All posts by csb10.top

South Africa’s “deeply disappointing” first-round exit from the Champions Trophy has left its board chief executive Gerald Majola seeking answers from the team’s captain and coach. Majola confirmed that neither Graeme Smith’s nor Mickey Arthur’s jobs were in danger but has called for a meeting to find out the reason for another woeful performance in a multi-team tournament.”There are some hard questions to be answered,” Majola said. “At no stage did the team look anything like a team who are the World No.1 in both Tests and one-day internationals. They certainly were way off where they should be at this stage and I will be speaking to Mickey and the team management to find out what went wrong.”Arthur and Smith are not in line to be fired from their roles but Majola questioned the team’s performance. “That [sacking them] is not going to happen but we definitely want answers,” he said. “The team’s performance in this tournament was just not good enough. I don’t want to pick out individuals but there were problems with the bowling and the batting and the team’s body language was not that of the world’s best team.”Mike Procter, South Africa’s chairman of selectors, has suggested that South Africa’s composition was wrong. “The side looks so balanced on paper but in actual play maybe it’s over-balanced,” he said. “The guys had worked hard during the off-season and I was 100 percent happy with their preparation. But it was extremely disappointing to go out the way we did.”With Majola set to inquire into the team’s performance, Procter, Arthur and Smith have plenty to do with an eye on the 2011 World Cup. Procter has pinpointed the No. 6 position in the line-up as a focal point, mulling both Mark Boucher’s and Albie Morkel’s roles. He felt Boucher would be better used at No. 7 and that Morkel’s credibility as a genuine allrounder was in doubt.”Maybe we could look at another batter at No.6,” he said. “That may mean dropping one of the spinners, and putting Boucher at No.7, but both Roelof van der Merwe and Johan Botha have done a terrific job for us. It’s a really difficult one. It can backfire on us, perhaps we are too overbalanced.”Morkel’s 13 overs in the tournament cost 97 runs and he failed to pick up a wicket. “I think that Graeme still has confidence in Albie as a bowler but perhaps the question we need to ask is whether he is the all-rounder we need as the sixth bowler,” said Procter. “There is JP Duminy who can also bowl. There is a sort of imbalance in the team at the moment.”Procter and the national selection panel will look at the options on the domestic circuit with England due to tour South Africa later this year. “Over the next few weeks all the selectors will be going to domestic matches,” said Procter. “We’ll chat to the coaches and see what is coming through. But we must keep in mind that the side performed well in the past 18 months, so it’s a tough cookie.”We’ve got to look at winning one of these ICC tournaments. We play well in between and get the No.1 ranking, but we’ve got to justify that ranking by getting our hands on an ICC trophy.”

The PCB has sacked former Pakistan bowler Saleem Altaf as its chief operating officer (COO), after the move was approved by a majority of the board’s governing council. It is believed that Altaf developed differences with PCB chairman Ijaz Butt over administration matters. The board’s director of human resources, Wasim Bari, has subsequently been appointed as acting COO.”As per the decision of the members of the PCB governing board, Saleem Altaf has been relieved from his duties as chief operating officer with immediate effect. Wasim Bari will be the acting chief operating officer till further orders,” a press release from the PCB said.Altaf, 65, was first appointed manager of the Pakistan team to India in early 2005 before taking over as PCB director. The then PCB chairman Shahryar Khan, however, sidelined Altaf and appointed him as director special projects to look after matters relating to the 2011 World Cup.In fact, this is the second time that Altaf has been removed from his position, after being dismissed by former chairman Nasim Ashraf in June last year for allegedly leaking sensitive information to the press. However, he appealed his termination in the Lahore High Court and Supreme Court at the time, which resulted in him being reinstated.Governing council member Shakil Shaikh admitted that Altaf’s appointment last year was done in a hurry. “But now there is ample time for members to decide who is best to take over as the new COO,” Shaikh told PTI.Another council member, Muhammad Ali Shah, said he expected Butt to consult and get approval of the members before nominating a new COO. “We want to bring in someone who knows cricket and can do well,” Shah said.Altaf played 21 Test matches and six ODIs for Pakistan and is the third former player who has either resigned or been removed from a key PCB post over the past three months.Abdul Qadir resigned as chief selector during the World Twenty20 in June because of differences with the board’s top brass, while Aamer Sohail quit as director of the National Cricket Academy the following month on similar grounds.Earlier this year, Javed Miandad resigned as PCB’s director general due to differences about the exact scope of his work. However, Miandad was back at his post a few weeks later after a meeting with Butt.However, Altaf told PTI that he had not received any such termination notice from the PCB, claiming his ouster was illegal and unjustified. “When I left office today there was no such letter given to me. If it has been issued late in the day then I will look at it,” he told PTI. “I retain the right to seek justice in the higher courts. I have been punished for questioning the one-man show in the board.”

