Young talent from four Test countries – Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa – will be on display in the 12-day Emerging Players tournament beginning July 10 at Brisbane’s Commonwealth Bank Centre of Excellence (CBCE).The CBCE side, which has players from the Australian Institute of Sport’s cricket programme, apart from three overseas players – Pinal Shah, Gaurav Dhiman and Kshemal Waingankar – on scholarship from India, will play the teams from the other three countries. The teams will play six Twenty20 games and 14 fifty-over matches from July 10 to July 21.Dene Hills, the CBCE coach, said the focus of this tournament will, apart from team success, be on development of skills. “New Zealand and South Africa are sending players who have already debuted in their national squads so we will certainly find ourselves up against sides that are very talented and have some international experience,” he said.The South African side, coached by Allan Donald, is a strong one with seven Test players including Neil McKenzie and Charl Langeveldt.”Our team is very capable and has experience within domestic first-class cricket. However, international cricket is a step above domestic competitions and this tournament will expose our side to international players and give them a taste of cricket at the highest level,” Hills added.CBCE squad: David Warner (NSW), George Bailey (TAS) CO-Captain, Doug Bollinger (NSW), Beau Casson (WA), Adam Crosthwaite (VIC), Daniel Doran (QLD), Ben Edmondson (WA), Callum Ferguson (SA), Aaron Finch (VIC), Shaun Marsh (WA), Tim Paine (TAS), Peter Siddle (VIC), Adam Voges (WA) CO-Captain, Gaurav Dhiman (visiting OS Scholar), Pinal Shah (visiting OS Scholar), Kshemal Waingankar (visiting OS Scholar)Coaches – Jamie Siddons and Dene Hills

Canada 235 and 52 for 1 lead Kenya 231 (Mishra 83*, Osinde 4-51, Bhatti 4-82) by 56 runs
Scorecard A battling 83 from 19-year-old Tanmay Mishra helped Kenya claw their way back into the reckoning on the second day of their Intercontinental Cup tie against Canada at Maple Leaf Cricket Club after they had seemed out on their feet. By the close, Canada led by 56 runs with nine second-innings wickets in hand.Resuming on 14 for 4 in reply to Canada’s first innings of 235, Kenya continued to lose wickets and by lunch had slipped to 101 for 7 – it was remarkably similar to the first day when Canada found themselves on 102 for 7.The Canadians’ recovery had been led by , and Kenya found a hero in the precocious Mishra, who had already shown glimpses of his potential in recent one-day series. With Nehemiah Odhiambo he added 66 for the eighth wicket, but he really came into his own with the Nos. 10 and 11 when he marshalled the strike to frustrate the bowlers.Henry Osinde (4 for 51) and Bhatti (4 for 82), who did all the damage on the first evening, were the pick of the bowlers, but their figures suffered in the latter stages of Kenya’s innings.Canada, who led by only five, started well second time, but Thomas Odoyo struck a crucial blow shortly before the close when he removed John Davison.

The inaugural Asian Super Sixes Challenge 2006, which was scheduled to be held in Karachi on the weekend of September 15-16, has been postponed due to what the organizers only described as “unavoidable circumstances”.”We have informed the ICC about this development and have requested for advising us on new available dates,” a spokesman explained.Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India and hosts Pakistan were due to participate in the tournament.

Rashid Latif, the former Pakistan captain, believes Inzamam-ul-Haq should withdraw from the Test side and concentrate on playing in one-day internationals.The 36-year-old Inzamam returned to Pakistan on Monday after a controversial tour of England, where his side lost the Test series and his one-day team slipped to fourth position in the ICC world rankings. Pakistan were beaten 3-0 in the Tests and lost the last two one-dayers over the weekend as England battled back to earn a 2-2 draw in the five-match series.”I just think the responsibility of leading the team in Test and one-day cricket is proving to be a big burden for Inzamam,” Latif said. “At his age, it is never easy. In my opinion he would be better off just playing one-day matches. It would ease the pressure and allow him to give more to the team and extend his career.”Despite being retained as captain for next month’s Champions Trophy in India, Inzamam faces a two-day ICC disciplinary hearing in London from September 27 and could face a ban of up to eight ODIs. He is charged with ball-tampering and bringing the game into disrepute during the controversial fourth Test at The Oval, where his team refused to play on after the umpires changed the ball and penalised them five runs.Inzamam replaced Latif as captain in November 2003 after Latif was banned for five one-dayers in a home series against Bangladesh for claiming an unfair catch. “If Inzamam just plays one-day cricket I think the team will benefit a lot and could do well in next year’s World Cup,” he said. “He can contribute a lot more as batsman if he is relaxed and free from the pressures of Test cricket.”

