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Graham Thorpe will continue his association with New South Wales as the state’s assistant coach for 2007-08. Thorpe will fill the gap created when Matthew Mott became the Blues’ senior coach after Trevor Bayliss was placed in charge of Sri Lanka.Thorpe, 37, scored 6744 runs at 44.66 in 100 Tests for England and spent 18 years as a first-class cricketer before moving to Sydney in 2005-06 to work with New South Wales as a specialist batting coach. His new role will include taking the reins of the state’s Second XI.”I’m absolutely delighted to be offered the position and very much look forward to the challenge,” Thorpe said. “This represents the next chapter of my cricket career and I intend to give it my all. I’ve enjoyed working with the squad over the past two seasons and can’t wait to start my new role when I return to Australia next month.”David Gilbert, the chief executive of Cricket New South Wales, said the appointments of Mott and Thorpe gave the Blues some stability leading into next season. “To have a player of Graham’s international experience working with our squad, particularly our young talented players, will be tremendous,” Gilbert said.New South Wales reached the Pura Cup final last summer but lost to Tasmania. However, they were disappointing in the shorter forms of the game and finished last in both the Ford Ranger Cup and the KFC Twenty20 competition.

Michael Kasprowicz is set to return from a back injury as Queensland play two one-day matches in the Top End Series next month. Kasprowicz, who was dropped after the 2005 Ashes, was forced home from the South Africa Test tour with the problem and missed the two-match Bangladesh series in April.Queensland will play a one-day game against Pakistan A in Cairns on July 22 and are due to face New Zealand A in a Twenty20 fixture. Australia A and India A are also appearing in the series that will be based in Darwin and Cairns and starts on July 5.Trevor Barsby, the former Bulls opening batsman, will coach the Queensland side in the absence of Terry Oliver, who is overseas, and the squad includes the young fast bowlers Grant Sullivan and Ben Cutting. Sullivan earned a full contract with Queensland for 2006-07 and Cutting, an Australia Under-19 representative, won a rookie deal.Queensland squad Ryan Broad, Ben Cutting, Daniel Doran, Chris Hartley, Shane Jurgensen, Michael Kasprowicz, Brendan Nash, Ashley Noffke, Clinton Perren, Nathan Reardon, Nathan Rimmington, Lachlan Stevens, Grant Sullivan.

Tasmania have placed Travis Birt on standby for the injured Michael Bevan for the ING Cup match against New South Wales in Newcastle on Sunday.The addition of Birt was the only change to the squad that beat Western Australia by 62-runs last Friday. However, Bevan, who has an achilles injury, is expected to be fit to line-up against his former team-mates.New South Wales, who lost to Queensland by two wickets in their first match, have called up the offspinner Jason Krejza in the place Don Nash, the fast bowler.Tasmania Daniel Marsh (c), Michael DiVenuto, George Bailey, Michael Bevan, Travis Birt, Luke Butterworth, David Dawson, Michael Dighton, Xavier Doherty, Brett Geeves, Adam Griffith, Scott Kremerskothen, Damien Wright.New South Wales Brad Haddin (c), Nathan Bracken, Shawn Bradstreet, Stuart Clark, Phil Jaques, Jason Krejza, Greg Mail, Stuart MacGill, Matthew Nicholson, Aaron O’Brien, Matthew Phelps, Dominic Thornely.

Ricky Ponting hopes Muttiah Muralitharan will tour Australian later this month. Murali said he was considering pulling out of the tour following comments about his action reportedly made by John Howard, the Australian prime minister.The Sydney Morning Herald quoted Ponting as saying, “I’d love to see him here and I’m sure the Australian public would love to see him here as well. He’s a fantastic player and opponent and he’s a great competitor. He’s the current Test record-holder and it’d be nice to have him and Shane Warne playing in the same Test series against each other again. Let’s hope he tours. It would be a great challenge for us if he does, because he’s a very, very good bowler. I’m looking forward to that showdown once again.”Ponting disagreed with Shane Warne’s comments about Murali being over-sensitive to criticism, and said, “Look, he’s been around for a long time and had a lot of things said about him over a long period of time. I guess any of us put in that situation, it would start to wear you down. There’s no doubt that it’s probably starting to affect him more over the last couple of years than it did before that. I’m not going to tell anyone the way they should react to things. All I can say is hopefully he’ll tour Australia.”

