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.”
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.
Andrew Flintoff is determined to be fit and firing for the Ashes after having an operation to remove a bone spur in his left ankle. Flintoff missed the current one-day series against South Africa to have the surgery, but he expected to be ready for his first Test against Australia.”I’ll get fit for the Ashes,” he told AFP. “It’s something I’m really looking forward to.”Flintoff, who was on crutches watching his horse Flintoff run second at Carlisle in north-west England, required cortisone injections to finish the history-making Test series against South Africa and is faced with a four-month recovery. “I’ve never played a Test match against Australia, although I’ve played in two or three one-day internationals,” he said. “I think my rehab is three or four months, and we don’t start until the end of July – so I’ve got plenty of time.”Flintoff intends to play a couple of games for Lancashire before the first Test, which starts at Lord’s on July 21, so he can “hit the ground running”. An important weapon if England, the No. 2-ranked Test side, are to stop Australia winning the Ashes for the ninth consecutive time, Flintoff said they would have to be at the top of their games for “the biggest challenge in cricket”.”I truly believe we have a great chance of winning the Ashes,” he said. “We are getting closer to them – over the last 18 months since Michael Vaughan has taken over we’ve improved as a side. It’s something the side is excited about.”
It is a measure of the hold it has on the sporting psyche of the people of Melbourne that yesterday’s 150th anniversary of the Melbourne Cricket Ground evoked so many personal memories of Test cricket’s first venue. The ground at the centre of Melbourne’s two greatest sporting passions – cricket and Australian Rules football, not necessarily in that order – is not the Field of Dreams; rather it is the Place des Memories.
Few other sports grounds in the world can boast of being arenas for such contrasting pursuits. Lord’s may be the spiritual and administrative home of cricket, with all that that entails, but what do they play there in the winter? The same can be said of most other respectable Test cricket grounds. Certainly there may be the odd game of lower-grade sport, but in Melbourne they attract even bigger crowds in the winter than they do on Boxing Day in the summer.What could be more appropriate that, on the Saturday following September 23 – the date in 1853 marking Lt. Governor CH La Trobe’s permission for the Melbourne Cricket Club to occupy the “Police Paddock” – the 2003 version of the AFL grand final should be played? Although the MCG may have seen great feats in the peculiar Victorian game that has spread around, but little further than, Australia, the staging of the final to cricket fans is a reminder that gentler, warmer days are ahead as the cricket season opens.For it is with cricket that the populace of the Commonwealth associates the MCG. In a country that has made an art-form of ground and governing-body acronyms – the SCG, the SACA and the WACA grounds, to name a few – the MCG is probably the best-known and most revered of all sporting venues.The MCG is the only cricket ground in the world to have also been the main stadium for the Olympic Games – in 1956. That was made possible by the vast reaches of the original ground, which could easily accommodate an athletics track and all subsidiary requirements for field events. There is also something symbolic about the fact that its playing surface is big enough to test even the greatest throwing arms in the game. The open space of the ground is representative of the huge, dry hinterland that gives the country much of its wealth, history and folklore.The MCG’s place in cricket history is assured for any number of reasons – cricket’s first Test venue, Donald Bradman’s favourite ground, host of more Tests (95) in Australia than any other venue, and of more Australian Test wins (52) than anywhere else. A total of 155 Test centuries have been hit there, and Bob Cowper’s 307 against England in 1965-66 remains the only triple-century scored in a Test in Australia. The highest partnership on the ground is the 346 between Jack Fingleton and Bradman in 1936-37 against England. The best bowling figures belong to Wilfred Rhodes, who took 15 for 124 in the 1903-04 Test, while the best in an innings is Sarfraz Nawaz’s 9 for 86 in the 1978-79 series. No great surprise surrounds the fact that Bradman scored most Test runs on the ground – a total of 1671, at the considerable average of 128.53, including nine centuries. Dennis Lillee, no doubt responding to the chants of Bay 13, was far and away the ground’s most successful bowler, with 82 wickets at 21.92.In the more modern one-day internationals, there has not been quite the same amount of time to build up an aura, but that hasn’t diminished the quality of play. The best score achieved in 50 overs was 338 for 6 – against the West Indies in 2000-01 – while England hold dubious honour of recording the lowest score of 94 in 1978-79. Mark Waugh’s 173 in that earlier match against the West Indies is the highest one-day score, while the 225 between Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting against England earlier this year is the best partnership. Curtly Ambrose, in a 1988-89 match against Australia, took 5 for 17 to achieve the best bowling figures.In first-class cricket, Bill Ponsford made the ground his own during a remarkable career. Of the five highest scores on the ground, he has four of them. He first scored 429 against Tasmania in 1922-23 and five years later scored 437 against Queensland and also 336 against South Australia in the same season. Eight years later, he was still at it, scoring 352 against New South Wales. Bradman was the other contributor to the top five, with 357 for South Australia in 1935-36. Meanwhile, the best bowling in an innings belongs to Peter Allan, the fast-medium bowler from Queensland, who took all 10 Victorian wickets for 61 runs in the 1965-66 match.Individual performances are all very well, but there have been other occasions of particular significance. The Centenary Test of 1976-77 was a magnificent event, which had as its crowning glory the repetition of the same score as in the first Test of them all. It was followed soon after by the underarm match of February 1, 1981, a controversial act directed by Greg Chappell that poured new life into the hitherto benign trans-Tasman cricket relationship. New Zealanders might also recall what some observers described as the greatest of all outfield catches, taken by the man who is now New Zealand Cricket’s chief executive, Martin Snedden, off Greg Chappell; the appeal for the catch was subsequently turned down by the umpires.Only a few days after, there was Sunil Gavaskar’s attempt to get his partner Chetan Chauhan to leave the field, after Gavaskar was doubtfully given out lbw. More recently, umpire Darrell Hair’s calling of Sri Lankan bowler Muttiah Muralitharan in the summer of 1995-96 added to the list of notorious events at the MCG.Perhaps the final irony in the MCG’s history of achievement is that arguably the best-ever innings played on the ground did not come in an official Test. Sir Gary Sobers’ 254 for the Rest of the World was rated by Bradman as the best he had ever seen. Bradman was entitled to his opinion, of course, and the MCG has certainly provided enough choices for the sports-mad Melbourne citizens to choose their own favourites.
