Darren Lehmann has told of his desire to coach England, less than a week after his Yorkshire team-mate Darren Gough said Lehmann was the man for the job. While Duncan Fletcher has not announced plans to step aside, there has been recent debate over whether the time has come for him to move on after seven years in the role.Lehmann said he would jump at the chance if he was offered the position. “It’s something I’d love to do,” Lehmann told . “If the opportunity came up to coach England, I’d certainly want to do it.”To be perfectly honest, you never say never, do you? I know the England players quite well. At the moment, I’ve got a lot of things on and I’m still playing cricket, which makes it difficult to coach anyone. But I’ve always had coaching ambitions.”I’d like to think I know the game well enough and I can work with players well enough. If you can do that, you can do some coaching at various levels. I can’t imagine a better stage than to do it at an international level.”Lehmann was evasive when asked if the ECB had already approached him through Gough. “That’s between Goughie and I,” he said. “If it hasn’t happened it hasn’t, if it has, it has. Although I have played a lot of cricket with Darren and he knows what’s going on in English cricket.”While speaking at last week’s Adelaide Oval Test Dinner, Gough said there was a groundswell of support for Lehmann to take over from Fletcher. “It’s a very strong rumour in England that Darren could be the next coach,” Gough was reported as saying in the .”He would be a very popular choice with the England players. He teaches enjoyment to the players, his knowledge is second-to-none, especially of the England players after playing in the country for so long [since 1997]. He has some amazing theories on how the game should be played, new thoughts.”

Scorecard

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.

David Morgan, the chairman of the ECB, has leant his backing to England’s beleaguered coach, Duncan Fletcher, by insisting – as David Graveney, the chairman of selectors did yesterday – that his job is not under immediate threat despite the wave of defeats that the team is currently being subjected to in Australia.Fletcher’s one-day record against the top eight Test-playing nations is poor but, with the World Cup in the West Indies looming, Morgan is aware that a change of personnel in the short-term could be even more destabilising for the team. “What we decided to do is not have any final decisions about what his [Fletcher’s] aspirations are until the end of this tour,” Morgan told BBC Radio Five Live. “I don’t anticipate him going. That is my assessment of the position.”Graveney, meanwhile is convinced Fletcher retains the full confidence of the ailing England dressing-room, and insists the players are desperate to claim a much-needed victory over New Zealand on Tuesday to ease the pressure on their coach. He told the BBC: “Duncan is hurting the same as everyone else – and when I say everyone else I mean the players, the management and every England cricket fan.”He is trying to do the job on a day-to-day basis with the same intensity and I am sure the players know if there is one thing they want to do on Tuesday it is to win for Duncan Fletcher. [He] is still the England coach and he retains the support of everyone close to the team and the team in particular. Our main objective is to start winning some games on this tour.”Rather than using Fletcher as a convenient scapegoat for an Ashes tour rated by many experts as the worst in England cricket history, Graveney insists the players must shoulder much of the blame for the sorry displays.”They have to assess their performances each day by looking at themselves and saying, ‘have I done everything I possibly can for this team?’ The two performances in Adelaide were way off the standards we expect from this national team.”I don’t want to make excuses because I don’t think that is particularly appropriate at this stage.”Michael Vaughan has also come out in support of Fletcher, but the debate rages on about who would the favourite to replace him as coach.

Matthew Hayden is in danger of missing Australia’s two World Cup warm-up matches in the Caribbean with a broken toe, but he expects to be fit for the first serious game of the tournament. Hayden had both feet bandaged in Brisbane on Wednesday after being hit twice by Mark Gillespie yorkers during his national-record 181 in the third Chappell-Hadlee Trophy loss at Hamilton.The broken big toe on his right foot was the major worry and it will need up to three weeks to heal. Australia has practice games against Zimbabwe and England in St Kitts on March 6 and 9 before they play Scotland in their first match of the World Cup on March 14.”I’m looking to be right on the money for that game,” Hayden said in The Australian. “There is nothing structurally wrong except for the fracture. We will review things on Monday, but in terms of a break it’s as good as you can have.”The diagnosis is bright news for a squad struggling with injuries ahead of its trophy defence. Brett Lee is in doubt with an ankle injury, Andrew Symonds hopes his arm will heal in time for a mid-series arrival and Michael Clarke has a hip problem.

