Pakistan have included both Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif in their provisional 30-man squad for the World Cup, despite uncertainty remaining over their doping cases.Shoaib and Asif were cleared last month by a Pakistan Cricket Board committee of taking the banned steroid nandrolone knowingly, having previously been banned from cricket for two years and one year respectively.However, the World Anti-Doping Agency has since challenged the lifting of the ban, while the PCB insists that both are eligible to play. Asif is at present in South Africa with the rest of the Pakistan squad, while Akhtar is due to fly out on Thursday after being named as a replacement.Wasim Bari, the chief Pakistani selector, said: “As far as we are concerned both Asif and Akhtar are free to play. We will cross the bridge when it comes.”Bari added that he was confident Pakistan would fair well in the tournament: “We have a decent side and if we improve our fielding we can match any side in the world”.Shabbir Ahmed, the quick bowler who recently served a one-year ban for an illegal bowling action, is also included in the provisional squad for the tournament, which Pakistan won in 1992. The final names will be announced on February 13, and the side will be captained by Inzamam-ul-Haq.Pakistan squad: Inzamam-ul-Haq (capt), Younis Khan, Imran Farhat, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Yousuf, Shoaib Malik, Kamran Akmal, Abdul Razzaq, Umar Gul, Shahid Nazir, Danish Kaneria, Yasir Hameed, Shabbir Ahmed, Mohammad Sami, Abdul Rehman, Salman Butt, Faisal Iqbal, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Rao Iftikhar, Imran Nazir, Shahid Afridi, Mohammad Khalil, Bazid Khan, Mansoor Amjad, Zulqarnain Haider, Yasir Arafat, Mohammad Asif, Shoaib Akhtar, Misbah-ul-Haq, Hasan Raza.

Chris Gayle was named 2006 West Indies international cricketer of the year at the annual West Indies Players’ Association awards event on Monday.Gayle is currently the No.2 ranked allrounder in ODIs and won the overall award ahead of Brian Lara, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Jerome Taylor. During 2006 he scored 690 Test runs at 38 and took 12 wickets at 43 while plundering 1217 ODI runs at 42 and taking 20 wickets at 33.Taylor picked up the emerging player of the year award, Daren Ganga Test player of the year and Sarwan ODI player of the year. The women’s award went to Jamaican Stephanie Taylor

Michael Vaughan insists he isn’t about to give someone a game for the sake of getting practice as England turn their focus to Canada in their second Group C match on March 18 in St. Lucia. “We’ll certainly be picking what we feel is the best XI to beat Canada,” he said. “There’ll be no thought of playing players just to get practice. We need to win the game and make sure we get our World Cup campaign off and running.”Even though Canada went down to a seven-wicket defeat by Kenya on Wednesday, Vaughan said England couldn’t afford to take them lightly. “It’s a good thing we play again so soon. Bodies might be a little bit tired but it’s sometimes the best thing to get back on the horse and play. We know the conditions here now. We just need to make sure we improve our performance and make sure we come out on Sunday night with a victory.Despite the six-wicket defeat to New Zealand, Vaughan insisted it was too soon to write off England’s chances. “How significant this is only time will tell. It’s not a great start and we have to make sure we win the next two games to get into the Super Eights. But it’s certainly not the end of our tournament by a long way.”Reflecting on England’s middle-order collapse, Vaughan said: “We didn’t get a player to an 80 or a hundred when we know that if we do that we will post a decent total. In that position of 130-odd for three with 17 overs left, we should have played a lot better, got a lot more and and put them under a lot more pressure.”It’s a disappointment and a frustration. But we were also in a position of strength when we were in the field and we couldn’t capitalise on that either. Full credit to New Zealand, they put us under a lot of pressure with the ball. Shane Bond bowled very well.”James Anderson and Liam Plunkett hit back from the start, reducing New Zealand to 19 for 3, but Vaughan said England just didn’t have enough runs. “With the early wickets, there was a moment when we were all thinking this could be it. But when you’ve got the experience of Jacob Oram and Scott Styris coming in and playing the way they did, they quite easily saw them home and over the line.”

