England have named a strong seven-man squad for the Hong Kong Sixes tournament which will be played at the Kowloon Cricket Club on November 11 and 12. Dominic Cork, the Lancashire allrounder, has been named captain while Darren Gough is also included.Mal Loye, who was close to selection for England’s full one-day squad at various times throughout the summer, travels and will keep wicket while Darren Maddy is rewarded for his Twenty20 exploits. Kabir Ali, Tim Bresnan and Glen Chapple – who all played one-day internationals during the summer – make up the squad.The two day event includes eight other teams – Australia, India, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Pakistan, South Africa, West Indies and New Zealand – and England are the joint most successful side in the tournament history, along with Pakistan, having won the event four times. Last year they finished third behind India and West Indies.David Graveney, England’s chairman of selectors and manager for the Sixes, said: “The England team has enjoyed a good deal of success in the Hong Kong Cricket Sixes over recent years. We have not considered players named in the England Academy squad or the Ashes squads but have selected a very strong squad of players exceptionally well suited to this format of cricket.”We have not selected a specialist wicketkeeper for the squad as Mal Loye is capable with the gloves and his explosive batting should be a real asset for the team.”England squad Dominic Cork (capt), Darren Gough, Kabir Ali, Tim Bresnan, Glen Chapple, Mal Loye, Darren Maddy.

The Indian board (BCCI) has given its players the go-ahead to give a percentage of their prize money to the Federation of International Cricketers (FICA) after Rahul Dravid reportedly wrote to the board last week seeking its permission to do the same.”We have told the ICC that we will distribute the entire prize money among the players,” Prof Ratnakar Shetty, the BCCI’s Chief Administrative Officer, told the . “After that, it is up to the players to do as they wish with that money. All we are concerned about is that we cannot transfer the money to FICA on players’ behalf.”Shetty said that the board would not act as an intermediary since it was not affiliated to the FICA. “The players will have to do it themselves,” he said. “We have our players’ association which tackles players’ issues. So I am not sure whether this initiative will really take the players’ movement forward.”

Scorecard
Michael Di Venuto has steered Tasmania to a comfortable victory over South Australia after the Redbacks posted a tame 8 for 185 from their 50 overs. The Tigers were in control all day and reached the target with only two wickets down in the 40th over thanks largely to Di Venuto’s 97.He hit 12 fours and one six in his 103-ball innings but fell to the part-time medium pace of Cameron Borgas with 13 runs still required. Dane Anderson helped get the Tigers across the line with 40 not out after Tim Paine made 36 in a 107-run opening stand with Di Venuto.South Australia were unable to build any partnerships of substance as the Tasmania bowlers made scoring very difficult. Luke Butterworth set the tone for the Tigers and claimed three of the most important wickets. Butterworth had Matthew Elliott caught and bowled for 32, Graham Manou caught for 15 and Darren Lehmann caught behind for 27, to finish with his best one-day figures of 3 for 32.Borgas and Dan Cullen each made an unbeaten 27 as they put together South Australia’s most productive partnership of 42 but the Tigers had already done enough to put themselves on top. The win gave Tasmania a vital bonus point as they earned their third win from six one-day matches this season. South Australia remain on the bottom of the table with only one win from their first three games.

