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The ICC have announced the fixtures for the Women’s World Cup qualifiers that will take place in Stellenbosch, South Africa, from February 18 to 24.The event, which was shifted out of Pakistan due to political unrest, will feature eight teams – Zimbabwe, Papua New Guinea, Bermuda, Ireland, Pakistan, Scotland, Netherlands, as well as the hosts – who will play for the two remaining spots up for grabs at the 2009 World Cup in Australia.The teams have been divided into two pools; Pool A will consist of South Africa, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea and Bermuda, while Pool B will comprise Ireland, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Scotland. The top two teams from each pool will gain entry into the semi-finals, and the two teams that make the final will qualify for the World Cup, regardless of the outcome of the match.Official status will be granted to six of the 20 matches that are scheduled over the seven-day tournament: the third and fourth place play-offs, the semi-finals, the final, as well as the matches between Pakistan and Ireland, and South Africa and Netherlands. This is because only matches involving the top 10 teams in women’s cricket have one-day international status.According to the current rankings South Africa are in the seventh place, followed by Ireland, Netherlands, and Pakistan.Pool A
South Africa
Netherlands
Bermuda
Papua New Guinea
Pool B
Ireland
Pakistan
Zimbabwe
Scotland

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Sohail Tanvir justified the Federal Areas’ stand-in captain Naved Ashraf’s decision to field first by taking five wickets to help bowl out Baluchistan for 253 at the National Stadium in Karachi. But Federal Areas conceded a bit of the advantage when they lost two quick wickets before the close of play to end the first day at 79 for 3.The Baluchistan openers Shoiab Khan and Usman Tariq walked out to bat in the three-hour first session and the duo added 41 runs before Shoiab was trapped by seamer Yasir Arafat for 25. Tanvir then took centre stage in a marathon 15-over opening spell, taking three wickets in succession to send Baluchistan crashing from 78 for 1 to 92 for 4. But Tariq scored a defiant half-century and added 73 runs for the fifth wicket with Nasim Khan (31) to stem the rot. But Baluchistan once again faltered, losing five wickets for the addition of 35 runs, with Tanvir claiming the vital wicket of Tariq for 68. Imranullah Aslam, the No. 10 batsman, then frustrated Federal Areas by striking an unbeaten 46-ball 51 which included nine fours, and adding 53 runs for the last wicket with Azharullah (20). Baluchistan’s innings came to a close when Azharullah was trapped by Saeed Anjwal, the only spinner to find any success on the first day.Federal Areas were in trouble just as they began their response when Kamran Hussain had Afaq Raheem caught behind for 2. Raheel Majeed and Fayaaz Ahmed pushed the score past fifty before Azharullah struck back with a double-strike: Ahmed was caught behind while Bazid Khan fell without scoring. But Majeed, who remained unbeaten on 42, and Usman Saeed, who struck a couple of fours on his way to 13, ensured there was no further damage.
Scorecard
Punjab’s star-studded batting line-up threatened to launch a run-fest, but none of their batsman, including Salman Butt, who top-scored with 72, were able to capitalise on their starts as they scored 295 for 7 on the first day against NWFP at the Gaddafi Stadium.Earlier NWFP found immediate success after choosing to bowl when Fazl-e-Akbar has Mohammad Hafeez caught behind by Zulfiqur Jan. But Butt turned things around by displaying the same sort of form that saw him make 290 against Federal Areas in the first round of the Pentangular Cup as he reached his half-century in a 60-run second-wicket stand with Nasir Jamshed (16). Akbar returned to remove Jamshed, but that brought Misbah-ul-Haq to the crease. But Misbah and Butt did not spend too much time together when the latter was run-out after a misunderstanding as Punjab stuttered to 112 for 3.Misbah then set about consolidating the innings as he scored 53 runs of 149 balls and adding 76 runs for the fourth wicket with Shoaib Malik (41). But once the duo were dismissed by Samiullah Khan and Shakell-ur-Rehman respectively, Kamran Akmal breezed his way to a 74-ball 40, striking six fours and a six to add some quick runs. Waqas Ahmed (12*) and Junaid Zia (10*) were then involved in an unbroken 25-run stand for the eighth wicket before stumps were drawn.

