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Errol Stewart’s chances of being understudy to Mark Boucher at next month’s World Cup are all but dead after he turned down an invitation to lead the South Africa A side on a three-match tour of Zimbabwe.”My conscience will not allow me to live in a luxury hotel in a country where people are dying of starvation,” Stewart told reporters. “As someone in the legal profession, I am very sensitive about the abuse of human rights and the fact that the Zimbabwean judiciary is put under so much duress.”I also don’t agree at all with the way land is taken away from farmers. Ordinary Zimbabweans are being persecuted and there is no equal distribution of food in that country. Mugabe pays no heed whatsoever to democracy. There is starvation and I would never be able to forgive myself if I support a tyrant like Mugabe by going there to play cricket and give credibility to what he is doing to his people.”I cannot think how any country could declare themselves willing to go and play there during the World Cup. They don’t even have food for their own people. How are they going to provide quality health care in the event of a player or a supporter getting injured?”Coming on the eve of the World Cup, where Zimbabwe will host matches, and with England a possible no-show for their match in Harare, Stewart’s comments will not only embarrass the Zimbabwe authorities but will also anger the South African board.It is understood Stewart told Omar Henry, the head of the selectors, and Pat Symcox, another selector, that he was not available.Asked if any other players were likely to follow his lead, Stewart said that he had not heard of any but that he believed others might. He added that doubted his stand would count against me in terms of his future selection for the South African team. “It would be petty if itdid,” he added.

Chris Read, the Nottinghamshire wicketkeeper, has said he will take the ECB to court if his involvement in the Indian Cricket League (ICL) proves to bring an end to his England career.Read last played for England in the fifth Test against Australia, in Sydney, last January before being shunted out by Paul Nixon, Matt Prior and now Tim Ambrose. He took part in the inaugural ICL event last December but since then the ECB have started to take a hard line against players who appear in the ICL.Read’s county future isn’t in doubt but he would face a one-year ban if he appeared in further ICL tournaments. The ECB have said there won’t be retrospective action against players who have taken part in the ICL, so Read’s England chances appear to back in his hands despite earlier suggestions that selectors would take into account the league.”I don’t feel I am banned from international cricket,” Read told the latest edition of . “I haven’t spoken to anyone at the ECB for the best part of 13 months so I am not sure. I made a commitment to play in the ICL before any statement was made by the ECB.”And he admits that the legal path would be one to consider if his international hopes have been ended by the ICL. “That would be the natural course to take. I signed my ICL contract in good faith before the ECB had an official policy.”Read believes that as an out-of-contract county player he was free to choose how to fill his winter. Nottinghamshire do not provide 12-month deals for their players so he was a free agent at the time of the ICL last November.”The ICL was employment for me in the winter. I am a cricketer so I went out to play cricket, it looked competitive and it looked fun and that’s why I signed up,” he added.”I would like to play more cricket for the ICL but it is hard to commit because I still have England aspirations. If I am banned from playing international cricket, or unofficially banned, then I would be very disappointed and find that pretty harsh. By performing well with Nottinghamshire I hope I can still be in the frame.”

Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) enter this season’s Carib Beer Series as defending champions, but coach Kelvin Williams does not feel the pressure of expectations.”I just want to continue the success of the team,” he said, noting that there will be big gaps to fill in the squad.T&T will be without the services of Daren Ganga, Dwayne Bravo and Denesh Ramdin, all on tour with the West Indies in South Africa, and Williams believes that “We will have to use what we have.”Yes we will be missing these guys but the players coming in to replace them have to realise the role they have to play,” said Williams, who is filling in for David Williams, appointed West Indies’ assistant coach.”Everyone plays important roles in the squad and I think the senior guys will have to encourage the younger ones to perform and bring their game to the level required.”Bad weather has hampered T&T’s preparations for their first match against Guyana on January 4 Williams thinks, “because of the nature of training indoors” the guys have not adjusted well to outdoor conditions.”T&T is in an enviable position with the talent we have. It is up to them to continue to play the way they normally play as a team together, with pride and passion. If they continue to play like that then we will be able to successfully defend our championship.”A core of players have been training for the last eight weeks or so and I don’t think it will be a problem for the final squad to gel together.”

