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Matthew Mott, the New South Wales coach, has made the initial cut for John Bracewell’s New Zealand job and will be interviewed over the next couple of weeks. Mott was asked to apply for the post, which becomes available in April, and has made a list that is believed to include Graham Ford, formerly of South Africa but now at Kent.”I was flattered to get asked and the thought of an international job is very exciting,” Mott said. “There’s a fair bit to think about before the job becomes available. I’ve got to fulfil a contract here at New South Wales – it ends at the end of the season – and that’s my first priority.”The whittling down of a group Justin Vaughan, the New Zealand Cricket chief executive, said included up to 20 serious candidates has only just began, but if they were to go with Mott it would result in a significantly different outlook to the 50-year-old Bracewell. Currently 34, Mott would be the same age as some of the players.The issue has not created concerns at New South Wales and he steered the side to the Pura Cup in his first season in the head job. “I’ve found it a good thing,” he said. “At New South Wales I hadn’t played with the guys so it was a new playing group. Being around their age I could relate to them and understand how things worked with the contract system and the structures.” Despite his empathy, he maintains he is capable of making unpopular decisions.Mott was appointed to the Blues in 2007 when Trevor Bayliss left to take up the Sri Lanka position and he was due to be an assistant with the Australia team on their tours to Pakistan earlier this year. When the trip was cancelled he joined John Buchanan, a former mentor at Queensland, at the Kolkata Knight Riders, where he linked up with the New Zealand wicketkeeper Brendon McCullum.”It’s an exciting time for New Zealand,” Mott said. “They’ve got a good bunch of senior players as well as younger guys coming through.”A steady top-order batsman, Mott started his career in Queensland before switching to Victoria, playing a total of 66 first-class games and scoring 3723 runs. He retired early and one of his first coaching jobs was as an assistant with the Australia Under-19 World Cup squad. He also spent a season as player-coach of the New South Wales 2nd XI under the eye of Bayliss.Another of Mott’s former bosses is Ford and the pair worked together when Mott travelled to Kent for an off-season. Now the men are expected to be pushing for the same role. “Graham was an outstanding operator,” Mott said, “and a fantastic coach.” Bracewell will return to Gloucestershire, the team he left in 2003 to take up the New Zealand role, when his contract expires.

John Bracewell, the New Zealand coach, has hailed the team’s three-wicket victory over Bangladesh in the first Test in Chittagong as “one of the great character wins”. New Zealand chased down a target of 317, their second-highest fourth-innings pursuit and the biggest away from home, but they were almost embarrassed by the lowest-ranked Test team.”Given the position we were in, it’s one of the great character wins,” he said. “The way the guys assessed the run-chase and applied themselves, the way they changed their technique, which was foreign to them, I couldn’t heap enough praise on them.”Bracewell said the heat had affected the players, some more than others, but he was impressed with the professional attitude they had displayed. “If we’re going to be living in the subcontinent in the next few years, we’ve got to face reality and learn to adapt and pace ourselves in the right way,” he said. “It was a dramatic turnaround [from] the first to the second innings. Now we need to make sure that character turns into consistency.”He said the team was inexperienced, but he was pleased with the contributions of Aaron Redmond, the debutant Jesse Ryder and Daniel Flynn with the bat. “It’s a very young batting line-up and the more we can squeeze into them, the better,” he said. “We’ve been working on how to play over here but it’s seldom in your Test career out of New Zealand that you’re facing spin within the first ten overs of a Test match.”That took its toll but the players’ ability to adapt and change in a quick turnaround is testament to their commitment and their ability. The way the two of them [Redmond and Flynn] showed great adaptability to the conditions, that’s not always the case with New Zealanders [in the subcontinent].”They stubbornly go with what they know, but they put away some of their shots and reapplied their strategies to get through this game. And once Jesse got through the shock of facing spin in his first Test, he too looked comfortable in the environment.”Bracewell was all praise for Daniel Vettori but was not sure if the captain could repeatedly come up a performance like in Chittagong – he scored 55 and 76 and finished with nine wickets to win the Man-of-the-Match award. “He needs more support and it’s something we’re working through, getting experience into the other bowlers, trying to build their skills.”Bracewell was unsure of how the defeat in the first Test might affect Bangladesh spirits. “They may have seen it as an opportunity lost, not an opportunity that’s going to destroy them. They may say ‘we’re getting close’ and take the optimistic line.”New Zealand head to Dhaka for the second Test, which begins on Saturday, with a 1-0 lead.