Inzamam-ul-Haq has planned to request the Pakistan Cricket Board to employ a bowling coach, among other support staff. The News reported that he would make the demands during the PCB’s next meeting, on June 4.Inzamam, who lead Pakistan during the series against India, saw his bowlers break down during the series, and he believed the injuries cost the team dearly. He was insistent that a professional team back up would prevent similar problems in the future, and said that professionals should be employed soon, so the team was ready for the Asia Cup, which begins in July.”Injuries have been a major problem for us in the past, and hit us badly in the series against India. We need to overcome this problem,” Inzamam said. “We are planning to have a 22-day training camp, ideally from June 20. And I want the board to provide us with a bowling coach, a qualified physiotherapist and a trainer who can be with us in the camp and work with the players.”He also made clear his preference of the support staff’s age, and said that it didn’t matter where they came from. “I don’t care if the physio and trainer are from Pakistan. I am not asking specifically for foreigners. What I want is they are young and well-versed with the modern requirements of the sport. Look at all the other teams today. They all have young qualified physios and trainers attached with them. Cricket is now a science."During the series against India, it was pointed out that the Indian team had an efficient support staff, and suggestions were made that Pakistan were unprofessional in their approach to the game. And when Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Sami failed to swing the ball and had problems with no-balls, the calls for a bowling coach became vociferous. It was a move that Javed Miandad first disagreed with, before grudgingly accepting. Inzamam, on the other hand, was all for it. “I would like someone like Daryl Foster helping out the players. I have also spoken to Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram and they have said if the board offers them a proper assignment they will do it. But for the time being I have also requested them to come and work with the bowlers in the training camp for 22 days.""I am asking for a bowling coach and have asked Waqar and Wasim to come and help out Sami, Shoaib, Shabbir and the other bowlers … [and help them regain their] ability to swing the ball."With the Asia Cup barely two months away, Inzamam underscored the importance of doing well in the tournament, and said that the confidence the team took away from there could be used for the Champions Trophy in England. “I think we badly need to do well in the Asia Cup, in fact win it. Because we need to get our own confidence back but also restore the confidence of the nation. We have to perform much better in the Asia Cup because you have the world’s top two teams, India and Sri Lanka, competing in it.”

Three countries have applied for ICC Affiliate membership and two more to be upgraded from Affiliate to Associate membership.Bulgaria, Estonia and Turkey’s applications for Affiliate membership will be considered by the ICC and its annual conference in Dubai at the end of June.Guernsey and Vanuatu have applied for an upgrade to Associate membership which, if successful, will mean a substantial increase in the funding available to their national associations.Consideration of Vanuatu’s application is subject to it meeting the playing standard criterion in its matches against existing Associates in the World Cricket League Division 5. An ICC team is inspecting the facilities in Guernsey this week.

Inzamam-ul-Haq has revealed that the Pakistan board didn’t take him into confidence in the matter of appointing a new coach. Speaking to The News, Inzamam stated he had no idea that Javed Miandad would be replaced by Bob Woolmer.”Initially, I heard something about the board trying for a foreign coach. But then later on I got the impression things were settled between the board and Miandad and he would continue,” Inzamam told the daily. “I had no idea Woolmer was in line to take charge of the team.”Speaking about Miandad’s tenure as coach, Inzamam said: “Javed was sincere as a coach. I didn’t have any communication problems with him. We collectively tried to do what was best for the team. But it is a board decision and I have to go with it. Their decision obviously is based on future planning.”Looking forward to the training camp which begins on July 2, Inzamam stated that it would give him an opportunity to familiarise himself with Woolmer’s training techniques. “I will get to know what his methods are to bring about improvements in the team. But I have not had any direct interaction with the man so far in my career.”He also pointed out the difference between Woolmer and Richard Pybus, the South African who had unsuccessful stints as coach of Pakistan. “The way I look at it, Pybus was a sincere individual but he was trying to establish himself as a coach of international standing. Woolmer does not need to establish his credentials. He is a proven performer and has produced results with Warwickshire and South Africa. He has achieved results and that is his biggest strength when he works with our team.”Looking ahead to the challenges for the team, Inzamam pointed out that the most important task would be to inject more discipline and professionalism among the players. “Hopefully Woolmer would be able to introduce both these things among our players to make them consistent performers.”Woolmer’s first assignment with the team will be the six-nation Asia Cup, which starts in Sri Lanka on July 16.

Brett Lee is slated to to visit India next month to get used to the subcontinental pitches before Australia’s tour to the country in October. According to a report in The Sun-Herald, an Australian daily, Lee will travel to India with Dennis Lillee and train at the MRF Pace Foundation, where Javagal Srinath will also help him develop the skills needed to succeed on Indian wickets.Lee is then scheduled to head off to England in mid-August, for a stint of county cricket. The report says that he is most likely to join Surrey, though Middlesex have also made him an offer.Lee recently underwent ankle surgery after sustaining an injury in Sri Lanka in March, and rejoined the Australian squad prior to the Test at Cairns for a net practice. “He’s going to do some work with Lillee in 10 days’ time in Brisbane, he’s having a bowl with the Australian team in Cairns and hopefully he will be able to play a few county matches as well,” said Neil Maxwell, Lee’s manager. “The selectors are playing tough but he’s pretty relaxed,” he added. “The focus is India and it will be interesting to see if he can do that because his recovery is going well and he’s got a wider range of movement in the ankle than ever.”Lee, 27, faces a tough battle to get back into the team, following the resurgence of Michael Kasprowicz, his replacement in the Test team. Kasprowicz took 12 wickets in the 3-0 win in Sri Lanka four months ago, and led Australia to an emphatic victory in the first Test at Darwin, taking 7 for 39 in Sri Lanka’s second innings.Lee has been named in Australia’s 30-man provisional squad for the Champions Trophy, but is unlikely to make the final cut.