The Sri Lankan cricket authorities are confident that the Galle InternationalStadium, one of the world’s most picturesque cricket venues, will be readyto host thousands of English cricket supporters later this year.Flanked by the 400-year-old Dutch fort, the stadium was severely damaged during the Asian tsunami and, although the match has since hosted a first-class match, renovations have been held up by planning problems. However, the direct intervention of Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse solved disputes helped address the concerns of the Department of Archaeology, who were keen to protect Galle Fort, a UNESCO-protected World Heritage Site.”Galle will be ready in time to stage the first test against England,” K. Mathivanan, the secretary of Sri Lanka, told the media last week. “Weexperienced some delays on the construction of spectator stands on theFort side due to the concerns of the Department of Archaeology, but withthe help of the President of Sri Lanka we finally managed to get thenecessary approval to go ahead with work on that side of the ground.”The entire outfield has already been dug up and re-sowed, the practicenets are finished and an indoor training centre is back in operation. Theredevelopment, estimated to now cost £1.25 million, will also include anew pavilion with extra seating and corporate boxes, new dressing roomsand a modern media centre.Tourism authorities are hopeful that up to 5000 English cricket fans willtravel to Sri Lanka to celebrate the venue’s reopening and watch the firstTest starting on December 1, the start of the main holiday season. “The BarmyArmy and England’s fun-loving cricket fans are always welcome in Sri Lankaand we are expecting record numbers to come this year,” a tourist boardofficial said. “Interest is already high and rooms are selling fast.”The tour has been spilt into two legs with a five-match ODI series inOctober followed by a six-week break and then the Test series in December.In between the two tours, Sri Lanka will travel to Australia.

England wicketkeeper Paul Nixon has said that Michael Vaughan will be fit to lead the team in their vital World Cup match against Kenya on Saturday. Vaughan tripped in a pot-hole on Tuesday and required treatment on his right knee, but concerns over another injury were quickly allayed.And Nixon, who was one of the six players fined after their late night before the Canada match, said: “Michael had a little trip on a sprinkler but he’s fine, he’s 100 percent.” Vaughan has twice looked in decent form with scores of 26 and 45 against New Zealand and Canada before throwing his wicket away on both occasions.Nixon, who has also been in strong batting form early in the tournament, is keen to put the issues of the past week behind him and move forward. “I think anything like this brings guys together,” he said. “There’s a lot of honesty and openness in the dressing room and that’s important going forward.”He also gave his version of events on that Friday night in St Lucia. “Obviously I’ve apologised to Duncan Fletcher for being out too late after a game and we’ve moved on as a team and Duncan’s accepted that. I had a reasonably quiet night but stayed out too long in the public domain. I’ve learnt my lesson, held my hands up, apologised and we’ll take it from there.”Cricket is a game that can kick you in the backside at any stage if you don’t stay focused and it’s important we stay focused and move forward from what’s happened. We’ve got to take every game as a huge event and try to win this World Cup.”England are now involved in a shoot-out with Kenya, who they play on Saturday, for the second qualifying spot alongside New Zealand that would see them into the second phase, Super Eight stage. Nixon said England could take heart from the way in which the Black Caps thrashed Kenya by 148 runs on Tuesday. “Every game is a tricky game. New Zealand and ourselves are very closely matched and we’ll be doing our homework.”

Rumblings over the standard of cricket in the Logan Cup continued to grow at the end of the third round of the competition which saw more low scores and underprepared pitches.Westerns underlined their title ambitions with their third straight win, crushing a dire Northerns side by an innings and 71 runs. Westerns made 244, and then bowled out Northerns for 47, with Keith Dabengwa turning in a remarkable spell of 7 for 1. Following on, Northerns limped to 126. The failure of Northerns, who are largely the once-powerful Masonaland side, is a damning indictment of a hard-line selection policy which has driven away many players.At Mutare, Kenya Select went down to their second straight defeat, losing by seven wickets to Easterns, who now seem to provide the only challenge to Westerns. Easterns made 382, built around a hundred from F Mutizwa, and then bowled out the Kenyans for 199, with only Maurice Ouma’s 116 offering any resistance. Timycen Maruma was the pick of the bowler with 6 for 40. Following on, the visitors made 332, with David Obuya’s hundred the anchor innings, while Prosper Utseya grabbed 6 for 91. Set 140 to win, Easterns had few problems, Tino Mawoyo making his second fifty of the match.At Kwekwe, Centrals scored their second successive win with a 102-run victory over Southerns inside two days. As was the case last week, the pitch was not up to scratch – no batsman made an aggregate of 50 runs in the match – and despite being bowled out for 141, Centrals took a first-innings lead of 90. Set 271 to win, Southerns slid to 86 for 5 before some late resistance enabled them to post a respectable score. Michael Chinouya took 5 for 31 to give him seven wickets overall.To the shame of Zimbabwe Cricket, it continues to be unwilling, or more likely incapable, of proving scores to the media, thus ensuring that the tournament is played in virtual secrecy.

