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The Tasmanian Selectors have today announced the Cascade Tasmanian Tigers team to play New South Wales in the Cricket Australia Cup match at the TCA Ground in Hobart, from Monday 9th to Thursday 12th February 2004.

Leicestershire have released the 23-year-old seamer Nick Walker from his two-year contract.Walker, who joined the county in 2006 after a successful trial, has decided to follow a career in the City. He took 32 wickets in his 13 first-class appearances for Leicestershire, following his move from Derbyshire, and took a best of 5 for 59 against Somerset.Walker’s decision may in part have been prompted by the recent recruitment of Garnett Kruger and Nadeem Malik to bolster the fast-bowling attack.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

Junaid Siddique and Tamim Iqbal showed there was plenty of fight in the Bangladesh camp, adding a record 148-run opening stand on a slow track to reduce the deficit to 72 on day two at Dunedin’s University Oval. Inspired by a new-ball burst that checked New Zealand’s lower order – the first time in seven Tests they bowled a side out – the debutant left-handed openers bravely chipped away at a 220-run first-innings lead and left the hosts with plenty to think about.New Zealand dominated the first half of the day as Matthew Bell made his comeback Test one to remember, converting his excellent provincial form into a second Test century, and Jacob Oram thumped a brisk fourth century, but they will be kicking themselves for not getting a larger total.If Tamim and Siddique were under pressure in their first Test, it rarely showed. Their association didn’t start pretty – Tamim was dropped by Iain O’Brien and a slog off Daniel Vettori was misjudged by Chris Martin in the deep – but the openers fought through a testing passage against a moving new ball. Initially eager to manufacture runs, they wisely settled down to press for time. But that didn’t mean the scoring rate reduced. Ticking along at around five runs an over, Siddique played some convincing drives down the ground while Tamim, happier to get onto the back foot, hooked and pulled fours. The team fifty was on the board in the 11th over.The two played on New Zealand’s mind. Anything full was driven firmly by Siddique, prompting the seamers to hold back the length, at which time Tamim flashed hard and picked the gaps, more often than not. Siddique got to fifty first, thumping O’Brien for four, and his maiden effort was well appreciated by a raucous dressing room. Tamim slogged Vettori to bring up the 100 in the 20th over and soon celebrated his second fifty of the match, driving Vettori against the spin for four. While Vettori struggled to locate his angle Tamim put him away through cover-point.While they were near impeccable in defence, both waited for the short stuff from Vettori and when it came, they thrashed behind point. As the pitch flattened out, so did the bowling. About 15 minutes before stumps a record was achieved with a nudge past square leg – it was the highest opening stand for Bangladesh. Even in the last over of the day Tamim and Siddique were playing their shots, such was their positive mindset.There was nothing in the first half hour which suggested it wouldn’t be a good batting day. With six wickets left New Zealand were in the position to command. The pitch played a lot better on day one than expected. Bangladesh needed early wickets but there were far too many loose balls that allowed Bell and Oram to start confidently.When he decided to put them away, Oram was clinical, and such was his power and placement that the fielders had little chance of stopping shorts. Putting his height to good use, he drove and punched with power, his on-drives especially well-timed. Enamul Haque jnr bowled a touch too short and was easy pickings for Oram on a slow pitch.If Oram was eager to get to a hundred, Bell was understandably patient to reach his second, seven years after his first. Making the most of an umpiring reprieve on 97 – umpire Peter Parker failed to see pad first on a very good leg before shout from Mashrafe Mortaza – Bell moved out of a tense couple of overs in the nineties with another dab between gully and the slips, to cheer from his home town crowd. For a team whose opening combinations have been poor all season, Bell’s hundred was a whiff of fresh air.Mohammad Ashraful struck twice before lunch, getting Bell and Brendon McCullum, but Oram didn’t keep the crowd waiting long after lunch, easing one to the midwicket boundary to raise three figures at a healthy strike rate of 70. To celebrate, Oram lifted an Ashaful long hop into the car park.The new ball, taken with New Zealand 320 for 6, worked straight away as Oram bottom-edged onto his stumps. Kyle Mills pushed his first ball into the wicketkeeper’s hands to lift sagging shoulders and Vettori tried one shot too many and chipped a simple catch to mid-on. Mortaza’s fourth wicket curtailed the innings at 357, a total that seemed extremely healthy at the time.After a largely unsuccessful first day with the bat Bangladesh had put themselves under pressure, but thanks to two teenagers with an appetite for a scrap they’re almost matching New Zealand step for step.

