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Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden, Australia’s Test openers, have slammed the World XI’s attitude ahead of the Super Test that begins at the Sydney Cricket Ground on October 14.”We don’t want to hear any excuses about it [World XI] not being a team, they have less to play for, that sort of stuff. It is a Test match. They are playing the best team in the world over four years, and we [Australia] are playing against the best players in the world,” Langer was quoted as saying by sportinglife.com. “There are no excuses and hopefully the best team will win this Test match, and I think the best team won the three one-day games. I hope the World XI are not making excuses about not being galvanized.”Langer’s salvo came in response to Andrew Flintoff’s comments that the World XI struggled in the one-day series because the players had to play different roles from the ones they were used to in their national teams.Matthew Hayden too believed that Australia were still far ahead of any other team. “This side [World XI] is as good a side as we have ever seen, perhaps, in cricket for me. If we [Australia] play well then I think we will beat anyone. And I think the last few days have really proven that. I think from our point of view it is important that we just play our game. We have come off a big series, but we have had good strategies against all of these players over a number of years, and I think in a lot of ways if we do put that together, we are unbeatable.”

Jagdish Sodha, whose name featured prominently during the Maurice Odumbe hearing, has said he will take legal action against the ICC for defamation. According to the East African Standard, he accused the cricket body of continually referring to him as a bookmaker, and admitted that though he knew Odumbe, he wouldn’t bet any money on Kenya.Sodha, a film producer based in Mumbai, was alarmed by the developments. “I intend to sue the ICC for defamation of my character and saying that I am a bookmaker. I do not know why they have been referring to me as a bookmaker. It is rubbish,” said Sodha, going on to say that nothing he had done earlier ever raised suspicion. “No one in the world has charged me, let alone convicting me, for bookmaking. I have never been arrested as well. I do not know where the ICC picked up this rubbish.””Even if I were a bookmaker,” Sodha said, “why would I approach Kenya, a team that wins once in a blue moon? What kind of money would I make? I’d rather approach someone else.” Sodha said that he attempted to do business with Odumbe as a partner, but the solar lamps and pharmaceuticals business was not successful.

Hemang Badani will lead India A in all one-day games on their tour of England. The team left Mumbai for England on the early hours of Sunday. Shiv Sunder Das, who was earlier named captain of the team, will now lead the side in all the other matches. Brijesh Patel, chairman of selectors, told The Hindu, “Badani is a one-day prospect and also is an experienced player. We (the selectors) thought he is the better candidate to lead the side while Das has only a limited role in one-dayers.”India A will play four one-dayers, one four-day match and six three-day games in their 45-day tour of England. After kicking off their tour against a young British Universities side, India A face off against increasingly tougher opponents.Interestingly, they come up against Yuvraj Singh (versus Yorkshire) and Mohammad Kaif (versus Leicestershire) before playing against the touring South Africans at Arundel from July 19 to 21.India A squad
SS Das (capt), Wasim Jaffer, Gautam Gambhir, Satyajit Parab, Hemang Badani (ODI capt), Sridharan Sriram, Ambati Rayudu, Rohan Gavaskar, Vijay Bharadwaj, Parthiv Patel (wk), L Balaji, Aavishkar Salvi, Amit Bhandari, Irfan Pathan Jr, Murali Kartik, Amit Mishra.

