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Nadir Shah, the banned Bangladesh umpire, has submitted a mercy plea to the BCB to lower the number of years of his suspension

ESPNcricinfo staff18-Jun-2013Nadir Shah, the banned Bangladesh umpire, has submitted a mercy plea to the BCB to reduce the term of his suspension. He was given a 10-year ban after a BCB investigation found him guilty of corruption after a Indian TV channel’s sting operation in 2012.”I have submitted a mercy letter addressing the board president [Nazmul Hassan], and it [has been] received by the [acting] CEO [Nizamuddin Ahmed],” Shah said. “I have asked to lift the ban that the cricket board has issued against me as I have already [served] a year of [it]. I am hoping that the board will minimise the punishment. If the board cuts the punishment from 10 years to 2 or 3 years, I can make a comeback as an umpire again.”The sting claimed to have “exposed” several first-class umpires from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan who were allegedly willing to give decisions favouring players for a fee. The undercover reporters claimed to belong to a sports management company and promised the umpires officiating assignments in events of all kinds around the world, largely domestic Twenty20 leagues.Shah, who officiated in 40 ODIs and three Twenty20 internationals, was the only umpire to have met the undercover reporters in person. The other umpires operated through internet-based video chats.Shah had said at the time that he went along with the undercover reporters’ plan because he had felt “threatened” by the people he met at a Delhi hotel. He maintained that stand in public, though he did admit his mistake to the BCB investigation committee.

Dinesh Karthik has returned to the national squad almost three years after he last played for India

Amol Karhadkar04-May-2013Ever since he burst on to the domestic scene as a teenager more than adecade ago, Dinesh Karthik has been considered as a prodigious talent with the bat. Add to it his skills as a wicketkeeper and exceptional fielder and he becomes an all-round package.But without consistent performances, talent doesn’t get you too far. As a result, it wasn’t a surprise when Karthik was dropped from the Indian team after an ordinary outing during the tri-series in Dambulla where he scored 33 runs in five innings against New Zealand and Sri Lanka.Similarly, after a season in which Karthik was at his consistent best, nobody was surprised when Karthik returned to India’s squad for the Champions Trophy, to be played in England from June 6. Even the man himself wasn’t surprised.”I am happy about it [selection]. I’ve been batting well and it feels good when your efforts are rewarded,” Karthik said. He has been in exceptional touch while batting at No. 3 for Mumbai Indians during the IPL – 331 runs in 10 matches at a strike-rate of almost 140 – and it has come at the back of a run-heavy domestic season.In the season-opening Corporate Trophy, he emerged as the highest run-getter with 301 runs from three innings for India Cements. Then in the Ranji Trophy, even though it was a disappointing season for Tamil Nadu, Karthik was by far their top scorer with 577 runs at 64.11.Then came the domestic one-dayers. And even though Tamil Nadu failed to progress to the all-India knockouts of the Vijay Hazare Trophy, Karthik scored at least a fifty in each of his five innings. As a result, despite playing only five games, he finished as the second-highest run-scorer of the tournament.”All along [these three years], I have been working hard in domestic cricket,” he said. “I have been trying to be as consistent as possible. And it feels good enough to score virtually every time I bat these days.”The confidence drawn from such consistency means Karthik wasn’t weighed down at the prospect of replacing an ODI stalwart like Yuvraj Singh. Though Karthik hasn’t yet been spoken to either by the selectors or team management about his specific role in the team, the squad composition hints that he may well be required to bat in the middle order. And he is up for thechallenge. “That is what I have done even earlier, so I am ready to play any role that the team management expects of me – whether a specialist batsman or a keeper-batsman.”Over the last two years, Karthik has been working with his personal coach Prasanna Agoram, the South African national team’s performance analyst. And the efforts have culminated in Karthik being recalled to the national squad, incidentally for a tour to the same country where Karthik made his international debut more than eight years ago.”We had to make minor corrections to my batting techniques,” Karthik said. “That has helped me immensely in order to be good enough to score every time I go out to bat. I would like to thank Prasanna and all my family members who have stood behind me during difficult times.”