The waiting for an official word on whether to tour Pakistan for the Champions Trophy next month is nagging at Stuart Clark, the Australia fast bowler. David Richardson, the ICC general manager of cricket, will lead a delegation in Australia on Friday that will try to convince the players and officials to take part in the tournament. A similar exercise was completed in New Zealand on Thursday.However, Clark said he wished a decision had been made two weeks ago. “At least there would be closure,” he said in the Sydney Morning Herald. “You hear about Australia closing its embassies in Pakistan, what are you supposed to think? And the back-up country has its own problems.”If the Champions Trophy, which is due to start on September 12, is not held in Pakistan it could be staged in Sri Lanka, which is also a place of risk for travellers, according to the Australian government’s advice. There have been bomb blasts in Pakistan this week and the Herald Sun reported warnings of more suicide attacks in the cities of Lahore and Karachi, which will host all the Champions Trophy matches.Clark says he can’t make a decision until he hears from Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers’ Association. “Once again I’m going to have to look at that report and see what it says,” he told AAP. “I can’t commit either way at the moment.”If we do go it’ll be on the basis of that all has been taken care of and that unease factor will hopefully be removed. There’s obviously something going on although I’m only hearing it second hand.”Clark, who visited the country on Australia A duty in 2005, said if the tournament was cancelled he hoped it would not mean a long break for tours to Pakistan. “It’s very important that that part of the world keeps playing cricket,” he said.”Obviously those countries are struggling, but if it doesn’t happen I hope they do whatever they need to rectify the situation.” Australia have not visited Pakistan since 1998, playing the 2002-03 series in Sharjah and Sri Lanka, and postponing the Test and one-day contests which were due to occur last March and April.

Five hundred runs scored in 77.1 overs, one explosive hundred, four other scores over 70, as many as 56 boundaries and seven sixes struck. What more could the Rajkot crowds want from the third one-dayer? You better travel to the venue yourself and put that question to the idiots who rained bottles down on West Indian fieldsmen to cause a stoppage in play. Chasing 301, India were in a strong position at 200/1 after 27.1 overs when the players were forced off the field. When it became impossible to resume play, India were named winners by 81 runs, by the Duckworth-Lewis method.This series has been characterised by boorish behaviour from crowds, mediocre bowling from both sides and some typically aggressive batting that has seen West Indies take a 2-0 lead. On the day, India responded with style and substance. Chasing a mammoth 301 for an unlikely win, India’s openers showed why they are among the most dangerous in international cricket.On the back of two failures, Virender Sehwag launched a fiery assault that will be etched in the West Indian psyche for some time to come. After having torched New Zealand, slamming a 69-ball century against them in August 2001, and torn apart England, reaching three figures in 77 balls in a Champions Trophy match recently, Sehwag decided to let the men from the Caribbean feel the fury of a one-day ton from his blazing willow. His 75-ball hundred in the third one-dayer at Rajkot made him just the second batsman after Sanath Jayasuriya to score three ODI tons in less than 80 balls. But that in itself is not a profound statistic.What is of profound relevance is the manner in which India set about chasing a conventionally huge target, making it look simple. Where Sehwag was brutal, Ganguly was elegant. Where the West Indian bowlers were beside themselves with agony, the Indian openers rejoiced in the joy and simplicity of clean hitting.The carnage began early, with Ganguly hitting the seventh ball of the innings to the fence. The captain had opened the sluice gates and the Sehwag flood ensued. Cutting and driving through the offside, along the ground and in the air, Sehwag could not put a foot wrong, beating the field at will. When the bowlers, forced to adjust their line, drifted towards the pads, the response was less brutal, if no less effective. Sehwag moved across his stumps and wrists of steel sent the ball scurrying to the fence.Whilst the bowlers were being battered at one end, Ganguly seemed to tickle