Hyderabad completed a ten wicket win over Himachal Pradesh at the end of the fourth day’s play at the Gymkhana Ground, Secunderabad. The hosts, who had reduced Himachal to 175 for eight at the end of third day after putting up 403 in the first innings, managed to dislodge Nischal Gaur after the latter had put on a spirited resistance for the best part of 28 overs. They then rattled the 31 runs without much ado to seal a ten-wicket win and a place in the Ranji quarter-finals.On the third day, Anirudh Singh (37) and Arjun Yadav (39) were the only two Hyderabadi batsmen who did anything of note. The home team’s eventual total of 403, after they had resumed at 288 for five, though secured them a massive 211-run first innings lead.When Himachal replied for the second time, the openers Sandeep Sharma and wicket-keeper Ravikanth Shrama provided a sound platform. The duo put on 78 runs before Sharma was out for a well-made 50. Off-spinner Jogram Singh, who snared him, went on to claim three more wickets. Later on, the other Hyderabad bowlers also joined the party. No.7 Gaur though proved a determined foe. He made 73 while holding fort for 129 balls. Shakti Singh, who made a rapid 31 off 22 balls, was the other batsman to score a few runs. Yadav, who ended with figures of 5 for 91 from 31 overs, was the most successful bowler for Hyderabad.
Thanks to a 96 run fourth wicket partnership between opener N Ranjan(53) and Sunil Kumar (77), Bihar made an excellent recovery but endedthe opening day in a spot of bother at 190 for 6 in their East ZoneRanji Trophy match against Orissa at the Keenan Stadium in Jamshedpuron Sunday.Put into bat, Bihar were pegged on the back foot by the dismissal ofopener Javed Khan (5) caught by skipper Parida off A Barrick in the12th over of the day. Then with the score on 32, Debasish Mohanty sentback skipper Rajiv Kumar (7) caught by Y Mohanty. Bihar were infurther trouble when the first change bowler Jai Chandra had T Rehman(8).This brought in Sunil Kumar who arrested the slide in the company ofRanjan with some sedate batting. By the time he departed, Ranjan hadbeen in the centre for 288 minutes and faced 201 balls and managed tofind the boundary ropes 7 times. Sunil then took the score on to 179when he was bowled by Barrick. Three balls later, A Hashmi (17) fellfor a catch to Jai Chandra off Mohanty. At stumps keeper MS Dhoni (8)and Vikash Kumar were at the crease.
Aston Villa have been one of the Premier League’s most proactive clubs when it comes to the transfer market over the past few years.
Last summer’s transfer window saw the Villans bring in three new attacking players, with Jack Grealish making his record-breaking £100m move to Manchester City.
Once the January window opened, things got busy behind the scenes at Villa Park again as four new players came in, with a number of others making moves away from the club.
While some may see this as a successful period for the club in terms of their transfer business, there is one player with whom the Villans were linked but didn’t end up at Villa Park which the hierarchy may now be regretting – Ryan Kent.
Having made 138 appearances under Steven Gerrard during his time as Rangers boss, scoring 28 goals and providing 33 assists along the way, it’s no surprise that the Midlands club were mentioned with a move for the Englishman after Gerrard was appointed at Villa Park in November.
In 32 appearances across all competitions for the Scottish champions so far this season, the £12.6m-rated attacker has scored two goals and provided an impressive 15 assists along the way, showing just how much of an attacking threat he offers.
While having the same number of goals, the Gers star has racked up considerably more assists than Emi Buendia (three) in the Argentine’s debut season with the Villans after coming in last summer for a club-record fee.
