The draw for the fourth round of the C&G Trophy, with matches to be played on Wednesday 11 July, is as follows.Worcestershire v Herefordshire at Worcester; Somerset v Glamorgan at Taunton; Yorkshire v Surrey at Leeds; Kent v Northamptonshire at Canterbury; Lancashire v Sussex at Manchester; Gloucestershire v Durham at Bristol; Warwickshire v Essex at Birmingham; Nottinghamshire v Leicestershire at Nottingham.
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Twelve months ago Ryan Sidebottom was a one-cap wonder putting in the hard yards for Nottinghamshire on the county circuit. On Monday night at Lord’s he was named England’s Player of the Year and will start the first Test against New Zealand as the team’s premier strike bowler.Since his surprise recall against West Indies, at Headingley, he has taken 53 wickets in 12 Tests, including 24 against New Zealand in March. He claimed a 10-wicket haul and a hat-trick in Hamilton and his 7 for 47 in Napier, the best figures by an England bowler for four years, helped to set-up their come-from-behind series win. He had already been named one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year.His chance came due to an injury to Matthew Hoggard, who is now, partly because of Sidebottom’s excellence, battling to get is own place back in the team. Hoggard used to be the first bowler on the team-sheet, but that honour now goes to Sidebottom and he has confounded predictions by developing into an all-round wicket-taker regardless of conditions.”This time last year I was training with Nottinghamshire and just playing regular county cricket so it’s been a massive turnaround,” he said. “But I don’t want to get carried away with it and I’m relishing the chance to play at Lord’s again. The other 10 guys in the team have made me feel very welcome, which has allowed me to get on with my job. I suppose it goes out to all the players because one player doesn’t make a team.”Maybe one player doesn’t make a team, but much of the limited success England have had over the past year wouldn’t have happened without Sidebottom. New Zealand would have ended in defeat and even toppling West Indies last summer would have proved a harder task. Then there is his role in the one-day side, 20 wickets from 12 matches, including a Man-of-the-Series performance in Sri Lanka.Sidebottom is a laidback character off the field (bowling is different matter, just ask anyone who drops a catch) and insists the last year hasn’t changed him. After waiting so long for a second chance he isn’t taking anything for granted. “I don’t want to get too carried away because things can change quickly. It’s just a case of keeping doing the basics,” he said.”All the talk [when called up against West Indies] was that it would be one game, the horses for courses thing, but I sat down with my dad [Arnie, who also won one cap for England] and he said just go out and do your best, don’t look too far ahead. At Headingley I played as though it would be my last game and I’m not going to change. Each game I’ll enjoy it and give it my best.”Sidebottom has broken into the top 10 of the bowling rankings and received praise from Richard Hadlee, who said he was the main threat in the series ahead. “It’s a massive compliment coming from a great bowler,” said Sidebottom. “On the other hand I’m not taking much notice because they are a difficult team to beat.”We aren’t taking it lightly, especially myself because I’ve only played a few games. Of course I would like to carry on in the same form but it’s not going to be easy. As long as I’m consistent and getting wickets for my team-mates then that’s great.”The other major award handed out at Lord’s on Monday evening was the Women’s Player of the Year which went to Claire Taylor, while Outstanding Achievement awards were given to the men who scored a 100, claimed a five-wicket haul or held five catches in an innings.Two one-off presentations were also given to Ashley Giles and Marcus Trescothick in recognition of their England success over the years. Trescothick announced his retirement from international cricket in March and Giles is now on the England selection panel as well as Warwickshire’s coach.
