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Former West Indies captain Courtney Walsh is optimistic the regional team can make a big impact at the forthcoming World Cup.Test cricket’s highest wicket-taker feels Carl Hooper’s men will surprise those who have not given West Indies much of a chance.”I expect them to go all the way and I would love to see West Indies in the final,” Walsh told NATIONSPORT yesterday.”Once we get to the final, the better team will come up trumps. We have to play some good cricket and I am backing the boys to make it to the final.”West Indies, champions in 1975 and 1979, have not qualified for a final since 1983.They have been placed in Pool B alongside South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Kenya, Bangladesh and Canada, and some reckon they will have a tough time to emerge among the top three in the group to advance to the Super Six stage.”I like the position they’re in – where nobody is paying them much attention,” Walsh said.”We will go in as the underdogs or outsiders, which is good for the team. They have a nice, balanced squad. If everybody play as well as they played on the last tour and we bowl just a little bit better, I think we have a very good chance.”A veteran of three World Cups, Walsh is in Barbados to play in a match organised by the Variety Club of Barbados to raise funds for the construction of an autism centre.The match was scheduled for Carlton Club last night.The former West Indies pacer, who captured 519 wickets in 132 Tests between 1984 and 2001, said the major challengers to West Indies at the World Cup would be defending champions Australia and hosts South Africa.”If you are playing in South Africa, you cannot write off the home team. Australia and New Zealand are playing good cricket and Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan have a way of turning it on and off.”All the teams are good, but the top three everybody is going to be watching are Australia and South Africa as the top two, and New Zealand, one of the strong contenders,” Walsh said.”Those are the top three everybody is going to be watching, but I personally think West Indies can surprise all of them.”

Australia chalked up an emphatic first win in the Vodafone Challenge series by overpowering Worcestershire on the final day at New Road.The tourists added 124 in 90 minutes before declaring at 360-8 and then dismissed the county for 188 to romp home by 360 runs with more than ten overs to spare.Damien Fleming instigated Worcestershire’s struggle with two wickets in successive overs on either side of lunch. Anurag Singh edged to second slip and Graeme Hick’s unhappy match closed with a first-ball nick to first slip.Philip Weston pulled successive fours off Nathan Bracken before he was lbw to the left-arm paceman for 22 and Glenn McGrath landed the decisive blows on his team-mates from last year when he was Worcestershire’s overseas player.The Aussies’ No 1 fast bowler accounted for Vikram Solanki and Kadeer Ali in his afternoon spell and came back after tea to post a final return of four for 31 in 12.3 overs.McGrath trapped Kabir Ali lbw for 39 after the young all-rounder had hit eight fours in the one notable stand of 66 in 20 overs with top scorer David Leatherdale.Matt Rawnsley went in McGrath’s next over and Leatherdale was ninth out for 72, a quality innings of 11 fours ended by a yorker from Bracken after the Yorkshireman had faced 113 balls.The Australians’ morning workout with the bat included a rousing 41 from 23 balls by Shane Warne, who then held two slip catches and took the wicket of Jamie Pipe, but the man of the match award went to Damien Martyn for his 108 on the first day.

Newcastle United have added FC Porto’s Otavio to their transfer shortlist, Portuguese publication A Bola (via Sport Witness) report. 

The lowdown

Otavio’s primary position is right midfield but he’s showcased some impressive versatility in his career.

He’s played 81 games as an attacking midfielder and 67 as either a left midfielder or a left winger.

The Portuguese has made 40 appearances for Porto so far this season, starting 25 out of a possible 27 Primeira Liga matches for the unbeaten leaders.

The latest

The report states that Newcastle United have taken a liking to Otavio, who’s now very much ‘on their radar’.

Newcastle officials have been spotted at Porto matches ‘multiple times’ to run the rule over the talent in Sergio Conceicao’s side.

His profile apparently matches the criteria established by The Magpies’ recruitment team.

Otavio’s contract includes a release clause of €60million, which equates to about £51million.

The verdict

Would Otavio be a good signing for The Magpies? Well, he may only have scored five goals this season, but his tally of 12 assists is more impressive.

Indeed, only two players in the squad – Mehdi Taremi (16) and Fabio Vieira (13) – can better that tally.

