All posts by csb10.top

Michael Clarke
On his first hundred at home
That was special. I had a lot of family watching and I was getting sent text messages last night. And what an unbelievable day to see Glenn McGrath make his first Test fifty – that’s close to the best thing I’ve seen in cricket.On batting with Adam Gilchrist
There wasn’t much talk [about the hundred] till before the last ball. He asked me how I was feeling and I said, “I’ll tell you after this ball.” It turned out well.On the shot to bring up his hundred
Last ball before lunch all I was thinking about was getting through to lunch, but the ball just happened to be in the right spot. Luckily for me it came out of the middle of the bat.On comparing the innings to his debut hundred
They were very different, the conditions and circumstances. I can’t compare them, both are as special as each other. It’s always great to play in front of an Australian crowd.On coping with the pressure of high standards
Unfortunately in life some things don’t go to plan. At the moment for me in Test cricket they have gone to plan, but there are going to be down times and I know that and expect that. I want to continue to make the most of the good times.On his first Test in Australia
I was very nervous, but I’m nervous every time I play so I don’t find that difficult to accept. I try to listen to as much music as I can before I bat. I’ve got the ipod on so I listen to whatever’s on that.On his family being there to watch
My mum’s here with my aunt and my sister. Unfortunately dad had to work, but I’m pretty sure he watched it. I’m pretty sure I’ll talk to him tonight if he’s not too pissed – he’ll be doing some celebrating.On McGrath’s half-century
It’s so unbelievable, Glenn works so hard on his batting. He’s a fantastic bowler but he really deserves a Test fifty. Everybody but Justin Langer put their whites on when Glenn went out, we thought we’d be fielding in a few balls.On Australia batting tomorrow
I’m pretty sure they’ll definitely continue batting so Jason Gillespie can get his first Test fifty.

The game’s most famous walker will hold the same stance through the Ashes series as long as he’s convinced of the edge. Despite Mike Gatting’s plodding around England and similar earlier ventures from Ian Botham and Allan Border, Adam Gilchrist’s steps have created the most interest since he introduced the policy at the 2003 World Cup.Questions about Gilchrist’s walking are regular and they were raised again yesterday when he was reminded about skipping off against Bangladesh at Canterbury despite missing the ball. “Hopefully I won’t make that a habit,” he told . “I will declare boldly now that I don’t intend to walk off when I am not out.”Gilchrist said he would also take the word of an England fielder for a close catch rather than rely on a third umpire’s decision from replays. “It is an issue that may need to be worked through but I am big on taking the word,” he said. The captains’ policy for the series will be decided when Ricky Ponting and Michael Vaughan meet with Ranjan Madugalle on Wednesday.The good sportsmanship drive does not cover converting other players to his value system. “I am not on a crusade and won’t have a go at people in the opposition or my own team who leave it to the umpire,” Gilchrist said. “I thought there were situations occurring where we could take more ownership of the game. I had a think about it and decided I wanted to be true to myself and play the way I wanted to play.”When asked what he would do if Australia were two short of victory in the final Test with one wicket at hand he replied: “I wouldn’t nick it.”

Steve Harmison has ruled himself out of England’s controversial tour ofZimbabwe, which is to take place in November. The series consists of five one-dayers and no Tests.Harmison decided to boycott the trip for political and sporting reasons. A few months ago, Stuart MacGill publicly stated his intention to not visit Zimbabwe for the same reasons.”In all honesty,” said Harmison to the , “my decision was made in Cape Town over 18 months ago when England’s World Cup squad spent a horrendous four days before finally deciding not to go to Harare.”Nothing has changed for me. The situation there is worse now – that’s whatthe official reports say – and Zimbabwe’s top players have been sacked.”A spokesman for the England & Wales Cricket Board said that Harmison was the only player to have expressed a desire to stay at home, but added that no disciplinary action would be taken.”Stephen Harmison informed Duncan Fletcher and Michael Vaughan following the ICC Champions Trophy match against Sri Lanka that he did not want to be considered for selection for the forthcoming tour of Zimbabwe.”As the ECB has concluded that the tour must go ahead subject to it being safe and secure to do so, we have asked all the current England players and management to make themselves available. Stephen Harmison is the only player to have informed the board that he will be unavailable for the tour.”The ECB has previously stated that any player who makes himself unavailable to tour Zimbabwe for reasons of personal conscience will not be penalised and this remains our position.”

