Mark Vermeulen, who was banned from all first-class and league cricket in England for 10 years on Wednesday, has issued a statement through his lawyers claiming he only learnt of his ban through the media the following day.Following a chain of incidents at a Central Lancashire League match between Werneth and Ashton the league imposed the decade-long ban. However, Andrew Fitch-Holland, a barrister and principal with Line & Length Sports Consultants, who is acting for Vermeulen claimed the league thought the batsman had left the country.”Mark Vermeulen learnt of the imposition of this ban from a news story appearing on Cricinfo’s website on September 14th,” the statement read. “Mr. Vermeulen had received no communication from any official of the Central Lancashire League that disciplinary proceedings were being taken against him and therefore was not present when this matter was considered.”We understand that this action was taken in circumstances where the League believed that Mark was no longer in the country, which is not the case. Mark is devastated to find himself in this position and understands that his behaviour at the match in question was far from acceptable. Naturally he wishes to offer his heartfelt apologies not just to those who witnessed the incident, but to the League and his team-mates.”We have been in contact with the League and have made it clear that Mark wishes to have the opportunity to have a personal hearing as a matter of urgency. At the present time we anticipate that such a hearing will now be held within the next few days.”At such a hearing mitigation will be offered in the hope that the League would then be fully aware of all the circumstances surrounding this incident,” the statement continued.”We would expect that any punishment that might be imposed would then be made with all the relevant factors having been properly considered. In that regard we are actively working with the CLL in a spirit of contrite co-operation to resolve this situation as soon as possible.”Click here to see the video of the incident at bbc.co.uk

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.

Vinod Kambli, the former Indian middle-order batsman whose 664-run partnership with Sachin Tendulkar in school cricket was recently bettered by a Hyderabad duo, has hailed the “incredible” feat, adding that he was “shocked” at the run-rate achieved by the two batsmen.Manoj Kumar and Mohammed Shaibaz, opening for St Peter’s School in Hyderabad, rattled off 721 runs in just 40 overs, thereby putting several records in the shade. “It’s good to see that the boys were hungry to score big,” Kambli told Cricinfo. “They seem to have been told about the record and how to get there, but they deserve all the credit. We created our record in the late ’80s and it stood for so long. Sri Lanka’s two batsmen [Jayawardene and Sangakkara] came close but couldn’t get it.”Refusing to buy the argument that schools cricket makes for easy records, Kambli stressed on the physical and mental toughness that such a feat demanded. “It’s extremely difficult unless you have some talent,” he said. “Our coach used to constantly tell us that 30s and 40s are just not good enough. It was tougher for us because schools cricket was more competitive that time – cricketers we played against went on to play for Mumbai and Sairaj Bahutule played for India also. It was largely because of our coach [Ramakant Achrekar] who kept telling us to always try for a big score. Even if we got a double-hundred or a triple-hundred he never used to congratulate us. He used to ask, ‘Why didn’t you stay not out?'”Kambli, who’s currently getting back to full fitness ahead of the Ranji Trophy season, was happy that, unlike in his time, exceptionally talented school cricketers had a monitoring process in place. “Really good school cricketers, especially those with exceptional records, need to be part of a monitoring system,” he said. “In our time, there were many cricketers more talented than me who didn’t make it to the Ranji or U-19 side and quit the game. There was no scope for them beyond a point and they ended up as businessmen or took up other professions. My only advice to young cricketers is, ‘Don’t give up hope. Cricket and studies can go together.'”What saddened Kambli, though, was the step-motherly treatment given to schools cricket these days, once a training ground for several promising careers. “Almost all the Test legends have excelled in cricket at the school level. Sunil Gavaskar, one of my cricketing idols, always used to stress the importance of schools cricket. That’s where you start to learn and build your basics. When I was playing for my school, I started gaining so much confidence. Your level improves every day and it makes your more competitive.”On a more personal note, Kambli, who wasn’t named in the initial Mumbai Ranji Trophy squad, spoke of his immediate targets. “I’m just getting back into peak fitness as I want to be fully fit before playing for Mumbai. I don’t want to let my team down when not totally fit. I’m trying to get fit as soon as possible. My hands are itching to get out there and perform.”He reiterated the role played by his wife in keeping his interest alive. “Even during the hard times, thoughts of giving up the game never came into my mind,” he said. “My wife always stood by me. She used to always tell me, ‘Vinod I want to see you playing’. Her instinct and desire kept it alive. I’m itching to get into the Wankhade Stadium and start playing.”

