All posts by csb10.top

Albie Morkel, the South Africa allrounder, has replaced batsman David Miller in the squad for the fourth and fifth ODIs against India. Both players have not been included in South Africa’s squad for the 2011 World Cup. Morne van Wyk, who is part of the 15-man squad for that tournament, has also been drafted in for the remaining ODIs.”We’ve included Albie to assist with the balance of our squad in the absence of Jacques Kallis,” Mohammad Moosajee, South Africa’s team manager, told ESPNcricinfo. “We need someone to bat at No. 7, because we had Johan Botha coming in there, so we’ve now got Albie.”Miller managed just 36 runs in two innings while his contender for the middle-order spot Faf du Plessis struck a half-century on debut to secure a place in the World Cup squad.India lead the series 2-1.

ScorecardMitchell Johnson removed Kevin Pietersen without scoring during an electric burst•Getty Images

An enthralling day of action moved the third Test along in fast forward at the WACA with Mitchell Johnson reviving his career and Australia’s Ashes fortunes with a brutal 6 for 38 to dismiss England for 187. However, the home side didn’t extend the advantage without further top-order failures as Steven Finn and Chris Tremlett caused problems although by stumps Shane Watson was unbeaten on 61 and the lead was 200.After eight days of England dominance this one went comprehensively to Australia and how desperately they needed it. If the visitors had batted throughout the day the Ashes would have been hard to save, but by the close Australia’s belief was being restored after the efforts of their most mercurial cricketer. Johnson’s morning burst of 4 for 7 knocked the stuffing out of England’s previously prolific line up. The whole feeling of the series changed with each booming inswinger and all ten wickets fell for 109.Conceding an advantage of 81 on a lively surface left England playing catch-up, but they aren’t without hope if the bowlers can leave a target under 350. In 2008-09, South Africa chased down 414 on the way to topping Australia’s home record – after Johnson took 8 for 61 in the first innings – although that was a flatter surface.England’s quicks did their best to even the ledger during the final session. Phillip Hughes was worked over for the second time in the match before edging to third slip off Finn, who went for 14 in his first over but continued the knack of picking up wickets. His next was Ricky Ponting as his poor form continued with a glove down the leg side which was ruled out on review.Michael Clarke began by pulling his first ball for four and added three more boundaries as he tried to impose himself on the attack with the bowlers overdoing the short balls. Clarke, though, paid the price for his approach when he dragged Tremlett into his stumps to leave Australia 3 for 64 and England scenting further evening inroads. But Watson played positively, latching onto to the loose deliveries, to reach another half-century and the run machine of Mike Hussey was setting another platform in a stand of 55.The 81-run advantage Australia earned during the first two sessions could become priceless. After a Test and a half of churning out runs by the bucket load, England’s batting subsided after a promising opening stand of 78. Johnson’s introduction changed the complexion as rediscovered the swing which makes him such a deadly prospect when he’s on song.His hours in the nets since being dropped have clearly worked and he also rode on the confidence of his batting effort to produce a wonderful spell of 9-3-20-4, which included a burst of three wickets in 12 balls to crash through England’s previously formidable top order. The scalping of Kevin Pietersen, Jonathan Trott, and Paul Collingwood were classic left-armer to right-hander dismissals as the batsmen were beaten by sharp movement.Cook looked set to continue his prolific series before driving at a full delivery which shaped away, giving Hussey a low catch in the gully. Trott only lasted eight balls when Johnson beat a flat-footed drive with one that swung back into the right hander and would have taken off stump.Pietersen’s stay was even briefer as Johnson followed two off-stump deliveries with another inducker which struck the batsman in front of middle and leg. His request for a review was a waste. Initially, Collingwood was given not out when he was beaten by pace and swing, but Johnson persuaded Ponting to use a review and it proved the right call. Johnson returned in the afternoon to take out the final two wickets, shattering Tremlett’s stumps and winning his duel with Anderson, and appeared a cricketer reborn.

Smart Stats

• England lost ten wickets for 109 runs, in the process collapsing from 78 for 0 to 187 all out. This aggregate of 109 runs between the second wicket and last wicket is the tenth worst for England against Australia and their worst at Perth.

• Mitchell Johnson picked up 6 for 38, which is his finest bowling performance against England. It is also his second five wicket haul against them after the 5 for 69 at Leeds in 2009.

• Ian Bell scored his third half century of the Ashes and his 11th against Australia overall. He is yet to score a century in this series though.

• England have made six scores below 200 at Perth. They have gone on to lose on all five previous occasions.

• Since March 2010, Ricky Ponting has scored five fifties in 16 innings at an average of just under 29. In eight of those innings, he has failed to cross 10.

