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The ECB has invited nominations for a deputy chairman following the recent resignation of Mike Soper following his failure to be elected chairman when he lost out to Giles Clarke.The deadline for nominations is October 19 and if more than one is received, a ballot of the chairmen of the 18 counties and MCC will be held in accordance with the ECB constitution and under the supervision of the Electoral Reform Society.It has been agreed that, in order to prevent the need for another election in January 2008, that whoever is elected will serve the remainder of Soper’s term – up to March 2008 – then a full two-year term after that.

Pakistan allrounder Shahid Afridi wants Shoaib Malik, the captain, to be “tough and demanding” to get the most out of his players in order for Pakistan to fight back in the Test series. Pakistan are trailing 0-1 in the three-Test series after India won by six wickets in Delhi.”If a player is not performing to his optimum level, the captain must be tough and demand more. I think our team was in a position to win the first Test,” Afridi, who was omitted from the Test squad after the one-day series defeat, told PTI.”Experience counts for a lot and [Anil] Kumble led their team well and intelligently. Malik can also do a similar job but he needs to be confident ahead of the second Test and must push the players to do better.”However, Moin Khan, a former Pakistan captain and wicketkeeper, said that Malik could not be blamed because captaincy happened too suddenly for him.”He [Malik] doesn’t have the captaincy experience,” Moin told Cricinfo. “He just captained his regional side for some Twenty20 games and suddenly he becomes the captain of the national side. It is going to take time for him to develop. The problem lies with the board. They should have groomed a captain.” Moin felt the Test captaincy could have been given to Mohammad Yousuf while Malik could have continued to be the captain in the ODIs.Afridi said that Pakistan were in a strong position when they gained the lead on the third evening in Delhi. However, on the fourth morning, they lost their last five wickets for 35 runs and set India a target of only 203. Afridi said that the batsmen needed to apply themselves more.”The batting didn’t go all the way after a good start. I have no doubt if we had got another 80 to 100 runs, we could have won this Test match,” Afridi said. “It was disappointing to lose out in the end. I am sure the rest of the team will be eager to make a comeback in the second Test in Kolkata. But the other bowlers also need to give more support to Shoaib Akhtar.”Shoaib, who took six wickets including all four to fall in India’s second innings, received little support from the other bowlers. Danish Kaneria, the legspinner, was especially disappointing, going for 0 for 50 in the final innings.”They must have tried hard but the results are important,” Afridi said. “I was surprised that Kaneria didn’t take more wickets on this pitch. I think he was not as effective because of his shortened run-up. He will get more bite into his bowling if he goes back to his old bowling action which allows him more flight and turn.””It is just a matter of getting back the confidence. In 2005, when we were down in the series, we only came back in the final Test in Bangalore because we believed we could do it and Inzamam [ul-Haq] kept telling us we were close to squaring the series. But the batting must click big time like it did in Bangalore.”

Andhra, who were in a position of considerable strength at stumps on thefirst day of their South Zone (under-19) Cooch Behar Trophy match againstKerala, set the seal on their overwhelming superiority by winning by aninnings and 66 runs with more than a day to spare on the second day at theUkku stadium in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday.After dismissing Kerala for 56 runs and replying with 164 for one at closeof play, Andhra declared their first innings on Tuesday at 206 for fourwickets. The declaration was made shortly after opening batsman andwicketkeeper Md Tahir Hussain got his century. Resuming at 79, Hussainremained unbeaten with exactly 100 at the declaration. He faced 207 ballsand hit 10 fours. The other overnight batsman Gnaneswara Rao fell withoutadding to his score of 61.In arrears by 150 runs on the first innings, Kerala hardly fared any betterin their second innings and were shot out for 84 runs in 39.1 overs. Thewrecker-in-chief this time was opening bowler PAVN Raju who finished withsix wickets for 17. Md Faiq, who took five wickets in the first innings,captured three for 20. Tahir Hussain, besides his unbeaten hundred, alsotook four catches and made one stumping.

Surrey opener Ian Ward anchored England A’s first innings following a rocky start in the Busta International Series match against Trinidad and Tobago at Port of Spain.