them into submission at his end. Moving towards the line and pitch of the ball with an economy of effort that signaled his form, the Indian skipper eased the ball through the gaps and pinged the advertising hoardings on the off side.When the 15-over mark came around, India were sitting pretty at 120 forno loss and the fielding restrictions were lifted. In the absence of Carl Hooper, missing the game with a knee injury, skipper Ridley Jacobs took this as a golden chance to stem the run flow. Cameron Cuffy bowling a decent line and length, suggested that there might be some hope for Jacobs. The very hint of such a thought seemed to annoy the well-set Indian openers.Ganguly used his feet to come down the wicket, Sehwag gave himself a bitof room, and all of a sudden no length was restrictive enough, no line tight enough. Against the run of play, well after the record first wicket stand against West Indies was erased, Ganguly (72, 83 balls, 9 fours) fell. Trying to clear mid off, while coming down the wicket and giving himself a bit of room, Ganguly could only watch as a diving Chanderpaul snapped up a sharp catch.VVS Laxman, who made 99 in the last match, was at the crease, and had not yet got off the mark, when play was stopped by the mindlessness of a certain section of spectators. A bewildered Sehwag, batting on a cracking 114 (82 balls, 17 fours 2 sixes) walked off the field, jousting light-heartedly with Marlon Samuels as policemen took control of the stands.Earlier in the day, West Indies provided their own brand of entertainment, and let no one forget that, by reaching 300/5 from 50 overs. Chris Gayle began the charge for the visitors, clattering the ball through the offside with gay abandon. His 68-ball 72 provided the launching platform from which Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shivnarine Chanderpaul could build a sizable total. Posting a 149-run fourth wicket partnership, Chanderpaul (74) and Sarwan (87) took West Indies to striking distance of a mammoth score before they both fell in the end overs. Ricardo Powell, then, applied the finishing touches with 19 from 18 balls, that included one tremendous six that came off the hapless Ajit Agarkar in the final over.While it is a touch unfair to single out Agarkar for being scored heavily against, he did make a strong case for such treatment, giving away 63 runs from six overs. What then would you say to Merv Dillon (6 overs 40 runs), Cameron Cuffy (6 overs 41 runs), Chris Gayle (18 from one thunderous over) and Mahendra Nagamootoo (5 overs 43 runs)? Nothing more than, hard luck chaps, that’s one-day cricket sometimes.But what do you say when a match is abandoned because of boorish behaviour? Does the match referee award the game to the touring side to send out a loud, clear signal? Do police clear stands out and play `behind closed doors’? Or do we take games away from troublesome venues?One thing is clear, the International Cricket Council cannot remain silent on this issue anymore.

Allan Donald has backed Chris Martin, the New Zealand opening bowler, to make a big impression with Warwickshire after agreeing to be their overseas player from the end of June.Martin has been left out of New Zealand’s one-day squad to face England and will join his new team after the Twenty20 Cup as a replacement for Monde Zondeki, who will link up with the South Africa tour. Warwickshire’s England players, Ian Bell and Tim Ambrose, have both spoken highly of Martin after facing him over the last few months.”Chris will make a massive difference,” Donald, Warwickshire’s bowling coach, told the . “We saw how well everybody bowled around Dale Steyn last season and it could be something similar.”I can’t think of anything better than to bowl alongside someone of Chris’s quality and experience. He has gained a lot of respect with a lot of people – the Aussies talk very highly of him. He will be a really exciting addition and he is a good bloke, a very humble sportsman. People will learn a lot from him.”Martin will hope to improve on Zondeki’s return of nine wickets in four Championship matches. Zondeki was signed to be a spearhead in a young Warwickshire attack, but it has not quite worked out that way.”I still feel Monde was just a couple of wickets away from bowling a side out,” Donald said. “But things happen for a reason and he quite simply didn’t fire at all. Maybe the English game just hit him straight between the eyes. You finish a four-day game then travel somewhere for a one-day game, then next time you open your eyes you are back at Edgbaston.”

