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Vusi Sibanda has urged Cricket Australia to honour its commitment to Zimbabwe in fulfilling its scheduled three-match ODI tour in September. Sibanda, the Zimbabwe opening batsman, said Zimbabwe can ill-afford Australia to withdraw from their tour even though they appreciate the sensitive political situation CA is confronting.Sibanda, who is based in Sydney, asked Australia’s players to tour in order to assist the development of the game in his homeland. Sibanda told the newspaper: “The players obviously have no control, so it would be pretty sad if the Australians didn’t come, I certainly hope that they do play. We need to challenge ourselves against the best in the world if we are to improve, and the Australians are the best there is.”Following the exodus of Heath Streak, Tatenda Taibu, Andy Blignaut and the Flower brothers in recent years, Sibanda, although only 23, is seen as one of Zimbabwe’s senior players.Australia’s foreign minister Alexander Downer is scheduled to meet senior CA officials on Thursday to discuss whether the country has a moral obligation to tour. Earlier this week, he said: “Normally, I’m not a great fan of bringing politics into sport, But in this particular case I think it is appropriate we should take a very (tough) stand against Mugabe’s regime and do our best to stop the cricketers.”The Australian government and board officials will meet John Howard, the prime minister, on Thursday to discuss the tour. Howard is a strong critic of the regime of Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe and he has said in recent times that his government is prepared to pay fines which are likely to be imposed by the ICC should Australia decide not to go ahead with the tour.There remains confusion over Sibanda’s future. After going on record as saying he would not play for Zimbabwe again, he has recently contradicted this. There is, however, speculation this may be connected with the fact he has not paid his World Cup money yet by the Zimbabwe board.

Worcestershire have signed a deal which will allow county cricket to be transferred to Kidderminster Victoria CC at 48 hours notice in the event of a repeat of last summer’s floods at New Road.The county will invest a total of £50,000 into the Chester Road ground over a five-year period which will initially be invested in improving facilities for players and umpires.”Our relationship with Kidderminster goes back many years and last summer they really helped us out when we needed it most,” Mark Newton, Worcestershire’s CEO, explained. “By the end of the summer it became clear that we needed to develop a robust contingency plan to deal with any repeat in future years and a key part of this plan is to secure an alternative venue at short notice in an emergency.”This agreement is initially for five years and will mean we can transfer 1st XI cricket at 48 hours notice if necessary.”

Gloucestershire have announced that Ian Harvey has signed a contract to keep him at the county until the end of the summer.”It’s fantastic news to be back in the side for the rest of the season and it’s great to be offered the opportunity to stay on,” Harvey said. “I see this as a massive bonus for myself and my family, it is really good news, great for myself and great for the team. Hopefully we can continue our successful start to the season and get some more trophies in the cabinet.””Ian has made a terrific contribution both on and off the field for the first part of the season,” commented Tom Richardson, the county’s chief executive. “It’s really good to have him back in the team and we look forward to continuing the results of the season so far. Our supporters have been really pleased to see Ian back at the club and I am sure he will continue to add a lot of value to the side.”

The Leicestershire seamer Stuart Broad has been called up to the England squad for the CB Series finals. Jon Lewis and Chris Tremlett are returning to the UK with injuries and Broad will be available for the first final, at Melbourne, on Friday.He has been at the MRF pace academy in Chennai, where the England A pace bowlers are preparing for their tour of Bangladesh. Broad made his ODI debut against Pakistan in August and played all five matches in the drawn series.Despite limited success, collecting five wickets, he impressed many judges but was overlooked for the Champions Trophy squad and Ashes tour. Instead he joined the Academy squad during their stint in Perth as they provided back-up for the main party.England’s injury concerns surround Lewis’s Achilles, which forced him to miss the last four qualifying matches, and Tremlett who has developed a back problem. They join Kevin Pietersen (broken rib) and James Anderson (back) who have previously flown home from the CB Series.”Chris Tremlett has a back injury and he would be in some pain if he took part in any of the finals,” Duncan Fletcher explained. “Jon Lewis is one of those injuries that we are not prepared to risk so he is going to go back to the UK.”It is difficult to say exactly what his injury is. It is around the Achilles area, but they will have a good look at it.”Other replacements England have called on have been Ravi Bopara, the Essex allrounder, and Mal Loye the Lancashire opening batsman. The final World Cup squad has to be named by February 13.

