Conventional wisdom says the fourth one-day international at Old Trafford was one India would rather forget; it was a scrap India had got on top of by creeping under the skin of the opposition, and losing from there would have brought a sense of hopelessness. Yet it was also a game they can take a lot of heart from.For one hour in the field – the first period of the run-chase – India displayed more positives than they had over several hours in earlier games. This was, without a shadow of a doubt, their best effort on the field in a long while – throwing punches fearlessly, catching eagerly and mouthing off with abandon. Their ground fielding was only marginally better than earlier but the buzz was unmistakable. Led by Yuvraj Singh and Dinesh Karthik, the younger players took it upon themselves to pump up the volume and inject the side with much-needed energy.One moment, when Kevin Pietersen was new to the crease, summed up the high-voltage approach. Rahul Dravid, after a chat with the umpires, asked Yuvraj, at point, to cool off; Karthik, standing at cover, immediately came to his rescue and shot off an explanation. Nothing, not even their captain, was going to shut them up.Dravid too was more energised than in recent days. The modest total of 212 forced him to set attacking fields right through England’s innings and crucially Dravid did not hesitate to put men around the bat, providing the spinners all the support they could ask for.It was, as Nasser Hussain in the commentary box reiterated several times, the aggression India have been missing. They hardly landed up at Southampton and Edgbaston and even the victory at Bristol came with a sense of fatigue. Old Trafford may have thrown up an alternative path: with three matches to go, and the series almost out of their reach, India could transfer their aggression to the bat as well. Their batting, Bristol excepted, has been jaded and there cannot be a better time to start expressing themselves freely.”We came to 212 with some good contributions lower down the order from Zaheer [Khan] and Piyush [Chawla],” Dravid after Thursday’s match. “In the end, though, I thought we should have scrapped a lot harder and got to 240. That was certainly gettable.” A lower-order scrap would have got them there but what about a top-order breaking free of the shackles?
The line-up may still need tinkering – Karthik at No. 3 does not seem to be the answer – but it is the mindset that needs to change
The line-up may still need tinkering – Karthik at No. 3 does not seem to be the answer – but it is the mindset that needs to change. India are approaching these games as if they are Tests, getting into their stride and building innings, but caution can only take you so far. That approach worked well in the Test series, gradually grinding out the opposition, but the one-day game demands a more proactive approach.Lively young men such as Karthik and Mahendra Singh Dhoni have pottered around at the crease. They are facing good bowlers on home turf but doing very little to rattle them. Up against a predominantly back-of-a-length attack they are finding it tough to break the shackles. Yuvraj’s clean-striking has been the most refreshing sight and he needs to be rewarded with a push up the order. Keeping him at No. 5 is only adding to his burden. It is this younger batch that will carry India through the next few years and into the next World Cup. Four or five of the current team will not be around for the event and it is up to the rest to form the nucleus of a side for the future. India are currently in no-man’s land, neither winning games nor building for the future, and run the risk of sliding further.It is time for the next generation to be thrown in the deep and told to back their aggressive instincts. The series might be decided in Headingley but India need to look at this as the start of a new chapter.
Allan Border has stepped down as a Test selector for the second time in less than two years and only four months after re-accepting the position. Border, who is a Cricket Australia and Queensland Cricket board member, stepped back into the role in June but has over-committed and will focus instead on his other interests, which also include commentary and media work.”My various commitments are far heavier than I had expected back in mid-year and I don’t think it is appropriate to do what is a really important job if I am not able to give it the full attention it deserves,” Border said. “I am really passionate and absolutely committed to making a continuing contribution to cricket through my board work and through my involvement in the CA committee that will decide the next national coach.”According to a report in The Age, however, the final straw for Border came down to a conflict of interests over a beer commercial. He has just taken part in an advert for XXXX Gold, alongside Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee, but Cricket Australia has just signed a far-reaching sponsorship deal with the rival brewery, Foster’s.”We think ambush marketing is fairly un-Australian,” said Geoff Donohue, the corporate affairs spokesman for the Foster’s Group. “I will leave you to decide whether what they [XXXX Gold] are doing with their current advertising campaigns is ambush marketing. I guess Allan has [resigned] in pursuit of his own commercial interests, and what he wants to do for personal gain is obviously his business.”Australia’s selection panel has changed significantly since April with the resignation of Trevor Hohns, the long-serving chairman, and the promotion of Andrew Hilditch into the top job. Merv Hughes, who replaced Border when he walked away after a seven-year stint in 2005, and David Boon are the two other current selectors.Creagh O’Connor, the Cricket Australia chairman, said the board would discuss possible replacements with Hilditch and Cricket Australia’s management before a meeting later this week.
