All posts by csb10.top

In an unusual turn of events, the Sydney Thunder have announced the signing of Usman Khawaja a day after another Big Bash franchise, the Perth Scorchers, claimed to have signed him.The Scorchers were under the impression they had reached an agreement with Khawaja’s management on July 6 but were subsequently told that the player was still considering his options and could join another BBL team closer to his Sydney home.Andrew Scotford, the WACA cricket manager, said there had been a “miscommunication” with Khawaja before the batsman left for Zimbabwe to join the Australia A tour, which is why they were forced to backtrack after claiming they had signed him on Friday.The Thunder, who will play at Sydney’s Olympic stadium, issued a statement confirming that Khawaja will suit up for them. “I am honoured to have the chance to be playing for the Sydney Thunder this season,” Khawaja said in the statement. “I have been very impressed by the calibre of players already in the squad and we are looking forward to making our mark in the first season of the Big Bash League.”

Ricky Ponting, the former Australian captain, expects to bat at No.3 when the team led by Michael Clarke plays three Tests in Sri Lanka in August.The day after Simon Katich was unceremoniously removed from the 25-man list of Cricket Australia contracted players, Ponting emerged to express the view that he would keep his place at the fall of the first wicket.The debutant Usman Khawaja batted in Ponting’s place during the final Test of the Ashes series at the SCG, but may now be looking at a middle order berth.”I will stay at where the captain wants me to bat, the last few years I have had the luxury of batting where I want because I was the captain – but I can’t do that anymore,” Ponting told the radio station . “Sri Lanka I will probably stay at three and see where we go after that, but I have not heard from the captain.”Not too much will change on the next tour, although Simon Katich received some bad news yesterday which opens the door for Phil Hughes to slot into the opening partnership there.”Though he batted there with some success early in his career, and significantly had an excellent series in Sri Lanka in the role in 1999, Ponting expressed some distaste for batting lower down the order now he has relinquished the captaincy.”I am not averse to it, but when I started my Test career at number six I found it really difficult being a top order batsmen my whole junior days,” Ponting said. “I did not know what to do with my time basically, waiting to go out to bat.”I quite often found myself more mentally tired waiting to go out bat rather – but if the captain wants me to bat at three or six then so be it.”

Zimbabwe have announced an extensive 32-man training squad ahead of engagements against Australian and South African A teams that will kick off a busy 2011-12 season. Sean Williams, the left-handed batsman and part-time spinner who was part of Zimbabwe’s World Cup squad, is the only really notable absentee from the squad list, but it is the inclusion of Pakistan-born batsman Sikandar Raza that will raise interest on the local cricket scene.Raza, 25, emigrated from Pakistan in 2002 as a 15-year-old and played his first games for Northerns at the tail end of the 2006-’07 season. He then moved to Scotland to study at Langside College, turning up briefly as Colne’s professional in the Lancashire League and also getting a game for Weirs in the Scotland Cup. He returned to Zimbabwe with a Bachelor’s degree in software engineering and quickly moved from the Southern Rocks B side to their first XI.He made his mark in limited-overs cricket first, and was Southern Rocks’ leading run-scorer in the 2010-’11 Stanbic Bank 20 series. His development has also come on in first-class cricket, and he managed 625 runs at 41.66 in last season’s Logan Cup. According to Alistair Campbell, Zimbabwe’s chairman of selectors, Raza would be considered for national duty once his citizenship papers came through, and that is now the case.Raza will be training alongside the core of Zimbabwe’s batting talent, with almost all the regular national players included in the squad and the likes of Tino Mawoyo, Vusi Sibanda, Forster Mutizwa and Terry Duffin also pushing for a place in the top six – particularly with Williams, who has spent the off-season playing hockey, out of contention for the moment. Hamilton Masakadza’s formidable Logan Cup form has been impossible to ignore, and he has been re-called after being left out of Zimbabwe’s World Cup plans, while Charles Coventry also remains in the set-up, though the coaching staff will be impatient