All posts by csb10.top

The West Indies Cricket Board has asked Chris Gayle to specify a date on which he can meet with it and regional officials, to mop up ‘residual matters’ related to their seemingly concluded spat. In a statement on Thursday, the WICB said it was pleased that Gayle had confirmed his availability for West Indies selection, but prior to matters moving further along, another meeting between the two parties was necessary.”Directors of the West Indies Cricket Board recently met by teleconference and are pleased that consistent with his previous commitment Mr Chris Gayle has made himself available for selection to the West Indies team,” the WICB statement said. “The board believes that Mr Gayle’s stated commitment to West Indies cricket will be an asset to the team and looks forward to his contributions in that regard.”The board looks forward to Mr Gayle’s indication of his date of availability to meet with the WICB along with Prime Ministers Honourable Baldwin Spencer [who is the Antigua and Barbuda prime minister, and chairman of CARICOM’s Prime Ministerial Sub-committee on cricket] and Honourable Ralph Gonsalves [St Vincent and the Grenadines’ prime minister] as had been agreed to clear up residual matters prior to his return to the team.”Earlier this month, Gayle had pulled out of his Twenty20 contract with English county Somerset, declaring he was committed to playing for West Indies in all forms of the game. The move was believed to smooth the way for Gayle to return to the West Indies side for the limited-overs leg of the upcoming tour of England, ending a year-long standoff between Gayle and the WICB that stemmed from comments he made about the board in a radio interview last April.Gayle’s declaration had followed his request to Ernest Hilaire, the WICB chief executive, asking the board whether he would be selected for the ODI leg of the England tour in June; this, he said, was to help him clarify his availability for Somerset. Hilaire, in his response, had accused Gayle of “reneging” on the undertaking the player had given that he would make himself available to play for West Indies over Somerset during CARICOM’s (the Caribbean Community) attempts to patch things up between Gayle and the board in early April.The CARICOM-brokered deal’s success was expected to be tested by an ongoing lawsuit – to which Gayle is a party – between the West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA) and the board, which is likely to be one of the ‘residual matters’ to come up for discussion.

Jonny Bairstow, one of England’s exciting crop of future stars, enjoyed a memorable day as his Yorkshire side battle hard to secure an opening round draw against Kent. After scoring his third first-class century, the wicketkeeper-batsman found out about his inclusion in England’s Performance squad ahead of their summer schedule.Bairstow, who played one-day and Twenty20 internationals against India and Pakistan during the winter, is enhancing his reputation at a rate of knots and this knock of 107, off 147 balls and including 13 fours and two sixes, can only do him good as he looks to secure a place in England’s Test match middle order.Confirmation of his place in the 26-strong national party came through from the ECB shortly after he had secured his half-century in the midst of an important fifth-wicket stand of 115 with Gary Ballance. It was a prime reason why Yorkshire closed on 316-6, still 71 short of avoiding the follow-on with a day remaining.”I didn’t actually know about that,” said Bairstow. “I was told when I get off the pitch. I’ve been pleased with how my winter’s gone out in the sub-continent and coming back here and getting a century in the first game of the season hopefully stands me in good stead for the rest of the summer.”Yorkshire had been in early trouble thanks to an impressive opening spell from Kent’s debutant Mark Davies, formerly of Durham, who claimed the wickets of Joe Sayers and Anthony McGrath with his first two balls of the day after a maiden half-century with the bat on Thursday as the visitors posted 537-9 declared.Sayers was caught at third slip and McGrath trapped lbw for a golden duck to leave the score at 37-2, with Joe Root later falling to Matt Coles to bring Bairstow to the crease with the score on 79. He began with diligence before dominating from the moment Adam Riley, Kent’s left-arm spinner, was brought into the attack. It was all much to the dismay of Ben Harmison, who dropped a simple chance at second slip off Davies’ bowling with Bairstow on 24.Bairstow wasted no time in putting Riley on the back foot with three fours in an over and later eased a six wide of long-on to move into the nineties before exacting further punishment on the young spinner by launching him over midwicket and high into the East Stand to move to 99. He reached his first championship hundred at Headingley from his next ball.Darren Stevens ended Bairstow’s innings in the early evening when he forced him to feather behind to Geraint Jones, leaving the score at 290-6. With the second new ball due, Kent sniffed another opportunity with Yorkshire still 98 runs away from avoiding the follow-on. But Adil Rashid dug in before bad light and rain wiped out the last 18 overs to give Yorkshire an easier night’s sleep ahead of the final day.It must have gone some way to softening the blow after Richard Pyrah was told to expect a six-week lay-off with a broken left hand following a fielding accident on the midwicket boundary on Thursday.

