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Easan Sinnathamby, St John’s captain, has been called up to the Canadian national squad, in place of Austin Codrington, Canada’s hero in their World Cup victory over Bangladesh.In a surprising phone-call from selector Austin Ward, Sinnathamby was asked for his jacket size: Ward’s trademark line when telling players of their selection to the national team. This will be Sinnathamby’s third representative match for Canada. He will be joining United CC batsman Manzoor Chaudhary on the squad, marking the first time Calgary has had two players in the Canadian senior team on the same tour.Canada plays the USA this weekend in a three-day game on the first leg of the ICC Intercontinental Cup. The match, to be played at Brian Piccolo Park, Lauderhill, Florida, has been granted first-class status by the ICC.

Sunil Gavaskar will host a conclave being held by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in June, in which the captains of domestic sides that play in the Ranji Trophy will meet and discuss cricketing matters. A similar conclave held last year received enthusiastic participation, and the BCCI clearly hopes to institutionalise the event.The Press Trust of India reported that as a preliminary preparation for the conclave, the BCCI has solicited reports and observations about the last domestic season from the captains, umpires and match referees involved.Mumbai, which had hosted last year’s conclave, is a likely venue for next month’s meet. The last time, it had been a grand success, with Gavaskar stating that he was delighted with the levels of interactivity that were displayed by the stakeholders of the domestic game.

ScorecardMansoor Amjad, the 19-year-old legspinner, ran through Zimbabwe A on the first day of their match against Pakistan A at the Country Club in Harare. After winning the toss and putting Zimbabwe in, Pakistan bowled them out for 191. Amjad, who took 6 for 69, was simply too good for the Zimbabweans. Only Neil Ferrera and Mark Verrmeulen resisted, scoring half-centuries at the top of the order. Then Pakistan replied with 73 for 3, and ended the first day of this four-day match in control of things.

Queensland Cricket has quickly objected to using drop-in pitches at the Gabba despite accusations from the Brisbane Lions, the ground’s co-tenants, that the surface has contributed to player injuries. Leigh Matthews, the AFL coach, would like temporary wickets brought in to keep the ground firm for his charges, but Graham Dixon, the Queensland Cricket chief executive, said performance was the main reason for dismissing the idea.”The technology surrounding drop-in wickets is adequate but it does not compare to the conditions produced by a permanent block,” he said. “The two instances where drop-in wickets are used regularly – at the MCG and in New Zealand – are due to the weather conditions that make it hard to prepare. The conditions in Brisbane are vastly different and we prepare wickets in the normal manner.”Dixon said if temporary pitches were able to replicate the performance of a permanent block he would be open to discussions, and he also dismissed comments the square was being prepared before the Lions’ match against Port Adelaide at the weekend. “It has always been the case that the curator Kevin Mitchell Jnr does not do any work on the block until after the Lions’ final training session of their season,” he said.In a busy off-season day for grounds, the WACA has announced a new head curator following the departure in June of Richard Winter, who moved to the MCG. Cameron Sutherland, who has worked for nine seasons on the South Perth pitch at Richardson Park, will start work in September.Tony Dodemaide, the WACA’s chief executive, said applications were received from around the world and Sutherland was selected for his skills and knowledge of local conditions. “Perth is renowned for it’s unique pace and bounce,” Dodemaide said, “and we’re confident that Cameron will lead his quality team in producing pitches that reflect the ground’s heritage and high standards.”

