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Ehsan Mani, the president of the ICC, has lauded New Zealand for undertaking their tour of Pakistan. The team will leave on Wednesday for a revised 12-day tour with five one-day internationals.”They would not be sending a team if they were not reasonably comfortable, but if someone is uncomfortable about going, it would be wrong to make them,” said Mani. “There was a threat made, and New Zealand did the right thing by stepping back and assessing it.”New Zealand were due to play their first match late last week but delayed the tour’s start to assess security measures.Visiting New Zealand with Malcolm Speed, the ICC chief executive, Mani spoke of the new protocol for teams contesting tour programmes. “There was great co-operation between the boards, and the ICC was kept informed. New Zealand has laid the issues out openly and transparently and explained the situation,” he said.New Zealand’s foreign affairs ministry had advised tourists to avoid visiting Pakistan, but Speed said that this did not apply to international teams. He said: “Teams have a significantly higher level of security and it’s quite a different issue. It’s very hard to look at straightforward advice given to tourists where you can apply that to cricket teams and generally we don’t do that.”

Steve James has admitted that he might not play again after undergoing a fourth operation on his right knee.James, 35, stepped down as Glamorgan captain last month when it was revealed that he needed surgery on his knee and would be unable to play again this season. But he told the BBC that rather than sort the problem out, the operation has left him fearing for the future.”The surgeons haven’t beat around the bush, they’ve said it’s a 50-50 chance whether I’ll play cricket again," James explained. “Naturally my thoughts have turned to retirement, I’ve got to ready myself for that. If I can get back and have a normal life, that’s all I’m really hoping for at the moment.”It will be a bonus if I can come back and play professional sport for Glamorgan on top of that.”

Doug Ring, the former Australian legspinner, has died in Melbourne at the age of 84. His passing means that the ranks of the surviving members of Australia’s legendary “Invincibles” team, which toured England in 1948 under the captaincy of Don Bradman, have dwindled to seven. The survivors are Bill Brown, Ron Hamence, Neil Harvey, Bill Johnston, Sam Loxton, Keith Miller and Arthur Morris. Another tourist, Ernie Toshack, died last month at the age of 88.Ring was born in Hobart, Tasmania, but played his Sheffield Shield cricket for Victoria. He played 13 Tests for Australia between 1947-48 and 1953. He made two tours of England – in 1948 and 1953 – but played in only one Test on both trips.In all he took 35 Test wickets during his career, with a best return of 6 for 72 against South Africa at Brisbane in 1952-53. On the same ground the previous year he took 6 for 80 against West Indies. In first-class cricket Ring took 451 wickets at 28.48, with a career-best of 7 for 88 for Australia B v a New Zealand XI at Dunedin in 1949-50.A more-than-capable batsman, he liked to use his height to good advantage in attacking the bowling in swashbuckling style. He scored one first-class hundred – 145 for Victoria against Queensland at Melbourne in 1946-47 – and his 426 Test runs included four half-centuries. Two of those came against West Indies in 1951-52, but it was his 32 not out in the fourth Test of that tour, at the MCG, which is probably his best-remembered contribution to Test history. Australia, set 260 to win, were 222 for 9 when Ring was joined by his clubmate Bill Johnston. Somehow Ring and Johnston eked out the runs required for a nailbiting one-wicket victory to clinch the series.Doug Ring is survived by his wife, Lesley, three children, six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.Bob Merriman, the chairman of the Australian Cricket Board, passed on his condolences to the family. “Australian cricket has this week lost a valuable member of its community with the passing of Doug Ring,” he said Mr Merriman. “Doug represented his country, state and club with pride and distinction and will long be remembered for the role he played on Australia’s 1948 tour of England under the late Sir Donald Bradman.”

Geoffrey Boycott has revealed that he is close to returning to work following his successful battle to overcome throat cancer.Boycott, 63, was diagnosed last autumn with cancer and immediately started a course of intensive chemotherapy which led to him losing over 35lbs (16 kgs). At one point, Boycott was having five chemo sessions a day, and he was so weak that he had to be fed by having nutrients pumped into his stomach.In January he was told that the primary cancer, and two secondary growths which were subsequently discovered, had responded to treatment, and in April he married Rachael Swinglehurst, the mother of his daughter, Emma. “I don’t know what I would have done without her,” Boycott told the Daily Telegraph. “She has been a tower of strength.”Robin Smith, the Yorkshire president, told the newspaper that he had been in regular touch with Boycott. “Geoffrey’s very much back to his old self and, when I last spoke to him, the only difference I could notice is that his voice is a little gruffer, which is hardly surprising given what he has been through,” said Smith. “He has to continue seeing his oncologist on a regular basis but the signs are that he may be able to return to work in a couple of months or so.”