The ICC has joined forces with the cricket boards in England and Pakistan to dismiss out of hand Danish Kaneria’s claims that he has already been issued with clearance certificates that should leave him free to continue his international career in the wake of the spot-fixing scandalMervyn Westfield, the former Essex seam bowler, was jailed for four months last week and Kaneria was named as an accomplice at the Old Bailey, but the following day, while captaining Sind Province in the Pentangular Cup final in Lahore he insisted: “The Essex police cleared me and I have clearance certificates from both the ECB and ICC, so I am not feeling any pressure. I am just enjoying my cricket.”Those claims, which were widely regarded as unsubstantiated at the time, have now been officially scotched in a joint statement by the ICC, PCB and ECB. “Following reports in the media in which Danish Kaneria claims to have been issued with a clearance certificate, the ICC, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) can categorically deny that such a clearance certificate was ever issued.”The PCB stated that, following the Mervyn Westfield judgement, Danish Kaneria will again be called to appear before the integrity committee to explain his position. The PCB also confirmed that the Kaneria clearance matter is pending before the integrity committee of the PCB where in the last meeting he was directed to provide copies of the tapes of his Essex police interview.”Kaneria was named in court as the alleged go-between between Westfield and bookmakers who paid the Essex bowler £6,000 to deliberately concede an agreed number of runs in an over in a Pro40 match against Durham in 2009.Kaneria was released on grounds of insufficient evidence in 2010, shortly before Westfield was charged. But the PCB rejected a document that he submitted last May in a failed attempt to clear suspicions of spot-fixing and enable him to play for his country. Neither the ECB nor Essex, as his employer at the time, has deemed it fit to provide a clearance certificate since then.A further appearance in front of the PCB’s integrity committee is now inevitable after new evidence was outlined in court by Westfield’s defence solicitor, Mark Milliken-Smith QC, concerning Kaneria’s fixation with supposedly jocular conversations with team-mates about the money that could be made from fixing.The PCB has also never accepted a document provided by Kaneria from Essex police that he claimed was evidence that he had been cleared of all charges. In May, the PCB asked Kaneria for transcripts of the police interview which his legal representatives said could not be made available.Essex, determinedly silent on the affair, have given no indication about what information they might have provided to the PCB. Neither has the county explained why it took six months to report Westfield’s fix after he first showed a team-mate a plastic bag full of £50 notes.

ScorecardThe second match of the evening too didn’t produce an evenly matched contest as Chittagong Kings’ 206 proved too much for Duronto Rajshahi. Nasir Jamshed smashed 56 while Mahmudullah and Jason Roy hit 43 each to bring up the first 200-plus score of the tournament.Jamshed smashed three sixes and five fours in his knock. England’s Roy hit the same number of sixes in his 25-ball knock. Both Roy and Jamshed departed before the 15th over, setting the platform for Mahmudullah and Dwayne Bravo to unleash their fireworks. Bravo hit a 19-ball 38 to go with his partner’s 18-ball unbeaten 43.Bravo was the pick of the bowlers, taking 3 for 17. He truck twice in the first over of the innings and that set Rajshahi back in their chase. They failed to string together partnerships the highest being 60 for the third wicket between Abdul Razzaq and Junaid Siddique. The next highest stand was 27, for the seventh. Rajshahi also found it difficult to get on top of the spin duo of Enamul Haque jnr and Muttiah Muralitharan.