Rajshahi 106 for 5 (Jahurul Islam 58*) beat Sylhet 103 (Shafaq Al Zabir 3-19, Suhrawadi Shuvo 3-9) by five wickets
Scorecard
Points tableRajshahi retained their National Cricket League one-day crown with two rounds remaining when they secured a five-wicket win against Sylhet at the Rajshahi Divisional Stadium.Shafaq Al Jabir and Mushfiqur Rahman’s opening burst reduced Sylhet to 42 for 5 and although they recovered slightly, their score of 103 was never enough. Rajshahi suffered early setbacks, but Jahurul Islam, the Man of the Match, played an anchor innings of 58 off 98 balls to guide his side home with 20 overs to spare.Rajshahi, with a 100 per cent record and 16 points, are clear of Chittagong, who caught up with Dhaka after a 29-run victory over them. Bottom placed Barisal moved up the table with an impressive six-wicket win over Khulna

Just two days into the match, and it’s a depressingly familiar story for Bangladesh: India have already built a sizeable lead, to which they’ll add a few more runs tomorrow, and then unleash Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh and Co. on Bangladesh’s hapless batsmen. One more innings defeat – their 19th in 33 matches – looms, and the scorecard will reveal another hugely unequal contest. What it won’t show, though, is what could have been had Bangladesh’s fielders supported the bowlers the way they deserved to be. With player of the class of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, often one chance is all it takes to swing the momentum of the game; Bangladesh generously offered three, and now can only pray that the defeat which will inevitably come their way is an honourable one.Bangladesh have clearly struggled as a batting side, and the bowling have often lacked bite. While their lack of skill in these two areas can be forgiven, there is little excuse for sloppiness in the field – the first two are largely skill-driven, the third is all about hard work and diligence. A week ago, Jonty Rhodes was in India, and during a chat on television, he made a telling comment on South Africa’s attitude towards fielding when they were readmitted into the international arena. Since the players had no international exposure at the time, none of them if they would measure up as batsmen or bowlers, he said. What they did know, though, was that they were excellent fielders, and Kepler Wessels, the captain at the time, urged that regardless of what happened with bat or ball, the team should stand tall as a fielding unit.Dav Whatmore, Bangladesh’s coach, needs to instil that mindset into Habibul Bashar and his men. Before this Test Bangladesh had dropped 53 catches in their last 29 Tests, and worryingly, they are no signs of improvement – in the last 15 matches, 37 chances have gone abegging, that’s two-and-a-half per match. They exceeded that quota in less than a couple of hours today, though, and instead of having India on the mat at 128 for 5, had them dominate large parts of the last two sessions.It was especially disheartening for Mashrafe Mortaza, who later showed his team-mates a thing or two about fielding with a sharp effort to dismiss Dinesh Karthik. Mortaza made his debut against Zimbabwe in 2001-02, which was also the first time Bangladesh drew a Test, but injuries have meant that he has played only 12 matches in three years, and never more than four Tests in a row. Today, it took him only one over to show what Bangladesh were missing out on – he had Virender Sehwag edge twice, and then beat Gautam Gambhir with a beauty that pitched on off and seamed away.The pace – around 135 kmph – was impressive, but what was outstanding was his control and the swing and seam movement he obtained. From just outside off, he made the ball move both ways consistently in an effort that was McGrath-esque in sustained accuracy. Rahul Dravid was completely clueless, while Tendulkar was forced to play out 20 dot balls against him. Unfortunately, there was no Mark Taylor or Mark Waugh to support him in the slips, and Mortaza ended the day with hugely undeserving figures of 1 for 80.While the fielding had a large hand to play in the way the game shaped up today, India still needed a batsman to stand up and wrest the initiative away from Bangladesh’s bowlers, and Tendulkar did that en route to his 34th Test hundred. Despite the two chances he offered, this was one of his more fluent efforts in recent times – the footwork was decisive and the mindset aggressive from the moment he came out to bat. It showed early in the piece too, when he launched into a pull off Mortaza when his score was still in single digits.Too often in the recent past, Tendulkar has come out to bat in an inexplicably defensive frame of mind, allowing bowlers to shackle him up and dictate terms. Today, he drove confidently through the off side whenever offered the width, and punched the ball down the ground off either foot with exquisite timing and fluency. What should have been a fluent cameo, though, will probably end up being a matchwinning hundred, thanks to Bangladesh’s largesse in the field.S Rajesh is assistant editor of Cricinfo.