By stumps, put back after two rain interruptions, he had reached 44, moving cautiously towards a second half century in two innings following a 69 against West Indies B in Grenada last week.England A were in reasonably calm waters thanks to his no-risk, utilitarian style of batting and his ability to keep the scoreboard moving with his tickling leg side work and, by the end, the visitors had mustered 83 runs for the loss of two wickets.The departure of both John Crawley and Vikram Solanki inside the first 12 overs was a major disappointment for both batsmen who have claims to stake and points to prove on this tour and need an early success to help them on their way.But Crawley became victim to a delivery from Darryl Brown that swung late and struck him on his pads. There had been little evidence of swing in this match until then and Crawley may have been surprised at such unusual movement but whatever the reasons for his dismissal, his duck from ten balls will have frustrated him.England A were seven for one when he went replying to Trinidad’s 249 all out but someone needed to drop anchor to make sure the Busta Cup points system, which awards bonus points to teams with first innings leads, would ultimately favour the visitors.Solanki’s free-scoring approach did not suit the situation and when the captain Richard Smith replaced his new ball bowlers with spin, the Worcestershire batsman became bogged down. Dinanath Ramnarine’s seventh ball found him attempting to paddle the ball down to fine leg but he misjudged both line and length and was bowled around his legs for 11.When the groundstaff donned their yellow waterproofs in preparation for the rain that was falling over the hills behind and coming south, England A were 38 for two but Ward’s new partner Usman Afzaal was playing the spinners well and he continued his vigil after the shower had passed.In the final session, the pair added 45 without incident though the pressure on the batsmen was intense as Ramnarine, Denis Rampersad and Rajindra Dhanraj used every trick in their spinners’ manual to eke the batsmen out, including constant chatter and vociferous appeals.But it was to no avail and when the umpires offered the batsmen the light ten overs before the scheduled close, they willingly accepted knowing the third day’s play would offer no let-up in the battle against spin.In all, 26 overs were lost to rain, the first shower falling in the ninth over after England had claimed their seventh wicket of the Trinidad innings. It could have been their eighth had Solanki not put down Darrell Brown in the slips earlier.England’s fielding was a talking point since it ranged from excellent, as demonstrated by Ward’s direct throw at the stumps to dismiss Brown, to ragged, Solanki’s misses coming on top of a few fumbles in the field.According to England A coach Peter Moores, the fielding is one area that is being worked on.”Solanki took five catches in Grenada which is a top effort so we are not worried about it. Like all areas of our game we are working hard to improve our fielding. We need to take catches and we want to be clinical but it will take time.”England’s seamers accounted for the final four wickets before lunch with Chris Silverwood finishing as the pick of the bunch with 4-45 after a superb show of effort and accuracy.

