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The 13 rebel Zimbabwe players are to have their contracts terminated by the Zimbabwe Cricket Union, according to a report in today’s London . The ZCU is expected to release the news today that it is to sue the players for breach of contract.According to the report, the group of 13, led by Heath Streak, the former captain, heard about the news “on the grapevine” yesterday. “The lawyers are dealing with it now,” said one of the players. “I’ve been told the ZCU are taking legal action, and we’ll have to decide if we counter-claim.”After the players put forward a six-page document outlining their grievances, including what they called “racial and unethical discrimination in the selection of the national team”, the ZCU made some concessions, agreeing to change some of the selection panel. Out went Ali Shah, a former Test cricketer, John Brent, a former provincial player, and Geoff Marsh, the Australian coach. They were replaced by Mpumelelo Mbwanga, a former player, and Richie Kaschula, who played for Rhodesia. Mbwanga, however, declined to take up the post, citing “conflicts” as the reason (he is also a TV commentator).However, the players are thought to be against the remaining two members of the panel, Max Ebrahim and the chairman Stephen Mangongo, who have little playing experience. It is thought that the players see these two as the main culprits in mixing politics with selection.Streak today told the BBC that he hopes to play for Zimbabwe again, but Peter Chingoka, the ZCU chairman, stressed that if Streak did play again, it would not be as captain. “There is no business in the world that can possibly operate under threats from employees – and that is what they are.”The unnamed player added that some of the players picked to play in the first one-dayer against Sri Lanka didn’t want to play in the matches, and supported their cause. “We’re not having any more meetings,” he said. “We have been in meetings for two weeks. We are sick of meetings. It’s getting dirty. Everything’s coming out. I have no idea what the consequences are going to be but we are not budging until they meet these fair demands of ours.”Another player also expressed his heartache at not being able to represent his country. “It’s so sad that it has come to this,” he lamented. “I was just remembering when I was 12 or 13, watching a Test match from the nets at HSC [Harare Sports Club] playing out our own Test and looking at the players on the field, wishing, hoping that one day I would have the honour of playing for my country.”He continued: “My Test cap sits at home now, whether I will have the pleasure of donning it once again is uncertain. Why can’t I just play cricket and fulfil a life-long dream of one day walking off the field for the last time while the sun goes down at Sports Club, take my cap off and leave because it’s my time? Then sit in the dressing-room and say farewell to all my friends who too have fought for the honour to wear and fight under the baggy green. What a nightmare this is for all of us.”

Scorecard

A whirlwind century from Yusuf Pathan took West Zone to a strong 349 for 7 at stumps on the first day against Central Zone in Rajkot. Opting to bat first, West were off to a confident start as the Mumbai pair of Ajinkya Rahane (50) and Sahil Kukreja (72) forged a 124-run partnership. Central then fought their way back into the match as Sanjib Sanyal removed both of them before Sanjay Bangar dismissed captain Parthiv Patel. Pathan walked in at the fall of the fourth wicket on 174 and blitzed a 66-ball 107 to give West the upper hand. He carted 13 boundaries and five sixes during his 88-minute stay and made all his runs in a 136-run stand with Chetheswar Pujara, who made a sedate 44. For Central, Bangar and Sanyal finished with three wickets each, but Sanyal was expensive conceding five runs an over.
Scorecard
Fifteen wickets tumbled on a dramatic first day as North Zone seized the advantage in their encounter against South Zone in Ahmedabad. Medium-pacer Vikramjeet Malik tore through the top order while Delhi’s Rajat Bhatia cleaned up the tail as South were bundled out for 157. After being put in to bat, South were off to a solid start with openers Ravi Teja (41) and Swapnil Asnodkar putting on 37, before Malik snared five wickets, including the big one of captain S Badrinath, in a five-over burst, to leave them tottering at 69 for 5. South lost three more quick wickets before a 68-run partnership between Vinay Kumar (41*) and Kalyankrishna (31) brought in a semblance of respectability to their scorecard.North’s reply started with a 58-run opening stand before they had a collapse of their own: they lost four wickets for seven runs to Karnataka’s duo of Vinay Kumar and NC Aiyappa and lost Bhatia shortly before the close to finish the day on 104 for 5.