Sri Lanka 628 for 8 dec beat England 265 and 148 (Muralitharan 4-60) by an innings and 215 runs
Scorecard
Match photo gallery

Sri Lanka swept to a colossal victory against England in the final Test in Colombo. They romped home by an innings and 215 runs, and thus took the series 1-0. After setting England the small matter of scoring 363 runs just to avoid an innings defeat, the Sri Lankan attack blew away the batsmen for a meagre 148, in 68 overs.It was a deserved victory for Sri Lanka, who won their first series against England. They have been the dominant team throughout this match and the previous two, and Hashan Tillakaratne’s belated first triumph as captain could hardly have been more emphatic. Meanwhile, a demoralised England were left to contemplate their poor first-innings display and some shoddy fielding – they never looked like performing yet another Great Escape this time.It was that man Muttiah Muralitharan who again led the way with four wickets, including his 100th in Tests at the Sinhalese Sports Club. But the rest of the bowlers contributed as well. Dilhara Fernando claimed three scalps with an impressive display of swing bowling, while the wily Sanath Jayasuriya chipped in with two.Indeed, it was the seamers, Fernando and Chaminda Vaas, who made the early impact to start England’s collapse. Marcus Trescothick, who has rarely been at his best in this series, flashed loosely at the final ball of Vaas’s first over, and steered a simple catch to the substitute fielder, Michael Vandort, in the gully (0 for 1). And just to make things worse for Trescothick, it appeared to be an uncalled no-ball. When Michael Vaughan was then suckered by a Fernando slower ball and popped a drive up to Jayasuriya in the covers for 14, England’s realistic hopes of battling for a draw departed with him.It was just a matter of time until Murali struck, and he became the first player to take 100 Test wickets on a single ground with the scalp of his old mate Nasser Hussain. After serving up a succession of offbreaks, Murali turned one the other way, and Hussain got the faintest of edges through to Kumar Sangakkara (49 for 3).Mark Butcher and Graham Thorpe battled on carefully, and looked to score when they could. Thorpe latched on to anything short, pulling Vaas and Upul Chandana to the boundary, while Butcher flicked Chandana past midwicket and played one peachy cover-drive off Murali.They were just beginning to steady the ship, but it wasn’t long before Murali blew the SS England way off course again with two wickets in as many balls. Thorpe came down the track, was completely bamboozled in the flight, and was stumped by yards (82 for 4). Gareth Batty then came in ahead of Andrew Flintoff, who could not bat until the fall of the fifth wicket because of the time he spent off the field yesterday. Batty completed a forgettable match by bowing out of the tour with a golden duck. In a dismissal similar to Butcher’s second stumping at Kandy, Batty prodded forward to Murali and Sangakkara whipped off the bails with the toe on the line, but not behind it (82 for 5).The ship was now sinking fast, and Jayasuriya ripped away England’s last anchor with the big wicket of Butcher. Bowling over the wicket, Jayasuriya ripped a big-turning ball through Butcher’s flat-footed defence and hit middle stump (84 for 6). Chris Read was the next to go, palpably lbw to Jayasuriya’s quicker ball.

Flintoff and Ashley Giles added a stubborn 40 either side of tea before Giles was sent packing by a beauty of an inswinging yorker from Fernando (124 for 8). Flintoff mixed defence with a few beefy blows in his 30. Finally, attempting to guide Fernando over the slips, Flintoff misdirected the ball high to Sangakkara’s right (137 for 9). Fittingly, it was Murali who wrapped things up with his 26th victim of the series when he bowled James Kirtley all ends up to start the celebrations – and the England inquest.The only thing that didn’t go to plan for Sri Lanka was that Chandana and Tillakaratne Dilshan failed to reach their centuries before the declaration at 628 for 8 in the morning. Giles did for Dilshan with a sharply turning leg-stump delivery, and followed that up with a sprightly piece of fielding off his own bowling, as he deftly deflected a straight-drive from Chandana into the stumps at the non-striker’s end, to run out Vaas for 9. Chandana, who had thwacked Kirtley for a big six over midwicket, then carved to a leaping Vaughan at short cover for 76.But, for the umpteenth time in this series, Murali was in the mood for a slog. Giles’s figures took another turn for the worse as 20 runs came from his 65th and final over of the innings, including two vast sixes. It was the most entertaining mini-session of the innings – but it was all immaterial in the light of England’s later collapse.

