Suicidal jump of the day Batsmen are instructed to get in the way of the ball while running between thewickets; Misbah-ul-Haq made all the right moves before blowing a fuse at the lastmoment. Patting to point, he took off for a quick single and just needed to groundhis bat at the non-striker’s end when he chose to jump and evade the throw instead.Dinesh Karthik’s effort from point found its way onto the stumps and Misbah was out when inmid-air.Suicidal second run of the day Meanwhile batsmen are also better off not running after slipping at the crease.Sachin Tendulkar completed a single and took off for the second, despite losing hisfooting at the crease. In fact he seemed more intent on the run after slipping thanbefore it. The throw was on target and Tendulkar, sent back by Rahul Dravid, foundhimself a few inches short.One an airplane, another a stoic Shoaib Akhtar should have had Wasim Jaffer in the first over of the innings, leg-before toa speedy one that angled in, but had to wait till the 22nd over before he could geta positive response. Off he went in an airplane impersonation, ecstatic that hisfine spell had finally got a reward. His opening partner, Sohail Tanvir, though,doesn’t do expressions. After dismissing two batsmen with far greater records, withdeliveries that arced in at a menacing angle, he dead-panned his way to histeam-mates and looked the most serious of the lot.Tactic of the day Mahendra Singh Dhoni thought it best to come down the track to counter Tanvir’sswing. It had worked in the one-dayers and Dhoni felt it best to do the same here.It tempted Tanvir to try a few short ones but Dhoni was behind the line to those,blocking with purpose. He somewhat miscalculated a charge against Danish Kaneria,though, missing a legbreak that had him nick one to the wicketkeeper.Warning of the day The authorities at the Feroz Shah Kotla are obviously wary about poor crowdbehaviour. “Spectators are reminded that racially abusive comments and action willresult in ejection,” said a couple of boards in the Wing A side of the ground.
David Byas has left his post as Yorkshire’s director of cricket by mutual consent after weeks of discussions with the board, ending a 20-year association with the club.It is the second administrative hiccup for Yorkshire this winter following the muddle with Chris Adams. The Sussex captain, who this year led his side to the Championship and the C&G Trophy, agreed to move north to skipper Yorkshire and become their director of Pro-cricket. It pushed Byas out of a job but, when Adams performed a rapid u-turn two weeks later and announced he was staying with Sussex, Byas was left pondering his options.”The club would like to thank David for his service to Yorkshire,” Stewart Regan, the Yorkshire chief executive said in a statement. “Under his leadership the club were promoted to the first division of the County Championship in 2005. He has also overseen the development of a number of the county’s emerging prospects.”Yorkshire have no one in line to replace Byas, with the current coaching staff covering until a replacement is found.”The club is going through a major change process both on and off the field,” the statement continued, “and both David and the club agree that it is time for a new structure.”
The departure of their impressive international contingent has forced New South Wales to make a string of changes to the Pura and ING Cup squads for matches against Western Australia in Perth. Aaron Bird, Ed Cowan, Grant Lambert and Matthew Phelps have been added to both outfits while Matthew Nicholson, Aaron O’Brien and Doug Bollinger were included in the Pura Cup unit.Greg Mail, the batsman, was dropped following the comfortable four-day win over South Australia at the SCG last week while Simon Katich, Brett Lee, Glenn McGrath, Nathan Bracken and Stuart MacGill will be in Brisbane for the first Test. The Blues play a day-night match at the WACA on Friday before the Pura Cup game begins on Sunday.New South Wales squad Phil Jaques, Matthew Phelps, Corey Richards, Dominic Thornely, Ed Cowan, Brad Haddin (capt, wk), Aaron O’Brien, Grant Lambert, Stuart Clark, Matthew Nicholson, Aaron Bird, Doug Bollinger.
Scorecard New Zealand women, also called the White Ferns, kicked off their tour of Ireland and England with a comfortable 200-run win over Ireland at Trinity College in Dublin. The New Zealanders are scheduled to play three warm-up matches against Ireland before taking on England.The New Zealand openers, Rebecca Rolls and Maria Fahey, justified their captain’s decision to bat first by adding 96 and helped themselves to half-centuries. Rolls fell for 50, bowled by the offspinner Mirian Grearley, while Fahey completed her fourth half-century in ten innings before being dismissed for 66. Fahey added 69 for the second wicket with Haidee Tiffen.Maia Lewis, the captain, and Sarah McGlashan finished with a flourish as they added 112, just four short of the New Zealand record. Lewis, who had prepared for the tour by getting some batting instruction from Roger Twose, scored 63 off 56 balls, which included a six. McGlashan finished on a breezy 31, and New Zealand ended with a mammoth 278.Ireland were never in with a chance and folded for just 78 in 36.1 overs. Louise Milliken, the medium-pacer, took 3 for 14 and achieved her best figures in one-dayers. Rebecca Steele, the left-arm spinner, finished with 2 for 6.