South Africa will enter the last two days of the Boxing Day Test needing to achieve the highest successful fourth-innings chase to beat Sri Lanka in Durban, break a so-called jinx, and close out the series against Sri Lanka. It’s a tall order for a line-up that was shot out for 168 in their first innings, against an attack that many rated as incapable of 20 wickets in a Test match.With a task of this magnitude, South Africa can afford to be philosophical about what lies ahead. Gary Kirsten, the head coach, said one of the key things for them is simply to believe. “The one thing we do know is that it’s an opportunity for someone to do something special and be a hero for their country,” said Kirsten. “At the end of the day, we’ve got to dig ourselves out of this hole.”The hole was created by a poor first-innings effort with the bat, which showed a distinct lack of application by some of the side’s most senior players, such as AB de Villiers and Ashwell Prince. It was deepened by a lacklustre showing with the ball, in which the bowlers leaked 249 runs in the day, of which more than half came in the second session.Sri Lanka scored 142 runs between lunch and tea and lost just two wickets. It was in that passage of play that Kumar Sangakkara came into his own and marched to his first century in the country as though he owned the place. Kirsten admitted the bowlers lost their way.”We probably had a poor second session where we didn’t really stick to our plans,” he said. “We got a bit both sides of the wicket and we didn’t do a good holding job. You’d like one of your seamers to be able to bowl one side of the wicket. They are all talented and skilled enough to do that.”South Africa’s lack of a containing bowler has been lurking as a problem since they dropped Paul Harris for Pakistan-born legspinner Imran Tahir. It did not stand up as a real concern when they were shooting sides out, like Australia for 47 in November and Sri Lanka for 180 and 150 in the last Test. In those instances, the attack was under no real pressure to stop the run flow, as they were today in Durban. When they were, Vernon Philander, who brought what Graeme Smith has called a “degree of control”, had stepped in.With the prolific wicket-taker, Philander, out of the side because of a knee injury, South Africa have no-one to stem the tide. Jacques Kallis was unable to, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Tahir were too focused on taking wickets, and Marchant de Lange was trying to repeat his heroics of the first innings while finding his feet. Too many short balls were wasted, too many boundaries were allowed to be scored and Sri Lanka were given enough rope to run away.The lack of consistency in South Africa’s performances is now glaring and Kirsten said they are trying to find a way to string together more than one strong showing. “What we’ve been trying to focus on is how we stack up the days and how we play the sessions,” he said. “What is concerning for us all is that we can have two really good sessions and then have a blow out session. We need to focus on ways and means of stopping the bleeding.”There is little they can do to close the wound with the ball, so it will fall to the batsmen to do the repair job, something which seems fair, considering they are the chief cause of South Africa’s current position. “You are always chasing the game when you get bowled out for a score like that,” said Kirsten, adding a clean slate will be needed in the second knock. “We’ve got to look at it like a first innings, like you are setting up a total. All these guys are capable of getting big scores. It’s still a fairly good batting wicket. The pitch played pretty well today, which is a good sign for the rest of the Test match.”Although deterioration of the surface is expected, Kirsten has to think positively because South Africa have to find some inspiration and he may be the man to provide it. Twelve years ago, he did something special at this ground. Kirsten made a then-South African record score of 275 to save the third Test against England. The Proteas need an effort which mirrors that one to win this match. “It’s a great opportunity for someone to be a hero. These are the reasons why we play the game,” he said. “I am still quite excited by what can come out of this Test match.”

