Kumble backs Dravid to make quick ODI return

India’s newly-appointed Test captain Anil Kumble backed experienced batsman Rahul Dravid to make a quick return to the one-day side.

Dravid, 34, was dropped for the first four games of the present five-match one-day series against Pakistan after averaging less than 10 in his last 10 one-day matches.

Former captain Dravid, one of seven batsmen in the world to score over 10,000 one-day runs, however, displayed his old touch with a spanking double hundred in a recent domestic game.

“He’s too good a player to be left out,” Kumble told news channel NDTV on Sunday.

“I’m sure it’s only a temporary phase. He is an integral part of the team and he has been [that] for the last 12 years,” Kumble added.

India won the third one-dayer by 46 runs on Sunday to go 2-1 up.

Dravid is, however, expected to be an automatic choice for the three-Test series against Pakistan beginning later this month.

He gave up the captaincy in September after the England tour to focus on his batting but looked out of sorts in the one-day series against Australia, scoring 51 in five completed innings.

BCCI office bearers to meet in Delhi

MUMBAI : BCCI office bearers, headed by president Sharad Pawar, will meet on Tuesday in Delhi with the long-pending matter of appointment of a coach for the Indian team topping their agenda.

The naming of a coach has been kept pending since the decision of previous incumbent Greg Chappell not to seek a renewal of his contract following the national team’s dismal show in the World Cup.

The BCCI’s quest in finding a new coach since then has not borne fruit and twice, in the last couple of months, a meeting of the special coach selection committee had been put off for different reasons.

Currently, Lalchand Rajput is in charge of the team’s affairs as its cricket manager on a series to series basis after having taking over the job from another former Test cricketer Chandu Borde at the end of India’s trip to England.

Rajput’s tenure, however, has been finalised only till the end of the current five-match ODI series against Pakistan on November 18.

The two teams are to take part in a three-Test series at the end of the ODI rubber from November 22-December 12.

After a short break of three-four days, India are set to depart for a full tour of Australia with their first tour match Down Under, against Victoria, scheduled on December 20.

Team for Oz tour to be chosen after second India-Pak Test

MUMBAI : The squad for India’s four-Test cricket series in Australia, commencing on December 26, will be picked after the second Test against Pakistan.

“The team for Australia will be selected between the second and third Tests against Pakistan. We can’t delay choosing the team,” BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah said.

India will play second Test against Pakistan at Eden Garden in Kolkata from November 30 to December four and the third and final match would begin at Bangalore on December 8. The series starts at Delhi on November 22.

Shah said, henceforth, teams would not be chosen on days when matches involving the squad are held.

“We will not choose teams on the day of a match. It becomes difficult for the selectors to concentrate on the game,” Shah explained.

India are to play the Test matches for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against hosts Australia at Melbourne (December 26-30, 2007), Sydney (January 2-6, 2008), Perth (January 16-20) and Adelaide (January 24-28).

India will later feature in a triangular ODI series with Australia and Sri Lanka, after taking on the hosts in a one-off Twenty20 tie on February 1 at Melbourne, from February 3.

The league phase of the Commonwealth Bank Series is to conclude on February 29 followed by best-of-three finals featuring the top two teams between March 2 and 7.

Lee bowls Australia to victory against Sri Lanka

NEW DELHI : Man of the match Brett Lee completed his second successive four-wicket haul as Australia thumped Sri Lanka by an innings and 40 runs in the first cricket Test in Brisbane on Monday.

Resuming at their overnight score of 218 for five, the Lankans, who were forced to follow on after being bundled out for 211 in reply to a mammoth Australian total of 551, were bowled out for 300 on the final day.

Lee was the wrecker-in-chief for the hosts, returning match figures of 8/112 after picking up 4/86 in the second innings.

For the visitors Chamara Silva was the only batsman to put up some resistance today scoring a valiant 43 before edging Lee to Michael Hussey to start the Lankan collapse.

The visitors’ tail-enders failed to contribute much as Lee and Stuart Clark (2/75) completed the formalities.

The second and final Test of the series would be played in Hobart from November 16.

Brief Scores:
Australia: 551 for 4 declared
Sri Lanka: First Innings – 211 all out
Second Innings: 300 all out (Michael Vandort 82, Mahela Jayawardane 49, Chamara Silva 43, Brett Lee 4/86).

Dropping Yuvraj cost us the match, rues Shoaib Malik

KANPUR, November 11: Dropping Yuvraj Singh early in his innings and allowing him to forge a century stand with Mahendra Singh Dhoni cost Pakistan the match, rued visiting captain Shoaib Malik.

Yuvraj was batting on 26 when he went for a slog-sweep off Malik as the ball went spiraling up and Salman Butt could not hold on to the catch.

Pakistan were made to pay for the folly as Yuvraj went on to slam 77 and add 100 runs for the fourth wicket off 92 balls with Dhoni to power India to an imposing total of 294.

“It was a costly drop. It allowed him to join hands with Dhoni and take upper hand. We were pretty much in control till the 27th-28th over but after that, things just went out of hand. The partnership between Yuvi and Dhoni was the turning point of the match,” Malik said.

