Mike Gatting believes the one-day series will be a game of “cat and mouse” before the serious business of the Ashes. Both teams will fight for a psychological advantage in the two tournaments before the first Test, but Gatting said the result would not influence the remainder of the summer.”It would be nice to win the one-day series but that won’t have any bearing on the Ashes,” Gatting, who was the last England captain to hold the urn, told the Herald Sun. “I think there will be a bit of cat and mouse leading into the Test series. I don’t think Steve Harmison will play many of the lead-up matches against Australia. I think he’ll just play against Bangladesh.”Australia have their first match of the tour today in a Twenty20 warm-up against the Professional Cricketers’ Association before the official game against England at the Rose Bowl on Monday. The tri-series begins on June 16, but Australia’s opening fixture is against Bangladesh at Cardiff on June 18.
James Tredwell led England A’s fightback in their Duleep Trophy match at Amritsar. He took five wickets as East Zone were bowled out for 283, having been 97 for 1 at lunch on the opening day.Shiv Sunder Das, the former Test opener, held things together for East Zone, carrying his bat to end on 124 not out. He put on 93 for the first wicket with Mahi Dhoni, in what was a tough opening session for the bowlers.Steve Kirby provided the only success when he had Mahindra Dhoni caught by Ed Smith for 52. Kirby, however, proved expensive in his first appearance on the tour since replacing Simon Jones, going for 30 from six overs before lunch, but England’s fortunes changed immediately after the lunch break.Graham Napier started the comeback with two quick wickets, both lbw, the second of which was Deep Dasgupta, the former Test player, for a duck. Tredwell then chipped in with a further two scalps, removing Devang Ghandi and Kiran Powar as East Zone lost five wickets for 79 runs. Tredwell worked his way steadily through the rest of the middle and lower order, although Das and Chatterjee held England up with a stand of 45.Tredwell finished with 5 for 101 from 24 overs, and Napier 3 for 54, in a total which went some way to justifying Tredwell’s decision to bowl first.
Pakistan made full use of their World Cup lead-up match in Lenasia with most of the batsmen and the bowlers getting in some practice before their crucial clash against Australia, a replay of the 1999 final, at the Wanderers on Tuesday, February 11.Batting first against a Gauteng Invitation XI all the batsmen, except Shahid Afridi, spent valuable time at the crease with Younis Khan top scoring with 50 off 52 balls. Khan, backing up a touch to far at the non-striker end was well run out by Martinus Otto from cover with a brilliant bit of individual fielding.The experiment of opening the innings with Afridi failed once again as the hard hitting right hand batsman was caught in the slips after spending seven balls at the crease.Saleem Elahi was solid in making 43 but playing past a Clive Eksteen delivery he was stumped by Ahmed Omar. Eksteen also got rid of Yousuf Youhana, trapped in front for 32, and Abdur Razzaq caught for 22.Wasim Akram (33*) and Waqar Younis (25*) put on 63 in the final nine overs for Pakistan to post a good 264/7 in the allocated 50 overs.For Gauteng, Clive Eksteen showed he can still compete against the best, returning figures of 3/46 off his 10 overs.For the most, the Pakistan batsmen seemed to have learnt something from their recent tour of South Africa and should still be a major threat to any opposition. The balance in the side, with players able to mix aggression with defense, may be one of the best in the tournament.Gauteng made a very good start with Stephan Cook (61) and Grant Elliot (33) putting on 103 for the second wicket before Razzaq struck three times in four overs to reduce the hosts from 110/1 to 115/4. Bowling some vicious off cutters he got rid of Cook and then clean bowled both Elliot and Vaughn van Jaarsveld with consecutive balls.With the rain chasing the players off the field after 30 overs and Gauteng on 123/4, Pakistan won by 24 runs (Duckworth/Lewis).On the bowling side Pakistan will be worried about the form of Shoaib Akhtar, going for 12 runs in his first over, and Shahid Afridi not showing any penetration.On Thursday, February 6, Pakistan will face Easterns in Benoni giving them another match to hone their skills.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India expects to get in the next10 days a proposal from the Asian Cricket Council regarding the AsianTest Championship tournament and would then write to the Governmentseeking permission for the Indian teams’ tour to Pakistan.”We expect the proposal from the ACC in the next 10 days – either bythe end of this month or in the first week of the next month,” BCCIsecretary Jaywant Lele told PTI on the phone from Baroda. “Once thedetailed ATC programme is received, we will send the tour proposal tothe Sports Ministry,” he said.According to the tentative ATC schedule, India is expected to clashwith Pakistan in Karachi from September 13 to 17.The sending of the proposal by BCCI to the Government is likely tocoincide with the visit of Gen Parvez Musharraf, who has just takenover as the President of Pakistan.Asked whether the two months time left for the