Former India coach Greg Chappell has praised Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s captaincy and said the Indian team is shaping up well under him. Chappell quit as coach after the World Cup earlier this year, ending a two-year tenure with the team.Though his stint was mired in controversy, Dhoni was one of the successes and Chappell said he had seen a lot of potential in him. Dhoni led an inexperienced team to victory in the ICC World Twenty20 in South Africa, his debut series as captain.”I had foreseen a great future for Dhoni,” Chappell told . “He has proved his potential and has been most impressive as a leader. The Indians are lucky to have a leader like him.”Chappell, currently in India as a consultant for the Future Cricket Academy of the Rajasthan Cricket Association, based in Jaipur, acknowledged India’s recent success.”The Indian team is now doing well,” he said. “When I was the coach, whatever I did stood them in good stead. It is up to the others to judge. They have a few exciting players and have already won the ICC World Twenty20.”The good thing about Indian cricket is that it has a varied environment in which players are groomed differently. The players, like those from far-flung areas, are an example of that.”The current one-day series between India and Australia, Chappell said, would be a close contest, despite a few senior Australian players retiring from the game in recent months.”The Australian team is in a transition phase. There is no [Glenn] McGrath or Shane Warne. But they are well prepared for the series. They have been working hard and they have to keep intact their supremacy. I believe it will be a hard fought series.”His work at the academy, Chappell said, would not necessarily replicate training methods used at the Centre of Excellence in Brisbane. He inaugurated the academy with Ian Frazer, the bio-mechanics expert who also assisted him when Chappell was with the Indian team.”It is not right to compare it to Centre of Excellence because that has been running for years now. People like Allan Border [the former Australian captain] work and evolve new techniques for the trainees there. But I assure you that it will be different. We wish to make it one of the most reputed training centres of the world.”Twenty20’s growing popularity, Chappell felt, would be a challenge for coaches in adapting to different forms of the game. He did not, though, believe it would ruin a batsman’s technique. “There is no question of spoiling the technique. It has brought about a few changes which 50-over cricket too brought along. Now players use heavy bats, footwork is changing and they are hitting much harder than in my day.”

Stephen Outerbridge will fly home immediately after picking up an injury to his right knee in Bermuda’s defeat in the third and final one-dayer against Kenya. The BCB confirmed that scans showed cartilage damage.He will miss the four-day Intercontinental Cup match against Kenya which begins on Thursday, but he will not be replaced. A board statement said: “Based on the extent of the injury it is anticipated that Stephen will be not be able to train or practice for at least six to eight weeks. It has been decided that there is no need to send a replacement player for the Intercontinental Cup game.”His injury further compounds Bermuda’s woes. Bermuda slumped to a 3-0 series defeat by Kenya, and in the process their allrounder Lionel Cann was banned for two ODIs after being found guilty of breaching the ICC Code of Conduct during his team’s three-wicket defeat to Kenya in Nairobi on Saturday in which he showed ‘serious dissent’.

Worcestershire have offered to sign up Umar Gul, the Pakistan fast bowler, as their overseas professional for the first part of the 2008 season.”We have talked to Umar’s representative in the United Kingdom and have made an offer. We will continue to talk to see what is possible,” Mark Newton, the club’s chief executive told the , a London-based newspaper. “We would like Umar to be our overseas player for the early part of next season and his likely availability would be from early May to early August.”We are just hoping it [the signing] will all come to fruition and it will be an exciting time if Umar, Simon Jones, Kabir Ali and Matt Mason are all fit and available for next season. Umar is one of the most exciting prospects around and in addition to Test cricket, he has also proved to be economical in Twenty20 cricket.”Gul, 23, was the highest wicket-taker in the ICC World Twenty20 with 13 wickets at a miserly 5.60 runs per over. He has also taken 67 wickets at 31.55 from 16 Tests and 44 wickets at 28.27 from 34 ODIs.But Gul needs clearance from the Pakistan board before joining Worcestershire. If the board gives him permission, it will be his maiden appearance on the county circuit. Gloucestershire had signed him on for the 2007 season but the Pakistan board had refused to release him owing to concerns about his fitness.Worcestershire’s bowling department has been bolstered by the signing of Simon Jones, the England fast bowler, who will be on a two-year contract. Kabir Ali, who has played 14 ODIs and a Test, and Matt Mason would provide support. Mason is undergoing rehabilitation work after missing most of the previous season due to a shoulder injury.