Shoaib Akhtar once again attracted controversy when he was fined by the organisers of the Twenty20 Cup for refusing to wear a sponsors’ logo during the event.A Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) official said on Tuesday that Shoaib was fined Rs10,000 after he flatly refused to wear the logo of Mobilink, which sponsored all the participating teams of the Twenty20 Cup held in Karachi from December 21 to 26.Shoaib, still in danger of being banned for doping, was told by match referee Anwar Khan to wear the cellular company’s logo when he featured in the Twenty20 Cup for the Rawalpindi Rams. He was told that all players have to wear the logo since the PCB has an agreement with the company. However, Shoaib refused, saying that he had no contract with the PCB and was not being paid by the board or the sponsors to do it.Shoaib hid the logo on his T-shirt with a sticker and played two matches for the Rams who were bundled out of the competition at the first hurdle.The PCB official said that after giving Shoaib repeated warnings, the event’s officials decided to fine him.Shoaib was not present to hear about the fine as was among 25 players invited by the PCB for a conditioning camp that got underway at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore on Tuesday in preparation for next month’s tour of South Africa.

Paul Weekes, Middlesex’s allrounder, is to retire at the end of their match against Kent at Canterbury. In May this year, he made it clear of his intention to move – making himself available for a possible loan – but no counties were forthcoming.”Paul has been an exceptional cricketer for the club,” Middlesex’s chief executive, Vinny Codrington, told BBC Sport. “His consistently excellent performances over the past two decades have made him a firm favourite of all those who love Middlesex cricket.”Weekes made his debut against the touring New Zealanders in 1990, has scored 11,000 first-class runs and taken 300 wickets. A mainstay of Middlesex’s lineup throughout the 1990s, his crab-like stance at the crease belies a left-hander who, while not the most elegant, scored quickly and enterprisingly. In 1996, against Somerset at Uxbridge, he became one of a select band of Middlesex players to have scored hundreds in both innings of a match (171* and 160). And, against Yorkshire last month, he struck his 20th first-class century.Playing in a strong Middlesex team during the 1990s – among the likes of Angus Fraser, Phil Tufnell, John Emburey and Mike Gatting – he couldn’t quite make the step-up to international honours, in spite touring India with England A in the mid-1990s. He also took two fine catches at short-leg, as substitute for England against the West Indies at Lord’s in 1995.