Positioning fielders is like manoeuvring chess pieces and there is usually a lot of build-up before any reward. Dinesh Karthik, a substitute for Wasim Jaffer, was the pawn who helped break down Australia’s famed batting order and all he did was move a couple of steps.Harbhajan Singh was involved in a tight tussle with Ricky Ponting, who was fortunate to avoid another cheap dismissal to the offspinner when Mahendra Singh Dhoni missed a stumping, and he was starting to look comfortable when working the ball to fine leg. Anil Kumble had ordered a short leg, short midwicket, midwicket and mid-on to stifle Ponting’s legside play; he responded by shuffling across the stumps and finding space with flicks and dabs.The careful Indian plan was being exposed and Harbhajan needed a change. Karthik, who was under the helmet at short leg, was shifted a couple of metres to his right to cut down Ponting’s safe scoring option. Now just behind square, Karthik’s new spot forced Ponting to play straighter and into India’s trap. It was a switch that worked at the first attempt, although the tourists received some charity from the umpire Mark Benson.Harbhajan’s doosra forced Ponting back and he intended to push down the ground, but the ball hurried on, hitting his edge before the pad. India roared, having achieved the prized dismissal, and Harbhajan ran to point, waiting for his team-mates to approach before bowing like a matador. It was the seventh time in eight Tests he had accounted for Ponting and he deserved the wicket, even if the lbw decision was wrong.Ponting was furious, hanging his bat towards the umpire and swinging it over the boundary rope as he walked off, but he had already benefited from a not-out ruling to a leg glance off Sourav Ganguly on 17, and an over before his dismissal he could have been caught at deep square leg if Rahul Dravid had been more alert. His 55 contained some brilliant drives and a century seemed assured if only he did not have to face Harbhajan.In Harbhajan’s second over of the day he enticed Ponting, facing his fourth delivery from the bowler, to come down the pitch and Harbhajan was horrified to see the ball brush Dhoni’s glove and speed for two byes instead of a legside stumping. Ponting had fallen to his first ball from Harbhajan in Melbourne and was again in trouble against high-quality offspin, just as he was when facing Muttiah Muralitharan in November. For the rest of the over he went back to defend, but during lunch devised a strategy for runs to fine leg.A quick change in the field helped straighten up India as well as Ponting. The essential breakthrough gained in significance when Australia lost their legs with the departure of their captain, dropping 4 for 15 in 30 balls. However, a tiny first innings was avoided by the fine recovery of Andrew Symonds and Brad Hogg, and no amount of tinkering in the field by Kumble could stop the partnership reaching 173. By then even Ponting was feeling upbeat again.

Scorecard

St Vincent and the Grenadines made a meal of the target set by Trinidad & Tobago and handed them a 59-run win and a spot in the semi-finals of the Stanford 20/20.Dwayne Bravo plundered 62 off 34 balls and added 86 with William Perkins (56) to revive the T&T innings following a poor start. T&T had scored 55 for 3 in the first ten overs. By the 15th – with Bravo and Perkins on the offensive – 55 more were added without the loss of any wicket. Bravo hit a six and two fours off Romel Currency’s first over that went for 18 runs. But the T&T batsmen’s urgency to score runs was evident though ill-advised with four of the seven wickets falling to run-outs. Keon Peters was St Vincent’s most successful bowler, removing Perkins and Bravo in successive overs.St Vincent’s chase was checked right from the second ball when opener Miles Bascombe was caught off Mervyn Dillon for a duck. It hit further snags on the way and at the end of the first ten overs St Vincent were 37 for 6.Legspinner Samuel Badree dried up the runs, conceding only nine from his four overs, and took two wickets off successive deliveries. Deighton Butler was St Vincent’s top scorer with an unbeaten 33.On February 15 T&T will play the winner of the match between Barbados and Grenada to fight for a spot in the final.

Bermuda 231 for 7 (Tucker 59*, Edness 41) beat Uganda 224 for 9 (Kishore 84*, Ruyange 50, Hurdle 4-40) by seven runs
ScorecardBermuda won their opening warm-up match against Uganda in Nairobi, but they were taken to the wire, eventually squeezing a seven-run victory.Bermuda, whose form in the last year has been desperately poor, need good results in Kenya and the UAE, and they got off to a good start after winning the toss, Stephen Outerbridge and Jekon Edness putting on 83 for the first wicket. But then the innings lost its way as five wickets fell for 53 runs, Davies Arinaitwe and Frank Nsubuga picking up two each. Nsubuga’s offspin was particularly effective on a slow pitch, his ten overs producing excellent figures of 2 for 24.Janeiro Tucker led a middle-order revival, smacking an unbeaten 59, including five sixes, as Bermuda recovered to 231 for 7.Kevin Hurdle struck twice in his opening overs to reduce Uganda to 7 for 2, and although they eased to 85 for 4, the game seemed beyond them. Nandi Kishore had other ideas, and with Daniel Ruyange he boosted the score to 170 before Dwayne Leverock broke the stand. The reintroduction of Hurdle was too much for the lower middle-order, and although Kishore kept blazing, the ask was just too much for Uganda.Bermuda will be relieved to have avoided an embarrassing slip-up while Uganda will take great heart from an impressive performance. The two sides meet again on Tuesday (October 23).

