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The International Cricket Council has written to the Pakistan board expressing concerns over the facilities at Peshawar’s Arbab Niaz Stadium.Abbas Zaidi, the PCB director board operations, said that the ICC was unhappy with the fracas that occurred during the first ODI between Pakistan and India earlier this year. “Actually, it was Chris Broad [ICC match referee from England] who was dismayed at the facilities and arrangements provided for that limited overs game in Peshawar,” Zaidi told , a Karachi-based daily. “The referee had expressed his unhappiness at the lack of security arrangements and related facilities for the teams and the officials after a large number of spectators managed to barge into the ground. But despite the unfortunate fiasco, the match was played in good spirit with no untoward incident taking place.”Zaidi reiterated though that the ICC had not prohibited Peshawar from staging international fictures. “Peshawar remains one of our venues for international matches in the future. But we have asked the Peshawar administration to rectify the situation before we review the centre for staging international matches.”We are keen to take administrative charge of the Peshawar centre from a cricketing point of view. The PCB had already sought control of stadiums at Faisalabad and Rawalpindi, which like Peshawar, are under the control of local administration.”

Australia’s coach Darren Lehmann has demonstrated his concerns about a diminishing supply of high-class pace bowling resources by revealing he tried to convince Mitchell Johnson to remain a limited-overs player after his retirement from Test matches in Perth.Johnson told Lehmann and the captain Steven Smith of his intention to leave international cricket on the third evening of the WACA Test against New Zealand. While they accepted their spearhead’s decision, Lehmann has said he floated the possibility of Johnson sticking around as an ODI or Twenty20 bowler for Australia but was rebuffed.”His mind was made up as soon as he spoke to Steven and myself after day three. He’d been thinking about it for a while, been talking about it in the media,” Lehmann told the Adelaide radio station . “We spoke to him about maybe playing the one-dayers, we think that was a really good option for us to have that experience there. But he’s not into it, he’s not into the training anymore, he’s had enough and he just wants to sit at home and watch us play.”While no longer eager to pursue the rigorous training and travel regimen of an international fast bowler, Johnson is set to keep playing in the game’s shortest format for some time yet. The Perth Scorchers have been in discussions with his manager Sam Halvorsen about a potential Big Bash League deal, and the WACA chief executive Christian Matthews has said that “we’ve had indications he’s keen to play for us”.Lehmann, meanwhile, has reflected on a shrinking supply of pacemen, with the loss of Johnson and Ryan Harris thrusting the likes of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Peter Siddle and James Pattinson very much to the forefront of the national team’s plans across all forms of the game. The selection of Andrew Fekete, who has since been dropped by Tasmania, for the postponed tour of Bangladesh demonstrated a wide open field beneath this quartet.”We’ve got a few injuries at the moment, with Harris and Johnson retiring and then you chuck in Pat Cummins injured at the moment,” Lehmann said. “We’ve got some depth in young kids, but these four [Starc, Hazlewood, Siddle, Pattinson] are prime bowlers for us and we’ve got to keep them on the park.”Hazlewood, Siddle and Pattinson are seemingly duelling for two bowling spots alongside Starc. Lehmann said that Hazlewood had not performed to his satisfaction in the first two Tests of the New Zealand series, but he was hesitant about being overly critical of a young bowler still learning his game and duly inconsistent.”He got better and better in Perth, he certainly bowled well with the new ball in the second innings, better than he probably has all series, so he looks like he’s running into a little bit of form there,” Lehmann said. “But it’s tough to spot because he’s a young kid, he bowls well in patches and we probably should have held a few catches to help our bowlers out a little bit as well. He’d like more wickets, as we would.”Bowlers on both sides have been neutered by flat pitches in Brisbane and Perth, but Lehmann stressed that he expected better of Australia’s pacemen in particular. While the likes of Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor have flourished so far, Lehmann contended that this was largely as a result of their not being put under enough pressure by consistent bowling to the fields set by Smith.”I certainly don’t think we’ve bowled as well as we should have,” he said. “I said that after the first Test and then the second Test. We’re certainly batting well enough at the moment, so if we get the bowling right, and get the ball in the right areas and put a bit more pressure on them, not too many free balls, that might be a different story.”