Labelled a “game-changer” in the past by Gerrard, Kent has earned himself an overall performance rating of 7.29/10 from WhoScored, which would make him the second-highest rated player in Villa’s squad by the same metric.
Taking into account what the winger has done for Rangers this season, there could be plenty of regret from the Villa hierarchy over not securing a deal for him when they had their chance.
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With the likes of Trezeguet currently out on loan and Bertrand Traore struggling with injuries and form, we think that the club should definitely consider getting rid of one or both of these players and see if Rangers would be willing to negotiate a deal for their attacking gem when the summer transfer window opens.
In other news: Cost £4m, now worth £1.35m: NSWE had a nightmare with “tough” £25k-p/w Villa flop
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.”
Bob Woolmer, Pakistan’s coach, said he has faith in his side’s World Cup chances even if his strike bowlers, Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif, have to sit out the tournament. Shoaib and Asif are nursing injuries and there is speculation that they may not pass a dope test next week.The duo, though, turned up for the training camp today and are expected to make a trip to England in the next few days, to get a scan of their injuries.”Shoaib and Asif are our main strike bowlers and it would be a big blow for us if they don’t play,” he told . “But it isn’t right to say that we are incapable of doing well without them. Pakistan has done well and won matches in the past when Shoaib couldn’t play due to injury or other reasons and when Asif had not even started his international career.”Both fast bowlers tested positive for banned anabolic steroid nandrolone last October and may still be carrying traces of the performance enhancing substance. They have avoided undergoing dope tests being conducted by the Pakistan board as a precautionary measure.Woolmer maintained Pakistan were still a competitive side in the absence of the duo, and stressed on the role of the batsmen: “We are not a bad side even if you take Shoaib and Asif out of the equation. Ours will still be a good side, capable of delivering good results. One of the best ways to win (one-day games) is to score runs,” he said. “We have a good batting order and I believe there are bowlers in the team capable of defending any decent score”.”I believe fitness and injuries are two different issues. Speaking of my team, the fitness aspect is fine but there are some injury problems,” he added. “Umar Gul looks fine, Asif seems okay. It’s just Shoaib.”Shoaib, 31, said he hoped to be fit for the World Cup despite struggling to recover from knee and hamstring problems.”I am going for another reassessment of my knee and hamstring injury in England later this week and only after that I am able to know about my chances of playing in the World Cup,” he told AFP.Asked when he was due to appear for testing, Shoaib refused to comment and said his first priority was to get over his injury: “Right now I want my injury to heal and only after that I am going to think about anything else”.
If ever there is a good time for a crushing ODI series defeat, then now,with just over a year to go before the World Cup, is probably the besttime for it. After Pakistan suffered their fourth consecutive defeat toIndia, losing the series 4-1, Bob Woolmer, their coach, admitted thetiming was one of the only positives to come out of it. “I’ll go on recordto say it that I am glad this defeat happened now rather than later inthis year. We have to look carefully at all aspects of our game, ourbatting, bowling and fielding.”Pakistan’s fielding had been below par through the series and althoughthey dropped less catches than India, their ground fielding struggled. Asthey succumbed to Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni chasing 287, theirfielding deteriorated alarmingly. They missed run-out chances, dropped acouple of catches, conceded overthrows and fumbled alarmingly often in thefield. Woolmer, although admitting the fielding was poor, asserted itwasn’t through any lack of effort on the part of his players.”Catches win matches but our ground fielding was very poor and hasn’t beengreat through the series. The Indians have fielded superbly through theseries although they dropped a few catches as well.” He added, “Thesesmall things make a huge difference eventually but I think the guys workedand tried hard today and it just didn’t happen for us. We have fieldedwell in the past but when things go wrong, everything goes wrong.”The Pakistan Cricket Board said publicly yesterday that they were consideringhiring Jonty Rhodes as a fielding coach and Woolmer said he was open tothe idea. “If they have the money for it, I’m happy with the idea. But asit is we work hard on our fielding and we do a lot of drills in practiceon it. Like I said, everything just went wrong for us today. Basic thingswent against us like picking up balls cleanly, mistiming our dives. It gotworse under the pressure as India chased.”Woolmer had special praise for Yuvraj Singh, whose imperious hundredsettled the match today and whose performances through this series havebeen little short of spectacular. “He’s a very good player now isn’t he?When we played him last year we were able to get him out but this timeround, he hasn’t looked like getting out at all. I hope that hamstringstrain doesn’t affect his participation in the series against Englandbecause he looks an absolutely fantastic cricketer.”Pakistan lost this series in every department though, whether it was theirregular top-order collapses or their poor bowling, Mohammad Asif apart.Woolmer readily acknowledged that they had been outplayed. “Indiaregrouped and played a lot better than we did everywhere in the field.It’s difficult to put a finger on where specifically they beat us. In thethird game the toss was more important than we perhaps thought and theyhave chased brilliantly all the way through this series. But like I said,we need to look at everything about our game before the various challengeswe have ahead of us this year.”