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Shoaib Akhtar has agreed to return to Durham next season. He played seven first-class matches for them in 2003, taking 34 wickets at just over 17 runs apiece. He will team up with Herschelle Gibbs as the club’s two overseas players.”Shoaib is one of the world’s greatest bowlers and we are delighted that he is coming back to Durham for a second season,” said Jon Lewis, Durham’s captain. “He was a prolific wicket-taker during his short time with us last year”, he added. “We are expecting great performances from Shoaib and Herschelle, however, they will also play an important part in the development of our young talented players.”Bob Jackson, Durham’s chairman, was also pleased with the news. He said: “The prospect of Shoaib Akhtar and Stephen Harmison pairing up with the new ball is certainly mouth-watering and I expect opening batsmen around the country will not fancy the Durham fixture next year.”

Every Indian tour of New Zealand has been affected by rain andbad light, and the last trip there in 1998-99 was no different.In fact, the scheduled three-Test series got reduced to two asthe first match at Dunedin was abandoned because of a downpour.There was never really any chance of play, and the umpiresformally abandoned the game on the third day. Of the tworemaining Tests, New Zealand won one and the other was drawn,which meant that the hosts had lost only one series to India insix contests at home ­ the first one, played way back in 1967-68.

It was essentially a battle between a team made up of severalstars and another constituting essentially of journeymen. But thehome team proved to be fitter and more committed and resilient.India’s stars performed only in fits and starts, and consistencywas sadly lacking. They suffered a setback in the opening firstclass fixture of the tour when they lost to Central Districts byseven wickets. Although they recovered to defeat Wellington byeight wickets in the only other firstclass game before the Testseries, the portents of defeat were all too apparent, especiallygiven their none-too-convincing record in New Zealand.The wash-out of the first Test was more a handicap to the Indiansthan the New Zealanders, and the visitors must have approachedthe swirling conditions in Wellington with some apprehension.When Simon Doull had the Indians at 16 for four on the firstmorning, the match was virtually decided. Navjot Sidhu, RahulDravid and Nayan Mongia all failed to score, and it took a braveunbeaten 103 by Mohammad Azharuddin to get India to 208. TheIndian captain’s 21st Test century was made in the face of someinspired bowling by Doull, who kept an admirable line and lengthand used the wind to swing the ball menacingly. He finished withseven for 65, the fourth-best figures for New Zealand in Testcricket.The Indian bowlers fought back, and New Zealand lost sevenwickets in catching up with India’s moderate total. But a recordeighth-wicket partnership of 137 between Dion Nash and DanielVettori helped them wrest back the initiative. A lead of 144 wasalways going to be handy, even if the Indians did much better inthe second innings, posting a total of 356. Sachin Tendulkar topscored with 113 and the New Zealanders were left a victory targetof 213.Again India’s bowlers did very well, and at the end of the fourthday, New Zealand were 73 for four ­ effectively five, as NathanAstle had retired after having his hand fractured by a deliveryfrom Javagal Srinath. A fifth wicket fell at 74, but then CraigMcMillian (74 not out) and Chris Cairns (61) quashed Indian hopesof a victory by adding 137 runs for the sixth wicket. Cairns gotout trying to hit the winning stroke, and that honour fittinglywent to Nash.India never really had a chance to square the series in the finalTest at Hamilton. The pitch was too good, as symbolised by thefour centuries and as many as eight other scores over the halfcentury mark being notched up. The one consolation was that Indiahad the Man of the Match in Dravid, who became only the thirdplayer from the country to get a hundred in each innings of aTest after Vijay Hazare and Sunil Gavaskar (who performed thefeat three times).New Zealand led off with 366, to which the Indians replied with416. This represented a pretty good recovery, for at one stagethey were 211 for seven. Dravid and Srinath added 144 runs forthe eighth wicket, with the fast bowler getting a career-best 76.Then Dravid and Venkatesh Prasad (30) carried India’s total pastNew Zealand’s with a ninth-wicket association of 61. Dravid wasfinally out for 190 after having batted for more than eight hoursand hitting 31 fours.The first-innings lead of 50 seemed to be valuable when NewZealand were 85 for four in the second knock. Thereafter, though,India’s bowling ran out of steam, and McMillan (84), Adam Parore(50), Cairns (126), Nash (63) and Daniel Vettori (43 not out) allmade merry. Stephen Fleming delayed the declaration ­ at 464 foreight ­ until after lunch, and in the remaining time, Dravid hithis second century (103 not out) while Sourav Ganguly too got anunbeaten 101 as the Indians closed at 249 for two. Incidentallythis was Sidhu’s 51st and last Test.The five-match series of one-day internationals was keenlyfought, and fittingly it ended with each side winning two matchesand the third game at Wellington being declared a no-result. NewZealand won the first by five wickets on the Duckworth-Lewissystem, while India hit back by taking the second by two wickets.India maintained the momentum with a five-wicket victory in thefourth ODI, only for New Zealand to draw level with a 70-run winin the final game.

