Tatenda Taibu, Zimbabwe’s captain, has admitted that his side are finding the going tough in the face of a string of heavy defeats.Since the end of the strike by rebel players in the spring, Zimbabwe have lost all six Tests they have played – five by an innings and one by ten wickets, with two finishing inside two days. They have also lost all five ODIs played. The nadir came against New Zealand at Harare Sports Club when Zimbabwe became the second side to be bowled out twice in a day in a Test. The on-field performances have been widely lambasted with increasing calls for the ICC to intervene.Taibu, whose own form has understandably dipped in the face of constant hammerings, said that despite the results, there had been some progress. “But collectively we have not improved,” he told the Harare-based Herald newspaper, “and I am not happy with the way things have been going.”The improvement has been in bits and pieces and most disappointing is the fact that it has been the young players who have been doing well while the seniors have not been doing well. If both the young players and the seniors had been playing well then we would have fared far much better.”In the last series against India there was a vast improvement in our bowling especially considering that a number of bowlers like Douglas Hondo and Tinashe Panyangara were injured. For instance, if you look at our performance on the second day of the final Test, we managed to take nine wickets for 175 and that was a good achievement. However, I was not impressed with the fielding. Zimbabwe have been known to be one of the best teams in terms of fielding but we were just not up to it and it has been up and down.”Also, our batting still troubles me and there was not even a single batsman to reach a century in the eight innings against India and New Zealand. Something has to be done. Now that we have seen our shortcomings, it’s up to the guys to look at how to play. I hope that the guys who will be going to India will learn how to deal with left-arm seamers, left-arm spinners and swing bowling in general.”Taibu revealed that he had held long discussions with India’s Rahul Dravid and had learned much from him. “He [Dravid] felt that our problem is worsened by the fact that we only have one left-arm seamer playing in Logan Cup [Allan Mwayenga] who however, gets the ball to move away from the batsman. When New Zealand came guys were lacking confidence in the ability to deal with balls coming back at them but instead of learning fast, it is a weakness that stayed with us even for the India series. We did not adapt quickly and that is a worry.”Taibu is also rumoured to be increasingly at odds with Zimbabwe Cricket. Sources close to the team say that he was not even informed by the board when Phil Simmons was sacked as coach, only finding out from the media. When he complained, he was told in no uncertain terms that it was not his concern.That unease is said to be mirrored across the team, with several sources agreeing that the side is not a happy unit. That was highlighted by the recent press release issued on behalf of the players which slammed the conduct of the board and its treatment of the country’s cricketers.
ScorecardDay 1 Bulletin – Trescothick sets the pace for England Verdict – Bravo keeps the discipline Roving Reporter – Age concerns Day 2 Bulletin – Windies fight back after Flintoff blitz Verdict – Flintoff confirms his coming-of-ageDay 3 Bulletin – England build the foundations Verdict – A new and triumphant England Roving Reporter – Give us a clueDay 4 Bulletin – England retain the Wisden Trophy Verdict – Giles rips out the cream of the Caribbean batting
In the July issue of Wisden Cricket Monthly Stephen Fay argues that the Twenty20 Cup may solve cricket’s image problem but it is a big riskIt had better work. The £250,000 the ECB is spending to promote Twenty20 cricket is a gamble based on the marketing department’s faithful response to a survey. The ECB’s annual report spells it out: "It became evident from consumer research … that there was a considerable demand for a shorter, fast variation of the game."For two weeks in high summer, starting on June 13, it will be a jacuzzi at Worcester and a pyjama party at Glamorgan. "A good night out and a few beers with your mates," say the marketing people. Atomic Kitten – our older readers might like to know that this is a fashionable pop group – have been hired to sing at the final on July 19. Westminster council found the prospect so forbidding that it refused the MCC a licence. The final will be at Trent Bridge, which has only half the capacity but neighbours who are more tolerant of amplified noise.Stuart Robertson, the ECB marketing manager, gave a succinct summary of cricket’s perceived problem at the launch of Twenty20 cricket in London on May 8. "The audience profile for cricket is disastrous: middle-aged, middle class and white. Kids think it’s for oldies