The question is inevitable, the concern real. The world of cricket, not just the West Indies, is hopeful that both are premature.The startling slump that has overcome Brian Lara in the first two Tests of the series here prompted conjecture in today’s New Zealand press, as no doubt elsewhere, over whether the condition is terminal for the most compelling batsman of his era and the owner of most of the game’s available batting records.”Lara: Prince now the pauper”, read the headline in the . “Special powers desert ageing Lara,” proclaimed the . The comments follow Lara’s scores of 5, 0, 1 and 1 in his four innings, a total of seven runs from the 23 balls he has received.He fell in the first Test in Auckland to the only two balls he faced from Shane Bond, the spearhead of New Zealand’s attack and a high-class fast bowler. His first ball dismissal in the second innings, bowled leg-stump, was only his third such indignity in his 122 Tests. But Bond has been missing from the second Test at the Basin Reserve, eliminated on the morning of the match by a debilitating virus.Instead, Lara has gone to lesser combatants, to the left-arm swinger James Franklin fourth ball in the first innings and to the mild medium-pace of Nathan Astle sixth ball in the second. Both were to uncertain edged drives that yielded catches to slip and backward point. The esteem in which he is universally held was evident in the prolonged and generous ovation from all around the ground that accompanied him to the middle, both in Auckland and here.The general sense of disappointment at his early demise yesterday was palpable as he walked off, briefly raising his helmet and gloves in acknowledgement that it would be his last appearance in Wellington. “I tell you, there was an audible groan all around the room when he was out,” said Brian Hastings, the former New Zealand batsman who was in the members’ dining room along with several ex-Test players, among them Alan Davidson, Neil Harvey and Ashley Mallett of Australia.It was as if Pavrotti had suddenly lost his voice yet again during a major concert tour. The reservation, as with Lara, would be whether he would be the same again. Lara is approaching 37, a factor noted by Richard Boock in the . “It happened to the best of them, starting right back in the days of WG Grace,” he wrote. “Wilfred Rhodes eventually succumbed, Colin Cowdrey and Ian Botham tried to beat the odds and lost, even Viv Richards saw the writing on the wall.”Now it appears fate is poised to come calling for Brian Charles Lara,” he added. “Old Father Time makes exceptions for no one, it seems; not even a player who has rewritten the records in just about every genuine batting list, and has scored more runs than anyone else in the history of the game.”What Boock did not note was that Lara has been through such run droughts before and has followed them with familiar plenty and that he was in his usual heavy-scoring mode less than a year ago. His sequence of figures in Australia in 1997-98 were equally meager – 2 and 1 in Sydney, 2 and 2 in Melbourne, 9 in Adelaide. The first four times he was undone by Glenn McGrath, his traditional nemesis. Yet he recovered his composure and his form to round off the series with scores of 78 and 132.A year later, in South Africa, overburdened by the fallout from the preceding players’ strike and by Allan Donald’s pace, he had five scores under 20 and a highest of 79 in the five Tests. A few weeks later, he was reeling off his matchwinning 213 at Sabina Park and unbeaten 153 at Kensington against Australia.He was then appreciably younger but if age is a factor, it was not obvious in his eight Tests last year in which he accumulated scores of 196 and 176 against South Africa and 130 and 153 against Pakistan in the Caribbean and 226 against Australia in Australia. Martin Crowe, the former New Zealand captain and premier batsman, puts Lara’s problems down to his lack of preparation coming into the Tests. “New Zealand’s one of the most difficult places for batsmen to get acclimatised to,” he explained. “Even the greatest players, like Sobers and Viv Richards, couldn’t come to terms with conditions.”He recalled that he himself built up to his outstanding home series against the West Indies in 1987 with eight first-class matches in New Zealand’s domestic competition. Sir Garry’s highest score in seven Tests on two tours, in 1956 and 1969, was 39 and his average 13.10. Richards played only three Tests here, in 1987, with a highest score of 38.”As I recall it, Sobers (in 1969) and Richards came straight from a tour of Australia,” Crowe noted. “It’s not far away but the pitches and the overall conditions are like chalk and cheese.” Lara’s only hundred in five previous Tests in New Zealand-two in 1995, three in 2000-01-was 147 in Wellington when the West Indies amassed 650 for five declared.”I think Brian would have benefited from the five one-dayers,” Crowe said. “He’s come into Test cricket in New Zealand straight from the Caribbean and, as I understand it, hadn’t played any cricket for something like six weeks. Even from him, that was taking a chance.”Two more innings remain for Lara to prove that Old Father Time hasn’t yet caught up with him. The world waits.