India’s prospects of challenging Australia in the ongoing Test series were jolted when an injured Zaheer Khan was ruled out of the series. With Sreesanth on the sidelines, it meant that both of India’s new-ball bowlers from the previous away Test series – in England – would miss part of the action in Australia.The constant injuries to Indian fast bowlers, according to Javagal Srinath, are due to two reasons: Indian first-class cricket doesn’t prepare fast bowlers for the physical and mental demands of international cricket, and that the players are not good at injury management at a personal level.”The injury management has to start from the players themselves,” Srinath said. “Fast bowling is all about self-learning. Injuries will always be a part of a fast bowler’s career. It’s how you manage them. Once you play international cricket, especially undertake fast bowling which is unnatural to normal life, you have to work around the injuries.”Knowing your body is very important. Outsiders can’t read your body at all, you are the best doctor and physiotherapist. When you can’t really understand your inner voices or body, you look out for help.”TA Sekhar, the head coach at the MRF Pace Academy, has an interesting take on it. According to him, most of the injuries have root in technical faults in the bowling actions. And the bowling coach travelling with the team can’t keep a tab on technical deficiencies, as the game strategy is foremost on his mind. And there is no back-end support in India to work on bowler’s techniques, to understand the inner voices the bowler himself can’t hear.Working around the injuries, according to Srinath, doesn’t mean hiding them and playing on. “If you carry an injury into a match, which calls for more than 100% effort, you are hurting both yourself and the team. If a bowler goes through a match with an injury and doesn’t perform up to his best, his career will be in tatters. If somebody is doing that, he is doing at his own peril.”Srinath doesn’t buy into the argument about the increased workload. “The workload has increased for every team, and not only for India. Earlier too, people used to go play county cricket for six months and come back and play international cricket. Workload is kind of over-rated. The body can take breaks at the correct times and you will be doing fine.”But once a player does get injured, India, according to Srinath, is primitive in terms of sport medicine and physiotherapy. “That is also compounding the problems at Ranji Trophy level and below. Only international players get the top facility.”A Ranji player has to take a big leap when he graduates to international level. “The gap is too big. The cricket played in Ranji Trophy is not even 20% of what you play at international level. In terms of quality of wickets, batsmen, in terms of mental make-up.”The turnover of fast bowlers and the quality has definitely improved since Srinath’s retirement, but none of the bowlers has been able to sustain the quality for a consistent injury-free time. The search, as we speak, is still on.

Adam Gilchrist is being rested for Australia’s next two matches in the one-day VB Series. His place will be taken by the New South Wales wicketkeeper Brad Haddin.The selectors decided to leave Gilchrist out of the matches against Pakistan at Sydney on Sunday (Jan 23) and West Indies at Adelaide on Wednesday.Trevor Hohns, the chairman of selectors, explained: “Upon selecting the squad for this series, we said that certain players would be rested from time to time. That was the reason we opted for a larger squad. Matthew Hayden and Glenn McGrath have had short spells so far in this series, and we felt that it was in Adam’s best interests to have some time out prior to the end of the VB Series and the tour of New Zealand. Brad Haddin has been in very good form so far this season and deserves this opportunity.”Glenn McGrath, who missed today’s match against West Indies at Brisbane, rejoins the squad for Sunday’s match at the SCG.

