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The dust has barely settled on the furore surrounding the England selection at Headingley and the focus will again be on what names Geoff Miller comes up with for the third Test at Edgbaston, which starts next Wednesday. The squad, expected to include 13 players, will be announced before the first Twenty20 semi-final at The Rose Bowl on Saturday.After plucking Darren Pattinson out of obscurity the selectors are likely to go the other way this time and bolster the pace attack with a tried (if not always trusted) name. Steve Harmison could be handed a chance to relaunch his international career as England look at how they can bowl South Africa out twice. It took them 176.2 overs to claim 10 wickets at Headingley, following two days of toil for three scalps at Lord’s.”We now know we have to win two games to win the series, and have to create a side which is capable of that at Edgbaston, which as a ground is different to Headingley,” said Miller. “We have discussed all kinds of things: extra pace, whether it will turn more, or whether it is anticipated to swing.”Harmison is in the best position to earn a recall after claiming 41 wickets at 22.82 for Durham this season while reaching 90mph. He had plenty of ground to make up after his poor display in New Zealand, but after Matthew Hoggard was overlooked at Headingley, Harmison is now ahead of him in the pecking order. Simon Jones, the other of England’s Ashes quicks still on the sideline, would be another option but Worcestershire and England are being very careful about his progress.An on-form Harmison would certainly add another dimension to the England attack, especially alongside Andrew Flintoff who got through 40 overs at Headingley. James Anderson has also impressed during the series, but Stuart Broad has looked tired and could be rested despite the runs he brings at No. 8.Ryan Sidebottom, who missed out with a back problem last week opening the selectorial can of worms, is expected to be fit again. He should be a straight swap for Pattinson, who can go back to county cricket and, hopefully, not be adversely affected by his past week.”You always need options. Ryan has been an extremely important member of the squad, and indeed side, since he came back last year,” said Miller. “But it is not just about taking 20 wickets – yes we need to do that – it is about scoring runs as well, and 200 in the first innings [at Headingley] is simply not enough.”The batting, though, is unlikely to be altered despite temptations to strengthen the middle order with a swift recall for Paul Collingwood. Alastair Cook hasn’t scored a century since the third Test against Sri Lanka in December, but the most in-need of runs is captain Michael Vaughan with scores of 0, 2 and 21 in this series.England squad (probable) Andrew Strauss, Alastair Cook, Michael Vaughan (capt), Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood, Tim Ambrose (wk), Andrew Flintoff, Stuart Broad, Ryan Sidebottom, James Anderson, Monty Panesar, Steve Harmison.

BRISBANE, Oct 20 AAP – Jimmy Maher continued an impressive start to his captaincy career with Queensland as he hit a classy century against NSW in the ING Cup one-day match at the Gabba today.The Bulls reached 4-287 from their 50 overs, with Maher scoring 119 from 140 balls in his best performance since taking over the leadership from Stuart Law this season.With Lee Carseldine (59 from 64 balls) and Clinton Perren (52 not out from 46) compiling solid half-centuries, Queensland made the Blues sweat on another hot day in Brisbane.Australia A paceman Stuart Clark, playing his first match in four weeks, captured an excellent 3-31 from 10 overs to limit the damage for the Blues but there was trouble elsewhere.Leg-spinner Stuart MacGill (0-67 from nine) continued a miserable week in Brisbane when he was punished by the Bulls batsmen, conceding 11 runs from his fourth over and 16 from his ninth.Maher and Perren slapped him over the fence but MacGill wasn’t alone as Shawn Bradstreet (0-39 from five) and Dominic Thornely (0-39 from six) were also punished during a mediocre display from the Blues.Maher’s career tally moved past 2,500 runs for Queensland in domestic one-day matches when he put Thornely over the long-on fence in the 27th over.The Australian one-day batsman took advantage of a chance when he was just three after wicketkeeper Brad Haddin spilled a tough catch from the bowling of Clark.Maher and Carseldine recovered from the early loss of Martin Love (14 from 24) with a partnership of 127 from 138 balls before Perren and Brendan Nash (24 not out from 21 balls) added an unbeaten stand of 63 from just 47 balls.Queensland is seeking its first win of the season after losing last week’s opening clash to the Blues by 45 runs at North Sydney Oval.

