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The WACA has apologised to Khalid Latif and called on the Western Australian government to increase the fines for pitch invaders to $10,000 after Latif was tackled to the ground during Sunday’s ODI. The man who grabbed Latif has been charged with assault and banned from the venue for life but faces a maximum penalty of only $500 due to the state laws on ground invasions.”I thought we put on two very good events here but that leaves a sour taste in the mouth,” Graeme Wood, the WACA chief executive, said. “What we want to see as sports is harsher penalties. We are the softest in Australia.”In the other states where there are very stiff penalties we have noticed a lot less incidents. The fine at magistrates can only be $500, whereas in other states in can be up to $7000. We want to be a lot harder and we will be sitting down with the government to get some legislation in place in time for the Ashes series.”Wood conceded that the ground’s security staff had dropped their guard in allowing the man to run about 50 metres to Latif without being intercepted. There is generally a large security presence at the WACA, and at training players are escorted to and from the nets by guards but during the match things did not go to plan.”To see someone tackle a player is very disappointing,” Wood said. “Someone [security] has taken his eye off the ball, and someone got a break. It is not a great reflection on the WACA, on Perth and on WA as a destination, because it is going to be beamed all around the world. We have apologised to the Pakistan team and the player in question.”

The Ranji Trophy final between Karnataka and Mumbai will be played at the Gangotri Glades Stadium in Mysore, and not at Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy Stadium. This will be the first Ranji final since 1996-97 to be held away from the primary venue of the hosting association but it’s clear the hosts have decided to back their bowlers on a pitch likely to have pace and bounce.”The centre wicket is being regrassed here [Bangalore], that’s why they are not able to give us a good bouncy track,” Karnataka coach Narasimha Sanath Kumar said at the Chinnaswamy Stadium soon after the semi-final against UP. “Our strength is fast bowling. It is a little difficult for the fast bowlers here and that (Mysore track) probably will be a better one.”Mysore has already hosted a league match and the quarter-final against Punjab this season, and both games drew decent crowds. Rahul Dravid, the Karnataka captain, had no apprehensions about a small city hosting perhaps the biggest match in the domestic calendar.”I’m sure the game will be very well supported, there will be a lot of crowd on all the days,” he said. “It will be a great advertisement for the game, it’s a good chance to develop the infrastructure at Mysore and take the game away from the big cities and to the smaller towns, which I feel is where the future of the Ranji Trophy is.”It was Dravid’s chanceless double-century that virtually shut UP out of the semi-finals, and Karnataka are still fretting over his availability for the finals, which ends on the 15th. India’s first Test against Bangladesh starts two days later. Last-ditch efforts were still on to advance the final by a day, so that it finishes on the 14th, which will make it easier for Dravid to participate.”I’ve had a chance to speak to the Indian team management and they expect me to be in Dhaka by the 15th evening, latest,” he said. “To do that, it (the Ranji final) will probably have to be preponed by a day, if not, it may not be possible.”Dravid has only played in four of Karnataka’s eight matches this season, and even without him the state has steamrolled opposition. That left coach Sanath confident, irrespective of Dravid’s availability. “Obviously it’ll make a big difference if he’s there,” Sanath said, “but we have won outright three out of the four matches when he didn’t play.”