Mike Hussey has warned Jonathan Trott that the step-up in class that he faces at The Oval on Thursday will be like nothing he has ever experienced before in his career, after the ECB dropped a massive hint about Trott’s impending selection for this week’s Ashes decider by withdrawing him from the England Lions team that started their two-day game against the Australians at Canterbury today.In a week in which they have been tight-lipped about their intentions, the ECB said more in 25 words that they could have possibly have revealed in a ten-page dossier. Ten minutes before the toss, an email arrived from their communications department stating baldly that “Joe Sayers of Yorkshire has been called up to replace Warwickshire’s Jonathan Trott in the England Lions team to face Australia at Canterbury starting today.” And the rest was left to assumption.And should the assumptions turn out to be correct, then Trott’s Test debut, at the age of 28, will coincide with England’s most eagerly anticipated fixture for four years. After 131 first-class matches spanning the best part of a decade, and with 8419 runs already to his name, he comes into the game with a pedigree that speaks for itself. But as Hussey himself knows from experience, you can go round the block as many times as you like. Nothing can prepare you for the pressures of top-level Test cricket.”It is a huge step-up from first-class to Test, no question,” he said. “Everyone feels pressure in Test match cricket, no matter whether you’ve been playing for ten years or two games. Particularly in an Ashes series, and particularly coming into a very, very important fifth Test. He’ll certainly know all about it if he’s makes his Test debut in that game.”Hussey certainly found out what he was getting into when he made his debut at the Gabba in November 2005, at the age of 30, and with the small matter of 15,313 first-class runs in the bank, many of them gleaned in a prolific stint as Northamptonshire’s overseas player. His maiden Test innings was a torturous 1 from 14 balls which ended with an ungainly top-edged swish, and afterwards he complained that hearing that “bloody national anthem” had reduced him to a bag of nerves.”I tried not to change too much about my game,” Hussey recalled. “I wanted to stick to what had made me successful before, but certainly the lift in intensity of the game, and the lift of pressure and expectation among the fans and media around you, was pretty extreme and that’s very, very hard to deal with as an international player. From my point of view it’s important to block out as much external distraction as you can, and focus on your own game and hope that’s good enough to get you through.”Hussey recovered his poise swiftly of course, with three centuries in his next four Tests. But Trott does not have that luxury. In a situation akin to Alan Wells’ belated debut against West Indies at The Oval in 1995, everything hinges on this solitary opportunity, not just personally but from the national point of view as well. It would be unkind to recall what happened to Wells on debut, but as Hussey was implying, it’s a curious moment to take a punt on a rookie.”We’ve not seen a hell of a lot of him,” said Hussey. “A couple of us have played a bit of county cricket against him, and seen him on TV, but he looks a pretty good player to me. He’s got a lot of confidence, and it looks like he’s been around for a while so he understands his game well. But there is more pressure on England because they have to win that Test match, whereas we can win the Test, which we’ll be trying to do, but if we can’t win it we’ll do everything we can do draw it.”Hussey admitted he had been surprised at England’s decision to withdraw Trott from the Lions team at Canterbury, but didn’t believe it had been done to shield him from the Australian bowlers. “We were expecting to see him play against us, but you can look at it both ways,” he said. “It would have been a good chance for us to have a look at him, but also a good chance for him to have a look at our bowlers, and see where he can score some runs against us. It could have been helpful for both.”An ECB spokesman declined to offer a direct explanation for the decision, and simply pointed out that, with a century in his most recent match for Warwickshire, he was clearly in form and did not need the time in the middle. The reading-between-the-lines explanation, therefore, was that Trott had more to fear from media hype than from anything the Australian bowlers will throw at him