It seems that the ICC might have finally accepted that all is not well inside Zimbabwe.In an interview with the Zimbabwe Independent, ICC president Ray Mali, a staunch supporter of Zimbabwe and its board, admitted that the political situation was a cause for concern.As the presidential election re-run approaches, the levels of civil unrest and tension have escalated, and Mali said that presented its own issues. “The ICC recognises that the conditions in Zimbabwe present a unique challenge to both Zimbabweans and to those visiting the country,” he told the paper. “The ICC encourages the maintenance of cricketing ties between Zimbabwe and other ICC members as exposure is the only way that the players of Zimbabwe can improve.”However, the ICC cannot control the views of members and, more pertinently, the views of the governments of those members, and ultimately cannot force A sides to visit the country or play against Zimbabwe as A side interaction does not fall under the Future Tours Programme. The ICC will continue to seek to encourage such interaction on an ongoing basis.”Zimbabwe have tried to engage A sides in matches, but with three Full Members – Australia, England and New Zealand – unwilling to play them for political reasons, and West Indies A declining to tour there on safety grounds, their choices are limited. The report states that the ICC wants to see Zimbabwe win 80% of games against A teams before there is any chance of them being readmitted to Test cricket. In six matches against South Africa, India and Sri Lanka A sides they have won only once”The Zimbabwe team is inexperienced and so playing against players who have either played a great deal of high-level cricket already or who are on the cusp of doing so is obviously going to be a challenging assignment,” Mali insisted. “On that basis it would have been unreasonable to expect the Zimbabwe team to sweep all before it.”What the matches have done is to provide the players with experience that will help them to develop so that as and when the chance to return to Test cricket comes then it will not be such an enormous leap. That is exactly why the A team matches are important and the ICC encourages its members to take part in more of these to further aid Zimbabwe cricket.”While Zimbabwe Cricket has done well to keep the domestic competitions running in the last two months, the deteriorating political situation, as well as widespread food and fuel shortages, makes it increasingly unlikely that even those countries who have stood by Zimbabwe will feel inclined to risk a tour in the foreseeable future. India were scheduled to visit for some full ODIs this month but that was postponed indefinitely, ostensibly because of India’s intense itinerary.Mali confirmed that the ICC would leave the issue of Zimbabwe’s return to Test cricket to their own board to recommend, but that the final decision would be with the ICC’s executive.”The ICC is kept informed by Zimbabwe Cricket chairman Peter Chingoka – and Norman Arendse, president of Cricket South Africa, which has offered to support in any way it can – at every ICC board meeting,” he said. “Chingoka has undertaken to report to the board as and when it is felt that Zimbabwe is ready for a return to the Test arena and if he made such a report then the ICC board would consider its merits.”

By the end of the day on Friday, just 500 tickets for the Cheltenham and Gloucester Trtophy match against Kent on August 1st remain unsold.The office at the County Ground will open on Saturday morning between 9am and 1pm for the sale of the remaining tickets, and Monday will be the last day that any unsold tickets can be purchased.On the day there will be no parking at all on the ground, but an additional 500 spaces are to be made available in Victoria Park which will be signposted from Junction 25 of the M5.

Fair Oak’s young bowlers conceded a staggering 87 wides on the opening night of the NatWest Bank Under-16 Indoor Development League at the Hampshire Rose Bowl.It cost last winter’s champions dear against Basingstoke & North Hants and almost wrecked their chances of beating an inexperienced Andover side.Fair Oak fancied their chances of nailing Basingstoke after Richard Featherstone (33) had improved on a sound opening partnership between Ed White (30) and Ed Kemp (27) to post a handy 136-5.But their efforts were wasted as Fair Oak gifted Basingstoke 54 runs in wides alone – and lost the game by two wickets with an over to spare.Hampshire Academy all-rounder Mitchell Stokes hit 25 and then scored 26 in his team’s four-wicket win over Andover.Fair Oak were almost as profligate against Andover, who came within nine runs of overhauling a challenging 137-5.Featherstone (35 not out) again top scored, but Ollie Williams (27) and Chris Hadfield (26) profited from some erratic bowling and took Andover’s reply to 128-2.Results:
Andover 111 (Hadfield 22, Williams 2-14)
Basingstoke & North Hants 112-2 (Stokes 26, Williams 25)Fair Oak 137-5 (Featherstone 35)
Andover 128-2 (Williams 27, Hadfield 26)Fair Oak 136-5 (Featherstone 33, White 30, Kemp 27)
Basingstoke & North Hants 138-2 (Stokes 25)

