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(The following is the full text of joint statement, given at the conclusion of WICB’s AGM in Barbados. The statment is that of President Patrick Rousseau and Vice President Clarvis Joseph).THIS afternoon we advised the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) of Directors that we are resigning from the WICB effective Monday June 4, 2001.It is based on the unacceptable position in which we find ourselves based on the issue of the termination of Mr. Ricky Skerritt, the Manager of the West Indies Cricket Team.The Board has taken a decision to reinstate Mr. Skerritt which brings into question our integrity and we are therefore unable to continue as president and vice-president and have indicated our resignations.Mr. Skerritt was evaluated by Mr. Joseph and myself during a debriefingsession after each tour and specifically after the England, Australian and South African tours. We came to the conclusion based on those evaluations and the performance of the teams that he is not in our opinion a suitable person to manage the West Indies team at this time.The Board challenged the process of the evaluation and was concerned whether the evaluation constituted a formal or proper evaluation. They also questioned our authority along with that of the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Gregory Shillingford, to effect the termination without Board approval. We disagreed with that view.In our opinion the Board’s position directly challenged our competence and our integrity in carrying out the process. Since we are not prepared to carry out the directive to re-instate Mr. Skerritt we feel obligated to resign.When we started on the process of managing West Indies cricket we had set very clear objectives for bringing the management machinery of the Board to a state in which professionalism, efficiency and high standard of performance were to become operational norms. We stated clearly that this was going to be “a new dispensation”.The re-structuring, including the creation of new departments and theappointment of professional heads of department, has run into resistance and the process has gone slowly. The WICB must accelerate the process if the WICB is to operate successfully in the new situation in world cricket and meet the attendant obligations.

Batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar says his injured toe is still troubling him while running but he expects to be back for the South African tour.”I am not in too much pain, although when I run, my foot gives trouble. So I decided to get expert advice,” Tendulkar, in Durban to consult Dr Mark Fergusson about his injury, said.Tendulkar had undergone a check up on Monday following which he was asked to undergo some tests. “Once we have conducted our tests we will prescribe treatment that will allow Tendulkar to continue to play without any problems,” Fergusson told PTI.”We are presently looking at some of the sports shoes he will have to wear,” he added.Tendulkar, who is accompanied by his Mumbai-based doctor Anant Joshi, said he was hoping to recover in time for the South Africa series in October.He said he had been referred to Fergusson by his teammates Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath who had earlier consulted the South African specialist for their shoulder injuries and expressed satisfaction with the treatment.Tendulkar injured his right toe during the triangular one-day series in Zimbabwe and had to miss the ongoing tour of Sri Lanka.

BCCI president Shashank Manohar is set to replace N Srinivasan for the remainder of the latter’s term as ICC chairman. Manohar will occupy the position till end of June next year. The BCCI also appointed former ICC president Sharad Pawar as the second nominee to attend ICC meetings in case Manohar was unavailable.At its 86th annual general meeting, held at its headquarters in Mumbai, the BCCI also made two changes to the national selection panel. Former India wicketkeeper MSK Prasad replaced Roger Binny as South Zone member and Gagan Khoda came in for Rajinder Singh Hans from the Central Zone. Former India pacer and bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad was appointed chairman of the junior selection panel.Some other decisions taken at the AGM were:

• The meeting accepted the conflict of interest reforms “in principle” but there will be discussions on all the suggestions made and doubts raised will be clarified and undertaken over the next few months. It appointed AP Shah, a retired chief justice of the Delhi High Court, as its first Ombudsman.
• The board confirmed Test status for Pune, Ranchi, Indore, Rajkot, Visakhapatnam and Dharamsala.
• Sourav Ganguly replaced Anil Kumble as head of the BCCI’s technical committee.
• PS Raman, a member of the governance review committee, has been appointed chairman of the legal committee
• The DDCA was given a deadline of November 17 to keep the Ferozshah Kotla ready to host the fourth Test between India and South Africa starting December 3. If the DDCA misses the deadline, Pune will host the match.
• Rajeev Shukla, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Ajay Shirke, MP Pandove and Sourav Ganguly form the modified IPL governing council which has been cut down from 23 to five as of now. Manohar said there would be “further deliberations” about the possibility of the induction of three independent members into the governing council, a suggestion he had made to the board.
• The India women’s team was awarded contracts for the first time in two grades – of Rs 15 lakhs and Rs 10 lakhs.