Quebec 225 (48.2 overs; Qaiser Ali 64) and 165 for 8 (50 overs) beat Ontario 126 (43.1 overs: N Patel 3-23) and 210 (46.1 overs; Shamshuddeem 56, N Patel 3-51) runsQuebec regained the Atholstan Cup in LaSalle (Montreal) on Sunday (June 10), beating Ontario by 44 runs.Ontario battled back on the second day with some solid bowling that restricted Quebec to just 165 from 50 overs. Aftab Shamshuddeem was particularly impressive. He conceded just 13 runs from 10 overs and took two wickets. Jitender Singh and Hezron Lawrence each scored 35 for Quebec. Lawrence was out to a fine leg-side catch by Ontario wicketkeeper Azib Ali. He took three other catches in this innings.Shamshuddeem was pivotal in Ontario’s performance, making 56 (2×4, 1×6) when opening the second innings batting. He led the way for the visitors in this match and the hosts celebrated his dismissal. He was fourth out with the total on 102 for 4. Ontario then slumped to 148 for 8 wickets before Naresh Roopnaraine (43, including 2×4, 2×6) and Harvir Baidwan (24 runs) lead a spirited effort for the last two wickets.Quebec skipper Naresh Patel again took three wickets, as he had in the first innings, but he conceded
Pakistan will host West Indies for three Tests and five one-day internationals in November and December, though the itinerary for the tour has yet to be finalised. That has been delayed until the outcome of the ICC Champions Trophy, to be held in India between October 7 and November 5Pakistan, seeded in the main round, await the result of West Indies matches, which are in the qualifying rounds of the tournament. “The tour is confirmed. However the itinerary will be finalised later due to some logistical reasons,” Subhan Ahmed,a PCB official, told Reuters.The PCB added that it had been requested by West Indies to schedule the one-day internationals first, but that given the winter season it would be better to play the Tests first. “In the last two series against England and India we lost a lot of time due to bad light,” Ahmed said. “The floodlights also don’t improve the light. So it would be better to have the Tests first.”He said the PCB would use five venues — Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan and Faisalabad — to host all the matches.The West Indies last toured Pakistan in 1997-98 and a proposed tour in 2002 was shifted to Sharjah over security concerns following the September 11 attacks.
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After that temporary glitch at Cardiff, normality has been restored to the NatWest Series, with both England and Australia guaranteed of their places in next week’s final at Lord’s. But, in the long drawn-out battle for the Ashes, tomorrow’s dress rehearsal at Edgbaston will lack nothing in terms of psychology, with both sides desperate to stamp their authority ahead of the main event.After a slow start to their tour, it is Australia who enter the match with the wind in their sails. They atoned for their embarrassment at Sophia Gardens with a thumping ten-wicket win in the return match against Bangladesh, having already laid a few ghosts with an impressive victory against England at Chester-le-Street.England, meanwhile, were in scratchy form during their five-wicket win over Bangladesh at the weekend, and Marcus Trescothick, their stand-in captain, was quick to admit that the team had been some way short of their best. “We were not our normal bubbly selves,” he said after the match. “‘It just looked wrong. Our whole energy was not there at the start.”Privately, England must be mightily relieved to have seen the last of the Bangladeshis for this season. As Australia discovered, the only real practice that they offered was a lesson in how to deal with humiliation, and the Aussies, it has to be said, bounced back from their indignity very well indeed. There are now five Anglo-Aussie one-day internationals between now and the start of the first Test on July 21, and both sides can now begin the process of finetuning their form.England expect to be lifted for tomorrow’s clash by the return of their captain, Michael Vaughan. A groin strain ruled him out of the last two games, but now he is set to return at the ground where his thrilling 86 carried England to victory in the semi-final of last season’s Champions Trophy – a result that ended a run of 14 straight defeats.”It was a dirty day for us,” admitted Ricky Ponting, who broke his thumb in the same game and was ruled out of the first three Tests of Australia’s subsequent tour of India. “It was an awful day, weather-wise as well as on the field. But there won’t be any talk about the last time we played at Edgbaston.”England won’t want any talk of Chester-le-Street or Headingley either, where their intensity levels were clearly down a notch or two from the high standards they set earlier in the summer. To that end, they can expect a return for Steve Harmison, who was rested against Bangladesh, with Simon Jones resuming his place on the sidelines.Australia’s main fitness issue concerns Michael Clarke, who has been struggling with a sore back and will undergo a late fitness test.England (probable) 1 Marcus Trescothick, 2 Andrew Strauss, 3 Michael Vaughan, 4 Paul Collingwood, 5 Andrew Flintoff, 6 Kevin Pietersen, 7 Geraint Jones, 8 Ashley Giles, 9 Chris Tremlett, 10 Darren Gough, 11 Steve Harmison.Australia (probable) 1 Adam Gilchrist, 2 Matthew Hayden, 3 Ricky Ponting, 4 Damien Martyn, 5 Andrew Symonds, 6 Mike Hussey, 7 Shane Watson, 8 Brad Hogg, 9 Jason Gillespie, 10 Brett Lee, 11 Glenn McGrath.
