Sourav Ganguly has said that his forced exile from international cricket made him more determined to prove a point. He also said that he intends to play through 2008.”Not better, but probably more determined,” Ganguly told the Kolkata-based Telegraph. “I wish to add that the circumstances and the manner in which I got dropped just weren’t right. I don’t have an issue with being left out, that’s part of the game, but the manner wasn’t right.”Ganguly had differences with the then coach Greg Chappell and the issue snowballed after one of Chappell’s email to the board was leaked in September 2005. On November 22, the selectors ended his five-year reign as Test captain when they picked Rahul Dravid to lead the side for the series against Sri Lanka. Dravid had been handed the one-day captaincy a month before. Ganguly was dropped from the one-day side in October and the Test team in December and made his comeback in to both teams a year later in December last year.Ganguly, 35, is so far India’s leading Test run-scorer for 2007 with 932 runs following his double-hundred in Bangalore, and he has been growing from strength to strength. He squashed all speculations about his retirement, saying he intends to play next year. “Call it [his age] a driving force or whatever, but I want to continue being successful… The hunger hasn’t died… Form permitting, I intend playing through 2008.”
Aiden Blizzard marked his Twenty20 debut with a ferocious 38-ball 89 as Victoria began their campaign with a comprehensive 34-run win against South Australia. The Bushrangers’ imposing 7 for 203 was built on a second-wicket stand of 140 off 74 balls between Blizzard and Brad Hodge and despite Ken Skewes’ 78 the Redbacks’ chase fell away as four late wickets fell in four balls.Victoria raced out of the blocks thanks to the efforts of Blizzard and Hodge after the fifth-ball loss of Jon Moss. Blizzard’s fifty arrived off 23 balls and he finished with eight sixes and five fours when he was caught off Nathan Adcock with a memorable century in sight. Hodge, who has had plenty of Twenty20 experience in county cricket, and holds a strike rate of 146, played second fiddle although his 76 took just 51 deliveries.South Australia couldn’t maintain the same early momentum, but a third-wicket stand of 86 between Skewes and Darren Lehmann kept them in the hunt. However, when Lehmann was removed by Cameron White the innings went into a nosedive. In a frenzied four-ball period in the 19th over four batsmen came and went; Daniel Harris was run out off a wide, Adcock heaved into the deep, Graham Manou was caught short coming back for a second and finally Skewes’ 56-ball effort ended as he missed a straight one.
Tatenda Taibu arrived in Dhaka on December 8 to play in the premier division cricket league starting from December 12 for City Club, last year’s runners-up. It will be Taibu’s second visit to Bangladesh after leading Zimbabwe earlier this year in a three-match Test series and five-match one-day international series.”I was supposed to play in South Africa in collaboration with Zimbabwe Cricket but after my retirement they just shut the window. There was no way out for me after the decision. It was painful for me that for quite sometime I couldn’t think about cricket; rather I had to concentrate on other issues. Then I got the proposal from Mamun (Reazuddin Al Mamun). Without cricket, life was so difficult to me,” Taibu told Dhaka-based For the past few days Taibu has been brushing up on his knowledge regarding the local league and his new club. “I came to know the domestic league here is very competitive. I spoke with Streaky [Heath Streak] as well as Steve Tikolo. I was told that players like Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh, and Akram played here. I thought that it would also be nice for me.”I have little idea about my team but now I know that my team finished runners-up in the last two seasons and the club boasts five national players including Rajin [Saleh] and [Alok] Kapali. I have also been informed about the other sides.”He, however, clarified that his main priority would still be Zimbabwe cricket and that he hopes to get back in action for his country soon.” I will return to my country after one month and come back to Bangladesh after three weeks. But you know my first priority is Zimbabwe cricket that’s why I am looking forward to play for my country in our next tour of West Indies in May and I believe things will be okay by then.”If Peter Chingoka and Ozias Bvute quit, the crisis will be resolved soon. I’m hopeful that everything will be back to normalcy. You know whenever Themba Mliswa [the man who made the threats against me] was involved in any sport he destroyed it. He destroyed rugby, soccer and a club and then came to cricket.”Replying to a query on whether the ICC should intervene, he said: “The crisis is so deep that there is no scope for them to do anything and it was already too late.”