Ricky Ponting has hit back at some fierce Ashes criticism from Duncan Fletcher, the England coach, suggesting that his comments were a smokescreen against criticism of his own team. In a preview of his book , Fletcher said the Australians had been verbally abusive and physically intimidating while flouting the spirit of the game in England.Fletcher has also detailed his account of Ponting’s wild reaction after being run-out by Gary Pratt at Trent Bridge, where there were other reported problems. “We have it on good authority that the groundsman [Steve Birks] was verbally abused by some of the Australian players,” Fletcher wrote.Fletcher added that Ponting “blew his top” when he smiled at him after he was run out in Pratt, a crack substitute fielder, who had been subbed on for a bowler. Ponting said he was disappointed by Fletcher’s latest broadside, suggesting it sounded more like England had lost the Ashes, not won them after 18 years.”That was probably what got my back up more than anything was to have their coach standing on the balcony smiling at me once I was dismissed from a Test match,” he said. “He knew what the whole substitute issue meant to the Australian cricket team after we made a big song and dance about it before the first one-day international was played at the start of the summer. We didn’t think it was right. They continued doing it and nothing was done about it.”As for the questions of fair play, Ponting told AFP: “I don’t recall having any of the umpires speak to me or any of the match officials speak to other than that one incident in which I was fined for. We did everything in our power to play the game in the right spirit. I think that was pretty evident right through the whole series and we’ve been applauded for the way we played through the series.”I don’t know if he’s trying to cover his own backside a little bit with a lot of these allegations directed at us now. It’s all coming after some allegations were made against him about the way England conducted themselves through the tour. To be honest, I don’t really care.”Matthew Hayden, who had not seen the stories, came out in support of his captain, questioning why Fletcher had waited until Ponting was at home to make the comments. “He’s a long, long way away isn’t he,” Hayden, who will face Ponting’s Tasmania in an ING Cup match on Saturday, told AAP. “We won’t play [England] for another 18 months and the Australian captain will still be Ricky Ponting, and he’s going to have a few more titles under his belt than England.”Dropped from Australia’s one-day side for the Super Series, Hayden said the rare appearance for Queensland was the beginning of his campaign to return to the No. 1 side. “I’m not finished playing one-day cricket,” he said. Hayden cemented his Test sport with his second hundred in two matches in Sydney last week.
Giving a clearer indication of the mood within the team before England’s one-day series against Zimbabwe, Darren Gough has said that if it were up to the players, none would tour Zimbabwe. Gough admitted that the potential damage of the ICC’s financial penalties gave the players little room to manoeuvre.His comments came after Graham Thorpe and Michael Vaughan expressed discontent at having to travel to Zimbabwe. “If the International Cricket Council said it was up to each individual player whether he wanted to go, and England wouldn’t suffer financially, each player would pull out,” Gough told “But England will lose between £10 million and £20 million if we don’t go. Youth cricket will suffer, the academy, everything the country’s worked for will suffer.”Earlier this year, the BBC reported that Ehsaan Mani had denied telling the English board that a boycott could lead to heavy penalties. But a spokesperson for the ECB said that though there was no explicit threat by the ICC, to not go to Zimbabwe could hurt their revenue.Gough said he was only going to Zimbabwe to represent his country at cricket, and would walk away if asked to shake hands with Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president. “I’m there for one reason – to represent my country in an international cricket match. We’ve all been advised not to socialise, not to play golf, just to keep out of the limelight when we’re not on the cricket pitch. It’s sad but that’s what we’ll be doing.”If I get into a situation where I’m supposed to be at a function and shaking hands with Mugabe, I won’t do it. I’ll walk away. I’m not afraid to do that.”
