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A one-day triangular series involving Australia, India and Pakistan is likely to be held in Amstelveen, Holland, in August. According to a report in the Times of India, a spokesman for the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) confirmed that the VRA Ground in Amstelveen had been chosen as the venue, but also added the rider that the ICC would first inspect the facilities there.”The ICC inspection committee, in consultation with senior representatives of the Pakistan, Indian and Australian Boards, will clear the venue for the tournament,” the spokesman said. “The VRA Ground has already hosted a one-day international, when South Africa and Kenya played there in the 1999 World Cup.”The boards of Australia, India and Pakistan have already agreed to play a triangular tournament in Europe before the ICC Champions Trophy, which will be held in England in September 2004.

In Australia a batsman needs to be patient. He also needs to rely mostly on shots square of the wicket rather than straight down the ground because of the extra bounce. Even a batsman like [Sachin] Tendulkar – who scores against all sorts of bowling across the globe – will be tested by the bounce: you have to be able to cut, pull and hook to score runs in Australia. You need to be a good player off the back foot. The advantage of batting in Australia is that the ball comes on to the bat so you can hit through the line of the ball.The range of strokes that Tendulkar and VVS Laxman possess makes them the main dangers to the Australian bowlers. These conditions are not good for Sourav Ganguly – he, and most of the others, will need to be prepared to cop a lot of short-pitched bowling. Even the great Sunil Gavaskar had problems dealing with the extra bounce. What tends to happen with visiting batsmen is that due to the extra bounce they tend to follow the ball outside off, with their hands pushing at it. But to succeed you have got to judge the line of the ball early. In India the ball comes slower off the pitch, so you can make last-minute adjustments and not get an edge, but in Australia if you misjudge the line of the ball you will end up getting an edge.Brisbane is the best pitch in Australia – and the world – as it has a beautiful covering of grass, and is always hard and even. The Gabba is notoriously live on the first day. It won’t be significantly fast, but it will have a lot of bounce, and a little bit of sideways movement, particularly in the first session. But if you can get through that period, then batting becomes easier. Conditions are best for both batsmen and bowlers on the second day: the wicket is at its fastest with maximum bounce, so there is something in it for bowlers. The ball comes on to the bat, so good batsmen can score runs and good bowlers can take wickets. Brisbane provides the best advantage to the Australians to break into the opposition batting order and stir them up quickly. A look at their recent record shows that Australia have often wrapped up matches inside four days here.Adelaide is the best batting wicket in the world, and it will favour the Indians because it will not bounce as much as the Gabba, and it will turn towards the end of the game. It is a beautiful track and the team winning the toss must bat.The wicket at the Melbourne Cricket Ground has changed over the recent years as it has been relaid. It is now a pretty bouncy pitch, not as fast as Brisbane and Adelaide, but it will provide assistance to the seamers on the first day due to its bounce, which will stay for about three days.Sydney is an ordinary pitch – it will spin a lot, and finger-spinners will find it especially helpful. Anil Kumble can prosper there as he is quick through the air, but [Stuart] MacGill and [Shane] Warne have had a lot of success, too, as they turn the ball prodigiously. There will be some life in the pitch on the first day but thereafter it will turn and the bounce will be lower.

The International Cricket Council has denied reports that the hearing into alleged racism within Zimbabwe cricket will be delayed, insisting that there were no plans to alter the agreed date. The hearing is scheduled to take place in Harare between September 29 and October 1.It had been rumoured that the rebel players were going to ask for a two-week delay to enable them to prepare their case, but Brendan McClements, a spokesman for the ICC, explained that no such request had been made. “Mr Vahanvati and Judge Majiedt [who are conducting the hearing] are both eminent gentlemen who have already given up their time to carry out this inquiry,” he said. “They have other commitments.”The rebels are unhappy that they do not have sufficient funds to match the money the Zimbabwe board is investing in its defence, although the ICC is thought to have given both sides £10,000 towards their costs. The ICC asked the players for a budget to detail their additional legal expenses, but has yet to receive it.

Michael Vaughan has recovered from his groin strain and will play against Australia at Edgbaston in the eighth match of the NatWest Series. Vaughan, who was forced to sit out of the last two matches, will be seeking to reimpose England’s authority at a time when Australia are showing signs of galvanising after their shaky start to the tour.Both sides are guaranteed a place in Saturday’s final thanks to their victories over Bangladesh at the weekend, so this match has become a high-profile dress rehearsal. Australia have the momentum at present, having won their day-night encounter with England at Chester-le-Street, although it is unlikely that England will choose to field first if they win the toss today – which was the mistake that Marcus Trescothick made last time around.Australia have made a solitary change to their side. Michael Clarke has recovered from his back injury and reclaims his place ahead of Shane Watson, with Mike Hussey slipping down the order to No. 7. Meanwhile, England’s Ian Bell and Jon Lewis have been released to play in the Twenty20 match between Warwickshire and Gloucestershire at Bristol this evening.England 1 Marcus Trescothick, 2 Andrew Strauss, 3 Michael Vaughan (capt), 4 Kevin Pietersen, 5 Andrew Flintoff, 6 Paul Collingwood, 7 Geraint Jones (wk), 8 Ashley Giles, 9 Simon Jones, 10 Darren Gough, 11 Steve HarmisonAustralia 1 Matthew Hayden, 2 Adam Gilchrist (wk), 3 Ricky Ponting (capt), 4 Damien Martyn, 5 Michael Clarke, 6 Andrew Symonds, 7 Mike Hussey, 8 Brad Hogg, 9 Brett Lee, 10 Jason Gillespie, 11 Glenn McGrath.