Martin Snedden, the CEO of New Zealand Cricket, has admitted that the desultory attendances at the Christchurch Test have left him baffled. On all three days of the match the players and officials almost outnumbered the spectators.Snedden said he was fairly sure that the cost of tickets was not the issue. No-one showed up despite adult tickets costing just $15 and children having free entry over the weekend, as long as they wore cricketing clothes. He added that attendances were up overall, but that included ODIs and Twenty20 matches.One theory put forward for the poor attendances was the limit of a one litre bottle of water per person, but that hardly accounts for the missing thousands.

Irfan Pathan, who wasn’t expected to play any part in the Test series,will be heading back to India later this week to play two RanjiTrophy matches in a bid to regain some semblance of bowling form. Pathan’sdisplays with the ball have been little short of disastrous in recentmonths, and the team management felt that some time away and matchpractice would be the best remedy ahead of the eight one-day matchesscheduled for January and February against West Indies and Sri Lanka.”Irfan Pathan is a really important member for us leading into the WorldCup, and leading into a lot of tournaments that we have,” said RahulDravid explaining the decision to send home a man who took a hat-trickwhile opening the bowling in a Test match less than a year ago. “Irfan’snot getting as much cricket as we hoped in this series and we’ve discussedit with him, with the coaching staff and with the chairman of selectors.We feel it’s in Irfan’s best interests that he goes back and plays RanjiTrophy games on the 2nd and 10th before the start of the one-day series inIndia.”Pathan’s last foray in South Africa was a dismal one, with 74 runsconceded in 11 overs against a Kwazulu-Natal Invitation XI. With MunafPatel coming back into contention after an ankle injury, Pathan’s chancesof making the team dwindled significantly. “Munaf has recovered reallywell, so we have that cover in terms of medium-pace back-up,” said Dravid.”We feel that it’s in Irfan’s best interests that he goes back. If he wentback after this tour, he would get only one game.”He himself feels that he needs to have some bowling. And we, the coachingstaff and senior management group, feel that he is too important for us.We need to get him right, and one of the is to get him to playsome cricket.”When asked whether his lack of rhythm and consistency in the warm-up gamehad been a factor in the decision, Dravid said: “It wasn’t only thetwo-day game. Obviously, we had to ensure that we had enough back-up.Munaf wasn’t fully fit so we couldn’t risk anyone going back at thatstage. But with only one match to go, we have sufficient back-up. We don’tsee Irfan playing a part for us in this series, but he’s a very importantpart of the team in the near and long-term future.”

Dravid stressed that there would be no replacement, and suggested thatPathan had plenty of time to make the adjustments that will allow him tocome back a better and wiser bowler. “He can take confidence from thefact that he’s young,” he said. “He’s 22 and he’s not the only one ininternational cricket who’s had to go through something like this. Abowler like Stephen Harmison had to go through something like this duringthe Ashes series, struggling really badly. It can happen, especially whenyou’re young.”According to Dravid, time in the middle was the best remedy. “In Irfan’scase, he went through a similar period in the home series against Pakistan[2004-05],” he said. “I remember he struggled a bit. But he went toEngland and played a lot of county cricket [for Middlesex], bowled a lotof overs. I think that was a sort of catalyst in bringing him back to thesort of form and rhythm that he’s capable of bowling at. Keeping in mindthat, he needs a lot of bowling in match situations, we’ve taken thisdecision to give him enough games in the lead up to the World Cup.”Away from the media spotlight and the relentless scrutiny, Pathan will have the chance to focus on his current shortcomings and rediscover his bowling mojo. His pedigree has never been in doubt. After all, how many 22-year-old can point to 91 Test wickets and 114one-day scalps in a career that has already encompassed a Test-matchhat-trick?

