Rashid Latif’s letter to the ICC is significant for one reason: he implies that fixing is still a problem in the game. Not matchfixing, as most people think of it, but what he terms “Fancy Fixing” – fixing elements of matches without necessarily affecting the result or arousing suspicion.This is not new by itself. It is fairly common knowledge that a lot of cricket betting focusses on micro-aspects of a game – how many runs a bowler will concede, how many boundaries a batsman will hit etc. But what is significant is that now a current international captain has chosen to confirm what has been suspected for quite a while. For obvious reasons, Latif cannot name any names. But would he have bothered to write this letter if he did not know for sure that ‘Fancy Fixing’ does indeed take place?What grants this letter further credibility is that it comes from a man who put more than just his career at stake when he first blew the whistle in the mid-’90s. Few people took him seriously then; he has since been vindicated in full.The solutions that Latif offers on ‘Fancy Fixing’, however, will not resolve the problem. Even if the 15-overs-restriction rule is annulled, betters – and fixers – will find some other aspect of the game to exploit. How many runs a bowler will concede in his quota of 10 (or 12, as Latif suggests) overs. How many quick singles a particular pair of batsmen will take. How long a batsman (particularly a hard-hitting strokeplayer) will take to hit his first boundary. The possibilities of finding things to bet on are as endless as the possibilities in cricket. Latif suggests eliminating a couple of these possibilities; but more exist, and there can be no end to them.The first step to finding a solution to a problem, though, is acknowledging that the problem exists. Latif’s letter should force the authorities to accept that those dark days of bookies bribing cricketers and subverting the game are not necessarily over. They have it on the word of a current Test captain. They will ignore it at their peril.Amit Varma is managing editor of Wisden CricInfo in India.

India A tours are a superb stepping stone for a place in the national side – the likes of Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly owed their big breakthroughs to India A performances. The latest India A tour, to England, was a perfect stage for fringe players to make a case for higher honours. There have perhaps never been as many A team players in serious contention for national selection; Aavishkar Salvi, the medium-pacer from Mumbai known for his Glenn McGrath-esque action and accuracy, Wasim Jaffer, the elegant opening batsman who has already enjoyed a stint in the Test team, and Sridharan Sriram, the doughty top-order batsman, were three of the players to impress. They spoke to Wisden CricInfo about what this tour meant for them.Aavishkar Salvi
I was very eager to get started as I was injured for the first five games of the tour. Even before going to England I had a right-hand webbing injury, but the selectors gave me the green signal as the injury was a minor one and would heal soon. With the stitches removed on the morning of the first game, I took the ball to test myself during warm-up, only to cut the webbing again and get three stitches. It was frustrating to have to wait in the sidelines, but I had to be patient till the sixth match, which took 15 days.The English conditions were good for swing bowling and the wickets were true – good for both batting and bowling. All the fast bowlers in the squad performed well, taking advantage of the movement in theair. I picked up three wickets in my first game and was happy to contribute with the bat, scoring 20 runs and taking part in a crucial last-wicket partnership of 46 with Irfan Pathan, which enabled us to scrape past Lancashire.My best came against the South Africans, who had fielded a full-strength batting line-up in preparation for the first Test against England. I was delighted to keep them at bay and pick up four wickets. Madan Lal, who was the bowling coach at the preparatory camp at the NCA in Bangalore, had told me that my strength was to pitch short of length, whereas in England it was important to pitch it fuller. I kept that in mind and it worked wonderfully. But I ended on a bad note: my leading arm was dropping and I was just bowling on one side of the wicketthe off side. I came back well on the second day but it was not enough to erase the disappointment of the first day.After each game Wasim [Jaffer] – who was my roommate – and I used to discuss the game for ten minutes. We would then do the gym workouts before returning to the room after dinner. With all our time going in traveling, we had hardly any time to chill out.There are always lessons to learn from such tours. I have always taken each selection as a stepping stone for further success and having done fairly well during this tour, I think I have a good chance to be picked for the national squad. However, having said that, I have learnt another important thing: to play at the Test level, one needs to be super-fit. I am working seriously on my fitness, with the help of the programme that Adrian Le Roux [former trainer of the Indian team] had given me.Wasim JafferAt the start of the tour I knew that if I did well, I would be a favourite for an opening slot in the Indian team. With John Wright himself present at the NCA camp in Bangalore, all the players knew that this was an important chance to prove themselves.During India’s tour of England last year I performed miserably – I made just one fifty in four innings, and at the international level you need to be more consistent and. It was playing on my mind before this tour, and I had no excuse – like the conditions and the wickets – having played here for nearly five years now.My aim for this series was to occupy the crease for as long as I could. As an opener I wanted to tighten my defence, play the new ball well, and not do anything silly in the first hour – I have got out too often within the first ten overs. A number of people have helped me improve this area of the game: John Wright, Dilip Vengsarkar and Sunil Gavaskar among them. All of them gave me the same advice: “Stay at the crease, get your eye in and the runs will come automatically.”I was especially keen on doing well in the game against South Africa, and I ended up making 90 and 54 against their full-strength bowling attack. That match, and the 67 I made against Yorkshire in a one-dayer, gave me the confidence that I could score my runs at a quick pace. That was important for me, as I am not an automatic inclusion in the shorter version of the game.We wanted to keep a clean slate and finish the tour without losing a game. We followed on in our last match, against Warwickshire, but recovered well, and I made a double-century to end the tour on a good note. I hadn’t begun the tour too well, but once I got into my groove, things got better for me.

