ScorecardJason Arnberger led Victoria’s unlikely chase for an essential outright victory with his third half-century in eight days against Queensland at the MCG. In an aggressive 139-ball display Arnberger, who added 60 and 71 against Tasmania, hit 14 fours and one six in making 95 on a batting wicket so good it should prevent an outright result.Matthew Elliott and Arnberger made a brisk start as they attempted to overhaul Queensland’s 416 after Jimmy Maher closed the innings during the second session. But Mitchell Johnson ended the 69-run stand with the first ball after tea when Elliott was lbw for 35, and Brad Hodge followed for 5 when he was caught at square leg off Joe Dawes. Graeme Rummans was the other not out batsman at stumps on 26.Queensland have almost destroyed Victoria’s chances of reaching the final as the Bushrangers need to win the game outright to stay in contention to defend their title. Time started to run out when Shane Watson scored 94 and the Bulls added 102 before lunch. Watson tried to reach his century with a six but mishit Cameron White and was caught by Elliott at short cover.
Maia Lewis has regained the captaincy reins of the New Zealand women’s team for the forthcoming tour of India and for the home and away series against Australia. She takes over from Emily Drumm who was unavailable to tour.Lewis was previously captain in 1997-98 but had to give up the position when having knee reconstruction surgery after the World Cup in 1997. Lewis was out of the game for several seasons but returned to the White Ferns last summer, and captained Wellington, her provincial side.Lewis was excited by the challenge ahead of her. “It’s an honour to have the opportunity to lead my country again and exciting to be confronting two of the greatest challenges in women’s cricket. I have toured India before so I have an understanding of the unique obstacles you have to overcome to be successful there. We then have the Rosebowl Series against Australia, who have had the wood on us in recent years, and who are setting the benchmark in women’s cricket at the moment.”Lewis said as well as making tactical on-field decisions, she felt itwould be her responsibility to help ensure there was a positive teamenvironment. “It will be my job to help create an environment where everyone is contributing to the best of their ability.”Mike Shrimpton, the team coach and selection convener, said: “Maia has already shown earlier in her career that she has thecapabilities to captain the team. Maia has captained the White Ferns in 17 internationals and the last time she captained them was in the 1997-98 season. She prefaced her return to full international cricket by captaining the New Zealand A team last summer.”She led her team [Wellington] very well, leading by example in the field and showing good tactical sense. Her batting was also outstanding and she finished the season with an average of 63. At the New Zealand Cricket Awards she deservedly received the Ruth Martin Cup for the best batsman in women’s cricket,” said Shrimpton.The New Zealand team for the tour of India will be named on October 14.
When the office at Somerset County Cricket Club reopens after the Christmas break a familiar face will be missing.Dick Watts,who has been cashier at the club for over twenty years is retiring, “So that I can give more time to playing billiards,” he told me as he sat at his desk in the Colin Atkinson Pavilion on his last working before the break.Dick is well known on the local sporting scene, but not because of cricket, but because he is a billiards champion, and has played the sport that is dearest to his heart for his county and for his country.Dick, who will become an octogenarian in October joined Somerset County Cricket Club after retiring from his job in Taunton with local finance company Chartered Life.His wife Bet, who he met whilst he was in the R.A.F. also worked for the same company and the couple have been married for over fifty four years.”Bet travels with me everywhere I go to play billiards, she’s my number one fan,” he told me.Dick plays his billiards in Taunton at the Railway Club where he has been a member for more than fifty years.”Since I’ve been with the Somerset my billiards have dropped off. Now that I will have more time I hope that I can concentrate on my game and win some more trophies,” Dick told me.”When I first became cashier at the club Ian Botham and Viv Richards were in their prime, so I was very pleased to see the team win a trophy in 2001, and hope that they will win some more next season,” he said.But Dick isn’t leaving the club alltogether. “I’ll still be coming down to sell scorecards at home matches next season, and I hope that I can get to watch a bit more of the cricket than I could last year,” he concluded.
The visiting Kenyan team scored a comfortable seven wicket victoryover Baroda Cricket Association XI in a one day game at the Alembicground in Baroda on Monday.Put in to bat, Baroda were all out for 176 in 45.5 overs. Opener DThorat (52) and Jacob Martin (38) added 57 runs for the third wicketoff 13.2 overs after two wickets had fallen for 50 runs. But afterthat wickets at regular intervals. Thorat faced 75 balls and hit fivefours and a six while M Martin faced 65 balls and hit three of them tothe ropes. The wrecker-in-chief was B Patel who finished with fivewickets for 40 runs off 10 overs.Kenya lost Ravindu Shah (25) at 37 but wicketkeeper K Otieno (58) andHitesh Modi (28) put them firmly on the road to victory with a secondwicket stand of 80 runs off 21 overs. Both batsmen fell in successiveovers but B Patel (31) and skipper Maurice Odumbe (24) closed out thematch with an unbroken fourth wicket stand of 58 runs off 16.2 overs.Otieno faced 94 balls and hit three fours and four sixes.