After a disappointing few months, riddled with injury and poor form, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan is back and he wants more. Some of the ODI form he displayed last year, when he was the second-highest wicket-taker, was evident in his series-winning performance against the West Indies recently. But nailing down a Test place still eludes him, something he hopes to put right on the tour to South Africa.Naved-ul-Hasan took 11 wickets at under 12 in four matches against the West Indies to win the man-of-the-series award. Four wickets in the final game on a flat pitch at Karachi won him the match award as well. Speaking to Karachi-based daily , Naved-ul-Hasan said, “Obviously I’m happy to play some part in helping Pakistan win the one-day series but it was a team effort.”One of the reasons Pakistan did so well against the West Indies was their successful shackling of Chris Gayle up the order. Naved-ul-Hasan was instrumental in this, claiming his wicket in every match. But clearly, another left-hander was the prized wicket. “Gayle, no doubt, is a fine player but the bowlers always have a chance against him because he takes too many liberties at the start. But personally, dismissing Brian Lara twice (including first ball dismissal at Lahore) was very satisfying since he’s still a great batsman.”The last of his eight Test appearance was against India, at Lahore in January this year, and South Africa offers an opportunity to make up for lost time. “My greatest wish is to play Test cricket because that is something I’ve not been able to do for almost a year now. I hope luck on that front will change for me on the tour of South Africa.”Naved-ul-Hasan was dropped after the Champions Trophy, as he struggled to find a groove after injuring his groin playing for Sussex in the County Championship. That injury saw him miss the Test series against England. “That was a huge disappointment for me personally since the conditions in England would have suited my style of bowling especially after the experience of playing county cricket with Sussex. But you can’t sit down and regret it. Perhaps, it was predestined that I miss the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of playing a Test match at Lord’s.”I wasn’t expecting to make such a comeback after spending the best part of this year on sidelines through injury and lack of form,” he said. “But I always knew that once I regain peak fitness I would be able to get back into the groove of playing for Pakistan again,” he added.His return to form further boosts Pakistan’s pace resources, already strengthened by the probable returns of Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif and the progress of Umar Gul. “In hindsight perhaps the break did wonders for me because I got the time to rethink about my bowling. I got back to the basics and gradually started to gain in confidence. Now there is a healthy competition for places in the Pakistan squad. If I’m lucky enough to play, my job would be to give nothing less than the best.”

Australia will struggle to fill the gaping hole left by Glenn McGrath’s departure, according to Shane Warne. While Stuart Clark has been mentioned as a “McGrath clone”, Warne believes it is in part McGrath’s attitude and persistence that will be difficult to replicate.”I don’t think Glenn can be replaced,” Warne wrote in his column in the . “In pure bowling terms, Australia might find another like him, but there is still a big question mark over that. It’s everything else that he has brought to the table that has set McGrath apart.”His attitude and ability to get the best players out consistently in all conditions has been unbelievable. The way he has stopped the momentum of opposition sides doesn’t show up in stats. His whole attitude through his career has been to keep it simple, and that’s been shown in the way he bowls.Warne said opposition teams would enjoy the fact they no longer had to face he and McGrath. “That will give them a bit of a lift,” he said. “We’ve seen that before when McGrath and I haven’t played. But we have some wonderful players who can do the job for Australia.”He mentioned Shaun Tait and Mitchell Johnson as two young fast bowlers who could benefit from some time in the side while Australia’s remaining veterans were still playing. “It’s a great time for young players to come in because the team is still successful and on a roll,” Warne wrote. “These players can develop before a few of the other guys retire.”