International off-spinner Paul Wiseman will play his cricket in Canterbury this summer.Wiseman, 31, will play his club cricket for High School Old Boys and be available for the State Canterbury Wizards.Wiseman has been living in Christchurch since April last year and his partner also lives here. If he continued to play for Otago he would have faced spending another five or six months away from home.”I’m studying up here and there are more business opportunities here if that is what I decide to do,” he said.Wiseman, whose 90 first-class matches have seen him take 258 wickets at a cost of 31.59, has also previously played for Auckland. In his 14-Test career he has 34 wickets, including two five-wicket bags, at a cost of 43.82.He told CricInfo the decision to play in Canterbury was one of the hardest in his life.”The Otago team has been more like a family. We are a great bunch of friends, we all lived close together in Dunedin and have been close mates,” he said.Wiseman told the Otago side on Monday night before Otago started its four-day programme at the High Performance Centre at Lincoln University.”Their support was fantastic. I have really enjoyed my time with Otago.”But there is a great opportunity here in Canterbury under Sharpey [coach Michael Sharpe]. There is competition for places even without the New Zealand players here,” he said.Reaction to his decision to play in Canterbury had been “pretty positive” in Christchurch he said and he was looking forward to playing again when turning out in the first round of club cricket on Saturday. Former Canterbury player Geoff Allott is the Old Boys coach while Shane Bond and Warren Wisneski will be playing for the side.”It’s great to be on grass wickets so early in the season. It is a new, good and refreshing challenge,” he said.Wiseman admits that he didn’t do his international aspirations too much good after the ankle injury he suffered in South Africa last year.”I came back when I was not quite ready and it affected my performance. It was not the right thing to do,” he said.Wiseman has spent the winter trying to toughen things up around his ankle and feels it is getting stronger and stronger.He enjoyed the chance to travel to India for the annual Buchi Babu tournament with the New Zealand A side and said it had been a great experience.”We played as a team and the attitude was great. Everyone stood up when they had to and there was no doubt we were the best team there, and we should have been because of the number of internationals we had compared to the other teams,” he said.Wiseman will strengthen the spin bowling options open to the Canterbury selectors who have leg-spinners Aaron Redmond and Marcel McKenzie and left-arm spinner Carl Anderson available locally.

ScorecardFidel Edwards impressed on his return from the Caribbean Premier League•PA Photos

International bowlers Jackson Bird and Fidel Edwards sliced through Middlesex as Hampshire cruised to a ten-wicket win in the Royal London Cup.Bird and Edwards made sure the Middlesex top order came and went in a constant flurry – leaving them 34 for 5 after 10 overs – as the visitors could only muster 117. Legspin talent Mason Crane continued the annihilation with a mature four-for to blast out the tail before Jimmy Adams and Michael Carberry knocked off the target without a fuss.After Middlesex captain Eoin Morgan elected to bat at the Ageas Bowl, it did not take long for the hosts to strike. Edwards flew back on Wednesday after stint in Caribbean Premier League but overcame his jet-lag in just three deliveries – former England Test opener Sam Robson edging behind.Australian Bird – on his Hampshire List A debut – struck in the next over, having another former England star Nick Compton leg before, and Morgan was out in the same way three balls later as Hampshire left the visitors floundering on 5 for 3 by the end of the second over.Dawid Malan gave Middlesex a 25-ball respite, the batsman scoring two boundaries, before he loosely drove to Chris Wood at mid-off off Edwards. And the Barbadian had Nick Gubbins caught at first slip by James Vince the very next ball to leave the score on 22 for 5 before John Simpson left the hat-trick ball alone.Both Edwards and Bird – with first-spell figures of 3 for 15 and 2 for 19 respectively – came out of the attack but there was no respite for the timid Middlesex batsman.Wicketkeeper Simpson was the next to fall, driving a simple catch to Adams in the covers to give Wood a wicket with his fifth delivery. And spin, in the shape of 18-year-old Crane, worked as well as pace when James Franklin – who patiently scored 18 amongst the onslaught – was pinned lbw.James Harris and Ollie Rayner added some semblance of respectability to the innings with a 55-run stand for the eighth wicket. The pair took the score to 100 before Harris swiped to Will Smith close in on the off side for 32 to give Crane his second. And he bagged a third two overs later as Rayner’s resolve ended on 24 when was lbw sweeping.Last-wicket duo Toby Roland-Jones and Junaid Khan had some fun slogging three quick boundaries but Crane ended with a four-for as the Pakistan international picked out Smith – Middlesex reaching a well below-par 117.Adams and Carberry got stuck into the chase with vigour, the openers making the pitch look less of a minefield with some crisp boundaries. Carberry in particular played the short ball with his trademark power – middling a pull to launch a six over square leg before a sumptuous cut for four.Carberry reached a carefree fifty from 42 balls, including eight fours, brought up with a single down the ground. Adams also scored a half-century – his first since making 61 against Middlesex in the Championship in May – to boost his confidence as Hampshire successfully chased down their target with over 27 overs to spare.