The Zimbabwe Cricket Union’s provincial development manager for Mashonaland, Dawson Mutsekwa, has died. He passed away yesterday in Cape Town, South Africa, where he had gone for specialist attention after lapsing into a coma in the Avenues Clinic in Harare following an operation. He was 62 years old.Mutsekwa joined the ZCU as facilities coordinator in June 2000, after a lengthy career with the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture, which culminated in his appointment as headmaster of Churchill High School in Harare.He promoted the playing of cricket at the school, and Churchill became a centre of excellence, and one of the strongest cricketing schools in the country, where several promising cricketers were awarded ZCU scholarships. Among the players to have passed through the school are Tatenda Taibu, the current national captain, Douglas Hondo, Alester Maregwede, Hamilton Masakadza, Stuart Matsikenyeri, Vusumuzi Sibanda and Elton Chigumbura.Mutsekwa was also instrumental in the setting up of Takashinga Cricket Club, and their Winter Cricket League has a trophy in his honour. He is survived by a wife.

Glenn McGrath remembers nearly every one of his 425 Test wickets. Dennis Lillee, in the first of umpteen interviews to flog his new autobiography, claimed he could recall only “three or four”. It explains, in part, why McGrath is viewed as a slightly colourless machine and Lillee, all sweat and gold necklaces and green-and-yellow headbands, as the knockabout demon of a more relaxed age. It also explains, alas, why his book is a turkey.Lillee was a once-a-century bowler, with a fierce snarl, exquisite action and rugged, distinctly sexual, charisma. His legend lives on today. He has never overstayed his welcome as a national coach or selector, never hankered after TV stardom – notwithstanding the occasional badly acted carpet ad. He has spent his days quietly tinkering with wannabe fast bowlers from Perth to Chennai, out of sight but never entirely out of mind.As a result there remains a mystique about Lillee. A passer-by on the streets of Sydney, spotting this book under myarm, slipped almost religiously into that old Bay 13 anthem “Lill-ee, Lill-ee, Lill-ee”. His fans will never forget. Lillee, unfortunately for the sake of his book, forgot years ago.He retired from international cricket in January 1984. Months later he released an autobiography called Over And Out! His new book is essentially a rehash of the old, filled with boyish pranks and beer-slurping adventures. Dennis The Larrikin asks the Queen for her autograph. Dennis The Menace has a run-in with some old fogeys on the board. Dennis The Larrikin shepherds Rod Marsh, who has just sunk 45 tinnies en route from Australia, around Heathrow. Dennis The Menace has another run-in with more old fogeys …And so on. The difference is that 19 years on the details seem scratchier, the anecdotes less punchy. Lillee has softened with age too. In Over And Out! he damned Kim Hughes, his ill-fated captain, as “a man whose judgement I’ve never really respected”. Now he says: “I never disliked Kim Hughes … I rate [him] as a top bloke and friend.”His ghostwriter Bob Harris does him few favours. Lillee frequently repeats himself, sometimes in the same sentence. Misnomers abound (Jeff Dyson, Alex Stewart) and clichéd cricketspeak prevails; Lillee’s holiday in Venice is “one of the greatest trips of all time”. He also overdoses on superfluous exclamation marks!A couple of revelations, however, are well worth repeating. Back in the gloomy mid-1980s, when even New Zealand sometimes beat Australia, Allan Border bugged Lillee to make a comeback. Lillee said no. Border persisted, pestering Lillee’s minders until he eventually caved in. Yet by the time Lillee got himself fit Border had changed his mind, leaving Lillee to endure a couple of mediocre stints with Tasmania and Northants: an incongruous bookend to a brilliant career and an intriguing insight into just how desperate Border was.Then there is the curious case of Greg Chappell’s non-selection for Australia’s 1969-70 tour of India. Don Bradman, then a selector, apparently said, “we don’t want him going to India and getting sick” – a comment not recorded in Adrian McGregor’s studious 1985 Chappell biography.Ramachandra Guha recently identified Bradman, alongside Keith Miller and Shane Warne, as one of three Australian deities in India. Yet Bradman never set foot in the place, declining to leave the team’s boat when it docked in 1948. “The Don clearly did not like India, and maybe even had a phobia about it,” is Lillee’s verdict.Lillee is at his most engaging when he is not the central character. He is apocalyptic about India’s superpower emergence, predicting a revolution that will make World Series Cricket “pale into insignificance”. He debunks the hysteria that still engulfs Ian Botham’s fluky 149 at Headingley: “I get sick and tired of people saying it was one of the greatest innings … I expected to get him virtually every ball.”Australians have historically been better at playing cricket than writing about it. This is changing. The last four years have witnessed a wave of new books – some serviceable, others stupendous – about little known or long forgotten past players: Jack Marsh, Warwick Armstrong, Eddie Gilbert, Don Tallon, Jack Iverson, Gil Langley.Still there is a gap. Sparkling, standout accounts of the true giants – Miller and Harvey, Benaud and Border – are almost non-existent. Even the supreme Bradman blockbuster has yet to be written. The same goes for Lillee. But watch out for Glenn McGrath’s autobiography when it comes. Now that could be a corker.