England have received a boost in the build-up to the first Test at Lord’s which starts next Thursday (May 17) with the news that Michael Vaughan may recover in time to play. However, Stuart Broad is unlikely to come into contention for one of the pace bowling slots after being forced out of the Leicestershire’s current match against Derbyshire with a knee injury.Vaughan suffered a broken finger last week when he was struck on the hand in a County Championship match by Hampshire’s Stuart Clark. The initial prognosis was that he would need between three and four weeks to recover.But Martyn Moxon, Yorkshire’s director of cricket, told the BBC that Vaughan had “definitely improved since it happened last week.”I don’t know whether they’ve made a decision or not but he’s getting better,” Moxon said. “I’ve not had a chance to speak to him yet today but hopefully we’ll know by early next week.”Broad, though, is expected to be out for a couple of weeks. “This is a fresh injury which flared up earlier this week and we have sent him to see a specialist in London,” Tim Boon, the Leicestershire coach, told the club website. “At this stage, I anticipate that he will be out for another two games and we are just hoping that it is not even longer.”But there was better news regarding Kevin Pietersen, who missed the current round of county matches with a strain to his left calf. He expects to have fully recovered in time for the Test.

Pollock trumps his former captain
It was one of the mini-battles of the day: Shaun Pollock vs Graeme Smith. Having tied Smith down in his first over with accurate line and length, Pollock returned in the next over to deliver smartly disguised slower one. Smith came down the track to drive, missed the ball completely, and perhaps thinking that he was bowled, began to walk off without looking back. He did not realize that the ball had missed the stumps and the wicketkeeper Yogesh Takawale had fumbled it. Takawale had enough time to recover and stump Smith, who was walking briskly towards the bowler’s end. But Pollock’s excitement was multifold as he jumped in air and repeatedly swung his arms in child-like excitement.Keep it straight and simple
Ashish Nehra may not have Dale Steyn’s pace but he can swing the ball.Yusuf Pathan was facing his first ball from Nehra and attempted the ambitious slog over deep midwicket straightaway. He missed and Nehra swung the ball back into him and hit the stumps. A few overs later Shane Watson, who threatened to blast Mumbai away, also paid the price for a horizontal-bat heave against Dwayne Bravo, who had gone round the wicket to angle the ball away from the right-hander.Terrific Takawale
Tracking the flight of the ball, while running towards the boundary, is never an easy task for a wicketkeeper especially when he is squatting to begin with. Yogesh Takawale displayed agility and excellent judgement as he set off immediately with his eyes fixed on the ball after Ravindra Jadeja had top-edged Dhawal Kulkarni over his head. Takawale ran as close as he could and dived to cover the remaining distance to pouch an outstanding catch. It was one of the four dismissals he affected.No cause for cheer
One set of cheerleaders were unusually quiet today and it wasn’t because of crowd trouble or because they hurt some conservative politician’s sentiments. The three sets of Rajasthan Royals cheer girls, dressed in white, yellow and red, were left seated for the majority of the first innings as Rajasthan crashed and burned for 103, the lowest first-innings score of the IPL.The name’s Warne
Takawale was having a superb match until he came face to face with Shane Warne. He prepared to face the first ball, perhaps expected the leg break, and shaped up to pull. Warne ripped in the flipper on off stump, cramped the batsman for room and the ball brushed the pad on its way through to hitting off stump.

Chris Harris hopes he can still play domestic matches for Canterbury this season despite signing with the Indian Cricket League (ICL). Harris joined his former New Zealand team-mates Chris Cairns, Nathan Astle and Hamish Marshall in joining the ICL, which does not have official backing.Harris turned down a new deal with Canterbury for 2007-08 as New Zealand Cricket said none of its nationally or provincially contracted players would be released to play in the ICL. But Harris expects his ICL commitments to finish in late December and he would like Canterbury to consider picking him after that.”I’d like to think I could play for Canterbury again but there is a lot of water to go under the bridge yet,” Harris told the . “It was hard turning down the Canterbury contract but I wanted to keep my options open. I’d still love to play for Canterbury, if they wanted me in the future.”Although he turns 38 next month, it appears Harris still has plenty to offer at first-class level. Last season he made 428 runs at 42.80 in the State Championship, and collected 13 wickets at 41.38. He was Canterbury’s leading one-day run-scorer with 362 at 60.33 and has just returned from a stint in the Lancashire league, where he topped the competition’s wicket tally with 83 victims.He said reports that he could be paid up to NZ$500,000 for signing with the ICL were not true but the deal was still worth his while. “The numbers are nothing like what have been quoted in the media but are still significant,” he said.Harris was confident the ICL would draw a strong following from the Indian public with big names like Brian Lara and Inzamam-ul-Haq already committed to play. “Given how the world Twenty20 event took off and that India won it I’m sure it will be well received over there,” Harris said. “It should be great for the game.”