West Indies have suffered yet another injury blow to their tour of South Africa as Wavell Hinds was forced to return home on Sunday because of a groin problem.Hinds picked up the injury during the drawn third Test at Cape Town, and Ricky Skerritt, the West Indian team manager, confirmed that Hinds’s tour was over. No replacement will be sent for ahead of the fourth and final Test which begins at Centurion on Friday, although an extra player may be called up for the one-day series which follows.Hinds is the fourth West Indies player to head home from the tour following injuries to Omari Banks, Jerome Taylor and Marlon Samuels.The latest blow came as West Indies endured another mediocre day on the field, dismissed for just 263 in the second innings of their tour matchagainst Easterns, the South African first-class champions, at Willowmore Park in Benoni.
SYDNEY, Jan 3 AAP – A bout of chicken pox failed to prevent veteran Alec Stewart from pressing on with England’s strong start in the fifth Ashes Test against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground today.At lunch on the second day, the tourists were 7-341 on the back of Stewart’s impressive 71 from 86 deliveries after he was diagnosed with the illness yesterday.He took to the depleted Australian attack, hitting 11 fours today, giving him a total of 15 for the innings after he resumed on a score of 20.In contrast, John Crawley made slow progress, taking 40 minutes to move off his overnight score of six.He was 22 not out at lunch with Andy Caddick unbeaten on four.Andy Bichel made the break through for Australia when he bowled Stewart shortly before lunch.Ahead of the break, Bichel also squeezed in the wicket of Richard Dawson, caught behind by Adam Gilchrist for just two.Stewart’s knock drove him past Geoff Boycott as England’s third highest Test run scorer with 8,149 runs behind Graham Gooch (8,900) and David Gower (8,231).
Few bowlers, if any, in the recent history of New Zealand’s international cricket have revelled as Shayne O’Connor did in the extra labours required of him last summer when injury deprived the side of its best performers.The Otago left-arm medium-fast swing bowler O’Connor was in his element and produced some of the finest, and most consistent, bowling of his career.With Chris Cairns, Geoff Allott, Dion Nash and Daniel Vettori missing in action, someone had to pick up the work rate and it fell to O’Connor.It had its effects, however, and after the one-off Boxing Day Test with Zimbabwe, O’Connor was put out to pasture unceremoniously and left to recharge his batteries. In the process the work load of Africa took its toll and O’Connor broke down requiring surgery on his knee.Effectively, his summer was over. Given the improvements he had made, although he says it was just reverting to how he bowled at high school, and the speed he had regained, it was a disappointing end for all concerned in seeing O’Connor gain the recognition for the work he had done.None felt it more than he did.It was his goal to come back to New Zealand from Africa and show that he could thrive in home conditions. Injury meant that had to wait.The good news is, however, that O’Connor has fronted up for the first selection exercise of the new cricket year, the limited overs tour to Sri Lanka, fit and ready to go. Whether he is named or not, there is always the prospect of the tour to Pakistan in September and Australia to follow that.It is an interesting consideration whether O’Connor deserves to be categorised as more of a Test bowler is an interesting point.While he took some fearful punishment earlier in his career as an at-the-death bowler, he showed much greater understanding of his role in Africa and picked up a key five wickets for 46 runs in New Zealand’s ICC KnockOut semi-final win over Pakistan.”I do prefer Test cricket but I am still a cricket lover and I do enjoy one-dayers for a change,” he said.”I believe I have progressed as a one-day bowler. I bowled with a lot more self-belief in Africa. We did a lot more training beforehand and I had a lot more confidence in my action. Personally, I felt as good as I ever had,” he said.O’Connor found himself able to forget thinking about the last ball bowled knowing that if he did things right the next ball should be in the right place.Small things, but vitally important when the heat is on and a batsman like Lance Klusener or Nicky Boje is on the charge.Taking the role of senior bowler for the Test matches placed a different kind of pressure on him and he admitted to thriving in the situation.Having regained some of the pace he had lost, the result of minor changes to his bowling technique over the years, he was able to cap off the more specific training the New Zealanders had undertaken.”It was almost into sprinter-type training,” he said, while the weight training done was more explosive work.”I would have to give 70-80% of the credit to the training we did. The rest was the minor change to my action which resulted in me bowling more like I did at high school.”Looking at the video analysis the fault in my timing was picked up and I worked on that. I found by improving my timing that when I got tired in South Africa I was still able to do it correctly.”It was another little thing that helped build my confidence,” he said.So well did his confidence grow that O’Connor finished the 2000 calendar year as New Zealand’s most successful bowler. He was 10th on the international standings with his 29 wickets in eight Tests coming at an average of 23.86.During the actual 2000/01 Test programme he finished with 18 wickets at 26.0.While he did enjoy the