While the British media could hardly contain their praise of Monty Panesar in the aftermath of the Old Trafford Test, it fell to Duncan Fletcher, England’s coach, to pour cold water on the celebrations.”Monty bowled very well, no doubt about it,” Fletcher told reporters. “The wicket really suited the spinner and quite often you get on a wicket like that and try too hard. He bowled a good line and length and spun the ball on occasions a great deal.”But he then made it clear that Ashley Giles, who has not bowled a ball in anger all summer, was not out of the Ashes reckoning. “Let’s have a look at Monty when he bowls on other wickets and let’s make a decision when Gilo is ready,” Fletcher said. “It was a good wicket for Monty to bowl on and he bowled damned well.”But what wickets are we going to play on? Would we need Monty on a green top? We have to look at the balance of the side and it’s very important that we look at Monty on wickets that don’t help him as much as it did today.””I think Monty is a very good bowler, but we have to produce 11 players who can produce two of the departments efficiently, whoever is playing for England,” said Fletcher. “I still have slight reservations about his batting and his fielding, but he’s an outstanding bowler and doing a job for us because there’s no-one else at the moment who can fulfill that role. He needs to work hard at it because if you work hard at your fielding you can really improve that a great deal. It’s not easy to turn you into a No.6 batter, but I just think you need to work at those two areas.” Giles, capable of taking some sharp catches in the gully, had developed into a handy lower-order batsman with an average just over 20.Fletcher’s remarks were in direct contrast to those of Bob Woolmer, the Pakistan coach and a former England allrounder. “I thought Panesar’s performance was terrific,” he enthused on Saturday. “He has loop, in-dip, spins the ball, beats people on both sides of the bat without actually having the doosra.”He is a very fine prospect. If he bowls like this, he could do well in Australia, too, because the wickets are more bouncy there. He’s the proper article, the bee’s knees.”Woolmer also dismissed claims that Panesar was something of a figure of fun. “The crowd might think he’s a bit of a joke but we don’t think of him like that. What the crowd should do is take him seriously because he’s right up there with the classic English spinners. People laughed at his fielding but that looks like it has improved.”Meanwhile Giles, speaking on BBC Radio’s Sportsweek programme, admitted he had a fight on his hands. “Monty is the man in possession and I have to get my place back – that’s the danger if you do get injured. My recovery is going OK, it is just frustrating. I cannot bowl and cannot run but the rehab is going well. It is going to be another four or five weeks until we reach that point.” Giles also paid a generous tribute to Panesar, saying: “Monty is a brilliant technician and works extremely hard. He is able to land the ball in good areas and put batsmen under pressure.”

After an action-packed week of Test cricket, Brian Lara and Rahul Dravid rose to the top of the PwC Ratings due to their double-hundreds, while Ricky Ponting dropped a notch after scoring 242 in a losing cause. Matthew Hayden fell off his perch at the top after an indifferent showing in the Adelaide Test. Jacques Kallis(+8), Michael Vaughan(+7), and VVS Laxman(+5) were the biggest gainers after their significant hundreds assisted the team’s cause.Sachin Tendulkar drops out of the top ten for the first time since 1993, following a poor run of form since the Test series in New Zealand in 2002-03. But his fall coincides with the stunning form of batsmen around the world. Adam Gilchrist, Graham Smith, Herschelle Gibbs, Lara, Dravid, Hayden, Ponting, and Vaughan have all been prolific on the international circuit.