Waqar Younis, the Pakistan captain, is likely to lose not only the leadership of his country’s team in the forthcoming World Cup in South Africa next February, but also his place in the side.Waqar for his lack of form and support within the team on the South African leg of the tour could be replaced by his old foe and new-ball partner Wasim Akram to take over the reins of captaincy for the important event.The enigmatic Pakistan cricket outfit is already in motion to implement the change. The only hiccup of course is the recommendation and the ban slapped on Wasim by Justice Mohammad Qayyum in his report on match-fixing and bribery stating that Wasim should not be given the captaincy of Pakistan in future.The recommendation of course will have no feet to stand on if challenged in a court of law because no substantial evidence of Wasim’s involvement in match-fixing has ever been presented nor allegations against him ever proved, and since he has been playing for his country ever since that report, that in itself qualifies him to lead his country as well.Wasim, a veteran of 104 Tests and 350 one-dayers, is hoping that the restrictions recommended in the report for him not being appointed captain of Pakistan could be lifted as soon as he arrives back in Pakistan after the culmination of the five-match one-day series in South Africa which Pakistan has already lost.”I hear from various quarters that the PCB is considering a change in captaincy and that I could be asked to lead the side. I shall of course consider it and love to lead Pakistan again. I also know about Justice Qayyum’s recommendations about me. But nothing has ever been proven and I think it is unfair that I can play for Pakistan but can’t lead it,” the former captain said.”I will however feel sorry for Waqar if he loses his place in the team,” he sympathised.Wasim, who was picked to play in both one-day and Test for this leg of the tour, however says that there was a misunderstanding about his availability for the Test.”I had it made very clear that I will play in only one-day matches, the reason being that I shall be going back to Pakistan after the end of the fifth one-day game in Cape Town. There is no confusion about it,” he said.Wasim is likely to leave for Pakistan along with Shoaib Akhtar who has also declared his unavailability for the two Tests against South Africa citing niggling pain in his right knee. Rashid Latif and Misbah-ul-Haq will accompany them also.Only last September both the coach of the team Mudassar Nazar and the manager Yawar Saeed were unceremoniously replaced by Richard Pybus and Brig Khawaja Mohammad Nasir.

Graeme Smith and Shaun Pollock, the current and deposed captains of South Africa, have both asked for more time to mould the team into a top-class unit. The South African effort came in for plenty of flak after they slumped to a 153-run defeat against India at Dhaka, Smith’s first match as captain.”We are a young side and need time to settle down,” said Smith. “One should not expect clinical performances from us like that of a top professional side, as it is a transitional period for us.”Pollock echoed those views. “It takes time for young players to step into senior players’ shoes. There is a lot of talent and ability in our team but it is not fair to compare a newcomer with someone who has played over 100 one-dayers.”Smith was especially positive about the performance of his bowlers at Dhaka, singling out Allan Dawson for special praise. “I think our bowlers are adapting quickly. Dawson is bowling particularly well and is probably our best bowler after Shaun.”Pollock, who captained South Africa in 26 Tests and 90 one-day internationals, said that he was trying to get used to being just another player. “It takes time to adjust because you are used to marching the troops around and then suddenly realise you have to more or less stick to your fielding position. But I also have the responsibility of helping the youngsters develop, pass on my experience to them.””I have to adjust to new things like bowling first-change when I have bowled with the new ball all my life. I am likely to have a higher batting position too, so I have to learn certain aspects.”Meanwhile, Mark Boucher, the vice-captain when Pollock was at the helm, said that he would have refused the captaincy had he been offered the job. “I would have said no to it,” said Boucher. “I was not prepared for that extra responsibility and would much rather concentrate on my role behind the stumps.”It takes a special person to be captain of an international side. I would not have been comfortable worrying about bowling changes and field placements while keeping wicket, though I would always like to chip in with suggestions. The wicketkeeper is in the best position to make certain judgments as he has a better idea of the movement of the ball and what the batsman is trying to do, but it is not necessary that he leads.”Boucher also indicated that the senior players had no prior idea that Smith would be appointed captain. “We only found that out when the selectors decided to remove Shaun. We were just told that Smith would take over.”