Shane Watson is considering his future in the game after being axed from the squad for the Mohali Test on disciplinary grounds

ESPNcricinfo staff11-Mar-2013Shane Watson is contemplating his future in the game after being axed from the squad for the Mohali Test on disciplinary grounds and then leaving the tour to be with his pregnant wife. Watson was one of four players punished by the team management for ignoring team orders.Since being named Michael Clarke’s vice-captain in 2011, Watson’s Twenty20 and ODI displays have remained strong but his Test appearances have been neither consistent nor convincing. His struggles in India despite being one of only two batsmen to have made a Test hundred on the subcontinent were a major contributor to Australia’s 0-2 deficit.There is little doubt Watson’s T20 career will continue for he is scheduled to return to India in April for the IPL, where he had also indicated he would return to bowling for his franchise rather than his country. In ODIs he has the lure of the 2015 World Cup to sustain him. But it is now plausible that at 31 he has played his final Test match.”Any time you’re suspended for a Test match unless you do something unbelievably wrong, and obviously everyone knows what those rules are … I think it is very harsh,” Watson told reporters at the team hotel in Chandigarh. “At this point in time I’m at a stage where I’m sort of weighing up my future and what I want to do with my cricket in general, to be honest. I do love playing, there is no doubt about that, but at this point in time I’m going to spend the next few weeks with my family and just weigh up my options of just exactly which direction I want to go.”There are lot more important things in life – I certainly do love playing cricket and that passion is still there and I feel like I’m in the prime years of my cricket career. From that perspective I still feel like I’ve got a lot to give. But from a holistic perspective I’ve got to sit down with my family and decide which directions they are.”Watson, along with James Pattinson, Usman Khawaja and Mitchell Johnson were told this morning by the coach Mickey Arthur that, in an unprecedented decision, they would not be considered for the third Test. After the loss in Hyderabad, inside three and a half days, Arthur had asked every member of the squad to let him know three points on how their individual performances and those of the team could be improved. These four players did not comply with the directive.Watson said he had been going to tell the team management that he would need to miss the fourth Test to be with his wife, who is due at the end of the month, but had been informed of his axeing before he could do so. “I was about to communicate that to Mickey and the leadership group today but they obviously beat me to it by telling me I wasn’t selected for this Test match,” he said. “Also overnight, things have changed and Lee wasn’t going to tell me things had changed because she knew how much it meant to me to be able to play this Test match. It was due in a couple of weeks but it’s looking like things have sped up a little bit.”With four players unavailable, Australia’s squad is down to 13 players for the Mohali Test, and if wicketkeeper Matthew Wade’s ankle does not heal, they will have to pick a team from 12.

A half-century from Ricky Ponting and a hat-trick from Xavier Doherty helped the Hobart Hurricanes to a comfortable 30-run win over the Sydney Thunder

Alex Malcolm23-Dec-2012
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsRicky Ponting backed up his half-century with a wicket off the one over he bowled•Getty ImagesA half-century from Ricky Ponting and a hat-trick from spinner Xavier Doherty helped the Hobart Hurricanes to a comfortable 30-run win over the Sydney Thunder.It was so comfortably, in fact, that Ponting was afforded an over of offspin late in the run chase, and he even claimed the wicket of Scott Coyte, but it was his return to form with the bat that was both eye-catching and significant to his team’s cause.Ponting showed glimpses in his previous innings against the Renegades and again took his time settling after Hobart was sent in on a good Bellerive surface. Ponting and Tim Paine rolled along at only a run-a-ball through the first seven overs. There were crisp strokes mixed with a lot of dot balls, as Ponting lofted Coyte majestically over the cover fence in the fifth over and Paine smeared Azhar Mahmood into the midwicket stands in the next over. Between times they found the fielders more often than the gaps.But debutant Simon Keen’s introduction triggered Ponting to shift gears. He nearly cleared the cover rope for a second time before backing away a cracking a bullet-like square-drive backward of point for consecutive boundaries. Ponting then took to Mahmood with a well-struck straight drive for four, a neatly placed flick to the fine-leg rope, and a brutal front foot pull that was hit frightfully hard over the midwicket fence to bring up his fifty.Chris Gayle eventually knocked him over but applauded him for a wonderful hand. That sparked a mini-collapse for the Hurricanes. Paine, Travis Birt, and Aiden Blizzard all fell in quick succession to 20-year-old legspinner Adam Zampa who bowled impressively. But the experience of Owais Shah and George Bailey came to the fore, showing the depth of the Hurricanes line-up. They clubbed 54 from the last 26 balls of the innings to raise the total to 4 for 177.The Thunder’s chase started brightly on the back of the powerful pairing of Gayle and Mark Cosgrove. But when they fell in consecutive overs before the total reached 36, the Thunder’s lack of depth was severely exposed. The required rate rose significantly with each passing over as Chris Rogers and Mahmood struggled to find the boundary. Both men fell for ineffective scores of 24 and 23 respectively, before Doherty delivered the knockout blows in the 17th over. His hat-trick was born more of desperate batting than classic spin bowling. But he did beat both Keen and Ryan Carters in flight before trapping Cameron Borgas lbw sweeping, although the ball looked to be spinning well wide of off stump.Bailey had a sense theatre and gave Ponting an over to please a fervent home crowd. Coyte holed out to deep midwicket to wild cheers. They thought their home-grown hero had two when Paine, and the square-leg umpire, believed Zampa was stumped, but he was recalled when replays showed part of his backfoot was grounded behind the line.The Thunder remain winless after four matches, while the Hurricanes rise to fourth in the standings and keep themselves in the hunt for a semi-final berth.