Ponting’s pitch glitch
Australia didn’t make batting look too difficult at the MCG, even thoughthe pitch was uncharacteristically slow. But India’s struggles to post adecent score – they made 196 and 161 – gave a strong hint that it wastough going. Ricky Ponting explained just how awkward it was to get theball away. “That’s probably the hardest wicket to score on that I’ve everplayed a Test match on in Australia,” Ponting said. That’s a big call,considering Ponting has played 65 Tests at home. But it’s perhaps not ahuge surprise – after all, Ponting was out for 4 and 3.A grand total
Cricket is a statistical game but even this one might have slipped underthe radar of some enthusiasts. When VVS Laxman turned Mitchell Johnson fora single to midwicket to take India’s score to 33 it was the 100,000th runscored in Tests at the MCG. Anyone who needed to reach for the calculatorto work out the average aggregate per Test might need a primary-schoolmaths refresher course. It was the ground’s 100th Test, making the averagemighty close to a nice even 1000 runs a game. And how many runs were madein this match? Pretty darn close to the average – 1051.Sealed in the field
India’s poor ground fielding was a talking point and the difference between the sides was never more obvious than when Harbhajan Singh was run out without facing a ball. Sourav Ganguly pushed the ball to cover where Michael Hussey pounced and hurled it back to the bowler Brad Hogg, who ricocheted the ball onto the stumps to have Harbhajan millimetres short after backing up too far. Ponting was a happy man. “Our fielding in both innings of this game was outstanding,” Ponting said. “We took nearly every chance that came our way and the run-out towards the end of today’s play really summed up one of the major differences between the two teams.” Anil Kumble defended his side’s catching but conceded their ground fielding was poor, although with so many over-35s in the team he didn’t think any extra zip would spontaneously appear.The no-ball curse
Thirty seven wickets fell in this game but there were three instances that the scorecard won’t tell you about. Mitchell Johnson and Zaheer Khan had been frustrated by wickets with no-balls and Brett Lee might have had a good appeal against Wasim Jaffer today. Jaffer fended at a short one that appeared to have caught his glove but Billy Bowden’s arm was outstretched by then.

Crisis follows crisis with unrelenting frequency in West Indies cricket and the latest, already formed, has become more pressing three days before the first Test against South Africa on Boxing Day.As their feeble batting crumbled to their second meagre total and three-day defeat in East London against South Africa’s second-string team on Friday, there remained doubt over whether captain Chris Gayle would regain fitness by then and be able to lead the team for the first time in a Test.Media manager Philip Spooner said on Friday that the decision would be delayed until the eve of the match after day-by-day assessments by the medical staff, physiotherapists Jacqui Mowat-King and recently arrived Australian, CJ Smith. Gayle, who tore his right hamstring muscle in the second ODI in Zimbabwe on December 2, has returned to batting practice in the nets and resumed catching, running and stretching exercises, Spooner said.But Gayle was realistic in his assessment of his injury. “I’ve been getting better and I’m really looking forward to playing in Port Elizabeth,” he added. “Physically I’m feeling strong again and mentally I’m there. I have been doing work in the nets and trying to get back in the groove again.”Gayle is not only captain, albeit in place of the injured Ramnaresh Sarwan, but even more significantly the only available batsman apart from the perennial Shivnarine Chanderpaul with more than 50 Tests (68) and an average better than 35 (38.28). His handy offspin would also be missed in an attack based around pace.He has thrived on his previous trips to South Africa, with two hundreds in three Tests and an average of 61, plus an unbeaten 152 in the final ODI, four years ago and 117 against the home team in the ICC World Twenty20 Championship last September.The seriousness of his absence at the top of the order was simply emphasised by the double failure of the two openers, Devon Smith and Daren Ganga, in the East London match, the only one prior to the three back-to-back Tests. The left-handed Smith was out for ten and five, making a grand total of 51 runs in eight innings in matches in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Ganga, who played the first of his 45 spasmodic Tests here nine years ago, fell for 10 and 0, his first innings on tour since he was not in the ODI squad in Zimbabwe. For both, such setbacks would be psychologically shattering. Both struggled in the last series in England last summer, and must be aware they have all but exhausted their chances.The only other opener in the team is Brenton Parchment, the one newcomer, whose highest score in his four knocks on tour have been 15, 25, 5 and 10.Ironically, injury also kept Gayle inactive during the 2003-04 tour. He pulled a calf muscle on the first day of the first Test in which he batted at No.9 with a runner and missed the second. On his return, he blasted a 78-ball hundred (eventually 116) in the third Test, 145 in the next match against Easterns, 77 and 107 in the fourth and final Test and 152 not out in the final ODI.