Shane Warne believes India’s chances in the upcoming Test series in Australia will hinge on the fitness of fast bowlers Ishant Sharma and Zaheer Khan. Both men have had ankle problems in recent times and Warne believes a lack of depth in India’s attack could be exposed if Ishant and Zaheer are not at full fitness for the series, which begins at the MCG on December 26.Ishant was bothered by a dodgy ankle during the first of the two tour games in Canberra last week, and he bowled only four overs in the second match, on the final day. Zaheer is coming back from surgery on his ankle; he did not play in the first match and then sent down 15 overs in the second game. Neither man has yet taken a wicket on the tour.”India has a quality team, as they’ve been showing in recent times,” Warne said. “In Test cricket we’ve seen them, against West Indies, do well. But before that they played England in England and got beaten 4-0 with a swinging ball and a good English seam attack. Their batsmen will do pretty well.”Their bowlers will have to stay fit. If Zaheer Khan or Ishant Sharma get injured, then I think their bowling attack could be quite weak. The Australian batsmen could perform pretty well. I think it’s going to come down to how India are going to take 20 wickets with their bowling.”I think their batters, especially Rahul Dravid, will make big runs. He’s a quality person, he’s a quality act, he’s a quality player. Hopefully Sachin [Tendulkar] will get his hundredth hundred here. It would be a great time to do it here at the MCG in front of 70 or 80,000.”Warne was speaking outside the MCG at the unveiling of a bronze statue of him in his legspinning stride, the first in a series to be known as the Avenue of Legends. His former captain Mark Taylor was also at the ceremony but, unlike Warne, he was less certain that India’s outstanding batting line-up would thrive this summer against an attack led by James Pattinson and Peter Siddle.”They’ve been great players,” Taylor said. “I’ll be interested to see, though, how they’ll go against this young Australian bowling line-up, because I don’t feel that Sachin, Rahul and VVS [Laxman] are getting tested as often as say Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey have in recent times.”They have been tested on wickets that have been more bowler-friendly, whereas Sachin and Rahul and VVS play a lot of their cricket in India, where the wickets are generally flatter and don’t bounce as much, don’t move off the seam. This will be a really good test for them, and a good test for our fast bowlers. I reckon they [Australia’s bowlers] are up to it. I think that’s going to be one of the highlights of the summer, to see how those ageing batsmen from India go against the young quicks.”Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman are all older than Ponting, who has struggled for form over the past two years and has not made a Test century since January 2010. Taylor endured a similar slump in the later years of his career, but even his longest stretch without a Test hundred was only 24 innings; Ponting’s has now ballooned to 31.”He’s probably in a similar boat to where I was, and I think Steve Waugh had the same problem getting towards the end of your career,” Taylor said. “It’s not that you can’t do it anymore. You just need a moment where a lucky break goes your way or you just play a shot where you think, there it is, and Ricky is probably that close. Boxing Day has generally been pretty good to him … hopefully, over the five days here, we’ll see the real Ricky Ponting.”

Tasmania edged ahead of Victoria, into third place on the points table, with a 93-run win at the MCG. Victoria had resumed on 226 for 4, chasing a mammoth 412. Centurion Chris Rogers could add only 12 runs to his overnight score of 106, and the lower order could not get going. The only contribution down the order came from Clint McKay, who hit a smacked a few boundaries in a knock of 45 to reduce the margin of defeat.Rogers was eventually snapped up by rookie Jackson Bird. He edged behind as the quick, who was in his second first-class game, went on to complete a five-for in the innings and ten-wicket haul in the match. He was named Man of the Match for his efforts.Only 30 overs of play were possible on day one of the South Australia v Queensland match at the Adelaide Oval. The hosts chose to bat and had four of their top-order batsmen knocked over before rain forced an early close. New-ball bowler Matthew Gale caused most of the damage, trapping Daniel Harris lbw, and getting Tom Thornton and Callum Ferguson to edge to the keeper. South Australia finished the day on 4 for 75, as Luke Feldman had Tom Cooper bowled just before play was called off.In another rain-affected match, Western Australia got to 0 for 37 against New South Wales on day one of the game at the SCG. The openers Marcus Harris and Wes Robinson played patient innings, with strike-rates in the 20s, after New South Wales had put them into bat.

Robert Chance, the Texas lawyer hired to oversee the compliance review for all of the USA Cricket Association’s member leagues, has requested that the date of the regional elections be extended by one more week. In a memo to the USACA board, Chance says he has not been able to properly finish his assessment of which leagues are authentic and eligible due to the leagues’ “systemic failure to provide all of the requested information”.USACA announced last month that regional elections were due to be concluded by November 19. That deadline was then extended by USACA to November 22 after USACA issued a notice last week stating that leagues in the North East area were “affected by the recent weather conditions”. A rare October snowstorm came through New York and New Jersey at the end of the month and caused considerable damage.According to Chance’s memo, six leagues did not submit any information whatsoever. He also wrote that “very few have provided tax returns or documentation of non-profit status”. The failure of many leagues to provide the kind of documentation that Chance is seeking could put an end to the practice of bogus leagues popping up across the USACA landscape, something which many observers feel has been a major problem in the past. Since each league gets a vote in the USACA elections, eliminating such leagues may drastically affect how the next election will play out.Nominations for the national election were supposed to begin after the completion of the regional election process. The national election is supposed to be completed one month after the conclusion of regional elections with the national election results announced on December 21. It is unclear if the national election will now be pushed back to accommodate for a delay in the regional election process.The USACA national elections were due to be held in March according to the USACA constitution, but in that same month it was announced that national elections would be held on October 15. That date passed, after which USACA announced the new December deadline.

