The atrocious summer weather has forced Derbyshire to switch their Chesterfield Festival matches at Queen’s Park next week to their home ground.The persistent heavy rain has left the pitch and the rest of the ground saturated and, even if there is no further rain, the prospect of play next week is minimal. Consequently, both Derbyshire’s Championship match against Somerset, and their Pro40 game against Kent, will now take place at the County Ground.”This is obviously a hugely disappointing decision to have to make but it is the right one,” Tom Sears, Derbyshire’s chief executive said. “Both myself and officials from the council inspected the ground and park this morning and there is next to no chance of playing any cricket at Queen’s Park later this week, even it the weather remains dry.”The forecast is not good and with the outfield already sodden we have no alternative but to postpone the festival and transfer the fixtures to Derby,” he said. “I am confident we will be back at Queen’s Park in August or early September and the festival will repeat last year’s enormous success.”
Dean Jones, who has been sacked by Ten Sports after he was caught on live television referring to Hashim Amla as “terrorist”, made the remark in jest to fellow commentators unaware that the feed was live, Cricinfo has learned.While there is unanimity in the commentators’ fraternity that Jones had to go after being heard making such a politically insensitive remark, Jones did not say it on live television, or at least did not think he was doing so.”It was unfortunate,” a member of the production team said. “It was daft of Jones to say what he did. But to be honest, it was said as bit of a joke, for his fellow commentators. It was a joke in poor taste, but he thought it was during a break.”It was an ad-break on Ten Sports, but to Jones’s misfortune the moment Kumar Sangakkara was dismissed was shown on SuperSport, who were beaming the match in South Africa. And Jones said: “The terrorist has got another wicket”.A contrite Jones, who will reportedly keep his commentary position on Australian radio, described his moment of madness to reporters after landing in his hometown of Melbourne. “I waited four or five seconds and I just turned around and made a stupid, ridiculous off-the-wall comment that unfortunately was picked up in the background and, as television people always know, the microphone is always live,” Jones said. “There was only one country in the world that didn’t take the ad break live and that was South Africa. It was picked up by a few viewers.”Jones, 45, said he had written a full-page apology to Amla and the South African team, as well as saying sorry to the bowler directly. “I got hold of Hashim Amla and I spoke to him for a certain amount of time,” he said. “I gave him my sincerest apologies and he was gracious enough to accept it. He said ‘I hope you get through this ugly situation that you are going through’.””We have a zero tolerance policy for any expression of racial stereotyping and prejudice and condemn in the strongest possible terms the comments made by Mr Jones,” Ten Sports said in an apologetic media release. “We are reviewing our systems to ensure that such offensive and insensitive remarks do not happen again.”Boundary Breakers, the sports marketing company representing Amla’s business interests, has condemned the stereotyping. “While it acknowledges Jones’s apology and remorse at making these comments, Boundary Breakers also commends television company “10 Sport” [sic] for acting swiftly in sacking Jones from further commentating duties during the Test and one-day series,” the company said in a media release.
India will be happy to get moving in the tri-series with a facile win against Zimbabwe though from our Test experience here, the wicket seems to have slowed down. Our guys call Harare a slower version of the Gabba where there is little assistance and movement for the bowlers. It is a kind of pitch where those who swing the ball stand a better chance of succeeding than purely seam bowlers.That makes us look forward to the next game against India, a side we would most probably meet in the finals. Their fast bowlers have done exceptionally well as a unit and it is something similar to what’s happening with us in New Zealand. James Franklin swings it well and we have a nice balance in our pace department. Irfan Pathan, Ashish Nehra and Ajit Agarkar, give the Indians a good crop of impressive young bowlers. They can be exceptionally dangerous in these circumstances and I have a feeling whoever bowls better and tighter, will hold the edge.Purely from a personal point of view, I would like to push home the advantage I have gained over the Indians from the first game. My job is to try and do better than the Indians, to outperform the likes of Nehra, Pathan and Agarkar. It’s a challenge that I look forward to.In the game against India at Bulawayo, we knew from the start that taking good care of the top three Indian batsmen, Virender Sehwag, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid, could keep them under pressure. We realised that coming from low wickets of the sub-continent, they could find it difficult to adjust to these conditions. So bowling short-pitched deliveries was the obvious choice. We definitely tried to do it against Ganguly, as well as against Sehwag who can be a devastating batsman if he is afforded the width. It is the same when the ball is pitched up to him.It feels good that success is coming to me with the new ball for in the Test matches against Zimbabwe, I bowled a fair deal with the older ball. In a way it was good that I played Tests before the one-dayers for it upped my confidence and improved my rhythm. I am able to swing it a lot more and that is most welcome. It has been the kind of return I have been hoping for in the international arena. There are a lot of things which I am now doing differently, including my action and approach to the game. No longer do I strive to be a tearaway bowler. I am a lot smarter bowler who can bowl reasonably fast when I want to but I don’t need to do it all the time.Previously I was an emotional bowler who would just be fired up with the ball in his hand and try to bowl as hard as I could. Sustaining such methods throughout was tough to follow up and the harder I tried, the more I opened myself to injury. Now I am smarter and can switch to speed because my energy levels are better spaced. It is also a good protection against injury. I have mixed emotions to New Zealand’s light Test schedule in the next few months. The run of one-day internationals could allow me to settle into a nice groove and when it is time for Tests against West Indies and South Africa next year, I could be better prepared. Every cricketer looks forward to Tests and I am no different. However for a bowler returning from injury, it is important he is not over-bowled all too quickly. Frankly, I am just glad to be back on the field.It would be all too easy and stereotype for me to declare that I hate batsmen and perhaps blood on the pitch is not too bad an idea. But that’s not the truth and besides, Indians and Zimbabweans are truly very nice fellows. It is just that I am very competitive with the ball in my hand and try to do as well as I can for my team.