Joey Carew, convenor of the West Indies selection panel, says “a different spirit that emanated from the players” was the key to Brian Lara’s team winning the five-match one-day international series against favourites India. And he has described Lara, now leading the side for an unprecedented third time, as being “very much committed” and “more mature” at the age of 37.After narrowly losing the opening match in Jamaica on May 18, West Indies bounced back to capture the series 4-1. “I have enjoyed the series, of course, being the winner of the series encourages me for that,” Carew said on the CMC CricketPlus programme. “But, more so, I find that there was a different spirit that emanated from the players and I think that was the secret of their success. It proved in every game and I am looking forward to more improvement as we go into the Test [series].”Carew, a former West Indies opening batsman, reckoned that the 5-0 triumph in the preceding seven-match home series against minnows Zimbabwe (two matches were abandoned because of rain) was a solid foundation for the resurgent West Indies to build on. “Most definitely, but also the match practice that we got. It’s a bit different outside there than in the nets and we got the match practice that we needed. So we didn’t come into the India series stale as such. We came in fresh and victorious and I think that helped a lot,” he said.With regard to Lara, Carew remarked: “He is very committed but Brian has always been committed. But somewhere along the line, maybe at 37, he is more mature and the players have matured themselves and I think the team is led properly and they are all pulling their weight. I don’t see much of a difference in Brian Lara’s tactical approach yesteryear to what it is now,” Carew added.Prior to the series, India were ranked No.3 in the world behind Australia and South Africa, compared to West Indies at No 8. But Rahul Dravid’s men have now slipped to No.5. West Indies have remained in eighth place but have gained seven rating points because of the 4-1 series win. It means they are now just five points behind seventh-placed England.The first match in the four-Test series starts on Friday at the Antigua Recreation Ground.

Allan Border said it was “totally inappropriate” and “plain wrong” for Sunil Gavaskar to link the death of David Hookes to the conduct of Australian cricketers on the field. Border said Gavaskar had missed the point and did not seem to appreciate that different behaviour was acceptable in different cultures.”I consider Sunny a friend, but what he said about David Hookes and the behaviour of Australian cricketers was totally uncalled for,” Border told . “What Sunny said on television was totally inappropriate.”Gavaskar suggested on the Australian players might get physically attacked if they used similar language in a bar as they use on the field. “There’s the example of the late David Hookes,” Gavaskar said. “Would they get away with it? Would they have a fist coming at their face or not?”Border said there was no need to mention Hookes, who died after an altercation outside a Melbourne nightclub in 2004. “For [Gavaskar] to link David’s death to players allegedly misbehaving on a cricket field is plain wrong,” Border said. He argued that Gavaskar was misinterpreting Australia’s aggressive brand of play.”Where Australia may be seen to be playing the game hard and tough could be misconstrued on the subcontinent,” Border said. “Similarly, the way India plays the game at times may not be to the liking of every Australian. Cricket is a global sport in which different cultures lock horns out in the middle. Only the nuances of the game may vary from country to country.”While a cricketer on the subcontinent or the West Indies may find an Australian bowler’s remark to a particular batsman of ‘you lucky b——‘ offensive, to players in other teams it’s not. Sunny has missed the point here badly. He’s clearly overlooked the fact there are different cultures at work.Darren Lehmann, a close friend of Hookes, backed Border’s reaction. “I’m pretty disappointed with Gavaskar,” Lehmann said. “His remarks only hurt David Hookes’ family and friends, and tarnish Hookesy’s memory. A man of Gavaskar’s stature in the game of cricket should know better.”Lehamnn said Gavaskar’s outburst was “in bad taste” and he had ignored the fact that umpires and match referees had the power to take action if players’ behaviour on the field was inappropriate. “I came into the international arena a few years after he had retired,” Lehmann said. “He was a player I admired. Not any more.”