What came as relief initially for both the teams now poses a serious threat to the third one-dayer. After the hot and sultry Dhaka, the teams are experiencing the other extreme. It has been raining here since the middle of Sunday night, with the intensity ranging from steady drizzle to heavy downpour.Both the teams practised at the indoor nets today. The weather forecast is nasty: a level-seven warning for winds from the Bay of Bengal has been issued, level ten being considered highly dangerous. Level seven is supposed to be a forecast for high winds and rain and the warning is expected to stay for three to four days. Even if it does stop raining, the groundsmen have a task on hand to get the ground ready for play on Tuesday. It will take at least three to four hours for the sun to single-mindedly beat down for the ground to be fit for play. The groundsmen have already started to worry about the Test due to start on May 18.The inclement weather promises to spoil Bangladesh’s last chance to live up to the expectations they had raised at the World Cup. ‘Playing for pride’ is a term much abused in sport. Every inconsequential match, every dead rubber is dubbed a defense of pride for the team who have already lost. For once, however, the phrase is relevant. When Bangladesh play India in the third ODI tomorrow, weather permitting, they will play for much more than recently-earned pride. They will also know this will be their last realistic chance to give Dav Whatmore a fitting farewell, unless they later do something they have never done against the more powerful teams – win a Test match. This is also Habibul Bashar’s last home one-dayer.It has taken Bangladesh a lot of time to make the world sit up and take notice. From hoping to not lose to believing they’d win to expecting to win has been one long journey. Now that the world has seen what they’re capable of, they would want a better result than 0-3 in the one-dayers. For most of the first match they dominated but contrived to somehow lose. Then, they didn’t quite bring their A game in the second one-dayer. Within three days, they showed both their quality and inconsistency.If the match doesn’t happen, Robin Uthappa and RP Singh, who last got a chance during the Champions Trophy in 2006, will also be disappointed. They’re set for their first opportunity in the series. For the two, this could also mean a last opportunity to impress ahead of tours to Ireland and England.Uthappa is supposed to bat at No.3 for India, which means Virender Sehwag will get another chance at the top of the innings. Rahul Dravid suggested he was worried about Sehwag getting good starts but not converting them into meaningful innings. “For someone of Sehwag’s calibre, we truly do believe that he should go all the way and play bigger innings,” Dravid said, “He is getting starts and he is not carrying on. That is definitely something we know that Sehwag should do. Sehwag himself knows that he must start converting those starts into meaningful contributions for the team.”Dinesh Mongia might end up being the one to make way for Uthappa. Mongia took three wickets in the first game but hasn’t impressed with the bat. Zaheer Khan will be rested and Sreesanth not risked ahead of the Test series and a busy season. Bangladesh have a few fitness problems, with Mohammad Ashraful hospitalised with fever, and Farhad Reza, his expected replacement, down with fever too. All this, of course, may not matter too much with the heavens threatening to open up and have the final word.Teams (likely)Bangladesh1 Tamim Iqbal, 2 Javed Omar, 3 Habibul Bashar (capt), 4 Saqibul Hasan, 5 Farhad Reza, 6 Aftab Ahmed, 7 Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), 8 Mohammad Rafique, 9 Abdur Razzak, 10 Shahadat Hossain, 11 Syed Rasel.India 1 Virender Sehwag, 2 Gautam Gambhir, 3 Robin Uthappa, 4 MS Dhoni (wk), 5 Yuvraj Singh, 6 Rahul Dravid (capt), 7 Dinesh Karthik, 8 Piyush Chawla, 9 Ramesh Powar, 10 RP Singh, 11 Munaf Patel.