It happened 25 years ago, but the passing of a quarter of a century hasnot dulled Raghuram Bhat’s memory one bit. The former Karnataka and Indialeft-arm spinner, who is currently manager of the Karnataka team, brokeout in unrestrained laughter when asked if he remembered the time SunilGavaskar batted left handed against him to save a Ranji match.”That cannot be forgotten. The ball was turning right angles on the day. Iwas just pitching the ball in the good length spot, because I did not knowhow much the ball was going to spin; sometimes I tried to bowl an armerand it turned,” he said, in a freewheeling chat on the sidelines of theKarnataka-Saurashtra Ranji Trophy match. “The ball was beating the bat andthe only way to play on that day was to play left-hand and play forwardand offer pad. That’s how Gavaskar played and he really played well andsaved the game for Mumbai. It was a great thing to bowl to him and theguts he showed in batting left-handed, for some 12-13 overs, was amazing.”It’s often been suggested that Gavaskar was wrong to batleft-handed, and that in some ways it was a disrespect to the bowler, butBhat will have none of that. “I won’t consider it as negative batting, hewas trying to save the game and that was his duty than to get embarrassedby losing outright. His footwork on the day was something to be seen to bebelieved. If I had recorded that game on video I would have shown that toyoung cricketers as an example. Sunny was middling the ball, no edges, notension.”For Bhat, that was the red-letter day in his 82-match first class career.Although the match was drawn, Karnataka advanced to the final of the RanjiTrophy by virtue of a first-innings lead, and Bhat had 13 wickets in thegame, taking 8 for 123 in the first innings that included ahat-trick. Strong performances in domestic cricket won him a place in theIndian Test team, but that was to last only two matches, where he pickedup four wickets, including that of Javed Miandad and Clive Lloyd, but hewas dropped after that, never to be picked again.Since he retired from first-class cricket, just as a young Sunil Joshi wasmaking his mark for Karnataka, Bhatt has served in many capacities – asumpire, administrator and coach. Today, when he watches cricket, he, likeother quality spinners of his generation, is amazed at the lack of back upfor Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh. “Basically, we have forgotten thespin bowling department unlike in the earlier days. There are left-armspinners but the quality is not there. The talent is missing somewhere. Wehave to put our spin department back on track.”Unlike some other veterans, though, Bhat does not simply bemoan the lackof talent. He is encouraged by the cricketers he sees coming through theyounger age groups, and is working with the Karnataka State CricketAssociation to put systems in place that will unearth fresh talent.Already people speak highly of KP Appanna, the 17-year-old left-armspinner who has picked up 21 wickets in his debut season. “What I feel isthe most important quality in a spinner is the consistency. They shouldnot get carried away by the success; it is important. They have to workcontinuously, they cannot say that I have taken 25-30 wickets this seasonand sit back,” he says.Bhat insists that it is quality spin that will win India matches.”Ultimately, spinners have to win the game for us. If you look at therecently concluded Cape Town Test, we would have won the game if Anilwould have been a little bit effective,” he said. “A left-arm spinner would havemade a difference. With a left-arm spinner your team is complete.”India have not had a left-arm spinner to play consistently since VenkatapathiRaju played the part. Murali Kartik has done the job when called upon, buthas not been able to go past either Kumble or Harbhajan in the race to bepicked. It’s too early to tell if there’s a young cricketer rising up theranks who can do the job, but people like Raghuram Bhat are certainlysearching hard.

Doping
The Pakistan board (PCB) is conducting drugs tests on all players selected for the World Cup on February 17. Mohammad Asif and Shoaib Akhtar, who failed the last doping test in September, are also included in this.Sports doping expert Danish Zaheer (a dissenting member of the appellate committee that overturned the bans on both last November) has already said that both are likely to test positive again. Not because of any new indiscretion, though, but because traces of Nandrolone, the banned anabolic steroid, are likely to remain in their bloodstream for some time after use. If they do test positive, it could have serious implications for the careers of both.Rumours in Pakistan that the two have undergone private doping tests, confirming that levels of the banned anabolic steroid remain higher than is allowed, persist. Cynics suggest that injuries (see below) are less injuries, more cover-ups to avoid possible bans.Injuries
Shoaib Akhtar: Take your pick from any number of complaints. The latest though is an injury to the left knee, which he says may take three to four weeks to heal. He has gone to London for scans but if it is anything like last year’s knee injury, he is unlikely to be back soon. If you’re into conspiracy theories, there is no injury, just a way of avoiding a potential life ban for testing positive again.Mohammad Asif: He has been worked into the ground in South Africa, at precisely the time when Pakistan might have wanted to wrap him in cotton wool. Instead, 150 overs later, Asif has reported a flare-up of the elbow injury that forced him out of three Tests last summer in England.A source close to the team told Cricinfo, “He has a stiff elbow, but it doesn’t seem to be serious. He just needs to warm up properly.” Local newspapers suggest that Asif might also be carrying a calf injury.