Andre Nel, the South African fast bowler, credits his former provincial and national coach Ray Jennings for making him a stronger bowler. Nel had approached Jennings for advice after a slump in form, and believed he had returned a fitter and better bowler after a couple sessions with his mentor.”Ray and I didn’t even do a lot of bowling. We watched videos of my action and we talked a lot,” he told the South African website news24.com. “He’s the guy who knows my bowling the best and he saw small things I didn’t notice. Injuries have played a big part in my recent performances. I tried to bowl too quickly to make up for whatever was wrong.”I tried to bowl from a position too close to the wicket and that resulted in my balance being off-kilter” Nel, 29, continued. “I’ve started releasing the ball from a wider position and forced myself to stamp down harder, with the result that my speed has returned. I don’t think I was aggressive enough in my approach. I held back a lot and tried to bowl economically over the past few months. It’s important to remember to take wickets; it’s another way to limit runs, especially early in an innings.” It was under the tutelage of Jennings at Eastern Province that Nel was called up to the South African side in 2001.He was also confident of his role in the one-day side with India due to tour next month and the World Cup looming next year. “I’ve always had to exercise control to try to put teams under pressure after replacing Shaun [Pollock] and Makhaya [Ntini] in the attack,” Nel admitted. “However, I’m not that kind of player. I like to get into batsmen’s faces and that’s why I’ve now been told to try to bowl faster and take wickets. I think I’m now the fittest I’ve been in many years and I’m excited about my bowling this season. If I’m not selected, I’ll at least know I’ve done my best.”Nel returned figures of 2 for 20 in eight overs during South Africa’s first warm-up match against Saurashtra, and one for 17 against the MCA President’s XI, in Mumbai this week.

Scorecard
Centuries to Michael Di Venuto and George Bailey overshadowed the brief Shane Warne-Ricky Ponting contest in the Pura Cup match between Victoria and Tasmania at the MCG. Di Venuto’s 37th first-class hundred – he made 129 – and the fourth for Bailey (101) put the Tigers within reach of first-innings points, but when Jon Moss took three late wickets Tasmania were 6 for 393 chasing Victoria’s 429.Di Venuto was rock solid for most of the day, taking few risks in his 244-ball innings. He hit 11 fours, pulled a loose Andrew McDonald delivery for six and put Warne over the boundary at long-off, but also appeared comfortable in defence. He and Bailey added 167 for the fourth wicket after Cameron White had given Victoria the momentum with two wickets in the last over before lunch.Bailey looked almost Daryll Cullinan-like against Warne early in his innings as Victoria crowded him with two slips, a silly mid-on and a silly mid-off. Despite feeling forward from his crease and a string of play-and-misses, Bailey survived and gradually built the confidence to put away the loose balls, hitting 11 fours and pulling White for a six.Warne’s efforts to dismiss his Test captain failed but the small crowd made the most of their chance to see two of the all-time greats go head-to-head. Ponting (51) watchfully faced 23 balls from Warne and hit him for three fours through cover and mid-off, but then played on to a straight ball from White. Despite getting out when he was settled, Ponting was happy with his innings.”I would have liked a bit longer but I felt really good today,” he said. “I felt I hit everything pretty much in the middle. It’s been a nice transition to get into some four-day cricket and not feel you have to go out there and get things moving right from the start.”Warne extracted significant turn from the pitch and worked desperately hard without luck. A number of beaten edges and shots falling just wide of catching men left him with 0 for 113, figures that disguised how much he troubled the batsmen.With Victoria’s attack one man down – Mick Lewis is expected to miss nearly two weeks after tearing a muscle in his hip on day two – and McDonald struggling to find the right length it was Moss who stepped up to break partnerships when required, finishing with 4 for 58. Moss had the in-form Tim Paine caught behind for 18, before returning later in the day to bowl Di Venuto, have Bailey caught at mid-on from a mistimed pull shot and trap Sean Clingeleffer lbw for 38.But Victoria did themselves no favours in the final session. Brad Hodge dropped an easy catch at deep square-leg when Dan Marsh (38 not out) had yet to score and Adam Crosthwaite put down a tough, diving chance with Clingeleffer also on 0. With Tasmania set to bat on and try to pass Victoria’s first-innings score, an outright win for either team now looks unlikely.