Apart from a lot of sweating and snake-spotting, England weren’t ableto ascertain too much from their opening warm-up match at the ColomboCricket Club. The bowlers toiled with little reward on a dead pitchwhile the batsmen enjoyed a succession of misleadingly unchallenginginnings. Nevertheless, for Alastair Cook, who top-scored with 63before retiring at the lunch break, the chance to build an inningsover the course of two-and-a-half hours was not to be sniffed at.For Cook, however, the more significant cricket took place not inColombo, but in Brisbane and Hobart, where he watched with interestthe success enjoyed by Australia’s domineering batsmen, not least hisfellow left-hander, Mike Hussey, who racked up hundreds in the firstinnings of each Test. Australia lost only 11 wickets out of a possible40 en route to a 2-0 series victory, and Cook believes that thepositive mindset they demonstrated – and the knock-on effect it willhave on Sri Lanka’s morale – is something that England have tocapitalise on in the course of the next month.”Obviously we don’t know what these wickets will be like, but we sawhow aggressively [Australia] played, and we know that you’ve got to bepositive and look to score,” said Cook. “On those wickets you couldprobably hit through the ball more, but if you just look to survivethere will be a ball that gets you out.” With that in mind, he’sdetermined to master the sweep – a shot that was his undoing onseveral occasions in the summer. “I’ve been working quite hard on thatas a gameplan B, and if I have to resort to it, I will.”Muttiah Muralitharan, who needs just five more wickets to overhaulShane Warne’s record tally of 708, is likely to be the target of thatstrategy. Few people, Cook included, doubt that the record will fallat some stage this series, but in Australia Murali managed just fourwickets at exactly 100 apiece. It’s proof that the man is notinvincible, and Cook believes that the experience he gained fromfacing Sri Lanka in 2006 will help him go some way towards emulatingthat success.”He’s a good bowler but picking him is the key,” said Cook. “Towardsthe end of the series in England I was picking him more and more, andif you can pick him and survive defensively, rather than defending andthinking you’re going to get out, it gives you a base to work from. Icertainly can’t score as quickly as the Aussies did, but we’ll just dothe normal stuff like rotating the strike and playing from the other end.”The strike rotation will be especially important now that England havesettled on their new left-hand right-hand combination – the firstthey’ve used since Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick were aregular partnership from 2002 to 2004. There is more than a decade’sdifference between the ages of Cook (22) and Vaughan (33), but theyounger man is more than happy to have acquired such an experiencedsidekick – even if it means he’ll have to take first strike for thefirst time in his career.

“Vaughany’s a good man to bat with,” said Cook, after the pair had puton 77 in their first outing of the tour. “He’s a serious player who’sseen a lot in his career. He’s been here [to Sri Lanka] twice and heis quite good technically at picking out something that you’re notquite doing right – just one word and he reminds you of your basicskills. It worked well yesterday, and hopefully that’s just a goodstart.”He looks after a lot of the players in his own way,” said Cook.”He’ll wander over for a chat, and make sure everyone’s alright. Andwhen he’s playing he just checks up on you, because his game is quitebasic in terms of how he thinks about batting, and he relates that tothe way we bat. If your head’s falling over, for instance – simplethings that when you’re in the heat of the battle you forget about.That’s what I picked up from batting with him.”Vaughan’s batting looked to be back to its sublime best during thehome series against India, most notably during his century at TrentBridge, and he was once again full of attacking intent during hisbrisk innings of 38 on Thursday. By and large, however, Cook is awarethat he and his new partner tend to bat at the same tempo – much as heand the out-of-favour Andrew Strauss did during their summerpartnerships.”We’ll just look to get the side off to a good start in the mostnatural way we can,” said Cook. “It’s vital that we bat well togetherbecause we want to keep as many wickets as we can against the newball. That means it’s more overs that Murali has to bowl. The lastthing we want is to be four or five-down when he comes on.”

