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Sussex begin the defence of their Championship crown against Hampshire at The Rose Bowl on Wednesday aiming to become the first county since Yorkshire in 1968 to claim a hat-trick of titles. It was been a fraught few months at Hove as they sweated over the availability of Mushtaq Ahmed, but their match-winner arrived safely in the country this week as Sussex were taking on MCC at Lord’s.He whirled away in the nets, clearing his throat with some hearty appeals as much as loosening his limbs for the campaign ahead. He has taken an incredible 459 wickets in five years with Sussex – including 192 in the last two successful seasons – and while anyone on the south coast baulks at the suggestion they are a one-man man it is undeniable the role Mushtaq has played.However, Sussex have nothing to feel guilty about even if Mushtaq does provide such a significant advantage. They were clever enough to lure him to Hove in 2003 when his career was threatening to end quietly, and his enthusiasm and spirit runs throughout the squad, which, if anything, looks stronger this season even with the loss of Rana Naved and Richard Montgomerie.The availability of Matt Prior, who is set to bat at No. 6, adds Test-match class to a healthy middle order while Chris Nash and Carl Hopkinson are more than capable of filling Montgomerie’s boots. The bowling depth is there, too. Their new Australian signing, Ryan Harris, caught the attention with four wickets on debut at Lord’s, where Luke Wright also bowled with impressive pace. And on top of all that, there’s James Kirtley waiting in the wings.”It’s been a fantastic time for Sussex in the last four or five years,” said their captain, Chris Adams. “We’ve played really competitive cricket and the nucleus of the squad is very much there. But we also have young players coming through and players coming back from international call-ups. We look a strong squad on paper, but what I can say from behind those closed doors is that we are also strong as a unit. It’s great to have Mushy back and Murray Goodwin, they are two quality players who will only add to what we’ve got.”Goodwin also played a major role in Sussex’s first Championship in 2003, finishing the season with a career-best 335 against Leicestershire to seal the title. Adams believes the side has continued to evolve since then and keeps getting stronger. “Less and less are we relying on one-dimensional players – bowlers who don’t bat – the way our side is now structured includes a lot of players who bowl and bat to a high standard. That’s what the vision has always been, and if that includes players who have come through our system then we are getting to where we wanted to be. Good home grown talent who could play for England.”Crucially, though, the impact of international calls in the near future will be limited. Wright will be part of the one-day squad, but with Prior out of favour and the only other absentee could be Michael Yardy if he pushed his claims in the one-day arena which appears unlikely.However, being the holders and, in many people’s eyes, the favourites Sussex are there to be knocked off. “It’s going to be another tight year. I don’t think one, two or three sides are going to run away with it. It will be another year of everyone beating everyone, I really think the level has got much closer,” said Adams.”Surrey have impressed me with their end-of-season form last year, Lancashire are always strong, Hampshire and Kent as well. Somerset are making a lot of noise, telling us how good they are, so I’m keen to see how good they actually are. They are making a few declarations.”

Adams doesn’t want to look too far ahead with Sussex playing four key Championship matches in the first four weeks. “For me it’s about the next month. If you’re not on the money and properly prepared now you can find yourself with a lot to do. I know Surrey found that last year and were left to rue the start they had.”Two days after the Championship starts the Indian Premier League bursts into life. There is much conjecture about how the future of domestic cricket will look – and there will undoubtedly be change – but Adams believes the current set-up is strong and performing its role of preparing players for the top level.”I think we have a powerful product in domestic cricket, the ECB should be looking to use that,” he said. “In terms of the step up from what we are playing now to international cricket they tell me it’s not too far away now. We have to thank the likes of Murali, Warney and for Peter Moores letting the England players back into county cricket. It’s become quite an intense environment mirroring what you’d expect in Tests.”The international calendar is so packed that it means more Tests or ODIs are never far away and England start their series against New Zealand on May 15. In the meantime, if the IPL hasn’t grabbed your attention then take a look at the Championship over the next month. It might surprise you.