The XXXX Queensland Bulls have suffered a setback on the eve of theirING Cup clash with the Southern Redbacks tomorrow following thewithdrawal of Australian pace bowler Andy Bichel for the match at theGabba.Bulls physiotherapist Stephen Partridge ruled out Bichel before trainingthis morning due to a hip injury sustained in Australia’s last VB SeriesOne Day International match in Perth on the weekend.He has been replaced in the Bulls team for tomorrow’s match by ScottMuller, who made a pleasing return to the Queensland ranks last week inthe ING Cup win over Victoria at the Gabba.Bichel is not considered in doubt for the tour of South Africa, with hiswithdrawal from the Queensland team taken as a precaution.”I’m disappointed any time I have to miss playing for the Bulls but witha long tour of Africa coming up, it was in my best interests not to riskaggravating what is admittedly a minor injury by playing tomorrow,”Bichel said.He joins fellow Australian pace bowlers Glenn McGrath and JasonGillespie on the sidelines for this weekend’s round of ING Cup matches,after they were rested from their respective teams.Tomorrow’s match starts at 2.30pm. Queensland lead the ING Cup on 27points with the Redbacks locked in equal second spot on 22 points withNSW and WA.Queensland travel to Adelaide on Sunday, following the Final of the K&RPlumbing Cup one-day competition at Allan Border Field on between Valleyand Norths. The Bulls take on the Redbacks at the Adelaide Oval fromWednesday in the Pura Cup.XXXX Queensland Bulls v Southern Redbacks, ING Cup, Gabba, Friday: JimmyMaher (c), Matthew Hayden, Martin Love, Andrew Symonds, Clinton Perren,Brendan Nash, James Hopes, Wade Seccombe, Nathan Hauritz, DamienMackenzie, Scott Muller, Joe Dawes (all twelve to play).Southern Redbacks, ING Cup team: Darren Lehmann (Captain), Ben Johnson,Greg Blewett (V.Captain), Graham Manou, Nathan Adcock, Paul Rofe, ChrisDavies, Mike Smith, David Fitzgerald, Paul Wilson, Ben Higgins, BradleyYoung.

Frizzell County Championship Division One
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Lancashire 225 for 2 v Sussex at Old Trafford
Scorecard
Leaders Sussex, requiring 10 points from their remaining two games to secure their first title, were frustrated by the rain and then Lancashire in a shortened day’s play at a gloomy Manchester. After the morning had been washed out, Lancashire soon lost openers Mark Chilton, superbly caught behind, and Iain Sutcliffe (52 for 2). But then Mal Loye (110 not out) and Stuart Law (65 not out) revived the innings with an unbroken stand of 157 for the third wicket. Mushtaq Ahmed toiled in vain for his 100th wicket of the season, but despite remaining wicketless he was the pick of the Sussex bowlers.Leicestershire 151 for 6 v Kent at Leicester
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Only 47 overs were possible at Grace Road today due to rain, in which time John Maunders scored 76 not out for Leicestershire, but Muttiah Muralitharan struck back with 3 for 17 to give Kent the edge. Maunders and Brad Hodge (31) made a good start to reach 71 for 1, but then Murali turned it on. He took three wickets in nine overs as Leicestershire faltered to 151 for 6.Nottinghamshire 316 for 5 v Middlesex at Lord’s
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They may be down, but Notts finished their first day against Middlesex on a high, reaching a healthy 316 for 5. In the 77 overs possible, Russell Warren led the way with an unbeaten 100 from 161 balls, including 13 fours. Jason Gallian gave Notts a good platform with 73 at the top of the order, and Kevin Pietersen (70) then added 128 with Warren to give Notts a rare good day’s work in the Championship.Frizzell County Championship Division Two
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Somerset 409 v Derbyshire 32 for 0 at Taunton
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Ian Blackwell marked his return to the England one-day international team with a blistering 247 not out from 156 balls, including an astonishing 27 fours and 11 sixes. Blackwell came in with Somerset struggling at 31 for 4 after Dominic Cork, who took 6 for 92, ripped out three early wickets. Blackwell then put on partnerships of 64 with Richard Johnson (25), and 70 with Simon Francis (18), but they were then eclipsed when Nixon McLean, dropped at slip by Andrew Gait before he had scored, settled in to score 39 and add 163 with Blackwell, a last-wicket partnership record for Somerset. Blackwell clubbed his maiden double-century off only 136 balls, with the second hundred coming off 41 deliveries. The amazing onslaught took the shine off Cork’s excellent bowling in the morning session and loosened Derbyshire’s grip on the game.Northants 319 v Glamorgan 20 for 0 at Cardiff
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Mike Hussey followed such esteemed names as Sir Donald Bradman and Brian Lara by scoring his fifth consecutive century, for Northants against Glamorgan. He hammered an imperious 147, including 25 fours, as Northants amassed 319. Hussey was finally the last man out, receiving support from only Tim Roberts (41) and Phil Jaques (28). Meanwhile Robert Croft showed the England selectors what they will be missing in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka this winter with 5 for 93 to peg back Northants’s progress. Jimmy Maher and Mark Wallace guided Glamorgan to 20 for 0 at the close.Gloucestershire 374 v Durham 2 for 0 at Bristol
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As Jonty Rhodes nears his retirement, he bid farewell in style with a stylish 103 to put Gloucestershire in command against Durham. Rhodes hit 10 fours and three sixes, and added 131 with Tim Hancock, who scored 97. Craig Spearman also hit 59, while Shoaib Akhtar and Graeme Bridge took three wickets each as Durham closed the first day on 2 for 0.

