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.”

South African left-hander Arno Jacobs will join Australian George Bailey as the two permitted overseas professionals for the Scotland in this year’s Friends Provident Trophy campaign, which starts at the Grange on April 29.Jacobs, 30, plays for Western Warriors in South Africa’s domestic competitions, and has a first-class average of nearly 40 with nine centuries and more than 20 half-centuries to his name. In 99 one-day games, he has reached three figures six times, and 50 on twelve occasions. He also scored a century in a World Cup warm-up match against Pakistan at Kimberley in January this year. Jacobs, who had a spell as pro for Stoneywood-Dyce recently, is currently playing for the Middleton club in Lancashire.George Bailey, 24, who is this year’s club professional for national league champions Grange, is one of the brightest prospects in contemporary Tasmanian cricket. He has a first-class average of 36.95 from just 26 matches. He got his chance in the Pura Cup in 2005-6, scoring three centuries and 778 runs, and last year staked a claim for national representation with his highest score of 155 against South Australia, in a record 292-run partnership with Travis Birt. A former Australia under-19 player, he is a direct relation of George Herbert Bailey, who was part of the 1878 touring squad to England.Both players will feature in Scotland’s nine Friends Provident Trophy matches, only four of which are home games: against Yorkshire (Sunday April 29), Nottinghamshire (Sunday May 20), Derbyshire (Sunday June 3) and Warwickshire (Sunday June 10). The away matches are against Leicestershire (Sunday May 6), Northamptonshire (Monday May 7), Lancashire (Sunday May 27), Durham (Monday May 28) and Worcestershire (Wednesday May 13).Roddy Smith, chief executive of Cricket Scotland, said: “We are delighted to have recruited two players of high quality to supplement our Scottish players. Both George and Arno have had very successful domestic seasons in Australia and South Africa respectively, and we are sure they will add significantly to the Saltires squad for this season.”National coach Peter Drinnen added: “Our new captain Ryan Watson will be greatly helped in his task by having two such accomplished run-getters. That should enable our own players to gain confidence in their own abilities as the season progresses.”

Zaheer Khan is likely to be ruled out of upcoming ODI series against South Africa in Ireland after sustaining a groin strain during the second Afro-Asia Cup game at Chennai.Zaheer left the field after bowling just 2.4 overs against Africa on June 9 and was replaced by Mashrafe Mortaza for the third and final match.India’s physio and medical staff have yet to determine how long Zaheer will be out of the game. He was taken to a local hospital in the company of physio John Gloster for a MRI scan of the hip and a report is expected soon. “The MRI scan revealed it’s a groin injury and I have sent my observation to the board,” Gloster said was reported as saying in a PTI report.A decision on Zaheer’s selection for the Ireland and England trips will be taken when a clearer picture emerges, Dilip Vengsarkar, the chairman of selectors, told Cricinfo. “We don’t know the exact nature of the problem yet and will take a decision when we have an update.”India are scheduled to play three matches in Ireland between June 26 and July 1 ahead of a one-off ODI against Pakistan at Glasgow on July 3. The squad for these four matches will be picked on June 12 in Delhi.

Hampshire 206 for 7 (Crawley 64) beat Warwickshire 166 (Sangakkara 44, Clark 3-38) by 40 runs
Scorecard

Hampshire overcame a sluggish start to book their place in the Friends Provident Trophy final with a battling 40-run victory over Warwickshire at Southampton. They will meet Durham at Lord’s on August 18.On a sluggish pitch Hampshire’s total of 206 for 7 looked gettable, all the more so when Jonathan Trott and Kumar Sangakkara rebuilt the innings after a jittery start which included two superb catches by the ageing John Crawley.Almost inevitably the introduction of Shane Warne turned the game on its head. He lured Jim Troughton into holing out in the deep but when Sean Ervine dropped a routine slip catch offered by Sangakkara off him it appeared that it might not be Hampshire’s day.Ervine made immediate amends when he had Sangakkara well caught at short midwicket one run later, the first of two wickets in five balls, and Warwickshire never recovered. Tim Ambrose kept battling as partners came and went and he was last man out as Stuart Clark, in his final outing for the county, mopped things up to finish with 3 for 38.Crawley, the Man of the Match, had anchored the early part of the Hampshire innings which had an almost anticlimactic feel when Kevin Pietersen was caught high above his head by Darren Maddy at mid-off for 18. Crawley looked set for a hundred when he failed to beat Heath Streak’s throw, Ambrose doing well to gather a low return and whip the bails off with Crawley an inch short.Another run out – Ervine was the victim of more slick work from Ambrose – wobbled Hampshire and Ambrose was centre stage yet again soon after when he stumped Chris Tremlett, showing cunning in waiting as Tremlett lost his balance to a leg-side dart and tottered out of his ground.Dimitri Mascarenhas then had the unusual experience of surviving two third-umpire referrals off one delivery, first for a stumping and then, reprieved from that, when Warwickshire queried Peter Hartley’s decision to turn down a leg-before appeal. Replays suggested it was probably out, but the rules state the umpire can only be overruled if there has been an obvious error.Mascarenhas added a crucial 54 for the seventh wicket with Nic Pothas, as Hampshire collected 53 runs in the last 10 overs. It turned out to be the difference between the sides.