Bangladesh could have a new coach in place in time for their tour of New Zealand in December, after the Bangladesh Cricket Board named Gordon Greenidge, John Dyson and Colin Miller on a new three-man shortlist.The team has been without a full-time appointment ever since their long-term coach, Dav Whatmore, stepped down following a successful World Cup campaign in April. Whatmore stayed on in an interim capacity for the visit of India in May, and since then the former Under-19 coach Shaun Williams has overseen the squad’s preparations.The new appointment has been an arduous process and last month three candidates – John Harmer, Dave Houghton and Jamie Siddons – all withdrew from the race. But now the BCB has set a new deadline of the end of October, with three new names in the frame.”Hopefully, we can give you some good news next week,” Gazi Ashraf Hossain Lipu, chairman of the cricket operations committee, told Dhaka’s Daily Star newspaper. Greenidge, who coached the team at the 1999 World Cup, would be returning for a second stint, although the Australian duo of Dyson, the former Sri Lanka coach, and Miller, the former Test offspinner, are very much in contention.”Gordon [Greenidge] is looking through our international schedule for the next two years while [John] Dyson has also communicated with us after returning from his holiday,” said Lipu. “We also added the name of Miller to our list. We can reach a concrete decision next week.”

Shaun Tait concedes he has little chance of playing his first Test at his home ground in Adelaide after a disappointing performance in Australia’s loss to India at the WACA. Tait was called into a four-man pace attack having not played Test cricket since the 2005 Ashes, and he said he was underdone heading into the Perth match.Tait, who has played only three first-class matches this season including the Test, said when asked about his preparation that he was “a touch underdone, to be honest”. He went wicketless in 21 overs in his first match in whites since early December.”We are professional cricketers,” he told Adelaide’s Advertiser, “and we are training all the time and there’s probably no reason why we should be underdone. But the fact is I hadn’t had a whole lot of cricket under my belt and, obviously, there were limited opportunities to bowl as well due to over-rates.”He was remaining philosophical about his future at Test level, however, even if it’s not an immediate one. Although Tait has been named in Australia’s squad for Adelaide, Brad Hogg is the red-hot tip for a recall.”There will be another game where I get a chance to do well,” Tait said. “I’m not sure if I’ll keep my spot here. We’ll see how we go in the one-day games. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to be a part of the squad there again. But at the end of the day, it’s only a game and there will be another time where it might be a good day for me and the team as well.”However, Ricky Ponting said Australia had not written off Tait for the Adelaide Test starting on Thursday. “Tait also has the ability to bowl reverse-swing in Adelaide,” Ponting said in the . “With his low arm action and the amount of backspin he imparts on the ball, he usually makes it reverse swing more, and earlier, than other bowlers.”He didn’t have the impact I thought he would [in Perth], but he knows the conditions better than anyone else. He’s done a great job for South Australia there in recent years.”Ponting, however, kept his focus firmly on the future when it came to Tait. “He’s going to be a great asset to our team at some stage,” Ponting said. “The World Cup he had was amazing. I’ve got no doubt he’ll have the same impact as a Test bowler, as well. He’s got unbelievable raw pace. If he can produce that in a Test, he will knock the best players in the world over.”There were echoes here of the same praise he showered on Tait in the lead-up to the Melbourne Test, on Boxing Day, when the bowler was again overlooked as Australia chose to keep with the convention of three fast bowlers and a spinner.Michael Hussey, meanwhile, held out some hope of Tait retaining his place in the side. “I know Taity didn’t get any wickets in Perth but I don’t think they’re going to write him off just because of one performance,” Hussey told . “Obviously they’ve identified Taity as a future bowler for Australia. It’s good for him to get an opportunity in Perth and I’m sure he will come back better and stronger. If he does play in Adelaide in front of his home crowd I’m sure he’ll put in a better performance and then hopefully get a few wickets.”There have been comparisons between Tait and Lee in his earlier days and Hussey seemed to agree. “I think it’s something he’s working hard on and it’s something Brett Lee had to work on to be a bit more consistent. It’s a wonderful package to have in the team because he can crack a game open in the space of 20 minutes, sometimes in the course of a day. He can maybe be going for a few runs and suddenly everything clicks and he can take three or four wickets in a hurry which is incredibly attractive.”