The venerable Long Room at Lord’s can’t have seen many occasions quite like Adidas’s launch of the new England kit. Lights, music and catwalks blended in with priceless portraits of the ancient greats of the game, as the players paraded in their new Test, ODI and Twenty20 strips. It was a timely reminder also of the changing face of the modern game. A new international season is just around the corner, but right at this moment there’s only one topic of conversation, and it’s not something that involves England’s slick new ClimaCoolTM technology.”It’s going to be a spectacle and I’ll definitely be watching,” said Kevin Pietersen, the most outspoken advocate of English participation in the Indian Premier League, which gets underway in Bangalore tomorrow. “Hopefully it will be a massive success, and I think it’s going to be, because you have so much money being pumped into it, and you have the best players in the world, so there’s no reason why it won’t be. This could be the way cricket goes – everyone wants to see a result in three hours.””I don’t see anything wrong with any of us getting that kind of money,” said Pietersen. “Just have a look at how Twenty20 has taken over all over the world. India said they weren’t going to play it, then they went to the World Cup [ICC World Twenty20] and won it, and now it’s humungous. I just hope for the sake of the players, administrators and spectators that it’s something fresh, new and exciting. I think we might even see guys starting to play a few shots in Test matches too, which will be great.”Pietersen is not the only Englishman who’s excited at the opportunities on offer. This past week has been awash with big-name dissenters, as one by one the stars of the side have lined up to demand their slice of the pie. One significant figure who hadn’t yet had his say was England’s limited-overs captain, Paul Collingwood, who has been away on holiday in Cape Town, getting to know his newborn daughter, Keira. But, unsurprisingly, his opinion was no different to the rest.”I think it’ll be a world-class tournament, if people are getting the sort of money being put in the newspapers,” said Collingwood. “If you had an opportunity to earn four times the money over six weeks, would you take it? Of course you’d be tempted. Whether the players are at the back-end of their careers or on the outskirts of the team, they’ll have to make a decision when it comes to the crunch. I only hope it doesn’t come down to that and, in the future, we can play in the IPL, or something similar.”Something similar might just have reared its head in the past 48 hours. On Tuesday, the ECB set about organising a not-insubstantial sweetener, courtesy of Allan Stanford, the Texan billionaire who has set about transforming the game in the Caribbean. He met Clarke at Lord’s to discuss a potential £10 million winner-takes-all fixture against an All-Star Caribbean XI, and emerged from the meeting saying that the match was “very likely” to take place.Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Stanford said that his offer had been made to provide a counterpoint to the all-powerful Indian board, whom he likened to a “a 900lb gorilla”. “It’s dangerous because in business or anywhere else, you need to have checks and balances,” Stanford told the paper. “Naturally you’re never going to have a totally level playing field – that’s not the way the world works – but there shouldn’t be such an imbalance that everybody is riding on one party’s coat-tails.”Whatever the political reasons behind the offer, Pietersen was understandably excited about its implications, and brushed aside the inevitable queries about his priorities in the game. “Money like that has never been talked about in cricket before,” he said. “People can nail us and abuse us but, at the end of the day, they are not going to pay my child’s school fees in 15 years. I’m not going to be playing cricket when I’m 50, 60, so to be offered something like that, it’s like winning the lottery, isn’t it? If it happens there will be some nervous blokes. There certainly won’t be any drinking before that fixture. “Sources close to the deal have suggested that the Stanford fixture could take place in November this year, to coincide with Antigua’s Independence Day, and Collingwood – with his captaincy hat on – admitted that selection could be a bit of a headache with so much at stake. “The IPL is open to all, but with a game like that, would we share the winnings with only the 11 on the park? That would be a bit unfair,” he said. “But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Twenty20 could be massive and this amount of money is new to everyone. We’ve got to react to it, but it’s hard to say what kind of impact it’ll make.”There is so much going on in the game at present that England’s first Test, against New Zealand at Lord’s in a month’s time, barely merited a mention. But Collingwood was adamant that Test cricket remained a priority for the England players, and believed that – in time, when all the dust and fuss has settled – the new and old could work very harmoniously alongside each other.”Test cricket is still a massive part of our tradition,” said Collingwood, “and it’s still the ultimate form of the game, to be tested technically and mentally over a five-day period. But there’s two ways to look at it, because when you’re playing against the best players in the world in that kind of competition, is it as good as doing your pre-season training in England? There are plenty of skills at that level to sharpen yourself up.” Either way, of the three new strips that the players unveiled at Lord’s today, there’s only one that’ll be capturing the headlines tomorrow.

By almost every conceivable indicator, West Indies’ third major tour of South Africa, starting in East London today with a 25-overs-an-innings thrash that is part of Makhaya Ntini’s benefit year, is destined to follow the same ill-fated course of the previous two.A pessimistic mass of statistical evidence is balanced only by a few flimsy straws floating in the wind, the kind that keep even the most disheartened fans in every sport hopeful. One is that there are no grandiose expectations from the public, as there certainly were prior to the first, historic trip to the previously debarred country eight years ago that ended in a 5-0 whitewash in the Tests and 6-1 in the ODIs and, if realistically less so, before the second four years ago that ended 3-0 in the Tests, with one drawn, and 3-1 in the ODIs.Another is the age-old adage, “cricket is a funny game”. It may not be that funny that the West Indies will suddenly overturn a decade of defeat, especially in foreign lands.But with several slices of luck, if not a miracle or two, strong and bold leadership from Chris Gayle, the fourth captain in eight months, Australian John Dyson, the new coach, and Clive Lloyd, a manager with a formidable reputation to upkeep, Gayle’s promise that they will make South Africa fight might not be as far-fetched as it now seems.His assertion on arrival on Monday that his team has come not only to compete but to win the series was overplaying the optimism but it was a welcome statement of intent all the same. The most vital job for him, Dyson and Lloyd is to encourage the self-belief that has been drained from West Indies players with every demeaning setback.There was a clear hint during his brief tenure at the helm in the limited-overs matches in England last summer that he has the personality to at least start the process. If unwittingly, Gayle’s comment that, while his team respected the South Africans, they did not fear them was a throwback to the gist of Curtly Ambrose’s rebuke of his colleagues on the 1998-99 tour. Fear, he told them, was their biggest problem.It was the same phobia that transfixed those who confronted Lloyd’s mighty teams of the 1980s and Australia’s now. It is not easily erased, especially given the present circumstances.The overwhelming feeling here, as no doubt among the cricket fraternity everywhere, is that the series will be another of the one-sided disasters that have driven the West Indies to one from the bottom of the pile on the latest ICC rankings. It is a perfectly reasonable assumption. It is not simply that South Africa are equal third (with India) of nine in the Test rankings to West Indies’ eighth. It is virtually every other consideration besides.South Africa have recently come off two successful Test and ODI series, prevailing in the always tough environment of Pakistan before overwhelming New Zealand at home in four days in the first Test and three days in the second. Their premier batsman, Jacques Kallis, plundered five hundreds in seven innings and Dale Steyn established himself as a serious fast bowler with 20 wickets in the two Tests against New Zealand. They believe they should be ranked only below Australia – and not that far either – and are ready to prove that point with the same ruthless efficiency that stunned New Zealand.In utter contrast, the West Indies will not have played a Test for more than a year when they take to the field in Port Elizabeth on Boxing Day and have not won one since their record run-chase to topple Australia in Antigua in May, 2005. Their last overseas win was in 2002 over Bangladesh, the only team placed below them by the ICC.Already without the mastery of the retired Brian Lara for the first time in South Africa, they also have to manage without their originally appointed captain and crucial No. 3 batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan through a knee injury.To add to their woes, Gayle snapped a hamstring in the first of the five preceding ODIs in Zimbabwe and, even if ready for Boxing Day, will be short of match practice. And so will all the others, who last played a first-class match either in the Carib Beer Series last April, on the tour of England in June or, for Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Daren Powell, for English counties in September. One four-day encounter against even a strong South Africa A team in East London on December 16 to 19 is hardly proper preparation although that is the way of modern international cricket.If, in spite of such inequality, the West Indies can, indeed, give South Africa a fight in the coming two months, their cricket will at last have started the long climb back to respectability.

