Nottinghamshire held their nerve to secure a two-wicket against Northamptonshire at Trent Bridge. They began the day needing 105 with six wickets in hand, but soon lost nightwatchman Andy Harris for 6. Samit Patel reached 50, before Nicky Boje removed him to haul the visitors back in the match. Boje bowled Mark Ealham then Chris Read fell to Jason Brown. However, Nottinghamshire’s batting went a long way down with Andre Adams, the New Zealand allrounder, coming in at No. 10. He played positively alongside Graeme Swann to guide their side across the line.Nottinghamshire’s win means that despite pulling off a 114-run at Colchester, Essex are still well adrift in third place. Leicestershire were set 291 after 14 overs of joke bowling, but it was for the greater good. Andy Bichel struck in his first over and Leicestershire never formed a solid base. Jim Allenby battled to 59 as Danish Kaneria struck against the middle order. The lower order went down swinging rather than blocking and Marc Rosenberg was unable to bat.Gloucestershire survived a potentially tricky couple of sessions at Lord’s against Middlesex after Ed Smith had done his best to find a positive finish. When Gloucestershire were 148 for 8 in their first innings the follow-on was a possibility, but after Chris Taylor (62 not out) had erased that issue time became severely limited. Smith hit a 55-ball 56 as Middlesex scored at six-an-over for 20 overs, leaving the visitors 264 in 60. They began aggressively, but when Alan Richardson removed both openers in the space of three runs put their minds to a draw. Hamish Marshall’s 59 ensured against any late alarms.

Shaun Pollock has said any team could fancy their chances at the ICC World Twenty20, because of the quick-paced nature of the game.”It’s too fast,” Pollock told the . “It’s a bit of a sprint. If one-day cricket is an 800-metre race, then Twenty20 is 100 metres.”If you get off to a bad start you can lose the game regardless of who you are playing.”The South African team have been called ‘chokers’ in the past, due to their inability to succeed in the World Cup for the 50-over format. However, Pollock indicated that the possibility was less in Twenty20. “I don’t think there’s really time to choke, everything happens so quickly,” Pollock said. After a infamous rain-rule denied them a final berth at the 1992 World Cup, South Africa have stumbled ever since in the World Cup, having twice missed out against Australia – a thrilling tie in 1999 and a lop-sided contest earlier this year in the West Indies.Pollock was also the captain of the team that had a disastrous tournament at home in the 2003 World Cup, which they exited in the first stage. Many critics felt the commitments to organisers and sponsors distracted the players then, something Pollock said has been avoided this time around. “We are very focused on making sure all our commitments are out of the way.”South Africa wrapped all their media and sponsorship obligations in Johannesburg before they left for a training centre in Potchefstroom, where they are undergoing preparations for five days in the lead-up to the tournament. Australia, winners of the 2003 World Cup, also trained in the same centre ahead of their victorious campaign.”We can go off to Potch and prepare for the tournament for five days leading up, where we just focus wholly and solely on cricket,” Pollock said before the team left. “Hopefully that bears fruit in the time to come. Being the host nation, there are always more commitments, so to get them out of the way and be able to concentrate on cricket is what we’ve learnt from last time.”Pollock also said that he would like to move up the batting order as he felt that four overs of bowling would not be enough for him to feel involved in the game. “It would be nice to be put up the order and be able to express yourself,” he said. “That’s the one bonus. If you were only a bowler in this form of the game it would be pretty depressing.”He also expressed his views on the omission of Jacques Kallis from the team. “It’s obviously a big call by the selectors,” Pollock said. “He has voiced some disappointment and you can understand that. “Kallis has been South Africa’s batting mainstay over the years and was the team’s top run-getter at the World Cup earlier this year. “Usually he’s the first or second name put down on a piece of paper when you’re selecting the side, so he would have been very surprised by the fact he wasn’t included,” Pollock said. “Being a home event, he would have loved to play in front of his own home crowd, so that would have added to the disappointment. The big plus from the way he has reacted is that it answers the question about what the guys think of a Twenty20 tournament.”Pollock said Kallis’ displeasure at not being selected was an indication of the team’s eagerness to perform well at the tournament. “If Jacques, after all the cricket he has played and all he has achieved, is disappointed about not being part of it, then you realise it is going to be a special event. We’re going to be really trying hard to try to win it.”