He was well supported by his fellow quicks. Ben Hilfenhaus, who hasn’t taken a wicket since the third ball of the series, deserved something but instead it was Ryan Harris who took the spoils, ending attractive half-centuries from Andrew Strauss and Ian Bell. Strauss was offered a life on 16 when Watson and Brad Haddin both left it to the other to hold an edge, but after reaching a positive fifty edged a good ball that climbed off a length.No one in the England team, though, is playing better than Bell. He launched his innings with a perfect straight drive and showed outstanding composure to weather the initial Johnson storm. His timing remained perfect whenever the bowlers strayed in a display that showed how much he has developed since four years ago in Australia.At stages some of Australia’s tactics were curious, especially when they persisted with the short ball but the plan did bring Matt Prior’s wicket. The ball after being hit on the shoulder by Peter Siddle, a ball struck his body, bounced back onto the glove and down onto leg stump. It was Siddle’s first wicket since the opening day in Brisbane when he took six.Graeme Swann offered solid support to Bell in a useful stand of 36 and received plenty of short stuff which he handled reasonably well. However, Harris returned the attack, after treatment on a minor calf problem, to find the edge and Bell felt he had to attack when he edge a booming drive which was superbly held by Ponting at second slip. Bell’s departure guaranteed Australia a sizeable advantage and suddenly the Ashes series was back in the balance.

Ryan Corns, the player of the tournament at the 2009 Under-19 World Cup Global Qualifier, has been selected in USA’s senior squad for the first time, to go to the ICC World Cricket League Division Three (WCL Div. 3). Three other uncapped players – Durale Forrest, Ritesh Kadu and Asif Khan – will also go to the tournament, which will be played in Hong Kong from January 22-29, 2011. Neil McGarrell, the left-arm spinner who has played four Tests for the West Indies, has been ruled ineligible to play for USA in the tournament.”All four guys bring something special to the team,” USA coach Clayton Lambert said on Wednesday. “They’re all solid players. In Corns and Khan we have two left-arm spinners. We have another medium pacer in Forrest. Kadu is going to help in the wicketkeeping department and he’s a very solid batsman.”Khan has perhaps the strongest pedigree of the four newcomers to the USA squad. A 31-year-old former Pakistan first-class cricketer, Khan has bowled a series of stifling spells with his left-arm orthodox spin over the last two years, playing for the Central East Region in USA Cricket Association (USACA) tournaments.The USA team was desperate for a left-arm spinner after McGarrell was ruled ineligible. According to several sources, McGarrell was included in the squad that was sent to the ICC, but didn’t fulfill the requirements to play for USA. ICC rules stipulate that a player must have been a resident of the country for a minimum of 183 days for each year in the four years preceding a tournament in order to qualify. USACA vice president of operations Manaf Mohamed confirmed on Wednesday that McGarrell failed to meet that requirement as he had only been in the country for enough days in the last three years.”We’re going to miss McGarrell, but hopefully we can have him qualify for the next tournament [WCL Div. 2] and we can go out there and do what we need to do to get to Dubai,” Lambert said. If USA finishes in the top two in Hong Kong, they will advance to WCL Div. 2, which will be played in the UAE in April 2011.Forrest has a strong reputation as a bowling allrounder, playing league cricket in New Jersey while representing the Atlantic Region. Kadu is a consistent performer for the South West Region and finished as the second leading run scorer in the Southern California Cricket Association (SCCA) First Division. He has been picked as a reserve wicketkeeper for Carl Wright.USA’s first match in Hong Kong will be against the host team on January 22. Since the start of the current World Cricket League cycle in 2009, the host team has finished first or second in five of the six tournaments played, with the lone exception being the 2010 Division One played in the Netherlands in July 2010. However, Lambert isn’t distracted by the challenge of playing what could be USA’s toughest opponent in the event right off the bat.”If we want to go through to the next tournament, we have got to win at least four games,” Lambert said. “We’re hoping that we’re going to play as well as we can and we think that our skill is good enough for the tournament. We’re hoping to win the tournament actually. It might not happen that way, but that’s our goal.”USA Squad: Steve Massiah (captain), Sushil Nadkarni (vice-captain), Orlando Baker, Ryan Corns, Lennox Cush, Kevin Darlington, Durale Forrest, Muhammad Ghous, Ritesh Kadu, Asif Khan, Rashard Marshall, Aditya Thyagarajan, Usman Shuja, Carl Wright.