Second Test, v New Zealand, at Harare Sports Club; 7, 9, 10, 11, 12 November 1992. NEW ZEALAND 335 (M J Greatbatch 55, M D Crowe 140, K R Rutherford 74; D H Brain 3/49) and 262/5 dec (M D Crowe 61, K R Rutherford 89, D N Patel 58*). ZIMBABWE 283/9 dec (K J Arnott 68, A D R Campbell 52, A J Pycroft 60; M L Su’a 5/85) and 137 (D N Patel 6/50). New Zealand won by 177 runs.ScorecardZimbabwe were the only Test team ever to survive their first two Test matches without defeat, but they lost their third after, by their own admission, being conned into chasing an unrealistic target on the final afternoon.The first day was notable for an outstanding century by Martin Crowe, and Zimbabwe quickly resorted to guarding the boundaries and keeping him away from the strike at all costs. He had scored 140 by the time he eventually allowed his patience to expire and hit a catch in the deep. He shared a century partnership with Ken Rutherford, but only three of the New Zealand batsmen scored more than 20.Dave Houghton: "Martin Crowe batted absolutely magnificently, I remember that. Eddo Brandes made a bit of a comeback at last and got a couple of wickets in both innings, but again they played really well. We bowled them out for 345, which wasn’t a bad effort, and they scored it quickly. Martin Crowe was outstanding and that really was a fantastic innings."Dave Brain: "I remember him (Crowe) hitting old Traics time and again with the slog-sweep shot."Andy Pycroft: "The highlight of the Test match was Martin Crowe’s knock, which was absolutely outstanding. There were a couple of spells where Eddo Brandes bowled very quickly, and swung the ball, and Martin Crowe played him absolutely beautifully. In fact, if he hadn’t played so well, and Rutherford played with him for a time, they would have been in trouble. Eddo bowled well; his figures of two for 49 don’t necessarily show that in 22 overs, but he was quick and hostile, and an excellent line and length."Again we bowled pretty well at them; Traics bowled a lot of overs but wasn’t as effective against New Zealand as I thought he might have been. But, as you’d expect without a lot of venom in the attack apart from Eddo, the wickets were shared."Dave Brain: "I got pretty friendly with Mark Greatbatch and I got him out quite a few times on that tour, twice in this match. They were actually a really good bunch of guys, until that final innings, when I was batting and got chirped big-time, but that’s what happened. But Greatbatch was a good player – he could blast it."After the first day’s play, there was a mercifully unique experience in Test cricket as the Test match stopped so that a one-day international could be played in front of a big Sunday crowd. Ian Robinson said, "That was a crazy situation. The umpires were at pains on the first day to keep the players off the strip that was to be used for the one-dayer."Zimbabwe were not far behind on first innings, with fifties from Kevin Arnott, Alistair Campbell and Andy Pycroft, who it turned out was playing in his final Test match.Kevin Arnott: "I enjoyed my innings for the fact that it was a lot more fluent than some of my previous innings. By then I had found some form. I also discussed my batting with a person I had a great admiration for, Mark Greatbatch. I think he was a wonderful sportsman, and even though he was a more aggressive opening batsman he and I discussed my ability to play some more positive shots, and I think I started to show a little bit."Andy Pycroft: "Kevin Arnott was quite unsung; he played four Tests while I played three. He got a hundred in the second Test and runs in this one as well; he played very well. I got a sixty in the first innings, 30 overnight and another 30 the next day. I was well set and should have got more than that."Alistair Campbell played well; in fact, if you take him now and compare him to how he played in the early stages of his career, is that he didn’t play strokes all around the wicket. He had them all, but he played more to his strengths. For the middle part of his Test career, until about a year ago, he was trying to play shots all around the wicket and not selecting them properly. But as a youngster, when he first came into the Test arena, he looked a very good player indeed. I think he’s a lot like Marcus Trescothick, but Trescothick plays better to his strengths than Al does."Dave Houghton: "Fifty-odd behind wasn’t a bad effort and we actually declared. We were a little bit influenced by Martin trying to get us to make games of things."New Zealand aimed to build on their lead, with Crowe scoring 65, despite suffering from leg strains. They declared just before lunch on the final day, setting Zimbabwe a target of 315 in 71 overs. Perhaps overconfident after playing two Tests without defeat, the Zimbabweans decided to go for it – with disastrous results."The Second Test is probably one of the biggest regrets I’ve