:00

Prior and Yardy are Sussex team-mates and have played cricket together since childhood. Yardy’s decision to return home before England’s World Cup quarter-final due to depression surprised many, but not Prior, who knew the extent of the problems afflicting the spin bowler.

“I spoke to him when we got back [from the World Cup] and it has hit him hard,” said Prior. “We have played cricket together since we were 12 so to watch him go through that was horrific. I know he made the right decision and I am proud of the decision he made because it wasn’t easy to leave at that stage.

“I believe it shows the strength of his character that he was a big enough person to say, ‘No, I can’t carry on and I need to deal with this’. I back him wholeheartedly to come back stronger.”

No date has been set for Yardy’s return but he is training again at Sussex and is expected to feature over the next couple of weeks.

The intensive winter schedule has been partly blamed for exacerbating Yardy’s condition, which follows the international retirement of Marcus Trescothick after suffering a stress-related illness.

Prior, who played in all forms of the game for England last winter, believes changes have to be made to prevent other players from suffering burn-out issues.

“I don’t think it is any coincidence that two England players have struggled with it,” he said. “Being away from home for 5½ months is a long time and is very taxing when you are playing so much.

“You are also involved in an intense environment and for that length of time it is exhausting physically and mentally. I believe there will be more issues if you have as intensive a schedule as we have just had. There will be more cases of injury or illness and something has to change.”

The winter’s toll on Prior was physical, with a shoulder injury an unwanted memento of the Ashes series. He jarred his left shoulder during the Adelaide Test and has had injections in order to be fit for the summer. He is due to return for Sussex against Nottinghamshire on May 10.

“I am sure it will be fine but I think it is one of those things I will have to live with for the rest of my career,” he said. “The thing that hurts is what I do for a living, which is diving. It is just one of those things I will have to manage and maintain.”

Prior’s position as England’s Test wicketkeeper is assured following another consistent winter but a World Cup which featured a lack of runs may limit him to one form of the game this summer.

“There is always someone else,” he said. “I will be working as hard as I can to be involved. You can look at batting and keeping stats but I also know what I bring to the team as well and that is something I have a lot of belief in.”

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Scyld Berry: Passing on the key to cricket's Hall of Fame

2011-04-19T17:59:00.000+01:00

Graeme Swann’s grinning reaction was: “What, I don’t have to do anything else?” He had been part of England’s Ashes-winning team of 2009, he had just taken eight wickets to win the decisive Oval Test. But he wanted to be sure his award was in the bag.

I will never forget the joy at the annual dinner when Andy Flower, then England’s batting coach, presented a leatherbound Wisden to Ottis Gibson, then England’s bowling coach, after his superlative last season with Durham. Friendship seldom generates such warmth.

Such moments reminded me of the responsibility in holding the only key to the game’s Hall of Fame, as the decision is the editor’s alone.

But I felt just about qualified after being a cricket correspondent for 30 years — more than half for The Telegraph — and touring all the Test-playing countries, and getting to know the main players, journalists and administrators.

Another delight is the one common to most editing: the commissioning of an article that one wants to read and nurturing it until fruition. The piece in this year’s Wisden about the All-India tour of England 100 years ago — the strangest of all cricket tours – was three years in the making from conception.

It depends entirely on the nature of the piece whether the right author is a journalist, a current cricketer, a former player, an academic or someone else. In general, I tried to invite more players to write for Wisden.

Few former editors of Wisden have played any cricket, although John Woodcock was only prevented from doing so by ill health. But the founder, John Wisden, was one of the best bowlers of his day, and the early almanacks had an understanding of the game — not just what happened and when, but how and why – that had become rather lost.

I like to think Wisden is now what it says on the tin: a cricketers’ almanack — the Cricketers’ Almanack — as well as a cricket-watcher’s.

This year’s edition tells the cricket-watcher about the yips which afflicted Scott Boswell in a domestic cup final, between Leicestershire and Somerset in 2001, and the cricketer about how to go about curing such an attack.

The Guardian commented last week that the change in editorship had been made in ‘ill-explained circumstances’ — and I can only agree. When I was called into the Soho office last October, the then chief executive explained that I had been “a very good editor” but that after four years, my year-by-year consultancy agreement would not be renewed because another editor was wanted to run a new website; then added, “it might be the wrong decision”.

Ah well, the main thing is that the game goes on, and Wisden will be there to record it, although I remain to be convinced — but then I would, wouldn’t I? — that the new arrangements are in the best interests of Wisden, or its readers, or of cricket.

And there are those ‘down’ times in winter, in the demanding build-up to publication, when upholding Wisden’s standards of accuracy for almost 1,700 pages can be a weighty task. Has the umpire for the Test between Bangladesh Under-19s and England Under-19s been spelt the same as in the third one-day international between Bangladesh and New Zealand?

One year, when the typesetting was done in Colchester, and the staff were staying seven miles away near Flatford Mill, I walked there one icy morning across the meadows. It was then I realised the hard work is worthwhile.

Constable’s paintings are a part of English consciousness; and when I look at the photograph of E W Swanton’s battered copy of the 1939 Wisden, which helped to sustain him and not merely hundreds but thousands of other prisoners in Japanese war camps, I appreciate that Wisden is too.

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Kevin Pietersen keen to captain England again

2011-04-19T11:46:00.001+01:00

KEVIN PIETERSEN threw his cap into the ring for England’s one-day captaincy last night and announced: “I’m ready to lead again.”

Three-times Ashes winner and Twenty20 world cup holder Pietersen’s first reign as skipper lasted just 150 days before he was forced out along with coach Peter Moores in January 2009.

Even by Lord’s standards, it was a botch-job and Pietersen admits he was “deeply hurt”.

But at England’s debrief after a triumphant winter in Australia, Andrew Strauss is expected to quit as 50-over captain next month – which would leave the door ajar for Pietersen again. And as KP modelled England’s new one-day replica shirt on a retail park in Enfield, he confirmed he was ready for another crack at leadership.

Pietersen, 30, said: “If the one-day job becomes available, I would definitely be up for it.

“A lot of water has passed under the bridge since I last did it and it’s something I’ve thought about in the past few weeks since the rumours surfaced about Andy Strauss stepping down.

“Second time around I think I could do a real good job as I’d be older and wiser, and would handle a few things a lot differently.

“I didn’t think I was too bad first time around – we had our moments against South Africa, and it took a century of freakish brilliance from Sachin Tendulkar to deny us a famous Test win in Chennai.

“So if the opportunity came up and I was asked I would say, ‘Thank you very much, I would love to have another go’.

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“I wasn’t too despondent about why it ended, or even how it ended, but I was certainly hurt by some of the negative publicity which followed. Some of the nonsense about a divided camp, and players being for or against me, was deeply hurtful and it took me a while to get over it.

“But time’s a great healer and I’m ready to do it again if the opportunity arose. I respected Andy Flower as a player, and as a coach I respect him more than ever now.

“He’s done an amazing job since he took over and he deserves all the plaudits.

“He has moulded the team in a very respectful manner, in an atmosphere where everyone is entitled to voice an opinion – whether you have played 100 Test matches or just one.

“It’s a happy ship, Andy keeps it on a very even keel, and my relationship with him is absolutely fine – both on a technical level and as a person.”

Flower expressed disappointment when Pietersen’s World Cup campaign was ended by what turned out to be a double hernia. The injury, at the end of an absurd schedule, was untimely because his move up to open in 50-over cricket showed promise.

But he was followed home by dark whispers of playing the drama queen, and hamming up the injury – even though it proved to be as serious as his Chelsea football chum Frank Lampard’s double hernia, which kept the England midfielder out for four months.

Pietersen, who plans a comeback for his new county, Surrey, in mid-May, said: “I’m no wimp and I’m not sure the people who called me that name would have been able to deal with the discomfort.

“At the World Cup I was on the strongest painkillers you are allowed to take, but I just ground to a halt.”

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Reece Topley, Essex's promising left-arm swing bowler, will benefit from another schooling session

2011-04-17T22:18:00.000+01:00

Reece Topley has run in, bowled at around 80mph with his left arm, and swung the ball into right-handers on a full length. For Essex he has taken three wickets against Cambridge, seven against Kent, and five more against Middlesex: 15 wickets, at 17 each, to lead this season’s field.

It won’t stay that way for long. Unlike Adil Rashid and his other rivals to be the leading wicket-taker of this early season, Topley this week has to go back to school — and, as he turned 17 only in February, he is not yet even in his second year of A-levels.

But school, after three consecutive matches in the first fortnight, is no bad place for Topley. He has to be allowed to grow in peace: he is 6ft 4 ins already and well on the way to being a second Bruce Reid, the Australian who was the tallest quick left-armer that international cricket has seen, and he doesn’t need any stress fractures from being over-bowled at this stage. He could do with a bit of work on his action too, as he falls away in delivery and does not maximise his height.

Topley is not alone either. This spring has seen English youth being given its head as seldom if ever before. Another teenaged pace bowler to watch — although in this case right-arm — is Liam Norwell of Gloucestershire, who echoes Andrew Flintoff, at least when he starts his run-up by holding the ball in both hands ahead of him and when he follows through, splaying his feet.

It is by design as much as accident that these local lads are being given a chance. Until recently, if a county had 30 grand to spare, they did not invest in local youth: much easier to get on the phone to an agent in South Africa and sign a tough cookie from Free State who wouldn’t break down, and if he had a British grandparent, so much the better.

But six years ago the England and Wales Cricket Board introduced Performance-related Fee Payments, one of the most sensible decisions they have made. By law, the ECB couldn’t stop the counties filling up their teams with Kolpaks and southern-hemisphere players who somehow acquired European Union passports, but they could incentivise them not to — and now they put between £10 million and £11 million a year into the pot by way of incentives.

At the height of this recession, or whatever the correct euphemism for the British economy being up the creek, most counties don’t need a second invitation to cash in. Selecting players who are qualified for England — preferably under the age of 22 — then getting them into an England side, whatever the format or age-group, gratifies the accountants.

Indeed it actually pays Essex to play Topley, or Gloucestershire to pick Norwell. A county can receive more money from the ECB for picking an English-born teenager than it pays out to that teenager. If a player under 22 plays every game, a county will receive £36,000, and can get away with paying him much less.

You can have too much of a good thing though. Taking a championship five-for in April, as Topley (twice) and Norwell have done, is not the same as bowling 20 overs day-in day-out in August. A county needs old-sweat batsmen and bowlers to hold the side together, as well as gilded youth.

For the moment though the future is bright. England, amazingly, have never produced a left-arm pace bowler who has taken 100 Test wickets. Bill Voce, as in Larwood and Voce, nearly got there — then the Second World War began, and he ended on 98. Ryan Sidebottom had a brilliant 2007-8 — then the injuries set in, and he ended on 79.

A left-arm swinger is gold dust. Chaminda Vaas was Sri Lanka’s pace attack for 15 years; Zaheer Khan carries India’s. The variety of angles that a left-armer can offer — from over and round the wicket — makes one essential in limited-overs death bowling. I couldn’t see England winning the last World Cup, because India do have a batting line-up that deserves the epithet of great, but an attack of Stuart Broad, Tim Bresnan, Graeme Swann and a fit Sidebottom could have taken England to the final.

So the future beckons for Topley, and the present isn’t too bad either, as he bowls a full and old-fashioned length that draws batsmen into the drive, and the Tiflex ball that is used in the second division swings copiously. As he grows stronger, he can develop the plan B of banging it in and pushing the batsman back, as Voce and Sidebottom learned to do. And maybe go one better.

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Sussex will get better - Nash

2011-04-17T17:18:00.000+01:00

Chris Nash believes Sussex's loss to Lancashire in their opening fixture was a wake-up call

Batsman Chris Nash hopes Sussex can make a swift recovery from their heavy season-opening LV= County Championship defeat at Lancashire when they take on Durham this week.

Sussex were guilty of a collapse in their second innings when they slipped from 152 for three to 174 all out as veteran bowlers Gary Keedy and Glen Chapple rolled back the years with nine wickets between them.

The innings-and-55-run loss at Liverpool was a demoralising return to Division One for Sussex, who romped to the title in the second tier last year.

Opener Nash, who made 15 and 43 with the bat, admitted Lancashire were the superior side but he is confident they can learn from their failings at the Emirates Durham ICG.

He told ecb.co.uk: “Obviously you want to start with a good result and it really wasn’t ideal. We had a really poor collapse which was quite disappointing but we’ll try and take whatever positives we can and hopefully use it as a bit of a kick-start for our season.

“I think they outplayed us in every aspect and we can hold our hands up and say we were outplayed. We’ve got a few days off now and we’ll be working hard to make sure we are a bit more resilient come next week.

“I think it’s just getting us back into the way Division One cricket is played.

"Last year, a lot of cricket was three-day cricket, it was kind of bang, bang, lots of wickets, runs came quick, so I think it’s just a case of getting used to that more attritional cricket. Hopefully we can adapt quite quickly.”

Nash has high hopes for the campaign and is refusing to get too dispirited following one defeat, instead focusing on success across all three domestic fronts.

“We always set out to win every trophy we play in,” he said. “I think it’s been a good approach and in quite a lot of cases it’s been an approach that has worked.

"We aim to win everything; we never look to just stay in Division One. We’re looking to win the division and if we can get our game right we’ve got the players to do that.

“It’s something that we aim to do and hopefully if we can stay in three competitions until as late as we can we’ll hopefully win a couple.”

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Pakistan's Zulqarnain Haider 'set to withdraw UK asylum claim'

2011-04-17T16:06:00.001+01:00

The former Pakistan wicketkeeper Zulqarnain Haider is reportedly set to withdraw his application for asylum, more than six months after fleeing to the UK following alleged death threats from illegal betting syndicates.

The Pakistan newspaper The News quoted a letter written by Haider to the home secretary, Theresa May, days after his brother Aqeel was quoted in the Pakistan Daily Mail saying that the interior minister Rehman Malik had given assurances over the safety of his family.

Haider reportedly wrote: "In light of the assurances that I have received, I feel that I no longer need sanctuary in the UK and have accordingly decided to withdraw my claim for asylum. I am aware that my asylum claim remains outstanding and has not been determined as yet. I am particularly thankful to the Scotland Yard for providing me excellent security and for remaining in regular contact with me to ensure my well-being."

In November of last year, Haider made an unexpected departure to the UK midway through a one-day series against South Africa, citing threats from underworld betting syndicates over fixing matches in that series. After claims that he would expose elements of fixing within Pakistan cricket, he announced his retirement from international cricket – having played one Test and four ODIs – prompting the Pakistan Cricket Board to impose a life ban. However, Haider says his actions were aimed only at encouraging policy change at a time when international opinion over Pakistan's handling of match-fixing was at its lowest.

The letter continued: "Anything that I have ever said has been aimed at bringing improvements and reforms to the board, not only to ensure greater professionalism and a commitment to transparency but in order that the board fulfil the rightful expectations of the nation."

Aqeel had hinted at a return to cricket for the wicketkeeper when he said earlier: "Now my brother will return to the country and will sit with the PCB officials and discuss about his future. If he is assured of his 'safe' place in the team, Zulqarnain is ready to revoke his retirement decision."