If Andrew Strauss’s century was an innings that Australia had anticipated on the strength of his performances in England in 2009, then Alastair Cook’s personal epic crept up on them via the blind-side. By the close of the fourth day’s play, however, a man who had begun the series being singled out as England’s weak link was just one run shy of a double-century match tally, having batted all told for almost 12 hours.Despite being the only one of England’s two openers to have previously made a century in Australia, Cook’s 116 at Perth back in December 2006 had come in the midst of a series in which his next highest score was 43. Back in England last summer, his 95 at Lord’s owed a considerable amount to Mitchell Johnson’s first-day largesse, and he did not pass 32 in eight further innings in that series, leaving his overall average in Ashes cricket – 498 runs at 26.21 – looking like that of an under-achiever.But with one day remaining of an absorbing Brisbane Test, Cook has the platform from which to produce something truly memorable – the chance to live up to the exhortations of his mentor Graham Gooch, by batting Australia out of the match with a “daddy”, and himself into a position from which no-one will dare to question his resolve at the highest level.If Australia under-estimated Cook’s resilience, then they weren’t the only ones. With his awkward, pokey technique, with his bat and gloves often dangling several feet from his front pad, it doesn’t require much for errors to creep into his game, and on the last Ashes tour in particular, he was tormented outside off stump by Glenn McGrath and Stuart Clark. But with Gooch as his sidekick, and through hours of deconstruction in the nets, he’s stripped his game down to its basics and equipped himself with the necessary tools for survival.”It was very satisfying,” said Cook at the close. “I said at the start of the tour I had a point to prove, because in my last two series against Australia I hadn’t done that well. But over the last 12 months I’ve had a bit of a tinker with my technique and tried to improve it. The results today, I’m very happy with.”That’s not to say that Cook will ever please the purists, or keep his detractors at arm’s length at all times. In the 2010 English summer, for instance, he scraped 106 runs in his first eight Test innings against Bangladesh and Pakistan, and was said to be playing for his place when he lived up to his dogged reputation with a defiant 110 at The Oval. For Cook, however, the traumas of that series have had a flip-side, for they have allowed him to accept the Gabba wicket for what it’s been all week – a relative batsman’s paradise on which application is sure to be rewarded.”Conditions at home were the toughest I’ve ever experienced as an opening batter,” he said. “It swung and was very tough for the top order. It reminds you, when you do get conditions that don’t swing as much, to cash in. In the first innings I worked really hard and got out for 60 – which was very frustrating. It took me another two-and-a-half hours to get my hundred, after Straussy. But when I got it, that noise made the hair at the back of my neck stand up.”The likelihood of England going into the Gabba Test without him was always next-to-nil, even when he began the Ashes tour with an ugly double-failure against Western Australia at Perth. The team simply values his mental fortitude above all else, and that trait was especially in evidence in Bangladesh back in the spring, when he was named as England captain while Strauss took a break.The decision to promote him was not universally welcomed, but Cook was mightily impressive in the role, as he willed himself to score a century in each of the two Tests at Chittagong and Dhaka, while also leading from the front in a rare foray into the one-day side. Of course, the pressures of those contests were not in the same league as the Ashes, and yet for Cook, as an untested captain in an environment where defeat was not an option, the lessons he learned were invaluable all the same.”Resilience is certainly one of Cookie’s greatest strengths,” said Strauss. “He is a very resilient character and he is able to do the hard yards as he demonstrated in this game. One of the things you have to do in Test cricket generally is not think too much about what has happened or what’s going to happen, you just stay in the present as much as possible. That is what Alastair and I managed to do today.”

Western Australia 3 for 239 (Davis 108, North 94*) beat Victoria 8 for 236 (Wade 101*, Hussey 51, Hogan 5-44) by 7 wickets
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Liam Davis steered Western Australia home with a valuable 108•Getty Images

Liam Davis breezed to his second century in a week to give Western Australia their opening win of the season. Davis followed his 116 not out against New South Wales on Sunday with 108 as the Warriors swept past Victoria’s 8 for 236 with seven wickets and nine balls to spare.Davis, who hit three sixes during his 125-ball stay, shared a vital partnership with Marcus North that built on Michael Hogan’s first five-wicket haul. Western Australia took a 27-run lead after the first two innings and Davis and North were untroubled when they returned, putting on 176 for the third wicket. North, who is preparing for the Ashes, finished with a satisfying 94 not out from 97, while the coach Mickey Arthur celebrated his first win in charge.Matthew Wade’s maiden century gave Victoria a chance after they struggled to 2 for 80 off their first 20 overs. Wade entered at 4 for 85 and steadily built the total until he raced towards the end, pulling a massive six off the second-last ball of the innings to bring up his hundred. He finished with 101 off 81 balls, including 11 fours and two sixes, while David Hussey’s 51 was also useful.Hogan was a handful throughout and collected a very impressive 5 for 44 off 12 overs. The visitors opened with Aaron Heal, who bowled Chris Rogers in his second over, while the debutant Matt Dixon did something nobody else has been able to this season by dismissing Brad Hodge. After posting consecutive centuries, Hodge got a leading edge to Dixon’s fifth ball and was caught at third man.