Some might say it is typical of England that they should finally crack 50-over cricket at precisely the moment that the rest of the world is tiring of the concept. But nevertheless their achievement in Sri Lanka over the past two weeks has been noteworthy in the extreme. Paul Collingwood’s men have just completed England’s first series victory in the subcontinent since 1987, and overturned the Sri Lankans on home soil for the first time ever.This result follows on from England’s impressive 4-3 home victory against India in September, and is further evidence of the steely streak that has been injected into England’s game by Collingwood, their first specialist limited-overs captain since Adam Hollioake (who, coincidentally, was the last man to triumph anywhere in Asia, in Sharjah in 1997-98).More’s the pity, therefore, that England blotted their limited-overs copybook in the World Twenty20 last month. But that side was as experimental as the format itself, with specialist selections such as Darren Maddy and James Kirtley enjoying mixed success on their return to top-level cricket. This squad has brought back men such as Ian Bell, who now exhibits a sense of belonging, and shown the sort of solidity that England’s one-day side have lacked ever since Graham Gooch’s mob failed to win the World Cup in 1992.If that sounds like an exaggeration, remember this – Sri Lanka were World Cup finalists in Barbados six months ago, and deservedly so. No other side in that interminable competition was fit to lace the Australians’ boots, and even in defeat it’s arguable that Sri Lanka contained the best allround bowling attack on show, with the stalwarts Chaminda Vaas and Dilhara Fernando allied to the two key impact players, Lasith Malinga and Muttiah Muralitharan.Murali of course has been missing from this competition, and without him Sri Lanka have struggled for variation on a selection of stodgy wickets. But Malinga has been mastered almost throughout – his spells have been milked at almost a run a ball, and he’s taken no more wickets in the entire series than he managed in four deliveries against South Africa.Set against such shortcomings, however, is Sri Lanka’s formidable record on home soil – which ought to have been worth at least a 2-0 lead. Until the second match at Dambulla, England had not won a single ODI against Sri Lanka at home since 1982, but they were hardly unique in their lack of success. Since 1994, Sri Lanka had lost only two bilateral series out of 11, and dropped only five games in those contests – three to Australia in a hard-fought five-match series in 2003-04, and two to Pakistan in March 2006.It was Pakistan’s superior bowling attack that delivered that last win, and that was the difference between the sides once again. England’s pace attack of Ryan Sidebottom, James Anderson and Stuart Broad was insuperable, providing pace, hostility and above all, accuracy. The days of Sajid Mahmood, Liam Plunkett and Steve Harmison, whose guileless scatterguns helped Sri Lanka to a crushing 5-0 victory in 2006, seemed a distant and troubling memory.Between them, Sidebottom, Broad and Anderson kept Sri Lanka’s top four completely under wraps – they mustered just 348 runs between them and two half-centuries, which is barely any more than the 286 that Sanath Jayasuriya and Upul Tharanga added for the first wicket at Headingley in 2006. Between them they ensured that Andrew Flintoff – the pre-series talking-point – was barely worthy of a footnote.Nor was Flintoff missed for his allround qualities. Graeme Swann’s ice-cool return made Monty Panesar an equally redundant topic of conversation, while Collingwood’s confidence in his own abilities on Sri Lanka’s dead wickets elevated him almost to frontline-seamer status, with five economical wickets at 28.20, more than any of Sri Lanka’s bowlers bar Fernando. Even at the lowest reaches of the order, England brimmed with confidence, with Broad and Sidebottom seeing England home in a tense third game at Dambulla.Sadly for England, their best overseas ODI result in years (leaving aside their astonishing CB Series win against a tired and pre-occupied Australia) comes at precisely the wrong time for anyone to take any interest. The World Cup (50-over or 20-over) is too far over the horizon for any of this to be remembered in the long run, while a World Cup of another kind is currently stealing all column inches back home. But Collingwood and his men will savour this triumph. If 50-over cricket really is in its death throes, then at least they’ve turned up in time for the wake.