England’s hopes of having Andrew Flintoff back in the team for the second Test, against Zimbabwe at Durham, have been dealt a blow with news that he could be out of action for a further two weeks.Duncan Fletcher, the England coach, would have faced a tough decision whether to play a fit Flintoff instead of Anthony McGrath – one of the heroes from Lord’s – but it’s a call he would have welcomed: “If he comes through any time earlier than that then it’s a great advantage to us.”However, Flintoff – who continues treatment for his injured shoulder at Lancashire – was in a positive mood: “If the injury keeps improving like it has done then hopefully I won’t be out for too long.” He added, “I have not ruled myself out of anything yet and I will keep with the treatment and see how it progresses.”And he insisted he could be back earlier than diagnosed: “It is really hard to put a time-span on when I am going to return but it has improved tremendously. I have got a lot more movement in my shoulder than I did have so that is very positive.”McGrath will undergo a scan on Tuesday (May 27) on his strained side but is expected to be fit ahead of the naming of England’s one-day squad.Meanwhile, the England selectors will be keeping their eye on the progress of Darren Gough – another player feeling his was back from injury. Gough, who said he hoped to play in the second Test on June 5, played in Yorkshire’s National League game against Glamorgan at the weekend. He bowled six overs at 32 runs, and didn’t take any wickets, as Yorkshire went down by four wickets.
Barbadian off-spinner Ryan Austin is in the side for the third andfinal four-day Under-19 Test against Young England, starting today, atthe Riverside Ground, Chester-le-Street, Durham.West Indies coach Gus Logie confirmed that Austin would be draftedinto the squad, as West Indies were now struggling to hold on withjust 12 of the 15-member party fit to play.The other Bajan in the touring party, Patrick Browne, has notrecovered from a leg injury sustained in the first Test, and fastbowlers Andrew Richardson, of Jamaica, and Guyanese Rayon Thomas havealso been ruled out with stress fractures of the back and foot,respectively.Austin has been bowling well without much success, but he was verygood in the One-Day matches. He will be looking forward to playing inthe final `Test’, and that will give him a very good opportunity,Logie said.The injuries to Thomas and Richardson left the West Indies with justtwo fit pacers: Jermaine Lawson of Jamaica and Vincentian left-armerKenroy Peters.These were both rested for the three-day match against EnglandUnder-18 at Durham University, where prolific opener Devon Smith hithis second century of the tour in the drawn match. He hit 54 in thefirst innings.We don’t have many choices. We will have to play two spinners, comewhat may, and this will put us under pressure, because we’re not awareof the surface we’ll encounter, Logie said.Durham is known to be a seamer-friendly pitch, and the West Indiesbatsmen will have to do most of the work, if they are to protect their1-0 lead in the three-match series.It will be up to the batsmen to perform well again, but the guys haveresponded well. They are very eager, and focused on the job at hand,the former West Indies vice-captain added.Meanwhile England have strengthened their side with the inclusion ofbatsman Nicky Peng, and keeper Matt Prior, who were both named in anelite group of 15 of the country best Under-23 players.The pair played in the first Test but missed the second one due tocounty duties.England team: Kadeer Ali, Ian Bell, James Anderson, JustinBishop, Kyle Hogg, Monty Panesar, Nicky Peng, Gary Pratt, Matt Prior,Joe Sayers, Bilal Shafayat, James Tredwell, Tim Boon (coach), NeilFoster (assistant coach).
England will play a Test in Sharjah for the first time after the schedule for their tour of UAE to face Pakistan in October and November was confirmed. The team will fly out to the Middle East just two weeks after the one-day series against Australia concludes.The trip will include three Tests, which begins on October 13 in Abu Dhabi, followed by matches in Dubai and Sharjah. The Tests will be followed by four ODIs from November 11 to 20, before the tour concludes with a three-match T20 series held between November 26 and 30.The confirmation of the tour schedule had faced delay due to tensions created by the links between Ten Sports, the host broadcaster, and the Essel Group, which has threatened to form a breakaway international league. ESPNcricinfo understands that pressure had been applied by the BCCI on other cricket boards not to play any series in which Ten Sports are the host broadcaster after the PCB recently signed a five-year deal with them.On England’s previous visit to UAE to play Pakistan – during which Pakistan whitewashed the Test series 3-0 but lost both the ODI and T20 contests – the internationals were split between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, but Sharjah returned as a Test venue in November 2011, nine years after it had previously hosted matches, and has since hosted matches involving Sri Lanka and New Zealand.
