All posts by csb10.top

Muttiah Muralitharan recently wore a specially designed elbow brace to demonstrate to a crowd at the Shenley Cricket Centre in Hertforshire that he does not throw while bowling. The demonstration was filmed by Channel 4, and will be made into a documentary. and have reported that the brace was administered by Dr Mandeep Dhillon, who Muralitharan got in touch with in Colombo at the suggestion of Mahinda Wijasinghe, a local reporter. Dhillon said that the brace would not allow a bending of the elbow. “Murali wanted to prove a point that he could spin with his wrists and shoulder and does not need his elbow as support,” said Dhillon. “I designed a brace for Murali and asked him to bowl with it. The brace weighs 2.5 kg and has three steel rods covered in nylon. I strapped it to his elbow to make it immoveable.”He compared Murali’s predicament to CB Fry’s “who faced a problem similar to Murali’s. Fry, accused of chucking, apparently bowled with a brace for a couple of Tests and cleared his name.”Murali’s reaction indicated he was satisfied with the exercise, and though he denied he was making a point to the ICC, he took a pot shot at people who he believed were ignorant about his action. “It is to educate certain people and cricketers in England and Australia,” he said, “who think they know a lot about the game but actually don’t.”Some of the most vocal disapproval of Murali’s action has come from Australia, with even the prime minister, John Howard, getting in on the act. But Murali’s manager was confident that he would get back to his job soon, as Channel 4’s coverage would be conclusive. “He will soon be allowed to bowl the doosra and get back to doing what he knows best,” said Kushil Gunasekera. “Taking wickets.”

Australia’s players will be given extra rest days to cope with the rigours of a tight schedule during this year’s Test series in India. They play four Tests in 33 days in the familiar venues of Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai and in the relatively unknown Nagpur.Given all four Tests against India last summer went to a fifth day and with hot weather expected, Australia’s coaching staff plan to give Ricky Ponting and his team as many rest days as possible between matches. That means key players may not even train between Tests to help them stay fresh in a country where coping with crowds, food and heat can be a challenge.”It’s something we’re conscious of,” assistant coach Tim Nielsen said yesterday. “We’ve got to be careful how we keep the guys physically and mentally fresh for the whole tour.”Staff will plan between-match routines days in advance. There may also be a back-up for wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist, as the schedule makes it tough to fly in reserves if injury strikes. “That will be the key criteria for selection – that you are 100 per cent fit,” Nielsen said.Ideally, Australia will arrive in India soon after reaching the September 25 final of the Champions Trophy in England.Nielsen said recent visits to India – in 2001 [Tests] and last year (ODIs) – would also aid Australia in their quest to win a series there for the first time since 1969-70. “A lot of the guys who make up the core part of the team have been there before, so they know what to expect,” he said.The Australians rate Bangalore, in India’s south, as one of their favourite venues – they are undefeated there in two Tests. The second Test will be played in the south-east city of Chennai, formerly Madras. It is where Allan Border’s side played cricket’s second tied Test, in 1986. The most recent time Chennai hosted Australia was in the 2001 series.While the second Test in Calcutta, where VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid steered India to a remarkable win, was unforgettable, the Chennai decider was also memorable. Matthew Hayden scored 203, but had his thunder stolen by Harbhajan Singh, who took 15 wickets and was at the crease as the home side won by two wickets to clinch the series 2-1.Mumbai, where Australia won by 10 wickets in 2001, will host the fourth Test this time around. Australia have never played a Test in Nagpur and only one ODI, beating Zimbabwe during the 1996 World Cup.The India tour starts with a three-day match against the Indian board president’s XI, from September 30.

Damien Martyn is the favourite to receive the prestigious Allan Border Medal at a gala ceremony in Melbourne tonight. As a Test and one-day player, Martyn’s superb performances through the voting year, from February 11 until yesterday, are expected to earn him Australia’s highest individual award ahead of Justin Langer and Shane Warne.Warne’s return from a one-year drugs suspension was superb, netting 75 wickets, and Langer scored 1481 runs for 2004, but Martyn’s consistent brilliance after a lean 2003-04 stood above both of his Test-only team-mates. Martyn registered six Test hundreds – two each in Sri Lanka, India and Australia – and 1373 runs during the polling period, and played in 21 one-day matches, including making 24 in yesterday’s three-wicket VB Series loss to Pakistan.Martyn is also a contender for the Test Player of the Year along with Langer and Warne, while Michael Clarke, who will be judged on 731 runs, including two hundreds and three fifties, is tipped for the one-day award.