The executive of the Barbados Cricket Association survived a no-confidence vote brought by more than 100 members on Wednesday.The motion called for the resignations of Stephen Alleyne, the president, David Holford and Owen Estwick, both vice-presidents, Orson Simpson, the treasurer, and Philip Nicholls, the secretary. It followed a heated meeting last July when the financial standing of some of the officials was questioned. It was defeated by 95 votes to 51 with 13 absentions.”The membership have affirmed there was no impropriety in the behaviour of the officers as was alleged by the requisition,” Nichols told the Barbados-based Nation newspaper. “Those who attended the meeting would know that no evidence was led to suggest impropriety. Instead, there was a lot of mud-slinging.”There was also, Nichols claimed, a dispute over the motion itself, and he claimed that some people who had allegedly demanded the meeting had said that they had been misled. “It was found for what it was, namely a scurrilous attempt at besmirching the good name of the officers of the association.”

Gloucestershire and Nottinghamshire were frustrated by the rain on the second day of their promotion tussle at Bristol.Only 16.4 overs were possible, during which time Gloucestershire moved from 13-0 to 73-1 in reply to Nottinghamshire’s 216.A draw is unlikely to be any good to either side in their bid to go up, and an unsettled weather forecast for the final two days of the game could force the captains to set up a contrived finish.No play was possible in the morning session. An attempt was made at 12 noon, only for the players to come off for bad light just as the first ball was to be bowled.The action finally started at 1.20pm and Nottinghamshire enjoyed success in the third over of the day.Dominic Hewson pushed forward at a David Lucas delivery and was caught by Guy Welton at short leg for three.That left the home county on 13-1 in the eighth over, but the next 13 overs produced 60 runs as Kim Barnett and Matt Windows cut loose.Barnett was the main aggressor with an unbeaten 41 from 65 deliveries, with six fours cracked through the off-side.All of them were taken off pace bowler Andy Harris, who was punished for offering too much width to his former Derbyshire colleague.Windows had a couple of boundaries, one off Lucas and one off Harris, in his unbeaten 18, which was good enough to take him past 1,000 first-class runs in a season for the second time.Windows has now scored 1,004 runs this campaign, with 14 of those scored for the First Class Counties XI against New Zealand A.

After the success of online ticketing for the recent Indian tour of Pakistan, the Pakistan Cricket Board has again launched an online service for fans in and outside Pakistan for purchasing tickets for the Paktel Cup and the Test series between Pakistan and Sri Lanka.Tickets are available for online ordering: purchasers will be able to pick up their tickets at booths located near the venues.The Paktel Cup is a seven-match triangular series featuring Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, starting with a match between Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe at Multan on September 30. The final, at Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium, is on October 16.Pakistan’s two-Test series against Sri Lanka begins at Faisalabad on October 20.The initiative, in partnership with Wisden Cricinfo, produced sales on the very first night, as fans gear up to follow their teams.The Pakistan Cricket Board has allocated a substantial number of ticketsto online buyers, and their online service is open to all-comers.Click here to order your tickets online

It has all the makings of a classic TV courtroom drama. On one side there is an England batsman represented by the wife of the Prime Minister. On the other, a venerated county cricket club, and the hearing before a panel headed by a distinguished lawyer with his own cricketing credentials.

