Vikram Solanki has been named as captain of the England Lions (formerly England A) team that will play West Indies in a one-day warm-up match at Worcester next Thursday.Described by the chairman of selectors, David Graveney, as a team comprised of the “best available” players, the squad does not include any players from Durham, Essex, Hampshire or Warwickshire, as they are involved in Wednesday’s semi-finals of the Friends Provident Trophy. This means that the likes of Graham Onions, Phil Mustard, James Foster and Dimitri Mascarenhas were not considered.”It’s a great opportunity for the next-best to show what they can do,” said Graveney. “The selectors will be closely monitoring performances by the England Lions next week and it will provide a further opportunity for players on the fringe of the international side to press their case for selection in our one-day squad for the NatWest Series.”The squad includes four players who were involved in England’s recent World Cup campaign: Ed Joyce, James Anderson, Stuart Broad, and the 36-year-old wicketkeeper, Paul Nixon, who feared his brief international foray might have over when he was omitted from the Test series in favour of Matt Prior. But Graveney defended his selection. “If Prior broke his finger tomorrow, who would we play?” he asked. “It makes sense for Nixon to have a look at the opposition.”Commenting on the renaming of the England A team, the ECB’s commercial director said: “England Lions is an exciting new brand which reflects the importance of the team in preparing players for the demands of international cricket.” The team’s fixtures against India later this year will be broadcast live across Asia, and a further announcement about the team’s winter tour plans will be made in due course.England Lions squad 1 Will Jefferson, 2 Ed Joyce, 3 Vikram Solanki (capt), 4 Owais Shah, 5 Michael Yardy, 6 Alex Gidman, 7 Paul Nixon, 8 Tim Bresnan, 9 Stuart Broad, 10 Kabir Ali, 11 James Anderson, 12 Gareth Batty.

More bad news comes the way of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) as an interim report by a governance committee, appointed by the WICB to examine the structures of cricket in the region, has recommended doing away with the board as it is currently constituted.In a wide-ranging report, the Patterson Committee, headed by PJ Patterson, the former Jamaican prime minister, and inclusive of noted Caribbean figures, Sir Alister McIntyre and Ian McDonald, observed that there were a number of negative perceptions about West Indies cricket, “which, whatever their validity, we consider it necessary to address”.The committee identified some of those perceptions as being that the WICB is administered inefficiently; sponsorship deals are perceived as flawed; finances are in shambles; and funding does not reach territorial boards.As a result, the committee said: “The West Indies Cricket Board should give way to a more representative body.”The report, the final version of which is due next month, proposed that such a restructuring could occur in one of two ways. The first was the replacement of the WICB with a West Indies Cricket Commission.This Cricket Commission, it was proposed, would include all the major interest groups – the territorial boards, players and officials, women, the Caribbean Community, the private sector and civil society and would have a chairman, selected after the Commission had been set up. It also recommended that there be a body of nominees – from the cricket boards, the governments, the West Indies Players Association, past players, the regional private sector and the media – to “identify, interview and nominate directors” of the Commission.It further suggested: “If final selection [of the directors] is to be dominated by the territorial boards, it should be limited to the list of names submitted by the nominating body.”The second proposal involved the WICB being run as a publicly-listed company on the regional stock exchanges, with directors accountable to shareholders, and with an annual general meeting. The committee noted this format would “help to raise much-needed capital and give the Caribbean public a sense of ownership”.However, the Patterson committee also warned that with such an entity, “there would need to be safeguards against appropriation of the board by special interests. Caps would have to be set, and the voting power so arranged as to avoid control ending up in the hands of a limited number of persons and corporations or result in a populist system which could stultify effective decision-making”. But it urged a clear delineation between the role of the board as a policy-making and monitoring entity and that of the management staff as the executing arm, regardless of the format.Additionally, the committee outlined ten steps it felt needed to be taken, “with immediate effect”, to give new momentum to cricket reform and development in the region. The steps, the committee said, could be introduced by mid-2008.Among the steps are the establishment of a cricket academy; the selection of a group of 15 players “for continuous retraining and development over the next 12 months”; and the drawing up of a business plan and budget for 2008-09.