He, however, also had a word of praise for Butt, who fought tooth and nail even though his career best 129 was not enough in the end.

“I think if any other batsman could have scored 70-80, we would have won the match. He played well but we did not have partnerships in the middle,” the Pakistani skipper said.

Malik admitted the team think-tank decided to send Shahid Afridi to open the innings because of his past record at the venue where the all-rounder had hit a 45-ball century in 2005.

“He played as an opener in that match and the wicket today looked similar, so we decided to send him at the top.”

Malik also felt that his side had conceded 50-odd extra runs to shoot themselves in the foot.

“On this track, where the ball is not coming to the bat, 250 is gettable. We should have restricted them to 250. A target of 295 was always going be stiff,” he said.

Admitting that the team morale was little down after the defeat, Malik, however, promised to fightback and do best to win the next two matches to clinch the series.

He also sought to defend his own form and stumper Kamran Akmal’s prolonged bad patch.

“I think defeats beget such doubts about our capabilities. Akmal has done well in the past, one of the better batsman-keeper, only Adam Gilchrist probably has more hundreds. Everyone goes through this phase and he’s no different.

“Besides, there was no question of trying a new face in a tour like this where the pressure is so immense,” Malik argued.

Sri Lankan newspaper runs black figure in place of cricket action shot

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: A Sri Lankan newspaper chose a graphic way to illustrate how a media rights dispute between Cricket Australia and the major international news agencies is hurting its coverage of the series.

With its national squad in Brisbane, Australia, for the first test match against the world’s top-ranked team, Sri Lanka’s Sunday Times would usually rely on The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse to supply images.

But with the agencies locked out of the match over a dispute involving the terms and conditions of accreditation, the paper carried only a three-column report supplied by the British Broadcasting Corp.

Next to the report, in a space where a match photo would usually go, was a black figure in the shape of a batsman playing a stroke.

“This space is dedicated to what would have been an action picture of the test match in progress in Brisbane,” the caption read. “The black figure is courtesy of Cricket Australia.”

The key elements of the dispute are Cricket Australia’s insistence on a license fee for photographs of its events, curbs on the distribution of news and images to online publishers and assertion of an intellectual property interest in stories and photos produced by journalists at its events.

The news agencies are refusing to pay the unprecedented license fee

The AP’s associate general counsel, Dave Tomlin, said news agencies did not pay news sources for the right to hear or tell their stories, and do not pay organizers of newsworthy events for the right to cover them.

“When we start doing that, both we and our sources can kiss our credibility goodbye,” he said.

A similar dispute between the International Rugby Board and a coalition of the international news agencies and major news organizations that threatened to overshadow the World Cup was resolved only an hour before kickoff of the tournament in September.

On the eve or opening day of the cricket test last Thursday, Australia’s domestic newspaper groups accepted watered down conditions which did not include having to buy licensing rights.

However, the news agencies were not offered the same conditions and negotiations have continued.

The International Cricket Council has asked for the matter to be resolved quickly, while Sri Lankan cricket authorities have written to their Australian counterparts asking them to settle the situation before the second test starts Friday in Hobart.

Smith unhappy with pitch despite South African win

JOHANNESBURG – South African captain Graeme Smith laid into the state of the country’s pitches after his team surged to a record win over New Zealand in the first test on Sunday.

South Africa won by 358 runs after lunch on the fourth day to take a 1-0 lead in the two-match series.

The result was South Africa’s biggest win in terms of runs, and it was also New Zealand’s heaviest defeat. South Africa achieved their previous record when they beat England by 356 runs at Lord’s in 1994.

New Zealand’s biggest loss before this match came when Pakistan beat them by 299 runs in Auckland in 2001. Smith, however, did not appear to be in a celebratory mood.

“It was never going to be easy on a wicket like that,” he told a news conference. “You had to get the basics in place, and I think we did that.

“Wickets around the country are becoming poorer. In the last two years it’s become more difficult to find decent test wickets in South Africa. 

“If we’re going to take our game forward we need to take note of those things.”

New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori laid the blame for the loss on his team’s first innings of 118.

“We started well and after Shane Bond and Chris Martin bowled the opposition out on the first day we were very much in the game,” Vettori told a news conference.

“But our first batting performance was where it all went wrong. We then had to bowl so much that a couple of injuries meant we lost two bowlers.”

Fast bowler Bond has been ruled out of the rest of the tour with a torn abdominal muscle, while medium pacer Jacob Oram is doubtful with a hamstring injury. Vettori said medium pacer Kyle Mills and batsman Jamie How had been summoned from New Zealand to join the tour squad.

“Kyle Mills and Jamie How have been called up but whether they’ll be up to speed for the second test we’ll have to wait and see,” Vettori said.

The second test in Centurion starts on Friday.

Solanki joins Indian rebel league

Vikram Solanki has become the third England player to join the rebel Indian Cricket League.The Worcestershire skipper is due to join fellow county captains Paul Nixon and Darren Maddy in a move that could end his international career.

Meanwhile, the England and Wales Cricket Board is putting pressure on the counties to reconsider allowing players to sign deals with the ICL.  However, the players are not bound by ECB contracts during the winter.

