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Welcome back to the C&G Trophy. The premier domestic one-day tournament has reached its final stage with Lancashire and Sussex ready to continue a hard-fought rivalry. However, this was known two months ago when the final group game were played, but thanks to the ECB fixtures department there has been an entire Twenty20 competition and half of the 40-over league before the showpiece final of the summer.Still, if the two team remember which length of game they are playing (it is to their advantage that all one-day cricket is now played in coloured clothing) this final has the potential for some outstanding cricket. Lancashire and Sussex have been the two form teams of the season, not only are they contesting the final but hold the top two positions in the Championship. Whatever the result on Saturday, it won’t be the end of their contest.For Lancashire this final marks a return to a ground that used to be their second home during the 1990s as they made regular appearances in one-day finals. But they haven’t made it since 1998 – when they beat Derbyshire – and have had to endure a raft of semi-final defeats. Sussex’s absence has been even longer, stretching back 13 years to possibly the greatest domestic final when they were beaten by an Asif Din-inspired Warwickshire in the 1993 Natwest final.Already thus season these two sides have played each other on three occasions; twice in the Championship and once in the Pro40. Lancashire took the honours with in the Championship with an impressive win at Liverpool before holding on for a battling draw at Hove, but Sussex claimed the Pro40 match thanks to stunning century from Chris Adams.There is a history of hard-fought contests and Mark Chilton, Lancashire’s captain, is expecting nothing less this time around. “Any team that has Grizzly [Chris] Adams in charge is going to provide a tough challenge. We have had some good contests with them and they are a side fill of talented players.”You can see through our one-day form – in the C&G early in the season – as well as our championship form, we are two teams who deserve to be challenging for two big prizes.”Michael Yardy, one of the new faces in England’s one-day squad, forms part of a powerful Sussex batting order which also includes Adams, Murray Goodwin, Matt Prior and Richard Montgomerie. While Yardy can look forward to his first taste of international cricket, Prior will want to use the final to remind the selectors of his talents after missing out on all England’s squads this summer.Lancashire, too, have players with points to prove. Sajid Mahmood is available before joining up with the England squad and has yet to convince in the limited overs game while Mal Loye, who has been on the verge of national honours this season, has a major stage to show England what they are missing.Murali Kartik, who arrived in Manchester on Tuesday, has been named in Lancashire’s 14-man squad and could be selected in favour of Gary Keedy, who has struggled in recent weeks. Their seam attack is strong with Mahmood, Glen Chapple, Dominic Cork and Tom Smith providing a powerful armoury.If Kartik makes the final XI, it will throw up a head-to-head with Mushtaq Ahmed, who has so often been Sussex’s trump card in major matches. Mushtaq is top of the Championship wicket-taking list despite suffering a variety of injuries and is the vital cog in the Sussex attack. Yasir Arafat, the Pakistan allrounder who replaced Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, is dangerous with the new and old ball so Pakistani cricketers are unlikely to be far from the action for the second weekend running.Lancashire (probable) Mark Chilton (capt), Mal Loye, Stuart Law, Nathan Astle, Luke Sutton (wk), Glen Chapple, Dominic Cork, Kyle Hogg, Tom Smith, Sajid Mahmood, Murali Kartik.Sussex (probable) Richard Montgomerie, Matt Prior (wk), Murray Goodwin, Chris Adams (capt), Michael Yardy, Carl Hopkinson, Robin Martin-Jenkins, Yasir Arafat, Luke Wright, Mushtaq Ahmed, James Kirtley

Nottinghamshire have signed Kyle Hogg, the Lancashire allrounder, on a month-long loan deal to cover for an increasing injury list.Mick Newell, Nottinghamshire’s director of cricket, is down to the bare bones of a pace attack with Charlie Shreck, Andy Harris, Paul Franks and Mark Footitt currently out of action and Ryan Sidebottom committed to England duty”I’m delighted to have Kyle on board and it’s a great opportunity for him to play some first-class cricket and prove a point,” said Newell. “He’s a talented young seamer who has been struggling to claim a regular place in a strong Lancashire team.”We have been keeping an eye on him for some time and although he will only be with us for a month initially, who knows where it might lead.”It will be Hogg’s second loan spell of the season after spending time with Worcestershire during the first half of the summer. He has struggled to find a regular spot in the Lancashire side, even though there have been a number of injuries at Old Trafford.