on Thursday.”I haven’t been following what the press have been saying about their team, I don’t even know when they name their squad for the last Test,” said Hussey (it’s on Sunday at 9.30am, for his information). “Whatever way they go, we’ve got to concentrate on our job. We’ve got to concentrate on playing hard, tough, disciplined Test cricket for long, long periods of time. If we can do that we’re going to be competitive against whoever we’re playing in this last Test.”I’m sure the powers-that-be will be working closely to get some good plans on him, but to be honest the game doesn’t change too much,” he said. “We’ve got to keep it simple, keep the disciplines of the game pretty much the same as we bowl to most batsmen. Whether we’re playing against Andrew Flintoff, Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen, David Gower, whoever it is, we’ve got to keep doing our things well for long periods of time.”Given the disaster that befell England at Headingley, and the frantic speculation that has followed, it is self-evident that Australia have enjoyed by far the better build-up to Thursday’s pivotal contest. But Hussey was adamant that nothing that goes before the match is of any relevance. “All that matters is the first session of that fifth Test match,” he said. “You can prepare as well as you possibly can, do as much as you can and send players off here, there and everywhere, but what actually matters is that first hour, and that’s all we can focus on.”

Marcus Trescothick seems to have decisively ruled out a return to international cricket, ending all speculation – fuelled in part by his own ambivalence – about a dramatic comeback to the England national team for the Ashes-deciding Oval Test next week.”I’ve gone too far down the line in battling my stress problems to change my mind about now ending my England career,” he wrote in his column in the .”My wife, Hayley, and I did talk about what my reaction should be if I were asked and we ended up having a good chuckle about it,” he wrote. “She was prepared to back me if I wanted to play at The Oval and part of us both fancied the thought of getting involved again.”But it just didn’t feel right. Nothing in me made me feel I had to do it so I came to the conclusion that I don’t want it enough.”Trescothick, 33, has refused to come out of international retirement on several occasions, the latest of which was ahead of the World Twenty20, when Strauss requested him to make himself available for selection.He said Strauss had called a few days back, but not to talk about a possible England recall. “Andrew Strauss did ring me over the last few days, but it was to ask me to play in a golf day for him,” he said. “We did talk about England, but there was nothing direct about my involvement and he knows I won’t be reconsidering.”Trescothick, a key component of England’s 2005 Ashes success, has aborted tours to India and Australia due to a stress-related illness, which prompted him to retire from international cricket in March 2008England’s brittle batting folded cheaply twice in Headingley, squandering their Ashes lead and leaving the selectors desperately searching for alternatives. With 1330 runs at 78.23, Trescothick is the leading run-scorer in county cricket, making him a contender for a place in the XI for the final Test.

Cricket Canada has handed central contracts to six players – HarvirBaidwan, Umar Bhatti, Rizwan Cheema, Khurram Chohan, Sunil Dhaniram, and Henry Osinde – as Associate countries enter an era of professionalisation.However Cricket Canada clarified that the national team captain Ashish Bagai had not been given a contract as reported for he remained “committed to his career in Europe and will continue to play for Canada as his schedule permits”.Bhatti said receiving the contract was a dream-come-true for him. “As a group wecan focus on playing cricket without having to worry about other issues, such as going forpractice after working a full day, and having to take time off work to go on tours,” Bhatti said.”Having half the team as full-time professional cricketers will not only help the standard of the national team’s set up but is also helpful in terms of development of cricket across the country … players will be able to help set up and maintain programs for early development of future players.”The opening batsman, Geoff Barnett, was also offered a professional contract but turned it down, and he is also unavailable for Canada’s home series against Kenya next month due to family commitments.