Scorecard Sunny Singh and B Bist cracked contrasting hundreds as Haryana erased most of the deficit on the second day at Udaipur. Having restricted Rajasthan to 301, Haryana lost only two wickets in their response and were 36 runs adrift at the end of the day. Bist stroked 14 fours in his steady knock of 110 while Sunny was more aggressive in his 138-ball 108. Scorecard Jammu & Kashmir collapsed for just 140 as Kerala took a commanding 288-run lead on the second day at Palghat. Prasanth Chandran, the medium-pacer, snapped up two early wickets but it was the two left-arm spinners – Sreekumar Nair and Suresh Kumar – who did most of the damage, with seven wickets between them. Nair, who had made a fighting 132 in the first innings, had dream figures of 3 for 5 in 4.1 overs as they mopped up the last six wickets for only 38. Dhruv Mahajan, the J&K captain, saved a more embarrassing scoreline with a patient 78. Kerala were 109 for 3 in their second innings with Nair unbeaten on a solid 29. Scorecard Vikramjeet Singh helped Himachal Pradesh gain a 57-run lead on the second day against Jharkhand at Jamshedpur. Singh, the medium-pacer playing his 12th game, finished with five victims as Jharkhand were kept down to 218. Sumit Panda, the Jharkhand captain, rescued them from a precarious position at 96 for 7, and his counterattacking 83 took them past the 200 mark. Himachal were 33 for 1 at stumps. Scorecard Amit Dani’s four-wicket haul put Goa in control at the end of the second day’s play against Tripura at Agartala. Goa were still 120 runs behind, with five wickets standing, with Dani, the medium-pacer, ending the day with 4 for 49. Ramaswamy Prasanna held the innings together with an unbeaten 64. Earlier, Goa had extended their total to 278, with Shami Asnodkar falling one short of a gritty hundred. Sujit Roy, the offspinner, was the pick of the Tripura attack and claimed 6 for 60. Scorecard After restricting Vidarbha to 184, Services began in confident fashion at the Palam A Ground in Delhi. Narender Singh and MP Reddy, the openers, got through 29 overs as Services ended the day with 68 for no loss, trailing by 116. Earlier, Yashpal Singh and Arun Sharma has snapped up four wickets apiece and kept Vidarbha below 200.
Shaun Pollock has regained the top spot in the PricewaterhouseCoopers ratings for bowlers, after returning figures of 8 for 104 in the third Test against England at Trent Bridge. Pollock swapped places with Muttiah Muralitharan, who is in second place, 25 points behind Pollock.Michael Vaughan may have registered his first Test win as captain, but scores of 1 and 5 in the match meant that he slipped five places to No. 8 in the batting list. The two centurions for England, Nasser Hussain and Mark Butcher, both improved their rankings. Hussain advanced eight places to No. 20, while Butcher moved up three places to a career-best No. 17.
Canadian cricket faces huge challenges. Not only is Canada going to the U-19 World Cup in New Zealand in January 2002 but we are currently establishing a programme of fitness and activities to allow our Senior Team to participate credibly in the World Cup in 2003 in South Africa. Of critical importance is competition and competition against top class opposition.Bob Woolmer, ICC High Performance Consultant concludes his inaugural visit with a media scrum at 11:30 am in Room 6A at the National Sports Alliance building in Toronto. Located at 1185 Eglinton Ave E (Don Mills and Eglinton). ICC Americas Development Manager, Robert Weekes will be in attendance. Further information can be obtained by calling 416 426 7312 or by fax on 416 426 7172.Bob has had several days of meetings with local players, administrators, fundraisers, volunteers and fitness specialists. Player’s needs, equipment, tours and training in the build up to the WC 2003 have been addressed. Specialist training and coaching as well as camps and academy visits are planned.Facilities, management and coaching have been all discussed. Not only must Canada participate, we must ensure that we qualify for the much-delayed ODI status. On field play is only one aspect of that qualification.U-13, U-15, U-17, U-19 building blocks must be in place. Of even greater importance is expanding the base of schools playing cricket with more trained coaches and officials.Without this base, Canada’s progress can be slowed.ODI status by 2003/2004 is a target. A second target is Full Member status following Bangladesh and Kenya. Can we meet these challenges? Yes we can. We must have turf wickets in major centres across Canada and trained local expertise in all areas of the game. Budgetary requirements must be met and the CCA Executive has approved a Fundraising drive and Committee to lead that drive.We thank the ICC Full and Associate members for the past support. We shall need the continued support by Full Members like India and Pakistan playing games in Canada!Cricket Canada – let it grow. Get on board.