Eight overs into the day’s play, this match effectively ended as a contest when the first innings lead was decided; as the match meandered to a draw on a lifeless pitch, Delhi, who took two points, spent the rest of the day getting batting practice. It put into sharp focus what Sharad Pawar, the BCCI president, said in Hyderabad today, that India needed more sporting domestic pitches.Pawar’s reference point was the Durban debacle, and how better pitches at home would help Indian batsmen when they played abroad, but he might also have addressed the other, possibly larger, concern: Domestic cricket needs better pitches for better contests, to simply improve as a spectacle.In any case, this match was dead when Rajat Bhatia picked off a single off D Tamil Kumaran to take the Delhi score past Tamil Nadu’s 347. With the first-innings lead secured, there was little to look forward to for either side, and Bhatia and Vijay Dahiya made the most of a cool, wintryday to post big hundreds.There was just the slightest chance that Tamil Nadu could put in aninspired spell on the final morning and hold Delhi back. Themorning session at the Kotla has always been tricky but Delhi had got theirplans dead right on the third day itself when Dahiya came out to bat andhit a succession of boundaries. “I had not planned to goafter the bowling. But I knew that it could be hard to bat in the morningso I played aggressively,” said Dahiya. “I wanted to ensure that we had aslittle to do as possible on the final morning.”Dahiya, who had reached 51 at the end of the third day, and is making acomeback to the Delhi team after sitting out the whole of the last season,continued to bat with a fluency and effectiveness no other batsmanhad shown in the game. “It just happens that sometimes one batsman scoreswhile others miss out. I didn’t do anything different,” said Dahiya, whose152 included 29 boundaries.Bhatia, who made a big hundred against Tamil Nadu last season aswell, looked well set to get to a double-century when he holed out to RSathish at long off against the now occasional left-arm spin of S Vidyut.He’d probably have got there had he decided to bed down instead oftake chances but, with 166 runs under his belt and close to 10 hours at the crease, he decided to have a go and failed to clear long off.Dahiya’s dismissal, hitting S Badrinath to midwicket, prompted Delhito declare at 491 for 7 and give their spinners anextended bowl. Ishant Sharma, the young medium-pacer, sent down just oneover in the second innings, while Ashish Nehra, who had toiled for 40overs in the first innings, did not even take the field. With Tamil Naduon 66 for 2 the match was called off at the start of the mandatory overs.”We have been training hard for the last 40 days, especially on thephysical fitness aspect, and this is the result,” said ChetanChauhan, the Delhi coach. He added that there was hope that the Delhi andDistrict Cricket Association would prepare better pitches for the gamesahead where “the balance between bat and ball is more even.”Woorkeri Raman, Tamil Nadu’s coach, told Cricinfo that he did havepositives to take from this match. “One has to realise that there’s a fairbit of inexperience in the bowling attack. Yomahesh bowled well and thisis only his third Ranji Trophy match, he’s just learning the ropes,”he said. “Considering that this was an away game and we played threedebutants, in a way it was good that we got the warning signs early on.This gives you a chance to take something out of the game and then try andrectify what you have to and get things in order for the rest of theseason.”Raman also listed the performance of M Vijay, the debutant openingbatsman, as a positive. “It’s a completely different thing for a youngsterto come into first-class cricket,” he said. “What was especially pleasingwas the fact that he showed the ability to graft, unlike the flamboyancewhich you normally associate with Tamil Nadu batsmen.”Raman is not known for mincing words, though, and you can be surehe would have had a few blunt things to say to his players in the privacyof the dressing-room. But made no excuses for his team’sperformance. “We didn’t take the chances that came our way. We did nottake off when we had a launching pad while batting. Badri and Vijay did agood job in stabilising the innings, but from there on we did notcapitalise,” he said. “On this wicket, which was a nightmare for bowlers,450-500 was definitely possible. We didn’t get that, and even then, whenwe bowled, having got the early breakthroughs and picking up a wicket withthe second new ball, we did not capitalise.”

The Sri Lankan board (SLC) has filed a claim in court for almost US$ 12 million against an insurance company following the cancellation of the one-day tri-series between Sri Lanka, South Africa and India in August.On August 14, less than two hours prior to the start of the first match of the tournament, there was a bomb blast in Colombo which killed four Army personnel and four civilians. Shortly afterwards, the South Africans decided to return home, citing security issues as the reason for their decision.SLC had an insurance policy with Ceylinco Insurance Company Limited which covered it for “loss of revenue that may result from the cancellation and abandonment of the limited-over tournament due to riot and strike, civil commotion and terrorism”. The amount of the claim equates to the income lost from the sale of TV rights to Taj Television Limited.However, although the South Africans withdrew, India and Sri Lanka did try to continue with a one-day tournament but two matches were washed out and the whole event was shelved soon after.The matter has now reached the Western Province Court as the insurance company has declined the claim. “We have filed action as the company refused to pay the claim giving various excuses,” a Sri Lanka Cricket official said.