LONDON – Mark Waugh can see the signs and knows what they mean.Make runs against Pakistan, or your international cricket career isover.And like his twin, Steve, who is at a similar crossroad, he has come toEngland for a lightning stint in county cricket to get his eye in andsome runs on the board in time for Australia’s relocated three-Testseries against Pakistan in Sri Lanka and Sharjah next month.Waugh, who has not played since Australia’s last Test against SouthAfrica in April, arrived in London today to play the last four games ofthe county season for Essex, while Steve is one match into his similarstint with Kent.The 37-year-old twins were dropped from the national one-day side lastseason and speculation mounted over their places in the Test team aftera lean summer each against New Zealand and South Africa.And Mark acknowledged the Pakistan series was his last chance to ensurehe stayed in the team for the home Ashes series against England.”I don’t feel under pressure but I know I’ve got to make runs in thePakistan series,” he said.”If I don’t make runs there, I don’t think I’ll be playing in the Ashes,so it’s up to me to perform now.”I’m not stupid, I know when the signs are there. But I think I’mbatting well enough to make runs.”Last season I was getting to 30 and 40 pretty easy and I was justgetting out. I’ve just got to convert those scores to some big scores.”While his Test career is in the balance, Waugh, one of the all-timegreat limited overs batsmen, has all but given up hope of a return toAustralia’s one-day team.”I’d like to play one-day cricket but realistically it’s a forlornchance, but you never know. If players get injured or lose form and I’mplaying well, they might look for experience,” he said.”They’ve not gone totally but I wouldn’t say my chances are great.”It is disappointing because I still think I’m good enough to play atthat level.”Cricket was not his primary reason for coming to England, with booksignings and promotions for his recently released biography his firstengagement.Essex, with whom he has spent four seasons in the 1980s and ’90s,coincidentally contacted him when he was due over here for businessanyway and he jumped at the chance.He hinted he could return to Essex to see out his career.”It depends on how long I play for Australia, if this season goes wellwith Australia then probably not, if it doesn’t then I might come back.”He plays his first game next week but will not get to play against Stevein either a championship or one-day match.

Ricky Ponting was understated in his reaction to a day which saw Australia take a vice-like grip on their old enemy in the second Ashes Test at Adelaide, and a personal score of 154 to help them do it. Ponting shared a 242-run third wicket stand with Damien Martyn (95).”It was another pretty good day,” Ponting said. “We fought back hard on the second day and did really well today. Our main goal was to get through the morning session with as little damage as possible and we managed to do that and post a big first innings.”I was not that happy with the way I batted. I didn’t hit that many balls in the middle but I occupied the crease for a long time and had a good partnership with Damien and that has put us in a good position.”It was not getting any easier to bat and we still had wickets in hand and we wanted to bowl at them tonight, which is how it worked out. We scored quite quickly through the course of the game and we set the game up and hopefully we can bowl them out tomorrow.”It was a nasty little session (for England). It is always hard to bat in those sort of situations when you have been out in the field for a day-and-a-half. That was the reason behind our declaration and it worked for us.”Meanwhile England all-rounder Craig White urged his team to stay positive, while admitting that the loss of three wickets before the close was a damaging blow to their slim hopes of saving the Test.”It’s not an ideal situation for us losing three wickets at the end,” heconceded. “The people who got out are pretty down, but we’ve all got to front uptomorrow, it’s another day and we’ve got to try and stay as positive as we canbecause we have a massive challenge ahead of us now.”We have got a bit of batting to come. You can only do your best and try tosave the Test match. They’ve proved they are the best team in the world and all we can do is try and compete against them, control our game and put the ball in the right areas and as batsman try and be positive and try and play some decent cricket.”White confessed to some sympathy for his sister Andrea, wife of Australian batsman Darren Lehmann, at having to watch him dismiss her husband earlier in the day.”It was a strange situation,” White said. “It’s Test cricket and I’m trying to get him out and he’s trying to hit me for runs – I’d just like to know how mysister was feeling at the time. At first all I could think about was celebrating a Test wicket and then it sunk in and I wondered how Andrea was feeling at that moment.”