Sridharan SriramI had gone to England with an open mind for two reasons. Firstly, I saw it as a great opportunity to I’d never been to England as a batsman before. I’d been there with Sandeep Patil as a bowler in 1994, when I played for India under-19s. I didn’t really know what to expect of the wickets and the conditions, as a batsman. Before I left, I’d spoken to John Wright at the camp and he told me how important it was to be tight outside the off stump as the ball moves around a great deal more. “Play long,” that was my motto on the tour.I should be thankful to Sandeep Patil and the captain for making me stay back. I was injured early on and we didn’t know how long I would take to recover. But Patil made me stay back and that was a very good gesture on his part. I got a chance to play against Surrey at the Oval and I had not practiced for a long time before that. I wasn’t in good touch at all. When I began my innings I was struggling a bit and not really timing the ball well. I then decided that the best thing to do was to hang around. Gradually things worked out for me, I started hitting the ball well and I got my rhythm back. From then on, I think I was quite consistent.This tour’s given me the confidence that I can do well in the international arena. I have not had a great start to my international career, I’m aware of that, but getting runs abroad, in alien conditions, always gives you a lot of satisfaction. The most important thing this tour has done for me is that it’s given me great self-belief.

Robin Smith: life in the fast lane

Gully fielders everywhere will be heaving a sigh of relief today. No longer will they have to try to intercept the fiercest square-cut in the game: Robin Smith has given best to injury and announced his retirement.”The Judge” only turns 40 tomorrow, but he seems to have been around for years. That’s because he was only 15 when he made his first-class debut in his native South Africa, and not much older when he joined his brother, Chris, at Hampshire. He was a strapping teenager, who had set schoolboy records in athletics in the hurdles and the shot putt, while in cricket he broke Barry Richards’s old marks for runs in a school season.Before long – after a four-year qualification period, anyway – Smith was putting that brute strength to good use in county cricket. By the time he was 25 England came calling, and the sight of his solid frame squaring up, forearms and rear jutting, heavy bat twitching as he waited for the short ball, was a reassuring sight over an eight-year period from 1988.Smith averaged 43 in his 62 Tests, cuffing nine centuries. The highest was 175 at St John’s in 1993-94 – the match in which Brian Lara set the Test record with 375 – but Smith’s most fighting knocks came on a much less obliging track than that Antigua road.In the first Test against West Indies at Edgbaston in 1995, the first ball of the match shot over the batsman’s head, eluded the wicketkeeper as well, and flew away for four byes. Poor old Jason Gallian, making his Test debut, broke his hand, and Alec Stewart was banged on the gloves so often he couldn’t hold the bat on the third – and final – morning. England were demolished by an innings, but Smith top-scored twice, with 46 out of 147 and, after opening in the second-innings collapse to 89 all out, possibly the finest 41 in Test history as the West Indian fast bowlers rampaged in on a two-paced pitch of variable bounce that might have been custom-built for the Ambrose & Walsh Demolition Company.Within a year, though, Smith was gone for good from the Test side. He was a casualty of the disappointing 1995-96 season, even though he made 66 in South Africa in what turned