had in cricket," Andy Flower recalled, "We played some reasonable cricket; again, watching Martin Crowe bat was something special, as he got a hundred. Then they set us about 300 to win in less than a day, on the last day."I remember John Hampshire and Dave Houghton, coach and captain, telling us that we were going to go for this target, and I couldn’t believe it because I thought 300 in less than a day, on a Harare Sports Club pitch, with a very heavy outfield, was unrealistic. I honestly believe they felt the pressure of Martin Crowe’s constant moaning about us playing negative cricket, and I think we were conned into chasing the target."They knocked us over really easily in the end, at about teatime on the last afternoon. Guys had gone in and played big shots, a couple of them caught on the boundary, a couple caught in the slips having huge hits outside off – it was silly cricket, and very disappointing to lose our first Test. I remember being very downhearted afterwards."I don’t think they had a good bowling attack, to be honest. Murphy Su’a was fairly quick, but inaccurate; Willie Watson was just a steady little seamer; Dion Nash a good away-swing bowler. Then I thought Patel was a good off-spinner, but nothing special, and their left-arm spinner Haslam was fairly ordinary, no huge mystery about him. In reality it was a nice gentle way for us to be introduced to Test cricket."Then we had the incident of Martin Crowe jumping on top of the Beverley tent and taking down the banner that was up there, which said, merely in jest, `Zimbabwe the only unbeaten Test nation’. He dragged it down with much glee written all over his face. The incident itself didn’t cause much hostility, but there was definitely a hostile atmosphere throughout that tour."Ian Robinson: "He made a very obvious point of parading it in front of the spectators to indicate that Zimbabwe had now been beaten. It was rather an aggressive move that riled a number of spectators there."Andy Pycroft: "I remember that banner irking Martin Crowe particularly. He was a decent enough guy off the field, and I got to know him reasonably well, but a funny guy, quite aloof, and that sort of thing could rankle him more than anybody – he was that sort of personality. They weren’t as friendly as the Indians were."Dave Houghton: "Although Martin Crowe hoodwinked us a bit then and talked us into being more positive, a lot of the things he told us then were things we actually used three or four years later when we had a bit more experience – about being more positive, about going into Test matches to win them – and I still remember his comment to me that you can play ten Test matches, and if you draw eight and lose two it means nothing, but if you lose eight and win two, everyone remembers the two you win. It’s very, very true." But Zimbabwe were still building their foundation then and were not in a position to do that because they had not learned how or had enough experience – as Crowe must have been aware."They gave us 315 to win in just under a day and left us to go chasing after it." He remembers the decision to chase it rather differently from Andy Flower. "We were foolish enough to do it – against Hampshire’s wishes, I have to say. We decided, in our wisdom as novices, to have a crack at this, and we failed miserably. I think Hamps let us have our head so he could say afterwards in the changing room, `I told you so.’ And he did!"We played all sorts of silly shots. We learned a lesson – but we also walked into the changing room and thought, `Well, we were in with a chance of winning the game.’ In only our third Test match we were actually going at a target to try and win. It cost us the Test match, so we learned a lesson from that, but we still felt pretty pleased with what we had done."Kevin Arnott: "Unfortunately, on reflection, we adopted a bad strategy in our second innings, to reach certain totals by a certain time, which led in my view to our downfall. That was our first step in a learning curve, but it brought us down to earth, because we had been a side that by most people’s expectations should have been hammered in our first Test match. It was good for us because there are no short cuts in Test cricket. I only played in one Test match after that, in India, but I certainly enjoyed it, learned a lot from it and met some good people."Mark Burmester: "We lost it in one session after we had done all the hard work. We hadn’t pegged them back that badly, but we knew it was a score we could get to. We didn’t bowl well for a session and let Greatbatch and Crowe score quickly, which took the game away from us. It meant we had to bat for too long a time to hold on to the game. But I enjoyed batting in that last Test match; I got 30 not out in the first innings and ended up in the second innings putting on 46 with Gary Crocker for the ninth wicket – in a losing match, but it gave something to watch for those guys who came late on the Thursday and at least it wasn’t over too early. It gave me time at the crease and if it wasn’t for an injury soon after that, who knows? Maybe I could still be playing."Dave Brain: "We made one major blunder. They left us over 300 to get on the last day and I remember how Dave Houghton came and said, `Let’s go for it.’ We were never going to get it; we should have told him to shove it up and just batted it out! I remember when I came in to bat getting chirped by that little guy Rod Latham, how he was going to see me at the cocktail party later and they had given us such a hiding."Andy Pycroft: "My biggest memory of that Test was not so much the fact that we got beaten but the reason that we got beaten. It was inexperience, and going against the coach as well, in trying to win a Test match when we were so new into the arena, when we didn’t have the time to win it even if we were a decent side and had the ability to score at a big rate, where the pitch was playing a little slower than it had done."I remember being very disappointed that we had even tried to win it, and being a lone voice in the changing room, saying, `This is not on; we shouldn’t even be looking at it,’ and then going out and trying to play shots myself, which I knew I shouldn’t be doing, and got out, as a few of us did in the top order. Once we had lost those early wickets, we were always going to lose that Test match. I put that loss down more than anything to inexperience, but also the mental and physical fatigue of every one of us. Three Test matches (and three one-day internationals!) played for the first time in Test cricket was too demanding for us, and I think with hindsight the administrators would admit that they should never have given us such a heavy schedule."Grant Flower: "We over-rated ourselves and we should never have gone for it, but we were talked into it by the New Zealanders. We didn’t play well enough in the second innings. Once again there was quite a bit of sledging. But we were outplayed by the better side in the end."Ian Robinson: "We showed our naivety, and I think we were still thinking in one-day mode. I think we thought we could probably have got that target, but you can’t do that in Test cricket."It has been suggested that it was perhaps a good thing that Zimbabwe lost this Test match, otherwise they would have finished the two tours with the impression that Test cricket was easy after all and been less prepared for the sterner tasks that lay ahead. "They may be right," conceded Dave Houghton. "India and New Zealand weren’t at the top of the rung then, by any means, but still it was probably a good thing to lose in our third Test match just to get the monkey off our back."We had to lose at one stage. We had achieved three games going five days and had got two good draws out of them, and we had lost a game trying to win it. I know Hamps and I sat back and said, `Well, we’ve done what we wanted to do.’ It would have been nice to win a game, but we did what we set out to do. We had two blokes with Test hundreds, we had a bloke with a five-wicket haul; Gary Crocker played really well; Andy Flower, Grant Flower and Alistair Campbell both got their Test-match fifties, so we had accomplished a lot.Dave also differs from Andy Flower in his memory of relationships with the New Zealanders. "It wasn’t the first time we had encountered sledging because we had played two or three New Zealand A sides, and Australian A sides. It was a little bit of a `sledgy’ affair – just as well it started then so the guys could get used to it because it hasn’t stopped. But New Zealand have always been one of the most vocal sides on the field. I think they realized they were the junior brother to the Australians and had been taking it for years, they decided to get a bit tougher and start handing a bit out."Ian Robinson: "There may have been sledging, but with the shift changes of umpires it was quite difficult to get a handle on this, because you don’t get a pattern; you’re just on for one day at a time and then not again until tomorrow. But this Test was well before the ICC Code of Conduct and match referees had only just started. We had Peter van der Merwe, but their role hadn’t been defined."Malcolm Jarvis: "This first New Zealand Test series I was involved in, they were a pretty sociable bunch. They were like the old school where they mixed, but they keep very much to themselves nowadays. The sledging wasn’t really a problem. I think what goes on on the field stays on the field. You’re there to win a game and if you play hard on the field that’s how cricket should be, and when you’ve finished the game you can go and have a few beers afterwards and it’s fine. I think that’s the way it should be played. It was maybe a big eye-opener for some of the guys to get the verbal treatment but at the end of the day I suppose that’s how