Down on his knees
Nothing is going right for Makhaya Ntini at the moment. He can’t buy a wicket and when Matt Prior sent an outside edge flying past the outstretched hand of Ashwell Prince at gully it was almost too much to cope with as he sank to his knees in his follow through. It takes a lot to stop Ntini smiling, but he’s wearing a permanent frown these days and despite being given a crack at England’s lower order he still ended wicketless. In fact, he’d just bowled one of his fieriest overs to Graham Onions – striking the No. 11 on the helmet – when Andrew Strauss declared England’s innings. A wicket wasn’t meant to be.Out…no six
Prior’s punchy innings was just what England needed to build momentum on the fourth morning and he really opened his shoulders against JP Duminy. However, it was probably a good thing there was a decent breeze blowing across Kingsmead when he got a big top edge onto a sweep that looked to heading to deep square-leg. But the ball kept on going and just cleared the boundary to bring up Prior’s fifty and the hundred partnership with Ian Bell.Bell’s emotion
Ian Bell now has nine Test centuries and each time they have come in an innings that has included another ton. He still struggles to shake the reputation of someone who reacts to situations rather than sets them up. But all he was able to do on this occasion was score as many as he could and it was an innings that clearly meant a lot. After stepping down the pitch and driving Paul Harris straight over mid-on to reach three figures he punched the air with both arms and tugged on his England badge. It’s been a decent game for England’s under-pressure batsmen.Dot, single. Make it five
Paul Harris isn’t the best South African fielder so that, coupled with the fatigue of being in the field for two days and bowling more than 30 overs, may have played a part in an embarrassing lapse on the boundary. It all started with a push to point by Bell and hesitancy over a quick single. Bell and Graeme Swann had initially declined the run, but after the throw misses the stumps it went for a long over-throw. It shouldn’t have been any more, but Harris on the deep midwicket rope made a complete hash of the backing up and what could potentially have been a dot ball ended up costing five. And it was off Ntini to boot.Swann’s 50th and counting
Graeme Swann should bowl in one-over spells. For the third time in the series he struck in his opening over – and his removal of Ashwell Prince was the second time he’d grabbed the left-hander in his first over of an innings having done the same on the opening day at Centurion. He really has had a stunning year and Prince’s wicket was his 50th for 2009. He is second on the wicket-taking list for the last 12 months behind Mitchell Johnson and it wasn’t long before he had wicket No. 51 and Graeme Smith became scalp 52.Top of off
After his Ashes-winning spell of 5 for 37 at The Oval, Stuart Broad said he’d learnt what length to bowl in Test cricket, but his opening spell at Centurion suggested the lesson hadn’t fully sunk in as he wasted the new ball. He has lost opening privileges to Graham Onions now, but relocated that perfect length today. The ball that jagged back at Jacques Kallis was a beauty, then another caught AB de Villiers shouldering arms before JP Duminy dragged on a leave. It was The Oval all over again. Stick to top of off, Stuart.

Scorecard
A match heading for a dull draw and crying out for cricketing euthanasia finished amid the farcical scene of all nine Mumbai fielders forming a slip cordon in the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. By the time the mandatory overs started (103rd over onwards, when the match can be called off), Hyderabad had lost only four wickets and Mumbai didn’t fancy playing on, happy with the three points for a first-innings lead. Ambati Rayudu was on 65 at that time, and perhaps in expectation of his century, Hyderabad wanted to continue on a still benign track.At that stage, Rayudu and Abhinav Kumar were well on their way to Hyderabad’s first century stand of the season and both batsmen were collecting runs with ease. Mumbai were clearly irritated by having to spend extra time on the field, and when Abhinav was bowled for 49 in the 106th over, he was given a warm send-off by the bowler Abhishek Nayar and wicketkeeper Vinayak Samant.The field was pushed well back to cut off the boundaries whenever Rayudu was on strike after that, but he had calmly progressed to 75 when left-arm spinner Iqbal Abdulla started the 111th over. Abdulla gave the ball plenty of flight each delivery in the short duel with Rayudu; the first waslashed back at the bowler who grassed a tough catch, on the next Rayudu charged out and unleashed a lofted on-drive for four, but he perished on the third miscuing a catch to midwicket. Cue over-the-top celebrations from Mumbai, with Abdulla making it a point to run the length of the pitch and joyously race across the batsman as he was trudging back to the pavilion.Mumbai’s annoyance increased as Hyderabad continued to bat, and their mood didn’t improve when a short ball was smashed into substitute Omkar Khanvilkar’s back at forward short leg. For the final two overs from Nayar (the 116th and 118th), Mumbai decided to have an umbrella field, and every dot ball – even ones that harmlessly sailed to the keeper – was boisterously cheered. After the final over of the match (119th) the Hyderabad side came out to shake hands with the opposition, but the Mumbai camp was not interested, sauntering off to their dressing room, much to the chagrin of Hyderabad coach Venkatapathy Raju.Raju was happier though with the dogged effort from his batsmen, who played out more than four sessions to ensure the home side continued their trend this season of conceding the first-innings lead but clinging on for a draw.Mumbai looked at their most threatening early in the day. In the morning’s fifth over, Dhawal Kulkarni had a big lbw appeal turned down and an edge off Amol Shinde flew past a diving second slip. Only nine runs had been added on the final day, when birthday boy Ajit Agarkar induced a nick off Shashank Nag which was spilled by Sahil Kukreja at second slip.The chances became scarcer as the day progressed, and though Mumbai produced a couple of breakthroughs before lunch, there was no final day collapse. The highlight of the morning was a superb catch from Aavishkar Salvi at long-on to dismiss Nag; the fielder initially misjudged it andran in but recovered well to run back and complete the catch.That brought in Rayudu, who was initially circumspect, taking 22 deliveries to get off the mark. When Mumbai pressed with four fielders crouching around the bat, Rayudu started to play his strokes: a backfoot slash for four was followed by a down-the-track drive to the long-onboundary in one Ramesh Powar over. Just as the odds on a draw started shortening Mumbai dismissed Anirudh Singh to leave Hyderabad at 144 for 4, with more than 40 overs remaining. Rayudu and Abhinav, however, ended Mumbai’s hopes of taking five (or six points) with a defiant partnership.Mumbai were disappointed at not being able to deliver the knockout blow after keeping Hyderabad on the ropes for the first three days of the match. Their captain Wasim Jaffer laid the blame on the pitch. “The wicket was really dead, we gave ourselves nearly 120 overs, but nothinghappened,” Jaffer said. “Everybody tried their best, it wasn’t due to lack of effort or anything, you couldn’t do more than that, the wicket wasn’t helping the spinners or the fast bowlers, the odd ball was keeping low but that was not good enough.”The first-innings lead was enough, though, to give Mumbai a five-point cushion over fourth-placed Railways; their chance of making the quarter-finals remains healthy.

Group A

Paul Collingwood has played down England’s growing injury list ahead of the first Twenty20 international on Friday following the side’s four-wicket defeat against South Africa A in Bloemfontein.England went into the match without their three frontline quicks with James Anderson (knee), Stuart Broad (shoulder) and Graham Onions (back) all on the sidelines. With Andrew Strauss not considered for the Twenty20 team it left Collingwood only 11 fit players and towards the end of the game Graeme Swann also left the field with a tight thigh.However, Swann’s problem was said to be minor and the medical staff were not overly concerned, while Anderson and Onions are expected to be in contention to face South Africa at the Wanderers. Broad, though, is struggling to recover in time for the Twenty20 matches and is unlikely to be risked before the one-day series begins at the end of next week.”I think he [Broad] is going to be doubtful. I mean it’s pretty much going to take a miracle if he’s going to be fit for the Twenty20s,” Collingwood told reporters. “He has been very sore on the shoulder there, but he’s progressing well, so hopefully he’ll be available for the first one-dayer.”Jimmy’s just a little bit stiff in the right knee, but again he should be fit for Friday and Graham Onions will come back into the reckoning as well. [Swann] came off with a stiff side, but he’s spoken to the medical staff and they don’t seem to be too concerned.”After a promising opening to the tour, with two convincing warm-up victories against the Eagles and Warriors, this is a more familiar feel to England’s overseas expeditions with defeat against a second-string side and a list of injury worries. At the same time South Africa were hitting their stride against Zimbabwe, but Collingwood has his fingers crossed that the team have got their bad performance out of the way.”I’m hoping tonight is just a blip. We’ve done a lot of good stuff so far on this tour,” he said. “Obviously Twenty20 cricket’s a different format of the game – you’re a bit more rushed out in the middle. We’ll obviously come out of this, we’ll learn from it, we’ll discuss it before Friday and hopefully put on a better performance.”I never like losing, but I think sometimes it is going to be a little bit of a reality check as well. Tonight we got one of the disciplines wrong. That’s the area we’ve got to bounce back from and do better on Friday.”

New Zealand’s search for a new coach may be put on hold until after the third edition of the IPL, according to NZC chief executive Justin Vaughan. It is not the ideal situation for Vaughan and the NZC top brass as they begin the search for Andy Moles’ successor but is one that they may have to hold out for in an attempt to secure the best man for the job.”Without wanting to crystal ball gaze, if the perfect person was available only after the IPL, then we’d have to weigh that up,” he told the .The next IPL is scheduled to begin in the middle of March and will clash with New Zealand’s two-Test home series against Australia that runs from March 19-31. “If we want to have our coach in place this summer I would find it very difficult to imagine how an IPL coach would manage that,” said Vaughan. “With the World Cup in 2011 being the real pinnacle event, and not that far away, I’m loath to leave an appointment too late.”Several well-respected coaches in the cricketing world, such as Dav Whatmore, Ray Jennings, and Tom Moody, all have IPL contracts. As opposed to last year, when NZC ruled out candidates who had IPL contracts for the role of national coach, Vaughan said the hunt for a new search could be dictated by the candidates’ IPL connections, irrespective of the delay in hiring.”You’ve got to weigh it on balance. If that person is streets ahead of everyone else, then I think we’d have to think very seriously about it,” he said. “If we find the right person I’ll be moving heaven and earth to try and find a way we can afford that person.”Moles’ resignation as New Zealand coach on Saturday, following reports that the senior players were unhappy with a lack of technical and tactical support being provided by him, has left NZC with a difficult task ahead of a busy schedule.

Sri Lankan batsman Tillakaratne Dilshan has won the Twenty20 International Performance of the Year award in recognition of his breezy 96 off 57 balls against West Indies in the semi-final of the 2009 World Twenty20 in England. Dilshan’s performance at The Oval included two sixes and 12 fours and helped steer his side into the finals of the tournament.This is the second year the award has been given to recognise the most impressive performance by a player in Twenty20 internationals during the 12-month voting period, continuing to mark the advent of the shortest format of the game.The award rounds off a good year of Twenty20 cricket for Dilshan who took the World Twenty20 by storm after showcasing his astonishing ‘Dilscoop’ – a flick-shot over his head – and also being named as Player of the Tournament, having scored 317 runs at 52.83.According to the ICC Awards 25-member voting academy Dilshan’s effort was the most impressive in the voting period between August 13, 2008 to August 24, 2009.His performance beat competition from West Indies’ Chris Gayle for his 88 off 50 balls against Australia, also during the 2009 World Twenty20 at The Oval; Umar Gul’s 5 for 6 for Pakistan against New Zealand in the same tournament, as well as twin efforts from Shahid Afridi – a blitzkreig 51 off 34 balls and 2 for 16 against South Africa in the semi-final.Collecting his award from last year’s winner, Yuvraj Singh, Dilshan said: “This is a great feeling for me. I can’t forget about that innings – it was so important and I was really happy about my overall performance in that tournament. It was a thrill for me to do well in England and do well for my team.”I’m really proud of myself for having a new shot named after me (the Dilscoop). That shot has given me confidence. If I am under pressure I can play that shot and put the pressure back on the bowlers.”

Andrew Flintoff has confirmed that he has rejected the offer of a one-day contract with the England & Wales Cricket Board, and will instead become the world’s first freelance cricketer in a bid to maximize his considerable earning potential in the final years of his career.Flintoff retired from Test cricket last month following England’s Ashes victory at The Oval, meaning he no longer qualified for one of the ECB’s full central contracts. He subsequently underwent a knee operation that will keep him on the sidelines for at least six months, but on Friday he was offered an incremental contract to cover his limited-overs appearances. The option of lucrative Twenty20 deals from the IPL and beyond, however, has proved too tempting to resist.”One of the things I want to pursue more than anything is playing in different worldwide locations,” he told andrewflintoff.com. “I’ve been very lucky playing for England for the past 11 years and I’ve sampled different countries, but I’ve always wanted the opportunity to play more in these places, get to know them and the way they go about their cricket.”I said when I retired from Test cricket that my ambition was to become the best one-day and Twenty20 player in the world and playing in all these different countries can only help.”An ECB spokesman said that Flintoff’s decision would require “careful consideration”, and that the board would digest the news and respond in due course if required. When fit, Flintoff remains an integral part of England’s limited-overs plans, and he himself has stated he wants to play until the 2015 World Cup.But England coach Andy Flower had said his players could take part in only three weeks of the 45-day IPL next year if they toured Bangladesh in February and March, ahead of the ICC World Twenty20 in the Caribbean in May. That means Flintoff, the joint highest-paid player in the IPL along with Kevin Pietersen, would stand to lose about half of his US$1.55m fee by going to Bangladesh for what he had originally earmarked for his comeback series.”I was flattered to receive the offer of an incremental contract from the ECB, which I wasn’t really expecting, but at this stage of my career I don’t think I need to be told when to play and when to rest,” said Flintoff, who is currently in Dubai recovering from his knee surgery. “I am 31, I have played international cricket for 11 years and know my body’s capabilities.”I am grateful to the ECB for the all the financial support they have given me to help in my rehabilitation. I have moved to Dubai because I believe it will help in that and their decision to pay for Dave Roberts’ continued expertise to aid my recovery has been invaluable.”Flintoff ‘s freelancing will follow the route expected to be taken by Australian allrounder, Andrew Symonds, who is also eyeing several Twenty20 opportunities around the world after his national career stalled due to disciplinary issues. It is understood that Flintoff has already received a No-Objection Certificate from the ECB, which will allow him to take part in a minimum of three weeks of IPL cricket per season.That, however, could prove to be an awkward precedent for Flower, who had warned that players’ workloads need to be managed and that participation in lucrative leagues like the IPL will continue to be an issue over the next few years. The amount of time England players were available for the 2009 IPL season had been a major sticking point between the ECB and the Indian board earlier this year before a compromise was reached.”He’ll play for Chennai [Super Kings in the IPL], he might play for an Australian team, a South African team, maybe one in the West Indies,” Flintoff’s manager, Andrew Chandler, told the . “If he hadn’t have been injured he would have probably played in December-January in Australia. And then at the end of January, early February in South Africa. I was already negotiating with them. We were negotiating with South Australia and the Durban team, the Nashua Dolphins. And there’s been an offer from Northern Transvaal [Northerns] as well.” While in Dubai, Flintoff also intends to help out with the UAE national squad.Despite all the high-profile offers that can be expected to come his way, Flintoff is still keen to make an impact with his county side, Lancashire. “I enjoy playing under Peter Moores and Glen Chapple, our captain, is one of my best mates,” he said. “I am desperate to help them achieve success at Old Trafford.””Lancashire, as we have been throughout his entire career, are fully supportive of Fred’s ambitions and we hope to see him play a leading role for us in our one day team’s for years to come,” said Lancashire’s chief executive, Jim Cumbes. “To that end, we are currently in talks with Fred and his management team about a new contract which will help support his goals and the ambitions of Lancashire.”

Richard Hadlee has sounded a dire warning that Test cricket will be seriously threatened unless the ICC steps in to halt the spread of Twenty20. However, Hadlee was concerned about the ICC’s ability to put aside the monetary attraction of the shortest format, especially the IPL, to preserve the five-day game.”We are in grave danger of having the decision makers betraying the game of cricket,” Hadlee told . “Everything evolves and things keep changing, but this is a revolution within the game of cricket. It’s new, marketable, successful and brings in huge money. The danger is overkill, that you have too much of it, and it swamps other forms of the game and compromises them.”If one format of the game like Twenty20 consumes the game as much as it is doing now – and potentially in the future – it is destroying game of cricket as a total concept. The IPL is franchise cricket, it’s club cricket, it is not international cricket.”We are two years into it and you can see potentially that there will be more and more of it. It will consume the game. Once it has gone too far and people have grown bored with it, it will have destroyed test cricket and probably 50-over cricket.”The comments from Hadlee, who held the world record for most Test wickets when he retired, came as another former great, Shane Warne, called for the end of 50-over international cricket and suggested that countries play only Tests and Twenty20s. However, Hadlee was more concerned with the future of Test cricket, which he said remained the ultimate form of the game.”A lot of players today would say they enjoy test cricket more than anything else,” Hadlee said. “The point is they are also faced with the other forms of the game where for less effort the rewards are 10 times greater.”We all know now that Asia, and more particularly India, have a more powerful say [at ICC level) because they generate that much more a higher percentage of revenue, which other countries benefit from. So, who protects the game? The decision makers on the ICC have to try and control it so that all the games can co-exist and live together.”

Shoaib Akhtar’s chances of making a comeback to the Pakistan team have suffered a blow after he failed to turn up for a fitness test at the National Cricket Academy in Lahore on Wednesday.Interim chief selector Wasim Bari wanted to assess Shoaib’s fitness before heading to Sri Lanka next week to discuss the composition of the squad for the upcoming one-day series with captain Younis Khan and coach Intikhab Alam. The five-ODI series starts on July 30 after the completion of the three Test matches.”He has conveyed to us that since his mother is ill he can’t leave Islamabad at this time,” Bari said. Shoaib had missed last month’s World Twenty20 due to a skin infection, and last represented Pakistan in the five-match ODI series against Australia two months ago. Last week, he had insisted he was back at full fitness, and claimed that he had “three to four good years left in him”.Shoaib, 33, has not been a regular member of the Pakistan side of late due to disciplinary issues and injury as well. He was involved in a tussle with the PCB after reportedly criticising the board publicly for not awarding him a central contract. Subsequently, upon his return to international cricket, he was dropped after a poor ODI series against Sri Lanka and again under-performed against Australia, taking three wickets with an average of over 50.