out to be his last Test – and 75 and 25 in his last two one-dayers, at the 1996 World Cup. Smith certainly was written off too soon, but equally after that rejection he never made the weight of runs at county level that would have demanded a recall, not in the same way as, say, those perennial in-and-outers Graeme Hick and Mark Ramprakash. Smith finished with 49 first-class centuries, while Hick has piled up more than 120 and Ramps is approaching 70.Various suggestions for Smith’s decline have been put forward over the years. Niggling injuries started to restrict his powerful frame. Captaining a struggling Hampshire side didn’t help. Nor did batting on the capricious pitch at the new Rose Bowl. As early as 1994 Keith Fletcher, England’s then manager, side-mouthed that Smith spent too much time on moneymaking ideas – an equipment manufacturer, a tour company, some other schemes – and not enough on batting. Not surprisingly, Smith wasn’t impressed, but his outside activities continued, somewhat hindered by an associate who swindled him out of a sizeable dollop of cash a few years ago.Maybe it was just that his eye had gone: batsmen who live by the cross-batted sword tend to lose their edge quicker than the straight-batted Boycotters. In truth Smith should probably have packed it in a couple of years ago – but every now and then he would unleash another fence-busting square-cut, which persuaded everyone, including himself, that he could still perform. But the good days became more infrequent. This year, between injuries, he’s managed only 522 runs at 37 – respectable, but not riproaring.One final hamstring injury threatens to cost him a fitting farewell, which would be a great shame for a man revered in Hampshire and widely admired elsewhere. Down at the Rose Bowl they will talk about Judgey for ever, debating whether his square-cuts were more ferocious than the ones another imported Hampshire favourite, Roy Marshall, used to detonate at cowering off-side fieldsmen in the 1960s. But not many modern-day cordon-dwellers would vote against Robin Smith.Steven Lynch is editor of Wisden CricInfo.

Jagmohan Dalmiya and SK Nair have been re-elected president and secretary of the Indian board. Among the other office-bearers elected on the first day of the two-day Annual General Meeting in Kolkata were Sunil Gavaskar, who got another term as chairman of the National Cricket Academy, while Brijesh Patel – who is recovering from a heart surgery in Bangalore – was elected its director.According to a report by the Press Trust of India, Ratnakar Shetty will take over as joint secretary of the BCCI, replacing Jyoti Bajpai, who has been elected treasurer of the board. Four of the five vice-presidents – Narhari Amin (West Zone), Kamal Morarka (Central), Ranbir Singh Mahendra (North) and M Ranga Reddy (South) – were re-elected, while Gautam Roy was voted in from the East Zone.A spokesman for the BCCI confirmed that all office bearers for the current year were elected unopposed.

The Tasmanian selectors have today named an unchanged Cascade Tasmanian Tigers team to play the Redbacks in the ING Cup match to be played at Bellerive Oval on Saturday 1st November 2003.

CASCADE TASMANIAN TIGERS
Daniel MARSH (Captain)
Shane WATSON
Jamie COX
Michael DiVENUTO
Michael DIGHTON
Scott KREMERSKOTHEN
Sean CLINGELEFFER
Damien WRIGHT
Xavier DOHERTY
Brett GEEVES
Adam GRIFFITH
Andrew DOWNTON

The 12th man will be named on the morning of the match.Play will start at 10.00am with gates opening at 9.00am. Patrons are reminded this is their first chance to win a set of keys to the Ford Focus by supporting the Tigers and bringing their entry form from the Mercury to the ground on Saturday.

