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The International Cricket Council (ICC) has refused to intervene in the tussle between the Indian Cricket League (ICL) and the Indian board (BCCI), maintaining that national cricket boards should take their own decisions regarding the ICL.”The ICC Executive Board has taken a policy decision that the BCCI was the only competent authority to deal with the issue. It is up to the BCCI to decide whether to recognise the ICL or not,” an ICC spokesman told . “The executive board had told the BCCI that it was an internal matter and it was left to them whether to recognise the ICL or not. The ICC had told them that cricket should not suffer.”The Indian and Pakistan boards have come down heavily on players aligning with the ICL by banning them from playing for their country or in official domestic tournaments. The ICL has so far signed 51 players including several international stars, among them Brian Lara, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Mohammad Yousuf and Lance Klusener, while Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Chris Harris have also been linked with it.

Michael Kasprowicz, who grew into a respected Test bowler after starting his state career as a smiling 17-year-old, will retire after the one-day match against Western Australia on February 16. One of the game’s most popular players, Kasprowicz will leave as Queensland’s most prolific wicket-taker – he currently has 501, 38 more than his great friend Andy Bichel – and a valued contributor to Australian cricket over the past three decades.In a collection of fine achievements, Kasprowicz’s greatest is probably the recovery from injuries as a result of the 2006 boot camp. He hurt his back during the bonding exercises, then suffered a groin problem and delivered only eight balls for Queensland before hurting his leg. It was his lowest season but he remained in good spirits, jokingly claiming the break as long-service leave.Further problems hampered him this summer and the constant battle to regain fitness has resulted in him walking away. He has appeared in four first-class matches since coming back, taking 11 wickets at 35.09, and collected five victims in five FR Cup matches. Kasprowicz, who has two young children, is 36 on Sunday and his exit opens the way for a new breed of Queensland bowlers.”I’m excited about the opportunities that await me,” he said. “I’m looking forward to doing things like going to the beach on a Saturday in summer for the first time since I was about eight years old and spending time with my family together. Probably the one thing I will miss is the feeling you get in a winning dressing room and being with your mates.”He has played 114 first-class games for Queensland and also had county stints with Essex, Leicestershire and Glamorgan, where he honed his skills and frightened batsmen with his under-estimated pace. Consistent performances for the domestic sides ensured he was never far from being mentioned in selection meetings and he was constantly to-ing and fro-ing into the national side.In 43 Tests he picked up 113 wickets at 32.88, although his figures were better than they read. Five-wicket hauls came at The Oval, where he recorded a career-best 7 for 36 in 1997, Bangalore, Darwin and Perth, showing his versatility. He also appeared in 43 ODIs and the country’s first two Twenty20 internationals.During his last Test Kasprowicz sealed a dramatic two-wicket victory in partnership with Brett Lee against South Africa, easing the pain of the disheartening defeat to England in the 2005 Ashes. Following a 59-run last-wicket stand with Lee, Kasprowicz was ruled to have edged Andrew Flintoff to Geraint Jones at Edgbaston, a moment that was crucial to England winning the series for the first time in 16 years.The pair fell three short of a legendary success and Kasprowicz was devastated. His mood wasn’t helped by a text message from a confident former school mate, who congratulated him on the victory when it seemed certain Australia would secure a miraculous result.

After playing 13 consecutive Tests during a period when his form was so strong he kept Lee out, Kasprowicz was no longer considered an essential during that series. He fought back to tour South Africa, but was forced home with injury and never returned.Ricky Ponting said Kasprowicz “did a terrific job” whenever he played for Australia. “He’s been an amazing servant to Queensland and Australian cricket,” he said. “He’s just a real workhorse sort of bowler. He had to reinvent himself a couple of times through his career, had a few injuries early on and loss of form and that sort of thing.”Ponting said Kasprowicz’s lighter side made him fun to tour with. “He made a newspaper, the Mumbai Mumbler, he called it,” he said. “Chock-a-block full of some hilarious stuff. He’d download pictures from the internet and make up little stories about it. He was terrific to have around the group.””I’ve enjoyed every moment I had in the game,” Kasprowicz said. “I have tried to make it fun whenever I was on the field, whatever the state of the game.”A man for all conditions, he kept answering his country’s SOS calls, particularly for tours to the subcontinent. One of his key qualities in the middle stages of his career was an ability to reverse-swing the ball, a trait which won him high praise in India. In the beginning, when he played for Queensland while his mates studied for their final high school exams, he was a swing bowler, but he showed he could evolve with the game, concentrating on hitting the pitch before re-focussing later in life on shape in the air.Kasprowicz has acted as a mentor for youngsters throughout his time with the state and bowlers with promise will continue to line up for invaluable tips from a professional who has finally given in to his body’s demands. Players like Kasprowicz, who have pushed forcefully from the fringes, have been responsible for keeping the standards of the national team so high. Australian cricket should not forget him easily.