and women think it’s for men. Twenty20 cricket is about addressing these structural barriers and the research says it is women and kids who want this sort of cricket." The idea is that a new audience will then transfer their attractions to the first-class game.What they will get is 20 overs a side played over three hours. The 18 first-class counties have been divided into three regional groups and will battle for £108,000 in team and individual prize money. The game is a hybrid. It is part serious with rules from one-day cricket like fielding restrictions for six overs, bowlers limited to four overs and short-pitched balls limited to one an over. These are rules to suit batsmen. And it is part frivolous: microphone links to the players and the third umpire; the Sky Sports team interviewing players "direct from the dugout"; and batsmen being timed out if they take more than 90 seconds to reach the wicket. American baseball will be gratified that cricket is copying some of its principal features. No more jeers about it being like rounders, please.Sponsors arrived late on the scene but there are three of them now: the Test sponsor npower, the Dutch electrical company Philips, whose screen will show instant replays, and Nectar, whose vouchers can be turned into bonus prizes. Now they are ready for the off, what are the prospects?The most productive comparison is with New Zealand where a longer 40-over, four-innings version called Cricket Max started in 1996-97. "The formula was devised by Martin and Jeff Crowe as an off-beat, television-geared form of the game but public interest was minimal," WCM’s New Zealand correspondent Don Cameron reports. "The offer of a NZ$1,000 prize to spectators to catch sixes failed to excite the few hundred fans. At some grounds wits reckoned it was a better idea to introduce all the spectators to all the players. The lesson seemed to be that you could put all manner of gimmicks into a package but people might not want to buy it."When costs rose too high the tournament was scaled down; last winter’s players’ strike put paid to this year’s tournament and Max is likely to languish as a too expensive event for regular competition among the six first-class teams in New Zealand. In Australia an attenuated version of Cricket Max called Super Eights – eight players on a team bowling 14 overs and a six counting eight – was used as a pre-season tournament but it lasted only two years and finished in 1997.Perhaps neither example will prove relevant to the success or failure of Twenty20. The ECB’s gamble will be difficult to judge this summer. A generous publicity budget ought to bring the crowds. It will be harder next year when the originality has worn off. The gamble is like a bet on a horse. There are no ifs and buts. You know whether you have won or lost. A win may alter the image for the good of the game. A loss will have damaged the integrity of cricket in England. That would be a disaster.Click here to subscribe to Wisden Cricket Monthly
The July 2003 edition of Wisden Cricket Monthly is on sale at all good newsagents in the UK and Ireland, priced £3.25.
The South African cricket team will arrive in Zimbabwe 5 September 2001 to play two Tests, a one-day warm-up and three One-Day Internationals. The following is a squad of 17 which will represent Zimbabwe against the touring South African team:Heath Streak (captain), Guy Whittall (vice-captain), Andy Blignaut, Alistair Campbell, Stuart Carlisle, Dion Ebrahim, Andrew Flower, Grant Flower, Travis Friend, Douglas Hondo, Hamilton Masakadza, David Mutendra, Henry Olonga, Raymond Price, Tatenda Taibu, Brighton Watambwa, Craig Wishart. Babu Meman (manager), Carl Rackemann (coach), Amato Machikicho (physiotherapist), Malcolm Jarvis (fitness trainer).
Republic of Ireland have been drawn against Estonia in the Euro 2012 playoffs.
Giovanni Trapattoni’s men earned their spot in the knockout round of qualification by beating Armenia 2-1 on Tuesday night, and have avoided some of the bigger teams after being seeded for Thursday’s draw.
Estonia finished runners up behind Italy in Group C, beating Serbia to a playoff spot and will be eager to qualify for a major tournament for the first time.
Trapattoni has stated that he respects his opponents, and that it will not be an easy task for Ireland to qualify.
“It is extremely positive for Ireland that we will play the first leg away,” the Italian told Sky Sports.
“We should not underestimate our opposition, or any team, including Estonia. To have made it through to the play-off, they must have quality and mental fortitude.
“Our build-up to this stage of the competition has shown us the importance of organisation, attention to detail, and self-belief. That will be vitally important to us as we prepare for these games in November,” he stated.
In the remainder of the draw, Turkey take on Croatia, Czech Republic face Montenegro and Portugal entertain Bosnia Herzegovina.