New balls, please
Chris Gayle had already smashed five sixes before the tenth over gotunderway, but he saved his biggest of the evening for Albie Morkel. Seeingthe manner in which the short balls had been dismissed earlier, Morkeltried to pitch it up, lost the plot slightly, and sent down a full toss.Gayle needed no second invitation: the right leg moved outside leg as hegave himself room, and the result was a savage carve over backward point,well over the stands outside the ground. Normally, that would have held upplay for at least a minute, but here, umpire Darryl Harper, standing atsquare leg, scurried across even as the reserve umpire, Karl Hurter,rolled another ball onto the ground. The delay hardly lasted five seconds,and play was ready to resume even before you’d realised the ball had beenchanged.Wounded Polly
Everyone in South Africa loves Shaun Pollock – there were huge cheersevery time he hit the stump while bowling in practice just before playbegan – but not much went right for him when it was his turn to bowl inthe middle. Gayle took him apart completely, but his one little moment tosavour in that hopelessly one-sided battle came in over number 12: apainfully slow bouncer pitched in the middle of the track, climbed andthen looped down even as it was reaching the batsman, Gayle, and soflummoxed him that he could only watch transfixed as it lobbed past him tothe wicketkeeper. Pollock and the crowd loved that bit of deception.Unfortunately for them, the rest of the went decisively against good ol’Polly, who was left nursing rather embarrassing bowling figures by the endof the day.Butterfingers
A target of 206 should have been difficult, but West Indies decided toplay gracious guests. Dwayne Bravo started the rot, allowing the ball topop out from his hands to give Gibbs a reprieve at 20; the virus thenspread to Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who spilled an admittedly difficultchance from Gibbs; Marlon Samuels then capped a miserable day for WestIndies in the field by dropping a sitter off Justin Kemp. Add all thewides sent down, and it’s easy to see why they lost.Eyeball to eyeball
It might be all fun and music for the crowd, but a couple of incidents inthe match showed that Twenty20 is serious business. Daren Powell startedoff with a vicious short ball which caused Graeme Smith immensediscomfort, and then began a glaring contest with Gibbs, who is neverone to back away. Fidel Edwards then continued the eyeball confrontation,sometimes bowling with such searing pace that the ball was still climbingwhen it reached the wicketkeeper.Ramdin to the rescue
The game was all about bat hitting ball and ball disappearing beyond theboundary, but there was one other performance that stood out too. WestIndies’ bowlers, perhaps not satisfied with a format that only allowseach of them 24 deliveries, bowled wide after wide, and Denesh Ramdin dartedaround like a dervish, gathering most of them cleanly. In the fifth over,when Daren Powell lost control altogether, Ramdin saved four byes bymoving down leg side and then diving full length to make a clean gather. Afew overs later, standing up to Dwayne Smith, he was at it again, making a cleantake way down leg despite being blinded by the batsman. The catch he tookto dismiss AB de Villiers capped a fine night’s work for him. If only thesame could have been said of the rest of the West Indian performance inthe field.

Steve Bucknor, a member of the ICC’s elite panel of umpires, has complained that television production companies are misusing technology to make umpires look bad and key players look good.Bucknor has revealed he has encountered instances of TV personnel maneuvering images to influence the flow and outcome of matches. “It has been known to happen where the technology has been used to make umpires look bad,” he told reporters on Friday. “Mats [the line graphic used to adjudge lbw decisions] have been moved, balls have disappeared, ball hitting the bat and only coming up into the fielder’s hands, but between the bat and the hand, no ball is found and you are told, ‘Sorry, we don’t have that clip, we can’t show it’.Bucknor, who has stood in a world record 111 Tests and four World Cup finals, as well as officiated 139 one-day internationals, noted he was speaking from personal experience. “It has happened; I’ve been in a game when it has happened,” he said. “Sometimes nothing is shown because the batsman was a key batsman and getting out at that stage would have made life very difficult for that team. It all depends on who is operating the technology. I’ve been told that this ball is the one with which the batsman got out, but the one that is being shown is not the same one he got out with. It has been known to happen. When these things are happening, it makes life extremely difficult for the umpires. Who do you trust from there on you don’t know.”Although he admits that there is a place for technology in the game and would like to see “a little bit more”, Bucknor said the misuse of the technology is eroding the trust between umpires and players. “In the beginning of my career, umpires were trusted. When umpires said not out, the man was trusted, so they would say he is a good umpire and nobody questioned him. Today, the technology shows up his mistakes, and makes life a little bit difficult for umpires, especially when it has been known to happen that technology has been used to make umpires look bad.”Bucknor was also disappointed that umpires were not consulted about the ICC Cricket Committee’s recommendation to allow players a certain number of appeals per innings to the TV replay umpire, if they feel a decision made by the on-field umpire may be incorrect. “I’d been happy been to be part of this change, but these things happen and we know about them happening rather than for us to say this is what we want. We’ll have to live by them. Whatever they say, we’ll just have to live by.”The ability of players to appeal against decisons made by on-field umpires were the main recommendations made by the ICC’s cricket committee during its two-day meeting in Dubai.