Six, six, six
Chennai, chasing 188, had lost two wickets in the space of five balls and the required rate was hovering near nine an over. Sixteen deliveries without a boundary wasn’t helping their cause, but the big-hitting Albie Morkel swung Chennai back by plundering 23 runs off the 14th over, bowled by Virender Sehwag. The first ball was heaved over midwicket for a massive six, the second biffed dead straight for the same result, and the hat-trick followed with another clout over midwicket. That spectacular comeback from Morkel made the difference when push came to shove.AB pulls off a blinder
Mahendra Singh Dhoni was threatening to finish the match himself, batting sensibly as wickets fell around him, but a stunning catch from AB de Villiers cut him short. Sehwag called back Vijaykumar Yo Mahesh to bowl the penultimate over and Dhoni skipped down to drill a full delivery towards long-on. The ball was dipping on de Villiers, harrying in from the boundary, but he dived forward and cupped it off the ground, refreshing memories of Ajay Jadeja’s similar stunner to dismiss Allan Border in the 1992 World Cup.Chamara surprise
Chennai seemed to have just four overseas players in their squad but everyone was caught on the wrong foot when Chamara Kapugedera, the Sri Lankan batsman, was named in the XI. Apparently he signed over the weekend and sneaked ahead of Makhaya Ntini, who hadn’t managed to get a wicket in three games. He didn’t have a great start, though: going for 15 runs in his only over. Things weren’t much better when he batted though his presence did play a part in Chennai moving towards the target.

The Goa middle order put up a brave fight but there was preciouslittle substance in the rest of the batting and Andhra took firstinnings points as their rain affected three day KSCA Coca Cola Trophymatch ended in a draw in Bangalore on Tuesday.Andhra declared at the overnight total of 285 for five. Goa’s toporder made a mess of things and at 65 for four, they were down in thedumps. However Amit Jadav and Gaurish Phadte initiated the recoveryprocess by adding 77 runs off 34.1 overs. Phadte’s 42 was scored off116 balls and was inclusive of six boundary hits. Jadav and S Misquinthen kept the momentum going with a sixth wicket partnership of 36runs off 12 overs before Jadhav was out for a gallant 50. He faced 160balls and hit three fours and two sixes. Once Jadhav was sixth out at178, the tail offered little resistance. Misquin made a valuable 34off 60 balls with four fours and two sixes but Goa were all out for204 off 86.4 overs. Balaji Krishna Singh was the most successfulbowler with four for 51. Due to dampness of the pitch, play started 50minutes late. Andhra got five points and Goa three.

Geoff Marsh, coach of the Zimbabwe team, has rated Steve Waugh as the second-best Australian cricketer, next only to Don Bradman. "I think he has to be rated as one of the best, if not the best … obviously Bradman stands alone, but I reckon his record speaks for itself,” Marsh said of Waugh, who has scored four hundreds in his last eight Test innings to resurrect his international career.Marsh was all-praise for Waugh’s ability to combat pressure, both as a captain and as a batsman. “His captaincy record is outstanding and his performance with the bat speaks for itself. All Stephen’s (32) hundreds in Test cricket, they are all under pressure.”Stephen’s such a competitor, he loves the game of cricket and he’s sodetermined to keep going. He enjoys the captaincy, he enjoys winning and he enjoys the team.”According to Marsh, two of the best centuries he had seen in international cricket came off Waugh’s bat – his unbeaten 120 against South Africa in a crunch match of the 1999 World Cup, and his 102 against England at Sydney earlier this year.”That hundred he got in Sydney last year was just magnificent,” Marsh said. “It was the second best innings I have ever seen in world cricket. The other one was his hundred in the World Cup in 1999 in Headingley, when we had to beat South Africa to get into the semi-finals. Great knocks, inspirational, great for the game.”Waugh recently went past Clive Lloyd’s record of maximum Test wins as captain, and is only 654 runs away from toppling Allan Border as the highest run-scorer in Tests. With Test series against Zimbabwe, India and Sri Lanka lined up over the next 12 months, Waugh is well on his way to breaking another record.

Ian Harvey has rejected an offer for a new contract from Gloucestershire, and has hinted he may look to join a new county for the 2004 season. His inventive bowling and hard-hitting batting has been instrumental in Gloucestershire’s one-day successes over the past five seasons, but he is set to return home to Australia to weigh up his options."I wish to take time to consider my future over the winter and may well take a break next summer," he admitted. "Should I decide to play county cricket next season, I do feel I need a fresh challenge.” Gloucestershire have won six trophies since 1999, when Harvey joined the county as a replacement for Courtney Walsh, and if they can see off Yorkshire in the final round of Championship matches, they will cap their season with promotion to the First Division.Gloucestershire chief executive Tom Richardson said: “We made Ian the best offer we could and are extremely disappointed he will not be continuing with us. He has played magnificently for us on numerous occasions, and we are extremely grateful to him for all he has done for the club.”