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Notts' Riki Wessels becomes last cricket recipient of entrepreneur visa

2011-04-17T03:56:00.000+01:00

The England and Wales Cricket Board has successfully lobbied the Home Office to close the legal loophole that allowed Riki Wessels to join Nottinghamshire last week.

In a landmark case the son of the former Australia and South Africa batsman Kepler Wessels became the first cricketer to secure a Tier 1 Entrepreneur Visa, which effectively allowed him to bypass the ECB's tighter guidelines on signing non-qualified players. But the 25-year-old, on a two-year contract at Trent Bridge, will also be the last, following confirmation that as of this month the obscure visas no longer apply to sport.

While the ECB recognised Wessels's lawful right to work in the UK and endorsed his registration, it immediately wrote to the Home Office to express concern that its bid to limit imports to elite players had been compromised. It was agreed that the system was open to misuse. "That is why this government has changed the rules to prevent it from happening again," said the immigration minister Damian Green. "Sports people are no longer eligible for entrepreneur visas and have to apply through the appropriate routes, through the points-based system.

"They will not be granted a visa unless they have been properly endorsed by their respective governing body."

Wessels had been a victim of the clampdown on Kolpak players in February 2010, when his six-year spell with Northamptonshire was terminated on a technicality. Despite his long service at Wantage Road, he had only been on a working visa for three years, having arrived as a teenager on a working-holiday visa – the ECB's revised minimum requirement was four.

He would have returned to Kolpak status last December via marriage to a British woman but the wedding was called off; his determination to resume his county career took him down the entrepreneurial route. Applicants must set up their own company to trade in the UK, show £200,000 in a bank account, and employ at least two people to qualify. Wessels contracts himself as a player and has hired someone to run his personal website.

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Chopra hits double top

2011-04-16T21:43:00.000+01:00

Varun Chopra claimed scoring a double century for Warwickshire against Somerset was one of the finest moments of his career, before joking that “the only way is down now”.

Chopra’s stunning 210 was the cornerstone of Warwickshire’s mammoth 642 at Taunton, while Chris Woakes played his part with a run-a-ball 109.

They helped the visitors take charge of their LV= County Championship Division One clash - against the side tipped by many to become champions, no less - before moving into a seemingly impregnable position by reducing Somerset to 147 for six after two days.

Chopra, a former England Under-19s captain, scored a hundred and a half-century on his championship debut in 2006 for Essex, with whom he won the Friends Provident Trophy two years later.

However, he ranks his contribution over the last two days amongst his proudest achievements.

“It’s up there with my debut as the highlight of my career,” Chopra told ecb.co.uk. “It’s a career-best; I loved every minute of it but I suppose the only way is down now.

“It’s pleasing for both the team and myself to get off to a good start in the championship season. Once I got in I decided to keep batting for as long as I could.”

Chopra is more than halfway to matching the 409 runs he scored in nine games last season, his first since leaving his native Essex for Edgbaston.

Despite beginning the second day with 174 to his name, the 23-year-old revealed: “I thought I’d be shattered but I didn’t get a good night’s sleep. The adrenaline was still going from the day.

“It was nice to wake up and know you’ve got a few runs to your name.”

As for reaching 200 - the first player to do so this summer - Chopra added: “It’s a bit easier when you’ve got an extra hundred to your name.

“You don’t really get the opportunity much. There isn’t the pressure to get to that milestone; it was a matter of enjoying it.”

Although the figures suggest otherwise, Chopra admitted it was “a good challenge” facing Sri Lanka spinner Ajantha Mendis, who returned figures of 4-183 from 43.1 overs on a chastening Somerset debut.

“He’s a bit unorthodox,” said Chopra. “You don’t see too many bowlers with as many variations as he’s got.

“I enjoyed facing him and we’ve had a good gameplan to play him. I was lucky to get some runs against him, but he got me out in the end.

“It’s a great start to the season, and if I can build on that and have a good year and Warwickshire have a good year, then everyone’s happy.”

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Alastair Cook confident he can cut it in leading role for England if asked to be one-day international captain

2011-04-16T13:44:00.000+01:00

“The pressure was to win every game in Bangladesh and we did that. You can only be judged on your results and the players did like me as captain.

“There is never an ideal time to take over. I know that. But I like challenging myself and if the opportunity arises in the near future I would like to try it but if selection goes the other way and they choose another captain if Straussy retires then so be it.”

Cook is tiring of all the speculation. He is friends with Strauss and does not want to be seen to be undermining a captain he respects. But at the same time ambition burns brightly in a 26-year-old veteran of 65 Tests.

“Since the World Cup people have been asking me this question,” he said. “At the moment Andrew Strauss is England captain. I don’t crave seeing him giving it up. I would love the opportunity to be captain if it comes off but if it doesn’t come up then so be it.”

Cook is careful with his words to the press so when he said last week that he felt his form had been “wasted” by not being picked for the World Cup, it was almost like a stinging rebuke for the selectors.

He admits the break has “refreshed me” and the “lads looked knackered” at the World Cup, but his status, captaincy ambitions and development partly depend on forcing his way back into the one-day team. He is using Strauss, the man he may replace, as inspiration.

“I would love to get back in that one-day side,” he said. “Over the last few years my one-day game has changed a lot. By not being in England squads I have had a chance to play more one-day cricket for Essex and added things to my game.

“Look at Straussy. His strike rate is great. He has taken his one-day game to another level and that has happened since he got back in as captain. I think I could do it but I also think we can score runs together at the top of the order at a decent rate.”

The 766 runs Cook scored in Australia earned him the Compton-Miller medal as the man of the series but more importantly than accolades, the self-confidence which appeared to have deserted him during a terrible 2010 summer, is back.

“At the end of last winter I had just come back from captaining England in Bangladesh and had scored runs. I felt good but this time it is different,” he said. “To have been part of an Ashes-winning squad and to have contributed a lot of runs has definitely given me a satisfaction and self-belief.

“The biggest thing for me was being man of the series. I have never done that before and in fact only had one or two man-of-the-match awards before in my whole Test career. To be man of the series and get two man of the matches in such an important series, if that doesn’t give you confidence, nothing will.

“Of course it will not be like that all the time. I know that. But to have that on your CV and know you delivered under pressure in tough conditions can only help.”

Does it bring a sense of belonging at the highest level? “Without a shadow of doubt. You always start on nought and all that stuff but there is confidence from what you have achieved.”

We were chatting in the Lord’s Tavern before Essex trained for their championship match against Middlesex, which started yesterday. He was interrupted twice by fans asking for a photograph. That is not a surprise given the location but it is indicative of his new found fame.

Soon after arriving home he was picked out by the television cameras watching the Wales v England Six Nations rugby match at the Millennium Stadium. He would have been there anyway, he says, but without the Ashes the television directors would not have bothered homing in.

Cook was also invited to present a gong at the National Television Awards ceremony at the O2 Arena but it is clear the celebrity lifestyle does not appeal to him as much as it does to some of his colleagues.

“Things have cropped up that would not have done six months ago and you have to be careful what you do,” he said. “I have been recognised a bit more and that shows the big support we have.

"People who were in England during the Ashes say it took over during the Christmas holiday period. Since coming back I have been surprised by the amount of people who were watching it.”

Thanks to Wisden, they are going to see an awful lot more of Cook.

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India and Pakistan set to resume cricket ties

2011-04-16T07:03:00.000+01:00

The decision comes two weeks after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani watched together as their respective teams played in the semi-final of the Cricket World Cup in northwest India.

Several Indian newspapers cited unidentified government sources as saying the question of precisely when and where the first cricket series between the rivals might take place would be decided by the two national cricket boards.

Although the Indian and Pakistani cricket teams have played each other in international and regional tournaments in recent years, the last series was held in 2007-08, when the Pakistani team visited India.

India broke off diplomatic and sporting links after 10 Islamist gunmen launched coordinated attacks on targets in Mumbai, killing 166 people in November 2008. India blamed Pakistan-based militants for the assault.

The Mint newspaper quoted one government source as saying India's cricket team would tour Pakistan next year, with a return series in India the year after.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said it had yet to be formally notified of the decision to resume cricket ties.

"We have not received any government announcement as yet, so the board has not discussed the matter," BCCI chief administrative officer Ratna Karshetty told AFP.

No international cricket team has visited Pakistan to play any match since militants launched a gun and grenade assault on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team on March 3, 2009.

The attack saw Pakistan stripped of its right to co-host the just-concluded 2011 Cricket World Cup.

I.S. Bindra, principal advisor to the International Cricket Council, said the resumption of direct cricket ties was a "welcome step."

"It's a nice thing not only for India, but for world cricket as a whole that Pakistan will come into the mainstream of world cricket," he said.

Former Indian all-rounder Madal Lal also welcomed the move, but said the authorities would have to guarantee the safety of players touring Pakistan.

"It is always good for the game when India and Pakistan play each other," Lal said.

"But the Indian government must be very careful. They must ensure that the situation is conducive for cricket in Pakistan."

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The new golden rule of sledging: don't do it on Twitter

2011-04-16T00:50:00.000+01:00

Oh Freddie, how could you? Six years ago, when England regained the Ashes, you made yourself a hero to millions, not just with your runs and wickets, but with your chivalry. You were a Corinthian, a white knight in flannels, a throwback to a better age. On my kitchen wall, I still have the iconic photo of you commiserating with Australian fast bowler Brett Lee after the nerve-shredding finale to the Edgbaston test.

Everything that makes people love sport can be found in your kindly face. You were generous to an opponent in a way no Premier League footballer could understand. Now, it seems, you have joined the superannuated yobs of sport, the Twitterati in armchairs who no longer play the game at the top level, but lob abuse at each other across the internet because they have got nothing better to do.

Cracking jokes on Twitter about the people of Burnley, calling them “dingles” – a reference to the intellectually challenged family in Emmerdale – and suggesting they give “six-finger handshakes”, was hardly Corinthian behaviour.

In fact, it was the sort of crude sledging that puts people off sport. There are Chelsea players who would not stoop that low.

I am not up in arms about your comments, like the PC Burnley worthies demanding apologies. It was just banter. People from Burnley probably crack similar jokes about Preston, your home town. But it was BAD banter.

In the pub, the gags would have been fine. Good old Freddie, everyone would have said, super lad, likes a laugh, likes taking the mick. In print, or on the screen, they come across as crass, flat-footed, mirthless.

That is the problem with Twitter. Unless the tweeter happens to have a Wildean pithiness of phrase, the medium does not lend itself to the kind of witty repartee that makes friends rather than enemies.

The tweeter sets a hare running, sends a second tweet expanding on his first tweet, then a third tweet clarifying his second tweet – until he comes across as intellectually sub-normal or, as you would say, a dingle.

You may have got a rise out of Burnley-born England fast bowler Jimmy Anderson, who tweeted back: “You live in Surrey and support Man City?” But do cricket fans WANT England fast bowlers forming a community of online twits, sharing their banalities with the world? Wouldn’t they rather they retained their mystique? (And, boy, Freddie, did you have mystique. You were a colossus of the game. Don’t kiss that goodbye.)

You should have learnt from your former England team-mate Michael Vaughan, who tweeted himself into trouble in 2010, after speculating on Twitter whether Carol Vorderman had had her breasts surgically enhanced. “She’s definitely treated herself to a couple of new friends. Big friends at that. And why not?”

Why not? Because the tweeter comes across as inane, a sad git in an armchair – like you, Freddie, with your off-colour tweets about Burnley.

You and Vaughan forgot the first law of sledging: that there is good sledging and bad sledging and, until you can tell the difference, you should keep your mouth shut.

Sledging on the field is as old as cricket itself. It has got out of hand sometimes, but at its best, has enriched the folklore of the game. And the sledges everyone remembers were funny, not just abusive. On the infamous Bodyline tour of Australia in 1932-33, the England captain complained that one of the Australian fielders had called him a bastard, whereupon the Australian captain turned to his team-mates and asked, “Which one of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?” One up to the Aussies.

The Australians have made sledging an artform. One of its finest exponents was the moustachioed fast bowler Merv Hughes. After a Pakistani player had told Hughes he looked like a big fat bus conductor, the Australian got his wicket, then ran past him with his hand up, shouting “Tickets please!”

But it has never been an Australian monopoly. One of the most fondly remembered sledgers was the late, great Fred Trueman, the Yorkshire fast bowler. A slip fielder who had let a ball through his legs off Trueman’s bowling immediately apologised: “Sorry, Fred, I should have kept my legs together.” “Not you, son,” snarled Trueman. “Your mother should have.”

If you want to get into sledging seriously, Freddie, you should learn from the masters. And you should certainly think twice about sledging on Twitter. It is a stickier wicket than it looks.

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John Buchanan named New Zealand director of cricket

2011-04-15T16:51:00.000+01:00

The 58 year-old will take up his role in May.

The NZC have said Buchanan will establish New Zealand's new high-performance program, implement a consistent coaching philosophy across the country, build a talent identification system and oversee the national selection panel.

He was Australia coach for eight years from 1999, guiding the Aussies to three World Cup titles and a record 16 Test-match wins in a row.

"It's an honor to be appointed to this challenging role. It is a wonderful opportunity to build on the work that has been done," Buchanan said.

"New Zealand Cricket has a proud history and is a true honor to be given the responsibility. I want to be part of the next successful era and am committed to building sustainable high performance for New Zealand Cricket."

NZC chief executive Justin Vaughan said Buchanan's appointment gave the team an opportunity to improve on the world stage.

"He has a great cricketing pedigree and will provide outstanding leadership as NZC look to move forward," he said.

While Buchanan had an outstanding record of success with the Australia team, his methods were often seen as unorthodox and the value of his contribution was disputed.

Former captain Ricky Ponting rated his contribution highly but outspoken legspinner Shane Warne was often dismissive of his approach and input.

New Zealand recently reached the semi-finals of the World Cup, but that success followed a near-record losing streak in one-day internationals.

Under recent coaches John Bracewell, Andy Moles and Mark Greatbatch, New Zealand have dropped near the bottom of the world standings in both Tests and one-day matches.

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England's Graeme Swann warns of player burnout at top level

2011-04-15T10:38:00.001+01:00

The England spinner Graeme Swann fears that international cricketers are in danger of suffering burnout, because of the amount of cricket being played.

The number of matches staged at the top level of the sport has been debated for several years. The England and Wales Cricket Board chief selector, Geoff Miller, recently said there was too much cricket, leaving players too little time for rest and recuperation. The England off-spinner echoed Miller's comments.

"We do play too much cricket," Swann said. "There are a lot of games that don't really matter at the end of the day and that even the fans aren't that bothered about. It needs looking at but it is still the best job in the world, as we get to travel around playing cricket. But I am glad I am not a fast bowler, put it that way. Poor old Stuart Broad missed out half the Ashes and the World Cup [having suffered a side strain, illness and a broken rib] because there was too much cricket played, so it is a shame for guys like that.

