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Ever since he blacked out on the street last summer, England's all-rounder Craig White has been suffering from a spate of injury problems. The 31-year-old Yorkshire cricketer has now become a key member of the winning England side. However, just ahead of the first Test against Pakistan on Thursday, he has been suffering from a stiff neck and was unable to practice yesterday. If not found fit he may not be able to play the opening Test match. Pakistan was deprived of a day's match practice as rain lashed Canterbury, the venue of their tour match against Kent. The umpires after pitch inspection in the afternoon abandoned the match without a single ball being bowled on the last day. The match thus resulted in a tame draw. The scores: Kent: 313-5 decl & 94-3 v Pakistan: 307-1 decl.
Although it has not been finalised, India has agreed to England's request to split their forthcoming tour to India to allow players a couple of weeks break to be home for Christmas and New Year. England has been undertaking two part tours to both Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the past year, which has turned out to be very pleasing to the players. The Test series in India will be played from December 3 for three weeks after which England go home for Christmas to return before January 22 to play the one-day series that is expected to last till February 3. This two-part schedule is still to be finally approved by the BCCI. The venues of the Test matches are likely to be Delhi, Ahmedabad and Bangalore. For the first time the Australian Cricket Board has still not revealed its winter tour programme. The reason: the BCCI has still not confirmed its tour to Australia this September. Incidentally the tour was not in the original schedule. However seeing the success of Australia's recent tour of India, the ACB is very keen on inviting India to play a series at home. In fact, Australia's tour of India had managed to attract maximum number of pay television viewers, which is a record for any sporting event in Australia.
The ICC has refuted the reports that the ICC's Anti Corruption Unit (ACU) would be recommending to the Wisden to erase the career records of all the players involved in match-fixing. The spokesman of the ICC said the report was completely speculative and has not come from the ICC. Meanwhile, cricket statisticians all round the world have come out strongly against any such move to erase records of the tainted players.
Cousin of former West Indian opener, Gordon Greenidge, Mark Lavine died after suffering a heart attack when he was playing in the Birmingham League on May 12. Lavine, who was settled in South Africa, had made his debut for Barbados in 1992-93. He became a South African citizen after he married and was hoping to play for his adopted country. The 28 year-old all-rounder was appearing was North West in South Africa since 1996-97. Former Australian Test wicket-keeper Gilbert Langley died last night. He was 81. Langley was also a speaker in the state Parliament house. He had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease for a while now. He appeared 26 Test matches for Australia from 1951 to 1956 and had taken 98 dismissals (83 cts., 15 sts.).
Former England middle-order batsman Mark Ramprakash, hopes to make a comeback to the England side. Ramprakash, who has appeared in 42 Test matches from 1991, before he was dropped from the side last summer due to poor form has so far aggregated 1796 Test runs at an unsatisfactory average of 26.41. Recently, former England captain and all-rounder Ian Botham applauded the England selector's decision to disregard claims of both Ramprakash and Graeme Hick. However Ramprakash has disagreed with Botham's views and is keen to revive his Test career. The Chairman of the English Cricket Board, (ECB) Lord MacLaurin has said that the introduction of the central contracts has helped a great deal in the performance of the team over the past 12 months. The contracts he felt made a huge difference to the team and helped in developing a sense of collective purpose.
Yesterday's News
News Roll archive
Compiled by: Mohandas Menon
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A South African politician who had some years ago suggested that use of marijuana should be decriminalized, has come out in support of the five South Africans who were fined for smoking marijuana during the ongoing Caribbean tour. The politician's logic being that not many crimes are associated with post-marijuana use as is the case with alcohol. The scandal has been the major story in weekend newspapers in South Africa.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) of India said it will not allow the tainted players to go around bad mouthing the report submitted by it on cricket corruption. The CBI has become a voluntary party to the court case filed by Ajay Jadeja, proving that it will not stand a mute spectator to players talking about its report.
Gloucestershire's Kim Barnett created a record during his innings of 101 against Northamptonshire in the Norwich Union league limited-over championships. He went past the record aggregate of 8573 runs of Graham Gooch for Essex in the competition, which began in 1969. The competition was then known as the Sunday League.
