ICC At Risk

The International Cricket Council’s (ICC) new chief executive Haroon Lorgat has stressed that the future of international cricket is at risk after the Sri Lanka Cricket Board surrendered to its players' pressure to skip their England tour next season for the lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL).

"If this kind of situation is not managed properly in the future, the lifeblood of all member countries could be threatened. International cricket generates revenue that is essential to our survival," he said.

"Sri Lanka should sort out the situation accordingly. To satisfy players financially by relying on their payments from IPL is not sustainable. Players have short careers and they want immediate rewards but we have to educate them about the development of the game. All of us, players included, must be responsible during this time of enormous opportunity," he added.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has guaranteed that international cricket will take precedence though the IPL committee, will contend that the league cannot be answerable for the market forces that have been behind the decision by Sri Lanka Cricket's interim committee.

"To BCCI’s credit, they have respected the priority of nation versus nation cricket," the ICC chief said.

For Watson Itz Elementry To Go To Pakistan

The thought of going to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy is giving jitters to his teammates but Australian all-rounder Shane Watson says he is so desperate to keep his place in the side that he would not mind ignoring security concerns to play in the troubled country.

Watson, whose history of injury breakdowns came in the way of his cementing a slot in the Aussie team in the past, has blossomed into a consistent match winner of late, pulling off series winning performances in the recent Indian Premier League (IPL) and the ODI series against West Indies.

And the 27-year-old is no mood to halt his remarkable run by pulling out of the mini World Cup due to security concerns.

"I'd go anywhere, I'd play anywhere," he was quoted as saying in The Australian.

"I just want to play for my country, that's what I've worked so hard for. I've been through some up-and-down times over the last year, so I'd do anything to play for my country, so wherever I have to go I'll go," he added.

Watson said he has been left amazed by his recent form as only a few months ago, the only future he could visualise for himself at this time of the year was a county stint in England.

"It's just been so great to be part of the Australian team again. It's been an interesting last year and to be able to be here now, to be part of a winning team and to play a big role in it is something I wasn't expecting at all. I was expecting to be in England playing county cricket," Watson said.

The lanky all-rounder said his stint in the IPL helped him raise his fitness level and get back in the groove after a prolonged injury lay-off.

"We played a lot of cricket in six weeks, so physically it gave me a lot of confidence to know that I could get through a pretty tiring schedule," Watson said, "I think it brought my whole game, every aspect, batting and bowling, to another level. It was a great time and my cricket improved a lot and that was my aim at the start of the tournament.

"It's been great, especially the last three or four months playing in the IPL and the West Indies series to be physically able to get through it," he added.

Shoaib Fine Delays Pakistan Squad Announcement

Although the Pakistan Cricket Board had announced the inclusion of controversial fast bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif in their 30-man probables, they held back the official announcement on Friday.

Pakistan have exceeded the July 11 deadline of submitting the list to the International Cricket Council because of an ongoing dispute with Shoaib over the payment of a fine, Reuters has learnt.

"The squad will be announced by July 15 now as the board has sent a notice to Shoaib Akhtar asking him to pay the fine by July 14," a PCB spokesman told Reuters.

Shoaib was fined Rs 7 million after he was banned for five years by the PCB for repeated misconduct and indiscipline. Although the fast bowler's ban was reduced to 18 months by an appellate tribunal, the decision on the fine remained intact.

Shoaib filed a petition against the reduced ban as well as the fine to the Lahore High Court which then stayed the ban, but refused to waive the fine imposed on him until the case resumes in September.

The spokesman added that the PCB had been granted permission to hold back the announcement of the probables till July 15. "Shoaib's name would only be considered for selection if he clears the fine first," he said.

Shoaib's lawyer, Abid Hasan Minto, has however dismissed the PCB's claims saying Shoaib was never asked to pay a fine until recently.

Mohammad Asif's availability also remains in doubt despite figuring in the probables list. A PCB-appointed tribunal is yet to start proceedings of a hearing against the embattled pacer, after he was detained in Dubai with drugs in June. He was let off, but the PCB will take up his case once it gets details from the Dubai authorities.

ICL Threatens To Sue ICC

New Delhi: The rebel Indian Cricket League has threatened to take the International Cricket Council to court as the league seeks to overturn bans imposed on its players by national boards.

Players playing in the ICL have been banned for national selection and the league has been denied access to stadiums in India because it is considered to be "unauthorised" cricket by cricket's governing body.

According to reports, the ICL has only one year of viable operations and has told the International Cricket Council that it is preparing a legal case which could lead to the world governing body being sued in London's high court.

A separate petition has also been filed by the ICL in the Delhi high court, challenging the position of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, which banned the Essel group's league since its inception.

England v South Africa 1st Test

Ashwell Prince struck a determined 101, but South Africa were made to follow-on and closed day three of the first Test at Lord's 333 behind England on 13-0.

Prince battled for 68 overs, sharing 78 with AB de Villiers after three wickets had fallen in the first 90 minutes.

They held out for much of the second session, but Monty Panesar (4-74) was dominant as six wickets fell after tea.

Prince was ninth out, edging the new ball, before the South Africa openers held out against spin in fading light.

It was just reward for England, who matched the discipline shown by their batsmen with a channelled display of bowling and fielding.

Few are likely to tell their grandchildren about Prince's innings, but without it, he might well have been batting for a second time before the day was out.

Graeme Smith was, having to bizarrely face Panesar and Kevin Pietersen with the new ball in questionable light in the follow-on having earlier fallen in the third over of the day.

James Anderson found some extra life on the line of off-stump, the skipper looped a simple catch to gully after the lifting ball caught the shoulder of his bat.