"It is physically a lot more demanding on the bowlers. Your body cannot physically stand being pounded every day. Your spine gives way and your stomach gives way after a while. For batters, it is a walk in the park. If ever there is a batter that complains about burnout they should be shot.

"I am sure it will be looked at in the future but for the minute we just need to turn up and keep playing. Besides, I've just had a kid so I get no sleep at home at the minute, so I'd rather be on tour. I get more rest there."

The Nottinghamshire player added: "Tours are long but we do get periods when families come out, which is great. In an ideal world [tours] would not be as long but I don't think there are any ways around it. I think the main thing is that after the tour there should be a brief period of respite at home. After the Ashes we had two days at home and then we were off to India [for the World Cup], which was unfortunate, but scheduling that is the only way it could work."

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Hampshire hold on for Durham draw thanks to stout century from Jimmy Adams

2011-04-12T19:22:00.000+01:00

A welter of runs from Jimmy Adams in 2011 is unlikely to elevate him overnight to the England Test arena but will prevent his opponents from steam-rollering Hampshire’s matches for easy points as his stonewalling of Durham showed on Monday.

Had Adams not made his first century of the summer and occupied the crease for the best part of five hours, Hampshire would have slid to defeat but his resistance and the partnerships he nurtured made the draw possible.

It also helped that Durham’s captain Phil Mustard chose to deploy leg-spinner Scott Borthwick so late in the day when the rough had become the only source of help for the bowlers on a flat and increasingly slow track.

Adams and Liam Dawson had formed a solid opening partnership of 170, turning Hampshire fears of a humiliating loss into a vague hope of reaching the 490 required for victory.

Having bowled just one oever before lunch, Borthwick launched Durham’s first strike of the day immediately after the interval when his googly befuddled Dawson and the catch was smartly taken at short leg.

Dawson was filling in as opener for Michael Carberry, whose blood clot on the lung has created concern and uncertainty over his future. Dawson’s positive knock has guaranteed him a second go in the next game against Nottinghamshire.

Adams motored towards his century, which came up in 236 balls with 19 fours, but he too fell to Borthwick, who tempted him into a sweep to fine leg, where he was caught by Liam Plunkett.

It should have been a time for Mustard to up the ante but the loss of Steve Harmison from Durham’s attack, after he was hit on the hand on Saturday, meant there was no leverage.

Johann Mybergh took responsibility for the salvage operation with fellow Transvaal countryman Neil McKenzie. They eased Hampshire out of the danger zone and, at 345 for five with six scheduled overs remaining, the hands were proffered and the draw concluded, prompting Hampshire captain Dominic Cork to admit they had been lucky after being dominated by Durham for the best part of three days.

“Had Harmison been fit, they would have declared earlier on Sunday and would have backed themselves to bowl us out but now we have momentum going into the next game,” he said.

The contribution from all-rounder Ben Stokes, who Cork described as one of the best youngsters in the game, had also thwarted Hampshire’s progress after he took 6-68 and posted a century.

“He is a fantastic cricketer. With the bat he has both aggression and a sound defensive technique and he can also swing the ball. He’s a great fielder and a good catcher. What more can you ask for.”

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Leicestershire v Glamorgan: Matthew Hoggard hails his side's spirit as Jigar Naik bowls Leicestershire to victory

2011-04-12T15:32:00.000+01:00

The team spirit that saw Leicestershire through a traumatic end to last season was evident again with a patient final-day display at Grace Road.

Last season Leicestershire’s players kept their focus while their chief executive and coach resigned, and chairman Neil Davidson followed in the autumn.

A record loss of £404,000 added to Leicestershire’s problems but the players still appear a happy and close-knit bunch under the captaincy of Matthew Hoggard.

“We have not lost our team spirit, it’s something that’s very important to us and something that we pride ourselves on,” Hoggard said.

“We had a lot of troubles off the field last year but on the field it didn’t affect us. That’s how you win games of cricket and the way you carry yourself through a long season is that camaraderie in the dressing room and the fun you have.

“We have done it fairly well over the last 12 months, hopefully it will get stronger and stronger as long as we are playing good cricket.”

Leicestershire required patience to end Glamorgan’s stubborn resistance with off-spinner Jigar Naik taking four for 16, just before the rain arrived, on his way to the second five-wicket haul of his career.

Leicestershire had been frustrated by a stubborn seventh-wicket stand between Ben Wright and Robert Croft, but Naik snared them in successive overs.

Croft clipped him to short midwicket and Wright, who had batted with common sense and application for his 65, picked out deep midwicket. Graham Wagg was bowled backing away and Naik wrapped up the win when Dean Cosker was taken at short leg.

Glamorgan have had off-field problems of their own following the departure of captain Jamie Dalrymple and coach Matthew Maynard during a turbulent winter and an attempt to oust chairman Paul Russell.

This was a sobering introduction for the new management team of South African captain Alviro Petersen and Australian coach Matthew Mott, though Mott was reduced to a watching brief for this match after visa problems delayed his arrival until last Wednesday.

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Essex v Kent: Robbie Joseph mops up the Essex to tail to wrap up victory quickly on final day

2011-04-12T11:49:00.000+01:00

Robbie Joseph wrapped up victory for Kent in just 43 minutes as Essex’s tail submitted meekly in a match ruled by the bowlers.

The home side had started the day on 198 for six in search of 285 for victory but after moving the total on to 218, they lost the remaining four wickets for the addition of just nine more runs in six overs to be dismissed for 227. Joseph claimed three of those wickets to fall in the session.

James Foster started the day positively for Essex, striking Darren Stevens to the cover boundary and then Tim Phillips sent the ball racing to the ropes with a flourishing off drive to keep the hosts’ hopes of victory alive, but that bevy of runs saw Stevens removed from the attack to be replaced by Simon Cook.

Despite conceding four leg-byes, Joseph struck later in the same over when he had Phillips caught by Stevens at third slip for 12 as the left-hander went on the drive.

David Masters fell without scoring three overs later when he attempted to pull a delivery from Cook but only succeeded in top-edging a skier to wicketkeeper Geraint Jones before Joseph took the last two wickets in successive overs, including that of Foster to end the home side’s fading hopes.

The Essex captain had made 21 when he played forward and edged a delivery that swung away into the gloves of Jones while 17-year-old Reece Topley prodded forward to another superb outswinger to be caught by James Tredwell at first slip to complete a “pair” on championship debut.

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Lancashire v Sussex: Glen Chapple and Gary Keedy waste no time in wrapping up home victory

2011-04-12T05:08:00.000+01:00

Sussex took a leaf out of the Rory McIlory textbook as they capitulated to a humiliating defeat after morning rain had opened the door to an unlikely escape route.

The weather delayed the start until 1.10pm, leaving Sussex, trailing overnight by 78 runs with seven wickets in hand, 72 overs to deny Lancashire the victory their superiority over the first three days had merited.

Seventy-two overs? A tall order, maybe, on a pitch offering encouragement to the left-arm spin of Gary Keedy. But by no means an impossible task, given sustained application.

Instead, Sussex simply fell apart, at one point losing six wickets for 12 runs in 35 balls before a spell of token resistance by last pair Amjad Khan and Monty Panesar. The end came after just 63 minutes.

Lancashire captain Glen Chapple took four of the seven wickets to fall to give him figures of four for 49 from 19.5 overs and a match tally of nine for 117.

Keedy claimed the other three wickets for a second-innings return of five for 41 from an unbroken spell of 26 overs. He said: “It was a bizarre sequence of events. I’ve not played in many games where a side has been 23 for seven on a placid pitch.”

Well though the experienced Lancashire duo performed, however, the Sussex batting performance was simply abysmal. The debacle began in the second over of the day when Joe Gatting, having survived a confident shout for a catch at the wicket from Chapple’s first ball, pushed tentatively forward to the second and wicketkeeper Gareth Cross took a straightforward catch.

Ben Brown followed in Chapple’s next over, shouldering arms and losing his off stump. And when Murray Goodwin, advancing down the wicket to Keedy, edged a low catch to slip, Sussex were staring down both barrels.

Rana Naved adopted the gung ho approach, hoisting Keedy for a straight six, but that was never going to be a recipe for survival. He soon perished to a bat pad chance to silly mid-off, opening the door for Keedy to uproot Naveed Arif’s off stump with his next delivery as the all-rounder essayed an expansive off drive.

James Anyon, driving loosely at Chapple, was well caught by Tom Smith at second slip and the last pair’s contribution of 10 runs in eight overs merely delayed the inevitable until Chapple trapped Panesar leg before.

Sussex coach Mark Robinson did not offer any excuses. “This defeat is more about things that happened earlier in the match,” he said. “We had windows to get a proper foothold in the game but Lancashire stuck to a simple and disciplined game plan and ground their way into a winning position.”

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Australia's Shane Watson rewrites history books with 15 sixes in victory over Bangladesh

2011-04-11T22:55:00.001+01:00

The explosive opener gave a superb display of power-hitting as he also cracked 15 fours in his 96-ball knock to help Australia achieve a 230-run target with 24 overs to spare for an unbeatable 2-0 lead.

West Indies' Xavier Marshall was the previous record-holder with 12 sixes against Canada in 2008.

Watson also scored the most runs (150) in boundaries in a one-day innings, breaking South African Herschelle Gibbs's record of 126.

"It was a nice day today as everything came off," said Watson, named man of the match.

"I had no idea (of the sixes record). I was pretty tired and didn't want to run too much. It was pretty hot and humid, so I tried to limit my running and it worked out nicely."

Watson's innings was also the highest by an Australian in one-day internationals, the previous best being 181 not out by Matthew Hayden. He completed his sixth one-day hundred off 69 balls, the third-fastest by an Australian after Hayden (66 balls) and Adam Gilchrist (67). The final one-dayer will be played in Dhaka on Wednesday.

"That's probably the best innings I've seen. He (Watson) hit the ball so cleanly from the start today," said Australia captain Michael Clarke.

Watson looked in excellent touch from the beginning, hammering three fours in the opening over bowled by Shafiul Islam. He raced to his half-century off 26 balls with the help of four sixes and five boundaries.

He then reduced Bangladesh's bowlers and fielders to a state of helplessness with his onslaught, once hitting four sixes in an over from left-arm spinner Suhrawadi Shuvo.

Watson dominated an unfinished 170-run stand for the second wicket with former captain Ricky Ponting, who contributed an unbeaten 37.

"He (Watson) batted really well and the credit goes to him," said Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan.

Bangladesh were earlier struggling at 88-5 before crossing the 200 mark, thanks to wicketkeeper-batsman Mushfiqur Rahim's unbeaten 81 off 80 balls which contained one six and nine fours.

Rahim's best came in the closing stages of the innings when he smashed two fours and a six off successive deliveries from paceman Brett Lee before hitting two boundaries in seamer Mitchell Johnson's last over.

He played a major role in steadying the innings after Johnson (3-54) and leg-spinner Steven Smith (2-34) had put the hosts in trouble, adding 79 for the sixth wicket with Mohammad Mahmudullah (38).

Shahriar Nafees was the only top-order batsman to offer resistance, scoring 56 off 73 balls with six fours. He fell after completing his 12th half-century in one-dayers, offering a simple return catch to Smith.

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Reece Topley displays his lofty potential for Essex with seven-wicket match haul on Championship debut

2011-04-10T23:59:00.001+01:00

The talking point of the day was the performance of latest Essex ‘find’ Reece Topley, who took five wickets for 46 runs in the Kent second innings to finish with match figures of 29.4-5-114-7 on his championship debut.

The 17-year-old 6ft 7in fast bowler, who attends the Royal Hospital School in Holbrook, is taking examinations next month - and he posed a number of probing questions for a succession of Kent batsmen in this contest which is set for an absorbing conclusion.

Gaining significant swing movement, Topley claimed experienced internationals Geraint Jones and James Tredwell to add to those of Rob Key and Joe Denly on the previous day.

His performance allowed the hosts to dismiss Kent for 238 after the visitors had started the day 146 for three.

and they ended the day needing a further 87 runs to win the season opener but with only four wickets intact.

England players Alastair Cook and Ravi Bopara both played themselves in and seemed set to make the significant contributions that the home side were seeking, before both fell in the 30s.

Ashes hero Cook had timed the ball sweetly to move to 31 with six boundaries, putting on 60 with Billy Godleman before he became the first wicket to fall when trapped leg before wicket on the back foot by James Tredwell.

Bopara treated the crowd to trademark drives on both sides of the wicket and looked in menacing form until, with his score on 39 out of 161, he too was adjudged lbw when undone by a ball from Darren Stevens that kept low.

Stevens collected his third wicket of the innings when he had Tom Westley caught at first slip for 17, before Tim Phillips joined Foster to play out the remaining five overs of the day.

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Counties geared up for a tough season that will be all about survival | David Hopps

2011-04-09T11:43:00.000+01:00

When England won the Ashes, the county circuit understandably allowed itself a period of self-congratulation. Often condemned for soft cricket, the counties could claim to have helped to deliver a disciplined England Test team, which had beaten the Australians in their own backyard.

Two divisions, greater intensity, better pitches – all were trotted out as proof of how England's domestic game should be seen in a new light. And yet it is impossible to approach the new season without a sense of foreboding. The emphasis will not be on betterment but on survival.

It is always possible to be optimistic. The county circuit survives despite unending predictions of its demise, its subtle and understated rhythms knitting the summer together for millions in a low-burn sort of way.

Ravi Bopara, Essex's vice-captain, turns out at Chelmsford on the opening day of the County Championship after shunning a £100,000 offer from Rajasthan Royals to replace Paul Collingwood in the Indian Premier League, a sign that India's financial inducements have not entirely taken hold of an England cricketer's soul.

Interest was also stirred by last year's memorable finish to the championship, with three counties still in contention at the start of the final day. The prospect that a young Yorkshire side, skippered by a young man, Andrew Gale, whose faith in the importance of county cricket is unquestionable, could again press Somerset deep into September as the Cidermen seek to break their championship duck is one to relish. An England & Wales Cricket Board poll suggests 29% of county supporters expect Yorkshire to prevail.

But the backdrop is bleak. Surely there has never been a worse set of financial figures than the latest produced by the 18 first-class counties? Only three counties managed a profit – a piddling profit, too – whereas the Test match counties revealed large losses. The overall picture is of a domestic game churning out match after match in a failing attempt to maximise revenue and alienating spectators and exhausting players in the process.

These horrific balance sheets should come as no surprise. Last summer a report by the consultancy firm Deloitte emphasised some unpalatable facts. The ECB's policy of competitive tendering between counties for the right to stage Tests had encouraged many to overstretch themselves in their desperation to stage the international matches on which they depend. The combined debt of the nine Test grounds last summer was £91m and rising. Ground improvement plans had been funded by excessive borrowing and the economic downturn is exposing every dodgy decision. India's presence in England this summer will bring the counties short-term help, adding maybe £800,000 to their annual ECB grant of about £1.5m, but relief will be shortlived.