Liton Das’ 73-ball 85 led a strong batting performance by Abahani Limited, who brushed aside Prime Bank Cricket Club by 60 runs in the 2017 DPL’s first Super League game – a rain-affected affair at the BKSP-4 ground in Savar.Das’ effort was complemented well by Nazmul Hossain Shanto and Mohammad Mithun, the Abahani captain, who both struck quick half-centuries of their own to lift Abahani to 321 for 6 in an innings curtailed to 47 overs. In reply, Prime Bank were snuffed out in 43.3 overs for 273.Das laid out a solid platform for Abahani with a century stand for the second wicket in the company of Saif Hassan who struck a more sedate 46. After Das fell, having struck eight fours and four sixes, Shanto and Mithun added 107 more for the fourth wicket. Atif Hossain and Manan Sharma then raced away to unbeaten cameos to shore up Abahani.Prime Bank’s innings was strewn with batsmen perishing after getting off to starts. Five of their top six made a score in excess of 20, but Zakir Hasan’s 55 was the highest score. Prime Bank captain Asif Ahmed mounted a late fightback, but ran out of partners. He struck 32 of the 44 runs his team scored after his arrival at 229 for 7, before becoming the last man to be dismissed. Manan led Abahani’s bowling efforts with 3 for 54, while Afif, Shuvagata Hom and Mohammad Saifuddin took two each.A 641-run slugfest at the Fatullah Cricket Stadium ended with Mohammedan Sporting Club prevailing by seven runs, consigning Gazi Group Cricketers to their third consecutive defeat.Mohammedan ran up 324 for 8 after half-centuries from Rony Talukdar (92) and Shamsur Rahman (74) at the top. Chasing a stiff target, Gazi Group were off to a flying a start, but ended up on 317 for 8.Anamul Haque and Munim Shahriar kicked off the chase with a 61-run opening stand in 6.4 overs. Kamrul Islam Rabbi struck in the seventh over to end Anamul’s burst on 36 off 22 balls. He had struck three fours and two sixes. Mominul Haque fell soon after, but Shahriar repaired the damage with identical stands of 64 for the third and fourth wickets, with Jahurul Islam and Parvez Rasool respectively.Shahriar fell for 88 in the 39th over, after which Suhrawadi Shuvo kept Gazi afloat with a 51-run seventh-wicket stand with Mahedi Hasan. Though Shuvo and Mahedi struck a combined 84 runs, they only managed three fours between them, and the lack of boundaries hurt Gazi in the end. Kamrul, Bipul Sharma and Sajedul Islam took two wickets each.When Mohammedan batted, they were lifted by a 148-run second-wicket stand between Shamsur and Talukdar. The stand ended with Shamsur’s dismissal for 74 that had one four and five sixes. Talukdar fell in the 35th over, after the score had crossed 200. Thereafter, Bipul (28 off 31) and Nazmul Hossain Milon (47 off 33) made handy contributions to propel them to a big total. Mahedi (1 for 49) and Rasool (1 for 51) impressed in their respective quotas.In another curtailed game, at the BKSP-3 Ground in Savar, Imtiaz Hossain’s career-best 128 vaulted Prime Doleshwar Sporting Club to a 40-run win over Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club.Imtiaz, who struck 17 fours and four sixes, made nearly half his team’s runs as Prime Doleshwar put up 274 for 7 in an innings shortened to 46 overs. In reply, Dhanmondi Club were bowled out for 251 after their batsmen failed to convert their starts.Imtiaz’s second-wicket stand of 176 with Shahriar Nafees (67) formed the bulwark of Prime Doleshwar’s total. Sharifullah later made a valuable late contribution through a 27-ball 35.Three of Dhanmondi Club’s batsmen made 40s, including Tanbir Hayder, who top-scored with 46, while Ziaur Rahman made 37. But none hung on to make a big score.Five of the six bowlers used by Prime Doleshwar were among the wickets. Chathuranga de Silva and Arafat Sunny were the most impressive of the lot with figures of 2 for 38 and 2 for 41 in their respective nine overs.

