Scorecard
Honours were pretty much even at the end of a low-scoring first day between Hong Kong and United Arab Emirates in their Intercontinental Cup match at Sharjah. Hong Kong were shot out for 126, but UAE fared little better and had stumbled to 126 for 7 by the close.Gunthorpe (38) and Ilyas Gul (32 not out) managed the only resistance of note for Hong Kong; no other batsman made double figures. Mohammad Tauqir took 3 for 31, but the miserly figures of Khuram Khan (19-9-20-2) and Rizwan Latif (8-3-11-2) also stand out; they each took two wickets at barely one run an over. Kahn then shone with the bat – he posted a top score of 56 – while it was Gul’s turn to star with the ball; he took 3 for 16 from 10 to keep this match hanging firmly in the balance.

Andrew Strauss has capped a “dream” year by being named England’s Player of the Year in London. Strauss, the 28-year-old opening batsman, picked up five centuries in his first 12 Tests and said the award was a great honour.”It has gone far better than I ever thought it would,” he told . “The key was getting runs early on and proving to myself I could play at that level.”Strauss boosted England with a Man-of-the-Series display in the win over South Africa as he scored 656 runs and collected three hundreds. “The only chance I have had to sit down and reflect upon what has happened was after the tour of South Africa,” he said. “When we did get a break I just thought ‘that was a hell of a 12 months’. I really have been living the dream.”Despite a poor start to the county season, Strauss is ready for the Bangladesh series that starts on Thursday. His stunning rise also helped England to an unprecedented unbeaten year in 2004. “It is easier to perform in a successful side,” he said. “You can afford to go out and be positive about the way you play and back your gameplan. We have all fed off each other over the past year.”

Glenn McGrath is a long way behind Shane Warne’s wicket-taking record but he is nearing the legspinner in the unenviable race for the most Test ducks.While he has successfully recovered from an ankle injury and is bowling as well as ever, McGrath completed his 28th zero in the first innings at Bangalore, when he was lbw to Harbhajan Singh. He is now one behind Warne, the Australian record holder, who shares the achievement with 2358 runs from 113 Tests. Courtney Walsh holds the world mark for his 43 noughts in 132 games.McGrath avoided drawing level with Warne in the second innings at Bangalore with a 12-minute, 11-ball unconquered innings of 3. His finest batting moment came when he made 39 against the West Indies at Port of Spain in 1999, but after 98 Tests he now risks finishing his career with more wickets than runs.McGrath currently has 446 victims against 453 runs, and will be determined to increase both tallies when the second Test against India starts on Thursday.

The Test series between Sri Lanka and West Indies, the first international cricket to be played on the island since the tsunami disaster, has lost much of its lustre as the West Indies will be fielding a depleted side, and elicited a strong response from the media and the cricketers involved. The series, which begins on Wednesday in Colombo, will not feature Brian Lara, Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Fidel Edwards, among others, as they were left out in the aftermath of the contract impasse.Shivnarine Chanderpaul, the West Indies captain, is the only player in a squad that includes six debutants to have played more than 10 Tests. “Chanderpaul and his cricketing babes face what appears to be a mission impossible,” Tony Cozier, the West Indian broadcaster, told AFP. He described the contracts issue as “a senseless and self-defeating squabble” and added, “The players are inexperienced and unprepared for the sudden challenge that has come their way.”Marvan Atapattu, the Sri Lankan captain, was disappointed that the West Indies were without their star players. He acknowledged the importance of the series in the light of the recovery after the tsunami. “Cricket was the last thing on our minds in December, but now we are keen to get on with the game,” he said, referring to the Sri Lankan tour of New Zealand that was postponed in December 2004 and rescheduled to April 2005.”It does not matter whether it is the first Test or the 150th, we have to do our best,” said Atapattu. “The team will be motivated enough even though we are disappointed we will not be playing the best West Indian team.”The absence of Lara in particular will disappoint Sri Lankan fans who were enthralled when he plundered a mammoth 688 runs in the three Tests in 2001. His missing the series will deny him the chance of surpassing Allan Border as Test cricket’s highest run-scorer. Lara, with 10,818 runs from 117 Tests, is just 356 runs short of Border’s 11,174 from 156 matches.However, there are other milestones to look forward to: The first Test at the Sinhalese Sports Club will mark Sri Lanka’s 150th Test. Muttiah Muralitharan, the Sri Lankan offspinner who has 532 Test wickets, will return to international cricket after a shoulder injury sidelined him for 11 months. He will aim to close in on Shane Warne’s world record of 583 wickets. It will also be Tom Moody’s first assignment as the Sri Lankan coach.

Australia’s two-run Ashes defeat brought back awful memories for Jeff Thomson, the No. 11 dismissed in another heart-breaking loss to England at the MCG in 1982-83. Michael Kasprowicz expects to see the ball that ended Australia’s spectacular victory push forever, and the moment Thomson edged to Geoff Miller via Chris Tavare with his side four short of victory left him speechless.”It took me years to be able to talk about it I was so upset,” Thomson told . “I took that very badly. If anyone mentioned it to me I’d become ropeable.” Thomson said he couldn’t believe they lost then, and he expected Kasprowicz to be “absolutely shattered” now.While Kasprowicz and Brett Lee were aware of the target dropping rapidly during their 59-run stand, Thomson, who was batting with Allan Border, didn’t bother about the scoreboard. “It was only when I looked up and realised we had got so close that I thought I’d push a single and let AB hit the winning runs,” he said. “Ian Botham bowled a half-tracker which swung away a little bit and I tried to just sort of glide it. I should have played a baseball shot and hit it for four to win the game.”