Who could hit a cricket ball the greatest distance: Chris Cairns, Nathan Astle, Craig McMillan, Andre Adams, Chris Harris, Mathew Sinclair, Jacob Oram, Shane Bond?Why not find out?Just in case you hadn’t noticed it’s all-star baseball time in the United States at the moment and part of this time-honoured event is the annual home run derby.In a sports world dominated by American marketing, you would have to ask the question what value there might be in New Zealand holding a six-hitting derby, and while you’re at it how about a quest to find the fastest bowler in New Zealand?Tie it in with an all-up day for young players by having TelstraClear Black Caps and White Ferns signing autographs and holding specialised coaching sessions and you have a relatively cheap marketing exercise.Watching big-hitting legends like Sammy Sosa blast a baseball 520 feet with the crowd roaring the ball all the way was a sight to see.Five hits over 500 feet from the maestro in his first round of hitting had the crowd roaring.Can cricket afford to miss out on the sort of feeling this could develop among cricket fans? It may take a season of television coverage to get the public to catch on, but the idea must have some value.Clearly, if such a scheme was developed, the key things would be an appropriate way of measuring the longest hit, and a suitable surface to do it on.But with the portable pitch technology, and their boundary proximity, Eden Park or Jade Stadium would make perfect locations for an early season promotion.New Zealand Cricket has a Max tournament to launch its seasons. Why not incorporate the six hitting derby and the fast bowling derby into that weekend?Why stop in New Zealand?What a perfect method of launching a World Cup. Finding out just who is the biggest hitter in the world game would be an outstanding prospect.Could it happen?Watch this space!

Two blistering partnerships set up an outstanding Australian Academy score of 332/8 to shut New Zealand’s Academy out of their one-day match in Townsville yesterday.Darren Wotherspoon played the cornerstone innings of the game, of 126 runs off 118 balls.Coming together with the score 8/1 in the fourth over, Wotherspoon joined Chris Simpson in a 106-run stand off a withering 11.4 overs.Simpson was out for 87 scored off 53 balls with three sixes and 12 fours, when he gave Jamie How a catch from Mark Gillespie’s bowling off the last ball of the 15th over.Three runs later Joseph Yovich had Liam Buchanan caught for one, but it proved a short-lived breakthrough as George Bailey helped Wotherspoon add another 118 runs before Bailey was caught of Yovich’s bowling by Jeetan Patel for 43.Wotherspoon carried on to be the sixth wicket to fall for 285 with his score on 126 when the How/Gillespie combination got together again. Wotherspoon hit four sixes and six fours in his innings which allowed Australia to finish their 50 overs on 332.All the New Zealand bowlers suffered. The previously economical Kyle Mills was wicketless for 70 runs off his 10 overs. James McMillan had two for 60 off 10 and Gillespie three for 57 off eight overs.New Zealand set out with intent, getting to 32 in the seventh over but they lost the promoted Mills and How off successive balls, and then when Jesse Ryder, a key man in any assault, departed for 23 when the score had crawled through to 40 by the 12th over, the cause was lost.Rob Nicol took the chance to score 58 off 79 balls but the only other double figure contributions were 19 from Yovich and 15 from Stuart Mills and New Zealand were dismissed for 165 in the 40th over.Brett Geeves took two for 20 off seven overs, Aaron Bird two for 31 off eight and Simpson two for 42 off 10.

