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Julian Hunte wasted no time in seeking to mend fences after being elected as the new president of the West Indies Cricket Board on Sunday. One of his first announcements was that Dinanath Ramnarine, the chief executive of the West Indies Players’ Association, would be made one of four non-member directors.The move is an indication that Hunte is keen to involve the players in the decision-making process after several years during which the relationship between the board and the region’s cricketers has hit an all-time low.The other three non-member directors are Professor Hillary Beckles, the principal of the Cave Hill campus of the University of West Indies; Ken Hewitt, the accountant and head of the finance committee of the recent World Cup; and former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd.”I believe that we cannot improve our cricket without the direct involvement and commitment of our players through their representative organisation,” Hunte said. “WIPA has now been given the opportunity to be part of the solution instead of continuing to be perceived as part of the problem. It is both a challenge and an opportunity for that organisation.”

Nicky Boje is the notable omission from South Africa’s 14-man squad for the Champions Trophy. Robin Petersen has been selected as the lone specialist spinner, while Jacques Kallis will lead the side against Zimbabwe, in three ODIs which act as a warm-up, with Graeme Smith still recovering from ankle surgery.However Kallis, along with Justin Kemp and Charl Langeveldt, will undergo fitness tests in Bloemfontein on Tuesday and there will be four additional players who will make up an 18-man squad to face Zimbabwe.The omission of Boje is interesting, considering that South Africa are not blessed with spin bowling options. He, along with Herschelle Gibbs who makes the trip, had indicated they were willing to travel to India despite the risk of being questioned by Indian police about match fixing.Haroon Lorgat, Cricket South Africa’s national convenor of selectors said: “With several of our key players needing to pass fitness tests before they can be considered for selection, we had little choice but to select a larger than usual squad.”It is expected that Smith will be fit to resume the captaincy in India and Lorgat added: “We continue along our path of building a pool of players from which the final World Cup 2007 squad will be selected.”We will be using the games against Zimbabwe and the ICC Champions Trophy as preparation for the ICC World Cup and to settle on our final combinations.”South Africa’s planning was disrupted by the aborted tour to Sri Lanka last month after the team flew home following bombings on Colombo. However, Lorgat insists that the squad is still on track to be ready for the World Cup and to meet the quota targets.”More than enough players, including black players, are making an impact on the field to warrant selection into our final squad. All selected players will be encouraged to play for their franchises at every given opportunity, in order to stake a claim for a place in the final World Cup squad.”The door is open for any player outside of the squad who performs and fits the role that the selectors will be looking for, as evidenced by the selection of newcomers Alviro Petersen and JP Duminy. [Both] were impressive in the recent SA Emerging squad tour to Australia.”The three match series against Zimbabwe starts at Bloemfontein on September 15, while two additional matches have been arranged against the Lions and Titans for the national side.Champions Trophy squad Graeme Smith (capt), Jacques Kallis, Loots Bosman, Mark Boucher, AB de Villiers, Boeta Dippenaar, Herschelle Gibbs, Andrew Hall, Justin Kemp, Charl Langeveldt, Andre Nel, Makhaya Ntini, Shaun Pollock, Robin PetersonAdditions for Zimbabwe series and World Cup training squad JP Duminy, Alviro Peterson, Roger Telemachus, Johan van der Wath

Shaun Tait hopes his hostile spell in Australia’s drawn tour match against Northamptonshire will be enough to give him a Test debut on Thursday. Tait, 22, had an eventful day at Wantage Road against the English county side on Sunday by taking two wickets and forcing the opener Tim Roberts to retire with blood pouring from a gash above his left eyebrow.Tait finished the contest with a wound of his own when Ben Phillips unleashed a booming drive that struck him on his knee, causing him to collapse to the ground. He left the field but is assured the bruising will not affect his chances of playing in Thursday’s fourth Test at Trent Bridge.”It was pretty painful for a while but it is not too bad now,” Tait, who is fighting with Michael Kasprowicz for the third seamer’s place, said. “There will probably be a couple of days of soreness but I should be alright. The boys were taking the micky out of me because it was nothing serious, but there was a lot of pain for five minutes. Matthew Hayden kicked me on the back and told me to get up – they are tough old blokes I suppose.”Tait tempted Usman Afzaal into an ugly pull and knocked over David Sales to finish with two for 52 from 14.1 overs. “I felt pretty good, there was some decent pace but a couple more wickets would have been handy,” he said. “It would be everything for me to play for my country. One thing I do know is that I am ready for that sort of cricket. If the opportunity comes up I am definitely there to stick my hand up and bowl well.”