Division One

Points TableOn the first day of Glamorgan’s match against Gloucestershire, a century by Daniel Cherry was of little consolation to the Welsh county, who were relegated to Division Two. Middlesex only needed one point to force Glamorgan, who lie at the bottom of the first Division, to the second Division. Despite this news, which came at midday, Glamorgan’s batsmen managed 350 for 8, thanks to Cherry who was unbeaten on 152. Mark Hardinges and Malinga Bandara each took three wickets for Gloucestershire.Jonathan Trott’s third century of the season gave Warwickshire a decent start to their match against Division One leaders Sussex, but only two of their batsmen made substantial contributions. Trott, who was unbeaten on 130, formed the bedrock of Warwickshire’s innings. Yet despite his knock, and 69 from Nick Knight, there was little of any substance from the rest of Warwickshire’s batsmen. James Kirtley was the pick of Sussex’s bowlers with 3 for 71 from 20 overs.Rain continued to thwart Middlesex’s game against Kent, but there was enough play to see Owais Shah go through to his sixth hundred of the season after being dropped when he had not added to his overnight 34. Earlier, Ed Smith failed to add to his overnight score of 40 as he fell to Amjad Khan, and Khan struck again soon after to remove Ed Joyce for 12. Shah found a willing partner in Paul Weekes, and together they put on 138 for the fourth wicket, to leave the visitors on 297 for 5 at stumps.Surrey made up for lost time in their match against Hampshire, by scoring at over four an over in rattling up 378. There were a pair of 70s for Scott Newman and Mark Butcher, Newman’s 71 coming from just 65 balls. Jonathan Batty then struck a hundred around which his team built a solid total. However, wickets continued to tumble as Hampshire bowled Surrey out, with James Bruce taking 3 for 82. Mohammad Akram then struck in Hampshire’s reply, to leave the visitors struggling on 13 for 2, 365 runs behind.

Division Two

Points TableA partnership of 249 between Mal Loye and Stuart Law gave Lancashire control, on the first day of their match against Worcestershire. Loye, who struck an unbeaten and magnificent 170, and Law, with a brisk 143, dominated the day and rescued Lancashire when they were tottering on 63 for 2. They got off to the worst possible start when their captain, Mark Chilton, was dismissed by the Australian Matthew Mason for a first-ball duck. Although they lost Law, whose 143 came from 189 balls, shortly followed by Andrew Symonds, Loye then combined with Marcus North in a partnership worth 69. Lancashire finished on 388 for 4.Essex and Somerset were again frustrated by the rain at Colchester, but did at least manage 70 overs in which Essex reached 220 for 5. Will Jefferson was the mainstay of the innings with a knock of 93, before becoming the first of two quick wickets for Ian Blackwell. Ronni Irani clobbered four sixes and three fours in his unbeaten 43, before a torrential downpour left the ground underwater.Only 14 overs were possible at Grace Road on another frustrating day for Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. Put into bat by Northants, Leicestershire’s openers made 29 without alarm, with Darren Robinson unbeaten on 11 and John Maunders reaching 15.Durham lost Paul Collingwood, who failed to add to his overnight score of 33, and Mike Hussey in quick succession on a rain-affected day at Scarborough against Yorkshire. Despite the early losses, Gordon Muchall, who struck 42 and Dale Benkenstein, with 59, consolidated in an unbeaten partnership worth 108. Durham ended the day on 260 for 3.

Kiran More, India’s chairman of selectors, has claimed that he was grossly misquoted on the contentious Sourav Ganguly issue and said he had decided to refrain from speaking to the media, at least for the time being.”I have started fearing the [media] – I don’t know what all you will write,” he said when asked to comment on the statement attributed to him that Ganguly would not be picked to play Tests for India ever again. He said, “I don’t know from where this one came up.”More, who actively participated in the nets of the Indian team at the PCA ground, refused to divulge any information regarding the composition of the team for the second Test beginning on Thursday in Mohali. “All I can say is that the mood in the camp is very positive. The body language of the players during practice was very good.”Meanwhile, in an interesting development, Ganguly will be in Mohali, but only as a spectator. Ganguly has accepted an invitation to watch the match, said the Punjab Cricket Association’s president, IS Bindra, on Tuesday. “As a former captain, we have invited him to watch the India-England match and he has already given his confirmation. Sourav said he will be coming to watch the Test after March 11, because that day he has his involvement in Jaipur [at the Deodhar Trophy match].”