MELBOURNE, Jan 30 AAP – Shane Warne started the mind games for the cricket World Cup today, reviving the Australians’ theme of a psychological hold over second favourite South Africa.Australia does not play South Africa in its pool matches but the defending champions and the host nation are short-priced favourites to meet in the semi-finals or final.Warne was keen to keep the South Africans on the back foot as the Australian side flew out for Johannesburg and the World Cup today.”We’ve definitely got a psychological hold over South Africa,” said Warne.”The results prove that in all the different forms and the major games we’ve played against them.”When it’s got to the crunch we’ve managed to beat them or they’ve been in a winning situation and we’ve come back to win.”It was a none-too-subtle reminder from Warne of Australia’s famous tied 1999 World Cup semi-final against South Africa at Edgbaston, in which a last over run-out allowed the Aussies to advance to the final.Australia has beaten South Africa in both subsequent Test series between the two nations, with the memory of the 1999 World Cup an oft-used ploy by the Aussies to rattle the Proteas in close matches.Leading bookies have the two as clear favourites – Australia at 11-8 with British bookmaker William Hill and South Africa 9-4. Next best is India at 8-1.Opener Matthew Hayden said the 1999 result would work to Australia’s advantage rather than South Africa’s, despite the fact the host nation would be desperate for revenge.But he warned that Australia should also aim to create a fresh psychological stick to beat South Africa with, and may find it at this World Cup.”(The 1999 result) is our advantage. We’ve got up in that situation and used that in the past against them as well.”But perhaps that’s wearing a little bit thin as a strategy for Australia.”We need to move on and look to really take them apart in some other way.”Middle-order linchpin Michael Bevan believes he could be fit for Australia’s World Cup opener against Pakistan on February 11 in Johannesburg despite doctors saying he would probably miss the first two games of the tournament.Bevan said his injured groin was responding well to treatment, but admitted Australia’s second match against India on February 15 was a more likely option.Australia’s batting stocks for the Pakistan game would be boosted immeasurably if Bevan was fit, with Darren Lehmann out of the match because of his racial vilification suspension.”The leg’s coming along well, so fingers crossed I’ll be ready for the first or second game,” Bevan said.”Every day it’s improving which is a great sign.”I think at this stage I’m looking to the India match, but if all goes well, I’d like to think Pakistan’s not out of reach as well.”The team is due to arrive in Johannesburg tomorrow morning Australian time.

For the three months since the end of the home cricket season, all I have thought about has been building towards this tour to Sri Lanka.It is when all the gym work and preparation starts to pay off and I have always enjoyed touring Sri Lanka. I have had some success there in the past, it is a nice place. And I enjoy it more than anywhere else on the sub-continent.Because of the sheer nature of the pitches there I will be a major wicket-taking option. I am the No 1 spinner in our side and I am looking forward to forming a partnership with Grant Bradburn, my team-mate from Northern Districts.It is an important thing for a team to know that it can rely on the combinations among its bowlers. It provides a balance to the attack and the options available in a match. It is also important as we build up towards the World Cup in 2003.Every team in the world is now looking at South Africa, you would be silly not to. And we regard this as a build-up to our season overall, and to the World Cup.We are only one or two players short of being at full strength so we have no excuses about injuries.Personally, I am expecting some battles with the spinners taking part in the Coca-Cola Cup.I always like to match myself against the spinners whenever we play. Muttiah Muralitharan for Sri Lanka and Harbhajan Singh for India, who has come off a pretty amazing 18 months, will be a big challenge. You can learn so much from watching them in action as well.That was what was good about Saqlain Mushtaq being out here earlier in the year, there was so much to learn from watching him bowl.The hardest thing for us will be acclimatising. Going from frosts in Christchurch into the heat of Colombo. But it happens so often now that for a team like us, if we don’t adapt quickly we lose. Every cricketer realises that is the key to competing nowadays.The only thing about the absence of Sachin Tendulkar from the Indian side for the early part of the tournament is that it only slightly reduces the nightmares beforehand. If Sachin isn’t playing there is always an improvement by Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly.But the thing about Tendulkar is that it is not only his batting that is important. He has a big influence out on the field, helping the decision making, bowling and fielding. Everything he does makes him such a dangerous player.Physically, I am feeling fine. I have put in the hard work and while it is hard to gauge by bowling indoors all the time, you tend to find that if things aren’t clicking indoors, they soon sort themselves out when you get outside.It is just great to be getting back into action. I have missed it and I’m really looking forward to pitting myself against two very good teams in their conditions.

Allrounder James Faulkner has spoken of his regret at making the decision to drink and drive in Manchester in July, which cost him his place in Australia’s limited-overs squads for the recent series in England. Faulkner has returned home to Tasmania having helped Lancashire to the county T20 title, but he is £10,000 worse off after being fined over the driving incident.Faulkner was also banned from driving for two years after being found nearly three times over the legal limit on July 2, after choosing not to walk home in heavy rain after a night out with Tasmanian team-mate Tim Paine. His actions were described by District Judge Mark Hadfield as “foolhardy in the extreme”, and Faulkner said he would regret his decision for the rest of his life.”It is always going to rock you, anything like that,” Faulkner told reporters in Hobart this week. “It is always a lot bigger than you initially think. It was an error of judgment and something I definitely regret and I’ll regret it at the end of my career. I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”The incident cost Faulkner his place in Australia’s T20 and ODI sides after he was suspended for four games, and in his absence his fellow allrounder Mitchell Marsh was named Player of the Series in Australia’s 3-2 one-day win over England. But Faulkner, who was Player of the Match in the World Cup final in March, believes he will be able to fit into the same side as Marsh in future.”It is always spoken about a lot, but I think we’re two different players,” he said. “I’d like to think we can both play in the same one-day team. I know we didn’t throughout the World Cup, but I’d like to think we could do that and the same with T20 cricket and Test cricket as well.”At the end of the day it is in both Mitch and myself’s control and that’s scoring runs and taking wickets for our states or our country. I am good mates with him and get along with him really, really well so it is not like we are competing against each other at all, in fact it is the exact opposite. We are trying to help each other improve our own games because we are both young players.”Faulkner was not named in Australia’s Test squad for the upcoming tour of Bangladesh and will instead be at home playing for Tasmania in the Matador Cup, which begins in early October. He is recovering from a dislocated finger suffered in the T20 final, but he expects to be fit for the state one-day competition.