Sri Lanka Cricket has officially launched the bid process for the sale ofits broadcasting and sponsorship rights for a four-year period starting inJan 2005. Prospective broadcasters and rights brokers must submit formalbids by July 22.Taj Television, the Dubai-based satellite broadcaster which has held SriLankan cricket rights since October 2001, is the early frontrunner in thebid process, having already indicated a willingness to table a record offer,said to be close to USD $ 35 million according to board sources.But Taj Television is also likely to face stiff competition, especially fromSony Max and ESPN Star, the other two Asian cricket broadcasters, becausethe four-year period will include three India visits, for one-day tri-seriesin 2005 and 2006 as well as a full tour in 2008.A three-year rights offer in 2003 flopped because Sri Lanka were unable toconfirm any India tours. The board was forced to abandon the sale untilIndia’s involvement had been secured. England and Australia, the other twomajor money-spinners in the cricket rights world, are also scheduled to tourSri Lanka during the contract period.Sri Lanka Cricket is hopeful that the sale of the rights will safeguard itsfinancial future after a difficult two years. The board faced possibleinsolvency after WSG Nimbus, a sports rights company, successfully sued theboard for unlawfully cancelling its contract in 2001. The board faces apossible US$ 6 million payout.
For the last two or three seasons, Zimbabwe’s pace attack has consisted of Heath Streak – when fit – and two or three ineffective back-up seamers who seem to bowl at least two four-balls every over and have about as much chance of earning a wicket as Saddam Hussain has of winning the Nobel Peace Prize.Perhaps this is rather harsh, but a look at many of the opposition totals during that time shows clearly the weakness of the Zimbabwean `attack’ – South Africa 600 for three in five sessions in Harare is one example. But now two young players in Andy Blignaut and Douglas Hondo are progressing beyond the cannon-fodder stage to take their place alongside their captain as bowlers of genuine international quality.Douggie Hondo in particular has started his first tour of England with a bang. He took a bagful of wickets against the British Universities in the first match and then, against Worcestershire, three in one over to turn the course of the innings.Douggie is not the quickest of bowlers, but he moves the ball predominantly away from the bat and can coax surprising bounce out of flat pitches. He has had some experience of English conditions before, after playing two seasons for Lydney in 1999 and 2000.Douggie is a very laidback character: “nothing fazes him,” said one of his team-mates. “He’s the Bob Marley of the side – his hairstyle, not his smoking habits!””It started off very cold,” Douggie says of the Universities match at Edgbaston, Birmingham, “so it took me a long time to warm up and get into it. But when I started hitting line and length, it was no different to any other match. I bowl a bit fuller here (at Worcester).”At Worcester, Zimbabwe lost the toss and had to field on a pitch that had already been used and showed definite wear at one end. “It was doing quite a lot,” he says, “but we started off bowling too short, so we didn’t get the batsmen fishing around for it. But whenever we pitched it up, it looked like something was going to happen. Sometimes things just don’t click together, but when they did we got the wickets. `Blidge’ (Andy Blignaut) bowled well in spells and so did the two spinners (Raymond Price and Grant Flower).”Geoff Marsh keeps things simple for his team and his game plan for the Worcestershire innings was simply, “Take all your chances and get one run-out. Bowl in your channels.” Douggie’s channel was off stump, moving the ball away towards the slips.Douggie bowled without effect for quite a while. Worcestershire were coasting at 187 for three. Then Douggie struck, seaming the first ball of the over away off the pitch; Kadeer Ali played defensively at it but only succeeded in edging it to wicketkeeper Tatenda Taibu.New batsman Andrew Hall took a single and Ben Smith, on 53, blocked the third ball of the over. Douggie again got the fourth ball to seam away off the pitch, Smith pushed at it and again Taibu accepted the catch. Gareth Batty came in and departed first ball, beaten and bowled all ends up by a pinpoint yorker. “Don’t give a batsman a chance when he comes in,” Douggie grins.Not surprisingly, Vikram Solanki, Worcestershire’s top scorer with 74, impressed Douggie the most with the bat. “He looked the most solid of all the players,” Douggie says. But Solanki did throw away his wicket unnecessarily, stumped as he leapt down the pitch to try to hit Raymond Price out of the ground. “Pressure,” says Douggie. “That’s what we were trying to do, keep him under pressure.”Did he bowl any differently to Solanki? “The same,” says Douggie, but then admits he did adjust his length a little. “He