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As the ICL gears up for its second season, Subhash Chandra, chairman of the Essel group, which owns the league, has said he is confident of the conflict with the sport’s global administrators being sorted out “within two years.””I met David Morgan, the ICC president, on October 7,” Chandra said on Thursday. “I don’t promise you anything, please don’t have any hopes … It took Kerry Packer two years to resolve the resolution [with the Australian board]. I am confident our issue will be resolved within two years.”The meeting, which took place in London, was in response to a request from ICL officials who are seeking official sanction from the ICC. Morgan is expected to report on the meeting to the ICC Board, which meets in Dubai on October 14 and 15.

Chandra also had cause to cheer closer home, revealing that three sponsorships contracts out of four worth $8 million that had been cancelled were revived after a meeting with Sharad Pawar, the former Indian board president. Chandra met Pawar, currently the ICC’s president-elect. “I spoke to Pawar, my friend of the last 25 years, last Friday. I was very categorical that such attacks had to stop henceforth. Out of the four [sponsorship] contracts three have been revived after the meeting.”He said he had conveyed to Pawar his disappointment over what he called the “unethical” tactics used against the ICL and those associated with it. “I asked him, ‘Is it good for you? Is it ethical? Does it befit you that a 21-year old boy from a college in Mumbai is picked up physically by the joint secretary of the Mumbai Cricket Association and pulled out of the ground?'”Asked whether this was the last chance for a reconciliation, given that Pawar takes over the ICC presidency in 2010, Himanshu Mody, the ICL’s operational head, told Cricinfo they would explore alternate options if it didn’t work out. “Such things cannot take one year,” Mody said. “If it doesn’t happen now, it will happen soon. I don’t think it will take one year to get the sanction, if the sanction comes. If that (ICC reconciliation) comes through, perfect. Life changes, business plans change. There are a lot of players willing to join and there are lots of grounds that are still available. We can get them.”Chandra and Tony Greig, a member of the ICL executive board, also had cautionary words for the league’s players on the “possibilities of corruption” during the second season. “You have seen lots of press that Twenty20 cricket has possibilities for corruption,” Greig said at a pre-tournament meeting with players and officials on Thursday. “So please be very careful. There will be people who will approach you. It happened last time; it will happen again. We will dig ourselves into a hole if it happens.””People who didn’t want the ICL to succeed ICL would say, ‘What ICL? It’s not going to succeed,'” Chandra said. “They said, ‘Match fixing happens there’.”

The Pakistan Cricket Board’s efforts to arrange a home series have been dealt a blow as West Indies have opted not to tour next month because of security concerns. Senior players had already expressed concerns about visiting Pakistan and the decision comes a week after the West Indies women’s team called off the Pakistan leg of their Asian tour.Donald Peters, the chief executive of the West Indies board, said negotiations are on to reschedule the tour. “We are in talks with the PCB at present with the hope of getting the tour deferred to another date, but at this time we are not going to tour the country,” Peters told .”At the end of the last (WICB) board meeting, the directors wanted a security report on the situation in Pakistan and I contacted the PCB. I had requested a security plan from them that was okayed by their police and military.”They got this plan and sent it to me and we were then looking further at getting an independent security firm but this was not done because we had decided that at this point it was not really safe for the players to go to Pakistan.”Pakistan have already had two high-profile postponements this year: Australia’s tour was put off, as was the Champions Trophy. They have not played a home Test since October 2007 and the only tournaments they have hosted this year are the Asia Cup and ODI series against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.

England have the chance to crown a stellar year when they take on India this week in the first of five one-dayers. But while West Indies and South Africa may have been brushed aside (crushed aside in West Indies’ case) now comes the sternest test of summer, against one of the world’s top four sides.England have already performed well against the other two of the quartet, drawing with Australia and beating New Zealand in their most successful tour of Australasia earlier this year, and a good showing against India would be handy preparation in the lead up to the all-important 2009.With no other tours planned, it is also currently their final chance to meet against international opposition before the World Cup in March and, in India, they have saved the best of the summer’s opposition to last.India had a quiet home season by their standards, playing only in the Asia Cup which they won almost embarrassingly easily. With the exception of a 29-run victory against Sri Lanka, the margins were gapingly wide. They have not been truly tested for 18 months since coming last in the Quadrangular Series which they hosted, although that placing flattered England, who brought up their first win only in the third-place play-off.England’s resurgence since that jolt has been remarkable – thanks to a combination of investment and commitment – and they have been developing into a young side to be reckoned with. Charlotte Edwards continually proves herself as both captain and an experienced allrounder it is expected that batsman Claire Taylor, England’s Player of the Year, can shake off illness in time for Saturday’s opener at Bath.Confidence in the England camp is running high after beating South Africa 4-0 in the recent series, which was also an opportunity to give Anya Shrubsole her international debut. She impressed in her first Twenty20 in particular, taking 3 for 16 with the series already in the bag. Shrubsole, 16, comes from Bath and will hope to make a splash if selected against India.England trounced India 4-0 when they visited two years ago but even despite the visitors’ recent lack of international matches, Edwards is not underestimating them. “India will be tough opposition this summer and we know we have to be at the top of our game to beat them,” she said. “They’ve got some world-class players like Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami and it will be a good challenge for us.”We’ve got a strong squad, a great blend of youth and experience and we can’t wait for this series to get started – it should be a really good series with some excellent cricket.”England are expected to be at full strength, while India have already lost Rumeli Dhar to injury. The uncapped Nirajana Nagarajan has been called up in her place.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