for him to turn undoubted potential into solid results.Equally as eye-catching as Raza’s call-up are the inclusions of several untested young seamers in the training group. National coach Alan Butcher has made clear his desire to unearth more fast-bowling talent ahead of the team’s return to Tests later this year. Joining the national team regulars are relative unknowns such as Mike Chinouya, Tochukwu Enwerem, Brian Vitori, Lovemore Manatsa, Maxwell Chifamba and Njabulo Ncube.Ncube and Chinouya have reasonable first-class experience, having played 33 and 29 games respectively, but Manatsa and Chifamba are newcomers and Enwerem, a left-arm seamer, presumably caught the eye while playing for Zimbabwe Under-19s earlier this year. Vitori, another left-armer, put in some quality performances in both limited-overs and first-class cricket towards the end of last season, but it’s highly unlikely that any of these greenhorns will feature in Zimbabwe’s Test plans. Their presence, nipping at the heels of the seniors, will at least give the regular seamers some competition and increase Zimbabwe’s options.Indeed, with Tendai Chatara and Keegan Meth, the two leading wicket-takers in the last Logan Cup, also in the group and Kyle Jarvis’s rehabilitation from stress fractures complete – via short stints with Burwell in the East Anglian Premier League and Essex’s Second XI – there could be a fierce struggle to fill two or three specialist seamers’ positions. Chris Mpofu, Shingirai Masakadza and Ed Rainsford will have plenty to prove if they are to keep their spots as the first-choice seamers.The selectors will also have the pleasant problem of deciding which spinner, or spinners, to play in the four-day games against Australia A. Prosper Utseya, Graeme Cremer and Ray Price pick themselves in limited-overs games – Zimbabwe’s recent one-day successes have been based upon an attack composed almost entirely of spinners – but in the longer format mere asphyxiation will not bring wickets.Natsai Mushangwe, a 20-year-old legspinner, has also been included in the squad after a promising first-class season with Mountaineers and appears to have leapfrogged domestic team-mate Timycen Maruma in the spin-bowling ranks. Maruma, who bowls a mixture of googlies and seam-up quicker deliveries, has barely put a foot wrong in domestic cricket since his debut in 2005-06 and had a first-class bowling average of just 17.89 last season, but will have to continue his wait for an extended run in the national side.Though the team that will play against Australia and South Africa A will officially be a Zimbabwe XI, in effect it will be the full national side taking part in the games as part of their preparations for the Test return against Bangladesh in early August. Seven limited-overs games will be played between the three teams between June 29 and July 8, followed by two four-day matches against Australia A between July 15 and July 24.Training squad Sikander Raza, Regis Chakabva, Tendai Chatara, Chamu Chibhabha, Maxwell Chifamba, Elton Chigumbura, Mike Chinouya, Charles Coventry, Graeme Cremer, Terrence Duffin, Tochukwu Enwerem, Craig Ervine, Kyle Jarvis, Greg Lamb, Lovemore Manatsa, Hamilton Masakadza, Shingirai Masakadza, Tino Mawoyo, Keegan Meth, Chris Mpofu, Natsai Mushangwe, Forster Mutizwa, Njabulo Ncube, Ian Nicolson, Tinashe Panyangara, Ray Price, Ed Rainsford, Vusi Sibanda, Tatenda Taibu, Brendon Taylor, Prosper Utseya, Brian Vitori

Martin Crowe, the former New Zealand captain, has said that he is contemplating a return to first-class cricket 15 years after retiring from it. Crowe, 48, said he sees it as a means of self-motivation and a tool to get fit – and also an opportunity to score the 392 runs he needs to tally 20,000 first-class runs.He will first turn out for the Cornwall cricket club before deciding on plans to play for Auckland Central Districts.”Every now and then you find yourself drifting along. I needed to do something to stay at the top of things,” Crowe told ESPNcricinfo.” It’s a little bit of fun but it’s based on the need to get off my butt. When you get to my age, you need to do something. Physically, I am a person who needs more than going to gym. I need to fire myself up. I don’t like swimming, cycling, or lifting weights. I can’t climb, I can’t run; why not bat? It’s a serious goal to get fit but it’s a fun and light-hearted attempt to see if a 48-year old can play and at what level. Unless you try you will never know.”He then added, with a laugh, “Hey! If Ganguly can do it, anyone can do it!” Shane Warne has been amazing and as a spin bowler he can probably bowl like that for a long time to come. Gilchrist has