They are winless after seven County Championship matches, and staring relegation full in the face, but Kent’s prospects for the season have increased tenfold after it was announced that Muttiah Muralitharan would be joining them for the remainder of the season.Murali is the most prolific wicket-taker in world cricket, with 459 wickets in 82 Tests and a further 342 in 223 ODIs. He played a similarly truncated season for Lancashire in 1999, in which he picked up 66 wickets in just seven matches – and in one of those he didn’t even bowl. He returned two seasons later and repeated his success with 50 wickets in another seven-match stint, and almost single-handedly saved Lancashire from relegation.Murali will be available to play for Kent from July 21, initially as a replacement for Andrew Symonds, who will be on international duty with Australia. He will then fill in for Kent’s other overseas player, Mohammad Sami, who returns to Pakistan in September for their series against Bangladesh.”We are thrilled to have Murali with us for the latter part of the season,” said Kent’s director of cricket, Ian Brayshaw. “As we found with Steve Waugh last year, to have a player of such international standing has a huge impact throughout the Club and it will be a particularly good opportunity for our younger players to learn from one of the world’s greatest bowlers.”Murali’s first appearance for Kent will be on July 27, in the National League fixture against Yorkshire at Scarborough.
It’s a long way from Pakistan but Blacks Caps cricketers Mark Richardson and Shayne O’Connor will undoubtedly enjoy their time in Alexandra this weekend.Molyneux Park will host the pre-season State Otago Volts ‘practice/trial’ match on Saturday and Sunday giving new Otago coach Glenn Turner his first opportunity to view the value of an extensive winter programme. Fellow selectors Chris Taylor and Michael Austen will also be in attendance.Richardson heads one team with former Otago skipper Robbie Lawson in charge of the other. For Lawson the match presents his first step back having missed last season through injury.Turner has named two strong sides although he is naturally frustrated with the number of players unavailable – due to injury, duties elsewhere or not yet having returned from overseas commitments.Twenty-three players have been named for the weekend’s match, with this number to be trimmed to 14 for matches against the New Zealand Academy at Lincoln in early-October and against Canterbury in Christchurch in mid-November.The teams for the ‘practice/trial’ match are:Lawson’s team: Andrew Hore, Mike Hesson, Robbie Lawson, Jordan Sheed, Martyn Croy, Nathan Morland, Shane O’Connor, Bradley Scott, Shoruban Pasupati, Kerry Walmsley, Jamie Brundell.Richardson’s team: Mark Richardson, Shaun Haig, Anthony Wilkinson, Hayden Anderson, Simon Beare, Scott Waide, Tony McEntyre, James McMillan, Neil Rushton, David Sewell, Dick Quirk, Daryl Reddington.Unavailable are: Craig Cumming, Craig Pryor, Lee Germon (all injured), Nathan McCullum, Brendon McCullum and Warren McSkimming (all involved with the New Zealand Academy) and Chris Gaffaney (not yet home from playing duties in England).
An update has emerged regarding Newcastle United and their pursuit of Torino defender Wilfried Singo…
What’s the talk?
According to Torino Granata, the full-back is not on his way to Italian giants Juventus and is instead likely to move to the Premier League.
The report claims that the Toon are currently leading the race to land his signature as they prepare to make a bid in the region of £17m (€20m).