England tour of UAE
September 30, England depart Oct 5-6, Pakistan A, Sharjah Oct 8-9, Pakistan A, Sharjah Oct 13-17, 1st Test, Abu Dhabi Oct 22-26, 2nd Test, Dubai Nov 1-5, 3rd Test, Sharjah Nov 8, one-day practice match, Abu Dhabi Nov 11, 1st ODI, Abu Dhabi Nov 13, 2nd ODI, Abu Dhabi Nov 17, 3rd ODI, Sharjah Nov 20, 4th ODI, Dubai Nov 23, T20 v UAE XI, Abu Dhabi Nov 26, 1st T20, Dubai Nov 27, 2nd T20, Dubai Nov 30, 3rd T20, Sharjah
The last time England played an international at the venue was during a triangular series in 1999 which formed an odd build-up to that year’s World Cup, which was held in England. On this tour, they will also play an ODI and a T20 at the ground.The tour will be Trevor Bayliss’ first overseas assignment with England and one of his main challenges will be to try and ensure his team do not flounder against spin as they did on the previous trip in early 2012. England, who were the No. 1 ranked Test team at the time, were flummoxed by the spin of Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Rehman as the pair shared 43 wickets across the three Tests.England may not face either on this trip – Ajmal has not played Test cricket since returning from remodelling his bowling action and is currently not involved in any format for Pakistan, while Rehman has not played internationals for a year – but the current spinners, legspinner Yasir Shah and left-armer Zulfiqar Babar, have enjoyed considerable success.The pair caused Australia significant problems in the series in the UAE last year. Yasir, in particular, has 61 wickets in 10 Tests after claiming 24 at 19.33 in the recent series in Sri Lanka.Following the conclusion of the tour, England will return home for a short period before leaving for South Africa – another full tour which includes four Tests, five ODIs and two T20s. That will be followed by the World Twenty20 in India during March.England’s red-ball and white-ball teams have now diverged to such a point that there are very few players that appear in all formats, but the likes of Joe Root, Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes and perhaps Moeen Ali could be expected to be first choice for Tests, ODIs and T20s, and may require careful handling from the management.
We’re already salivating at the prospect of the new Football League starting again, yet it’s still just out of our grasp and we have to get our fix from the inevitable list of friendly games that are played out in order for our boys to gain some match fitness.
I know that there’s the endless debate about how much you can read into pre-season games. I know that if you win against ‘lower’ opposition then it’s expected and you should be winning, but if you lose then “It’s just a friendly”.
Funnily enough, I also know that if you beat ‘higher’ opposition then you can’t get carried away because “It’s just a friendly” but if you lose, then it’s expected, you should be losing.
Anyway, we’ve had four games of our pre-season campaign so far and we currently have a record of two wins, one defeat and one draw. In my view, the results aren’t really worth looking at, however, what is worth looking at is the fact that a number of players have been praised for the way that they’ve been playing and that some of the new boys are already looking promising.
Our first game saw us take on Stocksbridge Park Steels, a non-league team, in which we finished the game four goals to the good and that saw our recently acquired Scotland international, Chris Maguire, bag two, our new number nine, Gary Madine, snatch one and youngster, Patrick Antelmi grab a fourth. The fact is, yes, we should be winning that game anyway, however, it is nice to see the boys doing so with such conviction.
Next up for the blue and white wizards was Sheffield FC, the world’s oldest football club. Despite dominating possession for practically the full 90 minutes and Chris O’Grady giving the Owls a deserved lead, SFC’s Dan Williams popped up 15 minutes from the end to earn the home team a draw against a heavily altered second-half Wednesday outfit.
With the two local games done and dusted, Dave Jones’ men, along with a number of loyal Wednesdayites, made the trip to Portugal for a couple of games against ‘bigger’ opposition, 18-time Portuguese champions, Sporting Lisbon, and Premier League new boys, Reading.
While we did suffer a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Sporting, thanks to goals from Andre Martins and the very talented young forward with a tremendous name, Ricky van Wolfwinkel, it wasn’t a bad result for a Wednesday side. Especially given that we made a lot of changes, as did they, and that we didn’t have any of our own goalkeepers between the sticks.
Finally, our most recent encounter, against Reading, saw the same result as previous game, however this time it was in our favour. I mean yes, we can’t read too much into a friendly win over Premier League opposition, however goals from Mike Jones and another for Chris O’Grady will give the squad a massive lift ahead of the weekend’s game against Doncaster.
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Like I said, you can’t look into pre-season games too much. You can mourn the defeats and celebrate the victories, however, it all goes out of the window when you actually enter into a game when both teams really give a damn.