Zaheer Khan will definitely miss India’s Asia Cup match against Bangladesh, and his participation in the remaining games will be assessed by the team management over the next couple of days. Speaking to the media, John Wright, India’s coach, revealed that Zaheer tweaked his quadriceps muscle even before he had bowled a ball during Sunday’s Asia Cup match against Sri Lanka at Dambulla. Zaheer bowled gingerly, at medium-pace, during the Sri Lankan innings, and came out to bat later in the evening with a runner.”It happened while he was fielding, sprinting for a ball,” said Wright. “Obviously, it affected his bowling.”Wright said that the physio, Andrew Leipus, was happy with the progress that Zaheer had made, but he indicated that the injury was a major worry for both the team and the player. “From our point of view, we want the situation sorted out because we want to be picking from a full squad,” said Wright. “Zaheer was very upset about it. He has trained very hard but he is having these continual injury situations which are generally in the leg region.From the team’s point of view, and his, we have got to try and get on top of the situation because its tough on the player and we can’t have it happening regularly.”Wright indicated that it wasn’t a recurrence of the hamstring problems that had bedevilled Zaheer on the tours of Australia and Pakistan. “From what I understand, it was not exactly the same [as the injury he sustained before] because it was sustained while fielding and not bowling,” he said. “He just got fit, bowled well in that first game and looked as good as I have seen him for 12 months – for it to recur while fielding is very unfortunate.”

Chris Laine (Romsey)Served on the old General committee from 1984, he was on the Executive committee and Club treasurer from 1986-1996. Trustee Hampshire CC Youth Trust and Trustee Hampshire Cricket. His playing days ranged from Surrey under 19s to hampshire over 50s.He has lived in Hampshire since 1971. Represented Trojans 1972-1983 and Hampshire Hogs 1973-2000 where he is currently President.

New Zealand’s advance to the semi-finals stage of India’s Buchi Babu tournament is not the only reason coach Ashley Ross is happy.A deliberate pre-tour scheme to develop the skill of reverse swing among the side’s bowlers has borne early fruit.”We worked on it at the pre-tour training camp, looking at the mechanics of what is involved and have worked on it here,” he told CricInfo from Chennai today.”None of this is about working on the rough side of the ball, it’s all about preparing the good side and looking after its shine,” he said.Chris Drum, Shane Bond and Kyle Mills have all been producing significant reverse swing but the most memorable efforts came from Jacob Oram yesterday.”Jacob bowled two amazing reverse swing deliveries within three overs, one of which the batsman left only to see the wicket knocked out of the ground. He hit the stumps twice at vital times in the game.”We have a new toy and we will be continuing to work on the skills,” he said.Ross said he would be passing on the information and strategy to new CLEAR Black Caps coach Denis Aberhart for New Zealand to consider when touring Pakistan next month.”We will have to make sure we execute the skill with accuracy. It is a huge change in bowlers’ mentalities.”Ross has been delighted with the way the players have adjusted to the conditions in the tournament.The first game, which ended as a close first innings contest, had been the first game of the season for most of the players involved and they had responded well, especially when under pressure on the last day.While the scores were very close, New Zealand was also under a penalty threat as a result of its over rate and for a time was in danger of losing the game as the result of a mathematical imposition due to the over rate.”We were very focused in what we had to do and under trying conditions the guys never faltered,” he said.Seeing Matthew Horne celebrate his return to top play by scoring a century was satisfying, although Ross said the side had probably not helped its overall batting performance by trying to score a little too quickly for the conditions.The last wicket stand between Bond and Drum had been the matchwinner.”Shane used his feet well and was hitting the spinners into gaps for twos and their 56 runs was the difference,” he said.That first game had been the hardest of the two the side had played because of the requirement to adapt but the side had taken on board the lessons from their Indian opponents and applied them in the second game.Team captain Matthew Bell had batted for long periods in both games. Ross estimated that of New Zealand’s total batting time in the two games, Bell would have spent 60% of the time in the middle.Hamish Marshall, who scored two centuries at the same ground in last year’s tournament, added a third in the most recent game to make it three out of three.”The interesting thing this time was that after both his centuries last year he suffered heat stroke but he had no problems this time,” he said.The spin bowlers had been doing well and Ross was pleased with the way leg spinner Brooke Walker bowled in the most recent game, while Glen Sulzberger with his five wicket bag yesterday had picked up eight wickets in the tournament to date.Ross wasn’t concerned by Test opener Mark Richardson’s failure to get among the runs in the two games.”He nicked two good deliveries and got out. I’m backing him to make a big contribution in the next two games,” he said.”It was nothing outside his game plan that caused the problem,” he said.Ross was pleased with the spirit that has emerged in the team. After the first game an optional training run saw 12 of the 14 players take part. He didn’t expect so many at today’s optional run.And the social committee’s suggestion of a Le Mans-style Tuktuk race to the team dinner about 30 minutes from the team’s hotel had produced some sensational driving from the drivers who were on a 100 rupee bonus to get their passengers first to the dinner.Ross reported the side had no injury or illness problems.