When Wally Edwards first joined the Australian Cricket Board 19 years ago, its 14 directors squabbled frequently as representatives of their states, and were Balkanised even in their seating positions around the board table.
Challenge is to drive more people to the game, says Peever
David Peever, the new Cricket Australia chairman, felt it was important to drive forward the slew of recent changes in order to take the game to more people within the country. “This is a key time for Australian cricket. A lot of significant change has occurred for the better on and off the field,” he said. “But in an ever changing world, I believe we have to work harder than ever before to maintain cricket’s privileged place as the Australia’s traditional summer pastime. “For me, top of that list is encouraging more people to play the game. That means engaging young people, females and Australians of all of our nation’s diverse cultural backgrounds. I am keen that South Asian and other overseas-born fans who packed Australia’s grounds during the recent World Cup are able to maintain their passion for cricket as part of their adopted Australian lifestyles.”
“It was completely compartmentalised,” Edwards said. “I can almost remember where everyone sat. And it was state versus state basically, and a matter of how much you can take off the table. My job as a West Australian delegate was to get as much cash as I could back to WA.”It definitely wasn’t good for cricket when you look back on it. It was completely dysfunctional – it was hardly a board in that regard. You didn’t sit there and say ‘what’s best, let’s debate it and work out the best way forward’, it was more ‘we think they can operate on a $1 million less than that so we’ll all take a bit of money back’.”We kept the squeeze on management, and if they came up with a good idea that cost money that would definitely be voted out!”On Thursday at Cricket Australia’s AGM, Edwards signed off as chairman and left behind him a board of nine independent directors, chosen on basis of skills and compatibility to further the interests of Australian cricket in a unified manner. Edwards joined Sir Donald Bradman as the only chairmen to have played Test cricket, but no single figure in the history of the board has presided over more significant changes to the way the game is run.The chief executive, James Sutherland, knows this better than anyone. He reflected on the hoops management once had to go through. “Under the previous governance model it was frustrating and difficult,” he said.”The way I like to talk about it is when you had a proposal to put up it was always compromised by your thinking about how the voting would go, and who would like that and who would like this.”Instead of putting the optimal recommendation, you would put a compromise recommendation that kept everyone happy. Even when it came to debate it would get further compromise. But it was a progression over time.”In his farewell remarks, Edwards reserved a special tribute to the former Cricket Victoria chairman, Geoff Tamblyn, as a key figure in helping to usher through those reforms.He also observed that his predecessor Jack Clarke had been the man to commission the governance review that resulted in change. Asked to pay tribute to Edwards, fellow board director Tony Harrison said his chairmanship meant that in Australian cricket “parochialism is not quite dead, but it’s terminally ill”.Relations between board directors have improved notably, but so too has the link between the board and management. The independent director, Kevin Roberts, has stepped down to join CA’s management team, an unprecedented move that places him in line to succeed Sutherland whenever the CEO chooses to finish up.CA’s balance sheet was shown to be in rare good health, not least as a result of a season that featured a Test tour by India and also the wildly successful 2015 World Cup, which Edwards had no little pride in declaring “the best ever” and featured 20 sellouts among its 49 matches.Revenue for the year totalled Aus $380.9 million, resulting in a surplus of Aus $99 million for CA after its annual distribution to the six states. Of this, $60 million will be set aside for long-term, strategic investment. As the board’s CFO Kate Banozic put it, “there is a lot of money in the bank right now”.Of course the cycle of global tours means there needs to be – this summer’s tourists New Zealand and West Indies will not turn in anything like the same cash as visits by India – and Edwards is hopeful that his legacy will feature better cricket played by more nations around the world to ensure the financial reliance on Indian tours is lessened. He remains defiant about ICC reforms that have been heavily criticised by the documentary ‘Death of a Gentleman.’But as of Thursday night, such concerns are no longer those of Edwards, who noted the significance of the man replacing him. David Peever, the former managing director for Rio Tinto in Australia, will be the first CA chairman not to have risen through the ranks of state and national boards.Due in large part to the CA board reforms of the past five years, Edwards was able to say of Peever that “success is assured, it’s just a matter of how much”.