Younis Khan, Pakistan’s vice-captain, has lashed out at the country’s former cricketers for criticising Shoaib Malik’s captaincy. Malik’s tenure has been on a slide after a promising start and drawn a string of criticism but Younis believes it is too early to take such a stand.”I am really upset at the criticism of some of our former players. Malik is a young captain and he will only learn from his mistakes,” Younis, the stand-in skipper in the Kolkata Test following Malik’s injury, told . “This has always been a tradition in Pakistan and India … Former players always tend to run down someone who is in trouble or facing a crisis.”The same people criticising Malik today didn’t say anything when he was named captain. At that time they supported his appointment. Malik needs to be encouraged and backed by everyone, including former players.”Malik’s tenure began with an ODI series win against Sri Lanka in Abu Dhabi and a place in the ICC World Twenty20 final but it went on a downward spiral thereafter, losing the ODI and Test series at home to South Africa before losing the ODI series and the first Test against India.Shrugging aside the recent losses, Younis said: “Malik is learning every day. His first experience has come against top teams like South Africa and India. He needs at least two or three years to mature into a good captain. I am sure he will learn a lot from playing and leading the side in India. He will learn because no one is born a leader.”Inzamam-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s former captain who retired after the Test series against South Africa, urged Malik to improve his individual performance in order to be a successful captain.”Unless Malik performs it will be very difficult for Pakistan to make a comeback in the Test series,” Inzamam told the daily . “Unless he [Malik] can withstand this pressure and come out of it, his problems will increase.”Pakistan’s third and final Test of the series begins in Bangalore on December 8.

Scorecard

Led by captain Richard Jones’ brisk unbeaten 85, Auckland made light of a target of 243 in 50 overs and handed the Bangladeshis their second defeat in as many completed matches on their tour of New Zealand so far. The visitors opted to bat but bar Tamim Iqbal’s 104, the first hundred of the trip, there were few contributions to speak of and even more worryingly, the Bangladeshi bowlers managed just three Auckland wickets ahead of a full ODI and Test series.Paul Hitchcock, who earlier picked up 2 for 48, scored 35 in an opening stand of 81 with Martin Guptill to set the base for Auckland. After his departure, caught by Ferhad Reza off Nazmul Hossain, 21-year-old Guptill fell for 59 from 61 balls. Jones and Colin de Grandhomme (34) finished the match with ease, adding an unbroken partnership of 97. Jones hit eight fours and a six to finish on 85, and denied the Bangladeshis any entrance into the middle order. The target was overhauled with 24 deliveries to spare.With the bat, the Bangladeshis got starts but collapsed dramatically. Tamim stood firm, adding 86 for the second wicket with Aftab Ahmed (29), and 55 with captain Mohammad Ashraful (27). However, a complete mess down the order – the last seven wickets fell for 58 – saw Bangladesh bowled out in 48.5 overs. Tamim hit four sixes and ten fours in his 122-ball effort, but was the fourth batsman to fall, at 184 in the 35th over.Greg Moran, the rookie 21-year-old right-arm medium-fast bowler, took 3 for 33 off eight overs, Andy McKay and Roneel Hira two each, and there was a wicket for Daryl Tuffey in his first match for Auckland this season.Bangladesh’s tour continues with a Twenty20 match against a New Zealand Cricket XI in a World Vision Cyclone Relief match in Hamilton on Sunday.

Stuart Clark says he is still “green” in terms of Test cricket despite being ranked as the world’s best fast bowler. Following the Boxing Day Test against India Clark jumped to No. 2 on the ICC’s Test bowling rankings, trailing only Muttiah Muralitharan.Clark enjoyed a boost after collecting match figures of 5 for 48 against India and he now sits ahead of Makhaya Ntini and Brett Lee at the top of the fast-bowling list. It has been a rapid rise for Clark, who has only played 12 Tests and has 59 wickets at 19.33.”It really doesn’t sit comfortably,” Clark told the . “OK, those rankings are great, but I’m still learning, I’ve played a lot of first-class cricket and a few Test matches but I’m still green.”Clark went for only 1.6 runs an over in the MCG Test as the slow pitch and his nagging line tightened the already defensive Indian order further. “To be fair, the wicket suits what I do and, with the way I bowl, it just gets really frustrating, I reckon,” Clark said. “If you bowled badly, you got belted, but we bowled well in groups and were hard to score against.”It just became really depressing to bowl. I know why you would play two spinners and there’s probably every reason to do so, but on that sort of wicket the quicks are the ones that could tie you up and frustrate the bejesus out of you.”Australia’s bowling coach Troy Cooley said Clark played a critical role in the team. “He has all the qualities now,” Cooley said. “He can seam it, he can reverse it and, if he is given the new ball, he swings it, as he keeps telling me.”