The chief executive of Melbourne’s second-largest stadium wants to poach international cricket from the MCG and has not ruled out bidding for the Boxing Day Test. Ian Collins, who is in charge of the Telstra Dome at Melbourne’s Docklands, believes the ground should stage more than just the occasional limited-overs fixture.The right to host Melbourne’s international matches could be put to tender unless Cricket Victoria reaches a better commercial deal with the Melbourne Cricket Club. “The contract is up with the MCG in 2009,” Collins told the . “Hopefully, we will be talking to cricket and hopefully, they will be talking to us about some or all of it.”Telstra Dome has held 12 one-day internationals on its drop-in pitches since 2000 – including the Super Series matches – and is an attractive option in the off-season because of its retractable roof. It was also used when the MCG was unavailable due to Commonwealth Games commitments but it is primarily an Australian rules football ground and has a capacity of about 50,000 – half the size of the MCG.Collins said it would be more difficult to extend the Docklands ground’s hosting rights to Test matches but it was not out of the question. “I think it would be hard to justify playing a Test away from the MCG, especially Boxing Day, but it’s a changing market,” he said. “We are running a business and when the contract is up we would be very happy to talk to cricket for some or all.”The reported that one possibility was for the MCG to retain the Boxing Day Test while Telstra Dome would stage Melbourne’s ODIs. In 2004, Cricket New South Wales put its international games to tender but in the end gave all the rights to the SCG ahead of Telstra Stadium at Homebush.

John Wright has missed out on a place on New Zealand’s selection panel, with the existing four-member group reappointed for at least a year. Glenn Turner, Richard Hadlee and Dion Nash will again join the coach, John Bracewell, in choosing national squads.Justin Vaughan, the CEO of New Zealand Cricket, did not rule out making Wright a selector in the future but before he could be seriously considered he would need to spend time familiarising himself with the domestic players. Wright begins work for New Zealand Cricket next week, although his exact role remains unclear.”Many key selection decisions need to be made in the short-term before John has had an opportunity to view many of the New Zealand player pool,” Vaughan said. “We felt he would be best to reacquaint himself with the players in New Zealand before any decision is made on whether he should be included on the panel.”Although the current selectors survived the review process, there has been a change to their tenures. A staggered system will mean selectors are offered two-year terms after which they can reapply, with no more than two members retiring in any given year to allow continuity in the decision-making process.Hadlee and Nash have initially been given one-year deals to begin the rotation, while Turner and Bracewell are on two-year contracts. “Richard, Dion and Glenn have the skills and knowledge we want in our selection panel, and we are very happy to retain their services,” Vaughan said.

A month ago Old Trafford was swinging to the , an English rock band. But, while they thrilled the crowd with numbers like “I bet you look good on the dance floor”, the outfield at the Stretford Road End of the ground was turning messy.So devoid of grass was one corner of the ground that the opening day of Lancashire’s home fixture against Hampshire last week had to be called off. The patches continue to pose a worry but Andrew Flintoff, a Lancashire local, felt there had been considerable improvement.Flintoff arrived at the nets with a sense of purpose, something that was missing in his pre-match routine at Edgbaston. Not only did he bound in with the ball and flay about with his bat, he also imparted a genuine joie de vivre. England played so well at Edgbaston that it would be tough to drop anyone – Flintoff’s “hopefully I’ll get a go” wasn’t out of place – but it’s almost certain that he will be in.”You don’t want to miss out at any venue but this one more so than any,” Flintoff said about the ground he has been visiting since he was nine years old. He has taken part in only four one-dayers here, the last in 2003. “I’ve not done a great deal of it [play at Old Trafford] so obviously I am keen to play tomorrow and hopefully I’ll come through. I fully expect to run in and bowl. A few runs wouldn’t go amiss. I feel I am close, but a bit of time in the middle and a score would be ideal.”Coming on as a third seamer in the two games he has played this series, Flintoff has continued the good starts that James Anderson and Stuart Broad have provided, and he’s taken pleasure in watching the two work in tandem. “When Stuart got the wicket the other night, you saw Jimmy at mid-off running around, leaping around. I think that’s a theme throughout the camp as well. Everyone is enjoying playing, enjoying each other’s company and that’s for all to see out there.”Flintoff’s return and England’s growing confidence as a one-day unit is bad news for India but the ‘Arctic’ outfield might be the bigger concern. Chandu Borde, their manager, and Venkatesh Prasad, their bowling coach, have admitted that India’s fielding effort at Edgbaston wasn’t up to international standard while Robin Singh, the fielding coach, felt it was a case of being over-eager.”Sometimes people get over-anxious, rather than being safe and doing the right things,” Singh said. “We have to make sure they’re relaxed on the field. Sometimes when you try too hard, things go wrong. I find some of the boys trying too hard rather than relaxing much more. It’s like going out to bat. You can’t hit every ball for six. You need that control. We can only instill as coaches, it’s up to the players to execute it out in the middle.”The pitch at Old Trafford is one of the quickest in the country and that could prompt India to play an extra batsman. Considering the makeshift, low-lying floodlights, the teams might prefer to bat first, put up a total and pile on the pressure in the evening.Visiting football teams rarely leave the other Old Trafford with a smile, yet India have had two famous triumphs on this ground – the semi-final win over England in the 1983 World Cup and a victory against Pakistan in the 1999 edition – and will want to leave with the series level.England (likely) 1 Alastair Cook, 2 Matt Prior (wk), 3 Ian Bell, 4 Kevin Pietersen, 5 Paul Collingwood (capt), 6 Andrew Flintoff, 7 Ravi Bopara, 8 Stuart Broad, 9 Chris Tremlett, 10 James Anderson, 11 Monty Panesar.India (likely) 1 Sachin Tendulkar, 2 Sourav Ganguly, 3 Dinesh Karthik, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 Rahul Dravid (capt), 6 Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), 7 Ajit Agarkar, 8 Piyush Chawla, 9 Ramesh Powar, 10 Zaheer Khan, 11 RP Singh.