In 1959 a cricketer by the name of Denis Baldry hit 151 in his debut innings for Hampshire, having joined them from Middlesex. Today, that score was surpassed, and could even be increased tomorrow. John Crawley treated the good Canterbury crowd to an innings that was a masterclass in batting.223 not out overnight, Hampshire’s acquisition from Lancashire batted superbly against all that Kent could throw at him.Starting the day on 136-2, the visiting side still had to get 292 more runs to avoid the follow on, and soon lost Robin Smith at 178. He left a ball from Khan alone that came in on him and he was palpably lbw.Zimbabwean Neil Johnson then joined Crawley for a scintillating partnership of 232. Johnson hit 21 fours in his 226-ball innings before edging Fleming to slip. It was a superb innings in its own right with some powerful drives and cuts.Nic Pothas, Hampshire’s second debutant of the match then played his part in an unbeaten partnership of 80, but the day belonged to Crawley.Crawley became the fourth Hampshire player to score a century on debut, following Cecil Abercrombie the Scottish rugby international in 1913, Denis Baldry in 1959 and Richard Hayward who scored his debut hundred against the Sri Lankans at Bournemouth on the same day as the famous wedding of Prince Charles and Diane.John was naturally delighted with his performance today, “I could not have had a better start” he told this correspondent. “It was a good wicket, but we started the day still needing to score a hugh total, so it was tough. The whole day wasn’t just about me; Neil batted superbly and was a great support. Having achieved our aim as well as this innings it has to be a very satisfying day”. For Hampshire supporters and fans, Crawley has done a fair bit to become a local lad in just his first knock.

One has a penchant for tall scores in domestic contests. The other has made a name for himself as a ferocious batsman who revels in hitting the cover off the ball to the point of driving bowlers to desperation. Dinesh Mongia and Yuvraj Singh’s styles meshed perfectly and took India to a mammoth 333 for six in 50 overs, practically batting Zimbabwe out of the fifth and final one-dayer at Guwahati. Triumph by 101 runs followed as Zimbabwe wilted under the pressure of having to chase the huge score.All things considered, it must be said that the match was taken far away from the visitors at the end of the Indian innings. Sure, cricket is a funny game and all that, but it is not that side-splittingly humourous. India had the better measure of a wicket that was on the slower side, had the superior firepower, and they held their collective nerve better on the big day.Getting used to the pace of the track, Mongia was content working the ball well into the gaps, chipping away efficiently. Using the angled bat to great effect, Mongia provided a superb display of common-sense cricket.Earlier in the innings, however, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman both fell cheaply. Rahul Dravid (26), who was clean-bowled by Douglas Hondo, and Mohammad Kaif (5) also failed to get going. India were then in a spot of bother at 157/4 in the 31st over, and there was a chance that the scoring rate would dip and pressure would build.In the form he is in, however, it seems difficult to put pressure on Yuvraj Singh. The young left-hander, in sublime nick, got going from the very first ball. Punching through the covers with great placement and timing, Yuvraj sent the ball scurrying across the turf to the fence. Punjab teammate Mongia enjoyed the fireworks, and the pressure to score quickly lifted.Zimbabwe’s slow-medium bowlers struggled in the face of an all-out assault. Full tosses popped up with alarming regularity, and Yuvraj Singh nonchalantly clattered them away into the stands. There was almost no need for innovation as powerful drives had just enough zip to beat fielders who were scattered, jaded, and mostly reduced to spectators.The last 10 overs of the Indian innings provided the kind of power hitting that makes the shoulders of the opposition sag. A mammoth 121 runs came in that period, and came rather freely. Gary Brent, who replaced the injured Pommie Mbangwa, took the brunt of the punishment, returning figures of 9-0-74-0.Yuvraj’s entertaining knock came to an end abruptly in the 49th over when he hit Douglas Marillier straight to Travis Friend at long on. Most captains, however, would have been pleased with Yuvraj’s contribution – a sparkling 75 in just 52 balls with six fours and three sixes.Mongia then set his sights firmly on a century and achieved the task with ease – and then some. Although it took him 121 balls and 11 boundaries to reach three figures, Mongia’s foot seemed to be glued to the accelerator thereafter.Making room on the legside and slicing the ball through point with disdain, hitting back over the bowler’s head with power and placement, Mongia reached a mammoth 159 (147 balls, 17 fours, 1 six) as India amassed 333/6.Then came the Zimbabwean reply. What would it take? A long, steady hand from Alistair Campbell at the top of the innings? A blinder of a ton from Andy Flower? Some late heroics from the unorthodox Dougie Marillier? All of the above, perhaps, but none were forthcoming.As if chasing 334 for victory in a series decider were not difficult enough, match referee John Reid docked Zimbabwe two overs for not completing their quota of 50 in the allotted time.A series of token contributions from the top order – Campbell (31), Dion Ebrahim (42), Travis Friend (31) – suggested that the Zimbabwe team were not about to keel over in a hurry. But the fact that none of the visitors made it to even the half-century mark made it nigh on impossible to put up a serious chase.Grant Flower, with a valiant 48 (47 balls, 6 fours), helped keep the visitors’ hopes alive before he became Zaheer Khan’s first victim late in the order. Two balls later, a similar inswinging yorker took out the dangerous Marillier before he could get off the mark.Tatenda Taibu too fell for a duck, being run out just before the innings ended. Gary Brent, who was punished earlier in the day, was the last wicket to fall, reverse-sweeping Harbhajan Singh to short third man. With 4/33 from 9.1 overs, Harbhajan Singh was easily the most successful bowler on the day. Zaheer Khan with 3/29 was not far behind.The joy and relief on the faces of the Indian players was there for all to see when the game ended. Dinesh Mongia expectedly walked away with the Man of the Match and Man of the Series awards, and the youngster was all smiles. Success has come quite early for the hard-working Mongia, buth he should not get too carried away quite yet.Funnily enough, a member of today’s team, Vijay Bharadwaj, was the Man of the Series in his first-ever series – the LG Cup in Nairobi – only to be left out of the Indian team for some time to come. The youngsters of this Indian team thus need to keep their eyes keenly focussed on the World Cup that is now less than a year away.