It’s the new wave of the international game, so we might as well get used to it. Those who measure the quality of a cricketer by his performances over the long haul, and have grown to tolerate one-dayers as a necessary evil, will probably look scornfully upon the two Twenty20 Internationals between the West Indies and England.Just as the 50 over version was ridiculed in its fledgling years as “pyjama cricket” with its coloured clothing and other gimmicks, so too has the 20 overs-per-side hybrid been dismissed as a glorified whipping session, where the subtleties and complexities of the real thing are abandoned in the quest to clear the boundary ropes almost every delivery to the accompaniment of ear drum-puncturing noise from the resident DJ.Given their stubborn refusal to accept those ODI innovations in the immediate aftermath of Kerry Packer’s revolutionary World Series Cricket, it is more than a little ironic that this latest consumer-friendly variety has really taken off in England, as evidenced by the overwhelming popularity of the domestic version since it was introduced to a very receptive audience four years ago.They were not the first to experiment with an even shorter form of one-day cricket, but it is fair to say that its instant success convinced the ICC of the need to get in on the action, seeing as almost every match, whether domestic or international, is played in front of capacity crowds that are representative of every strata of society, from hardcore party animals to whole families enjoying an evening’s entertainment.And that’s essentially what it is: entertainment. Not a complex series of sub-plots and individual skirmishes, all unfolding over time in a duel that has almost as many twists, turns and changes of pace as the most complex scandal-laced soap opera.In an era when those who have extra money can’t enjoy the luxury of much spare time, Twenty20 fills the breach almost perfectly.

Most people were more preoccupied with the staggering sums of money shovelled out than the quality of the cricket played, but Allen Stanford’s ground-breaking Caribbean version of the frenetic spectacle proved such a hit last August in Antigua that, just for a moment, we almost believed his baseless boast that “West Indies cricket is back on track!” just after Narsingh Deonarine smashed a six off the penultimate ball of the final to give Guyana a pulsating victory over Trinidad and Tobago.It’s all about instant gratification, so there’s no point griping about it lacking the depth of the longer contest. That is not to say, of course, that any fool can dash to the nearest phone booth and be transformed Clark Kent-style into a Twenty20 superhero.Indeed, there is enough evidence to suggest that the concentrated demands of this extremely abbreviated style have contributed to even sharper fielding, while batsmen exposed to it on a regular basis are now more inclined to attack much earlier and with more clinical efficiency in both Tests and one-dayers.Still, it doesn’t appeal to all players, despite the financial rewards. Two years ago, Brian Lara commented that he didn’t enjoy having to swing for the hills almost from the word go when rain reduced an ODI against South Africa at the Queen’s Park Oval effectively to a Twenty20 affair.A number of Australia’s senior players, including skipper Ricky Ponting and 2007 World Cup final hero Adam Gilchrist, have cautioned against exposing younger players too much to a form of the game that could see them developing habits inimical to ensuring the country’s continued dominance at Test level.Still, Twenty20 has well and truly claimed its place in the cricketing world with the ICC approving the inaugural World Cup in South Africa in September. It is unlikely, however, given the increasing complaints about squeezing more matches into an already congested international schedule, that Twenty20 will enjoy the unfettered growth of its 50-over relation.Of course, as with anything else, it takes some getting used to, and Sunday’s 84-run humiliation at the hands of Derbyshire is not an encouraging sign for Chris Gayle’s reconstituted side. Hopefully, the final warm-up against the PCA Masters at Arundel would have proven more encouraging ahead of their first clash with Paul Collingwood’s England at The Oval in London.In their only Twenty20 International before the upcoming matches, the West Indies lost out in a tie-breaking bowl-out in Auckland at the start of their New Zealand tour in February of last year. It was an entertaining experience with a thrilling finale, but apart from the fact that it marked the farewell of allrounder Chris Cairns to international cricket, hardly anything else is worth remembering.But that’s Twenty20 for you: gratification without any real meaning, much like life in the 21st century. It is very much a game for the times.

