Virender Sehwag dishes out the verbals with the same frankness and confidence that he clatters the ball over the infield. In an interview featured on the BBC website, Sehwag said that India are as good as Australia. “Definitely we are on par with them [Australia]. If we can go there and beat them on their home ground, definitely we are up there.””To beat a team like Australia, we have to battle it out for all the five days of a Test, and that’s what we did when we beat them in Adelaide,” said Sehwag. “We hope that we can put up a similar fight when they come here, and win the series.”When India toured Australia last, and drew 1-1, Australia were without Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne. When they tour India later this year, Australia hope to have a full-strength bowling attack at their disposal and Sehwag has taken note of this. “If you ask me about their bowling strength as such, yes, it would definitely be a lot better than what they had in the last series in Australia, with four good bowlers in Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie, Brett Lee and Shane Warne.”Sehwag, however, is not overawed by Australia’s bowling arsenal. “Against such high-quality bowling scoring runs will be a worry, but it would depend very much on what form the batsman is at that time. If the batsman is in good form, it does not matter what the bowling attack is,” he said.”One-day cricket is a difficult game, the result is achieved inside a day,” said Sehwag. “In one-day cricket there is always this fear, tension, as to what’s going to happen and when, but I don’t think they have any psychological hold over us. Maybe they are a better team, and a better team always wins.”Sehwag looked back at his record-breaking 309 against Pakistan with some degree of pride. “It feels good but the feeling was the same as that I have upon reaching any other milestone,” he told the Press Trust of India. “Very few cricketers manage to come even close to the 300-mark, so I am happy to have that figure to my name. To make 300, you need to stay very long at the crease and for that you need patience, dedication and technique too.”Sehwag also brushed off suggestions that his technique was lacking. “In my case, I kept attacking,” he said. “Maybe I was lucky too, I had my chances before crossing 300. But technique is essential, without that you can’t survive, at least for such a long time. Many say that I am not technically sound but as far as I am concerned I am comfortable with my technique. It is a good technique, which was why I was able to make 300.”

The seemingly endless debate over England’s forthcoming tour of Zimbabwe will resume in the next few days as the ECB management board meets at Lord’s today to discuss this winter’s itinerary.That the tour will take place is not the issue – the ECB has already committed to going – but the discussions will concern the detail, such as where the side will stay and how long they will be in Zimbabwe. Its findings are unlikely to be made public yet. Stung by the widespread criticism of its handling of the Zimbabwe issue, the ECB has adopted a more low-profile approach.There are rumours that England will spend as little time as possible in Zimbabwe, with many people suggesting that their base will be in Johannesburg and that the team will fly in to Harare and Bulawayo for the matches, possibly on the day of the game itself. This is not as unlikely as it may sound as both cities are about hour’s flight from Johannesburg.And rumours also abound that a number of leading English players have said that they want to miss the trip, and it seems the ECB, who has said that it will not force anyone to tour Zimbabwe, will not stand in their way. The latest names in the absentee frame are, according to the Daily Telegraph, Stephen Harmison and Andrew Flintoff. For the time being the players are discussing the issue as one, but as the tour gets closer, it is inevitable that individual consciences will come to the fore.

The ECB’s challenge of finding a replacement for Tim Lamb, who steps down as chief executive in September, is not proving straightforward, according to a report in today’s Daily Telegraph.It’s not a lack of numbers – the board has apparently received more than 150 applications – so much a lack of quality. The salary of around £175,000 is not considered enough to lure high-calibre candidates, especially given the public nature of the job and increasing workload associated with the role.Lamb’s is not the only role the ECB are seeking to fill after a string of resignations among senior staff in recent months. Commercial director Mark Sibley went within days of Lamb’s announcement, communications director John Read left last week and Des Wilson, head of the corporate affairs and marketing sub-committee, resigned over the Zimbabwe issue in June.The changes come at a bad time for the ECB, which is about to start tricky negotiations for the renewal of television and sponsorship deals. Contracts with Channel 4 and Sky (TV) and BBC (radio), and Npower, Vodafone and NatWest (sponsors) all expire in 2005.