Wolves had a rather busy summer transfer window behind the scenes after Bruno Lage was appointed as Nuno Espirito Santo’s replacement as the new manager at Molineux.
In addition to that, a significant number of players left the Midlands club on permanent and loan deals, while a number of new faces also came in on loan and permanent deals.
One big change over the summer saw goalkeeper Rui Patricio call time on his period with the Old Gold after racking up a total of 127 appearances in a Wolves shirt across all competitions before joining Italian club AS Roma.
As a replacement for the 34-year-old, Lage’s side secured the signature of another Portuguese shot-stopper in the shape of Jose Sa who joined from Greek club Olympiacos in a deal worth a reported fee of around £6.25m.
Despite not even completing his debut season in England, the 29-year-old has already looked to have been a clever piece of business from Fosun.
Having played in all 26 of Wolves’ league games so far this term, the £12.5m-rated goalkeeper has managed to keep nine clean sheets and conceded only 21 goals, making him a very useful asset for Lage in his first campaign in charge.
The summer recruit has also made a total of 88 saves so far throughout 2021/22, leaving only Leeds United’s Illan Meslier (95) and Manchester United’s David De Gea (94) having made more, showing how vital the Wolves shot-stopper has been to his side’s impressive defensive record.
As well as this, Sa, who has been praised by former Old Gold goalkeeper Matt Murray for being “dominant” in games, has the highest save percentage of any Premier League goalkeeper with 83.7%, arguably making him the best performing ‘keeper in the division.
This shows why Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville labelled him as the best signing of the previous summer transfer window earlier and said that he has had a “massive impact” on the team since his arrival.
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With all of this in mind, it’s safe to say that Fosun struck gold with their move to bring the 29-year-old to Molineux as Patricio’s replacement, especially for the fairly low price that they paid for him.
In other news: Shi masterclass: “Pathetic” £24k-p/w dud sees he value drop 55% after leaving Wolves – opinion
With the highest run-scorer, Alex Hales, and the highest wicket-taker, Reece Topley, in the ODI series against South Africa – roles-reversed from the Test series where South Africa lost despite leading both tallies – England’s coach Trevor Bayliss identified fielding as main difference between the two sides.”The batting and bowling was fairly even – both teams relied on about three of their batters and bowling was similar,” Bayliss said. “But they’re a better fielding team than us at the moment.”Although England did not put down any catches in the decider in Cape Town, they dropped several in the preceding games, including three at the Wanderers that could have sealed the series. JP Duminy was let off when he was on 1, AB de Villiers on 9 and Chris Morris on 14. The last of those cost England the most. Morris took South Africa to within one run of a series-levelling victory and, not for the first time on this tour, Bayliss has stressed the need for England to work on their fielding.”We’ve got a number of guys that are not the quickest in the field but I also think it’s an attitude thing,” Bayliss said. “You want the ball coming at you; you want to prove to people that you can field. At times, some of us don’t want the ball to come anywhere near us. When we are good, we’ve very, very good but it’s something we’ve got to continue to work at.”Progress is something England have done a lot of since their disappointing 2015 World Cup campaign and their new attitude has already brought them some success. They won series against New Zealand and Pakistan and came from 2-0 down to take Australia to a decider.Despite losing three in a row to squander the advantage in South Africa, Bayliss believed they remain on the right track. “I don’t think we are far off. We’ve played some pretty good cricket,” he said. “It’s a fine line. Had we taken some catches, we could be sitting here having won 3-2. We’re disappointed to lose the series having played some very good cricket.”He said that translating that good cricket into good results more often will come as players mature and become more consistent. “We’ve got some work to do there and that will come with experience. At some point that experience has got to pay dividends.”An example of how that is already working is Hales. After struggling through the Tests, in which he scored one fifty and did not get past 26 in his other seven innings, Hales finished on top of the run charts with four fifties, including a 99, and a century in the final match to prove his quality.”He was disappointed with the number of runs he scored in the Test arena but the way he has played here is top class,” Bayliss said. “I think he is more comfortable will his role in the team and the way he goes about playing the one-day game. Now he’s got to take that into Test arena. The way he has played here, there is no reason why he can’t do the same in Test cricket.”Hales, and the rest of the England line-up, have been asked to look at someone like AB de Villiers for further instruction on how to develop as batsmen. De Villiers took control of the chase and guided South Africa from 22 for 3 to victory.”We’ve got to take a leaf out of AB’s book. The way he paced his innings and the way he went about it, it was top class. The best batter in the series did his job today and he showed everyone else how to do it,” Bayliss said. “Hopefully the guys will learn from it.”