It still often has players and commentators unfolding sheets of paper, and leaves supporters scratching their heads to work out the sums, but the Duckworth-Lewis method of reaching targets in interrupted one-day internationals has now been the official decider for 10 years.On January 1, 1997, Zimbabwe beat England by seven runs at Harare after the target had been adjusted with the D-L method, the first match to be effected after the method was sanctioned by the ICC. The third ODI between New Zealand and Sri Lanka at Christchurch on Tuesday will mark 10 years at the top.The system was devised by the UK-based statisticians Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis and was formally adopted by the ICC in 2001, first on a trial basis and, from 2004, on a more permanent basis, being subject to three-yearly review.However, it had been used for a lengthy period of time before then. The D-L method was applied in the ICC Trophy in Malaysia in 1997 and in New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, India and West Indies in 1998. The ICC adopted this system for the World Cup in 1999 in England, although remarkably it was not necessary to implement it throughout the entire tournament.The main impetus for the development of what became known as the Duckworth-Lewis method was the 1992 World Cup semi-final fiasco when, after a short rain delay at the SCG, South Africa went from needing 22 runs to beat England from 13 balls to needing the same 22 runs, but from just one ball.”I recall hearing Christopher Martin-Jenkins on radio saying ‘surely someone, somewhere could come up with something better’ and I soon realised that it was a mathematical problem that required a mathematical solution,” recalls Duckworth.Lewis adds: “It is very satisfying when watching matches that players generally accept revised targets now as fair, in contrast with the previous systems, and that we have made a significant contribution to the history and development of the game.”According to Bob Woolmer, the former ICC High Performance Manager and nowPakistan coach, the D-L method is the best that anyone has managed to come up with.”I believe there will be moments in one-day cricket which will test any system and as long as the D-L method is monitored, it will remain the fairest system. The inventors should be congratulated for arriving at this formula.”Although the majority of use for the D-L method have been because of rain or bad light, it has also been used for stoppages due to 14 cases of floodlight failure, three of crowd disturbances, and one each for sandstorm (Rawalpindi), snow (Durham) and the sun (Derby).

The countdown is on for the World Cup and tickets are moving quite slow. But organisers are not too worried, and don’t expect the visa problems being experienced by some fans to have a major effect on ticket sales.The problems some nationalities were having obtaining visas were believed to be playing a major part. There were teething problems in Australia, and New Zealanders expressed dismay. Now, the Pakistanis have found out they have to send their passports to New Delhi, India.Negotiations are under way between the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the Pakistani Foreign Office to get the visas issued in Pakistan instead. Ahsan Malik, a spokesman for the PCB, said there was a precedent where special visa arrangements were made for fans in the past.Citizens from Britain, Canada, Ireland and South Africa are exempt from the visa requirement but supporters from major cricketing countries like India, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka are not.Delroy Taylor, senior project officer for ticketing, said he didn’t believe the visa situation would stop fans from making it to the region. When the second phase of ticketing ended in November, only half the 800,000 seats had been sold. The nine local organising committees expect to rake in US$40 million from ticket revenue.Taylor added that it was strongly believed the majority of tickets would be snapped up by Caribbean fans when the final phase of ticketing started on February 1. “I wouldn’t say the visa situation could be aligned to the ticket sales,” Taylor said while at the airport yesterday. “The ticket sales opened a long time ago [May 1, 2006] and the visa system just came about a few weeks ago.”The ticket sales are slower than hoped. The ideal is that we would have loved to have sold all by this time. But we are expecting the people of the Caribbean to come on board and buy most of the tickets in the final phase. This is the phase which most people in the West Indies can relate to – first come first served. The international market has snapped up a lot of the tickets in the early stages.”Chris Dehring, the chief executive of the World Cup Organising Committee, was more upbeat. “This event has faced so many challenges that at this stage, everything is full steam ahead,” he told The Miami Herald newspaper. “The little hiccups are simply rolled out.”Today marks 44 days to go before the official start of the event and Taylor remained optimistic. He noted that the stadia were being completed and there had been a definite up-swing in spectator interest.”We were expecting this would happen,” Taylor said, “there is a feel-good factor happening around the Caribbean. A year ago there was scepticism, but now the stadia are being painted and they are right in front of us for the people to see.”