Adam Gilchrist believes Brad Hogg is bowling better than ever before, giving the selectors something to ponder ahead of the first Test against Sri Lanka. Hogg destroyed Victoria and Stuart MacGill had little impact against Queensland in this week’s Pura Cup matches as they vie to replace Shane Warne in the national attack.Gilchrist was wicketkeeping for Western Australia as Hogg earned match figures of 8 for 83 in addition to a blistering 58 not out in a Man-of-the-Match performance at the MCG. “He had a terrific game, terrific tour of India,” Gilchrist said.”He himself says he’s bowling as well as he has at any point in his career and I’d probably have to back him up in that regard and say that his consistency is what’s coming through. He’s in the mix.”Hogg barely bowled a loose ball in his 31 overs in Melbourne while at the SCG, MacGill was one of several bowlers brutalised by Matthew Hayden, finishing with first-innings figures of 3 for 183 from 36 overs. However, Gilchrist said he could not split the pair in predicting Warne’s successor and MacGill would benefit from the lengthy spell after his minor knee surgery.”He’s never let Australia down in my memory,” Gilchrist said of MacGill. “He can have mixed results in grade cricket, in state cricket, but when he fronts up with the green cap on he’s always produced very, very well. He’s bowled 30-odd overs. I wouldn’t look too much at the figures, you look at the workload with Stu and I’m sure he’ll be better for that.”Gilchrist said after a ten-month lay-off from Test cricket and a year dominated by limited-overs formats, it was “brilliant” for Australia’s key players to have a Pura Cup hit-out. As well as the Melbourne and Sydney games, Tasmania are hosting South Australia in a four-day match that features Ricky Ponting and Shaun Tait.”Not every Australian player is going to necessarily be Man of the Match in that state game but definitely we’ll benefit from that this week,” Gilchrist said. “We saw in the first game of the Twenty20 comp after a four-month lay-off we were a bit rusty and we lost to Zimbabwe. [Now] we’ve played two months of solid cricket.”Sri Lanka are warming up with a three-day game against a Cricket Australia Chairman’s XI in Adelaide ahead of the first Test, which starts in Brisbane next Thursday.

Chad Keegan, the 28-year-old fast bowler, has not been offered a contract by Middlesex for 2008.Plagued by injuries through his seven seasons at the club, Keegan was more accustomed to one-day cricket (133 wickets at 23.86) than the Championship (140 at 34.90). He never properly recovered from the surgery he underwent in 2005, followed by a complete remodelling of his action, and with injuries and fitness concerns shadowing every season, his opportunities at the club became increasingly limited.”Chad has been a wonderful player for Middlesex and a great bloke to have in and around the dressing room,” John Emburey, Middlesex’s director of cricket said. “Chad’s injury problems have curtailed his playing career and we are terribly sorry to see him leave us after seven years, in which he has had a huge influence on the club, both on and off the field.”We wish him every success in his future career.”

Batsman of the day
Mahela Jayawardene may have been Sri Lanka’s stand-out performer, butthe most fluent batsman of the day was his partner Chaminda Vaas. He’smore than just a tailender these days – earlier this year he picked uphis maiden Test hundred against Bangladesh. He deserved a secondcentury today, as he flogged England into submission with a successionof thumps, drives and swishes. They were agricultural but hugelyeffective, but in the end the allure of three figures proved too much.Mind you, Michael Vaughan did his utmost to drop the steeplingtop-edge that eventually did for Vaas. The bowler, Matthew Hoggard,didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.Drop of the day
He’s at it again. Matt Prior’s third clanger of the match came atprecisely the right moment to destroy what remained of England’sdwindling resolve. Jayawardene had only added five runs to hisovernight 149, when he edged low to Prior’s right, off the lucklessRyan Sidebottom. He got both mitts to the chance but couldn’t clingon, and a furious Sidebottom stalked down to fine leg in anunderstandable huff. That was the fifth chance that Prior has spilledoff his bowling in six Tests, and the missed victims – Jaffer,Tendulkar, Laxman, Dilshan and Jayawardene – are not exactly the typeof players who squander such lifelines.Fielder of the day
If England were slipshod, Sri Lanka were electric when their turn cameto field. Doubtless they were gagging for a run-about after two dayscooped up in the pavilion, but the stand-out performer wasTillakaratne Dilshan. Yesterday he was himself run out for 84; todayhe put the skids under England’s innings with a superb swoop and shyfrom the covers, to dismiss Ian Bell at the non-striker’s end. It wasa crass bit of calling from Bell’s partner Alastair Cook, but suddenlyEngland’s innings was reminiscent of the last time Bell was run out ina Test … on that fateful day at Adelaide last winter.Crass dismissal of the day
It’s hard to quantity the various depths that England plumbed in theirday’s work, but two men were more culpable than their colleagues.First there was Michael Vaughan, who set the tone for England’sinnings with arguably the most stone-cold lbw of the year. He’dwatched from the non-strikers’ end as Vaas zipped hisoffcutters past Cook’s prodding edge, but then – when he finally goton strike – he decided to offer no stroke to a ball that started afraction outside off stump, and sure enough snaked back in to rap thepads.