Tasmania’s Cricket Australia board director Tony Harrison has lashed out at what he perceives to be a campaign to shift future Test matches typically earmarked for Hobart instead to Canberra, ahead of what is expected to be a small turnout at Bellerive Oval for Australia’s meeting against a West Indies side currently sitting eighth on the ICC Test rankings table.Bellerive has been extensively redeveloped since the most recent Test match held at the ground, against Sri Lanka in December 2012, with the new Ricky Ponting Stand dominating the southern side of the oval. However slim ticket pre-sales and the questionable drawing power of a struggling Caribbean outfit has left many wondering whether Hobart will be able to prove itself as a venue before CA schedules one of next summer’s six Tests at Manuka Oval instead.Harrison recently stepped down from his role as Tasmanian Cricket chairman in order to remain on the CA board as one of nine independent directors. However his loyalty to his state shone through in comments directed at the ACT, who Harrison felt were not working according to the “one team” philosophy adopted as a way of helping the game’s custodians work in a more unified manner.”I have read comments like, ‘we deserve the Test, Hobart doesn’t’ kind of thing. I don’t think that’s helpful,” Harrison told . “We are going through a process in Australian cricket at the moment called ‘one team’, which is the states and Cricket Australia all acting as one, and what has disturbed me most out of Canberra is that it is hardly ‘one team’ behaviour.”[CA] spent a lot of money and effort getting this one team thing going, and here instantly we have an issue… I think that is disappointing. I am frustrated that this debate is on and Tasmania hasn’t been given an opportunity to demonstrate that [the new grandstand] was a worthwhile investment and people will come and support it.”Canberra’s status as the country’s capital with the highest average weekly income in Australia contrasts with that of Hobart as the lowest, and Harrison said money had also been a factor in the ACT bidding successfully for other fixtures, such as last year’s ODI against South Africa in November. Harrison said there were elements of CA who operated with money in mind more so than cricket.”The workers of Tasmania are competing with the fat-cat bureaucrats in Canberra who have the highest disposable income in Australia,” Harrison said.”I do know that [the ACT] have made financial contribution to playing one-day international cricket there. So I suspect that may be the case [for a Test Match], but it hasn’t been confirmed to me. There are certainly people in Cricket Australia management who don’t necessarily look at it from a cricket perspective. They look at it from the dollars and cents perspective. But that’s why we have a board of directors.”Other factors are conspiring against Hobart, Harrison said, such as the lack of a Test match culture based on matches not being scheduled in the state on an annual basis, while the modest state of the West Indies side – something pointed out by plenty of commentators and former players – also serves to discourage spectators.”In the other capitals, they know there is a Test match every year whereas there hasn’t been one in Hobart for three years. So there isn’t the culture, people aren’t used to it,” Harrison said.”The thing that has distressed me most is the talking down of the West Indies, which sends a very poor message to the Tasmanian public. I’ve been very disappointed by the comments of former cricketers who have made a lot of money out of cricket.”

Sri Lanka Board President’s XI 298 for 9 dec and 77 for 8 (Hoggard 5-25) lead England XI 134 (Bopara 47) by 241 runs
Live scorecard

Matthew Hoggard demonstrated his imperturbability in the face of a bowling crisis, while Ravi Bopara rose to the occasion with both bat and – less expectedly – the new ball, as England’s cricketers turned their fortunes upside down on a frenetic second day at the Nondescripts Cricket Club in Colombo.At the tea break, England were bracing themselves for embarrassment. Their batting had imploded for 134, less than half the 298 for 9 on which their opponents had declared overnight, and to make matters worse, they had been reduced to a solitary fit fast bowler in Hoggard. With Steve Harmison already receiving treatment for a back spasm, James Anderson reported soreness in his left ankle while warming up in the innings break and took no further part in the day.And so Hoggard did what he has done so often in the course of his 64-Test career, and hoisted the entire burden of the attack onto his own perpetually stooped shoulders. First, he inflicted Upul Tharanga’s first failure in three innings by bowling him for 5, then he bagged three further wickets in four balls – Tillakaratne Dilshan edged low to Owais Shah at slip, Jehan Mubarak was trapped lbw for a second-ball duck, and Chamara Kapugedera fended his first delivery to Paul Collingwood in the gully.In between whiles, Bopara, maintaining a brisk line and length, picked up a bonus wicket as Malinda Warnapura played across the line to a straight one. Hoggard then wrapped up a fine spell by removing the attritional young keeper, Kaushal Silva, with a thin nick to the keeper, and finished with the superb figures of 9-3-25-5.Only the opener, Mahela Udawatte, showed any measure of control. He had negotiated his way to 45 from 83 deliveries before Bopara, who had earlier completed the run-out of de Silva, found the thinnest of edges through to Matt Prior. He was the eighth man out, and with Lokuarachchi in hospital, England needed just one more breakthrough to wrap up the innings, but Welegedera and Amerasinghe made it through to the close.It was entertaining cricket, but it wasn’t quite what England had had in mind when Michael Vaughan and Alastair Cook had walked out to open their innings at the start of play. This was meant to be a day in which the top-order gained valuable time in the middle ahead of next week’s first Test at Kandy. Instead Vaughan fell for a duck, losing his off stump to a beauty from the left-armer Sujeewa de Silva, to set the tone for a day of batting collapses.Ian Bell was the next to go, after a chaotic 16-ball innings in which he was dropped at slip on 1 and caught at square leg on 3 off a no-ball. de Silva made it third time lucky when he grazed the inside edge of a loose defensive stroke, before his fellow left-armer, Chanaka Welagedera, inflicted another failure on the out-of-form Kevin Pietersen. He was pinned lbw for 1.Cook looked in fluent form for his 35, until he missed a sweep at Kaushal Lokuarachchi and was given out lbw, but Owais Shah at No. 5 looked anything but. With Bopara enhancing his claims for a Test spot with every passing minute, Shah required 34 balls and more than an hour at the crease before he recorded his first run, and was eventually bowled through the gate for 26 as he drove without conviction at Ishara Amerasinghe.The pair had at least added an important 54 for the fifth wicket, but Bopara was the one to make his opportunity count. He survived one life on 17 when Lokuarachchi dropped a tough caught-and-bowled chance – so tough, in fact, that he was forced to leave the field with a broken finger. He picked off four fours in the course of his innings, including a pair of pulls off de Silva, and a half-century was there for the taking until he drove uppishly to short cover with only the tail for company.England’s tail, once again, did not cover itself in glory. Prior managed 10 from 27 balls before edging Kapugedera to first slip, while the remainder didn’t manage a single run between them. Hoggard and Anderson were both bowled for ducks, and Harmison didn’t come out to bat. The last four wickets fell for 11 runs in 20 balls and Muttiah Muralitharan will be licking his lips.