Queensland wicketkeeper Wade Seccombe justified a joke on team-mates as he lifted the Bulls to a four-wicket victory over Tasmania in the ING Cup one-day match at the Gabba today.The Tigers set Queensland a target of 220 and looked like upsetting the home side when the Bulls slumped to 5-125 but thanks to the heroics of their gloveman, they reached 6-221.Seccombe joined Clinton Perren at the crease with the game in the balance and played a gem of an innings, reaching his half-century off just 43 balls including seven beautifully struck boundaries.The 31-year-old Ashes tourist finished undefeated on 67 off 57 balls to complete his highest score in the domestic one-day competition.Nathan Hauritz hit the winning runs with two overs to spare.In the Bulls’ media guide, more than half the Queensland players nominated Seccombe as their most admired player.However, it was Seccombe who filled out most of the profiles as his Bulls team-mates were overseas at the time.The Bulls players won’t be asking for amendments after Seccombe played with poise and controlled aggression and dominated the match-winning 81-run stand with Clinton Perren, who made 60.Seccombe said he had not done any extra work on his batting in the off-season and was surprised at how well he struck the ball.”My aim was to be positive, I probably haven’t been as positive as I could have been in situations like that in the past,” he said.”If I could bottle that I would.”Seccombe also took three catches in Tasmania’s innings including a superb diving effort to his right to remove the dangerous Michael DiVenuto off the bowling of young left-armer Mitchell Johnson.The injury-plagued Johnson displayed an all-too-rare glimpse of his cricketing ability with an eye-catching spell of 4-37.Johnson, who suffered a stress fracture in his back last season, made the initial breakthrough when he had DiVenuto caught behind.Johnson completed his four-wicket haul when he had Damien Wright caught behind by Seccombe to break their promising partnership.Johnson did not bowl for 12 months and wore a back brace to overcome his injury and only played club cricket as a batsman last season.

The former Australian batsman David Hookes, who is now Victoria’s coach, launched a stinging attack on Sourav Ganguly after the Indians’ tour opener against Victoria at the MCG petered out in stalemate.Hookes blamed Ganguly for the dullness of the game, claiming that a pre-match agreement between the two sides was ignored by Ganguly once he had won the toss. According to Hookes, the two sides had agreed to bat 70 overs each in their first innings.But after the toss, Hookes said that Ganguly told him: "It’s our first day on the tour, we should just bat." Hookes went on: “So once he went well past that and his tailenders didn’t bat properly, I thought ‘bugger it’ – we were pretty annoyed."They didn’t learn to play cricket. It was a staggering approach. They treated the game as a net session." He added that if the Indians adopted the same approach in their next warm-up match – against Queensland – then they would go into the first Test short on meaningful practice.”You need that game of cricket leading into a Test and they have not had a game of cricket – they’ve had an extended, glorified centre-wicket practice,” he said. “If they treat the Queensland game like a glorified centre-wicket game, then they are, in the words of Brad Hodge, ‘nowhere’.”Ganguly refused to be drawn into a row, saying that it was "up to Victoria" how they played the match. “Obviously Brad [Hodge] is trying to find a place in the Test side," he explained. "I believe they were playing a bit for him, that’s how it goes. That’s what you get these days because the itinerary is so tight. You’ve got to make the most of what you get.”

Ricky Ponting at the nets before Australia’s first match of the VB Series © Getty Images

Just two days. That’s all the time we have to get over one of the greatest Test series in recent memory. The emotion over such a keenly contested rubber and the retirement of an Australian icon have to be set aside very soon. Australia take on India in the opening match of the VB tri-series and despite all their frailties which were exposed in the Tests, Ricky Ponting’s team wear the favourites tag.There wasn’t even time for a warm-up game for India and Australia. With the batsmen indulging in some run-revelry in the Tests, shifting gears will not be a problem. But what of the bowling? Anil Kumble will be India’s best bet again but he can’t bowl all day, and the support cast will need to strike rhythm early. India will also rely heavily on part-timers: Sanjay Bangar’s medium pace will need to be as military in its discipline as in its description while Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar will provide restricting options.Nathan Bracken finds himself in the elite indisposed company of Glenn Mcgrath and Shane Warne, which means that Jason Gillespie and Brett Lee will be the vanguards for Australians. Brad Williams’s pace and pumped-up vigour will add some zip while Andy Bichel’s heroics are never too far away. And then there is a small matter of Ian Harvey’s slower balls and yorkers at the death – something that tormented the Indians in the TVS Cup.The batting stocks could not have been more bullish. Ricky Ponting and Rahul Dravid are batting as if in a trance. Sachin Tendulkar, irrespective of whether he plays the cover-drive or not, has stood on ODI Olympus in the past year and Virender Sehwag will be given far more license to swat it around. Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist and Andrew Symonds need no invitation to brutalise, and Michael Clarke has shown composure when confronted with pressure. And then there’s Bevan …Lets not forget, though, that a third team is involved in the tournament as well. Heath Streak insists that Zimbabwe aren’t around to just make up the numbers, but their form in Australia so far has hardly been inspiring. In fact, they have been mauled in two of their three matches. Yet, they fought tooth and nail with West Indies in a five-match home series. Heath Streak and Tatenda Taibu scripted many a rescue act and Andy Blignaut finished as the joint-highest wicket-taker.With Craig Wishart and Stuart Carlisle suffering injuries and the top order failing time and again, the picture looks far from rosy. But it was a similar story before the Test series in October, and they fought quite magnificently. Ray Price was their hero then and Zimbabwe will look for similar performances to prevent the tri-series from being an abject misnomer.