Canterbury took a stranglehold of their State Championship match against Wellington. It would take the escape effort of the season for Wellington to get out of the trouble they are in.Canterbury batted on to amass 499 for 8 before Chris Cairns, the Canterbury captain, made the declaration. A fine 145-run partnership between Paul Wiseman, the nightwatchman, and Chris Harris frustrated the Wellington bowlers further during the morning session. Wiseman scored 75 before he fell to James Franklin’s bowling while Harris was trapped leg before wicket to Franklin for 65.The rest of the innings petered out very quickly and Franklin had some reward for 35.4 overs of work by ending with 3 for 146. Andrew Penn took 2 for 87 and Matthew Walker 2 for 93.Wellington looked set to make a competitive response as international openers Matthew Bell and Richard Jones settled in for the long haul. However, Richard Jones got a good ball from Chris Martin and was dismissed for 20, after 71 minutes of batting, when the score was 57. Stephen Fleming, who is using the match as a fitness test before next week’s Test against Pakistan, was out for two, falling victim to Cairns’ bowling.The only Wellington defiance came from Bell, who scored 75, before he was given out to a bat-pad catch off Wiseman’s bowling. Wiseman also picked up the wickets of Grant Donaldson and Franklin to end the day with 3 for 17 from 11 overs.

Somerset are hoping to secure the services of Zander de Bruyn, the South African allrounder, as a Kolpak player. The club are waiting for the outcome of a meeting a Lord’s to discuss his registration.de Bruyn has played three Tests for South Africa, the last of which was against England at Port Elizabeth in 2004. He has had a previous stint in county cricket with Worcestershire and remains a consistent performer on the South African domestic scene.”Zander comes highly recommended by both Jimmy Cook and Neil McKenzie, who has played alongside him,” Brian Rose, Somerset’s director of cricket, told the club’s website. “He fills the role that Cameron White and Neil McKenzie filled for us last year in tha he will come in at number five, either when the second new ball is being taken or when we need somebody who can stay at the wicket.”In the 2007-08 SuperSport series de Bruyn made 712 runs at 39.55 and also managed 12 wickets at 42.Somerset have Justin Langer as their overseas player for 2008 as they aim to build on their promotion to Division One of the Championship.

India A 213 for 5 (Sriram 105*) beat England A 210 (Smith 76*, Newman 68) by five wickets
ScorecardSridharan Sriram scored an unbeaten 105, adding 155 for the fifth wicket with Venugopal Rao, as India A eased past England A’s substandard target of 211 to complete a 3-0 clean sweep in Chennai. The victory was secured with nearly five overs to spare, and ensures that England will enter the first-class phase of their tour with spirits at a low ebb.It was a disappointing performance from start to finish for England. The high point came when Scott Newman and Ed Smith were adding 99 for the third wicket, but only one other batsman could reach double figures – Sajid Mahmood, who made a rapid 13 from No. 9. England tumbled from 141 for 3 to 210 all out with nearly three overs of their innings still remaining.It has been a difficult week for England A, with defeats in the first two matches, and the loss of their captain, Alex Gidman, to a hand injury. His absence was compounded by the suspension of Bilal Shafayat for dissent in the second match, and when James Tredwell won the toss and chose to bat, his decision instantly backfired. England lost two early wickets, including the big scalp of Kevin Pietersen, whose hard-hitting 131 had salvaged the innings in Tuesday’s match.But Newman and Smith held the innings together. Newman was especially impressive, but when he fell for 68, the innings disintegrated despite Smith’s best efforts to stay afloat. Smith, who is used to tough situations after making his Test debut in last summer’s closely fought series with South Africa, was left not out on 76, as the last seven wickets tumbled for 69. The pick of India’s bowlers was Sairaj Bahutule, who claimed 3 for 33 from a 10-over spell.England made a fighting start to India’s innings, with Mahmood leading from the front with three early wickets, including both openers – Dinesh Mongia included – for single figures. He later added the scalp of JP Yadav, while Graeme Wagg removed Mithan Manhas for 14. But from 34 for 4, India A rallied through the efforts of Sriram and Rao, who were not parted until the match was as good as over. On the plus side for England, Simon Jones came through another 10-over spell unscathed, finishing with 0 for 39.