June the 5th is going to be a memorable day for CricInfo Bangladesh. After its official launching in Bangladesh CricInfo has arranged such a flamboyant program in Hotel Purbani for the first time. It was the prize giving ceremony for the winners of the buster quiz contest that this prominent website ran all through the month of April on occasion of Bangladesh’s first away tour to Zimbabwe. The President of Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) Mr. Saber Hossain Chowdhury, MP and Deputy Minister of Ministry of LGRD presided over the congregation where BCB officials, National team players, sponsors, journalists, winners, and CricInfo officials were present.The GrameenPhone quiz contest comprised of two parts lastly sort out twenty individuals in a raffle draw earlier, thus were invited at the formal procedure at Hotel Purbani from 6 p.m. Along with the the President of BCB, Mr. Intekhab Mahmood, the sponsor from GrameenPhone and Mr. Sohel M Awrangzeb, the CEO of CricInfo Bangladesh delivered their respective speeches.The President, in his speech, expressed his concern over the welfare of Bangladesh Cricket and the vast role now CricInfo playing to uphold the cricketing plight of the country to the world on-line viewers. Addressing everyone present there, Mr. Chowdhury emphasized on the importance of on-line journalism and invited all to visit the site frequently.Earlier Mr. Sohel M Awrangzeb briefed on the role of CricInfo and its purpose in Bangladesh. Mr. Intekhab Mahmood’s one followed his speech where he put across his views over the role of CricInfo to the audiences.Mr. Sazal, an employee in a private IT firm was the luckiest chap to get the first prize of the contest "Player’s Heaven" – a Grameen cell phone. He received the lucrative token from CricInfo from the President of the BCB along with Trevor Chappell , the coach of Bangladesh national team. The only female winner contestant Ms. Fahmida Walliullah received the Match Bat signed by National Team Cricketers from Naimur Rahman, the skipper of Bangladesh team. The crowd seemed to be very cheerful when she got it. Mr Faisal from Chittagong was the third fortunate winner to get the Practice Bat, also signed by BD players. Some of the contestants were absent in the ceremony.The winners of other events were bestowed with CricInfo token prizes. The meeting ended with a happy note when everyone present there was seen to be engaged in chatting with each other. Some of the winners were seen to hunt autographs from their favorite players.

Mohammad Rafique, the veteran left-arm spinner, has informed the Bangladesh selectors that the upcoming home series against South Africa will be the final leg of his 13-year stint with the national squad.”Rafique is our most experienced spinner. We have recalled him [after he missed out of the New Zealand series] because our chances of winning the series depend on him,” Bangladesh chief selector Rafiqul Alam told AFP, adding that Rafique told him about the his decision to retire.Rafique, who is Bangladesh’s highest wicket-taker in Tests and ODIs with 94 and 119 wickets respectively, is aiming to sign off by becoming the first bowler from his country to take 100 Test wickets.He made his ODI debut against India in Sharjah in April 1995, and played in Bangladesh’s inaugural Test in November 2000, also against India, and was their most economical bowler with figures of 3 for 117 in 51 overs. Rafique played starring roles in Bangladesh’s first ODI and Test wins: against Kenya in 1999 he followed three wickets with 77 as opener and, against Zimbabwe in early 2005, he claimed figures of 5 for 65.An aggressive lower-order batsman, Rafique has scored 1035 at 19.52 in his 31 Tests, his only century coming while batting at No. 9 against West Indies in St. Lucia, when he helped Bangladesh claim a vital first-innings lead.In the one-day format, Rafique has scored 1191 runs at 13.38, and is the first Bangladesh player to achieve the 1000 runs and 100 wickets double in ODIs.