opportunities the injuries to others provided him with, O’Connor admitted that it was tough and he was shattered by the end of the Zimbabwe Test in Wellington, played soon after the team returned from South Africa.”I was knackered mentally and physically. It was a huge tour and while I watched the guys playing the one-day series against Zimbabwe in the New Year, I felt sorry for them.”I know we do get paid for doing it. But with professionalism gaining momentum I do think we have to get used to the idea that we might need some breaks or face the prospect of having shorter careers,” he said.New Zealand’s bowling problems surely bear that out. And the situation is right now for New Zealand to look to use more rotation of its bowlers.Hitting Pakistan and Australia with full-strength attacks will be important for New Zealand next summer, and then there is the prospect of dealing with England at home.”There’s a lot of cricket to go. If I don’t get an opportunity early on then I will have to sit tight and wait my opportunity later.”I would like to make the Aussie tour. I look back at the last one and can hardly remember a thing about it,” he said of what was his first big tour with the national side.In the mean-time there are other important matters to attend to. The paper he is doing through Massey University, the house he is doing up and most importantly of all, his August marriage, in Alexandra, to local girl Camille Grubb.Originally from Hawke’s Bay, O’Connor admits to being a Southern Man, although he said that title would have to be conferred by others. He does see his long-term future in the south saying he really enjoys the lifestyle offered by Central Otago.But with his knee feeling good and the competitive fires burning again, O’Connor is shaping as a key component in New Zealand’s Test attack this summer.
In taking on Australia at home over the next month, New Zealand’s cricketers wish to overturn one element of history while also paying homage to another.The Kiwis’ two most successful recent tilts at beating the men in baggy green took place in 2001 and 1995. In the more recent encounter, the batsmen dropped anchor and insisted on leaving the ball as much as possible. That approach worked so successfully that Glenn McGrath endured one of his poorest series of all, and the visitors came within a couple of wickets of snatching the series in Perth.Sixteen years before, a youthful Australian side gutted by retirements and South African rebel tour contracts had no answer to Sir Richard Hadlee at his peak. Moving the ball both ways while sticking to an immaculate line, a pair of thrashings in Brisbane and Perth fell either side of a narrower win for Allan Border’s bedraggled team in Sydney.This time around, New Zealand’s captain Brendon McCullum has no intention of instructing his batsmen to shelve their free-spirited batting tendencies in contrast to 2001. But there is well-founded confidence within the visitors’ ranks that a moving ball in the hands of Tim Southee, Trent Boult and company can confound another transitional Australian team after the fashion of Hadlee.For McCullum, the chance to play a three-Test series in Australia will sit high on any list of his career highlights, especially given how shabbily New Zealand have been treated by their wealthier neighbour in terms of fixtures since 2010. He is determined to maintain a positive, aggressive attitude to the task, something that cost him during the World Cup final earlier this year but has brought him great rewards elsewhere.”We’ve got to keep the positive mindset, that’s what works for us,” McCullum said. “It’s not always going to work but it gives us our greatest chance and we’ve said that time and time again over the last couple of years. That sits comfortably with us, it’s more authentic that style of play to the personnel in the unit and probably with us as people, as Kiwis. We’ll go and play some positive cricket and hopefully the gods will shine on us.”The World Cup was a great event and amazing to be part of, but we ran second in the event and we were proud of what we were able to achieve and how we gave ourselves a shot at the title. Unfortunately we weren’t good enough on the day and Australia deserved to win, but it’s not a motivation for us. Our motivation is to be as good as we possibly can, and to come over here and try and get the result which is to win the three-Test series.”The fact that both sides played England during the northern summer offers an intriguing insight into their strengths and weaknesses. New Zealand’s aggression got them into trouble at Lord’s but they rebounded strongly to win at Headingley, whereas Australia also finished the stronger but only after the Ashes had been whisked away by a combination of Steven Finn, Stuart Broad and heedless batting on a pair of seaming pitches.”To a degree, but I think Australia’s different at home,” McCullum said when queried on how much the Ashes result gave New Zealand an idea of how to make the hosts uncomfortable. “England in England are tough to beat and with a different ball as well. The series oscillated so much – England got the spoils at the end but it certainly wasn’t one sided.”For us we’ve got to play positive cricket, we know we’ve got a good line up, a team which we know well within ourselves, we’ve got good balance, and we’re going to have to work out some areas along the way where we think we might be able to attack Australia, and areas we have to shore up as well, because we know we’ve got some really explosive batters and they’ve got some dangerous bowlers as well.”That’s the art of trying to work out