Michael Vaughan and Steve Harmison have been trying to fight their way back into England’s Ashes plans, but to have a realistic chance of featuring against Australia will have to be included in the 16-man training squad named on Monday. Both had a major role in England’s 2005 victory and will now find out where they stand in the current pecking order.Harmison has the strongest case after a productive couple of weeks in county cricket following his return from shin problems. In the recent Championship match against Warwickshire, at Edgbaston, he took 5 for 44 in a flat surface and gave the batsmen a real working over to make it 16 wickets in two games. However, England’s bowlers have been in good form this season and with Ryan Sidebottom back in the mix again Harmison faces a tough fight.Vaughan’s hopes appear to hang by an even thinner thread after a struggle for runs this summer. His 43 against Worcestershire summed up a frustrating time and the dream of a final crack at Australia is fading fast, especially after the success of Ravi Bopara at No. 3 against West Indies.The large squad will meet up at Edgbaston next week ahead of England’s match against Warwickshire on July 1. When the team for that game is decided, the remaining players are likely to join the Lions squad at New Road to face the Australians, which could be where Harmison finds himself.Graham Onions, Harmison’s Durham team-mate, continued his impressive season with 7 for 38 against Warwickshire and after his strong debut against West Indies will be hard to shift. There were promising signs from Sidebottom, too, during the ICC World Twenty20 and his left-arm variation will be a tempting option particularly as it will create extra rough for England’s spinners.Graeme Swann is now the leading spin option and is likely to be joined by two others with Adil Rashid edging closer to a Test debut following Monty Panesar’s poor season where he is average more than 86 for his wickets. Andy Flower, the England coach, is a fan of Rashid and the legspinner showed great promise in the Twenty20 and didn’t panic against batsmen looking to attack.The balance of England’s attack will be aided by a fit Andrew Flintoff who has completed two Championship matches for Lancashire where he has collected wickets and scored a half-century. He is expected to slot in at No. 7 for the Ashes behind Matt Prior.Flintoff’s record shows that runs are not guaranteed so the onus will be on England’s top order to produce big scores. The five who played against West Indies are nailed on to start the Ashes and with Prior at six there aren’t any spots up for grabs at the moment.Should anyone lose form or suffer injury Vaughan’s form should put him well down the order of replacements although his experience can’t be discounted. However, Bell would probably be next in line for a recall after scoring 477 runs at 79.50 in five Championship matches. He hasn’t featured for England since being dropped following the defeat against West Indies, at Sabina Park, in early February and was told earlier this season to “show more hunger” by national selector Geoff Miller.England’s 13-man squad for the first Test at Cardiff is due to be named on July 4 following the conclusion of the Warwickshire match. Only then will we have a true idea of the Ashes masterplan.Probable training squad Andrew Strauss, Alastair Cook, Ravi Bopara, Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, Ian Bell, Matt Prior, Andrew Flintoff, Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann, Adil Rashid, Ryan Sidebottom, James Anderson, Graham Onions, Monty Panesar, Steve Harmison

New Zealand are often described as a team that produce performances worth more than the sum of their parts. However, as their injury list continues to grow they may not be far away from having to send an emergency request for some spares to be found in double quick time. At the rate players are dropping, they will struggle to make an eleven for their next match on Thursday.As disappointing as the one-run defeat to South Africa was, it is the fact that New Zealand’s dressing room is rapidly turning into an A&E department that will be of most concern. It was a blessing that this was a dead game – both teams had qualified and no points get carried to the Super Eights – because Jesse Ryder was ruled out with a groin problem and later hospitalised, and James Franklin was suffering pain in his knee.If that wasn’t bad enough, Ross Taylor pulled up with a hamstring strain mid-way through his innings as he sprinted back for a second run. The way he limped around with a runner wasn’t a good sign for New Zealand who play their first Super Eights match against Ireland, at Trent Bridge, in two days. Those new injuries