started looking to drive (off the front foot), so I tried to force him back a bit and he wasn’t quite there.”The pitch continued to move around throughout the day, and Zimbabwe in turn struggled, finishing the day on 69 for three. Most of the movement for Douggie was off the pitch: “I’m more of a seamer, but I swung a few.” The Worcestershire pace bowlers appeared more dangerous than the Zimbabwean seamers, even Douggie for much of his 13-over spell – he took three for 53.But Douggie did find himself struggling a bit with the variable weather during the day. It began bright and sunny, but clouded over on and off throughout the day, and when it was cloudy it was quite cold. “It made me struggle a bit when it got cold,” he says. “I had to warm myself up to bowl. I become a bit more chirpy when the sun is out.””They kept the pressure on us,” Douggie compliments them. “And we stuck it out – kind of!” Grant Flower, who scored a century against the Universities, struggled to make 18. “You have your days; everyone has their days,” Douggie says philosophically. Zimbabweans will be hoping that their genial assassin will have more `days’ on this England tour.
Graham Thorpe has spoken of his immense disappointment at being sidelined once again because of injury.The Surrey left-hander has been ruled out of the Third npower Test at Trent Bridge because of a cracked bone in his right hand, sustained while facing a blistering burst from Australian paceman Brett Lee during the defeat at Lord’s.Thorpe had already been out of the game for nearly seven weeks before the Second npower Test with a damaged calf.After his heroics during England’s victorious tours of Pakistan and Sri Lanka during the winter, Thorpe has been brought crashing back to earth.”The hand specialist has said I will be out of action for three weeks, leaving me little chance of making an impression in the Ashes series, and what I thought was going to be one of the most exciting summers of my career is turning out to be the most disappointing,” he said in his column on the Channel 4 website, cricket4.com.”I have played the game long enough not to get too carried away by success or failure, and even after our recent victories I knew the game could come back and hit us right where it hurts.”That has happened to me quite literally with two separate injuries keeping me out for nearly three months of the season. From a personal point of view I started June feeling very positive and with high expectations for the rest of the summer.”Normally I start the English season slowly but this year I was in good form straight away and felt I was ready to take on the best team in the world. This was my chance to live up to the world-class tag that had been placed on me after success in Pakistan and Sri Lanka.”I believe you have to measure yourself against the best and I went into this Ashes series thinking that we could compete with them at last.”However I have suffered two injury setbacks with the calf strain keeping me out for six weeks and now the broken bone in my hand which will rule me out for three weeks. This latest injury is a real hammer blow and has come at the worst possible time.”I simply cannot describe how disappointed I feel at the moment. It has come as such a shock after having so much success since I returned to the England team last summer.”Although Thorpe may be out for three weeks, there must be some doubt whether he will play in the Fourth Test at Headingley because he will have had so little match practice for the best part of three months.He said: “There will be little action left in the series by the time I’ve recovered from this injury and I’ll feel a good opportunity has passed me by. As a player you always look forward to an Ashes series and after having six weeks off I was determined to come back and make a mark.”When I was struck on the hand by Brett Lee I knew I had suffered a bad injury. I could not make a fist or hold the bat properly and probably wouldn’t have come out after tea. Lee was pumped up but I was determined not to show that he had hurt me and I was in pain, but in the end he got me out a couple of balls later.”Thorpe continued: “It was a very hard Test for me anyway. I went into the match without any match practice but felt I could do a job for England, and I don’t regret it.”We have not competed with Australia so far in this series and from a team perspective that is the most disappointing aspect of the first two Tests. At the start of the series we said it would be vital to take our chances but we have dropped catches, which has naturally increased the pressure on us.”It’s an extremely tall order for us to come back and win the series, but what we can do though is get back to the standards we set over the winter and stand up to Australia. They have had it all their own way and we just don’t know how they’ll react if we start putting them under pressure. We are simply not helping ourselves at the moment and we need to start giving ourselves a chance of winning.”