Alec Bedser has been fond of repeating Arthur Mailey’s bon mot that “the last bowler to be knighted was Sir Francis Drake”. Not any more because Alec Victor Bedser, now 78 and the 16th man to be knighted for his services to cricket, is also the first specialist bowler. A fierce patriot, his twin brother Eric will share his pride today, as always.The pedant might argue that Gubby, Sir George, Allen was abowler first and foremost but he made 11 first-class hundreds,one in a Test. Bedser, it is true, made a century himself, butin 576 first-class innings he passed 50 on only 12 otheroccasions.With a bat he did his honest best, as he has throughout anindustrious life. But with a new ball he was in his element, aholy terror whenever there was anything in the pitch and aformidable opponent even on a flat one. Sturdy as an oak, he hadthe perfect rocking action and his stock combination offast-medium inswing and leg cut brought him 1,924 wickets at 20runs each: 236 at 24 in his 51 Tests.A pillar of the all-conquering Surrey side of the 1950s, hecarried England’s attack in the years of rebuilding after thewar and made lifelong friends of opponents, especially his mostdemanding one, Don Bradman. He will be visiting Sir Donald inAdelaide shortly, as he does in most winters.Twice he was able to do so as manager of MCC tours, a reminderthat this honour reflects not just his bowling and his exemplarybearing on the field but also his work for English cricket sincehis retirement, including 13 years as chairman of selectors,1969-81, during which England lost only two of their sevenseries for the Ashes.His stern criticism of the current standard of English bowlingis understandable: when Bedser played on the same ground onwhich the second Test in Harare was drawn, his match figuresagainst a Rhodesia side containing three Test players were28-14-36-7.Cricketing KnightsFrancis Lacey (1926), Fred Toone (1929), Pelham Warner (1937),Donald Bradman (1949), Henry Leveson-Gower (1953), Jack Hobbs(1953), Leonard Hutton (1956), Frank Worrell (1964), NevilleCardus (1967), Garfield Sobers (1975), George Allen (1986),Richard Hadlee (1990), Colin Cowdrey (1992), Clyde Walcott(1994), Everton Weekes (1995), Alec Bedser (1996).Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)

Shaun Tait has tested out his injured elbow in a novel way by joining an Indian chef in the kitchen. Experiencing heat of a different kind, Tait briefly added cooking chicken korma and fish curry to his rehabilitation programme in Melbourne, where he rated himself a “decent chance” of making the tour to South Africa.After having surgery in June, Tait has recovered well enough to be named in the Twenty20 World Championship squad, but he is still a few weeks away from his first bowl at the Centre of Excellence in Brisbane. “I’ll see how the elbow goes in the next couple of weeks to see whether I can get up for it or not,” Tait told .”It feels fine but obviously with bowling a fair bit of stress goes on it. I’m a decent chance but we’ll see how it goes.” He has no plans to tinker with his technique despite regular injuries since playing his first Test in 2005.If fit for the tournament in September, Tait will use the series to prove he is ready for regular action in the following seven-match one-day tour of India before focussing on adding to his two Test appearances. He played his first season of one-day internationals last summer and his 23 World Cup wickets were crucial to Australia’s overall success.”There’s going to be some pretty big opportunities coming up,” Tait said. “With Glenn McGrath stepping down I suppose there’s a new door that could be opened and if I get the opportunity hopefully I’ll do well.” Tait is also excited by the prospect of bowling with Brett Lee, who is due to return in South Africa from ankle surgery.Tait was in the kitchen to launch the general release of tickets for the upcoming Australian summer. Australia will face India in four Tests starting on Boxing Day after playing two matches against Sri Lanka in November. The three sides will also take part in the CB Series while Australia will attempt to regain the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy in December.Tickets go on sale in Sydney, Adelaide, Hobart and Perth on Wednesday while seats in Brisbane will be offered on Thursday and in Melbourne on Friday. “The team has had a great record in Australia for the past decade,” Tait said, “and a big part of that success is the encouragement we receive from our green-and-gold army of supporters.”