One of the first signs of spring is the assertion by Steve Harmison, Durham's former England fast bowler, that the counties play too much cricket. His argument has never sounded more convincing. Many counties have cut playing staffs but those slimmed-down staffs will still have to play day in, day out until mid-September. If you fall asleep in the crowd at Grace Road, where Leicestershire's first-team squad numbers 16 full-timers, you may well wake up to find yourself fielding at third man.

"Less is more" is a theory the counties have never cared for, although next summer the fixture list will be trimmed, with Twenty20 matches reduced from 16 to 10 for fear of overkill. "It's a start," Harmison says. The championship remains at 16 four-day matches, while the unloved CB40 drones on to little purpose, while the counties still waver on whether to mirror ODIs, play it over 50 overs and begin to address England's World Cup failings.

So let the slog begin. Yorkshire will pip Somerset for the title, Surrey will take Division Two and Somerset will beat Durham in the final of Twenty20. And by Christmas, unless the ECB steps in to help, a county may well go into administration.

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Strong leadership, on and off the field, at heart of India's success | Duncan Fletcher

2011-04-09T07:53:00.000+01:00

I first met Gary Kirsten when he was a student at the University of Cape Town. Even then he was a quiet and unassuming, but confident individual. I had just become the University cricket coach and Kirsten was struggling to get a game as the No9 batsman. One day I suggested that he should try opening because, while he was not that sound technically, he had a very strong character. I have seen lots of talented players who I knew were never going to make it, but when you have a man who is as strong mentally as Kirsten is, you cannot put a limit on how far they can go.

Now he is the coach of India. He was always energetic and enthusiastic, which is why I thought he would make a good coach, even if the India job was a hell of a one to take on when he had so little experience.

We went on to work together at Western Province for a long time, along with Eric Simons, who is now the India bowling coach. Another member of that UCT team, Paddy Upton, is the conditioning coach. He has a degree in psychology, so he works on the mental side as much as the physical one. It gives me a lot of pride that three players who I worked with so much have gone on to have such success as coaches. They are the unsung heroes behind a squad full of superstars, especially Kirsten.

That is just how he wants it. It is in some people's nature to want to be in headlines, but Kirsten has always been shy of the media. That was part of why he is so well suited to the job. For a long time India lacked a hard edge. Before Kirsten they appointed Greg Chappell to try and give it to them. Chappell was a good coach in the wrong job. His Australian approach did not fit with the culture of the team or of the country. He was abrasive and always spoke his mind. So he rubbed people up the wrong way. Kirsten is a tough man, but he is also the kind who is quick to put an arm around your shoulder. He talks quietly to people and tries to motivate them in a positive way. That is why he has built up such good relationships with the Indian players. You hear them talking about him as though he were a friend more than a coach, which is very telling.

Take Sachin Tendulkar. Chappell almost seemed to want to provoke Tendulkar into playing better, but a player like that does not need challenging. Like all great sportsmen, he drives himself. I know that Kirsten gets on very well with Tendulkar. They talk cricket a lot. Tendulkar is very forthcoming with his ideas, but does not try to dominate discussions. He will make a suggestion, but will support Kirsten whether he goes with it or not. That is a real mark of the man. I like the fact that Tendulkar tried the captaincy and decided it was not for him, but still contributes so much to the team on and off the field. He does it without too much ego. When he gives advice to MS Dhoni he is not demonstrative. He does not wave his arms around just to show the crowd that he is still making decisions, but just walks up and has a quiet word in the captain's ear.

As in all things, you need a little luck to be a good coach and Kirsten is fortunate to have such good lieutenants in the team. The same goes for Dhoni. I have studied Dhoni closely over the years, and these days I am impressed with every single aspect of what he does. Technically, he is not a very good cricketer, but mentally he looks as though he knows how to work with the ability he has got. Just like Kirsten. When he arrived in the team he seemed to be a showman, always playing strange and spectacular shots. But now he is one of those players who can really adjust his style to the situation. He is prepared to grit it out and to give the glory to other batsmen while he just plays the ball around and tries to occupy the crease. If anything he could do with showing a little more of that old flair.

As a captain he has the great gift of being proactive rather than reactive in his decision-making. You see that in his field settings and bowling changes. When decisions go wrong a proactive captain is always going to be more exposed than a reactive one, but Dhoni does not fear that. Look at the stick he took when he gave Ashish Nehra the final over instead of Harbhajan Singh in their defeat against South Africa. Afterwards, Dhoni explained his thinking, which was sound, and shrugged the criticism off.

He is also a model of good body language on the field. Watch him when a catch is dropped. He does not mutter to himself or stare at the grass. He holds his head high and puts his hands on hips, almost as though he did not notice it happen. The message he is sending the players is "OK, let's move on and get on with it."

Kirsten, Dhoni and Tendulkar. They are an excellent trio of leaders. If India win, they will owe an awful lot to all three.

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Essex snap up Tsotsobe

2011-04-09T04:10:00.000+01:00

Essex have signed South Africa pace bowler Lonwabo Tsotsobe as their overseas player for the first part of the season.

The left-arm seamer is not with the side for the LV= County Championship opener against Kent today but should be ready to make his debut against Middlesex next week.

Tsotsobe has been a prolific wicket-taker in the Proteas’ one-day side but fell out of the team during the recent World Cup to make way for an extra spinner on turning pitches.

“I am thrilled to be joining up with Essex and hope I can make a significant contribution for the county with the ball,” said Tsotsobe.

“As this is my first experience of county cricket, I obviously can’t wait to get started and I look forward to playing a part in regaining our Division One status.”

Head coach Paul Grayson added: “Obviously we are delighted to get him in. He has come highly recommended by people we know, as a left-armer he offers variation and we hope he will make a big impact for the start of the season.”

New Zealand all-rounder Scott Styris will take over as the overseas professional for the Friends Life t20.

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Bopara seeks England bonus

2011-04-08T21:29:00.000+01:00

Ravi Bopara is determined to return to the England Test side and has made a £100,000 statement of intent to the selectors.

That is the value of the two-month Indian Premier League contract from Rajasthan Royals that Bopara declined last month.

The franchise led by Shane Warne were seeking to replace Paul Collingwood, whose knee surgery after the World Cup ruled him out of the Twenty20 competition.

Bopara still hopes to replace Collingwood, but in England’s Test team after the Durham batsman announced his retirement from the longest form of the game in early January.

“It was a tough decision, but my ambition as a youngster has always been to play Test cricket and to play for my country,” said Bopara, whose most recent of 10 Tests was against Australia at Headingley Carnegie in 2009.

“Not everything’s about money. I’ve got to make sure I fulfil my ambitions and my talent as a cricketer. Although Twenty20 is a very important part of the game, Test cricket is always going to be the pinnacle.

“There’s a Test place available and someone’s got to take it and I realise this is the time to knuckle down and get some runs for Essex and take some wickets and take that Test spot.”

Bopara is immediately available to his county, who begin their quest to make amends for last season’s LV= County Championship relegation at home to Kent today, having declined the opportunity of further rest after two months away from home - initially with England Lions in the Caribbean and then with England at the World Cup.

Indeed, the 25-year-old appeared in Essex’s draw with Cambridge UCCE at Fenner’s, which started a week after he played in England’s quarter-final defeat to Sri Lanka in Colombo.

“I was given the option to have a week or so off, but I don’t think I need a week off,” added Bopara, who insisted he is untroubled by a side strain the England medical staff were monitoring.

“There was plenty of time in between games at the World Cup, almost a week, so you’ve got plenty of time to recover. No, I’m fine. My body’s good, my head’s good, so I’m fine.”

Bopara has a month and a half - the period of the IPL round-robin phase - to make a case for his inclusion in England’s next Test, against Sri Lanka starting on May 26.

After England's World Cup exit to Sri Lanka, Bopara said: “I was given the option to have a week or so off, but I don’t think I need a week off.”

During that time Essex are set to play six championship and four Clydesdale Bank 40 matches, 10 games Bopara hopes to make the most of.

“Sri Lanka are coming over in a month or so and it’s very, very important I go out and score runs for Essex and for myself really and get back in that side,” he said.

Even if he does make hay over the next six weeks, Bopara realises there are many contenders for Collingwood’s place in the Test middle order and denied a two-way contest with his good friend Eoin Morgan.

Morgan would appear to be next in line, having been England’s spare batsman during the Ashes, but Bopara is aware the likes of James Hildreth and James Taylor excelled on the Lions tour.

“I don’t see it as a straight fight between us two,” he responded to the notion of Bopara versus Morgan. “There are loads of players in the country who are pushing for that spot.”

If the selectors want a like-for-like replacement for Collingwood, whose seam bowling often complemented a four-man attack, Bopara knows he could be their man.

Although his medium pace has had relatively little exposure at international level, Bopara - who took two World Cup wickets versus West Indies - is confident it could tip the balance in his favour.

“It’s been going well. That helps. It’s obviously going to help my contribution to the team and obviously getting selected,” he said.

Bopara, who signed a new two-year contract with Essex in December and yesterday was appointed vice-captain to James Foster, is keen to make an early-season statement with the ball, just as with the bat.

“If I don’t get injured, my bowling will play a massive part for Essex so I’ve got to make sure I’m hitting my straps early doors,” he added at the county’s pre-season press day in Chelmsford.

“I’ve been disappointed in the past for my bowling not to be considered [for England], but hopefully I’ve done enough this winter for people to take notice and say ‘he can do a job with the ball’ because that’s going to play a massive part for England and myself really to be in the England side.

Bopara, who picked up two World Cup wickets, said: "Hopefully I’ve done enough this winter for people to take notice and say ‘he can do a job with the ball'."

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“Lets just see what happens over the next few months and hopefully I’ll stay injury-free, which is the most important thing for me, and play a massive part with the ball and bat.

Another area Bopara has sought to improve is his punctuality, which has been a problem in the past. He stressed, though, that this issue is separate to his game.

“It is something I’ve taken on board although I have been late over the last couple of months,” he admitted before pointing out: “Not today, I wasn’t late today.

“I think it’s just one of those things; I tend to be dopey sometimes and I miss things and I forget things. That’s just part of who I am, but I am looking to improve it.

“When it comes to cricket, I get my head screwed on. But when it’s things off the field like doing this and making it here and going there then I’m nowhere.”

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Somerset pick Lavender

2011-04-08T15:16:00.001+01:00

Find out how the counties are shaping up for the new season - check out our exclusive interviews and features from around the country

Guy Lavender has been appointed Somerset chief executive.

He will take up the position next month and succeeds Richard Gould, who began the position at Surrey a week ago.

Lavender brings a variety of experience to the role. He holds two masters degrees; one in military studies and another in business administration.

After completing a degree in sports science, he attended the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, and was subsequently commissioned into the Parachute Regiment. During his 18-year military career he led operations in Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan.

He retired as a 39-year-old Lieutenant Colonel in 2006 to lead South West England’s preparations for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This period saw the successful completion of the sailing venue at Weymouth and Portland to budget a year ahead of schedule and the development of 2012 projects and plans across the region.

Lavender was recruited in 2010 to lead the successful construction phase and subsequent operational management of Wave Hub in Cornwall. This is a £42million project, which has built and commissioned the largest test centre for wave energy systems in the world. He will continue to help with the transition at Wave Hub over the coming months.

Somerset chairman Andy Nash said: “Guy Lavender is a very rare and special talent and I'm delighted he is joining us as chief executive.

“He has an extraordinary track record of achievement in the most demanding senior military roles and in the preparations for London 2012. We are very fortunate to have attracted him to Somerset.

“Guy will play a crucial and leading role in shaping our club's foreseeable future and will be an admirable replacement for his excellent predecessor Richard Gould.”

Lavender added: “I am delighted and honoured to have been appointed to lead Somerset CCC and I intend to bring all of my leadership, sporting and commercial experience to bear in making sure that the next few years will be the greatest in Somerset’s history.

“Living locally, I have seen some magnificent performances on the pitch combined with the development of an outstanding range of facilities. I am determined to build on that success and make sure that the conditions are set for a tremendous season.”

Want to know which players have gone where? Click here for all the comings and goings since last summer

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Wisden Almanack launches on Facebook to enhance digital presence

2011-04-06T15:06:00.000+01:00

So tweeted Wisden Almanack in December after its first foray into the social media world. Four months on and the prestigious yellow-clad publication is getting wiser digitally with a presence on Facebook.

Wisden Sports, publisher of the famous almanack, launched on the social network on Wednesday ahead of the 148th edition's publication on April 14 and Friday's announcement of its five cricketers of the year.

The launch follows January's announcement that Lawrence Booth would take the helm as the youngest editor of cricket's 'bible' in 72 years.

Booth, 35, will replace Scyld Berry, the Sunday Telegraph's cricket correspondent, who is standing down after publication of the 148th edition next week.

Despite Wisden regularly selling around 40,000 copies annually, with a cover price of £45, one of Booth's main objectives will be to further develop Wisden's digital presence, a role he has already managed following its Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Matthew Engel, Berry’s predecessor as editor, said that the talented Booth had "some big shoes to fill" following his appointment.

However, Engel acknowledged that the Wisden Almanack had to live with the times to keep its presence in the growing digital world.

"Cricket is changing very fast, too fast for some of us," Engel added. "Wisden's job is to reflect those changes without ever losing sight of its own values, and those that should be at the heart of cricket. I have great faith that the new team will continue to do that."

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Surge in England ticket sales at Cardiff

2011-04-06T14:35:00.000+01:00

Ticket sales for England’s two games at Cardiff this summer have hit a new peak in the aftermath of the World Cup final, with the stadium’s ticket office reporting a high level of demand.

The Ashes winners face both World Cup finalists in Cardiff, with the year’s first npower Test against Sri Lanka starting on May 26, followed by a NatWest Series one-day international versus India on September 16.

To cope with the increased demand from spectators, Cardiff’s ticket office has now extended its opening hours until 6pm on weekdays, with further plans to open on weekends in order to cope with the increased volume.

Glamorgan chief executive Alan Hamer said: “Last weekend’s World Cup final between India and Sri Lanka has certainly caught the attention of the cricketing public.

“We have seen a steady increase in demand during the past few weeks, which has coincided with the knockout stages of the World Cup.

"In particular, following last Saturday’s final, our sales volumes now exceed the levels reported in the week after England retained the Ashes in January and we have extended our ticket office opening hours to meet this surge in demand.”

All price band D tickets for the third day of the Sri Lanka Test, on Saturday 28 May, have sold out, along with all band D tickets for the ODI against India.

Ticket prices start at £25, with all junior ones just £10. They can be purchased online at www.glamorgancricket.com or by calling the ticket office on 02920 419311.

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Shane Warne denies interest in taking over as India's coach

2011-04-06T14:21:00.000+01:00

Shane Warne has expressed his surprise after reports in India quoted him as saying he was interested in replacing Gary Kirsten as coach of the national side.

Kirsten stepped down from the role after leading India to their second World Cup title in Mumbai, while Warne is in India preparing for the Indian Premier League, where he is captain-coach of the Rajasthan Royals.

Warne earned plaudits for guiding the unfancied franchise to the inaugural IPL title three years ago and, while it remains his only coaching role, he has been touted as a potential India coach before.