Crass dismissal of the day no. 2
England’s cricket in this series can best be summed up as naïve, andalas, Ravi Bopara epitomised that in the manner of his departure.England had only been back on the field for three balls after lunchwhen he lobbed an awful whip across the line straight to mid-on. Thecatcher, incidentally, was the debutant Chanaka Welegedara, who canhardly have hoped for a tamer introduction to Test cricket. Two dayswith his feet up in the dressing room, then a lollipop of a catch tosettle the nerves.Delivery of the day
Kevin Pietersen has faced some snorters in his lifetime, but few havebeen as blisteringly quick, accurate or unexpected as the exocet thatLasith Malinga unleashed before lunch. It skimmed off the deck like atennis ball out of the surf, fizzed at Pietersen’s face, and brushedhis glove as he whipped his body out of line in a movement reminiscentof Robin Smith against the West Indian quicks. Up went the finger, asPietersen froze at the crease, transfixed by the venom of thedelivery. Subcontinental wickets aren’t meant to provide bounce likethat, but it’s thrilling when they do.Contest of the day
Seeing as the English weren’t providing any opposition, the SriLankans decided to play among themselves. After the rain-break theyre-emerged 20 minutes early for a warm-up, most of which time wasspent playing bowls with a set of spare cricket balls. Muralitharan,as you might imagine, produced some wicked spin to land his attemptson a sixpence. He’s a pretty handy allrounder, it would appear.Hold-up of the day
So far in this series we’ve been held up by bees, dogs and an awfullot of rain, but “cultural experience stops play” is a new one, I’msure. Play was all set to resume after lunch, but down on theconcourse in front of the indoor nets, a frenzy of Kandyan drummersand dancers were bongoing away to themselves, quite oblivious to theumpires’ gesticulations. Eventually they got the message and troopedoff, a touch disconsolately. And with good reason too. No-one has yetasked the Barmy Army to shut up.

Sachin Tendulkar will make a donation to the new Bradman Museum in Adelaide as a way of paying tribute to his batting idol. Tendulkar is planning to hand over the pullover he wore while scoring his 30th Test century, the innings that took him past Don Bradman’s record of 29 Test hundreds.The museum is being built at Adelaide Oval and Tendulkar is set to make the donation during the Adelaide Test in January. “I want to do this in memory of Don Bradman, who I admired as a cricketer,” Tendulkar told the .He reached the milestone at Headingley in 2002 when he made 193, but Tendulkar said comparisons between himself and Bradman were not justified. Tendulkar averages 55.06 from 142 Test appearances, compared with Bradman’s mark of 99.94 from 52 matches.”Statistically, I have passed Don Bradman but I can’t be compared with him,” Tendulkar said. “You can only dream of scoring a hundred every three innings.”However, Sunil Gavaskar believed Tendulkar was being overly modest. Gavaskar said: “For all Bradman’s achievements, Tendulkar is the closest thing to batting perfection I’ve seen, in terms of technique and temperament.”Tendulkar’s pullover will be joined at the new museum by the shirt Sourav Ganguly was wearing when he led India to a superb come-from-behind win against Australia in the 2000-01 Test at Kolkata. India were 274 runs behind when they were asked to follow on in that match, before VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid set up a surprise 171-run victory.

ScorecardThe newly laid pitches at the tsunami-struck Galle International Stadium continuedto intrigue batsmen when Basnahira North secured an easy seven-wicket win overRuhuna in the Inter-provincial limited-over tournament match.Sent into bat, Ruhuna were bowled out for 102 inside 38 overs with only Sanath Jayasuriya, their captain, able to stand off Basnahira’s attack. He scored 27 off 33 balls – he had to retire hurt on one but the fall of a succession of wickets forced him to return – after Chaminda Vaas had tore through the top order. He captured three wickets in his third over to leave Basnahira reeling at 4 for 3 before Upal Tharanga’s dismissal on 20 brought Jayasuriya back in the middle. He managed to somewhat steady the innings before edging behind with the score on 55.Vaas’ initial spell of five overs yielded three wickets for 11 runs and he wasnot needed further in the innings as Gayan Wijekoon and Dhammika Prasad cleaned upthe rest of the batting sharing six wickets.Basnahira North lost three wickets for 29 runs when they began their run chase, butthe result was never in doubt as Kaushal Silva and Thilina Kandamby, with plenty ofovers in hand, formed a 75-run unbroken fourth-wicket partnership off 18overs to seal a comfortable victory.