Habibul Bashar and Khaled Mashud are the major omissions from Bangladesh’s 30-member provisional squad for the Twenty20 World Championship in September. The squad also includes 13 uncapped players from the A team and the recently created National Cricket Academy.Bashar had relinquished the ODI captaincy after the recent series against India, and went through a lean patch with the bat, scoring 417 runs at an average of 21.94 during the 2006-07 season. Mashud lost his place to the uncapped Dhiman Ghosh, who joined Mushfiqur Rahim as the second wicketkeeper in the squad.”We have included a number of young cricketers in the provisional squad, to give them a break if they can prove their worth,” said Faruk Ahmed, the chief selector. The final 15-member squad will be selected by August 15.Squad
Mohammad Ashraful (capt), Aftab Ahmed, Shahriar Nafees, Tamim Iqbal, Tushar Imran, Shakib Al Hasan, Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Farhad Reza, Mohammad Sharif, Tapash Baisya, Alok Kapali, Mohammad Rafique, Mahmudullah Riyad, Mushfiqur Rahim, Abdur Razzaq, Junaid Siddique, Jahurul Islam, Nazmus Sadat, Nazimuddin, Nadif Chowdhury, Suharwardi Shuvo, Syed Rasel, Nayeem Islam, Nazmul Hossain, Dhiman Ghosh, Shahadat Hossain, Dollar Mahmud, Mohammad Shahjada, Ziaur Rahman and Gazi Salahuddin

ScorecardBilly Godleman struck the highest score by an England Under-19 batsman in one-day internationals as the team kept alive their hopes of squaring the series against Pakistan Under-19s with an 80-run win at Grace Road. Godleman and Adam Lyth added 126 for the second wicket as England piled up their biggest total at this level then Steven Finn’s four wickets meant Pakistan couldn’t get close.The day after the senior side comprehensively beat India at The Rose Bowl, the U-19s put in an equally impressive display. The 36-run defeat at Northampton left England facing a must-win situation to retain any interest in the series. Godleman and Alex Wakely laid a solid base with an opening stand of 100 before Lyth arrived and increased the scoring rate.Godleman showed the skills which have earned him a place in Middlesex’s Championship side and why many believe he is an England opener in the waiting. He was strong through the off side and paced his innings to perfection, expanding during the closing overs and surpassing such household names as Michael Vaughan and Mike Gatting.Lyth’s 75 took 65 balls and although the middle succumbed to a series of wild swings, the momentum was never lost and England scored more than 100 off the last 10 overs.Pakistan needed a rapid start if they were to chase down the runs, but weren’t helped when opener Shan Masood was unable to take his place after picking up a finger injury in the field. Finn produced a superb opening spell and removed Umar Amin, who has been one Pakistan’s leading batsmen on the tour.Usman Salahuddin again showed good form, but was forced to retire hurt with cramp when Pakistan needed to accelerate. Left-arm spinner Liam Dawson removed Ali Asad and Imad Wasim in three balls as the middle order tried hit out and got out. Although Salahuddin returned to completed a battling half-century, and Masood showed what Pakistan had missed in the top order, the contest was long since over.The final match of the series takes place on the same ground on Thursday.