Legspinner Karn Sharma has been ruled out of India’s tour of Zimbabwe due to a fractured finger in his left hand. The BCCI said there would not be a replacement, which means India will now have only 14 players to pick from for the three ODIs and two T20s.”It is unfortunate for Karn that he had to miss out because of injury,” India captain Ajinkya Rahane said. “He was a crucial part of our team.”Rahane said the reduction in squad strength didn’t make selection any easier. “It is not easy as a captain to select 11 players because all the players in the squad are equally important for the captain and it is really challenging to pick the best 11.”Karn had played the fourth and fifth ODIs of the home series against Sri Lanka in November last year, taking no wickets for 125 runs in 19 overs. His unavailability leaves India with only two spin options – offspinner Harbhajan Singh and left-armer Axar Patel – for the series in Zimbabwe.India depart for Harare on July 7 and are scheduled to play ODIs on July 10, 12 and 14, followed by Twenty20 internationals on July 17 and 19. Rahane was named captain of a second-string squad that was missing MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, R Ashwin, Shikhar Dhawan and Umesh Yadav.Revised squad: Ajinkya Rahane (capt), M Vijay, Ambati Rayudu, Manoj Tiwary, Kedar Jadhav, Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey, Harbhajan Singh, Axar Patel, Dhawal Kulkarni, Stuart Binny, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohit Sharma, Sandeep Sharma

The BCCI’s objection to the ICC’s assessment of the Nagpur pitch is that there are “inconsistencies” in the match referee’s report, and the board unanimously stands behind the surface.According to a top BCCI official, the assessment that the Nagpur pitch was “poor” was not right, and that the BCCI was going to contest it strongly. “The report says the ball ‘spun’ on day one,” he said on the sidelines of the IPL Governing Council meeting in Delhi. “It says ‘excessive turn’ only for day three.” However, it is worth noting that the ICC’s guidelines on what qualifies as a poor pitch is “excessive assistance to spin bowlers, “, and not just early in the match.The officials present at the meeting were vehement in their support of the pitch, whose excessive turn, variable bounce and pace had come in for criticism from various quarters. “Excessive turn is subjective,” the official said. “It depends on how the bowler uses it. I don’t think there was anything wrong with the surface.”The ICC informed the BCCI on December 1 that Jeff Crowe, the match referee, in consultation with the umpires, had rated the pitch poor. The BCCI had 14 days to respond after which Geoff Allardice, ICC”s general manager of cricket, and Ranjan Madugalle, its chief match referee, will consider all evidence, including video footage of the match, before deciding if the pitch was indeed poor.If found to be poor, the penalties range from a warning and/or a fine of $15,000 with a directive to institute corrective measures.Another official said the worst-case scenario will be a warning from the ICC, but insisted there was nothing wrong with the pitch. “Early turn is a new concept to them [the batsmen],” he said. “Maybe they are not used to it, but it would have been a problem only if the pitch had been dangerous.”

The not so merry-go-round of West Indies cricket continues later this month when the leadership of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) changes yet again at the annual general meeting. The president, Ken Gordon, resigns after two years of “moderate success and devastating failure”, to exactly quote the words seven years ago of another leader of West Indies cricket, if in a slightly different context.Val Banks, the Anguillan banker who has been a virtually anonymous vice-president for the past decade, is also stepping down.Gordon, the 77-year-old Trinidadian media executive and one-time cabinet minister, was a complete outsider with no previous experience in cricket administration when he replaced Teddy Griffith in 2005. He followed others who did have the seeming benefit of such a background-Pat Rousseau, Wes Hall, Griffith – but who were all overwhelmed by the peculiar problems of the most prominent position in the small cricket-playing territories of the Caribbean.As the only nomination, his successor as the fifth president in ten years will be Julian Hunte whose vice-president will be Wycliffe “Dave” Cameron, also the only candidate.Given that the interim report from the committee, created by Gordon and headed by retired Jamaica Prime Minister PJ Patterson to recommend structural changes to the WICB, is to be presented this weekend, the new president and his deputy are likely to head a very different organisation to the one to which they are accustomed. Yet the essentials will remain the same.Hunte and Cameron are from different backgrounds, different generations. Hunte, 67, brings with him a long and impressive c.v as head of his own company, politician, trade unionist and diplomat in his native St Lucia. Cameron, a Jamaican several years his junior, is a self-made businessman.Both have served as executives on the WICB. Hunte was a fixture for more than a quarter-century, rising to vice-president and representative at the International Cricket Council (ICC) before he left in 1998 to take up a post as St Lucia’s representative at the United Nations where he had a term as president of the General Assembly.As one of Jamaica’s two directors, Cameron is head of the marketing committee. Since Hunte has been out of the loop for the past decade, his return is very much a case of back to the future, especially at a time when the talk is of a “new beginning” for the board. Yet, on the back of his varied career, he brings a reputation as a pragmatist and a problem-solver, significant qualifications in two of the most pressing issues, straightening out the WICB’s relations with the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) and those with the Stanford organisation.Hunte is astute enough to know from Gordon’s tenure that he needs to leave cricketing decisions to the eminent cricketers who are placed on the cricket committee and the selection panel for just such a purpose.