Queensland have given Shane Watson a boost in his bid to be an international top-order batsman with Jimmy Maher dropping from opener to No. 4 in the first-class arena this season. Maher is in his final campaign as the Bulls captain and has reduced his duties further to encourage the state’s emerging talent and Watson, who has signalled his desire to replace Justin Langer in the Test team.”It will be a tremendous opportunity for Shane to state a case for international honours,” Maher said of the move. “It also gives the young guys in the squad – Ryan Broad, Greg Moller, Chris Simpson etc – better opportunities.”However, Watson will have to wait for his first match of the home season as he recovers from a hamstring injury sustained during the Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa. He is expected to be available for the games against New South Wales starting on October 24.Watson’s unavailability means Maher will open with Broad in Wednesday’s season-opening FR Cup fixture against Tasmania at the Gabba. Maher, who intends to continue as a batsman for a couple of years, wants to ensure a smooth transition when the squad’s large group of experienced players starts to stand down.”When I came into the squad I knew what was wanted of me and the Mahers and the Loves may not be around for a long time,” he said. “It’s best while we’re still here that we’re able to offer advice.” Martin Love is due to come back in November following two knee operations.One player who will benefit from Maher’s move is Broad, who impressed when posting 111 against Stuart MacGill on a final-day SCG pitch at the end of last season. Broad will play his third one-day match against the Tigers and was relieved Maher was dropping down the Pura Cup order.”I’d heard the rumours,” he said, “but it’s great that it’s official.” The Bulls will announce the side for Friday’s Pura Cup match against the Tigers on Wednesday.Tasmania’s bowling attack has been struck by injuries to Damien Wright and Luke Butterworth while Ben Hilfenhaus is on national duty. “They have stitched us up a few times in the last few years and the boys aren’t happy,” Maher said. “Now with Hilfenhaus out, let’s see how good their depth is.”Mark Divin, the allrounder, is in line to make his one-day debut two seasons after moving from the ACT. Chris Duval, who is originally from South Australia, is eyeing a first-class debut on Friday as he joins Brendan Drew, Brett Geeves and Adam Griffith in providing cover for Hilfenhaus.Queensland FR Cup squad Ryan Broad, Jimmy Maher (capt), Clinton Perren, Aaron Nye, Michael Buchanan, Craig Philipson, Chris Hartley (wk), Nathan Reardon, Chris Simpson, Ashley Noffke, Grant Sullivan, Andy Bichel.Tasmania FR Cup squad Michael Di Venuto, Tim Paine (wk), Michael Dighton, Travis Birt, George Bailey, Daniel Marsh (capt), Dane Anderson, Mark Divin, Xavier Doherty, Brendan Drew, Brett Geeves, Adam Griffith.Tasmania Pura Cup squad Michael Di Venuto, Tim Paine, Michael Dighton, Travis Birt, George Bailey, Daniel Marsh (capt), Sean Clingeleffer (wk) Mark Divin, Brendan Drew, Chris Duval, Brett Geeves, Adam Griffith.