Changes to next summer’s Friends Provident Trophy and the Twenty20 Cup have been announced by the ECB.In the Friends Provident Trophy the initial stage will be contain four groups of five teams comprising the 18 first-class counties as well as Ireland and Scotland. Each team will play the other four teams in the group twice throughout the competition – home and away. The top two teams from each group will then qualify for the quarter-finals, with the winners of each group earning a home draw.In terms of the Twenty20 Cup, the group stages will change to a symmetrical format of five home and five away games. This means each county will now play ten, rather than eight, group matches. The groups will remain regional-based with three groups of six first-class counties.”The changes to the format of these two competitions will be implemented for a number of reasons,” explained David Collier, the ECB’s chief executive. “We were keen to reduce the number of so-called “dead games” in the Friends Provident Trophy and add a competitive edge to all of the games in the competition without increasing the volume of cricket.”The Twenty20 Cup continues to attract new spectators to the sport and the introduction of extra fixtures will give even more people a chance to sample the Twenty20 experience at their local county ground. And the prospect of more local derbies will add further spice to the competition at the group stages.”Counties may play fewer teams under the new structure but there will be more local derbies thus reducing travel and making the logistics of the programme more acceptable. There will also be more opportunities for the supporters of each county to see an increased number of home matches.”An ECB spokesperson also told Cricinfo: “The fact that there is a small reduction in the Friends Provident Trophy is a balance meaning that counties play one less match in the FPT zonal rounds (100 overs) versus two additional Twenty20 matches (80 overs).”In addition the fact that the FPT has been zonalised provides more local derbies and less travel for players which is a benefit to both spectators and players. There is an additional cricketing benefit in that for the Twenty20 the counties now play all the opposition in their group at home and away and in the FPT there is the same number of home andaway matches in the zonal stage.”Both 50-over and Twenty20 cricket are formats of the game played in ICC global events and the balancing of the reduction in FPT cricket and the rounding of the group in the Twenty20 zonal rounds is consistent with the England Report [Schofield Report] and further enhances the opportunity to identify England players in these formats of the game.”

The Barmy Army have rubbished suggestions that hoards of thugs will travel with them to Australia for the Ashes.”To suggest that football hooligans will travel halfway round the world at great expense in the middle of the football season, just months after spending fortunes following England at the World Cup is quite extraordinary,” said Barmy Army co-founder Dave Peacock.He was reacting to news that Morris Iemma, the New South Wales premier, had sought intelligence from British police on known troublemakers to assist in their policing of the Sydney Test. He wrote: “I am sure you would agree that the ugly stain of poor crowd behaviour can adversely impact [on] the enjoyment of thousands of families who love cricket and reflect poorly on national reputations.”And the state’s police minister, Carl Scully, had a warning of his own. “If any didn’t [behave] then we’ll have the sort of response that we had to some of the rugby league games – very strong, very stern, very quick.”Paul Burnham, one of the founders of the Barmy Army, warned that any problems would be exacerbated by Cricket Australia’s handling of ticket allocations. “We’re not saying that there is never any trouble at cricket grounds – there are always a few idiots on both sides – but Cricket Australia’s arrangements haven’t helped the situation.”Victoria Police superintendent Mick Williams, who is in charge of security during Melbourne’s Boxing Day Test, said he was more concerned about the behaviour of Australian supporters.”[The Barmy Army] are very well-organised and actually control a lot of their own people. In fact, we tend to have more problems with our own local spectators than visiting spectators,” he told The Age.

Anyone arriving in the UK this morning could be forgiven for thinking that cricket was the nation’s obsession and football was a mere afterthought to fill in the gap between seasons. But then again, the Ashes aren’t won every day (or even every decade).While the broadsheets attempted to retain some sense of restraint – if only in appearance as opposed to their writing – the tabloids had no such worries. “FantASHtic” boomed the front page of The Sun, while its back page was devoted entirely to a picture of Michael Vaughan and the words of William Blake’s Jerusalem. The Mirror also put aside its front and pack pages to the cricket, and chose a different pun to lead with – “URNcredible”. And inside, just to put football finally in its place, the headline – “They think its all Oval … it is now”.The broadsheets also went into overdrive, with pages devoted to the match, and in some instances special pull-outs as well. But it was Kevin Pietersen’s performance which attracted the column inches. “When sport and drama can reach no higher plane and spectators are watching through the gaps between their fingers, even the greatest athletes can have performance strangled from within them. Pietersen’ s colleagues from higher up the order yesterday bore witness to that,” wrote Owen Slot in The Times. “Those who survive, we tend to associate with steely mentality: Jonny Wilkinson, Nick Faldo, Bjorn Borg. But to come equipped with soaring self-belief clearly helps, too. Arguably, Pietersen had no right to be “the man who did it”, but when your mentality is as cocksure as his is, who is there to stop you? “