Rahul Dravid, the Indian captain, is wary that two easy wins in his side’s pre-World Cup campaign may backfire on them when they face tougher competition. India brushed aside the Netherlands by 182 runs and West Indies by nine wickets, and while happy with the confidence India gained, Dravid felt there were disadvantages as well.”With a performance like this, it meant that some of our batsmen did not get a chance to bat, and our spin bowlers did not get a chance to bowl,” he told reporters in Montego Bay. “I think the advantages some times outweigh the disadvantages when you beat a top team like West Indies so convincingly. I think what it does to the spirit of the team can be very important as well.”No one should discount the plus points you gain from momentum, the plus points you gain from the confidence that it gives in winning over a team like West Indies who had the upper hand over us a lot over the last year.”India play their first World Cup match against Bangladesh in Trinidad on Saturday, and Dravid was keen to keep his side grounded. “They [the warm-up games] would give you a pointer as to where you are with your preparations and your readiness.The games were 13 players against 13 players, and teams were trying different things. I think the big event is the big event.”We have won both our games, but we will keep our feet firmly planted on the ground knowing full well that the real tournament starts for us on March 17. We can take some confidence from the matches, and we can learn some lessons from them, but the real cricket for us starts on March 17.”Dravid also chose not to comment about the West Indian pitches, as India had other issues to think about. “We do not talk about them too much in our team meetings because what we are focusing on is the performance of our team,” he said. “We are focusing on the flexibility we can build in our squad, the depth we can build in our squad, and we are pretty confident that we have the team that can perform on any type of pitch. It’s not really going to be an issue because it’s going to be the same for both teams on any given day, and it will come down to the team that performs better on the day, and the team which does this will win.”

Ted Dexter has been elected as the next President of Sussex and will succeed Robin Marlar. He comes into the role as the club prepares to defend the Championship title and C&G Trophy.Dexter said he was honoured with the appointment: “I am aware that following Robin Marlar’s highly successful presidency, it is a hard act to follow. But if a lasting love affair with Sussex counts for anything I will at least have a sound platform to build on. Having the opportunity to play some small part in the exciting coming events is a privilege and a pleasure.”Gus Mackay, the chief executive, added: “Robin has been a great President of the club and we thank him for his contribution. We are thrilled that Ted has accepted the commission and that his appointment was ratified by Members at our AGM. He is a legend of Sussex cricket and we look forward to having him actively involved once again.”Dexter played 137 matches for Sussex and scored 8827 runs at 41 while also bagging 218 wickets at 26.

Pakistan and Sri Lanka will play three one-day internationals in Abu Dhabi from May 9, the Pakistan Cricket Board announced.”The series has now been confirmed and given clearance by the ICC,” Zakir Khan, director cricket operations, told Reuters.The series will be the first since Pakistan’s elimination from the World Cup and will be the first under their new captain, Shoaib Malik.

Teams will be allowed an additional fielder outside the 30-yard circle during the second or third Powerplay, the International Cricket Council’s Cricket Committee has recommended after their two-day meeting in Dubai.The committee, chaired by former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar, came up with a number of recommendations on issues related to ODI regulations, ball tampering, glue on pitches, volume of cricket, international umpiring and the role of the television umpire.While they felt that the use of Powerplays should continue they resolved that an additional fielder (making three in total instead of the current limit of two) should be allowed outside the outer ring during either of the last two Powerplays. Also it was decided to try out the idea of the captain of the batting side being able to choose when to take one of the Powerplays. It is set to be trialled in Australia; any other member country wanting try out the new rule was also permitted to do so.The committee came up with a number of recommendations with relation to ball tampering and stated that the following actions shall not be permitted: deliberately throwing the ball into the ground for purposes of roughing it up, applying any artificial substance to the ball and applying any non-artificial substance for any purpose other than to polish the ball, lifting or otherwise interfering with any of the seams of the ball, and scratching the surface of the ball with finger or thumb nails or any implement.The use of adhesives in the preparation of pitches for international matches should be discontinued, the committee ruled. Polyvinyl Acetate adhesives had been used during last year’s Champions Trophy in India for the purpose of holding the pitches together.