Leeds United are interested in signing Wolves’ on-loan youngster Morgan Gibbs-White this summer, according to a fresh transfer rumour.
The Lowdown: Gibbs-Whites excelling on loan
The 22-year-old joined Sheffield United on a temporary basis last year, in order to earn more regular playing time away from Molineux.
Gibbs-White has impressed greatly for the Blades this season, scoring a stunning goal against Middlesbrough in midweek and netting eight times in the league overall, not to mention registering seven assists.
It could be that the young Englishman feels a permanent move from Wolves makes sense given his form away this term, and a key update has emerged regarding his future.
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The Latest: Leeds in the race
According to TEAMtalk, Leeds are one of the clubs expressing an interest in signing Gibbs-White in the summer, as Jesse Marsch eyes up reinforcements.
The Whites aren’t alone in monitoring the midfielder, however, with Crystal Palace, Southampton and Fulham all mentioned in the report, too.
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The Verdict: Brilliant long-term prospect
Gibbs-White is a player of huge promise – his teammate David McGoldrick has claimed he has the ‘world at his feet’ – so Leeds potentially snapping him up is an exciting prospect.
He would add the guile and end product in midfield that is lacking at Elland Road, with none of the Whites’ current central midfielders scoring more than once in the Premier League this season.
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At 22, Gibbs-White is also someone who could represent a long-term signing, with Marsch nurturing him and ensuring he slowly becomes a key player over time.
Whether or not Wolves are willing to sell a prized asset remains to be seen but it is a transfer Leeds should continue eyeing up in the coming months, with his current deal expiring in the summer of 2024.
In other news, an injury expert has provided an update on a stricken Leeds player. Read more here.
Virat Kohli, the captain of India’s Under-19 squad for the World Cup, may still be in his teens but he’s already aware of the kind of spotlight an Indian cricketer faces when playing on the international stage. As the team prepared to depart for Malaysia, Kohli said India were “expected to be favourites” and hoped to fulfill those expectations – backed by a strong batting line-up and a bolstered attack – during the 15-day tournament.The squad spent the last week at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore, fine-tuning their preparations under the guidance of Dav Whatmore, who will be their coach for the tournament. Kohli said the team had worked hard on their fielding skills, which he felt needed to be improved, during the camp and the time spent together had helped build team-spirit.India have had a successful run in the lead-up to Malaysia. They won a Youth Test series in South Africa 1-0 as well as a triangular limited-overs tournament involving South Africa, who are grouped with India in the World Cup, and Bangladesh. The batsmen performed impressively in the tri-series, with Kohli, Saurav Tiwary, Tanmay Srivatsava and Manish Pandey all averaging above 50.”We have a deep batting line-up and most often our No.7 and No.8 batsmen have not had a chance to bat on the last two or three tours. So batting is a big strength,” Kohli said. “The fast bowling was lacking on the last tour so we’ve got more fast bowlers to strengthen that area.”India’s group also includes West Indies and Papua New Guinea and their practice-matches before the main tournament kicks off will be against two teams Kohli considered among the toughest in the competition – New Zealand and England.”We know most of the England team and the New Zealand team, which are the difficult teams. We don’t know much about Pakistan because I think the team has changed. But we’ve seen South Africa, England and New Zealand which are the strongest teams, so we know about them.”For most of the team, the World Cup will be their first experience of playing in front of a television audience. Kohli, however, said that thinking about factors such as television would only add to the pressure. “You don’t have to think about it much,” Kohli said. “We just have to play like we have been playing on the last four or five tours. We’ve been winning all the tours so we would like to keep up the winning streak.”While Kohli and his team-mates are thinking of the immediate future, and how it could be the launching pad for future international careers, their coach is able to look at the larger picture. The challenge, Whatmore said, was to “create the right pathways and competitions for the youngsters to come through.”
The dates for the second Afro-Asia Cup one-day series, which is being staged in India, have been announced.The three matches, which the ICC have granted full ODI status, will be played in Chennai (June 6) and Bangalore (June 9 and 10). All games will start at 2.30pm and will be day-night matches. The organisers have said that the two sides will be known as the Asia Tigers and the African Lions.The timing is slightly surprising given that it is in the monsoon season, but such are the demands on the teams that it was one of the few free periods in the calendar. India will have just finished their series against Bangladesh, and none of the other countries who will supply players are in action.The first staging of the tournament, which is a fund-raiser for the African Cricket Association and the Asian Cricket Council, was in South Africa in August 2005. On that occasion the outfields had to be painted green for television audiences, so far out of the normal season were the games played.