Rajasthan Royals legspinner Pravin Tambe, and a host of players from various other countries, who participated in a private T20 tournament in New Jersey that also featured banned Bangladesh player Mohammad Ashraful, could avoid penalties because of the nebulous state of affairs at the USA Cricket Association (USACA).A day after ESPNcricinfo revealed that Tambe, who has also represented Mumbai in the Ranji trophy, had played with Ashraful in the Laurel Hill Cricket Twenty20 tournament in the last week of July, officials familiar with the code of conduct set up by the ICC watchdog ACSU said Tambe had not breached any regulations. Both the Mumbai Cricket Association and the BCCI have not yet given a formal reaction though.”He has not violated any code of conduct,” a BCCI official well versed with the anti-corruption code said. Though the ICC did not want to comment on the matter, a source revealed the prevailing view was that Tambe had not broken any code by playing alongside Ashraful.The BCCI official said that normally the blame for Ashraful’s participation would lie with the host country, but because the USACA had been suspended by the ICC in June, the case was not so straightforward. “Normally it is the responsibility of the host association to ensure that no banned player participates in any match organised by them. In this case it is not known if this match was played under the aegis of USACA.”According to him the BCCI or ICC communicates information on bans imposed to the affiliated associations only. “Hence there may be occasions when players are actually not aware of every player they are playing with or against.”He said Tambe could not be blamed directly. “If it was local club cricket and Tambe claims he did not know that Ashraful was participating, then we have to take Tambe’s word for it unless proved otherwise.”When asked if Tambe was at fault for not seeking a no-objection certificate from the MCA, the official said that it would not have been aware of Ashraful’s presence in any case. “Even if MCA had given him a NOC, MCA themselves would not verify the players playing. It is the duty of the host association to see no banned players are participating in the tournament.”On June 26, at the end of its annual conference in Barbados, the ICC announced it was suspending the Associate membership of USACA. The ICC thus became the adjudicator for sanctioning official tournaments in the USA. Other than the overseas players, when asked whether any of the USA or Canada players picked for an ICC Americas tryout scheduled for September in Indianapolis could face local sanctions for playing in the same tournaments as Ashraful, an ICC spokesperson replied in the negative.”The ICC is aware of the issue you have raised and will be reminding its members and other relevant parties of the regulations regarding players who have been banned by other boards,” an ICC spokesperson said in an email. “This matter will not affect players selected in the [Indianapolis] Combine.”

Eddie Leie’s international debut was better than any of his countrymen’s – his figures of 3 for 16 are the best by a South African on debut – but it was not good enough for promotion to the one-day squad. Not officially, anyway.Leie will remain with the squad for the three-match ODI series to “get exposed to the environment” and “spend time with the coaches,” Russell Domingo, South Africa’s coach explained. And to watch the experts at work.Imran Tahir, South Africa’s first-choice limited-overs spinner and their leading wicket-taker in ODIs in 2015, returns to the set-up after being rested from the T20s. Aaron Phangiso, the left-arm spinner who was part of the 2015 World Cup squad, is also in the squad. Both are likely to be considered ahead of Leie for the World T20 next year, but for Leie, that’s not a major concern at this stage of his career.”There is no competition between me and Immi. Immi is a great bowler and he has done well consistently well for the country and in the IPL. I try to learn as much as I can from him,” Leie said after his Man-of-the-Match performance. “I think we are a team.”It’s not too difficult to see how Leie gets there. Tahir, Phangiso and Leie have always been part of his team, domestically. The trio was at the Lions franchise, although, as is the nature of South African teams, they did not always play as part of the same XI. Tahir has since moved to Dolphins which has bumped Leie up the queue as far as Lions’ regulars go. Eventually the same may happen at international level, but until it does, Leie is happy to be Tahir’s understudy.”We are the Proteas as a collective so if one spinner gets rested, it’s important for other players to fulfill the role. It’s not about competition, it’s about the role that needs to be filled,” Leie said.In keeping with that, Leie tried to fill Tahir’s shoes as much he could on his debut. Like Tahir, Leie plays a dual role with an equal focus on attack and defense. On Tuesday he was brought on with South Africa needing a bit of both.Bangladesh’s good start had been stemmed with the loss of Tamim Iqbal but they had still scored quickly and their aggressor-in-chief Soumya Sarkar was still at the crease in the seventh over. Given that, Leie could have been conservative in his approach but chose to invite the batsmen forward with flight, and with his fifth ball, Sarkar accepted. He left his crease to try and cream Leie through the covers but missed and gifted Quinton de Kock a stumping. As quickly as that, Leie demonstrated a Tahir-like confidence in his own ability and maturity in his execution. And he was enjoying himself too, although not quite as much as Tahir does.”I enjoy bowling in T20s because you can have a bit of flair, you can mix it up as much as you want,” Leie said. “There’s a lot of fielders that are outside so you can try a few things.”In his next over, Leie found significant turn – enough to confound Bangladesh’s two best batsmen, Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim – and in his final over, he found himself on a hat-trick. Faf du Plessis, South Africa’s T20 captain, admitted Leie should have bowled his full quota but felt he needed a quick man to finish things off instead.”He bowled really well and he deserved four overs today,” du Plessis said. He bowled fantastically but that’s just the way the game worked out, I thought we needed a seamer at the end there.”Kyle Abbott was handed the ball in the final over and it turned out to be a right decision. He took two wickets to jump to joint first place on the wicket-takers’ list in the series, with Phangiso. But Leie is behind them with his three and that’s likely where he will be for the foreseeable future: right at the heels of Phangiso and Tahir, challenging for his place.