Yuvraj Singh, one of the chief architects of recent Indian victories in the one-day and the Twenty20 formats, believes that the team needs to put Friday’s embarrassing Twenty20 loss behind them if they are to perform well during the CB Series. “We need to focus on the first game. Our batsmen need to start well and get used to the wicket,” he said on the eve of the first game against Australia at the Gabba on Sunday.Yuvraj, who had a forgettable outing during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy with only 17 runs in the first two Tests he played, had to suffer more agony when he injured his left knee during a football session in the middle of the third Test at the WACA last month. Though his knee was still in a brace, Yuvraj said he felt “very confident about being fit in a couple of days”. That would be good news for India who desperately need his services, especially after the debacle on Friday.Speaking about the newcomers into the ODI squad and the pressure they might face going straight into a big series, Yuvraj said the lack of acclimatisation wouldn’t be a problem because most of them had played in big series in the last year.”The important thing to keep in mind is how fast they can mentally prepare then they’ll be in a position to give a good performance”, Yuvraj said speaking from his own experiences when he came into the Indian team. He said Australia was a tough place and the Aussies don’t make it easy either and the boys realise that. “They’ll grow through this tough experience. We are a hard working young team with a lot aggression.”Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India’s one-day and Twenty20 skipper, spoke about how his batsmen had failed to live up to the expectations the previous evening at the MCG. But Dhoni would have sorely missed Yuvraj, who is also his deputy, and more importantly the second highest run-getter for India in ODIs in 2007.Two of the top five, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid, are not even part of the ODI squad, something that Ricky Ponting picked on when he said he was “surprised that he [Ganguly] is not there in the side after the way he played against us at home”.Yuvraj didn’t deny the absence of players like Ganguly and Dravid was a huge loss but stressed it was better to look to the future instead. “This is the best one-day outfit. And if you look at most of the team, it is the same that won the Twenty20 World Cup.”Yuvraj agreed with Ponting’s view that Sri Lanka, the World Cup runners-up, could not be ignored. “It’s not only about Australia. We need to also keep in mind Sri Lanka.” And the best way to beat this pair of quality sides was, according to Yuvraj, ” to play consistently in all three departments of the game”.Meanwhile Munaf Patel and Manoj Tiwary joined the Indian squad on Saturday. Patel was the last-minute replacement for RP Singh who had to go back home after suffering a hamstring injury while Tiwary has been called as a cover for Yuvraj.

North ZoneAakash Chopra’s 89-ball 101 propelled Delhi to an emphatic nine-wicket win over Jammu & Kashmir at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi. Ian Dev Singh’s gritty 90 lent some respectability to the J&K total, once they chose to bat, but a total of 168 was never going to be too challenging for a strong batting line-up and Delhi cruised to victory with 22.1 overs to spare, gaining the bonus point in the process.Karan Goel’s century set up Punjab’s win over Haryana at the Harbax Singh Stadium in Delhi. Punjab made the most of a flat batting pitch, rattling up 297 in their 50 overs, before new-ball bowler Gagandeep Singh triggered a collapse with three wickets. Sumit Sharma’s 54 allowed Haryana to limp to 174 but it couldn’t prevent them from conceding the bonus point.Half-centuries from Manvinder Bisla and Paras Dogra steered Himachal Pradesh to a five-wicket win over Services at the Palam A Stadium in Delhi. Services had been propped up by fifties from Yashpal Singh and P Rao, the debutant, but 243 proved inadequate in the final analysis.East ZoneIn just his second one-day game, Sajan Mohanty grabbed four important wickets to lead Orissa to a thrilling four-run win over Assam at the Nehru Stadium in Guwahati. Debutant Payas Ranjan Sinha had propped up Orissa with a patient fifty and their bowlers did a fine job to defend 243. Half-centuries from S Suresh and Sarupam Purkayastha, a debutant, went in vain as Orissa held their nerve in the climactic stages.Sharing six wickets between them, Vineet Jain and Jayanta Debnath bowled out Jharkhand for 179 before the Tripura batsmen knocked off the target with 3.3 overs to spare at the Railway Stadium in Guwahati. Jharkhand’s decision to bat backfired, with Tripura’s bowlers not allowing partnerships to flourish. A target of 180 was always going to be a tricky one and it required good allround contributions from all batsmen to seal the victory.Central ZoneMurtaza Ali picked up three wickets as Railways collapsed to a 65-run defeat against Madhya Pradesh at the Kamla Club Sports Ground in Kanpur. MP reached a competitive 217 in their 50 overs as opener Naman Ojha carved out a patient 75 and added 61 with Shadab Khan (42). But after Ojha fell in the 46th over, the lower order couldn’t push towards a big score and the last five wickets fell for just 20 runs. It didn’t matter in the end though with Railways bowled out in 44 overs. Deepak Yadav scored an unbeaten 57, but with virtually no support from the rest of the side – four batsmen being dismissed for ducks – he couldn’t take them the distance.Rohit G Sharma hit an unbeaten 147 and led Rajasthan’s successful chase of 260 against Uttar Pradesh at Green Park in Kanpur. He added 171 with Manish Sharma (73) and took Rajasthan to an eight-wicket win with 33 balls to spare. Anshul Kapoor (69) and Parvinder Singh (69) had revived UP’s innings with a 104-run partnership for the sixth wicket. But it wasn’t going to be enough. Rohit and Manish hammered UP’s bowlers, especially medium-pacer Bhuvnesh Kumar, who went for 53 runs in five overs.South ZoneS Vidyut’s cracking 120 set up Tamil Nadu’s convincing five-wicket win over Goa at the Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. C Ganapathy, the new-ball bowler, nabbed three wickets to restrict Goa to 198 before Vidyut outshone the rest during the run-chase, allowing Tamil Nadu to collect a bonus point as well.