ScorecardA 140-run opening stand between Tino Mawoyo and Jonathan Beukes, followed by disciplined bowling enabled Mountaineers to inflict a 111-run defeat on the Mashonaland Eagles in Harare.Mawoyo – who played two ODIs for Zimbabwe against Bangladesh in 2006 – hit ten fours in his 73 off 79 deliveries while Beukes hit seven fours and a six in his 69 off 80. After their dismissals, Timycen Maruma, Mark Vermeulen and former South Africa allrounder Lance Klusener kept up the pressure on Eagles as 134 runs came in the last 15 overs.The Eagles’ chase started poorly when they reduced to 8 for 2. Though opener Simbarashe Gupo tried to steady the innings, wickets fell regularly and once they collapsed to 91 for 6, Eagles were out of the game. Seamer Silent Mujaji took 3 for 30 as Eagles were eventually dismissed for 163.Mountaineers earned a bonus point for their huge win. This was Eagles’ second loss to Mountaineers in four days after they had lost a close Logan Cup match by 14 runs.

ScorecardGloucestershire suffered another alarming batting collapse to concede victory to Surrey by 10 runs on the final day of the County Championship Second Division match at Bristol. Set 261 to win in 74 overs, the home side appeared to be cruising at 216 for 4 with Chris Dent and Hamish Marshall well established. But Marshall’s dismissal sparked a calamitous slide in which six wickets fell for the addition of just 34 runs as Gloucestershire were dismissed for 250.Pace bowler Jade Dernbach and leg spinner Chris Schofield did the damage, returning figures of 4 for 55 and 4 for 63 respectively to send Gloucestershire tumbling to their ninth Championship defeat of a disappointing summer.Although there was little at stake for either side other than pride, Surrey’s 17-point haul was nevertheless sufficient to haul them above arch-rivals Middlesex in the final Second Division table. For their part, Gloucestershire were left to reflect on another feeble performance with the bat, their Achilles heel throughout the campaign.At one stage, they looked odds-on favourites to chase down their target thanks to teenage batsman Chris Dent. The England Under-19 left-hander dominated stands of 88 and 89 with New Zealanders James Franklin and Hamish Marshall respectively and looked set toregister his maiden first-class hundred.Twice out for 98 at Derby in May and Northampton last month, the Backwell-based 19-year-old reached 94 from 194 balls on this occasion before losing his wicket, bowled by the wily Schofield in the act of sweeping. It was Marshall’s departure, caught behind off Dernbach for 51, that inexorably altered the course of the game.Schofield pinned an unwell Jon Batty lbw for one in his next over and then accounted for Dent to put the skids under Gloucestershire. Jon Lewis attempted to cut Dernbach and was bowled without scoring, but there remained hope for the home side while Chris Taylor was still at large.Careful to keep the strike, he represented the biggest threat to Surrey’s prospects of completing an unlikely success. Gloucestershire required only another 11 runs when the Bristolian was utterly undone by a Dernbach yorker, having scored 28. And it was all over next ball, Anthony Ireland playing on to leave Gemaal Hussain one not out and spark noisy Surrey celebrations.Eager to make a game of it, the visitors earlier declared their second innings on 180 for 3. Gloucestershire played their part in contriving an exciting finale, serving up some friendly bowling to hasten the declaration.Occasional offspinners Chris Taylor and Will Porterfield offered all the encouragement Surrey needed during the morning session, Rory Hamilton-Brown and Tom Lancefield filling their boots as the Londoners added 81 runs in eight overs.Lancefield harvested an unbeaten 67 from 99 balls and hit 12 fours, while skipper Hamilton-Brown made 50 not out from just 31 deliveries in an innings liberally studded with 11 fours.