Close India 284 for 3 (Tendulkar 73*, Laxman 29*) v Australia
Scorecard

The young apprentices served up a fine entrée in the final Test between India and Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground, and then the modern masters got down to the task of preparing a substantial main course. As at Melbourne, Akash Chopra and Virender Sehwag set India up nicely with a century opening partnership. But the middle order did not squander the platform they had been gifted, and India finished the first day on 284 for 3. Sachin Tendulkar, the subject of much unseemly media speculation, constructed partnerships of 66 with Rahul Dravid and an unbeaten 90 with VVS Laxman on his way to an ominous 73 not out.The day began fittingly for a man who relishes the uphill battle. Steve Waugh lost the toss and watched the Indian openers tot up 98 runs before lunch. They spluttered to a start rather than roared to one. On a good bouncy pitch, Chopra and Sehwag began tentatively, playing and missing, prodding and poking, unsure of quite how to handle the swing and seam movement that Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie generated. Gillespie, back from injury, had trouble with his line, frequently bowling wide of the off stump, or on the batsman’s legs. Lee was quicker and more accurate, and any early breakthrough appeared likely to come from him.Then, in the space of two heartbreaking overs from Lee – heartbreaking for the bowler – the momentum shifted. First, Chopra edged a beautiful away-swinger and was caught behind – off a no-ball. The next ball was legitimate, and Chopra edged again, straight to Simon Katich at gully – Katich fumbled, and dropped it.Sehwag added sodium chloride to Lee’s lesions a couple of overs later, and again, a no-ball started it. Lee overstepped and dropped one wide outside off, Sehwag slashed over backward point for six. Lee overcompensated, drifted down leg, Sehwag clipped him to fine leg for four. Lee got his line right in the next ball, but not his length, as Sehwag punched a fuller ball in the corridor to the cover boundary. Singles followed, and 18 came off that over. Lee had been hit out of the attack.Chopra found his groove as the game went on, as his shot selection grew more assured, and fortune gave way to fortitude. Sehwag, meanwhile, opened up as the ball grew older. His aggression bordered mostly on the right side of recklessness; he put away most loose balls that came his way, but didn’t try any wild strokes against the good balls. When he did flash, he flashed hard.Just when Sehwag seemed set for another big innings, he edged a good-length ball from Gillespie after lunch, and was caught behind for 72 (123 for 1). Shortly after that, Lee earned a fine wicket. First, he unleashed a bouncer at Chopra, which Chopra left alone. Then came the yorker, which Chopra dug out superbly. Then, the faster inswinging yorker, which left Chopra clueless as it crashed into his stumps (128 for 2). Chopra had made 45 – once again, the openers had given India a good start. What would Rahul Dravid and Tendulkar make of it?Tendulkar, an irresistable force for so much of his career, was an immovable object. He played a solid and compact innings, with few expansive attempts to drive, and no expensive uppish slashes. He got his boundaries with the minimum of risk – as when he opened his account off a slightly underpitched yorker from Lee, meeting it nonchalantly with the full face of his blade, in a perfectly timed push to the long-on boundary.

Dravid, at the other end, was his usual unyielding self, immaculate in his responses to every question thrown at him – from balance to footwork to every microscopic detail of technique. He was serene yet busy, solid yet fluid, and he outscored Tendulkar during their partnership of 66. He was clinical against loose bowling, much of which came, during his stay at the crease, from Stuart MacGill.Dravid cut and on-drove MacGill for fours in the first over after tea, then flicked and off-drove him for two more boundaries in his next over, and then chose the otherwise controlled Nathan Bracken for punishment, square-cutting him ferociously when he pitched short and slightly wide. But as in the first innings at Melbourne, he was out against the run of play, caught on his crease by an incutter from Gillespie for 38. At 194 for 3, India were on the same slippery slope as towards the end of the first day in the last Test.But Tendulkar and Laxman, promoted in the batting order above Sourav Ganguly, kept climbing. Tendulkar opened out as he grew more comfortable, using his wrists to work balls on off and further inside to the leg side, rocking back to punch or pull anything short. He did not allow the comfort with which he was playing to relax him, and played no loose strokes – though MacGill did fox him a couple of times, inducing edges that did not go to hand.Laxman’s last innings at the SCG was the gorgeous 167 in 1999-00, when he had nothing to lose. Today, he gave nothing away, as he settled in for the long haul. He found occasion to play his staple shots, the wristy flick to midwicket and the inside-out cover-drive, but was more a gatherer than the hunter he had been in his last Test here.In the previous Test, India’s middle order had made a meal of the start they had been given. But these men had worked too hard and dreamed too long of victory in Australia, and they batted as if they would not let anything come in the way of their just desserts.Waugh, no doubt, had other plans up his sleeves. After all, this was his party.Amit Varma is managing editor of Wisden Cricinfo in India.