Muttiah Muralitharan and Shaun Pollock continue to occupy the top spots after good showings against England and West Indies. Makhaya Ntini returns to the top ten list after a nine-wicket haul against West Indies, while Ajit Agarkar rises 16 places to 41, and achieves his PwC high of 389 points after a splendid bowling performance in the Adelaide Test.Stuart MacGill’s drop from the list can be attributed equally to poor bowling and good batting by India. Unable to take advantage of a fifth-day track that turned viciously, MacGill was taken apart by the batsmen on their way to a famous victory. It was the kind of batting that provoked MacGill to say, “It’s not as if they know what I am bowling, it’s almost as if they don’t really seem to care what I am bowling.”

For the full rankings, click here.

Glamorgan have announced an unchanged team for their secondTwenty20 match against the Somerset Sabres at Sophia Gardens,Cardiff on 18th June, starting at 5.30pm:

RDB Croft *IJ ThomasMJ PowellMP MaynardDL HempA DaleMA Wallace +MS KasprowiczSD ThomasDS HarrisonDA Cosker

There will be live ball-by-ball commentary of the game available via the BBC RadioWales website. To listen in click on the link at the top of theGlamorgan homepage.

Alan Mullally with a strained hamstring, Wasim Akram with an injured toe and Ed Giddins rested are all absent for Hampshire’s next Frizzell Championship match against Northamptonshire starting on Wednesday (2nd July – 11.00am).Mullally pulled up in the recent match against Gloucestershire, Wasim was hit on the toe whilst batting against Ian Harvey.Two young bowlers James Bruce and James Tomlinson come in as replacements. Also added to the squad is John Francis, like Tomlinson recently returned from University duties. Bruce made his Championship debut against Somerset in May.Hampshire: Derek Kenway, John Crawley (captain), Simon Katich, Robin Smith, Will Kendall, John Francis, Nic Pothas (wicket-keeper), Dimitri Mascarenhas, Shaun Udal, James Bruce and James Tomlinson.