In The Daily Telegraph , Geoff Boycott said Pietersen was “a belligerent individual. He is cocky and confident; there is a touch of arrogance about him. I love it, so long as he produces runs. All the great players have had self-confidence and self-belief. They have all been full of themselves. But the point is that they have delivered. Up until this point, Pietersen has had the persona but he hasn’t had the runs. All we want now is for him to take a catch, and then he has cracked Test cricket.”In the same paper, Martin Johnson carried on the theme with his tongue firmly in his cheek. “A grateful nation woke up this morning with the unshakeable conviction that Kevin Pietersen was wonderful, and if this was a view which happily corresponded with his own, what the heck. He even has an autobiography in the pipeline, no doubt with a diamond-encrusted front cover and the modest working title, KP Superstar … many batsmen take to wearing lucky charms, like a rabbit’s foot, but while they generally wait until the rabbit is dead, Pietersen became the first cricketer in Ashes history to bat with a live animal as a mascot. Wearing a skunk underneath your helmet may not meet the approval of the RSPCA, but in England’s hour of crisis, it certainly got the job done.””Play Pietersen, they said before this series began,” wote Mike Selvey in The Guardian. “Tolerate his lip and his ego, the bling, bullshit and 50-grand ear stud. And forgive him his batting peccadilloes – of which there would be many from such a free spirit with a confidence level on red alert – because somewhere along the line he will deliver an innings that matters. Yesterday was his, the day this brash fellow, with the skunk-chic haircut and more front than Durban, channelled it all into one remarkable innings that saved the day for his team and won them back the Ashes.”In The Independent, James Lawton caught his breath. “England won the Ashes, but long after this is a detail of cricket history assigned amid a thousand others, this day, this summer, will surely live at least as long as all who saw it and felt it and were carried, for a small but totally absorbing fraction of their lives, into a world where men, however young and green, however steeped in gritty experience, kept digging down and finding new dimensions to both their will and their talent.”Also in The Independent, Peter Roebuck said that the England had won the Ashes fair and square. “They looked the Australians in the eye and exchanged blows until the weaker side fell.. He concluded: “Perhaps, though, the last word belongs to a cheerful crowd’s lone trumpeter, a splendid gentleman who reminded all and sundry that it is only a game by routinely greeting Langer with his rendition of ” hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to work we go”.Back to The Times , where Christopher Martin-Jenkins touched on the massive interest in the match across the country. “There has never been a series followed at close quarters by so many as this,” wrote Christopher Martin-Jenkins. “When Radio 4’s computer was switched on in the Test Match Special commentary box yesterday morning there were 18,543 e-mail messages unread.”

Taj Television, a Dubai-based cable television operator which runs TEN Sports, has secured Sri Lanka’s broadcasting and sponsorship rights for the next four years after matching a US$ 48 million bid from ARY Digital.Taj Television, the current rights holders, had a matching rights clause in their current contract which allowed them to outbid any competitor providing they upped the bid by an agreed percentage. The final amount that will be paid to the board, assuming it can deliver on its promised tours, is approximately US$ 50 million.The new deal represents a substantial jump in income for the Sri Lanka board, which has been facing financial difficulties during the past two years because of a legal wrangle with WSG Nimbus. The stiff competition for the rights – which include television, radio, internet, wireless and title-sponsorship rights – follows the announcement that the four-year period, from January 2005, will include three tours by India.India are due to play in a triangular series in 2005 and 2006, as well as undertake a full Test and one-day tour in 2008. England and Australia, the two other most lucrative visitors, will also tour during the contract period.