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A 118-run partnership between Ashraf Mall and Jon Kent was enough to seal a victory for the Dolphins over the Warriors at The Oval in Pietermaritzburg. Having been sent in to bat by the Warriors the Dolphins, at 49 for 4, were in dire straights when Mall and Kent started their rescue act. Brent Kops then levelled the scales as he dismissed Mall for 62, Kent for 78, Lance Klusener for 20 and Duncan Brown for three to finish on a career-best 5 for 42 as the Dolphins ended on 220 for 9.A target of 221 should have been on the cards for the high-riding Warriors but they lost wickets at regular intervals and were reduced to 184 all out. Steven Pope (55) was the only batsman to come to terms with some good all-round bowling from the Dolphins. Andrew Tweedie took four wickets, Klusener three, and young Tyron Pillay took two as the Dolphins kept their hopes alive for a semi-final spot.
ScorecardAt the Wanderers in Johannesburg a century from Neil McKenzie could not save the Lions from losing to Western Province Boland. Winning the toss and electing to bat Western Province Boland scored an entertaining 250 for 6 with Henry Davids (84) and Ashwell Prince (50) doing the damage. Some indisciplined bowling from the Lions coupled with some solid partnerships set Province up for the win.The Lions lost Stephen Cook with the first ball of their innings but recovered well as Adam Bacher and McKenzie took them to 112, when Bacher fell on 49. McKenzie tried in vain to maintain the momentum, but with wickets falling around him, and only Justin Ontong managing to get into double figures, the cause was lost as they were bowled out for 205 having just secured the bonus point.

The Zimbabwe team’s arrival in Bangladesh has been delayed by two days by the after-effects of the tsunami that devastated large areas of south Asia. Zimbabwe were due to reach Dhaka on Tuesday afternoon, but were stuck in India as international flight schedules were disrupted by the natural disaster, reported.The Bangladesh Cricket Board said that the Zimbabweans, who were training in a conditioning camp in the southern Indian city of Vishakhapatnam, could not fly out yesterday but were expected in Dhaka tomorrow. Zimbabwe are scheduled to play two Tests and five one-dayers during their month-long stay. They will open the tour with a three-day match against a Bangladesh Board XI in Chittagong.The young and inexperienced Zimbabwean squad, led by Tatenda Taibu, have not won a game since beating Bangladesh in a one-day series nearly nine months ago. But Bangladesh go into the series as favourites after steadily improving performances in the series against India, when they even stunningly pulled off their first ODI victory on home soil.Dav Whatmore, the Bangladesh coach, had already said that the team were eagerly awaiting the start of Zimbabwe’s tour. After the last ODI against India, Whatmore said, “The series can’t come quick enough. We want to play tomorrow.”

It was a happy homecoming for Andrew Strauss, as he celebrated his first Test in the land of his birth with an unbeaten 120, to give England the upper hand at the close of the second day’s play at Port Elizabeth. But afterwards he remained as phlegmatic about his achievement as he had been at the crease.Strauss has now scored centuries in his debut Test against three consecutive countries, following on from his efforts at Lord’s last summer, against New Zealand and West Indies, but laughed off the significance of his feat. “You can go on about those sort of stats all day long,” he shrugged. “Obviously I’m delighted I’ve done it, but I won’t be putting it up on the wall or anything like that! They’ve all been pretty similar really. In each case it’s been important to knuckle down and get runs early in the series, and fortunately it has happened.”It certainly didn’t feel any different being back in South Africa,” added Strauss, before confirming that no, he didn’t receive any jibes out in the middle, and no, he wouldn’t have understood the South Africans if they had chosen to address him in Afrikaans. “I have a few flashes of memory of my time in Johannesburg,” he said, “but I was so young when we left.”Strauss is now something of a lucky charm for England. He has yet to taste anything but victory in seven consecutive games, and on today’s evidence an eighth consecutive win is on the cards. “So much could yet happen,” he cautioned. “There’s been plenty of ebb and flow in this game, and it’s important we knuckle down tomorrow, see off the new ball when it comes, and make this innings count, as the wicket is only going to deteriorate.”There is already a hint of turn on offer, as Graeme Smith demonstrated in a brief spell before the close, and Strauss was hopeful that Ashley Giles would come into play as the game progressed. “That gives us confidence as we’re the only side with a specialist spinner,” he said. “The new ball skidded through for the first 15 overs, but after that it started to sit up a bit more. It’s a wicket to be patient on – you have to wait for the bowlers to come to you.”England had to face a tricky four overs before lunch, and a more jittery side might have had visions of Potchefstroom, where they collapsed to 3 for 3 in a similar space of time. But Strauss had no such fears. “We’ve got that defeat out of our minds,” he said. “It was a disappointment, but right from moment we lost that game we trained hard, practised hard, and mentally we were pretty good going into the first day yesterday.”England’s minds were certainly switched on to the task by the sight of Shaun Pollock bearing down on them. “Pollock is almost like a bowling machine,” said Strauss. “He’s always bang on the spot every time, which makes it hard for batsmen. He’s up there with the top bowlers in the world so we were kept on our toes. The wicket doesn’t really suit him, but he’s quality – you can’t take him lightly at all.”The bowlers out here tend to wait for us to come to them,” added Strauss. “So it is a case of playing it patiently. If we want to win game, then it’s crucial we build on today’s start and apply pressure on South Africa. It was the way we played all last summer, and we’ll try to do that again tomorrow.”