Srikanta Datta Narasimharaja Wadiyar, the scion of the Mysore royal family, has been elected president of the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) after he defeated Gundappa Viswanath, the former Indian Test cricketer. Wadiyar polled 553 votes in a closely-fought, high-profile election, the likes of which the state association witnessed for the first time in nine years. Viswanath polled 516 votes, losing by the slim margin of 37 votes.Brijesh Patel, who unseated C Nagaraj nine years ago and has held sway as the secretary since then, held onto his post, albeit by a slim margin, polling 568 votes. Brijesh, the former Indian batsman, defeated G Kasturi Rangan, who claimed 475 votes, losing by 93.In all a little over 1080 votes were cast, a record turn-out for KSCA elections. With both groups campaigning heavily, and doing their utmost to get people to vote – more than 20 very elderly and infirm life members came through in wheelchairs to participate in the elections – the process reached a crescendo. When Brijesh won the last high profile election approximately 800 votes were cast, and this election easily surpassed that.Overall the Wadiyar group won a slim majority, with 13 of their candidates getting elected, as opposed to 11 from the Brijesh group. Crucially, Select Cricket Club was one of the Institutional Life Members from the Bangalore Zone to win, and it is headed by Vijay Mallya, the industrialist, who recently announced his decision to make a foray into Karnataka cricket administration.Two vice-presidents from the Brijesh faction, Roger Binny (582 votes), the former Indian Test allrounder, and Dr S Krishnamurthy (530) won, while PR Ashok Anand (530) was elected as vice-president from the Wadiyar camp.The vital post of treasurer went to Thallam Venkatesh (530), from the Brijesh camp, who beat Jagannath (490) by the margin of 44 votes in what local experts considered a genuine upset.Wadiyar had brief words with the press who were gathered at the KSCA, saying, “We’ve got overall 13 candidates and its up to the rival group to work with us,” amidst choruses of his supporters chanting . When asked how he would work with arch-rival Brijesh, Wadiyar only said, “Yes, I know he’s won the election. Wait till tomorrow. It’s too early to say.” It’s worth noting that Wadiyar, in the run-up to the elections had quoted the old axiom: politics makes for strange bedfellows.In almost stark contrast to Wadiyar, a visibly emotional Viswanath did his best to keep his composure when chatting to the media. “As a player I always expected to do well. Same was the case here. I thought I’d do well in the elections,” said the man who scored 6000-plus Test runs and still remains one of the most swashbuckling batsmen the country has produced. “But, even as a player I’ve lost a few matches. I accept the verdict here. I’m still hopeful of playing well and this is not the end of the story.”Mallya, the other high-profile figure in the elections, was typically dramatic in the statement he made. “I know it’s a kind of a coalition set up. But I’ll help both parties function well,” he said. “My commitment to Karnataka cricket and the KSCA is total.” A late entrant into the fray in these elections, it is believed that Mallya’s real interest lies in administration of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) – especially the meetings of the marketing and finance committees – to which he will gain an entry through the KSCA. Interestingly, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the BCCI when asked about the Indian Cricket League (ICL). “Mr Pawar has taken the game one level up and he’s running the game ably. I don’t see why I should support the ICL.”At the end of the day, the elections at the KSCA assumed significance at the national level thanks to the profile various protagonists enjoy. How this will eventually pan out, at the state and national level, remains to be seen.Full list of winners (Votes polled in brackets)President Srikanta Datta Narasimharaja Wadiyar (553)Secretary Brijesh Patel (568)Vice-presidents 1 Roger Binny (582) 2, Dr S Krishnamurthy (530) 3 PR Ashok Anand (530)Treasurer Thallam Venkatesh (530)Managing Committee 1 AV Jayaprakash (605) 2 Sudhakar Rao (582 ) 3 J Abhiram (551) 4 Raghuram Bhatt (533) 5 Sanjay Desai (514) 6 Lakshminarayan (507)Institutional MembersBangalore Zone – 1 Jawahar Sports Club (620) 2 Select Cricket Club (564) 3 Bangalore Cricketers 555 4 Malleshwaram United Cricket Club (539) 5 Swastika Union CC (515) 6 Mount Joy CC (502)Mysore Zone – National CC (563)Shimoga Zone – Durgigudi SC (525)Tumkur Zone – Tumkur Occasionals (556)Mangalore Zone – Mangalore Sports Club (554)Dharwar Zone – Hubli SC (530)Raichur Zone – Perfect SC (494)

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.

Cricket Victoria has its first female board member with Susan Crow, the CEO of Netball Victoria, joining the former spin bowler Paul Jackson as the board’s two newest appointments. Recent constitutional changes have allowed Cricket Victoria to appoint the pair from outside the group of elected directors.Crow has worked with a range of sporting bodies and was the executive director of Women’s Cricket Australia from 1995 to 2000, following a stint with the Victorian Women’s Cricket Association.Jackson is a former left-arm orthodox bowler who played 105 first-class games for Victoria and Queensland during the 1980s and 1990s. He also has a successful career in banking and is currently the director of natural resources in ANZ’s institutional banking division.”Sue Crow and Paul Jackson have a wealth of experience both on and off the field and I’m sure will be exceptional contributors to Victorian Cricket,” Cricket Victoria’s chairman Geoff Tamblyn said. “Their appointments capitalise on the opportunity to source talented, passionate people from beyond the traditional pathway and they will play key roles in helping us achieve future success.”