But it is not fiction, nor is the case being heard in the Royal Courts of Justice. The venue is Lord’s, the date Friday 15th February and the case concerns John Crawley and his claim that he has, in effect, been constructively dismissed by Lancashire. The county refutes that claim and so, for the first time, the ECB Contracts Appeal Panel has been called in to arbitrate.30-year-old Crawley made his debut for Lancashire in 1990 before going up to Cambridge University where he enjoyed an outstanding cricketing stay. Coming from the same school, county and university as Mike Atherton, he was always expected to follow his mentor into the England side, and he did so in 1994. He became Lancashire captain in 1999 but was relieved of the post after the 2001 season, when his form with the bat suffered, and the side narrowly avoided relegation.It was at this point that relations between the player and his county were seen to be more than just strained. Crawley made it plain that he wanted away and issued a statement saying: “As far as I am concerned I am no longer a Lancashire player, and in fact Mike Watkinson has told me not to attend any training sessions involving the playing staff.”Lancashire chief executive Jim Cumbes countered, telling CricInfo: “There is a conflict between John and the club which we are still trying to iron out. As to the reports that he has been banned from the training ground, they are simply not true.”Claim and counter-claim then followed until Crawley gave official notice to Lancashire that he was invoking the clause in his contract that states: “If the Club shall be guilty of serious or persistent breach of the terms and conditions of this Agreement [i.e. player contract with the club] the Cricketer may, on giving not less than seven days’ written notice to the Club, terminate this Agreement.”Such a procedure requires the Contract Appeals Panel to sit. It was convened by the chairman of the Registration Committee of the ECB, David Kemp, who is sitting on the panel himself along with the representative of the Professional Cricketers’ Association, former Derbyshire batsman and now lawyer Tim O’Gorman, under the chairmanship of another eminent lawyer and cricketer, Francis Neate.Neate is a former captain of Berkshire who enjoyed a career in first-class cricket at Oxford University where he averaged nearly 40 as a right-handed batsman. In 1961 he took a century off Hampshire – one of the counties considered to be a leading contender for Crawley’s signature if he is allowed to leave Lancashire – and finished as the second Englishman in the first-class averages behind Ken Barrington. He became solicitor to the old Test and County Cricket Board, where one of his duties was to produce the constitution of the England and Wales Cricket Board.Since being asked to chair this panel Neate has had to determine its procedures, as the terms only exist in skeleton form and there is no precedent from which he can work. After each side has put its case, the three members of the panel will consider the evidence and decide on the outcome. There is a right of appeal, which somehow seems appropriate in a cricketing matter.Crawley has enlisted a big name to fight his corner. Cherie Booth, QC, is a specialist in employment law and, as wife of Prime Minister Tony Blair, should not be unfamiliar with causes that have a red rose as their emblem.

Lancashire chairman Jack Simmons is adamant that he wants Crawley playing under the red rose of Lancashire next season, and for the duration of the four-year contract that he is not yet halfway through. Crawley, however, claims that there are “irreconcilable differences” between them and is equally adamant he will not play for Lancashire again.Now it is up to the panel to decide, but it is difficult to imagine how the player could be forced to see out the remainder of his contract against his will. Lancashire would no doubt be loath to continue paying someone who was unhappy, not performing and, potentially, having a disruptive presence in the club. And it would be tragic if a player of Crawley’s quality were lost to the game.To add an interesting twist to the tale, Francis Neate’s son, Patrick, has just won the Whitbread Novel of the Year award for his book “Twelve-Bar Blues”. Perhaps this case will ultimately provide enough material to constitute a book in its own right.