Although his performance was later overshadowed by Andrew Strauss’s efforts, Boeta Dippenaar’s third Test century – his first against England – was a huge achievement for a player who has been under intense pressure in the middle of South Africa’s unsettled batting line-up. With challenges for places coming from all angles, Dippenaar was a contented man at the close of play, as he contemplated a moment that might just change his career.”It really does mean a lot to me,” said Dippenaar. “There’s been lot of pressure on me in terms of positions, so to put in that sort of performance against a quality attack like England’s, is something special. Players like Hashim Amla have been pushing hard, so you know you have got limited opportunities to make your mark.”Dippenaar has bobbed up and down the batting order in recent seasons, but his new coach, Ray Jennings, is keen for him to stay in one place for the time being. “Ray wants me to keep on batting at No. 5 in the middle order,” he explained. “He’s adamant that I should stay still, which is comforting because I have fluctuated from time to time. It allows me to get a game-plan going for my specific role, and grow in that role.”Test hundreds are precious beasts, but Dippenaar claimed not to have suffered unduly in the nervous nineties. “I just took it ball by ball,” he explained. “Our game-plan at the start of play was to get to 350, and I knew that I needed to score at least 45 or 50 of those runs. My personal scores didn’t stick in the mind so much, so that took the pressure off.”As for what the future holds, Dippenaar was cautiously optimistic. “I like to think it’s a step in the right direction [towards a permanent place in the side]. There’s a lot of cricket still to be played, but it’s given me a huge amount of confidence for the rest of series. I think I’ve gone a long way towards making that No. 5 spot my own.”For much of the morning, Dippenaar was aided and abetted by the wicketkeeper Thami Tsolelike, a controversial selection ahead of the veteran Mark Boucher. He played a steadfast support role, and afterwards Dippenaar was keen to play up his performance. “Thami is a very very good cricketer,” he said. “Sometimes his selection has been overshadowed by political issues, but he showed today he can hold his own.”We probably finished up around 70-80 runs short, because we really needed to get to 400,” admitted Dippenaar – although he wasn’t giving up the fight. “We’re up against it a bit, but tomorrow we’ll come out fighting hard to turn it around.”