ScorecardThings didn’t get any better for Railways as Himachal Pradesh, led by their captain Sandeep Sharma, piled on the runs and the frustration against a team fighting to gain a promotion to the Super League. Sharma batted for the better part of two days for his 161 before Sanjay Bangar finally ended his marathon knock, which came off 521 balls. Mukesh Sharma chipped in with an unbeaten 44 as Himachal extended their lead to 117 with three wickets in hand. With only two days to go, it would take a minor miracle for Railways to fight back in this one.
ScorecardPritam Das, in his first-class debut did Assam proud as his five-wicket haul helped his side gain an invaluable two run lead in the semi-final against Orissa at Cuttack. Orissa were in danger of folding up for under 200 but the last-wicket pair of Sourabha Sehgal and Sukanta Khatua resisted. Das finally brought an end to the innings after trapping Khatua for 14. Assam in their second innings were jolted first by Debasis Mohanty who picked up three early wickets and later by Sehgal, who took two late wickets in his six overs, during which he conceded just one run. With Assam ahead by just 102, both teams head to the final day evenly matched.

The fate of Ranbir Singh Mahendra, the president-elect of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, hung in the balance after a division bench of the Indian Supreme Court said that they would examine the propriety of the outgoing president holding two votes. Mahendra, yet to assume office pending litigation, was elected by the virtue of a casting vote in his favour from Jagmohan Dalmiya, who presided over the board elections held on September 29 this year.The bench, comprising justices N Santosh Hegde and SB Sinha, reserved its verdict on an appeal by the BCCI challenging a order from the Madras High Court on the conduct of the election, but observed that they would examine the rules of the board that allowed the outgoing president two votes. Mahendra was tied 15-15 with Sharad Pawar, a cabinet minister in the Indian government, with Dalmiya having already voted three times in his favour, in his various capacities as the BCCI president, president of the Cricket Association of Bengal and president of the National Cricket Club of India. Then, as laid out in the BCCI constitution, he exercised his casting vote to seal the matter in Mahendra’s favour.However, Dalmiya, who had been nominated as the first patron-in-chief of the BCCI, a decision which has also been challenged in the court, has continued to function as the BCCI president, since the board was unable to complete its annual general meeting.The counsels for the Netaji Cricket Club and Maharashtra Cricket Association argued that the court should order a fresh election under the supervision of a court-appointed authority considering the “unsavoury” manner in which the election had been conducted.