Umar Gul: A serious concern. Ever since it emerged he was injured at the start of the South Africa tour, the extent and nature of his ankle injury has been the subject of wild speculation.He has repeatedly said that he is or will be fit but a PCB official told Cricinfo that MRI scans have revealed the existence of a stress fracture, which is now healing. He is due to undergo another scan on February 26 but as the official conceded, “He may regain fitness during the World Cup but to be able to immediately come back having not bowled for two-three months will not be easy.”Back-up or packed up?
Mohammad Sami and Shahid Nazir are on standby but the former has sat out the last three ODIs in South Africa with a back injury that was supposed to be a minor spasm. The latter hasn’t played an ODI for seven years. Shabbir Ahmed, who might have been a choice, is also injured. Returning from a one-year ban for a suspect action, he went to South Africa at the insistence of Inzamam-ul-Haq despite reports that he wasn’t fit, bowled three overs in a Twenty20, promptly pulled a groin muscle and returned.

David Hussey will fill in for fellow overseas player Stephen Fleming as Nottinghamshire captain at the start of the 2007 domestic season. He will take charge of four Championship matches and five one-day ties.Fleming will miss the first five weeks while he leads New Zealand in the World Cup in the Caribbean. He is set to arrive in Nottingham in late May in time for the Championship match against Essex which starts on the 23rd.Nottinghamshire have decided not to draft in a replacement overseas player for that period. Their director of cricket, Mick Newell is confident he has a strong enough squad to cope without Fleming.Hussey’s temporary promotion comes after his successful stint as stand-in captain for Victoria in Australia’s domestic season. Hussey guided Victoria to the Ford Ranger one-day cup final as he filled in for the Australia representatives Cameron White and Brad Hodge.”David’s got good tactical awareness,” said Newell, “and has been getting some experience of captaincy with Victoria this winter. He also seems to have batted better during that period, so I’m hopeful we’ll see similar results at Trent Bridge.”

This tournament blows as hot and cold as a schizophrenic lover. One minute it’s the worst show on earth, devalued by too many mismatches and too many minnows; the next, one of those minnows has grown teeth and started nibbling the ankles of the big boys, and the excitement is back on. On Wednesday Bangladesh take on England – in a non-event that is suddenly a show-stopper.Or rather, it will be a show-stopper if Bangladesh do unto England what they have done unto India and South Africa so far in the World Cup, and send them spiralling to their fourth defeat of the Super Eights. After faffing ineffectually so far in the competition, England now need five wins in a row if they are to pull off another CB Series-style resurrection. Once upon a time, a victory in this match would have been taken as read. Not anymore.After their euphoric performance in this tournament to date, Bangladesh can no longer be viewed through the same jaundiced eye that they once were. They remain young and inexperienced and prone to thumping defeats if their bubble of exuberance can be pricked before they’ve had time to get stuck into a match. But given half a sniff of victory, they have versatility and level-headedness in their batting, and a spin-orientated bowling attack that loves nothing better than to close ponderous teams down in the middle overs of a chase.Few teams are as ponderous as England on a bad day. Their victories over the genuine minnows, Canada and Ireland, were desperately unconvincing, and even on their better days, against Sri Lanka and (for a time) Australia, they were unable to translate a winning position into outright victory.”We have to go out and beat Bangladesh, that’s the first step, and then we’ll look at it from there,” England’s coach, Duncan Fletcher, said as he sized up the permutations of his team’s qualification. “It’s probably going to go down to a [run-rate] calculation, but you don’t want to go into that in great depth.”There are several subjects that Fletcher might not want to go into in great depth at present, not least the form of his two most recent captains. Michael Vaughan has totalled 83 runs in six innings so far and Andrew Flintoff has starred with the ball as ever but has mustered just 49 runs in a campaign that is still most notable for his nautical activities.Vaughan’s slump, though problematic, is the lesser issue of the two, because even at his best, he is never going to be a destructive hitter to rival the on-song Flintoff. Without Freddie firing, however, England are designed to ebb away from every situation in which a couple of quick wickets come tumbling, as they demonstrated so expertly when collapsing from 164 for 2 against the Aussies.”I wouldn’t say Andrew feels at the top of his game,” Fletcher said, “which is why he’s working a little bit extra on it. He feels there are certain areas that he has to work on in these conditions. Against the spinners it’s pretty hard with these big outfields because you can’t just keep clearing the boundary and ones and twos become important and it’s an area he feels he has to work on.”