What’s more, he’s only shown an eagerness to contribute out of possession, leading the way in the Porto ranks for tackles per 90 minutes with 3.3.

His aforementioned versatility means he’d be able to compete with Allan Saint-Maximin, Ryan Fraser and even midfielders like Joe Willock and Joelinton for places.

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And if Newcastle chiefs were watching him in action for Portugal last week, they were surely impressed.

Otavio scored the opening goal as Fernando Santos’ men beat Turkey 3-1 to move within one win of qualifying for the World Cup, eclipsing the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Diogo Jota with his SofaScore rating of 8.0/10.

In other news, Steve Nickson is eyeing this Serie A gem.

	Shahid Afridi could be heading to Cardiff © AFP

Glamorgan are in talks to sign Shahid Afridi, the Pakistan allrounder, for their Twenty20 campaign this summer.”We want a top-class player who will win us matches and also drag people through the gate and Afridi is someone who fits the bill,” Matthew Maynard, Glamorgan’s cricket manager, said. “It’s up to the Pakistan board to agree to release him for that period of his contract.”There were rumours last week that Glamorgan were trying to sign Brian Lara, but the club denied the suggestion vehemently. Whether they sign Afridi or another big name from overseas, Glamorgan desperately need to improve on a poor performance last year in which they finished bottom of their division, with just one win in eight matches.”Afridi is one of only half a dozen players in the world who would help the team progress in the competition but also benefit us commercially by filling our magnificent new stadium. That’s the purpose,” said Maynard. “I’m keen to sign a big name player for the Twenty 20 window and there are only a small pool of big names still available.”Virander Sehwag and Yurvaj Singh are also possibilities. Sachin Tendulkar was another option. But he’s not been a great Twenty 20 player. We need a player who contributes in all aspects.”The PCB, however, have yet to release Afridi or Danish Kaneria who is due to play for Essex. A executive board meeting will be held on March 8, when more strict guidelines on the use of Pakistan players in country cricket are expected to be unveiled.

The famous fort at Galle © Getty Images

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.

Shane Bond should be fit and ready for the first Test © Getty Images

Shane Bond is still expected to be fit for the first Test at Centurion despite concerns over a knee injury which forced him to sit out most of the tour opener at Benoni.A spokesman for the New Zealanders said medical staff were confident Bond would be ready. “It’s not a structural thing like a medial ligament. There’s a connecting tendon that sometimes gets a bit inflamed, so as a precaution we took him out of here to have a look at it. It’s a reoccurrence of something we knew about and it will be carefully managed.”Lindsay Crocker, the team’s manager, told reporters that Bond had been undergoing treatment and was walking freely.Crocker added that the entire squad was still jet-lagged and that they had all been given Wednesday off to recover.

Steve Waugh and the 2001 Aussies in the Gallipoli trenches © Getty Images

In 2001, Steve Waugh took his Ashes squad on a detour to Gallipoli, where they made an emotional pilgrimage to the place where 9000 Anzac soldiers died in an ill-fated First World War campaign. This year, Ricky Ponting’s men will stop off in Northern France to visit the battlefields of the Western Front.Although Gallipoli is synonymous with the Australian contribution to the First World War, there were four times as many men killed in France and Belgium. According to a report in The Daily Telegraph, the Australian squad will be based in Lille, from where they will visit the Australian Memorial Park at Fromelles and the town of Villers-Bretonneux, where Australian troops halted the German spring offensive in 1918.”People say we’re heroes and put us on a bit of a pedestal,” said Waugh during the 2001 trip to Gallipoli, “but realistically there are so many people who deserve more accolades than us. The soldiers who fought here are the heroes. We just go out and play sport and we’re good at it.”