After being reappointed Indian captain, Sourav Ganguly has made it clear that there are no fissures in the side, and certainly no personality clash with Rahul Dravid, who had led the side while he served out a four-match suspension. While admitting that the team’s performance had declined over the past season, Ganguly categorically denied that different camps had sprung up within the squad.”I want to make it very clear that there is no rift, no trouble, no problem between us [himself and Dravid],” he said, in an interview with . “Rahul has also made that very clear. We know each other for a long time, we know how things work here. We’ve had a great working relationship, and we hope to continue our partnership.”Ganguly was also loathe to compare Dravid’s style of leadership with his own. “Basically, every captain has his own way,” he said. “We have different styles but any two people will have different styles of leading a team. We may react differently to the same situation. “I’m not going to comment of which style is better because it is a very relative thing.”The debacle in the tri-nation tournament in Sri Lanka continued India’s miserable run in one-day internationals since the team led by Ganguly lost the World Cup final to Australia in 2003. Admitting that the slump was a matter of concern, Ganguly said:”Winning is a habit and we’ve got out of that habit. We just need to get a few wins under our belt, and then everything will get back in order.”When we were losing last time in 2002, we got a few wins in the West Indies and that sparked off a great run, starting from England right to the Pakistan series last year. We just need to make something like that happen again.”There were plenty of frayed tempers on show in Sri Lanka, but Ganguly brusquely refuted suggestions that it had become every-man-for-himself. “No, I don’t believe that,” he said, when asked whether it was true that the team had become faction-ridden. “But if anyone does this kind of stuff, they will themselves suffer. The most important thing is to have a winning team.”If you’re part of a side that’s losing, whatever you do, all 16 members of the team will be shaky and unsteady. Scoring big runs or taking lots of wickets doesn’t help anyone’s cause if the team is losing.”Having gone through a wretched run of form at the end of last season, Ganguly accepted that there would be pressure on him the next time he walked to the crease. “I just got into a very bad patch during that [Pakistan] series. I was in bad form, and I’m not trying to make excuses, I didn’t play well. If you don’t play well, you will get under pressure.”However, he pooh-poohed notions that his perceived frailty against the short ball had been his undoing of late. “If I genuinely had a problem against short bowling, I wouldn’t have scored runs in international cricket for the last nine years,” he said. “People would have figured me out long back. You can take a look at the stats, it’s just a monkey that’s riding on my back. Some people keep writing about it, that’s all.”Ganguly, who scored a brilliant century at Brisbane in December 2003 after being greeted with headlines about “chin music” buttressed his argument by pointing out the case of his old adversary. “Steve Waugh always looked uncomfortable against the rising ball, but look at how well he did. It’s not about how you look, it’s about how many runs you score.”

England’s injured captain, Michael Vaughan, has backed his side to retain the Ashes this winter, whether or not he is deemed fit enough to take part in the series.Vaughan, who hasn’t played for England since undergoing knee surgery in December, has not yet given up hope of a role against Australia. But, he told Sky Sports: “I’m very confident in whoever leads the team to produce a fantastic winter ahead and make sure we retain the Ashes.”England’s results this year have been patchy, and Vaughan admitted: “There is always a slight worry it will take time to adjust to international cricket but the guys who have come in have done really well. You need that bit of luck but if you work hard you get that. The team will do everything in their power to try to emulate last summer.””It is going to be a fantastic series,” he added, having last summer guided England to their first Ashes victory in 18 barren years. “If we can emulate anything like the series last year it should be a great spectacle.”Vaughan is likely to have missed a whole year of international cricket by the time his knee is strong enough to resume playing, but he remained determined to come through the hard times. “I am determined to get back on a cricket pitch sooner rather than later,” he said. “If that is December or January, or if not, I’ve got to be patient.”But I’m determined to make sure that does happen. I’m training for a number of hours each week to make sure that does happen.”