cricket was. They were out to assert their authority on us."It was a great honour to have played at the highest level and I have no regrets. I just wish I could have played more Test cricket and one-day cricket."Andy Pycroft: "New Zealand were a lot more aggressive than the Indians on the field and I think they were more interested in showing the newcomers who was boss."Our fielding in those first three Tests was of a high quality, although we did drop catches, especially in the first innings of the First Test against New Zealand, but in general terms our fielding was top-drawer. That is one of the requirements: if you’re not one of the fancied sides in the arena, if you don’t have a fielding department that I better than anyone else’s, you are not going to make it."I don’t think our fielding today is anywhere near what it was then. If you go back to the eighties, 1982 to 1985, and it was Duncan Fletcher’s influence more than anyone’s, we were clearly the best fielding side in the world. And it didn’t come by accident; we worked harder at it than these guys do today. I know they play a lot more cricket and the demands on the body are heavy, but look at it the other way: we were part-time cricketers and we put in the hours. That’s the only way you become a decent fielding side."Overall the feeling that sticks out the most about those first three Tests was the tiredness. Too much in too short a time for guys who were out on their feet. That was unfortunate, because I don’t think we would have been beaten in that third Test match had we been able to take a break."Having said that, you’ve got to say that coming into Test cricket the way we did was a pretty good performance. People look at stats the whole time, but being part of it I can say there was a great deal of pride that we can say, `We got it there, we did our stuff, we showed the world that even though we had slipped in terms of the ability of the side from where we were perhaps five years earlier, we were a decent side and still had a lot of talent."

Pace bowlers Stephen John and Junaid Zia brought Pakistan Customs back on track against DHA for a berth in the first-class Patron’s Trophy. Twenty wickets fell on the opening day of the latest round in the Inter-Department Qualifying Tournament.Earlier in the day Customs were bowled out for 161 with Rizwan Saeed taking 6 for 58 and Nasir Khan 4 for 46, but then John and Junaid, bowling on a seamer-friendly pitch, shared ten wickets as DHA were shot out for 80. John took 5 for 20 while Junaid, who was recently adjudged the best player in the Emerging Trophy, took 5 for 46. He now has 31 wickets in the competition. Customs were 22 for 0 at the close stumps, a lead of 101 runs.Before the the match, Customs had 21 points from five matches against DHA’s 27 from four. If Customs secure maximum points in this game, DHA will be awkwardly placed as their last match is against leaders PIA who have already qualified to play in Patron’s Trophy with 36 points from five matches.Debutants Karachi Port Trust needed a winning draw against National Bank to qualify along with ZTBL from Pool C. They went off to a decent start, finishing the day on 221 for 3 off 65.3 overs, with former Pakistan junior captain Maisam Hasnain unbeaten on 86. Former Test opener Shadab Kabir scored 55.In Pool B, the battle for the second qualification spot behind Wapda is on in earnest. KRL and ARL are both locked at 21 points apiece, while PTCL were only three points behind before the start of this round. At stumps on the first day, KRL were in trouble against PTV on 184 for 6 from 47 overs, while PTCL were 135 for 1 in 31 overs against ARL.

The Pakistan Cricket Board has announced outline details of a forthcoming three-way one-day series, also involving Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, to be played in Pakistan from September 30. There will be seven one-day internationals in all, plus two Test matches against Sri Lanka.In a sponsorship deal worth over Rs17million, the mobile-phone provider Paktel has been awarded the title sponsorship of the series, while Super Asia are the co-sponsors. Transmedia Advertising has won the rights to in-stadium advertising. Prizemoney, totalling over a million rupees, will come out of the Paktel sponsorship.Akbar Khan, Paktel’s national marketing manager, said: “Paktel is sponsoring this mega-event because we understand the love that this nation has for this game and for us the people of Pakistan are more important than anything else. This is our way of thanking the people of Pakistan for the huge support they have given to Paktel over the years. Cricket is the first love of every Pakistani and watching three countries of the cricketing arena is a sure treat for all of us.”Paktel was the first cellular mobile service operator in Pakistan, and for a long time the word Paktel was commonly used as another word for mobile phone.