Sourav Ganguly battled on after being hit on the head © AFP

Sourav Ganguly has put to rest the speculations that has raged over Sachin Tendulkar’s ‘demotion’ in the batting order in the second innings, and that should be that. When pushed to answer what prompted the decision, Ganguly clarified that Tendulkar hadn’t suggested the move, but when given an option, had a shown an inclination to save himself for the battle the next day.”It’s not that he suggested it,” Ganguly said, “I asked him after they got bowled out that evening if we were to lose early wickets would he still like to go out for the last four or five overs. He said he wouldn’t mind coming the next day. I said fair enough. He deserves that consideration after the amount of runs he has scored for the country.”It wasn’t the best time to bat. And when you haven’t got runs in your last two or three innings it does become a bit harder when you come out to bat in the last five or six overs of the day. Sachin is the best batsman in the world and he is one of our key members. And there are times in your career when you have to look after certain people. I don’t think there is anything wrong in that. We want him to fire, and if he could have converted that knock into a hundred, me coming at number four would have done the job.”Not to anybody’s surprise Ganguly held the batting collapse in the first innings responsible for the defeat. “We were in good positions in the match, but we failed to capitalise on them,” he said, “we ended the first day on 336 for four and then got bowled out for 366. That’s where we lost the game. Of course, Zaheer [Khan] pulling a muscle before lunch on the second day didn’t help”, he added, because it left India with three bowlers for most of the match. “But in end, if we had put up a few more runs in the first innings, it would have helped. On a fifth-day MCG pitch, about 225 to 230 runs would have been competitive.”Ganguly said his head had been a bit sore after he took a blow from Brad Williams but that he had to return to bat because India were still in the game then. “Steve had come back to bat the earlier day and put on a partnership of 60 valuable runs,” he said, “and if I had stuck around for a bit more, it could have been different.”When asked if he and Dravid had been a bit too aggressive for their own good after the tea-break Ganguly asserted that the objective at that point was not saving the game but putting runs on the board. “It was tea on the fourth day, not the fifth, there was plenty of time left in the game for us to try to save it. We had to score runs. If a bad ball came along, you had to put it away. That’s the way I play my game and that’s how I have scored all my runs. If I suddenly tried to change that one afternoon, it wouldn’t have worked.”Has the momentum now swung in Australia’s favour? “Sydney is a new day,” Ganguly said, “It’s a new game. It’s going to be different. It’s the same situation that Australia were in after Adelaide. When two good sides play its the small, small sessions which will make the difference.”

PERTH, Dec 17 AAP – He looks like a pirate and loves nothing better than plundering bowling attacks with his unique brand of swash-buckling cricket.The dashing Ryan Campbell is set for his second taste of international one-day cricket when the Australian team is named tomorrow for Sunday’s day-night match against Sri Lanka at the WACA ground.The 30-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman is tipped to again replace West Australian team-mate Adam Gilchrist who is sitting out the match with a slight groin strain and knee soreness.If so it will be his second international one-day after he scored 38 from 52 balls in a 23-run loss to New Zealand at the SCG last season when filling in for Gilchrist.While Campbell is no Gilchrist, Gabba fans can attest to the right-hander’s entertainment value after his 42 from 28 balls in Australia A’s win over Sri Lanka on Saturday.Such was the audacity of Campbell’s two flick shots over the Sri Lankan keeper that viewers could have been excused for thinking they had stumbled upon a game of backyard cricket.His radical style has seemed even more appropriate this summer with his wild facial hair.Campbell grew up in the goldfields city of Kalgoorlie where he developed a fossicker’s inventive style.But former WA team-mate Simon Katich was one person who was hardly surprised at Campbell’s improvisation last weekend after spending the last six summers playing together.Katich did have reservations about Campbell’s current look.”He’s sporting a new-look mullet and he has had fair bit of growth happening, he’s looking a bit eccentric actually,” Katich said.But the current NSW player said any comparison with the destructive play of Gilchrist was difficult.”It is hard to compare anyone with Gilly, but in terms of a guy who can play some strokes, Campbo’s right up there,” Katich said.He put Campbell’s unconventional scoring ways to having a superb eye.”He picks up the ball pretty early and he plays shots other blokes probably wouldn’t,” he said.”He can pick up fours and sixes with shots that aren’t conventional but are totally effective.”In a recent four-day match against Victoria, Campbell when berserk mid-innings with 10 fours in 18 deliveries before being lowered by a ball which struck him in the groin.He dropped to his knees and crawled along like a desperate man searching for water in the desert.He was out only five runs later for 75.”Campbo can change the tempo of a game, because he scores so quickly he also takes the pressure off the batsman at the other end,” Katich said.Whatever happens for Campbell this weekend, be assured of one thing, when he is at the crease tune in, because it will not be dull.