Sreesanth will not reinvent himself to satisfy critics of his behaviour but has vowed to find the “exact limit between really bad and really good”. Ian Chappell suggested the Indian board should ban Sreesanth, who has had an eventful one-day series, and the Australians have also been upset by his actions, particularly in the fourth game at Chandigarh when he was 12th man.”I feel I am OK,” Sreesanth said in the Advertiser. “I feel Ian should really look at the video of the last few games. I don’t need a ban. I can learn. I’m grown up enough to realise how to play cricket.”It’s not a new Sreesanth. I am trying to find that exact limit between really bad and really good. See how far I can go.”Sreesanth has been flicking through a book on temperament during the series and said the game was “almost 90% mind”. “How you manage yourself on the field is important and even if they are playing mind games on it or off it, cricket is very funny, it always wins,” he said in the Australian. “That’s what happened in the lead-up to the Twenty20, everybody was questioning our ability but we still won the World Cup.”If we are looking now, obviously if we win the next game [in Mumbai on Wednesday] the series still belongs to Australia, so it’s a time they can say anything. It’s a time for us to keep quiet and hopefully, God willing, they defeated us at home and maybe we can defeat them at home.”

Adam Gilchrist is not sure if he will be back in Brisbane for the first Test of the next Australian summer. Touring over the past two years has worn him down to the point where he has considered walking away and the load will not become any lighter.Australia face a record-breaking schedule in the next 18 months and there is a chance Gilchrist will step off the international treadmill. “Retirement is getting closer for Matthew Hayden and I,” he said. “We know that because we are getting asked about it.”Gilchrist wondered during the opening game of last year’s Ashes whether it would be his final series, but he will start the first Test against Sri Lanka on Thursday recharged after an off-season break. “Now I’m going to see where it leads,” he said. “The World Cup win was a shot in the arm and for the past two seasons we’ve had three months away from the game during the winter.”In the next three or four years you’re not going to see that break and it’s an important time for my career. I’m not sure whether I’ll be back here next year, but with the way I feel at the moment it’s the intention to try and get right through.”One option Gilchrist, who is 36 on November 14, has considered is to extend his Test career is cutting out one-dayers and focussing on the long form of the game. He has played 90 consecutive Tests and is only 15 dismissals from breaking Ian Healy’s Australian record of 395.Gilchrist might have felt more comfortable retiring last year if the team had not lost Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Justin Langer and Damien Martyn, but he stayed and will remain an essential member as the team undergoes its transition. He noticed the dramatic change in team personnel during the limited-overs tours of South Africa and India over the past two months.”It really set in and the reality was evident,” he said. “It’s not panic or anything like that, just a realisation that the personalities are different.”Andrew Symonds, who holds a crucial role at No. 6, said it was time to move on from McGrath, Warne and co. “We are going to miss them but, as bad as it sounds, we’re over it,” he said. “We don’t have those blokes any more so when we go to training we’ve got to work out how to bowl sides out and that’s what we’re doing.”

If you were walking across a Burma bridge, clambering up monkey ropes, swinging on a Damdama jhula and jumping over a khadda; you could either be a cadet going through an obstacle course at an army camp … or a student at the Rajasthan Cricket Academy under the observation of former India coach Greg Chappell and biomechanist Ian Frazer.It’s been a month and a half since Chappell was appointed director of the Rajasthan Cricket Academy and the emphasis has been on training young cricketers to be athletes.”The cricketer of the future is going to look very different from the cricketer of the past. We are looking for athletes who can play cricket,” Chappell told reporters in Jaipur. “We have seen the short version, Twenty20, really taking off and playing a bigger part in the international scene. The cricketer of the future is going to have more demands placed on him than ever before. It is being able to find that athletic talent and training that to the needs of the future.”What attributes should a future cricketer have? “Firstly they have to go beyond fear,” Chappell said. “They have to be accountable and they have to take responsibility to what happens to them and the team.”When pressed for an example of a future cricketer from the current Indian squad, Chappell said that he would rather not name anybody in case it was taken out of context but said players such as Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds and Andrew Flintoff fitted the bill.