Muttiah Muralitharan and Ajantha Mendis shook the SSC pitch out of its slumber after the Sri Lankan batsmen given them a mountain of runs as a cushion, and the new-ball bowlers had done their bit in taking the shine off the ball. Once the spinners came on, the batsmen were either mesmerised or stunned — both, in rapid succession, in the case of Rahul Dravid — and when bad light stopped play on the third day, India were 242 adrift of the follow-on with only four wickets left.All eyes were on Mendis and he delivered a spectacular blow in pegging back Rahul Dravid’s off-stump, but it was the old master who caused the most damage with four wickets, though the relentless pressure from the other end would have helped.It was in stark contrast to India’s start. After 162 overs on the field, Virender Sehwag and Gambhir finally got a chance to bat and the featherbed of a pitch allowed the pair to hit their stride quickly. Sehwag was especially aggressive, hitting five boundaries in the first five overs. But he threw it away when he failed to control a hook off Nuwan Kulasekera, which landed down Malinda Warnapura’s throat at deep square-leg.Six overs before tea, Mendis was introduced. In three overs, he got Gambhir to jab at sliders twice, but Gambhir had his way when he feasted off two full tosses. With his last ball before tea, Mendis beat Dravid with a legbreak, and suddenly the dull match had come alive.

Post-tea, Sri Lanka inflicted maximum damage. Particularly Murali, who drew Gambhir – on 39 – out of the crease but the ball dipped and a leading edge was snapped up at cover. The next over, Dravid had no answer to a Mendis special: the “carrom” ball was quick, pitched just short of a length on middle stump, and turned just enough to beat the poke and take the top of off stump. Not bad for a first Test wicket, a mention Mendis wouldn’t mind on his CV.In two overs, the game had changed. The pitch, so long a calm sea, had turned choppy. Every ball bowled by the spinners – who were bowled unchanged – required immense concentration, something Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly displayed for about an hour. Mendis and Murali, bowling from round the wicket to the right-hand batsmen, were accurate. Briefly, the batsmen fought back, Ganguly deploying the drive and Tendulkar stepping out to hit Murali and slog-swept Mendis. Then, as the partnership gathered confidence, Tendulkar, on 27, misjudged the amount of break on Murali’s doosra. As he looked to withdraw his bat, the ball took the inside edge and hit the stumps.After the first halt for bad light Ganguly swept Murali, a shot he had employed successfully in getting to 23. This time, however, he didn’t spot the straighter one and top-edged towards square leg, where Kulasekera ran in from long leg to take a low catch. Dinesh Karthik reverse-swept the same bowler for a boundary, before Murali foxed him with a doosra, running backwards to take a return catch. VVS Laxman then survived a few anxious moments before stumps.It rounded off yet another day of domination for the home side. Tillakaratne Dilshan played a part in grinding India down, scoring his first century in three years. India tried to slow the scoring down and delay the inevitable declaration but Dilshan, who resumed on 20, had different ideas. He rocked back and cut the first ball of the day for three to cover, then clipped the first ball of the next over for two. The outfield was slow, India soon employed an in-and-out field, and Dilshan set into a one-day mould, tipping and running, finding gaps in the outfield for two, and going for the occasional boundary. All through, only his head gear changed, from helmet to bare head to the floppy hat. The floppy hat was his only source of discomfort, falling off whenever he sprinted for quick runs.The true show of intent came in the 10th over of the day, when Dilshan cut Zaheer Khan for a boundary and followed it with a Twenty20-style paddle. In his next over, Zaheer reached his most expensive figures in Test cricket, beating the 3 for 135 he had conceded against Pakistan in Faisalabad in 2005-06. The Indian spinners went round the stumps to Dilshan, with a 6-3 on-side field at times. There was momentary control, but Dilshan pulled and swept effectively, hitting Kumble for a four and a six in one over to move to 89. With handy support from Chaminda Vaas, Sri Lanka added 178 runs in 42 overs on the third day, Dilshan scoring 105 of those off 115 balls.Sri Lanka piled up four centuries, while their opponents barely looked like managing even one after an abject batting display.