For us our first ‘proper’ game will come against Kieran Lee’s old side, Oldham Athletic in the Capital One Cup on August 13th, before that we’ll be meeting Donny, West Brom and Kilmarnock. Undoubtedly I’ll be taking all of those with a pinch of salt, however, if we put in a good performance against Oldham and get a win then maybe, just maybe, I’ll allow myself to start getting a little bit giddy.
Football is getting more expensive. Everything about it is inflating so rapidly the whole thing could just explode. Ticket prices, T.V. revenues, player prices and player wages are now so high that you could be forgiven for falling behind. For people of the younger generation who’ve grown up alongside the prices, the stories of the old days do not seem real. An old friend (literally), told me that when he was a kid he could get the bus to White Hart Lane, his matchday ticket, programme, chips, and the bus home again and have change from a pound. You would probably assume this man is older than time itself or at least in his 80’s, but he is actually only 55. Six years younger than Arsene Wenger.
This may go some way to explaining some of Arsene’s recent activity in the transfer market. When I saw his bid for Gary Cahill last week it struck me that Mr Wenger may be labouring under the impression that he is still in the early 90’s.
Is Arsene living in his own groundhog year? His Casio Calculator-Watch has gone into meltdown, and Wenger wakes up every New Years Day to find it’s 1992. In response to the harsh recession of 1991, he reduced his £12 million bid for Everton’s Phil Jagielka to £10 million. Sensible man, but I don’t think that’s how people do business these days. You can understand why no-one on the board wants to tell him what year it really is and how much modern players actually cost, they’re making a fortune while he pinches the pennies.
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The £6 million bid for Bolton’s Cahill is such a wonderfully low bid, so brilliantly far away from the Club’s very public valuation that it stands out a mile from all the other business this summer. Just as his tactic of offering less money for Jagielka even though the first bid was rejected also stands out. Perhaps Arsene’s long-standing fear of buying English is preventing him from making a bid that might be accepted. After his disastrous attempts in 2001 that saw him buy Francis Jeffers and Richard Wright in the same season, he may still be scarred and understandably so.
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Wenger’s bids only really seem crazy because the world he is operating in has gone mad, still, it’s his job to stay in touch.
When Michael Owen popped up to equalise for Manchester United at the weekend it made me question whether his decision to join the Red Devils was the right one for his career. Although making several appearances from the bench this season, it was only his second start for United since a League Cup tie against Scunthorpe – where he was on the score sheet twice. So has Owen wasted his exceptional scoring talent by joining United rather than joining another Premier League club that would’ve seen him play regular first team football?
Any player can be forgiven for wanting to join Manchester United if they’re interested in them and this was the case when Owen joined Old Trafford on a free transfer in 2009. However, he was strongly linked to joining the likes of Hull City, Stoke City and even Wigan Athletic to name a few before Sir Alex Ferguson came in for him. In hindsight, Owen probably expected to have started more games, especially this season where he seems to be the 5th choice striker with the likes of youngsters, Javier Hernandez and Federico Marcheda being more favourable behind Rooney and Berbatov.
Although Ferguson can be forgiven for wanting to give these young forwards as much first team appearances as they can get in order for them to develop, he may be overlooking the experience and skill that Owen brings to the game. It’s already been highlighted in the past that he has lost his pace that made him electric during his Liverpool career, but he still possesses a strikers instinct for finding the back of the net.
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The player’s ambitions have been questioned however, with his reported love for horse racing and being one of the richest Footballers in the world suggests a lack of desire to play week-in-week out for the likes of a Stoke or Wigan in order to prove his critics wrong. Although he’d have more chance of playing time for these teams, at least at United he can add to his winning medals. And when a player’s career ends it’s the medals that really show for something – just ask former United and Blackburn Rovers defender, David May.
Although Owen may now be given more starts by Ferguson, considering the current form of Rooney, there is a question over his fitness. In his debut season for United, Owen played an important role as a back-up striker like scoring the winning goal in stoppage time against City, a hat-trick in the Champions League away to Wolfsberg and scoring in last year’s League Cup final against Villa. But the latter game was the end to his season when that reoccurring hamstring injury needed surgery once again.
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On the bright side, Owen has been without any serious injuries this season and if he continues to contribute when called upon by Ferguson, perhaps he will gain more minutes on the pitch. If so then his move to Manchester United could be seen as a good one, having a main part in their continued success. However, his contract is set to expire at the end of the season so perhaps Owen could look elsewhere to finish his career – I for one hope that Owen is given a chance to show he can still produce goals at the top level rather than drift out warming up the bench at United.
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