The Vanuatu Cricket Association (VCA) has been given an excellent report card for its ICC East Asia Pacific Under-19 World Cup qualifying tournament preparations, following an inspection by the ICC. The tournament will be hosted in Port Vila from July 17 to 24.Competing countries include Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Japan and Vanuatu. The winner will earn direct entry to the 2008 U-19 World Cup which will be held in Malaysia.”Vanuatu Cricket Association’s logistical preparations are already well underway,” said Bron Madigan, the ICC EAP regional project officer. “I have inspected the grounds which will be used for the tournament and am very impressed with the quality of the facilities. Having staged the successful 2005 EAP Cricket Cup tournament, the VCA staff have used their experience to their advantage. They have also been working very hard at getting corporate sponsorship from the local Port Vila community.”The tournament has the backing of the Vanuatu government and local businesses have also been quick to get involved.

Ricky Ponting has dismissed the fracas surrounding Shaun Tait’s action as “absolute rubbish” and called New Zealand’s insinuations “a bit disappointing”. But he admitted the situation motivated Australia to victory in the Chappell-Hadlee Series opener in Adelaide on Friday.”It seems to be their opinion,” Ponting said. “To air it publicly is a bit disappointing I suppose, but what can you do? It probably just makes us a bit hungrier to go out there and play some good cricket against them.”He said he can’t see anything wrong in Tait’s action, which hasn’t been questioned before, and wasn’t reported to the match referee after the Twenty20 match on Tuesday. “He’s got my full support, it all looks pretty good to me,” Ponting said. “I think everyone handled it well and Shaun especially. When things like that come up that are absolute rubbish you dismiss them.”Ponting himself contributed a chanceless century in the seven-wicket win on Friday, while Tait took three wickets, including a crucial double-strike which punctured New Zealand’s momentum and left them 30 runs short of a par score.Daniel Vettori clarified his position after saying on Thursday, “You ask Braces [coach John Bracewell]” that one”, when asked if he had an issue with Tait’s action. “I never meant to insinuate that he was a chucker,” Vettori said after the match. “There is a process in place if you feel a bowler has an illegal action and obviously we haven’t gone through that process.”Although New Zealand came up short on a flat track, Brendon McCullum’s 96 to push them past 250 gave them a psychological boost. “It certainly helps,” Vettori said. “We were obviously coming in off question marks about whether we could play pace or not. I’d like to think we answered that.”There are few question marks surrounding Australia’s continued dominance and they are now one step closer to regaining the trophy from New Zealand’s clutches. The visitors have to win on Sunday in Sydney to stay in the series.

Kent’s redevelopment of the St Lawrence Ground in Canterbury could be delayed by legal action brought by a member who claims the club has not provided any financial details of the sale of land that is being used to finance the project.A report in the Times quotes Ben Moorhead, a local lawyer who successfully opposed other development work in the area. “If you were selling your house, would you expect to exchange contracts without being informed of the price?” he said. “I hope to achieve the appropriate details, followed by a proper consideration of the matter by members at a fresh special general meeting. The resolution passed at the meeting in September is invalid and it follows that the general committee is not authorised to dispose of the club’s land.”Moorhead opposes the construction of a hotel next to the pitch but insists his move is purely on grounds of corporate governance.The county maintain they can dispose of land as they see fit and that members were provided with sufficient information for them to take an informed decision.

Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jaywardene has said that his side will look to capitalise on Andrew Flintoff’s absence when they take on England in the five-match one-day series starting at the Rangiri Dambulla Stadium on October 1.Flintoff was forced to pull-out of the series due to a troublesome left ankle. He also missed the last bilateral one-day series between the two teams in 2006 where England were walloped 5-0 at home.”Andrew is a top-class allrounder,” Jayawardene told , a Colombo-based daily. “England have a more balanced attack with him in their side because he is a batting allrounder who bowls really well. He is a matchwinner and his absence is obviously an advantage for us.”Jayawardene indicated that the England one-day side was stronger than the one they faced last year. “They have got some really good allrounders coming through,” he said. “We met them in the World Cup and it was a very close game. England will be a good challenge for us. It’s a big season ahead and we need to make sure we start on a very good note.”They also have some quality batsmen who play different roles, some we haven’t seen. We need to understand what those are and try to counter-attack them.”Commenting on the Sri Lankan squad, Jayawardene said it was a tough call for the selectors to pick allrounder Kaushal Lokuarachchi ahead of fellow legspinner Malinga Bandara.”Loku’s been performing really well in one-day internationals. We know what Bandara is capable of doing. Thinking of the future, you never know how long Sanath [Jayasuriya] is going to continue playing. We might have to fit in a spinning allrounder in the middle of our batting line-up. It’s good for us to try a few things right now, see what Loku has to offer and how we can have different combinations going forward.”On Muttiah Muralitharan, Jayawardene doubted whether he would be fit for the series. Muralitharan is recovering from a strained right bicep which he sustained while bowling long spells during his county stint with Lancashire.”It’s good to have Murali around but the reality is that he won’t be around for a long time. He won’t be playing all the matches. We need to give him adequate rest. Even the workload on [Chaminda] Vaas must be limited. When opportunities arise we have to try out new blood. There are a few guys we have earmarked. We will them bring slowly into the system.”Chanaka Welagedera, Mahela Udawatte and Dilruwan Perera are some of the players in the short list.