how you’re going to compete on a tour, but they’re going to be tough, and we’ve got to make sure we play well.”It should not escape the attention of those who have hesitated to schedule matches been Australia and New Zealand for reasons of competitiveness or financial value that the last time they played one another it was actually the Kiwis who were victorious, on a green Hobart pitch not dissimilar to those prepared in Birmingham and Nottingham.Tim Southee, who will lead in McCullum’s stead against the Prime Minister’s XI, said the swinging ball against aggressive Australian batsmen would be a prime weapon for the New Zealand attack. “I think the strength of myself and Trent particularly is the way we can swing a ball and it does help if it is swinging,” he said, “but I think we’ve also had results where it hasn’t swung.”We’ve performed in all sorts of conditions in all parts of the world now, and although we like it when it swings, we know if it is not swinging it is not the end of the world. We do have other plans and things up our sleeve as well. But if does make a bit of a difference if there is a bit of swing in the air and I think last time we played in Brisbane there was a little bit of swing around – James Pattinson swung it too nicely that day – so yeah hopefully we can get it swinging.”Talk of sledging and confrontations had to arise after the events of the World Cup final, but it is fair to surmise that this will be a series played in friendlier spirit based on recent evidence. Under McCullum, New Zealand have become a byword for fairness, while the Australians were notably short of verbal venom during the Ashes, even before the retirements of two chief provocateurs in Brad Haddin and Shane Watson.”I don’t know, time will tell. We’re certainly not spending any energy on that sort of stuff, I’m sure the series will be played in great spirit,” McCullum said. “Obviously with Steve Smith and with Darren Lehmann as coach, the two teams will get on well.”It will be healthy competition on the field and it should be played in good spirits, but for us the focus will be very much on our skills rather than anything else. We’ll just go and play our cricket and have a good time while we’re at it. We’ve got a great bunch of guys that we’re playing with and we’re out there representing our country, and that’s where our focus is rather than on the other stuff.”As for the experimental third Test, the first to be played under lights with a pink ball, McCullum acknowledged that not everyone involved had leapt into it with the greatest enthusiasm. However he summed up the position New Zealand were placed in by noting that it was highly unusual for them to be granted a three-Test series, so if the third had to be played with a pink ball then it was better than getting two.”The two boards were in discussions but from our point of view we arrived at the fact we were going to play a Test match with the pink ball,” he said. “We knew we were going to get some preparation, so from a players’ point of view we were going to allow ourselves to be able to get ready for the Test.”It is what it is, I know there’s been a bit of negativity around it, but I guess we’ll find out with the pink ball whether it works or not, and that’s one of the good things about playing the Test. We normally only get two-match series so it’s quite nice to have a third one, so we’ll deal with the third one when it arrives.”The pink ball’s debut will be a moment of history. But it is not only kind New Zealand want to be making this series.
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Bermuda could be set to stage their first major international match, proving the ICC decides that pitches at the National Sports Centre have improved sufficiently since an inspection last year.The surface was condemned by Andy Atkinson, the ICC’s inspector, in July 2007. “The square at the Sports Centre is good enough for club cricket, but when you’re talking about ODIs or longer games then I’m afraid it’s a no-go,” he said, adding that bringing in soil from abroad was the only way to rectify the situation. That idea was subsequently slammed by the Bermudan government as it contravened the island’s strict laws on the importation of soil.But Cricket Scotland said that it had been contacted by the Bermudan board (BCB) who are confident that ICC approval could come in time for the Intercontinental Cup tie to be played there in mid July. “The process for approving the National Stadium in Bermuda for ICC Intercontinental Cup matches is in place and we hope that a decision will be made towards the end of this week or early next week whether Bermuda will host Scotland in early July,” a spokesman for the ICC told Cricinfo.At the moment, the four-day game is scheduled to be played in Toronto where Scotland will then meet Canada three days later. But of clear concern to Scotland is that if the match is switched to Bermuda then it will present logistical issues in rearranging the initial flights and then transferring on to Canada with little time to acclimatise.”The Bermudians are keeping us in the loop about their plans,” Roddy Smith, the board’s chief executive, said. “The ICC requested them to prepare a four-day wicket for tests and they’ve been playing practise matches on the ground for each of the last three weekends. The tests end this weekend and we understand the ICC will make a decision on the venue for our game during the week. I’d say it’s looking likely that we’ll be told to play in Bermuda.”Obviously there will be a bit more hassle with travel but I’d imagine there are worse places to go than Bermuda.”