It took 15 years of Test cricket, one retirement, and 93 Tests before Carl Llewellyn Hooper repaid fans at his home ground at the Bourda Oval in Georgetown, Guyana with a handsome century. The 11th of his career, it could hardly have come at a better time – rescuing West Indies from 44/3 to a healthy 270/4 at the end of the first day’s play of the first Test of this series.Someone once famously said: “If batting was a beauty pageant, Hooper would be Miss World.” Simply on the merit of today’s innings, one would be hard-pressed to disagree. Beginning with an edge that was almost a nervous first step, Hooper grew in confidence, driving through the covers in the twinkle of an eye. The nimble footwork a veritable sashay down the ramp and silken timing the poise and elegance of the world’s finest. An unbeaten 108 (226 balls, 14 boundaries) resulted – the third century in as many first class matches for the Guyana and West Indies skipper.Dasgupta said before the start of this Test that it was imperative for him to improve in a hurry – and that this series could make or break his career. When Hooper laced Anil Kumble through cover-point to register three figures against his name, Dasgupta’s heart would have, or at least should have, sunk to the bottom of his wicketkeeping boots. Having dropped the West Indian skipper off Srinath, from the very first ball he faced, the Bengal stumper was treated to an exhibition of fine batting.Aesthetics apart, Hooper’s innings assumes vital proportions in the context of the series. After winning the toss and electing to bat, things went badly wrong for the Windies. Chris Gayle (12), ever the dasher, delighted before nicking Srinath to the keeper. Stuart Williams (13) making a comeback, followed in Gayle’s foot steps, crashing three boundaries before playing a false shot and being trapped plumb in front.Then came the dismissal that gave the morning session to India. A buzz went across the ground as Brian Lara walked out to bat. The much-hyped contest between the flowing Lara blade and the Indian bowling was all set to begin, and lasted just five balls, thanks to umpire Daryl Harper. Prodding at a ball outside the off Lara brushed his pad, the resultant sound sending signals to all the Indian fielders. The appeal was vociferous and umpire Harper upheld it. Television replays suggested that the ball missed the outside edge by a bit. Lara was clearly unhappy with the decision – who wouldn’t be, given out for a duck at the start of a series?44/3 and the West Indies were looking down the barrel. And the Guyana brigade came straight to the rescue when called up to show some guts.Ramnaresh Sarwan began the repair work, putting his head down, cutting out the risky shots and picking up runs at will. The attacking field slowly spread and run gathering became easier. With the composed Sarwan, Hooper settled down after a shaky start. The pair added an invaluable 113 runs for the fourth wicket before the tea interval destroyed young Sarwan’s concentration. Returning from the break on 53 (180 balls, 6 fours) he drove Sarandeep Singh on the up and straight to Zaheer Khan at mid off.Shivnarine Chanderpaul, another local boy, took over seamlessly where Sarwan left off. Clipping the ball off his pads in characteristic fashion, Chanders, as he is known, was positive. He disturbed the line and length of the bowlers, with Sarandeep Singh getting a bit of stick. Lashing 15 off one over from the offie, Chanderpaul took the initiative away from the tourists. A patient yet fluent unbeaten 57 resulted, studded with 10 boundaries, coming off 112 balls.If anything was representative of the day’s play, it was the 76th over. In the nervous nineties, Hooper looked keen to take on Kumble. The leggie did his best to keep things tight, sending the ball down wicket to wicket and flat. A couple of swishy sweeps disturbed the air around the batsman but failed to result in anything positive. The fourth ball of the over saw `King Carl’ dance down the track, get to the pitch of the ball and deposit it with one neat swing into the stands over long-off. Amidst playing and missing, there was moments of sheer class, sheer joy.No single moment was more poignant than the instant when Hooper reached three figures. The Clive Lloyd Stand erupted in unbridled joy, fans from other parts of the ground, exuberant but well behaved, made a small dash onto the playing area – running in about 20 yards in celebration before returning to their seats. And Hooper’s wife, sitting in the stands, gestured out to the middle. “That’s my man,” she mouthed with pride, to a companion.You can be sure, most of Guyana would have felt the same way of one of their favourite sons, as Hooper led West Indies to a strong position against India at the start of this series.