The ICL differs from the Indian Premier League, an officially endorsed rival league which is also attracting big-name players.  Solanki, 31, has played in 51 one-day internationals, the last in the summer of 2006.

He and Maddy both featured in England’s Twenty20 squad which played in the ICC World Twenty20 in South Africa in September.  Several national boards have threatened to ban anyone who joins the ICL, and though the ECB has not carried out a similar threat, they may yet do so.

Irish internationals Niall O’Brien and Boyd Rankin are due to fly out to India imminently as the fourth and fifth players from the counties to join the league.  And there are also suggestions that some county players from overseas are due to honour similar contracts.

But the ECB has emailed all the counties asking them to persuade those players to back down.  There are, for instance, threats that any county sending players to the ICL could be banned from the new Twenty20 Champions League starting in 2008.

Six nations will send their two best domestic teams to India for that lucrative event – in England’s case it will be the finalists of the 2008 Twenty20 Cup.  A source close to the players told BBC Sport: “I don’t know if the counties will stop the guys from signing up.

“But if the players have already signed contracts and consequently pull out then there’s the potential for bounce-back action from the league.

Muralitharan has signed for the official Indian Premier League

“It would be a real mess if they suffered legal consequences.”

The ICL was created by broadcaster Zee Telefilms, which had grown frustrated at its inability to secure telecast rights for major cricket events.

After initial delays, it is due to start by the middle of November, and will feature six teams, the Mumbai Champs, Chennai Super Stars, Chandigarh Lions, Hyderabad Warriors, Kolkata Tigers and Delhi Jets.

Its star names include the retired Brian Lara and Inzamam-ul-Haq.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India has launched a copycat league, with teams also playing Twenty20 format.  Its top players include the likes of Muttiah Muralitharan and Ricky Ponting, who can play without any threat of being banned.

Sixteen of the 18 counties have their players signed on six-month contracts, which effectively makes their players free agents from 1 October to 31 March.  That means there is no legal impediment to stop the likes of Solanki, Maddy and Nixon for being employed elsewhere in the winter.

Only Lancashire’s players are on full-year deals, while Glamorgan’s are on nine-month contracts.

Solanki was not available for comment.

Kapil Dev rebels look doomed to failure

Kapil Dev, India’s captain when they won their only World Cup in 1983, was not only a fine swing bowler but also a sensational hitter. When he was batting in the Lord’s Test of 1990 with a rabbit No 11 at the other end, and India still needed 24 runs to avoid being made to follow on by England, Kapil hit four sixes off four balls. Twenty20 cricket ahead of its time.

Now Kapil’s great sense of timing has deserted him. Some time later this month, if it can get its act together, the Indian Cricket League will be launched. It is a private promotion, by an Asian Kerry Packer called Subhas Chandra, and fronted by Kapil: and if an analogy is made with a batsman new to the crease, this 20-over league will struggle to get off the mark.

Around 50 cricketers are milling around Chennai this weekend wondering what, if anything, is going to happen. ICL’s signings include some great has-beens like Glenn McGrath, Brian Lara and Inzamam-ul-Haq, as well as three England internationals, Vikram Solanki, Paul Nixon and Darren Maddy. But the majority are young Indian players whom nobody has heard of, and who have signed away their careers in official cricket after being promised 20 to 40 lakh rupees (£25,000-£50,000) for a three-year contract.

They have got one ground to play on, at Panchkula outside Chandigarh. What the teams are, and when they will play, has not yet been displayed on the website of the Indian Cricket League. Only one thing is certain: the terrible timing of this breakaway tournament.

India are currently playing Pakistan at home in a series of five one-day internationals, followed by three Tests. Then they tour Australia for a four-Test series. Four months of the most important bilateral cricket that India can play.

The ICL was designed to cash in on the new popularity of 20-over matches. The Indian Zee television channel had failed to land any official cricket coverage so, like Channel Nine in Australia 30 years ago, they decided to create their own brand. ICL signed Tony Greig, a key figure in World Series Cricket, as an executive board member along with Kapil. There the parallels begin and probably end.

Players like Nixon have been informed that they could be banned from the official, semi-global and highly lucrative 20-over tournament confusingly called the Indian Premier League, which will be launched next October. There is even a suggestion their clubs might be banned from the tournament too. There appears to be no need for any threats by officialdom, however. By then the ICL will surely have been dismissed with hardly a run on the board.

Three S.African cricketers join new Indian league

MUMBAI – West Indies captain Ramnaresh Sarwan, batsman Chris Gayle and three South African cricketers have signed up for the inaugural Indian Premier League (IPL), organisers said on Wednesday.

The South African trio who have joined the Twenty20 league which is due to start next April are all rounder Jacques Kallis, fast bowler Makhaya Ntini and wicket-keeper-batsman Mark Boucher.

The latest signings takes the list of international players to 49.

Promoted by the Indian cricket board with support from other major national boards, the IPL was launched to counter an unofficial Indian Twenty20 league due to start on November 30.

The 44-day IPL event will feature eight franchises in the inaugural season with each squad containing 16 players. They will play home and away games leading up to a grand final.