Australia and Sri Lanka’s two-Test series will be fought for a trophy named after Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan. Cricket Australia accepted Sri Lanka Cricket’s suggestion that the winner of the contest, which begins in Brisbane on Thursday, should be awarded the Warne-Muralitharan Trophy to commemorate 25 years of Test cricket between the two sides.The trophy is a fitting tribute for two of the world’s best spin bowlers. Muralitharan is just nine wickets away from surpassing Warne’s record of 708 Test wickets. The announcement celebrates the 25th anniversary of Australia-Sri Lanka Test cricket, with the trophy featuring casts of Warne and Muralitharan’s right hands and match-used cricket balls bowled by both players during their careers.Sri Lanka Cricket’s chief executive Duleep Mendis said it was a fitting tribute to two players who have left an indelible mark on world cricket. “We are proud of the rivalry between our nation and Australia,” he said, “and think this trophy will help add to the sense of occasion every time we do battle.”Cricket Australia’s chief executive James Sutherland echoed these sentiments: “Both Shane and Muttiah have broken the 700-wicket barrier and inspired young cricketers around the world to try their hands at spin bowling. We see the inception of this trophy as yet another step in celebrating the wonderful history between both nations while continuing to build its stature in the years to come.”Warne said he felt very proud to be sharing the honour with Muralitharan. “We’ve had some great battles in the past and helped raise each other’s game to the heights that we’ve reached,” Warne said. “The rivalry between Australia and Sri Lanka has grown immeasurably over the last decade and I know my former Australian teammates will be super-keen to be the first country to win the trophy when they do battle this November.”Muralitharan said the respect was mutual: “I have enormous respect for Shane Warne,” he said, “and I consider it a great honour to have a trophy named after both of us. The coming Test series is a great opportunity for our team against Australia and I’m looking forward to bowling in Australia again.”The Warne-Murali tharan Trophy becomes the latest series named after famous players.Australia’s matches against India are fought for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy while Australia and New Zealand compete for the Chappell-Hadlee one-day title.

The batsman Callum Ferguson has been drafted into South Australia’s Ford Ranger Cup squad for their day-nighter with New South Wales in Adelaide on Wednesday. He replaces injured fast bowler Shaun Tait, whose absence will be a blow to the struggling Redbacks who are yet to earn a point.Tait, who may have been on Test duty anyway, will now definitely not play because of his troublesome elbow which also forced him to drop out of Australia’s 13 against Sri Lanka. He will also miss the Pura Cup match following cortisone injections which could rule him out of both Tests against Sri Lanka.Ferguson joins a Redbacks squad which has lost their first two matches, but their opponents haven’t fared too well either. The Blues have lost two of three, with the third abandoned to the rain.The visitors maintain the same 12-player squad who lost to Tasmania on Sunday despite Brad Haddin’s century. It’s Doug Bollinger’s second trip to Adelaide in two weeks following his appearance for the Chairman’s XI draw in the first warm-up match for the touring Sri Lankans.South Australia squad Daniel Harris, Matt Elliott, Mark Cosgrove, Nathan Adcock (capt), Darren Lehmann, Graham Manou (wk), Andy Delmont, Ryan Harris, Jason Gillespie, Callum Ferguson, Mark Cleary, Dan Cullen.New South Wales squad Grant Lambert, Ed Cowan, Brad Haddin (wk), Dominic Thornely, Simon Katich (capt), Peter Forrest, Nathan Hauritz, Matthew Nicholson, Mark Cameron, Doug Bollinger, Nathan Bracken, Stephen O’Keefe.

