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South Africa have released Jacques Rudolph and Paul Adams to play for their franchises as they whittled the squad down to 12 for the opening Test which starts at the Wanderers on Friday. Ahead of an afternoon training session on Wednesday, Mickey Arthur, the coach, spoke of how his team would attack India with pace, on pitches that would aid a five-man fast-bowling line-up.None of the first team played in the last round of domestic games, and Arthur said that they had been rested ahead of what will be an arduous season, with three Tests against India and three Tests and five ODIs against Pakistan ahead of their departure for the World Cup. “We’ve had astiff training programme,” he said. “The players needed some time away from the game. But they did work on some batting and bowling.”The South Africans warmed up with a game of Frisbee, and then some catching practice before heading across to the nets. As for the Indians, it was an off day, with only Sourav Ganguly and Gautam Gambhir opting for a net session outdoors.South Africa were emphatic winners of the one-day series, and Arthur was confident that they could carry their dominant form into the Tests. “We want to continue the pattern that developed in the ODIs into the Tests,” he said. “We didn’t allow them to settle. We played well. It wasn’t justthat they played badly.”Nicky Boje’s retirement, announced on Tuesday morning, was a slight setback, though it was unlikely that he would have played any part at the Wanderers, or at Kingsmead in Durban. “He’s been a great servant of South African cricket,” said Arthur by way of tribute. “We’re likely to play aspinner in Cape Town.”Arthur admitted that the team management had already been in touch with the groundsmen, and intimated what sort of surfaces they were looking for in the Test series. “We want pitches with pace and bounce, and not too much grass,” he said.The recall of Paul Adams, barely a factor in domestic cricket over the past couple of seasons, was also addressed. “It’s a long-term selection,” said Arthur. “We need to know what he can offer. He has been very successful in Test cricket, and he offers something different. We need tosee if there’s any chance of reviving what has been a successful career.”Boje once won helped win a Test match against India at Bangalore (2000), while Adams, barring his six-wicket haul at Kanpur, hasn’t enjoyed a great time against them. There’s little doubt which man the Indians would rather face.

Citing a desire to be with his family more, Heath Streak, the former Zimbabwe captain, has announced that he will not be returning for another season with Warwickshire.’It has been a difficult decision to call time on my career here in England, ” said Streak. “Edgbaston is a special place to play and I am proud to have been able to call myself a [Warwickshire] Bear. I still intend to maintain an involvement in cricket in some capacity whilst travelling less and spending more time with my family. I am determined to finish the season strongly myself and I hope that the team can put together some good performances to see me off in style.”Streak joined the county in 2004 and took over the captaincy in 2006 after signing a two-year contract. He last played for Zimbabwe in September 2005 but was non-committal about his future with Zimbabwe.He has struggled this season, losing pace, and has taken 11 wickets at 62 in the County Championship. After beginning the season as captain he stood down after the opening weeks and was replaced by Darren Maddy.Commenting on Streak’s decision, Colin Povey, the chief executive of the county, said. “Streaky has been a magnificent ambassador for the game of cricket and he has always given his all for the club.”

The Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) has named a strong 15-man squad, including eight Test players, for next Tuesday’s match between the touring Indian team and Jamaica at Jarrett Park. Wavell Hinds, the West Indian batsman, has been named as captain for the one-day match.Brian Breese, the JCA’s cricket operations manager, said that there was a possibility that all eight Test players may not take part, however. “The West Indies team will be playing the Indians two days after the Montego Bay game so the West Indies Cricket Board could well ask one or two of the players named to sit out the game,” he has been quoted as saying by the . “Nonetheless, it should be a very strong Jamaican team going up against the Indians.”Breese added that Xavier Marshall, the Jamaican opener, was not included owing to a suspension from his parish team while Dwight Washington, the fast bowler, was away in the United States. “Young Washington would most certainly be under consideration for this game but he is away in the United States at this time,” said Breese. “We are in touch with him and he is still very much a part of the national programme.”Jamaica Cricket Association squad : Wavell Hinds (capt), Chris Gayle, Donovan Pagon, Marlon Samuels, Daren Powell, Jerome Taylor, Nikita Miller, Carlton Baugh (wk), Jermaine Lawson, Tamar Lambert, Bevon Brown, Danza Hyatt, Andrew Richardson, Damion Ebanks and Donovan Sinclair.

Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene heaped praise on his bowlers, especially Dilhara Fernando, after his team had completed a comprehensive 70-runs victory over Bangladesh in the first ODI at the P Saravanamuttu Stadium on Friday.Sri Lanka defended their moderate total of 234 for 6 exceptionally well by bowling Bangladesh out for 164 in the 41st over. Fernando rocked the Bangladesh top order after openers Tamim Iqbal and Shahriar Nafees had put on 45 for the first wicket by taking four wickets for 24 runs off nine overs to take the Man-of-the-Match award.”There wasn’t much juice left on it when Bangladesh batted, but there was a bit of bounce in it. Dilhara, Lasith (Malinga) and (Farveez) Maharoof bowled their hearts out. They bowled in really good areas and kept asking questions. All credit should go to Dilhara and the bowlers. They kept it tight and put pressure on the Bangladeshis. Hats off to them, they single-handedly won the game for us,” said Jayawardene.Heaping further praise on Fernando, Jayawardene said: “Dilhara’s been doing well for the last 2 ½ to 3 years. It is just that he has on and off days. There was a lot of criticism thrown at him that he is not consistent. As a captain and as a team we always knew the potential this guy has. We gave him a lot of confidence and he is thriving on that now. It’s good to see the way he is bowling. He’s giving everything he’s got and looking good.”Jayewardene also praised the batting of Upul Tharanga and Chamara Silva who each made half-centuries and figured in an 83-run stand.”The wicket had a bit in the morning. We would have bowled as well if we won the toss. It is just that it was tough. They bowled pretty well. We lost three key wickets and it was very tough for Upul and Chamara to consolidate which they did brilliantly and helped us get a competitive score. I thought we planned it nicely afterwards. 235 was a very competitive score, but it was not a winning score,” Jayewardene said.Fernando lamented the chance of missing out on getting his first five-for in an ODI. After taking 4 for 23 in his first spell of seven overs, he came back to bowl a further two overs without success.”I was a bit unlucky not to get five wickets although I tried hard. Anyway I am happy I bowled my team to victory. It was a good hard wicket, very flat so I tried hitting the deck hard,” he said.Bangladesh’s captain Mohammad Ashraful blamed his middle order batting for letting his side down after his bowlers had done an excellent job in restricting the strong Lankan batting. “We didn’t bat well in the second Powerplay. By the time we went to 50 we had lost too many wickets. The foundation was laid for us by the openers but the middle order disappointed. Fernando bowled well to put us in a spot. It was a good enough score for us to chase on a wicket which had eased up. It was a gettable score on that pitch,” Ashraful said.”The series is still open. We will remain positive and go out for a win in the second one-dayer,” he added.

ScorecardAshok Dinda’s six-wicket haul put East Zone in the driver’s seat as Central Zone crashed to 130 at the end of the second day of the Duleep Trophy match in Indore. Rohan Gavaskar continued his good form with the bat, remaining unbeaten on 79 at stumps as East Zone stretched their lead to 319, with six second-innings wickets in hand.Resuming on 40 for 3, Central Zone suffered an early setback as Dinda struck with the wicket of Tejinder Pal Singh. Abbas Ali was the only batsman who looked in control, scoring 57, while the rest failed. Sourav Ganguly, who failed with the bat, bowled an impressive spell, claiming the wickets of Praveen Kumar and Piyush Chawla, both trapped leg before. Dinda wrapped up the innings with the wicket of Ali, finishing with his best first-class bowling figures of 6 for 52.East Zone got off to an encouraging start in their second innings, with the openers adding 51. However, they were pegged back by the loss of three quick wickets for just 14 runs, with Kumar picking up the first two in quick succession. Gavaskar and Ganguly consolidated with 58 for the fourth wicket, before Ganguly was dismissed by Chawla for 25. Gavaskar and Deep Dasgupta remained unbeaten till stumps to take the score to 204.
ScorecardThe Indian duo of Anil Kumble and Sreesanth shared eight wickets between them as South Zone restricted West Zone to 180 at the end of the second day of their Duleep Trophy match in Gwalior. Kumble finished with 5 for 42 and Sreesanth 3 for 65 to give South Zone a first innings lead of 111, after they were bowled out for 291 at the start of the day.Earlier, Rohit Sharma led West Zone’s recovery, taking the score to 70 after the early loss of Cheteshwar Pujara. However, the wickets began to tumble as Kumble and Sreesanth cut through the middle order, with Ravindra Jadeja the only batsman to cross fifty. Jadeja attacked the bowlers, as his entertaining knock of 53 came off only 49 balls. In their second innings, South Zone lost Robin Uthappa early to Zaheer Khan but ended the day at 65 for 2, with VVS Laxman and Venugopal Rao at the crease.