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Trinidad and Tobago’s (T&T) women cricketers defied St Lucia – and the rains – to lift the West Indies Women Cricket Federation regional tournament league title in Barbados. Stacy Ann King and Anisa Mohammed played star roles in the victory at the Passage Road Ground. King hit a robust half-century to take T&T’s total to 213 in 48.3 overs, before Mohammed wrecked St Lucia’s innings, which ended 33 runs short of the revised target.St Lucia followed the tournament trend by winning the toss and asking T&T to bat. King responded by blasting 83, and T&T also had useful contributions from Devika Singh, who scored 22, captain Marissa Aguillera (17), as well as Gaitri Seetahal, who remained unbeaten on 24. Naralee Cooper took 4 for 35 off ten overs for St Lucia while her sister, Roylin Cooper, took 2 for 33.In reply, St Lucia stumbled to 49 for 3 after 14 overs, when rain interrupted the innings. Aguillera and Co would have been hoping desperately for the weather to clear, with the other two fixtures of the day – Barbados v Grenada and Jamaica v St Vincent and the Grenadines – being washed out.T&T had already failed to complete two matches due to inclement weather. In their first outing against Jamaica, T&T batted but were awarded a point after rain flooded the outfield. A day later, T&T were unable to take the field after the weather ruined their match against Barbados. But with successive victories against defending champs St Vincent and Grenada, they were level on points with Barbados going into today’s match. The bad weather meant only a win would ensure them the title. This time, the elements were on their side.St Lucia resumed their innings and were still in contention to pull off an upset at 116 for 6. However, Mohammed’s figures of 5 for 26, and Gaitri Seetahal’s 2 for 26, made sure there was no repeat of 2004, when T&T narrowly lost out on the title to hosts St Vincent, after suffering two rained-out matches. St Lucia folded for 138, chasing the revised target of 171. Swaylyn Williams top scored with 30 while West Indies batsman Nadine George (22) and Purner Thomas, who scored 20, also gave good support.T&T and Barbados will both enjoy a bye today, while the other four teams play for the other two semi-final spots in the knockout phase of the competition.
The new, training-in-batches approach currently being used by the Indian team in Bangalore has come in for more praise from the players. Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif became the latest fans of the system, in which the entire squad is split into batches of five, who undergo a rigorous three-day training. The first lot of players – Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammed Kaif, Ajit Agarkar and Irfan Pathan – finished their stint on Friday, and Kaif and Yuvraj expressed their satisfaction with the training technique.”I have played for my country for five years and I have never experienced something like this camp before,” gushed Kaif. “We start with yoga at seven and finish by about five or six with some swimming in the evening. We were at the ground the whole day, we interacted with the coach, captain and as players we got a chance to know each other better.”One of the innovations included playing with a golf ball, and both Kaif and Yuvraj were especially impressed with this technique. “The drills were challenging. Especially while practising with the golf ball, you have to focus hard. We challenged ourselves at practice by playing on different wickets — slow, fast, good and bad. We also used the new ball, old ball, used the machine with some spin on the ball. In the long-term this camp will benefit us,” Kaif said.Yuvraj too pointed out the benefits of playing with the golf ball. “Practising with a golf-ball which is smaller in size helps in our timing and when we go out there in the middle and practise with normal cricket balls, it helps us middle the ball very well. It was also a good experience playing against bowling machines placed higher as it helps us in getting adjusted.”Greg Chappell, the coach, was also satisfied with the progress made by the players. “We are very happy with the first camp. We have had a lot of time with each of the players and have worked on specific areas. We have also been able to work on specific simulation exercises for the sort of things we expect to be confronted with in the next few months. From my point of view and from the coaching staff point of view, we have achieved what we wanted to achieve. The feedback from the players has been positive and we hope that the next two camps will go just as well. We are grateful to the NCA’s facilities that have helped us cover a lot of things in a very short span of time.”Looking ahead to the tri-series in Malaysia – involving Australia and West Indies – Chappell admitted he wasn’t sure about the kind of pitches there. “We really don’t know what we are going to be confronted with in Malaysia but we expect the wickets to be on the slower side. We have to wait and see and we have to adjust once we go there.”The first batch of five players will return home while the next lot – consisting of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, RP Singh, Suresh Raina, Munaf Patel and Sreesanth – will begin their three-day stint on Saturday.
Six Indian cricketers and five members of the support staff – including Greg Chappell, the coach – currently in Zimbabwe are without passports after their documents were either stolen or lost. The team manager Amitabh Chowdhary, whose own passport is missing as well, has said that the necessary procedures were under way and that fresh passports would be issued shortly.”We lost the passports on Wednesday while I was watching the match between New Zealand and Zimbabwe at the ground on Wednesday,” Chowdhary was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India. “Follow-up action has been taken, forms have been filled and we expect the new passports to be issued by this evening.”Suresh Raina, Rudra Pratap Singh, Murali Kartik, Harbhajan Singh Ashish Nehra and Mohammad Kaif were the six players whose passports went missing, while the same fate also befell Greg King, the trainer, the physiotherapist John Gloster and Ian Frazer, the bio-mechanist. Of these, Raina, RP Singh and Kartik were selected only for the one-day squad, and will return home on Thursday, 8 September 2005.