Septemberto-Februarytournament would be enough for the clearance to be obtained from theGovernment, Lele said “It is not a simple invitation that we wouldreceive from the ACC.”The proposal will contain details of the match fee, guarantee money,the venues where the matches are to be played. It is not a simpleinvitation. It has to contain all details of the matches,” he saidadding “We have to send the proposal to the Government 45 days beforethe start of an overseas tournament.”Asked whether he expected the Government to clear the tour in view ofthe recent stand not to play against Pakistan in bilateral matches,Lele said “We will send the proposal once we receive the detailedinvitation. The rest of the decision is for the Government to take.”The Sports Ministry had recently taken objection to BCCI’s unilateralstatement that India would participate in ATC. It had said it wasGovernment’s prerogative to decide whether India would participate inthe tournament or not and the Board could only make a formal requestin this regard.However, the Government had allowed Indian teams to play againstPakistan teams in other disciplines on both sides of the border.Meanwhile, the ACC accepted the Indian demand that the final of theATC be played in one of the two countries figuring in that match andnot in Dhaka as originally scheduled.”The Indian Board made a categorical demand that the ATC final shouldbe hosted by one of the two contesting countries and Dhaka could holdit only if Bangladesh was a finalist,” Lele, who had just returnedafter attending the three-day ICC Executive Board meeting in London,said.The Indian demand was discussed at the ACC meeting which was held aspart of the ICC Executive Board meeting.
Ryan Mason would have been cursing his luck as West Bromwich Albion manager as the Baggies succumbed to their tenth defeat of the Championship already, away at Hull City.
On another day, though, Mason’s men would have been travelling back to the Hawthorns with a rare away win in their back pocket, with 13 shots registered on the Tigers’ goal, next to the hosts’ ten efforts.
Depressingly for the under-fire manager, a contentious Oli McBurnie penalty would end up being the difference maker, with Isaac Price guilty of yet another wasteful performance as he continues to frustrate the restless West Brom faithful.
Price's drop-off at West Brom
After sealing a £2.5m move to England from Standard Liege, Price’s early form in the West Midlands showed off a midfield talent full to the brim with confidence.
Indeed, the Northern Ireland international would bag a sumptuous strike against Hull, no less, last season to get his goalscoring numbers up and running for the Baggies, with his confident displays resulting in then West Brom boss Tony Mowbray heralding him as a “very talented boy”.
He showed off the very best of his ability during Mason’s early tenure, too, with five goals and three assists collected earlier this season, seeing him tipped for a move back up to the Premier League, having once been on the books of Everton as a youngster.
However, in the here and now, he will be lucky to remain in his under-pressure manager’s first team plans, with the £2.5m splashed out on his services looking more steep by the game, based on his careless displays of late.
Across his last 11 second-tier games, Price has just one meagre assist to shout about, with a glorious missed chance against Hull from point blank range resulting in Sky Sports pundit Pete Graves hammering the out-of-form attacker for “somehow” squandering the opportunity.
Still, he has enough credit in the bank to justify that lavish price tag. Sadly, another big capture doesn’t.
West Brom have a bigger waste of money than Price
A large portion of West Brom’s highest earners could be moved on at the end of the season, with Jed Wallace taking home a high £25k-per-week salary, despite only starting four Championship games under Mason’s tenure. With his contract set to expire next summer, he will know he’s on shaky ground regarding his long-term Baggies future.
Daryl Dike is on an even more uneven footing, with the American attacker amazingly taking home the exact same pay packet, despite last starting for the second-tier outfit back in May, when bagging a rare goal in West Brom blue and white versus Luton Town.
When West Brom forked out a high £7m on Dike’s services in January of 2022, they would have been hoping that the ex-Orlando City striker’s goalscoring exploits would catapult the Baggies back up to the Premier League.
Instead, despite occasionally showing off flashes of his instinctive best in front of goal with nine strikes from 48 games, the overriding emotion involving the bumper deal right now will be one of immense regret, with the 6-foot-2 centre-forward horribly unlucky with injuries at the Hawthorns.
Dike’s overall West Brom numbers
Stat
Dike
Games played
48
Goals scored
9
Assists
2
Games out with injury
148 games
Days missed through injury
930 days
Transfer cost
£7m
Wage cost per week
£25k-per-week
Wage cost per year
£1.3m
Contract expiry date
June 2026
Sourced by Transfermarkt
The table above really illuminates how many injury crises Dike has suffered from at West Brom, with the 25-year-old no doubt battered and bruised by the whole ordeal, having now missed a staggering 148 games through injury, five seasons down in the West Midlands.
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The £7m originally forked out on his services now looks like money rashly spent, with his further wage costs seeing West Brom drop £1.3m on his salary yearly, only adding to their agony.
It looks likely that West Brom will pull the plug on Dike’s doomed stay come next June, when his contract expires, with the deal, ultimately, going down as a huge waste of money, even if he has shown off his goalscoring prowess when rarely fit.
Price won’t be dismissed just yet in the same category, with the 22-year-old still very much learning the ropes of the Championship as a purchase that should bear more fruit in the future.
Whereas, for his own sake, Dike must now be let go of, with Mason only utilising him sporadically for 15 minutes of league action this season, owing to yet more injury difficulties.
0 duels won: Mason must drop West Brom flop who was worse than Gilchrist
West Bromwich Albion suffered another away defeat in the Championship this season at Hull City in controversial circumstances.
Ray Jennings, the coach of the South Africa Under-19 team, acknowledges the need to develop the underprivileged segments in South Africa but feels the issue requires flexibility because “you are also looking to win”. However he was clear that any player picked for South Africa, regardless of race, is good enough to play international cricket.”I’m sad that coloured players in the team could have the stigma attached, where they feel they are underprivileged when that’s not the case,” Jennings told Cricinfo while preparing his side for the U-19 World Cup. “It’s not about having a 50-50 or 60-40 split between white and coloured players. In our country, the sides are picked on their cricketing ability because the players of colour are good enough to play.”Jennings’ comments come in the wake of the spat between the senior team coach, Mickey Arthur, and board president Norman Arendse over the selection of South Africa’s squad to Bangladesh. “Before people criticise any player representing the country, especially at the Under-19 level, they should come to the ground, take a look, and judge for themselves,” said Jennings, a former coach of the national side.The 15-member squad chosen for the World Cup contains a mix of both white and coloured players, including Jonathan Vandiar who is of Indian origin. “The players of colour are good enough to represent the country,” Jennings said. “I haven’t been given a transformation policy as coach of the U-19s. To me, the policy is if the player is good enough to play. And there are enough players of colour who are good enough to play.”Moving on to the tournament itself Jennings said the South African squad was stronger than the one that took part in the previous edition in Sri Lanka in 2006, a side selected without the players being properly assessed. “While picking the 2006 side, we had a four-day tournament before we arrived for the World Cup,” he said of the side led by Dan Elgar, which reached only as far as the semi-finals of the League. “From a cricketing point of view, the top players in the world can have four noughts in a row.”This year I’ve tried to have five or six camps, and we’ve had a tour and a three-day competition. The guys have played enough cricket for me to know their mental toughness, their skills and how they perform in each position. I would anticipate probably a 50% better result in this World Cup compared to the last.”South Africa’s preparations began on a positive note with a seven-wicket win against Namibia in a warm-up match on Tuesday. Wayne Parnell, their captain, said that even though they chased the target of 106 in 19 overs, they continued batting (as if the game was still on) and set themselves goals of 185 in 30 overs and 300 plus after 50. They achieved both.Their competition will get tougher, though. They play Sri Lanka in the next warm-up and are pooled with Papua New Guinea, West Indies and India in what is arguably the tightest group. South Africa played India recently at home but lost the youth Test series 0-1 and didn’t make the final of a limited-overs tri-series which involved Bangladesh too. Their first match is against West Indies on February 18 at the Kinrara Oval in Kuala Lumpur.
At exactly 4.30am, about 45 minutes after British Airways flight BA 119 touched down on the tarmac, the large, forbidding blue gates that cordon off the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited/V.I.P section from the rest of the Bangalore airport burst open, and a Ford Endeavour SUV bearing Anil Kumble, led by a police jeep, dispersed the gathered mob of television cameramen and photographers, and sped away into the inky darkness. Soon after, Robin Uthappa’s maroon vehicle emerged, and finally the stampede of those gathered reached its peak as Rahul Dravid, who had been received by Vijeta, his wife, made his exit. The long vigil for pressmen was over; the slightly tense wait for the cops finished, and in the twinkling of an eye, normalcy returned.In different circumstances, the welcoming party would have been different. Not weeks ago it was hoped that India would return from the Caribbean, no earlier than April 29, a bit of silverware adding to the excess baggage, and then there would have been bedlam. Officials of the Board of Control for Cricket in India would have been present, the media would have been welcome onlookers, and the public euphoric.After India’s campaign in the World Cup panned out as it did, and with the team arriving in bits and pieces – some might say that’s exactly how they turned out on the field – the arrival of Dravid, Kumble, Uthappa, Dinesh Karthik and S Ramakrishnan, the video analyst, at Bangalore, was as low-key as expected. While the local trio would head off in a flurry, with no more than 50 fans jostling with members of the Rapid Action Force clad in their blue fatigues, toting rather intimidating guns, Karthik and Ramki stayed back in the airport, sorting out the earliest connection to Chennai.Fortunately, there were no untoward incidents, no sloganeering or effigy burning. And yes, there certainly weren’t any press conferences. “This is still the biggest crowd I’ve seen in Bangalore,” one of the cricketers who arrived, let on. “Whether we win or lose, it’s usually peaceful coming in to Bangalore, especially in the night.”But, till they actually left the airport for the safety and comfort of their homes, there was just that edge, a bit of concern, that some idiot might try and pull a stunt, more out of disappointment and frustration than intent to cause harm. “There are bound to be reactions and bound to be over-reactions,” a member of the team said. “Which other country has the support of a billion? If you don’t want this kind of reaction then you shouldn’t play for India, boss, you should play for Bermuda.”
If there was one moment of concern, it was at the airport in London, where there weren’t any porters about to handle the massive volume of luggage, consisting mostly of cricket kitbags and equipment, and Russell Radhakrishnan, the person in charge of the team’s logistics, was trying to sort things out. An Indian fan approached a few members of the team, and before they could react, said, “” [We’ll support you in the good and bad times]. A collective sigh of relief, luggage dealt with, and the team was on its way.From London, they headed in different directions, with different groups arriving in different cities. In Bangalore, the majority of pressmen were really gathered to ask just one question. From the horse’s mouth, they wanted to know if Kumble was calling it quits from one-day cricket. In an interview to , the television news channel, before the team embarked on its World Cup campaign, Kumble had said that this would be his last World Cup, and “probably” his last one-day tournament. Now that is widely being interpreted as an announcement of retirement, although the BCCI is yet to receive any such communication from Kumble.With that question unanswered, and India’s cricketers making a quiet, quick arrival and exit, there was little left to do for the media and the bleary eyed policemen, but to pack up and head home.
An extensive report conducted on behalf of the ICC has concluded that the South African team was subjected to racial abuse on their recent tour of Australia, and that it is was premeditated, co-ordinated and calculated.The independent findings of India’s Solicitor General, Goolam Vahanvati, were discussed at the ICC board meeting in Dubai. It confirmed that the racial taunting had taken place as reported by the players. Vahanvati also concluded that it would be wrong to attribute the racial abuse only to South African expatriates or explain it away as being the result of drunken behaviour.The report added that there is a grave problem in Australia relating to crowd behaviour, particularly with drunken spectators, which needs to be tackled seriously. After noting Vahanvati’s conclusions, which included an assessment that Cricket Australia’s approach following the incidents had been appropriate, the board appointed a three-man committee to provide recommendations to the next meeting on April 30.This committee will comprise Malcolm Speed, the ICC chief executive, James Sutherland, the Cricket Australia chief executive, and the United Cricket Board of South Africa chief executive Gerald Majola.
The coaching staff from the West Indies team lead by Bennett King, the head coach, will conduct a two-day semiar in Antigua and Barbuda, on April 14, for the coaches of the teams that took part in this season’s Carib Beer Series.The event is to allow feedback and suggestions from each of the domestic coaches about how the tournament worked and any recommendations for improvements. This year’s tournament was played on a league format over two rounds, with home and away ties, cumulating in a five-day final between the top two teams in the league. Jamaica won the Carib Beer Cup, for topping the league, and also the Carib Beer Challenge Trophy by beating Leeward Islands in the final.Bennett King began is coaching stint with the national side during the VB series in Australia and is currently taking charge of his first Test series, with West Indies trailing 1-0 against South Africa after two Tests.The coaches who will attend the seminar: Jeffrey Dujon (Jamaica), Rolston Otto (Leeward Islands), Ian Allen (Windward Islands), Henderson Springer (Barbados), David Williams (Trinidad & Tobago) and Albert Smith (Guyana).
Don Cleverley, the oldest living Test player, has died in Australia at the age of 94. The mantle of the oldest player now passes to Eric Tindill, another New Zealander, who is aged 93 years and 60 days.Cleverley, a right-arm fast-medium bowler who was able to extract surprisingly lift, played two Tests for New Zealand, the first in 1931-32 against South Africa, and the second 14 years later in the one-off match against Australia at Wellington in 1945-46. He had no real success in either match.Cleverley represented Auckland for 21 seasons from 1930-31, ending his career with one season at Central Districts by which time he was 43. He was also a national amateur boxing champion.