Bermuda’s vice-captain Dean Minors has hung up his gloves after 15 years as the national cricket team’s wicketkeeper.The 37-year-old, one of Bermuda’s most impressive performers at the World Cup, wants to stay in the game as a coach and an administrator and has targeted the top job at the Bermuda Cricket Board as his long-term goal. Minors officially confirmed his resignation in a letter to the board last week.He told the Bermuda Sun it was time for him to move on and allow younger keepers like Kwame Tucker and Jekon Edness the chance to take the gloves. But he wants to put his World Cup experience to good use and will work with wicket-keepers at clubs and, if required, at national level to raise the standard across the country. He said he was also studying development programmes in other countries in a bid to help find the right formula for Bermuda as it looks to progress to World Cup 2011 and beyond. He thanked the board, his friends and team-mates over the years, his family and fans for their support and said he hoped he had left a legacy for other wicket-keeper/batsmen to follow.Minors described the recent trip to West Indies for the World Cup as a fitting end to his international career. “Playing against Michael Vaughan, Andrew Flintoff, Sachin Tendulkar – the history makers of the game – that was really something. I think the journey to the World Cup with the players and the administration, the highs and lows, will be something I’ll always remember. For the first time in my life to be considered a professional on my own home soil – that’s a feat in itself.”He added that everything he had done at the World Cup had been a tribute to his mother, Tonia Minors, who died at the end of last year, without realizing her dream of seeing him play on the world’s biggest stage. “A lot of the things I was doing out there, I was doing for her. I never forgot her dream and a lot of my success was down to her prayers and her support.”Another memory that will stay with him forever is the home-coming, with hundreds of fans gathering at the airport to greet the team. “You look at what it is like in England and Austrlalia – they have that country pride. To come home and experience it for ourselves was amazing. We’ve had it in bits and pieces but that was like nothing I had ever seen before in Bermuda. I just hope it stays that way. I hope that could be the turning point for all sports in Bermuda – that we back our players, no matter what.”Minors added that he hoped those scenes would also be an inspiration to younger players. “I think with this current Government’s commitment to sport there will be endless opportunities for players and there is no reason why, as a talented young cricketer, you can’t get out there and represent your country.”But the journey does not end here for Minors. The St. George’s Cup Match veteran wants to use his experience to help Bermuda make sure the World Cup was not a one-time deal. Having come so close in ICC qualification tournaments past in Kenya and Malaysia, Minors knows what a big deal it was to finally make it to the World Cup at the tournament in Ireland ’05 (another unforgettable career moment).And he is determined to make sure that, now Bermuda has a seat at the top table, it stays there. “Since I came back I’ve noticed the youngsters out playing cricket on the playground at Mullett Bay and elsewhere on the island. That’s exactly what I was like coming up. All I wanted to do was play cricket and football. We have to make the most of the enthusiasm that is there for the game right now.”I’d like to get on the board and play an active role in programme development and the whole restructuring of Bermuda cricket. Eventually I’d like to be CEO. Going to the World Cup has given me a motivation. We were given a golden opportunity to see how things operate at the top level, to see what different teams do. Our drive should be to get back there again. If we take a step back now, it will have all been in vain.”Minors said he was making it his hobby to study cricket development programmes across the world and make contacts with other players, coaches and administrators to find the best way forward for Bermuda. “We’ve got the Under-19 tournament coming up and we should be looking to go as far as we can with that – to the semis or beyond.We need to start setting our sights a bit higher, especially for the youngsters coming up.”Minors’ own international career actually started at the Youth World Cup in 1988 when he was vice-captain on an Associates XI. His captain for that tournament was Zimbabwean Trevor Penney, now the Sri Lankan fielding coach. The pair reunited for the first time in 20 years at the opening ceremony in Jamaica.Reproduced with permission of the Bermuda Sun