Gordon’s most positive legacy was his immediate curb on the spending spree within the organisation that bumped up the WICB’s already sizeable debt. Under his guidance, the board’s finances are in far better shape than they were.But he ran himself into trouble when he delved into cricket matters, specifically over the appointment of Brian Lara for his third stint as captain and the initial rejection of the selectors’ choice of Chris Gayle as limited-overs skipper that was followed by the embarrassment of having to reinstate him.One of Hunte’s immediate tasks, and that of the new chief executive Bruce Aanensen, is to sort out the mess that, based on reports from those in the know, the secretariat in St John’s has become. There has been such a turnover of staff in all departments that some key files and documents cannot be located and proper procedures do not appear to have been followed. It is no wonder even basic tasks end up as blunders.The public attitude towards the WICB has hardened with every gaffe, every intervention into issues of cricket by one of its unqualified operatives and, ultimately, every defeat. It has been correctly captured in the advice in Dave Martin’s new calypso for it to “take a rest”.Hunte and, to a lesser extent, Cameron will be carefully watched and harshly judged. Cameron is less well known in cricket circles than Hunte and he does carry some unwelcome baggage. The Lucky Report into the contentious switch of sponsorship from Cable & Wireless to Digicel, commissioned by the WICB two years ago, found that the Kensington Club, of which Cameron was president, had benefited from Digicel’s financial help in renovations to its facilities.Cameron explained that he had approached both Cable & Wireless and Digicel for sponsorship and only the latter agreed. Such action appeared to compromise his position on the marketing committee and the Lucky Report concluded that there were “legitimate concerns which required examination”.It is not known whether the required examination took place but Cameron remained head of the marketing committee. As such, he secured a significant contract just over a year ago with the Centrex Group, based in Scotland, to form a joint venture company with the WICB to develop its licensing, merchandise and memorabilia ranges.A media release from Centrex at the time stated that the initial phase of the project would see “branding and development of three different merchandise collections”. It revealed that these would be the main WICB range, a Windies sports and leisure range, and a Select Legends range that would include a Sir Garfield Sobers series of merchandise.None of the specified merchandise ranges are yet evident in circulation and it is impossible to know how the untimely death in a car crash last month of Centrex’s head, 40-year-old Jim Whannel, while on a business trip to Manchester, will impact on the agreement. The issue is likely to occupy some time at the meeting but the Patterson report, even if only partially complete, will be one of the main items.After all, it deals with the composition and structure of the WICB and makes recommendations to “improve its overall operations, governance effectiveness, team performance and strengthen its credibility and public support”.

Dale Steyn has said that Shaun Pollock’s inclusion will allow him to play the role of a `shock’ bowler in the second Test against Sri Lanka beginning on Friday in Colombo. Pollock missed the first Test that South Africa lost by an inning and 153 runs because of the birth of his child.”I bowled one decent bouncer in the first Test and, with Polly [Pollock] keeping one end tight, I will concentrate on bowling, basically, two lengths – short and full. With the new ball I’ll bowl full and try to get it to swing, but I will also concentrate on bowling more short balls,” Steyn told Supercricket.co.za. “If you get enough short balls in the right place then they’ll make a mistake.””Every time we bowled a short ball they would play an attacking shot so, while I would never say they were lucky, at some time those aggressive shots will go wrong and there will be a man there to take the catch. Hopefully!,” he said.Steyn took 3 for 129 in the first Test and had given South Africa a perfect start by reducing Sri Lanka to 14 for 2 before Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene put on 624 runs for the third wicket. Steyn had Sangakkara dropped by Jacques Rudolph when he was on seven and one run later bowled him with a no-ball.”I wanted to break my head against a wall. It was always going to be harder from that end because you had jump up a slope as you got into your delivery stride and your front landed before it normally does. Vinnie Barnes warned me about it before the Test started so that made it even worse when it happened.”