Nottinghamshire are on the verge of securing promotion after an emphatic innings-and-six-runs victory an hour after lunch on the third day against Derbyshire at Chesterfield. Following on, Derbyshire were always up against it and although they lifted themselves past 300, they still couldn’t make the visitors bat again. Travis Birt top scored with 85, while Hassan Adnan made a fifty. Samit Patel ended with three wickets. The promotion spot is now Nottinghamshire’s to lose: Middlesex need to win their last two matches to even have a sniff, while Notts only have to take six points from their final match at champions Somerset.Nicky Boje took 6 for 110 as Northamptonshire capitalised on their dominant position to take the honours in the lower-table clash with Leicestershire at Grace Road. Paul Nixon’s brave century and the efforts of the lower order propped them up for a while, but ultimately they could not stave off defeat and they sank 177 runs behind with more than 23 overs remaining.

Surrey did their chances of staving off relegation no end of good at Edgbaston, ending the third day on 2 for 0 chasing a target of 177 to beat fellow strugglers Warwickshire. Surrey’s first-innings lead of 88 was wiped out for the loss of one wicket as Ian Westwood and Jonathan Trott put on 101 for the second wicket, but Jade Dernbach’s dismissal of Westwood, who had been dropped by James Benning when in single figures, started a slide in which nine wickets fell for 142 runs.