kept himself fit. It’s human nature to feel that you are top of things.”It’s also human nature that makes some fans wary of sportspersons making comebacks at such an age. The thought of watching their once-favourite player struggling doesn’t sit too well with some fans. Some even consider such comeback attempts to be a bit sad on the part of the player but Crowe said he didn’t subscribe to that view. “No. if I had done that at the age of 37-38, then may be your concerns would be valid. If I had done it then, it would have been sad. At that stage you are trying to make a comeback to international cricket. Now, I don’t have any aspiration to play international cricket. I gave up then because of my knee. I am interested to see if a 48-year old can bat. It’s probably unlikely. It’s probably only heard of at average club level. But that’s what we are going to check out.”Crowe said he drew inspiration from Adam Parore and Mark Richardson. “Parore is about to climb Mount Everest and Mark Richardson is about to do four marathons this year. I realised I needed to something that wasn’t just about getting fit but oriented towards something I would have fun doing. My friend texted me: ‘Why don’t you try knocking off 20,000 first-class runs? You have 392 to go.’ And I thought that’s the perfect answer. Why don’t I take a bat in my hand and see what happens when summer comes around. At the same time it could be fun because here in New Zealand the batting is in a little bit of decline and it will be a good way to see where the techniques are at.”Crowe was forced to quit international cricket due to his bad knee, with few career goals still unfinished. “I’m happy with my career except for the fact that I finished on a downer, with an injury. I suppose I wanted 20 hundreds, 6000 runs, but in the end I was not physically capable of hanging on. And a lot of politics came in to it. Howarth as coach was a joke, and I played under Lee Germon, which was ridiculous,” he had once said in a 2008 interview.After retirement, Crowe underwent an operation to his knee. “By the time I was 40, I couldn’t even walk. I had a major operation called an osteotomy; it gives you 15 years of interim relief until you are old enough to have an artificial knee. I have felt good with this operation in the last 4-5 years. I have been playing regular golf and walking with no discomfort. I just feel I need to do a little bit more as I am lacking focus on something. So I have come up with this.”The last time he picked up the bat was last March, when he turned out in a charity game for the Christchurch earthquake called ‘Fill the Basin’. Crowe made six runs, which included a boundary, before falling to Stephen Fleming. “I play regular golf and I have played cricket occasionally over the years. Two years ago, I took the New Zealand team to Hong Kong sixes and I did a lot of practice. When I was in Bangalore for IPL in 2008 as coach of Royal Challengers Bangalore, I did a lot of practice before the main players turned up. I faced a lot of Sunil Joshi in the nets. I felt good, fit. I know I can still use the bat, it’s the case of whether the body holds up, and how long the foot will keep moving until everything seizes up.”Crowe said he will stop playing when he gets close to risking an injury and shared his thoughts on facing young pace bowlers. “Getting injured is going to be a high probability. When it starts getting to that stage, you stop. The quest is over. I want to see how far I can push myself. I will start with club cricket and if all goes well, then that far-fetched dream of getting 20,000 runs is earned. That’s the Everest, the goal I am giving myself. I am pretty confident that I can play nice and straight and score runs with my ability to hit the ball where I want to. My eye-sight is pretty good. One of the challenges is to see how the nerves hold out – when a 20-year old is bowling at you, how do you feel about it? And I am quite keen to find out what’s that like. As soon as I get a feeling that it’s all too hard, that’s fine’; we shall pack it up. To walk out and play competitive cricket is the goal.”Crowe will return to his spiritual cricket home at the Cornwall cricket ground in Auckland. “I started there when I was six years old. That’s where my father’s ashes are. That’s where my family was brought up in cricketing sense.”Batting against pace might excite him but what about fielding at this age, and at what position will he field? “I like the gully,” Crowe said with a laugh. Asked whether he will consider turning out for New Zealand if he succeeds at the club and first-class levels, Crowe deadpanned: “Now you are getting silly mate!”