After having embarrassed the West Zone batsmen, who were coming off a prolific run in the Ranji one-dayers, in the Deodhar Trophy opener, the Central Zone attack will come up against their toughest test of the tournament tomorrow at the Chinnaswamy Stadium when they take on an even stronger North Zone batting line-up.If a domestic team can leave out Mithun Manhas, it has to be spoilt for choices, and when you have Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Shikhar Dhawan, Aakash Chopra, and Virat Kohli as your top five you really are spoilt. If Sehwag, Gambhir and Kohli make it on the back of being India and India Under-19 players, Dhawan and Chopra have slayed domestic attacks in the Ranji one-dayers. Chopra has scored three unbeaten centuries in scoring 332 runs in four innings, and Dhawan two centuries in scoring 342 from five innings. Even more impressive was the fact that both scored at more than a run a ball. To add to that, North have the best allrounder of the season in Rajat Bhatia, who would like to carry the form from the longer version into the one-dayers.This batting line-up, though, will be up against perhaps their toughest test of the domestic season. Praveen Kumar and RP Singh sound more like an India opening combination, and the pressure they create makes the job easier for the bowlers to follow. It showed in the way Sandeep Singh bowled in the previous game, bowling seven tight overs for 21 runs and getting Rohit Sharma’s wicket. And if things do go wrong, they have two quality spinners to fall back upon: Piyush Chawla and Murali Kartik.That is where the positives ends for Central Zone. They look far too much like an Uttar Pradesh team, and the batting line-up suggests an over-reliance on Mohammad Kaif and Suresh Raina for their runs. They lost four wickets chasing 99 against West; Raina scored 18 and Kaif 8. While chasing a bigger target or while setting one, the two might not be allowed the luxury of failure. To add to their troubles, Tanmay Srivastava has been ruled out of the tournament with a hand injury he picked up at the U-19 World Cup.Their coach Abhay Sharma, though, wasn’t very worried by the unconvincing batting display in the first match, choosing to look at it as complacency that accompanies a low target. The consolation for them is that they are not up against the best attack North Zone could have had: Ishant Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, and VRV Singh won’t be playing as they are yet to prove their fitness. Ishant and VRV took the fitness tests today at the National Cricket Academy, but the results are not yet known.VRV was North’s striking force in their Duleep Trophy success earlier this year, with back-to-back ten-wicket match hauls. In his absence, Pradeep Sangwan will be an essential reinforcement. He will be supported by the steady medium-pace of Vikramjeet Malik and the legspin of Amit Mishra. If the wicket is like it was in the previous match here, when the seamers got plenty of assistance, North will want to go with a third fast bowler in Punjab’s Manpreet Gony.A seaming pitch could make this game an enticing contest between the Central bowlers and the North batsmen. Those who thought domestic cricket was boring could be in for a shock.Teams (from)
Central Zone: Mohammad Kaif (capt.), Praveen Kumar, Suresh Raina, RP Singh, Piyush Chawla, Murali Kartik, Praveen Gupta, Naman Ojha, Sandeep Singh, Faiz Fazal, Rajesh Kanojia, Himalaya Sagar, Rohit Sharma, Deepak YadavNorth Zone: Virender Sehwag (capt.), Gautam Gambhir, Uday Kaul, Aakash Chopra, Shikhar Dhawan, Vikramjit Malik, Yashpal Singh, Rajat Bhatia, Paras Dogra, Pradeep Sangwan, Amit Mishra, Manpreet Gony, Vishal Bhatia