Shane Jurgensen, the Australian who has been Bangladesh’s interim coach over the past few months, has been given the role full-time till the end of the year

Mohammad Isam09-Feb-2013BCB unhappy with six injured players

The Bangladesh selectors are concerned with the injury situation of six players including Shakib Al Hasan, but what has created more unease in the BCB is the apparent reluctance among these players to take part in rehabilitation.
During the cricket operations committee meeting on Saturday, the six players were identified and it was decided that the board will ask the franchises to rest Shakib, Mashrafe Mortaza, Mushfiqur Rahim, Ziaur Rahman, Tamim Iqbal and Mahmudullah if required. But the board’s concern is with many of these players refusing to take part in proper rehabilitation programs during the BPL.
“The physio has told us that many of these injured players have not taken part in rehabilitation programs,” Jalal Yunus, BCB media committee chairman, said. “If they had done so, the injuries wouldn’t have been as concerning as they are now.”
As for Shakib, the board is still confident that he will be available for tours to both Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, though he would be required to play all formats. “Shakib is not complaining of any pain and he is going to play today’s BPL match. For all these players, the board will inform the franchises if our injured players need rest,” Yunus said.

Shane Jurgensen, the 36-year-old Australian, will continue as Bangladesh’s head coach for the rest of the year. He was the side’s interim coach in their previous international series, against West Indies in which the home side won the ODI series 3-2.The decision was taken by the board’s cricket operations committee during a meeting on Saturday. His 11-month appointment will be formalised once the Bangladesh board approves it next week. Several other coaching appointments are likely over the next week.”Shane Jurgensen was the most suitable candidate among those who had applied for the position,” BCB’s media committee chairman Jalal Yunus said. “The cricket operations committee will recommend his appointment till December 31 this year.”Jurgensen first became part of the Bangladesh coaching set-up in October 2011, taking charge of the bowling, and took over as interim head coach after Richard Pybus quit last October. Bangladesh have been struggling to find a coach for the long term after Jamie Siddon’s four-year tenure ended soon after the 2011 World Cup. Stuart Law was in the job for less than a year, and Pybus lasted only four months.Jurgensen was New Zealand’s bowling coach between 2008 and 2010 and had also recently been a coach on New Zealand Cricket’s high performance programme. He has coached for nearly 15 years at a number of different levels since his first trip to the United Kingdom with Horsham Cricket Club at the age of 21.Stuart Karppinen, the trainer at BCB’s National Cricket Academy, will take over as the national team’s trainer during the tour to Sri Lanka next month. The positions of batting and fielding coach are still being negotiated, and the Bangladesh board are looking to name a local as the assistant coach.”Stuart Karpinnen will be our trainer for Sri Lanka, I won’t mention names but we have lined up candidates for two specialist positions,” Yunus said. “The batting coach is someone from the UK and the fielding coach will be Australian.”We will negotiate with them, and possibly try to bring them before the Sri Lanka series. If we don’t get the specialist positions from our list, we will take local coaches to Sri Lanka.”We wanted a local assistant coach, for which four former national players have shown interest. We will advertise for the position so that others can apply.”Saqlain Mushtaq is also set to return as spin bowling consultant though he wants to do the job for 100 days in a year.