New Zealand’s domestic season kicks off on Monday when Northern Districts begin their State Championship defence without their leading run scorer from last summer. Hamish Marshall made 766 runs at 54.71 and was second on the competition run tally in 2006-07 but he will not be back at Hamilton this season after deciding to pursue his career in England.Predicting winners in New Zealand first-class cricket is a difficult task, but Northern Districts may fancy their chances again this year. They are one team that remains relatively unaffected by the loss of players to the New Zealand side, although they have suffered two big blows with Marshall’s departure and Daryl Tuffey’s decision to play a full season of club cricket in Sydney.Daniel Vettori would be a major loss to any team, but lately he has been the only Northern player to regularly wear national colours. The captain James Marshall has been overlooked recently but he will be aiming for a big season as he pushes hard for re-selection in the national team.On the bright side, the New Zealand A allrounder Mark Orchard is back in the Northern Districts line-up after injury. His abilities with bat and ball will be an important weapon as they look to retain the silverware they took possession of last summer.James Marshall told the the batsmen were aware there would be greater expectation on their shoulders without Hamish Marshall in the squad. “The bowlers form the real experienced part of our side now, but a lot of the batsman have had three to five seasons with us,” James Marshall said.Their opponents in last year’s final may have an uphill battle if they are to threaten again this summer. Canterbury have looked unbeatable over recent seasons. In the days when international players were available for most domestic cricket, they had a host of stars to call on, including Chris Cairns, Shane Bond, Nathan Astle, Brendon McCullum, Craig McMillan and Stephen Fleming (before he moved to Wellington).But lately with retirements and greater international commitments, the Christchurch-based team has not looked the same. The one thing that has held them together has been the presence of Chris Harris. He has been overlooked for national honours lately and has led his provincial team from the front. Not only have the younger players learnt from him, but he has also scored a host of runs. Last season he was named the domestic cricketer of the year.His decision to join the Indian Cricket League is a huge blow to his team. It will now be up to the younger players to put into practice what they have learnt during their brief first-class careers. The addition of the South African players Kruger Van Wyk and Johann Myburgh may help Canterbury this summer, but the team will find it difficult to repeat last season’s performance.Van Wyk will captain the team from behind the stumps and the coach Dave Nosworthy said he had not put any definitive time frame on van Wyk’s captaincy but would just see how things went. “Harry [Chris Harris] might be back later but there are no guarantees about that or whether he would even then return to the leadership,” Nosworthy told the . “You generally don’t want to be chopping and changing your captain.”The remaining four teams have all had their successes in different forms of the game over recent summers. Auckland are becoming known as one-day and Twenty20 specialists who can’t win a game in the longer version. Central Districts are often a surprise package who are written off early but confound the critics – they won the State Championship in 2005-06. Wellington have a number of solid players who are just outside the gaze of the national selectors, while Otago are always a chance because they are never badly hit by an exodus of players to international duties.All this shows that it’s impossible to predict who will be popping the champagne corks when the State Championship comes to an end on April 11 next year. The first four rounds of the four-day competition will be played before Christmas. It then takes a break as the shorter versions of the game take the spotlight and the business-end of the first-class season then commences in early March, culminating in the five-day final beginning on April 7.Notable squad changes Auckland In: Gareth Hopkins. Canterbury In: Kruger van Wyk. Out: Chris Harris. Central Districts Out: Lance Hamilton. Northern Districts In: Mark Orchard. Out: Hamish Marshall, Daryl Tuffey. Otago In: Derek de Boorder. Out: Gareth Hopkins.