ScorecardA century from Ian Blackwell gave Durham maximum batting points and a lead of 36 against Warwickshire, who slipped to 52 for 4 in their second innings on the third day at Chester-le-Street. A high-scoring stalemate was looking likely until Durham brought on leg-spinner Scott Borthwick with eight overs left and he took three wickets.Borthwick struck with his second and fifth deliveries to trap William Porterfield and Mohammad Yousuf lbw. Porterfield was well forward, but Yousuf stayed back and tried to paddle around the corner. Unlike the first innings, when he was caught behind, the former Pakistan captain did not look too dismayed by the decision as he departed for a duck. Borthwick struck again in his fourth over when Ian Westwood was caught at short leg off bat and pad for 27.Blackwell showed uncharacteristic restraint when Durham resumed on 230 for 5, needing a further 50 to avoid the follow-on. He took 32 balls to add to his overnight five, while Dale Benkenstein scored only 10 in the first hour. The shackles were removed by the introduction of Paul Best.The 20-year-old student is making his Championship debut in place of fellow left-arm spinner Ant Botha who is out for four to six weeks with a knee injury, and that has given Warwickshire a problem after winning their first two games.Best did pick up two late wickets, but not before he had conceded 50 runs in eight overs. Blackwell got underway with a driven four and swept six in the same over and runs continued to flow when the new ball was taken.The stand was worth 161 when Benkenstein was bowled for 75 – his fifth half-century in seven innings – as Boyd Rankin produced a good spell after lunch. Despite his watchful start, Blackwell reached 50 off 79 balls and his only real scare came on 99.On 98 he scampered a single to mid-off and when the throw ended up at long leg he went back for the second. Andrew Miller hit the stumps and Blackwell was given the benefit of considerable doubt.There were 15 fours and two sixes in his 142-ball century, and he looked intent on turning it into a big one until he was run out for 125 in a mix-up with Callum Thorp. He was last out with the total on 465 when he was bowled for 15 by Best, the ball after driving him for a huge straight six.Warwickshire had 31 overs to bat after tea and lost Varun Chopra with the score on 19 when he pushed forward and edged Thorp to wicketkeeper Michael Richardson. They then looked like surviving without further mishap until Borthwick left them battling to avoid defeat on the final day.

Aizaz Cheema, the 31-year-old seamer who was picked for the limited-overs’ leg of Pakistan’s tour of West Indies, has been declared unfit by doctors. Aizaz will be replaced by Sadaf Hussain, a left-arm fast bowler from Rawalpindi.Hussain, 21, was one of the reserve players named by the selectors when they announced the team yesterday. He had a prolific Quaid-e-Azam season, capturing 64 wickets, with a career-best haul of 6 for 40. He has taken 90 wickets in 18 first-class games, including nine five-wicket hauls, and two ten-wicket match-hauls.The tour kicks off with a warm-up game from April 18, while the only Twenty20 will be played on April 21 in St Lucia. The five-match ODI series will begin on April 23, and the Test leg of the tour will commence on May 12. The squad for the Tests hasn’t yet been named.