The Mail Today newspaper quoted Warne as saying: "It is a very difficult job to be India coach, it is never easy. But with India doing so well, it is a lot easier to take over right now than it has been in the past.

"I'll enjoy working with the Indian cricket team for sure."

However, responding via Twitter, Warne said his quotes had been misinterpreted. Warne wrote: "Just got told on bus - apparently I put my hand up to coach India. Wow – first I have heard of it. Sorry to disappoint but never said that!!!"

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Wessels set to join Notts

2011-04-06T12:32:00.000+01:00

County champions Nottinghamshire have signed former Northamptonshire wicketkeeper Riki Wessels as back-up for Chris Read, subject to final clearance from the ECB.

Wessels played for Northants from 2004 to 2009 but they let him go prior to last season as he no longer qualified as a Kolpak player.

Notts director of cricket Mick Newell pursued Wessels throughout the off-season and is delighted to have agreed a two-year deal, which will see him compete for a batting spot in one-day cricket.

“Riki was very young when he broke into the Northamptonshire side and showed great promise, which I think he’s ready to deliver on,” said Newell, who has resumed control of team affairs after returning from the England Lions tour of the West Indies.

“He’ll provide back-up for Chris as a wicketkeeper, but beyond that he’s a one-day batting option and he’ll be keen to break into the team on merit.”

The son of Kepler Wessels - the former South Africa Test captain who also represented Australia - Riki attracted interest from several counties last season but opted to return to Africa to secure the visa that has enabled him to return.

“Paul Franks was my team-mate at Midwest Rhinos in Zimbabwe this winter and we became good friends even before it became clear that I’d be moving to Notts,” said Wessels, who scored 887 first-class runs for Northants in 2009.

“I want to play as much as I can and I know that I will need to push hard to force my way into the Nottinghamshire team, especially in four-day cricket.”

Wessels will feature in Nottinghamshire’s two-day friendly against Surrey at Trent Bridge, which begins today.

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Muttiah Muralitharan faces biggest test ... how to use a computer and proving English skills

2011-04-06T09:54:00.000+01:00

A recent change in Britain's work visa rules means the world record holder must prove his English language skills at an examination to secure a permit to play for Gloucestershire in June.

"I have a visitor's visa (for Britain) till 2013, but I have to sit for an exam now to work there," he said, adding he was scared to write his exams on a computer.

"I don't know how to use computers."

Asked if he was frightened of the computer or the exam, he said: "Both."

"I last sat for exams in 1988 and passed six subjects for my (General Certificate of Education) Ordinary Levels. I left school afterwards. All I wanted to do was to play cricket."

Muralitharan, who turns 39 this month, quit international cricket after Sri Lanka's defeat in the World Cup final against India on Saturday with a record 800 Test and 534 one-day wickets under his belt.

Despite his aversion to computers, Muralitharan runs several charities which fund IT training, maintains schools and donates supplies to thousands of underprivileged children.

"I need about $100,000 each year for school books, uniforms, shoes and supplies to distribute to 20,000 children," he said.

His Foundation for Goodness charity is also raising cash to build a $5 million sporting facility, school and IT lab in the island's north to help thousands of war-displaced civilians.

An ethnic Tamil, Muralitharan runs a similar project in the island's Sinhala-dominated south that was affected by the 2004 Asian tsunami.

He plans to travel to Australia, Malaysia and the US to raise money from the expatriate Tamil community and well wishers.

"All my life it has been cricket. Now its my turn to help people less fortunate than me."

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Cricket Ireland consider legal action after ICC World Cup snub

2011-04-06T03:13:00.000+01:00

The move to trim the 2015 World Cup to ten teams - made up entirely of the full member nations of the ICC - is a severe blow for Ireland who have grown as a cricket nation over the past five years.

Their humbling of England in Bangalore and the fact they have been ranked at number ten in the ICC world rankings for most of the last four years - ahead of full member nation Zimbabwe - has increased the sense of outrage in Ireland.

“Clearly this demonstrates that there are no sporting principles being discussed at the board table, it's purely about money and the protection of privilege. We think it's a disgraceful decision," said Warren Deutrom, Cricket Ireland chief executive.

“Some action is definitely required. What way, shape or form that will take, it's difficult to say but action will come. We are simply going to have to examine all the possibilities.”

Ireland victory over Pakistan in the 2007 World Cup was a springboard for the country’s cricketing authorities to become more professional and attract sponsorship deals.

This summer they are due to play Pakistan in two one-day matches and England in Dublin on Aug 25 but without the carrot of a World Cup they fear sponsors and support from the Irish government will drain away at a time when the country is in the middle of a dire financial crisis.

“There was a discussion with one of the government agencies before the World Cup when a 10-team event was possible and he said why should we support when your own sport don't and it's a strong point,” said Deutrom.

Last year Ireland tentatively began the process of applying for Test status which would grant them full voting rights within the ICC. That ambition looks to have been killed by this move.

Ireland are not the only casualties from the fall out of the World Cup with Kumar Sangakarra resigning as Sri Lanka’s one-day captain.

Sangakarra has offered to stay on as captain of the Test team for the tour to England in May and June and will continue to play all three formats of the game for Sri Lanka.

His decision came 48 hours after his team were beaten by India in the World Cup final, their second successive defeat in the final. Tillakaratne Dilshan and Angelo Mathews are likely successors.

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Cricket World Cup 2011: Kumar Sangakkara resigns as Sri Lanka captain after India defeat

2011-04-05T21:00:00.001+01:00

Sangakkara said he told the national selectors that he would quit as one-day and Twenty20 captain with immediate effect, but offered to continue as Test captain on an interim basis if required.

"After careful consideration I have concluded that it is in the best long-term interests of the team that I step down now as national captain so that a new leader can be properly groomed for the 2015 World Cup," Sangakkara, 33, wrote to Sri Lanka Cricket.

"This was a decision I made prior to the World Cup. I will be 37 by the next World Cup and I cannot therefore be sure of my place in the team.

"It is better that Sri Lanka is led now by a player who will be at the peak of their career during that tournament."

Sangakkara, a fluent left-hand batsman and wicket-keeper, said he had no plans yet to retire as a player.

"I met with the selectors on Monday and I explained my reasons for my decision and I assured them of my fullest support in helping our new captain settle into the leadership," he wrote.

"In this regard, I have offered to continue as the Test captain for the forthcoming series with England, and possibly Australia, if the selectors believe this would help the new captain and aid the transition.

"I have no plans of retirement from international cricket at this stage and, subject to form and fitness, I would like to be considered for selection in all three formats of the game for the foreseeable future."

Sangakkara has scored 8,244 runs in 94 Tests at an average of 57.25 with 24 centuries. He also has 9,164 runs in 291 one-dayers with 11 hundreds.

Sangakkara said he had enjoyed his two-year stint as captain since taking over from Mahela Jayawardene in March, 2009.

"It has been a true honour and a great privilege to serve my country as captain during the past two years," he said.

"Although bitterly disappointed that we could not win the final, I am very proud of the performances of the team.

"I would like to take this opportunity to thank my team-mates and the coaching staff for their hard work and support."

There was no immediate comment from Sri Lanka Cricket or the national selectors on Sangakkara's decision

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ICC to decide on 2015 World Cup format on Monday

2011-04-04T03:34:00.000+01:00

A decision on the number of teams that will take part in the next World Cup is set to be determined by the International Cricket Council following a meeting of its executive board in Mumbai on Monday.

The ICC has previously stated it would cut the number of competing teams from 14 to 10 for the 2015 tournament in Australia and New Zealand.

The format of the World Cup has been criticised for being too long, with India's success in the final on Saturday arriving six weeks after they opened the tournament against Bangladesh.

A reduction in the number of competing teams is likely to see the number of associate members reduced after teams such as Canada and Kenya suffered some heavy defeats.

"The length of 50 overs will find certain teams out but I think there are 10 teams that can seriously compete in that format," the ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat told Sky Sports News. "That's a debate we are still finalising; in fact the board meeting over the next two days will consider that and will determine which teams will play in the 2015 World Cup."

The ICC currently has 10 full member nations with Zimbabwe the only one of those not a Test-playing country.

There may, however, be scope for at least one of the associate nations to play in the tournament with the ICC still yet to reveal how qualification would take place.

While the associate nations struggled at the recent tournament Ireland proved their ability to compete with the full members, highlighted by their victory over England. The Irish also reached the Super Eight stage four years ago when they beat Pakistan.

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Cricket World Cup 2011: India's press reacts to victory

2011-04-03T20:53:00.000+01:00

"Men who make history defy all the odds," the Hindustan Times said, labelling the win "a resounding announcement of India's official coronation as the world's best team" which will herald a cricketing "golden age" for India.

"Windia!" was the banner headline in the Indian Express, while the Mail Today ran "Cup of Joy" over a picture of champagne bursting over the players' heads as they held up the trophy.

Like many newspapers, the Mail singled out the role of skipper Dhoni, who hit the winning runs in style with an imperious six into the packed stands.

"Hail Mahendra Singh Dhoni," the newspaper said. "On a night when the heat inside the Wankhede Stadium could have left you breathless, the inspirational leader showed what it is to lead from the front."

There was special praise too for the "instrumental" efforts of India's coach, former South African Test player Gary Kirsten, who has been credited with reviving the team's fortunes after a turbulent era under Australian coach Greg Chappell.

Tributes for the little master

Most newspapers ran special articles to honour star batsman Sachin Tendulkar who, at 37, was almost certainly appearing in his last World Cup tournament.

Tendulkar, playing in front of his home crowd, failed with the bat, scoring just 18 runs, but still ended up shedding tears of joy once victory was assured.

"For very long, cricket has been synonymous with Tendulkar all over India," said the Indian Express.

"But home is where the heart lies, and no other ground in India, or the world, could have provided a more emotional platform for the batting maestro."

Friends in high places

Praise and congratulations poured in from all quarters, including Indian President Pratibha Patil.

"All of you truly deserve the thanks of a billion plus Indians today," she said in a message to the team, while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh thanked the players for having "made India proud."

Congress president Sonia Gandhi greeted the jubilant crowds in Delhi, saying the victory "will be etched in gold for generations to come."

Meanwhile, in Colombo

The tone was very different in Sri Lanka, where the state-run media blasted everything from the preparation of the national team to the squad selection.

The Sunday Observer particularly questioned the wisdom of playing a half-fit Muttiah Muralitharan, the ace spinner and world record wicket-taker, who was retiring after Saturday's game.

"Was it advisable playing a half-fit Muralitharan?" the paper said. "Winning the mega final is much more important than giving a farewell tribute to even a great cricketer of Muralitharan's magnitude."

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India's World Cup cricket victory: the measure of a nation

2011-04-03T14:40:00.001+01:00

It is 3pm in a small British bar in the tourist state of Goa about 550km south of Bombay – where the country's cricketers are harrying Sri Lanka's batsmen in the early overs of the World Cup final.

It is 28 years since India last won this most cherished of titles in a nation so crazy about the game. There are fewer than nine hours to go until it does so again. But we don't know that yet.

Mohinder Amarnath, the man of the match in the 1983 World Cup, is certain, however, that the moment has arrived to repeat his team's success. Every Indian can realise their dreams through the 11 men on the field today, he says.

He need not have worried. Corrin, the eponymous owner of the Goan bar, is reaching for a brush, and dipping it into the pot of orange acrylic paint on the table in front of her. She holds the arm of the little Indian girl in front of her, draws the first rectangle of the national flag, hands the brush to Sonny, the barman, and watches him draw the white and green stripes. The girl, the daughter of the beautician who runs the shop upstairs, beams, delighted, and skips away to show off her affirmation of support for the home team.

In the street outside, a truck thunders by, horn blaring, Indian flags fluttering in from the cab. The picture is repeated across the country; millions are glued to their televisions or radios, donning their replica shirts, daubing themselves in the national colours. India is partying; each successful delivery from its bowlers greeted by a round of beating drums. The country that has made cricket its national game is certain that this year, finally, it will capture the ultimate prize, the World Cup.

India is certain that this is no more than it is due. It has already celebrated what many in the country regard as the real final, victory over its most reviled opponent, the notoriously unpredictable – unless you happen to be a friendly bookmaker – Pakistan team, which on Wednesday managed to throw away a magnificent bowling performance to lose ignominiously.

And India was desperate for this victory; the humiliation of the Commonwealth Games corruption scandal was still fresh; the country's recent diplomatic successes – not least towards a permanent seat on the UN Security Council – has been overshadowed by fresh concerns about its aspiration to be regarded as a first world nation.

This is a nation demanding international approval: buoyed by the news that projections now show it will overtake China as the world's most populous nation by 2030, there is a sense that its time has come.

As Saturday dawned, prayers were said, puja [offerings to the gods] were made, anything to give the Indian team an edge. Across the country, people painted themselves in the blue of the national team strip or in the orange, white and green of the flag, and prepared to party.

Bars and hotels hiked prices and charged admission to the more rarefied environments. In many places, TV screens were set up and even when the big screen was not an option, the nation gathered anywhere that a television was on, peering over each other's shoulders to catch a glimpse of the match.

In Corrins', even Sonny was applauding as Sri Lanka upped the ante in their final overs, smashing the ball hither and thither. Then a nation of – according to the new census figures – 1.2 billion fell silent as top batsman Sehwag fell to the second ball of the Indian innings.

Yet important as the game was, some felt that there was a sense of anticlimax after the Pakistan game. "The excitement among people is lacking," Manoj Kumar, a hotel manager, told the Times of India.

Not so among the Sri Lankans, who had sidled into the final without the fireworks of the Indian progress. Captain Kumar Sangakkara pulled no punches when he explained what it meant to a country even more desperate for international approval after the end of three decades of bloody civil war: "It means everything. We have come through a very tough period. A lot of people have laid down lives for our country. In this new future, hopefully we can take home the World Cup, and that will be even more occasion for celebration."

Gautam Gambhir, the Indian batsman who stabilised the nation's innings after the loss of influential opener Sehwag, was no less compelling when he told a news channel that India had to win to honour the dead of the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai: "For me it will be dedicated to the people who lost their lives in the 26/11 massacre."

For India, the desire to be taken seriously by other nations in sport is perhaps more important than diplomatic point-scoring. Like its neighbour China, it has been unable to translate a mass of bodies into international sporting success. In terms of international trade, it has come on in leaps and bounds, yet still it is unable to project that power into other fields.

Such desperation for success was reflected in the way many in the country fell back on superstition in their desire to ensure success. One fan, Ritangshu Bhattacharya, from Delhi, assured journalists that he would be attempting to tip the odds in India's favour by defying nature: "I won't pee in the entire match… I feel whenever I go to the loo, a wicket falls or India drops a catch."

Even his stoicism was outdone by one politician from the state of Madhya Pradesh, who stood from 10am to 10pm during the India-Pakistan match.

In Corrins', there is no doubt about who should have won: "You have to support the team, don't you?," she said. "We live here, we have to support the local team, however it goes."