Vanka Pratap in the process of giving Hyderabad the upper hand with atimely century, put to shade a good bowling performance by Keralaseamer Tinu Yohannan (6 for 177). Such was the dominance of Hyderabadthat they declared at 489 for 9 well into the second day of theirSouth Zone Ranji Trophy match at the Nuclear Fuel Complex Ground atHyderabad on Thursday. Kerala at stumps were tottering at 69 for 4.Resuming where he left off the previous evening, Vanka Pratap (128)went on to complete his century after a 317 minute stay at the crease.His overnight partner Vinay Kumar (71) was not far behind, reachinghis half century off 85 balls. After forging a 146 run fourth wicketstand with Vanka Pratap, Vinay departed caught by Ananthapadmanabhanoff Ramprakash. Then Vanka Pratap fell leg before to Yohannan afteradding 45 run for the fifth wicket with PR Satwalkar. Stumper MSrinivas joined Satwalkar and put on 56 runs for the sixth wicket.After the fall of Satwalkar, the Hyderabad innings folded up with theaddition of 41 runs. In reply Kerala made a circumspect start with theopeners V Girilal (22) and MP Sorab (24) adding 48 runs. But disasterstruck Kerala when former Indian spinner Venkatapathy Raju wasintroduced into the attack. Raju drew first blood for Hyderabad in the18th over when he trapped Girilal in front. Two balls later he sentback Sorab in much the similar manner. Kerala’s woes were not to endthere as Raju in his very next over picked up the wicket of S Shankar(0) caught by Vinay Kumar. Kanwaljit Singh joined in the act and inhis very first over trapped Sunil Oasis (6) leg before.

Marcus Trescothick, the England opening batsman, has expressed his hunger to return to the national side after missing the Ashes with a stress-related illness. He made an astonishing return to competitive action this week by smashing 256 from 117 balls in a pre-season friendly for Somerset against Devon at Taunton.Trescothick dramatically pulled out of England’s Ashes tour last November and underwent a double hernia operation last month in Manchester. However, Trescothick was guarded about an immediate return to the England side and said that he would wait for the right moment before confirming his availability.”I am desperate to play for England again,” Trescothick told Somerset’s official website. “But it wouldn’t be fair to anyone if I attempted to do so again without being doubly certain that I could complete an overseas tour, as well as take part in games over here. I am sure I will reach a stage when I am fully recovered, but I will not put pressure on myself by predicting when that will be.”Reflecting on the Ashes pull-out, Trescothick said it was unfortunate he was not able to support the struggling team. However, he backed his decision to return home given his state of mind at that time.”I wouldn’t have gone to Australia if I hadn’t felt convinced in my own mind that I could handle an Ashes series there,” he said. “Now I know that feeling was wrong. While viewing the Ashes matches I really wished I could be out there helping the team, but knew deep down that I needed to be at home.”

The Pakistan squad were rewarded with cash bonuses at a reception organised by the PCB for reaching the final of the ICC World Twenty20.Each of the 15 Pakistan players and their eight officials were given Rs 2.5 million [approx. US$41,200]. “We may not have won the World Twenty20 title but our cricketers have made all of us proud by the way they played in the tournament,” Nasim Ashraf, the PCB chairman, said.The PCB also honoured Mohammad Yousuf for canceling his contract with the Indian Cricket League and returning to the national Test squad. Yousuf, 33, received $100,000 for signing a central contract with the board and a further $100,000 for becoming the ICC’s Test player of the year.The squad also received a cheque of Rs10 million [approx. US$164,000] from the Dubai-based Fortune Group owned by Mohammad Ali, a Pakistani businessman. The total prize money awarded was US$2 million.