“They [cricketers of the future] are going to be athletic, strong, impact players. If you want to stand out in the future game, particularly as the game appears to get shorter, you have to be an impact player; you’ve got to be somebody who can impose themselves on the game.”Chappell believed that cricket was going through an exciting phase with the growing influence of Twenty20 cricket and the advent of the IPL in 2008. He said that the format could change the face of cricket.”The basic talent demands of the game won’t change, the physical and mental demands will. The identification and training process are going to have to change. The demands will be greater because of the distinct formats at the international level. Players will have to be flexible more mentally and physically then ever before. The best players have always been mentally strong and will have to be in the future as well.”The obstacle course at the academy is an attempt to provide a simple, low-cost and easily reproducible means of training strong and flexible cricketers. Chappell stressed the importance of such a system to develop fitness for it is easy to implement even in the districts where facilities and finances weren’t as easily available as in the larger centres.Chappell said he did not believe that there was a scarcity of athletes in India and didn’t think the training process would take much time once the students were identified.”It is important to start with the vision of what we are looking for. Once you establish that then you can save a lot of time looking for that type of player. If I have to give you a good guesstimate [I would say] between 18 months and two years before we start players coming through to the first-class level from a programme like this.”

Shane Warne will be the Indian Premier League’s most expensive signing, at a cost of US$400,000 for the first season, set to kick off in April 2008. The finance committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India met in Mumbai on Friday and approved several decisions taken by the IPL’s governing council regarding payment of its players.The fee quoted for Warne is the signing amount for him to be part of the player pool from which franchises will bid for the rights to employ players within their ranks. With Brian Lara reportedly being paid US$1 million to appear in the Indian Cricket League, and the market heating up over the two rival leagues, Warne and similar big-ticket signings could rope in well in excess of US$1 million, sources revealed.The second-highest signing-on fee has, not surprisingly, been paid to Glenn McGrath, whose nifty line-and-length bowling see him join up for US$350,000. Stephen Fleming, whose agents flirted with the ICL but in the end held back – to the extent that Fleming was one of those present at the IPL’s launch – also nets US$350,000.Mohammad Yousuf, who had reportedly signed with the ICL before being lured away by the Pakistan board – which made no effort to stop Inzamam-ul-Haq, Abdul Razzaq or Imran Farhat from joining the unrecognised league – has signed up with the IPL for US$330,000. A surprise entrant in the top five – and at the moment the list does not include current Australian or Indian cricketers – is Shoaib Malik, who is guaranteed US$300,000.The ICL, which is nearing the end of its inaugural edition, will hand out approximately Rs 18 crore [approx. US$4.5 million] in total prize-money for its 16-day tournament.The fees have been decided for only 34 of the 49 cricketers signed up by the IPL, sources said, and, of these, only 11 have received [partial] advance payments. The only player to receive payment in full is Yousuf, not surprising given that he was once a dead certainty to join the ICL. It is understood that McGrath is among those who have been given a sizeable advance.The 29 others who have received contracts:[All amounts in US$]
Australia Justin Langer 175,000
Sri Lanka Farveez Maharoof: 150,000, Kumar Sangakkara: 250,000, Mahela Jaywardene: 250,000, Muttiah Muralitharan: 250,000, Sanath Jayasuriya: 250,000, Nuwan Zoysa: 100,000, Dilhara Fernando: 150,000, Chaminda Vaas: 175,000, Lasith Malinga: 200,000
Pakistan Mohammad Asif 225,000, Shahid Afridi: 225,000, Shoaib Akhtar: 225,000, Younus Khan: 225,000
West Indies Shivnarine Chanderpaul 175,000
New Zealand Daniel Vettori 225,000, Jacob Oram 200,000, Scott Styris 150,000, Brendon McCullum 175,000
South Africa Loots Bosman 150,000, AB de Villiers 175,000, Albie Morkel 200,000, Graeme Smith 225,000, Herschelle Gibbs 225,000, Shaun Pollock 200,000, Ashwell Prince 150,000, Makhaya Ntini 175,000, Mark Boucher 175,000, Jacques Kallis 200,000.