ScorecardNick Compton fought hard to stabilise Middlesex’s innings•Getty Images

Former England players Graham Onions and Nick Compton dominated the first half day at Chester-le-Street before rain arrived with Middlesex on 141 for 5.Onions took the first four wickets, including a spell of 3 for 2 in nine balls, to reduce the second-placed visitors to 18 for 3 before Compton dominated stands of 54 with James Franklin and 66 with Neil Dexter.The total was on 138 when Compton was fifth out for 71, gloving a leg-side catch to wicketkeeper Michael Richardson when trying to pull John Hastings.It was an unfortunate end to an assured innings, in which he left anything he didn’t need to play at but hit nine firmly-struck fours, mainly through pulls and cover drives.Middlesex were put in on an overcast morning and the first rain interruption, lasting 25 minutes, arrived after seven balls.Onions, out of sorts for much of the season, has worked hard at regaining his previous high standards and had his rewards on a day when his support was below par.His first ball – the seventh of the morning – was cut for four by Sam Robson but after the rain break a ball from Onions started on leg stump and swung past Robson’s outside edge, bringing a huge but unsuccessful appeal for caught behind.Paul Stirling and Robson both fell when shaping to drive, the Irishman going first when he edged to Paul Collingwood at first slip.Late in-swing found Robson’s inside edge on the way to middle stump, which was sent flying, and three balls later Onions swung one into in-form left-hander Dawid Malan to have him lbw.With three seamers injured, Durham handed a debut to James Weighell, an academy product from Teesside.He came on first change and after opening up with a maiden he conceded seven off his second over and made way for John Hastings.Both the Australian and Chris Rushworth, in his second spell, bowled round the wicket to left-hander Franklin without making him play often enough.Franklin was unusually restrained in making 16 of 54 balls before he played inside an in-swinger from Onions and edged it to Collingwood straight after lunch.Occasional extravagant seam movement allowed Weighell to beat Compton on 59, but two balls later Dexter clipped him through midwicket for an all-run four. Dexter was on 23 when the rain arrived with John Simpson on 2.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details2:05