At least there are no expectations to live up to.Having seen off the challenge of Zimbabwe after the stumbling in the opening match, no-one should be under any illusions as to the huge step-up in the standard of competition awaiting the West Indies on their arrival in South Africa today.Yesterday’s washout of the fifth and final one-day international in Bulawayo may have deprived the tourists of the chance to extend their ODI winning streak to four matches (the last time they enjoyed such a run of success was against India at home last year). But even the most emphatic of victories would surely not have deluded them as to the enormity of the challenge over the next eight weeks in a country that has been their most barren frontier.In four separate visits to the country at the very southern tip of the African continent, beginning with a triangular tournament in early 1993, the Caribbean cricketers have managed just a solitary victory over their hosts on each trip.On that first journey, Brian Lara’s unbeaten hundred saw Richie Richardson’s team to a nine-wicket victory after two earlier losses to Kepler Wessels’ side and confirmed a place in the final, where they cruised past Pakistan to continue their winning form from the triumphant tour of Australia.Doesn’t it seem like only yesterday that we were hailing the return of our conquering heroes who had rallied from losing the second match, winning the fourth (by one run) and fifth (by an innings) Tests to retain the Frank Worrell Trophy, having earlier defeated the Aussies to claim the tri-nation limited-over title? The subsequent success in South Africa was merely the icing on the cake, but it has proved to be the first and, so far, last time that the West Indies, as a team, lifted any sort of silverware there.

On the calamitous 1998/99 campaign, Lara’s side lost all five Tests and six of seven ODIs, the exception being the second fixture in East London where hundreds from Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Carl Hooper saw the visitors to what was then a series-levelling victory. If nothing else, the fact that the tour opens on Friday with a Twenty20 match against a Makhaya Ntini Invitational XI at the same Buffalo Park ground should give the former captain some happy memories.Ironically, the next journey to South Africa opened with a notable triumph, Lara unfurling another majestic hundred as the West Indies scrambled a three-run victory to stun the hosts in the first match of the 2003 World Cup in Cape Town. It all went downhill thereafter for the two-time former champions with Hooper, much to his chagrin, replaced as captain by Lara after the team failed to advance to the Super Six stage of the tournament.Just ten months later, the West Indies were back in town for a full tour , and while it was not as catastrophic and emotionally deflating as five years earlier, the tourists still only had one victory to show after losing the four-Test series 3-0 and then succumbing 3-1 in the limited-over contest.That one day of joy was in the penultimate match of the tour as Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Lara led a run-feast in glorious afternoon sunshine at Centurion that saw the much-maligned tourists overhauling a target of 298 with five overs to spare, displaying an imperiousness that belied the overall results of yet another failed campaign in that part of the world.And just to rub salt and pepper into wide open wounds, the memories of losing to both the mighty South Africans (despite Gayle’s historic hundred) and the lightly-regarded Bangladeshis in Johannesburg on the way to being dumped out of the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup less than three months ago are still painfully fresh.So let’s not get carried away, either by sheer ignorance of those unavoidable realities or the supreme yet baseless optimism that this West Indian side is capable of doing what none of the earlier versions managed to achieve with much more experience and talent.Dwayne Bravo seems to be responding well to the responsibilities of leadership in Gayle’s enforced absence through injury, but he surely doesn’t need reminding that the geographical proximity of Zimbabwe to South Africa bears no relation to the world of difference between the two national teams.It is one thing to be guiding the side to victory against an attack comprising the likes of Chigumbura, Brent, Utseya and Price. However to replicate that effort against Ntini, Pollock, Steyn and Nel will be deserving of region-wide rejoicing.It’s not that it can’t be done. Why, just over a year ago another pulverising Gayle hundred led the West Indies to a rampaging victory over Graeme Smith’s side in the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy in India. But, as has become commonplace with almost everything associated with our cricket in more than a decade of struggle, maintaining a consistently high level of performance has proved frustratingly elusive.So now there’s a new captain (who is injured), a new deputy (who must expect to be thrown in at the deep end), a new coach (who was amazingly allowed to skip the Zimbabwean leg of the tour), a returning manager (Clive Lloyd was in that role in ’98/99) and just two survivors from the last time we defeated South Africa in their own backyard (Gayle and Chanderpaul).Forget about relatively plain sailing in Zimbabwe. Just staying afloat in South Africa will be a monumental task.