Mark Sorell, the South Australian high-performance co-ordinator, has been appointed as the new coach of the Australian women’s cricket team. Sorell takes over from Stephen Jenkin, who will finish his post early next month after four years in the role. Sorell’s first assignment will be to lead the side on their tour of Ireland and England in July and August, including the women’s Ashes series.A Cricket Australia level-three coach, Sorell has enjoyed a long career with the South Australian Cricket Association (SACA) including as a coach and development officer, regional cricket manager and community cricket manager. After six years as coach of Glenelg District Cricket Club in the SACA Grade competition, Sorell led the state women’s cricket team, the South Australian Scorpions, in the Women’s National Cricket League from 2002 to 2004. Sorell will commence his role on 11 July.Michael Brown, Cricket Australia’s general manager of cricket operations, said the direction of women’s cricket in Australia over the next four years was set to enter a new phase. “Our national women’s team has enjoyed tremendous success over the past few years, including our recent World Cup win in South Africa,” said Brown. “This was achieved under the guidance of a professional team management structure led by head coach Steve Jenkin. Steve has had a positive influence on the team and we congratulate and thank him for his dedication and support of women’s cricket.Commenting on his appointment, Sorell said: “This is a tremendous opportunity for me, and I am really looking forward to the chance to work with the Australian women’s team. It is an exciting time for the Australian women’s team having just won the World Cup, preparing to embark on an Ashes campaign and a host of young players coming through the system, so there is much to look forward to.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out – Pakistan
How they were out – England

Sajid Mahmood followed his most impressive one-day international bowling performance with a calm, matchwinning innings as England levelled the series by three wickets at Edgbaston. He’d been instrumental in keeping Pakistan down to 154, but a middle order collapse against Shahid Afridi and Abdul Razzaq meant his work wasn’t done. When he joined Michael Yardy 37 were still needed but the pair completed the job and a fine series fightback by England.This wasn’t a match for high quality batsmenship so Mahmood’s innings deserves much praise after he arrived in an intense atmosphere following a collapse of 4 for 16 in 19 balls. In the recent domestic C&G final he’d swiped across the line with Lancashire nearing their target and here was confronted with a baying crowd containing a large proportion of support for Pakistan. While in the field he’d again been subjected to taunts, as happened in the Test series, but he managed to shut everything out to play a mature innings.He clipped Afridi through square leg to ease the tension but the killer over as far as Pakistan were concerned was the return of Rana Naved, who struggled throughout the series. Inzamam-ul-Haq had only entrusted him with one over with the new ball and bringing him back was a gamble that proved very costly. Three fours came off the over and the target was down to single figures. A word, too, for Yardy who showed the cool head that has made him a key finisher at Sussex. He didn’t hit a boundary but worked the singles and had the satisfaction of stroking the winning runs.Pakistan staged a commendable fightback to haul themselves back into contention. Mohammad Asif and Iftikhar Anjum struck with the new ball as England stumbled to 49 for 3, but Kevin Pietersen tore into the Pakistan bowlers as the target raced into view. He rode his luck to reach 34, while also playing some vintage Pietersen shots, before trying to swing Afridi away over midwicket and being castled by a googly. It was a fine piece of bowling, but another example of Pietersen not quite being able to control his emotions.Another five overs of Pietersen and the match would have been as good as over, but with a sniff of an opening – and nothing to lose – Pakistan went for broke. Inzamam crowded the batsmen and Jamie Dalrymple was trapped plumb by a quick legbreak. In the next over Paul Collingwood, in his 100th ODI, was trapped by Razzaq, who then lured Chris Read into an ill-advised hook shot. The rush of wickets enlivened the crowd and the noise level reached levels where even the umpires were saying they were struggling to hear.

Throughout the day, Pakistan’s fans hadn’t had much to cheer as their batsmen struggled to make any impression. Conditions were not easy and Pakistan only managed eight fours and a six, but part of that was down to the accuracy of the bowling and sharp fielding. Apart from an early spate of wides, the England attack plugged away on the ideal line and length and didn’t allow the batsmen width to attack.Pakistan tried to assert some authority by sending Afridi in at No.3 who attempted to blast the ball out of the park before swinging across the line at Lewis. Mohammad Hafeez’s battle ended when he dragged an attempted pull off Mahmood into his stumps and Pakistan had lost three wickets for eight runs.Mahmood has had a tough summer in the limited overs game, but retains the basic attributes of pace and swing which make him dangerous. Although still prone to throwing in wayward deliveries he kept the batsmen on their toes. Mohammad Yousuf had again been unconvincing and he could do little against the snorter from Mahmood that squared him up and was edged low to slip.Collingwood’s medium-pace then proved ideal for the conditions and he trapped Inzamam lbw and bowled Abdul Razzaq before he could repeat his barrage from Trent Bridge. Kamran Akmal’s miserable tour with the bat ended with an edge off Yardy, which Read grabbed after a bobble via his pad, and Younis Khan was left to salvage what he could.However, despite a spirited fightback Pakistan ended their long tour on a poor note while England have continued to show a welcome return to winning ways in one-day cricket – although not without the odd nervous twitch along the way.