ScorecardA 21-ball blitz from Phil Mustard put Durham on course for a five-wicket win against Middlesex, which was eventually achieved with three balls to spare, in a match reduced to 19 overs per side by rain. Mustard sped to 49 with nine boundaries and Durham’s middle order kept up the required rate.Michael di Venuto fell to the first ball of Durham’s chase, trapped lbw by Chaminda Vaas, but this didn’t put Mustard off. He and Kyle Coetzer added 73 to bring the requirement down to a run-a-ball. Further heavy showers scudded across the ground to make life tough for the fielders, but the umpires stayed on throughout.Murali Kartik produced a tight four-over spell, removing Mustard, and kept Middlesex in the hunt while Tim Murtagh’s three scalps made Durham think. However, Gordon Muchall and Dale Benkenstein took their side most of the way.Middlesex’s innings fell away after a rollicking start from Eoin Morgan and Ed Smith. Morgan, the Ireland batsman, held his team together with a 46-ball 52, but Durham held their nerve with the ball and produced some electric fielding. The highlight was a stunning, running catch from Gary Park at long off to remove Murtagh.

Australia 9 for 602 dec and 1 for 202 dec beat England 157 and 370 (Collingwood 96, Pietersen 92) by 277 runs
Scorecard and ball-by-ball commentary
How they were out – England

Australia needed just 19 overs on the final morning at Brisbane to wrap up the first Test by the whopping margin of 277 runs, as England’s final five wickets folded for the addition of 77. Their slim chances of saving the game effectively ended after four balls when Kevin Pietersen flicked Brett Lee to Damien Martyn at short midwicket. He failed to add to his overnight 92.Resuming on 293 for 7, England’s hopes depended largely on some conflicting weather forecasts, but the day dawned bright and heroics rather than hail were needed. Lee took the new ball after the first delivery, and three balls later Pietersen was on his way.Geraint Jones and Ashley Giles gave the vocal Barmy Army – sitting together for the first time in the match and relishing the freedom – some cheer with a few spirited blows, but Jones’s breezy 33 ended when one from Glenn McGrath kept low from a good length and shattered his stumps via an inside edge.Giles continued the resistance in partnership with Matthew Hoggard and peppered the off-side boundary with some effective cuts, but he too fell on the stroke of drinks, as Stuart Clark cramped him for room and Shane Warne at first slip took a comfortable catch from a thin deflection. The same combination dealt with Hoggard six overs later, and the end came swiftly when Harmison hooked Clark to McGrath at fine leg,Australia’s two injury worries – Ricky Ponting and McGrath – both took the field, but McGrath needed injections in his sore heel while Ponting’s back was clearly still an issue as he stood stiffly at mid-off rather than his more customary slip.

The BBC attempted to reach a deal with the ECB for live Test match coverage, on a “dip in dip out” basis before deciding not to bid for the contract which was awarded to Sky Sports.In an ongoing saga which refuses to die down, it was reported yesterday by Dominic Coles, the BBC director of sports rights and finance, that the BBC’s proposal was to “dip in and out” of the cricket by showing shortened portions of the day’s play – the odd two-hour session of a Test match, for example – allowing Sky to retain their ball-by-ball live coverage. The corporation held 15 meetings with the ECB in talks which Coles described as “fruitful” – but it will be another four years, though, until the BBC can bid again for the rights.Speaking to the , he said the discussions had included “all permutations” to reach a more flexible arrangement. But, as of next summer, the only cricket available on terrestrial television will be highlights on channel Five. Despite being outbid by Channel 4 in 1999, Roger Mosey, the BBC’s director of sport, confirmed the corporation’s pledge to bring cricket back to terrestrial free-to-air television. “We have an obligation to licence fee payers to secure some of the rights,” he told today. “We will look very hard at the schedules…Sky wants to drive subscriptions and pays a premium because it is pay-TV.”In response to their all encompassing coverage for the next four years, Sky today have offered several deals and discounts to members of first-class counties, minor counties and MCC. However, despite this offering, it remains to be seen whether members will be prepared for the increased cost of watching live Test cricket.MPs are to hold an enquiry into the ECB’s decision to sell the broadcasting rights to satellite television at Westminster on November 29.