Denesh Ramdin, the Trinidad and Tobago wicketkeeper who was cut from the West Indies contract list, will get a chance to work on his batting flaws under the supervision of former West Indies opening batsman Gordon Greenidge.Ramdin lost his central contract following “less than favourable” performances over the past year, prompting the T&T board to arrange for him to work with Greenidge. Ramdin averaged 15.75 in Tests during 2010, over seven runs below his career average, and his performances weren’t up to the mark in the shorter versions either.T&T selector Rangy Nanan said Ramdin “needs some assistance at this point in time and they don’t want to forsake him. He has talent but something is not going right with his batting and the board thinks that he can play much better than what we are seeing at present.”Lendl Simmons, the aggressive opener who has fallen out of favour with the selectors, will also train under Greenidge. Simmons was one of West Indies’ most impressive performers in the 2009 World Twenty20, making 150 runs at 30.00 and taking six wickets. However, he was dumped for the 2010 edition, following the appointment of Ottis Gibson as coach, and has been overlooked for international duty and developmental A tours since then.

The Sydney Cricket Ground will continue to host Tests and one-dayers for the next five years but Twenty20 internationals could be held in the city’s larger ANZ Stadium, which hosted the 2000 Olympics. An agreement between Cricket Australia and Cricket New South Wales will ensure Tests and one-day internationals remain at the SCG for the next five years.Last November, the possibility was raised of the SCG losing out as a venue for the 2010-11 Ashes following a staging row between Cricket NSW and the SCG Trust.”The SCG is the home of cricket in Australia, one of the world’s two finest cricket grounds,” Rodney Cavalier, the SCG Trust chairman, said. “Test matches have been played at the SCG since 1882. That tradition will continue. The SCG is where the players want to play, where the cricket lover wants to come.”Ashes tickets go on sale to Australian Cricket Family members on Wednesday and will be on general sale from July 20.

The BCCI has terminated all its IPL media license agreements with sports marketing agency World Sports Group (Mauritius) over the payment of the Rs 425 crore-facilitation fee (about US$90m) by the parent company of the tournament’s Indian broadcast partner to WSG. The board claimed it was rightfully owed the money as the rights to the tournament were with the BCCI.

Facilitation fee timeline

January 2008: BCCI sells worldwide IPL rights to WSG for over $1 billion for 10 years; MSM gets India rights for five years from WSG.
March 2009: IPL cancels its original deal with WSG and renegotiates a new nine-year deal worth $1.6 billion. MSM objects and takes IPL to court.
March 2009: IPL agrees to sell MSM the India rights. WSG agrees to relinquish the India rights for a facilitation fee of Rs 425 crores, but retains the international rights.
June 2010: BCCI learns of facilitation fee agreement with WSG; claims it should have been paid the fee instead. MSM agrees to pay the fee to BCCI.
June 2010: BCCI cancels all existing IPL rights deals with WSG.

In a letter sent to WSG India dated June 28th, a copy of which is with Cricinfo, board secretary N. Srinivasan reiterated that the BCCI knew nothing about the agreement between MSM (Satellite) PTE LTD and WSG and therefore could not be a party to it.”BCCI was never made aware of any agreement between MSM (Satellite) PTE LTD and your affiliate WSG (Mauritius) Limited for payment of facilitation fee to WSG (Mauritius) Limited,” the letter said. “This agreement titled as “Deed for the provision of facilitation services” was brought to our notice by MSM (Satellite) PTE LTD only recently and it was admitted to us by them than an amount of Rs 125 crores has in fact been paid by then to WSG (Mauritius) Limited. These amounts constituting so called facilitation fees are actually amounts due to the BCCI.”The facilitation fee arose out of the restructuring of the television rights deal following the first IPL. WSG India had originally bought the worldwide telecast rights of the IPL for ten years (2008 to 2017) at a cost of over $1 billion. Meanwhile MSM had secured the rights to broadcast in India for five years (2008 to 2012) from WSG and had the option of securing the rights for the remaining five years (2013-2017) by paying WSG an option fee of $25 million.However, the board cancelled the original rights deal in 2009 and renegotiated with WSG (Mauritius). But MSM did not want to renegotiate with WSG, preferring a direct contract with the board instead. The result was that MSM eventually signed a deal with the BCCI for the India rights at the same price and duration as WSG (Mauritius), in lieu of the latter relinquishing those rights. The eventual nine-year deal was worth Rs 8200 crores (US$1.6b) for both the India and international rights. Under its agreement with the BCCI, WSG still retained the international media rights for the IPL.Since WSG stepped aside, MSM apparently agreed to pay it a facilitation fee amounting to Rs 425 crores as compensation. It has already paid WSG Rs 125 crores and was to pay the balance over the next seven years.On discovering the payment, the board called it “improper” and has now reclaimed the IPL media rights originally sold to WSG. Meanwhile MSM agreed last week to pay the BCCI the facilitation fee of Rs 425 crores and has filed a suit in the Bombay High Court to recover the Rs 125 crores it has already paid to WSG.