Holding: WI’s rushed approach in chase unnecessary

Play began in muggy conditions and prospects of a shower or two – heralds of Cyclone Pam – could not be ruled out in the afternoon. Jason Holder, the West Indies captain, did his bit – win the toss, choose to bowl and put the UAE top order into a shredder – to set his team a target of 176 in 36.2 overs. West Indies’ batsmen chased down the total in 30.3 overs, and once Sarfraz Ahmed’s ton inspired Pakistan to victory a few hours later, both teams’ berths in the knockouts were sealed.Johnson Charles, brought in for the injured Chris Gayle, has been on ice for over a year in ODI cricket. Jonathan Carter was playing his second tournament for West Indies. Neither man showed themselves as such and took West Indies past the target without much incident.Marlon Samuels had played 13 of their last 16 completed matches, but today he was so rusty touching him might have cut your skin. He was 1 off 11 balls, had a couple skirt past his outside edge before eventually tapping a short delivery into point’s hands. This was not the innings West Indies wanted on an important chase, not from a senior player. And worse his nervous 9 off 18 came after the early wicket of Dwayne Smith. Had the bowling been a little nippier than UAE’s, West Indies might have been in trouble.Charles’ pace was fortunate compensation. He batted considerably outside his crease to blunt the new ball and found the boundary in seven of the first 10 overs – including two serene cover drives, two bludgeoned sixes over the leg side and a rasping front-foot cut. He got to his fifty in 34 balls. Carter was steadier, using the bowler’s pace as he pushed and dabbed his way to 50 off 58 and was there when the winning runs were struck.There must have been nerves in the West Indies camp in the morning. Anything less than a win – even a washout – would have knocked them out of the World Cup. Holder embraced the challenge. He was seen with a giant grin in the huddle, almost as if he had seen the future and knew he would take three wickets in 16 deliveries.Andri Berenger was caught napping in the corridor by extra bounce. Krishna Chandran shuffled in line with a back of a length delivery, but it straightened to take the edge through to first slip. Amjad Ali hampered himself by playing across the line of an inswinger and was struck in front. Holder’s best wicket came later, when Swapnil Patil, who had lasted 100 balls against South Africa, was lulled by a set of outswingers and never saw the one that jagged back in coming.Jerome Taylor cleaned up Khurram Khan’s stumps with a top-class inswinging yorker in the seventh over and slipped through Shaiman Anwar’s defences in his next over. Holder bowled his 10 overs on the trot and finished with 4 for 27. West Indies had struck half the opposition down before the score reached 30 for a second time in this World Cup.The KO appeared on the horizon and a 10-over chase loomed, far larger than Cyclone Pam. Amjad Javed and Nasir Aziz though realised the swing had abated, recognised West Indies’ fourth and fifth bowlers weren’t as threatening and strung together a 107-run partnership for the seventh wicket, a World Cup record and a UAE record for any wicket against a Test nation. The fielders appeared reluctant to go after the ball even when it hadn’t been hit all that hard. Marlon Samuels, Darren Sammy and Dwayne Smith were handled with ease as both batsmen raised their maiden fifties and helped push the UAE innings as far as the 48th over.Javed, at No. 7, was the first man to reach double-figures by keeping the good balls out and picking up the runs that were on offer, like when Taylor offered length and was tonked over wide long-on and Kemar Roach offered a half-volley and was sliced through the covers to bring up his fifty in 91 balls.Aziz was batting for the first time in ODIs and was understandably skittish. He could have been dismissed for 11 had Holder held on to a tough chance in the slips, but eventually settled down. Shuffling outside off, he made 40 of his 60 runs on the leg side and reached his half-century off 70 balls. Aziz’s celebration was rather striking – arms aloft, helmet off and gratitude offered skywards. Perhaps both batsmen thought their jobs were done, because they followed each other to the dressing room in quick succession and UAE lost their last four wickets for 22 runs.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details4:25

Agarkar: No standout bowler in RCB attack

Half-centuries from David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan laid the platform for Sunrisers Hyderabad to cruise to a target of 167 and pick up their first win of the season. They were aided by a dewy outfield, but Royal Challengers Bangalore would have known their total was never going to be good enough to test Sunrisers on a flat Chinnaswamy Stadium pitch.Having been sent in, Royal Challengers were 93 for 2 in the 12th over of their innings, with Virat Kohli batting on 41, when two wickets in two balls from Ravi Bopara precipitated a slide that saw them lose their last eight wickets for 73 runs.Royal Challengers were always going to struggle to defend 166, and a poor start from their seamers only made their task harder. The first ball of Sunrisers’ chase encapsulated the story that was about to unfold. Sean Abbott sent down a full-toss, and Warner simply met it with the full face of his bat to send it screaming away to the extra-cover boundary. By the end of the second over, Warner and Shikhar Dhawan had hit five more fours and a six, against Abbott and Harshal Patel’s assortment of hit-me balls, and Sunrisers had shaved 36 runs off their target.Warner was in a particularly punishing mood, and in the fifth over took two fours and a six off successive balls from Varun Aaron. The six was the shot of a man in the zone. Aaron saw Warner making room and dug it in short, getting the ball to rise over shoulder height, but Warner still managed to jump off the ground and uppercut the ball over the backward point boundary.Royal Challengers introduced spin in the eighth over, which began with Sunrisers 73 for 0. Warner muscled a short ball from Yuzvendra Chahal over the leg-side ropes, but the legspinner had his revenge three balls later, when he trapped Warner lbw as he failed to connect with a sweep.Williamson missed another sweep in Chahal’s next over and ended up dragging his back foot out of the crease. The twin strikes could have stalled some of Sunrisers’ momentum, but KL Rahul ensured that didn’t happen. He pulled Sammy for an authoritative four soon after walking in, and stepped out to Chahal and hit him fiercely to the straight boundary in the next over. By that point, Sunrisers had brought the equation down to 57 from 52 balls. With eight wickets in hand, Dhawan well set, and plenty of dew for the bowlers to contend with, there was only going to be one winner.Dhawan, who had been content to ride in both Warner and Rahul’s slipstreams, accelerated as he approached his fifty, hitting two massive sixes off Abu Nechim, a pull and a pick-up shot over backward square leg. Royal Challengers weren’t just beaten comfortably, with 16 balls remaining, they also suffered the anxiety of watching AB de Villiers hobble off the field with a twisted ankle, suffered while trying to stop a ball with his feet.Interviewed between innings, Ravi Bopara said the Sunrisers bowlers had struggled to grip the dew-soaked ball too. If so, they did a pretty good job to cope with it. They couldn’t control every ball, and gave away their share of boundaries to AB de Villiers and Sean Abbott, but bowled a lot of good balls towards the end of the Royal Challengers innings, usually targeting the base of the stumps. They took three wickets with yorkers in the last five overs, one from Ashish Reddy in the 16th over and two from Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the 20th.In between, Trent Boult took out de Villiers, who sliced a wide one straight into sweeper cover’s hands, and removed Abott and Harshal Patel in the same over, with well-directed short balls. In all, Royal Challengers lost their last six wickets for 41 runs, and their last five in the space of ten balls.The total of 166 was far less than what Royal Challengers seemed set for during a breezy first-wicket partnership between Chris Gayle and Kohli. With the ball coming on beautifully and the outfield lightning-quick, both batsmen were able to find the boundary by simply pushing the ball into gaps.Gayle fell in the sixth over, flicking Praveen Kumar straight to deep square leg, but Kohli was still batting fluently at the other end, and a spilled return catch from Karn Sharma in the ninth over may have raised Sunrisers’ worries of having to chase an outlandish target.But that wasn’t to happen. Karn got rid of Dinesh Karthik, who picked the wrong ball to try and slog-sweep, and Bopara rattled Kohli’s off stump when he tried to force him away through the off side. Next ball, Mandeep Singh looked to flick a legcutter and got a leading edge to off. There didn’t seem to be anyone in its way, until Warner flew to his right from short cover to pluck it one-handed. It wouldn’t be his last eye-catching contribution of the day.