The all-important biennial elections for the board of the USA Cricket Association (USACA) have now entered their final round, with nominations validated for all regional-director positions in the USA. Most of the nominees are the usual suspects who have previously figured in US cricket politics, but there are some surprises — and there are interesting contests for several positions.In this final stage, the USACA member clubs that are eligible to vote, perhaps a third of the 600 or more cricket clubs in the USA, will elect directors for their own regions from the nominees available to them. There are eight USACA regions, with the New York region having two directors and the others one each. The presidents of the member leagues in the USACA, comprising the council of presidents, also elect a representative to the USACA board. This gives the USACA board a total of 10 members, who are supposed to appoint and supervise the USACA executive, set policy, and review the management of all USACA affairs.Here is how the situation looks like across the United States.West
The two USACA Regions on the west coast, the Northwest and Southwest regions, are strong areas of cricket growth with good leadership and coordination. The Northwest region has nearly tripled in clubs and cricketers over the past decade, and has three leagues, which make up the Northwest Cricket Council. The Southwest region has a “powerhouse” league in the Southern California Cricket Association, which seems to have few working relationships with the two other leagues in its region–nevertheless, it has excelled in hosting national and regional tournaments, and has one of the best cricket complexes in the USA. The incumbent director for the NW region, Laks Sampath, faces token opposition but is likely to be re-elected – a matter of distress to many in the USACA leadership because he is considered by some as a troublemaker. The Southwest region is likely to have a two-man contest, with incumbent Ethirveerasingham having an edge depending on how local issues play out in the election.Central
The two Central zones, Central East (centered in Chicago) and Central West (Texas), are a study in contrasts.Central East has five leagues, but they seem to be locked in some internecine contests over membership rights, eligibility and regional program management. Many cricket clubs in the region claim they are disenfranchised by those who manage regional cricket, and have threatened to sue if their grievances are not addressed. Director Akhtar (Chik) Masood, a former president of USACA and still considered one of the most powerful men in US cricket, has been the lightning rod for many of these disputes. His re-election would seem to be assured, but could be subject to legal challenges.Central West, on the other hand, has made remarkable progress in a few short years towards becoming one of the most progressive regions in the USA. It has also seen a threefold increase in cricket clubs and players over the past ten years in the three leagues that comprise its region; it has enlisted the local communities to an unprecedented degree in supporting cricket, and has been the recipient of several national and international awards for programming excellence. Its incumbent director, Syed Shahnawaz, has expertly navigated the shoals and tidewaters of US cricket politics without getting entangled in any unseemly issues– his re-election is virtually assured, but he (like Sampath of the NW region)–is viewed with some suspicion at USACA headquarters, and this could be trouble for the leadership.North East
The three zones in NE United States– New York, North East, and Atlantic– are where about a third of all US cricket is concentrated. They are also the regions where US cricket politics have been found at their worst.New York has eight to ten cricket league,s depending on how you define them, and perhaps 200 cricket clubs in its metropolitan area. There is also a New York Cricket region, which is supposed to coordinate and administer cricket for the New York metropolitan area. However, a majority of member leagues and clubs were declared ineligible to vote in 2005, and there has been so much public and private dissension among New York cricket personalities that it is difficult to see them coming together on any useful regional – let alone national – program priorities. No less than 11 nominees are listed for the two regional director positions–together, they comprise a veritable who’s who of New York cricket politics, and it is difficult to see who will be able to secure enough votes to win. This alone would make the New York elections a pivotal one for US cricket–depending on who finally wins, the future of US cricket could be at stake.The North East Region was the source of much conflict two years ago, when it was alleged that an entire league had become eligible to vote without having paid its dues on time – an issue that was quickly swept under the carpet – coincidentally, this league provided the winning votes for drector Curtis Clarke. In 2005, that league is no longer eligible to vote, and incumbent Clarke is in a two-way contest with Nafis Ahmad, a “dark horse” candidate of whom not much is known but who might unseat Clarke given the latter’s doubtful antecedents for the position. This would be a contest to watch.The Atlantic Region has had its share of political problems. Shelton Glasgow, the incumbent drector, has been the subject of much criticism, several recall attempts and diatribes because of what is described as arbitrary and arrogant behavior, peremptory statements and decisions. His strongest rival would appear to be Ashok Patel, pesident of the USA Cricket Academy and winner of the ICC 2002 award for Global Development programs for his work with junior cricket, But Patel also has detractors who question his style and modus operandi. There are other hats in the ring as well, and perhaps one of them could emerge as a viable candidate.South East
All of the south east USA comprises a single region. Geographically, stretching as it does from Florida to Atlanta, it covers a wide swath of territory with many different characteristics. Florida is probably the area in this region with the most cricketers, leagues and clubs, but significant growth is occurring in areas such as Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina as well.The greatest issue of interest in the SE director elections is whether a person can serve both as a regional director and a member of the USA Team. The SE region has made a practice of this equivocal procedure; Faoud Bacchus was the SE director when he captained and coached Team USA, and incumbent Nasir Javed is following in his footsteps. In the USACA elections two years ago, the SE region vote was close. Perhaps in 2005, the SE region might decide that it too wanted a non-playing director–if so, we might see Javed replaced.Council of League Presidents
There are 26 cricket leagues registered and eligible to vote in the USACA Council of Presidents elections in 2005.The incumbent, Paul Da Silva, is from New York, and has had a distinguished career with the USACA. He has held important New York and USACA offices, managed the USACA Web site, and has held this position for several years.Da Silva has also been outspoken in his criticism of USACA management, and was a leader in the rift between USACA and the New York region that developed in the early stages of the present USACA administration. It would be fair to suggest that many in the USACA hierarchy would not wish to see him re-elected.There are several candidates for the post, most with no discernible track record in national cricket politics. An exception is John Wainwright, president of the Northwest Cricket League, who has campaigned for several years on issues and policies to reform US cricket, and has initiated his own exploratory initiatives for regional and national cricket reform. His outspokenness might put him at a disadvantage, but on the other hand, this (along with his track record) may be precisely what US cricket needs at this stage.In summary, the 2005 USACA Elections present an interesting and complex picture, with (as yet) no discernible trend. In very general terms, the western half of the USA seems to have its act together, and is likely to make constructive progress if given the right support; the eastern regions have administrative and management problems to resolve, and need proper direction if they are to emerge from their respective morasses. Who gets elected to serve on the USACA board of directors for the next two years could well decide who will be appointed to the USACA executive next year, and therefore where US cricket is likely to go.