It is 10.45pm, and MS Dhoni, the Indian captain, is hammering the ball to the boundary again. Six to win, two overs. There are fireworks going off everywhere, drowning out the commentary. India knows it has won. It is the Pakistan game all over again: victory from defeat, India defiant.

Six runs, and he smacks it over the boundary. The fireworks explode. In the cities, there is madness; in the villages, too, people are hugging and screaming. The firecrackers are exploding, the night a blur of colour. India wins.

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Muttiah Muralitharan is a magician whose prestige will never fade.

2011-04-01T09:44:00.000+01:00

The Sri Lankan team are in Mumbai, staying at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, so beautifully restored after the horrendous attack two and a half years ago. It is a fortress now, an exclusion zone surrounding it, so that the old Moghul-style Gateway to India and its concourse, normally thronged and past which the terrorists stormed from their boats, stands alone with its flocks of pigeons. Inside, Muttiah Muralitharan sits, nursing his injuries and hoping that his body can stand one more hurrah in the Wankhede Stadiumon Saturday.

Of course Murali will be fit – even if it is only "ish". He would not miss this for the world and no cricket lover would begrudge him a last appearance on a grand stage. No cricketer, and few sportsmen indeed, can have divided opinion as much as Murali but he is one of an indefatigable kind. He is adored and applauded as one of the two greatest spin bowlers of his generation or derided as a cheat, if an inadvertent one, for the accommodation of whom the laws of the game have been amended. There is no middle ground.

Over almost two decades, since he was no-balled in Australia in what looked like a cruelly premeditated act, the scrutiny has been unrelenting. Even the spelling of his name comes into dispute (we have no letter that translates from his native tongue the sound – somewhere between a "d" and a "th" – in the middle of his surname. He simply says "as you wish": he signed with a "th" for me.

I sit in the former camp, regarding him as a genius, a freak of nature whose unique physical attributes, to be found in his shoulder and wrist, make him capable of doing things with a cricket ball that others without his abilities should not even contemplate. It is, to sidetrack a second, an unfortunate consequence that one aspect of his legacy has been to sow the seeds for a generation of bowlers who, seeking to emulate his doosra, really do throw it. We have seen more than one of those in this World Cup. So, for me, it is fitting that he should be able to bow out from international cricket as a World Cup finalist and, perhaps, as a winner.

Were he not to play, then Scott Styris of New Zealand, lbw to his final delivery in Colombo on Tuesday night, would be the last of a truly staggering 1,331 international wickets for Sri Lanka. It was in the aftermath of that match, midnight long gone, that a group of us sat in our hotel and, over a bottle of wine, debated Murali's contribution. There were a few naysayers, as ever, but there was plenty of support. The argument ping-ponged back and forth.

Tom Moody was listening, quietly. Then he spoke, and the reason I mention it now is because we all have heard a hundred times how Murali has been tested repeatedly and cleared; how the parameters for flexion of the arm were altered not to accommodate Murali but because 99% of bowlers were shown by the most modern equipment to transgress the previous standards; how he has bowled his full range of deliveries with his arm in a brace; and how people still wish to believe the evidence of their own eyes rather than see him as a prestidigitator.

But this was different – to me, anyway. Moody was Sri Lanka's coach from 2005 until after the last World Cup final and he explained once more the way that Murali's shoulder can rotate abnormally; how he can touch his inner forearm with his fingertips (try it and see how near you get); how he is a wrist spinner who is almost a mirror image of a leg-break bowler; and, of course, how his arm is permanently bent.

So much we know. Moody continued. One day, he said, when Sri Lanka were in Perth, Murali went missing. When he turned up, it was discovered that on his day off he had taken himself to the University of Western Australia, where many of the tests on his action had been conducted. He told neither his colleagues nor the team management where he was going but he came back with a dossier. Apparently, he had heard that for all the previous investigations, there were still some voices suggesting that the tests had counted for little, because he had not been tested while bowling at different speeds.

So, Moody said, under lab conditions, he bowled the lot. Off-breaks, topspin, doosra, from all angles and at a whole range of speeds. Not one delivery came close to, never mind exceeded, the 15-degree limit. Moody still has the report, detailing every ball bowled.

The most striking thing, though, was Murali's motive. He did not go to the lab to prove yet again that he was clear. He went because he was starting to wonder whether there might not be some truth in what his more informed critics were saying. There was no way he wished to play a game in which he might genuinely be cheating. So he went to dispel that in his own mind and he came away content. If he had not been vindicated, the chances are that he would have abandoned cricket.

I think such genuine altruism by one of the truly great sportsmen needs recognition.

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England captain Andrew Strauss to take extended break after Ashes and World Cup campaigns

2011-04-01T06:45:00.000+01:00

Strauss spent just three days at home over a five-month period on England duty. In that time, he featured in all but two of the team's 28 matches in all formats, including five Ashes Tests.

Kevin Pietersen, meanwhile, is resting after hernia surgery, while Paul Collingwood will receive treatment for his knee in the coming weeks. Michael Yardy with depression will be available for all fixtures "subject to consolation between player, Sussex CCC and England medical staff".

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India v Pakistan: Cricket World Cup 2011 match report

2011-04-01T00:04:00.000+01:00

The Great Game between these feuding neighbours failed to materialise after India won a faltering match to take their place on Saturday against Sri Lanka in the World Cup final, their first for 23 years. They were deserved winners, mostly because a team who squander five chances, as Pakistan did when India batted first, do not deserve to win anything let alone the semi-final of cricket’s biggest tournament.

“We’ve had our struggles in this tournament, but we said it was important to peak at the right time,” said MS Dhoni, India’s captain after his team had won by 29 runs. “Everyone in this side has been tested and I think we’re ready for the final.”

Pakistan have lost all five of their World Cup meetings with India and those misses were instrumental in losing this one, after they allowed India to post 260, a target that was always going to be a tough chase under pressure.

Batting under lights has its challenges too, especially when squadrons of flying insects began to swarm over the ground. In a game that sought to guard itself against most man-made perils this was one the thousands of police and soldiers could do little about and Pakistan went quietly amid a blizzard of beating wings.

The charitable view of their performance is that it was nerves on the day, though when you hand Sachin Tendulkar, one of the best one-day batsmen five innings to make his 85 (he was dropped four times), there is a masochistic streak that deserves the opprobrium of its supporters, who in time-honoured fashion will no doubt torch a few effigies over the next day or so. If they do, and there is certainly a precedent from the 1996 World Cup when Wasim Akram had his house stoned as well, Wahab Riaz and Pakistan’s two off-spinners, Saeed Ajmal and Mohammad Hafeez, ought to be exempt after sharing eight of the nine wickets to fall between them. Afterwards, Shahid Afridi, the Pakistan captain, congratulated his opponents. “I’d like to congratulate the Indian team and the Indian nation, they played better than us and deserved their win,” Afridi said. “But I’d like to thank the Pakistan people as well. We tried our level best and I hope thy enjoyed it.”

Although one of the less intimidating crowds in India, given Mohali’s 28,000 capacity and a preponderance of VVIPs, or what Roy Keane used to call the prawn sandwich brigade, apprehension was apparent, even in a veteran like Tendulkar. What else could have explained his scrappy innings after Virender Sehwag had given India a blistering start with a lightning knock that gave the crowd an early reason to show its voice?

This is probably Tendulkar’s last chance to win the World Cup so perhaps that, as well as having his hundredth international hundred hanging over him, added to the pressure of an already tense occasion. Yet, whatever it is that disrupts the little master’s flow, it afflicted him yesterday and he should have been out on 27, 45, 71 and 80.

Before those let-offs, he had also survived an lbw and a stumping, both of them adjudicated by TV replay, by a hair’s breadth. The lbw, off Saeed Ajmal was given out by umpire Ian Gould and looked just until Tendulkar asked for a review and the replays showed it to be just missing leg-stump. But great players will take any generosity given them and make you pay and the cost of Pakistan’s squandering was painfully apparent when the next highest score on India’s card was Sehwag’s 38.

Sehwag’s assault, which consigned Umar Gul to the status of net bowler after he struck him for five fours in an over, showed the need to attack new ball, which came onto the bat. He looked unable to be contained until Riaz got one to squat a bit off the pitch to have him lbw, the first of five wickets in an impressive performance.

India were 99 for one after 15 overs, but when Pakistan chased under lights, they were 29 runs short of that after the same period, which meant they had to increase the rate just as spin and reverse-swing began to make timing and placement more difficult. As the rate rose, none came to grips with it, though Umar Akmal at least raged against it briefly with a brisk 29 that included two sixes.

Misbah-ul-Haq, who was last man out for 56, played the long game after some of the earlier batsman had tossed their wickets away, but he ran out of viable partners to be a serious threat. Hafeez, who had bowled so well earlier, perished playing the kind of scoop shot usually seen in frothy T20 matches but not on an occasion of this gravitas. Asad Shafiq, too, undid his good work, a modicum of pressure being all that was needed for him to attempt a risky cut shot against Yuvraj Singh and lose his off-stump.

The success of Pakistan’s two spinners brought India’s decision to drop one of theirs for the pace of Ashish Nehra into question, but Nehra, castigated after India’s defeat to South Africa in the group stage, was superb with his skiddy left-arm swingers. Munaf Patel, also bowled well, leaving Yuvraj, bowled by a full toss for a golden duck when he batted, as the only weak link with the ball. But his left-arm spin held up well enough for him to take two for 57 from his 10 overs.

The lack of spark to the match did not prevent it being a TV phenomenon and reports from around the world spoke of drastic cab shortages in Toronto, Oslo and Hackney. Advertising rates during the match were said to be running at $25,000 per 10 seconds of air time, though with an audience reckoned to be one fifth of the world’s population, it was no doubt money well spent.

It appeared to pass without major incident too, with nothing more explosive than Amritsari chicken. The prime ministers of both countries, India’s Manmohan Singh and Yousaf Raza Gilani of Pakistan, attended and shook hands with both sides after the national anthems. Plenty of Bollywood stars also came, cricketers being about the only thing above them in the pecking order.

There will be even more at the final on Saturday in Mumbai, where two teams that bat deep and have variety to their bowling attacks, will contest a fascinating final.

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India v Sri Lanka: don't judge Mahendra Singh Dhoni on World Cup final outcome, says Kapil Dev

2011-03-31T17:51:00.001+01:00

Trophy holder: Kapil Dev (middle) is the only Indian captain to win the Cricket World Cup Photo: GETTY IMAGES

Dhoni, having steered India past Pakistan in the semi-finals, is expected to complete the job with victory in Mumbai on Saturday to give the home side a second title to add to Kapil's 1983 breakthrough.

"I will never doubt Dhoni's credentials as a captain irrespective of the result of World Cup final," said Kapil.

"Lots of people believe that it's the ultimate result which will count but I believe otherwise.

"Look at Ricky Ponting. He has won two World Cups and after one bad World up he is out. That's not the way to judge a captain. So I would like that Dhoni not be judged by a win or loss. Instead, let's all wish him the very best."

Arjuna Ranatunga, who captained Sri Lanka to their only World Cup title in 1996, feels that both teams are evenly-matched.

"It will be a 50-50 game. I am slightly worried about our middle-order. The batsmen from No 5 to No 7 (Angelo Mathews, Thilan Samaraweera and Chamara Silva) haven't performed up to the mark. Also Mahela's (Jayawardene) form is a bit of worry for us," Ranatunga said.

"Those who believe that there won't be pressure are wrong. I myself have played a final and I know how it feels out there in the middle."

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Flower promises considered approach

2011-03-27T21:09:00.000+01:00

Team director Andy Flower has revealed England will take time to examine the reasons behind their World Cup exit

England flew home from the sub-continent today, 24 hours after suffering a painful 10-wicket defeat to co-hosts Sri Lanka in the quarter-finals.

As is usually the case following a major tournament, many observers been quick to offer their opinions on England’s efforts.

Flower, who always says only what he means and wants to say, knows the value of thought before utterance - and he will wait before he specifies why he thinks the team failed to achieve their goal.

“I don’t want to talk too much about those reasons right now,” he said.

“We came here to win a World Cup and we are now not going to do that.

“To lose out in the quarter-finals, even though we’ve been beaten soundly, is very disappointing - and we didn’t want to go home right now.

“I think it’s best that we travel home, clear our heads and then we can look back on the last few months and review it properly - and probably with a cleaner set of eyes and a clearer mind.”

One issue that will certainly need to be addressed is England’s lack of consistency.

Andrew Strauss’ side produced thrilling comebacks to beat South Africa and West Indies - and also excelled with the bat, for the majority of their innings at least, in a dramatic tie with India.

However, their performances were not nearly as impressive in defeats to Ireland and Bangladesh, while the emphatic nature of Sri Lanka’s triumph in Colombo certainly provided cause for concern.

England also struggled in the one-day series in Australia that followed their historic Ashes victory and Flower added: “We’ve been pretty inconsistent in our limited-overs performances in recent months. We haven’t delivered the skills that are necessary in these sort of conditions.”

Flower admits England did not adopt the correct approach en route to defeat in Colombo. "We were very tentative," said the team director

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“We’ve played some decent stuff, but in the main we’ve not done enough to get in the final weeks of the tournament.

“To be honest, we didn’t deserve to get there - because we haven’t played well enough.”

England were lauded just under a year ago for their meticulous planning and execution of the required skills as they at last won a maiden International Cricket Council trophy, at the World Twenty20 in the Caribbean.

Yet Flower is aware there is work to do if they are to settle upon the ideal formula in 50-over cricket and concedes England played with uncertainty as they exited the tournament.

“They’re different forms of the game, obviously, and the 50-over game is more like a game of chess than the Twenty20,” said the Zimbabwean.

“This match (against Sri Lanka) was a very good example of playing with fear.

“We were very tentative; we had a very poor start, and now we have paid the price for that tentativeness.”

Skipper Strauss, meanwhile, has welcomed the future rescheduling which means that never again will England, or fellow quarter-final losers Australia, be asked to play an Ashes and a World Cup in the same winter.

But he will not be suckered into dressing that up as the reason for another early departure by England from a competition they have still yet to win after 10 attempts.

“It’s a huge amount to ask players to tour Australia for three months, the highest-intensity cricket for an English team, and then go straight into a World Cup without spending any time at home,” he said.

“The scheduling is not good and doesn’t give you the best chance. But that’s not an excuse for not doing well here.

“You’ve still got to go out and play, and each team starts at nought for nought at the beginning of the game.

“But clearly lessons have been learnt, and that cycle is changing. It would have been good if it had changed before this one.”

Watch the latest World Cup video news from the England team on ecb.co.uk

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2011 Cricket World Cup: Ricky Ponting hoping for a 'rebirth' to match Sachin Tendulkar's

2011-03-27T18:19:00.000+01:00

Demands for Ponting's resignation were louder before his gritty hundred in the quarterfinal loss to Tendulkar's Indian squad, which still ensured Australia's worst World Cup run in two decades but salvaged his own career.

Now the 36-year-old Ponting says he's hopeful of a late-career revival.

"I guess with even making some runs in this last game that I've played and getting that really good feeling back about my batting again, hopefully it might be a bit of a kickstart for a Tendulkar-sort rebirth, if you like," Ponting said.