There have been troubled tours in the history of Indian cricket,but it is safe to assume that when it comes to seamy incidents,internal rivalry, petty jealousy, gross mismanagement and a poorrecord, the 1936 tour of England is the yardstick by whichunhappy tours are judged. Everything that could go wrong with ateam on tour took place, and the largely self-created problemsengulfed the team and affected the morale of the players. Whichwas a pity for, man to man, there is little doubt that the 1936Indian team is one of the strongest to have gone on tour.It would seem unbelievable to today’s generation that a sideincluding the likes of CK Nayudu, Amar Singh, Mohammad Nissar,Wazir Ali, Lala Amarnath, Syed Mushtaq Ali and Vijay Merchantshould end up with a dismal record of having just four victoriesin 28 first-class matches on the tour, losing 12 and drawing 12.Or that the three-match series should have been lost 0-2 with thevisitors going down by nine wickets in both the first and thirdTests, England having the better of the drawn second Test.For starters, the side was badly led by the Maharajah ofVizianagaram and managed by Maj Brittain-Jones. Four years ago,the prince appointed captain had graciously stepped down infavour of CK Nayudu. But ‘Vizzy,’ as he was popularly known,refused to do the same. Not only was he a passenger as a batsmanand fielder ­ his average for the three Tests was 8.25 – he alsohad very strong likes and dislikes, and allowed personal enmityto often get the better of him.Mushtaq Ali being offered a gold watch to run out Merchant, BaqaJilani getting his Test cap because he insulted CK Nayudu at thebreakfast table – these were the kind of incidents that marredthe tour. A bit of a dictator, Vizzy had in Brittain-Jones amartinet sidekick. The two ruled with an iron hand, and themanager was at his worst in the Lala Amarnath incident, when thestar all-rounder was sent packing home midway through the tour asa disciplinary measure.The inquiry that went into the seamy happenings of the tourtermed the action as ‘stern’ and exonerated Amarnath, but thedamage had been done. Under such circumstances, the players couldnot be expected to perform at their best. Also, some of thejealousy and distrust among the players that were evident fouryears ago continued ­ only this time more vehemently.With the atmosphere marred by suspicion, the dice was heavilyloaded against the visitors almost every time they stepped on tothe field ­ and particularly so in the Tests. The batting andbowling came under severe pressure under which both crumbled.England helped themselves to scores of 571 for eight declared inthe second Test at Manchester and 471 for eight declared in thethird Test at the Oval. They also dismissed India for scores of147, 93, 203 and 222. India, thanks to a deadly spell by AmarSingh, who took six for 35, took the first-innings lead in thefirst Test at Lord’s ­ the only time India did so till 1971 ­ butthe second-innings collapse meant that England could coast tovictory.But there were the proverbial silver linings. Predominant amongthese was the record 203-run opening stand between Mushtaq Aliand Merchant at Manchester. India were 368 runs behind on thefirst innings, but in dazzling fashion, they scored the runs injust two-and-a-half hours. It was ethereal batting that had thecritics groping for adjectives. Both openers got hundreds, withMushtaq’s being the first Test hundred by an Indian abroad.Then of course there was Nayudu’s courageous knock of 81 in thethird Test; incidentally it proved to be his last Test innings.Hit on the heart by an ultra-fast ball from the England captain’Gubby’ Allen, Nayudu not only stayed his ground after receivingmedical treatment for a brief while but counter-attacked in amanner that brought back memories of the Golden Age for oldtimers. Amar Singh’s spell of six for 35 that saw Englanddismissed for 134 was another highlight of the tour. Both Nissarand Amar Singh in fact lived up to their reputation, but they hadlittle support. The two shared 22 wickets in the three Tests,while all the other bowlers accounted for just six.Amar Singh had impressed Walter Hammond four years ago, and onthis tour he left a lasting impression on Len Hutton, then anestablished Yorkshire star and on the verge of getting hisEngland cap. Thirty-four years later, in an interview in Madras,Hutton recalled, “There is no better bowler in the world todaythan Amar Singh.”In first-class matches, Merchant was head and shoulders above histeammates. He scored 1,745 runs at an average of 51.32. Thisincluded 282 runs in the Tests. So classy and correct was hisbatting that Neville Cardus hailed him as the “Indians’ goodEuropean” and suggested that to solve their opening battingproblems in Australia during the winter, the England team take aphotograph of Merchant for inspiration. Nayudu (1,102) andMushtaq Ali (1,078) were the others to cross the 1,000-run mark.Among the bowlers, Nissar headed the averages, taking 66 wicketsat 25.13 apiece. Amar Singh by now was a popular and well-paidLancashire league professional and was released only for ahandful of matches, besides the three Tests.But England generally had things their own way. Hammond hadsuccessive knocks of 167 and 217, while Allen picked up 20wickets in the series. On the second day of the second Test, 588runs were scored ­ still the most runs scored in a day of Testcricket. Of these, England scored 398 runs for the loss of sixwickets while India replied with 190 for none.