Sind, driven by a 10-wicket match haul by Danish Kaneria, completed a comprehensive innings victory over Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province at the Lahore City Cricket Association Ground, within three days. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa began day three on 123 for 6, 335 runs short of Sind’s first-innings total. Mohammed Sami and Kaneria made short work of the tail, picking up the last four wickets for two runs, to finish with four wickets apiece.Sind enforced the follow on and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa did only slightly better the second time around. Wickets fell at regular intervals, with only opening batsman Rafatullah Mohmand (46) and Akbar Badshah (67*) showing much fight. Kaneria did most of the damage once again, picking up six wickets in a 21.5-over spell. Supported by fast bowler Sohail Khan and left-arm spinner Kashif Bhatti, he bundled Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa out for 216 to hand Sind an innings-and-110-run win.Baluchistan require a mammoth 413 to beat Punjab at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. Though they began the task reasonably, ending day three on 145 for 2, scoring 268 on a day-four pitch could prove tricky. If Baluchistan settle for a draw and get there, that would be a commendable result, considering they were shot out for 126 in their first innings.Punjab, resuming on 215 for 4 – with a lead of 324 – looked for quick runs. Overnight centurion Imran Farhat was bowled by Mohammad Irfan on 128, but the lower order managed a series of cameos at strike-rates of over 100 to get the lead past 400. Left-arm spinner Zulfiqar Babar was the pick of the bowlers with four wickets, as Punjab declared on 303 for 9. Baluchistan opener Zain Abbas was bowled by first innings wrecker-in-chief Mohammad Khalil cheaply, but a 110-run stand between Shoaib Khan Jr and Saeed Anwar Jr steadied the innings. Punjab had the last say though, dismissing Shoaib just prior to stumps for 84.

The three Pakistan players at the centre of the spot-fixing allegations that rocked the Lord’s Test against England last August have been charged by the UK Crown Prosecution Service with conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments, and conspiracy to cheat.Salman Butt, the former Test captain, and seamers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir have been accused of conspiring in the bowling of deliberate no-balls on last year’s tour of England – claims they all deny.Mazhar Majeed, the players’ agent, has also been charged, with a first hearing scheduled for City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on March 17. The CPS confirmed that extradition orders would be sought if the three players fail to appear in court, although Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s interior minister, gave his assurance back in September that the Pakistan government would co-operate fully with the investigation.”We have authorised charges of conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments and also conspiracy to cheat against Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif, Salman Butt and Mazhar Majeed,” Simon Clements, Head of the CPS Special Crime Division, said.”We have decided that Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif, Salman Butt and their agent, Mazhar Majeed, should be charged with conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments and also conspiracy to cheat. These charges relate to allegations that Mr Majeed accepted money from a third party to arrange for the players to bowl ‘no balls’ on 26 and 27 August 2010, during Pakistan’s Fourth Test at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London.”The CPS confirmed its findings in an announcement shortly after 11am GMT on Friday, and the trio could be banned for life when an International Cricket Council (ICC) tribunal announces the conclusions of its own investigation in Doha on Saturday. A CPS spokesperson said there was no connection between the two timings.”Summonses for the same court date [March 17] have been issued for the three players and they have been asked to return to this country voluntarily, as they agreed to do in September last year. Their extradition will be sought should they fail to return.”In August 2010, Britain’s News of the World tabloid conducted a newspaper ‘sting operation’ which it said proved the Pakistan trio’s willingness were involved in the deliberate bowling of no-balls during the Lord’s Test against England.This, the paper said, was evidence of a spot-betting scam where money can be gambled on specific incidents in a match without the need to ‘fix’ the result.All the Pakistan trio were interviewed by police. So too was Majeed, whom the newspaper alleged accepted £50,000 to set up the deal. Majeed was arrested, and a third fast bowler, Wahab Riaz, was also interviewed under caution.While the ICC, which heard evidence from Butt, Asif and Amir during a hearing in Doha last month, has to consider whether its rules were broken and what, if any, punishment should follow if they were, the CPS has decided that the players have a case to answer under English law.”The Crown Prosecution Service has been working closely with the Metropolitan Police Service since the allegations of match-fixing became public on 29 August 2010,” continued the statement. “We received a full file of evidence on 7 December 2010 and we are satisfied there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and it is in the public interest to prosecute.”I would remind everyone that these men are entitled to a fair trial and should be regarded as innocent of these charges unless it is proven otherwise in court. The International Cricket Council tribunal is due to announce its decision tomorrow, but criminal proceedings are active now. It is extremely important that nothing should be reported which could prejudice the trial.”Accepting corrupt payments is an offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 and carries a maximum sentence of seven years’ imprisonment and an unlimited fine. Cheating is an offence contrary to Section 42 of the Gambling Act 2005. It carries a maximum sentence of two years’ imprisonment and an unlimited fine.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsThe murder of Punjab governor Salman Taseer in Islamabad led to the cancellation of the sixth day of the final. The teams will meet again on January 6 to play out the extra day.