“Bowl dot balls, because that gets to Matthew Hayden’s ego.” It’s a nice plan in theory, but on the second day at the MCG, it didn’t quite work. England did manage 184 of the blighters, but unfortunately they also served up 46 singles, 17 twos, three threes, 11 fours and two sixes, as Hayden rattled along to a thumping great innings of 153.Not only that, but England’s cunning plan was imparted to all of Australia’s listeners on ABC Radio, after a copy of their laminated, colour-co-ordinated bowling chart was lifted from the dressing-room and leaked to the Australian media. Other nuggets included the revelation that Andrew Symonds doesn’t move his feet much early in an innings and is susceptible to the bouncer, and that Ricky Ponting has a tendency to pull in the air in front of square. One out of three ain’t bad, I suppose.In official parlance, the episode was a severe embarrassment to both the England team, who have lavished vast sums of money on security for this tour, as well as Cricket Australia, the MCG management and the ICC. But at the end of a long, hard day in the field, Matthew Hoggard quite rightly repainted the whole episode as one big joke.”We’re continuing our investigations, and when we find who did it we are stringing them up by his ding-dang-doos and we’re chopping them off,” announced Hoggard in the middle of his end-of-day press conference, as he dispensed with the usual platitudes and put-the-ball-in-the-right-areaisms that are usually England’s stock utterances on days as bad as this.”It’s very disappointing when you’ve got a document that’s personal and private. You’d think that the security in international cricket was tighter than that,” Hoggard continued, in a short-lived attempt to keep a straight face. But with England’s lugubrious press officer, Andrew Walpole, sitting to one side of the table and inaudible to the assembled microphones, it was over to Hoggard to display (or otherwise) the indignation of Team England.”We’ve got our best people on the case,” he continued. “Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Morse, Miss Marple …” And another was added soon afterwards when the Independent‘s irascible correspondent, Stephen Brenkley, got stuck into the conspiracy theory, demanding to know just what use England’s three full-time security guards are anyway.

“Shall we add him to the investigation team?” asked an impressed Hoggard. “He’d go well with Miss Marple.” Eventually, though, Walpole got enough words in edgeways to deliver the official England line. “We don’t know whether the document was taken from the England dressing-room or another part of the ground,” he declared, “so we are talking to the ICC security manager, and to Cricket Australia, who are very disappointed, as we are.”But Hoggard who, incidentally, bowled Michael Hussey (“Vulnerable to swinging ball”) through the gate with a swinging ball, scotched any lingering notion of seriousness by admitting: “I just close my eyes and whang it down anyway, so there’s not much planning there.” As for the suggestion of whether England should sneak into the Australian dressing-room and nick their plans for the England batsmen, he retorted: “It wouldn’t help us!”The levity in the England press conference was not shared by Symonds, who blanked an enquiry about his bouncer problem, nor Hayden, who snorted at the suggestion he’s an egomaniac, before announcing, very deadpan: “It’s not rocket-science, gentlemen. You have to bowl the ball at the top of off stump.” But for all of Hoggard’s good humour in adversity, it was the Aussie pair who were enjoying the last laugh this evening. England, quite literally, had lost the plot.

The election of a new Zimbabwe Cricket board earlier this month and the reappointment of Peter Chingoka as its chairman was expected to end much of the internal rancour within the game.But a report in The Zimbabwean quotes one stakeholder as saying there are plans afoot to “make cricket ungovernable for Chingoka”.Chingoka’s continued presence at the helm of the board has not been welcomed by everyone, although ZC has effectively eliminated its most vociferous critics over the last year. Even within those brought in as replacements, there appears to be unease about Chingoka’s role. His re-election came exactly a year after here were widespread moves to remove him from office.”It’s the same story of rigging and manipulation of structures that enabled Chingoka to bounce back,” someone described as a veteran cricket administrator told the paper.And one of the new provincial heads was equally defiant. “It has become an embarrassment that we seem to imply a serious lack of capable people in this country,” he said. “We are mobilising for serious measures that make Chingoka realise he is not wanted. Cricket belongs to the grassroots and we shall make it ungovernable, for Chingoka to go.”