After weeks of speculation, it has been decided that Steve Waugh will be the final Olympic torch-bearer in the Sydney leg of the Athens torch relay. It had been believed that Cathy Freeman, a gold medallist at the Sydney Games four years ago would be given the honour, but instead it has gone to Waugh, who was named Australian of the Year earlier in 2004.Waugh, who will light the cauldron at Homebush Bay, admitted that it would be a momentous occasion. “It’s a huge honour to be part of the Olympic flame torch relay,” he told the Sun-Herald newspaper. “I enjoyed the experience leading into the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and to be doing it again for Athens is equally exciting and another huge honour.”According to the newspaper, the torch relay will begin at the Sydney Opera House on Friday morning, and will include an A-Z of Australia’s sporting heroes, including Kieren Perkins, Dawn Fraser, Raelene Boyle and the wheelchair athlete Louise Sauvage. Speaking about the occasion, John Coates, the Australian Olympic Committee president, said: “Steve Waugh is a great Australian and a champion athlete who typifies our fighting spirit and it is appropriate that he relights the Olympic cauldron.”

Adam Gilchrist is confident Stuart Clark can continue to play the role of Glenn McGrath’s replcaement successfully even if the second-Test pitch at Durban does not offer the same assistance as Cape Town. Clark sealed the third-best debut by an Australian bowler with 9 for 89 in the seven-wicket win on Sunday and made sure the side coped without their leading bowler of the past decade, who is looking after his wife during her cancer treatment.”We did make the comment during the game how probably unplayable Glenn McGrath would have been on that wicket, but Stuey certainly took up the reins in grand fashion and we’re all really thrilled for him,” Gilchrist, who took six catches in the match, told . “Stuey beat the bat a lot and bowled a very tight line and length. He seemed to release from high up and was pretty straight, stump to stump almost.”Gilchrist said Clark shared similarities with his New South Wales team-mate but refused to anoint him as “the new McGrath”. “I don’t want to burden him with that, but he certainly filled the void beautifully in this game,” Gilchrist said. “Stuey knows the challenge is there to repeat that on any surface, and I’m sure he’s keen to take that on.”The Cape Town pitch helped the fast bowlers throughout the game and played a part in Clark’s hauls of 5 for 55 and 4 for 34. At the end of the match Clark was surprised by the attention to his Man-of-the-Match performance.”I couldn’t even have dreamt it was going to be like this,” Clark said in . “If I got a wicket I would’ve been happy. To get nine? I don’t know what to say. The phone’s been ringing non-stop. I had to turn it off the other night because it was ringing too much.” The second Test starts at Durban on Friday.

Ken Gordon, the president of the West Indies board, says the region acted in its best interests in throwing its support behind the Asian bloc’s bid to secure the International Cricket Council’s 2011 World Cup.Furthermore, the 76-year-old administrator said the West Indies did not sell their vote at the April meeting in Dubai and defended allegations of a deal with India that helped a joint bid with Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh gain approval.”We live in the real world and we must understand that when people want to achieve an objective, they try to get support for that objective. Clearly, the India Board of Control wanted to have support for their objective and we did speak. We made it clear that our position was that we were interested in building a relationship with India,” Gordon told CMC’s Cricket Plus Friday.”We didn’t have a vote for sale. We were interested in building a relationship and they indicated that they would like to do the same and our position as far as the vote was concerned was, ‘look if your bid is a fully competitive bid and if it is on par with all things being equal, we will support your bid because friends support each other’.”Other people in other parts of the world support each other as well but [we said] ‘if your bid is not in our view, comparable, we cannot support you because we don’t think that would be acting in the interest of cricket’.”Reports following the ICC meeting in Dubai in April indicated the West Indies had thrown their support behind the Asian bloc’s vote, in return for a lucrative financial arrangement.The WICB’s vote helped the Asian bloc beat out a joint bid by Australia and New Zealand to host cricket’s major showpiece. Gordon said their decision to support the Asian bloc, once the bid was in the best interest of cricket, was communicated to Australia before the voting process.”That was the position we took. We made that clear to India before the vote was taken [and] they understood our position and they said they respected it,” Gordon continued.”We also made that position clear to the Australian side before the vote was taken. We said, ‘we feel we want to develop a relationship with India and there are lots of reasons for that, including our impecunious state and if we can work together, it would be a good thing’.”‘If the bids are competitive and we see everything being equal, we will vote for India. If they are not, we will vote for you’.”He added: “That’s our position, so all this talk about deal and so on, if you call that a deal, that’s fine, but as far as I am concerned we acted in the way that anyone who is concerned about their self-interest, would want to act.”The WICB recently announced they had signed a bilateral deal with India which would see the staging of a three to five-match One Day Internationals series in United States and Canada later this year.With the West Indies experiencing dire financial problems, India is expected to fund the series with the understanding that this would be repaid out of the WICB’s share of the profits. While not revealing financial details of the arrangement, Gordon said it was a move that would help the West Indies financially.”I am very cautious about a financial boost for the moment. I know positively there will be a financial boost but until we have completed our negotiations on the terms of the arrangement, I would rather not go there,” Gordon said.”What I would say is that it is going to be a positive factor in terms of taking us forward. Our Indian friends have indicated that they have a strong desire to assist wherever they can and we will try to ensure that happens. “The bottom line is that I am optimistic.”