It’s an area that justifiably gives Bangladesh real cause for optimism in the run-up to this fixture. After watching Flintoff flounder against Brad Hogg, the trio of Abdur Razzak, Mohammad Rafique and Saqibul Hasan – left-armers one and all, but each so subtly different – will be confident they can restrict England to a chaseable total. As Kevin Pietersen showed with the tempo of his century against Australia, all it takes is uncertainty at one end of the pitch to quell England’s attacking instincts at the other.Bangladesh’s own batsmen hardly suffer from the same anxieties. Their youthful batsmen have been revelling in the carefree attitude that has been fostered around their squad. From the moment Tamim Iqbal led that frenzied assault on India’s seamers in the opening match, to Mohammad Ashraful’s outrageous paddle-sweeping against South Africa, the talent and ebullience has been on full display. If any of their hard-hitters can get stuck into men such as Sajid Mahmood or Jimmy Anderson, England could have a fight on their hands.”The English team has some good players but they are not playing well at the World Cup, so it will not be impossible to beat them,” Bangladesh’s captain, Habibul Bashar, said. “The South Africa win has increased the confidence and morale in the team. Now we need to win three more matches to come into contention for a semi-final. The boys know it’s hard work, but they are ready for it.”And, in an indication of Bangladesh’s bullishness, Bashar felt confident enough to strike back at those who decry the absence of India and Pakistan. “They lost two out of their three first-round matches,” he wrote in his newspaper column of the Bangladesh daily, Prothom Alo. “If this attitude persists, one should organise a ‘Top Ranking Cup’ instead of the World Cup, where the teams will play according to their rankings.”The World Cup is not the property of one or two teams. It belongs to everyone and the best team will win the cup. Instead of spoiling the show, Bangladesh have made the World Cup more interesting. There are now plenty of teams fighting for the semi-finals.” Some, like England, will have to fight harder than others.England (probable) 1 Ian Bell, 2 Michael Vaughan (capt), 3 Andrew Strauss, 4 Kevin Pietersen, 5 Paul Collingwood, 6 Andrew Flintoff, 7 Ravi Bopara, 8 Paul Nixon (wk), 9 Sajid Mahmood, 10 Monty Panesar, 11 James Anderson.Bangladesh (probable) 1 Javed Omar, 2 Tamim Iqbal, 3 Saqibul Hasan, 4 Habibul Bashar (capt), 5 Aftab Ahmed, 6 Mohammad Ashraful, 7 Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), 8 Mohammad Rafique, 9 Mashrafe Mortaza, 10 Abdul Razzak, 11 Syed Rasel.