A little known fact for you: today was the first Liverpool Premier League game without Steven Gerrard registered in the squad since May 1998. That’s 17 years with a tub-thumping Gerrard at the heart of all things Liverpool.
It was always going to difficult (impossible) to replace Gerrard but it will be very interesting to see how the club move on with their favourite son tearing it up for LA Galaxy in the MLS.
Liverpool’s first game of this season, against the same Stoke team that tore them to shreds with a 6-1 drubbing on the final day of last term, offered as a few tantalising clues of what can be expected post-Gerrard – even if it did end up being a relatively dour 1-0 win for the Reds.
Grab yourself a biscuit and enjoy our three things we learned about a Liverpool sans Gerrard offering
1. Milner and Henderson just won’t do
James Milner and Jordan Henderson (especially the latter now he’s got the captaincy) have got some big boots to fill and, on today’s showing, but are going to need to up their game considerably.
Between the two of them they offer fantastic honest hard graft but what was clear from today was that Liverpool were desperately missing some creativity from deep. Phillipe Coutinho and Adam Lallana, though nott setting the world alight themselves (until the Brazilian’s scorcher), were starved of possession from early on and consequently Liverpool failed to ever really click into gear.
The supposed theory behind having Henderson and Milner as a deep-lying two posits that this will build a foundation for Liverpool’s more gifted attaching midfielders to work off, but on the evidence of today, this s
2. Someone needs to step up and become the main man at Anfield
Steven Gerrard, Luis Suarez, Raheem Sterling. Regardless of what they did or didn’t achieve at the club, these are all BIG characters with distinctive playing styles that have left Anfield in the last couple years.
Of course, when you’re bringing in an influx of new names and faces, it’s always going to become difficult to achieve a solid identity or persona, in the same way that Gerrard characterised everything about the club or Suarez brought to life those around him in only the way he can.
This one is just a matter of time and hoping that certain individuals begin to impose themselves on both the team and the club in a manner necessary for the club to continue challenging at the business end of the season. Phillipe Coutinho showed glimpses of what he’s fully capable of last year and after providing the decisive moment in the win at Stoke, Liverpool fans will be desperate for him to push on and do for the club what Eden Hazard has done, for example, at Chelsea.
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3. The team feels it lacks an identity
Wasn’t this season supposed to be the season we see Liverpool fully adopt the certified Brendan Rodgers brand of passing football?
Admittedly Stoke isn’t the easiest place to come to play football – reference any sort of Stoke-based meme from the last five years – yet Liverpool looked a long way from displaying a coherent system.
Where does Emre Can fit into the system and are Phillipe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino too alike to fit into the same starting XI? Despite a promising win in the first game of the campaign, there are still a lot of questions that need answering at Anfield.
Shoaib Akhtar has been cleared to play in the IPL after the Appellate Tribunal decided to suspend his five-year ban for one month, until they reconvene on June 4. The PCB has, in turn, granted Shoaib a No Objection Certificate to feature in the IPL, where he will play for the Kolkata Knight Riders.Lalit Modi, the chairman and commissioner of the IPL, confirmed that Shoaib will play the tournament. “We look forward to Shoaib playing for us,” Modi said. “I am going to call him immediately and invite him to come to Kolkata tonight or tomorrow morning.”Farrukh Aftab, the head of the three-man tribunal, announced the decision. “We have suspended the ban for one month and the next hearing will be held on June 4,” Aftab told reporters in Lahore. “Had we not suspended the ban, he could not have been played the in IPL, which we thought was injustice to Akhtar.”Meanwhile, Shoaib expressed relief after his clearance. “This is a great relief for me as I am keen to play in the IPL,” Shoaib said. “But this is just one battle won and we still have to win the final case.”The tribunal’s decision to grant Shoaib a temporary reprieve comes after his lawyers pressed for the suspension of his ban.Earlier, the tribunal, on April 30, had decided to uphold the PCB’s ban on an interim-basis. Shoaib was banned for comments he made after not being offered a contract by the PCB, in which he lashed out at domestic tournaments, pitches and the administration in general. He made the comments while on a two-year probation after hitting team-mate Mohammad Asif with a bat before the World Twenty20 last year. Shoaib has the additional burden of dealing with a Rs 22 crore (approx US$3.37 million) defamation suit filed against him by PCB chief Nasim Ashraf.The Knight Riders franchise, which signed him for US$425,000 in the player auctions, would welcome his arrival and hope for a turnaround in their fortunes. The team has suffered four consecutive losses after winning their first two games. Shoaib returns to one of his memorable hunting grounds, the Eden Gardens in Kolkata, where the team has five remaining home games. His was a revelation in his first Test at the venue, picking up eight wickets in a match-winning effort.