Pakistan’s Misbah-ul-Haq, Australia’s Shane Watson, and Mohammad Ashraful, the Bangladesh captain, are among 18 players included in the second Indian Premier League (IPL) auction to be held in Mumbai on March 11. The list is made up of seven New Zealanders, four Australians, three Pakistanis, two Bangladeshis, one Sri Lankan and South African each but no English cricketers.The injury-prone Watson has not played for Australia since the ICC World Twenty20 in September 2007 and he has struggled during Queensland’s Pura Cup campaign. He earned a recall to the national side for the CB Series but nagging leg problems forced him out again. Misbah, who was not included for the initial auction, is a big draw given his Twenty20 success in the last season.Mohammad Yousuf and Ashwell Prince, who failed to be picked up by any of the eight franchises last month, will be auctioned again.Western Australia’s Luke Pomersbach, who joins fellow Australians Watson, Brad Hodge and James Hopes in the second auction, said he was willing to play in the IPL for free. “I am pretty excited about it, because I did not think I would have a chance, but I have, and it will be a chance to play with some serious cricketers,” he told . “I would be happy to go over for free and play that standard of cricket and cricketers,” he said. “I will be able to learn so much from them, but I will take anything I can get.”A top BCCI official, on condition of anonymity, told IANS: “There are 13 other foreign players who have shown keen interest to play in the first season”. These include Shaun Tait, on a self-imposed indefinite break from cricket, Brad Hogg, who recently retired, West Indies’ Dwayne Smith, and Yasir Hameed, the Pakistan batsman. Seven other Australians have also apparently expressed interest.The IPL permits each franchise to buy more foreign players outside the list of 18 if they inform the tournament officials about who they are interested in. The IPL organisers would then negotiate the players’ base prices and try and secure No-Objection Certificates (NOCs) from the respective country boards.This auction is expected to be relatively smaller than the first, which was worth US$42 million. The eight franchise owners still have unspent money, a factor which has necessitated a second auction. The amounts are: $374,000 (Bangalore), $23,750 (Chennai), $71,250 (Delhi), $262,500 (Hyderabad), $1,700,000 (Jaipur), $107,500 (Kolkata), $292,250 (Mohali) and $53,750 (Mumbai).”If a team exceeds $5 million [after spending] on players who were initially not available but become available later, the excess expenditure will be ignored,” said the official. “Also, player fees for Indian players who were not in the auction do not count against the $5m purse. There will be no more auctions this season.”All team owners have to finalise their squads 30 days before the start of the 2008 season. The IPL kicks off on April 18.Players for second auction:
Pakistan: Mohammad Yousuf, Misbah-ul-Haq, Mohammad Hafeez; South Africa: Ashwell Prince; New Zealand: Ross Taylor, Peter Fulton, Jamie How, Jeetan Patel, Chris Martin, Kyle Mills, James Franklin; Australia: Brad Hodge, Shane Watson, James Hopes, Luke Pomersbach; Sri Lanka: Prasanna Jayawardene; Bangladesh: Mohammad Ashraful, Mashrafe Mortaza.Players who have expressed their interest:
Australia: Shaun Marsh, Brad Hogg, Shaun Tait, Adam Voges, Mick Lewis, Darren Lehmann, Allan Wise, Aiden Blizzard, Adam Crosthwaite; South Africa: Goolam Bodi; Pakistan: Yasir Hameed; West Indies: Kieran Powell, Dwayne Smith.