Drop of the Day Mk 1
Ashwell Prince’s parry at square-leg had all the makings of a match-sealing moment. When you’re defending 193 and the batsman of the tournament, Scott Styris, gives a chance while still in single figures, there’s really no forgiving the culpable fielder. In mitigation, the ball was whipped through square leg with such power that it pulled up just yards inside the rope, but on the other hand, South Africa’s reputation in one-day cricket has long been based upon their superlative fielding. At 54 for 2 it was a vital opportunity squandered.Drop of the Day Mk 2
Ditto, with knobs on. Mark Boucher will need little reminding of the last time New Zealand and South Africa met in the World Cup. At Centurion in 2002-03, he dropped Stephen Fleming on 52 – a sitter of a chance off Jacques Kallis – and Fleming went on to make a fantastic match-winning 134 not out. Two weeks later, the hosts had been ejected from their own party. Today’s chance was tougher – a thin top-edge that a leaping Boucher could only parry onto his nose – but the impact on his team-mates was very much the same.Drop of the Day Mk 3
Ok, so it’s cruel to labour the point, but déjà vu is a powerful thing, especially when poor old Herschelle is involved. For eight painful years, he’s had to live with the memory of that aberration at Headingley in the 1999 World Cup, and like a particularly rubbish punchline, the joke gets wearier every time it is repeated. So, all together now, for (surely?) one last time: “You just dropped the World Cup, Hersch!” Of course, he could well cling onto a blinder to seal victory over England next week, and all will be forgiven. (At least, until the fourth-placed South Africans take on Australia in the St Lucia semi-final…)Call of the Day
Win the toss and bowl – it’s a tactic that’s been fraught with danger down the years. But today it worked a treat for Fleming, who unleashed his seamers in drizzly overcast conditions that were more Queenstown, Otago, than Queen’s Park, Grenada. Shane Bond was magnificent, James Franklin was rejuvenated, and at 66 for 2 at the end of the Powerplays, the pattern of the match had been established. Who knows what South Africa might have achieved if Graeme Smith had called correctly, but their decision to omit their leading wicket-taker and leading swing bowler, Charl Langeveldt, suggests they were not banking on bowling first.Bowling spell of the Day
If a cricketer could be designed to get under the skin of the rigidly orthodox South Africans, then he would doubtless look and sound something like Craig McMillan – a chippy, chirpy little irritant of a character who tempted three of South Africa’s finest into wicket-surrendering indiscretions. McMillan once got the better of Steve Waugh in a bouncer offensive, so his bowling is not to be underestimated. That, however, is just what Gibbs, Ashwell Prince and Boucher all did, as South Africa crashed from 128 for 3 to 149 for 6. Each wicket was celebrated with double clenched fists and a cheeky knowing grin, the sort of reaction that doubtless made the incoming batsman want to smack him even further …Duck of the Day
How good would AB de Villiers be if he could start every innings on 1? Unfortunately for him and for South Africa, that initial notch in the scorebook is proving infuriatingly hard to come by. Today was the fourth time in eight World Cup innings that he had been dismissed without scoring, and on none of those occasions has he survived for more than six balls. When he does get stuck in, however, woe betide the opposition. His other efforts have been 62 from 45 balls against Scotland; 92 from 70 against Australia; 15 from 39 against Bangladesh, and last week’s outrageous 146 from 130 against West Indies.Innings of the Day
Sporting a beard that makes him look like the celebrity chef, Anthony Worrall-Thompson, Styris is absolutely cooking in this World Cup. Today he produced his fifth half-century in eight innings. Three of those have been unbeaten scores of 80 or more, including the recent 111 not out against Sri Lanka. He is one of only three players to have made 400 runs for the competition (Jacques Kallis and Matthew Hayden are the other two), although his average of 108.75 is unsurpassed. And if that’s not useful enough, he’s also grabbed eight vital breakthroughs with his medium-pacers. It’s not a bad time to hit the form of your life.Number Crunching of the Day
The calculators were working overtime in the press-box today (at least, for those who have such things – one chap was too busy clacking away on his 1970s typewriter). But by the end of the New Zealand run-chase, the numbers were stark. South Africa’s net run-rate, that issue that Smith insisted was totally under control, is now drifting uneasily at a measly – 0.2097. That means that England (NRR +0.079) are as good as through if they win in Barbados on Tuesday. It’ll be a big “if” on the bouncier Bridgetown wicket but, should that happen, South Africa’s only salvation would then come if West Indies delivered a judgment of biblical proportions in England’s own final game next Saturday.