Forget Trippier
Dan Ashworth is reportedly set to join the Magpies as their director of football after leaving fellow Premier League side Brighton, and he can seal an instant masterclass by striking a deal for Singo in the summer.
Kieran Trippier arrived to bolster the right-back position in January and quickly asserted himself as the main man at St James’ Park. He scored two goals in four league outings whilst averaging a phenomenal SofaScore rating of 7.67 – a score that no Newcastle player has been able to get near so far in the league.
The England international is currently out injured after fracturing a bone in his foot, and the signing of Singo could provide perfect cover for the Englishman should he pick up more injuries further down the line. Trippier will be 32 in September and potentially heading towards the final years of his prime, with the Torino gem coming in as backup for him initially before taking over from him in the future.
In Serie A this season, Singo has averaged a solid SofaScore rating of 6.98 across 26 games. He has chipped in with three goals and four assists from full-back, which shows that he can also impact the game in an attacking sense in the same way that Trippier has done since his move from Atletico Madrid.
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Whilst his rating may not seem all that impressive in comparison to the 31-year-old’s, it is worth noting that the current Magpies defender has only played four games whilst Singo has caught the eye over 26 matches. Meanwhile, Trippier averaged a SofaScore rating of 6.86 in the first half of the campaign in Madrid, which suggests that they are closer to each other in ability than his short time back in the Premier League would have you believe.
At the age of 21, the Serie A tank is also 10 years Trippier’s junior and this means that he can be the long-term replacement for him at Newcastle whilst providing excellent cover for him in the short-term. This is why Ashworth will be sealing an instant masterclass by landing him for £17m to bolster Eddie Howe’s squad.
AND in other news, Insider suggests £46m “phenomenon” is a “realistic” target for NUFC, it’ll excite Howe…
Emphatic doesn’t quite do it justice. Unrelenting throughout, Australia put on another exhibition of high quality bowling to seal a vast victory over New Zealand and place one hand on the ICC Mace awarded to the world’s No. 1 Test team. A deflating result for the visitors in Brendon McCullum’s 100th Test was only a tail-end flurry short of New Zealand’s heaviest ever loss at home to Australia.Having set up the match with expert use of seaming early conditions on the first morning, Australia’s bowlers asked quite different questions on the fourth morning. Mitchell Marsh, Josh Hazlewood and Jackson Bird all used reverse swing to good effect, while Nathan Lyon homed in on a footmark outside the right-handers’ off stump to gain sharp spin. The absence of Peter Siddle, resting a back complaint, was well compensated for.Steven Smith will be a most contented captain, having overseen a performance in which many questions about this team have been answered. They chose the right XI for the conditions, they bowled impressively, and most importantly batted with command even after Joe Burns and David Warner were out cheaply with the ball still new on day one. New Zealand will be left to wonder over the significance of the “no-ball” that reprieved Adam Voges early.Henry Nicholls endured longest for the hosts, on the way to making the highest score by a New Zealand debutant batting at No. 4. But his dismissal on 59 by Bird left the tail exposed to the bounce and conventional swing of the second new ball. Southee and Trent Boult entertained another strong Basin Reserve crowd with a late flurry against Lyon, but it was merely a parting shot.Having lost McCullum from the last ball of day three, New Zealand’s chances of survival were slim, and they narrowed further when the 63-over old ball began bending in both directions. Corey Anderson struggled with the ball moving away from him around the wicket, but after a few play and misses Smith directed Marsh to go over the wicket and try to straighten one down the line.Two balls into the tactic, Marsh pitched one in line and swung it back to pin Anderson in front. Like McCullum he reviewed, but it was a futile gesture for a delivery crashing into middle and leg.BJ Watling arrived and his first ball from Lyon hit the aforementioned footmark and narrowly missed spinning back to strike the off stump with the batsman offering no shot. Lyon took note of this, and it was not long before he delivered a slightly flatter delivery on the same line that had Watling playing back, fatally. The turning ball was through him in an instant.Nicholls had absorbed all this pressure, but Bird’s decision to send one down at a full length made the difference, coaxing the batsman into a flick across the line. Again there was some swing, and the ball flicked off the pads into the stumps. At this, the Australians took the second new ball, and a Hazlewood lbw review against Doug Bracewell was declined due to a lack of conclusive evidence before the interval.Hazlewood had his due reward soon after resumption, when Bracewell was struck in front: this time there was no bat to confuse the issue. Southee’s blows dented Lyon’s figures somewhat, but the bowler was content to keep tossing it up in expectation of a miscue, which was exactly what happened.Mark Craig and Boult entertained for a time also, but in playing so freely they did nothing so much as underline how well the Australians had bowled to the batsmen. A match over in fewer than four days had taken place on a pitch that would still be good for batting on day five. In pursuit of Test cricket’s top perch, Smith’s men had played to a very high standard indeed.