Ehsan Mani, the ICC president, has said that while he is confident that match-fixing has been stamped out, he is not so sure that the all corruption has yet been eliminated.Speaking in Lahore, Mani told reporters that while widespread fixing was no longer happening, it was still possible that a few individuals were involved in skullduggery.”We have put in a lot of efforts to eliminate match-fixing and have gained success in it, but there might be chances that individuals may be involved in turning the fate of a match and the ICC was working in this direction to find ways to control it,” he explained. “No one can claim the game is 100% clean and free from corruption. Individually, some people may be involved.”He praised the efforts of the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) and said that it was trying to address the match-fixing issue related to individuals. But, added Mani, the very existence of the ACU had proved to be a huge deterrent since 2000.

Shane Warne has reacted to Muttiah Muralitharan’s decision to skip the tour of Australia by saying that he is too sensitive to criticism. Warne currently trails Murali by 10 wickets at the top of the wicket-taking charts – Courtney Walsh is still second, two wickets ahead of Warne – and he admitted that he had been relishing the prospect of another head-to-head duel.”I’d be disappointed if Murali didn’t come out, full stop,” said Warne, in conversation with . “I like Murali as a bloke, and I know it’s been tough what he’s gone through. I mean, we all go through tough times,” said Warne, who has had more than his fair share of travails off the field.Murali’s decision was said to be prompted by the intense heckling he was subjected to the last time Sri Lanka toured Australia. “I think it’s disappointing that he was saying because he gets heckled from the crowd and a few cheap shots from people,” said Warne. “When I got to Sri Lanka, if I worried about what everyone said, I don’t think I’d tour the country either, any country for that matter, if I took to heart what people said in the crowd and things like that.”According to Warne, jibes from the crowd came with the territory. “If you tour the opposition country, you expect they’re on their side, so I think he’s being a little bit over-sensitive about whoever’s calling him what, or the crowd, or some bloke’s had too many beers and gets into him,” he said. “He’s old enough and been through it enough. I’m pretty strong on it, mate. Everyone cops it, not just me.”Murali’s decision to withdraw came soon after John Howard, Australia’s prime minister, referred to him as a chucker, prompting a furious response from Sri Lanka. And even as Murali basked in the glow of a ticker-tape welcome after getting home from Zimbabwe, Warne insisted that anyone who couldn’t cope with criticism shouldn’t be playing cricket.”That’s pretty strong words and that’s how I do feel – I think he’s being a little bit over-sensitive about the whole thing,” said Warne. “As far as he’s concerned the ICC has cleared him, he’s done his tests, he’s playing the best he can. He knows the rules. You’ve just got to get on with it I would say, just get on with it and play. I like Murali, I spend a lot of time with him and I’m good friends with him. ‘Just get on with it and play’, that’s what I would say to him.”

ScorecardHosts Sri Lanka were given a scare by Scotland but were the eventual winners of their opening match in the Under-19 World Cup at the R. Premadasa Stadium .After being put into bat, Scotland gave a good account of themselves after recovering from a hopeless position of 30 for 5 to make a respectable 186. They then had Sri Lanka struggling at 98 for 5, but a lack of experience was the telling difference between the two sides.A combination of factors had Sri Lankan nerves jangling; a mix-up between openers Dimuth Karunaratne and Sameera de Zoysa, followed by some loose batting from the middle-order and lively bowling by Gordon Goudie provided a perfect start to the tournament for Scotland.However, Sri Lanka can count themselves fortunate that Scotland were let down by some poor catching and bowling. The most crucial of those misses was the catch offered by Sachithra Serasinghe, on 34 at the time, off Calum Macleod, which Moneeb Iqbal spilled at third man. At that stage, Sri Lanka were 129 for 4 in the 30th over and anything could have happened. Serasinghe was dropped again soon afterwards off a no-ball.To add to their woes Scotland also conceded 38 extras which they could ill-afford to do especially in a one-day match. In their two warm-up matches they had shipped 51 extras, so it was not a real surprise.Kasiam Farid, Scotland’s captain, admitted his team had let themselves down: “In a one-day game extras are always going to be costly,” he said. “It’s always going to take it out one way or the other. We were in a very good position to disappoint Sri Lanka and all the boys put in a big effort to do that.”Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews said that the game was an eye-opener for his team and added that he was not happy with their performance, although they ran out eventual winners.”We should have won more convincingly. We started off well in the morning but we threw it away in the latter stages,” he said. “We can’t afford to make such mistakes in the future games. We need to take these matches very seriously and perform better,” said Mathews.With regard to failure of the top-order batting, Mathews said: “We haven’t done very well in the recent past and we’ll need to come good soon if we are to make an impact. The batsmen are normally free scoring. They will have to concentrate more on their batting and stick it out.”Serasinghe, though, made use of the lapses of Sri Lanka’s top-order and made 64 off 91 balls, with six fours and a six, but Farid bagged the Man-of-the-Match award for his fighting knock of 76 off 89 balls (4 fours, 2 sixes) without which Scotland would have been hard pressed to come up with a competitive total.Sri Lanka’s seamers – Mathews, Tissara Perera and Shalika Karunanayake – revelled in the conditions and captured eight of the ten wickets. The Sri Lankan batting was pushed onto the back foot by Goudie who rocked them with three wickets for 10 runs in his first spell of seven overs. It was Scotland’s inexperience that allowed Sri Lanka to wriggle out of a tight situation. Both sides were guilty of being penalised for no-balls and wides which contributed to a total of 69 extras in the match.

Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is to conclude its current tour of India with a first-ever match against Afghanistan.The fixture, described by an MCC spokesman as “pioneering and historic, will take place at the Police Ground in Mumbai on Thursday. MCC will be led by the former England and Middlesex captain, Mike Gatting.”I am delighted to have the opportunity to lead MCC in this historic gameagainst Afghanistan,” said Gatting. “Cricket has developed rapidly in the country over the last few years and MCC is keen to assist this process – as it is in all emerging cricket-playing nations.”Cricket’s popularity in Afghanistan has surged since many of the refugees who fled from the country in the early 1980s, after the Soviet invasion, started to return from Pakistan – where they first saw the game and started to play and follow it.In the last decade, the membership of the Afghanistan Cricket Federation has grown more than twenty-fold – from 500 to 12,000 members. The Afghan team, whose travel is being sponsored by MCC, will be flying into Delhi before transferring to Mumbai by train. The British Embassy in Kabul and the World Cricket Academy inMumbai have also played key roles in facilitating this match.Explaining the background to the fixture, MCC’s president, Robin Marlar, said:”This match is the culmination of many months of hard work. It all started severalyears ago when an MCC Member, Mark Scrase-Dickens, raised the issue of Afghancricket at a Club AGM.”Subsequently, at the Asian Cricket Council in London last summer, I was asked to help and we have been so pleased with the contributions made by the World Cricket Academy in Mumbai and, of course, the authorities in Afghanistan who have been swift to seize the opportunity.””This is merely the beginning,” added Marlar. “Because of the intensity of interest in the game in Afghanistan, there is no reason why that country should not progress year upon year with Bangladesh – the newest of the Test-playing nations – as the example to follow.”MCC also played a key role in the development of cricket in Bangladesh in the months and years following their war of liberation in 1971, with representative sides being sent to rekindle interest in the game. In 2002, MCC joined forces with Slazenger and the RAF to equip an Afghan XI and an international peacekeepers’ team for a match in Kabul.MCC squad Mike Gatting (capt), Tony Matharu, Bryan Jones, Sam Anderson, Stephen Brogan, Paul Carroll, Matthew Friedlander (Cambridge UCCE), Chinmay Gupte, Michael Jarrett, Richard Kettleborough, Tom Leaming (Cardiff UCCE), Danny Miller (Loughborough UCCE), Sameer Patel, Tim Smith, David Snellgrove.

Tony Dodemaide will return home to Melbourne to accept the post of Cricket Victoria’s chief executive after taking a globetrotting path to the job. Dodemaide, who played 10 Tests and 24 ODIs, was a swing-bowling allrounder for Victoria during his playing days before he spent five years as Marylebone Cricket Club’s head of cricket at Lord’s.In 2004 he joined the Western Australian Cricket Association as chief executive and oversaw a period where the organisation tackled severe debt problems and experienced an executive takeover led by Dennis Lillee, who is now the president. Dodemaide is expected to start his role with Cricket Victoria by the end of the current season.”I’m looking forward to returning to Victorian cricket immensely,” Dodemaide said. “The challenge of leading Cricket Victoria into the future is one that is extremely exciting and I’m pleased to be returning to where my cricket first started.”Geoff Tamblyn, the Cricket Victoria chairman, said Dodemaide had outstanding administrative credentials. “He led a strong list of candidates and we’re excited to have him at the helm,” he said. “Tony was an exceptional contributor to Victoria as a player and we look forward to him providing similarly strong performances in his new role.” Dodemaide will replace Ken Jacobs, who resigned in November after 26 years in the position.

Chris Cairns, the New Zealand allrounder, has been ruled out of the rest of the Videocon Cup in Zimbabwe owing to a recurrence of a hamstring injury during the fifth match of a tri-series against India on Friday.Lindsay Crocker, the New Zealand manager, said Cairns had appeared to make a full recovery before the match after passing a fitness test in the nets. New Zealand have further injury problems ahead of the final on Tuesday with Jacon Oram, the other allrounder, also suffering from a hamstring problem.Cairns didn’t make too much of an impression in the tournament, managing only 40 runs and two wickets in the three games he played in.