After admitting his nine year reign as Australian captain could end if the Australian selectors felt it was time to go, Ponting said he had decided the time of his own retirement.

"I'll know the right time that it's time for me to not be playing any more and I haven't found that time just yet," Ponting said.

Ponting strongly hinted on his arrival at Sydney Airport on Sunday that his is considering his future. He appeared to acknowledge that a planned review by Cricket Australia of the Australian team's recent loss of form might take the decision from him and recommend his removal as captain.

"Even though we're out early, it's nice to be home and I'll have the opportunity over the next couple of days to reflect on where things are headed for me and certainly what direction I feel things are heading for the betterment of Australian cricket," Ponting said.

"Every decision I've ever made was always with Cricket Australia's thoughts at the front of my mind. It's always been about putting the team before me.

"The direction of my thoughts will be along those lines the next couple of days."

Ponting has won three World Cups, and was captain in the last two winning campaigns when Australia didn't drop a game. Back-to-back losses to Pakistan and India within six days ended a run of 34-unbeaten World Cup matches for the Aussies.

Ponting has been one of Australia's most successful captains, but recently his record has been slipping — three Ashes series defeats in four series has proved costly to his popularity in Australia. Now Australia will drop off its perch in ODI cricket, too.

Ponting's statistics as a batsman remain impressive — he has 13,288 runs in 359 ODIs dating back to 1995, although his 104 against India at Ahmedabad last week was his first century in 13 months. He also has 12,363 runs in test cricket, with 39 hundreds.

In terms of centuries and runs scored in international cricket he's second only to Indian great Tendulkar, who is aiming for his 100th international century when India play Pakistan in the semifinals on Wednesday.

Tendulkar, who will turn 38 next month, has more than 18,000 runs in ODIs and 14,692 in tests in a career that dates back to 1989.

But what Ponting said about a Tendulkar-like rebirth might indicate a shift in his position as captain. Tendulkar had a wretched run as India captain from 1996-2000, winning only 23 of 73 ODIs in that span and four of 25 test matches. Since relinquishing those duties, Tendulkar's form and confidence have flourished.

That could be playing on Ponting's mind, particularly after acknowledged the increasingly virulent debate in Australia about his future.

"The last couple of weeks there's been a few differing opinions out in the papers and out in the news about me and my future as leading the team," he said. "It's been nice the last week especially to hear some endorsement from Cricket Australia and the selectors about that position.

"But that's where the next few days are crucial to me as well. I have to really decide what I think is right for me and the team going forward.

"I still think I've got a lot to offer the team as a player and a leader."

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Cricket World Cup 2011: India v Pakistan in Mohali can suit Shahid Afridi's side

2011-03-27T18:00:00.000+01:00

The explanation comes in two words: Bindra Sahib. The power behind the throne of world cricket and Indian cricket is Inderjit Singh Bindra, who created the Mohali stadium as his personal fiefdom after his family – Sikh – had been forced to flee Lahore at Partition.

But while Bindra Sahib will deftly sort out the enormous quantity of VIPs who will descend on his stadium on the outskirts of Chandigarh, not to mention that subcontinental speciality the VVIPs, the ground will not be so suited to the Indian team – because it is the most northerly in this World Cup, and the least Asian.

Mohali is the only pitch in Asia which regularly has some pace and bounce, although Chennai does occasionally. If Australia had won their quarter-final at the predictable slow turner in Ahmedabad, Mohali would have suited their pace attack. Not India though, as they have three good spinners, but not three good seamers.

Zaheer Khan is head and shoulders above India’s other pace bowlers. Munaf Patel has all the physical equipment to be a second Glenn McGrath but is psychologically fragile, as Brad Haddin was the latest to prove when he went after Patel in the quarter-final. Ashish Nehra is erratic – and cannot bat, like Patel – while Sreesanth skids on to the bat.

Fortunately for the hosts, Pakistan have exactly the same mixture: three good spinners but not three good seamers. Umar Gul stands out, like Zaheer; otherwise all they have for pace – in the absence of the banned Mohammed

Aamer and Mohammed Asif – is Shoaib Akhtar, who has finally announced his retirement and whose last over went for 28; Wahab Riaz, a pacey but wayward left-armer; and a novice left-armer Junaid Khan who hasn’t played an international.

Assuming this weakness in one team cancels out the weakness in the other, India’s superior batting should prevail. They have some great batsmen, Pakistan good batsmen. But the number of Indian supporters in the ground will be limited, and – being close in every sense to Lahore - it is the nearest Pakistan will come to a home match in a long while.

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Cricket World Cup 2011: Paul Collingwood 'felt a bit guilty' over Michael Yardy's depression

2011-03-27T17:25:00.000+01:00

Collingwood and his team-mates will return home tomorrow [Monday] after their World Cup exit to Sri Lanka, five months after they departed for Australia.

A punishing run of fixtures saw England's players lose form and fitness as the winter went on, while Michael Yardy returned home from the World Cup after struggling to battle depression.

Collingword, who did not feature for England after their defeat to Bangladesh on March 11, said: "people see the luxury lifestyle, playing sport for a living, but they don't see the dark hours stewing and thinking of family, being under constant scrutiny.

"Ten years ago, our captain, Nasser Hussain, said we were playing too much. It frustrates me that we seem to be doing even more. It's time to address these issues."

Yardy is the second England player to be forced out of competition after struggling with depression. Marcus Trescothick retired from international cricket in 2008 owing to the illness.

Collingwood told the Mail on Sunday: "The sad news of Mike Yardy's depression came as a complete shock. I didn't have an inkling, nor did I when the same thing happened to Marcus Trescothick, which shows how hard they must have tried to hide their problems.

"As someone who is close to this team, to not realise what he was going through, I feel a bit guilty that I didn't pick it up."

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England player ratings

2011-03-27T17:00:00.000+01:00

Andrew Strauss 4 A sad end to a partly glorious winter. He missed a pull at a quicker ball - then the odd trick in the field. But a statesmanlike leader to the last.

Ian Bell 5 If England were to post 250, Bell had to play a big innings, as the best England batsman at using his feet, not get himself out for a pretty 25.

Jonathan Trott 8 As normal, he made the most of himself, not sure enough against spin to hit boundaries but taking the offered singles and keeping England in the game.

Ravi Bopara 5 Ended the last World Cup at number 3, and this one at 4. He has gone up and down the order and, ultimately, slightly backwards.

Eoin Morgan 7 Passed 2000 runs in ODIs, and supplied some acceleration to help Trott, without being his most fluent here - or all winter.

Matt Prior 5 A sprightly flourish at the death was much more his cup of tea than opening and playing a long innings, but out-kept by Sangakkara.

Luke Wright 4 No impact with the bat — when he had little opportunity - or with the ball, when he had plenty. County cricket is a far cry from Asia.

Tim Bresnan 5 The senior seamer yesterday, even though he is relatively inexperienced in one-day internationals. Fielded better than most.

James Tredwell 5 Finer players of spin than the West Indian batsmen went after him, but England wouldn’t have reached the quarters without him.

Graeme Swann 5 No scoreboard pressure — and like almost every spinner that has bowled in Sri Lanka except one (Murali), he found the pitch impossibly slow.

Chris Tremlett 4 Got a game because James Anderson, according to Strauss, is 'pretty burnt out.’ Not much of a reason really.

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Alec Stewart: Too much change at the last minute

2011-03-27T16:43:00.001+01:00

England's rollercoaster ride in the World Cup is finally over after being dumped out of the tournament by an excellent Sri Lanka side.

Sri Lanka showed England exactly how to play on the slow, low pitch which favoured the home side as they sprinted to an emphatic 10-wicket win.

The hosts played with a no-fear attitude - happy to open the bowling with a part-time spinner in Dilshan and then take the attack to England's bowlers from the outset with the bat.

Sri Lanka were prepared to take calculated risks whereas I felt England were always trying to just stay in the contest and played in a very conservative manner.

Jonathan Trott's 86 was a well constructed innings but at no stage did he - or any of the other batsmen - try to unsettle the Sri Lankan spinners by using their feet to put them under pressure.

Calculated gambles are not, and never have been, in England's make-up and this is a big reason why we are not one of the very best sides.

England's total of 229 was at least 25 runs light of a par score and once Dilshan and Tharanga had overcome the first 10 overs without any trouble Sri Lanka were always going to maintain their record of never having lost to England in the knockout stage of a competition.

Sri Lanka will be starting to believe that winning the Cup is a distinct possibility so long as they can overcome New Zealand in the semi-final on Tuesday.

England will be returning home after a marathon winter knowing that they still have a long way to go in this form of the game.

Inconsistent individual performances, along with injuries and illness to key players, certainly didn't help the cause.

Losing two of England's potential match winners in Kevin Pietersen and Stuart Broad was a hammer blow but when the dust settles Andrew Strauss and coach Andy Flower will know that they did not deserve any better than a quarter-final spot.

After the brilliant Test performances in Australia in regaining the Ashes false expectations were placed on the team in the 50-over format. The attention to detail and execution of every plan meant the Ashes winning side out-played Australia but unfortunately in the shorter version of the game it is still too hit and miss.

Selections and roles of individual players leading into and during the World Cup smacked of confusion and this policy was taken on to the field.

For example, Steve Davies was seen as the man to keep wicket and open the batting yet a couple of weeks before the squad headed off to the sub-continent he was jettisoned for Matt Prior.

Then, by the opening game, we see Pietersen going in first with Prior dropping down the order as he was deemed not good enough for the role.

Yet as soon as KP goes home Prior returns to the top before being replaced yesterday by Ian Bell - confused!!!

I accept players have to be flexible and react to every situation but why all these last-minute changes?

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The ridiculous winter schedule meant that Strauss and his squad were not given the best chance of becoming the first England side to win the 50-over World Cup.

Both the ECB and ICC need to take a good hard look at the itineraries that they are forcing on today's cricketers.

The World Cup is meant to be the pinnacle of the one-day game, yet too many of the players arrived on the sub-continent physically and mentally xhausted.

Until common sense prevails and less greedy administrators run the game more players will find it difficult to perform at their highest levels while runnin the risk of suffering along similar lines to Mike Yardy who returned home with depression.

This is in no way an excuse on behalf of the England cricket team - it is a fact that needs to be addressed immediately.

WORLD CUP WOES

1975: Semi-finals, lost by four wkts to Australia

1979: Final, lost by 92 runs to West Indies

1983: Semi-finals, lost by six wkts to India

1987: Final, lost by seven runs to Australia

1992: Final, lost by 22 runs to Pakistan

1996: Quarter-final, lost by five wkts to Sri Lanka

1999: Group stages, failed to progress

2003: Group stages, failed to progress

2007: Super Eight, failed to progress

2011: Quarter-finals, lost to Sri Lanka by 10 wkts

Follow Daily Mirror cricket correspondent Dean Wilson on Twitter at CricketMirror

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Cricket World Cup 2011: Andrew Strauss must relinquish England one-day captaincy after Sri Lanka calamity

2011-03-27T00:57:00.000Z

England can at last return home with no complaints. They lost to Ireland and Bangladesh after all. They were extremely fortunate not to have been reacquainting themselves with their much-missed home comforts some time ago.
The drawing board will doubtless be revisited yet again. England have lost captains after the last three World Cups (Alec Stewart in 1999, Nasser Hussain in 2003 and Michael Vaughan in 2007) and it would make sense now if Andrew Strauss were to step down as one-day skipper. It is a natural staging post.
To call for Strauss’s resignation should in no way be seen as a slight upon the job he has done. Considering the mess he inherited after the Kevin Pietersen/Peter Moores imbroglio in early 2009, Strauss has performed admirably. He has worked hard in stretching his own batting to its outer limits of positivity in attempting to lead a braver approach that began at the Champions Trophy in South Africa later that year. As justification he played the innings of his one-day life (158) in the tie with India in this tournament.
So it was disappointing, as well as a little unfitting, that his innings of just five from 19 balls on Saturday was so slow and stuttering, stifled by the clever Sri Lankan ploy of using the off-spin of Tillakaratne Dilshan to open, Strauss’s mind filled by thoughts of falling in the deep in the first over of the match to South Africa’s left-arm spinner Robin Peterson earlier in the tournament. The skipper had been straitjacketed, and it was a restraint from which England’s innings never wriggled.
There were rumours a fortnight ago that Strauss was considering stepping down. Quite naturally they were strongly rebuffed, but it is my understanding that they were not without credence. It is time to move on.
Strauss must, and of course will, continue as Test captain. And he will find the extra rest periods invaluable, just as he did when missing a tour of Bangladesh last March. Alastair Cook deputised then, in both ODIs and Tests, and he should take over now as ODI opener and captain, starting with the match against Sri Lanka at the Oval on June 28. Although the T20 at Bristol three days before could be interesting. Surely Paul Collingwood cannot continue as T20 captain, and Cook would seem a little miscast there. Kevin Pietersen anyone? But England would then have three captains.
England might have been mercilessly thumped on Saturday, but their winter had unravelled long ago, around the time when they should have been basking in Ashes glory and instead were traipsing around Australia playing two T20 internationals and seven one-day internationals. Simply for money. Simply to fill the coffers of Cricket Australia, and then those of the England and Wales Cricket Board in return.
It was around this time that team director Andy Flower decided that his players were running on empty and so needed some respite from the intense, but always carefully planned, training routines that have been the bedrock of some astounding success under his watch. As one significant result England’s fielding fell apart. And never really recovered.
Subsequently Flower has admitted this was a mistake. But it was not his mistake. It was the mistake of the administrators. International cricket should never be like county cricket where the speed on the treadmill has to be constantly altered (never on full blast) to allow for the chaotic schedule. International cricket must be full on, with eyeballs out. Anything less is short-changing the public.
But English cricket has long considered one-day cricket a second-class citizen, the poor relation to Test cricket. Mostly ODI series are, like this winter, tagged onto the fag end of long tours.
There was much joy recently when it was announced that the County Championship is to remain at 16 matches. But tragically missing from that press release was any mention of 50-over cricket. How on earth can we expect to win a 50-over World Cup when we do not play that length of game domestically? When last asked about this, ECB chairman Giles Clarke replied that South Africa, then No 1 in the world, do not play 50 overs domestically. But neither do they win anything. It is time for change.
With six rounds of the CB40 to be played by the end of May this year on pitches that are likely to seam, it is little surprise that England still cannot find an aggressive one-day opener to partner either Strauss or Cook.
The domestic standard is not as high as some think. Last year Matt Prior looked very useful when opening for Sussex (especially in Twenty20). But this winter he has let the England management down.
They made a courageous call to include him ahead of Steven Davies as opener/wicketkeeper, especially as ludicrous International Cricket Council regulations stipulated World Cup squads be confirmed after one match of England’s seven-match ODI series in Australia, but by the end of that series it was already obvious that it was a blunder.
Injuries to Pietersen and Stuart Broad have not helped, nor Samit Patel’s sloth (he has lost weight but Adil Rashid was preferred as replacement for Michael Yardy last week because Rashid has been playing this winter and Patel has not), but England came to rely too much on Jonathan Trott’s batting and, in an increasingly insipid attack, Graeme Swann’s bowling.
Trott still had his critics on Saturday after making 86 from 115 balls, but he is not the problem. He is the tournament’s leading run scorer! His role is clear; to bat through the innings. Others around him have faltered, transfixed by spin and with little idea how to assess a pitch and set a target.
Yet another World Cup calamity. There will be more unless attitudes alter.
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England players fury at Geoff Boycott

2011-03-27T00:21:00.000Z

Geoff Boycott's insensitive remarks about Mike Yardy have angered the England players.