Jason Arnberger, the Victoria opener, could become an umpire as soon as next season. Arnberger missed all of 2006-07 with a persistent back injury and is waiting to hear from surgeons whether his playing days are over.Arnberger was not given a Cricket Victoria contract for 2007-08 and although he would like to play on, he realises that is no certainty. His problem relates to a joint where his pelvis joins his spine and while doctors have been deciding on his future, he has been doing part-time work as a delivery man and has started an umpiring course.”It’s a career that has interested me for a while now,” Arnberger told . “Although I would love to play the game for a couple more years, I know there’s a chance I may never play again, so I am seriously considering the move.”If a return to batting is ruled out, Arnberger will speak to Cricket Victoria about a possible full-time umpiring position. Arnberger believes the calibre of umpiring in Australia has fallen away in the last decade but he hopes that decline can be arrested. “I think it can improve,” he said. “I think that the standard has dropped off a little bit since I came to Victoria. And they’re struggling to get the numbers at the moment, so the more better candidates they can get, the better.”He has discussed his possible move with Paul Reiffel, his former Victoria team-mate who now regularly officiates in first-class matches, and Paul Wilson, the fast bowler who played one Test for Australia and is now umpiring in Western Australia. “They have told me they enjoy it,” Arnberger said.”I think it’s a bit more difficult when you get up to four-day cricket and the pressure builds up but I certainly want to give it a go. And umpiring at grade level appeals to me, too, because I know a lot of the players and feel as though I will be able to stay in the game a lot longer.”A significant number of umpires in England’s domestic cricket have played at first-class level and although it is less common in Australia, there has been a gradual increase in recent years. Two of the three who officiated in this year’s Pura Cup final – Rod Tucker and Bruce Oxenford – were former state players.Arnberger, 34, was keen to have been a part of Victoria’s campaign last season after a strong 2005-06 in which he was the Bushrangers’ second leading Pura Cup run-scorer, with 721 at 45.06. His first three seasons were with New South Wales but he moved to Victoria in 1997-98 and quickly became a regular at the top of the order, currently sitting seventh on the state’s all-time run list.
The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA) have again committed themselves to a new dispensation of cooperation, after settling their latest pay dispute. The two sides have also pledged to work together to dispose of all outstanding matters (including retainer contracts) no later than August 31.The WICB have agreed to pay the players a total of US$100,000 for the four preliminary matches in the upcoming tri-series in Singapore and Malaysia, and an additional US$50,000 if the team reaches the final.”WICB and WIPA each recognise their common interest in the development and success of West Indies cricket,” a joint statement signed by Ken Gordon, the WICB president and Dinanath Ramnarine, the WIPA executive president said. “The relationship in the past has been one of conflict and controversy – a situation which is inimical to West Indies cricket, particularly for the stability, growth, and development of the game in the Caribbean.”Both parties recognise the goodwill which has made this agreement possible and restate their desire to improve the earnings of the Board and the Players whenever practicable.”The parties settled the dispute, after the WIPA agreed to accept a minimum fee of US$30,000 for the junior players and the upper figure for the more seasoned players now stands at US$75,000. The WICB claimed that the WIPA’s original demands for payments ranging from US$40,000 to $US95,000 per player was unacceptable.The two parties have also committed themselves to making public statements on controversial issues, only after every reasonable effort has been made to resolve differences internally.”Both parties acknowledge that there is a Dispute Resolution Process, as is contained in the Collective Bargaining Agreement which will be signed by August 31 and emphasise their commitment to follow this process,” the statement said. “Both parties commit themselves to engage in a relationship of mutual respect and the honouring of all agreements arrived at between the parties.”