Preparations have already got underway for the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean. According to a Government Information Agency (GINA), the construction of a brand-new stadium in Guyana is set to begin in April.Guyana is one of the eight Caribbean countries that won the bid to host the World Cup, and one of the primary requirements is for each representative to have a stadium that is up to international standards. At present, all international cricket in Guyana is played at the venerable Bourda ground in Georgetown, which is currently one of the largest stadia in the region, but has been deemed too outmoded for such a showcase event. The new ground is expected to have a seating capacity of 15,000 to 20,000.Four Indian companies have shown interest in the construction of the stadium, and two of these submitted their bids on February 1. Both companies, Lawson Turbo and Sha-Poor-Gi Pat-Lon-Ji, were in Guyana in December to conduct assessments and their initial estimated cost is US$25 million.The press release further stated that the amount will be obtained through a US$6 million grant from the Government of India, and a US$19 million loan from the Exim Bank of India. Both companies have the required experience in building stadia in and outside of India

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Dinesh Mongia and Yuvraj Singh carried out the final rituals as North Zone registered a comprehensive seven-wicket win over South Zone in the Duleep Trophy league match at Indore. North Zone thus secured a final berth, and will face Central Zone on March 8 at Nagpur. Resuming on 4 for 0, North succeeded in chasing the target of 140 within just 23 overs. Yuvraj continued his scintillating form with a 38-ball 60, smashing seven fours and four sixes. He was well supported by Dinesh Mongia, who contributed a steady 52 in 60 balls.North faced a slight hiccup when they lost the top-three batsmen for 46. Then, Yuvraj and Mongia got together to smash a 100 runs and take North past the victory target. The North Zone batsmen were particularly severe on MR Shrinivas, who conceded 61 in 3.5 overs.

ScorecardLeeward Islands made it to the finals of the Carib Beer Cup after drawing their game with Guyana in Essequibo. They will now face Jamaica in the title clash. Leewards managed 383 as Ridley Jacobs ran up a half-century with the lower order for company. He was finally done in by Mahendra Nagamootoo, who claimed 4 for 73. Guyana had required an outright victory to leapfrog Leewards in the points table and face Jamaica in the finals, but rain on the final day extinguished their hopes. Guyana ended the day on 131 for 3.