Banned from competing for the ICC Under-19 World Cup even after a 2007 season which earned them top honours in every international match they played, USA’s junior cricketers are looking forward to making history with a tour of India. They will be the first representative US team to tour a major Test-playing nation in the history of North American cricket.The US senior team, led by Steve Massiah and featuring some of the best young players, nearly managed to qualify for the World Cup before falling victim to bad luck and the weather. Now there is little hope that they will be able to play until the USA Cricket Association (USACA) is able to convince its own stakeholders as well as the ICC that it deserves another chance to do things right – and until that happens, USA’s senior cricketers can only watch disconsolately from the sidelines.Not so the USA juniors who are determined to forge ahead under their own steam in 2008 and beyond. They are going ahead with an ambitious agenda and have every intention of doing better than in 2007.However, it doesn’t come cheap. A four to six-week international tour could cost $100,000 for a fifteen-player squad in addition to the coach, manager and physio. A fully-fledged program of five or more tours each year could easily cost half a million dollars or more. The question is, who will pick up the tab?For the upcoming India tour, the juniors have the support of a major sponsor: the Key Point Credit Union. It is located in the heart of Silicon Valley with branches throughout California. “Key Point’s premier sponsorship of [our] tour, singling us out for [this kind of] major support, allows our players the opportunity to represent their native county in a game they love”, said Hemant Buch, founder of the California Cricket Academy (CCA).Buch said the success achieved by USA’s juniors in 2007 did not come out of thin air. It was built on an annual program including world-class coaching, a very successful national tournament, and inter-club tournaments featuring the different formats to expose the youngsters to all the styles they might expect to encounter in international junior cricket. Such intensive junior set-ups exist in very few countries, although more and more are taking them up as interest in junior cricket grows worldwide.The USA tour of India, it has been agreed, will be conducted at the Under-15 level. The USA U-15 squad is set to play their counterparts in Ahmedabad, Baroda and Mumbai. The Indians are laying out the welcome mat for their guests, and their choice of venues reflects the high profile that is being attached to the tour. The matches at Ahmedabad and Baroda will be against select U-15 and U-17 teams, most of which are expected to be 40-over games which seem to be the norm in U-17 junior cricket. The USA team has also been invited to play at the Vengsarkar and Chandrakant Pandit academies, home to the emerging national junior development programs in India, for some local fast-action games of 25 overs in Mumbai.As is typical with the programs run by the Cricket Academy, the touring squad was carefully selected after a thorough review of individual performances in 2006 and 2007. It comprises players from all over the USA including New Jersey, Florida, and California. Satish Deo, an active volunteer at CCA, will be the team manager.The tour itinerary is every bit as challenging as originally anticipated. The team leaves San Francisco on December 22 for two warm-up matches – the first on Christmas Day at Motera International stadium where several team members had already played during the summer. The second is on Boxing Day at the Anand stadium.After that, the tour starts in earnest, with a regular game on December 27 at the Gandhinagar cricket academy with a taxing itinerary which takes them through to January 5 when they fly home.There had been talk of a stopover in Sharjah to play the England and Scotland U-19 teams who are on their way to the Under-19 World Cup in India, or a few warm-up matches with the early arrivals at the U-19 World Cup, but these were ruled out by the USA team management because of their already taxing schedule. Instead, the USA juniors will have to sit out this year’s U-19 World Cup and hope they will play when the next one comes around in 2011. As one US junior cricketer slyly pointed out, almost all of this year’s touring squad will be available for selection in four years time, and ready to take on the world.

David Smith will take over from Paul Maylard-Mason as Leicestershire’s chief executive in January.Smith, who played for Warwickshire, said: “This is a great opportunity to build on the good work undertaken by the club. In Tim Boon, we have an outstanding cricket coach – he and I share a vision for the club to establish a sustainable development pathway which gives young Leicestershire cricketers the best opportunity to represent their county at first-class level.””David brings a rare set of credentials to the post,” Neil Davidson, the chairman, said: “A successful playing career at first-class level, experience of cricket administration and a successful business career in a highly relevant industry.”