Cricket Victoria selectors have today announced the Bushrangers squad to play the `re-scheduled’ match against the West End Redbacks starting at the MCG on Sunday, 8 February.All rounder Ian Hewett has been added to the squad of 12 that beat South Australia at the Adelaide Oval this week.The Bushrangers squad is:

Darren BERRY (C)
Matthew ELLIOTT
Ian HEWETT
Brad HODGE
David HUSSEY
Mathew INNESS
Michael LEWIS
Andrew McDONALD
Jonathan MOSS
Matthew MOTT
Graeme RUMMANS
Allan WISE
Cameron WHITE

Cricket Victoria has also announced the 2nd X1 team to play Queensland at the Junction Oval from February 9-12. Please note play begins at 10.30am.The 2nd team is:
Peter Roach (C), Jason Arnberger, Aiden Blizzard, Matthew Gale, Darren Groves, Nick Jewell, Brendan Joseland, Brad Knowles, Glenn Lalor, Ricky Marcy, Graeme Rummans.

South Africa’s preparations for Friday’s opening one-dayer against New Zealand were cut short by the bad Auckland weather, restricting them to only 30 minutes of practice.”It’s pretty disappointing,” said Graeme Smith, South Africa’s captain. “We had a very short warm up match in Hamilton yesterday and, although a few of the boys got some game time, we were looking to today’s session to really get everyone up to speed, but I suppose its just one of those things we have to deal with over here.”One of the major topics of discussion since the South Africans arrived in New Zealand has been the pitches. Smith and Eric Simons, the coach, said that they ranked New Zealand’s ability to exploit home conditions as one of their biggest strengths. The Eden Park pitch, however, is more difficult to read as it is a drop-in pitch and will be lowered into the main square only a couple of days before the match.South Africa are likely to play the same side which won the one-day series against West Indies, with the only possible change being Nicky Boje for Robin Peterson.New Zealand, meanwhile, will be without Nathan Astle, who is to undergo knee surgery, and Shane Bond, who is out with a long-term back injury, but Stephen Fleming is still confident of reeking revenge.South Africa have lost only nine of the 34 one-dayers the two teams have played against each other, a fact which Fleming is all too aware. “You’ve got to acknowledge statistically that they’ve been better than us, but a lot of the games could have gone either way,” Fleming said. “To not have a win against them in a series of any sort is something that is exciting for the team to try and complete.”The match takes place on Friday 13, what the New Zealanders call “Black Friday”, but Graeme Smith isn’t one for superstition, He joked, “Is that what the date is tomorrow?”New Zealand (from) Stephen Fleming (capt), Ian Butler, Chris Cairns, Brendon McCullum (wk), Craig McMillan, Hamish Marshall, Kyle Mills, Jacob Oram, Michael Papps, Scott Styris, Daryl Tuffey, Daniel Vettori, Michael MasonSouth Africa (from) Graeme Smith (capt), Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Rudolph, Boeta Dippenaar, Ashwell Prince, Mark Boucher (wk), Nicky Boje, Lance Klusener, Albie Morkel, Makhaya Ntini, Robin Peterson, Jacques Kallis, Andre Nel, Shaun Pollock.