Glenn McGrath, fresh from the rare indignity of being overlooked as Australia’s opening bowler, says he is prepared to reinvent himself as a wily old first-change operator.One of the most brutally effective fast men in history, McGrath was relegated behind Jason Gillespie and Michael Kasprowicz for new-ball duties in Australia’s eight-wicket victory over Zimbabwe in Harare on Saturday. It was the third time in his past six matches that he has come on first-change; before that, he had opened Australia’s bowling in his previous 87 one-day internationals dating back to the 1999 World Cup.Now aged 34, he is willing to embrace a new, subtler role in Australia’s attack. "I think Allan Donald did it through the latter part of his career – came on first change, really tied it up, put the pressure on and took wickets," said McGrath."And it worked very well. Whatever’s best for the team, I’m happy to do."McGrath’s preference, however, is to carry on as normal. "I still like opening with the new ball. I’ll have to improve my form to get back there."His form in Zimbabwe was merely acceptable, neither dispiriting nor particularly encouraging, for someone returning from two lots of ankle surgery. In three matches he took one wicket and went for 3.35 runs an over; Gillespie (seven and 3.21) and Kasprowicz (five and 2.62) finished with substantially more earth-shattering figures against substantially less-than-challenging opponents.On form and available evidence, McGrath would seem likely to bowl first-change in his next scheduled Test outing too – a fate which last befell him in the first innings of a Test way back in April 1995 at Kingston. In his most recent five-day appearances, against Bangladesh a year ago, McGrath looked flat and entirely without zip. He was not a patch on the hitherto unsung Michael Kasprowicz, who bowled with fire, bounce and zest during Australia’s 3-0 whitewash of Sri Lanka."After such a long break you need overs under the belt," said McGrath. "I bowled 50 on tour, including the practice match, and felt I was just starting to get it back. Another 50 would be handy."Asked what pluses came out of the Zimbabwe tour, Australia’s captain Ricky Ponting replied: "Good question." At a pinch he nominated the performances of Gillespie, Kasprowicz and Michael Clarke, whose unbeaten 105 from 102 balls on Saturday was his maiden one-day hundred.Five members of Australia’s squad will return home at various times throughout today. The rest are bound for the English county scene, where the calibre of opposition should prove more formidable than that which they have encountered over the past drab, morally dubious, utterly forgettable week.
Glamorgan maintained their unbeaten sequence in the National Leaguewith an emphatic 10 wicket victory over Gloucestershire in a contestthat was reduced initially to a 30 over game as a result of morningrain in South Wales.Robert Croft won an important toss and with rain clouds gathering, he hadno hesitation in inserting the opponents. Andrew Davies then reducedGloucestershire to 20-3 in a very impressive opening spellfrom the River End, as Davies took 3-4 in 9 balls.A short shower caused another interrruption and thegame was further reduced to a 26 overs contest, but when play resumed the Glamorgan bowlersremained on top with Alex Wharf taking 4-18 – his best ever figures in one daycricket and the best by a Glamorgan bowler against Gloucestershire in thecompetition.With Robert Croft making shrewd bowling changes, and his team fielding withgreat spirit, none of the Gloucestershire batsmen could come to terms withthe Glamorgan attack, and they closed their innings on a disappointing 133-9.After the Duckworth-Lewis calculations had been performed Glamorgan`s targetwas 133 in 26 overs, and Robert Croft and Ian Thomas then shared an unbrokenstand of 135 in 21.2 overs as Glamorgan cantered to only their third everwin the competition by 10 wickets, and their first since 1993.Ian Thomas was in imperious mood, hitting three huge sixes and six fours inhis unbeaten 71, whilst Croft`s 60 contained four fours and a six as they putall of the Gloucestershire bowlers to the sword and raced to their targetwith 28 balls to spare. This was Glamorgan`s first victory over Gloucestershire in the competition since 1996and their first in Wales since 1993.It was the Dragon`s third successive win in the League and equalled the club`s best everstart in the competition, achieved in1980 when Glamorgan defeated Lancashire, Essex and Nottinghamshire. The Dragons willbe looking to make it a record four out of four next Sunday when they travelto Headingley to play Yorkshire.