ScorecardOn a stunning second day at Sharjah, United Arab Emirates thumped Hong Kong after a rude wake-up in the morning, ending the day only 41 runs short of victory in their Intercontinental Cup tie. Hong Kong, with ten debutants, dismissed three batsmen for a run to end UAE’s innings at 127, the same score Hong Kong had made in their first innings. Ilyas Gul took two of the three to end with 5 for 16 in 11 overs.Then came Hong Kong’s turn to struggle. Tabarak Dar, an opener, was removed early before Tim Smart and Gunthorpe added 50 runs. Gunthorpe scored 46 – top-scoring for the second time in the game – but his fall marked the end of the Hong Kong resistance. There was another 30 from Gul, but the rest fell away in a cluster of single digits. Hong Kong managed 184, of which UAE managed to erase 144, with four batsmen scoring 30s, two of which were unbeaten.

It took less than a month in charge for Michael Vaughan to blame county cricket for all the ills of the England team. But, when he feels brave enough to examine the latest dispatch from Lord’s, perhaps he might concede that the problem lies rather closer to home. For the schedule for England’s 2004 season was released today, and it is every bit as terrifying as expected.Never mind the daily grind of the County Championship. It will be a miracle if the core members of England’s Test and one-day teams are still in one piece by September 25 next year – the uncommonly late finish to an exhausting seven months of non-stop internationals. That seven Tests and 28 one-day internationals have been scheduled for England’s domestic season is knackering enough. For these matches to follow hot on the heels of a gruelling 11-international tour of the Caribbean, however, is masochistic in the extreme.Midway through the 2002 season, England appeared to boast a stable of fast bowlers that would keep them in wickets for the next ten years. Fourteen months later, however, many of these thoroughbreds are only fit for glue. No fewer than eight first-choice seamers, from Andrew Caddick to Alex Tudor, via Matthew Hoggard and Simon Jones, have been ruled out this summer with injuries of one sort or another – and the body count is sure to rise this winter, in the thankless conditions of Bangladesh and Sri LankaIt is a measure of the intensity of next season that a player in both the Test and the one-day teams, such as Andrew Flintoff, will be available for his county for a maximum of two matches in 2004. That means no opportunity to tinker with a damaged technique or rediscover some lost confidence in quieter surrounds. James Anderson, the Truman Burbank of English cricket, has already discovered this only too well.Anderson has been compared to David Beckham several times already in his short career. But even Beckham, the greatest attention-grabber of our age, spends less of his life in the direct gaze of the public than cricketers. Ninety minutes of a football match, half-an-hour of press conferences, a couple of shopping sprees and a film premiere is not the same as spending six hours in the blazing sun, remembering not to pick your nose in case the world is watching.The off-camera life isn’t particularly compelling, either. Time spent away from loved ones is felt far more acutely in your hotel room than on the field. And then there’s all that travelling – whether it’s island-hopping, long-haul flights, or traffic jams on the M6. And what other sport tangles quite so messily with politics? It’s a sure bet that when the players attempt to embark on a month’s R and R at the end of next season, they’ll find their peace ruined by the inevitable row that awaits them before their scheduled tour of Zimbabwe.It is hardly original to make the plea that there is too much cricket being played. But the longer the objections of players and media alike are ignored, the more agitated the appeals become. It was the overkill of 2002-03, as intense a winter as any cricket team can have faced, that broke Nasser Hussain’s spirit and drove Graham Thorpe into a late withdrawal for the sake of his family. What lies ahead will be every bit as strength-sapping.It also has the makings of a typically farcical finale. Never before has a major tournament (if the ICC Champions’ Trophy warrants that tag) been scheduled so late in the English season. The last time the ICC held their jamboree, in Sri Lanka’s rainy season in September 2002, a two-day downpour wiped out the final (and the replay).What price a repeat performance?