Close Mumbai 272 for 9 (Tendulkar 94, Bahutule 58; Zaheer 5-74)
Scorecard

A resolute 149-run partnership between Sachin Tendulkar and Sairaj Bahutule rescued Mumbai on the first day of the Irani Trophy. Asked to bat on an uncharacteristic Chennai greentop, Mumbai were tottering at 98 for 5 when Tendulkar and Bahutule came together. On a pitch with plenty of grass on it and uneven bounce, the two batsmen rebuilt the innings over the course of the entire second session and most of the third, before both batsmen were out towards the close of play. A mini-collapse at the end reduced Mumbai to 272 for 9, as Zaheer Khan finished with a superb 5 for 74.Mumbai had actually begun the day well, dominating the first hour of play, as Zaheer and L Balaji both struggled with their line and length. Zaheer, who had seemed rusty during the recent Challenger Series, struggled to settle into a rhythm, and Balaji alternated between being too wide and too full. Mane and Jaffer were content to let the wide ones go, while punishing anything overpitched.Mane was in particularly good touch, driving handsomely and hitting Balaji and Zaheer for two fours each in consecutive overs, before settling down to build his innings. He played the ball late and close to his body, and his compact technique was matched by the intent to punish any loose balls which came his way.Just when Mumbai were coasting, Bangar seized the momentum back. Bowling first-change, he bowled a superb spell, bowling wicket-to-wicket with great accuracy and getting a fair amount of movement and bounce off the pitch. He surprised Mane (26) with a good-length ball which reared up more than Mane expected, and flew to Anil Kumble at gully (42 for 1).Sourav Ganguly bowled an accurate spell of four overs for seven runs, but it was the reintroduction of Zaheer and Balaji into the attack that put Rest of India on top. Zaheer tempted Nishith Shetty (5) into driving a wide ball, which Shetty miscued straight to Virender Sehwag at cover (59 for 2). Jaffer’s patient stay at the wicket, marked by uncertain timing but solid defence, finally came to an end when he shouldered arms to an incoming ball from Balaji, which pitched on a good length, snaked in and hit the top of off stump, just as the textbooks would have it (91 for 3). Jaffer made 43.Zaheer, redeeming himself for his first spell with some fiery bowling, then picked up two wickets in quick succession. Vinod Kambli (2), making a much hyped comeback, was caught on his crease by an incoming ball and rightly adjudged lbw (98 for 4). Ajit Agarkar walked in and edged a ball angled across him to Parthiv Patel (98 for 5).Tendulkar and Bahutule applied themselves superbly after lunch, though Bahutule was lucky to get away with a couple of lbw appeals off Ganguly. In both cases the ball pitched on line and straightened. In the first case, where the ball had kept low, Bahutule was plumb; the second decision was less controversial only by the standards of the first. A couple of Bahutule’s fours were uppishly hit, but apart from that he was impeccably solid, a perfect foil to a patient Tendulkar.Kumble and Harbhajan Singh were brought on in the hour before tea, and bowled testing spells. Both of them were unafraid to give the ball a tweak, and the battle between Harbhajan and Tendulkar, in particular, was riveting. Tendulkar, after cover-driving him for four early on in his spell, swung Harbhajan thrice to the midwicket boundary, once from outside off. He continued attacking Harbhajan after tea, and Bahutule also played him with positive intent.The second new ball, and a change in approach from Tendulkar, brought about the end of the partnership. Tendulkar, perhaps in a hurry to get to his century, unleashed two gorgeous pulls to the boundary off Zaheer. But in the same over he flashed at a snorter outside off stump and Rahul Dravid, keeping wicket in place of the indisposed Parthiv Patel, caught the resultant edge easily (247 for 6). Tendulkar’s 94 had come off 197 balls, and showed a grim determination to play a big innings instead of the instinct to dominate that so many of his fans have come to expect from him.It was time for a legspinner to take the new ball, and Kumble came back into the attack and picked up two quick wickets. First, he deceived Bahutule (58 off 183) with his flight and got him to miscue a ball on leg stump to VVS Laxman at short midwicket (260 for 7). Then he speared in a yorker that bowled Ramesh Powar, Mumbai’s lower-order hero for much of the last Ranji Trophy season, for zero (260 for 8). Vinayak Samant was then trapped lbw by Zaheer who had, after his disappointing first spell, redeemed himself magnificently with a five-for. Would any of Mumbai’s bowlers be able to match him on day 2?

MELBOURNE, Feb 26 AAP – Shane Warne’s statement announcing his decision not to appeal his suspension and responding to criticism of his evidence by the ACB doping committee.”After much advice from a lot of different and various people I have decided not to appeal the 12 month suspension.”Although I find this penalty very harsh and I am extremely disappointed that this has happened, I have decided that I no longer want to put my family under even more stress. Enough is enough.”This has been the toughest two weeks of my life and I have decided that it is best for all concerned to try and move on the best way we can.”I have made a simple and innocent error of judgement. I take full responsibility for my own actions and yes, I should have checked with someone, I should have known better.”Not appealing is a very, very tough decision for me to make because I have been a professional cricketer for the best part of 15 years and would love to be back playing as quick as possible. But in the end to go through this again every single day for possibly the next three weeks or so is just too much.”I have decided to accept the decision of the committee on the chin and try to move on and deal with it the best way I can.”I want to repeat again that I have never taken performance enhancing drugs and never will.”It was proved by expert evidence in the hearing that fluid tablets do not enhance performance. They would not have aided recovery from the type of shoulder injury I had and would not mask any other substances.”I am also disappointed that the committee has said that my evidence was vague and unsatisfactory. Both my mother and I gave honest accounts under oath to the best of our recollections. The fact that this has been brought into question is unfair.”As I said I have been playing professional cricket for the best part of 15 years and will now be looking at other work opportunities over the next 12 months.”Looking to the future I can say that I am definitely going to give it my best shot to get back to the top and will continue to train hard, work on my bowling and experiment with new deliveries.”One positive out of this situation is that I hope no other athlete makes the same innocent mistake as me.”I will try to get through the next 12 months the best way I can and try to move forward at this very difficult and tough time. The people who know my know what I am about and that I am strong enough to get through this. The support of my family, friends, team-mates and sponsors has meant a lot to me and I would like to express my gratitude and thanks.”