Sachin Tendulkar today left for London to undergo a surgery on his shoulder. Tendulkar, accompanied by his doctor wife Anjali, is expected to go under the surgeon’s knife on Monday.The operation, which will rule him out of action for at least two months, would be conducted by noted surgeon Dr. Andrew Wallace. Tendulkar was diagnosed with a posterior labrum tear of the right shoulder during the third cricket Test against England this week, subsequently ruling him out of the seven-match one-day series against Andrew Flintoff’s men which begins on March 28.Indian team’s physiotherapist John Gloster said Tendulkar had been experiencing problems in throwing since the Test series against Sri Lanka last December. The problem had aggravated of late, necessitating the surgery.Tendulkar, who holds the record for scoring the maximum number of centuries in Tests (35) and one-dayers (39), was earlier sidelined for six months after undergoing surgery for tennis elbow in May 2005. It was Dr. Wallace who had operated on Tendulkar’s tennis elbow. Tendulkar could also miss the early part of the tour of West Indies, starting on May 18, as it would take at least eight weeks for him to recuperate.

Inzamam-ul-Haq’s susceptibility against Anil Kumble has been brought up time and again during this series, but on the first day at Bangalore, there was no doubt about who won the contest. Of the 62 balls Kumble bowled to him, Inzamam scored 52 – that’s a scoring rate of almosr 84 runs per 100 balls; against the rest of the bowlers, the figure was only 66. Inzamam’s in-control factor against Kumble was 80% too – clearly, Inzamam had had enough of being called Kumble’s bunny.The most impressive aspect of Inzamam’s innings was his decisive footwork. His easy elegance makes it seem he has plenty of time for his strokes, and on a slow pitch at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, that effect was further accentuated. John Wright and the Indian think-tank would also do well to study the number of times the bowlers allowed Inzamam to go on the back foot – off the 93 deliveries when he did that, he scored at more than a run a ball. When he played forward, his scoring rate was halved.Inzamam got off the mark with a drive through the covers, and he continued to pepper that region throughout his innings, scoring more than 25% of his runs there. The slowness of the pitch can also be gauged from the fact that only six runs came through point – most of the cuts which would have, on a faster track, gone towards point went much straighter as the ball came on to the bat slowly.

A Colombo Magistrate’s Court discharged Thilanga Sumathipala, the embattledpresident of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), on Monday. The judge ruled thatthe Criminal Investigations Department (CID) had not unearthed sufficientevidence to prosecute him for his alleged involvement with an underworldgangster.Sumathipala, who appeared in public for the first time in 10 days on Mondaynight, has been accused by a Sunday newspaper of helping a suspected mafiafigure, Dhammika Amarasinghe, travel to the UK in 1999 to watch the WorldCup.Sumathipala was alleged to have used board funds to finance the trip andalso help Amarasinghe obtain a British visa on a fraudulent passport. Thenewspaper had also accused Sumathipala of plotting the assassination oftheir editor.But, after a week of legal wrangling, Sumathipala won a discharge as amagistrate’s judge ruled that the CID had produced insufficient evidence tojustify his arrest. Discharging Sumathipala, the judge told the CID to referthe matter to court again if any new evidence – namely the allegedfraudulent passport and embarkation documents – were obtained.Sumathipala immediately organised a press conference at the cricket boardheadquarters and launched into an offensive against his accusers: “Thisorganised mud slinging has been launched to coincide with the Englandcricket team’s visit. It has caused irreparable damage to Sri Lankan cricketand my name has been tarnished”, he told reporters.”A Sunday paper repeatedly attacked me causing immense personal and mentalanguish to me and my family,” he said, adding, “They tried to connect mewith underworld, to which I had no ties.””Ten days ago the CID was ordered to arrest me, so I went to the SupremeCourt and filed a Fundamental Rights application. The Attorney Generalappeared on behalf of the CID and said they had not given an order to arrestme. But the next day the Magistrate’s Court ordered my arrest if there wasevidence. But the judge, after going through the case, said there was notenough evidence to frame any charges,” he said.Again, on Friday, the AG ordered his arrest. Sumathipala’s legal team wasforced to take further action on Monday morning. They appeared on Monday,convening a Magistrate’s Court despite a Poya day holiday, and once againwon a favourable judgement. “There was no evidence linking me to theunderworld,” Sumathipala declared.Sumathipala requested extra personal security from the government, claimingthat the scandal had put his life in danger: “I still receive threats on mymobile phone. I think the government should consider a high-level inquiryinto this matter and I hope to discuss this matter with the IGP and others.”