Power is where the money is and India has it in the millions. Television and technology have led the country’s transformation from pauper to economic giantMansur Ali Khan Pataudi planted the first seeds of belief in Indian cricket, Sunil Gavaskar equipped it with professionalism and self-respect, Kapil Dev gave it teeth and muscle, Sachin Tendulkar added the halo and Sourav Ganguly armed it with nerve and rough-edged passion. While we owe these magnificent men a handsome salute, the script for India’s rise as a cricketing behemoth wasn’t written under the glorious sunshine on a cricket field, but within the confines of two rooms in London and New Delhi in the space of a few months in 1993.India’s ascendancy can arguably be traced to that momentous World Cup in 1983. Not only did India win it, but so incensed was NKP Salve, the then president of the Indian cricket board, at the refusal by the MCC to grant two extra passes for the final that he vowed to bring the tournament home. But it was not until 1993 that the dynamics that would catapult India towards their superpower status were set in motion.Having demonstrated its capacity to host a World Cup successfully in 1987, India would have been content to let the 1996 edition return to England if it hadn’t been for Pakistan’s goading for another bid. Pakistan went it alone first, but sought India’s co-operation after its original submission secured only four votes against South Africa’s 16 and England’s 15. Sri Lanka was drafted in as an equal partner and the campaign climaxed in a 13-hour meeting so acrimonious that the ICC came to the verge of collapse. After a liberal exchange of threats of vetoes and boycotts, the joint bid, a couple of million pounds higher than England’s, was approved with stout support from the associate members. It was a seminal victory for the subcontinent and Jagmohan Dalmiya, who had spearheaded the campaign.But while one battle been won on foreign soil, another loomed at home. The 1987 World Cup had been an organisational success but a commercial failure – the Indian board lost US$40,000. Corporate sponsorship was still a nascent phenomenon and (would you believe it?) Doordarshan, the state-owned television monopoly, actually deemed the live telecast of cricket a celestial favour to the board. Enough was truly enough when, overcome either by greed or stupidity – perhaps both – it demanded that the board pay $16,000 for the telecast of each match during the five-nation Hero Cup in November 1993. The Indian board took the matter to court and a division bench for the Supreme Court delivered a historic decision, well past midnight, at the residence of the then chief justice JS Verma, holding that the air waves were not the monopoly of the Indian government. The rights to broadcast Indian cricket were instantly snapped up by Trans World International, for a three-year contract at the rate of $2 million per year. Doordarshan won them back in 1998 but forked out a staggering $52.5 million for five years.Many of India’s ills – poverty, chaos, congestion – can be attributed in varying degrees to its population. But what is a nightmare for town planners and economists has been a godsend for cricket and India’s information technology industry. Every year Indian institutes produce thousands of IT professionals, making the country one of the largest software providers in the world. And with 87 million TV homes and over 600 million television viewers, India has more captive consumers of cricket than the rest of the world put together.If IT has the potential to be India’s biggest enabler, cricket has been its great redeemer for years. Hockey is only notionally the national game: India is a one-sport nation and the average cricket junkie would let nothing, not even the poor international record of the team, detract him from the worship of his beloved game. A few idols are enough for a lifetime. A Gavaskar, Kapil Dev or Tendulkar provide, apart from thrill and joy, what the nation’s leaders have abjectly failed to provide: pride, ambition and nationalistic fervour. CP Surendran, a Mumbai-based poet and writer, summed up the national sentiment when he described Tendulkar’s walk to the wicket: “a whole nation, tatters and all, marches with him to the battle-arena. A pauper people pleading for relief, remission from the lifelong anxiety of being Indian … seeking a moment’s liberation from their India-bondage through the exhilarating grace of one accidental bat.” Does it still strike you as odd that India, with a lower per-capita income than Swaziland, Surinam and Sri Lanka, should spend millions of hours and even more cash on cricket? Or, for that matter, why India, a poor third-world country, should emerge as cricket’s unqualified superpower?Conservative estimates put the average annual spending by Indian corporates at $217 million, twice as much as the annual budgets of many Indian states. Roughly 70% of this goes into television. Three of the four main sponsors for the 2003 World Cup were multinationals targeting the Indian middle class. Satellite television has rendered geographical locations wholly inconsequential: from Delhi to Durban, Toronto to Trinidad, the money is where the Indian team is. And power is where money is. When the South African board merrily dumped the ICC match referee Mike Denness, who invited India’s wrath by his over-the-top penalisation of seven players for excessive-appealing during the second Test at Port Elizabeth in 2001, it was not, as some chose to see it, a division along racial lines, but a telling demonstration of India’s growing economic clout.The buzz these days is about Ganguly’s New India. About how it has managed to rid itself of the cobwebs of diffidence and weak ambition. About how it has acquired a swagger and a stomach for combat. It is not so much about the results – though Ganguly is India’s most successful captain overseas – as it is about a difference in attitude and approach that makes Indian fans dizzy with hope: it’s unlike anything they have experienced before.Much as you admire Ganguly’s role in this process, the transformation wouldn’t have come about without an equally radical change from within the system. The appointment of John Wright as coach was a path-breaking departure from the tradition of granting such positions as favours. After a bumpy start, the captain and the coach have struck a perfect partnership. Ganguly brings passion and fire; Wright a culture of discipline and fitness. Both are unflinching in their support of new talent and they have nurtured a new breed of Indian players who are not apologetic about their talent or overly bothered about the reputation of their opposition.But the transformation isn’t limited to the national team. The winds of change are blowing all over, and nowhere is it more noticeable than at the top. Having earned his reputation as international cricket’s money man and power broker, Dalmiya, in his latest tenure with the board, has shown a vision and zeal to transform Indian cricket. The appointment of professional trainers, not only for the national team but also at zonal levels, the resumption of A tours, the appointment of talent scouts and a modern cricket academy which serves as a finishing school for the Indian player are all signs of progressive change. The earnings of the Indian board have nearly tripled in the last five years, from about $8 million to $22 million. But the more heartening news for Indian cricket is that there is increasing evidence of this money being spent well.Sambit Bal is editor of Wisden Asia Cricket.The Wisden Cricketer launches on September 19. Click here to subscribe.