Trinidad & Tobago Development XI 62 for 3 beat Canada 85 for 5 by 3 wickets (D/L method)
Canada women’s tour started with a loss to Trinidad & Tobago Development XI at the National Cricket Centre in Couva on Sunday but they put up a respectable showing. The Development XI went on to win by 3 wickets under Duckworth/Lewis during a storm-affected game, which started late through rain.Amid the showers, Canada advanced to 85 for 5. Captain Mona Persaud top-scored with 24 not out, while Joanna White and Monali Patel each scored 14 runs. T&T’s Amanda Samaroo, who starred for the T&T Under-17s in Canada last August, took 2 for 11 from six overs.Eleven overs into the reply, with T&T on 42 without loss, a storm sent the players rushing for the pavilion. When play resumed, T&T needed 20 more runs off 10 overs. Persaud took two wickets, both bowled and although Canada took one more wicket, T&T ended on 63 for 3, the game ending on a wide.Despite the rain, the players of both sides enjoyed the experience and are set to meet again next weekend. By that time, Canada will hope to have much more practice and acclimatisation.

Mahela Jayawardene, the Sri Lankan captain, described his team’s thumping innings and 234-run victory over Bangladesh in the first Test as a brilliant effort under tough conditions.”The important thing for us was to make sure we go very hard at them,” said Jayawardene after Sri Lanka had wrapped up the Test half an hour into the fourth morning to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series. “We hadn’t played Test cricket for a while and we needed to back into things pretty quickly and maintain our standards. That’s the challenge we had.”The batsmen, the guys who got in made sure they made big hundreds. Everyone chipped in especially the lower middle order. The fast bowlers were brilliant. They were very aggressive in creating opportunities. Overall it was a brilliant performance but there are areas we can still improve. Our ground fielding was brilliant but we dropped chances.”Sri Lanka weren’t able to wrap up the innings on the third day and Jayawardene’s request to bring on the fast bowlers in the fading light was denied by the umpires. “I knew the light would be a concern and I asked them whether it was alright for me to bring on Lasith Malinga. The answer I got was that it was okay. After a couple of balls they changed their minds. That was the disappointment because if there was the slightest indication that it was not ideal, I wouldn’t have brought Malinga.”He praised the efforts of Prasanna Jayawardene and Chaminda Vaas who both scored their maiden Test hundreds.”For Prasanna I think it’s been coming for a while. He’s been very consistent with the bat for us and he knew the responsibility as a wicketkeeper that he had to make runs for us. It was good to see him getting those runs. It gives him a lot of confidence to build the batting line up around him.”For Vaas it was his dream to get a hundred in Test cricket for quite some time. When I saw he had the opportunity I had no hesitation in allowing him to go and get it. It’s always good to see that our lower order with the kind of determination we have is a very solid set up now.”Once again it was offspinner Muralitharan who picked up the Man-of-the-Match award when the consensus of opinion was on Prasanna with his hundred and six dismissals behind the stumps.”On a placid track the way Murali created opportunities especially on the first day to take five wickets actually changed the whole game for us,” said Jayawardene. “From that moment onwards we knew the Test was in our hands unless we made some silly mistakes. It’s brilliant to have a guy like Murali. Now we’ve got a bowling line-up which creates opportunities among themselves with Lasith, Dilhara [Fernando] and Vaas. Murali has less pressure now to run through teams.”For Mohammad Ashraful it was a tough beginning as Bangladesh captain. He admitted that he had a lot to learn sitting in the hot seat and also cited his side’s limited opportunities at the Test level as the reason for the defeat. He also took heart from the team’s improved showing in the second innings, posting a more respectable 254 after they were bundled out for 89 in the first.”I wouldn’t have played those irresponsible shots if I had a little bit of experience,” he said. “I will learn with every game. Our second innings performance proved that if we concentrate hard it is possible to play quality bowlers. For most of the second innings we actually stuck to our game plan and it came out pretty good. That is the confidence we will take going into the rest of the series.”When asked whether they missed the services of their former coach Dav Whatmore, Ashraful replied: “It’s very natural to miss someone like Whatmore because he has helped Bangladesh cricket a lot. The team hasn’t had any problem with the new management and the coaching staff.”

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.”