Habibul Bashar, Shahriar Nafees and Enamul Haque are being added to New Zealand’s squad for the two-Test series starting January 4. The three players will depart on December 28 while four cricketers from the ODI squad will return home after the completion of the ongoing series.As expected, veteran wicketkeeper Khaled Mashud along with ace left-arm spinner Mohammad Rafique were ignored for the New Zealand tour with the selectors showing faith in the young wicketkeeper Mushfiqur Rahim and allowing him to continue on tour. The Rafiqul Alam-led selection panel opted for Bashar, Bangladesh’s former captain, Nafees, left-handed opener, and Haque, the left-arm spinner, got the nod over Rafique for technical reason.”We had conditions in mind rather than going for only experience while taking the decision of leaving out two of our most important performers,” Rafiqul said. “Mushfiq is already accustomed to the conditions and his last Test performance in Sri Lanka was also not bad. That’s why we didn’t find any reason to send Mashud despite his good form in the national league and in addition we have yet to get a full fitness report on him.”In Rafique’s case, what we felt was that a spinner like Enamul who can bowl a little slower would be more effective than him. Enamul has already proved his worth as a longer-version bowler and his performance in the national league was also noteworthy.”On the other hand we still believe that Rafique has been completely out of sorts since the last home series against India and his performance in the domestic competition and attitude towards the competition also forced us to take the decision.”The former national player also explained the reason behind the selection of Bashar and Nafees, who got the nod because of his late comeback in the National Cricket League.”The time has yet to come to think about the Test fate of Bashar because we don’t want to forget his contribution as a Test batsman. On the other hand we always believe that Nafees is a very important player for us. We dropped Nafees from the one-day squad because of his woeful performances but he has returned among the runs lately to get back his place.”The second and final Test, also the last match of the tour, starts in Wellington on January 12.

McLaren Smith, the Bermuda allrounder, has been drafted in as Lamar Richardson’s replacement for next month’s Under-19 World Cup in Malaysia.Smith’s late call-up means he will represent Bermuda at both theUnder-19 World Cup as well as the Stanford 20/20 tournament in Antiguawith the senior squad.”McLaren will be coming from the Twenty20 tournament, where he will be onnational team duty, so he won’t be going to India with us,” Andre Manders, the Bermuda Under-19 coach, said. “He’s a tall medium-fast bowler and batsman. He was already in the [Stanford 20/20] squad and we didn’t want to take him out. I guess he’s quite lucky as he will be going on both trips, but we know he’s up to the task.”Richardson was ruled out of the World Cup last week after breaking his wrist in training, joining Stefan Kelly on the sidelines, though Kelly’s omission is due to his school commitments.

Andrew Flintoff is heading to India with Lancashire’s academy in late-February, as he steps up his rehabilitation from ankle surgery, and hopes to join his county colleagues in a tournament in the UAE in March if he manages to prove his fitness.Flintoff hasn’t played for England since the World Twenty20 in South Africa last September, having undergone his fourth ankle operation over the winter. He was originally earmarked for the England Lions tour to India, which gets underway on Thursday, but an ECB spokesman said his absence from that trip was not a cause for concern.”It was never definitely decided that Andrew was going to join up with the Lions squad, it was only ever a possibility,” the spokesman told BBC Sport. “The medical team have decided that it would be in his best interests to continue his progress, which is going very well, with Lancashire.”Lancashire’s cricket manager, Mike Watkinson, reiterated the ECB’s faith in Flintoff’s progress. “Lancashire’s pre-season training camp is in Dubai in mid-March, and if everything continues as planned Freddie will be part of that,” he told BBC Sport.The 14-man Lions squad has undergone several changes since it was originally picked last month. Essex’s wicketkeeper James Foster, Gloucestershire’s fast bowler Steve Kirby and the Nottinghamshire seamer Charlie Shreck were called up on Tuesday because of injuries to the Worcestershire pairing of Steven Davies and Kabir Ali. The squad also includes Monty Panesar, who will link up with the senior squad at the end of February for the Tests in New Zealand.