Ricky Ponting, the Australia captain, has had surgery on his injured right wrist and is no certainty to take part in the team’s next matches, a series of three ODIs against Bangladesh in Darwin starting in late August. Ponting suffered the injury while batting in the third ODI against West Indies in Grenada last Sunday.He was released from the tour and sent back to Australia, where he immediately had an assessment with Cricket Australia medical staff and had the operation in Melbourne on Monday. The process was completed as quickly as possible to give Ponting the best chance of taking part in the Darwin ODIs and the Champions Trophy that follows.”We’re not sure [on his availability against Bangladesh] at this stage,” a Cricket Australia spokesman told . “We’ll have to assess him as we go along. But that’s why they got him in for assessment so quickly, so they could decide on a course of action rather than him going home [to Sydney] and leaving it a week. This way it gives him more time to recover.”Trefor James, Cricket Australia’s chief medical officer, said Ponting had a tendon injury that “requires repair of tissues that hold the tendon in place”. In Ponting’s absence in the Caribbean, Michael Clarke led the side for the first time in one-day internationals and completed the 5-0 whitewash that had started under Ponting.

The proposed umpire review system will be trialled during India’s three-Test series against Sri Lanka, beginning next month, the Indian board has said. Originally set to feature for the first time during South Africa’s upcoming series against England, it was shelved after both boards failed to reach an agreement on the details.The ICC Board, had, in March, approved the trial of the review system during a Test series in the current cricket calendar. It will now have to approve its Cricket Committee’s recommendations before the Sri Lanka- India series begins. The main elements are:

• Umpires should still be permitted to refer line decisions or boundaries to the third umpire as normal without a player requesting him to refer that decision”
• The players should be permitted to ask the on-field umpire to review any aspect of any other decision in consultation with the third umpire
• The process should take the form and order of: on-field umpire gives his decision; affected batsman or fielding side’s captain asks the umpire to review that decision; the on-field umpire(s) and third umpire consult; the on-field umpire gives his final decision
• The committee recommended that Hawk-Eye technology could be used by the third umpire but only for the purposes of determining the actual path of the ball up until the point that it struck the batsman and not the predictor function of the technology

The BCCI press release said the following technology could be used by the third umpire while considering the review request:

• Slow motion replays from all available cameras
• Super slow motion replays from the cameras positioned at either end of the ground
• Ultra motion camera replays from the cameras positioned at either end of the ground
• Sound from the stump microphones with the replays at normal speed and slow motion
• Hawk-Eye for ball tracking purposes only (not for predicting the potential future trajectory of the ball)

According to the system, players will request reviews by making a ‘T’ sign; if the third umpire disagrees with the on-field umpire, the on-field umpire should revoke his previous decision before giving the new verdict. The review system will make its first appearance in the first Test in Colombo, which begins on July 23.The system was first proposed back in 1997 by Senaka Weeraratne, a Sri Lankan lawyer, whose letter was published in several newspapers. It was then forwarded to Upali Dharmadasa, the then Sri Lankan board president, for further action.