On hearing of Yardy's battle with depression forcing him home, the 70-year-old Test legend claimed: "He must have been upset with the things I've been saying about him."

The suggestion that Yardy's illness had anything to do with Boycott (inset) or even his poor form was rubbished by Three Lions skipper Andrew Strauss. "We were disappointed with those comments," said Strauss.

"It just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue. To link it in any way to how he has performed in the World Cup is a long way wide of the mark.

"It's a lack of information and a lack of being informed about the situation. I really don't think your cricketing ability or what you have achieved has anything to do with it, ever."

Strauss spoke on behalf of a squad privately seething at Boycott's comments.

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The England captain's sympathy for Yardy was obvious, but he is determined to keep his side focused on the World Cup.

He added: "It is a horrible thing to go through and we are 100 per cent behind him. We know there are ways of managing it, but for the time being it's desperately disappointing for him and for us as a squad.

"It is not difficult for us to focus on this game. It's a one-off event - if we lose, we are on the plane home, if we win, we are in a World Cup semi-final.

"As players, you get used to switching on and off.

"There is a limit to how much you can do as a colleague. I certainly don't think players should be blamed for it. It's just one of those things."

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McKay replaces injured Mills

2011-03-26T23:45:00.000Z

Left-arm seamer Andy McKay has been called into New Zealand’s World Cup squad as a replacement for the injured Kyle Mills.

Mills strained his left quadricep during the group stage victory over Canada two weeks ago and, after missing yesterday’s quarter-final victory over South Africa, has now been ruled out of the remainder of the tournament.

The decision to call up McKay has been approved by the International Cricket Council’s event technical committee and the 30-year-old is expected to join up with the rest of the squad tomorrow.

McKay has played in 13 one-day internationals and featured regularly on the Black Caps’ recent tour of India.

Mills, meanwhile, is one of three players to have been fined after breaching the ICC’s code of conduct during yesterday’s game in Mirpur.

Although he did not play in the match, Mills was involved in an altercation after entering the field as a drinks carrier following the dismissal of AB de Villiers.

He and New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori engaged in a heated debate with South Africa batsman Francois du Plessis, and the trio have now been punished.

Mills has been fined 120% of his match fee for breaching Article 2.2.4 of the code over “inappropriate and deliberate physical contact between players”, and Article 2.2.11 relating to conduct that is “contrary to the spirit of the game” or “brings the game into disrepute”.

Vettori and Du Plessis will both lose 50% of their match fees for also breaching Article 2.2.4, while the New Zealand skipper will be fined a further 40% of his fee for a Level 1 offence which was “contrary to the spirit of the game” or “brings the game into disrepute”.

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Jamaica top four frustrate Lions

2011-03-26T23:03:00.000Z

25 March 2011 | By Rob Barnett

England Lions met top-order resistance from Jamaica on day two of their final WICB regional four-day championship match.

Responding to a competitive 358 at Sabina Park, the hosts’ first four all registered half-centuries to usher their side to 259 for four at stumps. Lions left-arm spinner Danny Briggs claimed two wickets to take his competition tally to 26.

The tourists began the day by extending their last-wicket partnership from 37 to 55 with Chris Woakes, who was on 104 overnight, last out for 115 - leaving Nathan Buck unbeaten on eight.

Jamaica openers Simon Jackson and Danza Hyatt made significant inroads into the Lions’ total with a 126-run partnership, ended by Woakes who bowled Hyatt for 59.

Jackson followed to Briggs in the next over for 60 but former and current West Indies batsmen Marlon Samuels and Brendan Nash shared an alliance worth 93.

Briggs snared Samuels for 58 and the Lions again broke through in consecutive overs when Buck dismissed Jamaica captain Tamar Lambert.

However, they could not dislodge Nash, who was unbeaten on 56, with another Windies batsman - Wavell Hinds - for company.

Victory for the Lions will ensure they finish top of the table although they cannot advance to the knockout stages, which are only open to the Caribbean sides.

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No excuses from Strauss

2011-03-26T22:31:00.000Z

England captain Andrew Strauss offered a frank assessment of his side’s shortcomings after their rollercoaster World Cup campaign ended with a 10-wicket defeat to Sri Lanka in the quarter-finals.

Tillakaratne Dilshan and Upul Tharanga both registered unbeaten centuries as the co-hosts cruised to their target of 230 with more than 10 overs to spare at the R Premadasa Stadium.

England have been involved in a series of thrilling encounters during the competition and produced sensational comebacks to beat South Africa and West Indies during the group stage.

On this occasion, however, they were unable to mount any sort of fightback once Sri Lanka's openers settled into their stride and Strauss was not prepared to make excuses in the post-match presentation.

“Over the course of the tournament our cricket hasn’t been good enough. I think we have got to be honest with ourselves. We haven’t played well enough and that’s why we are going home,” he admitted.

“We just haven’t played with enough quality with either bat or ball. We can’t hide away from that.

“We’ve shown a lot of resolve and spirit and we’ve won some tight games and come through but this was a step too far. Sri Lanka are a very good side, played very well on the day and we weren’t good enough.

“We thought if we took early wickets we would be in with a chance but fair play to Sri Lanka, they played beautifully.

“Both Tharanga and Dilshan were outstanding and we have been thoroughly beaten by a much better side today.”

Jonathan Trott and Eoin Morgan had contributed 86 and 50 respectively to help England recover from 31 for two, but it soon became apparent that a total of 229 for six was some way short of what was required.

Strauss, left, was quick to pay tribute to Upul Tharanga, right, and Tillakaratne Dilshan. "They played beautifully," said the England captain

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“We probably thought it was 30 light and in the end it was probably 50 light if I’m honest,” Strauss added.

“We didn’t get off to a good start with the bat, we did reasonably in the middle but then we weren’t able to accelerate at the end.

“They were able to bowl a lot of dot balls at us. We lost a couple of wickets early and then it was always that consolidation phase where batsmen have to build a platform. We weren’t able to take advantage of that platform in the end.”

Strauss believes England’s tough winter schedule may have played its part in their off-colour showing here, but is wary of that excuse.

“I think you can cite tiredness, but that would be running away from the issue,” he explained.

“We haven’t played good enough cricket at this World Cup, and generally English teams haven’t played well in the sub-continent to compete day in and day out. We’re the latest in a long line of sides - and we need to be better than that.”

England’s skipper will nonetheless look back on 2010/11 with much reason for satisfaction.

“The Ashes was certainly my proudest moment in cricket and probably one of English cricket’s proudest moments for a long time - and no one will ever take that away from us,” he said.

“But since then things have got tough - we’ve had injuries and losses of form to deal with, but we haven’t been good enough in either Australia or this World Cup.”

Strauss remains committed to leading England in one-day internationals and has backed his team-mates to bounce back following a period of rest and recovery.

When asked if he believes he can take the team further in the one-day format, Strauss replied: “Absolutely. I still think I’ve got a lot of cricket left in me, full stop.

“As is always the case at the end of a World Cup you’ve got to sit down and think what the best way forward is.

“Right now we are obviously very disappointed, but we’ll get home, regroup and we’ll come back.”

Watch the latest World Cup video news from the England team on ecb.co.uk

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Shane Warne: let Ricky Ponting be the judge of when he should retire from international cricket with Australia

2011-03-26T21:58:00.002Z

There are only three options: for him to remain as captain, to resign and continue only as a player, or no more Ricky Ponting.

One thing is certain, Ricky deserves to go out in the manner of his own choosing and I would wait a while for the dust to settle before anyone makes a big decision.

He will want to discuss with the players and the people he respects before coming up with the right answer. Only Ricky Ponting knows what that answer will be.

When you are in the middle of a series or tournament, surrounded by players and in the team environment you never look at it with an outsider’s view. You don’t listen to the media and you don’t think 'this could be my last game’.

The only factors to concentrate on are your own form and game. That is not to say retirement is not at the back of your mind. There are moments when you think about what is the right thing to do and you want to go out on your own terms and on a high. That will be uppermost in Ricky’s thoughts.

He has been around long enough and will have an instinct about what to do. But there are two factors – the heart and mind. If both are saying the same thing then it is easy to make the right decision. If he has conflict, that is when he will need to sit back and take stock to work out what is the best way forward.

As a player your main concern is that you must be good enough to be picked in the team on performance. Then it is about whether you have the energy, drive and patience to put in the work and amount of time required to stay at the top.

One question you need to ask yourself whatever you are doing in life is 'am I enjoying myself?’ If you are not enjoying what you are doing it is time to do something else. If the answer is 'yes’ and it still feels like you can perform and have something to offer then there is no reason to go anywhere.

When you retire as a player who has achieved and been one of the greats like Ricky, it is not easy to let go of something that has been a big part of your life for 15 years. The reason I retired is because the enjoyment stopped. It was not just about playing cricket. It was about time away from family, friends and living a certain lifestyle after 20 years of first-class cricket.

I was not prepared to put in the hours of sponsors’ appearances, scrutiny and judgment or getting up to play day in day out when your body is hurting and sore. I never saw cricket as a job. It was a hobby to me. My most important job was to be the best father I could possibly be to my children. Anyone who plays cricket at any level probably thinks “how can you not enjoy it?”

Playing cricket for Australia should be fun but if it becomes a grind and you don’t want to go to work, because that is the way you suddenly see it, then it is time to do something different.

A lot of great players do not go out on their own terms. That leads to a bit of regret and frustration. But when people go out on top there is satisfaction and the best piece of advice I received when thinking about retirement came from Ian Chappell. His words were “The only hint I will give you is to make sure they say to you 'why are you retiring?’ rather than 'why don’t you retire?’.” Once he said that I thought 'yes I am doing the right thing’.

Ricky’s future is part of a wider debate for Australian cricket. There is a bit of soul searching and honesty to be addressed by every player, selector, coach and Cricket Australia.

There is no disgrace losing to India in India. Their only two defeats in the World Cup were against a Pakistan team on fire and India so there is no shame in the way they played in the sub-continent and we do not need to make rash decisions right now. We can wait until after the short tour of Bangladesh in early April.

But if you put this World Cup performance in context of the Australian summer of losing the Ashes then soon we will have to sit down and have a good chat about the future to work out the best way to regain the number one spot in the world.

Who are the players, leaders, coaching staff to steer the team in the future? There are two ways to go. Don’t change a thing or, after a break, regroup and strive to improve.

Let’s have a chat with the right people and work out not what is best for players, selectors or coaching staff but the right thing for Australian cricket.

Australia have led the world in preparation, processes and domestic cricket. Those things have held Australian cricket in good stead for a long time but nobody stays number one forever. Other teams have just caught up.

Now we have to decide if it is time to inject different people or different tactics. Those are questions that need to be answered but not in a blind panic. Australian cricket must weigh it all up after some time out.

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Winning margin surprises Sangakkara

2011-03-26T21:48:00.002Z

Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara thought England would have provided a sterner test following an astonishing 10-wicket victory in the World Cup quarter-finals in Colombo.

Openers Upul Tharanga and Tillakaratne Dilshan put on a masterclass as they both registered unbeaten centuries to easily overhaul England’s total of 229 for six and set up a last-four clash with New Zealand.

That was despite the co-hosts' profligacy in the field, where Eoin Morgan was reprieved four times - including three drops - en route to a half-century from 55 balls before he was finally caught by Angelo Mathews, coming off the cover rope, off Lasith Malinga.

It mattered little in the grand scheme of things as Sri Lanka bowled a tight line and length to restrict their opponents' scoring opportunities.

Indeed, only Jonathan Trott, who became the tournament’s leading runscorer with 422 following a knock of 86 from 115 balls, could get to grips with an attack boasting three spinners.

Sangakkara thought his side’s victory echoed their triumph against England at Headingley five years ago when Tharanga and Sanath Jayasuriya both hit hundreds in an eight-wicket victory which sealed a 5-0 series success.

Asked if he believed Sri Lanka’s victory would be so comfortable, Sangakkara replied: “Not really. Losing the toss, it was really important that we got off to a great start with the ball and Dilshan did that for us with the new ball. Then he and Upul really got together and reminded us of Headingley a few years back.

"We’ve got to brush up on our fielding and a few other areas but I think the guys really fought hard and they had a lot of pride in the way they played, especially in the sun fielding first.

"All the bowlers hit the marks early on and they just kept up the pressure and made sure that whatever total we chased was a manageable one.

"It’s a fantastic crowd. They have been coming to all of our games and they have supported us right throughout, which is wonderful. All we are trying to do is make them proud and play the best cricket that we can.”

Upul Tharanga soaks up the acclaim of the crowd after hitting a boundary to bring up his century and win the match for Sri Lanka

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Despite the comfortable nature of their victory, Sangakkara still believes England are capable opponents for anyone on their day.

He said: “I think England are still a great side, actually one of the best balanced sides in the tournament. I don’t think it helped them that they have had a few injuries - James Anderson sitting on the bench, Michael Yardy going back - so it’s been a tough tournament for them.

“But they’re filled with top-quality players. They’ve done exceptionally well, and we were very wary of England and what they could do.”

Muttiah Muralitharan was a doubt before the game with a hamstring injury and he appeared in discomfort when bowling his final over, but Sangakkara is confident the veteran off-spinner, who will retire from all forms of international cricket at the end of the tournament, will feature against New Zealand.

Sangakkara said: “He’s pulled up a bit stiff. We’ve got a couple of days for him to recover so I’m sure he will be fit for the next game. If not we’ve got enough cover, the guys are pretty confident and I think everyone is looking to do well.”

The wicketkeeper-batsman is not placing too much stock on Sri Lanka’s 112-run victory over the Black Caps in the group stage, knowing that any complacency will be punished by a resurgent New Zealand team.

He added: "We can’t get too far ahead of ourselves, we’ve got to keep our feet on the ground, put our heads down and concentrate on really brushing up on our basics.

"I think it’s important to be confident, but also realistic. It’s a semi-final, it’s a one-off. Everyone has got the opportunity to do well. They will be very hungry to get into the finals, so are we.

“I thought with the opening partnership we had today, that really inspired the rest of the side. Everyone can’t shine every day - we’ve just got to make sure it’s a good team effort when the semi-finals come along."

Tharanga expressed his delight after the victory at the R Premadasa Stadium.

“I think it was a really good performance from me and Dilshan, so we are very happy,” he said.

“Definitely in games like this, the opening partnership is very important. We’ve got two double-hundred partnerships, which is very good, so we can hopefully continue in the semi-finals.”

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