Fearing protests against Kiran More, the Indian selection committee chairman, and Greg Chappell, India’s coach, following Sourav Ganguly’s exclusion from the Indian team for the one-day match against South Africa in Kolkata on November 25, the authorities are taking no chances with the security situation.”All police stations have been asked to be on alert,” said NR Babu, deputy commissioner (south) of Kolkata police. Both More and Chappell are now in the city. In 1996, India’s World Cup semi-final against Sri Lanka could not be completed due to crowd disturbances and Sri Lanka were declared winners.Crowd violence again erupted during the Asian Cricket Test championship outing between India and Pakistan in 1999 and the last few minutes of the game had to be played before empty stands after police used force to clear the galleries. Asked if special security would be provided to Chappell, who has been specially targetted during the protests, Prasun Mukherjee, Kolkata’s police commissioner, said his men would be fully alert to any eventuality.Meanwhile, a thick security blanket has been thrown around the two teams, both at the hotel and the match venue, with the deployment of a large number of commandos, armed policemen, detective department sleuths, plainclothes cops and women police personnel. Commandos are escorting and trailing the buses of the two teams on their journey from the hotel to the Eden Gardens, with around 2000 policemen lining the entire route.The police have virtually taken over the team’s hotel, where three to four commandos have been deployed on each floor. Eden Gardens has been put under a multi-layered security ring, with Mukherjee announcing that nearly 4,000 police personnel, including top police officers, would be deployed in and around the stadium.Mukherjee, who inspected Eden Gardens yesterday, said police would make arrests in the event of any demonstration inside the venue during the match.”Those wanting to hold any such demonstration should better keep off the stadium and also the match, otherwise such acts will prompt the police to make arrests,” he said.

All the arguments about whether fast bowler Darren Gough should have stayed with the England team for the Test series in New Zealand have been rendered academic by the fact that he is undergoing an operation to repair cartilage damage to his right knee.When Gough made himself unavailable for the Test tour to India, the England management made it plain that such a decision would also disbar him from the New Zealand series as well. However, with Gough showing such impressive form during the one-day internationals in both India and New Zealand, there was a clamour in the press for Gough to stay on for the duration of the tour.The selectors were not to be moved and stuck by their original policy, but now news has emerged that the bowler sustained his injury during the final one-dayer in Dunedin where he bowled his full quota of ten overs, taking 2 for 42. He is expected to be out of action for a month, but should be fit for the start of the domestic season.Commenting on the situation as far as Yorkshire is concerned, Liz Sutcliffe said: “Fingers crossed he will be back in action at the start of April when the players are returning from overseas duty. It’s not that serious, it’s key-hole surgery on a small tear in his cartilage and we expect him back, if all goes to plan, for the start of the season.”Gough only played in two CricInfo Championship matches for Yorkshire last season as they won the title and he attracted a certain amount of adverse publicity because he was spending so much time on international duty during a lucrative benefit year. There was some talk that he might leave the county, but he decided to stay and will now be keen to get back into action with a view to reclaiming his Test place.

James Ormond has signed a one-year contract with Surrey after proving his fitness to the county.Ormond, who has been dogged by injuries and questions over his general fitness, was out of contract at the end of 2007 but the county agreed he could return for pre-season on the understanding that if he proved his fitness in the early matches, he would be offered a new deal.”I am very pleased that Jimmy has worked so hard to turn his career around,” said Alan Butcher, the Surrey coach. “He is looking like the bowler he was three years ago before his injury problems, which is great news for the club.””I am obviously really pleased to get a contract after putting in a lot of hard work during the winter,” Ormond said. “I’d also like to thank our backroom staff for their efforts in getting me fit and ready for another season.”Ormond, 31, played twice for England in 2001 but he looked far from fit when he reported for duty at the start of the 2001-02 tour of New Zealand and that in effect seemed to finish his international chances. His county career appeared to be heading the same way after he played only 11 first-class games in 2006 and 2007, taking 18 wickets,His fitness problems were well documented but when he is on form he can still be one of the most penetrative bowlers on the county circuit.