Farewell of the day
Stephen Fleming entered the arena to a guard of honour from England’s fielders, and left to a standing ovation, while his wife, Kelly, shed a tear or two of pride. In between whiles, Fleming served up the perfect hors d’oeuvre of an innings, much as he has been serving up throughout his 14-year career. For the 28th time in his 111-Tests, Fleming finished up with a score between 50 and 69, as a sumptuous and richly promising performance was brought to a close by a loose poke outside off stump and a thin nick to the keeper. At least he goes to retirement with an average in excess of 40, but it is scant consolation for the defeat that now beckons.Flying start of the day
Matthew Bell had mustered three ducks and 48 runs in his first five innings of the series, and realistically, another failure in this match would have ruled him out of contention for the forthcoming tour to England. Perhaps James Anderson fancied him as a victim on a damp English seamer, because the over he served up midway through the morning session was as gratefully devoured as a UNICEF food parcel. Four wide long-hops, four boundaries of increasing authority, and one single later he had passed 30 for the first time in the series. Anderson, meanwhile, was required for just four more overs all day.Golden arm of the day
Monty Panesar hasn’t had the best of luck in this series – the catch that Kevin Pietersen put down in Wellington, for instance, was about the easiest chance he’ll ever be offered. But today, Monty’s luck belatedly turned. With his third ball after lunch, he dislodged Jamie How, who had hitherto looked utterly unfazed during a 48-run opening stand, but then, three balls after tea, he repeated the dose against the hapless Bell, who had hardly put a foot wrong all innings, but then chose to have a swing at Panesar’s worst delivery of the match. It was short, leg-sided and begged to be slapped, but Bell undercut it and sent a top-edge spiralling to Stuart Broad at fine leg.Back-bender of the day
On a merciless surface, England were only going to get out of it what they put in, and so all eyes turned to their tallest bowler, Broad, whose hit-the-deckability (to coin a phrase) proved a threat throughout two marathon spells. He ran in hard for nine consecutive overs either side of lunch, then 14 off the reel in the mid-afternoon, when the shine had vanished off the old ball and opportunities were at their scarcest. But he still responded with two vital wickets, both courtesy of short deliveries. His victims, Mathew Sinclair and Grant Elliott, might not be playing too many more Tests in the near future, judging by how poorly they negotiated his lifters, but Broad has undoubtedly proved his worth in this match. Not least with his batting at No. 8.Tenuous analogy of the day
At 222 for 5 at the close of play, New Zealand are down, if not entirely out of this game and the series. However, England will not begin celebrating just yet, not while a strokeplayer of the power of Brendon McCullum remains at the crease. Six years ago in Christchurch, on England’s last tour, the first Test unfolded in a spookily similar fashion to this one. England batted first and slumped to 0 for 2 (Six years later, they made 4 for 3). They were rescued by a century from their No. 4 batsman, who scored nearly 50% of the innings runs (Nasser Hussain, 106 out of 228, Kevin Pietersen 129 out of 253). New Zealand then collapsed to a seven-for from a Yorkshire-born swing bowler (Matthew Hoggard 7 for 63, Ryan Sidebottom 7 for 47), and conceded a lead of 80-odd runs (81, 85). England batted again on a sun-baked pitch, and declared on 468 for 6 (Thorpe 200, Flintoff 137) and 467 for 7 (Strauss 177, Bell 110). New Zealand set 550 and 552 respectively to win. At one stage at Christchurch, New Zealand had slipped to 252 for 6, but then came Nathan Astle’s unforgettable 222 from 153 balls, and a monstrous dose of English jitters.

Stuart MacGill says he will definitely be available for Australia’s Test tour of Pakistan but he is not ready for a first-class return in New South Wales’ next Pura Cup match. On Sunday MacGill played his first game, a club outing, since having surgery for carpal-tunnel syndrome on his bowling hand in December.He sent down 12 overs and finished with 1 for 39 and although the results satisfied him, he said lining up for the Blues against Victoria in a match starting this Friday would be a stretch. “I’d love to play against the Vics,” MacGill told the , “but I think bowling ten overs is a whole lot different to bowling 30 and maybe 30 again the next day.”I don’t think I’m ready for that and I don’t want to be fooled by an encouraging day. The most important thing for me is not to let anybody down when I do get back on the field.”MacGill said he was extremely tense before taking the ball for Sydney University, as he had only bowled about 15 balls in the nets since his operation. “The nerves were 100 times worse than my first Test,” he said. “I was very, very nervous to the point of considering not bowling.”However, he believes he will have no fitness concerns by the time of the Pakistan visit, which is scheduled for late March. There is still doubt over the future of the trip but if it goes ahead MacGill is likely to be picked along with Brad Hogg and perhaps a younger spinner.”After today I’ll definitely be fit for the tour of Pakistan, definitely,” MacGill said. “I bowled all of my variations and I bowled at least one good one of all of them. So they’re all there and there were no side-effects. Everything I had before my surgery I have now, it’s just I’ve got to make sure I bowl a few more goodies in a row.”

Younis Khan, the Pakistan batsman, has called for a truce in the row between the PCB and fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar.The Pakistan board had banned Shoaib for five years on grounds on indiscipline. Following the ban, Shoaib hit out against the PCB, and said he would appeal against the ban. However, his comments to a TV channel resulted in board chairman Nasim Ashraf serving a legal notice on him, seeking damages for defamation.”I think the matter has gone too far. This whole issue is damaging for Pakistan cricket so I hope a compromise is reached,” Younis said. “Of course he is my friend, my senior and I have played alongside him for years, so my sympathies are with him.”I think the player [Akhtar] must think about his problems and the board must talk to him and solve this matter.”Akhtar had been permitted by the PCB to play in the Indian Premier League [IPL], but the organisers of the league subsequently barred his participation.Younis said Pakistan could afford to do without such controversies. “We have too many issues in Pakistan cricket. Teams are not coming to Pakistan [due to security fears] and issues like Akhtar’s will further hit Pakistan cricket.”Australia pulled out of their scheduled tour to Pakistan in March-April over security concerns, and the tight schedules of other international teams, besides the inaugural edition of the IPL, leaves Pakistan with only Bangladesh to visit for five ODIs in April.