ICC Champions Trophy

Pakistan skipper Waqar Younis on Tuesday expressed happiness that India had sent a full-strength team for the ICC Champions Trophy, after the contract problem was sorted out on Monday evening. "If the top Indian players had not come here, there would have been a gaping hole in the tournament. So it's great that they are all coming and hopefully we will get a chance to bowl at them," said Pakistan captain Waqar Younis at the team hotel on Tuesday. The ICC media co-ordinator Mark Harrison was busy distributing the hand-out listing the 14 players of the Indian team that will participate in the Champions Trophy here. The Indians, who finally sorted out their financial differences with the ICC and BCCI on Monday, will be arriving on Thursday. They will play their first match against Zimbabwe on Sept 14. After their impressive showing in the NatWest Trophy in England, India are expected to qualify for the semi-finals, where their likely opponents could be Pakistan. Wednesday's warm-up game between South Africa and New Zealand at the NCC sports field will not be for the record books. Hence both teams have decided to make use of the outing - a 50-over a side limited overs game - to their best advantage and give all their players a workout. The teams are in Colombo for the ICC Champions Trophy tournament, which officially starts on Wednesday with a game between Sri Lanka and Pakistan at the Premadasa Stadium. The South Africans meet the West Indies in their first game of the tournament at the Singhalese Sports Club on Friday, and the Kiwis play their opening match against Australia at the same venue on Sunday. Omar Henry, the national selection chief, said Wednesday's 50-over bash would give him and coach Eric Simons an opportunity to gauge the form of their fringe players. South African bowling star Allan Donald suffered a chin injury on Tuesday, but the team's upbeat captain said the side was capable of repeating its winning performance from the inaugural "mini world cup" four years ago. "We managed to win it in 1998 and now we've got a side that is capable of doing it again," captain Shaun Pollock told a news conference in the Sri Lankan capital. At the nets, Allan Donald suffered the chin injury while fielding during a practice session Tuesday morning. Donald said he received three stitches and would be fit to play a practice game against New Zealand on Wednesday. South Africa will meet the West Indies on Friday, their first match of the tournament. South Africa played the West Indies in the finals of the 1998 tournament, which South Africa won by four wickets. Cricket captains said on Tuesday that they doubted the efficacy of the new applications of television replays in the International Cricket Council's 12-nation tournament. The most controversial is the use of replays for leg-before-wicket decisions, which can now be referred to a third umpire. A replay will show where the ball had pitched in relationship to the stumps and the height of the ball when it hits the pads. Australian captain Ricky Ponting's said his main concern was how much time it would take to refer decisions back to the third umpire, given the fact that a less complicated run-out decision now takes the TV umpire one to two minutes. "One of the major concerns I've got is that it's likely to slow down the game a lot," he said. It is also not clear if the match referee will take into account the time used by TV umpires for such decisions while computing the time penalty clause for the bowling side, which must complete the allotted 50 overs in a given time. Cricket administrators came under scathing attack Tuesday for their "ineptitude and arrogance" after India's top players won a decisive battle to protect their commercial rights. Former Australian captain Ian Chappell said the International Cricket Council (ICC) had to take the blame for allowing the month-long row to simmer which at one stage threatened to derail this week's Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka. "The conflict is yet another example of how administrative stuff-ups always lead to trouble for the players," the outspoken Chappell wrote in the Hindustan Times.

Miscellaneous

A trim looking Shane Warne, who has lost 12 kilos in the last two months thanks to a rigorous training schedule, came out with an interesting list on Tuesday. Asked to name the top five batsmen in world cricket whom he found most difficult to bowl at, Warne named two Indians in that select list. The first name he said was obviously that of Sachin Tendulkar, and he took Navjot Singh Sidhu's name in the same breath. The third most difficult batsmen to bowl at for him, was Graham Gooch. New Zealand's Chris Cairns was fourth and Zimbabwe's Dave Houghton the fifth. Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly said the England series concluded yesterday, was the best overseas performance since last six years. "We played pretty well on this tour. We won the NatWest triangular series handsomely and then came back well, after losing the first Test, to square the Test series one-all and I think this was the best performance by us outside India since last six years," Ganguly told reporters after the team's arrival in the early hours. Praising the performance of his batsmen, particularly his deputy Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Sanjay Bangar, the stylish southpaw, said "I think we batted pretty well on this tour and it was good to see Sehwag (as opening batsman) and Bangar (as allrounder) fit well into the scheme of things". "All in all it was a very good tour as we saw players like Mohammed Kaif and Dinesh Mongia in one-dayers and Bangar in the Test series come of age," Ganguly added. The most-capped skipper in history has handed down a glowing assessment of Ricky Ponting's captaincy merits and said any misgivings that may have surrounded the Tasmanian's appointment have been laid to rest. Allan Border, who led Australia in a record 93 Tests and 178 one-day internationals, had an intimate look at Ponting's leadership style after acting as stand-in coach during the tri-nations series in Kenya. The new Australian Cricket Board member was impressed with what he saw, particularly Ponting's willingness to speak his mind. In six months since being appointed ahead of more experienced candidates, Adam Gilchrist and Shane Warne, Ponting has shown he's not afraid to identify shortcomings in his players. Most recently he marked the cards of Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie for conceding too many runs in late overs.

World Cup

Former Australian coach Geoff Marsh has urged the cricket world not to boycott the six matches scheduled for Zimbabwe in next year's World Cup, despite the political crisis there. Marsh, who played 50 Tests for Australia and is now Zimbabwe's coach, said he feels safe in the country and looks forward to Australia and England playing there during the cup. "I've been living there full-time for the past 12 months and living in Harare has been no problem," Marsh said. "Lots of guys have asked me what it's like and I've told them the truth, that it's safe."

Ashes series

England have gambled on Graham Thorpe and Darren Gough by including the pair in the Ashes squad on Tuesday. They will set off for Australia in October for the five-Test tour as part of a 16-man squad which will include five strike bowlers backed up by all-rounder Andrew Flintoff. Left-handed batsman Thorpe, badly affected by the break-up of his marriage, took a total break from cricket at the end of July. He has not played since and has also retired from one-day internationals. Strike bowler Gough, meanwhile, has not played a Test for more than a year following a recurrent knee injury. He featured in England's one-day series against India and Sri Lanka in July before breaking down again.

Archive September 10, 2002 September 9, 2002 September 8, 2002 September 7, 2002 September 6, 2002 September 5, 2002 September 4, 2002 September 3, 2002 September 2, 2002 September 1, 2002

Design: Imran Shaikh