On Friday night, the Indians liked what Javed Miandad cooked up, according to . Miandad had invited Dilip Vengsarkar for dinner, and Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Ashish Nehra and Parthiv Patel went along. The players had heard about Miandad’s hospitality, and savoured the occasion.”We discussed a lot of things. Cricket obviously was the main topic,” Miandad said. “But there were a lot of discussions on other things also and they enjoyed themselves. We enjoyed playing hosts and serving them some delicious Pakistani cuisine.”He was impressed by Tendulkar’s humour and humility: “He has matured a lot now and his sense of humour has also improved a lot. He is more relaxed and we enjoyed the evening with him.”***Make the umpires accountable for their mistakes, writes Harbhajan Singh in his syndicated column in . “Our bowlers toiled hard but were clearly hard done by the umpiring. To make matter worse,” Harbhajan adds, “Parthiv Patel also copped a fine.””A cricketer is bound to give vent to his frustration if even clear-cut catches are denied to his team,” he argues. “… and the next thing that happens is that he is hauled up and punished.”Same newspaper, different column. Ajit Wadekar writes about Steve Bucknor, who “seems to have developed a taste for Indians and has been chasing the team around the world.” Wadekar pointed out that the umpire had played a large role in India’s recent fortunes “so much so, that Sourav Ganguly reportedly marked him ‘zero’ in the captain’s report in Australia recently.””He is singularly unrepentant about his mistakes, especially against India. And despite the succession of complaints the Indian management has made against him, the ICC seems to derive vicarious pleasure in slotting him for all India’s series.”***Kapil Dev wants a player to run the BCCI, though he clarified he had nothing against Jagmohan Dalmiya, who currently heads India’s cricket board. According to , Kapil proposed the idea at Ali Bacher’s book launch, and cited him as a good example of a player-turned-administrator.On being questioned whether cricketers would be interested in running administrative affairs, he had a unique reply: “Ask Sunil Gavaskar if he is interested in heading the Board. I would like to know his answer. Well, the point is there have to be opportunities.”

Chris Read has been dropped from England’s one-day squad to make way for Geraint Jones, while there is a first call-up for Lancashire’s fast bowler Sajid Mahmood, who impressed on the England A tour to India and Malaysia earlier this year.Robert Key, the Kent opener who was the first batsman to pass 1000 runs this season, has also been recalled to the fray, although Gareth Batty and James Kirtley have both been omitted from the squad that toured the Caribbean earlier this year.It is a particularly cruel blow for Read, whose glovework this winter was of the highest order, and whose ability to take the long handle to the bowling at the end of an innings had been in evidence in England’s victory over West Indies in Guyana. David Graveney, England’s chairman of selectors, has admitted that the decision had been one of the toughest he had faced.”I will be speaking to Chris to ensure that he fully understands the reasons for his omission,” said Graveney. “Ultimately, we had to make a very fine judgment as to who we thought was the best person for the job. Geraint has the ability to bat in a number of different positions and this was an important factor.”Simon Jones did not come into consideration because of his foot injury, although Anthony McGrath – the forgotten man of England’s winter campaign – has been retained in the squad ahead of his fellow allrounder Rikki Clarke, who had failed to cement a role in the side. Despite popular belief that he would soon be eased out of the picture, Darren Gough has kept his place in the squad.England squad Michael Vaughan (capt), James Anderson, Ian Blackwell, Paul Collingwood, Andrew Flintoff, Ashley Giles, Darren Gough, Stephen Harmison, Geraint Jones (wk), Robert Key, Sajid Mahmood, Anthony McGrath, Andrew Strauss, Marcus Trescothick.

Greg Chappell, India’s coach, believes that his side’s recent Test performances and their overseas record should not weigh on their minds as they attempt to win in the Caribbean for the first time since 1970-71. With India due to play five one-day internationals and four Tests against West Indies, Chappell said it was imperative that India replicate their successful streak of one-day victories in the five-day format.”People are obviously aware of the history, but we have nothing to prove barring the fact that we can win away from home,” Chappell told Reuters. “Worrying about the outcome is not going to help us win the series. You need also to be looking at developing players and the only way they can is to be playing matches under pressure.”We have made good ground in the last 12 months, especially in one-day cricket,” he added. “We need to apply the similar processes to Test cricket, bearing in mind that Test cricket is more demanding. We have got to be more aware of the flow of Test cricket, of the important moments, the important sessions in Test matches.”Under Chappell, India have set the record for the number of consecutive one-day chases (16), overhauling West Indies’ 14 chases in the mid-’80s. Chappell gave the example of West Indies sides of the 1980s and 1990s as well as Australia, who successfully transferred one-day success to Test cricket. “If you look at the great West Indian teams that dominated world cricket for two decades and the current Australian team that has been on top for nearly the same length of time, one-day cricket was the catalyst for them getting better,” he said.Chappell added that the return of Brian Lara as West Indies captain was a positive move. “I have no doubt Lara coming back as captain is a positive thing,” he said. “It will be a change for them, I’m sure it will invigorate them, invigorate him.”