Following their warm-up games against the senior Zimbabwe World Cup squad this week, plans are afoot for Zimbabwe A to take on the South African franchise side, the Titans, at the end of March.The Titans are a formidable team who have just recently won the SuperSport Series – South Africa’s premier first-class trophy. The Titans squad contains several South African internationals in Paul Harris, Alfonso Thomas, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and the captain, Martin van Jaarsveld.They promise to be stiff opposition for the inexperienced Zimbabweans, but tours such as these are essential for Zimbabwe to build up a base of experienced players following the recent spate of retirements which led to Zimbabwe withdrawing themselves from the Test arena. Zimbabwe are set to resume Test cricket later in the year.Speaking on Thursday, Kenyon Ziehl, the chairman of the national selection committee said: “Most of the guys in the side are extremely talented players who are pushing for slots in the national team but still need a bit more time playing List A cricket. The operations department is currently working on a Zimbabwe A programme with prospects of the Titans from South Africa coming down for a couple of games at the end of March.”There are also plans to invite South Africa A in May and a possible tour to India as the year progresses but the final details of these tours still need to be confirmed.

Scorecard

Steve Tikolo led from the front with five wickets and a half-century as he guided Kenya to a narrow nine-run win over The Netherlands in Jamaica. The captain Tikolo helped his side recover from early trouble with 51 on the way to a healthy total of 274 for 8 and he stepped in with 5 for 48 when his opponents threatened to steal the game.Each of The Netherlands’ top three reached half-centuries to give them a strong chance of victory, but Tikolo made sure they fell short at 265 for 9. The Netherlands started well when Darron Reekers and Bas Zuiderent put on 142 for the first wicket at almost five an over. Reekers collected 75 and Zuiderent posted 65 to lay the platform, which Ryan ten Doeschate built on with 50 off 46 balls.However, when ten Doeschate was run-out in the 48th over the innings went into freefall and in the scramble for another 19 runs they lost four wickets. After removing Reekers, Tikolo’s offspin took care of Daan van Bunge (23) and Peter Borren (22) before finishing his haul by knocking over Billy Stelling and Luuk van Troost.Sent in to bat, Kenya slumped to 21 for 3 when David Obuya was caught-and-bowled to become Mark Jonkman’s second wicket. However, Tikolo and Tony Suji (47) were able to move them to safety in an important 104-run partnership.When Tikolo and Suji fell within nine runs and Tanmay Mishra departed at 141 for 6 – van Bunge picked up three wickets in three overs – it seemed as though The Netherlands would have a comfortable chase. Their plans were shattered when Thomas Odoyo, the No. 7, thumped an innings-high 73, which was finally ended by van Troost, whose eventful final over cost 24. Odoyo, who faced only 49 balls and hit four sixes, contributed in valuable stands of 62 with Collins Obuya and 71 with Jimmy Kamande.

Bennett King, the West Indies coach, has said that that West Indies’ six-wicket win over Zimbabwe at Sabina Park on Monday was ‘scrappy’ and called for an improved showing in the remaining matches. He stressed that a steady build-up to the harder matches was what he was after at this stage.”You don’t win a World Cup in March, you have to win it in April,” King told reporters. “Brian [Lara] said at the beginning of the tournament we’re looking for some momentum and two wins certainly gives some. I think it’s important to build and not play all your best innings now, although it would have been nice if we had won with one or two wickets down.”The display by West Indies was not flawless or as ruthlessly efficient as the captain and coach would have wished. After Lara had asked Zimbabwe to bat first, the bowlers sent down 15 wides, as opposed to two in their opening fixture against Pakistan. When chasing 203 to win, Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Marlon Samuels all got starts but were unable to carry on to substantial scores.”That was a scrappy win,” King said. “I’m glad that we fought it out nice and hard to get the points, but the pitch showed that if you got in, you really needed to knuckle down, work hard and continue on. It took people a little bit of time to get in once they started. We didn’t do that very well.”We certainly didn’t bowl as well as we bowled the other day. The wides were still a concern. We bowled too many of them.”On the positive side, King contended that the faith shown in this group was paying off. “We’ve been able to keep a similar squad for a year or two now and I think that’s been one of the keys to us moulding as a more competitive force. It’s the players coming together and knowing that they’ve got some loyalty and people who care about them.”Looking ahead to the final group match against surprise Super Eights contenders Ireland on Friday, King said, “I’d like to think if we play to our capabilities we should come out on top. There are three Australians [in the Irish team] who we are quite familiar with. My assistant coach [David Moore] actually played and coached in New South Wales and actually looked after some of those fellows. So we have a reasonable understanding and know what their capabilities are.”