Kevin Curran has been confirmed as Phil Simmon’s replacement as Zimbabwe coach, hours after he leaked the fact to reporters. If the on-field performances of Zimbabwe of late have bordered on the farcical, the off-field dealings of Zimbabwe Cricket in the last day or so over the position of national coach has come close to matching it.For several hours the board refused to answer media enquiries, but after the conclusion of the Bulawayo Test, Ozias Bvute, ZC’s managing director, finally confirmed the news. “We asked everyone involved with the team to be critical of their part. We expected a sea-change in the second match,” he said. “As custodians of cricket in Zimbabwe we have to be accountable.”The handling of Simmons’s dismissal was dreadful. Rumours had been circulating for several days that he was being lined up for the sack, and these escalated yesterday when Curran was spotted at Queens Club. Curran then told reporters that he would take over before next week’s one-day series. All the while, Simmons was still officially in tenure.To add insult to insult, the press release that ZC finally issued was dated Monday, August 15. That is likely to have been the date the decision was taken, as Peter Chingoka, the board chairman, and Bvute were both at the ground for the first day’s play, and both subsequently left. Chingoka is now in South Africa for the Afro-Asian Cup.Curran, who played 11 ODIs for Zimbabwe, was their assistant coach before taking charge of the Namibian national side for a spell, returning home in September last year to take over as director of coaching at the CFX Cricket Academy in Harare, as well as looking after the Zimbabwe A and Under-19 sides.

Shoaib Malik’s bowling action will be examined today in Lahore by a three-man advisory committee representing the Pakistan Cricket Board, after the ICC received report that his action was potentially flawed.Simon Taufel and Aleem Dar, the umpires in the Paktel Cup final in October, reported Malik’s offspinning action as suspect after the match. The match referee Jeff Crowe later referred the matter to the ICC.The PCB set up a panel to assist Malik as part of a six-week programme which is expected to last six weeks. At the end of that period, the PCB will present a specialist report to the ICC, which will indicate any remedial action that is required.This will be the second time that Malik, 22, has modified his action, since he made some changes when he was reported in Sharjah in 2002. And if he is cited again within a year of this report, the ICC could suspend him for one year.The three-man advisory panel is made up of the former international bowlers Aqib Javed, Iqbal Sikandar and Ijaz Faqih.

Australia A 120 for 6 (Jaques 56*) v Pakistan A
ScorecardGiven the decline in fortunes that Australia’s senior team has suffered in recent weeks, their A-team tour to Pakistan has suddenly taken on an added significance. But on the evidence of the first day’s play at Rawalpindi, only Phil Jaques has anything to be proud of, as their top-order was torn apart by Shahid Nazir, Mohammad Sami and Umar Gul.By the close of a truncated day, Jaques was unbeaten on 56 having opened the batting, but his team had slipped to 120 for 6. Nazir, with 3 for 28, was the pick of the pacemen, and it wasn’t until Cameron White (23) helped add 45 for the sixth wicket, that they were able to reach triple figures.Michael Hussey, who was tipped by many pundits to take Matthew Hayden’s place for the current Oval Test, managed 2 before he was bowled by Nazir, while Brad Hodge, Dominic Thornley and Shane Watson managed only 12 runs between them. Brad Haddin, Australia’s reserve wicketkeeper, made just 9 before falling to Sami.

A report in the Zimbabwe-based Independent claims that Tavengwa Mukuhlani, who resigned as Mashonaland Cricket Association (MCA) chairman earlier this week, was forced out by politics and personality clashes.Officially, Mukuhlani said that he stepped down for personal reasons unconnected with cricket, but he then told the paper that “power-hungry individuals who will blow in any direction” had destabilised operations in the country’s largest province.”There is a lot of politics in the province. At some point, you feel that you need to move on and contribute in some other way,” he said. “I had a long discussion with the Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) chairman [Peter Chingoka] and at the end he accepted that I was doing the right thing.”According to Mukuhlani, the controversial AGM in Bulwayo last month, where he tried to introduce a proposal that ZC officials should not hold conflicting posts, resulted in a plot to remove him. “At the AGM, I spoke strongly against dual roles in ZC. There must be a clear demarcation line between different active roles so that we do not compromise the careers of the players. What is there now is that there are no checks and balances. We have a case where the policy makers are the policy implementers, which means we have people being answerable to themselves. I do not believe in this. This is not a personal issue, but I felt that is not the correct thing to be done.”Mukuhlani suggested that Macsood Ebrahim, who lost his position as head of the selection panel at the AGM, and others were allegedly instigating the problems in the province. “Clear factions have come out with sinister agendas. They know that if they destabilise Mashonaland, everything will fall. If there is no cricket in Mashonaland then there won’t be cricket in Zimbabwe. The honest truth is that the clubs are fighting someone’s war.”Ebrahim strenuously denied that he had anything to do with any plot. “These are Mashonaland internal issues and where do I get involved involved?” Ebrahim said. “I am the chairman of Masvingo. Mashonaland has been having upheavals for eight months and they have to look at themselves and stop blaming other people. The bottom line is that there are problems in Mashonaland, but we concentrate on cricket. We must not lose it on the bigger picture.”There are widespread rumours that a behind-the-scenes power struggle is underway, with two factions battling for effective control of the board. Mukuhlani’s comments would seem to give more substance to those suggestions.