Graham Ford has admitted that he will be interviewed later this week for the post of New Zealand coach.Ford, who is Kent’s director of cricket, had previously denied reports linking him with the role, but on Wednesday he told the Kent Messenger that he had been offered an interview by New Zealand Cricket. He advised Kent’s chief executive Paul Millman on Monday.The interview, which will be conducted over the telephone, will involve another former Kent coach, John Wright, as well as other members of the NZC board.Ford told the newspaper that he was “very happy with the set-up” at Kent but wanted to see what NZC had to offer. “It would be a massive step in my life and at this point it’s unlikely that it’s something that I’d be charging off to do. Certainly I have no firm feelings at this point of wanting to head off in any other direction.”

Kenya take on Netherlands on Saturday in their latest ICC Intercontinental Cup match at Amstelveen, and the visitors are keenly aware how crucial the next couple of weeks are.Kenya are currently in third place in the table, six points behind Scotland and Namibia but, crucially, they have two games in hand and a place in the final is well within their grasp.”We know it’s in our own hands,” said their captain, Steve Tikolo. “If we win in Amstelveen and then beat Ireland back home in October, we will be through to the final. It would mean a lot to us because even though we have been close in the past, we have never won this competition.”Indeed, when Kenya got to the final in 2005 at the Wanderers Club in Windhoek, Namibia, it was Ireland who beat them.”We are not looking ahead to that game yet,” Tikolo said. “First of all, we must beat Netherlands. I know that Peter [Borren] and his guys will be confident after getting through to the ICC World Twenty20 at the qualifying tournament in Belfast last week but the four-day game is a different prospect.”They definitely have some good players. Tom de Grooth has been playing well and Edgar Schiferli and Mohammad Kashif are always dangerous but Netherlands are out of the running in this competition whereas we still have everything to play for.””We have a pretty strong side over for this and we’re determined not the let this opportunity slip from our grasp.”For all the bullish talk, Kenya have not enjoyed their tour of England, Scotland and Ireland this season. They were thrashed by a club side at Cranleigh and a warm-up against a Minor Counties XI was enveloped with rumours of poor behaviour by the tourists.Such claims were roundly dismissed to Cricinfo by Kenya’s chairman, Samir Inamdar, but the side’s fortunes slipped further when they failed to qualify for next year’s ICC World Twenty20 in England. Dismal conditions in Glasgow then washed out their Intercontinental Cup fixture against Scotland last week.Nevertheless, they face a Netherlands team who are missing the vital services of Ryan ten Doeschate, Bas Zuiderent and Alex Kervezee, though once again the weather forecast is seasonally miserable. After a disappointing tour, Kenya will be desperate to turn their trip around with a bright finish.