Lendl Simmons will replace his fellow Trinidad & Tobago and West Indies opener Adrian Barath in the squad for the two Tests in Bangladesh.Barath suffered a hamstring injury during the first ODI in Mirpur and played no further part in the three-match series, which West Indies won 2-1. He will remain with the team in Bangladesh and continue his rehabilitation.Simmons was in impressive form during the limited-overs leg of the tour, scoring 202 runs in two ODIs and 23 in the Twenty20. He did not play the final ODI in Chittagong because of a minor back problem.He was in the side for the two home Tests against Pakistan in May, and started the Test series against India as well before being dropped for the third match. Simmons averages 16.21 in the seven Tests he has played but says this opportunity comes at the right time since he is in form”I’m playing very well and feeling quite comfortable and confident,” he said. “I had a good ODI Series so the aim is to kick on and get some big scores in the Test Series as well. This is a chance for me to put everything right and look to cement a spot. It’s a matter of concentrating hard. When I get a start I know I have to look to build on that. I have made some big scores at first-class level so I know that in the long version of the game you have to be patient and build a foundation.”During the ODI in Chittagong, West Indies’ batsmen were found wanting on a turning pitch and were bowled out for 61. The first Test will be at the same venue, beginning October 21, and Simmons said he was ready for the challenge the pitch would pose.”Watching the pitch here in Chittagong, it is quite different to the ones we played on in Dhaka. In Dhaka you were able to play your shots a lot more freely. The one here was quite slow and the ball was gripping a bit on the surface. On this pitch you have to be very watchful and patient. The key is to get a start and once you get in you can’t give it away. That will be my focus.”Squad: Darren Sammy (capt), Carlton Baugh, Devendra Bishoo, Kraigg Brathwaite, Darren Bravo, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Fidel Edwards, Kirk Edwards, Kieran Powell, Denesh Ramdin, Ravi Rampaul, Kemar Roach, Marlon Samuels, Shane Shillingford, Lendl Simmons.

USA’s Under-15 squad claimed first place on Saturday at the 2011 ICC Americas U-15 Northern Division Tournament held at Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg, Canada. USA started off the tournament with back-to-back wins against Bermuda and Canada and eventually won the tournament on a net run-rate tiebreaker after all three teams finished 2-2 in the double round-robin format event.”It feels great. It’s amazing,” USA U-15 captain Dave Parikh said. “This is just the second time I’ve been captain of a team and we came through. We were the underdogs in this tournament and coming up through the top is great.”Parikh was named Tournament MVP after leading his side with seven wickets while giving away a tournament low 2.63 runs per over. He was the team second-highest scorer with 108 runs, including 67 not out in a victory over Canada, one of four half-centuries scored by USA. He was one of six players on the team who also represented the North West U-15 squad at the 2011 USACA U-15 National Tournament, where the North West took their fourth straight U-15 national championship after a dramatic five-run win against New York in the final, something that Parikh feels helped prepare players for success in Winnipeg.”The most important thing I learned from that match was to have faith in your players and to never give up,” Parikh said. “I honestly thought that match was finished, that New York would have won the match, but we came through.”Vibhav Altekar, who scored a double-hundred for North West in the national tournament last month, led USA with 140 runs from four innings with one half-century to finish second overall behind Canada’s Abrash Khan. Neil Tagare, another player selected from the North West region, turned in the highest individual score for any player at the event with 79 against Bermuda. Another noteworthy performer for USA was Michigan’s Gordon Makin, who made a superb 65 in a loss to Bermuda.Khan and Gayan Ferdinands stood out as ones to watch in the future for Canada with Ferdinands taking a tournament-high 12 wickets. Bermuda’s Delray Rawlins also showed excellent all-rounds skills at the top of the batting order along with his left-arm orthodox spin.At the same U-15 tournament in 2009, Steven Taylor and Nitish Kumar captained the USA and Canada squads respectively. Both players have gone on to excel at the U-19 level and have also played for their country’s senior teams. Parikh says he’s gained confidence from being part of a winning squad for USA and hopes he might be able to progress in the same way.”After coming off as the underdogs and winning this, I feel like I have a strong future in cricket,” Parikh said. “I think that I should really put some effort in for the Under-19s, try out, play my hardest and really see what I can do for that team.”