Mudassar Nazar Photo © CricInfo

If any one cricketer can walk on water then he’s Inzamam. He carried his test match form straight into one-day cricket. Pakistan was unable to take full advantage of this memorable innings as they fell a bit short of a commanding total. Who could have thought this burly chap would score over 8000 runs in one-day cricket when first chosen to play for Pakistan.

Inzamam drives for 4 through the off side Photo © CricInfo

Pakistan elected to bat first on an ideal batting pitch. It used to be a rather benign one until it changed character once Alan Donald signed up for Warwickshire. All the test matches there started to finish within four days and most of the county batsmen started to take time off when it was their turn to confront the Mighty Donald. Ironically, Donald parted company with Warwickshire last season and this pitch has now changed character again.Pakistan started this game on the back of their victory at Old Trafford amidst some very unfair and strong criticism. If Pakistan players felt that English pundits were unjust, then they were justified. When a McGrath or Caddick stares down at batsmen its called ‘raw aggression’ but if Wasim and Waqar do it the English media call it ‘disgraceful intimidation’ and labels them as bad boys of world cricket.One cannot ignore that England lost the test because they had two bad sessions in five days and Pakistan’s skipper was good and aggressive enough to wrest the initiative well: Enough about the last test match. I just wanted to get it off my chest.

Afridi executes a perfect cover drive off Gough Photo © CricInfo

Afridi started Pakistan’s innings in his own fashion. Though he is exhilarating but one knows nine time out of ten this excitement will be short and sweet. Just when English bowlers looked helpless and baffled, he gave it away. I just cannot understand why he can’t settle down after he has given his team such an impetus.Razzaq was unfortunately run out. His dismissal was a blessing in disguise for Pakistan. Inzamam, in great form recently, needs as many overs at his disposal as he can. This is a strong reason why I want him to bat at number three. Saeed after a circumspect start did settle down to play an important innings. Together, they systematically destroyed the England bowlers. None of the bowlers seemed in control of the situation. Why did England drop Robert Croft for this game? In the face of a decent Pakistan partnership they had no back up bowler to support their new ball bowlers.Inzamam and Saeed entertained the full house at Edgbaston in brilliant fashion. Some of their strokes down the ground were truly memorable. Alec Stewart, desperate for a breakthrough, brought back his best bowler Darren Gough. All his teammates were horrified when he spilled a simple return catch off Saeed. Pakistan lost their two stalwarts in quick succession and consequently lost momentum. At this juncture, I’d have promoted the in form Younis Khan in place of Youhana. Anyway, Pakistan missed this trick and unable to score around 300 runs, which at the half way stage, looked a mere formality. After the productive Saeed – Inzamam partnership, 273 for 6 was certainly well below Par.

Waqar Younis, leads his side to victory in the 1st NatWest ODI Photo © CricInfo

Pakistan started their defense in some extremely bowling friendly conditions. England is heaven for fast and medium pace bowlers and when you invite them to bowl in the evening you are simply asking for trouble. Wasim and Waqar bowled excellent opening spells aided by the evening heavy atmosphere moving the ball disconcertingly, in the air and off the pitch. It must have been disheartening for England because their own bowlers looked like club class bowlers in the afternoon sunshine.Waqar, bowling at a brisk pace accounted for his old teammate Ally Brown when he angled the ball away. Trescothick was looking dangerous when the captain outfoxed him too with a slower delivery. Then Shoaib Malik and Saeed Anwar splendidly caught Stewart and Vaughan. After the initial burst from Wasim and Waqar, England were never in the hunt for this game.Razzaq and Azhar seemed at home bowling in this one-day game. Razzaq in particular bowled at a sharp pace and looked a class act. I feel he likes this form of cricket. Lo and behold, Pakistan’s fielding standard was excellent today too! Shoaib Malik who came on as a substitute is the best athlete in the team.Towards the end, Shahid Afridi made a mockrey of the batsmen who could not wait to get out of the ground. In just two games all of England’s frailties have been exposed and they look disjointed in the absence of Nasser Hussain. Pakistan on the other hand, is fully committed to their captain who once again gave a commanding performance. There is no better time to take on the Aussies.

Ed:Mudassar Nazar is a veteran of 76 tests and 122 ODIs. He is currently the chief coach of Pakistan’s National and Regional Cricket Academies. In view of the overwhelming interest of users in CricInfo’s articles, we have invited him to write for us.