Australia fast bowler James Pattinson has said he is making good progress in his recovery from a back injury that ruled him out midway through the tour of the West Indies last month

ESPNcricinfo staff21-May-2012James Pattinson, the Australia fast bowler, has said he is recovering well from a back injury that ruled him out midway through the tour of the West Indies last month. Pattinson will train at Australia’s Centre of Excellence in Brisbane from Tuesday, and he expects to bowl at 100% intensity by the end of next week.Pattinson hurt his back while fielding during the third day of the second Test in Trinidad. He was making a comeback after suffering a foot stress injury during the second Test against India at the SCG in January. He bowled 11 overs and took a wicket in the first innings, but didn’t bowl in the second. Though he isn’t back to full fitness, he was named in the squad for the ODIs against England and Ireland in June-July.”I’m bowling about three times a week now at about 80% intensity and building that up and hopefully (I’ll have) three weeks of going 100% in the nets before getting over to England,” Pattinson told .”I’m looking for a bit of match intensity, so hopefully I can get out there in the middle. It’ll mostly be white-ball practice with the one-dayers coming up.”The emergence of Pattinson and Pat Cummins has increased the pool of Australia’s fast bowlers and the competition for places in the squad. Australia’s coach, Mickey Arthur, hoped the Pattinson-Cummins combination would make their attack a force during the Ashes in 2013.With an Australia A tour of England later this year, Pattinson wants to get used to the conditions before the Ashes, if picked.”It’s an exciting time for Australian cricket at the moment with a lot of young guys coming through,” Pattinson said. “I don’t think we’ve played in these conditions before so it’ll be a great learning curve before the Ashes next year.”Hopefully it gives us a bit of an edge over the Poms and we can go over to the Ashes with one up over them.”

Tim Wright, former chief executive of the Deccan Chargers, is suing the franchise for breach of contract, according to a report in the

ESPNcricinfo staff16-Jul-2012Tim Wright, former chief executive of the Deccan Chargers, is suing the franchise for breach of contract, according to a report in the . The case, a £10 million dispute, will be heard at the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Monday.Wright, who was formerly with IMG and involved with the IPL, has reportedly claimed his dismissal by the franchise in January 2009 amounts to a breach of contract. He joined the Chargers management after the first season of the IPL but, as per the report, was asked to move back to London to work and then told it would be better if the two parties went their separate ways. According to Wright, he was entitled to the £10 million payment as the contract ended and the decision to sue his former franchise was taken as a means of receiving his due.The report, however, quoted the franchise as saying Wright was “avoiding India for fear of being questioned by immigration officials/local police”. Wright is known to have rejected the allegation as “without any foundation whatsoever”. Wright won the right for his case to be heard in the UK, though the Chargers tried to convince the courts that India had jurisdiction.

Victoria were set to face a tricky chase on the third day in Melbourne as their hopes of reaching the Sheffield Shield final hung in the balance at stumps on day two

ESPNcricinfo staff09-Mar-2012
ScorecardNic Maddinson made a useful half-century•Getty ImagesVictoria were set to face a tricky chase on the third day in Melbourne as their hopes of reaching the Sheffield Shield final hung in the balance at stumps on day two. At the close of play, New South Wales were 6 for 149 in their second innings and already led by 172 runs, with Peter Nevill at the crease on 24 and Steve O’Keefe on 4.The Blues had taken first-innings points after a surprisingly effective spell from the occasional slow-medium bowler Ben Rohrer, a batsman who before this match had not taken a first-class wicket. He picked up 4 for 13, including three wickets in an over, as the Victoria tail collapsed to hand the advantage to New South Wales, who cannot make the final.Rohrer had already picked up the wicket of Andrew McDonald for 23 when he snared his three in five balls to finish the innings and dismiss Victoria for 185. Cameron White had top scored for the Bushrangers with 39 and the debutant Chris Tremain picked up 3 for 61 for the Blues.In their second innings, New South Wales lost Phillip Hughes for a duck in the second over before Nic Maddinson (51) and Usman Khawaja (33) steadied the side. But Peter Siddle collected two wickets and helped Victoria make inroads into the New South Wales line-up and by the close of play Victoria held out some hope of a sub-200 chase, but in a low-scoring game even that didn’t promise to be an easy task.