After a satisfactory performance in West Indies’ opening warm-up game against Kenya, Bennett King, the coach, has identified the bowling as the team’s main weakness. Kenya made a fist of the target of 269, eventually going down by 21 runs and King expects a more disciplined effort from his bowlers against India at Trelawny tomorrow.”We were disappointed with some aspects of the Kenyan game,” King told . “We are bowling far too many wides – three to four overs worth. That is an area in which we need to improve. We are also giving up boundaries off the last ball of the overs. We need to start working on finishing our overs properly.”King said that Brian Lara, the West Indies captain, was keen to spend some time in the middle, having not batted against Kenya. Lara has not played a competitive match since the tour of India which preceded the World Cup.”Within the space of one or two days Brian is usually back to his best because of how much work he has done before,” said King. “He is very keen to play, he is like a spring chicken at the moment. He is jumping out of his seat to play.”When asked about further changes to the line-up, King added that Ian Bradshaw, the left-arm seamer, will get an opportunity in the side’s final warm-up match before the World Cup curtain-raiser against Pakistan at Sabina Park on Tuesday.”Bradshaw has not been playing a lot of cricket for Barbados so he is someone that needs work. He really needs some bowling under his belt so Friday will be another opportunity for him.”Rahul Dravid, the Indian captain, said that his side would adopt a similar strategy and allow all the players in the squad to fine-tune themselves. India coasted to a 182-run win against Netherlands on Tuesday and Dravid hoped that his side would maintain the momentum against West Indies.Looking at the bigger picture, Dravid felt that India’s World Cup campaign will hinge on the contributions of their seniormost players, including himself. He added that their experience will be crucial in tackling the middle overs.”We’ve got a lot of experience, we’ve played a lot of cricket so we feel that during those middle overs we can do a job for the team and also, I think even when chasing, and finishing games,” he said. “I see myself along with people like Yuvraj [Singh] and [Mahendra Singh] Dhoni as people who can stay to the end and try to finish games and play according to the situation.”Five issues that India will be looking at in Friday’s match

– Will Sehwag fire? Nobody in India can stop wondering when Virender Sehwag is going to convert starts into fifties and fifties into hundreds. It’s been 57 matches since he got to three figures in one-dayers. The situation is exactly the same as it’s been for many months: the time is now.- And Pathan? If Indians are fed up of pondering Sehwag’s form, there’s always Irfan Pathan. The performance against Netherlands was bland (barring a sliver of hope when he curved one and nailed an lbw). A strong performance against West Indies will boost his morale no end; another hammering will lead to more contemplation.- The young guns With Sourav Ganguly twisting his ankle, and likely to miss the match, India may get another glimpse of Robin Uthappa and/or Dinesh Karthik. Both have potential but the manner of their dismissals against the Dutch wasn’t the sort that you’d like to see too often. The success of either could create pleasant headaches for the team management.- The extra fast bowler Sreesanth or Munaf Patel? With Zaheer Khan and Ajit Agarkar certain to start, and Irfan Pathan providing some sort of allround option, it’s unlikely that both will find a berth. If they’re tested today, it will be interesting to see who stands out – or, if you are pessimistic, who gets hammered less.- All-round sync Traditionally India start tournaments sluggishly, and some shots against the Dutch appeared straight out of the cobwebs. They’d need to wipe off the rust at the earliest otherwise the opening clash against Bangladesh will take on threatening proportions. Already Bangladesh have upset New Zealand and rolled over Scotland. India can’t afford to sleepwalk into that game and this one provides the ideal launching pad.

India’s new selection committee opted for consolidation, naming the same 15-man squad for the second Test at Delhi, starting on December 10. The panel, led by Kiran More, and comprising new faces like Bhupinder Singh and Ranjib Biswal, said that there had been no discussions about players on the fringes during the meeting.”The selection committee met today, and there is no change for second Test. The same team is retained,” said Niranjan Shah, the BCCI secretary. “The selectors agreed that rather than watching the Test fully, we will spend more time in watching Ranji Trophy. Will come only on the last two days of the [Delhi] Test match and select the team for the last one.””We didn’t discuss anyone’s name at this point, with hardly any game played here,” said Kiran More, chairman of the selection panel. “We discussed how to go about domestic cricket. The selectors will watch Elite and Plate as well, good teams are playing there.”With rain having wiped away any chance of a contest at Chennai, the decision to go with the same 15 was no surprise. Despite the constant innuendo over Sourav Ganguly’s inclusion, it was unthinkable that he would be jettisoned without being given at least a couple of chances at the batting crease.Squad
Rahul Dravid (capt), Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Rudra Pratap Singh, Murali Kartik.