Pakistan A 216 for 6 (Afridi 66, Misbah 64*) beat Kenya 215 (Modi 69, Ravindu 58) by 4 wickets
Scorecard

After a blazing start to the tournament, when they won two matches in a row, Kenya slumped to their second successive defeat, going down by four wickets to Pakistan A in Nairobi. Batting first, Kenya managed only 215, but that seemed enough as Pakistan A slipped to 82 for 5. However, a 109-run stand between Misbah-ul-Haq (64 not out) and Riaz Afridi (66) rescued the innings and gave them their first win of the tournament.The Kenyan innings got off to a wobbly start when Kennedy Obuya was caught behind off Iftikhar Anjum for a duck (3 for 1), but Ravindu Shah and Hitesh Modi put Kenya in the ascendancy with a 127-run partnership. Modi survived one chance, when he was dropped on 14 by Junaid Zia at third man, but he refused to allow the let-off to affect him, going for his strokes and running hard between the wickets.At 131 for 1 in the 29th over, Kenya were in charge, but things turned sour soon after, as Ravindu was caught in the covers off Qaiser Abbas for 58, and Steve Tikolo was bowled by Mansoor Amjad for a duck. Modi was then bowled by Naved Latif for 69, and though Thomas Odoyo resisted, making an unbeaten 39, Kenya could only manage 215.That looked like a winning total, as Odoyo and Martin Suji reduced Pakistan A to 36 for 4 by the 11th over. Latif and Misbah steadied the innings somewhat, but when Latif was trapped in front by Lameck Onyango for 38, Kenya were in sight of a second consecutive win against Pakistan A.Then came the matchwinning partnership between Afridi and Misbah. The Kenyans did have one chance to break the stand, but Onyango dropped Afridi at long-off. Afridi was finally bowled by Ongondo for 66, but Misbah ensured that Pakistan A got to their target without further alarms.

Brad Williams has been called up to replace Jason Gillespie in Australia’s one-day squad for the tri-series in India. Gillespie, who missed the second Test against Zimbabwe due to a side strain, was ruled out of the series after he attempted to bowl in the nets at Sydney today. Gillespie suffered the injury during the first Test against Zimbabwe at Perth last week.Gillespie’s withdrawal further hampers a line-up which is already missing Glenn McGrath and Darren Lehmann. Lehmann is suffering from soreness in his left Achilles tendon. He has been overlooked for the Indian tour following medical advice.Trevor Hohns, the chairman of the national selection panel, said: “We have accepted the view that the demands placed on the body are sufficiently different in a one-off Test match compared to the intensity of a one-day tournament. The Cricket Australia medical team believes that although Darren might be able to get through this Test match, he will not be able to endure the rigours of a one-day tournament without suffering further damage. Darren is fully accepting of that view. From a team perspective it’s disappointing because he has been a key member of Australia’s success at one-day level.”Nathan Bracken, Gillespie’s replacement during the World Cup, returns to India, where he first played ODIs in 2001. He will be accompanied by Michael Clarke, also from New South Wales, who made his ODI debut during the tour to the West Indies earlier this year.The squad leaves for India on Oct 22.Squad
Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist (wk), Jimmy Maher, Ricky Ponting (capt), Damien Martyn, Andrew Symonds, Michael Bevan, Michael Clarke, Ian Harvey, Brad Hogg, Andrew Bichel, Brett Lee, Brad Williams, Nathan Bracken.

Less than a month after Worcestershire announced a £50,000 deal with Kidderminster CC to stage county matches at their ground in the event of New Road flooding again, the old pavilion at Chester Road has been destroyed by fire.Fireman were called to tackle a blaze in the early hours of Sunday morning but were unable to save the wooden building which had to be demolished as it was unsafe. Police believe the fire was started deliberately.The structure was built around 1870 at the old Lorne Street ground and subsequently moved with the club to the current venue. It was replaced by a newer building in 1927 and has more recently been used for storing equipment.A spokesman for the club said that the worst hit would be the 150 youngsters whose kit was all lost in the fire. “We’ve accumulated a lot over the last few years but it has all gone up in smoke … the boys need bats, helmets, boxes and pads and the price of those all adds up.”