The September 2003 edition of Wisden Cricket Monthly is on sale at all good newsagents in the UK and Ireland, priced £3.40.

Paultons lost their final match of the season against New Milton, but the bonus point they gained from the game was enough to secure their Division One survival.Going into the game with only five men, Paultons were always up against it as Milton rattled up an imposing 149 for 4 thanks to Dean Miller (38), Lee Beck (31no) and Nick Gargaro (30no). To their credit, Paultons made a real fight of it with Mark Weaver (26) guiding his team to a promising position. But just as Paultons were sniffing a shock victory Gargaro re-entered the fray and changed the course of the match. His three quick wickets condemned Paultons to a 15 run defeat, but by this time they had already gleaned the bonus point they required to take them above Burley and Swan Green at the foot of the table.There was another relegation battle in Division Two as Milford-on-Sea and Lymington Seconds fought to avoid the drop. Milford received a good start through Matt Dowding (25no), Steve Thomas (27no) and Robin Butler (23), but Lymington tightened up their bowling in the latter stages of the innings and found themselves chasing a total of 111 for victory. This they achieved with some ease with Mark Gannaway (25no), Tony Thorp (25no) and Alan Spencer (25no) all featuring as Lymington cruised to a 5 wicket victory with 11 balls to spare.With the final matches of the regular league season completed, attention turned to the Anniversary Trophy which is being staged to celebrate the 25th year of the New Forest Indoor League.In the first match of the competition, Milford¹s miserable day continued as they fell to another defeat against Esso. Although Esso¹s Andy Parratt struck a classy 40, Iestyn Lewis and Steve Thomas both grabbed two wickets as the Oilmen were dismissed for 106. But the total proved too much for the sorry seasiders who were bowled out for 82 despite the best efforts of Robin Butler who scored 24.Pylewell Park fell to defeat in their first round tie against North Baddesley. They did, however, achieve the notable feat of dismissing Baddesley¹s previously unstoppable run-machine Jon Bance, although by then he had already added another 30 runs to his season¹s mammoth haul.Neil Williams also chipped in with 35 as Baddesley were bowled out for 125. Graham Smith, who had earlier taken three wickets, led the Pylewell reply with a fine half century, but his heroics were in vain as Pylewell were restricted to 108 for 5.Lymington made it safely through to a quarter final encounter with Brockenhurst thanks to their high scoring victory over plucky Godshill. Peter Tapper slogged his way to 31, and with the help of Trevor Phillips (41no) and John McGuirk, Lymington reached a formidable 154 for 5. Aided by some indifferent bowling and fielding, not to mention some daring running between the wickets, Godshill amassed 140 for 5 in reply with Jim Harrison scoring an unbeaten 40.

Durham clinched promotion in the Norwich Union League when they beat Worcestershire by nine runs under the Duckworth/Lewis method at Chester-le-Street.Hampshire’s defeat by Middlesex means Worcestershire can still go up if they win their last match at home Essex next week, despite a run of three defeats and two no-results.Worcestershire were cruising at 83 without loss in the 13th over in pursuit of a revised target of 208 in 39 overs. Danny Law then took three wickets, including the brilliant leg-side stumping of Graeme Hick for two by Andrew Pratt.Third umpire Barrie Leadbeater was again called into action three overs later when Pratt kicked the ball into the stumps and Vikram Solanki was run out.Pratt also made 56 in his role as a pinch-hitting opener and held two catches standing up to the seamers as Worcestershire struggled to 198 for nine.Durham’s other hero was skipper Jon Lewis, who made 76 not out off 66 balls, scoring almost all the 43 runs they took off the last five overs.After the first of two showers the match was reduced to 41 overs a side and Durham reached 212 for five helped by some sloppy fielding which saw three catches go down. The costliest was substitute Duncan Catterall’s miss at long-on with Lewis on 23.Worcestershire had reached 27 after six overs when the next shower brought the revised target. Phil Weston blasted seven fours in three overs on the resumption, but the transformation came when Law switched ends to replace Steve Harmison. Opener Anurag Singh was Worcestershire’s top scorer with 58 off 71 balls.