Yorkshire are no strangers to inclement weather. They lost more overs to rain than any other county side last season, and seemed to have brought the rain with them to Cape Town when their crucial game against Mumbai Indians was washed out on Thursday night. To add to their woes, both Ryan Sidebottom and Moin Ashraf suffered potential injuries during the game, but coach Jason Gillespie insisted his side still had their sights on a semi-final spot with two games left to play.Sidebottom limped off the field after his second over, though he eventually returned and bowled a third before the rain came down, while Ashraf lasted all of three balls before he appeared to hurt his hamstring early on in proceedings. Adam Lyth, who had never bowled for Yorkshire in a Twenty20 match before, was forced to complete Ashraf’s over with his offspin.”I’ll have to speak to Scott McAllister our physio, but at this stage we’re just going to monitor the progress of both of them,” Gillespie said of Sidebottom and Ashraf. “Ryan came back out to bowl, so we’re quietly confident that he’ll be ok. He’ll probably be a little bit stiff and sore, but he should be ok.”Early signs at the moment, it looks like Moin’s tweaked his hamstring. But we’ll just let it settle down in the next 24 hours, and then Scott can have a really good look at it, and then make a decision from there.”Yorkshire are fortunate in that they have a somewhat bowler-heavy squad, with Oliver Hannon-Dalby and Iain Wardlaw in reserve, but they will need to be at their best in a must-win game against Highveld Lions – still buzzing from their victories over Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings – at home in Johannesburg.”You obviously need to cover all your bases with illness, injury and things like that,” Gillespie said. “They’ll be on their home patch, the Lions, and they’re a very good side, there’s no question of that. We believe if we can play the T20 cricket that we know we can, that we’re in with a good shot, no question.”As we’ve said all along, we have nothing to lose. We’re not here to make up the numbers, we’re here to compete and we’re here to win games of cricket, and that’s certainly the attitude we’ll take into the next game.”Gillespie has had a successful first season as Yorkshire’s coach, masterminding their promotion back to Division One of the County Championship and their trip to the Champions League. Indeed, he is revelling in the opportunity to lead his charges on a South African jaunt that few in the squad would have expected at the beginning of the English summer.”Andrew Gale just mentioned that at the start of the season, in pre-season when we were in Barbados, who would’ve thought that we’d be in Cape Town playing against the Mumbai Indians in the Champions League,” Gillespie said. “Sometimes we pinch ourselves I suppose. It’s just been a wonderful journey.”It must be said, these lads have worked incredibly hard, and they deserve this. The opportunity to play against some of the greats of not just now, but of all time, is pretty special and something that I’m sure these guys will remember for the rest of their lives.”