That variation in bounce may have unsettled the minds of the batsmen, but in truth there were no gremlins in the surface.

England bowled with focus and, with the exception of Prince, the South Africans surprisingly showed a lack of customary grit.

Hashim Amla, fresh from scores of 172 and 161 in the two warm-up matches, made a scratchy six from 32 balls before feathering a catch off Stuart Broad.

Still there was little assistance in the pitch for the bowlers, and yet half an hour before lunch it was 47-3 and Jacques Kallis, who has scored five of his 30 Test centuries against England, was the next man to go.

Kallis had got off the mark in fortuitous fashion with a flat-footed thick edge through the slips from a ball he appeared not to see too well, and his feet failed to move much at all throughout his short innings.

Ryan Sidebottom found no real swing until the new ball was taken late in the day, and generally looked far from his probing best, but he angled one across Kallis and Andrew Strauss held an excellent low catch at first slip.

Neil McKenzie and Prince, the two most adhesive batsmen, took their side through to lunch, but in the second over after the interval England struck again.

Having bisected first and second slip with an edge, McKenzie, full of eccentric mannerisms, saw his methodical display of resistance ended by a stunning delivery from Panesar.

Flighting the ball beautifully, Panesar turned one from leg stump to bowl him round his legs as he pushed forward, a dismissal more often associated with the magical leg spin of Shane Warne.

The one partnership of note followed, De Villiers reining in his natural attacking instincts, to provide an admirable foil for the gritty Prince.

With the wicket flat it needed something special to break through, and it came from Anderson, who took off to his right at mid-on and snared a spectacular two-handed catch as De Villiers fatally tried to break the shackles driving at Panesar.

Mark Boucher, so often a stubborn thorn from the late middle order, got an inside edge onto his stumps from the first ball of Broad's new spell, while Morne Morkel was bowled by a classic from Panesar that turned out of the rough and crashed into the timbers.

By that stage Prince had decided to play some shots, no doubt aware he could not rely on his partners to get him to three figures, and after 138 balls without a boundary he reverse swept Panesar for four then mowed him over mid-wicket for the ony six of the day.

He soon lost Paul Harris, who followed his largely ineffective display with the ball with an unconvincing batting performance, miscuing his rather more accomplished spin counterpart Panesar to mid-on where Anderson took another good catch, low diving forward.

After an eighth Test century of application and fine shot selection, Prince drove in tired fashion as Sidebottom had more success with the new ball, and Pietersen's magical influence continued when he was brought on in murky light to take the final wicket when Dale Steyn swiped agriculturally to mid-off.

Pietersen could not dismiss his arch-rival Smith, despite a frenetic appeal for a bat and pad catch with the final ball of the day, but it is quite clear who will be the happier of the two at this stage of the match.

Kumble Cautioned For Remarks To Newspaper

Anil Kumble, India's Test captain, has been cautioned by the BCCI for divulging details of the Sri Lanka tour selection meeting to a newspaper.

Kumble told Mumbai Mirror that he had asked the selectors to pick two specialist wicketkeepers for the three-Test series. "As captain I am aware that there could be problems if the specialist were to pull a muscle or have a runny stomach on the morning of a Test," Kumble said. "There was a suggestion that Rahul [Dravid] be the second wicketkeeper, but I persuaded the [selection] committee to view things from Indian cricket's point of view and advantage."

Niranjan Shah, the BCCI secretary, censured Kumble for his remarks. "I have been informed by the chairman [Dilip Vengsarkar] that Mumbai Mirror, a newspaper in Mumbai, has published some story about the selection meeting which is attributed to you.

"You are aware that proceedings of the selection committee are not supposed to be divulged and are certainly not meant for public discussion. As a senior player, you should have restrained from such interviews."

India had included wicketkeepers Dinesh Karthik and Parthiv Patel in the Test squad for Sri Lanka after Mahendra Singh Dhoni opted out of the series.

Wasim Akram Critisises Maliks Captaincy

Wasim Akram, the former Pakistan captain, has criticised Shoaib Malik for his captaincy and for not bowling his offspin regularly, and called for the inclusion of Mohammad Aamer, the 16-year-old left-arm seamer, into the national team.

"In the beginning I thought he [Malik] had the skills; now I have my doubts," Akram told Cricinfo in a wide-ranging interview. "Against Zimbabwe he bowled ten overs in almost every match, against Bangladesh he bowled a little less. But in big matches he is not bowling. Do you think nobody notices? People do.

"Most of all, players notice how the leader is doing. Shoaib Malik has to learn that," he said. "[Abdur] Rauf gets three wickets in one match, but doesn't get to play in the next. This is the captain's fault, not the selectors."

He also picked out the issues related to the selection of the XI. "Now he says the XI is given by selectors, but I know that in Pakistan if you are a strong captain there is no way the selectors can do that to you," Akram said. "We have all been through this: me, Inzamam, Imran [Khan], [Javed] Miandad, we all did that but we always had our XIs. Maybe in the 14-15 you can have a compromise."

Akram picked out Aamer, the promising Pakistan Under-19 and Rawalpindi bowler, for special mention - "he is quite talented" - and said that he would have drafted him into the national set-up right away. He had earmarked Aamer as a future talent during a fast bowlers' camp in May 2007.

While changing focus to the fast bowling scene in world cricket, Akram rated Brett Lee as the best and had some words of advice for Ishant Sharma. "He [Ishant] has to learn quickly. He has been very average in the Asia Cup," he said. "His length has to change in one-day cricket. He is a wicket-taking bowler, and he has to get the new ball. You can't have your third seamer bowling with the new ball."