Why is a match-winning innings from Mohammad Ashraful so memorable? Because it happens once a year. It reads like a bad joke but Ashraful’s inability to produce regular scores reflects the problem riddling Bangladesh’s entire outfit – inconsistency.In 19 innings since the heady heights of World Cup 2007, where Bangladesh beat India and South Africa, Ashraful has scored only two half-centuries. During that period, Bangladesh have won only three games, all at home against Ireland. It’s a problem that their Australian coach Jamie Siddons, who took up the role in October 2007, is keen to address. He’s making a beginning by “identifying the weaknesses with individual players”.”The reason they are inconsistent is that they’ve [Bangladesh’s batsmen] got deficiencies in certain areas of their game,” Siddons said. “My job is to identify those and then try to improve them. Basically give them new shots, find new ways of scoring against good bowlers.”Ashraful is one such example. Siddons felt opposition teams had worked him out, taking advantage of his short height to restrict his scoring. “He’s now working on a cut shot which he never had before at international level. He generally let the ball go. We’ve worked on that and he’s now using the cut in practice. Whether we will see it in international cricket straightaway I’m not sure. If he can produce a good cut shot then bowlers won’t be able to give him that width or bowl that length to him.”For Ashraful it is the cut, for Tamim Iqbal and Shahriar Nafees it’s the pull. Siddons said the Bangladesh batsmen “think they’ve got to hit the ball in the air because they’re restricted in their power. It’s another thing we’re working on. Every individual has different deficiencies. We’ve got to work on every one of them.”Bangladesh’s last international assignment was a hugely disappointing tour of Pakistan, where they lost 5-0. Siddons candidly admitted it reflected Bangladesh’s standing at the moment. “They’re on a massive learning curve,” he said. “They haven’t had the grounding that other players have had in their first-class cricket. We know we’ve to improve our domestic cricket to get our players to be more competitive in international cricket.”A step in the right direction is persisting with some players irrespective of the immediate results. “That’s the way we’re going to move forward – by giving these guys confidence and experience at the international level,” Siddons said. “They’re learning new techniques. They’re also getting more consistent. I can see it. I watch them daily; you see them in international cricket against good teams and see their failures.”After their showing at last year’s World Cup, you’d have to think twice before labelling Bangladesh as minnows. Their results since then, however, haven’t lived up to the promise they showed in the Caribbean. Siddons, though, is looking for consistency, not one-off wins brought about by an hour or two of Ashraful magic. He doesn’t want Cardiff 2005 to be the highlight of Bangladesh’s stint at the highest level. “Every time we play against Australia I want us to have a chance to win,” Siddons said. “Not just because of something Ashraful does that’s out of the box.”

A total of nearly 200 school children aged between 7 and 10 from the Volksschule Markomannenstrasse 9, in Vienna’s 22nd district, had an introduction to cricket on 4th-5th December, with eight classes seeing promotional videos about the sport, prior to then having a cricket session in the school gym, with Siva Nadarajah and Pascal Cyniburk, himself a product of Concordia CC’s Youth Development Programme, assisting the European Development Programme’s Dave Gelling, who whilst no stranger to Austrian Cricket, was making his first trip under the Regional Coaching Initiative.Amongst the presentations, children were shown the 2001 Confetti Show programme on Cricket – which was shot at Seebarn, and in which the children taking part in Concordia CC’s Youth Development Programme presented cricket to Austria’s younger television viewers, as part of state broadcaster ORF’s children’s programming (Confetti TV).The children were also able to try out Kwik Cricket, with sets being presented to the school, so the hope is that cricket will soon be played on a regular basis at the school which overlooks Concordia’s ground, with the previously "mysterious" activities at the ground, visible from the school’s classrooms being less strange. Hopefully some of the children will take up cricket outside of school and will establish themselves for club and country!The Austrian Cricket Association would like to thank the European Development Programme for their assistance in this project, especially at such short notice, and to thank Dave Gelling in particular, whose next project will be an introductory coaching course in Vienna this weekend.

Lack of competition. That’s all you hear when people are talking about theAshes. It’s true. Where has the bark of the British bulldog gone?Why is it Australia can produce world-class cricketers while Englandstruggles to assemble 11 to put on the field?Casting an eye down the Australian team list reveals some names who historywill record with reverence. Names like Steve Waugh, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath,Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting.Not one player in the English side fills you with confidence. For somereason, the English system has stopped producing world-class cricketers.From 1959 to 1971, Australia held the Ashes. But it wasn’t like it is now.The 1958/9 series was won 4-0, 1961 2-1, 1962/3 was a 1-1 draw. Australiawon 1964 1-0 and the next two series were 1-1 draws.Australia had to fight and scrap to keep hold of the most famous prize inworld cricket. The players England had playing for them in that era willstand the test of time. Players such as Trevor Bailey, Colin Cowdrey, Ted Dexter, Godfrey Evans,Jim Laker, Frank Tyson, Fred Trueman, Brian Statham, Ray Illingworth, John Edrich, Ken Barrington and Peter May.Contrast to this esteemed list not so well known names like Alan Igglesden,Tim Curtis, Kim Barnett, Mark Lathwell, Martin Bicknell, Steve Watkin and John Stephenson. Players Englandtried to take on Australia with.If a World XI was picked today and tried to select at least one player fromevery Test nation, you would be hard pressed to choose an Englishman. Theircurrent crop of cricketers pale into insignificance when compared to theirpredecessors like Alan Knott, Geoff Boycott, Allan Lamb, David Gower, Bob Willis or Derek Randall.With so much interest in the current series, imagine how much more therewould be if the cricket was close?