The International Cricket Council is looking to hold discussions with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) with a view to implementing a world-wide code for the sport. Whether that involves adoption of WADA’s world policy, or a special version for cricket is likely to be the main point of discussion.Malcolm Speed, the chief executive of the ICC, said in Christchurch today during a whistlestop visit with ICC chairman Ehsan Mani, that he hoped a meeting could be set up by next month.Cricket does not have a world-wide drug protocol, and major cricket events have so far adopted the code applicable in the country where the event is being hosted. In last summer’s World Cup, the South African drug code applied to the tournament.Speed said a number of countries, including New Zealand, were tied to their government’s sports protocol which was part of the WADA policy. The ICC has sought a meeting with WADA because it had some issues with the WADA code and it was hoped that it might be possible to have a policy that was a little more specific to cricket. “We hope to meet over the next six months and make some progress on that.”He also said that it was up to individual cricket boards to decide whether they should play two, three or four Tests in a series. Two was the minimum requirement under the ICC Test Championship. “In an ideal world we would like to see more than two Tests and it may be that we see three and four Tests in a series as the competition evolves. That would give a better indication and be a better competition.”The problem of too little Test-match play for some countries had meant that India scheduled only five Tests this year. Speed said the ICC could go to the executive meetings with recommendations on the number of Tests they would prefer but it was for the boards to decide what suited them best. One of the negatives of the scheme was that there were some countries that would not wish to play more than two Tests against some other countries.Mani explained that the purpose of his and Speed’s visit to New Zealand was to get a better understanding of the way the board runs cricket in the country. He added that he hoped to have completed visits to all countries by next year.Speaking about his trip to New Zealand, Mani said: “There have been huge changes in New Zealand Cricket since the Hood Report which was not that long ago.” Those changes were reflected in the way the New Zealand team was performing and he said he and Speed would take a lot back from their trip here. Their visit has coincided with the latest brush experienced by New Zealand with security issues as the squad prepared to leave for their delayed tour of Pakistan tomorrow.”New Zealand has borne the brunt of security issues. They have been in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said in reference to the three bomb blasts that have affected New Zealand tours, twice in Sri Lanka and once in Pakistan.”We are pleased the Pakistan tour is going ahead and we have been pleased with the spirit in which the boards involved are approaching this issue,” Speed said. One of the problems in defining a common approach to the security problem was deciding what was safe and what wasn’t.Mani had no problem with NZC giving players the right to withdraw from the tour. “You can’t force a player to go. The player has to be happy to go and New Zealand Cricket has handled it well.”Speed added that when professional cricketers made their career choice, they needed to remember that many of the cities in the world in which cricket is played are dangerous places. He said that he was very impressed with Stephen Fleming’s statement that he was happy to leave the matter of the Pakistan tour to the NZC management. “That is not a viewpoint we see very often.”Speed also spoke about the extension of his contract till 2005, something that Mani said had always been intended to happen. “There has been a good deal of stress but I didn’t think it would be a pleasant holiday. The only way to deal with that is to have the best people around you and not to be influenced by outside influences.”Speed said that he felt with all that had gone on in international cricket in the last few years, the organisation, with all the changes that had been implemented, was now better placed to handle crises than had been the case before.

Another day, and another mini-crisis in the world of cricket broadcasting in India. After the Kerala High Court had issued an order asking ESPN to share its feed of the Bangladesh-India one-day matches with Doordarshan, the national broadcaster, ESPN have filed a petition in the Supreme Court to block the move. Its counsel stated that such a move violated the channel’s exclusive commercial right. However, the apex court’s decision to post the case for early January means that Doordarshan can telecast the final two matches, to be played on December 26 and 27.Chief Justice B Subashan Reddy and Justice Kurian Joseph of the Kerala High Court had issued an order on Wednesday, asking that ESPN allow Doordarshan to beam the pictures, with revenue shared on an 80:20 basis. ESPN have an exclusive arrangement with the Bangladesh Cricket Board and it contended that sharing the feed would be tantamount to infringement of its rights.The channel has gone off air in many parts of India, with cable operators refusing to meet its financial demands. According to ESPN, the current dispute should have been solved by the intervention of the Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal.