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Justin Langer is eager for his first taste of Twenty20 action after joining up with Somerset for a six-week stint. He is standing in for Dan Cullen, the offspinner, who is heading back to Australia for the Top End series in Darwin and Cairns.Langer, 35, has not played any cricket since the end of Australia’s tour of South Africa in early April following a blow to the head from Makhaya Ntini during the final Test at the Wanderers. He pulled out of the Bangladesh tour following medical advice.”I’ve never played any Twenty20 cricket so it’s going to be nice to play with some freedom,” he told BBC Bristol. “I watched the Australia-South Africa game last year and I can understand why people really enjoy it.”Langer spent three seasons with Middlesex from 1998 to 2000 and is credited with playing a significant role in the development of Andrew Strauss. He begins his latest county stay with Somerset’s C&G clash against Ireland, in Belfast, on Sunday and his first Twenty20 match follows two days later against Gloucestershire.Langer is following in the footsteps of Ricky Ponting who spent a period at Somerset two ago. “Ricky is one of my closest friends and that was one of the carrots for coming here because I know how much he enjoyed it,” added Langer. “To follow in his footsteps here is a real thrill for me.”

After a year which included the disastrous Ashes campaign and a hernia operation which kept him out of the series against India, Steve Harmison says he understands his bowling better and is “desperate” to play for England again.”It has been a nightmare year,” he told the . “But what I believe I’ve learned is that I need to stop worrying and start enjoying my cricket again, playing with a smile not a frown.”While he was sidelined due to hernia, Ryan Sidebottom, Stuart Broad and James Anderson all turned in strong performances to stake their claim for fast-bowling slots in the Test side.”Maybe I’ve got to accept that with my action and the way I bowl I’m going to have wayward spells, and instead of beating myself up about sending one way down leg side, I should concentrate on where the next one is going.”Harmison, who has been playing for the Highveldt Lions in a bid to get match fit for the Test series against Sri Lanka, gave the example of last week’s match against the Cape Cobras to explain his new approach to bowling.”In the past I would probably have agonised too much over the rubbish, but now I was thinking ‘Give me the ball because I’m also bowling some top stuff’. By sticking at it I bowled better as the match went on and ended up with nine wickets and a great deal of confidence.”Harmison said the advice of Allan Donald, who was a bowling consultant with England in the summer, was also extremely helpful.Harmison, 29, also reiterated his desire to play for England but added, “if I’m supposed to be in the side for line and length consistency I shouldn’t be. Let’s be honest, I’m not the best 83mph bowler available to England or the best at 85mph. But when things are going right, with my height and bounce, I can be the best 90mph-plus bowler.”He will join his England team-mates in Sri Lanka on Tuesday and the first Test starts in Kandy on December 1.

The Indian squad will undergo a two-day camp in Kolkata from November 2 in preparation for the home series against Pakistan, which includes five ODIs and three Tests.A spokesman for the Cricket Association of Bengal told that the camp would be held at the Calcutta Cricket and Football Cricket (CCFC) as Eden Gardens, Kolkata’s main venue, will be hosting the Ranji Trophy Super League match between Bengal and Hyderabad from November 3.However, unlike the Eden Gardens, the CCFC doesn’t have floodlights. Three of the five ODIs against Pakistan are day-night affairs, and perhaps a camp in daylight might not be the ideal way to prepare.The CCFC hosted the Indian team prior to the 1996 World Cup, and more recently, the England squad, which held a week-long camp in 2002.The Indian squad will leave for Guwahati on November 4, a day ahead ahead of the first ODI.

The Jamaican batsman, Marlon Samuels, has been drafted into the West Indian squad as a replacement for their injured captain, Ramnaresh Sarwan, who was forced out of the tour after damaging his shoulder in a fielding accident at Headingley last week.Samuels, 26, was surprisingly overlooked for the original squad, after featuring in last month’s World Cup, where he made 63 in the opening match against Pakistan, and 51 in the narrow one-wicket defeat against England at Bridgetown.In Tests, however, the big-hitting Samuels has consistently underperformed, averaging just 28.21 from 23 matches. His solitary century came against India in Kolkata five years ago, although in the absence of such big names as Sarwan and Brian Lara, the selectors hope that he can finally fulfil his promise.The captaincy, meanwhile, is set to pass to Daren Ganga, who deputised at Headingley after Sarwan had damaged his AC joint after landing heavily while trying to prevent a boundary.In the absence of their captain, West Indies lost the Headingley Test by a record margin of an innings and 283 runs, thanks to a career-best 226 from Kevin Pietersen, and Ryan Sidebottom’s eight-wicket haul. Their next match, a three-day fixture against MCC in Durham, gets underway on Friday, before the third Test at Old Trafford begins on June 7.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsFile photo – Thisara Perera picked up his maiden T20 five-for•AFP

An inspired Comilla Victorians crushed Rangpur Riders in a 72-run win to qualify to the BPL final. They not only withstood Thisara Perera’s five-wicket burst and a threatening start from the Rangpur openers, but also shrugged off their own injury-ravaged roster. Rangpur will now have a second shot in the second Qualifier on Sunday, facing the winner of the Eliminator.Comilla missed the services of Shoaib Malik due to a finger injury and used Nuwan Kulasekara, who bowled with a shoulder injury. The most heart-warming sight was to of the captain Mashrafe Mortaza, carrying a Grade-1 right hamstring tear, sending down four overs for only 13 runs, taking one wicket.Comilla batted well in two patches either side of Perera’s wickets. Imrul Kayes cracked 67 at the start and Ashar Zaidi slugged two sixes in a 15-ball 40 to power them to a total of 163.Rangpur began the chase in perfect manner. In the third over, Soumya Sarkar struck Shuvagata Hom for a reverse-swept four before Lendl Simmons added three more boundaries through the leg-side. Andre Russell then dropped Soumya, pedalling back from mid-off in the fifth over. But Rangpur’s fall began the very next ball.Running from deep midwicket, Shuvagata made up for his 17-run over with a superb catch at the square-leg boundary to get rid of Soumya, who made just nine. Abu Hider then made it two wickets off two balls when he removed Simmons with a stunning yorker, the batsman falling over and the ball ricocheting off his pads and into the stumps.Zaidi bowled a maiden in the sixth over, and Mortaza gave away just a single off the next over, his first in the tournament since December 8. The pressure told, as Zaidi had Mohammad Mithun stumped and Shakib Al Hasan caught at deep midwicket off the next ball. Mohammad Nabi struck a six and a four but fell to Mashrafe in the 11th over before Hider came into the picture again, this time with a running catch to get rid of Jahurul Islam. At 62 for 6, Rangpur were well past gone in the chase.Hider came back to bowl his second over and saw Ahmed Shehzad drop a simple chance at long-on off Perera’s bat before clean bowling him a ball later. Zaidi’s fourth wicket was of Darren Sammy in the 16th over, the arm ball capping a stunning all-round display. Hider then picked up another to bag his second four-for in the tournament and become its highest wicket-taker with 21 scalps.Put in to bat, Comilla waited till the end of the third over to find the boundary, Kayes swatting Arafat Sunny through square-leg. Liton Das struck one four in a labored 37-ball 28 but Kayes kept the run rate up with two fours each off Shakib and Mohammad Nabi in the fifth and sixth over. A Kayes blast over cover, off Al-Amin Hossain, then brought up Comilla’s highest opening stand in the tournament as well as the longest opening partnership from a team batting first this season.Liton fell to a beautiful delivery from Saqlain Sajib in the eleventh over before Kayes reached his first fifty of the season, and his second overall in the tournament.Mashrafe’s promotion of himself and Andre Russell to No 3 and No. 4 didn’t work, and the captain’s wicket began the Perera show. The Sri Lankan seamer then dismissed Russell and had Kayes caught and bowled, ending a 48-ball knock that included seven fours and two sixes. Both those sixes came off Shakib, who also had a stumping missed by Mithun when Kayes was on 58.When Shehzad was trapped leg-before for a golden duck at the end of the 16th over, Perera had picked up his first T20 four-for and although he didn’t complete the hat-trick in the next over, he finished with 5 for 26 from his four overs with the wicket of Alok Kapali. Courtesy of Zaidi’s 15-ball 40 in the last 4.3 overs, Comilla took their score to 163 for 7. He struck four fours and two sixes, one a straight blast off Sunny and the next a hit over midwicket off Nabi who gave away 18 runs in the last over.

Muttiah Muralitharan has been ruled out of the first three one-day internationals against England. Mahela Jayawardene, Sri Lanka’s captain, confirmed that Muralitharan’s bicep injury had not healed.”We don’t want to rush him,” Jayawardene said. “He’s almost there, but we just have to make a decision whether we would like to risk him like this soon after injury. We will make sure that we will make a sensible decision.” Sri Lanka’s priority is to get him fit for their trip to Australia which follows almost immediately after the five-match series against England.Such is the shadow that Muralitharan casts over matches that at the press conference today Paul Collingwood, England’s captain, seemed reluctant to believe that he would not be playing. “We’re preparing as if Murali is playing and we will still prepare in this way,” he said.Sri Lanka called Kaushal Lokuarachchi into the squad as a replacement. A legspinner, he has 19 ODIs to his name and can more than hold his own with the bat. The Guardian reported that his inclusion was too much for Trevor Bayliss, Sri Lanka’s new Australian coach, who told the media, with some uncertainty, that Muralitharan’s stand-in was someone called Wakaroochi.Before the first game England take on a Sri Lanka Cricket XI, captained by Avishka Gunawardene, in a one-day warm-up match at the P Saravanamuttu Stadium in Colombo on Friday. Besides Gunawardene, England’s opponents include seven players with international limited-overs experience, the most prominent among them being Malinga Bandara, the legspinner, who lost his spot in the national squad to Lokuarachchi.Gihan de Silva and Indika de Saram will vie for the wicketkeepers slot. The selection of de Saram, 34, comes as a surprise, considering that he played his last ODI in 2001.Kevin Pietersen is likely to captain England for the first time after Collingwood was hit by a stomach bug. Collingwood, Stuart Broad, Luke Wright and Alastair Cook are all struggling with what their coach, Peter Moores, described as a “stomach illness”. The match will also be a significant moment for Dimitri Mascarenhas, who will play for the first time in his country of origin.Sri Lanka Cricket XI Avishka Gunawardene, Viraj Perera, Chamara Kapugedera, Thilina Kadamby, Gihan de Silva, Gihan Rupasinghe, Malinga Bandara, Nuwan Kulasekara, Ranga Dias, Akalanka Ganegama, Sujeewa de Silva, Ashan Priyaranjan, Indika de Saram (wk), Lasith Fernando.England XI (probable) Kevin Pietersen (capt), James Anderson, Ian Bell, Ravi Bopara, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Phil Mustard (wk), Monty Panesar, Owais Shah, Ryan Sidebottom, Graeme Swann, Chris Tremlett.

Glenn McGrath is expecting a pay cut after taking time off to support his wife during her battle with cancer in Cricket Australia’s list of its 25 contracted players for the 2006-07 international season.The season is an important one, in which Australia will attempt first to regain the Ashes at home and then retain the World Cup in the West Indies soon after. reported that McGrath’s management team was certain the 36-year-old would slide down the rankings list, having missed Australia’s recent tours of South Africa and Bangladesh due to his wife’s illness.Despite another consistent international year – 43 wickets in 10 Tests, and 16 wickets in 16 ODIs – by the time McGrath is back his absence from the national side will have stretched to ten months. That absence, believes McGrath, is likely to result in a drop down Australia’s rankings and a pay cut.Warren Craig, McGrath’s manager, while confirming the player intends to return to international duties for Australia’s next fixture, a triangular one-day series in Pakistan leading into the Champions Trophy, acknowledged that Stuart Clark’s emergence during the South Africa tour and Brett Lee’s good form may leave his client with a reduced role over the coming year.”Glenn isn’t expecting to hold his existing place on the list,” Craig told . “He was fairly high last year and he is realistic about things this time around. We will meet with Cricket Australia and find out officially where he is in the next couple of weeks. But he is expecting to slip a bit, just hopefully not too much.”The biggest beneficiaries, the paper reported, are likely to be Michael Hussey and Brett Lee, on the back of exceptional performances over the last season. Hussey, in particular, has had a phenomenal season; since making his Test debut he has scored 1139 runs at 75.93 in 11 matches and also played 35 of his 40 one-day internationals over the past year. Lee’s return to the Test arena after an 18-month absence, has seen him transformed into Australia’s spearhead. In 17 Tests, he has taken 72 wickets and his ODI performances have been impressive as usual, claiming 51 wickets at 25.29 from 31 appearances.Mick Lewis, Cameron White and James Hopes have not been so lucky and have been taken off the contracts list entirely, while Clark, Phil Jaques and Mitchell Johnson have been offered full contracts for the first time. Mark Cosgrove and Brett Dorey also miss out on a contract. Jaques, soon to be married, was pleased to learn of his contract though he was realistic about his immediate chances. “I am behind Australia’s best opening partnership of all time, so I have to bide my time for opportunities to come up. It would be a dream come true to play a revenge Ashes series this summer.”Cricket Australia will inform all players of their ranking and earnings over the next fortnight. Michael Brown, operations manager, did reveal that the base contract would increase from $145,000 to $150,000, while match payments of $12,250 for Tests and $4900 for one-day internationals would not change. The top contract, for the likes of Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist, and the entire payment pool would remain confidential.

Robin Brown, the Zimbabwe coach who replaced Kevin Curran last month, has asked his players to hold the celebrations till after the game against England today.”I told them to keep the celebrations until tomorrow night when we have beaten England,” Brown told AFP. “Then we can have a full go.”Zimbabwe beat Australia by five wickets at Newlands and Brown, on his first international assignment, said that before the game he reminded the players of Zimbabwe’s win on debut against Australia in the 1983 World Cup. “I reminded them of that and told the guys to go out and express themselves in our first World Cup Twenty20 game.”Brown was part of the Zimbabwe squad in the 1983 World Cup but did not play against Australia.Ricky Ponting, the Australian captain, admitted that Zimbabwe had done better than Australia in most aspects in the game and Brendan Taylor, the Man of the Match for his unbeaten 60, felt Ponting’s remark was a great compliment to Zimbabwe. “That’s a great compliment because we try to model ourselves on them,” Taylor said.An England win over Zimbabwe will make it more difficult for Australia to qualify for the Super Eights. They play England on Friday at Newlands.

On the start his bowlers gave him
I think we stuck in well throughout and kept the pressure on them all the time. They had to play some big shots in the last part of the innings, which as you saw some wickets fell. I thought 258 was gettable and the guys talked before the match about actually chasing. They thought the pitch looked very good and it would stay that way for the entire 100 overs. So first of all, it was a good toss to lose. It’s a situation where we have to just move on from here, with the same sort of a game plan. Everyone’s trying to make a contribution.On the resurgence in West Indian cricket
I just think that we had a tournament in Malaysia recently, and even before that we played India and won the series 4-1. Our one-day game has always been pretty good. It just [needs] a little bit of fine tuning. We did that in Malaysia. We were forced to play the qualifying round here, and that in itself gave us a little bit of competitive cricket. So I think it’s the fact that we are building up momentum, and the guys are believing in themselves, believing in the plans and executing it well. It’s great to see the guys go out there and stick to the plans, work hard and get the results. We just have to keep the momentum going now, analyse each game even if you have to lose. Win or lose, just go back and think about it. I think it is going to be exciting times ahead for us, in the one-dayers especially.Australia and West Indies have won two matches each in the last four encounters between the two teams. Did Lara think there was unfinished business with the Australians?
I wouldn’t say it is unfinished business. I just feel it’s nice to be playing the world champions inthe final. It says a lot for our effort – getting past South Africa in the semis and beating the likes of India and even Australia in the first part of the tournament. So we are looking forward to the challenge. Australia, of course, have gained some momentum since they lost to us in the first match. I am sure they are very, very buoyed and confident of their chances on Sunday. I think we have to go back to the drawing board again, work on a few things and realise that we are going to play a completely different opposition to the one we played against. In that first game in Mumbai, Australia were playing their first match on that pitch and so we had a sort of an advantage. It’s not unfinished business. It’s a game of cricket, we are looking forward to the challenge and we will back ourselves.

On whether Lara thought West Indies would win so easily
Of course not. It’s a semi-final and you are going to think that South Africa will come and throw everything at us, if not for the first 15 then for the entire 50 overs. I think it’s the way Chris Gayle and Shivnarine Chanderpaul started, they transferred the pressure on South Africa. They came out ready to apply pressure on with the likes of Pollock, Ntini and Nel. The fact that in 15 overs or so we were almost close to our 100 put them on the back foot. They just had to play catch-up cricket after that. So it was a good effort and everybody must be commended.On captaining a batsman like Chris Gayle
He is excellent. Chris Gayle has always been a top player – with the bat, with the ball and in thefield. He is very chirpy as well, and he has a great influence on the guys, which is tremendous. He might seem a bit comical on occasions, but he takes his cricket very seriously. In the practice sessions, his preparation is great and he is reaping the rewards right now.On what advice he gave to his batsmen
South Africa’s two win in the tournament was actually bowling second. The fact that in the first 15 or 20 overs, the game is almost over for the opposition – they got five, six wickets against Sri Lanka and also Pakistan. Our first decision was to try and stay out there, see the pitch. But maybe in the first over, the guys realized that there wasn’t much in the pitch, nothing like Mohali or Ahmedabad for South Africa, and we played accordingly.On Gayle firing in the final
It’s a brand new game and the fact that we have certain requirements of the opening batsmen – if it is Chanderpaul or Gayle, they have to fulfill those requirements. Chris has done that on a few occasions in this tournament and I am almost sure that he does not want to leave the centre-stage to anyone come the final. He will be eager to go out there and replicate what he did today.On starting the World Cup as favourites if they win here
Favorites or not, we have to play the World Cup. We are the hosts and we will be in Jamaica for the first, hoping to come out of with maximum points and move on. A lot of teams have said we are very unpredictable and maybe that is a fact. But the fact is then they are not going to take us easy. We have played very good cricket, we have beaten Australia on a couple of occasions recently and I don’t think anything is going to be different in the Caribbean. I am almost sure the likes of South Africa, India and Pakistan – whoever we play against – know what we are capable of. I don’t mind whatever tag they place on us. We still got to go out there and execute, we still got to play better than the other team on the day.

Scorecard

South Africa warmed up for their one-day series against India with a comfortable win against a Hyderabad XI. AB de Villiers shone with the bat striking an impressive 55 while Johan Botha, the uncapped offspinner, was the pick of the attack with 3 for 34.It was a useful workout for the South Africans, who arrived in India on Saturday, ahead of a series which pits two of the in-form teams of the moment. South Africa are touring on the back of a 4-0 demolition of New Zealand and India have just completed an even more commanding 6-1 drubbing of Sri Lanka.The performance of Botha will have been heartening for the South African selectors, who are still searching high and low for spinning talent. With Nicky Boje not making this trip, due to the fear that he would have been arrested over alleged links to match-fixing, it is the perfect chance for the next South African slow bowler to make their mark.Botha, who until a year ago was a medium pacer, is competing for a place alongside Robin Peterson and Justin Ontong and made the right first impression.The time de Villiers spent at the crease was also a boost for the tourists. He failed to produce a significant innings against New Zealand and this is an important series as he tries to establish himself as long-term opening partner for Graeme Smith in ODIs, in the same way he has in Tests.The five-match series kicks of on Wednesday with the first match at Hyderabad.