It was wonderful while it lasted, but it probably was too much too late, or too little too late,whichever way one wants to take it. To be very honest, no team that makes 140 in any innings of aTest match deserves to even have a chance to win a Test match, yet the West Indies did have thatchance, albeit a slim chance, while Brian Lara was at the crease.At least Lara showed that he still has the goods to produce, especially under duress and severeexternal stimuli. While he played well, he still needs, as he suggested, "to be as consistent asplayers like Steve Waugh and Sachin Tendeulkar." For the sake of West Indies cricket, I hope thatconsistency starts now. The youth of the West Indies team need some positive batting example.Lara batted like a man possessed for his 91, and while, in the end, it was futile, it was wonderfulto watch, enjoy and even think "If only …" His innings included eight fours and four sixes, and evena chance too, badly dropped by Makhaya Ntini at square leg, a catch which would have given Nicky Bojehis fifth wicket. Ntini would have been overjoyed when Lara was eventually out.However, Lara would find little solace in the fact that South Africa won by "only" 82 runs. WhileLara did all in his power, and was ninth out, the rest of the West Indies batting, especially themiddle order, should look at themselves in the mirror, and hopefully, they would not like what theysee there. In a few words, as Carl Hooper suggested, "We batted badly." At least Hooper is startingto learn a bit too. He is now using tremendous understatements.The final day was truly South Africa’s captain Shaun Pollock’s, and no-one would argue that he was not the eventual man of the match as he took the morning session for his team.The hosts meandered from 101-4 overnight to 155-7 as Ramnaresh Sarwan, after looking better andbetter with every delivery he faced, again lost his concentration at the wrong time, nibbled at aleg-cutter, and that was that – out for 26.Ridley Jacobs, looking rather tired of the entire proceedings, drove at Pollock’s slower ball toexit for no score.Neil McGarrell probably found out that making 20s and 30s in first class cricket equates to maybe30 percent of that at Test level, his 6 being just about par for the course.Boje got his fourth wicket, that of Merv Dillon, caught at slip off the glove by DaryllCullinan, but it was left to Jacques Kallis, with the second new ball, to complete the demolition afterLara’s heroics, and including Lara’s wicket.Pollock may have been somewhat worried at Lara’s onslaught, but he would also have realized that themiddle was already gone, so the tail would seldom stand in those circumstances. It was just amatter of time.Strangely, the pitch did not play as badly on the last day as expected, but Boje still finished with4-118 from 45 marathon overs, while Pollock had 3-41 and Kallis 2-23.South Africa, by winning this game, and taking an unbeatable 2-0 lead with onlyone Test left, thus becomes only the second team to beat the West Indies at home since 1973, afterAustralia in 1995.Maybe two quotes here from former Test captains might be apt."There is nothing else we can do," says (Sir) Vivian Richards, the only West Indies captain never tohave lost a series when in the position of captain. "We simply have to have a better attitude, abetter approach, if we are going to play with the big boys."Jimmy Adams, who was replaced by Carl Hooper, on the other hand, at least was tremendously honestwith himself when he suggested, "Many think that losing so much on tours is as bad as it can get.That is not entirely true. We can also start losing at home." That has started.How the West Indies retaliate in Jamaica in a week’s time could be interesting. They panicked badlyin Barbados and in Antigua & Barbuda. Now, somehow, they have to regroup.In the meantime, South Africa deserves all of the kudos, since they certainly played the bettercricket over the last five days and over the last four Tests.

Australia has withdrawn from its scheduled tour of Zimbabwe.Citing safety and security concerns for the team and its management, theAustralian Cricket Board (ACB) had little choice but to accept the advice ofa number of government and non-government sources who had identified anincreasing risk for the Australian side.The postponement of the tour is the latest in an increasing number ofpolitical factors on the international cricket scene.Last year New Zealand postponed their October tour of Pakistan after theSeptember 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and the New Zealandwomen had their tour of India cancelled due to the inability of India toprovide security for the side while the Afghanistan conflict was takingplace.The last occasion an Australian side was unable to tour a country was duringthe 1996 World Cup when the team was unable to play scheduled games in SriLanka when player safety there could not be guaranteed.Australia’s position in Zimbabwe was the result of increasing unrest thereafter the recent election and the subsequent suspension of Zimbabwe from theCommonwealth.The chairman of the ACB, Bob Merriman said: “Given this situation, the ACBhas now advised the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) that the Australian cricketteam is unable to travel to Zimbabwe in the current climate but that we arevery keen to re-schedule the games in the next two years.”This is a decision that the ACB has deliberated on deeply and it isrecognised that it will impact most on the cricket community withinZimbabwe. This is something that is deeply regretted.”Nevertheless, the safety of the players and team management must takeprecedence and I hope that there are other initiatives that the ACB and theZCU can adopt that will provide much needed support to the game inZimbabwe.””Over the last week, the advice we have received from our own securityadvisors, the High Commissioner in Zimbabwe, the Department of ForeignAffairs and from other sources within the country has clearly indicated thatthe situation is worsening for Australians in particular and that there arenow real and unacceptable risks to our people should they travel toZimbabwe.”