Greg Blewett, who was a semi-regular member of the Australia team during the late 1990s, has retired from first-class cricket. Blewett, 35, will stay at South Australia as a high-performance batting coach while also pursuing his commentating career.Blewett’s run-scoring gradually declined over the last few years and his axing from the South Australia one-day team in December signalled the end of his 16-year state career. He had already lost his place in the Pura Cup side in 2005-06 as the Redbacks decided to blood some younger batsmen. Late last year, he vented his anger at being dumped from the side, calling the state’s selectors “clowns”.Although he regrets that comment, Blewett said he would continue to “have issues” with certain individuals at the SACA. “I think ideally I could still play for a couple of years, physically,” Blewett told . “I don’t necessarily agree with a lot of things that have happened in the past 12 months but I accept them.”Despite playing 46 Tests and 32 ODIs from 1994-95 to 1999-2000, Blewett never quite cemented his spot in the national line-up. Nor could Australia decide exactly how to use him; he started his Test career at No. 6, had a moderately successful switch to No. 3, dropped back down to No. 6 and finished as an opener.He did, however, write his name into the record books as soon as he burst onto the international scene aged 23 in the 1994-95 Ashes series. Blewett made 102 not out on debut at his home ground at Adelaide and followed up in the next Test with 115 at Perth, making him only the third Australian – the others were Bill Ponsford and Doug Walters – to score a century in each of his first two Tests.Blewett established a reputation as a reliable member of the middle-order and entertained crowds with his fluent cuts and cover drives, and his dangerous hooks and pulls. There were a few too many unfulfilled starts from Blewett, but he certainly got it right at Johannesburg in 1996-97, when he and Steve Waugh together added 385.It was the second-highest fifth-wicket partnership ever in Tests, falling just short of Don Bradman and Sid Barnes’s 405-run effort. Blewett and Waugh batted right through the third day, which was the first time any pair had achieved the feat against South Africa. Blewett finished with 214, which was easily the high point of a Test career that yielded only four centuries.

There were times when Blewett struggled to keep out fast balls cutting in towards his stumps; that was evident when he was bowled for 99 twice in the 1997 calendar year. High-class spin bowling also caused him problems.A string of low scores in India in 1997-98 lost him his Test place but he returned a year later and reinvented himself as an opening partner for Michael Slater after Mark Taylor’s retirement. There were moments of success and a 269-run stand against Pakistan at Brisbane was the highlight. Although some commentators believed the pair would be Australia’s openers for many years, Blewett did not reach triple-figures in the role and was replaced by Matthew Hayden on the 1999-2000 tour of New Zealand.Blewett’s Test career ended at the age of 28, and his 46 Tests brought him 2552 runs at 34.02. Surprisingly for a batsman who was such an excellent fieldsman and a better-than-average part-time medium-pace bowler, Blewett could not hold down a place in the Australia limited-overs team and from his 32 ODIs he averaged only 20.4 with the bat.His failure to convert his starts at Test level frustrated Blewett. “I probably underachieved a bit for Australia,” he said. “I think I was good enough to average 40 but didn’t so that is a regret. It was something that frustrated me throughout my career. I got a lot of fifties.”Blewett, who spent time with Kent, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, made his first-class debut at the age of 20 in 1991-92, in a South Australia-Queensland clash that was also the first match for Hayden. He was part of the Redbacks’ 1995-96 Sheffield Shield-winning side, scoring 72 in the final, and was a consistent accumulator for his state.In 2000-01, he compiled 1162 Pura Cup runs at 68.35 as he tried in vain to work his way back into the Test side. He retained his national contract for one more season but his best years were behind him. Back, hand and thigh injuries limited his output in recent seasons and Blewett’s first-class career ended on 232 matches, with 17,352 runs at 44.49.

Cricinfo can reveal that Tatenda Taibu, the former Zimbabwe captain, is talking to the board about a possible return to the Zimbabwe team.Taibu walked out of Zimbabwe cricket in November 2005 after falling out with the Zimbabwe board – in particular chaiman Peter Chingoka and managing director Ozias Bvute – over player welfare and governance issues. He also claimed his family had been threatened.He had stints in the UK and Namibia, where he never really established himself, and has periodically returned home. However, in the last month, Taibu has been training with the Zimbabwe team in Harare and looking very much involved in the thick of things, although at first he was said to be practicising to stay in form.”There are talks going on between him and Zimbabwe Cricket in a bid to try and get him back,” Givemore Makoni, the team manager, told AFP. “I think he wants to play. I can’t disclose much, but at the moment he is with us to try and maintain form. He is also n camp and he is training. Negotiations are still in progress at the moment. If he makes himself available, obviously selectors will be looking at picking him.”It is said Taibu has received support from most of the players who want him to be reinstated as captain, but it is unlikely anything will be decided until Chingoka and Bvute return from an ICC meeting in London.Aside from the personal differences with the pair, Taibu is owed tens of thousands of dollars in back pay and is unlikely to do anything until that is handed over.