Hampshire old and new will come together as two stands are named after two former famous former players later this season

ESPNcricinfo staff01-May-2012Two larger-than-life Hampshire characters will come together at the county’s ground later this season, to cap off the £48million redevelopment of West End. Former captains Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie and Shane Warne are to be honoured with stands named after them before England’s ODI against West Indies on June 16, the club has announced.Both were much loved and one is much missed – Ingleby-Mackenzie died of cancer in 2006, aged 72. He guided Hampshire to their first County Championship in 1961. Another first of his was allowing women to become members of the MCC – the vote taken during his term as Secretary from 1996-98.Ingleby-Mackenzie, asked what the secret to his success as Hampshire captain was, once said: “Wine, women and song.” Surely there are some training rules? “Yes, everyone must be in bed by breakfast.” That is a mantra quite possibly endorsed by Warne too.Their taste for a flamboyant lifestyle was matched by their aptitude for captaincy. Both men were lauded for their tenure, with the art of declaration becoming a particular specialism. Warne’s time in charge was a demonstration of the skills Australia chose not to employ.Warne led Hampshire to the 2005 C&G Trophy, guided them back to Division One of the County Championship in his first year in charge and engineered title challenges in the next three seasons. He left the club in 2007 and earlier this year the suite named after him was taken over by the ground’s new sponsors, Ageas. But now he has a far grander tribute.”Naming our new stands is a fantastic way for us to acknowledge two legends from Hampshire’s history,” Rod Bransgrove, Hampshire’s chairman, said. “One pre-dates the move to the new stadium while the other is symbolic of the first few seasons at West End.”We consulted our membership and fans to hear their suggestions as to whom they would like to see honoured and I think they have helped choose two very worthy individuals to be honoured by the club.”

Mushtaq Ahmed, England’s spin bowling coach, has played down the home advantage Pakistan will enjoy during the series against England in the UAE

Umar Farooq16-Dec-2011Mushtaq Ahmed, England’s spin bowling coach, has played down the home advantage Pakistan will enjoy during the series against England in the UAE, saying his team has grown used to playing on pitches that are slower than the ones at home. England and Pakistan will play three Tests, four ODIs and three Twenty20 internationals in Abu Dhabi and Dubai in January and February 2012.Pakistan have been hosting their home games in the UAE after the terror attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore in 2009 forced the suspension of international tours to the country. They have played two Test series there since then, drawing against South Africa and beating Sri Lanka. Mushtaq, however, said England would not struggle against Pakistan’s spinners on the pitches in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.”England batsmen have learned to play spin bowling. They can manage spin with good control,” Mushtaq told ESPNcricinfo. “We won a World Twenty20 in the West Indies where conditions are similar. At the end, it all depends on individual players, they have to understand and learn the things to survive. And they are very hard workers.”Pakistan no doubt has improved a lot and rankings sometime don’t reflect your standing. And England has been in top form over the last two to three years. So I expect it would be a good quality series.”Spinners have played a significant role in Pakistan’s performances in 2011 and they are likely to hit England with a strong attack: Saeed Ajmal, Abdur Rehman and Mohammad Hafeez in the Tests, as well as Shahid Afridi and Shoaib Malik in the limited-overs matches. England may play just one spinner, Graeme Swann, in the Tests, but Mushtaq didn’t think the mismatch in slow-bowling resources was a problem.”I understand the pitches in the UAE are slow and Pakistan will obviously use their home advantage. We have Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad and Chris Tremlett – all of them can bowl 90 mph. I don’t think wickets do matter these days when you have quick bowlers who can bowl with muscle.”Swann’s back-up on the UAE tour is left-arm spinner Monty Panesar, whose last Test was the Ashes opener in Cardiff in 2009. It remains to be seen whether England will alter the combination – three fast bowlers, one spinner – that helped them beat India 4-0 at home to accommodate a second slow bowler in the UAE.”He [Panesar] has been a match-winning bowler and is still a good prospect,” Mushtaq said. “His performance for Sussex brought him back to contention as he took 60 to 70 wickets in the domestic season, which is a lot for a spinner. He is the sort of left-arm spinner who bowls his orthodox delivery with force.”England open their tour with two warm-up games, the first of which begins on January 7, ahead of the Tests.