The United Cricket Board of South Africa has named the 18 players who will attend the 2006 National Academy, based at the High Performance Centre at the University of Pretoria.Dean Elgar, the captain of the South Africa U-19 team at the World Cup in Sri Lanka, is among the names and he is joined by youngsters who have shown promise at various age groups and in first-class cricket.Anton Ferreira, the UCBSA national coaching manager and head of the National Academy, said: “The squad of 18 represents the 11th intake of this UCBSA’s elite player development programme and will be the third at the high performance centre at Tuks.”These players all have first-class experience at either amateur provincial or franchise professional levels and the majority have already started making their mark in a big way in various senior competitions.”The four-month academy will provide an intensive and extensive approach to their development both in cricket and life skills. We want to build their all-round capacities in order to enable them to meet the challenges of the next level of cricket.”Squad Keegan Africa, Craig Alexander, Farhaan Behardien, Werner Coetsee, Dillon du Preez, Dean Elgar, Robert Frylinck, Heino Kuhn, Corne Linde, Sadi Mhlongo, Hillroy Paulse, Abdul Hack Razzak, Pepler Sandri, Blake Snijman, Abongile Sodumo, Dominic Telo, Craig Thyssen
Digicel, the sponsor of the West Indies team, has regretted the leaking of a confidential memo to the public. A statement from the company said, it was "disappointed that an internal memo, given to the WICB as a confidential communication has reached the public domain,” according to the BBC website. The West Indies team has been embroiled in a controversy ever since the memo, which suggested that players were more keen on having a good time off the field than performing on it, leaked out to various sections of the media.Digicel also reaffirmed their commitment to sponsoring the West Indies team. It is currently in a US$20million contract over five years with the team. "We are enthusiastic about developing the many initiatives which will support the growth of the game," said the statement. This comes hot on the heels of the West Indies Players’ Association threatening legal action against a newspaper which published the memo.In the memo, Richard Nowell, the sponsorship liaison, reportedly lambasted the team for its behaviour, calling the team, "the poorest ambassadors from any representative team I’ve come across." The West Indies Cricket Board is scheduled to conduct a tour debriefing on February 20, and are expected to discuss the contents of the memo in this meeting.
Danish Kaneria struck two vital blows midway through the morning session to leave the Test match tantalisingly poised with five sessions to go. Bangladesh were in control of the situation at 194 for 3 – a lead of 136 – but the loss of Habibul Bashar and Alok Kapali resulted in the second hour being a real battle of cat-and-mouse. At lunch, Bangladesh had reached 221 for 5, with Rajin Saleh having faced 192 balls for his 45.The first hour had belonged to Bashar, who brought up his second Test century – only the fourth by a Bangladesh batsman, and the first against Pakistan – with a mixture of caution and reckless abandon. Having resumed on 82, Bashar was off and running with a cracking square drive off Shoaib Akhtar.The prospect of three figures was clearly making him nervous though, and he was fortunate that a thumping drive off Mohammad Hafeez just eluded Yousuf Youhana’s outstretched fingertips at deep midwicket. And if that wasn’t good fortune enough, an inside-edge off Akhtar’s bowling spun back just short of the stumps.But Bangladesh’s best batsman wouldn’t be denied, and a deft deflection down to short third man off Umar Gul saw him to 100, prompting sustained applause from the dressing room, and the small smattering of spectators. At that stage, with Saleh having dug a deep trench at the other end, things looked rosy for Bangladesh.It was Bashar’s penchant for the spectacular that undid him. Kaneria, who had persisted in pitching short and wide most of the morning, finally got one in the slot. Bashar leant back and had an almighty swing, but it didn’t even go as far as the average sand wedge – straight to Shabbir Ahmed at cover (194 for 4). Bashar’s 108 had spanned almost five hours, but the manner in which he gave it away took some of the sheen off the effort.Moments later, Kaneria sneaked a googly through Alok Kapali’s bat and pad, prompting a few anxious faces in the Bangladesh dressing room. They needn’t have worried. With Saleh showing the adhesive qualities of a periwinkle on rock, and Khaled Mashud providing stolid support, Pakistan’s best efforts were thwarted. Akhtar ran in and gave it his best shot, but the bowling seldom threatened a Bangladesh side that has suddenly discovered the access codes to Test match batting.