Send us your comments …what do you thinkThe real impact of the USA’s suspension from international cricket will hit home next week when north of the border in Toronto the region’s leading teams will meet to take part in the Americas Under-19 Qualifier.The prize at stake is a place at the ICC U-19 World Cup in Malaysia next February and March. While hosts Canada will be joined by sides from Argentina, Bahamas, Bermuda and Cayman Islands, the USA’s young players will be left at home dreaming of what might have been.The USA were present at the last U-19 World Cup in Sri Lanka – on that occasion the ICC hierarchy commendably decided that it would be unfair to punish young players because of the governance issues affecting the national board . But this time there has been no such concession and so the U-19 side will miss out.The sadness of this becomes more apparent when you listen to people involved in grassroots US cricket.Last month, Hemant Buch, co-founder of the California Cricket Academy, told Cricinfo: “There will simply be more and more junior cricket in all parts of North America, and we should have several thousand first-class juniors ready to play competitive cricket by 2011.”When the various factions indulge in their next bout of self-obsessed squabbling for control of the USA Cricket Association, they would all so well to remember that the real victims of their conduct of recent years should be in Toronto this weekend preparing for the biggest week of their lives.
Shane Jabaar, South Africa’s physiotherapist, believes a proper rotation policy is imperative for the national side to reach its goals this season. South Africa have been hit with injuries over the last year, and Jabaar has advised that key players, such as Shaun Pollock, should not play every match of the season.Jabbar said players like Pollock, who experienced discomfort from a back injury in Sri Lanka recently, needed to be managed carefully. “Shaun batted and then bowled in New Delhi [during a warm-up match], but had to leave the field,” he said. “Taking him off was a precautionary measure and he is responding well to treatment.”Sometimes the slight injuries are the ones that cause problems because they affect muscles around the injured muscle. If we want Shaun to be ready for the World Cup tournament he should not play throughout the season. That was my proposal at the start of the season and I think the selectors have taken it to heart.”Jabbar also felt that Justin Kemp, the allrounder, could miss the World Cup if he aggravated the shoulder injury he picked up during the off-season. “If Justin plays in all the matches this season we run the risk of losing him,” he said. “Surgery will take him out of action for more than five months and that means he won’t be able to play in the World Cup.”Batting and bowling won’t be a problem, but throwing will. It is the way he throws the ball that causes the pain. We are working on it, but are afraid to overtax the muscle because it can have far-reaching effects.”Jabaar was satisfied with the progress of those who suffered from injuries recently – Graeme Smith (ankle), AB de Villiers (foot), Jacques Kallis (elbow), Charl Langevelt (thigh) and Loots Bosman (shoulder). He said Andre Nel, who injured a thumb in the warm-up match in New Delhi, would be fit to play in South Africa’s Champions Trophy opener on Monday.After the tournament, South Africa host India and Pakistan for five ODIs and three Tests each before they head to the Caribbean for the World Cup. Some members of the side are also expected to turn out in the domestic season.