Grant Flower came back to Zimbabwe after a fruitful final season for Essex that saw the county hold their own in the limited-overs competition but crash out in the semi-finals of both the Friends Provident t20 and the Clydesdale Bank 40 all the same.On Sunday in Harare, he made amends as captain of the Mashonaland Eagles as they secured the Stanbic Bank 20 Series title. While nothing has been officially confirmed and there remains a possibility that Flower could play his final game in Zimbabwe, rather than Mashonaland, colours, there were more than a few hints that this might be the last time he would be seen on the field in a competitive match.Flower was given a guard of honour as he left the field during the innings break – despite the fact that he hadn’t faced a ball with Hall on strike throughout his time at the wicket – and suggested after the match that it was a fitting end to his career. “It’s a great way to finish my career,” he said. “The guys have been great throughout the tournament. I think most people had written us off before the tournament started, it’s all credit to the guys.”A guard of honour after nought not out, nothing wrong with that,” he laughed. “But it’s been a great way to finish. It’s been a really good tournament, all the teams have been really close and it’s been a great standard of cricket.”Mashonaland Eagles were forced to scrap hard to get to this position ahead of more fancied sides, but they have in their ranks players of grit and tenacity and both the leading batsmen and leading allrounder of the tournament hail from the Eagles camp. “It was great fun,” said Nick Compton, who was awarded the Batsman of the Tournament award for his 233 runs. “We scrapped, we fought, we found ways of winning. We didn’t play that well at times, but it’s just nice to be standing here with a trophy.””Im ecstatic, you can see how happy the guys are,” added Netherlands and Essex allrounder Ryan ten Doeschate. “We’ve all put in so much hard work. It was a case of the team winning in spite of the overseas player rather than because of him. I’ve played a very small part, it’s really been a team-effort to get here.”Ryan Butterworth captured the Allrounder’s Award for his 165 runs and six wickets at an economy rate of under six an over. Butterworth came to the fore in Eagles’ must-win game against last year’s champions Mountaineers on Tuesday, hitting an unbeaten 41 and taking two cheap wickets, and sealed a win over the Rhinos on Wednesday with a brutal, unbeaten half-century. Apart from the tournament award, he has also been rewarded – at the age of 29 – with a call-up to the national squad for the trip to Bangladesh. “It’s been a really good week for me,” he said. “I’m really proud of what I’ve achieved.”Eagles’ win was sealed by Andrew Hall’s nerveless final over, and the former South Africa allrounder suggested that luck had been with him today. “It’s not always that easy,” he said. “You stand at the back of your mark, and all you can do is hit your areas. In the previous over, [Malcolm] Waller managed to get one down to third man for four, and that’s just the way it goes. The last over just went my way. Once you bowl it in the right place, there’s not much else you can do. If the batsman plays a great shot, that’s the end of that. If you hit your mark six out of six, there’s not much better you can do.”Hall added that he was “tremendously” happy to have been involved with the Zimbabwean tournament. “We’ve got a great bunch of lads, we’ve put in so much hard work and it’s great to see that pay dividends.”