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) soared to the top of the Group B table as they defeated Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL) by an emphatic margin of nine wickets on the final day of their Patron’s Trophy match at the Iqbal Stadium at Faisalabad.Having gained a first-innings lead of 120, PTCL downed ZTBL for 252 in their second innings after they had resumed yesterday morning at 104 for 2, still 16 runs adrift. PTCL were thus left with 133 to get, which they achieved in style by reaching 137 for 1. PTCL now have 15 points from their first two matches in the five-team pool. ZTBL have lost twice in as many appearances and have failed to collect any points so far.Riaz Afridi, Peshawar’s fast bowler who has played in a Test match for Pakistan, captured 4 for 34 in 18 overs for PTCL yesterday. He was ably assisted by Babar Naeem, the Rawalpindi left-arm spinner, with figures of 3 for 30 in 11 overs. Mohammad Khalil, another Pakistan player, picked up 2-70 with his left-arm pace to go with his first-innings 4 for 76. Faisal Naved top-scored for ZTBL with 49 off 124 balls that included five fours. During the 79-run seventh-wicket partnership, Zahoor Elahi, a former Pakistan batsman, and Adnan Akmal, the wicketkeeper, appeared to have tamed the PTCL bowling but this did not last very long.ZTBL, who have won the Patron’s Trophy title four times, were beaten by their 2003-04 runners-up Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) in the first round. PTCL, however, took six points from their win over Service Industries in their opening game. PTCL will now play their third-round match against National Bank — who beat Service Industries with a day to spare on Sunday — at the Sheikhupura Stadium from Thursday. ZTBL have a period of rest until the fourth round.Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) claimed the three first-innings points after a draw in their Patron’s Trophy Cricket Championship match against Pakistan Customs at the United Bank Limited (UBL) Sports Complex Ground No.1 at Karachi. Customs, however, remained in second position in the five-team group – after Habib Bank – with six points from two matches. SNGPL have so far made one only appearance in the tournament, but they are at No.3 in the table.Customs resumed their chase of SNGPL’s big first-innings score of 498 yesterday at 237 for 6, still needing another 111 to avert the follow-on. They did so with credit by reaching a total of 375, which however placed them 123 runs in deficit. With no result in sight, SNGPL preferred to gain some batting practice after they had been assured the three points from a draw. They were 100 for 2 in their second innings when the match was called off.Fawad Alam, the teenaged left-handed batsman, unbeaten at 45 overnight, managed to add only two more runs, his 47 coming off 150 balls in just short of three-and-a-quarter hours with five fours. Customs needed to get to a score of 348 to save themselves from following-on. The eighth-wicket stand of 68 served them well in this pursuit. Murtaza Hussain, the offspinner, stuck to his crease for a little over three hours while scoring 58. He found able partners until the end, with 31 runs made for the ninth wicket and another 32 for the last. Azam Hussain, Alam’s partner in the eighth-wicket stand, hit a career-best 49 at a run a ball that included seven fours. Imran Khalid, SNGPL’s slow left-arm bowler, took 4 for 96 runs in 43 overs.In their first-round match of the tournament, Customs had started by beating Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) although they collected only six points instead of the full nine as they had earlier surrendered the first-innings lead. SNGPL did not have a match to play in the previous round, and will now play their third-round four-day match against Group A table leaders Habib Bank at Karachi beginning December 22. Pakistan Customs will have a break until the fourth round.Habib Bank drew with Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) in their first-round fixture and then beat KRL on Sunday inside three days of their second-round game. They now have a total of 12 points to their credit. KRL’s next match is coming up against PIA, also from Thursday, at the National Stadium. KRL have been beaten in both the matches they have played upto now.