Sean Doherty was a proud man today at Somerset Cricket Club after announcing that his wife Rachel had given birth to their son Ronan.Sean has become a popular figure with members and guests in the Colin Atkinson Pavilion where he has worked behind the bar for a number of years.Baby Ronan was born on Wednesday February 20th at 10 o’clock in the morning and weighed in at 8 lbs 1 oz – what a bouncer!Congratulations to Sean and Rachel and best wishes to all three from everyone at the club and from all website readers.

James Marshall’s hard-hit maiden Shell Cup century proved to be amatch-winner for Northern Districts, as Canterbury’s run chase came up 21runs short in an entertaining third-round clash.Marshall’s outstanding innings included six fours and four sixes. His second50 came off only 28 balls as Northern plundered 40 runs from its final fiveovers to set Canterbury an imposing target of 250.When Geoff Allott bowled Robbie Hart with only four deliveries left in theND innings it looked as if Marshall’s chance of reaching three figures hadgone. The young right-hander found himself stranded at the non-striker’s endon 95. But Alex Tait pushed his first ball into the off-side for a single,leaving Marshall three balls from which to score five runs to achieve themilestone.He smashed the next delivery from Allott wide of mid-on and the ballcomfortably beat Darren Reekers to the fence.Marshall then calmly played the next ball into the covers and raised botharms in jubilation as he completed the comfortable single.Like many short players, the diminutive Marshall showed a liking for theleg-side, striking most of his boundaries in an arc between mid-on andmid-wicket.Opening the innings for ND Simon Doull played a wide selection of some ofthe ugliest shots witnessed in Canterbury this year, riding his luck andboosting ND’s run-rate on the way to a grotesque 34.Eventually his luck ran out when he skied a crossed-bat slog at a WarrenWisneski delivery. Chris Harris had time to drive from Ashburton, park hiscar, get a coffee and then run in take the catch.Canterbury began its run chase disastrously with Hastings run-out withoutfacing a ball in the first over.Brad Doody drove a Doull delivery back down the pitch and the ball crashedinto the stumps, via the bowler’s fingers, leaving the rapidly retreatingHastings short of his ground.The unfortunate Hastings could have been forgiven for uttering the immortalwords of both Yoda and former England soccer manager Graham Taylor, as hesloped off the field – “Do I not like that”.Reekers didn’t last long before being yorked by Tuffey. Gary Stead then fellvictim to a brilliant piece of fielding. He smashed a wide ball from Doullfor what looked to be a certain four over backward point. But Neil Parlanearched backwards and threw himself in the air to take the ball in anoutstretched right hand.At 44/3 Canterbury already looked beaten.Chris Harris and Doody put on a century stand, but their inability to findthe boundary left Canterbury with too much to do in the last 15 overs. Atone point both Harris and Doody had compiled 14 singles in succession.Alex Tait removed Doody for 82 when he hit at soft catch to Hamish Marshallat cover. He was quickly followed by Hopkins, LBW for 2, and a strangelysubdued Chris Harris, whose 55 had taken 89 balls.With nine overs remaining the comparative scores were tied and twospecialist batsmen, Aaron Redmond and Michael Papps, remained at the creasefor Canterbury.But despite the pair adding a threatening 44 from 29 balls they were unablemirror Marshall’s end of innings heroics.Redmond’s fine 39 from 27 balls took Canterbury close, but Tait and Tuffeybowled full and straight at the death to close-out the contest.