were on top of their injured captain, Daniel Vettori, who has yet to play because of shoulder trouble that has required an injection.That means that the captaincy is in the hands of Brendon McCullum, who has probably had his fill of leadership after a horrific spell at the IPL with Kolkata Knight Riders as they became the whipping boys of the 2009 tournament. It was therefore a good sign that he could at least retain a sense of humour.”I’m going get a couple more physios to get round us all,” he said when asked how the team would prepare for the next stage. “We’ll try and get as many bodies on deck as possible and make sure we get guys as fit as we can so we can make a decision on selection.”Franklin is expected to be available for the Super Eights but Ryder’s continued participation in the tournament is in doubt after he was hospitalised overnight as a precautionary measure. The team manager Dave Currie said Ryder was suffering serious discomfort, and medical advice has ruled him out of their first Super Eight clash against Ireland, at Trent Bridge, on Thursday.Vettori’s shoulder treatment is ongoing, although he is likely to return to match fitness soon, while Taylor will be monitored over the next 36 hours. When Taylor pulled up with his injury he was prepared to limp off before the TV replay showed he was in by a couple of inches. He stayed in the middle at the behest of his captain, but McCullum said he was confident the extended innings wouldn’t have exacerbated the problem.”It was my decision actually. A guy like that is capable of hitting the ball at 80% and getting it out of the park,” he said. “I wasn’t asking him to run too much, it was just a matter of swinging from the hip and if he’d managed to get one or two over the rope that could have been the difference and I certainly didn’t think it would cause him too much damage.”That may be a decision that comes back to bite McCullum. If this game had been crucial to the tournament it would have been understandable for Taylor to continue, but with plenty of batting still to come he could have gone off and had an early assessment of the injury. McCullum’s desire to keep his best batsman in the middle suggested that, despite the dead rubber, winning was uppermost in his mind.”Anytime you don’t come out of the game with a win you are disappointed,” he said. “I thought we bowled and fielded incredibly well, a big improvement from the other day [against Scotland], but I guess our batting was always struggling for momentum throughout the innings and I guess we never quite had that big over.”It’s frustrating from that point of view but I thought there were some big positives as well,” he added. “Obviously we have to look at those rather than dwell too much on the negatives because we have a game in a couple of days’ time that will be incredibly important to us.”Those positives include miserly spells from Ian Butler and McCullum’s brother, Nathan, who quietened South Africa with his offspin. The fielding, too, had some breathtaking moments including Brendon McCullum’s flick to remove Jacques Kallis and Martin Guptill’s direct hit to dispatch AB de Villiers.However, South Africa’s bowling and fielding was equally impressive, so much so that an asking rate that started at around six-and-a-half was sitting at 12-an-over with three overs remaining. Left-arm spinner Roelef van de Merwe was the stand-out as he claimed 2 for 14, and Graeme Smith was delighted with the stern work-out especially after their walk-over win against Scotland.”We had a great platform at 47 for none at the end of the sixth, we just lost our way and got a bit tense,” he said. “We just got it wrong in that four- or five-over period but it was probably a good thing. We learnt a few lessons, important lessons to learn before we move into the Super Eights.”I think in terms of the bigger picture it was fantastic for us to have a high-pressure game. Especially from a bowling perspective, to defend a total like that and perform under pressure was great.”

The rumbling debate over club v country priorities resurfaced when Ireland’s captain William Porterfield was forced to withdraw from their squad for this weekend’s Friends Provident Trophy match against Worcestershire because he was wanted at short notice by Gloucestershire, where he is a contracted player.Porterfield was told on Friday afternoon that he was needed as cover for Craig Spearman, who had reported a minor niggle in his hip, for Sunday’s match.What is worse for Ireland is that if he plays in the game, it will automatically rule him out of the remainder of Ireland’s Friends Provident Trophy campaign.There was some good news for Ireland when Gary Wilson was released by Surrey to appear in the match.

West Indies’ captain, Chris Gayle, was left lamenting a “disaster” for his team, as England rolled them over inside three days in the first Test at Lord’s, to secure a ten-wicket victory that leaves them favourites to reclaim the Wisden Trophy just two months after it was lost in an attritional series in the Caribbean.Aside from a 143-run stand on the final afternoon between Brendan Nash and Denesh Ramdin, West Indies showed barely any of the fight and character that that secured their 1-0 victory in the previous series. They dropped six catches in a crucial final session of the first day, then succumbed to some dramatic batting collapses in both innings as the unfamiliar May conditions wrecked their resolve.”Obviously, we are very disappointed in the manner we lost the game in three days,” said Gayle. “We have to give credit to England because I thought they played some good cricket, and held on to their chances. But that last session on the first day put us on the back foot, and then we couldn’t actually get out of the slump. We have ourselves to blame for that.”Aside from a battling 81 for Nash, the only positive for West Indies was the form of Fidel Edwards, who claimed 6 for 92 in a hostile first-innings onslaught. He was, however, the victim of three clear-cut dropped catches, and Gayle admitted that the fielders had let him down. “”Fidel bowled brilliantly and could easily have set the game up for us,” he said. “But the chances were put down.”Gayle attracted controversy in the build-up to the match by arriving in the country only 48 hours before the start. It meant he did not have time to acclimatise himself properly ahead of the earliest start in English Test history, and he admitted that the conditions had not been easy for his team to negotiate.”We’ve never been in England so early before, so we’re up against it,” he said. “It would be nice to tour later in the year, with a lot more sunshine because it does make a difference. A lot of the time when I was batting out there with the wind hitting the eyes, there was a lot of water in the eyes as well.”It does make a difference in alien conditions. The ball doing a bit more, and it’s a disadvantage we have to cope with. We just have to tough it out, bear with it and get the job done as much as possible.”The final scoreline was identical to the ten-wicket defeat that England Lions inflicted on the West Indians at Derby last week, and Gayle admitted that the same old mistakes had been repeated. “The last couple of weeks we have had some hiccups with the batting, and in this Test match it kind of crumbled again,” he said.”We lost the plot. We didn’t get off to the start we wanted and after that it was a disaster for us, although Ramdin and Nash and Devon Smith chipped in to take out the disgrace by showing some fight.”

Scorecard
Australia Under-19 managed a consolation win over India Under-19 in the third and final one-dayer between the two sides at the WACA. The hosts, choosing to bat first, scored 7 for 276, with the highlight of the innings being the sixth-wicket stand between Jason Floros (70) and Joel Garrett (52).Coming together with their side at 5 for 115, the pair added 118 at more than a run a ball. Floros struck five fours and two sixes during his 59-ball innings, while Garrett hit four fours and a six in his 47-ball stay. Right-arm medium-pacer Harshal Patel and offspinner Kundan Singh were India U-19’s most successful bowlers, picking up two wickets apiece.Opener Mayank Agarwal continued his splendid run on the tour with an aggressive 60 off 37 balls, hitting seven fours and four sixes. The visitors were on course for a whitewash at 1 for 82 but lost three quick wickets for 40 runs. The score moved to 6 for 187 in the 32nd over when Gagandeep Singh joined the wicketkeeper Sufiyan Sheikh (61).Together they added 59, but the innings met with a quick end once the stand was broken. Kane Richardson, Sean Abbott, Tim Armstrong and Adam Zampa, ended with two wickets each to bowl out India U-19 by the 48th over.India U-19’s final game of the tour will be the second Youth Test at the WACA, to be played from April 19 to 21. The visitors have a 1-0 lead after winning the first three-day encounter at Hobart by nine wickets.